Month: April 2002

— Peter Pribik kicks ass, on a variety of subjects. Get over there and check it out.

— leaning to the right is a new blog by a California Republican momma who bashes Gray Davis and the lack of patriotic assimilation by immigrants, and praises the Opinion Journal feature boosting Western Civilization. I’d say she’s off to a good start.

— Once you fall prey to a group with a death wish, like California Republicans, you know one when you see one, and Dick Riordan sees one at the L. A. Times:

“I don’t think any paper should have a monopoly, and The Times has a death wish for Los Angeles,” he said. “It would like to see the city destroyed, and 99% of the local news it prints is negative, and that hurts the city. “I’m not suggesting that The Times ought to engage in boosterism or dishonest reporting,” said the lawyer and venture capitalist, whose personal worth is thought to exceed $100 million. “I’m just against the paper’s intellectual dishonesty and political correctness.”

The Times must be worried, given the belated and snarky nature of their coverage of the biggest media story to hit LA since the Chicago Tribune bought the Times. And that’s good; the Times is the closest thing we have to a real newspaper in California, and it’s not near close enough. They’ve been skating by for years thanks to a monopoly in the local market and no serious competition at the state level. There are some good regional papers here — the San Diego Union-Trib and the Sac Bee (on state politics,) but they aren’t read outside their local market. Nothing builds a fire under the ass of a fat. sloppy monopoly like a little competition.

— This new blog shows promise. He’s a former legislative aide and long-time newspaperman, with interesting insights an impeccable taste in blogs.

— Steven Den Beste’s common-sense observation that bloggers link blogs they like has the Font Kiddiez’ knickers in a bunch. See this pretentious crap:

SDB suggests that webloggers cluster themselves into like-minded groups, and cross-link accordingly. Disagreements (including here) are what he calls “religious” in nature: “A-list” vs. warblogger, “E/N” vs. “A-list”, etc. Does Steve’s structuralist argument hold up? Are his characterizations fair or accurate? Do you slot yourself into a group? Are the blogs you link to in a similar vein as yours?

Later on in the comments they get huffy about some of my trollish remarks on the content-free faux pioneers of the blogosphere. It’s actually kind of funny, in sad sort of a way, especially the calls for MetaFiltration Unity.

— Happy Fun Pundit Steve hosted a great party for war profiteers at his palatial digs in San Leandro. We immoral philistines feasted on pheasant tongues, shark fins, caviar, and Dom Perignon provided by the bounty of our hawkishness, served to us by liveried servants as we basked in the hot tub and disco-danced in camos with live ammo. OK, not exactly like that, but between Mr. and Mrs. Random Jottings, the keeper of Plato’s cave, the erudite Craig Schamps, the brilliant Peter and Christina, and the formidable Joanne Jacobs, we pretty well solved all the world’s problems once and for all. I hope everybody got home safely.

Steve was at the recent Media/Blogger conspiracy summit in Los Angeles sponsored by the founding editors of the Right Wing False Consciousness Collective, and Joanne was just in London conferring with the Samizdata, so we all have our marching orders from WarBlog Central Command now, and new insight into the true nature of Antiwar.com, so the juggernaut is unstoppable. Peace-loving types had best quake with fear.

Warbloggers are clearly some of the best-read and smartest people in the planet, which must have something to do with why the Prison-Industrial Complex has chosen us to do its dirty work.

Update: John took pictures.