Two new blogs on my blogroll for your enjoyment:

• “Urban Renaissance Coalition“, by “The Minneapolis Shadow”, is all about un-quagging the Minneapolis quagmire.   He’s currently on the subject of Education, which is of course near and dear to my heart.
• “Jack Of All Trades“, by the complementarily-named Master of None, a longtime regular commenter around these parts.  (“Jo’T” was on the short list of names I thought about for this blog way back when, but I think things worked out just fine…)

Go forth and read like rabbits – rabbit’s who’ve sublimated their procreative urges by reading blogs, anyway.

Andy Birkey at the MinMon notes:

Have Michele Bachmann’s media gaffes and extreme conservative views [closed circuit to Birkey; are there any other kind? Or does the MNMon’s software prepend “extreme” to every instance of “conservative” in everyone’s copy? – Ed] driven her to speak mainly to conservative and Christian-right news outlets? Bachmann’s media appearances since her election create the impression of a member of Congress who is shy when not among friends, and perhaps a campaign that is concerned about what happens when a nonconservative microphone or camera is pointed in her direction.

Or – here’s another suggestion – someone who recognized what a hatchet job the regional media has been pulling on her for her entire political career?

Just a suggestion.

But that’s not the point of this post. Let’s try something new: let’s ask the same question in reverse.

How many regional liberal pols will do appearances outside the cozy, comfy club of the region’s reliably lefty-coddling mainstream media? (For a good laugh, check further down in Birkey’s piece – he calls WCCO and MPR and Almanac “mainstream”. [Closed circuit to Andy, again; Ed Morrissey and I are closer to the “mainstream” than either of those outlets – Ed]).

Andy notes that the Congresswoman has not responded to the Monitor’s many requests for interviews; perhaps Birkey feels the Monitor is “mainstream”. Whatever – it probably stands to reason that much of the regional dead-tree media has been asking for interviews. In that context, Birkey’s question is a good one.

Fair enough.

I wonder how well the shoe works on the other foot?

How many of Minnesota’s legions of DFL politicians, media figures and other eminementos feel like manning up and mixing it up with the conservative alt-media?

Birkey, or someone like him, will no doubt complain “it’s a lousy comparison! The NARN is bunch of “out” conservatives”. Actually, it’s a cop-out on two counts; at least we, unlike most the the Twin Cities’ mainstream media (to say nothing of the Monitor) are up-front about our biases; more importantly, Ed and I do fair, up-front interviews; we don’t ambush people (you know who you’re talking to), we don’t snip out bits of interview to engineer into a mutated context after the fact. We are, in short, the most honest interviewers in the Twin Cities media by a long, long way.

I’ll be sending out emails to a list of regional liberal personalities, asking them to appear on the Northern Alliance Volume II or, failing that, do an email interview with yours truly for this blog. The list includes:

1. Senator Amy Klobuchar (why is it so hard to find an email address on her campaign website?)
2. Senate candidate Al Franken (sent!)
3. Rep. Keith Ellison (left a voicemail and an email)
4. Rep. Betty McCollum (her office’s email processor seems to be mucked up; I left a message with her local press assistant)
5. Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak (Email sent).
6. “Growth and Justice” poobah Joel Kramer (email sent)

I’ll post the answers in this space when they come back.

(Kudos to the thin film of local left-leaners who do mix it up with the good guys; Eric Black, DFL chair Brian Melendez, and…well, that’s about it. On the other hand, brickbats to Nick Coleman, who responded to my request for an interview by demanding a $1,000 donation to a Saint Paul school).

Great idea, Andy!

The boilerplate for my email appears below the fold.

(more…)

Over at the MinMon, Andy Birkey writes:

Have Michele Bachmann’s media gaffes and extreme conservative views driven her to speak mainly to conservative and Christian-right news outlets?

Leave aside that in the MNMon’s world, all conservative views would seem, judging by their copy, to be “extreme”.  Never mind.

Birkey’s article introduced an interesting question.

More on Monday.

Yesterday, in a gratingly stupid post, Steve “Mister Furious” Perry at MNMon said (with emphasis added):

Bribes — more commonly known as signing bonuses — are “one of the main reasons why the Army has been able to meet its recruiting goals in spite of the ongoing specter of serving in Iraq,” [author Michael] Massing writes.

He would seem to be one of those lefties who “supports the troops” because “it’s a good place to put all the people who are too dumb to be me” – but that’s not really the point.

One would think that if the troops were just a bunch of bribed mercenaries, this would not be the case:

According to Army statistics … 70 percent of soldiers eligible to re-enlist in 2006 did so — a re-enlistment rate higher than before Sept. 11, 2001. For the past 10 years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have exceeded 100 percent. As of last Nov. 13, Army re-enlistment was 137 percent of its stated goal.

You wouldn’t think a poor, “dumb” kid who came to the service out of desperation would stick around after they loaded up on bonuses and swag. Would you?

People have commented, here and elsewhere, about the tone the Monitor has taken since Perry – former City Pages editor back when it was known as a place with some damn fine journalism sprinkled in among the ofay hipsterism – took over. What was once a genial, well-meaning and frequently dumb group propagandablog has turned into a shrill, shallow, gratingly obvious vehicle that would seem to be trying for a slice of the Kos/MyDD market, with a nasty stupid streak and an appetite for uncritically gurgitating press releases.

I’m trying to figure out where it was that Steve “Mister Furious” Perry made the switch from “good journalist and editor” to a sort of intellectual Alexandra Dupre.

For those of you who were afraid the retirement of Mark “The Wege” Gisleson would make the local Sorosphere a kinder and gentler place – well, don’t worry. Steve “Mister Furious” Perry is more than happy to take up the slack – and watch his credibility crash harder than Lieutenant Commander McCain’s A4 Skyhawk:

While we await the release of John McCain’s medical file–which his campaign has pledged to disgorge by next month–I took a look through press accounts of McCain’s last release of medical information, during his 2000 run for the White House.One eye-opener: McCain’s startling claim that he believes the five years he spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam were actually a boon to his mental health and temperamental stability.

It’s clear that Perry has given up being a “journalist” (he used to be a good one), and is auditioning for a job as a writer snarksmith on the “Daily Show”.

Since modifying and controlling ones’ behavior was a prime survival skill among American POWs in North Vietnam, it’s clear that Perry knows no more about this subject than Dan Haugen knows about the law or Molly Priesmeyer knows about business.

And I’d have to wonder – would Perry bring the same tact, intellect and sensitivity to the table if a woman ran for office and testified to having been raped? (“That’s a stupid question, Mitch. Of course he would! If she were Republican!”)

One wonders how Steve Perry’s “behavior” would fare (he’s, um, notoriously “prickly”) if he spent a weekend in jail on a traffic warrant, much less five and a half years of torture, solitary confinement and the sort of systematic degradation most Americans couldn’t comprehend even if the Daily Mold were still in operation?

Given McCain’s enduring and well-known fondness for calling his Senate colleagues names and telling them to fuck themselves, what are we to make of this?

That it’d be cool to stick Perry in a room with McCain for five minutes? (And since when does Perry, the guy who hired Mark Gisleson at the City Pages in ’04, get the vapors about a little rudeness and cussing?)
I never thought it would be possible, but…:

• The Minnesota Monitor is getting crappier by the day
• Jeff Fecke may be the most credible, conscientious reporter on the staff these days.

Perhaps it’s time to start a “MNMon Dead Pool”. Even Soros has gotta realize he’s wasting his propaganda dollar.

Although we can hope not.

(And could someone have a word with them about their spaghetti display code, their torquemadian comment engine, and their “Junior’s First Website, 1996” design?).

This post will tie together a bunch of my favorite topics:

1. what I do for a living,
2. bad reporters,
3. upholding capitalism against ignorant droogs
4. worse reporters, and
5. bashing the Sorosmedia.

Let’s start at the top.

I design things for a living – usually software. Now, when you’re designing things that might have to be used by more than one type of person – software, stores, appliances, marketing websites, airliner safety equipment or what have you – you realize that it’s impossible to design something one way that works equally well for every possible consumer; if you try, you get a lowest-common-denominator that works well for nobody.

So, rather than try to design something that amalgamates an approach to every possible user, one technique is to develop a “User Persona” – a “biography” of the person (or small set of people) for whom the system has to work. For example, if you’re designing an airline cockpit, the design has to work perfectly for pilots; everyone else is secondary. Other designs are more complicated; a luxury sports car might be designed around a 45-year-old, upper-middle-class, upwardly-mobile, racially-indeterminate mortgage broker named “Pete” – all design nuances will answer the question “What would Pete want”. If it works perfectly for “Pete” – who is the “stereotype” of the person to whom the product is aimed, and who is most likely to buy the car – then it’ll be just fine for everyone else.

This technique is used in all sorts of processes – including designing retail marketing, store design, and even sales training systems. When you only have so much time and money to spend on designing something – a website, a store, a package, a cockpit – you have to focus your efforts on the right consumer.

It just makes sense.

———-

After Dan Haugen’s little gaffe the other day in the MNMon – where he wrote “Minnesota’s gun laws could be worse – look at this bozo in Tennessee who’d make guns legal in bars”, not knowing that guns are legal in bars (under certain strict conditions) in Minnesota – I got to thinking – do MinMon reporters actually research what they write about?
We’ll come back to it.

———-

Remember a few years ago, when the local dextrosphere got the vapors over Best Buy Corporation “profiling” customers That Best Buy would focus on customers with “money” and “the intention to buy”, as opposed to “bargain-hunters” who shopped only for “marked-down crap”, with an intention to “spend less time earning more money?”

The writer equated it with racial profiling – a nice, facile point that was, also, completely wrong.
Which brings us to Molly Priesmeyer, the Lindsay Lohan of the local Sorosphere. She’s on the story – a few years late:

Do blue hairs like Blu-Ray? Who cares? They’re cheap. Let’s focus on “Ray,” the bulls-eye Best Buy customer and “techno-tainment” enthusiast with a kid’s heart and wads of cash to spare. Niche marketing doesn’t get any uglier than the customer profiles created by the folks at hometown corporate behemoth Best Buy. And the good folks over at The Consumerist have a leaked internal PowerPoint presentation that renders every customer who walks into a Best Buy big-box shop an ambulatory stereotype.

Note to Lindsay Molly: if this is the first you’ve heard of this particular trend of marketing, it means you’ve never bought a used car.

Remember a few years ago when Best Buy’s lenses turned every customer into an angel or devil? Devils care about saving money—avoid those lame Beezlebubs. These new drooling drones, if they’re even worth an employee’s time, just need a good shaking (and some action movies) so that every last penny drops from their pockets.

Priesmeyer’s writing seems to be unable to proceed beyond facile stereotypes.  I mean, does what does she think every single sales-oriented business, or even salesman, does every time they look at a potential customer?

And, while we’re at it, does Ms. Priesmeyer have even a shred of evidence that there’s anything unethical or, dare we say, racist or sexist or anythingotherist about this?

(And – since a little bird once told us that Priesmeyer’s infamous hatchet job on the Center of the American Experiment dinner honoring Powerline was a result of Steve “Mister Furious” Perry telling her to take out all the “fair” stuff and be more anti-Republican and less objective, I have to ask:  is Priesmeyer that hard-up for a job?)
So why does the MNMon have people who know nothing about the law writing about law, and nothing about business writing about business?

Oh, yeah – people who know nothing about journalism…

I mean, Mol-Mol? Even Jeff Fecke has learned to get his basic facts straight.

“Phoenix Woman” writes breathlessly scrawls:

If you Google “David Vitter prostitute“, you get around 30,000 references to the sex scandal that broke last July involving a sitting Republican Senator known for his straight-arrow “family values” image.

Wow – that’s ironic, isn’t it?

Senator Vitter has yet to resign.

(Perhaps he’s trapped in William Jefferson’s office freezer?)

If you Google Larry Craig prostitute, you get just under 48,000 references to the sex scandal that broke last August involving another sitting Republican Senator known for his straight-arrow “family values” image. Senator Craig has yet to resign.

And all 48,000 of those references must be to stuff written by morons; Craig didn’t consort with a prostitute; it was a “consensual” pickup, the kind that happens all night, every night over around Loring Park; the guy happened to be an undercover cop.

But if you Google “Eliot Spitzer prostitute“, you get over 261,000 references to the sex scandal involving a sitting Democratic governor with a straight-arrow image, and that scandal isn’t even 48 hours old yet.

Clearly, Spitzer could be free and clear right now if he’d only been a Republican. It’s really the ultimate Get Out Of Jail Free card.

Tell it to Randy Cunningham, Marc Rich or William Jefferson.

And then there’s the little matter of the accusations of racketeering and money laundering (of which Mr. Spitzer is innocent until proven guilty). I don’t believe Vitter or Craig were accused of any any felonies – were they?

No?

Because the real ultimate “get out of jail free” card is to not commit felonies.

“Phoenix Woman” – perhaps the only leftyblogger in town less clear on the law than MNob…

While in no way do I buy into Vox Day’s case to repeal the 19th Amendment, “Phoenix Woman” could actually be circumstantial evidence in the affirmative. Ladies – you might wanna do something about her.

That is all.

Blogging; it’s better than Prozac:

According to a new study by researchers at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne who were looking into the psychological benefits of blogging, bloggers tend to feel a greater sense of connectedness to a particular community, and feel that they have a larger social support system behind them compared with those who do not blog.

Well, they never asked me, but I’m here to testify.

For one example – I don’t know how I’d have gotten through 2003, with its unemployment and other difficulties, had I not had this blog.   

Viewed in this light, blogging could be prescribed as a potentially cheaper (and drugs-free) way to help people overcome a feeling of isolation.

True.  Indeed, given some of the stalker-like behavior you can encounter out there, it can make you long for isolation…

Blogging has been dismissed as a  narcissistic pursuit…

…but only by the talentless and stupid.

(more…)

I got a chuckle:

Me: I love that we both wanted to hate [American Idol contestant] David Cook, but ended up loving it.

…

Curly: It was sort of how I felt when I realized the troop surge was actually working.

There are times I wish Glen Reynolds hadn’t made “heh” a blogosphere cliche.

Yesterday, in an event that drove headlong into two levels of “meta”, Kool Aid Report live-blogged the 1PM hour, “NARN Idol”, with Paul “Nih(i)list” Happe sitting in for Ed; Sisyphus proceeded to live-blog the live-blog.

While I obviously couldn’t host the show and respond to two levels of liveblogging, and I’m darned if I’m gonna spend my Saturday night writing something like that, I just can’t resist the opportunity to land the fabled triple-meta.

I’m going to delayblog both of the liveblogs!

The original posts are presented in chronological order, not sorted for their originating blog; I think Sisyphus’ stuff has the bold timestamps. I think:

1:05 – It should be illegal for Chad to utter Brett Favre’s name.

1:05 PM: Learned “Packer-Fascist” Foot believes that it should be illegal for Chad the Elder to utter Brett Favre’s name. Osama bin Foot will no doubt behead anyone who draws a blasphemous Favre cartoon.

10:35AM: Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, people. Who cares?

1:07 – They’re stalling. Nihilist must be late. Took a little too long to serruptitiously siphon gas from the neighbor’s car.

1:07 PM: Foot accuses the Nihilist of siphoning gas out of a neighbor’s car. I must admit, it is conceivable.

10:37AM: If you’d ever worked with the guy, you’d believe it.

1:10 – Top Chef debuts Wednesday. If you were only listening to Chad blather about it, you never would have known that. Luckily, you have me.

1:10 PM: Learned Foot informs us when the TV show “Top Chef” will premiere. “Top Chef” is a gay show.

10:40AM: Sisyphus must never have seen Casey, the eye-candy they threw at us straight guys last season. Or Jillian, from Project Runway. (I didn’t even know both of ’em won the “Fan Favorite” awards for the their shows – which means there’s gotta be a lot of straight guys watching.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

1:13 – More stalling. Yawwwwwn. I think I’ll liveblog the Gopher’s-Illinois game.

1:13 – Illinois 33, Gophers 29 – early 2nd half.

1:13 PM: Foot is growing impatient and is thinking of Live Blogging the Gophers vs. Illinois game. I don’t know what Foot is smoking. The Gophers aren’t playing until tonight vs. UMD.

1:13 PM: Foot hallucinates: Illinois 33, Gophers 29 – early 2nd half. Uh Foot, they’re called periods. And if you are going to make up score, make it realistic – no hockey score has ever been 33 to 29.

11:43AM: All I hear is a buzzing sound.

1:15 – Commercial. “I’m Andy Willoughby! How the fuck are you anyway?!”

1:15 PM: Foot mocks Patriot sponsor Andy Willoughby. Well played, Foot.

11:45AM: Andy Williby is a great American and a true patriot. And I’m proud to have him as a sponsor.

1:20 – Production errors abound. Nihilist must be working behind the glass.

1:20 PM: Foot blames the Nihilist for the Patriot’s production errors. This must be the first time Foot has ever listened to the Patriot.

11:50AM: Heh. Well, our producer, a lovely young Russian lady named Anna, was new to the show. She usually produces Strom and NARN Volume 1 – and new people take some getting used to. She did a fine job.

1:21 – “NARN Idol”? Everybody vote Chad out. Please.

1:21 PM: Foot takes another shot at Chad. When Foot stages his coup and installs Packeria law, Chad will be the first inmate in the Lambeau re-education camp.

11:51AM: Aaaaah. Spring training, right around the corner.

1:22 – OMG!!!!!! Paul’s had a stroke!!!! I hope he’s OK.

1:22 PM: Foot is not just a law talking guy, he can also diagnose strokes over the air!

1:23 – Never mind. That’s how his voice always sounds.

1:23 PM: False alarm! Foot just mis-diagnosed the Nihilist’s voice.

11:53 AM: I was about ready to make him sing “Burning Love”.

1:24 – Ha ha! A shout out! No guys, since I can’t be in the studio today, I’m taking a supplementary role. Just adding value; not trying to be a substitute.

11:54AM: Foot had childcare duty yesterday. If he’d only known that now only was the Patriot’s green room crowded with kids in Moonchild’s age bracket, but that Moon would have been among the more sedate of the bunch, perhaps he’d have come in.

1:24 PM: Mitch acknowledges Foot’s live blog, but what about this ground breaking live blog of Foot’s live blog?

1:54AM: Not sure how Hugh or King or Ed or Michael do it, but I just can’t read blogs and do a talk show.

1:26 – And we have Nihilist’s first Ayn Rand reference at… 1:26. Mark!

1:26 PM: Foot mocks the Nihilist’s mention of Ayn Rand – but he neglects to acknowledge that it is in the context of Angelina Jolie.

11:56AM: I actually went a whole show with neither a Marisa Tomei nor a Scarlett Johannsen reference…

1:27 – Springsteen sucks! Maiden 4ever!

1:27 PM: Bravo Foot, for denouncing Springsteen. But the Iron Maiden shout-out is a little forced.

11:57AM: Speaking of forced – apropos of nobody, but why do so many metal singers sound like they’re trying to push a triangular steel dookie out the nether parts when they sing?

1:28 – NIHILIST FACT CHECK! Geldof praised Bush for helping fight AIDS in Africa – not hunger as Paul asserts.

1:28 PM: Foot has the audacity to fact check the Nihilist? He states that Geldoff praised Bush for helping fight AIDs in Africa and not hunger as the Nihilist said. I propose a compromise: let’s praise Bush for fighting both AIDs and hunger.

11:58AM: Not to mention for “I Don’t Like Mondays“.

1:33 – Obama girl bumper music. gag. Play some MAIDEN!!!1111!!11

1:33 PM: Foot calls on them to play some Iron Maiden. Uh Foot, this is the NARN, why don’t you go listen to some pirate junior high radio station?

11:03AM: Well, let’s be fair; we were talking about peoples’ cultish crushes on Obama. Someday when we do a show on, say, the Battle of Britain, I’ll have Anna or Matt dredge up “Aces High“. Or if we do a show, say, on, er, running to the hills for whatever reason, well, you know.

1:35 – Is Sisyphus liveblogging my liveblog yet?

1:35 PM: Yes, as a matter of fact I am.

11:05AM: I’m tempted to start singing “The Circle Of Life”

1:37 – I smell a future Lori Sturdevant multifisk this week…

1:37 PM: Foot smells a future Lori Sturdevant multifisk this week. All that means is that Lori isn’t on vacation.

11:07AM: True, but I think a mash-note to Erhardt will deserve a special effort.

1:40 – The mayor sends his props in the comment thread: “This is a riot! Go LF go!”

1:40 PM: The mayor of the MOB is calling for riots?

11:10AM: If I could have a nickel for every time Ed and I have looked through the glass wondering what on earth it was that had King guffawing…well, it’d be more money than I’ve made doing the show so far…

1:41 – Just a reminder: this liveblog will be more meaningful less meaningless if you listen to the stream here (or on the radio) while reading.

1:41 PM:Just a reminder, this live blog of a live blog will be less meaningless if you read Foot’s live blog here.

11:11AM: “…the ciiiiiircle of liiiiiiiiiiiife, it circles us aaaaaawaaaaaal…”

1:42 – First Nihilist P-Diddy reference at 1:42…MARK!

1:42 PM: Foot marks the Nihilist’s first P-Diddy reference at 1:42. P-Diddy has sure dropped off the map. I remember back when the Nihilist mentioned him every five minutes without fail.

11:12AM: If Diddy and Angelina Jolie didn’t exist, Nihlist would have to invent them.

1:46 – FOO FIGHTERS!

1:46 PM: What about the FOO FIGHTERS! At least he isn’t occasionally posting OBAMA!

11:16AM: Anna does have a knack for bumper music.

1:47 – Shout out #2! (NOTE: I think Pinkmonkeybird liveblogged a NARN broadcast once. Now there’s a guy who doesn’t have a life.)

1:47 PM: Foot acknowledges another shout out for his live blog. Still no shout out for the live blog of the live blog.

11:17AM: Ahem?

1:48 – Maybe NARN should give this Downey guy a shot at replacing Ed.

1:48 PM: First the Ron Erhardt supporters try to convince people that Downey is running for Hennepin County Commissioner (and not challenging Ron Erhardt for the legislature endorsement) and now Erhardt supporter Learned Foot is starting the despicable rumor that Downey is auditioning for the NARN (and not challenging Erhardt). Shame, Foot, Shame!!

11:18AM: With any luck, pretty soon Erhardt can do a show on Air America Minnesota. (Do they still exist?)

1:49 – CLOSED CIRCUIT TO MITCH & NIHILIST: Don’t forget to plug the MilF.

1:49 PM: Foot calls for a plug of the MiLF. But plug what? There has been no date set for the MiLF, so far as I know.

11:19AM: Check out KAR for the latest on the Millard Filmore Golf Tournament!

1:50 – SOMEONE ANSWER THE DAMN PHONE!

1:50 PM: Foot is unwilling to interrupt his live blog to answer his phone. Telemarketers will be disappointed.

11:20AM: Mmm. Breakfast.

1:51 – Hah! That “wazzzup” thing was kinda funny.

1:51 PM: Props to Mitch and the Nihilist on the wazzup bit.

11:21AM: All kudos to NIGP. It was his idea. I just cut it together.

1:52 – Inver Grove Bites is a dump.

1:52 PM: “Inver Grove bites is a dump.” Uh, what?

11:22AM: I think he was perfectly clear. And accurate.

1:53 – Apparently Sisyphus has been liveblogging this liveblog. I have arrived.

1:53 PM: FINALLY! A shout out to this live blog by Foot. Yes, you have arrived!

11:23AM: Cry me a river.

1:56 – Do you think that if the Nihilist bumped into Lileks in the studio, there would a violent explosion like when matter collides with anti-matter. Perhaps Sisyphus the Physicist could shed some light on this.

1:56 PM: Foot asks me a physics question: “Do you think that if the Nihilist bumped into Lileks in the studio, there would a violent explosion like when matter collides with anti-matter.” No, of course not. But if they both said exactly the same thing at exactly the same time, their voices would cancel out and you would hear nothing.

11:26AM: Close; when they walked near each other, it caused a total eclipse.

1:58 – This hour – and this liveblog – is over!

1:58 PM: This liveblog of Foot’s liveblog is over!

11:28AM: And this lifeblog of the liveblogging of the the livethunderjournaling of a live talk show is now done.

3:06 PM: A shout-out to this liveblog of the liveblog by King Banaiaian on NARN “The Final Word”!

1:02PM: Does this mean I have to start over?

Over at True North, Matt Abe notes that KTLK-FM afternoon host (and my long-time talkradio role model) Jason Lewis has built quite the one-stop shop for conservatives:

Tired and frustrated at waiting for conservative leadership elsewhere, Lewis is beginning to lead a conservative reformation in Minnesota politics, but not from where he would be subject to the slings and arrows of elected office. Instead Lewis is working from his bully pulpit of talk radio, the Internet, and a growing network of conservative activists. Overreaching by the DFL in the Legislature this session, and the crumbling of the Pawlenty veto firewall, may be adding fuel to Lewis’s fire.

Not to plug the competition, but kudos to Jason.  He’s also got one of the best “blogrolls” of conservative sites in the business.

And kudos, in addition, to everyone that’s been in the online agitation game for the past six years; the MOB, my fellow NARN hosts (especially Ed and Powerline), and True North.  After six years of running the most vibrant blog community in the country, it’s really impossible to be taken seriously in this market if you don’t have a solid online presence – which doesn’t just mean “a slick website” anymore. 

(But note to Jason; get an RSS feed.  Actually clicking on websites is so 2000).

It’s getting to be that time of year – time for the City Pages’ “Best Blogs” competition!

Now, if you’ve followed this tradition, you know it’s actually two awards:

• BEST LOCALLY GENERATED BLOG (LEFT-WING): Previous winners, MNVolved and Clucking Spoo – leftyblogs that laid a thin veneer of humor (MNVolved) or gimmick (the Stool) over strident, constant, headbanging left-leaning politics.
• BEST LOCALLY GENERATED BLOG (RIGHT-WING): Previous winners, Nihilist in Golf Pants and Faithmouse – right-leaning blogs that don’t write about politics all that very much.

So the handicapper’s game is to figure out:

• Which leftyblog puts the “hippest” gimmick (or, given that “pseudo-hip” is the new “hip”, perhaps one of those instead) on top of the most strident left-leaning point of view, and
• which right-leaning blog puts the thinnest possible veneer of rightward tilt over the least-political content possible.

So let’s take some nominations!

I’ll start out with my own choices:

• Bogus Gold: Doug Williams’ tomato-and-wineblogging doesn’t beat you over the head with politics, lately (although to be sure he’s one of the good guys); also, BoGo went un-updated due to Williams’ extended blogging sabbatical last year, which would probably make it City Pages’ ideal conservative blog.
• My Opera Life: This blog is all about life as an opera student, and touches not in the least on politics, other than being married to a conservative blogger (which may be mentioned once or twice in the past year and a half).
• Pianomomsicle: Jessica Gensmer writes about cooking, raising her baby, married life and faith. The closest thing to conservative political statement anywhere on the blog is a link to, as it happens, Shot In The Dark. Which might be too much for the City Pages’ staff, and thereby makes her a dark horse.

I’ll take your nominations in the comment section, and have a runoff election later this week, followed by the grand finale early next week.

Then, we’ll wait to see how close it gets to the CP’s picks.

I’m all tingly.

Dave Mindeman writes the leftybot blog MNpACT!. And he – like Lori Sturdevant and Nick Coleman – misses the good ol’ days, when “Republicans” were nothing but Tics with better haircuts.

He’d also seem to have bought, whole hog, into the Barack Obama-via-Daily-Kos school of political rhetoric, in a post that combines Obama’s substance-free noodling with the Kossack penchant for broad insults.

Rep. Kathy Tingelstad, R-Andover has committed the ultimate crime against the Minnesota conservative base.

She has rational thoughts.

Some background for political non-junkies in the audience; Kathy Tingelstad was one of the Republicans who voted for the DFL’s 6-plus billion dollar Mass Transit Subsidy “Transportation” bill. She is also one of the six RINOs in the House that voted to override the Governor’s veto of this pork-barrel monstrosity.

In retaliation, her district’s Republican convention declined to endorse her at their convention this past weekend. The District 49B Republican Party – acting in their capacity as the people who decide who will represent the party and its’ interests in the November election, committed the radical act of wanting Republicans to act like Republicans.

One presumes that Mr. Mindeman, having declared “support for the pork-barrel bill” to be “rational thought”, will eventually tell us how opposing the bill is “irrational”.

To fail to do so would be Obama-esque. Or Kos-like. One of the two.

She has the audacity to look for solutions.

Or was it “The audacity of hope?” Or some similar meaningless catch phrase?

To feel that her district needs actual help and not more delays. She has the unmitigated gall to vote as an individual and not as a collective, mindless, partisan gang of naysayers.

Score one for “meaningless catch phrase”.

The nerve.

With reasoning skills like this, it’s not hard to see why Minnesota’s left-of-center bloggers, as a community, are a national laughingstock.

Tingelstad voted – which is what she was free (and elected) to do.

Her district GOP convention responded – as they are free to do as well. As, indeed, is the purpose of party conventions! To do party business!

It is obvious that she needs to be punished. District 49B activists are willing to oblige. No endorsement for you, until you repent!

Maybe the GOP in District 49B has some unusual insight into the voters of their district.

Being as they are, to a person, voters in District 49B, that might actually stand to reason!

Obviously, it is a different reading than Rep. Tingelstad has been getting.

Here’s Mindeman’s problem – and to be fair to him, it’s the same problem that everyone in the DFL from Brian Melendez to Lori Sturdevant has; they want Republicans to do the DFL’s work for them. To magically deduce the “will of the district’s voters” first and foremost, before (or instead of) actually acting like a political party…

…and act on that bit of clairvoyance DFL-friendly wishful thinking.  So the DFL doesn’t have to.

Of course, I’ve not noticed the DFL doing the same; although most Minnesotans oppose unrestricted abortion, for example, we’ve not seen the DFL do what Melendez/Sturdevant/Mindeman would have the GOP do – forget that they’re a political party!

Because in the special little world of the likes of Sturdevant and Nick Coleman and Dave Mindeman, only the DFL gets to act out of partisan interest!

When she announced her re-election bid in 2006, it stated:

However, what she’s best known for is being the leading advocate in the Legislature for the Northstar Commuter Rail project. This year, the legislature approved $60 million for Northstar, the final state contribution to the rail project, which will begin service through Coon Rapids in 2009.

Heretic!

She actually wants to bring District 49B into the 21st Century.

How can the GOP stand for such forward thinking, rational ideas?

They can’t.

DISCLOSURE: I don’t necessarily actually oppose the Northstar, either.

But if the threshold for “21st Century Rationality” is “unblinking, unquestioning support for a 19th century transportation system that systematically shorts our road and bridge infrastructure”, I think I’m starting to understand where Mindeman’s myopia Obama-esque paucity of actual substance comes from; it’s only in the absence of actual thought that it makes any sense.

What is the threshold to be considered “rational”? In Dave Mindeman’s world, it’d seem to be “following the DFL line, even if you’re a Republican. Nya nya nya”, and not a whole lot more. To be fair to Mindeman, there could be more to his point of view. To be realistic, there’s no evidence of it in this post.

I add emphasis in this next bit:

So, they must punish this problem solver. They must set an example, so that any other rational and clear headed thinkers can be chastised back into the program, and become the partisan automatons they were endorsed to be.

“Partisan” and “Party” come from the same root! It was a party convention!

The voters of District 49B be damned.

Pardon me. I need to take an ibuprofin.

One wonders why Mindeman wrote that last line.

Does he really not understand the function of political parties? I suppose if your entire point of view is based on having always been the party in power – in conflating the party and the state in ones’ cognitive model of government – which is common in places like China and the USSR and Minneapolis – it’s understandable (albeit kinda disturbing).

Does he merely assume his readers don’t know any better? I suppose if Dave Mindeman’s only goal is to push DFL orthodoxy, it’d be a convenient assumption.

Or, either way, does he just not know that the voters have their say?

In November?

Not March?

(more…)

…what if a certain local “media columnist” were to write a column in a local Sorosblog about…well, local media?

He’d insert huge swathes of his own opinion to bind together rumors from the few of his drinking buddies that still had jobs at newspapers, TV stations and radio operations.

And on this blog, hypothetically speaking of course, he’d “moderate” comments – and only approve (publish) the ones that basically agreed with him!

Why, we could call it “Hamster To The Slaughter”!

Nah. Dumb idea.

There are still a few things you can count on in this universe.  The sun rising in the east; the futility of the Cubs Vikings; the fastball, the Jeep CJ, the Les Paul, Summit Beer, the National Review‘s point of view; God, country, death and taxes.

And Captains Quarters, posting eight to fifteen posts of brand-new, top-flight political analysis (and Notre Dame flakkery) every single day.

In these unsettled times, it’s good to know that you can still count on…

Beginning on March 1, I will begin working for Michelle Malkin, a friend, mentor, and writer I have long admired. She has offered me a position as writer at Hot Air, and my blogging will appear exclusively there.

…er…how’s that?

That means that I will close out Captain’s Quarters sometime in March.

 Doh.

Um…

…never mind.

 This saddens me, as it has become my ever-ready home and because of the terrific community it has generated. I hope that the CapQ community comes with me to Hot Air, and Hot Air will have open registration today for 12 hours in order to allow CapQ commenters to join me at my new digs.

Seriously – congrats, Ed!  This is a huge move for E-Mo, my friend, fellow MOBster and radio colleague, and will make him, if possible, an even bigger mover and shaker in the alternative media.

Yesterday, Canada.  Tomorrow…Red China?

(more…)

Pianomomsicle is now also blogging…

…at Preggersicle.

Yes, there’s a reason.

…to Sheila, whose personal plans are taking a big swerve:

Mr. Macedonia-Obama Man has emailed me. Here is what he writes:

You know … I was going to ask you to marry me, but now that I have found out how snarky you can be … the wedding is off!

I bet it was really Christo.

Gavin from Superior, Wisconsin writes:

Greetings from the shadow of the Bong Bridge!

It took a while before I realized Gavin wasn’t making some obscure counterculture reference, but was talking about the Richard Bong Bridge, named after a Superior native who is also America’s top fighter ace of all time.

I digress:

I see that some joyless, socially-retarded, shrieking harpy, “Tild”, wrote that your “Twenty Years Ago Today” series is “excruciatingly tedious”, although she copped to never having actually read any of them.

Well, to be clear, “Tild” doesn’t actually shriek. Literally, anyway.

How can she say that about something she’s never read?

For starters, I doubt she’s never read it. Twin Cities lefties think that if you admit you’ve been in the same room as a conservative, people will think you have cooties. Leftybloggers are to reading rightyblogs as regular folks are to reading “People” magazine; everyone does it, but nobody admits it. It reminds one of something from 1984, where everyone made sure to recite exactly the facts the party told them to recite, no matter how patently it reversed what they’d been told the day before.

And the simple fact is, outside of a thin scree of competent writers, most leftybloggers wouldn’t know how to write a coherent sentence on a level deeper than reflexive scatology or “Why does Bush hate the troops” if they didn’t have Minnesota’s center-right bloggers to emulate.
Still, a jaunt through a typical assortment of the misanthropic twaddle that passes for the “Sorosphere” in the Twin Cities will tell you that to most Twin Cities leftybloggers, actually knowing the subject matter, where it diverges from the talking points they get from the Daily Kos or the Huffpo is considered a handicap. To paraphrase P.J. O’Rourke, “I’m not a leftyblogger, so I’m not an expert at stuff I know nothing about”.

Anyway, I write “Twenty Years Ago Today” for me, and maybe, someday, my kids. If you enjoy it – and favorable comments and emails outnumber the others about 50-1 (and the minority tend to be douchebags anyway) – then that’s fine. If not, your web browser has things called “scroll bars” and a “back button” (ask a conservative blogger if you don’t know how to use them) that can help prevent the “excruciating tedium” of reading something that I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think about in the first place!

And that, as they say, is all.

PShort writing at Truth v. The Machine notes that some non-establishment conservatives are getting on board with McCain:

Over the past few days, John McCain received three endorsements that will be very hard for the hard-core anti-McCain conservatives to dismiss: Gary Bauer, John Bolton, and Congressman Jeb Hensarling…When principled conservatives like these say, in effect, “despite our differences, it’s ok to get on the McCain bus,” many conservatives are going to listen.

Pat notes that Bauer, Bolton and Hensarling are hardly Beltway insiders – which at least chips away at one of Mac’s big poison pills.

Hard to believe I remember this guy – whom I know as Flash’s son Tom, and whom the US Marines call Sergeant Peterson – when he was in elementary school.  My stepson Will used to “babysit” him and his brothers (Flash’s kids). 

Welcome back, Sergeant Peterson.  Looks like ya done good.

…that one of the Northern Alliance’s producers, “Antoine”, has a new blog out.

Check out “The Twon Spot”. It’s new, but if Antoine puts as much stuff online as he circulates via email, it’s gonna be huuuuuuge.

I don’t believe in Karma – but I do believe what goes around comes around.

Maybe it’s my Scandinavian roots, but I’ve always tried to shy away from “overconfidence” – especially the great proto-American injunction against “counting your chickens before they’re hatched”.

So – while I’ve come to regard John McCain as a better option for the GOP nomination than, say, Mike Huckabee or Ron Paul (I’ll get behind him. anyway), I gotta confess; I heard Mac’s statement that he assumes he’ll get the nomination, and thought “this is the sort of thing that people unwittingly say that gets ’em into the history books”.

So Zogby shows Mitt up by eight in California, now. We can’t call it a “turnaround”, since a smallish fraction of the delegates have actually been allocated (that’s what tomorrow’s all about!).  And Mac may well be right, and it might not be the worst thing in the world.

But it reinforces the lesson; if you’re a Republican and you’re reading this, you need to show up at your caucus or primary tomorrow if you’re in one the the Super Di Duper Tuesay states (and Minnesota is one of them) and get your two cents into the works.

Find your precinct caucus, and hire a sitter, and be there.

True North has the best wrapup of Minnesota Caucus information anywhere, plus a caucus finder.   Read ’em, use ’em, be there.

Joe “Learned Foot” Tucci tackles Susan “Xanax” Lenfestey’s nighmarish mope over the anniversary of the death of Molly Ivins.

Lenfestey:

Unlike Maureen Dowd, who delights in snippy wordplay, with Molly you felt the words erupting from her soul, ricocheting off her funny bone and then passing through her brain…

Tucci:

…and then finally exiting through her anus

Read the whole thing…

…especially to ponder the wonder of this idea:

FOOT HAS BRILLIANT IDEA: We need to start an all-ThunderJournalist thrash metal band whose songs are completely comprised of lines from Sooz’s columns. We could call it “Deathskull” (with umlauts over all the vowels).

(Or maybe “Death KAR for Cutie”?)

Hm.

Hmmmmm.

…there’s one right here you oughtta toss onto the list.

I don’t quote Glen Reynolds much – everyone reads him anyway – but on reading and hearing from all the Republicans who want to “teach the party a lesson” if the nominate the wrong guy, this bit struck home:

Some people think it’s time to teach the party a lesson. Fine, but I thought 2006 was supposed to do that. Did they learn anything? Seems to me that things are about what they were when I put up my pre-mortem post that had Limbaugh exercised. (For that matter, did losing in 2000 and 2004 improve the Democrats? What, exactly, have they learned that led to the Hillary/Edwards/Obama offering? Are political parties capable of really learning?)

A couple of points here:

1. Parties don’t learn “lessons”.  Minnesota’s GOP should be a great lesson for all of you who think that abstaining from voting is going to do you, the party or the country any good at all; the reverses in ’04 and ’06 caused the MNGOP to panic and revert (in many quarters) to the “moderate”, Sturdevant-approved  party of the bad old days.  Remember – parties have long memories, as long as those of the people who show up and do all the work.  And conservatism is still, in many ways, an insurgency in the GOP, especially in Minnesota.  Staying home from the election because, say, Mark Kennedy voted for ethanol subsidies, or because Mitt Romney flip-flopped (even in the right direction!) on abortion, teaches one lesson; conservatives are flighty and unreliable when it comes to election time.
2. And don’t get started about third parties.  I say this as someone who left the GOP in 1994, outraged at the party’s sellout on the ’94 Crime Bill.  I joined the big-L Libertarians for four years.  It was great.  I got to hang out with a lot of people who believed all the right things!  Of course, they – we – had the luxury of ideological purity precisely because we never had to govern anything; we never had to put our ideas into the scrum of actually having to run anything or represent a district that had elected us via a plurality.  Just a convention that had endorsed us unanimously.  You think starting a third party “sends a message?”  Remember Pat Buchanan?  Remember the effect he had in 2000?  Me either.

So is the lesson “fall in line behind the party?”  Hell no.  Get pissed.  Get angry as hell.  Do something radical, and show up at the Caucuses, two weeks from tonight.  Find your precinct – here or here – and stand up for your guy or gal.  I’ll be there, and I’ll fighting like hell to do a bunch of things:

• get my guy endorsed.  (I’m close to deciding, but I ain’t saying yet).
• try to do my little bit to get some sort of grass-roots GOP movement going in the city
• try to show certain parties at various levels in the GOP that some of us in the city aren’t satisfied with the way things are.

The catch, of course, is that you have to show up at caucuses.  And, if it works that way, your BPOU, District and State conventions.  And try to find the time to help out in between, phone-banking and lit-dropping and getting the vote out.  Because changing anything is way, way more than just writing a resolution and making a speech.  It takes work, and tons of it.

One of the most instructive lessons of my political life was watching (and, in an infinitesimal way, participating in) the movement to reform Minnesota’s concealed carry laws.  When all was said and done, Concealed Carry Reform Now of Minnesota spent nine years and thousands of hours…:

• building a mailing list
• getting people to show up at gun shows to pass out literature and make people aware of the issues
• buttonholing legislators, one at a time, to state the case
• doing the same for voters, until eventually – by 2000 and 2002 – outstate voters were removing DFLers (and a few recalcitrant Republicans) who opposed carry reform from office.  That got the legislature’s attention; after 2002, the DFL legislators, motivated by political self-preservation, allied themselves with the good guys.

It took good people getting involved.  Some of them got very involved; a few of CCRN’s majordomos made it nearly a full-time job, on top of their real jobs and families and lives – but the real triumph was that they got tens of thousands of Minnesotans to care about reforming a sexist, racist, paternalistic law – one voter at a time.  And eventually one lawmaker at a time.  And finally one state at a time.

That’s how you change parties.  A voter at a time.  A precinct at a time.  A ward, a legislative district, a congressional district, a state at a time.

Notice that “staying home and teaching the bastards a lesson” doesn’t pop up in there at all?