Blogworthies LVII

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ Mystery Pollster, Galley Slaves, Uncorrelated, Armavirumque, IowaHawk, The Curt Jester, The Neoconservative, ProfessorBainbridge.com, 365 and a Wake Up, JustOneMinute, Flos Carmeli, BeldarBlog, The Astute Blogger, The Volokh Conspiracy, A Saintly Salmagundi, Southern Appeal, Redstate, Midwest Conservative Journal, Wittingshire, Off the Record, Anchor Rising, and Catholic Analysis.

Gallup Poll on Blogs @ Mystery Pollster:

My blogger status compels me to report as a "must read" a new survey on blogging released today [Fri. Mar. 11] by the Gallup Organization. Under the headline "Bloggers Not Yet in the Big Leagues," Gallup's Lydia Saad concludes: ....

Kos Watch @ Galley Slaves:

The Kos himself has discovered a brand new way to describe Republicans — "Taliban": ....

CNN: Lying with pictures @ Uncorrelated:

I was reading how Artic drilling foes lose initial Senate battle on CNN.com and I noted the picture attached to the story....

Free screech @ Armavirumque (brackets in original):

The New York Press editor Jeff Koyen is outraged. Shortly after giving the go-ahead to Matt Taibbi's now infamous Pope-bashing piece, Koyen was told to take two weeks to think (without pay) about "what the [Press] should be." Instead of complying, he quit his job. His statement on the matter, which condemns his bosses as "spineless" for not supporting him "in the face of harsh criticism," includes this telling bit:

The Big Snooze @ IowaHawk:

.... It was a blustery March morning in Manhattan. I hiked up the collar on my trenchcoat and stepped out into a fresh sheet of snow that had fallen in front of the seedy West 80's flop house I call home. Pretty stuff, that snow. But just below the surface it can conceal something icy, something treacherous. Something that can make your Florsheims lose their grip, set your arms and legs windmilling spastically, cause you to make a violent, jarring, assplant into a frigid sidewalk filth-slushee. And in my line of business it's all part of a day's work.

My name is Rather. And I'm a dick....

Celebrities in support of Terri Schiavo @ The Curt Jester:

PINELLAS PARK (Roto Reuters) — A group of celebrities protested today outside of Hospice Woodside where Terri Schiavo is scheduled to be starved to death if no judicial or legislative intercession step in. Actors Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins and many others held a press conference to decry the upcoming execution....

Ex-Marine Alleges Saddam Story was Fabricated @ The Neoconservative:

Some of you may have seen the headline on Drudge about a US marine claiming that Saddam Hussein was not captured in a spider hole....

Cablevision, Firing Directors, and Controlling Shareholder Power @ ProfessorBainbridge.com:

I'm about to teach a unit on the powers and fiduciary duties of controlling shareholders in my Business Associations class, which makes it an opportune moment to answer a question from a reader; namely, "How could Cablevision Chairman Charles Dolan 'fire' four directors?" ....

Ice in the Desert @ 365 and a Wake Up:

.... Today a thunderstorm rumbled through Baghdad and showered the FOB with gumball size hail. A couple of the troops armored up and waded into the storm, reveling in the raw display of nature’s power. The fat frozen raindrops scuttled off the armor plates like miniature billiards, sheathing the troops in the open with what looked like icy halos. It was as surreal an experience as any I had experienced here in Iraq. So much for the desert being as dry as a bone. Iraq has turned out to be a lot different from my expectations, and the differences run far deeper then the climate....

Call The Lawyers (Again) @ JustOneMinute:

A blogger is being threatened with legal action for (a) a statement made on his blog which could be viewed as defamatory, and (b) violating copyright by re-printing an e-mail. How will the blogosphere react?...

The Joys of Being Catholic @ Flos Carmeli:

.... Catholicism may be one of the few places where there is an identifiably Christian spirituality still present and, in some places, vibrant. A tour through any local evangelical Christian bookstore will show the truth of Mr. Willard’s thesis above. Almost to a one the books on the shelves are religious varieties of "self-help books." Being a better husband, serving better, being a better father, mother, teen. And almost none of the advice that is given within these books really focused on following God's will. There is a lot of talk about prayer and awareness and petitions and action and any number of other topics related to getting closer to God, but very little substantive advice about how to do so. And this has been the trend for a long time. Everyone flocks to the Rick Warrens of the world because there is at least the hint of approaching God and surrendering to His divine will. But even there, the surrender is subdued to any number of other actions we must take. For a faith that professes "Sola Fides" there sure seems to be a lot of helter-skelter running about in Protestant Christianity. And I don't fault the Protestants of today as such — when you have been cut off from the streams of tradition that feed a vibrant spirituality you are going to end up with a very works-centered "spirituality." Warren's spirituality seem to be expressed by the number of people who he knocks upside the head with the Gospel story (though admittedly, he is much more gentle than that.) When you refuse the living water of sacred tradition, you will be stuck with the still water of what people can contrive to be spirituality....

Lessons of the Little Red Hen: Noam Scheiber misses the point @ BeldarBlog:

.... Earth to Noam: Every American President for generations, Republican and Democrat alike, has talked the talk about democratization. Jimmy Carter, to take one example, could pontificate and moralize with the best (or worst) of 'em. Grand rhetoric, patient diplomacy, and economic incentives all have a role to play, and frankly, in the big picture, there's not a whole lot to differentiate Carter from Reagan or Dubya on those scores....

Hizballah's "Men Only" Demonstration @ The Astute Blogger:

What does it say about the neojihadists that their demonstration in Beirut today [Tue. Mar. 8] was a man-only affair?...

Optional Speech Protections @ The Volokh Conspiracy:

The First Amendment protects speech, and the Supreme Court has made clear that it protects Internet speech as well as offline speech. Under the logic of the Court's First Amendment cases, bloggers should be as protected as larger media speakers (whether they're offline larger media, or online, such as Slate or Salon)....

Sister Spirit Update @ A Saintly Salmagundi:

Just to let you all know, I got this e-mail today from one of the lesbians/pagans/witches at Camp Sister Spirit: ....

Kennedy, the Teenage Justice @ Southern Appeal:

.... Kennedy is a perfect example of why judges cannot be allowed to set social policy — why should we be subject to his whims? The guy is simply the worst justice currently on the Supreme Court, and that is saying a lot. At least you know where the loons like Ginsburg and Steven are coming from. With Kennedy, it's a coin toss, and he contradicts himself with alarming regularity....

Setting the Record Straight at the American Prospect @ Redstate:

There's plenty to say about Garance Franke-Ruta's article in the American Prospect about conservative bloggers. To put it bluntly, Ms. Franke-Ruta is the Red Queen, running in place, proving only what she already believed without evidence. Along with the substantive problems with her article, I thought I'd just point out the, er, half dozen or so factual errors....

Laodiceans @ Midwest Conservative Journal:

In Great Britain, a year-long survey of 14,000 people tried to determine why church attendance in Britain is dropping like a millstone cast into the sea....

What I Learned From Mr. Carter @ Wittingshire:

Many years ago I interviewed one of my college professors for the school newspaper. He was a gentle giant of a man who rescued baby birds flung from their nests during West Texas windstorms, picking them up from the sidewalks and carrying them home wrapped in a handkerchief in his shirt pocket, nursing them hour by hour....

internally disciplined @ Off the Record:

In aftermath of Bill Clinton's August 1998 televised admission of his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, Joseph Sobran made some judicious remarks on Clinton's tactics of obfuscation:

It wasn't a confession; it was a concession — a tactical retreat in his war on Starr. He was counting on the public to read contrition into his nebulous formulations. But he admitted only what had become undeniable, then immediately tried to turn it to his advantage by using the buzzwords that work in the polls — "the pursuit of personal destruction," "prying into private lives," "nobody's business but ours." ...

His strategy comes down to this: he wants his character to be defined as his "private life." That way he can mount a weird reverse character defense in which he hides his crimes behind his shabby little sins.

Hiding his crimes behind his sins. Perfect. And precisely the strategy adopted by many bishops in the sex-abuse wars....

Rhode Island Public Sector Union Contracts: Getting the Facts Out @ Anchor Rising:

Many thanks to Christine Mattos of East Greenwich for using the Rhode Island Access to Public Records Act to get actual East Greenwich, RI teachers' salary and healthcare benefits data. (I hear her request was met with some resistance initially.) ....

Tom Wolfe's Insight: Crazy as a Cat @ Catholic Analysis:

A regular U.K. reader sends me this link to an excellent book review of Tom Wolfe's already famous I Am Charlotte Simmons. The reviewer is Peter Berkowitz, a fellow of the conservative Hoover Institute at Stanford University and a law professor at George Mason University in Virginia. Berkowitz is insightful and incisive. You should read the entire review. In a nutshell, the reviewer points out that the novel tells us one big truth about culture: the sexual revolution has made us crazy. Our culture has lost touch with reality in the most intimate acts we can ever engage in as human beings....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 03/12/05 08:02:38 AM
Categorized as Blogworthies.