alternative hippopotamus

My answer to Pajama’s Media, is what I’ll call “Home-Brewed Media.” Basically the concept is instead of linking to the Daily Show, you actually create your own video. BrewTube, perhaps?

My first masterpiece (you’re on warning Scorcese) is the introduction to a microdocumentary on the new media. You can download it here.

Update: I’ve renamed the file to *.mov, though it’s really an *.mp4 file, and it now downloads. Some video players might be upset by this bit of bogusness, however.

George Will:

Webb’s more gross offense was calculated rudeness toward another human being — one who, disregarding many hard things Webb had said about him during the campaign, asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another.

Middle Earth Journal:

And speaking of civility, has Mr Will forgotten that the ever civil Vice President told a Democratic Senator to “go fuck himself” on the Senate floor.

TPMCafe:

See what happened? Will omitted the pissy and rude quote spoken by the President which originally provoked Webb. Will cut out the line from the President where he said: “That’s not what I asked you.” In Will’s recounting, that instead became a sign of Bush’s parental solicitiousness: “The president again asked `How’s your boy?’”

Of course Will distorted the record. Of course he ignored The Curse of the Shooter. Will is a Republican activist. Have we already forgotten this is the same guy who stole Carter’s debating materials, coached Reagan, then praised Reagan’s debating performance on air- keeping his role secret?

This is a guy who gets paid by the number of right-wing echoes he can create.

What Do I Know?:

What I have come to understand after reading lots of blog posts on how to increase your blog traffic: Titling a post “How to increase your blog traffic” or “Six tips to increase your blog traffic” will increase your blog traffic.

Times of London:

A prehistoric Jaws that terrorised the oceans 400 million years ago had the most powerful bite of any creature yet known, scientists have discovered.

The ancient sea monster, known as Dunkleosteus terrelli, could bring its fangs together with a force of almost 5,000kg (11,000lb), making it almost four times more powerful than Tyrannosaurus rex.

There’s something revealing about the confrontation between Webb and Bush described in the Washington Post:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

At this point, a normal person would have said: I hope your son comes home safely. The leader of the free world instead opts for the snippy approach:

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

Of course, there’s no way to know exactly what Webb was thinking. If it was me I would have thought something like: Next time you want to start a war of choice, maybe you should first ask yourself if you would ask your daughters to serve in it.

The hysterical children of NRO are of course deeply offended by Webb’s words. This for instance: “K-Lo, it could be argued that this is precisely what Webb’s Daily Kos base wants, someone to treat Bush like a bumbling neocon-plaything to his face.” Or this: “If you take the — by my lights — most reasonable view that the Post was fairly capturing a moment of extreme dyspepsia from Virginia’s junior Senator, then Bush’s response to Webb’s tone is understandable.”

Guardian UK:

During the day, the pound briefly hit $1.95 - its highest level since December 2004 - before settling back to $1.935, the level reached on Friday. Some foreign exchange analysts are predicting the pound will cross the $2 mark for the first time since the early 1990s, fuelled in part by a differential in interest rates between Britain and America.

Seattle Pi:

DENVER — A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

As this article describes, the peace sign originated from a graphic for nuclear disarmament, and is composed of the semaphore for N and D. Not, as the nutnik in the article suggests, a symbol of Satan.

I don’t think that little bit of trivia will appease the nutniks, however.

There’s an analogy to be made between the 2006 elections and the 2004 World Series, which brought a baseball championship to Boston for the first time in something like 3000 years. The Red Sox didn’t need to just win, they had to come back from a 3 game deficit to beat the Yankees in New York. And then sweep the Cardinals. It had to be the kind of Series that justifies belief in divine intervention.

The Democratic Party didn’t just recapture the House and Senate. They ousted the nemeses of the left in the process: Santorum, Pombo, and Tom Delay, and with them the horrible K Street Project (that’s the come from behind victory to beat the Yankees, if you’re still following the analogy). And made history by making Nancy Pelosi the first woman Speaker of the House. ( which in the analogy is like sweeping the Cards.)

That brings me to Pelosi Derangement Syndrome, or PDS. PDS is, simply put, the natural antithesis of BDS, or Bush Derangement Syndrome. Let me explain. The rightie blogosphere coined the term BDS to explain the consistent negative reaction to everything Bush 43 has said or done. Even the sound of Bush’s voice has been known to send some of us in the leftie blogosphere, myself included, into fits of mock impeachment. But, what has kept the more devout in the rightie blogosphere from even tentative criticism of Bush 43? ( Here, I’ll note briefly the one occasion when the Malkins, NROs, and Powerlines let their scorn be known: the nomination of Harriet Myers. We’ll get back to that in a moment.)
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There’s an old adage among folks who’ve treaded the boards, both real and virtual: “It’s called show business. No show, no business. No business, no show.”

If you’ve never tried to put money together for a play, a short film, etc., you might not understand the slings and arrows of financing an artistic project. It’s one of my complaints about YouTube, though they’re not the worst offender, just one that happens to be in vogue right now.

I haven’t commisioned a poll, but I’ve spoken to a few people offline, and it’s clear to me that folks don’t see why taking somebody else’s video and putting it online hurts anyone. The argument goes: Isn’t that helping the video producer create buzz through viral marketing? When someone puts up a clip from the Daily Show, doesn’t that get more people to watch the Daily Show?
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I hope Thanksgiving has been good for you. I am thankful that I’ve been able to gather once again with friends and family here in the sleepy village of Washington, DC. I’m thankful that through a combination of good luck, and some persistence on my part, I’m surrounded by people immune from the propaganda and disinformation catapulted by the Republican Noise Machine. I’m thankful for this somewhat addictive mechanism known as the internets. I’m thankful that history has provided us with men and women of sound judgement whose reason I can appeal to in chaotic times: Socrates, Thoreau, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Anton Checkov, Martin Luther King, Jesus of Nazareth,… The list continues seemingly without end. I’m thankful it’s not a short list.

While watching a history channel program on FBI files created to hurass John Lennon, and keep him from interfering in domestic politics- meaning Nixon’s administration primarily, I experienced a moment of gratitude for those who cared enough about society to be dissenters.

Which led me to the following observation: the modern blogosphere has grown up amidst the Bush 43 administration. It would be largely correct to say that it has grown up because of the Bush 43 administration. The electronic printing press exists to fill that void that exists between Bush’s mouth and its domestic audience. For the last few years it has become one of, if not the, primary means of dissent.

Dissent, thus far, in the eyes of the right half of the blogosphere has been tantamount to “enemy of the state” status. Take for example this post from the Jawa Report lightly stolen from the comments at this Glenn Greenwald post:

After the Democrats won in November, I wondered just how long it would take for their influence to see real world results….Contrary to the Lefties argument that our presence in Iraq creates more violence, the terrorist’s morale and appetite for the blood of innocents has only been heightened by the anticipation of a US withdrawal promised by Nancy Pelosi.
Good job Democrats. You’ve really turned things around for Iraq.

In other circumstances I might be inclined to pounce on this, but instead will reflect that the right is now in the position of being the dissenters. The democratically elected majorities in the House and Senate are, after all, no less “US government” than the Bushies.

It will be interesting to hear from our colleagues on the right, the Powerliners, the Malkinians, the NRO’ers, how this is a good kind of dissent, while criticism of the Executive branch is a bad kind of dissent.