Life and times of Jason since 2001
Why is it that last week James Webb’s mum on the Senate’s Iraq War debate yet he’s quick to stand against the Flag Burning amendment the day before the Senate even addresses it? From his press release:
This is yet another example of deliberately divisive politics that distract Americans from the real issues that are facing our country…
So where were you last week, Sec. Webb?
As seen by a Russian tourist. Think China shortly after Mao’s death.
French paper Le Monde continues to try and nail Lance Armstrong on doping:
Seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong has admitted he took banned drugs including erythropoietin (EPO) at the time he was being treated for cancer, the French daily Le Monde reported on Friday.
“According to new testimonies gathered from October 2005 to January 2006 by a court in Dallas, the seven-times Tour de France winner told a Indiana University Hospital doctor on October 28, 1996 he had taken performance-enhancing drugs,” Le Monde said.
Jon Henke has a great analysis of the Kosola mix-up:
I’m not particularly concerned about the recent Kos/Armstrong allegations, if only because (1) I fully expect the new wave of political power-players to engage in power-brokering, and (2) I’m not at all convinced that some of the activities are even remotely problematic. The Townhouse email group, for example, is not a “smoke-filled back room”. It’s an email group. Heck, I’ve set up one of those — called Blogosphere — and anybody is welcome to sign up, exchange links, make suggestions or otherwise exert your insidious influence to make the blogger-marionets dance.
That said, the apparent insistence on party and message discipline is worrisome. It indicates that the Progressive Movement has internalized the very flaws that so often characterized the Republican majority, and against which the Democrats have railed.
He also links to a Barack Obama diary at DailyKos that makes a great argument for the sake of the “progressive” movment as well.
With Senate debate this week on Iraq, Kilo shares a George Allen press release that asks a very good question: Why the silence James Webb?
Maxthon, a browser made by a tiny Beijing company of the same name, has attracted millions of users in China for functionality that can funnel traffic through a Web proxy and circumvent government controls on information in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu.com and other popular sites or Internet service providers in that country.
…
According to Maxthon research, about 14 percent of the Chinese Web population has used the browser and 17 percent employs it for Web search.
…
Of course, Maxthon does not promote the proxy feature openly–it’s merely a shortcut that has spread virally among Chinese Web surfers. People who download the browser must be fairly technically savvy to activate it, but according to Jacobsson, various bulletin boards in Chinese instruct people how to do it.
Interesting development and great news for the people of China. But how long before Maxthon finds itself under some serious pressure from the CCP?
Althouse picks apart Kos’s response to the New Republic article. Kos now seems to have declared war against The New Republic for simply reporting on a letter that Kos does admit to existing.
223pm UPDATE: Jeff Goldstein has more here. He also summarizes his previous day’s post:
In yesterday’s post on this story, I noted that what was being slowly revealed here—moreso, perhaps, than any evidence of wrongdoing on Kos’ part—was a progressivist mindset that is fanatical about controlling the narrative, and especially about defining the parameters of identitarian “authenticity”. Of course, little did I know at the time that Kos would be so eager to make my point for me.
Many bloggers feel that they are in a great position to dictate the news, whether it’s by determining what in the MSM deserves their attention or debunking or by starting the stories that the MSM are too “scared” or “biased” to touch. But when a story comes out of the MSM on one of their own they go into damage control.
How care the MSM try and change the way the blog works by targeting one or us or revealing some of the inner workings? The nerve…
255pm UPDATE: And it seems Mickey Kaus over at Slate has some thoughts as well. It’s traditional media bloggers versus the “progressive” bloggers.
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has a post up with plenty of links concerning Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas, and what appears to be an effort by blogs to smother MSM reports with silence. If blogs can impact MSM coverage by widening the discussion and sometimes breaking and doing the groundwork on a story, can they also kill a story just by ignoring it?
630pm UPDATE: Shaun’s got a brief take on this.
Also, to tie this in with Virginia, Jerome Armstrong heads up the internet strategy side of of Mark Warner’s Forward Together PAC.
6/22 922am UPDATE: Chad had some good info on this back on Tuesday as well as it’s potential impact on Warner.
White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen was kinda upset the other day:
Angry with a recent column by Mariotti critical of Guillen’s handling of recently demoted relief pitcher Sean Tracey and upset with Mariotti with columns of the past, Guillen said to reporters when referring to Mariotti before Tuesday’s game with the Cardinals, “What a piece of [expletive] he is, [expletive] fag.”
In his defense:
Guillen said that in his native Venezuela, that word is not a reference to a person’s sexuality, but to his courage. He said he was saying that Mariotti is “not man enough to meet me and talk about [things before writing].”
Guillen also told Couch that he has gay friends, attends WNBA games, went to a Madonna concert and plans to go to the Gay Games in Chicago.
…
Wow.
He didn’t quite hit that mark Tuesday, though he took a heck of a whack at it in the form of a particularly expressive attack on one of his favorite media targets. In the span of 102 seconds, Guillen leveled 25 words one generally cannot read in a family newspaper at the Sun-Times’ Jay Mariotti.
For those scoring at home, there were 14 variations of the f-word, five s-words, three a-words, a b-word, a G.D. and the straw that broke the camel’s back, a three-letter reference either to Mariotti’s sexuality or British slang for a cigarette.
It also means he’s a coward in Venezuelan slang. They forgot that part.
Majority Votes to Legalize Whaling
A slim majority of nations on the International Whaling Commission voted Sunday in support of legalizing commercial whaling.
The vote—33 for and 32 against, with one abstention—fell short of the three-quarters majority needed to overturn the 20-year ban on commercial whaling.
…
“Many species and stocks of whales are abundant and sustainable whaling is possible,” the motion read.
Pro-whaling nations argue the abundant whale populations are depleting fish stocks important to the livelihood of small island nations.
“That carries virtually no scientific credibility,” Read said.