Whither The Fool?

Dissent has gone out of style in U.S. (KansasCity.Com)

I don’t know who Lewis W. Diuguid is aside from his apparent membership on the Editorial Board of the Kansas City Star. But he certainly demonstrates a lack either of education or perspective, if he really believes a statement like this:

Conformity rocks across America these days while dissent keeps losing its voice.

Now, in the first place Mr. Diuguid may be one of those old enough to remember Vietnam, and yet not have a clue as to how the people of the United States typically behave during times of national crisis, when we consider that our security is threatened.

I doubt seriously that the U.S. during the war years following Pearl Harbor ever saw anything even mildly approaching the rabid dissent and pusillanimous rhetoric of the Left and the Democrat party–the supposed “loyal opposition”–since the U.S. embarked on the War on Terror under Mr. Bush’s leadership.

After a very brief interlude full of empty promises of unity and bipartisanship from Democrats and other domestic haters of America just after 9/11, the attack was pressed in full force. Again I say, the U.S. has never seen its like, not even during Vietnam.

At least in the Vietnam era there were reasonable arguments that could be made against our intervention, rightly or wrongly. The radical nature of the so-called “peace movement” (which in reality was simply a movement in support of the Communist insurgency and invasion of South Vietnam) was ridiculous, and a harbinger of things to come in this nation, but there was a respectful moderate faction to the debate as well.

But the two eras–then and now–are grossly different. The U.S. was attacked, and had been in a struggle with malevolent forces in that region for over a decade. The World Trade Center aside, the U.S. had been hit time and again by terrorist for at least a quarter-century. Our patience was at an end, and feckless arguments for “more time” notwithstanding the voice of the people arose in support of the President’s actions.

What tunnel-visionists like Mr. Diuguid cannot fathom is that people simply don’t want to support those who constantly argue that the U.S. is the “bad guy” at this time. It just doesn’t fly.

As someone once said “Freedom of speech” does not include the requirement on the part of anyone that they listen to you.

It is bad enough that he apes the silly “Bush-as-Fuehrer” mantra of the today’s silly Left. But Mr. Diuguid goes further to illustrate who is being “silenced”:

The national wave of compliance doesn’t stop there. It has invaded academia and the media. Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado, is under fire for statements he made comparing those killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann.

I thank Mr. Diuguid for his reminder of who Eichmann was. I also ask him if he has ever heard of Jimmy “the Greek” Schneider, Marge Schott or (more recently) Senator Trent Lott. In each case, the unpopular cast of their comments–even though they may not have intended them as they were interpreted–meant that they had to pay a price for public censure.

I would like to know if Mr. Diuguid feels that only “his side” of the public debate is allowed to choose what is and what is not acceptable in the spoken and written word as deserving of censure.

I wonder what Mr. Diuguid thought of Sen. Lott’s kind words regarding the late Sen. Thurmond that lost him the Senate Republican leadership.

So, Mr. Diuguid, are we to infer that this “chilling effect” has been ongoing for decades now–on both sides of the political aisle–since I can certainly name at least one or more examples of “Leftist political correctness” punishment for every one such as Churchill that you can come up with?

People have called for Churchill to be fired and for him to be turned down for speaking engagements. His opinion may have been offensive. But the last time I checked the First Amendment still gave him the right to free speech.

And last time I checked, Mr. Diuguid, the government was not proposing to stifle Mr. Churchill’s right to speak. Or do you not recall the case of Mr. James Watt, one-time Secretary of Interior under Pres. Reagan? He lost his government job because he used the word “cripple” when current political correctness dictated “handicapped.”

Again, would love to hear your response, Mr. Diuguid.

It’s a disturbing trend that threatens to darken in the next four long years of Bush’s reign.

You people are running low on gas with this endlessly-repeated caveat, Mr. Diuguid. What are you people going to do when the Cassandra prophecies remain unfulfilled?

Oh, but I forget: You demand absolutely no negative effects ought to accrue from your rhetoric. We have a “civic duty” to continue to take you silly people seriously, no matter how stupid you continually prove yourselves to be.

What’s Left for the Left? (FrontPageMag.Com)

Pres. Bush is and was right, but he leaves it to the hand-wringing journalists and historians to point it out.

At his news conference on Wednesday, President Bush declined an invitation to claim vindication for his policy of spreading democracy in the Middle East. After two years of attacks on him as a historical illiterate pursuing the childish fantasy of Middle East democracy, he was entitled to claim a bit of credit. Yet he declined, partly out of modesty (as with Ronald Reagan, one of the secrets of his political success) and partly because he has learned the perils of declaring any mission accomplished.

The democracy project is, of course, just beginning. We do not yet know whether the Middle East today is Europe 1989 or Europe 1848. In 1989 we saw the swift collapse of the Soviet empire; in 1848 there was a flowering of liberal revolutions throughout Europe that, within a short time, were all suppressed.

Nonetheless, 1848 did presage the coming of the liberal idea throughout Europe. (By 1871, it had been restored to France, for example.) It marked a turning point from which there was no going back. The Arab Spring of 2005 will be noted by history as a similar turning point for the Arab world.

We do not yet know, however, whether this initial flourishing of democracy will succeed. The Syrian and Iraqi Baathists, their jihadist allies, and the various regional autocrats are quite determined to suppress it. But we do know one thing: Those who claimed, with great certainty, that Arabs are an exception to the human tendency toward freedom, that they live in a stunted and distorted culture that makes them love their chains — and that the notion the United States could help trigger a democratic revolution by militarily deposing their oppressors was a fantasy — have been proved wrong.

Mr. Krauthammer observes, as we have here previously, that even the most execrable elements of the worldwide Left are beginning to cotton to the fact that Mr. Bush was right to take the course that he did, and that millions of those living in the Middle East–and especially their progeny–are going to have a far better existence because of our intervention.

As an advocate of that notion of democratic revolution, I am not surprised that the opposing view was proved false. I am surprised only that it was proved false so quickly — that the voters in Iraq, the people of Lebanon, the women of Kuwait, the followers of Ayman Nour in Egypt would rise so eagerly at the first breaking of the dictatorial “stability” they had so long experienced (and we had so long supported) to claim their democratic rights.

This amazing display has prompted a wave of soul-searching. When a Le Monde editorial titled “Arab Spring” acknowledges “the merit of George W. Bush,” when the cover headline of London’s The Independent is “Was Bush Right After All?” and when a column in Der Spiegel asks “Could George W. Bush Be Right?” you know that something radical has happened.

It is not just that the ramparts of Euro-snobbery have been breached. Iraq and, more broadly, the Bush doctrine were always more than a purely intellectual matter. The left’s patronizing, quasi-colonialist view of the benighted Arabs was not just analytically incorrect. It was morally bankrupt, too.

Mr. Krauthammer makes the case that, once again, it is the so-called “voices of progressivism” who are the most regressive in their approach toward allowing an oppressed people their freedom. I see the Vietnam era as the beginning of this phenomenon: The American Left was willing–even eager–to see South Vietnam in bondage to the Communists, willing to ignore and excuse Viet Cong attrocities and the support of the Soviet Union for the malevolence of North Vietnam just so the Vietnamese people could be uniformly made miserable in Communist chains.

After all, going back at least to the Spanish Civil War, the left has always prided itself on being the great international champion of freedom and human rights. And yet, when America proposed to remove the man responsible for torturing, gassing and killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, the left suddenly turned into a champion of Westphalian sovereign inviolability.

A leftist judge in Spain orders the arrest of a pathetic, near-senile Gen. Augusto Pinochet eight years after he’s left office, and becomes a human rights hero — a classic example of the left morally grandstanding in the name of victims of dictatorships long gone. Yet for the victims of contemporary monsters still actively killing and oppressing — Khomeini and his successors, the Assads of Syria and, until yesterday, Hussein and his sons — nothing. No sympathy. No action. Indeed, virulent hostility to America’s courageous and dangerous attempt at rescue.

The international left’s concern for human rights turns out to be nothing more than a useful weapon for its anti-Americanism. Jeane Kirkpatrick pointed out this selective concern for the victims of U.S. allies (such as Chile) 25 years ago. After the Cold War, the hypocrisy continues. For which Arab people do European hearts burn? The Palestinians. Why? Because that permits the vilification of Israel — an outpost of Western democracy and, even worse, a staunch U.S. ally. Championing suffering Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese offers no such satisfaction. Hence, silence.

Until now. Now that the real Arab street has risen to claim rights that the West takes for granted, the left takes note. It is forced to acknowledge that those brutish Americans led by their simpleton cowboy might have been right. It has no choice. It is shamed. A Lebanese, amid a sea of a million other Lebanese, raises a placard reading “Thank you, George W. Bush,” and all that Euro-pretense, moral and intellectual, collapses.

The Left is going to be shown to be as insane as it really is–but it will never matter, to them or to their willing lackies the MSM. We can only hope that the disconnect between what they say and what they support will always be so obvious to free people.

I am encouraged: I didn’t see a single sign among the Lebanese revolutionaries with John Kerry’s name on it.

Some weeks ago I had the chance to phone in to The Better Home Show which is broadcast here locally in the Houston area on KSEV-AM. I was responding to the discussions they were having as to the “wonderful” consumer protections now in place for those having homes built by professional builders here in Texas, due to the creation of the Texas Residential Construction Commission.

Of course, one of the problems with attempting to “editorialize” on a radio call-in show like this is they are geared more for answering questions from callers, not providing a soap-box. This was the case on the day I called in. It didn’t take long after I launched into my impromptu speech–I was in my car when I heard the discussion–before the female emcee cut me off to allow the “experts” to respond.

Because they were not themselves really informed (or dare I say “interested”) regarding the implications of the TRCC, their response was non sequitur. My point wasn’t that the TRCC isn’t a “good thing,” but that it will not address the fundamental problem facing the unwary homeowner in our state: The lack of established and enforceable standards during the construction process due to the fact that much of the state is not covered under any building code whatsoever, and many cities that have adopted a building code do not have any sort of enforcement whatsoever.

It is all very well to say “oh, look, now if we have a problem with a home not built to standards we have a ‘neutral third party’ to help us resolve the dispute.” But my experience is that most homeowners want there to be no dispute in the first place. They want their homes built right the first time!

I sent them an email via the “contact” page of the show’s website.

Herewith, my Open Letter to the hosts of “The Better Home Show”:

I was a caller on your show broadcast here in Houston on this past Saturday Feb. 26. I am a structural engineer whose practice includes design of residential structures. I made the comment that “there is no building code for the state of Texas, and builders are not required by law to conform to the IRC 2000 or any either code unless they are building within the city limits of a jurisdiction that has adopted a building code.” Your comment was that I was incorrect, that “House Bill 730 requires builders to conform to IRC 2000.”

Again, respectfully, I must tell you that you are incorrect. Please see:
http://www.trcc.state.tx.us/faq/faq_build_codes.htm which is on the TRCC website. The TRCC standards are PERFORMANCE STANDARDS; in effect, they tell you the criteria to which a home must PERFORM after it is built. This has NO BEARING on whether a home was built in conformance to a building code. The problem I have with this whole scenario is that it benefits no one but the lawyers. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Builders will continue to try to get away with shoddy construction practices, trusting in their luck and the arcane nature of our litigation system to protect them from any real costs associated with substandard construction.

What I’m saying is that until we start practicing PREVENTION in terms of allowing the counties to adopt and enforce building codes–or having the state adopt the code statewide and setting up some means of enforcement–things are going to continue just as they have been.

Further, the “standards” adopted by TRCC are NO DIFFERENT than the standard warranty that the housing industry in Texas has provided for years. Nothing is changing; the TRCC is a smokescreen by the home builders to try to stave off any further responsibility. I have had many clients who supposedly had this same “warranty” provided on their homes by MAJOR homebuilders, and they played merry HELL trying just to get the problems fixed–never mind suing for damages, etc.

The irony is that at this point, I need builders’ good will to expand my own business. But far too often when I submit a design to a builder, I get the old song-and-dance “this is too expensive, you’re ‘overengineering’ this to protect yourself.” The notion that (1) my designs are to the prevailing building code standards, and (2) an adequate design protects THEM from adverse liability as well, doesn’t matter to them because they know the system is set up to protect THEM by giving only limited recourse to homeowners when structural errors are found.

I am rather concerned that you are helping to perpetuate a false sense of understanding about what rights the homeowner has in the event of discovery of construction errors.

We “brag” about the low cost of housing in Texas but the fact is that mostly this is due to builders’ being able to construct substandard housing and then avoid liability through a number of tactics. I have seen this on low-cost housing, and I’ve seen it with homes costing a half-million or more (in THIS market). It is distressing, and if PREVENTION is not employed, and soon, the backlash is going to hurt the housing industry as well as the consumer, because NO ONE WANTS EXCESSIVE REGULATION.

Thanks for your consideration.

I did not receive a reply to my comments. I must say that I have not had occasion to listen to the show since, so perhaps they did respond over the air. I would love to know what that response was, or would be.

Eric Pfeiffer’s Beltway Buzz: What Democrats Said About Filibusters

The perfidy of the so-called “leading Democrats” in the U.S. Senate regarding the stalling of Pres. Bush’s nominees to fill Federal bench vacancies is appalling. Eric Pfeiffer weighs in with some interesting information

When Republicans shut down the government in opposition to Bill Clinton it hurt them. Democrats are now threatening similar action against President Bush’s judicial nominees.

What did several of these prominent Democrats say about filibusters during Clinton’s administration? If these five Democrats stood by their previous arguments, the filibuster battle would be resolved.

Mr. Pfeiffer goes on to render his quotes. I am re-quoting them here, but I have interjected some later, contradictory declarations by the same individuals:

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA

Barbara Boxer — 5/14/97:

It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor.

Sen. Boxer was singing a different tune just two days ago, 3/16/05, at a MoveOn.Org rally:

Why would we give lifetime appointments to people who earn up to $200,000 a year, with absolutely a great retirement system, and all the things all Americans wish for, with absolutely no check and balance except that one confirmation vote. So we’re saying we think you ought to get nine votes over the 51 required. That isn’t too much to ask for such a super important position. There ought to be a super vote. Don’t you think so?

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-IL

Dick Durbin — 9/28/98:

If, after 150 days languishing on the Executive Calendar that name has not been called for a vote, it should be. Vote the person up or down.

However, Sen. Durbin during Mr. Bush’s first term said:

The standard that was used beforeâ..itâ..s likely it will be used againâ..was that if the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee vote unanimously against a nominee, then the recommendation to the caucus will be to oppose the nominee, including through the use of the filibuster. That is what led to the ten who were not confirmed.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-IA

Tom Harkin — 1/5/95:

I do not believe that I as a member of the minority ought to have the right to absolutely stop something because I think it is wrong, that that is rule by minority.

But as a leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Harkin has been a prime mover of the filibuster effort behind the scenes:

Sen. Harkin is often coined as one of the key Senate Democrats pushing the filibuster of President Bush’s nominees. As recently as yesterday, Sen. Harkin attempted to gather party members in another filibuster attempt to block another judicial nominee Jeffrey Sutton; however, the attempt was stopped by minority leadership.

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA

Ted Kennedy — 3/7/00

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court said: “The Senate is surely under no obligation to confirm any particular nominee, but after the necessary time for inquiry it should vote him up or vote him down.” Which is exactly what I would like.

According to the Democrat Senate memo leaked in 2003, however, that is not what Kennedy believes about Pres. Bush’s nominees:

According to Senate sources, he urged Daschle to devise a long-term strategy: to make a short list of judicial nominees that the Democrats would keep from ever coming to a vote. Privately, Kennedy talks frankly of a filibuster strategy. While conceding that Estrada is “intelligent,” Kennedy has told colleagues that he must be filibustered because of the need to win an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the White House.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT

Pat Leahy — 6/18/98

If we don’t like somebody the President nominates, vote him or her down. But don’t hold them in this anonymous unconscionable limbo, because in doing that, the minority of Senators really shame all Senators.

But commenting in 2004 about a recess appointment–provided for in the Constitution–by Pres. Bush to fill a nomination that had been filibustered by Senate Democrats, Leahy said:

Actions like this show the American people that this White House will stop at nothing to try to turn the independent federal judiciary into an arm of the Republican Party.

Democrat hypocrisy. Powerful stuff. Would that the Republican leadership in the Senate had the moxie to use these Senators’ words against them. I suppose they’d say that would violate the tradition of “collegiality” that supposedly runs deep in the Senate. But why does one side have to observe that tradition, but the other is exempt?

Take off the gloves, Sen. Frist.

Weâ..ll See What Kind of Man George Bush Is (LaShawnBarber.Com)

Caught some of La Shawn’s diatribe against the comments of Vicente Fox, who apparently has asked Pres. Bush to “rein in some of your extremists,” meaning the various citizen’s groups that have formed to monitor the border and turn in illegal immigrants to the Border Patrol.

Fox is messing with the wrong country. This is the spirit of America and its people. Grass-roots movements have always and will continue to rise as long as citizens believe they’re not being represented by the people they put in office. George Bush, if you’re reading this blog, that means YOU!

La Shawn is incredulous:

The leader of an insignificant third world country thinks he can run the United States and dictate its immigration policy?

Actually, La Shawn, this makes a great deal of sense when you consider the oligarchy that is Mexico. Mexico’s electoral process has always been carefully scripted; for instance, the tradition in Mexico for years was that the current President hand-picks his successor, and the corruption and PRI party structure for decades ensured this succession.

Ironically, Fox was supposed to be the “PRI-buster” when he was elected in 2000. But the elitism of Mexican politics runs deeper than just one political party. Fox likely cannot conceive of a “free” nation where the political class doesn’t dictate policy exclusive of the wishes of the people.

It must be frustrating for Fox because he does not realize that the “most powerful leader on earth” is actually powerless to “rein in” those who oppose some of his policies.

Sudan Accuses Michael Jackson of Molestation (ScrappleFace.Com)

Having been in email contact with MeMo, which has erupted into an all-out cold war between myself and her defenders (she’s daintily staying out of the fray aside from remonstrating on her ‘blog), I would like to present a melding of her and my world-views in the form of the wonderful ScrappleFace.

In this article, she gets plenty of vacuous pop-culture as championed week-daily by MeMo, and I get sarcastic political wit, the type to which I can only dream to aspire:

The people of the African nation of Sudan today accused American pop singer Michael Jackson of molestation in a bid to get international attention for the armed conflict, starvation and disease which kills an estimated 10,000 Sudanese each month.

“Michael Jackson must come to the Darfur region to face trial,” said the Sudanese attorney who filed the class-action lawsuit. “We’re asking the court to subpoena Mr. Jackson and the entire retinue of reporters who now follow his every move.”

The lawyer said if this tactic fails to draw attention to the human disaster which has killed an estimated 180,000 people, then he plans to stage a high-speed car chase through Darfur and offer live helicopter shots of the event to American TV networks.

See, the “Sudan” of ScrappleFace’s alternate universe “gets it.” They realize this is what it will take to get the powerful elements of the MSM represented by MeMo to pay them some attention.

I hope MeMo’s defenders will take note; this is what I’ve been trying to say to them all along. If brevity is the soul of wit, and I go twice as long, I guess by the laws of mathematical reciprocity I’m merely a half-wit.

Looting at [Iraq] Weapons Plants Was Systematic, Iraqi Says (NYTimes.Com)

As far as I can tell, Rush Limbaugh is really the only commentator making a great deal of noise about this. I thought I’d chime in. The New York Times published an article over the weekend (of course) regarding revelations of clandestine plants intended to develop nuclear weapons for Saddam’s regime:

In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein’s most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government’s first extensive comments on the looting.

Okay, time out. Let’s review some other NYT reporting on the issue of WMD in Iraq:

• Remember ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’? For Bush, They Are a Nonissue (12/18/03):

Sen Bob Graham points out that Congressional vote authorizing use of force would have been closer but for Bush’s explicit warning of imminent threat; Bush continues shifting rationale, saying that removing Hussein was justifed even without weapon.

[N.B. The fact that Mr. Bush at no time ever uttered the words "imminent threat" is irrelevant as far as the interchangeable NYT/Democrat Party is concerned].

• U.S. Report Finds Iraq Was Minimal Weapons Threat in ‘03 (10/06/04):

Iraq had essentially destroyed its illicit weapons capability within months after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, and its capacity to produce such weapons had eroded even further by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector in Iraq [Charles Duelfer] said in a report made public today.

[N.B. for a distinctly different interpretation of the Duelfer report, see this editorial in the Washington Times].

• The Verdict Is In (10/07/04):

Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. [The] findings leave Bush administration’s rationale for war more tattered than ever.

• Search for Illicit Weapons in Iraq Ends (01/12/2005):

The White House confirmed today that the search in Iraq for the banned weapons it had cited as justifying the war that ousted Saddam Hussein has been quietly ended after nearly two years, with no evidence of their existence.

Democrats immediately called for Mr. Bush to explain how he and his advisers could have insisted so confidently that dangerous stocks of the banned weapons existed inside Iraq. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader of the House, said the president needed to explain why he was “so wrong, for so long.”

Mr. Bush led the U.S. effort in company with many allied nations–despite the NYT-led reports to the contrary–to stop Saddam’s continuation of development of these weapons. Since the invasion, we’ve found vials of botulin toxin, a bunch of chemical projectiles with mustard and sarin gas warheads (see page 30 of the Duelfer report at the provided link), mortar rounds containing mustard gas, uranium-tipped “dirty bomb” missiles, and a great deal more.

Yet the Left persists in their caterwauling that “Bush lied.”

“Lied” about what? Saddam was malevolent. He proved his willingness to kill using chemical weapons on his own people. He befriended terrorists; there were terrorist training camps just outside Baghdad, as well as at Salman Pak where terrorists trained to assault commercial passenger aircraft.

But still, “Bush lied.”

Now we know from the New York Times itself that Iraq had a secret nuclear program, yet the only commentary you read in the article is:

The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion.

What the H*ll is this? Does the Times not understand this is exactly why people hold the MSM in such scorn?

Here we have the Iraq National Assembly, duly elected by the people of Iraq in a stunning voter turnout even in the face of terrorist murder-threats, convening for the first time [Link to "Outside the Beltway"], a further vindication of the promises made and kept by Pres. Bush, and we still have to listen to the “Bush lied” mantra from the Left.

Shame.

Experts agree child, 4, can’t comprehend effects of shooting (HoustonChronicle.Com)

“What would we do without experts!” Part XXXVIII

HoustonChronicle.com - MeMo

A moment to rail against one of the most irrelevant pieces of tripe that I’ve come across on the ‘net.

I first noticed the “MeMo Blog” a year or so ago, shortly after it had begun to be published on the website of our hometown Newspaper, the Houston Chronicle.

Ironically, although the Chronicle was one of the first “big-city” newspapers to establish a web presence, this so-called “cultural blog” can only be ascribed to one or more people that don’t have the slightest idea what the power of modern electronic communication can do.

It’s sort of like obtaining a fuel-cell prototype, then exclusively using it to power your curling iron. The twit-ette young professional woman that writes this thing has got to be one of the most vapid creatures self-underutilized talents I’ve ever seen represented in print. She makes Richard Simmons look culturally relevant.

She styles her musings as a “cultural blog,” but everything is really about pop culture, as if we really, really need another journalist to go on and on about that stuff.

The closest she comes to any real sort of “social commentary” is her snide remarks about Pres. Bush and Republicans, but they always come off in a tiny-brained, clueless way, like “my best girlfriend and I were having our pedicures and we both agreed while the towel-boy was cleaning us up that we really don’t like the direction the country is heading.”

Among the most nauseating off-putting aspects of MeMo are:

• She always refers to herself in the third person. I mean, that’s kind of “special” to do a time or two–all diarists do sometimes. But constantly? Like you’re living your life while watching the proceedings through your compact mirror?
• Constant pop-cultural references that are very heavy on the faux-Yiddish a la Barbra Streisand: “It’s ova!”
• Use of slang en vogue among teen-agers eight to ten years ago (which may, in fact, be when she herself was below the age of twenty): “He’s so not writing his own blog!” “eeeeeewwwwww!” (Though she does get points back for an occasional “dang.”)
• Continual reference to herself as a “blue-stater.” Not sure if she means she’s from “up nawth” as we say ’round heah, or if she’s got a blue-state heart in a red-state world. (Once she did describe herself as a “blue-state pantywaist,” to which I had to respond in an aside to myself: “Of course you’re a pantywaist! You’re a girl!”)

Anyway, I almost hesitate to direct anyone to this fluffy sillyness, but sometimes I think you have to laugh someone to scorn before the healing can begin.

UPDATE 03/16/05 — 5:45PM

Okay, MeMo got mad, and she made some valid points. I erred.

If I’m gonna go off on her public *PERSONA* I ought not to tell her so. Snidely, I sent her an email alerting her to the existence of this post. She said I was mean, and I guess she’s right.

I shouldn’t have used “twit-ett” or called her “vapid,” not if I was going to alert her to the fact. Too much time spent online firing at imaginary people–or so it seems sitting here in front of the monitor.

So “MeMo,” I’m sorry I seemed to get personal. I really *was* aiming at the person you seem to portray on the ‘blog. And the fact that with all the conversation going on here in the ‘blogosphere, the Chronicle chooses to trumpet one about absolutely nothing relevant.

Okay, I’ve apologized to you–I really am sorry.

Now you owe one to Dwight Silverman.

N.B. “MeMo,” my wife thinks I’m “nice.” She has me trained, though. I guess she hasn’t trained me to be nice to other girls all the time. It’s all her fault, you know.

Jarvis Speaks (MichelleMalkin.Com)
Jeff Jarvis’ “Buzzmachine” Blog continues a discussion of “who blogs.” The MSM, always on the lookout for the all-important discrediting “gotcha,” is now on the YaddaYadda that “only white males blog, and who cares what they think anyway?”

Leaving aside for the moment that the MSM is preponderantly “white male,” I don’t know that anyone can “prove” who blogs and who doesn’t. Certainly high profile bloggers like Michelle Malkin and La Shawn Barber–who have more cred than I probably ever will–are exceptions to their spurious rule.

Michelle herself has doubts in a different vein:

Jeff Jarvis says, “don’t judge the blogosphere only by 100 blogs on top of some list. That’s so old media. There are eight million blogs — and 7,999,900 of them that get more traffic and more links and more interest than those mere 100.”

Jarvis is always worth reading, but on this particular point, I have my doubts. If any of you statistician-types want to weigh in, shoot me an e-mail. I’ll post the best ones.

No email, I’m going directly for the Trackback.

Michelle: I do think this is likely true. Many of the well-known ‘blogs with a large following appear to me to be in the place they are because they were “early adopters.” Many of them seem no more “plugged in” or erudite than many of the “bottom feeders,” in my opinion.

I have next to no traffic on my own ‘blog. That may be because I have nothing worthwhile to say–but it could also be an indication that I’ve only been doing this for a couple of months (procrastination has always been my friend), and that the blogosphere is fairly saturated. Like the ever-amusing Iowahawk put it in a recent article:

Did you know that today, over 7 million Americans are writing their own blogs — and nearly 1.2 million Americans are actually reading them?

The market is “always right” only in that it picks winners and losers. But the market choice isn’t always based on consensus criteria. I can think of a lot better computer operating system choices than MS Windows, for example, but the market has spoken there, lamely, as well.

I do believe that the jury will be out for another couple of years, though, as we see how it all shakes out. The hypercommercial aspect of so many of the “top 100″-variety ‘blogs is already cloying to me. Many of those who are riding high may find themselves victims of “Usenet disease” before too long.