It's really been a great couple of days for us, what with the House and the Senate swinging back to us and Rumsfeld leaving. It's a great time for me, too - Boyda beat Ryun, Phill Kline got clobbered in his race, and some semblance of sanity has been restored to my state. It's a great time to be a Democrat.

And yet, I can't help but feel a little sad. Not about the election, which better than I thought it would in my wildest dreams. It's the discourse that has me down. I realized that there would be a few conservatives who would overreact, but this...

I don't normally like the Colbert Report. Stephen was better on the Daily Show, as far as I'm concerned. However, Tuesday night was brilliant. It was great because Colbert's over-the-top routine was spot-on. The next morning, the wingnuts were repeating the same lines, only they were serious.

If irony wasn't dead before, it is now. And how can I write humor without irony? How can I top what the wingnuts are saying?

But I won't let this keep me down. I am dedicated to the work, I am up to the challenge, and I will not rest until satire is alive and well again. Behold, as I top every 'nut on the 'Net:

It was a tragedy that I couldn't attend BlogHer. The conference took place a 40 minute drive away (San Jose), and I knew some people who were going. Unfortunately, I don't drive, and I just can't afford the transportation and hotel costs right now. I had thus reconciled myself to the fact BlogHer was out of my reach, and I planned to spend the weekend twiddling with Breakingranks.net and catching up on Jamal Dajani's Middle East Intelligence Report.

[Also posted as a diary at The Big Orange.]

As all those Kossacks congregate today and over the weekend in Vegas, I will be trying to find various ways to avoid grading this stack of papers (with a stack of exams to follow next week -- stupid quarter system).  I had tried to convince myself over the past weeks and months that I would find a way to go, but with the end of the academic year, a cross country move coming up in less than a month, and a down payment on a house (first time buyers!) that makes any kind of extra expenditure such as this weekend would have been very difficult to justify, I find myself still here, regretting already not going to what I am convinced will be an historic gathering.

So I will purchase the AirAmerica stream, and I will cram as much of the C-SPAN coverage as I can fit onto a videotape (TiVo ... hopefully after the move), and I will stare at all the folks whose nyms are so familiar (and many who aren't) and marvel at the thought of Kos and Atrios and Jane Hamsher all in the same location with Howard Dean and Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer, etc.

The Yearly Kos is not the only big event for bloggers and political sorts this summer. Here is an exciting sounding event for those who may be a little less partisan, a little more media and journalism oriented, and especially for those living in the East who can't make it to Vegas.

The Summit Conference on Internet-Driven Changes in Politics will be, according to Norman Sims, a journalism professor and one of the conference organizers, "a combination roundtable summit, workshop and conference on how the Web and multimedia technologies are redefining journalism, politics, democracy and communities. We're creating a crossover meeting place for leading thinkers in four arenas: media, education, politics and education."

The conference is scheduled for June 29-July 1 at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Today is the fourth anniversary of one of the icons of the liberal blogosphere, Atrios of Eschaton.  I discovered both Kos and Atrios in summer of '03 and have been wasting spending countless hours at both places ever since.

His first two posts, of April 17, 2002, were:

Is this thing on?

and

I wonder how long it will be until literally dozens of people are reading this on an almost monthly basis.

Little did he know ...

Even if you aren't an Eschaton regular, drop by at some point today and say hello there.  (And if you are a novice, go to the top thread, since threads tend to die out as soon as a new one is posted, and staying on topic is not strictly enforced ...)

-- Stu

Is this why I haven't noticed Larry Johnson posting around the liberal blogosphere much any more?

I've always been down on the blogger triumphalists. You know - the ones who seem to believe that blogs will obliterate the traditional media establishment with the twin fists of circular linking and specious third-hand rumors. Before today, I thought that this was nonsense. Blogs, after all, are aggregators - most of us don't report on the news, we sort it and talk about it. We're the output, not the input.

At least that's what I believed until I read this (emphasis added, as if it were necessary):

The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

Bloggers?

Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events.

There you have it. The United States government apparently believes that bloggers are as big a threat to the country as Hollywood-style super hackers.

Are we really that powerful? I doubt it. But I'd like to run a few tests, just to be sure. Below are a series of stories. Into each one I have covertly woven deliberate misinformation. If I've underestimated our power and these stories plunge the nation into chaos, well, I'm sorry.

Over the last several months, I have been following a number of articles and threads regarding basic civility (or perhaps I should say lack thereof) as regards blogging.  The Mena Trott, Ben Metcalfe dust-up at Les Blogs last December is a prime example.  Ad hominem attacks seem to be de rigueur, these days.  Any and all petty grievances get aired without the slightest thought to consequence, indeed; without any thought at all.  The rhetoric, in general, has recently ratcheted up to alarming proportions.  Threats of actual violence are becoming more common, usually by those ill-equipped to compete with an increasingly informed public.  I have also noted a propensity toward racial and sexual bias.  These posters seem to target the easily identifiable - with women the primary target.  

I'm setting up this posting so that we can do a liveblog on the breakout sessions at BlogLeft Massachusetts. The original thread is up to about 26 comments, so this will take some of the pressure off that thread.

The tenor of today's BlogLeft meeting in Worcester is much like that of the early convenience store industry. Huh? and How would anyone know?

The first hour was a chance for local leftist bloggers to put faces with URLs, for politicians to hit us up for support, and to swap info. I suddenly recalled my time decades ago as the editor of a grocery magazine. Hannaford's Lil Peach, Southland's 7-Eleven and many others were all growing, energetic and excited.

They would meet and talk about what they did best. Bloggers today have similar joy at their passionate tasks. Those who get lots of hits and even make advertising revenue are happy to describe how they do it.

For the convenience-store industry that ended. Cities were saturated and managers stopped talking to each other. The open minds and hands shut.

I can't see that happening with bloggers, but just in case things get narrow, we can enjoy such events.

By now, most of you have probably heard of the so-called Open Source Media's superlegally restrictive Terms and Conditions agreement. For those who haven't, here's the gist of it; we aren't allowed to quote them, analyze their writings, or satirize them. We may not even be able to link to them. Basically, it attempts to completely override the concept of Fair Use to a ridiculous extent.

So, I have a plan. I plan on breaking that Agreement in as many ways as possible, and as frequently as possible, until Chuck and Roger realize how idiotic it is and change it.

Now, before I begin this endeavor, I'd like to say the following: This effort is being undertaken by me and only me. Neither the webmaster nor anyone else associated with this website in any capacity had any foreknowledge of this effort. Just to get that on the record.

By now, most of you have probably heard of the so-called Open Source Media's superlegally restrictive Terms and Conditions agreement. For those who haven't, here's the gist of it; we aren't allowed to quote them, analyze their writings, or satirize them. We may not even be able to link to them. Basically, it attempts to completely override the concept of Fair Use to a ridiculous extent.

So, I have a plan. I plan on breaking that Agreement in as many ways as possible, and as frequently as possible, until Chuck and Roger realize how idiotic it is and change it.

Now, before I begin this endeavor, I'd like to say the following: This effort is being undertaken by me and only me. Neither the webmaster nor anyone else associated with this website in any capacity had any foreknowledge of this effort. Just to get that on the record.