It’s not easy being a blogger.  Witness the Blogger Life cycle:

1) Euphoric moment of inspiration
2) Pseudo-maniacal and self-indulgent perusing of domains
3) Careful consideration of theme and design
4) The inaugural post – “Hello world!”
5) The 2-4 post honeymoon phase
6) Waning and changing interests
7) Feelings of desperation and apathy from low engagement
Inevitable abandonment

@mileslennon has the full story about why 95 percent of blogs wither on the vine and die. As of this moment, I’m unclear as to which stage I reside in.  I kid, but these are definitely applicable to many in this chosen line of work.  Survival of the fittest indeed.

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Image via Wikipedia

This  is one of the most succinct and thorough articles on the Sarah Palin-Trig Palin madness to date:

So what happens when a politician renders the easily verifiable unverifiable, as the Palins have done with Trig? Questions of believability arise, trust disintegrates and Sarah ends up right back in the mess she was in when she was Alaska’s governor. She quit that job because she didn’t like dealing with all the ethics complaints being filed against her. The ethics complaints started because her critics didn’t trust her. And if anyone remembers, the beginnings of that trace back to when the Palins tried to get former brother-in-law Mike Wooten fired from his job as an Alaska State Trooper, and then said they didn’t.

I highly encourage you to read the entire piece.  It is well worth it.  I could care less whose baby Trig is.  But the fact remains that Palin’s disingenuous ramblings about trust and verify– and her equally poor choice in getting into the birther mud– reflect her untrustworthiness and hypocrisy.  Don’t blame anyone doubting the baby’s parentage; blame yourself for not putting it to rest.

Barack Obama released his birth certificate.  The problem in birther eyes is that it does not satisfy their requirement.  Who cares?  Their validation matters little.  They don’t like him anyway– and they wouldn’t like him or any certificate he presented.  That’s why their mission is immaterial and asinine.  Palin need only show Trig’s birth certificate.  Simple.  Surely a run for president will only increase the pressure to do this.

Either way, there are more important issues on the table than either of these stories.  It’s time for everyone to put them to rest.

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Once again, the president slams republicans on their inaction on the unemployment and jobs bill in his weekly address:

the GOP leadership has chosen to “filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress” by blocking votes on agenda items the president says would breath life into the economic recovery. “These steps aren’t just the right thing to do for those hardest hit by the recession,” Obama said. “They’re the right thing to do for all of us.”

What is the conservatives’ plan for full employment?  Here’s one step:

Remove financial support for those out of work including unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc…

Here’s a graph from Ezra Klein explaining why voters are angry:

You don’t say?

But as ThinkProgress has documented, there is racism in the Tea Party movement. Moreover, a new report from the Kansas City Star digs deeper into the racist elements of the Tea Party and citing various instances of racism linked to the movement, concludes that “it’s clear that some with racist agendas are trying to make inroads into the party,” noting that “in several instances, tea party members with racist backgrounds”…

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It doesn’t look like David Patterson will be running for re-election in New York.  Enter Andrew Cuomo.

Jim “tough shit” Bunning, hates those people on unemployment.

Can Lee Daniels become the first black director to win the Oscar for his movie Precious?

Wanna read a great passion blog about music and film?  Check out this one here.

Here’s another newbie start-up blog for all of my sports aficionados.

More republicans who can’t stand the jobless: GOP congressman says extending unemployment benefits is “creating hobos.”

Here’s ring design number 54 from the 365 jewelry project.  Check it out.

Keith Olbermann’s emotional moment.

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The senate passes a jobs bill.  Some republicans who initially tried to fillibuster it, vote for it.  How does that work?

Joe Wilson says America has the “best health care in the world.” Dylan Ratigan does not agree.

What the hell does Robert Pattison mean by this?

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the stimulus bill has created up to 2.1 million jobs, and cut the unemplyment rate by 1.1%.

Conservatives say the “non-partisan” CBO is actually partisan, and claim their job numbers are wrong. Okay.

Woman who lied about gang rape gets three years in prison.

Nevada governor hasn’t had sex in 19 years.  That explains a lot.

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Here’s a little link love to get you through your day.  Or bore you.  You make the call.

Republicans are up in arms about the Christmas bomber being read his Miranda rights.  The Bush administration did the same with the shoe bomber, and he was the most safest president ever!

Uh-oh!  The president is planning to raise taxes on the middle class secretly, says Drudge Report.  Wait.  Upon further review… Oh hell!  Let’s run with the story anyway!

Is gay the new black?

A take on the Mike Vick Project from a blogger.

James O’Keefe says he will think before he commits his next felony.

John McCain:  cranky, hypocritical, and still pissed about having lost the election.

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Andrew McCarthy from the National Review:

The decision to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other top al-Qaeda terrorists to New York City for a civilian trial is one of the most irresponsible ever made by a presidential administration. That it is motivated by politics could not be more obvious. That it spells unprecedented danger for our security will soon become obvious.

I couldn’t disagree more. It’s shameful that Mr. McCarthy is so disingenuous in his argument.  Nothing spells hypocrisy more than false indignation and fear-mongering about an issue that conservatives have tried to own for the past eight years.  In 2006, President Bush and his administration tried and convicted co-conspirator Zaccarias Moussaoui in a civilian court outside of Washington D.C.  Ramzi Yusef was tried during the Clinton administration for his complicity in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.  This false, self-serving notion that this idea is “unprecedented,” goes beyond the pail.  Do these talking pinheads ever do any research before writing this crap?

There is one point in Mr. McCarthy’s argument I agree with:  President Obama is driven by a political motivation.  But I happen to think it is a good one.  Why not showcase the power and majesty of the American judicial system?  Why not prove to the world that America is more than political hawks, hell bent on exacting righteous vengeance by any means necessary?

Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ):

“I saw the Mayor of New York said today, “We’re tough. We can do it.” Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it’s your daughter that’s kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it’s some clerk — some innocent clerk of the court — whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the jailer’s little brother or little sister? This is political correctness run amok.”

It is precisely this fear– not capitulating to party loyalty– that has terrified conservatives into retreating from what makes America, America.  We have cowered and genuflected to paranoia so much, that we’ve created our own twisted version of Neverland.  Gitmo is an ever present reminder of us twisting and corrupting our ideals– the very things that make us unlike everyone else on Earth.  We have subjugated our own values and laws in order to establish our new bully mentality, forever casting our credibility as a superpower, and beacon of light in doubt to the rest of the world.  This is what fear– irrational, irresponsible fear– can do the mind.  Here’s more fear and worry from James Joyner:

[T]hese men are not citizens of the United States.  Second, they’re accused war criminals.  They simply should not be tried in U.S. civilian courts.  Rather, they should either be held accountable in a Nuremberg-style international forum or treated as war criminals by a U.S. military tribunal under the mechanisms provided by Congress and approved by the Supreme Court.

Aside from the virtual certainty that the trial will devolve into a media circus, there’s an incredibly good chance that Mohammed and his comrades will go free.  The fact that KSM was repeatedly waterboarded would seem to taint any subsequent evidence, including his own confession.

How utterly preposterous and naive.  What purpose did waterboarding serve then, if information obtained from it was unreliable and tainted?  This is the reaffirmation of the previous administration’s folly and inadequate intelligence and foresight.  As to the notion that you are empowering those that wish to destroy you, I say nonsense.  You’re not giving any terrorist a platform they didn’t already have.  This is no mockery or circus.  This will be real American justice, played out for all the world to see.  No amount of political spin on the subject can shield the fact that in this instance, the justice department will bring a mountain of evidence to convict Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.  No half-thought idea will supplant what will take place before our very eyes– the religious extremism of KSM and his ilk– will be exposed for what it is.  And it will remind the world, after years of feet dragging, just how barbaric the ideology of these cowards is.

And what better place for all of this to occur but in our greatest, grandest city?  The city where fellow Americans burned, and lives were changed forever?  Let us provide swift, exacting justice the American way.  Let us lead the way as we’ve always done, and show the world just how special our way of life is.

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unfair, and equilibrium-challenged.

According to liberal bloggers they are. Fox News is reportedly pulling the plug on selective clips provided by the News1News Channel, a progressive news channel on YouTube. YouTube has now shut News1News down, effectively blocking a pipeline of information pertinent to many in the liberal blogosphere. News1News was a popular channel on YouTube– that provided clips from mainstream media outlets– but focused primarily on Fox News, and their blustery political commentators.

Fox News issued an amazing 150 take-down notices to the channel under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. To put that in perspective, YouTube is obligated to shut down any station that receives TWO take-down notices. Apparently, Fox wasn’t fucking around.

Here’s where this story gets screwy. Fox doesn’t seem to have any issue with the many conservative channels currently occupying space on YouTube. In face, The Glen Beck channel and Conservative Nation, have a large number of clips that were left untouched by Fox’s cyber rampage. Coincidence?  Nope.  Is there an overt agenda to stamp out liberal rants by Fox nation? As a liberal ranter, I say HELL YES!  Most of these outlets for news and information are of vital importance to bloggers, liberal or conservative. By trying to limit information, Fox News is engaging in Operation: Dissent Smother. Problem is, for every News1News they shut down, ten more will be up and running– playing the same obnoxious clips of Glen Beck playing with dolls, or Brian Kilmeade just being a plain jackass.

The “fair and balanced” spin machine keeps getting dinged by their own lame softballs.

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Media Research Center props up Erickson’s thoughts on election 2009.  I’m thinking I need a stiff drink

Last night’s election results were an unequivocal testament to the strength of the conservative movement. In New York’s 23rd, the GOP lost because it committed political suicide by drafting a candidate to the left even of the Democrat, and a complete political unknown came within a whisker of winning on the Conservative Party line. In New Jersey, a moderate Republican barely defeated a liberal incumbent Democrat with an approval rating under 40%. But in Virginia, a state captured by the Democrats last year, and where an unabashed, uncompromising, conservative GOP ticket ran this year, it won a massive landslide.

This is classic politico spin– and to be fair, both sides practice it well.  In this case though, Bozell’s MRC is clearly delusional.  Or stupid.  The good people of upstate New York repudiated conservatives’ attempts at applying their brand of  litmus testing of GOP candidates there.  Why were Sarah Palin and Tim Pawlenty involving themselves in a local race clear across the country anyway?  To push an extremely narrow agenda that, in most states, will not pass muster.  This is why they are now the minority party.  The people of New York blatantly said “stay out of our business!”  Conservatives are committing political suicide by ejecting their moderates.  Americans have proven, as evidenced by these election results, that they will reject extreme agendas on either side of the aisle.

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Sarah Palin has finally liberated herself from the “populist” masses she relates to so well.  Bully for her.  After all, a mighty empress needs plebes to worship her– and that can’t happen while you’re straddling the fence between the oil, gas and igloo crowd, and the political intelligentsia.  So here’s to you, you little lip-sticked pitbull.

Editor’s note: I know Mrs. Palin’s not known for her reading acumen, but she better read every damn thing her publisher puts out for the next 40 years.

Aerial pictures of the “Palin Palace” are courtesy of Palingates.

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