Author: N.Z. Bear

The big names are making hash of the Sacramento Bee’s decision to submit their widely respected house blogger Daniel Weintraub to editing of his blog. Kaus fears “a smothering blanket of bureaucratic timidity”; Glenn notes that the incident combines “unthinking political correctness, corporate-mandated dullness, and complete cluelessness, all in one event” and Welch observes “You don’t need to employ an ombudsman to be gutless and wrong, but it certainly doesn’t hurt.”
The Bee’s decision, is of course dumb dumb dumb. It can make whatever rules it likes about the content that gets posted to its web pages, so it’s not an immoral or unethical decision. Just a dumb one.
I figure we’re going to be submitted to some mealy-mouthed backtracking over the next few days as the Bee editors realize just how badly they’ve stepped in it. Expect a limp reassurances to emmanate from their general direction real soon — I only hope that poor Weintraub isn’t forced to particpate; the whole scenario would bring shades of hostage-videos to mind. “I am being treated fairly and the editing is not inhumane…”
Update: Roger Simon is also deeply unimpressed.

Congratulations to Ilyka Damen, who has won this week’s New Weblog Showcase with the post A Happy Epiphany.
In other news, the dread Blogger Alliance has retained the sponsorship of the Showcase for another week, turning out 21 of their 65 members (32.3 %) versus the Axis of Naughty‘s 5 of 24 members (20.8 %).
Full Showcase results are as follows:
Ilyka Damen: A Happy Epiphany
( 24 links)
DFMoore: Your Daily Dose of Pizzazz!: More on Moral Relativism
( 15 links)
Jim Lynch: Remembering 9/11
( 9 links)
Snooze Button Dreams: We Like Broccoli (or “Stupid Human Tricks”)
( 8 links)
MIXBAGOFMUSINGS: Tuesday, September 09, 2003
( 5 links)
argghhh!!: McDonald’s to Launch Adult Happy Meals
( 5 links)
darrenkaplan.net: Aftermath–The New World 9-12-01
( 4 links)
Sequitur/Non: Clark’s AntiWar Credentials
( 3 links)
Forgotten Fronts: Kill the Imam.
( 3 links)
Tom’s Nap Room: Beatles take a bite out of iTunes
( 3 links)
Terrible Swift Word: Pathetic
( 3 links)
Crazy Thinking: The WTO disaster and the security threat within
( 3 links)
Bawstin Sports Pundits: Red Sox Nation
( 2 links)
Twothings Sites and Places of Interest: Twothings Sites and Places of Interest
( 2 links)
Perspective on the BS of TV Pundits: Tinsel Town Deficits
( 1 links)
Gold and Silver Blog: Mahendra’s Hurricane Isabel Prophecy
( 1 links)
The Enemy: “The Enemy” Brief Outline
( 1 links)

Sometimes, folks with wealth redistribution schemes abandon all pretense of there being any connection between those paying the tax and those receiving the benefits, which at least makes them honest thieves. Take, for example, the bright bulbs up in Seattle who have decided that with a taste for espresso should pay for other people’s childcare:
On Sept. 16, Seattle voters will face a ballot question asking them to add a dime-a-cup tax to their espresso drinks. This “luxury” tax, as Initiative 77 calls it, would pay for preschool and day care programs.
(You can also find NPR’s coverage in RealAudio here).
This is great stuff for conservatives, of course — it’s right neighborly of the well-meaning liberals trying to pass this measure to make it so easy for conservatives to bash not just this particular scheme, but the entire concept of wealth redistribution.
And think of the slogans! “You’ll tax my latte when you pry it from my cold (on account of the double-cups I insist on and screw the damned rainforest) dead hands!” and all that…
PS – Suggestion to the Seattle forces opposing the tax: perhaps folks need a little history reminder. Seattle Coffee Party, anyone?
Update: Shot down!

In a come-from-behind victory, the Alliance has won victory in the first weekly contest to sponsor the New Weblog Showcase by having the highest percentage of its members cast votes for Showcase participants.
Final results were as follows:
Blogger Alliance: 30 of 76 = 39.5 % participation
Axis of Naughty: 8 of 24 = 33.3 % participation

Congratulations to Frank and his minions!
As I have mentioned, the sponsorship contest will run from week to week: so the Axis of Naughty has a chance to reclaim their honor this week… stay tuned!

Congratulations to Virtue Pure for winning this week’s New Weblog Showcase with the post On Roleplaying.
Full results are as follows:
Virtue Pure: On Roleplaying
( 31 links)
Pardon My English: Who Needs Citizenship?
( 26 links)
Snooze Button Dreams: Why oh why do I have to love women?
( 15 links)
brainstorming: Mayberry R.F.D.
( 14 links)
http://www.jerrymccusker.com/blog/: If Americans Ran the Afterlife
( 14 links)
QandO: Post-war Iraq is (gasp) difficult
( 12 links)
argghhh!!: Mudville Gazette: 911 Remembered: Rick Rescorla was a soldier
( 8 links)
Eye on the Left: The Exlusionary World of Money
( 7 links)
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE LAW: MORE ON SCO v. IBM
( 5 links)
Inspiranote: The Garden You Give
( 4 links)
Like a Packet of Woodbines: Cat’s eyes
( 4 links)
Blogfonte: George Galloway
( 3 links)
Write Lightning: The Emperor’s (Kids’) New Clothes
( 1 links)

I will be working today on the code to tally votes cast by Alliance and Axis of Naughty members to see who wins the Blog Showcase sponsorship contest.
If either alliance’s membership list has changed, now is the time to let me know. It will be a great help if you have additions to: a) Ensure they are added to the Ecosystem yourself if they are not already in the Ecosystem (you don’t need me to do this), and b) Provide me a simple list of the exact URLs of the new blogs as they appear in the Ecosystem. That will ensure I can get them added quickly today.
Update: Wow. That wasn’t so hard. The new code is implemented and appears to be working: check it out on the Alliance Statistics page. Alliances: I’d appreciate your help in double-checking the stats today; if you see any inaccuracies or issues I’ll do what I can to resolve them before the final count tomorrow morning.
Update Again: For the record, the Axis of Naughty is strongly in the lead at the moment — remember that the winning alliance will be determined by the percentage of their membership which participates, not the absolute number. The Axis currently has 29 % participation, while the Blogger Alliance languishes at 16%.

Welcome, visitors! Combined with the Instalanche Glenn unleashed yesterday, TTLB is getting a mighty blast of traffic, and I suspect many of you may be newcomers to my little part of the Blogosphere.
So, a quick guide:
– The post you are probably looking for is here: Inside the Mind of NPR. Or just scroll down.
– In addition to being a blogger myself, I also host a few weblog tools of my own devising. The TTLB Blogosphere Ecosystem is a list of weblogs ranked (and categorized) by their popularity with other weblogs, as measured by how many incoming links they receive. A new addition is another listing which shows weblogs ranked by their average number of daily visitors (traffic). Finally, the New Weblog Showcase is a weekly contest which provides a forum for those new to blogging to showcase their best work — see here for a FAQ and more details.
– If you feel like truly indulging this simple bear, browse through my self-selected greatest hits, which you’ll find under Classic Bear Truth on the left navigation bar. Personal favorites at the moment are When 300 Baud Was the Bomb (a reminiscence on the good old days of BBS’s published at Salon.com) ; The War of the Memes (my take on the war on terror); and July 28, 2014 (a more creative piece I did last summer trying to look forward by looking backward. Or vice-versa).
I hope you’ll find my work worth returning for, and if you have comments or feedback, please feel free to drop me a line. Enjoy your stay!
-N.Z. Bear

I like NPR. I don’t agree with their slant of coverage much of the time, particularly regarding the war. But I listen, simply because there just ain’t any alternative if you want continuous radio news coverage. But even I was taken somewhat aback by an interview I heard yesterday.
In a bout of self-examination (or is it congratulation?) NPR’s Terry Gross interviewed NPR’s Anne Garrels on Fresh Air yesterday. Garrels was NPR’s correspondent in Iraq during the early phase of the war, and has just written a book on the experience.
The interview is available in RealAudio format — the segment in question begins at about 28 minutes 30 seconds in. (The transcript below is my own transcription from listening to the audio (repeatedly)).
Gross asked a simple question, Garrels answer to which speaks volumes:
Terry Gross: Could you describe what you consider to be the emotional high point and low point for you during the war — as a reporter and as a human being being there?
Anne Garrels: I think a curious high point was in the weeks afterwards when I realized that all the months of staying there had really been worth it because Iraqis had so accurately predicted what was going to happen; Iraqis knew themselves and made it very clear. So in a perverse kind of way I guess that was a high point. I was astonished at how ill-prepared the Bush administration was for the aftermath from the very beginning. And that continues to this day.
Think about this. Garrels witnessed the fall of one of the more evil regimes of the past century. Even for the most staunch opponent of the war, the end of Saddam’s power and the beginning of the Iraqi people’s freedom must be recognized as a huge achievement for human decency.
But what was Garrels emotional high point? That’s right: when she felt reassured that yes, things really are going badly for Iraq — and the U.S. When her view that America was screwing things up was confirmed.
It is human to want to validate one’s own actions; to feel some smug self-justification if events do indeed turn out badly when one has been predicting they would. But in Garrels situation, with all the things she must have seen and experienced, to declare that feeling to be the high point?
It is honorable of Garrels to admit this honestly. But that doesn’t make it any less pathetic.

I had meant to do a more significant post today, but other responsibilities intervened.
In brief, then: this is not the anniversary of a “tragedy”. It is the anniversary of an attack; planned and carried out by men who conciously and deliberately inflicted the death and suffering of that day on the citizens of our nation — and many others.
I believe that September 11th, 2001 represented one battle of a larger war — not the first, by any means, and as much as we might regret it, not the last. You may disagree with my use of the word “war”. But what you think, and what I think, doesn’t matter: because it is clear that the remnants of those who attacked us two years ago are quite clear-minded, and they have no doubt that it is war — them yourself.
We forget this at our peril.
I wish the best for all who lost loved ones two years ago on this painful day. And for all of us, I wish safety, and more to the point, victory: for we will never, ever find the former if we do not achieve the latter.

It looks like the Blog Alliance in the game for the competition to sponsor the New Weblog Showcase.
This is excellent news — and all the more reason for new bloggers to sign on for the Showcase this week.
To the Axis and Naughty and Blogger Alliance members, I am going to slightly change the approach for the contest, as follows:
– Previously I said that “Whichever alliance can succeed in delivering the highest participation (linking to entered Showcase posts and to the winner’s announcement Monday) from their membership — measured by percentage of your total membership — will win sponsorship of the Showcase.”
What I think will be easiest is if I simply count votes to Showcase posts. That way the winning alliance can be announced on Monday morning with the Showcase winner. I still would request and appreciate links to the winner on Monday, of course, but it won’t actually count towards determining the winning alliance.
– If I get the code written this weekend, I will probably implement the sponsorship-contest on a weekly basis. It is up to the alliances whether they would like to participate going forward, but I’ll put the logic in place so that for every week, whichever alliance has the greatest participation in the Showcase will win sponsorship for the following week.
If there are any serious objections, let me know, but I think this will work out well all around…
-NZB

Calpundit up on a point made by Atrios on “Indian Gaming Interests”:
INDIAN GAMING….Atrios makes a good point today:
I’m really getting tired of the phrase “Indian Gaming Interests” being thrown around by the media as if it is some sort of insidious thing. They’re just another business interest, like the numerous “old white man business interests” that spend a lot of money financing campaigns.
As it happens, I’m not especially happy about Indian gaming, and I’m not especially happy about the lobbying they do. However, there are plenty of businesses that get unique concessions from the government