The Washington Post shut down comments on their blog yesterday [The Post has a blog? -ed. Apparently.] after the shocking discovery that many people on the Internet are less than civil: As of 4:15 p.m. ET today, we have shut off comments on this blog indefinitely. At its inception, the purpose of this blog was [...]

Kathleen Parker thinks the world is going to Hell in a handbasket because of “bloggies” who are “the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility – the angry offspring of narcissism’s quickie marriage to instant gratification.” There’s something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the Blogosphere – the big-bang “electroniverse” where [...]

Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a feature on Markos Moulitsas Zuniga called, “Kos Call–For America’s number one liberal blogger politics is like sports: It’s all about winning.” The piece paints the picture of an angry jerk for whom the end justifies any means. I hate Washington,” says Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Many people, of course, say that they [...]

N.Z. Bear asked for my 2 cents’ worth on an question he posted a couple days ago: [S]hould a link from a blogger who has hundreds or even thousands of links to anyone and everyone on their page be worth exactly the same as a link from a more reserved blogger who only has a [...]

N.Z. Bear has revised the rules of the Ecosystem to fix an increasing problem–and one that I’ve been a part of: Open Posts & Inline Trackbacks. This will likely be of zero interest to non-bloggers, so I’ve put the rest in the Extended Entry.

Congressman John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat on the defense appropriatios subcommittee, has called for the immediate pullout of troops from Iraq. Since Congressman say stupid things on a regular basis, I ignored the story even after several e-mailed press releases. Still, given his prominence, this is a noteworthy story. Hawkish Democrat Calls for Iraq Pullout [...]

The thing bloggers most like to blog about is blogging itself, especially the hypothesis that blogging will one day transform the global media–if it already hasn’t. Thus, it’s not surprising that yesterday’s launch of Open Source (nee’ Pajamas) Media is among the hottest topics in the blogosphere. Of course, if you just like to read [...]

With perhaps some irony, John Hawkins polled right-of-center bloggers for selections as to who should rule The BBC polled more than 15,000 people worldwide on whom they would want to lead a fantasy world government. The results were, particularly for conservatives, quite disturbing with people like Bill Clinton, Noam Chomsky, Kofi Annan, and George Soros [...]

9 Die in Palestinian Attack in Gaza Strip [RSS] (NYT) At least three Palestinians blew up a bomb and then attacked Israelis late Thursday night at a busy crossing point in the Gaza Strip in an attack coordinated with other militants who fired mortars and automatic weapons at Israeli soldiers, the Israeli army said Friday [...]

It turns out that my Monday prediction on the presidential race was exactly right, with Bush garnering 286 Electoral votes and carrying every 2000 Red state except New Hampshire and adding New Mexico and Iowa from the 2000 Blue states. It was my best, conservative guess of how the election would come out but not [...]

I went 51-for-51 in 2004. See Election Prediction: Obama 325, McCain 213 (Updated) for a breakdown of my 2008 Electoral College breakdown. The election is tomorrow (except for the nearly one fifth of the electorate who’ve already voted) and the polls aren’t any clearer than they were six months ago. The RealClear Politics average has [...]

Michael J. Totten applauds Andrew Sullivan‘s announcement that he won’t support Bush for re-election. Sully’s rationale: Bush’s endorsement of antigay discrimination in the U.S. Constitution itself is a deal-breaker. I can’€™t endorse him this fall. Like many other gay men and women who have supported him, despite serious disagreements, I feel betrayed, abused, attacked. I’d [...]

Apparently, I missed the memo that everyone is supposed to apologize for semi-random events for which they have no control. My bad.

I was going to ignore the idiotic rantings of Frank Lautenberg on the Senate floor yesterday, since they essentially refute themselves. Plus, I’ve discussed the issue before (here and here and, less directly, here). Matt Yglesias has an attempt at a more nuanced version of this issue, though, creating a chicken hawk taxonomy: First you’ve [...]

Bryan has sworn off of political posting until the election season is over because there’s a lot of idiocy on Daily Kos and “No minds are being changed by the crap that is being posted all over the blogosphere these days.” Steven Taylor sympathizes but will simply refrain from reading the most vitriolic sites, a [...]

Last night’s post on Patrick Henry College has drawn, by OTB standards, quite a lot of commentary and some follow-on posts from John Kalb and Bryan at AWS. I would note that I read the two NYT articles in reverse order, seeing the advanced copy of the piece on Republican congressmen hiring PHC graduates at [...]

Steve Bainbridge challenges recent assertions by Juan Non-Volokh and Glenn Reynolds that Ralph Nader’s decision to run for president as an independent is a good thing “if it invigorates efforts to improve ballot access for third parties.” In the United States, the Electoral College makes it almost impossible for a third party candidiate to win [...]

Bill Quick continues an interesting discussion that I missed over the Christmas break. Rosemary Esmay argued that, by way of deterrent, we should announce a list of cities in the Islamic world we would obliterate in the event of another 9/11 attack. Aside from any moral issues, the plan is unworkable and, indeed, rather bizarre, [...]

Reason’s Tim Cavanaugh is having trouble telling the Democrats and Republicans apart these days. They continue to look and sound like, respectively, conservatives and liberals; but no voter can escape the conclusion that the evil party and the stupid party have decided to switch roles. Exhibit A is Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), last seen dragging [...]

I shouldn’t be surprised that the friendly discussion with Brad DeLong on what the 2000 election demonstrates with regard to US political stratification has reopened the “Bush lost” debate. While granting that I’d have been more upset with what John Constantine describes (in the comments) as a “technical victory” if my guy had lost, I [...]

Brett and Steven both note the sardonic quality of my earlier post but are left wondering exactly where I stand. While I was engaging in a bit of whimsy on my statement that the Supreme Court’s judicial review power is extraconstitutional, I do hold that position. It has become an article of faith that they [...]

For once, Brett Marston and I agree on something: ONE **TRILLION** DOLLARS, TWO **TRILLION** DOLLARS Democrats need to start using this word — TRILLION — more often. The Republican tax cut plan is a tax cut close to ONE TRILLION DOLLARS if one factors in all of the cuts that eventually Bush will argue need [...]

Shockingly, we are now back to ORANGE. Question: Am I going to change how I conduct my life one scintilla of an iota? I mean, aside from hiding under my desk covered in plastic wrap while holding a roll of duct tape? (Or was that Level Yellow? I can never keep that straight.) Update: I [...]

Bryan at Arguing with signposts links a Stephen Den Beste piece about the lack of evidence for a Judeo-Christian type God. Bryan reflects on this and writes, As I reflected on the essay this morning, I kept wondering to myself: Here’s a guy who has created this masterful piece combining logic and prose, providing “one [...]

Apparently, France is going to have more influence in post-war Iraq than I’d have advocated. They’re already instituting De-Baathification.

Paul Muller describes the frustrations of being a grown-up who enjoys online gaming and thus having to put up with rude teenagers. He then observes, But this isn’t solely limited to video games, where the young form the majority. Now that I’ve been involved in the blogging community for a few months, I’ve realized that [...]

Apparently, PoliBlogger does not appreciate the fine arts. He disses the political insights of the Beastie Boys and seems to think that the Dixie Chicks’ getting naked doesn’t help clarify their political positions. Personally, I don’t see how it could hurt. Except the chubby one. She should stay dressed. Or read Megan’s blog for diet [...]

Former Reagan SecNav James Webb compares this war to Vietnam. The enemy’s tactics are similar: Other reports corroborate the direction that the war, as well as its aftermath, promises to take: Iraqi militiamen, in civilian clothes, firing weapons and disappearing inside the anonymity of the local populace. So-called civilians riding in buses to move toward [...]

Megan has an interesting essay on why schoolteachers are, on the main, not very good. She contends that part of the problem is that teachers aren’t paid very well, which stems from the old days when bright women had very few options if they wanted careers. While increasing salaries may indeed help attract better people [...]

A brief e-mail exchange with Palmer Haas about the intellectual conflicts one faces in thinking about the impending war with Iraq brought to mind the issue of error in research design, specifically Type I and Type II error. Basically, Type I errors occur when you fail to reject a hypothesis which is not in fact [...]

Jonah Goldberg’s column today is an excellent example of how you can agree with someone’s conclusions but strongly object to their argument. Yes, the Tom Cruise character in “A Few Good Men” was a smart-aleck pretty boy (as he is in all of his watchable movies; he’s dreadful when he tries to go against type). [...]