It may simply be elitism rather than an actual conspiracy, but the way the news media covers the Alternative Minimum Tax, it might as well be one.  The final straw for me was when the PBS Newshour, normally a paragon of objectivity, followed the media herd.  Below the fold is the angry letter I fired off to them:

First, some sad news: a great hero (the founder, some say) of the modern environmentalist movement has died.

MILWAUKEE - Gaylord Nelson, the folksy Democratic senator from Wisconsin who helped start the modern environmental movement with the creation of Earth Day 35 years ago, died Sunday. He was 89.

For more, including the "bipartisan" part of this diary, join me below the fold:

BooMan has made it clear that the foremost rule on his site is simply "Don't be a prick."  I've recently come to realise that I've been a chronic violator of that rule (no news flash to most of you, right?  heh) and I really regret that.  Rule or no rule, most of all I regret it because this is a great community, and it was wrong to sow division and disharmony within it.  I intend to try to do better.

One little favour, if you would: please, no one pat me on the back for this diary (if there were a box to check like "make this a 'no comments' diary" I'd check it).  No one deserves praise just because they try to stop being an asshole, and I'd feel guilty for getting any.  Save the kudos for those who have worked hard to make it a harmonious place all along.  Thanks, you guys (you know who you/they are).

Hope everyone's having a great holiday weekend.

I think that's probably what our local, small town Midwestern primary school thinks of me now, after I sent my son's summer school kindergarten teacher an email asking that she not require him to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  I'm posting a slightly edited version of the letter below the fold--both because I thought some of you might find this culture-war "dispatch from the front lines" interesting in its own right, and because the excerpts I quoted, from the 1943 SCOTUS decision that guaranteed all students the right to abstain from the pledge, are in my view among the most stirring, inspiring--and, yes, patriotic--words I've ever read, anywhere.

::flip::

I was really impressed by the WSJ article Nag linked over at the front page "hairshirt" story.  It seems to indicate that liberal bloggers have a lot more of the "netroots" power they have been seeking--to influence the MSM's coverage of issues--than I would have guessed:

::flip::

When I heard on NPR that a blue ribbon panel (an offshoot of the 9/11 Commission) had delivered this message in a report released today, I thought I'd find more about it all over the news.  Surprisingly, Google News turned up just this one article:

::flip::

There were some commenters on my Iraq diary, especially some of the last posters, who seemed to be presenting a level of hostility that went beyond "I strongly disagree with you on this issue" to "you're a war criminal" or just "you disgust me".  I'm just wondering, does that mean you couldn't stand to be in my presence or accept my help or solidarity when it comes to issues like national health care, the environment, or tax cuts for the rich? Would I not be welcome at your anti-GMO rally?  Or you wouldn't come to my anti-police brutality march?  

Does the issue of Iraq (or for that matter, abortion) so trump all others for you that it means all other common ground is insignificant?  I'm not just asking rhetorically: please, I'd like to hear what some of you (and you know who you are) have to say about this.  

I just feel that when we disagree, sometimes we have to go with the cliche and "agree to disagree" and move on and find common ground.

It's BYOB, though I think zander might have brought enough to share.  ;-)

[I hope BooMan won't think I'm pushing the "diary" concept a bit far here...I just wanted to chat with a couple people, but my old Pentium 120mHz on dialup was creaking and groaning at reloading the FroggyBottom thread!]

Some of you already know this very well, of course.  It was kind of what I was infamous for at dKos (you could always count on Bob Johnson to show up in my diary entries, regardless of their subject, to bring up Iraq).  But I picked up a vibe, from responses my post about DSM today, that a lot of people here at BT didn't know that was where I was coming from--so I figure rather than explaining that individually over and over, I'd use a diary to officially state my position.

And of course, those who have known me for a while probably know what's coming next: my "brush with greatness" you might call it.  I, along with a few other people, was profiled in the Washington Post right around the time the war began.  If you go to the library and look at the actual issue, you can even see a full colour picture of what I look like (or looked like two years ago, anyway); but that's sadly not available online.  Anyway, I think the reporter did a good job of conveying my position in a nutshell, and I still stand by everything I said (including decrying human rights violations, which I have certainly had to do in spades).  Still, I think Iraq is on the whole better off than they were before the war, and I'm glad Saddam is in a jail cell rather than in one of his many former palaces.

Below the fold, you'll find my WaPo profile conveniently excerpted:

Although I begged off committing to any regularly scheduled Community Center hosting, I would like to throw this one out there, since I don't remember too many people mentioning it previously, and I for one will severely judge you if your taste is not correct.  No, but seriously, it is one of the things I find most interesting to learn about people.

I am a fanatic about all three, so I'm not going to attempt to define "favourites" or even "Top Ten" lists, just what comes to mind, meaning I've probably seen/heard it recently or found it especially memorable.

Music: Pedro the Lion, Viva Voce, Blue Scholars (all Seattle groups); Catherine Wheel, Luna, Bright Eyes, Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine; Lucinda Williams, Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls; The Beatles, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan; and all kindsa jazz, especially if it's live.

Cinema: Naked, Henry Fool, Un Coeur en Hiver, Smiles of a Summer Night, Matewan, Earth, Double Life of Veronique, Metropolitan, Buffalo 66, Flirting with Disaster, dodes ka den, The Harder they Come, Magnolia, Eyes Wide Shut, Before Sunrise, Slacker, Tampopo, Double Indemnity, Glengarry Glen Ross,/ Swimming to Cambodia, Godfather I & II, Goodfellas, Miller's Crossing, To Live, Chuck and Buck, Jackie Brown, Requiem for a Dream, Kalifornia, The Sweet Hereafter, Crooklyn, The Best Man, The Crowd, Out of Africa (I was born there, and was going to school there when they shot this wonderful picture)...and too many others I must stop now.

TV: Curb Your Enthusiasm, King of Queens, Scrubs, The Office (both versions), The Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama, Scare Tactics, Celebrity Poker Showdown, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Nature, NOVA, Alan Alda's Scientific American Frontiers, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, Battlestar Galactica, Survivor, and televised football (especially my beloved Minnesota Vikings), basketball (especially my beloved Carolina Tarheels or Minnesota Timberwolves), and tennis.

I don't get any channels any more except ABC and Fox, though, so a lot of those are no more than fond memories at this point...

I just had the lovely experience of discovering that someone gave one of my posts a "1" rating.  A post which, as any reasonable person can see, doesn't even come close to deserving that, or a "2" for that matter.

And this poster appears to have only a short history here, and may have previously posted at other blogs where ratings abuse is rampant.  It had never previously happened to me here, though, something I really valued about this place.  I know that for obvious reasons BooMan wants to be welcoming to these new posters, but I would really love to see him come out strong on this ratings abuse issue and nip it in the bud.  Otherwise he might find he loses a bunch of his stalwarts in exchange for the "new kids" and their hair-trigger culture.

Has anyone else seen signs of this kind of abuse, or is this an isolated case?

I had been making a point to patronise Shell, as they were (according to one of those "Buy Blue" sites) the only U.S. oil company that gave more money to Democrats than Republicans.  But I had no idea Citgo was actually owned by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela!  So when you buy it, you're avoiding Middle East gas, and supporting left wing antipoverty programs in Venezuela (not to mention giving the finger to the Bush admin, who tried to engineer a coup against Chavez, one which fortunately failed due to Venezuelan "people power").
From the article that "converted" me:

By buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are contributing to the billions of dollars that Venezuela's democratic government is using to provide health care, literacy and education, and subsidized food for the majority of Venezuelans.

Instead of using government to help the rich and the corporate, as Bush does, Chavez is using the resources and oil revenue of his government to help the poor in Venezuela.

I've been steeling myself for disaster, as it's been looking (to me) like she was going to be a juggernaut in primary season, then get slaughtered in the general.  But a couple recent articles have caused me to rethink this judgment.

Dick Morris, who is undeniably slimy but who also knows his stuff when it comes to politics,  recently wrote:

Those who would stick their heads in the sand and maintain that Sen. Hillary Clinton could never be elected president are in for a rude shock, according to the latest data from the Fox News survey.
[...]
The Fox News poll tested Hillary against several possible 2008 GOP contenders and found that she ran ahead of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by 46-35, ahead of New York Gov. George Pataki by 41-35 and ahead of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, by 40-33.
[...]

(continued below fold)

According to recently uncovered secret documents, it was Carter--not Reagan--who was perceived by Warsaw Pact military leaders as the president who modernised the U.S. military so that it became clearly superiour to theirs.  Pretty interesting, considering the reputation Carter has in this country, even beyond the usual suspects (right wing hawks).

[T]he often disputed East-West military balance [was] seen from the Soviet bloc side as much more favorable to the West than the West itself saw it, with the technological edge increasingly in Western favor since the time of the Carter administration

Of course, it may not have been an entirely laudable achievement on Carter's part, as it also apparently set us further toward the brink of nuclear war!  But it is nevertheless somehow refreshing to learn that the Democratic president who has so often been caricatured as a soft-hearted patsy (and even in his later image rehabilitation, has been associated with a kind of naive pacifism) was actually striking fear into the hearts of the Warsaw Pact's top military strategists.