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NET: Blogosphere Archives

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April 26, 2010

...And Then There's Unintentional Irony

By Armed Liberal at 00:43

Which is often the best kind of all.

Matty Yglesias - he of the long slog through progressive publications and think tanks to his current position as a paid shill for George Soros talks about 'The Cushy Life of the Rightwinger':
One thread of the argument I'm personally interested in, however, is Goldberg's apparent belief that it's somehow extremely difficult for a young conservative with orthodox views "to break-in at places like NR, the Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal, etc." One could be snide and observe that the very fact that Jonah Goldberg (!) was able to break into those venues is indication enough that it's in fact quite easy, but to be fair to other National Review writers when you're talking about a case that extreme you actually do need a boost from nepotism.
...I'd say the absence of a self-reflective ability - at all (as shown in this piece) is the biggest gap (of many) in MY's intellectual armor.
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  • charris208.myopenid.com: Dennis the Peasant also noted MY's cluelessness. As the saying read more
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April 23, 2010

OK, This Is Just Funny

By Armed Liberal at 20:18
Someone hacked the Revolution Islam site - the one that threatened the South Park team over the latest episodes:

rsz_revislam.jpg


Ridicule is absolutely the correct response, and while I generally disapprove of hacking - I'll make an exception here.
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  • Armed Liberal: @SB - well, there is going to be a "draw read more
  • Silverlake Bodhisattva: revolutionmuslim.com is back up, and with comments enabled. Notwithstanding their read more
  • Glen Wishard: I thought about suggesting a caption contest for the picture read more

April 13, 2010

This Says It Quite Well...

By Armed Liberal at 06:44



...I'm not sure what I could possibly add.

(h/t The Monkey Cage)
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  • Alchemist: Sorry, I meant: Most [feminist] groups advocate awareness, fund-raising and read more
  • Alchemist: Glen, you're cherry-picking here, there's only one line in NOW read more
  • Glen Wishard: Alchemist:As a 'leftist', I don't hate righties ... You're not read more

April 1, 2010

Blogging As It Should Be Done

By Armed Liberal at 20:18

I've repeatedly butted heads with Henry Farrell from Crooked Timber; I'm sure that we disagree on many things...but he's just hit one out of the park in arguing for intellectual and rhetorical honesty and in embracing a kind of political pluralism that I'm solidly behind. And especially having criticized him, I'd feel like a tool if I didn't stand up and applaud his latest.

So, yay Henry!
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  • Marcus Vitruvius: It's a sad sign of the times that this sort read more
  • David Blue: This is the right way not to have Jeff Goldstein read more
  • Armed Liberal: Aw, happy, thanks. But why don't you go back and read more

March 31, 2010

Bullying, Goldstein, and Politics

By Armed Liberal at 06:56

So let me lay out the issue I have with Jeff Goldstein - not just with Jeff, but with those who increasingly want to hammer down their political opponents.

My view of politics is essentially communitarian - i.e. that it takes place within a community of people bound together in a polity, who agree to be bound by political decisions and who - to some extent - yield their personal power over their public lives to the political community.

This model allows for a wide range of politics - it works as a construct that limits government power by the consent of the governed, and one that expands it (i.e. it's not inherently opposed to or in favor of any specific exercise of government power). It says simply that we are fellow citizens and that we will, grudgingly sometimes, accept the decisions made by our political process even when they contradict our own desires.

We can't and don't grant that power to everyone in the world, it is inherently limited to our community (hence not cosmopolitan).

The American community, as I've written in the past, is a community of belief, not one of (as Heiddiger once famously said) blood and soil. So it is expansive, and flexible and inherently generous (which is to me the root of American Exceptionalism). The condition of that power, in the American ideal, is that we all get to possess our share of it. So when Jim Crow worked to keep blacks from their share, or when laws that forbade women the vote kept them from exercising their share - we worked to strike them down and ensure that everyone had some access to the shared political power.

The image of people being kept from exercising that power by force is inherently reprehensible to me; it defines (to me) the opposite of what our system of government and politics should be. It is most awful when the government blocks people from exercising power - when the political rights people should enjoy to participate in the political life of the community are taken away by the government for political reasons. But it's awful when it is done privately as well.

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  • Armed Liberal: toc, I see your point. I think that no one's read more
  • toc3: A MODEST PROPOSAL Would it be possible to ban everyone read more
  • Scott Jacobs: It was not just you, and it happened to more read more

March 27, 2010

The Abyss Looks Back

By Armed Liberal at 07:42

Instapundit links to Jeff Goldstein complaining that someone he studied under doesn't want to be associated with him. Goldstein launches a self-righteous screed about how the wimpy liberals won't tolerate the truthtelling he's doing on his blog.

I delinked Goldstein a long time ago, because he's sounding more and more - sadly - like Deb Frisch. I'm not sorry I defended him against her and sympathized with him ... but I wouldn't want my name on his blog today, either.

What's the line about staring too long into the abyss?
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  • Armed Liberal: For the public record... Here's what Jeff wrote Incidentally, we’re read more
  • Armed Liberal: Jeff, I don't know what to say to that except read more
  • JeffG: I am not sure what you are referring to. I read more

January 25, 2010

We All Need Help Sometime - Gary Farber Needs It Today

By Armed Liberal at 19:28

Take a moment, and look at your surroundings. Most of us - many of us - are blessed with a rich mixture of friends, family, some measure of financial security, and health.

Those may vary widely; I'm nowhere near financially rich (trust me - the projects I was counting on for December fell apart - and I committed the cardinal sin of all consultants, which was to assume that the 'about to happen' project was the same as a 'happening' project), but I'm blessed with family, and colleagues, and friends - many of whom I have made thanks to blogging. So when I get a day when I feel like I'm living the blues, it's not long before someone does something that reminds me of how lucky I really am.

I need more business, and I need to get serious about working out, and Littlest Guy once again repeated that he plans to get into Stanford, but those are "high class" problems. I will get more business, I can work out, and I'm blessed with three amazing sons, who I'm happy to do what's necessary for.

Blogger Gary Farber, of Amygdala isn't.

And he's hitting a crisis point as his disability claim has been denied, meaning he can't get assistance with his healthcare or his finances. He's written a scaldingly honest post about it, and he's asking us for help - yes, I know he's needed it before.

But I just tossed another $25 in the pot, and encourage others to do the same thing. We'll watch a streaming Netflix movie this weekend instead of going out.

Look, it's a complicated thing. There are a lot of voices calling out for support right now. But I'll suggest, strongly, that generosity (not grandiose generosity, but small, frequent acts) is something that I know is central to my values. If you have enjoyed his work over the years (and he's put the work into his blog), it might not even be generosity. You might just be paying him for the thinking he's made you do.
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September 20, 2009

Back From The Army - And Blogging Again

By Armed Liberal at 20:39

Ubercommenter and smart guy Porphyrogenitus ("Porphy" to his friends) is back from the military and back to blogging at http://porphyrogenitus.blogspot.com. Go on over and give him a little attention - God knows, you might learn something - I meant it when I said he was a smart guy.
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  • Porphyrogenitus: Thanks for the welcome back. This was always one of read more
  • tagryn: I hope Porphyrogenitus will see this, as there's no contact read more
  • tagryn: I hope Porphyrogenitus will see this, as there's no contact read more

June 9, 2009

Whelan Was Wrong To Apologize For Outing Publius

By Armed Liberal at 07:12

So I've been watching the dust clouds of the Halloween-style egg fight between Ed Whelan and Publius which culminated today in Whelan apologizing to Publius for outing him.

And I've been mulling this over more than a bit - particularly as a formerly pseudonymous blogger myself - and I think Whelan was mistaken in apologizing (at least to the extent he did). Here's what I read that made me decide this after some thinking.

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  • Glen Wishard: Sickles was wrong about Gettysburg, but he was right to read more
  • mark buehner: Common Sense was published anonymously. Ben Franklin wrote a clever read more
  • Alchemist: I wrote a very, very long post, but when I read more

April 10, 2009

Mo' Hamsher Fun

By Armed Liberal at 04:57
I neglected to cover one point when I was mocking Jane Hamsher below...she concludes her screed with:
Right wing bloggers at the top of the food chain don't have to worry about this dynamic, because they're well compensated through a variety of means -- and also conspicuously silent on the subject. It's the toadies on the bottom who churn right wing propaganda for free who are whining, and they clearly don't understand the financial structure that both traditional media outlets and liberal blogs are operating within.
Hmmm, let's go to the record:

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  • David Blue: Yes that link provides the essential answer. Also of note read more
  • Glen Wishard: Actually, I don't think I'd even get that much of read more
  • Mark: Glen, I believe that your request would be met with read more

April 9, 2009

OK, This Is Just Funny

By Armed Liberal at 06:40

Jane Hamsher, April 8, 2009 12:36pm (I assume est since she's from CT)
There's a big problem right now with the traditional liberal interest groups sitting on the sidelines around major issues because they don't want to buck the White House for fear of getting cut out of the dialogue, or having their funding slashed. Someone picks up a phone, calls a big donor, and the next thing you know...the money is gone. It's already happened. Because that's the way Rahm plays.

Just in case you were worried, that's not a problem for us.
Jane Hamsher, April 8, 2009 3:56pm, quoted in The Plum Line
"They come to us, expecting us to give them free publicity, and we do, but it's not a two way street," Jane Hamsher, the founder of FiredogLake, said in an interview. "They won't do anything in return. They're not advertising with us. They're not offering fellowships. They're not doing anything to help financially, and people are growing increasingly resentful."

Hamsher singled out Americans United for Change, which raises and spends big money on TV ad campaigns driving Obama's agenda, as well as the constellation of groups associated with it, and the American Association of Retired Persons, also a big TV advertiser.
...so when she says "...that's not a problem for us" what, exactly did she mean?


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January 31, 2009

RIP, Pajamas Media Ad Network

By Tim Oren at 19:30

The ad network portion of Pajamas Media is closing up shop as of April 1. Some members of the network are taking it better than others. The bottom line, according to Roger Simon, was red - the network was a steady money loser, with the bloggers getting more than the advertisers were paying. Here's a bit of comment from a venture capitalist's perspective:


I was one of the early readers of what became the PJ Media business plan, due to my friendship with Marc "Armed Liberal" Danziger, who was part of the team at that point. My own fund's prospectus specifically said we would not invest in content, so I wasn't a potential funding source, but I did offer advice and a few introductions to other funds that might have taken an interest in the plan.


My strongest suggestion to the team was to simplify the plan. When I saw it, it included three business ideas:


  • A branded destination website and content network with a stable of regular bloggers.

  • An advertising network reaching affiliated bloggers' sites.

  • A technology play to improve advertising sales and results in the network.

From my perspective, that was two bullet points too many. It's rather axiomatic that a startup venture gets one bet, on the nose. The increasing capital requirements and span of expertise needed mean that attempting to play multiple games usually inflates risk for a new venture, rather than hedging it. I suggested that the team pick their strongest idea and run with that alone. I'm sure the input was appreciated, but it was not heeded.


In the event, PJM found a single source to provide their financing. While having a sole investor inevitably gives up some control, it also lets a team get off the road and on with building the business. At about the same time, the third bullet point above removed itself when Marc left the Pajamas team. That still left two business concepts under one roof, competing for resources.


This week's announcement is just the dénouement of that situation. Anyone who's paid attention knows that the effective CPM for both click-through and exposure ads on blogs s***s. I mean really s***s - like up to an order of magnitude less than run-of-site ads on big, topically diffuse web properties. Gadget, finance or technology blogs can rise above the crowd, but political and opinion blogs tend to be the worst. When readers are focused on a potentially stressing discourse, they don't tend to notice or click on ads. Fancy that! And what did the PJM ad network's stable consist of?


The market has rendered its opinion on the two PJM business propositions, and the ad network came up the shortest. My guess is the combination of the end of election cycle advertising and the recession-driven fall off in general advertising were the last straws. Somebody may figure out how to make blog advertising economic, but it won't be PJM. The company has retrenched into the destination site play, and is trying expand it into the TV-via-Internet market. That's certainly no guaranteed success, but it's also rather axiomatic than a venture investor under duress will plunk on the opportunity that appears to align with a growing market. Is there a play for talking-heads-on-demand? Watch and find out.


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