Mmmmmm*……..Speedos !.

With the continuing silence on the Kerry/Cambodia story in the major media – despite an acknowledgement, retraction and revision by his campaign – is there little wonder that “a survey of 10,000 blog readers earlier this year conducted by Blogads found that 61 percent of respondents found blogs to be “more honest” than other media outlets.”

Hodder gives four reasons for trusting bloggers over general- assignment reporters:
Niche expertise. Newspapers try to cover the whole world, while bloggers can be experts with a deep knowledge about a topic like open-source software or micro-biology.
Transparency in motives. Bloggers are upfront about their biases and subjective approach, and they have greater freedom to speak from the heart and use a personal voice. Most journalists are constrained by an institutional objectivity. “I often read a reporter’s story and wonder, what’s their experience? Where are they coming from? What’s the context? What do they really think?” Hodder says.
Transparency in process. Bloggers link to documents, sources and supporting evidence to buttress their own authority. “The top-down press articles I see are written as if they’re not connected to anything, as if they just came out of a vacuum,” she says.
Forthrightness about mistakes. When bloggers err, the credible ones publish a mea culpa and take responsibility, with the corrected information alongside their original posting. Not so with newspapers, whose front-page mistakes are corrected in an inside page, or broadcast news, where mistakes are almost never acknowledged.

Good article.

Robert Scheer is blogging the Olympics for the Indianapolis Star.
Let’s send him some traffic. He’s new at this.

Ghost Of A Flea offers this worthy quote to highlight this week’s Winston Review;

“The worst difficulties from which we suffer do not come from without. They come from within. They do not come from the cottages of the wage-earners. They come from a peculiar type of brainy people always found in our country, who, if they add something to its culture, take much from its strength. Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals. They come from the acceptance of defeatist doctrines by a large proportion of our politicians … Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.”
— Winston Churchill, April 24, 1933

Go read the collection.

A couple of months ago, I joined in the fundraising drive for Spirit Of America.

Thought I’d give the winner an advance peek. It’s going out on Monday, Fred.

I’ve been invited to a car show, so will be heading out of town for the day. I’ll take some pics.

The Commissar has uncovered the “Blogville 1965 High School Yearbook”
(I’m not sure what I did, exactly, to be included in such fast company – but I’m flattered, nonetheless!)

Over at the Shotgun, Alan Rockwell poses this question:

Why is polygamy illegal in Canada if gay marriage is a human right? Surely a man with two wives could not be considered more of a threat to the foundations of society than a man with a husband? Go ahead, mingle, talk it over, have some fun.

Here’s your invitation to join in the fun.
I won’t be posting much of an original nature until my spelling improves greatly. That will require some food and sleep.

Tim Blair is in the US blogging the DNC convention.

“I’m heading into town now to set a trap for Michael Moore. I can’t reveal too much, but it involves a long piece of string, an empty cardboard box (extra large), a stick, and a cheeseburger.”

So is another one of my favourites, talk radio host Hugh Hewitt.
And this sobering convention analysis from Reason’s Matt Welch.

(Larry King) doesn’t walk, he sashays — left hand on hip, pinkie and ring-finger sticking out at dramatic angles, as he swivel-shoulders down the hallway with his jacket collar half flipped up. Looks like a 70-year-old former Teddy Boy who is very comfortable with his feminine side.

Small wonder nobody is watching the networks. The bloggers are providing the real entertainment.
A list of the rest.

A couple of articles on the bloggers who have been accredited to cover the Democratic National Convention. The NYT is not very enthusiastic, referring to them as “diaries”, as if they haven’t stumbled across the word “weblog”.
The Opinion Journal has a less dismissive take.
(If anyone spots any other stories, send them along and I’ll include them in updates.)
The Republicans will be accrediting bloggers as well – no word yet as to who, so far as I can tell. The DNC committed the faux pas of formally inviting a few right of center bloggers, only to disinvite them for unexplained reasons a few days later.
Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds, who pointed the way to this Corante post.

An idea worth stealing.

I’ve added A Blog About Nothing to the sidebar, proving my boundless generosity, as it appears the selfish bastard doesn’t do reciprocals.
Nonetheless, here’s why.

“I think the course of a marriage runs much like the course of The Shining. It starts out great, sure, but boy does the author have a surprise in store! You may be lost on my comparison of a wedding to a hanging, but considering 50% of all marriages end in divorce, that leaves the rest to end in death. Given the long course of a marriage that ends thusly, and all the torture that comes with it, and given the relative lack of BS during a hanging, I guess I would rather be hung.”

I promised this on Friday, but I was indisposed. So, belatedly – the speed dating winners;
First: Jeff Goldstein –“Are you beansprout toward the walkway antelope? Or is it? Because it’s hard for me to sleep trunk ebony, you know?”
Runnerup: Lisa – Walk up to him. Look him straight in the eye and say, to no one in particular, “Have him washed and brought to my tent.”
(I’d offer a week of guest blogging to the winner, but I think I”ll just link him profusely instead. )

For reasons unknown, my top referrer this month is Bourque.
Anyone have a clue as to why?

All behold; Frank J. enters his third year, blogging tirelessly against the Armies Of Darkness. Plus, the French. (Because you can’t really call anything French an “army”.)

Congratulations, Frank.

Michael Totten is in Tunisia

If you fear Islam, if you feel threatened by the Middle East, you must come to Tunisia. The people here are our friends. They will tell you so the instant you leave the airport. Don’t be shy. Tell them you’re an American if that’s what you are. They put their hands on their hearts when they say welcome.” In some ways, the south is no kind of desert at all.

Flea wants your best stuff.

I’m supposed to be a member of the Murray Wood show’s “people’s panel” on 650 CKOM this afternoon. We’ll be talking about the election, of course. Show starts at around 1:30, they tell me. (I believe the station is at 980 in the south.)
All day yesterday, I practiced talking out loud about the LIberals without the use of interspecies reproduction analogies.
It’s harder than I thought it was. I hope they have a 6 second delay.
update
We were on for nearly an hour and a half.
Overall conclusion?
I want my own radio talk show.

Posting from beautiful Billings, Montana…
Things are going to be light here for a few days. I have the laptop with me, but precious little energy for blogging after a day in the sun and wind.
Check out the Shotgun (on the sidebar) for their take on the federal election leaders debate. Doesn’t sound like I missed much.

You know, when I find a topic “boring”, I don’t link to the subject on other blogs. Or criticize the interest of others or suggest that opposing views constitutes “hatred”. If I don’t care about a debate, I don’t demand that new arguments must be found, because previous ones have exceeded their entertainment value half-life.
Nor am I likely to make multiple entries in my comments section to stress how little I care. before shutting it down to replies.
I just don’t write about it. Easy? Easy.
But that’s just me.