Amazing News from El Paso

Hey they've cracked the Coulter "quip." I can't believe it either. Apparently the young lady I mentioned earlier, Medea, after leaving the institute in despair walked around El Paso and found herself back at her old school.

There she met a young man by the name of Tex giving noogies to one of his classmates. Then she saw the young man grab a handful of dirt and shove it in his victims pants. The bully then said "Don't you like having sand in your pants?" and laughed loudly.

Medea felt a shock of recognition at the disparity between the Actual Humor Quotient (AHQ) of the bullies statement and the perceived Humor Quotient (PHQ) of the bully. She realized that the bullies laughter wasn't because of any humor or wit in his statement; it was a simple enjoyment of the pain his actions caused his young victim.

She returned to the Humor Institute of El Paso and met with Dr. Rodriguez. After explaining her findings to Dr. Rodriguez, they pulled back up Ann Coulter's "joke." For those who have forgotten it, or who have blocked it out of their memory, here it is. Once again we are shading it purple so as to protect those who wish to remain unscarred.

It was going to be Fitzmas Day! (Which is much like Christmas except instead of having her baby in a manger, the woman has a late-term abortion.)

Once again they felt the sickening feeling of Anti-Humor; but this time they were able to understand it. Ms. Coulter's "humor" was contextual not in the words themselves. What she and her kind find amusing about that kind of statement isn't the statement itself; rather it's the anger and pain her words are going to cause liberals!

Dr. Rodriguez said that Medea is to be promoted to Joculator (2nd Class), but that they will not be pursuing this particular form of humor. "The truth is, getting laughs this way might make you feel good for a little bit; but it would make you feel bad in the long run." I have to say I largely agree.

Statistical Report, BY 2004-2005

Sorry about this, but once a year we have to provide basic statistical information for the previous Blogging Year (BY), which for us is November 2004 through October 2005.

The Top Ten Cities Viewing this Blog

1. Tallahassee, Florida (United States) - 3,256 (12.77%)
2. Toronto, Ontario (Canada) - 408 (1.60%)
3. New York, New York (United States) - 323 (1.27 %)
4. Washington D.C. (United States) - 279 (1.09%)
5. Los Angeles, California (United States) - 270 (1.06%)
6. Brooklyn, New York (United States) - 267 (1.05%)
7. Atlanta, Georgia (United States) - 256 (1.00%)
8. Chicago, Illinois (United States) - 234 (0.92%)
9. Houston, Texas (United States) - 217 (0.85%)
10. Crawfordville, Florida (United States) - 209 (0.82%)

Just like to note that Crawfordville Florida has a population of 18,970. The population of Houston Texas, which looked at my site only 8 more times than Crawfordville, is 2,012,626. I think Houston might be underachieving.

The Top Ten United States States or Canadian Provinces Viewing this Blog

1. Florida, United States - 4,224 (16.62%)
2. California, United States - 2,342 (9.22%)
3. New York, United States - 1,641 (6.46%)
4. Texas, United States - 1,191 (4.69%)
5. Ontario, Canada - 815 (3.21%)
6. Pennsylvania, United States - 734 (2.89%)
7. Illinois, United States - 724 (2.85%)
8. Virginia, United States - 607 (2.39%)
9. North Carolina, United States - 588 (2.31%)
10. Ohio, United States - 559 (2.20%)

Make me a Commentator has visited all of the top three areas recently, but we have not yet visited Texas or Ontario to show the love. And we probably aren't going to.

The Top 10 Nations Viewing this Blog

1. United States - 22,366 (82.06%)
2. Canada - 1,615 (5.93%)
3. Great Britain (UK) - 693 (2.54%)
4. Germany - 244 (0.90%)
5. Australia - 209 (0.77%)
6. France - 187 (0.69%)
7. Netherlands - 154 (0.56%)
8. Mexico - 102 (0.37%)
9. Brazil - 100 (0.37%)
10. Japan - 91 (0.33%)

Monetary Value of this Blog (as measured in dollars as estimated by Technocrati) - $0.00
Emotional Value of this Blog (as measured in hugs (per annum) as estimated by Cheery) - 7.5.

So there is our report. We appreciate Cheery for helping me prepare it - and rest assured she is taking steps to turn this raw data into a winning marketing strategy. We'll have to see what happens, but I'm sure she'll do great.

Campus Diversity

I've written on political correctness and campus diversity before; quite extensively one week, actually. I ought to combine all those posts into a website for those interested.

That said, Edward J. Fuelnar's latest article brings up some of the standard Republican complaints about professorial diversity.

Professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College examined the politics of more than 1,600 college faculty at almost 200 schools. He found that in "all faculty departments, including business and engineering, academics were over five times as likely to be liberals as conservatives." In fact, he determined that a leftist political viewpoint was almost as important a factor in hiring decisions as tangible academic achievements, such as publications and awards.

I need to review this study; on the surface it sounds fishy. The real question is how do they know that someone is rejected for being openly conservative? Is their evidence anecdotal or is it based on number? And if it based on numbers are those numbers massaged (by over emphtasizing some numbers while deemphasizing others)? I'm going to look around and see if I can find the study.

I did find a website called The Lettrist which has a good article on Stanley Rothman and his study.

More News from the Institute of Humor at El Paso

This isn't good.

Apparently their Senior Laugher, a Mr. Hibbert, has had a nervous breakdown and has left the facility possibly forever. He was trying to find a reason to laugh at the Ann Coulter "humor" reprinted below when he just snapped. I'm not exactly clear what happened; only that it involved a Dairy Queen Blizzard and a stapler, but he is fine now (more or less) and is under supervision to see that he makes a total recovery.

Dr. Rodriguez took a moment to berate me for calling Mr. Rodriguez in my last post, which I apologize for. It is Dr. Rodriguez, and she is, according to her, a very attractive and very female person. So I apologize.

I have urged her to halt all research on this "joke," and destroy the remaining copies. She has agreed with my assessment; and I'm afraid we may not be able to ascertain what, exactly, is supposed to be funny about Ann Coulter's statement reprinted below (you'll have to select the words if you want to see them; it's only fair).

Anyway I'm sorry that there will apparently be no resolution to this mystery; but sometimes the price of science is too high.

News from the Humor Institute of El Paso

I just got a call from Mr. Rodriguez, head of the Humor Institute of El Paso (referenced earlier today). Apparently the "joke" gleaned from Ms. Coulter's article today is proving a particularly tough nut to crack.

They've already head two Humor Specialist and a Professional Joculator threaten to quit. Three of their Funnyologists - Third Class - have disappeared. Now they might have gone to lunch, but it's still a bit early for lunch in El Paso. At any rate, one of the three, a vivacious young woman named Medea (apparently), was heard to say "Nothing will ever be funny again."

For those interested in the text of the "joke" I am going to print it below. Given it's anti-humor possibilities I am going to make the text the same color as the background - to read it simply select it using your mouse.

It was going to be Fitzmas Day! (Which is much like Christmas except instead of having her baby in a manger, the woman has a late-term abortion.)

Anyway they are going to continue work in it. Dr. Rodriguez assures me that she and her team are not the sort to give up just because of a little emotional scarring.

Warning! Low Snark!

Really none. This is a good article by Larry Beinhart on issues facing the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court. I like it because it gets beyond the admittadly important issue of Roe v. Wade to ask a few other questions. Such as the questions surrounding the 2000 Presidential election and the Supreme Court Case at that time.

Ignoring the fact that the man with fewer votes got to be president, what is most notable about the decision was that Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Conner did not vote according to what they believed the law to be. They voted for Bush because they wanted a Republican president.

We can say that because they have a track record and their votes in Bush v. Gore went against their own established principles. If Gore had been ahead and he asked them to stop the recount, on the very same grounds, it is a virtual certainty that those same five judges would have voted the other way.

I'm not one who wants to refight 2000 at the drop of a hat, but the I am one who thinks that the same problems that made 2000 so interesting are still around. At any rate the articles is good; go read it!

The Humor Institute of El Paso

Hey all.

In reading Ann Coulter's latest article I came across a sentence that just bumfoozled my mind. Check it out (Note: because of the potential psychological damage this joke might inflict (which has been revealed since I made this post), we are making it the same color as the background. If you wish to read it you will have to select it with your mouse. You have been warned.)

It was going to be Fitzmas Day! (Which is much like Christmas except instead of having her baby in a manger, the woman has a late-term abortion.)

Now in analyzing the form, it's clear that this is intended to be some kind of joke. But it strikes me as totally lacking in humor. Frankly it's so lacking in actual humor, it feels like we've punched a hole into some weird alternate dimension of Anti-Humor. So I have shipped this phrase on to the Humor Institute of El Paso for analysis.

If you have any ideas on where the humor is supposed to come in, please post them; every little bit of help helps.

Get on Board!

As you presumably know, Harry Reid and Congressional Democrats shut down the business of the senate earlier this week, in order to move forward the Senate Investigation into the intelligence that lead us into Iraq. Said Harry Reid (according to Salon), "After months and months and months of begging, cajoling and writing letters, we're finally going to have Phase II of the investigation into how the intelligence was used to lead us into this intractable war in Iraq."

In a shocking turn of events, Conservatives don't approve of this tactic. In his latest article, Matt Towery argues that this sort of stunt makes Democrats look like obstructinists and opportunists.

The stunt achieved nothing. If anything, it may one day be looked back on as the day the American public started to take a more positive view of President Bush and the Republicans again.

Yes, a White House indictment and a withdrawn Supreme Court nominee have Republicans on the run.

Even so, the public often senses when opportunistic politicians are trying to reach too far to score partisan blows.

This is the paradoxical difficulty of being the minority party. You can't actually enact your program except in tiny bits and pieces. The best you can hope for is to slow down the other sides program, and bring to light the other sides missteps and wrong doing.

But if you do that you are open to charges of obstructionism, opportunism, and not having a program of your own. Particularly by a party and a movement that realizes the American people's frustration with them. A party and a movement that would very much like to change the subject.

The Alito Files IV

Ben Shapiro writes today on the wonderful nomination of Judge Alito. Apparently this is a great day for us all. It's interesting that Shapiro, in listing off the cases he thinks shows Alito's good side, starts with one that his opponents are bringing up as well.

He was the lone dissenting voice on the Third Circuit in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1991), the case concerning a Pennsylvania state requirement that husbands be notified before wives received abortions. Alito, still an appellate court judge bound by Supreme Court precedent, criticized the majority opinion's conclusion that spousal notification created an "undue burden" on pregnant women seeking an abortion. Wrote Alito: "The Pennsylvania legislature could have rationally believed that some married women are initially inclined to obtain an abortion without their husbands' knowledge because of perceived problems -- such as economic constraints, future plans, or the husbands' previously expressed opposition -- that may be obviated by discussion prior to the abortion."

A few points

1. This ruling does place wives in the same category as children. A child should be required to tell her parents before getting an abortion, because she isn't able to make the decision on her own (or so the argument goes). She needs the counsel of someone more mature and responsible than her who knows her; hence she needs to consult her parents. Requiring wives to consult with their husbands puts them in exactly the same position.

Echidne of the Snakes wrote a good post on this the other day, discussing this ruling and another in which he argued that a wife could be strip searched if her husband had a search warrent against him (hey if you can search his car why can't you search his wife?)

While I can understand opposition to abortion, I don't countenance opposition to abortion that places women in the same category as children or property.

2. Ben Shapiro did underline something else that you are all well aware of. Let's go back to this phrase "Alito, still an appellate court judge bound by Supreme Court precedent, criticized the majority opinion's conclusion . . ." Obviously if Alito is on the Supreme Court his relation to Supreme Court precedent changes quiet a bit, doesn't it?

Anyway we aren't done with Ben Shapiro yet, as our new feature (A Catalogue of Commentators) debuts this afternoon, and young Ben is first up.

For the Children

Consider the first paragraph of Walter E. Williams latest article, "Do we really care about children?"

I cringe with disgust when I hear politicians say, "We're doing it for the children." What's worse is so many Americans mindlessly fall hook, line and sinker for the hype. Judging by our actions, Americans could not care less for future generations, and future generations will curse us for it. Let's look at it.

Now given that title and that opening paragraph, what do you think Mr. William's article is about. Education maybe? School lunches? After School Programs? The Environment?

Nope. It's about Social Security. The fact that very few politicians pitch Social Security (with a minimum entry age of 65, if memory serves) as a program for the children seems to have escaped Mr. Williams. On the other hand, perhaps he is of the opinion that we are all children at heart (I'm not, as it turns out, but many are).

In fact, most people who bring children into the Social Security debate are on William's side. "We need to destroy Social Security now so as to save future generations the trouble of having to destroy it." In fact that is largely Mr. William's argument.

He plays the usual tricks. He takes the amount due in future generations and presents it to our generation as a lump sum (without, I note, providing footnotes so we could check out his figures). This is a little akin to summing up a house mortgage, imagining you would have to pay it as a lump sum, and saying that since you can't swing that much money you shouldn't own a house.

He does recommend raising the age of eligibility for Social Security to 80 on the theory that most of us would be dead by then. Nice when they put their cards on the table like that. He could take the next step and explain that regardless of whether Social Security is solvent till the end of time or not, he thinks its a bad program and one we shouldn't have.

The Alito Files III - Huffington Posts

There's a couple of interesting posts over at the Huffington Post. First of all is this tidbit from Cenk Uygur.

We interviewed Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) Monday night on The Young Turks. Sen. Salazar is one of the Gang of 14, the group of Senators who saved the filibuster. He indicated in the interview that the filibuster was still a viable option in these upcoming Supreme Court confirmation proceedings for Judge Alito . . .

You can listen to clips of the show at the post.

I do think it's clear that the Alito nomination means the end of the Gang of 14. Some of the Republicans feel that Alito doesn't live up to the Extraordinary Circumstances clause in their contract. And at least one of the Democrats thinks that it does. The more extremist Limbaugh Republicans want the Nuclear Option invoked anyway so this is good news for them.

Byron Williams thinks that Alito is, in the short term, very good for the Bush Presidency.

On the heels of the administration’s worst week—American military death toll passed the 2,000 plateau, the Harriet Miers withdrawal, and the indictment of “Scooter” Libby---the president simply changed the conversation by nominating U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

By nominating Alito, the president has discovered that the left as well as the right can be unwitting allies in his overarching political need to alter the current conversation.

I don't know how to take that last line. Certainly I see plenty in Alito's background that concerns me, even if it does take the focus off of Libby and Plame and Rove. That said I think we can focus on two things at once (or three counting Iraq).

A few more humerous comments. Paul Krassner reports on a reporter asking an obvious question.

And Bark Bark Woof Woof (who doesn't post at the Huffington Post but is quite good anyway) comments on how to refute an upcoming Republican talking point.

Fear and Loathing

Bill O'Rielly recently threatened those who called into his show and expressed views he disagrees with.

CALLER: . . . I got one point about the media. If you want true, no-spin facts about this case, you can't do better than mediamatters.com.

O'REILLY: Ah! All right. Anyway, we get another nut on the air. That's the worst part of doing this. Ninety percent of the callers are good, and then you get nuts. Now, we should go to their house. We should all go because I can get their addresses when they call in. We can trace them back, and we should all go over and surprise them.

So what exactly would you do at peoples homes Mr. O'Rielly. You and your fans, you come to my home, what are you going to do? Beat the shit out of me (which would be quite a task as I am full of it)? What exactly are you planning, Mr. O'Rielly?

Mr. O'Rielly has it in for Media Matters for America as we all know. Media Matters commentary isn't the best around, but what they are quite good at is documenting what the right says. If you go the website you can listen to O'Rielly threatening those who call in as plain as day.

And of course that's what really gets under their skins.

The Alito Files II

Another look at some of Alito's cases is found at ThinkProgress, which does consistently bang up work.

I see a theme through Alito's work. He is in favor of putting obstacles in the way of justice; so long as those obstacles aren't technically impossible to cross, they are ok. For example, in suing on racial discrimination counts, Alito would place the bar so high that companies could, in effect, discriminate all the time. He would allow them to circumvent the spirit of the law if not the letter of it.

Rush Limbaugh is overjoyed at the Alito nomination, as you might expect. And you might also guess why he's so happy.

They're going to say it; what I'm telling you is I don't want to hear any complaints about it, because, my friends, this is what we wanted. This is what we wanted. We want the Democrats to be who they are. The president's made a great pick here. Chuck Schumer, we need to give him his full-time, 24/7 cable service called the All Schumer Service, or ASS. Let Chuck Schumer be out there all the time saying what he's saying, let Ted Kennedy, the swimmer, come up for air and say what he wants to say. Let Dingy Harry say it. Let them all talk about it.

To put it another way, it pissed the Democrats off, so Rush is happy with it.

America is the Best!

American exceptionalism is the belief that America gets to tell the rest of the world what to do. Don't believe me? Check out Dennis Prager's latest article.

What is American exceptionalism? The belief that America often knows better than the world what is right and wrong.

Yep. We know what is right and wrong so the rest of the world can do what we say.

Why do we know what is right and wrong? Dennis Prager (who is cheering for a future civil war) has an answer to that as well.

And from where does this belief in American exceptionalism derive? Mostly from the religious beliefs that underlie American values.

What's interesting is how regularly the holy works underline the fact that those who consider themselves the most religious are often really out of harmony with God. Take the Pharisees vs. Jesus in the New testament. The Pharisees were pretty sure that they were exceptional and that they had the right to tell everybody what to do. That didn't seem to be Jesus's way, but possibly I don't have the same understanding of holy writ that Dennis Prager does.

He then goes on to explain how the Secular Left (who doesn't believe that America has the right to do whatever it wants in the world) and the Religious Right differs on the principle of law vs. morality. He types this astonishing bit.

This difference is easily observed in the way the two sides view the war in Iraq. For the opponents of American exceptionalism, generally the secular Left here and abroad, the greatest sin of the war is that it allegedly violates international law. Had it been authorized by the United Nations Security Council, as was the first war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it would have been considered legal and not have elicited nearly as much opposition as it has. But because the U.N. Security Council did not authorize this war, it is deemed illegal and therefore deemed wrong.

Yeah, in Mr. Pragers mind, the main reason to oppose the Iraq war was that the UN didn't sign off on it. This is partially true and largely false. Getting UN approval would have been difficult and would have required the Bush administration to make a real case for invading Iraq. They couldn't do this, obviously. So the war would have been prevented.

But the real reason liberals are pissed off about the Iraq war is that a lot of people have died unnecessarily. Let me repeat that; a lot of people (both American Soldiers and Iraqis) have died unnecessarily. That is what pisses us off. And if your morality doesn't lead you to get pissed off when people are killed unnecessarily, well than your morality isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

Imagine if you will a Prager court of law. A defendant is brought in; the judge sizes him up, and condemns him to death. Very efficient. The Judge knows right and wrong. The judge knows and believes in Judeo Christian values. So why shouldn't he do what he knows to be right? So defendant X heads off for the gas chamber.

A secular liberal (or even a religious liberal) might say, wait a moment, what if the Judge has made an error? But to Dennis Prager and all modern day Pharisees the possibility of error does not enter into it. Condemning a man to death or invading a nation; the right answer is clear and anybody who doesn't support it is getting hung up on "the law."

I guess I'm hung up on the law.

The Alito Files

Going to start gathering as much information on Alito as I can over the next few days. My initial impression of him is that he is a right wing extremist; but I want to look at all the information first.

Salon's War Room has two stories on cases he was involved in.

* In 2001 there were four first degree murder cases, including James William Riley, in Kent County, Deleware. The Prosecution ensured that not one juror in these four trials was black. Riley challenged this on appeal. The majority on the appeals court felt that he was in the right (saying ". . . is it really necessary to have a sophisticated analysis by a statistician to conclude that there is little chance of randomly selecting four consecutive all white juries?"); Alito dissenting.

* In 1991, Alito argued that the state (Pennsylvania) could prevent a woman from having an abortion without notifying her husband.

That's a start.

The Ideologues vs. The Brainiacs

There are two reasons to dislike the Harriet Miers nomination.

1. Harriet Miers did not have sufficient legal background to sit in the highest court of the land.

2. Harriet Miers is a stealth candidate and there is no reason not to nominate a lifelong well-known conservative who will annoy the left wing.

The first is the brainiac reason not to like Miers; the second is the ideological reason to reject her.
Novak is a brainiac (the phrase does not actually refer to the mental ability of Mr. Novak on which we have no comment). His latest article, "Bush's Judicial Test," expresses dismay that President Bush seems to relay on relative non-entities for his support.

Bush's blunder on Miers reflects his genuine disdain for Washington and the national government, still intense after nearly five years in office. That is basically why he reaches back to longtime friends and associates (cronies, say his critics) whom he trusts.

A synonym for Braniac might be Washingtonian, actually. They don't share Bush's negative feelings towards the government; rather they want someone who is a known quality, someone who knows how the game is played.

Of course on the other side you have the idealogues like, say, Ann Coulter. Responding to the Mier's withdrawal, Ms. Coulter said the following on CNN.

Well, I think I've said it, he's -- the right-wing base has just shown its power. And as I say, and it's unfortunate circumstances. But what got Bush in trouble was listening to Democrats in the first place.

For the idealogue this Supreme Court Nomination is a chance to both educate the American people about what Conservativism is all about and to stick it to the Democrats. That may be the most important factor in their determining if President Bush's next candidate is acceptable; how mad does he or she make us Liberals?

This provides President Bush with a tricky needle to thread. If he satisfies the Ann Coutlers in his party, well, it might anger the mainstream Republicans and the American people. One thing the Miers nomination has done is that it is put ideology back on the table. Since the Coutler Republicans objected to Miers on ideological grounds, and the Bush White House defended her on the same grounds (Religion playing a role as well), the next candidate will have his ideological leanings discussed as well.

Should be interesting.

Of course since writing that above; I went to an hour long security meeting and in the mean time President Bush has announced his next candidate, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. According to the New York Times, this will provoke a battle with the Democrats, and Gary Bauer, a prominent Religious Conservative, has already ok'd the nomination. And he's another white male, so it's nice that President Bush didn't give into political correctness (from the Coulter Republican point of view). I guess the idealogues have won for now.

And Now For Something Really Important

For those of you who play World of Warcraft like I do obsessively, well, this might be of interest.

Actually some of the artwork is pretty good even if you don't play it.

Stuff I Haven't Commented On

1. Harriet Miers withdrew from consideration for a seat on the Supreme Court.

2. Scooter Libby, from Dick Cheney's office, was indicted on counts of Perjury and False Statements.

It's been a good week for the Bush Administration.

On the face of it, these both look like disasters. And they are. But the disaster happened a while ago. In the Miers situation, the disaster happened when she was nominated; in the Libby case, the disaster happened when Fitzgerald opened his investigation.

Once those things happened, the Bush administration was going to face some stuff. But this week both crisises have turned out to be bad, but not as bad as they could have been (for the Bushies). Rove wasn't indicted and may not be. Nobody was charged with actually outing Valerie Plame (or Valerie Wilson as she is named in the documents). Harriet Miers withdrew because the White House refused to turn over documents, and not because of a massive split between the White House and the Conservative Base (or at least that's the official story).

It's possible both of these stories could reverse themselves. Fitzgerald could hand down further indictments. Bush's next pick for the Supreme Court could be just as problematic (well from my perspective it almost certainly will be). But for today, things are going better than they might have for the Bush Administration.

The Contest - Simplified Version

As some of you know we are deciding on a new member of the Make Me a Commentator!!! staff to host a new feature (probably on Wednesdays) that will review the various columnists and commentators that you might be interested in. The four finalists are

Puke. Angry angry punk rock girl.

Jean-Louis Crowley. British singer with French Affectations and a dark family secret.

Durango. Half Singing Cowboy, Half Squinting Cowboy.

The Post Modernist. A hero for absurdity or against absurdity, depending.

You can vote for more than one person, incidentally so feel free to do so.

New Commentator

Who should join the Make Me a Commentator Staff? Puke Jean-Louis Crowley Durango The Post Modernist Current Results

Now if you want to be entered into the contest, you still need to put your vote in the comments section of this blog. The winner of the contest (chosen randomly) will get a free subscription to Salon magazine. It's a great website, with good political commentary and constant interesting articles. At any rate if we can't contact you, you can't win. So enjoy. Oh and since this poll was created using a free site, well there's ads involved.

An Interview with Bryant

10-28-02

Well this is it.

My first post to my blog, which I (my name is Bryant, in case you are interested in that sort of thing) have cleverly entitled Make me a Commentator. Why should you the adoring public support me as a commentator? There are many reasons, many involving the size of my checking account and my desire for expensive electronics, but I must admit those are largely personal reasons. The best reason I can offer you, the reader, is somewhat simpler.

Why not?

Have you read the comments of some of my fellow commentators? And let me be clear, neither the left nor the right has a monopoly on narrow ideological boneheaded commentators. I use the term boneheaded in the

You may wonder what qualifications I have to commentate on the news of the day. I don't have any, really. I read commentators often, and I have a MA in American History, but besides that my only real qualification is that I have the overwhelming arrogance to believe that my view points might matter to the random reader.

You may also wonder what my personal politics are. I generally lean towards the left on economic issues more towards the center on social issues. I believe in America. That's enough to get started, and I'll fill in the details as we go along.

Anyway that's enough of an introduction. Hope you enjoy this.

Q. So that's the text of your first post, some three years ago.

Bryant. Three years ago tomorrow. Yeah it's kind of embarrassing.

Q. Has the blog lived up to your expectations?

Bryant. Not really. But it wouldn't you see? I had certain illusions when I started this blog, as everybody does when they start something.

Q. What sort of illusions?

Bryant. Oh like that I would reach people. Or get well known. I don't know. That it would lead to something better.

Q. And you don't think it has?

Bryant. Mostly it's gone round in circles. I've done interesting things here, and things I'm proud of. But, well after three years, you have to ask what's next. And the answer can't really be more of the same.

Q. Well one could argue that you've made plenty of changes recently. Adding new commentators for example.

Bryant. Well that wasn't my call entirely; but it has turned out well in part. Certainly I like what McIckleson and Space Lobster have added. And Cheery has taken a lot of the day to day sort of nuts and bolts stuff away from me.

Q. I notice you left someone out.

Bryant. Well . . . I think Grumbly's right, when she says she hurts this blog. I mean she adds a little balance I guess, but I don't think my readers come here for balance. They come for a liberal point of view. I can only imagine what someone who comes here from Democratic Underground and reads one of her posts thinks, but I don't imagine they are in a hurry to come back. But her staying isn't my call.

Q. So what do you think about the future of this blog?

Bryant. Well I'm not as pessimistic as Grumbly Muffin, but certainly anything is possible. Part of me things we should completely shut down the blog and open a totally new one; but another part of me thinks that smacks of desperation.

Q. How do you favor to win the contest?

Bryant. I like them all really. I worry that Puke would create the same problems as Grumbly, but other than that they all seem pretty interesting.

Q. Any final thoughts?

Bryant. Tomorrow is always another day. I guess that's a good motto for anybody.