Slashdot Mirror
Your Favorite Political Weblogs?
worm eater would like to know: "As the mainstream media is coming under closer scrutiny from the 'blogosphere,' and is having to actually respond to these journalists in pajamas, I thought I'd ask Slashdot: what are your favorite political blogs? Lately I've been reading Talking Points Memo, a liberal weblog by Joshua Micah Marshall, and a blog by Andrew Sullivan, a conservative writer. Where do you go when you want to see the mainstream media dissected and poked at?"
Spinsanity is a great site for articles that point out all of the spin from both parties.
They seem to do a pretty good job of showing the foolishness of both sides - which is refreshing, since IMHO both parties suck bad, and I therefore get very annoyed at sights that are focused on making one party or the other look bad, while ignoring their own parties major issues.
Don't know if it qualifies as a "blog" but I regularly check FactCheck: http://www.factcheck.org/
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Definitely the fafblog.
fafblog.blogspot.com
Anyone else know of it?
I like DailyKos.
politics.slashdot.org is rapidly turning into one of my least favorites because I've noticed that the moderation system is running amuck! Never before have I seen such a split in moderations where a single comment can be rated "informative" and "troll" numerous times in the same story. And many moderators with a chip on their shoulder start using "offtopic" and "overrated" to try to protect their own karma during metamoderation. Here's an example of where it happened to me recently. And it's not just the political posts (though I suspect it happens there most often), but in a Star Wars story. I still can't believe this post got called a "troll"! I'm sure many others can come up with their own examples.
It seems that there may be too many people moderating these days, and little accountability, a single person doesn't have to have an agenda; you can have a group of likeminded people who want to squelch dissenting opinions pummel a relatively decent post down into the noise of hot grits posts.
DailyKos has a better system where moderations aren't anonymous, so you can see how people are moderating. Then again, if DailyKos had the same traffic as Slashdot, maybe its moderation system would get corrupted too.
Maybe the ultimate problem is that people don't respect others' views, or they prize too highly the views of people that they may agree with but use bad logic or specious reasoning. It's probably indicative of the growing polarization in our country. As people start migrating to sandboxes where only likeminded people congregate (which blogs, especially political ones, can lead to), they become less tolerant of opinions that challenge their own.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The link to Andrew Sullivan's site isn't right. It should be www.andrewsullivan.com
/dev/random
http://www.thismodernworld.com/ good bloggage and good cartoons too
but I really like dick jokes... so maybe it's just me.
This
www.newshounds.us
Their motto is "We watch FOX so you don't have to." They monitor the political slant of FOX News. The people that run this blog are the media monitors from the movie "Outfoxed" by Robert Greenwald.
BuzzMachine covers many topics from journalism, to every day life, to politics. Jeff started blogging after living through 9/11 first-hand. His political views tend to really be near the center. What I like about his political blogging is that he strives to stay away from the simplistic polarized political rants, and "gotcha" politics that plague so many other blogs i've seen, as well as mainstream media. He recently started spurring very intelligent and useful debate about various specific 2004 election issues. Jeff welcomes disagreement and all forms of thought-provoking debate, which is precisely what he has been yearning for, for years. To me, Jeff Jarvis' blog embodies that the Internet should be all about: less about mudslinging, more about exchange of thoughts. If he ever was to run for President, he'd get my vote.
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
...and who said he doesn't have a sense of humour!
/dev/random
"Where do you go when you want to see the mainstream media dissected and poked at?"
The Daily Show with John Stewart. Its not a blog, its a comedy show on Comedy Central. But it seems to be one of the few places where politicians and the media have their stupid blunders pointed out. Plus its pretty entertaining.
I welcome our new 99% overlords.
Is the Drudge Report really a blog? I see it more as a "new media" agent who tries to report raw news which major news outlets refuse to report on. Most recently it was Rathergate, but a few years ago it was the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
Don't get me wrong, I've recently seen the light and realized once again that -all- politicians suck after a brief fling with the belief that the Democrats were On My Side. But, Drudge just seems to be out for a slanderous story, and well, it doesn't even have to be true to generate some traffic now does it?
Of course, this website is not the only one, nor is it a factor of it being right-leaning (Michael Moore anybody?) but there you go.
The mail section of Jerry Pournelle's website is great. He takes on many topics including computers, technology, and education, not just politics. Yes, it's Jerry Pournelle of Byte's Chaos Manor and SF authordom.
m ail.htm l
Web site:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/current
Your design to a real part online: Big Blue Saw
No self-respecting, heterosexual, republican male, should go without a visit every couple days to General JC Christian, patriot. The general provides a welcome tonic for all the inner frenchmen leaking out of the mainstream press.
Their motto is "We watch FOX so you don't have to."
The same kind of thinking that just got CBS into deep, deep doodoo.
I'll have to go with "None".
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Like what? The New York Times? C... BS? No thanks. Drudge more times than not is nothing more than a page of links that lead you directly to these news items. The things that he breaks himself are usually things that the "source that you consider reputable" won't cover.
As with anything, be critical of what you read, but Drudge has proven himself right more times than the elite media cares to admit.
http://www.instapundit.com/ - the king of all blogs
http://andrewsullivan.com/ - gone way down hill but still readable
http://www.allahpundit.com/ - good mix of political fun
http://claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html - guns and fun
http://www.powerlineblog.com/ - more right slant fun.
http://www.iraqthemodel.com/ - differnt view inside Iraq
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/ - more good insight in iraq
http://www.iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/ - and again
http://cbftw.blogspot.com/ - used to be one of the best blogs in Iraq until the man cracked down on him. But MUST READ THE ARCHIVES!
mycal
Washington Monthly (by Kevin Drum)
Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall)
Atrios
Matthew Yglesias
Digby's Blog
Oh, it's hard to narrow it down to a small list.
The previously mentioned Talking Points Memo is quite good.
Also see:
Washington Monthly (Kevin Drum, formerly of Calpundit)
Altercation (what liberal media?)
Daily Howler
Columbia Journalism Review de-spins the media.
Juan Cole (very insightful Iraq commentary from this professor of history)
White House Briefing (political round-up)
I tend not to read conservative blogs because I like my blood-pressure where it is. And, really, I read enough conservative BS when I read the stories that are run in the normal "liberally biased" press. In their zeal to be "balanced", news outlets feel they need to print a bunch of lies & distortions from the right in order to balance anything not from the right.
---------The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Unrelentless?
You mean he relents?
Or is this like "Disirregardless?"
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
If you really want to read a high-quality conservative blog, here are two from National Review Online:
- The Corner, a braided-blog with constributions by many of NR's writers, run by Kathryn Jean Lopez, and
- The Kerry Spot, penned by Jim Geraghty, whichs follows Kerry and his campaign closely, as well as related subjects. (The Kerry Spot was one of the best sites to follow for updates on Rathergate.
Speaking of Rathergate, a seminal blogsphere watershed that Slashdot has not chosen to feature on its front page, here are some of the key blogs which helped break open the Rathergate story:Well, that should get you started. in truth, except for the NR blogs, I was only an occasional readers of the others before the Rathergate story broke, but now I'm much more of a regular reader, much to the detriment of my productivity...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Instapundit is hands down my go-to political weblog.
It offers a nice round-up of links from the blogosphere, along with the his own commentary.
It's run by Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, and social liberal, everything else conservative.
The beauty of blogs is that Bias is readily apparent, and seldom denied, unlike oh, say, some cats in the mainream media.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
That comment was not unmeaningless.
I write in my journal
Translation: "He says things which are true but that I do not like."
I write in my journal
Actually, no. I don't waste my time with his site anymore. I get my news from outside the US, like a mirror I find it's a very revealing reflection of how others view us as well as exploring news topics commonly overlooked on home ground because we tend to be too fascinated with scandal and innuendo to pay attention to what's really happening. Learn to spot high profile political issues as the sucker bait that they really are.
I'd rather read the Onion than Drudge.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I get my news from outside the US
But then you're getting your news from a bunch of people who have absolutely no idea what's actually going on in the country.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
Really? If you think that, then you must think that Fox News has no idea what is going on in the Middle East.
I disagree. Sullivan does focus heavily on gay rights (goshIwonderwhy,) but he's still very much a 'classic' conservative. While gay rights may be his biggest cause, he continues to make a lot of noise over things like fiscal responsibility, smaller government, keeping government out of private spheres, and accountability. He's decidedly gone out of step with Bush's neoconservatism, but frankly, I'd say that Bush is the one who left conservatism--not Sullivan.
For example, his current front-page articles include:
While it's fair to say that he's big on gay rights, it's disingenuous to dismiss him as single-minded and 'no longer conservative'. Andrew Sullivan is decidedly conservative, even if a lot of other conservatives out there would rather not count him among their numbers...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Oh, you mean like that "bimbo eruption" he tried to pin on Kerry back in the primaries that turned out to be such a load of hooey he ended up apologizing to the woman he pointed the finger at?
Yeah, he's a real Beacon of Truth, all right.
Read my blog.
Merely repeating a lie doesn't make it true. Fox has said several times the photo was false, as did National Review and several other conservative sources.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
1. Instapundit. Written by a Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian law professor at the University of Tennessee whose expertise is in second amendment issues, technology and communication. Perhaps the most influential and widely read blog.
2. The Corner. National Review's group weblog. Lots of contributors, who vary widely in tone (after you read it a while you come to recognize who the various authors are, and what points of view they hold). If you're not a conservative, you should check it out -- you won't agree with most of the stuff, but after a while you might learn that the folks on the "other side" aren't a bunch of moronic power-mad nazis: They actually have coherent reasons for believing what they believe, and can ably articulate those views. Understanding their arguments will help you sharpen your own.
3. The Volokh Conspiracy. A group weblog of libertarian and conservative law professors. The lead conspirator, Eugene Volokh, is a computer programmer-turned UCLA law professor; he is an expert in free speech issues, with some expertise in the second amendment as well. A lot of bloggers could learn from the civil tone of this blog -- i.e., no yelling, taunting or name-calling. Volokh believes writers should try to persuade others, not alienate them with overheated rhetoric.
Note that Volokh, like Reynolds, is a true libertarian: Conservatives are unlikely to agree with either of them on things like abortion and homosexuality.
4. Andrew Sullivan. An influential writer for Time, The New Republic and other print outlets. Perhaps the best-known openly gay conservative.
5. Kausfiles. A moderate-to-conservative Democrat, Mickey Kaus is utterly unsparing (and occasionally downright brutal) in his criticism of liberal excess, fellow democrats and the media. Doesn't write a lot, but is witty and sometimes offers extraordinary insights you won't get anywhere else.
6. Best of the Web. The Wall Street Journal's blog, written by James Taranto. A once-a-day read, it sums up a lot of current issues from a conservatives' point of view.
Yes, there are many many many many others. But if the conservative/libertarian blogosphere is like a tree, these are the trunk.
- Alaska Jack
Kos suffered from a case of "Baghdad-Bobia", a rare condition where their shear willingness to believe blinds them to facts that are evident to everyone else. To the Kos, the CBS forged memos were real and still are. During the debate over typesetting, it was enough to show a typewriter with proportional spacing while everyone else was performing technical analysis on different spacing technologies.
The Washington Monthy seems alright though. Chomsky suffers from being Chomsky. And no one suffers from it more than him
For all the shit it's going to create, I will say that the American population is to blame for the terrorist attacks. We twice elected Clinton, who while not completely inept concerning terrorists, did make some bad calls. He decided to strike at training camps at the same time he had to sit in front of congress about Lewinsky. Whether or not his decision was based on that timing is still debated today, but nobody will say that hitting Al-Qaeda training camps was a bad decision. We weren't in the position to send in troops, so missiles and bombs were the only plausible action. The really bad decision was to give up when the press criticized him for trying to deflect attention away from the scandal. Again, the people were to blame for electing the man, and again for criticizing his decision to attack.
Then we elected Bush, (many will still debate the election itself) who completely ignored all terrorist threats before the attacks, like the now famous memo that he received on August 6, 2001 titled Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US. Here is a scan of the original document. Here we are more than 3 years since that memo was written and the WTC attack; Bin Laden is still free, we're stuck in Iraq with the situation getting worse every day, and a whole new generation of Islamic extremists has even more reasons to hate us. We the people, not the president, have ensured that the vicious circle of hate, fear, and violence continues for another generation.
We bring it all on ourselves as long as we value charisma over substance.
You missed my point. The poster was questioning why certain slashdotters were using non-US media sources as their primary source of information. The poster said that journalists from non-US countries could not understand the US. From which, one could insinuate that we would be better off only listening to US sources for news on the US.
Therefore, I pointed out that if we could only use US news media to understand US news, then how could we trust the US media to understand the middle east?
I did only use Fox as an example, but that was because I was playing on the OPs sig on being part of the "right-wing conspiracy". However, I wasn't picking on Fox. I was picking on the OPs idea that only reporters that are from the US could possibly write good and valid articles on the US.
In other words, you can't just limit your news sources to domestic (US) news sources. There are good journalists from other countries that do a great job of reporting on the news here in the United States. Just like the fact that there are good journalists here in the US that do a great job of reporting from other spots around the world.
That presupposes that We the People get to make a meaningful choice of our leaders.
As long as we are choosing between a Republican and a Democrat for every single office, we do not get such a meaningful choice.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Well I don't believe that most people outside of the US are in a good position to understand US politics. The coverage the rest of the world get of the presidential candiates (to take an example) is slim.
I would argue the exact opposite. People outside the U.S. are far more likely to understand the positions of the presidential candidates (to take an example) than are Americans who are only exposed to media from their own country. The BBC, for example, is one of the most credible sources for American politics. The Canadian papers are good too. In the U.S. the press went downhill after they ditched the Fairness Doctrine. Now the sole objective of news programming is to make money, and you make money by telling people what they want to hear- and by telling them what you want them to hear so that you can make even more money. You can have it all. You can elect whoever you damn well please with no consequences. No matter how arrogant or incompetent he is, the world will still respect you and your country will still be #1 because you don't have to live with your decisions. People love to hear spin marketed as truth, especially if it avoids challenging their beliefs.
All the world sees of Bush is his speeches on Iraq or from F/911. They rarely get to see him as a human being while he's compaigning or mingling.
And irrelevant crap like that should influence your vote because...?
What he says about Iraq (for example) is exactly the sort of thing any voter would rightfully need to hear. Anything else- like how he mingles as a human being, or hunts, or fishes- is noise. Although it's interesting how Americans have become heavily indoctrinated into thinking that they're electing a fishing buddy here. It's what they're told is important. Do a Google News search for "Kerry" and "wind surfing", and you'll see why a proven incompetent like George W. Bush is still even in the race. The entire press minus CBS is gunning for him, and CBS just handed him a free pass on his festering Guard issue.
These are the people who think they should have a right to vote in the US elections.
Americans would make a better electoral decision- and probably vote more in line with their own interests to boot- if each one of them were assigned a random foreigner to tell him how to vote. Americans simply don't know what is going on in their own country.
I spoke to someone just back from the U.K. today at work. According to him, everyone across the political spectrum- practically without exception- is livid about this election. They believe it will affect their lives in the U.K. almost as much as it will affect Americans. But none of them can cast a vote against Bush. And until the campaign started, they had blithely assumed over there that Bush would surely lose the election because of Iraq.