Attentive readers will find Ann Althouse, Megan McArdle (formerly Jane Galt), and Michael Totten are helping Glenn Reynolds with the aggregating on Instapundit.

The big news of the day is that Captain Ed Morrissey has announced that he will be closing down his illustrious Captain’s Quarters blog and working at Michelle Malkin‘s Hot Air. I suppose adapting to the change will be easy enough. I just need to put Hot Air in my Essential Blogs links category.

Congratulations to all concerned.

Military Motivator is a blog devoted to motivation poster designs with military themes.

John Swift reveals that some of the rich-with-links top leftwing bloggers like Atrios do not practice, blogospherically at least, what they preach.

The idea that links are the capital of the blogosphere seems so obvious that you would think an economist like Atrios of Eschaton would have realized it long ago. And as he is a progressive who has accumulated quite a bit of link wealth, you might also think he would be in favor of redistributing some of that wealth instead of just letting it trickle down. So when he announced last year that he was declaring February 3 Blogroll Amnesty Day, and other bloggers followed suit, I assumed he meant that he was opening his blogroll up to the masses. I sent him a polite email pointing out that his blog was on my blogroll and I would really appreciate it if he would add my blog to his. I never heard back from him.

When February 3 rolled around, many bloggers discovered to their horror that instead of adding new blogs to his blogroll he was throwing many off, including some bloggers who were his longtime friends. Blogroll Amnesty Day, it turned out, was a very Orwellian concept. Instead of granting amnesty to others he was granting amnesty to himself not to feel bad for hurting others feelings.

In my case, my blog roll is my own link collection. Before I was blogging myself, I had blog links bookmarked in my browser by categories. When I took up blogging, I laboriously put in my entire collection of links, and have continually updated it. I’m simply sharing my own working link collection with the world at large. If I think I might wish to return to a blog someday, I add the link.

M. Dominique Poirier, a regular reader from France, has produced a 7:31 video tribute to Never Yet Melted. D.H. Lawrence must be spinning in his modernist grave.

Large portions of the Blogosphere have launched themselves late this morning into a lemming-like pursuit of a mischievous meme proposed by that rascal Matt Drudge:

Hillary is losing in New Hampshire. How soon will she withdraw?

TALK OF HILLARY EXIT ENGULFS CAMPAIGNS
Mon Jan 07 2008 09:46:28 ET

Facing a double-digit defeat in New Hampshire, a sudden collapse in national polls and an expected fund-raising drought, Senator Hillary Clinton is preparing for a tough decision: Does she get out of the race? And when?!

“She can’t take multiple double-digit losses in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada,” laments one top campaign insider to the DRUDGE REPORT. “If she gets too badly embarrassed, it will really harm her. She doesn’t want the Clinton brand to be damaged with back-to-back-to-back defeats.”

Meanwhile, Democrat hopeful John Edwards has confided to senior staff that he is staying in the race because Hillary “could soon be out.”

“Her money is going to dry up,” Edwards confided, a top source said Monday morning.

MORE

Key players in Clinton’s inner circle are said to be split. James Carville is urging her to fight it out through at least February and Super Tuesday, where she has a shot at thwarting Barack Obama in a big state.

“She did not work this hard to get out after one state! All this talk is nonsense,” said one top adviser.

But others close to the former first lady now see no possible road to victory, sources claim.

Developing…

[The dramatic reversal of fortunes has left the media establishment stunned and racing to keep up with fast-moving changes.

In its final poll before Iowa, CNN showed Clinton with a two-point lead over Obama. Editorial decisions were being made based on an understanding the Democratic primary race would be close, explained a network executive.]

Drudge is a scamp, isn’t he?

———————————-

Rightwing News, in picking the 20 Most Annoying Liberals, puts Hillary’s rival into a more accurate perspective, awarding him only number 20:

Barack Obama: It’s almost tempting to leave Bambi off the list since he’s not a race-baiting parasite like Al Sharpton and more importantly, because Hillary Clinton probably dreams of gouging his eyes out with an ice cream scoop every night.

On the other hand, anybody who got into the Senate by beating Alan Keyes and who hasn’t yet served a full term, isn’t by any objective standard even qualified to be President. Still, America’s most vapid politician, a guy who should have had his presidential campaign sponsored by Hallmark greeting cards — because in a whole year’s time, I’m not sure he said anything deeper than something you’ve read on the back of one of those cards — is now the favorite to be the Democratic nominee.

Liberal legal blog QuizLaw has pulled slightly ahead of conservative legal blog Overlawyered in the polling for ABA Journal’s best general law blog contest ending today. Evidently, the liberals have been beating the bushes for votes to win this won.

Ruin a trial lawyer’s week, vote for Walter Olson‘s Overlawyered for best general legal blog.

Vote here.

Kevin Drum mockingly proposes that readers pick the five “All-time Wingnuttiest” ( i.e. the worst from a leftist perspective) blog posts from his own list of fourteen nominees.

Inevitably, he includes some not-especially-interesting (Gotcha!) Iraq War posts:

Glenn Reynolds

and Steven Den Beste
(Cut and paste the link to read the post: http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/03/Itsthewaiting.shtml),

some a bit too eccentric:

Pam Geller proving that she can’t sing –though she does dance well–,

Ann Althouse obsessing over Jessica Valenti’s breasts),

and a few not really here or there, but curiously enough he actually does nominate some real winners, some important conservative blog posts of unusual merit and long term interest:

Bill Whittle (after Katrina): “Tribes”
-Despite its embarrassing public display of warrior self-identification, Whittle’s Tribes is a truly classic post which says something fundamental, real, and important.

Lee Siegel: “The Origins of Blogofascism”
-This one is a landmark post in the history of the blogosphere, identifying a serious problem and pathology.

Ben Domenech: “Pachyderms in the Mist”
-Don’t listen to him at your peril, democrats.

Kim du Toit: “The Pussification of the Western Male”
-Sure it’s a rant, but it’s a fine rant.

Michelle Malkin: “The Defeatocrats Cheer”
-Michelle Malkin is very cute, and she can cheerlead.

But, in his effort to pick the all-time greats, Kevin Drum did manage to overlook the single most important blog post of all-time:

Charles Johnson: Bush Guard Documents: Forged

And, undeservedly I thought, he overlooked my own:
Gone to Live on a Farm

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) issued a press release on October 30 denouncing a mandatory program reeducating students in politically correct thinking.

The following day much of the conservative portion of the Blogosphere, including this blog, reported and commented on the story.

And, yesterday, November 1, Patrick Harker, president of the University of Delaware, announced the cessation of the thought-reform program.

The University of Delaware strives for an environment in which all people feel welcome to learn, and which supports intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, free inquiry and respect for the views and values of an increasingly diverse population. The University is committed to the education of students as citizens, scholars and professionals and their preparation to contribute creatively and with integrity to a global society. The purpose of the residence life educational program is to support these commitments.

While I believe that recent press accounts misrepresent the purpose of the residential life program at the University of Delaware, there are questions about its practices that must be addressed and there are reasons for concern that the actual purpose is not being fulfilled. It is not feasible to evaluate these issues without a full and broad-based review.

Upon the recommendation of Vice President for Student Life Michael Gilbert and Director of Residence Life Kathleen Kerr, I have directed that the program be stopped immediately. No further activities under the current framework will be conducted.

Vice President Gilbert will work with the University Faculty Senate and others to determine the proper means by which residence life programs may support the intellectual, cultural and ethical development of our students.

Ed Driscoll, Jr. explains how the consensus of the MSM originated, and how talk radio and the rise of the blogosphere re-opened public debate in the United States.

Prior to the 1920s, American newspapers and pamphleteers had a long, diverse history of vigorous, partisan debate. Which is why there are still newspapers with names like the Springfield Democrat and Shelbyville Republican.

That began to change with the rise of competition from the broadcast media. In the 1920s, because radio frequencies were finite, their allocation became heavily regulated by the federal government. As Shannon Love of the classically liberal Chicago Boyz (www.chicagoboyz.net) economics blog explains, the federal government “took the radio spectrum, and instead of auctioning it off like land, essentially socialized it. And then they made the distribution of the broadcast spectrum basically a political decision.”

That, combined later with the FCC’s so-called “Fairness Doctrine—which required broadcasting networks to give “equal time” to opposing viewpoints—compelled broadcasters to maintain at least a veneer of impartiality in order to get and keep their licenses. A de facto political compromise was reached, Love says, “that the broadcast news would not be political—it would be objective and nonpartisan, was basically the idea. And then that carried over from radio to TV,” and eventually to print media. (That conceit continues to this day, as the media toss around words like “unbiased” and “objective” as easily as Dan Rather tosses off hoary, made-up Texas-isms.)

Completely dependent on the federal government, the broadcast industry’s most urgent priority became “don’t rock the boat.” And aping their broadcast competitors, newspapers began to adopt the mantle of impartiality, as well. A mass media that increasingly eschewed vibrant political debate helped FDR win four presidential elections handily, and Ike’s refusal to dismantle the New Deal in the 1950s only perpetuated its soft socialism. That era’s pervasive desire for consensus was symbolized by the ubiquitous Man in the Gray Flannel Suit and his centrist politics.

By the early 1970s, mass media had reached its zenith (if you’ll pardon the pun). Most Americans were getting their news from one of three TV networks’ half-hour nightly broadcasts. With the exception of New York, most big cities had only one or two primary newspapers. And no matter what a modern newspaper’s lineage, by and large its articles, except for local issues, came from global wire services like the Associated Press or Reuters; it took its editorial lead from the New York Times; and it claimed to be impartial (while usually failing miserably).

Up until the Reagan years, Love says, “definitely fewer than one hundred people, and maybe as few as twenty people, actually decided what constituted national news in the United States.” These individuals were principally concentrated within a few square blocks of midtown Manhattan, the middle of which was home to the offices of the New York Times. The aptly nicknamed “Gray Lady” largely shaped the editorial agendas not just of newspapers but of television, as well. As veteran TV news correspondent Bernard Goldberg wrote in his 2003 book Arrogance, “If the New York Times went on strike tomorrow morning, they’d have to cancel the CBS, NBC, and ABC evening newscasts tomorrow night.”

Love calls this “the Parliament of Clocks”: creating the illusion of truth or accuracy by force of consensus.

One of Kos’s recommended diarists, a moonbat who signs himself as “Maccabee,” yesterday leaked a report on current US war preparations supposedly originating from the horse’s mouth.
It read:

I have a friend who is an LSO on a carrier attack group that is planning and staging a strike group deployment into the Gulf of Hormuz. (LSO: Landing Signal Officer- she directs carrier aircraft while landing) She told me we are going to attack Iran. She said that all the Air Operation Planning and Asset Tasking are finished. That means that all the targets have been chosen, prioritized, and tasked to specific aircraft, bases, carriers, missile cruisers and so forth.

I asked her why she is telling me this.

Her answer was really amazing.

“I have become cynical only recently. I also don’t believe anyone will be able to stop this. Bush has become something of an Emperor. He will give the command, and cruise missiles will fly and aircraft will fly and people will die, and yet few of us here are really able to cobble together a great explanation of why this is a good idea. Of course many of us can give you the 4H Club lecture on democracy in the Mid East. But if you asked any of the flight officers whether they have a clear idea of what the goal of this strike is, your answer would sound like something out of a think tank policy paper. But it’s not like Kosovo or when we relieved the tsunami victims. There everyone could tell you in a sentence what we were here doing.”

“That’s what’s missing. A real sense of purpose. What’s missing is the answer to what the hell are we doing out here threatening this country with all this power? Last night in the galley, an ensign asked what right do we have to tell a sovereign nation that they can’t build a nuke. I mean the table got EF Hutton quiet. Not so much because the man was asking a question that was off culture. But that he was asking a good question. In fact, the discussion actually followed afterwards topside where someone in our group had to smoke a cigarette. The discussion was intelligent but also in lowered voices. It’s like we aren’t allowed to ask the questions that we always ask before combat. It’s almost as if the average seaman or soldier is doing all the policy work.”

The right side of the blogosphere got right to work on this one.

Confederate Yankee I Love the Smell of Daily Kos in the Morning.

Neptunus Lex Hoisting the (BS) Flag.

Joshua Trevino:

It’s no surprise that there are serial liars and embellishers on the interwebs. What should be noted is that their lies and embellishments can be utterly transparent and repetitive, and yet be accepted as fact time and again by the audience for whom they confirm basic prejudices. Take, for example, one pseudonymous fellow at DailyKos who goes by “Maccabee.” He claimed to meet a Romanian cabbie who told him to leave Bush’s tyrannical America; he claimed to meet a Holocaust survivor who told him that Bush’s America resembles Nazi Germany; he claimed to meet another cabbie, Ugandan this time, who told him that Bush’s America is worse than Idi Amin’s Uganda; he claimed to have received a phone call from Balad, Iraq, revealing that the majority of the American Army’s mechanized strength is “out of commission”; and today, he claimed to have received a telephone call from an American aircraft carrier on deployment, revealing that the United States Navy is about to attack Iran (This item has been deleted from Daily Kos -JDZ). Oh, and he also learned that the naval rank and file detest George W. Bush, too. That “Maccabee” is a habitual liar is obvious enough: what’s more ridiculous than his fables is that they are nearly always Recommended Diaries at DailyKos. The reality-based community loves its myths — and its mythmakers.

And so poor Kos discovered that real treason had not been posted after all, and he was forced to purge the offending post, to eat humble pie (see below), and to admonish all his little moonbats (in purest Kos-ese): Don’t believe everything you read on the internets.

Seriously, just because something online confirms your own viewpoint or prejudices or whatnot, it does not mean it’s true.

Skepticism is a virtue.

Now the right-wingers are laughing at the gullibility of those who recommend Maccabee’s diaries.

And they are quite justified in doing so.

Michael Blowhard knows, and spills the beans, thusly:

Having made a score in a recent dot-com boom — though “I only made out like a thief, not like a bandit,” he writes — he has been treating himself to a sabbatical, reading, thinking, and writing. He confesses that his monthly book bill is around $500.

Mencius Moldbug lives in San Francisco, where he is temporarily retired from the software industry. His principal occupations are feeding ravens, reading old books, and working on his programming language, which will be done any year now.

There follows the Moldbug political manifesto, a piece of intellectual provocation certainly worth a read.

A sample:

The basic idea of formalism is just that the main problem in human affairs is violence. The goal is to design a way for humans to interact, on a planet of remarkably limited size, without violence. …

The key is to look at this not as a moral problem, but as an engineering problem. Any solution that solves the problem is acceptable. Any solution that does not solve the problem is not acceptable. …

A further difficulty is that the definition of “violence” isn’t so obvious. If I gently relieve you of your wallet, and you chase after me with your Glock and make me beg to be allowed to give it back, which of us is being violent? Suppose I say, well, it was your wallet – but it’s my wallet now?

This suggests, at the very least, that we need a rule that tells us whose wallet is whose. Violence, then, is anything that breaks the rule, or replaces it with a different rule. If the rule is clear and everyone follows it, there is no violence.

In other words, violence equals conflict plus uncertainty. While there are wallets in the world, conflict will exist. But if we can eliminate uncertainty – if there is an unambiguous, unbreakable rule that tells us, in advance, who gets the wallet – I have no reason to sneak my hand into your pocket, and you have no reason to run after me shooting wildly into the air. Neither of our actions, by definition, can affect the outcome of the conflict.

And so on.

T-Rex versus Althouse.

Most memorable exchange:

T-Rex:

Ugh. Every time I read that bit (of an Althouse posting)… I get the all-over creepy shivers, like someone just dumped a bag of live spiders over my naked thighs. Brrrrrr.

Althouse responds:

I’m picturing chubby, pasty white thighs.