I used to visit Ed regularly, several times a day. But then I ran into a couple or three major league assholes that gave me the creeps. So now I just check back every now and then, hoping they're gone.(They keep threatening to leave.) But alas, they're still there.

I like Ed's blog. It's clever, creative and continually fresh. But the cost of having wade through the crap that flows from his high-volume commenters just isn't worth it.

God bless you, Ed. We all owe you for keeping the losers otherwise occupied.

From TPM Muckraker, via Ed Cone. Originally from The Washington Post:

The Washington grand jury has issued subpoenas to several private security firms, including Blackwater, a legal source briefed on the probe said yesterday. Authorities are seeking company "after-action" reports and other documents that may shed light on specific incidents, he said.

The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe, declined to say which incidents have been targeted, but he said the investigation ranges well beyond Blackwater. Private security companies in Iraq "have been shooting a lot of people," he said.

In a post at Ed's Place today, John "the Stagemanager" Hood defends one of his minion's absurd injection of Christianity into the climate-change debate. Hood had this to say about a link to BlueNC:

I don't much care what gets posted on the kook sites. The sillier they look, the better off we are at JLF. If they didn't exist as comic relief, we might be tempted to invent them just to serve as a useful foil. But Ed, I thought you had employed a better editorial filter.

Which brings to mind words from someone considerably wiser.

I just finished reading this piece by Ed Cone, and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with his evaluation. Which is to say, I couldn't find anything definitive to crucify him on. :)

Frontpaged by Anglico

I stop by Ed Cone's blog every now and then to see what's happening in Greensboro. In response to a comment I made today about the Vermin, Ed asked why I "stoop" to name-calling. My wife often asks me the same question, so I decided they both deserve an answer:

Why I'm a mean old name-caller.

Name-calling hasn't always been my style - I used to be profoundly reasonable. But then the neocon cabal came into power. It started with the Hunting of the President (Clinton) and culminated in the Swiftboating of John Kerry. And got even worse from there.

And all the while, the reasonable people on the left steered clear of hitting back hard. They zipped their lips and tried to make logical arguments that would persuade the muddled middle to think things through. It didn't work. The muddled middle slid farther and farther to the right, while a natural tendency toward political correctness emasculated the left. Without the neocon "killer instinct," the left languished, the right flourished. And the mainstream media ignored the intellectual progressives.

WUNC-FM here in Chapel Hill is a pretty good public radio station, as they go, but today it dropped the ball on an important and growing story. The program was The State of Things and the subject was the mess going on in Greensboro regarding a leaked report on police chief David Wray.

I'm not going to get into the substance of the Greensboro saga, but rather I'm focused on the interview between WUNC's Frank Stasio and blogger Ed Cone.

To be honest, I was really hoping the interview would help illuminate distinctions between blogs and the mainstream media involved in this story. Instead, listeners got a series of naïve questions about blogger "accountability" that were embarrassing to me as a regular contributor to the station.

(Posted initially as a comment at edcone.com)

For many years, I was a solid independent and centrist on all things political. Some might even say I leaned right, given my military training and business background.

But then something happened: The radical right wing of the Republican party began its ascension, engaging in a kind of political speech that quite honestly caught me off guard. I couldn't imagine how anyone with any intelligence would tune in and listen to people like Rush Limbaugh. Then came the Hunting of President Clinton and the feeding frenzy of right-wing commentators. Then came the swiftboating of John Kerry.

Most progressives I know sat back and watched this devolution of public debate incredulously. And while I'm sure many on the left pushed back hard, I personally did not. I personally believed there was common ground to be discovered and celebrated.

This morning, like every morning, I was browsing through the local blogs on Greensboro101.com and I came across an entry on EdCone.com.

It seems that John Ross Hendrix, one of Vernon Robinson's opponents in the District 13 congressional primary, has declared that "he cannot support Robinson in the general election". Well that's no surprise, what kind of sane person would?

It was the next part, however, that made me spit my coffee all over my newly cleaned desk. (Warning: If you're drinking anything swallow it and put the cup down before you read on!)

I sometimes think that Ed Cone has had a bit too much of the Blog Evangelism Kool-Aid, but I think he's absolutely right about Larry Kissell needing his own blog. Fresh content can bring people back to sites that they might not have returned to otherwise; sites with big shiny "Donate" buttons on every page. It's also a great way to get a message across and to engage with people. And as for time, I don't see why every single post would need to be by Larry.