Mitt Romney's "Whisperer" Grows its Own Blog

I was trying to get at this before, but looky here at what's going on in the blogosphere. A political "scandalet" has grown its own blog in just a couple of days. The event, covered previously here, has now got a blog devoted to it called RomneyWhisper.

[Excerpt]

Updates On Both Whispers

I've posted the 'click' processing on YouTube ... it's nothing revolutionary, since the click can be heard on the unedited video, but it can be heard better here, and the whisper is easier to make out as well. Video will play the unprocessed audio first, then the processed audio. There's another video out where the whisper has been enhanced, but that one adds some other artifacts that can confuse the subject of the click.




Read more (with audio and more video) at: RomneyWhisper.blogspot.com

Greenlee Gazette Truly Worldwide!

I'm the King of the World! Ha! Just kidding. But I clicked on the nifty "NeoEarth" over there on the left of your screen today, and saw little dots (you're one of those dots, by the way) on every inhabited continent in the world! Woohoo!

OK, so in Africa I only have one dot, Morocco, and in South America just Ecuador. But it still counts! Now I just have to contact those scientists down in Antarctica, and bribe them to click in! OK, end of self-congratulatory ego stroking. Here's the image (click on map for larger view).

Liberal Response to Randi Rhodes' "Non-Mugging"

Image from source, LTRadio.com

Over the last several days, a story lit the blogosphere on fire. Randi Rhodes, the firebrand talk show host on Air America Radio was believed to have been the victim of a mugging. It was posited by a fellow host on her network (during a back-and-forth with a caller) that her attacker may have been a rabid right-winger out for revenge. This inspired much speculation, and many tinfoil hats were donned in the left half of blog-world.

Right-wingers initially did not seem skeptical of the attack, only the right-wing attacker part of the story. They also had exceedingly nasty things to say about Rhodes, someone they allegedly hadn't heard of or listened to.

As the story grew, details--originally sketchy--started to emerge, and it became apparent that Rhodes probably hadn't been attacked after all. She tripped, or fell, or passed out--even she isn't sure, exactly. Her quick, two-sentence email to Air America (while still bleeding, and without front teeth), was misinterpreted and blown out of proportion--by both sides. And one side (two guesses) is still at it, nasty as ever. Here is an excellent response by a fellow liberal blogger.

[Excerpt]

The mugging that never happened, and the mugging that did

An open letter to the conservative blogosphere, in regard to the whole Randi Rhodes brewhaha yesterday:Okay, we screwed the pooch on that one. There appears to be no mugging. No creepy conservative goons lurking in the shadows beating up defenseless women (at least not in this case). We got our information from a credible source, Jon Elliott, who got his own wires crossed and jumped to conclusions on an opinionated talk show. From there, it trickled down to Democratic Underground and Daily Kos, then to Talking Radio and everywhere else. One of your own, Matt Drudge, even linked it. [snip]

Later, Elliott himself issued an apology, "I shouldn’t have speculated based on hearsay that Randi Rhodes had been mugged and that it may have been an attack from a right wing hate machine. I apologize for jumping to conclusions based on an emotional reaction. I wish Randi nothing but the best and look forward to a speedy recovery." [snip]

But this wasn't enough. Oh no. You guys in the conservative blogosphere were crapping mountains with glee, wagging those self-important fingers with false pride about 'dem librulz is lyers.'. .

Read the whole thing at: LTRadio.blogspot.com

Blogroll: Some Other Blogs You Might Enjoy (Part 1)

If you're new to the whole blog experience (as many I've directed here are), you might not be aware of just how vast the Blogosphere is. I keep a Blogroll in the left column of this site, listing some of my favorite haunts. I thought I'd take the opportunity in this and future posts, to elaborate on those, and list a few more you might find interesting

We'll start with the ones I visit multiple times a day. In fact, several of my posts come directly from these sites, as they are constantly updated, and rich sources of information.

AmericaBlog.com is probably the first blog I began reading on a regular basis. I found it during the Jeff Gannon/James Guckert story, and have been hooked ever since. John Aravosis and his crew do a great job compiling stories of interest regarding politics, with a secondary focus on gay rights. The site is also not averse to the occasional dose of frivolity, which of course, is right up my alley. This is the first site I check each day. Highly recommended.

HuffingtonPost.com is the site that inspired the creation of Greenlee Gazette. I happened to be reading when I felt the urge to get involved in this site. The content is fresh, and reads like a newspaper (a very liberal newspaper). Arianna Huffington is the editor, but many contributors help her keep the place lively: Harry Shearer, Steven Weber, Bill Maher, even (wow) Frank Luntz are just a few notable examples.

RawStory.com is another site that is set up something like a newspaper, with tons of fresh and interesting stories to choose from. Like HuffingtonPost, it automatically updates when left open, so that the newest stories are always up front. RawStory tends to be a "breaking news" type blog, sometimes with posts featuring only a headline, followed by "developing. . ." This is akin to the right-wing Drudge Report, but with FAR more actual content.

These are all left-leaning blogs, sites the Bill O'Reilly's of the world would call "far left." I don't believe that they are. Arianna Huffington and John Aravosis in particular used to be outspoken Republicans. They differ in thier tactics from their right-leaning counterparts (such as Drudge or FreeRepublic) in several important ways:

• They allow comments from anyone, right-wing or left-wing. While comments are subject to removal (for abusive language), it is very common to see all points of view in the comments section of each of these blogs. In fact, sometimes the main show is in the comments rather than the originating post. The big right-wing blogs usually either don't allow comments, or heavily censor them.

• Writers of these sites take great pains to be accurate and truthful. I've seen "mea culpas" on each, when posts have been wrong about something, usually with strikeouts through the incorrect posts. In my experience, if Drudge makes a mistake (or lies, or makes stuff up, take your pick), it goes unacknowledged, and the offending post just disappears.

• Whereas the right-leaning sites parrot a party-line attitude (again, in my experience), left-leaning blogs are much less allegient to anyone. I've seen the candidates (Hillary, Edwards), party organizations (DNC, DLC), other left-leaning blogs, and just Democrats in general pilloried over things they've said or done.

But that's all subjective. Check them out and compare, see if you come to a different conclusion. And if you happen upon an interesting blog yourself, please do pass it on to me. Maybe I'll like it so much I'll blogroll it.

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