Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside.
I thought about coming up with some really clever theme for this week's Carnival. I thought about doing it like a real carnival barker, telling you what mysterious and amazing things await you behind the next door....but frankly, I'm so busy with work right now that I'm going to take the easy way out and just list all the submissions for you in the order they were sent to me. Think of it not as lazy, but as "minimalist". That sounds like a vaguely impressive rationalization. Anyway, here are this week's entries:
Evan Thomas is blogging about blogging, specifically about whether Big Media could manipulate blogs into doing their dirty work for them.
Dean Esmay at Dean's World is mulling over the possibility of allowing 14 year olds to vote in elections. I don't know Dean, after the recent American Idol scandal, can we even trust adults to vote? And how long before the Supreme Court takes the case of Latoya London v The Idiots of America?
Kiril at Sneakeasy's Joint is downright pissed off that the media won't show the beheading video. Speaking only for myself, I would only watch a beheading video if it involved Celine Dion.
Mad Kane is waxing poetic about the Bush administration. Sadly, the word "Nantucket" appears nowhere in this poem.
Ignatius Byrd thinks we're making too big a deal out of the Abu Ghraib photos.
Solomon has some thoughts on war profiteering and includes a fascinating story of an entrepeneur who helped us win WW2. Now if only the French had a word for entrepeneur....
If you're dying to know all about Kevin Baker, this post should give you lots of information. Don't know who Kevin Baker is? I didn't either, but it's an interesting list.
The People's Republic of Seabrook is passing out Dumbass Awards, and it looks like they've picked a winner to me. Of course, we live in a world so full of dumbasses that Marge Schott would only merit honorable mention for this award.
The Gleeful Extremist is talking about a nun-priest relationship. Insert your own joke here.
Andrew Ian Dodge has a report on his band's recent recording work. My only advice is this: I gotta have more cowbell, baby.
Charles from Dustbury is not at all happy with the direction his party is going.
Patterico has a rather amusing fake interview with Senator Carl Levin (who is my senator, coincidentally). And I'm with him, those superfluous glasses on the end of his nose annoy me too.
Karol at Alarming News is writing about the Howard Stern demographic and how it intersects with politics.
Dave at Blogo Slovo has an interesting post about naval analogies and recent happenings in the Russian Duma. And part of it is even in Russian. Very cool.
Sean at The American Mind is pointing out some of the past foibles of Seymour Hersh.
Brian Noggle tells us that the major media operates the same way that "reality TV" does. He's got a point.
Josh Cohen debunks the notion that Democrats have higher IQs.
This Small Town Country Girl is writing about the innumerable "wars" our government is involved in and how it pushes our taxes up. Two thumbs up on this one.
The Rogue Pundit tells us how outdated and slow the VA medical system works and the importance of keeping good records.
John Ray is a busy little blogger. He has three different blogs with three different entries:
The first one is about the recent Royal wedding involving the Crown Prince of Denmark and an Australian woman. Nope, I didn't know about it either.The second one is about a teacher being punished for affirming their religious beliefs.
The third one is an anti-organic farming rant.
Bussorah has some lessons that dogs could teach us. Insert your own genital-licking joke here.
Spare Change has some thoughts on anger management and the war on terrorism.
Interested Participant has a post on the African Clawed Frog invasion. Let's hope they can't fly planes.
Bill Adams questions the sanity of a British writer on the subject of America and the all-you-can-eat thing. Hey, at least we don't boil our pizza here.
Pete fisks al-Zarqawi's beheading and concludes that it was full of both big mistakes and little ones.
Josh at Quibbles and Bits needs a little help finding a new job. Sounds like a really qualified guy too.
Chuck Simmins is responding to a journalist who wrote something that I suspect he didn't bother to read.
Fringeblog has an interesting report of a trip to New York City, with some excellent pictures.
The Smarter Cop has some suggestions on what we can do about high gas prices.
DGCI pokes fun at a German couple who found out their fertility problems were due to the fact that they never had sex. Go figure.
Foolsblog has some thoughts on negativity in the media.
Jon Henke spells out his political beliefs, which he calls neo-libertarian.
Code Blue Blog takes on HIllary's latest healthcare plan.
Last One Speaks has a post on a court case involving hemp food products.
And last but not least (I got his e-mail moments before posting this), Classical Values asks the question, "Why do they hate us?"....and he's not talking about Islamic radicals.
Thanks to everyone who sent their submissions. Click on every one of the links and you're sure to find at least one or two interesting writers you've never seen before. Cheers!
Since the general topic seems to be blogging.... a colleague who has just discovered blogs sent me a long list of blogs, well over a hundred, rated by I forget who from most influential [which I think means visited, or linked on other blogs?] --- that was Instapundit --- to least. He asked which ones I checked regularly and why and to make recommendations. [NB: Culture Wars was not on the list, but I recommended it to him anyway.]
Anyhow, going through the list I noticed that I regularly visit none of the blogs run by major columnists [Broder, Krugman, Dowd, et al] though I read their print columns frequently. Nary a one, conservative, liberal or MOR. And I began to wonder if some kind of general rule might be derived from it: that long established print columnists do not make good bloggers. Because... because why? The media are so very different? Does the generalization hold, Ed? And if it does, why?
Good question, but I don't have a good answer. I didn't know that Dowd or Broder HAD a blog. I did know Krugman had one, but I never read it. I also don't read Andrew Sullivan's blog. I tend not to read political blogs all that much, particularly ones with a specifically partisan point of view. The blogs that I read regularly tend to fall into 3 categories: science-related, law-related, or personal. In all three of those categories, you will find some political content, of course. The only ones I check pretty much every day are Volokh, Sandefur and Rowe, John Scalzi, Brian Leiter, and Panda's Thumb. Those I will generally look at every single day without fail. Those blogs often contain links to other blogs that I read fairly regularly as a result - Southern Appeal, Larry Solum, Jack Balkin, Clayton Cramer. I used to check Howard Bashman's appellate blog every morning without fail because I often found topics to write about, but I've found that I'm too busy to do that these days. Then there's a whole bunch of them listed on the left in my blog that I usually check once or twice a week to see if I've missed something interesting.
Do you know the host of the next Carnival?
Yes, next week's Carnival of the Vanities is being hosted by Alarming News.
you misspelled "entrepreneur" both times
probably not a good thing when you are trying to make a pointed language comment
Helper-
I wasn't making a pointed language comment, I was making a pointed joke. I thought that was fairly obvious, but I'll try and mark them with flashing red lights next time.