Not True, Boston Phoenix

Oliver Willis tipped his readers off to the Boston Phoenix's Unsexiness Men of the Year. Most of the choices are either based on looks or some kind of indiscretion. That said, some of the choices I disagree with:

John Mayer
Hugh Jackman

and at #20.

The higher the rank, the worse the BP thinks the man is.

JRE's indiscretion doesn't merit being in the top 20 with Rush Limbaugh, who says mean things about Elizabeth Edwards and can't stay married.

Bet none of the Phoenix eds have ran 5 marathons:

John Edwards's five marathons

1982 Marine Corps (3:37:16)
1983 Marine Corps (3:30:18)
1986 Philadelphia (N/A)
1994 Camp Lejeune (4:05:56)
1999 Marine Corps (4:51:27)

Here's a recent pic of him at Brown University. One cannot tell me that he doesn't look sexy.



Pooh on those who are envious of JRE's looks--and oratory abilities. He got a standing O at that speech two weeks ago.

Prayers for Tim Emerson and Michelle Obama

I was visiting Oliver Willis' site and saw that there was a serious accident in Iowa today involving Tim Emerson and Michelle Obama's van.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/10/09/post_129.html

Obama's not my candidate, but anyone would be shaken from that experience. The story will be more clear in the days to come, but truly, I pray for all in that accident. Senator Obama must feel fortunate that his wife is OK and is with their babies. I feel badly for the motorcyclist, and wished he had not been in such a hurry without a helmet either.

Blue Dog Dem Bashing Season

I have had some mixed feelings about challenging the Bush Dog Dems campaign on Open Left and to a certain extent on other progressive blogs. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I read this post by Oliver Willis:

That, at the heart, is what I think my reaction to the "Bush Dog" effort comes down to. This is a strategy by folks like Matt Stoller to attack Democrats with more conservative than desired voting records, and I guess challenge them in primaries. Ok, fine I guess. But to someone like myself who figures even a conservative Dem is better than a Republican, it seems kind of futile. A lot of the Democrats listed are the only kind of Democrats likely to be elected in their districts. Nick Lampson represents TX-22, which was Tom DeLay's seat. Does anyone really think such a conservative district is going to be represented by a moderate to progressive Democrat any time soon? Not going to happen.

I certainly think these Dems should be challenged on issues like ending the Iraq war and some of their positions on social issues like abortion (they tend to be economically populist, however) but Democrats like these in those conservative districts are the best we're likely to get.

I agree with him. And many of those same Blue Dogs support John Edwards because of economic fairness. However, I do think they need to push Bush more. The angry mood over the war is getting more ugly, and it's time they started doing what the American people want and not be afraid of the Republicans or wingnut noise machines. As John Edwards said again yesterday, they can start by sending back the bill to Bush on funding the war in Iraq to include a timeline. The timeline doesn't have to be revealed to the journalists, but Bush needs to agree to have one in order to get the funding.

Oliver Willis' Blog Gets Makeover

And for his readers' benefit.

Nice new pic, Oliver.

Click his site on my blogroll.

And keep up the good work, along with your employer.

Tribe Blogocracy

Oliver Willis, whose site is linked here from BW and vice-versa, had been experimenting with Snap to show quick snapshots of the sites he linked for his posts. Robert Scoble uses this too.

Today Willis asked his readers whether to keep or ditch Snap. Most of us, including yours truly, advised him to ditch it. Previews are OK, but sometimes they get in the way, especially in small print, so I'd rather just click directly from the link.

He did.

That's listening to your readers.

JRE does that too on his site. Some guy on the Bivings Report gave a review of JohnEdwards.com, and while snarking Edwards for his youthful looks, complained about seeing one of the plans, on the issue of healthcare, on the homepage. What the reviewer didn't know is that is what the bloggers wanted and said so on Edwards blog. Of course, I had get my 2 comments in about that.

Unfortunately, since my technical skills are about 180 degrees from Willis, Scoble, or the webmasters at johnedwards.com, I cannot provide the same tribe blogocracy they can or will. But I appreciate those who do.

Favorite Dem Snarks

Dem blogger pundits can make funny snarks much as nasty ones. Among my favorites that I red today were from Kos and Oliver Willis.

Oliver Willis's clever comment was about Jeb Bush:

"BUT, I want Jeb to run and be the nominee because it would lead to a landslide for the Democrat. It doesn't matter which Democrat. If the Republican nominee is a Bush, Dennis Kucinich is sworn in with Al Sharpton as his vice president."

Kos's comment was about Joe Biden, in the context of who has 'mo in the 2008 campaign already:

8. Joe Biden (D-MBNA)

I'm still trying to figure out who Biden thinks is his base.

That says it all.