Apparently, James Wolcott, premiere columnist for Vanity Fair, came across this recent highly-recommended Daily Kos diary and had a little advice for its author:

In another example of the hope for change sweeping our land, it was learned today that Ricky, the kid selling lemonade a couple of houses down, is endorsing Barack Obama in Tuesday's primary!

Via Media Matters, here's Craig Crawford on MSNBC...

Every Christmas, the San Francisco SPCA takes over the "holiday windows" of a big department store in downtown San Francisco and populates them with adoptable animals. Not only are literally hundreds of dogs and cats adopted, but thousands of people line up just to see the animals in their holiday setting. This year, they've been streaming video from webcams in the various windows on their website, so even more people can enjoy the cute little animals.

Today when I checked the site, I was appalled to discover that this little bit of holiday cheer had been hijacked by notorious right-wing hate radio station KSFO.

Via AP:

House Democrats threatened Monday to hold President Bush's key confidants in contempt of Congress unless they comply with subpoenas for information on the Justice Department's purge of federal prosecutors last winter.

The White House shrugged off the ultimatum...

Thanks, Nancy. Thanks, Steny. And let's not leave out Patrick Leahy, Charles Schumer, and, of course, Harry Reid.

Several blogs I enjoy and admire are up for "honors" in the "2007 Weblog Awards". I, however, will not be voting for any of them.

Why?

Because the sponsoring website, Wizbang, is a right-wing propaganda site.

Just posted at SFGate.com:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rebuked a fellow San Francisco Bay-area liberal Friday for what she said were "inappropriate" comments about Iraq during a congressional debate.

During a debate on children's health care Thursday, Rep. Pete Stark accused Republicans of sending troops to Iraq to "get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."

Condemnations rolled in from Republican politicians, right-leaning bloggers had a field day, and a White House spokesman declined to "dignify those remarks" with a response.

Pelosi issued a statement Friday evening rapping Stark, who is in his 18th term representing the liberal East Bay. He's California's longest-serving House members.

"While members of Congress are passionate about their views, what Congressman Stark said during the debate was inappropriate and distracted from the seriousness of the subject at hand — providing health care for America's children," Pelosi said.

(Title edited)

On Monday, Chris "Tweety" Matthews pimped Ann Coulter's appearance on his show Tuesday with the words "Say what you will about her - she sells books!"

So does she really? Let's look at Amazon's Top 100 Non-Fiction Political books list (updated hourly, so these positions may change somewhat).

Elizabeth Edwards came to San Francisco's Gay Pride event yesterday and gave her complete and unequivocal approval to gay marriage:

Elizabeth Edwards, starring at the kickoff event of San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade, came out in support of legalized same-sex marriage Sunday -- taking a position that she acknowledged is at odds with her husband, presidential candidate John Edwards.

"I don't know why somebody else's marriage has anything to do with me," she said. "I'm completely comfortable with gay marriage"...

Edwards said she has come to the conclusion that the marriage of another couple "makes no difference to me," just as it would make no difference in her opinion of a neighbor if he painted his house a different color.

"If he's pleasant to me on the street, if his children don't throw things in my yard, then I'm happy," she said. "It seems to me we're making issues of things that honestly ... don't matter."

You probably read about it yesterday, or this morning. It made a lot of the papers and news services. One place you wouldn't read about it: John Edwards' website.

"Stomach virus" my ass!

President Bush came down with a stomach ailment Friday at the G-8 summit in Germany and is resting in his room.

"I'm not sure if it's a stomach virus yet or something like that," Dan Bartlett, counselor to the president told reporters. "He's just not feeling well in his stomach,"

Check out the picture that Yahoo ran with the story.

The News Blog has a PayPal link to help Steve Gilliard's family with the cost of his funeral:

http://www.thenewsblog.net/

Funerals cost an arm and a leg. A guy like Gilliard probably doesn't have any sort of life insurance. His family, along with being devastated at their loss, now has to come up with several thousand dollars.

Help if you can.

I really don't know anything about how Wikipedia works, but I was (for lack of a better word) stunned to go to Steve Gilliard's entry yesterday to find this notice at the top:

This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy.

Looking for more information on why this would be considered, I found this:

Non-notable blogger Naconkantari 05:03, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

So Gilliard's body is barely even cold and someone has to jump in to try and erase him from Wikipedia. If he's such a "non-notable" entity, why the big rush?

I don't know if they planned it out in advance, but this is just hilarious - and the way REAL reporters work.

This just in from Jen at Gilliard's place:

As of today, Friday, Gilly is in the hospital for observation and treatment of an unspecified infection which is causing a cough, fever, and other symptoms.

He is undergoing treatment and may be out by Wednesday. In the meantime, on very short notice, I will attempt to post from time to time and check vital emails related to BlogAd business, etc.

Here's hoping you're up and about soon, Steve...

Let's all wish "Duncan Black" a happy, happy 35th birthday! The sweaty lunk from Philadelphia's been at this "blogging" thing for almost five years now (that anniversary comes in April), and he's still going strong.

Here's to the next 35, "Duncan" - and plenty more! Now, why the silence on biofuels???

Here's that master of in-your-face political gamesmanship and Daily Kos fave Harry Reid on just how he's going to handle the upcoming bill making torture an American way of life (via the NY Times:)

Democrats have put their trust in Senators Graham, McCain and Warner to push back against the White House, and Thursday they signaled that they intended to continue cooperating. "Five years after Sept. 11, it is time to make the tough and smart decisions to give the American people the real security they deserve," said the Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada.

Keep that powder dry, Harry! Someday, there may be an issue of such overwhelming moral imperative you may want to use it. Direct violation of the Geneva convention, however, is apparently not it.

So what happened to Harry "I'm Gonna Sit Here and Talk Tough and Then Do Fucking Nothing" Reid's brilliant, tough-minded filibuster on this torture thing?

Can we fucking dump this guy now? What the fuck good has he been? Ineffective, unwilling to take a stand on fucking anything - oh, he spoke at the precious Kossack convention! In retrospect, you guys sure got fucking rolled at that thing, didn't you? They saw you coming from a mile away... UPDATE: I want to make one point here. No matter how pissed off I am at Harry Reid and the Democratic "Leadership" in general on this issue, the stupidest thing anyone could do this November is "sit out" the elections. The Republicans are the party of torture - get rid of them first, then work on getting a MAJORITY leadership with a fucking spine.

This just in from TNR:

An Apology to Our Readers

After an investigation, The New Republic has determined that the comments in our Talkback section defending Lee Siegel's articles and blog under the username "sprezzatura" were produced with Siegel's participation. We deeply regret misleading our readers. Lee Siegel's blog will no longer be published by TNR, and he has been suspended from writing for the magazine.

Franklin Foer
Editor, The New Republic

As you may remember, Mr. Siegel was not the blogosphere's best friend...