"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast"
-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
-- Proverbs 11:25
"...you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" -- Steve Gilliard, 1964 - 2007

"For straight up monster-stomping goodness, nothing makes smoke shoot out my ears like Brilliant@Breakfast" -- Tata

"...the best bleacher bum since Pete Axthelm" -- Randy K.

"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum." -- "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (1954-2015), They Live
Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Blogrolling In Our Time
Posted by Jill | 6:40 AM
Say hello to a blog/resource/online community whose time has come: Help the 99ers.

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Friday, August 01, 2008

What is Google doing with progressive blogs?
Posted by Jill | 6:11 AM
Last night Carrie e-mailed me that her blog, Carrie's Nation, has been designated as a spam blog. Now Skippy informs me that his blog too has been designated a spam blog.

What is Google doing?

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Friday, January 11, 2008

I Can Haz Visitors?
Posted by Jill | 8:52 PM
Welcome, haterz!

If you've come here from Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews, let me first apologize for not picking up the place a little and not having any cake in the house. But frankly, I hadn't expected so many visitors.

I set the site up a few days ago on a whim, simultaneously thinking that someone really ought to set up a central point for All Things Tweety, and wondering why no one had done it before. I put up a starter post, opened the doors to others who felt the need to vent their bile after watching Hardball, and figured it would be one of those far-flung corners of the blogosphere, updated occasionally and visited more occasionally. That in two days it's spread like wildfire gives me some hope that maybe...just maybe...the Washington pundit corps, including Tweety, have been chastened just a bit, and that Americans may start greeting what they say with more skepticism than they have lo these last seven years.

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Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Election Wars: Attack of the Crones
Posted by Jill | 3:44 PM
After reading from Melissa at lunchtime that Tweety was back on his Hillary Hatred Horse today, I decided that no matter how dirty a job it was, someone had to do it.

Behold Sweet Jesus I Hate Chris Matthews.

So far the awesome Melissa and the equally awesome Richard Blair have signed on as contributors, with hopefully more bright lights of Blogtopia(™ Skippy) to come.

But Chris Matthews may have inadvertently done a service with his fear and loathing: he may have actually made younger feminists, post-feminists if you will, understand what it was like for women in the 1970's and earlier

Like Rebecca Traister, for instance:

Is it possible that for the first time in my life, my reaction to a political news cycle could have mirrored a larger national feeling? Could Matthews and his threatened brethren, who came damned close to putting this Hillary disbeliever on the path to feminist redemption (who knows how I'll vote; but I do know that I am happy that I'll now likely have the opportunity to cast a vote for the candidate of my choice and not of MSNBC's), actually have shaped what happened on Tuesday in New Hampshire in a similar fashion? Exit polling and analysis be damned, we'll likely never really know what electoral alchemy landed Hillary Clinton an unexpected victory. Finally, around 11:30, Matthews was forced to suck it up. Looking like he was chewing on a lemon, he said of his nemesis, "She stood there and took the heat under what looked to be a difficult time. I give her a lot of personal credit. I will never underestimate Hillary Clinton again."

An unlikely promise. But here's a message from the women of New Hampshire, and me, to Hillary Clinton's exuberant media antagonists: You have no power here. Now be gone, before somebody drops a house on you!


From Maureen Dowd to Chris Matthews, we've seen a microcosm today of exactly what happens in this society to women who talk too much, who don't look like supermodels, who have reached an age when all the botox in the world won't make them 25 anymore. And it isn't just Hillary. If you saw Chris Matthews with Elizabeth Edwards (another tough old broad, albeit one with a warmer demeanor) last week (I'll try to dig up the video), you know that while he reserves his worst barbs for Hillary, any woman will do.

All of this may have made me angry, but it hasn't made me stupid. Hillary is still the candidate who voted for Kyl/Lieberman, something we shouldn't forget while George W. Bush is thrusting his defiance at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad again just when the election season is getting going. But while I may disagree with Hillary Clinton on policy, and I may not be willing to vote for her, I'm damn well going to defend her right to be a candidate.

Especially if it means I get to rip Tweety to shreds.

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Saturday, November 17, 2007

CNN (hearts) Hillary Clinton
Posted by Jill | 8:22 AM
Boy, CNN really, really, really wants Hillary to be the Democratic nominee -- along with every other major corporation. You kind of have to wonder why that is and why those who think she's going to be some kind of force for change don't find anything odd about that.

But the one person for whom you have to feel badly is Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval, the UNLV student who asked Hillary if she prefers diamonds or pearls. Yesterday I was listening to Randi Rhodes and the callers were just brutal to this kid for asking such a trivial question.

Turns out that CNN told her what to say:

"Every single question asked during the debate by the audience had to be approved by CNN...I was asked to submit questions including "lighthearted/fun" questions. I submitted more than five questions on issues important to me. I did a policy memo on Yucca Mountain a year ago and was the finalist for the Truman Scholarship. For sure, I thought I would get to ask the Yucca question that was APPROVED by CNN days in advance. CNN ran out of time and used me to "close" the debate with the pearls/diamonds question."


Now, if I'd been in her shoes, I'd have either said "Fuck you, I won't do it" or said "OK" and then asked the question about Yucca Mountain anyway. After all, what are they going to do to me? Escort me out, at the end of the debate?

But I'm not a college student, and I'm not going to fault a 20-year-old for not being that quick on her feet in a nationally-televised situation. I am going to fault Randi's staff a bit for not getting the information about how CNN dictated the question to her, because it was already on the blogs by yesterday afternoon. And it's clear that many people were angry about the question, because Parra-Sandoval's MySpace page where the above quote that was reprinted at Huffington Post originally appeared is now set to private. (More here and here.)

There are two extraordinary articles in today's New York Times today; articles which we never would have seen were it not for the blogs, and which demonstrate clearly where the Times goes looking to see what stories are newsworthy. One of them is on Rudy Giuliani's change of tune about universal health care since he became a Republican presidential front-runner, and the other further serves to damns CNN for its obvious Hillary partisanship by having James Carville as part of the post-debate panel:

Among the experts trotted out by CNN to comment was James Carville, a Democratic strategist and CNN commentator who is also a close friend of Mrs. Clinton and a contributor to her campaign.

Mr. Carville’s presence aroused the fury of rivals and bloggers. They called it a conflict of interest and criticized CNN.

“Would it kill CNN to disclose that James Carville is a partisan Clinton supporter when talking about the presidential race?” Markos Moulitsas wrote on his liberal blog, Daily Kos. Mr. Moulitsas drew hundreds of comments.

Tom Reynolds, a spokesman for Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination, said: “What you saw last night lacked full disclosure. The average viewer out in middle America may not know the inside-the-Beltway connection.”

A CNN executive conceded that the cable channel should have more fully disclosed Mr. Carville’s past and that it was discussing how to handle such situations.

The criticisms were among a series against CNN for how it managed the debate, a two-hour event in Las Vegas that ran nearly 15 minutes late. Viewers criticized segments like the opening, when candidates bounded onto the stage in a style reminiscent of a sports event.

Voters and commentators wrote online about how the audience cheered and booed, the way the CNN hosts reframed audience questions and whether it was correct to demand yes-or-no answers to complex questions.

Maria Luisa Parra-Sandoval, a student who asked Mrs. Clinton whether she preferred diamonds or pearls (Mrs. Clinton answered “both”), said she had prepared a list of more serious questions but had been directed by CNN to ask her trivial question.

CNN said the debate was the most watched in this campaign, drawing more than four million viewers.

Viewers directed most of their criticism at the commentary. The channel has been ridiculed by conservative groups as the Clinton News Network, partly because its commentators include Mr. Carville and Paul Begala, an adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Mr. Carville said in a phone interview that he did not have a role in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign and that he had “never been paid a nickel by her.”

He also said he considered her a close personal friend, had contributed to her presidential effort, had friends working for her campaign, planned to vote for her in the Virginia primary and spoke to Mr. Clinton regularly.


Carville too has a tin ear when it comes to such political connections, and obviously inadvertently told us how business is done in Washington by thinking that having "never been paid a nickel" somehow makes him less partisan towards her than being a close personal friend -- implying that money is the only currency of political support.

It is only to the good that CNN's obvious and han-fisted efforts to give Hillary Clinton a rebound after her subpar performance in the last debate is seeing the light of day. One can only hope that Iowa and New Hampshire voters ask themselves why the giant corporate media companies are trying so hard to get her the nomination. But equally important is the presence, albeit on page A34, of two stories that in the absence of blogs, would never, ever have seen the light of day in the mainstream media. Now granted, the blogs that gave "diamonds or pearls" story traction are alpha dogs like ThinkProgress, HuffPo, and the Talking Points Memo family of sites, but I don't care where the mainstream media finds these stories, as long as they pick them up and get them out there where the vast majority of Americans who don't yet read blogs get their news. Let it be an embarrassment to those outlets that refuse to cover them.

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Sunday, July 22, 2007

Sunday recap
Posted by Jill | 1:58 PM
Hanging cabinet doors today, so I'm taking a day off from blogging here. But my weekly recap is up at The Crone Speaks.

See y'all tomorrow.

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Friday, March 02, 2007

What I'm reading today
Posted by Jill | 8:36 AM
Cernig discusses the right-wing outrage about some people leaving blog comments about wishing Dick Cheney had been killed in Afghanistan -- and includes some interesting statistics about how wingnuts talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

BlueGal wants to know how like-minded groups can reach out to the blogosphere.

Melina has some choice words for Maureen Dowd in regard to Al Gore.

At Blue Jersey, 5th District Dweeb Wuss-Boy Candidate Paul Aronsohn, apparently not understanding any part of "44%-in-a-Democratic-year-really-sucks" is already whining about people saying mean things to him.


Dave at The Galloping Beaver warns about being happy about Marty Peretz being out of the picture at The New Republic.

Larisa Alexandrovna calls (correctly) for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales, who fired a federal prosecutor after he refused to accede to Rep. Heather Wilson and Sen. Pete Domenici's demand that he indict a Democratic state Senator prior to the election.

And speaking of wingnuts with the vapors, ShakesSis talks about the wingnut blogger whose balls are no doubt being squeezed into oblivion by his twisted panties after spending his masturbation time analyzing how many progressive blogs use how many of George Carlin's Seven Words You Can't Say on Television.

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Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Shorter Chris Bowers
Posted by Jill | 9:35 PM
"We innovate more than you, we hired people to help us, and because we did that there is no place for you lone bloggers anymore -- because WE decide who makes it and who doesn't."

Oh, you really have to read this self-congratulatory drivel to believe it. It's truly amazing to see one blogger fellating the entire Big Name Blogosphere in one post, while at the same time consigning the rest of us to the ranks of the MySpacers.

Kool Kidz Klub indeed.

It's funny how Bowers uses a quote by Jeffrey Feldman to illustrate his point, because as I've mentioned before, I had a very nice conversation about blogging just last week with Mr. Feldman, who seems to be in no way a blog snob. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see that there is at least one Big Name Blogger who isn't puffed up with his own self-importance.

But with Kos and Atrios making a big show about "culling the blogroll", and Chris Bowers playing "Mine's Bigger" with the rest of the blogosphere, is this really what it's come to? Is this the Revenge of the Nerds come to fruition? Is this the guys who DIDN'T get laid on prom night finally staking their claim to coolness?

If so, are we going to sit by and take it? Are we going to just toil away while guys like Atrios and Kos and Chris Bowers define the rules and brand the rest of us as useless?

I don't know about you, but all this is making me feel just a wee tad Norma Rae here.

Fuck the big boys. They're the blogospheric equivalent of the Washington pundits who think they're better than bloggers because they get invited to the right parties and of the Democrats who hold fundraisers where they take money from corporations. We hold bake sales and support our candidates twenty-five bucks at a time. What's hilarious is that most of these guys come out of the 2004 Howard Dean campaign, only a taste of success has made them forget all about people-powered.

So all you progressive bloggers out there who are reading this and are damn sick and tired of these puffed-up assholes thinking they're somehow better than you are and that they decide who gets read and who doesn't, show yourselves in the comments. Let's hear your ideas for how we can help each other. And if you're planning to go to Yearly Kos in August, start thinking about how we can use that conference to brainstorm about where we go from here.

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