Read My Lips - the blog

New Weblog Review for 7/13/03

As usual, this post is predated so that it can be used as a reference for those who wish to vote for the new bloggers in the New Weblog Showcase on The Truth Laid Bear. Votes will be tallied on July 13, 2003 for this week's entries, so make sure your votes stay on the main page until that day!

STOP! GO NO FURTHER! READ! Anyone who is offended by my review of their entry, remember I am merely stating my opinions and they may not necessarily be the opinions of any other single person [on this planet, unless they are from Estonia, Fiji, or Tarzan, Texas. Additionally, I have been contacted and told that my opinions were officially adopted by an entire alien sub-culture in the Ming Sector and 92% of the species in the Gamma quadrant.]

5.0=exceptional 4.5=excellent; 4.0=great; 3.5=very good; 3.0=good; 2.5=par; 2.0=sub par; 1.5=fair; 1.0=poor; 0.5=tried. ALL RATING IS SUBJECTIVE; Listings within tied ratings are arranged from my most favorite to my least favorite based upon my personal preferences.

5.0~Boots and Sabers: Idealism ~[BEST OF SHOW] A wonderfully well-written analysis of how idealism falls in the face of reality. The blogger did delve far back into the archives to dig up this pearl [May 21, 2003], but it is well worth a read and a vote!

5.0~Who Tends The Fires: The Beauty of Being Mom ~This is the type of post I look for to be a part of The New Weblog Showcase. The prose was delightful, humorously painting pictures of one woman's discovery of the delights living vicariously through one's child. Whether you have experienced this discovery or have yet to do so, the blogger eloquently describes the joys that make parenthood so fulfilling. I was so delighted with the smooth flow of the prose that I was compelled to explore other postings on the blog. I blogrolled it. Vote for this one, visit the blog!

5.0~Priorities & Frivolities: T3 in 2003: Rise of the Political Machine ~One of the classiest titles I have seen among Showcase entries. The blogger humorously uses terms from a lot of Schwarzenegger roles in this well-written analysis of Schwarzenegger's supposed tactical assessment of his chances for ascendency to the Governorship of California. In supporting his contentions, the blogger quotes from some of Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding books. Additional items were linked throughout, but a reading of none was necessary to understand the crux of his commentary.

4.5~Firefive: Barking Moonbat of the Month Award ~Although it was announced that this is the beginning of the named award, this was actually just a fisking of this colmmentary by Ted Rall on Yahoo! News.

4.5~The Usurer: For want of a fly-swat ~A long well written commentary about the problems with unemployment, interest rates, exchange rates and other financial woes in Australia. I disliked the use of acronyms that held no meaning for me.

4.5~Blog o'RAM: Home Alone ~Strange post about spending the day alone with one's family gone, and this guy cleaned house? Oh well, he did take an opprutunity to blog. He has a domain but no domain name, and the link was erratic. The posting was a bit on the inane side, but the attempt at humor is appreciable.

4.5~American Digest: The Sunday New York Times Lite ~Scanned the entire Sunday edition of the New York Times [except the crossword which is all I ever really care about] and synopsized it. It was still more than I wanted to read, however, especially as it was entered on the day before the vote count.

4.5~Frogs and Ravens: Finding the Still Point ~I do from time to time find posts that are so ephemeral that I have a hard time understanding the point being made. This was one of those. I loved the yoga descriptions and understood they were an analogy for some interactivity between the blogger and two other bloggers. It was a bit like being on the outside of an inside joke. I was lost in the meaning of it all, and yet, I somehow found the reading of this post of be somewhat calming. I envisioned myself falling flat on my back in any attempt to effect the yoga pose described.

4.5~SoonerThought: The General Who Would Be President ~A well written informative posting by someone who can only be General Wesley Clark's campaign manager or someone who would hope to hold such position, in all likelihood. I did find a most humorous quip in this post:

None other than fellow Arkansan President Clinton has declared that Clark would be a "fine president."

Yes, these days, such a ringing endorsement by Slick Willie should carry you far in American politics.

4.5~DW-I: "We're not going to beat Dean." ~Blog*spot, the link gets you close but you have to scroll to locate it. The post was full of a lot of very uninteresting facts and figures regarding the fund raising capabilities of the various Democratic candidates, with an emphasis on Dean's showing. The blogger ended with an analysis that had very little to do with the data provided in the post. The entry was well researched, well organized, fairly-well written, and not all that interesting.

4.0~Dohiyi Mir: I Get It: Saddam Was Bad ~On blog*spot and the link does not take you to the post. I was unable to locate the post at all, even though I did a search using a phrase from the excerpt on all four archive pages, as well as the main page. It might be a problem with blog*spot, but I need to find the post to review it. I couldn't. Due to ntodd's comment, I took another chance at finding this post. I was successful although the link still was chaotic. This was a well-written post which dealt with several issues surrounding the news stories out of Iraq, the Bush agenda as the blogger recognized it, and an impassioned plea for more humanitarian relief.The blog seems to primarily Bush bashing zealotism, so those of you who get off on such sites, check it out

4.0~Johnny America: The Royal Tenenbaums ~He saw the movie, the first time with Frank, his fellow Christmas tree seller, and he loved it; Frank didn't. Blogger saw it 5 times, and says the DVD is a must buy, or some other such words. I wasn't really sure why Frank came up, haven't seen the movie. Istill have no idea what it is about or who is in it, even after reading this review. It was interesting and well written, just confusing.

4.0~Bad Money: Today's Graffiti Currency: A Sea Story ~Once each week I seem to find one of these blogs that seem to have some kind of story line that is centered on one arcane subject. Those of you who have been keeping up with each week's contests will remember the dream blog and the truck blog. Well, this blog has a daily post with scanned bills of money. The entered post was one of the best I saw as I roamed about the blog. The story was humorous, though a bit inane. However, it did showcase the writing style of the blogger. Not all the posts are as great as this one, but the blogger knows his way around. This is a blog that I personally will not visit often as it uses some slow loading graphics. They have to load before any text is visible. My low-bandwidth connection makes that a pass on general principles. [Update: Blogger, Harvey Olson, says there may have been site server problems at the time I viewed this post, and loading is not generally all that slow.]

4.0~Canucker: No Echo ~It was a bit difficult to discern if there was any actual point to this long posting. It was an interesting read, but seemed to mostly be a description of showering/bathing on a very bad morning. Language is choice in parts, so beware if you are offended by the "F" word.

4.0~stevedanforth.com: In pursuit of a dream ~The guy is geek, a very successful geek, who wants to throw away success for a dream ... but gives no one a clue as to what that dream is. How very uninteresting, however, from reading some of the comments, a lot of other geeks are very supportive of his decision. Whatever. I am hopeful his dream does not involve his wanting to be a writer, because he also writes like a geek. He does get high marks for technical merit, though.

3.5~mythic flow: Individuality and Freedom ~The blog name in the entry is not the name of the blog and the actual post is untitled, but the link does take you to the right place. Right off, I got this revulsion akin to the sole reason I am the only person to graduate with a minor in English who did not take Sophomore English classes because I refused to read a book that began with a command, I was not pleased with reading a post that began with an incomplete sentence. The actual post hinted that there was a certain amount of intolerance in American that didn't jive with its belief in Individuality and Freedom. In essence, it was a very long, not very well written lead-in to a link to a Bill Moyers commentary.

3.5~Vantage Point: Fighting with Our Eyes Wide Shut ~The link takes you to an archive page, but the post is at the top. The blogger makes a series of broad sweeping statements about the handling of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, pointing fingers at Bush and the Israelis, then praising Irish President Mary Robinson, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Other than some sense that Bush's policy was somehow wrong, the actual point which was attempted to be made was very hard to discern.

3.5~One Father For Dean: Many Are Listening ~I am guessing this blog is somebody's father who is rooting for Dean to be our next President. I suppose if you are on the Dean bandwagon, you might like this blog, but this post had the persuasion power of marshmallows. It didn't move me, it didn't say much of anything to compel me to even wonder who Dean is.

3.5~EconoPundit: Noted with Relief ~The current top vote getter as I was reviewing the entry, I did not find it all that great. There was not much more than one original sentence and a chopped up quoting of portions of a WSJ.com column. The lead-in sentence had three links in it, the first one which had a term: transnational progressivism linked to a prior blog post in which the same term was linked to a June 10, 2002 commentary by John Fonte in American Diplomacy; the second link went to the full WSJ.com commentary; and the third that went to a June 30th column by Ed Kilgore in the Democratic Leadership Council Blueprint Magazine. As too much outside reading was necessary to understand the point the blogger was supposedly trying to be make and the actual quoted part was contextually akin to Dowdlerism, I have to rate this one somewhat lower than the voting would suggest it merits.

3.0~Eric Poole's Very Own Punditry: Court Affirms Bush's Power to Detain Citizen as Enemy ~[LINK is NZB 404 page ~ my link goes to the blog] The name of the blog is a bit different than the entry listing and the post has no title. It is on blog*spot and is dated July 10, 2003. The post was an interesting commentary on a recent Federal 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. The blogger did not identify the court in his post, but did find an apropos quote predating our own Constitution to argue that the kind of actions upheld by the Court were one of the reasons for the American Revolution. The blogger seems to have potential but needs to pay more attention to the technical items. Also, whenever you speak about a court decision, one should always completely identify the court.

3.0~Dissento's (Culture) War Journal: Tommy Franks Pulls a Cartman ~On blog*spot and the link is to the blog and not to the post, so you will have to search for this one. At least the title is correct. The claims made by the blogger were unsubstantiated by the linked story. There does appear to be some element of satire involved.

3.0~PunditMania: Quo Vaids Blogs ? ~Link is to the blog and not to the post. Blog seems to have no permalinking capabilities. I did locate what appeared to be a permalink but it took me to the archive index. This disclosed, however, that the blogger is using BLOGGER software which might explain why the permalink did not work correctly. The post itself was actually a pretty good analysis of blogging itself with lots of links. It was well written, albeit long, and is a worthy read for anyone interested in a good synopsis of blogging.

3.0~What Would George Say!: Out of Respect for the 9/11 Victims please contact your Congress members ~The blogger has very poor writing skills which makes a reading of this impassioned post to be very difficult to read. The blogger does point to what might be a situation worthy of further investigation and commentary.

2.5~TerraFirmaDiaries: just because you can does not mean we will ~This is not the title of the post. It is the first entry under July 7, 2003. The link is also not to the post, but is to the blog. The blog does not appear to have any permalinking capabilities. The blogger does not use the cap key at all, and the punctuation is sporadic. Also, the blogger will from time to time right justify a paragraph to set it off. The link supplied to the story supporting this entry was not in the form of a clickable link. The actual topic of the post was interesting, but the method of putting it out for public consumption was not.

2.0~Precision Blogging: Brief Random Provocations ~This blogger actually tried to enter a week's worth of short blurbs as the entry which may be technically outside the rules, but as the blog is done with BLOGGER software and on blog*spot, for whatever reason, I have not been able to fully load any pages on such sites of late and was only able to view the extinction post. For someone using the pen name Precision Blogger who authors Precision Blogging, I was not very impressed with the substandard technical merit of the blog.

1.5~Writing in Orange: Living in Orange 1: From Your Window ~There is not much of interest here. Although the blog may be of interest, it is too new to have much on it. This message was just an invitation for people living in Orange County to write about what they could see outside their window. I live nowhere near Orange County. If I did live in Orange County and thought that people would be interested my description of what was outside my window, I believe that I would put it on my own blog. As the purpose of the Showcase is to show off your bogging skills, writing skills and to entice more readership, I think this was not a good post for the Showcase or a good blog to have entered at this time.

1.0~BIROCO.COM ~ A way to look at things: A blatant attempt to influence Googlism ~The link is to the blog as there are no permalinks.

I can't be bothered making 'permalinks' for individual entries, as I regard this as throwaway stuff.

I agree, at least with reference to this posting. It was just a bunch of inane and ridiculous statements about the blogger so as to somehow get a longer list on Googlism. Yawn! I did nothing to enhance my listings, and yet my list on Googlism seems to be quite extensive. Do I really care? NO!

0.0~dr.mani's remarkably purple spots: an experiment in selfishness ~No score as I am of the opinion this blogger abused the purpose of the contest. Nothing but some asshat begging for people to send mass amounts of money and gifts. Pass on this one. I mean the domain is called ezinemarketingcenter, and the prizes awarded for contributions are likely ebooks on how to become a SPAMMER.