Category: other blogs (Page 3 of 7)

TO: Carl @Effin’ Unsound

February 2, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Not that I have any problems with Horsesass, but don’t do it:

Speaking of HA, Goldy is thinking of integrating some of the more established local blogs like he’s already doing with Publicola. I’m inclined against joining at this point for a few reasons: I like the independence of having a separate blog. I don’t mean that Goldy will act censorious of anyone who writes here, but that some day he may decide he can put his skill set to use not hosting a bunch of blogs for very little money, and then where would we be? Also, I like the out-of-a-can feel of EffU; that there aren’t many bells and whistles, or ads helps keep focus on the writing, and it’d inevitably lose some of that switching over. But I’d like to hear what y’all think.

Because, we need more bloggers, not fewer.

All Muslims are Terrorits, blogs chair of Thurston County Republicans

January 27, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Here.

(This is going to be fun, R. Scott having a blog and all.)

So, when Akbar Ganji meets President Obama in the White House, is that negotiating with a terrorist?

Next step for Ken Camp, the blogger of Tumwater

January 16, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I’m sure Ken would tell you he’s busy now. Oh yeah, everyone that works in a building of greek design in Olympia is sooo busy now. Well, still, I have a few ideas for you blogger now that you’re seeing a lull and the county commissioner appointment process that you covered so well has petered out.

1. Redesign. Your design is pretty bad. Not horrible, but you need to dance that ol’blog up.

If you were asking, this one and this one look nice.

2. Cover Tumwater city hall. The council posts their packets here, go through it each week and spout off about something. You live in Tumwater, right?

Oh yeah, and while we’re talking about that, what do you think of an Olyblog for Tumwater?

Ken Balsley and dominating political women

January 8, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

In his instantly out of date piece today, Ken says:

Thurston County is unique in politics. It’s become the norm that women run and are elected. As a matter of fact, being a woman on the ballot, here in Thurston County, gives the candidate a five point edge before the campaign even starts.

So Brendan William’s absolute shellacking of not only Ann Burgman, but also sound defeat of three other Democratic women in the primary in 2004 is based on what?

I guess you could argue that the Democratic women split the “Ken Balsley +5 percent vote,” but could you honestly say that a sitting Lacey city councilmember who ran an aggressive, centrist campaign would have done worse if she were a man? Hardly, she lost because the 22nd LD is strongly Democratic and even a well funded Republican gets shellacked, no matter their sex.

Thurston County happens to have a lot of succesful women politicians, because their happen to be women in politics.

TVW comments

January 7, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

TVW has a blog (hat tip their twitter), but not with comments:

On the point of accessibility, one thing you won’t find here is comments. Why? If we do our job right, you’ll be a more informed citizen after reading The Capitol Record. That might make you want to share your opinion with someone. But the office of your elected official is the more appropriate place to do that. We’ll help facilitate that direct communication by providing links to the Legislature’s web site, where you can find the contact information for your elected official.

I have a problem with this because it assumes that engagement is best between a citizen and an elected official. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I think the more valuable engagement is between citizens, and TVW is giving up on that.

Yes, its much much easier not have to moderate comments from readers, but they’re shutting off communication between their readers.

Another interesting thing about the TVW blog is it makes TVW a defacto media organization, more along the lines of what a real, post newspaper, media organization would look like. Original musings here.

Where the Seahawks score found me

January 3, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I put this as a note on my shared items, but I think it is worth repeating:

I didn’t watch the end of the game, and from clicking around this morning I hadn’t found a score yet.

A personal blog I read, though, tells me the score with some observations. You may think that bloggingvabout something that is already covered to death in the traditional media is pointless, but the Barers of Maple Valley got me the Seahawks score before the Olympian, ESPN, Fox Sports or Yahoo Sports.

The shrinking Washington State liberal blogosphere

January 3, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 1 Comment

Evergreen Politics is going the way of Pike Place Politics, Blog Reload Olyscoop and Better Donkey, and I’ve been meaning to write a post about where things have been going in the liberal political blogosphere around here.

Things aren’t like they were in 2004. Yeah, there are a handful of new blogs out there (Spokane Skeptic and the Other Side) which are pretty good, but it isn’t like there are a bunch of people diving into blogging lately. Washblog is pretty stale and has been for awhile.

Horse’s Ass is still going strong, and gobbling up other bloggers while they shutter their own blogs (see Pike Place Politics and Blog Reload). Even Josh Feit found a paying gig over there for awhile, and it seems like they’re becoming the liberal vesion of crosscut. Nothing wrong with a big blog, but I wonder about some things.

Do the big blogs left in the state-level liberal political blogoshere do enough linking to smaller blogs trying to make their way? It seems like I can’t go a day without seeing them link back to the Seattle Times or the Vancouver Columbian, but I seriously can’t remember the last time they linked to another bog not Effin’ Unsound.

Do A-list bloggers have a responsibility to link to smaller blogs (here and here)? Yes, in the interest of the blog ecosystem. Hell yes.

I pulled out of the community I’m addressing here as a serious participant awhile back. It had to do with a lot of things, some within that group of bloggers, but also because I found other reasons to blog. Also, I had a feeling that no matter what point I made, it wouldn’t be linked to. There were some nice exceptions, but those guys stopped blogging awhile back.

Sexually harassed former employees already cost Thurston County $3 million

January 2, 2009 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Maybe if those women hadn’t sued, the new chair of the Thurston County Republicans might be wondering this morning, we wouldn’t have needed to fire all those security guards.

Thing is ( I never get tired of mentioning this) you don’t blame the victim for costing the county when the county loses a big lawsuit. The people who sue the county, over sexual harassment or land use planning, don’t cost the county money.

re: and then he snapped at the Courthouse

December 31, 2008 / Emmett O'Connell / 8 Comments

Those guys at the lets-hate-judges blogosphere keep on keeping it on. Now, truther says that maybe if judges get beat up, things will be better:

Taking away their security force is an excellent way to reform the unlawful and out of control family court. Think about it. Would little Paula Casey arrogantly and abusively disparage, extort and lecture some Green Beret who did nothing more than make a poor choice in a mate if she was not protected by guards and have an office behind locked doors and bullet proof glass?

Yes, because a judge being rude to you is totally the right reason to attack them. Maybe if that’s your logic, there’s a reason a judge is disparaging you in the first place?

I don’t know, I’d say that someone who’d physically assault a judge might be in their own right a bad choice of a mate.

Rich Nafiziger, state Democratic senate caucus chief of staff and blog father

December 24, 2008 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

To me, there’s a striking resemblance between former Olympia school board member Richard Nafziger’s on-again-off-again blog and the new blog of the state Senate Democrats (mostly penned by majority leader Lisa Brown).

Makes a lot of sense for Nafziger to be Brown’s blog father, but the similar blogging styles almost makes you think that its Brown’s chief of staff that’s doing the blogging. Both write long (almost too long) and really smart discussion posts, rather than short, clippy newsy posts. I would assume that the short clipply post would better serve a legislative caucus blog.

Nafziger’s current personal blog has only two posts up on it, though he’s been blogging for at least three years. But, on the internet, nothing is really gone. I’ve subscribed to his blog since before he quit the school board, so I shared some of his old deleted posts here.

To me, it doesn’t matter at all if Nafziger is really doing the blogging. Good on him, good on the caucus, good on Brown.

The only thing I’d like to see improved is the length of the posts. In my internet reading habit, I’ve never been able to get my head around his posts in time to comment, though I’d like to.