While they may be competitive, bloggers are not generally jealous or overly possessive, and if they like the work of a fellow internetter they usually share enthusiastically by steering their own readers to others’ sites. That’s exactly what Americablog.blogspot.com’s proprietor, the gay activist John Aravosis did recently when he turned his readers on to the brand new crooksandliars.com.
“For political junkies, must-see TV once meant sitting through hours of ‘Crossfire,’ ‘Hannity & Colmes’ and ‘Meet the Press,’ hoping for the occasional gem,” an LA Times intro to the site quoted by Aravosis explains. “Nowadays, to catch Robert Novak turning the air blue on ‘Inside Politics’ or work yourself into an apoplectic lather over our politicians' latest truth-challenged utterances, you can point your browser to http://www.crooksandliars.com.”
Not a conventional blog, crooksandliars consists entirely of streaming video and audio outtakes of political television and radio shows. Founder John Amato, a 47-year-old Angelino and former musician, monitors all the political broadcasts so we don’t have to. So now, if you don’t have much time but are dying to see that priceless moment you’ve heard about when Bill O’Reilly defecates little bricks or Monica Crowley vomits crooked pins on the air, a la Salem, Mass., you know where to go. A minor annoyance is that you have to register to access the site, but it’s free.
Meanwhile, Ana Marie Cox a.k.a.Wonkette (wonkette.com), who runs the site subtitled “Politics for People with Dirty Minds,” posted a link to a singularly non-political Washington Post story, but one which makes readers my age feel a twinge of nostalgia for the late Rod Serling’s “The Twilight Zone.”
“(T)wo women, both named April and with the middle name Dawn, lived in different parts of Fairfax County and dated 22-year-old men,” the December 9 article by Jerry Markon and Tom Jackman begins ominously. “Now, both women have been charged in separate murder-for-hire plots with trying to have those boyfriends killed.”
“In what authorities called a bizarre coincidence, police charged April Dawn Shiflett, 33, with plotting the slaying of her 22-year-old boyfriend and charged April Dawn Davis, 27, with soliciting the murder of her former significant other, also 22. Police released the information yesterday, though the two were charged a week ago.”
Wonkette’s comment on this strange tale: “A word of warning: if you live in Fairfax County and are dating a woman with the first name April and the middle name Dawn, you should go to a friend or family member's house, call the police, and hide until they arrive.” She somewhat overstates the case, however, since you needn’t worry unless you’re a 22-year-old male.
Finally, a hat tip to Duncan Black’s “Eschaton” blog (atrios.blogspot.com) for linking to this truly scary story by Kevin Drum from the Washington Monthly under the title, “Kafka’s America”
the December 10 article describes a litigant contesting the Federal Aviation Administration’s requirement that airline passengers show a picture identification, only to be told that the law which specifies the requirement cannot be contested because it is a government secret.
Is it possible that in the near future U.S. citizens will be prosecuted for violating laws they weren’t aware of because the laws themselves are secret? How would such accused persons be arraigned, and how could they defend themselves against charges which cannot be fully articulated because the statute itself is secret?
You can find the answer to these and related questions at the Kafka Blog.
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