Happy blogiversary, Hipparchia

I’m pretty sure it’s been a year. Go visit over the cliffs, onto the rocks.

Happy blogiversary, Creature & co.

State of the Day is two. Go visit!

Recommended reading

Barbara O’Brien @ The Mahablog on the current slate of Democratic candidates.

My own thoughts are similar to hers on this as far as the nomination; as for the general election I would not cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.

A musical offering and other observations

[odeo=http://odeo.com/audio/17137793/view]

NTodd is wicked smart.

Congratulations

to PJ @ Groklaw, for winning a Knowledge Masters Award for Innovation from the Knowledge Trust and the Louis Round Wilson Academy.

Happy birthday to the blogger formerly known as Mimus Pauly

Jim Yeager of Mockingbird’s Medley is 37. Go read his blog. Then watch this.

Happy birthday Monkeyfister

And Karl Rove announced his resignation just in time to mark the occasion.

No real than you are

Reuters has video.

Chickenings writes:

Seems like it is an actual thing:
http://www.egoleonard.com/

And just on the off-chance your Dutch isn’t quite fluent just yet, here’s a bit of what it says…

“My name is Ego Leonard and I greet you from the virtual world. A world which for me stands for luck, solidarity, everything green and blooming, and without rules and restrictions. Recently, my world has been flooded with luck-seekers and those who want power. Many new meetings in my virtual world have left me very curious as to your surroundings. I am here because I thought of your world and wanted to discover and understand it. Show me all of those beautiful things which your world has to offer. Be my friend, and tell me tales, take me on your travels to beautiful landscapes, show me your words and gestures.”

Hat-tip Doug Stych, who is now proud to be called a liberal though I don’t think he’s a parasite.

Happy first blogiversary, Ellroon

I’m a little down about the million threshhold at the moment, but I don’t want to miss acknowledging you.

Happy blogiversary, Monkeyfister

One year old today, Monkeyfister is twelve days older than Cannablog.

happy blogiversary, skippy the bush kangaroo

five years old yesterday.

Eight random things about myself

Ellroon tagged me.

1. All right, here are the rules. 2. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts. 3. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves. 4. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules. 5. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Okay, here goes:

1. I’m not very good at picking random things about myself to talk about.
2. Unless I am out of town or just waking, you can presume I have taken cannabis within a few hours before or while writing anything here; I would take more cannabis if I could afford it or if I was allowed to grow my own.
3. I have an orphan genetic disease which causes bone pain.
4. I have insurance.
5. I am married.
6. My wife is smarter than me.
7. That didn’t count, because it wasn’t about me.
8. This is an eighth thing and I’m not sure if it’s about me but I wrote it.
9. I don’t actually follow directions unless I must or feel like it.

Now tagging:

• Donna Woodka of Changing Places
• Pygalgia of Pygalgia
• Creature of State of the Day
• Charles of Mercury Rising
• Ombudsben of Ombudsben
• Mimus Pauly of Mockingbird’s Medley
• Mustang Bobby of Bark Bark Woof Woof
• and of course Monkeyfister, but he’s moving and offline for a few days.

I am Shakesville

Whoever is so terrified of a blog to DOS attack it and bring it down?

Shakesville will be back online soon.

Mustang Bobby has the story so far.

Related post:

• I’m Spartacus

Update: Also Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, Shakesville, and of course Shakesville.

One miiillion hits…

driftglass, who doesn’t ever link here, but I still read his blog anyhow.

On that account, or for no particular reason, this is an open thread if anyone feels like using it.

How I found Eris…

Planet X, if you count Pluto. And she has a moon.

Hat-tip Doug Stych, who has a number of interesting stories to report, as he often does.

We can be confident in ourselves.

Chris Dashiell has my confidence.

It’s agreed, then

Star-Telegram:

UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and Russia have agreed to dismantle the U.N. agency that searched Iraq for weapons of mass destruction and affirm that Saddam Hussein’s government had no such arms at the time of the American invasion in March 2003.

Hat-tip Doug Stych.

Somehow we were lied to, weren’t we?

Site news and thanks

So my pal Monkeyfister says he’s going out of town for the Memorial day weekend, tells his readers to come by here because I always have such great films on the weekend.

I appreciate it, really, but I’m going out of town too.

So I put some things on autoqueue, and you should enjoy them I hope. Maybe Whitishrabbit will post some things as well if she’s around. I may be spending a few days away from the computer altogether, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t consider my readers.

If you’re new to Cannablog, welcome.

I’m still here until Saturday morning, so don’t be surprised to see a few more current event type posts until then.

Is that a bustle in your hedgerow?

The arboreal articulture of Axel Erlandson.

Hat-tip ggwfung.

Recommended listening:

• To Bedlam and part way back
• As the Leonids fertilize the earth…

Pictures of beautiful women

Don Imus is more despicable than anyone I can think of. Not only does he have the need to be insulting and rude to his audience and guests, he thinks that in the life of a young woman who has achieved some accomplishment deserving praise, she ought to be cussed at with racist and sexually offensive terms. Don is a wealthy, wealthy man. He’s got everything money can buy, doesn’t he? And all he’s got for it is hatred and disgust for himself and everyone on the planet.

Yeah, I’m big pimpin’ alright. I’m telling you. These are women who deserve respect.

But you gotta go read the General, so you know what this is about. Inform yourself about the people you see on television and listen to on the radio, see the victims of their hatred, and be disgusted. I won’t demand anyone be fired, no. If his employers intend to convey the message he conveys, they should keep him on, and they should wear him as a badge of pride, such as cometh before the fall.

Update: MSNBC has reportedly fired Don Imus. No word on CBS yet.

Update 2: CBS has also canceled his contract. Hat-tip Waveflux.

On blogonomics

Melissa McEwan, my friend who runs Shakesville (formerly Shakespeare’s Sister), has an excellent post about how we as a blogging community might sustain ourselves. Obviously we can do this out of our pockets and free time for only so long, but we do not want to become compromised by anyone for the sake of a coin. Advertisers will limit what you can or cannot say. Mimus Pauly wrote a long but very good post about this the day before yesterday. For him this must be always a part-time endeavor, his advice — don’t quit your day job (he hasn’t).

But good writers should have a way to write full-time. Good bloggers should be able to make this a profession, and afford to feed themselves and their families without selling out. The alternative is that you will have no good bloggers that do it for a long time, and eventually our whole ecosystem will be corporate shills like we have on the mainstream media today.

We need patronage, we need to do some things to make a network of bloggers that can rate one another in terms of worthiness, and help new bloggers get connected with a source of funding. We need a structure that is more than each of us having a donation box, as patrons may not know about more than a few of the larger blogs, and some of us blog semi-pseudonymously for good reasons.

Cannablog is a blog about cannabis, and I am a medical marijuana patient in California. This is information I have made public and I feel no great concern about my safety in saying so. California law protects patients. The federal government may have other ideas, and that is something that needs badly to change. Though I feel safe now, I am not safe forever, if it does not. But in other states, medical patients who are living and not dying because they take cannabis are constantly at risk of arrest and imprisonment by local and state officials now. If they want to be bloggers and honestly talk about how cannabis helps them, they cannot use their names. This needs to change.

I want to ensure that they can be funded somehow, to be given help so that they can afford to live, so they can feed their families. They are capable of being great writers and bloggers, and if you think otherwise, if you think this blog is substandard in any way, then I would ask you to please leave a comment and tell me what you’d like to see me do better.

This is, for me, a labor of love. I do it because I must do it. I do it because it is more important to try to stop war than anything else I can do, and this is how I can help to achieve that objective. But I must eat. All must eat.

Break on through to the other side

Hat-tip Appalachian Slacker.

Related post:

• Modern conservatives

Recommended viewing:

• Stoner genius
• A change of perspective — understand highness.

Happy blogiversary, Libby!

Last One Speaks is four years old, yesterday.

So easy even a caveman could understand it

Glenn Greenwald:

First, the President began his Press Conference by admitting that the administration’s explanations as to what happened here have been — to use his own words — “confusing” and “incomplete.” Why, then, would Congress possibly trust Bush officials to provide more explanations in an off-the-record, no-transcript setting where there are no legal consequences from failing to tell the truth?

Related posts:

• A real problem for somebody
• First denial, then anger. Next up?
• Impeachment testimony

Happy blogiversary, Attaturk

Two years old today!

Housekeeping

If you are subscribing to this blog’s site feed (and according to WordPress.com, about 70 of you are on average every day), consider switching to using Feedburner. I’m told it’s much nicer, but let me know if you think otherwise.

Also, I want to remind you that we still have an open blogroll policy. Link to cannablog and I will reciprocate. I do not promise to keep blogs on my list indefinitely, if I feel like removing a link for any reason I’ll do so. But for now and to continue to build out this network, link up.

Meta-observation: Were my words enforceable: Law would say that if you add me, I must add you, even if I could then immediately remove you; Equity says it makes no difference, the result is the same if I do not follow the procedure, I have discretion.

What kind of shameful regime puts an innocent 9-year old child in a prison for two years?

Ask yourself.

Democracy in California

Debra Bowen,

“As Secretary of State, I intend to begin a thorough review of all voting systems currently certified for use in the State of California.”

Hat-tip Brad Friedman, and if I haven’t written about the voting machine issue in awhile, BradBlog has remained on top of it and I know they could use your support.

The problem with current voting machines is they are proprietary and inherently untrustworthy. There is a strong political incentive to cheat, so there must be every protection against cheating. The consequences of a stolen election are dire indeed, as most people may realize. This is a matter of not merely life and death for one person, but potentially for the whole world, all of humanity. So if machines are used, they cannot be a black box that “does something” which cannot be audited publicly. No count which is stored in electronic form should ever be trusted if it cannot be checked against paper ballots, and such checks should be performable without cost to a candidate. It should never be the case that democracy is held hostage by the lack of financial resources on the part of outsider candidates to get a fair counting.

I’m pleased that Debra Bowen is doing her job, she is an exceptional human being in politics.

I’m Spartacus

Also Spartacus: Driftglass, If I Ran the Zoo, Blue Gal, and Evil Mommy, to whom the hat-tip goes.

Update: The Heretik writes,

And these people are too: Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus.

That Spartacus dude? He’s everywhere: Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus.

Update 2: More Spartaci,

Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus. Spartacus.

Thinking bloggers

Ellroon tags me with an award.

Congratulations to the following five bloggers to whom I pass along this same award.

1. ggwfung of Ideas Man,
2. Creature of State of the Day,
3. Chris Dashiell of Dashiell,
4. Doctor Biobrain, and
5. D r i f t g l a s s.

Should you accept this Thinking Blogger award and choose to participate further (but you need not do so unless you wish), you may observe the following participation rules.

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote.

I’d like to thank the little people, the Academy, and of course my lovely wife.

Reciprocal links

I have decided to follow Skippy‘s example and offer to add anyone to my blogroll who adds Cannablog to theirs.

All of the following blogs are currently reciprocally linked to Cannablog.

• Bad Attitudes
• Blog Reload
• Dashiell
• Dohiyi Mir
• Enough is Enough
• Ideas Man
• Jon Swift
• Last One Speaks
• Outside the Box
• Rants from the Rookery
• Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
• State of the Day
• Stress
• The Vanity Press

Make sure you let me know if you want to be added, by leaving a comment for me.

Update: Added so far:

• Evil Mommy
• Allison’s Wonderland

“as the liberal blogosphere exploded”

Glenn has the details and updates on the matter of Melissa’s rehiring by the John Edwards campaign. My readers might notice I haven’t said anything about Amanda Marcotte. That isn’t because I have anything against her, but I am not a regular reader of hers and have therefore no basis to speak.

Related post:

• I’m not linking to the hate

I’m not linking to the hate

If you’ve been following the news, you might know that my friend Melissa McEwan, also known as Shakespeare’s Sister, was caught up in a manufactured scandal by a hateful man who claims to speak for the Romans, and who called her anti-Catholic.

This story was covered on many of the major news programs, including on CNN and MSNBC.

Melissa replied,

I’m not going to say a lot about this right now, but suffice it to say that the fact I cast a vote, without hesitation, for a Catholic during the last presidential election might suggest I’m not anti-Catholic.

My degree from Loyola University might also suggest the same.

John Edwards has done the right thing in keeping her on.

Related post:

• John Edwards for president

Do the right thing, John

This is an historic time. We do not have the luxury to hope for opportunities in the future to correct what must be fixed now.

You are connected with a third rail, the blogosphere is powerful and can shock you if you are not properly grounded.

Choose your adventure.

John Edwards for president

Not an endorsement, but a consideration.

Melissa McEwan, also known as Shakespeare’s Sister, is going to be working for his campaign.

Shakes has my endorsement, as you already know. I’m not making decisions on who I think should be president in 2009, when the question of who should be president in 2007 is more, shall we say, urgent.

I have to make one point and that is I would like a clear statement from John Edwards on medical marijuana. It would be helpful if he would state his own use, and if he has ever tried cannabis, whether he believes it should be prohibited.

My opinion is largely contingent upon his willingess to state a position on this issue.

Hat-tip Skippy.

Related post:

• Speculation on 2008

Please read

driftglass.

The man who will fall forever

Comma Karma.

And welcome d r i f t g l a s s to the blogroll. Along with Spocko’s Brain and some others that I’ve added recently and neglected to mention.

IOKIYAD?

Firedoglake has been removed from our blogroll.

Shakespeare’s Sister has the story on what has been happening. I won’t repeat the details.

FDL is Jane Hamsher’s blog. She’s the one in charge. So it’s her response to the criticism that makes me feel that I should make some kind of statement. Jane says (via),

“Nothing either [Pachacutec or TRex] has ever written has been even slightly mysoginistic [sic]; both have gone to extraordinary lengths to support choice, registration of women voters, and the elevation of female voices and leadership both in the blogosphere and the Democratic party. This attack is hyperbolic and erected on straw.”

This is a complete non sequitur, it is false and misleading. “It’s OK If You’re A Democrat” does not impress me.

“So long and thanks for all the IEDs.”

NTodd says it right. His blog Dohiyi Mir is also now on the permanent blogroll.

My country, ’tis not of thee

America has never been called “the Homeland” by anyone but fascists.

Chris Dashiell is now on our permanent blogroll.

Honor your parents

Brett Stone, who runs DaBronx News (now on our blogroll), is a medical marijuana patient in southern California. As a fundraiser to help the collective, he will roll a 112 gram joint on New Year’s Day: that’s about three feet in length. You have to understand that medical marijuana is legal in California — even if the federal government disagrees — even if it were possible to imagine that the American people would allow their mothers and fathers to be locked in prison for using the only thing that treats their pain and dementia. We won’t tolerate that any more and the rest of the country agrees with us when they understand how they have been deceived. Cannabis is food and medicine, it is benign.

Always judge the tree by its fruit. We have been lied to. You see with your own eyes whether cannabis helps, and you see whether it harms, but no harms can be found. You might not like it, but that’s hardly different from me not liking broccoli. Quite literally, they are both healthy vegetables. Eat your spinach.

Hat-tip to FoM.

In which I tell people to stop supporting monsters

I’ve added Bad Attitudes to the blogroll, I’ve been reading them for awhile and they’re good people.

Wayne Uff has a good way of explaining the situation in North Korea, and yes, he does blame George Bush. It’s something that people on the right have been finding very funny, the quickness with which the left blames him. What should make them sad, is that he really does screw up that much and that badly.

Let me try to make this clear to you, because you don’t always see what’s right in front of your face. A little distance and perspective can help. Do you remember how badly you thought Clinton did his job? Do you remember how you blamed him for everything? George Bush is that bad and worse. You don’t believe it because you supported him and you don’t want to take responsibility for that.

So what I’m saying is, look at the pictures of torture and tell me you still support him, or else admit you made a mistake and let’s talk.

Open thread

Speaking of skippy the bush kangaroo…

Woohoo, now we’re two degrees of separation from a mention on the great John Amato’s Crooks & Liars blog. It’s fun being so small and unknown, but there are about 150 different people a day reading here so I guess that’s enough of an encouragement to keep going.

Also, I’m adding Majikthise to the blog roll here.

Whaddaya thinking about?

Update: I neglected to mention that Shakespeare’s Sister mentioned us here too, and that they are also going on our blog roll.

Blog of the day: Whiskey Bar

One of the most insightful political commentary blogs on the web. Whiskey Bar is a collection of observations by billmon.

Today’s episode finds him reviewing the administration of George Bush as a television program that is losing ratings and really ought to be cancelled soon.

Blog of the day: Firedoglake

It’s political. Democratic but independent. A Unity caucus for progressives.

I’m not the same as a lot of them, but they are doing good work for their cause. Whether you agree with them or not, it’s a thoughtful read.

Since I’ve been out of town, I’m catching up; Oilfieldguy’s analysis of the Bush administration from Saturday is well worth reading.

Blog of the day: and doctor biobrain’s response is…

Doctor Biobrain is one of those clever people who challenges default assumptions and shows you how he is thinking. It’s a fun read, too.

Take a look at his analysis of the current Republican Party playbook, candidates following their talking points so closely as to never have or express an independent thought of their own.

Blog of the day: The Mahablog

I’ve already posted a couple articles linking to Maha. She is Barbara O’Brien and she is one of my favorite liberals to read. I try to share my thought processes here and not state conclusory opinions without justifying them. Maha does the same. This is the kind of conversation that I believe really promotes understanding.

Take a look at her thoughts today on idiotic assassination fantasies. My position is that all use of force or violent confrontation has antisocial effects. The more we talk the better.

Long live the king, and long live the free people of this world.

Blogroll member of the day: Sadly, No!

The fireworks are about to begin.

Skippy the Bush Kangaroo

I’ve still got a backlog of sites to add to my Blogroll here, but I had already promised Skippy a few days ago I was going to add him, and then he went ahead and added me to his said hello already.

When a lawyer says a problem is “immensely difficult”…

that means that he or she is trying to think of a possible way it could be considered legal.

Please visit Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory if you want insightful legal analysis of the Bush administration follies.