Take my conservative opponents.. please!

I've been seeing (and even been in the midst of) lots of discussion about whether to debate with conservatives now that their policies have been rejected, and if yes then whether to be 'civil'. In my usual way of "what works, is", I say you have to win before you can change the rules of the game (such as "the tone of the debate"). Here's an excellent summary of why I feel it's fruitless to take the right wing seriously these days. Among the excellent pieces to always remember: "You will always lose a game you do not realize you are playing."

Bigger than huge

I got a laugh today when someone pointed me to this tidbit from the blog Crooks & Liars:

How BIG was Obama's victory? As it now stands, with North Carolina upping his total to 364, he could've spotted McCain New York and California and still won with 8 to spare. Let that sink in for a minute; a "suntanned" big city liberal Democrat named Barack Hussein Obama has won the presidency and did not need the New York and California electoral votes to do it.

(Note: now 365 with one elector from Nebraska. "Suntanned" quote courtesy of the rude Italian prime minister.)

Blog Olympics

I read a lot of blogs during political season, and over the course of the year I can tell that I've landed on certain URLs more than the rest. The competition is over, the scores are in, and here's the medal ceremony:

• Bronze: Hullabaloo. In previous elections, Digby was boring, repetitive; she solved this a while back by making the blog a team effort, adding variety in both topics and sources. The quote blocks still run too long—okay, okay, we get the idea, we want to hear your point—but this is the site I go to first to find out what other sites are saying. Others in this class are Sadly, No! and Lawyers, Guns, and Money, but those are merely for humor as they monitor mostly amateur rightwing sites; Hullabaloo calls bull on "real" media and think tanks.
• Silver: Daily Kos. Formerly the undisputed champion, still the best for pure news, polls, and activism. It can be hard to keep up with because of its enormity, but the diary-rescue process at least provides a first pass at finding the quality that extends throughout the site.
• Gold: Who Is IOZ?. A ten even from the Bolshevik judge. Knocked the Rude Pundit off the podium this election cycle, through pith and insight and wit and encyclopedic knowledge. Warning for the faint of heart: not nearly as crude as the RP, but still plenty of faggotry (his word), pot, and correctly-pronounced French as well.

Hallelujah! There's Work To Do

Be glad! We elected the right man, just in time.

That's enough celebrating. It's time to get to work. We Americans cannot expect one person to clean up the mess of the past 28 years. We are in this together; roll up your sleeves.