I just can't believe it. I mean, I really had faith in a movement, and then this scandal breaks.

I'm heartbroken. Stunned. Distraught. Vaguely hungry.

People are actually believing the National Enquirer.

I know, me too.

This will be my first and a fairly brief diary.

I have been reading DailyKos for a few of years and commenting sporadically for a shorter period of time.

I came here seeking refuge from other, less rational forms of media and from less reasonable blogs.  I came because this community is ostensibly and self-proclaimed-ly the reality-based community.

Post your late night random images here.

I know it's not much of a diary, but I encourage all late night junkies...

too ad to this...

Your (mostly)-regularly scheduled forum for asking questions about how this place works and get them answered.

So, I'm taking all these foot pix.  And out at the Howard Dean bus launch, Thursday, I see George Lakoff.  "Can I photograph your feet?"  Done, but he says "You better photograph her feet, too."  Pretty woman in a dress?  Sure, why not?  "What's your name?"  Debbie Cook!  OK.  I like candidates as subjects.  And whups!

Turning to move on, a voice behind me says, "Hey!  Aren't you gonna photograph my feet?"  If ya wanna know who it was, you're gonna hafta click again...

As happens oftentimes in my life, I found the answer I was looking for from a question I had not asked.

I was reading a bedtime story to my oldest daughter.  I had chosen this particular book for bedtime because she was in a "why me" mood.  The story contains three classic zen koans, modified for better understanding by young readers.

And while I intended to get her to think about how the "bad luck" of her broken arm opened up an opportunity for the "good luck" of meeting a very dear camp counselor, I found a moment of insight in my own troubled mind later in the book.

And this is how I resolved my anger at Congress (especially Nancy Pelosi) regarding FISA...

(Originally published at Blast Off!, which explains the odd narrative form wrt Daily Kos; I opted to leave it as is rather than try to edit around it here.)

It's no secret that I've not been much of a fan of Daily Kos ever since the front-pagers there took on their holier-than-thou attitude about progressivism, essentially becoming almost DLC-ish in their refusal to confront misbehaving (i.e., insufficiently progressive) Democrats.  Long-time Blast Off! readers -- both of you -- might recall my little flame war (okay, I diaried, they flamed) back in '06 when I dared to criticize then-Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for taking impeachment off the table.  Oddly, the Kossacks changed their tune a year later ... but I digress.

[more below the fold]

Okay, the Dog has an idea for a tool for my fellow netroots activists, but before he spends a lot of time and brain damage working it out he would like to test the waters and see if there is any interest. First off, the tool will be free, think of it as the Dogs way of making us more effective in our efforts.

  This probably would have been a comment, but I don't think it would have been fair to the diarist to make it one, I also wanted to get more of a consensus than I'd have been allowed in that instance.
  Earlier today, a diarywas posted, in which more than a few comments let fly with the term 'bitch', in description of Condoleeza Rice.
  I'm certainly no defender of the current administration, and in no way condone any of the actions or positions it's taken, but comments like, "She ended up being the Bushists own nappy headed ho, Cheney was her PIMP" really don't sit well with me. I was under the (apparently mistaken) assumption, that given what we went through during the primary wars, people around here would understand that the rules concerning Hate Speech, don't only apply to certain women.  

Yesterday, I published a diary on the most prolific Daily Kos commenters. It was filled with statistics garnered from Search and I checked close to two hundred likely names, mining past diaries on the subject, before getting my list of 30.

It wasn't enough. I failed to check one list of names, and consequently omitted two commenters, one of whom identified himself and another I found on my own after I dug into my files to determine why I hadn't checked the first guy.

I published a series of updates, three in all, correcting the record as I discovered my errors. It's what we do on Daily Kos. Accuracy, and truth, matter here.

O'Reilly on his radio show today, in what can only be an attempt to make the Worst Person in World List AGAIN, calls Gore out for attending the Netroots Nation which he likened to attending a Klan Rally. Apparently Bill-O was pissed that Tony Snow's lies were mentioned in some of the diaries written after his death.

Take a listen:

Well, the time is almost upon us.  We need to start thinking about C&J for 2008-09, which begins in October.  It's a crucial conversation.  How can the Obama administration expect to accomplish anything if plans aren't in place to provide the moral discontinuity of C&J?

I have an idea.  (Now's your time to escape.)

I got a few requests to repost this since I published it at 11:30 p.m. Friday night. I'm updating with some new details about my experience at Netroots Nation.

I arrived at Austin Thursday just in time to hear Howard Dean speak outside the convention center.

It was one of those moments in life where timing is perfect.

In many ways Howard Dean's work as a presidential candidate and then as DNC chairman got me there.

One thing the Top Comments series celebrates is good writing. Whether in-depth comments that rival the best diaries (and sometimes are expanded further and posted as such) or perfect one-liners, many Kossacks read gold and tell us about it daily in Top Comments.

We also celebrate what the Daily Kos community like as noted by their comment recommendations: those comments that get the most recs from readers. It's why we exclude tip jars from our first list of top mojo: recs there are generally for the diary, not necessarily for the actual comment.

This diary is also about comments, and about top comment writers: the people who are tops in the number of comments they have written. If you follow me over the flip, in addition to today's top comments, you'll find the Daily Kos users who have published the most comments on Daily Kos.

It seems to be more than a political analysis and political propaganda on the right; Obama is certainly shifting toward the center as his apparent constituents are ready to blow their tops.

I was going to go a whole different way with this diary, but, given some of the responses to my first diary on this subject (which was really more of a rant on those who couldn't wait to yell "extraordinary claim" or "conspiracy theory"), I decided to go back and revisit the election fraud issue itself.

First, for the FAQ on "extraordinary claims":

Diaries on certain topics are likely to generate angry responses. Most of these topics fall under the general heading of "conspiracy theories", e.g., "JFK was killed by Martians". The rule for posting such diaries is "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". The more extreme the claim, the higher the burden of proof that commenters will demand. If you can't provide evidence to back up your claim, it is best not to post the diary. This guideline also applies to recommending extraordinary-claims diaries. If a diary makes an extreme claim with little or no evidence to back up that claim, it shouldn't be recommended, no matter what that claim is.

Now... follow me over the flip...

I've taken some time to reflect on the Ask the Speaker session from earlier this morning.  While I didn't expect Speaker Pelosi to knock my socks off, I did expect SOMETHING from her.  I left feeling like I got nothing.

Many of the questions posed to Pelosi revolved around accountability and the lack thereof during the past two years.  Time and again Pelosi returned to the idea of electing more Democrats in the House and Senate and electing Obama as President as the remedy.  While I obviously stand with her in my desire to elect more Democrats, I couldn't help but feeling that she was laying these failings at OUR feet, that WE were to blame.  

Her basic argument was this - Leadership in Congress did what it could given its numbers, but if WE had only gotten more Democrats elected they could have done more.  While that may BE true, it doesn't FEEL true.  Now I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of "truthiness," but there is something compelling about feeling that our concerns are being heard and acted upon...

You know, there are some things that are simply silly.  People crying "extraordinary claim, where's your proof" is one of them.

This isn't about stopping libel or slander from occurring.  It isn't even about maintaining a "credible" place for discussion because, to date, I've yet to see one "aliens kept at Area 51" diary.  

So, let me show you exactly why this is silly...