Sorry for the infrequent, long, and ranty articles lately. I'm not begging or pandering for readership -- if I were, you'd see more scantly-clad girly pictures here. Instead, as for many bloggers, this is a place where I can work out my thoughts. I hope they benefit you. If no, my apologies, move along...

And, as it's been the holidays, I've been visiting friends, and have work to do, it's hard to put in enough time to make those longer essays shorter. So: sorry to those who perfer lighter fluff. Perhaps I should be like Lileks and lead-in with a bit of fluff, then a warning, then the heavy ranting. Hmmm... step one: Conceive and bear cute child as decoration for blog columns.

Seems a high price to pay for better blogging. :-)

In lighter news, I'm loving the fight between the 'Strib's Nick Coleman and the guys at Powerline. The bankruptcy of Nick's position is clearly revealed in his need to go 100% personal, rather than find some substantive issue to bludgeon the Powerline guys about.

I particularly liked this comment, mailed to Glenn Reynolds:

I'm really confused . . . . First MSM told me that you guys all wore pajamas. Now they tell me that you work out of "paneled bank offices". So do you guys blog from bank offices in your pajamas? The public has a right to know.

Yup. That's it. If we're amatuers in pajamas, it proves we can't be trusted. If we're journalists, it proves we're inauthentic. If we're successful businessmen or lawyers it proves we're greedy and beholden to secret moneyed interests. There's no overriding principle here, other than denigration by any means available.

We also see the rising meme that the blogosphere is "conservative"; it is being compared to talk radio. Is there such an overall tilt? Are there more conservative blogs than liberal ones? I have no idea. But it there are, it means there are probably more conservative writers than liberal ones. Is it our fault we're more literate?

Anyway, have a happy day everyone. If you need a laugh, look at this, via Beldar.