The Federal Election Commission is holding hearings on whether or not to regulate bloggers, which has given Greg at The Talent Show an idea “to avoid any potential pitfalls”:
This post will be the last one on The Talent Show blog. Starting either late today or tomorrow, I will relaunch (without any fanfare whatsoever) my new web magazine, The Talent Show. I will still be the primary writer around here, but the traditional blog posts will be replaced with articles of varying lengths and topics. I will also be replacing the comments with article-specific message boards. The look of the site, the writing style, the subject matter, the content, and the technological back-end will be identical to what I’m using now, but the change (as least as far as the FEC is concerned) will be drastic. Starting tomorrow, my days as a blogger are ending and my days as a writer begin.
In other news, some Republicans are hinting they might revoke Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption if liberal George Soros is allowed to be one of the buyers of the Washington Nationals. MartiniPundit may be conservative, but he’s still not having it. “I believe George Soros to be on the Grand Moonbat Council, but really,” he writes. “How completely absurd and petty. Get real Congressman and get back to work.” (Incidentally, it ain’t a blog, but Sally Jenkins has a great column on all this.)
As for Time magazine’s reluctant decision to turn over the notes of reporter Matt Cooper to the grand jury investigating the Plame affair — a decision the New York Times found “deeply disappointing” — Penraker dubs it “total surrender,” and suspects “there may even be a bit of satisfaction at journalists going to jail.”
Why? “The media has pretended that they are above the law at every turn. They use their bullhorn to tout their causes rather than report the news. They have reported on Iraq in the most irresponsible manner. They constantly hide behind a pretense that they are serving the people — but no one believes they are serving the people anymore.”
(Let’s pause now for this reminder: When we quote a blogger, it does not constitute an endorsement. The Blog Report is a once-over-lightly survey, published three times a week, and tries to span the spectrum.)
Finally, the Moderate Voice takes on the Mexican government in what we’ll call, in homage to the Hardy Boys, “Joe Gandelman and the case of the racist stamp.” In case you missed it, Mexico issued a stamp with imagery reminiscent of a minstrel show, and blacks are up in arms. Writes Gandelman: “PLEASE, government of Mexico, don’t do a stamp honoring people of my religion. Spare us the cherished cartoon of Pinnochio eating bagel.” Adds an angry Waveflux: “In a situation like this, where two cultures maintain divergent viewpoints, sometimes a correlative argument can make things clear. Maybe it’s a good time for Frito-Lay to dust off this former corporate mascot. Yeah. That might get the point across.”
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.