Mountain of Judgment

Lotsa new links today, mostly political--you should now have all the information you need to become appropriately engaged, enraged or despondent, depending on your demeanor. Among the left-wing-ranting highlights:

The Poor Man Institute is never less than amusing. Today's post, "Let's stage an all-star panel on blogger ethics in my pants" is typically brilliant, the best thing I've seen on the Deborah Howell shitstorm, the latest humiliation of the traditional media.

You know in samurai movies, where the hero is facing a villain who cackles menacingly, thinking he has the good guy backed against a wall, but then his head is slowly sliding off his neck, and it dawns on him that the samurai killed him so fast he didn't even know it? James Wolcott is like that. As Gilliard often says, people fuck with Wolcott at their own rhetorical peril. The pen might not be mightier than the sword, but Wolcott's pen is certainly sharper.

John Aravosis' AMERICAblog stands out among political blogs on the left for regularly effecting change. Remember when Ford went homphobic then backed down just as fast? That was John.

driftglass, who I first noticed in Gilliard's comment section, and digby bring the scorn and loathing with eloquence and élan.

Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing requires registration with WashingtonPost.com, but it's entirely worth it. Froomkin rakes through all the day's best reporting on Bush, excerpts it with comment, and what emerges is muck of the most damning sort. The Post moves his column around a lot, and I'm an idiot about this kind of stuff, so I'm not sure if this link will work for long, or if it attaches specifically to today's column. We'll see by tomorrow.

Elsewhere, I've added:

PopMatters—a catch-all pop culture review/essay site with a heavy emphasis on music. Most of the writers seem like eager young people trying to think as hard as they can--with mixed results. Check out this recent, thoughtful examination of Sarah Silverman for an example.
DVD Journal—runs down upcoming releases and offers thorough reviews
Metacritc—a review aggregator for CDs, DVDs, games, TV, books and film
Movie City News—pretty much what is sounds like, with regular columnists and a comprehensive set of links to the day's Hollywood news