Benjamin Kepple lays into me for a post I made on Samizdata. Well, I think it is me, he gets my name wrong twice. Most amusing is that he refers to me as a libertine, a popular term for paleos to describe libertarians. I think this little rant about me will demostrate amply why he is a former reporter. It is shame it comes from someone who lives in NH, but what do you expect from a transplant. His vitriol against my “calling card” smacks of a non-fiction writer jealous of someone who can write fiction. A piece so bad it’s funny.

Everyone should head over to the Rat’s Nest and check it out. Good blog and he has been kind enough to mention me on his site.

Update to the Stephanie saga: Daily Pundit has gotten a few emails suggesting that the bimbo might be the author Kinky Friedman. It seems that some of this author’s work features someone named Staphanie Dupont. William still claims that Stephanie is somehow funny.

There is an interesting bit of moral relativism going on at the Christian Science Monitor. In the article the author equates the settlements with Palestinian extremist violence. In order to stop the car and suicide bombing in Isreal proper Isreal needs to pull out of the occupied territories and pull back all their settlements. One wonders if the author actually thought about the piece before he wrote it. Thanks to the always excellent Kesher Talk for the link.

Et tu brutus? It seems that Natalie Solent has taken up the cause of defending the West Coast bimbo Stephanie, thinking that we men of Samizdata & Dodgeblog are being a bit silly.

She states: “One time a lady was facing a man. The man, a gentleman literally to the last, courteously fired his pistol in the air. The female nodded her head in gratitude then drilled him through the heart.”

I can assure Natalie that, for the crime of refering to the ladies attending the LBB as prostitutes, I would drill Stephanie right through the heart with my dueling pistol. I would shoot her in the head, but that probably would not have any affect.

Instapunditgate II: Send in the Clones?

Over at Transterrestrial Musing, Rand Simberg posts a letter from a reader claiming that Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit is in fact a fraud, and a wholely owned part of Time-Warner. Rand does his best to poo-poo the idea, but the exchange is still pretty funny.

It would be most amusing to find out that the way of getting brownie points with the Prof, if your his student, is to put in a few hours surfing the net for good stuff. That would explain some of the eclectic nature of some of the links.

I want to welcome any readers who have followed the posting on Melodicrock.com Welcome to Dodgeblog. Expect at least 2 new reviews in the coming days. It is nice to see the new year has brought us so much good music. Too bad it has also brought the bad news that VH-1s “Friday Rock Show” with Tommy Vance is being canned at the end of March.

Marty

From The Den….....

The Wall Street Journal “Best of The Web” announced that the WSJ has established a fund for the benefit of Daniel Pearl’s widow and soon-to-be-born child. Wouldn’t it be most fitting that any outlet that was even thinking of broadcasting that tape first be compelled to pay 10 Million Dollars to that fund for the so-called privilege.

I took the Lord of the Rings Test and it turns out I am most like Frodo! Well it could have been worse, at least I wasn’t Golem. I got wise to this amusing little test, via Ye Olde Blog.

Got an email askng me to take an IQ test today, one wonders whether I should or not. No doubt it will have gone down since I took my last major one in 1980, all those bottles of beer and wine do catch up eventually.

A ROAR From The Den….....

It’s spreading around about “that tape”...two more examples of the news can be found here and here .

To anyone who cares, please see to it, in whatever way you can, that “that thing” never sees the light of day on TV. There is naught to be done about its sale, but even the mere suggestion that it might be broadcast should send shivers down ones spine and cause a wave of nausea. This is the latest threat from those despicable people.

A GROWL From The Den….....

Horrible Disgusting Thought Department: apparently the tape of the execution of Daniel Pearl is up for grabs to the highest bidder. Who in his/her right mind would even contemplate showing such a piece of despicability, never mind watching it?

Would that there were some legal way to stop it! One thing that can be done is use the power of the Internet, blogging in particular, to start a Stop movement before that “thing” sees the light of day. This is my small contribution. Over at the On The Third Hand Forum site, there is a thread going about this very topic, asking for suggestions to do what we can. If this concept strikes a chord in your heart, please help.

From The Den….....

It’s nice to be “Top O’ The Heap”, but…there are others out here in Blogland, and Rand Simberg says it very nicely about the whole thing. The rest of us try to put forth good stuff, so it’s time to start talking about a more level playing field instead of trying to maintain “position”.

RIP Spike Milligan, a comic genius and without whom there would have been no Monty Python et al. He will be sorely missed.

Stephanie over at Ain’t No Bad Dude gives her reasons for her diatribe against the Samizdata party and its participants. Do with it what you will.

Company of Snakes
Burst the Bubble
(SPV)

Whitesnake without Coverdale have finally come of age and produced an extremely good hard-blues rock album. The great thing about this 15 track affair is that you aren’t left yearning for the ole’ Cov. Since all the songs are new, there is no prejudice in the listening, Cov has never sung the stuff so you never miss his voice. In fact, CoS is Snakes in Paradise (John Stefan Berggren’s previous band) with classic Whitesnake as a backing band. Really CoS needs two lead singers, Jorn for the Whitesnake stuff and John for the new tunes. On to the music. While there is a strong Whitesnake influence on the band, the album actually sounds more like Bad Company, Deep Purple and er, Thunder. Almost everything on here is catchy as stink. �Hurricane� is a great power ballad, while �She� is a Thunder-like rocker. Like any good album, Burst just gets better with each listen. I can’t wait to see the band live in London next month. Company of Snakes have truely come out of Whitesnake’s shadow and come into their own. Essential for any
blues rock fan.

Marty: 9

Blaze
Tenth Dimension
(SPV)

Blaze’s second is a futuristic concept album about technological angst. Not exactly the most original of themes for a concept album, but there you go. This is by far Blaze’s best post-Iron Maiden output. While Silicon Messiah was just a bit blah, Tenth Dimension shows some promise. The production is excellent. It even manages to give Blaze some kind of range! There are definite Iron Maiden influences here, and this album should go down well with the European power metal crowd. The best track on this CD is the last and also the longest. �Stranger to the Light� is a great power metal track with key changes, rifting, and varying vocal styles. On first
play, it was this track that saved the album for me. The rest of it takes some investment to get into, but there is something there. At times a bit too nu-metally for my taste, the songs do tend to stick to the power metal format pretty well. Blaze seems to have found a formula that works for him, so his next release could be a real corker.

Marty:7

Magnum
Breath of Life
(SPV)

Reformed and better than they have been in a long time, Magnum have released a great album. After a prolonged absence when band members formed their own somewhat successful projects, Magnum have become whole again. Not just an excuse to do a reunion tour, this is a great hard rock album. Naturally a must for any Magnum fan, Breath could also attract an audience too young to remember them in their hey-day. Songs range from proggy outings to the ubiquitous power ballad. In other words, the band have stuck to what they do best. Catley’s singing is top notch, as is Clarkin’s guitar playing. Song writing is pretty good as well. A great return to form from a quintessentially British hard rock band.

Marty: 8

From The Den…..

Over at Random Jottings was this delightful and meaningful piece of news that certainly OUGHT to relegate CFR to the bottom of the pile! In the scheme of things, there are battles to be fought that rank a lot higher in citizen impact than that perverted piece of drivel wending its way through the halls of Congress. The lot of them should be ashamed of themselves for many reasons, but this rises to the level of utter nonsense.

Another piece of west coast genius at work:

Big Idiot Bonehead award three goes to Los Angeles, California school
district official, Jim Konantz, who, in response to the pulling from a
Los Angeles public school library nearly 300 copies of a book on the
Muslim religion that describes Jews as “illiterates who reject
knowledge,” announced that the books may be back after he determines
whether there is research to support that Jews are “illiterates who
reject knowledge.” The books, donated by a Muslim foundation, encourage children to adopt
Muslim names, wear Muslim clothes and play “jihad” dice games.

Thanks to Bonehead Awards for this gem.

Anyone interested in reading the inane output of a Californian bimbo can go over to read the blitthering babblings of Stephanie as she fills in for Brian. Aintnobaddude used to be an interesting, if at times harsh, read now it has become rubbish. This bloody woman has called all the men at the Samizdata party dorks and implied the women there were prostitutes. For the record, Brian is a great bloke and good fun to have a nice long natter with over a few beevies.

Shots Across the Bow has been kind enough to “blog” me. Rich was terribly kind in his email to me. I welcome the blog to my perma-link section.

From The Den…..

It appears that, in addition to John Lott here in the States, there is a like-minded gentleman in Canada who has also researched the subject of gun-control and found it wanting in useful purpose. This link once again shows that the politicians DO NOT have your best interests at heart !!

Well at least one Canadian muslim seems to have learned the same type of “tolerance” as the students below. In this case a female muslim got offended because they passed around some beers at a Student Council meeting. FLIT has some great quotes from this obnoxious cow. What is next, is she going to require the rest of the women in the room to wear burquas?

I missed this yesterday, but it needs to be mentioned, Muslimpundit has posted another expose of Muslim behaviour in the UK. In this case, Islamic millitants (Islamic Society) and the Socialist Workers Students (SWS) are trying to ban all “zionist” organisations for the student union. This was tried in 96’ and it failed to pass. Adil expertly takes these oiks to task for their attempts to ban all Jewish organisations from the union.

Iain Murray of Edge of England’s Sword fame is now writing a column for TechCentralStation. His first piece is all about how badly journalists use and abuse statistics. Well worth the read.

Please welcome the new blog-mistress: MommaBear. She will be both contributing and editing the Dodgeblog. Her first post can be found below. (Stop sniggering in the back!)

It seems all blogdom has come to a standstill thanks to Samizdata. All those pictures of the bash have brought the entire thing to its knees. In the last 24 hours I have successfully got onto the blog once in about 10 attempts.

From The Den…..

One underlying but defining cause of the discomfiture of all those European �Bleating and Whin(g)ing� talking heads may best be seen in this tidbit of UBI; another example of why Americans feel confident that they have most probably found the best way to go about life in general. They don’t even realize a lot of it on a conscious level; they just figure if it works for them, why can’t it work for the rest of the world.

Naturally this doesn�t sit well with those self-designated Very Impressive People.

When formulating your blogrolling policy, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:
Mike Sanders poses a series of question for we, the blogging few, to ponder.

1) What is my policy for adding a blogroll? And for removing?

So far if anyone links to me I add them to my blogroll. I got some stick from a few for Instapunditgate (that first post was a bit ott I admit) but I still gave a mention and a permalink. No one that I could find was really nasty about it. I think I will only remove dead links.

2) Who are the candidates to blogroll? And to definitely not blogroll?

See above, and anyone who I think is worth visiting. I have yet to come across anyone I would not blogroll. I think a policy will be established when and if that occurs.

3) What will be the order of the blogrolls? And the implications of change?

Right now my blogroll is in alphabetical order (or thereabouts), I do not envision this changing. At times, I think of catagorising or prioritising them, but it is too much hassle. I, sometimes, make comments in my description that are editorial. I seem to be prone to tagging those sites of a libertarian bent.

4) Have I captured the spirit of blogrolling?

Yes.

5) Can I only blogroll a blogger? Who is a blogger?

No you can link to whatever you wish on your list. Besides the easy designation in the name (....blogspot.com), a blogger is an ethos and a content. A blog has to have some personality to it, it can’t be just cold hard facts and no feeling to it. That is not to say every post has to have some personality to it, but a percentage of the entirety have it.

6) Will I make friends (or enemies) with my policy?

Well, I don’t think I will make enemies with my policy. I plan to link to anyone who mentions me good or bad. After all, I publicise the Marty Dodge Hate Page.

7) Should I explicitly state my policy?

Well in answering these questions and posting them on my blog I am establishing a policy of sorts. I shall endeavor to make my readers aware if my policy changes for any reason.

Is Mike Sanders serious about this?

Yeah he seems to be, and I think he has done a good service to blogdom with this questionnaire.

I want to thank Andrew Olmsted for mentioning me on his blog.

I forgot to mention the great shots featured on Samizdata detailing last night’s proceedings at the London Blogger Bash. Perry was a great host and a good time was had by all in attendance. It has been a very long time since I have gone to all-night party. The company was so impressive that evening just flew by.