This is a Top Comments diary on the Daily Kos writings of DHinMI, one of the original group of guest posters on this blog, who these days blogs here under his actual name, Dana Houle, when he isn't managing congressional or gubernatorial campaigns. Back in July 2003, he started commenting on Daily Kos as DHinMI.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you exactly when. On July 1, 2003, Markos had to shut off Movable Type comments because they were bringing the ISP's server to its knees. This was only supposed to be for a few days while the first Daily Kos server was delivered and installed. Even so, within a day, Markos had found an interim solution, and HaloScan comments were brought on line as a temporary measure, with the full knowledge that the HaloScan material would disappear into the ether when Daily Kos moved to its own server and Movable Type comments could be reactivated. Unfortunately, it took a month and a half to get the new server working, and all the comments made through the morning of August 16th are lost. This includes all of DHinMI's early comments.
DHinMI's first guest blog post was nearly six years ago, on September 20, 2003. Please join me on the flip for an array of links to his work here on Daily Kos.
We do have one early comment data point, however. On July 21, 2003, in his post Bush loses Arab-American support, Markos updated his three-paragraph article by quoting from a now-lost, much longer DHinMI comment from the comment thread. How many comments that thread had, and whether DHinMI wrote any follow-ups in the thread, is lost to posterity. Here is the first half of what he said:
--The Arab vote may not be particularly huge, but it is one of the few swing constituencies in the state. Almost all persuasion efforts in MI statewide elections come down to the following: upscale women in Oakland County; white working class voters in Macomb and the Flint/Saginaw/Bay area; the Upper Penisula; and the Arab vote. In 2000 Gore got pounded in the north country, but he won Oakland Co and was the first Dem to win Macomb Co since Humphrey. The Arab vote went strongly for Bush, largely because
- Bush's surrogates put out the word among the Arab leadership that he would follow a Arab/Israeli policy similar to James Baker's (I've heard they were saying the opposite in similar meetings with conservative Jewish leaders), and
- Spencer Abraham was running for reelection to the Senate, so there was a HUGE push in the Arab community to vote for someone from their community, and that followed through to most other Republicans. But with high turnout and improved performance with upscale women and union members, the Arab vote wasn't enough.
--That the Arab vote is really a swing vote can be seen by the people who they have traditionally given strong support: Spencer Abraham, John Dingell, John Conyers, David Bonior, and to a lesser extent, John Engler. It's also a constituency that's growing rapidly.
--The Arab community raises a significant and growing amount of money for candidates at all levels, from legislature to President.
--Nobody really knows how many Arabs are in Michigan, but most estimates seem to settle in the 300K-600K range, mostly in the Detroit metro area. I'd guess it's about 35% Lebanese Shia, about 35% Chaldean (Catholics from Iraq), with the remaining 30% made up mostly of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian, Yemeni, and Iraqi Muslims, although there are people from all over the Middle East. Most of the non-Chaldean Christians trace their roots in Michigan back to the 1910's-1940's, but most of the rest started coming here in the 1970's.
I spoke to Dana at Netroots Nation, and as best he can remember, this comment was written "a few days" after his first comment, which would put said comment around July 15–18. He had been reading Daily Kos since February, having initially been attracted by Markos's posts about the war, and Steve Gilliard's comments on same.
He also remembered his first comment that is still retained by the Movable Type software, made on August 16, 2003, the day Movable Type comments were restored. This was at the time of the big blackout that extended from the eastern U.S. into the midwest and up into Canada. Kos's post Blackout? What's the big deal?, contrasted the blackout here to growing up in "war-torn El Salvador in the late 70s," and after Steve Gilliard pointed out in the comment thread how blackouts can be a real problem in a baking New York City, DHinMI noted how if it had been much longer to restore power, things would have gotten much worse in the Detroit area. His four examples:
-The water eminates from one of the last places to get power. Most of Detroit and Wayne County was losing water. Hospitals were running out of water. We're being advised to boil water into next week. Another day, and it would have been real bad.
--It's August in MI, so it's humid. Real humid. Luckily it didn't get much over 90F, but another day and it would have been bad. That people are less acclimated to heat than before the advent of A/C isn't a reason for scorn, it's a reason to worry about their ability to endure weather for which they aren't physically prepared. (It's like milk--for those raised on raw milk, the risks of illness are real but not overwhelming. But if you've grown up on pasturized milk, you stand a strong chance of getting sick if you abruptly start drinking raw milk.)
--The capacity of one of the stations that pump storm run-off was serverly diminished--hundreds of thousands of people were one good storm away from incurring tens of thousands of dollars of damage to their basements. (Almost everyone here has a basement, and probably half are finished.) That damage would not have been covered by insurance.
--Possibly the only benefit of having no viable mass transit system is that almost everyone could get home on Thursday. But with no electricity, there was no way to get gas, a real serious problem in an area so suburban and spread out. People who live 15 miles away "live nearby," but not if you have no gas or can't get your car past the electricaly-powered garage door. Imagine dealing with that if you care for an elderly parent who lives 15 miles away. Or imagine if my friends had no way to drive to the hospital when she went into labor Thrusday night? (The hospital was short on power and water, but mom and baby are both fine.)
Anyone who has looked for DHinMI's earliest work on Daily Kos will have spent a great deal of time finding it, given that the comments and articles he wrote are at the archived, Movable Type (pre-Scoop) site...and that site has no way of distinguishing between authors of front-page posts. No searching, no nothing. The same is true of comments from that period: the comments are displayed in a separate window, and there isn't a way to externally link to a particular comment in the thread, only to the entire thread itself. These diaries, and the subsequent dKosopedia entries based on them, are intended to be a resource to help find these early writings for many authors, and reminder that they exist and can now, in increasing numbers, be found with much less effort.
Finding DHinMI's work after October 13, 2003 is simplicity itself, because the Scoop site allows searching. I've included some useful searches at the end of today's article.
Approximately two month after DHinMI's first comment on Daily Kos, Markos's sixth post on September 19, 2003 named him as one of two new guest posters, mostly for weekend duty, along with Meteor Blades. Ron K, Seattle continued as a guest poster, though his tenure ended when the Movable Type platform was shut down on October 15. Both DHinMI and Meteor Blades continued on the front page when the Scoop platform was first open for business on the evening of October 13; the two platforms ran in tandem for a day and a half before Scoop took over.
While Meteor Blades started that day, DHinMI waited until the next day, Saturday, to get started, and he wrote thirteen stories in all in the next three weeks before the Movable Type to Scoop platform switch. (He has written another 517 under Scoop, for a total of 530 front-page stories.) At present, I have links to all thirteen stories, but only have comment links for current and past front-pagers through June 20, 2003, before DHinMI started commenting. I'm hoping to finish collecting the comment links in the next couple of months; I've just today posted June 11–20 comment links for the first five front-pagers in the dKosopedia.
DHinMI's thirteen front-page stories, September 20 through October 13, 2003:
Saturday, September 20, 2003
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea... also has 1 of 44 comments by DHinMI
Sunday, September 21, 2003
• The Problem IS the Punch Cards also has 2 of 46 comments by DHinMI
• Poll: Bush More Inept Than Dishonest also has 4 of 105 comments by DHinMI
Saturday, September 27, 2003
• It's Davis vs. Schwarzenegger also has 1 of 126 comments by DHinMI
• What $89 Billion Could Buy has no comments by DHinMI in the 86 posted.
Sunday, September 28, 2003
• What, Rice Worry? also has 1 of 153 comments by DHinMI
Friday, October 3, 2003
• Young Isn't Running has no comments by DHinMI in the 52 posted.
Saturday, October 4, 2003
• Election Day in Louisiana also has 6 of 119 comments by DHinMI
• Did Novak Expose More CIA Undercover Officers? has no comments by DHinMI in the 173 posted.
Sunday, October 5, 2003
• Israel Attacks Inside Syria also has 10 of 176 comments by DHinMI
• Latest in Bush's War on Labor also has 2 of 32 comments by DHinMI
• Why Didn't He Blame Flouride in the Water? has no comments by DHinMI in the 69 posted.
Wednesday, October 8, 2003
• The Punch Cards Are Still A Problem also has 3 of 58 comments by DHinMI
Finally, I can give you the links to find all of DHinMI's front-page stories, diaries, and comments on the current Scoop-based Daily Kos site (opened October 13, 2003), whether written as DHinMI, as Dana Houle aka DHinMI, or as Dana Houle. While his writings will all be displayed by the site as Dana Houle regardless of what name he posted under, the Search tool uses a database that freezes the name then in use and searches based on it, retaining the then-current name for search displays only. Fortunately, the search links below have been adjusted to take this into account:
• DHinMI front-page stories (517 stories)
• DHinMI diaries (172 diaries)
• DHinMI comments (43,337 comments)
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The Top Comments mailbox received six submissions in the past 24 hours, for which many thanks. If there were more and had been sent in to our gmail address before the 9:30pm Eastern Time deadline, I would be presenting them below. The address of our mailbox for top comments submissions is:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send great comments to our address. Be sure to include the direct link to a comment—the URL—which is available from that comment's date/time; we need that to find your choice. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. As I say every time, both link and username are important. (One submission was missing the username, though a little detective work found it hidden in the return address, which is not directly displayed by gmail.) If you also include a writeup, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit if necessary; should you only provide the link, then you have to take whatever writeup we create...and we can be excessively creative. Today, creativity was restrained...
From Samer:
Samer says: From G2geek's keyboard to God's monitor. [Editor's note: this appears in dengre's excellent diary NEW Abramoff Indictment: Aide to Dick Armey, Sweatshop Protector, and Beck defender. If you missed it, go see!]
From MinistryOfTruth:
First, a comment by Turkana in the diary I posted today. Really worth a good laugh.
The second is BennyToothpick's comment in xxdr zombiexx's diary about Republicans who praise terrorism when it serves their purposes. Yeah, it is macabre and may be offensive to some, but I like someone who can call a spade a spade, and Benny certainly does here.
From Eddie C:
In my GreenRoots: Killing Our Frogs, a look back at "The Thin Green Line" diary, there a very informative comments by both captainlaser and the fan man.
Also Frogs are not the only thing Atrazine kills by NoMoreLies.
From brillig:
pattisigh's diary describing a call from the DSCC with the DSCC led sherlyle to share a brush with Teh DSCC Stupid. pee ess: not everyone who says something you don't want to hear is with Faux, DSCC!
From nonnie9999:
In Purple Priestess's always excellent Mad Logophile diary, madaprn has a new word for Rush Limbaugh.
From virgomusic:
In xxdr zombiexx's diary about townhall morans, Troubadour states the obvious, but it's funny anyway.
From sardonyx (tonight's diarist):
In Seneca Doane's interesting, thoughtful, and provocatively entitled diary I'd pass THIS health care bill WITHOUT the public option, a thread that starts with funluvn1's paradoxical point develops into a very interesting exchange between Catte Nappe, GN1927, and Seneca himself.
Zinman reminds us of what people can do when the chips really get down.
Responding to a question in his Bachmann Roundup diary today, Bill Prendergast writes a comment on the powerhouse constituencies behind Michele Bachmann.
Finally, today's top mojo using my revision of the cskendrick-devised mojo-to-Excel process.
First, Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars and first diary comments:
1) And make no mistake, what you see happening . . . by nyceve — 191
2) oh mb, travel problems are teh suck by jlms qkw — 120
3) I never cared what folks think. by icebergslim — 115
4) Disgusting by political junquie — 93
5) The entire message IS the entire message by MinistryOfTruth — 91
6) I KNEW I wouldn't be the only ... by Meteor Blades — 82
7) It's popular with me by Betty Pinson — 81
8) from what I heard from kos at NN09 by slinkerwink — 77
9) feingold by Turkana — 76
10) he said that on MSNBC too by andrewj54 — 75
11) The C-Streeters think highly of Osama and Mao. by xxdr zombiexx — 74
12) Just dropped by Hedwig — 73
13) Domestic Terrorists by JekyllnHyde — 69
14) Good for Feingold and Durbin by Dump Terry McAuliffe — 67
15) That's why I always ask about campaign finance by Dallasdoc — 65
16) They are totalitarians by political junquie — 65
17) Not to worry by Dallasdoc — 65
18) Don't even get me started on flying... by navajo — 64
19) The Tighty Righties already praise a terrorist... by Democratic Tribune — 64
20) We voted for change, not the same old by slinkerwink — 63
21) Exactly. I was pretty peeved when they ... by Meteor Blades — 63
22) It's not exactly just a PR job by Dallasdoc — 62
23) Kick-Ass indeed! by Ebby — 62
24) The patriot act doesn't need to be fixed by BoiseBlue — 62
25) No by ActivistGuy — 61
26) Well done. by sorenScostanza — 60
27) good catch! by G2geek — 59
28) I actually clicked on your link by grannyhelen — 56
29) No base? by Betty Pinson — 56
30) I just got an email from.. by dclawyer06 — 56
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) Tip Jar by Meteor Blades — 640
2) Tip Jar by xxdr zombiexx — 431
3) Tip Jar by nyceve — 426
4) Tip Jar by icebergslim — 337
5) Tip Jar by pattisigh — 302
6) 22 Members/Senators mentions in DOJ Exhibits by dengre — 279
7) Tip Jar by Dan Gallo — 279
8) Wiretap This! by ben masel — 269
9) Tips for eventual freedom from fear by winterbanyan — 254
10) Tip Jar by slinkerwink — 247
11) perhaps this diary will be disjointed by teacherken — 221
12) Tip Jar by Muzikal203 — 203
13) Tip Jar by bonddad — 199
14) Tips for listening, thinking, then acting by MinistryOfTruth — 195
15) And make no mistake, what you see happening . . . by nyceve — 191
16) Tip Jar by bobswern — 184
17) Tip Jar by TomP — 181
18) oh mb, travel problems are teh suck by jlms qkw — 120
19) As always by Devilstower — 119
20) I never cared what folks think. by icebergslim — 115
21) TIPS du Jour by Trix — 107
22) Tip Jar by llbear — 105
23) tipped and recc'd. by slinkerwink — 101
24) Disgusting by political junquie — 93
25) The entire message IS the entire message by MinistryOfTruth — 91
26) I KNEW I wouldn't be the only ... by Meteor Blades — 82
27) It's popular with me by Betty Pinson — 81
28) from what I heard from kos at NN09 by slinkerwink — 77
29) feingold by Turkana — 76
30) he said that on MSNBC too by andrewj54 — 75
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them