We have so many insightful and powerful diaries written here at Daily Kos. Our diaries inform, inflame, impassion, and even entertain. We Kossacks have strong voices and an even stronger will to be the change we wish to see in this country.
One of the richest, and perhaps most under-appreciated, areas of thought come in the form of comments attached to these diaries.
Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and through nominations at made at TopComments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks.
These nominations are subjective, and certainly not complete (as no one can read the complete site on a daily basis!). But we hope they will serve to shine a light where deserved, and to give the reader a good starting point in finding conversation on the site.
Please come in and make yourself at home! Join us beneath the fold...
I can be a bit of a traditionalist sometimes. I like to mark milestones, if I can remember them, and I hearken back to the olden days, even if they weren't all that long ago, as witness the intro above. I do try to keep up with the times, so you'll be seeing top mojo and even top pictures below.
And I do enjoy improvements to old favorites. I even discovered one in the Daily Kos editor tonight, though I imagine it's been around since DK4 was introduced almost a year ago: you can now include double quotes in hyperlinks using the bracket notation rather than the full HTML "a href" tag. Not that I can't type out the tag, but it's a pain. And they also knocked out the bug that prevented bolding or italics from taking hold if the asterisk or underscore was the first character inside a blockquote. I didn't notice that until tonight, either. It now does what it ought to do. Now all I have to do is break the habit of "correcting" the asterisks so the bolding occurs. The text will be bold regardless, but I always like saving time.
It's been almost four weeks since my last diary, and in it I waxed poetic about my winter flowers. At the moment, I have ten amaryllis around the house, seven of which are blooming, one of which is between blooming times, and two more of which are budding to beat the band. (Don't worry; more excessive alliteration awaits.) And one of the bulb companies I sometimes buy from had an early January sale on pre-cooled bulbs, so I may have a lot more flowers than I expected for February and March, including hyacinths and narcissus. Nothing like sweet-smelling spring in the midst of winter, though so far we haven't had much snow, it's been warmer than usual, and the season is more than a third over. I still expect February to pounce—it has an extra day this year to do the nasty—but so far it's been quite reasonable. Or, as others have put it: climate change. There's always a price for this sort of thing.
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There were a number of comment nominations tonight, so a big thank you to those who remembered us before that daily deadline of 9:30pm eastern. Our email address is:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can send us great comments. 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. If you send a writeup with the link, we are able to include that, too, though we reserve the right to edit. Oh yeah: we do accept internal DKos mail to the Top Comments account, but we're still trying to remember to check it, so gmail is a tad safer, unless you plan to be visiting the diary to make sure we looked. (Tonight's count: gmail, 5; DKos, 2.)
From Pam in Calif:
I enjoyed justmy2's comment about the GOP SOTU Response Speech from Mitch Daniels, in response to Jeremimi's report that Krauthammer said it was "one of the best response speeches he'd ever heard".
Also from that same SOTU Response Liveblog, this comment from truthhurtsaz.
From twigg:
Sometimes during a reading shift for the Rescue Rangers, humour can be hard to find; then a gem like this from Calvino Partigiani comes along and you laugh-out-loud.
From Clem Yeobright:
belinda ridgewood has the perfect position regarding Mitt's ... prospective "position". [Editor's Note: you'll definitely want to read the set-up first for this one, which is Clem's fault doing.]
From Wee Mama:
As histopresto points out in kos's story on Newt, Mars, bitches!, the man's not even a decent historian (but no surprise there).
From carolita:
MinistryOfTruth explains one of the central features of American politics. And in the same diary a new internet game erupts when ontheleftcoast proposes the "Republican policy" Replacement Game. Quick, someone tell Dan Savage.
From blue aardvark:
In MinistryOfTruth's diary about the Republican sourpusses, inHI manages a one-liner that sums up where they are today.[Editor's Note: you might want to start with jsfox's comment which inspired inHI's one-liner, for best effect.]
From Sharoney:
mdmslle gives a very plausible explanation of the enduring clueless cluelessness of Willard "I'm unemployed" Romney.
From sardonyx (your winter's over a third over? Wednesday diarist):
In the midday open thread, after mdmselle tells us what she'd like to tell Romney, ontheleftcoast explains what Romney really wants to do.
Please add your own comment finds below!
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Top mojo is from comments made all day on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. The listing is courtesy of the wonderful mojo generator created by mik, and only excludes tip jars and other first diary comments.
1) OS, I am so so sorry. by blue jersey mom — 178
2) When I first came to Los Angeles, my ... by Meteor Blades — 149
3) Hell, hire 'em to read DKos and keep an eye out by lineatus — 127
4) An appeal by kestrel9000 — 123
5) I don't have very many words either. by Otteray Scribe — 119
6) Thank you for sharing a part of Reed with us by gerrilea — 118
7) Hypocrisy thy name is Republican by ontheleftcoast — 110
8) I wish I'd met him, OS by KelleyRN2 — 107
9) Godspeed to him. by rb137 — 104
10) Heartbreaking and tragic this loss. by JaxDem — 95
11) I just got off the phone with my daughter. by Otteray Scribe — 95
12) whew! by claude — 94
13) He was always coming up with a quip. by Otteray Scribe — 90
14) I am so sorry by broths — 89
15) Just contributed by bjedward — 89
16) psychologists say ... by billlaurelMD — 89
17) I think you have handled the "storm" in a by nannyboz — 88
18) Yesterday I regretted... by mwb525 — 86
19) Ewing's Sarcoma is rare. by Otteray Scribe — 86
20) OK, made my donation by Dem in the heart of Texas — 85
21) He has me looking for my suitcase... by David Kroning II — 83
22) Romney's entire life of public service by Scott Wooledge — 83
23) Hoping to hear of the perpetrator's arrest by anastasia p — 82
24) To kill a living, feeling being that children by Liberal Granny — 81
25) Probably There's Video of One Victim Somewhere by Gooserock — 80
26) Thank you. The flower is beautiful. by Otteray Scribe — 79
27) Under Obama, the Justice Department by Jesselyn Radack — 78
28) If you have the time by david mizner — 77
29) Who needs cooling water at a nuke plant? by Dallasdoc — 77
30) Of course they can! by SwedishJewfish — 76
31) The charges are allegations not facts by Jesselyn Radack — 76
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Top pictures is from photos and other images posted all day on Tuesday, January 24, 2012. The listing is courtesy of the marvelous picture table generator created by jotter, the magical master of most matters mathematical.