Midday open thread

Still playing catchup, so I don't have any links to add to this at the time. I'll add some later.

For example, half my credit cards were blocked because of "suspicious activity". And yes, to the computers tracking card usage, sudden use in a couple of Central American countries were card stealing and cloning is rampant is definitely suspicious. So I have to take care of stuff like that.

Will be back in a bit to update more.

Update: Okay, here goes some stuff.

• CT-Sen: Lieberman continues to search for votes in right-wing circles. On wingnut Glenn Beck's show, Lieberman couldn't agree enough, and was proud to say he was proud of Beck's work.

  Meanwhile, Fightin' Harry Reid is paralyzed by fear of this whole situation, with his office refusing to confirm or deny whether they made assurances to Lieberman that he could keep his seniority and committee assignments if he wins in November. Lieberman is running on Right-wing talking points, working to energize the right-wing voters who will safeguard the three endangered Republicans in Connecticut. He repeatedly and consistently undermines the caucus.

  And Reid thinks this is a tough call? Weak.

• Pat Buchanan is all about White Power. Him and Felix "Macaca" Allen are bound to become best buddies.

• It's at the top of the recommended diaries right now, but this from the Democratic Daily deserves even more attention, regarding Jonathan Kaplan of The Hill.

  When John Kerry and Patrick Murphy signed off of the conference call, a few reporters and bloggers hung on and that’s when Jonathan Kaplan revealed that John Kerry had hit a raw nerve with him…

  After a brief interchange about Mike Conallen hacking into the conference call (see earlier post here), Jonathan Kaplan responded, “Hey if you’re going to blog about… and rip Fitzpatrick, why don’t you rip Kerry for blaming the media for how he can’t communicate with the American people.”

  A blogger responded to Kaplan, saying “…the media does not put the Kerry message out…”

  Kaplan responded, “Screw that and Screw him!! For Him to criticize us, it’s his own fault.”

  No, Mr. Kaplan, as John Kerry explained, it’s your job — that is the role of the media.

  So what is the role of the media? Pumping out GOP talking points? Because that's what Jonathan Kaplan was doing, that's what Kerry responded to, and that's what pissed Kaplan off. Go read the whole thing. It's incredible.

• VA-Sen: Felix "Macaca" Allen wants blogger help to cover his ass the next time he says something racist. Meanwhile, George Allen's campaign manager retracts Allen's apology.

• PA-Sen: Ahh, this explains Santorum's surge -- a $5 million unanswered ad buy by the Santorum campaign. Casey's "sit on my ass" strategy at work.

  Conrad Burns in Montana isn't in danger because Montana Dems sat on their ass waiting for Labor Day before going on the air. Montana Dems were beating the shit out of him last year in the air, softening him up and helping shape public perception in advance of this year's elections. And the effort has been a spectacular success as Burns remains the least popular senator in the country.

  In any case, the DSCC has released a memo showing Casey holding a 11- or 14-point lead, depending on whether Republican ally Carl Romanelli remains on the ballot.

• I'm afraid to fire up my RSS reader. There will be so much good stuff to read that I won't have time to get to until tonight. So I know I missed lots of good blogging today, but I hope to be nicely caught up tomorrow.

• The Net Neutrality fight carries on, in places you wouldn't expect it.

• Conservative sites are slumping badly this summer. Liberal ones, not so much. Daily Kos is down 12 percent on Alexa. MyDD is up.

  A note of caution to those who would use Alexa to compare blog traffic stats -- the numbers undercount liberal sites. Why? Look at sitemeter stats for assorted liberal versus Republican sites. Liberal sites have heavy percentages of Mac users, and there is no Alexa client for Macs so it can't count what Mac users read.

  At Daily Kos, about 15-25 percent of users at any given time user Macs. It's roughly the same at MyDD and Eschaton. Yet at conservative sites, those numbers hover around 5 percent (see Instapundit or Red State).

  Daily Kos growth is actually flat year-over-year compared to last year. Has the site reached its limit? We'll see. I wouldn't mind the breather from crazy growth. Still, the comments are more active than before, continuing to increase the processing power needed from the site's servers.