Midday open thread

• Image hosting. Yeah, I know lots of you are annoyed at this, but it's a limitation that will remain for two important reasons: 1) bandwidth theft, which not only is a serious problem to the sites targetted, but it opens me up to unecessary legal liabilities, and more importantly, 2) the security concerns caused by web bugs, which can be used to track and expose the site's readership.

  Web bugs HAVE been used on the site in the past, so it's not a theoretical concern. And given that the alternative is so easy for everyone to deal with, I think the benefits outweigh the costs.

  Many image hosting services are free and provide unlimited bandwidth (like AllYouCanUpload.com). Some that don't sometimes offer unlimited bandwidth for a small fee (like $25/annual for photobucket). Uplaoding an image onto their service is easy, takes but a minute, and, 1) protects small website users who get pummeled by bandwidth theft, and 2) protects website visitors from unwarranted invasion of their privacy.

  It's a tradeoff I'm comfortable making.

  UPDATE (DavidNYC): Firefox users, check out the ImageBot extension - it allows you to upload images to ImageShack/PhotoBucket with just one click.

• During Edwards' campaign stop in Connecticut with Lamont, he blew off the traditional media (including the once all-important editorial boards). But he didn't blow off the bloggers.

  "It's clear that bloggers played a big role. They've shown how much influence they can have," [Edwards] observed in a conversation between events. "Influence in a positive way. Bloggers are going to play a big role, not just locally, but nationally.

  "It helps democratize the media. It's a way for more voices to be heard. Even the mainstream media now recognize this," he said.

  It wasn't just the bloggers - and it wasn't just the high-profile Senate  race - that pulled back the curtain Aug. 8 and exposed the Wizards of Oz who have fooled so many people into thinking they merit kowtowing to.

  Newspaper editorialists and town committee chairmen - those powerbrokers John Edwards didn't put on his priority list for his visit - lost big, not just in the Senate race, but in the gubernatorial primary, too.

  The mayors and town committees of Bridgeport, Hartford and Waterbury endorsed Dannel Malloy over John DeStefano for governor, for instance. DeStefano won the vote in all those cities [...]

  The papers generally went with Lieberman, too. And lost.

  The point of editorials isn't to pick winners, but to persuade readers to consider a candidate who best reflects the newspaper's vision. On that score, too, the editorials revealed an irrelevance, a knee-jerk bias to preserving entrenched power: Lieberman was the incumbent; Malloy was favored by party powerbrokers.

• OH-Sen: Toledo Blade pits McCain against DeWine on Iraq.
• Soldiers are dead meat anyway. Their deaths are no catastrophe, says Instapundit.
• McCain softens stance against Bob Jones University. His "do whatever it takes to earn wingnut support" strategy appears well intact.
• Thanks to everyone who send in suggestions for my tendonitis. I've got a great doctor (per local reviews), and he's prescribed an aggressive treatment of physical therapy to strengthen my wrist muscles, accupuncture, and drugs to reduce inflamation. If in six weeks I see no progress, then we'll reassess.

  The doctor is also an avid reader of this site, so of course he can do no wrong!

• Let's worry about how to dole out committee assignments after the elections. But yeah, the seniority system has serious flaws.
• Daaamn. We're about $8,000 from having raised $100K in a single week, in the middle of summer, for the ActBlue netroots candidates. What do you guys say, do we add another candidate or two?

  My personal goal was 1,000 contributions for each candidate. We're well on our way to that. Of the 16 current candidates, five have already hit that goal, and four more are in the 900s. Two were added in the last two days. The other five are in the 600-700 range (they were part of the second wave of candidates added to the list) and should easily break 1,000.

• Obama went back to his father's native Kenya and the people there were besides themselves excited. I loved the story.
• I missed this story as it was brewing last week, but a happy ending to what could've been an ugly, ugly affair. Patricia Todd, who will be the first openly gay legislator in Alabama, won a party challenge to her primary victory.

  Patricia was all smiles, and her supporters were ecstatic. I walked out with party Executive Director Jim Spearman, who told me that Howard Dean had called eight times during the meeting to find out what happened. He said he'd been on the phone with Dean all week, and that the DNC was frantic because of all the negative feedback. People were ticked off, and no funds were coming in.

  So thanks to all of you who contacted the DNC, the Alabama Democratic Party, your local committee members, and anyone else who would listen to insist that justice be done.