Mock, Paper, Scissors

Way back when the internet was young, the A-list bloggers walked the earth by daylight… OK, maybe it was not as poetic as that, but Blogroll Amnesty Day did come about because of them: it seems that they declared amnesty for themselves and proceeded to prune everyone who was not also an A-List blogger off of their blogrolls.

Anyway, to celebrate this momentous occasion, the late Al Weisel (aka jon swift) and the very much living Skippy the Bush Kangaroo started a tradition of linking to other blogs (generally smaller than your own, though how one determines that is unknown to me) to give them a hand-up. Skippy the Bush Kangaroo has carried the torch alone since Al passed. Many thanks to Skippy for keeping the tradition going.

We at Mock, Paper, Scissors believe in promoting the small blogs whenever we can (and this week, we are actively doing that at Crooks and Liars). It is really hard to choose just 5 blogs, (like asking a parent which kid is best) and especially this week while selecting blogs for the round-up. This does not mean that other blogs are lesser or better; truth be told all the blogs in the blogroll are really wonderful; each of them is a winner.

So here are five blogs from the blogroll that I have chosen at random that I hope everyone visits sometime this weekend:

• This Day in Science Fiction
• Pass the Doucheys on the Right-Hand Side
• Ornery Bastard
• Frank Chow
• Empire of the Senseless

There is an interesting post up at The Daily Beast (I know, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then) about how in this year of our Lord Kos, the so-called Netroots are flailing, failing, and wailing that extinction is imminent.

Our friend Jurassic Pork at Welcome Back To Pottersville has a great response, in which he largely concurs, and gives us a bit of history. And Jane Hamsher (yes, FDL’s Jane Hamsher) dissents with what seems like a pretty good argument, too: Google is sucking the ad revenue out of the blog-o-sphere, just the same way that Google has sucked the ad revenue out of the newspapers. Additionally Hamsher calls for an FTC ruling to break up Google, and I hope to have the ice cream concession in Hell when that happens.

So who’s right? Well, they all are.

It Takes a Villager

At one of the recent Netroot Nation gatherings, the big news was that consolidation was the only way to survive, and so Kos, FDL, and others scooped up a lot of indie bloggers, the so-called Front Pager writers. What had been a thousand-voice chorus turned into a small coterie of gated-community blogs, who more often than not, linked to one another and left all the little guys behind to wither on the vine. JP discusses this point in detail, and it is brilliant work, as usual.

There is no doubt that with great popularity there is also great expense as bandwidth charges increase with the more pageviews you have. If you run a community blog with a dozen of Front Page writers to draw in readers, the bandwidth increases exponentially. Arianna never says it as such, but I’m sure that’s why there are so few paid staff at her eponymous blog.

I’m not a economist, but even I can see that at some point blogging becomes a losing proposition (the guns and butter argument), and if your business model (ad revenue in the case of the Big Boy Blogs) takes a hit because Google changes their policy, then something has got to give.

Mom & Pop Shops

We here at the intersection of Spitballing and News did not fall into that trap. We had the chance to join one of the big blogs, but we turned it down after watching what happened to TRex at FDL. Yes, we don’t have ads, hopefully never will, and we don’t run a PayPal button. This is a labor of love.

We’ve stayed distinctly small on purpose because we didn’t want to have these problems; we also didn’t want to become the thing that we mock. Kos, Hamsher, Duncan, and the rest to some degree, more or less, have changed over time: they’ve become like the MSM; they appear as experts on cable shows, they get quoted on news programs. The problems that the A-listers are now facing are the same problems the MSM faces with ad revenue, demographic changes, new media intrusions disrupting their business model.

So what does the future hold for blogging?

The Magic 8-Ball Says…

I suspect that people will continue writing because they love to write and have something to say; blogging isn’t dying, the ad-supported business model is. We are in a time of flux, newspapers (Seattle P-I) are turning into blogs, traditional magazines (Newsweek) are going digital only. Blogging still has the same disruptive power that Gutenberg gave the world of caligraphy: anyone can be a publisher, anyone can be published; the internet gives you a distribution channel. Blogging democratized the media, and the media doesn’t like it.

I don’t know what the future holds, I only know that we are living in a world of disruption brought on by technology and 10 years of war and financial depression. The models are not fixed. Isn’t this exciting?!

UPDATE/Clarification: I am not dissing the Big Blogs, per se. I am dissing the business model…

UPDATE 2: Driftglass shows us a model.

MPS Coverage of the 2012 Goat Rodeo

Tengrain and Axel Grease are live-tweeting the debate between team Willard and Team Carebear

Tweets about “#2012GoatRodeo”

You can join the fun, too: We’re using the Mock, Paper, Scissors hashtag of #2012GoatRodeo. Pro tip: if you click the little box that says Tweet #2012GoatRodeo, you can tweet right from MPS! (I think you have to have a Twitter account though. Test it and see!)

Our buddy Jurassic Pork is in dire straights again, and could use a hand. If you have the means to help him out, you probably will earn good Karma points and lessen your time in Purgatory before going on to The Good Place.

Details on how you can help are at his excellent blog, Welcome Back to Pottersville.

…The Political Blog at Esquire, which turned one-year old yesterday.

Wait until you turn Eight, Charlie. You’ll get the hang of blogging by then.

Folks – The kind and gentle voice over at Cat in the Bag, Vic, is in the hospital, and when he returns home it is to hospice care.

Cat In the Bag was one of the first blogs I remember reading back when the internet was young. There was always something there to read and smile about.

Please leave any best wishes, thoughts, and prayers at Zoolatry, the blog of his wife. I’m sure she will appreciate the support and will let Vic know.

Speaking as a blogger: We don’t always know our reach when we blog. It is surprising to me, always, how connected we all are. We’ve never met, we’re just bits and bytes and flickers of light on computer screens scattered all over the world, and yet we know each other. Your condolences will be appreciated. This is one of those times that the internet connects the humanity in us.

(Thanks to Scissorhead Matty Boy for the heads-up.)

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.

(Guardian UK)

It will work, of course, until Atrios declares blogroll amnesty again and cuts the sockpuppets off.

I know we’ve done this before, and yes I know we are near Tax Day, and chances are good until the economic devastation ends that we will go at it again, and if not for Jurassic Pork then for another fine writer. And in my opinion there are few writers on the web that are as good as JP.

Anyway, the problems have compounded for JP and he’s again up against a wall. If we can help we should.

If you can spare a few bucks (or more), consider a donation to JP. It’s money will spent; his writing speaks for itself; he has a clarity of mind that few others have.

Do it to spite Arianna, or as we say around The Hut: “Pay the writer.”

Many thanks for all you do,

Tengrain

(Welcome Back to Pottersville)

Mocking Maggie Gallagher for her weight is like handing her a stick to beat us with. I bet she loves this sort of thing, from a professional perspective at least. I bet she wishes we’d take this low road in a televised confrontation. It’s an automatic win for her side. It also kills our credibility. Right now we’re trying to reach that undecided 20% of America who just don’t think that much about marriage equality. If I were part of that group and I saw gays insulting Maggie for her weight, I’d figure they had nothing else to offer, nothing of substance anyway. That’s why this is different from mocking our opponents for factual errors, mistakes in logic, and hateful homophobia. That kind of mockery, at least, stays on relevant ground.

(From Andrew Sullivan’s blog at the Daily Beast)

I would never snark at Maggie Gallagher , the ethics-challenged homophobe, former unwed mother and known beauty queen stalker, El Presidente for life of the failed social engineering non-profit National Organization for Marriage (NOM, which may be a front for the Mormon Church), Chimpy’s shills for hire, and the auture of the much-ridiculed Gathering Storm ad, for her weight.

That would be too easy.

(Hat tip: Scissorhead Wagonjak)

Scissorheads -

I thought about saying something snarky about the year that would never end (and the GOP 2012 Goat Rodeo debates that seem to be eternal punishment), but we’ve already been there and done that, so instead I thought maybe some gratitude might be needed:

• To our unindicted co-conspirators: TexBetsy (who is the heart of MPS if not the soul), Mountjoy (If Tex is the heart, then Mounty is the other organs if you know what I mean, and I think you do), the very mysterious and musical GRS, the hysterical Katie Schwartz, our artist in residence Jonathan Schmock, and our own would-be Academy Award Winning Axel Grease;
• To our late and much lamented Xristi;
• To those who inspire us (and you know who you are);
• And most of all, to the Scissorheads, the internet’s band of incorrigible spitballers^®.

All of you make this little project worthwhile and you are the reason we come back for more every day. Every little comment, every zinger, every contest winner and pop-quiz answer proves that you are the smartest, snarkiest, funniest group of people ever gathered anywhere. Each one of you would be right at home passing cocktails to Dorothy Parker at the round table.

From the tip of my nose, to the bottoms of my toes, thank you for making 2011 the perfect year.

Till we meet again in 2012,

Best regards,

Tengrain

…with an extra cherry on top.

Drifty rips Bobo a new hole for his latest column, in which he offeres timid support for Newticles. As you may recall, earlier in the summer Brooks said:

“I wouldn’t let [Newt Gingrich] run a, you know, 7-Eleven, let alone a country”.

Drifty wrote a beautiful take-down using that mendacious turd’s own words against himself. Go read it.

(Driftglass)

Seven years ago today, the blog-o-sphere changed when our very good friend and ally Blue Gal started her blog. BG says that it was the absolutely depressing election of 2004 that drove her to do it, so ironically we have something to be grateful to Chimpy for doing.

Anyway, it is not an exaggeration to say that Mock, Paper, Scissors would be an entirely different blog if not for Blue Gal, who is a fairy godmother of sorts to small bloggers everywhere.

Please take a moment to visit her blog and wish her a happy anniversary. I understand that there might be pie.

…Empire of the Senseless, which is Scissorhead Zombie Rotten McDonald’s place on the web.

Considering the on-coming zombie apocalypse, I think it makes sense to have a zombie on the hometeam.

Blogger it seems has decided that Ann Althouse’s blog is spam (true) and has removed it. She’s calling out the big guns: Instapundit. I bet Google is quaking in its boots.

You can play along at home, too! There’s some great fun in the comments.

(Hat tip: my blog-father, Morse)

Well, there goes the neighborhood.

At anyrate, yesterday he decided to blog about porn.

David Brooks and porn, there’s a sentence that ought to create shrinkage.

Q: What kind of governor would you want to be?

I don’t know. I’ve never played a governor.

Saint Ronnie answering a reporter’s question during his 1966 campaign for the California statehouse

Scissorheads -

This Sunday marks the centennial of that old cabbage-headed, B-grade actor, Saint Ronnie of Reagan, our nation’s first senile-while-in-office president.

Originally, I was trying to get some more lefty bloggers lined up to do a blogswarm, but we are competing against Blogroll Amnesty and the Superbowl, so it sort of sputtered and fizzled.

That said, if you would like to write some Saint Ronnie commentary, please let me know. I’ll be glad to round them up here and link to your blogs. I’ll put up a post on Sunday and we will begin collecting your nostalgic comments for the magic of Saint Ronnie, or what you think about the old bastard now that we’ve had 40 years of VooDoo economics to ruin the country and bankrupt us. He really was the gift that kept on giving.

If you do not have a blog, feel free to comment at length on Sunday. Colorful language is essential, Photoshopping is always encouraged (though I will ask you to put it on your own server, Flickr, Picassa, whatever and link it here).

As the Gipper would say, “Have fun, Mommie.”

Regards,

Tengrain

PS – There will be some sort of government-sponsored celebration of old Potato-head’s life sometime in March. (Your tax-dollars at work, but I’m sure that the dingbats in the GOP will be OK with it…) Maybe we can jin up a real blogswarm for that event?

…I’m over at the Magpie today, learning to swear.

…Shakespeare, Sharron Angle, some duck, Nazi Uniforms, and Yoga. This was the week that made Satan facepalm. It’s the Weak in Review, over at The Magpie.

I explain it all over at The Magpie.

I explain it all for you. It’s The Weak in Review. Over at the Magpie.

…when we here at Mock, Paper, Scissors try to give a shout-out to all of our friends and Scissorheads with a little linky-luvin’.

“‘Grain, why do you do it?” you ask.

We do it because we know everyone likes a link now and then, and because we don’t always get to everyone’s place during the month (though we try). Getting linked increases your ranking on The Google, and allegedly it improves your score on the always broken and completely useless Technorati! Woot-Woot!

We also do it because we like you and we want to encourage you to blog more, and link to more of your friends. Link to someone daily, it does a blogger good.

If we inadvertantly left anyone out, give us a shout in the comments and we’ll add you to the blogroll for next month — and remember our Very Liberal Blogroll Policy (stolen with love from the late Jon Swift with his permission): You blogroll MPS, and MPS will blogroll you.

And remember: I always liked you best.

• Beliefnet
• Contextual Criticism
• Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes
• One Pissed-off Veteran
• The Friendly Atheist
• Un*enslaved*
• A Line Drive Up the Middle
• Beautiful Day Rule
• Cassie at College
• I Painted My Fridge Red
• Just Add Wonder
• Little Bang Theory
• Love At Home
• Tales of an Obsessive Man
• That’s Why
• The Coffee Messiah
• There will be bread
• Thorne’s World
• When will I use this
• White Dogs
• Asphalt Jungle Sound
• Wyld’s Q & A
• 49th Parallel
• A bit conciliatory
• AgitProp
• An Earth-bound Misfit
• Bic's Place
• Bill Fisher
• Black Magpie Theory
• Blah3
• Blue Gal
• Border Explorer
• Brendan Calling
• Buelahman’s Redstate Revolt
• BuzzFlash
• California Dreamin’
• Canada, eh?
• Cap’n Dyke, Pirate Queen
• Capitol Hill Blues
• Chef loves beer
• Cheyanne’s Campsite
• Clusterf*** Nation
• Comrade Kevin’s Chrestomathy
• d r i f t g l a s s
• D.R. Scott's Pulp Culture
• Dave’s Daily Dump
• Dean Wormer
• Demeur
• Despite Logic
• Disaffected and it Feels So Good
• Distributor Cap NY
• Fighting Liberals
• Fitness for the Occasion
• FranIAM
• Freidabee
• Fried Green al-Qaedas
• From the Left
• Gadflying
• Galt Gone Wild
• Godless Liberal Homo
• Gratuitousprattle
• Hill’s Country
• House of the Rising Sons
• I Am TRex
• Impeach the Mother Fucker Already
• Impeachment and other dreams
• Intrepid Flame
• Iranianredneck's Weblog
• Its my Right to be Left of the Center
• Jay Midnight
• Joe the Philospher
• John McSame 4 President
• Jon Swift’s place
• Journeys with Jood
• Just Go Stand Over There Somewhere…
• Just go stand over there somewhere…
• Just Peace Now
• Kelly, the little black dog
• Las Vegas
• Last Exit Before Hooterville
• Late for the sky
• Left in a Boite
• Liberality
• Liberty Street
• Life’s Journey
• Luminous Ether
• Mad Kane's Political Madness
• Mallard Fillmore’s Bathtub
• Mauigirl’s Meanderings
• Media Crashers
• Media Needle
• Monkeyfister
• Moon Rays
• My 2 Cents
• My Liberal Agenda
• My Saturday Eveing Post
• NTodd’s Place
• OKJimm's eggroll emporium
• Old & N the Way
• Ornery Bastard
• Outside the Interzone
• padre mickey’s dance party
• Political Graffiti
• Political Teen Tidbits
• Politics Plus
• preserve, protect and defend
• Pygalgia
• Ragebot!
• Ramblings of a Madwoman
• Raw Dog Buffalo
• Rawrahs
• Realitology
• Reconstitution 2.0
• Relaxed Politics
• Retzilian Rendezvous
• Revolutionary Act
• Salmon Alley
• Satanists for Huckabee
• Sharkey’s Goat Shack
• South Carolina
• Southern Female Lawyer
• Sprawling Ramshackle Compound
• Squatlo's Rant
• Strangely Blogged
• Stringer
• Suzi Riot
• Symbols of Decay
• The Adventures of SnuffDoggyDog
• The Big Empty
• The Burning Taper
• The Fluffington Post
• The Future Was Yesterday
• The Galloping Beaver
• The Gaytheist Agenda
• The Great Endarkenment
• The Largest Minority
• The Loonatyk Sisters Own Private Assylum
• The Neural Gourmet
• The old hippies groovy blog
• The Omnipotent Poohbah
• The Public Intellectual
• the quaker agitator
• The Sermonette
• The Siren’s Chronicles
• The Underground Radical
• The White House Plumber
• This Modern World
• Three Sticks
• Tilly Screams
• Tome of the Unknown Writer
• Under the Lobsterscope
• Unsolved: Mr. E’s Blog Stump
• Urban Hellhole
• Utah Savage
• Vagabond Scholar
• Walk of the fallen
• Wampum
• Watergate Summer
• Welcome Back to Pottersville
• Welcome to Potterville 2
• Wondering Willa's Thought Fountain
• Yikes!
• Zen Cabin
• 15 minute philosophers
• Best Week Ever
• Boxer Rebellion
• Cat in the Bag
• Electronic Cerebretomy
• Evil Slutopia
• Exit, Pursued by a bear
• Filipp Sapienza (formerly Coffee Milk Toast and Jam)
• I, Splotchy
• L'ennui Mélodieux
• Lotsa 'Splainin' 2 do
• Midnight \Noise
• Ribbed for Your Pleasure
• The Eclectic Witch
• Travelling through time and space
• Zaius Nation
• All Hat and No Cattle
• All the way from Oy to Vey
• Badtux, the Snarky Penguin
• Blast Off!
• Capitol Punishment
• Commaner Other’s Otherwhirled
• Dark Black
• Dependable Renegade
• Drinking Liberally in New Milford
• Dubya Speak
• EDITORIALS FROM HELL’S LEADING DAILY NEWSPAPER
• GLH Playground
• Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes
• I can’t believe it’s not a democracy
• I was just wondering
• Impeachment and other dreams
• It's News 2 Them
• Jesus' General
• Jones Town
• Les Enragés.org
• Live! Rude! Girl!
• Monkey Muck
• Nailing Jello to the Wall
• Namaste
• Notions Capital
• Onward, Christian Dullards
• Proud2bHumble
• Que Sera Sara
• Rants from the Rookery
• Rising Hegemon
• Scarabus
• Seeds of Doubt
• Sorghum Crow’s General Store
• Stu Blue
• That's God
• The Aristocrats
• The Grumbling Dragon
• The Illiterate Electorate
• The Liberal Journal
• Wee Mousie’s Cinema Burlesque
• Wolcott
• You are hated
• Zen Comix

Here we go again…

Recently, the New York Times announced that it was incorporating the liberal blog FiveThirtyEight, authored by Nate Silver. In response, Chris Bowers of OpenLeft has declared that amateur progressive blogging has died.

What evidence does Bowers cite for this proposition? Several liberal bloggers have taken paid jobs at professional sites like the Washington Post and Salon.Com. Also, other progressive blogs have become large professional and money-making operations. Finally, bloggers have used their blogging experience to obtain paid consulting positions, which they perform along with blogging. Ergo, the amateur liberal blog has died.

Well, I can assure you that MPS has never made a dime (we don’t take ads, sponsors, or any other form of cheddar), and I presume that whatever little integrity we started with we still have today. Oh yeah, about that lefty thing, I still maintain that we are in the eighth term of Saint Ronnie’s Great Adventure, we have not had a liberal president in my lifetime, not even JC really was liberal.

It always amazes me when every few months someone comes along and says blogging is dead, and then sites one data point like Nate Silver going to the Times. Nate is keeping FiveThirtyEight going, by the way, and he will continue to hold the copyright. Basically (from what I can tell from the official reports) is that he is allowing the Times to repost. Sounds like a sweet deal, and not like a sell-out, but that’s besides the point.

Yes, it is true that many of the first-wave bloggers have become for-profit organizations, and many have sold out — just like big media — for access to power (I’m looking at you, Kos), and yes, it is true that many of these blogs were the at the right place at the right time and became the big powerhouses not out of talent or vigilance, but out of sheer luck. Power corrupts is the old way of saying it, but I prefer to think of it as you become what you once mocked. Again, I’m looking at you, Kos, you who got so corrupted by Terry MacAuliffe and the big money Dims way back at the old Yearly Kos that nothing you say should be taken as truth.

I don’t begrudge these self-described A-listers their success. But I don’t read them, either.

And I’m going to mention one of the Big Boy Blogs that I think has remained true to themselves all these years: Crooks and Liars. They give as good as they get, I’ve never seen any evidence of them selling anyone, anything, or any lefty position out. And, frankly, they are the only big blog I can think of that makes a regular, daily act of linking to the little guys. They did not climb into the tree fort and pull the ladder up after themselves.

(Hat tip: Make Them Accountable > Dissenting Justice > OpenLeft)

Scissorheads –

We’ve upgraded to the latest install of WordPress today! Let me know if you have any problems viewing/commenting/linking etc., by sending an email to tengrain AT mockpaperscissors DOT com.

And, yes, I’m looking at extensions to the comment sofware that will allow you to edit your comments after submitting. See, I listen to you…

Regards,

The Management

Folks -

In honor of Jon Swift (RIP Al, I still cannot believe you are gone), I thought that I would do the monthly blogroll post this weekend.

What’s that, you say?

It’s where we at Mock, Paper, Scissors say thank you to all of the wonderful people who come by and visit every now and then. While I try to visit every blog on the list, some months it just doesn’t happen, so I like to link to everyone at least once a month.

Why’s that, you say?

Because everyone likes getting a link. It improves your Technorati ranking, and The Google considers websites that get linked to be more valuable than those that don’t. This gives all of your blogs a boost in the ratings. It does NOT give MPS anything, except for the pleasure of knowing we are helping all of our buddies.

So, without further ado, thank you for all your support and stopping by to spend some time here with the Scissorheads. If I left anyone out, it was an honest mistake! Please leave a note in the comments, and I will get it fixed for next month. And remember, I always liked you best.

• Beliefnet
• Contextual Criticism
• Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes
• One Pissed-off Veteran
• The Friendly Atheist
• Un*enslaved*
• A Line Drive Up the Middle
• Beautiful Day Rule
• I Painted My Fridge Red
• Just Add Wonder
• Little Bang Theory
• Love At Home
• Tales of an Obsessive Man
• That’s Why
• The Coffee Messiah
• There will be bread
• Thorne’s World
• When will I use this
• White Dogs
• Wyld’s Q & A
• A bit conciliatory
• AgitProp
• An Earth-bound Misfit
• Bill Fisher
• Blah3
• Blue Gal
• Border Explorer
• Brendan Calling
• Buelahman’s Redstate Revolt
• BuzzFlash
• California Dreamin’
• Canada, eh?
• Cap’n Dyke, Pirate Queen
• Capitol Hill Blues
• Chef loves beer
• Cheyanne’s Campsite
• Clusterf*** Nation
• Comrade Kevin’s Chrestomathy
• d r i f t g l a s s
• D.R. Scott's Pulp Culture
• Dave’s Daily Dump
• Dean Wormer
• Demeur
• Despite Logic
• Disaffected and it Feels So Good
• Distributor Cap NY
• Fighting Liberals
• Fitness for the Occasion
• FranIAM
• Freidabee
• Fried Green al-Qaedas
• From the Left
• Gadflying
• Galt Gone Wild
• Godless Liberal Homo
• Hill’s Country
• House of the Rising Sons
• I Am TRex
• Impeach the Mother Fucker Already
• Impeachment and other dreams
• Intrepid Flame
• Iranianredneck's Weblog
• Its my Right to be Left of the Center
• Jay Midnight
• Joe the Philospher
• John McSame 4 President
• Jon Swift’s place
• Journeys with Jood
• Just Go Stand Over There Somewhere…
• Just go stand over there somewhere…
• Just Peace Now
• Kelly, the little black dog
• Las Vegas
• Last Exit Before Hooterville
• Late for the sky
• Left in a Boite
• Liberality
• Liberty Street
• Life’s Journey
• Luminous Ether
• Mad Kane's Political Madness
• Mallard Fillmore’s Bathtub
• Mauigirl’s Meanderings
• Media Crashers
• Media Needle
• Monkeyfister
• Moon Rays
• My 2 Cents
• My Liberal Agenda
• My Saturday Eveing Post
• NTodd’s Place
• OKJimm's eggroll emporium
• Old & N the Way
• Ornery Bastard
• Outside the Interzone
• padre mickey’s dance party
• Political Graffiti
• Political Teen Tidbits
• Politics Plus
• preserve, protect and defend
• Pygalgia
• Ragebot!
• Ramblings of a Madwoman
• Raw Dog Buffalo
• Rawrahs
• Realitology
• Reconstitution 2.0
• Relaxed Politics
• Retzilian Rendezvous
• Revolutionary Act
• Salmon Alley
• Satanists for Huckabee
• Sharkey’s Goat Shack
• South Carolina
• Southern Female Lawyer
• Sprawling Ramshackle Compound
• Stringer
• Suzi Riot
• Symbols of Decay
• The Adventures of SnuffDoggyDog
• The Big Empty
• The Burning Taper
• The Fluffington Post
• The Future Was Yesterday
• The Galloping Beaver
• The Gaytheist Agenda
• The Great Endarkenment
• The Largest Minority
• The Loonatyk Sisters Own Private Assylum
• The Neural Gourmet
• The old hippies groovy blog
• The Omnipotent Poohbah
• The Public Intellectual
• the quaker agitator
• The Sermonette
• The Siren’s Chronicles
• The Underground Radical
• The White House Plumber
• This Modern World
• Three Sticks
• Tilly Screams
• Tome of the Unknown Writer
• Under the Lobsterscope
• Unsolved: Mr. E’s Blog Stump
• Urban Hellhole
• Utah Savage
• Vagabond Scholar
• Walk of the fallen
• Wampum
• Watergate Summer
• Welcome Back to Pottersville
• Welcome to Potterville 2
• Yikes!
• Zen Cabin
• Best Week Ever
• Boxer Rebellion
• Cat in the Bag
• Coffee, Milk, Toast, & Jam
• Electronic Cerebretomy
• Evil Slutopia
• Exit, Pursued by a bear
• I, Splotchy
• L'ennui Mélodieux
• Lotsa 'Splainin' 2 do
• Midnight \Noise
• Ribbed for Your Pleasure
• The Eclectic Witch
• Travelling through time and space
• Zaius Nation
• All Hat and No Cattle
• All the way from Oy to Vey
• Badtux, the Snarky Penguin
• Blast Off!
• Capitol Punishment
• Commaner Other’s Otherwhirled
• Dark Black
• Dependable Renegade
• Drinking Liberally in New Milford
• Dubya Speak
• EDITORIALS FROM HELL’S LEADING DAILY NEWSPAPER
• GLH Playground
• Happy Jihad’s House of Pancakes
• I can’t believe it’s not a democracy
• I was just wondering
• Impeachment and other dreams
• It's News 2 Them
• Jesus' General
• Jones Town
• Les Enragés.org
• Live! Rude! Girl!
• Monkey Muck
• Nailing Jello to the Wall
• Namaste
• Notions Capital
• Onward, Christian Dullards
• Proud2bHumble
• Que Sera Sara
• Rants from the Rookery
• Rising Hegemon
• Scarabus
• Seeds of Doubt
• Sorghum Crow’s General Store
• Stu Blue
• The Aristocrats
• The Grumbling Dragon
• The Illiterate Electorate
• The Liberal Journal
• Wee Mousie’s Cinema Burlesque
• Wolcott
• You are hated
• Zen Comix

…Mock, Paper, Scissors, which turns four-years old today!

Who’da thunk it, the little blog that could, just chuggin’ along, going from invisible to merely unnoticed after all this time!

Many thanks to all the Scissorheads for pushing us along and putting up with all the snark; MPS is really all of ours, we wouldn’t do it except for you, the most incorrigible band of spit-ballers on the ‘tubes. And a special thanks to Tex for being the best unindicted co-conspirator and partner-in-crime we could hope for.

I would be remiss if I did not mention several people who have had such a great influence here:

• Morse – my blog-father who encouraged me to start this thing.
• Watertiger – who has given me so many opportunities and encouragement. And inspiration.
• Bluegal – who has done more to promote MPS that I have.
• The crew at The Big Blog – who link here now and again and make the ticker thingy spin like a top. Thank you so much, Mike, for giving us little guys a chance to be seen!

From the bottoms of my toes to the tip of my nose, thank you all for everything you do!

“I ate all the Halloween Candy, and no one wants to play ‘egg toss‘ with me.”

OKJimm’s Eggroll Emporium. Yes, our own Scissorhead okjimm has kept quiet, but there is a very good blog out there with his name on it. How come no one told me?

Go visit, and leave a comment there.

The long-lamented Jonestown returns, and as predicted Fairlane has come back to the community of bloggers. They all quit, and they all come back.

As you may recall, Fairlane operated a little blog, Jonestown, that was much-admired near and far for being visionary, ruthless and singularly the antidote to namby-pamby political correctness. He made influential friends (and enemies) in the Lefty Blogostan, and Jonestown posts were always essential reading.

But it was not just Fairlane; he had what he called the Superteam and his all stars were vicious, and accurate (I’m never sure which is more painful); the bench was talented and deep from the mysterious Scarlet Blue, the amazing Suzi Riot, the analytical Distributor Cap just to name a few; even DCup of PoliTits fame would make appearances in her political phase (and very few people ever wielded a keener keyboard than her). And because Fairlane and Jonestown were nothing if not contrarian, it featured some of the best writing from the right wing, too. Jonestown was an astonishing creation from the beginning to the end, and nothing since has come close.

It is not just that the Superteam took no prisoners, they would burn down the village, pants the mayor, and take pictures of their carnage, and laugh at the gap-mouthed rubes left behind in their wake. No topic was too large/small, sacred or verboten. And nothing was personal. It was always about issues. Well, almost. There was Chimpy.

As you can imagine, that sort of intensity tends to burn bright and hot, but takes its toll. Jonestown shut down at the beginning of the year.

Over the last several months, Fairlane has popped up now and again. A comment here and there, an appearance at Blue Gal’s Salon. Nothing very big, but recently there was an enigmatic post on Jonestown, and in the comments here at Mock, Paper, Scissors, Fairlane announced his return.

Go there and leave your regards. And be afraid. Be very afraid.

I’m probably dating myself with that reference, but doesn’t this sound like one of Bill McNeal’s editorials? Only without the humor?