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In a careful message, prime minister Wen "forgives" the young man from Cambridge. Government sources say that the young man has apologized. But Chinese bloggers are praising the gesture as "freedom of expression," a symbol of what many Chinese would like to do.Prime minister Wen Jiabao is asking for "clemency" for the German student who threw a shoe at him (missing) on February 2, during his speech at the University of Cambridge (Great Britain). But while the Chinese government says that the young man has apologized, Chinese internet users are applauding his exemplary demonstration of "freedom of expression." The website...

Link only - Hackers take down ring of key progressive blogs

And the nominees are: Hot Air Daily Kos Huffington Post Gawker Ben Smith - Politico The Consumerist Andrew Sullivan - The Daily Dish Comment is free... Boing Boing Threat Level - Wired Blogs

Week of babies and lies Sarah Palin talks about her daughter's baby, and a hoax that fooled Oprah Winfrey falls apart. Buzz Week in Review A collective exhale ushered the volatile 2008 out the door this week, although one baby who caused a political storm managed to quietly slip himself out before the end. Meanwhile, a long-time Oprah hoax and high-seas piracy stirred up the Buzz—and the searches—during this transition period. Mom, Do We Have to Do a Combo Celebration? Bristol Palin's boy emerged not as the grandson of the first female vice president, but as another December baby who...

Just by reading this online story, you are part of a groundbreaking trend. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released last week, the Internet has passed newspapers as the most popular source for news. Only television surpassed the Net, with about 70 percent of Americans saying they get most of their national and international news from the ubiquitous box. About 40 percent say they get most of their news from the Net, an increase of 16 percent from September 2007. Newspapers are the main source for about 35 percent. This...

Barack Obama denies having contact with the indicted Illinois governor who tried to sell his old Senate seat yet the president elect’s top advisor revealed last month that the men, longtime political pals, had in fact spoken about a replacement. When a massive federal indictment charging Rod Blagojevich with multiple corruption counts was made public yesterday, Camp Obama suddenly diagnosed the second-term Democrat governor with political plague. The nation’s soon-to-be commander-in-chief claimed to barely know his close political ally. After all, who wants to be connected to a notoriously crooked politician who just got arrested and charged with selling the...

New technology? It's all a mistake Italian bloggers are up in arms at a court ruling early this year that suggests almost all Italian blogs are illegal. This month, a senior Italian politician went one step further, warning that most web activity is likely to be against the law. The story begins back in May, when a judge in Modica (in Sicily) found local historian and author Carlo Ruta guilty of the crime of "stampa clandestina" – or publishing a "clandestine" newspaper – in respect of his blog. The judge ruled that since the blog had a headline, that made...

On Wednesday night, Mumbai resident Asfaq Tapia heard two blasts. Before turning in, he sleepily noted it on his Twitter account, a Web site that lets users broadcast short messages about what they are doing. "Later, I started receiving phone calls saying, 'Are you ok? Where are you?' At that point I realized something major has happened," said Tapia, 24 years old, who then started broadcasting on-the-ground updates, including from a hospital near one of the attacked hotels. The Mumbai attacks have unleashed a storm of live updates from its techie residents, swelling traffic and content on sites such as...

"Gubbmint isn't the solution," Ronald Reagan famously said. "Gubbmint is the problem!" Well, until Al Gore invented our wonderful Internet world, there were darn few ways we common citizens could highlight just what the "problem" of government was. But, happily, we bloggers have become the modern version of our Founders plying the pamphleteer's trade. Now, via the incredible world of blogging, we can spy a government abuse and cast the harsh light of public scrutiny upon it. And we can do it in the blink of an eye. All we need is our computers and a little Internet access. But,...

Just How Did Obama Get Elected The 44th President Of The United States? On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama’s limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple… the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job. On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen...

Really, people. Don’t act like those odious Democrats did. Describing Obama’s attempts to move the country far to the left should be undertaken in the measured and refined tones of a Bill Buckley fart. Because Republicans, why, they have more class. – Oh. And a few million less presidential votes, fewer House and Senate seats, and, soon, a diminished role in the judiciary. But still: they have more class! So, like, GO TEAM! **** update: for the strangely gleeful. update 2: Rather than develop an entire new post dedicated to answering Patterico, I’ll just point you here, here, and here....

This sounds like the classic, "hey, we make a damn good toaster, why don't we sell Lo-Jack too" plans. My thought is that if you have a niche, say, politics, stick with the guy who brought you to the dance. Add and expand with issues that political-types want to read about, say cultural issues, that are integral to politics. Add in a little levity and wit to stand out from the crowd. Anybody can tell you that the Democrats passed a housing bill. But highlighting the bullshit shenanigans, payoffs, and back-stabbing adds some flair, and readers like a little zip...

At least that's what CNBC is saying. Rush always says he does well regardless who is in office, which is true. When Bush 43 won, the media said that Rush would become irrelevant, because Bill Clinton, his prime target, was gone. Rush has remained the king of talk radio, even without Clinton. Conservative blogs too will likely gain more prominence. Ours is now a back bench guerilla war. Conservatives are looking for new ideas and ways to reposition ourselves for 2010 and beyond. Much of that comes from investigating and exposing the liberals as they move forward, and then formulating...

Obama's stealth campaign has now been exposed by the New Media as just another assault on power by the old-fashioned radical Left, beefed up with race-baiting demagoguery. As a result of constant New Media exposés, the Leftwing media are now discredited and widely distrusted, and teetering on the edge of a death spiral. The New York Times' debt securities now have junk bond status from S&P. The same ideological suicide could happen to the Democratic Party itself. The Obama campaign, with its many incestuous links to "small 'c' communists" and Islamic fascists, could end up discrediting the entire Democratic Party...

Got a heads-up cautionary warning from the PUMAs at HillBuzz via Diamond Tiger. During the primaries, Obama's online goon squads got a lot of Hillary sites shut down through various tactics. One popular method was to bombard Google, which owns Blogger, with complaints that certain sites contained adult material or other content violations of the Blogger user agreement. Google, whose top brass supports Obama, apparently played ball. During the primaries, anti-Obama blogs on Blogspot.com disappeared left and right: Obama supporters systematically attacked them, reporting them as “adult content” or “spam” so Blogspt would shut them down. Blogspot is owned...

We would like to invite everyone to join our StopACORN.org bloggers coalition. If you are interested in joining, be sure to send me an email at Adam@getliberty.org. I am working on putting the coalition page up on StopACORN.org today. We will be linking out to all of our coalition members. If you have not signed the petition yet, be sure to do that as well. Again, if you want to join the coalition, contact me at Adam@getliberty.org.

If anyone is blogging on blogs for John McCain could you please freepmail me. I need a FRiends Favor with a problem on the website. Thanks

The new legions of Concerned Christian Conservative Commenters who are -- inexplicably -- suddenly coming out of the woodwork to slam McCain/Palin despite the ticket now having the enthusiastic support of nearly 90% of Republicans are now infesting my blog, too. Which is doubly insulting -- because they're obviously not reading my blog. Or else they'd know that, having been alerted to this by Jim Treacher, I'm now as obsessive about Astroturfing as a Chicago abortionist is about caring for a born-alive aborted baby. Friends, I'm confused. While my heart is with my fellow conservatives I have been doing some...

<p>By Howard Kurtz The decision by MSNBC to yank Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews from anchor duty during live political events did not exactly send a thrill up the leg of liberal bloggers. A number of them denounced the cable channel yesterday ...</p>

The stature of the blogs is a striking feature of the American elections. There are more of them, and some of the best journalists now working exclusively online (which means there are several news cycles in a day, and newspapers are outdated by 9am). Sites like Politico have done a talent swoop; the Drudge Report is checked several times a day by most American journalists, used as a radar. Now there are attack dog sites: scores of them, eager to tear into the other side. The Daily Kos – described as “extreme left” by Fox – is one. But others,...