Dream I had last night.

Was at Davis Square, and was about to cross either Highland or Elm, walking north. Was distracted by the sight of some street performers in garish clothing and makeup, doing their thing in front of the ice cream parlor, off to my left. I had just stepped onto the road, when a Jeep rushed by, an inch in front of my face, whoosh! I was literally knocked onto my ass, unhurt but shaken, and thinking, damn clowns almost killed me.

Be careful out there.

Blogs and really-real politics

From a nice NYT story about the 2004 political blogging scene (with photographs of Kos and Wonkette):

But at the same time that blogs have moved away from the political center, they have become increasingly influential in the campaigns -- James P. Rubin, John Kerry's foreign-policy adviser, told me, ''They're the first thing I read when I get up in the morning and the last thing I read at night.''

This is great. I have only recently started reading the hard-left blogs like Kos's during slow moments, having fun picking out the brilliant comments from the cynical mire, and was really impressed to see the Kerry campaign seeming to cherrypick these same ideas for their next public address or press conference. The above quote jibed with this observation, and makes me smile.

(Reading the Kos comments without filtration, though, is fast becoming as wanky a timewaster as reading Slashdot's, except that I tend not to get angry at them (OH MY GOD I accidentally read Slashdot the other day and all the +5 Insightfuls from a thing about the Green Party candidate (not Nader, remember) were rantlets from the Bush-and-Kerry-are-exactly-the-same camp... grr... grr... arrggh...))