PunditGuy

I’m finishing up my business in Philadelphia this morning then I’ll be in the air this afternoon/evening heading home to Seattle. Travelling west from the east coast (and adding a connection) means I won’t be back until later tonight. As such, this place will be closed until tomorrow. See you then.

Hillary says an immediate U.S. exit from Iraq would be “a big mistake”. Do you know what this really means? It means that the variety of polls which suggest that the American public is tired of the war and wants troops out of Iraq are weak, or entirely inaccurate. If there was a strong majority of people calling for troop withdrawal, Hillary would be standing up next to Senator Jack Murtha pounding on the lectern as his booming voice fills the Senate Gallery. But, she’s not. She’s picking the position that mirrors the reading of her internal polls. Of course, Hillary is simply waiting to see which way the political wind will blow, and today’s jet-stream continues to flow in Right direction – “Stay the Course”.

Penn Jillette, of the magic and comedy act ‘Penn and Teller’ submits a short essay to NPR entitled ‘There is No God.’ I’ve enjoyed his performances, and it’s always fun seeing what special illusion he’ll come up with next. Unfortunately, this article is not an illusion. I see it for what it is – pure crap. Jillette’s argument for his non-belief is especially weak. His confused position proves only one thing. Penn Jillette is nothing more than a modern day socialist.

And that’s not funny.

Innocent mistake by an intern, or is CNN trying to insinuate something here? Approximately 3 to 4 times, for only about a 15th of a second each, a large black ‘X’ appeared over the face of the Vice President of the United States. To the naked eye, the flashes were hardly noticeable, but when viewed on video playback and slowed down, the black ‘X’ is clearly viewable.

10:00 PM EST Update – CNN claims that the ‘X’ flash was made by a control room engineer, who happened to be operating an ‘effects’ board when a button was pushed by mistake. No word on how an effects button can be pushed “by mistake” multiple times.

I’ve come to believe that when the media says ‘maybe’ they are mostly wrong.

U.S. forces sealed off a house in the northern city of Mosul where eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight — some by their own hand to avoid capture. A U.S. official said Sunday that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead.

In Washington, a U.S. official said the identities of the terror suspects killed in the Saturday raid was unknown. Asked if they could include al-Zarqawi, the official replied: “There are efforts under way to determine if he was killed.”

Yeah, like showing a dead body, unless of course, he was ‘adjusted’ well beyond recognition, then we’ll go for dental records.

I have my doubts about the accuracy of this early report. Not because we blew a mission, or misjudged Al-Zarqawi’s movements. I doubt the man is dead only because I don’t believe he would die in a simple gunfight within a house on a street in Mosul. If this guy is really as important to the terrorists as our media plays him to be, he’d have a couple of extra layers of protection between himself and our troops. Hey, he’s stayed alive this long right?

If he is (in fact) dead, the terrorist war in Iraq will change dramatically. Without their leader, al-Qaida in Iraq will be without their locally popular figure head. His hate has driven hundreds of people to fight. His radical leadership influenced many to become suicide bombers whose purpose it is to kill as many people at once as possible.

Someone with that kind of power doesn’t die easily, and they never die willingly. If he is in fact dead, someone screwed up, perhaps even Al-Zarqawi himself. We’ll know soon enough. (I’ve got my fingers crossed).

UPDATE: DNA Testing Underway, Status of Zarqawi Unresolved.

                    Washington State 26                   FINAL
                    Washington 22

I’m watching Fox News, and I see this.

Un-BEELEEEEVABLE.

I felt like I was in London watching a session of Parliament, rather than sitting in a hotel in downtown Philadelphia.

And so it is now with the U.S. Congress. Rabid animals, unhinged, undisciplined, with microphones. An exercise in irrelevance.

Yet, the day wasn’t completely wasted. Congress voted itself a pay raise.

Kick ‘em all out. Let’s start with a brand new Congress in 2006.

UPDATE: It’s 10:15 PM EST, and I’m watching Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) on CNN. Jeez, does this guy think he’s a rock star now or what? Knowing how things work, we’ll probably see him on the cover of PEOPLE Magazine next week partying with Tara Reid.

The ‘Open Source Media’ battle continues. Update here.

MORE: OSM back in the pajamas.

It’s been a long day, and the batteries are super low. Combine that with acclimation to a new time zone and it spells B-E-D. Gotta start the day tomorrow at 5 AM.

Until then.

“That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.” -– Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Pajamas Media, a consortium of popular bloggers launched a new portal website today in New York City. They also announced a name change, Open Source Media. OSM’s ‘About’ page states that their mission is to expand the influence of weblogs by finding and promoting the best of them, providing bloggers with a forum to meet and share resources, and the chance to join a for-profit network that will give them additional leverage to pursue knowledge wherever they may find it.

Well, they pursued, and they found it – a name to call themselves by, which could be a name already called for, and claimed by, one Christopher Lydon.

A company that used to call itself Pajamas Media now calls itself Open Source Media, which is — scroll down to our legal notice — kind of exactly what we call ourselves. They’ve collected $3.5 million in venture capital, and, to celebrate their re-naming of our already-named name, they’re holding an event at the Rainbow Room.

So what to do. A couple of blogs — Atrios, Stephen den Beste, Dennis the Peasant, Begging to Differ, Homocon — have picked up on this already, unprompted, perhaps because if you Google “open source media”, we’re the third result. Presumably the new “Open Source Media” Googled their new name before they settled on it?

Don’t get us wrong; we didn’t invent the idea of working with bloggers to make media, we certainly didn’t invent the concept “open source,” and there’s plenty of room for everyone to do what we’ve been doing. But they chose the same name that we established in May and, seeing as how we work in the same industry, people might find that a little confusing. And that has us puzzled.

Uh, yeah.

Note Lydon’s ‘benefit of the doubt’ demeanor. Contrast this with the previously mentioned ‘Dennis the Peasant’. Let’s just say Dennis is clearly ready to spread a heap of menace on the ill named OSM.

Today’s “To Do” List…

…for all the citizen-jounalists of LINGERIE Media (yep, we’ve renamed the venture and, no, we haven’t done a trademark search either). I’d love to do it myself, but the Real World calls me:

1. Someone call or email Christopher Lydon at the real Open Source Media and alert him to the possible trademark infringement by The New Media Formerly Known As Pajamas. Email me results.

2. Someone call The New Media Formerly Known As Pajamas (be sure to call California, because we all know the New York office is a minimum wage telephone jockey in a boiler room) and ask if Pajamas/Open Source Media is affiliated with Christopher Lydon’s Open Source Media. Email me results.

3. Send me links to any live-blogging, etc. about the Launch Event. Pictures of any of the 230 bloggers who got stiffed punching out Roger would be appreciated.

4. Pictures of venture capitalists’ faces when they’re informed Roger f****d up the trademark search on the name Open Source Media would really be appreciated.

Heh.

So, what do we have here? There seems to be plenty of blog buzz about the OSM launch today, some positive, some not so positive, but I haven’t found a response from any member of the OSM relating to this name game.

Isn’t it ironic?

Bloggers, established bloggers, who have like, you know, used the Internet for a long time, who (in many cases) own their own domain names, seemingly forgot to simply ‘Google’ the name ‘Open Source Media’ before they registered osm.org and decided to brand themselves with a previously claimed identifier.

Apparently, they didn’t forget how to spend money. $3.5 million dollars in VC cash has been earmarked for the startup. Some wonder how much of the dough was used to fly member bloggers from all over creation and put them up in the ‘W’ hotel in NYC. That couldn’t have been cheap.

Now let me say this – I’m friends with a lot of the bloggers who make up OSM, and I visit their individual blog sites often, but I too am just a little confused as to what in the world these folks hope to achieve with this new conglomerate of the blogosphere.

And the name thing, Oy Vey! In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, “Someone’s got some ’splainin’ to do”.

UPDATE: Here is OSM ‘splainin’.

UPDATE II: Looks like OSM’s ‘splainin’ didn’t ‘splain anything. The story continues.

UPDATE III: OSM puts the pajamas on once more and reverts the name.