Big Apple Blog Festival #16

Here's our second helping of blog stew, NYC-style.

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B L O G G I N G

• The 'old' old-media relationship with bloggers: Bash 'em. The NY Times latest swipe at bloggers, bashing Gawker, gets a closer look and yields this insight. (See also: Does the New York Times have a learning disability?)

• The 'new' old-media relationship with bloggers: Co-opt 'em. Arianna Huffington's glittering blog party leaves Fishbowl breathless. New Media mates with Old. Their unholy progeny must be destroyed!

• Kissy face. Uberblogger Glenn thinks Karol is cute. Karol wants to 'fix' that. Please send Karol some advice on becoming a blogger femme fatale. (P.S.: Dawn Summers hates her.)

• Pissy face. Everything you need to know about blogging can be summed up by this cartoon.

• A MIA blogger is asked 4 questions. Since Dawn Eden's blog is down, you'll have to get your Dawn fix here,

• Blogger hits milestone. The Galvin Opinion reaches its 200,000th hit, and celebrates with a 10-best-post retrospective.

F R A N C E ' S . R I O T S

• We love posts where you can derive the entire inference from the illustration alone: This one, for instance, on the 'normalizing' of the French riots. (Which is not the same as saying things have returned to normal. It means that 'normal' now includes some rioting. The French non-solution, trés magnifique!)

• Schadenfreude, thy name is Che! Che-Mart celebrates the French riots. (Some pragmatic advice: Get the blood-disguising red, not the soot-showing white.)

• Still more roasting of the French: Mark Steyn on the difference that makes all the difference - multicultural vs. bicultural. (More from Mark here.)

B A D . A D S

• French roast available here, too: Bad Starbucks 'sweater' billboard. Bad Starbucks Christmas billboard. Bad Starbucks coffee cup ad. From a pretty good (and really angry) advertising blogger.

• Why 'survival of the fittest' may not apply: A terrific observation regarding why weak ideas so often make it to the marketplace.

N E W . Y O R K . C I T Y S C A P E S

• Brooklyn prices, Brooklyn values: 2-family Clinton Hill brownstone: $1,300,000. Kensington 2-bedroom co-op, $395,000. Fall in Fort Greene: Priceless. (Brownstoner)

• Maple syrup evicted, wanders city streets: Does this explain that mysterious maple syrup smell a few weeks ago? Well, no, but wouldn't it be cool if it did?

• Searching for a new approach to an old NY icon: 100 views of the Empire State Building.

• The MTA ban on subway photography is alive and well. Despite this, Forgotten New York manages to take some great new images from the New York subway system. Also: Some new shots from the Bronx' Grand Concourse.

• A photo study of texture, genteel decay, light and shadow. (Joe's NYC)

E V I L . P O L I T I C S

• Note to the Democratic Underground: We feel your pain. The strain of living under the interminable BusHitler regime is starting to wear on the gentle, compassionate DU crowd. Cake or Death examines the fissures. (They may have gone clear over the edge - check out this post of pure hate.)

• We were going to cast our lot with General Zod - until we saw some of his allies. As one commenter noted, 'They had us 'til Hillary'...

• Why any criticism of Detroit is now 'racist'. (Harleys, Cars, Girls and Guitars)

• Kesher Talk reminds us what happened the last time an Administration took advice from John Murtha.

• Eliot Spitzer chokes. (Urban Elephants)

• John Edwards kisses up to the left. (Kevin McCullough)

• CNN's "X"planation: Suitably Flip isn't buying it.

• In light of a revelation by a top physicist, Wisdom of Change has a message for everyone who claimed Saddam didn't have WMDs.

S E L F - S E R V I N G . R H E T O R I C . S E R V E D . H E R E

• Glass houses, stones, et cetera: This reminded us of Woody Allen's bit about cheating on a metaphysics exam by looking into the soul of the boy next to him.

• He'll drive over that bridge when he comes to it: 'Flaccid' Ted Kennedy demands a 'unionized WalMart', just as unionized GM releases 30,000 workers. (Citizen Journal) More GM commentary here.

• Playing the gay card, and having his bluff called: Downtown Lad proclaims that his banishment from five sites is proof of the sites' collective homophobia. Some commenters call him on it.

• OSM is Pajamas Media again. Their current explanation contradicts their previous explanations. Sadly, the name screwup has been the most interesting thing about the whole enterprise. (Young Curmudgeon)

• Full frontal assault: Because some folks' idea of torture is cutting off the cable channels: Ace versus St. Andrew of the Thousand Vapors. On a related note, he's not too pleased with Kurt Vonnegut, either.

• Having long demanded an immediate pullout from Iraq, Democrats get an opportunity to vote on it. (Insignificant thoughts)

• OJ's still with us, but Nicole's long gone. So maybe it's safer to suggest that she had it coming. (Joey McKeown)

• Wolf Blitzer invites Ron Silver on his CNN show, to talk about Silver's new movie: Broken Promises: The United Nations at 60. Blitzer then spends the time grilling Silver over his support for Iraq. (Late Final)

• A challenge for Robert Kennedy Jr. from Liberteaser.

• Tyra v. Naomi: The reconciliation. (Jossip)

M I D D L E . E A S T E R N . M U S I N G S

• In defense of remaining in Iraq: "Do we want to... have influence in the Middle East? Iraq itself is not our foreign policy. Its a keystone in our Anti-Radical Islamic War... We did not leave Japan, the Philippines, and Europe all the way to 1990's... because we still have interests in those part of the world..." (Blissful Ignorance)

• In defense of leaving Gaza: "I believe that Religious Zionism, its ideals and followers are resilient enough to withstand the crisis of disengagement." (Blissful Knowledge)

• In defense of terrorists: Chris Matthews: "The person on the other side is not evil. They just have a different perspective." [Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood.] (Citizen Journal)

• Galloway courageously tells another disenfrachised audience exactly what it wants to hear: "Arabia uber alles!" Nasty behavior common to Galloway, at least one Rabbi, doves, and chickens.

• Gotham Gal, taking a boot camp class with former Marines, asks about Jarhead, a film about Desert Storm.

T H E . N E W . B O O B . T U B E

• The Sopranos' ancestors show 'em how it's done: The Sopranos looks like Romper Room compared to Rome. Sunday's episode was 'the single most violent thing ever put on film ever', says Blatherist. (More about Rome and Blatherist's comments, and a Tony Soprano moment at Pete's Tavern.)

• The bleak future of broadcast TV: Englishman in New York quotes a fine Tom (PlasticBag) Coates piece: "The role of broadcast in the delivery of television and audio programming is going to significantly diminish... and a more browsable subscribable media derived from the lessons of podcasting will replace it."

• How to put your TV in your pocket: A VC recognizes the importance of connections. In this case, the Tivo-to-iPod connection. (More details here.) Also: the weekly podcast.

U N C A T E G O R I Z E D

• A former WalMart vendor has some thoughts on the controversy currently surrounding the company.

• The psychology behind the maddening 'Lowercase L'. (lowercase L)

• Investment wisdom: The inherent gamble of hedge funds. Psychology and markets. The brouhaha in London's copper market.

• The GOP is far outpacing Democratic fundraising efforts - everywhere but in NYC. Ragged Thots has a two-word explanation: Liz Dole.

• Choose your poison: Are the Evil Capitalists conspiring to keep oil expensive, or to keep it cheap? (Yet another weird SF fan)

• As we've always suspected: The good news: Exercise, and live 188 days longer. The bad news: You'll spend 287 days exercising. (The Fifty Minute Hour)

• Books fill the void. [or] What void? How to be alone. [or] How to be young, good-looking, privileged, and impeccably connected.

• The most dangerous city in America is in New Jersey. (Blottered)

• Underrated and overlooked performers. (Manhattan User's Guide)

• Bush's 'Heavens to Murgatroid' moment is captured at greg.org. (Some great captions for that über-goofy photo here, and a hilarious video clip showing him saying "I'm trying to escape" here)

• A cab driver notes the emergence of NYC's holiday spirit. (New York Hack) Also: A pic of the Rock Center tree going up.

• A 'mashup classic': Britney Spears & The O'Jays. Hear it on Modern Fabulousity.

• Photography: Vibrant Lower East Side Street art. (rion.nu)

• Testing the Rudy-for-president waters. (Slant Point)

• Pink license plates to identify sex offenders? (Stay Free)

• Top four lame ways to meet women, observed over the weekend. (NYC Metroblog)

• The plan for a refurbished Yankee Stadium didn't go over too well.

• Measuring the cultural chasm. Dave Friedman suggests a better approach to advance debate about the dangers religion poses to the world. Dan Riehl notes stats showing that the most 'religious' states (Red) outpace the most liberal states (Blue) in charitable giving. (NY and CA rank about midway, NJ and MA are near dead last.)

• The most important rule for lasting celebrity marriages. (This Is What We Do Now)

• 50 months later, where we stand on rebuilding the WTC area. (The Wonkster).

• Celebrities coming out... Of their clothes, mostly. (Got pictures? Natch, or what's the point?)

• ...or being thrown out... The misunderstood bouncer - Nobody knows the kerfluffles he's seen. (Clublife)

• ...and an update on the 90's most notorious rock club. Coming soon at the rock icon formerly known as Limelight: The Clear Channel era.

• And now, for something completely different: Alien performance art, by Ze Frank (This goes on for a while... cut it off once you get the gist.)

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The Big Apple Blog Festival is listed on the ÜberCarnival page and in Carnival News.

To nominate your favorite blog post about NYC, or if you have a NYC blog and want to see something in the next BABF ... or you have a NYC-related blog and would like to host an upcoming BABF ... send us a short write up and a permalink to aguyinnewyork [at] gmail.com ... or use the Carnival Submit Form.

You are free to repost the Big Apple Blog Festival so long as you leave this URL attached: BigAppleBlogFestival.com

Categories: New+York+City+blogs