When I inaugurated The Glittering Eye (all of six months ago), I had a very selfish notion of my blogroll. I felt that it was there to show your readers (if any) who you were reading. I’ve changed my view since then.

Of course there are still some self-serving reasons to add blogs to your blogroll. There’s reciprocal blogrolling—you blogroll me and I’ll blogroll you. Some bloggers have an explicit reciprocity policy. I’ll only blogroll a blog if it’s a blog I like, respect, and, most of all, read.

And blogrolling is a form of networking. Blogs with similar focuses and interests tend to blogroll each other.

But the very nicest thing about blogrolling is that it’s a painfree method of giving something. Giving to your readers, giving to other bloggers—whether they have more traffic, about the same traffic, or, best of all, less traffic than you do. It’s a way of saying to your readers “If you like what you see here, here are some more sites that I think you’ll like as much or more”.

When you view it that way it makes you think much harder before adding to the blogroll. Who are my readers? What do they think? What do they like?

Kate of Electric Venom is refurbishing her blogroll in a typically Kate-ish fashion. She’s asking her readers to vote blogs on or off the island. I originally considered suggesting that Kate consider blogrolling The Glittering Eye. But on reflection I decided that, although I’d love any additional traffic, that might not be a service to Kate’s readers. I have, shall we say, a distinctly different style than Kate’s.

So I’m suggesting three blogs that I like and read and that might appeal to Kate’s clientele: Mind of Mog, The Key Monk, and Go Fug Yourself.

What does John Kerry need to do to win the rapidly approaching election?

Exhibit A:

A surprising black `bump’ for Bush

Published October 20, 2004

WASHINGTON — Could President Bush receive a surprisingly large black turnout on Election Day? Considering recent history, the idea sounds about as likely as pop star Michael Jackson receiving a Man of the Year Award from the Children’s Defense Fund. But elections can produce unexpected results. That’s why we hold them.

This week I found myself blinking my eyes in disbelief over two major polls that showed a big bump for Bush among likely black voters.

A New York Times poll released Tuesday showed that among likely voters, 47 percent support Bush, 45 percent are for Sen. John Kerry and 2 percent for Ralph Nader.

But in the race breakdown, the Bush-Cheney ticket is buoyed by an amazing 17 percent from African-Americans. (Kerry receives 76 percent of the black voters and Nader only 1 percent.)

Although 17 percent is still less than one in five, it is more than twice the tiny 8 percent turnout that the Bush-Cheney ticket received in the 2000 election.

Also on Tuesday, a poll with a much larger sample of black voters was released by the Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a leading think tank on black-oriented issues. It showed a very similar African-American boost for the Bush-Cheney ticket: 18 percent versus 69 for Kerry and 2 percent for Nader.

Exhibit B:

I was in North Carolina this weekend covering the Richard Burr campaign. While in Wayne County, a gent by the name of Joe Daugherty, who is on the local board of elections mentioned that in the first two days of early voting, 2,250 people showed up at the polls. In Wayne County, 33% of the registration is Republican. But 49% of those participating in the early voting were Republican. Daugherty too this to mean that the GOP side is more motivated.

Worse for Kerry, 30% of registered voters in Wayne County are African-American. According to Daugherty, only 250 African-Americans had voted, or 11%. Looks like Kerry isn’t getting that all-important black vote fired up.

Hat tip: Vodkapundit.

Exhibit C:

However misappropriated the word “pimped” is, in the case of both modern and latter-day vernacular, the word is entirely appropriate for the cause of the pulpit.

When a presidential election year rolls around, groups that may or may not have been important during those last three years, suddenly become the object of the vultures’ affection. This year, the head vulture is John Kerry.

Like clockwork, the political vultures, local ones included, come out dressed in navy blue suits, with carefully chosen power ties (pearls for the ladies), playing religious games for the sake of earning more votes.

The “black church” specifically, has become a ho. It’s abused, mis-treated, used, and then tossed to the side until the next election.

There has been much talk about the importance of “faith” in this election. In the 2000 election, a survey of voters showed that 63% of those who attended church more than once a week voted for Bush, compared to 37% who voted for Al Gore.

This year, polls are showing that the “black vote” has slipped significantly for Kerry. Whereas Gore captured 90% of black voters, reportedly, Kerry may only have around 73%. Make no mistake about it, given the socially conservative nature of the black community, “black churches” especially tend to be opposed to abortion rights and same-sex marriage, which are among a few hot issues in this year’s election.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Exhibit D:

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Former President Clinton will appear with Sen. John Kerry at a lunchtime rally in Philadelphia Monday in what Democrats hope will be a boost to the presidential ticket in a crucial battleground state.

The two-term former president also will campaign separately for the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Lockhart, an adviser to Kerry and former Clinton press secretary, said Wednesday.

Clinton, who is recovering from heart surgery, has agreed to the appearance for his fellow Democrat, who is locked in a tight race against President Bush.

[continue reading…]

Isn’t it amazing how much you can tell about what’s going on the world by how people are talking about things? By the words they’re using? Courtesy of The Guardian here’s a list by year of the buzzwords-of-the-year for the last hundred years:

1904 hip
1905 whizzo
1906 teddy bear
1907 egghead
1908 realpolitik
1909 tiddly-om-pom-pom
1910 sacred cow
1911 gene
1912 blues
1913 celeb
1914 cheerio
1915 civvy street
1916 U-boat
1917 tailspin
1918 ceasefire
1919 ad-lib
1920 demob
1921 pop
1922 wizard
1923 hem-line
1924 lumpenproletariat
1925 avant garde
1926 kitsch
1927 sudden death
1928 Big Apple
1929 sex
1930 drive-in
1931 Mickey Mouse
1932 bagel
1933 dumb down
1934 pesticide
1935 racism
1936 spliff
1937 dunk
1938 cheeseburger
1939 Blitzkrieg
1940 Molotov cocktail
1941 snafu
1942 buzz
1943 pissed off
1944 DNA
1945 mobile phone
1946 megabucks
1947 Wonderbra
1948 cool
1949 Big Brother
1950 brainwashing
1951 fast food
1952 Generation X
1953 hippy
1954 non-U
1955 boogie
1956 sexy
1957 psychedelic
1958 beatnik
1959 cruise missile
1960 cyborg
1961 awesome
1962 bossa nova
1963 peacenik
1964 byte
1965 miniskirt
1966 acid
1967 love-in
1968 It-girl
1969 microchip
1970 hypermarket
1971 green
1972 Watergate
1973 F-word
1974 punk
1975 detox
1976 Trekkie
1977 naff all
1978 trainers
1979 karaoke
1980 power dressing
1981 toyboy
1982 hip-hop
1983 beatbox
1984 double-click
1985 OK yah
1986 mobile
1987 virtual reality
1988 gangsta
1989 latte
1990 applet
1991 hot-desking
1992 URL
1993 having it large
1994 Botox
1995 kitten heels
1996 ghetto fabulous
1997 dot-commer
1998 text message
1999 Google
2000 bling bling
2001 9/11
2002 axis of evil
2003 sex up
2004 chav

Compiled by Susie Dent

I’ve added The Moderate Voice to my blogroll. Joe Gandelman, editor-in-chief of The Moderate Voice, provided the best coverage of opinion on the presidential debates bar none. And whether he’s commenting on politics, show biz, or oddities, his posts are invariably entertaining, interesting, and, well, moderate.

I do wish he’d blog on his own experiences more often.

Check out The Moderate Voice!

Events tend to harden presidents, not soften them. Bush is about as hard as he can get with his certitude and his baggage, as are the major players in his administration. It’s time to reset the political rule set known as party control of the Executive Branch.

Thomas Barnett

It is widely held that too much wine will dull a man’s desire. Indeed it will—in a dull man.

John Osborne

Dr. Thomas Barnett, author of The Pentagon’s New Map has written a strong endorsement of John Kerry for president. His argument, in a nutshell, is that although Bush was the right man for the last four years, Kerry is the right man for the next four years.
[continue reading…]

This is unsettling:

Though it has not been played up in the media in the absence of confirming its authenticity, an article appearing in the Internet recently stirred up ripples. Written by an anonymous person, the story is said to have rearranged a lecture given by a professor of politics at Beijing University, which plays the role of academic adviser to the Chinese government. Its gist is as follows.

“The North Korean regime cannot survive more than 10 years. If a pro-Chinese military faction grasps power following a collapse of the regime, China intends to incorporate North Korea into its military federation and eventually make it a subordinate state. The Northeast Asia Project now in progress is aimed at accumulating a historical basis for it…“

Hat tip: Duophony
[continue reading…]

Now that the presidential debates are over and there are just two weeks until the election the endorsements are starting to fly fast and thick. Yesterday The New York Times endorsed Kerry which surprised no one. The Chicago Tribune endorsed Bush which surprised me, anyway.

Bloggers are starting to endorse candidates, too. Or at least post strong statements of support for the candidates they’ve supported all along.
[continue reading…]

I’ve mentioned this before but years ago I read a column in a Canadian newspaper in which the columnist wrote something like this:

Canada could have had the best of everything. We could have had British traditions, French cuisine, and American technology. We ended up with American traditions, British cuisine, and French technology.

That’s what this story reminds me of:

Disney uses feng shui in Hong Kong

HONG KONG – The Walt Disney Co. is taking a series of steps to address cultural sensitivities as it prepares to open Hong Kong Disneyland a little more than a year from now, the company’s president said.

The new theme park, long controversial because of the Hong Kong government’s lavish investment in it, will include local food and music and provide services not only in English but also in two Chinese languages, said Robert A. Iger, Disney’s president and chief operating officer. He described these steps as part of a broad effort to recognize national differences.

“We know if we’re too U.S.-centric, the products won’t be too relevant to those markets,” Iger said. “That’s particularly true as it relates to Hong Kong Disneyland.”

Esther Wong, a spokeswoman for Hong Kong Disneyland, said that the company had rotated the orientation of the entire park by several degrees in the early design phase after consulting a master of feng shui, a Chinese practice of seeking harmony with spiritual forces.

The park is scheduled to open sometime late next year or early

Hat tip: Fark

Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong was on Don Imus’s program this morning touting his book Inside CentCom. Gen. DeLong was Tommy Franks’s right hand man in conceiving and executing the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He expressed the opinion—which I have been saying for some time now—that such successes we have had in Afghanistan were because of the strategy we undertook there, not despite it. The objectives for Afghanistan were:

1. Remove the Taliban and al Qaeda from power there.
2. Re-establish civil society there on more democratic lines.
3. Arrest or kill Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda leaders.

The strategy that was used in achieving these goals was:

1. Obtain the support of local leaders and forces.
2. Minimize harm to Afghan people.
3. Provide support to local forces in achieving the objectives.

I just don’t understand people who advocate a more cowboy, unilateralist approach than the one we took. A larger footprint, more aggressive force would have been likely to mobilize Afghans against us as it did against the Russians and British.