I'm constantly scanning the blogosphere looking for possible link trades and new places to get information. Because of that, I've literally run across hundreds and hundreds of blogs in the last few months. Some of these blogs are actually quite good but for whatever reason, they've never really gotten the attention they deserve.
So I decided to do something about that by trying to get the word out about 10 of the best "unknown" political blogs on the net. But I quickly realized it was almost impossible to objectively determine how many people know about a particular blog so I came up with three standards to qualify blogs for this list. First and foremost, I only selected blogs I thought were of high quality and yet did not seem to be regularly linked by other web sites that I surf. Second, if those blogs had a public hit counter, they had to average less that 300 hits per day. Last but not least, I decided to only use pages that either were not listed or had 30 incoming links of less on NZ Bear's Blogosphere Ecosystem.
After much contemplation and research, I came to the conclusion that these are "The 10 Best 'Unknown' Political Bloggers"...
Croooow Blog: Henry Hanks spits out links like a machine gun in Charlton Heston's hands. Lots of quick news bytes from the mainstream media and from the blogosphere are linked daily on this page.
A Quote From Croooow Blog: Remember the report just before the 2000 election about Bush having a quarter-century old DWI? Well, it seems that Gorebot campaign spokesman Chris Lehane all but admitted that announcement was timed to hurt Bush, and it did its job. Today, of course, only Gorebot partisans seem to give a damn about it anymore. But that wasn't the point of releasing it. This is one of many reasons I laugh when I hear the "Gore really won" trope.
Juan Gato: Lots of bitter and sarcastic, yet amusing ranting from a guy who's been around for a while and yet has never gotten
the credit he deserved.
Quote From Juan Gato: The Kids in the Hall had a sketch called "Screw You, Taxpayer!" Because they were on the CBC, the show was subsidized by Canadian tax dollars. The skit was purposely terrible, an admitted waste of time. After a couple minutes, Dave Foley came out and announced that since it was free (to them) tax money, they could do what they wanted. And they were going to sit there and waste that tax money on a worthless sketch just because they could. Tossing money around, Dave Foley (I'm pretty sure it was him) kept saying, and they flashed on the screen, "Screw you, Taxpayer!"
Grasshoppa: The Grasshoppa attacks the conflict in the Middle East (among other things) with a Kung-Fu-Licious vengeance. Strong words and frequent posts make for an interesting blog.
Quote From Grasshoppa: There are several reasons for Israel not joining the EU. A sacrifice of both economic and diplomatic independence jump out among the others. It's bad enough that the Europeans feel they can dictate how Israel should act towards its Arab enemies; one could only imagine how they would act if Israel were a full EU member.
However, my biggest problem with is petition is because it reminds me of the slightly chubby, fashion challenged high school teenager doing what ever it takes to be accepted by the popular, yet anorexic beautiful people. Let's face it, the EU does not like Israel and would prefer that it never had been created. Why in God's name should Israel want to join a club of nations that question its very right to exist?
Although I am not Israeli, I always understood the Israeli spirit to be defined by a fierce independence. Joining the EU is nothing short of forfeiting Israeli independence for basically nothing. Do yourselves a favor, my Israeli friends, stay far far away from the EU.
Todd LaClair: I love the concept for this blog. No commentary, no discussion, just excellent quotes that go directly to articles.
A Quote From Todd LaClair:Government is force, pure and simple. There's no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force, it will attract the worst elements of society – people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.--Harry Browne
Portable Matthew: Matthew Stinson has a unique way of sliding insights about his personal life into political discussions with surprisingly readable results.
Quote From Portable Matthew: I e-mailed a South Korean friend to get her reaction to the BBC story. Here's her response, slightly edited for clarity:
How did you know that one my of utmost concerns these days is the World Cup!? Though I cannot watch television, I still search the Internet to find every article related to the victory of the Korean team (yeah~~!!) and read them again and again. Well . . . usually I'm moved to tears after reading them. "Jeez . . . again? We are crazy!!" This is what I say to myself whenever I hear the news that we won. It's such a nice surprise. I believe the shout of Korean "Red Devils" [the South Korean team] would reach to the destitute North Korean residents and be a hope for them because we are one nation.
Surfing the Internet, I also found out that this World Cup has deeply affected Korean youngsters -- it's like the way 911 has changed the general attitude of Americans.
Middle East Realities: Lots of pics and lots of passionate discussion of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
A Quote From Middle East Realities:We Israelis are simply too conflicted. We wake up in the morning, and we have to deal with our health system, with unemployment, with caring for our elderly and crippled and deaf. We have to find funding for abused children, and deal with our educational system. We have to worry about our economy, and try to encourage tourism. We worry about appearing well on CNN and BBC, and we worry, sincerely, about hurting innocent people, or even saying untrue or unkind things about the Muslims that live within our borders.
But our enemies have no such conflicts. They don’t think about how to feed their people, or get them jobs. They couldn’t care less about educating their children to live productive lives, or finding shelters for their abused women (since 99% are abused, there is no point). No, all the our enemies do all day, every day, is figure out how to kill. They work on better bombs. On convincing the gullible to carry them. On transferring funds from Iran and Europe to buy the materials, and securing fax numbers to disseminate the latest baby-killing plan to their numerous cells in Gaza and the West Bank. They don’t worry about bad press. Why should they? They can and have done anything, crossed every red line, broken every rule of civilized behavior without consequence: they’ve used Red Cross ambulances to ferry suicide bombers and grenades, blown up babies in their carriages, have snipers target the foreheads of 10 month olds in their mother’s arms, blown up school buses, pizza parlors, hotels full of elderly survivors about to celebrate Passover…. Why should they worry? They have their PR plan in place: Saeb Erekat will simply repeat that they are not responsible. They don’t have the weapons, the manpower, the you-name it, and CNN and SKY and the BBC will broadcast it like it's news, instead of outdated propaganda. They will broadcast it without questioning a word, as if the PLO didn’t use the arms Israel gave them for terrorist attacks, as if they were never aware of the Karin A, as if they never saw the documents with Arafat’s signature authorizing suicide bomber payments.
Possum Blog: Oglesby has a trippy, funny, writing style and doesn't take himself too seriously whether he's writing about politics or doing a movie review.
A Quote From Possum Blog:Well, it's time for More Fun With Disturbing Search Requests!
U.S.supreme court five clown heads picture Bush Gore. Talk about scary
imagery. As for the deeper meaning behind this, I have not a clue.
Next, there's crimes trussville alabama. Sorry pardner, we made crime
illegal 'round these parts. Worst we got is folks who think they can get
away with putting up a great big plastic shed in their backyards by calling
it a playhouse.
And, finally, quite possibly the loudest cry of desperation in history: chat
rooms for intelligent young environmentalists in Austin Texas. We at
Possumblog are terribly sorry to inform you that the only chat rooms we
currently have are for Stupid Elderly Vivephobes in Galveston and Hot Young
Mensa Things Who Absolutely Abhor Environmentalists. Please check back
later.
Craig Schamp: Schamp has a nice mixture of quality writing, topics that deserve more attention, and lots of links.
A Quote From Craig Schamp:First of all, Arafat has a government the way the Mafia is a government. Second, talking about undermining the President's plans for the area has it
backward. It implies the Israelis should cooperate with the President and
his plans for a plan, but it's the President who should cooperate with his
country's ally when Israel tries to defend itself.
(**Glenn Reynolds gave Craig Schamp the big link tonight which means he may not technically qualify as unknown as of today but I decided not to drop him from the list**)
The Spoons Experience: Whether you agree with him or not (and I usually do), Spoons always comes out with both guns blazing which is why really enjoy his writing.
A Quote From The Spoons Experience:In today's NYT op-ed, Nicholas Kristoff upbraids incautious Westerners for saying that Islam is a backward and violent religion. He then follows with
the story of a Pakistani medical professor who has been sentenced to death
for speculating that Mohammed might not have shaved his pubic hair until he
was 40.
What was your point again, Nick?
The Weigh In: The Weigh In is a massive linkfest that reminds me of Instapundit and Vodka Pundit. If you like both of those blogs you'll probably like this one as well.
A Quote From The Weigh In: Methinks that the blogging community is starting to get a little too big for its britches. Yes, blogging is more popular than ever. Yes, some of you are
getting lots and lots of attention (even me, for a brief period).
But everyone needs to calm down, take a step back, and realize that we are
all just typing words into a computer. We're not saving the world. We're not
fighting off the Middle Eastern scum. We're not even donning gear and
protecting our families. We're just writing. I'm sorry, it's no more than
that, whether you're getting 30 hits per day or 30,000.
