Ten Years

by Bryan

It’s hard to believe I’ve been doing this for a decade.

I did bulletin boards, USENET, and LISTSERV before the rise of blogs, but this seems to be more compatible with my temperament. Andante got me started, and I wish she had survived to be here. Like Jim and Melanie, she was taken too early because of our dysfunctional health care system.

Thanks for dropping by, even if you don’t want to comment.

13 comments

1 Fallenmonk { 11.21.14 at 12:37 pm }: Rock on! Seems like only yesterday.
2 Jim Bales { 11.21.14 at 4:17 pm }: Bryan,

Haven’t had much to say, but have definitely been swinging by. Congratulations on the anniversary, and I, too, miss Andante!

Best
Jim
3 Bryan { 11.21.14 at 9:24 pm }: Yes, Fallenmonk, time seems to speed up just when you want to slow down, like summer vacations when we were kids, as compared to the school year which dragged along.

Gee, Jim, you must have a real life, unlike those of us who are retired and cold. 😉
4 Kryten42 { 11.22.14 at 6:20 am }: Yeah… I hate commenting. wouldn’t do to show ignorance or type something controversial you know. I’d never do that. 🙄

LMAO

Happy 10th Anniversary m8! I for one, am very glad you decided to start this, and had the incredible strength of conviction to continue it. There have been many that didn’t last the distance. Kudo’s m8! Keep annoying the bastards m8, and try to educate the ignorant masses. 😉

Errmmmm… What’s a ‘real life’? isn’t that fiction (or is fantasy more apt?) 😐
5 Mustang Bobby { 11.22.14 at 3:32 pm }: I always thought we started at the same time, but no, I got one year’s jump on you. But I’ve learned a lot from you and appreciate everything you say, so it seems like we’ve been on the path together.

I’m glad to have a Florida counterpart … and who reminds me that it’s not all palm trees and crazy traffic. Best wishes for ten more, and yes, I too sorely miss Andante.
6 Bryan { 11.22.14 at 4:04 pm }: I know you are reticent to talk, Kryten. You have barely managed to make 1.06 comments per day of the blog’s existence. 😀

Most of the members of the Liberal Coalition, like you, Andante, Steve; NTodd, et al., Mustang Bobby, started before the 2004 election, while I started after the disaster was announced. It just seems like I’ve been here forever. 🙂
7 Jim Bales { 11.25.14 at 10:14 am }: Bryan,

If “real life” involves shooting Peanut Butter Cups, then I guess I have a real life!

http://reframe.gizmodo.com/how-mit-scientists-took-this-amazing-photo-with-a-regul-1654038634/all

Best
Jim
8 Kryten42 { 11.26.14 at 4:04 am }: Hmmm. Really? only 1.08? That’s about… 387 / yr? I thought it would be higher than that! I better step up my game! 😉 LOL although, I think I only found you about 8 years ago. Something like that. That makes it about… 484 / yr – or 1.3 a day – since I started commenting. 😉 😀

You can thank Ron Brynaert @ “Why Are We Back In Iraq?” for leading me here. 😛 😉

A lot of great blogs closed, especially between 05 – 08. many fought hard, but it took it’s toll. I worked with several blogging on the group blog Loaded Mouth (“Nostalgic for a new Tomorrow”). We had a good team headed by Tas and we broke a couple big stories (they seemed big at the time anyway). I burned a lot of bridges and a lot of hours to get real intel on a lot of stuff happening at the time. Used up several favor’s. Now, as I look back… I really have to wonder why I bothered. I think Tas was right to get out when he did, though he tried coming back a couple times. 🙂 *shrug*

I enjoyed working with Tas, Mark (Great guy from Indianna who started “Marked Hoosier”, Mixster (who started “Mixter’s Mix”), Lady Minerva, Zen (who started “Zen Comix”) and others. Tas did eventually start a couple more blogs, “Sugar Land is Dreaming” and then “Yeah, Well, Whatever” but they didn’t last long. 🙂

There were several great bloggers I worked with now and then at that time, like Lukery “Wot Is It Good 4” & “Against All Enemies” on the Sibel Edmonds case, Skippy (Skippy the Bush Kangaroo), TBogg, Sadly, No!, Booman Tribune ~ Boo!, Billmons Whisky Bar, The Brad Blog, Shakespeares Sister, Citizens Rent, Wonkette, Balloon Juice, The Smirking Chimp, Constant’s Pations, Feministe, Michael Hussey’s “Last Day of My Life”, Tom Laughlins Blog – Billy Jack (I know! 😉 But he and his wife worked hard to make people aware of what was and is going on), River Bend @ “Baghdad Burning” (before she was forced to flee to Syria from Iraq. She came back online for awhile, then disappeared again. I hope she is OK.)

I originally liked Larry Johnson’s blog “NO QUARTER”, but after Obama was elected, he moved too far right for my liking. I used to think he was left of center, he really didn’t like the Bush gang much. His stand on Global Warming and Ferguson now are telling. Oh well… *shrug*

There were so many others I liked, and many are gone. And others that are still around, that should be gone! 😉 😀

Some good memories. Others, not so much.

Glad you kept on going my friend. 🙂
9 Bryan { 11.26.14 at 8:56 pm }: Actually Jim that is a lot better than standing in the snow and writing 15 motor vehicle accidents reports per hour for 8 hours, which was real life for me not that long ago. That is my fond memory of the first snow of the year in upstate New York. 🙂

Yes, Kryten, that number was averaged over the entire 10 years.

The 2008 election was really divisive among progressive blogs and a lot of people quit as a result. After eight years of the Shrubbery they could have taken the Presidency against the McCain/Palen ticket with a Pet Rock/Yellow Dog ticket, and they nominated Zero.
10 Badtux { 11.26.14 at 11:58 pm }: Like you, I started my current blog after the 2004 election, though a month after you did, for much the same reason — to comment on the new reality. And I, too, am amazed that I still occasionally post to my blog after ten years. Well, actually, if it wasn’t for music my blog would probably go dark too, but I do enjoy sharing musical finds with others and occasionally toss in politics and economics too.

The Kossites really nominated Obama because they were suckered by one good speech and the color of his skin. “He’s black, so he must be liberal!” they proclaimed, ignoring the fact that he is half-white and was largely raised by his white banker grandfather, and his wife is the daughter of a well-to-do industrialist and had espoused many conservative views in the past. He was black. Well, half-black, at least. And they thought it would be cool to have a black President.

One thing you have to say about Obama, though, is that this fiction of Obama on the part of the Kossites as the Liberal Messiah was not something Obama created. He didn’t lie about who he was when he was running for office. It was all right there on his web site for you to read if you were into that whole “reading” thing, whether it was his ridiculous health care plan (which thankfully was abandoned after his election, the plan eventually passed by Congress was Romneycare with the serial numbers filed off and had nothing to do with Obama’s original health care plan) or his conservative views on economic issues. They were all right there ready for the reading. But too many people didn’t. Sigh…
11 Bryan { 11.27.14 at 12:16 am }: We both looked at is record and pointed out that he was a Republican, but the ‘Kos Kool Kids’ ignored reality. The guy’s voting record in the Senate was almost identical to Joe LIEberman, whom Obama chose as his mentor. He mentioned Reagan all the time and avoided FDR. The facts were all there, but people refused to look beyond his skin color to determine his philosophy.

It has been a frustrating 6 years, and it will only get worse.
12 hipparchia { 11.27.14 at 3:07 pm }: I was there when they started handing over Arpanet to the scientists….

happy blogiversary! I think for your tenth one you get something tin… in the spirit of the internet here’s a link
13 Bryan { 11.27.14 at 4:35 pm }: It has been a while since I heard that, Hipparchia. Thank you 🙂