this early release gives all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism that is constantly cited by poor people and people of color.

As rich as she is, I doubt race came into play at all. If you have enough money, you can make it all go away. Just ask R. Kelly.

Will 2008 be a replay of 1968? There is an ideological schism in this country. These Presidential Primaries will bring out the crazies.

We have recently had two blog invasions from the North. The first was the white supremacists who came to protest in Knoxville. The second was the dustup with Brittney Gilbert.

We are used to the players in Tennessee, who in comparison seem pretty normal compared to these people from the North. It was a surprise to me how crazy these bloggers from the North really are.

Personally, I don’t think we’ve seen near the end of this, and I don’t think we’ve seen nearly how bad, how vicious, it will become. All this is just warm-up, sharpening the knives and practicing your cutting moves.

A lot of Tennesseans on the Left got a huge shock from the NiT experience. It’s one thing to blog-swarm strangers or national figures. This happened to someone who is a real person to a lot of Tennesseans, and not, in their eyes, at all deserving. I wonder if it will sensitise them to others getting a similar treatment, and I wonder if it will at all affect how they view Righties getting similar treatment, especially since many on the Right stood up for Brittney.

I kinda doubt it, to be honest, but I’m curious to see.

She was on some sort of hunger strike. The rulz for dealing with hunger strikes vary depending on the seriousness of the offender, and she was a lightweight, so she made them blink. Were something to happen to her because of her diet (in the Ninth Circuit, you can’t force-feed a prisoner), there would be hell to pay.

She was a total pain in the ass to have in a jail. The front office of the jail command probably fielded thousands of calls about her every day. That adds up to a lot of work.

Finally, and most likely, she was “matrixed out”. Every jail has a matrix system for at least the minor offenders (where I worked, they released felons this way). The offense is assigned so many points, each day in jail is worth so many points, etc, and when you reach the matrix level of points, out the door you go. My old system was so desperate to relieve overcrowding that sometimes they counted each shift as a day in jail, so the prisoner got 3 days’ credit for each calendar day. That might have happened here, since the speculation was she would get out after 9 days.

Nothing majikal, Reverend, just normal jail bidnez.

Oh well. Back to guns, shall we?”

Actually, going after rappers to clean up their lyrics is something that Sharpton started pursuing in earnest after his concern about the using the “n word” was shown to only apply to white people.

Speaking of which, I haven’t heard much about those efforts over the last couple of weeks.

His purported concern over rap lyrics will dissipate to the point of extinction shortly, because going after blacks who pollute the airwaves and the minds of young people who hear their filth doesn’t fit his objective – namely, going after whitey.

He is a one trick pony.

I keep forgetting, where is the church where he preaches?

I know. It is difficult to describe. This may not be something I can explain. There seems to be, for lack of a better description, a disturbance in the force of the blogosphere. I think we saw the beginning of it earlier this year. Sides are being taken. What happened at KnoxViews is happening across the blogosphere. You could call it a kind of consolidation but in reality what it is, is taking sides. Is the most probable cause the 2008 Presidential Election? Maybe.

It seems that the extreme factions of any group are the most vocal. I think the assault on Brittney may be the tip of the iceberg. What Al Sharpton did and what Jesus General did are pure politics. Stir up the extremists. Get things moving.

Sharon Cobb commented in another SayUncle thread that as an old time journalist she had difficulty adjusting to the new web journalism. Joe Klein shared his thoughts in this weeks Time Magazine. Seems like far left bloggers don’t care much for him. The Ron Paul bloggers are another “take no prisoner” group. And rumours of a new blogosphere strategy from Fred Thompson are in the news.

How long before the next McCain Feingold type of bill comes up restricting what can be said on blogs? Some government officials look on bloggers who believe in the Constitution as terrorists.

Warning, strange times ahead for the blogosphere. When the blogosphere is compared to right wing talk radio, that cannot be good. How far away can mandated civility be? What is mandated civility? Laws on thought.

Joe Klein is not pleased with the way left-wing bloggers have been treating him:

Anyone who doesn’t move in lockstep with the most extreme voices is savaged and ridiculed–especially people like me who often agree with the liberal position but sometimes disagree and are therefore considered traitorously unreliable. Some of this is understandable: the left-liberals in the blogosphere are merely aping the odious, disdainful–and politically successful–tone that right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh pioneered. They are also justifiably furious at a Bush White House that has specialized in big lies and smear tactics.

Oh well. Back to guns, shall we?

Steve Gilliard got a pass for a lot of things he did. Why did Jesus General not go after Smantix? Was it because the picture Smantix posted was the same picture that Gilliard photoshopped and posted on his blog?

Jesus General went after Brittney because he didn’t have the guts to confront Smantix. And because what Gilliard did was racist. Being black does not grant immunity from racism.

But in the case of Gilliard it seemed to. Black on black racism exist. Except in the eyes of those people who are blind to it.

This mob mentality, group think, lemmings over the cliff attack on Brittney from the far left shows that this small segment of America believes that some groups of people have more rights, special rights, that the rest of the people don’t have.

Is this mass hypocrisy, or is it mass hysteria? Or is it both?

What does equality mean? Does it mean that some people can use a word but everyone else cannot? Does it mean when one person dies that people can harshly criticize that person but you can’t criticize this other person who died because they have special rights? Jerry Falwell can be harshly criticized but Steve Gilliard cannot?

Haven’t people reached the boiling point on this idea of special rights? These special rights are not codified into the Constitution. They are the result of individual behavior. Jesus General and Al Sharpton both are proving that people can by nothing more than just demanding it, receive special rights.

Any bets that there will be more press coverage on this latest Al Sharpton outrage than there was on a local high profile murder last January?