There is no way I can do justice to this brilliant post by Chris Bowers of MyDD, so I strongly recommend you check it out. The premise is fascinating: Some blogs are stickier than others, and their readers stay there, like a dedicated community, hanging around the comments and staying for long periods. Other blogs are visited frequently but for shorter stays; readers use them as a launchpad to visit the links offered.

The blog with by far the highest site traffic now is Daily Kos. But if you get linked there, chances are you’ll get far fewer hits than if you’re linked by Atrios. Kos is sticky; Atrios isn’t.

Bowers goes on to show how the biggest right-wing blogs like Instapundit are not sticky — they are typified by no comments, short posts and lots of links.

The lower stickiness of top right-wing sites, especially Instapundit, can lead to a complete domination of the right-wing blogosphere by the “one big story” if the top bloggers are all pushing one story. Glenn Reynolds in particular, who does not have comments or special pages and who rarely comments on a subject beyond “xxx has the goods on this one,” or “indeed,” can send the traffic of any blog he links skyrocketing to a degree no left-wing blog can even come close to matching (and he links other blogs a lot). Right-wing blog traffic, and the articles people tend to read on any individual right-wing blog, has a remarkable correlation to the interests of the top-right wing bloggers, and Glenn Reynolds in particular. That is why, in the title of this article, I called the right-wing blogosphere a top-down operation.

To make a long story short, the lower stickiness of top right-wing blogs compared to top left-wing blogs leads to greater message consistency in their half of the political blogosphere than in ours (I can show anyone extensive site meter statistics to prove this). This consistency helps stories from the right-wing blogosphere reach the national media more often than those from the left-wing blogosphere. This seems to mirror the left and the right in other mediums as well.

The strength of the right-wing blogs in impacting the national media does not end there. Of late, more established institutions of right-wing ideology, including Drudge and right-wing talk radio, have taken to adopting the “one big story” dominating / originating from the right-wing blogosphere. For Hugh Hewitt, it is a seamless operation, but Rush Limbaugh has gotten in on the act as well. Also, while Dailykos is by far the most trafficked political blog of any ideology, the left still lacks a “breaking news” independent website that is the equivalent to Drudge, which has a larger portion of the media’s ear than any blog or group of blogs. While Air America is extremely blog friendly and experiencing consistent ratings growth, it still does not have the same institutional power to spread stories that right-wing talk radio does.

Go read the post; Bower’s argument is well reasoned, and helps explain why stories originating in the right blogosphere have an easier time catapulting their way into the mainstream. (Drudge plays a huge role in this phenomenon, as well.) Must reading for those interested in the dynamics of blog traffic and the seepage of stories from the blogosphere into the mainstream.

At first I tried to capsulize Phillip Pan’s mammoth article about Li Dan and the orphanage he created to house the orphans of Chinese AIDS victims. But there is too much to the story, and it is so complex, made up of so many episodes and sub-plots, I decided it would take me too long and wipe me out. So let me just urge you to check out the story, which speaks to so many aspects of what’s going on in China today, from glimmerings of new hope and freedom to awful disappointments, including the famous closing of the orphanage and Li’s persecution as he continued fighting to help AIDS victims.

I was really upset when I heard a few months ago that John Pomfret was leaving the WaPo’s Beijing bureau, but Pan is doing an amazing job in his place.

Apparently it’s the oldest trick in the book. This is from an interview between US miliary chaplain and psychologist Gustave Gilbert and Hermann Goering, held at Goering’s cell in Nuremberg before he killed himself.

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

It’s working now in Russia, and other places, too. (And yes, there was an attack on Russia, but nothing to merit what Putin’s doing there.)

The basic formula can also be applied to our own president — no, he is not stripping the country of liberties as is Putin, but he’s managed to get the country to follow him anywhere under the excuse that we were attacked. That’s why the No. 1 Republican talking point is to never, ever mention the invasion of Iraq without first tying it to 911; listen carefully to how all answers to questions on Iraq are couched: “After 911, we had no choice but to…”

The Goering quote makes an interesting contrast with a famous passage from Orwell’s 1984:

“In accordance with the principles of double-think it does not matter if the war is not real. For when it is, victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, but it is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance, this new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.”

It’s as if they knew bush was coming.

Read all of Paul Krugman’s great column on Iraq and the US elections today. A sample, with the anomaly sentence in bold.

On Sunday, a celebrating crowd gathered around a burning U.S. armored vehicle. Then a helicopter opened fire; a child and a journalist for an Arabic TV news channel were among those killed. Later, the channel repeatedly showed the journalist doubling over and screaming, “I’m dying; I’m dying.”

Such scenes, which enlarge the ranks of our enemies by making America look both weak and brutal, are inevitable in the guerrilla war President Bush got us into. Osama bin Laden must be smiling.

U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, “It’s worse than you think.” Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call “insurgent enclaves,” are spreading – even in Baghdad. We’re losing ground.

And the losses aren’t only in Iraq. Al Qaeda has regrouped. The invasion of Iraq, intended to demonstrate American power, has done just the opposite: nasty regimes around the world feel empowered now that our forces are bogged down. When a Times reporter asked Mr. Bush about North Korea’s ongoing nuclear program, “he opened his palms and shrugged.”

Yet many voters still believe that Mr. Bush is doing a good job protecting America.

There you have it. PR-savvy students of politics all understand the phenomenon, and it has always been the driving force of this administration: You can spin your way out of anything. The facts are inconsequential. The bodies and the misery are there for all to see, complete with condemnations from our own military leaders on the ground in Iraq (again, read the whole Krugman piece ). And yet, in his acceptance speech bush made Iraq sound like a bastion of liberation, freedom, democracy and hope. It is the precise opposite, yet bush has succeeded in presenting it otherwise. Just like when we couldn’t find weapons, and he re-spun the cause for the war — now, it was “WMD-related program activities” that justified it all. He says things, and people are willing to believe it despite that annoying thing called “reality.”

I’ve always said the Republicans were master spinners and communicators. And since perception is always far more powerful than reality, they just may win. I won’t declare it over yet but I have to give the bush propaganda department the very highest marks, as much as I despise them. I wish Kerry could emulate them.

Whether or not the ANG documents are fake or real, they also underscore the sheer unstoppability of the bush noise machine. It took the Dems and the mainstream media two full weeks to mount a strong challenge to the Smear Boat Vets. It took the warbloggers less than 12 hours to mount a full-scale attack on the CBS report, complete with “expert” testimony — almost as though they were prepared in advance. And since then, the issue of what bush did has been forgotten, and only the debate led by Instapuppy and Tom Maguire and Hugh Hewitt and, worst of all, the right’s resident hater Charles Johnson. But credit where it’s due: they’ve won, at least for now.

I have lots more to say about this, but I’m at work and I can see the boss at the end of the labrynthine hallway.

I’m in shock. But I’m not surprised.

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader’s name can appear on Florida ballots for the election, despite a court order to the contrary, Florida’s elections chief told officials on Monday in a move that could help President Bush in the key swing state.

The Florida Democratic Party reacted with outrage, calling the move “blatant partisan maneuvering” by Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s younger brother, and vowed to fight it.

In a memo to Florida’s 67 county supervisors of elections, Division of Elections director Dawn Roberts said the uncertainty of Hurricane Ivan, which could hit parts of the state by week’s end, forced her to act […]

“I’m in disbelief,” said Scott Maddox, chairman of the Florida Democratic Party. “This is blatant partisan maneuvering on the part of Jeb Bush to give his brother a leg up on election day.”

bush may win this election. But I know that America doesn’t really want politics to be handled like this. They don’t want this to be the new standard. Whenever shrub goes, be it now or in another 4 years, America will breathe a huge collective sigh of relief.

Vis Kos

….now that a center-right magazine has confirmed most of its key points. The smokescreen over the forgeries was ingenious, totally usurping the real story. But the story will not go away for a simple reason: it’s true.

Oh, and Dr. Kleiman has been doing some spectacular blogging on the inanity of Rathergate or whatever we end up titling it. Scroll through his site; there’s a lot of good stuff.

This wins a gold star:

A doctor who has performed abortions wants there to be the death penalty for those who perform them. He also sterilized a 20 year old woman without her consent, and then illegally billed Medicaid for the procedure. He said “That [‘the gay’] agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today.” He criticized NBC for showing “Schindler’s List,” saying that it promoted “irresponsible sexual behavior.”

Oh, and he’s the Republican candidate for Senate from Oklahoma.

That made me laugh.

Disgusting.

A little-noticed but chilling scene at Opa-locka Airport outside Miami last month demonstrates that the Bush administration’s commitment to fighting international terrorism can be overtaken by presidential politics — even if that means admitting known terrorists onto U.S. soil.

That’s what happened when outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso inexplicably pardoned four Cuban exiles convicted of “endangering public safety” for their role in an assassination plot against Fidel Castro during a 2000 international summit in Panama.

After their release, three of the four immediately flew via private jet to Miami, where they were greeted with a cheering fiesta organized by the hard-line anti-Castro community. Federal officials briefly interviewed the pardoned men — all holders of U.S. passports — and then let them go their way.

The fourth man, Luis Posada Carriles, was the most notorious member of this anti-Castro cell. He is an escapee from a prison in Venezuela, where he was incarcerated for blowing up an Air Cubana passenger plane in 1976, killing 73. He also admitted plotting six hotel bombings in Havana that killed one tourist and injured 11 others in 1997. Posada has gone into hiding in Honduras while seeking a Central American country that will harbor him, prompting Honduran President Ricardo Maduro to demand an explanation from the Bush administration on how a renowned terrorist could enter his country using a false U.S. passport.

The terrorist backgrounds of Posada’s three comrades-in-arms are as well documented as their leader’s.

Did you get that? Proven, murderous terrorists, greeted like heros in Miami after being flown there on a private jet. Why? Because it will help bush get re-elected. I can’t put into words how nauseating it is.

Via Kos, who asks, “Mr. President, we know your advisers have told you Florida is key to your winning a second term and that the Cuban-American vote is key to that contest, but have you no fucking shame, sir? Not even a drop?”

I am a few days late to this, and the story’s already been linked to by several Asian bloggers, but I just read it for myself and I have to say something.

Sometimes a blogger does such an astoundingly thorough and brilliant job covering a complex and difficult topic that we all have to turn to him and say Thank You. That’s the case with Andres Gentry’s remarkable piece on prostitution in China, one of the most thorough, intelligent, best-researched and fascinating posts you will ever read about this topic.

It is simply unprecedented in its exhaustiveness. And it’s a true eye-opener. I had no idea just how many women in China are involved in prostitution. Sure, I knew it was a high number, but Andres’ equations indicating the percentages are astounding. No sense paraphrasing and quoting — just go there. A masterpiece.

That’s the issue explored in this intriguing article in the UK Guardian.

By 2020, China will have overtaken Japan as the world’s second biggest economy. It may even have started to rival the US in terms of the hard power of its military. But if it is to achieve the government’s goal of once again being the world’s leading civilisation, the country will also have to acquire the “soft power” of universally appealing values.

How can it do that? Paradoxically, the best hope for softening China may be the same thing that poses its greatest threat: the HIV/Aids epidemic. China is on course to suffer the biggest epidemic of Aids in the world, but in the process it may find the illness acts as one of the main drivers for social change over the coming years.

“By 2020, Aids will have transformed society,” says Wan Yanhai, an Aids activist who was arrested two years ago for disclosing details about China’s HIV problem, which was then deemed a state secret. “Both people and the virus will be more active in China. It is not something we can ignore. People have to ask questions about their way of life, they have to get involved in social politics and get organised. From my personal experience I’m absolutely certain that this kind of activity will lead China towards a democracy.”

It offers several points of views, some extremely skeptical and pessimistic (such as AIDS activist Gao Yaojie, who points out just how little progress has actually been made in fighting the epidemic). Others say that like SARS, it will lead to greater political openness and change. (Whether SARS actually did lead to long-term, meaningful change is still highly debatable.)

No matter which opinion you agree with, the article certainly underscores the fact that due to the sheer size of the crisis, AIDS will inevitably change China’s future dramatically — whether it means leading the country to greater freedom and progress, or into becoming the next Africa.

Related post: AIDS in China