Jon Swift is dead

Al Weisel, more popularly known as the faux-conservative blogger Jon Swift and the Best. Blogger. Ever. died February 27, 2010 of an aortic aneurysm. Tom Watson has the story.

Sic transit gloria mundi. You'll be sorely missed.

My blogrolls

Fuck you very much, Technorati, for completely ignoring blogrolls in your rankings.

Here's my blogroll:

Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus: A Poetic Justice Affable Atheist Anatolian Storms And, yes, I DO take it personally Andre's Verse APJ Newsletter Army of Dude BabyWhisperingLoudly Ben Heine - Cartoons BFD Blog! Big Tent Democrat @ Talkleft Blazing Indiscretions Blind In Texas Blue Girl, Red State Blue Musings Coffee House Studio Cut to the Chase Daily Scare Decline and Fall Docudharma Dr. X's Free Associations Dystopian USA Echoing Voices Against War Edgeing exmearden Fire on the Mountain GDAEman Gold Star Mom Speaks Out Green Left Infoasis Happening Here Intrepid Liberal Journal Invictus: A blog on U.S. Politics and the Fight Against Torture Iraq Newsladder Iraq Today Iraq Update Kmareka Left End of the Dial Left Wing Nut Job Left-Handed Elephant Lost Chord Lotus - Surviving a Dark Time Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm Meteor Blades @ Daily Kos Michael Leon: MAL Contends Michigan Class Notes Middle Earth Journal My Buffalo River Home My Thinking Spot No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro OCD Gen X Liberal Photomontage Pissed On Politics Poetryman Productions Poets for Peace Radamisto Real's World Rubicon San Francisco Impeach Now! SanchoPress Screaming In An Empty Room Sinister Sirens Chronicles SocraticGadfly The Anti-War Theatre The Art of Peace The Consumer Trap The Existentialist Cowboy The Liberal Doomsayer The Liberal Journal The Mandarin The Motley Patriot The New Fatigue Press The Newshoggers The ORIGIN Playhouse The Osterley Times The Paragraph The Peace Tree Truthiness - News From The Gut Uppity Wisconsin Varied Video VidiotSpeak Watching Those We Chose Welcome to the Revolution Whispers from the Wild Worldwide Sawdust Wounded Times WWJV4 ~ Who Would Jesus Vote For? Wyan.blog

Atheist Blogroll: 1 2 3 Religious Comics 2000 Years of Deception A bordo del "Otto Neurath" A Daily Dose of Doubt A Division by Zer0 A Goat Called Nebulous A Godless Nation A Human Mind A Load of Bright A Veritable Plethora A Whore in the Temple of Reason A-Deistic AA Aardvarchaeology AASAUF About: Agnosticism / Atheism Aces Full of Links Action Skeptics After Faith Agnostic Atheism Agnostic Universe Blog aidan maconachy blog Ain't Christian Al-Kafir Akbar! Alexander the Atheist Altoona Atheist Am I mad, or is the world? Amused Muse An Apostate's Chapel An Atheist Homeschooler An Atheistic View of the World An Enlightened Observer Anal Iced Bible And That's How You Live With A Curse Anders Rasmussen Blog Angels Depart Angry Astronomer Answers in Genesis BUSTED! anti-theism.net Arcis Logos Ateistbloggen Atheism and Coffee Atheism Online Atheism Sucks - sucks Atheism through rationalism and science atheism | simra.net Atheism: Proving The Negative Atheist Armaments Atheist Blogs Aggregated Atheist Ethicist Atheist Ethics Atheist Girl ATHEIST HAVEN Atheist Housewife Atheist Hussy Atheist Media Blog Atheist Momma Atheist Movies Atheist Peace Atheist Revolution Atheist Tuesday Atheista Atheisthought Atheistkiwi's Weblog Atheists Rule! AtheisTube atheoi.ORG Atheology Austin Atheist Anonymous Australian Atheist Author of Confusion Axis of Jared Aye! Ayrshire Blog Babble, bullshit, blasphemy and being. Bay of Fundie Beaman's World Being Human Ben's Place Berto: Philosophy Monkey Bert's Blog Beyond Belief BHA Science Group Bible Study for Atheists biblioblography bits of starstuff Bjorn & Jeannette's Blog Black Sun Journal Bligbi Blog of the Big E Blogue de Mathieu Demers blurp Bob Kowalski bore me to tears Born Again Atheist brainstorms Breaking Spells Buridan's Ass By The Book Comics cabhara's zeitgeist Can't make a difference CaroLINES CHADMAC Speaks Choosing Atheism CHRISTIAN PWNAGE 101 Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster Circular Reasoning Cogita Tute - Think For Yourself Coming Out Godless Confessions of an Anonymous Coward Cosmic Variance Crazy Christian Chain Emails Culture for all Culture War Foot Soldier Daily Atheist DAILY BBG Dark Christianity Dark Matter, USA Dark Side of Mars darwinian remiix Darwin's Dagger Daylight Atheism Debunking Christianity Deep Thoughts Deeply Blasphemous Desperately Seeking Ethics and Reason Deutschland Uber Elvis DEVOUT Atheist Godless Grief Diary of a Teenage Atheist Did a guy named Phil start Philosophy? Die Eigenheit Dikkii's Diatribe Dime a dozen Disaffected and it Feels So Good discernible chaos Discussions in Existence Disgusted Beyond Belief Dispatches from the Culture Wars do not read this blog Dorset Humanists blog DOUBTING FAITH? Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge Dragged From the Bottom Drunken Tune Dubito Ergo Sum Duplicitous Primates Dwindling In Unbelief Easy to be Entreated Ecstathy Edward T. Babinski Elaine Vigneault Elliptica EnoNomi EonBlue evanescent Everyday Atheism Everyday Humanist Everything Is Pointless Evolution Evolutionary Middleman EvolutionBlog Evolved and Rational exapologist ExChristian.Net Excursions into the mundane and the revealing... Exercise in Futility Expletive Deleted Explicit Atheist f think faith in honest doubt Fear No Atheist Feersum Endjinn Fish Wars on Cars Five Public Opinions Fleeing Nergal, Seeking Stars Flex Your Head Flumadiddle Free Infidel Free Mind Joe FreeThought by a FreeThinker Freethought Weekly FreThink Friendly Atheist Genesis-fel Geoff Arnold GlobeLinkCircadian God Be Gone - Atheist News God is for Suckers! Godless in America Godless on the Wasatch Front goldbricker Goosing the Antithesis Gospel of Reason Gratuitous Common Sense Greg Hartnett Greg Laden's Blog Greta Christina's Blog Happy Jihad's House of Pancakes Hayleys Paranormal Blog Heathen.TV Hellbound Alleee hell's handmaiden Homo economicus' Weblog Honjii's Harangues Human Psyche of J.D. Crow Humans: The Other White Meat I Am An Atheist I Never Shut Up I traded my soul for happiness Ian's Brain Ice Station Tango In Defence Of Reason In the grip of hysteria Incessant Expressions INFIDELIS MAXIMUS Infinite monkeys, infinite keyboards Infophilia Inkblot Icon Interested Interesting Irked off it's about time izzworld dot net Jewish Atheist Joe's Big Blog Judith's thought-provoking hard-hitting journal Juke of Flow Just a whisper in the wind Just Another Atheist Jyunri Kankei K H A L A S ! Kill The Afterlife King Aardvark Le Contestataire le tiers monde leaping rabbit/lapin sauteur Leicester Secularist Let There Be Light Letters from a broad Liars, Lunatics and What's Left Liberal Debutante Life & Otherwise Life According to Mike White Life before death Life is an adventure Life Without Faith Life, the Universe and Everything Lifecruiser Living with Missy and other thoughts LOL god Look at the Bright's Side louis' blog Love the Nimbu Lubab No More lynn's daughter, thinking Masala Skeptic Matt's Notepad Mechanical Crowds mediawatchwatch.org.uk Meet An Atheist Memoirs of a (G)a(y)theist Memoirs of an ex-Christian Mere Skepticism Midwest Atheist Migrations Mike's Weekly Skeptic Rant mindcore MINISTER OF RANTS Mirth, Musings, & More Misc. Musing mister jebs blog Modern Agnostic Modern Atheist Much ado about nothing My Case Against God My Elemental Muse My Goddless Drama My Life Thinly Disguised as Groove My Single Mom Life Nanovirus Naturalistic Atheism Neural Gourmet New Humanist Blog Nicest Girl and Destroyer of Planets Nick Harding No Double Standards No Gods Allowed No More Hornets No more Mr. Nice Guy! NO SCIENCE ALLOWED NoGodBlog.com Non Credo Deus Non-Prophet North Alabama Rant Nothing Is Sacred Nullifidian Nut Watch Obscene Desserts olio Oliver Benen On Fire For Reason on the street and in my head One Fewer God onegoodmove Onion Breath Onwards and Forwards Open Parachute Order of St. Nick Our Freedom of Espresso Outchurched Oz Atheist's Weblog parenthetical remarks Personal Evolution Pharyngula Philosophers' Playground phreedom.us physicshead Pink Prozac Pinoy Atheist Planet Atheism Planet Humanism Plonka's Blog Podblack Blog Polypyloctomy Pooflingers Anonymous Post Thought Primordial Blog Principles of Parsimony Prose Justice Protium the Heathen Psychodiva's Mutterings QuarkScrew Quintessential Rambling quird Radical Atheist Ramblings Ramblings of an Atheist Undergrad Random Intelligence Rank Atheism Rational Expression Rational Mom Re-imagine Ritual Reasonable Doubts Recalcitrance Reeding and Writing Religion is Bullshit ! REV. ART'S ATHEIST PIN-UPS! Rev. BigDumbChimp Reverend Mark J. Seydel Richard Carrier Blogs Rideo ergo sum Robert's Thought's Ron's Rants Rupture the Rapture Russell's Teapot RWANDAN ATHEIST Saint Gasoline Salad Is Slaughter Salient Sans God Scary Reasoner Science: The Gap Filler Scripture For Skeptics SDARI Sean the Blogonaut Secular Humanism with a human face See For Yourself Shared Difference Silly Humans Situation normal Skeptic Rant Skeptical Personal Development Skeptico Skepticum Skeptic's Play So long, and thanks for all the guilt! Societal (R)evolution Son Shines Zee 365 Southern Atheist Spanish Inquisitor Splendid Elles Spoliarium stacy, interrupted Stardust Musings and Thoughts for the Freethinker Stargazer Staring At Empty Pages State of Protest stereoroid.com Steven Carr's Blog Strange Land Strappado Stupid Evil Bastard Suddenly South Summer Squirrel Tabula rasa tales of an ordinary girl Talk Reason Talking to Theists Tangled Up In Blue Guy Tarpan's Blog Televangelists with Toupees Terahertz - From Physics to Life Terminal Atheist Thank God I'm An Atheist The Affable Atheist The Allen Zone The Angry Atheist The Anonymous Atheist The Apostate The Ateist Endeavor The Atheist Blog the atheist chronicles The Atheist Effect The Atheist Experience The Atheist Handbook The Atheist Jew The Atheist Mama The Atheist Resistance The Atheist Response The Atheocracy The Atheologist The Bach The Barefoot Bum The Blasphemous The Blog of M'Gath The Cat Ranch The Choice is Now The Chronicles of Gorthos The Conscious Earth The Daily Cat Chase The Eloquent Atheist The Eternal Gaijin The Eupraxsopher The Evolution Will Not Be Evangelized The Flying Bagpiper The Flying Trilobite The Frame Problem The Freethought Cafe The Fundy Post The Gay Black Jew The Gaytheist Agenda The God Complex the God-jeering ATHEIST The Godless Grief The Good Atheist The Great Realization The Greenbelt The Happy New Atheist The Happy, Religion Free Family The Homeless Atheist The Honest Doubter The Humanist Life The Humanist Observer The Huntress' Domain The Inanity that is Life The Incomer The Information Paradox The Inoculated Mind The Iron Chariot The Jesus Myth The Jewish Atheist The Labour Humanist The Libertarian Defender The Lippard Blog the LITTLE things The Mary Blog the meme pool The Mighty Thor The Mutt's Nuts The Nate and Di Show The Natural Skeptic The New Atheist The New Horizon The O Project The One With Aldacron The Pagan Prattle Online The Panda's Thumb The Passionate Skeptic The People's Republic Of Newport The Perplexed Observer the post-bicameral mind The Primate Diaries The Proud Atheist The Psycho Atheist The Questionable Authority The Rad Guy Blog The Rambling Idiot The Raving Atheist the religious atheist The Renegade Writings the right of reason The Right Wing Professor's Blog the Science Ethicist The Science Pundit The Second Mouses Guide to Life The Second Oldest Question The Secular Outpost The Secular-Man Blog (An Oasis of Clear Thinking) The Serenity of Reason The Seven Solitudes The shadows of an open mind The Skeptic Review the skeptical alchemist The Smug Baldy Speaks The Strong Atheist The Stubborn Curmudgeon! The Thermal Vent The Thinkers' Podium The Uncredible Hallq The Underground Unbeliever The Uninformed Suburban Housewife The Uninspired Manifesto The Untraditionalist The View from Here The Water is Poison The Word and The Golden Monkey The Zen Of G These Twisted Times They Promised Us Jetpacks and We Got Blogs Thought Theater Tidbits for Atheists Tolerance and Peace toomanytribbles Toxic thought waste site Trifling Ideas Trinity's Christian Dairy UberKuh Uncouth.net Ungodly Cynic Unorthodox Atheism Unscrewing The Inscrutable Uri Kalish - Urikalization Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy Velocity Inversion Vetenskap & F�rnuft View From Earth Villa Nandes Wanderin' Weeta WASP Way of the Mind We have a voice Why Believe? Why Dont You Blog? Wild-Eyed Atheist Boy Wishwords Without Gods WORKS WITHOUT FAITH Yet Another Atheist Blog Yet Another Blog You Made Me Say It Young Earth Creationists Anonymous Zen Curmudgeon Zen of Zero zenbullets

Blogtopia (yes, skippy coined the phrase): A-Deistic A.Word.A.Day Aetiology alicublog AlterNet American Prospect Americana Anal Iced Bible Angry Atheist Anonymous Liberal Apostate August J. Pollak auspiciousdragon.net Badtux the Snarky Penguin Ben Buckman Blog from Hell Blue man in a Red district Bob Geiger Bob Harris Bodwyn Wook Bootstrapping Andrew Sullivan Bronze Blog Buridan's Ass Busy, Busy, Busy Butterflies and Wheels By Ken Levine Celtic Chimp ChickenGirl.net Choice is Now, The Christopher Hayes Combat Philosopher Contrary Brin Crone Speaks Crooks and Liars Culture, Ideas and Comic Books Daily Howler Daily WTF Dark and Sinister Force for Good David Sirota de-conversion deadissue.com Deep Thoughts Democrats Now Disgusted Beyond Belief DownWithTyranny! Early Days of a Better Nation Echidne of the Snakes Evolved and Rational Ezra Klein Fables of the reconstruction Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting Film Atheist Five Public Opinions Flight Level 390 Freakonomics Blog Freemania FreeThought by a FreeThinker Friendly Atheist Fundy Post Geeks And Technology Geoff Arnold Ghastly's Ghastly Journal Gideonse Bible God is for Suckers! goldbricker Greta Christina's Blog HogBlog Hot Dogs, Pretzels, and Perplexing Questions Hullabaloo Ideas Indigent A-hole Informed Comment Inscription Instaputz James Randi Educational Foundation Joel on Software Jon Swift LAist Largest Minority Made By Monkeys MakeUseOf.com micah.cowan.name Mike the Mad Biologist Nation NonSequitur occRadio Often Right, Rarely Correct Old New Thing Only In America (Himself) Open Reading Frame Opinions of Doron Zeilberger Orcinus Osterley Times Pandagon Pat Condell Pharyngula PhysioProf Planet Atheism Planet Humanism Plognark Political Crank PSoTD Ramblings (Ron Murphy) Richard Dawkins Rosabelle ROTUS Rude Pundit Saint Gasoline Scientia Natura Secular Coalition for America Secular Thoughts Shakespeare's Sister Skeptico skippy the bush kangaroo SlowpokeBlog Snapshots from an Ordinary Life Stephen Law Talking Philosophy Talking Points Memo Techdirt. Thalesian Fools Think Progress Thinker's Podium This Modern World Thoughts from a Sandwich Tiny Revolution TomDispatch tonypierce.com + busblog TPM Online Truth, Justice & Peace Truthdig Unabashed Atheist virtual philosopher Welcome to Pottersville Wetmachine Whore in the Temple of Reason Wolcott's Blog You Made Me Say It ywut

More blogroll amnesty

ThePoliticalCat is a new addition to the blogroll (and the daily reading list), featuring "progressive politics, environmental issues, LGBT issues, social justice, workers' rights, womens' rights, and, most importantly, Cats." I like cats!

Blogroll amnesty

Rob Singleton has joined the blogroll. Rob is "the lead pastor and founding pastor of Southbrook Community Church" and runs an "evangelically conservative blog." If he's reading The Barefoot Bum, we might expect some... er... sparks. I'll put his blog on my daily reading list for a while and see if anything interesting pops up.

Evolved and Rational

Evolved thinks I would like his blog Evolved and Rational. So I took a gander, and right on top I see this:

Creationists are not only deluded dumbfucks who want to see the death of modern science and drag the world back into the Dark Ages (where scientists could conveniently be burnt at the stake). They are also cunning liars who are all out to fleece their flock in the name of an imaginary god.

I like it. I like it a lot. Welcome to the blogroll!

Mad props to a big blogger

PZ Myers of Pharyngula is a smart guy and blogtopian! Right on PZ! He's usually not explicitly political, but his progressive values are obvious.

PZ is a must-read for any progressive, if for nothing else than his vigorous and uncompromising support for scientific knowledge. So much of anti-progressive politics depends on lies, bullshit, and most of all, religious faith. PZ is a consistent anodyne for such faith-based bullshit.

Big blogs you should read — and a challenge

There are some truly progressive blogs out there that do stellar work, blogs I think every progressive should read.

I'd also like to challenge these bloggers to step up to a leadership role. It's important to generate strong progressive content, but content alone is not enough. We have to build a community, and you can't be a leader of a community by holding yourself apart and aloof from the ordinary people in that community.

In the spirit of Blogroll Amnesty Day I'd like to challenge these Bloggers at the very least open up their blogrolls to smaller progressive bloggers. At best I challenge them to actually read some of these smaller blogs, and actually link to content they find interesting and edifying.

We can't just tell the truth. We can't just demand common sense and ordinary human decency from our politicians, business leaders and journalists. We have to build a community, a movement of people who will stand up and shout that "we're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it any more". And stand up and shout over and over again; in extremis to make the nation ungovernable if our rights are not protected by our institutions.

And to do that, when the ordinary people do stand up and shout, the most respected bloggers among us have to answer. they have to say, "I hear you! Right on! Keep it up."

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans have participated in protests against the Iraq war. These protests have been ignored, dismissed, minimized and mocked in the commercial media, and hence their power has been almost completely undermined. Let's not waste the power of numbers in the progressive blogosphere.

It's not necessary to create an entirely open blogtopia (yes, skippy coined the phrase) a la skippy, Jon Swift, etc. But yes, it'll take work: The top progressive bloggers will not only have to work at discovering and describing issues, but also reading the lesser blogs to provide encouragement, support and community building. Writing about the issues is important, but I submit that this community-building work will be even more effective at actually implementing progressive politics, and it's absolutely necessary.

I'm doing my bit: I've started The Progressive Blogroll to collect the progressive bloggers.

The Rude Pundit has a wonderfully filthy mouth and an even dirtier mind, and is solidly progressive day in and day out. He tells us why Bill O'Reilly ought to be sodomized with a microphone, why Michelle Malkin Ought to Be Caged Like a Rabid Shihtzu, why Ann Coulter is a cunt (and all the ways The Rude Pundit wouldn't fuck her), the Rude One is the blogger for you.

Unfortunately, The Rude Pundit lists only a handful of blogs (mostly "A-List" mainstream blogs) in his sidebar and rarely mentions others in his posts. Fuck you, Rude One: Do you want our support? Then support us.

Orcinus is also reliably progressive, and Dave Neiwert has been right out front in his demolition of Jonah Goldberg's steaming pile of excrement book Liberal Fascism. Their exposure of Ron Paul's racist roots is second to none, and they've been consistently right about Christian Dominionism. Their blogroll is better than the Rude Pundit's, reaching down into the B-list, but they could do more to dig down and encourage the hoi polloi.

Dennis Perrin rants well about the current rotten state of this country, but he doesn't even have a blogroll [D'oh!] has a rather short blogroll. Come on, Dennis: You complain that no one is listening, but are you listening to the chorus of people who actually agree with you?

Jon Swift and skippy can't carry the whole burden for the top progressive bloggers.

Update: The Rude Pundit steps up! Mad props! Keep up the good work!