Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Sunday Reading

By John Ballard



I've been busy this week with Christmas stuff and a variety of personal chores, and today I'm catching up with reading. Here's what I'm into...



Via The Arabist





The New Inquisition  I forget where this link came from but I printed it out anyway. It looks interesting and timely.

This morning's NY Times, despite the slings and arrows from all quarters, remains a weekly part of my Sunday reading. Today's How Obama Came to Plan for 'Surge' in Afghanistan by Peter Baker is a lengthy play by play account of why it took do damn long for the president to come to some decision about how best to proceed in Afghanistan. I have read through it once, but it's long and I want to read it again. It may be an administration plant, but I don't care This piece comes closer to an explanation of the last eight weeks than anything else.

At Maggie Mahar's blog there is a close look at the Mammogram tests flap, now in her second part, which I plan to read but not blog about. The issue is too complicated (i.e. requiring actual thought, attention to scientific details and stats, and an open mind) for a blog and too inflammatory for most readers anyway. I'm worn out trying to splain stuff to dullards and have come to hope smart people in high places will keep on doing mostly the right things. 

I almost forgot. Also in the Times is a cute story about four former governors across the country who are toying with the idea of re-running for their old offices. The writer must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with such a story, but it interests me because our own Roy Barnes is one of the four. He was an excellent governor but failed to appreciate how powerful the good ole boys are who still cling to the Confederate battle flag and retain an exemption for seat belt laws for drivers of pick-up trucks.

If any of this stuff is interesting enough to blog about, I'll get back with you. Meantime, I have a lot of homework.







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