When I decided to take up blogging again (I know, I know, I’ve been MIA the last few days), I mentioned that I’d probably be doing a fair amount of aggregating, which is nothing more than an extension of what I do for (to?) friends. I come across stories and columns I think they might want to read and send them off to the friend’s Inbox.

So here’s today’s aggregation tango:

SOMETIMES IT’S GOOD TO BE ANONYMOUS

I know it’s early, but I’m ready to declare the Albuquerque Journal’s ($ sub. req.) sports editor, Randy Harrison, as Editor’s Note Writer of the Year.

An anonymous writer to Sports Speak Up lambastes Mark Smith in a long paragraph about Smith’s alleged sins in arguing that Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari should be coach of the year. The writer gives no mercy to the idiot Mark Smith.

The Journal sports desk, bless them, allows the writer to spool out enough rope to hang himself and then drops in a gentle note:

“Whether Calipari deserves the award is debatable, but this much is not: Rick Wright, not Mark Smith, wrote the comment.”

At least now we know why it’s good to be anonymous.

(Note: The link goes to Sports Speak Up for the full comment, but I couldn’t find the comment that appeared in the print edition. This probably is the Luddite in me coming out. Maybe you’ll have better luck.)

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FDR and the COURT

A book review in The New York Times looks at a history of Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to “pack” the court.

Historian Alan Brinkley writes: “He proposed a “reform” of the courts that would, among other things, have added an additional justice to the Supreme Court for every current justice over the age of 70. It became the most controversial proposal of his presidency — so much so that it nearly paralyzed his administration for over a year and destroyed much of the fragile unity of the Democratic coalition.”

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DIANE DENISH AND THE GOP

A friend sends a report from Rasmussen in which the pollster says Diane Denish has a comfortable lead over everyone in the Republican gubernatorial race. Of course, it’s early and these things can and often do change, if Rasmussen is to believed, the Republicans have work to do.

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DAVID FRUM FALLS FROM FAVOR

Not bad alliteration there, eh? A four-bagger even. David Frum, former Bush speechwriter (he coined “axis of evil”) wrote in his blog that Republicans had only one group of people to blame for their troubles — Republicans.

Well, in the land of the ideological pure, you can’t be running around saying things like that. Frum explains how he got fired from the American Enterprise Institute.

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ERIC CANTOR MEETS MONTY PYTHON

What do you do when reality doesn’t square up with your propaganda? You follow the advice of Monty Python and RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!

Republican Eric Cantor, claiming it wasn’t just the right-wingers throwing their own violent party, said his office had been shot at. Took a bullet through the front window it did, by gosh. The shooter is unknown, but you know in your heart it had be an evil liberal.

Along came the cops who investigated and don’t you hate it when this happens. The police said a gun had been fired somewhere straight up in the air and the bullet came down on the window of a Virginia office belonging to the Republican. It didn’t even pierce the blinds.

So what did Cantor do? Held a quick press conference, took no questions and Monty Python’ed his way out of there as fast as he could.

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A CHRISTIAN CALLS OUT GLENN BECK

All right, so the Rev. Jim Wallis is a liberal. He’s still a Christian, isn’t he? Glenn Beck says any church that says social justice is important is a communist church. Or socialist church. Or Nazi church. Something like that. It’s hard to go in a straight line when Glenn Beck is being Glenn Beck.

Rev. Wallis begs to differ. The question for Beck: What would Jesus do? The answer: Not what Glenn Beck does.

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THE TEA PARTY TIME MACHINE

Writing in the Washington Post, Colbert King says we’ve seen the enraged faces of the Tea Party at another time in American history. Think the 60s. Think the South. Think the faces of those who would intimidate children at the schoolhouse door or Americans trying to vote.