An argument was made at one of the sessions at the Va. Blogger Conference that anonymous commenting was wrong but pseudonymous blogging was not. It is a distinction without a difference, in my opinion and of some others there. I don’t regularly read the pseudonymous blogger in question, though I did just now and found his or her recent post interesting. Still, considering that many of the same bloggers in another session thought what they did was an important addition to the journalistic record, how would they feel if newspapers carried anonymous bylines in all their stories?

One lesson learned at the blogging conference: Authentication is apparently a pain in the ass. So unless I have a problem with comments, I’m turning it off. But I want emails and prefer no anonymous comments.

Which will lead me to a post about a discussion I thought was important at the conference. Later…

Bottom line: better than I expected. How’s that for a left -handed compliment?

Give the quality of non-bloggers there, it’s encouraging that the blogosphere is obviously having some impact. How? there still isn’t unanimity. There’s no question they can energize a base. Or more precisely, energize volunteers. They also clearly have an impact on MSM, with whom the relationship still tenuous and contentious.

Credit to Dels. Bob Brink (D-Arlington) and Kris Amundson (D-Mt. Vernon) for being there without seeming to politic. Clearly, Del. Brian Moran, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and AG Bob McDonnell were working the crowd. Only Bolling and McDonnell spoke to the conference and their general message: We may be Republicans, but we’re OK. (The conference was dominated by the left/progressives/Democrats/commies/pinkos/, take your pick.) So their goal seemed simply was to say “At least call first before you blast us.” Otherwise, nothing interesting. More on the other speakers latter as well as the workshops.

Funny, already at least one blog is trying to boost Shaun Kenney, as if it were a post debate spin room (though without any explanation to why).

[Former President Bill] Clinton, speaking at the [Tanenbaum Center’s] awards luncheon, said religion is a problem for both liberals and conservatives in the United States.

“For people in America who are a part of my political tradition, our great sin has often been ignoring religion or denying its power or refusing to engage it because it seemed hostile to us,” he said. “For … the so-called Christian right and its allies, their great sin has been believing they were in full possession of the truth.”

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that police needn’t wait after knocking before executing a search warrant. They can just bang down the door. And here is the supposed genius Antonin Scalia’s reasoning.

Scalia’s opinion focused on the guilty defendants who go free when otherwise valid evidence is thrown out of court. He concluded that that “social cost” is too high in relation to whatever additional privacy protection residents get from the “knock and announce” rule.

“Resort to the massive remedy of suppression of evidence of guilt is unjustified,” Scalia wrote.

Scalia argued that the law enforcement landscape has changed dramatically since 1961, when the Supreme Court first imposed an exclusionary rule on the states to protect against warrantless searches. Today’s police are more professional than those of 45 years ago, he observed, and there is “increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously.”

Never mind the slur against cops of the past, who apparently weren’t professional. Anyone who has been around cops knows that their objective is preserve the peace and catch the bad guys. The constitution is to be stretched as far as possible to achieve those ends. That’s not a knock against them. They’ve got a job to do. The courts are to be a restraint, but not to Scalia and four other justices. Look for the “social cost” of anti-discrimination laws to be next in Scalia’s crusade.

But my question to The Washington Post is this: What does the photo of the defendant in this case add to the story? If one is needed, wouldn’t a photo of Scalia or Breyer, who wrote the dissenting opinion, be more appropriate? Or does The Post bias the story by showing us the defendant’s mug shot.

Oh, and by the way, thanks again to the Senate Democrats who didn’t have the guts to filibuster Alito’s nomination.

That what Sen. John Chichester (R-Northumberland) called his party’s delegates in the House.

It’s puzzled me that the Kaine administration hasn’t had VDOT draw up a list of specific projects with timetables of when they could be finished if new funding was found. Instead, it has relied on vague assertions that we need more funding. Talking in billions of dollars versus hundreds of millions House Republicans have offered to fix transportation just doesn’t register with voters. They need concrete examples. Finally, this article from The Post’s Mike Shear and Roz Helderman provides at least a clear negative picture for folks in Northern Virginia will lose if transportation isn’t addressed adequately.

Even as lawmakers squabbled, the Commonwealth Transportation Board on Thursday approved a slimmed-down version of the state’s six-year transportation construction plan.

The cutbacks mean major delays for widening Route 7 and construction of a bridge over Route 29 in western Fairfax County. Other cuts included the Route 28 overpass at Wellington Road in Manassas, a nexus of traffic in a rapidly growing area, and the extension of Mill Road in Alexandria.

Rt. 7 goes right through Dels. May’s, Rust’s and Callahan’s districts. The Rt. 28 overpass would be in the 50th, where an election is set for August to fill Harry Parrish’s old seat. Time maybe for postcards to go out to their constituents telling them the price of intransigence.

Chris Cillizza had a post yesterday about Howard Dean defending his 50-state strategy. Interesting that the overwhelming majority of comments were in support of Dean. Senate and House leaders think he’s spending too much money on that strategy and not enough on the key ’06 races.

I agree with Dean. I just wish Virginia Democrats had a 100-district strategy for the General Assembly. In 2001 and 2005, Virginians elected Democratic governors, yet in 2005, Democrats didn’t even offer a candidate for the House of Delegates in 33 of the 57 districts Republicans hold. Gov. Kaine won nine of those districts and in another seven lost by no more than 45-55. But even in the districts less competitive than that, Dems need someone to keep the GOP honest. While they’re doing that, they might lay the groundwork to eventually win some of those seats.

But Virginia Democrats don’t think long-term. Wish the Republicans hadn’t when they had 39 members in 1991. Or in 1995, when they had 46 members and challenged all but 15 seats.

I wish I could see evidence of a long-range plan to challenge more seats. If anyone does, let me know.

“I can’t help but feel through eyes of a combat-wounded Marine in Vietnam, if someone was shot, you tried to save his life. . . . While you were in combat, you had a sense of urgency to end the slaughter, and around here we don’t have that sense of urgency,” said Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (Md.), a usually soft-spoken Republican who has urged his leaders to challenge the White House on Iraq. “To me, the administration does not act like there’s a war going on. The Congress certainly doesn’t act like there’s a war going on. If you’re raising money to keep the majority, if you’re thinking about gay marriage, if you’re doing all this other peripheral stuff, what does that say to the guy who’s about ready to drive over a land mine?”

… “How many members have in their life [experienced] putting the barrel of their gun on another man’s chest and pulling the trigger?” he asked in an interview this week. “How many members have experienced the chaos of a 3 a.m. battle, pushing your bayonet through another man’s body? How many members have wrapped themselves around a fellow soldier who just lost his legs in a land mine and you feel the last breath and he’s dead, calling in airstrikes on a village and walking through, seeing dead babies and others who are still alive, being with someone who’s been shot and you can’t move, you can’t do anything because you’re under intense fire and he dies right next to you?”

There have been reports in Iraq and Afghanistan that terrorists use the tactic of exploding a bomb and then when rescuers some in to help, a second bomb goes off to kill them.

Here’s what our ally in the war against terror did yesterday.

Tuesday’s airstrike occurred just before noon when an Israeli military aircraft fired one missile at a minibus near a busy intersection, killing two gunmen from the radical Islamic Jihad movement. Military officials said the car was transporting homemade missiles of the kind Islamic Jihad has been firing into southern Israel, a near-daily occurrence that has picked up in the past week.

Witnesses said a second missile, fired seven minutes later as a crowd gathered to help the wounded, sprayed shrapnel into the tin-roofed home of Ashraf al-Mughrabi, a 31-year-old barber, who was standing outside his front door. The blast killed him instantly, as well as his 6-year-old son, Maher, and his 13-year-old nephew, Hisham. Nisreen al-Mughrabi, Ashraf’s wife, was severely wounded.

Also killed in the explosion were three Palestinian medics who had rushed to the scene from the Mohammed al-Dura Children’s Hospital a block away after hearing the first blast. Earlier reports indicated that four medics were killed. Several remain hospitalized.

The story is buried on page A19.

Radicals Are Difficult To Disrupt, Official Says (Second Item)

U.S. counterterrorism officials say they are uncovering homegrown Islamic radicals in the United States who lack formal ties to al-Qaeda and operate independently. Those independent qualities — combined with the radicals’ ability to organize and plot on the Internet — make them particularly difficult to disrupt, retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In a hearing on the changing face of terrorism, Redd said the threat from homegrown extremism is a trend that was seen in the successful mass transit attacks in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005.

Ever think of what things might be like if we just focused on Afghanistan and never embark on this “crusade”? Given the Bush administration of the war on terror, I can’t see it ever ending. Besides, how will they know we’ve won?