Jim Elve of BlogsCanada gets into moderately high dudgeon over a book about lonely bloggers.

Dean Baquet stood up to the Tribune Co. beancounters who wanted big cuts at the Los Angeles Times, where Baquet was the editor.

Predictably, Baquet got fired last November for his troubles (publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson preceded him by about a month).

Luckily, his old paper, the New York Times, has taken him back as Washington bureau chief and assistant managing editor.

Note this graf from the NYT story:

In the Washington bureau of The Los Angeles Times, which will now be competing directly with Mr. Baquet, Doyle McManus, the bureau chief, said in a memorandum that competition was good for journalism. But, Mr. McManus added, “it will still be the N.Y. Times, still encumbered by that paper’s institutional weaknesses and still, even with Dean on the premises, an often unpleasant place to work.”

Democrat Al Franken has reportedly decided to run for a U.S. Senate seat in Minneapolis, the state where he grew up.

In doing so, he will try to defeat Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

Franken is currently hosting on Air America, but will be leaving that gig on Valentine's Day.

He gained some fame performing on Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s. One of his favourite sketches of mine was his mobile satellite uplink, particularly the one where he collapsed in the desert while covering Operation Desert Storm. A buzzard landed and started picking flesh off his face. :)

I couldn't find that clip on YouTube, but you might enjoy Franken's appearance on the Colbert Report.

Molly Ivins, the acerbic and irreverent Texas writer who came up with the nickname of "shrub" for Dubya, has died.