Housekeeping: The Rude Pundit at Netroots Nation and in a Book:
The Rude Pundit will be appearing on a panel at the Netroots Nation convention in Austin. The conference formerly known as "Yearly Kos" runs from July 17-20, and the Rude Pundit's panel is at 9 a.m. on Friday, July 18. It's titled "Different Tones and Wider Nets," all about profanity and tone in blogs, and the dais will be shared by a luscious array of left-wing practitioners of blogger: Atrios, Digby, Kevin Drum, Jesse Taylor, and Amanda Marcotte, who, as revealed here back in February 2007, is the Rude Pundit's hopeless school boy crush.

Also, the Rude Pundit appears in a new book from Polipoint Press called Why I'm a Democrat, edited by Susan Mulcahy. It's got pieces by Frank McCourt, Nora Ephron, Jonathan Franzen, Min Jin Lee, and Uma Thurman (really), among others, as well as an original piece by this blogger. No, it ain't a profound book, but it's like chicken soup for our poor, damaged Democratic souls, enough to get us on our feet again for the coming election.