BEST OF SALON BLOGS THIS WEEK

Here are my personal favourite articles from the very talented writers of Salon Blogs in the past week. The topics are mostly political, and the authors of these posts are, for some reason, almost all female.

Different Strings‘ Kriselda is doing wonderful, thorough research on the potentially dynamite story that someone (possibly Karl Rove) deliberately blew the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame as revenge for her husband’s revelation that the Niger arms-to-Iraq story in Bush’s SOTU address was bogus and the Administration knew it. Part One is here, Part Two is here. Rob Salkowitz at Emphasis Added is also all over this story, and elaborates on Kriselda’s report here. Stay tuned, this could be huge.

Fiona at Spirited Digressions has a remarkable rant entitled A World of Lies. She’s trying to understand the minds of working-class Republicans. She asks some very important questions, and suggests some hopeful answers.

Vivion at Iraq Democracy Watch has been analyzing the attempted privatization of the Iraq economy and its impact on the industry that is Iraq’s major employer — no, it’s not oil, it’s agriculture. She explains the complete unreasonableness of a headlong rush to end agricultural subsidies and open up agriculture to large-scale foreign-owned operations. Part One is here, Part Two is here. More to come.

Dick Jones’ Patteran Pages poignantly summarizes John Pilger‘s Breaking the Silence program on ITV in the UK, about the chaos and devastation wracking Afghanistan, the West’s betrayal of that country and the rest of the Middle East, and the lies of Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice.

Rayne describes A Random Saturday, and One of Those Days, each with some very sharp and moving observations about life.

And World O’Crap presents a hilarious deconstruction of Bill O’Reilly’s interview with Condi Rice.

And congratulations to two Salon bloggers for well-deserved success: Julie at Julie/Julia has a book deal based on her blogged ‘project’ of cooking Julia Child recipes, and Claire at Life in LA has been listed by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of the world’s best blogs.

For other excellent posts from Salon and elsewhere in the blogosphere check out the new edition of Virtual Occoquan tomorrow (Monday).