I was always discontent with the state of news, interaction on the internet and the general format of blogs. There was really no form of rectification or commentary within the immediacy of an event until SCOOP came along. (In the seventies and eighties you could subscribe to obscure periodicals such as IF Stone's weekly, the Watchdog, I think it was called, that debunked Reagan, the Center for Defense Information Bulletin sponsered by Woodward and Newman. You could get great information out of the NYRB sooner or later, as well as a slue of other mags- but you had to be a dedicated nut.)

I discovered SCOOP at Dkos because of the Calipari assassination. By chance. Jerome and gilgamesh were handling the story but I had to wait 24 hours to post. I began to post as rom wyo but I soon moved on to Booman's Tribune because I prefered the pace there. And pace meant getting reactions, feedback, comments. This is important not for the ego high but because it gives the sense of an agora- sure a surrogate, but worldwide.

So when I caught on that Jerome had something in the works I was ready. (I recall the European Tribune went on net by mistake for a few hours through a link.Then there were all those flags clueing us in.) The project seemed made for the inter-nationals like myself, people who for a variety of reasons have visited and lived in many a place, many a nation and tend to have a worldwide view rather than the Dkos States-centric vision. So I've been here since day one, off and on, as # 46.

And I'll be here to the end. I'll check the lights are out. Leave me the keys if you want. I'll drop them in the mailbox.