Cracking down on bloggers

Light blogging today; real life calls.

But via Waveflux comes this chilling reminder of just how threatened the power structure is by the freewheeling world of bloggers.

Fortunately for me, I'm so disgusted by everyone that the Democrats might put up for the Presidency in 2008, I'm unlikely to link to any of them. However, what this DOES mean is that I won't be able to blog on whoever runs against the man I designated as "New Jersey's Official Vegetable" when polled by Quinnipiac last week, Scott Garrett, otherwise known as the representative from New Jersey's Fifth District.

The whole thing is ridiculous; the notion that linking to a candidate's Web site constitutes a campaign contribution. By that logic, so does a bumper sticker or a button -- and nobody's talking about putting a monetary value on that.

Yes, we're in Bushworld, where a link to a Web site is a campaign contribution, but huge corporate donations are "free speech."

The whole thing is designed to mitigate the power of blogs, especially at a time when the mainstream media has shown its determination to keep Republicans in power in perpetuity.