We're gonna just try this...

Today and tonight I'm gonna guinea pig this Skype chat room wizard.



The image linky doesn't work 'Kay I made it work. The Skype widget to create an image link doesn't work. Also, Skype won't recognize my headset, whereas both WINDOWS (yeah, Windows.) and Googletalk will. NOT a good sign.

Anyhow, I'm kinda desperately looking and pushing my way into another blogger's business (sorry, Shakes) to see if skype might not provide a better alternative for her Friday night virtual bar.

So at least for this week (while Mr. BG is outta town, natch) I'm starting Blue Gal's Monday Night Salon. With trepidation, as I don't know just how much time I can commit to it.

I realize this means you'll have to download Skype to participate. It's your choice: the bloggers I know who use Skype do not seem to feel it's buggy or spyware-ish. If you have feelings about Skype positive or negative let us all know in comments. I really appreciate ANY feedback, positive or negative.

The chatroom is called Blue Gal's Salon and you can access it here.

And today we do have a topic, so let me get to it...

What would happen if we bloggers decided to go for broke and actually endorse Dennis Kucinich?

As John Harrison of The Largest Minority put it in an email to me,

What do you think of Kucinich, and what do you think of a blogger ring to support him? If enough blogs participate we could generate some buzz which would get picked up by the mainstream media.

I'm not exactly sure how we should do this (whether there should be one site dedicated to it, a special blogroll we all display, or a type of carnival we take turns hosting) so it'd be good to get some different opinions.

Personally, I'm praying for a Kucinich/Nader ticket, but that may be too far out there for anyone to get behind. If that ever happened, they might as well hire Hugo Chavez for their PR rep and vow to put Che on the flag. Not that I would be opposed to any of that, but we'll take baby steps to avoid frightening the squares.

Okay, I'll give us all a few minutes to stop laughing. Make no mistake, I've joked plenty about Kucinich, but always, always, with a sense that, 'specially since Russ Feingold's not running, Dennis is the candidate with the guts to be as liberal as we are.

My fellow Aristocrats and I even started Bloggers for Dennis which is totally tongue in cheek (note The Kucinich Army is one of the participants, yeah) but everytime I read the posts there I think, yeah, there's really nothing here to disagree with, ya know?

The only other candidates worth talking about (and I'm sure we will) are Edwards (who has made some good pro-gay and other statements but still, the trial lawyer's experience with bloggers still leaves a bad taste in my back tooth) and Obama.

There is a lot to say in favor of an Obama presidency, not the least of which is, if we really want to tell the rest of the world that Bush was a sick anomaly, that we are really changing direction, then electing a black man, yes dammit, with the middle name Hussein, is a definite way to do that. I also would like to see what America looks like when there is a 70% black turnout. Not that the so-called war on brown people drugs hasn't disenfranchised way too many. Just saying.

So I'm not suggesting that we temper any Obamamania. Just asking what would happen if we stuck to our liberal values for a few months and made a stand for a candidate (hopeless? maybe, but so what?) who agrees with us on a lot of stuff.

I'm gonna send him five bucks today just because, like me, he's got a peace sign on his top banner.

And goddammit I know I make fun of Elizabeth because she is such a babe (and of course I mean that in a fellow feminist younger smarter than a whip wife of an older guy solidarity way. Yeah.) but goddammit she allows comments on her goddamn campaign blog and good for her. I mean, hey, I registered.

Feel free to leave comments below, on whatever, but especially on whether the skype thing is gonna cause problems for you. I'm over in that chatroom today as I can be.