Speaking of travesties, I've refrained from using Glenn's comments threads to bash the atrocious site design mutation.

I invite those who remain infuriated, or even disgruntled, to visit my Letters Archive to review a few thoughtful and impassioned observations on the subject.

If Glenn weren't obliged to recuse himself due to conflicts of interest, I'd appoint him Special Prosecutor to investigate the site's descent into SalonFugly. If not for the conflicts, Glenn would be the "Judge Goldstone" admirably suited for the mission.

It isn't just the fact of the esthetic shambles, although restoring the pre-Fugly Salon would probably be enough to shut me up.

It's as much the way it was, and continues to be, done. SalonFugly authorities have taken the exact authoritarian, top-down approach, as our treacherous Elected Misrepresentatives have taken while crafting No Insurer Left Behind legislation, complete with adding the insult of claiming "a mandate" (a preponderance of positive feedback) to the injury of wrecking the site while piously encouraging "feedback"-- evidently to support the illusion of subscriber/visitor participation in the process.

Many of us who were drawn to Glenn's blog got there because we're sick to death of being transparently manipulated and jerked around by powerful malevolent authorities; that's exactly how the mutation into SalonFugly has been perpetrated. Even getting such a huge fix of pure irony, gratis, isn't enough to mollify my justifiable outrage.

Apart from SalonFugly's Amerikan-government level of bad faith, which is pretty much the worst bad-faith on the planet, this debacle has also raised the issue of just how much we website-rats are entitled to know about the mechanics and dynamics, including business dynamics, of web site operation. Although technically ignorant, I've learned enough by osmosis to understand that "clicks matter" to bloggers.

I also suspect that the new proliferation of odious and abominable "[dis]continue reading" links provide a way to actually track and monitor visits-- not necessarily to compile individual blogging histories, but as part of a constant automated revision process.

So far, I've coped with the hideous transmogrification by amping up AdBlock-- I don't dare use script-blocking software, because navigation is impossible without it. I doggedly check the sites I usually check. And I'm not in the least Making an Effort to be a Good SalonFuglyite and study the new Rules to improve my Playing skills.

That said, I notice that one of the qualities of SalonFugly is that everything seems to be in a constant shift. Previously, articles were rotated during the day, in the evening (Eastern time) the next day's articles are posted, etc. But now the changes seem to be more fluid, even constant. Old stories inexplicably re-surface, articles disappear and reappear like a Cheshire Cat, etc.

Yes, yes, it's a Travesty in Progress. But I suspect that this stupefying new kaleidoscopic effect is viewed by the Fuglymasters as part of the solution. All of this raises the interesting question of just how much we rats are entitled to know about why the maze is constructed, and food pellets dispensed or withheld, the way they are. I feel that I've been made hostage to technical/business agendas, like a hapless consumer parachuted into a Kafkaesque new Mall with ShiftingMaze technology to enhance the shopping experience. The merchants' experience, that is...

Frankly, I'd be pleased to see Glenn depart this newly-incarnadined stepping-stone. I think SalonFugly's management does its contributors a disservice by mugging intelligent readers in this manner, and putting contributors in the middle.

Oh, shit! I was about to sneer that SalonFugly could use a "Public Editor" figurehead... that's probably exactly what they'll do if the readership continues to rebel. That'll learn me!

OK, I just needed to get that off my chest. As noted, given the obvious bad faith, I have no reason to trust the "dedicated" feedback sites. Here, at least, someone will read my screed.

Luckily, I guess, the proprietor and many regulars have an inexhaustible capacity for outrage-- and we need it.

So, what are the prospects for our distinguished Congress passing a non-binding resolution declaring the trial a travesty, setting aside the verdict*, and denouncing the Italian justice system as objectively pro-terrorist?

*Settle down-- I know that Congress has no authority to "set aside a verdict", at least not another nation's verdict. But they don't know that. And even if they do, doubtless they'll be so carried away with self-righteous hubris that they'll attempt it anyway.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Congress responds like General Dreedle in "Catch-22", who becomes so outraged during a briefing at an officer who moans-- against orders-- that he instructs his subordinates to "take him outside and shoot him!"