I first learned of the existence of blogs, and began posting comments on Blog for America, blog of Dean for America.  When Dean lost the nomination, I begrudgingly began reading, posting comments at Daily Kos, because that is where all the action was, and because getting Bush out was more important to me than my opinion Dkos.  So it was always about organizing for me.  Then I found ET, through Jerome on Dkos, I think.  Or Booman.  Or some combination of the two.  Came to put my faith in Europe after watching America drop the moral high ground ball.  Stuck around and ended up writing perverse diaries and being encouraged to continue that madness by the sickos here.  I largely stopped writing those diaries, for a number of reasons.  But I come back for the intellectual debates and the sociological freak show and because to be honest, no one else is interested in my demented obsession with Russia and its male inhabitants.  

It may be a train wreck.  It may be full of Phd level esoterica.  It may be doomed.  I don't know.  It's often very interesting, though.  It's the closest thing I've found to one of those salons back in ye olden days, where egomaniacs and romantics would hang out and argue and debate and discuss VERY IMPORTANT CONCEPTS and indulge in hedonism.  I'm sure those were highly dysfunctional environments as well.  

"Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms." -Dostoevsky