I'm so damned disgusted with the brain-dead nastiness of the political blogosphere at the moment (things have gotten so bad that a once fair-minded guy like Glenn Reynolds now apparently sees no problem with approvingly linking to a piece that accuses liberals of actively supporting radical Islamic terrorism) that I've decided to step back from the whole discussion for a couple of days.

So here's an interesting -- and thoroughly apolitical -- link via Boing Boing: Tobias Buckell's "How much does a science fiction or fantasy writer make?"

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Over the weekend, Glenn responded to a related post by Ted Barlow over at Crooked Timber, and his reply contained this noteworthy passage:

But maybe the emails I get from Oliver Willis, accusing me of thinking that everyone to the left of Joe Lieberman is a traitor, reflect a broader view rather than, as I assumed, just Oliver. So, in the interest of clarity: No, I don't think that. I do think that it's unfortunate that the Democrats decided to make the war their big issue for the election -- I suspect that they do, too, now -- and I think that it was unseemly and wrong for them to embrace Michael Moore, etc. That's hardly the same as calling them terrorists. [Emph. added.]

I think Glenn is being completely sincere here. He really is offended by the Dems' "embrace" of Michael Moore. The problem is that we Democrats are being equally sincere when we say that the GOP's relentless pimping of the Swift Boat allegations was, to borrow Glenn's apt phrase, unseemly and wrong. And that makes it just about impossible to have a real dialogue. Any conservative who acknowledges that President Bush's numbers don't add up on Social Security is in league with bad people. Any lib who recognizes that the elections in Iraq went better than expected is working with the enemy.

Frankly, I don't know how we're supposed to get past this. The feelings are hard and genuine on both sides. But I do know that the blogosphere is going to be a pretty unpleasant place until we do.

UPDATE: Related story here.