Markos Moulitsas Zúniga’s "Taking On The System" is the playbook that state bloggers, community activists and Democratic activists should read to not only take on the system, but to replace it with a better one.

As someone who joined Daily Kos in the summer of 2004, many of the stories Markos – or kos as he’s known on the site – recounts are familiar. The success of our neighboring Virginia state blog in recruiting and pushing Jim Webb – now Senator Webb, of course – is a well-known story to those of us residing in blogtopia.

What kos does well throughout the 275 pages is to show how to influence the gatekeepers, shape narratives about the opposition candidate and the candidate (or cause) you support, and use creativity and truth telling to counter the right.

Eddie C and sobermom usually do the happy stories on Friday nights. I got to meet Eddie C and he's as great in person as he is online. I hope to meet sobermom in the future. Here's something I wrote for The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire that I'm crossposting as sort of midweek happy story diary (not intended to replace the usual Friday night diary).

Via BarbinMD:

I'm running for president of the United States, because I want to help with family values. And I think that family values are important, when we have two parent -- families that are of parents that are the traditional family.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there are several hundred thousand children in the country who don't have a home. And if a gay couple wants to adopt them, what's wrong with that?

MCCAIN: I am for the values that two parent families, the traditional family represents.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you're against gay adoption.

MCCAIN: I am for the values and principles that two parent families represent.

It certainly sounds like John McCain is not only opposed to gay couples adopting, but also single adults adopting.

Another cornerstone of the Daily Kos community is the comments written by its members—over twenty-three thousand in the past twenty-four hours. There were excellent examples to be found, so you can check out nominations from those of your fellow Kossacks who were around to read them in the past 24 hours.

If you saw any great comments that are not mentioned here, please link to them in your own comments below. The address of that mailbox:

TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")

Anyone can submit deserving comments to our address—the direct link to a comment is available from that comment's date/time—as long as they arrive by 9:30pm Eastern Time. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. Both link and username are important.

I began the top comment series because there's so many inspirational comments posted each day.

Here's a diary I'm crossposting from West Virginia Blue yesterday inspired by a comment on DK from Rolfyboy6:

Associated Press - no link for them - you can find it at the Charleston Gazette - is reporting Barack Obama continues to outraise John McCain by a 2-to-1 margin in West Virginia and has 4 times the number of donors.

McCain has raised nearly $121,000, including $32,300 donated in June.

Obama's $58,800 in June pushed him to $266,300 raised from West Virginians.

I got a few requests to repost this since I published it at 11:30 p.m. Friday night. I'm updating with some new details about my experience at Netroots Nation.

I arrived at Austin Thursday just in time to hear Howard Dean speak outside the convention center.

It was one of those moments in life where timing is perfect.

In many ways Howard Dean's work as a presidential candidate and then as DNC chairman got me there.

I arrived at Austin yesterday just in time to hear Howard Dean speak outside the convention center.

It was one of those moments in life where timing is perfect.

In many ways Howard Dean's work as a presidential candidate and then as DNC chairman got me there.

Jake Stump of the Charleston Daily Mail got it wrong about Big Oil's favorite West Virginian, the ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito in today's paper:

On Wednesday, the Barth campaign attacked Capito for taking contributions from big oil companies like Exxon and Marathon in previous years, though Exxon has not given to her campaign this election cycle.

"These are very powerful and controversial special interest groups that have hiked up our gas prices and exploited working families," said Barth spokesman Mark Ferrell. "This campaign will not take money from big oil."

Oh really?

Exxon Mobil Corp. PAC
5959 Las Colinas Boulevard
Irving, Texas 75039
06/29/2008 1000.00

The first hand George W. Bush shook was Sen. Jay Rockefeller's at the signing ceremony yesterday.

We talked about Barack Obama tonight at the second ever Drinking Liberally Martinsburg.

A Hillary Clinton supporter sent him $100 today.

Ironically the most ardent supporter of his I know in this county who worked her ass off for him for months, phonebanking, etc., hasn't liked his recent positions. But we'll still vote for him.

Today is the anniversary of our adoption of Lucy.

Short diary to thank Malia Obama, 10, for sharing her birthday with so many others in Butte, Mont.

I'm the father of a 10 year old girl myself. I know how important birthdays are.

Here's my birthday wishes for you. I'll be going to my father in law's later today for a cookout. You and he share a birth date with this country. Born on the 4th of July. And I'm going to be talking to him about you and your father. I hope both you and my father in law have wonderful birthdays.

In 2006, ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won re-election with 57 percent of the vote in a year that saw Democrats take over the House nationally.

Part of this diary was originally published on June 9 at West Virginia Blue.

My connecting train was late tonight. It was hot as hell and I struck up a conversation with three young men, two black, one white, at the station about the heat and the lateness of the train. When we boarded, someone warned us the next car down didn’t have air conditioning working so I went up to the second deck and all the way to the end seat where I could stretch out. The other three followed me up and I had the end seat facing them as they sat sideways.

The man sitting closest to me, an African American in his 20s, was muscular with a tattoo of a flaming skull on his left bicep with "Protect Me From Evil" written around it (the skull not the bicep). He pulled out a book, Barack Obama’s Dreams of My Father. His friends also began reading their books too though I could not see the titles.

Quick diary to note an idea before I fall asleep and forget it.

I was talking to the president of our county Democratic association about a couple of ideas to reach out to commuters and get them involved locally.

I guess that was still rattling around in my skull when this came to me.

The Barack Obama campaign needs to put out paper coffee cups. Here's why.

This is going to be short.

MsSpentyouth has a diary that you should read: Killing Alan: Suicide by Spreadsheet.

I've my own history of family with cancer, but her story is one that should not be happening in our country yet too frequently does.

I want to tell you a story about my father. And then I'm going to ask you to do something. It'll probably not be easy. You probably won't even like me asking you to do it. It could be one of the best things you can ever do.

On Saturday after I canvassed for our Democratic candidate Anne Barth in WV-02, I stopped at the Berkeley County Democratic headquarters. A West Virginia Serenade committee (tickets still available, see here for details) was discussing things and two of the regulars were sitting on the sofa waiting for Sen. Hillary Clinton to speak. Anne Barth and another volunteer had gone to work the crowd at the soap box derby and then were going to meet with a group at a restaurant.