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My blog is worth $210,008.88.
How much is your blog worth?
For what reason, I know not. they are handling the economic situation and international diplomacy so well. What, as the boys would say, could go wrong?but this misses the fullness of the point: having conquered such relatively pesky problems as the economy and diplomacy, the ragged glory of the webbynets can no longer be tolerated, lest someone doubt the efficacy of the Temples:
Binghamton Gunman FeltDude, I can so relate to that. OK, so he's a Vietnamese immigrant who slaughtered 13 innocent people. But it says here "Jiverly Voong was angry about poor language skills and lack of job prospects." Exactly like a blogger with no linky-love.
'Degraded and Disrespected'
Browse around. Check the blogroll and headlines. Bookmark me. Add me on Twitter. Hit the tip jar.
UPDATE III: A commenter notes the Professor's "timely" link to an article about narcissism. Actually, I don't believe the world revolves around me. But that doesn't mean the world wouldn't be a better place if it did revolve around me.
For starters, I'm the guy who explained the principles of advanced blogwhoring (Rule 1) and reciprocal linkage (Rule 2) to the conservative blogosphere. In a single post, "How to Get a Million Hits On Your Blog," I thus jocularly* solved a mystery that had baffled all the conservative "Internet gurus": Why is the Left side of the 'sphere bigger and more effective than the Right? Two basic reasons are these:
If you're going to tell me what I should think about Afghanistan or the federal budget, please demonstrate why I should care about your opinion. What special knowledge or experience do you have about these subjects? American Spectator managing editor J.P. Freire says that the Right needs fewer Bill Buckleys and more Robert Novaks: More reporting, less commentary. He's absolutely right. But too many conservatives seem to have turned their disdain for the news media into a contempt for reporting.
Yet there's something else even uglier at work on the Right: Envy. Why do so many conservative wannabe pundits routinely bash Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? If it ain't envy, I'd sure as hell like to know what it is. Success should be admired, praised and emulated. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with Limbaugh or Coulter. They must be doing something right or else they wouldn't be successful. But some people always envy rather than emulate, and the negative attitudes of losers like that will inevitably destroy morale and make teamwork impossible.
People have sometimes called me a suck-up because of my enthusiastic praise for successful people, including successful conservative bloggers like Insty, Michelle Malkin, Allahpundit and Ace of Spades. In an atmosphere poisoned by the negative spirit of selfishness and envy, sincere praise is a rarity, and backstabbing criticism becomes the norm.
"For want of a nail, the shoe was lost," and for want of blunt talk about the problems of the Right, we have President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid. Some small bloggers -- including blogs that didn't even exist two months ago, as well as a certain pathetic Wisconsinite -- are now operating according to The Rules, especially the reciprocal-linkage Full Metal Jacket principle of Rule 2.
The spirit of teamwork has resulted in growth for these little bloggers, as Instapundit and others (including blog-fu master Moe Lane) have rewarded them with linkage. So as always, we express our gratitude to the man who inspired it all, Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, who now has a few words of cheerful encouragement for you:
Well, at least I'm not the only one. . . . Maybe I go about it the wrong way.Tell me about it. Smitty rocked a 'Lanche with his second post. Talk about humiliation. And then there is this clever fellow:
"But you are erroneously assuming the flux capacitator is calibrated for this type of environment. I would re-think the whole matter."Heh.
Of course, Insty kept my traffic at its normal bad weekend level, rather than letting it sink into the realm of "abysmal," by linking R. Stacy McCain, who essentially badgered him into doing it. Fortunately, there are "good karma" links to me all over McCain's page. We likes that.See, here's my theory of why you don't get 'Lanched, Attila: Dr. Helen is insanely jealous of you. So Insty can't link you, or his wife would get suspicious. (She's got a kitchen drawer full of knives, and he's got to sleep sometimes.) This is why you're the Kharma Queen of the Blogosphere. Bloggers who link you regularly get more traffic, because 'Lanching them is Professor Reynolds' way of satisfying his unrequited bloglust for you.
Here's the dilemma, though: if Insty keeps giving in like this, that dis-incentivizes the showing of restraint; Professor Reynolds is essentially subsidizing bad behavior, no?
[E]ven Brooks' facial expressions annoy me. As he sits there listening to the caller's question, his plump face congealed into a half-somnolent complacency, he puts me in mind of a fellow who's just settled down with his opium pipe and is waiting for the pleasant dreams to kick in.Since Insty's not linking anything lately except electric cars and Chris Dodd, everybody else who links here today will be celebrated with the 'Lanche suffix.
[T]he casual pleasure marijuana has delivered is orders of magnitude greater than the pain it has assuaged, and pleasure matters too. . . . That's why tens of millions of Americans regularly take a puff, despite the misconceived laws meant to save us from our own wickedness. . . .
We'll make real progress when solid, upstanding folk come out of the cannabis closet, heads held high.
So here we go. My name is Will Wilkinson. I smoke marijuana, and I like it.
"Hey, man, wouldn't it be cool if all the weedheads just came out and said, 'I'm a weedhead'? Like, a massive kind of civil disobedience thing, y'know. Because, like, they couldn't arrest us all, right?"
Our next case involves a real scumbag, "Weedhead" Wilkinson. . . . He's known to frequent locations where dope fiends play a board game they call "Risk." So, if you know anything about where this vicious thug is hiding, make that call!Why do I want Wilkinson put behind bars? Because he claims that it's "libertarian" to legalize weed. This is so atavistically retarded I don't even know where to begin explaining how wrong it is, but before I conquer Kamchatka, let me give you the capsule summary:
Legalizing marijuana will not “empower the state,” except financially, which is fine: it’s legit to tax marijuana, just as it is to tax vodka or angel-food cake. What it will do is stop the rationale we are using to put a rather obscene number of nonviolent people in prison.
You idiots! Show of hands -- how many people here have ever possessed so much as a quarter-pound of weed, huh? OK, now how many of you have ever sold a full pound of weed? How many of you people have ever been charged with a felony? Since nobody's raised their hand, please tell me what the hell makes you "experts" about any of this?
More fun than reading footnotes and less dangerous than smoking in bed.
mentioned The Telegraph's long list of societal accomplishments before the one hour dark age last week. They also honored the ransom note post, replete with cool graphic, and a post I did on classical liberal values, springing from the last of these itty-bitty roundups.Stacy McCain is fond of noting that many movement conservatives neither understand the nature of the battle nor possess the requisite skill to fight the battle.
...and then there were those who merely linked us once...
McCain's co-writer, or lackey (We still haven't figured it out yet.)my official title is "Porch Manqué" ;)
Is there anyone out here worth a damn who hasn't realized this has been going on? And I believe it's impact is vastly over-rated by AB.+5 Insightful
Someone needs to stand up for liberty, and do it in the context of real societies, not Heinlein's loonies. It'd be nice to see conservatives take up that mantle.But will AL be at a Tea Party in a week and a half?
He had me nodding my head in agreement until he came out with, "...a prominent conservative fighter like Limbaugh or Ann Coulter."Hmmm. They're certainly both capitalists, and given to saying/writing things to make a buck. I might not always appreciate their style, but I'm not sure what substantial argument exists showing either one has demagogic tendencies.
Demagogues like Limbaugh and Coulter are not "conservatives". Not unlike the one person McCain spends the bulk of that post demonizing, David Brooks, these media figures have no real ideology or agenda beyond their wallets.
Demagogues like Limbaugh and Coulter are not "conservatives." . . . [T]hese media figures have no real ideology or agenda beyond their wallets. It's the tragedy of the century that true conservatives have had their party hijacked by such loudmouthed jackals.Well, who are "true conservatives"? And who are the "true conservative" spokesmen who are not "demagogues"? What is it about the "loudmouthed jackals" that makes them offensive to "true conservatives" like yourself?
"Over and over, we find ourselves fighting what is essentially a defensive battle against the forces of organized radicalism who insist that 'social justice' requires that we grant their latest demand. We know, however, that their latest demand is never their last demand. Grant the radicals everything they demand today, and tomorrow they will return with new demands that they insist are urgently necessary to satisfy the requirements of social justice."
In full wingnuterry, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had some crazy things to say to the Bachmann-friendly site Atlas Shrugs.He then goes on to attempt a take-down. Atlas Shrugs, on the other hand, is spot-on. I'm not a betting man. Were I, I'm, confident Pamela would be drinking Alan's milkshake, if things got down to brass tacks. Just saying.
Right. Merely by not wanting the baby, a woman empowers herself to use deadly force. Her will alone is sovereign, and all other considerations must yield. Professor Colb, how do you sleep?Particularly at the later stages of pregnancy, the right to abortion does not protect an interest in killing a fetus as such. What it protects instead is the woman's interest in not being physically, internally occupied by another creature against her will, the same interest that explains the right to use deadly force, if necessary, to stop a rapist. Though the fetus is innocent of any intentional wrongdoing and the rapist is not, the woman's interest in repelling an unwanted physical intrusion is quite similar.
Yeah, I know what you're saying: This Carolina girl is probably about the same age as my own redheaded collegiate daughter. Shut up, Dr. Freud! Rule 5 is a commercial principle and I am a professional blogger. Readers grateful for the high-quality entertainment can ease my conscience by hitting the tip jar. (This includes my brother-in-law, Donovan. Help me out here, buddy.)
I'm a great believer in looking forwards than looking backwards.While I don't think anyone will ever succeed in making George W. Bush look a genius as a public speaker, Barak Obama's efforts in this regard are certainly worthy of respect.
Speaking as one of those conservative reformers, I'd make two points. First, nobody was saying that tax cuts couldn't potentially become politically salient again if the Republicans got clobbered repeatedly at the polls and a sizable Democratic majority enacted large tax increases. The point - which Reihan and I started making in 2005, back when the GOP's hold on government still seemed reasonably strong - was that it would be nice to prevent that sort of thing from happening, and that an anti-tax message alone was insufficient to the task of forestalling a Republican collapse. In this regard, I don't feel like our obituary was premature; I think it's been largely vindicated by events.Amidst this self congratulatory talk, what were you and Reihan peddling in '05? (emphasis mine)
The third possibility--and the best, both for the party and the country as a whole--would be to take the "big-government conservatism" vision that George W. Bush and Karl Rove have hinted at but failed to develop, and give it coherence and sustainability. This wouldn't mean an abandonment of small-government objectives, but it would mean recognizing that these objectives--individual initiative, social mobility, economic freedom--seem to be slipping away from many less-well-off Americans, and that serving the interests of these voters means talking about economic insecurity as well as about self-reliance. It would mean recognizing that you can't have an "ownership society" in a nation where too many Americans owe far more than they own. It would mean matching the culture war rhetoric of family values with an economic policy that places the two-parent family--the institution best capable of providing cultural stability and economic security--at the heart of the GOP agenda.Ross, are you one of those Conservatives Unusally Neighborly Towards Socialism? A RINO, as it were? If you have Conservative hair #1 where it matters, tell me how you interpret the 10th Amendment, and whether any of the CBO charts so conveniently hosted by Mr. Perot mean anything to you. If the citizens of a state want their government 'serving the[ir] interests', that may be fine. But the Freddie/Fannie nonsense cannot be seen as something the Framers would support.
The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where gay marriage is legal.The court's ruling begins, bizarrely, by praising the character of the plaintiffs:
In its decision, the court upheld a 2007 district court judge's ruling that the law violates the state constitution. It strikes the language from Iowa code limiting marriage to only between a man a woman.
Like most Iowans, they are responsible, caring, and productive individuals. They maintain important jobs, or are retired, and are contributing, benevolent members of their communities.Can you say "non sequitur," boys and girls? Whether they were drug addicts or unemployed truck drivers, this is no measure of their rights. Will update with more.
Enjoy the last few years left of discriminating against gays 'cuz them days is almost gone. . . . Homophobia is on a short list of acceptable bigotries. But it's fading fast.This is the attitude of an elite that is about to impose its will on the reluctant masses. Debra Dickerson sees that her opinion -- that pathological "homophobia" is the only reason why gay marriage is not legal -- is shared by her fellow members of the elite, including the legal establishment. They have the power to make their opinion law, and Dickerson's scoffing at the masses is the elite exulting in its own power: "Hahaha, you ignorant rubes can't stop us!"
Many leading organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America, weighed the available research and supported the conclusion that gay and lesbian parents are as effective as heterosexual parents in raising children.Argumentum ad verecundiam -- the appeal to authority, in this case the authority of "many leading organizations" in the social sciences. One of the dirty little secrets of social science is that it is possible to "prove" anything, if you're willing to accept shoddy methodology.
As always, there is a backlash against civil equality. But the process of removing basic constitutional rights by amending the constitution to strip a specified minority of such rights is, understandably, an onerous process."Civil equality" -- what a heavy freight Sully wishes those two little words to carry! He refers to proposals by conservatives to pass a state constitutional amendment to prevent the court from imposing its will on Iowans.
Are men and women equal in the fullest sense of the word? If so, then equality implies fungibility -- the two things are interchangeable and one may be substituted for the other in any circumstance whatsoever. (La mort à la différence!) Therefore, it is of no consequence whether I marry a woman or a man. . . .Andrew Sullivan is as free to marry a woman as I am, and I am prohibited (at least by the laws of my state) from marrying a man just as Sullivan is. We are, therefore, fully equal under the law, the only difference being that he desires to be married to a man and I do not. His desire for legal endorsement of his preference is thwarted, although his civil liberty is uninfringed.
This is why so many of those who would defend traditional marriage find themselves unable to form a coherent argument, because traditional marriage is based on the assumption that men and women are fundamentally different, and hence, unequal. Traditional marriage assumes a complementarity of the sexes that becomes absurd if you deny that "man" and "woman" define intrinsic traits, functions, roles.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.The infamous anti-Christ, whose name is the mystery number "666," is exercises religious, political and economic authority. Either you worship and obey the Beast, or you will be denied even the right to buy and sell. Therefore I conceive it the duty of every faithful Christian to oppose every expansion of governmental economic power.
-- Rev. 13:16-17
"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up."Now, what I believe to be the truth about gay rights may be offensive to some of those who agree with me about economics, but I would forfeit my self-respect if I didn't write about social issues as ruthlessly as I write everything else. If you are a gay person who thinks that I "hate" or "fear" you because I disagree with you on such issues, you must ask yourself, "Who told me this? Who told me that anyone who disagrees with the gay-rights agenda is a hateful bigot? And if I see evidence to the contrary, should I trust my own experience or should I continue to trust what I have been told?"
C'mon - what kind of a country are we if liberals can't launch another grand social experiment on the backs of the black community?Meanwhile, a clever variation on the "progress" fallacy in the comments:
As someone said, gay marriage is less a moral issue than a generational one. And you're on the wrong end of the generational divide.All the cool kids are for same-sex marriage! This combines the "progress" fallacy with the "bandwagon" fallacy, neither of which is persuasive to sober minds. Even if the syllogism were valid (it's not), the premise is flawed.
Founder Robert Applebaum told BusinessWeek that after graduating from law school and earning a salary too low to make payments, his student debt load has grown to $100,000. "Despite having a law degree, I'm middle class and I don't have any money at all,"If there's a real feature in all this economic mess, it's that we can get past this class warfare by amputating the cash from all wallets. Materialism is a lousy life extender, anyway.
I don't think it's possible to believe [the gay rights agenda threatens traditional families] without, at some level, engaging in homophobia - literally an irrational and exaggerated fear that the gay somehow always obliterates the straight, or that 2 percent somehow always controls the fate of 98 percent.Sullivan's finger-pointing j'accuse is enthusiastically endorsed by Coates, of course. Amazing how these "intellectuals" -- including Sullivan, who pretends to the humlity of Oakeshott -- just know these things, eh? To oppose their politics is to be guilty of bigotry, per se, with them acting as judge, jury and executioner.
This is where paranoia and panic take over. It is where homophobia most feels like anti-Semitism.
You see, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess, that [the English] are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. . . . Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.The accustomed habits of a society are not to be cast away willy-nilly merely because some radicals conspire to convince us that innocent people are victimized by our traditions. As to the 2% versue the 98% of which Sullivan speaks, should the tail wag the dog? Ought one of our most fundamental institutions be redefined on behalf of the minority of gays who seek legal recognition for their couplings?
"Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining."The discourse Sully means to have with us:
-- The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976)
Sully: You're stupid.He does not argue in good faith. We have on our side ancient tradition and religious orthodoxy. He has on his side the prestige of the intellectual elite. Ergo, we are ignorant rabble, and he is so infinitely superior to us that he can insult us with impunity, and we dare not even take notice of the insult.
Us: Excuse me?
Sully: You're mentally ill, too.
Us: What the . . .?
Sully: Hatemonger!
Us: Boy, I'm about to whup you.
Sully: Fascist!
But this is an issue, like race, whose time has come. Enjoy the last few years left of discriminating against gays 'cuz them days is almost gone.To quote Burke again:
It's hard out there for a bigot. Homophobia is on a short list of acceptable bigotries. But it's fading fast.
We know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government.Or, to quote G.K. Chesterton:
My attitude toward progress has passed from antagonism to boredom. I have long ceased to argue with people who prefer Thursday to Wednesday because it is Thursday.Truth is a durable commodity. Of course, Burke and Chesterton were intractable homophobes, which is why they are so morally and intellectually inferior to Andrew Sullivan.
Lindsay Lohan's Bahamas bikini gallery is the Eye Candy Link O' Th' Day over at Conservative Grapevine, where John Hawkins seems to have the same idea as me: Not only does Rule 5 boost traffic, but it's also a morale-booster for the troops in the war of ideas, like Bob Hope bringing Racquel Welch and Joey Heatherton along for the USO show in Saigon.
