Category: Blogging

Although I might be the last blogger to link to it, Bill Whittle’s essay “Trinity” describes the three principles that make America great.

It’s long, but it’s not Galt’s Speech long.

Paranoia is never unjustified, only yet unproven as true.

Good morning, and happy Independence Day to you all. I won’t say Happy Fourth of July because it’s not the date stamp that’s important today, it’s that it’s the day upon which our forefathers declared independence from a monarchy.

Some other bloggers have written some well thought-out tributes to the nation, so I’ll link to them in lieu of writing my own.

• Kim du Toit tells how the new European constitution differs from the United States’, and how that’s bad. Sure, the Consitution came several years later than the Declaration, but these two documents have worked hand in hand to ensure the United States endures.

  (Off topic rhetorical question: Were the years between the Revolutionary War and the Constitution a quagmire?)

• Kim du Toit also talks about coming to America as an immigrant. He chose to come here. Me, I was born here by sheer dumb luck.
• Kim du Toit points to this year-old column by Eugene Volokh (of the Volokh Conspiracy) on National Review Online. Like du Toit, Volokh is an immigrant; his parents brought him to the United States when he was a young man. Volokh talks about his parents’ courage in coming to a new land, unknown to a family from the USSR, but that their leap of faith paid off as
  we Americans could have guessed it would.

• Jared Myers has a set of posts that include the President’s message to the nation this morning and the Democrat Party’s patholetic (pathologically pathetic) response. Start at the linked entry and read ’em all.
• Emperor Misha (another naturalized citizen) has asked, Explain just WHY you feel that this nation is the freest nation in the world and just what it is that makes it so. Many of the loyal readers of the Anti-Idotarian Rottweiler have.

So breeze through these while you’re having your morning coffee, but don’t spend your whole day on it; instead, I insistyou celebrate the day, the country, and your families and friends.

As you can see, I have redone my blog blue, blue, and more blue. All the more to emulate Andrew Sullivan.

As an added bonus to the new colors, we have server-side processing problems, which leads to things like throwing a posting under yesterday’s dateline and occasionally throwing in a server-side tag. I’ll get around to getting around those things one of these nights.

Tim Blair is crediting me with the idea of the Jake Ryan Beer Fund.

I had no idea I was so influential.

I’m also a contributor, too, so I recommend you stop by Tim’s site, see what the fund’s about, and contribute.

Go over to IMAO right now and vote for my slogan entry. If I win the tee-shirt, Heather will get it and will model it in a tasteful and suitably tasty manner. So you see, it’s not for me, it’s for Heather. All for Heather.

Hello, everyone. By regular blogging schedule, of course I meant as much blogging as I would regularly do were I to repaint my home office, which means disconnecting all computer equipment, moving all furniture, and covering the remainder with plastic sheeting and/or blue paint.

Maybe when I go back to work next week and can get used to coming home tired and unambitious, I can get back to my regular ranting. Until then….

Ah, after a much needed vacation (from the Spanish for vaca tiempo, literally “cow time”), the beautiful wife and I have returned from three days in Chicago. You’ll certainly be hearing about it.

At any rate, we should get back to a regular blogging schedule soon.

Looks like I am not the only blogger who’s shopping a book and who links incessantly to his wife. This pseudopsalms fellow does the same.

Why is my blog returning an empty html document this morning?

Steven Den Beste has elaborately posted about the meaning of his blogroll. You know, the list of links running down one side of the Web log page, much like that weird, currently-styled-with-checkboxes thing you see to the left. Den Beste describes his philosophy of his blog roll: he links to things he likes, his friends, and some start-up blogs he likes. That is to say, he puts thought into his list of recommended sites and does not just tat-for-tit exchange links to play link farm for people who reciprocate. He reads, vets, and really recommends the sites he lists. In short, he’s an elitist.

Hey, I know the feeling. It reminds me of a time when I was young, back in 1994, when I tried to start a little literary magazine (a little literary magazine is redundant, I know). Yes, the St. Louis Artesian. I’d started magazines in high school (Pen and Palette and in college (The Scream), so when I got out and wanted a handy dream, I seized upon it. So I gave it a go. No advertising? No problem. Labor of love, you see. No content? Uh oh.

I couldn’t get quality content. I said early I would never publish my own short stories or poetry since I wasn’t doing it as a vanity thing, and remember Brian J = quality (and scientists are now working on a new theory to prove that Brian J. >= quality). So I hit the coffeeshouses looking for the slam poets, contacted local universities for creative writing students, posted on the fledgling Internet, and sent press releases to every peer literary magazine, local paper, and media outlet I could imagine. And when the manuscripts started trickling in, they were bad.

I didn’t expect a thick magazine to start, but I had to stretch to find poetry or short fiction I would publish. I found myself writing feature articles and publishing my assistant editor’s sheet music to fill enough pages to call myself a magazine. I mean, I found some real quality material that I was thrilled to publish, but it wasn’t much. (Speaking of which, I googled my old magazine name to see if they had its home page cached, oh-but no, but check it out: one of the poets published in it has the Artesian on his C.V.).

An art editor, who had visions of the Artesian as a photocopied underground Goth zine, brouight in some submissions in his vision, but it wasn’t where I wanted to go, so he went. It was my dime, (or $400 every two months, almost fifty percent of what the real world paid my English-degreed self), my effort, and my name on the masthead, so I was not going to put in mulch just to fill in the flower garden and hope something came up. After a year and a half, I gave it up.

So I understand where Den Beste’s coming from, although I imagine copious numbers of blogger courtiers don’t.

Rest assured, when you click a link over there to the left, I do go to the sites listed as frequently as I say, and I shape my ideas with them. They are Brian-approved, and not just a underground-economy equivalent of a “Ad Space Swap Booked As Revenue” scam.

Overlawyered.com has acknowledged the contribution I made when I told them about the bad hairday that netted the sufferer $6,000.

Granted, it’s not a link, but it’s nice to be appreciated, even at the cut rate without-the-J way.

Looks like Pyroogle has fixed the archives somewhat. I am working to get them fixed up so new readers can see what I have been right about all along. And maybe someday–dare I even whisper it–permalinks?

In my defense, life with me is not as surreal as it’s presented.

Thank you, that is croissant.