Recently in Weblogs Category

One of my regular reads has decided that 21 years is enough. From Walter's website:

A good run: Overlawyered, 1999-2020
I published the first Overlawyered post on July 1, 1999, and I expect this post on May 31, 2020 will be the last.

As someone in the entertainment world once put it, “Leave before they want you to leave.” I appreciate the outpouring of good wishes in recent days.

My gratitude to all those who have made it possible, including the Cato Institute, which has published the site for the past 10 years. And especially to the readers.
— Walter Olson

A long and wonderful run - Good luck and God Speed Walter!

One of my daily reads - Maggie's Farm is celebrating their tenth birthday today.

A good comfortable place, great people and single-malt - what's not to love?

Go and read: Maggie's Farm

From the excellent Loading Artist.

Heh -- a site that catalogs old dead blogs that haven't been touched in several years but are still running in cyberspace.

Many of these are just an initial entry and then... nothing... Check out Zombie Dead Blog

Andrew Breitbart passed away suddenly one year ago today.

Larry Solov knew Andrew since they were kids and he has a nice memorial at Breitbart.com

Andrew: One Year Later

"The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
--Lao Tzu

The funny thing is, Andrew would give me an endless hard time for quoting Lao Tzu--pretentious, he'd say.

But Andrew did live larger than life--which made his sudden passing so truly hard to believe and accept. He was a flame that burned twice as bright. It was in his DNA. I know. I knew him since he was less than one year old. (Some pictorial proof below.)

But if Andrew's flame burned half as long, his legacy will never burn out. To the contrary, it will only burn brighter and brighter. It is one of love and laughter, of an amazing family consisting of his widow Susie and their four extraordinary young children, and of a friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

It burns in my heart and the heart of all those who loved him and whom he so deeply affected.

It also burns as his mission continues and expands at Breitbart News Network.

We are all Breitbart!

Davenport said: "I'm going to head off The Phantom here, who doubtless will show up shortly with some rant about how this is all FEMA's fault."

You really are DENSE woman. FEMA, while it is a clusterfrig of titanic proportions, could not cause this much misery on its own. Although they FAILED to have emergency generators at key fuel distribution points (read gas stations) and although they FAILED to have any kind of plan to move food and fuel to the affected areas, and although they FAILED to even have a forward based supply of bottled water and ran out last Friday, even these gold plated MORONS couldn't have frigged things up this badly alone.

Do you want to know why the power is STILL off on Long Island, Davenport? Read this here: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Sandy-LIPA-Outages-Power-Long-Island-Defense-Military-178115341.html

In it you will find reference to a report from 2006, SIX YEARS AGO, which found that Long Island Power Authority had not done the basic maintenance required to secure the power grid from weather damage. The maintenance they're talking about here is tree cutting mostly, and replacing bad power poles.

I lived in New York in the 1990's. I could have written that report. The f-ing power went off every time it snowed because they didn't cut trees and the trees ripped the lines down. They also didn't plow the roads, but that's a story for another day.

You want to know why they don't cut the f-ing trees Davenport? It isn't because they are stupid, it isn't because they don't know, it isn't because private enterprise is inherently corrupt, it isn't even because union workers are a bunch of rent-seeking layabouts. Its because every time they go to cut down a tree, some local Greenies get up a petition or a court order to make them stop. So they stop. So the trees break and knock down the power lines. Same thing all over the North East until you get up into snow country, where even the f-ing tree huggers know better.

Well this time it all came home to roost the same day, and every overhanging branch from New Jersey to Connecticut took out a line.

But don't get me wrong, there's a ton of corruption and scamming going on too. Paying off inspectors, hockey tickets for town council, that sort of thing. That's why all those flooded switching stations were within reach of a flood in the first place, because the money to move them was skimmed off by graft. That's why FEMA didn't have any forward located stuff, because it all either vanished or was never there to start with except on paper.

But now that there's been a disaster the LIPA wankers are screaming for crews. And they aren't getting them. You know why Davenport? Because volunteer crews from as far away as Florida showed up Monday before the storm and cooled their heels until Friday, didn't get any assignments because they WERE NOT UNION, and then those volunteer crews went the hell back home.

And FEMA didn't say jack about it, did they? Nor did anyone else. One phone call from Barack "The Golfer" Obama to the head of the union could have fixed that. Just one, single phone call. Didn't get made, did it? He made a speech on Wednesday and then flew to Vegas.

So, let's get this straight.

"A lot of us out here are fighting for our lives,� said Feliciano, 51. �A lot of people are desperate. They don't know where they are getting their next meal.

"We are fighting amongst ourselves here because we are tired. And we are frustrated."

A major disaster occurs on the outskirts of one of the most advanced civilizations on earth, and 10 days later there are victims walking 6 miles to find food?

They should have voted for Republicans. This might be a scandal by now.

Pay Up
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.

In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

"The real kick in the pants is that I don't even have a full-time job, so for the city to tell me to pony up $300 for a business privilege license, pay wage tax, business privilege tax, net profits tax on a handful of money is outrageous," Bess says.

The stor(ies) of 3 border collies, a photographer, & the Fantabulous, Flamboyant M(yste)r(y) Woo!

God Damned Teenagers and Their Pierced Noses Make Me Crazy!
The problem with young people today is that they all have piercings.

When I was a lad, we didn�t pierce our ears, tongues, nipples or anything else.

If we wanted to mutilate ourselves we took a job in the sawmill and let nature take its course. We punched a hole in a time card not in our face damn it.

God Damned Young People and Their Video Games Make Me Furious!
The problem with young people today is that they play video games.

Back in my day, we didn�t have video games. My friends and I had sensible toys like BB guns and bowie knives. Wholesome toys that instilled decent values and prepared you to be a productive member of society.

But these young people today�all they do is play the damned video games. Night and day. They�re burrowed away in their dimly lit basements, rotting their brains, ruining their eyesight and developing skin tones normally reserved for corpses and naked mole rats.

It�s insidious and dangerous. All this foolhardy �gaming� is turning them into gormless butterballs while, at the same time, deluding them into thinking that they�re actually capable of doing things.

Well I have news for them. They may be able to throw a 50 yard pass on the �Madden Football,� and kill a man with their bare hands on the �Splinter Cell� but turn the games off and these young people would be hard pressed to pick their own noses without an instruction manual, cheat codes and parental assistance.

The only positive is it keeps them off the streets and out of the way of decent old folks out for a Sunday stroll.

Here�s a video game they might want to try � it�s called �If You Really Want to be a Navy Seal, Get Off Your Ass, Go Outside and Get Some Exercise Junior.�

Check out: Fuck You, Penguin A sample post:

Swans are nature's Porsche drivers

You know, there was once an ugly duckling who got picked on all of the time by the other ducks, who couldn't understand why the duckling was so ugly. But then it turned out that duckling wasn't really a duck at all, but was in fact a TOTAL FUCKING DICK.

Take this world-class douche, for example. Everyone is just hanging out, having a good time, and Mr. "My wingspan is bigger than yours" decides to unload on the scene. Even his swan friend is embarrassed. He probably does it all the fucking time because let's be honest: that's just what swans do. Me personally, I wouldn't be caught dead with a fucking swan.

Definite drink alert...

Well boys and girls, it�s that special time of year when I need to wish a�
�Merry Christmas to every last one of you politically correct, worthless cocksuckers out there who have nothing better to do other than to waste perfectly good oxygen and bitch about phrases like, �Merry Christmas, God Loves you, and Napalm Sticks to Kids.�

Jim at Parkway Rest Stopjust got a transcript of Rob Smith's orientation session with St. Peter from a week ago:

Good Heavens, Mr. Smith.
St. Peter: "Good morning, Mr. Smith. May I call you Rob?"

Rob: "Sure. Rob will be just fine. And, who are you?"

St. Peter: "I'm St. Peter, but, if you wish, you may call me Pete."

Rob: "St. Peter? Well, I'll be damned!"

St. Peter: "No you weren't. These days we save the damnation thing pretty much for murderers, rapists, child molesters, crooked politicians, and, of course, comment spammers."

Go and read the rest -- it is perfect down to Rob's last comment. Damn -- I keep checking in every day to Gutrumbles halfway expecting him to pop back in and say that it was all a big joke. He will be missed...

News...
This is Sam. Rob has passed away. They found him at 2:00 this morning slumped over on the couch. He did not shoot himself and no pills or alcohol were found in the house. When I find out anything else I'll let you know. Out of respect for my family please do not leave nasty comments.
~Sam

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave
with the intention of arriving safely
in an attractive and well preserved body,
but rather to skid in sideways,
body thoroughly used up, totally worn out
and screaming ~ WOO HOO what a ride!

Rob, you win.

From the Florida Sun-Sentinel comes this story of a fatal car crash and the evidence that nailed the person who caused it -- an entry in their personal Blog...

Teen's blog confession forces him to plead guilty in fatal crash
"I did it."

Blake Ranking was a Eustis High School senior and still aching from a horrible crash three days earlier when he posted those words on blurty.com, a site for Web logs.

"It was me who caused it. I turned the wheel. I turned the wheel that sent us off the road, into the concrete drain...," he wrote as his best friend, Jason Coker, 17, lay in a coma at Orlando Regional Medical Center. "How can I be fine when everyone else is so messed up?"

Coker never awoke from the crash Oct. 3, 2004. He died Jan. 11.

Although Ranking later retracted his words -- deleting them from the blog and penning an explanation -- they came back to haunt him, forcing him Monday to plead guilty to DUI manslaughter.

And his 'retraction'

Ranking's blogs hosted by three Web sites, blurty.com, xanga.com and myspace.com, reveal a range of emotions, from rage for friends who blame him for the fatal crash to the joy of his 18th birthday. ("YAY," he wrote. "Now I can get a cool job, buy cigarettes, get a credit card, and order stuff off TV.")

Of his blog confession, he wrote: "People say I 'contradict' myself since I 'already admitting pulling the wheel.' I didn't 'ADMIT' anything. I went on a guilt trip, and I posted the story that I WAS TOLD . . . Nicole told me I pulled the wheel, I believed her."

The cops pulled a screenshot before Ranking thought to delete the post. I love his quote:

"YAY, Now I can get a cool job, buy cigarettes, get a credit card, and order stuff off TV."

Spoken like a true American Product. Stamped from the mold just like every other consumer. Jack in the 'individuality' chip to make them think that they are a trailblazing creative genius and set them on their way to bankruptcy and 3.7 failed marriages. And where have the parents been for the last 17 years?

"These bloggers have no checks and balances... You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at 60 Minutes] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

Pajama-Clad Revolutionaries
Bloggers get organized.

A year ago, Jonathan Klein, current president of CNN, airily dismissed the bloggers who dethroned Dan Rather. "These bloggers have no checks and balances... You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of checks and balances [at 60 Minutes] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing."

Web Site to Blend Journalism With Blogs
A media Web site scheduled to debut Wednesday will seek to blend traditional journalism with the freeform commentary developed through the emerging Web format known as blogs.

Some 70 Web journalists, including Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, have agreed to participate in OSM � short for Open Source Media.

OSM will link to individual blog postings and highlight the best contributions, chosen by OSM editors, in a special section. Bloggers will be paid undisclosed sums based on traffic they generate.

The ad-supported OSM site will also carry news feeds from Newstex, which in turn receives stories from The Associated Press, Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service and other traditional media organizations.

"We're deliberately trying to do something new by affiliating blog and mainstream people," said Roger L. Simon, a blogger and the venture's co-founder.

Scott Adams has just started a weblog. Dilbert.blog A sample post:

Nerdiest thing ever
What's the nerdiest thing you ever did?

I'm talking about thoroughly unnecessary nerdiness, i.e. the highest level of achievement. Recently I bought a projector that takes a signal from just about any source and shines a big picture on any flat surface. I hooked it up to my laptop and watched a wall-sized movie on my white office wall while I paid my bills.

You might ask why I bought the projector in the first place. No reason. I just couldn't resist the urge to project large images on walls. It's exactly the sort of device you have to acquire first and later figure out why you did it.

I was inspired by some friends who show movies on the side of their house during their annual Halloween party. All they do is hook up an X-Box to the projector, add a couple of portable speakers, and it's like being at the drive-in.

I watched the movie Alexander on my office wall. It is quite possibly the worst movie ever made. But if you project it large enough on a wall, the nerdish pleasure in doing so actually compensates for the complete lack of cinematic value. I knew I'd enjoy it because my aforementioned friends showed Van Helsing on their house last Halloween and I couldn't have been happier. The plot of that movie is, if I may summarize: Monsters get killed. That kind of storytelling plus a couple of beers makes for a good time.

Ever since I bought the projector, I spend way too much time looking for random, flat surfaces upon which I can project images should the opportunity ever arise. As I type this, I notice that my neighbor in an apartment across the way has the worst view ever of a big blank wall outside his balcony. Now I want to befriend him so we can sit on his balcony and project movies on the big wall while drinking tasty beverages. But I won't. I just like thinking about it.

So what's the nerdiest, unnecessary thing you ever did?

My answer would be my brief foray into PDA world. I bought two of them and have never used them more than a few days. I am using a spiral-bound book of 3X5 note cards for keeping track of stuff and it works a lot better for me.

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime.

One further word about that "imperialism" word: When, since our own Civil War (definitely an imperialist venture), the Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War, has the US Government behaved imperialistically? We have been mainly anti-imperialist in our military ventures: saving Europe from imperial Germany twice, defeating an imperialist and expansionist Japan once (with no thank-you from China), and attempting to save many parts of the world from an imperial, expansionist Soviet Union. And now, we are anti-imperialistic against a multi-national Jihadist movement. The Marxist propaganda, or Marxist "interpretation", does not hold up to reality.

Moonbats in Hurricane conditions
Wandering around, feeling the light wind and drizzle, a neighbor walks by.

"Well, it's this a bummer? I say.
"Yeah, it's a cat 3, gonna be a cat 2 when it hits way away."
"I guess this was all just a practical joke?"
"Yup."
"Something to sell a buttload of gas."
"Yeah, well, Bush wanted all that money."

Even under Hurricane Warnings, moonbats thrive. They must be stomped...

"Look, the man loves to be on his ranch. You think he'd give that up 11 months a year just to take shit from the media and all the people in the country? He's not brilliant, but he's not THAT stupid."

And I went back inside.

"Goodbye, farewell and amen"
Life's changes are always such that you never expect them, and they take a minute or three to get used to when they occur.

My life is taking a turn now that is forcing me to give up writing Ramblings' Journal.

I've accepted a new position that will preclude me from continuing my writings here. So I'm pulling the plug on R/J in order to focus on the new opportunity that has been placed before me.

Contrary to the opinions of others, I'm not running for office (I don't have the patience), nor am I joining a monastary. But I am turning the page on this chapter of my life, and moving forward. I'm very thankful for the friendships I've developed as a result of the blog, and I'm still going to be around -- you never know when an e-mail from me or a note in your comments section will show up to jab you or give you a thumbs up.

My Life as a...Gas Station Attendant.
The online journal of a man and his daily and weekly struggles with 40oz-guzzling vagrants, gasoline pump drive-offs, cantankerous coworkers, and eighteen-year-old gangsta potheads who don't think I can spot their fake ID's. It's a Tennessee tragedy, here for your amusement. Some names have been changed to protect the indolent.

By any Other Name.
There is a young lady standing in front of my counter; clinically speaking, a fascinating series of events is taking place. The twin clusters of cells that are my eyes are perceiving her dimensions, in their primitive and deeply limited capacity to perceive space and color. They are sending messages to the ancient, instinctive part of my brain called the amygdala. The message they are sending can be roughly translated thus: this is a female of your species, of adequate height, with large, bright eyes, indicating perception and inquisitiveness. Its round, full hips and round, full breasts, respectively, indicate excellent childbearing and childrearing capacity. Her colorful decorative attire suggests good grooming status, an excellent ploy to attract mates and keep offspring free from disease and infection.

The newfangled, oh-so-clever part of my brain called the cerebral cortex translates this information into other words so that I can comfort myself by thinking that I am more than a monkey wishing to pass on its monkey genetic material. It gives me a slightly more refined message: there�s a hot, brown-eyed, brunette, nineteen-year-old college girl with a unique, funky sartorial sense about her, standing in front of me looking to buy a pack of cigarettes.

Taking a Break
As I�m sure you�ve already noticed, I�ve decided to take a little break from blogging. I�ve no idea just how long this hiatus will last, but I need to take some time to "untether" myself from the Net and tend to more important things (like spending time with the kids, getting some work done outside in the nursery, etc.). I�m sure I�ll get the urge to blog again at some point, but I�m content to give it a rest for now.

A bum in a Google cap. Now there's a sign of the times, I think as he shambles toward me. He looks pretty much like any other tattered street person in San Francisco - long, windblown dirty-blond hair with a beard to match. Unbuttoned shirttails flapping in the afternoon breeze.

But he's walking with someone I recognize - Andrew, a dapper writer I've known for years. We stop on the sidewalk, and Andrew introduces me to the guy in the Google cap: "This is Jorn Barger," he begins. "Another homeless blogger," his companion finishes.

Jorn Barger. It takes me a moment to recognize the name. Barger is an online legend I've been following for a decade. He was the unstoppable Usenet poster who could carry on simultaneous debates about Ibsen, Chomsky, artificial intelligence, and Kate Bush. He was the keeper of the James Joyce FAQ. Barger's prolific posting made him famous, if not popular, in the proto�blogosphere.

Barger crossed over from Usenet to the Web in 1997 and set up his own site, which he dubbed the Robot Wisdom Weblog. He began logging his online discoveries as he stumbled on them - hence "weblog." I barely understood what he was talking about, and still I read him giddily. Barger gave a name to the fledgling phenomenon and set the tone for a million blogs to come. Robot Wisdom bounced unapologetically from high culture to low, from silly to serious, from politics to porn.

But unlike today's blabby bloggers, Barger steadily honed his one-paragraph posts into shorter and more compact bursts. By mid-2000, he'd shrunk Robot Wisdom into a list of links centered on a minimalist page. His style merged the ethereal brevity of haiku (another peculiar Usenet subgenre) with the restless topic-hopping of Joyce.

You get one life, and you should be careful to do something memorable with it. Maybe not this memorable, but memorable.

Richard Prendergast Raikes was born on January 21 1912, the son of an Indian Army major. Until his parents came home when he was 10, he was brought up in Wales and London by his grandparents and by three aunts, who hero-worshipped their seven brothers for having earned eight DSOs and four MCs in the First World War: two of them had died, one became a general, another an admiral. With the burden of family expectation on his shoulders, young Dick entered Dartmouth in 1925 to become Chief Cadet Captain and to be awarded the King's Dirk.

...In 1935 Clyde was sent to Palestine during the Arab general strike. Raikes spent several weeks fighting fires, evacuating a maternity home by a burning timber yard, and building an armoured train which, after two hours' shunting practice at Haifa station, he took over the railway system of north Palestine.

On several nights Raikes took this train to Samakh, near the Sea of Galilee, to keep open the line despite ambushes and derailments - "an enjoyable game of cowboys and Indians", he recalled. One night Raikes joined up with the Trans-Jordan Frontier Force and enjoyed riding on horseback at full gallop across boulder-strewn country by the light of a burning oil pipeline...

...Back on Malta as first lieutenant of the submarine Severn, Raikes's last years of peace were filled with dances, parties, moonlit picnics and running a stable of 11 horses for a Maltese friend, Mr Schembri. He also took part in trials to enter an enemy harbour at night while conning his submerged submarine from a tiny platform built around the periscope. In the warm Mediterranean, Raikes wore only a bathing costume, but the experiment was abandoned when, on entering St Paul's Bay, the sight of him apparently walking on water caused several local fishermen to cross themselves and jump into the sea...

Cubist speed sculpture by nature in Laguna Beach

FIRST IT IS JUST ONE HELICOPTER HOVERING, then two, then four, then seven. Up over the house here on Arch Beach Heights above Bluebird Canyon in Laguna Beach.

The choppers are all set on hover and they are not going away. How annoying. Call the police department to complain. "Why in the devil are there all these helicopters over my house?"

"Bluebird Canyon's had a major landslide. 20 homes wiped out. We're evacuating the canyon. Turn on your TV."

"Which channel?"

"All of them."

Wretchard at The Belmont Club has been having serious problems with his blogging software.

He has been using a backup site for the last few weeks. He found the problem and it is related to the number of articles published.

He deleted a few, added a pointer to his new site and all new posts will be placed there.

Old Site (archive of older articles) -- The Belmont Club

New Site (all new articles) -- The Belmont Club

Site News can be found at Wretchard I have updated my Blogroll.

Bill at INDC Journal talks about blog traffic and how some weblogs bait the search engines to trap unsuspecting viewers... Here's Bill:

"Debbie Gibson Naked?" Shameless!
Personally, I think that Wizbang's habit of cynically baiting search engines with posts like "Debbie Gibson Naked" is a horribly cheap way to bump up a blog's traffic numbers. As are posts about "Olsen Twins Naked," "Paris Hilton Naked," "Naked Debbie Gibson and Paris Hilton Nudity. With nakedness. And pictures."

Google-baiting is naked manipulation that artificially inflates traffic and strips the good names of women like Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Alba, Shakira, Charisma Carpenter, Jennifer Garner, Heidi Klum, Catherine Bell, Salma Hayek, Eliza Dukshu, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce Knowles and Angela Lansbury. And sometimes, they even post scandalous free videos or free pictures!

I'm sorry, but the three contributors to Wizbang really are the menage-a-trois of nude, naked sleaze-blogging. Real, live naked traffic whores.

Naked.

You won't ever see that sort of sexual manipulation here; INDC's traffic is all-natural.

Indeeed. Same with Synthstuff -- no cheap tricks like search engine baiting here... Some of Bill's commenters share similar experiences about people who do this: Here's one:

That's why I stopped mentioning felching, female ejaculation, snoballs, Denver omelets, looking for tina, beavers, or any sentence that contains the words "Slowly I mounted Oliver Willis' wet, quivering pussy".

Here is one more:

So what sets a google trap for chicks?
Tide Laundry detergent?
Jimmy Choo and Prada?
Hummels?

The nerve of some people...