Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was just about to turn thirteen, and had just become seasoned enough to go on my Boy Scout troop’s fifty-mile hike. First night at camp we built our fire, said our dirty words when the grown-ups weren’t looking, toasted our shmores, and began to talk about what we wanted to do with our lives. When my turn came, I said “by the time I’m forty, I want to have a blog that gets hit 750 or more times in a single day.” Which drew a few strange looks from around the campfire, what with it being 1979 and all.
Yeah, well, maybe it didn’t quite happen like that. But it makes the story cool, so what the hell.
“Well, let�s change that, shall we?” Thus sayeth Misha, the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, whom we were just discussing here yesterday morning when he came under a so-called attack by that limp-wristed lightweight, lefty blogger Glenn Greenwald. His Imperial Majesty Darth Misha was referring to the semi-official moniker of the blog you’re reading now, The Blog That Nobody Reads, and as the 43rd-most-referenced blog anywhere Misha is certainly in a position to change that wherever he wants.
And change it he did. This morning, the day before my fortieth birthday, The Rottweiler issued the following imperial edict at 9:09 a.m. PDT:
The Blog Nobody Reads?
Well, let�s change that, shall we?
LC & IB Morgan Freeberg has been digging into the differences between conservatives and liberals or, more correctly, “liberals”, since what currently passes under that label has precious little, if anything at all, to do with the actual meaning of the word.
We were following a trackback and thinking ‘hmmm� this is a bloody excellent post!’, and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three.
Here they are, and they�re all good. Very good. And funny too.
What is a Liberal?
What is a Liberal? II
What is a Liberal? IIIDamn. I wish I�d written those.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, about half an hour later I was checking out the Sitemeter stats.
Now we’ve discussed this before…you’re not supposed to want to know about Sitemeter stats when you’re serving up fare at The Blog That Nobody Reads, but we do anyway. Well hey, you get a blog started sometime and try not looking at your Sitemeter stats. It’s pretty addictive…anyway, I just did my idle, mindless clicking to the monthly-graph page and was about to click off to something else. In fact, I think I did and then I did that cartoonish “what was that I just saw?” thing. So I went back and looked. From midnight to that time, the traffic just barely matched all of yesterday’s traffic. I’d seen that before, and my experience was that it meant I’d been linked by something big. So I went to the “referrals” page to see where everyone had been arriving from, and sure enough it was all coming from the same place.
Just a week before, I had carved out some notes about how Pajamas Media had sent our traffic sky-high. One could say, then, that the Rottweiler’s purpose was self-serving on two levels: First, because the Pajamas Media spike on July 1 broke an old traffic record for us that had been previously set in early June — by — The Rottweiler. The puppy is known for a lot of things, but a modest ego is not one of those things. Second, because Installment Three of “What Is a Liberal?” has to do with defending — The Rottweiler.
But it really doesn’t matter. The Rottweiler can send enough traffic to whoever he wants, to break whatever record he wishes to. And defending the likes of him from the likes of Greenwald, well, that’s kind of like defending King Kong from Bambi. For the last nineteen and a half hours, we’re looking at about 700 hits, with just on the light side of 1,800 page views. A record? The “page-views” metric broke the old record at 1:17 p.m., and the “hits” metric made history at 2:06. That’s since midnight, measured against historical twenty-four hour windows. I’ll make another screen scrape this weekend, I think, after the slot has been closed out.
The words of the Common Sense Junction emcee are worth considering here. I’d like to think they’re representative of all the kind folks I’ve met today:
I went over to A.I. this morning for my daily Misha fix and he had found this guy named Morgan Freeberg in Fair Oaks, California, that has a blog, House of Eratosthenes. Freeberg says its “The Blog That Nobody Reads” but it may now become the blog that everybody reads.
Now then, why does The Blog That Nobody Reads care about becoming the blog that everybody reads? Why does it go to this kind of trouble to figure out who’s watching, when, according to the FAQ (Question #10) it isn’t supposed to care about such a thing? It’s all got to do with the allies. Because the things I have to say make sense, it logically follows that the people who like the things I have to say, are a touch smarter than the average bear. Even the punky-ass liberals who like to argue with me, by daring to engage me in debate, show themselves to be smart enough to cook up some arguments worthy of my time, or at least fooling themselves into thinking so. It’s about peer review, and it’s also about meeting some just-plain-nice folks.
I’m forty tomorrow. That makes me an old man. And old people understand the value of such things. This is why, if you’ve been paying attention, which is unlikely, you’ll notice the sidebar is much longer now than it was a few hours ago. Who was added in? Which among the recent additions came to be included as a result of this amazing record-smashing event? Well, I didn’t keep track…they know who they are. I even included the whiny-ass crybaby liberals.
Now, how many of the new visitors will be around tomorrow, and the day after? That is a question they, themselves, will have to answer. The Blog That Nobody Reads, will continue to pump out exactly the same content if they all show up to read, as it would if none of them came to read. That’s what we do here.
Cheers, Rottweiler et al. See you in the ‘sphere…
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First of all – Sitemeter is a total addiction. There will soon be a 12-step program for it. And I’ll be attending … if I can get away from looking at my Sitemeter stats long enough to go.
Second – just being a touchy gay guy, but was it really necessary to use “limp-wristed” as an adjective here? Just saying…
Finally – 50 mile hike? That just ain’t right.
- S & C | 07/15/2006 @ 06:44I don’t know Greenwald’s sexual preference and don’t care to know. All I really know about him is that his arguments are extraordinarily weak. The adjective also fits Greenwald because he’s making a theatrical show out of being offended by something, much like a straight man could theatrically pretend to be gay by waving his wrists around limply. The genuine measure of Greenwald’s horror, like the genuine leanings of the fop who’s pretending to be gay, remain shrouded in doubt.
Lemme see…I think the fifty-mile hike was spread over four days. It was the next notch up from the thirty-mile hike which was three days. There was some controversy involved in me being allowed to go on the “older kid’s hike,” and if memory serves I had pushed for it the previous year and was rebuffed. In hindsight, it seems to me the lesson is to the mommas to cut the apron strings, just as much as to the kids about how to survive in the wilds.
The good thing about the longer hikes is that the kids who smoke, and listen to their radios (iPods today), are going to stay home. If I had my way, all the hikes would be like that. Eight thousand feet above sea level, or more. Stop wasting time telling kids why they shouldn’t smoke — show ’em instead.
- mkfreeberg | 07/15/2006 @ 09:28You may be “an” old man (not from my advanced pile o’ birthdays)but my screen name is The Old Man. See why at http://www.dont-sir-me.blogspot.com. (Hadda get some advert in there, don’cha know)…
My son the Eagle (2001) never had a 50 mile hike, and the only one I ever did was in one day in Basic Training in 1969. We may be dinosaurs….
- The Old Man | 07/15/2006 @ 12:54