What the MSM does not tell you about violent crime. Surprise, surprise.

From Left Coast Resistance http://lcresistance.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-msm-doesnt-tell-you-about-violent.html

Tam, from 'View from the Porch' had this one. Political calculus: On Friday, Harry Reid said "When we had that devastating Katrina, we were there within days taking care of Mississippi, Alabama, and especially Louisiana. Within days," Reid said. "We are now past two months with the people of New York. And the people of New Orleans and that area - they were hurt, but nothing in comparison to what has happened to the people of New England." ...which is funny, because all I remember Democrats talking about back then was how slow the response was because George Bush hates black people. But that's not the important point, here. The important point is that now we know that in the Inside-The-Beltway mind, Sandy was far more devastating than Katrina, despite the latter killing 1833* to the former's 113. This provides us a handy metric for future use: If you live in flyover country, you're right around 1/16th of a real person to the bicoastal power elite.

Elevating my blood pressure

Tam puts it well. There are those whose priorities are WAY different than mine. If I need help, I'm not too picky about who I get it from. I would hope this is reported (it won't be) and the local residents raise hell about willing and able assistance being TURNED AWAY because they weren't union members. This is the mentality that is moving this country closer and closer to the drain we are already circling. Sheesh. http://booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2012/11/doing-jobs-unamericans-are-unwilling-to.html

Springfield Illinois columnist makes case for Obama resignation

Ted Rall, over at the Stare Journal Register, warns of tactics that are characteristic of a military dictatorship.

quote---
In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

---end quote

read the whole thing here

http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x124603932/Ted-Rall-It-s-increasingly-evident-that-Obama-should-resign

Health Care as a Human Right??

The munchkin wrangler sums it up pretty well.

http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means/

Still kickin'

Been a long time without posting. Others say what I want to better than I. I'm busy making a living, trying to keep others out of my pockets, and trying to raise my kids right. Takes a might of time.

Places I have visited and/or lived.



create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands

REMEMBER

From Operation:Mom, a poem:

REMEMBER

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.

I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He’d stand out in any crowd.

I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil
How many mothers’ tears?

How many pilots’ planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves?
No, freedom isn’t free.

I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.

I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant “Amen,”
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.

I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.

I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn’t free.

What a Tool

From ABC News: Al Gore's 'Inconvenient Truth'? -- A $30,000 Utility Bill.
Back home in Tennessee, safely ensconced in his suburban Nashville home, Vice President Al Gore is no doubt basking in the Oscar awarded to "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary he inspired and in which he starred. But a local free-market think tank is trying to make that very home emblematic of what it deems Gore's environmental hypocrisy.
Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday [Feb. 26] that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours. ...
[The Gore] family tries to offset [their] carbon footprint by purchasing their power through the local Green Power Switch program — electricity generated through renewable resources such as solar, wind, and methane gas, which create less waste and pollution.


Like most Democrats I have seen, it is this condescending attitude that 'We know what is best for YOU, [because you are too stupid/ignorant/uninformed/poor], but it doesn't apply to US.' Guaranteed to up my blood pressure each time I see yet another example.

Man's Greatest Achievment

Johan Norberg of the Wall Street Journal hails the true heroes of the last two centuries, not the bureaucrats or the state, but rather the people who have improved the lives of billions, the innovators and entrepreneurs. He writes...

Think for a moment about what this morning would have looked like if it were 150 years ago. You wouldn’t have had electric light, running water or indoor sanitation. You couldn’t have gone to work by car, bus or train. You couldn’t have used a computer, which performs calculations in seconds that would take decades with pen and paper. In short, you would probably not have found this morning very comfortable or enjoyable — if you had been alive to experience it. Back then, the global average for life expectancy was around 30 years.

We tend to take our opportunities for granted, but our ancestors could not have imagined what we now have. In the last 100 years, we have created more wealth than in the 100,000 years before that, and not because we work more. To the contrary: In the last century, work hours have been halved in the Western world. It is because new ideas have made it possible for us to work smarter and find easier ways to satisfy our needs and demands.

The people we should thank are the innovators and entrepreneurs, the individuals who see new opportunities and risk exploring them — the people who find new markets, create new products, think out new ways to handle commodities commercially, organize work in new ways, design new technology or transfer capital to more productive uses. The entrepreneur is an explorer, who ventures into uncharted territory and opens up the new routes along which we will all be traveling soon enough. Simply to look around is to understand that entrepreneurs have filled our lives with everyday miracles.

Entrepreneurs are serial problem-solvers who search out inefficiencies and find more practical ways of connecting possible supply with potential demand. In that way, they constantly revolutionize our economy, and have made it possible for average people today to live longer and healthier lives, with more access to technology than the kings had in previous generations.

Had this radical improvement of our lives been accomplished by political leaders and central planning, it would have been celebrated as humanity’s greatest achievement. But that is not how entrepreneurs are perceived, to say the least. For a hint of how the popular culture thinks of the innovators, take a look at any Hollywood film. Chances are that the villain is either a mad scientist or a greedy businessman. That is slightly ironic, since we would have neither film technology without scientists nor a film industry without businessmen. This is to say nothing of our political culture.


The ingratitude toward those who have given us almost everything seems strange. But perhaps there is a historical explanation. Wealth and innovation are recent phenomena. During about 3,999,800 of the perhaps 400 million years that hominians have existed, life has been a zero-sum game for most people. The invention of new technology was extremely slow and there was no surplus to invest, so the average homo habilis or homo erectus didn’t see an increase of wealth during his lifetime. What other tribes hunted or gathered, you lost. If someone gained, it was reasonable to be suspicious of him — because he probably did it at your expense. Under such circumstances, human nature, our instincts and our attitudes, developed.

Today we live in a very different world. The system of reward in the free market is the complete opposite. You don’t gain by stealing from others, but by giving them goods and services that they want. Our suspicion and our envy, however, remain the same. What was once a way to avoid being exploited by brutes, kings and knights now becomes a way of exploiting those who create new value.

So we are probably not well adapted to understand the modern economy. Whenever we see wealth we have gotten used to thinking that someone somewhere else has lost out. The history of socialism can be interpreted in this light. Marx said that the wealth of the capitalists came at the expense of the workers. But even in his lifetime, the average worker in Britain increased his income threefold. Then Lenin saved socialism by saying that the original hypothesis might be wrong, but only because someone else had to pay the price — poorer countries that were exploited by trade and investments. Today, once again, we know that the opposite is true. Since 1950, extreme poverty has been reduced to 20% from 60% in developing countries. The reduction has been led by the countries that have the most trade and investment links with us, whereas those that have been shut out, such as sub-Saharan Africa, have stagnated.

Later, socialists like the economist Robert Heilbroner admitted that capitalism and trade were superior for creating wealth, even for developing countries, but stood by the basic conclusion that someone or something must lose. Heilbroner thought the environment would. Today most people realize that wealth and technology give countries both the will and the means to deal with environmental problems, and that the worst problems are those in poor nonmarket economies — the fact that five million people die every year from unsafe water, for example.

That the anticapitalists’ particular concerns have been proven wrong again and again doesn’t help for long, because soon they find a new excuse to condemn free markets. The latest variety is Marx on his head: He said that capitalism is bad because it actually creates poverty and slavery. Today, critics say that capitalism creates wealth and freedom — but this is bad for well-being because we become stressed up, frustrated by the constant demand to choose, working too hard and consuming too much to keep up with the Joneses.

Don’t expect the critics of capitalism to change their minds any time soon. As long as they don’t believe in the creative ability of mankind or that the market is a plus-sum game, they will continue to think that someone, somewhere, is victimized whenever and wherever we see growth and innovation. Unless this disparagement of entrepreneurs is tamed, people will allow government, with its arsenal of taxes and regulations, to take their place.

Terrorists, simplified.

I don't think I can explain it any better...

http://hurricaneharry.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-negotiate-with-terrorists.html

Joe vs. The Progressive (from The Pubcrawler)

Relevant to Walmart and Maryland.

http://pubcrawler.blogspot.com/ from July 17, 2006
Joe vs. The Progressive
Joe is a poor man. He lives in a thrid world country with his son and daughter. He works at a local factory. The work is hard and he labors at it for 60 hours per week. But it puts food on the table, a roof over his head, and he still has enough left over to go school at night. It is a tough life but it works. He does it so his kids will have a better future.Then one day The Progressive arrives. The Progressive is shocked by what he sees. “It is unconscionable that this man is forced to work 60 hours a week!” declares The Progressive. Joe knows it is his choice to work 60 hours and that it was better than toiling away at subsistence farming. Nevertheless The Progressive pushes through a reform that only allows a 40 hour week.So now Joe is forced to take a one-third pay cut. The ends are not meeting anymore. However, his two kids are old enough to work some so he gets them jobs at the local factory. 10 hours a week each for his son and daughter and that will make up for the lost wages. After all, kids in subsistance farming families work all day.But it was not to be. The Progressive came to the factory one day and declared, “It is unconscionable that children are forced to work here!” Joe knows his children are not forced to work here. But to make ends meet the decision was made that they should. Nevertheless, the kids are sent home and Joe is faced with financial troubles again. In order to set things straight, Joe gives up night school. It is a tough decision but he has to decide between food for his kids and his own education. So he stopped going to school.Once again The Progressive has arrived and declared, “It is unconscionable that workers here make as little as they do and only have limited health care at the local clinic! The factory owners must raise wages and pay for more healthcare!” Joe knows that he used to make enough when he worked 60 hours a week and he used to make enough when his two kids were working. He also knows that the local clinic has always been a private charity. He also knows about supply and demand and that when the price of something is artificially driven up, the demand for that goes down. So he is not all that surprised when he is laid off. The reason given is that labor costs have risen and because he no longer attends classes.So Joe goes to another nearby factory to look for a job. He finds it boarded up. That factory left town and there are even more unemployed people there.Things have gotten desperate for Joe. He can barely provide food for his kids anymore. They are constantly sick. The local clinic is overwhelmed with unemployed people from the lay-offs and the closed factories. The Progressive applauds that the UN has come by as a relief agency and works with the local government to provide aid. But the local government is corrupt and the aid goes to government cronies and not to him. It is a terrible situation. His daughter now prostitutes herself for a sordid under-age sex tourism trade. His son couriers drugs for the local thugs who see to it that the boy uses the drugs too. Poverty stricken and heartbroken at the situation of his family, Joe succumbs to illness and dies.The Progressive comes to Joe’s funeral to comfort the son and daughter. Does The Progressive see the havoc he has wrought and beg forgiveness from Joe’s kids? No. The Progressive calls them over and tells them, “This is what happens when you let free market capitalism exploit you! If you will only follow my leadership, I will keep you safe from them.”And that is how liberty gets turned into government run slavery. “You can have our freedom if only you promise to feed us,” replies Joe’s kids.

Bar Bets (from Witnit)

I nearly soiled myself laughing...

http://witnit.blogspot.com/

Bar Bets
Many years ago, in my drinking days, I went to a small old Irish bar in Old Sacramento on a Tuesday night. I sat at the bar and ordered a draft. One table had three guys sitting, laughing and drinking. Otherwise it was just me and the gray-haired bartender. Probably the owner.
He wasn't in a talking mood. A baseball game was on and his eyes kept straying to the game.
Soon, a man wearing a brown fedora came in and sat nearby. He ordered a draft, smiled at me and lifted it in a gesture of friendly drinking. I raised my glass and drank.
He asked me if I was a betting man. He had a slight Irish brogue.
Not really, I said. Why do you ask?
Him: Well if you were I'd want to make a friendly wager with you.
Me: What wager?
Him: Oh, I'd probably bet you something that would be impossible for me to win.
Me: Like what?
He looked at me and said, I'd bet you $50 that I could bite my right eye. (The bartender tore his eyes from the game and looked at us.)
I laughed. That would be quite a bet.
Him: You wanna take me up on it?
I thought a moment. Seemed like something that would be worth seeing if I lost. I had plenty of cash on me.
Me: Okay, you got a bet. I don't think you can bite your right eye.
The guy took a drink, set down his glass, reached up and removed his right eye. It was a glass eye. He put it between his teeth and bit down on it.
I laughed. The bartender laughed. I paid up and asked the guy to buy me another beer. He obliged.
Then he said, I'll bet you $100 that I can bite my left eye. You can get your money back.
I looked at him. His left eye was definitely real. The right eye looked fairly real but I could tell now that it was glass. I couldn't imagine how he could possibly bite his left eye.
Me: Okay. You got me hooked. I'll bet you hundred bucks that you can't bite your left eye.
He smiled, removed his false teeth, reached up and lightly clamped them on his left eye, and then put them back in his mouth. The bartender and I both laughed. I paid up. Just another sucker in a bar who had secretly hoped he could someday make money off these bets. But I don't want to lose my eye or my teeth. I was down $150 and had about a ten spot left.
Him: You know, I have another bet for you...
I waved him off. No, out of money, but thanks. I learned quite a lesson and had a couple good laughs.
The guy just smiled, raised his glass in a toast, and looked at the bartender, who just smiled and shook his head. The guy nodded and then got up and shuffled over to the table with the three laughing guys.
The bartender looked at me, gave me a crooked smile like, What a character, and then went back to watching his game.
After about five minutes the guy left the table and came back over to the bar. He swayed a little, like the beers were starting to affect him. He waved at the bartender.
Him: I know you might not want to hear it. But I got an interesting bet for you.
Bartender: I'm listening.
Him: I'll bet you $20 that I can stand at one end of the bar, and that you can put a jigger at the other end of the bar. And that I can piss into that jigger, filling it up, without getting even so much as a drop of piss on the bar or on anything else in the bar.
The bar was about 20 feet long. The bartender stared at him. He didn't want to do it, but it was only $20. I'd have bet if I had the money.
The bartender didn't answer and the guy said, Tell you what. If I do it you owe me $20. If I fail, I give you $100.
Bartender: Okay. You got a bet.
The bartender set up a jigger at one end of the bar, and the guy climbed up and stood at the other end of the bar. He unzipped his pants and began peeing all over the bar. The bartender started laughing. The guy zipped up, climbed down, sat, and gave the bartender $100.
Bartender (wiping down the bar and still laughing): Now you know that that was an impossible bet. Why in God's name did you make it?
Him: Well, you see that table of three guys over there? I just bet them $300 that I could piss all over your bar and you'd just laugh.

Illegal Immigrant

This sums it up pretty well...

A Day Without an Illegal ImmigrantAn imaginary exercise.
By Tom Tancredo
What would a day without illegal aliens really be like? Let’s try to imagine it.
On May 1, millions of illegal aliens working in meat-processing plants, construction, restaurants, hotels, and other “jobs Americans won’t do” are supposed to stay home from work to show the importance of their labor to our nation’s economy. Doubtless, there will be some inconvenience if that happens, but there is another side to the story that is not being reported. We are talking about illegal aliens, not mere “immigrants.” If legal immigrants stopped working for a day, we would miss the services of physicians, nurses, computer programmers, writers, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs of all stripes, and some airline pilots…as well as the CEO of Google. That would be more than an inconvenience, but it won’t happen because legal immigrants are not out marching angrily for rights that are already protected by our courts. But if illegal aliens all took the day off and were truly invisible for one day, there would be some plusses along with the mild inconveniences. Hospital emergency rooms across the southwest would have about 20-percent fewer patients, and there would be 183,000 fewer people in Colorado without health insurance. OBGYN wards in Denver would have 24-percent fewer deliveries and Los Angeles’s maternity-ward deliveries would drop by 40 percent and maternity billings to Medi-Cal would drop by 66 percent. Youth gangs would see their membership drop by 50 percent in many states, and in Phoenix, child-molestation cases would drop by 34 percent and auto theft by 40 percent. In Durango, Colorado, and the Four Corners area and the surrounding Indian reservations, the methamphetamine epidemic would slow for one day, as the 90 percent of that drug now being brought in from Mexico was held in Albuquerque and Farmington a few hours longer. According to the sheriff of La Plata County, Colorado, meth is now being brought in by ordinary illegal aliens as well as professional drug dealers. If the “Day-Without-an-Immigrant Boycott” had been held a year earlier on May 8, 2005, and illegal alien Raul Garcia-Gomez had stayed home and did not work or go to a party that day, Denver police officer Donnie Young would still be alive and Garcia-Gomez would not be sitting in a Denver jail awaiting trial. If the boycott had been held on July 1, 2004, Justin Goodman of Thornton, Colorado, would still be riding his motorcycle and Roberto Martinez-Ruiz would not be in prison for killing him and then fleeing the scene while driving on a suspended license. If illegal aliens stayed home—in Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, and 100 other countries—the Border Patrol would have 3,500 fewer apprehensions (of the 12,000 who try each day). Colorado taxpayers would save almost $3,000,000 in one day if illegals do not access any public services, because illegal aliens cost the state over $1 billion annually according to the best estimates. Colorado’s K-12 school classrooms would have 131,000 fewer students if illegal aliens and the children of illegals were to stay home, and Denver high schools’ dropout rate would once again approach the national norm. Colorado’s jails and prisons would have 10-percent fewer inmates, and Denver and many other towns would not need to build so many new jails to accommodate the overcrowding. Our highway patrol and county sheriffs would have about far fewer DUI arrests and there would be a dramatic decline in rollovers of vanloads of illegal aliens on I-70 and other highways. On a Day Without an Illegal Immigrant, thousands of workers and small contractors in the construction industry across Colorado would have their jobs back, the jobs given to illegal workers because they work for lower wages and no benefits. (On the other hand, if labor unions continue signing up illegal workers, no one will be worrying about Joe Six-Pack’s loss. Sorry, Joe, but you forgot to tell your union business agent that your job is as important as his is.) If it fell on a Sunday, Catholic Churches in the southwestern states might have 20-percent fewer parishioners at Mass if all illegals stayed home, but they would be back next Sunday, so the bishop’s job is not in danger. The religious leaders who send people to the marches and rallies will never fear for their jobs, because illegal aliens need their special “human-rights” advocacy and some priests and nuns seem especially devoted to that cause. The fact that most Catholics disagree with the bishops’ radicalism doesn’t seem to affect their dedication to undermining the rule of law. All of this might be a passing colorful episode in the heated national debate over immigration policy if it weren’t for an odd coincidence: The immigration-enforcement agency responsible for locating and deporting illegal aliens is also taking the day off today. Of course, they didn’t call it a boycott. It is just (non)business as usual.
—Tom Tancredo is a Republican congressman from Colorado.

The College Girl

This was passed to me by my father-in-law.

This story may serve to help convert some liberals to the conservative way of thinking.

A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a liberal Democrat and was for the distribution of all wealth. She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, which she expressed openly.

One day, she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and more welfare programs. In the middle of her heartfelt diatribe based upon the lectures she'd had from her far left professors at her school, he stopped her and asked her, pointblank, how she was doing in school.

She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she had to study all the time, never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend and didn't really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying. That she was taking a more difficult curriculum.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Mary?" She replied, "Mary is barely getting by." She continued, "All she has is barely a 2.0 GPA", adding, "and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies." But to explain further she continued emotionally, "But Mary is so very popular on campus, college for her is a blast, she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn't even show up for classes because she is too hung over."

The father then asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off of your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0" He continued, "That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her fathers's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without and Mary has done little or nothing, she played while I worked real hard!"

The father slowly smiled and said, "Welcome to the Republican Party."

Can you sue yourself?

http://geekwitha45.blogspot.com/2006_03_12_geekwitha45_archive.html#114254094041740966

I hope this guy collects, then the city fires him for damaging a citizen's property and being a poor driver.

Greyhawk's guide to blogging

I am such a neophyte, I will eventually learn how to do this right. [With a lot of help, of course.]

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Blogging Greyhawk
(But were Afraid to Ask)
(Note: reposted in response to numerous "how to" questions received regularly here. Some of the links below may no longer be active. Feel free to leave alternatives in the comments section.)
Okay - I'll tell you right off that the title is deceptive. You won't find everything here. But this guide will offer ten fundamentals about which anyone wanting to be a blogger should be aware. Whatever your blog might be about, I think you'll find this info useful. This isn't about writing, or site design - it's about the knobology of blogging, the nuts and bolts, (hmmm, maybe nuts is the wrong term...) and that applies to everyone.
1. Get a BlogLets keep this one short. I recommend Blogspot for the purpose. It's easy to set up and get started, and it's free. Test the waters, if blogging is for you then you can move on to other things if you want. But lots of very big bloggers are still using blogspot, and most others maintain their blogspot blogs as backups 'just in case'. You don't even need to know how to write html code - blogger makes everything easy and is getting better all the time.
Done? Good. If you want to you can stop now and blog happily away.
2. Hit countersSo you've started a blog, does anybody care? Believe it or not, unless you're already well known your blog will probably not get 5000 hits to that "test 1234" post you did this morning. But you knew that. But one of these days you might post the Big Mac secret sauce recipe and everyone will be beating a path to your door. How many people will visit when Glenn Reynolds links your photo of Kofi giving Saddam food for oil, Kos links your rant about Bush being a chimpymonkey, and Wonkette links your photos from the coed Senate steam bath?
And how much should you charge for blogads once they do?
Get a hit counter - a little string of code you add to your page that allows you to see who's visited. Sitemeter is the blogger's "industry standard". (Hint: get one) I also really like the Onestat hit counter - it can't be beat. Click my onestat link in the sidebar (the round symbol below the sitemeter visit numbers). Check the features. Test drive. Once you're on the onestat page note the pull down menu in the upper left corner area, and the listed options below it. They're both free.
Don't lock them - leave them open for public view. They tell you how many visits you've had and they also tell other bloggers how many visitors they've sent your way. Don't get obsessed about either number - your visit numbers will likely be small initially, I know mine were. But they are of interest to anyone who's serious about blogging. Let's face it, we're in this to communicate, and these are simply letting us know who we're communicating with. I like to know what works best when I link to someone else - a simple "This is a must read!" or a paragraph sample followed by a "read it all". Lock me out of your site meter and I won't know.
Another option you might try is the on-screen referral log. I have that too, you'll find it farther down the right side bar. I often use the blog list there to find new sites I hadn't seen before.
Last important note: be sure to put the hit counter code on your main page template and all archive templates too. At least 40% of visits here come to individual pages from links from other bloggers. I know a few bloggers who are getting a lot more visits than they think they are, because they don't have hit counters on individual archive pages.
3. CommentI want to be the guy that 'discovers' your blog and sends thousands of readers (and other bloggers) to you, launching your long and successful career. Why? Because my guess is you'll return the favor some day. But how will I find you? Perhaps via my sitemeter stats, but another way is via comments and trackbacks.
Comments are easy and need no explanation. I began my blogging career by commenting at another blog. When Mudville started I had a handful of regular visitors who knew me from there. If you're a new blogger, or one who wants to draw a bigger crowd, leave comments at those other blogs that have posts about topics on which you write. Etiquette note: don't just say "Great post - I linked it from my blog here!" along with a url. Contribute something to the conversation and people will follow that url linked to your name in the comment back to your site anyway. Do this at enough places and people will soon see your obvious expertise - do it wrong enough times and people will know you're just a pest.
Besides, that "I linked your post" stuff is what trackback is all about.
4. TrackbackI get tons of questions about how to do trackback. The easiest way is to link a blog post to the 'permalink' below, and your blogging software does it automatically. This doesn't work for everybody. If you are using blogspot, for instance, there are no automatic trackbacks. Don't fret! You've still got options.
Blogspot recommends Haloscan's free service. A lot of big bloggers use this option.
But here's a quick fix that's just so cool you'll probably want to try it just to see it work. Wizbang's Standalone Trackback Pinger.
To use it, first click the 'trackback' option below. You'll find this entry number there:
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/2250
That's the one you'll want to enter in the first box on the Trackback Pinger. (Note: it is not the url you link too! The url to link to is the 'permalink' below) The other entries should be self explanatory.
That's it - trackback!
5. Open PostsNow that you have the power of trackback, use it wisely. Most bloggers are happy to see you linking your post to theirs, whether you agree or disagree with what they say - as long as you're on topic. Some might even include a link to your post in their original post. I've set my blog up so that trackbacks automatically are shown at the bottom of every post.
I also run at least one open post every day, a place where fellow bloggers can trackback any post they want, on any topic. (Well, I'll delete any pure attack pieces or anything I think gets too much inspiration from Jerry Springer...)
Other sites offering open posts include Wizbang and Outside the Beltway.
6. Finding your tribeSo - you just finished fisking the latest Maureen Dowd column - you've punched hole after hole in her logic, and now you want to find others who are linking her column too. Here are a couple sites you'll find useful.
Technorati - enter any url or keyword into the search window and you'll get a list of sites who are linking that url or using the keyword. Here's the list for Maureen Dowd.
Memeorandum - this one tells you what certain big blogs are linking too.
There are other options, but these will give you a start. Find others on your topics, link, trackback, comment or
7. emailAnother way to communicate with fellow bloggers, but in many cases the least useful. I'm more likely to respond to someone who I find via trackback or sitemeter. From time to time I get emails from someone asking me to link something. I do take the time to read such things, but I usually don't have time to devote a post to them. Especially since they could have automatically had a link just by using an open post, or linking one of my posts on the topic. By all means, send me emails, especially if you're a non-blogger with a great tip on a story, or a blogger with a great post. I want to be the guy who discovers you. But also remember you have an automatic option here.
On the other hand, some bloggers don't have open trackback or comments, and they welcome emails. Most will be quick to tell you they prefer a pointer to a specific post than to an entire blog, but few would post their email on their site unless they wanted people to email them. Of course, smaller bloggers will probably be more likely to respond.
You also will want to email your entry into the
8. CarnivalsMany moons ago I always submitted an entry to the Carnival of the Vanities - a traveling link-fest used to promote a blogger's personal favorite post of the week. "Traveling" because a different blog would host it every week. The final link at the bottom of each week's carnival tells you where next week's will be. So you go to that blog and find the post that gives you guidelines for submissions, follow those instructions, and presto! Glenn Reynolds and lots of other bloggers link the carnival, so a good bit of traffic can flow your way from that source.
Now back to the future: there are lots of carnivals now, for medical blogs, for recipes, for you name it. My advice to you is to visit the Carnival of the Carnivals - it lists them all. See which ones are on topics you write about, find out where the next one will be, and get your post submitted. (Note the compiler of the Carnival of Carnivals has offered it to a new home, perhaps you would like the task?)
Then watch the numbers rack up on those new sitemeters.
You'll also find bloggers in your area of expertise, and as you do, be sure and add them to your
9. Blogroll- those lists of great blogs running down the side of every great blog.
Here are some tips for running a blogroll:
Two methods to create a blogroll. 1. Manual - build the links yourself or 2. Use blogrolling.com. With blogrolling you also have an option of their free service or a paid service with more features.
Greyhawk's advice: Use blogrolling's paid option. It's not that much money and it's money spent in the blogosphere, and that's good.
Now, as to building your blogroll. Do: add as many fine blogs as you can. Do Not: Simply put Instapundit, LGF, Hugh Hewitt, PowerLine, and Michelle Malkin, and The Corner on your blogroll and stop. Do add those sites, but do not stop there. Add several smaller blogs too. Are you using the open post trackback feature here? Go visit some of the other blogs that do. Have you checked out the Carnivals I directed you to? I know there are great blogs there, and many would love to exchange links. Blogroll those you like. Leave a comment at their site telling them that you enjoyed your visit and added them to your blogroll. They'll likely be glad to learn that - I know I am when I find a blog that's just linked to me.
Whether you use blogrolling or not, be sure to "ping" blogrolling whenever you put up a new post. This will automatically update other's blogrolls to announce your new post. In some cases "new" will appear by your blog's name (or whatever the site owner has decided) in other's you'll actually move to the top of the list.
Little by little your site visits will begin to creep upwards, and you too will be climbing...
10. The EcosystemNZ Bear's Ecosystem is the hub of the blogosphere. This is a comprehensive who's who, a list of the members of the club. This is the community. And if you're a blogger and haven't joined the fun, now is the time. Recent big events in the life of the proprietor had prevented new entries, but it's open again. Enter your blog. You'll find out where you stand and be able to chart your progress in the blogging world. You'll find other blogs - and they'll find you.
NZ also tracks blogs by visits, by the way - if they have an open sitemeter.
There you have it - the power is in your hands. Why would I be so willing to help you out? Because when you become a huge blogger I want you to remember me and link me from time to time, okay? That is how this whole thing works.
Recap:1. Get a blog.2. Get a sitemeter (and a onestat)3. Leave comments.4. Use trackback5. Take advantage of open posts - here, here, and here for example6. Find your tribe (memeorandum, technorati, etc)7. Email8. Carnivals9. Blogroll (and ping it too!)10. Enter the Ecosystem

TAXES

I love this explanation of taxation.

Taxes SIMPLIFIED!
The TAX system Explained IN SIMPLE TERMS! (author unknown according to Snopes.com)Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is just accepted to be fact.But what does that really mean?Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, I hope the following will help. Please read it carefully. Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100.If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve."Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal.So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money among all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

TANSTAAFL

TANSTAAFL

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

First Post

Just a test to see if we are set up.