Likelihood of Success

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Archive for the ‘Blogophilia’ Category

Support Scott Ott!

Posted by Ron Coleman on July 5, 2009

ScottOttHeadTransparencyMy fellow blogger Scott Ott, the man behind the inimitable “Scrappleface” but in real life the executive director of a non-profit organization serving children, is seeking to become the next Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Executive. His campaign is premised on the idea that his years of business experience have prepared him to take bold action to reduce taxes, cut spending and lead to what he calls “a customer service revolution in county government.”  Without knowing more, most of us agree that almost any disemployment of any incumbent is good for American these days.

Scott makes his case in much more detail on his site.  Like you, I haven’t been to Lehigh County too much lately.  But I do know Scott and his work and his view of things, and I think this moment presents a great opportunity to see what the righty-side blogosphere can do for one of its own and for the common weal.  In the process we can also make a little history by demonstrating what bloggers and their readers — whether we think of ourselves as “citizen journalists,” soldiers in an “army of Davids,” or just mainly a bunch of wiseguys — can actually do politically, in a focused and local way, and perhaps take us to the next step of initiating real change from the very grass roots up.

I’m involved in this because Scott and I have been shmoozing about his campaign (we met while on Pajamas TV duty ever so briefly) and I was amazed he didn’t have a blog-support strategy mapped out.  Well, maybe now we do.  It’s not fancy.  He needs buzz, he needs moral support, but guess what — most of all he needs money.  So:

There are essentially three ways that a blogger can participate in this campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Blogophilia, Gelt, Politics and Poker, Social networking | 1 Comment »

License to marry someone really stupid

Posted by Ron Coleman on July 4, 2009

Shaken, not stupid

Shaken, not stupid

My wife is smarter than I am and thinks social networking is mostly a stupid distraction.  Other wives think social networking is the greatest thing ever — and in terms of brains?  Don’t ask!:

The wife of the new head of Britain’s spy agency has posted pictures of her husband, family and friends on Internet networking site Facebook, details which could compromise security, a newspaper said on Sunday.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as head of the Secret Intelligence Service in November. The SIS, popularly known as MI6, is Britain’s global intelligence-gathering organization.

In what the Mail on Sunday called an “extraordinary lapse,” the new spy chief’s wife, Lady Shelley Sawers, posted family pictures and exposed details of where the couple live and take their holidays and who their friends and relatives are.

This is in the category of check-the-date-and-make-sure-it”s-not-an-April-Fools-story.  (You have that category, don’t you?)  It’s brought to you by the people who gave you Kim Philby and all that lot, in which the movie MI6 looks and performs immensely smarter than the real world one.

The “intelligence” community (yes, apt, isn’t it?) should be grateful Lady Shelley was flushed out before she could drag the free world down with her husband’s career!

Posted in Blogophilia, Euroids, Social networking | 1 Comment »

Out, damned blog!

Posted by Ron Coleman on June 7, 2009

Unknown

On one of my favorite topics, anonymous blogging — James Joyner (via Glenn) is unhappy with one particular bit of outage:

While I generally find the practice of revealing people’s secrets to the public distasteful, there are times when it’s appropriate.  Public officials who are abusing their power is the most obvious case.   Here, however, there is no public benefit achieved. Whelan is simply annoyed that Publius had been “biting at my ankles in recent months” and critiquing his blog posts.

Jeopardizing a man’s career and family relationships over something so petty is simply shameful. Anonymous Liberal (which, I’m given to understand, is not his given name) hits the nail on the head:

It’s really difficult to put into words just how despicable and childish this behavior is. This is a man who was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General. He’s currently the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. And he’s acting like a six-year-old.

[…]

The reality is that if you don’t think your work product can withstand the scrutiny of a few anonymous bloggers, than you have no business publishing it. And if your ego can’t withstand being criticized by people who write under pseudonyms, then you’re far too insecure to be blogging for a living.

Well, I’d say something different: If your career, life or whatever can’t stand the pressure of being held responsible for your words, then you’re far too insecure — literally — to publish them on line, especially when they’re at someone else’s expense.

Dont do the crime if you cant do the time

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time

There’s no “public interest” test for outing an anonymous blogger.   There is only the test of how far you can go before you show your hand, and the test of accountability in the public sphere.  And I say if you’re prepared to shoot out someone else’s lights, whether or not he is “blogging for a living,” then be prepared to have your’n popped, too.

Accountability.  In a free society, if you can’t stand behind it, I see no reason why you should be allowed to get a pass on saying it.  Put differently, you’ve got every right to say it, and every right to pay for it.

Posted in Blogophilia, O Mores!, Oppression, Social networking | 9 Comments »

Content is king — even for law blogs

Posted by Ron Coleman on May 6, 2009

Zach Heller gets it right:

Blogging can sometimes be a difficult task to keep up. It is tough to come up with unique and interesting content all the time, especially when you are doing other things. But remember, the key to writing a good blog, one that gains readers and gets attention, is content. Without quality content, a blog is sure to fail.

He has some good suggestions in the post at the blog of Lawline, an online CLE company where I have a little gig going myself and where they have asked me to do more.   Frankly some of Zach’s ideas were, I thought, kind of secret, so could be I will have to kill him.  But don’t let that stop you from benefitting from his infamy.

Posted in Blogophilia, Social networking | Leave a Comment »

Me on TV!

Posted by Ron Coleman on February 17, 2009

video-call-snapshot-1

Not really. It’s Pajamas Media TV. Not the same thing.

But it looks the same on your computer!

I think we’re getting better at this. Here, take a look.

OK, back to work now.  This stuff doesn’t pay.

Posted in Blogophilia, Medialites, Narcissus Rex | 2 Comments »

Not so easy after all!

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 25, 2009

I took a few minutes to check out the status of my blogroll at LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®, and lo and behold!  There was cutting to do!

My LOC blogroll is based solely on the concept of “professional courtesy,” which in this sense means reciprocity, pure and simple.

I don’t know exactly what the policy is for the blogroll here, and it’s not clear anyone’s that interested anyway. This is somewhat odd considering that this blog has a Technorati rank that puts it in the top 10,000 blogs and Authority rating of 336 as of today, whereas LOC, what with its narrower focus mainly on trademark and copyright law, has a Technorati rank in the gazillions and an Authority rating of only 62.  In fact, Technorati be damned, the “less popular” blog is immensely more important to me than this one and is actually more important to the community that is interested in the topics I write about there than this one is to whatever amorphous group of quality and wit fanatics it is that reads this one.  So, so much for Technorati.

Cut 'em down and get a drink!

Cut 'em down and get a drink!

I ended up cutting the LOC blogroll down by about 20-25%. I deleted blogs that no longer existed, or that had not posted in over a month, or had redesigned and dropped blogrolls, or which had dropped me from their blogrolls.

I’d love to know why someone would go through the trouble to do that last one!  I don’t mean I can’t believe someone would, but I would really like to know what post or whatever it was the straw that broke some camel’s back on that question.

But mainly it was dead blogs that are gone from my new, leaner, meaner blogroll. It’s not so easy to keep a blog going more than a couple of months, is it?

Posted in Blogophilia, Blogroll, Social networking | 1 Comment »

This is the big one!

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 25, 2009

Funny law guy Sean Carter has a new blog.  And guess what — it is funny!

Posted in Blogophilia, Jocularity | Leave a Comment »

The continuation of blogging by other means

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 12, 2009

bpk 664Over at Chicago Boyz, a round-robin of a Clausewitz Roundtable.

Posted in Blogophilia, Stragety | Leave a Comment »

Pwned!

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 7, 2009

“Harry Reid Gets Pwned” over at the Sundries Shack (which is flogging for well-deserved blog popularity contest votes!)  As Jimmie says, “Now that I’ve used the word ‘pwned’ more than should be legal of a guy my age, on with the stories.”

Heh.  Good one.

What’s “pwned”?

Posted in Blogophilia, Jocularity | 2 Comments »

Worst of the worst, part II

Posted by Ron Coleman on January 6, 2009

Now that's how a conservative should dress!

Now that's how a conservative should dress!

Right Wing News blog’s John Hawkins went through a year of Huffington Post swill to distill “The 10 Worst Quotes From The Huffington Post For 2008” — so we don’t have to.

UPDATE:  It gets even worser!  A lot worser!!

Posted in Blogophilia, Politics and Poker, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »