One of the neat things about blogging is being able to see what search terms people used to reach your site.
Look at this:
Search Engine Terms
These are terms people used to find your blog:
Today:
None
Yesterday:
How do babies receive eucharist
There is no way for me to respond to this person. I don’t know why she (it seems like a she) searched on this topic, but I’d like to answer her.
You read it here first! I wrote my little post on the absence of hurricanes this season on November 22, 2006. The rest of the world is now catching up.
First, read this prediction from the “AccuWeather” forecast people from last year. Among its predictions for 2006:
From now on, you’ll notice that you may have to click “read the rest of this entry” at the bottom of each post.
I’m doing this so that I can tell which posts are most popular. If you don’t click on the post, I don’t know if you’ve read it. If I can see what you like to read, I can write more of that kind of thing. Fear not! I will not custom tailor my musings to please the least common denominator. It’s just that I often have several things I’m interested in talking about, and I can’t write about everything.
If you click on one of my posts, at least I’ll know you were interested enough to read the rest of it. That will give me a clue about what kinds of things I should write about.
So, I’m sorry that it’s an inconvience, but it will help me serve my vast (dozens strong!) audience better.
Thanks.
UPDATE: Just so you know, you won’t have to click through to read posts that are mainly written by other people. (I categorize those as “clippings”.) Also, I won’t break up posts that are only a few lines long.
The Providence Journal (reg. req.) carries a reply by Glenn Caron, a former soldier and Gulf War veteran, to the opinion piece Charles Pinning wrote just in time for Veteran’s Day. [The original piece and] My own reply is here.
I like to think that Mr. Caron was one of the many people (over a dozen!) who found my site by googling “Charles+Pinning+ass.” [UPDATE: Make that "'Charles Pinning' + ass." Trust me.]
Anyway, his last paragraph reads:
Perhaps he should consider the words of John Stuart Mill: “War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
It’s somehow comforting that the Charles Pinnings of the world existed before the Vietnam War, in places other than America. In other words, we’ve survived their likes before.
——————
Update: I was looking over this post for Memorial Day, and googled Mr. Pinning to see if he’s been up to anything lately. He has:
A vocal critic of the Board of Parks Commissioners was arrested yesterday after he continued to interrupt a board meeting at the Roger Williams Park Casino where a controversial plan for a dog park at the Dexter Training Ground was being discussed.
Charles Pinning of [address removed] was handcuffed and placed in a police cruiser. He was charged with disorderly conduct, simple assault and resisting arrest. No court date was available last night.
Why was he arrested?
Pinning, who has led the opposition to the dog park, presented a petition supposedly signed by 200 people supporting the continued presence of the ball field. When Pinning launched into a personal attack on a member of the audience, Mayor David N. Cicilline, who chairs the parks board , interrupted him and said, “I will not allow you to belittle a member of the city. It’s unfair.”
When another resident said that she would love to see the whole city become a dog park, Pinning jumped in and said, “Why don’t you gas the children!”
It seems obvious that this man is mentally ill–although it can be hard to tell with people on the left.
My sister sent me home with a ton of leftovers, for which I was truly thankful. Unfortunately, she put them in a pink-on-pink Victoria’s Secret bag. Upon my return home, I hustled past the doorman, using my body to conceal the embarrassing item.
The wind of my passage whipped out a receipt from the depths of the bag, which fluttered to the floor. I froze as the doorman stooped to retrieve it.
This personality test purports to determine your political leanings by assessing your permissiveness in economic and social areas.
My result?
The accompanying text reads:
You are a Social Conservative (30% Permissive) and an Economic Conservative (80% Permissive). You are best described as a Strong Republican.
You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong [I like those capital letters!] and believe in economic fairness.
I think that’s pretty accurate. Results may vary.
I got the initial story here and didn’t make much of it, but Ann Coulter reveals more details, including:
Now, the imams are calling on Muslims to boycott US Airways for having them removed from the flight. I can’t put it any better than Miss Coulter does:
If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.
Also, Scrappleface weighs in:
Airlines Offer Muslim Prayer Sections on All Flights
(2006-11-21) — In the wake of a civil rights crisis sparked when culturally-insensitive passengers on a U.S. Airways flight Monday became alarmed at the sight of six praying Muslim Imams, a consortium of major airlines has agreed to set aside Muslim prayer sections on all domestic and international flights.
“From now on, we devote our former first class sections to the use of our faithful, peaceful Muslim customers,” said an unnamed airline industry spokesman. “Most of the time, when a group of Muslim men suddenly stands up on an airplane chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’, they’re simply praying. Although the memories of 9/11 are still fresh in the minds of many Americans, if we’re going to heal those wounds, we need to move beyond religious intolerance.”
Flight attendants will alter their safety instructions to inform passengers that “seat cushions can be used as prayer mats,” and pilots will make every effort to point planes toward Mecca five times each day.
The industry source added, “We ask our devoted Muslim customers only to remember that all domestic flights are non-smoking, and we’d like to keep them that way.”
All I can say is, if the imams persuade Muslims to boycott US Airways, I’m buying their stock.
That’s what it would have been called, maybe. Or “Armando.” Maybe “Al-Sahib.” If we had had a hurricane hitting the U.S. this year, it would have been called something. Maybe “Algore.”
Where were the hurricanes? Al Gore promised me massive destruction!
Here’s the thing about science. It has to predict something. If it doesn’t, it’s just guessing. Global warming aficianados like to treat everything as evidence of global warming. Hot summer, mild winter? Global warming. Cool summer, harsh winter? Global warming. The same, variable, weather we’ve been having since time began? Global warming. Many hurricanes last year? Global warming. No hurricanes this year?
