The civilized world represents the victory of persuasion over force.
Plato
Well, the Blog Statistics (Google-Induced?) Are Disturbing
If you go back to the start of the year, my individual posts were averaging over 20 views a day. That is not my daily impression rate, because I usually get impressions on multiple posts per day. Roughly over the history of blog statistics, which seemed to start in 2010, I've probably averaged over 1500 hits a month. Over the past month, I'm now showing just over 900 hits; over the past day, statistics show just 4 US hits (and 9 European ones), and my last miscellany post collected just 6 views (so far), which may be a multi-year low.I don't know if Google is manipulating access to the blog (e.g., burying my results in search results or even direct measures). I really haven't been a critic of Google, beyond a couple of points: the firing of a Google engineer for criticizing certain progressive policies and its willingness to work with the censoring Chinese government. I was one of the earliest Gmail users. But to be frank, I've defended Google's rights as a private company, I am not a Republican or a Trumpkin (which they are reportedly targeting).
For all I know, maybe it's just that I've somehow turned off my readers. I don't really see my numbers going down in a similar fashion on Twitter, although Twitter has slapped me twice over the year for unspecified reasons (I suspect a couple of Tweets sniped at over-the-top "progressives"). By the way, sometimes the reply tweets, like a recent Palin cultist who sniped at McCain over recent comments over regretting not going with his early favorite, Joe Lieberman, will often draw 60-100 or more impressions. The point is that I'm an equal opportunity critic; I've even recently criticized a fellow libertarian. Facebook is a more difficult read. I periodically comment on libertarian posts and don't usually go back and check on likes, etc. Sometimes Facebook will notify likes, other times not. I remember going back, e.g., I wanted to republish a comment for the blog and found something like 32 people liked the comment. I mostly restrict my friends to relatives
Will I change my blog portal? Well, as I've mentioned before, I don't write for the numbers. Changing portals won't help any issues I have with, say, the Google search engine. I think it's a shame. My little blog is interesting and different. My views may be an acquired taste, and almost everyone will find something to disagree with.
Just a Passing Comment on the Aretha Franklin Memorial Service
I did not watch the service on my flex day off. I have a well-documented distaste for politicization of or by entertainment figures and really had other things to do than watch some overly long political-musical program. (As far as I'm concerned, Aretha had better pipes than any guest performer.)I did look at Twitter during the event though. Faith Hill apparently opened the entertainment, and I have to confess that was a counter-intuitive choice--maybe it was a way for country-pop to pay a tribute to someone from another musical genre. What was sad were all the negative, insulting tweets thrown at Faith, many of racially motivated like (slightly paraphrased) "Fantasia should be allowed to sing twice to make up for that white woman, Faith Hill". I think Faith Hill showing up to sing in tribute to the Queen of Soul was R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
RIP, John McCain
Notice the last person to approach was John's beloved mother. So sad when a parent survives her child's death.FEECast: Is College Worth It?
Choose Life: Choose Family: The Beauty of Adoption
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Ken Catalino via Townhall |
