To LBC readers who prayed for my sister and/or contributed to the “Send Shannon to California” fund, she has a message for you.
By the way, welcome her to the blogosphere! I’m still working on my other sister and brother.
From the monthly archives:
October 2005
This may be a strange question, but have you bloggers made arrangements for your blog when you die? Is there someone you trust with the password to carry out your wishes? For instance, if this site is still in operation at the time of my death, I’ve made arrangements to have it shut down completely. It will live forever in Google’s cache, of course, but LBC will cease to be, just like me.
A morbid rhyme.
A story called Ghosts in the Machines reminded me of my own blogger mortality:
More than a year after his death, Aaron Huth continues to haunt those who knew him. His profile on the behemoth six-degrees-of-separation Web site Friendster.com still lets people know that in May of 2003 he was listening to bands like the Birthday Party and the Postal Service and reading Nietzsche. His likes and interests were frozen for posterity on May 26, 2003, the last time he logged into the site….Twenty years old at the time of his death, Huth had made no preparations and left no instructions with regards to how his worldly affairs should be dealt with, much less his online presence—how the people he knew only in the virtual sense should be notified. He is far from being alone in that regard.
Think about it. If you’re like me, blogging and various online activity have become a big part of your life. Just as you make plans for your assets, the care of dependents, etc., you ought to make plans for your blog and all password-protected web-based accounts, such as e-mail. Remember this story?
Happy Monday. 
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Selecting an experienced, sitting judge for the Supreme Court instead of an inexperienced former employee…what a novel idea!
Update: “In a recent column I suggested that all the fuss about Harriet Meirs’ credentials and by implication her intelligence, which is probably higher than many of her critics, is a distraction. What matters is not that she have previous experience as a judge or be several standard deviations to the right on the Bell Curve, but that she have an originalist judicial philosophy.” — Red Phillips.
Regarding the “separation of church and state” issue, see Incompatible Kerry’s Immaculate Deception.
Sunday night at 9:00 p.m. EST (Don’t forget to turn back your clocks this weekend!) on WRKO in Boston, Kevin and Gregg of Pundit Review will interview Kris Mineau, President of the Massachusetts Family Institute and Vote on Marriage, about homosexual “marriage.”
Mineau is collecting signatures to put a marriage amendment protecting traditional marriage on the 2008 ballot in the state. Gregg in particular wants to debunk the ridiculous notion that homosexual “marriage” is a civil right or is in any way related to the Civil Rights movement.
To stir things us up (This typo has been up here all day. The shame…) a woman from Mass Equality will be joining them. Listen live at WRKO in Boston at 9:00 p.m. EST.
Call in and weigh in at 617.266.6868 or 877.469.4322.
Don’t forget to turn back your clocks!
Related posts:
Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality. — Peter Blackshaw, Intelliseek (which has a blog!)
Forbes magazine’s cover story (try BugMeNot to bypass reg.) makes a few good points about blogs and certain legal issues, but the overall tone is hysterical (as in neurotic, not funny). According to the article, blogs promote a lynch mob mentality. I’ll admit that in the aggregate, blogs can whip up a frenzy and create an opinion storm that probably scares the establishment more than we bloggers imagine. And that’s good.
This is America. It’s our duty to challenge politicians and the press, and with a free market system, businesses better beware, too. What frightens them so much is they can’t control us. Yes, if we libel companies or individuals, there should be consequences. But a blog swarm in itself is not a crime or an infringement of anyone’s civil rights.
A blog swarm can be a stinging gadfly, a much-dreaded possibility, or someone’s worst nightmare, but in my opinion, blogging is free expression at its purest. If we’re willing to embrace this freedom, we ought to be willing to embrace its power.
Although the Forbes article is technically not a tirade, I really enjoy reading and listening to anti-blog rants.
Is that normal?
(Hat tip: Micro Persuasion)
Related posts:
- Easongate
- ABC Busted By The Blogs
- Peasants Don’t Blog
- ‘Manly’ Maney Says Blog Novelty Will Wear Off
- Ken Fuson’s Confusion
- Nick Coleman’s Blog Envy
Update: Mean Dean has spoofed Forbes already!
Unrelated Update: See my update on the Harry Potter post. Spoiler alert! If you have a response, please comment there.
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Update II: No time to celebrate. I agree. And I feel for Miers. If this post comes off as an attack against her, that wasn’t my intent. Bush is either getting bad advice or no advice. He looks a bit haggard in the photo, doesn’t he? Running a country, especially one with free expression and a free press, can’t be easy.
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Miers is gone.
But I predict George Bush will nominate another unqualified person. Perhaps his tailor. Or his dentist. Or his dog walker.
What did Bush learn? Maybe he learned that the people who put him in office actually expect him to be a conservative with common sense and choose someone qualified to sit on the highest court in the land, and not an unknown-quantity crony. We’ll see.
Other bloggers: SCOTUSblog, Michelle Malkin round-up, Captain Ed, Patterico, Pundit Guy (another round-up), The Buzz Blog, Jason Smith, The American Princess…
Dan Phillips says:
My fear now is that either W will nominate Gonzalez, for whom I have NO enthusiasm, but who is qualified, and pretty clearly NOT in our corner ideologically; OR he will nominate an excellent candidate, and our enemies will use the very weapons we just so thoughtfully handed them to oppose him.
Ugh! Read what I wrote about Alberto Gonzales last year.
Dan adds: “To make sure I was clear, when I say Gonzales is “qualified,” I mean technically so — i.e. in the ways Miers’ critics complained that she was not.”
Mean Dean says:
It is my hope that Harriet Miers, by nobly putting her Nation and her President above her own personal ambition, would motivate George Bush to take this do-over opportunity to make a bold move to the right – and nominate a great thinker who understands the Constitution and is willing to forgoe the social fads of the day in favor of good law. Even if said nominee isn’t a long time pal of the Bush administration.
Important Update: Would Janice Rogers Brown, who has the proper judicial credentials, suffice? Will Bush dare?
If you’re bored with this topic, check out the Harry Potter post. Book 6 spoiler warning!
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On Monday I wondered whether USA Today photoshopped a photo of Condoleezza Rice, and I linked to the person who called my attention to it, Bucktowndusty. This morning he sent this link, which was picked up by Michelle Malkin.
The ensuing swarm must have been too much. USA Today has removed the demonic-looking photo of Rice.
(Thanks for linking, Mike)
Update: Editor & Publisher writes about the blog swarm, although they fail to give credit to Bucktowndusty, who brought everyone’s attention to the doctored photo in the first place. Figures.
Matt Drudge did the same thing (see left column). Lazy.
Check out California Conservative’s third photo.
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December 5, 2005: Did you surf here from Google? Visit my new blog, Fantasy Fiction for Christians. 
Friday, November 18, 2005: Have you seen The Goblet of Fire? Tell us what you think!
Update IV (11/1): Continue discussing Harry Potter theories here.
Update III (10/28): More evidence for my Dumbledore-was-already-dead theory: As Draco prepares to kill his headmaster at the end of Book 6, Dumbledore tries to convince Draco that he can protect him and his family from Voldemort if he refused to carry out the Dark Lord’s mission. Draco doesn’t believe him, but Dumbledore says, “He cannot kill you if you’re already dead.” (Book 6, p. 591)
This has a double meaning: 1) It implies that Dumbledore must have faked people’s deaths before to protect them from Voldemort (Regulus Black?); and 2) Major hint from JKR: Snape didn’t kill Dumbledore because he was “already dead.”
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Update (10/27): STOP! This post contains spoilers of Book 6, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Townhall.com has published my article/review, Harry Potter and the Charmed Christians. (The typo in “HogwartsProfessor.com” will be fixed.) I didn’t know it would be up so soon (last night), so I’ll spend the next hour or so this morning filling this post with my theories about the series, and links to articles and other resources.
If you’re a Christian and object to reading Harry Potter, please refrain from commenting. This thread is for Christians and non-Christians who have read the books. If you’re compelled to preach and just can’t hold it in, please e-mail me.
I’ll briefly discuss some of my views on Book 6. They could fill this whole blog, but I’ll try to contain them. Those who haven’t read the series, including Book 6, or haven’t seen the movies will have no idea what I’m talking about. The post is written mainly to fans, so I won’t go into detail explaining certain things.
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My blog is worth $967,057.02.
How much is your blog worth?
So, if AOL or some other giant wanted to buy LBC, does this mean I can ask for $1 million with a straight face? 
Addendum: TLA is worth close to $19,000.
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I don’t know if this dreck is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek or what, but I got queasy while reading it. From my vantage point, San Francisco Gate columnist Mark Morford is an irreligious, anti-God, anti-family San Francisco liberal with a warped sense of humor and a foul, gratuitous mean streak. I almost lost my temper reading his scribblings, and again while writing this post, so I’ll stop before I say something I’ll regret.
The only reason I’m linking is to expose liberal hatred at its rawest. If you can take it, here it is: God Does Not Want 16 Kids.
Addendum: I wonder what this liberal would say about single, welfare-dependent women who have children they can’t afford with different men who don’t want to marry them? I get the feeling Morford wouldn’t touch it. But an intact Christian family is fair game.
Update: “Morford and the Insane Left are jealous. Their aggressive promotion of the three B’s – birth control, buggery, and ‘bortion – means they’re being out-bred by couples like the Duggars. It burns their toast that they are the party of sexual liberation, yet it’s people like Jim Bob and Michelle who are obviously, well, pretty damn liberated.” — The Crusty Curmudgeon
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Call her “the woman who refused to get up,” but I’m sure Rosa Parks had no idea what her tired feet and frustrating treatment would lead to on December 1, 1955.
What became known as the Civil Rights movement was bound to start sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before blacks would reject all that “back of the bus” and “Whites Only” nonsense. In a country where they were paying taxes, too? Please. I’m surprised the movement didn’t hit America with full force 10-15 years earlier when black men were fighting for their country in WWII (see Against All Enemies, Foreign and Domestic).
December 1, 1955, was also the beginning of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which lasted about a year. Blacks refused to ride the buses in Montgomery, Alabama, until November 13, 1956, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregation on buses unconstitutional. Despite its embarrassing and often pathetic history, America is still, by far, the greatest country in the world, no matter what color you happen to be.
Parks and her husband Raymond didn’t have children, as far as I can tell from news accounts of her life. In a way, I suppose those she inspired to stand up to injustice were her offspring. Once people understand the power they have in a free country, the moral authority to demand justice, watch out. I once heard this line from a movie: “Change the way people think, and things will never be the same.”
Whatever her reasons that fateful day, I’m glad she decided to stay in her seat.
- Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92
- Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92 (with video)
- Jim Crow Redux
- Truth Be Told
- Wikipedia
If you’ve blogged about Rosa Parks, link and trackback to this post, and I’ll link to yours. I heard that Haloscan is now compatible with WordPress; if not or you don’t have a trackback feature on your blog, use Simpletracks.
Bloggers: Michelle Malkin, Outside the Beltway, Wizbang, Vodkapundit, Tapscott’s Copy Desk, Down with Absolutes, Infinity Prolonged, Rajan Rishyakaran, Poliblog, Fried Baloney, Legacy Matters, Dustbury, Project Nothing!, Iowa Voice, B Relevant, Right Faith, Right We Are, The Subjective Scribe, Severe Writer’s Block, JamulBlog, The Anchoress…
More bloggers: Randy Thomas (of Exodus International), Brutally Honest, Independent Conservative, Samantha Pierce, Agent Tim, Crime Scene Blog, Sister Toldjah, Secular Blasphemy, One Voice Now, Double Toothpicks, Don Singleton, Curt Dalaba, Pardon My English…
Even more bloggers: Stop the ACLU, Your Pastoral Coach, LeaderNotes, Mean Dean, Mike’s Noise, WordPress Politics, The Colossus of Rhodey, Crooks & Liars, Oblogatory Anecdotes, National Center Blog, Carol Platt Liebau, The Reaction, Republican Jen…
Update (6:25 p.m.): And the last two links for the night are ShrinkWrapped, and one of my favorite reads, Discriminations. Linking will resume tomorrow morning. I’ll approve comments and trackbacks caught in the spam filter tomorrow, too. Thanks for reading and linking to LBC, and I hope you’ve bookmarked some of these new-to-you blogs.
Previous obituaries: Nipsey Russell, Johnnie Cochran, Ossie Davis, Johnny Carson, Shirley Chisholm, Rick James, Ronald Reagan and Superman.
Update II (10/26): After Instapundit linked last night, several bloggers tracked back to this post, and some of the trackbacks were caught in the spam filter. Sorry about that. I know the frustration. The following links will be the last I’ll include in this post, but you may continue to trackback and comment. Thanks!
Publius Pundit, Tel-Chai Nation, The Moderate Voice, Parableman, D.C. Thornton, Area417, My Right Mind, Texas Xtreme, PolitaKid, and brining up the rear, John, the blogger who designed the header graphic on my business blog.
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Update (10/26): While you’re here, visit my business blog, The Language Artist.
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More must-read Da Vinci info at Jewels of the Jungle. Also see Ruminations by the Lake.
Who’s your blogfather/blogmother?
- Joe Carter’s reflections on GodBlogCon.
- Do you know that Pundit Review is off Blogger.com? Check out the new site.
- Have you heard of the Internet Archive? Nifty. Behold, my old Blogger.com archives. Gross, isn’t it? Mad Mikey hits the Wayback Machine, too.
- Here’s how the conservative blogosphere breaks down on Miers: 73 percent oppose.
- Adrian Warnock says Chitika is the way to go.
- Gerry Phelps has written a book on how to help poor people. I particularly like Guidelines for Giving Help.
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First published in October 2004, this post attracted the attention of an Objectivist and a Buddhist. Odd.
A couple of days ago I blogged about the most recent beheading and touched upon why God allows evil. It’s a question even Christians ask while knowing the answer. But I believe the more appropriate question is, “Why is there good in the world?”
Some of you may have heard the phrase, “total depravity.” It means that man is sinful through and through, though not as bad as he could be. Despite what humanists think, man is not inherently good, committing evil acts only because of his environment, poverty, ignorance, racism or the latest fad-excuse. We are inherently bad. Every word, thought and action is tainted by sin because we are sinful. In our unregenerate and rebellious state, we do not seek after God nor do we want to please or obey him.
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Blogger Stephen McCaskill suggests that bloggers interested in blogging about the book each tackle a specific section so all the important points will be covered. Great idea.
I hadn’t planned on creating a formal group of bloggers, but if there’s a section(s) in The Da Vinci Code you want to blog about, do so. The movie comes out in seven months, but the marketing campaign will be in full swing early next year, I suspect.
James White is blogging about the book in preparation for the movie, and I will link to each post. Here’s the latest. Also see First Objection: It’s Fiction, Dummy and Heads Up, Folks. It’s Coming.
Think about which chapters/sections/concepts you want to blog about and let us know. I’ll do the same. If you’re blogging this weekend, trackback to this post, and I’ll link to you.
Joy D. blogs about the “woman” in Leonardo’s rendering of The Last Supper. Dan Brown claims the person to the right of Jesus (our left) is his “wife” Mary Magdalene, not the Apostle John. (By the way, I don’t like to see images of “Jesus,” but I linked to Leonardo’s painting to explain Brown’s reference.)
Pajama Hadin discusses “tactical misrepresentations.”
Previous: Christians, Are You Ready For The Da Vinci Code?
Update: Leaving a comment is great, but in order to be linked in this post, I ask that you trackback to it. If you’re using Haloscan (incompatible with WordPress) or don’t have a trackback feature, use Simpletracks. The trackback link to this post:
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2005/10/22/bloggers/trackback/
Update II (10/23): Bloggers: Myopic Zeal, J. Rob’s House of Opinions, Cigars and Theology, The Seven Realms, Sofyst…
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