Steve Bainbridge notes a possible explanation for the insanity that is Michelle Malkin, and it is something that has occurred to me as well, and was even something I almost commented upon this morning, i.e., that it is all an act meant to generate revenue:

Malkin and Johnson seem to have internalized what I call the “Ann Coulter Business Model.” It’s a familiar concept, based on a couple of simple propositions. First, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Second, as the sage Charles Barley observed, the meek may inherit the earth, but they don’t get the ball. To stand out from a crowd, you’ve got to be provocative. You’ve got to make your friends—and, almost as important, if not more so, your enemies—keep tuning in to see what you’re going to say next.

[...]

In sum, there’s a method to the madness.

Indeed. I suspect that he is correct.

One thing is for sure: if one wishes to succeed in the blogging business, one sure way is to be sure to be as ideological and shrill as possible.

Ah, the carefree days of youth on the first day of summer vacation.

Oh, and it only took until a little after 9:00 this morning for the first “there’s nothing to do” to escape the mouth of Middle Son. Youngest Son was in my office at about 9:45 with his first such utterance of the season.

He was promoted to full professor this week-which is pretty good, considering it was less than three years ago that he was denied tenure and promotion at Chicago. Much was made at the time of whether his blogging was part of the problem, but I guess it wasn’t such a big deal after all. As Dan notes in his post:

(suck on that,Ivan Tribble!!)

At any rate: congrats to Dan (whose comments are broken at his site¹ ).

1. Indeed, his trackbacks have been busted for years and the comments haven’t worked for weeks. Time to ditch the Moveable Type blog, Dan-it’s sooo early 2024s! [↩]

Has anyone out there had any RSS feed problems with PoliBlog in the last couple of weeks? Or, for that matter, can anyone confirm successful feed delivery?

Alan Cross notes a deep truth about bloggers:

I have this innate belief that every thought and experience that I have is worthy of publication.

And he also tells a tale of a giant cockroach and a swarm of mosquitoes in India.

Really.

When you don’t write much of anything, traffic sucks.

A startling revelation, no doubt.

Hopefully the blogging lull will be rectified shortly.

(Or course, it is possible that no one noticed that there has been a lull…).

Via the NYT comes a dire warning to bloggers: In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop

Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.

Call me craazeee, but couldn’t one easily substitute the words accountant, lawyer, fast food manager, professor, or any other activity/profession that includes hundreds of thousands of people in that paragraph?

Tip to the NYT: people do die, and they sometimes die on the young side. And, jobs (and even hobbies) of all kinds can be stressful. Indeed, as James Joyner notes in regards to this story: “Indeed, life itself is rather stressful.”

I went ahead and finally upgraded my WordPress install (as I attempt to eliminate issues that may have caused yesterday’s problems). So, if you saw some errors when you tried to surf over here this morning, that’s why.

Hopefully all is well.

The site has been having technical woes all day long-so my apologies. The only saving grace (from my perspective, anyway) is that I haven’t had any time to write today anyway…

Hopefully all will be up and running now.

Ornamental pear blossoms: