Surprise geography quiz! Just drag and drop these Middle Eastern and North African countries to their proper locations on the map. If you can sort out the ‘Stans on the first try, well, let’s just say you’re a far better geographer than I am. (Via Eve Tushnet.)
I note, belatedly, my loss in the Briffa/Grauniad contest to Cinderella. Here’s his link, as promised. Briffa fell on April 7th. Cindy had April 5th. I had April 1st. Let the gloating begin. While you’re there, check out his latest commentary on Pascal Bruckner.
Ian Hamet has an appreciation of the anime director Miyazaki Hayao, whose movies I’ve never seen but now want to see, and you can’t ask much more from an appreciation than that.
The Blowhards have been en fuego, as they say on ESPN, with Friedrich on scale-free networks and Michael on Econ for Poets, and really, the whole damn site has been great since the two of them finally finished their taxes.
Airline employees, as usual, aren’t any too happy with their executives, but this time Megan McArdle is passing out the pitchforks.
Sasha and Andrew need rear-door handles for their 1991 Peugeot — I kid you not — and they’re willing to make a deal.
Finally, Julian Sanchez’s economic analysis of regime change, responding to Henry Farrell’s, should keep you off the streets for a while.
Jim of Objectionable Content, the Blogger With No Last Name, posts an amusing, if incestuous, history of the great Hugh MacLeod’s dizzying ascent from utterly obscure to moderately obscure cartoonist, all thanks to bloggers! And people say we have no influence. He neglects my own small but vital contribution: I too found MacLeod through his blog, and without my link to him my immediate family would never have seen his cartoons. I forgive him.
I have finally, reluctantly come to believe that Philosblog is no more. In argument Jim Ryan is the most generous of interlocutors, always willing, even eager, to admit to error: would we could all say the same. He was always brief, and always lucid, even when writing about the most abstruse matters. Many worthy blogs have bit the dust, but Jim’s is the only one I will really miss.
And now we come to Sean-Paul Kelley, who is unfit to shine Jim Ryan’s shoes.
Dear Sean-Paul:
Your blog is both good and original. But what is good is not original; and what is original is not good. Wasn’t I clever to come up with that all by myself?
Admiringly yours,
An adventure in the 21st century that Accordion Guy didn’t bargain for, involving both P = NP and Encyclopedia Brown, from The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.
Remind me again why I ever watch CNN. Tonight Bill Schneider did a little blogging story, the upshot of which was that bloggers are unreliable, and to “beware of dragon sightings.” And which blogger does he interview? None other than noted plagiarist Sean-Paul Kelley, with nary a reference to the fact, brought to you courtesy of a blogger, and already discussed to death for days before Schneider went on. Good thing we have that carefully edited and filtered big-media news to rely on.
My my but it’s been sour in here the past couple of days. Perhaps I should recommend some other places to go. Mark Riebling, after a lengthy hibernation, has posted the first couple of chapters of his forthcoming book, The Eagle and the Cross: The Pope, the Jesuits, and the Plot to Kill Hitler, in which he rehabilitates the unjustly maligned Pius XII, and they were worth waiting for. I’ve just put up a site for the artist Tom Sellers, whose paintings I can’t afford, but maybe you can. I lazily let pass Cinderella’s translation of and commentary on an interview with Pascal Bruckner, author of the brilliant Tears of the White Man, who provides the best explanation of French politics I’ve heard to date. Evan Kirchhoff, via Colby Cosh, theorizes on the strange fascination with Michael Moore. Seablogger dissects “queer” vs. “gay.” And I promise to be cheerier next time out.
My sister commented a while back, apropos of my post on What Makes Sammy Run?, that bloggers may be self-selectedly low-Glick. Perhaps, but Glick is relative, and the blogosphereâ„¢ has its share of canny self-promoters, like anywhere else. Some examples? Glad you asked.
10. InstaPundit. Glenn Reynolds certainly deserves his traffic — well, most of it — well, some of it, anyway. Reynolds is always telling reporters who call him for a story on blogging that they shouldn’t write about him, they should write about all the bloggers on his roll instead, yet somehow they always wind up writing about him. Oops.
9. Howard Owens. I just can’t snark at a guy who auctioned an opinion on EBay, for $10.25. Sorry.
8. Arthur Silber. Arthur is the master of the strategic temper tantrum. He quits every three months or so, either out of Weltschmerz or desperate financial straits, waits for his readers to beg him to return, and reenters the fray a few days later — and by the way, don’t forget to click on that Paypal icon, over there on the top left. Can you call someone a drama queen if he’s gay?
7. Stephen Green. Green’s in it for love, not money. Leads the league in “I’ve got nothing to say because I’m closing on my new condo/my Internet’s out/I’m hung over” posts.
6. DailyPundit. It’s Death Race 2000, your mouse vs. the popup ads, when you hit Bill Quick’s site. Quick was the motive force behind the short-lived and unlamented subscription group blog, whose moniker I’ve already forgotten, promising “premium” content on the business model that worked so brilliantly for Salon. Yes, he coined the term “blogosphere.” Yes!
5. A Small Victory. Michele, one L, but two tits, which she doesn’t hesitate to use. Michele’s specialty is getting herself delinked, and then making enough of a stink about it that she gains ten new links for the one she just lost.
4. Hesiod “Theogeny”. A sort of bush-league Atrios who literally can’t spell his own name. Same m.o., less traffic.
3. The Agonist. “Thoughtful, global, timely” — one out of three ain’t bad. The guy sure posts a lot of war news, I’ll say that much. Where he finds time to suck up to all those reporters is anybody’s guess.
2. Pejman. I used to link to Pejman, because everybody links to Pejman. Then I began to wonder why I never read Pejman. It finally dawned on me that Pejman never has anything interesting to say. It’s neocon boilerplate, spiced with not-exactly-scintillating personal details and frequent forays into Bartlett’s. Starting from nothing, Pejman has become one of the most widely linked, if rarely read, blogs in the universe, parlaying the fact into a Tech Central Station gig to boot. Never has a blogger done so much with so little.
1. Atrios. Posts early, posts often, posts wrong, and never, never apologizes. Coyly remains anonymous to encourage rumors that he’s actually some sort of big-shot politico who needs to preserve his cover. Bloggers link Atrios mostly to mock him, but they link him. As I just did.
(Update: Number 3, the Agonist, cops to plagiarism, a tactic with which Glick himself was intimately familiar. Link, to be fair, courtesy of #10.)
I can’t speak for each blogger, but this blogger is really four:
(Link from Andrea Harris. Gee thanks, Andrea!)
Everybody go to Jim Ryan’s site right now and tell him not to quit blogging. Dammit Jim, you’re a blogger, not a real person with better things to do!