Self-Destroying Blog Post

Recursion is a way to get into trouble.  Chris Blattman offers good advice to aspiring Phd candidates, then says:

"Paradoxically, that might make all the above advice now strategically sub-optimal."

It makes me trust his judgment more.

Apologies

My posting has been screwy a couple times recently (an empty post and a post with no title). I ought to be able to blame Google, at least in part. I'm using their "draft" version of Blogger and it's taking time for me to adjust to it, and there might be a glitch or two in their software. As I learn things will improve.

The Art of the Knife, in Academic Life

Dan Drezner was an early blogger and was also refused tenure at the University of Chicago, two facts which may or may not have been related.  He and his wife write about the denial 5 years later here.  Dan's essay ends thusly:

I don't know if the University of Chicago's department of political science would change its mind if it could go back in time. It has moved on and will no doubt soon reclaim its historical status as a great place for international relations. I have moved on as well.

Somehow the penultimate sentence casts some doubt on the ultimate one.

Diversity Hidden in Plain Sight

"When the New York Times recently did a piece on me, Ezra Klein, Brian Beutler, and Dave Weigel exactly zero people complained about the massive over-representation of people of Latin American ancestry that reflected. People saw it as a profile of four white dudes. Which is what it was. But my dad’s family is from Cuba, Ezra’s dad’s family is from Brazil, and Brian’s mom’s family is from Chile."

The Sound of Bloggers

That is, chewing the cud, which fits someone who grew up on a dairy farm.

Why We Need Metrics

From a Federal Computer Week piece on blogging:

"Perhaps it's ironic that many substandard federal blogs slog on forever while one of the best [Navy CIO's] was killed. Drapeau said the weak blogs endure because they do not call attention to themselves.
“Who complains about horrible, obscure movies that they haven't seen?” he asked. “And given that the financial cost of having a bad blog is very low, there's little to stop most bad blogs from persisting.”

Powerline Loses Most of Its Common Sense

You can divide the world into two: people who drive you up the wall and people who don't. The Powerline blog is one of the few right wing blogs I follow, just to see what's going on and try to keep from freezing into intellectual ice.  John (Hinderaker) at Powerline drives me up the wall.  One of these years I'll do a compilation of his comments which seem to me to be unwise.  Paul (Mirengoff)[corrected] doesn't drive me up the wall, though usually I disagree with his comments. Scott (Johnson) also doesn't drive me up the wall.  Today Paul announced he was ceasing blogging.  Too bad.

{Updated: apparently Paul ran into trouble at his law firm over his response to the Giffords events. See TPM. ]

My Metrics

For Jan.4 2010 to Jan. 4, 2011:

Visits   5,603 (down  about 35 percent) from 4025 visitors and 7690 page views in the prior year.
Average time on site just under a minute and 70 percent new visitors

It's odd that Belize shows up in the countries list, and Australia had a longer time on site than other countries.

Keywords include "what do bureaucrats do", "John Berge", "faceless bureaucrat", "mere surmise, sir", "USDA" and "MIDAS".



It looks as if I'm more boring the older I get (I may have lots of company in that). To the extent people are interested, it's more in USDA/FSA bureaucracy and organic/food movement stuff than anything else. Maybe I need to look to Facebook and Twitter?

Transparency--Taking My Own Medicine

I've stated my opinion that government websites ought always to have a link to a page which would give the metrics on readership/usage, etc.  I just visited the blogger.com layout site in order to add an interactive poll to the site (I'm inspired by Ann Althouse, who is using polls regularly, albeit in her posts, not the the blog layout.)  When I did, I found blogger offers a gadget to show pageviews, so for consistency sake I felt impelled to add it to my blog. I did cheat a bit by putting it low down on the right hand column, so you'll have to scroll to get the figures, in case anyone is interested.

Resume Speed and Mayor Fenty

We're back home, although still with PC problems, so there will be a slow resumption of blogging.  One thing I noted in the Post was Mayor Fenty's last hurrah, or at least his last opening/reopening of a DC library.  I was sort of casually aware he'd been active in the area, but the Post piece gave him lots of credit, both for facilities and for his support of the libraries.  The best bit of news in the piece was the fact that circulation of books etc. from the libraries is up 125 percent.  As Mrs. McNamara and assorted first ladies have said, reading is fundamental.

Slow Posting

Between computer problems and travel over the weekend, blogging is apt to be light.

What Really Gets Commenters Going

I thought the Sherrod case was the prime example of what really got commenters going on blogs.  But I was wrong.  What really gets people stirred up is if a blogger asks how to beat a speeding ticket. 

Picking on Texas

Briefly, the Post carried an article on the revised social studies curriculum for Texas schools on Friday, Ann Althouse posted an extensive criticism of the article Sunday morning at 1:48 am, and Jonathan Adler at Volokh Conspiracy posted early this afternoon.  Adler started off with Althouse in being critical, but it's become reasonably clear that the Texans published proposed standards in April, which is what Althouse read, but last week they made some more changes, which is what the Post article referred to, so Adler has switched to being critical of Althouse.

In addition to taking pride in being right (I commented on Althouse's post that the pdf's she referred to were last revised in April) I think the episode is interesting on several counts:

• Althouse jumped to conclusions, dissing the Post and defending the Texans. And her commenters mostly followed suit.  This might count as conservative close-mindedness, but more reasonably it's just another example of how easily we all follow our prejudices in what we accept.
•  Adler gets props for acknowledging his initial error.
• Althouse's jump was based on the assumption that the Texan pdf files were the latest version. That's probably the most interesting thing: we now assume that official actions are available on line and that they will be updated promptly.
• Texas bureaucrats get dinged--they wasted lots of time and electrons by failing to update their documents as fast as we expect.  If only they had used Google Documents, they could and should have been updated as the commission adopted changes and the documents up on the Net as the meeting ended.

[Updated: Althouse has added to her post to modify her position somewhat and to reflect some of the info available from the Post.  I'm disappointed though with the tenor of her addition, but anyone who's blogging at 3 in the morning! deserves some sympathy.

Meanwhile the American Historical Association sent a letter to Texas which is interesting.]

Comes the Revolution?

Say it isn't so: "“But we all thought blogging was going to transform academic life, and that didn’t really happen.”

Words Not Often Found in the Blogosphere

From Ezra Klein, re: Rep. Ryan:

But in the meantime, let me say how much respect I have for Ryan's willingness to engage with substantive critiques. And the reason he is willing engage like this is that he's confident that he knows his stuff. I've not been convinced by his position, but I always walk away from our talks with more respect for his position. Congress needs more like him.

Best Sentence of Jan 7

" Coordination is the impulse of bureaucrats" from Chris Blattman's Blog on Development, a post about Clinton's speech on development.  (I'd also recommend the post on the other Clinton's Foreign Policy interview. Say what you will, the guy can be impressive.)

Restored Service, Back to Blogging

Verizon has restored our service, so I'll resume blogging just as soon as I catch up with my online reading.

Problems at the USDA Blog?

Here's the August post on the USDA blog with my comment.

Here's the text of a comment I've received (similar to ones I've received sporadically over the weeks).

Ephedrine faq. wrote:

[Trackback] Ephedrine. Pseudo ephedrine. Bronch-eze ephedrine. Danger of ephedrine. Ephedrine products for asthma.

----
Respond to this comment at:
http://www.usda.gov/blog/usda/entry/h2_peoples_garden_workshop_focuses#comments

When I use the "archives" feature to scroll through the posts for a month, for both August and July a handful of posts at the end of the month are displayed, but nothing for the first part of the month nor is there a way to find older posts. 

Bottomline:  somehow USDA isn't paying a whole lot of attention to their blog.

The Sudan Contributes

This is the best slogan for my blog.

Kevin Drum on the Blogosphere

If you're at all interested in adult commentary and the blogosphere, read this interview with Kevin Drum.