Vanities

I was reminded of a strange little service. Ljseek which lets one noodle around in LJ, in much the same way one can google one's own name, but also lets one look for things one has said in the past.

I write. It's one of the things I do. Lj has made it easier (I don't have to mail things to people... a mixed blessing) nor do I need to find someone willing to pay the carrying costs of publishing me.

And I get feedback. These are all parts of why I do it here. I can be active (writing) and passive (receiveing comments, when I go to someone else's blog and say something, I have to go back and look to see if it sparked any response).

Sometimes I get lots of response (on a few topics this is predictable) but more often things I expect to touch a nerve sink, apparently unnoticed.

So I popped into Ljseek and stuck my name in.

Whoa...! Livejournal tells me it has some 9,660,000 journals and communities, and (in the ranking of journals by Lj interlinking I am (according to Lj seek) ranked 2585th.

Which is deceptive. jmhm ranks in at 1249, and she has a much larger readership than I (and gets links from some big name blogs, which ljseek doesn't reflect). matociquala is 429th.

The difference between the last and myself, she has 352 links from 204 journals, I have 66 from 50.

So the heady rush is a bit less for all that. I mean 66 links in the past few weeks isn't that many. Which goes to show that much of Lj is far more self-involved than I thought (and it feels pretty self-involved to me, from both my reading, and my writing).

More interesting is that I get to see (in a way I can't from comments) what I've written which resonated, and was pointed at, or discussed.

A recent post, which got no comments; here, was linked to by a couple of people, and generated a few comments in their blogs.

Which is more gratifying than the spurious fame of being in the top 2,500 (or so) of Ljers for cross-linking. That's more what I wanted/recall from my newspapering days in college. Sitting in the cafeteria and listening to people reading the The Roundup and hearing them discuss something I'd written, or been involved with.

It was always intersting to see what caught their attention, because it wasn't always what we expected. Which is a problem, because the insulariry of the newsroom shapes the news, even on so small a scale as a paper with a readership of 12,000 (though we could be certain that the Board of Trustees read us, and we always knew what they were going to think of what we were writing... kind of like LGF, you know how they think).

So now, with a bit of care, I can do that again, sort of, though it would be better if the in depth search function was more effective. I know I posted somewhere, last year, about why one engages in abstaining from something during lent, but now I can't find it.

Joy, but tempered with a taste of pissed off

My camera came back from El Segundo today. Looking at it it seems they did a cleaning, so the sensor ought to be free of spots, but they also lost the covoer for the cable release. Not only does this irk me from an aesthetic standpoint, but that means there are 10 exposed pin-slots and a bunch of fine-pitch threads exposed to dust and water.

Now to make phone call demanding a new one.

Sonnovabitch!

Supreme Court, and petards

The cases Scheidler v. NOW, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, 04-1352, were consolidated and the deccision was handed down a few days ago.

Those who wish to intimidate women, by laying siege to clinics seem to have won.

The decision (written by Breyer) was 8-0, and seems a clear vindication of Operation Rescue and Scheidler, but those who read it that way may be too quick to rejoice, or lament.

It's been percolating through the courts for 20 years, and it's always been a difficult case (and to be honest, one I thought the clinics would lose). The problem was that the clinics were using some sophistry bordering on tamlmudic, for the finess of the hair being split. The law they were using to prevent the sorts of sieges (and they were seiges, with people being trapped inside the clinics for hours, and others being denied access) was an aspect of the RICO statues. THe problem, of course, is that 1: a single siege isn't a pattern, and two, the statute in question (the Hobbs Act) address extortion.

Extortion is a funny crime. It's what most people mean when they say blackmail. It's when one person (or group of persons) gets something from another by threat of force. THe problem is that, as generally understood, and pretty much as a matter of law, the thing gained has to be of material advantage to the person using the force.

The Clinic Protestors weren't doing that.

Which is why the decision was 8-0 (and probably would have been 9-0 had O'Connor still been on the bench when the decision was handed down).

Why then, do I mention petards?

Beacause of this story in USA TODAY.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — An animal-rights group and six members were convicted Thursday of using their website to incite threats, harassment and vandalism against a company that tests drugs and household products on animals....

The defendants, all in their late 20s or early 30s, were not accused of directly making threats or carrying out vandalism. Instead, they were charged with inciting the harassment with their Internet postings.

This law, as well as Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (1994) which allows for injuctions to limit the location of those protesting at clinics (which is flawed, as the protesters have to be known, in advance, to be coming, and if they mix it up, or have separate groups show up, "spontaneously" there's not a whole lot one can do) and the right of cities to limit the how and where of protests (and not having a permit would be better than an injuntion, because that wouldn't require any delay) can be used to make it less fruitful to stage such protests (as well as to shut down those who put up things like, "wanted" posters for doctors who perform abortions).

The only drawback is that it requires an administration which cares about choice, and Bush's recent statement when asked about restrictions on abortion, "My position has always been three exceptions: rape, incests and the life of the mother." Asked if he would include the broader category of health of the mother, Bush said: "No. I said life of the mother, and health is a very vague term, but my position has been clear on that ever since I started running for office." (Forbes) makes it fairly clear that defending those who provide abortions to women isn't going to be high on his list of things to do.

But, if/when such an administration comes to power, the same effect that the use of the Hobbs Act had, can be had with this one, and the thing about it is, there's no way an honest judge can see it any other way; so we can expect to see a 6-3 ruling on it.