Readability

Classical Value has a post pointing to Dr. Helen who wrote about a site that computes a blog readability index of some sort.

This blog is rated High School.

I also rated two other blogs I write, Poker Culture and Math and Poker.

Math and Poker is rated college undergraduate.

Poker Culture is rated elementary school.

They all have the same writer. Why the difference in readability.

The only difference is topic.

This blog is mostly just general discussion of politics and culture, mostly pretty superficial stuff and mostly pretty superficial discussion.

The Math and Poker blog is about mathematics and how it relates to poker. I don't think the writing is at a very advanced level. I tend to use short sentences and small words no matter what the topic. But the topic tend to be at a college undergraduate or first year graduate student level, using words and terms like stochastic, optimal, trajectory, risk adjusted expected value, and other such stuff.

The Poker Culture blog tends to be somewhat about poker, somewhat about poker players. I don't think a lot of poker players actually got much past 8th grade, so elementary school is probably about right for that one.

Thomas v. Gore

Ann Althouse asks the question.

Maureen Dowd answers it.

Update:
Reformed Chicks Blabbing doesn't seem to like the question or the answer.

Update:
The Volokh Conspiracy thinks the Dowd column is as funny as a David Duke speech.

I think that comment is funny because when I was in college (LSU in the early 70's) I used to go to Free Speech Alley every Thursday just to listen to David Duke give a Nazi speech and I'd laugh at the hippie hecklers in the crowd. Duke didn't become a Klan leader until later, he started out actually walking around campus wearing Nazi armbands.

Spam blog

Blogspot has decided they think this blog is a spam blog. Part of their definition of that is that it contains a lot of nonsensical posts.

They are letting me write new posts and save them, just not publish them until they complete a review.

If my posts are nonsensical to them I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it.

Oh, well, I guess it's the price I have to pay for using a free service.

The twits.

Chicken and the egg

Dr. Helen does an Ask Dr. Helen column on Pajamas Media.

I'm not going to comment on the content of the column, but on the turn of a phrase that she uses. It's one I often see and it really irritates me.

As a right-leaning
libertarian, I believe that people should be able to enter into whatever
relationship they wish with other competent adults without state
intervention.

So she has a simple label she uses as a self-identification and that somehow determines what she thinks.

I just think it should be the other way around -- what you think should determine the label.

I don't know why this particular usage bothers me. It's pretty common. But it just seems wrong and it does bother me.

Chris Matthews and Ann Coulter

I lost every bit of respect I ever had for Chris Matthews when he gave Ann Coulter an hour of his show to promote the paperback edition of her latest book. There was just no reason for that, she has nothing to offer to political discourse. At least no reason that I could see.

Well, The Supreme Irony of Life thinks he's found a reason. It's a payola type reason, but it's a reason.

Economics blogs

Ranks them by page views.

Cowards in congress

The Supreme Irony of Life has a summary of various blogs trying to explain the extreme cowardness of the democrats in Congress.

He has more on the blind caving of democrats here.

We'd be better off if we just impeached every American who's eaten lunch in DC in the last 10 years and replaced them with names picked at random from the mailing list of Publishers Clearing House.

Community policing in 1964, Texas style

I was reading Jamie Spencers blog, Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer, this morning and noticed he's not just an Austin lawyer, he practices in Hays County also. It reminded me of a personal story about community policing that happened in Hays County, Texas in 1964.

Trip to San Marcos

When I was 15 I had a summer job at a resort ranch in Wimberley Texas.
There was a beer joint on the other side of San Marcos, kind of like
that cowboy bar in Blues Brothers. They had live music on weekends and
if you were underage they'd staple a yellow ticket to your shirt collar
(you didn't get in if you didn't have a shirt with a collar back then)
at the door. At the back of the place they had a little window in the
wall so you could order beer. There were no actual employees on the
floor. Seating was on picnic tables, with a dance floor and a band
stand. I don't recall chicken wire in front of the band, but things
did get rough at times.

One Friday night me and some friends were coming back from there, going
through San Marcos I ran a red light. A deputy gave chase. I didn't
stop. West of town I took a turn on a ranch road with no lights and
without hitting the brakes. The deputy missed the turn so I lost him.
We all went home.

The next day I was out at Eagle Rock Ranch and a kid from town came in
and told me that CJ had sent him out to tell me to come into town to
talk to him. CJ was the constable (in Texas county precincts have
constables) and also was a barber with a barber shop in Wimberley.

So, I drove to town (in my car) and went into the barber shop.

CJ says, "You been to San Marcos recently, Gary?"

Me: "No, sir".

CJ: "Well, I got a phone call from the Sheriff this morning".

Me. Silent.

CJ: "He's looking for somebody who drives a car he got a description
of".

Me. Oh.

CJ. "It's a Chevrolet".

Me. Silent.

CJ. "It's a convertible. 1954"

Me "Really?"

CJ "It's kinda orange colored. But, the driver's door is a light
blue. And the trunk lid is painted black"

Me: "oh".

CJ. "You ever seen a car like that?"

Me. "No sir, I don't think so"

CJ. "Well, if you do, you'll tell me, right?"

Me: "Yes sir".

CJ. "Okay, you go on now".

I turned to leave. he says "You planning on going into San Marcos
anytime soon"

Me: "No sir"

CJ. "Well, iffen I was you, I wouldn't go to San Marcos for a real
long time".

---

I had originally published this biographical sketch at my main website.

Bad ideas need safety to survive

For some reason I'll never understand feminists seem to often have a strong need to provide sanctuary for bad ideas, to make sure bad ideas are protected from criticisms.

I give a cursory read to a handful of feminists blogs and I think I see this kind of behavior a lot. In most blogs I don't even read the comments, the only blog I read the comments regularly are my own. I don't want my own blogs cluttered with spam from gay porno or insurance sites (what is it that gay porno and insurance sales have in common?) Not because I think my few readers will be offended by them but because I think a comment thread full of that kind of trash will make it less likely that my
real readers will comment. Who wants their comment buried in a mound of ads for zoo sex, fisting, and naked young boys. If I want to fantasize about fisting I can just think about the feminist site Feministing, I can't think of any other reason they picked that name. I supposed they think it's an in your face, girl power kind of a name. I think most people think of it as more of a 14 year old boy kind of thing, but whatever makes them happy.

The moderation policy of some of the feminist blogs I look at from time to time

Feminist Law Professors

Comments from outsiders, however, are moderated.

That's a good idea just to keep the spam down, moderation of first time posters. But I find it interesting that they don't use that term, they use the term "outsiders". An interesting view of the world.

I'm not sure what the moderation policy is, but they give a hint when they say this -

I would note that the tagline here quotes Alice Walker for the proposition that “No person is your friend who demands your silence,” and if your comments are not getting posted, it’s probably because this blogger is not your friend. I’d also like to thank some folks for recent kindnesses. The blogosphere has a lot of very nice people, and they make everything worthwhile.

So they have a quote on their bloghead that says women should not be silenced, but their practice is to silence those other people, whoever that might be.

Feministing
They don't say much about moderation policy either, just

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Again the exact language is interesting. The post doesn't have to be approved, just the poster. If you aren't the right kind of person then you shouldn't be commenting. They illustrate that by a statement in the About Us section

Young women are rarely given the opportunity to speak on their own behalf on issues that affect their lives and futures. Feministing provides a platform for us to comment, analyze and influence.

Old women and men of any age should find another platform. That's not ageist or sexist, not at all. That's a feminist attitude at its finest.

Alas, a blog
This blog recently made a post about moderation, it's the one that put the thought into my head to make this post.

First of all, as many folks have noticed, there’s now a “report this comment to the moderators” link at the bottom of every comment. The link leads to this form; complaints put into that form are emailed to all the moderators. Hopefully, this will allow all of the moderators to be more aware of and quicker to respond to problems.

Second, we’re increasing the number of moderators. We now have five moderators: Rachel, Maia, and myself, and also two reader-moderators, Mandolin (welcome, Mandolin!) and Charles. If you’d like to be a moderator as well, please let me know; being a moderator is limited to feminists only, and only to those who aren’t opposed to enforcing moderately polite behavior on “Alas.”

Third, we’re adding a “progressive anti-racist commenters only” checkbox for some posts about racism. The goal of this is to prevent almost every discussion of racism from being turned into endless repeats of the same discussion (to paraphrase what someone said, “Rachel posts that something is racist, Brandon argues that it isn’t racist, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.”)1

Fourth, we’re resolving to do a better job moderating out the Chrises and the Stevens and so on.

They have long-winded moderation policy on the blog, which mostly talks about their moderation goals, not really the moderation policy. The goals are all nice sounding stuff about you can disagree, but be nice and disagreements should be well written. They even have a long footnote to the moderation policy.

To Anti-Feminist, Mens’ Right Activist, and Right-Wing Guests

Hello to “Alas’” MRA, anti-feminist, and right-wing guests! Please make sure you read and respect the moderation policy.

Please note that some posts are marked as “feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly only,” or some variation on that theme.1 Please do not post comments on those posts without explicit permission to post there from the thread-starter. The purpose of this policy is to allow some intra-feminist conversations to take place on “Alas,” while still leaving other conversations open to non-feminist participation. Please respect the spirit of this policy, and not just the letter. Attempts to play “rules lawyer” will not be well taken by the moderator.

It's certainly not as exclusionary as the policy in other feminists blogs, but they still can't help themselves and create these "discussion free zones" for feminists to talk without any intellectual challange.
Reno and its Discontents
I'm not even sure this is a feminist blog. It appears to be a blog by a left-wing feminist, but only some of the posts are about feminists politics, it's more a blog about Reno than a blog about feminism. I see no discussion at all about comment or moderation policy.

Pandagon
I gotta love this blog. The sidebar has an Amazon ad for a bunch of game theory books (my other blog is math and poker.

I can't find a moderation policy written anywhere, but after looking through a couple of the comment threads I'd guess they don't exclude non-feminists and don't have a be nice policy.

Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog
This one is more an extened FAQ on feminism than a blog. But they do have comments and a comment policy.

On-topic, constructive suggestions and criticism welcome. Obnoxious comments will be deleted. Feuds/Flamewars etc will not be tolerated on this blog. Take it here instead, where all feminists and allies may flame freely.

At least they exclude posts based on content rather than origin. They don't ban you if you aren't one of them, they ban your post if they deem it lacking.

This post is getting long. There's a couple of other feminists blogs I look at sometimes, I hadn't realized my list was this long. But I'm going to skip them.

I've looked at enough to realize that the exclusionary policies of a couple of feminist blogs aren't shared by as many of them as I'd thought.