Day: September 4, 2011

How to Make Your Blog Instantly Popular

~ Clarissa ~ 8 Comments

I stumbled upon a great recipe for blog promotion that attracts a regular stream of readers to a blog.

It’s actually very easy. Just publish a post titled “Ron Paul Is Not a Libertarian” and observe people arrive at your blog through a Google search that is identical to this post’s title.

In general, just mentioning Ron Paul’s name helps the stats in ways that mentioning, say, Rick Perry doesn’t. I have no idea why that is but Ron Paul brings readers to a blog like no other candidate. Palin used to be a great hit magnet but those times are long gone.

Blogging is always so full of surprises.

Creeped Out

~ Clarissa ~ 12 Comments

You know how you encounter something online by pure chance and then think, “God, please make it so that I never have to cross paths with this person. Or anybody like this person. And if I have to avoid leaving my house to achieve that, just tell me and that’s what I’ll gladly do”?

Here is an excerpt from a statement that made me feel this way today:

We have a dog, he’s 3, we adopted him from the shelter at 3 months old. He is a german shepard mix. . . not sure what though. . . My question is, would he fair better seeing me birth? Would he understand what is going on? And appreciate the new baby more, by being there for it?. . .

So what do you think? Do you think our dog would bond better with DD by being around, seeing me progress, and seeing the baby in the first hours after?

I just find this very disturbing.

Where Do You Stand Politically?

~ Clarissa ~ 44 Comments

April at ethecofem linked to this fun quiz that determines your political stance. The questions are worded in a way that is often quite weird, but if you manage to get past that, the quiz is fun. You can find it here. (Access the quiz by pressing on the second line from the top).

And here is my diagnosis, in case people are wondering:

You want government out of people’s personal lives, but you appear to desire some continued government control over people’s economic activities. There is no political party that represents your views. The Green Party does run many candidates with similar views, but the overall Green Party platform is much more socialistic than you are. You would need a mix of Democratic, Green, and Libertarian politicians in office to get the balance of freedom and social justice you desire. The ratio between these depends on how high up your dot is on the chart.

Approximately 12% of the takers of this quiz scored in this area, 18% for all liberals outside the centrist circle.

I can’t say I’m surprised by any of this, so it means the quiz must be working at least somewhat.

Enjoy and don’t forget to share your results!

Why Women Work?

~ Clarissa ~ 48 Comments

All of the whining about how the economy was so amazing in some undefined past always relies on profound sexism.

Look at the following fragment from a table that condemns the present and praises the past:

Starting from the late seventies, more women joined the workforce. According to the Marxist economist who posted this sexist table, this is some sort of a huge disaster for our society. This table informs us that women started working in greater numbers “to sustain household spending.” Men, as we all know, work because they want to achieve professional realization, become successful, enjoy themselves, and have a life outside of the kitchen. Women, however, are expected to be happy mopping the floor and cleaning the toilet. Only a huge societal disaster can force those poor creatures out of the domestic bliss and into the cold, harsh reality of having a life of their own.

Notice also how the table refers to “women with children.” Have you ever seen any table like this mention “men with children” as a separate category? Does the fact that a woman have a child make her some kind of a social cripple who can only have a career out of dire necessity? Why aren’t we all equally horrified that many “men with children” work? How is the fact that a woman with a 17-year-old son has a job more remarkable than a man with a 17-year-old daughter having a job?

This is what it always comes to whenever you talk to any of the doom-and-gloom pseudo-progressives. The main reason they hate today’s state of affairs is that they aren’t as likely to find themselves a housewife who’ll be happy to clean after them and shut up.

Seriously, if you want to discuss the economy and not be ridiculed, try not to bemoan the fact of women’s liberation too loudly. It’s only a problem in the economic sense because you can’t buy woman as easily as you could in the 50ies. For women themselves, having a greater access to the workplace is the best thing that could have happened to us.

Can’t Big Pharma Hire Somebody Less Silly?

~ Clarissa ~ 22 Comments

When you get a troll come to the blog and suggest that without the HPV vaccine we would all have an epidemic of the Bubonic plague, you realize that the pharmaceutical companies have been trying to save on trolls they pay to promote their cause online. So they started buying very cheap, really stupid trolls who make a joke out of the noble endeavor of getting all Americans on as many meds as humanly possible.

Remember when Bush pushed multi-billion handouts to his buddies through Congress in 2008? The trick used to achieve that was to repeat ad nauseam that if Blankfein and Co didn’t get this huge gift, we would immediately find ourselves in the midst of another Great Depression.

It’s the same strategy, really. Think meds are overprescribed in the US? Bubonic plague will descend on you!

Don’t want to support Goldman Sachs with your money? The Great Depression is coming!

Not sure that it makes sense to invade yet another country? Terrorists! Bin Laden! Ah, he’s dead? Well, still, terrorists! They are coming! Right now! If you are still not convinced, go take some pills, see if that helps.

There Is No Demographic Crisis in Russia

~ Clarissa ~ 10 Comments

The Russian people have been so brainwashed by the “let’s procreate to stop the brown and the yellow threat” propaganda that they unashamedly peddle these ideological goods overseas. Here is the opening paragraph from an article by a Russian journalist in Foreign Policy:

“Russia needs babies” may as well be the unofficial slogan of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s ruling United Russia Party. The country is in a demographic crisis, shedding 2.2 million people (or 1.6 percent of the population) since 2002, and the government is trying to encourage more women to bring Russian citizens into the world.

First of all, there is no “demographic crisis” in Russia. There are racist scary tales but the “crisis” only exists in the heads of Russian nationalists. Our planet is at risk because of overpopulation. This means that any discussion of how people are not procreating enough has to be motivated by racism. The numbers this pseudo-journalist provides are, obviously, all garbage. The migration into Russia has been huge and any “loss” of population has been amply compensated for by the new arrivals. The journalist coyly refuses to mention that the only population she deems worth counting is the white and blue-eyed.

Readers have probably now started wondering why I keep harping on this topic. The truth is that I am deeply convinced that the tendency not to take Russia seriously and not to pay any attention to it since the fall of the Berlin Wall is a huge mistake. The same people (or their children) are still in power in Russia. The fall of the Berlin Wall was a huge symbolic event. Its practical dimensions, however, were limited.

Racism, xenophobia, contempt for everything Western, and religious fanaticism are being promoted in Russia right now. Nobody wants to pay attention, however, because today’s narrative in North America is that Russia has been democratized, now all attention should concentrate on bringing the joys of democracy to the Arab countries. This attitude is as unreasonable as it is short-sighted.

9/11 Coloring Book

~ Clarissa ~ 5 Comments

It is really sad that people would trivialize the tragedy of 9/11 to achieve really strange ideological purposes. Take, for example, a coloring book on the events of 9/11.

 Do people not realize that the very concept of a coloring book on the subject makes a joke out of 9/11? It takes this event out of the realm of historic tragedies and transforms it into a fairy-tale or a cartoon.

Of course, the makers of the book only created it to sell their propaganda to little kids whose parents are unintelligent enough to waste money on this ridiculous object. As The New Yorker reports:

Above bin Laden’s startled face, there are four long paragraphs on the mission to hunt down and kill him, followed by a paragraph of editorializing:

Children, the truth is, these terrorist acts were done by freedom-hating radical Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE. We must be prepared to know and understand the truth. America is FREE. Ask your mother and father, your teacher, your preacher what this really means. What does it mean to be FREE? Why are we a FREE people? We are free to think, free to be honest, free to write, free to live as we wish. We are America. America does not hate other people in the world, but we love the world in which we live and will defend our way of life.

I’d say that what it means to be free definitely has to include not having some paranoiac screaming the word FREE at you like crazy when you are a small kid. Of course, you can’t explain that to someone who sends you to your preacher to find out what it means to be free.

 

Klubnikis and Lola

~ Clarissa ~ 4 Comments

My niece – whom for the purposes of this blog I will refer to as “Klubnikis” – is very smart. She is only 21 months old but she operates an iPad like a pro, can count to six, knows more songs than I do, and understands almost everything (including quite complex sentences) in 3 languages.

She also must have realized what most people don’t, namely, that I don’t like my name and don’t perceive it as in any way descriptive of me onomatopoeically. So Klubnikis came up with a much better sounding version of my name. She calls me “Lola” (pronounced in a Spanish manner with soft “l”s and a short “o”). I like that.

Klubnikis also calls the elevator “elvie” and says “armies” for arms. You have to agree that “elvie” sounds so much better than just some stupid elevator.

At a garden party we had in Montreal, Klubnikis spied me going into the bathroom. Then, she went outside, approached every single guest and informed them in a conspiratorial tone, “Lola piss piss.” When I came back, I was greeted by everybody staring at me and the host asking, “So how did you like the work I did on the bathroom design?”

OK, I promise there will be no cutesy baby stories for a while. I just needed to get this off my chest. 🙂