RELOCATED FROM ALTHOUSE2: "So, your blog goes down right after being reported as a cesspool of [misogyny] and homophobia? Hmmmmm . . ."

Says LawGirl, over in the "weasel" post.

The anonymous professor who emailed lawprof Brian Leiter to attack my commentariat said "She has the free speech right to run whatever cesspool she wants, but is she prioritizing her desire for a widely read blog over her obligation to be a responsible member of academia?" — which is quoted by Freeman Hunt, who laughs, calls it the "quote of the day," and paraphrases it: "Free speech is incompatible with academia!" Freeman adds: "Free speech areas are cesspools. Restricted speech areas are responsible academia." Yeah, but can you really expect law professors to drape their brains around that?

Maguro said: "The email is so prissy and self-important that Leiter almost certainly wrote it himself. Anonymous colleague, my ass." Well, let's be fair. Professor Anonymous does call the blog comments here a "festival of misogyny and homophobia." Palladian said: "I hope there's an open bar at your festival of misogyny and homophobia."

Roger J. said:

Professor A: unless I have completely misread you over the last five years, I am thinking you arent going down without a fight--(just dont ask me for money however, my principles arent THAT strong :) )

Hey, good idea. Please! Encourage me:

I need some love!

dbp said:

An interesting logical loop here: Brian Leiter's blog posts an anonymous comment, which presumably is in agreement with the blog's editor. The comment is actively put forward by that blog, unlike at Althouse where comments are all posted and hardly ever deleted.

Both blogs contain what could fairly be described as scurrilous comments. The difference is that Alhouse neither approves or disapproves of the comments while Leiter clearly takes an editorial ownership.

"She has the free speech right to run whatever cesspool she wants, but is she prioritizing her desire for a widely read blog over her obligation to be a responsible member of academia?"

This had got to be the most lame use of a question mark in history. Oh, I make a big long ugly accusation then make it all right with a meaningless squiggle on top of the dot.

If the Leiter post led to the removal of the Althouse blog, then is there a case of slander here?

Good point. But it's not slander. If it's in writing, we lawyers say libel, not slander. But it's not libel. It's just opinion. Lame ass opinion from a lawprof who — in my opinion — envies my readership, which is bigger than his.

***

Now, maybe you're wondering just what the hell was in those terrible comments — that supposed "festival of misogyny and homophobia." You try the link at Leiter's, but it gets you nowhere, because Blogger removed my blog. But here's the cached version of the page the Leiter blog links to. Check out the comments and see if you can tell what's really upset the people who are on my case. There are only 32 comments. They are easy enough to read. I pick out a few.

Maguro said:

[The 3 candidates] seem notably lacking in victim-group credentials. Are any of them gay, trans or gender non-conforming?

This is a criticism based on one commenter's sense of what law schools do.

gutless said:

Is Margaret a lesbian? One imagines so in that her background doesn't seem competitive and yet, here she is. If so, she has the job. If not ,she is merely window dressing and the less offensive of the other two gets the nod.

That's obviously another criticism of law schools, reflecting an assumption that law schools make choices based on diversity factors. I'm sure the criticism hurts some people, but it doesn't say there's something wrong with being a lesbian or that the candidate is a lesbian. Maybe a nervous reader could take that the wrong way, in which case, I'd say: that festival of misogyny and homophobia is in your head. Good thing you hid your name!

Thorley Winston said:

I think it’s generally a bad idea to announce the “finalists” when conducting a job interview, particularly for the top position. IMO there shouldn’t be a public announcement until they’ve made their selection.

I agree, but the Law School chose to put the names and their credentials on its official website, obviously inviting public comment. I linked, opening it up to the comments. You know we are a public law school, and it's appropriate that people around the state receive information and have an opportunity to speak. And yet, feelings can be hurt. People in legal academia like to think that their feelings are righteous indignation having to do with women and minorities... but are they really? Think carefully!

Titus said:

If the woman candidate has big tits I say hire her. Otherwise, go with one of the men.

You can't go wrong with big tits.

tits...yum

All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, by our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him. If that's what Leiter and the Anonymous Professor feel such angst about... it's because they don't understand the community here. They're like Sean Hannity fretting about Common in White House.

COMMENTS (Relocated from Althouse2):


Which brings me back to the conclusion that I think is painfully obvious about him: he deserves every ounce of criticism that he is bringing upon himself.

Freaking idiot.

MAY 13, 2011 6:43:00 PM CDT 
 Danny Vice said...
There are a couple of avenues available to you Ann if you want to preserve your posts. Granted, it will be pretty time consuming, considering the thousands of posts you've published, but the option is there to grab these posts while they are still accessible.

I trust someone on your end has shared some of these options with you. If not, please email me.

Dannyvice (at) hotmail.com

MAY 13, 2011 6:47:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 6:49:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
Hmmm, the blog has always struck me more as a tidal pool of mythology and arachnophobia, but I'm a lousy reader.

MAY 13, 2011 6:51:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
They're 86-ing comments here too.

MAY 13, 2011 6:52:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
To be sure Titus is an acquired taste (there's a metaphor), but, let me think, let's work on that phrase, "obligation to be a responsible member of academia"...

Does that include Ward "Little Eichmanns" Churchill?

William "Guilty As Sin" Ayers?

Cornel "Sun People" West?

We may have our disagreements with her, but the lady gives us a forum unrestricted in most ways. As I said, when the roll is called up yonder, the looker with the platinum bob will be conlawproffing with George and Ben and Jimmy while these "academics" will be sharing a barbecue pit with their heroes from Al Qaeda.

MAY 13, 2011 6:52:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
You know, there have been many, many more offensive threads in Althouse blog history. Any of the threads to which I've contributed, for example.

I can recall one that featured Freeman Hunt, of all people, dropping f-bombs like Rahm Emmanuel on an acid bender. Good times, good times.

But I will agree with this much of this turd's thesis: If the mysterious outage is politically motivated, then I suspect that it's the politics of your commenters, more than your own politics, that led to it.

MAY 13, 2011 6:55:00 PM CDT 
 TWM said...
"All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him."

Oh crap, does Meade know he signed-on for a threesome?

MAY 13, 2011 7:00:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
"We may have our disagreements with her, but the lady gives us a forum unrestricted in most ways."

In their eyes, that is her sin. She allows people to express themselves however they see fit.

That's racist and homophobic and misogynistic.

People (in their view) need to be controlled so we can end the hate speech once and for all and get on with the war in EastAsia.

Or is it Eurasia today?

I forget.

MAY 13, 2011 7:01:00 PM CDT 
 Michael K said...
If Blogspot did this for political reasons, you need to be out of there as fast as possible. I use Word Press which has a pretty good rep as blogging software and can be customized as Patterico has done. I also use a separate web host, called Blue Host, and have had no problems and doubt very much if Blue Host cares what is on blogs it hosts.

Academics are such humorless people, present company excepted. I have a friend, a science associate professor, who is sweating out tenure after having to leave another institution when it was denied for political reasons. And that is science, not sociology.

MAY 13, 2011 7:08:00 PM CDT 
 TWM said...
Time for Althouse.com . . . you're that big . . . and that threatening evidently . . .

MAY 13, 2011 7:09:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
Well. On the off chance that guy is not a Google employee and that their abuse system is not manned by him, I flagged one of his remaining comments as abuse and detailed his abuse of power (including, apparently, the ability to mess with Google accounts-- I had to have them send a verification code to my cell phone and enter it in order to access my account because of 'suspicious activity').

That jerkwad belongs nowhere near any position with any kind of authority.

MAY 13, 2011 7:11:00 PM CDT 
 Michael Haz said...
You broke from the borg. The borg will kill you.

MAY 13, 2011 7:11:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It's obvious to me what the problem is here. I have told you time and again. Stop with the politics. More posts about American Idol and dogs urinating. These commie pinko bastards are very vindictive pricks. You need to lay low.

You said you wanted your blog to be a mixture of Fellini and the Monkee's.

Neither one of them gave a shit about labor douchenozzles.

I hate to say I told you so...but I told you so.

MAY 13, 2011 7:18:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
And they dumped Tourettes Rocker Boy last night and you didn't even have one post on it.

Shame on you.

You. An American Idol blogger.

MAY 13, 2011 7:18:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
This really shines a new light on the cowardly banning and deletion at Lawyers Guns and Money. Maybe they're just afraid of being shut down by their liberal over-lords.

I'm not sure if they're on Blogger -- the meager traffic of their little-known boutique blog is so small that they're able to handle it with their dedicated server, a repurposed Commodore 386. The average comment thread there is about 20 comments; there are several that have one or two. The longest I've seen is a little over 100 -- driven mostly by my participation. So they might have their own domain.

MAY 13, 2011 7:19:00 PM CDT 
 JoeDetweiler said...
My understanding is that nitecruzr is just a volunteer, and that seems to me to be the problem. You should be talking to an employee and Google should be seeing to it that you are talking to an employee.

http://www.google.com.tw/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=051824dc719f3fae&hl=en

MAY 13, 2011 7:19:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I was banned from Television Without Pity after four comments.

They are like Nazi's over there.

Don't think I forgot about you Kay Howard. You are in the book. Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 7:22:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
Trooper, I was a little disappointed to see that you hadn't contributed to the cesspool of homophobia and misogyny. When I heard that one of the comments speculated on the candidate's tits, you were the first person I thought of.

MAY 13, 2011 7:27:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I am a well know lover of tits. I coddle them. Put them in the best of lacy bras. Tits are my friend. They should be yours.

MAY 13, 2011 7:29:00 PM CDT 
 Ann Althouse said...
"And they dumped Tourettes Rocker Boy last night and you didn't even have one post on it."

I tweeted it.

MAY 13, 2011 7:30:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I was busy at a benefit while all this was going on. I asked some of my detective friends to look into it. But so far nobody has a reasonable explanation.

Except that stuff like this is gonna to happen more and more in Barack Obama's America.

MAY 13, 2011 7:30:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
If your blog returns, you should immediately download it.

Given your traffic, you should consider getting a blogging application that allows you to compose locally and post to multiple blogging sites.

Really, at your level, you should probably get your own domain and hosting service.

MAY 13, 2011 7:32:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you. Where is AlpaLiberal, Jeremy,Robert Cook, Jay Retread and all the rest. They are oddly silent about the destruction of a blog that they write multiple posts on to support their point of view which is displayed without censorship or fear or favor.

I hope you see who you can depend on. Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 7:33:00 PM CDT 
 NotYourTypicalNewYorker said...
The culture war imperceptibly widens.

Here, there...

The losers start stepping out of the tree line for better shots.

MAY 13, 2011 7:36:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
Oh my God, Titus is gay?!

MAY 13, 2011 7:38:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 7:39:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you.

I'm here. I think the theory that Google shut down this blog pretty goofy though. Fittingly it was hatched by Moe Lane @ Redstate.com

I do feel bad if all the old content is gone though. If nothing else all my old comments gone would be a sad day indeed.

Seriously I hope you get your blog back, fully preserved.

MAY 13, 2011 7:40:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I also 'encouraged' the blog by buying through the Amazon portal instead of going to Best Buy, even though it means waiting several days to get my merch and have a more fulfilling life.

I encourage everyone else to encourage her in this way. Words of encouragement are less motivating that transactions of encouragement.

MAY 13, 2011 7:40:00 PM CDT 
 Pastafarian said...
blake -- wouldn't that cost a butt-load of money, given what has to be pretty substantial traffic, and a content-rich site, what with all of the photos and the enormous archive?

MAY 13, 2011 7:41:00 PM CDT 
 The Drill SGT said...
All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man

"treasured"?

amusing and entertaining? perhaps

treasured? no :)

MAY 13, 2011 7:41:00 PM CDT 
 nevadabob said...
I find it striking that Althouse is censoring and memory-holing comments that are critical of Google's leftist and socialist politics.

Looks like Google's action is having the correct effect.

They've convinced Althouse to strangle her commenters.

MAY 13, 2011 7:42:00 PM CDT 
 Barry Dauphin said...
You're too big for Blogger.

MAY 13, 2011 7:43:00 PM CDT 
 Shannon Bell said...
Hey Ann,

Just my opinion, but screw Google and blogger. Buy an awesome URL, go with Wordpress and be done with it.

Who knows what kind of games these jokers are playing.

MAY 13, 2011 7:44:00 PM CDT 
 Shannon Bell said...
Oh, by the way. Thanks for that awesome link at Insty's place yesterday!

MAY 13, 2011 7:45:00 PM CDT 
 Michael Haz said...
Wouldn't have happened if McCain had been elected. Google are Obama's people. They're like Organizing for America, except they hold a horrible lot of power.

MAY 13, 2011 7:46:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I doubt the old blog is lost. And I highly doubt this is a sinister plot by Google to silence people of Althouse's political persuasion--whatever the hell that persuasion is.

And if it is lost, don't worry: Trooper has the last 4 1/2 years printed out and spiral-bound in a handsome collection titled, "The Collected Wisdom of..." And since they're criminalizing prostitution in Nevada he'll have plenty of time to re-post everything. Idle hands, etc.

MAY 13, 2011 7:51:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I didn't include you Garage. I don't consider you a real liberal.

You are just stupid.

(You are a Packers fan)

But you know I love you guy!

MAY 13, 2011 7:52:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Seriously, the same thing happened when the blogger lady got engaged. Garage was one of the few to quickly and unambigously wish them well. The rest were silent for a suspicious long time until they felt they had to begrudingly acknowledge it. Look it up....oh wait a minute.....

MAY 13, 2011 7:53:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
The Google/Blogger conspiracy might be a longshot, but the nitecruzr pissant is all too real. Dickless little shit.

MAY 13, 2011 7:54:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I'd be just shocked and amazed if Blogger really took down Althouse for political reasons. That is just not done in the United States. I just figured it was ridiculous technical problems and you, Althouse, took down your own blog in disgust until you found a new home.

Anyway, color me skeptical of the conspiracy for now. If it's true, it's sickening and disheartening and really suggests something seriously morbid about the American left. We all know they are closet fascists, but to be so obvious about it isn't usually the way it goes.

MAY 13, 2011 7:57:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
May 13, 2011
Blogger is back

What a frustrating day. We’re very sorry that you’ve been unable to publish to Blogger for the past 20.5 hours. We’re nearly back to normal — you can publish again, and in the coming hours posts and comments that were temporarily removed should be restored. Thank you for your patience while we fix this situation. We use Blogger for our own blogs, so we’ve also felt your pain.

Here’s what happened: during scheduled maintenance work Wednesday night, we experienced some data corruption that impacted Blogger’s behavior. Since then, bloggers and readers may have experienced a variety of anomalies including intermittent outages, disappearing posts, and arriving at unintended blogs or error pages. A small subset of Blogger users (we estimate 0.16%) may have encountered additional problems specific to their accounts. Yesterday we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed. Those are the posts that we’re in the progress of restoring.

Again, we are very sorry for the impact to our authors and readers. We try hard to ensure Blogger is always available for you to share your thoughts and opinions with the world, and we’ll do our best to prevent this from happening again.

Posted by Eddie Kessler, Tech Lead/Manager, Blogger

http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/05/blogger-is-back.html

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Hey I just heard they buried the Althouse blog at sea....you know they didn't want to offend the Muslims or something....I don't know ....does that sound reasonable to you....yeah it must just be a crazy conspiracy theory...yeah...yeah...that's the ticket.

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 The Grand Inquisitor said...
"OpenID nevadabob said...

I find it striking that Althouse is censoring and memory-holing comments that are critical of Google's leftist and socialist politics.

Looks like Google's action is having the correct effect.

They've convinced Althouse to strangle her commenters."

Is she really doing so? That would be quite a surprise, and frankly, I don't believe it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same people who deleted her blog are now deleting comments critical of their behavior, though.

Althouse linked the redstate theory about Google, so why would she be protecting Google from similar theories?

MAY 13, 2011 8:00:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I'm quite sure Althouse isn't doing whatever the fuck the tool Nevada Bob said.

MAY 13, 2011 8:02:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Pasta--

I hosted a bunch of sites on an old machine for years at a nominal cost. Not as heavily trafficked as Althouse, I'm sure.

Aha. So, GoDaddy gives you 10GB of space and unlimited bandwidth for $3 a month if you buy three years at once. $5 for 150GB, which is a LOT of space for text and pix, and the pix are probably gonna stay on flicker, mostly.

Jeez, for $7 a month, it's all you can eat: However many websites, however much bandwidth, however much space, a thousand email accounts (Althouse could offer accounts to donors!), and some other perks.

Curiously, they don't offer as good a deal if you go for their "blog/podcast" offer.

Anyway, $252 over three years doesn't seem like a lot of money to me.

Plus, the data's all yours.

For this deal, Althouse would probably have to buy (or have donated) services to set up her blog. But, you know, blogspot.com kinda sucks, so she might find newer and better technology.

MAY 13, 2011 8:03:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
TWM said...

"All right, that's absurd and over-the-top, but our dear, treasured Titus — a gay man. He's been talking like that on this blog for years. The regulars know him. And they know I love him."

Oh crap, does Meade know he signed-on for a threesome?

With Titus, are you sure it would only be three?

Trooper York said...

I do notice that none of the "liberals" or "progressives" who post daily on your site has anything to say in support of you. Where is AlpaLiberal, Jeremy,Robert Cook, Jay Retread and all the rest. They are oddly silent about the destruction of a blog that they write multiple posts on to support their point of view which is displayed without censorship or fear or favor.

I hope you see who you can depend on. Just sayn'

The One Whose Name We Cannot Mention found us, but only because he was trolling elsewhere.

PS Keep it down, we don't want the rest to find out we're having fun without them.

PPS Agree with Shannon.

PPPS BlogHer is taking up Ann's cause with a fetching photo of Herself.

MAY 13, 2011 8:04:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It does seem kind of fishy that as big a blog as Althouse is taking so long to get back on line. I mean this is a big dealio. Shouldn't they be paying attention to this or what?

MAY 13, 2011 8:07:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
I agree it's all very fishy. I just can't believe it all. The blog gets destroyed with no warning whatsoever and it just happens to be during a time of tumult and outage at Blogger?

Doesn't add up.

MAY 13, 2011 8:09:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
With Titus, are you sure it would only be three?

With Titus, could you even be sure it was one?

By the way, I think the Google "conspiracy" thing is far-fetched. The most likely issue is just exactly what it seems: a technical glitch of the sort Google isn't supposed to have.

However, could someone(s) in Google use this as a cover to eff with someone (t)he(y) didn't like? Or minimally put that person at the end of the service line?

Sure. Probably not Sergey or Larry--that seems too far-fetched for words. But some middle manager type getting pissy? Petty bureaucrats are petty bureaucrats wherever.

(Typed on a Google CR-48. Heh.)

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I wonder if they will release some photo's from the situation room at Blogger? Just sayn'

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Tibore said...
It's back! I just checked it. It's completely blank, but the original URL is responding.

Now, the question is, where's all the previous content?

MAY 13, 2011 8:11:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
Yup. The big blog is showing signs of life. Conspiracy theory over (?), Google volunteer hatefest continues.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Nitecruzer looks like Jeremy's dog, the one on the right.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I also think that the other big time bloggers are taking this too casually. If they can do this to Althouse they can do it to anyone.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
It is back up.

MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:13:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Seconded Tibore.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
Your blog is back up (sans any of your previous posts, which I assume will be forthcoming).

A Blogger employee seems to have put a stop to Nitecruzr's nonsense as well, as the Google 'help forum' thread is open for comments once again after the Blogger employee commented.

Hopefully they will take his keys away.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I told you man. They buried all the old content at sea.

It's the latest thing.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
You are just stupid.

Awwww! Thanks Troop.

MAY 13, 2011 8:14:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Or minimally put that person at the end of the service line?

This I can certainly see.

Move, Althouse. Fuck this shit.

MAY 13, 2011 8:15:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
You know I love you man.

Anybody that loves road kill sandwiches is ok in my book.

MAY 13, 2011 8:15:00 PM CDT 
 EnigmatiCore said...
It will be interesting to see what happens to Mr. Croll now. I might even have to read his blogs to find out what he eventually says about the whole kerfuffle.

MAY 13, 2011 8:16:00 PM CDT 
 The Grand Inquisitor said...
I won't out nitecruzr, but apparently he wrote a wikipedia entry about himself, and how famous he is for defending freedom of speech while having such a useful blog.

What a dweeb. He wanted to be famous, and now he'll have his little 26 minutes of fame/lame.

MAY 13, 2011 8:17:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
Althouse

You can find a lot of your stuff in this "feedburner".

feed://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/eOqB


I'm not going to hot link it so you can *see* the complete address.

MAY 13, 2011 8:17:00 PM CDT 
 Tibore said...
Yeah, the old content is gone. But the Google cached versions are intact, at least. Not the best thing, granted, but that should mean that somehow the old posts can be resurrected.

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
"I might even have to read his blogs to find out what he eventually says about the whole kerfuffle."

Guerrilla marketing by being an insufferable prick? So dumb it actually worked. Anyway, you should have plenty of material to look at. According to his "bio" he's got at least half a dozen pseudo-eponymous blogs.

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
Odd seeing the comment on the masthead at the original blog. And the blog being gone. Maybe her husband didn't stop reading Althouse afterall

MAY 13, 2011 8:19:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
Yeah we never figured out who that woman was....Michelle.....hello...
Michelle....Buellar...anyone...

MAY 13, 2011 8:21:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
It has the photos also.

It looks like because there is so much data associated with your blog that it took them longer.

I know in some management decisions sometimes you make the decision to "sacrifice" the bigger table...

Hard to explain-but that's probably all that happened.

I mean really how big a threat can the only blogger who voted for Obama because McCain scared her because he was too much of an ideologue but at the same time not Conservative enough-really be?

MAY 13, 2011 8:21:00 PM CDT 
 FlaviusJulius said...
Where is my Profile pic?

MAY 13, 2011 8:23:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:24:00 PM CDT 
 madawaskan said...
I think the only person that followed that *logic* married you and came to that conclusion after a 2 1/2 year delay...

And was probably threatened with...

sex.

Or no sex-or well-*scary sex *but with not too much idealism.

Jeebus.

MAY 13, 2011 8:26:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
It's not really back, just responding. At least, =I= wouldn't consider it back if someone said "Hey! You're back--you just lost everything you've done for the past 8 years!"

I presume this means Althouse is at the front of the queue now. That's what I'd do were I in charge of this mess. It's one thing to be politically strident and another to have it seem as though that were impacting your business decisions.

(It does, of course, but they pick on the small fries whom no one cares about.)

MAY 13, 2011 8:26:00 PM CDT 
 Browndog said...
Not seeing many conservative bloggers rushing to Ann's defense--as I've seen them do with other bloggers with similar issued in the past.

Maybe they're still stuck on the "glitch" meme...waiting to see how this shakes out.

I saw it was removed this morning and was surprised. Now, I'm just shocked. Still.

Kinda shocked at myself for feeling a little bummed not being able to read Althouse.

MAY 13, 2011 8:28:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
It's a really big deal if all the old content was lost.

I mean we lost about 1000 comments of Titus pinching a loaf and Loafing Oaf pinching Sarah Palin's vagina.

MAY 13, 2011 8:28:00 PM CDT 
 Lincolntf said...
AoS put up a thread on the possible bannage,with links, etc.

MAY 13, 2011 8:29:00 PM CDT 
 Noah Bawdy™ said...
Your main blog is coming up now, no posts though.

MAY 13, 2011 8:30:00 PM CDT 
 Coketown said...
I would consider it a great personal tragedy if the Downward Spiral post from last fall was lost.

MAY 13, 2011 8:30:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Somebody pointed out no word verification right now.

Fuckinay! Anybody want to buy some cheap herbal Viagra? I give very good price.

MAY 13, 2011 8:32:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Well, I would say that this incident is not a positive advertisement for buying a cloudbook powered by google with all your work and software residing in the google administered "cloud." Good luck with that comrades.

MAY 13, 2011 8:33:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
Trooper York said:
Garage was one of the few to quickly and unambigously wish them well.

Why that's just fogblather, blogfather! Here, check it out yourself: link.

Garage didn't even post in that thread.

MAY 13, 2011 8:33:00 PM CDT 
 Henry said...
Shocking Meat Video is back!

MAY 13, 2011 8:35:00 PM CDT 
 Anga2010 said...
First they came for the CrackMC, but I didn't care because I'm not CrackMC...

MAY 13, 2011 8:35:00 PM CDT 
 Browndog said...
What the hell is this?

I just checked the old site--

It's there, empty.

But, this is the masthead:

Althouse

"I'm so glad you posted this. I've been trying to convince my husband
not to read your blog for weeks and this finally did the trick."

MAY 13, 2011 8:37:00 PM CDT 
 Palladian said...
Notice that the archives list the post counts for each year. The content isn't lost, it just hasn't found its way home yet.

MAY 13, 2011 8:38:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
I don't know if it was that post but I seem to remember Garage wishing her well. I could stand corrected.

I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You have to be nice to stupid people. Just sayn!

MAY 13, 2011 8:40:00 PM CDT 
 Prosecutorial Indiscretion said...
This post has been removed by the author.
MAY 13, 2011 8:43:00 PM CDT 
 edutcher said...
Trooper York said...

It does seem kind of fishy that as big a blog as Althouse is taking so long to get back on line. I mean this is a big dealio. Shouldn't they be paying attention to this or what?

I think Insta and Jacobson are. And I mentioned BlogHer, but, yes, if the Google Thought Police are pulling something cute because Ann doesn't censor - and because she took a stand in the recent troubles in Madison - then the Conservative and Libertarian blogospheres ought to be a lot more wound up about this.

MAY 13, 2011 8:44:00 PM CDT 
 garage mahal said...
Trooper
I'm almost positive you are correct. One of those threads anyway.

MAY 13, 2011 8:45:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

You have to be nice to stupid people. Just sayn!

I like garage too. He's one of the few people I've ever spoken to IRL from this blog.

MAY 13, 2011 8:46:00 PM CDT 
 Roger von Oech said...
Ann:

Good luck fighting your way through this current crap. I know you'll prevail!

For what's worth: I remember your saying a few years ago that you liked Blogger because it was free (as opposed to Typepad), and you didn't have to worry about having to pay to have access to your old posts. I assume you've changed your opinion.

MAY 13, 2011 8:47:00 PM CDT 
 Trooper York said...
That's how I remember it Garage. You were conspicious by being one of the few who did have something nice to say.

MAY 13, 2011 8:47:00 PM CDT 
 Seven Machos said...
Althouse ought to leave blogger. No matter what Google did to cause this, it's unacceptably bad.

Technical glitch. Bad.

Political censorship. Bad.

Chicanery because of glitch. Bad.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
garage mahal said: Trooper
I'm almost positive you are correct. One of those threads anyway.

Well maybe. It wasn't the engagement thread though. Check for yourself above.

Oh, and I think reader was the first to congratulate them after their wedding.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
My first thought in seeing that the blog was a desaparecido was the same as garage's, and that the woman in question had mad hacking skills.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 DADvocate said...
reflecting an assumption that law schools make choices based on diversity factors.

My assumption is that nearly all departments/schools/colleges in a university make choices based on diversity factors. My father was a psychology professor at a large state university. During the late 1970s/early 1980s, his department needed to hire a new department head. They tried for 2-3 years to hire a minority/female, preferably a female minority.

They failed because the supply was limited, the demand high and their salary too low. Instead they settled for the president of the APA who was merely a white male.

MAY 13, 2011 8:48:00 PM CDT 
 chickelit said...
@Palladian (if he's around):

Do you happen to know what happened to backtype.com? They no longer seem to host back comments from Althouse.

MAY 13, 2011 8:49:00 PM CDT 
 Matt said...
Your blog is back. Sadly, with no posts.

MAY 13, 2011 8:51:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Notice that the archives list the post counts for each year. The content isn't lost, it just hasn't found its way home yet.

Well, not to get too geeky 'cause I'm sure you're right BUT I would imagine the post counts are updated when posts are made, and not recalculated on every page load.

In other words, the counts being there just mean the counts are there, not the posts.

MAY 13, 2011 8:53:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
Uh oh. I just realized that I've contributed to the cesspool of homophobia by presuming that someone with a husband was a woman.

MAY 13, 2011 8:53:00 PM CDT 
 Michael said...
Why has your blog been on useless, clueless Blogspot since 2005 anyway?

I don't mean to blame the victim, but really, you could at least pay for your own server and use Blogger to publish it, or better yet WordPress.

This is like asking Ford why your Pinto blew up. That's what Pintos DO.

MAY 13, 2011 8:56:00 PM CDT 
 Quayle said...
If you were teaching a class - say at Northwestern - and you lauded big tits on a woman, you'd be a smash hit with the professoriate.

But you're commentators on a blog? You're unworthy of your title and position.

MAY 13, 2011 8:57:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
But you're commentators on a blog? You're unworthy of your title and position.

Unworthy of the exalted title of blog commenter?

MAY 13, 2011 9:02:00 PM CDT 
 Quayle said...

Unworthy of the exalted title of blog commenter?

Unworthy of the title professor and as a member of the academy.

MAY 13, 2011 9:05:00 PM CDT 
 RuyDiaz said...
I'm sorry but, it was Titus who offered the only (remotely, if at all) mysogynistic comment? That's pretty much all Titus does!

Between the snarky law professor, and Blogger Trouble, it has been farce all around.

MAY 13, 2011 9:06:00 PM CDT 
 RuyDiaz said...
Uh oh. I just realized that I've contributed to the cesspool of homophobia by presuming that someone with a husband was a woman.

Oh, shoot.

When I was a 14-year-old boy, back in 1990, I remember wondering just how big Benazhir Bhutto's breast were. It was hard to estimate, with her dressing in that unflattering Islamic dress and all.

That's mysogynistic and Islamophobic: take that!

MAY 13, 2011 9:12:00 PM CDT 
 Ralph L said...
Is it misogyny to admire someone's tits, or just to talk about them? I doubt he's interested in her "gyn" parts.

Leiter's blog could be a hotbed of Cfud-caliber anti-semitism. He's got a post called "Hung from Temple to Colorado."

MAY 13, 2011 9:13:00 PM CDT 
 blake said...
Unworthy of the title professor and as a member of the academy.

Probably the nicest thing anyone's said about Althouse all day!

MAY 13, 2011 9:14:00 PM CDT 
 Chip S. said...
@Quayle, Oh, OK. I reread your comment and now I get it. One of those times when "you're" vs. "your" wasn't clear from context.

Did you see that Northwestern recently dropped that sex class? Too high a ratio of hardware to soft porn.

MAY 13, 2011 9:19:00 PM CDT 
 starboardhelm said...
Ann, I would love to host your blog on my own server at writecraft.net (as althouse.writecraft.net or any domain name you want) for a very reasonable rate. I will even migrate your database if you can get a copy out Blogger. If you're interested, please contact me at support@writecraft.net.

MAY 13, 2011 9:19:00 PM CDT 

What Alfred Hitchcock tells us about whether Obama should show us the bullet-ridden head of Osama bin Laden.

Here's the fantastic "I think you're evil!" clip from Hitchcock's "The Birds":


I Think You're Evil! by movieclips

I looked that up because Titus invoked it in the thread about whether the bin Laden death photos should be shown: "I want to see them and he better look like Suzanne Pleshette in The Byrds." Titus is a comic commenter who says all manner of outrageous things (and misspells to amuse us). (By the way, did you know that the rock group The Byrds came out around the same time as the Hitchcock movie, and they adapted the movie slogan: "The Byrds is coming"?)

Anyway, if you've seen "The Birds," you have the feeling that you stared straight at a stark depiction of the character Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) with her eyes completely plucked out. With the clip at your control, you may have to go back a few times before you can be sure how much you really saw. I mean, I think I went back about 10 times, and I'm still not sure! But you see almost nothing. Similarly, in "Psycho," you feel you see the knife cut into Janet Leigh multiple times, but, in fact, you never see that.

The vivid, lingering image of the eyeless Pleshette is a product of imagination, and in our imagination we already have the picture of Osama's blasted face. Why should we prefer the opportunity to stare at the destruction? If "The Birds" were made today, we probably would get a long look at gruesome special effects, and it would, undoubtedly be a much worse movie with far less emotional impact. We might even laugh at it. How would we react to the real photo of bin Laden? I don't know. Maybe we'd feel a thrill, followed perhaps by shame at our brutishness. More likely, we'd stare to the point of familiarity and arrive at some clinical distance.

Why would Obama want that? Like a remake of "The Birds," it's beyond unnecessary.

The Good Habits of an Ideal Boy.

Titus emails this photo of a poster on a shop door in Brattleboro, Vermont.

(Click photo to enlarge and read.)

Obama drops to 49%.

"Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50% approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month. Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50% in his 10th month in office, though Reagan's drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama's (Nov. 17-19, 2009)."

IN THE COMMENTS: Titus says:

Normally I don't believe polls because they are liberal and biased but this one I definitely support.

thank you and good day fellow republicans.

"I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill, with..."

I'm listening to the old Dion song this morning:



No, it's not because I'm trying to come up with a verse about Teddy Kennedy... or that I picture him — accompanied by angel-harp music — walking into Heaven with various beloved dead political heroes. (Get a grip, people, Teddy lived to a ripe old age and died in the normal course of things, which is the best any of us can hope for. He was not cut down in his prime like Abraham, Martin, John, and Bobby.)

It's because I need to pull this comment just buried under the "Third Man" post and elevate it to the heaven of today's front page. It's a comment about lost commenters — a song parody. And please, write new verses for that song. The collection of beloved old commenters who have wandered off is longer than Trooper, Titus, and Palladian. And they haven't died. I'm picturing them not in Heaven, but drinking and talking late into the night in some bar over on Atlantic Avenue.

"Man cave."

It's the July 23, 2009 Urban Word of the Day. Here's definition #1, with 831 up, 51 down votes:

A room, space, corner or area of a dwelling that is specifically reserved for a male person to be in a solitary condition, away from the rest of the household in order to work, play, involve himself in certain hobbies, activities without interuption. This area is usually decorated by the male that uses it without interferance from any female influence.

Definition #2 is similar. But watch out for Definitions #3 and 4, which have been strongly disapproved of by Urban Dictionary voters.

So do you have a man cave? Tell us about it. And I mean that in the Definition #1/2 sense. I know you've got one in the Definitions #3/4 sense, and you probably haven't got anything entertaining to say about it (unless you are Titus).

IN THE COMMENTS: Howard said:

Another depressing example of the continued sissification of America. Giving a special cute name to normal quiet behavior and/or a garage screams of estrogen.

If you have a garage band in that garage, you can call it Screams of Estrogen. And write a song called "Normal Quiet Behavior."

Are you annoyed at the way the death of Michael Jackson has overshadowed the protests in Iran?

This may help.

IN THE COMMENTS: Titus says:

I am annoyed the way Michael Jackson's death overshadowed Mark Sanford.

I want more Mark Sanford.

I want more previous video clips of Mark Sanford moralizing and passing judgment on others. I want 24 hour Mark Sanford and I want it now....

I want to hear Mark Sanford bitching about not taking stimulus money but than using tax payer money to fuck in Argentina... with someone other than his wife.

Hey! I didn't know...

... that the old Audible Althouse podcasts were still accessible on line. Just happened to go looking after what Reader_Iam said in the Tick Flick comments. Lord knows what all is in there!

Keep reading from that second link and you'll see that Titus throws down the gauntlet about gay men in Madison, Wisconsin. And then Chip Ahoy gets going on the subject of ticks, politicks, and — why not? — dung beetles, culminating in this:

An outrageous question gets an outrageous answer.

Titus asks.

Meade answers.

For Althouse blog insiders only.

"Treacle, we'd like to introduce you to our very good friend Titus."

Hey, Titus came back.

Somehow, the death of Bea Arthur brought back our long lost commenter. Did her ghost nudge him over here?

About my proposed Titus recording.

So I said I wanted to record — and sell — a CD of me reading some of my favorite Titus comments. I hadn't decided if I'd actually do this, so your reaction to the proposal matters to me.

Chuck b. said:

Oh my..!

I would of course include selected tracks in the music program that I play during the cocktail hour before all my dinner parties.

Like everyone else in the world is going to do once this gets in circulation!

Everyone one the coasts, I mean.

Your level of celebrity is about to tick up a notch.

So far, so good. Chuck is with me!

Palladian said:

This is a terrible idea. I can't think of anything more repellent than having to listen to Titus's comments.

But this is the way the wind is blowing around here. Apparently someone's endless commentary about their excrement and their fictive sexual encounters and their ugly dogs is what passes for interesting conversation these days.

Will you include the parts where he insults other commenters? How about when he sexually harasses female commenters, asking about their tits? What about his unfunny faux-conservative rants? Will these all be a part of the collection?

Bleh. Better to make a best-of cd of your late podcast or sell prints of your photographs or squirrel mugs or simply as for donations like Andrew Sullivan used to do?

Uh oh. I don't have Palladian! Why doesn't he appreciate Titus's absurd writings? You won't be listening to Titus. You'll be listening to me. Whatever is repellent about Titus's voice will be transformed. It won't be an attempt to impersonate him, but purely me. I think I can help you see what is so funny about it. As for prints of my photographs, anyone can download the original files and print out whatever they want under the Creative Commons license I have displayed at Flickr. As for donations, my post worked as a request for donations and I got a few. (Thanks!) I'm not desperate for money. That's not my purpose here. I really am in it for the laughs. I was reading some Titus comments aloud — the thing about the sock — and I laughed into hysteria. I'd have a lot of fun making the recording, and I only want to share the fun.... with those who find it fun.

Skeptical said:

I know why Althouse likes Titus's shtick.

Even the lame crap that Titus serves up over and over becomes performance art through his sticking to it over the long haul. When one thinks of the narrative strand that is Titus's 'I squeezed out a loaf this morning, and it had two heads,' etc., picturing it extended in time, itself like an endless loaf shat out of Titus, it has an aesthetic appeal that none of the individual loaf comments even hints at individually. So when Althouse laughs at Titus's loaf remarks, she is laughing at it not on its own, but only as a loaf-moment, if you will, in the unending loaf.

Ha ha.

John Stodder said:

I think the guy's hilarious.... [T]here is something so decorous about the way Titus expresses pride in his creations, I can't help but laugh. There's a generosity about his whole approach here. Obviously, he's one of the commenters who disagrees with the majority, but his stings are gentle and sometimes clever....

But, professor, wouldn't it just be easier for you to write a damn book? You're a pioneer blogger, a pioneer bLAWger, and a pioneer woman blogger. I'm also convinced that you've got one of the few big blogs with political content that isn't essentially dishonest.... Why don't to write a book about this blog, why you do it, what it has added to your life and career, what it's taught you?....

This is something I thought of doing and, in fact, worked on — 100 pages worth — in 2005. I abandoned the project because I didn't like the way it felt to be on the outside observing the thing I was actively doing, as if it had already occurred. To blog is to be constantly in the middle of things. I want to be the blogger, not the memoirist observing me, the blogger. That's not bloggy. This blog may seem to be about me, but it's not. You may be able to see something of me in it, and I know it feels personal. But the fact is, I don't blog about myself. I blog about whatever interests me at any given moment, and I'm not self-absorbed. I want to look out, not in.

Onparkstreet said...

I have to admit, I scroll past the Titus comments because I find them a little bit gross.

And, the funny thing is, I'm trained as a pathologist.

Ha ha ha. That is funny.

Palladian again:

Titus is not just a harmless minstrel in a faggot costume debasing himself for the pleasure of the straights. If you have read enough of his comments (and there are certainly a lot of them), you'll have noticed that there's a deep nasty streak underneath all the "namaste" crap. The titus project is to disrupt any attempt at reasonable conversation and drive away the intelligent commenters and readers. It hasn't totally worked fortunately, but I have to say that my interest in reading the comments on a post drastically diminishes when I see his alias...

"Always wondered why Titus was tolerated."

Unfortunately Althouse's commendable respect for free speech in her comments has allowed some bad-faith commenters to do a lot of damage to the community.

I don't understand the attraction Althouse has for titus's writing. I mean, the first few times he talked about his vapid life and his "rare clumbers" I thought it was amusing. But it quickly got old and quickly became apparent that his intentions were not good-faith performance art....

To me, titus is like a blackface minstrel amusing a crowd of upper-class white people. I'm not entirely comfortable with his clownish and repulsive depiction of a gay man. And I'm still not convinced he's not an entirely fictitious character.

So if I'm amused, then I'm not politically correct, gay-wise?

Jason (the commenter) said:

Always wondered why Titus was tolerated.

I always wondered why Palladian was tolerated. I bet they are the same person!

The plot thickens. But I know Palladian. He couldn't be playing such an elaborate prank on me.

Theo Boehm said:

When Titus writes about some place or thing I know about, it's inevitably misapprehended and cartoonish. It seems, as Palladian points out, as if he's toying with the suckers. His putative sexual escapades are along the same lines, again, per Palladian....

Part of what Titus is about, as has been said, is the making of everything he tells into clownish and unappealing grotesquerie. Althouse reading [some other commenter's porn] would certainly attract attention, but it wouldn't have the same underlying dark and hostile humor, if you want to call it that, of Titus' offerings. The point of porn is to attract; Titus' goal is to repel. I do think, however, there's something to learn in the process.

Althouse has in the past attracted to "comic" characters... who were classic long-range trolls, and whose goal was disruption exactly as Palladian describes. I think Althouse's commitment to free speech assumes that openness toward, and even, in the case of Titus, a co-opting of hostility that is the best way to handle it. She may have a point and a lesson to teach here. Or she may be incredibly naive about the motivations of disruptive people.

Among the many things I have learned in this blog these past years is to never underestimate Althouse, especially in her longstanding role as teacher.

That means a lot and emboldens me.

Penny said:

Two thumbs up for Althouse, two thumbs up for Titus and two thumbs up for Palladian and all the rest of you.

The beauty of Ann's blog is its diversity. She has created an exceptional oasis here, where those who have very different sensibilities can come for a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

I love politics and law. I love art and photography, and humor, and commenting on headlines. I could go on and on. The best thing that Ann has brought us ALL, is a place where we can virtually sit down and hash nearly ANYTHING out, and nearly always without making those not-like-us our enemies...or worse yet, buffoons.

Face it. Most of us head out on the internet every day for hours. Some might like to spend most of their time listening to those who say EXACTLY what they are thinking. Some take some time to check out msm links, or even the political "opposition". But where the heck do we choose to plop our asses down at the end of a hard day, or a boring day or a so-so kind of day? Right the heck here at Ann Althouse's place.

And why is that? I suggest it is because Ann is OPEN to all of us being EXACTLY the way we are. It is her "gift", and our good fortune, to have found her in this world that is becoming increasingly intolerant.

Please don't screw up what our hostess, Ann, is bringing to the internet.

This fine lady will become famous for opening up her "living room" to all of us. ALL of us.

Count me as one who will be searching out Titus, right after I give Ann a great big hug for keeping us all human.

Money follows value, my dear. And YOU, Ann Althouse, are more valuable than you know.

Aw. Cool. Thanks.

Ralph said...

"Sex and the City" proved there's a market for women talking about dicks. Perhaps Althouse wants to prove there's a market for women talking about shit.

And hog.

Palladian said:

Good Evening fellow republicans and lovers of the Bush Doctrine. Here's my attempt at a titus audiobook. I took all the comments he made in yesterday's "Mauve Cafe" post and performed them in the closest approximation of my impression of titus that I could throw together in 5 minutes. I did a bit of digital post-processing to "enhance" the performance and added an appropriate backing track.

Am I a bad person if that made me laugh until tears ran down my face (even though you tried to make me feel guilty about laughing by using that "gay" voice that only homophobes are supposed to laugh at)? By the way, Palladian left out the funniest part of the sock story, the part that nearly killed me.

Jason (the commenter) said:

Palladian,

Althouse MUST do this!

I never knew you had such a sexy voice. I always read your stuff (out loud to my friends) in a monotone.

Palladian said:

Well... uh, thanks I think. But that's not really what my voice sounds like, the pitch and speed is digitally altered and I was laying on the stereotypical faggotry pretty thickly. But my voice is quite animated and modulated, not a monotone at all.

Darcy said:

Palladian, with that bit of genius, you do realize you probably just guaranteed Althouse doing this, right?

Palladian said:

My God! What have I done!?

Oh, by the way, I am The Arm, and I sound like this...."

[cough]

Jason (the commenter) said...

Palladian,

You're real voice sounds cute! You could have read what Titus wrote with your normal voice and it would have been just as funny.

Clearly, Althouse should do a compilation.

It would be amazing if Matmos could make it into a song, like Tract for Valerie Solanas.

This also shows the genius of Titus. He's growing on me.

Palladian said:

Just like tinea cruris...

Here's my LuckyOldSon/Michael voice.

Penny said:

Althouse is a leader, and shaping us all, simply with her presence.

The fucking beauty here is that she is not shaping us all in her own form.

To whoever up above asked where I came from? Same place as you. I hit a link that FINALLY makes some sense to me.

Philosophical "warrior" in need of some middle place...and YES...even better, a sometimes silly place to set my ass down when I have had enough of "all that".

Thank you, Ann, for allowing my butt to rest here.

So? Does this site make my ass look big?

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Palladian that was brillant.

Wow, the time and energy you have devoted to this is remarkable.

More please!

I laughed my ass off!

Palladian said:

Took 5 minutes each, darling.

TitusFreezeFrame said:

Regardless of how much time it took it was terrific.

I bet you even got a little chuckle doing it, didn't you?

That voice, which I know is embelished, is the voice of my comments.

I love how you pronounced burgurs the same way I spelled it. Amazing....

All and all there is a lot of love here.

And hate I guess-150 comments on me? One commenter was right I don't give a shit...obviously.

What I do think is amusing is if anyone tried to share this with someone outside of this blog.

So there is a commenter who comments about pinching loaves. I am thinking of putting it on a CD (Althouse). I am actually going to tape some of his comments in a very queeny voice (Palladian). Try explaining that to someone at your next company staff meeting.

Also, this place would be boring without me. Just another voice bitching about liberals. Ignore me, although it seems to be hard for some.

And I actually do talk to my friends like I talk on this blog. I think I have mentioned this before but I actually leave recordings on my friends voicemails of me pinching loaves with grunts and groans and everything. They in turn forward them to other friends. I have also called them when I am having sex and let them listen. The trick doesn't know but it is my little way of sharing my life with my friends.

Now I feel a virtual group hug coming on. Don't you?

An Althouse blog fund-raiser.

I write this blog for pure love and expression, as you must know by now, but, nevertheless, I think it's good for writers to be paid. Everyone seems to love to quote Samuel Johnson's line "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." It's a good way to tweak writers, and, really, why not tweak writers? Most of us are full of ourselves. Why do we think the world owes us because we give verbal form to our thoughts? You've got thoughts too, and we ought to be grateful that you are reading at all.

You could hit my PayPal button and make a donation, but that rarely happens, and I can't conceive of badgering you to just give me money. I could write a book or do a photography collection and push it to you, but really, time has proved that I'm not going to do that. My energy is in writing the blog, and I'm not going to do anything that dissipates that energy.

But last night I got an idea for a fund-raiser. I was reading the comments on "At the Mauve Café" and I nearly died laughing reading the stuff Titus wrote. I said, I should make a CD of me reading Titus comments — from that post and others, the funniest stuff, which I'd select. Price of the CD to be determined Now, Titus did the writing so I need him to willingly, eagerly, and open-heartedly donate the license to me to use his comments this way, in support of my writing on the blog. Okay, Titus?

The Purpler Tree and the things you talked about last night.

Last night's purple tree opened a flood of conversation. Curtiss said:

Purple is the color of death.

But you know that, don't you?

I said:

I think men don't like the color purple. Women love it to excess, and men don't really understand. Death, indeed!

Palladian said:

I don't like anything Alice Walker ever wrote.

Instead of transcribing my laughter, let me give you a newer and purpler version of the tree that opened the canyons of your minds:



When I stopped my starry-eyed laughing, I said:

But quite apart from [Alice Walker], I think visual perception is partly deeply biological and there's serious sexual discrepancy about purple.

Then Meade said:

"I think men don't like the color purple. "

The professor speaks truth. And she does so in a most colorful way.

I, however, as a man am an exception to the rule: I love purple. In fact, I wear a purple hat and a purple scarf. Men leave me alone while women can't seem to keep their hands off me. That is, as long as I wear the hat and scarf.

Meade inspired me to make the new tree the color of his scarf. And to give him this advice — in case we should ever meet IRL.

Subsequently, Meade asks the guys a great question, and Curtiss gives a great answer. You'll have to go in there and find those things, but don't trip over the things Titus says he's having trouble finding.

Professor Palladian had to step back in and cool us off with this historical lecture:

The word "purple" comes to us from the Greek (via the usual circuitous route through Latin and Old English) πορφύραν, porphura, of the mollusk that produced the only bright, deep, color-fast purple dye available in the world until the mid-nineteenth century. Walk through any art museum and you'll see no bright purple color in any painting produced before then. The color to which the name "purple" referred has changed many times depending on the time period and the culture being discussed. The "Prince" sort of purple that most people think of is not the color of the purple of antiquity. The ancient purple, Tyrian purple, is more akin to the color of a fresh Welch's grape juice stain on a white cotton shirt, only much more intense. Tyrian purple is made from the fresh mucous secretion of a big sea snail that is variously known as Murex brandaris and Haustellum brandaris. It requires harvesting and killing 10,000 of these gastropods to produce one gram of the dye, hence the astronomical price and rarity of the color.

I have a sample of the dye, about 50 milligrams, which cost me nearly two hundred dollars. To put that in perspective, an extra strength Tylenol pill contains 500 milligrams of Acetaminophen alone, not counting the weight of the other ingredients.

As I said, there was no other bright, color-fast purple dye or pigment available to artists until the 19th century. The use of Tyrian purple pretty much died out by the 11th century in the West. Artists could mix purple hues by glazing blue pigments with red pigments, but as there were only three bright red pigments available to artists until the 19th century, two [1; 2] of which faded rapidly and one of which is both too opaque and too orange to actually produce a mixed purple, not many artists bothered.

What changed everything (and by extension, the world as we know it) was W.H. Perkin's discovery and production of the world's first synthetic organic dye: 3-amino-2,±9-dimethyl-5-phenyl-7-(p-tolylamino)phenazinium acetate, or Mauveine, later known as the color mauve. Perkin was, on a challenge from one of his professors, trying to synthesize quinine and failed, producing a black lump. While he was trying to clean the lump out of his flask, he discovered that a portion of the lump dissolved in alcohol and produced a bright purple. Voilà! The first aniline dye, which changed not only the world of fashion and art, but as I said before, changed the entire world. It was through Perkin's discovery and subsequent manufacture of Mauveine and the resulting proliferation of aniline dye research and industry that the first antimicrobial drugs, the sulfonamides (the early examples of which were dye-based) were invented. Not to mention Tylenol, Polyurethane and the whole synthetic chemical industry.

Not bad for a chemical that started as an accident involving a substance (aniline, phenylamine) that stinks of rotting fish. An apt smell for the chemical that was responsible for the rebirth of purple in the modern world, the olfactory memory across the millennia of those vast piles of dead, rotting mollusks that yielded the color of Emperors.

Sex, science, and art — all night long, all because of purple. And trees. You know I'm an Ann Arborist. Here in Madison.

"Speaking of Japan my neighbor was in Japan and everywhere he went Japanese people yelled Yes We Can at him."

"I guess because he is an American. He said this lasted an entire week. Restaurants, stores, on the street, everywhere, Yes We Can. How scary."

So says Titus, who lies some unknown percentage of the time. Truth or lie, that's hilarious. Any other reports of Americans abroad receiving "Yes, we can" greetings? If so, surely, it must have fallen out of fashion by now.

AFTERTHOUGHT: The day may/will/has come when "Yes, we can" is a sarcastic taunt.

IN THE COMMENTS: Awesome said:

This explains it:

Wow!

Titus says:

This I actually did not lie about. This is the neighbor that I hate and resent because he is richer, cuter and younger than me. But I would do him except for the fact that he is straight. Remember I wrote about his 6 week "holiday" during Christmas.

Well, that certainly substantiates your story!

"Check Althouse's comments if you want sex talk..."

Conservative polisci prof got himself into a bit of a jam with his readers and now tries to talk his way out of it.

And besides, as noted yesterday, Althouse is a notorious breast blogger, and she's instigated some of the web's greatest flame wars with...

Ha ha. I'm not going there again.

Note: Regular Althouse readers will be amused — I think! — that he quotes Titus (and my response thereto).

We were talking about khat, and Kev said...

"I thought khat-blogging had kind of gone out of style lately."

I thought I'd do a post with a LOLcat, saying something on this theme, so I went to Flickr to find a picture of a cat, and I got pleasantly distracted by this comment on the photograph that I blogged yesterday. Screen grab:



See? The commenter — jjmadison — has a cat face avatar and his comment — "wow, all that on two packs of Splenda??" — continues the drug theme. Ah! My drug of choice is synchronicity. I'm high on it now. I'm even singing: Oh! Oh! Oh!

Not really, but I do have to shout above the din of my Rice Krispies.

Now, somewhat giddy, I do still want to make that LOLcat, and I search my Flickr photographs for "cat." But I haven't been good about labels over there, and the collection of "cat"-labeled photos seems a bit absurd. There's a latte with a foam cat face. A picture of a poster that says "Don't Shoot the Cat." There's the very young me with a cat and my same-age son with a cat:



[ADDED: Yes, Chris is holding a "Hilter cat" and we were just talking about Facebook groups like "G-D BLESS HITLER," but stay away from the Nazi synchronicity. The brown-shirt acid that is circulating around us is not specifically too good.]

There are the pages from my Amsterdam sketchbook about the Cat Museum — the Katten Kabinet. There are some bat orts.

Most absurd, there is a set of LOLcats, made from photos taken of paused — pawsed — frames from the movie "La Dolce Vita."

What was that all about? Don't you remember back on August 11, 2007, when TRex said "Every time I look in over [at Althouse], something so weird is going on that I feel like I just bumbled on to the set of a Fellini film," and I was all:

"Im in ur hair/Lickin ur i"
"Im ur soul/gettin outta heer"
"Ur head/my roller coaster"
"Im ur/windsheeled wipurrz"

But these Rice Krispies were enough, and I don't want an egg at this hour. So I look to you, dear readers, to pick up Kev's khat-blogging theme and make some LOLcats. You can make them here, and you can email them to me at annalthouse (at) gmail (dot) com.

I'd love to pass out some of the Althouse blog drugs: frontpaging and tags.

And I'm hoping TRex will bumble over here and see that something weird is going on. And also that something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake.

UPDATE: From Lem:



AND: From Zachary Paul Sire:



AND: From Palladian:



From Kev (who started all this):

So Obama has chosen Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration ceremony.

How interesting! A clever choice. It made me go back to my notes on the Saddleback Forum, the hour-long interviews that Obama and McCain gave to Rick Warren back in August. I liked Warren's style and thought Obama had a good little talk with him. Obama obviously has a problem going back to his own spiritual mentors, and this is a good chance to show some warmth to the Christian evangelicals that he offended with his unfortunate remark about bitter Americans clinging to religion.

Andrew Sullivan says "Ugh":

Warren is a man who believes my marriage removes his freedom of speech and cannot say that authorizing torture is a moral failing. Shrewd politics, but if anyone is under any illusion that Obama is interested in advancing gay equality, they should probably sober up now. He won't be as bad as the Clintons (who, among leading Democrats, could?), but pandering to Christianists at his inauguration is a depressing omen. More evidence that a civil rights movement needs to realize that no politician can deliver for us what we have to deliver on our own.

Who needs omens when Obama was always clear that he opposed same-sex marriage? He said so every time he was asked. It's funny that Sullivan is telling other people to "sober up," when he was the one who was most unsober about Obama during the campaign season.

ADDED: "The rapid, angry reaction from a range of gay activists comes as the gay rights movement looks for an opportunity to flex its political muscle."

IN THE COMMENTS: Blake challenges me:

Wait, didn't Althouse also take similar stances as Sullivan? Not on gay marriage, but in terms of him saying one thing and meaning the exact opposite?

Am I misremembering?

I respond:

Blake, I wrote [the day after the forum]: "Obama garbled: "The reason that people believe there needs to be a constitutional amendment, some people believe, is because, uh, of the concern that, uh, uh, about same-sex marriage. I'm not somebody who's [sic] promotes same-sec [sic] marriage, but I do believe in civil unions. I do believe that we should not, um, that that for a gay partners [sic] to want to visit each other in the hospital, for the state to say, you know what, that's all right, I don't think in any way inhibits my core beliefs about what marriage are [sic]." I think all those little glitches, especially the glaring grammatical error "what marriage are," strongly suggest that he is hiding what he really thinks."

I thought about that when I wrote this post, but I think that privately Obama supports gay marriage, but as a political leader, he has chosen to take the more moderate position. I think he was lying about his "core beliefs" there, but I think he was telling us his official answer as he has consistently.

Now, I do understand why people who put gay rights first detest the symbolism of picking Warren. But who do they think he should have picked instead?

Now, here's why I'm not on the same page as Sullivan:

1. Though I voted for Obama, I didn't fall in love with him. Throughout the campaign season, I looked at him with a critical eye and often thought he was playing us. I was never set up for disillusionment.

2. I thought and continue to think that Obama is reasonably compassionate toward gay people, but that he's coolly practical about amassing and preserving his own political power. He has remained the same. I'm sure he'd be all for gay rights if he'd become a law professor, but he's got a more complex task at hand, and I respect that.

3. I think same-sex marriage is far down on the list of issues for the President to concern himself with and think gay people, like everyone else, need to be realistic about where politicians should be investing their political capital.

4. I reject the hostility that Sullivan shows toward "Christianists" who hold traditional values that he wishes would change. They are an important part of our culture, and Obama needs to relate to them in a positive way.

5. I don't believe the image of the angry, spiteful gay is helpful to the gay rights cause.

Back to the comments. Blake responds:

Yes, perhaps that's what I was thinking of.

I seem to recall other occasions -- non-gay marriage related -- where Obama said one thing and you were of the idea that he felt the opposite.

I'm not trying for a "gotcha" or anything. McCain may have been saying what he actually felt, but you never knew how he was gonna feel the next moment.

Definitely. I think the public Obama persona is an elaborate creation -- an impressive one. I try to imagine what the real Obama is like. For example, as I've said many times, I don't think Obama is religious (and that's why he's able to use religious rhetoric well).

Freeman Hunt says:

Where does the belief come from that Obama secretly supports gay marriage? Just a guess? Based on what? I'd be more likely to believe that he doesn't care in the slightest about gay marriage or any other gay issue. I bet such things barely register as blips on his mental radar, and that when they do register, it's only insofar as he has to handle such issues delicately in politics due to conflicting constituencies.

I tend to assume he's like all the liberal lawprofs I know, but I concede that these people may be chameleons. They are seeking power and prestige in their domain. (Why won't I say "our domain"?) But you have a point.

Peter Hoh says:

Though it's not perfectly apt for this situation, I'm reminded of Megan McArdle's First Rule of Politics:

small groups get favors from the politicians they support only to the extent that it does not annoy large groups who voted for those politicians.

I think he's still worth reading, but Andy's getting too worked up over this. Calm and steady wins the race. He admired that in Obama. He should take the same approach with regard to the effort to recognize same-sex marriage.

Yeah.

Palladian writes:

[Quoting Zachary Paul Sire:] "Inviting 'Rick' is not a slap in the face to gays as much as it is a disingenuous olive branch to evangelicals. And they're falling for it!"

So your candidate is a liar and a phony who makes false statements about his religious beliefs in order to garner political support? Classy!

"Obama is all about trying to please everyone with gestures and concessions."

Again, you admit that your candidate is a big phony, a big panderer and a big ass-kisser?

"Until he actually starts enacting policies and putting forth his specific agenda, no one should be freaking out."

So when this mythical policy-enacting phase begins, he'll eschew all these lies about religion and beliefs and his true, godless socialist qualities will shine forth?

"And let's be honest. Warren is, as everyone knows, a tool."

Wait, you just admitted that your candidate is a liar and a phony and only says things for political expediency and you're calling Rick Warren a tool? What makes you think you aren't the tool that Obama is using, my little salami-smoker? [NOTE: Both Zachary and Palladian are gay and have been talking to each other in such terms here for a long time. (Titus too.)]

"We should be proud of Obama for using him as well as he is."

We should be proud of Obama for lying about his beliefs and being too ashamed and afraid to admit his true beliefs and feelings about gay rights? So lying and slinking around in the shadows is now a point of pride? Wow. Furl your rainbow flags everyone! Gay pride now means hiding your true feelings and lying your way into high office!

"If this endears another couple hundred thousand evangelicals to Obama, and thus helps him out in 2012, then that's fine by me."

It's fine by you that Obama is lying, just because you think this will give him some political advantage in the next election, even though you don't actually know what he's going to do or whether you'll actually want him to be re-elected? Lying and selling out my true beliefs and double-crossing my countrymen for political gain is admirable? Wow. Reminds me why I don't belong to a political party. I'd rather be a loser than sell my soul to win.

"Trust me, Obama doesn't give a fuck about Rick Warren."

Wow, how admirable a quality in a President! He selects someone who he "doesn't give a fuck about" to give the invocation at his inauguration! Why that kind of cynicism sounds like CHANGE I CAN BELIEVE IN!

Zachary Paul Sire responds to Palladian:

So when this mythical policy-enacting phase begins, he'll eschew all these lies about religion and beliefs and his true, godless socialist qualities will shine forth?

One can HOPE!

Lying and selling out my true beliefs and double-crossing my countrymen...blah blah blah

You can drop the naive act. As if you, or anyone, ever believed that any politician in modern history didn't lie or mask their true intentions to get elected. Spare me the drama.

I have my suspicions of what he'll do (lead an incredibly balanced, pragmatic administration without ruffling anyone's feathers), and until I'm proven otherwise, I make no judgments about the man "selling out beliefs."

He's playing a game that all of them sign up for, not committing moral suicide.

Palladian says:

"He's playing a game that all of them sign up for, not committing moral suicide."

I don't trust the character judgments of those that are already morally dead.

Zachary Paul Sire says:

I love that Sullivan failed to mention how Rev. Joe Lowery, co-founder of the SCLC and a same-sex marriage supporter, is also on the bill for inauguration day, overseeing the benediction. I guess acknowledging that balance would've undercut his blog post and made his whining look even more childish than it already is (if that's possible).

Titus says:

I am a gay and I don't give a shit if Rick Warren gives the invocation.

How's that for the how some in the gay mafia feel?

None of my gay mafia friends give a shit either.

Now if it was Pat Boone I may feel a little bad... but still wouldn't give a shit.

Rick Warren is physically very repulsive though and for that I do feel bad. I hate seeing a fat man.

He is too fat. He has no chin and he thinks he is funny.

Well, you know, Obama used to be fat. Now, he makes a huge point of keeping rail thin.

Let's mix up that cocktail we call a Sarah Palin.

So remember when -- it was only last post -- I challenged you to find old posts of mine that would seem most explicable on theory that I wrote them drunk. It was because of something Ron said, not because I ever was.

Palladian said:

How about any of the ones where you explain your decision to vote for Obama?

Ron said:

If I'm going to say "Althouse, you're drunk/high/Voting for Obama/obsessed with squirrels!" I'd have to have more direct evidence than blog posts! Maybe a vlog...

Yeah, I know the vlog that the whole internet thinks shows me drunk. Apparently, it's easy to look drunk on video. Just hold a glass of wine, laugh, and say something frivolous.

... I get philosophic and morose when drunk, so I'm no fun there...

But if you announce getting drunk first and then say at time X, you'll be blogging, I bet you get Sarah Palin-like Sitemeter push!

Let's make a cocktail for you to drink first...a "Sarah Palin." On the rocks! (ice, don't ya know!)

Bissage then said something that made me say, "Some people when drunk are said to get 'tight.' Bissage, I'd say, gets Titus-y." And if you know what that means, you know why I'm not front-paging it.

But Palladian answered the call to mix up a Sarah Palin:

What would a Sarah Palin cocktail be?

1 oz Stolichnaya (because you can see Russia from her house)

1 oz Southern Comfort (to assuage the "base")

1/2 oz Jägermeister (for both the elk's blood rumor and the label)



1/2 oz Bénédictine (for that religious flavor)

dash of Vietnamese fish sauce (a nod to Alaska's fishing industry)

pour over a large quantity of ice and shake until very cold. Empty contents into a very, very expensive Baccarat crystal glass purchased with funds from the RNC. Run a MAC-brand lipstick, color "Verve", around the rim of the glass. Sling contents into the face of the first reporter you can find. Sell glass and donate proceeds to charity.

Ha ha. I'm not putting fish sauce in a drink! But, cheers!