Nobody's Business

Thanks For Your Company. Seriously.

The biggest blog plugs I've received in recent times have come from two of the Net's 800-pound gorillas: Boing Boing and fark.com. Yesterday's fark link, interestingly, didn't send my visitor numbers soaring nearly as much as the ones from Boing Boing. In the 24 hours after fark credited this site, I had only about 4,000-5,000 extra page views. By contrast, when Boing Boing provides a link to Nobody's Business, the extra visitors in the 24 hours thereafter total about twice that (neither number seems particularly earth-shattering, but that could be just me).

The difference in traffic the respective sites generate for yours truly is all the more remarkable because fark links are humorously blurbed in roughly 20-30 words; that format is usually cryptic enough that it necessitates a click-through to find out what the substance of the referenced story is. Boing Boing, on the other hand, usually publishes enough text about the topics it features that the BB posts are more or less self-contained — click-throughs optional.

Anyway, I'm always pleased with extra visitors, although no single link from another blog or site has ever seemed to boost my traffic permanently. Which makes me appreciate my regulars even more. If you're a habitual reader of Nobody's Business, seriously, thank you. I couldn't do it without you. Actually, I could, but it wouldn't be a half as much fun.

Define Secular

Businessweek on Mumbai:

It's the brightest beacon of the country's economic miracle, though there's still an overabundance of poverty — and no shortage of the secular strife that often threatens to rip India apart.

Really — secular strife? I had no idea that the various riots and acts of terrorism under discussion were perpetrated by atheists and agnostics. I thought the violence was committed, au contraire, by persons claiming to be under God's command.

Am I missing something?

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UPDATE, DECEMBER 3: I sent an e-mail to Businessweek editor John Byrne a couple of days ago. No reply, but the bizarre word in the article has now been corrected.

God Help Us

Useless religious moralizers in Kentucky want the state's Department of Homeland Security to engage in, um, useless religious moralizing — ad infinitum.

Under state law, God is Kentucky's first line of defense against terrorism. The 2006 law organizing the state Office of Homeland Security lists its initial duty as "stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth." Specifically, Homeland Security is ordered to publicize God's benevolent protection in its reports, and it must post a plaque at the entrance to the state Emergency Operations Center with an 88-word statement that begins, "The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God."

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago. As amended, Homeland Security's religious duties now come before all else, including its distribution of millions of dollars in federal grants and its analysis of possible threats. ... There is no reference to God in Homeland Security's current mission statement or on its Web site, which displeases Riner. "We certainly expect it to be there, of course," Riner said.

Of course.

Rather than focus on the flagrant unconstitutionality of the legislature's requirement, think about this fun fact: That here we have a government agency tasked with counter-acting and ameliorating acts of God — floods, tornadoes, hurricanes — that's also tasked with publicly crediting God as its super-hero and all-time favorite idol.

Loopiness, squared.

[hat tip: Fark]

My Pink Tehran Diary

Two CODEPINK co-founders — Jodie and Medea, feminists and peace activists — visit Tehran, where they go shopping for a dahling manteau and an adorable 30-piece set of silverware — pink, of course. The cause of international sisterhood thus strengthened, they ride the subway back to their local quarters. Now, guess what they love about public transportation Tehran-style? They love that there are separate cars for men and women.

All the young women in the subway car have graduated from college — an urban planner, sociologist, doctor, teacher and mother’s with their young children. It is much saner than the men's car and we get the wisdom of the separation.

"We get the wisdom of the separation." Yes, nothing like publicly praising apartheid of the sexes to show how committed you are to gender equality.

One imagines Jodie and Medea going to 1970s Johannesburg and hanging out in black townships where they bond beautifully with the residents — only to conclude that John Vorster's brutal racial segregation is a most admirable thing because it gives the coloreds a chance to be themselves.

Western feminists who defend or whitewash the oppression and inequality of their burka-clad sisters — it's nothing new, but it's never less than jaw-dropping.

Quote of the Day

"Little Sarah [Palin] confidently announced a Republican win was God’s "perfect will for this nation" and in his hands. Unsurprising of course, we haven't heard a word of praise to God for his truly amazing vision that brought us a liberal black man."

                                                       — Tatiana von Tauber

Cowering

Newspapers are dying on the vine. Here's a big reason why.

This editorial cowardice has been going on for years, of course. See here. And here. And still the self-mutilation continues, presumably until the newspaper industry's slide into irrelevance is complete and the last subscriber turns off the light.

TSA: "Unquestioning Compliance Has Diminished"

Well, good. The contingent of fed-up airline passengers who verbally challenge dumb, wasteful TSA security measures does not include those who (like me) merely engage in quiet bristling, teeth-grinding, eye-rolling, and dagger-staring. Maybe it's time for all of us to speak up.

Superstition Update

India is developing a school curriculum that includes a discussion of witchcraft. Teachers will explain that believing in evil sorcerers is primitive and, well, unwarranted.

I applaud the anti-superstition initiative and wonder when we might see it in American schools. Probably never, given that the christian Bible contains multiple explicit mentions of wicked witches, both in the Old and the New Testament.

• Death is the punishment for witchcraft. (Exodus 22:18)
• There shall not be found among you... one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. (Deuteronomy 18:10-11)
• Among the "acts of the sinful nature" are "immoral, filthy and indecent actions; in worship of idols and witchcraft..." (Galations 5:19-20)
• Going to the eternal hellfires will be "those who do evil magic." (Revelations 21:8)

That's just a small sampling. More over at the unintentionally entertaining Christian Answers.

Bathroom Baloney

America's quick-call-the-cops syndrome in a nutshell:

Several students were questioned after Baker School officials discovered pictures of breasts and a penis on the wall of the 5th grade bathroom, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office incident report.

The pictures were drawn by the students themselves. Clearly a law-enforcement matter, then.

Oh, this one's pretty good also (hat tip to the Legal Satyricon):

A 12-year-old Florida student was arrested earlier this month after he "deliberately passed gas to disrupt the class," according to police.

That Petrol Emotion

I guess the new professionalism has taken hold of British officers too.

[P]olice officers put 26 patrol cars out of action after filling them with the wrong fuel. Officers in North Wales admitted to using nearly £3,000 of taxpayers' money to get the cars fixed after filling the diesel engines with petrol. Regardless of the newly added bright yellow 'diesel' tags on the tank caps, officers still managed to use the wrong pumps. A spokesman said: "To insert the fuel nozzle, the flap must be physically moved which should bring the fuel type to the drivers' attention."

To prevent future mishaps, the patrol cars are being altered so that six-year-olds — and those with approximately the same brain capacity — can service them.

Some police vehicles are now being fitted with talking warnings to remind officers which fuel to use.

Earlier,

[A]n Essex force was left with a £42,000 bill for damages caused by mis-fuelling.

Maybe electric cars can offer respite in the future, though I'm pretty sure these public servants will just be wondering where to put the double-A alkalines.