Archive for March, 2005
« Previous EntriesHave You Learned Anything?
Sunday, March 20th, 2005Almost a month ago, with the Terri Schiavo case heating up again, I advocated that people ought to get living wills. If Terri Schiavo had a living will, this case wouldn’t be in the news, and Congress wouldn’t be intervening, and we’d all be going on with our lives and talk about something else.
That being said, the site Blogs For Terri, which has been covering the Schiavo case, has in the past couple days received a huge spike in traffic.. Sadly, when their fifteen minutes are up, a great opportunity will have been wasted.
A month ago I also expressed my hope that Blogs For Terri would advocate people get living wills. Today, I don’t see anything on their site about them. No information helping people find out how to get one. No links to sites that help people generate their own…. nothing. As of this post, there are only two references to the term ‘living will’ on the main page, and they are in the context of the blog, and are not by any means an appeal for people to get their own livings wills drawn up.
Bloggers have gotten so heavily into this case, and only a few have been thinking outside the box. Lisa at Just A Girl In World has also promoted living wills and has ample personal experience to justify their neccesity.
Regardless of the outcome of this case, those of you who have been following Terri Schiavo and haven’t gotten a living will yet have proven that Terri’s fight has been in vain…
UPDATE: Blogs For Terri writes, “Some have written that the tragedy of Terri Schiavo’s situation is that she did not have a living will. From my perspective, the real tragedy is that she is being legally killed because her presumed “quality of life” does not meet an acceptable standard.” I say the real tragedy would be that if Terri Schiavo dies then EVERYTHING Blogs For Terri has worked for will be wasted because they have yet to use their popularity to promote living wills…
Boxer Reveals That Democrats Will Be In The Minority For A Long Time
Saturday, March 19th, 2005If you haven’t already heard, Duane at Radioblogger has a transcript of the Democrats’ MoveOn.org rally, where Senator Barbara Boxer proposed requiring a super-majority to confirm all judicial nominees
So we’re saying we think you ought to get nine votes over the 51 required. That isn’t too much to ask for such a super important position. There ought to be a super vote. Don’t you think so? It’s the only check and balance on these people. They’re in for life. They don’t stand for election like we do, which is scary.
Click here for the audio of Boxer’s comments.
Duane notes that this proves that “it is the Democrats who indeed are changing the Constitutional requirement, because Democrats like Barbara Boxer don’t think the current political makeup is fair.”
There’s more to this story then just the fact that the Democrats support an unconstitutional super-majority for judicial nominees to be confirmed…
Right now there are 55 Republicans in the Senate, and 45 Democrats. A super-majority is 60 votes. In order for the Democrats to obtain an unbreakable super-majority, they’d have to gain 15 seats in the Senate, and the Republicans would have to lose 15 seats. In order for Democrats to become the majority party in the Senate again, they’d have to gain 6 seats.
Why is Boxer proposing a rule change that would remain in place regardless of who is President, and independent of which party holds the simple majority?
It seems to me that Barbara Boxer believes that the Democrats are not going to regain the majority in the Senate in the near future, and that they won’t see a fellow Democrat in the White House either…
Why else would she even entertain the idea of requiring a super-majority for judicial nominees?
If the rules changed tomorrow, they’d effect not only Bush’s constitutional duty to nominate judges, but also his successor, and if his successor was a Democrat, the chances are you won’t see any nominees by that president getting a super-majority from a Senate which currently has 15 more Republicans than Democrats. So they would lose.
If the rules changed tomorrow, and Democrats managed to reclaim the majority in the Senate in 2006 or 2008, their majority is meaningless with regard to judicial nominees, regardless if a Republican or a Democrat wins the White House in 2008.
Boxer’s proposal to change the rules to require a super-majority for confirming judicial nominees, only helps them while they are in the minority of the Senate with a Republican president. Any other possible scenario in the near future would likely create a gridlock of judicial appointments.
The only logicial conclusion is that Boxer doesn’t expect the make up of our government to change. A Republican will continue to occupy the White House and the Democrats will continue to be the minority party in Congress.
Stephen Moore Interview
Thursday, March 17th, 2005I had the opportunity to interview Stephen Moore of the Free Enterprise Fund about Social Security reform. If you haven’t checked it out yet, give it a read now.
He’s Right On This One
Thursday, March 17th, 2005I have to agree on ODub on this one… in response to the story about the House passing legislation yesterday intending to delaying the removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube, he says, “whatever your thoughts on the case, it has no place in the U.S. House of Representatives.” I have to agree with him on this point.
But, he’s wrong about everything else he says on his site…
Traffic vs. Readers
Wednesday, March 16th, 2005I was amused by this post over at Dean’s World written by Michael Demmons who gives his own trick to increase traffic to your blog.
When people give advice on increasing blog traffic, usually they will tell you things like: “Write what you know” or “Send good posts to higher traffic blogs” or some such thing. Sure, that work on occasion, but I’ve found another way: Mention “Mario Vasquez.”
Demmons says he’s receives thousands of hits because of search engine queries that put his site at the top of the list of results. It’s clever, amusing, even comical—however, as a blogger, I’m more interested in readers than I am hits. Getting a link from a high-traffic site helps your hits in the short run, not your reader base in the long run… more often than not anyways. Similarly, getting thousands of hits via Google over a popular search term isn’t going to give you more than a short blip of higher traffic.
Matt Margolis Blog - Two Year Blogiversary
Tuesday, March 15th, 2005It was two years ago today I officially started blogging. One might call it The Ides of Blog.
Time sure does fly by. It’s been quite an interesting two years of blogging. I began by tracking the anti-war movement at my alma mater, the University of Hartford, covered the war, and then the presidential campaign. I came up with the idea for Blogs For Bush in the summer of 2003, launched the site that November… I was part of the first group of bloggers to receive media credentials for the Republican National Convention… Blogs For Bush became one of the top blogs during the campaign and for all of 2004. I’ve had a decent amount of media mentions and appearances, including CNN, MSNBC, USA Today, and others… I received media credentials for the 55th Presidential Inauguration and for CPAC. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And I’m sure I’ve got lots more to do in the blogosphere.
In the meantime, if you like what I’ve done so far, you can you leave a few words here, toss me an e-mail, or get me something on my wish list! 
There Weren’t WMDs Even Though There Were
Sunday, March 13th, 2005Kevin Patrick notes over at Blogs For Bush a major contradiction of the New York Times, which criticizes the Bush administration for not secure biological weapons sites after the liberation of Iraq…. even though they say Saddam never had WMD….
White House Blogging
Sunday, March 6th, 2005The blog Fishbowl D.C. has been “cleared to attend Monday’s press briefing” at the White House.
Quick look around site indicates to me that it’s a left-leaning blog… it is self-described as a “gossip blog.”
Something tells me this is just a move to put water on the fire of GannonGate.
HAT TIP: The Political Teen.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has more with other blogger thoughts on it…
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