I Mourn for the Republic

Apparently, blog spam using the names of current celebrities is about 20x more effective in increasing traffic than a direct reference on a popular political blog.

Shucks

I send a note off to Ghettoputer over at the Gormogons, because I thought he'd find my snarky comment from yesterday mildly interesting.

And I get a whole post in reply, where he does, in fact, explain the difference between public sector unions and private companies. The unclear intent of my original comment was an attempt to imply that public sector unions are, superficially, no different from public companies. 'Puter does an excellent job of showing that there are differences, and why they matter.

At which point, I have to admit that (a) he's far, far, far more erudite than I am, and (b) he makes excellent points regarding source of capital. Oh, and (c) he's probably better looking than I am, too, dagnabit.

An interesting comparison

Via the Gormogons, in an post on public teacher's unions:

Unions have but one function: improve their members' wages, benefits and work conditions at all costs.

Compare this to the statement:

Public companies have but one function: improve their investor's earnings.

Explain to me how the two statements are fundamentally different, and how we can hold one voluntary organization of individuals who are primarily concerned with making money to be better or worse than another voluntary organization of individuals who are primarily concerned with making money.

It's Alive!

Page hits are up nearly 400% in the last 12 hours (from 4/day up to 19/day, woohoo!) with the search terms for the last day showing me that we've had people hit the blog looking for:

1. jon stewart (6)

2. glenn beck (5)

3. bianca kajlich (2)

4. anna malova 3/2010 arrest (1)

5. john stewart glenn beck kennedy (1)

6. jon stewart glenn beck (1)

7. jon stewart slams glenn beck (1)

8. power to become the sons of god (1)

9. taylor momsen (1)

Not a whole lot of damage there. But look! Now I've mentioned Taylor Momsen, Jon Stewart, Glenn Beck and Bianca Kajlich twice in one day, in two different posts. That's got to be worth something, you'd think. I'll have to check back tomorrow.

I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed that nobody seems to care about John Travolta's poor dog, though.

Jon Stewart Slams Glenn Beck

In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that while I did not write that title, neither did Taylor Momsen (whoever, or whatever, that is). Why am I blathering about Jon Stewart, Glenn Beck and Taylor Momsen? Call it an experiment.

Quite frankly, there should probably be some other juciy tags in here besides Steward, Beck and Momsen (again - who? No, don't tell me, I have a feeling I don't want to know). Apparently Anna Malova is popular these days, too. No, she wasn't on Dancing With the Stars; instead, she's apparently some Russian supermodel or some such who got arrested on drug charges. Wow - who would have ever thought... nah. I'll leave the sarcasm to Glenn Beck and John Stewart (and Taylor Momsen, whoever that may be).

Let's see, what else is out there - oh, there's Campbell Brown who's apprently no longer attached to CNN because of bad ratings. I guess that John Stewart and Glenn Beck are really eating their lunch, eh? Other big news of the day includes the fact that John Travolta and Kelly Preston's dogs were killed in a tragic accident at an airport, where they were run over.

Gosh, I can see how that riveting piece of news can even eclipse the fact that Kelly Preston is apparently pregnant again. Or the attack on the Bagram air base, or the PA 2010 election results (hey hey hey, goooodbye Arlen Specter! Yeah! You got creamed by someone who sounds like a refugee from the Land of the Lost, buddy boy!) Buried somewhere in the news is the fact that Mary Richardson Kennedy (Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s, wife) was arrested for drunk driving. No indication about whether she was at the airport where John Travolta and Kelly Preston's dogs were killed in a tragic accident, though.

To wrap up this execrable stream of consciousness, I should point out that I have really no idea who Chris Dudley and Christa Miller are, though I think that Bianca Kajlich is.. nope, no idea who she is, either. I'm sure that John Stewart, Glenn Beck and Taylor Momsen know, though! All I can guess is that they'd never end up on Dancing With the Stars, The Biggest Looser, or Deadliest Warrior.

There. That's a good bit of searchable text loaded with random headline-grabbing keywords and search terms. Let's see how hard Google bites on it now!