Black Monday?

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Probably not. It would be foolish to think that Wall Street would repeat Friday’s performance when there were more bears than a birthday party for Andrew Sullivan and the Dow fell 324 points. The more likely scenario today would be for the Dow to regain a hundred or so points. On the other hand, Asian markets tanked this morning:

Asia stocks dropped the most in 15 months and commodities declined after a smaller-than-estimated increase in American jobs led to a rout in U.S. equities. . . .
“The market is groaning under the weight of excessive debt levels and there’s a lot of concern over the state of European banks,” said Greg Gibbs, a foreign-exchange strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in Sydney. “Hungary is just another straw being piled onto the camel’s back.”

Of course, this was the first day of Asian trading after Friday’s sell-off on the U.S. market, so this may be just a delayed reaction that won’t lead to further losses on Wall Street today. But I’ve recently begun checking for the recurrence of a particular phrase:

Markets hit by Hungary worries and double-dip recession fears
— Financial Times

Economists have begun to lower their forecasts for the first time since the recovery began in the middle of 2009. Allen Sinai, chief global economist at Decision Economics . . .
“The risks to the recovery are growing,” the New York- based Sinai said. “We’ve raised the odds of a double-dip recession to one in four from one in 20.”
— Business Week

The economy eked out 0.3 per cent growth in the first quarter of the year, official figures showed last month. This was revised up from an initial estimate of 0.2 per cent after data from the manufacturing sector that was stronger than expected. But fears over the possibility of a period of stagnation or even a double-dip recession remain.
— Times of London

If investors have lost faith in recovery and are starting to fear the dreaded double-dip recession — as I most certainly think they should — then the Dow might sink even lower today. But if I could predict the stock market, I probably wouldn’t be blogging for living, would I?

Allahpundit Mentions Me By Name

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OK, he didn’t actually link me, but the acknowledgement of my existence is not a trivial thing. On the 4 millionth hit post, Smitty’s buddy Jeff Weimer commented:

Now if we can get Allahpundit to start linking you, we’ll get that slump licked. You may be getting close – he actually mentioned you by name a couple days ago in a comment.

To which I replied:

What? When? Where?
Please send me the link, that is, if you can get your team of legal experts to authenticate it Will Folks-style.

And Jeff directed me to the Wednesday post in which Allah took on Larry Marchant’s claim of a sexual affair with Nikki Haley and received blowback from commenter “WoosterOH”:



Allah’s comment reads:

You’re sick of my “garbage” in scoffing at a story that’s already been scoffed at by Red State and R.S. McCain, among others? Either you’re too dumb to understand the posts or you’re such a blind troll that you’ll complain even when I’m on your side. Regardless, though, I have great news: You’re not required to read the site. Find another.

Which is an excellent chapter in How To Deal With Trolls. There is such a thing as honest disagreement and such a thing as constructive criticism, and then there is trolling, wherein the commenter is essentially engaged in bandwidth piracy.

Life Is Too Short

It’s like when you get one of those annoying hostile guests on a TV talk show who start interrupting the host and trying to filibuster, so that there’s a lot angry crosstalk. The hostile guest has forgotten that he is a guest — he has been invited on by the host, whose show it is and who can invite on anyone he wishes. So the hostile guest is trying to usurp the host’s prerogative, to hijack the discussion and get across his own talking points without regard for the fact that the host doesn’t want to hear that crap.

Such rudeness spoils the show and embarrasses the host — which is, after all, the bad guest’s objective.

So, too, with the troll who, ignoring the fact that his comments are appearing on someone else’s bandwidth, attempts to sabotage the very purpose of the blog or begins derogating the blog itself. The regular readers of any blog — and especially the commenters — generally share some commonality of viewpoint, and their most important shared belief is that the blog itself is a worthwhile endeavor.

If you think the blog sucks and the bloggers is an idiot, why even bother to read it? Life is too short, and it is especially too short to waste your time putting snarky derogatory comments on someone else’s post, arguing to the effect that their work is completely worthless.

If you’re such a damned genius connoisseur of blogospheric excellence, get your own damned blog!

Call your blog “Allahpundit Sucks” or “Banned Hot Air Troll,” if that makes you happy, but don’t hang around spoiling the fun for everybody else. Allah puts up with a lot of snarky grousing in the comments — about his atheism and his fondness for Meghan McCain, among other things — but leniency ought not be mistaken for license, nor should mercy be mistaken for weakness.

Blogging involves an implicit fee-for-service contract between writer and reader. The writer is providing not merely his own work, but linking to the work of others and, by allowing comments, provides a sort of community forum wherein the readers can extend the discussion.

Stomped in the Parking Lot

While I despise the pompous expression “online community,” it nevertheless contains a truth. The relationship between a blogger and his regular readers (many of whom, it should be noted, are also bloggers in their own right) is like the relationship between a bar owner and his clientele. The bar is open to everyone, but if someone starts making a scene that spoils the fun for everyone else, the unruly patron will be shown to the door (and customarily stomped senseless in the parking lot by the bouncers, as was the policy at one nightclub where I worked as a DJ many years ago).

Or, to employ another analogy, think of a Protestant church. The doors are open to all sinners who seek the Lord. But the church has a membership — it is a community of believers — and a Baptist church won’t put up with someone whose only purpose for attending is to scoff at the doctrine of salvation by faith or to derogate the divinity of Christ.

Baptists don’t usually stomp non-believers in the parking lot, however.

At any rate, Allah’s response to the troll was altogether righteous. I don’t know who “WoosterOH” is, and he might actually be a nice guy, but if he doesn’t like the blog, why is he reading it?

As for Allah’s invocation of my name, it’s pretty cool to be cited along with Red State as a bellwether of what is acceptable subject matter for conservative bloggers.  And the controversy in the South Carolina GOP primary is can’t-look-away fascinating. At first, I treated it as a joke, but then it became more and more serious.

Whatever your opinion of the controversy, this unruly tumult in South Carolina is unquestionably newsworthy, and a current-events blog can’t be expected to ignore a big story just because it may be bad news for the good guys. Frankly, however, my optimistic hope is that South Carolinians are sick and tired of these slimeball mercenary consultants trying to play kingmaker in the state GOP — which is the real backstory of the Will Folks saga — and will vote for Nikki Haley in a resounding rejection of the disgusting smears against her.

And guess what? Nikki’s surging in the latest poll:

Nikki Haley hasn’t suffered any damage whatsoever after accusations of multiple extramarital affairs and is headed for an easy first place finish in Tuesday’s Republican primary for Governor of South Carolina.
Haley has a 20 point lead, getting 43% of the vote. Gresham Barrett looks like the favorite for the second runoff spot. He’s at 23%, followed by Henry McMaster at 16%, and Andre Bauer at 12%.
Two weeks ago Haley held a 21 point lead in the race. Since then she’s gained 4 points . . .
Only 13% of voters believe the allegations about Haley’s marital infidelity. 54% flat out do not believe them and 33% are unsure.

STAND UP FOR NIKKI HALEY!

Perez Hilton Parody Shifts Away From Self; Now Parodying Man Of Principle

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by Smitty

Rush Limbaugh was married recently, as our readers well know. Via Orit Sklar on Twitter comes word of foppish buffoon Perez Hilton mocking Sir Elton John for playing the Limbaugh wedding.

“$1 Million for my soul” says Elton in the photo.

In the first place, Perez, it would be a drab world if I could not differentiate between actor and act. Elton John is an artistic genius by any reasonable measure. Do I salute everything the man does? No. Do I think my own sins lesser than his? No. But, even if I don’t agree with his every practice, and the details are all backwards, I can still get misty-eyed over

In the second place, it would be helpful if you could develop a theory of what loyalty Elton John owes anyone. Can you string together coherent thoughts, Perez, and can you articulate exactly what lines a performing artist has crossed by doing what performing artists do, namely, perform? Are you Immanuel Kant, or “I’m. . .man, I can’t”? Truly, you own me the explanation as much as Elton owes you, but see what you can do with it.

In the third place, why the angst over Rush? Is it style or substance? Can you build any factual case where Rush merits your disdain?

OK, that’s about as much regard as I can muster for that sad twerp. Sobriety, exercise, and spiritually healthier intake are what that one needs.

Interracial Marriage Rate Increase Meets Resistance

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by Smitty

The news that interracial marriage rates are increasing seems like a good thing. Family history and ethnic heritage, while excellent and worthy of all preservation, needs to be balanced with the fact that we’re all Americans and bleed one color when defending our Constitution.
The news that the lines are blurring was met with vigorous denunciations from the Racism Industrial Complex.
The Reverend Alberto Dullton split the discussion cleanly and firmly:

This study is yet another attempt by Conservatives to debase the Progress that has been made to right the wrongs of the Right. We have struggled so hard to bring Civil Rights to every distinct, disadvantaged American race, color, and creed. Now we see that Conservatives are trying to erode these gains by blurring the distinctions that are the basis for Affirmative Action. Stop this racist madness!

The other half of the dynamic duo, The Right Honorable Orthodox Methodist Episcopal Freewill Baptist Presbyterian Minister, Jessica Jacksonville, was equally exercised:

This is all about race hatred. What better way to beat your opposition but to join them? How can we possibly protect the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr:
“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
How can those sons, on either side, remain distinct if this interracial marriage continues?
No, we must swear our allegiance to the cause of Affirmative Action, so that the government can ensure fairness for all, and end practices that ignore the valiant struggles of the past.

In the Southwest, Mexican reconquistas were furious that someone might throw their plans for a soft overthrow of US sovereignty under the proverbial bus. Manuel Gratificaçión, Phoenix U. Professor of Anti-American Studies, had this to say:

These stupid gringos will wreck everything! If they succeed rendering our oppression myth moot by scrambling all of the family trees, then how will we whip up hatred? Our Critical Theory farce only works when we have a clear target of European extraction! This is a disaster!

The problem of how to dispose of establishment fools who have made the means both an end unto themselves and a profitable business model remains one of the minor challenges.
Affirmative Action, and any other DNA-based decision making in the public sector, must be halted.

Update: No, the quotes from joke-named people, the ‘farce’ tag, and ‘Racism Industrial Complex’ are intended to convey the truth that this post is a parody of Affirmative Action twits.

South Carolina Sacred Honor Watch

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Yeah, I stole the “sacred honor” thing from Ace. Crucify me. He’s taking the day off and missed the latest development, so I’m forced to imagine how Ace would headline it:

Will Folks: Sacred Honor Compels Me to Drop More Hints That Might Look Like Threats But I’m a Southern Gentleman — and, Oh, By the Way, Nikki Haley Tried to Break Up My Marriage

Or something like that:

What these text messages did not show, however, was the two weeks of pure hell that my wife and I went through prior to deciding that this was an issue that needed to be addressed preemptively on my website. Literally every day during those two weeks there was a new report of some different piece of evidence allegedly being leaked to this reporter or that reporter, and based on what I knew to be true (and based on one specific piece of evidence that I had seen with my own eyes a year earlier) I could not be sure that a story exposing the relationship wasn’t going to run.
We were under seige, and we did what we felt we had to do to protect our two-year marriage – a union that never would have transpired had Rep. Haley had her way, incidentally.

Got all that? Not just the “Nikki tried to break up my engagement so she could keep me as her exclusive love-slave” angle, but notice how Will Folks once again reiterates his nonsensical rationale for “deciding that this was an issue that needed to be addressed preemptively on my website.”

As if repeating it again will make it more credible.

This is the one part of the story that has never made any sense from Day One. On the basis of a couple of inquiries from reporters asking about the rumor — that is, the rumor that Will Folks himself had been spreading for two years — he suddenly feels the need to “admit” the rumored affair on his own Web site.

Because that’s going to save his marriage.

But wait, there’s much, much more:

I am releasing all the information I can as soon as it is authenticated and approved for disemmination by my attorneys . .

(He can’t spell “dissemination,” but let’s not nitpick.)

Will so-called “smoking guns” be released prior to primary day? Prior to the runoff? Prior to the general election?
That’s honestly not up to me. It’s up to what my team is able to positively authenticate in anticipation of facing a blizzard of denials . . .
Like I said, we will continue to release what we can, when we can – fully condident that the truth regarding this situation will eventually come out.
Speaking of which, in addition to these records, my team is preparing affidavits from literally dozens of witnesses – including several who observed Rep. Haley and I leaving nightclubs together late at night as well as several who will testify to seeing Rep. Haley’s car parked outside of my downtown Columbia, S.C. town house on mulitple occasions at all hours of the night during the time frame in question. I’ve been told that several of these witnesses have taken the step of contacting members of the mainstream media regarding what they saw, although I obviously can’t control when (or how) that side of the story will come out.
Regarding these late night visits to my town house, at this point it bears repeating that I have purposely refrained from discussing the physical details of my relationship with Rep. Haley. Believe it or not, I am a Southern gentleman and at the point when I felt that public disclosure of this relationship was imminent, I phrased my admission in a manner consistent with the belief that what transpired between us was nobody’s business but ours and those individuals we chose to share it with.

Quick, somebody look up “unmitigated gall” and see if Webster has got the picture of Will Folks there yet. The man has a Sullivanesque lack of self-awareness. He can’t see that his entire course of conduct since May 24 directly contradicts his own story of why he needed to do “what we felt we had to do to protect our two-year marriage.”

Whereas he says he dreadfully feared that “public disclosure of this relationship was imminent,” Will Folks has spent the past two weeks asserting that he has evidence that will prove the relationship actually happened — and he hasn’t proven jack. So if  Will the Irresistible Seducer can’t prove his own conquests, why was he so afraid that some reporter was going to report the rumor?

And why has he gone from victimized defendant to prosecuting attorney?

That’s what’s so damned suspicious, this sudden zeal to prove something happened between him and Haley. It just doesn’t pass the sniff test.

But never mind, says Will Folks, “my team” is working night and day to “positively authenticate” that smoking-gun proof of the dreaded rumor that struck terror in his heart for two weeks.

I’m sure Ace of Spades will soon weigh in, so you won’t have to endure any more pale-imitation Ace-ness from me.

Obama vs. Israel

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Professor William Jacobson asks a provocative question:

Can Obama survive a second Obama term?

Read the whole thing. One of the points I considered discussing in the “Rachel Corrie Death Cult” post was how, by showing “solidarity” with Hamas, liberals are guaranteeing a continuation of the horrific circumstances which are their primary grievance against Israel.

Sixty-two years after the founding of modern Israel, Palestinian leaders are still sworn to Israel’s destruction — a goal that the Palestinians can never achieve by their own effort. It is only by appealing to the “world community,” which can apply diplomatic and economic pressure against Tel Aviv, that the death-cults have any hope of attaining their ultimate goal of annihilating Israel.

Bill Clinton made a mistake in bringing Yasser Arafat out of Tunisian exile — the Oslo accords, the cruel joke of Arafat’s Nobel Prize, etc. — and every subsequent attempt to reach a Mideast peace has been poisoned by the Arafat legacy. As I’ve often said, the leaders of Fatah, Hamas and other Palestianian terror groups have only one definition of “peace”: Dead Jews.

Every time Americans try to push Israel into a peace deal, the result is more dead Jews. Unwilling to cooperate in their own extinction, the Israelis naturally fight back, producing Palestianian casualties martyrs that the terrorists then use as an excuse to kill more Jews.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

So to the extent that the Palestinian leaders believe that Obama and the “world community” are on their side, we can expect to see a lot more dead Jews in the future.

FOUR MILLION VISITORS!

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Yes, it’s true, The Other McCain just passed the 4-million mark in total visits since the beginning of full-time blogging in March 2008.

The first million was, of course, celebrated in February 2009 with the publication of “How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year.” Smitty joined as co-blogger shortly thereafter and we passed the 2-million mark in July 2009, then hit 3 million in November and then . . .

Slumpsville. When monthly traffic decreased from 263,000 hits in November to 190,000 in December, I figured, “Well, it’s the holidays. People just aren’t reading a lot of blogs this time of year.” And yet the traffic slump seemed to persist past the holidays so that, while it took less than four months to go from 2 million to 3 million, it has taken seven months to notch the 4 millionth hit. A most troubling development, but more discussion of that later.

At any rate, Smitty had been bugging me to switch the site from Blogspot to WordPress format, a project we undertook the week after Christmas and accomplished in time for the rollout on New Year’s Eve. (Oh, the exciting life of bloggers!) Crossing the threshold into WordPressville was an occasion commemorated in this video:

And thus we slogged onward. January, the first full month at the new WordPress digs, produced a respectable 146,000 hits — boosted by coverage of the Scott Brown election in Massachusetts —  but the slump eventually returned, with a discouraging 105,000 hits in April. Last month, we bounced back up to 133,000, yet I’m still perplexed that we haven’t recaptured the kind of 300K mojo we had last September.

Various explanations for the missing mojo suggest themselves. Blogspot is owned by Google, and it may be that departure from the Google dominion deprived us of a certain edge in terms of search-engine results. It may also be that some readers who had set the old Blogspot address in their RSS feeds never updated to the new URL. And the craptastic debacle that is the “new, improved” Technorati deprived us of a very effective tool for Rule 2 implementation.

Whatever. That’s just a short and extremely partial list of theories, among which is the fact that our sidebars need some re-working — a tiresome task I’ve often contemplated only to conclude, “Nah. It can wait.”

Don’t worry. I’ll stop procrastinating. Soon. I promise.

Meanwhile, having transcended the 4-million threshold and begun to recapture the upwardly-mobile mojo in May, we thank our readers and all the bloggers who’ve linked us in the long winter of our SiteMeter discontent. The first dozen or so Certified Tip-Jar Hitter coffee mugs — Coolest Swag Evah! —  have already been shipped, and more will be shipped soon. Congratulatory contributions to the tip jar are certainly most welcome.

UPDATE: Here is the screen-cap of the SiteMeter log for the 4 millionth visitor:

So if you are the reader in Davis, Calif., who arrived on the site at 4:51 p.m. ET (1:51 Pacific), please holler out. I’m not sure that we’ve promised any particular reward to the 4 millionth visitor, but it would be nice to know who did it.

The Helen Thomas Dogpile

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Why am I the last blogger on the planet to blog about this?

I dunno. It’s not as if there has been any shortage of blogospheric rage raining down on Helen’s hate-filled head. What’s the point of my running in to give her an extra kick? Besides, once she’s been called an old, ugly Jew-hater for the umpteenth million time, there’s just not much opportunity for originality.

It’s like calling Charles Manson “crazy.” Yeah. We already knew that.

Dan Riehl gives Helen a good kick, and Jimmie Bise makes a game effort:

Living fossil Helen Thomas lurched forth from the murk of the tar pits where she lives to issue her solution on the current unrest in the Middle East. . . . Apparently, she was not quite up to screaming them from a nearby balcony in the original German.

OK, should Helen be fired? Or maybe banished from the White House press corps? For crying out loud, she’s older than White House itself.

She wasn’t born in a log cabin. She was born before the log cabin was invented. As a matter of fact, Helen Thomas had a byline the day God invented trees. (“Exclusive: Jewish conspiracy suspected in latest development!”)

Helen Thomas should have retired at least 15 years ago. I’m all in favor of “institutional memory” in journalism, and despise the recent trend toward employing clever 20-somethings to cover national politics, when they should be paying their dues covering city council meetings in the sticks.

Nevertheless, I doubt that the White House press corps derives much value from Helen Thomas and her “institutional memory” of the Pleistocene Epoch.

Ba-da-boom!

You see? At some point, one more Helen Thomas joke becomes overkill. Another straw on the camel’s back. And speaking of Helen Thomas and camels . . .

Update(d) (Smitty): I was too busy flaking off contributing to the #HelenThomasMovies thread to blog this. Ed Driscoll reports that her agent, Diane Nine, (as quoted by Craig Crawford–thanks, Ed.), has given her the “Way to go, Helen”.
Justice in the court of public opinion picks up steam.

Update II (Smitty): What Uncle Jimbo said: