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Truly Amazing Christmas News |
| Posted by: tony on 12/30/2008 03:12 PM (Read: ) |
 I had found my way over to The Raving Atheist's blog via Dawn Eden (now that is an oddity to contemplate in itself). I read his missives because he had a pro-life worldview seemingly devoid of God, and this intrigued me.
I took a look, read some comments and waded in. I found the commentariat to be a singularly humorless, acerbic and mostly nasty group. I engaged a couple of them, and discovered that rather than debating the existence of God, they were interested in scoring "points". Life's too short to engage in bad discussions, so I left.
So what do I hear via The Curt Jester?
The Raving Atheist has become the Raving Theist!
That's right. According to the blog entry, he has become Christian, and just in time for Christmas.
So I went over to offer my congratulations, and found that the vast majority of his echo chamber has turned on him. Starting off his walk with Christ with a little dry martyrdom is not an especially bad thing, but after reading all of the over 400 comments, I came to conclusion that Satan is alive and well in the atheist community.
The comments from Christians to RT were universally joyful and congratulatory. Those from the atheists were, with few exceptions, like wading in excrement.
Mark Shea emulated the freaking out, turning-over-tables Jesus:
Afraid not. Aquinas simply assumes the existence of his god and goes from there.
GP: If you'd stick your head outside the atheist echo chamber, you'd discover that you simply don't know what you are talking about. Before taking up the question "Does God Exist?" Thomas takes up the question of whether the existence of God is self-evident. He answers in the negative: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article1 Try to have some idea what you are talking about instead of mindlessly regurgitating what your peer group tells you–especially if you are going to constantly chatter about your superior reasoning abilities. If you are going to have a superstitious fetish about the three pound piece of meat behind your eyes as magically superior to the rest of nature, you should at least give evidence (that talismanic word!) that you use it.
Heh, heh, heh... I couldn't have said it better myself.
Dawn Eden comments on her own blog:
Sharp-eyed viewers of my "Chastity Rome-Chick Blues" video, which he directed (as well as rewriting the lyrics to the Bob Dylan tune), have known his new moniker for a couple of years, as he sneaked it in during the closing credits.
"Couple of years"!!! LOL!!! (Ok, the burst of schadenfreude over the idea of stringing along those hateful people for two years is not a very Christian attitude. I'll have to stop that now.)
The "rationalists" seem to claim that nothing exists that is not discernible by their five senses. Over the years a lot of interesting discoveries have been made which have not been discernible by the naked eye or the naked ear. Did things like viruses not exist until the development of the electron microscope? Of course not.
God is not discernible by my five senses yet, but maybe some time in the future someone will invent a God-meter which will measure and possibly communicate with God. There will still be those atheists who will not believe it. The same people who are sure that man landed on the moon because they saw it on TV and that viruses exist because they saw them on an electron microscope will not believe the God-meter because their self image in invested in their non-belief.
Sad. And tragic too.
RT seems to believe and we can rejoice, as Jesus would, when a lamb who is lost is found.
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Michael Iafrate Answers His Own Question |
| Posted by: tony on 08/13/2008 04:39 PM (Read: ) |
He writes:
I've been blogging for a while now, but I have never understood the appeal of blogs whose entire existence seems centered around blogging about other bloggers rather than making a genuine contribution through original writing.
...
Comments are closed.
'Nuff said.
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Mark Shea Takes The Voxies to Task |
| Posted by: tony on 08/11/2008 04:28 PM (Read: ) |
I have been reading Vox-Nova probably since its inception. I thought it was a really cool concept. A Catholic group blog from people of diverse political and ideological viewpoints. From their about page:
Vox Nova is a response to the ecclesial mandate to promote the common good in every sphere of human existence. We come from varying backgrounds and carry diverse social outlooks, traversing a wide range of demographics and political sympathies. Vox Nova is free, to the furthest extent possible, from partisanship, nationalism and demagoguery, all of which banish intellectual honesty from rational discourse.
Maybe they started out with the best of intentions, but I have to say currently, their about statement is unmitigated bull-pies. Their basic member with a couple of notable exceptions, are socialists, Democrats and other assorted throwbacks of the 60's. That, in itself, isn't a problem. The problem occurs when Vox-Nova seems to exist to make those who dissent from clear Catholic teaching feel good about voting for pro-death, anti-family Democrats. Mark Shea seems to concur:
Count me as someone else who is finding it harder and harder to credit the notion that Vox Nova is really trying to be faithfully consistent to magisterial teaching.
When posters consistently try and explain why you can, in good informed Catholic Conscience, vote for a man who advocates letting babies who, through the grace of almighty God, survive an abortion attempt, die alone in soiled utility rooms because his political opponent wants to win the war in Iraq instead of surrendering, you have to know that "Satan is in the building".
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Rachel Lucas is a Cowardly Weenie!!! |
| Posted by: tony on 08/06/2008 03:14 AM (Read: ) |
I guess that's what happens when you become the victim of your own success. She writes:
Also, the expectations go up. I hate being taken more seriously than I take myself, hate that things are inferred about my opinions that aren't true, hate that you can't say ANYTHING without someone taking it the wrong way and having a little *bleep*-fit, and most of all I hate that once your blog gets linked enough, people start thinking you’re just begging to be taken down a notch.
Then you have the attempted flame wars (such as when some *bleep* out there completely misconstrues something you write and tries to "call you out" on his or her own blog), which I never engage in but are starting to piss me off. It’s all so high school and thoroughly nauseating, and I don’t want any part of it.
So that's the fever, and the only cure is more cowbell. By which I mean, entertaining stuff and no politics except to occasionally mock both sides. Those of you who come here for the political stuff are just going to have to go to one of the forty trillion other political blogs out there to get your fix.
So you start a blog, you hope people read you, and you post words of wisdom day in and day out until that fateful day when you get linked by one of the big dogs. All of sudden, you have a tsunami of traffic, and people are commenting and e-mailing and criticizing and kudos-ing...
If you're in it for the traffic, this is a cool thing. You like it and it pumps up your ego (kind of like the main character of the old video game, Dig-Dug, used to do... but remember what was being inflated, if done successfully, blew up). You start checking your traffic stats multiple times a day, and you start gauging your work for the "traffic effect" and start modifying your message accordingly. At that point, since Rachel has such cute dogs, I'll use a dog analogy: "The tail is wagging the dog". You don't post what you truly believe because it might piss off a substantial portion of your readers...
Humbug!
I like having readers, but it's not going to hurt my feelings if some of them drop off because of some deeply held belief, either Catholic or political. But the day I start being "wagged" by my readers, is the day I shut down. And if this offends someone, well, I guess it's a case in point.
So Rachel. Don't let the readership (especially the drive-bys) dictate what you're going to write. Write what you want, the pithy political stuff, or the embarassing dog-picture stuff (do you sleep in the same room as those dogs? We'll be reading about you in the newspaper some morning with your throat ripped out covered in "dog decorations").
And see how big my ego is? I'm assuming that the illustrious Rachel will read this.
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Laugh Out Loud Funny |
| Posted by: tony on 04/09/2008 05:03 PM (Read: ) |
It's the newest addition to my sidebar. June Cleaver After a Six-Pack. Here is a taste:
Do you feel sorry for me yet? Well, listen to this...
When I finally got Mary back to sleep after 6:30, I walked back in my room to find my stupid dog rolling and rubbing herself all over my pillows and sheets. I walked in and she stopped and looked at me as if to say "Phew, that was GREAT!" I half expected her to light up a cigarette.
ROFL!!!
The funniest part about this is that my dog used to do the same thing (she just turned 16 and has trouble jumping on the bed and I refuse to buy the doggie steps like my wife suggested). She'd be rubbing her face into my pillow making snorting noises and getting dog boogers all over my pillow. When I came in, she'd pop up and look at me as if to say: "What are you looking at?".
This lady is a great read. She's become a regular in my RSS reader.
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Her Domestic Page Rank |
| Posted by: tony on 10/29/2007 11:11 PM (Read: ) |
Elena at My Domestic Church despairs her dropping page rank on Google which she attributes to the paid text link ads that she has on her blog:
Everything I have been reading about the Google Page Rank restructuring seems to verify that blogs and web sites that had paid text link adds were severely penalized in this latest go round.
Elena and I have gone round and round about this in the past. I enjoy her Catholic commentary which is intelligent, enlightening and sometimes gives me a different, though valid, point of view to ponder.
However, I have spoken to her about the paid blog posts. These are blog posts where she gets paid to review products on her blog. The products that she was reviewing had nothing to do with Catholicism. It's like tuning into EWTN and getting an infomercial for rug cleaner. I read Elena's blog via the GreatNews RSS reader which has substantial watch list capability which is able to be turned around to filter those posts that have the little "full disclosure" widget.
But Elena has mentioned that money made from her blog allows her to stay home and parent her children. I respect that. It is a holy and admirable decision. However, all decisions come with consequences.
Some bloggers suggested taking all of the paid posts off, and then requesting that Google re-review the site and change the rank. Some are boycotting Google. Some are trying to find other ways around the Google Page Rank system.
Google has not only the right, but the responsibility to their stockholders to encourage the greatest number of people to use their search engine. The vast majority of searchers are not looking for Viagra ads when they are looking for Pope Paul VI's encyclical, Humanae Vitae, so search relevance is most important to them. So for someone searching for "Catholic" dropping page rank on a site which was 90% Catholic content, and has become 50% Catholic content is a natural consequence of the change of focus of the blog.
Payperpost depends pretty heavily on the Page Rank system. That's how they get advertisers to pay a certain amount to appear on blogs with certain ratings. I imagine that if an advertiser wants to be on a blog with a rank of 5, they' re going to pay more for than than on a blog with a page rank of 1 or no rank. The irony is that blogs with Paypepost adds, get a lower page rank, and then get penalized again by Payperpost by not having some higher paying opportunities available to them. Payperpost is going to have to come up with a way to fix that - soon.
This is quite a conundrum, isn't it. Payperpost relies heavily on page rank for a site lowers the page rank for the site by polluting the content upon which the site is ranked.
Links can only get you so much. Since so many link farms have been set up which are simply sites that everyone agrees to link to everyone else with no concern for whether what you are linking to is valid for the audience you're trying to attract, the content of those you link to has to be evaluated too. So if you link to lots of unrelated stuff, your link for your main focus drops.
I on the other hand have decided to operate on the "If you build it, they will come" theory and hope that readers find their way here despite my lower page rank. But ultimately I am going to do what I think is the best for my family and my audience. I for one have learned a lot just by doing the paid ads. Even some of the opportunities I didn't take or couldn't take introduced me to other services and web sites out there that I never would have known about otherwise. The opportunities I took and blogged about were always ones that I thought were interesting and fun to learn and write about. The earnings from those posts also helped my family. So am I going to stop doing it for a better page rank? To me it was sort of an easy decision . Higher page rank and bragging rights don't pay the bills. But even more importantly I don't like the idea of an anonymous power trying to manipulate my behavior. I've got to do this blogging thing to please myself, my family and my readers and if that ends up being its own reward, so be it.
The big question that any blogger has to ask themselves is: "Why do I blog?", and Elena seems to have answered it in her last sentence. However, you can't fault Google who is also looking out for their "family".
Some may know it (I really don't mention it a lot) that I run The Cigar Diary. This is a site I started quite a few years ago when my interest in premium cigars intersected with my interest in learning web based database design. So the cigar review database was born. I decided on a clean, easy to navigate interface, with a basic and consistent color scheme. This was before blogging was popular, and the content management systems brought web publishing to the masses.
I also decided to try ads. So I made a single ad, 120px X 100px that was in the upper right corner of the page (first place the viewer looks). I have no ads buried below, no banners, or flashing lights. First and foremost, I want my site to be a place where people are comfortable to go, and return again and again.
The ad hasn't made much money. In a couple of years, I still haven't gotten to the $50 threshold that I need to get paid. But I'm running a page rank of 4, and I hover somewhere between the fourth and fifth page when someone searches for "cigar". In order to jack that up, I'd have to invest time "working" the site. I find spending my time discussing Catholic issues here more enjoyable. But then again, I'm not a stay at home mom trying to help make ends meet while homeschooling her children. I have the luxury of having this remain a hobby.
This is not an indictment of Elena, who I like a lot and still read on a regular basis. It's just the realities of Google, "democratic" web placement, and the impact of placing ads on your site.
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CPF Endorses The Catholic Caveman For Blogger's Choice Award |
| Posted by: tony on 10/20/2007 08:10 PM (Read: ) |
 Kevin, the inimitable "Vir" of the "Speluncae Catholicus" needs our help. He has been nominated for "The Most Obnoxious Blogger" for the Blogger's Choice Awards.
Click the bold link and cast your vote for the best man for the position!
So let's everyone get behind Kevin and let's see if we can't propel him into the top spot and get him a badge that he can wear with pride.
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2007 Weblog Awards |
| Posted by: tony on 10/10/2007 10:35 PM (Read: ) |
We are once again rolling getting into the Weblog Award season. I think there should be another category for the awards.
Most Embarassing Vote Begging Blog
This would go to the weblog who started the earliest, was most pathetic, consistent and strident in their begging for nominations / votes, and who had the worst vote begging / real posts ratio.
Let's get started blogs, for this coveted award.
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A Blogsister Goes To Be With The Lord |
| Posted by: tony on 08/03/2007 08:33 PM (Read: ) |
 (Via Mark Shea)
I have been reading From The Anchor Hold for years. The proprietress, Karen Marie Knapp has been one of my regular reads. Mark Shea reports:
Many at St. Blog's are familiar with the work of Karen Marie Knapp, who ran the Anchor Hold blog. Her brother Tom called me a few minutes ago from Ohio to say that she had died in her sleep last night.
Say a prayer for her. I know I will.
Rest in peace, Karen. We'll miss you.
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Truncated RSS Feeds Really Stink. |
| Posted by: tony on 07/28/2007 04:54 PM (Read: ) |
I'm a blog reading junkie. There, I said it. I consume lots of blogs on a daily basis. I use a feed aggregator called GreatNews to read my feeds offline. One of the things I run into is blogs and news sites which truncate their feeds to force the reader to click through to their site.
This is one of my pet peeves of blog reading.
To those who do this... I download your feed specifically because I want to read your words of wisdom. All of them. I don't mind if you link to an outside site to give attribution to a quote you might be commenting on. I can mark it for follow up later if I want to look at it, and in some cases, I find a neat new blog to add to my feed reader. I have to say, though, if I open up a feed and I see something like this...
We invite you to leave or not come at all
Thu, Jul 26 2007 12:24 AM by Jeff
From Fr. Tran at St. Mary's by the Sea in the Diocese of Orange: Regarding the Tridentine Mass at our...
I am going to delete your feed, and not bother to read it any more.
So what did Fr. Tran write? I'm left with a cliffhanger. It leaves me not with a desire to click through and read it, but to just delete the feed and be done with it. Just for the record, I love Jeff's site, The Curt Jester. I link it on my sidebar, and I'd like to read it every day, but unfortunately it is not "offline reader friendly" so I have to pass.
Ed Kohler, from Technology Evangelist writes:
Dear media sites:
I am so tired of truncated RSS feeds.
Why do you continue to work under the assumption that you're better off forcing people to click through to read blog posts or news stories rather than allowing them to read content within their feed readers?
This is wrong.
Why?
Because you're making life difficult for your most loyal and vocal readers. People subscribing to your RSS feed are reading everything you publish. Everything. That is, if you don't truncate your feed.
They're also the people who are most likely to have blogs, which means they're the most likely to link to or embed your content in their site after reading it.
Do you really want to make life difficult for them?
Amen. This has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time, and I'm sure I'm going to tick people off. Also, if you are purposefully truncating your feed for whatever reason, I'm not so arrogant to think that you're going to think: "ooooooh... Tony will stop reading me, I'd better change!". I just want to express my feelings and let you know that in addition to forcing people to click through, you are alienating a substantial group of people who may really enjoy your commentary, but don't believe it's worth the effort.
Ed Concludes with:
As I understand it, the mindset leading to RSS feed truncation is, "we get more hits if we force people to click through." And this is absolutely true . . . in the short term. If I truncated Technology Evangelist's feed today, I'd surely see a spike in traffic from our feed tomorrow.
This mindset needs to change. Focusing on short term hits over longer term benefits that come from links and embeds is a foolish move. If your online content isn't easily consumable, sharable, and conversational, it's something close to dead.
Backing up for a second, this all assumes that the content being created is WORTH consuming, sharing, and talking about. If not, you have bigger problems that need to be addressed.
Longer term, easily consumable content will generate more links to your site, which will each generate click through visitors to the ads you're trying to serve.
Which will lead to more people hopping on your RSS feeds.
Which will lead to more people reading and sharing your content.
Which will lead to more links to your site.
Which will lead to higher search engine rankings.
Which will lead to more unique visitors stumbling upon your site to see your ads.
And we'll all live happily ever after.
Indeed. We all like a healthy readership. Some of us like meaningful conversation. If not we would not make our words of wisdom available on the internet.
I'm sure there are some cases where the blog owner doesn't realize their site is feeding truncated articles. You should click on that little RSS button that you are showing and take a look at what is displayed. Is it the whole article, or is it just a line or two?
If it's the whole article, you're golden. If it's a line or two, and you'd like to change it, look up the help on your blog software to find out how to adjust it. If you'd like my help, drop me a line and I'll be happy to do the research for you and explain how to do it. I might even write up updates to this article addressing the major blog platforms.
It will be a public service to the whole RSS reading community.
Update: Jeff informed me that his Atom feed has a full feed. I'll be adding it back into my GreatNews reader. Thanks Jeff.
And yeah, I'm sorry. I should have asked.
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