The blog, contrariwise, is a perfect way for me to express irritation whenever I feel it, unmodulated by other people’s opinions or the leavening of time. I think that will be a good thing for me. I look forward to that.

very dangerous. Two words. Joe Klein.

Blogs actually fall into two categories. Good bloggers who know what they are talking about, and get pissed off about things they know about, and pay attention to their comments in case they say something stupid….

And bad blogs where idiots foam at the mouth and pretend to know stuff they don’t have the first clue about.

Popularity is not, of course, a function of quality. You can be as stupid as you want if

a) One of your stupid remarks turns out to actually have some substance, and you get suddenly famous (see Little Green Footballs)

b) you already are somebody — or are “group blogging” with an established blogger. (damn, Joe Klein again).

Since you are a semi-somebody (Hey, I never heard of you, but apparently you are all the rage among the media cognoscenti) you can probably become famous — even get invited to be part of a Russert MTP roundtable and get recognized by nobodys like me, provided you are willing to give up the pretension of pseudonymity… [AGAIN with the Klein!]) you can easily attract an audience by being an idiot.

Right now, the blogosphere is full of popular smart liberals and popular dumb conservatives — mostly because all the smart conservatives are trying to pretend that they’ve been moderates all along, and the minute you become a moderate, you are subject to ceaseless attacks by the people who commented on your blog who are pissed off that you are not being an idiot any longer. The attacks wear you down, so you decide to “take a hiatus” from blogging and you find something else to do—which explains the dearth of popular moderate bloggers.

So my advice to you is to shut this blog down immediately, and try again in 2008. You’re obviously a smart guy with a facility for prose — especially the kind of snarky prose that is the gold standard of blogdom, but the blogosphere is full of smart, progressive economic types.

(Of course, the blogosphere also functions as the modern equivalent of the vanity press—only MUCH cheaper. So feel free to be smart and progressive, and make your blog a vanity publication (“not that there’s anything wrong with that”))

But being a semi-somebody, you are at risk of some liberal equivalent of Little Green Footballs coming along and gaining an audience by trashing you every time you say something unwise — and getting linked by the bigger liberal bloggers.

Basically, its a no win situation for you. Which sucks, because like I said you write well — but do you really want to risk becoming the center of a blogswarm that raises questions about your credibility?

Well, I do go on, don’t I? What I really wanted to say is this….

Your choice of fonts sucks. Grey may be the new black (again) but that doesn’t make it easy to read on a monitor.

(sent here by that economics blogger over at time.com, in case you were curious.)

I guess I’ll have to look at that font thing. As for my first commentator’s other thoughts, well, I guess I’ll stick with this thing for a while. It’s fun.

hey youse guys, keep blogging, you both write well and I enjoy reading well written stuff. the chicken made me laugh

WWMB – “Why would Machiavelli Blog?” If he were around today, how would The Prince use a blog to bring fame and fortune to his friends while impaling his enemies?

Keep up the great writing Bing.

I read the question about the stinky co-worked. I’m really Appalled that sometimes people are so ignorant about diseases that cause body odor. There’s not a lot of attention paid to medical conditions that include maple syrup disease and tmau. With these two conditions; no amount of washing can take away the odor. People with this condition as ostracized for something they have no control over. This condition is not classified as a disability so people have to go out into the workforce and make a living making other co-wokrkers very uncomfortable. Granted there are people who purposely refuse to bathe but the people with odor causing conditons shower up to seven time s a day and use numersous bottles of deodorant and spend tones of money on teeth cleaning products. I have tmau which is caused when the liver cannot metablolize choline a precursor of protein, most foods have choline so its almost impossible not to cnsume some choline in your diet. People with this condition are known to have attempted suicide because of the shame and misery associated with it. I’ve been able to live a normal life inspite of the pain this condition brings on my life. Please bring attention to this condition. We are not dirty we are just sick.
Thank you.
Jane

This is my first time blogging…I liked your blog so much and it sounded like you were probably tired of hearing it around the office for not having a blog. My sympathy and heart felt saddness goes out to you. I guess what you and I are actully doing is giving in to what I call peer blogopressure. What is this world coming to when you are nobody if you don’t blog. Well, this is also my last blog, unless you write something else as sad and useless again and I need to come out of my shell to respond.