“The top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. Twitter is dominated by men, whereas other social networks tend to be dominated by women. Is Twitter biased towards men?” Twitter is supposed to be about not talking too much. So if you’re talking a lot, are you doing it right? A conundrum! As I said about blogging a long time ago: “Be concise and write a lot. You must do both!” Who knows which way that bias cuts?
Author Archive: Ann Althouse
June 3, 2009
“YOU WANT FRIES?” asks Obama — playing a burger-gofer in an inane sequence for NBC cameras. And no, despite that HuffPo headline, he does not get “frustrated.” He’s being comical. Watch the video. You’ll see. You’ll also see Brian Williams — I’m thinking of the car scene — gesticulating in a way that can only be described as douchey.
THE REVOLUTION CONTINUES. I opened comments on the Rush/Sotomayor/abortion post, so let’s see what Insta-readers do with a hot topic. I’ll moderate quickly and liberally, and I won’t miss the commenters who get misfiled as “spam” by WordPress — as I did for that last post until just a few minutes ago. Carry on!
“IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR ABOUT the suit, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is what ‘fair use’ is, and what Section 107 of the Copyright Act says and all that Mel Nimmer kind of crap but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. I don’t really write this blog for people who don’t know that kind of stuff already.” But you really do want to click on that link if you want to know why Sonia Sotomayor had something to do with why J.D. Salinger filed his lawsuit in the Southern District of New York.
ON THE RADIO JUST NOW, RUSH LIMBAUGH toyed with the idea of supporting Sonia Sotomayor — on the theory that, raised as a Catholic, she might be secretly pro-life. Is it a risk Obama would have taken? Perhaps it is. I assume the Democratic Party would do very well if the Supreme Court happened to overrule Roe v. Wade.
ADDED: “I think she is a woman who is well-steeped in the law and well-steeped in precedent. And I believe that she has a real respect for precedent, and that she was not just saying that. And if that is really true, then I would agree with her. And I believe it is.” The Senator attests too much, I think.
AND: I think I’ll try another comments experiment on this one. I noticed that Dr. Helen was impressed that, on my previous experiment, there was “no anger, mudslinging or trolling.” But there also wasn’t really a topic, other than commenting per se. This post is much more of a challenge. I’ll be moderating — with a light hand. Stay on topic, and let’s see how good the discussion here can be.
YET MORE: I’ll have to listen again in the podcast of the radio show, but I suspect Mr. Fastbucks is right when he says: “This is reverse psychology. He’s baiting the libs into a litmus test on her.”
WHAT “DUTY OF CARE” DOES A REALITY SHOW OWE A CONTESTANT? That’s an issue I used long ago on a Civil Procedure exam. You can squeeze a lot of jurisdiction questions out of it without worrying about whether there is a valid tort claim. But the linked article is not about a lawsuit, and, in any case, Simon Cowell is paying for Susan Boyle’s mental health treatment.
“DAD, ARE YOU TURNING INTO A CHICK?” When treatment for prostate cancer gives you — ???! — menopause.
TRADEMARKING A SOUND. In this case, a quack.
THE VIEW FROM MY WINDOW, 8:04 a.m. this morning.
CAMP IGUANA. “As you can see, they are pretty much free.” “Obama didn’t release us. Why?”
ARCHITECTURE AND SOTOMAYOR. Not all high-rise housing projects are bad.
I TWEETED TWEETING. Twitter gets to your brain. In think it’s made me more Instapundit-y this go-round subbing for Glenn. Lord knows how he got so concise and spontaneous, pre-Twitter, but we’re all catching up.
“MUSICALLY, IKE WAS BY FAR THE GREATER OF THE TURNERS.” Tweeted, by Phil Spector. Response #1: Nervy to say that — given Tina’s story of domestic abuse — when you’re in prison for shooting a woman to death. Response #2: If I knew I’d get a laptop and WiFi in prison, my calculation about whether to commit crimes would change radically.
UPDATE: The clever Tweeter confesses he’s an imposter — and adds that Twitter should learn a lesson from this.
June 2, 2009
“ONE GUY THAT WAS HOME AT NIGHT WAS BATMAN. He was introduced in Detective Comics number #27 by Bob Kane. I always loved Batman. The way I looked at it, you had to come from another planet to be Superman, but I could be Batman… and you know I tried.” Just one item from a list of the best of Theme Time Radio With Bob Dylan. I love that radio show. I love satellite radio. And Bob Dylan. And now, I guess, Batman. Are you staying home tonight? I am. But I don’t think I could be Batman. Or even Bob Dylan. Do you?
EMPHASIZING FEDERALISM VALUES and adherence to Supreme Court precedent, a unanimous 7th Circuit panel, consisting of Easterbrook, Bauer, and Posner, adhering to Supreme Court precedent, says that the 2d Amendment is not incorporated in the 14th Amendment and thus does not apply to the states. It remains to be seen what the post-Heller Supreme Court will say, but — as I say in the linked post — the panel makes a clear and elegant argument for decentralized decision-making about the scope of the right to self-defense. ALSO AT THAT LINK: “Ah, the gods of Supreme Court confirmation are smiling on Sonia Sotomayor. Now, I will place my bet that the white firefighters will lose Ricci v. DeStefano.”
COMPARING SOTOMAYOR TO JUDGE PICKERING. “It has helped leading liberals and Democrats to discover that being tarred as a racist on flimsy grounds is unfair and deeply unpleasant.”