I’m Feeling A Bit Lazy This Morning

Miscellaneous Stuff…


Just in case you haven’t noticed, there are basically two kinds of blogs out here—“linkers”, and “writers.”

The “linkers” spend most of their time providing lists of URL links to commercial web sites, other blogs, and the internet news sites. Their only personal contribution to the web’s dialogue, besides spending the time to find the linked material, is to provide some sort of occasional brief commentary.

University of Tennessee legal professor Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit blog site obviously comes to mind when you think of a famous linker.

Then there is Michael Drudge’s Drudge Report which became famous back in the late 1990’s for breaking the story about the Philanderer-In Chief President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski. That news scoop aside, Matt is still obviously a “linker” rather than an actual blog writer, in spite of his fame and high level insider connections to breaking news. I guess that you could say that he is also a pseudo news reporter.

My fellow blogger Steve down at Hog On Ice continuously raves about how you can get 75% of Drudge’s stuff off of Orlando’s Local6 news website.

I agree.

You’ve seen many zany and weird news stories from Local6 mentioned here on this blog in the past. I like to take a link to a 100 word story from their site and produce a 2000 word dissertation on human nature or the other underlying issues found therein.

Then there are the actual blog “writers.”

People like the three lawyers that write at Powerline, Captain Ed’s Captains Quarters, and Blog divas Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter lead the pack here in my mind.

I like to consider myself in this same category, although I admit that I’m not successful all of the time. Sometimes it can be hard work, and it takes a good deal of time to produce some of the screeds that I’ve written over the past year and one-half.

I'd also like to think that I’m getting better all of the time—practice making perfect and all that.

For instance, yesterday’s diatribe (Calling A Spade A Spade) on the hysteria surrounding politically correct speech took about three hours to write and edit. I know that it was a bit long, but I was inspired with something important to say at the time and it just ended up taking a few extra written words to get it all down on paper (or actually, the electronic ether of the internet.)

My girlfriend Patricia usually takes a peek at my writing each morning before she starts work in order to determine my mood for the day and see what is on my mind. She said that she could only read about half of yesterday’s posting because it was so long. I know that the quality of my words doesn’t always balance out the quantity of my writing, but as the old saying goes…”a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do…”

I don’t have to do this (write a blog) but I do it anyway, and I realize that you can feel free to hit the “back” button on your browser at any time. I'll expend the effort and take that risk regardless.

In the interest of testing my ability as a "linker" rather than a "writer," I feel like taking a break this evening from poking and prodding the mainstream media and their darling liberals. Instead of producing further serious writing or ranting this morning, I think that I'll enjoy the luxury of just pointing out some of MY links that are in the favorites section on our computers.

A lot of casual internet surfers rely only on the big sites like Google News, Yahoo News, The NY Times, and The LA Times for their information sources.

If you pay close attention to the reporting, all of the news contained on these consumer oriented sites is basically the same. It’s just shuffled around into a different order—but it’s still all Reuters and Associated Press based crappola packaged for the informal news reader that can only spend a few minutes each day trying to absorb what is going on in the world.

If that is all YOU do yourself, along with reading your local newspaper, as I’ve said before, you are seriously misinformed.

That said, here is a list of some other websites that we find indispensable in our household:

If you travel by airliner, check out the FAA’s Air Traffic Control Command Center Site to see any potential arrival and departure delays that might affect your day moving between the airports around the country.

Coincidentally, my US Senator, Saxby Chambliss and I finally got the FAA to list our local airport on this site last year. I kept bitching for about nine months directly to the FAA with no response, then Senator Chambliss’ office jumped in at my request and three months later there was a little green dot on the Southeastern US Sector Map showing the Brunswick Golden Isles Airport.

Hurray for me…who says that you can’t fight city hall—OR the FAA?

Next comes the subject of Weather.

Remember that I’ve mentioned that I’m a real weather nerd?

I use The Weather Channel like a TV “screensaver” when the weather is bad and hurricanes are blowing around during the summer and fall months. I used to use their web site, Weather.com, regularly, but in recent years I’ve discovered the NOAA Website and also find the Weather underground much more useful.

For a little broader weather picture, try out the Space Weather site that will tell you what is going on with the sun, moon, planets, and meteor showers each month. If you live in the northern latitudes where you can actually see the Auroras in the winter, they can tell you when it is worth your time to bundle up and run outside to look.

Want to know the Jetstream position or the rise and set times for the Sun and Moon?

Take a look, they are both good sites. I use the US Naval Observatory site all of the time in my photography work to predict when to be standing outside looking east or west with my camera in my hand.

Worrying about when that next volcanic explosion is going to take place in your back yard or on the tropical island you’re going to visit this summer? Check out Australian Scientist John Seach’s site called Volcano Live.com. The interesting thing that I have learned from this site is that there are a couple of volcanoes erupting every minute of every hour of every single day of the year somewhere in the world.

Where is the lamestream media on this little factoid. Let Mount St. Helens issue a belch or fart and you’ve got headlines in 60 point type on every American newspaper for a week.

Oops, there I go again—breaking my promise to myself to give the so-called professional “newspeople” a break tonight. I guest that I’m starting to get tired and cranky.

I think that I'll be signing off now…

Have yourself a good morning.