Category: Blogs

Some folks have asked Eugene Volokh how he picked the name of his blog, and whether he’d choose it again if he could have a do-over.  So the same question, I would most decidedly answer I would choose a different name.  I gave very little thought to the name of my blog when I got started.  Lately I made a change that tried to tie the name of the blog together with the blog’s tagline, but I’m not sure I’m liking it.

If you had to come up with a tagline for Snowflakes in Hell, what would it be?  Preferably, it would tie the name of the blog in with the topic, but I have to admit I’ve been thinking about going to a slight variation of what it used to be which is “Gun Politics in Pennsylvania and the Nation.” with no attempt to tie the name into anything.

Blackwater is not the company doing blogger outreach.  Para-USA is the company sponsoring our blogger summer camp.  The training is going to be provided by Todd Jarrett, who is a many times over IPSC world champion.  Para is paying Blackwater for the use of their facilities.  That’s the extent of the relationship, despite some folks attempt to read more into it.

We seem to have quite a few gun bloggers who come from law enforcement families.

UPDATE: I’m updating this post for Sebastian to reflect the comments. -Bitter

And he’s not going to let the Brady Campaign keep him down.  I’m glad to see Robb is still clinging to his guns.  But off site backups are also a good thin to cling to :)

Robb Allen tells me that the hard drive on his blog has crashed, and he might not be able to recover the backup.  I can’t even begin to express the depths of that suckitude.  I wish him luck on getting everything operational again.

UPDATE: Robb informs us that Sharp as a Marble is well and truly dead.  He expects to be back, however.  New bat time, new bat channel.

It is possible to win people over with good arguments, and reasonable discourse.  See this over at LookingforLissa, and also the second part.  There’s an old saying that you can get a lot farther with honey, than you can by threatning to shoot people.  I hope Lissa finds who she’s looking for.

War on Guns suggests there’s treachery afoot in regards to tonight’s show. I had the following conversation with Ahab on July 24th, which got saved in my IM logs (no nefariousness involved in the logging.  It helps me remember who to credit when people send me stuff by IM).  I asked Ahab if I could publish it, and he agreed:

10:52:50 PM Sebastian: I think you should do a show on radicalism in the gun rights movement
11:02:30 PM Ahab: We’re actually planning one
11:03:07 PM Ahab: It just seemed natural
11:03:41 PM Ahab: But we need some people to argue on the air about it
11:03:52 PM Sebastian: Kurt Hoffman
11:03:58 PM Sebastian: That would be my vote for the other side
11:07:22 PM Ahab: Oooh, that’s a good one
11:07:40 PM Ahab: I’ll email him to see if he’s available
11:07:51 PM Ahab: You want to be the moderate?
11:10:26 PM Sebastian: yeah
11:10:41 PM Sebastian: But you’re going to have to be the neutral moderator
11:11:13 PM Ahab: That would sort of be the point
11:11:22 PM Ahab: Plus, bonnie can help
11:11:53 PM Sebastian: I wouldn’t suggest like, a debate format
11:12:12 PM Ahab: No no – here’s what I’m thinking
11:12:36 PM Ahab: We have a rough script, and you guys get different questions and stuff
11:12:58 PM Sebastian: yeah
11:13:07 PM Sebastian: That’s the right way to do it I think

I’ll let folks judge for themselves whether our intent was to plot an intellectual ambush. Kurt was just an off the cuff suggestion.  I chose him because I viewed him as a good advocate for his side, and his entire involvement in the incident was above board.  That’s not to say there aren’t others who’s comments and discussion were above board, but Kurt was the first person who came to mind.  The only other discussion I’ve had with Ahab about the show was to see if he’d be willing to share the questions with both Kurt and I ahead of time, so we could be able to answer them without being all “uuuh… well… eeeh.” having to think on our feet.  Ahab’s response was that he actually wanted us to think on our feet, so he only shared a broad outline, with both of us.  Fair enough.  It’s his show.

I think Ahab can manage to put his differences aside, and lead the show in manner that’s fair to both sides.  I hope I’m not wrong about this, but I think it’ll work just fine.

Looks like Google locked a bunch of blogs reportedly for being spam blogs.  I think if you enjoy blogging, and you’re good at it, it’s very much worth the investment to get your own domain, and get some hosting.  It helps with your google-fu too, because Google ranks people higher if they have their own domain, where blogspot.com gets reduced google-fu.

Apparently Rusty‘s appendix started acting up, and it had to go.  Squeaky is taking up a collection for a get well gift.