Blog List

I just noticed my BlogRoll has been out of commission for a while. Apparently Blogrolling.com stopped operations months ago. Now I'm using Blogger's "Blog List" feature, which shows the blogs I choose to list, as well as a link to their latest post. If a blog is on my list, it means I like reading it and find it interesting, but it doesn't mean I agree. As you'll notice, the blogs on the list don't agree with each other, either.

I don't remember what was on my BlogRoll, so some blogs I used to list may not be on there anymore. I'm sure I'll add some more as time goes by.

New Sharing Options

I just enabled Blog sharing, so you can easily share my posts. Until now, the only thing you could do directly from the blog was e-mail posts to friends. Now you can blog about it, and share it on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz (does anyone actually use Google Buzz?!? But I digress). You can also recommend it to friends by clicking on the "+1" button, and then if your friends search for something related to the content of the post, right next to the link to the post, they'll see that you recommended it. More info on "+1" in the video after the jump.

New Feature: Follow By E-Mail

All my followers (yes, both of you) can now get updates about my posts in their inbox. Just enter your e-mail address in the box on the left. At the rate at which I write new stuff, I can guarantee I won't be clogging your e-mail!

How Many Posts Per Page?

I just changed my blog's settings so it will display ten days' worth of posts on the main page, instead of five. Only days I post on are counted, which is why right now there are posts from as far back as June and not just from the last ten calendar days.

Do you have any preferences? Is it taking any longer to load now (though I don't see why it should, since I rarely add videos and pictures to my posts)? I'm open to feedback from all my avid readers. Yes, both of you.

Update (August 28, 2009): I've switched back to five days' worth of posts. I've shortened the list of labels, so a shorter first page is more suitable, in my opinion.

New Feature

I just added a new feature to my blog. It's the Lijit Search widget (or wijit, as they called it). It'll display the search terms that people used to find this site, as well as where in the world people are coming from. You can also search my blog with Lijit, and if you click on "Surprise Me" it'll bring you to a random post.

They say it may take some time before the widget is really effective, because it takes time to collect all the data about all my posts.

Six Years of Blogging

Just wanted to mention that today is the blog's sixth anniversary. It is also Emmanuel Schiff's sixth birthday as a pseudonym. On Friday, June 6, 2003, I lost my bloginity (blog virginity).

In 2006, when the date was 06/06/06 (666) I joked that my blog is satanic. Not that it's 06/06 again and the 6th anniversary, should I repeat the same joke?

This Plinky Thing

I tried out Plinky yesterday. It is supposed to inspire people suffering from "blogger's block" to write. They post a new "prompt" every day, which is actually a question for bloggers. I answered one of these questions yesterday in my previous post. It was one of their first questions, posted in January. That's how far I had to go to find a question I'd like to answer, or even see what other people had to say about it.


Oh well, maybe they'll have interesting questions once in a while. We'll just have to wait and see.

Is Tracksy Dead?

It has been over a week now that whenever I log in to Tracksy, I get the message "Session timed out. Please log back in." A quick Google search shows many other people have had problems with the site. Does this mean the service is gone for good? Is it time to get my site statistics from a different source?

Blog Readability Test

Just saw this test on The Atheist Jew Blog and decided to check it out. Turns out you have to be a genius to understand my blog. If my site is not beyond your comprehension, you should be flattered. I wonder how the readability is determined. It probably only checks the blog's first page and not previous posts, so this rating probably changes over time.

Goodbye, Kevin Leitch

I was surprised to find out that Left Brain/Right Brain, Kevin Leitch's blog about autism, is shutting down. Kevin explains the reason:

The reason LB/RB is shutting is because I cannot continue to allow my beautiful eldest girl to be exposed to the hatred and bullying she is recieving from John Best. John has seen fit to compare my beautiful child to a trained monkey because he didn't like the fact she was progressing. He has made numerous jokes at her expense on that theme. He has assumed her identity online. He has encouraged others to do the same.

At first glance, this may seem like an overreaction, but I can understand Kevin's decision. I don't know much about John Best, and Kevin has become quite acquainted with him over the years. If he feels his daughter is in danger I can't criticize him for shutting down. It is too bad that Best's extremely aggressive tactics have been successful. This amounts to cyberbullying, as one blogger put it.

LB/RB was an interesting blog. Though I found it repetitive at times, with the same arguments between the two sides repeating themselves, the blog's posts usually looked at different arguments from new angles, as well as other information that was new to me. I hope Kevin will change his mind one day.

It is unfortunate that a debate between people whose main concern is the well being of their children often turns ugly. Whether you think thimerosal in vaccines causes autism or you think it is genetic and support Neurodiversity, your arguments should be based on facts, not personal attacks.

By the way, this is my 300th post. Too bad it wasn't devoted to something more positive.

Blogrush

I just added a new widget, Blogrush, to my blog. As their website describes it, "BlogRush is a "Cooperative Syndication Network" that rewards its users for their contributions to the network -- from the impressions they provide of the BlogRush Widget to the referral of other users through 10 'generations' of activity and the impressions of the widget that they provide. BlogRush was designed to be incredibly viral and to provide its users with tremendous distribution leverage to receive exposure for their blog content (onto related content blogs) that they could never achieve on their own; at least without a massive advertising budget."

Blogrush uses the category you provide and combines it with a scan of your blog's content to place links to your posts on related blogs, and to link to related blogs from yours. Too bad only one category can be chosen for the whole blog and not per post. I picked "politics", even though I also write about other things. Hopefully, the content scanner will be effective, so when I write about autism the link will be placed on another blog about autism, rather than on a website about politics.

I should mention that I first came across Blogrush on Gert's blog.

CNN and Slate Quoted Me

I just googled "Emmanuel Schiff" and discovered that I'm famous. Okay, not famous, but this blog was mentioned once on national television in the United States and quite possibly worldwide, as well as being quoted a few months later in one of the Internet's most widely read e-zines.

My search brought up a transcript of live coverage of Pope John Paul II's death on CNN. This April 4, 2005 broadcast included a segment about reactions to the pope's death on the blogosphere. Here's the part where the reporters talk about me (and maybe even show my blog on-screen):

TATTON: And, of course, not everyone is full of praise for the pope or the Catholic Church here. Emmanuel Schiff, this is a poli-sci, a political science student, in Israel. He's saying that the pope was way too conservative on many issues, but also progressive on many other things, such as relations with Jews. Emmanuel goes on to look at who the next pope might be. He's got his list of the top five on his site here.

This is something very popular amongst bloggers today. They are looking at what happens next.

They are referring to this post from the same day. Now that I got into it to remind myself of the post, I noticed there's a glaring typo there - " He way too conservative on many issues" (I wonder if the "way" is supposed to be "was" or I forgot the word "was" and meant to say he was way too conservative). What a shame, the only time millions saw my blog - it had a typo.

Next I found an article in Slate about blogger reaction to Mohammed ElBaradei's Nobel prize. The writer refers to me as a conservative blogger based on that one post. Shame on him! Quoting my entire post from October 7, 2005, he writes:

Other conservatives respond with equal parts incredulity and cynicism. "I was under the impression that prizes, especially the most prestigious ones, are supposed to reward success and remarkable achievements," writes political science student Emmanuel Schiff. "I was wrong. As it turns out, inaction and repeated failures may not prevent a person and/or organization from winning."

It's quite amusing to discover I was quoted on CNN and in Slate long ago without my knowledge. Now I wonder if I've been mentioned anywhere else in the mainstream media, mentions that have no trace in regular Internet searches.

After Four Years

I forgot to mark the 4-year anniversary of my blog earlier this month. Four long years. On previous anniversaries I did some kind of look back, but I won't do that this time. Instead, I'll try to guess what my posts will look like 4 years from now, in June 2011.

I'll probably still be complaining about the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians, but at least I will praise the involvement of US President Hillary Clinton and her special envoy to the Middle East, First Gentleman Bill Clinton. President Peres will also be giving the Israeli government a hard time, being a very politically active president. I doubt there will be a Palestinian state by then, but we might have a peace treaty with Syria and we'll be in the process of leaving the Golan Heights.

Weirdest Search Term: Sperm Donation to Amish

Once in a while, I take a look at my blog's stats. I see how many people visited, which pages they read, where they are from and how they found my blog. One of the things I can check is the search terms used to find it. A few days ago someone googled the term "how to donate sperm to amish" and somehow reached my site, the blessed result of mixing terms from unrelated posts.

Why the hell would the Amish want sperm donations from outsiders? I doubt that any procedure that brings about the birth of a child whose biological mother is not married to his biological father would be consistent with their religious doctrine.

My Own Evolution

I recently went through all my previous posts in preparation for an upcoming project (the nature of which I cannot disclose at this time). It is interesting to see how my blog evolved. At first, it was a very personal blog, writing about girl trouble and frequently writing about my nephew. As time went by, I stopped writing about girl trouble, somewhat reduced the number of posts about my nephew, and political commentary became the dominant feature of this blog.

As I look at my earlier posts about my nephew and autism, I see the evolution of my own vocabulary and terminology regarding this condition. Other than the fact that I wrote "high-performance" instead of "high-functioning" in my very first post about him in June 2003, I also used various loaded terms about autism which I would not use now. I no longer see autism as a disease or an illness, for example.

My thoughts about treating or curing autism were inconsistent. Sometimes I thought my nephew can be cured, sometimes I thought he'll always be autistic (as I do now, and I doubt that I'll ever think otherwise again). I was always fairly consistent in my views regarding the causes of autism. I never thought thimerosal can be the sole cause, but I've never ruled out that some kids may be effected by it.

Regarding politics, I must point out that I was right all along about at least two things: the disengagement being a bad move, and that the Second Lebanon War was a justified war that was carried out badly (I didn't even remember that I questioned the wisdom of our leaders as early as July 14, the 3rd day of the war).

New Layout

I've made a few changes to the blog, thanks to upgrades in Blogger's blogging tools. The background is still the same but the sidebar has changed. I like the new expandable and collapsible archive menu and the post labels.

How do you like the new look?