My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

The battle over culture became more central as more radical Muslim youths, intellectuals, journalists and academics defected to the other side. Disillusioned with the Islamic Revolution and confronted by the ideological void that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, they had nowhere to turn but to the Western democracies they had once so vehemently opposed. \

Those whom the regime had tried to destroy or silence by accusing them of being Westernized could not be silenced or eliminated; they were as much apart of Iranian culture as the others, it”s self-appointed guardians.

But what most frightened the Islamic elite was that these very elements had not become models of the increasingly disenchanted former revolutionaries, as well for the youth — the so-called children of the revolution. p. 277

Clearly Technorati has more than a few technical problems. The first of which is that it can’t count it’s own data. Techorati claims that 84 blogs link to Have Coffee Will Write, but when I hand counted them for this post, I came up with 90 blogs on the Technorati list. That’s nearly a 7 percent error. And then there’s the missing blogs.

The chart above (click to enlarge) shows all 90 blogs that link to Have Coffee Will Write. The first red bar represents HCWW. The second red bar represent The Writing On The Wal. TWOTW is counted in the total. HCWW is not.

The first error I noted was when Technorati told me that no blogs linked to Will Kessel’s Collision Bend. Since I (and I’m sure others) link there, I know that piece of information is false.

The second error is the omission of John Ettorre’s Working With Words. I know that John links to me, just as I link to him. But Technorati doesn’t see it. I also note that my biggest link — that from Jeff Jarvis’ Buzz Machine is also missing.

The period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is known in Judaism as the Days of Awe and is considered to be a time of reflection of deeds, good and bad, performed during the previous year. This morning I’m thinking about what I’ve done in blogging this past year and as part of that I’ve spent some time on Technorati looking at where I am.

Technorati tells bloggers, among other things, who is linking to their blog. As of this morning there are 84 blogs that link to Have Coffee Will Write. The default listing is by Freshness. But this morning I listed the blogs by Authority and I looked at who’s been interested in me. This is what I found.

(My analysis of this data will follow in another post.)

No. 1 — Sifry’s Alerts by dsifry, 1,966 blogs link here.
No. 2 — Outside The Beltway by drjjoyner, 1,848 blogs link here.
No. 3 — Feministe by feminaerecta, 1,079 blogs link here.
No. 4 — Jon Swift by jonswift, 912 blogs link here
No. 5 — Open Source by brendanhgreeley, 584 blogs link here
No. 6 — less people less idiots by gisher, 382 blogs link here
No. 7 — The Hotline’s Blogometer by Blogometer, 359 blogs link here
No. 8 — The American Street by KevinHayden · 340 blogs link here
No. 9 — The Atheist Mama by cassandracox, 323 blogs link here
No. 10 — Martini Republic by Topers, 319 blogs link here

No. 11 — Brewed Fresh Daily by GeorgeNemeth, 213 blogs link here
No. 12 — Buckeye State Blog | Pamphlete…, 184 blogs link here
No. 13 — Faggoty-Ass Faggot by faggotyassfaggot, 149 blogs link here
No. 14 — Writes Like She Talks by mommie4a, 132 blogs link here
No. 15 — imprisonbush, 132 blogs link here
No. 16 — I See Invisible People by iseeinvisiblepeoplem 117 blogs link here
No. 17 — VirusHead – Because Language i… by virushead, 96 blogs link here
No. 18 — Plunderbund, 91 blogs link here
No. 19 — Meet the Bloggers by GeorgeNemeth, 85 blogs link here

Have Coffee Will Write goes here with 84 (90) blogs linking to it

No. 20 — Exposing LJ Abuse by ljabuse, 76 blogs link here
No. 21 — Pho’s Akron Pages by srpiepho, 74 blogs link here
No. 22 — Fisking Central by fiskingcentral, 71 blogs link here
No. 23 — word of mouth by scottbakalar, 69 blogs link here
No. 24 — psychobilly democrat by redhorse, 67 blogs link here
No. 25 — The Writing On The Wal by Hyphenman, 66 blogs link here (Note 1)
No. 26 — Justitia by Chelle2, 59 blogs link here
No. 27 — the Constant Observer by TishG, 57 blogs link here
No. 28 — Glass City Jungle by psyche777, 55 blogs link here
No. 29 — Diminishing Returns by EconPadawan · 54 blogs link here
No. 30 — Sherry Chandler, 54 blogs link here

For the rest of the linked blogs, continue inside.

in a few days I will be
a year older one more year
a year farther and nearer
and with no sound from there on
mute as the native country
that was never there again
now I hear walnuts falling
in the country I came to

From A Morning In Autumn by W.S. Merwin.

The only even marginal reason President George Bush has ever offered for sacraficing the lives of 2,680 men and women in our military for his bit of adventurism was that in someway he was fighting the fictional War On Terror; he was making the World safer from Terrorism. Except he wasn’t says a government report held in secret for nearly six months.

From The New York Times:

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,”” it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

From The Washington Post:

The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the “centrality” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document.

From The Los Angeles Times:

The war in Iraq has made global terrorism worse by fanning Islamic radicalism and providing a training ground for lethal methods that are increasingly being exported to other countries, according to a sweeping assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies.

The classified document, which represents a consensus view of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, paints a considerably bleaker picture of the impact of the Iraq war than Bush administration or U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged publicly, according to officials familiar with the assessment.

“They conclude that the Iraq war has made it worse,” said a government official familiar with the document who spoke on condition of anonymity because of its classified nature.

Do you feel safer now?

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

It was then that the myth of Islamic feminism-a contradictory notion, attempting to reconcile the concept of women”s rights with the tenets of Islam-took root. p. 262

The news out of France today is that Osama bin Laden died last month from typhoid in Pakistan. But the timing is lousy for the Republican Party. It needs an October Surprise to hold on to Congress in the mid-term elections. Speculation is Karl Rove had hoped to keep the terrorist’s death a secret until just before the election and reveal it for a ratings boost.

Hat tip to Daily Dish.

From The Raw Story:

According to two conservative websites, White House political strategist Karl Rove has been promising GOP insiders that there will be an “October surprise” before the midterm elections.

“In the past week, Karl Rove has been promising Republican insiders an ‘October surprise’ to help win the November congressional elections,”

Oh well.

From The Associated Press:

The French defense ministry on Saturday called for an internal investigation of the leak of an intelligence document that raises the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have died of typhoid in Pakistan a month ago but said the report of the death remained unverified.

“The information defused this morning by the l’Est Republicain newspaper concerning the possible death of Osama bin Laden cannot be confirmed,” a Defense Ministry statement said.

The daily newspaper for the Lorraine region in eastern France printed what it described as a confidential document from the French foreign intelligence service DGSE citing an uncorroborated report from Saudi secret services that the leader of the al-Qaida terror network had died.

The contents of the document, dated Sept. 21, or Thursday, were not confirmed by French or other intelligence sources. However, the DGSE transmitted the note to President Jacques Chirac and other officials, the newspaper said.

If the story is true, I have to think that a few people are going to be upset that he died laughing at America’s ineffectual attempts to capture him.

One can of the energy drink Cocaine, contains 280 mg of caffiene. The lethal dose of caffeine is 10 g. Yes, it would be pretty feckin’ hard to chug 36 cans — a caffeine dose of 10.08 grams — but does anyone really doubt that this will happen? Somewhere there is a Jackass-watchin idiot who will think he’s Cool Hand Luke and go for the record. Hat tip Dan.

[Update — 1646 — fellow blogger and coffee consumer Molly sent me a table of the caffeine content of various drinks to measure against Cocaine and two things quickly become evident. First, journalists, particularly PR flacks, can’t do math; and second, Cocaine isn’t anything particularly exciting for any coffee drinker.

First, on the math part. The promotional material for Cocaine claims it is 350 percent stronger than Red Bull. It isn’t. Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine in 8.4 ounces. Cocaine contains 280 mg. in 8.4 ounces. That works out to 9.5 mg. of caffeine/ounce for Red Bull and 33 mg. of caffeine/ounce for Cocaine.

So the equation for relative strength is (280-80/80) *100 = 250 percent. So while Cocaine is 3 and 1/2 times stronger (280/80 = 3.5) than Red Bull, it is only 250 percent stronger. This is a very common math mistake.

Now here’s the interesting bit. A normal, 8-ounce cup of brewed coffee contains approximately 135 mg. of caffeine according to the table Molly sent me. That is 17 mg./ounce for brewed coffee. So a 16-ounce coffee has 272 mg. of caffeine, but — and here’s the very important part — no added sugar.

Red Bull contains a whopping 27 feckin’ grams of sugar: the same as eight-ounces of Pepsi. (To think I used to down a six pack of Pepsi a night when I was in college. It’s a wonder I have any stomach left.) Cocaine contains a lower, but still outragious, 18 grams of sugar. For comparison purposes, 27 grams of sugar is approximately 6 teaspoons of sugar.

I’ve never tried any of these energy drinks, but its clear now that it’s all about the sugar, nothing else.]

The cover story on the 25 September issue of Business Week makes what can only be called a truly amazing assertion. It’s this: Since 2001, the health-care industry has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? None. None, nada, zip. We are a nation obssessed with living for ever and our economy shows it.

Hat tip: George and Make The Vote Count.

Humans are pattern recognition animals. We’ve evolved because we see the tiger’s face in the foliage. That also accounts for why people see faces on Mars and images of religious figures in potato chips. But if you ascribe meaning to what are really meaningless bits of data it can reach up and bite you in the, well, the butt. Hat tip to Pharyngula.

Part of being a good citizen of the blogosphere is visiting, reading and, most importantly, taking the time to leave a comment on other’s blogs. It’s all about the conversation. In the interest of setting an example I’ve decided to link to those blog posts that have compelled me to leave a comment.

1050 The Real Thing
1015 What Terrorists Want
1003 Yes or No
0957 Answering Language
0918 A Market-Based Solution That Works
0823 MEDIA-DEATHMATCH: Danyel Smith’s Vibe vs. Jon VanMeter’s Vibe

What is it with staffers for Republican legislators in Ohio? This week two republidrones have told concerned constituents to take a hike. First it was Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for Speaker of the House Jon Husted, and now a yet-unnamed staffer for Rep. Deborah Pryce. Eric Vessels was there with the video camera to catch the callousness.

My name is Jeff Hess and I’m a biblioholic. I own hundreds of books. Not valuable books, mostly Science Fiction paperbacks and text books, tomes rescued by the bag from library book sales. A few years ago, in the interest of not burying myself, I began reading more books from the library and taking notes. My electronic chapbook was born.

This is a passage I copied from Reading Lolita In Tehran by Azar Nafisi.

“We work in the dark-we do what we can-we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.” Henry James. p. 248

No lyric to a song has been more analyzed than that of this song.

No, that’s not the token liberal law firm somewhere in Idaho. That’s a short list of racially and ethnically offensive words that intelligent people don’t lightly use. Those words are so emotionally charged that to utter any one in public is to expose yourself to rightious condemnation. And if you’re a politician you’ve likely ended your career.

Some 26 years ago, a current candidate for governor of Texas used one of those words as part of standup routine in a Houston night club. According to Burnt Orange Report, here’s what Kinky Friedman said:

Then I come down to Houston, I went to a bowling alley. I couldn’t go bowling, there were no bowling balls. The people here throw ’em all in the sea, thought they were nigger eggs.

Remember, this is from the man who named his Country & Western band Kinky Friedman and The Texas Jew Boys. This is from the man who wrote: They Ain”t Makin” Jews Like Jesus Anymore.

Kinky is not anyone’s idea of a politician. His campaign slogan is Why Not Kinky?

Lenny and Richard knew the power of our most dangerous words.

The power is still there.

Molly over at After Enlightenment has an interesting take on the unfolding story of Sen. George Allen’s Jewish heritage. Unwilling to just point fingers and spout talking points, Molly has engaged in a thoughful discourse about the deeper meanings and consequences of discovering that you are, by blood, half Jewish.

From Theory: Jim Webb as the Allen/jewish instigator?

my theory, which i dont have in me to do research on, i am not a journalist, just an opinionated woman, but i hope some one else finds my thinking interesting enough to consider…

Jim Webb did not believe he could beat Sen. Allen in the republican primary, so he decided to run as a democrat against candidate Harris Miller, who is jewish. Webb then used what i would consider anti-semetic tactics in his campaign, including this charicature:

this is something i blogged about back in june, as i was concerned that this mioght just be how hatred starts, and then spreads from there. anyhow, Webb beats the true democratic candidate in the primary through these tactics, and now once again, judiasm will most likely be the main issue that will cost his opponent the election and i cant help but think that maybe Mr. Webb has something to do with the (true) jewish rumor.

It is possible that The Forward came upon its story through the pure initiative of its staff. But Republican-turned-Democrat Webb, as Allen’s opposition, would be the one most likely to have conducted deep opposition research and be in a position to leak it to the Forward and others like Peggy Fox.

If Molly is right, then Webb is even more dispicable than I previously believed.

the men and women, the children
and even the dogs
in the important, complicated novel
have nothing to fear from me.

We will sit quietly at the table
with a glass of cool red wine
and listen to the pigeons
questioning each other in the ancient corridors.

From Once Again I Fail to Read an Important Novel by George Bilgere.

From Wiley Miller

I mused at the end of my last post on this topic: I wonder if Borgemenke realizes how many attorney/bloogers there are out there who would love to take this one on? I heard Wednesday night at our blogger MeetUp that Jeff Coryell (Yellow Dog Sammy) had taken legal action against Rep. Earl Martin (R-Avon Lake) for stealing his property.

This morning I learned from a comment left by Eric Vessels at Progress Ohio that Subodh Chandra has agreed to take on the fight. Subodh, writes Eric:

…is representing YDS and has written a letter to the TV stations running the ad asking them to stop.

Subodh seems to have a knack for stepping up and doing the right thing. I wonder when Mr. Martin will figure out that this doesn”t get any better from here. Hell, there”s even a YouTube about him now.

This could really be fun.