Sunday, July 17, 2005

Anatomy of My Procrastination Practice.....Excitement Builds over Rove-Leak Fall Out, Google Counting Continued

aiee, I stopped working and look where I wound up, right here in procrastination central. It all started when I took a break from Daniel Levitas' riveting The Terrorist Next Door . I was on task initially; I went to the jungle-like basement to hunt down my almost mildewed xeroxed copies of "L'Adunata Dei Rafrattari." I realized that my Italian reading skills had deteriorated considerably, I made the terrible move - I turned on the computer in search of a cheap, used Italian grammar book. And then it happened. I couldn't resist. I just HAD to check today's media on Karl Rove. The Washington Post had a run-down on the story that made some good points and some exasperating ones. The NYT had an annoying "guessing game" story which asserted that Rove "hadn't done anything wrong," and reasserted the notion that Rove was the "recipient" rather than the disburser of information."
By the end of the day, I recommend checking out what Bill Crowley, who's standing in for Laura Flanders this weekend, has to say about today's aggravating talk shows. Meanwhile, Kid Oakland's diary of the Dailykos, demands action, and I agree. Reading the 180+ comments he received, which included triumphant calls for action quoted from The Lord of the Rings' gathering the Men of Rohan (no joke), I got a little giddy too.
But since, despite its 500,000 or so daily readers, the Dkos is not the thermometer of the nation, it is time to step back to reality, if only for a moment..or at least part reality.
google counting:
Rove+Watergate = 151,000 hits (to be compared to 653,000 hits for Clinton+Watergate)
Rove+Plame+ Actual Name=83,000 hits
Rove + Plame = 1,010,000 hits
Rove + Wilson + Liar= 54,600 hits
Rove + Bush+ criminals= 165,000
Downing Street Memo=824,000 hits

The numbers are higher than they were a few days ago, when I last did this, but I know they don't really prove much, do they? After all, the Downing Street Memo, which meant a whole hell of a lot, has a huge number of google hits, but very little impact on the people in power. sigh.
And now, I'm wrenching myself away from this procrastination machine and going back to the history of the Posse Comitatus. By the way, You'd be surprised at how much their taxation=Communism stuff sounds like the Republican talking points of today. (by the way if you follow the link that asks, "are we living under the Communist Manifesto?"... you'll find a widely-linked list of ten planks that are NOT from the Communist Manifesto. How can anyone be so stupid.
OK, like I said 15 minutes ago. Time to stop procrastinating.
And did you procrastinate today? comments please.

1 comment:

reb said...

ah, the real question is definetely, "how many hours a day should I be working?" and I always stop when the stuff starts to get bad or the eyes glaze over. You're allowed to do a *little* bit of websurfing....but then, I have to leave the house to get anything done.
what's the book about?