Lilith Saintcrow

God bless Romancing The Blog. Vibeke Courtney just wrote today about how short-sighted it is not to link from your site, or to only link to places who reciprocal-link. (She suggests using the target=”_blank” addition to your links.)

I do understand, like Vibeke, that you might not want people to navigate away from a site you’ve bought and paid for, this site that is your window to the world and has your merchandise for sale. This is your bread and butter. But someone savvy enough to find your site is savvy enough to bookmark it, and equally savvy enough to use their “back” button. I myself use the “open link in new tab” option when clicking links on one of the sites I enjoy, like Pharyngula or Digby or even my f-list. And I think my readers come back because I have content and I share neat things I find interesting. (At least, I hope so.) Having links throughout a post means you don’t have to Google whatever the hell I’m talking about.

Like when I say the Democrats have to not only win, but win by a large enough margin to cover up illegal Republican vote-stealing.

On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.

Maez was not alone in being denied his right to vote. On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists. The numbers were even higher in precincts like Las Vegas, where nearly 20 percent of the county’s voters were absent from the rolls. With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast “provisional” ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide.

This November, what happened to Maez will happen to hundreds of thousands of voters across the country. In state after state, Republican operatives — the party’s elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year’s race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP’s nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. “I don’t think the Democrats get it,” says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. “All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states.” from Rolling Stone

Yeah, I just thought I’d slip that in there. The Republican party is no longer conservative. Instead, it’s the party of power and privilege, looking to retain that oligarchic power and privilege by whatever means. But you knew that.

*sigh* Back on topic, Lili.

The “don’t link to anyone else!” thing is silly in the extreme. People come back to your site because you have content that is clearly arranged, informative, and fun. It can also be instructive, educational, or persuasive. If your site doesn’t link anywhere else, it’s a dead end. And no matter how fun or informative dead ends can occasionally be, they’re still dead. And you’ll be left wondering why nobody comes back.

Anyway. Enough of this, I’ve got revisions to do. Weasel Boy is shaping up, and the cats actually stayed off the treadmill this morning. Which was good, because I’d probably pass my spleen out through my nose if I laughed that hard again. Instead, for the past couple days the cats have been drugged to the nines by catnip spray the UnSullen Teen brought home. The funny thing is, when the cats get really high on catnip, they start looking for love in all the wrong places–stuffed animals, laundry, each other…

Then they get all cross-eyed and can’t hold down whatever they’re trying to, ahem, cuddle. So there’s three yowling cats staggering around, trying desperately to focus and hold down random cat-sized objects.

I have hidden the catnip spray. But I’m sure the cats will do something else to make me pass my spleen laughing. They’re good for that.

Over and out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 11:28 am and is filed under Hilarity, Random!, Real Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.