It seems like everybody in my favorite part of the legal blogosphere (or the "blawgosphere" if you insist) is trying to help out Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer Mark Bennet's Google rank by linking to him with helpful link text like "Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer." (You're welcome, Mark.)

Meanwhile, I was checking out my own search statistics, and the number one search bringing visitors to Windypundit is still akednay irteenthay earyay oldway irlsgay thanks to this post.

I wonder if I can repair the damage with some self-referential counter-linking:

• Chicago Pundit
• Thoughtful Commentary
• Skillful Analysis
• Midwestern Charm
• Bringing Sexy Back
• Erudite Author
• Too Cool For School
• Careful Consideration
• Opinionated Badass
• Steaming Piles of Brains

Sigh. It'll work better if the rest of you help...

Update: Way to go Scott Greenfield, not only are you a man among men, but you're also a New York defense lawyer.

...just got some bad news. She's been diagnosed with breast cancer. She worked it into this list of 8 Random Facts about her.

Damn.

Virginia is an author, a speaker, and a past editor of Reason magazine. My thoughts and writing on many issues have been influenced by her strong advocacy of classical liberal values such as freedom, creativity, enterprise, and respect for the desire of people to control their own lives.

Let's all wish her well.

I got an Instalaunch yesterday. Instapundit is one of the oldest and most popular blogs around, and in many ways he's the founding father of the blotosphere. His blog is incredibly popular, and a link from him can give you a lot of traffic. I've heard stories of Instalaunches causing thousands of hits and crashing servers.

I suppose that must happen, but it didn't happen to me. Glenn linked to me from the middle of what may be his largest post ever, and he did it on a Saturday evening. I've received maybe 300 more visits than I normally would. That may just be the weakest instalaunch ever.

I'm greatful for the traffic, but I it didn't make me a star.

On the other hand, I get to change my Instapundit number. Glenn has Instpundit number 0, people Glenn links to get Instapundit number 1, people they link to get Instapundit number 2, and so on. I used to be a 3, but now I'm a 1. It's a sort of progress.

Ken Lammers, one of the most well-known defense attorneys on the web, changes sides.

[Day 1 was here]

On Saturday a few of the Ogmeet 2006 crowd went shooting, but I didn't get any pictures from that. 9-frickin'-am on a Saturday morning is way too damned early for me. By the time I got going, it was way too late.

I did make it to Klas for dinner, though.

Larger ImageKlas

It was mostly just dinner and conversation, and not really a picture-taking event. I did get a somewhat nicer picture of Leslie:

Larger ImageLeslie

And here's Zonker from Thunder and Roses and Tammi from Tammi's World (that's Tammi on the right):

Larger ImageZonker and Tammi

I didn't get to talk to these next two guys much, but here's Biloxi from The Republic of Biloxi and That 1 Guy (a.k.a. Beerbrains Joe) from Drunken Wisdom:

Larger ImageBiloxi

Larger ImageThat 1 Guy

Finally, here's the whole gang. Og, without whom none of this would have been necessary, didn't want his picture taken, so I've only got this shot of his back (in the black shirt).

Larger ImageOgmeet 2006

The photo gallery is here.

Friday was the first day of Ogmeet 2006, a.k.a. the Midwest Blogmeet, put together by Og and Omnibus Driver. Yesterday we just met at the Stonewood Ale House in Schaumberg around 6-ish for drinks and dinner.

Larger ImageOgmeet 2006, Day 1

Naturally, I took a few pictures.

Here's Leslie, who seems to have done much of the organizational heavy lifting:

Larger ImageOmnibus Driver

And Bruce the Human Pet from Conservative Cat:

Larger ImageBruce the Human Pet

Update: Got time to add some more pictures. I'm terrible at matching names and faces. I hope I got these right.

Here's Mr Right of The Right Place and a companion whom I can only assume is Mrs Right:

Larger ImageMr and Mrs(?) Right

Here's Grant Crowell from Grantastic Designs. He's not really a blogger, but he's preparing a documentary about Ward Churchill and it doesn't sound like it's going to be very flattering.

Larger ImageGrant Crowell

(He noticed me taking the picture and was trying to look thoughtful.)

Finally, here's JimmyB from The Conservative UAW Guy:

Larger ImageJimmyB

The rest of the pictures (not many) are in my Ogmeet 2006 gallery. Or just view the slideshow.

(Please link to this post, which has a permalink, rather than directly to the galleries, which could change.)

Update: Day 2 is up.

Carnival of Liberty #50 is up at TuCents.

Previous carnivals:

• Carnival Of Liberty #49 at Liberty Corner

Maybe it's too early to be checking, but I don't think the whole plan to Googlebomb Egypt is working very well. I can't find the Free Alla site in the top 500 responses for "Egypt" on Google. Heck, it's not even in the top 500 responses for "Free Alla".

And when I visit the site now, I get pop-up ads for credit cards and casinos. I'm beginning to wonder if I've been scammed into generating a lot of income for someone...

Anyone out there know what's going on?

About a year ago I dropped Sprint as my mobile phone provider. I was very pissed-off with the way they had treated me, and I posted a message expressing my hurt feelings. Here's how it begins:

I've fucking had it up to my fucking ears with those fucking fuckers at Sprint! Fuckers through and through! Fucker-coated fuckers with fucker centers! Fuck! I fucking hate those fuckers!

I'm happy to report that I've calmed down about it since then. However, my pain and rage apparently resonate with other Sprint customers, because every few months somebody finds that message and leaves a comment.

Almost every comment added to an old posting turns out to be spam of some kind, because spammers assume bloggers don't maintain the old stuff. So the first time it happened I nearly deleted the comment before realizing it was a fellow sufferer under the Sprint boot.

The most recent comment was posted this last Saturday:

You guys just saved my life! I am so pissed off and needed venting bad. I was about to jump from my building out of pure frustration. It all started this afternoon trying to figure out why sprint, aka FUCKERS, sent my account to a damn collection agency when my compulsive wife paid the fucking bill 10 days prior to the due date every month!!!! I cancelled home service with them and that must have pissed them off. I spent 2 hours on the phone today spoke to several nice people from India, sometimes more than one person at a time I kid you not!!! Long story short I am to call back Monday :) What a way to spend one's weekend. The BBB don't even phase this giant asshole called sprint, they have no concept what customer service is nor do they know the defintion of business ethics. I hope they go fucking bankrupt, I will laugh my ass off. Remember what goes around comes around, no matter how big you are.

I hear you brother!

I decided to look into how people were finding that page. It took me about 10 seconds to figure it out: I've got the number two result on Google for the search phrase fucking sprint. I'm also number two for sprint fuckers.

It gets better, if you put the phrases in quotes—telling Google to search for the phrase, not just the words—then I'm number one for both "fucking sprint" and "sprint fuckers".

I think I'm starting to make my mark in this world.

(By the way, the Google ads for these searches yield a bunch of Sprint resellers, an eBay search page for people selling F U C K, and an adult web site that's really just a bunch of links to other adult web sites.)

Blonde Justice is a legal blog run by a public defender who prefers to remain anonymous and thus styles herself after the Elle Woods character played by Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2.

I worry about people who run anonymous blogs. Not that I distrust their motives or anything like that. I just worry because so many of them aren't very good at keeping it anonymous. Slowly, bit by bit, they give themselves away: Little bits of description about their city, references to events reported in the local news, their age or occupation.

Anonymous legal bloggers are especially vulnerable. If a blogger reveals that he's a 38-year old defense lawyer in a small two-partner firm in Cleveland, it only takes an hour or so of browsing on-line attorney biographies to figure out who the author is. I've figured out a couple of them just out of monkey curiosity. If I knew more about the legal system, I could probably figure out a few more.

I'd also have to be more motivated. Other people are a lot more motivated than I am, and several famous bloggers have been unmasked, such as Washington sex kitten Jessica Cutler, who blogged as Washingtonienne. (Of course, when you're a Senate staffer sleeping with other Senate staffers for money, a lot of people are gonna come looking for you.) More recently, South Knox Bubba unmasked himself before someone else could do it.

It takes a smart person to stay anonymous for a long time.

So how smart is Blonde Justice? Check out her answer to one of those annoying question lists that keep going around:

Four Places You've Been on Vacation

You know, no one really knows where the Simpsons live. Yes, Springfield, but in what state? I've always thought I'd figure it out by where they go on vacation. A family isn't going to say "Yippee! We're going to ____!" and name the state where they live. By process of elimination then, someday we should know where they live. Therefore, I had to geographically anonymized this section. Sorry.

On a sailboat
On a cruise ship
Tropical Islands
Central America

Blonde Justice is that smart. And that paranoid. I gotta admire that.

In the half-decade or so that blogging has been taking off on the World Wide Web, bloggers have envied the mainstream media for its power and influence while at the same time excoriating the mainstream media for its arrogance.

The bloggers have been making continuous progress catching up on power and influence over the last few years. Now they take a big step toward catching up on the arrogance. On Friday, several major bloggers issued a joint statement:

We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.

We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.

Signed,

N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Hugh Hewitt, HughHewitt.com
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.com
Kevin Aylward, Wizbang!
La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's Corner
Lorie Byrd / DJ Drummond , Polipundit
Beth Cleaver, MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Jeff Goldstein, Protein Wisdom
Stephen Green, Vodkapundit
John Hawkins, Right Wing News
John Hinderaker, Power Line
Jon Henke / McQ / Dale Franks, QandO
James Joyner, Outside The Beltway
Mike Krempasky, Redstate.org
Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters
Scott Ott, Scrappleface
The Anchoress, The Anchoress
John Donovan / Bill Tuttle, Castle Argghhh!!!

You know, blogging is an ego trip. Every one of us has to feel self-important enough to believe other people will care what we think. It's just part of blogging.

But getting together and crafting a joint statement of advice to Congressional leadership claiming to be "certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege" shows a level of pomposity that these same bloggers would ruthlessly ridicule if the mainstream media did it.

(plus they left me out)