Traffic

1) "David" "Goodman" "Abortion." Apparently, if you search on these three words using Google, Blue Bexley comes up as a hit (#5 out of 386000 at post-time). I'm sure that's because of the debate wrap-up post. But whoever did that search this weekend reminded me of something: Goodman said at the debate that he has never been pro-choice, that anybody who thought so had been making assumptions or jumping to conclusions. Which makes me curious... if Ohio Republicans for Choice was jumping to conclusions when they donated money to Goodman's campaign in 1998, why didn't he clear things up before they donated money to him again in 2001?

2) There's a new aggregator in town, caled Blognetnews/Ohio. It looks kind of like LeftyBlogs, which is the source of the newswire over there on the sidebar of the main page, but it covers the entire ideological spectrum of Ohio blogs. I'm kind of ambivalent about participating, because I've been remarkably troll-free here (and the trolls I do get do a pretty good job of sticking to the script), and it seems like a good deal of the added exposure would just be as troll-bait. On the other hand, they use a strange metric of popularity (# of links to/wk) that made Blue Bexley appear to be the most influential left-side blog in Ohio last week. I'm not entirely immune to such things.

3) Finally, tying things all together: BlogNewsNet publishes my stuff automatically on their site by subscribing to my newsfeed. For those of you who don't know, there are a number of programs (readers) that will keep track of blog-postings and save them for you, or even send them to your inbox. They do this by monitoring the newsfeed, which is available for most blogs. I have put the link to my (atom) feed over there on the sidebar, for your convenience. A disadvantage to using the feed is that you might miss out on things like embedded YouTube videos (possibly depending on your reader). An advantage is that you never have to come to the site. This would disappoint me, as I'm a geek and I check the Sitemeter every night. I'm looking at what computers were on the blog each day, what they clicked to get here, what they clicked to leave. It lets me know how many of my visitors are local, which ones are from elsewhere, which headlines on LeftyBlogs catch folks' attention, and what Google Search Terms are leading folks here (see #1, above). I really enjoy the Sitemeter, primarily because it lets me know that people are reading the blog, and readership is growing each week. I don't have a good way of tracking feed subscribers, so I would miss out if everyone switched. So why am I telling you all of this? Because I respect your privacy, and I think you should know what information you are leaving here (for more details, click the little multi-colored box way down at the bottom of the page).

Why am I telling you now? because in case you haven't seen it yet, the Republican candidate for Sec. of State, Greg Hartmann, does not respect your privacy. Or perhaps your intelligence. One or the other. There's more to the story, including a lawsuit, but to me, these are the relevant portions:

By fall 2004, the Blue Ash Police Department in suburban Cincinnati told Hartmann that several suspects had told police how easily they were able to "steal" public information from the clerk's Web site to create new identities.

One man knew of arrest warrants for him so he went to Hartmann's site, looked up someone's traffic ticket and made a new fake ID, Blue Ash Police Sgt. Joe Boyatt wrote to Hartmann.

The man used the false ID to steal a car off a dealer's lot and withdraw $8,500 from another person's bank account before being arrested in Florida, Boyatt said.

Blue Ash cops told Hartmann how during a routine traffic stop they stumbled upon an identity theft ring that led back to the clerk's Web site.

Boyatt said recently 141 identities had been stolen by that ring.

...

Even in hindsight, Hartmann said, he would not have handled things differently.

"This is a challenging issue. You know what, I could have just pulled the whole Web site down three years ago and not provided any access, but I didn't think that was the right thing to do. I'm on the front edge of this issue in Ohio. I've tried to balance public access with the need to protect privacy," he said.

I am all for open access. Information is what excites me and motivates me. But this really should not have been anything resembling a challenging decision. You know what, Greg? Not only could you have pulled the whole site down three years ago, you had a professional, ethical, and moral responsibility to do so. I try to stay focused on the local/regional races, but this is so outrageous that I can't let it go. And if I can't, how can Republicans? How effective is it to check IDs and have watch lists if all of the next set of highjackers will have fake Cincinnati Drivers' Licenses and buy their plane tickets with brand new credit cards in our neighbors' names? How do you crack down on illegal immigration if every immigrant in Cincinnati has a Birth Certificate and Social Security card? An American frickin' Passport?!?!

Well? Greg?