I know there are a lot of bloggers out there who are wondering, "What in the world do I have to build traffic? Do I have to work for Nick Denton? Presents -- do I have to give Glenn Reynolds presents? Do I have to be a well known writer like Andrew Sullivan who switches over to blogging to build big traffic (incidentally, I think August is going to be the best month for the Daily Dish since last summer =D).

No, you don't have to do any of those things (although once you crack 3000 readers a day there is a secret ceremony you to participate in. You have to run a gauntlet blindfolded while bloggers like Steven Den Beste & Eugene Volokh take whacks at you with 1000 page books on 18th century law or engineering. I still have nightmares about it).

But, don't worry about that now. For the moment, all you have to do read 'RWN's Golden Rule For Building Traffic For Your Blog (Otherwise Known As The 'Very, Very' Rule)'. Ready? Then let's make...uh...like something that goes...and uh...go.

-- "Remember that you will have very, very, good, for a very, very, long time, while working very, very, hard to promote your work and being very, very, underappreciated."

Think of it as "paying your dues", "doing leg work", "bad karma", whatever floats your boat -- but it takes forever to build traffic -- unless you're Michelle Malkin or Wonkette who must have had internet faeries sprinkle magic traffic increasing pixie dust on their blogs to help them grow so fast....well, that was ungracious of me.

Michelle is well known, incredibly talented, & has built one of the best political blogs out there right off the bat. She deserves all the success she has had so far and more. And Wonkette is uh....well...hmmm...a lot of people, myself included, really enjoyed the nifty faux lesbian pics she did with blogger/prostitute Jessica Cutler. That was really...uhm...

Ok...moving on...

Do you want to know how much traffic I had after a year of doing 8-12 updates a day on RWN (I had different format back then, sort of like the one Daily Pundit has today)? 300 sets of eyeballs per day on average.

Today, I am averaging 6000 readers a day over the course of a month...Of course, that number would probably be higher if I got a link from the guys over at The Corner or from Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit. Neither of those blogs has linked me in months and months, despite the fact that I link them all the time, ranked them as my #1 & #2 favorite blogs, have nothing but good things to say about them, etc, etc. Where's the love fellas? That's all I'm saying. Where. Is. The. Love? (Look for an upcoming post on "link whoring" soon).

But still, I know you're probably going "Hawkins, you said 'My Sacrifice' was your favorite song of all-time and I simply don't trust any man who believes Creed made the best song in the history of music."

I admit, that's a fair point. So don't just take my word for it, listen to one Drew Curtis, the man who runs Fark, a page that has more than million readers per day. Here's a slightly edited transcript of a conversation we had on ICQ, back in Feb of 2003...

Drew Curtis: All of 1999 we got 50,000 pageviews. These days we get 5,000,000 per week (**Note that the numbers are higher now**) those are no BS numbers either. Everytime I ask someone how many page views they get, they automatically multiply by 5-10 times

John Hawkins: 50,000 for the whole year? It was basically the same page back then too right?

Drew Curtis: Yup. Check out the archives, it's saved. Yeah 50k for the whole year. But think about it, why would a page written from scratch as someone's personal homepage be any higher? I thought 50k was a freakin avalanche.

John Hawkins: Oh -- I know -- I've been though it myself -- but a lot of people think they're going to create a web page and then boom -- two months later they're going to be pulling 10k people a day.

Drew Curtis: Yeah I think just about everyone does. I get emails from folks all day. If you don't stick to it for at least two years straight day in day out it won't take off.

So all you conservative bloggers out there, take Drew's advice. Stick to it for at least two years straight and contribute money to RWN...

Ok, Drew didn't actually say you should donate money to RWN, but he was probably thinking it. Even if he wasn't, he should of have been, and besides, I must mention the Chewbacca Defense at this point...

"Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense!

But more importantly, you have to ask yourself: what does that have to do with what we're talking about?"

If it does not make sense, you should contribute money to RWN, and think about it later. I rest my case.

Oh...And,

"Remember that you will have very, very, good, for a very, very, long time, while working very, very, hard to promote your work and being very, very, underappreciated."

PS: This advice only applies to conservative bloggers. Any of you liberals who don't grow as fast as Wonkette? Just go ahead and cut your losses, quit blogging, and make giant puppet heads for big "No War With Iran" protests that'll be going on right after W bombs the ayatollahs in his 2nd term. The Commies who run those protests need dupes like you to grow and thrive! So don't let them down!

-- This guy, Wesley Bono, has a unique take on the 1st Amendment...

"A farmer who acknowledged spreading 3 tons of manure along the route of a gay rights parade pleaded innocent Monday, saying he was exercising his constitutional right to free speech."

Here's a hint for farmer Bono, the First Amendment doesn't say anything about dumping manure on the street. Admit you made a mistake, pay to have the manure cleaned up, and hold up a sign next time like everybody else.

-- The names of the blogs that are going to be represented at the Republican National Convention are starting to trickle out. Their numbers include: INDC Journal, Power Line, WizBang!, Slant Point, Dean's World, Captain's Quarters, Blogs For Bush & A Small Victory.

Unfortunately, even through I received an invite, I won't be among them.

I was tempted to go just to make contacts and get interviews, but in the end, the 5 vacation days I would have ended up using and the prohibitive cost (a plane ticket to NY & back, a hotel, buying a lap top, etc, etc) were the deciding factors. Granted, I could have had a fund drive & asked for pledges, but I figured that if I had an extra 2 or 3 grand, I'd rather drop it on a computer or add it to my savings. Besides, I doubt if any news going to be made at the convention. So, I'm not sure that I'm going to miss out on much...

-- The one and only Mark Steyn hammers home the truth about multilateralism and alliances...

"The Defense Secretary was using “success” in the multilateral-speak meaning of the word, which roughly translates into English as “failure”. The greatest of these many successes was the decision by the Alliance to expand its role in Afghanistan beyond Kabul to the country’s somewhat alarmingly autonomous regions. So the enlarged Nato mission ought to be great news, right?

In other words, if a military alliance means a press release and a black-tie banquet for Bush, Chirac, Schroder and co once a year, Nato works fine. If a military alliance means functioning armed forces capable of fighting side by side and killing the enemy, Nato is a post-modern joke.

I really, truly, mean no disrespect to our friends in the coalition, but everyone should be aware of what a military alliance actually entails these days. It's like a load being pulled by an American elephant, a British mule, and a horde of nations that have let their militaries atrophy down to the point that they're the equivalent of field mice. You may appreciate the help of the field mice, but do not forget how much of the load they are actually carrying...

-- Now this is a movie for the post 9/11 world...

"Wall Street Journal article that reveals details about Steven Spielberg's forthcoming, top-secret project about the tragic 1972 Munich Olympics.

WSJ reports that the film will be titled Vengeance and will star Eric Bana as an agent of the Mossad (Israel's secret service) who hunts down the Palestinians responsible for the murder of eleven Israeli athletes."

Israel Mossad agents roaming around the world wiping out Palestinian terrorists? I'm already there!

A few decades ago in the US, bigots wanted to separate Americans by race because they didn't think white people should have to be around blacks. But today, we have politically correct nebbeches at the University of Colorado at Boulder trying to split Americans by race because they're afraid of what will happen if black kids have to be around whites...

"Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder can take the popular "School and Society" course on Fridays — as long as they're not white.

That particular section is reserved for "students of color," according to a course description. It is also open to those of any race who are first-generation college students. Other students can take the course, which is a requirement for education majors, but during a different period.

... The university began offering the race-restricted course last year as an experiment in response to the concerns of minority students, said Lorrie Shepard, dean of the School of Education.

"Often, a student of color would find they were the only nonwhite person in a given section, and ... very often, their class would turn to them whenever an issue of race was discussed," Miss Shepard told the Boulder Daily Camera. "They'd be asked if they agreed with a certain perspective or to defend a position. They'd be put on the spot in ways that made it feel like a hostile environment."

I could spend a couple of paragraphs riffing on all the things that are wrong with this sort of thinking, but Antonia Gaona, a Hispanic student who's suing over this class, has got it down pat...

"I'm frustrated with programs like this because they force students to identify themselves on the basis of race," Miss Gaona said. "This is something students my age are trying to get beyond, being identified on the basis of their skin color.

"It's like the university feels it needs to coddle minority students and have us work with students who only look like us, and that's not how the real world works," she added."

Hey Antonia, fight those creeps at the University of Colorado at Boulder who are treating you like a skin color instead of a person...and beat 'em. You're doing the right thing and I salute you...

Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry today announced that he has retained attorney, and running mate, John Edwards to file suit against the Democrat National Committee (DNC) over injuries related to an alleged "post-convention bounce."

"We had received certain assurances from top DNC officials that this celebration of my client's nomination would result in a 10-15 point bounce in the presidential preference polls," said Mr. Edwards during a news conference on the steps of a Boston courthouse. "Bounce implies vigorous upward movement. But my client's current polling numbers look more like a 'bump' or even a 'dip'."

Mr. Edwards, who like his client is also a U.S. Senator, brought many of the gathered journalists to tears with his dramatic description of the plight of Mr. Kerry's popularity.

"I can hear John Kerry's popularity calling out to you from somewhere in the darkness," said Mr. Edwards. "A couple of weeks ago his popularity said, 'I'm fine." Just before the convention it said, 'I'm having a little bit of trouble but I'm doing okay.' During the convention speech, it said 'I'm having problems.' And after the convention John's popularity said, 'I need help.' But help was not on the way."

If you enjoyed this satire by Scott Ott, you can read more of his work at Scrappleface.

Writer Michael Mandelbaum has produced a column called, "Why America hates (soccer)". Mandelbaum speculates that Americans dislike "footie" because...

-- Baseball, basketball, & football are already popular here
-- it's so similar to BASKETBALL (that's simply a bizarre argument)
-- the games end in draws too often.

Of course, this ignores the "elephant in the living room," perhaps because the pachyderm in question is conked out asleep & laying in a puddle of his own drool after being forced to watch a game of soccer.

Put quite simply, if there were a competition for the "most boring, least action packed sport on Earth," soccer would be a strong contender for the crown. I mean, almost every sport you can imagine has more going on than soccer. Baseball, golf, cricket, WNBA basketball, slow pitch softball, ping pong, freeze tag, foosball, you name it, it's all a thrill-a-minute rocket ride down the side of Mt. Everest compared to footie.

Soccer is like watching the "Blair Witch Project" for the sixth time, counting grains of sand on the beach, or trying to sing every verse of "37,000 bottles of beer on the wall". How all of these "soccer hooligans" can stay awake through an entire game, much less muster the energy to riot afterwards, is beyond me.

Moreover, soccer is such a tedious "slug race on a sheet of flypaper" sport, that the only enjoyment most Americans get out of it is knowing that when we win, the fact that we don't care is like a shiv to the heart of soccer fans from whiny, ungrateful, countries around the world who complain incessantly about our country.

That being said, isn't the real question: "Why the hell is soccer so popular?"

Most people seem to think it's because all you need is a ball and a few sticks to put in place for a goal to get a game going. Personally, I think it has to do with the fact that socialism helps turn people into zombies who enjoy dull, slow paced, effeminate games that may as well have been designed by the sort of knock-kneed milksops who think dodgeball is too competitive of a game for children to play.

So here's an alternative suggestion: try thumb wrestling or mercy tournaments. They're more exciting than "footie" and it'll help prepare you for life in the capitalist system instead of helping to turn you into a socialist weenie who actually knows something about David Beckham beyond the fact that he plays soccer.

PS: I was just kidding about everything except the parts where I emphasized how boring and lame soccer was.

Who gave the Democrats a national convention? Well, before their crazy ideas can spread too far, I sent my crack research team to find all they can about the dreaded Crat’s of Dem.

FUN FACTS ABOUT DEMOCRATS

* Democrats chose the donkey as their symbol because the Democrat base smells as bad as one and has the same verbal skills. In the donkey's defense, it's smart enough to understand a butterfly ballot.

* Democrats are big into class warfare. They also are for gun control which has caused the deadliest firearms to be too expensive except for the rich to buy. So, if class warfare ever goes to blows, it won't last long.

* Though there are more registered Democrats, they don't vote as much as Republicans percentage-wise because of their tendency to be distracted by shiny things.

* Democrats have lost most of the men's vote because they're a bunch of girlie men. Don't tell them that, though, because they'll cry.

* Democrats are always trying to get into your wallet to spend money on their wacky ideas. If you see a Democrat near your wallet, hit him on the head with a rolled up newspaper. You have to catch him in the act or he'll never learn.

* While the Democratic leadership is currently devoid of any real leadership or substance, they may try and make up for that with important-looking hair.

* Some Democrats may have served in Vietnam. You can find out which ones by seeing who tells you that fact over and over and over.

* And over and over and over.

* Many Democrats intensely hate Bush because it's easier than confronting the irrelevancy of their ideas. It’s funny to dump a bucket of cold water on them and hear them blame Haliburton.

* If your plagued by Democrats, they can be scared away with snakes, guns, or concepts of individual responsibility.

* Bill Clinton, who cost the Democrats their majorities in the House, Senate, and Governorships while he was president, is still venerated by Democrats because... uh... I guess they're just frick'n retards.

* Democrats will often visit maternity wards and shake their fists angrily at all those who escaped the wrath of choice.

* Democrats are secretly trying to destroy capitalism. If you see a Democrat near capitalism and looking suspicious, immediately report him to the police.

* In a fight between Democrats and Aquaman, Aquaman would be slurred by an NAACP ad that links him to lynching.

* The Democrats have built a giant statue in tribute to Michael Moore which eyes glow red, shoots fire out of its ass, and constantly demands tributes of ham.

* Or maybe that is just Michael Moore wearing a gray sweat suit. Whatever it is, don't let it fall on you because it's heavy.

* The foreign policy ideals of the Democrats involved waiting for the might France to approve anything they plan on doing. This should allow them to snap into action about the time half the earth is destroyed by radical Islamists.

* Every time someone votes for a Democrat, baby Jesus cries.

If you enjoyed this satire by Frank J, you can see more of his work at IMAO.

-- Since I was a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs," I was looking forward to seeing "The Village" this week-end. So was it another world beating "Signs" or a good, but not great movie like "Unbreakable"? Well, unfortunately, while the movie wasn't a stinker, it was kind of slow and I had basically the same reaction to it that my parents had to "From Dusk Til Dawn", which was "I liked the movie until evrybody turned into vampires"! While there were no vampires in this one, there were some twists of that magnitude and I liked the movie less & less after each one happened. So let's just call it a thumbs-in-the-middle, perhaps leaning slightly skywards because I thought Bryce Dallas Howard's character, Ivy Walker, was just about the most likeable female character I've ever seen in a movie.

-- I hadn't seen any poll numbers on the first ladies, but Deborah Orin managed to find numbers somewhere...

"Mrs. Bush is rated 66 percent favorable and 12 percent unfavorable — a 5-to-1 positive ratio — while Heinz Kerry is rated 27 percent favorable and 26 percent unfavorable."

-- More poll numbers, this time from John Tierney at the New York Times...

"But do journalists really want John Kerry to defeat George W. Bush? It depends where they work and how you ask the question, at least according to the unscientific survey we conducted last weekend during a press party at the convention. We got anonymous answers from 153 journalists, about a third of them based in Washington.

When asked who would be a better president, the journalists from outside the Beltway picked Mr. Kerry 3 to 1, and the ones from Washington favored him 12 to 1. Those results jibe with previous surveys over the past two decades showing that journalists tend to be Democrats, especially the ones based in Washington. Some surveys have found that more than 80 percent of the Beltway press corps votes Democratic."

What liberal bias, right?

-- John Kerry is a billionaire with "five homes and vacation getaways across the country valued at nearly $33 million" and a wife who's so pampered and out of touch with ordinary people that she doesn't even know what chili is, and yet he's presenting himself as a populist who's going to protect the "little guys" from...well...other people like him I guess.

Is that an "only in America" story or what?

Bush strategist Matthew Dowd predicted Kerry would get a 15 point bounce from the convention. Terry McAuliffe predicted an 8-10 point bounce. But, at the last RWN blogger symposium, we didn't expect to see Kerry get that sort of bump...

"John Hawkins: So Matthew Dowd with the Bush campaign predicted Kerry will get a 15 point bump from the Democratic convention. You buy that?

Chris Muir: 3 points."

Ahem...Bloggers (1) -- The Pros (0)

From Newsweek: "Coming out of the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Sen. John Kerry now holds a seven-point lead over President George W. Bush (49 percent to 42 percent) in a three-way race with independent Ralph Nader (3 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll The poll was taken over two nights, both before and after Kerry's acceptance speech. Respondents who were queried after Kerry's Thursday night speech gave the Democrat a ten-point lead over Bush. Three weeks ago, Kerry’s lead was three points.

Kerry’s four-point “bounce” is the smallest in the history of the NEWSWEEK poll."

From a USA TODAY / CNN / Gallup Poll: "In the survey, taken Friday and Saturday, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and John Edwards trailed the Republican ticket of Bush and Dick Cheney 50% to 46% among likely voters, with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 2%.

Before the convention, the two were essentially tied, with Kerry at 47%, Bush at 46%."

You're going to hear left-wingers spin these numbers every way you can imagine. They're going to go off on tangents about internal poll numbers, tout every gain they made in any battleground state, come up with anything they can, but these numbers are a DISASTER for the Kerry campaign.

Just look back at the last few bounces Democratic challengers have received...

Jimmy Carter in 1976: 16 points
Walter Mondale in 1984: 16 points
Michael Dukakis in 1988: 11 points
Bill Clinton in 1992: 30 points
Al Gore in 2000: 19 points
John Kerry in 2004: +4 points to -5 points

Not only was Kerry's bounce (if he got one at all) anemic, you have to remember that George Bush still has a money advantage & has his OWN CONVENTION coming up in September that will give him a bump, quite possibly a bigger one than Kerry received. Folks, this should be the apex of John Kerry's campaign and according to USA Today, he's BEHIND.

My guess is that when story of the 2004 election is written, it's entirely possible that the last week will be considered the turning point of the campaign, the very moment when the Kerry campaign started into a downward spiral it never really recovered from.

And why? At the convention they didn't...

...really grab onto to any big issues and make them theirs other than stem cell research which isn't going to swing a lot of votes in November.

...launch as many salvos as you'd expect at George W. Bush because, by design, they were trying to play up how "bipartisan" they were.

...have the most effective cast of characters speaking. I'm not sure the average American is going to get terribly jazzed up about a party that trots out liberals like Michael Moore's buddy Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, & Howard Dean as speakers....and quite frankly, having Bill Clinton on hand probably didn't help much either in large swaths of the country.

...effectively refute the attack ads the Republicans have launched that paint John Kerry as a flip-flopping, Massachusetts liberal, who's weak on defense, has an undistinguished record in the Senate, and will raise your taxes (incidentally, the attacks work so well because they're true).

While the Dems did talk a lot about defense, that's what it came across as -- talk -- and for good reason. If the GOP came out at their convention and claimed they were the party that really wanted to work with the UN, sign international treaties, and make friends with the French, would anyone buy into that? Of course not, because it wouldn't match the Republican record.

The same goes for the Democrats; they're not a hawkish party, everybody knows it, and no matter how much time they spend talking about how tough they're going to be on terrorism, people aren't going to believe them until the put the rubber to the road.

In the end, I think voters are looking for something more in a President than a guy who fought for four months in Vietnam, promises to suck up to Europe, and "isn't George Bush". Unfortunately, even after the convention, that's all John Kerry seems to be offering.

I recently finished Thomas Sowell's magnificent book, "The Vision of the Anointed" and I'd give it my highest recommendation. After you take a look at these quotes that I prepared, go out, buy the book, and read it ASAP. It will have a really help you understand how liberals think...(Cont)