I was searching a reference and somehow got here.

At the time of the last Rugby World Cup, I decided it was worth experimenting with pay-TV, particularly given that in those days you could get the infrastructure for the thing put in for nothing. Anyhow, one thing that always bemused me about pay was the advertisements for professional wrestling, for which one had to pay extra.

Having watched the wrestling frequently when I was a pre-teen, I knew the whole thing was a giant farce, and was gobsmacked to discover that the said farce was still so popular the cable people were able to charge premium prices for the privilege of wasting a portion of one’s life watching it. Indeed, at the time, I felt that the audience for these shows was so alien, I would idly conjecture that the police might do well to collect all the subscriber names from the cable folk, since I was convinced that this particular group must account for many of our society’s senseless but unsolved crimes. Collectively, it struck me that, when it came to stupid acts, they must comprise all the usual suspects.

I’ve long got rid of my pay-TV, but today, the puzzle deepens. Thomas Freidman reports in today’s NYT that “in the past three years, Google has gone from processing 100 million searches per day to over 200 million searches per day”. Moreover, “VeriSign, which operates much of the Internet’s infrastructure, was processing 600 million domain requests per day in early 2000. It’s now processing nine billion per day.”

OK, that’s good news for blogosphere, as the potential readership is growing mightily. But what really got me was the top rating search words. Fine, ‘sex’ is number one, which I expected, and ‘jobs’ is number three, which is not surprising. Number two is a bit of a shock, being ‘God’, but the real stunner is number four. Yes, you guessed it: ‘professional wrestling’!

Come to think of it, numbers two and four might be the same people, and my old theory could still hold … but on the world stage.

Before everyone groans about yet another post, and a lengthy one, on Keith Windschuttle’s book The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, let me explain. I have two points, one is a general observation about the limitations of blogosphere which the Windschuttle Kafuffle illustrates. The other is particular to the Windschuttle Kafuffle itself.

Starting with the general point, one of the issues Tim Dunlop didn’t tackle in his excellent recent essay, “If you build it they will come: blogging and the new citizenship”, is the practical limitations of blog debate. Two of these seem obvious, and they derive from the dynamism and low transaction costs of the medium.

Although I’m only very new to this medium, it is obvious that the dynamism of blogosphere is incredible. Most blog-hosts seem to feel a need to add at least one fresh post to their site each day to retain their readership. If the issue upon which they post is hot, comments will come a-flying, links will come a-pinging and, before you know it, the debate will become a control freak’s nightmare. In the case of a hot issue, it is simply not possible to have an influence at every point where the matter begins breaking. The difficulty of contributing is then compounded by the press of fresh posts, which usually means comment windows close in a day or three or four, as the posts slip into the archives.
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Yesterday Gummo Trotsky reported that one thing that got up the nose of the guy whose decade old thesis turned up as Tony Blair’s spanking Iraq-intel dossier, was that the Brit spy trust changed his original words – “aiding opposition groups in hostile regimes” – into “supporting terrorist organisations in hostile regimes”. Typically picky bleeding academic that he clearly is, before Westminster’s Foreign Affairs Committee he maintained that “there is a big difference between “opposition groups” and “terrorist organisations”.

The guy is lucky he got his complaint in early, for today’s Financial Review Magazine suggests life may be on the threshold of imitating dossiers:

Post September 11, the Bush administration has adopted ever more Orwellian cyber surveillance methods, in the brave new world, the power of the net looms larger even than life, and dissent may be a casualty.

The story goes on:

The National Security Agency’s Echelon system, set up with US allies, including Australia, after World War II, to spy on the Soviet Union, can eavesdrop on every phone call, email or fax on the planet, using powerful computers that focus on key words and message patterns. Technically, cyber surveillance isn’t difficult

All very timely, this being the centenary month of Orwell’s birth and all. If folks want to find out what the Troppo site will soon read like, you can glimpse the future here.

The stirring injunction that adorns the pediment of the US Supreme Court has a new resonance today – and Andrew Sullivan is ecstatic.

In a 6/3 majority decision the Court yesterday struck down the gay-specific anti sodomy laws of Texas thereby implicitly invalidating all remaining constraints against private adult consensual sexual expression – straight and gay – within the US. It also overturns the Court’s judgment in Bowers vs Hardwick 17 years ago – the case that allowed the continuation of state-imposed, sexuality-specific discrimination.

The case arose in 1998 when a Houston householder feuding with a gay neighbour, called the cops on the false pretext that “a guy is going crazy with a gun next door.” The cops instead found two guys having sex and promptly charged them under legislaton that prohibited such monstrous goings-on.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority, said that gay people “are entitled to respect for their private lives,” adding that “the state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer agreed with Justice Kennedy. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor sided with the majority in its decision, but in a separate opinion disagreed with some of Justice Kennedy’s reasoning.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the dissent and took the unusual step of reading it aloud from the bench this morning, saying “the court has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda,” while adding that he personally has “nothing against homosexuals.” Joining Justice Scalia’s dissent were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas.

Justice Scalia said he believed the ruling paved the way for homosexual marriages. “This reasoning leaves on shaky, pretty shaky, grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples,” he wrote.

Justice Thomas on the other hand observed that had he been a Texas legislator, he would have voted to repeal a “stupid” law but that he did not believe that the constitutional case had been made for the Court so to do.

I’m not sure what the “homosexual agenda” is but I suspect the US is a long way from imposing compulsory gym workouts and inherent good taste requirements on all adult males….