I recently entered my humble little corner of cyberspace into the New Weblog Showcase at The Truth Laid Bear. This is a neat little contest in which new bloggers can throw one of their better posts out there for the world to see, and either earn (or not earn) a bit of readership.

I received eight votes (links from other bloggers) in the week I entered my Everyone's From Somewhere entry into the contest. Many thanks to those who were kind enough to link to the article.

One of the neat benefits to me, apart from receiving a few additional hits which may or may not have convinced those inquistive souls to drop by my blog again, was to see the blogs of those who linked to me. I figured that anyone who actually linked to my site shares some similarity of thought, ideas, or some other dark and inexplicable desire to Be Like Me. Who can tell what motivates such behavior?!

It turns out that of the bloggers who linked to me, all were good and do seem to share some of my perspectives. While I appreciated and enjoyed reading all of them, a couple stood out enough with bringing dissimilar perspectives to bear on their reporting of the world around them to become regular reads, some of which I've added to my purposefully short permanent link list over on the left there:

Susie, over at Practical Penumbra. She thinks her cat is a pirate, even a piratical ninja. I partially agree, insofar as I think cats should be forced to walk the plank, preferably forced by my dog if I can train her to do it. Susie also was kind enough to link to one of my articles, and her site is one of the more interesting apolitical sites you'll come across out there.

Professor Bainbridge, over at, well, Professor Bainbridge. I had checked out his site as he was a new entrant in the Showcase as well, and was fairly impressed, so naturally I was flattered that he linked to my article. He's a professor, though a law professor, and writes compentently about financial markets. It's a bit like reading my own economics and markets essays, though written well and by someone with the credentials to back them up. Even though he seems to have delinked my site (not very sportsmanlike) and inexplicably prefers wine to scotch, his site is excellent and worth a read.

Christian, over at A Life of Freedom, might be my evil twin if I weren't the evil one. And if he weren't a Libertarian. But he's written a number of good articles angling sharply in favor of limited government, a notion I can enthusiastically support.

And be sure to visit Interested-Participant, who seems to be quite a prolific writer, is a fellow Ohioan who seemed to agree with my position on Issue 1, and had the good sense to cast a vote for my article in the Showcase.

Thanks again to all!

JKS.