Jumping To Conclusions

So I see that the person who originally introduced me to the blogosphere (*), Andrew Sullivan, is taking a break from blogging. Wow. If a professional writer/political pundit can't keep it up, how can the rest of us ever hope to? So far the only ones who seem to keep going strong are the academics (and even then, most of the ones I read seem to be group bloggers).

As for me, as my reader has noticed, I haven't been blogging lately -- though I haven't formally given up. In the past, when I've blogged without pause, it's because I've made it a daily chore; I set aside a time to go hunting down for topics to blog about each day. That was relatively easy during the leadup to Iraqi Freedom and the election. But now, it requires a serious investment of time and effort, and I haven't decided whether that's worth it.

My other option is just to blog whenever a story strikes my fancy; the problem I have with that if I'm not making the effort to find the stories right away, eighteen other people have blogged about them before I've had time to find out about them. And while I do enjoy the sound of my voice, I don't think that I have something new to contribute by that point.

So I haven't yet decided what to do. Anybody who wants to offer me cash to blog (or, for that matter, not to blog), please let me know.

(*) It was Instapundit who inspired me to start blogging, but it was Andrew who introduced me to Instapundit.

Yeah, I have the same feelings that David and Andrew have. Maybe the answer is shorter posts? If so, here goes:

Steven Landsburg of Slate makes an observation about A Christmas Carol that probably differs from what your junior-high school English teacher taught:

Though Dickens might not have recognized it, the primary moral of A Christmas Carol is that there should be no limit on IRA contributions.

Nobody else seems to recognize this as a primary solution to our Social Security problem, either. The proposed private Social Security accounts sound to me pretty much exactly the same as current IRA and 401(k) plans (with the exception that they are compulsory). So why not save everyone lots of time and energy and simply eliminate limits on IRA and 401(k) contributions - and then just call them private Social Security accounts?