Some favorites from the year 2010

It's been another quiet year from me, but here's my annual self-indulgent roundup of the posts I'm happiest with from the last year, and a few thoughts about 2010 in blogging.

February: The "pay the piper" principle

March: Religious intolerance rising in Quebec | A few thoughts on the Tenth Amendment

April: The limits of the recess appointment power

June: About the BP escrow account

July: The durable majority for repeal | Clericalism | Where's the scandal?

September Of state visits | The half-boiled kettle

October: The burning question

November: The path forward on PaPACA | Leegin: Ten Quarters Later | More money issues

December: The insufferable wrongness of Bush v. Gore-o-phobia | Thankyou, Bishop Olmsted!

Two of these—The limits of the recess appointment power and Clericalism—are serious works. They were difficult to write, they took a lot of thought and research, and I think they cogently argue important points. But lighter fare is fun, too. Favorite link of the year? Not even close. Favorite music link of the year? Jimmy Eat World. And I finally broke down this year and added a category called "Writing & Pedantry," which has in turn produced, well, more pedantry. When you spend most of your life reading and writing, the desire to be better at it is strong, and bad writing becomes awfully irksome.

What I say here isn't just for show, by the way. I've often recited my standard for considering Constitutional amendments, and this fall, Hoosiers had an amendment on the ballot. I voted no after applying precisely that analysis: the change seemed like a good idea, but fell short of the standard I've articulated here.

Anyways, to the observations. Regular readers have probably noticed three things this year. First, I'm not posting as much as I used to. It's not for want of interest; fundamentally, it's a problem of not having enough time, exacerbated by an off-blog writing project that soaked up a lot of hours. The trap is that many things—particularly legal—that seem interesting require a lot of time, and those which don't often seem ephemeral. I've tried to comment only when I have something to say and time to say it in a fairly cogent form. Second, of the posts I have chipped in, there was more "Z-posting": posts in the style of WDTPRS' Fr. Zuhlsdorf where an article is posted with inline emphases and comments. It's a format that I feel is convenient for readers (I have found it so at WDTPRS) and even more so for the writer; tearing into an article directly has allowed me to contribute more than I would otherwise have been able to when time is at a premium. And third, readers will have noticed a shift in content. There has been less law (that's a result of the time problem, not lack of interest), and a lot more posts on Catholic issues this year. I assume that a fair number of you aren't of that persuasion, so I have tried to keep a balance of content; there have been several things that I would have commented on but felt that the mix was already "too religious." I'd appreciate reader feedback on this—is it too much? Just right? Would more be okay? Let me know in the comments.

2011 is likely to be more of the same in terms of time restrictions, but there is more in the works, and more will doubtless appear. I want to thank readers for sticking with us; I know that everyone's time is at a premium these days!

Related: Some favorites from the year [2007] | New Year vlog [2007] | Some favorites from the year 2008 | Some favorites from the year 2009