The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg lost his self-described ''blogging virginity'' -- without even a ''by your leave'' -- at the Yearly Kos conference on August 2. He began, salaciously, ''Wham. Bam.''

15 furious blog posts later, ''Rik'' appears to have mastered this spooky art entirely, ranting like a vagrant in the public park bread-feeding the dirty pigeons. Note to Rik: the commendable long-form New Yorker essay does not lend itself to blogging. To wit, Friday's thoroughly despicable brainbuster:

''The NPV ballot initiative is being promoted by Democrats as a way of heading off the California-only Congressional-district plan, which is an obvious Republican boondoggle. But this doesn't necessarily mean that NPV would benefit the Democrats. After all, Republicans won the popular vote in eight of the fifteen post-Second World War Presidential elections, while Democrats won it in just six. Eight to six -- that's fifty-seven per cent, a landslide, the same as Ike's triumph over Adlai in '56.

''Yes, I know -- eight and six is fourteen, not fifteen. I'm not counting 1960, because there's no way of knowing who won the popular vote that year.''

Does the secondary virginity phenomenon apply to bloggers?