Robert Stacy McCain Covers Mitt Romney in Iowa

See: "Mitt Romney Comes to Des Moines, Attracts Massive Media Coverage."



And a Romney campaign ad, "Civility":

RELATED: At New York Times, "With Return to Iowa, Romney Heeds Call of G.O.P. Strategists."

Lucy Pinder Rule 5

The best news out of Britain in ages!

RELATED: At The Other McCain, "Blogger Gets 2 Million Hits Because of His Insightful Commentary and Lucy Pinder’s Enormous Breasts, But Mainly ..."

RSM Covers Herman Cain in Iowa

I commended Robert Stacy McCain the other day on Twitter, thanking him for his excellent coverage of the run-up to the Ames straw poll.



And now he's got some more great blogging, on the Herman Cain presidential campaign. See "Sioux City: Herman Cain Begins Iowa Bus Tour With Noon Speech to Jewish Group," and "Denison: Overflow Crowd Hears Herman Cain Slam Obama: ‘That’s Not Leadership!’"

Check for updates at The Other McCain.

Secrets to Longevity

Hoping for a long life?

Check with Neo-Neocon for an informative essay on the topic, "Want to reach 100? Just do whatever you want…":

…and hope for the best.

HAT TIP: Instapundit.

Rawley's

Good stuff at Maggie's Farm, "Best Hot Dog in the Northeast, right off I-95 in Fairfield, CT."

Beach Bunny Swimwear at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

Some lovelies, including goddess Kate Upton.

See Style Bistro, "Kate Upton Walks the Runway in a Beach Bunny Bikini":

Kate Upton is sensational.

There's more video on this so look for updates. Boy!

Power Line Prize Contest Winner: 'The Spending is Nuts'

From John Hinderaker (via Memeorandum):

Pamela Geller and Political Relevance

You know, when Pamela Geller was featured on the front-page of the Sunday New York Times last October, I thought, "Wow, that's commanding a lot of attention for a blogger." This was of course not long after September 11th, and Pamela's organization staged the big protest against the conquest mosque at Ground Zero. See the report: "Fight Against the 'Mosque'." Pamela also wrote an outstanding book on Barack Obama's post-American presidency, and her blog Atlas Shrugs remains one of the top-ranked blogs on the web. She's mobilized thousands upon thousands of people to join and fight for a cause. And she's traveled the county speaking and educating Americans on Islamic jihad and the stakes of the information battlespace. And I could go on. So I found this debate between Peter Ingemi and Josh Trevino on Twitter the other day pretty interesting, and Peter --- who is Da Tech Guy --- has a write up at The Conservatory, "Pam Geller and Relevance, Part 1: Conventional Wisdom."

In any case, I'm pictured with Pamela last year at her book signing in Los Angeles.

More later ...

Social Media Consumer Report

If I was on the job market I wouldn't do what I do online. And I know certain progressive academic bloggers who ought to be more careful, and they know it, although I can't name names at the moment.

See: "I Flunked My Social Media Background Check. Will You?" (via Kathy Shaidle).

FLASHBACK: "Academic Tenure and the 'Damascus Conversion to Unpopular Views'."

An End to Internet Anonymity?

Actually, it's a terrible idea, because ending anonymity online would empower governments. Not everyone who writes anonymously is a stalking douchnozzle progressive nihilist. Although folks should think twice about using their real names, especially if they have strong moral standards. The progressive left won't stop until you're destroyed. (And sometimes you've gotta fight back.)

The topic's in the news, at London's Daily Mail, "'It has to go away': Facebook director calls for an end to internet anonymity."

Critics complain that the forced introduction of some kind of 'on-line passport' would damage the freedom of speech and blunt the internet as a tool for dissidents to speak up against oppressive governments.

Also, at AdWeek, "Erin Andrews, Randi Zuckerberg Dish on Digital Dilemmas While Chelsea Clinton details 'survival skill'."

World's Youngest Blogger: Niklas Dietrich Smith

Congratulations to Chris Smith and his wife: "I Have, In Fact, Fathered One Ridiculously Handsome Fellow":

As beautiful as he is, I was unable to convince my wife to have another baby!

Perhaps if we soon welcome the world's youngest female blogger?

$100,000 Power Line Prize — Top Videos

"Grains of Sand."

Via Maggie's Farm, "Majority In Poll Wouldn’t Want to Be 20 Again."

ICYMI, background here.

Breaking! Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize-Winning Economist, Cites Blogger Amanda Marcotte as Expert on GOP Craziness!

This one is for the history books.

See "Conceder In Chief" (via Memeorandum):

Amanda Marcotte is right: of course the big problem is the craziness of the GOP. That said, I am among those in a state of suppressed rage and panic over the president’s negotiating strategy.

Keep reading. Krugman's a perfect netroots blogger who just happens to be one of the world's foremost academic economists. And links to Amanda Marcotte are good for your progressive creds!

Geez, that reminds me! Maybe this will trigger an update from R.S. McCain. See: "The Beast of Babylon Wears Bangs: Amanda Marcotte’s ‘Pure Feminist Evil’."

Courtney Messerschmidt Gets Results!

I'm proud to announce that my neoconservative protégée continues her rocket launch into foreign policy prominence.

Carl Prine interviews Courtney, a.k.a. GSGF, at Line of Departure, "A Woman for All Reasons."

And the interview's starting to go viral, at Daily Dish, "FoReIgN PoLicY thEOry."

Flying Legends 2011 Airshow

Video via Theo Spark:

Glenn Reynolds Talks with Megan McArdle

If you read Instapundit you no doubt ask yourself how he does it. The quantity and quality of content over there is astounding, which is of course why's he's so good:

This discussion's from a week or so ago, but amazingly timely, considering the talk just yesterday and today of a potential U.S. default. See Fresno Bee, "Clock ticks toward default as debt talks yield little progress," and at WSJ, "Only Certainty in Impact of U.S. Default Is More Uncertainty."

And at Los Angeles Times, "Democrats erupt over latest plan on debt ceiling."

RELATED: At New York Times, "Debt Ceiling Uncertainty Puts States at Risk."

Wizbang's Redesign

Check it out. It's smooth looking and modern.

Most of the blog updates folks are doing use the online magazine format, which honestly I don't love as much as the traditional reverse chronology. There are great blogs, for example, Lonely Conservative and Maggie's Notebook, but I'm still so resistant to change I guess I'd go with more of a Legal Insurrection look. Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to comment registration. As noted at Wizbang:

The Disqus comment system appears to be working out well. There are lots of features available to Disqus users that are documented in their knowledge base. As there are years of comments that have been imported from our old site, regular commenters may be able to merge their profiles and claim old comments. There’s even some tricks like being able the enter the @username of another commenter. While some do not like the fact that commenters must be registered, I think I’ve made it as easy as possible to leverage other identity systems as opposed to having to create a whole new persona. Requiring registered commenters makes for a better community and will allow us to police it more effectively.

This is exciting. I'm hoping to restore some of the previous vitality I had at the comments here. Wordpress is cool with the registration function, so that's a big incentive for change. I'm also talking to potential contributors to build a multi-author roster of right-bloggers.

Stayed tuned.

'I'm seriously considering staying with Blogger'

That's Ann Althouse, and I've seriously considered leaving Blogger.

Well, so much for role models!!

Dan Riehl Responds to the 'Slow, Painful Coming Death' of the Conservative Blogosphere

I guess John Hawkins hit a nerve.

Dan Riehl responds, "John Boy Hawkins Gots 'dem Cosmic Conservative Blogosphere Blues."

This part echoes some of my thoughts from last night:

... when it comes to what John seems to be lamenting, that lone, sometimes howling voice of the true Indie blogger - as I see myself when writing here at my site and not for Breitbart Media, it will always be something of a haphazard, hard to make a living effort done for love of something, perhaps America or a particular political ideology, for most. It's not a bug it's a feature, as Instapundit might say. But it's damned important that people do it and should be to you for its own sake if you plan on staying with it for any length of time; otherwise, you'll only get discouraged and go away. There's nothing new in that.

Dan's thoughts don't really make me adjust mine. If nobody's reading your blog it's hard to stay motivated. Do we need to consolidate into some kinda big-business model, as John suggests? Probably not. But blogging's gotten way more professionalized. The big media outlets have eaten up a lot of the space on the Internet. Readers will have less incentive to search out the niche blogs when there's so much alternative content sponsored by big guns in the background. It's tricky. But Dan's right that there's nothing new in the online patriots pounding out a platform, and hopefully some of these folks break through for the recognition.

When I was checking the blog rankings last night, The Lonely Conservative came up #57 on Technorati --- and that's really impressive, as Lonely Conservative often mentions the limited time she has for blogging. Congratulations!

Anyway, more later. I'll be checking into the Wordpress switch over I was talking about. A little change can keep the blog fires burning.

James O'Keefe Uncovers Medicaid Fraud

At Daily Caller, "New O’Keefe investigation uncovers Medicaid fraud [VIDEO]."

Also at Hot Air, "O’Keefe’s latest sting target: Medicaid bureaucrats."

And at O'Keefe's website, "Project Veritas Investigates: Medicaid."