Category: Blogging

Things have been a little light here this week, but check out these posts at Missouri Insight:

• People Move To City For Action, Energy; People Then Decry Action, Energy
   
• St. Louis County Prosecutor’s Message: DON’T HIRE CONVICTS!

Over at Missouri Insight, find out how St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley thinks I’m not in my right mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, is the Paul Harvey of the Internet.

Now, I realize that many of you who have all the answers have all those answers because you’re not old enough to have the answer to who Paul Harvey was. You can click to Wikipedia, but I’ll summarize it for you: Paul Harvey was a syndicated radio broadcaster whose little programs appeared on a pile of stations. Your grandparents probably trusted him more than each other. He carried quirky offbeat stories interspersed with commercial pitches for national products, and his “The Rest of the Story” segments told you interesting trivia, real or not, about celebrities and famous people.

This comparison occurred to me after I ordered something that Instapundit mentions a lot, and I thought it was a worthwhile purchase because of the good testimonials and endorsement I found there.

So how is Instapundit like Paul Harvey?

• Paul Harvey was everywhere. When I traveled from Wisconsin to Missouri to visit family, the same voice that was on the radio in Milwaukee was on the radio in St. Louis at the same time each day. This was before the real rise of AM syndicated talkers, so it was a big deal. And Instapundit is everywhere there’s an Internet connection.
   
• Paul Harvey aggregated news from various sources. He didn’t do original reporting; he just scoured the wire services for interesting tidbits and reported those. Like Instapundit does with the news and the blogosphere.
   
• Paul Harvey came on several times a day. Of course, if you read Instapundit, you read it several times a day, too.
   
• Paul Harvey had his trademarks. His voice and delivery were distinct, and he had a number of phrases he sprinkled into his broadcasts. Instapundit? Heh. Indeed.. ‘Nuff said.
   
• Paul Harvey pitched products. During his broadcasts, Paul Harvey had a series of drop-in advertisements for a series of national advertisers, and he placed them smoothly before going on. Instapundit talks about various consumer goods, deals on Amazon, and books mailed to him. Although he’s not compensated by the people whose product he discusses, he does get some dinero from Amazon if people buy through his site. So he talks about what he likes and packs it with testimonials from other readers. And, crikey, if I’m not taken to purchase some of those things.
   

So he’s not exactly Paul Harvey, but even though it’s a similar set of wires and tubes, the Internet is not the radio.

But, as I said, the analogy came to me as I bought this book Instapundit was mentioning, Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It.

Other blogs mention things and have ads and stuff, but I ignore most of it. But if it’s on Instapundit with testimonials and it’s something I’m looking for, I remember it. Sometimes I remember it when it becomes something I need to look for (which explains the Midland WR300 weather radio in my bedroom).

(Unrelated, sort of: This post by Instapundit from almost 10 years ago.)

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. If you’re in IT, you might like my blog QA Hates You. Don’t forget my novel John Donnelly’s Gold, about which Professor Reynolds said, “IN THE MAIL:”, is available for 99 cents on Kindle and in paperback.

Given how many years of Web logging I have going on here, it’s only fair that I mine it for material now and then. That’s spread to QAHatesYou.com, where I’ve reposted an essay called “Morale Spy” that first appeared on MfBJN five years ago.

I only mention this because it’s a good piece, and I know that even my “long time readers” only go back two years or so.

On Missouri Insight, City of Springfield, MODoT Team Up For Campaign Advertising.

At Missouri Insight: Vistas of the Recently Urban: Rogersville.

Breitbart tells CPAC: I have videos of Obama in college and they’ll come out during the election

In Memoriam: Andrew Breitbart (1969-2012)

I’m listening to Jay Weber on the radio now, and already people are calling in to muse if something happened to him and bringing up the number of heart attacks in the Clinton administration.

I’m going the opposite direction: I see the URL for the post says draft. It’s March 1. All the news reports are reporting what the Web site says, and there’s no independent confirmation (see the current LA Times story.

My personal hopeful conspiracy theories are that this is a misscheduled April 1 joke or stunt to prove how intolerant the left is.

Because, damn, they don’t make many men like Andrew Breitbart, and I would hate to lose one.

UPDATE: Apparently, AP has done some journalism or something and confirmed it from sources not preceded with BIG. Well, damn.

I’ve started a new blog called Missouri Insight to cover Missouri people, places, books, politics, and government.

Go check it out if you’re so inclined.

Yesterday, Instapundit linked to someone doing a takedown of someone tut-tutting Heinlein.

I read it and scanned the comments and something leapt out at me:

triticale says:
6/26/2005 at 8:45 pm

I happen to be reading “Tramp Royal” at the moment; Heinlein’s memoirs of a trip around the world by cargo liner which he and Ticky (as he consistantly calls his wife) took in 1954. His travels unquestionably made him more worldly. Even today I doubt the average reader of “Outside” magazine has made it to Tristan de Cunha or the black market currency exchange of Djakarta.

One interesting quote – when discussing the effect of cultural differences on their dealings with a customs inspector (Ticky pulled a dumb stunt later echoed by Podkayne’s brother), he speaks of being a “stranger in a strange land” which would be a pretty good title for a science fiction story.

The name leapt out at me: Triticale gave me the Commodore 128 I currently have and a box of miscellaneous computer stuff that he cleaned out of his garage five years ago. I didn’t meet him in person, as he was in the Milwaukee area and I was not, but I got the stuff through an intermediary (my brother, briefly a blogger himself in 2005).

Triticale’s name leapt out at me because he passed away four years ago.

Instapundit’s been doing these archive posts of his lately, but this one didn’t mention it was going to the archives. Instead, it just sort of sucked me back.

How long have we been here, gentlemen?

Advice to Trog: If you really want to make Danica Patrick, log into your Go Daddy account.

Here, on the home page, she’s slightly amused with you:

Then, after you log in, she smiles more broadly, as though you’d done something clever:

Take note, Trog.

For McGehee, who apparently has nothing better to do than to research children’s toys on Wikipedia and got this related commercial jingle stuck in my head:

(Spotted in Dustbury’s comments vis-à-vis this meme.)

Hey, shoot me your APO or FPO address and get a free copy of my novel John Donnelly’s Gold.

stlbrianjathotmaildotcom.

If I’m not on the first page for Google results for Firefly Hands of Dillon-Blue Christmas?

I mean, I get a lot of hits for this Dillon-Blue Christmas ad, and I get a lot of hits for this Hands of Blue post.

Is it too much to ask that Skynet Google recognize my efforts?