Slashdot Mirror
Speaker of the House Starts Blogging
Bjimba writes "Denny Hastert, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has just started his own blog on the official speaker.gov site. I don't know if he'll keep up with it, but from reading his initial post, it seems clear that he's not employing ghostbloggers."
Smart man.
"The newly born animals are then whisked off for a quick run through a giant baking oven." --heard on Food Network
Better hope he's not Catholic cause his Sunday school teacher might object to him blogging!
Those who laugh at you for you having a Mac.. are the people who constantly call you to fix their PC.
I know I'd sure like to comment on Hastert's mention of fiscal responsbility. It's refreshing to know that cutting money to find deadbeat dads is top on the Republican's fiscal responsibility list.
Flame Warning Heaven forbid we cut corporate welfare to the most profitable corporations in the country. I wonder how many of them are actually headquartered in the country? Returning to anti-flame levels
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
Technically, it may be OK. The problem I have with his blog is the style it's written in. He writes like an elementary school student. Someone should teach him about varying sentence length and structure. Reading his blog is like reading an incoming telegraph. He's got a case of stop and go traffic going on there. Robots might appreciate it but humans probably would not. This has been a demonstration.
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
Creating weblog entries on a regular basis often requires one to post thoughts, ideas, and opinions that have not been thoroughly thought out. They're like email, too easy to write, and impossible to recall. How many of us have sent an angry email and later wished we had not.
If we expect our policiticans to start web-logging their daily thoughts, we're going to have to be a lot less hard on them about what they say. Our politicians, like the rest of the human race, are going to have ideas that, when fully thought out, are really bad. In maintaining weblogs some of these bad ideas are going to see international publication.
Will we allow our politicians to recant later, and say "well, yes, I guess that article I wrote was racist/imperialistic/unconstitutional, now that I look at it again, please don't hold it against me?" More importantly, will the news media be willing to let things like that die or pass unnoticed?
(Yes, I used the preview button once, No, I didn't give this post a lot of thought.)
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
It would be nice for all our government officials to start public blogs. Keeping in touch with the people and getting feedback is highly important in our sort of society.
I have noticed that his blog does not have any sort of RSS/Atom/XML feed and that makes it difficult to keep up with his latest posts.
Another thing is that there are no places to post public comments. I wouldn't mind if the comments ended up being moderated but I believe there should be atleast some way to post comments on his blog. He could spend a few minutes of his day responding to the people or he could get a staff member to pick out a few good ones each week and he could reply. That would send a very good message to the people.
Right off the bat, this Republican Senator did something his Repblican colleagues probably won't like -- he criticized oil companies. From his blog:
"Today, energy companies started reporting their 3rd quarter earnings, and while Americans paying were record prices at the pump, energy companies were making record profits. This is America. And Republicans don't believe in punishing success. But what are these oil companies doing to bring down the cost of oil and natural gas?"
Welcome to blogosphere, Senator.
Sun and Fun
Right, because the anonymity of the Internet brings out only the best in people, especially when they have an opinion!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
As for Katrina, he said rebuilding seven feet under sea level didn't make any sense. Frankly, it still doesn't if you approach it with common sense, but emotional and cutural importance seem to have rendered this argument silent.
-Rob
Biblical fiscal responsibility
A future Hastert blog:
:-(
:-( [sigh]
OMG!!!! What a day!
Georgie said that he didn't think that I was doing enough to kill the McCain amendment in conference committee. Then I got a call from Dick, and he said that I needed to get the troops in line for the upcoming appropriations bill. They both are so mean sometimes! WTF!!! I just want to do fun speaker stuff like bang my gavel and shout "THERE WILL BE ORDER IN THE HOUSE!" at freshman congressmen, but these guys make me feel really underappreciated. I told Tom about it, and he said that I should just chill out and not worry about them.
I was feeling really depressed until I got a call from Condi, who said that she wanted someone to go shopping with her. I had an excellent time with her. We went to The Mall and bought a few odds and ends. She really cheered me up when she did an impression of John Kerry. She spoke in a monotone voice and pulled the sides of her eyes down to look like a basset hound and she said "GLOBAL TEST! GLOBAL TEST!" and "I VOTED FOR IT BEFORE I VOTED AGAINST IT!" ROFLMAO!!!! After we were done laughing, some lady next to us was shopping for flip-flops! Can you believe it! LOLLERSKATES!!!!
hastert's colleague in the senate, barack obama, has been doing an excellent podcast for several months now.
What I want politicians to do is listen to a small, trusted set of smart people and do the "right thing", regardless of whether it's popular or not.
You mean, like, a monarch who listens to his courtiers?
Oh. awesome.
Yes, it sounds good to say that you as a leader should not swayed by popular opinion and should follow your core set of principles. But.. what happens when those principles are unpopular? Well, guess what: you lie to the people. If you're confident enough, you'll tell yourself that It's For Their Own Good. Lots of people think they're doing the Right Thing.
But unless you want dictatorship, the masses have to be trusted. The great unwashed masses, as you call them, are actually reasonably smart and moral. They are not a mob. They are you. You are saying you do not trust yourself. You want a strongman to make the tough, unpopular decisions that you and your neighbors cannot. Well, Saddam is available.
must... stay... awake...