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Damn... I should have got a sitter for the kids so I could be there.... Will have to live vicariously through the #NHROOTS hash tag. Very awesome to hear that folks like Hassan, Cilley and DeVries are there!
This should auto update whenever tweets with #nhroots hash tag.
It seems my Tweets have been gaining more traction than I could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, all that traction is thanks to the inability of Mark Whittington to effectively parse a simple English American sentence.
On July 21st I Tweeted "I have to wonder if & or when @sarahpalinusa will learn the meaning of our state motto: "live free or die." #NowHamp #NH #NHSen" via TweetDeck.
According to Mark Whittington this means I think Sarah Palin should die. WTF?
Apparently, Whittington wasn't privy to the prior Tweet (not 4 minutes before and left as unprotected and free floating as all my other Tweets) which noted how David Frum, a, if not the, leading Conservative intellectual, criticized Palin's endorsement strategy. In addition, Whittington wasn't privy to the savage criticism of Palin offered on the Front Page (A1) of the Conservative Union Leader by the publisher, Joseph W. McQuaid. The latter, for everyone else in the state concerned with politics, was the political news of the day.
Now, considering I speak English (or, more accurately, the mutant offspring known to the English as "American") and, supposedly, Mark Whittington does as well, I don't and can't contribute Mark Whittington's gross misinterpretation to some sort of translation error. He deserves no benefit nor will he get any benefit from me now or in the future.
Despite this admission, it occurs to me that if Whittington's grasp of grammar hinges on his seeming inability to write on anything current other than Sarah Palin he may not have fully understood my Tweet, given that it occurred sometime after the end of the Cold War, unlike his fiction, then perhaps I ought to explain it to him. So here's the email I'd send him if I had his address:
Dear Mark,
I'm glad that you've seen my Tweet fit to repeat but I must protest at your mischaracterization of my words. I did not state or imply, nor will you find any reasonable person who would attest that I had stated or imply, that Sarah Palin should die (or any form thereof).
As you should know, I currently reside in New Hampshire. The state motto is "Live Free or Die." This motto is derived from a toast given by (Revolutionary War) General John Stark who used it in the context everyone now uses it, in a kind of summation of Patrick Henry's statement on liberty and doing the right thing no matter the consequence (please find his speech "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!" here). Perhaps it is because we here in New Hampshire, the first state to vote in Presidential Primaries, have such a love of our country and our electoral system that we forget that Texans and other non-New Hampshirites, such as yourself, do not possess that same love of liberty and faith in the electorate that we have and so we recklessly explain our actions through our state motto. I know I speak for all of New Hampshire, liberal and conservative alike, when I quote Mr. McQuade and say that "New Hampshire voters are rarely impressed by what outsiders have to say."
If you really want to know what I meant when I said what I said please refer to Mr. McQuade's editorial. New Hampshire voters are not impressed by losers and losers are all those people we've already rejected as worthy of our votes. And, if you've forgotten, McCain-Palin did not win our state. In fact, Palin has never even bothered to try to convince us to part with our votes on her own. She has never run for anything for which we were allowed to judge her ourselves. She has never entered a primary or general election in our state where she stood on top of the ticket. Until she does she will always be a loser in the eyes of New Hampshirites. Why else would Kelly Ayotte's website drop all mention of her Palin endorsement?
You sir are a charlatan. Your cheap tricks and pathetic excuses for news articles may attract page views but please don't think yourself clever. What you write is not snappy political commentary, it's idiotic and worthless drivel. Maybe in Texas, where the Governor hails secession, a treasonable offense, as a viable option where political disagreements are concerned, it is fine to self publish a few books and fancy one's self a writer and to disparage and slander the fine citizens of other states but that is not how things are done here in New Hampshire. We don't have loud protests and riot police. We like to hear out our opposition and debate their points in polite conversation, making sure that we understand what our opposition means. You, sir, did not even bother to allow me that courtesy. Instead, you preferred to attempt to savage me on Yahoo!'s Associated Content. Unfortunately, you've failed and made yourself look like an idiot in the meantime.
That said I'd like to offer you an invitation. Come up to our state and visit any political campaign, join any political event, or just hang out before the upcoming elections and you'll learn what I meant when I questioned if and/or when Sarah Palin would learn about New Hampshire. I don't care what campaign you visit, what event you take in or where you visit, you'll find that eventually you will come to understand why we are so committed to liberty and you'll come to understand why we don't care about Sarah Palin or her opinions.
Let me regal you with a story of an event that happened to me just today. I was at the barber getting a haircut and a woman running for State Representative came in to campaign and ask to leave literature. She never mentioned with what party she was affiliated. She never mentioned if she was an incumbent. She never mentioned if she had a lot of support. She just came in and, beautifully framed in front of the American flag hanging just outside the window gave, in a quivering voice, her stump speech. She told us what she believed was wrong at the State House and told us what she would try to do to fix it. And you know what? Not even those who vehemently disagreed with her interrupted or even attempted to refute her points. That is what it means to live free or die. It is the fundamental understanding that comes with the ability to express, entertain, and the free exercise of an idea even if one does not agree with that idea. But it is so much more than even that encompassing description, it is, in essence, understanding what makes the political process in New Hampshire so potent. It is something which escapes whatever paltry words I put to the page but something any New Hampshirite, no matter his or her political persuasion, can demonstrate, if not necessarily describe.
I realize that you are a Texan and the concept of liberty, as we understand it here the Granite State, is foreign to you, but please, in the future, do not mistake our references to our state motto, a potent and formidable authority, as threats. They are not. They are simply reminders of what it means to live in a free and open society.
So, when I, or any New Hampshirite, wonders if and/or when Sarah Palin, or anyone else for that matter, will understand what it means to "live free or die" we mean to imply that the object of our ire is simply not espousing the values and concepts necessary to endear him or her to our hearts. It takes a lot to win our votes and we ask a lot from our candidates. That's what I want Sarah Palin to learn. And I guess that's what I want you to learn too.
So... thought we would try a little experiment at pulling in the Twitter stream from members of the Blue Hampshire community.
If you use Twitter and generally tweet about News, Politics, NH, etc. and would like to be included on our "Hamster List" let me know what your twitter account name is an I will add you to the list (just reply below)
Karen, Susan, Dean let me know if you would like to be removed from the list (I had to grab a few accounts to trial)
The list is available here http://twitter.com/bh/hamsters it is "followable" like any other Twitter acct. and the stream is published via widget in the sidebar of the site.
(And here I was about to re-invent the wheel with setting this up. I should always remember that Mike C. is there on the scene the second any new web wheel is invented. Thanks Mike! - promoted by Dean Barker)
It occurred to me that many of our readers may not know this, but Blue Hampshire is on Twitter.
We have been for quite some time, since May of 2007, actually, when Twitter was new enough that we managed to score the super-cool twitter name "BH":
http://twitter.com/bh
Since that time, we have posted just under 3,000 updates. The feed is mostly to alert you of new postings on the Blue Hampshire front page, but can be used for short updates as well.
So follow us, and never miss an important story again.
More Twittiocy from Jennifer S. Horn-Palin - now available in green:
Perhaps if Ms. Horn were not busy painting her face green in an attempt to leverage the Iranian situation into American partisan GOoPer politics, she would know where President Obama stands, i.e., on the side of the protestors, but in such a way that it doesn't get thousands of them killed. Unlike "Bomb-bomb-Iran" guy's cowboy diplomacy:
Adding: "Where does the Pres stand?" elwood reminds us: the president stands with the protesters, even to the degree of quietly working to keep the same New Media platform open that Green Horn is using against him.
(Strange election strategy - blocking people from the social networking site she told Republicans they needed to be on to win elections. - promoted by Dean Barker)
Has anyone else been blocked by Jennifer Horn on Twitter?
Occasionally I reply to her when she makes egregious tweets, most recently we had this exchange:
NH Jennifer #tcot #GOP Is Sarkozy tougher than Obama? Looks like it... http://bit.ly/2Ks8T
Cmonagle @NHJennifer I don't get it, the French failed, we didn't. No Americans died in our op? Killing civilians = tough? What? #tcot
NHJennifer @cmonagle that is three days old now. You need to keep with the news cycle. We've been giving credit to the Pres since yesterday.
Cmonagle @NHJennifer It was your last update. Glad you're giving credit when due, but let's be civil. Was asking for an explanation, not lecture.
Checking for a reply, I found the screenshot after the jump. I'd been blocked. Need some feedback, did I deserve it or does she do this often? Why is she on twitter after all?
Meet Jennifer Horn's Twitter account, where foreign policy and military operations are on the same level as Team America:
#tcot #GOP Is Sarkozy tougher than Obama? Looks like it... http://bit.ly/2Ks8T
9:47 PM Apr 10th from TweetDeck
Of course, Obama later greenlighted a special forces operation that, unlike Sarkozy's, did not result in the death of a hostage, but the cheering for failure turned epic fail is hardly the point.
What's so disturbing is that this unserious tween fantasy of global leaders as football game came from someone who could have represented one half of the great state of New Hampshire.
Morning Update: I much prefer these tweets, but in a move that should surprise no one, the vast left-wing tradmed conspiracy is giving Jennifer Horn back her radio show, on which perch she no doubt can run her campaign for office more effectively.
To think that this unserious person actually had a shot at representing one half of this great state:
HAHAHAHA!! She doesn't like TEA! HAHAHAHA!!! Pat Leahy and Tom Daschle didn't like white powder either!1!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!1!!!1!! ZOMG ROFL ;->
A follower rejoins: "@NHJennifer how paranoid is her office and how much do they want to waste the tax payers money and police officer's time?"
To which Horn pulls out the tin foil:
Absolutely. Because if I can't send loose tea to a high profile public official in the post 9-11 world without triggering standard safety protocols, then my first amendment rights are being squelched. I mean, only five people died from the anthrax attacks.
Unserious, and, I might add, very unhelpful to the public good, Ms. Horn. I hope there is a reporter out there who will ask her if she is really serious about Carol Shea-Porter's motives.
Whoever sold the GOP the talking point that the path to salvation was to embrace New Media must be regretting it right now.
In just a few days time, there's been a triumvirate of Twittiots - a triple play of epic fails involving the use of Twitter.
First there was Rep. Peter Hoekstra, who was stoopid enough to tweet an intel-sensitive trip.
Then, the GOP's hope to take back Gilibrand's house seat puts the other side's oppo-tweets on their campaign website.
And best of all - control of the majority in the VA state house was almost won - but then lost again, by a true twittiot.
I think it was better when Bush and McCain just pretended that they used computers. Now that their team is actually using them, the results are pretty scary.
We've been predicting an Obama win for awhile based on the social media stats that we track. What we're seeing is that social media, including Twitter, Facebook, the blogosphere, You Tube etc. etc. because people trust it more than main stream media. What's happening is that in this compressed cycle, no one has time to create and place TV ads and direct mail pieces. But everyone has time to forward something to a friend. I've written more about that here: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/kdpai...
and here's a link to our findings: http://kdpaine.blogs.com/kdpai...
OK -- I won't bore you all with the details, but if you would like to keep up to date with votes in the US House, I've created a program which feeds the votes out as soon as they are posted on the web (which is delayed, but there you have it).
You can look at it on the web here:
http://twitter.com/t...
Where the format is
#371 HR1585 AgreeAmdt Failed Y:199(187/12) Holt of New Jersey Amendment(371) 12:20 PM May 17, 2007 from web
I am going to do a bigger post on this, a front page post, sometime later, for all the people who don't know what twitter is.
For those of you who do, though, especially those of you in the legislature, I have a simple idea: Twitter as a microreporting platform.
The idea as it pertains to legislators is this: You publish the address your twitter feed to www.twitternation.com, noting the news you will cover. When newsworthy events happen (e.g. civil unions is passed) you twitter out the vote and any other details by texting the twitter number.
By just feeding out the news you hit in the course of your job, you will be keeping those that subscribe to you up-to-the-minute on legislation. More importantly, as you build subscribers, you'll actually have a small army of people you can call on, instantly, for help during public hearings and the like.
And of course it costs you nothing: just sign up for twitter, and tell me your feed, and I'll post it on Twitter Nation.
Like I said, a major post on this will be forthcoming for those with no knowledge of twitter. But if you know enough to get yourself signed up, do so, and send me (keenenh at gmail) your information.
Twitter Nation will also be supporting microreporting of other events as well, from little league scores, to traffic info, to school board decisions. So to all non-legislators, you're invited too. If you can text, you can report.
