It is hard to believe but I have been doing the blog-thing for a year now. It really doesn't seem like that long. I thought that this would be a good excuse to look back on the year that was on PoliticalStaples. Right up front I want to thank everyone who comes by and reads what this crank has to say. I have enjoyed and I enjoy the feedback (positive and negative) that I get.
Total Visits: 86,000
Best Month: April - ~35,000 (All Brault all the time)
July 2004
You can read my very first post here. It reprinted a letter I sent to PM Martin regarding the situtation in Darfur.
Other highlights from June were a post on What if George W Bush is right? and some interesting tidbits about the Clintonian mindset on the War of Terror from George Stephanopoulous' book.
August 2004
This post putting Orwell's 1984 into a Canadian context was the highlight of July and gave me my highest traffic to date (I think I reached 100 hits...back then that was huge). My biggest surprise was that no one pointed out how easy it would have been to write the post from the exact opposite point of view, ie. replace Bush with bin Laden. Probably had more to do with low traffic at the time. I also transcribed Ron Silver's speech at the Republican National Convention. Man that was a great speech. This is a must see video on Doom3.
Spetember 2004
Began with me relating how Buzz Hargrove was chosen to give the address at my MBA graduation. Brilliant. I blame WLU Chancellor and future Liberal leader Bob Rae. In the middle of September I was invited to join The Shotgun by Ezra Levant. That was actually a turning point. I was about a 20 visit a day blog and was thinking of packing it in. Getting recognized by Mr. Levant gave
me the push I needed to keep going. The month ended with PM Blair making the case from Iraq...again.
October 2004
I like this post on being pro-choice on child care. Especially the reference to "The Pill". With such an important title that would be the pill that cures Polio or TB right? (credit to Gary Gulman from Last Comic Standing). It seems that October was sacred cow month as I took on Sen. Kerry's pro-choice Catholicism. But not as well as Orson Scott Card did.
November 2004
Yet another bout of bloggers-block was overcome after the results of the US election. It even had me feeling slightly sorry for the Democrats...well insofar as their situation has many parallels with the situation of the CPC. It ends pretty quick though when Democrat activitists suggest that Jesus would not worry about partial-birth abortion. November was my first chance to meet a group of Canadian bloggers and my first shot at generating revenue from blogging ($70 US so far but I don't get anything until I reach $100, so click an ad or two when you pop on by). I tried another effort at the 1984 thing above but this time replacing Arafat with the Dead Parrot from Monty Python. Kinda of ties in with the CBC debate of late 'cause I chickened out in using the "T" word. I also discovered in November than bin Laden doesn't have a kidney problem. Seems like a may have hit my stride in November.
December 2004
I still had a soft-spot for PM Martin. Man did that change. I also linked to several reactions to the visit by President Bush. This technique was very useful during the Brault testimony period. I took a shot at analyzing bias at Canadian Universities here. While my experience anyway. The speeches a linked to by Michael Crichton are worth a second look. I was in on the early end of the great Norman Spector CanCon debate but I bailed on it pretty quick when it got way too personal. All this and I joined the Blogging Tories (well Blogs for CPC as it was called at the time)
January 2005
I took the first stab at a Blogging Tories Big Tent Roundup here. The Blogging Tories are so big now that this is impossible but Stephen Taylor keeps the spirit alive using RSS feeds (a source of quite a bit of my traffic now). What It Takes To Win noticed some strange things on the Elections Canada website. Just a precursor to things to come. Same thing with Same-Sex Marriage. I mentioned this away too many times to link to. I also did a review of the Fifth Estate's Sticks and Stones. This was the gift that kept on giving as the CBC broadcast this with great regularity - each time I got a Google traffic bounce.
February 2005
The cheerleading began about a split of the CPC during their convention. That story went nowhere. Gomery was just beginning to take a bite out of PM Martin's gang. I was right about the panic. I took my first shot at live blogging here (Tesimony by former PM Chretien at the Gomery Inquiry).
March 2005
I somehow managed to link Keith Moon and Michael Ignatieff. Don't try this at home. More liveblogging, this time MP Stephen Harper's speech at the CPC Convention. Here is a post about how Canadian Values are Conservative Values. I even managed to take down MP Stronach before she crossed the floor. Bottom line - I never liked her. This fisking of a KW Record column was fun.
April 2005 (or the month that Jean Brault built)
What a month. It all started with me minding my own business on a Friday night when word leaked that There is soemthing going down at Gomery. What was truly fun was that I knew what it was before the testimony was released. I felt like a real member of the media. I had sources! It was only a matter of time before the Levee to Break and things turn into a Feeding Frenzy. You know the politics had changed because I actually live blogged Question Period. Like I said, what a month.
May 2005
The insanity contined into May as PM Martin tried to improve his image through interviews on talk radio. I reviewed his interview on the Roy Green show and he actually mentioned my post on the air. There was another mini-feeding frenzy with the Guite testimony. Then confusion reigned as the Liberals lost the confidence of the House but refused to recognize it. Oh, and then there was Stronach crossing the floor and the Grewal Tapes. Another crazy month.
June 2005
The insanity finally got the better of me and I hit a wall.
