The problems with getting on there on the Internet, the Facebook, and the Twitter:
For security reasons, the congressional delegation led by House Minority Leader John Boehner to Iraq today was supposed to be secret. Everything had been going fine in that regard. Even media outlets that knew of the trip, like the Congressional Quarterly, kept a lid on the news.
That was, until Rep. Peter Hoekstra twittered his arrival into Baghdad. “Just landed in Baghdad. I believe it may be first time I’ve had bb service in Iraq. 11th trip here,” he sent from his BlackBerry.
@petehoekstra: dude that was supposed to be a secret!!1!
The Edge of the American West 
12 comments
February 10, 2009 at 11:18 am
politicalfootball
I am deeply confused by what I get when I follow the Henley link. His blog – updated today with the relevant item – is in Google’s cache, but the actual Google link takes me to the page linked by dana. Strange. Not your normal outage.
February 10, 2009 at 1:00 pm
The Modesto Kid
Yeah — looks like his domain name has been taken over — possibly his license on that name expired and he forgot to renew it. That would suck.
February 10, 2009 at 1:18 pm
Colin
His twitter … what do you call it, a stream? is there. Lots of exclamations! Endless banality! Even if one were not an idiot, it would be hard not to appear idiotic in this medium.
February 10, 2009 at 2:18 pm
kid bitzer
okay, very weird.
i had this problem with henley’s “highclearing”, and i thought, hmmm, where can i bring this to the attention of like-minded people. i know, maybe i’ll mention it in a current thread on edge of the west, like, i dunno, whichever one is on top, and then i come here and see.
the horror.
like-minded people is good. but this is more like hive-minded. scary.
February 10, 2009 at 2:43 pm
dana
Oh, that’s weird. Sometime in between when I posted the post and when pf commented…
February 10, 2009 at 2:46 pm
kid bitzer
well, dana, when you linked to it did you use the destructo-link?
’cause that might explain it.
also: this explains why pf thought to mention henley’s site on this thread. it does *not* explain why i thought to *come* to this thread in order to raise the alarm about henley’s site.
only extraterrestrialepathy can do that.
February 10, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Barry
There was a renewal problem with highclearing.com. for now, try ‘http://highclearing.com’, not ‘www…’.
February 10, 2009 at 4:25 pm
kid bitzer
link works again.
all back to normal (though thoreau says there may be a few more hiccups before it’s all over).
February 10, 2009 at 5:05 pm
andrew
I’m still not sure I know what I’m reading when I read a twitter stream. Mostly it’s sorting out replies and answers – especially on multi-user institutional/collaborative channels.
February 10, 2009 at 5:08 pm
andrew
Also, Republicans seem to have a huge stats lead over Democrats in Congressional twitter use. And their websites often seem more dynamic too. I assume it’s a conscious effort – maybe like the advantage they built in direct mail in the 70s and 80s.
February 11, 2009 at 4:23 am
rea
Republicans seem to have a huge stats lead over Democrats in Congressional twitter use.
That’s because the R’s have more twits . . .
February 11, 2009 at 6:47 am
Barry
What puzzles me is that when the president of Iran visited, the visit was preannounced, and he rode down the streets of Baghdad in broad daylight. It’s like they won the war – but the neoconmen told me that *we* won the war (in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and now).