Month: July 2005

I’ve added a new feature to the Blogging Tories website: Tory Tags.

What is this all about? Tagging initiatives such as Flickr and Technorati are currently at the leading edge of blogging technology. Blogging Tories has integrated a tag-like system that displays a jumble of keywords below. This display of keywords is a visual representation of keyword prevalence on Blogging Tories member blogs. Bigger links represent more posts that contain that particular key word or phrase. This is a good view of what the Blogging Tories have discussed and what they are discussing right now.

(Technically, the page doesn’t display “tags” per se, but rather keywords. I’ve used the term “tags” because the output of the data is “tag-like”)

On Tory Tags, “Canada”, “liberals”, “blogging” and “London” are current hot topics, while Stephen Harper, Paul Martin, Gurmant Grewal, Monte Solberg, and Chuck Cadman are the most highly discussed Canadian politicians. On a side note though, I’m sad to see that “Mercer” is getting as much attention as “Gomery” from the Blogging Tories.

If any Conservative/Liberal/NDP politician, member of the media, or voter wants to get a snapshot of the current burning topics in the Canadian conservative blogosphere (one reflection of the grassroots), they can consult Tory Tags on Blogging Tories.

Kate McMillan of SDA fame has the Grewal cheques and a letter from MP Grewal’s EDA president to CBC’s Terry Milewski debunking any Conservative impropriety surrounding the cheques.

“We would like to conclude with two important thoughts though. The first is that the common denominator in all of the above is not so much the matter of missing receipts, but rather the fact that loyalty to Ujjal Dosanjh figured large, and often, in our inquiries. This is perhaps not surprising at all, given it is the Liberal Party’s sworn intention to do everything it can to deflect attention away from Mr. Ujjal Dosanjh by attempting to shoot the messenger (that would be our Member of parliament) at every opportunity. Even the most flimsy of claims against Mr. Grewal are trotted out in the achievement of the goal of shielding Mr. Dosanjh from additional, or centre-stage scrutiny. We have heard for some time now that there would be a challenge to Mr. Grewal in the form of cheques. Given what we have seen with the above six items, we feel that the strategy of the Liberals will continue, as will our ability to defend our MP.” — Jim Holt, President Newton North Delta EDA, Conservative Party of Canada

Go read the whole thing!

Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party have jumped right into the podcasting game and have released a speech by Harper as he kicks off the summer BBQ tour. It’s about 18 minutes in length and, of course, you don’t need an iPod to join in. Thanks to Paul over at Blue Blogging Soapbox for the notice.

Blogging Tories, of course, is right on it and is working in concert with Conservative.ca to bring you CPC podcasts.

To tune into Stephen Harper’s speech and the rest of the Blogging Tories podcast, point your favourite podcast aggregator here:

http://www.bloggingtories.ca/podcast.xml

Also, check out the Blogging Tories channel on Odeo! Odeo is great way to listen to Blogging Tories podcasts!