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Dang.

hotair

Well, poop. HotAir has just announced they’re turning their comments over to FaceBook. I don’t totally get how that works — I’ve not seen this done before — but it means the main articles still appear at HotAir.com, but to comment you’ll have to be a member of, and logged into, FaceBook.

And comment under your own real name. In front of your grandma and your boss and everything. On a conservative political site. In 2016.

How do you say “no, thank you” in rage-fuelled gibberish?

HotAir was never a great site and it’s been in decline for some time. The best thing about it was always Allahpundit, and he’s been mighty quiet since Salem took over. But still, it was my favorite straight-up, minimal-commentary news aggregator and I’ll be a little lost without it.

Can anyone recommend another? I want something that links to the top two dozen mainstream news stories (of interest to a righty) every day, preferably with a sample or synopsis so I don’t have to click through if I don’t wanna. More stories than Ace, more MSM than Breitbart. More meat than Drudge. And open comments, pls.

p.s. Sober readers will recall that I do have an FB account in the name of Stoaty Weasel. I opened that before I knew it was a TOS violation. They have since cracked down on anonymous and second accounts, but they somehow missed ol’ Stoaty. Still, I log in with a different browser to access it and I hardly ever do. I’m sure if I pop up and start commenting on the new HotAir, I’ll get rumbled and shut down in short order. I’m accepting suggestions of fun and creative ways we can send Stoaty down in flames.


Comments


Comment from mojo
Time: February 15, 2016, 10:40 pm

I think their guid’s are a hash of ip, mac, user agent plus some other stuff.


Comment from Ric Fan
Time: February 15, 2016, 10:46 pm

One of the many problems with FB and Google is that they constantly change their rules regarding privacy settings and they make them difficult if not impossible to maintain privacy.


Comment from Skandia Recluse
Time: February 15, 2016, 11:01 pm

Justice Scalia dies unexpectedly, and HotAir abandons their proprietary comment system for FakeBook login.

Coincidence? Enquiring minds want to know.

HotAir brooms all their trolls, not realizing they will get ten times more from FakeBook.

Exciting times! and TRUMP!!!!!!!
BoooYAAAH


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 15, 2016, 11:26 pm

If you haven’t, go check any random comment thread on Hot Air. People are goofing on them with FaceBook-like inane comments.

It’s pretty funny.


Comment from Feynmangroupie
Time: February 16, 2016, 12:20 am

Might consider Badblue.com, its pretty good at aggregating all the top news stories, although they are usually blog posts…so you know, the places that MSM steal from for their content.


Comment from mojo
Time: February 16, 2016, 12:41 am

Small Dead Animals (Canada), David Thompson (UK), Tim Blair (Aus), Knowledge Is Power (US), Weasel Zippers (US)…


Comment from Mitchell
Time: February 16, 2016, 2:01 am

There’s National Review Online. Yeah NR’s a bit too straight-laced but they usually take the tie off at The Corner. You should check out Ricochet.com which was founded by Rob Long and Peter Robinson. James Lileks is on board too. Unsurprisingly there’s a lot of cross-pollination with the NR set. You have to pay to become a member if you want to post comments and read some of the content by other members but otherwise it’s free. I’m a big fan of their flagship podcast.


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: February 16, 2016, 3:17 am

I have been a regular at HOT AIR till this morning. Not on Facebook, not going to be on Facebook. I don’t want to be censored, I don’t want them releasing all of my personal details to Leftists if I say something to the right of Trotsky, I happen to favor the Second Amendment and the rest of the Constitution which is something Facebook doesn’t, I don’t like that Facebook censors news in Europe about the Refug-jihadi’s, and in China they are a branch of the Public Security Bureau [China’s version of the KGB or Stasi]. I recommend not even reading the articles because the clicks make HOT AIR profit. YMMV.

I myself avoid NRO because especially in the last couple of months they have gone hard core GOPe.


Comment from catnip
Time: February 16, 2016, 3:38 am

Tim Blair’s blog at the Telegraph is great. He’s a scrapper, and very funny, though his subject matter is somewhat limited. I like pjmedia dot com for its wide coverage and number of contributors, some of whom are stand-outs. Still, on a daily basis, I usually find time enough only to follow the blogs of a couple of conservative fanatics from the space industry, as that’s another area of interest.

I wouldn’t touch Facebook with a ten foot pole.


Comment from gebrauchshund
Time: February 16, 2016, 4:36 am

“I’m accepting suggestions of fun and creative ways we can send Stoaty down in flames.”

How about a contest? Whoever can violate the greatest number of their TOS in a single sentence wins. ‘Course, that would require actually reading their TOS which…yeah, that ain’t gonna happen.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: February 16, 2016, 4:42 am

I completely agree with all of Mojo’s suggestions, no others I can think of right now. I’ve had a Felix Facebook page for a little bit, not quashed yet. I keep waiting for whoever has his image copyrighted to stomp me like a bug. :-S


Comment from See Dubya
Time: February 16, 2016, 6:30 am

“HotAir was never a great site and it’s been in decline for some time. The best thing about it was always Allahpundit…”

Hey now. It started out pretty good.


Comment from See Dubya
Time: February 16, 2016, 6:34 am

BTW Lucianne.com might fit your requirements for an aggregator.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2016, 8:48 am

If you cast your mind back, SeeDub, you’ll remember that HotAir was a video site in the very beginning. That’s why their logo is a guy yelling into a camera (drawn by John Cox of Cox and Forkum). It was obvious pretty quickly that video content wasn’t drawing eyeballs but news content (and Allahpundit’s snark) was.

I don’t know about you guys, but I hate getting news by video. I always cut to the transcript, if there is one. Somebody must like the videos, though, because there are so darned many of them.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2016, 9:17 am

You didn’t actually work for HotAir, did you? You worked for Michelle, if I remember correctly. (It’s all coming back to me…)


Comment from see-dubya
Time: February 16, 2016, 3:32 pm

Right, I was the previous Doug Powers at Michelle’s site for a stretch in ’08. i also guest-blogged at HA a bunch in the beginning- in fact i was their first guest blogger. you’re right, the original idea was to have a conservative video alternative. This was before YouTube really took off (!) But what they did have was a great news aggregation environment and a great interplay between Allahpundit and Bryan Preston, who was a social conservative who could also offer good security/ wartime commentary. They added headlines in ’08 because the news and snark formula was working so well. Bryan left in 08 and Captain Ed took his place; I like Ed a lot but i think the site’s overall dynamics started to change then without the atheist/ Baptist tension and zany cultural randomness. Plus Hot Air used to make news…they would send correspondents out to cover protests, etc; they had Robert Spencer guest blogging… not everything worked, but enough did to keep it interesting.

I wish them well but this does seem like the end of an era. it was a lot of fun to have a little role in something like that.


Comment from Jeff Weimer
Time: February 16, 2016, 3:34 pm

They must be reconsidering the change – they still have the old comment system up as of 10:30 AM EST.


Comment from SpongeBobSaget
Time: February 16, 2016, 6:02 pm

The Facebook javascript is blocked here. Many web pages look and work much better without it.


Comment from mojo
Time: February 16, 2016, 7:36 pm

Engulf & Devour strike again.


Comment from Jon
Time: February 16, 2016, 8:48 pm

mojo’s list is most of my go-to, with Moe Lane (dot com) in the mix too. He’s mostly political but with a good dose of gaming/movies/music in the mix.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: February 16, 2016, 11:14 pm

Subotai Bahadur – February 16, 2016, 3:17 am:
I myself avoid NRO because especially in the last couple of months they have gone hard core GOPe.

Yeah, look at all the space they give to immigration-amnesty advocate Mark Krikorian. Oh, wait, Krikorian is an immigration hawk, who has posted four attacks on Marco Rubio in the last three weeks.

If NR backs anyone collectively, it’s Cruz. (Though today they have a post from Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas attacking Cruz’s voting record on defense compared to Rubio.)

They have praised Mitch McConnell’s stand against confirming an Obama nomination to SCotUS, but is there anything wrong with that?


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: February 17, 2016, 1:24 am

The obvious example is the special issue National Review put out attacking Trump and his supporters. Now they have the right to support anyone they want. But the issue was heavy on personal attacks on anyone who would not just shut up and vote for who they are told to by the party.

Trump is far from perfect. But it is years of betrayal by the same GOPe that is attacking him, that created him. And at the time they did it he was running about 30-35% in the polls, way ahead of anyone they support. And is still winning and polling closer to 40%.

Now, come general election time, and that is what they claim is their concern, micturating in the Wheaties of that big a portion of your activists who will do the work of any campaign is an interesting strategy. But they would rather lose definitively with Bush or Rubio than run with Trump.

Conservatives are not an absolute majority of the Republican party. At least unless you water down the concept of conservative to the point where it includes the GOPe leadership. But they are the majority of those who do the work of the party during campaigns. You cannot win an election without them, and the GOPe wants to be rid of them if they won’t go along with collaborating with Obama.

They made their choice, as they have the right to do. Others will make their choices about them based on that. I know that I have been active in Republican/Conservative politics since Christ was striking for lance corporal; up till January 2, 2013 as a Republican and since then as only TEA Party. I have run a [winning] presidential campaign in my county. I have been active in every campaign since I could vote, and that was a bloody long time ago.

In the 2014 campaign, the TEA Party started in October 2013. By Spring we were doing it all, because the official Republican party in our county collapse and went bankrupt, literally. In January 2015, we of the TEA Party resurrected it with us in charge. I was far from the most active of our TEA Party group, and I did no less than 4 hours a week on the campaign, and several times 28 hours a week.

We kicked butt in our county. And were promptly stabbed in the back by the first Criminal Omnibus after we gave the Republicans both Houses. And that was part of an ongoing series of punctures to date.

We are waiting for the Republicans to find some way to let Obama name and confirm another Marxist to replace Scalia. If they are consistent with past promises, them saying that they won’t, means they will.

All I know is that I will never again work for or vote for a member of the Boehner-Ryan-McConnell brotherhood of Vichy Republicans again. And since National Review is fighting their fight, I don’t think much of them. YMMV


Comment from Subotai Bahadur
Time: February 17, 2016, 1:38 am

Drat, after that rant I forgot to mention something for Sweas.

The old gang of commenters is gathering at a new site. HOTGAS.NET. It was put together by “Constantine IX” who converted his own website [Constantinople not Istambul] into a format reminiscent of another atmospheric warming site that just went FB. It is just starting but Constantine already has 2 co-bloggers for the new site and is getting news feeds set up. Y’all might want to take a look at it and keep an eye on it as it grows.

Last I heard, HOTAIR did not make the actual conversion to FB until about 1750 CT, and it was not going well as of about an hour ago. Morrissey finally showed up on the site, to insult those who did not want to go FB, and apparently was doing all last night on Twitter, along with pretty much all his co-bloggers except for Jazz Shaw.

Traffic is, of course, down because of the mechanics of the conversion. I think the next week or so will show how it will go.


Comment from jwm
Time: February 17, 2016, 4:40 pm

Weasel Zippers is very good, but toxic. I need medication after just a few minutes there. Ace crashes the browser every time. And I notice we’re already lamenting the bygone days of the wild west internet where you could say any darn thing you wanted without fear of repercussion. Now we’ve got the both the nanny state and a whole army of volunteer nannies ready to do the censorship that the government won’t. It’s Big Brothers all the way down.
btw- Thanks for the post on Tristan Da Cunah. I’m hooked. I’ve been reading everything I can find about the island, including the Nat Geo articles from ’61, and ’64 about the volcano, evacuation, and return. Great stuff.

JWM


Comment from jwm
Time: February 17, 2016, 5:52 pm

And another note on Ace et al: Any site that employs an auto-play commercial, especially one that automatically clicks on the sound, gets knocked off the bookmarks list never to return.

JWM


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: February 17, 2016, 11:17 pm

Subotai Bahadur: Every principled conservative I know opposes Trump. He has no record whatever of supporting conservative causes, a long record of supporting liberals, and is in every respect a consummate insider. Did you know he gave lots of money to McConnell to defeat a Tea Party challenger in 2014?

And now he’s channeling the fever-swamp Left with his attacks on George W. Bush.

He talks a hard line on immigration, but not in any serious way. If he does become President, IMO it won’t be three months before he embraces amnesty for illegals, probably with immediate citizenship. If there is still a Supreme Court vacancy, he’ll appoint a stealth liberal in the name of compromise. (Or pseudo-stealth – someone he and the MSM can label a “moderate”, despite obvious liberal tendencies.)

If the Republicans in Congress balk, he might jump parties.

And yet there is grave danger that he could win the Republican nomination.

So by opposing him vehemently, NRO is selling out to the “GOP establishment”?


Comment from RushBabe
Time: February 18, 2016, 2:47 am

Well, I’ll put in a plug for Instapundit and iOTWreport.com

Insty has some sharp, witty commenters; I Own the World is funny as well as good for those of us with a short attention span who still want to look at popular stories.


Comment from Nina
Time: February 21, 2016, 10:28 am

I haven’t spent much time at HA in a couple of years, because it had really gone downhill, which is sad. I’m a user of the Book of Faces for family stuff, pretty much skip over political things these days, so have no interest in commenting on HA articles there. I don’t think this will work out well for them.

I do read Insty every day, and comment there. My main blog “home” is still the Grouchies, as it has been for many years. I read Twitchy, DC, PJ, and to a lesser extent, Breitbart, but seldom comment.


Comment from OldFert
Time: February 21, 2016, 9:57 pm

HotAir went downhill pretty much after Michelle Malkin left/sold it. Only visit there once in a while.

Thanks to the many who provided good suggestions for sites. Have visited most of them one time or another, and read some regularly.

I started re-checking some places I haven’t been for a while and I’m amazed how many have stopped publishing/updating. Humbug.

My daily go-to sites, though are Stoaty, Lileks (Bleat), Insty, and check Drudge several times a day. Of course (non-news) are shorpy, dave barry, and a host of others.

Good thing I’m retired so I have time to read most of them.


Comment from RosalindJ
Time: March 7, 2016, 1:00 am

Mebbe give maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com a go & see if it resonates.

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