When I put out on Twitter yesterday that I was back to blogging, a colleague asked if people even did that any more. I replied that what I was doing was more like long-form Tweeting, you know, the modern internet's Esquire in the 60s. I cannot actually promise you bloggy (Tweety?) versions "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" or "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" or even color photographs, but I do hope you'll bear with me as I figure out again for the first time the limits and possibilities the form. The tubes have changed since 2006 – the last time I blogged full-time – and what works now might not be worked then.
I do suspect that some things never change: you can count on the popularity of posts about cats and libertarians, and shorter is better (short long-form journalism being akin to my preference for small big government). So let's start the morning with some sure-fire hits, a shotgun blast of stuff that's caught my eye in the past 24.
• Combining meaningless straw poll results with the political rumor of the day will result in sentences such as this: "Herman Cain's success shows that people want an outsider." You have been warned.
• Esquire mocks the candidates' ties. It looks like Perry is ketchup and Huntsman is mustard; I think that makes Romney mayonnaise. They all might consider a lesson or two in true conservative style.
• At his Linked In town hall, Obama had the good taste to be appalled by the GOP audience booing gay soldiers/death; also in good taste: praise for Austin, the only part of Texas Perry is not the governor of.
• The Star Wars saga is the most popular series ever to be about tax policy. Also, kittens.
• Commenters! I will be around later today, in the threads, commenting.
