Last updated on 2011.06.20
Poor Gordon Howie. He has to auction off half of his ranch this month to pay off the taxes he dodged. (Ah! That must be why DWC got its conservative undies in a bunch when I mentioned that paying taxes is patriotic.)
Now the former state senator is taking up a lot of online real estate in an effort to create an echo chamber for his own failing worldview. Not satisfied with his RightSideSD blog (which too often copies and pastes in toto national posts instead of generating original content with a distinct South Dakota perspective), Howie has manufactured a full half-dozen websites to flog his pet peeves, create the appearance of a community, and, most importantly and offensively, falsely pump up his Google juice with his own hyperlinks
A sampling of the echo chamber content: On News in Faith, Howie declines to celebrate Osama bin Laden's death because abortion doctors are America's real enemy. (Yes, Gordon, please do twist an American victory for your political rhetorical purposes... and are you implying we should give doctors the same treatment we gave bin Laden?). Howie then crosslinks the article across his little media empire, flogging the post on LessGovSD, SDHeroes, and RightSideSD.
The only redeeming part of Howie's offensive bin Laden/abortion rant: seeing him whimper that Governor Dennis Daugaard, Senator John Thune, and Intern Kristi Noem "didn't bother to respond" to his "Festival of Life." (But don't cry for Gordon: his parade will feature Alan Keyes, Elizabeth Kraus, Don Kopp, Mike Verchio, and Patricia Stricherz. As Uncle Jimmo would say, all stars all stars all.)
Notice also the failure of branding: too many of the blogroll names don't align with the URLs. Even when he links to other blogs, he doesn't do them the favor of listing them by their brand name. The doutable Dakota Voice becomes "Truth & Commentary," and An Uncivil War loses its brand to the generic "Pro-Life News." (That title is also inaccurate, as the author, Cherry Bieber, doesn't provide "news" but emotional recyclings of other blog posts and Bible verses.)
Now I guess I've included a couple of my other blogs in my posted blogroll over, but I've never taken up the majority of those slots. But my own projects have never made up anything close to the majority of links in my blogrolls. Blogrolls generally exist to establish connections among blogs show people things a blogger reads, not other things the blogger himself writes or owns or wants to derive ad revenue from.
No blog exists alone. Making up a whole bunch of your own blogs to reflect your own views doesn't count. Gordon Howie's online presence shows a strong desire to magnify no truth but the sound of his own voice... and maybe his online ad revenue.
Update 2011.06.20: Gordon Howie adds the war on public education to his fake blogroll. He has also opened EdBasic.com to propagandize against teachers and in favor of bullying.