Pete Hoekstra tweets his own demise

Pax Arcana

Despite a massive uptick in users over the past few months, Twitter has done very little to enhance our ability to make fun of retarded politicians from flyover states.

That all changed yesterday, when Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) used the digital communications tool to spell out for the world what a tool he is when it comes to digital communications:

Iranian twitter activity similar to what we did in House last year when Republicans were shut down in the House.

When a politician says something that stupid in front of a live audience, the gaffe generally dies quietly. When he says it in front of a camera, it becomes a soundbyte for the next 24 hours.

When he posts it to Twitter, it inspires a glorious revolution of snark and hilarity. Witness the carnage:

lunayapravda @petehoekstra My mp3 player froze this morning and wouldn’t reboot.  Now I know what the Germans felt like invading Russia in winter.

rebeccarose2004 @petehoekstra  Climbed up in my attic this morning to put away a box.  I think I’m going to publish diary of ordeal, just like Anne Frank.

ImagistTD @petehoekstra I stubbed my toe this morning.  Now I know what it feels like to have your leg amputated.

LawrenceH @petehoekstra I just sent you a twitter reply which is similar to Tolstoy writing War and Peace.

will_watson @petehoekstra: One time, I waded a few steps into the ocean and ran back real fast. Now I know what it was like to storm Normandy.

paganmist @petehoekstra Had to move all my stuff to a new office w/o a corner view. Now i know what the Trail of Tears was like

brianicoleman @petehoekstra  i had to reach into the oven to get my pizza out for lunch.  now i know what the holocaust must have been like.

RevCyn @petehoekstra – When I got to McDonald’s I found my coupon for fries had expired.  It was like the great Irish potato famine.

TahirDuckett “@petehoekstra ran through sprinklers this morning, claimed solidarity w/victims of Hurricane Katrina

stryder619 @petehoekstra I sat in a meeting as work today. Reminded me of Slavery

blanket Hey @petehoekstra The neighbor kid threw his frisbee at my window. It felt like 9/11 all over again.

darathedamned petehoekstra I was out of pomegranate yogurt this morning. Now I know how Donner party felt

jamestimmer @petehoekstra I saw two spiders in the shower this morning. I felt like I was at the Alamo.

They don’t even have to make sense to be funny! Hahaha moron learn the innernet.

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Pax Arcana

Just a reminder that despite our elitist commentariat’s loathing for anything that other people like, you can now follow Pax Arcana on Twitter.

Just go to twitter.com/paxarcana and click “Follow.” Then sit back and rub your belly, big fella. You’ve done a lot with your day.

There will be cake and refreshments afterward.

I will deposit my twits in your eye-holes

Pax Arcana

Last month I asked my Hungarian manservant to explain why the entire world was aflutter over something called “Twitter.” Unfortunately the English lessons I am paying so dearly for have not yet taken purchase, because his answer was an unintelligible jumble of fake words like tweet, tweeple, tweetard, twike, twode, and twouche.

Really, he sounded like a retard.

Anyway, after consulting the roughly 700,000 mainstream media stories on the so-called Twitter boom, I have decided to dump my own twits into the twitterscape. For the latest microthoughts on whatever threats drift through the greater Pax Arcana transom, simply click the “Pax on Twitter” link on the widget to the right, or go to twitter.com/paxarcana.

You shall be rewarded for your loyalty.

Social networking sites invade Maine

Father Scott

You may not be aware of this, but change is not Maine’s middle name (I think it’s actually the Indian word for moose crap, but that may be wrong too). So you might be surprised to find that this whole Facebook/Twitter/blogging generation is just now making its way into my fine homeland.

Former newspaper staffmate and Facebook friend of the Padre Mindy Favreau has an interesting piece about how HR professionals are beginning to use these technologies.

In Maine, HR professionals are just starting to warm up to this new technology. David Pease, senior vice president of human resources at Androscoggin Bank in Lewiston, was recently elected director of the SHRM Maine State council, and has been pushing social media to the state’s HR professionals as a way to keep people connected. He created a discussion group on LinkedIn called Maine HR Council, and he has noticed an uptick in the number of people he sees linking up with him online; so far the group has attracted 68 people in less than two months. He also started a blog called MaineHR, and made his first and only post on Dec. 6. So far, no one has made any comments on it. “[Using social media is] beginning to become more prevalent,” he says. “But it’s slow going.”

As Mindy’s subjects note, it’s about finding value in these sites — being on them in and of itself does not make you useful in anyway. And perhaps this slow-going way has some merit. For instance, maybe if I spent less than six hours a day looking at my Reader and clicking on links in Facebook to see what my friends were writing, I’d get some work done. It’s a good thing 68,000 people didn’t get laid off today, or maybe I’d have something to worry about.

You wouldn’t Twitter either if you had this view