That’s Right Nate

Rather than looking back on the year that was like every other unimaginative twit with a blog who can string together a series of sentences on a computer keyboard, I thought that I would celebrate the coming of 2010 with my list of New Year’s Resolutions.   2009 sucked.   Let’s just get that out there now.  It sucked and it sucked bad.   The economy was terrible, I failed to meet the 20-28 year old attractive conservative woman of my dreams yet again, and last week the Republic was taken over by a socialist congress.  We ended the year with a potential terrorist attack.   Could you imagine the uproar if somebody tried to blow up a plane with their underwear on Bush’s watch?  Part of me really wants to crack down on airport security.  Unfortunately, the strict Constitutionalist in me knows that the Constitution says nothing about airports.  With all that out of the way, here are my resolutions:

1. I will spell check all protest signs I make before tea parties
2. I will stop printing out Sarah Palin tweets and face book postings in a hopeless attempt to learn to find her hidden meanings.
3. I will stop lusting in my heart after anybody named Cheney.
4. After seeing what happened to Rush Limbaugh yesterday, I will lose a pound this year.
5. I will find at least one Obama proposal that I will abstain from criticizing.
6. I will update my Education Blog more often because education is too important to neglect.
7. I will quit calling 911 just because the operator has a sexy voice
8. I will spend at least one night as Karl Rove’s wingman now that he’s back on the market ladies
9. 4 words – C Street Jello Wrestling.   I’ve got to spend a weekend there.
10. I will refrain from using “I’m having an explosion in my underpants” as a pickup line on flight attendants.

Have a wonderful 2010!   I’ll be back tomorrow with my predictions.   People scoffed at me last year when I said Tiger Woods would be busted for a dozen affairs.  No telling what 2010 will bring.

Gentle readers, I thank you for you patience from our usual format as we honor that which is truly special about the world of blogging.  I am proud of my contribution to political discourse in the country.   There were over 50 Natie awards this year in our biggest Natie awards yet.  The vast majority of these awards were for technical things like typography and layout and were awarded in a separate ceremony earlier this afternoon. The remaining two Naties are for video production and for contributor of the year.

Video Production: This year, we’ve been fortunate to air a large number of videos on this blog.   We’ve shown everything from music videos to campaign ads.  No, actually we’ve really only shown music videos and campaign ads.  Here are this year’s nominees for video of the year.   Double clicking on them will give you the video in full size:

Bye Bye Bush – Nate Peele Director

House Salute – Nate Peele Director

Republican Delight – Nate Peele Director

Texas Hold On - Nate Peele Director

Kimble for Congress Ad #2 -Larry Appleton Director

Kimble for Congress Spanish Ad – Larry Appleton Director

And the Winner is…Republican Delight.   When Michael Steele first put the word out for an edgier more urban Republican party, we were on it like Rush Limbaugh at an Old Country Buffet.  The resulting work gets across Republican values with the hip hop beats that keep it real for today’s urban youth.

The Natie for contributor of the year was difficult to award.  2009 was the first year when we have had guest commentators and Jack Kimble certainly has done more than his fair share of contibruting.   Some of our favorite commentators haven’t been around in awhile.  Zenyenta who was our first fan is no longer on the internet, Gina, Fraser, and Wrecks haven’t responded here in awhile.  Shannon has gone away, she’s drifting off to sea.   Steve has moved to Texas and doesn’t post nearly as frequently as he once did.   We’ve had some recent additions to our family in Cecily and Kodauzhf McJim, but neither of them have really had the sheet volume of posts needed to qualify.

We’ve had some tremendous followers on Twitter and I hate to mention them all for fear I’ll forget a few.   That’s the reason I’ve stopped doing Follow Fridays.   However, these people stand out for their support in Retweeting @chloebeetle @Kbenninato @KennethLibby @Dasani_01 @Aliceinthewater @Csmith2471 @Tab42 @Gottalaff.  Yeah, I knew I’d leave off people.  I’m trying to think in terms of retweeting instead of just basic support.

The winner for contributor of the year is Lola.  She’s been with this blog from very early on and she is largely responsible for my popularity in Brazil, which I understand is daunting.  She’s always been great about linking to my columns which she finds particularly interesting.  So there you have it the 2009 Natie winners.   For those of you who didn’t win this year, now you have something to aspire to for 2010.

This LOLCatz is from Jon Swift whose blog is on the blog roll. If you like this blog, check his out.

Thank you for making this such  great 2008 for myself and this blog of mine.  One of the things that has made this blog so much fun for me is my regular core of readers.

Lola – You may be from a third world country like Brazil, but you are a first rate poster.
Steve – Thanks for reading.  May your beloved Cubs continue their regular season success of late.
Gina – Thank you for being such a wonderful missionary and spreading Natism around the web.
Fraser – I enjoy your posts, but I’m also feeling guilty that I keep forget adding you to my blogroll.
The Rotten Little Girls – Any women who still dig being called girls are OK with me.
Beccy Joe – Our only Australian commentator who is one of my few Youtube subscribers.
Zenyenta – Doesn’t post much now, but checks in from time to time and was the first to “discover” this blog.
Shannon – I haven’t seen her around much lately either, but I hope she’s still reading.

I was going to have a little poll to decide which of the regulars should be reader of the year, but the more I thought about it the more I wanted to avoid a popularity contest and the more I realized I had won you all over to my way of thinking anyway so it wasn’t a real contest.  Instead, tonight I would like to look at those posters who actually stood up to me and took me on.  They never won an argument, but they gave it their best shot.

Nominee number one comes from the earliest days of the blog.  Bryson Nitta was an impassioned reader concerned with the environment.  We butted heads over my article Big Cars Will Save Us. His main point was expressed, ” That’s the worst idea, ever. Creating more demand for oil doesn’t mean that we’re going to “take” oil from China and India; it simply means that we’re going to create more demand, and ratchet up prices in the process, making it more expensive and leading us further into recession.” I would say events of recent months have shown there is no relation between oil prices and the recession.

ChineseCanuck was also early on in the blog’s history.  We corresponded by email after the exchange we had in Chinese Diet Starving Rest of the World. She’s a Chinese Canadian and a bit of a foodie. She claimed that most Chinese food in the US isn’t authentic including my favorite restaurant, “There are no Panda Expresses/Panda Inns in Canada, but I’ve checked out their website and the menus don’t look all that authentic to me.”

I was trying to find the next two nominee’s posts to link to, but there are just too many of them. They were both posting many times for a short time (which is why they aren’t considered regulars) and then just as quickly they left. Ah you are both missed.

Brigid posted during the who flap over the Obama flag swearing like a sailor. Her most reasoned comment was, “Also I disagree with the statement that Obama should APOLOGIZE and it’s his fault for making this believable. The truth is, from the beginning you people have been willing to believe anything negative about Obama and anything that is said by the McCain campaign (such as Obama is a terrorist or that he is an Arab). You really think Obama should apologize for your gullibility, stupidity, and willingness to believe anything negative about him? Come on, get real.” The rest just wasn’t clean enough for family reading.

There have been individual posters who passed through with a good comment or two. I was very appreciative of the Indian poster who posted he was going off to skip dinner now after reading my article about India getting fat. A recent post by a Holden Caulfield who attacked me for spelling errors in my posts despite the fact that when I googled him I learned that he was not only a dropout, but proud of it.

We have also had celebrity readers like Mike Taylor and TJ Baker Holm who both ran for congress this year from Texas. Mike was our first endorsement and TJ who always showed a lot of class in our communications promised me a lunch if I was even in Houston. I think I’ll hold her to it.

However, the winner of the Natie for reader of the year is you. You don’t even know that I know you’ve been reading do you. You’re an attractive single Christian evangelical woman with an six figure income who is involved in Republican party politics. You may have seen my picture on my new dust jacket and found yourself strangely drawn to me, but didn’t know what to do. Well, it is New Years Eve and when you want to pick up your award drop me an email at Thatsrightnate@aol.com.

The Natie for music video goes to Maverick McCain. However, all of the nominees can be seen at our Thatsrightnate video channel.  As for the Viewer’s Choice Natie I was going to put up a poll, but that wouldn’t really work.  So use the comments section.  Out of the articles I created what was truly brilliant and what was merely insightful? Post your favorite from 2008 below.

One of the tough things about putting the Natie’s together this year has been the categories.  I have divided the awards into Analysis, Investigative Reporting and Straight Reporting which in no ways implies that any of my other articles are in anyway less than straight.  I will also have a Reader of the Year, Reader’s Choice, and Video award to round out the competition.  Let’s look at the definitions of the first four categories:

Analysis: Helps people to understand important issues
Straight Reporting: This is all about reporting with no personal opinion
Investigative Reporting: The main ingredient here is shoe leather
Journalism: Straight reporting, but I filter it through my opinion kind of like Fox News does.

Tonight’s award is for straight reporting.  Frankly, it is the most boring award to me because there is just less of me in theses stories.  Still, I like to think of myself as Bill O’Reilly meets Geraldo Rivera meets Edward R. Murrow without the Communism and reporting is part of the job.

The nominees are:

1. Bush to India, “Stop Eating So Much.”
2. His Courage was Forged in Hannoi: The John McCain Story
3. You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker
4. McCain Calls for Lower Teacher Standards
5. McCain Gets Tough on Himself Over the Economy
6. Polls Show McCain Dominating Real America

The winner of the award is You’ve Been Left Behind Sucker–the story of a website that allows you to help your unsaved friends and family when the Rapture comes.

Other sources said there was a problem--we had answers.

One of the important jobs of any blog is not only reporting the news, but in giving analysis of what is happening in the world today.  Articles nominated in this category were selected because they had a healthy dose of my personal opinion mixed in with them.   This is a fine line as most of my articles contain some reporting and some opinion.  In this articles the majority was opinion.  I think the world is better education for the effort.

The articles attempt to educate the reader not only to what is happening in the world, but why it is happening.   Picking the very best articles for this one is tough and as you may notice we wound up with 7 nominees instead of 6 as a result.  Sadly, there was only one award.

The nominees are as follows:

• Obama Must Reach Out to Racists
  Chinese Diet Starving Rest of World
  Meeting the Needs of All Students
  We Must Believe All Neighborhoods Can Be Crime Free
  Look Out For The Double Reverse Bradley Effect
  Why We Lost
  The Myth of FDR and the New Deal

The winner goes to Obama Must Reach Out to Racists which explains how Obama could reach out to an important electoral vote. Other media outlets would suggest that Obama had a problem, but I am proud that only Thatsrightnate.com had a solution.

As the end of the year approaches, everybody wants to celebrate excellence. Whether it is Man of the Year contests or Top 10 Movie Lists, it seems that everybody is celebrating excellence in one thing or another.  I intend to do the same thing, except I will be celebrating excellence in me.  The Naties (pronounced Nate-tease) are a recognition of what makes this blog so truly special.  It will serve to highlight old articles and celebrate the truly great from the merely great. The technical Natie awards were given earlier today in a separate ceremony.

The first Natie is going to be the Investigative Natie.  To be eligible for this award, the article in question must be original content from me.  It can either be a report of something I am doing or an investigative piece with an actual interview.  The nominees are:

1. Is McCain Poised for an Illinois Upset?
2. The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play
3. We Have a Book Deal
4. Tom the Bartender on Politics
5. A Tale of Two Employees
6. Obama Hates Puppies

This year’s Natie goes to The Obama Ad that the Networks Won’t Play for its gripping look at the attempts of the mainstream media to supress any voice that is critical of Barrack Obama.