Meghan McCain, daughter of John and frequent blogger, did not comment directly on her father's current sex scandal, but she did write a few words of encouragement to her parents, and bemoan the state of modern politics. She followed that up with 500 pictures of herself. [McCainBlogette.com]

The George Polk awards—described by blogger Will Bunch as the "Golden Globes of American journalism"—were announced early this morning. One of them went to a blogger who blogs! Far out! An army of Davids has stormed the gates! Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo (a blog!!) won the Polk Award for Legal Reporting, for his role in exposing the US Attorneys scandal that eventually brought down Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. On a blog! A blog that follows the rather traditional journalistic model of "hiring" and "paying" "reporters." Brave new world! [E&P via Attytood]

Mitt Romney, my choice for president, "suspended" his campaign today. More disappointing? Dave Winer, who will never, ever let you forget his pioneering role in blogging, will continue to blather on about the election in his Twitter feed for months and months. Dude, we get it. You like Obama.

Let's see, how to get press for Applebee's dreary Middle American cuisine? How about... invite members of the national political press corps to plop their ass down in the restaurant for a week while they talk to REAL Americans, eat Baja Potato Boats, and blog about it? What reporter could resist the combination of boneless buffalo wings and a private booth? Sadly, this is an actual idea that a professional at Rubenstein PR was paid money to come up with. Full pitch to Politico's Ben Smith (who declined the offer) after the jump. [Politico]

Anyone who follows Gawker's coverage of certain blogs on Tumblr could easily assume that the simple blogging tool is like LiveJournal for privileged white 20-somethings, and entirely unworthy of attention. But that's only the part that we, in our mocking masochistic obsession, have focused on, while ignoring the circus of delights that Tumblr can be. In fact, much as I want you to read my whole guide to the best and worst of Tumblr below, I'd rather you just went and read one of the best blogs from Tumblr, The Triumph of Bullshit.

In a desperate bid to strip dangerous "bloggers" of their growing influence, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced this weekend a devious plan to legitimize internet scribblers by employing them in government agencies, thus ensuring that no one will ever take them semi-seriously again. In the attached clip, Hillary suggests the radical new blogger policy as a convenient means of avoiding a question about HOW THE CIA KILLED JOHN KENNEDY. [HuffPo]

"So how can the average eBusiness site duplicate these numbers? Well, aside from pissing off rich religions and carrying celebrity news, there may not be any easy way. Still, blogs can take a shot, and it seems likely that staying up on current events and tossing in references when possible will make any site look a more flexible and modern." [WebProNews, Related, Semi-Related]
(Related?: fewer people saw the new Katie Holmes film than have watched our Tom Cruise clip. To be fair, our clip is shorter and doesn't feature Ted Danson.)

Former Gawker editor Alex Balk is blogging again! No, not really at Radar, where he works, but on his Tumblr. Have you heard of Tumblr? Allow former Gawker editor Doree Shafrir to explain—in the New York Observer, where she works, or on her Tumblr! Turns out blogging's fun when you're not getting paid for it! More good news: Denton has asked our tech wizards to "splice in" Balk's Tumblr, so you can read his drink-soaked classic rock-despising wisdom right here. (Though not at Radar, where you can read Tionna Smalls' East New York Truth.)

This morning is Superbowl Day for the web. The Apple Macworld Keynote starts at 9 Pacific, and already tech blogs like Gawker Media's Gizmodo are clocking pageviews like mad as everyone refreshes for news of Apple's latest announcement (this year the guess is an ultralight Mac laptop). It's a scheduled event with a guaranteed boost; last year Gizmodo and competitor Engadget earned four times their normal visitors (and ten times the pageviews), with Engadget breaking 10 million page views thanks to a boost from AOL. I thought ad money would be rolling in for these promised pageviews, but publisher Nick Denton explains why ad sales don't jump today:

William Krasnansky, 51, is currently divorcing his wife of ten years. He's also "posted what he calls a fictionalized account of the marriage on his blog." What that means is that he's posted excerpts from a terrible "novel" about how his wife is basically a bitch on his livejournal. His livejournal about his adorable pugs. Now a judge has ordered him to stop blogging about his terrible wife, and it could become a major free speech case. A major free speech case about a livejournal called "Look at my Pugs." Krasnansky's post responding to the judge's order—in adorable cartoon letters with backwards letter 's's, as if written by a pug—may be found after the jump.

Andrew Olmstead just updated his blog to announce that he's been killed in Iraq. He seems mostly good-natured about the whole ordeal, unlike suicidal blogger Theresa Duncan. No mournful poems or ghost stories here, just straight talk and, well, a Team America quote. And seven Babylon 5 quotes. Let us forgive the dead their taste. [Andrew Olmsted via Metafilter]

Writer/artist Theresa Duncan, subject of a January Vanity Fair cover story (among plenty of other coverage), is updating her blog from beyond the grave. Cries for help: now available months after they'd be useful. Duncan—whose intentional overdose on pills last July led to the suicide of her partner Jeremy Blake a week later—had become, according to acquaintances and friends interviewed by Vanity Fair, increasingly erratic, paranoid, haggard, hard-drinking, and depressed in her last year or two. She was convinced that Scientologists were harassing her and Blake, trying to sabotage her stalling career (movie and TV projects that never got off the ground, including one that was supposed to star erstwhile friend of the couple and famed Scientologist musician Beck) and his ascending one (a scheduled retrospective of Blake's work at Washington DC's Corcoran Gallery ended up going on posthumously). So: what does a dead woman blog about? Dick Cavett, Sherlock Holmes, and T.S. Eliot.

I'm in Miami right now! Aren't you jealous? Probably not—it's 50 degrees in New York today. Also, there has never been anything more overrated than spending Holidaytime in a sunny, palm-tree infested place. It just feels wrong.

That dude Alan Colmes who is the nominally liberal half of FOX News' duo Hannity and Colmes has what is described as a "secret" blog by the Huffington Post. On it, he posts reader mail, uses his full name, and talks about the show. Ah, we get it, secret like "We didn't know about it so it was a secret!" Also, there's a Bob Dylan video on the blog which we guess means he really is a liberal. [Inside Cable]

PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak's blog proudly displays an image labeled as "used without permission." Is Dvorak bragging about the copyright violation? Nope. He's just pulled a boneheaded move known in the blogging world as "hotlinking," and the altered image shows that he got caught at it.

I'm trying a new management technique this morning! Instead of just writing posts myself every morning, I'm waiting for the staff to file their own items. Crazy, right? Well, it's 9:45 a.m. now. We'll see how this goes! P.S. The weather outside is fairly mild, though NY1 says it's 366 um, just 36F, if you haven't been outside yet. And you have only 13 shopping days until Christmas I think! Update: We have a winner! Emily Gould!

"Ok, so you know how it's pretty typical that a blogger doesn't want to go outside—that they just want to stay indoors and blog all day long? Well when a blogger wants to get outside, they generally want to be able to get out. Unfortunately for me, that is not the case this morning. I AM LOCKED INSIDE MY APARTMENT. Yes, that's right—the door will NOT open, no matter how hard I try." This blog post, and its subsequent 8 updates, did not actually result in this blogger being freed from her apartment sooner than she otherwise would've been. [The Modern Age]

Let's get this straight: We were wrong to say that Xu Jinglei, the Chinese actress touted by Web portal Sina as the world's most-read blogger, is the world's most-read blogger. She is decidedly not. She is, at best, the most-read blogger on sina's blogging service, according to a self-serving study by analysts employed by Sina produced for publicity and picked up by a lazy, unquestioning wire service. Here's more on her supposedly impressive stats.

The most widely-read blogger on the internet, according to Chinese Web portal Sina, is a Chinese actress who has received 100 million pageviews in 18 months. [MSNBC]

Attention bloggers: George Bush wants you to squeal on your sources. [CNET]