Yesterday was a red letter day for the House as Glenn Reynolds, Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, and Michelle Malkin linked to my humble site in the space of a little more than 24 hours.

Can I wake up now? Don’t pinch too hard, I have very sensitive skin.

Okay…Okay…enough horn tooting. Although, it kind of makes me wonder why it took me so long to get off blogger and on to a hosted site with a decent looking blog. My eternal thanks to Kim at E-Webscapes for all her incredibly hard work as well as her creative talent that makes this site almost universally praised for its layout and look.

Some quick hits and links for your bloggy enjoyment:

John Henke and the guys at Q & O have a new E-Zine you’ve definitely got to subscribe to. It’s called “The New Libertarian: A Journal of Neolibertarian Thought,” (PDF required). Sign up is free.

The rest of this post is dedicated to my buddies on our ever growing group blog “The Wide Awakes.”

TWA came about because several of my fellow righty bloggers were getting slammed by some of the meanest, nastiest lefty trolls around. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that by banding together (and using the Yahoo message board to stay in close contact) we could “ride to the rescue” of each other and flood the site being attacked with positive, supportive, comments. In addition, the site itself gives us all good exposure for our ideas and our writing.

The name “Wide Awakes” comes from the campaign of 1860 where “leather lunged Lincoln men” staged midnight torchlight parades all across the small towns and villages of the middle west in support of Lincoln’s candidacy. Because the parades occurred at such a late hour, they called themselves “The Wide Awakes.” The header art on the site is the actual logo used by the group.

Below are just a few examples from the group of excellent writers and defenders for The Wide Awakes:

Happy Blogiversery to Crystal! A licensed family counselor (and cute as a button), Crystal has a passion and insight into people you rarely find.

Just don’t get on her bad side (You should see how she dismanlted Michael Schiavo!)

TWA founder and mother superior is Cao of Cao’s blog. In this post, she rails against Google for dropping The Jawas for what they consider hate speech.

Cao also has some of the best background on Islamic fundamentalism around.

Feel like a little cat blogging? No place better to go than Romeocat’s Cathouse Chat. More seriously, she has a great update on what people are saying about the Schiavo case.

Another founding member is Beth of My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. And since this is Wednesday, Beth is channeling the cutest little piece of trailer trash in these here parts, Beulah Mae for “White Trash Wednesday.”

Raven at “And Rightly So” is a medical professional whose insights on what Terri is going through have been both informative and agonizing to read. Today, she rails against Kofi and Kojo for the crooks they are.

Our resident Mad Tech has a few words of wisdom for liberals on gun control…not that they’ll listen. Anyone who’s tried to argue with a liberal on gun control knows the feeling of talking to someone from a different planet. Mad Tech explains why.

Two of our more productive attack dogs at The Wide Awakes are Jay and Kender. Like knights of old, they ride to the rescue of the pure of heart who have fallen under attack by the forces of darkness and evil.

ATTENTION MOONBATS: DO NOT FEED KENDER OR JAY. THEY WILL START BY BITING YOUR HAND AND WON’T STOP UNTIL YOUR HEAD IS HANDED TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER!

Consider yourselves warned.

TWA has recently added two fantastic writers. Van Helsing of Moonbattery (Love the name, love the site!) discovers more Ward Churchills in academia. If you haven’t visited Moonbattery before be prepared to enjoy some of the best writing on the web this side of…well, ahem…modesty forbids me from saying anything more.

And Eric at Vince Aut Morire has a laugh out loud piece on an article in the Jerusalem Post that quotes a Muslim “scholar” who predicts the US will be destroyed in 2007. (I am going to have to ask Eric about the origins of the unique moniker for his blog. Great header art too!)

These are my bloggy buddies in whom I am both well pleased and eternally grateful. Check out The Wide Awakes and blogroll these sites. You can’t do better anywhere .