When a new Republican/conservative website launches which effectively pulls energy from its mainstream parent, I usually hope it goes away quickly without an impact.

In fact, when two recent sites launched, QubeTV and Conservapedia, I had this to say:

QubeTV represents a conservative “walled garden” approach to online video distribution and community. Essentially, this means that conservative energy and content which would have been used in the war against bias and in the viral exchange of ideas will no longer be a part of the discussion. Conservapedia - an alternative to Wikipedia - is a similar walled garden.

The owners of those sites likely disagree with me. And I know my friend Robert Bluey does. So be it. Disagreement and discussion are what blogs and opinions are for.

Given my disdain for copycat sites, I'm going to eat a slice of humble pie and urge your participation in a new site, similar to one of my favorites, digg, which allows its users to submit news stories and then let the community vote on the value of the submission.

The site is called GOP Hub and it's worth a click. (More after the jump.)

The site is owned by Jonathan Cornwell of Huntsville, Alabama.

In an email interview, Jonathan answers the "about you" question with this interesting story:

There were actually rather interesting events surrounding my birth. First the doctor, after running a series of tests, decided that I was going to be born with a plethora of handicaps and mental retardation, and strongly leaned on my parents to have me aborted (or murdered, if you prefer). He even required that they sign a waiver releasing him of any responsibility of complications that he was certain would arise from my birth. My parents believed that abortion was murder, so they rightfully decided to pray about it, leave my life in God's hands, and allow me to be born. Upon birth I was completely healthy, with no signs of the problems the doctor reported. Call it a miracle or call it a mistake on the doctor's part, but I'm glad my parents didn't believe in abortion. Given that situation, it is pretty clear why I am pro-life.

Fast-forwarding a little, I was home-schooled from first grade until 10th grade, skipping a couple of grades in the process. At 14 and in the 10th grade, I enrolled at a local community college, where I took most of my junior and senior high school classes (chemistry, physics, etc). At 16 I graduated from High School with a 4.0 GPA and with two years of college under my belt. Two years later, at 18, I graduated with a four-year degree in computer science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. This is quite a contrast from what the doctor predicted.

Asked about why he launched GOP Hub, Jonathan writes:

Given my interest in computer science, I loved Digg, and used it faithfully for a couple of years. However, I quickly realized that liberal users (or perhaps the Digg staff, I'm not sure) were doing their best to suppress any and all conservative content that they could. I understand burying stories that are just bizarre, or hateful, but they were burying conservative stories that were well-thought-out and brought great information to the political debate.

However, as liberals have often shown, they were not interested in a fair debate, they wanted to control the flow of information altogether.

Because of this, I have decided to start a conservative Digg alternative called GOP Hub. I want it to be a safe haven for republicans to meet and take part in a community driven social news and networking site, specifically for conservatives.

Also, I hope that it can be used to help us identify what fronts we can be unified on, and take part in civil discussion and debate on the issues that are important within the party.

As the 2008 election approaches and as the Republican nominee is selected, I want GOP Hub to be a synergy of conservative activity, to help us unite and effectively take the 2008 election by storm!

Jonathan is clearly ambitious for the future and longevity of his site. I appreciate that vigor. And frankly, our side needs more of it.

So today I'm urging you to check out GOP Hub and start submitting your finds to it.

However, that does not mean we should pack up our boxes and move from digg. In fact, every single TechRepublican story will continue to have a digg badge which I hope you'll start using more often.

But here @ TechRepublican we are going to make room for one more badge. And I hope you'll use that one too.