Updated 3/14/08: Nope…the problem’s back. Further research shows that this screen is a common 403 error screen on Drupal, an open source developer famous for creating Digg clones. Hmmm….
Updated 3/13/08: Looks like the problem’s been corrected.
Previously on FHK and on the 1389blog, we have discussed at length that companies that allow public internet access use filterware, which has, at times, exercised odd behavior in choosing which sites to block. At that time, we knew Panera Bread was using SonicWALL.
Today, I’m on the road, however, and stopped at Panera to catch up on my blogging I tried to Digg a story for a friend and got a screen I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look like the old familiar SonicWALL censhorship page, and a check of SonicWALL shows that it has Digg.com rated as “News and Media [and] Information Technology/Computers“. Instead. Instead, the screen looked like this: Continue reading →
Previously on FHK and on the 1389blog, we have discussed at length that companies that allow public internet access use filterware, which has, at times, exercised odd behavior in choosing which sites to block. At that time, we knew Panera Bread was using SonicWALL.
Today, I’m on the road, however, and stopped at Panera to catch up on my blogging I tried to Digg a story for a friend and got a screen I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t look like the old familiar SonicWALL censhorship page, and a check of SonicWALL shows that it has Digg.com rated as “News and Media [and] Information Technology/Computers“. Instead. Instead, the screen looked like this:
Has anyone else had that experience? Is it possible that Digg.com has actually become too politically-correct for public viewing?
Apparently, Americans a few decades ago didn’t feel that getting our soldiers killed was part of their First Amendment rights. My, how things have changed, in our “progressive,” “liberated,” “internationalist” society today.
Mixx is being touted as the alternative to Digg. Of course there are literally millions (give or take) of new social networking sites wanting to be the next Digg, but Mixx is actually pretty good. It’s user-friendly, and thus far seems to have avoided the whole “bury brigade” fiasco. Also, Mixx has taken steps to interact with other social networking programs…very Web 2.0!
Now you don’t have to leave Facebook to submit, comment on and share content from around the web, and you can share with your Facebook and your Mixx Friends at the same time. And by setting your Facebook Interests you’ll get the stuff you want delivered right to your profile page.
It’s easy to link your existing Mixx account to your Facebook account or to create a Mixx account and, once you do, voila! It’s a MiniMixx! You’ll be able to:
See your contacts, your faves, even your Mixx profile
Find out what’s popular on Mixx: video, stories, photos and tags
See which of your Facebook friends is also a Mixxer
Invite Facebook friends to join Mixx
Find out if any of your Mixx Groups have crossed over
Take the shortcut to a Facebook version of the MixxLounge and see the Mixxers who are also on Facebook and the number of Karma points they have
And it’s also easy to add content to your Facebook profile page.
If you already have Mixx and Facebook ID’s, the interface is simple. Go to Mixx on Facebook, and follow the directions.
Also, if you’re using the Web Presence application on your Facebook profile, don’t forget to add your Mixx ID to your list of sites.
Shortly after FHK launched we began searching for ways to increase our rankings on the search engines. The prevailing wisdom was that one good way to do this is to maintain a blogroll (that’s the ridiculously long list of blogs in the sidebar of many blogs), as it is a good way for bloggers to exchange much needed “links,” increase their link count, and move up in the ratings.
There were a few “monster” blogrolls that everyone was trying to get on, and I had one particular one in mind. I e-mailed, and begged and pleaded, and finally, the administrator of the blogroll heard my cries and added Ft. Hard Knox to his blogroll. I was so excited, because I was sure my ratings would double over night. Afterall, Ft. Hard Knox had just been added to every major blogroll in the conservative blogosphere! So I watched Technorati…and watched…lost some sleep watching that night…and guess what?! I didn’t get one single link on Technorati as a result of being added to that HUGE blogroll.
To make matters worse, my link count on Technorati actually started dropping over the next few weeks.
Something had to be wrong…I checked around, and sure enough, the blogroll administrator had done everything correctly. We were there – on all of these blogrolls, but the links weren’t being counted on Technorati. The blogroll administrator was using the popular blogroll service, Blogrolling, which is also the one we were using.
So I began researching. To my disappointment, I learned that blogroll links contained within javascript are no longer counted on Technorati, and neither are any links over six months old. So, no only were we not getting additional links from being added to the blogroll, but links from the bloggers I’d convinced to trade links with us six months ago were dropping off.
What to do?
Fortunately, we use WordPress for our blog, and I’ve checked, and the links from the WordPress blogrolls ARE still counting on Technorati (the other search engines like Google are harder to gauge, because they are not up-front about how their calculations are performed).
If you have a bunch of blogrolls on Blogrolling, you can simply use the OPML code from those blogrolls to import your links to WordPress.
That’s easier than it sounds.
Log in to Blogrolling
Click “Get Code” under the blogroll you want to import to WordPress
Scroll down to “OPML” and click “Click to select the code”
Log in to your WordPress blog, and go to the Dashboard
Mouseover “Blogroll,” then click “Import Links” on the drop-down menu
Under “Specify an OPML URL:” paste the OPML code you just copied from Blogrolling
Click on the “Import OPML File” button
That’s it…the links will appear on your blogroll. If you’re consolidating more than one Blogrolling blogroll, you may now need to weed through you WordPress blogroll and delete the duplicates. Within a day or two, your links will be showing on your blog friends’ link counts on Technorati.
Now, all you have to do is convince your friends to reciprocate the favor. Again. Good luck.
Meanwhile, Sen. Obama himself is reiterating his offer to meet with Hugo Chavez, the next-generation heir to the Che tradition of violent socialist thuggery:
Obama, in a question-and-answer with supporters, said the U.S. had neglected Latin America under George W. Bush and he said he would meet Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
He said Chavez was consolidating power, had “despotic tendencies” and was using oil money to fan anti-Americanism, “but it is not enough to say `I oppose (Cuba’s Fidel) Castro and I oppose Chavez and that’s the end of it.”
He said Latin America will no longer be a junior partner in its relationship with Washington, and he will travel the region to talk to leaders about human rights, political prisoners in Cuba and hemispheric trade ties.
19 years after the end of the Cold War, Obama is still playing reruns from the 1970s. But then, everything about his campaign is a rerun from the 1970s.
Click here or on the image below to watch the video:
UPDATE: Here’s video of the press conference immediately prior to the arraignment on Monday, thanks to OkieCampaigns.
What initiative?
Any initiative that citizens want to put on the ballots in their states. This process is not allowed in some states, and where it is allowed, it requires numerous requirements of signatures, notaries, red-tape, residency requirements, filing fees, procedures, red-tape, etc., etc., etc., making very difficult, indeed for a citizen to petition his own government.
Paul Jacob, Susan Johnson, and Rick Carpenter (the “Oklahoma 3″) are citizen activists who found out the process can be even more costly if you happen to cross the Attorney General in Oklahoma (Drew Edmondson). They are now facing the possibility of up to ten years in prison and a large fine, because of a dispute over whether or not they, as signature-gatherers, met the six-month residency requirement in Oklahoma prior to collecting signatures on a petition in the state (Hint: They DID meet the requirements as they are normally interpreted, but the attorney general is now trying to retroactively re-interpret the residency requirements to state that petition signature gathers must declare permanent residency in addition to living in the state for six months prior to collecting signatures on a petition.)
Paul Jacob, one of the three is determined not to let this situation become a deterrent to citizens who want to start initiatives in the future. I spoke to him on Monday, right after his arraignment, and he explained that the process is costly and intimidating enough without throwing in the added element of “fear” of retaliation by local government officials toward the initiative creators, their supporters, their volunteers, and sometimes even their donors. He and his attorneys believe the legal process on his case will be approximately one year, and during that year, he’s going to be on the “Save the Initiative Blog Tour.”
More information about that will be posted here as it becomes available. Meanwhile, here is some additional information about this case:
Let’s say you’re attending a meeting of your state legislature, and when it is time to give the opening prayer, a Muslim takes his turn at the lectern. You politely bow your head, and he prays for about four minutes, part of which is in Arabic, and part of which is in English. Since you don’t speak Arabic, this is the part you manage to understand (hat-tip straightarrow, and 1389):
I seek refuge in God against the accursed Satan in the name of God, most gracious, most merciful…master of the day of judgment…[give us] victory over those who disbelieve.
As we begin this new year…in a world with trials and tribulations, we ask you to open the hearts of our legislators and policy makers to make the right decisions….We ask that you guide our legislators and give them the wisdom and knowledge to tackle the difficult problems that face us today in order to eliminate the senseless crimes on humanity. Help them, Lord, to solve the complicated problems…so that we can be a model to the world.
Are you ready to say, “Amen,” and shout “Hallelujah”? Or do you feel like you’ve been slapped in the face as an American? This happened in Des Moines, Iowa, and some of the legislators there did, indeed find this prayer inappropriate.
Yesterday, in Tulsa, Oklahoma City Counselors voted to move from a “generic” prayer format to allowing prayers to be in the name of any organized religion. There were two dissenting votes, one from Councilor Jack Henderson, who warned:
What you are doing is opening a Pandora’s box and you might not like what you see.
Tulsa Metropolitan Ministry Executive Director James Mishler echoed the sentiment:
I think the very people who have been encouraging you to make this change are going to be very uncomfortable when the priest from the Hindu temple is standing here chanting in the name of Krishna or when someone from the Wiccan community offers prayers to the earth mother.
Like, perhaps when a Muslim prays for God to deliver him from the infidels in the United States during his opening prayer? Think that’ll make some folks uncomfortable?
The Hindu part of Mischler’s prophecy is already happening, in five states:
Rajan Zed, prominent Hindu chaplain and Indo-American leader, will recite these history making prayers in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Washington and Arizona, which will reportedly be the first Hindu prayers of these Senates since their formation.
Zed, who lives in Reno (Nevada), will deliver these prayers from ancient Hindu scriptures at Senate halls in State Capitols in Santa Fe (January 28), Denver (January 29), Salt Lake City (February 13), Olympia (February 22), and Phoenix (March 24). After first reciting in Sanskrit, he will then read the English translation of the prayer.
This has also been ruled into law in some places for the wiccans:
Judges have ruled that witches must be allowed to lead prayers at local government meetings, and that Wiccan convicts must be provided with requested “sacred objects” so they can perform spells in their cells. Witches in the armed services have even formed covens and routinely “worship” on U.S. military bases.
Over the past few years, due to unrelenting lawsuits by the ACLU (like this one in Indiana) over Christian prayers at government meetings, the trend has been to use non-sectarian “prayers,” sometimes called “invocations.” It will be interesting, now that the tide is turning back to allowing various religions to pray to their own gods during this time, to see if the ACLU will as vehemntly fight the Hindus, the Muslims, the Wiccans, etc., and if the Christians (who, by the way, are STILL the overwhelming majority of the United States) will now be allowed to pray to their Father in the name of Jesus Christ without fear of being sued…?
One of my childhood preachers used to shout, “Say, ‘Amen!’ or ‘Oh, My!’”
Now you don’t have to leave Facebook to submit, comment on and share content from around the web, and you can share with your Facebook and your Mixx Friends at the same time. And by setting your Facebook Interests you’ll get the stuff you want delivered right to your profile page. 
Shortly after 
What initiative?
