Category Archives: Blogosphere

CBS News blogger link

Posted on January 31, 2007 | Comments Off on CBS News blogger link

I never heard of Melissa P. McNamara, a blogger for CBS News, until this morning when she posted a comment to this item from last week saying she was linking to it–scroll to the bottom of her blog to find her post on it. Appreciated, of course, but wish she hadn’t indicated this was a liberal blog. I suppose it is in some ways, on some issues, such as gays. It certainly is not intended to be, otherwise. So I expect that anybody who follows her link thinking so is likely to be disappointed.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles

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Spam-a-rama

Posted on January 21, 2007 | Comments Off on Spam-a-rama

Comment and trackback and email spam is really getting out of hand. It’s becoming a fulltime job just to delete all the comment and trackback garbage I get on this site. Other bloggers have been complaining about it, too, lately, and we’re not alone.

"There are 62 billion spam messages sent every day, IronPort says, up from 31 billion last year. Now, spam accounts for three of every four e-mails sent, according to another anti-spam firm, MessageLabs. Image spam is a big part of the resurgence of unwanted e-mail. By using pictures instead of words in their messages, spammers are able to evade filters designed to detect traditional text-based ads."

Image spam I have been spared so far. Stock-promotion email spam I’m used to, also pharmaceuticals promotions in comment and trackback spam. Movable Type catches a lot of it, but some slips through. But lately I’ve been getting email spam disguised as news, with a current events subject line, and an exe attachment. It’s a chore to clear it all out.

Link via Slashdot

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Posted in Blogosphere, Scribbles, Site building

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Site building

Posted on January 19, 2007 | Comments Off on Site building

Sometimes you have to ignore all the wrappings and ribbon and just get on with it, especially after changing your template, like Just Muttering By Myself has done:

"I upgraded my template. I’m not happy with this but at least I’m not feeling as utterly stupid as I did over the weekend. I’m almost ready to think about writing about something interesting instead of about blogging."

Now if she’ll just get Haloscan comments so I can add my two cents. I never could deal with Blogger comments. For some reason Blogger-Google won’t let me register. Annoying.

UPDATE  With a little inspiration from Just Muttering By Myself, I finally got registered at Blogger-Google, so I can use their comments now. Created a TexasScribblerBackup there, to facilitate the comments usage elsewhere, but don’t expect to be using it. Unless MT craters.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Site building

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Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

Posted on January 15, 2007 | Comments Off on Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929-1968

When I was fourteen, in 1958, my father and I rode a train to Mississippi and stopped at a depot near the little county seat where he grew up. I can still hear him shouting at the elderly black porter as we got down: "Boy! Boy!" And I still see the old man shuffling towards us to carry our bags. Today, practically every public office in that town is held by a black person. Courtesy and a lot more besides also has changed since Dr. King said these words the day before he was assassinated:

"Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

Via Power Line 

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Water intoxication

Posted on January 15, 2007 | Comments Off on Water intoxication

A young mother in California is dead from water intoxication in a radio station’s competition trying to win a Nintendo Wii video game system for her children. This caught my eye because I’m back on the induction phase of the Atkins diet, which means drinking about 80 ounces of water a day. The difference is I take time to urinate and that was exactly what the competition specified you could not do, while drinking quarts of water. Somebody’s going to be sued, according to the science blog Respectful Insolence:

"Allthough I do not discount individual responsibility, most people are ignorant of how little it can take to cause water intoxication. It is not stated whether (1) contestants were warned that they could die from drinking too much water too fast or (2) qualified medical personnel were present to monitor the contest. In addition, it doesn’t say whether the radio station had vetted its idea with a physician. I doubt that it did, because any competent physician would have told the organizers that this contest was a very bad idea and dangerous, to boot."

Some doctors also think the Atkins diet is dangerous, but I have not found it so. YMMV.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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View from Somalia

Posted on January 9, 2007 | Comments Off on View from Somalia

A timely interview on events in Somalia at altmuslim.com, Austin’s moderate Muslim digital magzine:

"Somalis, by nature, are very suspicious of foreign powers, especially those with a theological bent on ruling the country. Even though groups in Saudi Arabia were successful in funding and arming most of this [Islamic Courts] movement, they really did not succeed in convincing the Somali people to join their movement. As soon as they were defeated, music blasted in every radio station in Mogadishu and women again wore their traditional Somali dresses."

Worth a read. Unless you prefer your details from the Sunni News Service, otherwise called the BBC.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Texana, The War

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Keith Ellison’s little snickup

Posted on January 8, 2007 | Comments Off on Keith Ellison’s little snickup

"Snickup," is what Mr. Boy liked to say before he figured out people were saying "screwup."

Minnesota Muslim congressman Keith Ellison’s use of Thomas Jefferson’s two-volume copy of the Koran to take his oath of office was a pretty slick idea, until you consider that Mr. E. probably didn’t take the time to turn a few of its pages and read what was written there. If he had, according to the Austin-based community Web site Altmuslim.com, he would have discovered that the translator, George Sale, "calls the Prophet Muhammad a ‘criminal… imposing a false religion.’" Oops.

UPDATE  More on this little gem at Elder of Ziyon, which I didn’t see until two days after this post.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Mr. Boy, The War

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