Category: Web 2.0

Charles Johnson does BloggingHeads.tv

I am presenting this video, because quite frankly, I feel that in some, not all, instances Charles Johnson has gotten a bad rap on the right, especially by those who are to the right of me.

Here are the things that I did NOT agree with at all or did not like in the video:

  1. The accusation that Robert Stacy McCain is a Racist Bigot; that is, I am afraid, utter nonsense. If I thought that Mr. McCain was even slightly like that, I would never, ever link to his Blog.
  2. Conn Carroll’s idiotic eye rolling and childish facial gestures in the video, if you do not agree with someone, just say so and move the hell on, do not act like a child. Further, his badgering of Charles on his position on Abortion, which is a classical libertarian position, that it should be a state issue was idiotic, classless, and lame; shame on Conn for this.

Here are the things that I do agree with:

  1. Global Warming: I agree that it is not a hoax, however, like Charles; I believe that it has been terribly politicized to the point that even the scientific data has possibly even been altered.
  2. On the racist imagery at the Tea party protests. Yes, I saw the watch doctor signs and yes, I thought they were highly offensive to me too. Yes, I know what the left did to Bush; does that justify that sort of nonsense? No. It does not. Charles does make a point to say that he does not think everyone at the Protests were racists. I give him that.
  3. I give Charles mad damned props for saying on that video, what I have said on this blog for a while now. The damned Birther controversy is steeped in outright racism. I was one of the first blogs on the right that reported that much of the misinformation that was being passed around about Obama’s citizenship was taken straight from the Anti-Semitic and racist website Stormfront dot org.
  4. Charles Johnson did admit that he was a socially a liberal. Glad he came out and admitted it.
  5. I give props to Charles for admitting that he did not have the information on items thrown at him, this showed that he is not a blowhard, as he is portrayed on the right by some. I believe that stems from his banning of people on his site; which I personal believe he has a right to do.

The thing or things that I agree half, and half disagree with Johnson:

  1. His Paranoia of the Religious Right is obvious. I believe his fears are a bit unfounded. I do not believe that the Religious Right is as big of a threat as Johnson might believe. However, I do agree with his assessment that Religion and politics, just do not mix. I have believed that for years. This is what brought us Ronald Reagan and brought us the disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush.
  2. Another point that I, in a way, agree with Johnson on is the John Birch Society. First, his accusation of the John Birch Society being a racist origination in a monolithic sense is just very ridiculous. However, it is fair to point out, that there were those in the early days of the John Birch Society that were involved in those sorts of affairs. What Johnson does not know, or is not telling; is that the John Birch Society purged itself of those sorts of people back at some point in its history. Further more, Johnson points to William F. Buckley’s basic sidelining of the JBS. The criticism of the John Birch Society, regardless of what you might read or may have heard, boils down to this — The John Birch Society was an non- interventionist group and was, and still is an anti-United Nations Council group. William F. Buckley worked at the United Nations at one point in his career, and he rejected the notion of total non- interventionism; thus the rub between the two parties. As for Johnson’s accusation of conspiracy theories, Johnson either is misinformed or is being purposefully deceitful; but more than likely, he gets his information from leftist sources. The JBS has done more to dismiss these sorts of nonsensical theories, than anyone else has. I know this from reading their site. For what it is worth; I am not, nor have I ever been a member of the JBS. I just actually read their site, instead of making silly assumptions.

There you have it, my take on the video… here’s the video and if you want to give me any crap for posting, feel free, but let me warn you. You start acting like a troll. I do not care who you are. I will kick your sorry butt to the curb, just as I do the rest of the trolls around here.

Here is the video:

Updated

Earlier today, I received the following comment on YouTube:

YouTube
ScotSNP has made a comment on My response to Bernie Sanders:

Dude, you are seriously ill. Get some help mate, and shave that fucking jihad beard.

Here is my response that I left on YouTube:

Merry Christmas to all.

Update: Just an FYI… I went and checked out the guys account who left the racist comment; he is in the U.K….. Go Figure.

WordPress 2.9 has dropped

If you run WordPress, you should upgrade. Lots of bug fixes and nice little additions to the greatest blog software on the planet.

I want to make you mine, all the time… oh wait. Hello. I’m here on behalf of the entire WordPress development team and community to announce the immediate availability of WordPress version 2.9 “Carmen” named in honor of magical jazz vocalist Carmen McRae (whom we’ve added to our Last.fm WP release station). You can upgrade easily from your Dashboard by going to Tools > Upgrade, or you can download from WordPress.org.

via WordPress › Blog » WordPress 2.9, oh so fine.

Matt Mullenweg has got to be the luckiest kid on the planet. I call him a kid, because he is half my age. 😛 Of course, WordPress is much more than Matt. WordPress is made up by some of the most crazy people smartest people on the planet.

I just wish I had Matt’s money. 😀 😉 😛

As much as I’d like to, I shall refrain from the usual gutter sniping of the area in which Matt lives. (Hint: Nancy Pelosi’s Area….) His politics is of no matter to me; the man is at the center of all things cool. Besides, he’s from Texas, he can’t be that bad…(or can he?)

In case you don’t get the funny opening line of the above quoted text, here is the video that Matt is referring to:

Which is the first AND LAST time, you will ever see a video by Toni Basil on this blog. *shudder*

Some useless factoid information…. Mickey was a cover of this song here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAhuwfaU4vs

That’s ” Hey Kitty” by an  1970’s English band “Racey”

Personally, I’d like to see Matt Dancing in a cheerleader outfit to mickey myself. Well, maybe not. 😉 😀 😛 😆

Twitter.com hacked by 'Iranian cyber army'

The Bad News: I slept through it.

That is because it happened at about 6:00 in the morning, local twitter time in California. (I THINK! —  if not please correct me…) That would have been 9:00 a.m. EST, I was still asleep, so, it didn’t really affect me.

Hackers hijacked the Web site of micro-blogging community Twitter.com early Friday, briefly redirecting users to a Web page for a group calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army.”

The attackers apparently were able to redirect Twitter users by stealing the credentials needed to administer the domain name system (DNS) records for Twitter.com. DNS servers act as a kind of phone book for Internet traffic, translating human-friendly Web site names like “Twitter.com” into numeric Internet addresses that are easier for computers to handle”Twitter’s DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed,” the company said in a brief statement on its Web site. “We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.”

via Security Fix – Twitter.com hijacked by ‘Iranian cyber army’.

No, I am not going to blame President Obama. Sorry, I will leave that to Sean Hannity. If anyone, I blame Iran.

Someone needs to get those Iranian hackers a better watch. Had they done this at say, oh, 12:00 on the east coast, it would have been internet bedlam! 😯

It is official: David Harsanyi is useless

Next time someone calls me a grumpy old goat, I’m showing ’em this:

Not long ago, Meghan McCain, maverick progeny and rising media star (due, no doubt, to her impressive intellectual gifts) posted a cleavage-intense picture of herself on her Twitter account.

“For years,” the 25-year-old would later lament, “I have struggled to accept the fact that the way I look in a tank top comes off more ‘Sexual’ than a flat-chested woman.”

First, let’s all agree on the obvious: a nation that fails to deal with the deep-seated struggles of busty young blondes is a nation that fails us all.

Then feel free to wonder why an intelligent young woman feigns astonishment when her candid shot creates a hubbub online after she disseminated the shot to 76,000 followers. Isn’t that the point of posting on Twitter? Highlighting everything? Even your socio-political thoughts on cup sizes?

Twitter’s popularity and usefulness are a mystery to me. Pressed by personal, professional and cultural forces, I sporadically deploy short missives for fear of becoming one of those cantankerous technophobes who is too dense to recognize the miracle of letting “followers” know I hate raisins or that I loved the finale of “Mad Men.”

Now, not only am I expected to transmit this minutiae mere seconds after I think it, some 20-year-old in California has decreed that I must do it within the brevity of 140 characters. This need for conciseness, in fact, induces normally articulate friends of mine to write in Prince lyrics — recklessly using “2” and “4” and “U” as words.

via Harsanyi: C’mon, admit it. Twitter is useless – The Denver Post.

Man, talk about an “out of touch” old goat! good grief! Get that man a Victrola and a bottle of ensure and a good hearing aid!  I happen to love Twitter. I’m on there, everyday. Twitter comes into it’s own during disasters, terrorist attacks or major breaking stories. Not to mention, twitter came in extremely handy during a the uprising in Iran. So, this whole notion that twitter is useless, is nothing more baseless nonsense. Truth be told, this is nothing more another ad-hominem attack on twitter, from someone who is a member of the old deadwood media; which is being slowly being phased out. The man is feeling the heat and is afraid to losing his paycheck. So, he attacks Twitter. It works and appeals to those who share in his short-sighted viewpoint, but it makes him look like quite the “out of touch” elitist to those of us, who actually use twitter.

The problem with that, is it makes him and all the rest of the so-called Journalists look very small. Instead of criticizing it, why not try using it? Criticizing something that is useful to everyone else in the rest of the world; except you, makes you look very small. The reasoning for it, defies my ability to understand it. So, everyone else is dumb and you are smart? No, everyone else is smart and you are a backward old fool; who most likely too stupid to know how to even run a Computer; much less a cellphone. Which brings me to another point. I am almost certain that back in the day, when computers were making their debut on the market that some older gents were dismissing them as a fad, that would pass. Needless to say, I am quite thankful that the critics were wrong. Computers liberated me to be able to write. This is coming from someone who has A.D.H.D. and has horrific handwriting. Computers and Blogging were a God-send.  I do not claim to be perfect at it; but I am getting better at it everyday!

In sort; consider the source. 😀

(H/T HotAir Headlines)

The White House should run WordPress

Hey, it works good for me!

I guess the White House website is running Drupal (ugh!) and Chris Wilson over at Slate does not think that it is such a swell idea.

Chris Writes:

Drupal knows best. It’s not that Drupal thinks you’re evil. It just thinks you’re ignorant. In a basic setup, the software is suspicious of everything you try to do. Should you, say, go completely rogue and try to add some Javascript in the body of a page—a 14-year-old technology that controls interactive components like buttons—the platform will have none of it. The message: “That’s dangerous stuff, and you probably don’t know what you’re doing.” Better to outlaw something altogether, Drupal figures, than simply ask you if you really want to use it. If Drupal ran the Food and Drug Administration, it would ban high-fructose corn syrup. This is just the sort of straitjacketed paternalism that half the country is convinced the Democrats are hell-bent on imposing on us all.

Drupal is impenetrable. Even the software’s defenders admit that it is hostile to newcomers—or at least indifferent to their plight, as a University of Baltimore study found. The apologists will tell you that, once you scale the learning curve, it gets much easier. This is probably true, but a lot of ordinary, code-fearing people who just want a simple Web site are getting left behind. If Drupal were an employee of the federal government, it would be the person who answers the phone at Immigration and Customs Enforcement who is unable to help you and unable to tell you who can. If you suspect government is the problem, not the solution, this sort of bureaucratic sprawl is your worst enemy.

Drupal hates change. Want to modernize Drupal by upgrading to a newer version? Ask these guys how that worked out for them. If Drupal were a piece of legislation, it would be the farm bill: desperately in need of an overhaul but unlikely ever to get one because entrenched interests keep the forces of reform at bay.

Drupal is disorganized. Instead of displaying your pages in folders that you can browse, like you do on your personal computer, Drupal provides a nightmarish content list. To find what you’re looking for, you have to search for it. And unlike most content management systems, Drupal doesn’t have a convenient way to prevent two people from accidentally editing the same page at the same time. This is exactly the kind of rudderless confusion that small-government types have always said defines the federal government.

Drupal is righteous. The open-source movement has done wonderful things for the Web. But at its core, it remains a religion. If you went to DrupalCon in Paris last month, then you would have almost certainly come across proselytizers of one the movement’s fundamental tenets: Drupal doesn’t break Web sites. People with Drupal break Web sites. Most problems with Drupal stem from people who “don’t get it” or aren’t using it correctly. This is probably true, but it’s not much consolation when you spend 45 minutes trying to upload a photo. Drupal’s defenders are eerily reminiscent of those movement Democrats who were constantly knocking at your front door in the summer of 2008. Granted, they did get Obama elected, but it’s a miracle they didn’t cost him the election in the process.

Allow me to share with you all my little experience. Back before I wrote here on Political Byline. I used to be a “Left of Center” blogger. One day I got this wild hair up my butt about running a news site on Drupal; with my WordPress Blog in a sub-directory. How did it work out? To be blunt:

EPIC FAIL!

The pesky Russian hackers that had been sniffing around my blog, found their opening and they got it. To be very blunt; they farking hacked my crap to hell and back. A years worth of blogging, GONE in an instant. Nothing like a SQL Database injection hack to bring things in to perspective. I just about cried; and it was two days before Christmas no less.

Anyhow, after that; I said, no more Drupal and WordPress.

In fairness to the Drupal people, I did have some lousy hosting and I am not referring to the guy that was giving to me for free; it was the fault of the company that this guy buying from. (Hosting Scene) In techie terms; their MODSECURITY was much out of date. I know, OUCH! What I said, when it happened. I was not a happy camper. 😡

I am much pleased to report that I am, “Over the Moon” as they say with my current hosting provider. Which is EWF Media; who gets his reselling hosting from a neat company named Site 5. Site 5 basically does co-location with The Planet hosting; which is about the best darned hosting company on, well, The Planet! I highly recommend them, they are the best. If you are looking for excellent reseller hosting, go with EWF Media, he is so affordable. If you are looking to get a reseller account, go with Site 5, they are the best. (Now, watch my server go down after talking these guys up… HA!)

Anyhow, if the White House sees this, go with WordPress, you will be glad you did. It is truly, the bomb diggity.

Others: Lean Left, techPresident and Greg’s Opinion

Update: After I posted this last night and came back this morning, I realized that I forgot to mention why WordPress itself is so wonderful… So, without further ado; I present that reason. First here are some video as to why WordPress is so wonderful:

https://videopress.com/v/creB0kaV

https://videopress.com/v/Pu3T4X8l

If you’d like to learn more about this software, head on over to the WordPress Home Page. For what it is worth; some of the biggest names in Blogging run WordPress.

Prepare for Liberal Backlash Against Conservatives!

I was afraid something like this was going to start.

Due to the stupid behavior of Van Jones and his subsequent resignation. The liberal MSM is now gearing up for a return attack against Glenn Beck; and they are employing the services of the Liberal Blogosphere to do so.

To his much deserved Credit, Ed Morrissey predicted that this would happen:

What exactly does that mean?  In the next Republican administration, we can expect a great deal of scrutiny for Presidential advisers.  For one thing, it means that no one who ever expressed public support for Birthers to get the benefit of the doubt.  The two conspiracy theories are different, but they both are entirely speculative and imagine dark conspiracies at the highest orbits of power, and neither have any actual direct evidence for support.  Anyone who signed a Birther petition can expect to get bypassed for political appointments in a Republican White House with a halfway-decent vetting team, strictly on the basis of politics, in the wake of Jones’ resignation.

The media and the leftward parts of the New Media will get to work in the meantime on advisers and staffers of Republicans in Congress, and in the New Media itself.  They will use the Van Jones Standard to launch attacks on high-profile conservatives, looking for everything from John Birch Society membership to militias and Birtherism as well.  They have done this all along, but the Left and the media will find much more enthusiasm for these efforts in order to trade Van Jones’ scalp for one or more on the Right.

Ed has never been wrong before; and it appears that it is already starting against Glenn Beck. RedState’s Erick Erickson has discovered an Plea Entry over at DailyKos from none other than the DNC’s chief spokesperson himself; Keith Olbermann, asking for any and all dirt on Glenn Beck and his producers and anyone else over at Fox News.

Quote: (H/T to this story to GOP NEWS on Twitter)

I don’t know why I’ve got this phrasing in my head, but: Find everything you can about Glenn Beck,  Stu Burguiere, and Roger Ailes.

No, even now, I refuse to go all caps.

No, sending me links to the last two Countdowns with my own de-constructions of his biblical vision quality Communist/Fascist/Socialist/Zimbalist art at Rockefeller Center (where, curiously, he works, Comrade) doesn’t count. Nor does sending me links to  specious inappropriate point-underscoring prove-you’re-innocent made-up rumors.

Despite the worn-out snark above, I am in earnest here.

Tuesday we will expand this to the television audience and have a dedicated email address to accept leads, tips, contacts, on Beck, his radio producer Burguiere, and the chief of his tv enablers, Ailes (even though Ailes’ power was desperately undercut when he failed to pull off his phony “truce” push).

This becomes necessary after this in order to prove various cliches about goose and gander, and to remind everybody to walk softly and carry a big popsicle, and most particularly to save this nation from the Oligarhy of The Stupid.

I keep wondering if somewhere somebody named Ollie Garhey thinks he’s in charge now. Or, even more entertainingly and societally satisfying, if somebody named Ali Garhi does.

Despite the worn-out snark above, I am in earnest here.

You almost hear the desperation in that posting above. The Liberals took a massive pounding and they are in earnest trying to find a way to volley a return fire at Glenn Beck. If you believe that they are going to stop with Glenn Beck; you are kidding yourselves. My suggestion to ALL Conservative Bloggers is this. Girt your loins, prepare for attacks on your blogs, by Socalists. If you are running WordPress Blogs, update to the latest version of WordPress. Because right now, there is a worm spreading around that is taking out older versions of WordPress.  I would expect that these socialist minions are more than willing to try DOS attacks on blogs. Especially high profile Blogs. If you do not have a good relations with your host. Now would be a good time to start one or find a host that is blogger friendly.

It is not my intention to scare anyone or anything of that nature. But it would be prudent of all of us; that if we continue to challenge this Administration; we must be prepared for the fallout and for any sort blow-back that might result from the resignation of Obama Administration officials.  Remember we are doing the Lord’s work. This is our God-Given Country, and we must stand up for the principles that this Country was founded upon; which are God-Breathed.   While I do not view all Democrats as my enemy per-say; I view socialists and Socialism, especially of the Saul Alinsky strand, to be an Enemy of America; right up there with Al-Qaeda. We must be strong, we must be wise and above all, we must be ready.

Web Traffic to Obama White House Website has dropped

This is an interesting story:

The traffic at President Obama’s official White House Web site–whitehouse.gov–has fallen from a post-Inauguration peak to nearly the same level it was during the waning days of the Bush administration.

The dramatic drop in traffic has happened despite the Obama Administration’s complete redesign of the site.

According to the web-traffic tracking site Alexa.com, whitehouse.gov was almost the 500th most popular Web site in the world in February. Since then, it has fallen to the 3,732 ranked Web site in the world. Traffic to the site has fallen 51.6 percent in the last three months.

People are also spending less time on the site than they did before. Time spent on a Web site is often used as a barometer for how interested visitors are in a site’s content. Time spent on whitehouse.gov declined 15 percent since May to an average of 2.6 minutes per visitor

via CNSNews.com – Traffic to Obama’s White House Web Site Has Plummeted.

Because I am not on Brent Bozell’s payroll; I will say this, in fairness to the President the election season is over and now people are just not paying attention the White House and the President as much. So, I am not going to chime in with the partisan narrative here. However, it is notable to point out that overall traffic to this blog has had a remarkable uptick since Obama’s poll numbers have began to drop off. Which tells me that some people; who are possibly just regular independent voters are wanting to read critical reporting of the President. Instead of being spoon fed the constant political commercial that they are given at MSNBC, CNN and some of the other networks as well.

The bottom line is this: While I would not make too much of ado over this, it is interesting to note that Obama’s polls are dropping and that some people are just getting tired of Obama’s campaign speeches.