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:

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.

It is official: Levi Johnston is a scumbag

Yesterday, AllahPundit wrote about this idiot; and I thought he was wasting his time. However, After watching this video; I am convinced, that this jackass is simply looking to destroy Palin to fatten his own pocketbook.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Just be clear, for the 500’th time; I am not a Sarah Palin fan boy. But this just goes too far. It is obvious to me, that this turd is just going after Palin for the fame and for the money. Most likely to buy his damned mommy more drugs; as she is a druggie you know.

At this point, if I were the Palin family, I would go to court and DEMAND that the judge remove all of Levi Johnston’s visitation rights and fix it where he never saw the child again, ever. I would bring up the drugs, I would bring up the posing for playgirl; I would inform them of his actions, and that he is more interested in being a “star” than he is a Father.

I know that I might sound a bit harsh; but it is quite obvious to me, that Levi Johnston is simply looking to cash in on Bristol Palin’s lapse in judgment; which, quite frankly, is much of Levi’s fault. Had Mr. horn-dog kept his hands off of her, she would not be pregnant and that baby would not even be here. All of this just to either make money for himself and possibly get back at Palin and or Bristol. That my friends, is the perfect definition of an asshole and that my friends is what Levi Johnston is.

Quite frankly, I am a bit pissed off at John McCain; for basically using Sarah Palin as window dressing for his rather idiotically ran campaign. If John McCain would have picked someone else; Sarah Palin would not be having to write books to defend herself and that poor family of hers. I mean, God love them people; they have been literally through hell and yet, they say nothing. No lawsuits, No lashing out. Nothing. I just do not see how they do it. If that were me, would be suing the living crap out of every damned Liberal media outlet that even remotely slandered me and my family; I’m talking multi-millions of dollars of lawsuit money. I would go after all of them; when I was finished with them, there would be some very wealth California Socialists who would be paying me some very big money and if their websites and papers went under, that would be just be too bad.

As for you, Mr. Levi. I just lost what little respect that I actually had for you dude. For a while; I actually gave you the benefit of the doubt. You have nothing on Sarah Palin; if it is anything, it is so damned minor, that not one damn person would even remotely care. Especially coming from a idiotic opportunist jack ass like you.

May you rot in the hottest part of the devil’s hell, you bastard piece of tripe.

Matthew Hoh resigns over Afghanistan

I have to give this man credit; he is a man of conviction, for that alone, he is a true patriot.

Via the Washington Times:

When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department’s head of personnel. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”
The reaction to Hoh’s letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer,” Holbrooke said in an interview. “We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him.”
While he did not share Hoh’s view that the war “wasn’t worth the fight,” Holbrooke said, “I agreed with much of his analysis.” He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that “if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure,” why not be “inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won’t have the same political impact?”
Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. “I recognize the career implications, but it wasn’t the right thing to do,” he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.
“I’m not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love,” Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the “second-best job I’ve ever had,” his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
“There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed,” he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys.”
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there — a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war.
As the White House deliberates over whether to deploy more troops, Hoh said he decided to speak out publicly because “I want people in Iowa, people in Arkansas, people in Arizona, to call their congressman and say, ‘Listen, I don’t think this is right.’ “
“I realize what I’m getting into . . . what people are going to say about me,” he said. “I never thought I would be doing this.”

The underlined parts up here are the parts that I think are the most inspiring. Some Conservatives and even some MilBloggers might want to slam this guy. Well, I will not be counted among that group. I have said on this blog many times that I felt that Bush basically screwed us in the long run, for trying to fight two wars at the same time. That belief is becoming clearer now, eight years on and we’re still trying to catch Osama Bin Laden —- and that task is becoming more of a difficult task everyday. There is plenty of blame to go around; Bush is not the sole person responsible for this terrible screw up. The whole “We have to fight them there, so, we don’t have to fight them here..” line is a bit worn thin now, seeing that there has been people arrested on terror plotting charges here now.

Again, I applaud this man for having the courage to stand up and dissent. Some may knock him, but not sane thinking Americans, who see things through the long lens; like me.

The Round up for ALL sides of the Political fence: The Washington Independent, The Moderate Voice, Top of the Ticket, Abu Muqawama, Matthew Yglesias, JustOneMinute, New York Times, Neptunus Lex, Firedoglake, ABCNEWS, MoJo Blog Posts, Alan Colmes’ Liberaland, The New Republic, Salon, The Atlanticist, BLACKFIVE, Jules Crittenden, The Daily Dish, Guardian, Mudville Gazette, Rethink Afghanistan, Newshoggers.com, Atlas Shrugs, Chicago Boyz, RedState, Newsweek Blogs, LewRockwell.com Blog, Wall Street Journal, Taylor Marsh, MyDD and Politics Daily

Joe Lieberman says that he will back GOP filibuster of Senate Healthcare Bill

I have an idea as to why Lieberman is doing this; well, I have several different ideas:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) said Tuesday that he’d back a GOP filibuster of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s health care reform bill.
Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats and is positioning himself as a fiscal hawk on the issue, said he opposes any health care bill that includes a government-run insurance program — even if it includes a provision allowing states to opt out of the program, as Reid has said the Senate bill will.
“We’re trying to do too much at once,” Lieberman said. “To put this government-created insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayers, for the premium payers and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now.”
Lieberman added that he’d vote against a public option plan “even with an opt-out because it still creates a whole new government entitlement program for which taxpayers will be on the line.”
His comments confirmed that Reid is short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill out of the Senate, even after Reid included the opt-out provision. Several other moderate Democrats expressed skepticism at the proposal as well, but most of the wavering Democratic senators did not go as far as Lieberman Tuesday, saying they were waiting to see the details.
Lieberman did say he’s “strongly inclined” to vote to proceed to the debate, but that he’ll ultimately vote to block a floor vote on the bill if it isn’t changed first.
“I’ve told Sen. Reid that if the bill stays as it is now I will vote against cloture,” he said.
via Joe Lieberman: I’ll block vote on Harry Reid’s plan – Manu Raju – POLITICO.com.

Here is my official theory as to why Lieberman is doing this. For one; I believe that Lieberman is doing this to get back at the Senate Majority leader for his scolding of him for supporting John McCain during the 2008 election. Another theory I have is that Lieberman is attempting to garner support amongst the Conservative leadership on the hill. Maybe Lieberman is going to try for a run as a moderate to Liberal Republican in the not-so-distant future in the Senate. Either that, or Lieberman knows that he will never be elected as a Republican or a Democrat ever again and he is doing this, thinking that it will, someday be seen as his last great feat to save the Country from out of control socialism.

Either way, I believe that any chance of Lieberman getting back into the Democratic Party just totally dissolved. At this point, if I were a Democrat, I would want Lieberman’s head on a platter.

Others: Michelle Malkin, Townhall.com, Weekly Standard, The Corner, AmSpecBlog, The Greenroom, JOSHUAPUNDIT, The Moderate Voice,

Honestly, What the hell is up with Alan Grayson?

The Short Video:

The Long Video:

RedState has more on this rather strange buffoon.

Dan McLaughlin writes:

Far be it from me to suggest that Alan Grayson should tone down his act. Hey, he’ll probably get another cookie from his enablers.

Ya think? Good Lord. 🙄

Next time some idiot calls me a extremist; please, show them this.

Conservatives are the top ideological group

So says Gallup:

PRINCETON, NJ — Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009, confirming a finding that Gallup first noted in June. Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group.
via Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group.

Think of this the next time some screwball poll comes out in favor of the Democrats. The reason the pollsters are able to get the results they want is by oversampling the Socialist Democrats.

(H/T Confederate Yankee)

Video: The Southern Avenger on "The Myth of Objective Journalism"

I do not always agree with Jack Hunter; however I do on this video here. Especially on his views of the Main Stream Media in the lead up to the Iraq War. Whether it is his anti-Military bias or an honest disgust with the Bush Administration; that Jack can only answer. But he is right, and very sadly so. The media was laying down on the job during that time period.

Having said all that, let me be absolutely clear; while I am quite happy that Bush’s surge worked and that Iraq, outside of the occasional car bomb, is much more stable than it was in 2006. But that does not take away from the fact that Bush’s invasion of Iraq and occupation of it was not justified. I believe that this will be a black mark on America for a long time to come.

Enjoy the Video:

Feminist Nazis come out against President Obama

Oh brother…. Ol’ floppy ears can’t do anything right —- or make anyone happy for that matter!

Via the NYT:

WASHINGTON — Does the White House feel like a frat house?
The suspicion flared in recent weeks — and not for the first time — after President Obama was criticized by women’s advocates and liberal bloggers for hosting a high-level basketball game with no female players.
The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college hoops on ESPN, indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer in a peacemaking effort.
He presides over a White House rife with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.
The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’ club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.
While the senior adviser Valerie Jarrett is undeniably one of the president’s closest White House confidantes, some women inside or close to the administration complain that Mr. Obama’s female advisers are not as visible as their male colleagues or, they suspect, as influential.
“Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,” said Dee Dee Myers, a former press secretary in the Clinton administration whose sister, Betsy, served as the Obama campaign’s chief operating officer.
Ms. Myers said women have high expectations of the president. “Obama has a personal style that appeals to women,” she said. “He is seen as a consensus builder; he is not a towel snapper and does not tell crude jokes.”

Memo to the Nazi Feminist Bitches: It’s a guy party and your fat, nasty, hoe asses are not invited; now please, get the hell over it and move the hell on!

NEXT!

Others: Vox Popoli and American Power