Breakdown on the side of the information superhighway

The blogging addon Scribefire has quit working with the latest version of Firefox. Scribefire seems to have been an abandoned project for a while now, so I suppose it was only a matter of time. I never used it on Tumblr, but for my Blogspot blogs it was practically essential - I hate Blogger's post editor with the passionate intensity of a thousand burning suns. It's clunky and slow and eats CPU and is just generally awful.

I've downloaded an opensource desktop editor called Zoundry Raven, which seems OK so far. It uses almost zilch for RAM, which is a big plus for me. I'm not at a point where I can recommend it yet, but it seems pretty good so far.

Anyway, if blogging began late today, that's why. And it may be light throughout the day as I get my bearings with this thing - or scrap it and try another if that's what I need to do.

[photo by aussiegall]

Answering Moonbattery's Dumbassery

In response to this, this:



The Google robot has spoken...

Spam for McCain and Win Prizes!

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Spread John McCain's official talking points around the Web -- and you could win valuable prizes! On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste. People who sign up for McCain's program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain's webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to accomplish. Unless the intended message is that McCain supporters are really trollish and annoying, it's hard to see how this could possibly succeed.

Freepers have been pulling this crap for years and they're still a distinct minority -- they've failed completely to turn the internet into a gathering of right wing nutsacks. Seems like a waste of money.

This isn't exactly a new development, but it's nice to see it's finally getting some mainstream press.

Yellowcake Not 'A Vindication' of Bush's WMD Claims

This has been making the rounds of right wing blogs, comment threads, and forums. Annenberg Fact Check kills it.

clipped from www.factcheck.org Beyond Investor's Business Daily's editorial, conservative bloggers and chain e-mails have claimed that the Associated Press report proves that President Bush was right in the run-up to the Iraq war when he said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. One e-mail a reader forwarded to us said this was "vindication for the Bush administration." It's not. The AP article, published on July 5, said that a large amount of yellowcake uranium was, in fact, sold by Iraq to Canada, as part of a secret mission facilitated by the U.S. But this uranium was known to have been in Iraq following the conclusion of the first Gulf War. It was not "found" in 2003, as the IBD editorial claims. As the AP article said, "There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, [a senior U.S. official] said."

It should be pointed out (as I've been forced to several times around the web) that yellowcake is not WMD. In fact, it's not even refined.

The piece goes on:

But this particular stock of uranium was not recently discovered — and it was no secret. It had been stored in sealed containers, since before the first Gulf War, according to the AP. Saddam Hussein was forced to allow United Nations inspectors into Iraq in 1991, as part of the cease-fire that ended the first Gulf War. The U.N. Security Council's agreement required Hussein to dismantle Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, in exchange for lifting the 1990 economic sanctions imposed on Iraq. The inspectors monitored Iraq's disarmament, and later guarded this uranium.

More recently, U.S. and Iraqi forces have been guarding it, since Iraqis looted the site after Hussein’s fall from power.

Lefty Blogosphere Petitions Dems to Drop Lieberman

clipped from thehill.com Liberal groups plan to deliver a petition to Capitol Hill next week calling on Democrats to oust Sen. Joe Lieberman from his committee chairmanship in the 111th Congress. The liberal Los Angeles-based production company Brave New Films is trying to capitalize on those concerns. Last week, the company released a Web video carrying controversial statements made by Lieberman and launched a petition drive to request Democratic leaders to strip Lieberman of his position as chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. So far the petition drive, which has been highlighted on prominent liberal blogs Huffington Post and Open Left, has amassed more than 41,000 signatures, according to the website LiebermanMustGo.com. clipped from bravenewfilms.org

The piece goes on:

Next week, Democratic activists and liberal bloggers plan to deliver the petition to members of the Senate Democratic Steering Committee, which will make recommendations on committee assignments next Congress to Nevada Democrat Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. They also plan to keep the grassroots pressure on the Democrats until those decisions are made after the November elections.

Leaders of this effort hope to mirror the success bloggers had in fueling the candidacy of businessman Ned Lamont, who beat Lieberman on an anti-war platform in the Connecticut 2006 Senate Democratic primary. Running as an Independent, Lieberman later defeated Lamont in the midterm elections.

Now that Liberman's stumping for McCain and a continued majority in the Senate is a leadpipe cinch, dems really should kick Joe out on his ass.

Screw him. They need this guy like a boat needs a drain.