Hey! A fellow blogger needs our help. Pony up and go see what this is all about…got some spare change? Can you give up your coffee shots for the week? Go help. Now. (Please.)

I really get annoyed when I leave comments at blogs and never get any feedback from the blog owner. If I can take the few moments to say something its only respectful of the blog host to do the same.

There are tons of plugins for WordPress. One of the most convenient and user friendly is Better Comments Manager.

With this, you can see and edit all comments for each post; they show up as a threaded list in your WP Admin Comments section. You can delete, edit, AND reply to each comment right from your WP Admin pages instead of going to the actual site for every comment. I have found this plugin helps me stay on top of comments and it really makes it easier and less work to engage my visitors who take the time to visit and leave comments. I don’t know if there are similar plugins for the other blogging platforms. WordPress is the only one I will ever use because it’s so simple to work with.

Be good to the people who visit your site. Engage them in comments and have fun while you’re at it. It will pay off with more and more visitors and that is, after all, why most of us do this.

What is RSS??

Feedburner recently reported that they track around 60 million RSS subscribers. Even if we bump that number to 70 million RSS users (counting people that use RSS with other applications or platforms) this would still convert to a meager 5,4% of the Internet users around the world, as of today.

What is the takeaway message? Only a very small percentage of the Internet population is aware of the RSS format and its benefits, and that number is growing slowly over time.

By creating the RSS Awareness Day and celebrating it every year we should be able to get the general public exposed to this format, hopefully increasing the usage of RSS feeds and related applications among Internet users.

The Awareness Campaign.

Pennsylvanians build an organization to stop the Flight 93 memorial

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I haven’t done one of these round ups in a long time…been to busy with work and life. I have a few minutes now so here we go.

• I LOVE Tom…he doesn’t care what institution he stands up to. I totally agree with his assessment of this.
• Ohfertheluvofgawd. Moms? Get over yourselves and just tell your kids your having cosmetic surgery. Be honest. Tell the kiddies you have very little self confidence and a lot of desire to be perfect. Your actions will speak louder than your words so be careful in this.
• Good for her! Pregnancy and birth are natural and society has MADE these events into some super energy sapping saga that is expected to last months. Back in the day women gave birth and went back to work in the fields within hours. I went back to work within 3 or 4 weeks of delivery and THAT was TOO long!
• Did Hillary just end her life long ambition? By passing a lot of hot air? I think so.
• Seth has his thoughts about porn and the free markets. I totally agree with him…Interesting comment thread going on over there too- be sure to read it.
• IS this surprising to anyone? Boston Mayor Mumbles is hitting high on the feminine like lists…well, he IS feminine you know.
• Mexico defends NAFTA? Of course they do…as does Bush and many others. All NAFTA has really done is kill American jobs; as well as proliferating the endless supply of illegal immigrants who take our jobs. No. I am not going liberal. I’m just not excusing this really bad law on behalf on my political affiliation.
• BWAHAHA!! Woody at GM’s Corner has a special word for today- Earth Day.

Speaking of Albore and Earth Dayings, it’s time for my weekly cookout this evening.

HAPPY EARTH DAY

It’s hit me again. The will and desire to blog about politics has waned. I’m sick of McCain stories because he is the ONE who I will have to vote for. There’s nothing to write about there- why post the reasons one should support him when he has no competition?

I’m so sick of the Obama/Hildabeast war when we have another, real war to be concerned about. Them two keep playing their race/gender games; he’s telling people why they’re bitter as he lives the good life (hypocrite); she’s lying about flights of fancy over Bosnia…and the US is going to support the Olympics which I think is absurd. And all the other headlines of the day that turn into weeks- nothing changes.

I’m bored with much of it. I’ve been blogging other things at Just Raven- because of my boredom with politics and all things related to being a patriotic American. It’s so out of fashion to be that way these days.

Blah. I’ll probably get that fire back but for now, once again, it’s been watered down.

UK Independent reports the Mecca orientation of the Flight 93 crescent

On Saturday, the conflict over Islamic symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial got its first international news coverage. One highlight is the conversation that Leonard Doyle, U.S editor of the UK Independent, had with Tom Burnett Sr.:

Tom Burnett, whose son Tom Jnr died in the crash, said of the design that it is “aesthetically wonderful,” but “a lot of it contains Islamic symbols”. He added: “We ought to just throw the design out and start anew because it really dishonours those who died.”

Towards the end, Doyle moseys around to the bombshell, reporting the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent as a fact. The bad news is that Doyle immediately tries to dismiss this explosive information by making a completely irrelevant and factually preposterous counterclaim:

Part of the blame must lie with Paul Murdoch, architect of the winning design who initially described it as a “Crescent of Embrace”. The title caused the internet to erupt with conspiracy theories. Then someone noticed that the arc actually pointed towards Mecca. The fact that this was also the direction to Washington DC was lost on the conspiracy theorists.

No, the direction to Mecca is NOT the direction to Washington. The shortest-distance direction to Mecca (the way that Muslims calculate the direction to Mecca) heads northeast from the western Pennsylvania crash-site. Some people find that counterintuitive, but Pennsylvania and Mecca are both in the northern hemisphere, with Mecca being about 2/3rds of the way around the hemisphere. Thus the direction to Mecca takes a shortcut towards the north pole. D.C., in contrast, lies southeast from the Shanksville crash site.

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The site was down for a little bit this afternoon due to a server problem. My host, SiteGround, was onto IT very quickly, informed me of the problem and before I knew it, site was back up. It’s really nice to have a host that communicates with it’s customers in this manner. The service is fast and reliable; setting new accounts is easy and takes less than five minutes. They will transfer blogs to their servers, all the files and posts and comments for free if you ask for this in the first 7 days of service. Hosting packages offer a lot of bells and whistles for a really cheap rate.

I highly recommend SiteGround for all hosting needs!

Just a reminder: I’m posting @ Michael’s this week.

I have this saying….
JARHEADS make me horny.

It’s true…what can I say? My favorite Jarhead has left the city to go to the range…and I’ve moved into his place for the week to blogsit. <–Is that a word? It is now.

Since Duncan has moved into ARS, I had to make a decision. It was tough- but readers who viewed this site using the Gun Girl or Antique Americana themes would not know of Duncan! We can’t have that. So I retired those skins and here we have Live Free Or Die- the signature theme for this blog now. Since there’s only this choice, I also removed the Pick A Look drop down menu.

I”m signing off for the weekend- and the BIG GAME the Patriots WILL WIN!! I’ll be there to make sure of it. I’ll be back sometime Monday later in the day (I hope…if I’m sober enough to make my flight…)

OH…and here’s something that’ll make you say what I did:
Oh My Flucking Gawd!!!

MY TEAM!!!

HEY….if you’re feeling generous, or otherwise have some spare change you can do without, my bestest blog sister Kat needs some help. Her computer died…she’s using an old beat up model with no modern stuff; she can’t view many web sites or do videos and the like. She’s got a BLEG going on and I GAVE….CAN YOU??

Spare change goes a long way!!

We cannot let her go without a working computer!!

The political landscape is looking bleak. And rightfully so.

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Stupid quizzes. But this isn’t too far off.

You Are a Roller Coaster

You live for excitement, adventure, and the most intense of thrills. Nothing is better than feeling you’re truly alive, and you’re willing to take risks to feel this way. In relationships, people often feel a bit nervous about what they’re getting into… But generally, everyone enjoys the wild ride you take them on. Unless they stay with you too long - then they’re apt to feel a bit nauseous! Your life has more low points and high points than most people’s lives. But that’s okay - you love them. You figure that a smooth ride is boring! Besides, you know that super high highs only come from knowing super low lows. You cherish every emotion you feel and feel it fully. Why deny what life is truly about? At your best, you are loving life and sharing your wild times with everyone you know. You are able to open your friends up to a whole new world of experiences. At your worst, you feel extremely disoriented and even a bit dizzy. There’s only so much intensity a human (even you!) can take.

What Carnival Ride Are You?