One the day I kick in the WordPress version of the blog, on the day, my web hosting service suddently has issues with PHP scripts, 3 hours after I make the big turnover.  Going to any page of the blog (including my Admin panel) got you a blank stare (actually a blank page).  Fortunately, it only lasted for less than an hour.

But what timing.

Wow. I knew that the ACLU promoted many positions that most Americans don’t, but “Stop the ACLU” has a long list, fully documented, of comparisons between the ACLU’s position and polls and statistics on Americans’ views. It’s truly amazing that our tax dollars help fund an organization so far to the left out of the mainstream of America.

But, you may say, sometimes what’s legal isn’t always popular. They cover that angle.

The reaction from ACLU-types will predictably be something like: “What is right and Constitutional is not always popular.” Easy answer: What the ACLU does is invent rights and distort the Constitution, which is why the ACLU is so UNpopular. The ACLU has used dubious interpretations of law NEVER imagined by our Founders with compliance from radical judges to push an agenda abhorrent to most Americans and indeed to the intent of the Constitution. Look no further than the ACLU’s pro bono defense of a website that advocates pedophilia and instructs its visitors in how to rape children and evade prosecution. So…the ACLU considers encouraging instruction on how to commit and get away with child rape a First Amendment right…does anyone believe that the Founders would agree? Therefore, can’t we conclude that if the ACLU is so wrong on this, that it may be wrong on many other things? Judge the evidence for yourself.

Being wrong once doesn’t mean you’re wrong all the time, but the example gives you an idea of what sorts of things the ACLU thinks are protected by the Constitution, and it speaks to how awful their interpretation can be.

Read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: ACLU, Constitution

The end of the space shuttle era is coming soon.

The United States begins its next step in human space flight with the announcement by NASA on Thursday of a contractor to design and build spaceships to fly to the moon.

Lockheed Martin Corp and a partnership of Northrop Grumman Corp. and Boeing Co are vying for the work, estimated to be worth more than $18 billion over the next decade.

“We’re looking forward to getting that contractor on board with us as we continue our journey on into exploration,” project manager Skip Hatfield said.

The new spaceships, named Orion, will replace the U.S. space agency’s three remaining space shuttles, which are to be retired in 2010 upon completion of the half-built International Space Station.

After two deadly shuttle accidents, NASA is giving up on winged, reusable vehicles and returning to the capsule-style spaceships that first carried Americans into orbit and later landed them on the moon. Similar vessels are used by Russia and China.

The space enthusiast in me is a little disappointed. The shuttle was, in theory, a great cost saver, since it was reusable, and could land at different places if the weather at the main landing site wasn’t good. (OK, and seeing some new kind of space ship had a really high Coolness Factor.)

But if capsules can indeed be made and used for less money, I guess I’ll understand. They’re certainly not without risk themselves, but perhaps in this day and age they can be made safer. (Still, space travel is always risky, no matter what the precautions.)

Sorry to see her go, but hopefully this will get things going again.

H/T: Danny Carlton

Technorati Tags: space shuttle, space, NASA, Orion, International Space Station

This will be my last post to the Blogger version of Considerettes. All future postings will be made to the WordPress-based version.

What does this mean for you? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps a little something. But first, a little background.

It’s been a fun 4 years and 4 months. I felt that, when I started, I’d arrived late to the party. In a very real sense, I had. Soon after I signed up with Blogger, they got their 1 millionth subscriber. When I first discovered Technorati a number of months later, it was monitoring more than 2 million blogs. As I said in my first blog post, I had a web page with longer articles, but I had done a couple of these articles in a manner very much like a blog (“Impeachment Notebook” and “Election 2000 Notebook”, this last one even has datelines in the latter half), so I was already set to enter the world of blogging. I even did a couple of “Fiskings” before that term was invented. It’s been loads of fun, and still is.

Since then, while I can’t find out how many subscribers Blogger now has, Technorati is now tracking 52.7 million blogs. So in a larger sense, I was an early adopter. Another thing has changed. In a UPI article on blogging from 2003, I was quoted as saying:

I wouldn’t mind having a little influence, but not to the point that I would feel like I would have to write something every day. I’m not that prolific.

Yeah, well I’ve gotten a bit more prolific over the years, eh? But I’ve hung in for quite a long time with an old, dated, blogging template that not even Blogger offers anymore.

Time for another change.

Enter WordPress. I’ve been looking at new blogging software casually, on and off, for over a year, but after my recent problem with my Blogger template, I finally got the fire lit under me. WordPress was one of the blog programs that my web hosting service would install automatically for me, so I took the plunge. I’ve given it a dry run, imported all my old Blogger posts, posted to both sites for a little while, and now I’m ready.

Good-bye, Blogger. I appreciate the start you’ve given me, and you’re still one of the best ways for folks to get into blogging.

Hello, WordPress. Looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And now, what this may mean to you.

Bookmarks: First of all, if you have me bookmarked as “http://www.thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/index.html”, you’ll need to change this as that page will no longer physically exist Real Soon Now. Either you can change your bookmark to say “http://www.thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/index.php“, or just remove the page name entirely and use “http://www.thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/“. The latter option is the best way to do it, since if I return to blog software that uses index.html (or if I redirect it elsewhere), you’ll pick it up automatically.

Old permalinks: If you have links on your blog to any of my archives, those links will still work. Blogger permalinks always linked to the monthly archive page that the post appeared on, and I’m not getting rid of those pages, so nothing will be broken. However, if in the future you want to link to an old Blogger post, try to find it in the WordPress blog. I’ve imported all the Blogger posts, and you can search by date or by words. That’ll future-proof your links.

RSS Feed: The Atom feed for the Blogger version has been “http://www.thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/index.xml”. The new RSS2 feed for posts will be “http://thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/?feed=rss2“. If you want a feed of just the comments, use “http://thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/?feed=comments-rss2“. You can find links to both of these under the Meta section of the sidebar.

If you want a feed of a particular category, first, you need to hover you mouse over the link you’d click on under Categories on the sidebar. You’ll see the URL in your browser’s status bar (I’m sure most browsers do this these days.) Look for the “cat=X” portion, where X is some number. Then add the following feed into your feedreader, “http://thepaytons.org/essays/considerettes/?feed=rss2&cat=X”, replacing X with the number. One of the things I’ve been considering doing is a podcast, and if I do, the podcast feed will simply be this type of URL for a Podcast category.

Comments: You can! >grin< I’d love to hear from you. I’ve had a blog for over 4 years and never changed my Blogger template, and thus I didn’t have comments enabled when Blogger allowed for that. I hope to hear from y’all. For now, comments will simply require that you enter your name and e-mail address. Your first comment with the combination of name and password will automatically moderated, but, once approved by yours truly, future posts using the same name and e-mail will fly on in. Full registration will be available but not required, so long as the spam plug-in does its job. Hopefully we can keep it simple. If it turns out the spam is leaking in, I may turn on mandatory registration. Hope I don’t have to, but fair warning.

I’m using a plug-in that allows you to subscribe to comments, meaning you can put your e-mail address in to get notified when someone comments on a particular post. This can be any post, not just ones you leave a comment in, but for those you do comment in, it’ll let you know when someone’s added their 2 cents or replied to you. Could come in handy.

Speaking of comments, you should speak nicely. I have an official Comment Policy (see the Pages section on the sidebar). Please read it before posting your own consideration.

Contact Form: I now have a page where you can send me a private note/question/atta-boy/rant. It, too, can be found in the Pages section of the sidebar.

Thanks for stopping by Considerettes. I hope you like the new layout, and I hope to hear from you soon.

Doug Payton

Technorati Tags: WordPress, Blogger, blogging, Technorati