Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite.
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What looks to be the final answer regarding the Great Blog Lockout... Bad Cat Robot, who used to be a tester for Microsoft before they gave up on testing their code and just sent it as an alpha test to users sends: "Just in case you didn't see it on Blogger dashboard, they grovel about the fake spam lockup. It was an overenthusiastic algorithm and NOT ENOUGH TESTING. ahem."
Add to this the Sitemeter fiasco, coupled with the political atmosphere, and you can see whata buncha paranoid internet addicts we all are, eh? And how addicted to the 'net we've become!We want to offer our sincerest apologies to affected bloggers and their readers. We've tracked down the problem to a bug in our data processing code that locked blogs even when our algorithms concluded they were not spam. We are adding additional monitoring and process checks to ensure that bugs of this magnitude are caught before they can affect your data.
At Blogger, we strongly believe that you own and should control your posts and other data. We understand that you trust us to store and serve your blog, and incidents like this one are a betrayal of that trust. In the spirit of ensuring that you always have access to your data, we have been working on importing and exporting tools to make it easier to back up your posts. If you'd like a sneak peak at theImport / Export tool, you can try it out on Blogger in Draft.
Our restoration today was of all blogs that were mistakenly marked as spam due to Friday's bug. Because spam fighting inherently runs the risk of false positives, your blog may have been mis-classified as spam for other reasons. If you are still unable to post to your blog today you can request a review by clicking Request Unlock Review on your Dashboard.
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At Eagle's Up, Concrete Bob has this to say about gas prices... It's The Supply Stupid.
JTG has a friend who is under no illusions of what her cat is up to. Her cat responds in the comments.
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Dave Marron of The Thunder Run has an announcement to make:
Well, all conspiracy theories aside, Blogger turned me back on yesterday sometime.
No note, just the flag was gone when I logged in to see what was up. Actually I knew before I logged in that I had been cleared as a spam site as The Thunder Run is my home page and my prepared and missing posts had already posted.
Regardless, I'm going to be guest posting at Rhymes With Right for a couple of days while Greg is on vacation.
I'm also joining the ranks at milblogs as a regular poster - thanks Greyhawk - and I'll still be crossposting at Argghhh! so there will be plenty of opportunities to check in with The Thunder Run from here on out. I'll also be linking back to any post written by my contributors at all of these sites to help highlight their work also. Its a team effort here.
One final note before regular blogging resumes.
Due to the current situation concerning Blogger, look for a notice coming in the near future; i.e., once my wife approves the purchase, of a new domain and home for The Thunder Run. Its high time I quit doing it for free and start doing it for real. If all works out I'll be announcing my new home just in time for the 2008 Milblog Conference in Vegas. You are going aren't you?
Thanks for sticking by me, I really appreciate it.
David M
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CAPT H sends along this link to EUROSATORY 2008, the big Euro arms show. I actually got an *invitation* from a vendor this year - but decided other budgetary priorities took precedence. Besides, if they're *serious* about you, they'll pay the way... Looking at the pictures... me want! -the Armorer
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Sunday Humor... Maureen Dowd finds the combination of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and Obama irresistible. She says it right "outloud": if you're not voting for Obama, you're racist. Oh, and McCain is obviously the lecherous cad Wickham. - FbL
[ADD ON: Is cynicism a new code word for racism? - Kat]
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Ouch! Troop comic Lawn Darts takes a, well, *savage* swipe at He Who Must Be Elected Else We're All Racists. H/t, BCR. -the Armorer
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WWII vet talks about yesterday military and today's:
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I know y'all prolly don't care... but - this is the Armorer's totally apt birthday cake..
Lovingly made for me by SWWBO and Right Girl, who's paying a visit from Canada. -the Armorer
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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires. Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start exploding at any minute. Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is. The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now. Of course, now I have to call them UAS's, because someone got a Legion of Merit for the name change.Anyway, I call the post H&I Fires because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. Another term of art that might be appropriate is Free Fire Zone.
Great.
Why bother having the election at all?
I remember in 2004, when I wouldn't vote for Kerry and supported President Bush, I was called names; some of which I wouldn't type. Warmongerer, Bush Lover, sycophant, Jesus freak. I was supporting the establishment of a theological government, imperialist aspirations, war for oil, prejudice against Muslims or Arabs and all sorts of things that were untrue and had little to do with why I was voting for Bush.
I guess I'm getting used to it and, frankly, nothing anyone says is going to change my views on Obama's policies, politics or personality. He could be the whitest white boy from south Chicago's Irish neighborhoods and I still wouldn't vote for him. End of story.
BTW, I am reeely curious about how the Sitemeter/IE fiasco is connected to the Blogger.com blocking mess. They happened pretty much at the same time. Methinks something in the code Blogger uses to set the spam flag was also triggered by the Sitemeter bug.
You are right.....that's the most appropriate cake.