More of the 43 Dumbest Conservative Bloggers responds to Rick Moran

I, along with 42 other bloggers, was targeted by Rick Moran of Right Wing Nut House as one of the 42 Dumbest Conservative Bloggers. I already responded to that, and shall not repeat my response, though you can read it if you like.

In the post, though, I did link to some other bloggers' responses. Well, there's another one that I thought was worth a look.

TSO at This Ain't Hell took issue with, well, lots of what Rick Moran wrote. Including an examination of the standard line about Nathan Bedford Forrest founding the Ku Klux Klan:

Either way, I am not going to fight the fight on whether Forrest was in the Klan, or whether he was the leader. What is clear is that he did not found it. I’ve seen that in a few places, Forrest was not an original founder. Second, it is somewhat instructive for a further look at Forrest’s statements to look at what the Klan was when he is alleged to have been named leader.

It would be a little much to call TSO's post a defense of Forrest. An examination of the facts would be more accurate. And it's worth a read.

I'm not a historian, but I certainly think we can learn from history. And, despite his flaws, Forrest wasn't the monster he is made out to be. But, once a distortion of the facts takes hold, it's hard to ever clear it up. That's one of the lessons of history we should take from Forrest.

TSO is doing a good job of stating the facts regarding Forrest, flawed man that he was. But the lies and distortions are the norm. And it continues to this day. Just look at how the left -- and many who are lumped into the right -- trash George W. Bush.

Some kid has a birthday

Yes, Paul Mitchell (AKA Two Dogs from Mean Ol' Meany) is, like, 70 or something.

And, we're all having a sing-along...

Happy Birthday to you!
You live in a zoo!
You look like a monkey,
And you smell like one, too!

And...many more...

And, at the risk of losing my PG-13 rating, I'm going to post a dirty picture of TD:

Where did Thursday come from?

I turned on the computer today and found out it was Thursday.

How the heck did that happen?

I went to this little blog and saw my last post was on Sunday. And it's Thursday!

We've got a big project going on at work, and I've been tied up with that. Had to work Saturday and Sunday. Yes, worked on Easter. And worked late Tuesday night. Actually, until 1:30 Wednesday morning.

Oh, I've been online a little bit. There have been some problems with a Website -- another Website -- that I've been donating time to, that have been caused by a couple of things.

For one, it's a high traffic site. And any Website that gets lots of traffic can experience performance issues. Think about it. Look at the room you're in right now. How many people are in the room? Okay, now double that amount. Now double that amount. And double it again and again and again and again. By now, you've got a serious problem with traffic. People can't get around as easily.

Websites are the same way.

So, this other Website gets a lot of traffic, and it experiences some performance issues.

Also, the Website has a very inefficient layout. It's written in PHP, but not good PHP. Yes, it's a WordPress blog, but the theme it uses in an older ... and now unsupported ... theme. For small traffic, it's okay. For large traffic, it's no good. And that causes performance issues.

And the Web host has been complaining about the amount of server resources the Website is taking up. They want more money. They have a point: the Website is terribly inefficient, and the server has to work harder to make up for it.

It has a lot of JavaScript that pulls in content from other sources. That's a very slow way to do stuff. Easy, but not very efficient. One or two, fine. Several, a problem. You see, JavaScript is a client-side technology. The upshot of that is that the code is delivered, then processed, then content displayed. And that's a lot slower than server-side technology, where the server executes it's stuff, then delivers it in final form to the browser. All that means that JavaScript causes performance issues.

The Web host has had some issues with a bank of servers over the last couple of days. So that causes performance issues.

All these things have contributed to that Website having issues. And these little things have seemed to reach critical mass.

The solution?

Get a new theme. Drop most of the the JavaScript. And move to a new host.

What's all that got to do with me?

Well, I've been trying to help out. I'm catching lots of flack. And it's all about stuff I've already explained to the actual Website owner.

Now, this isn't usually a problem. But I've been very busy at work. And getting phone calls about a blog while I'm at work isn't vey good. And I have a bad habit of forgetting to turn my phone off during meetings. I got a call about the blog the other day ... and if it had come 20 minutes earlier, I'd have been in the room with Senator Saxby Chambliss and my cell phone would have started playing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" (yes, that's my ringtone).

Anyway, I've been busy at work. And most of my (currently limited) time away from work has been involved in another blog.

And this little blog has suffered.

Not that anyone's noticed.

Blocked from your own blog

Many blogs, including this little blog, used a plugin called Bad Behavior.

What it does is keep known spammers away.

Well, for a while this week, it was keeping several people from their own blogs. Including this little blog.

There are many different ways of preventing spam on blogs. And that's because there are many different ways of spamming blogs.

Comment spam is comments that are for the purpose, not of commenting on a post, but to use your Web space to advertise the junk they're selling.

There's another kind of comment spam that, while not selling anything, is still unrelated to your post. Those are usually attempts to find out how successful their attempts to spam are.

Sort of like the Verizon guy that says "Can you hear me now?" He's got nothing to say, just making sure he can get a message through, when he's ready to send his message.

Those spammers with the "innocent" comments, like "Really like your post. Cool!" and such, are trying out spam methods. And, if they get through, will bombard you with spam.

There's also TrackBack spam. That's when people post links to their Web sites in the TrackBack section of your blog. Similar to comment spam, just stored different.

Sometimes TrackBack spammers will link to your blog. Sometimes not. Either way, they are spamming you.

A variation of that is the aggregate spammers. It's a form of TrackBack spam where they set up a site just for advertising. They don't post anything. Instead, they take excerpts from blogs, put them on their blog or Web site, link to the various sites, and send TrackBack spam.

Those aggregate spammers are trying to use your blog to drive traffic to their site that's not a real blog.

I don't like any of them.

And that's why I use different methods of blocking spam.

I'm a paid user of Akismet. Yes, Akismet is free. But I'm a supporter of their product.

I'm also a paid user of Spam Karma 2. Yes, it's free, too. But I use ... and support ... Dr. Dave's product.

And, I'm a paid user of Bad Behavior. Yes, it's free. But, like the others, I use ... and support ... Michael Hampton's product.

They all use different methods of blocking, removing, or preventing spam.

And, this week, Bad Behavior broke.

It locked many, many folks from their blogs.

Including me.

And Michale Hampton.

In brief, yesterday I moved all of my sites to a new dedicated server. In the process, I decommissioned an old blacklist I was running which I thought wasn't being used, not realizing that Bad Behavior was still set to use it. Shortly afterward, I found myself locked out of my own blog, just as you all did.

So, if it happened to you, you know know why.

I had to log on to my server through a back-end interface, then physically remove the Bad Behavior plugin. Then I could log on to my blog.

The problem has been identified ... and fixed. And, if you use Bad Behavior, you should do what I'm doing: updating Bad Behavior.