Blogrolling 2006-11-13

Items of interest from the blogroll.

• Sin City says there's a threat close to home.


• Emperor Misha I (Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler) promises to give as good as he took.


• Gun Toting Liberal says the Dems won ... now what?


• Jo's Cafe says you're going to get what you voted for.


• Chuck (Redneckin) says Dubya's giving in.


• Bird Dog (Maggie's Farm) likes pie.


• Shamalama (Common Folk Using Common Sense) analyzes the election.


• Richard Burkard (The Blog of Columbus, Georgia) serves leftovers. Okay, updates.


• Mark Noonan (Blogs for Bush) says Loop's coming.

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Operation Christmas Child

This is drop-off week for Operation Christmas Child.

If you're not familiar with Operation Christmas Child, look into it. It's a program of Samaritan's Purse:

Samaritan's Purse is a nondenominational evangelical Christian organization providing spiritual and physical aid to hurting people around the world. Since 1970, Samaritan's Purse has helped meet needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine with the purpose of sharing God's love through His Son, Jesus Christ.

The organization serves the Church worldwide to promote the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Samaritan's Purse is run by Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham. And Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse. It's to "share the joy of Christmas and the love of Jesus Christ with suffering children around the world."

Operation Christmas Child delivers shoe boxes to children in need. And you can help.

Use an empty, standard size shoe box or a small plastic container. If you wrap it, wrap the box & lid separately.

Decide if the gift is to be for a boy or a girl, and what age: 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14. You can print out a label here. Fill out the label and tape it to the top of your box.

Put your gift items in the box. Here's their suggestions:

• TOYS
  small cars, balls, dolls, stuffed animals, kazoos, harmonicas, yo-yos, jump ropes, small Etch A Sketch®, toys that light up or make noise (with extra batteries), Slinky®, etc.


• SCHOOL SUPPLIES
  pens, pencils and sharpener, crayons or markers, stamps and ink pad sets, writing pads or paper, solar calculators, coloring and picture books, etc.


• HYGIENE ITEMS
  toothbrush, toothpaste, mild bar soap (in a plastic bag), comb, washcloth, etc.


• OTHER
  Hard candy and lollipops (please double bag all candy), mints, gum, T-shirts, socks, ball caps; sunglasses, hair clips, toy jewelry, watches, flashlights (with extra batteries)


• A PERSONAL NOTE
  In a separate envelope, you may enclose a note to the child and a photo of yourself or your family. (If you include your name and address, the child may write back.)


• Do Not Include:
  Used or damaged items; war-related items such as toy guns, knives or military figures; chocolate or food; liquids or lotions; medications or vitamins; breakable items such as snowglobes or glass containers; aerosol cans

Then, include $7 to cover shipping and project costs.

Finally, take the box to a drop-off location. You can find a location near you here.

We've worked with the grandchildren about getting boxes together. And we're delivering them to the local drop-off this week.

I'm asking you to look at Operation Christmas Child and consider if it's worthy of your support.

Blogrolling 2006-11-12

Items of interest from the blogroll.

• Right Thinking Girl found ten good things about the election results.


• Point Five made sure the soldier's got America's message in time for Veteran's Day.


• Potfry (The Nose On Your Face) found the 20th hijacker.


• The People's Cube says the Jihad continues.


• Jack Yoest says Charmaine Yoest (Reasoned Audacity) has a debate this afternoon on Fox News Live at 1:30 ET.


• Don Surber is counting broken campaign promised ... until he runs out of ink.


• Public Eye says Elton John misses the irony.

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Blogrolling 2006-11-11

Items of interest from the blogroll.

• Chris Short (Conservative Thinking) has an Airman's family in need.


• Heidi (Euphoric Reality) has a Soldier's thoughts on the election.


• Dr Rusty Shackleford (Townhall) says the Dems owe Jon Stewart.


• Reliapundit (The Astute Bloggers) finds someone really happy over the election.


• LB (Don't Go Into The Light) finds there are some things more important than the election.


• Norma (Collecting My Thoughts) shares family photos for Veteran's Day.


• Wild Bill (Passionate America) says money is good.


• Samantha Burns remembers.


• I Am Coyote (NW Republican) looks at why the evangelicals aren't there for the GOP.

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Headline News 2006-11-10

From ABC News:
New Face of Congress: Fewer White Christian Men
Satan, wife pleased

From ABC News:
Ford to Become Oldest Living President
Carter remains most useless

From ABC News:
Man Who Fled Fatal Traffic Accident for 5 Years Returned to U.S.
Ted Kennedy to stand trial

From ABC News:
Courtney Confirms She'll Go Nude in Magazine
December issue of Crack Whore magazine goes on sale Thanksgiving

From ABC News:
Leaving the Religious Right
Dems team up with Religious Wrong

From ABC News:
Dead N.C. Candidate Easily Wins Election
Only safe Democrat elected Tuesday

From ABC News:
Teen Who Skipped Tab Made to Wash Dishes
Prefers Diet Coke

From ABC News:
Man Uses Bug Story to Get Women Undressed
Next plan, "snake in my pants" story

From ABC News:
Bipartisanship Ho?
Pelosi vows to work with Bush

From ABC News:
Republicans look to Reagan era for inspiration
Bush to give Alzheimer's a try

Blogrolling 2006-11-10

Items of interest from the blogroll.

• Fuzzybear Lioness (Fuzzilicious Thinking) has a Project VALOUR-IT auction update.


• Insolublog wants to overhaul the system.


• Honza P. (Pros & Cons) asks the Dems "now what?"


• Cowboy Blog believes how one uses one's mouth is important.


• Random Yak learns from movies.


• SerandEz says a can of worms has been opened.


• The Florida Masochist looks at mismanagement in West Palm Beach.


• Goovyvic (Fiddle Dee Dee) is better prepared to deal with crap.


• WuzzaDem has a message for the rest of the world.

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Bad Behavior

I've had my fill of spam. No, not the fine meat product by Hormel. That's SPAM® -- and that's good.

I'm talking about unsolicited comment and TrackBack spam. Like blogs get. Including this little blog.

I'm using Akismet, which comes with WordPress. And it works pretty good. I also use SpamKarma 2, and it does some good, but I can't tell that it picks up anything that Akismet misses.

To me, one's as good as another. Akismet is free for small blogs like this little blog. Big blogs can get a Commercial edition. Spam Karma is free, too. But Dr. Dave does accept tips. And no, I haven't donated. But I should. I really should.

But, Akismet and SpamKarma both let some stuff through. Not much, but some. And I'm happy with them. It's the spammers I'm not happy with. And I'm not happy with checking the moderation queue.

You see, Akismet and SpamKarma do catch a lot, and send that stuff to the moderation queue. Which means I need to check the queue. And most of the time, it's spam. Every now and then, something gets queued that is okay. So I do have to check the queue.

But, like I said, most of it is nothing but spam.

And that's where Bad Behavior comes in. Bad Behavior is a WordPress plug-in that helps with spam:

Bad Behavior was designed and built by watching actual spambots which harvested email addresses, posted comment spam, and used fake referrers. By logging their entire HTTP requests and comparing them to HTTP requests of legitimate users, it is possible to detect most spambots. Bad Behavior blocks spambots with a short error message. It also has three configurable User-Agent lists for spambots and other malicious bots which actually identify themselves. Bad Behavior can use string matching or regular expression matching against a User-Agent.

So, what's all that mean? It means that lots of these spammings are not from some guy in his underwear hitting your site and typing crap into the comment box. Rather, it's an application and/or scripts that the guy in his underwear is running that automatically try to leave comments and TrackBacks. And they basically all have similar characteristics. And Bad Behavior is supposed to be pretty good at recognizing them and blocking them.

Beth over at MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy tried Bad Behavior once before. And didn't like it. But it's been re-written. So, I'm going to try it out.

I enabled it Thursday. And within 7 hours, it says it blocked 367 hits. SiteMeter stats do not show a drop ... at least, not that I've noticed. So, I'd figure they're spammers being blocked.

But they may not be. If I get reports about legitimate visitors being turned away, I'll check to see if I've done something wrong, or if it's just not for me. As was the case with Beth.

Of course, if it's blocking you, you aren't reading this, so you don't know what's going on. So I may never know there's a problem. Beth found out because people contacted her. Because her blog rocks.

I'll find out if one of my sisters gets blocked.

Now, I'm not planning on dropping Akismet or SpamKarma. I'm just adding another level of protection. All three do different things. And I'm hoping there'll be enough spam protection in place to prevent me from having to check the 100 or so items that are moderated every day.

After running for a few days, we'll see if this was a good idea ... or bad behavior on my part.