Waterboarding is an interrogation method in which the subject is strapped down, sometimes inclined backwards, and water is poured into their nose and mouth. At first, it isn’t so bad — you can hold your breath. But you need to breathe eventually, and when you do… hello water. Water is drawn in, which induces a sense of overwhelming fear. You feel like you’re dying. And you are — you’re experiencing a controlled drowning that, if not stopped at the right time, would certainly kill you. It’s very effective. You’ll say anything when your body has you convinced that you’re about to die.
It’s an extremely cruel form of torture, and can cause lasting psychological damage. The CIA reserves the right to waterboard detainees, and the Bush Administration has rebuffed requests to ban the method.
For those of you who are offended by my disregard for climate change, my belief in capitalism, my belief in individualism over collectivism, my belief that smaller government is better, my belief that poverty is a behavioral disorder, and my belief that the “right to privacy” doesn’t apply when you are terminating innocent life: I present to you the Safe For Liberals category.
Nothing will go in here that, in my best judgement, would offend the majority of left-wingers. For example: anything that is critical of Bush will probably go in here. Anything about civil rights will go in here. Anything about the stupidity of trading freedom for security will go in here. Anything politically neutral will also go in here. The only thing I am not sure of is anti-white and anti-asian discrimination issues (such as giving extra consideration to non-white and non-asian applicants to colleges). Some of you lefties are in favor of such discrimination, and some aren’t. Maybe I’ll just stay away from that issue.
And yes, I mean “Liberals” in its new meaning (that is to say, a leftist, or a quasi-socialist). I don’t like this verbal distortion, but there doesn’t seem to be any escaping it. When I mean “liberal” in its original meaning, I’ll say “classical liberal.”
Note that this entry is not tagged safe-for-liberals. Mostly because of the horrid photo of Ms. Clinton.
The FCC is out of control. They have a raging hard-on for the Internet, and are doing everything they can to gain regulatory control over it. Now, 31,000 customers who receive VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service are getting cut off. See, the FCC thinks people are stupid and that people don’t know that when the power goes off, your internet goes off, or that sometimes… for random reasons… the internet cuts out. If you’ve been using the internet for more than a day, I think it’s bleeding obvious that the thing isn’t exactly 100% reliable. 404 Error, Page not found. “Could not connect to server.” “You have been disconnected.” Par for course, right? Well, the FCC has decided that unless you explicitly state that you are aware that the internet can sometimes be suddenly disconnected and that your VoIP service might not work all the time, they are going to shut your service off.
Thousands of VoIP users are set to be disconnected Monday under a recent FCC ruling regarding provisioning of enhanced 911 service on VoIP lines.
Under the FCC ruling, interconnected VoIP providers, that is those who provide connections to the public switched telephone network, allowing them to have normal telephone numbers, were required to notify all of their users about the availability of enhanced 911 service, and that the service may be unavailable during a power failure or loss of Internet connectivity.
[...]
[T]he ruling requires that subscribers respond back, affirming that they understand the limitations of 911 on VoIP. Anyone who has not responded as of August 29 is to have their service disconnected until such time as they do respond.
So basically, the FCC is worried that you are unaware of VoIP’s instability, and as punishment, they’re cutting off your service. Fantastic.
Now this is pretty simple. You go to your carrier’s web site, you sign in, you fill out the E911 form, and you’re done. Go do it this weekend if you haven’t already.
I say you go one step further. Yeah, sign the stupid form and get your service turned back on, but also write a letter to your Congressman telling him or her that you already have a daddy, and you don’t need the FCC to play his part.
The FCC is rapidly turning into the biggest piece of self-perpetuating governmental bureaucratic bloat around. They’re also becoming increasingly dangerous to your privacy. The delicious goodness of wiretaps, coming soon in internet form!
I will never forget the look on my English professor’s face when he started class on 9/13/2001. On 9/11, his class was in session when the attacks occurred, and none of us found out until the next period, when it was announced that classes had been canceled for the rest of the day (and the next day too). Class resumed on Thursday.
My English professor was an Iranian Muslim.
The look on his face that morning was a profoundly moving combination of fear and shame. He sat up at the front of the class of around 20 students and dazedly stared at a fixed point on his desk until it was time to begin class. He slowly rose to his feet, and raised his head. He eventually spoke, slowly and quietly. “I am sorry, for what has happened,” he said. “I hope that all your friends and families are safe.”
He said this while facing the class, and looking at the class, but without making eye contact with any one person in the room. He was not a traditional Muslim by any means. He dressed in Western clothes and subscribed to a mildly socialist, Western enlightenment political view. Two of our readings dealt with the issue of equality for women. He had no reason to think that we regarded him as a subscriber to the extremist views of the 9/11 terrorists.
Still, there was that look in his eyes. I saw in that expression shame… shame that people had committed such atrocities in the name of his religion. I also saw fear… fear that we would not be able, or not be willing to distinguish extremist Muslims from moderate Muslims. When he said that he was sorry for what had happened, it didn’t seem as if he was empathizing with us, but rather apologizing on behalf of someone else. I remember that I very much wanted to tell him that I didn’t blame him in the least, but it didn’t seem appropriate. He hadn’t explicitly said what he communicated to us, and I didn’t want to detract from his message’s humble subtlety.
Part of the semester’s assignment was a series of open topic short essays. He stressed that they should be informal… merely a stream of consciousness taken down on paper. My first essay dealt with the distinction between Muslim extremists and ordinary Muslims. He did not return our essays, as they were not a graded on their content. Still, I think he got the message.
Subscribe to Comments 2.0 for WordPress has moved out of beta with the release of version 2.0 final. Only minor fixes over beta-2, so this is an optional upgrade.
My Subscribe to Comments 2.0 has been officially released in “beta” form. A big thank you goes out to the many people who helped me troubleshoot the plugin during the limited alpha release for the last two months! The code is very stable now, and the “beta” designation is just indicating that I’m planning on active development and bug fixing (if any should show up) in the next few weeks.
Now that the plugin has been officially released, I’m going to submit it to the WordPress plugin competition, where I think it has a decent shot at the “Best Community Plugin” category ($500 prize).
Subscribe to Comments 2.1 is a plugin that allows commenters on your blog to check a box before commenting and get e-mail notification of further comments. It is one of the most popular WordPress plugins out there for the simple reason that it helps foster a community around your blog by encouraging commenters to come back and stay engaged in the dialog.
Features
Rudimentary security
Users cannot enter a random e-mail into the subscription manager and modify someone else’s subscriptions
In order to modify subscriptions, users need to use a special link, given in notification e-mails, and printed in the comments form as long as they have their comment cookie
Recognition of subscription status
Unsubscribed users see the “subscribe to comments” checkbox, but subscribed users see a “Manage your subscriptions” link
The author of the post is recognized by either login or comment cookie and is assumed to be subscribed to the entry (as they will receive notifications through WordPress)
Themeable subscription manager
Uses visual style of WordPress interface
Can be optionally accessed via “Manage” menu in WordPress
E-mail verification of block requests
Javascript “invert selection” link to check/uncheck subscriptions for mass deletion
“Return to the page you were viewing” link that persists at the top of the page, so that users can easily return to the post they were reading once they are done modifying subscriptions
Ability to let users change notification e-mail address
In the subscription manager, users can request that their notification address be changed for all their subscriptions
Special link is sent to the old address for verification
Once clicked, their e-mail address will be changed instantly for all their comments
Easy integration into comments form
No modification of comments form needed for WP 1.5+ (supported themes)
For users who want custom placement of the checkbox/link to subscription manager, this can be done with one simple function call, placed anywhere in the comment form
Subscription without leaving a comment
By popular demand, you can now offer visitors the option of subscribing to comments on an entry without having to leave a comment themselves
If the reader later decides to join the conversation, their subscription continues without them having to explicitly set it
Customization
You can make the Subscription Manager that your users see use your theme’s header, footer and sidebar, using CSS to style it to fit your site
Internationalization
I’ve written Subscribe to Comments 2.1 with i18n in mind, making full use of __() and _e() functions. The domain is “subscribe-to-comments”.
Version 2.1 of Subscribe to Comments has a feature that people have been begging me to implement for many months: you can view the list of people who are subscribed to posts on your blog, and you can also see a list of the most “subscribed” posts. Also in this version is a new one-file install. You just put subscribe-to-comments.php in your /plugins/ directory, activate, and you’re done. This version will work on WordPress versions from 2.0.6 through 2.3.1 (highest tested).
Versions
2.1.2 Fixed a few bugs that’d send bad notifications (thanks Donncha!), cleaned up some code and moved to using proper WP escaping functions
2.1.1 WordPress 2.2 compatibility! Also note that support for attribute_escape() is needed, so if you get errors about that, upgrade to the latest version in your branch
2.1 big update, fixing a few potential XSS holes, and misc error messages… see above for details
2.0.8 XSS security fixes, hopefully fixed “+” symbols in e-mail for good
2.0.7 additional “funky e-mail” fixes
2.0.6 support for e-mail addresses with “+” symbols, option to disable CSS “clearing”
The alpha 4 version of Subscribe to Comments 2.0 is now available. Upgrade if you were having problems. If you are using a cutting edge version of WP 1.5.1, it is a necessary upgrade, because of some recent file shuffling in SVN.
I’m still going to hold off publicly releasing a final version until WP 1.5.1 is out, because I don’t want to have to spend all my time supporting issues that are related to the bugs in WP 1.5
The only people who should be using this now are people who are comfortable running alpha WP 1.5.1 code.
Subscribe to Comments 2.0-alpha-3 is available for my alpha testers. Biggest change: options are now set through WordPress options interface, and more things can be customized, including the default “checked” status of the “subscribe” checkbox.
This post pertains to the alpha test period for this plugin which ran until June 9th. As of June 9th, this code has been officially released and listed in the WordPress plugin repository.
Not everyone has such active commenters on their blog that a return after 10 minutes will reveal numerous responses. If your blog is anything like my blog, comments on an entry might take place every couple of hours, over a few days. Because of this, the Subscribe to Comments plugin by Jennifer at Scriptygoddess has been a lifesaver. When leaving a comment, users are given an option to subscribe to that entry’s comments, and will receive e-mail notifications of replies. The plugin was written soon after the release of WordPress 1.2 Mingus. Although the original work was Jennifer’s, several others, myself included, have contributed to the code, adding features and fixing bugs. Jennifer has become unable to maintain the code as of late, due to personal factors. I’ve sort of taken the code under my wing, and have been giving it a little TLC, cleaning it up, and adding features that people have suggested in the last year.
What follows is a breakdown of the changes I’ve implemented so far (subject to change):
November has been a big month so far, largely due to the huge spike in the days surrounding the election. I might just have 20,000 visits this month. I’ve been falling behind on actual writing… so here goes an effort to make up for it. As usual, nothing too long-winded.
- Mark
Dark Ages
Christianity, in its infancy, was a good force in the world. The teachings of “love your enemy” and “do unto others as you would like them to do to you” changed the world forever. Jesus was truly a visionary philosopher, and for a while, people followed his teachings in their original spirit.
In a time often referred to as the Dark Ages, and in the centuries that followed, the Christian force in the world became notably darker. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the selling of indulgences and the bloodshed caused by the Protestant split all left their tainted marks on the Christian faith. It could even be argued that at times, Christianity was largely a force for evil in the world.
Renaissance… Rebirth
It took the Renaissance, or “rebirth,” to check the blind theocratic ideologies that had been allowed to ferment. The Renaissance was a period of healing and renewal, and yielded such positive ideologies as the freedom of speech, first practiced in the fledgling nation of America.
This rebirth largely saved Christianity from itself. As the scriptures were evaluated in a new light by all, a more evolved and caring interpretation of Christianity was born. Today, Christianity is, once again, a force for good.
Islamic Darkness
I believe that the religion of Islam is still in its own Dark Age. Hateful misinterpretations of the Quran are forcefully injected into Muslim youths. Dedicated soldiers take their own lives, in the hopes that the innocent Infidel lives simultaneously ended will be pleasing to Allah. “Islam” means “submission,” and that is what the Arab world has done. But instead of submitting to the the rational minds in their society, they have largely subscribed to the viewpoints preached by the most hateful people the world has ever known.
The President has often called Islam a “religion of peace.” I do not consider that to be true. I believe that Islam has potential to join Christianity as a positive force in the world, but right now, little good is to be found within. Islam has two choices… a modern rebirth, denouncing the hatred of the past, or annihilation as the world realizes the seriousness of the threat the extremists in the religion pose.
Good news for Cox Cable subscribers. The basic high speed internet tier ($39.95, bundled) will be boosted to 4.0 Mbps downstream and 512 Kbps upstream. The Premier tier ($54.95, bundled) will be 5.0 Mbps downstream and 768 Kbps upstream. Wow.
I’ve been begging them for this for quite a while. Mostly, it was the slow (256 Kbps) upload that irked me.
The only bad news is that while most Cox-served areas have already been upgraded, Gainesville, FL will not see the upgrade until sometime later this year, because of a difference in underlying systems. Regardless, it’s coming, and I’m excited.
Cox also offers a value level of 256 Kbps upstream and downstream for $24.95 a month (no need to have cable TV service).
Update: A local Cox representative told me he thinks the speed upgrade would be complete in six weeks for the Gainesville area.
As more and more people switch over to WordPress, they are wanting some of the features they enjoyed when using Movable Type. Rest assured, there are people working overtime writing plugins. I’ve just now installed a “Subscribe to Comments” plugin by Jenn from ScriptyGoddess (which is in beta right now… keep your shirt on), and I just wrote up an article over there about how to do Show/Hide Comments.
The whole thing is quite lengthy, as I went into detail as to what code you should change, but for people who have a stronger understanding of PHP, I can give you the short version.
Basically, we’re going to harness a variable, $withcomments, that is used as a switch for RSS feeds. It really isn’t used in your main templates, but it suits our purposes here. Since your entire wp-comments.php file is wrapped in an if($single || $withcomments){ conditional, all you have to do is go in and separate code chunks into the stuff that should be shown on an $single page, and the stuff that should be shown on a $withcomments page (dropdown comments, that is.) Any code chunks that should be in both, leave alone.
What you need to do in your index.php template (besides making the links to expand the comments), is set up code near the top that will designate certain types of pages as $withcomments. The simplest form would be this:
if(!$single){
$withcomments = TRUE;
}
So every page that isn’t $single will be $withcomments. As you can imagine, you can get much more complex if you like. This was merely an overview of the basic approach. Maybe you’d better just go read the whole thing.
One of the most popular ways of dealing with the deluge of spam that people receive is to have two e-mail accounts. One e-mail account is used for private correspondence, and the other is used for giving out to websites etc. The thinking is that if this address ever becomes compromised (one of the rat bastards sells it, or it is posted somewhere and harvested), you can always dump it.
There is one major problem with this: all of the legitimate mail you receive at that address goes along with the address, and you will have to track down the websites and services you do want and resubscribe. Heck, if you resubscribe to the same service that compromised your e-mail address in the first place, you won’t have to wait long for spam to start flooding in. And let’s not forget the fact that since you receive legitimate e-mail at that address, even if you don’t get enough spam to consider dumping the address, you still have to sort through it.
This is where email quarantining comes in. Although I just invented that term, the concept is not new. The idea is that you give a different email address each time you sign up with a site. If your mail email address is john@doe.com you might sign up at ebay with john.ebay@doe.com or john-ebay@doe.com. These email “subaddresses” give you the ability to quarantine that account if it ever becomes compromised, without losing all of your other subaddresses, because if you get spam in your inbox, you know exactly where it came from.
