Urgent: BitsBlog Changing Server Sites This Weekend

BtsBlog is hosted by IX Web Hosting, as I think I’ve mentioned in the past.

Got this in the mail today.

We’ve been very diligent in planning the move of our data center and we’re on schedule with all preparations. Our primary target date for the relocation of all servers is the end of next week: Midnight, Friday March 28th. At that time, for a period of up to 48 hours, there will be service unavailability. It is not certain when your account will become unavailable or how fast it will come back up. Please allow ample time for us to make the move safely and securely.

I know I’m asking a lot of you and am truly thankful for your patience. You can expect significant service improvements with this move. It is likely that most accounts will only be down a portion of the allotted 48-hour window.

Apparently,  they’re going for better connectivity, etc.

So, if you see us out for a while starting on Friday night, you’ll understand why.

“[V]oters are tired of people who lie to them”

Mrs. Clinton, 1992, via Tim Graham, News Busters.   She stated there were nine other commandments, including bearing false witness.   She infered that Gennifer Flowers was lying and tha her husband, B.J. was a man of good character.  Yeah sure.   She said this all in a southern accent.

• First, I’m pleased to announce, and recognize, that Right Wing News has honored us yet again, with an Honorable Mention, as a part of their Favorite Bloggers for 2008. I see Fellow Swamp Stomper Sister Toldjah is also on that list. Thanks to John, and congrats to Sis. I consider this a real cap feather, and a genuine reward for all the work we’ve put into this place over the years.
• Another Honorable Mention, this time from the OTB caption contest.  Oh, Honorable Honorableness… or something.
• What homosexuality is to Sullivan, so is religion to Hitchens. So wrapped up are they in their personal lives, that neither can speak rationally on the topic, and it’s always the driving undercurrent in their running commentary, regardless of topic.
• So the headlines are saying that CBS has exposed the Hillary Clinton Bosnia trip, forcing her to admit she ‘mis-spoke’ _{(Yeah, right).} Well, if they’ve had this on file this long, why’d they wait until now to release the information?  Because they weren’t sure if she’d be the leading Democrat, and they don’t want to damage the chance of a Democrat in the White House, per chance? Yeah, “what biased press”, I know, I know.
• The Strib:
  

  A national tour featuring decorated veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan won’t be stopping at Forest Lake Area High School today as planned, after school leaders abruptly canceled the visit.Steve Massey, the school principal, said the decision to cancel was prompted by concerns that the event was becoming political rather than educational and therefore was not suitable for a public school.

  He said the school had received several phone calls from parents and others, some of whom indicated that they may stage a protest if the event took place.

  Perhaps the principal should grow a spine. It isn’t the soldiers and those supporting them making this a political football. And what kind fo example are these anti-war nuts setting to these kids? there are times, my freinds,when I wonder if it’s going to take an act of war to rout these idiots from among us.

• They had a bit of a problem on the Autobahn, yesterday. Snow, the aparent reason for a 50 car pileup. Having had one of those just a mile or so from my desk, here, a few months ago, I know what a mess than can be. there’s an 80MPH speed limit in he stretch, but with the snow… 
• Today’s Birthday wishes go out to Danica Patrick, who shares a birthday with Arturo Toscaninni. Patrick looks significantly better than Arturo does, particularly since the latter’s been dead for 50 years

I forced to wonder just how stupid one has to be, to be a journalist.   For some strange reason NBC11, San  Jose, runs the below story under the headline, “Oregon Man Says He’s Pregnant:”

BEND, Ore. — An Oregon man is five months pregnant, according to a national magazine.

Thomas Beatie, who used to be a woman, appeared in the most recent issue of The Advocate, a magazine for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender readers, Portland, Ore., television station KPTV reported.

Beatie wrote the article, which includes a picture of him while he was 22 weeks pregnant. According to the story, he went through a sex change, but decided only to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy.

The story does not iidentify the birth name of the now Thomas Beatie.  I will assume she had her named changed legally   However if Beatie was once a woman, she still is a woman.   Sex is immutable, even on the Left Coast.   I suggest that journalism schools start making biology mandatory.   The media is in dire need of help.

Some leftards  have their knickers in twist over the Williams Kristol piece in the New York Times in which he declared that racism was not a problem and he rather not have discussion about it:

With respect to having a national conversation on race, my recommendation is: Let’s not, and say we did.

Ari Berman, Nation, among others, is upset, and deranged:

Preeminent neocon and newly-minted New York Times columnist Bill Kristol embarrassed himself last week by incorrectly stating that Barack Obama was present for one of Jeremiah Wright’s fiery sermons and for neglecting to mention that his information came from the notoriously untrustworthy right-wing tabloid, Newsmax.com.

Now Kristol has embarrassed himself again this week by stating, in the wake of Obama’s speech on race, that racism is not really a problem in America. “The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race,” Kristol writes. “Racial progress has in fact continued in America. A new national conversation about race isn’t necessary to end what Obama calls the ‘racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years’ — because we’re not stuck in such a stalemate.”

Donald Douglas, American Power, digs deeper into the subject than the leftards:

We have a large and growing black middle class (here , here, and here), educational opportunities for blacks are more widely available than at any time in American history, and the number of black public officials at all levels of government has grown dramatical since the passage of the voting rights act in 1965. Barack Obama’s own success, and his initial calls to transcend race, signify how far we’ve come as a people, one people committed to progress on racial equality.

This does not discount continuing poverty and problems of criminalization among the black lower third. But no matter how far we come, racial recrimination activists will refuse to see racial progress, they’ll never suggest that the glass is half full. Instead, they’ll brand those who do as idiots (or racists).

The leftarded only see racism as white anti-black discrimination.   The only solution they see is yet more anti-white discrimination.    The left doesn’t want a discussion of racism.   They want a discussion of white guilt and further atonement.

Scott Fybsuh, over at NERW:

 Ask just about any top-40 DJ of a certain generation to list their most respected colleagues, and the name “Jackson Armstrong” is almost sure to pop up somewhere near the top.

…

Armstrong, whose real name was John Larsh, died Saturday at his North Carolina home, ending a career that found “Your LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEADER” behind the mic everywhere from Los Angeles (KTNQ, KKHR, KFI) to Boston (WMEX).

Jack worked at WKBW for a while, as well as being on CHUM, and more recently on WWKB (the more recent implimentation of WKBW) during KB’s all too breif oldies format, via voice tracking…. so I’ve heard quite a bit of him over the years. Never chanced to meet him, though… and as a DJ of that era, myself, I get the feeling I missed something special.

Mrs. Clinton, along with her reprobate husband, B.J., is a habitual liar.   I so stated in February of last year.   Now even the Lame Stream Media is being forced to admit the obvious:

[wp_youtube]8BfNqhV5hg4[/wp_youtube]

Hat tip and more: Allah Pundit, Hot Air.

The Democrats… the gift that just keeps on giving, one scandal after another. In his first television interview since his former boss, Eliot Spitzer ((D) was ousted, Gov David Patterson (D)  has added fuel to the flame. Says the New York Observer:

“I tried it a couple of times,” he said in an interview with NY1 News, when asked if he had ever used cocaine.

It was his first television interview since he became governor last week.

Host Dominic Carter asked Paterson a number of questions about past drug use. The governor also admitted he has used marijuana, but added that he has not touched illegal drugs since his early twenties.

So, let’s see. Here we have two individuals who have a history of engaging in narcotic use, who have both had affirs with subordinates, which resulted in promotions for those subordinates. Those affairs were apparently paid for with tax money, and campaign money, as well.  In one case, we have a record of using the power of government and the power of the police against a political rival.

In short, these are simply Democrats.

Take a real close look at the Democrats, America…. and not just at the state level here in the Vampire state, but on the national level as well. The foibles of Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton are pretty well known. Put that together with what we’re seeing on the state and local levels… did you notice the goings on in Detroit, yesterday?…  The pattern is the same. When viewed in it’s totality, it amazes me that Democrats can get a dog catcher elected.

Like what you see, America? 

Lots of stuff going on over the weekend, not a bit of it earthshaking, or unexpected.

• Like McQ at Q&O, I find myself watching closely thetrainwreck that is NORK.  You had to know this kind of thing was coming, though. As I told McQ, it was not going to happen any other way. Its what gives rise to the phrase, “There are worse things than war”.  I said over there, and I still wonder, if we wouldn’t have saved lives by going to war over this monster. Alas, that’s the kind of question he left will never ask, so long as hey’re not in power.  Ala, Iraq, for example.
• Oh, speaking of Bruce, I’m taken with a quote of his:
  

  James Carville on the Richardson endorsement of Obama:

  “Mr. Richardson’s endorsement came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic,” Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week.

  That’s certainly a “unifying” quote, isn’t it?

  Well, yeah, that’s about what you’d expect. The quality of the people surrounding the Clintons …including Richardson,since he was so deep in theor councils for so long… has been exposed here, and it’s not very flattering. Then again, that’s nothing we didn’t know. And somehow only that snake, Carville would envision the Clintons in the role of Christ.   No, not that Obama is any better, but it would seem that we need to take something like this to discover what it is that motivates Democrats, anymore. This has nothing to do with the betterment of the country ….or even the party… and everything to do with cheerleading for and the feeding of their own respective messiah complexes.   Interesting to me, also, the symbolism involved with the Snake… Carville…  invoking Judas being paid off.  Think; Wasn’t it the snake that dealt so handily with that trailer park trash, Eve?

• Will someone please tell me what the bleep THIS is all about? I mean, far be it from me to credit George Will with much of anything, anymore, but he does seem to have this one nailed.
• It strikes me as amusing that Oliver Willis, perhaps _(edit-Bit) the most intellectually dishonest blogger of the realm, has a picture of a prominent Republican on his Blog Masthead. One wonders what gymnastics he managed to get his two remaining braincells doing, to work the logic out to support such a picture. Maybe it’s in celebration of the Lincoln Bedroom Fundraisers?
• I know, I know, I was remiss for not mentioning the passing of Arthur C. Clarke. I didn’t because I have the nagging question in the back of my mind… here’s someone who worked all his life, in his own way, against Religion. One wonders what he thinks of it now.
• Another Victim shot while calling 911 for help. She’d have been better off picking up a gun.
• And Hate mail? Look, Steve, I gotta tell you… I’ve been doing this for near 8 years as no matter… and was writing columns for online services (We used to call them BBS’s) as far back as the late 70’s. This stuff is mild by comparison to what I have been getting the last 5 years or so. In all honesty, I begin to see that what we’re dealing with is a desperation. I’ll tell you this, though; You’ve not made it until that crap starts showing up on a regular basis. You’re simply not getting their attention, until they start screaming.
• Did you notice the egg on Greenwald‘s face? Given his history, it’s not too much a shock to see Sock Puppets getting involved again. But I’ll say this to the Instant one, even though he knows this already, to slam the point home… and it’s the same thing I just said to Steve… You’ve not made it until that crap starts showing up in your feedback on a regular basis. We get it here all the time. And as for Greenwald and his sock puppet act, I bring him up as a bad example… the heart and soul of the Democrat party, today.
• I see XM and Sirus have been given the go-ahead on their planned merger. It’s criminal, in my view, that the ruling took as long as it did. Yet another example of how private industry prostrates itself on the altar of ‘Good Government”.  It’ll be interesting to see how all this works out, though, in terms of programming shifts and quality of both the programming itself, and the audio of both. Date-compressed audio streams drive me crazy… and I have to tell you that at the current codec, XM, even on their best day sounds like they’re running a 96kb stream at best, a lotta times. When I make MP3’s I usually run quite a bit wider…. variable 128-192. I can’t take it much narrower than that. Sounds like you’re playing your radio through a box fan, with all the phasing/quantization errors. Makes me wonder if, given the amount of total bird bandwidth they’ll have at their disposal, post merger, if they’ll open the tap a bit wider on some of the music channels. Hope so.

The New York Times is finally catching on to what we mere mortals already know just on the look of the thing:

Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer was deeply involved in his administration’s efforts last year to discredit the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, holding detailed discussions with senior aides, ordering damaging information about Mr. Bruno released, and calling an aide at home repeatedly to check on the progress, according to several people with direct knowledge of the investigation.

The governor has previously said he was not personally involved in the effort, suggesting only that he was vaguely aware that his aides had responded to a reporter’s inquiry about Mr. Bruno’s travels on state aircraft.

But testimony and other information gathered by the Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares, indicate that the governor’s participation was extensive and reflected Mr. Spitzer’s intense desire to damage Mr. Bruno, the people with knowledge of the case said.

The investigation was based on examination of e-mail messages, along with interviews with about a half-dozen senior administration officials, chief among them Mr. Spitzer’s former communications director, Darren Dopp, whom prosecutors decided last month to give immunity from prosecution.

Why, it’s nothing the Clintons didn’t do, after all.

But the question of the day is, as always, with the Times, why it took them so long to come to the conclusion everyone else had, months ago. Could it be that now the guy is out of office on the strength of the criminal charges, this stuff isn’t going to cost the Democrats anything?

The thing is, that what we’re dealing with is a well-established pattern for Democrats, and their 5th estate cheering sections.

If there is anything of justice going on here, it’s that with Spitzer’s replacement, Patterson, himself now being investigated for using Tax money to pay for sexual romps, the chances are quite good that Joe Bruno will be the next govenor of New York State by midsummer. At which point, the new York Times will doubtless begin to investigate the Governor’s office in an aggressive manner, as they would never do when  a Democrat holds that office.

Yet another Democrat comes into criminal charges. 950/WWJ:

Criminal charges were filed today against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty in connection with the “text message scandal” that has enveloped the Mayor’s office.

There are 12 criminal counts in all, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy, misconduct in office and perjury.

“It is perjury if there is lying, and perjury is a crime,”  said Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy in announcing the charges,  “Even children understand that lying is wrong.”

“Our investigation has clearly shown that public dollars were used, peoples lives were ruined,” said Worthy, downplaying the arguments of those who claimed that the mayor’s alleged affair with his chief of staff was a “private matter.”

Yeah, well, funny how this “Private Matter” stuff gets claimed when there’s a Democrat involved. That same standard didn’t apply to Gingrich, for example,  did it? Lying under oath is worth 15 years to you and I. I figure the chances of   Kwame Kilpatrick  getting his due, are quite slim.

With a tip of the ballcap to Ben Smith:

OBAMA: I will be honest with you that I didn’t have that many conversations with him over the last year just because I have been so busy. I haven’t been going to church. I wasn’t hearing a lot of these comments. The ones that are most offensive are ones that I never knew about until they were reported on. I had had conversations with him in the past – in fact from the day I first met him — about some of his views. Understand this, something else that has not been reported on enough is despite these very offensive views, this guy has built one of the finest churches in Chicago. This is not a crackpot church.

Sure, it’s not. And you’re not a racist, and you’re qualified to be the President of the United States.  And I’m the Walrus, koo koo kerchoo.

Witness the fact that Bill Clinton invited him to the White House when he was having his personal crises.

Well, you’re the only one, apparently, who doesn’t understand what that was about… a matter of personal convienience… and political necessity. He needed legitimacy after being caught with his pants around his ankles, and thought having someone with the facade of a minister would help him do that. Tell me, Has Bill Clinton been back to the place since? No? I shouldn’t need to explain all this to you, Barrack. Someone claiming to be qualified to be President should have the common sense, to understand this already.

Or the guts to publicly identify all this as what it is.

You have neither.

Conservative Reader:

It’s time to say goodbye to unions. Their time has come and gone. The real original value of unions have long since been replaced by state and federal laws that drive a significant amount of basic workers rights, and the labor market itself now drives a majority of the salary and benefits needs for most organizations.  Of course, you would have to believe in discipline as a means to long term success for this to make sense, and that’s just not the case in the world of the Left.

It’s quite possible that unions will survive for quite some time, but not because they are necessary. Since they have limited value to union members, they are becoming more and more desperate to find ways to stay alive.

First, it should be noted that the laws were put in place to reinforce the position of the unions in the working world.

As to the unions outliving their use, this is true. Many orgs, particularly large ones, do similarly.

I want you to do a little research, today, into the originally stated purpose of the ‘March of Dimes”. The smarter among you won’t take long to get my point.

Back in the day, we used to blog a bit about Bill Richardson.  He was one of more favorite ‘rats.  In those heady days, his campaign used to link us a bit.  I don’t know if Richardson ever read the blog, and I doubt it.  Now it seems clear that Richardson should have been reading us.  Shouldn’t everyone?  I blogged yesterday that a Mrs. Clinton can judged by the company she keeps.  Zachary A. Goldfarb, Washington Post:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said today that the people around Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton practice “gutter” politics and that they feel entitled to the presidency, a day after an informal adviser to her campaign compared Richardson to Judas for endorsing Sen. Barack Obama.

[…]

“I am very loyal to the Clintons,” said Richardson, but he said he wanted something beyond “Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton.” “You know, what about the rest of us?” he asked.

You simply can not draw some magic line between a candidate and their campaign.  They are one and the same.  When a candidate’s campaign is in the gutter, the candidate is in the gutter.  This ain’t rocket science.  The Clintons practice gutter politics, because they are gutter trash.

Edit: Corrected attribution.

Bob Lonsberry, today:

Like a fool, I went back and forth for most of three minutes, from the apple bin to the scale and to the apple bin again. I had two dollars and I wanted two apples and two pears, for lunch, and if I could find an apple small enough I could just afford it.

The right fruit finally found, I went to the registers and took my place in line.

The woman in front of me was in her 20s, healthy and young, with a fancy fruit drink and a gourmet salad. The salad looked pretty good. She had a leather coat and several pieces of garish gold jewelry.

And then I had one of those American moments.

One of those commonalities that bind us together and drive us crazy and are the foundation of folklore.

While I stood there with my miser lunch, the leather-coated, jewelry-wearing, designer-beverage drinking, foo-foo salad eating healthy young woman opened her money-stuffed purse – and paid with food stamps.

Years ago, it would have made me angry. Now I take it in stride, as just another testament of a curse upon our society.

And welfare is exactly that, a curse which steals money from taxpayers and initiative from recipients. A scourge which damages and divides by promoting resentment and debasing responsibility.

Bob goes on to make the point, correctly, that welfare doesn’t need reform, per se’, it needs extermination.  I could comment at lnegth, but not without stealing Bob’s fire.

Worth a read.