blog

Test Post

Just a test post of some new blogging tools. I’ve decided to attempt reviving this blog once more while being less cynical in my posts than before. Still will mostly be my observations on the world from my little part of it.

WP 2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

Featured image

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 4,000 times in 2010. That’s about 10 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 111 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 609 posts.

The busiest day of the year was April 23rd with 173 views. The most popular post that day was Text of SB1070 (Az’s Immigration Law).

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were ericpalmer.wordpress.com, how2immigrate.com, en.search.wordpress.com, en.wordpress.com, and ohamerica.us.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for arizona immigration law text, sb1070 text, arizona immigration law sb1070 text, darth vader funny, and sb 1070 text.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Text of SB1070 (Az’s Immigration Law) April 2010
13 comments

2

Wal-Mart near bankruptcy or… March 2008
2 comments

3

Russian T-50 Stealth Fighter January 2010

4

Daily Space: Apollo Lunar Module July 2009

5

Arizona 2008 Propositions September 2008
14 comments

 

An interesting look at Thirdsphere over 2010. I’m not surprised immigration was one of the busiest and most looked at topics on this blog. I started burning out towards the end of 2010, hence the few posts there, but I think I’m charged up again and ready to lay into the subjects and topics that interest me.  So expect the usual posts about politics, the Obama administration, Obamacare, and immigration but I’m going to try to get back into posting more about space, aerospace, technology, and international news once more.

 

Short Shrift

Well WP ate the entire post I just wrote for no apparent reason and I’m not going to spend another twenty minutes writing up. Weird. Just a reminder for me to write posts in a word processor first and then put them on the blog. Too bad. I thought it was a rather nice, long post addressing immigration, the oil spill, the economy, pseudo-conservatives, and the politics and policies of convenience that are destroying the country and burdening the Amercian people unfairly while the corporations and elitist douches get to live the high life. Here’s the basic gist of the original post’s ending paragraph:

While I have no need for UI I know fat to many people in Arizona that do. People who aren’t lazy, they don’t want to be on UI but the ongoing poor economic situation makes it so. I’m tired of seeing politicians screwing with people over pennies when these same politicians have no problems throwing out billions to corporations. So I say this, if Congress doesn’t pass an extension to unemployment by July 4th, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure every incumbent in Arizona gets thrown out of office. I don’t care if they’re the friggin’ dog catcher or the Governor: they deserve to face retribution from the people at this point. It’s time for Americans to take their country back from the corrupt who are pillaging and destroying it.

The original was much better stated, but oh well. It is what it is.

Throw the bums out!

Cinco de Mayo

First off, Cinco de Mayo!

For those unaware, Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory over France at the Battle of Puebla. It’s kind of ironic that so many outside of Mexico celebrate the holiday even if some only do so as homage to Hispanic culture when the holiday is more a regional event in Mexico proper.

I’m disturbed by the nominee for Legal Adviser to State appears to be advocating registering gun owners in this country as well as favoring global efforts to repress gun rights. A guy advocating usurping the U.S. Constitution and sovereignty through treaties is hardly one you want giving legal advice to our nation’s international face. He sounds more akin to the idiot lawyers in the Bush administration that essentially said things like water boarding were not torture. Look how well that turned out. /sarcasm

So Justice David Souter is stepping down soon from the Supreme Court. Some lefties are having kittens. I could care less about who Obama picks so long as they have a thorough knowledge, understanding, and unbiased view of the Constitution and have no propensity or agenda for trying to destroy the parts of the Constitution they don’t feel are “relevant” any more. Would it be nice for a woman or another minority to become the replacement Justice? Sure, so long as they get it on merit, experience and qualifications, not political leanings or some form of gender or racial parity or equity to make up for historical injustices.

The Arizona Legislature is still wrangling (in their usual BS partisan way) over the budget. Everything needs to be pared back but even I think the Republican dominated Leg is suspiciously partisan in what areas of government are getting cuts. But then the Democratic Party has done the same thing in the past. Neither party has the best interests of Arizona at heart, only their respective National Party bosses’ corrupt agendas.

The Associated Press: NRA convention venue seeks OK for alcohol, weapons An interesting conundrum but obviously necessary to keep the  Convention Center in line with the laws of Arizona. Hopefully the Department of Liquor Licenses and Control will allow a waiver for the event so as to avoid any legal issues or future challenges.

High court’s ID-theft ruling is unlikely to affect Arizona Not surprising since the lawyers and legal expert who drafted Arizona’s law tried to eliminate any and all loopholes for illegals and other criminals to exploit when it comes to identity theft. There are going to be some left winger, illegal supporters out there that will challenge the lawn of course. I do have to wonder how much better off illegal aliens would be in this country if their “advocates” spent more time getting immigration laws changed to allow more immigrants to come here rather than wasting time and effort in covering for the crimes the illegals actually commit.

Obama’s Border Czar Alan Bersin is Taking on Drug Gangs and Illegal Immigrants – US News and World Report So the administration brings back a guy who completely and utterly failed in his previous round og “border czar”. How many people will die this time because of the guy’s ignorance? He’s already bought into the Obama administration’s inane notion that all the border problems are America’s fault.

Chris Simcox wants to dethrone McCain – David Catanese – POLITICO.com I think this one covers all the reasons why I doubt Simcox will be much of a challenge to Sen. McCain. Too narrow on his issues. National politics, like those of a Senator, require a broader, national view and perspective while maintaining the focus to do what is needed for not just your state but your nation as well on a multitude of issues. That requires compromise, negotiation, and patience.

The radical right can hate McCain all they want but they don’t control the Arizona GOP voting public. Or the voters in general for that matter. The right wing radicals of the AZ GOP are jus that- radicals. They’ve sold out to either the religious statists or corporate hegemonies and have no interest in representing Arizonans. They’re just lapdogs to their chosen masters intent on imposing their “vision” of America on the populace whether the populace likes it or not.

What people really need to remember is neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have the American people’s best interest at heart anymore. Perhaps they never did. What has become clear over the past two decades (if not longer) is both are out to pillage the country as they play their political games, dividing and duping the public while they pillage the nation’s financial institutes and industries leaving a swath of destruction behind them in the form of unemployment, homelessness, outrageous healthcare costs, slashed wages, rising food prices, and outmoded and overburdened tax systems. In the past, the parties were able to hide their motives. Not so now, as we see the supposed party of the poor and downtrodden (the Dems) pillaging the poor and middle class, the unions, et. al. at the behest of their wealthy benefactors and the party of the rich (the GOP) pretend to be the champions of the middle class yet happily pillage alongside their political opponents.

Interesting

Just a useless post. I was bored and unable to sleep so decided to check out the blog stats to get a laugh at how low the stats should be. I don’t really care about numbers of views, clicks, et. al., given the blogs more about throwing out my opinions and half formed thoughts. Still it was interesting, a a little surprising, to see the numbers. Not surprisingly the height of the Presidential election season was also the largest spike in the stats.

Anyway, I think I’ll get back to writing more about space, science, tech and stuff.

The Ten Cannots

Found while tag surfing From fashionfinacier’s blog post on Obama’s address to Congress:

The Ten Cannots (attributed to Lincoln, written by a minister)

1) You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2) You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
3) You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
4) You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5) You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
6) You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
7) You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8)You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
9) You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence.
10) You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

Theme change

Got bored with the old theme for the blog, so changed to this one. Once my hand is better I’ll likely come up with my own unique header image. This one is pretty good, but obviously generic. I’ll have to finish a header for a biz partner first.

Sucks having the dominant hand, in essence, out of commission but at least I can do stuff with the other even if it is a little slower. Makes me glad that I taught myself to be as ambidextrous as possible when I was younger. Typing is still slow though. Playing GW offhanded is interesting as well.