Category: Main

Folks:
I’ve been hinting at a new self-service interface for a long while now, and tonight the first piece of it is finally ready.
The challenge that I have faced is that I wanted to develop a system that would accomplish two major goals:
– It would not require manual intervention on my part (slow, tedious, unreliable)
– It would prevent abuse and ensure that only a blog’s true owner could make a change
I think I’ve settled on a system that works on both counts. The first feature to be implemented and operational is the ability to change a weblog’s URL — tonight, in certain limited cases, later, in all.
Tonight’s functionality allows you to change your weblog’s URL in the Ecosystem if you have not added a duplicate entry in the Ecosystem for your new blog’s URL. If you’ve already done that, and therefore have two URL’s in the Ecosystem, fear not: I will be implementing the code to handle that, and ‘merge’ the history of your two URLs. Just, er, not tonight.
So: the way to tell the Ecosystem about your new URL depends on whether or not you have ‘gone live’ with your new URL or not.
If you have turned on your new URL, and are automatically redirecting traffic to it from your old URL, then add the following tags to your new URL’s front page in the header section:
&lt link rel=”DCTERMS.replaces” href=”http://www.myoldblogurl.com” /&gt
&lt meta name=”DC.Identifier” content=”http://www.mynewblogurl.com”&gt
Make sure that ‘http://www.myoldblogurl.com’ matches the old URL that the Ecosystem is tracking exactly.
If you have not turned on your new URL, or are not automatically redirecting traffic from your old URL, you can simply add the following tag to your old URL’s front page in the header section:
&lt link rel=”DCTERMS.isreplacedby” href=”http://www.mynewblogurl.com/” /&gt
The tags will be picked up on the next evening’s nightly scan, so check back the following morning and you should see your URL updated all nice and neat. And if you don’t, please let me know.
Once the URL swap has occurred, you can remove the tags. But I have tried to create the tags based on proper Core metadata standards, which means that any other application that understands Dublin Core could also understand them. So you can also leave them there, if you like.
Anyway: enough for tonight. Coming soon, I’ll get the ‘merge’ code implemented, as I know many of the URL switches that need to happen already have duplicate entries…
PS: I’ve also started cleaning out a lot of the obvious duplicates blogs that show up on the Traffic Ranking pages. Only got through the top 250 tonight, but it’s a start…

So perhaps some of the more legal-minded folks of the blogosphere can help me understand something.
Point 1: Currently, the US has in place on Syria which impose a “Prohibition on the export to Syria of products of the United States, other than food and medicine” .
Point 2: Michael Moore’s film, Farenheit 9/11, a product of the United States, is being distributed in Syria (and elsewhere) by the UAE based company Front Row Entertainment, which has obtained international distribution rights to the film.
So: Is the fact that F9/11 isn’t being directly exported to Syria (but is being routed through a UAE-based company) enough to avoid violating the sanctions?
And if not…?

Some of you might remember The Blogopshere Daily News, a feature on TTLB a ways back which I eventually put on hiatus.
Well, guess what: it’s back!
On the News page, you’ll find a roundup of the most popular weblog posts in the blogosphere, updated each morning.
The page is currently a work in progress, but I think it is stable enough to do a ‘soft launch’ and let folks start playing with it. Feedback, as always, is most welcome…

Happened to notice the following quote from Shelly Powers pop up on my random-quote-thingy on the top of my pages today:
“NZ, you’ve over the bounds…”- Shelley Powers
Here’s what Shelly was upset about:

The Quality of Mercy
March 26, 2003 10:01 AM
Thought for the night (it’s a dark one — the night, and the thought):
Clearly, there are some Iraqis who are willing to sacrifice their own lives to defend the Hussein regime.
I submit the following proposition, then: to ensure a safe and stable future for Iraq’s soon-to-be-emerging democracy, is it not wise for Coalition forces to ensure that those willing to make such an ultimate sacrifice, do so?
Accepting surrender from those who fought (or didn’t) under threat of their own lives is mercy, and builds a stable foundation for Iraq’s future. But is not the converse true: that accepting the surrender of those who truly wish for the preservation of Hussein’s tyranny undermines that same future?
Put another way: will the inevitable mercy we will see in the short-term — as Coalition forces accept the late, but unavoidable, surrender of Republican Guard units worn down over days and weeks of punishment — breed long-term suffering as those die-hards slink into the night, only to emerge later as guerillas, terrorists, or worse?
Would it be best for Iraq’s future if those units we know to be stacked with loyalists somehow are never presented with the opportunity to lay down their arms?
And would it be moral for Coalition forces to ensure they never did get that chance?
Discuss.
In light of the events of the past year, I think my logic holds up pretty well.

Without further delay, we present the Heroes for Bush blogburst.
The blogburst is now complete, with over 50 heroes declaring for Bush! Thanks to all who participated, and if you haven’t done so already, please link directly to this roundup post to spread the visibility. Thanks again!
Latest
OK, one more: Jim Geraghty of emails: Indiana Jones: “(sigh) al-Qaeda. I hate these guys.” And Professor Henry Jones: “The quest in Iraq is not nation-building, it’s a race against evil. If it is captured by the Islamists, the armies of darkness will march all over the face of the earth. Do you understand me? ”
Via Terriorists, Mr. Peabody takes Sherman on a tour of Kerry’s past, leading him to exclaim: “Make it stop, Mr. Peabody. It’s giving me a headache.”
Via Carniverous Conservative, General Patton: “…we have the finest food and laptops, the best looking women, and the best lawyers in the world. You know, by god, I actually pity those poor bastards we’re goin’ up against. ”
Via Minion of the Great Satan, Paul Kersey: “…from one reformed bleeding heart liberal to another, take my advice. Vote for George W. Bush for President.” Bonus: Sargeant Schultz endorses Kerry!
Via Right Wing Canadian, Don Cherey: “I hope Bush is reelected because we don’t want those European and French guys calling the shots on this war. We need to win, and to do that we need to take out all those bastards that want to take our guys out.”
Posted Earlier
Via Sine Qua Non, John McClane: “”Yippee-ki-yay, motherf****r.” Bonus: Tracy Flick! Magnum Force! Marathon Man! High Noon! Casablanca!
Via Abraca-Pocus, Spike: “Let’s annihilate those terrorists, for justice, and for… the safety of puppies… and Christmas, right?”
Via Urthshu, Bonnie & Clyde: “We’re votin’ Bush. After we rob a bank.”
Via Editors in Pajamas, Alf: “I’m standing as tall as I can beside the President. My home, planet Melmac, has been a strong ally of the President’s offensive plan to combat this terror threat…”
Via The Laughing Wolf, Robert Mitchum: “Men, soon only going to be one type of person left on this beach, those that voted for Kerry. The rest of us are going to vote for Bush and take this fight to the enemy.”
Via Ghost of a Flea, Buffy: “That Whedon has reached a different conclusion about how this is to be expressed beyond the world of Sunnydale, California does not change this fact: the Hellmouth has opened and there are demons to be dispatched.”
Via Ranten N. Ravens, Xander explains voting to Buffy: “There’s a nest of human terrorist “vamps” that want to kill us all. Just like you go and hunt down vamps here, we need guys like Riley who hunt down the terrorists in there nests over there….”
Via Muledriver, A very confused John Kerry: “The bottom line is that we need a Texas cowboy in the White House! I mean, seriously, can you imagine if the country elected, say, some uber-liberal, UN-ass-kissing, elitist politician from…I don’t know, Massachusetts?”
Via One Stack Mind, Angel: “”If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.” Bonus: Captain Mackenzie Calhoun & Batman
Via Mountaineer Musings, Sydney Bristow & friends: “…while President Bush has been in power, I have never once been asked to work for a “French” part of the agency, I have only been asked to shoot French terrorists. So vote for Dubya, or work for the French.”
Via Dagney’s Rant, Buck Ramsey: “There are too many “gray shades” to the left. That is what they are afraid of our President. He sees a job that needs to get done, and he does it. ..”
Via Frank J, Jayne Cobb: “I like that Bush fella; he speaks my language. When he sees trouble, he doesn’t waste time talking; he just runs in there shooting. That’s the way it’s done…”
Via Protein Wisdom, Alfred E. Newman: “What, me worry? You’re goddamn right…”
Via An Elephant in My Pajamas, a little Gilbert and Sullivan: “He is the very model of the modern chief executive / His leadership has shown me that his terms should be consecutive…”
Via Shining Full Plate and a Good Broadsword, Lt. Jean Rasczak: “There IS NO negotiating on my team! And there IS NO negotiating on Bush

Brief break from the for Bush leadup.
I just love this:
Rock stars back new Band Aid song
A new version of the Band Aid charity single is being recorded with current stars, according to Midge Ure, one of the singers behind the original song.
Coldplay, Travis, The Darkness and Keane have backed the project, Midge Ure said on his website on Thursday.
The original Band Aid song, Do They Know It’s Christmas?, released in 1984, featured artists including Duran Duran, U2, Bananarama and George Michael.
…Midge Ure, former singer with Ultravox, said there were still big problems in Africa that needed urgent attention.
“The famine doesn’t go away,” he told the ITV News Channel.
“This song still stands up, that’s the important part. Re-record the song, get the new guys on board and it will focus the attention and raise the money for the problems out there.”
In recent years, I’ve always found the idea of recording a pop song about Christmas to support efforts to help a largely non-Christian population to be remarkably politically incorrect. Isn’t it a rather rude disregard for local customs, culture, etc.?
But I guess when liberal pop stars talk about Christianity, it is by definition politically correct. The rules keep changing on me, I can’t keep up.
But as a thought experiment, let’s pretend for a second that the original Band Aid never happened, and that a group of Bush-supporting red-state country singers came up with the idea to help Africans with a song titled “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” How well received do you think that would be by the left? Think they’d even make it out of the studio before the squawking started?
PS: Remember, I’m agnostic (at least I think I am, but I’m not sure…) so I don’t have a dog in this fight…
More from:
Wizbang

Folks:
The response to the for Bush blogburst has been great thus far, and it seems to only be growing. Thanks to everyone who has expressed interest and spread the word on the effort.
I will actually be posting the official ’roundup’ post sometime around 9pm PDT this evening. Quite a few folks have already gone ahead and posted their submissions, so I might as well start with the early birds.
If you haven’t posted yet and plan to participate, I’d ask that you try to get your submission to me by 5am PDT on Friday morning. That’s when I’ll do an update with the next batch of submissions; after that I’ll do one or two more throughout the day, but the Day Job will prohibit me from doing continual updates.
Best approach is to TrackBack the roundup post, or add a comment to it, which will get you some visibility while you’re waiting for me to get to adding it to the roundup.
Once again, thanks to all, and I look forward to reading what our greatest heroes have to say about the election!

Speaking of electoral pre-emptive strikes: Brian Scott is gearing up to cover election issues this year. He’s clearly optimistic and cheery about it: to Election Hell.
I’m glad he’s on this beat; not sure I’m going to have the stomach for it…
Hat Tip: Spoonage.

What: A blogburst where bloggers will channel their favorite characters of TV, movies, and fiction showing their support for President Bush’s re-election.
When: Friday, October 22
Where: Here at and across the blogosphere.
Why: Because heroes inspire us, and fantasy shows us what we wish could become reality. And because Joss Whedon started it. And because we can.
How:
– Supporters of the effort are asked to link to this post to spread the word, asap. Also: leave a comment or TrackBack here to let me (and everyone) know you will be participating.
– To participate, simply crank up your creative juices, and imagine what your favorite hero would say about why he, she, or it, is planning on voting for President Bush.
– Creativity counts, but so does realism: putting words in a character’s mouth which don’t fit the character is lame, and no fun. Posts suggesting that Willow is voting Bush will be received with skepticism. Posts suggesting that Evil Willow is voting Bush will be received with approval, and little surprise.
– Submit posts late Thursday night or as early as possible Friday morning via e-mail, or simply by TrackBacking or adding a comment on the roundup post to be created early Friday.
– I will be round up all submissions here at The Truth Laid Bear starting early Friday morning. I’ll also pick my personal favorites, which will be displayed in a place of honor on the Ecosystem.
– Other bloggers, particularly “heavy hitters” (you know who you are) are encouraged to do the same, and highlight their favorite entries to shed some traffic love on the best submissions.
– Anybody with graphic skills who’d like to make a “Heroes for Bush” logo/button would be a hero in their own right.
Any questions?
On Board So Far:
Spoons
Robin Sizemore
Tony at Oriental Redneck
What is Flig?
sisu
Lapsus Calami
Secure Liberty
Right Thoughts
CrankyBeach

OK, I’m coming down from my high, and this is certainly helping to dampen my mood:

High Stakes 2004
Whedon Fans for John Kerry and John Edwards
In every four-year term there is a chosen one. He alone will face the American public, the United Nations, and the forces of darkness. He is the President.
The Kerry/Edwards campaign would like to invite everyone to host or attend parties across the nation to celebrate the genius of Joss Whedon and learn more about John Kerry and John Edwards. Mr. Whedon will calling to tell us about his latest exploits and why he is supporting John Kerry for President and John Edwards for Vice President.

Oh Joss. We love you, but how you disappoint.
I think this may be one of those ‘friends don’t let friends vote Kerry’ moments. Perhaps we devoted Buffy fans in the ‘sphere could schedule some kind of intervention? Meryl? Stephen?
PS: “He alone will face … the United Nations, and the forces of darkness.” Er, isn’t that redudnant?
Hat Tip: AintItCoolNews
Update: Upon further thought, I think we should do something about this.
Not to try to talk Joss out of his own political views; that’s his business. Nor would I want to interfere in any way with the ‘High Stakes’ Buffy parties — again, that’s his business and that of anybody who wants to participate in them.
But there’s nothing to say that we can’t provide an outlet for all those who love the Buffiverse and other such grand fantasies, but who think that Kerry is the second coming of The Mayor (just with less personality, but better teeth).
So how’s this for an idea: borrowing (ok, stealing) Meryl‘s past ‘Buffy Blogburst‘ concept, let’s plan a blogburst of Buffy- and Firefly- related posts explaining why our favorite characters would support Bush for re-election. Or oppose Kerry; that’s probably far more fun.
And since I’m so jazzed on Farscape this week: no reason not to extend the idea to any fictional characters.
I’ll throw out this Friday, October 22nd for a target date. If you’re interested in particpating, leave a comment here, and spread the word!
PS: And if this turns out to be one of those ideas of mine that goes *thud* on the ground and nobody picks up; well, who cares. I’m going to do a post myself on this theme anyway, so nyah.
P.P.S. You can’t have a Blogburst without a name. So how’s this: the Heroes for Bush Blogburst!

src=”http://www.truthlaidbear.com/pkw.jpg” align=”right”>There are many serious issues which face us now. Fanatics threaten civilization across the globe. A war rages, while some refuse to even acknowledge that anything more than more thorough police action is necessary. And we are confronted an election that, without exaggeration, may well decide the fate of our nation and of the world.
But sometimes, you just have to ignore reality, and indulge in some fantasy.
Tonight, the Sci-Fi channel will broadcast Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars. For those unfamiliar with the backstory, Farscape ran four seasons on Sci-Fi before being abruptly cancelled, with the heroes of the story in, to put it mildly, a deeply unsatisfatory situation.
After tremendous fan efforts, led by the folks at SaveFarscape.com, the show has been resurrected with a four-hour miniseries, the first part of which will be shown tonight.
I came late to Farscape. I never watched during its original broadcast run, and dismissed it out of hand the first time I viewed it. But I gave it a second chance, and I am very, very glad I did. Four seasons worth of Netflix DVDs later, I’ve seen every episode, and I’m grateful that tonight, the characters I’ve grown to love will begin their final journey to a proper ending.
And so, The Truth Laid Bear belongs to Farscape today. If you wish to induldge a simple bear: spread the word. Tune in tonight.
“Look upward. And share the wonders I’ve seen.”

In case you care, my most recently discovered favorite song is ‘Such Great Heights’, by Postal Service, which I find absolutely sublime. Catch a snippet of it here (WMA).
PS: Apropos of nothing, Duran Duran’s ‘Ordinary World‘ doesn’t suck either.

Close to Call
With the debates behind them, the contenders in the race for the White House remain locked in a dead heat in the latest NEWSWEEK poll
By Brian Braiker
Newsweek
Updated: 11:02 a.m. ET Oct. 16, 2004
…Results based on likely voters (as opposed to all registered voters) give Bush the edge, with Bush-Cheney pulling 50 percent of the vote and Kerry-Edwards drawing 44 percent in a three-way race (Nader still gets 1 percent)…
“Dead heat”, eh? To paraphrase Inigo Montoya: You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
Note to Mr. Braiker: it is polite to let the Kerry campaign at least have a chance to spin your results. Going ahead and doing it for them is rude; keep it up and you’ll end up putting Lockhart, Cahill, and the rest of the gang out of work…
Update: Curse you, Powerliners, you pajama-clad band of blogging barristers! Beat me to the punch yet again.
Update again: And damn Martin, too!
And more: No need to curse Pejman, but you could read his post.
How much would you pay now? Ack! Updated to correct my horribly embarrassing misattribution of the quote to Vinzinni as opposed to Inigo. Thanks to Enviropundit for pointing out my shame.

If you didn’t catch it, you absolutely must watch Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire.
I disagree with many of Stewart’s positions, and sometimes I think the way he covers Iraq is genuinely and disturbingly harmful.
But he’s probably the funniest, sharpest wit on television today. And in this segment, he demonstrates why you don’t ever want a really funny, sharp guy gunning for you. It’s a rare moment to be cherished when you can see the hyperscripted world of big media actually go off the rails before your very eyes, and that’s exactly what Stewart delivered.
Begala and Carlson were absolutely lost; Stewart jumped out of his little box and they had no clue how to put him back in. They showed up for a nice game of chess; he showed up with boxing gloves and calmly and methodically proceeded to beat the crap out of them.
More from:
Ken Layne
Wizbang
everything you know is wrong
Pajama Pundits

It’s Friday night, and I just noticed that is on top of me.
Er, I mean:

And it appears that Misha is on top of her.
Could someone run out and fetch me a can of Lysol?

Folks:
Well, I think I’ve got the code pretty well stabilized. At the moment, the history graphs, ‘top 10 posts’, and ‘links by source’ are all 100% functional, and have been tweaked to perform reasonably well.
Minor caveat: there is at least one known bug where certain blog’s titles which include special characters are munging up some of the tree displays. I need to hunt this down and swat it, but I think it’s currently only affecting a few blogs.
My next focus is tuning and improving the accuracy and consistency of the actual scans themselves, and data cleanup on the overall database. I know that some blogs aren’t seeing their history get updated properly (some end around 9/24), so I’ll be investigating that.
On the subject of data cleanup: I am about to implement a new ‘self-service’ interface which will allow bloggers to notify the Ecosystem that their URL has moved. The way this will work will be to place a short, predefined HTML META tag on the ‘old’ blog pointing to the new one. The Ecosystem will read the tag and update the blog’s URL in the database. This guarantees that only a blog’s owner can make a change, and also removes the most falliable, slow link from the existing self-service process — me!
So, to that end: I need some volunteers! If you have moved your weblog and your ‘old’ URL is still being tracked by the Ecosystem and you’d be willing to help me test this new mechanism, me a line. Thanks!
-NZB

I probably won’t be doing much of a liveblog tonight, but might toss up thoughts if they strike me. Domestic policy just doesn’t move me to action…
PS: Go check out Althouse for your liveblogging needs tonight: she’s no sissy!

Continued gradual progress on the debugging. Here’s what’s-what this morning:
– The history graphs are working just fine, and I got at least a partial scan completed last night, so you’ll see some updated data.
– The ‘Top 10 posts’ feature appears to be working fine
– The ‘Links by Source’ is not fully operational; what I’ve found is that the method I was using to sort the results in descending order of the source blog’s rank was hosing performance. So I’ve disabled the sort, but as a result, you’ll now see 25 source blogs listed, but not necessarily the 25 highest-ranked. I’m investigating other options for sorting.
I’m fairly hopeful that with the current implemenetation, we shouldn’t see any performance lockups. If you do see any performance issues (or the Details page fails to display with an error), please let me know…

Ok, so I’m not convinced I’ve got all the performance bugs worked out. But, I think there should be improvement today, and I’ve also implemented some throttling code so that you’ll see a polite “server is busy” message if the system is approaching overload.
So: take a look, let me know what problems you see, and as always, suggestions and feedback are welcome…
NZB
Update 5pm PDT: Still tinkering. The tweaks still haven’t solved the problems, so debugging continues…

It’s not a very good Monday (morning): After all the work this weekend, it turns out there is a performance glitch somewhere in the new enhancements that is causing bottlenecks to occur under load. This is rather depressing. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to fix it until at least tonight. So I’m afraid all I can offer is the description of the wonderful changes below… stay tuned to actually be able to, you know, use them. At this moment, it looks like, if you are patient, calls to the Details pages do return properly, so feel free to give it a try — just call the page once and wait, please, don’t keep refreshing!
It’s a slightly better Monday evening:: OK, as of now (6pm PDT) I think I have stabilized matters. I’m fairly sure the performance bottleneck is around the ‘top ten posts’ feature, and so I’ve disabled that. The other two new items — history graphs and posts-by-source — seem to be working fine. I’ll be working on the top-ten this evening to see if I can develop a fix; stay tuned…
…and maybe even a little bit better: I’ve implemented Yet Another Fix, this time to the top-ten feature, which I think should improve performance considerably. I’ll be watching closely to see if smoke starts coming out of the server tonight, and more importantly, tomorrow morning. Please report any oddities! Thanks…
——————–
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been doing quite a bit of work behind the scenes to improve the and add new functionality. There’s still more to be done, but today I’m unveiling some of the new features.
First, thanks to the crew at Hosting Matters, who have upgraded me to a more powerful server, which has improved both performance and stability of the overall site.
Second, the new enhancements. On each weblog’s details page, you’ll now find the following:
– History statistics for the blog’s rank and total unique inbound links presented in a line graph. Check out Power Line, Captain’s Quarters, INDC Journal, Hugh Hewitt or Allah‘s detail pages for good examples.
– An expandable tree menu showing the blog’s ten most-linked-to posts and who linked to them
– An expandable tree menu showing the links which the blog has received from other blogs, sorted in descending order of the source-blog’s Ecosystem rank (for easy identification of ‘big links’ from top bloggers).
My goal with the details page is to create a page with compelling information that every blogger wants to know about how their blog is doing. My hope is that bloggers find this information useful enough to check regularly, and perhaps even set as their home page. So: suggestions on what you’d like to see are most welcome.
There is one caveat: for the moment, all of these new features are available to everyone. Starting sometime in the near future, however, I will be restricting some of them to only be displayed for weblogs that display a link back to their Ecosystem status. You can find instructions on how to do this on your blog’s details page: it’s simple, painless, and automatically shows your ‘status’ for your readers to see . I think this is a fair trade; I receive a little more visibility for my efforts around here, and you get the cool toys to play with showing your blog details.
In summary: I hope you find the new goodies worthwhile, and I’d appreciate your comments, feedback, and yes, complaints. There is still much work to be done, but I hope you’ll enjoy these latest steps forward…
Update: Today is a bit of a trial-by-fire for the new code. I’ve tried to write everything to work efficiently and minimize system load, but I expect (and hope!) the site will get some heavy linkage and traffic today. So we’ll see if the code holds up! ( John Kerry Voice: BRING…… IT….. ON!). We’ve already had one crisis which forced me to a) learn how to use MySQL JOIN’s properly and implement a fast code fix, and b) abort last night’s scans somewhat prematurely. So this morning’s detailed data may be a little bit off, but the good news is I think the fix worked, and so tomorrow the scans should be able to complete with no problem.
As always, please let me know if you see other issues, and thanks for your patience…