As I announced yesterday on Facebook and Twitter, effective June 1, I will be the Chief Editor at LibertyNews.com.
I will be blogging full time over there, working with some great writers and generally kicking hind end.
But, I will also keep All American Blogger going, and the podcast, and hopefully start up some new projects you’ll like.
How is this possible?
See, up until this point, I have been working a 12 hour a day job that I have to spend forty-five minutes to an hour commuting to, each way. On top of that, the shifts rotated from nights to day on a week to week basis. In spite of that, I have been able to get some great work done here, and there, and there, and there, and elsewhere that doesn’t exist online anymore.
So, since I’ll be working at home, I should be able to blog like a Superman.
Please come visit me over at Liberty News. Bookmark it. Sign up for the newsletter and feed. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Like Jimmie Bise says, All the good stuff, none of the bad stuff. Some of the funny stuff.
This is the result of five years of writing right here at All American Blogger, which brings me to my next announcement. On Memorial Day, we will be rolling out a new look for the site. To celebrate our five year blogiversary, Andrew has been tied to his coding chair and slavishly pounding out lines of code to create a great looking new site.
I’ve seen it. It’s pretty cool.
So, new job. New site. Same attitude. The future is looking pretty sweet.
Finally, thanks for supporting me all these years. There were times I was ready to hang it all up, but then I’d get an email or a comment that motivated me to keep going. Without that, and the great friendship of Andrew Riley and my wife making me bacon when I felt down, this wouldn’t be happening.
More wasteful spending from the failed Stimulus Plan. This time, hundreds of enterprise grade routers, meaning routers that can handle office building computer systems of up to 500 different computers, were purchased by West Virginia with Stimulus money. One of the routers was installed in a rural library with only two computers.
Hundreds more still sit in a warehouse, waiting for a place to be installed.
Strickling says that NTIA looked into the situation and found that the average cost of the routers was only $12,000—not the $22,600 reported by the paper. (The contract for the devices was $24 million and 1,064 were purchased; 1,064 x $22,600 = $24 million. It’s not clear how Strickling broke down the numbers.)
He explained that West Virginia actually got a good deal.
In his defense, West Virginia did get a good deal.
The rest of America got a crap sandwich, but West Virginia came out smelling like a rose.
It’s very easy to justify spending, and by spending I mean “wasting,” other people’s money. But if this guy were running a business, or better yet, trying to justify buying a HUGE television to his wife, there’s no way he would use this argument.
“Well honey, I got the Sony Jumbotron because while they usually go for $22,000, I was able to get this one for $12,000. Now I know the numbers don’t really add up, but if you think about it, we actually saved $10,000. What a great deal, right?”
As I have said for years, if Obama wasn’t eligible for office because he was born in Kenya, the Clinton’s would have discovered it and used it to win the White House. So why link to a story about him being born in Kenya?
Andrew Breitbart was never a “Birther,” and Breitbart News is a site that has never advocated the narrative of “Birtherism.” In fact, Andrew believed, as we do, that President Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 4, 1961.
Yet Andrew also believed that the complicit mainstream media had refused to examine President Obama’s ideological past, or the carefully crafted persona he and his advisers had constructed for him.
It is for that reason that we launched “The Vetting,” an ongoing series in which we explore the ideological background of President Obama (and other presidential candidates)–not to re-litigate 2008, but because ideas and actions have consequences.
It is also in that spirit that we discovered, and now present, the booklet described below–one that includes a marketing pitch for a forthcoming book by a then-young, otherwise unknown former president of the Harvard Law Review.
It is evidence–not of the President’s foreign origin, but that Barack Obama’s public persona has perhaps been presented differently at different times.
Here’s the story. In 1991, Barack Obama’s literary agent produced a booklet to promote all the authors they currently represented, from Joe Montana to New Kids on the Block. One of the authors was Barack Obama. The booklet said Obama was ”born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”
Here’s the scan of the booklet, as seen on Breitbart:
Proof?
Not that he was born in Kenya, but that the man has been represented as whatever works to promote his image:
The biography does, however, fit a pattern in which Obama–or the people representing and supporting him–manipulate his public persona.
David Maraniss’s forthcoming biography of Obama has reportedly confirmed, for example, that a girlfriend Obama described in Dreams from My Father was, in fact, an amalgam of several separate individuals.
In addition, Obama and his handlers have a history of redefining his identity when expedient. In March 2008, for example, he famously declared: “I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother.”
Several weeks later, Obama left Wright’s church–and, according to Edward Klein’s new biography, The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House, allegedly attempted to persuade Wright not to “do any more public speaking until after the November [2008] election” (51).
Obama has been known frequently to fictionalize aspects of his own life. During his 2008 campaign, for instance, Obama claimed that his dying mother had fought with insurance companies over coverage for her cancer treatments.
That turned out to be untrue, but Obama has repeated the story–which even the Washington Post called “misleading”–in a campaign video for the 2012 election.
The Acton & Dystel biography could also reflect how Obama was seen by his associates, or transitions in his own identity.
But more importantly, in my opinion anyway, it is evidence of how superficially the press examined this man in 2008. How did this not get questioned?
Tim Stanley at the Telegraph wonders the same thing:
Look beyond the sordid details and the big story here is that this nugget wasn’t part of the wider discussion had back in 2008 about Obama’s background and credentials. And why not? The documents were easy to find – the one that showed that “born in Kenya” was still being used in 2007 was on the Internet.
Exactly.
Rather than doing their job as the press, they were doing their job as his campaign communications team by proxy.
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney raised over $40 million in April, coming close to matching what Hollywood heart-throb Barack Obama pulled in, despite not having dinners with George Clooney:
The New York Times was first to report the figure, which includes money raised for Romney’s 2012 campaign and the “Romney Victory Fund,” a joint fundraising effort with the RNC. A Romney aide confirmed the numbers, which will be formally released later this morning.
That’s a major increase from the $13 million Romney raised during March, when he was still in the heat of the Republican primary.
He’s going to need every penny.
Now, here’s what to expect from the left. The attack on this figure will be that it comes from rich people making major donations, while Obama, man of the people, gets his loot from all the poor people who look to him to bring fairness to America. The message will continue to be based in leftist class warfare, the hero of the proletariat versus the evil, rich embodiment of the bourgeoisie.
Section 31406 of the “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” (MAP-21) bill calls for “Mandatory Event Data Recorders” to be installed in new vehicles, starting in the year 2015.
The bill states that within 180 days of the enactment of the bill, the Secretary must revise part 563 of title 49 (Code of Federal Regulations) “to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements under that part.”
The bill then goes on to describe the “limitations” on information retrieval. Basically, while there will be a “Big Brother” style recording device in all new vehicles, the data recorded on the device will be the property of the owner of the vehicle.
Oh, it’s MY property. Good thing the government doesn’t have a history of forcibly taking people’s property or anything.
The bill is in the House now. Here’s how the vote went down in the Senate:
A medical report compiled by the family physician of Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
To add to that, additional reports show injuries to Trayvon Martin’s knuckles:
WFTV has learned that the medical examiner found two injuries on Martin’s body: The fatal gunshot wound and broken skin on his knuckles.
When you compare Trayvon’s non-fatal injury with Zimmerman’s bloody head wounds, the autopsy evidence is better for the defense, Sheaffer said.
“It goes along with Zimmerman’s story that he acted in self-defense, because he was getting beaten up by Trayvon Martin,” Sheaffer said.
The injury to Martin’s knuckle also fits with Zimmerman’s story that before he shot and killed Martin, Martin had broken his nose and knocked him to the ground, slamming his head on the sidewalk.
The race baiters can claim Trayvon is dead because he was racially profiled, but the narrative appears broken.
The medical evidence supports Zimmerman’s story, that Trayvon is dead because he attacked an armed man.
As many know, I am a fan of president Ronald Reagan. I named one of my daughters Reagan, as any good conserva-tarian would.
He wasn’t perfect, but who is?
My affection for the man makes the latest move by Team Obama a little more irritating, not only because of the gall it takes to insert “Teh One” into the biographies of president greater than he’ll ever be, but because it is propaganda. And it didn’t stop with Reagan:
“Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted,” Mr. Paul said. “Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have.”
He did encourage his supporters to still turn out and vote.
His decision not to compete for new votes in other states leaves Mr. Romney as the only candidate still actively fighting for voters’ support in the 11 states still to vote. That list includes the biggest prizes on the board — Texas and California.
“Stop overreacting,” wrote a commenter at ronpaulforums.com, the online hub for Paul supporters. “It’s always been a delegate strategy, and this changes nothing, when the media was going to black out any campagining he did anyway.” The commenter has written hundreds of posts on the forum under the name TheGrinchWhoStoleDC.
There might be something to this. If you weren’t going to vote for Ron Paul by now, his campaigning in your state wouldn’t change that. And if you were, you still are.
And for Camp Paul, this campaign hasn’t been about winning primaries, but racking up delegates.
I’m still wondering if the convention isn’t going to be a national version of the Missouri Caucuses.
During an interview on The Sean Hannity Show, author of “The Amateur” Edward Klein revealed the name of the man who reportedly bribed Rev. Jeremiah Wright, offering him $150,000 to shut up during the 2008 campaign.
Klein reminded listeners that Whitaker’s hospital is the same one that paid first lady Michelle Obama $316,962 a year to handle community affairs for the University of Chicago Medical Center while her husband served in the U.S. Senate.
In an email, Klein said Whitaker had offered Wright $150,000 “if he would shut-up and not criticize Obama anymore.” When Wright refused Whitaker’s offer, Klein said Obama himself personally met with Wright, which supposedly took place after Obama’s March 18, 2008 “race speech,” confirmed by both Wright’s word and the U.S. Secret Service logs.
Hot Air reminds us exactly who Dr. Erick Whitaker is:
That’s the same guy who runs the Urban Health Initiative at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Michelle Obama got her big six-figure promotion coincidentally shortly after The One was elected to the Senate; the same guy who got a “glowing” reference from Obama for Tony Rezko, which led to Rod Blagojevich hiring Whitaker to be the state’s public health director; and the same guy whose UHI program just got nearly $6 million from HHS as one of 26 grantees in an applicant pool of 3,000.
Paging Jake Tapper. Since you’re one of the few White House press folks who ask actual questions, you might want to take some notes down for tomorrow. Jay Carney needs to spend the duration explaining this.
In an interview with TPM, Hoffner said that after 27 years of making holsters, he’s finally come up with a satisfactory way to discretely carry a pistol.
“It’s been tough to fix, because the gun either bulges at your waist or you have to wear your shirt out as a cover… or it’s pulling at your garment,” Hoffner said.
According to Hoffner, his products have the potential to appeal as much to women as men.
“Women, because of their ergonomics, have always had a problem wearing a pistol at their hip,” he said.
It’s a great idea. I’ve used both a thigh holster and a hip holster. I prefer the thigh, but for different reasons, I’m using a hip now.
If I were to need pants for a CCW, I would buy some of these.
I pushed this article out to my friends who live in Holt County and to fellow bloggers who were at BlogConCLT so they could see how I was using what was taught. One of my friends who lives in Oregon, Missouri, the county seat for Holt County, told me at work last week the local paper finally covered the story.
This was ten days later.
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Can I see it?”
“Yep. I brought it in.”
Here’s a scan of the front page:
Here’s a screen capture of my article, on my blog, and the date it was posted. Compare the two:
Nearly identical.
The only differences I see is the removal of “MO” from the headline and someone added a paragraph to the end of the article, blaming the sheriff for the downgrading of the county’s rating.
Other than that, the scraping of the article was so complete, it included my sub-heading and my typos.
I was stunned, and quite angry. I asked @AskACyberLawyer on Twitter what I should do.
So that’s what I set out to do. Only thing was, I had no idea how to write a letter asserting copyright over my article.
After a little Googling, I found this article, which was a big help:
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of taking someone else’s material and passing it off as your own. As well as pertaining to the written word, plagiarism covers concepts and ideas. Issues of plagiarism often arise in the academic world, where it may carry heavy penalties including expulsion from college.
The Relation Between Plagiarism and Copyright Violation
If a writer’s work is lifted, copied and reproduced by someone else, without the writer’s express permission, this sort of plagiarism constitutes a copyright violation. A copyright violation is a matter of law, and writers have every right to take action against the person who has stolen their work.
Plagiarism and copyright violation are effectively theft of the creative output of another person, but it is important to note that although:
all copyright violations involve acts of plagiarism
all forms of plagiarism do not involve copyright violation
Copyright only covers the actual form of words. Copyright does not cover:
concepts
story ideas
titles (though they can be registered as Trademarks)
It is important that writers have a clear understanding of plagiarism, copyright violation, and their rights in order to protect their interests.
What Can Writers Do To Protect Their Rights?
Assert copyright
Use Google Alerts
Use plagiarism detection sites
Take action swiftly
Assert Copyright
The first step for all writers is to protect themselves by asserting their right to ownership of their work. Freelance writers are increasingly at risk of having their material stolen on the internet, therefore it is advisable to mark all web pages and E-mails with the following statement at the bottom of each page:
Copyright [dates] by [your name]
Although not legally required, it does no harm to remind readers that the work must not be reproduced without the author’s permission.
That article also led me to this article, which helped me craft my letter.
I started by stating what the letter was, followed by my claim on the copyright, how the paper had violated the copyright and finished with what needed to happen in order to make the situation right.
I showed it to my online friends, made a few amendments and printed it out. Here’s what the final copy looked like:
I printed out the letter, the invoice and a copy of my blog post, grabbed a copy of the most recent Oregon Times Observer and drove to Oregon, Missouri to talk with Bob Ripley, Publisher and Managing Editor of The Oregon Times Observer.
Here’s how it went down:
Bob was clearly not happy to have to pay for the work, but he did.
I have been asked why I’m writing this article. Some think it might be an “IN YOUR FACE!” kind of article.
It isn’t.
It’s to demonstrate the importance of standing up for yourself and your rights, regardless. It’s to show how to protect your work from those who would steal it.
It’s not hard when you are right.
Consult with others, get your ducks in a row and demand respect for your work.
We get some pretty funny spam comments here at All American Blogger. Once in a while we clean the spam out of the giant collection vat and flush it down the intertubes. Some of them are so nonsensical that they’re funny. So I thought I’d share a few.
When you read these, it makes sense to imagine they’re being said by Mr. Chow from The Hangover
Mr. Chow
This guy (robot maybe) was spamming to get a link to something called “Green offers”:
Its like you learn my mind! You appear to understand a lot about this, such as you wrote the guide in it or something. I feel that you simply could do with a few % to force the message house a little bit, however instead of that, that is wonderful blog. A fantastic read. I’ll definitely be back.
Sorry dude, even though we wrote the guide in it or something, you’re not getting your spammy link.
Maybe if you’d thanked us for “every other informative site” like this guy did…
Thank you for every other informative site. Where else may just I get that kind of info written in such an ideal means? I have a project that I am just now operating on, and I’ve been at the glance out for such info.
We certainly appreciate anyone who’s at the glance out for info.
Clearly most of these comments are generated by some sort of algorithm. This guy needs a new algorithm because his spam didn’t even make sense.
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We get dozens of these every day, and they never cease to amuse me.
I’m going to end this pointless exercise in self-amusement with these words of wisdom from one of our loyal spammers, “Klock Macdonnel”:
I’ve been browsing online more than three hours these days, yet I never found any fascinating article like yours. It is lovely value sufficient for me. In my opinion, if all webmasters and bloggers made just right content material as you probably did, the internet can be a lot more useful than ever before.
Between May and July 2011, the Monument Fire engulfed a large part of the eastern portion of the Huachuca Mountains. Record-breaking monsoon rains followed. With no vegetation to absorb the runoff, huge mudslides forced boulders to tumble down the mountain sides, crushing Tombstone’s mountain spring waterlines, destroying reservoirs and shutting off Tombstone’s main source of water. In some areas, Tombstone’s pipeline is under 12 feet of mud, rocks and other debris; while in other places, it is hanging in mid-air due to the ground being washed out from under it.
So the city got to work repairing the system so the people of Tombstone could have water. Believe it or not, water is kind of a big thing in the desert.
But when the federal government found out what they were doing, they stopped them and said they could only make the repairs if they used horses and hand tools.
No, really:
Citing the Wilderness Act, the Forest Service is refusing to allow the city to repair its waterlines to mountain springs it has owned for nearly seventy years – and which date back to the 1880s. This refusal is threatening residents, private property and public safety with the risk of a total loss of fire protection and safe drinking water.
…
…federal bureaucrats are refusing to allow Tombstone to unearth its springs and restore its waterlines unless they jump through a lengthy permitting process that will require the city to use horses and hand tools to remove boulders the size of Volkswagens.
Because the spotted owl is more important to the federal government than a steady supply of water during an emergency.
John Stossel had the president of the Goldwater Institute on his show to talk about this:
This is the same logic bureaucrats will apply to health care, or any other part of your life you give them any control over.
