Lost our DSL connection yesterday afternoon, but its back now...

UNCoRRELATED's RSS feed appears to be offline due to my hosting provider's chintzy memory allocation.

To add insult to injury, Globat decided that it would upgrade me to their "terabyte" package "automatically" unless I specifically declined the request.

What a bunch of slimeballs.

Time to change providers again...

On the off chance that someone might benefit from my Movabletype experience:

I've regularly had out-of-memory problems when running movabletype, which is no small part due to the shared hosting I use.

Shared hosting is where several web site clients share a partitioned server. Its an attractive package because the costs is so reasonable, usually 5-8 bucks a month. These share hosting packages generally support a wide range of Unix/Linux applications and many now feature "Fantastico", which provide one-click installation of a large variety of common applications for discussion lists, blogging, etc...

While they will dazzle you with the number of email addresses, bandwidth and disk space, one thing they don't tell you is that shared hosting means shared RAM, and therein lies the problem.

Once you get a few hundred posts in the hopper, you can run into memory problems because rebuilding some types of archives can easily exceed the available memory.

There are a few things you can do to keep things stable:

I am not sure what is going on, but the site traffic has increased over the past few days by several thousand daily visits.

Usually such spikes are the result of some posting we've made that gets some buzz on other sites, but I am not seeing any evidence of that.

Its too slow to be a denial of service attack, unless my attacker is completely incompetent, so I'm left with a mystery--why are we suddenly so popular?

Do me a favor will you? If you've visited this site for the first time this week, leave a comment and tell me how you found us. I'd love to know what is going on.

Posting will be suspended temporarily while we perform a backup and reinstallation of the Movabletype software to try to correct a problem with the spam filtering.

If all goes well, you shouldn't notice anything. If all does not go well, please excuse our cursing in advance...

I may owe Ben Domenech an apology.

At very least I will apologize to readers for being a little too quick to jump on this story and "write something".

Even after I posted the earlier piece, something nagged at me. I wondered if my own writing could withstand the scrutiny his did and I wondered about the lack of context for the accusations (not to mention the absence of motivation).

So I did some more searching and sure enough, Domenech has posted his side of things on Red State under his pen name of Augustine.

I can rebut several of the alleged incidents here. The most recent accusation, is that I stole a music review from Crosswalk and passed it off at National Review Online. In fact, I wrote both lists myself; I was one of Crosswalk's music review contributors at the time.

The Left has also accused me of foisting Sen. Frist quotes and some descriptive material from the Washington Post for a New York Press article on the Capitol Shooter. But the quotes I used were either properly credited or came from Sen. Frist’s press conference, which I attended along with many other reporters. So it is no surprise that we had similar quotes or similar descriptions of the same event. I have reams of notes and interviews about the events of that day. I also went over the entire piece step by step with NYPress editors to ensure that it was unquestionably solid before it ran.

Virtually every other alleged instance of plagiarism that I’ve seen comes from a single semester’s worth of pieces that were printed under my name at my college paper, The Flat Hat, when I was 17.

In one instance, I have been accused me of passing off P.J. O'Rourke's writing as my own in a column for the paper. But the truth is that I had met P.J. at a Republican event and asked his permission to do a college-specific version of his classic piece on partying. He granted permission, the piece was cleared with my editors at the paper, and it ran as inspired by O’Rourke’s original.

My critics have also accused me of plagiarism in multiple movie reviews for the college paper. I once caught an editor at the paper inserting a line from The New Yorker (which I read) into my copy and protested. When that editor was promoted, I resigned. Before that, insertions had been routinely made in my copy, which I did not question. I did not even at that time read the publications from which I am now alleged to have lifted material. When these insertions were made, I assumed, like most disgruntled writers would, that they were unnecessary but legitimate editorial additions.

ut all these specifics are beside the point. Considering that all of this happened almost eight years ago, and that there are no files or notes that I've kept from that brief stint, it is simply my word against the liberal blogosphere on these examples. It becomes a matter of who you believe.

The truth is, a more responsible teenager would've nipped this sort of thing in the bud. A less sloppy writer would have made sure that material copied from other places never made it into a published piece, and never necessitated apologies or explanations that will do nothing to stop the critics. I was wrong not to do so.

Domenech is convincing, and the left is not exactly disinterested in the outcome.

I feel more than a little foolish because frankly, the thing that put me over the top was how quickly he "resigned" (or was fired). I figured where there was smoke there was fire, and it didn't occur to me that the Washington Post, after showing the courage to actually put a conservative blogger on the payroll, would abandon the experiment at the least sign of criticism. I should have known better.

Time will tell I suppose--if the Post had the goods on Domenech, then they come off as principled and decisive in the defense of journalist ethics. If not, then they are going to have a hard time attracting blogging talent of any ideological stripe. Glenn Reynolds supports that view with this quote by Bill Quick:

Good heavens! If the Kossacks et al hated Domenech, can you imagine how they would feel about me? Not to mention the Bush-bots and the committed religious? And the field day they'd have rooting through my years and years of writing on the net, not just on blogs, but in newsgroups and my published work?

The only way they could run me as a blogger would be as "The Blogger Who Pisses Everybody Off." I doubt they are interested in that kind of thing.

UPDATE: The charges seem to have been dismissed on the bulk of the accusations, but not on the NRO movie review. Domenech has not responded specifically to that charge at this point.

Very tough work schedule the last couple of days, so blogging as well as sleep has been sporadic and short. Things should improve later today though.

Sick with some sort of stomach ailment today, no barfing, but unpleasant nonetheless.

Due to not one, but two serious personal crises, I haven't touched a computer in five days.

Nothing wrong with me personally, but my mother-in-law is suffering from dementia and we've been dealing with arrangements to place her in a home where she can receive 24 hour care.

The other crisis involves posting bail for a young relative...

I should be getting back into some kind of routine over the next day or two.

If you're a regular visitor here, you'll note that we've changed the "cause banner"--the space immediately above the first post reserved for a graphic promoting a non-commercial cause.

I've been disturbed by the but-monkeys, who start out with the usual pallatives about how they support Israel and then engage in unconscionably disingenuous criticism about "proportionality" or some other such nonsense.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually did the world a great service by sweeping away the weasel words and distilling the issue to its fundamental components.

"Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented," Ahmadinejad said, according to state-run television in a report posted on its Web site Thursday.

The enemies of Israel are pretty clear on what their goals are, and it seems to me that democrats have to be equally clear about where we stand. No but-monkeys. Now some people are going to cry that this isn't fair--to hell with them. This isn't about an equitable solution, its about genocide.

If you'd like to use the graphic, stealing is encouraged.

Right-click on the graphic and select "save image as..."

I had a number of "complaints" in the past few months about the comments section of this blog--basically that there isn't any.

The reason for that I'm told is that moderated approval is too slow, and that's undoubtedly true.

Part of the reason for that is that MovableType "trusted commentators" function doesn't appear to work correctly on our installation. I've put in a support ticket to help me work it out, but in the meantime, I've taken off the restrictions so that comments will be immediately published without authentication.

Why haven't we done this sooner? We've tried, but the junk comments were just overwhelming--hundreds every few hours. I'm hoping the spamblocker software will automatically kick out most of the spam, allowing me to moderate after the fact.

So if you're just itching to comment on our commentary--here's your chance for immediate gratification. I will read them all, and may comment on your comment if it seems to demand a response.

To this point, I've never removed a comment for any other reason than it was spam, and frankly I can't really anticipate another reason for doing so. The way I see it, I'm not responsible for your comments, so if you want to use vulgar language, express racist, violent or otherwise hateful views--that's your name on the comment, not mine.

Which leads me to the other aspect of the commentary on our commentary--read the comments at your own risk. I don't want to get emails chastizing me for the "content" of the comments--its not my content. If on the other hand you find something that Greg, Mark or I write that is offensive--gee!--that's what the comments are for.

If you want to link to something you wrote in your own blog or that someone else has written, but all means do so, but I should warn you that more than one link alarms the spam blocker.

Exorcising the ghost in the machine again and talking all day to do it. I have a lot to say (Bush in Salt Lake, polygamy, Plame, etc...), but I'm too pooped to blog.

I'm travelling today in some rural areas of the midwest, so blogging will be intermittent.

Blogging will probably be light to non-existent until this evening as my laptop crashed and won't reboot. Fortunately I have a higher capacity replacement drive on the shelf that I was going to install anyways.

The existing drive seems functional, so its probably a case of corrupt system files. This would be an opportune time to engage in a rant about the deficiencies of Microsoft Windows, but the fact is that this stuff has happened with my old macs and on my linux boxes as well.

What amazes me after over twenty years of PCs, is that we still don't have a truly efficient back-up system. Sure, you can use tape, mirrored drives and the like, but that's never been practical for laptops. I want a non-volatile backup medium that runs unobtrusively in the background, sucks up no processor or memory resources, is removable and consists of both disk image and individual fles (that can be tagged for automatic backup). it should weigh next to nothing and add no more than a hundred bucks to the price of a laptop.

Think you can handle that?

Let me know if you "know a guy"...

A few days ago, I mentioned that we were looking for more authors, and Dave Calder of Francis Peak stepped up.

Dave has an interesting military background which I hope will lend some gravitas to our analysis of military affairs.

We're still looking for more authors, so if you're like Dave and tired of yelling at the TV, why not drop me a line?

I had fully intended to blog the past couple of days, but was overtaken by events.

My son returned from Basic and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Leonard Wood and we had a lot to do to prepare for the Christmas celebration.

I think I said this before--the Army did more to make my son a man in four months than I could do in ten years. Before he left, he could do about 10 push-ups. Now he can do 56 in two minutes. That's acceptable but not outstanding in the Army. He hopes to do much better for his next evaluation. Impressed the hell out of me though. The young man is buff!

We've been thoroughly entertained by all of his stories and thorough impressed by his accomplishments and his new outlook. A friend of mine who spent considerable time in the Navy in his youth, offered his opinion that all young men should volunteer (as opposed to be drafted) just for the character development.

Liberals mocking the military for lower standards simply don't know what they are talking about.

Go Army.

I sometimes question the effort I put into writing for this blog (my wife questions it as well...). Ultimately, the reason I write is because you come to read it.

UNCoRRELATED when through a lot of adjustments in 2006, and we've more or less worked it out. I am still looking for another couple of authors (if anyone is interested...).

Readership has grown, and I have hopes it will keep doing so. If you like UNCoRRELATED, tell your friends about us. If you don't like UNCoRRELATED, write me and tell me why.

A happy new year to everyone, and once again, my profound and heartfelt thanks.

Want to do us a favor? Click around on our advertising links.

Have a blog? Link-love is always appreciated (and reciprocated--just as soon as I get the trackbacks fixed. Until then, let me know by email...)

Too busy to blog today and I have to get on a red-eye in a couple of hours, so it will have to wait until tomorrow until I can post again.

Too bad to. Lots happening today.

Things look a little different around here, no?

We've been struggling with problems at our old hosting provider (Globat) and a few months ago I started the process of installing the new version of Movabletype (3.33) and migrating the archives to a new host.

The new format is scalable according to the resolution of your PC or laptop. New machines will see a lot more blog at a whack, without penalizing older machines that need a 720 pixel window.

We've also fixed a lot of annoying problems we've just been putting up with because we anticipated the upgrade. The comments should work much better, with commenter authentication.

I'll be doing a lot of testing over the long weekend, so if something doesn't look right, check back in a day or so and it should be fixed.

Once the basic functionality is solid, we'll be adding additional features as well.

We'd be pleased if you visited our sponsors.

UPDATE: An authenticated commenter will see his or her comments immediately posted, but you'll need a Typekey account. Its easy to set-up and the amount of information you have to divulge is minimal--basically a valid email address.

I wish we had more commenters--I personally enjoy the feedback (even when its hostile...). To that end, I've been looking for ways to make it easier and when we switched hosts I got the commenter authentication feature working.

Since not everyone knows what that is, I thought I would explain.

Typekey is an authentication service. When you set up an account with typekey, your identity is verified by email confirmation and you get a unique cipher.

When you want to comment, sign in to Typekey using your username and password. This produces a "handshake" that signals that its "you" to the UNCoRRELATED site. You can remain signed in for up to two weeks. Any comments you submit in that time are posted immediately--bypassing moderation.

At that point, the thousands of daily readers we get can read your contributions to the debate and perhaps post their own rebuttals. If you're lucky, they might be hostile...

Pardon the light blogging. I've got a presentation to finish and my son just announced he's getting married--in three weeks.

<--the, um, scenery is great.

Blogging, at least my blogging has been a little light this weekend and that will continue through until Wednesday as I am in San Diego for my eldest son's marriage. Young marriage is a tradition in the intermountain west. I was 23 when I got married, and my son is also 23, which is actually "
taking your time" by some people's standards.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, I think people should get married while they are young, in order to "grow up together". From my observations, it appears to be that getting married when older makes the adjustment an order of magnitude more difficult. Besides, most people are so much better-looking when they are young...

I've been to San Diego on many occasions, but never for relaxation. My son's new inlaws clued me in the private beach house rental market, which can be accessed at VRBO.com (vacation-rentals-by-owner). Since we were making last minute reservations during the off-season, I was able to negotiate considerably lower pricing than the going rate. We ended up in a large beachhouse that easily accommodates my six-person party. We've been entertained all weekend by some pretty competitive beach volleyball right outside the living room window, and surfers catching the vigorous early-morning waves. The only drawback is that this time of year, the beach is mostly overcast and a little cooler than optimal.

Although the kitchen facilities are excellent, being in proximity to IN-N-OUT has proved irresistible. While I might eat a fast-food hamburger once a month or less, I've had a double-double on succeeding days and I am not ruling out one today either.

In my experience, its sometimes the casual getaways that prove to be the most delightful surprises.

I'll be back in harness on Wednesday...

UNCoRRELATED is looking for additional contributing authors--how about you?

Do you have a blog languishing in the long-tail ghetto? Frustrated that no one is reading your laser-keen insights? Laughing at your wit and nodding at your wisdom?

This is a chance to express yourself to a larger audience.

Contact Mick at the email address in the upper-left hand corner. I'll want to read some past submissions and get a little background, but I'm no hardcase.

<--Not my son's bike, but looks just like it...

Just too much to do today.

It was 100 degrees F here in central Utah and I had to be out in it just about all day. I would have been much better off in the mountains (where its typical 20 degrees cooler).

My son's new, at least new to him, motorcycle quit last night and he had to push it home. Its a Honda Shadow ACE 750 which is a Harley look-and-sound-alike, but a normally very reliable bike. He bought it a few weeks ago, and although the bike is 6 years old, it only had 500 miles on it. Unfortunately it was sitting since 2004. The first thing I told him to do when he brought it home was put some Seafoam into the tank (a carburetor cleaner), and after a couple of tankfuls, the bike ran rather well--until yesterday. Its started fine, and he drove off normally, but after 15 minutes it stalled.

After removing the seat and tank, I checked all the plugs for fouling, but they were totally clean. I reasoned that it had to be a fuel problem, so I started at the tank and worked my way forward. When I disconnected the hose underneath the fuel filter, I expected to get a little spillage, but it was dry, so I disconnected the filter entirely, turned it upside down and got a gas-and-rust shower.

Ah!

Apparently, the tank sat empty or near empty for quite some time and quietly rusted. When my son began putting fuel into it again, the rust flushed into the filter which began to get progressively clogged until the engine, starved for fuel, stalled.

I can't count the number of times in my life I've seen something similar--small insignificant actions producing later catastrophes.

There is a lesson in this somewhere.

A reader asked me today why I don't publish site visits on UNCoRRELATED.

Not because I don't want to, but because I don't honestly know--really--how many people visit the site on a daily basis. Frankly no one else knows what their traffic is either.

During UNCoRRELATED, history, I've used four different traffic counting technologies. Currently I am using both Webalizer and Site Meter and the latter reports 1/10th the visits of the former. What's going on?

Site Meter describes their methodology for counting visitors as:

Site Meter defines a "visit" as a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views.

One should understand that this is a completely arbitrary methodology. Its useful for comparing sites all using precisely the same methodology, but can't ever tell you exactly how many actual visitors you have to the site.

The reason is that an IP address doesn't refer to an individual reader. I have a home network that has at least two and as many as five users sharing a single IP address. If we are all reading UNCoRRELATED with no more than a half hour between visits, its counted as one visit. The same is true at my place of business--one IP address for a dozen users. The only time I can be relatively sure I have a single identifiable visitor is if I get a unique IP address that views precisely one page and then moves on elsewhere never to return in a given day.

For Dial up users, an IP may in fact change several times during an on-line session, fooling my traffic counter into thinking that a lot of different visitors are on the site when it fact its only one reader.

I do track the stats from month to month looking for trends. If visitors are 20% more than they were last month, its a pretty good, albeit not perfect indication that more people are reading the blog.

As the saying goes, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. Numbers are usually wrong.

It is however fascinating to look at a world map of where various visitors are requesting html from. Most are from the U.S., which make perfect sense, but there is a significant cluster in Britain and Northern Europe (where English fluency is common). Everyday we get a few from South America, China and someone who reads everyday in Turkey (hi there!).

Aside from the root page, the most commonly requested page lately is the /Miscellaneous/Miscellany/ category. I am not sure why, but I suspect its the polar bear story--am I right? Let me know in the comments what it is you are looking at precisely.

Its a little strange to see which posts capture the public interest. Big bass, bears, hogs and other animals generate a lot of views. People like big animals I guess...

I was in Costco yesterday and nearly every cart had a copy of Harry Potter 7 in it. Take out was doing a brisk business, but the movie theaters, malls and sit-down restaurants were seriously undertrafficked.

I checked by unique visitor stats and yesterday was about 40% below normal. It seems I'm not the only one--Glenn Reynolds reports similarly light traffic at Instapundit.

I've borrowed a copy of the Half-blood Prince just to see what the fuss is about...

I've received several complaints about the comment entry process for UNCoRRELATED and I finally got around to doing something about it.

In the past I've held comments for moderation, not so much because I wanted to "clean the stream" but rather to keep the spam off of the site. MovableType keeps the bulk of it out, but invariably there are several entries that get through every day and they have to be removed manually.

The Comment Challenge plugin uses a couple of techniques to ascertain that the commenter is human, including a challenge question requiring a response.. Type in the word from the challenge and hit post and your comment will appear immediately.

I've tested it and it seems to work. Next I hope to install scripting that allows for notification of follow-up comments.