August 16, 2006
Press Release on BlogSoldiers is out
You can see it here:
Pentex Net, Inc. Acquires Blog Only Traffic Exchange, BlogSoldiers.comBlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.
Champaign, IL (PRWEB) August 16, 2006 -- BlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.
"Bloggers worldwide are excited about the acquisition and relaunch of BlogSoldiers.com. As an innovative resource available for bloggers to get more visibility for their content, BlogSoldiers is uniquely situated to provide advertising and traffic generation tools to the blogosphere. With the number of blogs increasing to over 50 million, it is a necessity to have a focused resource to provide affordable services to this community.
John Bambenek, CISSP, philanthropist and founder of Pentex Net, Inc. has spent over 10 years in the information technology industry building a reputation for expertise in information security. As a blogger and opinions journalist, he has shown passion for active political participation. He brings a combination of technological expertise and media savvy that will make BlogSoldiers a website to watch in the weeks to come.
BlogSoldiers is free to join and allows people to build traffic to their sites the first day they are on the site. It's extremely easy and user-friendly for even novices to achieve results. In order to maximize your membership, it is important to understand how the traffic generation works. Basically users earn "credits" by surfing blogs and those credits are used when other people visit that user's blog. Paid memberships allow users to pay for upgraded services and credits.
During the period of transition, BlogSoldiers is offering new member incentives like 50 bonus credits for joining, discounts on upgrades, and incentives for existing members such as referral bonuses and incentive credits.
BlogSoldiers offers many other resources for members with both Free and Paid memberships suck as banner and text advertisements and a blog directory. It also includes a blog education center, how-to videos, blog tools, and much more.
Pentex Net, Inc, owner of BlogSoldiers, is a provider of information technology and information security services.
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August 14, 2006
BlogSoldiers has a new owner: Me
I have just completed the acquisition of BlogSoldiers one of the first blog-only traffic exchanges. I'm pretty fired up about it and look forward to doing some great things with it. I've introduced some incentives to help grow the membership base:
1) 50 referral credits for all new members you refer.
2) 50 bonus credits on surfing 50 sites for new members who join.
3) Surfing Contest for the month of August, the Top 10 surfers will receive up to 500 credits for having the most pages surfed between Aug 15 and Aug 31. Top surfer gets 500, 2nd gets 250, 3rd 150, 4th and 5th get 100, 6th-10th get 50.
4) Membership contest. In ADDITION to the referral bonus, the member with the most sites referred will get 500 credits with the same bonus structure as above.
5) REDUCED PURCHASE PRICE FOR CREDITS! I have reduced the price on purchasing credits for THIS MONTH ONLY! It is now $8 - 1200, $14 - 2500, and $24 - 5000.
6) If you post on your blog about the purchase and relaunch of blogsoldiers, you get 50 credits IN ADDITION to any referral credits that post generates. (Please open a support ticket, send me the permalink and your username).
Please sign up at BlogSoldiers.
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June 20, 2006
Catholic Carnival - Corpus Christi Edition
Here's this week's Catholic Carnival, a weekly roundup of self-submitted posts from Catholic bloggers.
Reflections
Harrison Ayre at Witness to Hope presents Reflections on the Problem of Evil. "The Problem of Evil is one of the greatest problems that have ever plagued theologians and philosophers. How do we reconcile evil with a Good and Loving God?"
Audrey Yii at My Journey presents Being Too 'Salty'. "Jesus said Christians are called to be salts of the world. But how 'salty' should we be? This post is about my personal experience when I've added too much 'salt'."
Tom Reagan presents Maturing in a View of Jesus Through the Rosary. This is Part II in Tom's 3-part series Maturing in a View of Jesus, a View of Mary, and a View of Ourselves Through the Rosary. Part I is about maturing in a view of Mary, and Part III will be about maturing in a view of ourselves.
Elena LaVictoire at My Domestic Church presents A Teachable Spirit. "I post a lot about the difficulties of the Titus 2 responsibility and how it is difficult to live out that command. It is my opinion, that a great deal of that comes from an unteachable spirit in many young women today. I came across two examples of this in blogs by first time moms this week. "
Jay at Living Catholicism presents A Penitent Blogger presents Dark Accusations and Hard Questions, a reflection on our need to be diligent as servants of a just and merciful God"
The Feast of Corpus Christi
Leo Wong at Diary of a City Parishioner presents The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ with thoughts on the Real Presence.
Kevin Miller at HMS Blog presents The Sum of All Sacrifices, a reflection on the Mass readings for Corpus Christi, focusing on what sort of sacrifice the Eucharist is.
Father's Day
Christine at Ramblings of a GOP Soccer Mom presents National Review Roundup on Dads discussing how important fathers are.
Other Uncategorized Stuff
Herbery Ely at HerbEly presents Book Review: Just War, Lasting Peace: What Christian Traditions can Teach Us. This book is the result of a one-day invitational forum on the applicability of the Just War tradition to the modern world. Herb recommends the book but wishes that it had given more background on 1) the decline of war over the past twenty five years; 2) von Clausewitz's famous dictum about war being the continuation of politics; and 3) the context of turning the other cheek. He provides links to additional resources.
Rob at Crusader of Justice presents Summer Reading List on eight books with a Catholic theme to them that he really enjoyer many of them from his first year at Franciscan.
BarbaraSzyskiewicz at SFO Mom presents An Open Letter to Woman's Day Magazineon why one Catholic mom cannot, in good conscience, continue to
subscribe to this mainstream magazine.
Humor
cehwiedel at Kicking Over My Traces presents Bill Mauldin Collection
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June 14, 2006
Radio Interview on Extreme Wisdom
In about 5 minutes, I'll be on the Extreme Wisdom radio show on WKRS. Will post more on what was talked about and possible have a podcast link a bit later... stay tuned on this post.
UPDATE 1:
Topics discussed, Champaign Unit 4 schools, CU Smoking Ban, and the Rex Bradfield - Naomi Jakobsson race.
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May 21, 2006
The Pettiness of Politics
I've talked to a few people lately who have soured on politics as of late (see Captain's Quarters latest). Far too many people respond to ideas they disagree with by immediately attacking the character of the person voicing those ideas. On several occasions I've written a controversial column to be personally attacked for it. One person co-worker threatened to anally rape me, for instance, if he ever met me. While it may be an interesting sociological study to see why people's tempers flare so high when the stakes are so low, we must not let ourselves get bogged down by the gibbering yard apes all political stripes. The best way to deal with those who pout like children is to ignore them. In order to continue advocating the ideas we hold dear, there comes a time to simply ignore the idiots. The great thing about free speech is that it makes it easy to identify who those idiots are.
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April 29, 2006
Expose state corruption... get sued...
I recently have been made a full member of the Media Bloggers Association and they sent along this story of a blogger in Maine being sued in federal court for exposing the incestous relationship between the state and it's contractors.
Lucky for him he's got tons of support. Go get 'em!
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April 24, 2006
On responding to the critics
Of all the columns I've ever written, the column on Intelligent Design (where I say ID is not science, that evolution might be sufficient to explain to origins of life, and so on) has generated, by far, the most response. The response largely confirms my thesis, that at the mere mention of Intelligent Design, minds snap shut. In this case, they snapped shut so fast, they didn't even get to the part where I said ID isn't science and insist that is what I was saying.
That aside, I think I've learned a valuable lesson, to not waste time on the knee-jerk reactionaries in the blogosphere. The gay marriage debate has shown me that it is still possible to disagree with one another and still have an intelligent discussion. However, it is pointless to try to argue with the zealots that troll the fever swamp of prefabricated thought. If they want to comment here, fine. For my part, I'm done with them.
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April 19, 2006
MT problems
Apparently, sometimes when I create a post it creates 0 byte HTML files instead of the post, so some things have been broken lately.
Sorry about that.
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April 17, 2006
Thought-blocking Pettiness
When I wrote on intelligent design last week, I knew I was in for some fan-mail. The interesting part about the fan-mail is that instead of effectively criticizing my article, it actually proves my point.
The column takes no position on intelligent design, namely it does not defend it as science (and, in fact, outright says it isn't science) but suggests that it should not be treated as a forbidden question to ask. There is no indication to the intelligent reader that the position is to remove evolution and replace it with ID. That is, unless the reader is encumbered by thought-blocking pettiness.
In fact, the column even goes so far to suggest that evolution as a theory of creation may be proven true over time. However, the search for truth is not aided by insisting assumptions go unchallenged and that certain questions must not be asked.
However, when the responses came in through the blogosphere or through e-mail or the paper it became clear why many people are concerned about the level of literacy among undergrads, the the common citizens, and for that matter the PhD holders.
Skipping past the absurdity of making an "intelligent defense" of science using ad hominems, it is clear that those authors are not actually responding to what was said in the column but engaging in trench warfare at the mere mention of intelligent design. It demonstrates not that science is defensible, but that the modern state of "science" militantly demands certain questions and fields on inquiry should be banned. ID may or may not be science… but is it true?
The behavior exhibited by those who man the trenches at the moment ID is mentioned is not that of a free, open, and inquiring mind, but the behavior of a mind that snaps shut like a steel trap when their assumptions are challenged.
And now, there's even a T-shirt to commemorate the event....
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April 5, 2006
Another John Bambenek?
It's true, there is another John Bambenek out there writing a blog called Bench Points on sports. If you're into sports, check it out. But the dude isn't me, I've got nothing interesting to say about sports except Sox rule and the Cubs suck.
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March 24, 2006
Comment and Trackback Spam
I just went through and junked all the trackback/comment spam and noticed a few legit comments in the mix. Hopefully the updated filter will help lower the noise, sorry for anyone I missed.
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February 27, 2006
I'm in the New York Times today
Read here.
In fact, it turns out, it was a Front Page article. The research referenced is here in draft form.
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February 8, 2006
Christian Carnival CVIII
Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival CVIII, a weekly roundup of self-submitted blog posts from Christian Bloggers. Sorry for the lateness of getting this posted but having just returned from vacation, I've fallen somewhat behind. Posts are in the uncreative order of receipt.
Here's this weeks entries:
Martin LaBar of Sun and Shield presents Dick Fischer on taking Gensis literally, pointing to an on-line article by Dick Fischer, wherein he argues, with quite a bit of evidence, that most or all of the claims of Young-Earth Creationism are contradicted by scripture.
John Howell of Braing Cramps for God presents Natural Law: Its Source and Discernment.
Miss O'Hara at Miss O'Hara presents Numb.
Kim C at Life in a shoe: a peek into the methods and madness of one mother of 7 presents Abortion in America. Good news from the other side: it's becoming harder and harder to get an abortion.
FMF at Free Money Finance presents The Tithe is for Today. Talks about why tithing is a New Testament principle.
John Luke at Blogcorner Preacher presents
The Random Yak, for the Random Maniyak at Random Yak presents A Song of Wandering, but Not Alone
David Taylor of Disciple's Journal presents On missions: What about the persecuted church?. While the nations rage about . . cartoons . . I provide a brief profile of Christian Freedom International as one example of ministry to believers in some of the toughest areas of the world to be a Christian.
Ed of Attention Span presents A Hint of the Eternal. What does it mean that God is eternal? How can we as finite humans wrap our minds around that concept? At Attention Span, rev-ed sees "A Hint of the Eternal" in a spring by the side of the road.
Laura Curtis of Pursuing Holiness presents Here we go again.... Christians will protest the “crucifixin’s” segment of Will and Grace furiously if the American Family Association has anything to say about it. And that is our right. However, before we act on this, let’s take a moment to think. Christians will protest the “crucifixin’s” segment of Will and Grace furiously if the American Family Association has anything to say about it. And that is our right. However, before we act on this, let’s take a moment to think.
Will Hinton of Dignan's 75 Year Plan presents End of the Spear Controversy. "The casting of Allen does present ironies if not outright dilemmas. Saint himself said so, but has continued to offer Allen support (see below). But how far do these culture warriors want to take this? Because the logical conclusion of this approach leaves you in a cultural hermetic bubble, without any relationship to those of differing beliefs and practices. This isn't about surrendering to PC ideologies. It's about loving our neighbors and not confusing "in the world" with "of the world."
Rev. Trudy Mackay of The God Blog presents How do we walk in love?. "Today it is impossible to keep track of the people you affect. Through our blogs, Rev. Trudy and I communicate with thousands of people every day. We can’t know how our words sit with them. Some take courage and inspiration; others might disagree. Even if you don’t have a blog, the simple act of going to town and walking in a store puts you in a situation beyond your own control. You are seldom seen as you see yourself. There is nothing you can do about this without the Lord’s help."
John Hollandsworth of Light Along the Journey presents Neo's Choices in the Matrix. John draws out some parallels between the choices that Neo makes in the famous film with the choices that all of us are faced with in our walk with God.
Matthew Jones of Random Acts of Verbiage presents Judges 19. A look at an extremely difficult Biblical passage. Where is the good news?
Richard Anderson of dokeo kago grapho soi kratistos theopilos presents The Fruits of the Theology of Matthew. Richard discusses the significance of Matthew using the word "fruits" six times in his gospel including three times in the Parable of the Wicked Tenants.
Adam Graham at Adam's Blog presents Poem: Our Father. Adam at Adam's Blog begins a series of poetic meditations on the Lord's Prayer with "Our Father."
Michael Meyer of Chasing the Wind presents Trusting in God's Promises. Half-hearted Christians never learn to conquer the giants in their lives. Trust in the Lord to receive His promise.
Kim at Mother-Lode presents There is More. How do we reconcile our longings and disappointments with Christian contentment? Kim maintains that it is neither a Candide-like insistance that we live "in the best of all possible worlds" nor a Buddhist-friendly denial that anything matters.
Lennie of CrossBlogging presents Tolerance and Compassion in Islam. The last few days have provided some interesting events. The incidents in particular are the Cartoon in a Danish Newspaper and the Painting of Bin Laden portrayed as Christ. The first has outraged Muslims. They are rampaging in the Middle East attacking and threatening Westerners. The cartoonist have now gone into hiding after threats on their lives. Contrast this to reaction by Christians offended by the Bin Laden as Christ painting. The Christians have been speaking out and sending emails. They are not out rioting and threatening to kill the artist.
Jerry of Truth be Told presents Brockback, Jacked Up, and Screwed Up.
deputyheadmistress at The Common Room presents The Mission Field
Richard Crout of Give Your All 4 God presents Important Lessons from the Pinewood Derby.
Phil Dillon of Another Man's Meat presents The Luigig Cascioli Case - Prooof for the Existence of Fools. This post is the ongoing case in Italy where a priest was sued and has to prove Jesus did exist.
A Penitent Blogger presents Commandments of Men. A reflection on how our Lord's denunciation of the Pharisees might also apply to us.
Jeremy Pierce at Parableman presents Neither Male nor Female, Jew nor Greek. This post responds to an argument that Paul's statement that there is no male or female, Jew or Greek, slave or free cannot be used to argue against racial segregation if it is interpreted in a way that allows gender role distinctions.
Kim Bloomer of Sharing Spirit presents All We Need is Love on how love is not about feelings but about action.
Rev Bill presents Pro Bono. Rev. Bill gives us some words from Bono of U2 -- and a link to the speech Bono made at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Terry Hull of Terra Extraneus presents Why I am No Longer a Fundamentalist Christian. "When I was a teenage believer, I knew I was a fundamentalist Christian. I believed the fundamental doctrines of historic Christianity. I still believe those things today. However, today I am no longer a fundamentalist. Today I know that the term "fundamentalist" comes with a lot of cultural and emotional baggage, including a lot that I vigorously reject.
Louie of The Marshian Chronicles presents Some Truth About Accountability. The first of three articles on the importance of accountability in ministry, the reasons so many avoid it, and why it's a pain in the butt!
CWV warrior of Christianity is Jewish presents Here a Year. cwv warrior talks about being a voice in the wilderness after one year of blogging for God.
Kathleen Dalton of Vegetable Soup presents Minor Prophets... Major Prophets... Ordinary Men. Here you will see some practical ways many people (and these are all people I know personally) have tried to fulfill their calling to be like the prophets of old…risking reputations, jobs, family acceptance, even safety…for the privilege of sharing their part of the picture of Jesus for all the world to see.
Alex of Jordan's View presents What was the Point at "The End of the Spear"? Like others in the blogosphere, Jordan was critical of the filmmaker's decision to cast a homosexual activist, but sees the film's greatest flaw to be its muted gospel presentation, which sadly results in a film that does not fulfill its potential either as an evangelistic tool or as an artistic statement
Mark Olson at Pseudo-Polymath presents Considering Worship and Prayer Again. "I'm a tyro when it comes to prayer as evidenced by my carnival entry a few weeks ago. Anyhow, I take another stab at it and solicit suggestions."
Derek Gilbert of P.I.D. Radio presents The Long War. American evangelicals need to step back and take a hard, critical look at this Republican administration we've elected. While we in no way support some of the key moral issues promoted by Democrats, Christian conservatives must wake up to the fact that President Bush is using a war that will never end to justify broad government powers our forefathers fought a war to escape.
Jeff the Baptist presents A Record of Prayer. To all the world this is a boring blue memo pad. You can get five of them for a few dollars at any supermarket or drug store. Yet inside is something precious. Every page is contains prayer requests...
All Kinds of Time presents The Doubters' Commission. A closer look at who Christ was commissioning in the Great Commission.
...in the outer... presents Will the Church Survive?. Thoughts on the feared repercussion of the Italian litigation against Rev Enrico Righi that might lead to an adverse result to the church brought about by an appeal to the EU Court.
Donna-Jean of Liberty and Lily writes of the death of a long-time friend in her tribute, "At Home".
View From the Pew presents Study of Mark: Mark 8:27-31. 'I've been doing a study of Mark (for an unfortunately long time!) and this is the latest installment on one of my favorite passages in the Gospel -- "Who do you say that I am?"'
That's it for this week. Next week will be hosted at Pursuing Holiness. God bless!
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February 7, 2006
Back from Vacation, Christian Carnival Coming
I'm back from a week long vacation to Oklahoma. Check this space around noon tomorrow for the latest edition of the Christian Carnival and for my DI column that will be published tomorrow.
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 22, 2006
Time-Gate? The Media is Learning the Wrong Lesson
Time Magazine apparently has an exclusive that there exists pictures with President Bush and Jack Abramoff together. Skipping past the irrelevancy of what these pictures are supposed to present, there is one immediate thing that comes to mind.
TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication…
Rathergate of fond memory provided what should have been a valuable lesson to the media to make sure they don’t use forged documents to try to prove a partisan point. However, the lesson they have learned is to provide less visibility and accountability, not more. If the pictures never make it to the public, then they can’t be refuted. This comes from an industry supposedly trying to expose truth, and instead they are concealing it.
There is one important question that any hack journalist would have asked when a resource showed but refused to disclose pictures such as these: why? That question goes unaddressed in the piece. There is no mention of how the source got them, even in general terms, why the source is hiding them, or why the reporters think they are legitimate. Apparently the public is supposed to just “trust” them. The media has become so afraid of bloggers and the public that they are afraid to give them any information which could be used to refute them. The only reason not to provide the pictures from Time’s perspective is because they can be easily refuted, despite the fact they are irrelevant anyway (the President is in thousands of pictures every year, that doesn’t mean that every photo-op is with his closest friends).
Cases of media bias are clear cut, such as the AP Style Guide clearly suggesting using anti-abortion instead of pro-life in order to push “abortion rights” and use pro-choice approved propaganda terms. In this case, the Democrats are trying to push the point that Republicans and only Republicans have corruption problems.
They are desperately trying to stick Abramoff to Bush to use as a template in the 2008 elections conveniently forgetting record-breaking corruption of a certain previous Democrat administration. In short, the Democrat party platform has become, ”We can’t beat them so let’s try to indict them”.
And it appears that Time Magazine is playing along.
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January 8, 2006
New Wideawakes Post...
Check it out over at Wide Awakes. Hopefully I'll get around to blogging once again, but lately, I've just found playing Shadowbane that much more interesting. Sure, you have lots of infantilism in the game, but at least no one pretends it's national politics... where you get just as much infantilism.
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November 9, 2005
Carnival of the Vanities #164
Here it is, the 164th edition of the Carnival of the Vanities, a collection of user-submitted blog posts from around the web. First submitted is first posted with the posts I think are best at the top. Some are repeat submissions from the Carnival of the Capitalists on Monday. Go figure. Misc. Comments interspersed in italics because I can. Enjoy!.
Editor's Choices
Want to be in the Deck-O-Bloggers? They're Taking nominations.
The MaryHunter at TMH's Bacon Bits presents A Little Partisanship Never Hurt, Right?
Ferdinand T. Cat at Conservative Cat presents Paris Burning for All the Wrong Reasons
Barak at IRIS presents IRIS Exposes 2 Anti-Israel New York Times Falsehoods. This post was picked up directly by Powerline and many others, and indirectly by Andrew Sullivan.
Nick Queen presents Who is Fiddling While Paris Burns? Another Look at France and the Parisian Riots
Nov 3rd.
FMF at Free Money Finance presents Investing Made Easy. A simple guide to investing for the beginner.
Steve Pavlina at Steve Pavlina's Personal Development Blog presents Million Dollar Experiment
David Porter at Pacesetter Mortgage Blog presents Will Home Equity Prevent the Retirement Dreams of Baby Boomers?
Demosthenes presents Why isn't Joe Wilson Being Proesecuted for Lying to Congress? In light of the recent indictment of Scooter Libby, the
pregnant pause concerning Joe Wilson is becoming unbearable: when will Joe Wilson be proscecuted for lying to Congress? The Senate Intelligence Committee found - on a bipartisan basis - the Joe Wilson's assertions to them were false. Why the double standard about prosecutions? How about Libby could just claim whistleblower protections for exposing the unethical deal of his wife getting him a junket?
J. Fielek at Quibbles-n-Bits presents The Last Bus . 514 Words, G-Rated, an homage to a great person.
Nov. 4th
Sammler at The Stone City presents Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. The empty space between political and scientific prognostication.
CALL at The Clog Almanac presents Hey Mr. Bush Pilot. "Nose down, level the wings, accelerate." Edgy advice on how to recover from a stall, whether you're a pilot or the president, or both.
David Porter at Pacesetter Mortgage Blog presents How to handle a complaint with a Mortgage Lender or Mortgage Broker
Jon P at Dodgeblogium presents Time to Lighten Up
Mike at L&N Line presents TV So Far. "This is my blogmate Chris' review of TV this season. Some people might enjoy his reviews of all the shows. I hope so. Also see all of our movie reviews, if you'd like."
Doug Mataconis at Below The Beltway presents Let's Treat It Like A War . Much has been written about the report in yesterday's Washington Post about the CIA holding captured members of Al Qaeda in "secret prisons" in various Asian and Eastern European countries. Though nobody knows for sure what goes on at these prisons, the implications are clear; Al Qaeda captives are being subjected to various forms of psychological torture in an effort to extract information. This is one of the things that intelligence officers do during wartime, so it should be no surprise at all that it is happening now.
Barry Welford at The Other Bloke's Blog presents Before-Internet and After-Internet - the millennium changes. Many things have changed tumultuously with the Internet, not least marketing. One sign is that Google may be the fourth biggest US media company in advertising revenues next year ahead of NBC Universal and Time Warner. It's tough for CEOs to stay on top of all this.
Ironman at Political Calculations presents Coming Soon to a Gym Near You. Ironman at Political Calculations looks at some truly space-age exercise equipment that might find a place in your local gym.
Jane Dough at Boston Gal's Open Wallet presents Wow - I guess I struck a cord with that last post... as a follow-up to her post on how much do I need for retirement.
Nov. 5th
Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents Tax Treatment of Annuity Withdrawals
Nov. 6th
Jack Cluth at The People's Republic of Seabrook presents And the knucKKKle-dragging troglodytes shall always be among us. When is denying a group it's liberty and dignity acceptable? Texas' Proposition 2 is not the answer.
Elisa Camahort at The Browster Blog presents The Search Conundrum: Information Glut or Insular, Limited Perspective New search tools aim to address informaiton overload, but most do so by limiting your sources. Not the ideal approach.
Don Surber at Don Surber presents A Country Not Worth Defending . I point out the problem with military recruiting is they are not allowed to recruit all youths, just us rural Southern hicks. Ask not what you can do for your country but what your country can do for you.
Suzi Chen at Special Fried Rice presents Telemarketing. Telemarketing from the other side of the phone - what a bad job will do to your soul.
Interested-Participant presents Wild Pussies Squeeze Statehouse Rats. For well over a century, Ohio's elected lawmakers have lived in uncompromised harmony with buck-toothed, omnivorous, and disease-carrying rats. And this isn't true outside Ohio? :)
David St Lawrence at Ripples: post-corporate adventures presents Cool Hunting in C'ville. "Cool" is the wonderfully outrageous activity of using technology for purposes the designers never intended. It arouses our interest so strongly that we emulate it or tell others about it, and thereby start a trend.
Kevin Baker at The Smallest Minority presents Tough History Coming. His take on Peggy Noonan's dystopic op-ed, "A Separate Peace" from last week.
Nov. 7th
Oddybobo at Bobo Blogger presents Flashback of childhood memories.
Marge at DubiousProfundity.com presents Creation
Elie at Elie's Expositions presents Anguished Composure. Part 4 of my series about the loss of his son Aaron.
Wayne Hurlbert at Blog Business World presents Off Topic Searches: Low Return Visitors.
Buckley F. Williams at The Nose On Your Face presents Bird Flu Nails France: Chickens, Cartoon Characters Hardest Hit
Bussorah Merchant at Wicked Thoughts presents Deeper Thoughts. Wicked Thoughts has some deeper thoughts on the Demon Wal-Mart.
John Ray at Dissecting Leftism presents Racial Preference As An Extension Of Kin Preference. John Ray has a brief discussion of a recent academic paper showing racial preference to be related to kin preference.
Ferdinand T. Cat at Conservative Cat presents France Losing Control, Newsweek Stuck on Stupid
Nov. 8th
Big Picture Guy at Big Picture, Small Office presents We Sail in Paper Boats. It’s budget time in the Small Office. There’s a lot of sandbagging going on, but apparently little conviction and no commitment. At least not if you read the body language of Winken, Blinken and Nod.
Elisson at Blog d'Elisson presents Coinage (A Nerdic Rant). A post in which Elisson gripes about the mostly dismal state of our nation's Circulating Coinage.
Adam at Sophistpundit presents Take them out, YOU KNOW THE REASON DAMMIT. Debate with one anti-war commentor; Dr. Zen, one-time host of a controversial installment of COTV. Remember what they say about arguing on the Internet?
Nick Schweitzer at The World According to Nick presents The Sands of Time
Mensa Barbie at Mensa Barbie Welcomes You presents Preservation Theory . Perfect etchings demonstrate a carbon theory. (Nature's ability to secure survival.) Also, catch a Panoramic view of Evolution Lake and the Sipapu Natural bridge (in this post.)
Matt Johnston at Going to the Mat presents Myths and Misconceptions About H.R. 1606 . A bill to make political blogging less regulated dies in the House, but it not nearly as bad as the boogeymen of the reform community would have you think. Say that after you get subpoenaed by the FEC. ;)
Tom Bowler at Libertarian Leanings presents What exactly hath Fitzgerald wrought?. As an unintended consequence of the Fitzgerald's indictment of Scooter Libby, the press may find itself on trial. Will we finally find out Novak's source?
Funk Soul Bruhva at Western Resistance presents Why There Is No Islam Without The Hadiths
Charlie Quidnunc at Rip & Read Blogger Podcast presents Rip & Read #153. Get the blogosphere in your ear with Charlie Quidnunc at the Rip & Read Blogger podcast. This week he covers: #1 Smearing Wilson, #2 The Leaking Culture
Watcher at Watcher of Weasels presents Frog Flambée. Something is a little sour about taking too many shots at France over this (and I'm by no means a France fan). Sure, it took them about 2 weeks to impose a curfew but it isn't like this kind of thing can't happen (and hasn't happened) here.
It Should Be Noted presents Your Move, France.
There we go, that's the carnival. Next week it's at The Examining Room. (insert doctor joke here).
Posted by John Bambenek at 12:16 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
September 26, 2005
New Blog Traffic Generator
BlogMad, hasn't opened yet but you get bonus credits for signing up early... give it a shot.
Posted by John Bambenek at 12:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 13, 2005
Carnival of Liberty, Carnival of the Capitalists, and Carnival of Life
The Carnival of Liberty is up here
You can find the Carnival of the Capitalists here.
And contribute to the Carnival of Life that will be up tomorrow.
Posted by John Bambenek at 11:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Bonfire of the Vanities #115
Welcome to the 115th edition of the Bonfire of the Vanities, a collect of the blogosphere's most foul smelling posts. Today's edition would have been brought to you by one of my favorite drinks, the Irish Pipe Bomb, but none of the recipes I found have you lighting the shot glass on fire (if you have such a recipe send it to me) and searching for "Irish Pipe Bomb" on the web has now landed me on the No Fly List. Instead, today's Bonfire is brought to you by the letters B and S and the number 0.
The upcoming bonfire stops are as follows:
Week 116 (Sept 20) - File It Under (url: http://www.fileitunder.com)
Week 117 (Sept 27) - The Zero Boss (url: http://www.thezeroboss.com/)
Week 118 (Oct 4) - Available
If you're interested in hosting an upcoming edition of the Bonfire
let Kevin at Wizbang! know via e-mail.
Mr. Satire at satire.myblogsite.com/blog presents Celine Dion Gives Passes To Hurricane Katrina's Poor Victims To Touch Pricey Things In Her Mansion. This is what celebrities get when they start speaking as if they know how to handle the real world. Their expertise is in pretending.
Jack Cluth at The People's Republic of Seabrook presents Can I get that to go? And is that fresh donkey urine?? Think twice before getting Chinese…
Mark A. Rayner at The Skwib presents Epidemiologists Searching for Deadly Noodle Vector? He says: "More coverage of the Pastafarian schism, this time with a sideswipe at silly CDC programs." Me? Don't look at me, I just light the bonfire on fire.
FMF at Free Money Finance presents Scooters: The Perfect Second Car? How many ways can one talk about the cost of gas without actually talking about the cost of gas?
Don Surber at Don Surber presents The Next Chief Justice?. He got preempted in his post on a possible Chief Justice Thomas by Bush nominated Roberts instead.
Two Dogs at Mean Ol' Meany presents A Big Shout Out to basil for causing his to show up in google searches for "Jamie Lynn Spears Naked". Who's Jamie Spears?
Wunderkraut was busy trolling for venison recipies and putting up pictures of a deer he killed because it was a slow news day. And you choose this???
Beth over at Bamapachyderm asks who could she not submit something from a stupid quiz. She designed her own hell but does not include telemarketers… what were you thinking?
Practical Penumbra overslept, so she's spending her time beautifying instead of blogging. I encourage all members of the Alliance of Free Blogs to help Susie get her priorities straight.
The Jawa Report brings us news that a company has released an X-Ray CCD camera capable of seeing through clothing. Jawa will never be able to look at Carrie Fisher the same again.
The Gray Tie sends in YABC (Yet Another Blog Carnival) with Shadows and Carnivals. She even thought she was late in submitted the post, but was really 12 hours early.
Pirate's Cove brings us pictures of a bunch of drunks passing out and a cat that's hitting the sauce. It's a good thing he didn't send in his cannibal joke instead.
Harvey at Bad Example presents SOMETIMES, YOU JUST HAVE TO ANYWAY. Some people can bring up erectile dysfunction in any topic of conversation.
Sean Gleeson at Sean Gleeson presents Huffing what? Sean is in despair because he doesn't get enough HuffPo kooks commenting on his site. I recommend creating accounts on the DU and DailyKos and then pretending to be one of them and insult your own posts… you'll get kooks that way. Or perhaps suggest that Israel wasn't to blame for 9/11, that worked for me too.
Andrew Ian Dodge at GoD: blog presents Single Morphs... " While several members of the band work dutifully on the mixing of the band's new EP...what am I doing? Er heading to Stringfellows with a babe on my arm to quaff champers."
Want to see the worst football pick ever? Check out 7 Deadly Sins. Hey, Sinner? Want to join my fantasy football league?
This Blog is Full of Crap brings you previews Palestianian reality TV as more proof that the reality TV thing has gone WAY too far. In fact, if I could, I'd burn all of it in the Bonfire too.
The MaryHunter at TMH's Bacon Bits presents What IS Social Justice?. It's all fine and good, but we're you going to define social justice at some point?
Brian J. Noogle brings you a book review on The World's Best Dirty Jokes. He bought the 1976 book at the YMCA in 2005 as part of a fundraiser. Go figure.
Elisson at Blog d'Elisson presents Lost: A 100-Word Story that should be pithy, but came off like the kind of "pithy" that's pronounced with a lisp.
Posted by John Bambenek at 10:34 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
September 12, 2005
Bonfire of the Vanities - Tomorrow
I'm hosting the Bonfire of the Vanities tomorrow, get your entries in at (bonfire -at- wizbangblog.com) or use the Carnival Submission engine over at Conservative Cat.
Sorry for no posting lately, but trying to get a not-for-profit application package in to the IRS so I can get my charity running finally. Hopefully I'll have some interesting things to say once I'm done.
Also, the IRS sucks. But you knew that already.
Posted by John Bambenek at 3:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 7, 2005
Hurricane Katrina: The Wall Street Journal Blames the Locals
Today the WSJ laid blame squarely on the mayor and governor where it belongs. They largely agree with my own assessment.
UPDATE:
Apparently the MSM is starting to pick up on the non-executed plan by the locals that let people die, ABC gets it. (HT: Captain's Quarters)
Posted by John Bambenek at 5:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
First Carnival of Life is up!
Posted by John Bambenek at 4:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Light Posting Today
I'm busy at with my shift at the Internet Storm Center so probably light posting today.
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 5, 2005
Bambenek's First Law
With the constant retort on those, usually from the Left, about “questioning my patriotism” and the use of the term “chickenhawk” (especially amusing when directed at a soldier) I believe it is time to elucidate the Internet on Bambenek’s First Law.
It states:
If during a political argument, one side interjects that they won’t have you questioning their patriotism when no such line of conversation takes place then they are, ipso facto, unpatriotic. If an individual has to spout resume bullet points to “prove” they are patriotic they are, ipso facto, unpatriotic. If an individual tries to prove their patriotism by attacking the character of their opponent with terms like “chickenhawk”, then they are, ipso facto, unpatriotic.
Now, when you are arguing with a leftie who apparently has no intelligent point except to attack you with epithets like “chickenhawk” and say that questioning their patriotism is out-of-line when you are doing on such thing, now you can invoke Bambenek’s First Law.
Posted by John Bambenek at 9:28 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 27, 2005
MT 3.2 Upgrade
I've just upgraded this blog to movable type 3.2, looks great so far and hopefully will cut down on the spam.
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Woot, I'm #85 in TTLB Ecosystem
Of course, it's broken though. We'll see where it lands when it clears out.
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 23, 2005
Welcome to Part-Time Pundit
I've changed the name of this blog from Ravings to Part-Time Pundit. Why? Well it's a better name I think. I was going to change the template too, but didn't find anything good and there didn't seem to be that many MT sites for templates anymore. Oh well.
Posted by John Bambenek at 3:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 16, 2005
Cleaned Up Right Side Bar
Finally cleaned it up a bit...
Comments?
Posted by John Bambenek at 11:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2005
Blocking Trackback Spam
I finally found something that seems to work decent that doesn't block everyone but manages to get all the annoying texas hold-em and viagra trackback spam.
You can see it here, works only with Movable Type though.
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2005
TypeKey Comments Work
Finally got the TypeKey registration to work. If you have a typekey account, you can make comments unmoderated like.
Posted by John Bambenek at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 9, 2005
The First C-U Blogger Bash
The first C-U Blogger Bash went well. An ecletic group of people showed up including members of the press. WILL and WCIA showed up to do interviews, and as far as we could tell, they just got the info from stalking our blogs. Go figure.
The only missing element was a celebrity death match between IlliniPundit and Matt Varble. Oh well, maybe next time... we could even make it a charity fundraiser!
Posted by John Bambenek at 10:12 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
August 6, 2005
C-U Blogger Get Together
Aug 9th, 6-7pm, Mike and Molly's in Champaign. Be there. Wear a name tag or something.
Thanks to Kiyoshi for setting it up.
Posted by John Bambenek at 4:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 21, 2005
Figures...
I take a break from blogging, I almost break the top 100 in the TTLB ecosystem.
Posted by John Bambenek at 11:11 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
July 19, 2005
Bah
I'm tired of idiocy and blogging hasn't been fun the past few days, so I'm going to go do something else for a bit.
Posted by John Bambenek at 12:29 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
July 7, 2005
Blogger's Identities
I read on Capitol Fax that apparently Matt Varble is in the business of trying to out IlliniPundit and in the past tried to get him fired.
I also read Dawn Eden on some Gawker hit piece on her because she writes headlines and pushing for conservative causes (as opposed to their columnists who push for liberal causes in their journalism itself).
Maybe I'm just that apathetic but I really don't care about other people's politics. There's plenty of targets for those all across the spectrum that are actually in public life without trolling the waters of private life to shut people up you don't agree with. Calling Durbin a dick for seditiously slandering the troops, fair game. Trying to get a blogger fired for being conservative|liberal|anarchistic, pretty lame.
Posted by John Bambenek at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 14, 2005
Happy International Webloggers Day
Happy International Webloggers Day
Posted by John Bambenek at 4:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 8, 2005
What's the best RSS aggregator?
I'm looking to change how I read blogs... right now I use Thunderbird on my PC but if I'm away, then I get backlogged...
Is there something better online, like feedster, except updated on a regular basis?
Posted by John Bambenek at 11:07 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 3, 2005
108k Hits for May
According to Apache stats, I had 108,000 hits for May. Wow, thanks all.
Posted by John Bambenek at 2:56 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 31, 2005
FEC To Regulate Blogs?
FEC treads into sticky web of political blogs
The FEC is looking into how to track political spending on the Internet. The problem is when lawyers write these laws unintended consequences always arise. (Think "Alternative Minimum Tax"). If the FEC wants to track blogs that are part of campaigns or that get campaign moneys, I'm not broken up about that. The Online Coaltion has more. You know it must be bad if RedState and DailyKos are fired up another the SAME thing and are on the same side.
As an aside, has anyone else noticed the big cases that Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ends up on? She also was the judge for the Microsoft case. She certainly is drawing quite a few big name cases. Look for her to keep rising in the courts.
You have til Friday to make your comments to the FEC which they ARE soliciting. Send your e-mails to internet@fec.gov, they will require a real name and a real mailing address. You can also submit here.
For more detailed instructions take a look at:
http://fec.redstate.org/story/2005/5/20/122244/721
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/23/103820/231
Posted by John Bambenek at 5:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2005
International Webloggers Day - June 14th
International Webloggers Day is coming up on June 14th... watch this space for more details.
Posted by John Bambenek at 6:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 6, 2005
*sigh* Ok, I just realized I goofed something
This was particularly true in hosting the carnival on April 29th that I've had disappointing traffic according to statcounter. Then when I took a look at the web stats on the backend to see how many people were grabbing the feed I realized that instead the 688 page views that statcounter THOUGHT I got, it was really 10323. Then I realized the countercode for statcounter was only on the front page, none of the individual post pages, archives pages, and so on...
So yeah, oops. :)
Posted by John Bambenek at 1:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 22, 2005
I've Had About Enough of Blogger
After I host COTV Monday, sometime after I'll be moving to a Movable Type site. I'm tired of Blogger being such a pain. For some time after I'll maintain the posts in sync between the two sites and eventually just move over completely. Is it so hard to ask to have Blogger be up and post every now and then?
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Posted by John Bambenek at 12:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 21, 2005
The Oddities of Blogging
Sometimes I'm not quite sure how this all works. I have a hard time getting known in quarters where I want to be noticed, but then I get attention from other areas I had no idea would even know that I'm out here. I got a health number of hits from Spanish speaking blogs last night and this morning about my defense of Pope Benedict from Si, Si, No, No and Hispalibertas as well as others.
Si, Si, No, No had a neat little language translate tool on his site, so I've added it mine, so you can translate away. Otherwise, thanks for visiting.
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Posted by John Bambenek at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 20, 2005
Blogroll
I've just put it back up, if I've missed you send me an email.
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Posted by John Bambenek at 3:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 19, 2005
Great Moments in Blogging
Yeah, I don't link to Glenn Reynolds alot because he gets plenty on his own, but this is blogging at its best. Some yahoo in the MSM says something blatantly w