Category: Bloggers

Some of you may have heard about The Other McCain‘s blogger Stacy McCain being on the run from a convicted terrorist bomber, generally funded with Democrat money. Our buddy, John Hawkins at Right Wing News interviewed McCain recently;

Stacy on whether he’s permanently leaving his home: “I’m not going to be there anymore. I mean we’re gone. We’re history. We’re out of there.”

Stacy on Kimberlin contacting his wife’s place of employment: “Monday afternoon, my wife came in and informed me Kimberlin had been in contact with her employer. It was evident then and has since become more evident that Kimberlin knew where we lived. His contact with my wife’s employer resulted in a security alert as soon as they found out who this guy was and they recognized the implicit threat.”

How Stacy thinks this will end: “My suspicion is that the end of this story is Brett Kimberlin goes back to prison.”

Stacy on a Kimberlin allegation against Breitbart blogger, Mandy Nagy: “Among other things, he accused Mandy Nagy, Liberty Chick at Breitbart.com, of being part of a conspiracy to kill him ”

Stacy on Kimberlin’s mental condition: “Brett Kimberlin is a classic sociopath.”

You can read the whole account at RWN from the moment McCain first learned who Brett Kimberlin is through the exchange that put McCain and his family on Kimberlin’s hit list. Made me put another coat of oil on my guns.

Hondo sends us a link to a Breitbart report that Google shut down a conservative blog when the author of that blog called for the summary execution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;

I received a form email, no reply possible, from Google Blogger informing me that the New York Conservative had been deleted. The email classified my blog as “spam” in violation of Google’s terms of service. There was no further explanation. My URL was dead; all of the content, everything I ever posted, was gone.

I made two telephone calls to Google to protest and demand a reason for the deletion of my blog. The Google representatives told me that Google does not provide “live support” for Google Blogger, meaning you cannot speak with anyone at all about the deletion. The representatives directed me to the Google Blogger website, where the company extols its commitment to free speech and its great reluctance to censor its bloggers.

the post that resulted in the shutdown is at the link above.

Of course, it’s not the first time a blogger has been censored by Google or WordPress. When I was hosted on Yahoo a few people threatened to contact Yahoo about my content and I sweated out whether or not I’d find myself locked out of the blog. That is until I accidentally collided with my code monkey hippie chick who takes care of my hosting now. I doubt she could be frightened by the various bullies who would have me shut down.

She costs a little more than Yahoo cost, but if we have problem, a quick message to her on Facebook gets me immediate service, whereas I spent hours on hold with Yahoo only be told that it wasn’t their fault. But my code monkey wizard fixes the problem whether it’s with her server or with WordPress.

I’m not trying to sell my hosting service, but anyone who is serious about blogging should consider doing what I’ve done, for, if nothing else, peace of mind and the integrity of your work.

Overall, I had a real good time at the Conference. Our reputation as the “Susan Lucci of the Milbloogie Awards” remains intact since we were nominated four years in a row and still haven’t won. Here are the winners by category;

Best U.S. Army Blog; The Rhino Den
Best U.S. Military Spouse Blog; **Wife [Widow] of a Wounded Marine**
Best U.S. Military Parent Blog; Semper Fi Parents
Best U.S. Military Supporter Blog; Character Does Matter
Best U.S. Marine Corps Blog; One Marine’s View
Best U.S. Navy Blog; USNI Blog
Best U.S. Coast Guard Blog; Ryan Erickson
Best U.S. Air Force Blog; Aim High Erin
Best U.S. Military Veteran Blog; You Served
Best U.S. Reporter Blog; The Unknown Soldiers

We compete in a very tough category so I wasn’t really surprised that we got beat. But heartfelt congratulations to CJ, Marcus and Troy at YouServed. And thanks to all of the folks who expressed their disbelief that we didn’t win. I don’t really ever expect to win because we piss everyone off eventually. It’s the nature of this blog and the reason we blog with disregard to the conventions. I also don’t read other blogs, nor do I know what they’re doing, because I want to remain independent. I urge you to read them all, though. They all provide an important dimension to the conversation.

And, of course, I’m a pariah at the conference, now, because I did what I said I was going to do – I called out Rick Maze of Military Times, Brandon “Beeker” Friedman, and that Tarantino guy from IAVA. Rick Maze told the absolutely fabricated story about how I made his dead mother cry because we wrote “vile” things about him. Here’s the link to the “vile” things we said. The only thing that I can figure he considers vile is the truth about him manufacturing quotes. If the truth is vile at the Military Times, I don’t think I’ll be reading it anymore.

StrikeFO took this video of the whole encounter;
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So, the Milbloggers’ annual meeting to discuss taking over the world is this weekend. It’s my fifth out of the six and I’m pretty excited, more than I was a few months ago. I get to hang out with buddies I haven’t seen since last year, and I can’t wait to see what costume Uncle Jimbo will entertain us with this year.

I get to meet my editors from Business Insiders, the closest thing I have to bosses (well, besides you folks, of course). Some of you have told me you’ll be there, too, so there’s that. Bring beer money.

If you haven’t been following TSO on his incessant posts to Facebook, he’s on the last leg home from Afghanistan and should be in the arms of his lovely wife and his traumatized dogs tonight.

But, I’m all packed (and, yes, guys, I packed cigars) and heading out soon. My co-bloggers have assured me that they’ll keep you occupied with posts this weekend while my reportage might be a little spotty. There might even be an Army Sergeant post.

Speaking of Jimbo, he has a Friday Freefly up at Blackfive that you should probably watch.

The folks at US Military Loans are starting a series of interviews with military bloggers and we were the first. No, I’m not getting any money out of it, but they did ask some questions that I’ve thought about a lot. So if you give a rat’s ass about the things that go through my fertile mind go over and read the interview. If not, don’t. Pick up a couple mortgages (whatever those are) while you’re over there, too.

Not that it makes much difference, but I have made some changes to the links in the right sidebar today. Apparently, the folks at Neptunus Lex took down that blog today, so I unlinked them, but I’ve replaced them with The Lexicans, where those folks all migrated. They’re down in the “Good Blogs That DOn’t Link Here” category (hint, hint).

By the way, in terms of a tip for those of you who are starting your own blogs, that was probably one of my best ideas while I was growing up out here. That list used to be longer than the list of people who linked here, but eventually most of them wanted to move up. You’d be surprised if I told you the names of bloggers who emailed me for a link exchange.

The other change is that our buddy Don Surber announced today that he’s done blogging after seven years. He’ll be missed, mostly by us West Virginians and those carpet baggers among us who depended on him to keep us straight on the who’s who here. I told him on Facebook the other day that I quit blogging six or seven times everyday – like I quit smoking. He messaged back that he was adamant about it. He says he’ll still be writing at the Charleston Daily Mail, so there’s that.

Before he finished, Don left some advice for prospective journalists. I only wish they’d follow his guidance.

Thanks to 509th Bob who has been clicking out of our blog roll for his reading pleasure for years letting folks know we’re out here. 509th Bob, who I’ve met a few times in the real world, emailed us about the blog roll changes today.