Offsite Comments

Interesting that both news & comics are about 2/3rds free-online. I missed the survey -- who was surveyed makes all the diff, of course. If it had run in a print paper....

I'm solidly in that 2/3rds for many years, though. Comics -- why get inky fingers and kill trees to read shrinking, squinty, limited-selection b&w when I can read what I want, archived, color, magnified-to-my aging vision comics online? News -- similar. Why buy a bundle of paper filled with stuff some editor selected, when I can search news and blogs and features online and read only what I want to read?

When online papers go to subscription only, I drop them. I don't donate or subscribe to any websites.

So, how can creators sustain a living in the future with this (presumably increasing) state of digital life? I asked this in one of my own brief attempts at a self-published online comic strip over a decade and a half ago. Mind Fuel -- see strips #4 & #5. Is this a shameless attempt to drive traffic to my site (alternative slogan: "the Internet's best-kept secret since 1996")? Obliquely, I suppose, but not really. I'm slowly updating the site from old static HTML to modern content management. The PayPal buttons on that and all old pages are obsolete (broken), and so far I don't have new PayPal buttons or any other payment method on any of the new pages. (Only exception, the short story promo'd on the main page, which you'll all enjoy and pay me for, right?) After all the years my vanity site has been online, not one penny has come in. Obviously, I'm a creator, not a businessman or any good at self-promotion, this message notwithstanding. Yet, I will naively continue to offer everything for free and hold out my tin cup. Ads? Maybe someday if I get any traffic. Donations? Reader-supported? As the comic says, "hahahaha!" All I need is one good viral page and ten million generous visitors donating a dollar each, and I'll be laughing all the way to the bank. That's only 0.4% of the world's Internet users according to Internet World Stats!

So why don't I donate or subscribe to other sites? See these holes in my pockets? When I make money, I have a long list of sites I visit that will make money from me, guaranteed! Starting with dear old Kevin & Kell! 'Til then, we'll all starve together.

So why does iTunes profit? Or digital books? Proprietary hard- and software + gullible users who don't know how to hack in for free?

(Thanks for putting up with my long rant. If you do. First time commenter here.)

Zilla, great post on The Racism Everyone Pretends Doesn't Exist. I have a relative just moved back to Tulsa from Chicago. I mentioned the flash-gangs. He shrugged it off as being "blown out of proportion." May take a while for him to de-tox from The People's Republic of Chicago. Or maybe not. He'll be hanging out in young liberal ghettos, I expect. Folks like these. Chicago is my 2nd home, my wife's home town, all my kids were born & spent their early years there. Good in-laws still there. We lived near Foster Beach, and you could meet every nationality and hear every language just walking out the door. I loved it. Had to leave before the kids got to be teenagers, though, and I wouldn't move back for all the world. Most racist city in the country.

Phew! Take a couple days to get some offline work done, and the blogs and news really pile up!

Here's a couple things.

My son, the one who first told us that Sarah Palin might make a good VP candidate for McCain, directed me to this link. Stewart slams media for Palin email coverage. Not a Jon Stewart fan, but this one was worth my while.

Over at SisterToljah, I responded to a commenter saying, "any poll will tell you [Palin's] negative ratig [sic] is at about 60 percent...." At first I just passed it by, but then I got to thinking.... I'll let folks read it there, if you want. I need to move along to another matter

"...any poll will tell you [Palin's] negative rating [sic] is at about 60 percent..."

Oh, you mean like this poll or this poll or this poll?? From the 1st page of Googled results. Oh, you probably meant like this totally unbiased absolutely fair WaPo-ABC poll?

1. She's not even declared, doood.
2. "It's not the poll numbers that count. It's the pollsters who cook the polls." -V Lenin (sort of)
3. Long time 'til the convention.
4. So what? IF she's the best candidate, and IF we want to put the best in the White House, then GET OUT THERE AND EDUCATE, INFORM, AND CAMPAIGN FOR THE BEST.
5. Anything less is concern trolling!

Just sayin'.

Wow! Thanks for the link!!

All of America will watch to see if Republicans and conservatives are serious about saving this nation—that seriousness will be reflected in their nominee—if it’s Obama-lite—a mandate-supporting, universal healthcare-making, “the era of small government is over”-stating Big Government Conservative–why would anyone else feel compelled to abandon a cultural icon incumbent who represents those very same things?

For Sarah Palin, there is only one way for her “fundamental restoration of America” to take place—first, she must run.

Oh, thanks so much for this link.

Male (checking in shorts), check.
Mostly het on Kinsey scale… uh, sure, check.
LMAO, double check! :d

Didn't watch. Don't care. While driving in this morning, caught a bit of Beck & co mocking the interrogator -- funny stuff. I might try to catch highlights if they're online and I can ff or someone YouTubes them, but I'd bet I'd be in In DC Troll's corner -- except that I had the same initial reaction as JerseyGram... re Buzby Berkley! :)

Sling that gospel, Rev. NewtLove!! Now, how best to go beyond preaching to the choir and evangelize the truth to the unwashed (or brainwashed) masses?

More and more lately, I've been thinking how, instead of the usual choice between the lesser of two weevils, this election could come down to a stark contest between good and evil for the soul of America. If it's compromised-with-evil versus evil, then evil wins.

Now, who is really "good" enough? Hmmm.... :)

"..barely have the spare time..."

The problem of being time-bound besets so many of us; our house lately worse than ever.

Somehow, we're all going to have to find the way to spare the time to reach folks, one at a time, and however we can, because even though as I said the other day, it's an uphill battle, we can't stand to lose.

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor."

They did and we must.

I've had a couple of interesting personal encounters lately, which report I'll put up soon.

(3) DO NOT RESUBMIT SAME COMMENTS.
(5) NO COMPLAINING about comments not posting immediately or the comment moderation system in general.

Okay, but (don't y'all just love it when a message starts this way!)...

On Monday's open thread, I had two comments not show up (so far, anyway). One was a long rant which might've been too off-topic even for an open thread, or perhaps I munged the HTML on the many links making it unreadable. The other was a short gracias to Brian for the link to this wonderful article which presumably would have been acceptable. Both showed up with the awaiting-moderation message, so they got through at least that far. This happen to others out there?

It's just, since they just don't show up, one never knows why a comment didn't show up, so one doesn't know whether a re-post, even a revised re-post, would be unwelcome because of content. I'm not complaining, just sayin'. Or askin', if anyone in charge can advise. Thanks.

>> I have no idea why some comments get posted right away and some sit in moderation.

Or never reach you, even, perhaps? I know you all have time limits, as you've said before, and when I see what goes on at some other sites, I appreciate the work you do here all the more. So, thank you for the reply! Marginally helpful regarding knowing whether something was moderated away or lost in cyberspace, but as reassuring as you can be, it seems.

I've been fighting software since the first program I bought for my first desktop in 1978 turned me into a programmer just to fix its bugs. Nothing should be more consistent than these mechanical brains, but when they seem to have developed a mind of their own, I have long had a saying: I blame the programmers. :)

Elmer, at the doughnut shop counter thinks a woman shouldn’t run. Roscoe, who changes tires down at Murphy’s Garage, likes the Huckabee Report. LeRoy, the dishwasher at the corner greasy spoon, is still undecided between Nixon and McGovern but he also thinks the moon landing was a hoax. What’s a john ziegler and why exactly would I care about his feelings more than about some other LeRoy, Roscoe, or Elmer? :)

Here’s something to really care about (link h/t to commenter Brian at HillBuzz)

Can’t think of a caffeinated remark, but as a lifelong amateur scrawler, I was just sitting here itching to know… JJ, being as you is a actual arteest, have you also found that the T-square is a great backscratcher?

The LaughingStock Media wants to create the news, rather than report it. Happy as their backfiring fishing expedition has been as distraction from watching the Weiner, I got to wondering where Sarah's educational tour has been. Is it over? Or did all the paparazzi get called back to go through the emails?

Here's what I found

What's on my mind this Monday? Just a few pages I've been reading lately. Ho-hum. Crazy tin-foil hat stuff. Nothing to see here. Move along. Move along.

After all, readers here already understand How The Government is using the Constitution to Violate the Constitution, right? Your tax dollars at play.

And everybody is fine that, last year, Chinese and Mexican defense ministers held talks on military cooperation. That shouldn't bother anybody, eh?

So, isn't it nice that President Nixon's Maoist friends from the East (you remember, the ones for whom he threw Taiwan out of the UN and under the bus?) -- in the guise of one of their state-owned companies -- are "interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport," among other places in the USA. “Idaho’s the last state that should say we don’t want to do business with Asia,” said Lt. Gov. Brad Little. “Asia’s where the money is.”

Just why did Mr. Reagan think the Cold War was over and we could power down our military after the Soviet Union broke up? Oh yeah, because the Chinese are our BFFs!

Pay close heed to this one, ye who value freedom of the digital press! It might be a good thing that the USA is funding stealth Internets to circumvent repressive regimes, because we need to watch how they do it; we may need such "stealth Internets" ourselves all too soon, perhaps should start building them now, if the Bilderberger agenda and their puppets in Congress get their way (ref paragraphs 12-15 of this article for links), and there's not going to be a freedom-loving foreign nation to help us. You may not always be able to keep the data chip away from the police state.

At least we can depend on our President (who is not a Muslim and not a Socialist, either) to protect us, right?

Okay, then, back to looking at pictures of sad little weiners.

Thanks, Brian, for the link to the Blaze article. Very nice. Passing it along.

Two glaring flaws and a bad judgment call in the Toby Harnden quote.

Glaring flaw #1, “the whole saga might come to be viewed as ‘an embarrassment for legacy media.’” No “might come to be” about it. More than ever LSM stands for the “laughingstock media.”

Glaring flaw #2, “…decrying her as ignorant and even evil. … Mrs Palin as a person has become so remote that it is hard for to sic assess how much, if any, of that widely-held caricature has a basis in truth.” Merciful heavens! Does this poor fellow get all his news from the laughingstock media? You can find her excellent position statements, her knowledge (Paul Revere!), and evidence of her kindness and brilliance all over the real media. Oh, yeah, and all through the emails, as the first quoted paragraph says.

And the bad judgment call? “…unlikely to be a candidate for the White House in 2012.” Heh heh heh.

The only time I went to a drive-in B-movie, I saw Three in the Attic (1968). The longer Kevin's MIA, the more I have this recurring vision of the women now manning managing maintaining HillBuzz, keeping Kevin locked up, except, instead of wearing out our gay pal by you-know-whatting, they're forcing him to rest up!

Oh go ahead, moderate this silly comment away. :)

Orrr... leave it up to embarrass me and get revenge for all my long, complicated, link-laden comments and complaints about the tech which you've had to plow through! ;-)

OKAY, RIGHT NOW! EVERYBODY SWITCH REPUBLICAN TO USA FLAG STAR-FIELD BLUE, AND DEMOCRATS TO HAMMER-AND-SICKLE RED.

Oh, did I have the caps lock on? Sorry. :)

"You forgot the most riveting of the revelations: she discussed having a sunbed...."

Oops. I guess that only made it into emails I sent. Well, let's be sure to investigate this horrific anti-environmental health-threatening waste of our online reading time taxpayer money!

Guardian (UK) -- Propagandistic spin emphases mine (hope I do it right this time):

Palin is upset over an inquiry about whether she has placed an order for a tanning bed in the governor's mansion. She denies that there was a work order, but one of her staffers says: "Did Gail at the AK club say that she'd be discreet about your purchase?"

Palin, writing to a staffer, acknowledges that she wanted the tanning bed but is more concerned about the potential media damage: "The press from the ADN (Anchorage Daily News) just called about the sun bed. Any idea where this would have come from?"

The tanning bed incident came soon after she had championed protection against skin cancer, of which tanning was identified as a cause.

Yes, dear Buzzreaders, forgive me for not tracking down the additional links again, but that vile, duplicious, cancer-promoting hypocrite Palin was also personally involved in deciding whether to install the tanning bed next to the dryer in the basement (where they'd have to unplug the dryer to use it) or in the cedar closet! The bed was "occasionally used" by her daughters, and (to borrow a HuffPo phrase) "we may never know her true motives," if it was for her, too. Although the Palins, not the state, paid for it, the taxpayers may have paid for the electricity! Why, oh why would folks in "the land of the Midnight Sun" (been there, saw that) need a tanning bed!?! Oh, wait...

Excellent post. Kevin's remarks about how conservatives may be anti-homosexuality but it's the liberals who are anti-homosexuals (a distinction of great importance) should be widely circulated. I've related that to some hard-core conservative Christian folks, and they confirm, they believe they are commanded by God to "hate the sin but love the sinner." Here in the buckle of the Bible belt, there are, alas, still too many gay-baiters and gay-haters, just as there are still too many folks who would vote for an old shoe before they'd vote for any black -- or even a woman! Fools, young idiots, and the poor we have with us always. But they're not the good folks who are the majority, and in any case everybody knows we have to get rid of O'Bama.

Have to concur with /wiz, not about the original homosexual question, but on Cain & the Fed. That just bothers me. Also, Cain may have been great with Godfather's, but government is drastically different business. Cain's still relatively new to me and I'd like much more information. Also, why does his name have to be so much like McCain! :)

Solid, tested, government-experienced, flame-tested, but so far still non-candidate Palin would be preferable by far! Likewise, of course, non-candidate West. I don't know, but I can imagine either of them might give an answer similar to Cain's on homosexuality, albeit I can also imagine either of them being more politically adept in clarifying that such personal religious beliefs would not mean they would be politically against homosexuals.

The Republican convention determines the next Presidential election. I believe the People would will vote overwhelmingly and in a heartbeat for Palin over O'Bama, to the great shock and dismay of the arrogant and insulated left. The big question is, will the old guard RINOs rule the convention!

Shaping up to be the most exciting election cycle since 1968, and the most crucial since 1860.

EVEN YET STILL MORE SHOCKING JAW-DROPPING STOP-THE-PRESSES PALINGATE REVELATIONS!
(courtesy various sites, mostly this Legal Insurrection page)

Worse than Obama, consistently used 2008 not 2011... oh, uh... nevermind.

Hardly ever mentions Michigan.

Relative in Nigeria died and left her $10 million in a foreign bank account. ;-)

CBS: VP nominee Palin asked the name of her barber, which turned out to be Speedy!! (May be a drug reference, or might concern her secret plan for a future traffic-law-defying RV tour.)

Boring, non-news, yawn yawn: Troopergate? Helicopter wolf shooting? As a commenter says HuffPo (!!) put it, "Palin's real motives may never be known, but so far, her emails appear to be consistent with the claims she made to the public...."

She's so conniving and clever, she seems exactly the same in private as in public! How does she do it? Obombsters and other Weiners want to know!