Blogger hiccups

As Grits has noted ...

Google's Blogger service has been offline or unreliable for much of the day, with Blogger-hosted blogs changed to read-only mode, and posts and comments made after 7:37 a.m. PDT on May 11, 2011, removed.

In a post on the Blogger help forum, the product team said that it had rolled back a scheduled maintenance release from last night and that its "engineers are working hard to return Blogger to normal and restore your posts and comments."

Google's reply for a request for comment was, "The team is working on this." The company has posted some short updates to the Blogger Twitter account and Status blog, but hasn't yet explained what's happening, how widespread it is, or what will happen to users' content.

After Marc Zuckerberg's bullshit spats with Google of late, could the Facebook boy wonder be blamed? I hope so. More from ZDNet here, if you care, with implications to the cloud computing strategy Google is hawking. Since I only lost one post -- it was about this poll -- this outage didn't affect me much at all. Still, many of my blog bretheren and sisteren have long ago migrated to Wordpress for a reason.

Update: The missing post has returned.

Take a poll

Like others, I have been asked to bring your attention to this poll being conducted by UT research scholar Tom Johnson, who needs to get his data a little more 'fair and balanced' (I'm guessing some of those right-wing nuts posted it at Free Republic or Townhall or some such). So go and share your opinion, and then forward it to your sphere of influence. It's not quick; it may take you 15 minutes or longer to read the questions carefully and respond with your POV in the most accurate way, but your input is highly valued. They will assure confidentiality by removing your IP address after completing the survey. Below, Johnson's excerpted appeal:

(T)he vast majority of our survey respondents have been conservatives. We are embarrassed we can't convince more liberals to fill out our survey. Could you provide us a link to Brains and Eggs to help provide a liberal balance? We also include questions about how people found out about Osama Bin Laden’s death, what sources they used to get further information and how they shared information about his death.

The survey is online at http://survey.utk.edu/mrIWeb/mrIWeb.dll?I.Project=SOURCES2011 for your perusal.

Our survey has been approved by the Internal Review Board at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. As part of the permission process it is guaranteed that all submissions are anonymous and confidential. Any identifying information (i.e. IP address) will be deleted by the researchers upon receipt.

We all know that my regular right-tilted readers Matt Bramanti and Greg Aydt are going to see this and rush over to take the poll; why don't you do the same?

The Why of Newt

It's almost as if we never lost Trump.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will announce his plans to pursue the presidency in 2012 on Wednesday, according to spokesman Rick Tyler.

Gingrich will make the announcement first on Facebook and Twitter — a bow to the power of social media in politics — and then will sit down with conservative television personality Sean Hannity on Wednesday night for an interview.

Facebook today. Right alongside Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. Coinkydink? I think not.

Another bitter old white guy trying to cling onto his short fame from the nineties is back in the race. FOX News leads all networks in preparing candidates for office and Newt has benefited from his time on FOX News maybe the most, but it won't be enough for him. He's changed religions almost as much as he's changed wives and with the last game show FOX put on that masqueraded as a GOP debate, it's no wonder he's getting in now.

Let the drug testing for all Americans begin.



"I don't need to see your birth certificate; I DO need your urine in this cup." Ah, the party of smaller, less intrusive government. Look for Newt in another 'exclusive' this Sunday on Press the Meat with David Gregory.

Do you think he could take Herman Cain in a debate?

Update: Try to imagine a scenario where John Edwards appears -- in 2020 -- on "Meet the Press" to announce his candidacy for the presidency. Both Edwards and Gingrich had affairs and left their wives for another woman while their spouse was suffering from cancer. How is it that the So-Called Liberal Media can take Gingrich seriously -- and George Will doesn't?