Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Bark louder, little dog.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Second rate reporter says what?

No one could have predicted…

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

In after Baud. Damn.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The lights are all blinking red.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Site Updates

Site Updates

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Folks,

As you may have noticed for a moment, an ad was in the wrong place. My fault.

I’m doing a few updates to the site today. One important update will be the newest WordPress release, which has lots of privacy stuff – yay. This is in response to the new privacy laws in Europe.

I’ve not yet wrapped my head around the changes, so there may be some new buttons for things like Privacy Policy or Private Comment or who knows. Point being, if new things show up related to Privacy and they don’t work at first, or even today, drop me a line and I’ll get to work on it as I can.

Ok, I’m going to some updates now and so the site may show “Maintenance Mode” here and there. Just count to 5 and reload the page and you should be good to go. If something goes horribly wrong, it will get resolved ASAP.

 

Reader Interactions

63Comments

  1. 1.

    dmsilev

    If something goes horribly wrong, it will get resolved ASAP.

    Trump is still President. Please fix.

  4. 4.

    Alain the site fixer

    lots of small stuff done, now for the big wordpress update. this might be 30 seconds of site in maintenance mode, it’s a biggie.

  6. 6.

    Mart

    I took my companies mandatory on-line EU-GDPR class and test last week. Needed 80% to pass, I got a 7/10 and had to re-take, dammit. Seemed to me Facebook cannot operate there anyway close to how they operate here, but I am no techy.

  7. 7.

    MattF

    The only glitch I’ve seen is that the comment box ‘loses’ my nym and email address, which I then have to fill in. Keychain is present, but doesn’t seem to notice the situation.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    @Yarrow: Keychain is the OS X gizmo that remembers user names and passwords in browser fill-in boxes. It’s there, but doesn’t seem to be doing anything. On the other hand, the checkbox seems to be doing the right thing.

  15. 15.

    Mary G

    Alain, If you are still reading, I have lost the grey sidebars that let you switch between posts on both my new desktop running Windows 10, and my one-year-old Kindle Fire. I grumbled (to myself only) when they were installed, but now I miss them.

  16. 16.

    FlyingToaster

    FWIW, everything seems to be working in Mac OSX High Sierra, Firefox 60, various security plugins. Sidebar and vertical arrows operational, nym/email saved, box checked.

    Back in a mo from another browser…

  17. 17.

    FlyingToaster

    And from same box, Mac OSX High Sierra, Chrome 66, Disconnect for Facebook. Sidebar and vertical arrows operational, ads visible (and not either men’s clothing or Harry’s razors, for once), nym/email NOT saved (and box NOT checked).

    One thing that is sometimes necessary at the user end, is either a browser restart or a reboot. I’ve had old .css pages persist across sessions before, so if you’re missing arrows and Alain can’t find the problem, try a reboot. That forces a reload even in browsers more tightly wedded to their OS’s, like Safari and Explodrer.

  19. 19.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Sad news on World Turtle Day. My Mum’s beloved tortoise Georgina died today. We have no idea how old she was. We got her 50 years ago, and she was a good sized adult then. We called “it” George (after Georgie Best) until we discovered that a name change was in order. She woke from hibernation last Thursday and seemed to be doing fine. She had not yet eaten, but that is not unusual seeing it usually takes them about a week to get their metabolism back up to speed. Anyway this morning she woke up, had a wander round the patio and went pee. Mum gave her a bath, and then put her back outside in the sun and it appears that she may have had a seizure. She is survived by her blind best friend Mrs. T., who walk by her and chowed down on her breakfast as usual, and went and ate Georgina’s too. We took her to the vets to confirm that she had indeed died (not to be funny but decades ago Mum thought one of her torts had died after escaping from the garden and getting clipped by a car. She buried him in the orchard and was rather surprised to open the back door the next morning to find him sitting on the doorstep looking up at her). Anyway vet did some sort of scan (seeing as stethoscopes don’t work on tortoises) and confirmed that she was indeed dead. Anyway she is now buried in the garden with Suzie Mum’s last dog. I hope I will live as long as she did :)

  20. 20.

    jl

    @dmsilev:

    ” Trump is still President. Please fix. ”
    ‘sposed to be a full service blog. If BJ can’t rid of Trump, at least post current bids other countries are making on Trump for favors and concessions, so we know where to invest.

  23. 23.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @jl: Thanks. Strangely enough I can vividly remember the day Mum brought her home from the Pet Shop (long before their importation into the country for sale as pets was banned). My 8 year-old self was absolutely fascinated by the fact that she knew how to turn around on her own and didn’t require any 8 year-old assistance thank you very much. :)

  24. 24.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @Amir Khalid: No. But Georgie was the most famous footballer of his day, so it seemed like a good name. His tortoise namesake outlived him by a great many years.

  25. 25.

    Amir Khalid

    @TenguPhule:
    In America you don’t have to stand for the national anthem at the movies. In Malaysia, from August 16 to September 16 every year, you do. During the commercials-and-trailers bit before the main feature, all the multiplexes have to run this government-made patriotic video that ends with a full rendition of Negaraku. I blame Najib.

  27. 27.

    Patricia Kayden

    I’m looking forward to a post about the NFL’s decision to force patriotism and punish dissent.

  28. 28.

    jl

    @Amir Khalid: In the US, they started playing our national anthem during games whenever they wanted get the crowds attention for some reason or other. Home team wanted crowd to pay attention, to stop fights, after PA systems, to get them to pay attention to commercial announcement. Like much in the US, a proud history of interesting PT Barnum style bullshit.

    Then it became an explicitly patriotic gesture during the two world wars. No one really gave a damn at football games until money started trading hands under the table for ‘patriotic’ events designed for military recruitment. So interesting PT Barnum bullshit morphs into authoritarian corruption. The patriots!

  29. 29.

    jl

    @TenguPhule: But Col;e is wrong on some points.

    ” But it is a terrible fucking song. ”

    The original version is great drinking and fucking song. You’re supposed to sing when you are smashed, so it doesn’t make any difference if you can’t hit the notes. The Brits didn’t know that we’d use it in such a silly way.

  30. 30.

    Amir Khalid

    I’m noticing one problem with the site update: the page is taking forever to refresh.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    @jl:
    I thought drinking and fucking don’t go together all that well. Or is that only true if you’re a guy?

  32. 32.

    Aleta

    @Litlebritdifrnt: That must be a huge loss after 50 years. Condolences to your mum and you. Great stories; it’s nice to think of tortoises wandering around your garden. When I was 8 I decided to give a pet store turtle to a quiet boy named Albert for a school gift exchange. (My mom insisted on asking his mother first.) He was very happy when he opened it.

  33. 33.

    jl

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t understand it either. But big item in Brit tavern songs.
    Other countries do it different? Booze has ambiguous status in Malyasia, so not sure I am aware of how you people sing about fucking.

  34. 34.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I’m getting news alerts that tell me Jared Kushner’s security clearance has been reinstated. Thank FSM, now he can go back to fixing government and bringing about peace in the Middle East and whatever the fuck else is in his portfolio.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @jl:
    Booze is no more ambiguous here than elsewhere. It’s just that access to it is segregated by religious affiliation: Any non-Muslim Malaysian over 18 may obtain and consume alcohol about as freely as any American over 21. (A bit weird, seeing as the age of adulthood is 21 here and 18 over there.) But if you’re Muslim, the legal drinking age for you is, literally, dead and gone to heaven. Up to the mid-1990s the law was not enforced much, and a Muslim who drank could easily get a beer in a bar; nowadays it’s much harder.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    @jl:
    How do we sing about fucking in Malaysia? More or less how Americans sang about it before rock’n’roll: euphemistically.

  38. 38.

    Roger Moore

    @Amir Khalid:

    Reinstated? On what grounds?

    On the grounds that they think we aren’t paying careful enough attention to notice.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Amir Khalid:

    You know, it doesn’t really make sense to me. They’re saying it’s because he had a second interview with the Mueller team in April. But the Special Counsel wouldn’t have anything to do with Jared’s clearance level.

    Am hoping Adam L. Silverman will be able to provide some insight.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yarrow:

    There is NO “save my name” box on the mobile site, so I have to re-type my name and email for every comment. ?

  42. 42.

    Another Scott

    OmOm promised me threaded comments. I don’t see them here yet.

    Thanks!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Just One More Canuck

    @TenguPhule: John’s right about O Canada, and no one did it better than Roger Doucet, anthem singer for the Canadiens in the 70’s

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    Yay! Okay, there’s no checkbox on the mobile site to save your name/email address, but if you switch to Desktop, post a comment with the box checked, and then switch back, it looks like it “sticks.” Now I’m going to try a different thread just to be sure.

  47. 47.

    waysel

    Just trying out that “save my name’ feature which I had not noticed before Mnemosynes comment.

  48. 48.

    Mnemosyne

    Well, crap. The information vanished when I switched back to Mobile and went to Betty’s thread above, and it was still gone when I came back to this one.

    This is going to be a serious PITA for people who comment using the Mobile site. ?

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mnemosyne:

    I use the Desktop configuration on my phone (just greatly dislike the Mobile formatting), but I DO.NOT.LIKE the placement of the check box. It’s way too close to the “Post Comment” button. I’ve already accidentally hit it a couple of times. Big PITA.

    ALAIN!! If you see this, I hope you might consider physically separating those two buttons before they get in a fight :-)
    Many thanks for all you do to keep things ticking around here, for the daily “On the Road” posts, and so much more.

  50. 50.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Mobile version of the site is saving/​retaining my name and e-mail in Chrome on Android.

    ETA: And now that I actually posted a comment, the nym and e-mail are gone. Damn it! This needs to get fixed.

  51. 51.

    Amir Khalid

    @Gin & Tonic:
    Nope. If they think you look or sound Malay, they might suspect you. But that of course has obvious problems: you miss non-brown Muslims who are drinking, and you wind up bothering non-Muslim brown people. Incidentally, my part Sri Lankan Malay dad was a dark enough brown to pass for Indian, and my Javanese mum was fair-skinned enough to pass for Chinese.

  53. 53.

    Aleta

    @SiubhanDuinne: The connection is only because the Special Council was investigating Kushner’s meetings with Russians.

    From the twitter of a lawyer quoted in the NYT article:

    Mark S. Zaid‏
    Favorable granting of TS/SCI clearance, likely by CIA, for #JaredKushner can reasonably be interpreted – but is definitely not conclusive – that SpecialCounsel/Mueller does not have overriding criminal concerns over his access to classified information

    One would have hoped that if Kushner were in legal jeopardy, Special Counsel would have notified IC so as to delay any final adjudication of his clearance. Given his recent 7 hour interview, one can presume he is out of legal crosshairs – for now at least.

  54. 54.

    Aleta

    Question is, whether it’s possible that the SC did notify the CIA of a concern but the CIA granted the clearance anyway. Given the level of corruption and the eagerness shown by people like Giuliani to put out “proof” of the campaign’s innocence, I feel suspicious.

    “Mr. Kushner’s meetings with the Russian ambassador, a Kremlin-connected lawyer and a prominent Russian banker have all attracted scrutiny.” –NYT

    But perhaps he has passed those off as a simple, naive grifter’s quest for money.

    I don’t think this leaves Kushner in the clear, but it will be announced that way.

  55. 55.

    Steeplejack

    Damn it, now there’s yet another autoplay ad on every page (desktop site, Win10, Firefox)—this one from Connatix—that I can’t seem to get AdBlock Plus to kill. Grr!

    And, agreeing with Subaru Diane, the placement of the checkbox for “Save my name, etc.” is infelicitously placed. Move it over next to the text, away from the “Post Comment” button.

  58. 58.

    satby

    It’s the next day, and those of us commenting from Kindle Fires don’t have the box to check to retain our info. The Fire browser is Silk.

  59. 59.

    rikyrah

    Alain,
    I am on a Kindle Fire, using their Silk Browser.
    I have to fill in the ID section EVERYTIME I post?
    Please fix.
    On the Mobile site.

  62. 62.

    Aleta

    @Steeplejack: ok, thanks for tip. Pretty sure it’s desktop version. (However, after the Baud campaign ran its unannounced “tests” on us, my form stopped retaining info.) : )

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