Help Matty O'Blackfive Win A Scholarship

For the last several years, Matt has been doing his superhuman best to keep us informed about the military and the war.  He also holds a heavy duty day job, is raising a family, and is in school. 

Here's a chance to give him a little help in return.  Matt is eligible for a blogger scholarship, but in order to win it his readers have to go vote for him! 

So what are you waiting for?  Head over and vote for Matthew Burden!   You have until Midnight Oct 28^th.  But don't wait - do it now!

Thank you!

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 01:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Thoughts, Prayers, Well Wishes

I stopped over at Day By Day and Chris has the following message up:





You've got it Chris. 

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 12:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Connections

Only in the world of blogs could this happen. 

Yesterday I received an email from blogless friend Sue reading in part:

Have you heard anything in the news about people with MA licenses (I'm thinking professional not driving) having had a security breach? I swear I saw a crawl on yesterday's news but can't find a story anywhere...

No, I hadn't heard anything and I went poking around a bit.  Didn't find anything, but that's because even with searches - it does matter what you're searching for!

This morning I was making my usual perusal of Instapundit and came across this post.  It led me to a post by Giacomo, who linked to a post by Jay Tea, who linked to a Boston Globe story.

And thus I found the information Sue was looking for. 

I also ended up with this question...

If you are required by law to have a professional license to conduct your business, why can't you opt out of having your information sold to marketers?

The division normally copies disks for various marketing agencies that request the information under the state's public records law, Jones said.

I thought the public records aspect of things was so the public could check on licenses to be sure the person who says they have a license... actually has one. I can see that marketers have used the availability of this information in order to boost their mailing lists.  Oh goody. 

Once again - the law of unintended consequences kicks in.  But the state doesn't care. They get money from the people having to get the licenses.  Then they get money from the people buying the addresses.  It's a win-win for everyone but the licensee who ends up getting the shaft all the way around.

This is also bothersome:

Officials said the last two disks, which contain the information of 16,000 licensed professionals, are still in the mail.

Wonderful, so now there are a couple of disks still floating about... what if they aren't recovered.  What happens then?  Do you think the state of Massachusetts is  going to even bother to notify the people involved?  How about compensate them for having to lock down their accounts and keep an eye on them for the next 10 years?

No.  I don't think they'll do anything at all, especially as it doesn't profit the government in any way. 

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 12:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Feed Readers

NOTE: This post will stay at the top all weekend - new posts below. Hopefully if anyone has any other troubles with the site, they'll let me know.
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Update: New problem Dogette was unable to comment earlier.  If anyone else has been unable to comment, please email me: technicalities at charter dot net.  Tell me what happens - if you get an error message or what. 
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It has been brought to my attention that there are people who would rather be beaten within an inch of their lives than leave a comment here like:

"Wow you moved... my feed reader isn't picking your site up anymore". 

Or even dropping me an email to let me know it's a problem.

That being the case, if there's one person with that issue who won't say anything, there are probably others too.  Therefore:

If you have a feed reader - the change to this new blog software means you will have to add this blog back on to your reading list. (you can delete the old entry)

It's just like adding a new blog to your list. You can do one of 2 things.

1. - scroll down the side bar to the RSS and Atom buttons, click on one of them, add to your reader
2. - use the "add new feed" in the particular reader you use.
   

This is brought to you as a public service announcement. 

While I'm at it - I might as well link to VK's Bite Me.

Posted by: Teresa in Weblogs at 08:58 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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