Dyre Portents The Rantings and Ravings of a Radical Moderate Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 112 5017

Articles from Dyre Portents

Coffee Blogging 2008-02-11 11:27:56 This cartoon reminds me of a Sideways Mencken post.H/T to DWSUWF ... Blogging

Baby Hiatus **Updated** 2008-02-08 23:04:58 My daughter is scheduled to be born Friday the 8th at 7am via C-section. So I'll be back a couple of days after that.**update**Sorcha Louise 42 was born on 02/08/2008 at 7:36am weighing in at 8lbs 2 oz 21 inches in length with all of her fingers and toes and a full head of black hair. Both she and her mom are doing well. ...

Calling All Conservative, Moderate, and Libertarian Bloggers 2008-02-06 23:53:21 After participating in last weekends Blog Amnesty Day I find that my new blogroll is heavily slanted to the left. In the interest of fairness and shameless self promotion I'd like to correct that. So if you'd like to swap links let me know in the comments of this post, slap a link to my blog on yours, and I'll do the same. Additionally every blog participating will be listed in this post so that as this progresses you'll know which blogs are open to trading links and you can drop them a line too. Finally many of the lovely and talented people on my link love blogroll would be happy to trade links with you as well.Thanks,Dyre ...

Blog Traffic Tips 2008-02-06 23:50:38 Over the past year and half I've listed myself on hundreds of blog and feed directories and have discovered that I wasted a lot of time doing so. Below is a short list of sites/services that actually do generate daily traffic. 1: Blogrush (referral link) a relatively new service that exchanges post titles between your blog and other blogs in your category. For every person that views your blog you get one recent post title displayed on someone's blog. They are also really generous with free credits and have a referral program. (You can preview it on the right hand sidebar) Just make sure to filter out profanity if you don't curse on your blog.2: Memeorandum the trick to getting listed on Memeorandum is to link to them often or install their widget on your blog. Then link specifically to the articles it lists. It almost seems to be traffic activated so check it by clicking the links on your own blog.3: Daylife if you blog about current events, do not hesitate to submit your feed to ...

Early Super Tuesday Results 2008-02-05 22:31:57 Right now it looks like McCain is on top largely due to Huckabee drawing off the conservative Christian vote. Meanwhile Obama and Clinton are neck and neck. It looks like its all going to come down to California. At this point Romney has to win California just to stay in the game. However early exit polls make that appear unlikely. CA looks like a tight race on the Dem side and with the counting not yet started the race may not be decided until the wee hours of the morning.Now reporting only those races that according to CNN have 80% of their precincts reporting here's how it looks so far:DemsClinton wins in NJ (53%), MA (56%), NY (57%), TN (59%), MO (68%), OK (55%)Obama won in CT (51%), KS (73%), ND (61%), AL (56%), DE (53%), GA(63%)RepublicansHuckabee AL (41%), AR (61%), TN (34%), GA (35%), WV (52%),McCain OK (37%), NY (51%), DE (45%), NJ(56%), CT (52%), IL (48%)Romney ND(36%), MT (38%), MA (51%)Frankly I'm hoping for Obama and McCain to come out on top. Why? Because if both get t ...

We Interrupt This Blog 2008-02-04 20:50:16 To bring you the following announcement. Blogging will be light this week. I'm sick and my daughter is scheduled to be born on Friday. She might decide to arrive earlier. If all goes as planned I will of course be covering tomorrow primary returns but that all I'm willing to promise for this week. As for next week? We'll see what kind of sleep I'm getting then. ...

I'm B.A.D. I'm Nationwide 2008-02-04 00:35:18 Skippy the Bush Kangaroo and Jon Swift are celebrating the anniversary of Blogroll Amnesty Day. Essentially they have issued a call for bloggers to link to blogs smaller than them in remembrance of the day Atrios declared blogroll amnesty day and deleted a ton of smaller blogs off his blogroll which in turn set off a string of link deletions on other similar minded monster blogs. I'm all for voluntarily supporting the little guy. I'm just not one hundred percent certain that the blogs I'm linking to have less traffic than mine. But it's the thought that counts right? So here we go...First a few folks from Central Sanity:Short WomanCarrie's NationThen a fellow Moderate Blog Network MemberConnecting.the.DotsThen some guy my cats highly recommendKiko's Houseand over on the new blogroll I've added about ten more blogs (including Skippy and Jon)That list will get longer over the week as I hunt down participants of B.A.D and trade links with them. Now if you have a blog and want to sw ...

Tagged 2008-02-02 16:56:18 Alan Stewart Carl at Maverick Views tagged me with a meme that been going around lately.I ignored the only other time I was tagged but that was mainly because it wasn't as simple as this one.So here's the rules of the Meme:1. Pick up the nearest book ( of at least 123 pages).2. Open the book to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the next three sentences.5. Tag five people.I had to wander into the living room and the first book I laid my eye upon was Pirate by Fabio which is a: not mine and b: autographed (My tiny wife claims that she was merely passing by the table where he was posing for pictures and autographs and he scooped her up in a desperate attempt to get a breather from picking up and posing with a group of significantly larger women.)"Besides, decent women were expected to be chaste---men were not. That was simply the way of the world. But his world had changed ever since the minx laid claim to him."I tag Bridget Magnus of ShortwomanCitizen Carrie of Carrie's Nati ...

Things I Have Learned 2008-02-02 11:20:03 Never ask a woman,"When is the baby due?" unless you have prior confirmation that she's actually pregnant. ...

Texas Governor Rick Perry to Endorse McCain 2008-01-31 15:53:06 First California's governor now Texas'...From the Dallas Morning News: LOS ANGELES – Texas Gov. Rick Perry will endorse John McCain for president, saying he is the best candidate in the GOP field to fight the war on terror. The Texas governor's first choice, Rudy Giuliani, dropped out of the presidential sweepstakes and on Wednesday endorsed Mr. McCain. "For the governor, it came down to a very simple calculation: The single dominant issue is the war on terror," said Perry spokesman Robert Black. "And he believes, looking at the field, the single best individual to be commander in chief and not flinch in this war is John McCain." The endorsement from the red-state governor comes just days before the Super Tuesday primary in which 21 states will weigh in. Mr. Perry will formally make his endorsement Thursday afternoon in Austin. Getting endorsements from the governors from the two most populous states in the nation back to McCain lost a lot of points in borde ... Texas

The Govenator Endorses McCain 2008-01-31 14:39:35 That puts McCain up on Huckabee by one in the action movie hero primaries.From Bloomberg News:Schwarzenegger Calls McCain a `Hero' in Endorsement By Hans Nichols Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed John McCain's bid for the Republican presidential nomination five days before the state's delegate- rich primary, calling him an ``American hero'' who is unafraid to work on bipartisan solutions. ``I am endorsing Senator McCain to be the next president of the United States, because I am interested in a great future'' for the country, Schwarzenegger said after the two men toured a solar roofing manufacturer in Los Angeles. McCain has shown ``over and over again'' that he will reach ``across the aisle in order to get things done,'' the governor said. The endorsement is a reversal of a vow made by the governor earlier this month to stay neutral in the race. ...

McCain Routs Romney in Florida 2008-01-30 01:03:09 John McCain beat Mitt Romney by five percent in the Florida primary. Not the widest of margins but enough for McCain to continue forward momentum. Mike Huckabee despite having not won a primary since Iowa has said he'll stay in the race. That means he'll continue to act as spoiler continuing to deny Romney the Evangelical vote he needs to best McCain. Additionally Rudy Giuliani is allegedly dropping out of the race and endorsing McCain further strengthening McCain position going into Super Tuesday. Looks like Mitt Romney is going to get tag teamed on Tsunami Tuesday. ...

The Kennedys Pass the Torch 2008-01-29 09:16:40 To Barack ObamaFirst Caroline Kennedy:My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible. We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this coun ...

Things I Have Learned 2008-01-26 20:57:06 Lectric shave works really well. But I'm not ready to smell like Grandpa. ...

"Rambo" Endorses McCain 2008-01-26 00:55:37 Apparently there's some sort of action movie star primary going on too. First Chuck Norris endorses Huckabee and now this:Now all we have to wait for is Bruce Willis to endorse somebody and this "primary" will be over. I'd include Ahnold but since he currently holds a political office of real import his endorsement might actually carry some weight. ...