Anyway, do check out Word on the Street. Apparently, there’s something Barbara Van Auken hasn’t been telling me.

1. I’ve been playing around with my Facebook page, and I ended up sending invitations to about half the people in the mailing list. If you got one (or two or three, sorry about that), consider signing up. Facebook is a good way to network for business and social reasons.
2. And the mysterious Subway Conductor seems have a few misconceptions about me.
3. And Kudos, again, to Diane Vespa. She took to the airwaves to fight for quality education for District 150 kids.
4. And there’s some news over at The Blog Peoria Project.

Very cool.

My advice to the SJ-R: Constantly monitor this list of links. Bloggers come and go. In Peoria, this is especially true.

And I notice that Disarranging Mine is conspicuously absent from the SJ-R list.

$10 bucks says the soon-to-be-revamped PJStar site won’t do this at all. Which is their right, of course. And if they do, it would take a lot of testicular fortitude to link to a blogger who constantly insults their edit board and their corporate overlords.

Eagle Publications of Western Illinois, Inc. announced today it has agreed to sell the Macomb Eagle and related publications to GateHouse Media. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is scheduled to be completed May 31.

Eagle Publications of Western Illinois, Inc. was owned and operated by Tom and Eunice Hutson, Macomb.

Included in the sale, in addition to the Macomb Eagle, were The Abingdon Argus-Sentinel, Roseville Independent, Augusta Eagle-Scribe, The McDonough County This Week and the Daily Brief.

I stand ready to give advice started up online citizen jounalism projects in any and all these communities. The people in these communities WILL need to do so, because GateHouse will bleed these publications dry, drive off any employee who’s worth a damn, then eventually collapse into a black hole of suckage.

1. I’m up to my old tricks at It’s Billy’s Blog.
2. Jonathan Ahl links to Peoria Pundit, not once, not twice, but three times (here and here).
3. Pammy Darlin’ makes a comment on beauty.
4. Laura gives D150 bosses some advice they won’t follow in a million years.
5. PeoriaIllinoisan does the same thing, only to petty criminals. I know, I know … a difference that MAKES no difference …
6. Kisser is back.
7. All hail is breaking loose.
8. C.J. caught someone in government using blogs in a smart way.
9. Being the man of Jen’s dreamsisn’t necessarily a good thing.
10. Ah, the joys of apartment living. At least Cory doesn’t have to mow the lawn.
11. Merle’s never been a fan of the library expansion. He still isn’t.
12. Scott Janz is up to his usual crap.
13. James has some thoughts about when rulers sin. I’m asking: When aren’t they?

1. She got fired for writing a post about how her boss got Botox treatments and showed up to work with a frozen face.
2. So, she blogs full time.
3. She now makes $40,000 a month from advertising revenue.

Sounds like a plan … oops, I don’t have a spouse to pay the bills while I play ad salesman. Sorry.

Also, and this is no doubt old news to many, I’ve increased the font size to make this site more readable.

It’s what I’m using here.

The only thing that it’s missing that a serious blogger would want is an integrated feature allow users to export their posts and settings to other platforms.

I had planned to come back a few days from now, but I wanted to get the information about the looming parental revolt at Keller Primary out into the Blogosphere.

And, yes, the site was down briefly today, as I forgot to pay my bill online. I intended to do it before I left for work, but I didn’t get a chance to do so … BECAUSE my sources on the Keller story kept bending my ear. So blame them. I had to wait until my lunch break.

I really do think I needed a few days off, as I was running on empty for the past month. I realized that I was actually giving up sleep, staring at my computer for blogworthy subjects. Combined with some stressful events in my life, that make the quality of my posts decline.

I think the stress will level off soon, and I’ll be back to the usual output before long.

And I want to thank Anon E. Mouse, David Jordan and Diane Vespa for posting while I was away. Good posts, too! Keep it up.

Then my site went dark. DotCanada/DotAmerica once again neglected to send me a bill to renew my domain (I knew that renewal was coming up). They redirected the domain to some advertising, then left for the day and was unreachable for instructions on how to renew electronically. The whole mess is available here.

I set my alarm and for 8 a.m. and started making phone calls. TWO HOURS later, I finally get instructions on how to renew over the Web. Three hours into my day, I can access my own domain.

During this 18-hour ordeal, I didn’t get one single email about the site being down. I did receive several posts, which leads me to think the domain was still resolving to my site for most people. Which is good.

Anyway, I’m exhausted, emotionally spent and I’m going to take a nap before I go to work, more tired after my day off then I was before. I try to finish all my projects planned for yesterday on Friday instead. Posting will be light.

I will be moving domain registration elsewhere. And I’ll be devoting my self to making sure I run down these bastards every chance I get. People this stupid and lazy need to work for government, not a dot-com.

The next Peoria-Area Blogger Bash will start at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 29, at the Silver Bullet, 135 N Main St. East Peoria, IL. A map is available here.

I’ll try to be there at least by 6 p.m. This is an event held in a public place, so anyone can show up. Creators of Peoria blogs, commenters and readers are especially invited. We sometimes have newsmakers and politicians show up to schmooze too.

So, I’m opening the floor here for request for proposals. I’m in favor of any Peoria site — or one on the other side of the river — that’s locally owned (and NOT a franchise joint … grrr) that has food, liquid refreshment, and is set up to allow folks to walk about and mingle. In other words, a pub or tavern. We’ve had some successful bashes at joints like Whitey’s on Sheridan and the Firehouse on Pioneer Parkway. How about the Basket Case on West Main? Just an idea.

As aways, these bashes are held in public places. anyone can attend, of course, but all Peoria-area bloggers are invited, as are regular commenters. It’s always great when public officials can attend, for a little off-the-record conversation.

The first is one Michael Davis, who operates Just a Thought. I don’t know exactly what city in which he resides, but he links to other Peoria bloggers and discusses Peoria matters, who he’s a resident of the area.

The second is Ed Edmonds, frequent letter writer to the Pekin Daily Times, who has started his own blog, called Pekin News and Views. So it looks like Knight in Dragonland has some competition.

I’ve known Rich for years, but the odd thing is that we’ve never met face to face. I hardly ever travel to Springfield, and on those occasions Rich travels to Peoria, I’m usually working. I usually advise people that they ought to not assume that they really know the people with whom they socialize online, but Rich is exactly as I pictured.

Rich advised me that Illinois Issues magazine has finally come out with the two articles for which I consented to be interviewed. I liked the article on electronic democracy. I must have talked to writer Bethany Jaeger for at least a half hour, and I’m mentioned in exactly three paragraphs. I can’t complain, because I’ve done the same thing. And, I’m not going to complain too much, but said I was a “self-described liberal.” I don’t recall exactly what I told her about my politics, but I’m pretty sure is asked, I would have said “libertarian,” albeit of the small-L variety. And I also didn’t invent the phrase “citizen journalism.” But other than these quibbles, I liked the article.

Rich had some minor quibbles as well, especially the quotes from some professor who apparently thinks only the print media is capable of ethical behavior. Whatever, dude.

Later today, I’ll read through Patrick O’Brien’s article on Aaron Schock. I scanned through it for my comments, and I think I was fair to Schock, which was my intent through the article.

One of the things Rich and I discussed over dinner is whether or not it’s worth our time anymore to agree to interviews with the mainstream media. I did a lot of it in years past to promote my blog and to encourage blogging in general. Now that blogging is established as a form of media, there’s not much need or call for MSM articles about blogging. If you don’t get it by now, it’s too late. And on a personal level, I think we’re at the point where just about anyone in Peoria who is inclined to read Peoria Pundit already knows about it. So I’ll probably be limiting my appearances in the media to interviews about the topics I wrote about.

Soon, the fine folks at Automattic will release something called BuddyPress, which will take an existing WordPress Multi User site like BPP and make it more of an interactive social network, with blogs as just one component. Features will include personal messages between members, member albums, friends lists, a front page that aggregates to member content, and more. A feature I’m excited aboutis one that allows members to form and administrate their own groups

Buddy Press (actually, a series of plugins) is still under development, and as soon as a stable version is out, I’ll upload them all.

• No, I am NOT going to change the theme.
• WordPress — my blogging platform — has recently released version 2.5. I’ll be upgrading soon. Probably Tuesday. I can’t afford to fall behind, lest I find that I can’t get support anymore. After that, I’ll update The BlogPeoria Project.
• Blogging HAS been light recently. I’ll try to pick up the pace a bit.
• The number of daily visitors has sloughed off a bit too. Maybe once the posting pace picks up, hits will too.
• There will be some announcements soon regarding The Community Word.

I have no idea who it what or what brought them here. Was it a regular visitor who wanted get his or her daily fix? Was it someone lured here by promises of pics of Paige Davis stripping?

And I have to concede that the number is no doubt off by a bit. My internal metrics show many more hits a day than Site Meter records. And I’ve switched domains and blogging platforms many times, and I probably passed 1 million a while ago.

Nevertheless, I guess 1 million visitors is kind of a big deal. But it’s not that big of a deal.

I’m more concerned about whether or not Peorians think I’m accomplishing anything here.

I’ve been interviewed in receive weeks by journalists writing articles for Illinois Issues and Numero. In both cases, they said they wanted to talk to me because I’m supposed to be the top boss blogger in Peoria. Feh. I’m just an early adopter, that’s all. And I’ve kept doing it, while others have decided to get on with their lives.

Meanwhile I keep railing away about TIFs and enterprise zones, downtown museums and civic centers.

• I just crossposted a ton of stuff over at Illinoize. Like Rich Miller’s The Capitol Fax Blog, Illinoize is a must-read for anyone who wants to be more informed about state politics than the local media would have us be. I also highly recommend Illinois Issues Blog.
• A reminder: Peoria Pundit Radio today at 6 p.m. Call at  (347) 326-9459. It’s a long distance call, so use your cell phone or VoIP if you don’t have an unlimited calling plan. If you click on the link, there’s also a chat box to communicate through text. Also, I’ll be running AIM. My user name is peoriapundit.
• Still waiting to see what Illinois Issues did with those two interviews I gave them.

• C.J. catches the Peoria City Council using a double standard. It seems that they don’t mind spending money out of next year’s budget when it comes to the 5th District, but not the 2nd. Shame, shame.
• Diane Vespa knows what the word “tragedy” means, and the Governor Spitzer situation is no tragedy. It’s karma.
• Knight is a bit miffed at meth labs catching fire near schools in Dragonland.
• Jen is touched by a gesture.
• I’m gonna miss another party, this time it’s Eyebrows 30th birthday bash.
• PeoriaIllinoisan has written yet another restaurant review. It’s brief, and bound to really tick someone off.

UPDATE: Links fixed.

Frankly, I’ll believe reason number 3 when I see a picture.

I’ve known since I bought my new used Power Mac that at 254 MB of RAM, it was a tad overpowered.

I was pricing am enclosure for 2.5 inch laptop SATA hard drive (the one I bought at Best Buy doesn’t support SATA, which I wish it had said on the damn box),. Since the enclosures weren’t too expensive, I thought I’d check out RAM prices. First, I needed to find out exactly what RAM this Mac-beast uses.

My system profile tells me I’m using two 128 MB PC 133 SDRAM sticks. A visual inspection confirmed this, and that I have two spaces left. Trouble is, I couldn’t seem to find sticks with these stats that are compatible with the Power Mac G4 (AGP Graphics) I’m using. I double check to make sure that’s the exact kind of Power Mac I have. It is. I check the Apple Web site to see exactly what kind of memory I’m supposed to have.

And I found my answer: Up to to 2 GB of PC 100 SDRAM. How in the Hell is my computer even running with off-spec RAM? Should I fill the two remaining slots with PC 133 RAM? Or, should I replace ALL the RAM with PC 100 sticks, ’cause I’ve love to get this puppy up to 2 GBs.

In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.

Liberals — they like to be called “progressive” these days — tend to poo poo concerns that any of their fellow liberals might have done behaved badly back in the 60s or 70s. They figure that as long as Henry Kissinger was dropping bombs on Cambodia, all bets were off.

From the post:

Like many of the most extreme figures from the 1960s Ayers and Dohrn are ambiguous figures in American life.

They disappeared in 1970, after a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally destroyed a Greenwich Village townhouse, and turned themselves into authorities in 1980. They were never prosecuted for their involvement with the 25 bombings the Weather Underground claimed; charges were dropped because of improper FBI surveillance.

Both have written and spoken at length about their pasts, and today he is an advocate for progressive education and a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago; she’s an associate professor of law at Northwestern University.

But — unlike some other fringe figures of the era — they’re also flatly unrepentant about the bombings they committed in the name of ending the war, defending them on the grounds that they killed no one, except, accidentally, their own members.

Dohrn, however, was jailed for less than a year for refusing to testify before a grand jury investigating other Weather Underground members’ robbery of a Brinks truck, in which a guard and two New York State Troopers were killed.

“I don’t regret setting bombs; I feel we didn’t do enough,” Ayers told the New York Times in 2001.

So, Dohrn and Ayers are your basic left-wing, America-hating bags of crap. It would have been one thing had these two disavowed terrorism. But they haven’t. Back in 1995, Obama should have steered clear of these two. Having failed to do that, he needs to disassociate from them now. Because having these two on your resume is just too weird for middle America, and it gives the other guys more evidence to portray the Obama as too dangerous to trust in the White House.

The fact remains, though, that while Obama is a liberal’s liberal. He’s no bomb thrower — literally or figuratively.

Hat tip: Marathon Pundit.

Because its a “1″ followed by nothing but zeros, it’s considered some sort of benchmark or a special accomplishment. In reality, there are several hundred posts during moves from one blogging platform to another. Not to mention the posts I’ve started, and then thought better of posting. So I passed the real 10,000 mark some time ago.

I’m about 1 1/2 months into my sixth year doing this. That’s the longest relationship I’ve ever had in my life.

God, how sad is that …

Honestly, it’s been a blast. I get more fun o of this blog that I ever did as a mainstream journalist.  I think I’ve made more of a difference doing this than I ever did scratching out column inches for some dead-tree newspaper.

So here’s to the next 10,000 posts.

Naturally, someone in the comments section attacks me for selling out, kissing ass and general brown nosing. I posted my usual replies. It’s as tedious and boring as it usually is. If you aren’t familiar with the background, go read it.

The Holling situation caused me to re-apply a policy I tried then abandoned: Requiring commenters be registered here with a valid email address. I have found that be requiring commenters to do so cut down on these sorts of organized attacks. Although random problems still happen.

I repeat: I still allow anonymous comments. Neither your real name nor your email address will appear on this site unless you want them to. But because I know the email, participants in organized whisper campaigns will go elsewhere

I do not pre-approve comments. The only exception is when a comment includes a link to a Website, then it is held in a moderation queue until I or any other member with administration rights approves it.

Another effect is that fewer comments are being made here. And my hit counts and page views are down. That’s not making me happy, but I’m hoping the improved quality and trustworthiness of the comments translates into growth over the long haul.

If you aren’t registered and want to comment, click here and use a valid email address. If you don’t get a “welcome” email, check you email service’s spam folder. If you already are a member, you can login here. Once you do, check out this page on the very loose “rules” I have regarding commenting.

Were I to blog, I’d mention how the JS continues to obsess over Henry Holling’s drunk driving incident. Eventually, they’re going to have to come up with some other news out of city hall.

• Blogger Bash
• Tuesday, January 29th, 2007
• 6 PM-???
• Buffalo Wild Wings
• 5121 W American Prairie Dr
• Peoria, IL 61615

• First, I’d like to offer my belated sympathies to the friends, family and co-workers of former Peoria newsie Randy Salerno, who dies a a snowmobile accident Edgar Sandoval and Shannon Tebben offer their memories. And I might as well note that Shannon is a new Peoria blogger, and Edgar has a spiffy new theme.
• And speaking of broadcast newsies who blog, Jen Christensen is blogging up a storm at News Anchor Mom. And fellow HONewsie Mark Welp is having some fun with his site.
• And blogger/WCBU news director writes that WMBD 31’s news director Jody Davis is apparently no longer with the station.
• And I’m late in mentioning my regrets of the fact that HOINews producer Meghan Fischer is leaving Peoria. She has posted on her blog since then, and I found this post particularly amusing. In my experience, a customer in Peoria is about 100 percent more likely to be treated rudely by an service worker than he or she is to witness a manager bullying a service worker.
• WHOI has a pretty big presence in the Peoria Blogosphere. That’s appropriate, considering that corporate owner Barrington Broadcasting has a goal of earning 50 percent of its revenue from the Internet.
• Brad Carter often complains that I don’t read his blog. Well, I did today and I’m linking to this post about Peoria’s electronic voting machines. He’s a fan of Tom Bride, executive director of the City of Peoria Election Commission, even if he’s suspicious of electronic voting.
• The Junior League is pucking around with the Peoria Playhouse. Heh heh heh. Seriously, it’s a fund raiser for the playhouse with the Peoria Rivermen.
• Peoria Illinoisan catches Bradley University basketball program behaving badly, and getting called out by the new president. I wonder if the alumni will start turning on her, like they do any most Serious Basketball Colleges when the administration doesn’t look the other way.
• Merle Widmer also is a bit peeved with the basketball program. He also had good things to say about the staff at Hines School.
• Pod blogs never die. They just podfade away.
• Dunlap-based blog RLO Today doesn’t think much of Aaron Schock, based on a personal encounter.

UPDATED: Fixed some spelling issues.

Well, I’m assuming everyone who is going to vote has already voted. The final total is 5-5, and since I’m the one organizing, I say we have it at Grand Prairie. SO, the final answer is:

Blogger Bash
Tuesday, January 29th, 2007
6 PM-???
Buffalo Wild Wings
5121 W American Prairie Dr
Peoria, IL 61615

Sigh. I never thought I’d live to see the day where a Blogger Bash was held at a soulless corporate eatery. Maybe afterwards, we’ll go shopping at Wal-Mart.

NOTE: I shop at Wal-Mart anyway. I was just making a point.

This has happened before, fairly recently, and I’ve fixed the problem by adding a few extra GBs of pass-through toward the end of the month. And my host sent me warnings that this was going to happen, but they got eaten by Yahoo’s spam filter.

My apologies to all involved. I’ve been distracted recently.

So that’s why I’ve tried, at various times, to incorporate a comics page to this site. The problem is finding online comics that allow embedding. So far, the only one I’ve found that both allows embedding of updated strips (keeping me from having to cut and paste) is Day by Day.

I figure if I’m going to go to the trouble to cut and paste, I might as well promote local artists instead.

Basically, I’m looking for single panel comics or edit cartoons. Heck, I’m interested in adventure, sci-fi, superhero, all the genres. I’ll include the artist name, contact info and even their PayPal buttons. I’m not afraid of adult themes, but I won’t print anything too sexually or violently graphic. I lean toward the libertarian, but I won’t discriminate based on politics.

What do I get out of it? A few more clicks every day. And I get a kick out of the idea of giving a comic artists some exposure.

This is how she describes herself:

I’m married, no children, live in Peoria, have a great job, a wonderful husband and fabulous friends who love food, drink, fashion, commenting about others and living life - just like me!

I have lived in multiple states and traveled to foreign countries. I believe you should make the most out of every situation and have fun! Find what your community has to offer and share your findings with friends and family. I am also bluntly honest and yes, opinionated.

Give Boss Lady’s thoughts and advice a chance, what do you have to lose!

She thinks Khoury’s Cuisine has the best fries in Peoria. I cannot dispute that, since I’ve never dined there. I would have to rank the fries at Grampa’s Rib Shack as the best I’ve eaten in Peoria, and I don’t think they are as good as the one’s served at the late and lamented Big John’s BBQ.

Hat tip: Edgar, who’s started blogging again . Yea!

My apologies for the inconvenience.

Just one thing, though: No matter what, the rule in the Peoria blogosphere is that we leave all anomocities behind. EVERYONE is welcome.

P.S. I’ll probably need a ride if the event is going to be held in East Peoria.

And thanks to Anon E. Mouse and David Jordan for all the lovely posts.

• I’m tired as hell, as I’m at work for the 6th day in a row and having been under the weather for longer than a week. I’ll be sleeping through my weekend.
• And my computer seems to be on the fritz. I’m hoping I can get it repaired tomorrow.

Merry Christmas.

• I almost don’t want to mention Bill Poorman’s blog, ’cause he named the damn thing “Will It Play In Peoria.” Hat tip to Jonathan Ahl. UPDATE: My mistake. It’s called “Does It Play Near Peoria?” which is SOOOOOOO different.
• My recent anti-Confederate rant got mentioned on the Abe Lincoln Observer.
• I don’t play the piano, and my voice sounds like little girl who’s been inhaling helium. But other than that, PeoriaIllinoisan’s theoretical Peoria blogger ragtime band is pretty accurate. I’d pay hard cash to see Jonathan Ahl play the tuba.
• For someone who’s sworn off blogging, Scott Janz has been posting a lot. And he’s been a guest blogger on WHOI, too.
• Although she probably suspects I’m in the pay of Pioneer Railcorp, Elaine Hopkins sends some love my way because of my recent posts about the Aaron Schock polls.
• Finally, I cannot find the link now, but there are two Springfield radio personalities who’ve started a blog that links to Peoria pundit. Someone please send me a link.

But time may be running out. Now, for the first time, pure-play Web companies have the biggest share of the local online-ad market. In 2007, Internet companies had a 43.7% share of the $8.5 billion local online-ad market, while newspaper companies had a 33.4% share, according to the media research firm Borrell Associates. Just three years ago, newspapers had 44.1% of the local online-ad market. (Directories such as the Yellow Pages have 10.1%, and local television outlets 9.3%.)

Local media companies, because they are based in the communities they serve, would seem to have an edge over Internet sellers when it comes to persuading the diner or corner hardware store to take out an ad. But they have largely failed to convert that advantage into sales. Instead of tailoring their sales to local businesses, many newspaper companies initially focused on selling ads to bigger advertisers who were already buying space in their print products.

And this is Jeff Jarvis’ reaction:

Newspapers are losing their own core market because they didn’t understand the scale of the internet. They still thought mass when they should have realized that small is the new big. That is, online, newspapers still threw their lot in with the big advertisers who had been the only ones who could afford their mass products. They didn’t see the mass of potential spending in a new population of small, local advertisers who never could afford to advertise in newspapers but who now could afford to buy targeted, efficient, inexpensive ads online. There’s growth — yes, growth — there. But newspapers ignored that — apart from some half-hearted attempts to come up with crappy online Yellow Pages — and handed what should be their local market over to Google and other online companies that set up efficient means to sell a lot of little ads, which equals big revenue.

I look at PJStar.com, and I see a ton of local ads. I also see Google Adsense. I wonder what’s generating the most revenue for them? Does a Web ad on PJStar costs more or less than a comparably sized ad on the dead-tree version?

These posts only tend confirm my own current dissatisfaction with network ad sales. Local ads seem to be the way to build a site into something that generates real revenue. Networked ads — like Google Adsense, Project Wonderful and BlogAds — seem to be a way to generate beer and gas money at best.

And Peoria does too have a Subway, in fact more than one. They’ve got one inside Wal-Mart, one at Campustown, one at University and Glen and one waaaaaay out on North Knoxville.

UPDATE: Marathon Pundit links to this post, noting:

“Peoria is a bloggy town.:

We have to be.

Folks, I have had a consistent policy. This blog is NOT the place to go to discuss whether or nor ANYONE is or is not gay. Period. I don’t write posts about it, and I delete comments that do so.

I had to take down a post today because someone made a comment to that effect and every comment that followed was on that same topic.

As I’ve said, I’ve been very clear about almost from the beginning of this site.

The next commenter who does this is going to be banned. Period. I have to be able to go to work, go grocery shopping, visit friends and relatives without worriying that someone is going to do this.

I like Dr. Edell’s show. He consistently  gives good advice best on the available science. He gives tons of grief to quack cures, superficial reporting on medicine and science and politicians who meddle where they don’t belong.

Recently, the good doctor has started bringing his producer Heather into the on air discussion. They now have a schtick in which he calls her “Nurse Heather.” Today, he commented on her clean white nurse uniform. As radio banter goes, it barely qualifies as risque, but it is an obvious attempt to insert sex into the program.

I’m listening to this and a thought occurs to me: “Boy, doesn’t he realize it’s going to lower his credibility with some people.”

And then a second thought occurs to me: ‘Oh. Yeah. Now I get it. That’s what people were telling for years when I ran eye candy pics on a blog that’s supposed to be about news, politics and media.’

So that’s why you don’t see that stuff here anymore. Mostly.

Hat tip: Matt.

I offered visual evidence here. But some of you needed convincing. So here are some pics of 5-week-old Morgan Jean Johnson, my grand niece, taken at today’s family Thanksgiving dinner:

The above photos are of me holding little M.J. I’ve gotta tell you, this kid is perfect. She almost never cries or makes a fuss. It’s hard to believe she’s related to her mother, Natasha (pictured, at right) who was the biggest troublemaker in the universe.

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on your Google ads, posing a financial risk to our AdWords advertisers. Please note that any activity that may artificially inflate an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings is strictly prohibited by our program policies.

We understand that you may want more information about the activity we detected. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity, including any web pages or users that may have been involved. Thank you for your understanding.

We recommend reviewing these references to learn more about invalid click activity and other activities that could endanger your account standing:

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/topic.py?topic=8426&hl=en_US

Please note that because we credit advertisers for any invalid activity we detect, we may adjust your account earnings for any days during which invalid clicks occurred.

If you were clicking your ads out of interest or to see who was advertising on your site, please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is strictly prohibited by our program policies. Instead, we suggest using the AdSense preview tool as an alternative. This tool will allow you to check the destination of ads on your page without the risk of generating invalid clicks. For more information, please visit our Help Center at https://www.google.com/adsense/previewtool?hl=en_US.

Lastly, please note that if we continue to detect invalid clicks on your Google ads, we may take further action on your account in order to protect our advertisers’ interests. Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

I know exactly what this is about. One of the Google ads that used to pop up all the time was for Peoria.com. When I wanted to visit that site, I clicked on the Google ad. Pardon me.

And I no doubt did click on other ads, if for no other reason to see what the Hell is was Google was putting on my site. Forgive me for being interested, and for having no interest in wasting my time negotiating my way through Google’s site trying to find a way to find without having to click several dozen internal links.

But not to worry. These days, Google has a pool of about three advertisers that they have decided are the only ones to run on my site, not including the the house ad for Google’s GMail service.  I (and my regular readers) already know what these advertisers are about, and I have no need for a Christians-only dating service, nor do I need to sign up for daily Ann Coulter updates.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that this letter arrived within a week of my publicly complaining about the poor return on my investment of time and Web space I’m getting from Google. The teeny, tiny space I’m giving to Text-Link-Ads is much more lucrative than Google AdWords.

No doubt even mentioning this letter, or mentioning a hated competitor is a violation of some term of service. I lok forward to that letter in the near futur, as well.
Oh, I fully intend to leave Google AdWords up there until there are enough clicks on the ads so that I can reach the lofty $100 revenue mark and get my last check from them.

Really?

I seem to recall that Elaine was pretty quick to come to a conclusion when she posted that bloggers who wanted to save the Kellar Branch were being paid off by Pioneer Railcorp. She never apologized, even after she was called on it.

So here’s where we stand with Elaine: It’s wrong have a negative opinion about the quality of someone’s work when their name is on it, but OK to suggest that the people you agree with are on the take? Gotcha.

I’m telling ya, this kid is cute.

Two blog babies within a week. There must be something in the water ….

I liked this line:

Peoria probably has more political bloggers per capita than anywhere in the state.

Finally, there’s something about Peoria that isn’t lagging 10-20 years behind the rest of the world! Seriously, if Peorians are blogging in larger than normal rates, we do, it’s because we need to, for the reasons outlined in Rich’s fine column.

Look at the “Peoria Bloggers” and “Blog Peoria members” sections of my blogroll. There are too many of them to keep up. Topics range from cats and dogs to the big issues of the day. They all have some value. I highly recommend Peoria Chronicle, PeoriaIllinoisan and Knight in Dragonland.

As proud as I am about Peoria Pundit’s relative success, I am more proud for having done my small part in encouraging other Peoria-area residents to start blogging.

The Founding Fathers gave us freedom of the press. But the truism over the past two centuries has been that freedom of the press belongs to the rich people who own the presses. Not anymore. The Internet (combined with blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress and Movable Type) have given freedom of the press to everyone. There are homeless unemployed people who have blogs that they regularly maintain.

And THAT, my friends, is what citizen journalism is: A promise made by the Founding Fathers being kept. When I started this thing — six years ago, come January — pundit blogging was derided as a fad, like citizen band radio. Individual blogs come and go. But do these idiots really think that blogging itself is going to go away? Do they think the public at large will get tired of having a voice in politics? Do they think we are all going to stop complaining about corporate-minded media that’s more interested in stockholders’ profits than in fulfilling the promise of the 1st Amendment?

I may or may not being doing this 20 years from now, but I absolutely am sure SOMEONE will be doing it. There already are DOZENS of people doing it, right here in Peoria. We’re not going away. The media and the government (two institutions that feed on each other) is simply going to have to change, because the citizen journalists won’t allow the status quo to remain unchallenged.

UPDATE: Link corrected.

WordPress could have regained their Chinese market by launching a specialized sister site for China that censored content and agreed to give up information about users to the Chinese government. But in a phone interview from his home in San Francisco, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said, “It was the most Orwellian, ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life… That just seems actually, positively evil to me… There’s no way we could support that and still feel passionate about what we do.”

A caveat: The article’s writer gets WordPress.com (which Matt owns) mixed up with WordPress.org (which he doesn’t).

Click on the links, read the posts, then come back here.

Done? OK.

In regards to the first link: I make it a point to not brag about charity, good deeds, etc. It tends to blow the karma, and I need all the karma I can get. But if Mr. PeoriaIllinoisan had waited five minutes, he would have seen me walk out of the store and drop a little sumthin’ sumthin’ in the kettle.

And as to the second link, everything I have to say on the subject is said.

And if anyone has ANY comments to make, make them at these other two sites.

How’s THAT for irony?

Scott Janz has always been my kinda blogger. He’s a landlord, but one of the good ones, and he never hesitated to tell it like it is when it comes to dealing with the city, the Peoria Housing Association, drunken contractors, the utility companies, etc.

But he says he’s tired of it, and tired as putting his name on pieces that make his the target of criticism around town. So for this and other reasons, he’s calling it quits.

It’s a damn shame. But it’s better to give it up than keep putting away with mediocre posts. As least he signed off, and didn’t just stop posting, like some people I could mention.

My two cents is this: Scott, you don’t have to be a blogger to be a part of blogging. Be sure to leave your comments on other sites, and always remember that you are very welcome to submit posts to Peoria Pundit.

And Scott — You never did introduce me to the lady in the picture.