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Conan O’Brien:
The federal government asked people not to return to New Orleans because it’s still not safe. Then the federal government said the same thing to the people of Detroit, Cleveland, and Newark.
— New York Magazine
George brought up this quote during Bible study last night. Too funny. 
Turns out he’s also doing PR for the firm that’s doing some major building along the Passaic waterfront, too (right about here).
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??Wordpress Codex??: “Auto-Shutoff Comments”:http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Auto_shutoff_comments. Not quite your “drop it in the folder and it just works” plugin, but gets the job done auto-closing comments on old entries for us. I’ve gotten pretty tired of moderating the spam comments. 
??Scott Berkun??: “How to learn from your mistakes”:http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/essay44.htm. According to Scott, there are four kinds of mistakes:
# Stupid
# Simple
# Involved
# Complex
That you will make mistakes is inevitable. The good news is that you get to choose _which kind_ of mistakes to make and _how you will learn from them_. Put yourself in a place where you can make interesting mistakes, be big enough to admit them, and change. Good article.
??New York Times??: …but you’re “being followed”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/arts/design/24isla.html?ex=1285214400&en=6dfe4a7185bc612f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss. Too funny (“via Alissa”:http://www.alissaclark.com/archives/2005/09/ahh_art.html).
Psst. I’ve got an invite for “wordpress.com”:http://www.wordpress.com (featuring the current beta version of WordPress 1.6). Want it? Give me a really good reason. Points awarded for orginality, humor and good taste.
Update: The invite is sent!
Have you looked at the Podcast directory lately in “iTunes”:http://www.itunes.com? There’s some really interesting stuff in here that you can download to your iPod on demand:
* The President’s Weekly Radio Address
* NPR Coverage of the Robert’s hearings, Story of the Day, and Weekly Technology reports
* ABC News Nightline
* Fox clips of The Simpsons and Family Guy (!) — Er, whoops. This looks like show _descriptions_, not audio clips. Bad move, Fox. Clips from the shows would be _much_ more interesting.
* WNYC’s Leonard Lopate Show
Of course, current favorites already include:
* Buzz Out Loud from CNET
* Acts of Volition Radio
* Inside Mac Radio
* InfoTalk (which has great tech interviews)
I just realized that it might be interesting to just randomize these in a playlist and let it play throughout the day: like your own customized radio channel. Hmm.
??Business Week??: “Troubling Exits At Microsoft”:http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_39/b3952001.htm. Who would have thought during those anti-trust trials that Microsoft would eventually sink under its own weight, rather than be torn apart by the Federal Government?
Update: and then “this happens”:http://news.com.com/Microsoft+to+reorg+Allchin+to+retire/2100-1014_3-5874926.html?part=rss&tag=5874926&subj=news.
??The Onion??: “Hey, You Got Something to Eat?”:http://www.theonion.com/content/node/40091. This had me on the floor.
Say, I’d like to eat a little something. You got something? What you got? Any kind of food is good. I just want something to eat. You must got something. I ain’t desperate or nothing like that. Don’t think I’m begging. I’m just asking here. No pressure. I just want to eat something. Wondering if you had something maybe. No big deal.
??PHPNerds??: “Building a Secure Contact Form”:http://www.phpnerds.com/article/building-a-secure-contact-form. It appears that some jerk on the web has been blasting our “Contact form”:http://www.villagechurchnyc.com/contact at The Village Church in order to exploit a buffer overrun error and spam people from our website. How do you like that? I know the easiest way to take care of this is to provide some server-side validation of the information before it’s passed through to email–and it probably wouldn’t hurt to start tracking incoming IP addresses, either. This is just one more thing that I don’t need keeping me up nights.
Anyone run into this issue before?
Update: Mike got me thinking about a WP plugin and a quick Google turned up the “WordPress Contact Form plugin”:http://ryanduff.net/projects/wp-contactform/. Looks like they’ve had their own spam issues and are working on solutions to those. This might be helpful for our situation with The Village Church.
Second Update: We’re using the plugin here. Feel free to do some “User Acceptance Testing”:/contact. 
To the Editor at ??The Village Voice??:
I’m not quite sure what David Shaftel was hoping to accomplish in his front page article “”Jaws: The Making of a Vicious Pit Bull”:http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0534,shaftel,67093,5.html”, but it would have been more accurate to title it “Ignorance and the Perpetuation of a Stereotype”
While I found the story about irresponsible breeder Tyler Eison interesting, I was disturbed by the implicit characterization of all pitbulls as monsters. The animals that Eison produces are mixed breed machines, relegated to chains outdoors, ruthlessly agitated and goaded into service to please their master by killing when he wills. Eison defends his actions by saying that his dogs are “his pistols,” and “essential protection.” This is a pretty weak argument given that the mere presence of any large dog at all has been shown to prevent attacks and robberies. Having a weapon to protect you is different than having a 9mm loaded, cocked, and pointed at anyone that approaches you.
Shaftel seems bent on highlighting false ideas about the violence of pits, and seems to glorify their use as a weapon. Statements like, “these dogs were born to fight” and “they will fight to the death just to please you” lead most readers to believe that pits have a natural aggression towards humans. However, solid research into the history of pits will uncover that they were never bred to be aggressive to humans, and were instead developed for an intense prey drive and dog aggression, while maintaining one of the most stable temperaments of any dog around humans. There is a critical distinction between human aggression and animal aggression (which all dogs have in varying degrees). Yet, Shaftel never takes the trouble to note the difference between the pitbulls bred with human aggressive dogs and raised in fear, and the majority of pitbulls that are nothing short of wonderful dogs and trustworthy companions.
This article seemed only to paint a sadly accurate picture of how certain sick people exploit the natural strength and athleticism of pitbulls, just as they have with other breeds such as Rottweilers and Dobermans. And just as the inflammatory picture on the cover made me dread reading the article, the close of the article left a bad taste in my mouth, insinuating that a man-killer is a good example of the breed, and a product of the best bloodlines. Shaftel rides the negative media attention surrounding pits, appealing to the dark part in all of us that craves the thrill of a witch hunt, and allows us to envision all pitbulls as “bloodthirsty killers”:http://www.kennsarah.net/photos/dina-weena/dsc01647.jpg.html. Thank you for adding to the irrational public fear that already surrounds this breed.