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Welcome to FourFreedomsBlog ver 3.0
Author: BobR    Date: 08/25/2010 03:03:14

FourFreedoms blog has been up and running for nearly 3 yrs now, and it's been starting to show. The overall look and feel has hardly changed since we started and we felt like it was time for a facelift. It was also time to make some useability adjustments, both for our members and casual visitors.

So - here is a list of the major changes:

Stylistic:
- Removed the various colored rounded-corner panels
- Cleaned up the graphics and menus
- Simplified the menu bar
- Lightened the overall shades of color blog-wide
- Changed the comment/blog edit box from white on dark blue to black on white
- Changed the quote boxes to blend better with the new look & feel

Functional:
- Got rid of unused and little used blog features, such as:
    - Polls
    - Advertisement panel
    - TrackBack panel
    - Forum link
- No more right-side panel, so blog makes better use of screen space
- Hiding/Showing blog and menus no longer refreshes entire screen (settings are saved in the background)
- Moved emoticons and audicons to be directly below edit box, so they are always there if you need them (in both cases, they are still the abreviated list, with the complete list still available via popup).
- Emoticons, Audicons, and edit buttons can all be easily and quickly hidden/shown
- When quoting a comment, it simply pops the quote into the edit box without refreshing the entire screen.
- Login and Search are now simple drop downs.
- Change password is now a popup screen
- Search now incorporates a weighted keyword table derived from the blog and comments, speeding the search process.
- Search results are now displayed in a "google"-type list
- When displaying a search result blog, the "search for" word is highlighted.
- Added user options for hiding YouTubes and Flash videos (for faster page loading), just like the "Hide Pictures" option did (displays them as links). And - it works correctly now.
- Added a security-level setting for blog posts, so they can be set to "members only" when necessary (such as for discussing member meetups, or personal details between members).
- The blog description and Fold are now required fields when creating/saving a new blog post.

We also added the Mission Statement and Rules of Conduct from the old Forum.
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75 comments (Latest Comment: 08/26/2010 03:50:14 by BobR)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 08/24/2010 10:35:07

Good Morning.

Today is our 23,850th day in Germany and our 23,751st day in Japan.

Wait a minute. What?

Sixty-Five years after the end of WWII, we still have approximately 50,000 active-duty personnel in a number of bases in Germany. While I'm not sure how many troops are currently in Japan, there are a number of bases there, and a highly controversial one on Okinawa.

But that's not the only places that have an American military presence. The list is astonishing.

There might be some places on that list that make sense strategically or politically, but Bulgaria? Djibouti? I don't even know where Djibouti is.

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45 comments (Latest Comment: 08/24/2010 23:59:08 by Raine)

Monday
Author: Raine    Date: 08/23/2010 13:04:33

Good Monday. The community center debate is still raging during the second summer of discontent. Do you remember last summer? Town halls mayhem, tea party protests and the general fanning the flames of anger from the right. This summer it's more of the same, only it's couched in the form of anti-muslim resentment.

America we have a problem. A serious problem. We have an economy that is still trying to recover, unemployment is still staggeringly high. Corporations are still not hiring. Parents are struggling to buy back to school supplies. We still are fighting in Afghanistan and instead the media focuses on a Muslim community center and the faith of the President.
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45 comments (Latest Comment: 08/23/2010 20:32:59 by BobR)

Le Blog est Ouvert
Author: velveeta jones    Date: 08/22/2010 14:56:04

Fancy shcmancy for saying OPEN BLOG.

Sorry. "We" had a teen sleepover last nite.


 
5 comments (Latest Comment: 08/22/2010 23:10:49 by Will in Chicago)

What is sacred ground?
Author: TriSec    Date: 08/21/2010 12:34:57

Good Morning.

Much has been made in recent days about the so-called 'sacred ground' at Ground Zero in New York City. You're aware that a vocal minority opposes the building of a community center and neighborhood resource that happens to include a small prayer space. Ordinarily no big deal....but that religion happens to be the followers of Mohammed, not Jesus.

Sacred Ground is a rather broad term. It can mean just about anything to anyone, depending on the usage. The Holy Kaaba and the entire city of Mecca is sacred ground for Muslims. The Sikh Golden Temple springs readily to mind, and of course most of the city of Jerusalem, and indeed nearly all of Israel and the surrounding countries is referred to as the "Holy Lands".

But that's religion. Can anything secular be sacred?

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5 comments (Latest Comment: 08/22/2010 18:30:25 by Raine)

Hate Sells
Author: BobR    Date: 08/20/2010 10:17:13

What happens when hate substitutes for critical thinking? What happens when lies and propaganda substitute for news? What happens when politicians, pundits, and profit-driven media organizations join forces to gain political and financial strength? The result is a populace increasingly anxious and confused over things that not only aren't important, they're not even true. The end result is America 2010.

It's not that there aren't important stories out there to garner our attention. Pakistan has experienced some of the worst flooding in its history, with over 250 square miles of land still under water. Millions of people are affected in an area that's already had to deal with the effects of the war in Afghanistan.
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44 comments (Latest Comment: 08/20/2010 19:37:54 by Mondobubba)

Into the night, they left.
Author: Raine    Date: 08/19/2010 12:42:57

As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal. Then-candidate, Barack Obama in a NYT Op-Ed; July 14, 2008

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51 comments (Latest Comment: 08/19/2010 23:13:04 by Raine)

Cafeteria Constitutionalists
Author: BobR    Date: 08/18/2010 10:29:12

It's been said we are a nation of laws, not a nation of men. Our laws come from a framework put into place over 200 years ago: the founding document of our country known as the Constitution. It is a brilliantly written and conceived document in both it's simplicity, and the complex ideas it encases. Lately, it seems that we have a certain segment of the population that feels we've strayed too far from that original document, and are clamoring for a return to it. Like the checks and balances that are part of our political construct, there is a fair amount of yin and yang in the Constitution, But - based on their rhetoric - one has to wonder: do they love all of the Constitution, or are they only interested in certain parts?
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23 comments (Latest Comment: 08/18/2010 20:37:08 by Will in Chicago)

Ask a Vet
Author: TriSec    Date: 08/17/2010 10:31:10

Good Morning.

Today is our 2,708th day in Iraq and our 3,236th day in Afghanistan.

We'll start this morning as we always do; with the latest casualty figures from our ongoing wars, courtesy of Antiwar.com:

American Deaths
Since war began (3/19/03): 4415
Since "Mission Accomplished" (5/1/03): 4276
Since Capture of Saddam (12/13/03): 3954
Since Handover (6/29/04): 556
Since Obama Inauguration (1/20/09): 187

Other Coalition Troops - Iraq : 318
US Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 1,227
Other Military Deaths - Afghanistan: 775
Contractor Employee Deaths - Iraq: 1,457
Journalists - Iraq: 338
Academics Killed - Iraq: 437

We find this morning's cost of war passing through:

$ 1, 066, 639, 700, 000 .00



Does war have an "owner"? If it does, can that ownership be transferred? Iraq, in many ways, belongs to both Bushes. It was 20 years ago under the term of Bush the Elder, that Saddam invaded Kuwait and started this whole sorry state of affairs.

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41 comments (Latest Comment: 08/17/2010 19:15:46 by livingonli)

Are we a nation of cowards?
Author: Raine    Date: 08/16/2010 12:30:34

Suddenly and quietly the Cordoba House, the planned muslim community outreach center that is proposed to be built in a former Burlington coat factory has morphed from the "Ground Zero Mosque to the "9/11 Mosque" Don't think this shift in messaging is an accident. The former Half Term Governor herself, in a tizzy of somewhat bigoted tweets also mentioned this phrase this weekend. here is a sample:
Will Obama express US lingering pain& ask Muslims for tolerance by discouraging 9/11 mosque while he celebrates Islamic holy month tonight?
She is asking for the President to be tolerant of intolerance. The irony is painful. She's not alone.
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65 comments (Latest Comment: 08/16/2010 22:16:36 by trojanrabbit)

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