We’re joining the fundraiser for Kathy and Arni. If you were planning to donate to SDA this Christmas cycle, as so many of you do, please consider sending it to them instead. I’m doing fine.

You can donate via the PayPal Kitty button on their blog sidebar or via Interac email transfer to blazingcatfur@gmail.com.

A sad note from Brian Gardiner;

Some of you may remember Richard Evans, who ran the blog Let Freedom Reign, and before that the Cannukistanian Chronicles. He passed away in the Philippines earlier this month and his family has set up a Go Fund Me page to raise $20,000 needed to pay his final medical bills and repatriate his remains.

Richard was a friend and co-conspirator in one of the greatest blogosphere prankings of all time. You can help out here

My day started at 3:45am with a round trip drive to Edmonton and back. I’m kind of beat, so blogging will resume in the morning.

We’ve done some much needed updates, and thus the site isn’t looking quite the same as before. Still some work to do — just a note to let you all know what’s going on.

We’ve been having intermittent connection issues that may continue into early next week, as the promised service call from Sasktel is for Tuesday. If blogging is slow or non-existent that’s the reason.

I appreciate that people here are looking for entertainment, but the noise to signal ratio in the comments is getting out of hand.

I want an end to the bickering sessions, please. It’s been a while since I clamped down on comments abusers, but I still have the skills and the software to do it.

And when I do, it will be fast, it will be brutal – and you will receive neither warning nor explanation.

Stay on topic. Don’t feed the trolls.

Thanks in advance.

Many thanks to Robert, David and Terry for filling in during my road trip to Washington/Oregon over the past couple of weeks. I’m back and regular blogging should resume after some sleep.

In the meanwhile, here are a couple of scenic shots taken yesterday. Enjoy!

Dear SDA commenters,

We deeply value your contributions but do ask that you stay on topic and don’t post comments unrelated to the topic at hand. Some comments of late look copied & pasted from elsewhere.

Please do so out of respect for everyone else on here.

Thank you.

It’s with considerable sadness that I must pass along the news that one of SDA’s own passed away on the morning of July 22nd of a heart attack.

Ken (Kulak) was a  supporter, a frequent and thoughtful commentor, and a friend.

We shall miss him, and we send  our deepest condolences to Ken’s  family in Waldheim, SK.

After two weeks of working 18 hour days, topped off with another 18 hour drive home from Minneapolis yesterday, I’m only partially “back”. I need a day or so to rest up, clean up, and get my mind back into current events.

Many thanks to our guest bloggers for helping when they could, and to you our readers, for your patience.

On another note, it seems a few of you in the comments section have been abusing your privileges by posting borderline commentary and beyond. I’ll be clamping down on this in the coming days, and may even do some mass deletions if I see fit. Bottom line, this is my private property. You’re welcome to visit and discuss and debate, but when you write graffiti on my walls expect to be shown the door.

Blogging should return to normal in about 48 hours.

The host server has been up and down in recent days, particularly late at night. DOS attacks? Not sure. It’s not something we have control over, so please be patient if you find the site is down for a few minutes now and then.

With a long weekend on the horizon, blogging is likely to slow down for a few days.

As should you. Push away from the screen and go enjoy yourselves! Have a great weekend.

Welcome to the 21st century.

Conversion is done to WordPress. Faster, somewhat better anti-spam (Askimet instead of Typepad), recaptcha v2, threaded comments and time-limited comment editing for anonymous users.

I’ve imported up to 2006 and from 2014 up to the snapshot yesterday. I’m filling in the missing years, but that’s not important to the functioning of the blog.

There will probably be minor changes in the future.

Current and former authors who wish to continue should contact Kate as per normal for access instructions.

The blog upgrade – platform move is about to get underway today, as we transition from the ever-deteriorating Movable Type over to WordPress. The goal is to keep the blog as close to the original in design and layout as is possible, but with improved commenting and publishing function.

It may go well, it may go… badly. In all likelihood the old content of SDA will be archived, and we’ll start anew with a clean database. But, I don’t know. At any rate, cross your fingers all goes well. If the blog goes dark, it’s because we’re working on it. If it’s unreachable for a few days, it’s because we broke something. If that happens, I’ll keep you all updated through my twitter account

Thanks to everyone who’s contributed their time and donations towards SDA over the past few months — your support is appreciated, and it’s long past time we provided you a site with cleaner functionality.

Wish us luck, because we’re going to need it.

Commenters have likely noticed a message that Captcha is being discontinued at the end of March. No new version is available, so this may interrupt normal service for a time while we come up with a solution.
As best as we can determine, that solution involves a transition to a new platform, along with archiving the old content. (The database has ballooned to 26,170 entries along with 784,454 comments.)
Which is a good thing. We’ve limped along on Movable Type for much longer than we thought we could, but it’s becoming suckier with every passing year. But I’ll update when I have more information, likely in a week or two.

Euan Mearns and Roger Andrews do some of the most important work in the blogosphere today, and are a valued contributor to SDA — go hit the tip jar if you have a few bucks to spare. (I’m a couple of days late to the fundraising party, but I’m sure they won’t mind.)
Speaking of blogs, there’s a newcomer to check out — Torches and Pitchforks