Open Season on Turd

I'm not sure that I see a huge difference between the "blog" format and what you have now. I would think you could combine a blogspot and Youtube videos to get much of what you want to accomplish  without some of the frills.

The biggest positives are your posts and the community here. It just seems to me that it shouldn't require all the expensive servers and moderators. Ban the trolls as they pop up and use more free services.

That said, I'll try to send some money.

Let's see how the  summer call goes.  If you're right you can retire.  I'm sure we all kick in.

...of your posts, it's the packaging.

There's that whole 'be civil' thing.   Your tone is/was basically dickish, and no amount of content makes up for it.   Nobody wants to listen to dickish.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/bitten-beaten-olympic-greek-judo-champ-131144595--oly.html

Now, remember, these are games where three athletes were deemed unfit to participate. Two for tweets, and one because of her boyfriend's politics.

Respectfully, if Horst's advice contains a solution that will save Turd $10,000, does it ultimately matter in order to achieve the near-term goal? We'd all feel real dumb if it did and we just ignored it because we didn't like how he said it. I'm not saying it does and it will. And nobody is saying Horst couldn't do better in his word selection. Sometimes if a feasible solution to a problem is clear to us, we have to spit it out abruptly or we lose it. I quit working with the emotionally-driven long ago who insisted on backscratching over keeping their eyes on the big picture. Sort of like the fallacy of putting art before science.

Anyway, I seemed to get into a pissing contest over this concept the other day so this will be the only time I say it here. FWIW.

The current battle in the Middle East is really a continuation of the ‘Arab Spring’ that started last year. It is reaching a culmination in the battle for Syria. This, at its core, is really a battle between the Shia and Sunni factions of the Muslim world for control of the Middle East.

The Shia are the Radicals, they read, believe, and follow the Koran. They are the ones that saw off the heads of ‘infidels’ like Michel Pearl with a dull knife. They are real, and committed to the destruction of Israel and the spread of Shiria law throughout the world. Believe it.

The Shia factions dominate Iran, Syria, and now Egypt, that why Egypt just now moved their tanks up to Israel’s border. The moderate factions are the Sunnis, which represent are the Saudis and Qatar, We back the latter and the USSR and China the former, that’s why you see everyone and their brother gathering around that area.

Bashar al - Assad are Alawites, which is a secretive sect that dates back to the 9^th century, they are very occultic, they are not really Muslims but yet hold power, The Alawies does allow women to participate in religious services and see them, mostly only for breeding.

How are these rebels getting the heavy weaponry to take on a very impressive military like Syria’s.?? They are getting it from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, though Turkey, that why the jet was shot down as a warning a few weeks ago

And where do the Saudis’ get do their armaments from?? America, of course. Who is backing the Syrians??… Russia, and China. This is not looking good.

Should Assad feel he is about to fall from power, he will strike Israel, possibly with chemical weapons in a final attempt to unify the Muslim world against and greater ‘Zionist’ enemy of Israel.

Israel will deal Damascus a crushing and devastating response.

Good pics. No wonder the closing ceremony was so full of occult symbolism: the Babylonian satanists are about to get they've always wanted (and they will be extremely sorry too).

I gotta agree with Vagabond: Give him and/or one of  the others a PM & see what they can do "price wise or recommend" AND I don't know them from Adam; but when I'm costing out a project especially these days I don't necessarily go with the low cost provider, just the more reasonable one. And I look at multiple offers and a seamless transition is a must.

Here in the wonderful CA economy I've had to make tough decisions to get the overhead down. I'm talking 100k+ here in my situation over the last 4 years. I'm not bitching about it; I just made it happen or I was going to close up shop. People you are comfortable with are great; right up until they're taking advantage of you. I have to agree with other posters that your paying WAAAAY too much in expenses. It can be done for a lot less, reliably/credibly. Quite frankly there are a lot of internet providers out there that would want the kind of traffic you have.

Please give this some thought. I hate to see people being taken advantage of especially when their hearts in the right place.

I do contribute, but I believe contributing to the person directly responsible for the content verses contributing to people that I believe are taking advantage of someone makes it harder to contribute.

Interesting suggestion, but haven't you heard of tungsten filled "gold" bars.

I'll leave the assay (can't believe I wrote that!!!) method to you to describe.

...but if you can hold off shutting the place down for another week or so I'll be happy to blow my next paycheck's mad money on a donation.  You gotta do what you gotta do, but I for one would have a big hole in my life if this place went away.

Peace.

Are you talking in Pig Latin again, benque ?

Turd, The organization I head runs several Wordpress-platform sites, including ecommerce modules -- all based on Wordpress platforms. You do NOT need to be a Wordpress jockey/junkey in order to use these platforms. And, the platform allows for great variety in presentation, graphics, and so forth. Fees for programming? Fees for someone to maintain the site (backups, modifying stuff as your preferences change) -- as little as $10-15 an hour for very high-end programming, done by highly competent Phillapino contractors (we use one). For some service businesses, the market has become international -- and blogging and website platforms is one of the areas where North American and Western European service providers have become out-priced by skilled workers who operate in economic environments which are orders of magnitude less expensive than in North America and Western Europe. oDesk brokers literally millions of billable hours every month between American employers (individuals and companies) and Phillapino service-providers. If interested in further details of our experience here, contact me privately and ask away.

Raffle off Dagney !   I'm in.  How much ?

You write:

"The Shia are the Radicals, they read, believe, and follow the Koran. They are the ones that saw off the heads of ‘infidels’ like Michel Pearl with a dull knife. They are real, and committed to the destruction of Israel and the spread of Shiria law throughout the world. Believe it."

I think you got this one wrong. All practicing muslims read, believe and follow the Quran. You will find radicals, that kidnap and behead prisoners in both camps. The hardline and also less hardline Sunnis are equally passionate about living according to Sharia, since it is the underlying law of Islam spelled out in the Quran and the Sunnah. You will not find much love for Israel among people in Saudi or Qatar either.

"The Shia factions dominate Iran, Syria, and now Egypt, that why Egypt just now moved their tanks up to Israel’s border. The moderate factions are the Sunnis, which represent are the Saudis and Qatar, We back the latter and the USSR and China the former, that’s why you see everyone and their brother gathering around that area."

As far as I know, power in Egypt has been won by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood is predominantly Sunni, if I remember correctly. I believe that you are correct in your view that Qatar is (predominantly) moderate in their practise of Islam, but there are still a rather conservative faction that the Emir has to balance his more moderate policies with. The law in Qatar is based on Sharia principles and the doctrine is Wahabiism although it is moderated. When it comes to Saudi, I think you are totally off base. Saudi is hardline Sunni, Wahabiism and orthodox Sharia rules the realm.

"Bashar al - Assad are Alawites, which is a secretive sect that dates back to the 9^th century, they are very occultic, they are not really Muslims but yet hold power, The Alawies does allow women to participate in religious services and see them, mostly only for breeding."

I don't know anything about Alawites, but if they are occult and have a powerful history going back very far in time, I suspect that this might be the root for Western interference. It appears that the powers of the west also have occult tendencies and very old bloodlines. That they see women mostly for breeding is not any different in the other countries you mention - even the moderate ones, although this is slowly changing. Do you seriously believe that all other muslim women are not allowed to participate in religious services? Some muslim men regard women's worship as something that should be confined to the home, but Sunni women do worship in Mosques, although it may be done in a separate section. 

"Should Assad feel he is about to fall from power, he will strike Israel, possibly with chemical weapons in a final attempt to unify the Muslim world against and greater ‘Zionist’ enemy of Israel."

But you just said that the cornerstone of this conflict was the generations long battle between Shia and Sunni, so Assad would have nothing of that nature to gain from such a desperate attack.  

"Israel will deal Damascus a crushing and devastating response."

You make it sound almost romanticized, when you put it like that. Possibly, but I hope that cooler heads will prevail. 

With my deepest sympathies, I congratulate you upon winning the draw, and the technical satisfaction of verifying the goods.