Goodbye!

This will be the final post on On the Radar. It has been a fantastic nearly two and one-half years sharing my thoughts with the world, but unfortunately this time has come to a close.

You see, I am a conservative. Within my current realm of experience (higher education) this fact of my identity leaves me at a major disadvantage. My opinions and ideology concerning a number of political and social ideas places me in a fantastically small minority of individuals within my field. Considering the liberal slant of those in the majority and their predilection towards "diversity" and "privilege" it is even more disturbing the turn of events that has led me here. This minority status of my opinions and identity leaves me a target for virulent criticism and attacks by those in the ideological majority. Indeed, I have blogged anonymously from the start in order to protect myself from these attacks that would inevitably come. Although I rarely mentioned my upbringing or current surroundings, I still assumed that no one would go to the extensive trouble to find out my real name. I was wrong.

A few weeks ago a fellow student affairs professional - that I will not name or link to (I will provide him the courtesy that he refuses to me) didn't like what I wrote about Al Gore. He proceeded to check my site regularly, comment on posts that bothered him, and stalk me through search engines, Facebook, MySpace, and two university web pages. This individual was obsessed with finding out who I was. Why? Well - that is where it gets ironic.

I started this blog with the intent to comment on news stories that interested me, social issues that were in the news, and to use as an outlet for venting my frustrations with far-left craziness in academia. I assumed that what I had been taught within this liberal bastion of knowledge (to support diversity, to be tolerant of difference, to respect differing opinions) was the perfect auspices for writing on this blog. It is indeed with the most severe degree of irony that it is one individual who falsely claims to hold these values as important that has caused me to stop writing this blog because - if you can believe it - he disagrees with me, has decided that I am wrong and immoral, and has decided to let the whole world (or the five people that read his blog) know who I am as a result of his stalking.

This individual has made the classic far-left intellectual non-sequitur that has plagued liberals time and time again. They claim to support those that are different, but because they are so sure of the righteous rightness of their opinion instead attempt to destroy and belittle those with which they disagree. They support those who are different, but not those with differing opinions. Since I am fundamentally wrong for disagreeing with him I am "homophobic" and even "islamophobic." Because I blog anonymously he has decided the only way to get back at me is to reveal my identity - which he did with ease and enjoyment. I posted a comment immediately on his blog asking to remove the link that revealed who I am, or I would be forced to discontinue blogging. He has checked my blog at least five times since I made my request. He has failed to consider it (and I'm not particularly surprised).

So that's it. It's profoundly sad and ironic that it is the intolerance, ignorance, and general idiocy of individuals like this person that motivated me to blog in the first place that have used their ignorance, intolerance, and general idiocy to force me to stop. I truly pity this individual, and hope that in the future he will find it possible to consider conflicting ideas without rejecting and attacking those with which he disagrees (although I won't hold my breath).

I would like to thank slowpitch (my first blog-mate), Clint, and the Captain for their assistance with this blog. I would also like to thank mrs. radar for her patience in the time I spent here nearly every day.

I will leave the links along the left sidebar (slightly edited) for you all to enjoy. Remember to check Little Green Footballs, Powerline, and Michelle Malkin for the best real news from a conservative point-of-view. Those who run the previous blogs are truly lucky to be able to sustain their blogs regardless of the constant criticism and occasional death threats they receive for what they do.

Goodbye all! I wish you all well.

New Look!

Over the years I've changed the look of the 'ol blog a number of times, and here is the most recent adaptation. As you can see, Blogger now allows users to upload images as headers as opposed to simple text. A little fun with photoshop later and tada! Our new "radar" logo look. More new updates to come soon.

Here I am!

Sorry to all of you avid readers, but I have been off of the grid for a few weeks due to a recent move and change in employment. I've graduated and started a new job, and I'm sorry to say that the time I had previously spent blogging is going straight into my new place in the working world. I promise to update as much as possible, but bear with me throughout the transition.

Bear with me (big time)

Today I'm going to move the 'ol blog from old blogger to new blogger completely. First and foremost - the template is going to move. That means that I will have to recreate all of the gadgets I have added to the sidebar one by one, and things will be pretty screwed up for awhile. However, once it is done everything will be much nicer, prettier, and easier for me. I hope it won't take long!

Update: I'm pretty much finished. A few things:

1) Not so sure about the color scheme. Change is good though, right?
2)Check out the Archives below. They are neat and drop-down with little arrows...
3)IE users: the Google Reader shared items gadget now works. Yay!
4)I will now be tagging each post with "Labels." This is one of the reasons for the update, and may eventually eliminate the "Best of" sidebar sections.

Stay tuned, and let me know what you think. You can post comments anonymously, you know!

Trouble

I have just made a startling realization - the 'ol blog is not viewing correctly with IE6. I apologize for the craziness, and plan on making some major changes soon.

In the meantime download a real browser - Firefox.

What will they think of next?

It seems the tinkering will never cease, as I have now added a link to my shared articles with Google Reader to the 'ol blog. Now I will periodically share what articles I find interesting or ones that I use as a source for a blog post. Enjoy!

What if you had a birthday and no one came?

I missed it myself! February 4, 2007 marks my second year in the blogosphere, and I forgot all about it!

I started On the Radar with the intention of reporting that which is ignored in the media, and also giving myself a selfish outlet for my own political and news-related rantings. I've rather enjoyed these two years, and fear that when I leave academia for the real world my blogging will slow greatly.

Here's to two years!

Search Me!

Yes, my fun with Google will never end. I have added a Google Custom Search to the 'ol blog! On the left sidebar above the archives will give you a different search of the blog than you get from teh search at the top. Happy searching!

Blogging, Google, and Shennanigans

I have reached a conundrum. It seems my forward thinking was not too forward when it came to the ol' blog. For years Blogger, while owned by Google, still had a separate log-in. However, a few months ago they merged systems and asked all Blogger users to migrate their accounts to a Google account. Being the clever guy I am, I migrated On the Radar over to my incognito (radarblog@gmail.com) account. However, of course, now when I am logged into my email, I must log out to post on the blog! This is clearly no good. Therefore I have cloned myself, as you can see on the left side of the blog. This cloning will soon be resolved, but for now it's like there's two of me!

Oh, and with the new Blogger, be on the lookout for a new template...

PS: Oh, and Snap has gone the way of the dodo. It was fun while it lasted (or not).

Wild and Crazy with Snap!

I have made a fantastic and new modification to the 'ol blog. With the help of Snap, you can now preview all the links we post by holding your mouse over the link in question. No need to follow mystery links anymore with the help of the little pop-up window that shows where you would have gone, or will still go if you desire.

It's a fun little tool, and I'm going to test if for awhile. Let me know what you think!

Technology, Adsense, and Profit

You know, when I started putting ads on the 'ol blog I had every intention of, well, making a few bucks and starting a personal website of some kind. Since we have approached and now passed the six month mark for advertising on the site, I can announce that I have made the ridiculous profit of $.94.

So what say you? Patronize our Google-generated text sponsors and help me feed my Mt. Dew addition.

Please?

In case you hadn't noticed...

I have found the great entertainment value and utility of tossing some videos into the 'ol blog by way of YouTube. There's a lot of great content there, and it's easy to post here. Stay tuned!

Who knew?

Who knew that nuking the moon could cause so much trouble?

Site Feed!

Yes, that's right sportsfans! All blogs hosted by Blogger have XML site feeds available. As you can see I have added the link to the left side bar. If any of you have personal homepages or readers you can paste the link and receive On the Radar all day every day! Isn't that fun?

NewsBusters!

I have added a new link under the "Links" area of the 'ol blog sidebar. Newsbusters is a site that is dedicated to exposing liberal bias in the media and I like it. With all of the South Park bruhaha lately NewsBusters is a good place to check.

On the Radar, Too

Announcing the official On the Radar companion site - On the Radar, too!

I've created this site for additional links, and some of you have no doubt noticed my use of the site to link pictures and messages to the blog. It will grow as time passes, but check it out for now and see what you think!

Google - taking over the world

I think we all knew this was happening. Google is working towards everything from blogs to shopping to maps to searches to advertising. Will it be any surprise when we are all one day driving Google cars and wearing Google underwear watching Google television?

With the opposition to Google's latest plans to digitize all print media I've been wondering - what diabolical plan will Google unveil next?

Now Google has launched Google Base, on which you can index anything you want - from recipies and photos to job ads and automobile listings.

I must confess that I, too have joined in this Google-ness and have listed the 'ol blog on Google Base.

Have I sold out? Maybe. Should I have bought Google stock years ago? Yes.

Update: I think the Google Base post helped out our listability on Google.

On second thought I just remembered that Blogger is owned by Google, too. Eek!

Welcome, Captain!

As you can see, the Captain has joined our lively blog! A big welcome goes out to him and his Captaincy. I can't wait for his perspective...

Welcome Clint!

I've invited a friend (he's like a brother, really) to join the 'ol blog. You'll enjoy Clint's viewpoint as they will be unique from Slowpitch and myself.

Welcome Slowpitch!

As you can already see, I've invited an old friend (he's like a son, really) to join me in my blogging exploits. Slowpitch has quite a number of ideas on a variety of subjects, and I'm sure you will all enjoy his posts.