A site I run has started getting slammed with spam since I changed hosting companies. Both companies use Spam Assassin, but must have had it configured differently. Now it’s up to me to try to slow the flood. Anyone with their own domain familiar with it? The support wiki is geared toward server admins, not account admins, and so is no help.

On the configuration panel it list 5 as being “aggressive,” with higher number settings as “more conservative.” Does that mean it’s more conservative in what it blocks, or more conservative in what it lets through? I can’t tell from experimenting because the spam attacks are quite cyclical. Having them drop off may mean I moved it in the right direction, or it just might be coincidence.

I’m getting a lot of complaints about this, so any help would be much appreciated.

There’s not even a thread of reality left in our Commandant In Chief’s view of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Speaking to U.S. military and civilian personnel via video conference, he had this to say:

“I must say, I’m a little envious,” Bush said. “If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed.”

“It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You’re really making history, and thanks,” Bush said.

What an exciting opportunity they have. Those soldiers should be paying for the privilege of having a limb blown off instead of costing us money in death benefits. How ungrateful of them.

The Steve Miller classic, acted by kittens.

This morning my spam comment bin held links for this gem:

“Deviled ham and eggs tattoo.”

I can only imagine where one would have that engraved.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s I was a Dungeons and Dragons geek, so devoted that somewhere out there exists a photo of me in an Elf Thief costume. I was so well versed in the system that when I first began writing novels I filled out charts on each of my characters. Now someone has handicapped the 2008 election in the same way.

From Charlie’s Diary:

Barack Obama (Demon Prince of Upsetting Applecarts.) (Lesser God.)

FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO APPEARING: 1
ARMOUR CLASS:
MOVE: 3″ (72″ per flight sector on the campaign jet)
HIT DICE: 200 hit points (But first you have to defeat 4d8 Secret Service Agents — unless attacking in Texas, Florida, or other Republican-held states)
% IN LAIR: 0%
TREASURE TYPE: Budget Deficit: -500,000 million G.P. plus compound interest
NO. OF ATTACKS: 0 (He runs a clean campaign).
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Makes his opponents look foolish: -1 Charisma per round engaged in combat polite debate.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Casts Mass Charm 1 per round engaged in combat polite debate.
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +5 Fundraising, Regeneration, +3 or better weapon to hit.
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 80%
INTELLIGENCE: Genius
CHARISMA: 18(100) (Democrats) / 12 (Republicans)
ALIGNMENT: Law Professor
SIZE: M
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: X/89,950* (* for impeachment)

Handsome, intelligent, charismatic, and he manages to sound absolutely wonderful … but how do you know what else is lurking under that sleek exterior? The Obama’s main advantage in combat is that he makes everyone else in the melee look absurdly aggressive or foolishly short-sighted, sapping their Charisma. Probably the lesser evil, so once you elect him you’ll have the luxury of knowing you’ve been eaten by the right lizard god.

Check out the site for reports on Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Then roll the dice and start the battle.

Via Boing Boing

Storm looks so innocent and regal, just sitting there observing my work. Until you see what’s off the bottom of the photo.

He’s sitting on my mouse.

No words to describe this one.

I’ve been walking around in a daze for 48 hours. Wednesday afternoon I got my transcript and a letter from the BVU registrar telling me that if I take just 4 classes, all available online, I can have my college degree in December.

I’m filling out the online application tonight.

They will accept all my music hours as what they call a distributive major - a liberal arts “fuzzy studies” major, as opposed to the bachelor of music track I was on before. General education requirements have changed dramatically since the first time I was there, but she offered some compromises that will keep me from having to start all over. So over the next 9 months I’ll be taking:

• Elementary Applied Statistics for a math requirement
• Racism and Sexism for a humanities writing core requirement
• Physical Geography for a science credit (sadly, they don’t offer Com Sci online)
• A 300+ level elective, probably Psych of Gender (no history offered that term, which would have been my first choice)

The next term starts May 5, when I’ll be taking stats. Online classes run 6 terms a year, each 2 months long, so I need to only take 1 class per term until the end of the year, probably in the order listed above.

Then, 30 years after I enrolled for the first time, I’ll be a college graduate.

Here’s the wild thing. Even if I get Cs in all 4 classes, I’ll still graduate with honors with a 3.7 GPA.

Can you believe it?

Lately I’ve been getting flooded with what I assumed was porn spam. However, I didn’t recognize the flavor, and I really didn’t want to Google it. So I asked Wikipedia.

I now know this acronym doesn’t stand for Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

It’s a nice sentiment, I suppose, but it still got deleted.