|
|
|
| 6-24-08 |
|
On
June 1st I launched our summer fund drive with a goal of $5,000. Here we
are on the 24th and 7 people have donated $135. With 7-15 thousand
visitors a day and hundreds of people on the (almost) daily newsletter
mailing list, all I can muster is 7 people? Why do you
guys hate America? Are you terrorist freedom hating evil-doers? Ghengis
Khan never donated to my campaign. Why are you being like Ghengis Khan?
OK,
now seriously, you know I'm kidding. I want to thank all of you who have
donated. Before the fund drive, we had a really good initial response. All
together in total we've had 49 supporters who have donated $1,975 online.
We've also received a few checks in the PO box, too. That's really
encouraging. And I'm incredibly grateful. The really heart warming part of
all of this is that the dollar amount average is around 20 bucks and a
really large portion of my donors have listed their occupation as
"unemployed, laid-off, retired." That really means a lot to me.
It shows me that people who aren't awash in disposable income really
believe in and support my effort to put our seat in the House back into
the hands of the public interest. And for that, I'm humbled and inspired.
Thank you to everyone who has pitched in. I know times are tough and money
is tight, so it means all that much more.
So
what have your donations purchased?
(3)
4'x8' hand-painted plywood campaign signs to go along the highway that
advertise me and my campaign website
About
6,000 envelopes
About
5,000 mailing labels
I
had to pay the Iowa Democratic Party $1,000 for a searchable database of
all contact information on the voters in my district.
Piles
and piles of stationary
250
yard signs
3,000
palm cards
The
beautiful part of it: The stationary, palm cards, envelopes, and mailing
labels would normally cost me a fortune to have printed. Luckily, thanks
to my work with the POAC, I already have commercial printers with
continuous ink systems, therefore, I can do most of my printing myself and
save about 3 grand in printing costs.
What's
next? Right now on the dining room table, I have thousands of donation
requests to be sent to all of the registered democrats in my district.
Each envelope includes a letter introducing myself and my platform, a palm
card, and a pre-addressed envelope to mail a donation. What's missing?
Postage. That's why I'm begging for donations. I need to buy postage so I
can get these in the hands of every democratic voter in my district and
get them to pitch in, so I can stop bugging you about donations. But I
can't affords the postage yet. Hence the begging. SO that's where I'm at.
Any funds that come in from now on will be spent on postage.
And
now just for fun. Here's some fun facts I've been circulating about my
campaign:
Talking
points regarding Dist 3 State rep race:
1.
The incumbent, Chuck Soderberg, is the vice president of
legislative planning for a utility company called NIPCO. NIPCO is owned by
Basin Electric (of North Dakota) which also owns Dakota Coal, the Freedom
Mine, and other out-of-state coal mining operations. Chuck Soderberg's
campaign manager and treasurer are also executives with Basin Electric
companies.
2.
Among Chuck Soderberg's top campaign contributors are NIPCO, Basin
Electric, MidAmerican Energy (who owns coal mines in Wyoming), Aquila (of
Missouri), and Florida Power and Electric.
3.
Soderberg has consistently voted against efforts to make Iowa
energy independent and continues to try to force Iowans to buy
out-of-state energy from his employer and big-energy backers.
4.
Last January, Chuck Soderberg signed a letter in the House floor
with 4 other legislators stating that they would not support any
legislation intended to address global warming claiming that doing so
would hurt our economy.
5.
Chuck Soderberg voted against creating the Iowa Power Fund and the
Office of Iowa Energy Independence. These two initiatives are responsible
for the fact that last year was the first year in the history of Iowa that
we were able to create a surplus of energy and export it across our
borders.
It
is clear that Chuck Soderberg's concern is not for the economy of NW Iowa,
but rather protecting the profit margin of his employer. Soderberg fights
to keep Iowans as customers of his out-of-state backers, instead of
competitors in a free market that would result in cheaper energy for Iowa.
1.
Electing the challenger, T.J. Templeton, will take our seat in the
Iowa House of Representatives out of the hands of predatory corporate
interests and replace it into the hands of the public interest where it
belongs.
2.
T.J. Templeton will work to strengthen and expand the efforts to
make Iowa energy independent and will promote programs to assist local
utilities and property owners in creating their own wind energy.
3.
T.J. Templeton is 100% supported by individuals. He has accepted
ZERO dollars from PACs, lobbyists, and special interest groups.
If
elected, T.J. Templeton will not only restore our seat in the House of
Representatives to the public interest, but he will open up the free
market for local energy production, making us a competitor, not a customer
to out-of-state interests. This will result in cheaper energy for Iowans.
The availability and profitability of creating our own clean renewable
wind energy is a profitable right that all Iowans deserve. Elect T.J.
Templeton for State Representative and fight back against out-of-state
corporations dictating our own energy policy.
That's
all. I just wanted to catch everyone up on what I'm doing in the campaign. |
You
can support my campaign for Iowa House of Reps via credit card here.
You
can mail a check made out to "Committee for T.J. Templeton"
here:
Committee
for T.J. Templeton
PO Box 53
Le Mars, Iowa 51031
You
can make a donation to the POAC here:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/support.htm
|
|
| 6-6-08 |
| Houston, we have
a problem. |
|
As
you may know... I skipped the last 3 POAC
fund drives in hopes that our readers would funnel their normal
contributions towards my campaign. That means I traded in three quarters
of the POAC yearly funding and my own annual "salary" on the
hopes that it would be reflected in campaign contributions. The result?
Drumroll, please... Less than 40 people have
contributed. 40. Out of the thousands of daily visitors, less than 40
people have contributed. OH MY GOD. WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Thanks to the generous 40 people who contributed, we've raised $1,500.
That's great. However, I had to pay the state Dem party $1,000 to get the
list of voters, donors, and all of their contact information. So now I
have the list to send out donation requests to the constituents, but not
enough money for stationary and postage. I need about 4,000 stamps just to
reach the registered Democrats. You can see my predicament.
Now I don't know what to do. Should I continue the POAC? At this rate, it
would be smarter to retire the Project and focus entirely on campaigning.
I'm setting up some local fund raisers, but I need your support now just
to have campaign materials at the events. I'm asking you from the bottom
of my heart, please throw something my way. We've come too long to have to
end the Project because of apathy. I can't believe that I've been doing
this full-time for 7 years, mostly out of my own pocket, and all I can
gain for support to run for political office is fifteen hundred dollars.
Why should you donate for a House race in Podunk, Iowa? This race is
bigger than Iowa. My opponent has been using our seat in the House to
fight efforts to get Northwest Iowa off of coal power and switched to wind
power. He's on the dole of coal mining companies from as far away as
Florida. By donating to my campaign, you are helping Iowa lead the way
away from fossil fuels and towards green energy. That effects the entire
country. One small donation to one small race in Iowa will have an impact
around the nation. Iowa needs your help, and by helping Iowa, we'll be
helping yourself, where you live. So please consider supporting my
campaign. It's a bigger deal than you realize.
You
can support my campaign for Iowa House of Reps via credit card here:
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/19694
You
can mail a check made out to "Committee for T.J. Templeton"
here:
Committee
for T.J. Templeton
PO Box 53
Le Mars, Iowa 51031
You
can make a donation to the POAC here:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/support.htm
Finally,
if you are subscribed to the quarterly POAC newsletter, it will be sent
out next week. It's a really good issue, so keep your eyes open for it. If
you are not subscribed, you can do so here:
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/newsletter_subscribe.htm
That's
it for today. Thanks for your time.
Be well,
Tj Templeton |
|
| 3-13-08 |
| OK. It's
official. I can finally announce. |
| I'm sure you have
noticed that the quarterly newsletter is late, the headlines have been
updating sporadically, and my participation on the message board has been
sparse. I can now disclose as to why that is. Right now on my desk I have
a letter from the Iowa Secretary of State. It states: |
| Dear Mr.
Templeton, Your affidavit and nomination petition for the office of State
Representative District 3 has been received by the Secretary of State's
office and appears to meet the basic requirements for filing. Your name
will be certified to the appropriate county commissioners for inclusion on
the ballot at the June 3, 2008, Primary Election. |
| So it is
official. I will be making the official announcement this Saturday at my
county convention that I will be the Democratic choice on the ballot to
represent District 3 in the Iowa House of Representatives. That's why the
headlines have been sporadic and all of the other things are somewhat
awry. I've been out collecting signatures and setting things up for my
campaign committee. |
| Next week we'll
be issuing a press release and announce the campaign website and where/how
to donate for the campaign. I apologize for the disruption in the normal
flow things and assure you that things will return to normal as we settle
into our new routine. |
| Be well,
Tj Templeton |
|
| 1-6-08 |
| My work for Obama
and my local Democratic party |
| I've been
elected as a precinct delegate for Obama and also elected to my local
Democratic Platform Committee. This is my first step into actively
participating in politics beyond donations and voting. It's also my first
step into the caucus process, as I'm from Missouri, a primary
state. In the interest of full-disclosure, I'd like to make that known up
front. |
| I've received
some congratulations from our readers, but I've also received a few words
of concern regarding my ability to remain impartial in the selection
of news stories that I choose to run and the evenness of scrutiny I level
against all of the candidates and members of both parties. I can assure
you that I will remain non-partisan and to call out all candidates equally
on the issues, regardless of who they are or what party they represent.
Furthermore, I can promise you that I will not be using the POAC
website or organization to build support for my candidate or party. |
| I feel it is
my duty to be as active in my civic duty as much as humanly possible. I
can not allow my work with the POAC to prevent me from
participating in the democratic process to the best of my ability. So I
guess what I am saying is... You're just going to have to trust me on this
one. Just wait and see. If you should happen to think I'm giving unfair
coverage to a candidate or party, call me out on it. I'm not afraid of
criticism and would expect my readers to hold me accountable if there is
evidence of an unfair treatment in my headlines or other content. |
| It is
entirely possible to work against government and corporate corruption and
to fight for what our country stands for without engaging in biased
information or slanted viewpoints. I will continue to do just that. The
partisan work I'll be doing in my private time will not be reflected in my
work at the POAC. I will continue to hold both parties, and their members,
up to equal scrutiny. It one party or candidate seems to gain more
attention than the rest, it is a result of their own actions and issues,
not a result of unfair scrutiny. Just as it always has been. |
| Additionally,
I will not engage in fluff and filler the way that the corporate media
does in order to appear balanced. I will not post an article about
Sandy Berger or Monica Lewinsky every time a new example of the republican
culture of corruption bubbles to the surface. If a candidate does numerous
ridiculous things in a news cycle, the day's headlines will reflect as
much and not wimpishly give equal time to each candidates in our
headlines. In short, nothing's going to change and I'll be holding
everyone's feet to the fire as always. I hope that clears up any concerns
you may have had. And no, the POAC will not be taking money from the
Democratic party or Obama's campaign. |
| Video production |
| Still on hold.
Haven't been able to scrounge up the cash to get a better PC and the TV
tuner card for it. That will come. In the mean time, we have been
experimenting with the video editing software andf some results of that
experimentation will be present in the upcoming weeks. |
| POAC v2.0 |
| Somewhat on hold.
Like the video software, we've been experimenting, but the training manual
publication date has been pushed back yet again. Now they are telling me
that it will be around Valentine's day before it will ship. It's killing
me to wait this long. But it will be worth the wait, of that I am
certain. |
| New Charts |
| We've added several
new graphics to our library. |
| Quarterly fund
drive |
| Will be
launched on Monday January 7th. Our goal is again to bring in 5 thousand
dollars. That's a pittance compared to how much content we provide
compared to the other liberal/progressive outlets on the web. Unlike many
other liberal/progressive web presences, we do not accept money from
candidates or parties. Many
do. As it always has been , the POAC is created, maintained,
and staffed by yours truly. The graphics, the message board moderation,
the web development, the quarterly newsletter, the daily newsletter, the
editing, the archiving, the pamphlets, the multi-media, email
correspondence... is done almost exclusively by me with the assistance of
a few very dedicated and very appreciated volunteers. Imagine what we
could do if we could raise enough money to hire a staff. That's why we
need your participation in the quarterly fund drives. Even if it is only a
few dollars, it's all appreciated. If finances are as tight for you
as they are for us, don't donate, but just help spread the word. Put a
link to us in the signature line of your emails or distribute our
promotional pamphlets. (.pdf). |
| You don't need a
Paypal account to participate |
| If you can
contribute anything at all, there are numerous ways to contribute:
You can make a one-time
donation . You can subscribe to the quarterly
newsletter for as little as two bucks a month. (This option helps
us form a budget). You can always buy merchandise
from our store. And if you are worried that we'll blow all of our
donations on candy and comic books, you can help us buy buying
things we need (or just want) from our always changing Amazon
wish list. |
| Your
participation in this quarterly fund drive is particularly important
because this is the fund drive that Uncle Sam takes his cut from. And he
usually takes the whole damn thing. So by participating, you are not only
helping to pay for the costs of the POAC, but you are also keeping the tax
man off our back. |
| Until next time, be
well. |
| Tj
Templeton. |
|
| 12-14-07 |
| If you are
wondering why the headlines have been sporadic and sparse lately, it's
because my wife has recently had surgery and I'm helping her through her
recovery. As a result, things are a little off schedule and wonky.
She's recovering just fine and things will be back to normal within a few
weeks. So... sorry for the delayed updates and the somewhat smaller quantity
of headlines. I'm trying to think of a way to exploit this opportunity to
milk all of the sympathy from our readers that I can and transform that
sympathy into donations and sales, but I can't think of anything, so if
you have any ideas, send them with a check or money order to... Just
kidding. We have insurance and it's not going to break us. Aside from dampening
our Christmas plans, we're doing just fine. |
| The release
date for the training materials for our new webdesign software has been
moved back yet again. Now it's going to be released around Valentine's
day. I'm going to step up the pace of my own self-education and see if I
can't make some visible changes before then. |
| Those of you
who have opted to have the quarterly newsletter emailed to you rather than
mailed through the post should have received your e-copy yesterday. If you
didn't get it, check your email settings and be sure it wasn't treated as
spam and sent to your trash folder. If anyone else would like to have
their quarterly newsletter subscription switched from postal mail to
Email, just send us an email with "newsletter" in the subject
line. We'd be happy to switch it over for you. If you aren't subscribed,
and wish to be, you can subscribe to the quarterly newsletter here. |
| his week I have
been promoting "The 15% Solution: A Political History of American
Fascism, 2001-2022" in effort to educate the public about the threat
posed by the theocratic tendencies of the Republican front-runners. I
recently spoke with the author, who is a personal friend and friend of the
POAC. He brought up something very worthy of mention: That book was
written in 1996! The extent to which his predictions came true will make
your head spin. The potential future laid out will make your stomach
churn. I am still making this book available at a reduced price of $14.95
from $29.95. That's one-half of the original price. This reduced price
will be ending soon. You can read reviews and order a copy here |
| While I was in
the process of marking the book price down, I added a few new items to the
sale page. |
| We've been
asked by a POAC reader to make our pamphlets available for purchase in
bulk. Now they are. You
are still free to download as many as you like, but if you want a large
quantity and want to save ink, we've got them available for purchase in
bulk. |
| Finally, today
the secular progressive forces gained 14 Kilometers on the Bill O'Reilley
front on the War on Christmas™. Casualties were minimal. Soon we hope to
capture Fox"news" security forces and subject them to enhanced
interrogation techniques. Not to gain any new information, but because
they seem to think there's nothing wrong with waterboarding. |
| Until next time, be
well. |
| Tj
Templeton. |
|
| 10-28-07 |
| Fall Fund Drive: Success!
Our Goal was $5,000 and at the time of closing we were 36 dollars shy.
Then Linda came in and donated the 36 we needed. Thank you to
everyone who was able to participate and to everyone else who help us
spread our message and wish us well. You did it and we can't thank you
enough. By meeting our goal, we've covered operating costs for the next
quarter and become able to put money from our regular sales toward needed
hardware upgrades. |
| The new format: Not here
yet. I'm still learning it. It's going to take some real training time. We
don't have the budget to hire professionals, so you're just going to have
to be patient. Yeah yeah, I know. I said the same damn thing two months
ago. But the difference this time is that I actually have the training
manuals pre-ordered and they should be here in a few weeks. Believe me,
I'm as excited as you are to see the improvements. And a big Thanks to
Greg H. for helping me get to software. |
| Video woes: We've
lost the ability to record web streams from C-SPAN. We're working on
getting that fixed and doubling up our efforts to get the hardware to
record directly from TV. I can't say what to expect on this at this point,
but we're working diligently on it. Our goal is a new media PC with a
tuner card and upgrading from basic cable. We have the software, but the
big ticket items are still a ways away. In the mean time we will be
creating original educational video presentations. |
| Quarterly
newsletter: ...is finished. It's hands-down the best one we've done so
far. They will be mailed out this coming week. My paper supplier is out of
stock, so we're going to have to venture into the city and locate a new
one. If you aren't subscribed already, you can do
so here. It's only two bucks a month (Or more if you so choose).
You can opt to save a tree by sending us an email and letting us know that
you'd prefer the .PDF version via email. |
|
Happy Halloween: |
 |
BOO! |
|
Be well, |
|
Tj Templeton |
|
|
|
| 8-19-07 |
| I'm just going to
skip the pleasantries and cut to the chase here. |
| Improved Advertising: I
have figured out how to filter out unwanted advertisements from our advertisements
queue. This means you won't have to see ads for John McCain or Ann Coulter
polluting our front page anymore. The monetary return on our advertising
space hasn't panned out to be as lucrative as we had hoped. We're gaining
about an extra 100 dollars a month by selling that space to advertisers.
It helps, but it's not what we had hoped for. Once we make the change over
to the new format, we'll probably be introducing more ads onto the site. |
| The new format: Not here
yet. I'm still learning it. It's going to take some real training time. We
don't have the budget to hire professionals, so you're just going to have
to be patient until I can save up enough pennies for the training
materials. And since our Fall Fund Drive is coming in a few days, you
shouldn't have to wait too much longer. |
| Updates and headlines: We're
back up to our normal amount of daily headlines (about 50-60 a day) and
we're refreshing in the wee hours of the morning. We are also refreshing
periodically through out the day. This means we are again providing more
up-to-the-minute headline news than almost any other
alternative/independent media outlet on the net. And we're doing it at a
fraction of the cost with a fraction of the staff. |
| Educational materials: We're
back in the program of publishing downloadable fliers and pamphlets. Our
latest efforts are an introduction to the POAC and a debunking of the
corporate media's treatment of Hugo Chavez. Both can be read, downloaded,
and printed here. Please print off
several and leave them all over town. |
| Media center: Well,
we've gotten a decent start on our video creation projects. However, I've
run into an unexpected but easily foreseen setback: If I want to get the
highlights of say... 12 hours of Senate testimony... I have to record that
12 hours of testimony and then find the time to watch it again, as I edit.
Some parts require viewing several times. So as you can see, it's very
time consuming. And by the time I get something edited, I've already
linked something similar done by the Center for American Progress on the
main page. So for the most part, recording and editing from Cspan isn't
feasible unless it's part of a retrospective. Recording clips of
interviews and segments from speeches and talk shows will work fine, but
there's a problem with that too. We don't have the budget for the cable
service necessary to the record Daily Show and what-not (we record Cspan
from webcasts) and we don't have the funds available to purchase the the
hardware to run cable through the computer for recording. That, like the
problem with attaining needed training materials, could be resolved very
shortly, depending on the success of the upcoming fundraiser. As I said
before, be patient. |
| Repaired syndication
feed: It only took me six months, but I figured it out and fixed it.
You can, once again, have our top ten headlines syndicated
and automatically refreshed on your web site or blog. |
| Upcoming 'denial of
service' attack: In the middle of every fundraiser, right wing
operatives (Hannity fans in their mom's basements) launch an attack on our
servers to shut down our web site and disrupt the fundraiser. We've
invested in all kinds of safety/protection measures so any disruption
shouldn't last for more than a few hours. So if the site goes down, just
check back later on and everything should be fine. As an additional safety
measure, no personal information regarding our users, donors, or customers
is retained on our servers or on site. That information is kept completely
anonymous and securely held off-site. Our fundraiser will begin in a few
days so expect the DOS attack in a week or so, once the fundraiser gets to
about 50% of our stated goal. |
| The wish list: Not
too long ago I had to order a spice rack through Amazon.com. In doing so,
I created an Amazon account. Having an Amazon account allows you to create
a wish list that you can share with others. I made a list of things I need
and things I want just to give our readers an additional way to give us
support. If you don't want anything from our store, and you don't want to
make a donation through paypal, you can buy us stuff through our amazon
wish list. |
| That's all I got for now.
It's time for me to get back to getting tomorrows headlines ready.
Be well, |
| Tj Templeton |
|
|
| 8-6-07 |
| Lot's of new developments.
First off, we're buying and selling advertising. Our support has
dropped to levels we haven't seen in years, so I'm sucking it up and
taking google ads on the front page. The income generated by the ads
barely covers the cost of the google ads we are placing, so we break even
but still get an increase in traffic. I'm not particularly thrilled to see
ads on the front page that link to Ann Coulter or John McCain, but then
again, I'm pretty thrilled to know that they are paying for advertising on
this site that nobody in their right mind will click on. |
| We're making videos
and archiving important moments from CSpan finally. You can see examples
of this on our youtube
page. The editing and production value isn't exactly, top
notch, but we're getting more familiar with the software every day. Most
afternoons in the office are now monitoring and recording CSPAN 3 to catch
any gems you might want to see when you come home from work. We'll also be
making more unique content and upload them as often as possible. |
| Also on the
learning-new-software front: You may have noticed a slight reduction
in the number of news stories that we present every morning. You may have
also noticed that we now update periodically through out the day, to bring
you the most up-to-the-minute headlines we can. The reason for this change
isn't some shift in our production model, rather, it's because I'm
learning a new program for managing the site and the computer language
that goes with it. That results in a loss of our usual research time. So
what you are losing in quantity while I do this, you are gaining in
up-to-the-minute headlines. So check back often and remember to hit
"refresh". Once the site is completely moved over to the new
format, headlines will resume at full quantity (50-60) instead of the
current level (30-50) but we will continue the frequent updates throughout
the day and night. |
| Cool new contest (It's
like a raffle): Since our sales and donation levels are so
unpredictable, the one thing that keeps us afloat during our financial dry
spells is the monthly donors. These are folks who subscribe through Paypal
to have automatic deductions taken from their debit or credit account. We
don't have very many, but of those we do have, they are life savers. We've
come up with a plan to help encourage people to stay subscribed and
hopefully to encourage those who don't subscribe to sign up. (I mean
c'mon, you can sign up for as little as two bucks a month. Surely we are
worth that. I mean seriously, if I'm not worth 7 cents a day to
you... Oops sorry, got on a rant.) Any way... The
contest: Every
Monday we will select one person from the previous week who has donated 5
dollars or more. The person will be selected randomly and contacted by
email to find out their choice for design and shipping instructions. To
be eligible to win all you have to do is have donated 5 dollars or more in
the past week. It can be a one-time donation or recurring subscription.
Those e of you already subscribed are already eligible. Additionally, if
you sign up for monthly subscriptions of any amount, you will
automatically be subscribed to our quarterly newsletter. Which was
recently described by a reader as both "funny and brilliant". So
that's the deal. Sign up for two bucks a month, get subscribed to the
quarterly newsletter. Sign up for 5 bucks a month, get subscribed to the
quarterly newsletter and a chance to win a POAC t-shirt every month until
you cancel. (Canceling is easy, as you'll see on the sign-up page). Make a
one time % dollar or more donation, and you'll be eligible to win the
following week. So here's the sign up: |
| Contest
details (basically what I just wrote) |
| Sign
up for a monthly subscription ( Get the quarterly newsletter
and be eligible for a t-shirt every month) |
| Make a
one-time donation ( be eligible to win a shirt the following week) |
| Become
a POAC sponsor ( 20 Bucks a month, get a POAC gift package,
quarterly newsletter, and weekly contest eligibility) |
|
| I think that's all I have
for this update. The new office is great. We're still getting adjusted.
The media center and printing stations are fully functional. Our data is
far more organized and accessible. We still have a lot to do, but within a
year we should be primed for top notch efficiency. |
| Until next time, be well. |
| Tj Templeton |
|
| 5-21-07 |
| What have we done for you
lately? |
| We know what you've done for us:
Although less than two percent of our daily readers make any kind of
financial contribution, those of you who do, have made an enormous impact
on what we've been able to accomplish in the past 6 years. Let me tell you
about a few of the upcoming new ways that we will be able to return the
favor and show you how your investment in us benefits you. |
| Office relocation/Media
Center: We've outgrown our current location and are upgrading to a
facility with more office space. This means that everything we do will no
longer be shoved into one cramped room. This upgrade allows us to fulfill
a long-held dream: A media center. We'll be able to record the important
parts of the daily news, C-SPAN, and the Sunday political talk shows and
to edit them into bite-size nuggets for our readers. We'll also be
creating our own video presentations on issues that matter to liberals and
progressives that we feel the media is ignoring. This will extend into a
Youtube presence, which you will be able to subscribe to and receive email
notification of new video uploads as they happen. We tried doing this with
flash animations, but that wasn't as feasible as we had hoped. This new
video aspect of the POAC looks to be the most promising endeavor we've
undertaken in a long time. |
| Reworking the website
from the ground up: We're currently running some of our applications
and programs on wildly obsolete software that severely limits the
functionality and potential of the website. Those days are over. Thanks to
our software god/patron saint, we're rebuilding the website from the
ground up on the most up to date software available. Recently, you may
have noticed that the appearance of the site has taken a dive and some
features, such as the search engine, have ceased to function. The broken
features will not only be repaired, but we'll be introducing numerous new
bells and whistles to greatly improve the appearance and flow of the site. |
| Reintroduction of POAC
columnists: Our blog was a flop. Along with the new website, we'll be
introducing a new way to handle and archive the writings of our
contributing columnists. |
| Newly improved
quarterly newsletter: The subscription price won't change (2 bucks a
month, more if you like) but the content and quality will be improved
drastically |
| POAC, the book: Without
giving away too much, let me just say that now that the PNAC has risen and
fallen, we feel it's time for a book to document it. And who else better
to do so than the POAC? We've got more than 6 years of data in our
archives, now we'll be putting it to use. Excerpts from the book will be
released before publication right here on the website. |
| As always, we'll continue
to maintain and expand our individual archives (documents, charts, audio,
video) the discussion forum, and continue to produce a comprehensive detailing
of the daily headlines on the topics that matter the most to liberals and
progressives as well as everything else we do. |
| When do these new developments
take effect? |
| We relocate physically
into our new office in less than a week. Changes should become noticeable
once we get all the kinks worked out. The rebuilding of the site will take
quite a bit of time. The POAC website has thousands of pages as it is,
with new ones added daily. That's quite a task to tackle. The arrival of
the video aspect of the site won't be measured in time, but rather in
dollars. We're about three hundred dollars away from having everything wee
need. That's three hundred more than our usual costs, so how soon that
comes, is up to the generosity of our readers and how badly they want it.
I'm willing to take the time, but how soon it happens depends on the
success of the subject of the next paragraph. |
| Now all of this growth and
maintenance comes with a hefty price. A hefty price that often comes from
our own pockets. But it doesn't have to be that way. By subscribing to the
monthly newsletter, making a donation, or buying something from our store,
you help alleviate that burden we carry to keep the project going and
growing. Thus, we have to launch our summer fundraiser. Our goal this time
around is only 5 grand. That's really really low compared to some of the
other major progressive outlets that supply far less services than we do.
You'll also notice that we rarely take advertisements and never
money from candidates or political parties like many other sites. We rely
on our readers for 99% of our outside funding specifically to avoid being
beholden to others' interests. |
| So please help us with this quarter's
fundraiser and help us keep this ball rolling: |
| Subscribe
to the postal newsletter. Unsubscribe at any time |
| Make a one-time
secure online donation. No Paypal account required |
| Purchase
something from our store. New items added to our sale
page. No Paypal account required |
| Or send a good old fashioned
check made payable to: |
| Project for the Old American
Century |
| PO Box 33 |
| Le mars, IA |
| 51031 |
| In advance, thank you to
everyone generous enough to help support the Project for the old American
Century |
| Be well,
Tj Templeton |
|
|
| 5-2-07 |
| We've gotten some
feedback about our recent format changes and delays in updates, so I
wanted to spend a few minutes letting everyone know where we're at and
what's going on here at the office.
Basically, if you think our operations on your
end is screwy, you oughta see the mess we're working through here. Aside
from the usual workload, for which we are horrifically insufficiently
staffed, we're also working on some simultaneous projects with a few
researchers, two authors, and a third party for marketing. On top of that,
we are still recovering from the crash of our primary hard drive (Remember,
ladies and gentlemen, always back up your work).
Additionally, we're in the process of completely
revamping the appearance and functionality of the website. We are
currently operating on a 7 year old program for our website management.
While this program was quite spiffy in the days before google, youtube,
and Paypal, this program no longer works for the Series of Tubes™ of
2007, so we're updating to a new program that takes a great deal of
learning for all involved. Namely, yours truly. So on top of managing the
Project and dealing with third party projects, I'm rebuilding our web
presence from the ground up.
Now what could possibly make all of this more
chaotic? I'm glad you asked. How about completely relocating our office?
We're upgrading to a new office that will allow us to set up all computers
in one area and separate our printing stations and commercial production
to a different room. This will not only assist us in our organizational
flow, but will help us be more efficient and present a more effective
force in alternative media. So for all of the recent shortcomings, the
payoff will be huge. Expect to see some real positive evidence starting in
June. Probably towards the end of June when the new office is set up and
our transition to the new program commences.
Finally, I just want to thank everyone who has
been generous enough to support us over the years and make all of this
growth possible. You'll notice that our front page is almost always devoid
of advertisement. We are 99% reader supported and intend to always be that
way. This allows us to keep a finger on the pulse of what our readers want
and our country needs. So thank you to everyone who has signed up for
monthly contributions, made a donation, or purchased form our online
store. It's is because of you that this is all possible. We make the news
aggregator and archives and other stuff, but you provide the fuel
to keep it alive and growing. That brings me to another thought:
Some of you have asked why we skipped doing the
quarterly fundraiser for this spring. The answer is this: Our last
fundraiser was so slow moving, that by the time it took us to get close to
our goal, it was already too close to our next fundraiser, so out of
humility we skipped it. I know it sounds foolish to respond to an
unsuccessful fundraiser by skipping the next one, but the fact of the
matter is... with every fundraiser we see the same names every time.
There's a certain guilt factor involved when we have thousands of unique
daily visitors and millions of monthly hits and the same names show up
with every fundraiser. So we decided to give our loyal supporters a break
for a quarter and just take the hit. So that's why there was no spring
fundraiser. But don't worry, we'll be begging like mad come the summer
solstice.
That's about all I can think of for the moment.
I'd just like to finish with a repeat of the gratitude. Thanks again to
everyone who supports us in the work that we do to keep exposing the
fascism of neoconservatism and keep the greatest country in the world as
great as it can be. We love you all and appreciate every one of you. If
you have any questions or comments, feel free to send them our way. We
can't respond to everything, but nothing is left unread.
Tj Templeton, POAC founder and editor |
| edit to add: We're
also working on changing the daily newsletter from the boring plain text
format to an exciting new html format with graphics and other bells and
whistles. |
| 3-18-07 |
| We've updated the timelines page
to include timelines of the Walter Reed scandal and the Bush purge of US
Attorneys. |
| We've
added new entries into the counterspin page regarding the attorney
scandal, Iran, the ACLU, and a few others. |
|
We've
added audio of yesterday's testimony of Valerie Plame before Congress to
the audio archives |
We've
added 9 new items to the discounted POAC store |
|
We've
added environment-friendly cotton totes for grocery shopping or toting
your things. Never have to choose paper or plastic again. |
|
| 2-16-07 |
| Our Q1 fundraiser was
another bust. Our goal was 6k. We brought in 4.5k. Thus continues our
fourth year of operating in the red. I'm completely willing to do another
4 in the red. You can make me poor, but you can't make me go away! |
| Since we last talked,
we've suffered a DOS attack and upgraded to a new dedicated server. This
has resolved our loading speed issues with the POAC
message board. More recently, our mailing list for the daily headline
email was spoofed and spammed all over creation, resulting in
oldamericancentury.org emails being listed as spam by all of the major
spam filtering companies and email hosts. Also, this resulted in some
really terrific hatemails. Our solution was to
abandon the free mailing list provided by our webhost and hire a third
party to handle it. If you were previously subscribed, or wish to be, you
can sign up for the fancy new daily headline newsletter here.
Right now, it is still plain text, but our new mailing list provider
allows html messages, so we will begin experimenting with that. |
| We've added a dozen new
graphics to our online
store . We've also changed the set-up for the purchase of prints and
magnets so that you no longer have to buy them in lots of two or five. You
can now purchase them individually. We plan on adding coffee mugs to our
online store later this year. Also, we plan on increasing the size of our
prints from 8x11 to 22x36. |
| Our postal mail
newsletter has evolved from a monthly little couple of pages to a
substantial quarterly publication. Our first mailing of the quarterly
newsletter will be mailed out in the coming week. If you aren't
subscribed, and wish to be, you can do that here.
There's a link to the sample on that page, but that sample is from the
old, smaller newsletter. Not the new one that will be forthcoming. |
| Finally, an apology. I'd
just like to personally apologize to all of our readers who have had to
put up with us being offline during the hacking attacks and for the
problems that resulted in us having to scrub the daily newsletter
subscriptions. Also, my apologies to the members of our forum who lost 21
days of posts. All of these things were beyond our control but ultimately,
we accept the responsibility. The good news about all of the attacks is
that the only data lost was from the forum and nobody's personal
information was compromised. You know why? It can't be. We retain exactly
0 bytes of personal information of our users and customers on our servers.
Anything you do with us, either a purchase in the online store or becoming
a member on our discussion forum, your private info is 100% safe. |
| That's about all I have
for this time. Until next time, be well.
Tj Templeton
|
| 12-20-06 |
| About the hacking that happened
last week. I posted that I would give the details shortly. Shortly
in POAC time is usually a about a week due to our workload. So anyway,
here's what happened: Someone hacked into the admin user account and
created a chat room on our server. They then used php script to upload and
run a gazzillion .avi files. Bonus: it was in Spanish. This caused our disks to fill up and shut down some of the servers. I guess it was a lame attempt at a denial of service attack.
For those of you technically inclined, here's some details:
3401 ? S 0:00 /usr/local/apache/bin/httpd -DSSL
root@server [/var/log]# lsof -p 3401 | head
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
stats 3401 nobody cwd DIR 0,58 4096 4657735 /home/xxxxxxx/public_html/chatroom/chat/localization/spanish/localized
stats 3401 nobody rtd DIR 0,58 4096 3641393 /
stats 3401 nobody txt REG 0,58 219325 4657744 /home/xxxxxxxx/public_html/chatroom/chat/localization/spanish/localized/stats
stats 3401 nobody mem REG 0,58 90332 3658669 /lib/ld-2.3.2.so
stats 3401 nobody mem REG 0,58 22480 3657808 /lib/libcrypt-2.3.2.so
stats 3401 nobody mem REG 0,58 1476232 3657804 /lib/libc-2.3.2.so
stats 3401 nobody mem REG 0,58 50036 3657887 /lib/libnss_files-2.3.2.so
stats 3401 nobody 0u CHR 1,3 3868505 /dev/null
stats 3401 nobody 1u CHR 1,3 3868505 /dev/null
root@server [/home/xxxxxxx/public_html/chatroom/chat/localization/spanish/localized]# ls -l
total 4506672
drwxr-xr-x 2 nobody nobody 4096 Dec 13 15:42 ./
drwxrwxrwx 4 xxxxxxx xxxxxxx 4096 Nov 21 13:58 ../
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 733935616 Nov 24 15:59 24.0re.Nella.Vita.Di.Una.Donna.2002.iTALiAN.LiMiTED.DVDRip.XviD-BoX.avi
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 357871616 Dec 10 02:17 Donne.di.Mafia.cd1.2001.iTALiAN.DvDRip.XviD.UnioN.avi
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 377065472 Dec 10 02:17 Donne.di.Mafia.cd2.2001.iTALiAN.DvDRip.XviD.UnioN.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 734457856 Nov 24 14:57 Hi.Darma.2006.ITALiAN-AC3.DVDRiP.XviD-DeLuXe.CD1.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 735674368 Nov 24 15:19 Hi.Darma.2006.ITALiAN-AC3.DVDRiP.XviD-DeLuXe.CD2.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 0 Nov 21 14:00 Infodll.state
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 30916608 Dec 13 08:05 Ray.Charles-A.Gospel.Christmas-Live.concert-DvDRip.by.GralL.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 733937664 Nov 24 14:54 Spirit.Bear.2005.iTALiAN.STV.DVDRip.XViD-BoX.avi
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 172851200 Dec 9 10:57 Strada.Per.La.Morte.2006.iTALiAN.STV.DVDRip.XviD-BoX.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 733300736 Nov 27 11:10 _o_sistema_Ac3.XviD-stella.by.EVA.avi
-rw-rw-rw- 1 nobody nobody 6 Dec 1 13:22 bot.pid
-rwxrwxrwx 1 nobody nobody 7806 Nov 21 13:59 del*
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 0 Dec 13 15:42 mybot.state
-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 0 Dec 13 15:39 mybot.state~
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nobody nobody 219325 Nov 21 13:59 stats*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 nobody nobody 15125 Nov 21 13:59 xh*
So anyway, that's about it. It clogged up our mail
server and temporarily wrecked our discussion forum. The main site went
down for a short while. Our tech support caught it in time and kept most
of the site running just fine. We deleted the files, enhanced our firewall
and other security measures, changed passwords and all that other stuff.
Anyway, that's about it. Sorry it took me so long to get this
posted. |
|
