An Apology To Our Readers

I discovered, to my utter horror today, that I've not paid enough attention to the workings of the very awesome Intense Debate comment system I installed.  ID is a great system, but today I'm wishing it had more of a nag function.  I discovered today that I had old comments on blog posts that were embargoed awaiting moderator approval.  That wasn't so bad, there were only two comments. But I was totally dismayed to find that the ID spam filter had caught over 15 comments on various blog posts from as far back as 65 weeks ago.  Those comments never got posted because I didn't realize I should be taking a look at the spam filter regularly. 

There were some thoughtful comments in there and a compliment or two from fellow bloggers like the earnest Afrocity.  All of that great engagement with our readers I missed and I'm greatly chagrined.  So my apologies to all those who took the time to comment and never saw their comments appear.  I've approved all of them and I intend to go back through them all and respond to them as well.  From here on out, I promise to pay much closer attention to the ID moderation and spam filters.

Political Season Gets a Minor Makeover

I've been dithering over changing the look of the blog for awhile now, intending to make the move to Wordpress where many of my black blogging betters (in traffic) seem to reside.  But life is usually getting the better of me and I just haven't found the time to invest in the project.  Blogger happily has come along and introduced a new template designer interface that simplified the work of remaking the look and feel of the blog.  I took it out for a spin and while the blog design is still a bit mass market pedestrian, readers who appreciate our content here at APS will likely overlook that. 

Considering that I have had more than a few people tell me that the black background and font size made the blog hard to read, I'm hoping that what the current design may lack in web panache, it will more than make up for in improved readability.  In addition to sprucing up the page. I also was able to clean out old code that was affecting blog load time and I completely  reinstalled the comment system which was never quite right under my old custom template. Now you get the full Intense Debate comment system experience, with a ton of social media intergration in it connecting to Twitter, Facebook and other networks.  A great blog desires great readers, so follow us on Networked Blogs and via Google Friend Connect.

So stop through and look it over and leave us a comment with your reaction to the new look, layout and how well the comment system is working.  Feedback is always welcome.

Not Gone, Just Delayed

I have not posted anything in a fair bit and I'm sure some of my readers have been wondering "where the heck is Political Season these past weeks". Fear not, I am well, if a bit heavy burdened by the travails of everyday life. Unlike many of my blogging betters, my volume tends to recede when life is strongly demanding my attention. I'll be back to opining, perhaps sooner than I think.