It appears that as we get closer to November 4th, people (by people I mean the WSJ) all across the country are beginning to look closer at Obama’s proposed “tax cuts” and other tenants of his campaign. One of the most startling things people are finding is that while he promises to cut taxes on 95% of families (40% of which do not pay taxes) he’s “proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%”. Something hardly anyone was talking about a week ago.

Now MSM (main stream media) and Others are finally taking note. So yes, while he would “cut” taxes, the truth is that just like other democrats before him who promised lower taxes, he’s actually raising them. In fact, according to the WSJ article:

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of “making work pay,” but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you’re a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year.

Thats something you won’t hear any of the talking heads on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or any other MSM outlet mention or ask him about. Its only a wonder why we haven’t heard that from the McCain Camp yet.

Popularity: unranked [?]

If you’re like me, you’re a bit hesitant to upgrade to the latest release of Wordpress. DoG was running a very good install of the last 2.2.x release and I wasn’t in a rush to upgrade it for several reasons. The largest reason and one you can still see some of the effects of on the site, is that the theme I’m using, Redoable by DJR hasn’t been updated for the 2.3 branch and most likely won’t be any time soon.

If you’re not currently running a theme compatible with the 2.3.x branch of wordpress, I would recommend changing your theme to one that is or wait to upgrade until you’re comfortable with doing the work yourself. I’m in the process of a redesign and I wanted to use some of the native features in the new releases of WP so I went ahead and made the jump. It wasn’t all cake though, there are some hoops to jump through before you dive right in.

1. Download the latest version to your server (if you have ssh, log in and do a wget) via wget or ftp if you can.
2. Log in to your admin area and disable ALL plugins (yes Virginia, even Akismet. No, don’t worry, you’ll have akismet back up with in 15 minutes). They make it nice and easy in wordpress to disable everything at once (there’s a link at the bottom of the plugin management page that disables everything with one click).
3. Set your default theme to the Default wordpress theme. This is recommended practice for several reasons one, the default theme is standard in wordpress releases and WILL work on your site immediately after the upgrade where as your current theme may or may not.
4. Unzip and copy (again really easy in ssh) the new release to your blog directory. Make sure to copy the contents in wordpress to your blog’s directory and not just the wordpress folder.
5. Run http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin/upgrade.php - This is a crucial step as the database changed from the 2.2.x versions to the 2.3 branch. You need to update the database or nothing on the site will work correctly.
6. Check your site. Once the upgrade has completed you can check your site. Your posts and everything should display properly using the default theme.
7. Login to your admin area and UPGRADE ANY plugins that say there is a new release. **THIS IS IMPORTANT** as the database changes rendered the way some plugins accessed the information. If you don’t upgrade the plugins you might get errors (like the UTC category error on this site). Its easy and will take hardly any time at all. One of the features I LIKE about 2.3 is that it lets me know when I need to upgrade the plugins.
8. Activate all your plugins - Or at least the ones you still want to use. I went through and cleared out some of the ones not in use here on the site and it helped a bit.
9. Select new theme - You *should* now be able to reset your theme to the one you want. There may be some errors, if that is the case check the wordpress.org site for answers, chances are that someone has already had the same issue.

In all, it should take less than an hour to do the upgrade. If you’re unsure, there are plenty of people who will do it for you (often for a slight fee). I’ve found the best way is to be prepared. Download the new version before you start anything and make sure you read the upgrade notes. If you’re using a custom theme, make sure it will work. I’ve found that most themes will with some minor changes to the way they call some of the WP hooks.

Good Luck young Skywalker.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Well, I’ve gone and done it and you might notice the site loading slower because of it. I’m in the process of redesigning the site. As part of that, I went ahead and upgraded the wordpress install powering it. While it seems to have gone smoothly for the most part, there are some issues. Such as now xcache isn’t working correctly which is resulting in slower load times.

If anyone has any idea how to clear the xcache and start from scratch, please, please, please let me know. I can’t for the life of me figure it out! Oh and stay tuned for the new theme….

Popularity: 14% [?]