Most of the material here is my opinion. Exceptions include comments posted by others, or items that I include from other sources…like this quote, which is worth keeping in mind in any political discussion:

“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.” – Jefferson

I prefer to use a light hand in moderating comments…but please remember this is a moderated site. I reserve the right to edit all comments, and to moderate all comment threads. You’re likely to have your input edited or eliminated if it contains phobic content (e.g., based on race, sex, sexual orientation, nationality, religion), is a personal attack against someone, is entirely unrelated to the entry topic, has such poor grammar and spelling that it would take a lot of time to clean up, etc. Please remember you are always welcome to start up your own blog which you can run as you see fit.

One of the things the internet has taught us all is that we sometimes act differently when we aren’t “known” where we’re opining. If you pretend that your comment is being made to a group of people at a get-together you’ll greatly minimize the chances of it being edited or eliminated. Another good rule of thumb is to write as if you expected your thoughts to show up on a billboard smack in the middle of your home town. If you’d be uncomfortable with that kind of exposure you probably ought to phrase your comment differently.

Sometimes I may tell people to “move on.” This means I’ll likely delete later posts on that topic by that commenter. This doesn’t affect any other topics, of course.

Sometimes material gets marked for moderation by the software itself. This usually happens because you’ve used a black-listed word or phrase , included three or more links in an entry, or something like that. I try to release such comments in a timely fashion, but if you don’t see your post show up fairly soon please try posting again.

I don’t expect to do this, but please be aware that flagrantly and repeatedly violating the rules of the road here can lead to all your posts requiring review and release by me before they show up. Or even being banned outright. Usually I’ll warn you that things are getting out of hand first, but that’s a goal, not a promise.