I can not believe that it is Christmas 2007. As I look back on this year, I have much to be thankful for.

As much as I miss my Mother and wish that she could be with us this Christmas, I am thankful that she is finally at peace. Her struggle was long and painful, but never a complaint. I wish her everlasting peace. I am thankful for our friends and family that got us through her death. We asked that no flowers be sent, please find it in your heart to make a donation to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. The flowers overfilled the funeral home, church and my father’s house, yet the donations far exceeded their costs. I am thankful that our Mother taught us the importance of “Finding cures. Saving children”, and I am thankful that her family and friends remembered this.

Some of you had problems logging into the site or having your comments recorded.  I got with Lisa, and she made some adjustments, so I hope you are all happy?  If not, you can e-mail me any complaints at : peejz@yahoo.com

Speaking of Lisa, there is some exciting news to report.  Lisa not only owns this blog, among others, but she is also the owner of  E.Webscapes which is a blog design and web development studio. She also own Blogs About Hosting - which is a blog and webhosting service. I know I am leaving out some of her other businesses, but I don’t want to look like her braggart!  Blogs are her business and that doesn’t leave her much time to actually get into the act of blogging..I do want you to know about her next big project.  I am so psyched for her and I see this as a win win situation for the reader:

I want to thank-you for bringing the comment problems to my attention. I have a claim into the web-host, so I hope to have it resolved, but please be patient. No I have not blocked anyone, nor have I deleted your comments..unless it was in the 1800 spams that I dumped yesterday….if there were legit comments in there, there is a good chance I did delete those, but in no way did I do it intentionally. And I do hope that I didn’t..

Thanks again!

Peejz

Please join me in toasting the marriage today of Lisa and Chris (the owners of this site)

May you have food and raiment,
A soft pillow for your head,
May you be 100 years in heaven
Before the devil knows you’re dead

Here is a toast to lying, cheating, stealing and drinking:
If you lie, lie only to keep a friend.
If you cheat, may you cheat death.
If you steal, steal your lover’s heart.
If you drink, drink deeply of the joy of your new life together.

Congratulations, I wish you much love, health and happiness!

Love,

Peejz

Like us, or hate us - we’ve been plugging along at this political blogging thing for over three years now. Our first post here was in February 2003. When we first started this site, it wasn’t called Right Voices - if you check out our Bio Page you can read the history of this site and see how we got our idealistic start as a website called “Boycott Hollywood”.

In October 2004, we made the change from Boycott Hollywood to Right Voices - because, really, how much can you really say about Hollywood liberals before you’ve said it all, and it becomes predictable?

Through it all - we had a very lively front page blog, but we also had a very active discussion forum. We closed down the forum in January of 2005 because of our inability to really manage the forum - - it got so busy and so big . . after 2.5 years, it was time to give it a rest.

A few things have changed around the site, I just want to make mention of for our users and readers.

We’ve upgraded the platform software that runs this site, WordPress, to the latest version 1.5.2 that addressed some security issues and other bug bits. Along with it, we’ve upgraded and updated our anti-spam program. Last time we did this - some of our users notified us that they could not leave comments on the site, and we’ve seemed to work those issues through. With this new update - please let us know if you have any issues leaving comments and participating in the discussion here.

Some improvements worth mentioning:

The design and look of the site is pretty different, hey? It was time to clean the site up a bit and reformat it so that the load is quicker and the information not so jumbled.

Cindy and Dennis
Lisa and family are in the south right now. Please keep them in your thoughts. Lisa feels they will just receive wind and rain, but one never knows.

Not that I’m a huge fan of MSNBC, or anything . . . however, they can highlight our site on their Connected: Coast to Coast anytime they want, really.

The Political Teen has got the video.

You all know her as peejz. She has been a long-time contributor here at Right Voices since . . . almost . . . day one. We have enjoyed her comments, debates and participation in the discussion here at Right Voices - - more than we can say.

Reilly and I (and Chris - the behind-the-scenes tech-type guy) are thrilled to bring Peejz on board as our newest author here at Right Voices. She has just enough spunk and spirit to keep the discussion ripe and fun. I, personally, have enjoyed the heck outta getting to know Peejz through this site over the last few years — and we just know that we’ll have a blast reading her contributions to the ongoing discussions here, as an author - as well as a contributor.

Welcome aboard, Peejz!!

You all be nice to her now. (well, Peejz - you can’t say I didn’t try!)

We’re doing some much needed maintenance on Right Voices. Upgrading to the latest version of 1.5 and re-working some of the back-end stuff. You’ll see some drastic changes, at first — then it should all settle back to normal.

This should take me only about an hour . . . provided I know what I’m doing.

When including links in the comments on this site - - please try to include them in html format like this:

The Text You Want Linked

Placing long URLs into the comments seems to disrupt the format of the site — pushing the body content over to the right. I have to edit at least 5-10 comments per day because of this.

I appreciate your cooperation!

Update: Did a little research and was able to add buttons to the comments area. To use them - just highlight the words you wish to use the tag on and then click the button. Easy cheesey!

Right Voices is undergoing an overhaul. We’re currently using Movable Type to power this blog - - however, we’ve discovered a more powerful tool in WordPress. Over the next few days, there will be changes here and there - - just ignore the dust and step around the clutter as best as you can!

As always, thank you all for visiting and keeping the discussions flowing!

Apologies for a short interruption in site surfing here. This morning I upgraded from the Berkely Database sytem and integrated this site using MYSQL Database. It was about a 15 minute conversion - during which time, the site was ultimately screwed up.

Doesn’t mean much for many - basically, in a nutshell - it should make the site and archives load quicker and makes for a more secure environment for administering this site.

We’ll now return you to your regular programming.

As we come to the close of February 12, 2004 - through it all I wanted to take a minute to give Reilly and Chris my heartfelt thanks for a year of their dedication, support, assistance and good times here. To our visitors - we hope you stick around for another year of fun and frolic!

Happy Anniverary to us

Due to some suggestions made by readers - we now have a feature that allows you to subscribe to comments for a topic that you may wish to follow. This feature will send you an email whenever someone has left a comment on a thread that you are following and are interested in staying active in.

Hope this helps a bit with keeping track of discussions that you find interesting.

Thanks for the suggestions!

**Update**

Got too eager to go live with this one - - still working out the kinks so it’s not quite operational yet…but soon **

**Another Update**
I think I’ve got the feature working correctly now. Please let me know if any of you have any issues with it.

On behalf of everyone here at Right Voices - I would like to extend a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. It is my heartfelt wish that you have a very happy and a very, very safe holiday season. Blogging here will be light over the next few days due to the holidays and much needed time off with family and friends.

Extra special holiday wishes goes out to our men and women in the United States Military - thank you for all that you do, here at home and overseas. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and your family - wherever you may be!

We’ve re-opened the comments feature on the site - - you’re welcomed to it!

Our discussion forum still remains open where we discuss many other current events other than what we post here, on the main page - - so feel free to join, if you’d like (the link is on the top of the left menu column).

We haven’t had the comments open for a number of months for various reasons that aren’t as important anymore as they once were.

Just an FYI update!

Notice a few changes, did ya?

Oh yea - - we’ve been busy little bees over here. Not completely and totally finished with this yet, however - we’re 95% there and should be finished by the end of the weekend.

Why the change? Things change, people change - - focus has changed. We’re still the same people running this site . . . but as the world changes around us, so should we be changing.

Oh yes - we still have the same focus as we did at Boycott Hollywood - - and we’ll still be singling out those Hollywood Pundits that make us cringe. However, there are so many other things going on in this world today - Reilly, Chris and I chose to broaden the outlook of our site.

We’ve always written about general politics, media and other things - - but mainly, the site was centered upon Hollywood punditry. We’ll still be doing it - however, that, and much more.

Our standard disclaimer in our comments sections states this:

We enjoy and encourage comments from our readers - even the ones in disagreement with our opinions stated on our website. However, please understand that we can and will delete comments and ban IP’s from those people who insist upon spamming this site, flaming other members, as well as for slander, racial slurs, blatant insults towards other visitors. This is at complete discretion of the owners of this website and is not up for debate. If this offends you or if you feel that this infringes on your freedom of speech - go to http://www.google.com, search for available web hosts and start your own website. Thanks!

Get your own Boycott Hollywood Pop3 email account.
Anyone who makes a $5, or more, donation to Boycott Hollywood via the PayPal donation system will receive a 2MB POP3 email account with the ‘@boycott-hollywood.net’ extention for 6 months.  This email account can have any user name you wish  - - for example: yourname@boycott-hollywood.net.
When you make your donation - please indicate your desire to have a Boycott Hollywood email account, your desired username and password in the comment section of the donation form.
It’s that easy. You’ll receive an email from the Administration at Boycott Hollywood with instructions such as the POP3 and SMTP server information.