Firstly – sorry about all these duplicate posts, it seems to be a necessary evil from the RSS reader point of view, since my feed url has changed. The good news is that there shouldn’t be too many more of them….

I’ve been pulling in my old Roller posts using http://codex.wordpress.org/Importing_From_Roller and the Movable Type importer (http://codex.wordpress.org/Importing_from_Movable_Type_to_WordPress), but I noticed that while everything imported “ok” nothing was showing up in my list of published posts.

Most annoying. After approving all the comments that were associated with those posts, ~30 posts were then publishable, but that still left around 250 to finagle.

15 minutes ago I got sufficiently annoyed (after reading this forum post) that I decided to update the db by hand. Ha!

So after a quick mysqldump of the wordpress tables + content, I ran this sequence:

mysql@mailzone:~$ /usr/bin/mysql -u $myWPusername -p
[enter passwd]
mysql> select ID,post_type,post_status from wordpress.wp_posts where post_type="post";
+-----+-----------+-------------+
| ID  | post_type | post_status |
+-----+-----------+-------------+
| 310 | post      | 1           |
| 311 | post      | 1           |
| 312 | post      | 1           |
|  28 | post      | 1           |
|  29 | post      | 1           |
|  30 | post      | 1           |
...
|   3 | post      | auto-draft  |
|  21 | post      | auto-draft  |
| 457 | post      | auto-draft  |
|  35 | post      | publish     |
|  59 | post      | publish     |
|  71 | post      | publish     |
|  96 | post      | publish     |
...
|   1 | post      | trash       |
+-----+-----------+-------------+
291 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Checking my roller database dump, I noticed it had “STATUS: 1″ for each post, which the MT importer clearly plonked verbatim into the mysql table. Now it was time for the surgical strike:

mysql> update wordpress.wp_posts SET post_status="publish" where post_type="post" and post_status=1;
Query OK, 256 rows affected (0.10 sec)
Rows matched: 256  Changed: 256  Warnings: 0

mysql> commit;Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

..... although like Arthur[1], I do now have a shed.

J ordered a garden shed from cheapsheds.com.au in November; it arrived after my fortnight off in November so I didn’t get it constructed and installed until today. I managed to get the paving done during my holiday (paver 2nds from Centenary Landscaping just up the road were $18/sqm, rather than Bunnings’ $4 per paver, and sand at $4/40kg), then it was just a matter of finding a few spare hours when we didn’t have pre-Christmas stuff. That turned out to be today

My mate Leighton was able to come over and help, so from start to finish the shed assembly took a little under 4 hours. Definitely a two-man operation, especially when putting the panels together, there were a few tiny holes to line up in sheet metal when screwing the corners together. His extra height (10cm) helped with the screws from the roof into the top of the sides, too. I would have needed a ladder.

This is the back panel:

Subject says it all, really. I’ll try to get my old roller posts imported, but it isn’t a priority.

It’s been bugging that I haven’t updated my Roller Weblogger instance from 4.0.1 to 5.0 – the “new” version is now a year or so old. Bit the bullet this evening and ran through the steps needed:

• unzip archive and unjar the war file

• create webapp/WEB-INF/classes/roller-custom.properties

• edit relevant parts of the roller-custom.properties file

• add postgresql.jar and the Javaxmail.jar to webapp/WEB-INF/lib

Today we went to see a neurosurgeon about J’s tumour. He was quite pessimistic about the side effects of the possible surgical approaches, which is a complete contrast to the ENT surgeon we saw a few weeks back. He told us to come back in 6 months after another MRI and just wait it out. We’ll go and see a radiosurgeon in mid January to get his opinion about whether that would be a better option than cutting open her skull, however it’s all very very draining. J’s spent all of the afternoon in tears – she was mentally better prepared for the neuro to say “I can fit you in tomorrow, see you at 7am” instead of “come back later.” So we’ll wait and see. We were hoping to get surgery done in April anyway, so another 2-3 months isn’t too long a wait. It does, however, mean that she’ll have to put up with the symptoms for longer. The benefit, though, is that we’ll get more time to evaluate the risks of the possible options.

I live in the Queensland electorate of Mt Ommaney (pdf map). Our local member is Julie Attwood. In today’s junkmail delivery was this flyer:

I sent a submission in to the recent Civil Unions bill expressing my support for that bill. I am delighted to see that my local MP’s vote on both Civil Unions and Surrogacy was enough to pull the knuckle-dragging homophobes out of the woodwork. The flyer comes from the Australian Marriage Forum, which describes itself with these words:

We are people and organisations who are concerned at how advocates are pushing for same-sex marriage without really presenting the reality of what this means for our nation. Two of the founding organisations are the Australian Christian Lobby and the Australian Family Association.It’s important to note that legislation to support same-sex marriage may have enormous consequences on our culture and we want to bring those concerns to the fore so we can be open and honest about what we really need and want when it comes to defining marriage in our nation.

One thing that I am certain of is that neither the ACL or AFA actually want to have an “open and honest” discussion about marriage, because that would mean accepting that a sizeable majority of the voting population of Australia believe same sex marriage is a good, necessary, compassionate and loving idea.

One other thing of note: the flyer mentions a .org.au website, but redirects you to a plain .org instead. I’m not certain that they’d be allowed to use a legitimate .org.au domain under current AuDA rules.

::

Dear Woodford Folk Festival oraganisers,I write regarding your inclusion of Meryl Dorey on your 2012 program.

Meryl Dorey and the Australian Vaccination Network’s platform is a complete denial of science and objective facts. Their ability to negatively affect the public health of the nation is enhanced by your festival giving them a platform, and by describing her as a “leading expert in vaccination.”

Ms Dorey is not an expert in vaccination, still less is she a leader in the field.

While you continue to accept her and other antivaccinationists for your program, and misleadingly promote them, I will not patronise the event. The health of my family and friends is too important to put it in harm’s way by attending.

I have written complaints to the Queensland Government, the ABC Sunshine Coast local radio station, Triple J and to Santos expressing my dismay at your actions, and displeasure that those organisations (which have a well known and long-term committment to public health in this country) continue to associate with your festival.

Yours faithfully,James C. McPherson

It’s been announced that once again, the Woodford Folk Festival will be giving the “Australian Vaccination Network” a platform from which to speak in 2012. This angers me greatly: antivaccination activists deny that vaccines can do any good for humanity, cherry-pick from research to “prove” their thesis, harrass grieving parents of children who died from preventable diseases, and fraudulently claim to offer health advice.

Sadly, the Queensland Government and Moreton Bay Regional Council are sponsoring the event. I say “sadly” because both bodies have policies regarding non-vaccination, have concerns for the public good (via maintenance of public health), and their involvement in this event gives legitimacy to the anti crowd.Just as frustrating is the sponsorship of Triple J and the ABC’s Sunshine Coast station.

Here is a copy of the complaint I just submitted to the Queensland Government regarding the sponsorship of the Woodford Folk Festival:

The Woodford Folk Festival is giving antivaccination activists a platform to spout their murderous ideology.Since the Queensland Government is sponsoring this event, the festival is sending a message that “it must be ok to not vaccinate, because they wouldn’t sponsor the festival if they didn’t agree with Meryl Dorey.” As a citizen with a very high regard for the work of our state and nation’s scientists who have worked tirelessly for many years to advance vaccine science (as well as the benefits of our public health system) I am _disgusted_ that the Queensland Government continues to sponsor this event.It is my contention that the Festival’s ongoing support for antivaccinationists makes it a public health hazard.

I will be sending similar complaints to the Moreton Bay Regional Council, TripleJ and the ABC, as well as the festival’s other major sponsor, Santos

So how could a festival be a danger to public health? Simple: by continuing to provide a platform and seeming legitimacy to a group whose ideology (which, let us remember, is not based on objective research or facts) is diametrically opposed to the benefits which medical research have brought in the last ~100 years.

I received this email from the Regional Content Manager:

Thanks for your email James.

Firstly ABC Local Radio does NOT sponsor events. We support events by providing editorial support to an event and sometimes that involves an outside broadcast.

ABC Coast FM has supported the Woodford Folk Fest for many years and our broadcast has been networked nationally. The festival is of interest to our audience and the editorial support that we provide concerns itself with the artists that perform there and the general theme of the festival.

If you hear any content on ABC Coast FM that breaches our editorial policies then please feel free to forward a written compliant to this email address.

Kind regards,

John Caruso

Regional Content Manager

To which I responded:

Hi John, thankyou for the quick response, I appreciate it. I’m really glad to know that ABC Local Radio does not sponsor events; the festival sponsors page did not make that distinction clear.

I agree, the event is something of interest to a very wide audience around the country. If your team do happen to get Ms Dorey in a conversation, please don’t make the mistake that 612 made recently when they let her comments pass without challenge from an appropriately qualified public health specialist.

Thankyou and best regards,

James C. McPherson