Thanks

Sure, there are many free* web hosting packages out there — here’s a link to a Google search result for “free web hosting”:
http://tinyurl.com/y5tctk

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
*I guess even the word “free” is open to interpretation — as a time-limited promo, dots4less.com is reducing their “one-time” setup fee from $19.95 to $10.95.
After you pay THAT, it’s free.
Call it semantics, if you will.
I call it “not-the-whole-truth” advertising.
< <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

You're bound to find some spiffy deals if you're looking for the cheapest way to create a web presence for yourself or your group/company. I haven't tested out Guy R.'s recommended Dots4less.com service, and it may be perfectly acceptable and more inexpensive than Total Choice Hosting. I'm simply recommending a service that I considered very recommendable.

Please note that in this blog, I don't intend to get into a debate about the relative merits of this hosting service over that one. I've approved Guy R's comment for posting to the blog as is, but I don't plan on OK'ing any further comments, many of which might be viewed as thinly-veiled promos for other similar-but-cheaper services. I have to approve every comment before you see it, and I *will* use that authority to keep the content of my blog under control...

I'm still recommending Total Choice Hosting service, from my personal experience --- see their forum for more info and feedback from contented users: http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/

“It’s bad enough that they are smart and rich…Do they have to have more orgasms too?”

Thanks for your interest in my blog entries, and my son Daniel’s photoblog too.

If I were running the federal government…
Nah, it could never happen — me running the federal government, I mean. Because I would run on an election platform of reducing income inequalities and improving social justice for disadavantaged communities. And that isn’t “sexy” enough to get people to vote for you. It’s kinda like an aspiring politician whose platform is “Fixing our Broken Bridges” – it just doesn’t grab anyone — until a bridge collapses and people die. The social fabric of a society collapses too, without regular maintenance…

Re. “can government budgets only get larger — never smaller?”
Libertarians and the Canadian Taxpayer Federation want to see smaller budgets and smaller government – I’d like to see smaller differences between Canadians’ well-being (housing, health, decent-paying jobs), and less government simply doesn’t go in that direction at all.

Perhaps the way around it is through the use of two inter-linked blogs. Alternatively, some blogging software allows categories to be set up in such a way that the content in each category is viewed separately so you can have multiple blogs within a single blog (I don’t know if Wordpress is one of these).

On the other hand, you’ve started your blog at a particularly dark moment for the social policy community, which would amplify the problem of discussing social policy on the same page as cats and fishing and platelets. Hopefully not all weeks will be so dismal that you feel bad mentioning the lighter things in life.

Thanks for this suggestion concerning a subscription function. I hadn’t considered it, because I thought that anyone who comments on one of my blogs can sign up for notification whenever someone posts something in the same group of replies. I guess that isn’t the case.
[Still crawling up the Blog learning curve…)
I’ve asked my technical advisor for advice – looks do-able, stay tuned…

2. When I posted my first-ever blog (“Whither Canadian Social Research Links”?) on September 15, the recently-retired Michael Goldberg, former Research Director of the Social Planning and Research Council of Vancouver ( http://www.sparc.bc.ca/ ) sent me his comments via private e-mail. (I’ve known Michael since one of the first Social Welfare Policy conferences I attended, in the early eighties.)

Michael decided to send me his comments privately because he spoke of his “new” fishing hobby, and I guess he thought that a public blog about social research might not be the most appropriate venue to do this.
Uh-uh.
There *is* a social research component to this blog, for sure, but there’s also “the person behind the links and the newsletter. And part of that person is an avid fisherman, so there ya go.

So, with Michael’s permission, I’m copying below what he had to say about my blog which contains the question “Whither Canadian Social Research Links?”

“As for your question on the blog. Your site is the best repository for
accessing key information or key links for us policy wonks. And I know
other go there regularly, either because of something in the newsletter or
because they are trying to find some social policy information. It is much
appreciated but I clearly understand how it has gotten out of hand. I don’t
know how you do the weekly newsletter with all the updates.”

Thanks Michael – and Tight Lines!
gs

Newsletter, blog – it doesn’t matter to me except to the extent that it would be great if your blog had a subscribe function. With a subscribe function on the blog, you get I use bloglet for my personal blog (http://www.witsterblog.blogspot.com).