You may have noticed a lack of updates over the past few weeks, and no word from me. The reason for this is merely that I currently don’t have internet access at home. It’s an issue that I’m trying to get resolved, but it’s preventing me from being able to fix the registration bug and posting to SIU or An Army of 1 in 10.

I hope to be back online next week.

Sign-ups are temporarily on hold because a bug has appeared in the code which is preventing the creation of blogs. I’m working on getting this fixed ASAP, so please be patient and I’ll re-enable signups soon. Please accept my deepest apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Hot on the heels of Blueblog, a new theme is ready for immediate use: Regulus. This is a highly configurable theme with too many configuration options to list here. Once enabled, a new menu will appear under Presentation entitled “Current Theme Options.” Just follow that link to customize Regulus to your liking.

A new theme is available for your use: Blueblog.

This is a widgets-enabled theme with a pleasant design. There aren’t a whole lot of features packed into it, but it’s a very nice-looking theme that’ll spruce up your blog quite nicely. Enable it the usual way by going into Presentation in your Dashboard.

There’s a shiny new extra in your Dashboard for you to use. It’s called “Sideblog.”

What this extra will do is allow you to post “asides” on your blog. If you don’t already know, an aside is a small post that you deem too insignificant to take up space on your front page as a main post, but that you’d still like to share with the world. An example can be seen on An Army of 1 in 10.

To get started with this, you’ll need to activate the extra as you’d normally do, then go to your Options page and click the new Sideblog link you’ll find there. Once on that page, you need to pick which category (or categories) you want to use for your asides. My recommendation is to create a new one (Manage -> Categories) called “Asides.”

You can configure how the asides will be displayed on the Sideblog options page by editing the text in the “Display Format” column. A legend is at the bottom of the page to help you configure it. An Army of 1 in 10’s asides are using the following format: <li>%title_url%</li>

After you’ve got it configured to your liking, go to Presentation -> Sidebar Widgets and drag the new widget (called “Sideblog 1″) to where you’d like it to appear and click the Save Changes button. All you need to do after this, is to make sure you select the category you chose for your Asides when you’re posting something as an aside.

Some of you may notice that I’ve added a new extra today, called “Live Archives.” This extra does not yet work in any themes, and it’s mainly there for testing purposes while I do go through the themes to make them compatible with it. It’s a great way for your visitors to explore your archives (once I get it enabled site-wide). You can see it in action at An Army of 1 in 10.

Once I’ve gotten it enabled site-wide, I will remove the ALL CAPS WARNING on the Extras page and post another announcement.

I have an experimental social network set up over on Ning.com. This network is closed to the public and I will only invite people who have a blog set up here on SIU.

If you’d like to check it out and help get it started, head on over to http://servinginunsilence.ning.com/. Make sure that you use the same email address that you signed up with here so I can verify that you do have a blog here.

A new theme has been added to the site for use. It’s called “Salt and Pepper.”

To use this theme, log into your dashboard, and click on Presentation then pick it from the list of themes on that page.

SLDN published a post on their blog last week that SGT Bleu Copas will be receiving the 2007 Barry Winchell Courage Award. SGT Copas was discharged under DADT last January when an anonymous “tipster” informed his chain of command that he was gay. Despite the fact that his Article 31 rights were violated during the course of the investigation, his Special Court-Martial Convening Authority decided there were grounds for separation.

The award will be presented during SLDN’s 15th annual dinner on March 24th.

Congratulations, SGT Copas.

Some interesting statistics from the New York Times (via Early Bird News):

The number of waivers granted to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds has grown about 65 percent in the last three years, increasing to 8,129 in 2006 from 4,918 in 2003, Department of Defense records show.

During that time, the Army has employed a variety of tactics to expand its diminishing pool of recruits. It has offered larger enlistment cash bonuses, allowed more high school dropouts and applicants with low scores on its aptitude test to join, and loosened weight and age restrictions.

It has also increased the number of so-called “moral waivers” to recruits with criminal pasts, even as the total number of recruits dropped slightly. The sharpest increase was in waivers for serious misdemeanors, which make up the bulk of all the Army’s moral waivers. These include aggravated assault, burglary, robbery and vehicular homicide.

The number of waivers for felony convictions also increased, to 11 percent of the 8,129 moral waivers granted in 2006, from 8 percent.

Fewer than 3 in 10 people ages 17 to 24 are fully qualified to join the Army. That means they have a high school diploma, have met aptitude test score requirements and fitness levels, and would not be barred for medical reasons, their sexual orientation or their criminal histories.

The Defense Department has also expanded its applicant pool by accepting soldiers with criminal backgrounds and medical problems like asthma, high blood pressure and attention deficit disorder, situations that require waivers. Medical waivers have increased 4 percent, totaling 12,313 in 2006. Without waivers, the soldiers would have been barred from service.

In the last three years, the percentage of moral waivers for all new enlistments in the four services combined has fallen 3 percent, with spikes in the Army and Air Force. In all, 125,525 such waivers have been issued since 2003. The Marine Corps issues far more moral waivers than the Army — 20,750 in 2006 — but only because it has a stricter policy on drug use. It requires waivers for one-time marijuana use while the other services do not. Rules on waivers vary by service.

Reading further into the article, we find this:

“By lowering standards, we are endangering the rest of our armed forces and sending the wrong message to potential recruits across the country,” Mr. Meehan said. “Our men and women in uniform represent the best and brightest in America, and we need to keep it that way.”

Aaron Belkin, director of the Michael D. Palm Center, a research institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara, that focuses on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding homosexuality, obtained the most recent data from the Department of Defense.

Mr. Belkin said the increases in moral waivers in the Army posed a problem only to the extent that the military failed to track these recruits or provide special integration training for them.

Since more than 125,000 service members with criminal histories have joined the military in the last three years, Mr. Belkin said, “you have a sizeable population that has been incarcerated and is not used to the same cultural norms as everybody else.”

There’s a huge pool of potential recruits who would gladly enlist, if they were permitted: homosexuals and bisexuals. Repeal DADT, and you eliminate the need to admit felons into our ranks. You eliminate the need to lower standards to meet recruiting goals, and you don’t pass problems onto other commanders. This article simply underscores the necessity of repealing 10 USC 654.

You can read the article in its entirety here: Army Giving More Waivers In Recruiting