Getting Your Site to Display Properly on Facebook

Facebook has special tags that you can add to the HTML of your website that will let you control how it looks when somebody shares your site on Facebook.  These are called "Open Graph" tags.  If you don't have Open Graph tags, Facebook will just pull a random picture from your website, or let you choose between several on your page (not always the one you want).

Here are some Open Graph Meta Tags you can use to make sure your site gets displayed properly.  Add these somewhere between HEAD and /HEAD section of your page's HTML code:

Click to enlarge.  Sorry you can't copy and paste... it wouldn't let me add the code to the blog post.

***NOTE***  Your image has to be at least 200x200 pixels or Facebook won't pick it up and will revert to a default image from your page.

Add these to your Meta Tags and then type your link into your status update box, and see if it displays properly.  Facebook will cache everything, which means if you change those OG tags above, it won't recognize it.

If you need Facebook to update your site's Open Graph information, go to this link and type in your URL:

https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug


It will update their info and you can keep doing that until you've got it just like you want it.

~*Cheers*~

Getting Off the Fast Track

We really need your help this Saturday, November 16, in Kansas City and in cities throughout the world.  There's a major threat looming on the horizon, and most people have no idea it even exists.  This is a cause that people of all political types would get behind if they understood what's at stake.

The cause we need your help with Saturday is very complicated and confusing, and I've spent weeks just trying to figure out how to explain it to people.  It's complicated and confusing for a reason, so that people won't pay attention to it and discuss it, etc.  If you've never heard the term "TPP" you're not alone, but you can find out about it right now, and start letting your friends and loved ones know what's going on. We need everyone's help to keep the disastrous Trans-Pacific Partnership from being rammed down our throats without any oversight or public scrutiny. The TPP is a trade pact, as the following videos will show, that is being secretly negotiated by a few government officials and LOTS of corporate advisers.  The TPP will take everything that's already bad about the world and make it much, much worse. There is almost no industry that goes untouched.

For example, you know those generic prescription drugs that people can get for a fraction of the price of their brand-name counterparts? You can say goodbye to any more of those coming onto the market, because the TPP wants to extend drug company patents to the point that many of us won't live long enough to see any new generic drugs on the pharmacy shelves.  This video from a Canadian health organization explains how that will effect what they do.  What effect will it have on you?

And then there's the Internet. Remember SOPA? Meet its big brother, the TPP

This video shows just one example of what the TPP will do to jobs... the TPP threatens every industry you can imagine

This guy lays it out pretty clearly, touching on the workers that will be exploited, environmental protections dissolved, and what the TPP will do with banking and farming

And this is all just the beginning.  On Saturday, November 16, we need you to help get out the word by passing out flyers and contacting people you know.  We need millions of people to find that there's a thing called the TPP, and what they can do to get it off the Fast Track.

Fast Track Authority was created during the Nixon Administration because Congress is so busy, you see, that they don't have time to think about things like trade agreements with other nations, so they give the president Fast Track Authority and the president can handle the whole thing without their input. Then the president will give them a bill that they can vote "yes" or "no" on, but they can't change anything about it, and it will be thousands of pages long and filled with all kinds of horrible international laws that we'll be subjected to.  Congress won't know everything that is in the agreement because naturally they won't read it.

Without Fast Track Authority, Congress can get in on the negotiations and demand that the veil of secrecy be lifted so that everyone can know what's in this agreement and urge their representatives to cast an informed vote.  That's why we have to stop the Fast Track before it's too late, and it can be done. It's up to Congress.

I'll be having more on this between now and the 16th, but for now, join the Facebook group and find out what you can do to take action!  Here's the Kansas City group, and here's the national group.  Add your voice, and get ready to figure out how to explain this to everyone else!

Last Chance to Save Your Drive-In

I've been remiss in failing to call attention to an imminent threat facing one of the last vestiges of mid-20th century nostalgia left in the United States.  As many (if not most) of the world's drive-in theaters close up for winter this year, it will be for the last time.

Just like human beings who have abandoned cameras that use film, preferring the convenience and high definition of digital photography, Hollywood has decided that the days of shipping large 35 millimeter reels of film to theaters should come to an end, opting only to distribute their movies to theaters with digital projectors.


The cost of equipping the nation's drive-in theaters with these projectors runs about $80,000 each, an amount out of reach for many drive-in owners who operate their small businesses by the skin of their teeth for the sake of preserving the history and nostalgia of the drive-in experience for the enjoyment of future generations. Many of them will simply become extinct.

If there's a drive-in theater that you love and don't want to see go out of business, there are ongoing efforts to help them make the switch to digital, but time is running out (and by running out, I mean within days). Project Drive-In, sponsored by Honda, is having a contest that will award 5 digital projectors to the drive-ins that get the most votes. You can click this link and see if your drive-in is in the running, vote for it, and encourage everyone you know to do the same. Like I said, time is running out so act quickly. Here in Kansas City, the I-70 Drive-In has a chance has a chance to be rescued.  Click here to cast a vote for the I-70, and you can also cast a vote by text... share it on your Facebook wall, tell your friends, etc...

Our local Twin Drive-In didn't make this list. Having two screens, it needs two projectors. Movie Night at the Twin Drive In is tonight... an effort by the most devoted drive-in enthusiast I've ever known, a young man who calls himself KChistoryman Meade.


KChistoryman has spent the whole summer working tirelessly to save the area's last two drive-ins, and if he succeeds history and movie buffs all over the area will owe him a huge debt of thanks.

So if you ever loved a drive-in, no matter where you are, show your support: vote at Project Drive-In, tell your friends, take in a movie this weekend, spend freely at the concession counter, and thank the people that have kept it all going for as long as they can... it could be your last chance.

Funny Video ~ Must See!

First watch this "funny" video

Then be HERE tomorrow, Saturday, May 25!

Great Expectations

Yesterday I asked some of my Facebook friends to complete this sentence:

"What I'm hoping that the March Against Monsanto will accomplish is..."

Here were some replies:

Roger: "What I'm hoping that the March Against Monsanto will accomplish is an awakening of the people of what they, their children and pets are eating."

Kim: "show people that The People are tired of corporations buying politicians, Supreme Court Justices, government entities. We're AWAKE, AWARE and not going to stand for it any more."

Bennette: "to bring awareness to the destructiveness of Monsanto's bedlam of so called safe Scientific Technology, their monopolization of our Governmental entities and seed supplies worldwide."

Diana: "raise public awareness, about the health risk with the GMO foods being grown and sold to consumers."

Bonnie: "at LEAST labeling healthy food for my family."

Louise: "To STOP the big corporations from taking away our basic rights - to fresh food - NO ONE or Corp has the right to brand a seed as their own and limit us to what we can eat and what we can't eat... they want full control.. I SAY NO !!!"

Kansas Conni: Increased awareness that includes the revolving door between big companies like Monsanto and congressional representatives and why regulation is not a bad word.

Dylan: "for people to realize that it is critical for us to begin to sustain and liberate each other."

Marcy: "to bring awareness to the food crisis, so that we may band together to defeat Monsanto.

Here's a video of Kansas City people explaining in their own words why the March Against Monsanto TOMORROW, May 25, in hundreds of cities all over the world, is important to them:

My own reasons mirror all of the above.  I also demand that Monsanto executives and stockholders be barred from holding decision making positions within the USDA, FDA, EPA, or any government agency that regulates the products that this company manufactures.

Also, I'd like strict labeling laws. No Frankenfood for me.

(This picture is not as farfetched as it looks: all of the food mutations pictured above have either been experimented with or are being experimented with.  Scary...)