Using this Site Just a quick guide to some of the features and idiosyncrasies of the Drug WarRant site. Comments Everyone is welcome to leave comments on posts. Feel free to expand, ask questions, provide links, get passionate. Be polite to other commenters and no spam. Unfortunately, the comment software is fairly basic, and sometimes has issues, and I have no control over it. The dreaded 403 FORBIDDEN screen If you try to leave a comment and get a white message with 403 FORBIDDEN on it, don't panic. You haven't been banned, and you aren't forbidden. It just means that the stupid comment software thought it saw something that might normally exist in a spam comment, and decided to block it. As you know, people are always sending messages for viagra, and poker, and cialis, etc. Well, the comment software once blocked the word "socialist" because it contained the word "cialis" in it! (that one got fixed). It also sometimes doesn't like links with a .info suffix, and will often block links to your own site (spammers usually link to their own site, that's why). So if you get the 403 message Look for trigger words and try hyphenating them ("po-ker"). Look for links to .info and try replacing them with a short link from tinyurl.com Leave your homepage blank (or replace with tinyurl if you're posting a link to your own article on your home site Send the comment to me and I'll try to post it for you. Formatting posts You can use all standard html tags in the comments. Here are some common html tags: <br> - Line Break <br><br> - 2 line breaks (works to create empty line between paragraphs) <p> - also creates a single blank line between paragraphs The following tags require BOTH a beginning and an ending tag: <b>bold</b> <i>italic</i> <blockquote>indented text block</blockquote> <a href="http://drugwarrant.com">Link</a> Examples: If you type this: You'll get this This is <b>bold</b> text. This is bold text. This is <i>italic</i> text. This is italic text. This is <b><i>bold and italic</i></b> text. This is bold and italic text. This is a <a href="http://drugwarrant.com"> link</a>. This is a link. Here is a comment with <b>bold</b> and <i>italic</i> text and <b><i>combinations</i></b>, and now I want a new paragraph. <br><br> Here's the second paragraph with a link to <a href="http://drugwarrant.com">my site</a> where I say: <blockquote>Some indented quote of some kind.</blockquote> And back to the original format. Here is a comment with bold and italic text and combinations, and now I want a new paragraph. Here's the second paragraph with a link to my site where I say: Some indented quote of some kind. And back to the original format. Note: the comments software is sometimes cranky and may not let you post, and it's hard to tell when you've actually gotten it to post (it'll sit and think for awhile without telling you anything), so it's easy to end up with multiple posts. If that happens, don't worry -- I'll probably be around to delete the duplicates soon. Tips I get a lot of my stories and information from readers who send me tips. I enjoy getting them and they're incredibly helpful. Please let me know what name to use and I'll be happy to give you a credit in the post (If you don't say anything, I'll just use your first name -- many people prefer a degree of anonymity here and I don't want to take chances). I don't have time to respond to every tip I get, and there are a lot of times that I'll get the same story from various sources, so please don't worry if I don't mention your name in the post. I also, for any number of reasons, may choose not to include the story or link you send. This is not intended to be (nor can it be) a comprehensive site of every drug war story that's going on out there. Try MAP for that. I talk about drug war items that stimulate me, or amuse me, or outrage me at a particular moment. Message Board There is also a message board for more free-form discussions. Privacy Certain information is collected about visitors in order to help functionality of the site. IP addresses are recorded for those who comment for the purpose of blocking spammers only. This is a function of the blogging software and Drug WarRant has no control over it. The commenting software may also leave cookies to allow easier log-in. This site also employs Google Ads to help pay for internet costs. Google ads have their own systems for tracking users. Google uses cookies to serve the ads on this site, and Google uses DART cookies, which enables it to serve ads to users based on their visits here and to other sites. Users may opt out of the DoubleClick cookie that Google uses. Users who do not wish to share their real name or email address may comment using a pseudonym and without using a valid email address. You merely need to enter an email address that is in a valid format xxx@xxx.xxx