Despite the arachnophobia we've accepted Fallen's icons as the best submission for our contest! We'd also like to thank the others who submitted icons for the contest. I will post some that Nightingale sent that were very funny if she doesn't put them up on her own profile.

Matt's selling his shelf of no-longer-used computer parts for $0.01 on ebay again.

All members of Basic or higher level can now take advantage of DP email forwarding. This needs to be turned on before you can use it. See the link for more details.

I'm of the opinion that the DP membership icons could do with a little polish and transformation.

I've also noticed some of the DP members have some incredible talent with graphic design.

So naturally this leads me to propose a contest, whereby members redesign the membership level buttons (a full set of 5 for the regular membership types) and the winner will get a membership upgrade of one level for one year, or if they prefer, they can give this upgrade to any other member.

Submission criteria

Buttons should be submitted by email to darkpoet#gmail,com as attachments to an email. (plus you must be clever enough to repair that email address) You must send all 5 (for trial through gold, get the buttons here

The email should state two important points. First that these buttons are entirely your own work and contain no art created by other persons. Second that you wish to give the copyright for these buttons to DarkPoetry.com. This lets us be fairly sure we can use them without getting into trouble.

Deadline for submissions is Feb 28th, so take your time and make something great. We will choose the ones we think are the best from the submissions and use them on DP.

about politics, but this one just blows me away. The guy who was the former "Privacy Officer" at Claria (the company that quietly installs software like Gator on your computer to make it run slow and gather information on what websites you look at), has been appointed to a seat on "Data Privacy and Integrity Advisory Committee" of the Department of Homeland Security.

To add insult to injury, you should be aware that the chief privacy officer of the DHS a former employee of Doubleclick, one of the internet's most "big brother" friendly advertisers.

Thanks for those votes for Bush. The majority of you Bush voters probably haven't bothered to read your future history have you? Oh well, it was a douche and turd choice anyway.

The saddest thing is that inappropriate appointments like this are being made every day, they just don't make the news. How much abuse can the constitution take? The test is on...

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."