Revert "less equal signs and goddamnit php dont spit out warnings if it worked"

This reverts commit d00da128e0297425fd393b69e55987abb2e0e50d.
Revert "fix non utf-8 strings in article body, title, guid and author"

This reverts commit 321584dc33d17c3d3b4131785423c6beb65c774a.