remove warning about unused variable and actually set message
remove warnings about URI.escape when available
convert == to eq to avoid warnings, (all were done for concistency)

Conflicts:
	spec/request2_spec.rb
actually assert in spec, and fix result
remove warning for unused var
cleanup trailing whitespace
Merge pull request #208 from JonRowe/fix_warnings_and_deprecations

Remove warnings and deprecation messages