Hey y'all, watch this! (Part 6,397)

Ooooh, man, this is definitely one of those don't-try-this-at-home situations.

I wonder if he had some of what Sen. Max Bacchus is having?

###

Maybe we should call him 'Max Bacchus'

What a performance! And this is one of the guys who makes your laws.

Overlooked (again) at annual think tank

Renaissance Weekend, the annual confab of all the world's greatest thinkers, is meeting here in Charleston through New Year's Day.

And again, I wasn't invited.

What's up with that?

###

Nigerian bomber exposes Homeland Security incompetence

Nice to know that our Homeland Security system works. At least that's what department head Janet Napolitano says.

Never mind the fact that some 23 year-old guy named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got busted on a transcontinental flight trying to light up some powder in his underdrawers, powder that turned out to be a high explosive. Never mind the fact the guy was a Muslim from Nigeria with probable al-Quaeda ties, and was on the antiterrorism watch list. And was waved onto the flight without showing his passport.It seems that, as the plane approached Detroit, Abdulmutallab went to the aircraft's bathroom for approximately 20 minutes. When he returned to his seat, he said he had an upset stomach and pulled a blanket over himself. And waited until it was time to set things off.

The passengers on Northwest Flight 253 did a better job of flight security than the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ever could. They caught up with Abdulmutallab -- he was easy to pick out because of the flames shooting out of his pants -- and proceeded to knock the fool out of him.One of the most glaring problems with Homeland Security is that it's reactive in scope. Every time something happens, there's a new rule. After Richard Reid was busted trying to light up his shoes, the TSA started having airline passengers take off their shoes as part of the check-in drill. More prohibitions started as more threats developed, and the whole process has succeeded in turning air travel into something you mentally prepare for, like a colonoscopy (why did I use that analogy?)

Much as I like to travel, flying is not on my list of fun things to do. It's rough enough for me, being something of a control freak, knowing that I'm not the one that's driving. But getting inspected before even boarding? You've got to be kidding.

Last time I flew was in 2006, five years after 9/11. I watched as one TSA inspector daubed the contents of my one checked-in bag before pitching it onto the conveyor. I stood in line, took off my boots, took everything metal out of my pockets, dumped all of that into my hat, and answered questions about my carry-on bag. The return trip was worse; I got the wand and the secondary inspection pit while my brother and his family were cracking up (I remember telling them to don't just stand there; take some pictures). A woman in her late 70s was in the other secondary inspection pit where TSA inspectors were going over her wheel chair.

Part of this is that the inspectors are trying to be all politically correct. Rather than profile the person, they're trying to profile the object -- shoes, metal objects, shampoo, bottled water, and now blankets and laptops. On the same flight, another Nigerian created another in-flight security scare because he spent too much time in the head, so you can expect that will be more closely watched. And so it goes, especially when Homeland Security is so badly behind the curve.

Again, rather than profiling the item, what's wrong with profiling the person instead? This bombing suspect paid cash for a one-way ticket. He didn't have his passport, or even luggage. He was Muslim. A Nigerian. His daddy, who is the former economics minister of Nigeria, said his son had been radicalized and warned authorities of this six months ago. Though he wasn't on the federal no-fly list, he was on a "terrorist identities" list of 550,000 names maintained by US authorities. What with those high explosives riding so close to his private parts, he had to have been more than a little nervous, maybe sweating something awful.

OK, right from the jump, isn't that enough red flags for you? But he made it through screening at two airports.

In light of Abdulmutallab's background and Homeland Security's capabilities, Dr. Magnus Ranstorp of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defence College doesn't understand how the bombing attempt could have taken place.

"On the one hand, it seems he's been on the terror watch list but not on the no-fly list," Ranstorp said. "That doesn't square because the American Department for Homeland Security has pretty stringent data-mining capability. I don't understand how he had a valid visa if he was known on the terror watch list.

One thing that can be guaranteed from this incident: Despite Homeland Security's obvious failure here, it's a lead pipe cinch the federal government will use this incident to give that department even more power over our lives. Which should put frost in the heart of every thinking American. Really, the only saving grace with that scenario is that Homeland Security is so incompetent -- or maybe that's not such a saving grace after all.

Here's a happy thought: After Reid, passengers were asked to remove their shoes. Now that Abdulmutallab was caught with exploding underdrawers, is the TSA going to ask passengers to remove their ... never mind.

But I feel better knowing the system works. Janet Napolitano said so.

###

Satire: Writer takes a look at future air travel

While researching for my article on the Nigerian bombing suspect, I kicked up a piece in The Huffington Post about what may go on at airports in the future.

This article, written by Bob Geiger, has to be satire. It's too freaky to be real. Reading it now, it's a hoot. I'm not discounting the possibility that it may not be so funny later, though.

But in the meantime, read the article. Here's an excerpt:

... at Los Angeles International Airport a suspicious toddler was recently subdued by alert Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents while creating a disturbance when asked by TSA employees to empty her SpongeBob SquarePants sippy cup ... "She was babbling in some foreign tongue," said TSA agent Fritz Warton, a hardened veteran in the war on terror. "It was either 'want juice' or 'death to America' and I damn sure wasn't waiting to find out which it was." ... authorities arrested the child's parents when they defended the young girl by claiming their 18-month-old daughter had not yet learned to speak. Todd and Wendy Jensen are being held without bond at L.A. County Jail pending transfer to Guantanamo Bay where they will face a military tribunal ... "It's just a shame so many parents are raising their children to hate America," sighed Warton, as he returned to frisking a wheelchair-bound elderly woman ...

Borrowing a disclaimer Edward Abbey used in "The Monkey Wrench Gang," all these incidents are real, and they happened three years from now.

###

A few states, headed by

A few states, headed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, are urging other states to strike back against ObamaCare, citing 10th Amendment.

Merry Christmas to all of

Merry Christmas to all of y'all! (and if you say "Happy Holidays," I'll have to beat y'all.)
-E

Senate OK's its version of

Senate OK's its version of the health care bill. Now the fun begins, to sync it with House version. Expect blood on the floor.

Jam Session: Bluegrass has a high purist quotient

To many, either it's bluegrass or it's not. Read about it in The Jam Session, Reloaded.

On The Workbench: New text editors force single-tasking

I'm noticing new computer programs that blot out the rest of your computer when you write. Doesn't sound like it's much fun, but it's great for productivity. Read more about this in The Workbench, Reloaded.

###

Vicar's shoplifting advice a symptom of the times

A Church of England vicar said earlier this week that if you're down and out, shoplifting may be the answer.

Father Tim Jones, the parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda in York across the pond, raised eyebrows worldwide when he suggested this course of action.

"My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift," he said. "I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither."

It's better, he said, to steal from a large company that can better absorb the loss than a mom-and-pop operation, and to only take what you need.

The Venerable Richard Seed, Archdeacon of York, says the church does not endorse Fr. Jones' suggestion. "The Church of England does not advise anyone to shoplift, or break the law in any way," he said. "Father Tim Jones is raising important issues about the difficulties people face when benefits are not forthcoming, but shoplifting is not the way to overcome these difficulties."

There's a name for this mindset Fr. Jones seems to subscribe to. It's called "situational ethics," and if there's anything that explains why our society is on a fast train to nowhere, that's it.

With situational ethics, a person is constantly looking for a justification for his wrong actions, covering his butt with slick semantics, or couching his choices in lawyer-proof language. It could be someone saying he steals because he's poor, a politician who sells his vote for pork and calls it "compromise," or an adulterous president quibbling over the definition of "is," but it's all the same. Situational ethics puts us on the slippery slope to no ethics at all.

Hate to sound all intellectual and stuff, but some things are meant to be in black and white. Either something's right or it's not. Either something's true or it's not.

Now what's so difficult about that?

###

Sen. Lindsey Graham calls late-night

Sen. Lindsey Graham calls late-night Senate health-care action "seedy Chicago politics." Has he suddenly sprouted 'nads? Nah.
-E

NYT: Feds monitoring social media for protestors, tax cheats

There is plenty of misinformation floating around the Internet on those foaming-at-the-mouth sites, those that say there was no Holocaust, that 9/11 was a government conspiracy, that the feds distribute hard drugs in the ghettos to anesthetize the citizens. There's enough material online to fuel whatever conspiracy you're harboring this week.

These days, erosion of our civil liberties is a favorite subject for the purveyors of tripe. And it's a real enough issue, one that I've seen escalate ever since 9/11 and really hit breakneck speed over the past year. But many of these websites run stories on this subject, and much of what the writers tell you doesn't stand up to any real investigation. The Internet gives everyone a soapbox, and intelligence -- or sanity -- has nothing to do with it.

Up front: I don't like what the Obamas, Pelosis, or Reids are doing to the country, and I sure didn't like some of the responses to 9/11 (see: USA PATRIOT ACT) either. I don't believe the federal government has your best interests at heart. Barack Obama strikes me as a dangerous lightweight who's not far removed from the William Ayres of this world. But I don't believe he was born in Kenya, that he's a closet Muslim, or that he's the Antichrist either.

But when some of this stuff makes it in the mainstream media, it does give one pause. I took this editorial directly from the New York Times -- you know, The Gray Lady -- and am running it in its entirety here:

Twitter Tapping

"The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era.

"Law enforcement is not saying a lot about its social surveillance, but examples keep coming to light. The Wall Street Journal reported this summer that state revenue agents have been searching for tax scofflaws by mining information on MySpace and Facebook. In October, the F.B.I. searched the New York home of a man suspected of helping coordinate protests at the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh by sending out messages over Twitter.

"In some cases, the government appears to be engaged in deception. The Boston Globe recently quoted a Massachusetts district attorney as saying that some police officers were going undercover on Facebook as part of their investigations.

"Wired magazine reported last month that In-Q-Tel, an investment arm of the Central Intelligence Agency, has put money into Visible Technologies, a software company that crawls across blogs, online forums, and open networks like Twitter and YouTube to monitor what is being said.

"This month the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law sued the Department of Defense, the C.I.A. and other federal agencies under the Freedom of Information Act to learn more about their use of social networking sites.

"The suit seeks to uncover what guidelines these agencies have about this activity, including information about whether agents are permitted to use fake identities or to engage in subterfuge, such as tricking people into accepting Facebook friend requests.

"Privacy law was largely created in the pre-Internet age, and new rules are needed to keep up with the ways people communicate today. Much of what occurs online, like blog posting, is intended to be an open declaration to the world, and law enforcement is within its rights to read and act on what is written. Other kinds of communication, particularly in a closed network, may come with an expectation of privacy. If government agents are joining social networks under false pretenses to spy without a court order, for example, that might be crossing a line.

"A national conversation about social networking and other forms of online privacy is long overdue. The first step toward having it is for the public to know more about what is currently being done. Making the federal government answer these reasonable Freedom of Information Act requests would be a good start."

[A version of this article appeared in print on December 13, 2009, on page WK8 of the New York edition.]

Sheesh! It makes a fella want to unplug his computer for good, stock up on weapons and concentrated food, and barricade his apartment. No matter how you dissect this editorial, it's not going to give you that warm fuzzy feeling.

Especially when you consider the source.

###

Killer stopped, killed by his own low-hanging britches

From The New York Post, by way of Fox News:

... A career criminal who slaughtered three members of a family in their apartment in New York's trendy Upper West Side Thursday plunged to his death after tripping over his baggy pants ... 

According to police, gunman Hector Quinones shot 24-year-old Carlos Rodriguez Jr. and his father, and stabbed Rodriguez' grandfather to death. Quinones then lunged after 49-year-old Gisela Rodriguez, he tripped over his pants.

It gets better:

... fleeing empty-handed, Quinones ditched his gun, a .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol loaded with hollow-point bullets, and made a dash down a rear fire escape. But again, his low-slung pants fell to his ankles, tripping him and sending him falling three stories to his death, authorities said ...

See, there is justice.

Dressing for weather becomes an obsessive science

It's getting to the cold part of the year in coastal South Carolina, with the occasional blasts of rain, so it's time for me to prepare.

Like figuring out how to dress. Or remembering how I did it last winter.

I know you folks Up North are laughing at this. As I write this it's 39 degrees outside, the high is expected to hit 53, and the temp is supposed to bottom out at 31 tonight. Shoot, that's what all of y'all would call a heat wave Up There. See, there's a reason why I'm Down South.

Yesterday I had to run some errands, a series of short lobs, easy bicycle runs. Except for the cold and the rain, it wasn't bad, but some preparation was needed.

I don't do cold weather very well, because I was raised in desert climates and because I don't have a lot of body mass. I don't have that padding you can only get from a lot of supersized fries and Big Macs (some hate my guts for that), so this preparation is crucial.

Before setting out yesterday, I had to really plan out the layers I was to wear. Admittedly there's a little obsessiveness-compulsiveness at work here; things have to be just so.

I have heavy-duty rain pants that I wear on the road for those rainy days. Even when it's not raining, the bike will kick up all the water that's already there, drenching me and splattering me with mud. These rain pants are thick, high-visibility orange, designed to be abused. The question is when to put them on.

If I put the rain pants on last, they're the quickest thing to remove. But I might as well forget about unzipping my jacket, or going into my pants pockets.

Then there's the issue of keeping my upper body warm and dry. I opted for a pullover sweatshirt, with a hooded jacket on top of that. Over all of this I had a cheap vinyl rain jacket. All good so far, but then I wanted to wear my long scarf. What was problematic was deciding where among the layers to put it.

Off with the rain jacket. Off with the hooded jacket. Put scarf on. Put jacket back on. Put rain jacket back on. And if I'd put the rain pants on last, that's another thing to deal with just to put the scarf on.

Then there are the usual carry-around items that I need quick access to. Wallet. Note pad. Pen. Cell phone. When I need these items, I need them right now, and I don't need to be feeling among all the layers to find them. Plus, when it's buried in all these clothes you can't hear the phone ring. Those went in my raincoat pocket, dry and accessible.

Finally, I'm good to go. Put the hood up on my jacket and raincoat. Put on my backpack, and hit the road.

One of my stops was at the bank. It's a local credit union where everyone knows everyone and the tellers greet you by name. My kind of place. I was telling the tellers about the preparation involved in bundling up, and one of them dropped the conversational bomb:

"How do you go to the bathroom?"

I hadn't even thought of that. Now, a day later, I'm still obsessing for an answer.

###

MoveOn is the latest gang

MoveOn is the latest gang of Libs to oppose Obamalosi health case plan; same reason. They have a petition to block it.
-E

Flaccid health bill turning ugly on backers?

The impossible has been achieved. The proposed new health care package (Senate version) now ticks off everyone on the left and the right.

Of course you knew from the jump that the more conservative people would bemoan the plan as backdoor Socialism. That's a given, and the proposal did separate the conservative Republicans from their middle-of-the-road kin.

But now, look at this: Many of the folks on the hard left are suggesting the whole plan should be taken off life support.

After the public option and Medicare buy-in -- subjects that warm the hearts of liberals everywhere -- were knocked off the Senate bill, Democratic National Committee head Howard Dean said the new proposal solves nothing, and urged Democrats to fight for "real reform." MSNBC commentator and unabashed liberal Keith Olbermann also slammed the now-gutted legislation. "This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform," he says.

Even The Daily Kos, one of the most far-left sites in the blogosphere, started to notice the foul smell about the health care bill. From Kos himself:

... Let me say up front that my disagreement with the "support the current bill" crowd is based on policy and political considerations, but I can see how reasonable people can come to the opposite conclusion. I don't think supporters of this wreck of a bill are stupid or compromised or anything like that. I'm not like Joe Klein railing against "assorted nonsense from left-bloggers", which so reminds me of his ad hominems during the Iraq War debate. How'd that turn out, Joe? In short, there appears to be a divide between those who think the insurance industry will play nice, even with little incentive to do so, and people like me who don't ...

Erstwhile vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman's name is mud in certain Democratic circles these days, after he led the charge to strike public option from the Senate bill. Media Matters, another far-left site, has been largely ignoring the health care debate over the past few weeks, except to bodyslam the Connecticut legislator. Meanwhile, ultralib filmmaker Michael Moore is calling for a boycott of Lieberman's state, a move which would be every bit as ineffectual and laughable as the NAACP's longstanding boycott of South Carolina.

About the only thing keeping the health bill alive is that Barack Obama is solidly for it. His presidency is losing its relevance very quickly, what with the mixed messages he's sending out between Afghanistan and domestic issues, and the left is starting to lose patience with him. That in itself is enough motivation for lawmakers to approve the bill, even a watered-down version. Here's how libertarian Neal Boortz puts it:

... the very validity of Obama's presidency rests on passage of this bill. To shelve ObamaCare would be tantamount to castrating Barack Obama. His presidency would be impotent. ObamaCare is Viagra for the Obama presidency. Without ObamaCare The ACORN Administration enters a period of limp dormancy ...

I like how Neal puts it, but I doubt that will be enough to salvage the bill.

My own stance on the health care plan has been on record in this space. We need to only look at the government's own track record to see why: ventures such as public education, the post office, Amtrak, Cash For Clunkers show that the Feds have the "reverse Midas touch." Everything the government touches turns to ordure. And now they want to take over health care too? Puh-leeeze!

The public is likewise unenthusiastic about the health care plan. Earlier this week Gallup said 46% of Americans generally supportive of passing a bill this year and 48% generally opposed.

Numbers from an ABC News/Washington Post poll are more revealing: 53 percent of the public see higher costs for themselves under Obamalosicare. The poll also indicates that only 37 percent say the quality of their health care would be better under the proposed changes. And a A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation nation survey from last week had similar findings, with 75 percent of people questioned saying the senate health care bill would not help their family. The poll also indicated that 85 percent of Americans think the bill, if it became law, would increase their taxes and nearly 8 in 10 say it would increase the country's budget deficit.

So now, despite efforts to get this thing wrapped up before Christmas, chances are that the health care package will roast in its own juices instead.

Let's hope so.

###

General Motors, still on life

General Motors, still on life support last I looked, will submarine its Saab division. Like permanently. Will anybody notice?
-E

AP's choice of Tiger Woods

AP's choice of Tiger Woods as Top Athlete Of The Decade was made before anyone realized how athletic he really was.
-E

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, 95,

Fitness guru Jack LaLanne, 95, recovering from heart surgery. Death, he says, "will ruin my image." Go get 'em, Jack.
-E

Sucking up info, by the gigabyte

There's no question information bombards us from all sides every waking hour, every day. But what's interesting is exactly how much information we consume.

The University of California at San Diego even studied this aspect of our culture, and was able to put a number on it.

According to this recent study, the average American absorbs 34 gigabytes of information every day.

No wonder people flip out a lot.

Think of it this way. The netbook I'm typing this on has a 160-gigabyte hard drive. Assuming I'm average (don't even go there), my brain would fill that hard drive in 4.7 days. I carry an 8-gigabyte flash drive in my pocket, and just my average daily activity would fill more than four of them. And if I tried to stream all this stuff on either my laptop or desktop? Forget it. The computer would melt.

In 2008, American brains processed a grand total of of 3.6 zettabytes of information. That's 3.6 billion trillion bytes, and there's no hard drive available to harness all of this.

Now, this information isn't limited to computer usage, but includes what you watch on the tube, what you read, what you listen to, and what goes through your telephone. In fact, television is still far and away the biggest purveyor of all this material. That's a lot of Fox News, infomercials, Seinfeld reruns, HBO, and WWF.

This study doesn't really consider the quality of the information processed. Information is information whether you're watching Gilligan's Island or The History Channel, surfing Web porn or the MIT open courseware site, reading romance novels or the Bible, listening to the pop diva du jour or John Coltrane. That's not differentiated in this study (although you may want to keep in mind my argument of finite capacities when deciding exactly how to fill your brain).

From Engadget:

... in terms of time, the study found that Americans spent about 11.8 hours a day consuming information in one way or another, the majority of which was spent staring at a screen of some sort -- and, yes, they did take HD content into account, but its growth apparently hasn't yet resulted in a huge jump in data consumption ...

Again, no wonder people are bad to flip out. I've argued that the human mind is like a hard drive, with a finite amount of storage space. The more crap you load into it, the less room there is for really important stuff. And when you're completely blasted by information, it can't be good for your mental healh. A person does need to get away from all this stimuli every once in a while, just to vegetate on the front stoop in his undershirt. Without the newspaper or phone.

I think it was Einstein who suggested a person should never remember something that is just as easy to look up, and he truly lived by that credo. The legend is that he couldn't remember his own address. I don't remember phone numbers myself -- not even my own -- but I don't need to because all that stuff is right there on my cell phone. Now I just need to remember which button to push ...

But despite my own best efforts to chill out every once in a while, I don't feel right if I don't have my cell phone on my hip, or a computer close by. When my portable mp3 player died a few weeks ago I thought I'd go crazy, but I've come to enjoy a little silence every now and again.

I'm not sure where I fit among the national average. I have a TV, and I think it works, but I never turn it on (thinking of using it as a monitor for a music server). But I have music playing nonstop when I'm home, so that accounts for a fair bit. And I'm at this computer a lot, but most of the stuff I deal in is straight text and minimal graphics. But it's a lot of text -- just my daily RSS news feeds (which is the bulk of my computer activity) accounts for more than a thousand headlines that I scan every day.

If I was to do a word count of my whole day, I don't even want to think about that. Maybe someone else is studying that. Whatever it is, don't tell me.

###

(art from flickr, by DeaPeaJay)

Viewing the weather from your cubicle

Chained to your cubicle or held prisoner by your computer? 

Can't get out?

Don't even known if it's raining outside?

What a miserable existence that is ... but there's a program for that. Read about it in The Workbench, Reloaded.

###

Happy Birthday,, Junior Wells

Junior Wells was one of the greats on harp. Story in The Jam Session, Reloaded.

Manufacturer to leave USA, blames anti-business climate

Emerson Electric, the nation's largest manufacturer of electronic devices, is considering leaving the country.

Although the recession is a partial reason, Emerson CEO David Farr blames high taxes and regulation in the United States.

The federal government is “doing everything in [its] manpower [and] capability to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said at the recent Baird 2009 Industrial Conference in Chicago.

In comments reported by Bloomberg, Farr added that companies will continue adding jobs in China and India because they are “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something. I am not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs.”

Interesting ... very interesting. We've seen companies pulling up stakes for several years, outsourcing their work out to some third-world country where someone will bust his tail for less than a buck an hour. We've bemoaned all the layoffs that have slashed companies since the economy went into the toilet a year ago, and we've heard a passel of excuses. But what we're hearing from Farr is pretty much the straight stuff.

Want to kill a business? It's easy if you're in power. Regulate them like crazy, and tax them buttless. They'll get the hint and go to friendlier surroundings soon enough, taking their jobs and tax revenue with them.

Emerson's no lightweight in the industrial world. In 2007, the St. Louis-based corporation reported revenues of $22.5 billion, making it the 111th largest company in the United States and easily pacing the home-grown electronics industry. The closest competitor in electronics is Whirlpool, the country's 127th largest company with revenues of $19.4 billion.

###

Raising pork to a whole new level: Stimulus report

So how's that stimulus working for you?

Check out this report, made public by Sen. Tom Coburn's office. The Oklahoma Republican says most of the projects funded by the stimulus package are ... well, pork isn't a strong enough word.

Read it (it's downloadable, in pdf format). It's a hoot.

###

An old scam takes a new, homegrown tack

[DISCLAIMER: I don't like to cross-post articles among two blogs -- better to run a teaser -- but the editorial board (me, myself, and moi) decided the subject matter warranted it. But you'll also find this in The Workbench, Reloaded.]

You've probably seen this scenario in your email box a few times. Someone has lots of money they can't get to, and wants your help in securing it. Just send a reply, and that'll start the wheels turning.

But these can be sniffed out a mile away. They're usually from someone in Nigeria, or some other third-world country.

I received another one of these scam notes in my email, with a different angle to it. Instead of someone claiming royal blood in some country most people can't find on a map, this one looks all-American. Like, from a U.S. serviceman:

"I am Capt. Bruce Evan Roberts, with the US Navy Joint Special Operations,USS COLORADO around Gulf of Aden, I have $9Million US Dollars in my possession,which was seized/confiscated from somalia pirates between Yemen and Somalia Waters in Gulf of Aden, we want to move the funds out of the USS COLORADO around Gulf of Aden to a secure location to enable you assist us in investing it in a profit oriented business."

And here's the pitch:

"I need someone I can trust to actualize this venture, you will receive this funds through a secured US Military Delivery Freight duly authorized/legalize by Middle East Regional Command. The funds would be kept for us safely by you until I am discharge of my duties here in the USS COLORADO around Gulf of Aden by January 2010. Do respond back to me indicating your response so I can further discussions with you on the safe movement of the funds out of here and how much commission you shall be entitled to from the $9Million. Please do respond to my personal e-mail: brucerobertss@hotmail.co.uk ..."

A couple of obvious red flags. The letter did not come from his personal email box, but from mr.frankies@att.net -- and it's sent to "undisclosed recipients." Even inspecting the source HTML code of the letter doesn't provide any more information than that.

And then, the gist of the letter was enough of a warning. My personal bullscat detector, well, the needle was buried in the red.

Hey, uh, Captain Bruce, baby (if that's who you are). I'd like to extend the same advice I once offered in an online forum after someone responded to my opinions by flaming my shorts off: You just might want to check to see if your identity has been stolen lately. Some jerkface is using your name.

As for y'all email recipients, it goes like this. Despite the American-as-pizza-pie, score-one-for-our-country trappings in the letter, treat it the same as when some Nigerian gazillionaire or Moroccan princess or Venezuelan dictator offers a share in the booty via email. To wit:

See that key on the upper right of your keyboard, the one marked DEL over there? Yeah, that one. It's made for emails like that. Use it with extreme prejudice.

Supporting our troops doesn't include falling into some scam that's using the name of one of our servicemen.

###

CDC: About 10,000 died from

CDC: About 10,000 died from H1N1 virus.
-E

What's this "Command and Control"

What's this "Command and Control" the EPA is talking about?
-E

On The Workbench: Whatever it is, it's the rubber ducky's fault

Two nonexistent people make friends with 95 people to prove a point. Details are at The Workbench, Reloaded.

On The Workbench: Google Chrome browser available for Linux

'Nuff said. It's in beta, so this is my chance to break something.

Try it with me.

Jam Session: Willie and Mickey still at it

Willie Nelson is 76 years old now, and still performing with his longtime harmonica player Mickey Raphael. Read more about it in The Jam Session, Reloaded.

###

Copenhagen summit recalls scene from old Mexico trip

Some years ago, I visited Mexico -- definitely not a rich country -- and what struck me was the number of factories on that side of the imaginary line. All of these factories belched vast amounts of smoke and who-knows-what-all into the air, as that country didn't have all the technology and draconian regulation that we do. And that was long before NAFTA, which opened the border gates for industry.

But we never hear of these Mexican factories causing climate change, or the other industries spotted in just about every duct-tape nation across the globe. They don't worry about climate change; that's up to the rich countries. It's just not politically correct to say otherwise.

###

Global warming: Y'all stop breathing; it'll damage the Earth

Representatives of more than 150 nations -- including 100 heads of state -- are conspiring with our future in Copenhagen this week.

At issue is this so-called global warming, which may or may not be a real issue, but the evidence itself is completely discredited.

I've made my stance known on global warming. Yes, the planet does seem to be getting a bit warmer. I'm basing my assertion on tidal activity I've noticed here in Charleston over the past 12 years, plus some of the footage I've seen of shrinking and/or fracturing polar ice caps. I'm leaving myself lots of wiggle room here, though, as I could just be full of it.

Now, here's where things get murky. The planet has its history of fluctuating temperatures, and as recently as 1985 scientists were suggesting we were on a cooling trend. This truth is a big reason why they're no longer calling it "global warming," but "climate change," thereby making the issue even more nebulous.

Because of this history, I'm a lot less sure of the computer models the self-appointed global warming experts use to predict an apocalyptic disaster.

And will someone please tell me, just what is the optimum earth temperature? Are we like the Three Bears here -- too hot, too cold, or just right?

While I believe human activity is a factor in these fluctuations, it takes a gigantic leap in logic to say carbon dioxide is a factor. CO2 been one of the byproducts of animal and human life. Humans have been breathing since they first appeared on this planet. Cattle have been burping and farting since they got here. And to call it a dangerous pollutant? Well, I'm not going to go out of my way to suck up a cylinder of pure carbon dioxide, but these global-warming activists are gonna have to try again.

We continue to breathe and pass gas, and we still burn our fossil fuels. But our use of energy is a lot more efficient than it was a generation ago.

And the more they bloviate about climate change, the more carbon dioxide is expelled.

I mentioned flawed evidence here, and a bunch of intercepted emails indidate much of this evidence is completely manufactured. Full of it. Created out of wishful thinking and perhaps a political agenda.

To give an idea how politically charged this whole thing is, consider these points:

- The mainstream media completely ignored stories of manufactured evidence, and only started coverage after being so thoroughly humiliated by the alt-press.

- Sen. Barbara Boxer called for the heads of -- not the people who created the bad evidence, but the folks who leaked the emails. Sort of like the way Daniel Ellsberg was treated by the government in the early 1970s after he leaked papers showing how misguided and out of control the Vietnam War was. The party line then, as now, is to shoot the messenger rather than address the message.

But instead of stepping back and rethinking the validity of the evidence, the climate-change doom-shouters continue to further their agenda, giving no trouble to what these bothersome little facts might say.

Meanwhile, the folks in Copenhagen are, like I said, conspiring with our future. Part of this future will certainly include "transferring wealth" and technology by fiat to lesser developed countries, all in the interest of mitigating the damage done by climate change. Which makes no sense whatsoever.

But when you look at this whole process as nothing but a global power grab, then it all starts to make a bunch of sense, and very quickly.

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How much carbon dioxide does

How much carbon dioxide does Congress generate when they WAA waa WAA waa WAA all day long? That's got to do serious damage.
-E

It's official. Carbon dioxide is

It's official. Carbon dioxide is now a dangerous pollutant. Breathing will be outlawed soon?
-E

Dallas paper goes where I hoped industry would never tread

If it sounds like I'm dancing on the grave of the newspaper industry, you may be right. But while the industry isn't quite dead yet, the Dallas Morning News is shoving it in its own coffin.

I saw a News York Times article which tells how some of the Dallas newspaper's editors are now reporting to the advertising department.

It's something I hoped I'd never live to see.

Old-line newsmen who are still slogging out the deadlines may be wondering what they're still doing in the business, and old journalists who got out of the racket -- like I did some years ago -- are merely watching and sagely nodding their heads.

Maybe I'd better explain why this is so signfiicant before I go on. For a long time, newspapers had the strangest, most conflict-ridden business model imaginable in a free-enterprise society.

Understand, advertising pays the freight, keeps the presses running, and keps the newsmen fed. But except for the weekend coupon clippers, no one buys a newspaper to look at the display ads. Your readers want to know the news in your town, or at the very least, who got caught.

And to accomplish the "real" job of a newspaper -- to keep the readers informed of the world around them -- it is necessary to keep a great gulf between the advertising and editorial staffs. I've always preferred stringing some razor wire between the two departments and electrifying it. An effective editor keeps the advertising sales crew out of the newsroom, and not always nicely.

Here's a purely hypothetical f'rinstance. Let's say you're a reporter, and you catch the mayor of your town with his hand in the cookie jar. Or maybe he makes some decision that is clearly not in the public's best interest. You report it, right?

Now let's mix up the equation a little. Your mayor has a construction company or a pet store (I almost said a cat house, but let's keep this clean). And his business is your newspaper's biggest advertiser. And maybe he's a friend of your publisher, you know, the guy who signs your paycheck.

What would you, the reporter, do?

Guaranteed, your advertising department will swarm the newsroom, begging you to kill that story, reminding you that they are the ones who pay your salary. And you sure won't get any backing from the publisher.

OK, that's a bigger example, but not at all farfetched. I've faced this moral dilemma more than once, which probably explains why I moved from newspaper to newspaper a lot. A likelier scenario is that a potential advertiser may want some incentive to buy ad space -- can you sweeten the pot a little by running a story on my business?

As I got older and more cynical in the business, I'd consent to have the pot-sweetening story run -- as long as the advertising representative writes it and his name goes on it. But one time a funny thing happened -- the ad rep turned out to be a decent writer with good news instincts. So I stole him. Our ad depatment lost a below-average salesman, and I gained a better-than-average reporter. But that was extremely rare back then -- the mindset of a reporter and that of an ad geek were polar opposites. As it should be now.

For the most part, though, a newspaper that pays more attention to the bottom line will lose all its credibility. That's a promise. A real newspaper is independent, and there's no real difference whether this independence is broken by political or financial pressure. And credibility is a funny thing. It's something that takes a long time and much effort to build, but a mere perception can shatter it.

So you can already see my frosty outlook when I saw the Media Bistro article. I shot it over to my old managing editor, Charlie Hand. Now, it's been 21 years since I've worked with Charlie, but he clearly made an impression on me. He, along with the late Verne Peyser, were my mentors. Both preached things like integrity, honesty, accuracy, objectivity -- all those things your grandpappy might have told you about. Values that were the news industry's modus operandi as recently as a generation ago.

Anyway, Charlie fired off a response within the hour, and you can tell he wasn't pleased. He's still in the business, with a small newspaper in southern California. I don't know how he'd do in one of the larger newsrooms today -- probably would be in the way if he wasn't such a good newspaperman. And I shudder to think what Verne Peyser would say about the Dallas Morning News. Even under the most pleasant of circumstances, drunken longshoremen and truckers would complain about Verne's language.

Now, as I see the shape of the newspaper industry, there's not much credibility. You saw how obvious that was in the recent presidential election, though that had nothing to do with whether the writers were liberal or conservative. No, this lack of credibility has everything to do with its honesty, accuracy, objectivity, and independence. There isn't any.

While this is going on, Rep. Henry Waxman (a Democrat from the People's Republic of California) is saying the government should help the newspapers stay viable. "The newspapers my generation has taken for granted are facing a structural threat to the business model that has sustained them," he said.

OK. Let's connect some dots here. The only kind of "help" the government knows how to give is either through regulation, or a financial bailout. The smart money is on the latter, but as soon as the government feels it has a financial stake in the media, the newspapers will be as honest, forthright, and independent as Pravda, the house organ of the old Soviet Union.

I don't know about you, but a government-run press -- or even a press that's subsidized by the government, which is exactly the same thing -- scares the dog squeeze out of me. So much for a wide-open society where people can make informed decisions from relatively untainted information.

Meanwhile, here is a sampling of headlines from the last few days, outlining the state of the media:

Washington Times Cutting Staff Up to 40 Percent (Media Bistro, Dec. 3, from Politico).
Congressman: Struggling Media Will Need Government Help (Media Bistro, Dec. 3, from AFP).

NYT Regional Media Group Pay Cuts to Stay in Effect in 2010 (Media Bistro, Dec. 3, from Poynter).

FTC Examines Possible Support of News Organizations (Media Bistro, Dec. 2, from the Wall Street Journal).

As Times Staff Shrinks, Blogs Will Be 'Pruned' (Media Bistro, Dec. 2, from The Observer).

New Round of Cutbacks Coming at Gannett Newspapers (Media Bistro, Dec. 2, from AP). We're talking a newsroom staff cut of five percent here.

Tribune Gets More Time to File Reorganization Plan (Media Bistro, Dec. 2, from LA Times).

Had enough? So have I. And that's just two days.

So, there's no great surprise that the new cyber-media -- mainstream news sites. alt-news sites, and blogs are cutting today's newspapers into cat food. And as much as I hate to say it about an industry I've had a stormy love affair with, will someone please put it out of its misery?

So as I sit in my living room late Sunday night, pounding away on my laptop, putting together this blog, I am forced to reassess my position.

Yes, I AM dancing on the grave of the newspaper industry.

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Slim-Fast drinks are being recalled

Slim-Fast drinks are being recalled - seems they have bacteria that'll make you barf. Now, that'll knock off those pounds.
-E

Tiger Tales: Life under microscope comes with stardom

OK. I'm trying to figure something out. The economy is in the tank. Folks in Congress are busy giving away the store. There's question of the validity of global-warming figures on the eve of a summit in Copenhagen.

So, will someone explain to me, why is Tiger Woods the big story of the week?

So Tiger had a little vehicle accident near his home, hit a tree or something like that. Had cuts and bruises on his face from a crash that wasn't violent enough to disturb the air bags. Scuttlebutt is that his wife tried to turn his head into a Titleist, whacked him a few times with a golf club for his philandering. Or something.

And the public's eating it up. Forget Afghanistan, forget the health care plan. This, baby, is a story.

Like I give a rip.

So both Woods and his wife are deeply flawed people. So he has a couple, two or three girlfriends on the side and his wife strikes me as slightly unstable. They probably deserve one another. So what?

Woods is asking that the public let his private matters stay private, but that's not the way it works in this world. Unfortunately. When he signed his first big contract, he signed away his privacy.

I can sure understand it when the person involved in this situation is one of our real leaders. Of course it was the public's business that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford left the state's business in the lurch while he chased after some South American hottie. Of course it makes a difference when your congressman, or your teacher, or your mom, or your pastor falls into something like that. These people are in a position, usually by choice, to influence others. If one can't manage his own life, how can he help others manage theirs? So that part is understandable.

Shoot, I might even be a role model to someone. Which is a scary thought, by the way, but it's one that motivates me to watch my own behavior.

But Woods? What's up with that?

Charles Barkley -- and a generation before him, St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson -- both held they were no one's role models. Which, ideally, is true, but in the real world it's a crock. It's part of the business of being a superstar -- maybe not in the fine print of the contract, but implied.

Throw in a populace that is more interested in its superstars, its bread and circuses than it is in real issues, then this starts to make sense.

We like our heroes, make them larger than life, and put more weight in what they say or do. Which is why entertainers like Barbra Streisand, Ed Begley Jr., Charlie Daniels, and Chuck Norris get an attentive audience even when they're not on the job. Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, and Woods made vast sums of money as athletes and as advertising pitchmen. And each of these, again, have flaws that the public really doesn't want to talk about.

Each of these individuals is more recognizable than your congressman or city councilman. And, even when they don't have anything intelligent to say, their words carry more weight than an expert in some other field.

We're more likely to take the political opinion of a Joe Superstar as gospel, even though he knows about as much as the guy next to you on the assembly line. But Joe Superstar has a gigantic forum and built-in audience for him to spout his opinions, though your buddy on the assembly line can only lean against the bar and mumble his opinions.

For a while, a big advertising pitch -- I believe it was for some athletic shoe -- urged youngsters to "Be Like Mike." As in Jordan, the basketball player and pitchman. OK, shall a youngster be like Mike in his ability to defy gravity for an easy layup, his easy grace, his gargantuan ego, or his frequent trips to a casino to lose a few million?

Because of this, being a role model is just part of the job description for our athletes and performers. And don't give me that crap that there was no choice involved. These folks spent years learning their craft or art, and building a career in the public eye is a deliberate move. And anyone who lives in American society and had their eyes open for at least 15 minutes knows how much adulation a superstar gets.

Ideally, Tiger Woods' problems shouldn't matter to anyone but him and his wife. But real life isn't ideal. Having that big microscope perched over his life is just as much a part of his job as the shoe endorsements.

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Does anyone at today's DC

Does anyone at today's DC jobs summit actually have a real (i.e. private sector) job?
-E

New numbers indicate job scene

New numbers indicate job scene may get better. Number of new unemployment claims drops. A seasonal hiccup or the real deal?
-E

Hendrix' 'Voodoo Child' chosen as best guitar riff

(Posted in The Jam Session, Reloaded)

What's rock music without a guitar to set things up?

Rock has been a haven for fast-fingered guitarists since Chuck Berry, and many of the guitar riffs stick in a person's mind decades after the song was first laid down on vinyl. From the relatively-primitive Berry and Bo Diddley riffs, the music has evolved in the decades since. But you can listen to part of a song, hear someone on guitar, and identify the song at 50 paces. Eric Clapton's “Layla” (which featured Duane Allman on the out solo), Lynrd Skynrd's “Freebird,” and Deep Purple's “Smoke On The Water” are among the most easily-recognized tunes just from the guitar licks.

But Jimi Hendrix' “Voodoo Child” was recently chosen as the song with the best [more]

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Jam Session, Reloaded to explore music at several levels

Those who know me were probably expecting this sometime.

Although writing has been my profession for many years, news is an addiction, and tearing apart computers is something I do for fun, music is my passion.

If you can define your passion as something you'd rather do than eat, then there's no contest. To me, listening to a good live performance will make me forget I'm hungry. And if I'm in the middle of it all, playing that music, then that's going to trump any stomach growling any time.

So there it is.

I am a musician, and after jumping up on stages for nearly 25 years, it's still the greatest kick I can think of. The only thing that's close is listening to other musicians.

Actually, I found my way into music through the back door. I wrote about it before I gathered my guts and sat in with a jazz band for the first time. And in the newest entry in my blogging stable, you'll see more of that.

So, today is the first entry for The Jam Session, Reloaded. I'll be attacking my passion on several levels:

For the casual listener, I'll have stories, my takes on various performers, lots of videos (YouTube is your friend), and maybe a few listening ideas. If I turn you on to some wonderful new (well, new to you) sounds, then this blog is a successful one.

For the accomplished listener – or the creative person (doesn't matter where this creativity may be), I'll probably have some things on the process of making something out of nothing.

For the musician, I'll probably talk shop. In fact, if the conversation gets a little technical here and there, just bear with me. I'll get over it soon.

The jam session is starting. Turn your radio dial to ericsomething-jam.blogspot.com and rip the knob off. Grab a seat – either on the stage or in front of it – open your ears, and enjoy.

-- ericsomething

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H'mm. MoveOn.org is ticked at

H'mm. MoveOn.org is ticked at Obama due to the surge. Daily Beast is calling him Bush Lite. The libs want his head already?
-E

A new music blog, The

A new music blog, The Jam Session, Reloaded, will launch this week. Lots of videos and great sounds. Watch for it!
-E

Seems Obama will pre-empt part

Seems Obama will pre-empt part of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" tonight. He'll say, "WAA waa WAA waa WAA."
-E

Q: What's the difference between

Q: What's the difference between a golf ball and a car? A: Tiger Woods can drive the golf ball 400 yards.
-E

Afghanistan surge: After eight years, where's the ball?

Now that we're throwing our military resources into Afghanistan, the question comes up: Will it make a lick of difference?

My answer is no. If anything, the administration's decision to send some 30,000 more troops into that desert non-paradise only came about eight years too late.

Eight years ago, in the days after 9/11, I was as hawkish as they come -- by all means, send our boys in. Pave the country over. Nuke 'em 'til they glow, shoot 'em in the dark. All that good stuff.

But, see, our leaders (Bush then) totally lost sight of the enemy. It turns out that in late 2001, we had Osama bin Laden in our grasp, and the slippery little bugger got away again. By that time, though, our ADHD administration found bigger fish to fry. Like Iraq.

All of a sudden, Afghanistan went on the back burner while we focused on Saddam Hussein and his minions. Which is interesting; even the massive, 567-page 9/11 report discounts any Iraqi involvement in that terrorist attack.

... meetings between Iraqi officials or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of time of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered bin Laden a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Laden declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date we have seen no evidence that that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen any evidence indicating that Iraq had cooperated with al-Quaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States ... (Page 66, The 9/11 Commission Report)

Meaning we took our eyes off the ball.

After eight years we have no clue where that ball is now, and it doesn't matter anyway because the game essentially ended years ago. We're lined up at midfield where we think they are, while they're really inside the 20 yard line.

By rights, the war in Afghanistan should have been quick and thorough. But in warfare, time is of the essence. You have only a small window of opportunity, and we were busy doing other things when that window slammed shut.

While I was upset that Barack Obama dithered three months before deciding to send more troops, that's just a drop in the bucket. We've engaged in some serious navel-gazing for eight years. With that in mind, what's another three months?

That old military saw, "Fight 'em over there so you don't have to fight 'em over here" doesn't apply here. But it does show us where the ball is. Guess what? We are fighting 'em over here. Every suicide bombing, every threat of a suicide bombing, every terror warning stateside, every nutball who flips out and shoots a bunch of what he calls "infidel dogs" at a military base, is proof positive that we are indeed fighting them here.

We had our chance. Now, unless some stunning new development happens overseas, we're relegated to fighting al-Quaeda over here.

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GOP litmus test: How'd you do?

So what's this GOP litmus test all about?

This is pulled directly from MSNBC, and run verbatim. The link within the text is in downloadable, .pdf format in case you're interested:

The "Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" outlines 10 conservative principles the group of signees wants potential candidates to abide by. The principles include support for:

(1) Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill
(2) Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check
(5) Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
(8) Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

"President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent," the resolution states.

OK. I got most of them, though not enough to be Ronnie's friend. But that's OK, I'm not running for anything.

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You tell me: How did you fare on this litmus test? Are you going to run for office? Would you care to use the comments section to announce it?

GOP trying to restrain its rogue elephants

I don't know if they're trying to clean up the party or just pass around the Kool-Aid, but the GOP is trying to cull those who aren't "one of them" from those who are.

Understandable, because the John McCains and Lindsey Grahams of this world are, well, they dress like Republicans but few are really sure who they are.

Future candidates may have a litmus test to determine where they're coming from, and the gold standard by which Republicans may be judged is none other than Ronald Reagan. The party drafted 10 questions to ask each candidate during the vetting process, and a failing grade (in this case fewer than eight out the 10 questions) is likely to cost them funding and endorsements.

Guys like McCain and Graham (who represents South Carolina in the Senate) are sure failures in the political quiz. As are a majority of the party's office holders, I'll wager. But Graham in particular is being branded as a RINO, Republican In Name Only, for his stances on health care and illegal immigration.

Which makes sense on the surface, but the party may be shooting itself in the foot here. Columnist Kathleen Parker calls the litmus test a "suicide pact."

The ultralib Daily Kos is having fun with this one, and one of its writers, in a tongue-in-cheek article, suggested its own litmus test for Democrats:

... out of pure bullet-point envy, I propose that Democrats must also have their own list. Ten litmus tests which every potential Democratic candidate should be able to ace before they ever hope to put (D) after their names. In fact, I'll go so far as to be more pure than the Republicans. If you can't pass every one of these tests, don't bother to sign on ...

Some of the Kos points include:

... (1) We support the rights extended to Americans extended under the Constitution. All the rights. For all Americans ...

I can't say I recollect the Democrats ever being all fired-up over the Constitution, but that's a separate rant. Let's move on:

... (5) We support American business, and recognize that an unregulated market is an unfair market, an unstable market, and a market doomed to failure ...

I'm trying to ignore the contradiction in that statement. To continue:

... (9) We believe that access to our government is not for sale. Not in the courthouse, not in the White House, and not in the legislature ...

Two words for y'all: BILL CLINTON! As in, Lincoln Bedroom. Remember?

To be sure, the conservative (Reagan) wing of the party really didn't have any muscles to flex until 1980. Before that, Barry Goldwater was the lone "real" conservative in a party that would surely flunk the litmus test today. And Goldwater was considered dangerous, a bomb-thrower, and not politically correct anyway. But after Reagan, there were few "real" conservatives to be had in the party -- surely not Bush Sr. or Jr. You'd have to drill deep among the also-rans in the 2008 primary to find one in Mike Huckabee, and even he's a little suspect.

To look at the GOP's history over the past 50 years, Reagan was the aberration. The party itself, well, it was hard to tell them from the other guys a lot of the time.

While it's nice to develop some sense of unity and identity, it's a real mistake to treat the party as a private club. In all its attempts to seek definition, the party will completely kiss off all the independents who are a better fit on that side of the two-party system. While they're about it, they might as well save time and concede the 2010 and 2012 elections right now. The party's in serious trouble right now; you don't fix that by narrowing your scope.

Let's say (purely hypothetical here; there's no way I'd even consider doing such a thing -- I'm already considered a loose cannon in some circles) I decided to run for Congress. Let's say it'll be in one of those nonexistent districts that were created by the recovery.gov website in the stimulus. There's no way I'm gonna pass that litmus test, though my politics are certainly closer to the Republicans than the Democrats. So I might as well forget about funding, endorsements, etc. The GOP wants a Reagan clone, and that ain't me.

See, I told you this is a stupid scenario.

More intelligent (now that's a stretch) voters are more likely to look at the candidate instead of the party. Anyone who goes into the booth on election day and chooses his candidate solely by the presence of a "D" or "R" beside the name isn't smart enough to vote anyway.

I've suggested this before. The two-party system is one of those things that was a real good idea at the time, outlived its usefulness, and is still hanging around searching for relevance. Sort of like the electoral college.

OK. So who's an elephant these days? And who's a RINO?

Eleph-ino.

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Going paperless is possible, but is it practical?

How much has technology changed our lives?

I saw an indication when reading John Grisham's latest legal thriller, The Associate. There's an exchange between two old college buddies, Kyle and Joey. Kyle is under surveillance (part of the story, of course), so he goes to old-school methods to contact his buddy ... like writing a letter. Joey answers:

"What's with the snail mail? Your handwriting really sucks ... my hand is aching and I feel like such an old fart writing with ink."

It sounds left-field futuristic, but we are moving toward a paperless society, bit by bit. I guess you can say fewer trees are being killed to cover our daily needs, but a lot more electrons are dying in agony.

A productivity blog called Dumb Little Man recently ran a piece about steps one can take to eliminate paper use in his or her life. And while I'm using a lot less paper these days, I'm not completely paperless. Nor do I plan to be.

I haven't owned a printer in years. It's not moved any higher on my shopping list, either. The last time I owned a printer, I went through a ream of paper every month or two. Most of that printing was unnecessary, now that I think about it. About the only things I need to print now are my resume (a factor now that I'm in job-search mode), charts to songs I'm learning, the occasional letter, and that's about it. If I need to get something printed I can put the photos on a thumb drive and get that done anywhere.

Here's where Jay Scarrozzo, who wrote the DLM piece, suggests technology can take the place of paper:

- Books: DLM is big on the idea of ebooks and their offshoots. If you have something like an Amazon Kindle, you can load some 1,500 full-length books onto your handheld device and take it with you. I understand you can even download the Kindle software onto your laptop and save a step there. A whole lot less paper, no clutter, no bookshelves ...

... you can have it.

I do have a few books loaded on my computers -- mostly old ones from the free Project Gutenberg site -- but I can't get interested in a full conversion to electronic reading. I like the weight of a book in my lap. I like the feel and smell of the paper. The mere act of turning the page of a really good book is like opening another gift. I can shove a bookmark wherever I want and do something else -- like read another book. I'll often have three books going at a time; does that make me ADHD?

When I read, I'm a big annotator and use high-lighter pens liberally, which are habits that don't lend themselves well to electronic books.

So while I find the idea of e-book readers intriguing, they're for other people.
- Magazines: I don't have many at all, and I used to be a big magazine reader. I can go on line to get most of that information, and the magazine industry is dying even faster than newspaper publishing.
- Newspapers: That used to be a daily habit, and back then I'd get two or three of them -- one for local news and one for national. But somewhere I skipped the next logical step, going to the newspaper's web site for my daily fix. Today, I RSS everything. My daily news feeds include the New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, the local newspapers,and just about everything else. The last newspaper I bought was 10 days ago, and I know that because it's still on the couch, half-read. But folded neatly.

- Sticky notes: Dumb Little Man suggests using your smart phone (for those who have one) or even the notepad feature on your regular cell phone (that's for the rest of us rabble). All phones have that feature now, but by the time I find my electronic notepad, get to it, and start typing on the keypad, I've already got it down on a real index card. Pass. I have experimented with some Web services that will take a phoned-in note and transcribe it into text, and while there's a geekiness factor there, I'd rather have my million-dollar idea down on paper.
- Notepads: Here's another area where you're not going to see me change much. While I do most of my writing -- including first drafts and outlines -- on a computer, I still rough out ideas on a legal pad. I'm also big on making lists and writing little notes to myself, and I always have my Hipster PDA (nothing more than a bunch of index cards held together with a binder clip; the ultimate in understated cool) with me.

- Bills: I get one, from the electric company. But they also send me a paper bill at the same time, so there's no change in the amount of paper used.

- Checks: I write two a month, for rent and for my electric bill, and I have the folks at the bank do that. I can't remember when I last wrote an actual check, but it's not because I've gone high tech. In fact, I went the other way. Nothing beats cash.

So I'm using less paper than I used to. I notice it in my waste stream. I only need to bring my trash can out for pickup every couple of weeks, unless I just cleaned out the fridge. But I'm noticing I'm less of a pack rat than I used to be, because there's less to pack. My desk actually has some clear spots on it. I have a small work table in my living room, and there are a few things piled on it:

- Three books
- Bottle of water
- Two 5x8 legal pads. One carries notes on a couple of songs I'm arranging.
- One 8x11 clipboard, holding brochures for the local college.
- A pair of pliers. It still escapes me why they're there.
- Receipts I've already entered on my spreadsheet. Why don't I throw 'em out already?
- Two miniature, pocket-sized composition books.
- Sheet music -- some bound, some loose.
- Several pens and high-lighters.
- Shoot, there's even room for a cup of coffee, as long as I'm real careful.

Let's not even look at my bookcase, OK? And I'm not even going to get into hard-disk clutter. Not even going to go there.

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Photo by burgermac. If you look hard enough under all that paper, you can tell that's a MacIntosh under there.

hipster PDA
wikipedia = RSS

RWEYSWS57JR6 - for Technorati -E

RWEYSWS57JR6 - for Technorati
-E

On The Workbench: Chrome OS will leave mark but not kill Windows

(Posted in The Workbench, Reloaded)

It won't be ready for the general public for another year, but the sneak preview of the Google Chrome OS is generating quite a buzz.

It may be a Windows-killer, some claim. It'll put Linux on the map, say others. It'll be a fiasco, say still more pundits. So far, nobody's neutral.

Google Chrome, built from the Debian GNU/Linux operating system (which I've always liked), is designed for the ultralight, ultracheap netbooks that are not really built for much more than Web browsing and lightweight office work. And the Chrome system is really little more than a front end for "cloud computing" ... [more]

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Steering wheel tabletop for the multitasker who has everything

There's always someone on your Christmas shopping list who is guaranteed to stump you. I'm talking about the person who already has everything, right?

I found this in the mentalfloss blog, and wasn't even sure this was real. Can't be. But the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk might be just the thing to give this year.

This cool item is a little tabletop you can attach to your vehicle’s steering wheel, and it creates a level space to do anything you might need a level space for.

But when I wrote this, Amazon had 326 reviews for this product. Mentalfloss writer Miss Cellania related some of her favorites in her blog entry, and here's one:

... I am a Pathologist in Riverside County California and the Laptop Steering Wheel Desk has changed my life. I used to spend long hours in the autopsy room and had too much time away from my family. With this new tool I am able to dissect the organs of a patient during my commute home ...

OK, I grew up in Riverside County, and I can attest that not all of us are freakos.

Then there's the review -- I'm not making this up -- from a dope dealer who loves his steering wheel tabletop because it allows him to ply his trade without having to hire a runner. I tell you what, some of these reviews are classic.

On its face, the whole thing sounds kind of pet-rockish. Why do you you even need something like this?

I can see some uses for this item. During my taxi driving days, my office was behind the wheel. I kept a manifest of all my trips, plus I always had a few other things cooking. Between calls I'd do some writing, arrange some music, or make some phone calls. I'd always have two or three notebooks lying around, a clipboard or two, a briefcase, a couple of books, a newspaper, my lunch, and a travel mug of coffee. Plus my cell phone, charger, handheld computer, and a folding keyboard for that. Trying to keep all that stuff neat was a real chore, and it wasn't good for my legs and back to work while slumped in the driver's seat.

But maybe its allure is a little behind the curve of society. It seems our multi-track fast-lane culture is giving way to something a lot simpler. I'm reading lots of articles suggesting that multitasking is on its way out, that you really don't get anything done when you've got 15 things going at the same time. Which is true, by the way. Like it or not, multitasking is a moral weakness.

But if you feel your time in the vehicle is dead time, you might want to take a look at this item. Just don't use it while you're driving, and we'll all be OK.

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I wonder he there's a

I wonder he there's a Falcon Heene balloon at the Macy's parade?
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Hear tell a guy in

Hear tell a guy in New Hampshire is running for Congress in one of those nonexistent districts. They need representation too.
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My choice for 2009 Turkey

My choice for 2009 Turkey Of The Year is (drum roll) GOV. MARK SANFORD. Who's yours?
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It's been 90 days since

It's been 90 days since Obama was asked to send more troops to Afghanistan. The war may end before he does something.
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North Charleston (where I live)

North Charleston (where I live) is now 22nd most dangerous place to live. Beats last year's 10th, anyway.
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Note to Maj. Nidal Hasan's

Note to Maj. Nidal Hasan's lawyer: Being a nutjob is NOT the same as being legally insane.
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North Charleston (where I live)

North Charleston (where I live) is now 22nd most dangerous place to live. Beats last year's 10th, anyway.
-E

SC Gov. Mark Sanford accused

SC Gov. Mark Sanford accused of 37 ethics violations in report released today. Still sounds like mental breakdown to me.
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Ground broken for new Boeing

Ground broken for new Boeing plant here in Charleston today. Trust me, that wasn't StimuPork.
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Anyone placing bets on when

Anyone placing bets on when Oprah makes her comeback? Methinks she won't stay gone long. Two years, tops.
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Happy 81st, Mickey!

Vintage Mickey, from 1929. I hear tell he's still holding his age well.

Obama: Spending could create double-dip recession

Forget about trying to get a read on the economy these days. Some indications say it's recovering, while others say it's spinning clockwise in the drain.

But Barack Obama, of all people, is warning about the possibility of a double-dip recession -- the kind that recovers for a few minutes only to plunge back down again. A double dip, just like you'd see on a graph.

According to the Associated Press, he's "worried that spending too much money to help revive the economy could undermine a fragile U.S. recovery and throw the economy into a double-dip recession."

OK. His administration has squandered $787 billion on a stimulus package that isn't working, except maybe in congressional districts that don't exist. They're playing with a health care package with a cost in the trillion-dollar range (which makes the price tag on the Senate version of the bill look like a blue-eyed bargain at $849 billion). There's scuttlebutt that a second stimulus package may be in the offing.

And he's worried about spending?

Fasten your seat belt. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

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Some reasons to avoid H1N1 vaccine are better than others

I'm stubborn. I'm still not getting my H1N1 flu shot. And it looks like a lot of people are with me there.

Like more than half the population. I'm getting my numbers from a CNN poll:

According to the poll, 55 percent of adults don't want to get the swine flu vaccine, and don't plan to get a shot. Another one in five say they want to get inoculated but haven't taken any steps to do so, 14 percent want a shot and have tried to get it but have been unsuccessful. Just 7 percent have been inoculated for H1N1.

H'mmm. Interesting, yes?

I have my own reasons for avoiding the needle. I've never had a flu shot, and I don't plan to start now. If I get some sort of flu -- which I get every few years, I usually let it run its course, dose myself with vitamin C, slam down a bunch of juice and water, gobble aspirin, pile the blankets on top of me, and sweat it out by force. Then I'm done with that for the year; I usually don't get sick again.

I've known too many people who got sick off a flu shot -- basically it's an innoculation, which introduces a small (controlled, they say) amount of the virus into your system so you can build up your antibodies. Taking the longer view, it's an effective way to go -- that was how we essentially wiped out smallpox. But thinking short-range, when that sample of the flu virus is injected into your system, what your body does with it is sometimes a crapshoot.

So, no flu shot for me. Rather than burden my body with what is basically a false alarm, I'd rather it raise up the antibodies as needed, legions and legions of them, and stamp that flu out like ... well, like a disease. That's my strategy, and I'm sticking to it.

Here's how CNN interprets its findings:

"The perception that the vaccine has dangerous side effects is the top reason," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Roughly half of those who don't want a swine flu shot say that the possibility of side effects is one reason why they don't plan to get the vaccine. That works out to 28 percent of the adult population who don't plan to get inoculated due to the risk of dangerous side effects."

While the H1N1 (the bug formerly known as Swine Flu) seems to be a particularly nasty virus, all indications show it won't be any more deadly than your standard-issue flu that strikes every year.

I wrote this last month:

According to the CDC (I got these numbers from the World Almanac), various influenza viruses will hospitalize 200,000 and kill about 36,000 people in the United States every year. That's every year.

But these are good, sound reasons for someone to avoid the flu shot. I've heard some really crazy reasons, too. Ready to hear one?

Good. It seems that a famous Croatian priest, Miroslav Bustruk, is saying the H1N1 vaccine carries a microchip.

Don't give me any trouble, OK? While I may have a good imagination, I can't make this stuff up. But here's the story from Macedonia Online:

“I appeal to you, to not get vaccinated for the so called Swine Flu under any circumstance. There is a plan for massive destruction of humanity worldwide. For this purpose we will see new diseases springing up everywhere” reports Croatian daily “Jutarnji List”, quoting father Bustruk. “The H1N1 vaccine itself is a very sophisticated weapon whose implanted microchip will control the health of the human being” added the Croatian priest which prompted a great deal of disagreement by Croatian officials ...

Did y'all get that? Implanted microchip? While I've been accused of harboring some pretty strange ideas (comes with the territory when you write a blog), this one's a little goofy even for me. The ol' microchip-in-the-flu-vaccine trick isn't on my list of favorite conspiracies.

For the record: I ain't skeered of no flu bug, and I ain't skeered of no microchip. Got that?

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HHS head Sebelius says mammogram

HHS head Sebelius says mammogram call not set in stone. I'm still not changing what I wrote about that.
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Mammogram recommendation a sneak peek at medical rationing

The ObamaLosi health care package has not cleared its approval process yet, and indications are that it may be scuttled by the Senate. But, it appears medical rationing is already in effect.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an arm of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, now says annual mammograms do more harm than good for women in their 40s, and that the once-recommended self-inspection is worthless.

No matter what the so-called scientific objections are to back the task force up, it all boils down to dollars and cents. Mammograms aren't cheap.

Time to get personal here. Some years ago my then-wife -- still in her late 30s -- detected a lump in her breast. A mammogram showed it was there, and an ultrasound pinpointed it. She went in for a biopsy (where the lump was removed), and it proved to be benign -- fibroids, it turned out. Very scary time in the household for a few weeks. To be honest, I could have handled it better on my end. I was trying (unsuccessfully) to put on a calm front during the crisis. All the emotional stuff that came with it, well, I kept it to myself. I didn't tell anybody, but I felt like improvising a song about it when it was over.

The sole point of my story is that, yes, cancer is an issue with the sub-50 crowd. For a task force of so-called experts to say there's nothing to worry about, well, it doesn't make any sense until you crank in the dollars-and-cents issue.

Call me crazy, but I see this as a preparatory step to universal (i.e. government) health care. Discount the validity of certain procedures, tell the public they're not necessary, and cut costs that way. Like it or not, it's a sneak peek at how health care will be rationed.

Shoot, health care under our current insurance system is screwed up enough. But get the federal government in the picture, things get from bad to worse in a hurry.

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Stimulus will create jobs -- to fix its own screwups

Have you checked out recovery.gov, the government's site tracking how many jobs are saved/created under the $787 billion stimulus package?

Check it out. It's either outrageously funny, or real scary.

According to the site, the stimulus saved or created 30 jobs in Arizona's 15th Congressional district, at a cost of $761,420. Great trick, as there is no 15th District there.

The site also points out success stories in nonexistent districts in Connecticut, and several other states.

From ABC News:

Late Monday, officials with the Recovery Board created to track the stimulus spending, said the mistakes in crediting nonexistent congressional districts were caused by human error ... “We report what the recipients submit to us,” said Ed Pound, Communications Director for the Board ... “Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in, so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes.”

See, this stimulus is truly a miraculous piece of legislation.

I understand the web site will be fixed at a cost of at least $9 million. But the good news is, repairing the data will create -- guess what? -- some jobs.

Now, that's a stimulus success story.

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(Photo: Your tax dollars are working hard for you in Arizona's 15th Congressional District. Oh ... actually this is the California Conservation Corps, taken last March. By Chris Pizzello/AP Photo)