The Old Fox's Den

2011-12-31T17:20:00.001-05:00

One of life's little surprises

2011-12-06T12:43:00.001-05:00

Early last August I noticed a few drops of blood in my urine one morning. Not only did that little spot of pink wake me up, it made me most vigilant. When the blood continued to appear for a few days...not much, just a little pink tinge at the end...I called my doctor and made an appointment. She first treated me for a urinary infection (there was one present), and, when the infection went away but the blood didn't, then she sent me to a urologist. Well, to make a long story short (and to avoid talking a lot about medical procedures--something I have little patience with when others do it) he found a couple small tumors in my bladder, and told me they had to come out. But, he added, not to worry because 80% of these tumors are the low grade type which are easily cured. Well, tra-la, my little cancers were of the 20% high grade variety which are not easily cured.

The cancer was formally diagnosed mid-October. I had my first trans-urethral bladder resection October 27th. It was when the pathology lab looked at the specimens from that operation that they determined that my cancer was of the high grade variety. That necessitated a second bladder resection which was done on November 17th. It was after that surgery that it was determined that the cancer had "invaded" the bladder's muscle tissue. This, I am told, is Not Good. So, "Not Good", in fact, that my urologist informed me that we needed to talk about complete removal of the bladder. Complete removal! All because there was one little speck of cancer on one small muscle tissue sample. I was devastated.

I should mention that, especially in males, complete bladder removal also means complete prostate removal. Removal of the prostate means the surgeon is messing around where the nerves that govern male sexual arousal are located. In the large majority of bladder removals, the ability to engage in sexual intercourse is also removed. Now, while sex is not absolutely necessary for my wife's and my ongoing relationship, it does add to it. And I am not ready to let that part of my life go yet, so I/we began to look for alternatives.

One of the problems with ebooks

2011-11-02T18:01:00.001-04:00

So, I was going through some shelves when I came upon a stash of books I had purchased back in the early ‘70s. They were all non-fiction mass market paperbacks with an average cover price of about $1.25. Just for hoots, I checked Barnes & Noble to see if I could get any of these as an ebook. Turns out there was one (Adam Smith’s Supermoney) that was available, but its price was $9.99. Now, why would anybody pay that much for a 40 year old book about what was happening on Wall Street and the economy in the early 70’s? Sure, my old paperback’s binding is starting to fall apart because the glue is 40 years old. I did glance at a couple of chapters and had a slight case of deja vu (what goes around, comes around: those who don’t pay attention to history are doomed to repeat it….and other pithy aphorisms) so it might be interesting to reread it. However, probably not…unless I can get an ecopy for under two bucks. Then it would be worth my time and effort.

The fact of the matter is that ebooks are still a mystery to most publishers. They haven’t a clue how to price them to make them truly attractive. The current pricing tiers for new books, while not optimal, can be lived with. Yeah, I’ll probably pay $15 for the new Clancy book as an ebook rather than the $20 it would cost me as a hardcover. The ebook is much more portable and easier to hold while reading than the hardcover, and I am not a collector so I don’t really care about owning a physical copy. However, I will not pay $15 or $10 or even $5 for an old (more than three years) mass market fiction book. Other than the truly rare book, popular fiction usually only sells a few copies a year by the time it is three years old because, let’s face it, most mass market fiction is pretty much crap.

What I want is the ability to buy a book and have it both as a physical object which I can use to decorate my walls and a digital entity which I can load into my portable reader and carry around with me. But I don’t want to pay $25.00 for a hardcover book and another $10 to $15 for the digital version. So, I have challenge for the publishing industry: come up with a way to give your customers both digital and physical copies of their books. Otherwise, piracy will be a major, ongoing problem for the industry.

A test...and a change of content.

2011-11-01T18:16:00.000-04:00

OK, I have Drivel editor on my Linux laptop now. Drivel is compatible with Blogger, so I can use this without having to go through Firefox to post stuff to this Blog. I say this blog because I have another Blog over at Typepad. For the most part it has been a place where I rant in lonely splendor. But that is about to change. From now on, this space will be for personal entries...you know, entries about my life. This is where you will find the "horrible driver" rants and memoir-ish essays. Over on the Typepad Blog (elzorroviejo.typepad.com/blog/), is where I plan to do most of my socio-political blogging. In the past, I have done some cross posting between the two, but, from now on, I will keep this personal and that overtly political. Now, in the past I have pretty much kept my light buried under a bushel, so to speak. No longer. From hence forth I plan to publicize that blog as much as I can because I think that it is important to add as many voices against the Republican agenda as possible. However, it is also important to get actively involved: which is why I will be getting the hell off my fat butt and going out in the world doing.

life goes on

2011-10-30T19:08:00.000-04:00

I'm not quite sure how to handle this. I mean, it is not like I'm the only person in the world to have ever been diagnosed with cancer. But it is a life altering event. The long and short of it is that I had three tumors in my bladder (had because they were operated upon Thursday last), and I have some suspicious nodes on one of my lungs that they want to look more closely at. I go back to my urologist November 7th to hear the results from the pathologist and to learn whether I have to go through this exercise again because they have to dig deeper to make sure they get all the nasties out of me. The real problem is that one of the tumors was not caught either by CT scan or by initial visual examination of my bladder in the doctor's office. (Don't ask: it involved shoving what looked like a very large tube up the urethra. 'Nuff said.) That leads me to think that it was a type CIS tumor, and that is not a good thing. However, I will learn the actual truth in about a week. I don't want to make too much out of this. The truth of the matter is that this seems to have been caught early, and the long term prognosis should be pretty good. On the other hand, I don't want to gloss this over as being relatively insignificant in my life...because it isn't. So, I will pretty much leave this right here...and get on with life.

Potholes

2011-06-04T10:46:00.000-04:00

Potholes. They are, in fact, what is wrong with us right now. Well, not exactly the potholes themselves, but, rather, how we are dealing with them. Why, I ask, could this nation build tens...no...hundreds of thousands of miles of roads in the first thirty years (more or less) of the last century, but we have trouble filling the potholes in those roads today. I think I know the answer, and the answer is greed. In the past forty years or so, we have institutionalized greed to a point where it is no longer considered one of the basic evils of this world.

"Gimme mine, and to hell with the rest of you." has become acceptable in our culture. It is, in fact, the mantra of the Republican party and their fellow travelers on the right edge of the political spectrum. Over the past 40 years, or so, this mindset has led to a massive imbalance in the distribution of wealth in this country. We have in fact become a two tier society with the middle class being squeezed to a point where it has shrunk to the smallest percentage of the population it has been in the last 100 years. In fact, today the top 1% of the population controls more wealth than the bottom 90%. The implications of this fact are huge, and they do not bode well for the future of our democracy.

Think about it. The primary purpose of all that wealth is to acquire even more wealth. As more wealth is absorbed into that vast pool, two things become true: first, there is less wealth available to the rest of the population which means we are all scrabbling after a smaller and ever smaller piece of the pie. Second, the pool of wealth becomes even vaster and it accretes at an ever increasing rate. It is like a black hole which is growing ever larger, and our nation's wealth is disappearing into it.

And this brings me back to potholes. We are not filling the potholes on our nation's roads, much less building new roads, because the wealth necessary is no longer available to society. We are rapidly become like the vision portrayed in Blade Runner where the rich live in palatially sumptuous surroundings while the rest of us live in squalor. However, this future is not inevitable. There is still time to reverse this process of wealth accretion. The first step is to increase the marginal tax rate on income above [pick a number-open for debate-for argument's sake, let's use $500,000/year] to at least 90%. The second step is to break up large fortunes by instituting a graduated estate tax that taxes estates over [pick a number-let's say...$10 million] at, again, at least 90%. This recirculates wealth through society. It means that the government can pay down debt, and fund current operations without borrowing. It means more money is available for entrepreneurs to start their own businesses. It means the middle class becomes stronger. It means the growth of an aristocratic class slows and (hopefully) eventually reverses.

The time has come to challenge the Right Wing of the political spectrum before it become too powerful. Allow another generation of wealth accumulation, and it will be too late. Even now the super-rich nascent aristocracy will fight tooth and nail to protect every penny in their coffers. However, right now, we still have enough wealth and the numbers to return us to the true path of freedom in this country. There will always be this tension between the rich and the rest. The goal should be, not the elimination of either side, but, rather, a state of balance between them. Sure, there will be tilts where one side or the other gains ascendancy, and, when this happens, the goal should be to bring things back into balance.

The time is now. We dare not fail in this task.

Depressed

2011-05-19T12:04:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I was within four days of finishing our sunroom addition. All that was left was the second coat of primer, two coats of final color and varnishing the door at molding. Now, this project started in November of 2008 when, to my everlasting shame, we let a salesman pressure us into signing a contract. Since then, very little has gone right with this project.

The whole thing was subject to us refinancing our existing mortgage. Well, that took about five and one-half months. We finally got our check the first week of May, 2009, and we promptly sent Tri-state Building Specialties a big check. They didn’t wander back until late September. Between October and December, they got about 80% of the room built, and then they went away again for four months or so.

Over that winter, we discovered that we had a couple leaks. When they finally came back, we told them about the leaks and they supposedly fixed them. By June of last year, they had pretty much finished. And I had paid them about 98% of what was owed on the job. I told them that I would give them the final check after the first hard rain so I could be sure that the leaks were fixed. They took the power cord to the heat pump to hold as hostage.

Sure enough, the first hard rain came, and the leaks were still there. So, I went out and bought another power cord (screw them!), and hired another contractor to deal with the leaks. Well, after shelling out more money than I owed Tri-state to get the leaks fixed, we thought we were good. Of course, by this time it was late fall of 2010. We were now two years into the project.

Now, Tri-state only builds the shell. All finish work is up to the homeowner. It took a little time, but I got Judy to go on a couple of shopping trips to pick out things like the slate floor tiles and to begin the search for sconces.

This is all so depressing.

To cut to the chase, it took us all last winter to do things like decide on the final color we wanted for the back wall and what kind of door we were going to put in. (Originally, we weren’t going to have a door, but the rain on the plastic roof is so loud that doors are a necessity.). I had to mud in the rough work the electricians did in installing the receptacles for the lighting in the room which, I admit, took a long time. However, we also found that to use that room in the winter meant we had to run the heat pump almost 24/7 and that just is not economically feasible for us right now! So, it didn’t matter that we had plastic sheeting in the archway leading out to the room all last winter.

The good news was that it appeared that the leaks were dealt with. We got through all the storms of winter without any further signs of leakage. Finally, last week after, now, two and one-half years of this project, I put the first coat of primer on the wall. And that brought out all the little imperfections in the spackling. So, I think I got most of them done, and yesterday, while it was raining very hard outside, I started putting the second coat of primer on the wall. And that was when I saw the signs of the leak.

So, now, at the least, I have to wait a week (mol) for the drywall to dry out. Then we have to decide whether to go back up on the roof and put a bunch more roofing tar in that corner where the sunroom roof and the main roof meet, or to bite the bullet and have the whole house reroofed. I was hoping not to have to deal with that, but it is beginning to look like a probability.

(Fill in a whole bunch of 4-letter words right about here…)

Ah spring...

2011-04-10T20:06:00.000-04:00

I love my house! Here I am, out by the barbie on a cool spring night cooking pork chops and blogging on the Internet in between ministering to the chops. We went out and spent over $400 on stuff for the house at the Toy Store (otherwise known as Home Depot). Got all the molding for the french doors and three sconces for the wall. We also got a new faucet for the kitchen, but I digress. I've got to call our landscaper (also know as the lawn mowers) to arrange a meeting before his guys show up to do the clean out and lay the sod in the backyard. Just want to be sure we are all on the same page.

In preparation for their arrival with the sod, I place the stones for the stone border along the north boundary garden. I will wait until the sod is in before I trench and place the stones in their permanent homes.

OK, that's all I had on my mind tonight. Tomorrow I'll post something nasty about the Republicans and how they obviously hate the founding ideals of this nation.

Shutting down the government

2011-04-07T08:42:00.001-04:00

The Republicans are making a lot of noise about this, but the truth is that they have another agenda entirely. Their goal is to subvert the democracy we have in favor of a plutocracy. They want the rich and powerful to rule and for the rest of us to serve that ruling class. That is why there has been the intense war on the middle class these past thirty years or so.

The current budget crisis is a case in point. Shutting down the government primarily affects those of us on the middle and lower rungs of the economic ladder. If the Republicans really had our best interests at heart, then they would be insisting the taxes on the rich must increase at the same time spending is cut. That is the only way the budget is going to be balanced. And, by the way, it has conclusively been proven that “trickle down” just plain does not work. The rich use their money to garner more of the stuff which means there is less in the pot for the rest of us.

No, if the Republicans were truly working for the good of the country, they would be addressing the disparity between the Haves and the Have-Nots. Another case in point: look at the move by ATT to acquire T-Mobile. Rather than use the billions of dollars that they (ATT) has in their coffers (in other words, the huge profits they have made on the iPhone) to increase pay to the their non-executive employees, they are trying to buy T-Mobile to make themselves even bigger. This is just wrong, but the Republicans don’t see it.

Some interesting bits from the media

2011-03-16T07:24:00.001-04:00

I was browsing through National Geographic Magazine today, and, while there were some fascinating articles, on the whole it was a depressing experience. What NGM is telling us is that we are using up this planet's resources at a prodigious rate. I think or my well loved granddaughter and I worry for her future. What all of this is telling me is that, as a species, we have to get off this planet in big (and I mean in the billions) way within the next one hundred years, or we are going doom both ourselves and our planet.

Then I was skimming through Newsweek, and found this on page 4, "...from an American perspective, the revolutions transforming the Middle East are also deeply sad. They're sad because they underscore what a terrible waste the last decade of American foreign policy has been." We have poured over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives wasted for no real reason. Once again we are presented with clear evidence that George Bush (the younger) was arguably the worst president of all time. As a result of his presidency, we are left with a crushing debt load, a weak economy and an increasingly isolationist, selfish and fearful national psyche.

Slow morning at the bookstore

2011-03-06T11:56:00.001-05:00

Yeah, it’s raining out, and, besides, Sunday morning is usually slow for the first two hours or so. Knowing that it was most likely going to be not busy, I snuck a couple magazines behind the counter to fill in the empty minutes. The first one I opened was March's copy of National Geographic Magazine.

Now, I love National Geographic. It has been a staple in my life since I first learned how to read. But, this issue depressed me. One of the center-piece articles as about the “Age of Man”, and how we are shaping the planet in ways similar to major geologic events such as asteroid strikes. The gist of the story is that we are burning through the planet’s resources at a prodigious rate. There is a three page foldout picture of one of the California oil fields which produces about 32 million barrels of oil per year. The story notes that this is about 9 hours of the world’s consumption of oil.

I think of my well-loved granddaughter, and I seriously worry for her future. I’ll be dead and gone when the oil wells dry up in fifty years (mol), but she, and her children, will have to deal with this reality. So, what all this is telling me is that we, as a species, have to get off this planet in the near future (next 25-30 years) and in a very big way (in the tens…hundreds of millions.) We have to bring the population of the planet back down to a sustainable level and we have only a little time to do ourselves. Otherwise, dear old Mother Nature will do the culling, and, dear and sweet as she is, Mother Nature’s methods tend to be very…painful for both those culled and those left standing. If we don’t get off this planet, we are dooming both our species and our planet to a very dark future.

Leaving National Geographic, I picked up the current copy of Newsweek and began to read. I Didn’t have to get very far into it before I came across the following, “…from an American perspective, the revolutions transforming the Middle East are also deeply sad. They’re sad because they underscore what a terrible waste the last decade of American foreign policy has been.” We have poured over a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives wasted for no good reason. Once again we are presented with clear evidence that George Bush (the younger) was arguably the worst president of all time. As a result of his presidency we are left with a crushing debt load, a weak economy and an increasingly isolationist, selfish and fearful national psyche.

Re: Aaack…(aka. computer problems)

2011-03-05T11:43:00.002-05:00

Well, that post was about 3 months ago. Let me relate how things progressed. First, it seems that Roger didn’t know what he was talking about. The problem was not the drives, the problem was the SATA controller on the motherboard. Now, seeing as how the SATA controller is integral to the motherboard, the way to fix it is simply to buy a new MB. Which I did. However, it was not the exact same model as the one originally in the ASUS case.
While I was waiting for that to arrive, I started poking around with the Dell to see what it's problem was. Turns out, it wasn’t the Dell at all. I have a Belkin port sharing switch which allows me to share keyboard/mouse/monitor between up to four computers. Well, I have a real old computer (still running Win98) and the Dell hooked up to that. I had some idea once about converting the really old Quantex into a Linux box, but that never quite happened. Anyhow, when the power went out, the Belkin box reset to default configuration. The really old Quantex is on port 1, the Dell is on port 2. When I switched ports on the switch from one to two, voila!, the Dell was right there. Oops, operator error.
So, back to the ASUS. I finally got the new MB in towards the end of January. Had it installed and ready to go the first week of February. I got the board pretty much naked. I cannibalized the CPU, memory, fan, video card, original hard drive and the new 500gb drive I had purchased to replace the supposedly bad 2TB drive I had originally got to fix my problem from the old setup. Once I had everything in place, I powered it up and (again) Voila! the ASUS was back. OK, it was not the same computer: it was a new computer in the old box. Still, I now had/have a working computer again.
Except that it glitches a little bit. Sometimes things are very slow and sometimes it freezes up entirely. Now, the slowdown could be because I have installed the full ZoneAlarm package, and it, in its unswerving pursuit of perfect safety, sometimes does slow things down. The good news is that I am back to having everything working. And it only has taken me three months to reach this point.
Now that I think of it, I’m not sure this is all good. I’ll get back with a conclusion about that after I have had time to think about it.

2 am and I can’t sleep….

2011-03-03T02:02:00.001-05:00

So, here I am at 2am with eyes wide open. I have to get up in about 5 hours, and the harder I try to fall asleep, the more it eludes me. Last night was inventory at the store, so I didn’t get to bed until 4am-ish yesterday morning. my circadian rhythms are all screwed up. I have jet lag without having gone anywhere. That and the fact that my granddaughter’s weird mother (they’re divorced so all she is to me now is my granddaughter’s mother) wants to take her out of the Montessori school she is currently going to, courtesy of my wife who is a teacher there, and put her into public school. This is not a good thing. The woman is certifiable. If I were even moderately rich, I would spend huge sums of money on lawyers to bury her in the system. By the time she got her head above water again, the granddaughter would be in college and living her own life.

Alright, maybe the 3 ibuprofen tabs I just took will kick in and I can get a couple hours sleep before facing another day in retail. Some aspects of my life really do suck…

Aaack...

2010-12-15T11:45:00.000-05:00

I know...I know...I started something and it stands out there unfinished. But I have a good excuse: the dog ate my homework. No, actually I do have a good excuse: computer problems. First, my 6 month old ASUS stopped recognizing its hard drive. I ordered a new one (a great big 2TB Samsung SATA), but, when it arrived, there was no joy. The ASUS still wouldn't recognize this one either. So, I took drives and computer to Roger at PC Warehouse (Roger has helped me in the past with computer repairs beyond my ability) and he confirmed that the computer was, in fact, OK, and that it was the drives that were not working correctly. Fine.

I sent the Samsung back to the vendor with a request to replace. The replacement arrived and it too would not work. The ASUS BIOS kept giving me varying information about the capacity of the drive. It got it right about 3/4 of the time. But, when I tried to load Windows from the DVD, the setup program steadfastly refused to recognize the drive. So, with tears in my eyes, I sent this one back to Samsung with a request for a drive that actually has been tested and is known to work. When that one comes, I'll put it in the ASUS and determine once and for all whether it is the drive or the computer that is failing on me.

Howver, this is not the end of my problems. While the ASUS is doing a strong imitation of a doorstop, I have fallen back to using my 8 year old (MOL) Dell as my primary computer. Until yesterday. Yesterday, we had a power outage that, for the computer at least, lasted about 5 hours. (I unplugged it when the power failed, then spiked on and failed again. I didn't want surges to damage anything...) So, when I got home from work for dinner and plugged it in...nada! My guess is that the battery backup for the BIOS failed. (I am guessing that because I did get a warning about low battery the last time I turned the machine completely off.)

So, I am now down to my Linux laptop. All my stuff that I had on my Windows machines is locked up on HD's that I cannot get to. This is what I get for ignoring battery warnings and for not having this machine connected to my Windows network.

I'm going to give Roger a call to see if there is anyway he can get the old Dell back up and running. If that is a "yes", maybe by the end of the week, I'll be back in business. Also, the suspect HD reached Samsung yesterday, so, maybe, I'll have my replacement back by the end of the week as well.

Oh yeah, and my desk chair also died. I am not having a good month so far...I will get back to discussing the failings of the Tea Party as soon as I get past all of this...damn.

Tea Party agenda

2010-11-05T14:37:00.001-04:00

Thomas Jefferson said, “"I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country,” As proven by the rise of the Tea Party, which gains virtually all of its real economic strength from corporate sources, we haven’t yet succeeded in this goal.

OK, My bad…I didn’t pay as much attention to the Tea Party and Sarah Palin over the past few months as I should have. I especially didn’t pay attention to their so called Contract with America, and I should have. I should have because it is one of the most seditious documents ever foisted upon the American public. Of course, the only reason most Americans did not reject it outright is because these are the same people who have been dumbing down our public education system over the past generation or so. When I went to school in the middle of the 20th Century, we were taught more than just facts. We were taught how to solve problems and how to judge the written word. However, these same folks who now control the strings of the Tea Party are the same folks who have been leading the attack on our public education system over the past generation or so. And now we are seeing the fruits of this dumbing down process: the American public can’t recognize when it is being raped and sold down the river into perpetual servitude.

So, since it appears that there is a significant portion of our electorate which cannot engage in critical thinking when it comes to…politics, I will try to do it for them, and I’ll do it in order. (All of the following is quoted from The Wikipedia article on the Tea Party.)

Number 1: Identify constitutionality of every new law: Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%)

Well, this is just plain stupid. First of all, if a law is questioned about its Constitutionality, the correct course of action is to take it to the courts. That is what the Federal Court system is for. Second, if you take a minute (because that is about all the time it takes) to read Section 8 (Powers of Congress) you’ll see that it is broad and vague enough to cover a great deal. For example, take this: “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;” Basically, this gives Congress the right to enact laws that govern any economic activity whose effects cross state borders. That, my Conservative friends, includes activities which pollute the air and any lakes and/or rivers which touch two or more states. More to the point, every prospective law introduced to Congress goes through a vetting process which included a check of its constitutionality. Again, sometimes laws are passed which do not meet the criteria of constitutionality as set forth by the Supreme Court. Which is why we have such a court and which is why laws that don’t pass that Court are quashed. If you have a problem with constitutionality, take it to the court.

Number 2: Reject emissions trading: Stop the "cap and trade" administrative approach used to control carbon dioxide emissions by providing economic incentives for achieving reductions in the emissions of carbon dioxide. (72.20%)

This has nothing to do with constitutionality, this has to do with the cost of not polluting our environment. The Tea Party is simply fronting from their masters here. Besides, this is a market based method for controlling pollution that does not require government funding. What the Tea Party is proposing is simply another government program designed to benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of all the rest of us. Check the link to “cap and trade” above if you need more information on the subject.

Numbers 3 & 4: Demand a balanced federal budget: Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax modification. (69.69%)

Simplify the tax system: Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the Internal Revenue Code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words – the length of the original Constitution. (64.9%)

These two are actually part and parcel of each other. Of course, the agenda here is the eventual repeal of any taxes that impinge upon the wealthy, which would leave the government without the means it needs to govern effectively. That would mean that the rich could begin to carve up this country into their own personal fiefdoms. In which case, just guess who would end up down at the bottom of the socio-economic-political ladder? That’s right, the other 95% of the population, and that, I would guess, pretty much means you, gentle reader. One of the things our Founding Fathers were united in their rejection of was the creation of an aristocratic class. Dump progressive income tax and estate taxes on the great fortunes, and it would take only a generation to create such an aristocracy. Think about it.

OK, we’ll continue this in my next post. In my next post I will look at items 5 through 7.

Amazing stuff

2010-09-19T00:47:00.000-04:00

If we are smart, there is a way out of the environmental mess we have gotten ourselves into. I was watching one of the handyman networks...DIY I think, where they were talking about some emerging technologies that (IMHO) hold a great deal of promise. The first thing they showed me was solar panels made pretty much out of the same stuff they make car bumpers out of. Basically, the photo-voltaic cells are embedded in plastic which is then molded into whatever shape is needed. The sheets on the show were made to follow the profile of barrel tiles, but, if you can do that, then you can make 'em fit any roof profile. These things are weatherproof and have and estimated life of at least 35 years. That means the homeowner gets about 25 years of straight profit from his roof.

The other product highlighted was a heat pump designed to remove heat from the fridgid air of our northern latitudes in winter. They showed a unit that could heat/cool and 1800 ft^2 home for about $1000 per year. In other words, this heat pump is a hugely more efficient use of energy. Instead of using fossil fuels to heat one's home, use electricity, preferably created by those solar panels on one's roof, to run this heat pump. Even if you are using electricity produced by burning fossil fuels, it is still more efficient than using that fuel in individual home furnaces.

Now all we have to do is get the Tea Party to see the light.

We're doomed...unless we can keep them the hell out of Washington, D.C.. Come November, do your part by voting AGAINST all Tea Party candidates. I don't care who you vote for as long as you don't vote for anybody endorsed by the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin.

Another bit of proof that your banker is your friend.

2010-06-04T11:47:00.001-04:00

The time between when you write a check and when the money is taken out of your checking account (also known as float) is now down to zero. If you write a check at someplace like my employer (a major big box specialty retailer), the check goes into the cash register and “BOOM” the cash leaves your account. Right then and there. There is no more two or three day grace period for checks.

However, this is still not true for the checks you deposit to your account at the bank. Show up with anything other than a paycheck or a government check, and you have to wait a few days for the money to show up in your account. That means that the bank has free use of your money from the time you deposit the check until the time it finally appears in your account. Now, you can’t tell me that banks that process E-checks for merchants can’t do the same for their customers. If I don’t have a float period anymore, then the banks shouldn’t have one either.

‘Nuff said….

Junk Mail

2010-06-03T12:46:00.001-04:00

There is something wrong with this: I just went and looked at the Junk Mail folder for Thunderbird. This is the junk mail that gets through the filtering process provided by my various mail servers. Thunderbird has instructions to delete junk mail after 30 days. That provides me an opportunity (seldom taken) to review what is in my junk folder just in case Thunderbird made a mistake. Today was one of those rare occasions that I did look, but I wasn’t looking because I thought Thunderbird made a mistake. No, I was looking for another reason entirely.

I went and checked my junk mail folder because Thunderbird told me there were 862 unopened emails in that folder. That is 862 offers for Viagra and other worthless dreck. That 862 doesn’t include the regular ads I get from places like Amazon, Buy.com etc.- ads that I glance at before moving one.

All I can do is shake my head and marvel at the venality of the human race. First, the greed, avarice and lust (3/4 of these have to do with sex in one way or another) of the people flooding the net with these broadcast emails. Second, the stupidity and/or desperation of the people who actually answer these ads has to be enough to make it profitable to keep sending them out. And that is the key. If people just stopped answering these things, sooner or later the spammers out there would run out of money, or just get discouraged from the lack of results, and they would stop.

Yeah…like that would ever happen.

Teacher Unions

2010-05-24T14:08:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, there was a piece, actually the cover story, in the Times Sunday Magazine about education reform and teachers' unions which I think provides a pretty good look at the need for educational reform and the role the teachers’ unions have in blocking truly meaningful reform. What I come away from the article with is that the major impediments for the unions are accountability, teacher evaluation and tenure.

The unions fight tooth and nail to preserve tenure, seniority and the lack of accountability on the part of teachers for student progress. In effect, the unions are working hard to protect the jobs of poor and mediocre teachers. The problem is that there are too many of those in the unions to make it easy to get around them. Remember the old saw, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” or, “If you can’t get a real job, you can always teach.” Teaching was always considered a fall-back option for new college graduates looking for work. In the past, too many positions in the public schools have been filled by…well, let’s just say that they were/are not our best.

The thing is, if you are a good teacher, if you are one of those people who former students remember fondly as being agents of change in their lives, then you shouldn’t have to worry about any of this. And, from what I can see of all the reform efforts, if you are a good teacher, you will end up being paid well; at least better than you are being paid now.

So, what is needed is a new type of teacher’s union. This union should be limited to good teachers. And don’t kid yourselves, the teachers out there know which among them are good and which are mediocre, or worse. Give the teachers in these unions grievance mediation tools, protection from abuse, of any kind, from supervisors and the ability to bargain for anything not connected to tenure. Set up an evaluation process which utilizes independent evaluators who have no connection to the teachers/school district being evaluated. Then let’s see what kind of data we get from tracking teachers who are considered “good” to “excellent.” I’ll bet that a few years of headlines detailing the progress and benefits to the kids this arrangement brings will be enough to sound the death knell to the unions which protected the incompetent teachers.

Copyright, continued

2010-05-19T11:03:00.001-04:00

Ars Technica has another article. posted today, about copyright infringement/piracy. Now, while I have no problem with creative people getting compensated for their creativity, I do have a problem with how we, as a culture, are dealing with this. First of all, most of us do our jobs using some degree of creativity to get things done, and we don’t get paid in an ongoing stream for past work. I also have a problem with people who did not create anything owning copyrights and extracting ongoing revenue streams out of them.

As an example, take the music industry. A better model for this industry would be for the labels to charge the artists for recording and marketing without having any ownership rights in the created product. It would be up to the artist (or the artist’s business manager-a paid employee of the artist) to manage the income flow. The artist could then pick and choose which services he/she/it (bands) wanted to purchase from the label. I would much rather pay the artist directly for tracks and cut out the “suits” completely. With the evolution of the Internet, this business model is much more sustainable. In fact, as far as the music industry is concerned, I think this is where the future lies. For now, I buy my music on a “per track” basis from Amazon. I’m not thrilled, but it is the best I can do right now.

Arrrgggghhhh

2010-05-15T12:43:00.001-04:00

I swear that I am going to go postal one of these days. For the past week, it seems that almost every one on the road has forgotten all they once knew (which of itself was precious little) about the art of driving an automobile. Consequently, all of these people drive very, very badly, and that, in turn, causes me (who is stuck behind them) to begin to curse uncontrollably. This is not good. I refer you to John Brunner’s book Stand on Zanzibar and the term “berserker”.

Actually, to digress, the above book is really, really good, and it gets more relevant by the day. It was originally published in 1968, and it was disturbing then. Now, with the world’s population doubled from that time, we are getting closer and closer to the kind of future Brunner envisioned. Anyhow, I highly recommend this book…just as I highly recommend not driving in New Jersey.

*Gah!!*

Economic Recovery

2010-05-13T14:13:00.000-04:00

It strikes me that, as fast as the private sector is adding jobs, the public sector is shedding them. Either that or freezing salaries/wages or instituting involuntary "furloughs". Anyhow, any good being done in the private sector is being undone by the fiscal conservatives in public office. Also, as was so elegantly proven during the Reagan years, trickle down economics just doesn't work, so all those huge pay packages and bonuses going to the top couple percent of the population just plain doesn't make its way to the general economy.

And all of this explains why something like 80% of the population does not trust the economy or the earnest protestations by both the government and the mouthpieces of the rich when they tell us things are getting better. From where most of us sit, things are not getting better.

Oh, by-the-way, the organizers of the "Tea Party" are part of the problem, not part of the cure. They are, in fact, all in favor of concentrating wealth to the detriment of the quality of life for the vast majority of the population. Give them their way, and the middle class will vanish from America. We will become a nation of aristocrats and peasants/proletariat. The trend markers are already there; one just has to take the blinders off to see this is true.

The sun room project

2010-05-12T13:48:00.001-04:00

So, it is official: it is one year since we closed on our refi and immediately cut a check to the people who had sold us the sun room. It was not a small check. We had used the refi to clean up about 90% of our credit card debt and to pay for this addition to the house. The room was to be built where our patio was. I had plans to re-use the stone to make a new patio between then sun room and the pool. This is one view of the patio, and this is another.

I figured that, after giving the builders almost 50%, I would have a sun room up in three to four weeks. We would have the room built by June and the patio re-laid by 4th of July. Silly me!! May went, and there was no room…hell, there was no communication. Ditto June, July and August. Needless to say, I was getting a little perturbed.

By September, my calls to Tristate Building Specialties of Lakewood, NJ were getting strident. I was at the point of demanding our money back, when word trickled down that they would be arriving soon to prep the site (that meant getting rid of the patio and sinking the foundation piers.) Actually, the above pictures were taken in September just before work was due to begin.

The next post in this series will show the first flurry of work.

RIP Moore’s Law?

2010-05-06T12:00:00.001-04:00

Well, this is interesting. From what I can glean from tthis Ars Technica article Moore’s Law, which has defined computer hardware miniaturization since the late ‘60s, is pushing up against physical limits. The speed/power/memory-doubles-every-18-months equation is finally running up against its limits. That is going to have major economic and psychological ramifications across our society.

My, my….

Quarterly Traffic Report

2010-04-28T09:19:00.001-04:00

Well, here in Central New Jersey, the already crowded traffic conditions are being even further exacerbated by what seems to be a new infusion of really bad drivers. These road hazards come in every age, sex, nationality and ethnic category. In other words, poor driving cuts across almost every demographic known or extant.

Of course, I have a bias when I talk about poor driving. To me, good driving involves getting from point A to point B in the least amount of time safely practical. That means, if there is an empty road in front of you, you crowd the speed limit by five mph or so. It does not mean that you drive like a TransAm driver, it means that you go as fast as you can safely pilot your vehicle. (Note: “Safely” means avoiding both collisions with other objects and avoiding encounters with the police. Safe driving also means avoiding traffic tickets.)

I’ll admit that I tend to drive a little too fast. I’ve been lucky in that I have not actually gotten a speeding ticket in the past 30 years because there have been times when I’ve been caught pushing the envelope some. There have been a couple warnings and one instance where I was given a non-driving ticket (obscured license plate) in lieu of a speeding ticket…but I still have lucked out with 0 points against my license for over 30 years. However, for the most part, I drive well, if a little fast. I try to flatten corners and I try very hard to drive in the future. By that I mean that I am always thinking about what is coming up…what will I have to do or react to five seconds from now…or a minute from now.

Yesterday, I was driving on a multilane highway, when a car in the far left lane suddenly swerved across three lanes of traffic in order to make an exit that was well signed for the previous mile or so. The traffic circle that is between my home and my place of employment has at least a couple accidents a week because somebody does something stupid. I treat Yield signs with the utmost suspicion because most New Jersey drivers pay either little or no heed to them or far too much heed. Too often I see drivers sail through Yield signs with their eyes firmly fixed on the road in front of them, paying no attention to what is coming into the intersection. Either that scenario or the opposite where drivers treat Yield signs as a form of Stop sign. In either case, those drivers are asking to be involved in a collision.

*sigh*

Driving used to be fun. It isn’t so much anymore….

E rides her bike

2010-04-19T18:56:00.001-04:00

My granddaughter finally learned how to ride a bike. It took coercion. But, after considerable output from a world class drama queen, we got to see and then we got to see and finally, as her grandfather tried to keep up on foot All in all, a pretty good day.

The Evil Empire wins again.

2010-04-16T12:40:00.001-04:00

OK, I admit that I am biased against Microsoft. I think they are too powerful and some products, like Vista, are deeply flawed. However, sometimes they do get it right. Windows Live Writer here, is a case in point. I now can open a blank window with just a mouse click. I can insert links and pictures into my post with just a few more mouse clicks. And, when I am finished, one more click publishes and brings up my blog in a separate window. Microsoft did, indeed, get this one right. I’m hooked…and this is from a confirmed Microsoft basher.

Pointy little heads

2010-04-16T11:52:00.001-04:00

The “pointy headed” people were down in front of the post office yesterday. They had their signs beating on Obama and comparing him to Hitler…and they haven’t a clue that the conservative leaders are really the slave masters. These dupes have allowed themselves to be purchased, body, mind and soul, by the people who long for the good old days of feudalism when the lords of the manor (them) owned every thing and everyone else (us).

The more I see of the Tea Party movement, the more I think of the KKK in days gone by. These people are seeing the white America of their dreams (because that particular view of America never was a reality) fade even further into the mist, and they are watching their perceived grasp on the reins of power slip away. The laughable fact of the matter is, however, that they actually have much more in common with their perceived “enemies” (ie. Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Indians (both kinds) than they do with their purported “leaders” (read: masters).

As an example, the cost of using mass transit in New Jersey is about to take a large step upwards. Mass transit is how large numbers of the white blue and white collars workers get to work. Their leaders get to work in limos or their own luxury SUVs, and they don’t care that gasoline will cost over $3.00 a gallon for regular this summer. Lower taxes, and the wealthy get most of the benefit while those lower on the wealth ladder end up paying the freight. But those poor, pathetic white males who make up most of the Tea Party just don’t see it.

So, you were wondering about the title of this blog….

2010-04-15T19:23:00.001-04:00

I was up at my mother’s house the other day, when I happened to look out the window. What, you might wonder did I see? Well, how about this

or maybe his Momma

or perhaps his two siblings

Yep, we’ve got a family of a mom and three kits living under the swimming pool. A couple years ago, a family of groundhogs dug out a home there, but it seems the fox family has disposed them and taken up residence.

It’s going to be a good spring!

This is just plain wrong

2010-04-14T10:41:00.001-04:00

So, I’m playing with Windows Live on the new ‘puter, and I stumble across this headline (I had to scroll down my home page to see that there were news headlines already there…) about J.P. Morgan’s 1st quarter profits. I think they are obscene. I also think that this is just another instance of wealth being withdrawn from the greater economy for the benefit of a very few. Personally, I would like to see these profits taxed at…oh, say about a 95% marginal rate for all profit over 100 million per quarter. Unless, of course, the bank can document that it has lent this money out at sub-prime interest rates to small businesses and to individuals to refinance toxic mortgages. If Morgan can prove that it is reinvesting these huge profits back in the economy where they are needed, then more power to them. If, on the other hand, they are using these profits to pay hugely obscene bonuses to a very few, then I say tax the profits and the bonuses at confiscatory rates. Screw ‘em!!

Shame on us

2010-03-26T13:25:00.000-04:00

Actually, its shame on the Republicans and their fellow travelers. The hysteria surrounding the fact that we now will provide health care for every citizen is showing the world what our national character is. Those who are protesting against the bill are proving to the rest of the human race just how degraded our society and our people have become.

Those who oppose the bill because of its potential (not actuality, mind you) to fund abortions seem to overlook the fact that this is going to save lives which would otherwise be lost. Now, what they are telling us is that a potential life has more value that an actual living, breathing human being. Come again? The insanity of this is beyond belief.

The rest of the the Bill's opponents oppose it, I think, because they are selfish and don't want to share their level of access to the medical profession. So, we have a bunch of selfish assholes allied with a bunch of certifiably insane people opposing the idea that we, as citizens, have a certain obligation towards each other. Therefore, it is up to the rest of us to make sure that we defend and protect the ability of all our citizens to access good, competent Health Care services.

'Nuff said....

Health Care and Cable-TV

2010-03-24T13:07:00.000-04:00

We really are a poor excuse for a civilized society. For a long time I had no clue how somebody could get all frothed up about making sure that their fellow citizens have a reasonable access to health care. And then it hit me: these people see health care as a scarce commodity and they don't want to risk losing their current level of access to the pie. In other words, they are purely selfish.

To which I say "screw 'em". We are all in this thing together, so we should all have access to health care. If giving the 40 million of us who don't have minimum insurance access at that level means that I have to wait a little longer for non-emergency care, then so be it. Frankly, I think the trend over the past 30+ years vis-a-vis income distribution in this country needs to be reversed. The rich have too much and the rest of us are struggling for our share of an ever shrinking pie. The individual wealthier members of our society need to start paying back in for all the benefits they have gleaned from our "freedom". And, while we're at it, the entertainment industry (and that includes professional sports) needs to have their wings trimmed a little also.

Here's something to think about: Cablevision has 24 million subscribers. If the average monthly cable portion of their bill is $30(and I think this is low, but let's be conservative), that means Cablevision is raking in some $720 million per month just for cable-tv services. Now consider that Cablevision, for all its numbers, still does not control even 50% of the market, so the actual amount of money that goes out from subscribers on a monthly basis is actually in the billions. And this does nothing for the advancement of...well, anything other that the wealth flowing to the entertainment sector. Now, I'm not sure how we do this, but my gut tells me that this sector needs to pay the country back for what they have been looting for the past...what? 30 years? Sounds good to me...

quick computer update

2010-03-24T12:41:00.000-04:00

I updated Opera to version 10.51 and everything is working fine now. Whatever was slowing things down seems to have gone away. *shrug* Yeah...that's right...I fixed it...yep, all me...and I'm sticking to that version.

New Computer update

2010-03-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

Well, I had the new computer for about three weeks when, one day, I shut it down to do a hard reboot for some reason, and, when I when to turn it back on by pressing the on/off switch on the front, I found it would not turn back on. So, I called the people who sold me the machine, and they immediately gave me an RMA to send it back. Which I did at my own expense (grumble). In due course they send me a replacement which arrived at my doorstep last week.

I plugged all the various cables into the box and hit the power supply switch in the back and then the on/off button in front. Nothing. Not a peep. Zip! Zero! I was not at all happy.The next day after work, I called the retailer and got a very nice woman on the phone who said that she would be happy to give me another RMA, but perhaps I might like to talk to tech support first. After a moment's consideration, I accepted that offer, and was promptly transferred to tech support. One of the reasons I hadn't opened the first computer to see if there was anything user fixable inside is that Asus has a seal on the case that states that the warranty is void if the seal is broken. I told this to the nice young (I assume) man who answered the tech line. He told me not to worry: he would take care of that.

With that assurance, I popped the case and the first thing that I noticed was that the power lead from the power supply to the motherboard was not connected. I mentioned this to my "mentor" who allowed as how it might be good to plug it in. When that was done, a little green light went on at the bottom of the motherboard. I was excited! However, my hopes were dashed almost immediately when pressing the on/off switch still produced no results. After poking around a bit, my guy has me pop the front panel. Well, this is something I wouldn't have thought about. Seems that the on/off button actually wasn't the actual switch. That was a little white plastic piece seated in the computer's frame. When I pressed the switch with a screwdriver, it worked...the computer turned on. For some reason the button was not activating the switch. Well, from here on it looked like I was going to have to come up with a unit specific work around, so I thanked my tech support guy for all his help, and settled in to figure out how to make the power button work.

In the course of my poking and prodding, I pushed on the switch one more time...and it popped right out of its seat. Turns out the problem was that the switch had not been fully inserted in its seat. Either that or it had somehow been popped loose. In any event, after I figured out how I could get my fingers in to where they needed to be, it only took a firm push to pop the switch into place, where it seated with a satisfying "click". Since then, it has been working just fine. It is fast and reasonably powerful, but I added something from CNN to my browser the other day when I was watching the House vote on Health Care reform that they say impoves the streaming video experience. However, since loading that plug-in, my display has been slow. I'll have to work on that next. Also, I really don't like Vista. It is just awkward and cludgy.

Life continues....

Music

2010-03-22T23:43:00.000-04:00

Music is important to me. In fact, my most persistent desire is for my life to run with a continuous soundtrack in the background. No mater what else I might be doing, there would be good music rolling underneath. One of my great disappointments in this life is that over-the-air radio (and I am talking about FM; I haven't listened to AM since I was in high school mid-twentieth century) has degenerated to the point that it is virtually irrelevant. I listen to CD's or MP-3's in my car; I listen to my MP-3 player when I'm out of the house and not in my car; I listen to Internet Radio at home. All are vastly superior to what is currently offered over the air. (Aside: OK, there are still some radio stations out there who play good music. Most of 'em are college stations. But, for the most part, they are all down at the bottom of the frequency range and of lowish power.

So, for the past six or seven years I have been listening to Radio Paradise over the Internet. Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith have been programming great music over the Internet for the last ten years, and I am truly grateful that I found them. I find Bill's programming matches my musical tastes about 80% of the time...and that's a pretty good average. The one thing, though, that I have been becoming a little uncomfortable with for the past year or two is that I am only hearing what Bill plays. Back in the day, I listened to WNEW-FM out of New York City. There were at least 7 or 8 distinct personalities playing music back then, so you would hear different stuff virtually all the time. Sure, they had a basic playlist, but it wasn't like today where the playlist is engraved in stone. Back then, the station's basic playlist may have accounted for 50% of what was played. The other 50% was made up of emerging acts, old stuff that hadn't topped the "Hit Parade", tracks off albums that were not the big hit pieces and weird shit that came out of who knows where. Thing is, I heard a lot of music back then that I wouldn't have heard if I were listening to only one programmer.

I think I have finally found a way to correct this problem. I am now subscribing to Pandora in addition to keeping up my listener support contributions to Radio Paradise. I am going to alternate days with one day going to Radio Paradise and the next going to Pandora. Today is a Pandora day and I have to say that Pandora plays pretty good music. You tell 'em what music and which artists you like and then the play those and others who make similar music. The thing about Pandora is that you can create a bunch of different radio stations with different themes and artists. You can have a soft rock, hard rock, couintry rock, folk, classical and stations that mix genres. Then you can listen to one station for a while before switching to another station that is also programmed for you.

I highly recommend both Radio Paradise and Pandora to any and all out there. And for the jerks at the RIAA, let me say that, for the most part, I listen to the streaming music. However, I do buy about 10 tracks a month to add to the MP-3 player. If at all possible, I buy directly from the artist's web site in the faint hope that most of my purchase price will go to the artist and not to the parasitic suits. Also, to the jerks at the RIAA and the jerks at ClearChannel (or whoever it is who has bought up a huge chunk of the broadcast stations out there) I want to say that one of the major reasons music sales are down is because the vibrant diversity of what was presented to us back in the heyday of vinyl just isn't here anymore. However, places like Radio Paradise and Pandora begin to fill the void...at least when I have an Internet connection.

I just have a little more work to do around the house to get my music into where it needs to go, and I will have a soundtrack at least when I'm home...and that's a good start.

spend, spend, spend....doing my part to boost the economy

2010-02-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

I did it. I dithered and dithered for weeks, and then I made the plunge. I bought an ASUS CM5570 (refurbished) which has a pretty fast CPU and 6gigs of RAM. Now, I am, for the moment, stuck with Windows Vista (Home Premium), but I am thinking about going to Windows 7 ASAP. That move will be determined by what the upgrade costs me. If Microsoft is gonna gouge (and I can't finagle something CHEAP), I'll suffer through with Vista for a while. In other words, any upgrade to Windows 7 will be strictly determined by price.

After our conversation of about a month ago about how my old Dell was starting to do weird things and how I needed a new desktop machine...and she said that she was OK with this if I could do it for under $500, I haven't raised the issue again. When this little box showed up for like $421, with all that RAM, a big hard drive and an NVidia video card, I just couldn't resist. However, I haven't specifically mentioned that this is actually a done deal. I'm waiting to see how long it takes for either her to notice that I seem to have a new toy, or to finally ask if I am happy with my new machine (you know, letting me know that she knows...).

Of course, there is a small caveat at work here. While the 'puter did cost less than $500. I had to replace the monitor as well. I had two monitors die within two weeks of each other. I took the 22" Gateway in to someone who works on flat screen TVs and asked what it would cost to fix it. His answer was somewhere between $120 and $150. Well, I had originally purchased that monitor for $129 about 8 months ago. And I knew that I could get a new flat screen monitor for about the same cost...so I did. I found an nice 22" Dell that was going for $139 to replace the Gateway. The guy at the shop told me that it was just not cost effective to repair these bits of technology. So, the next time my town has an electronics recycling day, I will contribute two flat screen monitors, one 17" and one 22". I would have been much happier fixing these because I'm sure that what failed in each is a relatively small and inexpensive part.

Ah well, such is life in Babylon...

Hack, Hack...wheeze....

2010-02-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

I've had this damn cold for a month now. It is starting to bore me. It sorta migrates around my body...stuffed up nose this week; cough next week; impacted ears the following week; and then it starts over again. I just can't seem to kick it. I mean, I don't feel all that bad other than the fact I'm blowing my nose ever three minutes, my eyes are watering and I have this ongoing cough. Other than that, I don't feel bad at all. *sigh*

Of course, this means I can't go near my Mom who is at her new rehab facility. There are signs all over the place saying something to the effect that if you have a cold, stay the hell out. So, when I called to see how she was doing this morning, when she heard me coughing she told me to stay home today. I was happy to oblige. Of course, work is another thing entirely. We are staffed so thin that any call-out puts a heavy strain on store management. So, I go in today to pass my germs on to a cross section of the area's population. Just call me patient zero.

Isn't this fun? I said I'd post more, and this is the first of many. I've decided to post what would be journal entries (if I kept a journal) in the absence of more profound subject matter. And now I have to go pull myself together for work...

Greed and avarice, Part 1

2010-02-06T11:13:00.000-05:00

Catchy title, that. I can see it easily reaching Part 1,000,000 very quickly if I allowed myself to catalogue every instance that I run across. However, today I will limit myself to commenting upon the Amazon/McMillan Publishers pricing controversy. Basically, Amazon prices new and bestseller ebooks at $9.99 apiece. McMillan wants Amazon to sell its ebooks for $12.99 to $14.99. Now, I assume that Amazon's cut of the price is not changing (ie. they are not getting a bigger payout per book), so this means that McMillan is hoping to get $3 to $5 more per book rolling into its coffers. If McMillan sells 10,000 ebook copies of a book, that means it makes an extra $50,000 for one that sells for $14.99.

Personally, I find that offensive. McMillan is, basically, picking my pocket to line theirs. I mean, it is not like it suddenly costs $5 more per copy to produce and ebook. No, the cost of an ebook all lies in writing and editing. After that, the cost per copy is negligible. In fact, I would suggest that the people at McMillan run out and get themselves a copy of Chris Anderson's "Free". As it is, I can see the pirate flags unfurling across the Internet. I would guess (hope) that McMillan's revenue from all sources begins to slide. And, if furtherance of that hope, I am calling for a retail boycott of all McMillan products. I also call for McMillan's authors to demand that their publisher cease and desist this larceny of their readers.

'Nuff said...

New Year's Resolutions

2010-02-06T10:37:00.000-05:00

Ok, here it is, February, and I am just getting around to New Year's Resolutions. Although, in my defense, there have been extenuating circumstances...which I won't bore the world with. However, I am now ready to deal with my resolves for 2010. In addition to those which primarily affect only me, I am going to make a concerted effort to post more here. (Yeah, yeah...I know that this is not world shaking news considering how few people know this blog exists.While the major reason I will be writing more is that it is something I need to do if only to keep my mind exercised, it does have the potential to impinge upon the lives of other people.

So, let's see if I can bring my average up to...oh, let's go crazy here and aim for...three posts a week. Three posts of at least one paragraph (each containing at lest four sentences, on average) per week is not an overreaching goal. Obviously, this post, as a precursor, doesn't count. So, that means I need to write something else today. Let us (me) begin.

Short and to the point...well, short, anyway...

2009-12-10T01:29:00.000-05:00

That's what television shows are. Commercial television is now running about 8 minutes of ads per half hour of air time. That means your favorite sitcom is now all of 22 minutes long, if you're lucky. That hour long drama is actually only 45 minutes of show, the rest of the time is spent with screamingly painful commercials. Just another bit of evidence showing the decline of our quality of life.

Too much of a good thing?

2009-11-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

I now have three "cloud" accounts where a couple months ago I had zero. Cloud accounts are places you can place files and then share them with others. Places like Dropbox, Google Docs and, now, Ubuntu One.

My problem right now is that I don't have people in place to use these resources. But, if I start to get my act together, I should have all three in use by the beginning of 2010. These are the perfect tools to use to build a virtual organization. All work is placed in secure locations out on the web while they are active. Once we build the company, we move everything to our servers and zero out what is in the third party hosted accounts. This is cool stuff. Now let's see if I can make use of it.

My first order of business is to take all my bits and pieces of a business plan, and to put them into a coherent order. Once they are lined up, I need somebody to help (even if the help is just text editing--although I would like actual collaborative help as well) turn them into a presentable business plan. While that is in progress, though, we can start working on building a website and working on the structure of this idea. More to come on this...

How things have changed.

2009-10-27T22:39:00.000-04:00

So, for the past week or so, my wife and I have been getting letters from banks. Now, these are not just any banks, they are banks that issue credit cards. More to the point, they are banks that issue branded store and gasoline company cards. The interest rates on these cards are approaching (within tenths of a percent) 30% interest. Now, when I was a kid, loan sharks charged that kind of interest. In fact, we had laws against charging exorbitant interest. Those laws were called usury laws, and those who broke them were considered the lowest of the low.

I think it is time we begin to recapture that particular bit of our heritage. So, the next time you see your neighbor who works for Citibank (I use them because at least four of the letters we have received came from them: J. Jill and Mobil are two of the name branded cards that come to mind), or any of the other big card issuers, spit at their feet and move away. Grab your kids and tell them what horrible people work for the banks. And cut up those cards. I plan to cut up my Mobil card and send it back to the company with a note saying that my never darkening the entrance to one of their service stations is all I can do (other than start writing online at any and all opportunities) to protest their greed.

No, think about it. How much do the banks pay you for the use of your money? Savings accounts pay...what?...3 or 4 percent? CD's brag about a 5% return, and you only get that if you lock in for two or three years. And yet the banks are then turning around and charging you 30% to use their credit cards (which actually use your money to make those "revolving" loans. Fucking incredible. And we are supposed to respect and even admire these people. Hell, my family once were Wall Street stock brokers and bankers. When my uncles presided over the fall of the family business, I was pissed. But now I thank my lucky stars that I am not engaged in this slimey, evil business anymore.

'Nuff said, at least for the time being...

Scrutiny rises over NJ kids singing Obama song - Yahoo! News

2009-09-28T11:26:00.000-04:00

Scrutiny rises over NJ kids singing Obama song - Yahoo! News There are people in this country who want to destroy our democracy. These people include Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin, amongst others, who are working tirelessly to weaken our democratic form of government. They are, in fact, a greater danger to us than all the crazies in Al-Qaeda. This latest tempest in a teapot is a perfect example. If you asked any of these kids to sing any of these songs to you today, odds are they wouldn't be able to. Now, ask them to sing a Hanna Montana song, and the odds for success go up dramatically. And, even if one or two of them do remember the song, I don't think that it will have much effect on them as they go through life. I remember a song I was taught (more by my peer group, I think) when I was very young. It was sung to the tune of "Whistle while you work" and had to do with praising Dwight Eisenhower while, at the same time, labeling Adlai Stevenson a "jerk". I did not grow up to be a conservative republican demagogue or camp follower because of this. In fact, I shed my parent's political views as soon as I hit high school. This pernicious attack on the fabric of our society by the right continues day in and day out. Their sole goal is the destruction of our struggle to create a truly egalitarian society, and substitute in its place a society where they call the shots and the rest of us do as they tell us. In essence, they want the U.S. to become an oligarchy with them in the driver's seat. This outcome is not in the best interest of 95% of the population.

Beautiful music

2009-08-01T17:48:00.003-04:00

I've got a new favorite song...only I've liked it for almost 40 years. Can't Find My Way Home was a Blind Faith song, and that means I first heard it circa 1969. Well, as anybody who is anybody knows, Clapton and Winwood got back together for first one concert last November and then a 14 date tour this past June. One of the songs in their two hour show was the afore mentioned tune. Only the 2009 version is truly brilliant. The lead in with the organ and guitar building to the actual song is sublime. And then all through the song the music behind the lyrics is worth the price of the CD in an of itself. I just can't get enough; I keep hitting repeat on my MP3 player. (Sure I ripped the CD; I'm not lugging around a great big CD-player...)

So, if you haven't already, get this CD (Winwood/Clapton Live) or just buy the track from Amazon or iTunes or whoever and see if I'm not right.

The Kindle

2009-07-13T15:21:00.002-04:00

So, the original Kindle ebook reader is now selling below $200. The newest version, the Kindle 2, is selling for $299 which is down from $359 a month or so ago. I think when the original Kindle can be had, easily, for about $100, the age of the ebook will truly be upon us. FYI, Fictionwise, a Barnes & Noble company, now sells ebooks in a format readable by the Kindle. The time is getting closer for the true rise of the ebook as a major distribution channel. And, when that time truly arrives, the publishing industry had best have re-invented its business model.

Furniture update

2009-07-07T17:02:00.002-04:00

So, as I noted in the previous post, yesterday we did some shopping. The place we got the sectional from specializes in clearance items. One of their terms is that all purchases must be picked up within 48 hours. Well, I wasn't planning to try to stuff the sectional into the Outback, even at one piece at a time, so we went with the delivery option which added another $95 to the price. Knowing that the piece would be arriving within a day or two, we stopped off at city hall to get "bulk item" stickers so the old pieces could be hauled away.

Shortly after we arrived home, the store called to tell us that our purchase would be delivered some time between 8:30am and 11:30am the following morning. This moved Judy to insist that the old set be removed from the living room so she could clean and make ready for the new. So, at about 5:30pm we hauled the old sofa and love seat out to the curb. Now, virtually all the cushions had splits in the fabric covering. The springs on the couch were so shot that, when one sat on it one's knees were at about one's eye level. And yet, within 1 1/2 hours, they were gone. History. Not destined for the landfill quite yet.

I was a little nervous wondering what would happen if the delivery truck was in an accident or something else weird happened. But nothing did. Our new centerpiece for the living room arrived and was set up without problem. And here is the lovely Judy showing off her new baby...

Thirty years and counting

2009-07-06T19:12:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, my life partner and I celebrated 30 years of wedded...mostly bliss...some rough spots, but mostly good days, weeks, months and years. So, today, to honor those thirty years, we went out and spent about $100 per year. We are doing our part to keep the American economy recovering by purchasing durable goods. We bought 2 refrigerators, a washer/dryer set and a sectional for the living room. The refrigerators replace two that are vintage 1980's. The washer/dryer replaces the pair we purchased when we moved into this house 10 years ago, and the sectional replaces the sofa/loveseat we bought from a discount furniture place in 1996. As you can see, we believe in squeezing every last minute of life out of our purchases. We still have the sunroom addition in the line queue, and after that we need to reconfigure the sleeping arrangements in this house. (That means we get a king and our queen goes to the guestroom. My kids and their husbands/significant others will appreciate that.)

All of the above is our anniversary present to each other. We are going to have to decorate and furnish the new 4-season sunroom when that gets added (which I hope will actually begin in the next week or so) And then we have our one-room-per-year renovation which we have been trying to adhere to over the past couple of years. If we are able to do that, I am pushing to do the living room this fall. New wall treatment (paper or paint...decisions, decisions, decisions) and a new carpet on the floor. The goal for 2010 will be to do the dining room--same work plus lighting (chandelier and wall sconces). My goal is to have the entire house redone (with an added basement entertainment center) by the time we seriously think about selling it (call it 8 to 10 years). Actually, our son will get first dibs and, depending upon how things work, that could happen sooner rather than later. I'd give my daughters a shot at the homestead, but neither of them would be caught dead living in Joisey.

And with this spurt of spending, there are only two things that I really need now: I need a stereo which can run speakers in either/and the basement workshop or out on the new sunroom, and I need a new desktop computer. The primary Dell machine is now 5 years old, and the backup Quantex is like 12 years old. It makes grinding noises when it is running. The hard drive is about to die...Oh, and I need a new wireless router...one that provides a little more coverage than the Netgear 805.11g model I have now...If I can add those three things to my immediate spending priority list, I'll be good for the next couple of months. (OK, sooner or later we need to replace our cell phones, and new MP3 players are always in my "gotta have" list.)

PS.

Oops, I forgot one more thing that needs to be done this summer. The new sunroom is going where our current patio is. When they come in to put the sunroom up, the first thing they are going to do is move all my lovely flagstones from the patio to over by the pool machinery. So, when that happens, I need to have somebody come in and remove 8-10 inches of dirt and replace that with 6-8 inches of gravel and sand. Then, upon that base using my existing flagstone, build a new patio next to the pool. I figure that is going to cost me about $1500 for labor plus the cost of gravel and sand. *sigh* It is not easy supporting the economy all by myself...

Common Sense: an oxymoron

2009-07-04T14:34:00.002-04:00

Yep, oxymoron...at least as far as Glenn Beck is concerned. I was at work today (another rant entirely) and, as it was painfully slow, I picked up Beck's book Common Sense to see why it was selling so well. Unfortunately, I have to report that I was appalled at what I read. If my fellow citizens think this man has any answers, we are in more trouble than I thought we were in. I have to report that I only read about 25 pages, scattered around the book, and they were all uniformly egregiously bad.

However, I think a paragraph on Page 5 pretty much sums up the basic, underlying rot that infects Beck and his writing. On Page 5 he states,

"You don't hate people who are different than you, but you've stopped expressing opinions on sensitive issues a long time ago because you don't want to be called a racist, bigot or homophobe if you stand by your values and principles."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way you could be called those things is if you made derogatory comments about blacks, Jews/Ethnics or Gays. If your "values and principles" leave you open to the epithets listed above, then I would submit that your "values and principles" leave a great deal to be desired. Even more to the point, the fact that Beck obviously does not see a problem with this leaves pretty much his whole book without a firm moral foundation.

I need to find a way to access this book without contributing to Beck's fiscal wellbeing. If I could come up with a copy which was not paid for, I'd do a page by page rebuttal a la Fred Clark and his demolition of the Left Behind books. I do have a library card (which I haven't used in years) so I could go get myself put on the waiting list for the book down at our local library, but that would mean that I would have to scan it into my computer so I would be able to quote accurately. Oh well, maybe I will think of something less labor intensive as the writing part is going to be labor enough. Until I do find a freebie copy that did not contribute monetarily to Beck, let me urge you not to buy this book.

Rock 'n Roll will never die...

2009-06-12T00:02:00.002-04:00

Went to see Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood at the Meadowlands last night. Both of these guys were making music in the '60s. Hell, I saw Winwood and Traffic at the Filmore East back in the day. The thing is that these guys are still playing great music. From high decibel rock and roll to acoustic blues and back again, this concert rocked. They didn't jump around the stage or posture and strut. They simply played great music, and they played it for two and one-half hours straight. Sure, when Winwood did a solo turn, Clapton left the stage, and Winwood did the same when Clapton played solo. But each of them only did one song alone. By the end of the show, the audience was up and dancing. Hell, I was bouncing in my seat from the second song.

It was a great concert. I'm really glad I went. And, when the live CD of this tour comes out, I highly recommend adding it to your library; I know I will.

Two Short Thoughts

2009-05-03T12:47:00.003-04:00

I was looking at Levine's book (not actually reading it, you understand, because I don't have time to waste on that kind of drivel), when I had two thoughts about government.

Thought #1: If you desire a society based based upon the rule of law, then you have to have a government to erect the legal framework and then enforce the laws hanging off that framework.

Thought #2: Those who rail longest and loudest against any form of government tend to be those same predators who the laws are supposed to control. In other words, when you hear someone bitching and moaning about "government", mark that person as someone you would not want taking your back in a fight...

Hmmm....

it's been months, so let us talk about books and records

2009-02-03T18:40:00.003-05:00

Damn, I find that I have about 6 drafts in my Blogger file which I have never gotten around to posting. The problem here is that most of those posts are like newspapers. More than a couple days old and they're not good for much more than wrapping fish...except that blog posts don't even have that last little bit of utility. So, with a certain amount of regret, I checked off most of 'em and hit the "delete" button."

I am making this a mission...instead of giving up something this Lent, I am doing something intentional and positive: I am going to write 20 minutes a day. I am going to write 20 minutes a day and post it here. I am already 12 days behind, but that is because I really didn't decide to make this my Lenten discipline until today. OK, better late then never, eh?

Now, having gotten that off my plate, I have a request for any and all who happen upon this note. In the future, whenever you feel the need to buy a book, first go to Amazon and check to see if there is a Kindle version. If there is, no other action is required. However, if there is not a Kindle edition, please click on the link that requests a Kindle version. The more clicks Amazon gets, the more pressure publishers will feel to put out digital versions. I ask this because I am finding that I like reading the digital versions better than I like reading them in their traditional printed-on-a-paper-page format. I truly believe that books in digital format will be the next form of mass-market distribution.

Mass market paperbacks were once seen as anathema to "legitimate" publishing. Paperbacks were the province of genre hacks. They were good for potboiler science fiction, murder mysteries and romance novels. Serious authors of serious books didn't publish in paperback format. At least not until publishers saw how well paperbacks sold and finally figured out that paperbacks made them more money in the end. Well, I think that digital format books will do the same. All it will take is for the publishers to devise a form of digital security that makes it about as hard to steal content as it is now to scan and then digitize the pages of a book. It simply takes too much effort to scan and then digitize a book to make it seem attractive to jerks who get their kicks that way.

Look, the same thing is beginning to happen in the world of mp3 music files. I was a big Napster user when it first came out. When it was origninally shut down, I puttered around out in Gnutella space, mostly on Limewire, but it wasn't the same. On Limewire, I mostly downloaded mp3 versions of music I already owned on old vinyl records. I don't have an iPod, so I don't use iTunes, but I do use Amazon. For $0.99 per track I can buy individual tracks which I like without having to buy a whole cd. So now I budget myself for about $5.00 per week for new music. I get to pick and choose; I am assuming that the creative artist gets some of this--that the parasitic leeches in suits don't usurp all my money--which makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing. And, $5.00 a week is not an exorbitant amount to pay for music I like. Also, I support a listener sponsored online radio station (RadioParadise.com) which also means I send something on to the creative people who create my music. I still go down to the boxes holding all my old records every now and then to see if there is anything that rings a bell...that I would like in digital format. If there is, and I have it on vinyl, then I'll go out to Limewire to see if somebody has a digital copy. I would make my own except I don't have a turntable anymore. And, besides, its too much work.

I would actually really like to be able to buy tracks directly from the artist, bypassing the suits who suck off the talents of the truly creative completely. I would think that 50-cents a track would be a sufficient price which would probably give the artist 3 or 4 times as much income as they get from the record industry which exists only to exploit their talent. Today musicians don't need the hugely expensive recording studios of old. Some cheap foam soundproofing, a PC, a couple microphones and one of the music-studio software packages and a garage band can put together tracks that are as good as those coming out of most record label studios--at least in digital quality. Now, a good sound engineer and a good producer can make a huge difference, but they are not completely necessary. Besides, let's face it, most producers aren't all that good.

What I'm getting at is that it is cost-effective for me to pay for individual tracks, because, again let's face it, on most albums/cds there are only a couple tracks, at best, that I really like. The others, for the most part, are just fillers. In fact, I can only think of a couple albums/cds that had more than a couple songs, and those were either "greatest hits" or concept albums like "Tommy".

*sigh* I have digressed. My point was that when digital books can be had for a couple bucks apiece, there is no real incentive to copy them illegally or to seek copies of books that were made illegally. There are a lot of books which are free for the taking out there because they are in the public domain. A person could build a huge digital library for relative little cash outlay. Sure, there will always be a market for physical books. There are probably as many good reasons for physical books as there are readers. However, like the paperback, digital publishing is a new technology whose time has come...or, at least, is about to take off. There are some books I want in physical form, but there are even more which I would be just as happy owning as electronic ones and zeros. So, urge publishers to make digital copies available. And, if they could make them available in an open source format so they could be read on any one oa the e-readers out there, that would be better yet.

I have made up about 4 days of my Lenten discipline with this post. More tomorrow.

Facebook

2009-01-01T18:21:00.002-05:00

I joined MySpace a couple years ago, but never really did much with it. For the most part, I only used it to keep up with a couple of the young people I work with and some of my younger relatives. However, over the past year, I have hardly ever logged in to my Myspace account. And I certainly didn't have a Facebook account (mostly because it started as a college thing and I wasn't anywhere close to being a college student), but that has changed. So, Christmas day I opened a Facebook account for myself. And who are my friends? Well, my sister is one (but she is a Facebook member because she has a large family on her husband's side who she has to keep track of), and my friend Ted is another. And then there are my daughter and a number of nieces and nephews. I have looked for other people I know, and they aren't there. People of my generation, or at least those who I know, are not computer people. They don't see the computer as their friend; as their window onto the world.

So, I have a Facebook page and, as soon as I can find a picture that does not make me look like a pedophile, I'll post it...maybe I should scan one of those old pictures the kids were looking at over Christmas...my son (who does have a Facebook page although I don't think he uses it very much) said I look like Tom Sellick (sp?) so one of them might be usable. But that is not what I wanted to really talk about. I would love to use Facebook or one of the other social networking sites to keep up with both new and old friends...except that, as I said earlier, most of my generation doesn't do this. I get to play with the "kids" or I don't get to play at all. The latter is unacceptable (I love to play), so I will have to be satisfied with the former. And my children, nieces and nephews (and the odd cousin) will have to deal...

What does this tell you?

2008-12-05T23:13:00.002-05:00

Today, Friday, December 5th, the powers that be announced that the U.S. had lost over 500,000 jobs in November. On that news, the stock market went up a couple hundred points and home mortgage rates went up as well. What does that tell you about what the wealthy think of the rest of their fellow citizens?

Discuss this amongst yourselves...

Some thoughts on Thanksgiving Day

2008-11-28T09:23:00.002-05:00

I am currently reading Tom Friedman's new book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded", and, while I haven't finished it yet, it has already given me a couple flashes of insight. First, I was reading his description of an address he gave to the China "Green Car Congress" in 2007. In this address, he was talking about the production of clean energy, but that is not what I suddenly saw. What I saw was that Mr. Friedman was describing a form of warfare; a struggle between countries for dominance. In the past this type of struggle has routinely been carried out by those quaint military contests we call wars. In the future, while we maintain a military presence, it appears that the actual contest between countries will be moved to the stadium down the street where economies vie for primacy. In case you hadn't noticed, right now China is, as Mr. Friedman describes it, "cleaning our clocks."

As Friedman so aptly states, we do have the opportunity to reverse this trend over the next few years. If we jump aboard, in a big, big way, the "green energy" (for want of a better word) revolution, we could end up selling this technology and associated hardware/software to the rest of the world. This could very well reverse the flow of money from "out" to "in", and we could go from the world's biggest debtor to being a creditor. And that would constitute a win in the ongoing war between global economic players

Yeeesssss...(fist pump)

2008-11-19T17:04:00.003-05:00

The price of a gallon of regular gasoline just hit 1.999 at our neighborhood independent station. This means, I'm sure, that somewhere in this part of New Jersey, I can get the Subaru's tank filled for somewhere around $1.90/gallon if I wanted to search for it. On the other hand, I shouldn't have to fill it until Saturday, by when the price could be down under $1.90/gallon at most of the local stations. I just checked one of my old car diaries (you know...a calendar where you keep track of what you spend on your car and when you spent it), and it tells me that we haven't seen prices this low since before 2004. Oh wait...we haven't seen prices this low since just before Bush took office. I wonder if anybody else thinks that this is just a little suspicious, hmmm?

Addendum (12/12/08): The price of a gallon of regular gas is down under $1.60/gallon. While I am chortling a little, I am also beginning to get a little worried about the signals the market is sending us. At this price, all those people who had parked their Hummers and Tahoes and other huge SUVs will be tempted to start driving them with abandon again. Also, all those investors who were thinking about investing in green energy systems are now probably rethinking their plans. At best, they are most likely putting them on hold until oil prices stabilize for a couple months. I know that's what I'd be doing.

I think that now would be a good time for the government to establish a floor price for gasoline. Let's call it $3.00/gallon for regular. If the price goes below that level, the US Treasury will get some added funds which Congress could use to support new energy technologies and mass transportation systems. If the price stays above $3.00/gallon, then there will be ample incentive for innovators to exploit that price in a competitive manner. Finally, we will all be encouraged by the cost to drive a little less, and that, too, is a good thing. As far as I can see, it is win-win-win with the only losers being the oil cartel and oil speculators. And that is an even better thing...

Oh yeah, speaking of cars...

2008-11-16T23:11:00.001-05:00

The price of gas at the local independent gas station (used to be a Getty, still has the Getty sign, isn't a Getty, though) is posted at $2.079 per gallon for regular. Now, I have been privately predicting that the price of a gallon of regular gasoline will be under $2.00 by Thanksgiving. I think the prices are right on to hit that target. I also think that, although we American's have reduced the amount of gasoline we are currently using, that reduction does not amount to a 50% cut. The price of a gallon of regular is now more than 50% less than the highest price I paid last summer (a Mobil station up in Mayfield, NY: $4.259/gallon). What this tells me is that the prices we were paying last summer were the product of speculators getting rich at our expense. I think it is time we did something about those people. They are wolves preying upon the rest of us, and they need to be stopped.

What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa

2008-11-16T22:15:00.002-05:00

That was the famous misquote of Charles E. Wilson's actual comment before the Senate during his confirmation hearings after being nominated to be Eisenhower's Secretary of Defense. Although his actual statement was much less arrogant, the statement does have some validity. I read somewhere that every employee of the Big Three Automakers supports some 12 jobs out in the economy. And those are just in the local communities. If you add in all the jobs in the automotive sector of the economy, and all the jobs that those jobs support, the automobile supports at least 50% of the US economy. Now, if the Big 3 go toes up, it will not mean the endo of all those jobs in the automotive sector because other economic entities will step in to pick up some fo the slack. However, most the actual production jobs will end up off shore, and that will mean a huge hit to both the viability of our economy and our balance of payments deficit.

I gotta tell you that I get hugely irritated with jerks who go off spouting shit about letting the evil Automakers crash and burn without giving any thought to either the consequences of letting them die, or what would be needed to bring them back to vigorous health. A healthy automobile industry supports both jobs in the general economy plus their stock underpins a huge portion of investment capital in this country. I'm not talking about speculators (or, to use the current euphemism "traders") here. I am talking about all those pensions and retirement funds that have a huge chunk of Detroit's stock. If Detroit goes down, a good portion of the American workforce is going to see their hopes for a comfortable retirement go down with it.

So here is the real dilemma: Trying to rescue the American economy is such a hugely complex undertaking, that there is no way for mere mortals to actually come up with a set of plans that are guaranteed to work. Anything that we, as a society working through our leaders, do will be, at best, a dice roll--or, rather, a series of dice rolls. Some of them will work; will be sevens. Other initiatives will not accomplish what we hoped they would, and, for those, the best we can hope is that they are neutral...that they are not fatal mistakes...snake-eyes or boxcars. We can't let the sheer overwhelming complexity of the task freeze us, because that too is a dice roll.

I don't know what we should or shouldn't do, but I do know that we have to do something. My preference is to take actions that support the industry but do not reward the people who got us to where we are today. Personally, I think that the executives of the Big 3 should all be required to take a 5 year pay cut...to what the average line worker makes...as a condition of any help from the public sector. They are the geniuses who saw the SUV a cash cow. Now let them taste some of what they brewed. But no matter what, we must do something that attempts to work for a positive outcome.

This is the snake that swallows its own tail.

2008-11-04T13:02:00.003-05:00

We are completing today a process that began at least two years ago as Hilary Clinton began ramping up her run for the presidency. And, make no mistake about it, almost as soon as today's results are tabulated and verified, somebody out there will begin planning his/her campaign in 2012. It has always been true that presidential hopefuls started running, by speaking at political dinners and such almost as soon as their current nominating convention folded up the tents and went home. But today, the political campaigns are even more overt and ubiquitous. The newly elected sitting president has barely moved into the White House when he starts feeling the hot breath of the wannabe's on his back.

And while I don't expect it to be any different this year, especially from the Republican side, I think that the titular head of the Democrat Party has to back away from the tactical race he has run for the past year plus, and give some thought to defining just exactly what it means to be a Democrat. In other words, I think it is time to give some thought to political philosophy. The thing is, now this is possible without boring the hell out of the general populace. The Democrats have a number of email databases which connect directly to the active and involved rank and file. If Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton and other party leader could devote some time to actively working out and discussing just exactly what our ideals are, and give some straight talk about what an elected official can and cannot accomplish, I think that the shift in the body politic towards the Democrats could be solidified.

As I mentioned in the previous post The National Republican Trust has been airing some blatantly racist ads these last few days of the campaign. They have proven to me that the Republican Party is truly morally bankrupt and that it needs to be engaged in rational debate at all levels. I am sure that a majority of that party's rank and file will move to other political alternatives when they see how badly out of touch with this country's basic idealism the Republican leadership actually is.

Of course, to look at things another way, the Democrats have maybe three years to show substantial progress in cleaning up the mess left by George Bush, or they will most likely find themselves out on their ears and a new party assuming the reins of power.

An absolute low...

2008-11-04T10:58:00.002-05:00

The National Republican Trust PAC is airing an advertisement that, in effect, states that Obama is guilty of radicalism simply by his former association with the pastor of the Christian Church he was affiliated with. Now, Rev.Wright is surely outspoken in his condemnation of the racism that has been rampant in American culture. However, just because he is outspoken in his disgust with the hypocrisy of white America, it does not follow that Obama shares that level of outrage. But, let's face it, Obama is part of the black community...just as he is part of the white community...and, as part of that black community, he must have feelings about how people of his ethnic heritage have been treated in this country.

No, that Republican ad is not only dirty politics, it is blatantly racist in its appeal. That, for no other reason, should make the demise of the Republican Party one of the primary goals of all Americans of good will and open hearts. This kind of evil has to be found, exposed to the bright light of public scrutiny and then expunged, root and branch, from the body politic.

Acute Future Shock

2008-10-31T08:16:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, I checked a lady out of the store. Amongst her purchases were ten comic books (she was obviously buying for nephews or grandchildren.) Now, when I was a consumer of comic books, that purchase would have cost me one dollar. That would have been (when I was 12) a whole week's allowance. I could see myself doing that. Yesterday, this lady did not spend one dollar on those comic books, though. In fact, she did not spend ten dollars on those comic books. No, this nice lady ended up spending $29.69 plus tax on those ten comic books.

If the general rate of inflation kept pace with that of comic books, we should be paying about $30 for a cup of coffee at a diner...Starbucks et al would be up around $50 a cup. This is just another symptom of a much deeper malaise in our society. Think about it...

Deja Vu all over again....

2008-10-30T14:38:00.002-04:00

I am currently reading Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded". It is a good book, and I highly recommend it although I am currently only an eighth of my through it. What I have read so far, however, is enough to convince me that this is must reading for any American who hope to consider him(or her)self truly informed. I also have to note that some of what I have read so far could very well have been found int the Club of Rome's book, "Limits to Growth" which was publish some 35+ years ago.

So, right now I am reading about how the price of oil is directly connected to the growth and contraction of freedom around the world. What Mr. Friedman has yet to say is that it is in the interest of the oil producers to block the growth of Green Energy in any way possible. To that end, what this country really needs to do is institute a tax on imported oil that brings the price to about $50-100 per barrel above prevailing world prices. The money that flows into the government coffers from that tax should be 100% earmarked for the development and subsidizing of Green Energy sources until such time as those sources could compete on their own. I know that this is not a popular position for a number of reasons, but it is, I think, the best way to get these sources online in the shortest time humanly possible.

Thoughts, observations and warnings on and about our economy

2008-10-20T12:06:00.003-04:00

Following are some thoughts, observations and caveats regarding the economy.

>The smell of fear is almost palpable on both Wall Street and Main Street these days. This is truly disturbing because fears like these usually become self-fulfilling. Fear leads to withdrawal, and that will lead to further economic woes. Like I said, self-fulfilling.

>OPEC has watched the price of a barrel of oil tumble by around 50% over the past few weeks. This does not make them happy. As I write, OPEC ministers are meeting to discuss cutting production to raise those prices again. This will mean that the lower gasoline prices will be ephemeral, and that the winter heating season will be truly painful for most middle-class Americans. Neither of which will do the economy any good. However, there is a silver lining in this...at least there should be one: It gives the alternative energy developers an opening. If public policy (ie. federal funds) and private money both converge, maybe we could see our dependence on foreign oil decrease over the next few years.

>Over the years, I have had my own informal economic indicators for downturns in the economy. I look at the number of homes for sale in my part of the world coupled with the number of cars out in front yards with "for sale" signs posted on them. As those two numbers increase, the economy shows more and more signs of distress. Right now, those two indicators are going through the roof. For what it is worth.

>And, finally, from yesterday's New York Times Week In Review section, I saw a piece about Japan's Lost Decade and how we are in even worse shape now than Japan was at the beginning of that decade. That was bad enough, but the even more distressing thing to see in actual black-and-white (as opposed to having an idea that this was true but no actual proof) that we are borrowing about $2 billion per day to finance our spending. I have to tell you that a family compound somewhere in Costa Rica is beginning to look better and better. Buy the land, put up a couple of houses, smuggle in enough weapons to make it very difficult for human predators to mess with us, alternative energy (solar, wind, bio) to keep us off the grid and we are set to watch the US implode from a distance. *sigh* I know, I know...not do-able at this time...more fantasy than fact, but it does show me that the fear I referenced above infects me as well. What was that old Chinese curse, "May you live in 'interesting' times."? I think that about says it for us.

Subprime

2008-10-20T10:32:00.002-04:00

The subprime mortgage meltdown which is threatening to tank the entire global economy is absolute proof that we, as a nation, have taken a fundamental wrong turn in our moral and ethical development. What we have done is empowered the social predators among us. We have told ourselves that greed is good and that it is OK to take advantage of our fellow citizens. We have made of the dictum Caveat Emptor an excuse rather than a warning. We have bent the saying to mean that it is OK to take advantage because it is the other guy's responsibility to make sure he is not getting screwed rather than to be a warning to watch out for predators.

Roberta

2008-10-19T21:50:00.002-04:00

Damn! Just watched Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers in "Roberta"(1935). Every now and then, one should watch one of these old flicks just to see what we've lost and how cool some of those people really were. Ginger Rodgers should make any male still above ground stand up and take notice. Jeez, the woman is absolutely amazing. And she keeps all her clothes on...and still is smoking. The flick has a couple great songs..."I Won't Dance" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" which are also worth the price of admission alone.

"Roberta" also showed some things our culture has lost, and some things that are the same now as they were 70+ years ago. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose...I think that is how it goes...Anyhow, it is worth the time and effort to watch if only to watch Rodgers and Astaire dance and to listen to the old songs.

I don't get it.

2008-10-09T03:00:00.004-04:00

I don't get it, how the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President, can stand in front of microphones and cameras everyday and basically lie about Barack Obama with absolutely no fear of being called on those lies. They attack and smear his love of country, and his character with mounting shrillness, and there is no counter punch from the other side. McCain has done so many truly rotten things in his life that is sometimes is hard to decide where to begin, but it seems he has a "get out of jail" card for all of 'em because he was a POW for seven years. Personally, his being a POW does not give him a free ride. In fact, I saw the film "Manchurian Candidate" and it does not make me feel real comfortable witht the idea that McCain could be our President.

There will be more on this subject over the coming weeks. I'll be away over Columbus Day weekend, but, other than the two days that I will not have access to the 'Net, I'll be posting daily. Somebody has to.

Greed

2008-09-10T17:36:00.002-04:00

There are two very telling news stories today that go to the heart of the rot which is eating at the core of our society and which the Republican party and Mr. Bush have been guilty of supporting since the advent of Ronald Reagan. The first story concerns the virtual collapse of Lehman Brothers. Lehman was one of the giants of the financial community, and today it is barely hanging one by its fingernails. Over the past year, its stock has lost some 90% of its market value. That means that, if you purchased Lehman's stock last year, today nine out of every ten dollars you invested is gone, gone, gone. What has brought the giant so low is, surprise surprise, the mortgage meltdown crisis. Well, for what it is worth, another name for this could be "greed run rampant." Think about it.

The other story in todays headlines is an emerging scandal at the Interior Department. It seems that for most of the Bush administration's watch, the folks who were in charge of some ten billions of dollars per year of royalties owed the government for oil, gas and minerals removed from public lands have been playing fast and loose. There are allegations of ethics infractions ranging from acceptance of gifts (read bribes) through drugs and booze to sexual encounters between government overseers and people from the private sector who were supposed to be being watched by the public employees. Again, greed and its attendant vices of excess and moral laxity are being seen by the same people who are bringing us John McCain as acceptable behaviors.

Dear lord! According to the story I read, this has been going on for the last eight years. You can't tell me that nobody has noticed anything over the past eight years. What this tells me is that all of this was probably well known, but over looked as being...OK. This is what we are all trying to get to: expense account fun and games. Well, no. This is a cancer eating at our society, and, unless we get serious about treating it, it is going to be our doom.

It is done

2008-09-02T17:44:00.002-04:00

The sword thrust was sure and true...the beast is dead. Yep, I have sent my copy of Vista into oblivion. In the words of Monty Python, "It is an expired Vista..." I am currently reformatting the prior Vista partition to ext3 (which is what Linux prefers), and I will be whiz banging around to expand my primary partition to about 140gig and my swap partion to 20 gig. My next bit of legerdemain will be to install Damn Small Linux on my old 233mhz P-2 box and get rid of Windows98. By the time I finish, I will have two boxes running XP...my desktop and my wife's laptop. I don't expect her to ever ween from Windows. However, my goal is to be all Linux except for her laptop within two years or so.

So, now I go back to tweaking Linux until it does all the nice things I know it can do without it giving me any surprises. Vista is dead, long live King Linux...

The moment of truth...

2008-09-02T17:24:00.002-04:00

So, I am sitting here staring at the Linux (or, more truthfully, the Gnome) Partition Editor as I contemplate sending Windows Vista...away. Dumping Vista will give me about 80 gig more disk space on the laptop, and, truthfully, I haven't booted to Vista in over a month so it is not like I ever use it. However, the thought of doing something so final...so irrevocable, has me sitting here contemplating the actually doing it. Oh well, time for me to take a deep breath and pull the switch.

U.S. Agents Can Seize Laptops

2008-08-04T17:30:00.001-04:00

I think it is time to review the late, unlamented cold war, and think about who actually won. As I remember, we were engaged in a struggle with a totalitarian regime which granted its subjects only those freedoms which were convenient at the moment. If you think that the freedom loving people of the United States won that "war", you need to think again.

Here is a lovely little report about how U.S. Agents Can Seize Laptops belonging to its citizenry without any particular reason at all. Not only can the government seize your laptops, PDA's, cell phones, digital cameras and just about anything else they feel like seizing, but they can keep the stuff pretty much indefinitely. Home of the free? I don't think so. Sovereign, independent citizens? Not any longer.

This is a huge slide down the slippery slope towards a totalitarian state. The next things we will be hearing about are internal passports and inplanted RFID chips in...oh, wait, those are already in the pipelines. Federal authorities (mostly of the Homeland Security subspecies) are already pushing for these as a way to "combat terrorism". Frankly, if this is what our response to our enemies is, then they have already won. However, I think that the fascists amongst us, while draping themselves in patriotism, are actually using the threat of terror as a cover for their reach for power. If we let them succeed, then we deserve what we get.

So true, so true...

2008-07-27T11:57:00.002-04:00

Birthday card seen at Barnes & Noble:

"Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened."

You wonder why that old guy is such a grouch? Well, it's not the old guy who is grouchy, it's the young guy who is trapped in an old body who is, understandably, ticked off at life for playing this cruel trick. That young guy in there is angry, and who wouldn't be, because now, after he has finally started to learn the rules of the game, he is suddenly too old to stay in the game. He's about to be sent to the showers, and he ain't ready yet.

So, the next time some old codger grumbles at you, just smile and say, quietly, "I understand, and I think it sucks also." It does help.

The house on the corner

2008-07-19T12:52:00.003-04:00

He tore down Mrs. Elder's house a couple weeks ago. "He" is the guy who lives behind my mother, and who is a (shudder) developer. My parents moved into their house slightly over 42 years ago. My father had a vision of himself as a country gentleman (on weekends) puttering around his estate, mowing the field and generally being the country squire. Unfortunately, he only got to enjoy his dream for three years before dying in an automobile accident. My mother, on the other hand, has been living there from the day they moved in. She remarried, and my step father lived there for about 17 years before dying himself in 1988. I lived on the property for the first five years of our ownership until I moved off to follow my own star. However, through all these years, the house on the corner has stood there, a welcome landmark telling us that home was only a few seconds away.

I call it "Mrs. Elder's house" even though she has been dead for decades. Mrs. Elder owned the house when we moved in next house down the road. She raised Springer Spaniels who sort of took over the property as she got older. The house itself was the oldest house in the immediate area. It was the original farmhouse for a huge swath of land. However, over the years (century plus) the succession of owners had sold off parcels until, when we moved in, Mrs. Elder was down to about 9 acres, and she could not spin off any more land since the zoning was then fixed at 10 acres. So, Mrs. Elder raised, and sold, Springer Spaniels. As she got older, and the walk to the kennels became more difficult, the dogs started living in the house. By the time her residency ended (I forget if she died or she was moved to a nursing home) the place was pretty rank.

However, maybe that was a blessing for the Rista's, the family who purchased the place and moved in about 30 years ago. When Mr. Rista bought the place, he must have been near 60. His kids we grown, although one daughter still lived at home. He and his wife were nice people who worked at cleaning the place up and making it livable. At least they did for the first 10 years or so. Then Mrs. Rista died. I don't think Mr. Rista ever really got over that. When his wife died, he sort of stopped taking care of the place. Of course, he was getting older too, and, I suppose, money was an issue. Anyhow, over the next 10 years, the place began to decay. The kennels started to sag, the barn leaned a little more to the right and nothing was painted...ever.

We would see Mr. Rista, a thin, small man taking his daily hike down the dirt road they lived on at least a couple times a week. We would wave at him, and he would wave back. And the house was still there, although it did look a tiny bit shabbier. Then about five or six years ago, we suddenly noticed that we hadn't seen Mr. Rista for a while. Inquiries were made, and it turned out that he had been moved to a nursing home. His son, who lives someplace in Arizona and his daughter, who now lives a couple miles away, were now in charge of the house. Well, she, for very good reasons, and he, for not so good reasons, did not much more than pay the quarterly taxes on the place. The deterioration of the house became more pronounced and began to accelerate. Gutters started to come loose, the porch sagged, then one corner gave up the fight and collapsed. Windows were broken and filled with plywood. The roof leaked. We all watched, and clucked our tongues, but there was nothing any of my family could do as none of us had a spare couple of million dollars hanging around.

Finally, this past spring, the daughter finally gave in and sold the place. But she sold it to the developer. Now, the house was in critical shape. In fact, it is possible that it was beyond saving, but I don't know that for certain. I do know that it was a Victorian farmhouse, which means it was close to 150 years old, and that the historic society should have been called in to do a survey. They weren't. The developer closed on the property, and within a week the bulldozers were on site. As far as I know, they didn't even attempt to salvage anything from any of the buildings. One day I went up to my Mom's for something, and the house was there are always, although there were all these large yellow machines parked in the field behind the barn. The next day, when I went back up to meet with some workmen at Mom's, the house was gone. The barn was still standing, but the house and kennels were gone. We thought the barn might survive, but even that hope was in vain. Now only a flat expanse of graded dirt covered by loose hay marks the corner. I know that within the next few months (or maybe next spring, but I wouldn't bet on him waiting that long) the foundations will go in and a new huge mansion, a paean to conspicuous consumption, will begin to rise on the site.

I will miss that old house.

Online auctions

2008-07-17T22:44:00.002-04:00

I am in the throes of an online auction for an HP laptop. The auction site is UBid.com. And I have learned a life lesson with this auction: don't participate in an auction where the auctioneer also holds a fiduciary interest in what is being auctioned. This auction was supposed to end 45 minutes ago, but Ubid keeps "extending" the time limit. Fucking assholes! I thought I was competing with other bidders, but, no, it seems that one of the active players is the auctioneer itself. This sucks so big time that I am almost speechless...almost, but not quite.

**Arrrggghhh** Unfortunately, the auction is now closed, and I seem to have purchased a laptop. Damn! Well, it is what I promised my son for his birthday, last month, so it is good that I finally got something for him that works. The Compaq I got on eBay turned out to not have a battery and the shell had some very strange ridges swirled around. (Possibly somebody thought this was a cool design: we all thought that something bad had happened to the machine. I sent it back and Jose has credited back to my credit card.) This machine is supposed to be factory refurbished so it should be in pretty good shape...and the description says that battery and a/c charger are included. So, it should be what my son and granddaughter need at this time.

OK, so, after the fact, I go and read the fine print. It turns out that they automatically extend the auction time if there is a bid made within the last three minutes. They keep extending the time until such time as there are no new bids within a three minute span. At which time the auction winds down, I guess. I think that policy sucks. It's like the stock exchange saying they will extend the trading day if there are any new bids or offers within 3 minutes of closing. That kind of bullshit totally changes the dynamics of the auction. Fixed goalposts at the end of the field define the game of football. The same should be true about an auction site. As it is, I will never...let me repeat that; never...go to uBid again. In fact, I will now go see if eBay has an equally egregious rule, and, if it does, I will drop my membership there as well.

'Nuff said...

Linux continued

2008-07-09T13:50:00.003-04:00

I've been up in the North woods for the past five days, and while we do have cell phone service, that is the only utility we have at the cabin. The cabin was built in 1880, and it is surrounded by New York's Adirondack State Park. Consequently, the only way to get in is by boat or by hiking (which becomes difficult when you're bringing in a case of wine and 60 pounds of ice for the ice box.) There is no electricity, no plumbing, no...well, you get the idea. We get drinking water from a spring; we get washing water from the lake; we have an outhouse (use lots of lime) for that necessary; we have a wood stove in the kitchen and a charcoal grill outside. Light is via a bunch of Coleman lanterns and there is a big fireplace if it gets chilly. I do bring the laptop with me, but I use it basically as a notebook, and I keep it charged using Xantrex Technology's Powerpack 600hd. All of which is an explanation for why I haven't gotten much further with my Linux adventure.

My major concern with Linux is with the download/installation of software. I have been able to get a couple of packages loaded, but most of them end up languishing on my desktop because 1) I have no clue as to where they really should be placed (Linux has all these stock directories which are supposed to handle just about everything...and would if I could get past my Windows expectations.) Anyhow, while I can d/l and unzip applications in Windows without even thinking, in Linux doing this has become a problem. Like right now I want to install Flash v9 as a Firefox plugin and, although it runs and says that it is done, the newest version of Flash does not appear as a plugin. And now I have a Flickr downloader that I want to put in service, but I can't get it to work. And I am getting frustrated. And that is not good.

Linux redux 2

2008-07-01T08:44:00.003-04:00

I've finally figured out how to install software in Linux. Well, let me immediately qualify that statement. I can now insall software that is available to the Synaptic package manager. Package manages in Linux find and download software and all the associated software tha program needs to work. Package managers are great for loading compiled packages; they are not so great for downloading stuff that is not compiled for Linux.

I also got a copy of Ubuntu 8.04 on a cd from Linux Magazine and did a full re-install. I wiped the Linux partition and started from scratch. However, I did save all my user files by uplading them to my Yahoo Briefcase. Once they were safe, I cleaned out the Kubuntu installation and did a full, clean install. The benefits were immediate. I find that I like the Gnome desktop, and that installing the KDE desktop just did not give me anything so compelling as to make me want to switch from Gnome. About the only thing I miss is the Amarok music player (which, although optimized for use with the KDE desktop, can be used with Gnome). I am still having trouble with the hibernate settings, but that is a minor, minor inconvenience.

The major benefit of the re-install has been the resurrection of my wireless card. For whatever reason, the native drive included in either the most recent itteration of the kernel (2.6.24.19) or Ubuntu (Hardy Heron:8.04) is working perfectly. I get reasonable connection speed and it connects to whichever network happens to be available whether that is my home network or someplace like where I am now: at the Subaru dealership waiting for my car to go through a scheduled service.

So, I am now almost 100% settled in to Linux. And that means that I am about to leave the "absoute beginner category and move up one rung on the user ladder. When I get to the rung above this one, when I become an "informed user", I will delete Vista from it's place on the Hard Drive and become a fully Linux user at least on this machine.

On Duty, Honor and Patriotism

2008-06-15T07:49:00.001-04:00

My fellow New Jerseyite over at Last Chance Gas comments that there is some "irony" that a "flaming liberal" like our governor, Mr. Corzine, can give a speech about "duty, honor and patriotism". For the most part, I sorta enjoy reading the Proprietor's blog. However, every now and then he pisses me off, and this is one of those times.

For the record, there is nothing in the liberal dogma which precludes also being patriotic, dutiful and honorable. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the liberals amongst us are more genuine in their honor , duty and patriotism than are the self-absorbed conservatives who use those noble ideals to cloak their pursuit of venal self aggrandizement. There, I think that covers it...

Linux update...

2008-06-14T21:45:00.002-04:00

Well, there is good news and not-so-good news to report. I switched from Ubuntu to Kubuntu as my Linux flavor of the week. Actually, the only difference between them is that Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop manager, and, so far I think it rocks...I have to say that I like it better than Gnome, although I thought Gnome did a good job. However, KDE comes with Amarok (audio manager) as part of its tool chest. Amarok has Shoutcast streams and Radio Paradise is a shoutcast entity, so I now have music on the laptop.

The disappointing news is that I still haven't gotten my wireless working yet. I know that it is possible to get this thing working, and, that once I do have it going, it will work well. It is just frustrating not to have wireless. *sigh*

On other fronts, I have reorganized my office, bringing the movable computer desk over next to me rather than sitting in the far corner of the room. One of the nice things about this is that I can now sit in my chair and have three or four (if I ever fire up the old Micron) computers at my fingertips. I currently have the laptop working off this desk since it has a hub I can plug into so at least this machine (ok, I'm writing this on the Gateway 'cause it is a new toy and I want to play with it...also I find it easy to type on this keyboard even though it is not ergonomic. But that is not what I wanted to talk about.

What I want to talk about is that my dear wife hasn't said a word about the laptop. She stood at my shoulder as I loaded Kubuntu on to it a few minutes ago, and she didn't say a word. I'm hoping that she is considering this my Father's Day present...and my birthday present...and maybe a Christmas present, and is going to let it go at that. Works for me...

Moving to LInux Update 1

2008-05-30T11:34:00.002-04:00

I am still having trouble with my wireless connection. The culprit seems to be the Realtek RTL8187 USB wireless NIC and associated drivers. From reading the posts in the Launchpad and Ubuntu forums, there seems to be a work around available using NDISwrapper (he said, cluelessly), but I have to wait for tech support (ie. my son-in-law) to walk me through the installation process.

Other than the wireless problem (right now I'm hard wired into the router, and that works just fine) I really like the Ubuntu flavor of Linux. Boot times are about a minute which compares very favorably to the interminable boot sequence in Windoze. The more I learn about Linux, the happier I am. However, a note to the masses: You need to have a modicum of computer smarts (read skills) to successfully move to a Linux O/S. Either that or you need to be in an environment where you have a network admin person who can deal with things which need to be dealt with using the command line. Ah, the command line; makes one think back on the days of DOS. Now, don't get me wrong, you can do most everything you need to do in Linux without having to refer to the command line...unless you want to install new hardware or new software, and even there a great majority of the time you wouldn't need to access the command line. However, there are going to be times with Linux when the command line becomes a necessity. So, if typing arcane commands into a computer worries you, then you might want to hold off on leaping to Linux. In that case you will be condemned to the Windows dungeon, and you have my sympathy.

Moving to Linux

2008-05-30T11:28:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I loaded Ubuntu Linux on my stealth notebook. (It is called “stealth” because my darling wife doesn't know about it...yet. I have to pick a propitious time to inform her of its existence.) Anyhow, it came loaded with Windows Vista, and I am one of those who is of the opinion that Vista sucks. So, after years of threatening to jump ship for Linux, I have finally made the leap, and as Delmar (I think) from the movie “Brother Where Are You” (check on this) said, “Come on in, boys, the water's fine!” My game plan is to run Linux for about a month, and, if it proves to be stable and I can learn its foibles well enough, I will then repartition the hard drive to dump Vista into the trash heap of history. If things keep going like they have been for the last two days, I would give that possibility about a 99% degree of certainty. My only concern right now is how Ubuntu is connecting to the wireless router; it seems to be sort of unstable in that sometimes it works great and other times it doesn't seem to be connecting. When I get that straightened out, I think I will be well on the way to conversion to a Linux geek.

I am writing this little note on the OpenOffice.org word processor, which behaves almost exactly like Microsoft's Word or Corel's WordPerfect.

}As an aside, I always thought that it was a sin that programs like WordPerfect, Lotus, and a raft of others were buried by Microsoft's less than perfect software. And I have to admit that I was one of the people who enthusiastically climbed on board with the whole Office suite concept way back when Windows 3.1 finally made its appearance. Of course, I was an old AppleWorks user who had (with the rest of the business world) migrated to the PC and was eager for an integrated software solution. If I had only known then what I know now...{

OpenOffice.org has a nice little suite of applications, or packages as they are known in the Linux community (actually, I'm not 100% sure about that: could be that you install packages but you use apps or software or whatever...I'll have to work on my jargon.), which does everything Microsoft's Office does and the major files can be read by either.

So, I'm running Ubuntu Linux which uses Firefox as its web browser (and I can get Opera for Linux if I desire), Pidgen for my IM/chat software and I am working on the rest of the software I use regularly (like a streaming music player and a graphics editor for my pictures. I can see that I'm going to need to get a portable USB hard drive so that I can put my music and my photos on that and easily move them between Windows and Linux machines. Actually, what I really need to do is set up a home network that has both Linux and Windows clients. I foresee upgrading one of my old boxes enough to refurbish it as a Linux network server. Then I get my Dell tower and my wife's Dell notebook to run whatever they need to connect to the Linux server. Of course, all this is predicated on the my ability to integrate my NetGear router into the picture. However, I figure that, if I can learn the skill set necessary to do this by the end of the summer, I can get Paladin Business Services up and running. Because having that skill set will actually make me a Linux guru, and it would be nice to be back near the cutting edge for a couple more years...

The other thing I want to comment about is this Gateway notebook I'm using. Gateway has had a terrible rep over the last ten years or more (now that I think about it, my brother was complaining bitterly about his Gateway desktop way back in the mid-nineties), but this little machine seems to be doing just fine. Admittedly, I have only had it for a little over a week, but it is a nicely designed and set up machine. Ooops, here is another little bump in the road to Linux; the touchpad scroll function is a little too sensitive. Hmmm, lemme see...Actually, I'm not sure its the touchpad's fault. Seems Ubuntu has two desktops that you can move between. On this desktop I could have my word processor and a couple other windows open, and then I could have porn running on the other desktop. Should somebody wander into the room, I could then switch between desktops and keep the porn out of sight. OK, so actually its Mahjongg, but the former makes me...I dunno...more dangerous.

And now to brave the Linux file system and store this in the correct directory...

Its all about fear

2008-05-22T09:25:00.002-04:00

Fear is playing a big role in my life right now. I am confronting fear on a number of different levels, and I am finding that it is sapping my energy. On the macro level, I have all the big fears, both legitimate and manufactured, that are confronting all of us; Global Warming, general environmental decay, overpopulation, the world economy, the national economy and the upcoming election. The manufactured fears created by the Bush administration which revolve around terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have to be addressed even though they are totally the product of our current occupant of the White House. On a more personal level, I am dealing with my fear of change in my personal life (I really, really have to move on from my current job in retail). And then there is my fear of fucking up my new computer when I install Linux.

Ah, Linux. On the one hand it is so far superior to Windoze as an operating system that the choice of intalling it should be a no brainer. On the other hand, there is that damned command line interface, and the need to be able to communicate with your computer on a more basic level than the GUI. All of that, plus the fact that I am about to do this installation on a laptop, which is the most difficult environment to install Linux into, leads me to approach this with trepidation. In other words, I am very worried that I am going to do something that will fuck up this machine irrevocably. (Well, irrevocably enough to require me to flat out reformat the HD and then reinstall the hated Vista.)

OK, I've already reapportioned the HD so there is a partition on it that is totally empty and ready to be reformated and loaded with Linux. What I really want to do is create a dual-boot machine so that I have a fall back available should something go south with the Linux installation. So, maybe I should read a little more just to be on the safe side...(dither, dither). Eh, there will be more to come on this. However, Redmond should be very afraid also because if this old man can dump Windows and move on to Linux, then a majority of the Windows users out there could do the same thing. And that should make the Evil Empire quake in its boots.

A couple one minute rants...

2008-04-12T23:07:00.003-04:00

I leave at 5:30am tomorrow for Seattle, and it is now 11:10pm here in deepest, darkest central Joisey. So, I'll indulge myself in a couple of mini-rants and then I'm off to bed.

My first (and most obvious) target is the airline industry. Flying sucks! When I was a kid (shortly after Orville and Wilbur did their thing), flying was fun. Didn't get there as fast in the air, but the planes were actually fairly comfortable, the people staffing them and the ground facilities were not worked to within an inch of their sanity. And we didn't have to deal with the paranoia that has become SOP since 9/11. No, if I had any kind of an alternative...oh, like maybe trains...and could afford to take that much time, I would in a heart beat. But that alternative isn't really viable these days, so I subject myself to the horrors of modern air travel. It is just another huge, glaring example of how our quality of life is eroding away.

Then, also in a "transportation" sort of vein, there are the roads here in the Soprano State. They suck as well! What with deteriorating bridges, potholes that swallow smaller cars whole and a marked lack of new roads being built to handle the ever increasing traffic load, driving here in the Garden State has become an exercise in stoicism in the face of adversity rather than something one actually might want to do. Those Sunday drives of yesteryear are but a dim, fading memory 'cause there ain't nobody who actually goes for a ride in the country just for the ride any more.

Of course, it isn't just the roads that make driving suck here in the 'burbs. No, my slightly biased estimate is that at least 70% of the people the great State of New Jersey has awarded the license to drive are, in fact, not up to that task. OK, maybe not 70%...but the percentage is significant. These so called drivers wander from lane to lane; they drive 10 miles an hour below the posted speed limit in the left lane...and then have the presumption to look askance at those who pass them on the right. Only by some prodigious displays of vehicular control have I managed to avoid the fools who have been seriously trying to kill me of late. I do have to say that my Outback is quite agile for a station wagon, and I am grateful for that.

On other fronts, Hillary should read the writing on the wall and withdraw with some grace and in the best interest of the party. She'll get points for doing so.

The exciting news is that for the past few years I have been vainly scouring the shelves of America's retailers looking for a certain product. I finally drew up some very rough drawings and took them to a patent attorney who did think that it is an idea worth pursuing. So, $500 dollars poorer (me...he's that much richer) I am waiting on pins and needles for the result of the "art search". If that proves to be negative, I will file a provisional application and begin the process that could see me actually the possessor of a US patent. How cool is that? Plus, if I can patent it, I think I can sell it and make enough money to become semi-retired. (Meaning I'd still work, but only at things I actually wanted to do.) Further reports will be forthcoming as things progress.

And with that, dear reader (shrug...if there is even one of you out there) I am going to toddle off to bed and try for four hours sleep. I hate flying....

Those fun-loving guys are at it again...

2008-04-03T01:28:00.002-04:00

The current issue of Time Magazine (4/7/08) has as its cover story an expose of the biofuel (ie. ethanol) stampede. Basically, Time reports that ethanol actually adds to the greenhouse gases while diverting crops like corn from being a food source to being a fuel source. This diversion of crops like corn away from the feedlots and grocery stores to the ethanol plants means that the cost of many foods is going to go up. In addition, the rush to biofuels is one of the driving forces behind the accelerating destruction of the Amazonian rain forest.

One of the factoids that Time trots out in the course of the article is that the amount of corn needed to produce a tank of ethanol for a hybrid SUV would feed one adult human for one year. The fact that there are tens of millions of human beings who suffer from (at one end of the scale) malnutrition to (at the other end of the scale) fatal starvation, the act of diverting food to something as inconsequential as fueling one of our behemoth vehicles becomes a little macabre at best.

So, not only is most ethanol a net carbon emitter (only sugar cane based ethanol contributes, net, less carbon than oil based fuels), but its production absorbs resources which once went into food production. All that corn that is going ethanol plants is not going to the feedlots...and that means that those burgers on the grill this summer are going to become a luxury rather than a regular event.

Of course, what we should be promoting and investing research dollars and resources in is hydrogen. As a fuel, hydrogen emits no carbon (when you think about it, its major byproduct is water...). The rap against hydrogen is that it is hard to handle. Which is why we need to invest in research to find ways to make it easier to use. Oh, and I do note that many of the biggest boosters of biofuels are American corporate agri-businesses. Yes, Corporate America, smelling the opportunity for some quick profits has jumped aboard the ethanol bandwagon while loudly proclaiming themselves to be truly committed to to protecting the ecosphere. This loud self-promotion does lead me to wonder why American Corporations are almost always on the wrong side of those issues which define character. Hmmm.

But that is a rant for another time...

We Democrats need an intervention...

2008-04-01T00:04:00.003-04:00

What is wrong with our leadership? What is wrong with Hillary and Barack? Don't they see that they are giving McCain a priceless gift? I am beginning to think that the party is not important to either Hillary or Barack. I am beginning to think that they care little that they are ripping the heart out of the party and that they could very well be giving Mr. McCain the keys to the White House.

It is one thing to have a sitting President as your known opponent. A sitting President presents a continuing target. A candidate like McCain, however, only has to go around making "meet 'n greet" appearances while he quietly, in the background, builds his campaign machine. So, the fact that Bill Clinton didn't clinch the nomination until July was not all that bad. After all, he had George the First tanking the economy and otherwise being fairly unpopular. This year's candidate(s) don't have that luxury. Sure, they have George the Second, who is a true disaster, but George the Second isn't running again. The American people can throw all the bric-a-brac they want at George, but he's gone anyhow.

What our two erstwhile candidates need to do is retire to a room somewhere and not come out until they have decided between themselves who is going to carry the standard. I don't care how they do it: play poker, Indian wrestle, dueling pistols at thirty paces...whatever. Just stop this internal bloodletting and start focusing on the true opposition. As an aside, this was one of the good points about having kingmakers like Richard Daley and others of the "smoke filled room" era: they knew who the opposition really were, and they made sure that the party didn't waste too much time and effort on internecine warfare.

Sissy Nation strikes again

2008-03-27T00:54:00.002-04:00

I just checked my email, and there, sitting proudly in my inbox was an urgent post from TrueMajority.org. It seems that TrueMajority is appalled (with reason) by what is transpiring in Tibet of late. Anyhow, they want me to sign a petition to be delivered to the Chinese government calling for China's President to at least hold talks with the Dalai Lama. However, the letter they plan to deliver was obviously written by a true Sissy. The letter (in its entirety) says:

"We call on the Chinese government to live up to its international obligations and respond to the Tibetan protests with peace and nonviolence. President Hu Jintao, we call upon you to open up a direct dialogue with the Dalai Lama to work toward a long term solution."

What I want to draw your attention to is the part which asks China to "...respond to the Tibetan protests with peace and nonviolence." Yeech!! How wussy can you get? Jesus! Why not hit 'em where it really hurts...the pocketbook. "Stop beating up on the Tibetans or we will boycott all products made in China. Your economy will crash and you will have a billion angry peasants of your own to worry about." Of course, that would mean that Americans and Europeans would have to suck up and stop purchasing shit made in China, and that would probably throw a crimp into our economies also. On the other hand, manufacturers who were quick off the mark and moved their production lines to other cheap labor markets could score big.

Deliver that note to the Chinese, and all you do is risk a few cases of apoplexy caused by them laughing too hard. Sheesh!

Stoopits and the American Dream...

2008-03-14T18:50:00.004-04:00

I was at work last night when one of my cashiers started to laugh. She was reading (usually a no-no, but business was really slow...) a new book, Sissy Nation (which sounds pretty cool and is something I think I want to read) so I asked her what was so funny. Well, she proceeded to read me two exerpts, which made me both laugh and wince. The first was basically how the author, John Strausbaugh, defines "sissy" and the second is about the term "Stoopits". Well, a nerve was hit, a button pushed, and I had to buy this book.

Having purchased said tome, let me quote for you the first 4 sentences of this book, and then you tell me if it doesn't strike home. Page 1, line 1:

America has become Sissy Nation. A culture of fat, soft, stupid, fearful, whiny, infantile, narcissistic, fatalistic, groupthinking victims. Once we were warriors. Now we're just worriers."

Strausbaugh goes on to state that by "sissies" he does not mean "girly man". Rather, he defines "sissy" as "...lack of courage and conviction, spine and balls". Later on in the first chapter, he writes "There's an episode of Star Trek where members of a mildly retaded alien race, let's call them the Stoopits, bumble around the galaxies in spaceships they can barely pilot, buying or stealing what they need from smarter species. I've always taken it as a metaphor for us. It won't be long now before American is Planet Stoopit."

That part about bumbling around in "spaceships they can barely pilot" immediately made me think about traffic in the fair Garden State. I would swear that the above description applies to a majority of the drivers on New Jersey's roads; they are piloting vehicles they can barely handle.

Ah well, like I said, I have purchased this book, so you, gentle reader, can expect a number of quotes drawn from said book that will serve as my starting points over the next few weeks (months?). When you think about Stoopits, we can start by thinking about l'affaire Spitzer and then yesterday's bailout of one of Wall Streets largest brokerages, Bear Stearns. *sigh*

I am impressed...

2008-03-01T11:55:00.003-05:00

In an act of pure whimsy, I signed up for a free course at Sony's My 101 on Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. Turns out, however, that I've already learned a couple things I didn't know and that I've been mildly inspired. Seems da Vinci's notebooks, those that still exist, are the surviving pages of a journal he kept for over 40 years. During that time, he averaged two pages per day. Now, sometimes those pages only held a single sketch or a couple lines of text, but other times the pages were crammed with everything from grocery lists and daily to-do lists to profound insights into how things work and why.

So, Leonardo's work covered some 40 years from his late 20's through his late 60's. If I start try to emulate him, at least in keeping a journal, he'll have about a 30 year (shut-up, "serpent's tooth" *grin*) head start on me, and I don't see me actually getting two pages a day done...But maybe I can average a page a day of some sort. Some of it will be here, and some will be hand written in real ink on real paper, some will be on my other site (still unnamed, s.t.), some will be sketched (I hope) and some will be in spreadsheets. My hope is that by making a commitment I will actually post here at least a couple times a week. Who knows, I may actually build up an actual online following...

And this counts as a page...

It goes on...

2008-02-24T14:03:00.004-05:00

It is now over a week, and there is still water in Mom's basement. This house is beginning to wear on me! Now, as of Wednesday, I had the water down to about 3/4 of an inch, but I was working on Thursday during the day, so I couldn't get up there. And then Thursday night/Friday morning in finally snowed here in Central New Jersey. So, I spent Friday using my new snowblower which I was gifted with for Christmas. (It works great...I cleared out the driveway and walks in about 1/2 the time it usually takes me to shovel...and with far fewer complaints from back and arms...). Then I got to help a small person build a snowman which made the winter whole. However, the one thing I didn't do Friday was go check on the water in the basement.

So, Saturday (yesterday) I go up and find that there is now about 4 inches of water down there. Not only that, but the hoses attached to the pumps were frozen solid. After another trip back home for one of our hoses, I got it going again. On the way home from dinner at Tom and Georgina's we detoured so I could turn the pump off. I was gratified to find there was only about 3/4 of an inch of water down there. But, I'm not going to get up there again until Tuesday AM, which means, I'm afraid, that there will be another 3-4 inches of water down there as all the snow begins to melt. I am truly getting tired of this.

Sigh...so it's been about 2 months...

2008-02-17T17:57:00.002-05:00

I know, I know...how can one develop a readership if one only posts occasionally. And I understand that once every two months or so isn't even occasionally. I have posted a little more than that over at my top secret blog (read totally anonymous so I can really say whatever I want, no matter how...ahhh...inappropriate), but even there I have been less than prolific of late. You know, I've been writing on the Internet in one form or another since 1991...I think my 17th anniversary was in January...but I have never touched the zeitgeist necessary to develop a decent readership. I know...there are a couple of you out there who check in from time to time...and my daughter gets a feed, I think, but that's about all I have been able to build over 17 years.

Aside: Growing old sucks...You get aches and pains where there were none before. It is your body's subtle (as a sledgehammer) way of letting you know that the clock is, in fact, ticking. Right now I have a sharp pain near the knuckles of my fourth and fifth fingers of my right hand. My pinkie hurts when I type. Like I said, growing old sucks...End aside

It is now about 12:45am, and I have been going since 7am what is now yesterday morning. And I have to be up and ready for my granddaughter at 7:25am this morning. And why do I have the duty tomorrow, you might ask? Well, let me tell you: My wife, who usually has the granddaughter duty at that time of day, is upstairs, in bed, with a good case of pneumonia. Not only is she down for the count, I am trying to get the inch plus of water that currently is lapping around my mother's basement outside where it belongs. However, doing that entails numerous trips up to her house (which is about 12.5 miles away) because she is no longer capable of going down into the basement to check on the pump. So, that means I can't leave it running until the water is down to about 1/8 inch...

Another aside: So, the pumps the plumber put down there on Saturday turned out to be pretty worthless...one of them only works sporadically--very sporadically and the other just doesn't move all that much water...so I went out and bought a 1/4 horsepower Rigid pump. In the instruction packet, it says that the pump needs 1/4 inch of water to prime itself...that it will remove water down to 1/8th inch of the surface upon which it (the pump) is sitting and that it should be unplugged when the water level is at 1/2 inch. My question has to do with which one of those numbers is reliable. The outside of the box mentions the 1/8th inch number, and that is why I bought the damn thing. However, it could be that the 1/2 inch number is actually the relevant one, and that would suck big time. If this pump can't bring the water level down to under 1/2 inch, that means I'll have to get rid of the rest of the water using the wet/dry vac, and that would not be a lot of fun.

So, as I was saying, I have to be there when the pumps are running...or at least I have to be able to get there within a few minutes to check on the water level so as not to burn them out by running them without enough water to cover the impellers. This is beginning to burn both my energy and a lot of gasoline (25 mile round trip 3 or 4 times a day). Thus, between work, keeping up this house, acting as general contractor for the restoration of Mom's house and all the other stuff I get roped into doing, I have little time and even less energy to devote to writing online. And the thing is, writing is one of the things I really enjoy doing. All I can do is hope that external circumstances change enough to allow me the opportunity to start devoting time and energy to this avocation as well as the other things I enjoy.

What are they thinking, Part 3

2007-11-30T18:43:00.000-05:00

So, I'm driving along today, on my way up to my Mom's to do some more overseeing of the reconstruction, when I ended up stopped at a light behind a guy driving a bright red Corvette. I immediately leapt to the conclusion that he would be off the line when the light changed like a shot, and I could get ahead of that Annoying SUV parked in the left lane. Instead this guy creeps ahead when the light changed. He was going so slowly that little old ladies in those powered mobility scooters were passing him; kids on roller blades were passing him. He was not going fast, in other words.

So, my question is, "Why did this guy lay out big bucks for a relatively uncomfortable car?" I mean, the Corvette is not, by any means, a luxury car: it is a fast, muscle car. It's got tons of power and it goes very fast. If you aren't going to tweak it at lights (when you have the chance) or on relatively traffic free back country roads, then why buy the damn thing? One thing it is not is a luxury car. I guess it all comes down to it being another case of somebody having more money than brains.

Snow Globes

2007-11-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

The other day I was looking at some of the "seasonal gifts" being sold by my employer. One of these gifts is a Disney motif snow globe. I thought to myself, "Cool!" because I remember snow globes from my youth. The ones I remember from my Grandmother's house were usually the size of a softball, heavy glass and they had either snowmen, a country scene or a "Night Before Christmas" scene. You shook them up, set them down, and then watched the snow fall for a few minutes. All in all, they were pretty magical.

Now we get to what passes for a snow globe these days. The variety we are selling (and I have to think that this pretty much represents what is available these days), have some sort of white chunky stuff for the snow in a plastic globe. And, when you shake them up, you get to watch the "snow" fall for an soul satisfying 15 to 30...seconds. I don't think any little kids are going to grow up with fond memories of this.

In miniature, this is what is wrong with our society. There is very little pride of workmanship or creation any more. Today it is all about getting the money. Make it as cheaply as possible and sell it as dearly as you can. Gimme the money. And this is why, even when one makes it near the top of the income pyramid, there is no joy. Unless you are right up on the pinnacle of that pyramid where you can afford to pay hugely for one of those few true craftsmen/artisans left, the stuff you buy is no different from the stuff the rest of us buy...and most of that is crap.

I have watched huge buildings, that purport to be "homes", being built in the rich part of this county. For the most part, they are being built using the same materials and the same workmanship that one finds in those developments of MacMansions which sprout in former cow pastures seemingly overnight. In other words, the rich guy is building bigger, but not much better. Then that rich guy then gets to drive his big SUV over roads and bridges that are more and more rapidly falling into disrepair. It does not add up to an increase in the quality of life; at least it doesn't to me.

It has been awhile...

2007-11-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah...I know...one does not develop a devoted following by not publishing for months at a time. It has been about 90 days (one calendar quarter) since I last set virtual pen to virtual paper and then nailed same up to the virtual chestnut tree. My only excuses are that; 1) I've had a great deal going on in my non-virtual life: 2) I've been more or less suffering from a form of writer's block. In other words, I have a lot of introductory sentences/paragraphs for pieces, but I don't have the bodies or the closes for them.

But, wait! That's not entirely true anymore. I actually do have a couple of complete, coherent posts to upload here. Not right now, however, Right now I have to get back to work...bleh! I will try to get one or two more posted later today/tonight. However, as a teaser, consider the snowglobe.

Just come out and tell me you want me to contribute...

2007-08-17T09:07:00.000-04:00

Got this "survey" from the DNC the other day. While it purports to be a "Grassroots Survey of Democratic Leaders", what it really wants is my money. And, if I had any laying around, I'd be more than happy to give it to them since (as you might be able to tell from some preceding posts) I have nothing good to say about either the current incumbent President or the rest of his party. However, this stealth approach to my wallet does annoy me.

What also annoys me is that the questions on the survey are so constructed as to almost demand certain answers. For example, take question 7:

Do you support new tax cuts targeted at working families?
Response 1: Yes, with our econmy struggling, working families need a tax break. Response 2: No, additional tax cuts at this time will only worsen the federal deficit.

See? It is obvious what answer they want (and expect) respondents to supply. The whole thing is constructed the same way. And that annoys me as much, if not more, than the fact that the whole thing is actually a request for donations. (Suggested minimum being $35: inflation rears its ugly head.)

Ah, screw it...the whole thing landed in the circular file...They'll start getting money from me next month...but it won't be at the level they think they want...On the other hand, it will be regular and monthly from October through the national elections next year...

Somethng has gone terribly wrong...

2007-08-17T00:49:00.000-04:00

I grew up in the post-WWII years. I was born in 1945 (OK, so now you know I'm an old fart at this point in my life...), so my formative years were pretty much during this country's golden age. Sure, there were termites in the foundations so the whole thing was pretty shaky to say the least, but, still, those were, for some of us, golden years.

I grew up in a town in central New Jersey where we could leave our doors unlocked pretty much all the time...as a kid I never had a key because I didn't need one...the doors of the house were never locked. My town was a town of...I dunno...about 30-40,000 souls, and we had no problem with kids wandering around at will. None of my friends and none of my younger sister's friends were ever bothered. As a ten-year old kid, I could ride my bike just about anywhere in town without worrying about "strangers". Hell, as a 5-year old kid, I used to walk a couple blocks to friend's houses to play. Nobody thought anything of it.

I bring all that up to emphasize that my background is not the same as the background of adults who are 30 years younger than me. In many ways, we are from different places even though, geographically, we grew up in the same physical space.

I have mentioned before how much I like Fred Clark's writing. Frankly, I think he should be much more widely known than he is. I think he writes as well as any syndicated columnist from my youth...Fred is one of those people who grew up in the same space I did, only 30 (mol) years later. However, he is one person with whom I feel that I share something. For example, his latest blog entry Inquisitors is, once again, something I wish I had the talent and skill to write. I heartily recommend it to one and all: click on the link and read this.

If you go back about 4 years or so in my blogs, you'll note that I did not support Mr. Bush for a second term (for that matter, I did not support him for a first term although my support for Al Gore was tepid at best...to my eternal discredit.) I did not think Mr. Bush was the effective leader he tried to portray himself as being. However, I did not think that he was, frankly, as evil a man as he has turned out to be. George Bush has made me ashamed to be an American. If I had been alive in the the ante-bellum years of this country (and had the same ethical bias I have today) I would have been ashamed to call myself an American while my fellow citizens held other humans as chattels. George Bush has, by his absolute disdain for our freedoms, put himself in that same class of people. And he has sullied and stained our name and our honor. He is, in fact, the same kind of man as was his arch nemisis, Saddam Hussein. One of the things that give me hope is my faith that he will join Saddam in some corner of hell once he sheds this mortal coil.

When I was growing up...when parts of this country were Camelot...for some..., I was proud that we were the "good guys". Of course, when we played "cowboys and Indians" the Indians were always the bad guys and the cowboys were the good guys...it took me a until I read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" to realize that my European ancestors were good at treating anyone not from their ethnic branch of the human tree badly...but, still, we were the good guys. We stood up for the oppressed; we fought for the ideals enshrined in our founding documents. Even though we built this country upon the forced labor of black humans whom the white Europeans enslaved on land basically taken by force from the native inhabitants, the ideals embodied in our Declarations of Independence, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights were shining goals for us to strive to attain. George Bush has sullied, stained and defecated upon those ideals, and, in the process, he has mortally injured this nation.

I could say more, but...not now. All I will say is that it is ironic that the freedom of expression that this medium engenders is both a strength and a weakness. It gives a huge number of people a public platform from which to declaim, but those very numbers tend to obscure and attenuate...depreciate what they are saying. Like I said, Fred Clark should be a respected syndicated columnist rather than a slightly obscure Blogger. (I say "slightly obscure" because he does have a following, which is a lot more than I can say for myself...) Those of us who have been lucky enough to find him...to find this bit of gold amid the dross...are the better for it. I just wish that more of our fellow citizens also had the benefit of his clear vision.

'Nuff said...

When did this happen?

2007-08-07T16:17:00.000-04:00

OK, maybe I'm old and becoming less and less in tune with the zeitgeist, but since when where vampires and werewolves the good guys? I thought that these particular denizens of the shadow world were pretty much the bad guys. I mean, they both run around killing people: they have to kill people...it is what keep 'em alive. But not so much any more. We have Remus Lupin in Harry Potter: he's a werewolf, but a nice guy too. Then there is Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden: Dresden is a wizard (a la Merlin), but his half-brother is a white vampire--and a good guy. (White vampires don't drink blood, they suck straight life energy from their "food". Now, this is not as immediately fatal as the blood sucking variety of vampire feeding, but, ultimately, unless the White Vampire is very careful, the food source does die.) Then we have Laurel Hamilton's vampires, whats-her-name Rice and now Stephenie Meyer's new teen heroine who appears to be a vampire.

Personally, I prefer the old model. Vampires, of any description, were the enemy, and one did whatever one had to do to kill 'em.

Moving on, now that the Harry Potter saga has come to an end, I would like to commend a new Harry to you all. I am referring to the above mentioned Harry Dresden. This Harry is also a wizard (the only practicing wizard in the Chicago phone book), who lives in a slightly more complex world than Rowling's Potter. The good thing about this Harry is that his creator, Jim Butcher, has already penned 9 or 10 (I lose count...) books in the series, and he plans to go for about 23 or 24 total. Butcher has created a world very much like our own, but larger. Butcher's world has wizards and witches, warlocks and demons, faeries and trolls, pixies and elves, Knights of the Cross and Fallen Angels. It is a very rich tapestry, and one that is still in the process of creation. Reality building is one of the reasons I like this series. Pick up the first book, Storm Front, and give it a whirl. I think you'll like it.

---------------- Now playing: Zero 7 - In the Waiting Line (Radio Paradise - DJ-mixed modern & classic rock, world, electronica & more - info: radioparadise.com) via FoxyTunes

Some further thoughts about Corporate America

2007-07-02T11:42:00.000-04:00

It seems to me that greed driven capitalism is inherently and fundamentally antithetical to the ideals espoused in our constitution. Our country was founded upon the ideal that "all men are created equal": Meaning, of course, that we each have an equal voice in our governance. However, wealth perverts that ideal. The enormous economic power that our large corporations (and some individuals) wield readily translates into political power...especially in an era when political dialogue has sunk to the level of the 30-second sound bite/political attack ad.

Rather than looking for ways to make our society more egalitarian and to make this country a place where all citizens enjoy both political and economic freedom, the culture of greed has become pervasive. "I've got mine (or "I want mine") and to hell with the rest of you" has become our guiding ethos. That is partly the reason we have become xenophobic about our borders. Where we once welcomed immigrants to our shores, we now, selfishly, demand that our borders sprout walls to keep the rest of the world out. In fact, rather than spend the money those walls would cost to improve the lives of the poor of the world (so maybe they wouldn't want to emigrate to the golden shores of the United States), we selfishly think only of preserving our good fortune. I think part of this is an innate understanding that the pie is finite, and, if we share it with others, that will ultimately mean less for ourselves. Like I said, our ethos is now driven by greed and selfishness.

And even in our own country, the divide between the "haves" and "have nots" segments of our citizens is growing daily. The middle class, the skilled workers, the clerical and retail trades people are being squeezed like never before. Corporate employees in the high five figure and up pay ranges do their damnedest to squeeze more and more out of those in the lower pay ranges so that their salaries and benefits can become larger and larger. When corporate income does not meet expectations, it is not the upper levels who suffer--no, it is those at the bottom of the pay scale. The mantra from the executive offices is "cut the hours of the guys at the bottom first." It is wrong, but it is also the natural outcome when one has bought into the "gimme mine" mindset.

The great strength of the United States over most of its history has been the size and strength of the middle class. It is the middle class which has provided both the economic and political stability of this country. That middle class is now in danger of becoming...impotent. As economic and political power migrates to the wealthy individuals and corporations, the ability of the middle class to ameliorate the damage being done to our country evaporates. As the poor multiply, the society becomes more and more unstable. We are, in fact, sowing the seeds of our own destruction. It is time we, as a country, started to once again engage in substantive political debate and stop letting ourselves be lead by the noses by the spin merchants. It is, in fact, time for your wake-up call, America...

I've got writers block...or something similar

2007-06-30T15:56:00.000-04:00

I got tired. I got tired of posting shit that nobody (except for one or two who do it out personal--for want of a better word--loyalty) reads. I got tired of being creative for no particular gain. Plus, I am still in the process of writing two business plans and the marketing materials for one business. And I am still working for the self-proclaimed "world's largest bookseller". That gig is sucking the psychic life out of me like one of Jim Butcher's White Court vampires.

Corporate America...I have come to the understanding that corporate America is as anti-American as was the old Evil Empire (and the newly aspiring reincarnation of same) . For example: on the 4th of July, the day that all, and I mean all but those who absolutely must be at their posts to preserve public safety, security and order, Americans should be celebrating the ideals and sacrifices that make this country possible, will see most corporate retail establishments open. OK, by corporate I mean big box. All the big box retailers will be open for business. This is, in my opinion, as anti-American as it can get. These retailers are cheapening the day by intruding commerce upon a time that should be set aside as being special. They are distracting the populace from the true meaning of the day. They are keeping their employees from being part of the communal celebration of the founding ideals of this society. And yet these self-same despoilers will drape themselves in patriotic colors and imply that coming to their stores is, in itself, an act of patriotism.

Bullshit!!

That's all...just Bullshit

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow countrymen....

My Friday 10 on Sunday....

2007-06-03T11:08:00.000-04:00

OK Fred, Here’s my Friday 10 a two day(s) late….

Kristin Hersh Echo
Kirsty Maccoli In These Shoes
Joni Mitchell Raised On Robbery
John Prine Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody
Liz Phair Ride
Gomez How We Operate
Sinead Lohan To Ramona
(Also Bob Dylan, but I like Sinead’s
cover better)
Cowboy Junkies Las Vegas
Beta Band Dry The Rain
Zero 7 In The Waiting Line

No special theme: just what shuffled through the old…OK, new….MP3 player.

Twiddling thumbs

2007-05-17T09:50:00.000-04:00

In effect, that is what this post is...I'm twiddling my thumbs while I reload my Sansa MP3 player. It has been about a month since I have posted anything...although I have had about twenty posts that I had planned--just never got around to actually writing them down. It has been a sort of up and down month. On the one hand, I got my Outback wagon so now I can haul stuff from point A to point B without nearly as much hassle as it was in the Saturn sedan, while, on the other hand, things like work and the swimming pool have been thorns in my side. First, let's deal with the good stuff. As noted above, I got my Outback wagon. In addition to making it easy to haul stuff around, it is just a cool car. It is, more or less, a basic model in that we didn't get any real whistles and bells. However, it comes with so much cool stuff that I didn't really think I needed much else. The built-in in-dash CD player plays MP3 disks, so I can use disks I burn myself...that works out to about 10 hours (mol) of music which is a day's drive anyway you look at it. In addition, it has a jack which allows me to hook up the MP3 player, and that adds about 2 gig worth of music or about 30 more hours. I don't have that much music that I really like. Aside from the music, we got the manual transmission 'cause I think it gives more control in snow and other adverse road conditions. And, anyway, I prefer manual trannies. All in all, it is a very comfortable car to drive and ride in. Not as quick around the corners as the Saturn, but, hell, it's a wagon. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I also got a gas grill this spring. I gotta tell the world that it is a great grill. Much less work than charcoal and the food tastes pretty much the same. I have been having a great time cooking on it for the past three weeks. My dear wife has pretty much closed down the stove and oven for the duration of the summer. About the only time they get turned on now is to handle overflow from the grill. I have the old charcoal grill out on the patio next to the new gas grill, but I have yet to have had the urge to fire it up. I think the only time it will be used this summer is this coming Memorial Day weekend when I plan to have a cook-out and pool party for my collegues at B&N. All in all, the gas grill is a real plus: big thumbs up!! Also, as mentioned in that earlier post, I got a new MP3 player. Way back when (2000, I think), my wife got me an RCA Lyra player for my birthday that year. I think the biggest memory card I ever had for that player was maybe 128meg. I don't think it could handle more than 256 meg...I know that it was limited to about 4-5 hours of music...and it ate batteries at a prodigious rate. That was it for me until two years ago when my daughter and her hubby-to-be got me a Sony Walkman CD-player which could handle MP3 disks burned on the computer. That gave me about 650 meg of storage to play with, and, for the most part, it has sufficed. However, now I am totally ruined. My new SansDisk Sansa player has a gig of internal memory and will handle up to 2 gig of external (SD card) memory. I just loaded the internal memory with 174 tracks or about 15 hours of music, and I am now working on building another playlist with about the same number of tracks for a 1 gig SD card. Now that I have been introduced to this slightly long-in-the-tooth technology, I am already thinking about my next player. This one's screen is a little small, and the firmware doesn't allow a great deal of programming flexibility. However, those small little quibbles aside, this little beast is soooo much better than any portable music player I have ever had that there is literally no comparison. 'Nuff for now...bitches and moans later...

Here's my problem with copyrights

2007-04-17T16:09:00.000-04:00

So, the CRB has denied all petitions for a new hearing on their unconscionable ruling vis-a-vis royalties to be paid by Internet webcasters. Nobody is denying that royalties should be paid by said broadcasters, especially those who are using music created by others to make money. However, since most of the royalty money paid does not go to the artists who actually created the works in question, there is my first sticking point. My second sticking point has to do with people getting paid over and over for what is essentially one piece of work. Most of us regular people (as opposed to "creative" types)don't get paid multiple times for one piece of work. I understand the need for creative people to get paid, and paid well since it is they (and not the suits) who make our world a little better, and, if it were not for the suits taking such a big hunk of the pie, music would be available for mere pennies per track.

Sometimes this world really confounds...

2007-04-17T15:47:00.000-04:00

I don't know where to begin. The shootings at the Virginia Tech campus just plain boggles my mind. That a person could kill 32 other people, with apparently little or no emotion or remorse, and then put the gun to his own head makes me believe in the existence of evil as something tangible in this world. To think that a mere human could do such a thing without being possessed by something black and horrible from outside of himself is hard for me. I think of the innocent kid that this person once was, and I wonder what could have brought him to this end. It is both easier and, in some ways, less scary to be able to assign ultimate blame for this horrible event to some outside agency which is both malevolent and self-aware. I would much rather have actual demons and a devil to contend with rather than something random and impersonal. At least with demons, one has some sort of a chance. At least if there was an absolute evil out there, the converse, an absolute good, would also have to exist. And that means we at least have a fighting chance. For things like the VT rampage to happen "just because" leaves us impotent and without any chance to alter events. That I can't accept.

My heart goes out to those left behind; parents, siblings, grandparents, other family, loves and friends. I grieve for all those promising lives cut short and for those who, although older, still had so much to offer this world. And I feel a sort of grief for the young man who did this atrocity, but I feel more grief for the innocent child he once was, and for the promise and hope that was snuffed out by his own hand.

Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News

2007-04-14T22:54:00.000-04:00

Actually, I'm not really interested in the fact that that the Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News. I'm more interested in the fact that the President of the United States, a going concern with a budget of over a trillion dollars and at least a couple million employees (if you count the military), has a salary of $400,000. People, I think that the President of the United States should be the highest paid citizen in the country. Make his salary the cap, and then adjust all the rest to what they actually should be...

Really, if you want your sports stars, entertainment personalities and corporate executives to make tens of millions of dollars per year, then give your President a slightly larger amount. After all, he is the person who guides our societies destiny for his term in office. So, put a marginal tax rate of 100% on every dollar of earned income in excess of what the President makes. Be sure to include in the definition of "earned" income such things as performance royalties and bonuses. Allow people who build or create things to gain riches from those sources, but make sure that huge fortunes do not get passed on to heirs who have done nothing on their own to derserve such wealth. (If the holders of great wealth wish to create charitable foundations to preserve and distribute income from those fortunes, sobeit. That I can live with.

To get back to those taxes, my wife and I, together, made a little more than 1/3 of what the George and Laura paid in taxes, yet our tax rate was within a few percentage points of theirs. This is not equitable. What George and the rest of the "gimme mine" crowd forget is the concept of "noblesse oblige". For those who do not recognize this concept, it basically states that those who have more have a moral obligation to help those who have less. This can mean sharing your cardboard refrigerator carton with someone who doesn't even have that to "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Nobless oblige falls somewhere between those two extremes, but this generation of Americans have turned their collective back upon that concept. So, I say tax the rich more and more heavily on each and every one of those marginally incremental dollars.