Trope. I've read it three times in the last week. I can't say I don't like it; but, it's jarring. It makes me stop and read the sentence again, especially because the usages were all just a bit off - the one I can remember is "the trope of race as an explanation for behavior."
That's all, return to your surfing.
Simply put, you’ve already got it.
I played golf this morning, 13 and a half holes before the heavens opened and got back home early. Clothes are now in the dryer and dishes are in the dish washer.
Computer fired up, I have no news to read because all of what is traditionally in the Sunday print paper was online yesterday, and I read it then.
I didn’t want to do this; but, I think I have to go clean the kitchen, or something. Damned Internet.
Keep your heads down and your mouths shut.
And, if Sarah Palin needs any help as she wanders the lower forty-eight jabbering to adoring crowds: wardrobe, a spare suite for the kids, get it to her.
If she’s on the ticket in ’12, Obama has eight years in office. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t know just how I feel about the current health care debates; but, there’s a proposal out there that I just don’t understand.
As proposed by some in the Senate, if you don’t buy health insurance, you can be fined, up to a $1,000 for an individual, more for a family.
“In a revamped health care system envisioned by lawmakers, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face penalties.
Called 'shared responsibility payments,' the fines would be set at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation.”
NYTimes.com
The car insurance analogy is false. Mandatory auto insurance, to my knowledge, is only for liability coverage – a reasonable social requirement: I shouldn’t be able to skate if I hurt someone or damage their property. But, if I don’t want to pay for comprehensive or med-pay or other non-liability coverages, so be it, I’m on the hook for my damages in the event of an accident, unless I can collect from the other guy.
As it stands now, if you don’t buy health insurance and you have money, you pay for your health care. If you don’t have money, you get welfare or medi-one or the other. So, if under the new plan, I don’t buy health insurance, I pay for my care and pay a fine. Why?
It’s a tax on socially risky people, people who don’t subscribe to the plan. They can pay for the cost of their risky behavior, without burdening others; but, they aren’t a good example – they’re going their own way, we can’t have that. So let’s encourage them to become part of the crowd and if that doesn’t work, let’s collect some extra money to give to the other people.
This is the worst kind of socialism: we are going to make you do what we think is the right thing, even though there’s no economic cost to us if you don’t.
This, being learn how to make sausage gravy, said gravy to pour over a biscuit, the second part of the post.
Gravy first. Consistency: not watery and not paste, erring on the heavy side of liquid. Sausage: chunks, “flavor” doesn’t get it. Spice: it needs to be peppery, I’m not sure what else.
Then the biscuit: dense, not fluffy, not soft. Kind of like a steak or burger: charred on the outside and melting on the inside. Except, charred isn’t the word I’m looking for. Crust? No, but almost. And buttery, an absolute. For breakfast, just plain. For lunch or dinner some spice. Breakfast, Mrs. Winners. The other meals, Popeye's. Close, but there must be better.
And, you can’t get any of this in Atlanta, which prides itself as being the capitol of the South, other than the fast food biscuits. How can that be?
A quest! Any suggestions are appreciated.
Netflix didn’t used to work on the weekend. For some reason, it is: a Netflix disk received by Netflix on Saturday, is now actually received by Netflix on Saturday, not on Monday. And, more importantly, Netflix sends disks on Saturday that are received on Monday.
Bonus.
Taste as you go would be the second rule, after the title. I am trying to salvage some red beans and rice. The ingredients in Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning starts with “salt.” There’s other stuff, but all I can taste, having put what the recipe called for into the pot, is salt, salt, salt. I didn't read and I didn't taste till after too much of was in the pot. I don’t think you can unsalt, we’ll see.
UPDATED: Google gives me conflicting information. Putting a raw potato or some rice in a bag will or won't absorb the salt. I don't have any potatoes, the "instant" rice bag is soaking away.
SECOND UPDATE: The rice kind of works, it's less salty, though still too salty. That coupled with eating it with unsalted rice, may save the day.
FINAL UPDATE: The plain rice and the rest of the spices in the dish took care of the salt. Good, but HOT.
I got a forward of an article on americanthinker.com by L.E. Ikenga: Obama, the African Colonial (I couldn't find a link that worked: Google the title, it's all over the Internet - Limbaugh is talking about it).
The author is a first generation American, her parents emigrated in the 1970's from Nigeria.
To sum up her article:
1. There are two types of Africans, her kind that is shaped by traditional tribal, pre-colonial democratic values; and, the other kind that she doesn't like, those shaped by "the ideals of the European imperialism that overwhelmed and dominated Africa during the colonial period."
2. The bad guys talk a good game; but, you just can't believe them, they lie at every turn.
3. Barack Obama's father was one of the bad guys, a Marxist - no facts or analysis - he just was.
4. Obama wrote Dreams From My Father, which spoke well of his father and his heritage.
5. Obama is using colonial African politics to despotically impose his Marxist will on an unsuspecting America so as to drive democracy to its knees.
Long ago I was a teacher. When you write an essay or research paper you are supposed to have facts, analysis and conclusions. No facts and no analysis gets you a failing grade.
Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died in a period of 48 hours.
I was never a fan. McMahon was on the couch when I was watching Johnny Carson. Fawcett was the least desirable Angel to my mind. Jackson? The Eighties were a musical wasteland for me and he got flat weird after that. For the same period, without the really bad crazy, Prince was better.
Mostly I write stuff here that goes unnoticed or at least uncommented. Now and again, people write comments, usually about a bit of the post that seemed an aside to me.
Then there is my diatribe about my recent experience with UPS and a UPS Store. Scroll down a couple of days, the hyperlink didn't work, and I'm lazy.
I’m tickled by a person that commented, discounting everything I said, and branding me “a dick” based on the picture on the blog. Less than handsome? Yes. Graying and balding? Guilty. Not a snappy dresser? No way – that’s a tuxedo below my head!
Maybe laying out a lawyerly case for my umbrage with UPS and its franchise is res ipsa loquitur (look it up) proof of dickness. I’ll leave it to you.
Sadly, though I don’t think I’m self-righteous, sometimes I am a crusader. And I veer into mankind-saving when I’m not careful. I’m so far zero for however many attempts; but, I will persevere.
We need to make the world safe from major corporations! Walmart – watch out, I haven’t been too pleased with you this year! Anon, how are you with clothes that have bad seams and luggage with defective zippers?
Just over forty years ago, we stepped onto the Moon. I watched the first lunar landing back then sitting at a picnic table next to Healy Lake in Michigan. A cousin was camping there and invited us over for a Moon landing cookout. The grill was cast iron; the plates and utensils were plastic. The TV was black and white with rabbit ears and had maybe a ten-inch screen. It did have transistors rather than tubes. It was plugged into a generator. You could barely make out Armstrong stepping on to the surface.
Now, I have computers thousands of times (millions?) more powerful than Apollo 11 had. Hell, my Google phone with its disappointing GPS may approach the computer that sent three men to the moon, landed them and returned them to the earth. Back then, turn a switch, and the world and the moon came through the air right to you. We seldom turn switches these days, we push a button or icon or two to be with almost anyone and anything tens of thousands of miles away and it just seems normal. The Moon landing then, and my GPS now, don’t seem out of the ordinary to me.
I wonder what will happen in 2049 that will seem ordinary to those around to experience it?
Steve Jobs, non-possessive, and Apple should say exactly what each wants to day about each of them or both of them, regardless of what the tech world wants them to say.
If you don’t want to buy another Apple product, or invest in Apple because you aren’t sure what Jobs’(hah) health is, so be it.
But, the choice is theirs, not ours.
I know "Steve Jobs's liver" is the correct way to write it but I refuse to do it. "Steve Jobs' job longevity is threatened by Jobs' liver" is the way it's said and the way it should be written, The Elements of Style be damned.
The Braves – Yankees game just started, nothing – nothing at the end of one.
Dinner is going to be a New York baloney sandwich: Saute some onion, simmer some sauerkraut, fry some baloney. Put some rye bread in the skillet for a minute or so. Assemble with some spicy mustard.
And, no, I don’t know if it’s a New York style baloney sandwich, I made that up; but, substitute a hot dog for the baloney and a bun for the bread and it is a New York street dog.
I have a sidebar still, picture, recent posts, recommended, archive. I just can't see it when using my phone or office computer to access the blog. Some of you have told me the same thing. Home computer, just fine.
Welcome to the minimalist edition of Rather Than Working.
From an article at NYTimes.com:
"He mixes Pimm’s with Polish bison-grass vodka, along with freshly pressed apple juice and a dose of St-Germain elderflower liqueur."
As used here, the word is not an amalgam to describe the city’s culture. Rather, Atlanta is and has been, just flat out hot.
It’s 94° as I write this, which is about average for this time of day, maybe a degree or two cool, for the last week. Summer, when it comes to weather, started ten days or two weeks ago. I’ve gotten used to it.
No golf this weekend as I called too late in the week to get a tee time before 11:00 a.m. which would be just a crazy time to start.
The high is supposed to be about 90° all week, a respite.
Happy Father’s Day to those of you that fit the description. Happy Sunday to the rest of you.
On a regular, sporadic basis I send letters that I have to prove got there. When I do, I use UPS or Fedex. I got used to using UPS since Big Tony was a vendor. Before him and since his passing, I’ve not had a problem, other than the fact that the UPS Stores that I’ve gone to have no bedside manner.
That changed starting a little less than two weeks ago. I sent a ground letter from the UPS Store at Toco Hills here in Atlanta (yes, I’m naming names) to a lawyer’s office about ten miles away. The address it was being sent to was 6000 Something, 325 Something, Atlanta, Georgia 303something.
Tuesday, I got an Email from the lawyer asking when he could expect to see what I’d sent him sometime before. I called and told him I’d sent it via UPS and asked him to check around the office. He called me back and said he didn’t have it. I went on line and found out that UPS had the package, had had the package since the day I sent it. UPS tracked its incompetence quite nicely. I seemed that it couldn’t deliver because it didn’t have a suite number, which it had, see the paragraph above. It nicely told via the website that it sent a POSTCARD to the recipient the second day, not calling me, the UPS Store, or Emailing either of us. Each day it updated the fact that it was waiting for a good address. (The recipient never got a postcard.)
So, I called the UPS Store and talked to a nice lady named Susie (not her name, she was the only polite person in this story). Fast forward, she told me on Wednesday that UPS, she thought, would be returning the letter yesterday and she would have it resent and call me
No call. I called the store and left a message. No return call. I went over this afternoon.
The two women there had little interest in my problem as I explained it. The one with an attitude cut me off in my explanation saying that Susie was not there, that I should come back on Monday and “file a claim.” She also made quite clear that the UPS Store was not responsible for the problem since UPS had picked up the letter.
I told her that we were going to solve the problem while I was there. “Susie’s not here.” “Give me the owner’s name and number.” The non-attitude woman said she’d call him. I explained the problem, he asked me to hand the phone back to his employee. She said uh huh a couple of times and hung up.
She called Susie who did not answer the phone. That was pretty much all the two ladies had for me.
Steaming, I left the UPS Store at Toco Hills. Keep that name in your head - don't go there. I got back to the office and had a voicemail from the owner. The letter was at the store, he was very sorry, though he clearly said I couldn’t have a refund because, the letter wasn’t resent to the recipient at the time it was sent back to his store (because his employee didn’t do that). I called him and he had no explanation as to why Susie hadn’t called me, why the letter had not been resent, why his employee was rude, why neither knew the letter was in the store. He offered to find out the answer to these questions. I told him to forget it, I’d go back over and pick up the letter and get it to the recipient on my own.
I drove back over and walked to the counter, “I believe you have a package for me?” The rude woman walked as slowly as she could to the package, picked it up and walked as slowly as she could to me. I took the package and walked towards the door.
She said, as sarcastically as I’ve heard in a long time “you’re welcooooome.”
I called the owner when I got to the car and described his employee’s conduct. He was apologetic saying his employee’s conduct was not acceptable. No it wasn’t. Is that the employee’s fault, or his for hiring someone with an attitude? I’m thinking more him than her, she’s just got an attitude, he’s running a lame business.
Boycott UPS and UPS Stores! There, I’ve got it out of my system.
Iran's leadership over the last decade or so has faced the "can't keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen the big city" problem.
We did Iran a huge favor by decimating Iraq in the Gulf War. Its chief rival, militarily and economically, was in ruins, resulting in less need for costly defense and more oil money for internal development. Iran found itself in the seemingly golden position of being able to increase its standard of living, increase its influence in the region and improve its infrastructure (and fund some terrorism).
All of this happened in the context of the boom 90's and the first half of this decade. In '03, we took Iraq almost totally out of the picture, again to the benefit of Iran.
Then Iran, with the rest of us, met the recession. Oil prices and sales plummeted. The fuel for Iran's resurgence, oil money, ran into short supply. The problem it faced was that it had created a huge demand for what oil money could buy. More and more dissatisfaction was expressed by its people when the flow slowed.
Iran's demographics are very different that ours. We have a rapidly graying population. Iran has a very young population, something like seventy percent of its people are under thirty. This part of its citizenry never lived under the Shah and did not grow up in the fire of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Rather they became used to increasing material goods, more and more free communication and its resulting knowledge of how the rest of the world lives.
Iran is facing what China faced twenty years ago. China's then totally repressive communist government is Iran's current repressive Islamic government. China's much less repressive today, Iran will be much less repressive in twenty years.
Khrushchev famously said in the sixties that the U.S. would bury itself; and, in some ways he was right. We've evolved or devolved depending on your point of view enormously, and we did it to ourselves. One of the few things Nixon did right back in the seventies was to go to China, accelerating its economic, and resulting social, revolution. China is dealing, ineffectively with the results, trying to put the cap back in the bottle. Iran can't stop the flow from the bottle and more than China can.
Since I ragged on Obama yesterday, I'll give him a shout out today. I think he's on the right track letting Iran deal with the fruits of its policies without our further intervention. It's doing a slow but OK job of evolving on its own.
Yes, I voted for him. Yes he stepped into an economic mess. Yes, were he to fulfill the “mandate” that elected him, the economy and the society would melt down, as the mandate was the result of an inchoate yearning for too many conflicting desires projected onto his campaign.
That said, he talks a good game and practices government that would make Bill Clinton or George W. Bush proud, without their balls.
The answer to all of our woes is a, or a hundred, government programs. You say W and the GOP aren't in favor of such a huge government involvement in our economy? Look at what they did, not what they said.
With Obama, look at what he said last year and compare it to what he’s doing this year. The only mandate he is fulfilling is to load us with debt for generations with the hope, hope, hope that indiscriminate government spending will right the country’s economic ship. He and Congress don’t have a clue whether their profligacy will work. Bush and the GOP didn’t know what they were doing economically and neither does Obama, the Dems or the GOP now.
And what about that other mandate, the social mandate? Things like the Bill of Rights? Well Obama seems to have other fish to fry. He may get around to social justice later in his presidency.
At least W, as misguided as he was had the balls to use his office to affect the social change he wanted to see. Obama, not so much.
More of you reading my stuff skew to social liberalism than not. But all of you, would you really care if gay men and women got the same things that straight men and women got?
A few weeks ago “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the military got an okey dokey from the Obama administration.
This week, Obama’s administration, trumpeting some additional benefits to gay government employees – not health care for their partners – has filed a brief in opposition to providing such health care. This from that radical socialist! From a spokesperson:
“[I]t was standard practice for the administration to back laws that are challenged in court — even those it does not agree with — and that the president ‘wants to see a legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.’ Mr. Obama repeatedly backed repealing the act during his presidential campaign.” From the New York Times.
So, he takes a central premise of his campaign and defers to Congress which will do exactly nothing, which he knows. He uses his power as commander in chief to continue discrimination against gay people. These issues are ready made for executive orders. Does he believe in equality? Or, is he a closet Republican? Perhaps he thinks that he’s going to get right wing votes next time around by punting these issues?
Rick, Dale, Jay, you voting for him next time around because he's acting homophobic? I didn’t think so.
W had balls and misused them. Obama can’t seem to find his even when he needs to use them.
"Wifey's gonna kill me getting home this late!" I don't hear it often; but, its seems to come from the mouths of twenty and thirty something guys in bars and at ballgames. Or, "nah, I can't go, Wifey's mother is coming over - jeez!" It may be that you have to have consumed alcohol to be able to use the word. Objectification?
"Hubby and the kiddos loved this recipe. And you really can substitute ketchup for the crushed San Marzano tomatoes!" The only place I see hubby is on internet recipe websites. I don't think I've ever heard the word said. Again, objectification?
Is it safe to assume these people are married to each other?
I got an Email from a lawyer on the other side of a case late this morning “can you talk today?” I responded “call me now if you have time.” We traded Emails and voicemails for a bit and hooked up.
He was responding to our last demand and started referring to the spreadsheet that I’d sent him last week. Stupid me, I’d not pulled it up on the computer and couldn’t, as we talked, figure out where I’d stashed it.
“I’ll send it, in the meantime lets talk about X.” We did and it got to me a few seconds later. We then talked about a couple of line items at issue.
I told him I’d talk to my guys and get back to him. I called one of my guys and told him what the issues were as I was driving to lunch. We talked and exchanged revisions to the spreadsheet a couple of times over lunch and over the next hour, me on my Google phone in the restaurant, in my car and office and him on a radio, a cellphone while in a truck, on a jobsite and then in a job trailer on an actual wired phone. I called my guys’ CFO on his cell phone to get the wire transfer info, got it by Email and incorporated it and the changed Excel file, into a response Email to the lawyer by mid-afternoon.
I haven’t heard back finally with a yes; but, this same process five years ago would have taken days if not weeks.
I’ve resisted technology as it has advanced, though I bought my first computer in 1983. I tend to be a development or two behind the curve. God forbid – if this Twitter and Facebook garbage proves to be valuable…. And, I want a netbook. I want an LED TV with Internet connections. I won’t get either until at least the next generation passes them by. Still.
One of the things I said I’d write about in the subheading to this blog, that I seldom do, is to chronicle my amusement.
I am running down the battery on my Google phone so as to hopefully recalibrate the battery for boring reasons. To do this, I have WiFi and GPS running while watching Baseball, the Ken Burns series from PBS, as a recording from MLB Network, while surfing on the net.
I just scrolled my way from home here in Atlanta, swiping the screen through the southern states across the Pacific and hit Asia. When you get there, the words on the map turn to Japanese or Chinese, I’m not sure.
It only took fifty or so swipes to get there. Take that Magellan and the rest of you old timey explorers.
The battery says it is dead; but, I’m going to see if I can get around the world at my parallel once I charge it. Jules Verne, watch out. That is the guy who wrote the 80 day thing?
I 've started an experiment. When I use Google, I'm going to run the same search on Bing.
For my first comparison I looked for rather than working. Properly, I'm the first result - so far so good. On Bing, if you move your cursor to the right of the result, you get a little box that excerpts some of what's on the site. In my case, it pulled a sentence from a post I did some months back about hooking up my Blu-ray player. It also lists some of the titles of other posts under a heading "also on this page." There are five posts listed, they aren't serial and they are all old. Not all of the search results bring up the also on this page result, they just have a link to the page. Odd. If you click the link to the blog, you get my most recent post.
The remaining search results are all over the map as probably should be the case with such a search phrase. The Google results are equally varied, but mostly different - there are only a couple of duplicate results on the first page of each engine.
Next, I searched for Samsung led (it's new and amazing). Similar comments to those above. I did notice a feature to the left of the results "related searches" that listed variations of my search. Then something strange: I wanted to print the page so I could easily compare the results with Google's results. Each time I hit the print icon, Internet Explorer crashed. You'd think IE would like its cousin Bing.
So far, I don't see Bing getting a mass migration of Google users.
That’s not counting tee shirts, wind shirts and sweaters. I’ve got’em and that’s after culling twelve to drop off at the Salvation Army.
It includes dress and long and short sleeve casual, if that’s any excuse. I don’t change sizes and I’ve been meaning to cull for years. Those are my only excuses.
I don’t have any point in this post other than my amazement that there are that many shirts in the closet. I don’t wear most of them very often, though I discovered one that I don’t remember having that I kind of like.
So you don’t think I’m crazy, I have four pairs of shoes - dress, deck, sneaker and golf; some shorts and slacks, an overcoat, a leather jacket, a spring/fall jacket and a few suits and sport coats.
Seventy! Oh hell, I just remembered, I think there are a couple sitting on the dryer.
I’ve always used Internet Explorer. Not as a matter of love or even satisfaction – it was there, it got me where I wanted to go. Kind of like a Pinto without the explosions or whatever plagued that car.
Then, only on this computer, my home Dell laptop (my dissatisfaction with it is a different post), IE has become balky.
It loads quite nicely and takes me right to my start page. I then can click on favorites or use Google to explore, all the stuff we all do; but, here’s the rub – I can only do it once or twice, maybe. After that, if you click a link, it freezes. Whatever page you are on, you are there unless you restart, then it likes you again for a few clicks, again, maybe.
So, I quit using it, installing Firefox. Firefox is fine, except it and Blogger do not get along. You see, once I finish this post, I have to save it, open IE and post to Blogger. If I don’t, Firefox will “publish” it on Blogger in code. Then we’re back to the crapshoot of IE and whether it will open Blogger, and if it does, whether it will allow me to post.
So, a little while ago I decided to install Chrome. Blogger, Chrome, Google – seems like a good bet? Nah. Chrome downloaded clumsily, telling me that it would save my favorites, home page and settings and did none of that. Then it made itself the default browser without any warning. It has been banished.
Some luck, once I sent it on its way, I clicked Firefox which gave me a “I missed you” pop up which said “Firefox is not your default browser, would you like to make it your default browser?” Yes, yes my friend, thank you for asking; but, would you see your way clear to letting me publish my posts, or is that too much to ask?
I’ll save this now and go off to the crapshoot of IE.
I read this, this morning.
The Dalai Lama is getting old and a fifteenth needs to be chosen. The Chinese government asserts the right to approve the choice, alternatively, to chose the replacement.
I didn’t know that it approved the current Dalai Lama. I didn’t know there were lesser lamas, one of which is held by the Chinese government.
It’s a matter of politics for the Chinese government, a way to control Tibet, and a matter of faith for Tibetans and Buddhists.
But at the heart of it, a secular government confirming or selecting a religious leader? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, even as a political matter. Does China really think an “Avignon” Dalai Lama will win the hearts and minds of Tibetans?
Don’t worry, this isn’t a treatise.
I saw a headline this week that said New Hampshire has legalized same sex marriage. The number of rational states is growing (even considering the schizophrenia of California).
The days of a Supreme Court that issued decisions that fully delivered equal protection and due process under law are past. I don’t think that an “Obama Court” will return them. Neither will it fully deliver fundamental rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.
Now is a time for people to do what the Courts have failed to do. Even Dick Cheney says so.
Let’s look at those amendments.
The First is doing OK. We seem to have a big tent when it comes to free speech and religion, except for the occasional Muslim.
Two is OK too. Sure there’s an individual right to bear arms; but, you and your fellow citizens in your town and state can limit it pretty much as you see fit.
No one cares about Three these days (quartering troops in times of peace).
Four? This Amendment has met the Internet and is in a bit of trouble. The judiciary seems reluctant to rein in government intrusion into your private affairs. The Obama administration and Congress seem to be similarly disinclined. It’s up to you and me to protect ourselves and prod our representatives to help us do so.
Five and Six don’t’ seem to be current problems, other than money worries on Six.
The Seventh has been ignored with not much of a problem for a long time (you don’t have a right to a jury trial if your claim is under twenty-one bucks).
Eight is a current problem, depending on your point of view. The current Court and a foreseeable Obama Court won’t get rid of the death penalty. If you want it gone, it is up to your skills of political persuasion as Congress is disinclined to do anything.
Nine and Ten aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. No one knows what they mean: the penumbra of personal and states’ rights are what people make of them and thus are meaningless.
So? It’s up to us. What do we want?
Georgia's Governor has directed all state agencies to cut 25% from their budget.
There's a lot of wailing and resistance about it reported in the media.
The latest "budget slashing" is in the state's prison system. Prisoners are only going to get breakfast and dinner Friday through Sunday. The same number of calories (2,800 for men and 2,300 for women) will be loaded on two rather than three meals.
I imagine there are some pissed off prisoners. I know, I know, criminals aren't a sympathetic group. That aside, it seems to me that managing them is made more difficult with the new program. Captive people lead a pretty bleak existence, looking forward to things like a meal. (While not a perfect analogy, I remember a grade school teacher's threat to skip a recess due to bad behavior by the class was taken quite seriously by us captives.)
So what is the state saving? The pay of a civilian food service employee or two. The electricity, soap and water needed to wash the lunch dishes. I wouldn't think there's a reduction in guards and food cost is the same.
Maybe there's something I'm missing; but, I don't get it.
NYTimes.com has a short piece on the Internet, privacy and a division of opinion among generations.
For the life of the Internet there has always seemed to me to be two privacy camps. Users who want to safeguard information about themselves and providers who want to mine and profit from information about their users.
According to the linked article there's been a split among the user group. Younger people, who grew up with the Internet and its social networking aspect are much freer with information about themselves. They see online "communities" and networks as opportunities to "profit" by manipulating information about themselves.
Not being a member of the new generation, I wish them well; but, I think they are a bit deluded.
There isn't any way for an individual to effectively control the sea of information being examined and manipulated by others on the web once it is let loose. Without judicious release of information by individuals and meaningful privacy laws, the Internet will become increasingly like a small town on cyber steroids - everyone knows (or can know) everything about their neighbors. The check on small town knowledge is that the citizens are operating in a small circle. They know who the good and the bad are and can act accordingly.
The cyber community has no such limitation. Once you've bared information about yourself (or had it gleaned by anonymous entities) it and you are fair game. You're making a bet that you, your PC, laptop and smart phone are a force capable of winning a war against vastly superior forces. The Swiss have held their own against stronger neighbors for quite a few centuries now; but, you may recall that they are far from being the world's most open and unregulated society.
Information is power as the linked article says. Government transparency is good; but, personal opacity is best for the protection of personal liberty.
Pos reviews movies here. He talks about plot, direction, actors and so on. I recommend you read him.
As opposed to Pos, I am not capable of articulating why I like or don’t like art. I can tell you if I do or I don’t, not much more than that.
So, I like Benny and Joon from back in the early ‘90’s that I just watched on Netflix streaming. Johnny Depp, Aidan Quinn and others. Well written, acted and directed (the last I assume because I liked it). And Johnny Depp is a kick ass actor in most everything he does.
I’ve got two thumbs, they’re up.
So, should Barack and Michelle have boarded Air Force One and flown with a few other government planes to NYC to see a show and have a really nice dinner?
From CNN.com:
“Republicans have … questioned the cost to tax-payers for the brief excursion — which included three Gulfstream-size planes to transport the preside[n]t's security detail, staff, and White House reporters.
“'If President Obama wants to go to the theater, isn't the presidential box at the Kennedy Center good enough?’ RNC Press Secretary Gail Gitcho said Saturday.”
From the wonderful world of Google, via Media Matters:
“[F]ormer President George W. Bush, for example, reportedly used Air Force One for trips to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, which he reportedly visited 77 times over the course of his eight years in office.”
From a perhaps more mainstream source, U.S. News & News Report:
“For many years, presidents have used government transportation, and spent taxpayers' money, for personal trips. George W. Bush, for example, traveled frequently to his Texas ranch for vacations and R&R. Bill Clinton went to Martha's Vineyard for vacations in the summer. George H.W. Bush often traveled to his retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, for breaks from Washington.”
So, I’m wondering what the over and under’s on W’s and Barack’s getting laid during the flight, on arrival or during the layover when the big plane is being used. My question is just as inappropriate, but no more than the GOP’s carping. Do they really want him flying the D.C./NYC shuttle? I don’t remember them carping that American or someone else has regular flights from D.C. to Texas.
My money is on Barack on the sex thing.
When I was a kid I had hair down to my shoulders and a full beard. My wardrobe was mostly tee shirts and jeans. My college graduation picture was not on the "picture wall" at my parents' house - they stuck with the high school shot with the short hair.
My and my middle brother's grooming and attire (he's three years younger), drove my father nuts. Then, we got out of school and had to get jobs. Off with the hair and jeans and we've conformed ever since.
I have "father" moments on occasion these days, shaking my head when I see rings not on ears or fingers, guys in pants the legs of which come up to about their knees, the waist of which rides just below their crotch and tattoos everywhere.
But, you don't see the look, for the most part, once they hit their late twenties and reality intervenes. I wonder what they'll shake their heads at in few decades.
I kind of like that stilted title. Here’s what AirTran told me today:
"Recently, the Transportation Security Administration announced changes to their watch list matching process called Secure Flight. The mission of Secure Flight is to enhance the security of domestic and international air travel through the use of improved watch list matching. Another benefit will be greatly reduced incidents of passengers being misidentified with names on the TSA's watch lists.
"What does this mean for me? Starting today, when purchasing a ticket you will be required to provide your full first, middle and last name, exactly matching the valid government-issued ID you will present at the airport (e.g. driver's license, passport, etc.). Beginning August 15, 2009, you will also be required to provide your gender and date of birth when booking flights.
"How will I benefit?You will benefit from the Secure Flight program through improved security on all flights and reduced rates in misidentification of passengers who have similar names on the TSA watch list. Also, by updating your A+ Rewards profile information, you will experience a faster booking process.
"So what do I do?At AirTran Airways, we like to make flying as convenient as possible for all of our A+ Rewards members. We have added all of the TSA mandatory fields to your A+ Rewards member profile, so to ensure a quick and easy ticketing process, please update your profile today.Take a few minutes now to update your information and we'll take care of the rest, passing on the necessary information to the TSA every time you fly with us."
So, I have to give them the exact name found on my “government-issued ID” which includes my middle name. If you click the link to update your “information,” there is no place to put my middle name, nor my middle initial, which is on my drivers license. Also, there is no space to put my date of birth. There was a place for me to add “Mr.” to my profile as opposed to Ms., Mrs. and Doctor – no place to put male or female.
Why did Airtran lie, telling me they've added "all of the TSA mandatory fields" to my profile?
Am I done flying? Will I really experience a faster booking process? Since I’ve never been identified as someone on the watch list, will I see a reduced rate of my misidentification?
I'm thinking we have a left hand, right hand and third person hand disconnect. And everyone rags on TSA.
Here's where I was
Here's where I am.
I left Atlanta Friday for Flint, Michigan, ended up not going there as AirTran had "mechanical difficulties" with the plane. They sent me to Detroit which put me a couple hours behind schedule; but, they gave me a voucher for a free flight.
Rented a car (Toyota Prius - cool - it's averaging just under 50 MPG) and drove to Traverse City, playing golf Saturday, Sunday and this morning. Won $70 playing roulette for 45 minutes. Raced go -carts and ate a lot of food. The view from my balcony at the Grand Traverse Resort is the first picture.
Drove to Mesick, Michigan this afternoon and hung with my brother and sister-in-law for a couple of hours.
Now I'm in Grand Rapids. The second picture is my view. No balcony.
Vacation's over. Time to get ready for a hearing on a Motion for Summary Dispostion in the morning.
Then a leasurely drive to Flint and a jet to the ATL.
Happy Memorial Day.
Troy Davis’s lawyers filed an appeal to the United States Supreme Court this week. From what I gather, this is his last chance to avoid the death sentence he has. If you want to read all of the background, use Google. Short story, seven of nine witnesses at his trial have recanted their testimony.
Here’s a link to a story about judges, prosecutors and conservative politicians filing a brief with the Supreme Court asking that it give him a hearing on his claim that he is innocent.
I could go on about the legal garbage about the burden of someone like Davis trying to win this sort of appeal. I won’t. If you have seven of nine witnesses and a bunch of lawyers and politicians that are not sympathetic to defendants saying something’s wrong with a criminal conviction, chances are that something is wrong.
The Supreme Court can, quite properly, using legal precedent on the issue, deny the appeal. My quick reading of the law indicates to me that he shouldn’t get any relief, even though he may well not have committed the crime for which he’s sentenced to die. Or, the Justices can do what is right and send the case to a trial judge to hear what the witnesses have to say.
As a kid I watched my Mother make hundreds of skillets of fried chicken; but, as is the case with kids, watching isn’t always paying attention to detail.
There’s the cut up chicken, some salt, pepper, flower, milk and in my Mother’s world, Crisco.
Crisco into the skillet, turn up the heat (to what?). Dip the chicken in the milk, salt and pepper and then dredge the pieces in the flour. Let it fry for a while, take it out, put it on a rack. Eat wonderful, somewhat greasy pieces of chicken – thighs and legs for me and my brothers and my Dad, the breast for my Mother.
As I grew older, the greasy part became more and more unappetizing. Equally unappetizing is dry. But the middle ground eluded me.
Grease is eliminated by proper oil temperature (canola, not Crisco) until the chicken gets to the right internal temperature, eliminating over-cooking, which always seems to be hit and miss with me. Dry, it turns out, is avoided by brining the chicken for an hour or two. That solved, I returned to the grease and over-cooking problems.
Were my Mother around, she’d look at me with a loving look on her face. You heat the oil till it’s ready and cook it until it’s done, she’d say. But how hot, how long?
I broke down and bought a temperature probe. Oil goes to 335. About eight minutes on each side till the smallest piece is about 160. Take it out, then the rest. Carry over takes them all to perfect done. No grease, no dry, no over-cooking. Better than most restaurants.
You can chuckle, it’s OK. But I’m feeling pretty good.
I took off on President Obama recently for changing his mind about some pictures. (Life Hiker and J, I know both of you, you are good people.)
Mitch McConnell of the opposition seems to be pandering to what he hopes are our fears about the remaining Guantanamo prisoners. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting them in their community.”
Mr. McConnell makes a totally specious argument, and having typed that, I realized that I’m being charitable as there is no argument made so as to be specious.
There are 241 men at the prison in Cuba. All of them can fit, say fifty each at the Atlanta federal prison, a supermax or three, Pelican Bay, Leavenworth and so on. Does anyone really think they are going to escape?
Oh that Obama, he really needs to rethink that arbitrary deadline of the end of the year for closing the prison. We need to think this thing through. Think what through?
Leave the prisoners where they are or move them. As to their trials, which are the real issue, where they are held - there is no relevance.
And to move back to Obama, who is moving to the Bush Administration’s military court system for trying 20 (why 20?) detainees, with rules that apparently mirror a trial in a federal court, why the hell not try them in a federal court?
All y’all politicians are goofy.
Want to read the blog in Japanese? Here it is.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=ja&sl=en&u=http://ratherthanworking.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmaxtor6+no40to&rurl=translate.google.co.jp
Yes, I'm bored this morning. I cancelled my tee time thinking it would be raining and cold. It is neither. Now I'm left with cleaning things - dishes, clothes and next, carpets.
Radio or TV – there really is no place to go to get just news without fluff in the morning before you leave home or while you are driving to work. Yes, I could go online and read were I not doing all the other things that get the day going.
When I travel, I used to flip to Headline News on the hotel TV, which over the years has devolved. When I watched it years ago, it was indeed what its name said it was, in a half hour you got what was going on nationally and internationally while you were doing other things. Recently, it got a new name HLN, I suppose to indicate that it really isn’t what the letters would otherwise indicate. Now it's a national version of the local happy news and an equivalent to Fox and Friends and whatever CNN calls its morning show.
Even WSB Radio (750 AM) here in Atlanta, the only marginally actual news station in town and Morning Edition on the local PBS radio outlet are going slowly to interspersing fluff with hard news in the morning.
Mind you, I read and watch fluff - as you know, I write a bunch of fluff; but, I’d really like an aural source for straight news to listen to in the morning.
The President has decided to oppose release of pictures showing U.S. Military personnel torturing prisoners on the grounds that it would inflame anti-American opinion and “affect the safety” of American troops. This after he had said the pictures would be released.
Both decisions were poor. Without reference to the legalities, there was no reason to inflame in the first place. Having decided to do so, who does he think he is fooling?
“That infidel has decided to withhold the pictures that he already said existed, we’re going to have to re-think our current anti-American opinions; and, more importantly, we are going to call off all of our terrorism directed at American troops!”
A New York Appellate court has ruled that the police can’t attach a GPS transmitter to your vehicle while it’s sitting on the street and track you as you travel unless they get a warrant first.
You can read about it here.
I hate to say it; but, maybe, the court got it wrong constitutionally. A dissenting justice said: “while ‘I do not care for the idea of a police officer — or anyone else — sneaking under someone’s car in the middle of the night to attach a tracking device,’ the State Police only violated Mr. Weaver’s property rights, not his right to privacy.”
Law moves at the margins. It’s OK for the police to follow you 24 hours a day as you wend your way through public places, writing down where you go and who you see. Once you put your garbage out on the curb, it’s fair game. The constitutional formulation is that you have no expectation of privacy in those circumstances. Property and privacy. They’re closely related, privacy having evolved from property. “A man’s home is his castle,” and so on. On the other side of the equation, it is a constitutional violation to tap your phone and listen to what you say without a warrant (unless you are a member of the Bush Administration).
So where does GPS tracking fall in the continuum? It’s in, or can be attached, to your car, it’s already in your cell phone. They aren’t listening to what you say (we think), they are just saving manpower and using a computer to see where you go and who you see, just a bit more comprehensive than all the cameras sprouting in cities. If you are up to no good in a public place, why is it OK for the police to see you’re up to no good, casing the site of the burglary, rather than knowing you were in the parking lot of burglary targeted store, presumably casing the joint, because the GPS says you were there?
Do we want the government tracking us? Me? No. If we don’t, we should put the matter to the state legislatures and Congress. Leave us alone. And here’s the problem, we won’t; because, there’s no outrage when a guy gets caught doing something he shouldn’t do. Legislatively, it isn’t going to happen. Judicially, it probably shouldn’t happen.
Here's how I've spent my day.
I had a conference call with a client's personnel and discussed the interplay of three different state materialmen's lien laws, bankruptcy preference law and the efficacy of a field warehousing agreement versus a deed to secure debt in light of the previously mentioned laws and accounting. We have a plan of action; and, we'll see how it works out.
Then I reviewed a bunch of documents in a case to be able to outline what I see as the relevant facts in a dispute and researched various aspects of Colorado and Kentucky law to put in a letter to the other side's lawyer which politely threatens litigation if his client doesn't get reasonable.
About an hour ago, I called a person who had sued my client. He had filed a response to a motion but hadn't served me with the papers as the court rules require (he isn't a lawyer and didn't retain a lawyer). He said he'd fax the papers right over to me. No papers.
Got a settlement check in, that was nice.
Then I reviewed a letter from a railroad denying my client's claim for lost market value of a shipment that the railroad "lost" for five months, during which time the price for the material sky-rocketed, and just before the time the cars were "found," started precipitously dropping. Then I looked at the bills of lading, various tariffs and price lists to determine if a particular document, which would bar my client's claim, was a part of the deal. I'm not sure and am typing this instead of delving further into the concept of incorporation by reference in the age electronic commerce.
Mothers, don't let your babies grow up to be lawyers.
Oprah likes.
Here's the plan:
Somehow I get her people to read and love the blog. I add ads. She tells every middle-aged woman in the world that they really need to read what Dave writes.
That, or I let her know I make the best Sloppy Joes and potato salad known to mankind and we split the proceeds.
Who needs Mega Millions?
This post will put me in danger of losing my liberal credentials. That notwithstanding, here goes.
President Obama finds himself in the middle of his, if not first, his biggest, campaign versus governance issue.
He gets to nominate a justice to serve on the Supreme Court. These nominations are always big things. FDR failed in his attempt to "pack" the Court. Subsequent Presidents are sometimes disappointed by their choices - Eisenhower and Warren, Nixon and Blackmun, GHW Bush and Souter. Other times, they hit a homerun - Nixon and Burger, Reagan and Scalia, GHW Bush and Thomas, GW Bush and Roberts/Alito.
So what is the cause of their buyer's remorse or delight? They picked their nominees based on a political agenda, trying to "shape" the Court.
Obama's choice is even more complicated. Though Republicans are making noises, none of them expect him to pick someone with whom they would be happy. Most people, left and right, expect the nominee to skew "liberal" and to be a woman, possibly a black or Hispanic woman.
But here's where it gets interesting. It turns out two of the "short list" candidates are openly gay. So now LGBT groups are making noises about his campaign promises and his failure to follow through on them. He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
Not that it will happen; but, here's what Obama should do. He should forget about groups be they black, white, Hispanic, male, female, gay, straight, left, right, majority, minority. He should try to find the smartest, most well-rounded, most experienced, caring, thoughtful, gracious, tolerant lawyer available and make the nomination.
Group politics is for the other two branches of government. The Supreme Court should be peopled (not manned or womaned) with justices who don't have an agenda. When you select based on group representation it more likely that you will not get the best person. Choosing only among men can well mean that you skip a spectacular woman. Choosing only among lesbians would cause you not to consider a gay or straight guy that would otherwise be the best choice based on merit.
And think of the legacy that all presidents seem to care so much about. Twenty years from now the Supreme Court could be populated by justices who are the very best the country has to offer, rather than nine probably pretty good people divided into floating groups of ideologies that drive their analysis and decision making. Don't worry, as I said above, it isn't going to happen.
Obama seeks to trim 2010 budget by $17 billion
That’s about half of the latest Bank of America shortfall.
What, a few weeks or so of Iraq/Afghanistan costs?
It is more than the $100 million Obama wanted each Cabinet Secretary to save.
In no particular order as to the irritation they cause:
1. Drivers who apparently realize they are entering an expressway about ten feet before the entrance while driving 40 m.p.h., stay at that speed until one unlucky driver has to hit the brakes or hit the idiot and the next six or seven cars have to hit their brakes, at which point the idiot speeds up to the expressway speed.
2. Drivers on a busy surface street who weave among the lanes, cutting people off, slamming their brakes, swerving toward open pavement, all to get to the red light a good five cars ahead of me.
3. The above drivers' cousins on expressways who act the same, getting to the exit 200 yards ahead of me.
4. Drivers that think their turn signal causes me to magically move from the space they are about to move into without looking.
5. Tailgaters and other drivers on the Interstates that pull up behind you to momentarily tailgate, move left and accelerate past you, only to pull in ahead of you and drive slower than you were driving when the maneuver started, then do it again five miles down the road.
6. Drivers on expressways who need to get into the right lane to get to the exit and slow down before they exit (causing the same braking as described in the first paragraph) and their even more moronic friends who cut you off to get in the right lane two feet in front of you.
7. Drivers on a five lane road who don't pull into the center lane to make a left turn.
8. Drivers who don't want to sit in a turn lane behind twenty other cars and pull up to the light in the left through lane, sitting until someone lets them in, blocking another ten drivers behind them who were planning on going through the intersection during THAT green light.
9. Drivers on a crowded street who don't let you in.
10. Drivers that don't nod, smile or wave when you let them in.
Feel free to add your own.
I never get to go anywhere good, at the right time of year, for business. The Midwest during the winter, Florida on August First, are the kind of trips I take for business.
I have to go to Wyoming, Michigan, near Grand Rapids, later this month for a hearing. I Emailed the client this morning about it. It turns out the hearing is immediately after the client’s annual weekend at the Grand Traverse Resort to which I’m always invited and never get around to attending.
So, I will be jetting to Flint, MI, driving to the resort and playing golf and eating for the weekend, plus Monday. The resort even has a shuttle to a casino so I can indulge in some roulette. I wonder if they have Pai Gow poker in northern Michigan?
A bonus, my youngest brother lives in Mesick, near Traverse City. I’ll wave at his house on the way to the resort and stop on the way to Grand Rapids.
The picture is of the 15th and 16th holes at one of the resort’s courses – The Bear, by Jack Nicklaus, according to the website. There are some tee boxes on the left of the picture, beyond that, I have no clue. Wish me luck.
The Supreme Court of the United States won’t be changing in any meaningful way as the result of Justice Souter’s retirement.
Souter for the most part votes with the more liberal members of the Court. Obama will nominate someone like him, possibly someone a bit more liberal. And that won’t change the conservative skew of the Court. The only way things would change in the short term would be if the new justice was someone who by force of personality/intellect would influence Justice Kennedy, the Court’s swing vote, to skew more to the left.
Keith Olbermann called out Sean Hannity on waterboarding, who’d offered to be waterboarded as a quick, probably unthought, response to a question by Charles Grodin on the former’s show. Here’s the link to the story.
Olberman offered to pay $1,000 to charity for every second Hannity lasted while being waterboarded. As best I can tell from a Google search and searching for “Olbermann” at Hannity.com and FoxNews.com (nothing), Hannity has been silent.
I’m in for a buck a second for Hannity, Cheney, Yoo, Gonzales, etc. Hell, Dale, Jay, you want to be “dunked,” I’ll go a couple of bucks a second (written with humor).
Any takers? It’s just hazing, kinda like loud music, keeping the lights on for days at a time, a friendly slap or two. And we won't do it more than a hundred times in a month.
As of midnight tonight I probably won’t get the NFL Network through Comcast when their current agreement expires. I don’t care mind you; but, it’s a cause celebre on the local sports talk radio outlets.
The behemoths Comcast and the NFL are pissing at each other, the former telling us that this is a matter of consumer choice, the latter telling us that it is a matter of consumer choice. It’s a matter of money.
Comcast carries the network on one of its premium tiers and pays the NFl a large amount for a smaller number of subscribers. The NFL wants the network carried as part of the basic package and wants to be paid a nice amount per more heads. Guess which way gets the NFL more money?
Of course, there is consumer choice involved either way the channel is offered. Even though I don’t want the channel, I get it, and pay for it, because I want some of the other channels in the tier. If it became part of the basic package at more cost to Comcast, I’d still get it, eventually at some incremental cost as Comcast would be paying more. What do you want to bet that if it moves to the basic package that Comcast won’t lower the price of the tier it is on now?
I’d really like to see a la carte cable pricing. I get some 250 channels almost none of which I watch. But I have to get that many channels because the tier system spreads the channels I want out over the tiers. I doubt that a la carte would reduce my cost though given my viewing, it should; but, it would be a truer test of the viability of the various channels. I’d love to see what channels fall by the wayside after a year of living on their own merits.
Here in Georgia it is illegal for a liquor distributor to “tie” products. In other words if you distribute the popular Kettle One vodka, you can’t make a bar, restaurant or liquor store buy a case of some unpopular brand in order to be able to buy the Kettle One.
So why can Comcast tier its channels, making me buy the NFL Channel to get the Golf Channel?
I did a post some time ago about smiling and its positive results. I mentioned holding open doors.
Hold a door and smile and you have a brief friend. Let someone into the line of traffic waiting for the light to change and you get a nod and a smile.
But not always. And, more often than not the person that ignores your smile, the door held open or the waiting for them to get out of the parking lot is a woman. I have only anecdotal, not empirical, proof for this. But it's true.
I stopped on the way home at QuikTrip convenience store, a venue made for the hold the door and smile gambit. As I approached a young guy waited a second or two at the door to hold it for me. I smiled, he smiled and I said thanks. During the exchange, I saw a lady approaching and waited three or four seconds to hold the door for her. She never made eye contact, never said a word, walking through the open door.
I got my beer, went to the counter, put it up to be scanned and handed the cashier the money. As that transaction was finishing, my lady of the door hit the counter immediately on my right, just as I was reaching to get my beer. She plopped her purse down on the counter directly in front of the beer, just as I was reaching for it. I withdrew my hand. She opened her purse (not looking to her left where I stood six inches from her side), opened it and took out a five dollar bill. As she got her change, I decide to let her know I was there. I reached for my beer, over her purse. Nothing, she took her change, faced the bills, placed them carefully in the purse, opened the little change pocket, put the coins in it, zipped it, zipped the greater purse, picked up the purse, all while my forearm was directly over her purse, and left the counter.
I picked up my beer and followed her to the door, she say five feet ahead of me. She opened the door and walked out. The door closing on my face.
I didn’t exist in her world. I don’t think a lot of people exist in any meaningful sense in her world. I wonder why that is.
Atlanta, Georgia (RTW News Service)
Birds apparently didn't have lobbyists a few years back as does the humble swine.
Earlier this week, Jewish and Muslim groups wanted to change the name of swine flu because, well, I never did understand why. They don't eat pork is as close as I could get. I don't eat okra; but, I don't object to the word. An Israeli spokesman suggested it be called the Mexican flu, to which guess who took umbrage.
Though swine flu is not transmitted by eating the flesh of our porcine friends, ten countries have barred the importation of pork products.
The pork lobby swung into action. And guess what, there is no more swine flu. The government now refers to our current flu iteration as the H1N1 virus.
Attempts to reach R2D2 for comment were unsuccessful.
Jeffords, Lieberman and Spector
He was never one of us! He's an opportunist! He has no principles! After all we did for him, this?
Who am I talking about?
James Jeffords was a Vermont Republican who became an Independent, but caucused with the Dems. (He was replaced after he retired in 2006 by Independent Bernie Sanders.)
Joe Lieberman is a Connecticut Democrat who ran for Vice President as a Dem, lost a Democratic primary, ran as an Independent, won and started going to Republican conventions.
Then there's Arlen Spector. In 2004 he barely won a Republican primary against a very right leaning opponent. Since then 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans have switched their registration to the Dems. Yesterday he announced he was switching to the Democratic Party. "I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."
There's a lot of ire and angst in Republican circles and joy in the Dem camp today. Arlen Spector has gone to the Dark Side!
It seems to me that all three Senators "moved" to where they always were when they realized their party had moved away from them.
I also think that the Dems are happier than the evidence indicates they should be and the Republicans have less to fear than they think. Spector voted to confirm Justices Thomas, Roberts and Alito. He voted for the Iraq war. He favors school vouchers. However he labels himself, he favors stem cell research and same sex marriage. Why would any of that change?
Without Enron, auto execs, AIG execs, etc., the Yankees appear to have realized that they may have misjudged the elasticity of home plate box seats.
Want two, a couple of dogs and beers? Now that’ll run you about $1,270 – EACH – down from double that.
I really want to meet one of the people that bought these things. I’m not cheap. I’m not poor. I’m just aghast.
Anime.
As you may notice, if you’ve noted the number of posts today, I’m bored. I’m watching the Braves struggle against St. Louis, procrastinating on dinner, enjoying the breeze, and the genesis of the post, surfing what’s available on Netfilx.
Why doesn’t Netflix have a Cartoon category? Its equivalent is “Anime and Animation.” Animation is I suppose technically a moving cartoon. Anime is the Japanese word for animation but is a distinct style of animation. When I was a kid, I watched cartoons on Saturday mornings. The comics are still in the newspaper. I don’t have a big finish here, I just don’t like the word anime, unless it refers to the specific Japanese genre. Netflix should just call it all Animation; or, label it Cartoons, Animation and Anime. Tom and Jerry is a cartoon. Pixar sells animation. Osamu Tezuka makes anime. Then there’s the problem of Pixar versus classic Disney, computer keyboards rather than cells and human hands with pens and brushes.
And I just realized, I’m not consistent in my categorization.
I’m not a big fan of pasta. I like pasta, I just never say the word. I say spaghetti, rigatoni, macaroni and so on.
You film it, I want one word. You cook it, I want description of just what you’re cooking.
Which takes us back to the start. The Braves are running out of innings and I need to cook something.
Seagate's Replica duplicates your hard drive, including the programs. For $130 it will do one computer. Two bills gets you multiple full back-ups. I’ve gone through two hard drive crashes over the years. I spent more than $200 worth of my time each time.
Proteins as on the Food Network: “The Iron Chef hasn’t started any proteins yet and we are at the thirty minute mark.” They are meats, for the most part, of various sorts.
“On the way Summer” started Friday. We have highs in the eighties and lows in the sixties. The sky is blue, azure blue. No smog, even in the city, though that won’t last.
Windows open, ceiling fans on low. Birds chirping.
Seven in the morning, start the coffee, turn on the blues channel, read the papers (of the electronic sort).
Late afternoon and kids squealing across the way.
Dinner will be bacon and tomato sandwiches, corn on the cob and some slaw.
The fight begins again tomorrow morning. For the moment, life is pretty good.
The past couple of weeks Obama and the Dems and Cheney and the Goppers have been sniping at each other about torture, with Cheney most recently demanding that Obama release records showing that the "enhanced interrogation" techniques used during the Bush years were fruitful.
(It isn't relevant to the post, but I have to smile when I think about Cheney, he who spent most of his eight years in office in undisclosed locations, demanding public disclosure of anything.)
This headline today at NYTimes.com focused me on what's been bothering me:
At the Core of Detainee Fight: Did Methods Stop Attacks?
We are witness to some slight of hand here as Republicans are shifting the debate and Democrats are taking the bait. Should the public discussion be about the effectiveness of torture; or, should it be about whether torture should be used?
If the ends justify the means, are the means noble rather than criminal?
Jack Bauer has seduced us. We want heroes arriving just in the nick of time to save the world in the last act. To set up that last act, it's perfectly OK for Jack to wring the truth out of one of the bad guys to find out where the missile is located so that he can arrive to fire a well placed shot from the other end of the abandoned plant into the back of the head of the really bad guy just before he pushes the button to launch.
Torture has been with us and will stay with us for the foreseeable future. We are a cussed species. That that is true does not mean that we should condone it, whether or not it is effective.
Alternatively, torture away. But don't rationalize your atavism, embrace it. You want something, the location of the missile or the cache of mastodon meat, and someone stands in your way - beat the bloody hell out of them until you get what you want.
UPDATE:
It seems I scooped the NYTimes.com. Here's a follow-up to the article I linked to with a time stamp after my post. The comments are interesting and make some of the points I made. Yes, I'm a bit full of myself.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/is-cheney-winning-the-torture-debate/
since my fourth post, back in September 2006. You see I am the Google go-to source for the Federal Judge Song. Of the 28,000 or so hits on this blog probably 500 to a 1,000 of them are due to searches for it, skewing my stats. Go ahead, google it - I guarantee you get my post as the first result.
Across America in law firm hallways and DOJ break rooms lawyers say "hey I listened to this cool parody the Federal Judge Song on the Internet, it's like something the Capitol Steps would do." "What's the site?" I don't know, google it."
And they do, in droves, the out clicks prove it. And the problem? It isn't there anymore. Dead link. It's parent site, FairJudiciary.com, appears to have been abandoned, all of the content is old.
As a service to mis-directed lawyers everywhere, I've tried to find a good link for you - and failed. In this one instance, Google doesn't work. It won't take you where you want to go. So, while you're here, look around, enjoy, and come back soon.
“So, we had that case last year on the Second Amendment, the gun one. I know, NRA and all that. Turns out that the Court had written about that back in the thirties of the last century. Wrote some stuff that made it a bit tough for us to come to a decision; so, we punted – most of us won’t be here next time one of issues we opened up get up here.
You know what? One of the clerks got looking and discovered a couple of others. Other what? Amendments to the Constitution! I know, I know, we get stuck sometimes, we know what we think and then, Bam! There it is, we have to read it and figure out a way to get around it.
Did you know that the Constitution won’t let the Government quarter soldiers in your house unless there’s a war going on, and then only “as prescribed by law?” It’s right there in the Third Amendment that the clerk found. Yeah, I had to look up quartering. Know something else? We’ve never had a case asking us to decide anything about it. I’ll bet Bush had a signing statement that deals with it though. That Yoo guy was pretty good with that kind of stuff.
So the Clerk kept reading and found this Fourth Amendment. He brought it into us. We were floored! Listen to this:
‘The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.’
Imagine that. Then we got looking and realized that the Court has had tons of cases that deal with rights of people to be secure in their own property. I’ll bet Cheney and Rumsfeld never read that one.
So, what to do? This scumball got pulled over, didn’t have a valid driver’s license or something. Turned out the cop pulled him out of the car with his buddies. They were all in cuffs in different police cars, no danger to anyone. Then the damn cop goes back to the car and searches the glove compartment and finds some coke. We looked at all the cases that Rehnquist did chipping away at the Amendment. No PC! What? Probable Cause, read the damn Amendment. If you’re going to invade someone’s property you’ve got to have PC and then get a warrant. The damn cases say that you can only skip that if there’s imminent danger or a weapon or drugs lying around to create this thing called reasonable articulable suspicion, that sort of thing. There was none of that.
So we had to kick the scum’s ass loose. You know, we may have to go after some of the BushCo folks if they come up to us. Wiretaps. Predator. It's endless!
I’m just glad the Founding Fathers decided to skip from the Eighth to the Tenth Amendment. Roe what? Bowers v. Hardwick?”
I haven’t done any research for this post; so, blast away if you will.
Back in the ‘90’s when the Republicans took over Congress, the Dems may have talked about the need to re-target their message, or something like that.
Following the GOP’s losses in the ’06 election, they hunkered down except at the margins. We have to be more of what we are. That resulted in McCain and Palin.
Recently, I’m hearing pundits talk about the need to re-brand, and other words, the GOP’s message.
It seems to me the problem is the GOP doesn’t know what it is. You’ve got your McCains – mostly centrist until they think they need to pander to what they think their base is. And then there’s the base, whatever that is. Is the base, the religious right? Is it those that applauded Bush’s attack on civil liberties? Is it those that thought Palin was a breath of fresh air? A combination?
All were roundly defeated last November. So what to do?
They are trying to nay say Obama’s moves, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Obama bowed to the Saudi King. Obama is spending us into something (not that they didn’t for a decade or so). Obama this and that. Oh, and if that doesn’t work, there’s Pelosi, Reid and Frank, you know they’re no good for the Country.
Yet, the polls seem to love Obama; and, they seem to accept the Dems in Congress.
So, Republicans seem to be doing what they’ve always done. We won’t change, we’ll figure out what people will buy and then sell it to them. Doesn’t matter what it is, this is a matter of marketing. But hell, what is it? We don’t have a clue as to what Obama and the Dems should be doing differently, but we know there’s something, we’ll pander. But what?
Stay tuned.
There’s a thing in lawyerdom called an “opinion letter.” There’s also an “audit letter.” Both are waffling, weasily wonders. I won’t write the former. I have to write the latter.
There are some analogues in government: the Executive Order, the Justice Department memo and the Signing Statement.
You and I, for the most part, know what is right. We don’t always do it; but, we know what it is. Then there’s the time we want to do something that our conscience or gut tells us not to do. What to do? Rationalization. Talk to friends and family about how it really isn’t what we all know it is. If I don’t do it, someone will.
Our national government has a few handy tools to tell us what our government, and we, can do. The Constitution. The United States Code. The Code of Federal Regulations.
They haven’t been enough in recent years. We started, I think, with executive orders. I’m the President and I can’t get the damn Congress to pass the damn law that I want, so I’ll issue an executive order that people will comply with unless Congress or some damn litigant has enough balls to push it. The flip side, Congress passed a damn law that I don’t like, so I’ll issue a signing statement that turns the law on its head; and, again, functionaries will do what I say unless those other people decide it’s important enough to oppose.
Then Bush invented memos that no one saw that excused patently illegal behavior. (He may not have invented them, but he did indeed perfect them.)
Obama is releasing them in dribs and drabs. Here’s an opinion piece about the drib this week. The author is insensed by Obama’s announcement that we won’t be prosecuting “good faith” reliance on the memos' stupid legal opinions.
I’m not particularly interested in frying Cheney, Gonzales, Bradbury, Yoo, et al; though Ms. Lithwick makes a case for at least parboiling them.
What I’d like to see is Obama not acting like Bush. He’s issued Executive Orders from the day he took office. I imagine he’s ordered a few memos and signed a few statements. We have three branches of government. Let them do their jobs. If you don’t like a law, veto it. If you want a law and can’t get Congress to go along, work harder. If you don’t like the result of either process, don’t have some pet lawyer write a memo that says you’re right. And don’t use your bully pulpit to try to discourage prosecution of what based on what I can see are criminals.
Karaoke and darts and pool and trivia and other “interactive pastimes” are back in the hip community of Lilburn, Georgia (on the Northeast edge of Atlanta) according to AJC.com.
But not in bars, not bars! Lilburn doesn’t allow bars! Only restaurants that also serve liquor. Now you can go to your local restaurant (not a bar!) and get your meat and three, have a brew and sing badly to your heart’s content, throwing a dart or hitting a ball at the wall, telling the waitress that Hanson is indeed the worst fake band of all time, rather than the Monkees, as you wish.
I don't know about you - I'm there.
If it cost that much to read the papers you read regularly online now, would you pay it?
I wouldn’t be thrilled; but, yes, I’d pay it. Here’s a link to an article about a company that plans to offer such an “unlimited” subscription and a couple of other options.
I actually like the one stop, one payment idea. It would certainly be my home page.
How about the best two out of three in “rock, paper, scissors” to decide the Minnesota senatorial election?
Mark “the Bird” Fidrych has died at 54. Here’s a link to the AP story.
Here’s a bit more of the story from the perspective of someone who watched him during his one magical year and the aftermath. I lived in the Detroit area back then. 1976 was amazing for the Tigers and Detroit. If you’ve read the story, and you need to as I won't retell it here, you got a bit of the flavor of his personality. As was said then, he danced to a different drummer. He lived in his own world, a sort of man-child.
He smiled for no reason that we knew of and we delighted in his joy and success. Over the winter we waited for the next installment. The papers told us the Tigers had signed him to a five year contract for, I think it was, $100,000.00, even then a low sum for what seem to be his potential. His explanation? If you play five years you get a pension. Maybe he could portend.
If I have my years right, that spring he was being himself and hopped a fence during spring training and was never the same.
UPDATED: Here's a nice piece by a Detroit sports writer that includes the fence story and an encounter with the then current POTUS:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20090413/SPORTS0104/904130435/1361/Fun+followed+Fidrych
He reported for spring training each year, he never could regain the magic; but, he gave his five years and more with the Red Sox afterward.
I read of deaths and tragedies everyday. It is seldom that I feel a stab of pain and smile at the same time. But, that happened to me today.
I’m hoping that there are some mounds to groom and baseballs to talk to in Heaven.
There are 18 players between 11 and 4 under par after today’s round. Eight if you only go to six under.
Weather in Augusta tomorrow is predicted to be about seventy degrees and partly cloudy.
I’d love it if the Gods of Augusta decided to put a little bit of water on the greens and not shave them as much as they normally do, letting the boys shoot it out. They won’t fulfill my wish; and, it will probably still be an amazing Sunday.
Full disclosure, I shot fourteen over today in cold windy weather – still a beautiful day.
My office building has wood trim. About this time each year I’m treated to little lizards preening on the railings of building’s back porch and carpenter bees swooping between me and the holes they’ve made in the trim.
This morning I had the radio on and was half listening to the Lawn and Garden Show, hosted by Walter Reeves, on WSB here in Atlanta. Walter is a garden god as best I can judge by what he knows and I don’t about taxonomy, soil pH and so on.
A caller posed a problem. Her eight year old daughter is running into the house terrified by carpenter bees. What can she do? Walter suggested she “empower” her daughter by giving her a tennis racket and offering her fifty cents for each body she brought in.
My thought, point out that the bees are males and can’t sting her. Let her know that they also swoop to trees and bushes and pollinate them, creating the flowers she sees everywhere this time of year. Might reduce the terror and increase the girl’s appreciation of the little things around her.
I’d of rather said 162 and 0; but, there was the seventh inning today, possibly the worst example of relief pitching ever to occur.
I’d give you a link; but, I’m just not up to it.
It’s all pitching, pitching, pitching.
I’m feeling a bit dumb since getting a recent Email from Netflix. A couple of months ago I bought a Blu-ray player that also streams Netflix movies on my TV. I changed my Netflix subscription to add Blu-ray disc access for an extra buck a month.
Then the Email. The buck a month is now four bucks a month. (The increase is a dollar a month for every tier in your disc plan – I get three at a time which results in a three dollar or about a 20% overall price increase for the same content.) Netflix excuses its price increase by noting that Blu-ray discs cost about 30% more and they are adding more of them to their stock. The minimum increase for the Blu-ray subscription is 100%, 400% in my case, with worst case - only a 30% increase in costs. Nice margins.
As best I can determine, Netflix has over a hundred thousand titles and about 1300 are available in Blu-ray. About 10% of its 10 million subscribers have the Blu-ray option. So, right now, Netflix collects about $12 million a year to distribute 1,300 titles. Depending on how many people cancel their Blu-ray subscription, Netflix’s Blu-ray revenue should easily double and maybe triple with a minimal increase in cost.
Ah capitalism! Stick it to the captive niche market.
My counter-plan is to engage in Blu-ray months. Pay them their extortion a few months a year and get all of the Blu-rays that have released, then go back to standard DVDs for a few months. Repeat as necessary. Or I could just give up on Blu-ray. The player “upconverts” standard definition discs to almost Blu-ray quality and I can still use it to stream. Or, I’ll be lazy and forget about the increase – I’m just about over my mad as I type this.
From CNET.com:
So let me get this straight. I have XP or Vista and I'm going to buy a program that will be what I've got? Or, I need a computer and a new license, I'm going to pay the big price that MS charges to get what it offered what five or six years ago, when I can get Linux for about five bucks? Tell me what I'm missing.
“With Windows 7, Microsoft is hoping to have an operating system that people won't want to downgrade from. That said, it does plan on offering users that option.
Downgrade rights have long been a part of the Windows license for certain versions, particularly for businesses. That said, the option gained notoriety with Windows Vista. With Vista, the downgrade right was not only marketed by computer makers, but, once Microsoft stopped selling XP, some PC makers sold Vista machines that were "pre-downgraded" to Windows XP.
Microsoft is actually expanding that Vista downgrade rights program slightly, the company confirmed on Monday. Under the new program, PC makers will be able to ship pre-downgraded machines based on anticipated demand for those systems. Until now, computers makers could only ship XP-downgraded machines if a particular customer had specified that is what he or she had wanted.
Also, as noted earlier Monday by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft plans a similar program for Windows 7, allowing users to go back not only to Vista, should they choose, but also to Windows XP.
Microsoft hasn't detailed exactly how downgrade rights will work with Windows 7--beyond confirming that users will be able to go back to XP--but presumably the rights will be attached to the Ultimate and Professional versions of Windows 7.
Businesses with volume-licensing deals covering Windows have long had the right to use any earlier version of Windows with their PCs.” With Windows 7, Microsoft is hoping to have an operating system that people won't want to downgrade from. That said, it does plan on offering users that option.
Downgrade rights have long been a part of the Windows license for certain versions, particularly for businesses. That said, the option gained notoriety with Windows Vista. With Vista, the downgrade right was not only marketed by computer makers, but, once Microsoft stopped selling XP, some PC makers sold Vista machines that were "pre-downgraded" to Windows XP.
Microsoft is actually expanding that Vista downgrade rights program slightly, the company confirmed on Monday. Under the new program, PC makers will be able to ship pre-downgraded machines based on anticipated demand for those systems. Until now, computers makers could only ship XP-downgraded machines if a particular customer had specified that is what he or she had wanted.
Also, as noted earlier Monday by ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft plans a similar program for Windows 7, allowing users to go back not only to Vista, should they choose, but also to Windows XP.
Microsoft hasn't detailed exactly how downgrade rights will work with Windows 7--beyond confirming that users will be able to go back to XP--but presumably the rights will be attached to the Ultimate and Professional versions of Windows 7. Businesses with volume-licensing deals covering Windows have long had the right to use any earlier version of Windows with their PCs."
I do and I’ll bet you do. I just read the most recent local government accounting article about Clayton County. Clayton is just south of the City of Atlanta. (We do things a bit odd here in Georgia. The airport is in Clayton County; but, it is owned by the City of Atlanta, which is in both Fulton and DeKalb Counties. But that’s another post.)
Clayton is also Georgia’s “short bus” county joined at times by Fulton County and the City of Atlanta. They all just seem to be a bit short when it comes to common sense.
Here in Georgia our governments seem to lose money regularly. Georgia DOT isn’t sure how much money it has, what it has committed or what it realistically can expect to come in in the near future. Atlanta is still searching for money it is sure that it has, or maybe not. Fulton is pissed because there are now three or four cities that have been created because the people in them got pissed because all of their money used to get spent elsewhere in the county so they went off on their own and took the infrastructure and tax base with them.
Clayton has the only school system in the country to be disaccredited in recent history. It’s former sheriff had something more than a score of lawsuits pending against him when he lost the election last fall. He filed for bankruptcy just before he left office to avoid a six figure judgment against him. My favorite: He took office four years ago by firing a bunch of deputies, having them escorted out of the building with snipers on the roof trained on them to prevent some sort of putsch, or something. That one cost the county four or five mil.
And now, the County, according to the CEO is nine mil short between now and the first of July. Or has plenty of money according to its tax guy.
Back to the start of the post. I’m not an accountant; indeed, I hate accounting. But I know what comes in and what goes out. It isn’t that hard to keep track of. I tend to try to spend less than what comes in. In the odd difficult situation, I know what I’ve borrowed.
Just how do you spend an extra nine mil; or, have nine mil that you don’t know about?
The least appealing, and to my mind, least talented Beatles got together recently.
Here’s the story. You will notice that Ringo is still getting the short stick.
My order does actually put Ringo last; but, it puts McCartney third after Lennon and Harrison, giving a bit of the edge to John over George.
Two Doubles, Two Bogeys and Two Birdies. Using golf math, that's ten over for yesterday's round. Weather was in the mid-seventies with blue sky. This morning I noticed I have a faint sock tan line. The upcoming week is Masters week here and everywhere in the golf world.
Regular readers will note that I never write about a bad round. There's a reason, there are no bad rounds. Had I shot bogey or worse golf, and I have, often, it is still a good round.
Here's a link to one of my favorite posts, about golf or otherwise. A story about Sergio, not Garcia, that sums up what is wonderful about the pastime.
http://ratherthanworking.blogspot.com/2006/10/golf.html
