Tuesday, October 31, 2006

If you're stupid, you'll wind up in Iraq, like Bush

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Is it really that hard to understand ?

As soon as I understood that Bush had no anthropologists advising him as he charged into Iraq, I knew the operations were doomed from the start. At this point, with the Shias and the Sunnis going at it and the President of Iraq clearing the US checkpoints, we need to let them all know that we are leaving. There is no course to stay, other than total disaster. A nuke going off in an unpopulated area visible from Bagdad might remind the terorists on both sides just how quickly they can get to heaven if they keeping on with the killing.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Christians for Mountains, Vineyard Boise Church

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Tonight, as I type, Bill Moyers is exploring the Green Christian communities, including those in the Appalachian Mountains whose environment is being wrecked by coal mining. My own evangelical daughter visits a nice NorCal coastal retreat called, "The Lord's Land." It's good to see these attitudes among those often blindly opposed to the environmentalists. Kudos to Bill Moyers and all the rest.

The Bible is full of passages indicating a stewardship responsibility to take care of the planet for "true" Christians. Glad to see them waking up to the issues of today that are related, such as global warming. Houghten in Britain at Oxford in 2002, as an evangelical, lends a very scientific basis to thier ideas.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Cell Phone Ring Tones Embedded in Commercials ?

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I keep hearing what sounds like a distant ring of a cell phone in many different commercials, as sort of partial faint background music. I wonder if they are doing that to grab awareness where interest lives not ? It's very annoying, much like a certain headache commercials, which cause me to switch channels as a matter of course. If repetition like that sells, the country is doomed. I will NEVER buy a product that causes what it purports to cure. I generally listen to news channels as a background to being on-line, so the re,ote is handy. I try to recond and fast forward shows I want to watch. I'd like to be able to pay $.25 cents each and get commercial free viewings of shows.

North Korea, Worst Case Scenario

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When I found out that the bomb was less than one kiloton, I chuckled and wondered if Kim ILL Jyong had just set off a 500,000 lb firecracker of convention weapons. Having slept on it, I realized a much nastier situation. The estimates so far have been that North Korea sits on 6 nukes. The assumption going with that is that they are of at least Hiroshima size, or 15,000,000 lbs of TNT.

Looking at it from ILL's side, he would be much smarter to design and test a much smaller weapon, but have 180 of them. What's more, he wants something that fits on his Taepo Dong missles, also a requirement for a smaller bomb. Let's assume now that he has tested such a warhead, and it works.


"Dear China,

Keep the oil and food coming, and STAY THE F&^%$ OUT, or be barraged by these itty bitty nukes."


"Dear Japan,

We could use a lot of Kubota tractors and Toyota SUV's, and a few Geishas too. Tokyo's only 500 miles away."


"Dear USA,

We've already got a tramp steamer to take our cargo container to a remote port in Venezuawala [sp] Hugo will allow us to play the old shell game, and send it to ???? Chicago on a 747 cargo plane. We'd like lots of fresh fruits and veggies, no E. Coli 7059:H7, please. After all, you're the one's who pointed out how we are starving our people.

Thank-you all very much,

sincerely,

Kim ILL Jyong"



Suffice it to say, most Americans and the rest of the world have completely lost sight of the magnitude of nuclear weapons. Even a 500,000 lb nuke represents a damage potential way way way GREATER than 9/11. There is absolutely nothing other than a first strike by China or the USA to stop him from doing this. Much like the gunman in Amish country, who gave the cops 2 seconds to go away, Kim Ill Jyong can tell the USA to remove its fleets and plane within 24 hours, or lose Tokyo. Japan is our largest overseas trading partner.

We are obviously dealing with a totally mad, but smart person here. He is just as whacked out as Hitler. He has one in every 20 citizens in the Army. He has to sleep, he likes to party. How much intelligence do we have about the locations of missle launchers and weapons caches in an area about the size of the northern half of California ? I agree with Bush here, this guy has got to go, by any means necessary, but not at the cost of vaporizing North Korea, if for no other reason than the fallout going to Japan, Russia, and China. Aerisoling tons of LSD and a couple of EMF anti electronics nukes, followed by Navy SEALS ? Been watching to many Schwartzenegger movies I guess.

When I taught at Lowell High School in San Francisco, a highly rated public school for the gifted, I noticed that within a predominently Asian school population, the Koreans seems to be, at least in some cases, more inclined towards a "chip on the shoulder" mentality, and a sense of "toughness," and a "readiness to fight." If this is truly a representative snapshot of the culture's "personality," an "ILL" wind blows from the North...

I would love a photograph of Kim (5'2") and Osama (6'5") side by side. Almost a mini-me moment !

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Kill Spam !

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If you own your own website, pick one with lots of email hosting.

Due to SPAM inbound, I recently gave up an email addy I've used for 10 years. I went to a whole series of addys, (I can list up to 250 with my webhosting account. Each one is keyed to a particular company or grouping of people, or even one per individual. Eudora makes it easy to add lots of email connections.

For example: My bank might be BofA2006@mydomain.com. My browser addy is mozilla2006@mydomain.com, and is often used for one time emails, where I expect at most one or two replies. My family and friends use DFAM2006@mydomain.com and DFRD2006@mydomain.com. Note that they all contain the 2006. Family and friends know to change this over to 2007 next year, if the 2006 version is dropped due to SPAM.

Individualizing the emails make it possible to see which sender is compromised or selling their email lists. If I suddenly get mail from appliance manufacturers, and it comes in on my BestBuy email (Best2006@mydomain.com) then I can scream at them, and replace that one addy, without disturbing anybody else in my cyberverse.

It is now three months into this experiment and I have received 0 nada zip no SPAM. In fact, some days I wonder if my email is working, and send myself something just to be sure.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Moral Majority, Wherefore Art Thou ?

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A reverse endorsement of the party of the Righteous. Can't even sanction their own, even when the evidence is totally overwhelming (when will Foley be arrested?), still trying to "save" the November election. Two years ago I stated that the Dems/Others might be a little slower out of the gate in embracing the Internet, but that they would come on just as strong, if not stronger. I think we see that now. Pride and smugness came before the Fall, once again.

Problems with DirecTV, CSPAN

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At 102 I get 8 news channels, but no CSPAN. Apparently business and weather trumps politics in the world of Rupert Murdock. Also I've noticed that Fox News, other self promotional channels, and even the Kidsmix is sticky to itself. You cannot choose the next channel higher or lower using the arrow keys, you have to go to the List Button to get "unstuck." And regardless of what you are watching on 102 big screen, it always goes back to Fox news when you go back button to 102. Yes, if you don't have DirecTV, this is gobbilty-gook.

CSPAN on-air mentions on-line polls, and you go looking for them, and they are nowhere to be found. Washington Journal is excellent, but are there really that few independents in the country for their call-in shows ?

Politics Unusual

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Another reply in another forum, which I like.

George Washington warned against the formation of political parties in his farewell address. When the Constitution was written, the concept of political parties didn't get serious consideration. Arguments on topics at the Constituional Conventions were conducted on the merits of each concept, rather than being dividied up among stereotyped party lines.

As I pointed out earlier, stereotyping is intellectual laziness, or desperation, upon dealing with the massive amounts of data generated by 6,300,000,000 people, living on a planet of fragility, with already overcrowded areas of desirability. Even if only one in a million people is of significance, that's still 6,300 people we are supposed to be aware of. Can you name even 1/2 of the countries of the world, let alone locate and describe them ? Most likely not, but you do know those of economic significance, but most Americans don't. This is true despite the direct economic impact of the rest of the world upon our daily lives. "Hey man, I just want to get a good, high paying job and party on the weekends!" Most USA high schoolers are clueless about how much they need to know to offer services that will generate the cash they think is "rightfully theirs."

I consider myself a Green Libertarian first, and a Democrat second, and have been listed as everything possible except American Independent on the voter rolls, depending on my political goals. I get mailers from everybody, thinking I'm "one of theirs." My dad always said that it was important to read all sides, so I subscribe to townhall.org, as well various science sites, and moveon.org.

To me, the war absolutely needs to be won against terrorism, but I have very different notions about how to do that most effectively, and safely for all concerned (does not preclude the use of Nukes, BTW, if a meaningful target exists). My ideas are well outside the Democratic box, as well as outside the Republican box, and I resent somebody who "watermelons" me, a reference to a certain group that is still discriminated against. I'm also a member of "A Preposition is Something U should Never End Your Sentences With." My "box" is a tesseract.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessaract

I love the latest Cal Thomas column in which he blames the loose morals of society and the Democrats for Foley's downfall. I love this comment on his column:

" double cappuccino writes: Tuesday, October, 03, 2006 6:43 AM
You mean Cal ever HAD a moral compass?
Really?

Because here, he's just flexing his same old double standard as he did with DeLay (moaning about the culture, not the personal responsibility):

If it's them, it's horrible! We need to live by fixed standards, not just the vagaries of the culture!

If it's us, well, you know, look at the culture! What a tawdry culture!

And if it's us covering it up, which is the real story here, well, look at the culture!

WHAT a phony."

It's fun to watch the Republicans do all they can to distance themselves from Foley. Is this politcally motivated by the press ? Or do they exist to sell papers ? Was the chase after Monica/Clinton likewise motivated ? Did not the Republicans jump all over it, playing moral high ground pigpile ??? Yup, Yup, Yup ! Turnabouts fair play, I suppose.

And of course, should Hillary run, the Republicans will "forget" all the stuff about not harming Foley family members' privacy, which they espouse now, and blame Hillary for Bill's transgressions. In fact, even in the middle of the Foley event, I'm hearing talkshow call-ins on CSPAN defaming Hillary for Clinton's transgressions. Like she is to blame for it all, paint her with the same brush, but shut up about Foley, it might hurt his family. Republicans, at least some of them, have the moral consistancy of decayed newspapers in a rain barrel.

I frankly think that until a child is 18 years old, it is hands off for all, and I abhore NAMBLY or what the man-boy love organization is. Childhood should be left to the children, until they are 18, by which time they have had enough time to figure out their own options, learning/observing from family first, and then other socialization organizations. Each human owns his or her own thoughts. "Die Gedanken sind Frei."

My condolences to the families, Amish and otherwise, which is just about everybody who's heard the story, for the actions of the totally undectable madman. How many more maniacs like that one do we have hiding out there ? Does the outing of this one mean that more will follow ? I sure hope not.

Too many nuts, not enough cases....

Sunday, October 01, 2006

13 year olds with an interest in evolution and ecology..

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just about never happen. A counselor at U.C. Davis comments on a new freshman with rather high intelligence. It's a good school too. My younger daughter is in her second year of medical school there, and doing well. She was up here last weekend for a breather after finals.

I don't know if I can say as much for a certain BYU student, charging into law school, his 45's blazing at imaginary stalkers, while being covered by the latest remote helicopter airborn Nikon with a 70 to 200 lens. Nice ED glass and a fast f2.8 lens as well. Wonder how it compares to the regular 35mm fixed 200 ED. I've always preferred fixed focal lengths myself, usually sharper with greater color saturation.

Reminds me of one of my favorite stories. I was at the Golden Gate Bridge to take a picture of our family brick (donate $75, get your names on a brick, yes Marla's there too) when up pulls a tourist bus full of Japanese business men. They came out in order of age and rank apparently. First came the young guys, with their Fujica's and Pentaxes, then came middle management, all decked out with Canon F1's and Nikon F3's. Finally, out came the head of the company, the oldest guy there. Slowly he came down the steps, and strapped to the middle of his chest was a nice, shiny, new....Leica.

Maybe young BYU should go to work for Helinet. For someone whose list of books includes 1984 and Animal Farm to claim no political bent is for someone to be blind to his own nature. For someone not to know that a house and a kid top most womens' secret lists, is rather immature as well, but at 25, he's got plenty of time to learn. Or maybe he already knows how to solve all the world's problems....heh, heh, heh.

Note to Coupon Makers Everywhere, and Paid Lairs

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If the expiration date is not large enough for me to read without a magnifying glass, I toss coupons out regardless of how otherwise inviting.

Watched the President's counsil (attorney) on Meet the Press this morning. He was directly asked if Bush had honored a general's request for 450,000 troops, and if not, why not. He went every which way with tales about Iraqi police forces not coming up to expectations and other "unforeseen" events, but the interviewer stuck to his guns. He finally said the reason the President didn't send more troops was because the left wing was arguing to bring the troops home. So, in effect, he compromised (a good thing) and the vision was muddled by the left (a bad thing) and it is not his fault that he didn't stay the course and honor his own words and promises to the generals and the American public. "The devils made me do it!" Bart Simpson couldn't have said it better.