The Real Cause Of The Financial Crisis

So true.

Greedy people suck.

If you are greedy & you are reading this, you suck.

George Carlin Was The Greatest

I miss him a lot.

The GOP is Dead Today

I hope every person on the planet, every person one the planet, remembers for a very VERY very long time, the last years of this (once great?) no-longer-great nation have been an utter failure in every measurable way.

The GOP is dead. It is out of ideas. The ideas it has verifiably do not work.

As this author suggests, shut-up get out of our way, you pathetic children.

Post Script: any one who listens to Rush is a self-mutilating self-hating self-destructive loser. Oh, and they ought to be taxed extra.

Never Use Ringaza (ringaza.com)

A bad service.

Skip it.

$700 Billion Is A Marketing Number

First, these idiots have no idea what they are talking about & do not know the real number. Second, they are (and you just know it is true) making this stuff every day as they go, save this one, let that one fail, save these two. Third, $700 Billion sounds a little better than $1 Trillion or $1.2 Trillion, but mark my words it will be over a trillion, just as sure as I am standing here, dumbstruck that this blabbering moron of a failed business executive, Texas Air Guard drop-out, NeoCon, NeoHawk, pretzel-choking, war-mongering, unconstitutional, bribing, terrorist, SOB, has cost me & my family another trillion dollars on top of the few trillion he pissed away in Iraq. You remember Iraq, the country where none of the hijackers were from & Bid Laden is not, yeah, that Iraq. Another trillion on top of the few other trillion he illegally wasted in Iraq. On top of the billions he had to cough up after mishandling Katrina. Another trillion on top of the trillion it will cost by creating ANOTHER government agency. Sickening.

Please add blowing-up Wall Street & ruining the Supreme Court's reputation to Dubya's List

You can not imagine how long the dumbest-man-to-ever-live's list is now.

9-11 & Iraq Still Be Linked

I was just flipping channels on the boob tube tonight & saw Barak & John being interviewed on channel 24, which here in PDX is TBN. I watched. Then at the end of the show there was an advertisement (ie: I dont know what else to call it) about September 11 & how we will never forget. It was not a bad piece. But then it showed the Twin Towers falling & then it showed the Army shooting people in Iraq & the tearing down of Saddam's statue in Iraq. Why are they linking these two? There is no linkage. Every one on planet Earth now knows this now. Why fade from the one scene to the other scene if not to link them.

Amerika ..... *STILL* winning the hearts & minds of the mid-east

Nice job, Cheney, you are sure to win this thing if you keep this up!

McCain = Liar

T Boone Pickens is (now) my man

I would have thought him a loon a couple decades ago, but I would have been quite wrong. The man has seen far more than some of us & now sees in to the future better than most of us ever will. I agree with the man 100% & truly hope his plan is enacted. The statistics alone are startling.

Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys

Here We Go Again: Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Shameful. Silly. Stupid. What are these people thinking? Yahoo is screwing-over millions of clients who were gullible enough to think that buying DRM music from the was an OK idea. I never trusted this idea (licensing music from a website) & can say that (yet again) I came out on the correct side of this (huge) topic. IP is just plan b0rked in this country. It will not be fixed before my death. Depressing. Everyone at Yahoo & every other website who works in this area ought to be very concerned.

LitLiberation: Scalable Education Revolution

Excerpt from The Man Who Swam the Amazon

Excerpt from The Man Who Swam the Amazon, written by Matthew Mohlke, who was a river guide on the Amazon trip:

So, why do we follow Martin down the Mississippi, the Danube, the Amazon, or the Yangtze? The answer is simple:

An expedition is 95 percent misery and 5 percent ecstasy. After three weeks of constant motion in a land far way from home, something strange occurs in the sould of a man. He gets broken. The first symptom is a tired or sick feeling, maybe even some fear and a little helplessness. Loneliness. Then something slowly changes within. The old attachments start to fade and he becomes completely present. He forgets about all the crap that keeps him up at night back home. None of it matters anymore.

The same man who may be the shy, passive, no-balls type back home in the office or factory can evolve into a [person] who can share a table with the toughest of hombres and throw back beers with unswerving eyes, enjoying every minute of it.

After going home and dealing with all the meaningless details of electricity bills, lawn mowing, mortgage payments, and an unfulfilling job, a period of depression inevitably occurs. Those people back home can’t understand why he’d leave his cozy existence behind again for three more months to jump at the next opportunity to subject himself to such misery and danger.

But they just don’t get it.

Portland 10th Most Walkable City in Nation

Cairo, Egypt

Al-Qahira. Cairo. Wow. Exotic. So radically different from any possible city in North America. I love having a trip knock me way off of my comfortable center. I'll connect through Zurich or Frankfurt. It is the Arab World and Africa's most populous city. On the Nile. Bordered by Libya, Sudan, The Mediterranean, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, & the Red Sea. Independent in 1922. Their ccLTD is dot eg. The Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Heliopolis, the Citadel, the Mosque, the Cairo Tower.

I will be there for the first two weeks of November. Looking very forward to it. Will continue to edit this post.

Read more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo
and
http://wikitravel.org/en/Cairo

Living At Jet Speed

Paris, France

I love Paris. Love it. I would move there next week. My kids, who speak English & Spanish, would have to struggle through a third language, but they could do it. I get to go back in three weeks from now, for two weeks, and can not wait. I intend, as best as I can while being there for a conference on running the internet, to just soak-up the city. I am going to go out early & go out late & just watch & listen & taste & sit & soak it in. It will be great. I mean, these are the people who brought the world Enlightenment. I wish I had a few weeks after the two weeks in the city to see another town in France, but that will have to wait til next year. I am going to take my daughter to see the forty foot wrap-around wall of water lilly paintings some time soon.

More posts here soon.

Psychiatry?

I never was interested in psychiatry. Just was not interesting to me. Plus, for someone who likes numbers, answers, facts, there are seemingly none to be found, which would be so frustrating. I always thought that people who are computer software authors & psychiatrists like to be masons in their spare time because it is the only time in their works where they can stand back & say, I build that. But I just had a notion this morning come to me like a breeze in one ear: I would like to go back to school & read & study & pursue not just shrinking people but why groups of people must marginalize their neighbor. Humans are a horrible species. Humans kill each other at a rate unheard of in the animal world. We are severely damaged goods. It is actually embarrassing if you stop to think about it. Why bother inventing new medicines & cures for health issues when we then turn-around and kill all those people we just saved from some disease. I think we would be better off we stopped all work on pharma & stopped bombing & shooting & hacking each other to death. On balance, we would be better off. Not to mention the responsibility laying someone else instead of squarely at our feet, and many many people's feet, at many country's (America) feet, and many leader's (Dubya) feet. I will not do this, I fear, I just know, because life is too short, but if I had another life, I would pursue psychology but on a much higher & different level than usual, a level on which I would want to discover why two tribes can hack each other to death with machetes, how that could ever be allowed, how that could ever be tolerated, how that could ever be forgiven, how that could ever be forgotten. It is obviously forgotten, if it were not, it would not be repeated every generation, sometimes within the same generation. (Now that is the sign of some serious thick-headedness, when the same generation goes back & sees what they have done & does it again)

This topic is worthy of a Nobel Prize for someone who can shed even a flashlight on.

Shawn Mullins- Shimmer

Wow, what a great song! I mean really really great. I know it is not a new song & I have heard it a handful of times before but to truly listen to it, to listen to it with headphones on & really listen to it will melt you. It made me cry.

On a completely separate topic, you know how all song writers have this reputation (both in a good way & a less than god way) for being the idealists & lover & hippies & saviors & world-changers & no one else does. I always wondered about that throughout college where I hung-up with just a spectacular crowd of friends & people and some of that crowd was way in music, no, seriously, I mean way in to it, not just regular college kind in to music, but way in to it, and we would discuss this sort of thing. Why would artists get this bad wrap as being the bleeding hearts. If everyone sees your persona as complaining & bleeding for the lesser of the world, your effectiveness is diminished in some way. Why are only artists able to be the ones who can strike this stance? Authors can too of course, painters too, but if you are a member of modern society, it is a little more front-n-center from the musicians. At least it seems so to me. Well, I do not know if I can put it in to words as well as I would like to, but I now think, at age 38, that I think I understand. No one else is doing it. Who cares if people do not like your overly liberal side. If you are going to fall on the spectrum somewhere, far better to land on the loving/caring/charitable side than the Repuglican side. Far better to be thought of as too bleeding heart than to not have a heart. Better to be a more true small band than a stadium power house band that churns out drivel right on time for the next tour. And of course it takes talent, a talent I wish I had. I can sense just the tiniest bit of it in me, but I am not nearly musical nor can I sing well nor can I probably write well, but I think I could entertain a crowd, so at least there is one small component. I think my career as a band leader might be lower down on the list. Too bad too, because I am prepared to take the inevitable ragging-on that I would by saying the things that need to be said, like Shawn Mullins has in this song.

DHL's Horrible Telephone System

It is a small thing but then again it is the small things that matter, isnt it. I just called DHL at 16:37 PST and asked the voice (which is the same voice of Qwest) for "billing" which it successfully detected & transferred me to. Once to billing, it told me that they were closed & that I would have to call back during business hours, thank you, good bye, click. No phone system ought to ever hang-up on a client. The very least it could do, which is trivial to program, is offer to put the client back to the top of the menu. This would take someone who knew what they are doing (ie: hard part) two minutes. Turns-out I still have 3 huge heavy boxes (read: expensive) to ship to Maryland & am ready to give someone my credit card number but can not find any to give it to & their phone system has hung-up on me.

Wait, Citigroup, Wasnt 1+1=not 2

First, the geniuses on Wall Street are nothing even remotely close. Morons is more like it.

Second, in paragraph 9, is that a typo' or does that say $39B. And, then in the next paragraph, does that say more to follow, meaning another $5-10B, meaning somewhere near $49B. Nutty! Simply nutty.

Third, near the bottom of the article is the very best, the best, line of this article, the same as we have always known, and I have said a hundred time, yet everyone still some how does not call BULLSHIT! on as loud as their voice will allow them to (ie: witness this week's purchase* of NWA by Delta). We all know it is impossible. It has never happened before. You can not merge two gigantic cultures, countries really, and expect 1+1=3, never happen, impossible, stupid, in fact, it is an insult. Why do these people keep saying this? They keep trying to say this. It bothers me. It is a lie. Is there some speechwriter, like Harlan (ie:Andy Dick) in he background who forces these CEO's to say this against their will. How asinine must someone with a MBA or PhD have to feel to say something like this?


* I write purchase & not merger because there is no such thing as a merger, never has been, never will be, it is a lie.

My Good Buddy LJ's Blog

Corvallis named the greenest city, Portland #2

Yes!

 

 

Sent to you by Jason SJOBECK via Google Reader:

 

 

Corvallis named the greenest city, Portland #2

via Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) - Northwest Entrepreneurs' Voices by Sarena Regazzoni on 3/17/08

Oregon seems to be leading in the green movement as five of its cities were named in the top 25 most green cities in the nation and two of its cities were the top two. Country Magazine has published an index of cities that analyzed hundreds of cities on key points, such as official energy policies, green power, green buildings, and the availability of fresh, locally grown food.

Here is the top 379 green cities in America!

See also the Oregon Business Journal article.

 

 

Things you can do from here:

• Subscribe to Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) - Northwest Entrepreneurs' Voices using Google Reader
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Best & Worst Travel, Hotel, Airlines, Clubs, Etc List

Cannibals

So there are these two cannibals, and they are eating dinner, and they are eating a clown, and one turns the other and says, "does this taste funny to you?"

Not interesting in the least

Drugs Versus Alcohol in Utah

What do you think? Does the extraordinarily high use of drugs in Utah come from the lack of access to alcohol. Teenagers will rebel. They will get in to trouble. It is a right of passage. What substance they use to do so is the only question. People who have prescription medicine/drugs need to lock them up & then hide the lockbox, because it would seem that those kids in Utah will find them & chew them.

Location of Next Biz Trip

Perfect! Just perfect. I ought to go a week early & stay a week after.

$400 haircut

It occurs to me that American voters want their president or candidates to have a $400 haircut. I do. I want these people looking as great as possible. Who wants some dopey looking frumpy dude going to Europe or Asia to represent us. It is just that it is so much money, it is enough to feed the average earthling family of four for approximately a year. I think Edwards, who I liked a lot & easily could have voted for, just made the mistake of letting that be public, right, because you know all the other guy's are doing the same thing. Can you imagine how much Hillary's do must cost? Yeah right, now try this on, can you imagine how much Dubya's do must cost?! He would have to have a half dozen schedulers schedule it (we're way over $400 already), his entire team approve it, the stylist flown in from some where, security checked, blindfolded to be taken down the secret escalator the basement, and then have the blindfold removed in the secret room where the resident would be waiting, I bet it's 10x or 100x the cost of Edwards do when it's all added. The only difference though is that Dubya is still as dumb as a post hole afterward.

Prescription drugs found in drinking water across USA

WTF?

Who is in charge of this?

Seriously!

Stinky Skunk Skin

My daughter came up with this tongue twister the other day. It's tricky.

Tax & Spend Liberalism

You know, I just realized that I infinitely prefer so-called Democratic "tax & spend style" policy, than "not tax & spend" Republicanism.

(Any more of this so-called conservative financial values and this country will likely be licking the boot of our new Chinese & Venezuelan overlords.)

Worst Business Managers, You Have Got To Be Kidding

Sprint has got to be on one of the worst corporate streaks/skids ever. They could not have done a worse job with Ion. Either time they tried it. And now this $30B they squandered on Nextel. If I were a shareholder of either I would sue for neglect. These guys are worse business managers than the guys who run the airlines. This reminds me of AOL TimeWarner & the massive amount of equity they fluched down the toilet. And where is AOL these days any way, when are the going to BK? When they do, no one will be surprised and most all of us relieved.

Three Cups Of Tea

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Period.

I cried from chapter 20 through 23 aboard my Swiss flight from Delhi to Zurich & I hoped the flight attendants didn't think I was nuts or in distress.

I agree 100% with everything Mortsenson proposes about the most effective way to reverse the religious extremism that has hijacked the poorest areas of Central Asia. I also think it is the way to reverse the exact same extremism that is pulling-down the US under this president--the worse ever--as well.

Go, Greg, go!

Post Script: the next time Care (www.care.org) sends me one more piece of paper (ie: dead trees) in the mail that they used my donation to buys postage instead of doing the work that they ought to be doing, the work I thought I was supporting when I signed-up, that will be the day I divert my donation to them to the CAI.

Obama is our next president

There is my prediction. And I am glad for it. He will be good. He is borderline insane---as any candidate is & would have to be---to want the job, but more power to him. It will take his tenure plus a few more to undo the colossal mistakes of our "worse president ever".

back from 2 weeks in India

This hopefully-not-overly-boring recount is more for myself than for others. If you read this and find it boring, you are hereby not allowed to sue me to recover the value of your time, priced at the far market value of your time times the amount of time you spent reading this (eg: 0.3 hours), which might be something like this: $25.00 X 0.30 = $7.50. You need a raise.

Wow.

My head is still spinning & I've been back for just under a week now. That is just enormous in every way. So many people (went from 1.1B to 1.2B last month), so much going on, so little going on, so loud & smelly & filthy, so much potential, so much history, it is the whole giant thing all wrapped up in to one country, the world inside one country. The drivers will not take their hand off their horn for more than 5 seconds, perpetual honking. The drivers there are experts, that have to be, or there would be a thousand wrecks art every intersection, nay, just ordinary street, every day. Lanes are optional. The roads contain city buses, trucks, cars, camels, cows, taxis, (auto-rickshaw) tuk-tuk's (which everyone told us were dangerous but I don't believe it), pedicab, bicycles, walkers, & other small animals. Traffic is only quiet in the very middle of morning hours, otherwise jammed all day. The bus driver from (Delhi to Agra) could swerve in traffic as well as I can with my little Toyota. The air is barely breathable though. This has got to change. New Delhi is installing its first subway/metro system right now in way of getting prepared for the Commonwealth Games in two years. I sure hope it is popular & people get off the streets. The food was very good, very spicy, as expected, but not numbing like feared. It's funny everything is referred to as "veg" or "non-veg", and mostly "veg", and you don't miss the meat at all. When there is meat it is lamb or mutton, infrequently something else. We had dinner one night at Bukhara, supposedly the best Indian food restaurant on the planet, and it sure seemed to be true for me/us. interesting that a multi-starred restaurant would have no utensils at all, but they weren't really needed, so I can see this makes some sense. The shrimp were enormous, the nan covered the table, must have been a meter in diameter, the lamb was perfect, just perfect, cooked perfectly, seasoned perfectly, fell apart in your hands, and melted in your mouth. Best lamb ever enjoyed. The ITC Muarya & Taj Palace Hotels are both extremely nice & extremely expensive, maybe tops in the country (from what we heard), enjoyed staying there & watching the marakeets(?) land on the roof. One note though: dont just ask for coffee or you'll get Nescafe; you have to ask for brewed coffee. The coffeemachine in the business center though was right on the money every time, great machine, almost as good as the machine in the Grand Hyatt Taipei but maybe just a hair not quite, because that one partied.

The DEL airport is small, dim, crowded, had 5 guys stamping 1500 passports on the way in (which was in the middle of the night/morning so not at all enjoyable)---what? they cant get 5 more of the 1.2B peeps in country to sit at a desk going ker-chunk ker-chunk all day!---dirty, and promising of great new things to come when the construction is done. Permanent airport construction, worldwide, I suppose. We got bumped out of Biz to Economy on the way there, so didn't have power for the laptop, but the itinerary was good though, just two long flights (PDX-FRA then FRA-DEH), simple, and done. Got bumped-off the return flight since Lufthansa had way over-booked it, so flew Swiss DEL-ZRH then ZRH-OHR then OHR-PDX, but got some Euros out of the deal. I can not imagine two more complete opposite airports as DEH & ZRH! One is old, small, packed, filthy, the other new, shiny, spotless, empty, and perfect, in just the anal-retentive way you expect. What is the deal with the Swiss not being in the EU? I have to use Francs? OK, I suppose I can respect that. Maybe holding all that stolen, illegal, unethical, marginal, money in the bank allows them an economy that doesn't need the help of the EU. Swiss Air, a member of Star Alliance, wouldn't honor my status nor my AmEx Platinum card to let me in to the lounge, which stunk. American Express must get a deal going with Star Alliance airlines (mainly UAL) ASAP to allow access to those lounges. What are we paying that outrageous yearly fee for?! Or, maybe next year, we wont.

Hopefully a meeting in Singapore will materialize later in '08, which would be fantastic, I would absolutely love to see Singapore, sounds amazing from what I know, heard, seen & from reading wikipedia.

I met a lot of great new friends at the meeting from all over the world (France, Korea, Germany, Italy, US) We did really struggle (or felt like I did running the main room of the meeting), but we all did, since we had so many technical issues. The power kept changing back-n-forth from hotel main to generator. The power was inconsistent at best. We smoked one of the stenographers (Chuck) brand new IBM laptops; we smoked (Alex) the webcasting server; we smoked a lot of VGA adaptors & cables (yes, cables, how do you do that?) and other miscellany. Maybe somewhere around $15k USD worth. The AV subcontractor there, which not end up getting paid since we had so many issues, but that is another story & not mine so will stay away from it, smoked a bunch of his gear too. The guy was trying hard but just not having any luck; felt bad for him; hope he doesn't take a bath on the deal but guess he does. Note to self: make sure know the exact itinerary of every meeting next time well well in advance & test everything to death the day before not the morning of with only 30 minutes to go to showtime. Example, that damn hybrid conference call phone on Wednesday morning that was such a trainwreck & the cause of so much discontent from so many attendees & remote participants. So glad Cory finally had the boldness to step in front of the local guys & re-wire the damn thing since they had it in upside-down & backwards, and with bad cables to boot. Cory had a brilliant suggestion, next time have a bucket of koosh balls to wail on the AV staff from my table when they're sleeping or playing games on their mobile phones instead of turning-up the mic's when speakers begin speaking. Good meeting, Cory, sharp dude.

It is funny that India is considered such a techno-savvy country, with all those call centers there, which were cut-off during those cable cuts the week before we were there, more on that in a second, but it is not apparent to me that there is all that much technology being put in to the country's infrastructure. Or should I rephrase and write not much of anything being put in the country's infrastructure, or if there is & I missed it, which I don't think I did, but who knows, then it is not coming fast enough or in enough quantity. The poverty is overwhelming.

Five simultaneous fiber optic cable cuts is unprecedented in the history or the Internet. Someone said that people there suspected that the US had done it on purpose to install sniffers on those cables. If this were true, which is easily could be, it would be shameful, unethical, illegal, and more of the same from the worse president in the history of the US. All this at the same time that Bush was wrangling over the renewal of expiring FISA laws/situation back home. For more on that see Go, Keith, go, you're spot on, I entirely agree.

I saw the gorgeous Taj Mahal, which is one of those things that pictures don't even come close to capturing, (not my pictures either). This was built because a guy's wife died in his arms & asked him to build her something amazing, which, since he was the ruler, went ahead and did at enormous expense. A touch of vanity here, you think? I am not criticizing India here in anyway because I have seen Napoleon's Tomb & that guy had issues in spades & was overcompensating for something on top of that, but what I am saying is this: human beings are bonkers. They would enslave their people & near-starve them in order to build a mausoleum. The person is dead. It doesn't matter any more. The rulers of the world's building outrageous palaces for themselves while they're alive are just as bad but at least someone enjoyed it alive. You can't see any of the inlay in the white marble (Agra is India marble capital) from a distance or from pictures, so just seeing that up close was worth it. There is verse from the Koran inlaid in the arches of the sides of the Taj Mahal. The Red Fort (built with very hard red sandstone), another amazing building, just across the river, is where the son imprisoned his father, so the father watched his wife lie in rest in her mausoleum while he died. Then the son buried his father next to his wife in the Taj so they could be together. It is sorta romantic, I guess.

Brave of Annette & Wendy to spend a day in Agra & get the train back to town in time to fly back home. Good for them. Hoped it worked out well. Remember to check for other's photos on Flickr.

I wouldn't have missed the trip. I loved seeing it all & wanted to see more. I want to head further north next time to get in to the foothills of the Himalaya or even higher, maybe take the train to Darjeeling or similar. I learned an incredible amount about the culture, history, languages, food, everything, that I didn't know I didn't know before going. It was great to have the wonderful Praveen there answering all my questions, pointing things out, showing me around, suggesting a hotel, and helping me find a few gifts for the family. Thanks so much, Praveen. Come visit us in Portland some time.

I hope India continues to slowly but surely build its water, sewer, garbage system, food supply, cities, street, subways, airports, and nation in to what it could be. I hope that globalization doesn't warp it in one way or the other, which would be bad for India as well as the West.

Cant wait for the next meeting in Paris in June. I love that country. I love that city. I hope I live there one day.

Ask Any Of The Romans You See Walking Around Today About Their Empire

How To Win The War On Terror

I wonder how many people think that this guy ought to replace that mutt, Condi Rice, or, really, any one else in the White House.

Give Me A Break !

Dubya The Dolt's stated solution to combatting terrorism is spreading human dignity?! Did I read that right? Is that a typo'? Or the biggest lie I have seen (yet) today.

Little Bit Of Global Education For You Today

View the PDF file named "Table 1 HDR 2007/2008" on this page. (It's URL is http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr_20072008_table_1.pdf) Very interesting. It ranks nations on three values (not just money) Icelanders live a very long time. The USA is only 12th. Countries like India, not just India, but so many just like it, need to do so much more to improve their numbers, they have resources but are not putting them directly in to human improvement areas. Like I say, I am not picking on India here, they are just a typical example of so many nations in that area of the list who could do so much better for their people. But, OK, since we're on the topic, one thing I am comfortable picking on India for, is that they need to stop building nuclear weapons. What a gross waste of money & resources.

Damn iMac !

For the second time in about 3-4 months, the family's (relatively) brand new (ie: 8 months old) 24" iMac has required being dropped-off at The Mac Store (in Lloyd Center area of PDX) for warranty repair. It wont boot. When powered-on, it comes up to the white boot screen with the spinning cog & sits there for a few minutes, then reboots again, in a loop, forever. If you boot to FireWire "target" mode off another Apple computer (my 15" MBP) & try to run repair disk inside DiskUtil.app, it says "invalid sibling link" can not be repaired.

Searching the world wide web of lies advises two things, booting to single user mode, and running "fsch -r" or "fsck_hfs -fy", but both of those fail (tried about 40 times). So nothing left to do but either buy DiskWarrior & try that, or turn it in for warranty repair. The last time, PowerMax (apparetly The Mac Store's sister company & where all Apple warranty work is done in Oregon) did a perfect job moving all our data off to the side, formatted the drive, installing OS X, and moving our data back. I am not OK with having to pay them for an hour's worth of their engineer's time to do this, though, since I feel that it was their issue that created this in the first place. I am not saying my data is not worth $85, it is, & I gladly paid it (if only to spare myself that time). This time I dont want a format but a brand new drive, since this one must be plagued with some minute low-level error or issue since this is the second time this has happened. Sure love the machine though, just pissed as all hell this has happened again. Now that this has happened a second time, I think it is even more easy for me to argue that Apple ought to pay the hour's time to back-up/restore my data before/after the drive replacement, since it was their issue that created this situation. I will be writing Apple a letter asking for this & see what they say. I am not hopeful. I will pursue it though. I will update this page when I know.

Last, this experience highlights the great & wonderful Apple Corporation as needing to do a better job in their warranty, repair, & port-sales service areas. They love you way past what you get from all of the other OEM's & manufacturers (as it ought to be) pre-sales, they respect you during the sale, and the extended warranty sale, but they still put you out, put the burden on you, put the extra costs on you, keep your machine for too long, and basically are missing the golden opportunity to pour on the extra love on the client at the most critical juncture in the relationship: when they need support. If Apple could seize these opportunities with superior service, the Apple lovers out there would be sold even more than they already are, and would NEVER consider purchasing another brand ever. They would probably run in to the the office the next day & browbeat the people in the office to dump their Dell's & get a dozen sparkling new iMac's for the office & never look back.

I hate baseball

... but I hate the idea that those who do not hate it care so little about it as to ruin it by letting these cheaters, liars, criminals stay in their highest position.

Completely understandable

I hope they are sending some change to www.carbonfund.org to offset all the jet fuel. (note: I do)

Wow, that is a lot of money; we must fix this

Wow ..... I Cant Believe I Like The Dixie Chicks

I am not a fan of country hill-billie left-handed backwoods backward xenophobic small-minded country music. I am surprised to learn that I do like the Dixie Chicks as of seeing them for the first time tonight on the Grammy Awards after having seen them play Not Ready To Make Nice, which I totally agree with every word of.

I actually despise Toby Keith & his ilk of hatred-spewing charactures of the stereotype of illiterate Southerners wanting to turn the Middle East in to a glass factory. I know he knows better. And I also know he does not care. He would rather ferment the feelings that will lead us to world war three as long as it gets him his jing. Actually puts Toby & his traveling-hate-show on par with the leaders he is against & the way they suck the money out of their followers for their own luxury.

Go, Google, Go, Grind The Cellco's Into Their Rightful Place

www.pandora.com

OK, I am late on "discovering" this site, but ..... Wow!

It is awesome.

I love it.

Time To Move To International Mutual Funds

American Flag Pins Are For Simple-Minded Idiots

Bill Mayer beat me to the punch on this headline, but only just, as the thought has been running around my brain for a year or more now, but of course I never put fingers to keyboard. Regardless, he is as right as rain. Show me someone with a pin on his jacket & I will show you an idiot who has no respect for the people he is wearing it for.

US Electoral College Time Has Come & Gone

There are one too many layers in between the people and choosing the president. Most other countries have no issue here. It is time we remove the electoral college. Who is with me?

Robespierre Bush

Scary.

Scum.

Great song

I just wanted a link to it for later for myself

Cheat To Win

The Best "Onion" Article Ever

What The World Eats

Fascinating

Good list of camera phone ideas

I have started doing some of these & now wonder why I didnt do the obvious before.

StartUp Cost Now Possible On 1 Visa Card

Guy is as right as rain, again.

"Attack or be annihilated" ... I dont buy it

It is a god thing I am not running for anything as this post would be the kind of thing that would end any politicians chances for geting elected to any post higher than dog catcher, no offense to dog catchers, because wild dogs running lose is not OK with me in any way at all. Here goes. Israel has always seemed to be picking fights that are not required. They are bullies. They are killers. Yes, there neighbors are killers. Without a doubt. But that are killers. In the same way America is a killer. America picks fights that ought to easily be avoided. We are killers. It is shameful. But what we are talking about right now is that Israel is run by killers. They have been pitied for their position in geography & history, but let us agree on one simple point, myopic as it might be, that they are killers. I hope that Israel can keep its killing instincts in check. As someone who is nauseated by the money that my government forcefully extracts from me and then uses it to kill other people (read: Iraq) I think America ought to immediate cease all funding to Israel where that funding is used to buy weapons. It is intolerable that Israel drives missiles in to its neighbors that have little tiny American flags on the nosecones. That aint my flag & it aint my money going for that. That is someone else (read: killer) who runs my government. I do not know how one could sleep at night. That is all for now. We can think about extending this conversation to another point on another day.

Lessons from Extreme Make-Over Home Edition

I am not sure (yet) how I feel about this television show because as much as my jaded self tells me that the network would only do this if they were making bizarre amounts of money off of it, it would seem that some people really are learning some sincere, human, real, wonderful things, as well as giving some very beautiful homes to people. I sure that this is true. But that is not my thought just now. What I would like to know is when or whether the issues of: timing, coordination, logistics, scheduling, shipping, storage, deployment, staffing, personnel, financing, insurance, and the obviously myriad other issues are to be published as a case study. It would seem that rebuilding homes after natural disasters, or how to build a complete new home in less than one calendar week, dealing with the JIT delivery of materials in such a small place with no warehouse on-site, all the way down to the customizing of software to let the management keep track of every detail, there is a huge amount of knowledge being accumulated, and it ought to be written-up & the PDF posted online.

Last Vonnegut Story

One more on the same topic

Whenever you buy something, snap a pic' of the back before installing where it will then be very hard to see without crawling behind your TV or DVD player.

Take pic's of everything to help

Some good ideas in there. I am already saving time.

Great Poem, from great site from great organization

Weird, Usually The Weird Thigns Are In Florida

Could this possibly be true?

When are these creeps just going to drop dead already & leave us alone?

how sad

I saw a bumperstciker today in Manzanita tha said, "so exactly how are you making the world a better place?" It ought to be a religion, really, making the world a better place, that is. (organizaed religion has failed ridiculously) I think that if even a few more of us every day adopted this "religion", it would make an incalcuable difference. Yes, I am an unapologetic Grinch (not to mention that the power consumption is indefensible)(one more thought on that, arent we at war for fossil fuel right now?) but I can not think of any way in which this is making the world any better.

Hastert needs discplining (a spanking from Foley?)

So, let me get this straight, negligence was performed but no house ethics rules were violated? How is that possible? Igorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law. Neglect is illegal. Hastert knew about Foley's background & behavior for a decade, some said he was a ticking timebomb, he demonstrated willful ignorance, and this violates no house ethics. Who the hell wrote the house ethics rules? Pathetic. Hastert ought to hang his head in shame, as well as seek forgiveness from the religious right/wrong, perhaps Ralph Reed, oh, wait, Reed is the sumbag who fleeced the Indians with Ambramoff, so who else can hear his confession.

convert ... ASAP

What the hell are we doing with pounds (16 ounces), inches (12), yards (3 feet), gallons (4 quarts), et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is madness, madness, I say.

www.earthday.net

take the shocking quiz

Suggested xmas List

Getting Started On My Single Online Identity Management

We all ought to do this. I think LID, openID, and Yadis all make a lot of sense. Not sure why we need all three, or how they interact, or how they overlap, but I will be figuring that out shortly.

Post Midterm Elections Video

Professional Excuse-Making Consultants

I could have thought of that ... but didnt. Amazing. Good. Bad. Wow.

ultraviolence, not just in the movie, but the book

Here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2141050/
and here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2141050/
and here:
http://www.slate.com/id/2152754/entry/0/

... show an amazing new (for me)(and, I suspect, for others) of the bible as the most violent revolting set of stories, making the (old school) Hansel & Gretel stories seem tame.

Well-balanced artile at African complexities or children, labor, the UN, et cetera

One example of a provocative inquiry is whether children are always/mostly/seldom best left in their parent's care. Comments please.

Worth a few minutes

interesting survival statisics as well

Google allows downloading books

One more item on the list of the internet living-up to its highest ideals. Well done, Google. Where are the rest of you?

Please join now, the world can not wait even one more day for you

www.amnesty.org

Dont Spy On Me

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact

Technology Review: Emerging Technologies and their Impact
Do not purchase Sony BMG music CD's any longer. They are scum, as well as lying petty thieves.

The World Like You Have Never Seen It Before

There's Not Enough Money in Politics By Tim Harford

There's Not Enough Money in Politics By Tim Harford

Could this be true?

Men are week & greedy, always have been, always will be.

Episode 2: The Day The Water Died - Sierra Club Chronicles - Sierra Club

Exxon just made the largest profit in the history of history, $36B, at the same time the country, and the world, was in teh midst of suffering from Katrina & other storms, and Iraq, and other crises, and all at the same time they have not paid a single cent to the Valdez disaster victims. What? ..... can't they afford it? Didnt they loose that case in a court of law? Don't thehy think they owe it?

Tell me, please, exactly how could you sleep at night if you worked for Exxon?

Read more at www.sierraclub.org/tv/e...

The National Archives: The Charters Of Freedom

Read more at www.rsspopper.com/redir...

Carbonfund.org

If the government does not have the forsight to do this, then I will. You ought to too.

Read more at www.carbonfund.org/carb...

Eiffel Tower, Tour Eiffel Paris - QTVR Photo-Images - QuickTime VR Photos Panoramiques from panoramas.dk

Eiffel Tower, Tour Eiffel Paris - QTVR Photo-Images - QuickTime VR Photos Panoramiques from panoramas.dkAmazing.

frontline: the war behind closed doors | PBS

frontline: the war behind closed doors | PBS

If only any one in this country could read and or read this page, the world wouldnt be circling the drain right now.

Keep A Child Alive

www.keepachildalive.org...

ONE Blog

ONE Blog

Possibly the most important thing any one of our generation will participate in.

Get off your ass.

Democracy in America, Then and Now, a Struggle Against Majority Tyranny - New York Times

www.nytimes.com/2006/01... yup!

Wayward Christian Soldiers - New York Times

The quotes:"We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Mr. Stanley.andJerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" make me nauseous.But then:... the Christian community's primary mission must be "to hunger for righteousness, to pursue peace, to forbear revenge, to love enemies, ...make me think that there may be some tiny kernel of hope. Nah, these people are nucking futs, forget it. They will blow-up the world before coming to their senses.

Read at www.nytimes.com/2006/01...

please do not buy diamonds

http://www.un.org/peace/africa/Diamond.html

http://www.amnestyusa.org/diamonds/index.do

one of my software pet peeve

It bugs me to no end when software vendors make rude assumptions about how their software ought to be installed and run on my machine. I just installed Adobe PhotoShop Elements and this damn thing has a half dozen pieces of software running in the background and one in the system tray. I never asked for them during the installer. I dont want them there now. This is, in some teeny tiny minute way, theft of my system's resources & I resent it. Do I have to kill these damn things from the task manager every time I log-in to Windohs? Adobe is bad. So are so many others. For all software developers reading this, drop dead.

Bruce Schneier: Unchecked presidential power

Bruce Schneier: Unchecked presidential power
Scum.

VWvortex Forums: A photo tour of the Transparent Factory in Dresden

Those Gerries!

Chatopus - Palm OS Instant Messaging Client For XMPP / Jabber

viva la Jabber

Google free proxy!

How to get to websites you might otherwise be prevented from viewing.

free 411 service

You have been notified: do not ever call Stinkular's 411 service again.

Acumen Fund - Our Work - Health Technology

50 Coolest Websites 2005 - TIME.com

Concurring Opinions: The Airline Screening Playset: Hours of Fun!

Roman Room Trick

Celebrity Prank Phone Calls

The Register-Herald -- Dishing it out

worldometers.info

PATRIOT Act secret-superwarrants use is up 10,000 percent

---

From: Cory Doctorow
Posted At: Sunday, 2005 November 06 22:35
Posted To: Technology
Conversation: Boing Boing
Subject: PATRIOT Act secret-superwarrants use is up 10,000 percent
Sensitivity: Private

Cory Doctorow: The dread PATRIOT Act created many new powers for law-enforcement, including the ability to secure the prized super-warrants called National Security Letters without judicial oversight. In the time since PATRIOT was passed, their use by the FBI has increased by 10,000 percent. Each of these warrants can be used to invade the lives of many Americans, and none of them are being issued with a judge's oversight after presentation of evidence justifying these intrusions into the lives of private individuals. These warrants are issued on a copper's say-so, without the due process that are the hallmarks of democracy.

How far can one FSA go? Well, last year, they were used to secure the records of every single guest in every hotel in Las Vegas over a four-day period: 250,000 people (the investigation was inconclusive). The use of NSLs is common, but us hearing about them is rare: NSLs come with gag-orders that prohibit those who receive them from discussing them.

Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.

The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks -- and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined...

A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.

Link (via Deep Links)

some one's collection of some funny stuff

Intolerable Beauty ? Portraits of American Mass Consumption

US Continues to Export Freedom & Democracy by Torturing People

Official Google Blog: The illuminated continent

Wow!

Love the internet sometimes.

as if anyone needed another reason to hate Wal*Scum or Dubya

Cory Doctorow: Wal-Mart called the police on a high-school student who brought in a pic of a homemade anti-George Bush poster for photo-finishing. The Secret Service went to the kid's high-school and confiscated the poster.

Jarvis had assigned her senior civics and economics class "to take photographs to illustrate their rights in the Bill of Rights," she says. One student "had taken a photo of George Bush out of a magazine and tacked the picture to a wall with a red thumb tack through his head. Then he made a thumb's-down sign with his own hand next to the President's picture, and he had a photo taken of that, and he pasted it on a poster..."

An employee in that Wal-Mart photo department called the Kitty Hawk police on the student. And the Kitty Hawk police turned the matter over to the Secret Service. On Tuesday, September 20, the Secret Service came to Currituck High.

"At 1:35, the student came to me and told me that the Secret Service had taken his poster," Jarvis says. "I didn't believe him at first. But they had come into my room when I wasn't there and had taken his poster, which was in a stack with all the others."

PBS | I, Cringely . October 13, 2005 - Seeing Is Believing

Wow, Apple is on its way to another new height.

Who is the Bono of the TV world (to do that first killer TV ad')?

The Academy of American Poets - Do not go gentle into that good night

Carbonfund brought to you by Working Assets

BBC - Press Office - George Bush on Elusive Peace

He ought to be hospitalized.

I-Hacked.com Taking Advantage Of Technology - Beer Can Padlock Shim

Taking Advantage Of Technology - Beer Can Padlock Shim

Free Press : Stop News Fraud

Free Press : Stop News Fraud

Scum.

George Orwell's world is just about here

From: Cory Doctorow
Posted At: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 00:41
Posted To: Technology
Conversation: Boing Boing
Subject: Students for Orwellian Society: 2005 is 21 years too late!
Sensitivity: Private

Cory Doctorow: Tracy sez, "StudentsforOrwell.org collects and documents the steady progress the U.S. government has been making towards acheiving Ingsoc's three major ideals: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, put forth in George Orwell's prophetic 1984.

"One entry under 'War is Peace': 'According to the Bush administration, the Duelfer report which conclusively showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq actually justifies the war in Iraq.' "If that's not doublethink, I don't know what is!" Link (Thanks, Tracy!)

Magic Man

New York Times > Travel Guide > Minnesota

Read about Bob Dylan's map for Bono.

NASA Plan to Return to the Moon

purely asinine

 

---

From: CmdrTaco
Posted At: Thursday, 2005 September 15 10:49
Posted To: Technology
Conversation: Slashdot
Subject: NASA Plan to Return to the Moon
Sensitivity: Private

sjoeboo writes "NASA briefed senior White House officials Wednesday on its plan to spend $100 billion during the next 12 years building the spacecraft and rockets it needs to put humans back on the Moon by 2018. The U.S. space agency now expects to roll out its lunar exploration plan to key Congressional committees on Friday and to the broader public through a news conference on Monday."

Read more

Tor: An anonymous Internet communication system

For those times when anonymity is important.

Brilliant promotional item from a vasectomy doctor

Sunday September 4, 2005 Most Emailed New York Times Articles

Sunday, September 4, 2005 Most E-Mailed Articles

Past 24 Hours | Past 7 Days Updated every 15 minutes

1. OPINION | September 3, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist: United States of Shame By MAUREEN DOWD W. drove his budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't dry. Bye, bye, American lives.

2. OPINION | September 4, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist: Falluja Floods the Superdome By FRANK RICH The failures of 9/11 come home to roost.

3. OPINION | September 4, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist: The Bursting Point By DAVID BROOKS Hurricane Katrina means that the political culture, already sour and bloody-minded in many quarters, will shift.

4. OPINION | September 4, 2005 Op-Ed Contributor: Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? By ANNE RICE Why a city we were happy to visit was slow to get help.

5. OPINION | September 2, 2005 Op-Ed Columnist: A Can't-Do Government By PAUL KRUGMAN America, once famous for its can-do attitude, now has a can't-do government that makes excuses instead of doing its job.

The Latest IP Crime: "Box-Wrap" Patent Infringement: Corante > Copyfight

I advise every person who owns a Lexmarck printer to go out in to their public square and refill their cartrdige.

I advise everyone who owns a Gillette razor to go out in to their public square and replace the head.

I advise these people to advertise this action in their public paper or on their site or any where else they think can bring the most publicity to the act.

I dare Lexmark & Gilette to touch any one of these people.

Once this is done, legal precedent will have be set that this is no longer legal and enforcable.

End of story.

Greed is reaching the stomach-turning point.

America's Newest Scientists

I wish I had written this

Leave My Child Alone

If every parent was intelligent enough to fill this out, there would not be any war right now.

F-18 fighters over burning oil fields

Join up young man, where you can blow stuff up & kill things. May as well, you have no future: the NSF, schools & national parks have all been cut, and Dubya & Robertson have cemented the notion of evil in the rest of the world's head.

In Bangalore, India, a Cuddle With Your Baby Requires a Bribe - New York Times

1. http://tinyurl.com/7jmvb
2. http://tinyurl.com/dpv3z
3. http://tinyurl.com/88j3k
4. http://tinyurl.com/axusm


Maybe there are others who are better at low-level shake-downs than the USA.

The ONE Campaign | Partners

The ONE Campaign | Partners

If you removed all the organizations who are doing this so that they can get in to some ghost-stories hocus-pocus after-life, went with the remaining organizations on the list, we would really have something.

Traffic ticket update: we won!

 

---

From: Mark Frauenfelder
Posted At: Wednesday, 2005 August 24 17:35
Posted To: Technology
Conversation: Boing Boing
Subject: Traffic ticket update: we won!
Sensitivity: Private

Mark Frauenfelder:
(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) I'm very happy to report that the traffic ticket my wife got last year was dismissed. (Read all about the lousy circumstances surrounding the ticket here.)

I thank the folks at Ticket Assassin for helping me beat this ticket. I paid $25 for the TicketAssassin Shareware, "an arsenal of forms, examples and guidelines assembled to help you fight your ticket via Trial By Written Declaration, a process you can do entirely by mail. This collection includes specific court documents needed to contest your case, dozens of examples, and comprehensive, easy-to-follow directions and guidelines for their proper use."

The TicketAssassin folks also answered my emailed questions about the specifics of the ticket.

And it worked! The ticket was dismissed and the check I sent for $190 is being returned.

Trial By Written Declaration is the best way to fight a ticket. I am thrilled with TicketAssassin!

Read more

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination

Brought to you by the people who brought you Dubya The Dolt.

Porcupine Baby | Tech Gadgets Blog - LiewCF.com

neat

just a fun Flash for the geeks in the audience

Toyota Prius that gets 250mpg

artemis67 writes "Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage. It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret -- a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel. Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car."

Read more

The Man, your garbage, and the law: followups

 

Xeni Jardin: Recently on Boing Boing, I posted an item from Declan McCullagh's politech list about a Montana judge's ruling that it's okay for police to rummage through your garbage for incriminating evidence -- even without a search warrant or court order. Declan has posted a number of updates to politech, including this reader comment:

I think someone could come up with a business plan around this: truly private garbage collection. You don't put the trash out at the corner, but contract with the garbage collector to pick up the garbage in your yard, with some sort of contract that the garbage is still yours until properly incinerated, and the collector would dispose of it in a way that guarantees privacy - incineration.

I suspect this garbage company could charge a pretty penny. After all, just because people are disposing of something (because it has outlived its usefulness or is taking up too much space) doesn't mean they want it ending up in the hands of others who wish them harm. -- Bryan Murley

Politech followup items:

Russell Roberts on Hayek and the social norms of trash privacy

Local paper digs through police trash -- after cops say it's OK for them to do

Jonaathan Weinberg on 1984 and right to privacy in your trash

Read more

FlickrBlog

FlickrBlog

Great feature.

Boing Boing: Fighting a crooked tow truck company and winning

Boing Boing: Fighting a crooked tow truck company and winning

Not unlike the time I took a flatbed to the spinal column for LJ.

Boing Boing: Chevron being sued in US for hiring Nigerian death squads

Boing Boing: Chevron being sued in US for hiring Nigerian death squads

TheDamnBlog.com

TheDamnBlog.com

A two-button hack for elevators.

oishii! - ephemeral pheromonal de.icio.us-ness

oishii! - ephemeral pheromonal de.icio.us-ness

Fuck the South

Fuck the South

The Ringing Movie

The Ringing Movie

Get Rich Slowly

---

From: Mark Frauenfelder
Posted At: Thursday, 2005 July 21 17:44
Posted To: Technology
Conversation: Boing Boing
Subject: Get Rich Slowly
Sensitivity: Private

Mark Frauenfelder: In April, foldedspace published ultra-condensed summaries of several books on becoming financially independent. This is a good idea. Most of these kinds of books can be condensed to a couple of hundred words. Of course, that doesn't do any good to the authors, because you can't make a book out of 200 words.

7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life by Michelle Singletary is a recent all-purpose financial book. I was ready to dismiss it for the absolute stupidity of mantra number one (stupidity in its phrasing, not in its advice), but after reading the book, I have to admit its advice is solid. It features: ?

Mantra #1: "If it's on your ass, it's not an asset." If you can wear it, it's not an investment. Also, something is riding your ass (such as a high house payment), it's not an asset.?

Mantra #2: "Is this a need or a want?" This is a question Kris has been trying to get me to ask myself for years.?

Mantra #3: "Sweat the small stuff." Do worry about the small expenses; they add up.?

Mantra #4: "Cash is better than credit." There is almost no reason to carry a credit card.?

Mantra #5: "Keep it simple." With money, avoid anything that seems complicated. If you don't understand it, avoid it. You'll probably lose money.?

Mantra #6: "Priorities lead to prosperity." Determine what's important to you, and pursue that with your time and money.?

Mantra #7: "Enough is enough." Don't overconsume. Recognize when you have fulfilled your needs and your wants.

Link

 

Telegraph | Opinion | Where is the Gandhi of Islam?

Telegraph | Opinion | Where is the Gandhi of Islam?

NRDC Action Fund - Fighting in Congress for our Environment

http://blog.nrdcactionfund.org/

StopLandmines.org

StopLandmines.org

CommonTunes - a community directory of freely available music

CommonTunes - a community directory of freely available music

ExxonMobil and President Bush: A Documented Love Affair

ExxonMobil and President Bush: A Documented Love Affair

Scum.

Oh Yes, It???s Devo: An Interview with Jerry Casale

Oh Yes, It's Devo: An Interview with Jerry Casale

Hey Suburbia - We're in love with you

Hey Suburbia - We're in love with you

Awesome.

I wish Napoleon Dynamite was in a band.

Home automation players lock horns... | The Register

Home automation players lock horns... | The Register

"Freedom Fries" Jones wants US troops to come home

 

---

From: Mark Frauenfelder
Posted At: Monday, 2005 June 13 11:07
Posted To: Technology
Conversation:
Subject: "Freedom Fries" Jones wants US troops to come home
Sensitivity: Private

Mark Frauenfelder: Republican Congressman Walter Jones, who led the important battle to rename french fries and french toast "freedom fries" and "freedom toast" in the Capitol's cafeteria, says he's going to introduce a bill to start bringing US troops home from Iraq.

"I just feel that the reason of going in for weapons of mass destruction, the ability of the Iraqis to make a nuclear weapon, that's all been proven that it was never there," Jones said on ABC. Link

 

ChoicePoint and Acxiom are 100% inaccurate: study

 

---

From: Cory Doctorow
Posted At: Wednesday, 2005 June 08 00:36
Posted To: Technology
Conversation:
Subject: ChoicePoint and Acxiom are 100% inaccurate: study
Sensitivity: Private

Cory Doctorow: Data-brokers like ChoicePoint and Acxiom suck so bad that in a recent Privacy Activism study, they were found to have inaccuracies in one hundred percent of the reports in the sample, including incorrectly identifying subjects' sex and even incorrectly describing several participants as officers of companies. As Schneier points out, this kind of study is nearly impossible to undertake, "[Privacy Activism] had to find companies who were doing background checks on employees anyway, and who felt that participating in this study with PrivacyActivism was important. Then those companies asked their employees if they wanted to anonymously participate in the study."

Although outside of the specific data that was the focus of the study, several other inaccuracies reported by the participants are worth mentioning:

* 100% of participants had at least one phone number omitted in reports from ChoicePoint.

* Three different participants were incorrectly reported as "officers of corporations" in the ChoicePoint reports.

* One participant's ChoicePoint report had several of her ex-husband's addresses listed under her name

* One participant's Acxiom report had an incorrect gender

Link

Participatory Culture Foundation

Participatory Culture Foundation

Thirst Kills, no, really, ask the late Saudi prince

The CIA is again (well, wait, were they ever .... oh, forget it) completely out of control, without oversight, without ethics, morals, scruples, or anything remotely resembling the aforementioned. They are a self-defeatist group of sub-humans.

The CIA ought to be dissembled.

Former CIA agents ought to be jailed.

Those former agents ought to roll-over on their higher-ups & their higher-ups ought to be jailed.

The president ought to apologize to the country & the world & resign.

Obeying Authorities Will Get You Killed

Wired 13.06: START

The Credit Card Prank

The Credit Card Prank

We knew this already, but .... some of these are pretty outrageous.

World Environment Day

World Environment Day 2002

United Nations Environment Programme - UNEP

United Nations Environment Programme - UNEP

Tinkering School

Tinkering School

Great idea.

I would send my little ones.

good by TiVo ... check this out

Wow!, that is one kewl looking case.

I am going to put MythTv on one of these.

Viceversa

Viceversa

clever.

NASA World Wind

NASA World Wind

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

http://www.un.org/rights/

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets

---

From: samzenpus
Posted At: Monday, 2005 May 30 17:13
Posted To: Technology
Conversation:
Subject: 60% Of U.S. Believe Life Exists On Other Planets
Sensitivity: Private

jangobongo writes "Does intelligent life exist anywhere besides Earth? Are regular churchgoers less likely to believe life has evolved on other planets? Do more Democrats or Republicans believe in extraterrestrials? And if alien life makes contact, what should we do? These questions were asked on a poll released last week that shows that two-thirds of Americans do believe that life exists on other planets, and of that group, 90% say if we receive a message from another planet we should reply. The poll was commissioned by the SETI Institute and the National Geographic Channel."

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#1

Vol 26 · Issue 1264 · PUBLISHED 2/23/2005

URL: www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

HOME: www.citypages.com

 

No. 1?

 

America by the numbers

 

by Michael Ventura

 

 

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

 

• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

 

• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

 

• "The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).

 

• Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). 

 

• "The European Union leads the U.S. in...the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised" (The European Dream, p.70).

 

• "Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature" (The European Dream, p.70).

 

• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).

 

• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).  

 

• The World Health Organization "ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]...37th." In the fairness of health care, we're 54th. "The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world" (The European Dream, pp.79-80).

 

• "The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country?

 

• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

 

• "U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower" (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look "developed" to you? Yet it's the only "developed" country to score lower in childhood poverty.

 

• Twelve million American families--more than 10 percent of all U.S. households--"continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves." Families that "had members who actually went hungry at some point last year" numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).

 

• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

 

• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

 

• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

 

• "Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.

 

• "Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies" (The European Dream, p.66). "In a recent survey of the world's 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European" (The European Dream, p.69).

 

• "Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European.... In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world's leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European.... The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world's top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies...are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list" (The European Dream, p.68).

 

• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).

 

• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).

 

• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million--one in five--unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).

 

• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That's why we talk nice to them.) "By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom" (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.

 

• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world's largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world's largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world's largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

 

• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

 

• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.

 

• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

 

• "Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).

 

• "Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

 

• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

 

• "Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

 

• "The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever" (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).

 

The USA is No. 1 in weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

 

Reprinted from the Austin Chronicle.

 

· Vol 26 · Issue 1264 · PUBLISHED 2/23/2005

www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp

www.citypages.com