POLITICS: Truthers, birthers, and all the other tin foil hats have to just wait a few decades

Sunday, September 13, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyKR2-A0KPU

Charlie Sheen addresses the President about 9/11 in a special video message, shortly after releasing his “20 Minutes with the President,”

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Six safe for work minutes. In asking some “interesting” questions. Unfortunately, it takes decades for the “truth” to come out. Be it Pearl Harbor, JFK, or whatever … it takes decades. And, one quickly realizes that both the D’s and the R’s are just two sides of the same coin. Each election is merely a kabuki dance to entertain us into thinking we have a choice or what we “decide” makes a difference. But nothing ever changes! Argh!

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Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: Cloud Computing has risks

Sunday, September 13, 2009

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/10/yeah-ok-so-facebook-punkd-us/#comment-2977957

Yeah Ok, So Facebook Punk’d Us by Michael Arrington on September 10, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Today that changed. They punk’d us, and we fell for it. Hard.

*** end quote ***

With all due respect to some good clean fun, it does make a “teachable moment”.

(1) Cloud computing is not without its risks. You can’t run “production quality” “books and records” type applications on services that you don’t control.

(2) Not everything is as it appears on the internet. The bad guys have the ability to hide behind a “web front”, stand in the middle of your conversation, and read all your traffic.

(3) Without end to end encryption, nothing is private. Every packet is a post card.

(4) In the desire for a scoop, confirm that others have seen the phenom you’re scooping about. Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it is reported on the internet.

(5) TANSTAFL! Every once in while, someone plays a practical on you. It’s the cost of doing business.

Hmmm!

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RANT: Too big to fail?

Saturday, September 12, 2009

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aUTh4YMmI6QE

Lehman Monday Morning Lesson Lost With Obama Regulator-in-Chief
By Alison Fitzgerald and Christine Harper

*** begin quote ***

“They should be broken up and sold off,” Fine, 58, said he declared, as Geithner scribbled notes before thanking him for his time and ushering him out into the January chill.

The Treasury secretary didn’t follow through on Fine’s suggestion, just as he didn’t act on the advice of former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, or Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. head Sheila C. Bair, or the dozens of economists and politicians who pressed the White House for measures that would limit the size or activities of U.S. banks.

One year after the demise of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. paralyzed the financial system, “mega-banks,” as Fine’s group calls them, are as interconnected and inscrutable as ever. The Obama administration’s plan for a regulatory overhaul wouldn’t force them to shrink or simplify their structure.

*** end quote ***

Washington is corrupt.

Big financial entities make BIG financial contributions.

We probably don’t know half of the stuff that goes on below the surface.

So, we the taxpayers, get screwed repeatedly.

If you were the regulator, and you were presented with an “easy” solution (i.e., break up, sell off, and limit the future size), what would you do?

Seems easy to me.

Pick a big number say 1B$ (that’s billion with a B) and say “No finaincial entity insured by the Fed or the Federal Government gets bigger than that!”

Seems trivial to me.

But, where would the big campaign contributions and payoffs come from?

Washington and all the little DCs are corrupt.

We need more work, workers, and a lot less politicians.

Every wonder why there are SO MANY lawyers?

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FUN: What should Insurance Companies do in response to Obamacare? (WWICD)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

http://knappster.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-insurance-companies-should-do.html

*** begin quote ***

In my last post on ObamaCare, I put myself in the shoes of the President of the United States. Now I’m going to put myself in the shoes of the president of an insurance company. If I found myself in that position, I’d be getting my ducks in a row right now — calling emergency board meetings, working out details with the company’s officers, etc. I’d be ready to move the instant it became obvious that this bill was going to pass, and this is what my move would look like:

– I’d inform the company’s policyholders that the company is going out of business at the end of the next billing cycle, that their policies will be canceled effective that date, and that they’ll need to find coverage elsewhere;

– I’d inform the company’s workers that their employment is drawing to an end; and

– I’d inform stockholders that the company’s assets are to be liquidated through arranged profitable sale where possible and auction where necessary, and that after the company’s debts are settled and liabilities zeroed out, each stockholder will receive a final dividend per share from any remaining monies.

I might or might not send a note to President Obama, Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi. If I did, it would be short and to the point:

Find some other business to run, asshole — this one’s no longer available.

*** end quote ***

ROFL, but absolutely correct.

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SERVICE: Amazon updates their sales process

Friday, September 11, 2009

AMAZON changes it’s sales process

*** begin quote ***

Dear Seller,

You recently signed up for Charge When Ship in your Seller Account.

With Charge When Ship:

* When you ship an order, you confirm the shipment, and provide shipping information in Manage Orders. If you have a Pro Merchant Subscription you can also use text-file feeds for this.

* We charge the buyer after you confirm a shipment, rather than when the order was placed, providing a better buyer experience.

* To keep buyers informed about their shipments, we display the shipping information in the buyer’s Amazon account, and we also send the buyer an e-mail notification with all the shipping information.

* You can cancel an order, if necessary, instead of confirming the shipment, and then we will not charge the buyer at all and you will not have to issue a refund.

We think you will find managing your orders is easier and more efficient with Charge When Ship. If you have questions, contact us using the “By e-mail” or “By phone” button in the Seller Support box found on the right side of seller Help pages.

Thank you for selling on Amazon.com

===========================================================

IMPORTANT REMINDER

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For each order you ship, you must confirm shipment within 30 days of the date the order was placed. Any order that has not been confirmed as shipped will be automatically cancelled after 30 days. This means we will not charge the customer and you will not be paid for the order.

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HOW TO CONFIRM SHIPMENTS

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You can confirm shipments easily in Manage Orders:

1. In your Seller Account, under the “Manage Your Orders” heading, click “View your orders” to find the order you want to confirm.

2. Click the “Confirm shipment” button next to the order (or below the order if you are looking at an order detail page).

3. Select the Ship Date and Carrier (such as USPS) from the drop-down lists.

4. Enter the Shipping Service (such as Ground) and the Tracking ID, if any (supplied by the carrier).

5. Click the “Confirm shipment” button.

For information on using a Shipping Confirmation feed to confirm shipment of multiple orders at once, follow this path in Amazon.com Help:

Selling at Amazon.com > Confirming Shipment > How to Confirm Shipment of Multiple Orders at the Same Time

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HOW TO CANCEL ORDERS

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If you are unable to ship an order, you can cancel it easily in Manage Orders:

1. In your Seller Account, under the “Manage Your Orders” heading, click “View your orders” to find the order you want to cancel.

2. Click the “Cancel order” button next to the order (or below the order if you are looking at an order detail page).

3. Select the appropriate reason, and then click Submit.

For information on cancelling orders using an Order Cancellation feed, follow this path in Amazon.com Help:

Selling at Amazon.com > Confirming Shipment > How to Cancel Orders

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SOFTWARE: Apple’s calendar is an “island”

Friday, September 11, 2009

Not that outlook is much better, but you can import to it.

iCal is supposed to, but try to figure out the format.

Hmmm!

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RANT: Another 9/11 and still we haven’t … …

Friday, September 11, 2009

… rebuilt the WTC (I prefer the middle finger design!);

… found OBL;

… brought our troops home;

… dismantled the TSA; and

… instructed our representatives about American values!

Donna Nobis Pacem

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QUOTE: Gooferment spending

Friday, September 11, 2009

“When a man spends his own money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about how much he spends and how he spends it.

When a man spends his own money to buy something for someone else, he is still very careful about how much he spends, but somewhat less what he spends it on.

When a man spends someone else’s money to buy something for himself, he is very careful about what he buys, but doesn’t care at all how much he spends.

And when a man spends someone else’s money on someone else, he doesn’t care how much he spends or what he spends it on. And that’s government for you.”

—-Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman

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LIBERTY: How do we get there?

Thursday, September 10, 2009

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/35350.html

September 8, 2009
On Larken Rose, Libertarian Organizations, and the Means to Achieving Liberty
Posted by Karen De Coster on September 8, 2009 09:17 AM

*** begin quote ***

I think, at this point, that nothing can be fixed via the political process. No ballots, no politicians, and no libertarian-lite legislation is going to restore liberty, because the political process has become so corrupt and its agents are immensely wealthy and empowered. We don’t have the political power to defeat them outright, but we do have the individual power – working in concert with one another – to resist them, impede them, protest them, deny them, and ally with others who wish to do the same.

*** end quote ***

She thinks it’s too late for a peaceful solution. Hope he’s wrong.

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PRODUCTIVITY: Copyrights hinder wisdom

Thursday, September 10, 2009

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/death-of-a-president200910?printable=true

A Clash of Camelots

Within months of J.F.K.’s death, the president’s widow asked William Manchester to write the authorized account of the assassination. He felt he couldn’t refuse her. Two years later, nearly broken by the task, Manchester found himself fighting a bitter, headline-making battle with Jackie and Bobby Kennedy over the finished book. The author chronicles the toll Manchester’s 1967 best-seller, The Death of a President, exacted—physically, emotionally, and financially—before it all but disappeared.

By Sam Kashner

October 2009

*** begin quote ***

By virtue of their original agreement with Harper & Row, the Kennedys continue to control the fate of The Death of a President. Even now, after William Manchester’s original manuscript has come home to Wesleyan, where it is held under a kind of house arrest—heavily censored, and subject to extremely restricted use—the Kennedy family has allowed the book to go out of print, according to John Manchester. Sitting in the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel in sight of Boston Common, where his father had first met Kennedy, when both men were newly home from the war, he says, “The Death of a President helped build that library, but if you go there today, there’s no mention of it or him anywhere. He was written out of their history.”

*** end quote ***

Interesting. Copyright law was intended to allow ideas to spread. Shouldn’t books that are “out of print” go into the public domain? With vendors like Lulu Print On Demand, there should NEVER be a reason for books to go “out of print”!

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