ADMINISTRIVIA: “Drive by commenting”

Friday, October 31, 2008

Just for the record, not that “drive by commenters” read anything, you’re just wasting your time leaving comments here with fake email addresses. I enjoy the comments. Lengthen this, prolong that, gain weight: ll amuse me. Lose weight: makes me sad. I really do enjoy the comments. It’s probably the one aspect of my life where I get “true feedback”. That being said, putting in a phony email address will get you comment marked as “spam” as soon as the “Thank you for your comment” message bounces. Some are dead giveaways by the website they seek to promote either with urls within the comment or in the identity section. Just wasting time and electrons.

So please comment. I don’t use the email address for anything but one message to confirm it’s validity. But I was thinking of a charity fund for FOWG bloggers making less that 250k!

rofl!

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TECHNOLOGY: DROPBOX, a better FOLDERSHARE?

Thursday, October 30, 2008

https://www.getdropbox.com/

DROPBOX

Perhaps a better version of FolderShare? (A file sync utility with some bells and whistles?)

Note: For some reason, they’ve given me some invites.

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Posted by reinkefj

RANT: The Gooferment and HDTV!

Thursday, October 30, 2008

RESPONDING TO A NOTE ABOUT HD TV!

I’m not sure I see the great value in the gooferment forcing HD on everyone. Like Bastiat taught, look for the hidden costs. In this case, a whole load of TVs are rendered obsolete before their useful life has end. Unless a box is added on whose cost is “defrayed” by a gooferment coupon. No inefficiency there! It induces meaningless consumerism, as folks, who may have better uses for their money, are induced / forced to upgrade. If HD was “such a great idea”, then folks would migrate to it without the force of gooferment guns pointed at their heads. Argh! A pox on all the politicians. See what you started. :-)

p.s., don’t forget about all the green costs as all those “old” TVs get tossed in landfills planet wide. Yeah, the gooferment is the ecology’s friend. With “friends” like that who needs enemies!

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GUNS: Obama is an anti-gun liberal

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

http://cli.gs/NPUQ91

American Thinker: Democrats Should Fear the ‘Brady Effect’.
October 29, 2008
By Brad O’Leary

*** begin quote ***

As a U.S. Senator, Obama voted to ban most rifle ammunition commonly used for hunting and sport shooting. As a State Senator, he voted to uphold local gun bans and the criminal prosecution of citizens and homeowners who use a gun in self-defense. Also as a State Senator, he endorsed raising the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition 500 percent. And Obama supports gun registration – which history has shown is the first step to gun confiscation.

If Obama’s legislative record on the Second Amendment isn’t clear enough, he infamously reminded voters in Pennsylvania earlier this year of his disdain for gun owners, calling them bitter xenophobes who use the Bill of Rights, which protects gun ownership, and religion as a crutch.

*** end quote ***

When politicians are anti-gun, you have to ask what do they have in store for the citizenry that requires them to be disarmed. If the Shoah / Holocaust has taught us anything, it is that Genocide follows Disarmament. It was so in pre-WW2 Germany, China, Cambodia, and countless places at different times.

The Dead Old White Guys knew that the Government, any government, was dangerous. Hope when folks think about voting, they remember the “gun rights” issue.

“A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Seems simple enough to me? Take a minute and either view or download the video at http://www.jpfo.org/filegen-a-m/2a-today-download.htm (It’s free!)

Think for a moment about how you’ll feel when you, your family, and neighbors are herded by armed men into the railroad cars for the camps. Don’t say it can’t happen here. It did! Think back to the Japanese Internment. Think back to how Indians were treated. Mao said: “Power comes at the end of the barrel of a gun!” How many did he kill?

For me, the “gun issue” is a litmus test on politicians. It tells me whether I can trust them with the awesome power of the government.

I think once again, America is at a crossroads. The choices are obvious. Except to the sheeple who have been dumbed down by gooferment education.

“Cold dead hands”!

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RANT: Lincoln wasnt the worst, but close!

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

http://www.lifetrekcoaching.com/current/index.html

PROVISION #588 (10/26/08): PROBABLY NO GOD?

*** begin quote ***

Did that title get your attention? If so then the campaign to put secularist posters on the sides of British buses may achieve its intended result. But I think the posters miss the mark. The problem is not with God; the problem is with parochial ideas of God. That’s what Abraham Lincoln had to say in his Second Inaugural Address (reprinted below). It is also what I understand to be the true nature of here, now, and forever. God is no Judge; God is Understanding.

*** and ***

People love to find someone or something to blame. It’s called scapegoating, and we do it to God just as much as we do it to other people and things. But I stand with Lincoln. There are no simple answers as to who or what is to blame. There are no good guys or bad guys; there are only people who are seeking to meet their needs as best they know how. We can respect each other for that and, if we choose to do so, we can learn to understand the Understanding that what would make life more wonderful for us all.

*** end quote ***

I like the “Provisions” as thought-provoking.

Unfortunately, citing Lincoln, throws me into a tizzy.

I am from the school of thought that the Second American Revolution, aka what the winners call the “Civil War”, aka what the losers call the “Wr of Northern Aggression”, was about taxes. Not slavery.

The Industrial North wanted to prosper at the expense of the Agrarian South.

Lincoln was not the heroic figure portrayed by the media as “freeing the slaves”. He was a venial politician that was in the pockets of the railroads. He had no interest in slavery, except as it appealed to his base.

The world, for the most part, eliminated slavery peacefully.

He waged war on the civilian population, which up to that point was unheard of.

The vaunted Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves in the areas he didn’t control. What happened to the ones in areas he did control.

No, a poor example distracts me from the point of the Provision, i.e., our mistaken notion of God.

AND, Lincoln converted the “United States of America” into the empire of the USA. The States forever were lost in terms of a check on the power of the Federal Government.

In the pantheon of Presidents, Lincoln has to rank at the bottom, or close to it.

His competition for the bottom might be FDR for removing us from the Gold Standard, or Truman for Hiroshima / Nagasaki.

Upon reflection, Lincoln gets nudged out by Wilson. He campaigned on “Peace” and immediately got us into WW1. WW1’s “peace settlement” led to WW2. And, Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act which created the exact thing that Andrew Jackson killed. An engine of debt and inflation.

Sigh, please give us more ineffective and merely corrupt politicians. The “idealists” kill us and Liberty.

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PRODUCTIVITY: Forcing change

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I write a weekly ezine of news for my fellow Jaspers. In an effort to reduce the amount of time spent on it, I’ve been morphing to different strategies, tactics, processes, programs, and procedures. In an ill-measured trek, I’ve chopped it from a horrendous weekly effort of tens of hours to a hard to measure 90 minutes. One of the big strategy changes was, to instead of collecting text files on my notebook, I created a blog. Each day, when finding something, I’d put an entry on the blog. Slightly less time spent doing that. And, ensuring that I had the entire week’s collections was trivial. All I had to do was cut ‘n’ paste from the blog to the webpage. In changing platforms from LUGGABLE (a dell xps) to MCBA (Mac Book Air), I have now for the first week transitioned completely onto MCBA. Where I used to use Microsoft Word and Filezilla, I now use IWORKPAGES, NVU, and FILEZILLA on MCBA. It’s apparent to me now that I can just use NVU for everything. Next week will be even easier.

Just thought I’d share a lesson learned, just forcing yourself to a better place is often not as bad as it seems.

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MONEY: Potentially a raid on your 401K?

Monday, October 27, 2008

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=79168

Democrats target your 401(k)

Posted: October 27, 2008 1:00 am Eastern

Roger Hedgecock is the longtime top-rated radio talk host in San Diego, Calif., on KOGO and, more recently, a nationally syndicated Saturday radio host heard already in 47 markets and on XM Satellite.

*** begin quote ***

Democrats plan to tap your private retirement plan to fund Barack Obama’s many promises to expand the power and size of the federal government.

Your pre-tax annual contribution to a 401(k) will be taxed under a plan considered by House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support.

*** and ***

They would eliminate the annual tax deferral for 401(k) contributions, which reduces federal revenues by about $80 billion per year. Instead, they propose that the federal government pay every worker $600 per year (inflation adjusted each year) and require every worker to invest 5 percent of their after-tax pay into a new retirement account to be administered by the Social Security Administration. The money would be invested in a new class of government bond which would yield 3 percent per year, adjusted for inflation.

This plan was originally proposed by Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, and presented to Miller and McDermott last week at a House hearing.

These liberal Democrats thought the plan ingenious. They could take over the largest pool of private savings in the U.S., redirecting some $3 trillion to government spending.

*** end quote ***

This is scary stuff. Need to look for more details.

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LIBERTY: Marriage? Gooferment MYOB!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Op-Ed Contributor
Taking Marriage Private
By STEPHANIE COONTZ
Published: November 26, 2007

*** begin quote ***

WHY do people — gay or straight — need the state’s permission to marry? For most of Western history, they didn’t, because marriage was a private contract between two families. The parents’ agreement to the match, not the approval of church or state, was what confirmed its validity.

*** end quote ***

Why indeed do WE, the free sovereign individuals, need the Gooferment’s permission, pay them, and give them allegiance to their interference?

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POTUS08: O IS really a Marxist!

Monday, October 27, 2008

Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered

Wow! Here’s a bombshell. It exposes that the man is a Marxist Socialist. Hearing his words, he, in Clintonesque stype, parses around it. Never letting anyone know what his codewords mean. Hold on to your wallet if he gets elected!

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Posted by reinkefj

TECH: BACKUP, Backup, backup. Fail at your own peril!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

http://cli.gs/7q2rBv

Back Up Your Computer to Save Time and Money

Saturday, 25th October 2008 (by J.D.)

*** begin quote ***

Here’s a public service message: Back up your computer regularly. This has more to do with your pocketbook than you might think.

Not only was I sick this week, but the hard drive on my laptop crashed. It’s gone. The Apple Geniuses (that’s what they call themselves!) cannot salvage it. I was able to pull the single most important document (the GRS spreadsheet) and a few posts-in-progress, but I lost a hell of a lot, including:

*** end quote ***

It never ceases to amaze me how pros get caught short.

And, as I have learned the hard way, back in my FBC days, you have to test the restoration.

My story was entertaining. Since it was a test! If it’d had been “for real”, the outcome might have been different. I was challenged to justify at the highest levels why the organization had to run a very expensive Thanksgiving Day test of our recovery capability. IT was a huge multimillion dollar effort. I was insistent. (That was in my younger days when I was full of “principle”.) We were under regulatory scrutiny and my plan was pulling them out of the mess that they were in. (Those were the days when folks listened to my advice as opposed to seeing my gray hair!) I refused to sign off and certify to the regulatory authority that we were in compliance with the agreement to “be recoverable”. The entire chain of command was saying it was a lock sure process. But, I insisted on a test. (In injineering skool, we waz taught about Mister Murphy and his law!) My Boss and his Boss gave me weak support, but under pressure had to admit that based on their reviews they saw no reason why a test was absolutely necessary. So, I was called up on the carpet. (It was a very lovely RED carpet.) To explain. (Get my arm twisted.) It was a subcommittee of the BoD. (I learned later that it was the Audit subcommittee.) My defense was simple: “The regulators will hold me and the Board of Directors personally liable if we cause a market meltdown by being unable to recover. Since I’m too young to be unemployed, I need a test to sign off. I’d suggest that you have more to lose financially that I do, so you might want a test too.” That simple logic carried the day.

The Head of the Largest Business unit, (a trading desk), was to go run the test. I was there as an observer. (Soon to be unemployed, if the grazillion dollars was wasted.) The Head Poobaah was one of the one’s who confidently predicted success and was upset that “his bonus was going to be reduced because of the expense of this test”. Rules of engagement were that WTC (where the data center was) is gone. A core cadre of people are in Sunguard Philly with all the back up stuff stored there and were to recover the business from that point. (It really was the simplest of the seven disaster scenarios.)

(Can you see where this is going?)

Bottom line: Test failed. AND, among the reasons for the failure, in addition to the usual media and process failures, was that the Poobaah’s trading desk had essential data store on their PCs on the trading desks that was NEVER baked up.

That incident taught me to have lots of “belts and suspenders”.

From time to time the Universe has reminded me of that lesson. Hopefully, you can learn it without the painful experience.

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