Reinke Faces Life

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3012989

Sources: Camera confiscated after claims of Pats spying on Jets
By Chris Mortensen ESPN.com
Updated: September 10, 2007, 6:39 PM ET

***Begin Quote***

NFL security confiscated a video camera and its tape from a New England Patriots employee on the team’s sideline during Sunday’s game against the Jets in a suspected spying incident, sources said.

***End Quote***

I’m surprised at this. And, I thought I was un-surprise-able!

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http://www.greatdreams.com/earthquake-survival.htm

***Begin Quote***

9) People inside of their vehicles are crushed when the road above falls in an earthquake and crushes their vehicles; which is exactly what happened with the slabs between the decks of the Nimitz Freeway. The victims of the San Francisco earthquake all stayed inside of their vehicles. They were all killed.

They could have easily survived by getting out and sitting or lying next to their vehicles, says the author. Everyone killed would have survived if they had been able to get out of their cars and sit or lie next to them. All the crushed cars had voids 3 feet high next to them, except for the cars that had columns fall directly across them.

***End Quote***

Alongside; not under!

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http://www.sirnosir.com/home_about_film.html

***Begin Quote***

This is why David Zeiger decided he had to make a documentary about the antiwar movement that we’ve been taught to forget: the antiwar movement that organised itself in barracks, on aircraft carriers, in country, at listening posts, in the line for mess hall. His film is called Sir! No Sir! and in this viewer’s opinion it’s one of the best documentaries of recent years.

***End Quote***

I guess I led a sheltered life. In my USAF time 70-73, I never saw any such resistance.

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http://execunet.blogspot.com/2007/08/miss-teen-usa-miss-south-carolina-power.html

Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Miss Teen USA, Miss South Carolina, & The Power of the Web

Dave Opton over at Execunet opined on the young lady’s flub. And, he was nice enough to allow my comment to post.

Upon reflection, either this young lady was amazingly dumb or amazingly smart. She may have had her fifteen minutes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_minutes_of_fame Or, she may have out Paris Hiltoned the latest vamp of the idle rich kids.

I don’t know.

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http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=no_trade-offs&ns=ThomasSowell&dt=08/28/2007&page=2

No Trade-Offs?
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

***Begin Quote***

More organs to transplant are needed, and people tend to supply more of anything when they are paid more — and especially when they are paid something instead of being paid nothing.

But, here as elsewhere, we must first overcome squeamishness. And the first step is to stop confusing it with being humane.

***End Quote***

We allow the politicians, bureaucrats, and fuzzy thinking sheep to keep us from doing the right thing in some many areas of life.

As you know, I believe that free markets are miniature elections. A buyer and seller can (usually) make a bargain from whence they both benefit. (if they didn’t, then the deal would not close.) That says to the world that X = Y. A barrel of oil is worth 65$. Aside from all other arguments, that sets the stage for people to make decisions and plans. If your potential use would bring you 66$ in value, then you proceed. Otherwise, you decline. It’s an election. And, it’s interesting because it sums up all the wants, need, and desires across all the people. The next barrel is up for bid. The one who needs it “most” will get it. And, they will have the money to pay based on their contributions to their fellow man. Yup, that’s right. The only way to get money is to appeal to you fellow man to give you some by satisfying their needs. The market place is not only an election, rationing agent, and an auctioneer, it’s a mechanism to enforce cooperation.

So, let’s use it to solve the organ donation problem.

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http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070830043429.boo9bmfz&show_article=1

Patients get appointments for Botox faster than for moles: study
Aug 30 12:34 AM US/Eastern

***Begin Quote***

Patients who want a Botox treatment for wrinkles get appointments with US dermatologists much faster than those with potentially cancerous moles, according to a new study.

For a Botox injection, patients waited typically for eight days, while those asking doctors to look at worrisome moles that might indicate skin cancer waited 26 days, said the study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

***End Quote***

You pay for what you get. If the doc can make X with no insurance hassle, then is it a surprise that he will do what turns time into bucks fastest? That’s the free market allocating resources, better faster and cheaper than any administrative system.

When we get Hillarycare, I can’t wait to see the queues.

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http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I Have a Dream”
delivered 28 August 1963,
at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

***Begin Quote***

When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

***End Quote***

Are we there yet? Not even close. I’d argue we are actually further away. Taxes enslave everyone now!

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http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Story?id=3521725&page=2

The Future of the Workplace: No Office, Headquarters in Cyberspace
Some Companies Don’t Care Where Workers Are as Long as They Get the Job Done
By BETSY STARK
ABC NEWS Business Correspondent
Aug. 27, 2007

***Begin Quote***

Imagine a work world with no commute, no corporate headquarters and perhaps not even an office in the physical world at all.

For Bob Flavin, a computer scientist at IBM; Janet Hoffman, an executive at a management consulting firm; and Joseph Jaffe, a marketing entrepreneur, the future is already here.

***End Quote***

Yeah, and kiss your personal time good bye.

Been there and done that. If you are not feeling that your on Robinson Crusoe’s island, then you’re at the Battle of <insert favorite movie battle like Alamo, Battan, or Pork Chop Hill> alone without help, and held accountable to move mountains with your magic wand. Having done “global”, you can kiss the clock good bye. Having a berry, you can’t even go to the head (i.e., loo or LV or “officer’s club”) with out interruption. (I hear people doing email in the stalls or answer calls. Yuck!)

Maybe I can start the virtual union hall! ;-)

(Always thought the AFL CIO aimed at the wrong target demographic. I’d organize the IT workers. Not only could they pay more in dues, they have the enterprises by the throat in their data is their life blood.)

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http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=12878

***Begin Quote***

Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum.

Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation’s largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members.

***End Quote***

Bout time the realized the true nature of gooferment skoolz!

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294632,00.html

Passenger Arrested After Trying to Open Door During Flight
Sunday, August 26, 2007

***Begin Quote***

DENVER — A passenger tried to open a plane door during a Frontier Airlines flight on Saturday morning but was subdued by airline staff and passengers, an airline spokesman said.

***End Quote***

Duct tape to the rescue

We need Homeland security? No one is ever hijacking a plane again.

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http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia_bots

When Bots Attack
By John Robb Email 08.23.07 | 2:00 AM
Feature
Hackers Take Down the Most Wired Country in Europe
Washington Ignores Cyberattack Threats, Putting Us All at Peril

***Begin Quote***

If you want to bring down a country’s information infrastructure and you don’t want anyone to know who did it, the weapon of choice is a distributed denial of service attack. Using rented botnets, you can launch hundreds of thousands — even millions — of infobombs at a target, all while maintaining total deniability. In this hypothetical scenario, a single attack launched by China against the US lasts only a few hours, but a full-scale assault lasting days or weeks could bring an entire modern information economy to its knees.

***End Quote***

This has been seen already in the wild. But the fix is on the horizon … IPv6.

In the meantime, one has to examine the paradigms and the mems around the Internet. Questioning the Internet service Providers and what actually are they providing.

Clearly, the all you can eat buffet for 19.99, 29.99, 39.99, 49.99 per month leads to “stuffing yourself”. That probably has to change.

Unlimited email with no postage leads to spamming. ISPs that deal with the end user probably have to move to a charging model with micropayments. That makes spam uneconomical.

Unlimited byte transfer rates leads to similar excesses. BitTorrent and other P2P hogs that literally take over the local loop. So probably like the power company, we will probably have to pay for MegaBytes by a similar micropayment. That make caps and shaping unnecessary.

So perhaps the basic monthly charge for internet access is X per month with say 30k of email messages and 100 gigs of transfer. Additional use gets charge extra.

With that type of a meme, botnets would be quickly cleaned up or cut off.

imho!

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/014842.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCvx5gSnfW4

August 22, 2007
The Amazing Wally Wallington
Posted by Lew Rockwell at August 22, 2007 09:15 AM

***Begin Quote***

A Michigan construction worker shows how Stonehenge might have been built. (Thanks to Porter Davis.)

***End Quote***

Ever since I visited it, as an injineer, I was impressed with how smart the prehistoric people were. We think we’re so smart. You move a big rock into a position like at Stonehenge. We are taught that these massive structures were built by gobs of people. But maybe there are simpler explanations. Wally demonstrates that a PhD is not required to solve problems. In some respects, it’s probably a detriment. Gooferment education has dumbed us down and the whole intellectual environment has atrophied our brains. We need more Wallys and Wally-like thinking by real people; not “leaders”, “educators”, and “experts”. We need common sense.

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http://www.lewrockwell.com/bylund/bylund21.html

The Terrible Effects of Public Schooling
by Per Bylund

***Begin Quote***

There are many stories of Sweden being a Utopia: a high-tax, massively regulated and politicized, anti-capitalism, egalitarian socialist society that not only works – it thrives. Each and every one of them is nothing but a lie, even though there are many Swedes who will tell you how wonderful it is – they refuse to see the truth even though they live it everyday.

Recently yet another myth of the Swedish socialist supremacy was revealed to be completely untrue: the exquisite quality of Swedish public education. “Preliminary” statistics of the current state of Swedish public schooling made available by the Swedish National Agency for Education show the continuing degeneration of the so-called Swedish Model – and that it is ever increasing. After having spent nine mandatory years in school, 11.4% of Swedish children don’t meet the requirements to go to high school.

Of course, in other countries this might not be such a big deal. But it is in Sweden – a country where an education and a university degree is a human right. Also, the requirements to go to high school are set on such an absurdly low level that no one should be able to not make it.

***End Quote***

Interesting in the new Amerika that it’s politicians don’t send their kids to publik skoolz.

Why is that?

Could it be that the politicians know, in the deep dark recesses of their conscience that they can never expose to the public, that the publik skoolz are huge success?

They are!

The Prussians originally designed “publik skoolz” to create willing cannon fodder and compliant factory workers. The socialists and communists of the 1920’s brought the idea to America to allow them to reformulate America into a country where the proletariat could be led by the elite.

So while the sheep bask in American Idol and ever increasing amounts of “funny money” (i.e., dollars that have lost 95% of the purchasing power in 30 years), the elite send their kid to private schools.

What’s wrong with this picture?

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http://www.charmaineyoest.com/2007/08/women_in_combat_women_as_beast.php

Women in Combat, Women as Beasts:
Wafa Sultan and Alexis de Tocqueville
August 20, 2007 | By Jack Yoest

*** begin quote ***

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about American exceptionalism; the American experiment,

If I am asked how we should account for the unusual prosperity and growing strength of this nation, I would reply that they must be attributed to the superiority of their women.

***AND***

Following is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American woman and psychologist from Los Angeles. She is debating the clash of civilizations. She reviews the fact that inferior civilizations use “women as beasts.” There might be some confusion on how Islam jihadists and the American armed forces use women in combat.

Watch the clip here. http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=nul

***End Quote***

Wow, I don’t speak her language but if the subtitiles are right, all I can say is wow!

Don’t miss this clip.

She nails why we shouldn’t “use women”. They are too darned valuable. Like the Queen on the chessboard, this lady in a very impassioned plea to the Muslim community indicts, convicts, and sentences the Islam jidhadists to a special place in history — the misguided! The moderator and the opponent were taken to the woodshed. They couldn’t even mount a decent retort to her arguments.

Wow! Definitely don’t miss this one.

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http://jobmob.co.il/blog/do-you-create-value

*** begin quote ***

In the past few days, Ferdinand Reinke’s Do You Create Value? attracted 37 unique visitors up until August 13th after having a slow start.

*** end quote ***

Well on a lark, when solicited for a job search tip as a contest entry, I gave him my “best-est” thought,

(You can read it there.)

Bet you can’t guess what my tip is! You know how I love to pontificate! And, just in case I accidentally won, I figured I’d just donate it to the site master’s favorite charity, which evidently impressed the fellow.

(Last thing I need — in this day of terrorists transferring funds internationally — is an international conversation about what charity to donate to. With my luck, I’d be in Gitmo learning Farsi and studying the physics of water.)

So, now I find that my “tip” — actually non-tip — is in third place and I’m upset. Darn!! And, if you read my entry, (which raises my score in the competition), you read how I expect to show a profit if I win. :-)

Have to have a sense of humor about this stuff.

No Big Deal!

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http://freetalklive.com

http://www.freetalklive.com/files/paul.mp3

***Begin Quote***

From: FTL-Updates@googlegroups.com [mailto:FTL-Updates@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of ian@freetalklive.com
Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2007 12:49 AM
To: FTL-Updates
Subject: [FTL-Updates] FTL Interviews Ron Paul!

2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul joins us for a half hour! Grab the archive at http://freetalklive.com!

Thanks for listening,
Ian

–~–~———~–~—-~————~——-~–~—-~
Want to help FTL? AMP at http://amp.freetalklive.com and shop with us at http://amazon.freetalklive.com!

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “FTL-Updates” group.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to FTL-Updates-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://updates.freetalklive.com
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***End Quote***

Great!!

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http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/sleuths-break-a.html

Sleuths Break Adobe’s San Jose Puzzle, Find Pynchon Inside
By Ryan Singel EmailAugust 17, 2007 | 2:15:58 PM
Categories: Hacks and Cracks

***Begin Quote***

Two men, who both may have well have been named Arnold Snarb, were wandering around San Jose looking for a good time. Instead they stumbled on a deep puzzle embedded in the landscape. Specifically, four mysteriously changing, huge LED semaphores on an Adobe building in San Jose.

***End Quote***

Wow. A lot of people with too much time on their hands.

Now the question … … why?

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http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=tragic_implications&ns=ThomasSowell&dt=08/14/2007&page=2url

Tragic Implications
By Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, August 14, 2007

***Begin Quote***

The other recent tragedy that has held the nation’s painful attention — the mine cave-in in Utah — also has implications that few seem to notice.

We could have far fewer men going down into those mines in the first place if we could use other readily available and economically viable substitutes for coal, such as nuclear power or more of our own oil.

Here too, politics is the problem. The only “alternative energy sources” that are on the political agenda are those few very expensive options that environmentalist zealots approve.

Nuclear power is not on the green zealots’ approved list, even though nuclear power is widely used in other countries.

Some say nuclear power is not safe. But nothing is categorically “safe.” The only serious question is how its safety compares to that of alternative ways of generating energy.

Ask the families of the trapped miners if they think mining is safe. Ask them if they would rather face the grim reality of a death in their family or the hypothetical possibility of inconveniencing some caribou in Alaska.

***End Quote***

I didn’t think of that. It’s about comparing the relative risk.

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http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/why_would_anyone_nasas_trust_c.html

August 17, 2007
Why Would Anyone Trust NASA’s Climate Data Now?
By Marc Sheppard

***Begin Quote***

Every soldier in this vital information war knows it’s difficult enough to do daily battle against dramatically over-hyped propaganda with any optimism of triumph. Enemy warriors wield swords forged from hyped projections, shocking news, cataclysmic films and disinforming TV programs. Ours brave the battlefield armed only with a firm grasp of the facts and the wherewithal to draw cogent conclusions from them.

Now it appears our adversaries may have successfully infiltrated what are imperatively neutral data-bases, attempting to render our only weapons useless.

If the science were truly settled, then why would they so fear a fair fight?

***End Quote***

Messing with the data?

Sounds like some of my high school and college chemistry classes where I knew the right answer and fudge the numbers to come out.

One of my rare A’s came when, following closely the instructions given, I couldn’t verify some scientific principle or other. I couldn’t even close enough to fudge it. Argh! So, with the deadline fast approaching, I just said “*&^%$#@” it and turned it in as it was. Not knowing that everyone was getting similar results, they other didn’t have the “courage” of their convictions and they were fudging. It was a glum day when everyone was turning in their stuff and bragging about how they got it right. I felt like the village idiot. (Probably was.)

Hey, it was done. And, as my sainted grandmother used to say “what’s done is done.”

Imagine my shock when that Monday, I was called to the front of the class, and the good Brother asked me “How stupid are you? Don’t you know <I really forget the bozo’s name who’s law we were supposed to “prove”.> XYZ’s law?”. I was ready to soil my shorts since sessions like this usually ended with physical abuse, mental torture, or as yet another trip to the principal’s office for delayed mental and physical abuse. So I mumbled something like, “I knew the right answer but that’s the results I got”. Snickering all around. The the Brother says, “Good. You may be a dumb as a rock, but at least you’re honest. Here’s your A. The instructions were wrong. Everyone else gets an F”. Wow!

So from thence on, I learned my lesson. Just let the chips fall where they land.

In the case of this article it appears some of my classmates have gone into “global warming research”, which should probably be called “global warming fudging”.

:-)

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http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Story?id=3479449&page=2

Don Imus Sued by Rutgers Basketball Player
Star Center Kia Vaughn Names Imus, NBC, CBS in Civil Suit

***Begin Quote***

Earlier today, The Associated Press reported that Imus had reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with former employer CBS over his firing. ABC News has learned that Imus could be back to broadcasting as early as January, and is being courted by major media outlets. That settlement, said Ancowitz, rewards Imus while leaving little justice for the women of the Rutgers basketball team.

“He’s come out smelling like quite the rose. But what about these young women? How does Imus’ victory affect their self-esteem? Where do they go to get their reputations back?”

***End Quote***

Stick ‘n’ stones … …

I guess it’s not about one’s reputation, but the dead presidents.

While what Imus said was deplorable, and as a RU women’s bball fan I think he should take some lumps about it, there was an element of truth in his statement. He was comparing the LadyVols to the LadyKnights and there is definitely a difference in appearance.

Of course, saying that wouldn’t get him big ratings, so he had to say it in a more shocking fashion.

The moral umbrage of the politicians is understandable. They need to get their mug in front of the parade. (Remember where Gov Corzine was going when he wasn’t wearing his seat belt.) Politicians and bureaucrats can always be counted on to create a problem and then rush to “solve” it in such a way as it benefits them.

The RU women had the 15 minutes of fame and now will resume their proper place in the Universe. Reputations? There’s no doubt that Imus’ remarks were hurtful. But really, damage to a reputation? Sorry, I don’t see it.

A more interesting question is “does women’s basketball to closely emulate the man’s game?” In our “equality” society, are men and women truly equal? We send our women to die in foreign lands in the name of gender equality. But is that the “best” use of human talents?

Then, move on to the question of equality. Can men and women ever be truly “equal”? Are they not the complementary half of the male. If one has to halves of the clue, then can you say that one is “better” than the other. One is no good without the other. There is no “better”. there is no “equality”.

Of course, it would be easy to observe that both schools are gooferment creatures (i.e., state funded institutions of “higher learning”). Hence, they shouldn’t exist.

So, perhaps this is just about extracting some loose change.

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http://www.smartmoney.com/tradecraft/index.cfm?story=20070813

Government Shouldn’t Bail Out Failing Homeowners
By Jonathan Hoenig
Published: August 13, 2007

***Begin Quote***

The more the government gets involved in mortgages and banking, the tighter credit will become. But beyond the impractical reality of collectivist economics, a bailout of homeowners facing foreclosure would be an immoral violation of the property rights of the millions of citizens who live within their means and pay their bills on time. The responsibility of paying back subprime mortgage rests with those who took them, not the publicity-seeking politician eager to sacrifice the individual for the “public good.”

***End Quote***

Here’s an interesting take on how the gooferment creates the problem and then rushes in to “save us”!

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http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2007/tle429-20070805-02.html

Libertarians and Iraq
by Daniel G. Jennings

***Begin Quote***

Well Libertarians can offer answers creative out of the box thinking like Ron Paul’s proposal for Letters of Marquee and entrepreneurial warfare. That is turn the war over to private companies that can adapt quickly and effectively and aren’t constrained by bureaucracy, politics, media scrutiny or public opinion. Or to local groups in the Middle East such as private militias and local individuals. For example private covert operators who don’t have to fight the war on drugs could make deals with Opium Growers in Afghanistan and get Bin Laden and other Al Qaeada fanatics (one of the reasons we’ve failed in Afghanistan is that our forces have antagonized the local people by trying to eradicate the one cash crop they can grow: opium) . Locally hired mercenaries would be familiar with the local culture and languages in ways Americans wouldn’t.

***End Quote***

Out of the box answers are certainly what’s needed. We have an awful lot of chickens on the inbound and some are “huge” (e.g., How does the next generation make good on the promises of today’s politicians?, and a slew of others).

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text

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/04/business/04network.html?ex=1343880000&en=c914b75c2b6c2215&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

What’s Good for a Business Can Be Hard on Friends
Doug McSchooler for The New York Times
By ANGEL JENNINGS
Published: August 4, 2007

***Begin Quote***

But what was set up as a purely business strategy is having an unintentional social effect. It is dividing the people who share informal bonds and bringing together those who have formal networks of cellphone “friends.”

***End Quote***

Not that anyone cares, but I’m on Verizon. :-)

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Inspired by the six word memoir, is it possible to spawn a literary form based on that concept?

http://www.liberty-watch.com/volume03/issue05/coverstory.php

RON PAUL REVOLUTION
BY JARRET KEENE

***Begin Quote***

The new face of the freedom movement is Texas Congressman Ron Paul. The credit mostly goes to the Internet for having brought this principled politician into the light. And Paul is perhaps the only individual for whom “principled politician” isn’t an oxymoron. Among nontraditional campaign contributors online, Paul is the Republican presidential frontrunner, having outpaced Sen. John McCain in fundraising. While the mainstream media continues to blackout Paul, he’s setting the Internet ablaze with a firm position against the Iraq War, against taxes and against big government. Ultimately, more and more people every day are saying yes to Dr. No. (Paul earned the nickname because he is a physician and for voting against any and all tax increases, and against any legislation that expands the federal government’s power as a House Representative.)

***End Quote***

I think that’s re-love-ution!

:-)

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text

http://www.mises.org/story/2644

How the Shrimp Tariff Backfired
By Aleksandra Dunaeva and Don Mathews
Posted on 8/1/2007

***Begin Quote***

The great Frederic Bastiat (1801-–1850) taught that wealth can be obtained in two ways: it can be produced or it can be plundered. Production is undertaken by entrepreneurs. Plunder is often undertaken with the express assistance of government, taking the form of tariffs, taxes, subsidies, and other interventionist measures justified as policy in the public interest.

But entrepreneurs are not easily thwarted by government intervention. Sometimes entrepreneurs respond so creatively that they render the interventionist measure almost meaningless. A classic example of an entrepreneurial response to state-sponsored plunder is the case of the US anti-dumping tariff on imported shrimp.

***End Quote***

Bottom line: The American consumer got screwed and the politicians, lobbyists, and industry moguls got rich.

And, you think that the gooferment protect you?

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