The Bottom Line of our current Political Debate: Is it OK to Lie and Cheat?
You can see the "collateral damage" in this debate: The common person. Our Country's financial situation should attest to that.
The problem with this is that it's actually kind of hard to grow up without some deceit. Our entire advertising infrastructure is based on, at best, half truths and exaggeration. At worst? Also, I've heard that it's hard to get a high-paying job without padding your resume.
If it's something that "we all do" (which is an answer I often get), then what? (Another thing I often hear is, "Be creative, and don't get caught").
In our Health Care debate, it seems to be about throwing out lies to scare people, yet those lies talk about current practices.
For example, "death panels to deny coverage to old people because they cost too much". That's a current scare tactic, yet we currently have stories about existing companies canceling coverage to extremely sick policy holders, causing them to die. (The current story on The Huffington Post discusses revoking coverage for a teenager who was HIV Positive, for example. Isn't that an example of a "death panel"?)
Current difference between the political parties? Democrats tend to limit lying and cheating to their personal life. Republicans extend the lying and cheating to political affairs, including lying and cheating us into wars. Also, Republicans often expect others to "do as I say, not as I do", which is hypocrisy.
Where is our country heading?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
We need to take care of the Unemployed in Healthcare Bill
Hello folks,
One significant group of people fall through cracks and have an extremely hard time, regarding health care.
Due to our current financial environment, a huge number of people lose their jobs every month. What are they supposed to do about health care? Sure, there is Cobra but, unless you got a good severance plan, you are probably hurting financially when your paycheck stops coming. And Cobra requires you, as an individual to pay the premiums that were previously often included as a benefit. (When you no longer know where the next check is coming, is that the time to be paying a huge Cobra premium?)
There is an even worse situation out there, often in the Computer fields: People who are part time contractors, where their job did not even include benefits. My prior job at E-Net (software firm in the San Francisco area) fit that category. So my health care was to hope that I can stay healthy!
When my job ended April 8, 2009, I went on Unemployment and then found that the amount you make under Unemployment is too much for Medicaid! By definition, when you are on Unemployment, you are ready and able to work each day and making an active search. Illness or injury therefore poses a problem.
The solution, to be part of our Health Care plan, is to allow people who draw Unemployment to get Medicaid. There can, of course, be the other existing tests, to make sure the person doesn't have other financial resources. But just drawing the amount the Unemployment provides is currently a show-stopper for Medicaid, but should not be.
Please make Medicaid an option for those who lose their jobs!
Thank you,
Kenneth Parker, Seattle, Washington
One significant group of people fall through cracks and have an extremely hard time, regarding health care.
Due to our current financial environment, a huge number of people lose their jobs every month. What are they supposed to do about health care? Sure, there is Cobra but, unless you got a good severance plan, you are probably hurting financially when your paycheck stops coming. And Cobra requires you, as an individual to pay the premiums that were previously often included as a benefit. (When you no longer know where the next check is coming, is that the time to be paying a huge Cobra premium?)
There is an even worse situation out there, often in the Computer fields: People who are part time contractors, where their job did not even include benefits. My prior job at E-Net (software firm in the San Francisco area) fit that category. So my health care was to hope that I can stay healthy!
When my job ended April 8, 2009, I went on Unemployment and then found that the amount you make under Unemployment is too much for Medicaid! By definition, when you are on Unemployment, you are ready and able to work each day and making an active search. Illness or injury therefore poses a problem.
The solution, to be part of our Health Care plan, is to allow people who draw Unemployment to get Medicaid. There can, of course, be the other existing tests, to make sure the person doesn't have other financial resources. But just drawing the amount the Unemployment provides is currently a show-stopper for Medicaid, but should not be.
Please make Medicaid an option for those who lose their jobs!
Thank you,
Kenneth Parker, Seattle, Washington
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Myths verses Facts in the Health Care Debate
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I just saw Obama's Town Hall meeting for Today (Tuesday), August 11, 2009. Now, immediately after the meeting was over, I'm hearing objections, that the people were hand picked. Perhaps so. For example, the names that were chosen online might have been handpicked to eliminate those with multiple, and/or recent charges of Disturbing the Peace. Why do I not think handpicking went beyond this? Because I saw all sides of the issue represented in the questions, even Republican concerns. But what I saw was Civil Discource. Nobody shouting other people down. No loud booing. (Even only polite applause, without the long standing ovations at other Obama rallys).
This strongly encouraged me, after hearing about some of the Town Hall meetings the Democrats were recently experiencing.
I choose to get my input from all sides of the issue. In fact, one email list I belong to regularly posts right wing rhetoric on the Health Care issue. My timing for this post was this web site, that was linked from one of those emails, as it throws all of the Right Wing concerns out at once. This allows me to answer some of these concerns.
Death Panels: This is the high-emotion fear-mongering term for a group of people who would supposedly visit older citizens, to "help them plan their upcoming death". The idea put forth is that older Americans would be visited every 5 years to determine if they are "too expensive" to keep alive. The truth is that this twists a provision (added, via Amendment by a Republican) that simply says that if somebody wants to do a "living Will" (where the individual initiates the contact), it will be reimbursed. But I needed to look closer to see if there is something like this in existing plans. Scroll forward in this Glossary to "Lifetime Maximum" to see an existing equivalent in current use. In this case, you are not visited by Government workers for counseling. Instead, when you need it most (i.e. Cancer), your Insurance cuts you off cold and every expense, after an arbitrary point is paid by you alone, or your Family! (I wonder: Are you still required to pay premiums for the care you are not getting?) And why are you cut off? I can only guess that it is because you now cost the Insurance Company too much money! (You know, actuarial tables and some such).
The Democratic bill would add Government run Health Insurance, where none exists now: This one can be quite short. Medicare and Medicaid are both Government run Health Care. Note that the website cited in the third paragraph is quite vocal, against Medicare and Medicaid!
The Comments are open on this post. I welcome opposing opinions. However, abusive comments will be deleted.
I just saw Obama's Town Hall meeting for Today (Tuesday), August 11, 2009. Now, immediately after the meeting was over, I'm hearing objections, that the people were hand picked. Perhaps so. For example, the names that were chosen online might have been handpicked to eliminate those with multiple, and/or recent charges of Disturbing the Peace. Why do I not think handpicking went beyond this? Because I saw all sides of the issue represented in the questions, even Republican concerns. But what I saw was Civil Discource. Nobody shouting other people down. No loud booing. (Even only polite applause, without the long standing ovations at other Obama rallys).
This strongly encouraged me, after hearing about some of the Town Hall meetings the Democrats were recently experiencing.
I choose to get my input from all sides of the issue. In fact, one email list I belong to regularly posts right wing rhetoric on the Health Care issue. My timing for this post was this web site, that was linked from one of those emails, as it throws all of the Right Wing concerns out at once. This allows me to answer some of these concerns.
Death Panels: This is the high-emotion fear-mongering term for a group of people who would supposedly visit older citizens, to "help them plan their upcoming death". The idea put forth is that older Americans would be visited every 5 years to determine if they are "too expensive" to keep alive. The truth is that this twists a provision (added, via Amendment by a Republican) that simply says that if somebody wants to do a "living Will" (where the individual initiates the contact), it will be reimbursed. But I needed to look closer to see if there is something like this in existing plans. Scroll forward in this Glossary to "Lifetime Maximum" to see an existing equivalent in current use. In this case, you are not visited by Government workers for counseling. Instead, when you need it most (i.e. Cancer), your Insurance cuts you off cold and every expense, after an arbitrary point is paid by you alone, or your Family! (I wonder: Are you still required to pay premiums for the care you are not getting?) And why are you cut off? I can only guess that it is because you now cost the Insurance Company too much money! (You know, actuarial tables and some such).
The Democratic bill would add Government run Health Insurance, where none exists now: This one can be quite short. Medicare and Medicaid are both Government run Health Care. Note that the website cited in the third paragraph is quite vocal, against Medicare and Medicaid!
The Comments are open on this post. I welcome opposing opinions. However, abusive comments will be deleted.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
More ammunition against Nuclear Power
Hello,
It has been brought to my attention that there was yet another Nuclear Meltdown in the United States before Three Mile Island, PA: 1959 in Ventura, California!
How did this come to my attention? Simple: 2009 is the 50th Anniversary of a 1959 partial meltdown of a Nuclear Reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory! See story here.
Nuclear Power? Safe and clean? Bah!
It has been brought to my attention that there was yet another Nuclear Meltdown in the United States before Three Mile Island, PA: 1959 in Ventura, California!
How did this come to my attention? Simple: 2009 is the 50th Anniversary of a 1959 partial meltdown of a Nuclear Reactor at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory! See story here.
Nuclear Power? Safe and clean? Bah!
Friday, February 27, 2009
If I haven't posted for a while...
Hello,
Yes, I've been quiet for a while. Part of it was being overloaded by my "day job" [computer professional], but part of it has been how fast things have been changing, as well as in ways that I like. (For example, I observe that people are more likely to post on their BLOG when they are upset about something).
About Obama's speech last Tuesday, I share the brief viewpoint Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) gave Keith Olbermann [as in Countdown with _____ on MSNBC]: He asked Senator Boxer, "You've seen and heard a lot of these. I'll give you the softball question off the start: Rank this one!" Senator Boxer responded, "A home run, a touchdown, and a three pointer. I mean, is that good for you for an analogy?" After a chuckle, Keith responded, "It works. Yes". [Note to the uninitiated: In Keith's "spare time", he's also an occasional sportscaster].
More later. Ken in Seattle.
Yes, I've been quiet for a while. Part of it was being overloaded by my "day job" [computer professional], but part of it has been how fast things have been changing, as well as in ways that I like. (For example, I observe that people are more likely to post on their BLOG when they are upset about something).
About Obama's speech last Tuesday, I share the brief viewpoint Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) gave Keith Olbermann [as in Countdown with _____ on MSNBC]: He asked Senator Boxer, "You've seen and heard a lot of these. I'll give you the softball question off the start: Rank this one!" Senator Boxer responded, "A home run, a touchdown, and a three pointer. I mean, is that good for you for an analogy?" After a chuckle, Keith responded, "It works. Yes". [Note to the uninitiated: In Keith's "spare time", he's also an occasional sportscaster].
More later. Ken in Seattle.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Rebuttal to some Republican Talking Points on Stimulus Package
Today, Friday, February 13, 2009, the House just voted for the Stimulus package without a single Republican vote. And, afterwards, we heard a number of Republicans defend their unanymous NO vote.
1. "More tax cuts will create twice as many jobs as spending". (Only a partial rebuttal follows):
Excuse me, but, in many states, people will actually find their taxes increased! A number of states have constitutions that prevent deficit spending. Thus, they will be forced to increase their state taxes, while laying off many of their employees. (One example, California, is having to give IOU's, because they have no money in their treasury. This includes anybody who overpaid their state taxes, who will not be able to get their refund).
2. "Just because Bush overspent doesn't mean Obama gets to".
The error in logic here is that Bush's spending equals Obama's. Excuse me, but Bush's spending was purely on Destruction! A couple of wars! The money went out of the country where it could not help with, say, our country's infrastructure! And, so, for example, we had a huge bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because there was no money to fix it in advance! (And don't even get me started about Katrina!)
That's what hit me the hardest today. Give me some more Republican talking points, via Comments, and I'll rebut them also.
1. "More tax cuts will create twice as many jobs as spending". (Only a partial rebuttal follows):
Excuse me, but, in many states, people will actually find their taxes increased! A number of states have constitutions that prevent deficit spending. Thus, they will be forced to increase their state taxes, while laying off many of their employees. (One example, California, is having to give IOU's, because they have no money in their treasury. This includes anybody who overpaid their state taxes, who will not be able to get their refund).
2. "Just because Bush overspent doesn't mean Obama gets to".
The error in logic here is that Bush's spending equals Obama's. Excuse me, but Bush's spending was purely on Destruction! A couple of wars! The money went out of the country where it could not help with, say, our country's infrastructure! And, so, for example, we had a huge bridge collapse in Minneapolis, Minnesota, because there was no money to fix it in advance! (And don't even get me started about Katrina!)
That's what hit me the hardest today. Give me some more Republican talking points, via Comments, and I'll rebut them also.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Amish help Neighbors without Power. Who knew?
(First, a note: I'm keeping the "Newsreel", at the right, pointed to the January 22, 2009 post: "Bill of Rights in the Toilet", because it's still in the toilet! Yes, folks things have improved. People are now actually looking in the toilet bowl itself, seeking out the Bill of Rights -- separating the pieces of them from the pointless Republican rhetoric that is also there, and hoping that there are parts of the Constitution that can still stand, together with these soggy pages of our bill of rights, to get our country back to a healthy position. Fortunately, it seems that the republican rudeness that I often see in the world, worked out this time in our favor as, though they threw the Bill of Rights into the Toilet, they didn't flush it!)
The story I bring out now is actually a good one, showing us how some people, who might be marginalized, as well as ridiculed when conditions are normal, might be the only ones who can conduct normal lives, even taking charge and helping the people around them, when things go awry.
This begins with the Ice Storms themselves. All over the East Coast! Many states with long power outages. I'm going to take one of them, Kentucky, because of the heartwarming story that follows. But first, on January 30th, the local papers were saying: "Life after ice storm dire, getting worse in spots".
But then, one area, Mayfield, KY, got some unexpected help from two fronts: First, some friendly Amish Neighbors helped, in many ways, but much of it was simply mentoring people who are used to being on the Electric Grid. In other words, there is life without electricity! An excerpt from the article follows:
But Kentucky’s Amish have been living that way all their lives. And when the disaster struck, they generously lent a hand to their non-Amish neighbors and showed them how it’s done.
“Those folks are very good at sustaining themselves,” said Master Sgt. Paul Mouilleseaux, a National Guard spokesman.
The Stutzman family and the roughly 8,500 other Amish in the state were essentially unaffected by the storm that knocked out power to more than 1.3 million customers last week, about half of them in Kentucky.
Stutzman, his wife and their seven children were secure in their toasty, two-story home amid corn and soybean fields and swampy stands of cypress in western Kentucky.
“We paid it no attention,” Stutzman said Tuesday, relaxing in a handmade rocker as a wood stove across the room radiated heat on a windy morning with temperatures in the low 20s.
The second helping hand actually came from another state, where telephone crews in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, went out to help Kentucky with their telephone repair work.
Please, folks! I know there's a debate between helping Wall Street and Main Street, but, unlike on Wall Street, real people are hurting on Main Street!
The story I bring out now is actually a good one, showing us how some people, who might be marginalized, as well as ridiculed when conditions are normal, might be the only ones who can conduct normal lives, even taking charge and helping the people around them, when things go awry.
This begins with the Ice Storms themselves. All over the East Coast! Many states with long power outages. I'm going to take one of them, Kentucky, because of the heartwarming story that follows. But first, on January 30th, the local papers were saying: "Life after ice storm dire, getting worse in spots".
But then, one area, Mayfield, KY, got some unexpected help from two fronts: First, some friendly Amish Neighbors helped, in many ways, but much of it was simply mentoring people who are used to being on the Electric Grid. In other words, there is life without electricity! An excerpt from the article follows:
But Kentucky’s Amish have been living that way all their lives. And when the disaster struck, they generously lent a hand to their non-Amish neighbors and showed them how it’s done.
“Those folks are very good at sustaining themselves,” said Master Sgt. Paul Mouilleseaux, a National Guard spokesman.
The Stutzman family and the roughly 8,500 other Amish in the state were essentially unaffected by the storm that knocked out power to more than 1.3 million customers last week, about half of them in Kentucky.
Stutzman, his wife and their seven children were secure in their toasty, two-story home amid corn and soybean fields and swampy stands of cypress in western Kentucky.
“We paid it no attention,” Stutzman said Tuesday, relaxing in a handmade rocker as a wood stove across the room radiated heat on a windy morning with temperatures in the low 20s.
The second helping hand actually came from another state, where telephone crews in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, went out to help Kentucky with their telephone repair work.
Please, folks! I know there's a debate between helping Wall Street and Main Street, but, unlike on Wall Street, real people are hurting on Main Street!
Friday, January 30, 2009
Congressional handling of Stimulus package giving me a Headache!
Hello Folks,
Didn't the Republicans come out, talking about Bi-Partisanship? My understanding of this, from my Party's view of taking the best of Liberal, and blending it with the best of Conservatism to make my [up-coming] Party Platform, is that cooperation and compromise is the direction we need, to heal this country's financial situation.
So what did we get today from the House? Democrats: 231 Yea, 11 Nay, 13 Not Voting? Republicans: ZERO Yea, 174 Nay, 4 Not Voting? Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming this! (Latest update: Nope, not a chance!) Come on, now, don't the Republican members of the House of Representatives have any local constituents? Aren't some of them hobbled with sudden loss of their jobs, as well as possible foreclosures on their houses? And others, perhaps in danger of losing access to their Apartments because of the loss of ability to make rent? Aren't any of these Republican representatives worried that they might be voted out of office in the 2010 Midterm Elections? What are you looking for, Republicans? A house with 90+ percent Democrats in it?
A late, breaking update, at a subjective time of about 6:25 pm (I'm a bit behind on my TiVo, folks!) But this update came, thanks to Countdown with Keith Olbermann: The numbers have changed a bit: Now it's Democrats, 242 Yea, 12 Nay, 1 Not Voting, and Republicans, STILL ZIP on the Yea side, 177 Nay, and only one not voting!
Another late, breaking update, 9am hour (PST), January 30, 2009, Courtesy of MSNBC: Brad Blakeman defends the ZERO republican votes! Something about getting more jobs, purely via business tax cuts. (Once again, folks, if a company is in a period of loss, it won't get a penny from tax cuts (as zero tax is zero tax, regardless of tax rates). It's still free to spiral down to Chapter 11, losing its Employees, adding even more people to our unemployment rolls, as well as more people who might lose their homes and have to live under Freeway Overpasses!) Note that I haven't located a YouTube video yet.
And don't get me started on how Former Representative Dick Armey, (R) Texas, got Sexist with Joan Walsh of Salon.Com on Hardball on January 28, 2009, at about 2:42 pm PST (5:42 pm EST), after Joan Walsh asked if even one Republican gave thought to standing up and apologising to President Obama for the racist remark Rush Limbaugh spouted last week. This gets beyond partisan politics and into simple, human decency.
Note: Update posted January 29, 2009 at 2:35 pm: Links provided, to back up these stories. Thank you, Moveon.org, for providing the house.gov link to me! (Also note: Don't worry about correlation between my numbers, verses the house.gov link. That website will always provide the latest numbers, as well as who voted how. There were some late-breaking vote changes, mainly in the Democratic arena. I've still not seen any Republicans stepping forward to change their vote, however).
Latest Update posted January 30, 2009 @ 10:30 am, with mention of Brad Blakeman defending Republican rejection of Stimulus Package.
Didn't the Republicans come out, talking about Bi-Partisanship? My understanding of this, from my Party's view of taking the best of Liberal, and blending it with the best of Conservatism to make my [up-coming] Party Platform, is that cooperation and compromise is the direction we need, to heal this country's financial situation.
So what did we get today from the House? Democrats: 231 Yea, 11 Nay, 13 Not Voting? Republicans: ZERO Yea, 174 Nay, 4 Not Voting? Somebody please tell me that I'm dreaming this! (Latest update: Nope, not a chance!) Come on, now, don't the Republican members of the House of Representatives have any local constituents? Aren't some of them hobbled with sudden loss of their jobs, as well as possible foreclosures on their houses? And others, perhaps in danger of losing access to their Apartments because of the loss of ability to make rent? Aren't any of these Republican representatives worried that they might be voted out of office in the 2010 Midterm Elections? What are you looking for, Republicans? A house with 90+ percent Democrats in it?
A late, breaking update, at a subjective time of about 6:25 pm (I'm a bit behind on my TiVo, folks!) But this update came, thanks to Countdown with Keith Olbermann: The numbers have changed a bit: Now it's Democrats, 242 Yea, 12 Nay, 1 Not Voting, and Republicans, STILL ZIP on the Yea side, 177 Nay, and only one not voting!
Another late, breaking update, 9am hour (PST), January 30, 2009, Courtesy of MSNBC: Brad Blakeman defends the ZERO republican votes! Something about getting more jobs, purely via business tax cuts. (Once again, folks, if a company is in a period of loss, it won't get a penny from tax cuts (as zero tax is zero tax, regardless of tax rates). It's still free to spiral down to Chapter 11, losing its Employees, adding even more people to our unemployment rolls, as well as more people who might lose their homes and have to live under Freeway Overpasses!) Note that I haven't located a YouTube video yet.
And don't get me started on how Former Representative Dick Armey, (R) Texas, got Sexist with Joan Walsh of Salon.Com on Hardball on January 28, 2009, at about 2:42 pm PST (5:42 pm EST), after Joan Walsh asked if even one Republican gave thought to standing up and apologising to President Obama for the racist remark Rush Limbaugh spouted last week. This gets beyond partisan politics and into simple, human decency.
Note: Update posted January 29, 2009 at 2:35 pm: Links provided, to back up these stories. Thank you, Moveon.org, for providing the house.gov link to me! (Also note: Don't worry about correlation between my numbers, verses the house.gov link. That website will always provide the latest numbers, as well as who voted how. There were some late-breaking vote changes, mainly in the Democratic arena. I've still not seen any Republicans stepping forward to change their vote, however).
Latest Update posted January 30, 2009 @ 10:30 am, with mention of Brad Blakeman defending Republican rejection of Stimulus Package.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
"Bill of Rights in the Toilet" -- Double Header!
I feel the need to put two stories in one BLOG post. One of them is rather blatant, and the other, though quite a bit more subtle, actually bothers me quite a bit more, as it points out how many people can be spied on at once!
The first, blatant one will also live on in the "Google News Feed" on the right, at least until this story gets "stale", and I sure as heck hope it doesn't!
It is about an NSA Whistle Blower named Russell Tice. For a while, after he got fired from NSA for, I don't know, Whistle Blowing? ... he held his tongue, afraid of recriminations from the Bush Administration. So, now that Obama is in office, he has a two-day interview stint with Keith Olbermann. Oh well, all Journalists bugged? Or [left wing conspiracy theory] only the "liberal" journalists? Or [right wing conspiracy theory] only the populist/constitutionalist/libertarian journalists? Take your pick, it looks ugly, no matter how it's spun.
-----------------------------------------------
Second, more subtle story, but scarier to me: All 30G Zunes fail simultaneously.
Yes, I'm also a computer professional, which is why the above story scares me. But let me put this in simple English: Microsoft is blaming the simultaneous crash of however many 2006 30G Zunes on a simple Leap Year "glitch". OK. So, people thought the world would end on January 1, 2000, due to an unfortunate habit of some programmers to use only the last two digits of the year. The world didn't end, but a bunch of funny web glitches occurred, which I sure wish were still available to chuckle about. I also recall at least one state classifying the 2000 Model cars (which, of course, were on sale in 1999, as usual for a car company), as "Horseless Carriages".
An excerpt from Zune's Own Forum follows:
Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.
Why do I harp on this? Have any of you seen anything this intrusive? All multi-million owners of this device need to, in effect, force a reset to "Factory Settings" [my guess, based on the context of asking people to allow the battery to "fully run out of power"]?
But this isn't the worst part of this. The worst part of this is why this device needs to know about leap years to play MP3 Music files? Even if you're doing "Digital Rights Management", to protect files that you download to the device, do you necessarily need to know how many times, or exactly when, a particular song is being played? To the second? (These devices failed, pretty much simultaneously, suggesting that a central Satellite was the point of failure, not a bunch of individual consumer devices).
Is anybody else concerned about this, especially if we look at these stories together?
The first, blatant one will also live on in the "Google News Feed" on the right, at least until this story gets "stale", and I sure as heck hope it doesn't!
It is about an NSA Whistle Blower named Russell Tice. For a while, after he got fired from NSA for, I don't know, Whistle Blowing? ... he held his tongue, afraid of recriminations from the Bush Administration. So, now that Obama is in office, he has a two-day interview stint with Keith Olbermann. Oh well, all Journalists bugged? Or [left wing conspiracy theory] only the "liberal" journalists? Or [right wing conspiracy theory] only the populist/constitutionalist/libertarian journalists? Take your pick, it looks ugly, no matter how it's spun.
-----------------------------------------------
Second, more subtle story, but scarier to me: All 30G Zunes fail simultaneously.
Yes, I'm also a computer professional, which is why the above story scares me. But let me put this in simple English: Microsoft is blaming the simultaneous crash of however many 2006 30G Zunes on a simple Leap Year "glitch". OK. So, people thought the world would end on January 1, 2000, due to an unfortunate habit of some programmers to use only the last two digits of the year. The world didn't end, but a bunch of funny web glitches occurred, which I sure wish were still available to chuckle about. I also recall at least one state classifying the 2000 Model cars (which, of course, were on sale in 1999, as usual for a car company), as "Horseless Carriages".
An excerpt from Zune's Own Forum follows:
Early this morning we were alerted by our customers that there was a widespread issue affecting our 2006 model Zune 30GB devices (a large number of which are still actively being used). The technical team jumped on the problem immediately and isolated the issue: a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year. The issue should be resolved over the next 24 hours as the time change moves to January 1, 2009. We expect the internal clock on the Zune 30GB devices will automatically reset tomorrow (noon, GMT). By tomorrow you should allow the battery to fully run out of power before the unit can restart successfully then simply ensure that your device is recharged, then turn it back on. If you’re a Zune Pass subscriber, you may need to sync your device with your PC to refresh the rights to the subscription content you have downloaded to your device.
Why do I harp on this? Have any of you seen anything this intrusive? All multi-million owners of this device need to, in effect, force a reset to "Factory Settings" [my guess, based on the context of asking people to allow the battery to "fully run out of power"]?
But this isn't the worst part of this. The worst part of this is why this device needs to know about leap years to play MP3 Music files? Even if you're doing "Digital Rights Management", to protect files that you download to the device, do you necessarily need to know how many times, or exactly when, a particular song is being played? To the second? (These devices failed, pretty much simultaneously, suggesting that a central Satellite was the point of failure, not a bunch of individual consumer devices).
Is anybody else concerned about this, especially if we look at these stories together?
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Regime Change in Washington
Remember how many times we were told about Regime Changes in other countries, such as Iraq?
Now, we finally have Regime Change here in Washington, to Barack Obama.
I'll leave it to the others to put the details out there, but I want to acknowledge that we finally have somebody that I firmly believe will listen to the American People.
Now, we finally have Regime Change here in Washington, to Barack Obama.
I'll leave it to the others to put the details out there, but I want to acknowledge that we finally have somebody that I firmly believe will listen to the American People.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Republicans fight Obama Stimulus Plan
A group of Republicans do not appear to be happy with the Obama Stimulus package, as they are afraid that it has too much spending in it and too little of the tax cuts that the Republicans still think will save our economy.
The problem with this is that tax cuts for the most wealthy, at the same time as we were spending our country into two wars was, in my opinion, one of the reasons for our economic meltdown!
For example, according to an already obsolete March, 2008 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, we had already spent about $500 Billion on just the Iraq war, much more than the first half of the $700 Billion Wall Street bailout.
Why is it OK with the Republicans that we spend billions for destruction, but not OK with them that we spend the necessary billions on our country's crumbling Infrastructure?
The problem with this is that tax cuts for the most wealthy, at the same time as we were spending our country into two wars was, in my opinion, one of the reasons for our economic meltdown!
For example, according to an already obsolete March, 2008 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, we had already spent about $500 Billion on just the Iraq war, much more than the first half of the $700 Billion Wall Street bailout.
Why is it OK with the Republicans that we spend billions for destruction, but not OK with them that we spend the necessary billions on our country's crumbling Infrastructure?
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