The Vatican is a Cult

Here's an excerpt from BBC News story about its "Panorama" TV show entitled "What did the Pope know about abuse in the Church?"

... Father Kiesle then requested permission to leave the priesthood. His Bishop wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger's office in 1982, and several times after that, yet it took until 1987 for Kiesle to be laicised - or removed from the priesthood.

The reason for the delay, according to Father Tom Doyle, a church lawyer who campaigns for victims, was a ruling from Pope John Paul II that priests under 40 were not to be allowed to leave the church. Kiesle was 34 when he first applied.

Cell phones in jails & prisons
... a bit of a problem ...

Various approaches have been tried to deal with this, and it looks to me like there are a couple that would actually work. One of which might be a bit cumbersome ... shield the whole place. Wrap the whole place in copper screen (and ground it well). Naahhh. Let's blow that one off. It might be appropriate for a small cafe where you don't want people to sit and blab on their phones. Then the "no cell phones" would be a statement of fact rather than a request or demand.

The other thing would be having a cell site right there, so (by the nature of the cell phone system) any and all phones would be working off that site. Of course that would entail a multitude of equipment, although if the desire is to have no cellphones work at all, that would simplify matters a bit — all phones would connect to a site with no connectivity at all except to the front office. Then if any legitimate calls need to be made, they can be patched through manually to a landline.

Thirty-twelve, good buddy
(ten-four, ten-four, ten-four)

As so often happens the solution to a problem later becomes a problem itself. Witness then the utter chaos in the world of "ten codes". It would not be so if there were a single standard for what they mean. But there isn't, and "10-55" where I live means ambulance (though formally it's supposed to mean "send an ambulance"). Some places it means drunk driver. Some places it means officer down. Put people from all these places together on an incident and you got trouble. Which is why in the Incident Command System, which has lately become a part of a larger National Incident Management System, use of ten codes is strictly forbidden.

Then there's the awful slangy usage. One thing that is pretty well standard is "10-4", and it means "understood". But I hear things like "Is everything 10-4?" and the response "10-4." And the other day "the driver is 10-4" (meaning sober). None of these things mean "understood".

In the thus-far abortive effort to wean law enforcement off ten codes, in the interest of interoperability, pretty much all efforts have come to naught. So here's an idea ... but first a word from our sponsor.

"Hello."

OK, here's the idea. You can't just suddenly give everybody a brain transplant and have them speaking plain English. Start somewhere. I suggest the code with the absolute worst usage, the slangy 10-4. Give them a list of standard phrases, including "affirmative" and "understood", to use instead. Get them used to it that way. And assess a penalty of a quarter or a dollar every time they say "10-4". The money can go into a fund for steaks at the Christmas party.

Of course you'd want to provide the full list of what to say for all circumstances, and hopefully the program would actually go somewhere.

Blackberry Jam
Stockholders 1, Customers 0

Corporations don't have principles, as it again is shown. Privacy is a cornerstone of the global village, and various governments don't like it — well, of course. RIM has it seems yielded to the demands of at least one government to process messages in such a way as to make them "tappable". Oh well ... when I was a spook one of the things they taught me immediately is that all phones are tapped.

"We have met the enemy and he is us" — Walt Kelly

The internet, as a consequence of its design, regards censorship as damage to the net, and routes around it. And while I've been thinking about getting a smartphone, I'm not going to buy a Blackberry.

Wave Goodbye

Sorry to see Google Wave going out to pasture. It was fun. I hope various cool features get migrated into GMail. That's really the way to go.

On the other hand, Wave could stay as a test bed for anything they think of as a possible GMail enhancement.

Sonora part II
After Banamichi
Somewhere along the way we passed a mining town called Arizpe; the highway totally bypassed it. We were on the way to the hot spring by Aconchi, and fortunately we did not get there by way of the town. A few miles before the town I spied a little green "agua caliente" sign, about the size of a street sign, pointing the way; the road went into a village called San Felipe de Jesus. The whole route was dry; another Anglo arrived there by way of the town and said he had to ford streams four times (in his VW bus). It's a Sonora state park with very reasonable camping rates. We stayed several days, most of it weekdays, and the place was nearly deserted until Saturday, when lots and lots of families arrived.

The main focus of activity on the weekend was the swimming pool; there were campsites upstream and we had one of those, a nice quiet place. At one point on Saturday several teenagers strolled by on their way up to a good old fashioned swimming hole farther upstream, with at least one guitar, and paused by our camp to serenade us — just because they felt like it. Later we sauntered up to the swimming hole ourselves, and found it looking just like a swimming hole ought to.

At some point we met a middle-aged lady who had brought her mother to the springs; they had short-term rented a house in San Felipe de Jesus. After we pulled up and left the park we dropped in to visit them. We talked about how taken we were with Banamichi. The lady was a teacher, and she checked the place out and then went and got a job there. This we learned by way of her daughter who had email. Being indirect, we didn't stay in touch long term.

Eventually we rolled out and went to Aconchi and Baviacora and in one of them bought a big bag of peanuts from the local "Peanut King".

The remaining memories of this trip I have just realized belong to a different trip so I'll stop now.

BlackBerry Taboo
If RIM has both smarts and guts they will just say NO.
To do otherwise would be to betray their customers.

Copied from the DHS Daily
August 4, Reuters – (International) Saudi and RIM in last-ditch talks. The makers of the BlackBerry smartphone held last-ditch talks with Saudi Arabia August 4 to avert a threatened cut-off of a key service, while India took a tough line with the Canadian company. Research In Motion (RIM) is facing mounting demands from governments around the world for access to its vaunted encryption system on national security grounds. The spat, which has highlighted the access some states seem to have in comparison to others, threatens to cut off some 2 million BlackBerry users in the Gulf and India. Security officials in India, a giant growth market for mobile communications, warned the service would be halted if the company failed to meet its concerns, a newspaper reported. “We are very clear that any BlackBerry service that cannot be fully intercepted by our agencies must be discontinued,” The Economic Times quoted an unnamed security official as saying. “Offering access to data is part of the telecom licensing guidelines and has to be adhered to.” An Indian government source told Reuters that RIM had proposed to share some details of its BlackBerry services, but security agencies were demanding full access to a messaging service it fears could be misused by militants. RIM has said BlackBerry security is based on a system where customers create their own key and the company neither has a master key nor any “back door” to enable RIM or any third party to gain access to crucial corporate data. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67151F20100804

Trip to Sonora
Part I

(Mamacita is talking to Jane even as I start this write.)

We decide to take a little trip to Mexico, to Aconchi hot spring. This was maybe ten years ago. We thought it sounded pretty easy, and the state of Sonora had this "easy entry" program that they had just started — then we find out they had already blown it off by the time we got there. Oh. That's why we didn't see any signs about it when we crossed the border.

We get to the frontier checkpoint and we're way short on papers and stickers and all that. The guy was very nice but for sure turned us back. We went to the closest crossing, Naco. The place name on the other side is Naco. There is some kind of a "Dollar" store real close to the border and there's hardly anything else of note.

The next town up the road is Bisbee, and our friend Jane lives there. We stayed with her while we got our papers together, and this consisted of getting our voter registration forms faxed to us from our county clerk. This got us into Mexico. Nowadays we have passports and all of that. We had a nice visit to Bisbee, probably wouldn't have seen it any other way, and then we moved on.

We cross into Mexico and head west on Route 2 to Cananea, have a nice lunch and then head south on 89. While looking for 89 I missed it and turned around on the shoulder which is probably where I got something in the tire making a slow leak. We cruised down 89 and found a little motel (the motel) in Bacoachi. The next morning the proprietor said my llanta se falta aire, like my tire is low, so we found the local llantero and got it fixed. After that at the local gas station some young boys were pointing at a bumper sticker on our car "fearofwriting.com" and saying "internet! internet!"

The next town we came to (as opposed to passing by the outskirts) was Banamichi, utterly charming, with a grand total of one sign for a business, a little abarrotes (convenience store). There were other businesses, but everybody knew where they were. But we had no idea where to get anything to eat other than cacahuates and twinkies. After we looked around the church, undergoing some renovation or repairs, we walked on in some random direction and ran across a wonderful lady whom we asked where one might get lunch. She started to try to explain how to find it, but since that would be much more complex to a stranger than it was far away, she just led us to a hacienda a block or two away where some women were running a little cafe. After she got us introduced and settled in she kissed us both on the forehead and went on her way. That's just one of the reasons we really liked Banamichi. The thin and expansive tortillas, like tablecloths, and the local favorite hot sauce didn't detract at all.

Express Card
nice gizmo

I finally found a use for the Express Card slot in my MacBook Pro. I now have a serial port. I tried the dongle-type USB to serial converters -- blow that off. They worked fairly well for reading the programs of two-way radio equipment, but writing to the radio was a waste of time. Maybe one out of five tries would actually work. But this new thing has access to some non-wimpy voltages by way of the card slot, and I have tried it on several different models of radio with no problems.

It might be inferred that I am running Windows when I do this sort of thing. Guilty as charged. If the radio manufacturers would desist in their misguided efforts to protect intellectual property -- software, when they are hardware makers and the software is just supposed to support their product -- it would be feasible for someone to write a one-size-fits-all application, maybe even a Mac app, that would allow you (or me) to put in one @#$%&* program and dump it into all of the radios we have in our organization regardless of make and model.

Superpod
A thousand dolphins seen off Skye
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/highlands_and_islands/10488165.stm

It's obvious what that's about. We're all in serious trouble, them included, and they are having a big meeting about it.

Was Ponzi wrong?
Or just too outrageous?

After all, our "economic system" is just a low-level Ponzi scheme. Back when money was money, meaning before 1913, we did not have inflation. Since then, yikes. Google "inflation calculator" and you'll have a lot of tools at your disposal to see how much damage has been done.

The first thing you do to save an injured body, whether human or politic, is stop the bleeding, right? Go back to some kind of stable basis. I read a sci-fi story once where the basic unit was the hour of labor. Great idea. Your hour is the same as my hour. Of course, just like in Animal Farm, some were more equal than others — in this utopia the undesirable jobs were paid double or more. Not like here, huh?

Amaranth Quiche!!
Pick 'em young, pull off the leaves, and steam 'em.

Then put the steamed leaves in as you might spinach. Turned out pretty good. Might be even better if we had the right cheese.

Goat Milk
Natural Antibiotic
(egad! I just noticed that I never finished this and it was just sitting quietly* in 'drafts' ...
(later: I noticed an unpaired parenthesis. Better to have to of those ...

Some years ago we had a cat who was headed downhill and suffice to say he was cured by goat milk.

Maybe I was going to tell the story ... but I'll leave it at that.

*You don't need books and videos about how to meditate. It's simple:
Don't just do something, sit there!!

Dogmatic or Catmatic? You decide.
Integrated or Outegrated?

I once made an outegrated circuit. And it worked. Might even later fill in the details. Right now I'm cooking chicken so my attention span has some demands on it. And actually writing on line makes for some kind of psychic pressure, probably stemming from the days when it would be tying up the phone line while I sat back and thunk (past of think).

Great new stunt!!
I think I'll patent it.

I was munching a few peanuts (Sabritas) and nipping at a beer out in my CAGE (Center for Advanced Gizmological Endeavors) ... the Sabritas were a mix of a small package of the lime & salt variety and a same-size package of the chile type. What I really prefer is the chile & lime but Frito-Lay, which has owned Sabritas for decades, will not sell Sabritas hardly at all in this part of the country, which proves that they are out of their skulls. Anyway the two were mixed in a peanut butter jar and I was alternately making notes in a notebook, sipping beer, and pouring a few peanuts into my palm and tossing them into my mouth. At one point I picked up the beer bottle and poured beer into my palm. If I had more presence of mind I would have sipped what didn't spill from my hand but as it was the startlement had it all on the floor. Clever, eh wot?

This whaling crap is the last straw.
Impeach Oreobama.

Roof Antenna
My Latest Invention

I don't mean an antenna that goes on the roof. The antenna IS the roof. There's a 14 KV power line down the side of the property (though you might have been taught that it's kV, not KV; my position is that the anomaly — of using a small letter k for kilo when the standard is otherwise universally that multipliers larger than 1 use capital letters and smaller than 1 use little ones — is not only stupid {as generally acknowledged} but also inappropriate and improper as continued practice) so I'm kinda goosey about putting up a normal and formal antenna. So I attached a wire to the middle of one edge of the metal roof and drove a ground rod below it, put a tuner between the 706 and the "antenna", and talked to a guy in Calgary a while ago. Cool.

Censorship or Regulation?
I'll be among the first to decry censorship,
and I think I understand the whole thing pretty well. At the same time, I'm neither Old Left, the sort who can't see past their principles, nor New Right, who don't seem to have any. I think the people who put the Constitution together got a lot of things right, and one of them is that the State has a duty to regulate commerce. And let's face it, artistic freedom so often boils down to nothing more than license to produce outrageous movies etc. for purely commercial reasons. Of course any attempt to regulate this swill will be met by fascists screaming about democracy.

I count myself among the membership of the Society for the Eradication of Television (SET); I do not have a TV in the house that is capable of picking up broadcasts of any sort. I do have an old set and use it occasionally for videos about woodworking, Buddhism, etc. Even more rarely do we put in a movie.

I have in my library The Blob and Killer Klowns from Outer Space. The Blob is an early example of art as commerce, or should I say art prostituted for commerce. Steve McQueen, 1958. It's kind of a hoot but also, well, gross ... and it does not tell a story that needed to be told.

Killer Klowns is a total hoot, a parody on The Blob (the opening scene is identical) and on monster movies in general. It is a parody that needed to be done. It's art in my book.

I was in a hotel the other night and had a suite with two TV sets. I did toob for a little while, but GAK!! what drivel!! Television can educate, enlighten, enhance, inform, and I've actually seen it done! Alas, it was rare.

OK. Back to the question. Censorship or regulation? I'm not going to say I have the answer. But I have the question and it won't go away.

Fair and Balanced
Please note that this is a trademark

It's not Butter.

It's not about immigration.
It's about violence on and near the border
and a lot of other places. Arizona is just one of many.

The ONLY way to stop all this stupid violence is to END PROHIBITION.
It worked in Chicago. It will work in Juarez the same way.

And by ending prohibition I mean that the whole drug thing should be considered a public health problem, which it is already, and not a crime thing. Making drugs illegal results in
(1) making everyone who has anything to do with drugs a criminal, which is pointless, and
(2) putting all the controls in the hands of the criminals.

We on the "right side" of the law are ALWAYS playing catch-up and we always will. Decriminalize drugs and regulate just like with alcohol and tobacco. Which by the way are actually bigger problems, or would be if drugs were left alone.

A few of my little "points" for you:
1. Tobacco addiction is harder to shake than opiate addiction. I've known junkies who have quit for years at a time but who are totally unable to get off of cigarettes at all.
2. Drunks on the road is, as you know, a Bad Thing. Pot smokers, on the other hand, if they are too stoned to drive, will pull over and then just sit there and laugh.
3. Cokeheads sit around racking their brains to find some reason to not spend their last nickel on coke. And they can't come up with one. If if it was legal, then at least whole family fortunes or businesses wouldn't be going up their noses.
4. Meth is plentiful because of the economics. If it were not illegal there would not be large amounts of money to be made, and therefore no incentive to risk getting oneself burnt to a crisp cooking up the damned stuff.
5. Were it not for hemp, we wouldn't be sitting here in the "New World" blogging because there would have been no canvas (cannabis) or rope for the big ships, but nobody would have noticed because the ships would not have existed. On the bright side, there would not be a gazillion stupid people in Arizona.

Google "williams audubon hemp" (don't include the quotes) for the world's best history of the prohibition of drugs.

Recycling the Deck Chairs
So you think you're actually doing something?
You're not.

If you want to start doing something to save the planet, STOP BUYING CRAP.

April is Colombia to Hell in a Handbasket Month
Sorry it's a little late for getting the publicity out.

Clam and Eggs — who knew?
(If we had any aracana eggs it could be Green Eggs and Clam)
I woke up this morning thinking about cooking clams. We had a can of clams in the cupboard for a very long time. So I drained the stuff and fried it in butter. Not having done this before, I put it alongside the egg dish instead of in it, but next time it'll go in. We get tired of pig meat, and now there's an alternative.

Tracker, schmacker
Why bother with complicated solar trackers?
Since there is a finite life to solar panels, why not swap out the complexities of making, installing, and maintaining trackers for the extended life of solar panels by not having them always facing the sun full on? Buy a few more panels and put them in an arc, where some are facing the morning sun, some midday, some afternoon. Since (I assume) the life is proportional to the electrical output over time (measured in coulombs) ... one of many things I oughta look up to see if I'm all wet.

Virtual Speechwriter
(If I was O'Bama ... )

I realize the insurance companies gave me a lot of money, but that doesn't make them saints. Not even in my book. They contribute nothing to the health of the people. Nothing. All they do is take.

We have a lot of problems to solve here. For one, most of the money spent in health care is for heroic efforts to prolong the agony of people in their last six months of life. We need to put money into improving health at the beginning of life, and in the middle. Infant mortality is not a pretty picture for a Maternal mortality is up. Obesity is rampant.

Do we want health insurance, health care, or health? Health is what we want. Health care, though it's not perfect, is a way to facilitate health. Health insurance is a way to squander huge amounts of money on people in offices, hoping that some of it makes it out the back door to the health care providers. It's like pushing a rope.

Make the Pie Higher!!
This time it's The Health Pie.

This morning one of my coworkers came in fuming about the "health" thing. For good reason, of course; it's a complete travesty. But you knew that. Trouble was, he was spouting F*x Noose and calling it "Socialist". And insisting that F*x tells it straight. Gak!! Why would anyone think this is butter? Anyway, it seems the F*x likes to call things they don't like "Socialist", having already decided that the word means something worse than death. Gimme a break!! You drive on public roads? That's socialism. You have or had kids in public school? That's socialism. You want help from the government when your unwisely-placed house washes away? Let's not get into that one.

This health plan is not socialism. It's Fascism, pure and simple. Of course F*x doesn't know what that word means either.

The Alphabet Diet
this month I'm on P

I can have Peas, Pork, Porridge, Pistachios, Piña Colada, Pine Nuts, Poultry, Pemmican, Port, Pasta, Pad Thai, Pie, Popovers, Peppers, Peperoni, Pizza ...

I think I'll come back later and put everything in alphabetical order.

September 2009 St. Petersburg
(and to and fro)
[more of the Better Blog than Never department]

So we went to Umeå and caught the ferry across to Vaasa. Nice little ferry. Got on the train at Vaasa and changed at Jyväskylä (did I spell that right?) for Pieksämäki. It was a little arduous finding the little B&B-hotel but when we did, with the help of a young fellow who saw us wandering twice, we were rewarded with a nice sauna. And the next morning, when we had to leave a bit early, our hosts set up breakfast early. I can recommend Hotel Sweet Home to you without reservation (pun intended, sorry).

I like the breads they have in the north, especially Finland. We're talking serious bread here.

The train took us to Kuovola where we changed for St. Petersburg. We were on a Finnish train, and the food was way excellent.

Food in St. Petersburg was interesting. We ate at the same restaurant three nights in a row. It was run by people from one or more of the southern republics. Other meals were random and some pretty good, except for the occasional nearby smoker. There did seem to be a lot of smoking, both there and Finland.

Internet access seemed to be easiest at any of many branches of a bookstore called "Bukvoed" (pronounced kinda like bukvoyed). My guess is the name comes from vocational-educational, but that might be erroneous.

Museums are a subject big enough for a separate post.

After the visit to the Hermitage, we had the opportunity to confound a gaggle of pickpockets. A small group of punks was blocking the sidewalk behind a bus stop shelter, and since I had my passport and stuff inside my clothing, I went right ahead into the squeeze; a young lady was dipping a finger into my right hip pocket and was about to abscond with my handkerchief when I grabbed her arm. She spun away and the gang vanished. That was kinda fun.

2009-09-06
The Kingdom of Cheese

Sunday — Went with Christer by way of the Kingdom of Cheese (Burträsk) to his summer cabin, halfway to Umeå, where we met Hans and his mother and had a nice time, and afterwards picked lingon and blueberries in the woods and put them into a jar which we took with us to Russia; still had some when we got into our hostel room in St. Petersburg. Great munch, along with the Västerbotten cheese we got in Burträsk. That stuff is GOOD.

In the evening Christer took us to Umeå, dinner at McDonald's, for our overnight stay before catching the ferry to Vaasa, Finland. Taxi in Umeå to the ferry was horribly expensive, and the taxi in Vaasa from the ferry to the train station was very reasonable.

Better blog than never department
2009-09-02 Bastuträsk and Skellefteå
Picked up at the train station in Bastuträsk by cousin Christer. He has been staying in touch with my mother for a very long time and stays at her house in Florida when he goes there to buy cars and parts. He and his wife Eva are waaay into American cars and he is apparently the local guru in Skellefteå.
We stayed there for several days including a trip with cousin Eskil (who taught Eva to drive long ago) up to the family stomping grounds somewhere around Ersmark. There we met a bunch more cousins, half of whom were out of work. Before that gathering we had lunch with Eskil and his wife Vera at their lovely place in Kåge.

Better Blog than Never department
2009-09-01 Tuesday
Arrival in Stockholm, seriously jetlagged, on the day that 100-watt incandescent bulbs became illegal.

Mamacita lost her grip on a sweatshirt she had just bought in Chicago (a closeout super deal) while getting off the plane. It did eventually turn up in "hittegods" (lost & found) and they shipped it to her in Denmark, eventually, for more than it cost.

I bought Telia SIM cards for our cell phones; selected that carrier on my cousin's good advice that their coverage was much better than the two others in the north where he lives. We put them into the Motorola W490s that were sold to us at a T-Mobile kiosk as being unlocked. Just plain unlocked. Ha. More on this later. (The difference between a cell phone salesman and a used car salesman? The used car salesman knows when he's lying.)

We were pretty jetlagged. Did I say this already? On the bus from Årlanda airport into Stockholm, due to putting on the seatbelt in the bus, my 490 came off my belt -- hey, no more belt clips, only loops -- hold me to this -- so we were down to just one nonworking phone, except for -- voila!! The Palm Treo 650 that friend Howard had given me. It is a great PDA, rather schizo as a camera (sometimes it tells me there is no camera) and reluctant as a phone. It does work, but after about 8 minutes it overheats or something and just goes bonkers. And it does other things in fits when the phone part of it is turned on. But it was truly an unlocked quad mode phone. But it was such a pain in the zad that I eventually bought a dumb Nokia for the journey.

(Later: The phone did eventually turn up in hittegods at the central station, and that hittegods office won't ship out of the country. I think I'd better call my sister's friend Tony. Later yet, did that, and he retrieved it and shipped is to me. Phew.)

Free Yuri
I find it totally absurd that Yuri Kondratyuk has been omitted from the International Space Hall of Fame at the Space Museum in Alamogordo. You could complain about this via their Contact Us page.

What boggled your mind today?
Mine was the Wikipedia article on The Woodlands, Texas

The Woodlands is a hoity-toity master-planned city near Houston. The boggling was due to this aspect of the article: while many Wikipedia articles have versions in scads of other languages, this one had just four. But which four? Take a wild guess. Give up? They are (in reverse order): Volapük, Portuguese, Dutch, and Haitian Creole.

Revoking Corporate Charters
A talk by Richard Grossman

This was on Alternative Radio just a little while ago. Recorded in 1997, though host David Barsamian didn't mention that at the end of the program (and I didn't hear the very beginning).

You can go to alternativeradio.org to get lots of stuff, five bux for an hour MP3 program, if you can't get it on public radio where you are. Check it out.

Cooking Vegiburgers
They go on chard usually, with caramelized* and/or carbonized** onions on top. I do the onions with safflower oil and a dash of allspice, and I don't have a rational explanation for the latter. It's about vibration cooking. (I once had a cookbook by that name, written by an outrageous lady named Verta Mae. "If you don't make a mess in the kitchen, you ain't makin' nothin' fit to eat!")
* my preference. ** wife's preference

Along with the whole thing we use mayonesa. That's the Mexican version of mayonnaise, made with lime juice instead of lemon. Waaay outshines the regular stuff. Best Foods / Hellman's has an orange top (and is made in Canada!); McCormick's has a red top. Check it out. Yum.

My wood stove does not have an IP address.
Nor does my well.

I have to wonder whether this technology stuff will be useful in the glorious future when all the dilithium crystals are used up, or whatever it is we're using to live beyond our means, energy-wise. Of course we are not energy wise.

Anyway, my BBC Headlines are supposed to be updating themselves automatically and they don't. I googled the problem and found the advice "right click" ... huh. For a Mac , make that control-click, and you get a menu including "Reload Live Bookmark". It doesn't work.

The stove works.

The well works when we have electricity and a solar pump might be a Good Thing. I also have a good-old-fashioned hand pump. Haven't installed it yet, but Real Soon Now ...

I voted for him. I'm writing him off.
Even though he's got the same middle initial as Jesus, he's no kind of savior.
Sure, there was exhilaration at the inauguration-watching party. We suspended our disbelief.
Maybe not the best idea, but under the circumstances ...

BBC vs. Wikipedia
You can probably tell that I read the BBC headlines that come with Firefox. Batteries included. Punctuation at a slight extra cost. Actually what I'm trying to say is that if you want to teach how people NOT to use punctuation, look at the horrible example that BBC puts out many times a day. The English have some bad habits in that respect, and us Yanks have some of our own. That said, there is a place to find good puctuation: Wikipedia. I was doing the wiki dance somewhat early on, and I recall the community working out what would be the international standards for English on Wikipedia. Very good work.

Of course you can find bad work there too. And when you do, fix it!

Google vs. Italy
On the surface that would seem to be an even match, but Italy is sniping various of Google's individual people. The premise behind the case, boiled down to basics, seems to be that Italy thinks that when some thug spray-paints dirty words on a fence, the owner of the fence is responsible. Duh. That is so stupid!!
(ref BBC story "Google bosses convicted in Italy" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8533695.stm)

Adult News:
Apple has apparently assumed leadership of the Anti-Sex League. See BBC story iPhone developers angry as Apple purges adult apps (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8530124.stm)


The founders of this new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition, did not allow this kind of behavior (First Amendment and like that) but did not envision government by corporations (well, some of them did) (although they did have some apprehensions about terrorism by government).

Related stories:
Women to serve aboard submarines (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8533414.stm)

'Date-rape drugs' are on the rise (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8533736.stm)

Giant clam-eating shark unearthed in Kansas (http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8530000/8530995.stm)

Wavy Gravy:
Google Wave.
Check it out: http://wave.google.com/

The intro video has Lars whatsisname saying something like this is the first significant update to email since the beginning. Well, in one way, yes. In another way, introduction of the domain name system was a big boost, and given the size of the fishbowl at the time, I'd say it was close to revolutionary.

To Zen or Not to Zen?
What is the point of one hand blogging?

I've just been reading an article in Tricycle about badly-behaving Buddhist bloggers and a few aphorisms come to mind:
• Don't just do something, sit there!
• If you have nothing to say, shut up.

The next thing that comes up is how I have had, or I think I have had, lots of things to say, huge amounts, but to whom? There's nobody home. We seem to think that's a virtue in some of our discussions. If the quarterback throws a great pass but there's nobody there to receive it, is that a good thing to a Buddhist?

Stream of Unconsciousness

I think I had something to say but I forgot what it was.

Stuff in my barn (Mac parts) that I wanna get rid of
but I think is worth something so I've never thrown it out — yet.

A flyback transformer for a Mac Plus — Lifon 157-0042C
Clicker buttons (3) for 190/5300/3400, Apple repair part # 922-2702
Cover bezels (2) for 520/540, Apple repair part # 922-0789
Width coil L2 (3) for Mac Plus
Diodes (2) CR1 & 5 for Mac Plus, CR2 & 3 for SE, DL5 for Classic. Motorola MR824

No reasonable offer refused for any portion or all, and paying the shipping cost comes under the heading of reasonable. A pittance more would buy me some coffee. Email me at my spam-filled address: ebear@zianet.com