Not Many Words

Not much to say today other than I wish I could sleep past 3am. That would be nice. But given that I can't seem to, I guess I'll mess around here. Work is still slow-but-steady. At least most of the returns coming now are more involved and sometime even require a bit of research. All of which makes the days go by a bit faster.

The weather continues to tease us with temps in the high 40's and low 50's (that's 7C to 10C everywhere other than the US). If this is a head-fake and we end up buried up to our necks in snow a couple weeks from now, there are going to be a great number of very angry people, including yours truly.

So anyway, I'm up at 3 o'clock this morning with nothing better to do than read about the Democratic party shooting itself in the foot. Obama has chosen to surround himself with Chicago thugs that are about as subtle as a brick through a window. The November elections will be interesting; even more interesting will be Hope-n-Change's response to losing the majority in one or both houses. Will he do a Bill Clinton, or will he double down with his juvenile "Guess what? We won." attitude? As much as I'd like to see the Democrats implode, it would be a disaster for the country. I never thought I would say this, but I'm becoming nostalgic for the Clinton years when the worst we had to worry about was Waco and Ruby Ridge. We can hope that The One learns the right lessons from the November elections.

And as always, the British press has an interesting perspective on US politics:

Mr Obama benefited in his campaign from an idiotic level of idolatry, in which most of the media participated with an astonishing suspension of cynicism....

The root of the problem seems to be the management of expectations. The magnificent campaign created the notion that Mr Obama could walk on water. Oddly enough, he can't....

There are lessons from the stumbling of Mr Obama for our own country as we approach a general election. Vacuous promises of change are hostages to fortune if they cannot be delivered upon to improve the living conditions of a people. The slickness of campaigning that comes from a combination of heavy funding and public relations expertise does not inevitably translate into an ability to govern. There is no point a nation's having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not.

Campaigning is not governing. Obama needs to learn this. The question is, will he?

The national ID card is back on the table. I'm of two minds about this. As a libertarian, a national ID card would be yet-another nail in the coffin of federalism and another push down the road to making Washington DC into the Imperial City. But another part of me understands that federalism is dead and buried, the sod grown over the unmarked grave, and its location forgotten. Not even Bones could find it now. Will whatever federal agency put in charge of this make a hash of it? Will innocent people have their lives destroyed through bureaucratic incompetence? Will it fail to fully address it's primary selling point (in this iteration, illegal immigrants)? Certainly. The No-Fly-List is exhibit A in any discussion of just how badly a move to a national ID card could go. The thing is, I'm no longer convinced that given the current political reality, the alternative is any better. I know despair is a sin and all, but.... (shrug)

Gas prices around here are edging back up to the $3/gallon mark as oil pushes higher. The article argues whether the price is up due to expectations of a resumption of the climb in global demand, or "technical factors." I suppose that's an important point to some people, but I can't see myself smiling as I pump $4/gallon gas because it's only due to "technical factors."

Fred Phelps is an ass. Advancing the political cause of your "church" by disrupting the funerals of soldiers is morally bankrupt in every way. I'm sure a psychiatrist could put a label on whatever is wrong with him and his little inbred band of followers.

But.

The Supreme's are now weighing in on the case. Boundary cases involving free speech are a minefield and have been for several generations, but they are important none the less. It is unfortunate that this one will center around such an unprincipled ass.

Well, time to get ready for another fun, fun day.

Walkin' in the Sunshine

We took advantage of both a day off and the nice weather to take our first walk around the 'hood. We took the camera and snapped a few. We're going to try to make a habit of it (yea, right) as long as the warm, dry weather holds out. It looked like everyone else had the same idea; we had lots of company out on the streets both on foot and on bikes. We had considered digging our bikes out of the storage shed, but figured it would be more trouble than it was worth. I'll probably take a few minutes to air up the tires and what-not after work one night next week in case we get a sudden impulse to do something more physical than walk from the couch to the jellybean jar. It isn't likely, but you never can tell.

Other than that, not much happening today other than dishes, laundry and getting ready for another week of the same ol' grind. Next weekend we will be taking a day-trip down to Boston to hang around a bit and see Lion King. Debbie saw it up in Toronto, but this will be my first time. It will be a nice excuse to get out of the apartment. We're a little concerned about the weather, but even if we get the rain that is predicted, it will still be a nice trip made better by the fact that I don't have to do any of the driving.

I'm gradually working my way through the 1,300+ free songs I grabbed from Amazon last week. The vast majority are worth every penny I paid. A few are worth another listen and a handful or so have already made it to a playlist. I expect to have a few hundred after the first cut and likely less than a hundred when it's all said and done. But at least I get some new tunes without having to spend money.

I generally avoid any news about awards shows because I like what I like and could care less about what some committee thinks about it. No number of ugly statues are going to make me like something or someone that I don't, and vice-versa. But I was intrigued by this:

A dispute over what Cablevision New York should pay for ABC’s free-to-air broadcast signals turned ugly at the stroke of midnight Saturday as the Disney-owned network made good on its threat to cut the signal, putting into doubt whether the cable system’s three million area customers would get to see the Oscars Sunday night....

Should the dispute not be resolved in the 19 hours or so until the Oscars will be seen by everyone else, ABC could and should stream it live. No special video players. No registration. No questions asked: Surf on over to ABC.com and join our Oscars party. Just leave the webcast going after the red-carpet show is over.

ABC could easily do that. They likely won't. For one, the affiliates would scream bloody murder. If the networks start streaming live shows on their web pages, local affiliates become more or less superfluous. They're close to that now; streaming shows (live or otherwise) simultaneous with their broadcast would pound the last couple nails into the local affiliates coffin. I expect the TV industry to look very different in a few years.

It's late and there is work tomorrow.

Sunny and Warmish

According to our little indoor/outdoor thermometer, it broke 50 today. Add in the blue skies and sun and you'd almost think summer is here. We don't know what's "normal" weather-wise around here this time of year, but I'm figuring it's all a head-fake and we'll wake up to a blizzard. But in the meantime, I'll take what I can get.

Work for me has surpassed slow and is quickly heading towards completely dead. I was told to expect it to get slow, but at this point, we can't even be covering payroll. Staff has been cut to the absolute minimum possible without reducing hours of operation. I feel bad getting paid to surf the web, but I'm not sure what exactly I'm supposed to do about it. Ah well; 5 weeks to go.

I signed back into Facebook last night for the first time in over a month. I've been checking on the progress of the updated FB Purity script since the latest redesign of Facebook broke the version I was running. Without Purity, Facebook was unusable to me which was a big part of why I just stopped using it. Well, a new Purity script enticed me back in. I'm still working on having better control over content. What I'd like to be able to do is see updates prioritized so if I'm short on time, I can make a quick check without having to wade through updates from people we're not as close to. But long story short, I'm back on Facecrack.

This morning, I saw a headline that started with "Positive jobs report..." and assumed that despite the fears, unemployment crept down in February. But of course in the world of the new normal, "positive" means "less negative." Of course.

While we're on the subject of large negative numbers, it seems our wunderkind in our nation's capital are digging us into a hole even faster than previously thought. I remember when billion-dollar deficits were going to be the doom of the nation. Then it was tens of billions. Bush II upped the ante to hundreds of billions. Hope-n-Change said, "See your hundreds of billions and raise you a trillion or so." No one really believes we can keep doing this, right? There is no way this has a happy ending.

I suspect Germany is feeling like the put-upon husband that is at his wits end with his shiftless brother-in-law. First, two German politicians told Greece they should sell off some islands to bail themselves out. Then an open letter to the Greek prime minister has this zinger:

Germany also has high debts but we can settle them. That's because we get up early and work all day.

Ouch. Me thinks the gloves have come off. More from another article:

"[Greek Prime Minister] Papandreou said that he didn't want one cent -- in any case the German government will not give one cent," [Germany's Economy Minister Rainer] Bruederle told reporters.

Damn. If Germany is saying it, I wonder how many other countries in the EU are thinking it: "Get yer lazy Greek ass off my couch and get a job!!"

It's Saturday again which means that another bunch of banks did a big ol' belly flop off the high dive. But like I said before, at least the pace of failures as well as the size of the banks involved seems to have backed off from 2009. Slightly more worrying is the lack of willing asset buyers this week. That may be an indication of how horribly run those banks were, or an indication of something more troubling. And there is also the off-hand comment by unnamed FDIC officials that the pace is likely to pick up later this year (wait; did the FDIC just predict a double-dip?) and that the list of "problem" banks has grown from 552 to 702 in three months. Meanwhile, The One insists that the way to solve a problem caused by excessive debt is to "promote" more debt. The gods save us from the world's dumbest smart guy.

Well, I should stop messing around here and see what's the latest on Facebook.

Still Muddling Through

This week hasn't been too bad at the office. We still get the occasional person who has no idea how to do their taxes, but will insist on arguing about every figure on the tax return because they don't like the answer. I'm at the point now that customer service be damned: If you don't think I did it right, take your crap across the street so they can charge you to tell you the same frackin' thing I just told you for free. But you are not going to sit at my desk wasting my time while you demonstrate your ignorance of the tax code and basic mathematics.

We seem to be settling into a rut of going to work, coming home, eating dinner, watching something on Hulu, going to bed, then doing it all over again. So Debbie hooked us up with a couple tickets for a bus ride down to Boston to hang out there and see the stage version of Lion King. It's been a while since I've seen a stage production of any kind and we've never been to that area of the country before. Should be interesting.

Can someone explain why it's OK to take a second-grade class to a museum to view nude sculptures, but the cops force a homeowner to dress his Venus de Mil sculpted in snow? One of these days, this country will address its schizophrenic attitude towards nudity. Or it will simply continue to be schizophrenic. We seem to like being schizophrenic about a great many things.

I used to listen to NPR religiously. Trying to salvage something from the several hours in the car just getting to and from work was part of the reason, but during the 1980's and 90's, they were a fairly reasonable source of news. Then sometime around 2001 or 2002, there was a dramatic shift towards attack journalism. I just switched it off and have never listened to a minute of public radio since. I see that I haven't missed much; now they can't be bothered to check even the most basic of facts. Whatever. I think I'll keep right on not listening.

You can't make this stuff up:

In 2007, an Islington [England] officer ticketed an Islington vehicle, but the department that got the ticket appealed. Because the department is not a different entity, in legal terms the council was appealing a ticket it got from the council, and under the rules above, the council was hearing its own appeal. After the council rejected its appeal, it then appealed again to the Parking Adjudicator. But having appealed, it then presented no evidence, and the Adjudicator voided the ticket. Feeling its appeal had been an outrageous waste of time, the council asked for costs, thus accusing itself of having acted frivolously, vexatiously and/or wholly unreasonably toward itself.

Remind me again why we want to be like these guys?

Speaking of England, a couple Muslim women chose to miss their flight rather than be publicly strip-searched (which is what the new full-body scanners do) in the middle of Manchester Airport. I normally don't find myself agreeing with people who feel the need to wear giant garbage bags over their heads, but it's time and past time to decide just what indignities we are going to allow ourselves to be put through.

And that's it; I'm falling asleep on my keyboard again.

Dogs

Yea, yea. It's a frackin' commercial. Watch it anyway.

Way Cool Video

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