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Thursday, November 30, 2006

Weird DSL problem Weird DSL problem

I have DSL both in Dillon and in Golden. It works fairly well in Golden, except for the VOIP problems I mentioned earlier today. But it is flaky in Dillon.

Tuesday morning, we lost power between for an hour, most likely due to the blizzard outside. After that, the DSL barely worked for the next 36 hours. Of the eight sites that I frequent, and open en-mass when starting Firefox or Mozilla, only two or three would load. The rest would invariably time out. I could do a DNS search for those sites (via nslookup), but couldn't "ping" them by name, but could by the IP address returned by "nslookup". So, the sites were out there and should have been available, but weren't. I figured that it was a timing problem.

I kept calling the published phone number for the complex, and kept getting a FAX machine. If I called back quick enough, I got voice mail, and left a message to call, etc. Then, after about 36 hours, I went out into the blizzard (now in its 2nd day) and found the managers. Apparently, they operate by cell phone and the published number is now used solely for FAXes. Silly me, thinking that the number in my brand new Dex phone book or in the Condo Assn. minutes was a voice line.

So, we went down into the basement of this building and one of them unplugged and replugged the DSL modem and the router. And that was when I figured out the big reason that DSL stinks here. The router is tied to three eight port IP to DSL converters. Thus, one Qwest DSL line (like I have in Golden), is suporting 24 DSL lines in the units in this building.

In any case, I was expecting this to solve my problem. Well, only somewhat. Instead of only being able to load two of my normal sites, I could now do 5 or 6 of them. Interestingly, Mozilla did better than Firefox with the same list of sites, but has the annoyance that whenever it fails to load a site, it puts up an answerable message to that effect - which steals the focus of whatever else you are doing in Mozilla. Worse, it puts those answreable messages up when it fails to load a blacklisted (advertising) site, even though the reason it failed to load was because it was blacklisted. Firefox ignores blacklisted sites, and its messages are not answerable, but rather, just has a retry button on the site's tab.

But what was really weird was that I could load them with Internet Explorer. Even weirder, once I had loaded them via IE, I could load them via either Mozilla or Firefox.

My guess at what is happening is that IE is more lenient in its timing. Add to that, that both Mozilla and Firefox are pipelining, and IE probably isn't. This normally results in faster overall loads, but here... In any case, my problems are that:
  • Dillon is somewhat remote, and they probably don't have that fast of access to the rest of the Internet to start with.

  • The local DNS server supplied by the ISP for the complex most likely is lightly used.

  • The DNS entries for the sites I want to visit invariably have to be recursively downloaded from ther DNS servers, and this takes enough time that Firefox and Mozilla time out before they have completed.

  • The IE requests load the entries into the local DNS' cache, and

  • When I then try to load these sites via Firefox or Mozilla, the DNS entries are now retrieved quickly enough not to time out.

  • I should add that the sites that seem to timeout the worst have the shortest DNS expirations.

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VOIP#2 - Phone number portability VOIP#2 - Phone number portability

Awhile back, phone numbers were supposedly made portable, so that you can keep your phone number as you change from one carrier to another. This is esp. important will cell phone numbers, since many switch at the end of their contracts to other carriers. So, that is the theory.

Well, it is supposed to work with VOIP too. Vonage provides a mechanism for their customers to request that their phone numbers be transferred to Vonage. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as expected.
  • When I initially set up my Vonage account, I used my existing cell phone number as my account number, and immediately requested that it be transferred to Vonage for my use.

  • But then, a week or so later, Qwest, my cell (and land line) carrier rejected the request because of a mismatched SS#. It turns out that my SS# at Qwest was stored with the first five digits as 9's at my request years before.

  • So, I provided Vonage with the Qwest version of my SS#, and tried again.

  • This time, it was rejected for other mismatch reasons. Ditto for a third try.

  • So, I went to Qwest, thinking that the problem might be that they might not be able to transfer an active cell number, and switched it to a CO number. Unfortunately, at that point, they informed me that I had lost control of the number, because they had sold their cell system to Sprint a couple of years before, and Sprint owned it.

  • So, I gave up. I have been giving out the "temporary" AZ Vonage number for the last month now for use as my primary phone number.

  • Then, yesterday, about a month after anything had happened in this area, I get two emails from Vonage. The first informed me that the number transfer was going through, and the second, shortly thereafter, that it had completed.

  • So, finally, about six weeks after starting this process, I have my old cell number back, now as my primary phone number. Unfortunately, everyone using my new AZ number must now be told to switch back.
I intend to now start the process of switching my primary land line number to Vonage. Currently, that phone line has two numbers, the primary number and a custom ring number I use for FAXes. My plan is to first switch those around, and then hopefully it will be easier to move a custom ring number to Vonage than a primary telephone number.

What I haven't figured out though yet is whether Qwest was intentionally slowing down the process in order to keep me as a customer (which I still am), or because they are just inept (they are one of the RBOCs), or whether it was because of the sale of their cell system to Sprint. We shall see with the land line number transfer

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VOIP#1 VOIP#1

I had been thinking about VOIP for quite awhile, but never was quite ready to take the plunge. Then, I got a gift certificate at Wal-Mart/Sam's Club for my birthday, and used a bit of it to buy a VOIP modem. I signed up with Vonage for an account with unlimited long distance, etc., and then for a toll-free number.

The first thing I found though was that it just doesn't work that well over DSL. I wasn't surprised, but my brother who is also a patent attorney was a little bit. The problem is that DSL essentially piggybacks on a voice grade telephone line, and so VOIP runs digitally over such. Yes, the bandwidth of a DSL line is several times that of that needed for digitized voice. But my suspicion is that there isn't enough excess capacity to provide good speed. I think that you really need cable or faster broadband to make it work.

Nevertheless, it has provided what I really wanted from it:
  • Vonage provides for simultaneous ringing of incoming VOIP calls on multiple numbers. I have it ring on my cell phone and my land line, and use whichever is more pragmatice at the time. This is much better than my previous situation where my land line would ring for awhile, then forward to my cell.

  • Voice mail is available online. This means that you can see whom a call is from before listening to it, and only listen to the ones that you want to, deleting the rest. Also, you can do it with your computer speakers.

  • You can have multiple incoming telephone numbers for $5 per month per extra number. Thus, I can have one in AZ and one in CO for minimal cost.

  • Similarly, I have 600 minutes of incoming toll-free calls a month for $5 per month. Great for new clients.

  • Finally, it provides one number (per area) that works for all my phone needs. Someone in AZ can call me on my AZ number and get me on a land line in Dillon or Golden, on my cell phone, or sitting in a motel room in Las Vegas. Ditto, my CO number.

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Monday, November 27, 2006

Can a Mormon be President? Can a Mormon be President?

Time asks: TIME.com: Can a Mormon be President? It is interesting that they would ask this question, and indicative of Mitt Romney's chances at the Republican nomination that they do so. It is also interesting that there has been little, if any, note that Harry Reid, soon to be the majority leader in the Senate, is also Mormon.

The constant suggestion from the left (which is where I put Time) that the Religious Right will not accept a Mormon for president. Most indications are that this is more an attempt by the left to sabitage Romney's chances than a real concern of that portion of the Republican constituancy. No question that the left would prefer a Gulliani or a McCain to a religious conservative, regardless of his actual beliefs.

We shall see if their concerns have any basis as we get nearer the 2008 election.

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Saturday, November 25, 2006

Milton Friedman in the Wall Street Journal Milton Friedman in the Wall Street Journal

Emily Parker and Joseph Rago compiled these quotes of Milton Friedman from the WSJ: Milton Friedman in the Wall Street Journal. One of my favorites here is:
To summarize, deficits are bad--but not because they necessarily raise interest rates. They are bad because they encourage political irresponsibility. They enable our representatives in Washington to buy votes at our expense without having to vote explicitly for taxes to finance the largesse. The result is a bigger government and a poorer nation. That is why I favor a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to balance the budget and limit taxation.
I constantly hear from liberals how we should raise taxes to support the war in Iraq. But what I always suspect is that they really want to just raise taxes. And, of course, they totally ignore any income effects of cutting taxes, instead relying on static analysis that studiously ignores these effects.

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Novak: Inside Report: Nancy's Choice Novak: Inside Report: Nancy's Choice

Robert Novak in: Inside Report: Nancy's Choice makes some interesting observations about the direction of the Democrats under Speaker Pelosi. One is that a lot in the CIA would prefer impeached federal judge Hastings to Harman as chair of the Intelligence committee. Another is that they may actually push for cleaning up the chamber. While he makes a good point that the Democrats picked up a lot of seats through the appearance of Republican corruption, he ignores that the Democrats have traditionally been more corrupt, and that their dirty members are not only still in Congress, but have a lot of seniority - for example, Murtha and Hastings. Indeed, part of Pelosi's problems right now stem from her pushing Jefferson off of Appropriations after he was caught taking $100 in bribes by the FBI. The CBC wants Hastings as Intelligence Chair in trade for that - and Jefferson is still in Congress.

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'What is a civil war?' 'What is a civil war?'

John Keegan in Prospect Magazine tries to answer: 'What is a civil war?' and then applies his definition to the situation in Iraq right now. He makes a lot of good points, and his conclusion mirrors my own: that the current situation there is not a "Civil War". Nevertheless, I think that he makes a mistake in not considering the disparity in manpower and weaponry among the different sides. When he points out that:
Objectively, it must be concluded that the disorders in Iraq do not constitute a civil war but are nearer to a politico-military struggle for power. Such struggles in Muslim countries defy resolution because Islam is irreconcilably divided over the issue of the succession to Muhammad. It might be said that Islam is in a permanent state of civil war (at least where there is a significant minority of the opposing sect) and that authority in Muslim lands can be sustained only by repression if the state takes on a religious cast, since neither Shia nor Sunni communities can concede legitimacy to their opponents.
It must be remembered that the Sunni Arabs who either want a return to control or a new Baghdad caliphate have been reduced from 20% to approximately 15% through emmigration since our intervention. The military and police now are composed almost entirely of members of the other major factions: the Kurds and the Shiite Arabs. They have 85% of the population, and an even higher percentage of guns and those who have been trained to use them, esp. in an organized manner.

Thus, I would suggest that what we have here is much closer to an ethnic cleansing than a civil war. The Sunni Arabs are being pushed out of the shared areas of Iraq. And when that has proceeded to the point where they no longer pose a security concern for the rest of the Iraqis, I expect that the violence will die down quite a bit.

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Randy Balko on no-knock raids Randy Balko on no-knock raids

Randy Balko has been blogging on a recent no-knock death of a 92 year old woman. His latest is: TheAgitator.com: More Thoughts on Johnston, Raids: Comments. This is scary:
The apologists say that if the warrant is legal, and the police have the right to be there, you're pretty much screwed. If the police storm in and you -- not being a drug dealer and consequently having no reason to think the police might break into your home -- mistake them for criminal intruders and meet them with a gun, you are at fault. I guess your crime is living in an area where drug dealers could use your porch while you aren't home, or being a too trusting, frail, old woman. Sorry about your luck.

On the other hand, if the police break into your home and they mistake the blue cup, TV remote, the t-shirt you're holding to cover your genitals because they broke in while you were sleeping naked, or the glint off your wristwatch for a gun -- and subsequently shoot you (all of these scenarios have actually happened), well, then no one is to blame. Because, you see, SWAT raids are inherently dangerous and volatile, and it's perfectly understandable how police might mistake an innocent person holding a t-shirt for a violent drug dealer with gun.
His solution is:
The solution is actually pretty simple: Stop invading people's homes for nonviolent offenses.
While I agree with that, I would suggest however that the best solution would be to reimpose legal liability for no-knock raids. Right now, I am not sure if it would be better to limit it to the police who screw up, or to include the jurisdictions that hire them.

It appears from that Cato article last year on the subject, that the bulk of no-knock military style entries are for basicially non-violent drug offenders. This is ludicrous. In many cases here, we are talking people who just harm themselves, if anyone. If they have time to flush an ounce of pot, BFD, esp. in view of what could, and sometimes does, go wrong as a result of this sort of raid.

The advantage though for elimination of soverign immunity here is that it would do a better job than probably any other of seperating the good entries from the bad. Today, even pretty small towns often have SWAT teams, and when they have them, there is a tendency to use them. And pretty soon, you find yourself with them overusing them. But if they faced being bankrupted for the type of mistake made with the 92 year old woman being killed, they would rein in their police.

Addendum: Reynolds at Instapundit makes a similar point when commenting on Balko's post:
Yes. Also, the police should be held strictly liable for mistakes, without benefit of official immunity. And they should be required to record video of the entire proceedings, in a tamper-resistant format.
I had not thought of the video taping. An excellent idea, and not surprising that it comes from Glenn. Also, there is a thread right now on this by Jonathan Adler at the Volokh Conspiracy.

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Friday, November 24, 2006

Nancy the Not-So-Great? Nancy the Not-So-Great?

Barry Casselman in Nancy the Not-So-Great? does not believe that Speaker-to-be Pelosi is stupid enough to jump impeaced federal judge Hastings over Harman as the new chair of the Intelligence committee. I am not so sure. And, I am salivating at the prospect, as he suggests a lot of other Republicans are - since this is the sort of thing that could easily end up swinging most of those swing voters back to the Republicans in those marginal and Republican leaning districts the Democrats won a couple of weeks ago.

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Olie North: Feeling the Draft Olie North: Feeling the Draft

Oliver North in: Feeling the Draft points out again why the recent calls by some Democrats for a renewed draft are policital grandstanding. The justifications posed don't wash and it would significantly decrease the effectiveness of our all-volunteer military.

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The Anbar Tribes vs. al-Qaeda The Anbar Tribes vs. al-Qaeda

The Fourth Rail: The Anbar Tribes vs. al-Qaeda, Continued points out that Anbar Province has become increasingly inhospitable for foreign born terrorists, esp. al Qaeda, in the last year:
Lost in the current debate over Iraq - civil war or sectarian violence, success or failure, increasing troops or strategic redeployment, victory or defeat - is the sea-change occurring in western Iraq. The U.S. military has coaxed a large majority of the Sunnis of Anbar province, perhaps one of the most sympathetic groups to al-Qaeda in the Middle East, to turn on al-Qaeda. The choice wasn't difficult after the tribes saw what al-Qaeda had to offer – death, torture, Taliban like sharia, humiliation, destruction of commerce. The relationship and intelligence gained form operating in western Iraq will benefit the west during the Long War – if the U.S. doesn't withdrawal precipitously and leave the Anbar tribes to the predations of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Hizballah Hizballah

Well, I have seen the name of the organization spelled several different ways. But most often, you see it as Hezbollah. As: The Hizballah Program - An Open Letter makes clear, that is incorrect. The proper spelling is Hizballah, a contraction of Hizb Allah, meaning apparently, the party of God. This is apparently the organization's manifesto, and is interesting, esp. for anyone who thinks that they are merely a Lebanese political party. They are not.

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Coloroado jurisprudence in action Coloroado jurisprudence in action

Sometimes it isn't all that bad when Colorado makes the national news. In this article in the NRO Corner: Oh, Those Moderate Saudis, a Saudi couple here who kept an Indonesian woman essentially as a slave have been convicted and sentenced as a result. I liked this:
At his sentencing proceeding, al-Turki declined to apologize because, he said, he was engaged in "traditional Muslim behaviors" and thus did not commit any crimes. The judge, engaging in traditional American judicial behaviors, aptly slammed him with a sentence of 27 years to life in jail.
However, the Saudis objected to this, and the State Department is flying the CO AG to Saudi Arabia to explain this to the Saudi king and the family of those convicted.

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Sunday, November 19, 2006

Sowell on Friedman Sowell on Friedman

Thomas Sowell has an eulegy for Milton Friedman in the WSJ titled: Freedom Man. Another reminder that we lost one of the greatest economists of all time last week.

Last night I watched a couple hours of a PBS interview of Friedman and again marvelled at the man. One of the things that I was struck with is that I agree with his philosphies more than anyone else's I can name. Paraphrasing on of his statements, he marvelled that we could elect politicians to office so that they could spend our own money bribing us to relect them. Of course, he said it much better.

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Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back

WaPo article by Joshua Muravchik asks: Can the Neocons Get Their Groove Back? His answer is a decided yes. He admits that the neocons were instrumental in our decision to intervene in Iraq, but then blames the current situation on the execution of the war.

Overall, I do agree with neocons on many subjects. But I must point out that one of the things that I most agree with is that the major problem with the government solving most problems is that the law of unintended consequences. The government is more likely to screw stuff up than to fix it - and that is because of the nature of government. Governments are political bureaucracies, and, as such, can't keep their eye on the ball, but invariably get sidetracked by other priorities and agendas. When it came to pushing a military solution, why did they think that the government would do any better than it does with internal governmental solutions to problems?

I have heard that a neoconservative is a progressive hit on the head by reality. But they seem to have forgotten this with their push for a military solution here.

That said, I agree with their ultimate solution - that the only way to solve the problem of militant Islam is by changing the political culture in the Middle East. And, as the author points out, what we have done in Iraq has already paid dividends in that area.

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Friday, November 17, 2006

Friedman and Freedom Friedman and Freedom

WSJ article today: Friedman and Freedom: The man who made free markets popular again is another nice obituary to Milton Friedman. They are even more effusive that I was, calling him the greatest economist of the 20th Century, not of just the second half of it, putting him above Keynes in importance. They have a point: Friedman changed economics in numerous ways over the year. Arguably, one Nobel Prize is not enough. Concluding, the article said:
In “Two Lucky People,” written with his wife, Rose Friedman, who survives him as a distinguished economist in her own right, Mr. Friedman well described the role of a public intellectual: “We do not influence the course of events by persuading people that we are right when we make what they regard as radical proposals. Rather, we exert influence by keeping options available when something has to be done at a time of crisis.”

On the death of Ronald Reagan, whom he advised, Mr. Friedman wrote on these pages that “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” The same can and long will be said of Milton Friedman.

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User paid to uninstall Windows XP User paid to uninstall Windows XP

BBC NEWS: User paid to uninstall Windows XP indicates that Dell, at least, has figured out that if they and Microsoft want to be able to enforce click-wrap licenses, that they have to be willing to pay up when the license is declined. Otherwise, of course, the there would be no consideration supporting the license, and, thus, the license would not be legally binding.

A while back, the software companies and the companies that sold their wares were not as cognizant of this problem. Thus, you would could purchase software, go to install it on your computer, reject the license, and the vendor who sold the product would then refuse to refund because the package had been opened. But that meant that the consideration applied to the media, and not the software. Theoretically, this would allow for violation of the click-wrap or shrink-wrap license on the grounds that there was no consideration supporting it. And, thus, the software could be potentially installed on multiple computers from the one purchased set of media.

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

ScrappleFace: Murtha to Redeploy from Leadership Battle ScrappleFace: Murtha to Redeploy from Leadership Battle

ScrappleFace: Murtha to Redeploy from Leadership Battle:
(2006-11-16) — With the battle for House Majority Leader threatening to spark “civil war” within the Democrat party, one of the combatants, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-PA, today announced a new victory strategy designed to “win the peace.”

“I’m going to pull out, or rather, redeploy to a committee chairmanship,” said Rep. Murtha, “We have to stop all the sniping and political bombshells. We need to change direction, because we can’t win this battle.”

The Pennsylvania lawmaker said his move was not a retreat, but rather “another way of defining victory.”

His opponent, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-MD, immediately declared himself to be House Majority Leader, and then informed Rep. Murtha that “unfortunately, no committee leadership posts are available…at this point.”
Of course, in the end Murtha lost, and Hoyer won, even without Murtha redeploying.

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Uncle Milton dead at 94 Uncle Milton dead at 94

Reuters: Free market economist Milton Friedman dead at 94 lets us know the sad news that probably the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th Century died today. We will miss him.

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Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Murtha: Unfit for Majority Leader Murtha: Unfit for Majority Leader

Ruth Marcus article in the WaPo: Unfit for Majority Leader suggests that Pelosi backing Murtha for Majority Leader is lose-lose for her.
If she gets her way and helps Murtha win a come-from-behind victory against Maryland's Steny Hoyer in tomorrow's leadership election, she's buying herself -- and the Democratic caucus -- endless news stories about Murtha's ethics. If, as he says, Hoyer has the votes, Pelosi has made herself look weak within the caucus -- not a smart move for any new leader, and certainly not for the first woman in the job. Perhaps the late timing and measured phrasing of Pelosi's endorsement were meant to ensure that it would have little impact. If so, Pelosi failed to recognize that once she weighed in, the vote for majority leader would inevitably be seen as a gauge of her clout.

I wrote a few weeks back that Pelosi's first test as speaker would be whether she picks Florida's Alcee Hastings -- who was removed from his federal judgeship for agreeing to take a bribe -- to head the intelligence committee. As it turns out, I was wrong. Pelosi's first test was how to handle Murtha. Whatever happens tomorrow, she flunked. Whether she'll get another failing grade on Hastings remains to be seen.
Murtha really is a bad candidate for this position, esp. for a party that came into power running against the Culture of Corruption. John Fund in today's WSJ article Meet the New Boss: John Murtha and Congress's "culture of corruption" gives some more details about how Murtha survived Abscam through Speaker Tip O'Neil effectively shutting down the investigation in the House.

My guess though is that Hoyer will win, and this will be quietly forgotten. Murtha will remain one of the most powerful members of the House, through his ability to deliver pork to the other members.

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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Is Apple Computer Insulting Islam? Is Apple Computer Insulting Islam?

TCS Daily: Is Apple Computer Insulting Islam? points out the absurdity of parts of Islam today. Apple is being charged with insulting Islam because its Fifth Avenue New York store is called the "Apple Mecca". Not only is it open 24 hours, like the Ka'ba, but liquor will be available.

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ScrappleFace: Pelosi Backs Murtha, Cites Ethics Experience ScrappleFace: Pelosi Backs Murtha, Cites Ethics Experience

ScrappleFace today in an article: Pelosi Backs Murtha, Cites Ethics Experience pointed out a pending problem for the Democrats as they take control of Congress: the people that are going to run it are far more corrupt than the Republicans were that they are replacing. All this from a party than ran against a "Culture of Corruption".
(2006-11-14) — House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi today defended her decision to back Rep. Jack Murtha, D-PA, as the next House Majority Leader, citing his extensive ethics experience as crucial to her efforts to “clean up the House.”

“Jack Murtha knows corruption inside and out,” said Rep. Pelosi, D-CA. “If we’re going to purge misconduct from our midst, we need someone intimately familiar with it.”

She distributed to reporters a history of Rep. Murtha’s “work involving ethics,” that she called “a chronicle of accomplishment dating back to the Abscam bribery sting days — making him ideally suited for leadership in the Democrat party.”..

“In brief,” Rep. Pelosi said, “two words sum up Jack Murtha’s qualifications to lead the scouring of the House: unindicted co-conspirator.
Of course, she is also pushing one of six federal judges ever impeached and removed from office by Congress as the new chair of the Intelligence Committee. But it is still unclear whether her proposed House Majority Leader is any more corrupt than the presumptive Senate Majority Leader, "Dirty Harry" Reid.

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Internet Scams - Stock Fraud#5 Internet Scams - Stock Fraud#5

Things are getting a bit out of hand. Today, I had 12 spam emails touting American Unity Investments (AUNI) stock that all had the first name of the poster as the subject of the email. That is about 20% of the email I got today that wasn't marked as spam, and about 10% total.

It would be interesting to see how these people make their money. Are they buying the stock, and then touting it to get it to go up? Or are they being paid? My guess is the former, since there are so many of them.

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Monday, November 13, 2006

Ski Season (#6) - finally here Ski Season (#6) - finally here

I have spent the last five years working as a Mountain Watch volunteer at Keystone Ski Area. Mountain Watch is primarily a safety patrol, though we do a lot of customer service as well. We "patrol" the green (beginner) runs, trying to slow up the faster skiers and riders, while helping out anyone in need of assistance. This may be as simple as giving them a map of the area and showing them where to ski, or, in many cases, being the first on the scene of accidents. In that case, except in the direst of circumstances, out job is to call in the accident to the Ski Patrol, and then help out as required. This later most often involves traffic control, but may also require helping ski patrol to immobilize a head injury and then load the victim in a toboggan. All in all, a rewarding venture.

A week ago, we had our first meeting, where we were given the requirements for the job and signed the necessary waivers, etc. We could have started work Tues., but I had work to do, and didn't get my uniform and season pass until Sat. So, Sun. was my first day on skis for the year. It was exhausting. I was planning on working today, but it was overcast, starting to snow, with a foot expected overnight, and I had to be in Golden by Tues. So, I chose discretion over valor and drove down today instead.

I managed to pick up four new pair of skis this years: two pair of 4 or 5 year old (GS) race skis; an almost new pair of all-mountain skis; and a pair of extremely wide powder skis with AT bindings. Sat. night I adjusted the bindings of the three alpine rigs for my boots - two for my regular alpine boots, and one of the pair of GS skis to my softer, early season, boots. And that was what I skied on Sun.

It turns out that this pair of skis, for $30, were a steal. I had been looking for some hard pack carving skis, and these skis fit the bill. My first run, I was impressed at how well they could carve. True full-ski carving allows you to move as quickly down the slope carving back and forth, as you could ski it straight. It was a great feeling.

Later in the day, I found that I had fallen into my bad habit of having my weight too far forward. This is a natural problem for those of us who grew up skiing on straighter skis, where forward weight was essential to getting skis to turn properly. But modern shaped skis are designed to carve with the entire ski, and when your weight is forward of the center of the ski, the tails don't properly carve, but rather skid. And skidding slows you down. So, the last couple of runs, I worked on getting my weight back a bit, and the skis carved even better.

Then, after signing out and turning in our radios, two of us headed down one of the intermediate runs, that had not been groomed as well, and I discovered the other side to these skis. They work great on hard, manufactured, snow, but don't ski well at all on ungroomed software snow. And that is why I have a couple pair of all-mountain skis. Not as good on really hard snow, but good enough. But also good on the type of packed powder that we are used to in Colorado.

Finally, I should note that my legs were shot by the end of the day. I had chased a couple of miscreants who wouldn't slow down or stop for us, and, as a result, non-stopped the runs. My legs weren't ready for that. So, by the time I was done yesterday, they were shot. On a good note though, I was expecting the sort of cramping I sometimes get in the middle of the night, and didn't get it.

I expect that by the end of the month, my legs should be almost back to where they should be. By the end of the year last year, I could comfortably non-stop the entire front of the mountain, over 2,000 vertical feet, without really stretching. I don't expect that sort of endurance until at least mid-January. Of course, that doesn't take into account my ability to go uphill - which I will need when we go to Canada in early March.

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Issues & Views: The Moynihan Report Issues & Views: The Moynihan Report

The subject of neocons and Daniel Patrick Moynihan came up. As an entering freshman in college in 1968, we all were required to read his: The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. Elizebeth Wright took aim in 1965 in her: Issues & Views: The Moynihan Report at how this country had failed to heed Mr. Moynihan's clarion call that the biggest threat to the African-American portion of our society came from dissintigration of family structure. Instead, the War on Poverty enacted around then did just the opposite: it rewarded raising kids in fatherless families. She points this out from the Moynihan Report:
Margaret Mead has pointed out that while ‘In every known human society, everywhere in the world, the young male learns that when he grows up one of the things which he must do in order to be a full member of society is to provide food for some female and her young.’ This pattern is not immutable, however, it can be broken, even though it has always eventually reasserted itself.

‘Within the family, each new generation of young males learn the appropriate nurturing behavior and superimpose upon their biologically given maleness this learned parental role. When the family breaks down . . . this delicate line of transmission is broken. Men may flounder badly in these periods, during which the primary unit may again become mother and child, the biologically given, and the special conditions under which man has held his social traditions in trust are violated and distorted.’. .

A cycle is at work; too many children too early make it most difficult for the parents to finish school. . . . An Urban League study in New York reported that 44% of girl dropouts left school because of pregnancy. Low education levels in turn produce low income levels, which deprive children of many opportunities, and so the cycle repeats itself. . . .

At this point, the present tangle of pathology is capable of perpetuating itself. . . . The cycle can be broken only if these distortions are set right.

In a word, a national effort towards the problems of Negro Americans must be directed towards the question of family structure. The object should be to strengthen the Negro family so as to enable it to raise and support its members as do other families. After that, how this group of Americans chooses to run its affairs, take advantage of opportunities or fail to do so, is none of the nation’s business.
So, after a trillion dollars had been spent on a futile attempt to wage a War on Poverty, the inner-city Black communities found themselves with young girls dropping out of school to have subsidized fatherless kids out of wedlock. And the boys joined juvenile gangs that sold drugs and terrorized their community. All this a result of ignoring that the one thing that has proven able to civilize young males over the millenia is a combination of marriage and fatherhood.

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Saturday, November 11, 2006

Ski Season (#5): Mountain Cams Ski Season (#5): Mountain Cams

I was thinking about updating my pictures of the ski areas around Dillon, since Breckenridge opened today, Keystone last weekend, and Copper Mountain and Arapahoe Basin a couple of weeks before that. But the link that the Summit Daily News provides appears to be broken - I could only see a couple of Copper Mountain shots. Here is all I could get today, both from Copper:

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Study: Air in Aspen in 2005 worse than many Front Range cities Study: Air in Aspen in 2005 worse than many Front Range cities

I am not the least bit upset by this Study: Air in Aspen in 2005 worse than many Front Range cities. It is really quite humorous, people paying a million dollars to live in a tiny house just so they can breath the pollution in the rarified air in Aspen. But that is ok, because a lot of the most stylish people around the world join them there.

Besides, the air isn't all that rarified in Aspen, as compared to the rest of the state. My father and brothers live, and I used to live, at about the elevation of Aspen in the foothills west of Denver. The base elevations of most of the ski areas around Aspen are so low, that skiing there is mostly shot there by mid-March, whereas Arapahoe Basin invariably stays open into June most years. The base elevations of the other three ski areas in Summit County are close to the elevations of the tops of the Aspen ski areas, roughly 2,500 feet higher than Aspen itself.

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Internet Scams - Phishing Internet Scams - Phishing

I have seen a lot of phishing email scams over the last couple of years. Phishing is, of course, email pretending to be from some financial institution, asking you to update your account information for some, invariably bogus, reason. And then, the site that you are directed to takes your userid and password, and cleans out your account. Some of the better ones make their sites look just like that of the financial institution, complete with graphics and links to real parts of that site.

Invariably though you can recognize them by the fact that, no matter how well hidden, the link doesn't go where it is supposed to. Indeed, almost always, the domain of the link is a raw IP address, instead of the expected eBay.com, PayPal.com, etc.

So, I just got one that claims to come from eBay, that had an interesting twist on this. Instead of having an IP address of 195.66.170.209, it had one of 0303.0102.0125321. If you look at it closely, the 195 and the 66 have been converted to octal, and the 170.209 have been combined and also converted to octal (hence the leading zeros). Browsers naturally handle this, but not Whois. I had to use the translated address to get to the whois record for the IP address (nicely available through one of my Firefox extensions), and it comes from Montenegro, and the site itself is Montenegro Seismological Observatory. Presumably, they have been hacked.

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Internet Scams - Stock Fraud#4 Internet Scams - Stock Fraud#4

Interesting reverse here in this Stock Spam message. They are pointing out that there are a lot of people short on this very thinly traded stock, and, thus, the price has to go up for all those shorters to cover. Of course, a lot of people are short, since it is a stock scam. And they may have a point here, that in the short run, some people might be able to benefit for this. But by the time I got this, I am sure that any profits from short sellers were long gone.
Also, note that "an unrelated third party" here has made $25k for sending out this spam. Most likely not the person who actually sent it, but someone up stream from him. Also, the email ostensibly came from someone at amd.com. Not likely.

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Friday, November 10, 2006

Backups Backups

I recently bought an external hard drive for backups. Originally, I had been thinking of getting one big one, maybe about 200 gb. But then bought a smaller one (80 gb), with an intent to buy one per computer. That turned out to have been a good decision, since the software that came with doesn't handle networked drives or externally shared folders.

When I first tried to hook it up to my server, I got a warning message that it was running on a slow USB interface (i.e. USB 1.1). Then, I ran it for 24 hours, and it didn't complete a full backup. So, I bought a couple of USB 2.0 intefaces on eBay and installed on last night on the server. I then set up to do an incremental backup of my first drive/partition. That seemed to work ok, so I did the next, and went to bed. About five hours later, I looked at it, and found that it had copied everything, but was taking 92% of the CPU. I paniced, figuring that it was in a loop. I went back to my desktop system to check mail, etc., and went back, and noticed that the current task completion bar had advanced a bit. A relief. It turns out that it was writing a log file of the 50,000 or so files I had just backed up. I am now backing up part of the third disk/partition. That should run through at least the rest of the night.

Even running over USB 2.0, it still takes an awful long time to run. I have set maximum compression, but haven't gotten to the backup part yet (it is still comparing files for backup), so that isn't the entire problem. Oh well, it runs in the background, and there is really no reason that I shouldn't just let it run as long as it takes, esp. on my server which has plenty of spare processor power (I did downgrade its dispatching priority so that it won't kill my actual server functionality).

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Breaking through Apple's FairPlay Breaking through Apple's FairPlay

CNET News.com: Breaking through Apple's FairPlay: DVD Jon is at it again, this time working to break Apple's lock on iPod content.

I originally thought that Jon Johansen was just operating overseas (after all, he is Norweigan) from us, thus avoiding the DMCA. But instead, it looks like Jon and his business associate, Monique Farantzos, have turned things on their head. They appaently aren't breaking copy or DRM protection, per se, but rather have a mechanism so that other devices can pretend to be iPods.

Patents anyone? Of course, patent enforcement has its own problems. But, for Apple's sake, hopefully they are well protected here. I wonder though, as Monique indicated that their lawyers have given them a green light.

Monique seems pretty interesting - she apparently learned about Johansen in a WSJ article, tracked him down, and convinced him to go into business with her in breaking Apple's monopoly here. That shows a lot of moxie.

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Thursday, November 09, 2006

Is this the end of the road for traffic lights? Is this the end of the road for traffic lights?

Interesting article from the Telegraph: Is this the end of the road for traffic lights? Apparently, the Dutch town of Drachten has removed 12 of its 15 stop lights, resulting in a reduction of fatal traffic accidents. The lights are mostly replaced by traffic circles. Apparently, part of the success comes from the fact that driving is a bit more dangerous now, and everyone is driving more carefully.

I am often not a fan of traffic circles, but given the choice between them and lights, I would probably pick the traffic circles. Of course, not everyone drives more carefully around them - in Drachten, drivers also have to contend with a lot of cyclists and pedestrians. Here, in the U.S., that is not as common. Indeed, in an article in a Vail paper a year or so ago, one of the ways to identify a Vailite is how fast they enter the traffic circles that are now ubiquitous there. (Another is knowing where the name of the town and ski area came from - I was able to cheat there, since the granddaughter of the guy after whom Vail Pass was named was a good friend of my parents and went to high school with may father - with a maiden name of Vail).

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Rumsfeld Speech Rumsfeld Speech

Retiring Secretary of Defense today in: DefenseLink Speech: Kansas State University Landon Lecture gave an overview of some of the challenges facing us as he leaves office. The job of reforming the military to meet the challenges of tomorrow is not complete, though he did accomplish a lot while in office.

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Speaker Pelosi's Impending Intelligence Failure Speaker Pelosi's Impending Intelligence Failure

TCS Daily: Speaker Pelosi's Impending Intelligence Failure points out one of the scariest things about Nancy Pelosi's elevation to be Speaker - that she has committed to appoint Alcee Hastings as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. This is, of course, the same Hastings who is one of only six federal judges even removed from office through impeachement by the House and conviction by the Senate - both at the time run by the Democrats.

Needless to say, it is all politics. Pelosi owes the (Liberal) Congressional Black Caucus for her elevation to minority leader, and more recently for booting Wm. Jefferson from the Ways and Means. This is, of course, the same Wm. Jefferson who shortly after Katrina used the National Guard to ferry him to his house in order to collect the marked bribe money that the FBI ultimately found in his freezer wrapped up like leftovers.

It is interesting that both Hastings and Jefferson belong to the CBC, both have been caught taking bribes, and both have risen in the House Democratic party, despite that. Of couse, both also have extrodinarily safe seats due to majority minority districts gerrymandered for them. But it does pose a dilemma - whether it is worse having a bribest on the Ways and Means committee, or chairing Intelligence (making the obvious assumption that Polosi had to pick one or the other). Ways and Means, of course, is perfect territory for a bribest, as that is where the money bills come from. But the Chair of the Intelligence Committee has unprecedented access to our military and national security secrets, and that is worth a lot of money to some parties who might not put our national interests first.

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Spam (#5) Spam (#5)

My primary email account tries to filter out spam using Email Enforcer. A year ago, it worked pretty well, but it has gotten progressively worse, presumably due to not enough work being done to keep it up to date.

So, the way I work is to move the email that I want to read from my Inbox to a ToRead folder, delete what remains, as well as what is in my Spam folder, read the email in my ToRead, deleting some, and ultimately downloading the rest.

So, today, I started with 58 messages in my Inbox and 67 in my Spam folder. Of the 58, I wanted to read 13. Of the remaining 45, maybe 6 are not spam, including a note from Ken Mehlman, presumably trying to buck up the troops after the fiasco Tuesday. And, in the Spam folder, there was one legitimate email - from eBay, which is presumably why it was thrown in the Spam folder. It was easy to identify as legitimate. First, it contained my real userid. And, secondly, it didn't contain any links to update my account, but rather just a bunch of links to things to buy.

Of the spam that that Email Enforcer didn't pick up (maybe 39 emails), about half were stock scams. What is interesting though is that two of them predominated today:
  • email (10) touting Cana Petroleum that come from a person identified as X Y, with a subject of: It's X :)
  • email (4) touting Ever-Glory International (EGLY) that come from a person identified as X Y, with a subject of: X wrote:
I have a hard time believing that these people would believe that anyone getting ten identically identified emails (with only the names changed) wouldn't suspect some sort of spam or scam. And they are all apparently buying the same email lists.

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Airbus Jumbo Trouble Airbus Jumbo Trouble

Popular Mechanics: Jumbo Trouble tells of some of the problems that Airbus is having getting its superjumbo A380 in the air and sold. While Boeing was aiming a fued efficient small wide body at the middle of the market, Airbus was spending essentially public money on the bragging rights to the biggest commercial aircraft. So far, Boeing appears to have made by far the better choice. And it may be able to take some of that market away from Airbus with its upcoming 747-800, with almost as much passenger capacity as the A380, at a much lower development cost (since it is, after all, a 747, first flown over 35 years ago).

My take is that private enterprise again manages to outmaneuver a government consortium, because greed is a much better motivator for making good business decisions than is national pride.

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Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Today's elections Today's elections

I am voting today. I could have voted early, like most of my family, but would have had to drive down to Breckenridge, whereas my precinct polling place is within easy walking distance. That one of the differences between being registered in a small county(like Summit here) and in a big county (Jefferson for my father and brothers).

One thing of interest is that there is so much last minute hype - despite the fact that so many have already voted. I have been getting a couple of emails a day from the RNC, etc., and probably a lot of phone calls too, if I would ever answer them. Of course, the goal is to sway the last minute voter, who is far less likely to be well informed than those who vote early.

The articles in Real Clear Politics are an interesting mix. Both sides are predicting victory, though victory on the Republican side has been defined down to not losing Congress, or at a minimum, not losing both Houses. Excuses for both sides are already being published, presumably so that the author can claim prescience.

As a note from the above, I watched Newt Gingrich on Fox tonight. He is one of my favorite (ex) politicians. He seems to be reveling in his senior political statesman position, a lot more than he enjoyed being Speaker. In truth, he is really more of a thinker than a doer. In any case, I found it interesting that he avidedly reads Real Clear Politics to get a feel of what is going on in politics. I too find it one of my best sources.

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Keeping the smell of defeat in the closet? Keeping the smell of defeat in the closet?

Eric Scheie in Classical Values: Keeping the smell of defeat in the closet? agrees with Orson Scott Card in his post on the upcoming election.
Politically and psychologically, I don't think this country can tolerate another defeat in a major war. We still bear the scars of defeat in Vietnam, and the argument still rages about the hows and whys of that defeat. Many Americans believe the United States deserved to be defeated, and many believe we were defeated by the Communist Vietnamese enemy. I don't think we were defeated by the Communists at all, but by Watergate. Watergate achieved more than the removal of Nixon; it guaranteed defeat in Vietnam. That's because Nixon had waged the war to a peaceful conclusion by forcing the enemy into a peace agreement which just might have been enforceable, but which, after the national post-Watergate malaise set in, became politically impossible. The country that had always won its wars had a very hard time grappling with having lost one for which 57,000 Americans had died. And the removal of a popular president who'd won by a landslide is about as close as this country can come to regicide, and the demoralizing effects were inevitable. I'm not saying this to defend Nixon or compare Bush to Nixon, or even Iraq to Vietnam. It's just that I think patterns can repeat themselves, and there's nothing that demoralizes a country like the loss of a war. Especially a war that should have been and could have been won. And which, depending on your definitions, actually had been won.

The consequences of losing Iraq might be worse than losing Vietnam, not only because it would mean two losses (and the demoralization of being a two-time loser is worse than the demoralization of being a one-time loser), but because from a national security standpoint, a loss in Iraq would have worse consequences than the loss in Vietnam. Vietnam was a hot battle in the larger Cold War, but the real enemy consisted of actual, identifiable countries (primarily the Soviet Union) which were rational and which could be dealt with in other ways. Russia did not want World War III, as they still had fresh memories of World War II. While Communist ideologues saw Communism as inevitable, they just didn't have the same messianic view or willingness to die as martyrs, and they saw the United States as an enemy that could be dealt with at arm's length on a more or less rational basis. Not so with people who see us as the Great Satan, and who see Iraq as sacred soil and the proper seat of a Caliphate. If the U.S. loses the will to see the Iraq effort through to victory, the consequences will be very dire. Add the inevitable demoralization factor domestically, and I don't think this country can afford it.

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The Ornery American The Ornery American

Orson Scott Card, in The Only Issue This Election Day - The Ornery American makes a lot of great points about the upcoming election and the War on Terror. Card, a long time Democrat, and one of the better known Science Fiction writers of our time, is voting Republican at the higher levels because he greatly distrusts his party's inclinations in waging this war.
I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations.

But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war. And since the Democratic Party seems hellbent on losing it -- and in the most damaging possible way -- I have no choice but to advocate that my party be kept from getting its hands on the reins of national power, until it proves itself once again to be capable of recognizing our core national interests instead of its own temporary partisan advantages.
Read the whole thing.

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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Rumsfeld Rumsfeld

As the election comes upon us, there are, again, repeated, insistant calls for Donald Rumsfeld to resign as Secretary of Defense. Of course, that isn't going to happen, and it is a cheap way of attacking the Administration's policies in Iraq. But one thing that is, I think, intentionally glossed over by the MSM about his job is that it is not limited to fighting the war, but also includes a massive reformation of our military to fight in the 21st Century. The following comes from an email sent by Frank "Varifrank" Martin to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com:
Anyone who thinks Rumsfeld is doing an awful job doesn't understand his job or his mission from the President. Rumsfeld [doesn't] just hold a position in the cabinet, his mission from the President was to literally transform the Military. In terms of organizational culture, there is no culture in the world more institutionally resistant to change than the Military. Add to that, the difficulty of cutting or changing the various lines of revenue to industry that are naturally going to be impacted by that change, and you get a wicked combination of people who are very unhappy at the start that you've appeared on the scene.

Rumsfeld is not a nice guy and he has no ambitions beyond this job. He's not looking at this job as a way to trade up for Presidency someday. That makes it difficult for anyone to "influence" his decisions, which means they go to "plan B" by attacking him at every turn in an attempt to make his job harder, in hopes that he will ask them to knock it off, and give them some form of favor in return. He of course, doesn't give a damn, which in their minds is what makes him the 'most dangerous man' in Washington.

The Military needs transformation, everyone agrees on that, not because the people in it are bad, or that the men and women in it are bad, but its an organization built for a job that's changed tremendously with world events. It hasn't changed, and it wont, without someone forcing that sort of institutional transformation. Its a hard job and its rarely successful.

The Military cannot change itself, no organization can do that. Imagine your company or organization suddenly saying that it needs to change to meet business challenges because that's what the CEO read in a magazine over the weekend. How's that work? You spend months on "Mission statements" and going on useless employee retreats and in the end, the same lame-o fatass managers run the same asininely redundant departments only with different titles and cost centers. How do you get a company to change? You don't change because you want to, you change because the competition forces you to change. You get creamed in a quarterly result, or you get merged with the competition. So what happens to us if our Military gets creamed in combat or "Merged"? In that respect, Rumsfelds transformation doest seem so bad now does it?

The Military cannot change itself. Air Force screams at the Navy, Navy screams at the Army, and everyone screams at the Marines, and the Coast Guard continues to go on unfunded. Congress just sits squirms in its seat every time someone wants to do something simple like close an air force base, Private Industry? Oh sure that will work out fine, no self interest there, right?

So what do you do? You get a man just exactly like Rumsfeld, who's been around forever, knows exactly what works and what doesn't work, knows where all the bodies are buried at every level of the chain of command and you let him loose by putting him at the top.

Rumsfeld is uniquely and highly qualified to do exactly what he is doing. He is an institutional nightmare to the lifetime bureaucrat. Think of Rumsfeld as one of those CEO's that gets hired to turn around a company in bankruptcy court, or like Tom Peters without the PR team. This is not to say that the Military is "bankrupt", but it has lost its way in some places. Do we really need a dozen more Seawolf submarines or should we have 50 more C-17s and C-5s? F-22's or MV-22's?, Airborne Laser Missile Defense or another 10 brigades of Marines and Special Forces? I don't know the answer to those questions, but I know better than to ask Admiral Chuck "Seawolf" Hardmore if we need more Seawolf submarines.

That's why we are lucky to have him, and that's why everyone hates him, because in the end Rumsfeld will be remembered as the greatest change agent of all time.
I think that Donald Rumsfeld is the best Secretary of Defense we have had since that post was created, and I agree with Frank Martin that history will agree with that assessment.

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Thursday, November 02, 2006

GIS DROP SMART BOMB ON KERRY GIS DROP SMART BOMB ON KERRY

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Memories from 40 years ago Memories from 40 years ago


I think that almost everyone recognizes the guy in the center of the stage. But most probably wouldn't recognize the guy slouching just to his right. Of course, the banner is a dead giveaway who it is: Ed Permutter, who most likely will be taking over Bob Beauprez's House seat for the Democrats next Tues.

Not having seen Ed in person for almost 40 years, I might not have recongized him either, if not for all the recent photos. But I do remember that sh** eating grin you see in the photo. We all belonged to Rolling Hills Country Club, east of Golden (CO) and swam for the swim team there. I was 15 or 16, and he was maybe 12. I remember that grin vividly. He already stood out from the crowd, and was almost accepted by my slightly older cohort. But the thing that I remember most about him was the same grin we see here. As he rose through the ranks in the CO legislature, that was the vision I had every time I heard his name. And to see it on him with President Clinton giving a fund raising speech for him is priceless.

The photo comes from an article in the RMN today titled: Clinton: Grab voters by the hand.

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Five Myths About the War on Terror Five Myths About the War on Terror

Dept. of Defense article: Five Myths About the War on Terror has no real surprises for anyone who has been following the situation in Iraq and Afganistan.

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Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Pelosi's Unintelligent Choice Pelosi's Unintelligent Choice

WaPo article by Ruth Marcus: Pelosi's Unintelligent Choice points out that if Nacy Pelosi becomes Speaker Pelosi, one of her first big decisions is who to appoint to lead the Intelligence Committee. She doesn't like Jane Harman, who is first in line, and the Congressional Black Caucus has given her an ultimatum that she appoint impeached former judge Alcee Hastings to this position, after she pushed Wm. Jefferson from the Ways and Means Committee after being caught by the FBI with $90,000 in bribes in his freezer. Personally, I would prefer Jefferson on Ways and Means to Hastings having full access to intelligence matters. Both appear to have taken bribes, but Jefferson can do a lot less damage than Hastings can. Though the author likes Hastings, she doesn't think he should chair Intelligence:
Consider: Hastings, a federal judge, gets word from Borders's lawyer that Borders has been arrested for conspiring to bribe him and that the FBI wants to interview him. Instead of calling the FBI agents whose names and numbers he's been given, Hastings leaves his hotel without checking out and heads to the airport outside Baltimore instead of National, where there's an earlier flight. At BWI, Hastings calls his girlfriend, has her call him back at a different pay phone, then asks her to leave the house to call him from a pay phone, then calls her back from a different pay phone. He doesn't speak to the FBI until they track him down at the girlfriend's house later that night.

Speaker-in-waiting Pelosi: This is not the behavior of an innocent man -- or of an intelligence committee chairman.
It isn't the behavior of an innocent man, but it may be good training for overseeing spying agencies.

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Halp Us Jon Carry - We R Stuck n Iraq Halp Us Jon Carry - We R Stuck n Iraq


Is this real? Major (Retired) Michael E. Bistrica emails Hot Air:
The picture is real. The troops are from 1-34th BTB which is part of the 34th Infantry Division. This is a National Guard outfit from units in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, Kentucky, and Kansas. They were deployed to Iraq in March 2006.

Base in Iraq is Camp Al Asad.

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