I Didn't Realize Laws Applied to Me.

The next time I get pulled over, I'm going to simply tell the police that their actions aren't fair because I had no idea that any law was meant to apply directly to me. Come on. I've never actually seen a politician take the time to say, "And this applies to you, Mr. Heimlich."

I mention this approach because so many others seem to think that claiming the opposite of something absolutely obvious is the way to go, and many pundits seem to accept this line without question.

This past week Sergeant Raymond J. Plouhar was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. Plouhar was one of the Marine recruiters featured in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" movie. His father has chosen to distance his son from the infamous director by claiming that Raymond had no idea that Moore's movie would be critical of the war. Isn't that ironic? I wonder if he expects us to accept that any more than people accept the pleas of the Marines his son recruited when they claim they had no idea they'd end up in Iraq as a result of signing up? They thought they were signing up to go play basketball for the Marines like David Robinson.

Let's see. Michael Moore makes a movie about General Motors and rips the company. He had two TV shows where he was critical of every topic he covered. He makes a movie about guns and is acerbic on every topic covered and with every person interviewed. He was vilified in the media for having the audacity to expose Charlton Heston as a bigot and charlatan. He's crucified by the Right every time his name comes up. He then approaches you, or someone in your family for an interview that's willingly granted, and your response is to claim you had no idea his angle would be critical? Hmm.

Mr. Plouhar is far from the first person to attempt to make this claim and I'm sure he'll be far from the last. While I'm sorry to hear about his son's loss, this argument doesn't wash. I wonder just how much Mr. Plouhar now thinks about the kids who are in Iraq as a result of his son's efforts.

I suspect Moore's film has resulted in a number of kids deciding against signing up. They got to see the pitch from the other side for a change and didn't see enlisting as the glamorous choice his son attempted to portray it as. I wonder if their parent's would want to claim that they had no idea Michael Moore's actions would ruin the integrity of their children's future as a result of their choosing not to enlist? Somehow I don't think so. It's amazing to me that someone can be critical of Michael Moore on the one hand while, at the same time, having no issue with actions taken in their own nest. His son recruited (while ridiculing) kids from the poorest areas of society by glamorizing the Marines and selling it in any way possible. I wonder just how much that weighs on Mr. Plouhar's conscience. I suspect it doesn't at all.

Mr. Plouhar, you've lost your son in a war that has no glory. This administration has stolen his life and taken him from you in an unjust war designed with the sole purpose of lining the pockets of those in a position to profit from the effort, at the cost of the blood of those who believe the rhetoric put forth in support of this war. I'm personally sorry for your loss, but I firmly believe you're aiming your criticism at the wrong party here. History will see this conflict as a fiasco. The dead of this war will not be viewed with the same reverence as the dead of World War II. At best his loss will be viewed in much the same way as the dead from the Vietnam War--a death that was ultimately for nothing. Michael Moore, sir, had nothing to do with that. Perhaps you should look to President Bush for answers as to how this was allowed to happen to your family only 30 years after we all thought we'd learned this lesson.

Audio Downloads are Almost Here!

Yes, I know, you're thinking, "What's he talking about? Audio downloads have been available for quite some time now."

Well, the fact is that I've never been a fan of MP3's. The idea of paying a $1 for a song rife with compression artifacts has just never worked for me. I have absolutely no qualms with paying for my music. I own several thousand CD's (original CD's that I bought, not CDR's that I created).

However, I've always taken to the CD-audio concept. I buy the CD and the song is there for me to "own" (don't get me started on the own vs. license issue) in full digital glory without all the compression. CD's aren't perfect either but they're certainly much better than standard MP3's.

When the lossless compression codecs came along it made for a perfect match for me. I could save some space but lose nothing in fidelity along the way. I could also finally rip all the songs I care about onto a single hard drive and not have it take up all that much space. My current library is about 40GB in size which is perfectly fine for me.

The one area that was lacking for me was the ability to buy single songs and download them in either this lossless format or in full uncompressed form. My broadband connection is good enough that I can download 40MB (the size of a typical uncompressed CD-audio song) in a few minutes. That's plenty fast enough for me. Lossless compression cuts that nearly in half. However, I've always felt that the recording industry would balk at providing this level of quality due to their questionable views on piracy.

Much to my surprise, I saw a piece in the news about Steve Jobs coming to my rescue. Apparently he's looking to provide exactly this for an update to iTunes. Could it be that I could finally become an iTunes user? I doubt that. I tried iTunes a few times and immediately went on a search for a replacement and ended up, for better or worse, with dB PowerAmp's Sveta software. I can't recommend it for everyone but for the power user it's pretty impressive.

Anyway, if iTunes offers uncompressed or lossless files it won't be long before the competitors do and maybe I'll finally start spending money on song downloads. I have my doubts there as well as I fully expect the industry to price such downloads prohibitively. I've always said that if I could pay $1 for a quality download, I'd have to take great measures to keep my buying in check. Thankfully the industry itself has been that check all this time.

Time to Cut and Run from this Administration

The VP of Iraq wants a timetable for US troops withdrawal. The President of Iraq supports this request. However, every time anyone mentions removing troops from Iraq, the Right goes into it's pre-recorded mantra of labeling them with the concept of supporting "cut and run" policies. Of course this sounds cowardly and foolish, which is exactly the point.

It never seems to dawn on these idiots that supporting our troops means that we should care about their well being and not just some glorified concept of the job being done. If we kill them all off leaving none to bring home, will that finally make the Right happy? Will the job be completed then?

Companies in bankruptcy have plans for either going out of business or restructuring. Companies who have a bad quarter have plans for turning things around. Companies who have good quarters have plans to keep things that way and those plans rarely just say, "stay the course." Staying the course is a sure plan to fail. Complacency sets in and that's never a good thing.

The irony of this whole thing is that now we have General Casey laying out a plan for troop withdrawal in Iraq and yet the Right magically doesn't label this as "cut and run." Hmm. Talk about hypocrisy. It's ridiculous. It's only cut and run if a Democrat suggests it. How is that?

Over-extended Credit Line for this Administration

The current administration keeps going on about how we need to get aggressive with Iran and then they toss North Korea in there as well from time-to-time. Heck, every so often I hear unstable people like Ann Coulter talking about eradicating entire sections of people who aren't us.

The argument is that these people are dangerous and a potential threat to our way of life.

Well, guess what? That might actually be true but you know what else? I really don't give a damn about that for right now. The bottom line is that, like a dishonest child, my faith in this administration has been exhausted. They've used up their credibility chits on Iraq. It seems clear to me that the administration felt it would be just fine and dandy to go in and get started in this fiasco. As usual, they failed to see past the nose on faces to the possibility that something else might come up that actually warrants the very actions they've undertaken in Iraq.

Now they've killed off 2,500 of our kids and lie to the American public every day about how things are going. Dick Cheney, a year after saying the insurgency is in its final throes, is back saying it's still true. I guess one of these years he just might be right. Then again, I suspect it'll be more like Israel and he'll never be right. You've got idiots like Sean Hannity out there making ludicrous statements about how the killing of Al Zarqawi was going to have this big impact. The very next day 3 soldiers were executed and today we find out that two missing soldiers were reportedly slain by the new leader of Al Qaida.

These are not the type of people that the country should extend additional credit to. We gave them the account and they spent it all on a war for their own self interests. I firmly believe that we can find a way to make it through two more years with Iran and North Korea so that we can get another entirely new administration into the White House to give us their viewpoint.

Frankly I don't want to hear anything else from the current group. They, and the entire Congress, need to be turned out on their backsides. We're told that terrorism is rampant and yet Homeland Security funding in New York is being cut back while Congress spends its time talking about gay marriage, flag burning and other entirely ridiculous agendas.

This group had their chance with Iraq. All we've gotten for our investment is misery, debt and lies. It's time to cut off the credit and move on.

New Poll. 48% of People are Idiots

USA Today just announced that, since the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, 48% of those polled believe the US will probably or definitely win the war on terrorism.

What's wrong with 48% of American's?

Israel has been killing top terrorist leaders for decades now and how close are they to winning the war on terror? They're so close to winning it that their actions have resulted in a terrorist organization winning control of Palestine democratically. England fought terrorists from the IRA and never defeated them through violence and aggression.

The bottom line is that we've essentially walked up to a bee's nest and knocked it around with a bat. Killing off some of the main bees isn't going to stop the bees from attacking us while we stand there threatening them. The only way to win that battle is to leave the area and leave the bees to their own end.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed and the radio pundits were out in force talking about what a huge blow this was and how everything will be different now. The very next day three Iraqi militia were beheaded and the violence is still going on.

48% of Americans need to get their heads out of their backside and look at history to see how these sorts of situations are quelled. Terrorism doesn't get defeated by force. That does nothing but incite more terrorism.

I'm Just a Number, Mostly Likely Zero.

Over the last few weeks I've noticed that my Linksys cable modem has been acting screwy. Speeds weren't what they should be and it was dropping connection here and there.

I decided it was time to look into a new cable modem. The funny thing is that the US Robotics modem I had before this one worked like a tank for more than 7 years. This has been on my setup for about a year. Anyway, I decided to go with a Motorola Surfboard 5120 as a replacment. It had gotten good reviews from several people and it seemed like a good choice even though I'd have to give up the nice stacking appearance of my 3 Linksys products.

I hooked it up and called Comcast to give them the particulars on the modem (with cable modems the provider needs to get their MAC address to approve its use on the network). A few minutes after the call it was working just fine and my connection was better than it had ever been. I also found that I liked its design plus it was easy to work with.

Then, two hours later, storms rolled into South Jersey with a vengeance. My entire computer setup is on a surge protector but a single close bolt of lightening struck and appears to have fried the modem. No amount of tinkering, including with the Motorola support rep, could get it back.

I then decided to put the old modem back on. I called Comcast again to tell them about the change. They were as surprised as I was but made it all painless and again, within minutes, I was back up and running.

The next day my brother-in-law reminded me that he had a newer Linksys cable modem that he no longer needed (he recently switched to DSL). I decided that might be a better way to go than the current modem at least until the Motorola came back from repair. He brought it over and we hooked it up. I called Comcast and this time ended up speaking to a rep in Canada. Everything about the call sent up various red flags. First, I was told I needed to be passed to some other department to set up the modem. That had never happened before. Second, the person in the new department wanted to know the serial number of the modem. Never before has a rep asked me for that. Hmm, why'd he want it? Then he asked me what the primary e-mail address was for the account. What? Why would he need that too? I just kept answering questions. He then said, "Okay, I think you're all set but something doesn't seem right." Uh oh.

I couldn't connect at all. He said he'd look into it and get back to me (that was Saturday and I still haven't heard anything from him). I then decided to get proactive and called the local Comcast office. To reach local Internet reps you have to jump through some silly hoops. You dial into a local number and respond to the voicemail prompts as if you're calling to downgrade your TV service. When someone comes on the line you tell them that you pushed a wrong button and need Internet support. That gets you to the local guys.

I reached someone great and they pulled up my account and said, "Oh my." That didn't sound too reassuring. He then said, "I have no idea what this guy did but your whole account is screwed up." He then tried to undo everything and at the end of the call I had web access again. I assumed everything was fine and ended the call. A while later I tried to get my e-mail and was told that the password was wrong. Huh? I assumed something screwy happened so I got online and told their system that I'd forgotten my password which then resets it for you. It said everything was reset and good to go but still wouldn't let me log in with the new password.

I called Comcast back and they tried to resolve it. I kept hearing, "Error 100, what's that?" No one has been able to fix the problem. It then got escalated to "Level 2.5", as if that's supposed to convey to me that something amazing has happened, but nothing changed. I was then told by a really nice rep that they think everything is fine and that it would all be back to normal when I woke up Monday morning. I also asked about my accounts and was told that all my mail was intact and that new mail would just go into the account and be there when I finally got access.

Note also that my wife is out her e-mail and my son is now upset because his website is down. The next morning came and still no change. I call again and I'm told that it might take up to 72 hours to fix. Are they joking? 72 hours to fix an e-mail account?

I then find out that anyone e-mailing my account is getting their mail bounced back with a notice that my account is suspended. Great. Now it looks like I'm not paying the bill. Wonderful.

I called once more and got the same response. "They're working on it but I have no ETA on when it might be fixed." 5pm has now come and gone so I expect nothing else will happen today.

This was originally written Monday but, of course, I couldn't post it as the blog is currently hosted on my Comcast webspace which was also down.

It's now Tuesday just before 7pm and I JUST got the service back. Several others I spoke with promised action but without change. More concerning is that several people promised to call me back with updates but never did. I finally decided to go on the offensive and called the corporate office at 4:45pm. Two hours later the service is back. I don't think that's a coincidence. I spoke with three really helpful people at Comcast through all of this and that may have saved them the account but it should not have transpired this way.

An Inconvenient Truth

I saw Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth", about global warming tonight and found it a bit dry which I guess is a fairly apropos given the subject matter.

It's clear from the movie that Gore clearly cares about the environment and is passionate in his efforts to spread the word about the dangers it faces.

Gore does a descent job of conveying the facts and issues but, not surprisingly to his critics, comes off as oddly disconnected from it all. He just does not convey emotion well, period. I'm beginning to wonder if we just don't understand the way in which Al Gore presents emotion to the world. When things clearly impacted him, the only change in tone was a lowering of vocal volume. Most people are more animated in their emotions.

On the negative side there are a few scenes in the movie that do no justice to the argument that this movie is not really about global warming but more about Al Gore and public relations. These scenes are meant to convey a sense of purpose and reason as to why Gore is so involved. However, they come off as entirely unnecessary, out of place and, worse, look very much to me like pre-candidacy marketing. We all remember the election of 2000 and the events that took place. A movie about global warming is no place to spend five minutes covering that again. Gore could have simply noted that the events of that election helped to focus his attention on what really mattered to him. Instead we get a collage of images and video from those events. It just doesn't fit. There are also tediously long shots of Gore at his family ranch and childhood pictures and, again, they just don't work to add to the story at hand and leave us to question their real reason for being included.

On the plus side, Gore has the ability to make points when he's dealing with data. He drives home the numbers with ease. The pictures he shows are alarming and convincing. It's extremely difficult to look at a chart that goes continually upwards and see it as anything but bad news for the environment.

In the end this is a movie whose time has come. I just wonder about the messenger. I would have had more connection to it if, for example, Al Gore had been involved heavily but instead allowed someone else to handle the presentation of the material. Somehow it would have meant more to me to hear all this from say, Walter Cronkite, than from someone with such an obvious possible bias.

The Descent has Begun!

On April 26th I posted a message about my view that George W. Bush will go down in history as one of the worst President's the nation has ever had. I mentioned that it might take quite some time for him to fully reach this level as you always need to get very clear of the present to see things without a lot of bias getting in the way.

Anyway, I just noticed that a Quinnipiac University poll released today has already started the realization process towards this view. This national poll identified voters choices of the best and worst Presidents since World War II.

Seems that 34% of those polled choose Dubya as the worst President out of that group. Second place went to Richard Nixon with 17% of the vote.

Ronald Reagan was chosen as the best President of that era by 28% of the voters with Bill Clinton second at 25%.

While the results clearly are impacted by more recent events, it's interesting that twice the number of people found Bush worse than Nixon. Given time for the debacle of last two terms to sink in and I have no doubt that Bush's numbers are just going to get worse.

If you voted for this guy once, hey, mistakes happen. If you voted for him twice then congratulations. You're going to be associated with having unanimously supported the worst President this nation has ever seen. Boy will historians have a field day with our generation as a result. School books will point out that people not only supported this guy but actually voted him into office for a second term.

I figure I've got about 45 more years for our generation to erase this stain, otherwise the future generations will look back at virtually all of our shared time on this planet as a big exercise in stupidity.

Sony Has Lost It's Way

Over the years I've seen a surprising number of companies make claims that the computer is either nearing the end of its run or will no longer be necessary because of some other new device.

Invariably this comment comes from a company that thinks it's going to change the world with its latest product offering. Sony is the most recent entrant into this fantasy world. Phil Harrison, one of the top executives responsible for the new PlayStation 3, said in a recent interview, "We believe that the PS3 will be the place where our users play games, watch films, browse the Web, and use other computer functions. The PlayStation 3 is a computer. We do not need the PC."

While Phil may not need the PC, the rest of us, as usual, do. This sort of misguided thinking has always suggested to me that the parties responsible for it have lost their way on whatever path they're currently on.

How many times do we have to tell these people that the computer is a device most people do not associate with their TV's? Most people keep their computer in its own environment away from the TV. Most people have their computers set up in a way similar to an office environment. They have it on a desk or workstation next to a standard chair. It would be incredibly uncomfortable to try and do many of the things you do in this environment while sitting on the couch in your family room. That environment just isn't conducive to doing your taxes, working on your resume or even browsing the web. If browsing the web from the TV is such a great concept how do these people explain the lack of success of efforts like WebTV (now MSN TV)? Don't forget that this is owned by Microsoft and they know a thing or two about both the family room environment and the PC and they haven't been able to convince most people that browsing on the TV is the way to go.

Frankly, when I'm on my PC I often want to be out of the family paradigm. The computer is very much a solitary device. I often use it in much the same way my wife handles her reading. She doesn't pick up a book and head to the family room. She takes the book to a solitary part of the house and reads, quietly and alone.

Phil Harrison seems to believe that the fact that the PS3 has a powerful processor and runs a computer-like operating system makes the PS3 a good candidate to replace the computer. That's just not sound thinking. I could add those things to my lawnmower, my refrigerator or my car and none of them are going to replace the computer. They might help improve the job those devices were designed for, but that's it. Sure there could be some limited cross-over features but that's all.

Once is a while a device breaks through and becomes mainstream. Consider, for example, cameras built into cell phones. Initially many of us thought, "Why would I want my cell phone to be a camera?" However, it's pretty clear to see how this leap happened. Cell phones are now like your keys. Many people take their cell phones with them everywhere they go and that, of course, includes all the places you'd want to take a camera. It's the same reason that playing music on your cell phone makes sense (and also why I think iPod's are a fad whose functionality will ultimately be absorbed by another device). However, two things are clear. First, cell phone cameras may be popular but they still haven't pushed the stand-alone camera market aside. Second, simply adding functionality to a device doesn't make it viable. I can add a camera to my toaster but that isn't going to make it convenient to use as a camera.

The computer isn't going anywhere. It's time these guys figure this out and do a better job of having these devices take over functions that are best suited for the environment they're really supposed to excel in.