The Battle is Waged...

The House today decided to finally say enough with all the shenanigans of the current administration and, frankly, it's about time. Not only did they move to subpoena Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Republican National Committee, but they also decided to bring in Karl's Rove's Deputy, Sara Taylor over the Judicial firings.

This is the beginning of the battle I suspect and, as I've noted, it's about time. Someone has to answer for all the Iraq war commentary. If they were lies, we need to know and someone must be held responsible. If they were comments made based on incorrectly processed information then we need to know and someone must be held responsible.

Either way, it's about time this administration get the message that they're not running a dictatorship.

Not a Big Harry Reid Fan... But....

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid isn't at the top of my list of trusted politicians. There's something that bugs me about the guy and he just acts like a typical politician, be it Left or Right.

However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with his stating that the war in Iraq is lost. For once it's great to hear an honest comment coming out of Washington. Vice President Dick Cheney called the remark "defeatist". Is anyone listening to this old man anymore? Nothing he ever says is right. If he told me the sun was out, I'd have to look out the window myself to be sure, even if the light was streaming through the windows.

Note to readers: If any of the traits you use to describe Dick Cheney include "trustworthy" or "believable" then you need to face up to the fact that you're completely out of touch with reality. If your own spouse or children were as wrong as often as this guy has been you'd be looking for counseling.

The situation in Iraq is a mess. Several of Iraq's cabinet members have already resigned because the Prime Minister wouldn't accept, of all ironic things, a timetable for withdrawal of US troops from their country. They don't want us there. Today there are stories all over noting that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is losing support throughout the country.

Calling the war "lost" isn't defeatist Mr. Cheney, it's realistic. It's time you wake up out of your dream state and join the rest of us.

President Bush had another wondrous comment. He said, "It makes no sense to tell the enemy when you start to plan withdrawing. If we're to do so, the enemy would simply mark their calendars and begin plotting how to take over a country when we leave."

Note to President Bush: The enemy doesn't need to mark any calendar. They're already plotting on how to take over the country when we leave. Right now they're just involved in driving us out of a country we have no right being in. Do you really believe the insurgents are sitting around twiddling their thumbs and just hoping they can get an accurate date for our departure? This isn't like an upcoming prom date. These people will fight us endlessly for a thousand years and not ever look at a calendar.

What is the alternative Mr. President? Your alternative is to stay there indefinitely. We already see your plan. You know the plan that's changed with every new season. You declared this war over in 2003. It's 2007 now. We've been at this for more than five years with no end in sight as far as you're concerned. If anything you've told us actually came to pass we wouldn't be demanding a firm date to get out but you leave us no choice. We've tried it your way and your way leaves our kids in harms way indefinitely.

The mantra that it's better to fight them there so that we don't have to fight them here is another load of garbage. I notice that I don't see a lot of soldiers saying that. I see a lot of non-veteran pundits saying it and a lot of fat-cat politicians saying it. The problem is, they don't have to pay the cost of that failed concept. Is it really worth it to see hundreds of our children die every single year for this concept? I think I'd rather spend the money on more real homeland security and risk the odd cafe bomb that takes out 20 people every third year than to send hundreds of our kids to their deaths in a far off country.

It's time more of our elected officials grow some balls and tell this administration to shut up, get on board with the close-out effort or else. The war in Iraq is lost. This administration lost it long before we ever even got there. It was a losing idea from the start and one that the President's father was smart enough to realize.

The best thing that could have ever happened for George H. W. Bush was that his incompetent son get elected President. Before that happened his term was looking pretty lackluster. Now he looks like a genius. He was able to get us into and out of Iraq with dignity. That's something that seems impossible now. At least Harry Reid has the guts to call a loss a loss and move on.

Lack of Morality No Problem for Bush

The President today came out, as we all knew he would, and firmly supported his buddy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. He said, "As the hearings went forward, it was clear the attorney general broke no law, there's no wrongdoing." First, those two comments are not synonymous. While I have my doubts that any law was broken, this speaks to the core of the problem with the Bush administration. They simply are incapable of telling the truth even when the stakes aren't that high.

It's absolutely clear to anyone who watched the proceedings that the Attorney General was either a blithering idiot or simply lying when it came to this issue. Lying to Congress is a crime. No one could forget as much as Gonzales claims to have forgotten without suffering from some major affliction. I don't believe Gonzales is ill.

This administration continues to treat us all like idiots. We don't deserve the truth. They've made that clear. This is their sandbox and they'll play with it any way they see fit. What amazes me is that they cannot figure out, or simply do not care, that if they lie about the inconsequential issues how do they expect us to believe them on the bigger issues, like Iraq?

I am sick of President Bush. He's running the country like a dictator and it's time for Congress to put this man in his place. I don't care at this point what it does to the country. This man needs to be drug before Congress and embarrassed into speaking without his staff behind him. He needs to answer for his choices and the lies that were told, at every turn, to the American people. I don't believe he deserves to leave the office with any shred of respect afforded him. If morality doesn't matter to him, it shouldn't matter to the rest of us at this point.

Fox News ... Great Halloween Costume

Tonight on Hannity and Colmes we had another clear example of the way this network chooses to handle so-called news.

Their big story is the voicemail message Alec Baldwin left for his 11 year-old daughter. This dominated more than half the show. What's more is that the entire time they discussed it, the "fair and balanced" network ran a graphic in the lower right corner that continually poked fun at Baldwin. They'd have a picture of the actor and then strangely it would appear to grow a mustache or open it's mouth (I'm still not sure what they were going for) and then the next frame they'd show a crying baby face. Okay.....

We then got to listen to charlatan Sean Hannity feign outrage that Alec Baldwin isn't in jail. The same was true for the right-based guest (that silly woman from KSFO who can't open her mouth without spewing vitriol at every turn.)

Yes, what Mr. Baldwin said was over the top. Yes it was immature of him. However, it also was, in no way, a crime. It shows you just how insane these people are over someone like Alec Baldwin to suggest that chastising his daughter should net him jail time. We're talking about people who grew up in an age of, and likely support as well as having experiened, corporal punishment from their own parents.

If we jailed all parents who called their kids names we'd have to arrange for social services to take care of nearly all our children.

This sounds to me like sour grapes from a group looking for vengeance over the Don Imus situation. It's either that or this is the talking point distraction mandated to cover the administration's admission that now we're not even going to bother training Iraqi troops to take on the operating. Hmm.....

What's the Answer to Virginia Tech? More Guns!

I knew it wouldn't take long. Listening to the various shows both on TV and radio it only took a single day before the most extreme conservative pundits started suggesting that this tragedy would have never happened if the students and teachers on campus carried hand guns.

Yep, these people are not going to be happy until every single person in the country is walking around with a firearm. 30 people on a bus? 30 people with pistols.

How can it not occur to these people that if this ever became the norm, we'd have random violence deaths every single day beyond counting. Person A would be upset with Person B and then think, "Crap, this guy is probably pissed now and when I turn my back he's going to shoot me. I better just shoot him first."

I have yet to see anyone who stands for this free-for-all policy who isn't acting out of an irrational sense of deep-seated fear. These people are afraid that someone they don't understand is going to off them. They're afraid that someone is going to steal their stuff (yeah, that's worth taking a life over). More than anything else, they're just afraid.

How these people can't see the obvious facts of life in countries that prohibit handgun ownership is beyond me. Our fatalities dwarf every other country out there. More guns only means one thing--more gun deaths. How can these people actually think that arming the very people they're scared of is going to make things better? Of course they assume they're already armed and thus, they need to be.

The sad fact is that countless more kids are going to die just as they did at Virginia Tech and nothing is going to change. It's reprehensible.

Uniden TRU9466 Cordless Phone

A Decent Mid-Level Phone with Some Drawbacks

Pre-purchase:

I've owned several quality cordless phones over the years and can be quite picky with the phones. Recently my 2-line corded phone that I use for home office work went on the fritz and needed to be replaced. We'd seen the various extendable handset-based phones out there and had thought about possibly going to that kind of setup. Plus the main phone in the house was also getting older so this seemed like a good opportunity to switch.

Lastly, we recently switched over to VoIP phone service (through a wonderful company called ViaTalk) and contrary to what people will tell you, the phone adapters you get are not good at running every phone in the house. Once we moved to this phone all the VoIP calls instantly cleared up.

When I picked up the phone I also picked up an additional handset of the same exact type.

Basics:

The base station includes a holding area for one handset with a speakerphone just below that. There's a red light to let you know the handset is either charging or in use. You'll also find a typical dialpad. It's numbers are smaller than I would have liked but I've quickly adjusted. Also around the pad are several other buttons. There's a DND button for a Do Not Disturb feature, a combination Intercom/Hold button, a combination redial/Pause button, the Speakerphone select button, a combination Mute/Exit button, a combination Conference/Voicemail button and finally a combination Flash/Find Handset button.

These are all pretty self-explanatory. Above the dialpad is the information display. It has three soft-buttons below the display. These buttons change function depending on the menu you're in or the mode the phone is in. By default they are for selecting "Line 1", to access the "Menu" or to select "Line 2".

There's also a large round joystick-like button that lets you access several functions. Pushing right brings up the previous callers list. Pushing up or or down sets the ringer volumes. Pushing left brings up the user-created phone book feature.

The display provides all the expected information. It tells you what ringer volumes are, whose calling, if you have voicemail (and what lines if so) provides call waiting caller information, duration of the current call and more.

The handsets are very similar to basic cell phones. They have a display area, three soft-buttons the circular joystick button and typical green and red "phone" buttons for connecting and hanging up the line. Below that is the dial pad and then there's a speakerphone (each handset also has its own speakerphone), combination Intercom/Hold button and finally a combination redial/pause button. There's also a jack for a headset on the side if you need or desire one.

Setup:

Setup went without a hitch. The box doesn't contain any surprising elements though there is a wall plate adapter you can use for the base station but the way it works just raises the base off the counter without any change to its angle so it would look pretty strange on the wall that way.

The biggest issue with the setup is waiting 15 to 20 hours for the handsets to charge.

The handset that was included with the base station, after charging, was ready to go. The addition handset needed to be mated to the base station it would be used with. This was done by simply dropping it into the base station once and it's now linked.

I set up the extra handset to default to "Line 2" which is the phone number our family and friends know. This phone would now be centrally located in the kitchen. This feature can be set to default to "Line 1", "Line 2" or "Auto". Auto basically means, pick up the line that's ringing. If you select either of the other two then the phone will default to those lines. If a call comes in on the non-default line you'll need to select that line manually to answer that call.

The base station and other handset would be placed upstairs in my home office so I set them to default to "Line 1".

There are several setup options for both the base station and the handsets.

To enter the option you select the softkey that says "Menu". For the base station you'll have the ability to select Room Monitor (you can listen to any handset or the base from any other location), Base Setup (to control several base functions), Global Setup (Date/Time, Call Waiting, Dial mode, etc.) and Register Handset (for when you buy other handsets).

The Menu button on the handset gives you access to Voicemail (get my voicemail), DirectLink (talk from one handset to the other), Room Monitor, Handset Setup (Set ringer tones, a personal ring, AutoTalk (answer a call by just picking up the handset), AnyKey answer (answer the call with any button), Banner Display (essentially naming each handset), Handset Language (English, Spanish, French), LCD Contrast, etc.

Oh, you plug power into the bottom of the base station and then thread the power cord along a path to the back of the base station. On the back is also an input for two phone lines. One of them is a combination port for either Line 1 or both Line 1 and Line 2 if your wiring is set up that way.

Use:

Using the phone is pretty obvious. You have the option of dialing a number and then hitting the green phone button to dial it or to hit the green phone button giving you a dial tone and then dialing your number. Base dialing is similar. Either dial a number and hit the softmenu button for the line you want to use or hit the line you want and then dial.

Answering calls is pretty obvious as well, with on exception. If a call comes in, depending on your settings, you can answer the call in one of several ways (outlined above). However, if you're handset of base is set for one line and the call comes in from the other line, you'll have to manually select the line the call is coming in on to answer it. I've confused this a few times and managed to miss some incoming calls as a result. It's especially confusing when this happens as a result of call waiting.

If you get a call while on the line, call waiting with callerID will appear (assuming you have support for that with you phone service) and that's when you can choose how you want to deal with that new caller. The phone also supports CallWaiting Premium if your phone company supports it, allowing you to handle call waiting callers in a number of ways. My company doesn't support his so I can't speak to its effectiveness here.

You have the ability to set up service-based voicemail if you subscribe to such a service. This supports setting up calling macros to dial into your voicemail and pass any codes to it if needed. This can be done for each line as well. In my case I have each macro set up to dial my voicemail (which is done by dialing *123) then hitting the # key (for ViaTalk this makes it dial immediately) and then pausing for 2 seconds (that's where the pause key comes into play) and then dial my passcode.

When setup correctly it all works rather nicely. When you receive voicemail the base station illuminates a bright orange and you see an envelope icon along with icons for which line or lines the voicemail is on. You hit the Voicemail button and the display asks which line you want to check voicemail for. Select the line and you're connected.

Checking voicemail on the handset is a bit different. When you have voicemail a red light will flash on the upper left corner of each handset. You then hit the "Menu" softbutton and choose Voicemail. From here it works the same as the base station.

Call quality has been surprisingly good. There has been some slight noise on the line here and there but nothing worth noting. Volume was initially low for me, but that was easily changed and set for future use.

All three speakerphones work surprisingly well. No complaints there.

Concerns:

The phone hasn't been without some issues. I'll list these in no particular order.

The first time you get a call, be prepared to jump out of your seat. The ring tones are very shrill. By default each line gets it own distinct "standard" ring. There are other choices but, frankly, they're not any better. They include different types of rings as well as ancient songs no one wants to hear any longer. If you don't like those, you're out of luck.

The phone overall feels flimsier than what I'm used to. Time will tell if it can hold up but these models have come highly recommended from several power users I know to be picky.

The base and handset operate almost as distinct entities. There's no way to get the caller data and phonebooks to work between them. For example, if I get 20 new calls and delete those calls on one handset, those 20 calls (plus any others that have since come in) will still be there waiting for me on other handsets and the base.

I find the displays on both the handsets and the base to be hard to read unless they're illuminated. My old base station had the ability to angle it which helped there but even the font used here is overly busy and crowded. It's not a show-stopper but it could be better.

There's no ability to separate the callers between the two lines. My wife doesn't care to see all my business calls and I don't need to see all the other calls. It'd be nice to have an option to see them separately.

It'd be nice to have a quick way to access voicemail on the handsets. If the handset is your only access then you may find this setup more tedious than it needs to be. It'd also be nice to have one voicemail button for each line. Also on this issue it would be nice if the voicemail button itself illuminated on the base. It has other illuminated buttons but oddly not for this.

My other phone had the option of "Live Dialing". That's the ability to have the phone automatically start dialing once I start entering a phone number. I miss that one.

I've had only one real problem with the phone itself and it doesn't appear to be a big one. Once in a while I'll dial in a number and hit the green phone button and it won't dial the number. The number just vanishes and I get a dial tone. It happens only sparingly but just enough to be aware of it. I've seen no other reports of it either and support claims to not have heard this one before so it could be something on my setup.

Lastly, I've called support a couple of times and found it to be okay but less than optimal. Their hours are short and the wait times so far have all been 15 minutes and up.

Pelosi Blew This One

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi seems to have angered quite a number of people with her trip to Syria. My first reaction to it was to wonder why she felt compelled to go there. I couldn't see any good coming from it.

Then I took it a step further. I was watching CNN and one of the pundits they had on speaking from the Right said something very accurate. He said something to the effect of (to Lefty-strategist Donna Brazile), "If the President's name was Bill Clinton and the House Majority Leader's name was Newt Gingrich, you'd be screaming bloody murder."

That is an entirely fair assessment. No one on the left would have stood by and accepted that. This case is pretty similar.

To be fair the difference is that the current President has so damaged our reputation around the world that it's not hard to see why Pelosi thought this was an acceptable move on her part. However, in the end, I believe she only damaged the Dems cause by embarking on it. This entire event looks extremely self-serving and not at all in the interest of the common good. I wish Pelosi would stay at home and get some bills passed that undo some of the damage done by this administration over the last six years.

EMI almost gets it.

It was great to see a member of the RIAA finally break free and do something progressive for a change. EMI, with Steve Jobs in tow, announced that they'd allow customers to purchase digital songs without DRM (Digital Rights Management) included. They also woke up on the quality issue and stated that they'd immediately allow these songs to be had at 256kbps instead of the original 128kbps. What was most interesting to me was a comment about allowing quality downloads all the way up the spectrum including CD-audio-quality downloads.

The problem is that EMI has done this while still keeping DRM on their entire library at the 99 cents per song level. If they really don't believe DRM helps then why are the keeping it on these low-quality songs? It makes little, if any, sense.

I've been saying for years that many of us out here used Napster as a testing ground for songs we really wanted. If we liked them we'd go buy the CD. I did this quite often. Once Napster was shut down I stopped buying. I, along with many others, have no interest in paying ANYTHING for crippled, low-quality versions of songs we like. If I want that I'll just record it from the radio. Paying for these rip-offs just reminds me that I'm being ripped-off.

Some out there are complaining that EMI priced the new 256kbps DRM-free songs at $1.29 or 30 cents more than the other versions. This doesn't bother me for a simple reason. Once this catches on, and it is only a matter of time, competition will fix this issue. I have every reason to believe that we'll be able to download CD-audio versions of our songs for the same 99 cents as before. It'll just take a while.

Once that happens I'll need to prepare my wife as we're going to need to give up some hobbies to be able to afford all the songs I want to archive. I really never needed the CD's guys. I just have them because I knew it was the only way to assure my collection. I'd love to forget all about physical media and just get entire CD's for $6.99 - $9.99 and know that they're forever mine without having to keep an actual CD floating about.

EMI is taking the first tentative baby step in this area. It won't be the last. I just hope it's not that much longer before the follow-up steps are taken.