thisiswhatyoushalldo

A New Voice In The Wilderness

I was recently turned on to the writing of Matt Taibbi, a writer for NYPRESS.COM and The Nation after this post from my favorite economics primer. Stuffed on Thanksgiving is a well written, snarky piece calling the journalism establishment to task for its “aw shucks/gushing ” lauding of President Bush’s surpise Thanksgiving trip to Iraq. Teddy at It’s The Economy Stupid equates his writing to Hunter Thompson – and there is certainly an honesty in his voice that is reminiscent of HST, without the drug references. Give him a read. I am going to start looking for more of his work.

Fighting Off The Cold

I have spent the last five days battling a contentious head cold. I haven’t had a cold in a long time, owed partly to the magical science of Zicam. And this fall, with the abundant pollen and dust in the air, my sinuses have been on allergy over drive. I guess they finally gave in and let me have it full force with a magnificent head cold.

A few thoughts:

Turner Classic Movies is a real treasure when you are fighting fever and a cold. Did you know that every movie star was in the film “A Bridge Too Far.”

Tenacious D’s new DVD is a great find to watch while fighting a cold as well. Mindless, juvenile dick jokes set to music. Beware, your roommate will probably not like it.

Sick time is a good time to groom fingernails and toenails. However, do not do it in your bed.

Last count: There are at least 5 different colors of phlegm that can be produced by the body.

The cat has no idea what “Stop, I am sick!” means. Toes under the covers are not off limits to a cat, who, i am sure, now refers to me as a pansy to his cat friends because of my recent convalescence.

Are there any real studies on the effects of power doses of Sudafed on a person’s mental state? I swear I am experiencing hallucinations, mostly concerning leftover Thanksgiving pie.

They Put The Map Back

I have been following the Colorado Congressional Redistricting issue because of a few pesky issues. The GOP controlled state legislature took steps this spring to redraw the boundaries of Colorado’s seven Congressional districts and paid particular attention to the large western slope district 3, held by retiring Congressman Scott McInnis as well as the newly created district 7, held by freshman Congressman Bob Beauprez. Beauprez won the district seat by only 121 votes against Democrat Mike Feeley. Under the new map, the legislature had gerry mandered Feeley out of the district. That is right. He hadn’t moved from his home and was the former challenger but under the proposed plan, he wouldn’t even live in the district. In the district 3 map, the legislature has revisited the pesky problem of balancing GOP strongholds, like Grand Junction with Democratic strong holds like Pueblo. As a result, Pueblo has been chopped up into three different districts in the proposed plan, making the largely Hispanic, largely blue collar and largely Democratic urban block of the third district no longer important.
So it was great news when the Colorado Supreme Court tossed out the shenanigans of the legislature and reminded the governing body of the rules that the state uses to play the once-a-decade redistricting game.
Keep your eyes on this issue as mirror issues are now playing out in Texas and Pennsylvania.

Dead Pool 2004 Deadline Looms

I started working on my list of names for the 2004 dead pool this morning. A tougher task than in the past. There doesn’t seem to be a bounty of old, hangers-on as we had last year, with Strom Thurmond and Bob Hope. I think we can safely add the Pope and Ronald Reagan but the remaining names may be much harder. Kevin has proposed making Reagan and the Pope a gimme and everyone gets them on their list. The group hasn’t weighed in this yet.
And I think we need a discussion for what the winner gets, although bragging rights alone is a fine prize.
Here are a few tricks for finding some names. http://www.imdb.com/BornInYear?1919. This link from the Internet Movie Database lists celebrities by the year they were born. In the above example, it is 1919. By going down the list presented on this search you can pick and choose a few names. Then you can take the name, for example, JD Salinger, and run over to Google News and check the headlines and health of your dead pool candidate. If the health seems fine, then you can just manipulate the url at IMDB by changing 1919 to another year of your choice. And voila’ another list of old people to look up.
There are also many celebrity dead pool sites on the web to assist in compiling your list of names. My favorite is Stiffs.com, home of the Lee Atwater Celebrity Dead Pool; and The Dead People Server, which will assist you in determining if someone on your list has already past.

Opus!

This is welcome news. ” . . . “Opus,” Breathed’s latest venture, a Sunday strip set to launch Nov. 23 in 160 newspapers nationwide.” That’s right, the world’s greatest Penguin is set to return to the comics pages. And Berkely Breathed is at the helm all the way. This is not some rerun of existing cartoons. This isn’t a rerun of cartoons from a dead guy. This isn’t a cartoon in name only, formerly drawn by a famous cartoonist and now drawn by a goon squad that had acquired the rights.
No sir.
This is the real deal.
Bloom County was and always has been the real deal and is one of the all time great comic strips and a definite chronicle of life in these United States during the ’80s. I, for one, will be pulling up the Sunday paper on a much more regular basis now that Opus is back among us.

No More Real Audio

As my cousin Drew will happily tell you, Real Audio and RealOne – the AOL/Time Warner spyware, resource hog that plays media files on your computer and is generally required for many streaming audio and video feeds – is a vile, horrid and terrible application (Drew’s words, not mine, but appropriate, nonetheless) RA and its cohorts eat a lot of memory and they tend to dial home a lot, telling the AOL people much about your computer using habits.
Well, now you can live without it and still enjoy RA, RM, and other Real Audio files with Real Alternative 1.1, a freeware application that is spyware and adware free and works just great. I found it driving around on Tinyapps a little, freeware focused blog. Real Alternative installed very simply and worked like a top on my Win 2K system. I uninstalled Real Audio, downloaded the small Real Alternative file, used only the standard default install selections, except to add the plug-in for Mozilla, and then went to town. The test? I immediately went to This American Life and opened a recent episode and it began to play instantly with nary a hiccup. And my system resources that I am always checking, increased by 10 megs of ram when I removed Real Audio. Life can be simpler, you just have to hunt and peck around.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Powerpoint

If the Lincoln White House was as business and technical savvy as the Bush or the Clinton White House, it is imagined that the Gettysburg Address might have gone something like this.