Another answer...

...to the question asked here:
"How do I get a computer without all the crap that they usually install on them?"
My answer? Buy a Mac. Proprietary equipment has its advantages.

Oooh, early mornin' Queensryche

...Hell yeah, at Hair Nation, Sirius Ch. 23: "...now my takeout food is growin' cold, and the candle's burned a hole in the floor and I'm, still waitin' for the ring of the phone..."
One of my favorite cuts from Empire, I'd bet "Another Rainy Night" was one of the reasons that album was derided by many as Queensryche's selling out to the mainstream. I still don't understand that mentality, though, because it just seemed to me Geoff Tate and his bandmates broke that song of the typical hair-band curse of banality that it would have suffered in the hands of most other bands of that era. Maybe that's my biases talking, and maybe that's even in the context of the greatness that was Empire as a whole, but I don't know that any other band could have pulled that song off as well as they did.

Just damn...

....why in the hell did they have to show a snake biting a dog in the comics? (Crankshaft, for the curious)

Yeah, me too...

From the letters to the editor in this morning's Chron...

I often read Leonard Pitts' column as it usually makes me think. Sometimes it makes me think he is a racist. Tuesday was such a day. He wrote that Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley could only see a black man (aka a criminal) and not a successful college professor. He didn't balance it with Henry Gates seeing a white officer (aka a racist tyrant) and not a public servant putting his life on the line to protect Gates' life and property.

I never thought about it from that perspective, but it makes all the sense in the world. That cop didn't have any way of knowing who it was trying to get into Gates' home, and to presume on top of that, that Sgt. Crowley only saw a "black man" seems to me to be the height of racial grievance-mongering. I don't usually agree with Leonard Pitts anyway, but I honestly thought he would have been better than this. And all things considered, I wouldn't have blamed the sergeant for declining that so-called "beer summit," as the whole thing reeked of a cheap attempt at publicity. This may be a stereotype, but I have a hard time believing the two aggrieved parties at that event are of a class one of whose regular libations of choice is the humble brewski. But I have been wrong before...

Well, isn't this interesting...

...rock guitar legend Eric Clapton doing the old Don Williams hit "Tulsa Time," at Deep Tracks, Sirius Ch. 16. I'd heard Clapton was a country fan here and there, but I didn't expect this. Pretty good, though. A bit faster and more guitar-driven than the DW record, but I like it. I wonder what else Mr. Clapton listens to in his spare time...

One more reason Ron White is the man....

Just heard this bit on Sirius, and I laughed my ass off!


"I did not know that about myself." ROTFLMAO!

There's so much left unsaid and un-discussed here...

...that it's just not even funny...

WASHINGTON — Texas Democratic lawmakers Thursday defended President Barack Obama's stimulus package against criticism from Republican leaders, saying Texas is making economic progress with the help of recovery funds.
Texas state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said that without the $16.5 billion in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, steep cuts would have been made to the state's budget.
“We would have been in severe trouble if we had not had it,” Van de Putte told reporters in a Democratic National Committee-sponsored conference call.
Van de Putte said the stimulus money has led to the creation of about 69,000 transportation jobs, an $800 pay raise for public school teachers and accounts for $1.7 billion in other education funds.

...
So what happens when that money is spent? Another stimulus? Austin pols jetting back to Washington for another handout? And about those 69,000 jobs...I'm sure Ms. Van de Putte will forgive those of us who are skeptical about that. I suppose Jim Dunnam has a point about the state having to borrow money to pay unemployment benefits, but that is just as much the fault of him and his fellow legislators as it is the governor, because the Legislature didn't even think about certain ways to raise funds for the budget -- because of the stimulus money. And those methods would have been, again, another one of those ongoing infusions of cash into the economy as opposed to a one-time thing. And Mr Dunnam says Perry's out of touch with reality? I wonder if he's familiar with the phenomenon of projection...

Yep, that's the way it's done...

...rat-there...

A male teen was fatally shot and two others are in custody after they apparently confronted a delivery driver late last night in southeast Houston.
The shooting occurred about 11 p.m. Thursdayin the 8600 block of Martin Luther King Blvd.
The teen, who has not been identified, was shot at least once, police said.
Investigators said a vendor was delivering products to a store when three confronted him and asked him to give them some of the items. He refused and they began beating him.
The vendor pulled out a handgun and shot one of them.

But remember folks, you don't need to carry a gun because the police will protect you! They will always get there in plenty of time!

Mmm, yeah, Merle doing western swing...

...at Willie's Place, Sirius Ch. 64: "...in your hearrrrt, please just remember...right or wrong, I'm still in love with you...."
I had heard about Merle Haggard's Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World a few times over the years, as it was the record that got George Strait interested in Western swing. I finally picked it up about eight years ago, and, just like everything else Haggard touched over his career, it was solid gold. He actually recorded it with a few members of the Texas Playboys, and you can tell by listening to it they were having a ball. With the way Haggard sang it you can tell he really loved that music, too. I was honestly surprised to find out it was still in print, but from what I remember quite a few of Haggard's albums have been reissued on cd. I highly recommend that one.
...and for you know who...all those times I sang you the fat bug song? ("Roly Poly," for the rest of y'all...) Merle Haggard's version, from this album, was the one I was singing...

Wow, stop the presses...

...because not only am I NOT fuming at Froma Harrop's typical wrongheadedness, I actually agree with every single word she writes here:

Legalizing marijuana would save billions of dollars
...
California's costs of enforcing the marijuana ban — policing, the courts, jail time — at $981 million a year. Nationally, legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion a year on drug-war spending, according to Miron. And it could raise $6.2 billion annually in tax revenues.
A vain hope rose that President Obama's naming of Gil Kerlikowske as drug czar would lead to a more rational policy on drugs. As Seattle's police chief, Kerlikowske oversaw the city's annual Hempfest (a giant and mellow smoke-in) without bothering the celebrants.
But Kerlikowske announced this month that “marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.” And to end any idea that the hip, liberal Obama administration would ease up on pot, he added, “Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it's not in mine.”
...
A bill to “tax and regulate” marijuana like alcohol now before the California legislature has strong support. But it's not going anywhere as long as “legalization” is not in Obama's vocabulary. The word “hypocrisy” has apparently made the cut.

Yep, that's pretty much the long and short of it. One would think as enlightened libertarian types, the people in charge would start trying to pull us out of this Reefer Madness mentality. I guess it just goes to show you they're every bit the closed-minded authoritarian pricks they proclaim conservatives to be.

What was it I was just saying...

...about how the government spins job creation by way of federal grant money?

PORTLAND, Ore. — How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program's first three months.
But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state's accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.
...
At the federal level, President Barack Obama has said the federal stimulus has created 150,000 jobs, a number based on a misused formula and which is so murky it can't be verified.

Wow. Of course, none of this is surprising, as anyone with any grasp of economics knows. This sort of thing has often been likened to filling the deep end of the swimming pool by dipping water from the shallow end, and you could say that's more or less exactly what it is. I don't know who in the hell thought a one-time shot of money into the economy, especially one of this nature, was going to make for a sustained economic boost. Wouldn't tax cuts work better for that, considering they're effectively a multiple-year, sustained injection of money into the economy? Or is that the evil capitalist in me talking?

Just a question...

...raised by reading this story...
When that tiny town of Anguilla, Mississippi spends all that federal money to hire those cops, and they don't have any more to spend on those cops' salaries...what then? What I'm about to remember here has an admittedly biased source, but everyone remembers back in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was pushing his crime bill he was saying it would put 100,000 more cops on the streets? Well, I remember Rush Limbaugh saying that those 100,000 cops would only be on the streets for one year. I don't know where he got that, but it did make sense to me considering the money was going to run out sooner or later. And I seem to recall that number amounted to significantly less staffing increases when the money appropriated by the bill was finally doled out. Why is no one talking about any of that?

Another demonstration of 'when seconds count..."

"...the police are only minutes away..."

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Everett Skinner and his family have started keeping their windows closed at night after a bear broke into their southwest Oregon home and he fatally shot it.
The bear ripped off a window screen and climbed into their den Saturday night, Skinner said.
Skinner's daughter Nicole awoke at about 11:30 p.m. to a strange shuffling sound and was the first to spot the bruin. She quickly retreated to her parents' room to get help.
Everett Skinner grabbed his shotgun and went to the den, where he and the bear saw each other at about the same time. He said the animal stood up and headed toward him, so he fired.

But remember, friends, Paul Helmke and Michael Beard say we don't need guns because it's the police's job to protect us! After all, they're the only ones professional enough! And of course we all know if Mr. Skinner had just given the bear what he wanted instead of shot him, everything would still have turned out juuuust fine....

There is so much I could say...

...to Nick Anderson's most recent asininity, but Bill Whittle does it so much better here that I'll just direct you to him.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this...

...but still, I find it rather disheartening (emphasis mine -- ed.):

Many Republicans point to Sotomayor's stance on gun rights as a key reason they're voting against her. They complain that she refused to weigh in during her confirmation hearings on whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to states as well as the federal government, a question on which the high court has yet to rule. Sotomayor was part of an appeals court panel that said this year that the amendment doesn't restrict state laws, citing previous Supreme Court precedent.
The National Rifle Association, which was slow to announce its opposition to Sotomayor and initially hung back from threatening senators against voting for her, announced last week that it would "score" her confirmation vote, calling her "hostile" to the Second Amendment. That means the NRA will include the vote on Sotomayor in its annual candidate ratings, which heavily influence voters in key battleground states.
Republicans and Democrats from conservative-leaning states generally fear bucking the NRA, and strategists speculate that the group's opposition has tipped the balance for some GOP senators who might otherwise have considered supporting Sotomayor. No Democrat has announced plans to vote no.
A group of Hispanic House Democrats wrote to NRA leaders Monday urging the group to reconsider its stance, saying it was putting some senators in an untenable position by forcing them to choose between defying the gun lobby and infuriating Hispanic constituents.

Wow. The NRA is actually going to grade senators this time around based on their votes for an anti-gun Supreme Court pick, and these Hispanic House Dems are asking them not to do that -- not based on her actual position, but on her race. And you know that's exactly the reason for this when you cut through the crap. Sotomayor shouldn't get a pass on her positions any more than a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male would, and these Hispanic lawmakers should be ashamed of themselves for basically telling the NRA that she should. It just goes to show, I guess, that certain members of other racial groups don't really mind discrimination if it works for them as opposed to against them. Like I say, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it's still rather disgusting.

Texas Democratic Candidate for Senate Calls Out Houston Mayor...

...for supporting Mike Bloomberg's Mayors Against Guns:

(AUSTIN) — United States Senate candidate John Sharp today called on opponent Bill White to immediately denounce his position in a national anti-gun coalition founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, saying that the Houston Mayor’s continued membership in the group is a threat to the rights of law-abiding Texans to own guns.
“Mr. White’s war on guns is already making it impossible for him to be elected statewide in Texas,” Sharp said. “He should immediately disassociate himself from this anti-gun group so he doesn’t also hurt the chances of other Democrats running for public office.”
Sharp said a measure in the U.S. Senate last week that would have allowed legal gun owners with valid permits to carry concealed weapons from one state to another failed by just two votes after fierce opposition from the group, known as Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Maybe it is just a political move, but it's still good to see. I hope if Sharp gets elected he sticks to his guns, so to speak.

In which I sing the praises of social networking sites

You might remember me ruminating on the use of a certain social-networking site not long ago in this space. But as you'll see, I don't think all of those type sites are for, as I referred to them, narcissistic blowhards.
I set up a MySpace account not long ago, and I've had a Facebook account for close to 4 years now. Well, late last week on Facebook I reconnected with an old teacher whose act of kindness when I was in about the third grade stuck with me all through the years. I was in the first few days at a new school, alone and quite bashful. I remember she was watching me those days, and she eventually called me over, asked me my name, introduced herself and talked to me. I don't remember what all was said (remember now, this was a good 20-plus years ago), but that stuck with me. I remembered she left the school not long after that, and I remember I hated that because she was so nice to me. Every so often between then and now I'd wonder whatever became of her. When I saw her picture on Facebook I thought, "I'd recognize that face anywhere." So I contacted her and wonder of wonders, she did remember me, and those days at the new school. I thought that was amazing.
And just yesterday, on MySpace, I reconnected with an old friend from the hometown that I hadn't spoken with in almost three years, and hadn't seen for longer than that. She actually said she still spoke of me often and wondered whatever became of me. It made me feel really good to know that, especially with all the crap that's been going on here in the last few months. I needed it. So yeah, those social networking sites do have a use...though I still don't get Twitter, with its obvious limitations.

You knew it would be 'for teh childrenses'...

...but still...

Police will be allowed to order blood drawn from a person suspected of driving while intoxicated without judicial review under certain circumstances, including instances in which the suspect is a repeat offender, a passenger died or in which a child under 15 was a passenger in the vehicle.

...isn't this sort of thing blatantly unconstitutional? See the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I am not usually sympathetic to what a defense attorney has to say, but Doug Murphy is exactly right when he says that if you put too much power in one agency it will run amok. (see: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms)
And of course the prosecutor would cite public safety as the overriding concern here. One wonders what other parts of the Bill of Rights he would suspend in the name of that. The Second Amendment immediately comes to mind, especially considering that certain other cities have done just that. And then I'm sure the Fifth Amendment has caused him all sorts of trouble too.
Then there's the law prof's mention that the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that this sort of thing is hunky-dory. Tell me again, the value of following the stare decisis doctrine...?

(Welcome, visitors from Chron.com! Main page is here, pull up a seat & stay a while!)

More illegal drug-related death...

...in Austin:

AUSTIN — A 19-year-old accused marijuana dealer told Austin police that he fatally shot a young couple from Houston in their condominium near the University of Texas last week to avoid paying the male victim thousands of dollars in drug money.
Police charged James Richard “Ricky” Thompson, from the Austin area, with two counts of capital murder in the July 21 shooting deaths of Stacy Marie Barnett, 22, and John Forest Goosey, 21, a young Houston couple that had just earned degrees from UT.

But remember, friends, it's better that popular mind-altering substances less dangerous than alcohol remain illegal, because, well, drugs'r'bad, hmkayy?
I really do wonder though, how many people look at this and blame the "easy availability of guns" as opposed to the insane drug laws in place in this country today. That couple might well have still have gotten shot, but it does deserve to be pointed out that if weed was legal and the guy who shot the couple had worked in a legit distribution channel he'd have had some form of legal recourse. I don't mean for that to sound as though I would justify his actions, though. For what he did he deserves to die and it's just that simple to me. But I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the circumstances, how they didn't have to be the way they were, and that they're only this way because our elected officials are either ignorant, a bunch of chickenshits, or both.

Ted, you're my hero, dude...

...because of comments like this:

I'm not at all surprised that B. Woodman is doing better with his 2 year Electronics degree than someone who went to Wellesley for a 4 year Medieval Lit degree.

I'm discussing with the Mrs. sending them to Vo-tech, and spotting them the difference in education cost to start their own business. Not sure if this is what we'll do, but it looks like the big universities are very near pulling every penny in future added salary out of their students. Not bad for a bunch of Marxists who all hate capitalism ...

and this:

I'm happy to explain it to the European Union "President":

Unlike the EU, we have an actual government, which is actually elected by the people. Since the people think that scum like these should not be around to be released from prison by a bunch of noblesse-oblige bureaucrats, we still use the - very popular - death penalty.

The scandal in the USA is that only 1000 of these animals have met justice.

The scandal in the EU is that unelected bureaucrats feel free to flout the very popular death penalty. Since the phony EU government is unelected in any meaningful way, the people in the EU get shafted. That's the scandal there.

And since the EU "president" is president of a phony government with about as much legitimacy as the local Kiwanis, we'll give his statement precisely as much attention as it deserves.

Apologies to the Kiwanis who, unlike the EU, actually do some good in the world.

No need to thank me, I was happy to help.

If you did not have a blog, friend, I'd hound you till you started one...LOLOL