LawfirmGeek

My Blog Is Moving Forever

2005-12-30T15:46:00.000-05:00

I am moving my site to:
http://www.cynicalgeek.com/

Please update your links as this site will be abandoned.

It's A Fast Food Life For U.S.

2005-12-29T08:00:00.000-05:00

Instant gratification. Instant access. Instant food. Instant results. Instant approval.
These catchphrases have become synonymous with the American way of life. We have all become used to immediate results in most facets of our life. Gone are the days of waiting for a hot meal at lunch and then of course many Americans also want to shed the pounds put on by the instant food…instantly. We can pay our bills instantly and get our credit results in the blink of an eye…and we can spend the money almost as quickly. With the introduction of Ebay, iTunes, Amazon.com and Expedia.com the ways that we can spend our days are endless. Using the sites previously mentioned, we could probably buy a hybrid car, load our newest iPod with music for the road, order a book to nestle up with, and book our vacation…all in an hour. What used to take hours or even days now can be accomplished in minutes; all from the comfort of our home, in our pajamas.

When it comes to our personal indulgences and purchases, we seem to be happy with the effects of technology on our everyday lives. However, when the same types of technology are used for an extended period of time to keep America safe, most Americans hesitate, and rightly so. We should take time to think about the ramifications of such things as domestic intelligence gathering and monitoring. We should also learn as much as we can about what is happening in the United States when current events are concerned. We should do these things to facilitate our own growth of knowledge to a certain point. When we begin to tread on the fine line between our own information gathering and uncovering secret government projects we should once again hesitate instead of instantly forging ahead.

In the past few weeks the news has been filled with stories of the government spying on it’s own citizens through electronic wiretaps as well as the monitoring of the air around certain sites that are of concern to the government. These programs were fairly well-kept secret until some whistle-blower and a hungry journalist get together and decide that it is in the best interest of America to instantly fill the news with new stories of how the government has overstepped it’s bounds. Or have they? Or should they? The question that we should ask is “Why are we even discussing this?” The answer is that new technology can be used for good or for bad, and we had better warm up to this idea. Never before has the world been so inter-connected. In the not so distant past, we were in the Middle East fighting a war, one which was broadcast to the world in real time. The Internet had not yet been opened to the public and embedded journalism did not bring the war to the dinner table at every waking minute. Ronald Reagan once said “All great change in America begins at the dinner table.” Of course Reagan was our oldest elected president, and he did not get to see the impact of the Internet on the public world, but even he was affected by the technology advances and recognized the impact that they could have. He also understood the importance of sitting down with family and discussing the matters. We have become so accustomed to instant news and instant stories. There are so many topics to discuss that it seems we don’t discuss them anymore, we just regurgitate what we have been inundated with.

Now that the world is focusing on the war and domestic spying let’s go ahead and discuss those issues with each other. Let’s think about the differences that the Internet has made in everyone’s life, whether they own a computer or not. The information superhighway has become filled with more road-rage than the national highway system that connects the lower 48 states. Anyone at any time can blast millions of other people just for what they think, not for cutting them off in rush hour traffic. The Internet is a very effective tool at almost everything that it lets Americans do, and others as well. When have you been able to spend $50 on a old laptop, a few dollars a month for “always-on” Internet access, a bit of free software, and be able to facilitate voice communications around the world? Never. There are numerous voice over IP (VOIP) programs that allow people to create their own server, password protect it, and instantly create a place to gather and discuss anything that they like. There is that instant word again. It’s true that you can take a $50 laptop, free open source software such as Linux and TeamSpeak and create a communication tool that envelopes the world. Anyone that is familiar with Linux could have a semi-secure VOIP server in less than 30 minutes. That includes the time to install the operating system as well as the VOIP software. If you need access to the Internet while you are away from your home that is equipped with Internet access then look no further than your cel phone. We can now connect to the Internet using Bluetooth technology and a cel phone Internet plan. This means that you could travel down the interstate in your car and keep your VOIP server open for business. Since America is such a free and open society this also means that the bad apples have access to the same technology that we do.

When we talk about domestic intelligence gathering, or spying, let’s consider the magnitude of the situation and the enormity of the project. The Bush administration is doing it’s best to protect the United States and it’s citizens, and it is a huge undertaking, one which will be looked back upon as a nightmare scenario. The Clinton administration was also somewhat interested in the legality of warrantless searches involving physical as well as electronic situations.

"The Department of Justice believes -- and the case law supports -- that the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes and that the president may, as he has done, delegate this authority to the attorney general," Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick said in 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
That same authority, she added, pertains to electronic surveillance such as wiretaps.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051222-122610-7772r.htm Accessed 12/29/2005

NY Local 100 Workers Have The City By The Balls

2005-12-21T12:23:00.000-05:00

They currently contribute 2% of their wages towards their pension fund. If you are a toll booth operator making $50,000 a year, then that is $1000 per year that you contribute. The workers would like the retirement age to drop from 55 to 50 years of age. Yes, I'd like to retire at 50, but that will never happen. These people will be a drain on the economy whether they retire at 50, 55, or 62. They won't plan for their retirement, and they will expect someone else to fund it, like the government. Let's do basic math with fictitious numbers (except for the $50,000 that the toll booth worker do make.)

$50,000 * 2% = $1000 currently contributed by the Local 100 workers per year.
$1000 contributed * 30 years (if you started work at 20 and retire at 50) = $30,000
$1000 contributed * 47 years (if you started work at 20 and retire at 67) = $47,000
Life expectancy of average person approx 75 years

So...you want to give $30,000 over the your entire career with the union, and then you want to be compensated for the next 25 years. I know the public sector is different from the private sector, but how can you keep giving so little and expect so much in return? I try to give 5% of my wages to my 401k plan for a reason. I want to have some money when I retire. If I made the same $50,000 and contributed 5% then my calculations would look like this.

$50,000 * 5% = $2500 contributed per year
$2500 contributed by 47 years (if I started at 20 and I retire at 67 - when I will be eligible for full Social Security benefits) = $117,500
Life expectancy 75 years

You on the other hand, want to retire, complain about Social Security, complain about your pension, and all because you don't want to pay for retirement. You want it gifted to you because the Union owes you something. You owe them more in the form of contributions than you have been giving. Go ahead, shut down the city, I hope you all get fired. What everybody is trying to tell you is that like Social Security, the pension plan cannot continue on in it's current form. If you are a young Local 100 worker and not planning for your future, then you'll be sadly dissappointed when you retire at 50 and have to go back to work at McDonald's. Maybe you can ask for a free lunch, it wouldn't be the first time.

History will continue to repeat itself, and whenever a union finds a budget surplus, they will want the money and higher benefits. The steel unions have done it in the past when there was a smaller budget surplus than what we see in New York.

2005-12-20T08:01:00.000-05:00

Hoping For The Best, Preparing For The Worst

Imminent Threat Of Iraq

2005-12-19T08:01:00.000-05:00

There are a million reasons to have treated Iraq as a imminent threat in 2003. There were a million reasons to treat Iraq as a country with which we should not involve ourselves with as well. The fact that the world saw Iraq as a threat tethered to the fact that the U.N. had been inspecting and re-inspecting Iraq's weapons program for a decade, along with the fact that Iraq was abusing the U.N. Oil For Food Program should connect the dots for even the most timid of nations. However, many nations on the U.N. Security Council were themselves involved in the Oil For Food scandal and I'm sure they would not want to shed light on that topic.

President Bill Clinton attacked Iraq with cruise missiles twice and those type of attacks always remind me of Roger Waters' "The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range."

Just love those laser guided bombs
They're really great
For righting wrongs
You hit the target
And win the game
From bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game
With the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim
With the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train
With the bravery of being out of range
We gained terrain

The first attack was in responce to Saddam's plot to execute former U.S. President George H.W. Bush. The latter attack followed Saddam's continued refusal to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors. President Clinton recognized the will of the Iraqi goverment, and he reacted with bombs and missiles, not troops. During the entire decade preceding the current Bush presidency, the Iraqi military shot Surface-To-Air Missiles (SAMs) at U.S. military planes which were enforcing the No-Fly Zones in Iraq. These zones were put into place by the U.N., a reaction to protect the Kurds in the north and the Shiites in the south of Iraq. These zones were mainly patrolled by U.S. forces. Once again it became our responsibility to protect those who could not protect themselves. The U.N. continued to be hoodwinked by Saddam even up to the beginning of the current war in Iraq. The U.S. Congress approved the authorization for the use of force in Iraq five months prior to the invasion. During these five months the message from the U.N. weapons inspectors was the same. Saddam continues to defy the U.N. weapons inspectors and we have found items not accounted for in Saddam's disclosure to the U.N. The world gave Saddam as much rope as they could and President Bush recognized the steps that must be taken. He put boots on the ground as well as bombs in the air. He removed a president who was receiving 99% of the vote with no competitors on the ballot. He empowered the Iraqi population to vote for their choice of 7000 competitors and two-thirds of Iraqis came out to vote. We are on our way to victory and a better Iraq.

Thoughts On President Bush's Most Recent Speech 12/18/2005

2005-12-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Presidential Address To The Nation 12/18/2005

I stopped what I was doing last night to sit down and watch the president address the nation. My wife had yelled down the hallway that the president was going to be speaking and I usually try to watch them live, no matter who is president. I also have a habit of turning the television off after the speech goes off, so I can form my own opinions of what I just heard, and not be swayed by the commentators; there are plenty of newspapers articles to read following a presidential address.

I feel that the speech was one of the most important of his presidency, and also the best performance he has given to date, for he is not the most fluid speaker in the world. He had a more down-to-earth demeanor that I believe was used effectively to explain the "when" "where" "why" of Iraq and the war on terror. I do not know how many Americans actually tuned in to watch, but hopefully a large population did watch last night. If they didn't, well that is there loss.

Critics will not be swayed by a single speech of the president, but a concerted effort by him to inform the American public will go a long way to close the partisan gap between American citizens. GOP supporters will go a long way to support the president, critics will go a long way to point out his shortfalls, and Americans are caught in a gulf between the two. All Americans need to understand, to some extent, the history of Saddam Hussein, the history of war, and the history of government. This will be my shameless plug for The History Channel. I watched part of "Saddam And The Third Reich" last night which was very interesting, and I learned some things that I did not know. It's not your usual conspiracy theory case, but rather a thought-provoking episode with factual information. Over the past four years, I have read a lot on the history of the Middle East. I believe that everyone that wants to have an opinion on the war that we are fighting need to understand Afghanistan v. Communism, Iraq v. British, Iraq v. Iran, Iraq v. Kuwait, US v. Iraq (Gulf War I,) Iraq v. UN sanctions, the Ba'ath party (originated in Syria,) Lebanon v. Syria, and Clinton v. Iraq during the 1990s.

I won't go into each conflict in this post, but there is a lot of history to absorb that led up to this most recent conflict. America has been at war for 4 years, a short period of time when you compare it to that of the years that the Middle East has been in conflicts. Iraq, for instance, has seen the Iran-Iraq War, followed by the Gulf War, followed by UN sanctions for a decade, followed by our most recent deployment to Iraq. This is what Saddam brought to Iraq, and now we are bringing freedom.

The Timing Of The News

2005-12-16T08:54:00.000-05:00

Al-Jazeera re-releases a tape two weeks ago of Zawahiri calling for attacks on the oil facilities in the Gulf region. Oil prices climb the next day for it makes everyone nervous.

CNN makes their breaking news story yesterday afternoon on the apparent capture and release of Zarqawi by Iraqi Security Forces last November (that's 2004.) This was already reported in the news in January and throughout the spring. Why is this breaking news on the day of the vote in Iraq? Was this to show that ISF were working dilligently even a year ago to get rid of insurgents? Or, was this to show that the ISF and the US is incompetent? I would suspect the latter. It just doesn't make sense. What is the point?

Before the age of media which we are in now, it was the purpose of journalism to find out what the story was and to report the stories. We as Americans received our news through the nightly news that was collated for our viewing pleasure. Now, it seems that some people have turned it around and said that the stories are out there and it is up to us to read them. Well why would I want to read a year-old article and think that it is "Breaking News?"

This just really ticks me off.

Why Americans Cannot Endure War

2005-12-15T11:31:00.000-05:00

War Against Iraq Part I
100 hours to remove Saddam from Kuwait
War Against Iraq Part II
24,000 hours to remove Saddam from Iraq and hold elections for a permanent goverment

As a whole, Americans remember how "easy" Part I was. They don't remember how important Part II is. They enjoyed their "reality TV" war the first time around, but this episode is dragging out and they want a "commercial break."

Iraq Vote 2005

2005-12-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

Today Iraq citizens were able to vote for their own permanent parliamentary government. For the first time in a very long time, the pro-Sunni Saddam Hussein is not able to directly influence the elections in Iraq. For the first time in a very long time, elections actually mean something to Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites. In the past, because the Sunnis were mostly protected by their leader, they did not care about elections. In January of this year, the Sunni religious leaders called for a boycott of the January election. This was a decision that was made to keep people of all beliefs from voting. It was a decision made to terrorize people, but it did not work. People came out to vote in record numbers, with the exception of the Sunnis. We know the outcome of the vote, the Sunnis lost and remained angry all year. They criticized the "illigitimate" government, the one that they chose not to take part in. Now, they have realized that they can no longer hide behind Saddam, and they cannot terrorize the people of Iraq as a whole by issuing a fatwa against the voting, but rather that they must come into the political fray and issue a fatwa for the voting. This is the first time in a long time that they had to protect their own interests, for Saddam had protected their ways and beliefs for so long.

All three groups should be represented, Sunni, Kurd, and Shiite. The birth of this "democracy" is being witnessed by millions the world over, and it will not be a perfect outcome. Over time, people will see the benefits of this paradigm shift in the goverment of Iraq, and it will change the world for the better. Seeing as how Iraqis have 7000 choices to vote for, and that they could be killed during the voting day, it kind of makes the past two elections in the U.S. seem calm. Over two-thirds of Iraqis will vote, and unfortunately Americans have forgotten that it is their civic duty to vote. Maybe Americans will pay attention to what is going on halfway around the world. Interest seems to be waning, but I believe that Bush's latest four speeches on Iraq have done a great amount of good for his ratings. A poll can say anything you want it to say, but at least Bush is coming out and speaking to the American people on what his plan is. Go read "A National Plan For Victory In Iraq."

Governor Kathleen Babineux-Blanco Gets Nostalgic

2005-12-14T12:54:00.000-05:00

She says before Congress today that "As I've said before, if the levees had not failed, we wouldn't be having this hearing."
That's true, but what I want to be investigated is the reports of citizens near the levees calling officials to clear brush and roots that were growing into the banks of the levees. The reports that I have read said that citizens reported weeds and brush growing into the land near the levee and they reported this because they were concerned. They also said that they never received a call back from the officials, and never saw the brush cleared.
I'll get nostalgic and say that "hyphenated women are trouble."

Nothing To Post So Let's Talk Current Events

2005-12-14T08:52:00.000-05:00

I haven't been inspired lately to write, that is until I started a Email conversation yesterday. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. :-)

The ads are not baseless, but I understand your point of being dangerous very well. That is what the Republicans have been screamingsince the beginning. Now, everybody acts like they want to get withthe program (now defined in the 35 page plan for Iraq) on Monday, andon Tuesday they say that "we can't win." You can't say that. Wellyes you can, because this is America and you go out Wednesday and saythat it's baseless and "cherry-picked" and slam the information aboutWMDs again. Then where are we, Thursday, then you just continue onthroughout the week, and think about what to do next week becauseFriday you're going to play golf.We've been going around and around for 4 years now. And don't forget,everybody except Kennedy was pretty much agreeable to Congressauthorizing force. Anybody who didn't know what that meant after onlyGulf War I, Kosovo, Somalia. et al. couldn't be helped, they'll dowhat they're going to do, whether it plead dumb, or refute theintelligence to get out of what they voted for. Civilian populationwas agreeable to the use of force. After we received acceptance fromthe 99-1 vote, we waited...5 months we waited. The UN reports werethe same as they had been for the past decade...like pissing up arope. So now we're in the thick of things, Al-Qaeda and others knowthat they can manipulate our economy, just as OPEC did when Carter wasaround. We're going round II for a stable world energy supply.Al-Jazeera "forgets" and re-airs old footage. Last year, insurgentsattacked the US Consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia and bin Laden callsfor $100 oil. The oil prices jumped 5% the following day. They knowwhat they are doing. Senator Kerry knows first hand what he's doing,he did it in...gulp...Vietnam. The other military men I respect offthe bat because they understand military warfare better thannon-military men, but that is not to say that a president leadingthose folks cannot win. I can't believe that people would not rakeKerry over the coals right now, but I guess that only leads to morebad press. But I recognize that he's doing the same thing he didbefore Congress when he returned from Vietnam, and we know how thatended. We must agree that we have a government in Iraq that we haveto care for at the moment, or else it just goes back to the way it wasbefore. And if you agree, you don't go out and say that "we can'twin." If we continue this, and the terrorists continue their mediausage (and they will) then no, we can't win.President Bush is letting the ad ride, because it does need to beseen. But people need to watch it, and then look at the chronology ofthe week. They need to understand exactly what Dean is, and whatKerry is trying to do. Dean is a loose cannon, and Kerry is a verypowerful man who wants us home more than anything. He found that hewas able to be part of a movement to bring us home before, and if werepeat the pullout situation too quickly, and don't have staying powerto the end, he can bring us home too soon. Let George get some workdone first.LB
- Hide quoted text -On 12/13/05, CB<x@yahoo.com> wrote:> I agree with Senators Graham and Inouye. The ads are baseless and> counterproductive. It is very dangerous when one party questions the other> party's patriotism at a time of war, simply b/c the party does not agree> with the other party's war strategy. President Bush, as leader of the GOP,> should demand that the ads be pulled off the air.>> LawFirmGeek <@gmail.com> wrote:>> http://www.factcheck.org/article364.html>> They have a "interpret it yourself" message with this one.>>> ________________________________>

The Importance Of Al-Jazeera

2005-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

One of the big newsmakers of last week was the story of U.S. companies under government contract who submit stories to the news media in the Middle East. This is not surprising to me, since if people had paid attention in 1998 when President Bill Clinton signed into law the Iraqi Liberation Act, they could have understood the importance of this. Al-Jazeera re-airs a tape of Zawahiri calling for attacks on the oil facilities in the Gulf region. Oil prices climb above $60 per barrel again. Al-Jazeera gets it. Why don't we? The media is 50% of the battle in this new type of war.

Strategic Redeployment Of Troops In Iraq

2005-12-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

I read a really good publication from The Center For American Progress over the weekend. Don't hold your breath, I'm not changing teams. I ran across this publication after reading an article which raised the question of whether John Murtha's proposal for the war situation was an idea of his own, or whether he formed his plan based on The Center's publication. I am of the opinion that it does not matter where he got his ideas. I did immediately go to download the publication (Accessed: 12/06/2005 http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03}/redeployment.pdf) for more information.
One of the most interesting sections of the article concerns the placement of troops after the strategic redeployment. The Center suggests bringing all of the Reserve Units home and redeploying the remainder. A brief description of the redeployment is:

Move troops to Afghanistan to help with the war there
Move troops to Kuwait as well as Naval ships off the coast for quick redeployment in Iraq
Move troops to Somalia and Southeast Asia for use in counter-terrorist operations

Here is my immediate reaction which I believe is a logical one. Currently, we are "occupiers" in Iraq, for which the world is at odds with us. Being fully aware of this, The Center suggests that we redeploy troops in at least three countries which we are not currently "at war" with. Kuwait, land which we "occupied" before. Possibly Indonesia, where we know there is a strong gathering against Americans. Somalia, where a team of Navy SEALS was overrun and eliminated. Many have said that the United States has turned Iraq into the gathering place for terrorists from all over the world because of our "occupation." If this is the basis for the terrorists to migrate, then why would we want to go into these other countries and then be blamed for their hardships as well? I personally believe that the terrorists will go wherever we are deployed, because they want to kill our soldiers, and because they will always disagree with what the United States' policies are.
Somalia has not had an official government since 1991 and we already know that there are people there who hate us. Saddam Hussein has always considered Kuwait to be a part of Iraq, and this thought will not change. Indonesia could be a place of death for our soldiers and their support staff while they are having a few moments of rest and relaxation at one of the many targeted night clubs.
While I don't disagree completely with this proposal for strategic redeployment, I think that the general American population should understand what the immediate reaction of the rest of the world could be. Their nightmare of an "American Empire" could, to them, be coming true. I do believe that a new plan needs to be agreed upon, but much thought and discussion needs to take place before the "progressive" plan of going where Bill Clinton took the SEALS, where President H.W. Bush staged troops before, and where innocent tourists are killed on a fairly regular basis. I believe that we have to to lead the war on terror, and we have to remember that no one else will take the lead for us, ever. Maybe after we finish spreading our troops around the world someone else will stand up and stop the genocide in Darfur instead of asking us to be the lead horse once again.
Closing Thoughts
While I am not opposed to persons opposing the war, I knew what outright foaming at the mouth of the leaders of our government could become. We are three years into the war on terror, and Presidential nominee John Kerry is calling our soldiers terrorists. You can go look up the quote yourself, but his words will turn into "Senator Kerry Rails Against Terrorism By U.S. Soldiers" and that will be printed throughout the region. Senator Kennedy can always sit back and say that he never voted to give the President authorization to use troops in this war. Kennedy was the one person who did not vote to give authorization. Why? So he could make that statement to this day. You can oppose the war, but don't help the enemy to spread anti-American propoganda, and for God's sake think of what harm you can cause when you are on national television or press.

Why I Don't Like The Spaniards Selling Chavez Kalashnikov AK-47s

2005-11-29T08:59:00.000-05:00

There are still plenty of AK-47s to spread around the world, but I would be far more satisfied if Venezuela were to receive U.S.-made weapons such as the M-16. Why? Because the AK47 is designed to inflict far more damage than our American standard issue rifles. This could seem to be a proposterous statement, but do your own research and you'll find that it's true. The AK is designed to inflict maximum damage with a single bullet, the M16 and M4 fires a round that is designed to minimize damage. If one were to shoot someone in the calf with an AK, they'd lose their calf; a round fired by the American guns would surely hurt the person's leg, but they most likely would not have their calf blown off.
Sure, we can't just stop the sale and sell our own guns to Venezuela to make this instance less dangerous for the human race, but just keep in mind what an AK47 is. A killing machine. We can talk about the use of white phosphorus in Iraq all day long, and how depleted uranium can affect the human body, but keep in mind what an simple AK47 can do to a person. War is hell and remember that our guns were designed to not inflict damage like we see with the AK.
One final thought. Spain's president was going to support Bush in the war on terror, his opponent flogged him for this, the terrorists attacked the country, and a new president was elected, one who was against Bush's war. This president now is going to sell weapons to Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez claims that the United States is going to invade his country. If you don't think the terrorists are effective in their campaign against freedom, democracy and an open media, well I just can't help you.

Hugo Chavez Sells Discounted Oil To Mass. Non-Profits

2005-11-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

With cold winter air ahead of us, I bundle up here in Georgia and think fondly of the snow that my relatives in Massachusetts will be seeing soon. Apparently I'm not the only one snuggling up with thoughts of of Mass. Hugo Chavez and the Kennedys are all worried about the price of heating oil for the customers of Quincy, Mass. Williams Delahunt (Rep. Mass - D) has brokered a deal with Citgo Corp (subsidiary of Venezeula's state owned oil company) to sell heating oil to low-income residents of Massachusetts. Venezuelan sources say that families will save $184 over a three week period on heating oil. Chavez is very smart to keep the President pissed and New England happy. He can have the best of both worlds this way and keep the Democrats on his side. Bush can't win for losing, so he might as well just fend off the attacks for the rest of his presidency and let the next president deal with it. Hillary Clinton says it would be a "big mistake" if we were to pull out of Iraq. I'd love to see what she would do with the situation and with the country. I wouldn't vote for her, but I'd love to see America get a taste of what they are asking for.

Quincy is a fairly quiet little town just south of Boston, and just thinking of my visit there when I was young makes me want to be there now. It's not really good sailing weather for sailing around the Cape, but it's been many years, far too many years since I've visited.

Out Of Office Reply

2005-11-22T13:36:00.000-05:00

I should just go ahead and set my Email Out Of Office Reply message to:
"LawfirmGeek threw napalm into the Internet and left!!! Don't try contacting him unless he contacts you first. If you are an ISP don't even try, because he is frustrated with all of you at this point."

It's 1:30PM, I haven't had lunch yet, and all I have worked on today is Email issues. Of course the problem does not lie on my end, but if Email from a client cannot reach us, then my normal workday can never begin.

STOP! In The Name Of Email

2005-11-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

I've been very busy lately with my newest project at work, document scanning. We now have the ability to scan every piece of paper in our office and have it indexed so that it can be searched upon later. It is a very interesting process, but not without it's own headaches. We have about a million and a half pages of real estate documents to be scanned and that only encompasses the real estate closings that have closed in the past. This does not included any documents that we are generating day to day in the real estate division. I've had to work on this project it seems non-stop for the past three weeks.

This morning, it seems that Email problems are consuming all of my time. Whenever Email problems arise I have to stop everything and resolve Email issues first. As soon as an attorney does not receive an Email that they are expecting, my phone rings. The thing that is so aggravating is that many times the problem does not lie with our system. That is of no consequence since if the transmission cannot be performed it is still my problem.

Maybe I'll have a chance later to blog about some other current event besides Email flow.

Jay Rockefeller Spills The Beans On Iraq

2005-11-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

Ten months before Congress approved the use of force against Iraq Jay Rockefeller went on a trip to the Middle East. During his visits with the heads of state of Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia he told the leaders of those countries that it was his view that President Bush had already made up his mind to go to war with Iraq. A good review of the history of Iraq is available at Infoplease.com (http://www.infoplease.com/spot/iraqtimeline2.html.)

The actions of Rockefeller could have alerted Saddam Hussein to once again begin hiding and destroying WMDs that the UN has been tracking down since 1991. Syria, being the home of the Ba'ath political party, has been a friend to Iraq for a long time, and the IRS has documented illegal dealings between Syria and Iraq under the U.N. Oil-For-Food program between 2000-2003. In a nutshell, what I see is that Iraq was pulling the wool over everyone's eyes after he finally accepted the Oil-For-Food proposal from the U.N. After Saddam was comfortable with his plan to scam everyone, he did so. France benefited. Russia benefited. France benefited. Syria benefited. Jay Rockefeller jumped at the chance to thicken the plot. What right or duty did he have to go and spill the beans on his own views of what the future held? The U.N. already had enough trouble getting Saddam to comply with their requests before our own citizens gave him a heads up.

Cindy Sheehan Has Her Day In Court

2005-11-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

Today, Cindy Sheehan is in court with approximately 40 other protestors who unlawfully protested in front of The White House last month. Sheehan is charged with a misdemeanor of protesting without a permit outside the White House. Nine others on trial have already have had their charges dismissed.

Prior to the start of the trial, Sheehan announced that she will return to Texas to harass President Bush during his Thanksgiving holidays, whether he is working or not. That means that there is going to be one cold bird outside of Crawford next week. :D

Sheehan is aiming to eliminate the "war criminals" that are in charge of running our country. To me, it will be very interesting after this war is over, after there has been a period of peace, after we have elected another president, and after we go to war again. We will all have the luxury of hindsight, and at that point most of us can all agree that the Islamic Fundamentalists know how to use the American media as the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.

Sony: Get Right With The Copyright Man

2005-11-15T09:18:00.000-05:00

Recently Sony BMG released at least 19 different albums that included copy protection designed by First 4 Internet.  The code written by First 4 Internet is a type of DRM (Digital Rights Management) code designed to stop illegal copying of CDs.  The problem with this particular DRM code is that it hides  files that include a special 5 character string.  Within several days of the CDs being released with the DRM code, there were new viruses that infected computers that had played these new Sony BMG discs.  These viruses were able to use this "rootkit" provided by Sony to hide themselves on the customer's PC.  Build a better mousetrap and they'll build a better mouse.

The money that artists deserve to generate from CD sales must be driven back to them in this age of The Internet.  I was around when the P2P file sharing began, and I told everyone to understand that file sharing in that manner is usually called theft, and to enjoy it while it lasted, because at some point everyone would start cracking down on the matter.  I admit, I downloaded some music in the past free of charge.  There are a number of ways of downloading music legally now such as iTunes, Napster, and even some ISPs provide a software for their users to download music.  This is the future of music.  Nobody is inextricably attached to having an album cover and liner notes for every single CD that they have.  I use iTunes for my purchases now and spend between $7.99-$13.99 on a CD or $0.99 per song.  I think that's a great deal.  When has anyone in the past been able to legally acquire their own copy of a new song for $0.99?  Never.

Well Sony BMG are going to have to go back to the drawing board or at least tweak the software to make consumers feel safe about popping a new Celine Dion, Van Zant, or other Sony artists album in their computer.  I think companies should continue working on DRM technology, and I hate to see Sony stumble.  What we need to understand is that something must be done to make the population understand that White Collar crime is still a crime.  Artists still need to put food on the table, and those who can't show good sales numbers to their record companies will be sent packing.

I'm Telling You - Hyphenated Women Are Trouble

2005-11-14T10:25:00.000-05:00

I was outwardly agitated during Hurricane Katrina for what I saw from the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco. Ok, maybe she doesn't put the hyphen in there, but you can tell from the start that she's going to be a handful.

I watched her cry and lose her cool in front of the cameras during the disaster. Now Time Magazine begins an article on the Governor with "Failures aren't born. They're made." She didn't bring anything to the table that was needed at the time and she should lose her seat along with Ray Nagin in the next election cycle.

Using Google Bombs To Affect Our World

2005-11-13T00:54:00.000-05:00

Great. People are now using ways to hack Google to link Bush to 'miserable failure' and somebody else wants President Musharraf of Pakistan linked to insensitive idiot. That's a great use of a mind.

Anyway, it's late.

I'm downloading the free versions of the Microsoft programming language. I'm such a hypocrite.

Microsoft Makes Me Nervous

2005-11-08T09:01:00.000-05:00

Here goes Bill Gates making me nervous again. Microsoft is giving away "Express Editions" of it's programming languages for the next year. Go and download them and they are free to use forever, but can only be downloaded for the next year. That ought to ethnically cleanse any doubting PerlMonks and reduce the non-Micrsoft base closer to a pile of rubble.

Microsoft is also the biggest contendor for AOL's ISP business. Good grief, you think AOL sucks now, just wait until Microsoft gets a hold of it. Oh well, we live with Microsoft because it's the only game in town, and we will continue to endure.

Michael Moore Owns Halliburton Stock?

2005-11-04T10:11:00.000-05:00

Peter Schweitzer's new book allegedly exposes that Moore owns stock in Boeing and Halliburton. Could this be true? If so, would anyone even listen? If he loaned money to Halliburton in the form of purchasing their stock, he hoped to profit off of their business. Nobody gets in the stock market to purposely lose money. Folks, if he really did this, then maybe the lid can be blown off of his exaggerated BS that he spews. Reportedly, he also owns shares of HMOs and his next movie is reportedly to be on the same topic. Let it be true! Let it be true!

It's probably too good to be true. If I knew how to look it up on the Internet, believe me, I would. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know!

Dan Rather v. Merriam-Webster

2005-11-03T15:11:00.000-05:00

At a speech to attendees at the University of Maine on Tuesday Dan Rather said "News is something people need to know which someone, somewhere, doesn't want them to know. All the rest is advertising."

Umm. Wow! According to Merriam-Webster news is:
1 a : a report of recent events b : previously unknown information
2 a : material reported in a newspaper or news periodical or on a newscast b : matter that is newsworthy

Apparently I need to go back to reading the dictionary so that I can understand the difference between what is an advertisement, and what is news on CBSNews.com.

http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=122993

Too Little Too Late

2005-11-01T08:31:00.000-05:00

CBS White House Correspondent John Roberts apologized via the CBS website yesterday for referring to Samuel Alito, Jr. as "sloppy seconds." Mr. Roberts referred to him in these words when asking White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan at the morning press briefing what to make of Alito being chosen behind Harriet Miers. Mr. Roberts is a contendor for the evening news anchor position to replace Dan Rather. This is a good measure of where the media is today, and while Mr. Roberts apologized for his poor choice of words and explained that he wasn't trying to belittle Alito, everyone must understand that it was just his way of pushing the envelope a little further. A test to see what a journalist can get away with.

Well, it's awful what journalism has come to, especially from someone in the White House press corp. After Dan Rather and the false documents on Bush's Air National Guard story, I would hate to see John Roberts of CBS News take the anchor position as "sloppy seconds" to Bob Sheiffer.

President Bush Nominates Samuel Alito, Jr. to Supreme Court

2005-10-31T08:39:00.000-05:00

Bush nominated a "conservative" to the Supreme Court this morning. Let the digging and rustling of papers begin. I don't know much about the man myself, so it will be interesting to see what the news tells us about him.

I do know that he ruled that a holiday display on city property did not violate the Establishment clause because the display included good ole Santa Claus. At least he's not a pushover!

2005-10-06T10:10:00.000-04:00

Gains in 401k

2005-10-04T09:41:00.000-04:00

HARRIET MIERS:DAY ONE

Blackbeard Rides The High Seas of The Hurricane Season

2005-09-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

Attitude: Aggravated
Outlook: Bleak

Media Media Everywhere! And Not A Drop of The Whole Truth To Drink!

I'm so tired of it. I try to get the real story, but sometimes it just won't come. The newspapers are attacking Kellogg, Brown and Root, subsidiary of Halliburton, but they won't quite go after The Shaw Group. The CEO and Founder of The Shaw Group is the Chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party, and his company just won a contract for helping with the cleanup after the hurricanes.

You see, I don't have a problem with it as long as the bidding is performed fairly. If you want to run away from "big business" then get ready to hire a bunch of small business owners who won't be able to handle the massive jobs that the government requires. All big businesses are going to be linked to something unsavory somewhere down the line. Hello, Six Degrees of Separation? And the lines that have been drawn to draw-and-quarter Dick Cheney and Halliburton are used time and time again. The Halliburton/Cheney link will live on forever. Too bad our Vice President worked for one of the premiere companies in America. I'd be more comfortable hiring someone who worked for McDonald's. Note the sarcasm.

Come on Pirates Of The Media! Why don't you explain The Shaw Group story? Because sometimes you are just that baseless. All you can do is mention their name, right next to Kellogg, Brown and Root, and allude to the fact that Bush's cronies won two more contracts.

And the lemmings will watch. And they will be fooled again matey! Go ahead and Google to your heart's content, you're not going to find anything about The Shaw Group and the Louisiana Democratic Party, except for the www.lademo.org (Louisiana Democratic Party) page itself.
ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/27/opinion/27tue1.html?pagewanted=print
Accessed 09/28/2005

iPod Nano: Not On A Slow Boat From China

2005-09-22T23:15:00.000-04:00

Ordered it Monday, it arrived this morning around 10:30.
Free engraving, free shipping, black, and oh so sweet.

I'll sync you with iTunes, Outlook and take you everywhere. I'll even wind up buying you all sorts of accessories that my wife will yell at me for. Oh well, that just means she gets a free shopping trip. LOL

I still have the iPod Shuffle 1GB for sale for $125. Purchased Aug. 2005.

Go Apple! Your Super-Secret-Weapon made me have two iPods. Please, somebody buy it.

My iPod Nano Should Arrive Soon!

2005-09-21T22:18:00.000-04:00

Dear Great Leader Kim Jong IL,
Don't get pissy with America quite yet, my iPod is not out of your range yet!
Signed,
Capitalist Pig
LOL

Wednesday Fedex Results for iPod Nano
Tracking number XXXXXXXXX
Reference XXXXXXXXX
Ship date Sep 20, 2005
Destination GA, USA
Service type IP Direct Distribution

Date/Time Location/Activity
Sep 21, 2005 3:34 PM ANCHORAGE, AK/Departed FedEx location
1:33 PM ANCHORAGE, AK/Arrived at FedEx location
Sep 20, 2005 9:44 PM SHENZHEN CN/Left origin
9:43 PM SHENZHEN CN/Picked up
1:17 PM /Package data transmitted to FedEx

Who Takes Care of Our Own?

2005-09-17T02:49:00.000-04:00

The Middle East - The Soldiers

Mainly Republicans - everyone else wants to criticize and leave them for dead.

New Orleans - Louisina as well as Mississippi and Alabama

Mainly the Republicans and The President, Democrats want to criticize.

All of the Christian organizations are taking in evacuees from all around the areas affected. The Christians were the bad guys during the 2004 Election, now they are being hailed as wonderful caring people. Go figure.

Does Bush Need Help With Negative Press?

2005-09-17T02:40:00.000-04:00

Why hell no, he doesn't!

"Taken together with his speech in Jackson Square on Thursday night, Mr. Bush's comments were part of an effort to shift the focus to promises of rebuilding and recovery and away from criticism that the White House had been callous in its slowness in helping the storm victims, many of them black."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/national/nationalspecial/17bush.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/17/national/nationalspecial/17bush.html Accessed 09/17/2005

We'll look back at this in 50 years and see that this was one of the most dynamic presidencies ever. He's doing the best that he can, and he does care about black people. The black people who lived in New Orleans, LA in the 18th century knew that the city could flood, but the black Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, could only lose his cool at the very beginning of the catastrophe and push the "We Hate Bush" agenda.

"Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"

2005-08-05T22:41:00.000-04:00

Roger Waters sang the title of this post in a song. It's amazing how
true it is.

First, let me say that it is immensely important to realize how much
we know now about the world, in a day to day manner, than we did 50
years ago. If you are a Google News(TM) Hound like I am, you tend to
read as much as you can, and cull the propoganda out, and believe
whatever of the leftovers that you may.

Niger

The world has known about the locusts and drought in Niger for many
many months now. It is one of those purple elephants in the room that
nobody wants to talk about. The continent of Africa has always been
hanging in a delicate balance, and it seems each year, it is Ethiopia,
Sudan, Niger, or some other story that seems to slip between the
cracks when no one knows what to do. The answer is do something, and
join together, and just do something. The tsunami of 2006 that likely
killed a quarter of a million people garnered much of the attention of
the world, and I understand that. Some have said that the United
Nations has a problem working on more than one problem at a time, and
I get that, I'm a computer geek for attorneys, There is ALWAYS
something going on! But Niger, look: people starving, a logistically
easy country to bring aid to, and yet we let them starve. The UN is
now sending aid, but look at how long we waited to do it

Alcoholism

A big problem. A very big problem. I can't imagine a bigger problem
for so many people in the United States (not counting the Native
Americans!) It's the big purple elephant that I see around. So much
money wasted, so many lives lost. When you see something about to
happen as big as Niger, you just want to do something, anything,
including sacrifice your own happiness.

When someone begins to drink too much on a regular basis, they are
walking down a road away from the normal reality of life, slowly but
surely. Every day when they wake up, they can choose to turn around,
or go one day further down the road. At some point, something has to
make the turn around and see how far they have travelled, and how far
they have come from home. At some point, something has to give.

After thinking about alcoholism for several years, I have come to
understand that alcoholism...is sometimes as big of a problem as
Niger. You don't know what to do, you don't know what to say, you
don't know...how to feel. You just know that you can't be pensive any
longer. You have to save a life, if just one. You have to shout at
the top of your lungs that this IS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM! But you can't
do that, no one wants to talk about the elephant, or where it came
from. I understand, I really really do. I don't want to talk about
this. But I have to, I have to give it another chance.
Everybody has to get on board, because I'm kicking the ball in
somebody's court, and then I'll turn my TV off, or to another channel,
or to the non-pensive Reality TV, and go worry about something else
that somebody thinks is important. This is important, and it's your
last chance.

You've been given all the rope you can have, and you're about to hang yourself.

Installing Windows...Please be patient

2005-07-26T11:15:00.000-04:00

I wish I had a calculator to show how much time I will spend in my
lifetime in the perpetual Windows install mode. Microsoft releases a
"new" operating system every few years and then the world beta tests
it and deems it the greatest thing in the world. Next, the "early
adopters" move to the new OS platform, get chewed up and spit out by
the next best thing from Microsoft, and let the IT beatings begin!

I'm having to hurry and install Windows on a freshly formatted
computer so that a new employee will not have a "hand-me-down"
installation on their computer when they arrive at work on Monday -
er...- Tomorrow! What! I was told she was arriving Monday, so I was
planning to have the computer ready and delivered on Thursday to leave
myself some wiggle room. Oh well, I guess I'm spending the morning
and afternoon loading software. I remember the days of Norton Ghost
and how it was so easy to load images onto the computers in a matter
of minutes. Yes, I should go out and spend the $$$ for Ghost and quit
my griping and complaining about the amount of time I spend doing
these installations. Maybe then my "Lifetime OS Calculator" will be
<= 1 year by the time I die.

29 Trojans And A Hand Truck Later

2005-07-19T23:20:00.000-04:00

So everything was going fine until I started the project. But, a few
hours later and we're all done. My friend's computer is clean and
he'll be glad to have it back.

This service brought to you by:

Grisoft.com
Merjin.org
and
LawfirmGeek.com

;-)

All backed up and waiting for a hard drive

2005-07-19T18:41:00.000-04:00

So I went over to Lafayette today and got the items backed up on the
6th laptop that has begun to crash in two months. While I was there,
a user reported a problem with the debt collection database. I was
enthralled to find out that the problem was three weeks old, and the
reporting user had a person of interest to finger. Well, OK. Anyway,
I solved the problem by reindexing the table that was causing an error
and moving on back home.

Now the experiment of the evening is to fix a friend's computer that
is infected with the Trojan-Spy.HTMLSmit.Fraud.c infection. Yo!
You're computer is goofed for sure! I can't get anywhere in Normal
Startup (WindowsMe OS) so Safe Mode seemed the place to start. If I
work on another Me computer it will be too soon!

Walking the stairs and drinking coffee

2005-07-19T12:12:00.000-04:00

After scanning the computer with Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta product
as well as Symantec AV, I can now go on with my day. That's just the
first half of my day that I lost, not unusual from any other day I
guess. It's lunchtime now, so I guess after work I'll call to see if
my two laptop hard drives have arrived so that I can get started on
reloading the two laptops that have almost crashed due to hardware
failures. One computer is here, another in a remote office. The
remote office laptop that is failing will need to be temporarily
replaced with a desktop computer, so there goes my 8AM-5PM workday.

It's going to be a super good day...NOT!

2005-07-19T09:16:00.000-04:00

Well, I may have figured out why we were experiencing some network latency yesterday.

1. Stop streaming the videos people!
2. Hey You! Video streaming people! Quit streaming from other
people's computers and then create a virus/spyware alert on my central
monitoring system.Well this calls for a fresh cup of coffee and raising the Room Defender to Ready Alert.

Somebody's getting shot today.

State of the Onion

2005-07-13T09:50:00.000-04:00

To make you smile, I'll let you know that I listened to the
DemocracyNow.org podcast last night while playing my government
endorsed $24 million budget America's Army game (brought to us by Bill
Clinton as he cut spending for the military, but did wind up having
one hell of a game released - on time, and 5 million users, the most
popular online game, free of charge to the consumer.) I also think
that Karl Rove should resign....today.

I don't think that are as many red-blooded or blue-blooded Americans
these days. We all have our own ideas, but some of those ideas are on
opposing sides of the fence. We don't seem to be as straight-ticket,
or completely on one side or the other. When you see someone from the
opposite side on the news that appeals to you and it is something your
party disagrees with, that's wonderful. But when they start ranting
and raving crazy stuff that you don't agree with, you can figure out
that they are not 100% on your side, or maybe they are actually 99% on
the other side, except for the one case that they are making before
your eyes.

As far as the war goes, I believe that our reality-TV based population
(the <50 crowd) was initially fascinated by what we could bring to
them each night concerning events leading up to the war. It is the
administration's job to put on a good face for the war, otherwise, we
would have all been against it right after it started. It's not so
much that there has been such a bad light shone upon the war, but not
enough stories about the change and progress that has been made.
Americans just don't have staying power for things like this, and
positive stories need to be plugged in there occassionally to remind
us of the good that will come from this, though it may take time. I
see the United States dealing with this for many many years to come,
as my father said, "We will not see peace in Israel and Palestine in
my lifetime, but I hope that within my granddaughter's lifetime there
will be peace."

The over 50 group understands how it feels to be a nation at war.
They experienced War Bonds during WWII, the atomic bomb that had to be
dropped - would the public allow us to do that today if our boys were
dying out there in the middle of the Pacific (a world away,) Korea
(and the troops that we still hold there for America's security,)
Vietnam where so many soldiers are honored by some and hated by
others, Grenada where we quelled an uprising, Nicaragua where progress
HAS been made, the Cold War, and the Gulf War in which we saved a
country from being overrun. I would say that the over 50 group is not
really pleased with how the war has gone, and I would be willing to
bet that those stoic older men that you see on Fox News saying how we
much stay the course, will not tell you on national TV that sometimes
they have doubts as well. They know that the mindset of the country
can make or break this war. I'm not saying that it's not right or
un-American to speak out, but what I'm saying is that Hillary Clinton
must realize what it does when she calls President Bush Alfred E.
Neumann. Harry Reid must realize what it does when he calls President
Bush a loser. The sad thing is that they do realize, they are wise
enough and experienced enough to know, but they are not out to help
the country under another's leadership, they are on the attack for
their own leadership, a country which they can run again. Instead of
attacking Social Security, they should bring some sort of plan to the
table. Instead of attacking that "Bush-appointed" Kenneth Tomlinson
of PBS, they should point out that Hillary's husband put him on the
board in the 1990s. The news is like one long movie, and if you miss
out on a key part, the movie is awfully confusing and hard to
understand. That's why we need to be news junkies, and not just watch
the evening news.

I'd like to see more stories about the lowest unemployment rating
since 2001 (currently) and how Australia is sending more troops to
Afghanistan to help us out. I'd like to see more stories on the young
boys from London's outskirts who blew themselves up last week. I'd
like to see more stories on the mosques where they worshipped, the
mosques where Richard Reid and Zaccharias Moussoui followed Islam
right into the cloak of evil. You and I will be still witnessing
horrific acts of violence throughout the world well into my 40s, and
the president who follows will have to follow in the footsteps of our
current president, no matter how lonely those footsteps may be at
times. Stay the course, send troops when you need to, and understand
that bombing raids on a country like Kosovo, or the verbal bombing of
the President will not win a war. Rome was not built in a day you
know (don't take the imperialistic view of that.)

My favorite sources:
CNN
Fox News
MSNBC
NYTimes
Boston Globe
Washington Post
News.Google.Com

Why Fox News is just as reliable as any news source

2005-07-12T09:02:00.000-04:00

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that don't discredit the news channel as a whole just because it appeals to it's mainly conservative
audience.

For example, CNN's Eason Jordan accused the U.S. military of targeting journalists in Iraq. He later resigned, unable to provide proof to his claims.

The NYTimes Jayson Blair reporter who continually made up stories and plagiarized articles, as well as lied about graduating college among other things. The NYTimes evangelist, Bob Herbert, immediately came to his rescue when Blair fabricated a story saying that the DC sniper was about to confess when the Feds moved in on him. Blair of course
has been diagnosed as bi-polar since then, and we can now hire him at
a rate of $5000-$10,000 per speaking engagement as noted by the
International Speakers Bureau. He speaks on such topics as diversity
and ethics. OK. :-\

CBS Evening News Anchor Dan Rather wound up in his own debocle after coming to his own conclusions and conveying inaccurate information that helped to fuel the fire against President Bush.

I think we all need to be aware of what scandals are going on in the news, not just who the news is concerning, but also who is the writer
of the news. If there is a scandal at Fox, don't pour blood into the
shark-infested waters and then expect us to not do the same at the
other networks. The only Fox scandal that I know of to date is the
2000 Presidential Election "scandal" brought to light by the most
trustworthy and honest journalist in America, Michael Moore. ;-)

As if I didn't have enough to do!

2005-06-29T14:09:00.000-04:00

8:30AM: Attorney's laptop dies
10:00AM: Drive to Chattanooga to pick up new hard drive for laptop
11:00AM: Office Administrator calls me while I am en route to the office to say that the replacement laptop (which is the "travel" laptop that yet another attorney has to take to the beach tomorrow) will not log onto the network. I already tested the laptop in my office and it worked perfectly. The problem must lie in the docking station for the laptop. Administrator plugs in the network cable to NIC on the laptop and she logs in without any further issues.

Three docking station NICs have died in the past six months, and four laptop hard drives have crashed in the past two months. I have to get MS SQL installed this week, as well as install and configure our new backup software.

11:30AM One of the head shareholder's Emails are not getting to their destination (our ISP.) I call tech support and everyone is either busy or gone to lunch because I am stuck in voicemail land. Time to turn on the Exchange logging and check the path of the message.

GROAN!
2:00PM and I haven't been to lunch yet!

United States Falling Behind in Wi-Fi Technology?

2005-06-27T17:48:00.000-04:00

Firstly, 4.724Mbps download is not slow. 468KB upload speed is higher than my upload speed available at a reasonable price from my cable/utility company. I pay approximately $150.00/mo for cable tv/water/electricity/telephone/cable internet. Most ISPs limit the upload speed as to keep users from running their own servers at home and making a profit from them. If you really need a faster upload speed, you may be interested in a business-class service at home with a business-class pricetag.

Today's court rulings on the usage of cable company's infrastructure will surely have an affect on the implementation of "broadband for everyone." Another variable of this equation is also a simple land mass equation.

Maritius: 2000 sq km
Japan: 300,000 sq km
South Korea: 100,000 sq km
United States: 9,500,000 sq km

Mauritius is approximately 15 miles wide and 15 miles in length. I can understand how a complete wi-fi installation for the country is a feasable possibility. The government of Mauritius surely sees this as a way to bring themselves into the next generation of technolgy.

DO WE REALLY WANT ALL OF OUR COMPUTERS CONNECTED WIRELESSLY?
In the United States, the availability of equipment and ease of installation has made it quite easy for anyone to install their own home wireless network. However, I believe there is a great risk that accompanies this wi-fi phenomenon. There are still plenty of people who do not update their virus definitions, and who do not update the "Windows Updates" for their computers. It has been my experience that we are deluged with viruses several times per year during a global virus outbreak. Virus writers have learned much in the past few years, and it is not difficult for them to code their programs to search Internet browser's history, any Email, any HTML file, any Word document, on an infected computer for new Email addresses in order to replicate itself.

Consider the following:
Bob's computer at home is infected with a virus. He has been out of the country on business for 2 months and hasn't updated his virus definition files. He uses this computer to surf the Internet and personal work. He sometimes visits his company's website as well as his friend's websites.
Bill (Bob's friend) has a website that is visited by Bob on Saturday, the day that Bob becomes infected. Bob's computer picks up on Bill's Email address from Bob's Internet browser history and automatically sends Bill a copy of the virus. Bill's company network is connected to the Internet and Bill forgot about an old computer that is connected to the network, and does not have anti-virus software on it. This computer is infected, and all of he old documents on the computer are rummaged through by the virus, and the virus replicates again.

This example (hastily typed, I hope you understand the idea, I'm at home sick on my wi-fi system right now) shows how easily a virus can replicate between two locations by using Email. The above mentioned example would have a greater impact if all of our neighborhood's were connected wirelessly. Even the computer users who are protected against such threats would feel some impact due to the increased traffic on the networks. Once we are all on the same network, all of our systems are much more closely connected, and vulnerable.

How many Microsoft vulnerabilities exist today (and are documented on security-focused websites such as Cert.org) that will not be fixed until a hacker exploits them? Several. Let me just hope that Maritius is not being sold the "scaled-down" "not as security conscious" version of Microsoft Windows that Microsoft is peddling to countries that are not able to afford Windows XP Professional on a new $2000 Dell computer. I'll be checking my Email account for the domain suffix .Mu (Mauritius.) ;)

There are also curious "hackers" who can drive up and down the street with their Palm device and "war-chalk" the open network devices. I believe we have to fix the mindset of the computer owner before we go gung-ho with what would become the largest wi-fi network in the world. In this day and age of a security-conscious government, I don't see a national wi-fi system soon.

-----Original Message-----
From: TechnoLawyer [mailto:post@technolawyer.com] 1. UNITED STATES' FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE FADING FAST You've all heard about the incredible broadband Internet access in countries like Japan and South Korea -- half the price we pay and up to 25 times faster. But you probably haven't heard about Mauritius, a tiny island nation off the the coast of Africa that plans to become the first nation with coast-to-coast WiFi. Meanwhile, here in the United States, Philadelphia seeks to become the first large American city with universal WiFi, but as usual, special interests are working hard to derail this plan. If I had to bet, I'd put my money on Mauritius over Philadelphia. The United States invented and then popularized the Internet, yet we are losing the broadband battle -- badly. Just as I was sick and tired of dial-up speeds at the end of 1999 when I switched to DSL (I now use cable), I'm now sick and tired of what we call broadband in this country, which is not true broadband.
Using the SpeedTest at BroadBandReports.com, my home download speed is 4.724 Mbps and my upload speed is 468 Kbps. Pathetic.

Read about Mauritius:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0506190237
jun19,1,4406977.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
(free registration required)

Telephony: Sync that device LawfirmGeek, we're going to Hawaii!

2005-06-22T18:36:00.000-04:00

SprintPCS Data Tier 2 Support did verify that a Microsoft ActiveSync/Microsoft Exchange would not work for us. First, we have integrated Outlook and our Accounting package. Secondly, ActiveSync is one of those "next-generation" sold ideas that I don't always buy into, but apparently you need 2003 in order to use "built-in" Palm software (VersaMail) to connect to our system the way that I need it to (i.e. Sent Items must always stay on the Exchange server, calendar items |Tasks|Appointments are already syncing on the system from the CRM and if you use ActiveSync it is all or nothing (Email and calendar - or No Email, No Calender.)

The next option is to use Sprint PCS Business Connect Personal Edition on the workstation and leave Outlook running along with the client Sprint software. That seems to work well with our Cingular customer who has been using it for several months, less the hell-syncy first few days. After a few days he was loving it.

I do have a bone to pick with my accounting package, and the only reason I'm getting worked up over this is:
THE ATTORNEY'S CHOICE OF REPLACEMENT PHONE (YES IT WAS DROPPED) WAS A TREO 650 INSTEAD OF 600.
Oh yes, and in my experience, this is more of an impact than say.... a HP 4250 that I bought because the 4200 was being discontinued and I was hoping that it (4250) would work on the specialized database (JETDB) application. Well that went sort of like this:
SEND THE LASERJET 4250 BACK AND PAY THE 15% RESTOCKING FEE.
You guys kill me, I'll just go buy a 4200 off the web. They still have them at good prices even today.

Anyway, what I meant to explain is that the Treo 650 Operating System is different than that of a 600. There goes the syncing with the Treo. Calendars and Events are no more on the device. So, the fix is to go to the *BRAND NEW* (Good grief - no matter who makes the product) accounting version. Well that worked fine for the Treo 650, which is 1/60th of the law firm, and 1/20th of the juris doctorates. The rest of the users were forced into an upgrade very early, an upgrade in which their machines eat that much more memory because they're newly integrated Inboxes eat up lots of memory by the MAPI plug-in that the CRM uses. We have been on the new version of few months now and I speak to the vendor at least twice a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Training needs to be done, but the workload generated, along with all of the other projects for a one-man IT shop leave little time to schedule. The real estate software is going to SQL soon, and a Document Management System will be in place after that. Things are always interesting around here, that's a guarantee. I love my job, but some parts of life are just very painful sometimes.

So here I am two major implementations going, an upgrade that won't end, a backlog of work that has constantly been generated since who knows when, and I need to buy some new workstations. So I'll be around here for a while and see what comes up after this settles down.

Why Why Why Didn't I write that password down?

2005-06-10T09:06:00.000-04:00

I knew it, or I at least thought it at the time. I thought, "Why don't
you write that brand-new password for your Mac mini down before you
forget it. Well guess what! Yeah, doofus here forgot it. So much for
compiling software from source and getting it to install. Oh well, I'm
not in too deep to where it might actually take some real time to find
all the things that I need to back up. I do need to remember to find my
Bookmarks for Safari though.

"The educator must above all understand how to wait-to reckon all
effects in the light of the future, not of the present."

My Political Profile

2005-06-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

Your Political Profile

Overall: 65% Conservative, 35% Liberal

Social Issues: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal

Personal Responsibility: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Fiscal Issues: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Ethics: 50% Conservative, 50% Liberal

Defense and Crime: 100% Conservative, 0% Liberal

How Liberal / Conservative Are You?

Attention Stupid People!

2005-05-17T22:58:00.000-04:00

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert in many things, but are we not looking for another reason to complain about government here? The Senate has been reviewing the "fine print" of credit card companies' contracts to make sure that big business doesn't make too much off of stupid people. Look, I was aware when I signed up for the card that I would be charged a exorbitant fee upon late payments, and that it would be up to the lender to decide when that fee went up and by how much. I read the contract. Did the majority of credit card holders not do the same? Stupid People.

So the latest flub of the American news organizations as a whole was made by Newsweek this month. They had reported that the Korans that our military handed to the detainees several years ago have now sparked a controversy as well as helping the already unwelcome and overrated anti-American sentiment that the world has been willing to spout off about since 9/11. The foreign media just ate it up. The basic story is that a detainee in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and his lawyer claim that a Koran was flushed down the toilet by a member of the U.S. military. Now this week Newsweek retracted the story (which the anti-Americans immediately attribute to the CIA - the love to hate those people) after their anonymous source failed to verify where he read the information. Newsweek based there information, which they now hide behind "it was only 10 sentences total, and one about the Koran incident - not their quote, mine" and expect to be slapped on the wrist and not make anyone leave the organization. Do you not understand that if the average U.S. tourist went over and started some anti-American crap, that it would be a big hit where there are already underlying negative feelings towards the U.S.? Hello, Stupid People.

I remember the article that was published about a detainee who flushed part of his government-gifted Koran down the toilet in order to cause flooding in protest, but I also remember that it did not cause a worldwide-flooding of the news networks. Well, those are two stories about two detainees. The point is that we don't need any help asking for another Fatwa against us or a All-American Nutty-American to do something to change life as we know it.

Ok, if you've stuck with me long enough to read this, I ill apologize to stupid people just a little. It's not your all you're fault, you had help from the world around you. Hey Stupid, you're in the world, and it's a living breathing thing. Pay attention.

CC: Dan Rather for trying to sway the election. Nice try Dan. Go visit Walter Cronkite on his boat at Wood's Hole.

E-mail is the devil

2005-05-06T00:01:00.000-04:00

That's right, you heard me. It's the devil! It all culminated this week after a MX record change (Mail Exchange DNS record,) a change in resellers of our Level 1 anti-spam/anti-virus defense, a possible problem with our Level 1 system, and a possible attack on our ISP. I say "possible" because I can't really disclose any of that stuff. Why do I always get the easy stuff? ;-
Well anyway, it's been a pretty rough week on the E-mail side, which wasn't too peachy keen to begin with. You see, there's this wonderful little smart phone out there called a Treo 650 that is the pain in my side right now. We're still fighting a problem with Microsoft Outlook having E-mails stuck in the Outbox. These E-mails are generated from our firmwide accounting/calendaring software, and we NEVER had a problem until the Treo 650 was thrown into the mix. The old Treo 600 that the boss had worked fine, but when he dropped it and replaced it with a 650, that's when things went downhill. You see, the Palm OS was upgraded for the Treo 650, which of course was not supported under our calendar for syncing. What was the solution? Become an early adopter of the latest version of the accounting/calendaring software! Well, I must say that they did a great job with the new version, and the darn thing syncs up right away, problem resolved...for 1 user. Now, the other 49 users are up the creek, because they're E-mail notifications get stuck in the Outbox when they schedule appointments for the attorneys. I guess you can't please everyone all the time, but it sure was nicer for me when 49 were happy and 1 was not.

So, E-mail is not as flaw-free as it was 2 months ago, but the programmers are "working on it." I can see them in their pristine cubicles, with their pristine data shaking their heads. "I don't see why he's having a problem?!" Come out in the real world and play! Well, at least last week they admitted that they recognize the problem and are "working on it." Reminds me of our Novell/Groupwise to Microsoft/Exchange conversion. UGH!

Apple: Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) - How many BogoMips did I waste on that?

2005-05-04T18:40:00.000-04:00

I just selected the upgrade option and installed Mac OS X TIger on my Mac mini. During installation, it installed a lot of multi-language support (There went the BogoMips), and I see at least one reason why when I pull up my Dashboard (F12) and add the translator widget. Ok, that's nice Apple, but I'll probably wind up needing the disk space for my iTunes. ;) I'm the typical American who is glad that Coke, Sprite, and Bud Lite are universal, plus the fact that my German teacher ran away with a cheerleader after teaching us horribly grammatically. That's a whole other story.

Anyway, Spotlight works great, and since Microsoft has recently said that they are focusing on organization more than searching in their next Windows client OS (Codename: Longhorn) I'm glad I can search now instead of waiting until December 2006 (cough - mid-2007.) I'm also glad that I'm on a JFS (tracks metadata in your stuff) in general (I've been using the Journalized FileSystem a little since Redhat included it and on HP-UX I think.) Read more about BogoMips and JFS by downloading the Wikipedia Dashboard utility if you're using Tiger now. Search for Wikipedia on www.apple.com.

Well, I'm not a Apple "Switch"er yet, but I like what I see. I will probably wind up trying (Read: All my DATA will be elsewhere like on a SERVER) WinFS (the Windows FileSystem - Read: the layout on which your data is stored) when it comes out in Beta version 2008, but I'm not trusting my data to it yet. JFS has been out several years, and hopefully my Mac mini will stay around for several years in production at home.

Damnit the spam(UCE)

2005-05-04T12:06:00.000-04:00

I hate it.
Win32Sober.O
and all that crap.

Screw you guys, I'm going to OS X

2005-04-28T13:47:00.000-04:00

Well, after Microsoft convinced industry to give millions of dollars towards the Software Assurance program by promising wonderful new advancements that users were screaming for, they change gears.

The current projects that have been put on the back burner are WinFS (search anything and everything on your hard drive, even meta-data) and Palladium (security features.)

I'm going with Apple OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and will have Spotlight (searching) and the security of FreeBSD. My Tiger CD will be shipped tomorrow, and I will install it ASAP. I'm not usually an early adopter, but I've only had my Mini mac for two days, and if it causes major problems it won't really bother me.

The last information I read about Longhorn and WinFS was that WinFS will be released as BETA in the second release of Longhorn. That means if you're gutsy enough to try a new database-driven filesystem from Microsoft, you'll get your chance in 2007. :-\

It must be love

2005-04-28T11:29:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling somewhat alone today. I feel a longing for a new friend that didn't come to work with me.

I miss my Mac mini already!!!! I received my wonderful new "toy" yesterday, got to spend a couple hours with it last night, and now I sit here thinking of her as I write notes on Post-it notes with a traditional pen. I already miss my new favorite application....Stickies! from Mac OS X. They're so neat, just pop one up on the screen and start typing in them. Everything on the Apple looks way cooler than anything Microsoft has ever put out. As an additional bonus, it's FreeBSD inside!!!

I know, I'm a true geek. Oh well, embrace it!

Now that's a lot of energy

2005-04-17T16:35:00.000-04:00

The total energy released by the earthquake in the Indian Ocean has been estimated as 2.0 exajoules (2.0×1018 joules) [23] (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqinthenews/2004/usslav/neic_slav_faq.html). This is enough to boil 150 litres (40 US gallons) of water for every person on Earth.

2005-04-17T16:22:00.000-04:00

Keown Fall, Georgia USA - April 17-18, 2005

Trying to find solace

2005-04-14T11:35:00.000-04:00

I found this as I was listening to the new Brad Paisley album.

Farther Along
Traditional (PD)

Tempted and tried we're oft made to wonder
Why it should be thus all the day long
While there are others living about us
Never molested though in the wrong

Chorus
Farther along we'll know all about it
Farther along we'll understand why
Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine
We'll understand it all by and by

When death has come and taken our loved ones
It leaves our home so lonely and drear
And then do we wonder why others prosper
Living so wicked year after year

Repeat Chorus

When we see Jesus coming in glory
When he comes down from his home in the sky
Then we shall meet him in that bright mansion
We'll understand it all by and by

Repeat Chorus
Yeah we'll understand it all by and by

Public Domain

North Carolina areas of interest

2005-03-12T03:03:00.000-05:00

Aerial of Lake Jocassee area

2005-03-12T02:25:00.000-05:00

Image provided by USAPhotoMaps.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2005-02-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

While you were asleep, Isael and Palestine declared a truce.
While you were asleep, Israel and Palestine started fighting again.
While you were asleep, we laughed, we cried, and we loved.
Today you turned 73, and you don't even know it.
You were asleep for 10 days while the doctors worked on making you healthy enough to have a feeding tube put into your stomach.
I don't know if you remember the doctor telling you that you have Cancer.
We have a team of doctors ready to attack the Cancer, if you choose to.
We come to visit you every day, and it's easier now that we can look into your eyes.
The ventilator helps you to breathe, and they will take it away from you and remove the tube from your mouth so you can talk to us.
You're a strong, stoic man, and I love you. Let us help you.
Believe in yourself, and believe in us.

Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi and Muqtada al-Sadr agree

2005-02-04T08:00:00.000-05:00

Muqtada al-Sadr watches CNN as well, and his message today to the worshippers gathered for Friday prayers in Kufa, Iraq:
I call on all religious and political powers that pushed towards the elections and took part in them to issue an official statement calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq

Muqtada feels that he has been quiet long enough and will no longer remain quiet on the political happenings in Iraq. I'm sure he has been watching as Ted and Nancy have been demanding the President to set a timeline for the exit in Iraq. I'm al-Sadr feels anxious, as this is not the first time that he has been playing cat and mouse with the Coalition Forces and President Bush. As you will recall, he was hiding in the city of Fallujah, and in order to fight a "sensitive" battle, we held out for weeks and eventually stormed Fallujah months later in 2004.

President Bush has set timelines in the past, and been criticized for doing so. He set June 30, 2004 as the date of transferring power back to the Iraqi interim government. Since he had broadcast a date for the handover, and the insurgents would surely be preparing to blow up as many people as they could, this turned out to be disinformation, and we handed control over on June 28 instead (two days early.) During that time, criticisms were made of the President, and there were many doubts that we could hand over power at that time with such an unstable environment, and whether or not it was the right time to do so. This was the point at which I believe the White House decided to say "asta la vista" to timelines. They're not a good idea in wartime anyway in my opinion. Not in this day and age at least.

The most recent timeline to be criticized was the January elections of the new Iraqi goverment. All I have heard for the past couple of months is:

Can we really expect that people will come out to vote?

If people do actually vote, is the security going to be sufficient?

Are there enough troops and trained Iraqis to secure the polling places when it has been such a violent region lately?

Can we really be ready for them to vote at the end of January? Shouldn't we think about pushing back the date until the situation has calmed down?

Bah! Anyway, when a timeline does come out, it will be vague, so get ready. If it's not vague, then it's probably disinformation. Kinda like Chappaquidik, Ted. ;-)

The State of The Union: Social Security

2005-02-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

[Listening to: Can't Tell Me Nothin' - Tim McGraw - Live Like You Were Dying (03:09)]

I purposely have not read much today, nor did I watch any news coverage after the State of The Union address by the President last night. I don't want to be too influenced by the others opinions of the speech.

However, I did not hit the power button on the TV last night before Brian Williams called the President's speech "His State of The Union." His Union. Fine, whatever. You can call it his, but it is ours, so listen up, pay attention, and make up your own mind.

Since Social Security is a hot topic these days, and recognized by George W. Bush as a topic to commit political suicide by, I thought it would be interesting to see what was said in previous State of The Union addresses by President Clinton.

The only change we are making in Social Security is to ask those older Americans with higher incomes, who do not rely solely on Social Security to get by, to contribute more. This change will not affect eighty percent of Social Security recipients. If you do not pay taxes on Social Security now, you will not pay taxes on Social Security under this plan. - February 17, 1993

Whatever our differences, we should balance the budget now, and then, for the long-term health of our society, we must agree to a bipartisan process to preserve Social Security and reform Medicare for the long run, so that these fundamental programs will be as strong for our children as they are for our parents. - February 4, 1997

I have a simple four-word answer: Save Social Security first. Tonight, I propose that we reserve 100 percent of the surplus – that's every penny of any surplus – until we have taken all the necessary measures to strengthen the Social Security system for the 21st century. - January 27, 1998

"Today, Social Security is strong, but by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. By 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted and Social Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older Americans have been promised." - January, 19, 1999

Tonight, I ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan down payment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years. - January 27, 2000

So, we can argue whether or not there is a problem for the country. I believe that our Presidents know more about the state of Social Security than the average citizen. We can also argue about the huge debt that this country carries now as well. At the end of the day though, our previous President (who was a Democrat) spoke about reforming the Social Security system at least in 5 State of The Union addresses. So, if you believe that the Republicans have made up this idea that Social Security is going broke, you may need to look back at history. There have been NUMEROUS (read more than 10) Amendments to the Social Security system. It has not just sat there for the last 70 years on it's own without help from people who understand the needs of the system.

So, if you think that Bush is lying about the state of Social Security, then I guess you also believe that President Clinton tried to pull the wool over our eyes in five separate State of The Union addresses.

President Bush has asked for ideas on what to do to help the system survive. He does want to give the choice to the American workers to put a portion of their earnings into a individual retirement account built on stocks and bonds. The return on this investment would be greater than that which the government can give you at this time. Doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, and he's not wanting to do this overnight, but as a gradual movement. He brought up the point that federal employees already have a similar program, called the Thrift Savings Plan.

He is not trying to destroy Social Security. He realizes (as others have as well) that the system will not last in it's current state, and he is open to ideas on how to save the system. Shame on you Mr. President for trying to do something that needs to be done while you can get the votes from Congress. ;-)

The ebb and flow of history

2005-01-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

After reading a NYTimes article, I continue to look at the way journalism affects our everyday lives, as well as represent the everyday lives of our country. People who read the news have become somewhat accustomed to the fast-paced news that is, the Internet.

I use Google News to aggregate the news for me, but I am told that Thunderbird from Netscape will also do some aggregating of it's own. I'll have to try sometime. Anyway, I read CNN.com, NYTimes.com, NBCNews.com, ABCNews.com, FoxNews.com, etc. You get the picture, I read and watch a lot of news.

So...there is all this "dumb-downed" news from Fox, the "progressive, you need to know it all" NYTimes, the old reliable (ahem) CNN, and of course the honest Dan of CBS. Look, I know journalism has always, and will always have a degree of personal reflection in the stories that are told. Everyone will have their own angle, and citizens need to arm themselves with the best group of facts and then make up their own mind.

So as I was reading this NYTimes article, the words jumped off of the page at me.

"Just short of two years after engineering the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, President Bush on Sunday celebrated a comparatively peaceful day of voting in Iraq, declaring it a triumphant moment in his effort to spur democratic movements throughout the Middle East."

Representing our Dr. Evil president, celebrating and DECLARING (as a dictator of the World,) that we have won the next OK Corral in the Middle East.

"Seeming to acknowledge the toll taken by the ever-growing number of casualties - including more than 1,400 dead American troops since the invasion began - he added, 'The people of the United States have been patient and resolute, even in difficult days.'"

I'm sure he acknowledges the death toll every night before he sleeps and in the mornings when he wakes.

"On Sunday, the broad strategy of spreading freedom in the world that he described in his Inaugural Address faced its first test since that speech."

We all know, the journalists are out to get the first crack at the story every time. Why would now be different? You've got to be the first to prove him wrong or prove him right.

"With televised images showing jubilant Iraqis, filling out ballots and participating in the first truly free election in more than 50 years, Mr. Bush and his aides were clearly concerned that the imagery would add to the pressures at home to set a clear timetable for withdrawing the 150,000 American forces now based there."

I know, we all want the troops home. But America wants instant gratification with this conflict just as they do in everyday life. They want a lightswitch to be thrown and peace be upon us. Even Ted Kennedy knows it takes time to get past conflicting times like Chappaquidik.

"The calls, one of Mr. Bush's senior aides acknowledged Sunday evening, underscored the enormously delicate nature of the American experiment in Iraq."

Experiment eh. Oh that's right it's Mr. God Fearing Dumb President playing in his sandbox. Whatever guys, slant it as much as you can.

"'And I think that's a reasonable hope and expectation, but I can't give you a timeline on that,' she added.
Ms. Rice and other senior officials expressed similar hopes last June, as the United States returned sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government. But rather than wane, the insurgency grew considerably."

No kidding. You guys keep talking about the fact that the White House won't talk about timetables. Timetables are a good thing (unless it is disinformation) during a time of war. Last year, we handed over soveriegnty a day before it was supposed to happen. Disinformation at it's best I would say. People in general don't like it when deadlines are not met, and the journalistic community rips George W. apart when he doesn't hit the right mark on the right date. Timetables, they're way overrated.

"Mr. Bush has steadfastly declined to talk about timetables."

Let's just get that jab in there one more time.

"'If you announce that one of the metrics is the number of attacks, all that does is cause the enemy' to briefly reduce those attacks, he said. Similarly, he said, he did not want to announce a timetable for withdrawal - even if he had one. 'We don't want to give the enemy something on which to rest, plan and attack based on a timetable.'"

The military aspect of this journalism, is that the people who we fight against watch CNN as well. We broadcast disinformation on CNN prior to going into Fallujah I believe it was last summer. So when war isn't going on, you can't believe every thing that you read, and when we're at war, be careful before you leap to conclusions.

This is the kind of information that the media and regular citizens need to understand. This is a long, drawn-out war, and if you want to make it more difficult to win, and to reduce the morale of our civilian population, print more articles like this.

"A number of Democratic senators reacted to the election with praise and caution, saying that this was not the right time to discuss early troop withdrawals."

Oh, some hope!

"But Senator Edward M. Kennedy, in a statement, stuck to his call for a withdrawal of some troops now and 'to begin to negotiate a phase-down of our long-term military presence.'"

Yes, we know Ted, you're first to the gunfight. Maybe not always first, but you make sure the camera is on you when it counts. Who knows better how to run this war, you or the President and his cabinet? I firmly believe the latter. Let Ted armchair quarterback and just put him on mute when he comes on the TV.

"Election officials in Iraq said Sunday evening that the overall turnout in Iraq appeared to be about 60 percent, which would be a respectable turnout in an American presidential election."

So 60% is not good enough perhaps for Mr. Sanger? I think it is dispicable that more Americans do not vote on a regular basis when there is no violence at our polling places. Iraqis are braving VBEIDs and homicide bombers to vote. Just days ago, the buzz that hardly a portion of Iraqis would vote. Go Iraq! Your will is strong! We never had any doubts about that!

"The process, a State Department official said, will 'be messy, noisy, confusing and interesting to watch."'

When speaking of the job of the new Iraqi government, make sure in the first hours after the election to find a quote of messy, noisy, confusing, and interesting. In doing so, you project to the world that our little experiment is going to be a total screw up from the beginning, and that it will be fun to watch.

Anyway, those are some of the portions that just really jumped out at me and almost make me want to scream. I haven't even gone to calm down over at FoxNews. I'm sure once I do, I'll feel all warm and fuzzy with my dumbed-down news that is Fair and Balanced. I'll tell you what's fair and balanced. Read a lot, study a lot, and make up your own damn mind.

Sanger, David E. "Bush Hails Iraqi Vote, but Warns of More Fighting Ahead" The New York Times (January 30, 2005): 2 pages. January 30, 2005
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/31/politics/31prexy.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=>.

History repeats itself - Adolf Hitler is back

2005-01-28T16:39:00.000-05:00

The founder of CNN, Ted Turner, recently said that "Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany than the people who ran against him," as he compared Rupert Murdoch (of Fox News) to Adolf Hitler in their rise to the top of their game.

That just pisses me off Ted. After researching this item for a few minutes, I realize that Ted apologized for describing Murdoch "like the Fuhrer" in 1996. Ted used words like "unfortunate" and "offensive" and explained that he was comparing Murdoch "to the way that Hitler managed the news in Germany."

Well damn. I'm glad you apologized to folks, and then on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, say that crap again. Wonderful! Just wonderful!

Hitler continues to be one of the most influential people in politics! People comparing Bush to Hitler (JohnKerry's mouthpiece MoveOn.org did this) and now news organizations are being compared to Der Fuhrer.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1399252,00.html

Washington Post Fashionista smarter than all of us!

2005-01-28T15:33:00.000-05:00

This lady from the Washington Post lets us all know that Dick Cheney was dressed inappropriately for the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Maybe she would be happier if our Vice-President (with a history of health problems already) went in his skivies and dropped dead next to the crematorium. Maybe we should let the fashionista be Secretary of State under the next president and show off her fashion sense in Auschwitz for the 65th or 70th anniversary.
Meanwhile, another genocide has been going on in Sudan, and all the world can do is say:

"We can't let this happen again!" - Everbody on Planet Earth
"It hasn't reached the level of genocide yet!" - the United Nations
"It is genocide!" - representatives from the U.S. as well as Colin Powell.
"...the vice president looked like an awkward boy amid the well-dressed adults." - Washington Post Fashionista Robin Ghivan

Glad to see that the world cares enough to give a flying flip!

2005-01-27T10:56:00.000-05:00

Working with cel phones and email can give you a headache. It can sometimes be difficult to hide from technology when your boss has the latest and greatest Treo 650.

Doodling

2005-01-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

Doodling October 18, 2004 - LawfirmGeek

2005-01-19T09:37:00.000-05:00

2005-01-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

Landing at Omaha Beach - Copyright National Archives

2005-01-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

Colleville-sur Mer, France - 1990s

a Tsunami of destruction. a Tsunami of disdain

2004-12-30T10:12:00.000-05:00

I watched in disbelief this week as I witnessed one of the greatest natural disasters of recorded history being broadcast around the globe.

Wasted Time

2004-12-07T10:51:00.000-05:00

Well, after spending two hours in the Cingular store between yesterday and today, the only thing that is not working is my wife's voicemail. I purchased the phone over the phone and they arrived yesterday. The headsets that I ordered did not fit the phone I ordered. That was silly, since I priced everthing on Cingular.com and when it came time to add accessories, it only had one option of headset. So I went to the store yesterday and in 90 seconds, I had been informed that "it didn't come out of our stock, so we can't replace it, and besides, we don't even have those headsets in stock." That aggravated me, so I called Cingular and was assured that the situation could be resolved. They were hesitant to place the replacement order over the phone, since the Cingular database thinks the headset that I ordered would fit my phone. I agreed to go back to the store and try again. After sitting in the waiting line for 1 hour, a rep swapped headsets with me.

So last night I try to get my wife's phone number ported over from Sprint and activated with Cingular, but ran into problems. When the order was placed, they only ported one number over, and issued a brand new number for my wife's phone. After speaking with the porting department, I was assured that we could get the situation resolved by going back to the store. The porting department also said that the phone would work and we could use it w/o being charged anything except for the used minutes. Well, that was false, the phone would not work, it would just say that the account was terminated due to lack of payment.

So, I left work at 9AM to get over to the store at opening time. I told the rep my problem and he was confused, but after sitting there for another hour, her phone works with the old number, minus voicemail. I've spent almost three hours apart from the ordering time to get moved over, which is not ideal to me.

Now, I've just been on the phone with Dell for 7 minutes verifying 7-digit service tag numbers that I faxed to them that they can't read. This is exactly why I wanted to email it to them, but apparently the department that I'm dealing with doesn't take emails from the outside world. So, the service rep from Dell and I got to waste the time talking yesterday, as well as the 7 minutes today.

As the Eagles say:
"So you can get on with your search, baby, and I can
get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find , that it wasn't really
wasted time"

-LFG-

FDR v President Bush

2004-12-05T22:00:00.000-05:00

I bet I get hammered for that title, but just a quick post before going to bed.

Many people object to the war in Iraq, and to the way that Bush was "on vacation" all the time before September 11, and how he "ignored" a memo stating that bin Laden wanted to hijack airplanes in the U.S.

Food for thought:

On October 30, 2000 President Clinton signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act. In doing so, it has been revealed that the military leaders at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941 were cut off from vital information that the White House had gathered in the weeks leading up to the attack. FDR wanted to Japan to make the first move, and they did. The gist of the story as I understand it, is that FDR kept the bulk of the U.S. Fleet at Hawaii, in order to lure Japan to attack there. The military leader at the time objected, so FDR fired him and replaced him with a fresh new mind.

According to the article:
"At least 1,000 Japanese military and diplomatic radio messages per day were intercepted by monitoring stations operated by the U.S. and her Allies, and the message contents were summarized for the White House. The intercept summaries were clear: Pearl Harbor would be attacked on December 7, 1941, by Japanese forces advancing through the Central and North Pacific Oceans."

http://www.purewatergazette.net/december7.htm

So FDR knew the when, the where, and the how. President Bush did not know the when, did not know the where, and no one fathomed the how (well, maybe some folks with more NSA involvement did, but you get my drift.)

This is all history though. We can dissect it over and over again, and it won't change what happened. We can only change how vigorously we work towards thwarting attacks in the future.

And before you comment, I think FDR was a great leader and did a lot for this country. I am not a conspiracy theorist follower.

-LFG-

Napalm in Iraq

2004-12-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

There are now reports of napalm being used in Iraq. The 1980 addition to the Geneva Conventions lists napalm as a banned weapon, something that was adopted by the United Nations, but not adopted by the United States.

...so anyway, a college prof goes to Turkey.

2004-12-02T18:30:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine vacationed in Turkey, on more than one occasion. He had a wonderful time and said it was BEAUTIFUL. I've looked at images of Turkey on the Internet, and I'll add that to my List of Things To Do (FranklinCovey it most likely.) Turkey is beautiful, and I wonder how much of the architecture has been paid for by the United Nations Oil-For-Food program. Apparently, a Reuters article is reporting that oil has been flowing "to Turkey and Jordan since 1990." Great...I wonder what "spin" the U.S. has put on this. I mean, what's the real story, what will we learn in the next few months from this. It's bound to be interesting with Kofi Annan, and his son Kojo overseeing the inspection of goods. Well Kojo got $150k of the apparently $21B that Saddam had at his disposal. We now know what Saddam did. He gassed his people and spent some of his money!

On another missing money note, Marc Rich was pardoned by Clinton, and now his name pops up again. He is the infamous tax-evader/oil funneler (from Iran) who is now living in Switzerland whom Clinton pardoned just before leaving office. On a Sunday in January 2001, Clinton defended his pardon, saying:

"The word pardon is somehow almost a misnomer," he said. "You're not saying these people didn't commit the offense, you're saying they paid, they paid in full."
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/stories/01/25/clintons.underfire/index.html

Come on. We've got to get some people with a conscious on this planet.

I can't get no...education

2004-12-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

Well it seems that I'm feeling a need to educate myself. I've always enjoyed learning new things, but it was always the time at school that I hated. I have always been told that older students (those who didn't reach their goal the first time around) do better in class and study better since they have to "make it count" and they are move cognizant of there money.

Well, I'm tempted to go back and take some more classes, but I'm not sure if my "goal" would be another degree. It would be nice to get a B.S. in Technology Management, but I'm more interested in my own personal growth I believe. I currently have a great job, and I enjoy the people that I work with. I've always been interested in national/international interaction and events in the news. I'm just a news junkie, that's all there is to it. So maybe I'll look at taking a Political Science class or two, and maybe a Journalism class or two.

It's always harder to go back to school when you quit, and my time is limited. Maybe I'll audit a class or two before jumping back in with both feet. I know 95% of the faculty at Dalton State, so I'll figure out what I want to take, and then drop one of the Profs a line and ask them if they have room for an auditing student. Yeah! That's what I'll do. Then, my wife will look at me like I'm crazy and ask me if there is something better I could be doing with my time, such as WORKING ON THE HOUSE!

You can't go home again - Unless they sell the house

2004-11-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

Well it's been a bewildering few days here in north Georgia. My wife and I have just been investigating the cost of some maintenance on our home that we bought 2 years ago. So we are making ourselves sick thinking about getting another home loan around Christmas time, when money is tight already. Anyway, mom calls and asks me how things are coming, and what we have decided to do. I'm telling her, then the next thing she says is "Why don't you buy this house?"
:O
I asked her if she was serious, that it was no joking matter to bring that up, and she said that she was.

So, we've been cogitating on this idea for the past couple of days (as well as whether LawfirmGeek needs to seek some professional mental help) and have decided that the best thing for us would be to buy my mom and dad's home. It's closer to where my wife and I work, it's in the city, it has a bigger yard, and it's BRICK. You have to love a nicely built brick home.

Anyway, their home is the one that I grew up in, so it wouldn't take long for it to feel like home again, but it's just a little strange on the brain at first blush. We've weighed the pros and cons, and it just makes sense to buy the house. It would have been nice if they had offered us the option to buy 2 years ago before we bought our first home. Anyway, they weren't ready to move then, and now they are. So here we are trying to figure out the logistics of this task. The mortgage will be higher, but I believe we'll have no problem handling it.

Now the little kitty girls may take some time to adjust, but I think they'll be fine after a couple days. They are "indoor" cats, and they'll love having more room to run around and play. Maybe now I can convince my wife to make them "indoor/outdoor" cats to get some of that darn energy out of them!

Anyway, it's weird even thinking about moving back home, but the wife and I agree, it's the right thing to do. Now all we have to do is sell our house.