Hoorah!! Reid Jameson Smith

Photo by A. Curtis Blair


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"Pollywog"!

Grady Roux Stubbs (1996 - 2009)

Goodbye dear friend...


..

Grandma and Me...

Photo by Varnum Holland


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Varnum Holland's Laps For Babies

Join Varnum Holland for his fundraising Swim Event - "Laps for Babies" - for the March of Dimes on Friday, May 8th from 5:00-6:00 PM. He will be swimming as many lengths of the pool as he can in one hour. He is asking that his fans and friends sponsor him by going to his March of Dimes sponsor website and making a donation at http://marchforbabies.com/varnum. Sponsors can donate one flat donation, or they can wait until after the swim and sponsor him per length of the pool he swims in that hour. The total approximate laps he will be able to swim will be around 97. He is also inviting any and all friends and fans to come cheer him on at the event as well.


Friday, May 8, 2009
5:00pm - 6:00pm

The Woodlands Foundation - Indoor Pool
134 Shenot Rd
Wexford, PA

BE THERE!

Renegade Hockey Team 2009 Champions

The Mask...

Two views of my favorite hockey goalie's new mask:

Sixty-Three...

Pirate's Krewe...

Good Looking Krewe!

Congratulations!

..........Charlie's Brownbelt Night!

Here We Go!

.....................Here We Go!......

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

In Other News...

The sudden death of TV journalist Tim Russert completely dominated yesterday's news cycle. The television wall to wall coverage has pretty much pushed other news onto a back burner as well it should. I cannot remember my mother being as moved by the death of a public figure since JFK's assassination. Clearly Tim Russert had made a lasting positive impression on most of our lives.

Here are some other stories which you may not have heard about from yesterday, any one of which might normally be the lead story of the day.

Downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa is under 6 feet of flood water from the recent storms which have hit the Midwest.

In Afghanistan Taliban militants staged a successful surprise attack on a prison near Kandahar freeing nearly 400 Taliban prisoners.

Iraqi President al-Maliki has suggested that the US might be asked to leave by his government
when the UN Mandate for the US to be in Iraq runs out at the end of this year.

Northern Japan has been hit by a 7.2 magnitude earthquake.

It was revealed yesterday that Senators Christopher Dodd(D)of Connecticut and Kent Conrad(D) of South Dakota received "sweetheart" mortgage deals from Countrywide Financial Corporation. Dodd is Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Conrad is Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

Mobil Revealed...

PA Primary Retrospective...

The Big Pennsylvania Delegate primary has come and gone. Six weeks of political focus on the Keystone State not seen since the days of the American Revolution.
Hillary won this contest..right... with the double digit lead (10 %) all the political pundits and Clinton spinmeisters said she would need. Most Americans believe Hillary walked away with all the Pennsylvania Democrat delegates and that Barack Obama wasted all that money he spent on his media blitz.
Did you know that the PA delegate split after the results were in was Clinton 82 -- Obama 73. Yeah..she got 9 more delegates than he did for her last 6 weeks of work. She lowered his delegate lead over her from 139 - 130. Do you know how much she reduced his overall delegate advantage on Tuesday toward the nomination? Almost exactly 1/2 of 1%.
She is not expected to do as well in the remaining contests which have received little notice until now.
The only chance she has of winning the Democrat Presidential Nomination will have to involve the type of political chicanery that will leave a large percentage of the Democrat Party's voters so disgusted they will withhold support in November.

Sixty-two...!

E-L-I-O-T...

..........................."E-L-I-O-T!!"........................................
.
.
.

Cereal as a Snack...

Cereal as a snack is certainly not an original idea. Most children home from school in the afternoon discovered it long ago. Individual cereal bits have been turning up in "potpourri" type snack mixes for decades.
The other night while looking for a snack food I happened upon a product called "Quaker SnackMix, a lone bag of it some grocery customer had dropped on some other snack product's shelf space (the one that starts with a "G"). Since I hadn't seen this one before I purchased it.
At home I tried the new snack mix and found it unremarkable except for one thing. There were these wonderful tasting little rectangular cereal morsels appearing to be like a shredded wheat product but much denser in composition. Reading the ingredients of the snack I learned these were called "Quaker Oatmeal Squares". I resolved to purchase a box of that cereal if it existed.
This morning I found some in the cereal section of the Shop-n-save. It's expensive though ($ 5.00 for a 16 oz box).
Anyway, I'm happily sitting here chewing on this stuff as I write..

You've Got to be Kidding!

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has clearly lost his mind. He has suggested that introducing Sharia Law into the British legal system would help with "social cohesion."
I can't begin to express my revulsion at this idea, especially with the case of the two Texas girls allegedly being murdered by their father in what "Sharia Law" calls an "honor killing" fresh in our minds.
Much of our legal system comes from an ancient British origin. Why would the modern day UK even consider adopting such a regressive system that would take away all the womens' rights that have been won over the centuries.
If Islamic immigrants can't abide by the laws in the countries they have chosen to live in they should go back to where they came from.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister who appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury should begin a process of looking for his replacement.

Bobby Fischer (1943 - 2008)

Former World Chess Champion Bobby Fischer has died in Reykjavik, Iceland at age 64.
He was an enormously gifted and talented individual whose life was eclipsed by his inner demons.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas!

Good to Go!

This morning I went to see the man who plans to cut me up someday.
Whatever I'm doing must be working....













He says I'm good to go for another year..!

Evel Knievel (1938 - 2007)

Could one person have provided more fun for us all?









I don't think so..

Thanks Evel..



Evel Knievel
1938-2007

Penguins to Ottawa...

The Penguins will be playing this Thanksgiving evening in Ottawa.
Sidney Crosby is in fourth place in NHL scoring with 30 points.
Evgeni Malkin is tied for fifth place with 28 points.

Happy Thanksgiving...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

TOMMY'S GIRL!!

Nieces' Halloween!

Sputnik and Korolev...

Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of "Sputnik," the opening event of the 20th century's "space race" between the former Soviet Union and the US.
Unknown at that time was the name of the person known as the "Chief Designer", a Ukranian/Russian scientist who was responsible for the creation and successful launch of the satellite.
Sergey Korolev was openly honored after his death in 1966 as the rocket scientist whose name had been a state secret. He spent most of his adult life learning, building and teaching about rockets except for 8 years which he spent in a Siberian Gulag for having angered Josef Stalin.

Technical Upgrade...

We did some technical upgrading this past week. Some voluntary, some we hadn’t planned on but we’re pleased with the result.Now one of my laptops has VISTA Home Premium Edition installed. Unfortunately my old unreliable since Comcast came RCA wireless modem/router refused to recognize the “VISTAized computer.
I decided to bite the bullet and purchase a new cable modem and router.


After setting up a new secure wireless network I added a “sling box” and now have full cable tv in both laptops, meaning I can take my cable service with me anywhere I can connect to a wireless broadband hotspot.

The new modem and router also nearly tripled my measured download speed, meaning I’m no longer plugging along at a rate slower than the average Japanese school kid as I had been since Comcast took over Adelphia.
I hope to be writing more than I have in recent months now that I’ve made the computer fun again.

Award Winning Good Cooking...

Chuck Stubbs, my son-in-law, and his Waterdog Outdoor Grill Team placed second in the Capital City BBQ contest this past weekend in Tallahassee, Florida.


Chuck and his teammates Martin Schaefer and Bill Avery took second place prizes for chicken and pork in the Backyard Division of the cook off.
The contest was a Florida Bar-B-Que Association approved event.


Congratulations!

HAPPY 25th Anniversary!

Elvis's What....?

As you probably all know and I have recently become aware, after you bid successfully on E-bay for an item you begin to receive communications from them on a periodic basis. One could declare such messages SPAM I suppose but since they only come about once a week I’m putting up with them.Today came the opportunity to bid on “Elvis’s Piano”. The white baby grand appeared next to “the Boss’s upright” something possibly more affordable.Yep, looks like all the keys are there!
I’m checking to see if I have the requisite quarter $million sitting around to participate in this special auction. Nope, not after yesterday’s Wall Street bloodbath….
Ah shucks, I wouldn’t have had a place to put it anyway.
Thank-ooh-very-much!

Bike Rescue...

On Thursday evening I was riding my bike on an isolated section of the Panhandle Trail when I blew out the rear tire.
Gerry Gillman of UPMC who I ride with on weekends came out and rescued me from my predicament.
Thanks Gerry!

Profit Taking at Alcoa...

Alcoa, Inc shareholders probably would have liked to have known that two key Executives sold large quantities of their personal shares in the aluminum giant in the middle of last week.
Today it was revealed that Alain Belda, Chairman and CEO sold 1,873,917 shares for between $45.19 and $46.48 apiece last Wednesday July 18. He had exercised options for those shares earlier that morning for between $36.51 and $41.51.
Can we say quick profit of around $10,800,000 after capital gains taxes..?
Of course he could claim he was only following the sterling example of Alcoa CFO Charles McLane, Jr. who sold 37,132 shares for between $46.69 and $46.77 the previous day (Tuesday July 17). He had exercised options on those shares that morning for between $22.56 and $29.31 each. We didn’t find out about that until last Friday (the same day Belda filed his report with the SEC).
I wouldn’t presume to suggest that either of these fine businessmen were aware that BHP wasn’t really going to buy Alcoa which along with the news that Alcoa was no longer bidding for ALCAN had driven the cost of the shares up.
I don’t own any shares of Alcoa and haven’t for several years. If I did I might be a little troubled by all this since today on an “up” day in the market Alcoa was selling at one point for $41.34 which is less than the option price Belda paid for some of the shares he sold.

Urban Legend: Day Trading at the Public Library...

I had an interesting talk with a fellow on Saturday. He was an engineer by trade and we mostly talked about riding our bikes however the discussion began when he asked me about the current state of Bally Total Fitness, the health club we both belong to.
I began following BTF* closely about a year ago by setting a google news alert on it so I’m pretty up-to-date on most of the corporate machinations which have been going on about the preplanned bankruptcy and its opposition. I mentioned that the stock was worth about 54 cents a share and he thought that it might be a good investment, an idea which I discouraged pointing out that in a bankruptcy the stock gets canceled and the equity holders lose everything.
He then asked me if I’d heard about “these guys that were day trading using the computers at the public library”. He then pointed out that he’d heard that they each were making about $200 a day. I expressed my skepticism at this suggesting that all you need is one really bad day when the market is getting beat up to lose everything.Here are some of my other thoughts on the subject:
I’ve heard news journal reports that the vast majority of those who try to both formally and informally “day trade” lose their shirts.
I don’t day trade but I do engage in “trade timing” when I am selling and buying. ( I don’t have any real secrets here but I have discovered that I am able to buy stock cheaper than the visible current ticker prices, enough usually to cover the fees of both buying and selling). One thing I am doing at that moment is I have multiple browsers open. Have you ever used even the “modern broadband access computers” in a public library? To someone like me they are really about what you can’t do. You’re limited to one browser at a time and it is cumbersome and unfriendly. You have a default search engine (usually MSN because of its affiliation with “explorer”) which resists any attempt to "googlize" or "yahooize" it. Other than to do a check of my portfolio I’ve found the public library’s computers to be worthless for activities which require internet agility.
The other thing is the limit on time. At my public library you may only use the computers for 120 minutes a day.If you were making $ 200.00 a day why would you even be using the computers at the public library?
In short I believe that if anyone is successfully day trading at the Public Library they are doing it there for a very short time.

* not the stock symbol which is “BFTH”

Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson: 1912 - 2007

I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.

Ogden Nash


..................................Lady Bird Johnson..........................

Thanks... We haven't all forgotten...

Off with their heads...

The ugly side of China has reemerged this week with news of the execution of Zheng Xiaoyu, the former Drug and Food Minister of the People’s Republic.
Zheng had been convicted of taking $800,000 + worth of bribes during his tenure in office from 1998 to 2005. It represents the government’s attempt to minimize the problem as of late of various unhealthy substances finding their way into products the Chinese sell worldwide. By eliminating the person at the top of that area of the culture the problem is instantly solved, so their thinking goes. Normally someone in China having committed public bribery on that scale would be denounced, forced to make restitution and given a two year prison sentence.China has been trying for the last decade to fashion it’s own brand of capitalism, something somewhere between the “Singapore economic model” and a Marxist command economy. The opportunity to show itself to the world through the 2008 Olympics is a matter of immense pride to its leaders. Now a rush is on to bring off that event with a minimal amount of dysfunction, as the report of the execution was accompanied by the proclamation that the food to be served at the Olympics would be contamination free.There are plenty of other problems to be solved in the next 12 months, traffic, air pollution in the host city and the logistics of properly providing hospitality to its Olympic guests. Let’s hope that no more people will be killed in the name of putting China’s best foot forward.

Happy Fourth!

Chinese Engineering...

The Chinese Government continues to astound the world with its 21st Century engineering projects.
Completed today was a 22 mile long bridge across Hangzhou Bay linking Shanghai with the industrial city of Ningbo. This bridge over the open sea is expected to open a year from now and will shorten the road distance between the two cities from 250 miles to 50.If that doesn’t sound impressive to you consider this. The distance the new bridge covers is more than the distance across the English Channel between the UK and France.
A year ago the Chinese completed and opened a railroad between Qinghai Province and Lhasa, Tibet. This 2040 kilometer project was constructed mostly at an altitude between 4000 and 5000 meters ABOVE sea level. The average height of this railroad is 2.8 times higher than the city of Denver!
The Chinese also have announced plans to build a blacktopped highway up the side of Mt. Everest to the 16,699 foot elevation of the Tibetan base camp which potential mountain climbers operate from by the opening of the Olympics next summer. The stated purpose is so that the Olympic Torch Relay will have a Mt. Everest component.............View from the Everest end of the proposed highway

It is unclear exactly how they intend to do this to but they are expected to follow a preexisting traditional Tibetan path. The project according to the China News Agency will take 4 months.
No wonder the Russians want to build a 64 mile tunnel to Alaska..

Ruel Alden Smith...

Ruel Alden Smith
..
..

Special Delivery..!

A package was delivered earlier than expected to Tampa late this afternoon.

His name is Alden and he weighed 5 lbs 9 ounces!

Congratulations to Amy and the Pirate!

What Happened to AccuWeather..?

Today was one of those hot humid miserable type days we’ve come to expect during the spring/summer months in Western PA.
I remember looking at the AccuWeather forecast for my town about 2:00 PM this afternoon hoping there would be some late afternoon rain relief, maybe in the form of a “pop up” storm. The weather prediction showed none.About 4:45 PM relief came anyway in the form of a really nasty 90 minute long severe thunderstorm. After about an hour of flashing and banging and periodic downpours I decided to check AccuWeather again. Believe it or not there was no acknowledgement of any sort that the storm was occurring. I looked at my local weather radar and the storm seemed to be centered right over where we live!
Today the famed computerized weather forecasting giant let us all down.

A Note About Immigration...

I’ve made no secret about my support for immigration in general. I realize that one of the reasons America is the great country it is because of the blending of various immigrant groups throughout our history and the individual achievements by first and second generation immigrants.
As opposed to many of my countrymen I am not offended when I hear people talking in the language from where they came. I find Spanish to be a beautiful lyrical language with a fascinating cultural background. I love to listen to it and wish I could speak it fluently.Without immigration and lots of it there won’t be enough working people to keep the economy rolling in the next 5 - 20 years as all the baby boomers retire.
Advocates on both sides of the immigration issue hate the 900 + page compromise that has been fashioned in the US Senate and endorsed by the Administration.
All that said let’s reduce that immigration package to what it really is... an attempt to make this issue go away for another 20 years…and from my perspective that might be a good thing.

Communique...

Earth to Paul Wolfowitz...

You are an absolute dope for taking a job where your girlfriend worked in the first place.

Then you make the mistake of getting involved in her compensation.

There is NO vindication for your stupidity in the 21st Century. You obviously do not have the clear judgment to run ANYTHING of consequence.

Quit trying to shift part of the blame to others.

Accept the fact that there are consequences for your actions and GET OUT!

Turning Lead Into Gold...

Lately I’ve devoted an inordinate amount of my time into the thousand year old practice of trying to turn lead into gold. It’s the same pursuit that got many a budding chemist started. Why I even heard that an atomic chemist actually pulled it off about 27 years ago using a process called "transmutation" at a cost of about 20 times what the small amount of gold produced was worth and with the accompanying problem that the precious metal was too radioactive to be handled. How did I get into this madness you might ask? A little over two years ago after listening to the advice of a financial advisor I decided to try to turn copper into gold. If you listen to financial experts long enough you will soon learn that gold itself even in its current favorable environment is a lousy long term investment. The price of an ounce has barely doubled in the past 25 years while most equity markets have quadrupled in value.
In early 2005 I invested in a company called Phelps Dodge which was considered the major American player in the copper business. What resulted for me was nearly two years of 11 % annual dividends and tremendous growth. The amount I invested in Phelps Dodge is worth 3.28 times what I spent just 26 months ago or what investors would like to call a 150 % annualized return.
What I heard recently was that LEAD is the new “copper” and is expected to be for the next several years.
Here’s a few of the reasons:
1. Because of the global warming issue countries are turning away from coal fired plants to produce energy and moving toward nuclear energy…lots of lead will be needed for protection.2. As the huge populous economies of India and China are expanding so are their middle classes. People who used to ride bicycles are purchasing motorbikes and automobiles which need BATTERIES as well as the hybrid vehicles which are now available.3. There are “spot” shortages in the industry. One of the largest mines producing lead in the world is shut down for the next 2 years while it is being “modernized”.
4. At the moment there is not enough lead to meet demand and the price is rising.I have posted the above picture as my desktop background while pondering how to do this investment. It is a picture of a mine in which lead is being extracted.
The thing about lead is that there aren’t lead mines per se. Most lead is a byproduct of mining for something else, mainly zinc, silver or gold but it exists side by side with other metals in most ore as well. The world’s largest producer is a company called BHP Billiton, Ltd which is located in Australia and has various metal mines around the world. BHP, Ltd is currently attempting to merge with one of its biggest competitors a London based Australian company called Rio Tinto and there is a report as I write this that the merger is going to be accomplished.
Not even aware of the merger talk I was considering purchasing some Rio Tinto this past Tuesday and my main hesitation was that it was selling for nearly $290 a share (maybe a little too big for my blood). While I was thinking about it the merger talk started and it jumped $ 36 a share..(nice stuff for a day trader but not my cup of tea).
Anyway, I plan to watch BHP for the next few days and if it drops in price like the dominant company in a merger usually does I may purchase some.

More News!

Yes...this is important!

Click On:

THIS


..

Silver Anniversary!

Today is the 25th Anniversary!

The Russians are Coming!

While our nation has been in shock over the Virginia Tech shootings the Russians announced they plan to build a tunnel to North America. I’m not making this up.
Plans were put forth this past Wednesday to dig a 60+ mile long tunnel under the Bering Strait to link Russia’s East Siberian Coast with Alaska.
The tunnel will be built in three segments linking with two islands in the strait.The planned undersea tunnel would contain a high-speed railway, highway and pipelines, as well as power and fiber-optic cables, according to TKM-World Link. Investors in the so-called public-private partnership include OAO Russian Railways, national utility OAO Unified Energy System and pipeline operator OAO Transneft, according to a press release which was handed out at the Wednesday media briefing and bore the companies' logos.Associated with this project will be 2 huge 10 gigawatt electric plants on the Siberian Coast which will rely on tidal activity to generate energy.
The cost of the tunnel is projected between $ 50 billion and $65 billion. The money will come from profits being made by the invested partners listed above who currently are awash with funds because of oil and gas revenues. It is expected to take 15 to 20 years to construct.Czar Nicholas II in 1904 announced plans to do such a project but talk ceased due to a war with Japan.

Family News...

THE






PASSED THE





!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




....

The Wild Wild....

Is it just me or does the purported Chinese “Moon Rover” look like a prop out of the old TV series “Wild Wild West” covered with gold tinfoil..?..

The Silly Season...

The silly season has started for leading Presidential candidates even though the real election is still 19 months away.
I overheard these two rumors/stories while eating breakfast this morning in a local restaurant:
Barack Obama has had his political operatives kidnap his white grandmother and stash her in a closet somewhere. Supposedly this is because the Senator from Illinois doesn’t want the black community to know that he is half white.
Judith Giuliani, Rudy’s third wife used to kill puppies for a living when she was married to her first husband. This is the real reason she didn’t want you to know about her first marriage.
Expect to hear similar nonsense as other candidates jockey for their respective parties’ nominations.

Sniff This...

Thinking of taking your cds, dvds, and other types of disc media on your next trip to Malaysia..
Think again.Chances are your return from Kuala Lumpur may be interrupted by this pair, Lucky and Flo, two black labs who have been trained to sniff out polycarbonate like western nations train dogs to detect explosives and drugs. It seems pirating copyrighted media has become such a big business in Malaysia that the authorities are making an attempt to curb some of the trade.
Anyone who has ever dealt with labs knows that they are about the sweetest dogs in the world but they are also very dedicated to pleasing their handlers and are quite capable of making a big fuss!This primitive technology unfortunately hasn’t advanced to the point where the labs can tell the difference between what is copyrighted intellectual property and what is bootlegged..

Sixty-One..!

Emil Narick (1916-2007)

When I was a kid I didn’t have a lot of heroes, mostly baseball players, Mickey Mantle, the Brave’s Eddie Matthews, the Pirates’ Frank Thomas and Bill Mazeroski. I remember being sad the day Frank Thomas was traded to the Reds, a transaction which wound up shaping the team that won the World Series in 1960.
Other heroes included Van Cliburn the pianist and Bobby Fischer, the chess master (boy what a head case he turned out to be).
One hero I've always remembered was an attorney who represented the United Steelworkers, Emil Narick. It wasn’t his day job that impressed me. On weekends he refereed college and NFL games!
The last thing I remember about Narick, about the time I was getting out of college was that he ran unsuccessfully for the Presidency of the United Steel Workers. I never knew about his short stint with the EEOC or his subsequent 15 year career as a Judge of both Common Pleas and Commonwealth Courts
Narick died Saturday. When I told my mom about his death she remembered him for his time on the Bench.
I will always think of him as a man who had two simultaneous careers and excelled at both.

Here We Go....

I believe if I was a physician I would be extremely embarrassed if it became known that I had personally purchased wholesale $150,000 worth of steroid and human growth hormone pharmaceuticals with a retail value of $750,000 from a Florida online pharmacy which was raided the other day for its dubious sales practices.
After having been an outstanding high school athlete in the 60’s (Mt. Lebanon), and an Olympic silver medal winning platform diver at Munich in 1972 and decades later a staff physician for the Pittsburgh Steelers my shame would be almost unbearable.
Ah...but that's just me..(waiting for the other shoe to drop)..

The Thinking Blog...

I’ve been tagged with the thinking blog meme by my good blogging friend Don . I’m required by this meme to write a post tagging five other bloggers who make me think with a brief explanation of why:

Before I tag anyone else I’d like to mention that if someone else had tagged me, one of the first I would have tagged would have been Don (dk, A Silent Cacaphony). More than anyone else I read Don reminds me why America is such a great country. Don is proud of his roots, knows who he is, what he has done, where he is going with his life and has a vision of America I admire. His writings reflect how our country’s leaders and society square with that vision, their shortcomings, failures, conduct and successes. I feel honored to have been tagged by Don.
I’m also required to link to
this post….
I am tagging:

1. Nicko McDave - Ohligarchy. A blog which recently celebrated it’s second anniversary, Ohligarchy has received positive acclaim in the Pittsburgh Post
Gazette and the Pittsburgh City Paper for its contributions to local conservative thought. Dave is as likely to tell fascinating anecdotes about his family as he is to criticize the local liberal press which he does early and often. I’ve always been envious of how well he writes. This blog also has strong ties to Minnesota where the author formerly lived and worked.

2. Nancy Drew- Cinderella and Me. This is a Canadian Blog. Nobody knows what Nancy Drew really does for a living when she isn’t solving mysteries (let’s face it some bloggers have told people where they work about their blogs and as a consequence got in BIG TROUBLE) but if you follow her on a regular basis you will learn a lot about office politics.What Nancy does more than anything is make me laugh. If I’ve sent you a joke by e-mail there is a really good possibility I heard it first from her. Oh, there’s a cat named Smoky involved..

3. Krishna Bhatt- Humour and Last Laugh. This is a blog posted from a cyber café in Kathmandu, Nepal. Nepal is a kingdom tucked away in the Himalayan Mountains between India and China.Krishna has bloggers all over the world communicating with him after he initiated contact. I’ve been corresponding with him for about eighteen months through both our blogs and e-mail. His eye opening essays and stories have a cultural perspective not found in most of the stuff which we normally read and a lot of diverse international opinion is to be found in his comment sections.
4. Bob Kelly- The Real Key West. Reading Bob’s blog keeps me up to date with what is going on the Island of Key West. Bob is a champion of the voices and interests in society who aren’t heard enough, and a lover of all kinds of good music. His essays and postings remind me constantly that the more things change in the Conch Republic the more they stay the same.


5. Rhiannon- Inner Journey Writings. The last time I was tagged for a meme it was done by this lady, Washington State artist Barbara King. Her blog consists of essays and poetry as well as current and past examples of her fine American Indian influenced works.

Have fun with this folks..

Science Fiction Writer...

I ran across this one somewhere yesterday:

I am: Robert A. Heinlein Beginning with technological action stories and progressing to epics with religious overtones, this take-no-prisoners writer racked up some huge sales numbers.

Which science fiction writer are you?

I read a lot of Sci-Fi when I was a kid. My father had a huge collection, mostly paperbacks.
I read more Robert Heinlein than any other writer. Could he have influenced my outlook of the world in such a way that I would someday score as him on this test..?
That's a really scary thought!

Beta This!

Google's Blogger evidently got tired of offering to upgrade me to "Beta" and today forced me to change if I wanted access my blog.
So this site has now been "beta-ized" and I am now entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof..
I may in the near future be making some changes to the site to take advantage of my new status.

Today's Big Loser...

NASA is today’s big loser.
The saga of Astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak’s 900 mile journey over last weekend to confront/assault a fellow astronaut’s girlfriend has forever changed the space program.
This story is going to dominate our news cycle probably in a way we’ve not seen before except in the OJ mess. Think of how it has already changed our thinking. We now know our astronauts wear diapers, sometimes away from work..
We’ve already learned that Ms. Nowak had a tough time on her only space mission last year. She was ill for the first forty-eight hours, then discovered her mission duty of operating the space station’s robotic arm was a lot more difficult to do than her training had prepared her for.Has anyone else noticed from her mug shot that she returned to earth with a Forengi-ish forehead.
Traditionally a Democrat Congress has been hostile toward the space program considering it to be an extravagant frill when compared to the social programs that their party champions.
NASA is heading for a fiscal bruising.

Cold and Linked...

It’s very cold around here. The temperature is expected to go below zero tonight with wind chill in the minus teens..
Payton has won his super bowl so now people can stop saying he can’t win the big one.My "best of" blog out trafficked my regular blog yesterday and today after a member of an “ez board" chat discussion group promoting Key West discovered my Gregory King letter and posted a link to it.

Ultimate Splash Screen...

I know very little about computers. What I do know I have mostly acquired from trial and error following some limited introductory training. I have learned my way around the original blogspot blog. I can do most of the basic functions to post and maintain a site.
I’ve taught myself among other things how to create links, put up some pictures and turn things on and off. I’ve also learned some other tricks from using a firefox browser which I won’t disclose I know.
Having said that I still don’t know a lot of the basics which most computer users take for granted. For instance I’m e-mail illiterate in that I don’t know how to do anything other than send a basic message.
I am, however, fascinated with what I will call “splash screens”. I discovered these about a year ago when I was trying to listen to an Australian radio station over the internet. After downloading a “Windows 10 media player” I found that while listening to this particular station a “visual kaleidoscope of light” was emitted from my computer screen to the accompaniment of the music. The colors and shapes changed and moved with the rhythm and tones of the sound. Now that changes the music in that it is no longer just an auditory experience.
Anyway, since then I have listened to various radio feeds in all types of musical genre from all over the world and experienced their “splash screens”. I thought they were all the same but I recently have discovered one that is so good it can be enjoyed even with the music turned off. For some unknown reason the colors and blending and movements are by far the best I’ve seen thus far. I don’t know what causes this. As far as I’m aware what one is really looking at are fluctuations in electronic waves created within ones own computer. However if anyone else out there has experienced “splash screens” and wants to check this one out go to:

here

Scroll down the chart to number nine which says: in big letters: CLASSIC FM NL which is from Naarden, NL (Netherlands). Go over to the windows media player box on the right and click on:

ClassicFM NL 96K
Stereo

Of course you need to have windows media player 9 or above to do this which you can usually download for free from one of these sites if you don’t have it.

Impulse Purchase (Sort Of)...

The temperature has finally dropped bigtime around here.
I've been promising myself for years to buy a leather jacket.
Today using money I received from Grandma at Christmas I purchased this particular advertised jacket. No that isn't me in the picture.

Art Buchwald (1925 - 2007)

Art Buchwald has finally succumbed to his kidney disease. He lasted nearly a year after making a decision to forego 3 times a week dialysis treatments.
In late January of 2006 Art checked himself into a Washington D.C. area hospice to spend his final days.
We wrote a tribute to Art in early March of last year.
In late May after the insurance benefits had run out Buchwald left the Hospice. Renal experts at the time speculated that the satirical writer’s kidneys "must have a small amount of function left".
Art opted to spend most of his summer at his traditional summer home on Martha’s Vinyard where he penned a final book “Too Soon To Say Goodbye” which included many of the eulogies friends had prepared.
In the fall he went back to occasionally writing his syndicated column.
He will be missed by all who enjoyed his writings.
Thanks Art…

Doctor Visit...

Today I went for what passes as an annual checkup. I really hate to go to these because I already know what I’m paying for the Doctor to say.
I had previously done the blood test thing and the nurse had done her visit prep thing like an electrocardiagram (which for some reason had a dozen of those chest hair pulling tabs this time), blood pressure check etc. and I was sitting there waiting for my physician to come into the exam room.
The door finally opens to reveal that my late fortyish doctor has gone completely gray since last year, his mustache, beard, hair..everything.
So he does his thing with the stethoscope and all, checks my file and asks if I’ve had problems, questions, anything..
I decline the opportunity to brag about the fact that I’ve swum over 80,000 meters (50 miles) since I last came for a visit.
He finishes with the file comes toward me talking as he walks. “Well, blood pressure is good, cholesterol is good, heart is excellent.”
He swings around behind me and leans down inches from my right ear and whispers as if a hypnotic suggestion..
“Lose some weight!”

Do we want to do this?

You know those news banner runners you see going across the bottom of TV stations.
Here's one I saw this morning on MSNBC:

"The ethics panel at a New York Hospital has approved uterus transplants. Donor to be removed after recipient gives birth."

What does this mean?

YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT ? ? ?

NO ! ! !


HE HASN'T BEEN HAVING AN AFFAIR ! ! !


You may go back to your empty insignificant life now....

Cowher News Conference...

The Pittsburgh Steelers announced this evening that a press conference will be held tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 PM concerning the future of Coach Bill Cowher.
The Steeler Coach is expected to announce his retirement at that time.
In a related story this site was deluged with 15 inquiries today concerning Coach Cowher's nonexistent infidelities. As you know we are considered the number 5 reference on that topic in the world.
There is no evidence that Coach Cowher has ever cheated on his wife!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Jipzeecab Restored to his Former Place in History

Several of you are aware that in real life my most prominent claim to fame (fifteen minutes) is associated with the 1982 mock secession of Key West from the United States of America creating the “Conch Republic”. I wrote about this briefly in a post on May 28, 2005 when I noted that I had discovered someone had written a book about the event which I would have to obtain.
Subsequently after reading the book it was apparent to me that the writer himself admittedly was missing key information about the event which I could have provided. As a result in the absence of my input others were creating scenarios which just weren’t factual at the time. Two key unanswered questions were:
1. Who thought up the idea originally? (in the book a Miami PR man tried to take credit for it)...and
2. What was the process with regard to the Founding Fathers that led to the Mock Secession? I knew the answer to both questions.
In July of 2005 I wrote a letter to the author of the book detailing my thoughts. Originally I was unable to get his attention by e-mail however I tried again this past July posting the letter on a blog I use to preserve writings and by e-mail calling his attention to it. He responded immediately to it and a brief exchange of e-mail between us took place. He promised that when and if a 4th printing of his book is done he would include the new information.
At Christmas my sister (“Tommy’s Girl”) gave me two books on Key West which piqued my interest in something about Key West. When googling the subject I ran across the “Official Conch Republic website” (a fellow there named Peter Anderson has copyrighted and trademarked anything to do with "The Conch Republic").Having explored his site several times before I noticed that he has recently revised his “Official History” in a way that I can tell reflects the input I gave Gregory King in my letter. Some of the changes are subtle (which only I am able to recognize) but the most obvious thing is that the list of “Founding Fathers” which used to be a copy of the list in the order they appeared in King’s book now has my name at the top and the subsequent order of names reflects the process I described in my letter.
I doubt very seriously if a 4th printing of King’s book is coming out anytime soon (they have to sell out the third printing first) but King apparently believes me to be credible and has passed on the new information to Mr. Anderson.
Thank you to all concerned..

Christmas at the Duchy...

............... Duchessadele and her beautiful family..................

......................Charlie and Mary Harlan.......................

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cost of Living Increase...

My mom has been complaining for years that the Social Security cost of living increase (COLA) is eaten up by Medicare associated increased expenses. The reason this happens is that health care costs have been expanding at a double digit percentage annually for quite some time.Recently I’ve had my first experience with this phenomenon. In late October the SSA announced the increase for this coming year would be 3.3%.
Yesterday having been informed what the new Medicare associated costs would be I was able to calculate the new amounts. The new Medicare associated costs for me take up 86% of the COLA.
WOW!

Throw the Bums Out!

Some thoughts on the election:

Do you know who got more votes in Allegheny County than Rick Santorum besides Bob Casey?
Lynn Swann..the former Steeler got 22,718 more votes than the # 3 Republican Senator did, 40 % to 35 % in his loss to Governor Ed Rendell.

In this household we were happy to see a local “brown shirted” twerp who had yet to have a real job as an adult be defeated by a 59% to 40% margin for a seat in the General Assembly.
This 21 year old Santorum “clone” bombarded our mailbox with two or three pieces of glossy advertising every day for the past 6 weeks (and thus contributed to the destruction of approximately 50 acres of forest land) besides being responsible for the majority of those annoying political phone calls we had to endure leading up to the election.

Mike Veon, the Democrat from Beaver County who was the only one not to vote to repeal the “middle of the night pay raise” in the legislature, lost to Republican Jim Marshall 54% to 46% who ran a mostly low profile campaign. In one of the clearest examples of campaign advertising 'stupidity' I've ever seen, Veon went with an expensive TV campaign primarily using an ad which proffered his opponent’s name repeatedly to voters who were waiting for the opportunity to vote against him in the general election!

My Congressman Dr. Tim Murphy, one of the good guys in the House of Representatives, was reelected easily despite the Post Gazette‘s endorsement of his opponent.

Oh, the “spam” candidate mentioned in a previous post got a little less than 14 % of the vote in his head to head race with an incumbent Democratic legislator.

SPAM Candidate...

My comment section was "spammed" last evening by the political campaign representing the candidate pictured here.
I'm surprised this hasn't happened before.
Said candidate has his own blog which doesn't allow comments.
He doesn't indicate any party affiliation although he is running against a well entrenched Democrat member of the State Assembly.
I've already deleted his comment as I do all SPAM when it appears...
As one who spent a few years deeply involved in local politics I would make the following suggestion to him.
If you want to get elected to this particular office... next time run against him in the Democratic Primary. Get out and knock on the door of EVERY residence in the district and ask those who answer to vote for you..a campaign tactic your opponent has probably long since forgotten the usefulness of. You will be surprised at the result.
That will do you a lot more good then sending spam to the comment section of blogs that aren't read by anyone who lives in your area.

Comcast Travails...

I thought I’d update everyone on my technical problems.
I am back on the net using the COMCAST server. I’m just not happy with the current arrangement.
During the past 18 months I’ve been spoiled by the compatibility of Adelphia service with a wireless modem I purchased back in April of 2005.This modem has made it possible for me to work on the net both upstairs and downstairs using two different laptops one of which was hooked by Ethernet line and a newer one working wirelessly.
A Comcast contractor came out to the house on Tuesday a week ago and got me back on the net in about 10 minutes. At the time we tested both computers using the Ethernet feed and they both worked just fine.
After the contractor left I tried to use the newer laptop wirelessly and it wouldn’t work. Then I tried to use the older laptop with the Ethernet and it wouldn’t work either.
I discovered then that I could get the newer laptop to work with the Ethernet.
So I called Comcast’s 800 number hoping someone could remotely fix the problem. After about 45 minutes of trying to work on the problem with a remote technician we finally gave up.
Since then I’ve discovered I can make either computer work in either a tied Ethernet mode or a wireless mode but I can’t get them both to work at the same time. By “reinitializing” the modem I can get which ever one I want to use at the moment to work.
I’ve been fooling with this problem for a week now and I think I understand now why it won’t work the way I want it too…which of course I had figured out before..that being Comcast only allows my modem to recognize one computer at a time.
Cable companies are allowed to regulate the modems their customers use. When Comcast finally allowed my modem to use their server a week ago they changed its default configure setting from RG to CM. In the CM configuration file they control the access rules..noone for instance can set up a Wi Fi hotspot without their permission. In the RG configure setting the user can change settings within the modem. I spent four hours this evening trying to change internal modem settings to get it to accept the second computer to no avail. All it would do was switch to the other laptop when I tried to reset it.
So I’m going to talk to them one more time. They told me before that if I would just rent one of their wireless modems the problem would be fixed. This time if they can’t fix it I’m going to switch to FIOS..

Netless Again...

In my bizarre world of Star Trekian cable mergers the Comcastians have finally overwhelmed the Adelphians and I am temporarily the worse off for it (Ohligarch who opted for Verizon DSL warned me this would happen someday).
Yesterday Adelphia customers were switched over to the Comcast server and the new server won’t recognize my combo wireless modem so I am without internet service until this coming Tuesday noon which is the earliest Comcast can get one of their service contractors out to fix it.So I’ve had to “take it to the streets”, this morning to get an urgent message out to my Nepal pen pal which was delayed 24 hours and this evening to generally get caught up on all the things I’ve come to depend on the internet for (like how my portfolio is doing). By taking it to the streets I mean hopping in the Malibu Maxx with my low tech laptop and sponging off some poor sap’s unsecured wireless Linxys system or setting up in a Brueggers or Borders until the battery runs down.
So I’m off to do that and put up this emergency post.
I’ll be getting a new Comcastian e-mail address soon..or so they say...

We Have Met Big Brother...

An old sci-fi movie favorite of mine is “Outland” starring Sean Connery made back in 1981. Connery plays the new marshall in a mining colony on Io, a moon of Jupiter. The Marshall isn’t there for even a week when he begins to knock heads with the CEO of the mining corporation which really controls every phase of life on this remote outpost.
At issue is the easy availability of an illegal recreational amphetamine the miners are taking to prolong their work hours which is leading to an unusual number of deadly incidents on the settlement. When the Corporation discovers this cop can’t be intimidated into doing its will they import a team of futuristic hit men to eliminate him. With only two allies, a deputy and the colony’s medical officer Connery manages to prevail.
Corporate control of a local town is something some Americans are familiar with although the rest of us don’t always notice it until the company closes shop and a community sinks into economic depression.
We spend a lot of time nowadays worrying about privacy issues and government controlling our lives. Libertarians would rather let the marketplace and its forces determine what is important and leave the rest of us alone. I generally agree with that philosophy. This morning though while reading the newspaper I had a sudden revelation:
We have met “Big Brother” and he turns out to be..Now before you think I’ve gone completely off my rocker consider this. The major news story for the past seven days around here in Western Pennsylvania has been that a hillside in Kilbuck Township has collapsed and a major traffic artery route 65 northwest out of Pittsburgh has been blocked in the aftermath.. not only that but also the parallel Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks. The road and the rail aren’t expected to reopen until October 7 at the earliest. What caused the collapse? The alleged culprit is site preparation fill for a new Wal-Mart.My mom said to me a few days ago. “Do you know where they are taking the ‘fill’ they are cleaning off the road in Kilbuck?”
“Probably back to the top of the hill,” I replied. "They still need it for their shopping property."
What else was in the news in the last few days(?)…let’s see:
“Wal-Mart is organizing its 1.8 million employees into a political action force.”
“Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will begin selling all its generic drug prescriptions for $4.00 each,” first in the Florida area with plans to extend the program nationwide shortly thereafter. (This particular announcement caused a pharmaceutical stock I own to jump 31% in price on that day..why(?).. because it’s a relatively new company and none of its products has a generic equivalent.)
Today the major story on the front page of USA Today is about how “Wal-Mart is going green”. Wal-Mart haters are viewing this cynically as a political move to get the public to take their minds off the low pay and benefits Wal-Mart associates receive and the tens of thousands of small businesses that have closed when a nearby Wal-Mart opened and undercut their sales with discounted merchandise.
The real focus of the article, however, is about how Wal-Mart in recent years has adopted various energy saving measures which it claims are paying off in reduced costs when applied over its massive economies of scale.
The company also promotes and stocks conservation products that have yet to catch on with the general public.
Here is the part which makes me nervous. Wal-Mart is requiring its vendors to adopt and practice similar policies as a condition for doing continued business with the retail giant. Fish vendors are required in the next three years to provide only fish from fisheries certified as “sustainable” by the “Marine Stewardship Council”. Packaging of items must be made from corn based PLA, a biodegradable plastic.
All tree huggers are worried that the US hasn’t signed the Kyoto Treaty. It’ll happened when the Board of Directors in Bentonville, Arkansas decides it’s time.
Fred Krupp President of Environmental Defense is quoted as saying, “Wal-Mart has as much or more potential to change the way the world does business.
He’s probably right…

Pillow Talk...

While the world is filled with gossip about the supposed romance between Condoleeza Rice and Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay Washington insiders continue to claim that the Secretary of State’s real paramour is a 30 year old gym rattress who sat behind Condi during her Senate confirmation hearings for the top diplomatic job in the world (not that there’s anything wrong with that).Nonetheless, if the chief Canadian diplomat and America’s highest ranking gal really are sharing leisure time together do you suppose the subject of the unfortunate Mr. Maher Arar has come up?
Mr. Arar is a Canadian Muslim who has been the subject of a three year inquiry by the Canadian Authorities over his deportation to Syria by the US government which lead to him being beaten in Jordan and tortured in Syria in 2002/2003.
The mild mannered Canadian engineer had gone to visit his family in Tunisia in September of 2002. On his way back to Canada his plane had a stopover at JFK. American authorities acting on information provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that Arar was an Islamic extremist with suspected links to al-Qaeda took Maher into custody and held and interrogated him in a detention center for twelve days.
When the US interrogators didn’t learn what the wanted from him Arar was shackled and deported to Syria (where he had lived before emigrating to Canada at age 17) by way of Jordan. After being beaten in Jordan Maher was driven to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured for 10 months finally being released by the Syrians after signing a false confession that he had been trained in Afghanistan. There is no evidence that he has ever been to Afghanistan.The most obvious question MacKay might ask Secretary Rice would be: Why wasn’t Arar sent on to Canada where he was a passport carrying citizen and for which he had paid passage when he was removed from the plane?
Ms. Rice might ask why the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Mr. Ahar was an Islamist extremist with links to al-Qaeda when all the information they really had was that he had been seen briefly in the company of someone they were “shadowing”?
Something to talk about…

Bye Bye Buccos...

KDKA Pittsburgh
On your dial at 1020

There’s always something happening on 1020 just for you
It’s the right stop
It’s the bright spot
It’s the pioneer station of the World

KDKA Pittsburgh

It seems silly to me to get nostalgic about a radio station. I’ve listened to this 50,000 watt broadcasting giant consciously for over 50 years. Because it has no other powerful radio stations on its frequency between sunset and sunrise it can be heard all over the northern hemisphere after dark. Why during the summer evenings in Florida one could often hear …PIRATES!
Not any more after October. Yesterday the Pittsburgh Pirates announced they had awarded their broadcast rights to a local station (WPGB FM 1047) which has been owned by Clear Channel Communications for about two years.
Business is business. Forget that KDKA was the first to broadcast a major league baseball game in 1921. Or that they’ve done all the Pirate games for the last 51 years. Those of you who still listen in distant parts of this land can get all the games if you’ll subscribe to xm satellite radio for about $14 a month although you’ll only get the Pirate announcers for home games.
I only have one other reason to listen to KDKA anymore. That would be a semi “infomercial show” heard on Sunday mornings between 9:00 and 11:00 AM called “Your Money and You”. Hosted by Hefren-Tillotson’s financial guru Jim Meredith it’s the best two hours of radio available anywhere for those who want to learn how to plan for the future and invest wisely while doing it.

There’s always something happening..

Labor Day Rant

It’s Labor Day and out of habit I got up early and read a newspaper.
For those of you who were wondering when I was going to post something again I thought I’d rant this morning about some thoughts that were provoked by reading that paper, one I don’t usually read (the Pittsburgh Tribune Review) unless Ohligarch links to it.

Apprehended:


The Iraqi National Security Advisor Mouwafak al-Rubaie has announced that “the number two Al Qaida in charge in Iraq”, a terrorist known as “Hamid al-Saeedi” has been captured and arrested.
I suppose I wouldn’t be cynical about this if it weren’t for the DOZENS of times we’ve been informed that the “number two” Al Qaida guy has been killed or captured.
I guess one should surmise that the worse job in the World is to be the chief operating officer of Al Qaida unless your name is al-Zawahri who coincidentally released another one of his “professionally produced videos” this time featuring an American traitor Adam Gadahn (who like John Mark Karr couldn’t find fame as a rock star and thus embraced the dark side).
Of course we are constantly reminded that the number one Al Qaida and the number one Taliban are still at large.

Pluto Gets No Respect:

As you’ve probably heard already, at the big Prague astronomers’ conference mentioned in my last post those assembled reduced Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet” in a voice vote going against the recommendation of its own blue ribbon panel. One of the several cited reasons for the demotion was that Pluto (through its own gravitational pull) had failed to clear its own orbit of other celestial objects.
Now a group of American astronomers primarily based around the University of New Mexico (where Pluto was discovered) has seized upon this particular flaw to declare that by that definition the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune don’t qualify as planets either.

Unfortunately this group has failed to deal with the contention that Pluto (and its companion Charon) is just a big CHUNK of ICE something unobservable eighty some years ago.



SMART-1

Then there is the matter of SMART-1, something I’m not so sure means much.
Do you remember the scene near the end of Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones where Count Dooku (played by Christopher Lee) hightails it out of town after his duel with Yoda? He escapes in what appears to be his own personal craft which once in space suddenly transforms itself into a solar sailer which carries him to his meeting with Darth Sidius on a distant planet.
The technology involved in Smart-I is a primitive form of that craft. Energy is collected by solar panels and then converted by an ion engine into thrust which propels a 27 cubic foot object (with solar arrays attached) through space.
Summarizing SMART-I’s space trip by analogy: Three years ago you sent a box about the size of a washing machine on a journey from your home. It travels around the earth by solar power about 2000 times and returns to crash into your detached garage going 4,475 mph (approximately mach 6)... What a mess!We won’t be seeing the original Smart-I in a space museum anytime soon. Yesterday, the European Space Agency scientists (French) who created it allowed it to crash into the moon where it instantly became just another piece of man made junk after it had traveled on a 62 million mile odyssey . The moon is only 250,000 miles from Earth.
Still, they showed that a solar powered engine would work.

Pluto: Planet or Something Else?

When I was a child in the fifties I knew “Pluto” was different. What made it different then was its orbit. Even though it was recognized as the ninth planet, I was aware that some points of its orbit were closer to our Sun than the closest points of Neptune the eighth planet‘s, orbit. The explanation offered for this phenomenon at the time was that Pluto was a runaway moon of Neptune.There were limits to what could be observed back then. Electronic (called "radio" then) telescopes were just beginning to be constructed. Astronomers’ observations were restricted by the size of the mirrors on their telescopes and visual interference from our own atmosphere. We knew Pluto had a lot of ice from spectrum analysis. What we didn’t know was that it was smaller in diameter than the planet Mercury or our own Moon.Our ability through the use of the Hubble Telescope helping to determine the true size and makeup of Pluto along with the discovery of four other celestial objects further from the Sun have caused some scientists to question whether Pluto should continue to be called a planet. The group of these celestial objects of which scientists claim Pluto is part of is called the Kuiper Belt. One of the objects, “2003 UB313” nicknamed “Xena”, is about 25 % larger than Pluto. Should it officially be made a 10th planet?3000 scientists and astronomers are meeting in Prague, Czechoslovakia tomorrow for 12 days to decide if Pluto will continue to be called a planet or to possibly determine if a new classification system of what is a planet is necessary.

Politicizing the Weather...

In the late 1970’s I was extensively involved in politics and was a delegate to party state conventions on more than one occasion. I remember one late night bull session in Orlando in the fall of 1977. One participant was an attorney from the Miami area who became very prominent in the early eighties.
“We could always be in power if we could just find a way to politicize the weather,” he was saying.
The rest of us joked about the notion saying stuff like, “Everybody talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.” Boy were we wrong!
Not long after that the concept of global warming went from being a topic of interest for a handful of scientists to a belief of millions across the planet.
I thought about that this morning when I read an article in USA today entitled “Hurricane Season Defying Forecasts.” In the midst of a gargantuan heat wave the National Hurricane Center is informing us that now we are into August and the tropics this year have barely produced a good whiff of wind. Bear in mind that the meat of any hurricane season is yet to come in the weeks after Labor Day. Nonetheless, I’m reminded that several months ago a group of environmental activists demonstrated around NOAA demanding the National Hurricane Center fire Max Mayfield and acknowledge that global warming was causing an increasing number of more and more powerful hurricanes. The Miami based scientists declined then the opportunity to endorse that concept.
Yesterday Hurricane Researcher William Gray reduced his annual prediction of expected hurricanes from 9 to 7 and said a monster storm like Katrina was unlikely this year.
The endorsement of “global warming” by previously skeptical Conservatives is quickly approaching what political scientists call the “tipping point”, wherein everyone will take it as a common assumption or as a given fact. This in spite of the belief on the part of many environmental scientists that many of the claimed underlying “proofs” put forth by non scientists like Al Gore are just not scientifically accurate.
Like many of the notions we accept in everyday life the politicizing of the weather relies on us using our current “commonsense” (and believe me after four absolutely miserable days here in the North East, commonsense abounds). When we do that however we completely overlook the history of our planet that some of us once studied in Geology class.
Consider this: It is a generally accepted scientific notion (supported by carbon data studies of the fossilized strata of the earth) that the Dinosaurs roamed the Earth around 300 MILLION Years ago.
Did you know?:
That in the last 1 MILLION years of Earth's 2 BILLION year existence there have been 18 ICE AGES, the last one approximately 54,000 years ago. This suggests that the Earth heats and cools in cycles and always has. And the debate continues among serious scientists as to whether the Earth currently is heating or cooling. As soon as one side produces proof that it has gotten hotter in the last 10 years, the other side comes out and shows evidence that the Earth has been cooling since the 1940’s. While Al Gore runs around saying that the Polar Ice Sheets are melting and shows images at a certain location of parts falling off and forming icebergs, there are credible scientists saying what he is depicting is a natural process taking place there but that the majority of the Polar Ice Sheets are expanding in other areas.
The other part of this shortsightedness is that we’ve made great technological advances in the past 30 years. We now have satellite imagery to measure current conditions with and some short term readings to make comparisons. What we really don’t have is comparable historical records over a long term because the technology wasn’t there. We don't really know if there was or wasn't an ozone hole expanding or contracting over the Antarctic because we never considered the concept prior to 1940. We’ve only kept official temperature records here in the US for the past 120 years.
These are things I believe we should take into consideration when we allow non scientists to "politicize our weather" for us.
Now I’ve got to go and find myself something cold to drink..That front that came through last night didn’t cool things down as much as the man on the TV said it would,

Silly Little Blog Victories...

Several acquaintances of mine are surprised that I "blog for fun"... Why not try to get yourself published?..Or why not put advertising like google ads on your site and get some income from it?
The short answer is that that would make it too much like work, something you have to do on a regular basis. Clearly I’m not disciplined about my blogging or there would be at least four times as much content as there is now.
When I do write I pick subjects which interest me and I hope will be interesting to my readers. Intuitively I recognize that this is not always the case. As a former educator I’m well aware that those that like history don’t always like science and those who really appreciate math may not care for English.
Many posts which I’ve put here I initially wrote very quickly once I had a feel for what I wanted to say. The initial writing was followed by a lot of editing much of it after it was originally posted. I always when rereading have found capitalization errors, verb tense problems, word redundancies and typos which still haven’t been corrected until the fifth or sixth editing.
It’s very nice when someone tells me they like my writing, but where I really get my kicks is from the ensuing search engine activity which brings out my small little victories in the world of cyberspace. I know I’ve written about this before but please bear with me while I recount some things which I am particularly proud of or I find amusing.
I am proud that:
1. No search engine has ever sent anyone to this site looking for “porn” (unless you insist on counting all that Cowher affair stuff).
2. Every week I get multiple “hits” from people looking for information on the “snap-on-smile”, something I dashed off in about ten minutes over a year ago. Until recently this site was the number 5 reference for this subject on yahoo.
3. About six weeks ago someone “asked Jeeves” (ask.com) “what broadway play were Don Knotts and Andy Griffith in?” and the search engine listed the tribute to Knotts I wrote within hours of his death last February as the # 1 source for the answer (ahead of Wikipedia even).
I mentioned to my son the “Redington Pirate” (soon to be the “South Tampa Pirate”) that every couple of weeks I get “hits” from people googling his fellow members of the Stetson Trial Team. Then I joked to him that no one has come to my site by googling him. He replied that that was because his real name has never appeared on my site which is true.
Here is something I find amusing. If you GOOGLE “Redington Pirate” or plug it into the Yahoo search engine the number # 1 reference is his law school's press release of November 2005 concerning the Stetson Trial Team’s winning of the National Criminal Trial Competition. Both search engines know the “Pirate” is in there somewhere although he is never mentioned. This site doesn’t get mentioned on Google until #’s 77 and 78.
I’ve run out of inspiration. I’ve got to go now and find some images to go with this post..
Stay cool everyone!

It's Too Darn Hot!

Yes, it’s HOT!
Last night when I checked AccuWeather it was predicting 98 degrees at 4:00 PM today with a 106 degree heat index. It’s four and it’s only 94 with a 101 heat index and AccuWeather now says it will peak at 95 degrees at 5:00 PM.
The big storm system which is expected to bring relief is just beginning to enter the midwest and won’t be here until Thursday.
Over in the northeast someone has started a rumor that this is the year that a big hurricane will hit New York and Boston. Not necessarily so says Max Mayfield of the National Hurricane Center. During the 1950’s a lot of the tropical cyclones hit the northeast. In the Sixties and Seventies they hit the western Gulf of Mexico. In the 90’s they hit the southeast especially the Carolinas. A Storm which has been named Chris has formed east of Puerto Rico. It’s current projected path would bring it into the Bahamas on Saturday. We will update its direction daily.
Right now Grandma and I are drinking plenty of water and eating lots of rainbow sherbet while looking forward to Thursday.. Stay cool everyone!

How Hip is This?

Here’s a story that bewilders me. How can Floyd Landis who just won one of the most grueling physical challenges known to man, The Tour De France, be going in the near future for surgery for a "full hip replacement"? Is this to be his martyrdom, and with a superior effort something he can come back overcoming like Lance Armstrong did cancer? If his hip is so bad how did he win? He’s not suggesting he pumped his way up all those hills for twenty-one straight days on one hip..is he?
Landis injured the hip in a bicycle accident last year.
About 15 years ago the career of dual sport athlete/superstar Bo Jackson ended because of weakness in one of his hip sockets. At the time there was no available surgical cure for his condition.
A 49 year old acquaintance of mine had a hip replacement a little over a year ago. While he is able to function with the new hip it has still not improved his lifestyle in the way he anticipated.
Let's hope our new tour champion has both a successful hip operation and a future cycling career.

Mobil's Jipzee Cab Reviewed! (sort of...)

Hale McKay (the Pointmeister..”It Occurred to Me”) has turned his readers onto a site which prepares a “feel good” review of your blog for you…
Click on the title of this post and fill your URL into the box and hit "submit" for an instant review:Review of Mobil's Jipzee Cab

"I just saw "jipzeecab.blogspot.com". Of course, I expected the creator to do this well. It must have taken months to design the page. Seeing Mobil's Jipzee Cab, I'm simply stunned, completely stunned. Wonderful.
(...)
What a great page!
The color scheme is fantastic. This explains why I put up a link to this page. The HTML source is very structured. Gorgeous. There are 24,877 characters in the HTML, which is a great length for European users. The URL has 29 characters. Just the perfect length. If only my aunt would have an awesome page like that. The page contains 67 links, a very reasonable amount. The hippest site around."
-- Ann Allan, Learning HTML

Independence Day...

Have a Happy Fourth of July! !

Soccer Post...

For all my loyal readers who have been waiting breathlessly for me to do a “World Cup Post”....here it is:



It’s an all EURO SEMIFINALS!

Drug Pricing...

It has suddenly come to the attention of the mainstream media that the infamous Medicare “Plan D” hasn’t put a cap on prescription drug prices…duhh!
This was predictable when the prescription drug bill was passed and would be adequate reason not to vote to reelect anyone currently serving in the US Congress.
When Medicare got itself into the pharmaceutical purchasing business it instantly made itself the number one purchaser of drugs in the US. This would have given our government the ability to negotiate across the board discounts on all pharmaceuticals on behalf of our senior and disabled consumers (I admit to being in the latter group). The marketplace could have been used to benefit all Americans.
This is what YOUR Congress did when they passed the bill.
They decreed that the Medicare establishment would purchase all drugs at the FULL RETAIL PRICE!
This in spite of the fact that Americans were already purchasing their meds from foreign sources who sold them at major discounts from what were available here in the good old US of A.
Congressional Representatives will reply to this criticism by saying “Well we had to make certain concessions to get the legislation passed…Now that we’ve established that Medicare can purchase drugs we can reform the legislation.” (this is known as the "camel getting his nose into the tent" approach to lawmaking.)
Meanwhile the program is paying much more for Plan D than would be necessary and the Drug companies are raising their prices even more.

Helmet Importance...

Today marks the first anniversary of my bicycle accident on the Yough Trail near Perryopolis. The experience set my fitness program back big time last year because of injuries to my ribs, right elbow and left shoulder which also limited some of my swimming activities. Fortunately I was wearing a helmet at the time. Even then a rearview monocle mirror I had attached to the helmet was totally destroyed.
Not so with Steeler Quarterback Ben Roethlisburger who had an unfortunate motorcycle accident this morning in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, a subject of previous controversy.By all accounts the accident was caused by a motorist who made a left turn at the last moment in front of Ben who appeared to be on his way to the Steeler training facility on the Southside.
At last report Ben was still in surgery. He reportedly suffered:
A broken jaw
A broken nose
A sinus cavity fracture
An orbital fracture
A nine inch gash
Lost a number of teeth
Two sprained knees.
He was in serious but stable condition going into the surgery. The hospital has avoided making any statements about brain trauma such as concussions.
Our prayers are with him.

Bee Betting...

More proof that our culture is going straight to hell:

Tonight the finals of the National Spelling Bee will be televised on ABC.
Did you know that you can place bets on the Spelling Bee which consists of children 9 to 14 years of age?
The following “prop bets” are available with the current corresponding odds:
Will the winner be male or female?
Male: 5/7 (a $7 bet wins you $5); Female: 5/4
Will the winner be listed as "homeschooled"?
No: 1/3; Yes: 5/2
Will the winner be wearing glasses?
No: 4/7; Yes: 3/2
Will the winner be from east/west of Mississippi River?
East: 2/3; West: 4/3
The championship word will contain how many letters?
Over 10.5: 2/3; Under 10.5: 4/3
Will the championship word contain an "e"?
Yes: 5/9; No: 8/5
Will the championship word have alternate pronunciations?
No: 2/7; Yes: 3/1
Will the champion have a name no one can pronounce?
Yes: 1/9.
There are odds on the kids available too, if you are a wagering insider..

Is there anything else we can do to ruin a good thing?

Leg Pressing Overrated...

We’ve been hearing a lot about leg pressing in the news lately. Earlier this month Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State, made the news with the assertion that she can “leg press” 400 pounds.
Today we are informed that TV Evangelist Pat Robertson has “leg pressed” 2000 pounds. Persons who have seen the image evidence of Robertson’s feat say the weight he is working with only adds up to 1000 pounds. ..so some are clearly working with different definitions.
I used to do leg presses as part of my fitness workout in the mid eighties. The most I ever did was 800 pounds, but that was doing 8 to 12 reps, 3 sets. I never actually tried to see what the max I could do was.
You see leg presses are done in a levered piece of equipment. You are not setting 400 pounds on your shoulders and doing knee bends like Olympic weightlifters.
You sit at between a 35 to 55 degree angle (it varies by machine) and support, then draw down and push away the weight which is on a greased track. There is a mechanical advantage involved here where you are able to push more weight for a short distance. The machine is designed to safely support the weight when you aren’t doing the reps and probably absorbs some of the weight in its structure.
I see 110 lb women every day at the club I belong to leg pressing 400 - 600 pounds repeatedly.
It's not as difficult as it sounds!

Residential Housing...

The big story in Western Pennsylvania today is that the "Capitol Police" have come to the Pittsburgh Suburb of Penn Hills to investigate "threatened harm allegations" involving
tresspassing on US Senator Rick Santorum's "home state residence house".
Some in the Pittsburgh area claim that Santorum's house is a sham, that it has only two bedrooms (the Santorums have six children), that the Senator hasn't lived in it since he was elected to the Senate and that Santorum's real residence is a million dollar home he owns in Leesburg, Virginia.
To some locals the house has always been a point of contention, Democrat Party activists have always made this complaint although I'm certain that many Dem Senators and Congressmen own residences in Virginia or Maryland where they really reside. My mom asserts that the Santorum "in laws" live in a large home on an adjacent Penn Hills property.
The property was also prominent in the news this past year when it was learned that 5 of the Santorum children were enrolled in a Pennsylvania Cyber School at Penn Hills School District taxpayer expense. Senator Santorum has since withdrawn his children from the cyber school.
Why "The Capitol Police"?
Created by Congress in 1828, the original duty of the United States Capitol Police was to provide security for the United States Capitol Building. Today their mission has expanded to provide the Congressional community and its visitors with the highest quality of a full range of police services. These services are provided through the use of a variety of specialty support units, a network of foot and vehicular patrols, and fixed posts.

Today's United States Capitol Police Officer has the primary responsibility for protecting life and property; preventing, detecting, and investigating criminal acts; and enforcing traffic regulations throughout a large complex of congressional buildings, parks, and thoroughfares. Additionally, the protection of Members of Congress, Officers of Congress, and their families is expanded by statute to the entire United States, its territories and possessions, and the District of Columbia.

So the Capitol Police serve a similar function for members of both houses of Congress as the Secret Service does for the President and visiting foreign leaders.
A local news report recently stated that a "Casey operative" had peered in the windows of the "residence" (and reported there were no curtains and no furniture) and that allegation is the basis of the investigation.
Bob Casey is the Democrat Candidate who will be opposing Santorum for the Senate in November. He has denied that any member of his campaign is involved in this matter.

Silver Sneakers...

Many of you are aware that one of the things I do for exercise is swim. For the past few years I have done most of my swimming at a well known fitness club located near my home. I’ve not been totally satisfied with this arrangement primarily because of the condition of that particular pool. To be blunt the pool area has been rather dark, the water has a green tint to it and there has been “mustard algae” growing on the pool wall all this time. Now I understand the darkness was caused by the lack of lighting and the green tint is caused by the presence of manganese in the water, but having worked around pools I know the algae is the result of neglect on the part of the club‘s staff.
Recently because I have a medicare health advantage plan called “Highmark Freedom Blue” I was invited to participate in a program called “silver sneakers”. The program is essentially a free health club membership for people who have this particular insurance. Since I already have a paid up lifetime membership at this other club this membership is a bonus for me.
About 30 different clubs in Western Pennsylvania have “silver sneaker” arrangements in one form or another. My own club participates but on a limited basis. The silver sneaker membership there is restricted to certain hours on certain days (e.g. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday between 9 am and 4 pm).
The only other facility reasonably near to me with a pool is the JCC of the South Hills located in Scott Township. I had heard it had a really nice pool so I went there with my silver sneaker’s invitation. What they offered me was a full membership with no restrictions as long as I use the facility at least 3 times a month!
The pool is beautiful, about twice as wide as the one at my club, well lit, clean and the water is blue. There are four lanes set aside for lap swimming at all times and these are each about 30 % wider than you would normally find in an indoor short course pool so two people can comfortably swim parallel in each at the same time.
When I started swimming there I increased my workout from 40 lengths (1000 yards) to 44 lengths ( 1000 meters). 44 lengths actually works out to 1100 yards which is about 7 yards further than 1000 meters or a little less than the distance I go when I “push off the wall”.
So now I’m measuring my swimming distance in meters… thus far I’ve swam 9000 meters since I joined at the end of last month.
Since I joined the JCC my regular club improved its pool area lighting about 300% (not because of my complaints).
One other advantage I’ve yet to attempt is to combine the swim with a bike ride. This facility is on the way to one of my favorite bike rides, the seven mile panhandle trail from Walkers Mills to MacDonald in Washington County. I’ll probably try that next week when it’s a little warmer

Update...

Since I haven’t posted much lately I thought I might give a general update on things I have previously discussed.
Art Buchwald is still alive and writing in a Washington Area Hospice long after his hospice benefits have run out.
A prominent renal specialist predicted in early March that 3 months was the longest a dialysis patient could live without treatment. Art stopped his dialysis on February 6.
Sean Casey who is making $ 8.5 million this year played in only 9 games for the Pirates this season before injuring his back in a fluke accident at first base. He was hitting .313 at the time. He is not expected back on the field until July.
No one has spotted an “ivory billed woodpecker” in
Arkansas since I wrote about the search last November 26. Since that excitement however the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has suggested one might be seen in their Okefenokee Swamp if one searched there. The last time a ivory billed was seen in Georgia was 1942.
Also the Government of Cuba is asserting that there might still be ivory billed woodpeckers on their island where they were observed in the last century.Exxon Mobil and Sunoco continue in their profit making ways. That subject is my number 1 hit reference followed still by Coach Cowher’s infidelities, the “snap on smile”, and Tiger Woods.
My laptop came back safely yesterday. The repair summary said it had a “defective hard drive” which was replaced. The whole process didn’t cost me a dime and the computer is working like new and better than it ever did. Of course I lost “everything”, but was prudent enough to save anything important to me before I sent it off. I don’t recommend this for anyone else but I saved my series of important links by posting them on this site using the “draft” instead of “publish” option.
Hang in there Art..

Louis Rukeyser: 1933 - 2006...

Louis Rukeyser has died.
If that name isn’t familiar to you it is understandable. Rukeyser made his life’s greatest successes in the niche area of television financial reporting, a world in which he was an unquestioned pioneer.
I remember when Louis was a national financial correspondent for ABC News in the late 60’s. I wasn’t aware of a parallel career he had as a financial writer for Tribune Media Services.
In early 1970 Rukeyser was approached by Maryland Public Television (MPT) to develop and host a financial show for PBS. The result was the show “Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser” which ran for 32 years on Friday evenings with him as its host. The only show ever running longer on national TV was CBS’s 60 minutes.
Like for many others my current interest in financial investments was kindled by watching Louis’s show in the mid 90’s. Rukeyser reportedly cautioned his guests to talk about “money” not economics. That formula worked for both the show and PBS which for many years relied on the strong contributions received from the show’s followers.
In 2002 Louis was dismissed by upstart management who thought he was too old. Two years after Rukeyser’s dismissal Wall Street Week was cancelled because its loyal watchers no longer tuned in.
Louis died of multiple myeloma, a rare cancer of the bone marrow, yesterday in Greenwich, Connecticut. He was 73.

Computer Madness...

Those of you who have read this blog and comments for a while may be aware that I have two functioning laptops in my home, both of which are capable of doing anything technical this site has required. The newer of the computers I purchased a little over a year ago from Office Depot.
Lately I have been having problems with this newer laptop..a Toshiba Satellite A75. Besides being inconsistent with its audio performance it has recently taken to overheating and turning itself off. Fortunately none of these “shutdowns” has ever occurred while I was doing something important with it..
In my latest adventure in trying to get repairwork done I discovered some things:
1. There is ALWAYS a busy signal when you attempt to call an “800 help line.”
2. Anyone representing a warranty provider will try to get out of the responsibility of helping you.
3. Those things a service warranty says to get you to purchase it are BS.
e.g. “carry-in/drop-off service will be provided for notebooks. With thousands of service facilities nationwide reliable service is always nearby.” (It turns out that if something is really wrong with your laptop it is going out of town whether you like it or not).
Yesterday I finally got hold of someone at the 800 number. They informed me that they will be forwarding me a carton in which to send them the malfunctioning computer. In the meantime they advised that I do what I can to save anything important in the laptop in some other form because the nature of my problem suggests I will probably lose the hard drive if not the whole computer itself. So I may be getting a new computer several weeks from now…yeah right..I’ve since read a dozen horror stories of what happens after you ship the computer off to the service warranty provider.

Scott Crossfield: 1921 - 2006...

One of my favorite movies is “The Right Stuff,” an 80’s classic based on Thomas Wolfe’s book of the same name about the relationship of 50’s era elite test pilots and the budding space astronaut program. Wolfe’s work thoroughly details that time when advanced jets were equipped with rocket motors at Edwards AFB and man first ventured into space.
A key figure in both the book and the movie was Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who chewed Beemans Gum while breaking the sound barrier for the first time. Many Americans only know of Yeager as a shill man for sparkplugs.
Another character, then in the book who was for cinematic expediency not portrayed in the movie was Scott Crossfield, the test pilot who was the first to successfully fly at Mach 2 or twice the speed of sound.
Crossfield was the most famous pilot of my youth, periodically flying various generations of rocket planes, the last one known as the X-15 at faster and faster supersonic speeds. He eventually flew the X-15 to an altitude of more than 88,000 feet, and a speed of 1,960 miles an hour, nearly three times the speed of sound.
The 84 year old Crossfield died on Wednesday when the single engine plane he was flying in bad weather crashed in mountains 50 miles northwest of Atlanta. At the time he was on a flight returning from Alabama to his home in Virginia. He was the only one on board the six passenger Cessna 210A located by the Georgia Civil Air Patrol yesterday.
He served with the US Navy as a fighter pilot and flight instructor during World War II.
According to NASA Scott was still flying approximately 200 hours a year in his eighties.

And now 'tis man who dares assault the sky . . .
And as we come to claim our promised place,
Aim only to repay the good you gave,
And warm with human love the chill of space.

Thomas G. Bergin

Spastic Tiger...

Sometimes I think the world is full of idiots.
Today Tiger Woods apologized for using the term "spaz" to describe his putting during the Masters, a remark that was criticized outside the United States as insensitive.
Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, said in a statement posted on Woods' Web site that the world's top-ranked golfer was "poking fun at himself and meant no disrespect to anyone."
Evidently in several countries, "spaz" is an offensive term for people with Cerebral Palsy. London-based Scope, formerly the Spastics Society, denounced Woods' remark as "appalling and insensitive," and international newspapers also criticized him.
In a televised interview after finishing third at the Masters on Sunday, Woods, 30, said he "putted atrociously. Once I got on the greens, I was a spaz."
I actually thought the word was inappropriate when Woods used it, but not because it was offensive. Most of the golfers during Saturday and Sunday rounds suffered on the wet greens at Augusta and had the unfortunate experience of having seemingly “perfect putting” going over and around the holes without the ball falling in.... everyone..well, except for Phil Michelson the winner.
When I was growing up the term “spaz” was known to all of us males. It meant when performing an activity sudden uncoordinated movement that interfered with performance, mostly in sports..
e.g. "When Mark turned 13 the youngster who had been the perfect little league player suddenly became a spaz in his awkward teenage years and never played the game again" …or …“I threw the basketball to Fred and instead of shooting it he became a spaz and threw it to the other team.”
None of us knew that the word had origins in foreign countries which were derogative toward people with Cerebral Palsy.,
I’m reminded of the opposite degree of political correctness when several years ago a Washington DC Mayor's Aide David Howard lost his job because he correctly described the stingy attitude of District’s city commission toward their budget as “niggardly”.

Tax Return Privacy...

I got a rude awakening this morning. Sometimes I miss stuff that I shouldn’t and maybe this story has been around every year and I’ve just missed it. As a “quasi libertarian” I generally come down on the side of privacy rights in almost every instance unless you are planning to blow my neighbors and myself up. We take for granted a certain amount of personal privacy when we deal with our Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants and Financial Advisors. Why? Because those confidentiality considerations are built into the “ethical” obligations of those who practice those professions.
I’ve always done my own taxes. Partly because I am “cheap”. I don’t think tax law is that complicated for a lay person who isn’t seeking a bunch of unusual shelters or ways to hide your money from the government. (The two audits I’ve gone through in 40 + years of doing my own returns aside…that’s another story). Just like I pick by own stock equities I rely on myself to prepare my 1040’s.
This morning I discovered that those of you who use "professional tax preparers" like H&R Block or Jackson Hewitt Tax Service (the two largest) have been giving up the privacy of your tax returns. Not to the government but to other businesses who have an interest in examining your return and are willing to pay them for the privilege.
How can they do this? In 1974 the IRS adopted rules which allowed the tax preparers to share your information with “affiliates” or to sell it to third parties. When you sign documents for the tax preparer permission to share the information is buried in the fine print.
The IRS is holding a hearing today about complaints about the abuse on the part of the tax preparers. Proposed are new rules that require explicit consent forms to be signed before the preparers share such information from now on. Resisting the new consent forms are the lobbyists for the preparers including the two famous ones listed above. What a bunch of jerks who clearly don’t have the best interests of their clients at heart.

Happy April Fools Day...

Cinderella's Superstition...

When you follow sports closely you eventually find that superstition often plays a role in your hero’s sports psyche of winning. We’ve all heard of athletes who always eat the same meal before going into competition or carry a lucky token or charm during contests. Many of these superstitions or “lucky habits” are related to clothing.
Some pitchers when on a winning streak will wear the same undershirt until they lose. Tiger Woods for years has been notorious for wearing “blood red” clothing on the final day of a golf tournament (the tradition started as a tribute to his friend Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bull’s colors), this year the color has taken on a “pink” tint but he’s still winning.
Bursting on to the national sports scene this past weekend is Jim Larranaga, Coach of the George Mason Patriots, an eleven seeded participant in the NCAA Basketball Tournament which has made it to the Final Four by defeating the University of Connecticut yesterday. What is Larranaga’s supersition? He never wears any of his opponents’ colors on the sideline during a game. One can already predict there will be no orange or blue in his tie or suit next Saturday when he faces Florida.

Home Free...

I’m back from my jury duty obligations. I didn’t make it through the voir dire phase of the proceedings where the opposing attorneys and the judge or his representative exclude/select the jury panel and alternates. I was put into a group of 39 persons who were considered for a high profile local murder case. All of us were required to fill out a standard questionnaire which was supposed to examine our beliefs, attitudes and fitness to serve.
I truly expected to be excluded by the defense on the basis of my background as a relatively well educated former teacher, investigator and officer of the court.
I wasn’t surprised however, when the prosecutor wanted to know the nature of my physical disability and medications I was taking. After I answered him completely he informed me “We’re going to do this without you.” and excused me from service for this trial. A couple of hours later when I was being excused completely from jury duty it was obvious nearly everyone in that group had been excluded. Sometimes it takes several days to empanel a jury and this trial isn’t expected to begin until next Tuesday.
One of the clerks stated that due to a new policy that was being implemented it was unlikely that any of us would ever be asked to serve in Allegheny County Courts again.

Jury Duty...

I’m tentatively scheduled to have jury duty tomorrow. I received a summons several weeks ago which says this afternoon I’m supposed to call an Allegheny County Courthouse number after 4:00 PM whereupon an answering machine will tell me whether to report or not.
I have a little trepidation which I haven’t had before. What if the bathroom breaks aren’t frequent enough for my over sixty bladder? What if the lawyers are boring and I nod off during a trial?
My sister told me she was called for jury duty twice in her life, once here and once in Philadelphia. Neither time did she actually sit on a jury..just in a waiting room they were drawing prospective jurors from. Maybe that will happen for me.
I served on a Federal Grand Jury for about 18 months in Key West back in the late 70’s while I was still teaching kindergarten. We met four or five times during that period.
We only had two serious cases come before that Grand Jury. One was the notorious Audubon House burglary case where the one of only four existing sets of the Audubon Elephant Portfolios was stolen and the culprits needed to be indicted. The other was a gun running case.Most of our time was taken up handling the most common cases in Federal System then, the theft of senior citizens’ social security checks, usually from ones mailbox. Almost all of these cases were the same. An Assistant US Attorney would appear with several Miami based FBI agents. (none of these cases ever came from the Florida Keys or Key West during this period).
A person would report that they hadn’t received their Social Security Check and would discover after complaining that it had been cashed. The FBI would retrieve the check from the SS Administration and inspect it for fingerprints. They would discover the fingerprints of the daughter, niece, son-in-law, next door neighbor etc. on the check and bring the evidence to us for the indictment. This happened dozens of times during my jury tenure. It doesn’t occur as much today because the SS Administration has gotten most people to have their checks directly deposited.
I hope that if I do actually wind up on a jury it will be an interesting case.

Contemplating the Universe...

Astrophysicists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland announced yesterday that data from the WMAP Satellite launched in 2003 supports the decades old “Big Bang Theory” of the origin of the Universe. The new information based on the study of background radiation glare indicates that the Universe is vastly larger than previously thought.
Other significant findings:
1. The study supports the theory of "inflation", that is that the Universe expanded outward at a rate faster than the speed of light.
2. “Normal matter” the kind of stuff humans can sense with their eyes like Planets, Stars, comets, each other etc. makes up only about 4 % of the combined matter and energy of the universe. The rest is made up of “dark matter”, invisible and exotic physical particles and “dark energy”, a gravity defying force behind the continuing expansion of the universe.
3. Stars first appeared 400 million years after the Universe’s origin.
4. At the moment of origin the whole process started from something the size of a “marble”.
I would be totally lost at this point except for the fact that my son as a seventh grader explained to me that my thinking was limited to what I could physically sense with regard to density and that the space between molecules, atoms and particles was a lot larger or smaller than one would normally contemplate.
I’m the only person I’m acquainted with who both bought Steven Hawking's Book “A Brief History of Time” and actually read it from cover to cover.
Even so would someone please explain to me…Where did that “marble” come from?

Et Tu Brute...

Today was the 2050th anniversary of the assassination of Julius Caesar. That would be “Caesar” as in a root word important enough from which European leader words were derived from it like Kaiser and Czar.
When I was in high school we learned about Julius Caesar in three places:
1. World History where the Roman Empire was given an overview.
2. Latin Class (the language the Romans spoke) where Caesar’s letters from Gaul were introduced.
3. 10th grade English where every student in Pennsylvania was exposed to Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar" and required to commit to memory a given number of lines from the play that reciting any one Marc Antony speech was not quite enough.
On March 15, 44 BC Julius Caesar, the Ruler of the Roman Empire was murdered in Pompey's theater as the Roman Senate convened a meeting there by a group of conspirators led by Cassius and Brutus. When the murder of the populist Caesar was not well received by the public both Cassius and Brutus fled to Greece where they ultimately committed suicide 2 years later when on the losing side of the Battle of Phillipi.
A key element in the assassination was the betrayal of Brutus toward Caesar who had saved the former’s butt on more than one occasion. For many years historians thought
Brutus was Caesar’s son because he was the son of the Emperor’s longtime mistress Servilia Caepionis and the Latin translation of Caesar’s final words were “and you too, Son”. However, eventually someone took the time to do some calculations and figured out that Caesar was an unheard of 15 year old when Brutus was born. Clearly though Brutus enjoyed a favored status with Caesar.
I still remember the two Marc Antony speeches I learned 44 years ago..

Happy Birthday to Me!

I turn 60 years old today..
As I face my seventh decade I find myself reflecting back on my past. I would like to think I've made a positive contribution to this world chief of which is having sired two wonderful children whose leadership will influence the world for the next forty years.
That's enough reflecting. Let the party begin!

Thanks Art...

I thought I’d take a stab at writing about somebody before they died.
The first newspaper columnist I remember reading on a regular basis was Art Buchwald. Art’s columns have been syndicated around the world for at least half a century.
I remember as a 10 year old child having my mother hand me the opinion section of the Pittsburgh Press to read a column skewering then Vice President Richard Nixon for some DC faux pas that was the news of the day. If you chose politics as a profession in this great country you were fair game for the wit and satirical sabre of the raspy throated Buchwald who dished it out without favor to Democrats and Republicans alike.
Art recently made a decision to allow himself to die with dignity. He doesn’t appear ill, but he has decided to forego thrice weekly dialysis treatments that would prolong his life. He stopped taking the treatments about 5 weeks ago and is currently living in a Washington DC area hospice. He is 80 years old.
In 1982 Art Buchwald won the Pulitzer Prize for Outstanding Commentary.
In 1989 he successfully sued Paramont Pictures whom he maintained stole his script idea for the movie “Coming to America” with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. The lawsuit set the precedent that a Motion Picture Company couldn’t hide behind the industry’s widely prevalent “no profit bookkeeping” to evade damages in a civil action.
Throughout his life Art has been compared to the famous satirist Jonathon Swift. Unlike others who plied the trade Buchwald has never been mean spirited in his writings.
Now he faces death with the same grace he has lived his life.

"Are You Nervous?"... "No!"

My first remembrance of comedian Don Knotts was on the old Steve Allen Variety Show. Don played one of Allen’s “man in the street” sidekicks. The basic premise of Knott’s character was an extremely anxious interviewee who always responded to the inevitable question “Are you nervous?” with a resounding “No!”
Don’s big break in TV came when his friend Andy Griffith from a play and movie they both appeared in named “No Time for Sergeants” called up and offered him a job on Andy’s new Mayberry series. This was where Knotts established himself as one of America’s premier comic actors with the genius in which he played Deputy Barney Fife.
My mom watches two comedy shows on a daily basis. The old Andy Griffith Show and Seinfeld. Recently I’d taken to pointing out to mom that when Jerry Seinfeld himself is at his funniest on his show he is often using “recycled Don Knotts bits”. While I can’t put my finger on one at the moment if you watch when the script calls for Jerry to be funny as an actor he often uses Knott’s schtict that set a comedy standard 40 years before.
Don died last night in Los Angeles of pulmonary and respiratory complications. Reportedly his old friend Andy was at his bedside at the end.
Not being a “Three’s Company” fan I missed Don’s partial reinvention of himself in the early 80’s as the landlord character Ralph Furley. He also appeared on Andy Griffith’s “Matlock” show from time to time. His movie career spanned a half of a century starring in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”, “The Incredible Mr. Limpet”, “The Reluctant Astronaut”, “The Love God” , “The Shakiest Gun in the West”, and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” with Tim Conway. He also appeared in my favorite comedy movie “It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World”, and “Pleasantville”.
Don was raised in nearby Morgantown, West Virginia where they named a street after him in 1998. He was 81.

Old Guy Hunting...

It just might be time for the Vice-President of the United States to put away his firearms and stop trying to project his first hunter persona.
About once every three months Dick Cheney shows up in a different region of the country and goes on one of those LBJ style hunting outings where various birds of a feather are pre-stocked in advance of his party and basically a shotgun intensive slaughter takes place. Whether or not the unfortunate fowl are collected and shipped back to the Blair House freezers is not known but the VP’s prowess with a shotgun is always noted.
Saturday, unfortunately Mr. Cheney hit more than the quail that were the bird of the month. Mr. Harry Whittington 78, an Austin attorney and longtime Republican Contributor was hit in the face, neck and chest by shotgun pellets from the VP’s gun when Cheney thought he was firing at a covey of quail that arose suddenly behind him. Mr. Whittington is reportedly doing fine in a Corpus Christi area hospital. Described as a friend of the VP Whittington evidently had come up unannounced behind the hunting party and may have been partially responsible for disturbing the quail which Cheney suddenly swung around 180 degrees to shoot at.
Ironically Whittington was once appointed by then Texas Governor George W. Bush to the Texas Funeral Commission.
Whether a cover up of the accident was intended is not known but the VP’s office did not report the incident until after 24 hours had passed. The public began to learn of the accident on the Corpus Christi Caller-Times website after one of their reporters noticed Whittington’s name on a hospital admittance report.
Cheney reportedly had been at Whittington's bedside Sunday afternoon.

Michaels Traded for Cartoon Rabbit...

In perhaps one of the most unusual trades in sports history it was announced today by NBC that it had acquired Al Michaels from ESPN for pre Mickey Disney Cartoon Character "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit".
I’m not making this up.
Al is associated with two momentous events in the history of broadcasting, the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" and the 1989 World Series where he happened to be behind the mike at Candlestick Park when an earthquake struck San Francisco.
Michaels was signed to a $ multi-million 4 year contract with Disney affiliate company ESPN last June to do play by play on ESPN’s new Monday Night Football. Yesterday it was announced that Michaels had opted out of the Monday Night booth and Mike Tirico was chosen to take his place. Behind the scenes ESPN and NBC were negotiating to bring Michaels to NBC’s Sunday Night booth reuniting him with John Madden his broadcast partner from MNF who had previously signed with NBC.
As compensation for Michael's contract Disney/ESPN wanted intellectual property rights held by NBC. These included the opportunity to telecast Friday night coverage of the next four Ryder Cups, expanded highlight coverage of the Olympics and the rights to Oswald the Rabbit.
Oswald was Uncle Walt’s first public cartoon character starring in 26 silent cartoons between 1927 and 1935 and served as a prototype for Mickey Mouse. The rights to the silent rabbit became lost to Universal Studios in 1928 and eventually found their way into NBC’s vault.
NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol in making the announcement said he had been trying to make the deal with Disney/ESPN since last summer.

Mr. Tony MNF!

It was announced today that Washington Post columnist and sports commentator Tony Kornheiser has been chosen to join the new ESPN Monday Night Football broadcast booth along with Mike Tirico and Joe Theismann.
I am a big “Mr. Tony” fan. Most people know Tony from appearing with Michael Wilbon on the Emmy winning ESPN show “Pardon the Interruption”. Those in the Washington D.C. area know him not only for his sports columns but also for the “humor” columns he did for many years in the Sunday “Style” section of the Post.
Tony has also done a sports radio talk show in Washington for about 16 years, several of which were nationally syndicated by ESPN. I listen to his 2 hour show M-F on “Sportstalk 980's" internet site.
There is speculation now that Tony will have to give up the radio show because he doesn’t like to fly and will have to spend a lot of time traveling to the various Monday Night Football venues next year.
I’m fairly certain that Tony will make both a positive and humorous contribution to MNF..

Coach Cowher Update...

I'm sorry to keep bringing this up....What possesses people to google the words "Bill Cowher extramarital affair"??

Even though I have dropped to being the # 20 reference on this subject..sixteen (16!) of my last 100 site hits are this inquiry..

There is NO EVIDENCE Coach Cowher has ever cheated on his wife WHATSOEVER!

Happy Birthday Wolfgang...!

Just thought we'd a give a big shoutout to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart who would be celebrating his 250th birthday if he were alive today...


HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Stetson Law Trial Team Still Winning...

Below is the press release from Stetson University College of Law concerning the victory of its trial team in the Florida Bar's Mock Trial Competition concluded in Miami on January 19. Our beloved "Redington Pirate" is standing next to Arturo Rios who is holding the trophy along with other team members Angie Torrents and Senovia Lance. Congratulations to Stetson Law and the Pirate!
The winning trial team and Florida Bar members and President-photo courtesy The Florida Bar

Stetson Law trial team wins the Chester Bedell Memorial Mock Trial Competition in Miami Jan. 19

January 25, 2006
Contact: Brandi Palmer
Communications Specialist
(727)562-7381

Gulfport, Fla. - The Stetson University College of Law Trial Team won The Florida Bar Chester Bedell Memorial Mock Trial Competition for the 16th time on Jan. 19 in Miami.

Stetson’s team of Arturo Rios, Angie Torrents, Senovia Lance and the Redington Pirate defeated students from Florida State University in the final round of the state-wide competition.

Rios was named Best Advocate for the competition. Judge David Demers, Susan Demers, Creighton Shafer and Professor Roberta Flowers coached the winning team.

“This is a premier, annual statewide competition and Stetson has won more than half of the total competitions,” said Professor Lee Coppock, who directs the trial team program. “The trophy is deservedly coming home this year.”
Coppock, a Stetson grad, was part of the trial team that won the Chester Bedell trophy in 1996.

In November, a Stetson Law trial team won both first and second place at the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers 2005 Honorable E. Earle Zehmer Memorial Mock Trial Competition and won first place at the 15th Annual Cathy Bennett National Criminal Trial Competition.

###

Stetson University College of Law is Florida’s first law school. It has educated lawyers for more than a century and offers continuing legal education programs for regional, national and international audiences. Stetson is tied for first in advocacy and third for legal research and writing by the 2006 U.S. News & World Report national rankings and is the headquarters for the National Conference of Law Reviews.

Lemieux Retires...

Mario Lemieux has decided once again to end his National Hockey League playing career.
The Penguins player-owner announced his decision today at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.
"This is always a difficult decision for any athlete to make," Lemieux said. "If I could still play this game I would be on the ice."
The 40-year-old Hall of Famer cited his health and family as reasons to stop playing.
Lemieux learned in early December that he has atrial fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat that can cause his pulse to flutter wildly and must be controlled by medication.
He said the decision to quit was in "the best interest of myself, my family and the Pittsburgh Penguins."
Leieux retired for the first time in 1997 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame later that year. He is seventh on the all-time NHL scoring list with 690 goals and 1,033 assists in 915 career games. Lemieux had seven goals and 15 assists in 26 games this season.

Pittsburgh Sports Streaks

Bloggers usually write about what’s on their minds. I haven’t written much recently because I’m a BIG sports FAN and that’s what has been on my mind. Unfortunately most of my regular blogging audience doesn’t really respond when I write about sports. Which is probably the way it should be because sports tends to be a localized and I am building an international audience.
Three of my favorite sports teams are involved in STREAKS at the moment:
The Ice Hockey playing Penguins are in last place and unfortunately have lost 8 games in a row…and I’ve watched about 80 percent of their games on TV. Here is a picture of Sid “the kid” Crosby who is having a great “rookie” season despite the team's poor performance.
The next team is the University of Pittsburgh basketball Panthers who are undefeated with a record of 15 and 0 ( 4 and 0 in the Big East). This was a surprise to us locally who thought last years graduation would leave the team weak for a few years.
Finally there are the Pittsburgh Steelers who through last weekend's defeat of the Indianapolis Colts have made their way to the AFC Championship Game this Sunday in Denver. The Steelers have won their last 6 games.
Locally the populace has spent this past week lamenting the bad officiating in the Colts game instead of getting excited about playing Denver. This has led some national commentators to assert that the Steelers will lose because their fans think last week was their “superbowl”. I hope they are wrong.

Here It Is...

A little over 26 years ago I had the opportunity to meet Jimmy Buffett personally. This is my story and its background:
On January 24,1980 The Tennessee Williams Fine Art Center of Florida Keys Community College had its Gala Grand Opening with a production of “Will Mr. Merriweather Return from Memphis,” a Tennessee Williams play chosen for the occasion. This was not however the first event ever held in the then state of the art theatre.
When the theatre was experiencing a shortfall of funds to operate its first season Mrs. Flo Thompson, a Key West socialite prevailed upon her former neighbor and friend Jimmy Buffett to do a benefit concert prior to the Gala opening to raise money for the theatre. Jimmy agreed to do this and the event became a tune up for a 1980 winter tour he and the Coral Reefer Band were about to embark on. This concert took place in the theatre several weeks prior to the Grand opening.
A few days before the concert I received word from Bill Seeker, the recently hired President of FKCC, through my then wife Beth that it would be nice if Jimmy would receive one of our Chamber of Commerce welcome packets and would I arrange with the Mayor of Key West to present a “Key to the City.” This was something routine to me so we got to work on it.
The next day the Mayor’s secretary called me on the phone.
“Sonny says come over to the office. I have the key for you. He refuses to meet with Jimmy Buffett and says he has authorized you to present ‘the Key’ .” She then explained to me that Jimmy had given $1,000 to Mayor McCoy's opponent in the last election.
This turned out to be the only in time in five years of being Executive Director of the Greater Key West Chamber of Commerce, Inc. I was ever authorized to present the key to the city.
Now I was and am a big Jimmy Buffett fan. I owned every album he’d made up until that time (I even had a cassette once of an album he’d made while in Nashville before anyone ever heard of him). A month before I’d stood in line for the right to buy four tickets to this concert (and donate four tickets to FKCC students) so that my family could attend. Being at the front of the line we got tickets in the first or second row.
The day before the concert Beth called me at work. “Bring the gift pack and the key with you to my office at 2 PM this afternoon..We have a surprise for you.” The surprise turned out to be that we were going to “sit in” on the "sound check/rehearsal" of Jimmy and his band. It turned out that the band hadn’t been together for 6 months and did a full rehearsal of the show with three people sitting in the audience; Dr. William A. Seeker, the now Beth Blair of Apalachicola, Florida (a part time Florida lobbyist) and one Jipzeecab. How cool was that! It also was the first time anyone did anything in that theater.
When the rehearsal was over we went to the green room to meet Jimmy. I remember that he wanted a “coke” right away which someone got him from a vending machine.
Then I presented him with his goody bag and the KEY to the City of Key West. This was his response:
“Well, thank you very much. This is the first time I’ve ever been given the key to a city. Do you think this might get us into the kitchen at Logun’s Lobster House (a famous local restaurant) at 3:00 AM.”
That evening a party was held at the home of Captain Hugh McMurphree,ret. in Key Haven to honor Jimmy. In attendance was Tennessee Williams.
Kate Schweppe Moldawer, heiress to the ginger ale and tonic fortune attempted to introduce Jimmy to her famous playwright friend. Tennessee was totally out of it and ignored Buffett completely despite the fact that Jimmy was raising tens of thousands of dollars for a theater which bore his name. I personally think the late playwright could have cared less that the fine arts center was named after him either.
So that’s my story..except for one other thing. Jimmy is noted nowadays for having a clause in his performance contract that says “if anyone opens a door during a sound check, Buffett is released from performance and must be paid his full fee.”

Grandma's Bowl...

Tonight's main TV event is the Fed Ex Orange Bowl from Miami, Florida or as it is known this year in this household GRANDMA's Bowl!

Both of my sister's children attended Penn State University...were in the traveling band there. My son (the Pirate) and daughter-in-law and my son-in-law all went to Florida State University. Duchessadele graduated from the FSU Law School but attended the University of Florida as an undergraduate. Her Gators defeated Iowa 31 - 24 yesterday in the Outback Bowl.

The undercurrent story in the Orange Bowl is of course the two head coaches. Penn State's Joe Paterno and FSU's Bobby Bowden have been running neck and neck for several years now in a race to be the alltime winningest coach. Currently Bobby Bowden is 6 wins ahead of Joe Paterno in the official total with 359 to 353. Eddie Robinson coached Grambling University to 408 wins before retiriing in 1997.

The game is also the "poster child" for what is wrong with the "Bowl Championship Series". Florida State with a 2005 season record of 8 and 4 is in the game because it won the ACC Championship game. Normally a team with 2 losses would be lucky to get into one of the five major bowls. But the Orange Bowl is delighted because both teams "travel well" (they bring lots of well healed fans with them who will spend a lot of money in Miami). Penn State (ranked #3) is heavily favored over FSU (ranked # 22).

If Grandma is favoring one School over the other she isn't saying. She watches both teams when their games are televised here but because FSU is in another region it isn't on TV as much..

Happy New Year...!

Nothing fancy..just saying


Happy New Year WORLD !!

..

Video....

A big THANK YOU to NoPT4Lent and Phinky who heard my Holiday Season plea for a videocodezone monitor that plays Jimmy Buffett..!

Christmas Pandas...

Could we get any cuter on Christmas than to show some pandas? I don’t think so...
There are now giant pandas on exhibit in four US Zoos; Washington DC, Atlanta, Memphis and San Diego. The Washington and San Diego Zoos both had panda births this past year bringing the total of giant pandas in the US to 11.
It is estimated that there are approximately 1600 pandas living wild in China. The pandas in US Zoos are mostly on loan from that country and the cubs that are born will eventually be taken back to China.
Pandas love to eat bamboo so you probably wouldn’t want them around your wicker or rattan furniture as cute as they are.
If you would like to see some pandas LIVE click on the title of this post which links to the streaming web cam in the panda habitat at the San Diego Zoo. It shows best during the daytime.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Ben's Thumb...

There has been only one thing on the collective of mind of Pittsburghers for the past four weeks. Is it the annual appearance of the Christmas Season or the unusually cold weather? No, it’s the current state of Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s right THUMB..
“Big Ben” as he is known around here injured the thumb while playing against the Indianapolis Colts (a loss) on Monday Night November 28. He subsequently gutted out game appearances against Cincinnati (another loss), Chicago (a win) and Minnesota (another win).
Is the thumb broken, chipped or tendon torn or all three? No one is quite sure and Ben and the Steelers are not saying. The controversy even resulted in the public humiliation of local KDKA TV news reporter John Shumway who dared to press Coach Cowher on the subject at a press conference ten days ago. The one thing we do know is that when the current football season ends for the black and gold is that Big Ben will be having surgery to fix it.
The Steelers record is 20 and 4 in games in which Roethlisberger has started. He currently has a quarterback rating of 102.00 which is barely surpassed by rival quarterbacks Peyton Manning 104.3 and Carson Palmer 102.6.
The Steelers must win both of their last two regular season games against Cleveland and Detroit to appear in the playoffs so the riddle will continue until they lose again or Ben becomes sidelined with another injury.
One thing is for certain. People around here love their Steelers and Big Ben.

Bush Pardons Moonshiners...

President Bush has pardoned two persons convicted for breaking the Nation’s moonshine laws. The President signed 11 pardons on December 20 including one for Charles McKinley of Pall Mall, Tennessee and one for Carl Cantrell of Monteagle, Tennessee.
McKinley said he was driving a friend around in 1949 and they stopped at his friend's still to get something to drink. Driving away, they were arrested. McKinley was convicted of IRS liquor law violations and given two years probation.
He said he never intended to sell moonshine, only drink it. "I just got in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said.
In Cantrell’s case he and some friends had set up a still on a
Tennessee mountaintop in 1966 “to make some extra money”. They were caught by Federal agents, convicted and sentenced to three years probation.
Several years ago Cantrell attempted to buy a deer rifle for his grandson. His purchase was rejected because he had been convicted of a felony. As a result he sought the Presidential pardon to clear his record.

Diamonds are Forever...

Imagine you’re employed by Harry Winston (a worldwide jewelry concern) in its flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. You’ve just hiked five miles to get to work this morning because the Transit Union has gone on strike and just before the store opens news breaks that the GIA may be under investigation by the Federal Government for fraud. All those diamonds under the counter you were hoping to sell at the last minute between now and Saturday are suddenly looking like the lumps of coal they originally were.
The GIA (short for Gemological Institute for America) certifies the quality of approximately 98 % of the World’s diamonds owing to its monopoly in the gem lab business. All jewels are graded for carat, clarity, color and cut. Those things add up to the perceived value of gems being traded.
The scandal began when a Saudi family purchased two diamonds ... one a 103.78-carat pear-shaped pendant, and the other a 37-carat ring ... that were supposed to be "flawless," the top of the chart on the clarity scale, and were given a top-rated color "D." Both received an institute certificate guaranteeing their quality. Having paid a whopping $ 15 million for the gems the new owner took them to an independent appraiser who found them to be of inferior quality and worth much less than the purchase price. The Saudis then demanded their money back from the seller Max Pincione who used to be the manager of the diamond room at Harry Winston Fifth Avenue. Mr. Pincione then sued the GIA.
As a result of the raucous the GIA conducted an internal investigation looking at transactions going back as many as 10 years ago and found that a supervisor and four employees had been accepting bribes to inflate the grades of diamonds from "a small community of dealers." This was out of a total of approximately 200 employees at the GIA’ s Manhattan lab. The employees were fired, and the results of the investigation have been turned over to prosecutors and a public announcement was made today.
Do you think Kobe Bryant’s wife Vanessa is getting her $ 7 million ring reappraised tomorrow. Probably… and our hypothetical Harry Winston employee is looking for a friend who drives to work…

Mission Impossible for the Rest of Us...

It was announced today that a British Company, Staellium UK has begun offering a service whereupon text messages will self destruct themselves soon after being read by their intended recipients.
The service is initially aimed at firms seeking greater security and celebrities who are aggravated at having their private messages suddenly appear in the tabloids because of their technical paper trail.
The new service for the moment is being called “StealthText". Both parties involved, the sender and the receiver must sign up for the service. The receiver of the communication connects with a third party link which contains the message and erases the text within 40 seconds of it being read.
As good as it sounds there is still a catch. To comply with legal requirements, the 'paper trail' and message log stays on a protected, secure server for a period of time before being completely deleted.
Still users won’t have to contend with the ensuing smoke coming out of their equipment like Mr. Phelps...

Sean Casey Returns...

Western Pennsylvania suddenly had a feel good sports story emerge this evening when it was learned that Major League first baseman Sean Casey is coming home to play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Casey, 31 was traded this evening by the Cincinnati Reds to the Pirates for lefthanded pitcher Dave Williams. Both players must pass physicals before the trade is complete. Casey suffered a season ending concussion on September 16, 2005 at PNC Park.
Casey started professional baseball in the Cleveland Indians organization playing six games of one season with the Indians before being traded to Cincinnati in 1998. He has played fulltime at first base for the Reds since then. He was selected to the National League All Star Team three times in the last eight years and has a career batting average of .305.
It is rumored that Cincinnati is picking up part of Casey’s 8.5 million dollar salary for 2006 as part of the deal. He becomes a free agent at the end of the 2006 season.
Sean was raised in the nearby suburb of Upper St. Clair. We are excited that he is coming home for at least one and hopefully many more seasons...

Like Pulling Teeth...

Yesterday I finally had my long anticipated appointment with the dental surgeon.
It went quite smoothly especially after the laughing gas was administered.
I've been in a semi morphine based stupor ever since..not bad.. not bad at all..
Tomorrow back to reality...

Arkansas Birding...

Rare bird enthusiasts have descended on Eastern Arkansas this weekend in search of the elusive ivory billed woodpecker. Called "birders" by conservationists and scientists these zealots each hope to be the one who spots the rare woodpecker thought for decades to be extinct until 21 months ago.
The ivory billed is the largest North American woodpecker, 30 % bigger than your run of the mill woodpecker...almost as large as a crow.
Environmental conditions in the Arkansas wetlands have prevented the hunt until now when the fall weather has reduced the overhead foliage and caused the retreat of poisonous snakes from the swamp. The best possible scenario would be for the searchers to find and record a nesting pair of these birds.
In February of 2004 a kayaker reported seeing one of these rare woodpeckers leading to the renewed interest.
The US Postal Service this year issued a $ 15.00 stamp to commemorate this bird.
It is both beautiful and magnificent. I can see why “birders” get so excited about it

Happy Thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

This will be our first Thanksgiving since I was one-upped by a turkey (June 13 post).
Grandma and I will be having our basic thanksgiving feast.
Now the real Holiday Season begins. Enjoy..
God Bless..

Browser Crash!..

I had a tough day computerwise today..
Under the guise of creating a new user profile my Firefox browser on my newer upstairs computer crashed and I lost all the bookmarks I’ve created since mid July. Since I have four other working browsers all was not lost since all “favorite” sites prior to July still exist on the other browsers. Still I will have to recreate at some point:
-All the NOAA Weather radar sites on the Gulf from Key West to Brownsville Texas and my local one.
-Dozens of humor sites I’ve collected.
-Blogs that I follow that aren’t on this site’s link list.
-WEBTV stations from all over the world.
-Radio stations that I listen to.
-Sports sites that I follow for statistics etc.
I guess it’s more of a time consuming nuisance than anything else.

Redington Pirate on Winning Team..!

This family was thrilled to learn yesterday that the Stetson Law School’s Trial Team had placed first in a National Contest sponsored by the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers held in Santa Fe, New Mexico November 3,4, and 5.
Our family member known in this blog as the “Redington Pirate” participated in various roles throughout the competition. The trial team was 5 and 0, undefeated in the contest which included teams representing law schools such as Georgetown, University of Florida, Alabama, Illinois, Fordham, Michigan State, and Loyola of Chicago. The “Pirate” is pictured below holding the first place plaque. His teammates in the front row of the picture left to right are Samuel Denny, Reneka Redmond, and Patricia Calhoun.
Patricia Calhoun was named the Cathy E. Bennett Best Overall Advocate in the competition. Calhoun and Stetson Law will be added to the NACDL trophy board in Washington, DC.
Competing teams argued a hypothetical death penalty case. Stetson was awarded $ 3,000 in scholarship money for its first place finish.
By winning Stetson earned an automatic invitation to the contest next year.

Congratulations Pirate...and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Losers Need to Just Shut Up!

Two Controversial American leaders have been unable to resist the opportunity to show their ignorance and stick their feet in their respective mouths after last Tuesday's elections.
The first, The Reverend Mr. Pat Robertson, who my blogging friend "Phinky" refers to as America's Radical Cleric, condemned all the voters of the greater Dover, Pennsylvania area to eternal damnation for recognizing "Intelligent Design" (a 21st century phrase fronting as "Creationism") for the nonsense that it is. God will no longer protect these people from tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, famine, pestilence and epidemics because of their transgressions at the great American ballot box suggests the founder of the "500 Club".
The other, Fox News Network's Bill O'Reilly, has suggested that the San Francisco area would make a great target for Al Qaeda terrorists and that it would be
appropriate because that community's voters chose last Tuesday to ban handguns and to no longer permit military recruiters to visit area high schools looking for manpower.
They both remind me of the type of kid we all knew as children who owned the only football in the neighborhood and when a decision in the game went against him took his pigskin and went home.
Except in these situations they are both adults and have hundreds of thousands of followers. At some point some of these true believers must peel themselves off from the mass and recognize that these two fools both are missing important parts of their brains.
They lost..they need to just shut up..!

Key Word Activity...

Today I thought I'd talk about blog key word activity. For those of you with extra technical wizardry hooked into your template you already know this means words or phrases that were used to find YOUR blog as research on the internet. Below is an example of "key word activity" which caused someone to find my blog. Mobil's Jipzee Cab is the 5th reference when you look up "Bill Cowher extramarital affair".: (For link click on post title)
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Mobil's Jipzee Cab
Grimm had recently broken off a two year affair with Ms. Coon. ... Bill Cowher, the Steeler coach and Jack Ham, a hall of fame linebacker, from the 70's ...
jipzeecab.blogspot.com/ - 153k
_____________________________________________________________________
I actually found this enormously amusing since there are in fact no real references derived when you google the Pittsburgh Steeler Coach's unyet determined hanky panky. I only mention Cowher once in my blog, briefly in an early post (January 12) noting simply that he had been interviewed on the radio. The word "affair" appears in the 'Life Imitates Art" post (October 13)and although the word "extramarital" doesn't appear it could have.
Because I am cheap and only track my last 100 visits (that's the "free" part) I only have three other "key word" searches at the moment.
"Snap-on Smile" and "Snap-on Dentures", (from the same post on July 30 ) and "Tiger Woods Swearing" (on August 22 although the "swearing part is in the comment section).
A week ago when oil profits were announced there were a lot of people looking at my "Screwing Exxon Mobil" post (August 26).
Obviously this is a fun byproduct of our blogging efforts.

Addendum: November 12, 2005 I am the number one reference in the world on Google if you ask the question; "Do you favor free mobil-mobil minutes on your cellphone?"
I think we've beaten this horse to death now.

Addendum: November 28, 2005 11:50 PM The Pittsburgh Steelers are losing badly to the Indianapolis Colts. I have had two Bill Cowher extramarital affair hits since the beginning of the 4th quarter. Oh, I'm now the number 1 and number 2 google references for that subject!

Winter is Coming...

Here’s a problem caused by Hurricane Katrina local officials here in Western Pennsylvania hadn’t thought about.
Whenever it snows around here in addition to plowing out the roads local communities lay down “rock salt” to melt the snow on top of the pavement. Every year the communities each buy thousands of tons of salt for this purpose. In a busy winter snow wise most of that salt gets used.
Much of the salt comes from the North American Salt Company whose main salt mine is located in Louisiana. The source of the salt was not damaged by Hurricane Katrina but the fleet of barges which carry the salt up the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio Rivers was damaged when Katrina’s storm surge swept and then deposited the barges onto the river’s levees.
The company says it can’t guarantee it will fill its orders in time for the winter driving season.

This Old Neighborhood...

Pictured below is an aerial view of the neighborhood we lived in 25 years ago on Racoon Key, near Key West.
This high resolution photo was taken by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in the past few days as a service to help identify damage from Hurricane Wilma. Usually our old neighborhood which is the one immediately on the right of the "highway" is not visible in detail on products like "Google Earth" because it sits roughly 2 1/2 miles from the runways of Boca Chica Naval Air Station. The picture can be enlarged here twice by clicking on it.
I don't know for certain if the area called "Key Haven" had serious flooding or not.
I do know from reading local papers that the area across the highway which is mostly mobile homes had about three feet of flooding. My downloaded version of this picture can be magnified to the point where one can see boats at a marina in that area piled up on each other.
Approximately 70 % of Key West was flooded when Wilma passed by and newspapers report that thousands of automobiles on the Island were ruined beyond repair by those flood waters.
Key West City Manager Julio Avael is estimating $ 100 million damage to the city from the storm.
Power and water have been restored to all but about 500 customers in the Florida Keys.

Kentucky Perking...

Justice (Random Thoughts of a Weary Traveler) has an interesting post this morning about a $36,300 grant from the Department of Homeland Security to a State of Kentucky Agency concerned with monitoring “Bingo Operations” in that State.
It brought to mind my brief brush with the State of Kentucky over thirty years ago as a meeting planner for an Ohio State University Research Project gathering information on how State Education Policy was made in different states.
My part of the project was to set up 5 one day regional meetings around the USA involving 10 states each for key players within those states to give feed back on certain governance models the project was developing.
As part of my duties I would pre research within each of the fifty states who the key people in each state making such decisions were and then prepare a list of invitees to the conference. My formula for choosing the invitees always started with 2 people from the Governor’s staff, two from the department of education, then various legislators and lobbyists based on local informants. On a certain date the invitations would go out for a meeting five weeks away.
The plan for the meeting was simple. It would be held at a Hotel at a regional airport so that it was possible that the participants could fly in early in the morning and fly out later the same day if need be. The meeting would start around 10:00 AM and end around 3:30 PM. For the convenience of the participants we would arrange with the hotel for a special room rate the night before (always a Wednesday ) and the night after (always a Thursday). There was no charge for the meeting itself although participants were responsible for their own costs including their own lunch for which the conference took a 1 ½ hour break.
When the meeting was actually held approximately five pre registered key people from each state would show up (around fifty altogether) and we would get the input from them we desired.
About ten days before our “Southern State Meeting” I received a phone call from the “Sheraton Atlanta Airport” wanting to know if I cared if our special rate was extended into the weekend for some participants. I replied that the Hotel could do whatever it wanted with its rates as long as it honored the prearranged one we had for the night before and after of the meeting. Then I asked them why?
The hotel representative then informed me they had received a $1,300 check from the Department of Education, State of Kentucky for 10 rooms for 4 nights each ($ 35 per/ Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday). I said "Oh".
The next day in the mail I received pre registration forms in one envelope for 10 Kentucky Department of Education employees ( 9 of whom were not on the invitation list). I pointed this out to my boss who simply said “The more the merrier..”
Fortunately for us on the day of the meeting the “ten” signed in then all but the one we had invited promptly disappeared. I hope they all had a nice Atlanta weekend on their “taxpayers’ nickel”.
Maybe they suddenly decided it was time for a retreat..

Martin and Lewis...

Tomorrow hitting the bookstores is a new book by Jerry Lewis entitled “Dean and Me” A Love Story. The book details the nine year successful comedy partnership of the late Dean Martin and the author Comedian Jerry Lewis.
As partners together in the early fifties Martin and Lewis played an astounding 8 live shows a day, 7 days a week at the Paramount Theater on Broadway year round when not playing on the road, netting each nearly a million dollars a year...an enormous amount of money back then…and that’s not counting the movies.
One of the great mysteries of my childhood was the sudden breakup of the two funny guys on black and white TV. The explanation I always heard was that each went his own way to develop his own career. The split made it easier for me to accept the breakup of some of my favorate musical groups as I got older. Fortunately, both continued to be successful as solo artists in music, movies, and TV.
Jerry looked a lot better this evening in an appearance on Letterman than the last time I saw him when his neck was swelled from a reaction to a life saving medication he had been taking. He didn’t sound that well, however, leading me to believe this book is part of a larger effort to make peace with the loose ends of his life.

Lookout Key West...Wilma is Coming..

I’ve gently commented on other people’s sites before on the topic of Key West’s real vulnerability to a severe hurricane. All hurricanes are dangerous monsters but some are worse than others.
I was fortunate that during a roughly twelve year stay no hurricane came sufficiently close to disrupt life on the island.
Key West has some natural defenses that protect it from the most dangerous portion of most hurricanes, the storm surge. The island is surrounded on the South and Eastern sides by “flats”…relatively shallow water 3 to 12 feet deep which extends outward to a “reef” 7 to 12 miles offshore. The reef and the flats neutralize wave activity because you need 3 and ½ feet of water depth for each foot of above the surface wave action. It’s also the reason people don’t go to the Keys to surf…there isn’t any. Please note that this doesn’t mean that water can’t rise and flood, it still can but it isn’t the same thing. The other natural defense that protects Key West from the South and East is the island of Cuba which has mountainous peaks on it which are notorious for breaking up the organization of the storms.
That said, Key West is very vulnerable to a hurricane that strikes the Island coming from the Southwest side. (pictured below).
This is the side the deepwater harbor is on, that people go to see the sunset everyday. It is one of the main reasons Key West grew and developed commercially. The US Navy operated a Naval Base here in the 19th and 20th Century. Caribbean cruise ships dock there nowadays as well as many other ocean going vessels.
Hurricane Wilma is currently a category 5 storm.
A late weekend arrival close to Key West coming from its current projected path could bring a 20 to 28 foot storm surge rolling right up the “main ship channel” and literally wipe the city of Key West off the face of the earth (The highest land point on the 3 ½ by 1 mile island “Solarus Hill” is a whole 12 feet above sea level). It happened once before, in 1846, when a powerful hurricane swept over Key West and left only three manmade structures standing. The inhabitants who survived were swept into the “mangroves” and held on until the storm was over.
I’m praying that this killer hurricane significantly weakens down to a puff of wind between now and a weekend Florida landfall.
(The Wilma Track Chart is being updated as it changes.)

Addendum: 10-22 2:30 PM It's 71 hours since this post was originally written. Wilma is still hanging around Cancun and its winds have dropped down to 110 mph. The forecasted track of the storm hasn't changed for over 4 days although the time line keeps lengthening. As presently projected even if Wilma goes directly over the Keys it will be similar to "Floyd" in 1987 which blew a few poles over and lifted off a roof or two, that is assuming the storm doesn't strengthen again and undergoes the additional weakening most forecasters are predicting.

Addendum: 10-23 11:50 PM The National Hurricane Center has upgraded Wilma to a category 3 with 115 mph winds + it is moving in at 18 MPH toward Key West coming from the worst angle possible. Things could get very nasty overnight on the island where approximately 20,000 people have chosen not to leave...I would expect major flooding of a type Key West has not seen from a hurricane since 1919.

Life Imitates Art...

Do you all remember 21 years ago when Farrah Fawcett appeared in a made for TV movie called “The Burning Bed”? Well..here in Western Pennsylvania this past month we had our own version of that story.
Bethel Park School Superintendent Dr. Ronald Grimm was severely injured in an apartment fire in Monroeville back on September 9. At the time the circumstances surrounding the fire were vague..ten persons had to abandon their apartments then due to the blaze.
Today the real story became clear when Beverly Coon, a school board member in the Baldwin Whitehall School District was arrested for attempted murder and arson.
Grimm had recently broken off a two year affair with Ms. Coon. She responded by spiking some “ladylocks pastry” she had made for him with a tranquilizer called Temazepam and then after he was asleep set his bed on fire.
Grimm was fortunate that his next door neighbor Jason Beatty and apartment manager Karen Klee were able to rescue him.
Ms. Coon was spotted on the property during the fire leading Allegheny County detectives to be suspicious. She is being held on $ 100,000 bond.
Dr. Grimm has yet to return to his school duties.

Jipzeecab--The Lost Episodes..

Those of you have been reading this for a while may have noted that around August 19 most of this blog "disappeared" due to a "technical accident".
Inititially we were able to restore some of the past posts to reflect the period we had been operating since late May.
Thursday and Friday I spent quite a bit of time restoring as much of the original blog as I could.
Today there are 9 additional posts from May, June and July that some of you haven't seen before, sadly with the comments lost forever.
Also still missing and gone permanently are at least two posts, one about the new Japanese robots and a second "Daily Trebekking" from the evening mom won "our end game"of Jeopardy.
I have taken the liberty of posting "new images" on some of the old posts that weren't there originally since all I had to work from were original drafts. Thank you for your patience.
All posts are currently displayed on this page which has been temporarily lengthened so you won't have to go into the archives.

PDA ing...

Yesterday I purchased probably the last “palm pda” I will ever buy. I have now owned 5 of them in 4 ½ years.
The first I think was a “Palm III” which I got in March of 2001. I broke the screen on it that July and immediately purchased an m100 to save the data. The m100 still works as good as new. It just needs some batteries.
In June of 2002 I bought a “color m130. This lasted only 6 months because the “digitizer” was damaged when I dropped it.
In January of 2003 I got an m515 to replace the m130. It has served me fine until recently. It still works very well. Unfortunately besides keeping appointment records and fitness records in it I use it mainly to play a child’s game called “placer racer”. After playing this game for about ten minutes the “digitizer” starts freezing up and causes me to “lose”.
I confess that I am addicted to this game. I started playing it a little over two years ago as an activity which I pursue while listening to the radio. This past April I finally won…it ends at level “255”. I haven’t gotten past level “140” since.
My new “Zire 72” comes with all kinds of bells and whistles the M515 didn’t have..like a built in video camera and mp3 capability, bluetooth etc. I got it really cheap because it is being discontinued…the Palm OS operating platform will soon be history.
Jim Meredith a Pittsburgh area investment guru predicted several years ago that eventually each of us will have an all purpose handheld which will combine computing,tv and communications all in one.
The Sony Treo, the last palm OS device, is an already obsolete step in that direction.

Getting Tagged...

I've been "tagged" by Rhiannon in some internet chain game I confess to not understanding.
I'm tagging the following bloggers before someone else does:

Bridget Jones
Phinky
Justice
McRubble
Quoortjester

Thank you in advance for your participation.

Follow these instuctions....
1. go into your archive
2. Find your 23rd post
3. Find the 5th sentence (or close to it)
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog with these instructions
5. Tag five other people to do the same

I don't have 23 posts showing because of a technical accident and I haven't completely restored some of the original posts so you will have to trust me that this is the 23rd post:

"Popcorn Anyone"

"Personal information has always been something the media has wanted to know about nominees. "

Good luck gang!

Legal Thinking...

I've nominated these two great legal minds for my Supreme Court..


Confirmation is a done deal...

Soups On....

I’ve noticed as I’ve grown older I make more obvious careless mistakes. I made one this past week which my mom noticed right away.
I do all of our shopping and on my list for Giant Eagle was 4 cans of “Cream of Mushroom Soup” something which I eat about 99 % of our family’s supply (about one can a week as an evening meal).
Mom saw on the store receipt “tomato soup” and asked if I had gotten the wrong soup.. Before I checked I knew she was right..those UPC codes have long worked exactly the way they were intended. Sure enough I had already stuck a four pack of “tomato soup’ behind a leftover 4 pack of Cream of Mushroom in our pantry.
For lunch today Mom had determined she was going to cut up some leftover pork and warm it up in some Mushroom soup for her lunch which she did before I cooked it for her in the soup. Somehow I managed to cut my right index finger on this particular soup can.
This was not intended to be a post paying homage to Andy Warhol, who coincidentally is buried within ten minutes walking distance from our home. I was surprised to discover that most of the Campbell soup “images” have some sort of Warhol connection..evidently for a profit making venture he painted the different varieties in addition to the famous tomato one.
Mom and I had a brief discussion about how several of the Campbell Soups (specifically tomato, cream of mushroom and cream of chicken) served as quick sauces for various recipes. She then told me she had two different “Campbell Soup Cookbooks".
Few know (other than immediate family) that my mother has an extensive cookbook collection. In fact her collection rivals the size of the offerings available at a bookstore like Borders filling up over two standard size home book cases. Most of the famous ones are there in several different editions, Betty Crocker, Better Homes and Gardens etc. She also has a bunch of ethnic ones she has collected over the years.
For her 80th birthday the family got her two huge volumes, a culinary reference dictionary and an interntional cookbook..both the ‘gold standards’ of the cooking industry. Of course she stopped cooking anything but short order stuff for herself about 10 years ago. I do most of our cooking now with her guidance.

Would You Believe?..

Don Adams whose Maxwell Smart character had a "shoe phone" two decades before Sports Illustrated promoted their subscription sales with one has died. He was 82 years old.
Adams was one of those lovable TV personalities who found himself typecast by the character he portrayed in the successful series "Get Smart" in the early 60's. He played agent "86" a bumbling superspy whose antics and misfortunes usually came together by the end of an episode to win out over his nation's enemy, "KAOS".
"Get Smart" twice won the Emmy for best comedy series with three Emmys for Adams as comedy actor.
Subsequent to doing"Get Smart" Adams briefly was host of the TV reality quiz show "Don Adams Screen Test". He also became the cartoon voice of "Inspector Gadget and the toon character "Tennessee Tuxedo".
He is credited from the "Get Smart Series" with adding two phrases to the American lexicon; "Would you believe.?. and "Sorry about that Chief".
Adams died of a lung infection late Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Don't Go Near the Water!..

It amuses me when we have to go to “merry old England” to learn what passes for news about ourselves.
This morning care of the United Kingdom’s “Guardian Unlimited” we learned that “36 killer dolphins are loose” in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to reporter Mark Townsend Houston, 36 dart wielding dolphins trained in anti terrorist tactics by the US Navy escaped from their training compound in a sound near Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana at the height of Hurricane Katrina. They have not been recovered.
Houston wrote:
“Leo Sheridan, 72, a respected accident investigator who has worked for government and industry, said he had received intelligence from sources close to the US government's marine fisheries service confirming dolphins had escaped.
'My concern is that they have learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who have simulated terrorists in exercises. If divers or windsurfers are mistaken for a spy or suicide bomber and if equipped with special harnesses carrying toxic darts, they could fire,' he said. 'The darts are designed to put the target to sleep so they can be interrogated later, but what happens if the victim is not found for hours?’”
One is supposed to think that the US Navy would be so stupid as to leave “armed trained dolphins” at the mercy of a Hurricane…
I can believe that their handlers turned them loose to fend for themselves in the storm….but not with their weaponry.

Havana Taxi..

Above is a picture of a “gypsy cab” in Havana. Basically this is a motor scooter for the driver with a wide rear axle to support a 2 person passenger shell.
I hope there aren’t many instances when the normal Cuban motor vehicle (below) crashes into one of these taxis..

Popcorn Anyone?

This past week ideologues on the left and right tried to get Chief Justice Nominee John Roberts to utter words which would coalesce their support or opposition to his nomination. Thus far he seems to have evaded a verbal slip.
Reportedly after intensely questioning Roberts for several days Judiciary Committee Co-Chairman Joseph Biden extended his hand to the nominee after a session saying "You're the best candidate I've ever seen appear before this committee."
I'm sure that grated on the ears of supporters of Justice Ginsburg.
Personal information has always been something the media has wanted to know about nominees.
When Judge Bork was under consideration a reporter contacted the video store in the New England town he spent his summer vacations hoping to find out what videos the Conservative candidate rented.
We learned more than we wanted to know when Anita Hill revealed Justice Thomas's fascination with porn star "Long Dong Silver" during his Senate confirmation hearings.
Yesterday in jest someone queried John Roberts about his favorite movies.
He immediately declared they were "Dr. Zhivago" and "North by Northwest"!
Addendum September 29,2005 4:00 P.M.:
Senator Biden ultimately voted against Roberts for Chief Justice both in Committee on September 22 and in the full Senate on September 29.

The "Unaccounted"

We’ve heard that the New Orleans Police Department has 500 members missing, not resigned, missing. OK, maybe some of them walked off the job in the chaos that followed and are too embarrassed to report back. Maybe a few of them lost their lives in the civil unrest and haven’t been discovered yet. Maybe some are buried under the water and muck from the flood.
Here’s a really scary statistic. Today we learned that the Postal Service has 2,000 of its employees “unaccounted for”. THE POSTAL SERVICE HAS 2,000 OF ITS EMPLOYEES UNACCOUNTED FOR….(approximately 1/3 of its workers in the areas ravaged by the storm 10 days after Katrina passed).
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
The majority of Americans see the Post Office as a “plum job”.”
You need to score high on a civil service exam to get it for that reason. You have to be fairly bright to work for the US Postal Service.
Approximately 1 out of every 400 Americans works for the Postal Service...or 0.25 % of the population.
Could you get to a phone and let your employer know you’re OK..1-877-477-3273..?..
OR…Is the Katrina disaster far worse than anyone can imagine with regard to losses..


Addendum: September 9, 2005 1:00 P.M.

Two Iowa Postmasters are claiming the number of unaccounted for postal workers is 3,200. They urged workers to contact the Postal Service at 1-877-477-3273.
Meanwhile, Mississippi Regional Postal District Manager James Daily says all of his state's workers are accounted for. "Fortunately we've had no deaths and no serious inuries." he said.

What About St. Bernard's Parish?

St. Bernard's Parish is an untold story because noone is telling it. It’s just to the southeast of New Orleans but it isn’t part of the City.
St. Bernard's Parish was closer to the storm’s strength than New Orleans. This is an economically depressed area with a population of 67,000. There were no estimates of how many people left before Katrina arrived. Let’s say 70 % (the historical percentage of a local population which leave behind their residences in the pathway of a severe hurricane) left before the storm. That leaves 20,000 remaining behind.
On Monday morning during the storm there was a report that there was widespread flooding in St. Bernard’s Parish due to the storm surge. Also there was a report that the local emergency services center at an armory was destroyed at the height of the storm.
On Tuesday overhead flights indicated that because of the storm surge a majority of the homes were not only flooded but completely moved from their foundations and destroyed. Two high schools, Chalmette and St.Bernard's which were being used by shelters for about 300 persons each were heavily damaged.
Senator Mary Landrieu getting off a helicopter Tuesday after overflying the region speaking of St. Bernard’s stated: “The whole Parish is gone…It’s completely gone.”
There were no more reports from this parish until Wednesday when a group of 15 people from there arrived by boat in New Orleans. On the boat was a Sheriff’s Deputy who would only say that the whole Parish was a catastrophic loss. The fifteen people on the boat survived because they were able to get onto the displaced roof of Chalmette High School….Everything else was under water.
Also on Wednesday, the Corps of Engineers confirmed reports of water an astounding 20 feet deep in St. Bernard's Parish.
Today there was finally a report that there were 3,000 survivors from St. Bernard's. 1,500 people who were rescued by boats and helicopters (these people are included in the crowd beneath an interstate overpass near New Orleans) and 1,500 who are still in St. Bernard's at local shelters. A high level parish clerk stated that there had as of yet been no contact with any Federal officials. The Clerk refused to talk about the number of deaths in the Parish.
No one is talking about the other _ _ , _ _ _ people who may not have evacuated before the storm.?..

Pondering Katrina..

I’m one of the few people I know who has never been to New Orleans. I’ve just never cared about it, but everyone I’ve ever heard talk about the Crescent City has come away in love with it. A great place to visit, great food, cool architecture and the ongoing party atmosphere.
Today I’m saddened as I’ve watched the “Katrina” coverage and it has become increasingly clear that this is the catastrophic storm “big easy” locals have always feared.
Fortunately most of the residents have been able to get out of town over the past 36 hours. Those with no way out are assembling mostly in the Superdome, a structure built to withstand 200 mph winds sitting on one of the high and dry areas of downtown.
Of course there are always some who choose to ride out one of these storms in their homes…it worked for them for the last 59 years and there is property to protect. They shouldn’t. If the experts are right about what will happen if the eye of this borderline category 5 hurricane comes ashore just slightly to the west of the city a series of events will inevitably lead to Lake Ponchartrain overflowing the levees and flooding New Orleans with 15 to 25 feet depth of water!
Looming post storm besides the cleanup will be damage to our gas and oil economy already suffering.
25% of our domestic oil use comes from or through offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. These have been already shut down for the past two days and will be inevitably damaged today and tomorrow as the storm passes along with the New Orlean Port facilities. Things look grim.
Our prayers are with those people living in the Gulf coastal states.

Screwing Exxon/Mobil...

One of the nicest people I’ve met since I returned to Pittsburgh is a Federal Express Executive named “Roland”. I chat with Roland for a few minutes several times a month, usually about politics. Roland could easily be the guy in “Castaway” played by Tom Hanks …enough said. Last night Roland and I had one of our talks.
“Are you going to be boycotting Exxon/Mobil? You know it's how everybody is going to be teaching Halliburton a lesson.” he said laughing. This coming from a guy who knows what it costs to run a large fleet of box trucks and cargo jets.
I responded with some Jipzeecab economic gibberish about how picking on one retailer (albeit the biggest) wasn’t going to change the fact that India’s and China’s developmental engines were sucking up the marginal oil reserves and that was the real reason gasoline prices are skyrocketing at the pump and if all we did was transfer our economic choice to another retailer it wouldn’t affect anything.
Then this morning I got an e-mail from my daughter suggesting I discuss on my site a “chain e-mail” she had received. You may have gotten it too. It is the one that purports to be from someone named “Phillip Hollsworth” and basically suggests that the way to lower gas prices at the pump is to boycott Exxon/Mobil and by not purchasing any gas from them the rest of the oil companies will learn a lesson and give up the obscene profits they are making. Supposedly if you will follow the precepts and get 10 others to do so soon 300 million of us will be sticking it to Exxon/Mobil.
I first heard of this chain e-mail on Zeneece’s website (see link on right or zeneece.blogspot.com) on April 1. Zeneece is the grownup version of the little girl in your third grade class who brought something to “show and tell” everyday. She has a fabulous site and if you read it everyday you will soon be the smartest person (commonsense wise) in the room..no kidding..it’s that good. But I digress.
According to “Breaking the Chain.Org. this particular letter has been around in slightly different forms since 2000. It has also been used in foreign countries against “Esso” and “BP”. In 2002 “Phillip Hollsworth’s" name was added as the originator. It resurfaces every time gasoline prices take a big jump.
I suppose if it really had any effect Exxon/Mobil would have surrendered and left our communities by now. Logic says that unless you stop buying gasoline entirely you are not going to affect its price.
In the interest of proper disclosure I admit that my family has large holdings in Exxon/Mobil Stock (but you suspected that anyway didn’t you...after all this site is called "Mobil’s Jipzee Cab") although I don’t own any myself. I do acknowledge that my largest single financial asset is SUNOCO, one of the oil companies needing to be taught a lesson…

"First..Do No Harm"..

I like to think I’m one of the last people on Earth to be offended. And I usually can’t figure out why some of the rest of us get upset about this or that.
I believe political correctness is out of control…all you have to do is found your own interest group, organize your minority and you can declare something offensive.
So why am I upset about a particular ad that portrays Doctors in a negative light in an attempt to be funny?
I love mean lawyer jokes even though my daughter is an attorney and my son, a second year law student.
I don’t have any special love for Doctors. In fact I’m not sure I particularly like one I’m seeing at the moment but he does do his job professionally and in my best interest.
The ad which has my “political correctness hackles” up promotes Coors Light, probably my favorite beer after Corona. It is called “Shock” and was produced by Foote, Cone and Belding’s Chicago Division. It’s been on TV a lot this past week.
A woman brings her catatonic boyfriend/husband to an emergency room/clinic. He has a bottle of Coors Light in a frozen grip. The woman tells the male physician that the patient went into shock when he discovered this particular bottle wins a superbowl game tickets promotion. The physician proceeds to try to wrestle the bottle away from the patient. After some Coors Light ad copy the physician is depicted saying “It’s OK…I’m a Doctor,” while repeatedly slamming a door shut on the patient’s arm.
Ok..If it wasn’t a Doctor doing it I would probably find it funny…even if it was your favorite neighborhood barrister.
I guess I just don’t feel we should treat those who practice the healing arts this way..
Am I losing it?..

Ex Post Facto Testing..

“Lance Armstrong Hit with Doping Allegations”

I thought when I saw this headline today it was a rehash of charges that have been around for years but have managed to remain outside of the mainstream press. Ironically I had suggested in a previous comment section of mine earlier today that Lance was one of several athletes that get “a pass” from the media.
According to Reuters, a Paris newspaper called L’Equipe is reporting that Armstrong used a “banned” drug called EPO (erythropoietin) in 1999. As evidence they allege six out of nine test vials they assert are Armstrong’s tested positive for traces of the illegal substance. L’Equipe also showed documents from the French Cycling Federation purportedly linking the test results with Armstrong. Back in 1999 when the samples were taken there wasn’t a test for EPO, the tests were performed since on supplemental samples from then.
Armstrong quickly publicly denied the story saying on his website, "I will simply restate what I have said many times. I have never taken performance-enhancing drugs."
Last year Armstrong was forced to refute “blood doping” allegations by a former cycling team groom. He won a lawsuit recently against a British newspaper that printed excerpts from the groom’s tell-all book.
Timing is everything. Curiously this new report surfaces three days after the Anti War Armstrong had his celebrated ride with President Bush.
You can count on the French to keep things interesting.

Much Ado About Something...

Forces on the left and the right are both known for criticizing bias in the media, but noone ever take the “sports media” to task about what they write or say except individual athletes and their agents. The past few days I’ve discovered a subject the whole sports media seems to be in agreement about.
In the “collective mind” of sports writers and commentators Tiger Woods has committed a major “faux pas”.
It is generally agreed that Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer presently competing in the world.
This current season is one of his best. He has won 2 “majors”, The Masters and the British Open, placed second in the US Open and fourth in the PGA..He also has won three other professional tournaments including this past weekend's World Golf Championship/NEC Invitational (pictured on the left).
So what is all the fuss about? Last week when the PGA Championship was washed out by rain for the final few holes on Sunday, Tiger who had “birdied” his final two holes had completed his round and was the “clubhouse leader” at two under par. There were 10 other golfers still playing when play was postponed until Monday morning and at the time 3 had better scores than Woods and 5 of the players were easily in range to finish better than the clubhouse leader. Probably the best Tiger could hope for was that none of the five would end up with a better score than him and there would be a playoff.
Last Monday morning the finish was televised on CBS. I remember Jim Nantz remarking (as Steve Elkington lined up a 2 ½ foot putt for “birdie to finish “3 under”). “Well I think Tiger just got in that limo to head out to Teterboro” (Private airport near NYC).
Not so fast Mr. CBS network sports anchor.. we learned later in the day that Tiger wasn’t even there. He had flown home to Orlando Sunday night and was working out in a gym there Monday morning while the finish was going on. This seems odd since Tiger is all about the “major” golf tournaments and winning three in one season would have been quite an accomplishment.
He is quoted as saying about the controversy.. “Look, there were five of the best golfers in the World there..each one of them had won a major championship ..I couldn’t believe all of them were going to come back to 2 under..”
Tiger does an ad for American Express where he says,"In my life there are no rainy days..My life is about never settling." the implication being that his whole career (even “what would be a day off for everyone else”) is planned out. Maybe this is true to the point where he hates to disrupt that schedule..
Back to my original assertion. Slowly during the past week a negative hue and cry from the sports media has been building, condemning Woods for leaving the PGA Tournament before it was settled.
Do you know what the sporting public thinks? ESPN ran a poll nationally which asked if "Woods was wrong to head home on Sunday night?" 76 % of the respondents said he wasn’t.. although for some reason respondents in Vermont and New Hampshire thought he was by 70 % and agreed with the sports media. Fox just ran a similar poll..57 % said Woods wasn’t wrong to leave although 43 % thought he was.
The Libertarian in me says, “Much ado about nothing.”

By the Night's Gonzo Light!

Last night in Woody Creek, Colorado a final tribute was held for Hunter S. Thompson. 250 friends of the famous journalist gathered near a 153 foot monument near his home for a final sendoff.
A fireworks display dispersed his ashes over his Colorado estate as predicted in a 1978 BBC Documentary.
The tribute was financed primarily by actor friend Johnny Depp who played the Hunter Thompson character in the movie “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas“.
Performing at the event were “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Lyle Lovett.
Thompson’s widow, Anita said that not all the late writer’s ashes were involved..some had been retained for private services.
On Wednesday this past week she delivered the ashes used last night to the Zambelli Fireworks Company in New Castle, Pennsylvania where they were placed in 34 different red, white and blue rocket shells.
Although I've been told during my life by some who knew me that I remind them of Thompson..and that I would probably really appreciate his writings, I never got into his works until this past year. It is very interesting reading to say the least..
I also finally saw the aforementioned movie "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in February. What a laugh riot that was!
I wonder if it was a coincidence that the Moon was at its fullest last evening…

Rocket's Red Glare..

The Houston Astros have announced that Roger Clemens will undergo an MRI test of his back today.
During Saturday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates Clemens says he felt a "twinge" in his lower back during the third inning and again in the fifth. Despite these moments of discomfort the Rocket pitched 8 complete innings of shutout baseball giving up only 2 hits and striking out 9. He threw only 88 pitches.
(The Astros lost the game 1 to 0 in the 9th inning when their ace reliever Brad Lidge gave up a homerun to Pirate shortstop Jack Wilson).
Clemens hurt his back moving furniture in July but has yet to miss a start.
A debate has begun to emerge among sport’s commentators about whether or not Roger Clemens deserves to win the National League Cy Young Award which is supposed to go to the League’s best pitcher. The Rocket won the award last season. He had his 43rd birthday on Sunday.
This season he has a mind boggling 1.32 ERA easily the lowest by a regular rotation pitcher in 37 years. Bob Gibson had a 1.12 ERA in 1968 the best ever by a modern pitcher.
The problem is that the Astros haven’t been scoring runs themselves on the days he’s been pitching. Eight times in which Clemens has started games the Astros haven’t scored.
Clemens has started 24 games and yet has only 11 wins. Teammate Roy Oswalt has 14 wins with the same number of starts. Chris Carpenter of St. Louis has won 17 games in 24 starts. Clemens and Carpenter have both lost only 4 games and Carpenter’s Cardinals are in first place in the Astros division although Houston is in the lead for the wild card berth.
If you believe is passing these awards around Carpenter should get the National League Cy Young Award.
Recognition of his ERA achievement if he can continue to pitch may yet get Clemens an 8th Cy Young.