Greg-C

@Pogoplug Kicks Up a Notch or Two

2011-08-07T11:14:00.001-05:00

I've posted about Pogoplug several times before (here and here). This is a device/service has just made my life so much easier. They basically give you a drop-dead-simple-no-brainer means of accessing your data on your computer from just about any internet connected device. No need to upload your precious data to a remote server owned and operated by someone else - leave it on your computer and get it there. Did I say simple? No network knowledge required. Honest.

Originally this was done using a Pogoplug device which acted as a file server and connected a USB drive to the internet via your router. Plug in a drive, plug it into the router, plug it into the wall - it was that simple. For a one time cost of about $100, you had universal access to your stuff from anywhere in the universe.

Now Pogoplug has kicked this up a notch. You don't even have to buy the box now! They have implemented the whole thing in software. Download the Pogoplug app and install it on your Windows, Mac or Linux computer. Set up an account at Pogoplug if you haven't already, tell the Pogoplug app which drives and folders you want accessible and now you can get to your stuff from anywhere where you have a connected web browser. Access your data, upload files to your PC at home, share files with others, let them upload stuff to your drives. If you want to.

Your data stays on your computer. Pogoplug essentially acts as a traffic cop to tell the remote system where to go to get to your data. Access is password protected and the connection is made over SSL (i.e. https://) so its probably as secure as about anything else on the Internet. About the only time they'll see any of your data is if you do a file preview from the web application.

Oh, did I mention that all of this so far is FREE!

If you pay Pogoplug a nominal one time fee of $29, you get the premium version of this goodness. With that you can stream audio and video from a Pogoplug enabled drive to a remote machine. So now you can listen to all 90 Gigabytes of your music collection or watch any of the videos and movies you have on your computer. Anywhere. And if you have an iPhone or Android phone, there's an app for that. No longer worry about running out of memory trying to get your music collection on board.

This also opens up the possibility of sending your music collection to any room in the house. If you have a spare laptop - doesn't have to be a fancy high powered machine - simply set it up with some speakers in a second room and access your music collection residing on your main machine over your household wifi network. Plus, you can listen to one set of tunes while the other person can listen to their favorites on the other machine in the other room. And if both computers are on the same local network, you can even do this with the free version of the software.

Pogoplug has really been a lifesaver to me as I work on different computers in different locations all the time and often need to access files residing on my home machine. Instead of trying to anticipate the files I might need and copying them off to a flash drive, I can access what I need from just about anywhere. Pogoplug's service is first rate - real people on the other end of customer support that respond quickly and with the right answer. In other words, this whole thing just works.

Not an employee, investor or stockholder - just a very satisfied customer.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

The times are a changin'....

2011-04-21T12:24:00.001-05:00

"We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee...."

- Opening line of "Okie from Muskogee"

The co-writer of that song, Roy 'Eddie' Burris, died this week in Tulsa at the ripe old age of 70. That song was made famous by Merle Haggard in 1969. Burris was the drummer in Haggard's band. Long time ago. The story of Burris' passing was coming across the radio about the same time I saw this billboard on the way into OKC this morning. Wonder what ol' Roy and Merle would think of things today....

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

One more reason not to read the NY Times...

2011-03-17T13:25:00.001-05:00

As if their biased and shoddy reporting and slanted editorials weren't enough, the NY Times is going to start charging you to read their stuff on the web. Article from ABC News says that the Times is struggling with their business model as their readers move to reading the paper on the web. So the Times is going to sock it to you with $15/month charge if you read more than 20 articles a month. $15/month? You gotta be kidding me. Arthur Sulzberger says this should be considered an investment in The Times, "one that will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism..." Well, that would be a nice change - high quality journalism.

Seriously, $15/month is ridiculous. That's half again as much as what the Wall Street Journal charges for both their print and online editions. And I don't want to pay for that either. Most of the news available on the NY Times is available elsewhere at no charge.

I'll probably still check in occasionally. I like David Pogue's column and some of the Tech articles are interesting, but its nothing worth that kind of coin. Its not that I expect to get everything for free. Its just hard to understand the arrogance of the NY Times that thinks they can charge an outlandish price for something that is so easy to get for free.

If the NY Times is having trouble with their business model, even with all the ads, and they think its because readers are moving to reading the paper online, I think they need to re-evaluate where their readers are really moving to - and its probably away from reading the NY Times.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

What would Will Rogers think?

2011-03-07T11:43:00.001-06:00

Howdy,

In Oklahoma, like most places I'm guessing, "food stamps" are now distributed on a pre-paid debit card with a Visa label on it. I think this accomplishes a couple of things.

1. It helps the self esteem of the recipient that they have a Visa card just like everyone else and when they're buying something at the store, they don't have to suffer the indignity of handing out real "food stamps".

2. It lets the recipient purchase his/her liquor easier. Most liquor stores take Visa and probably prefer it over cash which can be lost in a hold-up.

3. It lets the recipient re-fill their casino cash card easier so they can get back to playing the slots quicker.

All of this has been well documented in the local papers.

For a while, there was talk about how the use of this card would cut down on fraud and such. But I think items 2 and 3 above kind of dispel that notion.

This weekend while I was standing in line at the grocery store checkout, I noticed a poster at the register that was alerting the users of these cards that the days on which their card would be "re-filled" by the state would be changing to help ease the burden on the grocery stores (probably the liquor stores too). The poster had a picture of the card with an explanation that the new "re-fill" date would be based on the card number.

What struck me was the irony of the image on the card. Does anyone else see this?

The card features a picture of Oklahoma favorite son Will Rogers, a well known pundit of his day with his home spun common sense editorials. ("I don't belong to any organized political party. I'm a Republican") Now the pic of ol' Will has him scratching his head, almost like he is thinking "Now what the heck did you say this card was for??? Where does this money come from and where does it go???"

I have no problem helping those that need it until they can get on their feet. But when I'm standing in line at the grocery store and the lady in front of me is fishing out 3 or 4 of these cards from her purse to pay for her groceries, I'm kind of like ol' Will scratchin' my head.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@Google wishlist...

2011-02-02T14:11:00.001-06:00

Google Wish List....

When I'm using a computer, I pretty much live in the Google ecosystem. I think GMail is about the best implementation of an e-mail system that I have used. Google Docs has more than enough functionality to serve as my "office suite" most of the time. And over the last several years of so, I find myself working more and more on multiple computers, at multiple locations on multiple networks. So Google's tools provide ubiquity not only for my data, but also for the applications I need to work with that data.

But - and there's always a "but" - Google's tools aren't perfect. And I'm not talking about the necessity of having a net connection to access your data or apps, but things that get in the way of being productive, missing features that require you to duplicate efforts, things that actually impact the security of your data by forcing you to download it to what may be computer you have no control over and some features that could take Google's applications to a step above what is out there.

Here are some of the changes, improvements and old features I wish they would bring back.

GMail

GMail is the hub of my electronic communications. I have multiple personal and business e-mail accounts and they are all routed through my GMail account. GMail lets you send out messages using multiple "identities" and "reply-to" addresses. Incoming mail from multiple accounts is easily filtered, labeled and archived. And like any other e-mail application you can e-mail attached files located on your local computer.

The rub comes when you want to send someone a file you have stored in your Google Docs account. You cannot send that file out as an attachment to a mail message you create and edit in GMail. You can send a file as an attachment from within Google Docs using the sharing feature. However, you lose many of the features of the GMail editor. You can't access the HTML editor, you can't use custom signatures and most importantly for me, you cannot specify the From: address that should appear in the e-mail header. So if I am sending a file to a business client, they are expecting a message from my business e-mail address but instead they get a message from my default GMail account. Confusing to the recipient to say the least, the message may get lost depending on the filtering and spam setup the other person has set up.

Another limitation is that you cannot send multiple files as attachments from Google Docs. You have to send each file individually in its own e-mail message.

The only way to get around this is to download the file (or files) to the local computer and then upload it as an attachment in GMail. That's fine if its your computer, but if you're using a computer at your employer or at a friend's house or at an internet cafe, you can leave traces of your activity and files that you may not want to. Even downloading to a USB flash drive can leave footprints in the "recent documents" listing on the local computer. So come on Google, let us attach files in GMail directly from Google Docs.

Contacts (Address Book)

Google is big on letting you share your data between other Google users, whether it be Google Docs or pictures in PicasaWeb. I'd like to see sharing extended to the Contacts application as well. Here are several use cases:

You have several GMail accounts for personal mail, work mail, and so on. Rather than having to maintain separate address books for each account, maintain one central address book and share that with your other accounts.

You are working on a project with other Google users and you all will be contacting many of the same people. Instead of each person having to maintain separate address books, enter the contacts into one address book, include them in a group and then share the group or individual contacts with the other users. Then if one user finds out there is a change in phone number or e-mail address, the change can be made once and everyone has the updated information instead of circulating it via e-mail. Users in the group could also include notes on conversations with the contact in the notes field of the entry and those notes would be available to everyone in the group. I think some of these features are already available in Google Apps for Domains accounts, but it should be made available for all Google users and work across all Google accounts.

Google Voice works with your contact list for managing greetings, messages and dialing. However, for a long time, Google Voice was only available to "Standard" Google users. I got my Google Voice number using a standard Google account. I later moved my stuff to a Google Apps account with my domain name. But.... there was no way to move my Google Voice number to the new account. I had to maintain both accounts and both address books for my Google Voice number and my Google Apps e-mail account. It would have been nice if I could have just shared the contact list on one account with the other.

Google Docs

Google Docs is Google's online file management and office suite application. You can upload just about any kind of file to Google Docs, making it a great place to backup critical files offsite and having them available anywhere. You can also share those files with others, either by giving them access to the file in your Google Docs (if they're a Google user) or by sending them the file as an attachment. If you are sending the file as an attachment, you have the option of sending it in a variety of office compatible formats - MS Office, Open Office, RTF, CSV, etc. Or as a PDF.

What I would like to see is the ability to save or "print" a file in Google Docs to any of these formats. I would really like to be able to have a file I create in Google Docs be available as a PDF. One use case that I have not found a way to deal with in Google Docs:

I use a spreadsheet to create invoices to my clients. Currently I use MS Excel and then print the final invoice spreadsheet to a PDF file which I then e-mail to the client. One thing I need to be able to do is to print the spreadsheet without showing the grid lines. I can do that from within Google Docs by choosing Print and then selecting "No Gridlines" from the resulting dialog box. I then have a document on screen that I can print locally or to a local PDF file. But I still have the problem of having the resulting PDF file on the local PC instead of having it go directly to "the cloud". And then I need to be able to e-mail it as an attachment and we're back to the first item of this wish list. If I try and share the spreadsheet as a PDF from Google Docs, I cannot do so without having the gridlines show up in the document. FAIL!

There are a couple of features that used to be in Google Docs that I wish Google would bring back. One is the ability to link to other files in Google Docs from within a Google Docs document. This goes beyond simple web links. This would let you create a link to a document that only exists in your Google Docs without it being published to the web. A use case would be where you have created a summary document that refers to a number of other more detailed documents that you have saved in Google Docs. Clicking on the link in the summary document would open up the referenced document. All of the documents remain within your Google Docs and are not out on the web for anyone to see if they have the appropriate URL. This feature was available previously for word processing documents created in Google Docs, but has since been removed.

I would like to see this linking feature available in Google Docs spreadsheets as well. The use case that comes to mind is one where I track projects in a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet tracking would reference various documents such as proposals, specifications, invoices and other billings. These referenced documents might be in a variety of formats including spreadsheets, word processing documents, PDF and JPEG images, all of which would be stored in Google Docs. It would also be nice to be able to link to external web pages as well.

One more feature I would like to see brought back goes all the way back to the web app Writely that Google bought out as a foundation for Google Docs. This feature is one where you can e-mail an attachment to your Google Docs account and the attachment shows up in Google Docs. A use case might be that you have created a .doc file on your smart phone and want to finish editing it in Google Docs. You could e-mail that file in to Google Docs. Same thing with pictures and other file types. A work around is to e-mail the file to your GMail and then open the file and save it as a Google Docs document. Sorry, that's a bit of a kludge for something that has been available before.

If anyone at Google is listening, I hope this provides some food for thought on how to improve an already important part of my digital life. Maybe some Googler could take on some of these as part of their "20 percent time". Surely they would be useful to those folks using the Chrome OS.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Healthcare - thank God for Obama - Not so much!

2011-01-19T12:17:00.001-06:00

I am so glad we have a president that is so wise as to make sure the insurance companies will not cancel my policy when I get sick, exclude any pre-exisiting conditions I have or put limits on the amount of coverage they will pay out. And he is going to do this in a way to "bend the cost curve down"!

Instead he has created an environment that is going to force the insurance companies to pull out of the business and drive employers to drop their health care options to retirees and radically raise costs to employees. And eventually you are going to be stuck with a government run, single payer health care system that will provide lousy service, decreased benefits for care, dump more people into Medicaid, pass more of the expenses on to the states and will eventually break the bank of this country. And the only thing that is going to be bent down is you and me!

Sorry, no thanks - I've been there, done that and didn't even get a t-shirt when my wife was insured under the state's high risk pool. High premiums - three times higher than mine, high deductibles - twice as high as mine, and coverage for a "medically necessary" procedure arbitrarily declined with no explanation. So this is not just some conservative whack-o parroting talk radio - this is out of personal experience. You don't want the fertilizer Obama is peddalin' THIS IS BAD FOR THE COUNTRY!

(“Insurer Cuts Health Plans As New Law Takes Hold,” The New York Times, 10/1/10)

(“Harvard Pilgrim Cancels Medicare Advantage Plan,” The Boston Globe, 9/28/10)

(“3M To Change Health-Plan Options For Workers,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/4/10)

(“Caterpillar Raising Health Care Premiums,” Peoria Journal Star, 10/28/10)

(“Citing Health Care Law, Boeing Pares Employee Plan,” The Associated Press, 10/18/10)

(“Citing Health Overhaul, AARP Hikes Employee Costs,” The Associated Press, 11/4/10) - And these were the guys telling the seniors how great this was going to be!

The above links are not from conservative, anti-Obama web sites - anything but! Check out the New York Times, Boston Globe and the AP. The Wall Street Journal is in there as well for a little balance.

Pass this on - The Republicans are not doing a good enough job in getting the word out just how screwed everyone is going to be once this thing kicks in.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

FollowUpThen - to-do's via e-mail

2011-01-09T12:05:00.001-06:00

FollowUpThen is one of those web apps that is simple and just works.

I have tried a good number of the digital "to-do" lists out there to try and get on track and get the stuff done I always seem to let slide by. For me, most of them are overly complicated for what I need or they miss the one piece I need to get the hint to do a specific task NOW. I don't need a complicated taxonomy of categories or a multi-level prioritization system - just basically a simple reminder to call Joe next Tuesday, follow up wih a client on Monday, pick up the dry cleaning on the way home from work next Friday. I really don't want to clutter up a calendar with this stuff and a to-do list won't give me a head slap when I need it to go do it.

Enter FollowUpThen. This is a simple web app that will send you an e-mail reminder when you tell it to. This is perfect for me because whether its my computer or my phone, I am always hooked into my e-mail. And it is so simple to use.

Just fire off an e-mail to followupthen.com where you specify a time interval in the user-name portion of the e-mail address. For example, if you need a reminder to take the garbage out tomorrow, send off an e-mail to "tomorrow7am@followupthen.com" with an appropriate subject and detailed instructions in the message if you need 'em and you'll get an e-mail tomorrow morning at 7 am with the text you sent them. The system is really pretty smart in figuring out the time interval - you can specify a day, a date, time, or a combination of day and time. Or something general like "next Wednesday". Or a general time interval (i.e. 2weeks). If you need recurring reminders, you can send a message to "EveryTuesday@FollowUpThen.com" and you'll get a weekly memory jog. The site does a really good job parsing what you type in for the time interval. I've tried a number of different things and so far, they all have worked.

If you want to see what all you have sent off to followupthen, just send a blank e-mail to "pending@followupthen.com" and you'll get a list back. You can even cancel pending reminders from the returned list.

Aside from remembering to take the garbage out, I have found this app to be really useful to follow up on correspondence that is usually sent out via e-mail anyway. I put the followupthen address into the bcc: field of the e-mail and have automatically given myself a to-do entry to touch base with the other person. One thing I would like to see added is to include attachments in the reminder e-mail. That way the reminder I get back would have the documents I need to discuss in the follow up. The guys at followupon.com have indicated this might be something they could include in a future version.

Oh, one more thing - all this goodness is free. Give it a try.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Now that's Hope and CHANGE!

2011-01-05T08:23:00.001-06:00

http://plixi.com/p/68015131

sent from the phone....

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Biden needs Gibbs to bail his chestnuts out

2010-12-20T13:35:00.001-06:00

Gibbs clarifies Biden's forecast

Gawd - How STUPID do you have to be to need Robert Gibbs to clarify to the world what you ***really*** meant to say.

And this is the guy Obama put on the ticket for his mastery of foreign policy. This country is soooo screwed.

Cheney?... Biden? Cheney?.... Biden? Is there really even a question there???

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

PicasaWeb + GoogleApps + Google Profile = MASSIVE FAIL!

2010-12-12T16:07:00.001-06:00

There's been a couple of posts here talking about using various "cloud apps", particularly those from Google to get the everyday stuff done - word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, even photo editing. Recently Google introduced a new "feature" to make their on-line photo site more "social" - and in the course of things, threw the notion of privacy out the window and in some cases, just broke the whole thing.

This problem occurs at the confluence of two Google services. One is PicasaWeb, which is Google's answer to Flickr. It lets you upload photos and then lets you share them with everyone, or selected people or just keep them to yourself. Like most Google services, its free and gives you a reasonable amount of storage space, which can be expanded at a pretty cheap price. It also integrates well with other Google services, such as Google Docs. All in all, I have been pretty happy with it. Until today.

I logged into my Picasaweb site with the intent of shooting some previously uploaded pics to a friend. I clicked on the "Share" button and was greeted with a screen that said I HAD to link my PicasaWeb account with my Google Profile. Huh???

Google Profile is another Google service that is trying to be a universal online personal information directory. Its got a ways to go to get there, but it does have some potential. In your profile you can include information about yourself that would let others find you and get in touch with you - kind of like Facebook. You can put in as much or as little as you want and can even control who can see it - everyone, just those in your Google Contacts, just those in certain groups in your Google Contacts, and so on. The key to it though is your Google user name, otherwise known as your GMail address.

So what is the problem with linking your Picasaweb account with your Google Profile? Previously, your Picasaweb page could be fairly anonymous - your name or e-mail address wasn't displayed unless you wanted it so, your locations wasn't shown, etc. Now, all of a sudden with your PicasaWeb account linked to your profile, anyone viewing your photos has your GMail address. If you've included other information, such as address or personal history, on your profile, they may be able to view that as well.

And you have to do this in order to access your Picasaweb site at all. Yes, if you set up your privacy settings correctly in Google Profile you are probably safe. But my question is why do you have to do this at all? Why can't this be an option for those who are into sharing photos with the world instead of a mandatory setting? All of a sudden, Google is starting to look a lot like Facebook, forcing you to divulge some level of personal information that might end up being shared with anyone and everyone. Sorry, Google, I didn't sign up for Facebook for this reason and I am not happy with your position either.

But that is not the end of it. I do most of my Google'ing through a Google Apps account. The easiest way to describe a Google Apps account is that its a Google Account that is "branded" with your domain. So your Google Mail looks like it comes from yourdomain.com. There's a lot of reasons why its advantageous for groups, companies, organizations and even government entities to use Google Apps - basically they are turning over the network and IT responsibilities to Google. In the interest of assuring these folks - most of whom are paying customers - certain uptime standards, Google has not included alot of Google services and apps beyond the basics of mail and docs under Google Apps. This included, for some reason, Google Profiles. If you were using a Google Apps you don't have a Google Profile.

But recently, Google opened up a bunch of their applications and services to Google Apps users. Including Picasaweb.

But not Google Profiles. - See where this is headed?

So now when you log in to Picasaweb with your Google Apps credentials, you are taken to Picasaweb, but told to link your Picasaweb to your Google Profile. But you don't have a Google Profile, nor can you set one up from Google Apps. You can view your pictures in Picasaweb, but you can't share them.... without linking to your Google Profile. Kind of reminds you of a dog chasing its tail.

Sorry Google, disrespecting my privacy by forcing me to use Google Profile whether I wanted to or not was bad enough. But now locking up my pics so I can't share them even when I want to is a MAJOR FAIL.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Christmas Letter from the cloud....

2010-12-05T16:56:00.001-06:00

This weekend I got the annual job of the Christmas letter done and with a new wrinkle.

I didn't use a single desktop application to generate the document or print it out. Everything was done using "cloud apps".

I started off writing the letter on my laptop at the kitchen table and since I figured that I would likely finish the layout and printing from the desktop, I used Google Docs to draft the letter. I figured with Google Docs, it would be easy to retrieve on the desktop and finish it off. Then the wife wanted to put some pictures in it.

While the pics were on the desktop computer they were also all in my PicasaWeb account online. Google Docs will let you insert images you upload from your local machine, or from a web site specifying the URL of the image or or from your PicasaWeb account. There were half a dozen pictures the wife had picked out, but a couple of them needed a bit of work - cropping, tweaking the brightness and contrast, adjusting color balance, red eye correction and so on. I could have downloaded them and used Photoshop Elements, but since I had got caught up in this exercise of doing everything in "the cloud", I hopped over to Picnik, logged in to my free account and opened the images up in Picnik directly from PicasaWeb. For these basic image tweaks, Picnik works really slick and I can get things done faster there than using a desktop app. And Picnik has the slickest tool for making "red-eye" correction, especially for the pics of the dogs where you are really dealing with "green-eye". When I was done making the tweeks, I saved the images back to PicasaWeb so I could use them in the document.

Inserting images in a Google Doc couldn't be easier. Pick the image from the source and click "select". Once in the doc, you can adjust the size of the image by dragging the corners in and out to the point you want. One thing I was not able to do was wrap text around the image, something I swear Docs would let you do in an earlier version.

Google Docs has a fair selection of fonts and layout control to make it something more than just a fancy text editor. It can easily handle most writing chores I have - both personal and business.

I was going to just print the letter out from the desktop computer to the color inkjet printer. But hey, since this was a "cloud project", I had the printer hooked up to the PogoPlug and used the PogoPlug's print option and printed everything from the laptop at the kitchen table. Worked like a charm. I could have been at the local coffee joint and finished things off.

The latest incarnation of Microsoft Word with its "ribbon" has me pulling my hair out trying to do the simplest tasks. Google Docs has enough power to do almost all of my word processing and spreadsheet needs. If I need more, I usually start off in Docs and then export the file to something I can finish in the desktop app. But more and more, the sole app I have running is the Google Chrome browser and everything is done there.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Pondering Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T09:44:00.001-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is the first day of the holiday season. A day to eat way too much, to spend a lot of time watching football on television and get a head start on Christmas shopping. But thinking about the name of the holiday we are supposed to be celebrating, I truly have much to be thankful for.

I'm thankful to be alive. We don't always remember that that is not a given....

I am thankful for my wife, who more than anything else, is my best friend. She has taught me so much in dealing with life's challenges and difficulties that have come her way, but is always the one to be the first to help others.

I am thankful for my friends. Not just acquaintances, but those that I know I can count on to listen to me when things don't go the way we wish.

I am thankful for my dogs. Truly wonderful companions that can teach you so much. If you want to know the meaning of unconditional love, get a dog. Then try and be the person they think you are.

I am thankful I have a job - two of them actually. Way too many people in this country have been out of work for way too long. While my "career" has taken turns and twists, the important thing is I have a job where I can support my wife and I without depending on others.

I am thankful for a roof over my head and food on the table.

I am thankful I live in a country that lets me voice my opinions and call out against an arrogant, out-of-touch, inept and over reaching government.

I am thankful that a majority of my countrymen seemed to feel the same way in our last election. I have hope....

I am very thankful for the men and women that serve in our military and protect our way of life. I am also thankful for those that serve in police and fire departments who also protect us and seem to go unnoticed and without thanks. Thank you.

---------------

Since its just the two us celebrating the holiday this year, like last year, we took a pass on the whole effort of fixing a mammoth dinner that would cost a lot of money and result in way too much food and leftovers that would last forever. Instead, like last year, we're going to go out for a dinner and let others do the work. Thank you.

The downside to that, as we found out last year, is you probably don't end up with any leftovers and sometime around 9 o'clock you are craving a bit more dressing or another sliver of pie, there ain't anything. This year though, we are going to a nice restaurant that is serving up a Thanksgiving buffet and the wife is taking her over-sized purse.....

Last year we both got a severe case of the munchies before bed time and got dressed and drove all over town looking for something. There was absolutely nothing open - go figure. Until we came across..... the What A Burger drive through. So we satisfied our late night cravings with a What A Burger and fries.

But I was thankful for it...

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

This is insane - mandating medical payouts.

2010-11-22T12:33:00.001-06:00

Could this be the end of the health insurance business as we know it? Is this setting things up for the single payer government run program that Obama really wants? Or is it going to be the reason why your premiums are going to be going up? Or all of the above?

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Washington-Watch/Reform/23559

Or an article in the Washington Post here.

Starting in 2011, insurers covering large groups must spend at least 85 cents of each dollar in revenue on medical care. For small groups or individual policies, (which would have higher administrative costsas well as a greater risk of adverse selection and moral hazard) the carrier must spend at least 80 cents of each dollar on medical care.

For shame..... some of these companies only spend 60 cents of each dollar in revenue on medical care - the rest is used to pay for salaries, bonuses and marketing. (other administrative expenses, like rent, probably fit in there as well).

So if they have to cut their expenses by half to meet this government mandate, how many of these companies are going to stay in this business and how many are just going to say "Fuck It" and go do something else with the financial management expertise.

Or its going to mean that health insurance premiums are going to go up - like double - in order to be able to maintain the ability to pay baseline administrative expenses while meeting the 80% loss ratio requirement. If you are currently paying a premium of $100 and 40% of that is going to expenses, that means the insurance company is paying $40 out in salaries and those evil bonuses. In order to continue doing that under Nimrod's plan, they would have to charge a premium of at least $200 so they could have that $40 to pay employee salaries. Or they could cut payroll and maybe outsource the claims handling to India. Wanna talk to some guy in Mumbai about your Blue Cross claim? Oh you already do? Maybe they'll cut expenses there and you'll get the one that doesn't speak any English.

Liberals have never understood that price fixing schemes don't work. It either results in shortages or eventually higher prices. Even Republicans had to learn the hard way with this - remember Nixon's price freezes? It don't work. But maybe Obama and company are counting on this to shove a government run single payer system down our throats. Just remember, with a single payer system, you don't have any alternatives. If you don't like the way they are handling your healthcare, too bad - ain't no where else to go.

Meanwhile President FuckNut wants to give all of the government employees a raise, paid for by the taxpayer or by the Chinese bond holders.

This country is going to be so fucked. Wake up Amerika.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Thanks Google, for remembering Veterans Day

2010-11-11T07:47:00.001-06:00

Today, Google remembered Veterans Day with the Google Doodle.

Thanks Google, for remembering those who serve.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Its startin' to look a lot like Christmas....

2010-11-01T09:48:00.001-05:00

I know... the real Christmas is over a month and a half away. And one thing that really chaps me is when the stores start putting up their Christmas decorations on Halloween. Yesterday, Wal-mart had a real juxtaposition of Jack-O-Lanterns and Christmas Tree displays. With a few turkeys thrown in.

But you gotta admit... tonite seems a lot like Christmas Eve with the suspense of the big "surprise present" we're going to get tomorrow.

And if we end up with a big lump of coal, there's gonna be one pissed off little boy here...

VOTE!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Sherlock - new TV series on PBS

2010-10-31T13:19:00.001-05:00

I confess I don't watch that much on PBS even though OETA is one of the better public broadcasting networks I've seen. But last night, not being able to sleep I got caught up in a new series on PBS called Sherlock. From skimming the brief description in the guide, I thought it was going to be one of those old black and white movies from the 40's and 50's starring Basil Rathbone.

Boy was I wrong.

This is a new series with a Sherlock Holmes character but set in the present day. And it was really well done. And I have to say that I am a student of Sherlock Holmes, having read all of the Arthur Conan Doyle stories and novels at least twice. They keep the characters true to the original stories but with modern day updates. Dr. Watson, just like the original is a retired army doctor that is a veteran of Afghanistan war - the current Afghanistan war with some very real flashbacks. Instead of Holmes indulging in his "7% solution" of heroin from the original stories, he now slaps multiple nicotine patches on his arms to get his high. Holmes still plays the violin, is moody as ever, there is a Mrs. Hudson and they reside at 221B Baker Street in London. But there is an update to keep up with current technology, but in a way that is a believable part of the story and not getting in the way. Holmes has a web page, the characters have smart phones and send text messages.

I have to say it took me a bit to get my head around the British accents.

Dr. Who fans will recognize the work of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss - the creators of this new series.

Check it out at PBS.org - Your tax dollars are helping to pay for it - might as well enjoy it. I got it on the TIVO to catch each week.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Juan Williams, @NPRnews and How to Talk Tea Bag

2010-10-21T12:44:00.001-05:00

Twitter and the blogospher has been on hot this morning over the firing of Juan Williams by National Public Raido. Williams had worked there for more than ten years, but apparently the comments he made on Fox News' O'Reilly Factor this past Monday were too much. On O'Reilly he stated that he gets "nervous" if he's at an airport and sees "people who are in Muslim garb." Not an unrealistic reaction considering the events of 9/11. Williams went on to argue that the terrorists only represented extremist elements of the Muslim faith and not all Muslims should be considered as terrorists. But NPR didn't like it and sent him down the road kicking rocks.

Now I have found that there is very little I agree with Juan Williams about. He's raised my blood pressure up more than a couple of times to the point of muting the tube. But I will say that he strikes me as honest and his views are consistent. The times he has guest hosted programs on Fox such as the O'Reilly Factor, he has treated conservative guests with respect even while disagreeing with them. I certainly don't think a comment such as the one made on Monday night warranted being fired.

In their statement on the termination of Juan William's contract, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said "...However, his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a News Analyst with NPR"

Yep, Those Editorial Standards are high over at NPR. If you don't bellieve me, just take a look at this fine piece of journalistic excellence by Mark Fiore from a year ago: OPINION: 'Learn To Speak Tea Bag' I wonder if Mr. Fiore ended up kicking the can down the road or if Ms. Schiller looked the other way on that insulting piece of crap.

So much for the tolerance of Public Broadcasting - anything but "fair and balanced".

Attempting to fend off calls for defunding NPR by the federal government, NPR released a chart showing the sources of their funding and the portion that comes from the government. They seemed quite proud of the fact that less than 6% came from the government. I say "GOOD!" give it up and quite taking unwilling taxpayer contributions to your operations.

PS - Mara Liason - better watch your butt - you're hanging around Fox News an awful lot too!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

ChaCha - an alternative to Goog411

2010-10-17T10:26:00.001-05:00

This past week Google announced the upcoming demise (November 12) of their Goog411 service. Goog411 let you call an 800 number and ask for the phone number of a business. A disembodied voice from deep within Google would deliver the phone number or numbers if there were multiple businesses in that location and you could pick the one you wanted. All over a cell phone connection, any cell phone - no smart phone required. All for no charge. Pretty good deal considering the outrageous fees the cell phone carriers stick you with for their 411 service. It turns out that Goog411 was really a means for Google to collect voice samples of known lingo for the development of some of the fancy services being offered up through their Android OS on those cell phones.

Personally, while Goog411 could get the job done, I found it frustrating that it didn't have enough granularity in making a query. You could specify a business and the city and state. That was fine until you needed the number of a business that had multiple locations in town. The first time I tried it, I needed to call our pharmacy. That's when I found out how many "Walgreens" there were in town. Goog411 read them all off to me. And the alternative "Walgreens" that we sometimes used wasn't even on Goog411's list because technically they were just outside of our city limits and as far as Goog411 was concerned, they might as well have been on the other side of the state. And I sure didn't want to ask for a "Walgreens" in Oklahoma City - the cell phone would probably have died before that list was finished.

Instead, I have been using ChaCha as my alternative 411 service. Rather than being a machine driven system, ChaCha uses "real live human bein's" to answer questions you pose over the phone. Call ChaCha's 800 number (1-800-224-2242), dictate your question (note - this is not limited to directory assistance type questions!) and in a minute or two, you get a text message or messages with the answer. Since you can use ChaCha to ask any question, it can be kind of addicting. Make sure you have a good text message plan - you can get caught up playing "stump the chacha guy". A friend and I ended up playing that one night while partaking in adult beverages. I'll just say we ran out of beer before we got a bad answer.

I initially started using ChaCha two or three years ago when they were a start up. They were later bought out by AT&T, and AT&T has done some things that have not exactly improved the service. It seems like more of the "answers" are machine generated. It used to be they were dead on with an answer to your question. Case in point: I was supposed to meet someone for lunch at a restaurant that I could swear I knew the location of. Wrong. I got to the location of where I thought it was and discovered that I wasn't as smart as I thought. I calledChaCha on my cell phone in the car, asked "where is Casa Pereco Mexican restaurant on the north side of Oklahoma City and what are the nearest major cross streets?". A few minutes later I got a text message back with the address and the nearest intersection. I found I was off by about a mile.

Regardless, ChaCha offers some granularity that Goog411 did not have. For my Walgreens example, I could ask "what is the phone number of the Walgreens at 150th and North Western in Oklahoma City" and probably get the right answer without a lot of other alternatives to wade through.

So give it a try: 1-800-224-2242 (1-800-2chacha)

Oh yeah, and like Goog411 its free. And free is good.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

VirginMobile MiFi - then I'll give it a rest

2010-10-17T09:15:00.001-05:00

OK, one more post on VirginMobile's Broadband2Go and then I'll give it a rest.

I came into a little extra coin this past week - very little, but enough. I took the VirginMobile USB 3G modem I got a week earlier back to WalMart and exchanged it out for the MiFi. The MiFi is a small flat slab, with a footprint smaller than the area of a credit card and about a quarter inch thick. It acts as a 3G modem to connect to the internet over the cell phone data network - in this case Sprint's data network - and also as a wifi router that lets you connect up to five devices. Thus you can share your internet connection as well as set up a local area network through the MiFi to share files between devices locally. When you connect to the MiFi, you have to provide a password, so there is some security.

Pricing for the MiFi at WalMart was $139 or so. Broadband capacity is priced in two tiers - $10 for 100 MB that has to be used within 10 days or $40 for unlimited data used in 30 days. If you are not using this as a primary internet connection, the $10 price point is great for those times when you are going to be out and about or travelling and not sure if you will have an internet connection available. The $40-all-you-can-eat plan is almost good enough to be your primary internet connection. The speed was pretty good. I was seeing connections with a download speed between 1 and 2 Mb/sec. That's probably good enough to do most of what you want to do on the Internet short of watching hi-def video. Here's a shot from one of the speed tests I did:

After charging the battery for several hours, set-up was pretty straightforward. I will say VirginMobile could do a bit better job in defining some of the terms they use. I already had an account set up from my previous USB 3G modem and was able to use that. The set up was asking for a password or PIN. I had about three of those from the last go-round - an admin password, a device password (I guess that's the right term) and another password that was stuck to back of the MiFi. Rather than go through the headache of trying to figure it out myself, I called VirginMobile's support line and got through to a person. He took my account info and set me up while I waited on the phone. I had also left behind about 68 MB of the 100 MB I had purchased for the USB 3G modem. I figured that was probably gone and the price I paid for my fetish of instant gratification - still, I asked the support person if that could be moved over to this device. Tap-tap-tap, and he came back and said that was done. Kudos to VirginMobile for doing that - I don't know if that is company policy, but it went a long ways to making a satisfied customer. So thanks to that support person.

I've been using the MiFi for my internet connection all morning and its been running well. Not sure how long the battery is supposed to last, but I'm going on two hours straight at this point. Read my mail, read the news, read my RSS feeds, edited a couple of pics for this post using Picnik and I really couldn't tell that I was not on my home wifi broadband connection. (I'm not - I've checked the control panel several times)

If I sound like a fanboy, I probably am going to turn into one. VirginMobile has brought mobile broadband to the masses with this type of device and pricing. It will definitely find a place in my gadget bag and its nice that I now have internet for any wifi device that comes along down the road. If you're picking up an iPad under Verizon's new deal or looking at a laptop with built in mobile broadband, consider the option of getting your device without the built-in 3G modem and pick up one of these little goodies instead of locking yourself into a service provider's expensive contract for two years.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Consider your options on Mobile Broadband

2010-10-14T14:25:00.001-05:00

Last week I posted some of my impressions on Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go USB 3G modem and service. Overall, I thought the service met my needs and one of the more attractive features was the pricing and absolute total lack of a contract or any commitment. On Virgin Mobile, you could pick up the USB 3G modem for about $75 or a MiFi (a 3G internet connection and wifi router all in one) for about $140 (WalMart pricing). Broadband was priced at two tiers: $10 for 100 MB used within 10 days, or $40 for unlimited bandwidth over 30 days. This could be done using Virgin Mobile's "Top Up" cards, eliminating even the need to hand over a credit card number.

Recently there seems to be a spat of activity with several carriers reducing the price of their mobile broadband services. Back in the end of September, Glenn Fleischman reported on AT&T's anemic effort in reducing price. AT&T is offering $15 for 100 MB used within a day, $30 for 300 MB used within a week or $50 for 1 GB used within a month. My first thought, was "you gotta be kidding....".

Yesterday, Kevin Tofel over at jkontherun gave a run down on T-Mobile's tweaked pre-paid pricing for mobile pricing. It looks like their mobile broadband USB modem will probably come in around $150 with no contract. Sorry, but that is twice as much as the Virgin Mobile price. To be fair, if you are in an area served by T-Mobile's HSPA+ service, you could benefit from the higher speed. T-mobile's pricing for mobile broadband is $10/100 MB used in a week, $30 for 300 MB used in a month and $50 for 1 GB used in a month.

Then today, I noticed a post over at GottaBeMobile talking about Verizon Wireless selling a package of the Apple iPad and a Verizon Wireless MiFi. A 16 GB iPad with a MiFi is priced at about $730. Considering the iPad costs $500, that prices the MiFi at $230, $90 more than Virgin Mobile's MiFi. Verizon is offering some pretty decent pricing on 3G broadband for users that won't be burning up the airwaves at $20 for 1 GB of data. but if you are a more intensive user, you'll be paying $50 for 5 GB. 5 GB is a lot, but an iPad is designed to use a lot - video, movies, music, etc.

Even though the mainstream carriers seem to be coming around to more reasonable pricing, it still looks like Virgin Mobile's offering is the undiscovered sleeper in mobile broadband. I have no earthly idea why anyone would go with AT&T's joke of pricing. T-Mobile may offer some benefits if you have the high speed HSPA+ coverage and Verizon does come close. Still, Virgin offers the most cost effective means of dipping your toe into the mobile broadband experience.

Note: I don't work for Virgin or anyone else mentioned here. Just a satisfied user that wants to share my limited experiences.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@Pogoplug - new model - new color, wifi

2010-10-12T12:07:00.001-05:00

I'm definitely a Pogoplug fan boy so it nice to see that a new model of the Pogoplug is now out. The new Pogoplug Pro:

has built in wifi so you can tuck it away with hard drives and printer out of the way and it can connect to your router wirelessly.
is now at $99 - cheaper than when I bought it back in December
is now available in black. More business like I guess, but the garish pink and white kind of grew on me.

A quick review is at Wired today. Check it out here.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

VirginMobile Broadband2Go - I need this (like another hole in my head)

2010-10-08T10:53:00.001-05:00

Having a ubiquitous internet connection - beyond that of a cell phone - always seemed to be kind of fascinating to me. I knew that Verizon, Sprint and AT&T had offerings, all of which were designed to separate another $60 from your wallet each month for at least a two year time period. That was too much of an expense for me to try and justify for what I would use it for. Then I heard of Virgin Mobile's Broadband2Go offerings from Katie Floyd on a MacPowerUsers podcast. While her experience seemed to be less than satisfactory, I filed it away in the back of my mind as something I wanted to look into.

Mobile broadband is a way to connect a computer to the internet through the cell phone company's 3G "high speed" data network. Its always been a pricey proposition, geared more for those who can write it off on an expense account instead of for the common man. But it didn't seem to have to be that way. My first experience was helping a friend who lived out in the sticks get connected to the net where there was no cable or DSL options. At the time, they picked up a mobile broadband USB modem from Cricket and signed up. Cricket's pricing was a bit higher than what I pay for my cable internet access, but it did not require a contract. You paid for the months that you wanted connectivity (although they did have a service charge to re-connect if you let it lapse) That was a step in the right direction. But now it looks like Virgin Mobile has pretty well nailed it for use by everyday folks. With Virgin, you buy a USB Broadband2Go modem for about $75. Then you have several options for how much data you buy. They are currently offering two plans - one for $10 for 100 megabytes of data that has a 10 day life. The other option is $40 for unlimited data for a 30 day period. You can buy access for either time frame for just those times you want to use it. Don't need it this month? Don't buy anything. Going away on vacation next month and don't want to have to deal with coffee shop access or expensive hotel connections, pick up a $40 "top-up" card and you are set. Virgin Mobile is running this on Sprint's 3G network and that was another unknown for me - I was not familiar with Sprint's data performance.

I took the plunge this week when my wife was going into the hospital for surgery. I figured I was going to be hanging around the waiting room for most of the day and then at the hospital for most of the weekend. So I splurged and got the USB modem at Walmart along with a $10 "top-up" card. I figured if this thing didn't work out, I could return the modem and chalk up the $10 to the experience of satisfying my curiosity.

Setting the thing up was not as smooth as the literature indicated. I plugged the modem in and it proceeded to install the software and drivers. Then it tried to connect to the Virgin Mobile website to setup my account and take my money. No Joy. After several attempts, I called the 800 number and talked to a guy who set up an account for me, took the "top-up" card info and got me going. That took all of probably 10 minutes. Then I was off to check the mail and read the news. I could tell this thing was not exactly a speed demon, but it wasn't bad for most web sites that weren't too heavy on images. I stopped by SpeedTest.net to get a read on just how fast we were going. Several tests later, it seemed like this thing was running around 250-300 kbits/sec.

While I am not going to be burning up the 'net at those speeds, this is a perfectly acceptable means of dealing with e-mail and attachments as well as basic web browsing. I read most of my news and blogs in Google Reader, so this works out perfectly.

I am probably going to pick up a $40 card when this one expires, if for no other reason to see if "unlimited" really means.... well, unlimited. Other carriers seem to cap their unlimited plans at 5 gigabytes, which is probably more than enough for most people. I looked at the terms of service for Virgin Mobile and could not find any specific cap, but they do have some weasly catch all language about improper use, excessive downloads, and so on. Still at these speeds, you're probably not going to be downloading torrents or watching TV via Hulu.

If you have another $70 burning a hole in your pocket, Virgin Mobile is also offering a "MiFi" device for about $140. This device is a 3G modem on one end and a wireless router on the other, allowing up to five devices to connect wirelessly. Data rates are the same as above. Stick the MiFi in your pocket and you have your very own personal internet cloud surrounding you. Use it to connect your laptop, your iPod Touch, your wifi enabled camera, your iPad, just about anything with a wifi connection. No USB port required - important if you are dealing with an iPad or iPod Touch.

All in all, I am pretty satisfied with the job Virgin Mobile has done. It would be nice to have it run a bit faster, but it would be nice to have a Ferrari instead of my mini-van as well.

Virgin Mobile Broadband2Go

Pros:
Reasonably priced
flexible terms - no contract

Con:
Set up not as described - plan on calling tech support
Nice if it was faster, but good enough for the price.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

They left something out....

2010-10-01T06:21:00.001-05:00

From Drudge this morning - I think they forgot to mention that it was a Republican President that did it:

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cleanin' out the ol' Inbox....

2010-09-27T04:36:00.001-05:00

(This is a re-post - the first one had some problems with the images)

I don't know why, but I got a wild hair this morning and started cleaning out the e-mail inbox.

My inbox, my desk, my laundry basket and kitchen sink all have a common reflection of a flaw (probably just one of many) in my character - they are all an unorganized mess. But since I use the Google Apps implementation of GMail, I don't really worry too much about the Inbox. Since Google is all about search, GMail is all about finding old messages in that big fur ball of mail. I've never been one to use an elaborate taxonomy of folders, labels and sorting and such. I just type in a couple of key words and names into GMail's search box and I usually end up with a fairly short list of messages to go through to find the one I am looking for. To be honest, I have yet to not find something I am looking for. And I do save everything - or more correctly, I delete nothing. I even have a hard time archiving stuff to get it out of the Inbox.

Its not quite as bad as it sounds. I do have a number of filters set up to apply GMail labels to regular incoming pieces such as newsletters, e-bills and statements, mail from frequent correspondents, friends and relatives and regular alerts ("so-and-so is following you on Twitter" - I don't know why but I do). Some of these are labeled just to flag them with a bright pretty color so I won't miss them in all the flotsam and jetsam of my pile of mail. But it does come in handy. As I found out today.

So after listening to Gina Trapani on TWIG extolling the virtues of managing her mail using GMail's Priority Inbox and watching her video "Control Your Email Inbox with Three Folders", then thinking back to Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" talks and articles, I guess I got to feeling guilty. That and the fact that the counter for the number of messages in the Inbox was north of 1,556.

So we started pruning. I started pulling up labeled groups of messages and got out the machete. I decided I really didn't need to keep five years of notifications from my bank that my statement was available for viewing. Same with the notices from the phone company, AT&T, the gas company and the electric company that my bills were ready for download and payment. I also decided there wasn't much point in keeping all of the Google Voice notifications of pending voice mail messages, so I got rid of a couple hundred of those. Posterous sends out an e-mail digest of all the posts you've subscribed to. Often times I see those on a computer at an office where they have blocked all sorts of stuff, so I end up saving the Posterous post for later and then not getting around to it. Or at least not getting around to moving it out of the Inbox. A bunch of those went today.

But that's when I found something almost magical about this big pile of digital debris. I was going through the old Posterous digests and came across the posts from Andy Inhatko and his trip to Bejing last year. I've always enjoyed Inhatko's writing and enjoyed going back through them. So I'm glad I kept them. Same thing with many, many messages from friends, family members and others. Kind of going down a memory lane looking at what we were talking, what the social and political landscape were two years, three years or even six years ago, when I first started using GMail. So those messages didn't get whacked - just archived out of the Inbox but still safely deep in the bowels of some computer at Google. I can display "All Mail" and then search on a date range and be taken back in time - sort of. I know, sounds kind of dopey, but its still fun.

I didn't get to Inbox Zero. Still, I did make progress.

And I'm not caught up in having an empty Inbox. At least until Google tells me I'm out of space.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cleanin' out the ol' Inbox....

2010-09-25T18:54:00.001-05:00

I don't know why, but I got a wild hair this morning and started cleaning out the e-mail inbox.

I didn't get to Inbox Zero. Still, I did make progress.

And I'm not caught up in having an empty Inbox. At least until Google tells me I'm out of space.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Squirrel Love in the afternoon..

2010-09-24T07:02:00.001-05:00

This was just too funny.

We have finally got a squirrel coming around. Of course he is driving the dogs nuts. Yesterday, while the pooches were inside taking their afternoon nap, he found one of Thor's toys - a stuffed plush giraffe. Now I don't know what he thought he had found, but it was funny to watch and imagine. After a few minutes of the squirrel holding, sniffing and what looked like kissing on the giraffe toy, he grabbed it and took it up into the Red Bud tree in the back yard. Leaves shook a bit and then the giraffe came flying out.

Who knows? I'm just sayin'...

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

#Obamacare "reform" starts to kick in tomorrow

2010-09-22T05:54:00.001-05:00

Bend over folks, here it comes again.

No, I'm not talking about your overdue colonoscopy.... although that will be "free" to you after today.

Some of the first "reforms" of Obamacare start to kick in tomorrow. These include:

Dependent coverage under a parent's insurance extended to a "child" until age 26. The only real restriction is that the "child" has not been offered coverage by an employer. Considering our current economic mess, that is highly unlikely - the employer part, not the offer. Not sure if the new law mandates Mom and Dad have to pay for Junior's coverage.

Coverage for preventative services such as the afore mentioned colonoscopy and other services such as mammograms, immunizations and well-child care will not have deductibles or co-payments.

Lifetime limits on coverage will be banned. In other words, its an open spigot for the payout by the insurance companies.

Now don't get me wrong - I want people to have access to good medical care without having to break the bank. I have been in the position of having to pay for many of these services myself due to the coverage I've had while being self-employed. The problem with these "reforms" is who is going to pay for them? Some of these are significant broadening of coverage. A colonoscopy would cost us about $1200. My wife's mammogram would be around $800. Shots for various things could run $25 to $100 depending.... And no lifetime cap on coverage makes it very difficult to actuarially determine what rates should be.

Under many group plans at good sized employers, these services and benefits are already included. But the plans carried by small businesses or by individuals that don't have coverage through their employer don't have them. So you say "good - now they do". Yes they do... but at what cost. Are these costs just going to be eaten by the insurance carriers? Contrary to what our deal leader would have you believe, insurance carriers profit margins are not so fat as to just absorb them. That means premiums will probably go up. Or maybe the insurance carrier decides that they can't be profitable writing coverage for individuals or small companies and simply pull out of the market. Less competition for the remaining carriers means less pressure on them to keep rates down.

I still say that all of this is part of the progressive's plan to move to a single payer system controlled by the government. More and more mandates on coverage provided by insurance carriers without a way of charging an adequate premium will drive more and more carriers out of the market until Obama and the rest of the progressive bunch can point to the health insurance industry and say "see, they don't work..." and they'll push in a government run healthcare system.

And then get ready to really bend over.....

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Karl Rove looks like a cat in a litter box - and a jerk

2010-09-19T09:57:00.001-05:00

Karl Rove was on Fox News Sunday today and alternatively looked like a cat in a litter box covering up his shitty comments about Christine O'Donnell's win in Delaware and then alternatively taking shots at O'Donnell and Sarah Palin, saying that instead of going to Iowa and other spots, Palin ought to be in Delaware campaigning for her good friend Christine O'Donnell. It was a really katty remark the way he said it. Hey Karl, maybe you ought to go to Delaware and throw some support O'Donnell's way if you are genuinely concerned about a GOP win there instead of being a jerk and sitting around waiting to say "I told you so.." when she loses the election because the Republicans left her high and dry.

Question: Isn't the issue about a Senate majority somewhat overblown, considering if the GOP does win a majority, it will be by a thin margin. Such a margin won't let them block a filibuster by the Democrats and won't let them overcome a veto by Obama, so they won't be able to repel Obamacare. If its too thin, practically speaking it won't be a majority what with the likes of Snow, Collins and Brown - you would probably need a 54 seat majority to be sure. It will let them decide what comes to the floor for a vote, let them establish committee chairs, and most importantly, assign Harry Reid an office in the men's restroom in the basement of the Capitol. I do think that a majority will let the Senate shut down Obama's agenda and generally stop the foolishness that is coming out of Washington. And that is a good thing. Everytime the government accomplishes something, it ends up costing me money or restricting my freedom. But clearly the notion of a Senate GOP majority is not going to solve our problems now. It is more a power play to give power to the Republicans in the Senate that would end up in committee chairman positions - more of the same. Karl Rove's establishment buddies. Thoughts??

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Obama Bin Lyin' about tax cuts

2010-09-18T09:59:00.001-05:00

The big conversation right now in the political sphere is whether there should be a tax cut for the middle class or a tax cut for everyone including those filthy rich people.

Let's get something straight. No one is cutting your taxes. While Obama would like you to believe that he is working to do that, he ain't

Remember, this argument is about whether Congress should let the Bush tax rate cuts from 2001 and 2003 expire on January 1st.

If they come to an agreement and vote to extend these tax cuts, tax rates will remain the same and your pay check in January ain't going to be any different than what it was in December - at least as it pertains to taxes. Your taxes won't be less.

Now if they can't get their act together and vote to extend these tax rate cuts, that's a different story - regardless of how much you make. Despite whatever fertilizer Obama is pedaling, the expiration of the tax rate cuts is going to affect everyone 'cause these tax rate cuts are not just for income taxes. It will affect the tax code across the board.

So unless you use the Charlie Rangel and Tim Geithner tax tables, you will be paying more.

(Oh - and it ain't the Republicans that are holding this up - Obama can't even get his own Democrats in Congress on board to increase taxes during this recession)

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

GOP is turning into a bunch of sore losers

2010-09-18T09:44:00.001-05:00

This election season is getting interesting with the outcome of several of the recent primaries. Its also starting to show the true colors of the Republican establishment.

First there was Dede Scazzafava in New York's 23rd Congressional district. The GOP leadership backed this liberal Republican with ties to ACORN and the labor unions in the primary race against Doug Hoffman. When Hoffman pulled ahead of her in the polls thanks to widespread grassroots support, Scazzafava dropped out of the race and through her support to her former Democrat opponent, Bill Owens. After the Republican party had pumped over a million bucks into her campagn. Can you say RINO? Even without party support, Hoffman made a good showing against Owens, losing by only 5 percentage points. Probably what Scazzafava's treachery siphoned off in votes.

You would think the Republican party would take the hint that the voters don't want party regulars at the expense of conservative, responsible government.

But this past week we see more signs of big party politics in the GOP.

In Delaware, Christine O'Donnell beat long time congressman Mike Castle for the GOP ballot position for Joe Bidden's old Senate seat. O'Donnell came from nowhere, but had a conservative platform and with grassroots support from the Tea Party movement, along with endorsements from Sarah Palin and Jim DeMint, handily beat Castle. Castle, while he had the GOP establishment's support, didn't offer much in the way of platform and solutions to our country's problems (he voted with the Democrats about 60% of the time) and in the latter part of the campaign went completely negative against O'Donnell. That didn't help him much. When O'Donnell won, he should have man'ed up and congratulated her and worked to support her in the general election. But no, he went even more negative and even reportedly had a teleconference with Obama and Bidden - you have to wonder what that was about and where that's going. Hell, even the Republican party would not support her victory. The initial response was that she was on her own and would not get party support. (NRSC Chair Cornyn later backed off and said she would receive the full NRSC contribution of $42K) Karl Rove lambasted her, saying she was not electable. Charles Krauthammer said she had about a 10% chance of winning.

Interestingly, the day after the election, O'Donnell's campaign was hurting financially and she was asking for money on her web site. Rush Limbaugh made the comment that if everyone just gave her a buck, she could make the $50K she was looking for. By the end of the day, she was up to a million bucks and the next day when I looked, it was over $1.5 million. I wonder if the GOP elite still think that her electability chances are only 10%?

And now we have another sore loser in Alaska. Two weeks ago, tea party favorite Joe Miller beat Senator Lisa Murkowski. Not that Lisa was ever elected in the first place - she was appointed by her father when he stepped in to take the governor's office. Again, Murkowski had the backing of the GOP establishment and the GOP was pissed their gal lost. So was Lisa. She wasn't going to take this lying down. Instead of working with Miller to be sure Alaska sends a (conservative) Republican senator to Washington, she strikes out on her own and announces that she is going to run as "write-in" candidate. This is pure spite. Does she think she can win her seat back this way after a majority of the voters told her "NO"? She knows this is just going to split the Republican voting block and give the Senate seat to the Democrats. She is nothing but a spoiled immature brat that is a sore loser.

If the GOP can't reign in this kind of behavior, all I can say is that I am through donating money and time to the Republican party. I'll make donations to specific candidates whose platforms and positions I support - even those outside of state or district where I live - but I am through supporting a party where the establishment is more interested in preserving their own power base than in serving the people.

There could be a revolution coming people.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

This could be a good thing....

2010-09-10T08:21:00.001-05:00

Seen over at Lagniappe's Lair:

Now that whack-job "pastor" Terry Jones has allegedly scrapped his plan to burn a Koran or two on 9/11 at the request of just about everybody, we now have the Olympic-class assholes over at the Westboro baptist "church" saying that they are going to burn a few, just for the attention.

And in keeping with the tenets of their "religion of peace", numerous radical 12th century goat-rapers (muslims) have sworn to kill whoever does this sort of thing.

OK, much as I hate muslim terrorists, I'm willing to take the position that if a few of them go all suicide-bomber and take out the whole inbred Phelps/Roper clan at Westboro, we can just let that one slide, provided, of course, that there are no survivors on either side.

(My emphasis)

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Paradoxical thought of the day....

2010-09-04T20:57:00.001-05:00

Sent to my by my buddy Morgan. Had to share it.

Paradoxical Thought for Today

"Fathom the odd hypocrisy that Obama wants every citizen to prove they are insured, but people don't have to prove they are citizens"!

~ Ben Stein

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Well done @Pogoplug !!

2010-09-03T09:13:00.001-05:00

If you thought I was a Pogopug fanboy after my post last weekend about how wonderful this piece of tech is, CloudEngines (the company that makes and sells it) just sealed the deal.

A couple of weeks ago I saw an announcement that they were coming out with a wireless adapter for the Pogoplug that would let you connect it to your router wirelessly. So I guess you could have your router in one room and your Pogoplug in another room. At the time I thought that was kind of interesting but wasn't sure it would be something I would really use. But then they tweet'ed that they were going to make this available FOR FREE to existing Pogoplug customers. I thought, "yeah right". But check this out:

They did have you pay the shipping, but hey, that's fair.

And today, the nice folks at UPS sent me this:

Yep! It is on the bus, headed for the house. So now there will be something else to play with at del casa this long three day weekend.

You gotta luv a company that makes a great (and insanely useful) product, provides great service after the sale and remembers their customers with goodies like this! Thanks Pogoplug! Well done!

So, if you ever have a need to access your stuff from some other place or computer than where the stuff is at, check out Pogoplug. And they have even dropped the price while at the same time having good sales - contrary to the ol' "supply and demand" theory.

*** not an employee, owner or investor of Pogoplug or CloudEngines. Just a very happy customer.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Breakfast at Cafe 501

2010-08-29T10:52:00.001-05:00

The wife and I hit my absolute favorite place for breakfast - Cafe 501 at 5th and Boulevard in Edmond, OK. They make a breakfast burrito like you have never had before - crispy tortilla stuffed with scrambled eggs, guacamole, sour cream, turkey sausage and topped with black beans and salsa. Served up with home-style potatoes. Forget about counting calories, carbs, or fat-grams. You don't have numbers big enough. But gawd, this puppy is good.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Pogoplug - all tech should be this good

2010-08-29T10:17:00.001-05:00

I've been meaning to write up piece about my experience with the Pogoplug since I got it last Christmas as a gift to myself. But this thing works so well, it just fades into the background and I keep forgetting about it.

What is a Pogoplug? Its basically a garish pink and white box that lets you connect and access a USB drive from anywhere you have a computer on the internet. Actually you can connect up to four drives - either USB flash drives or hard drives. Call it network attached storage, call it a file server, call it whatever you want, I call it dead simple. Being able to access my stuff form anywhere has always been something I've wanted, but until the Pogoplug, it seemed like that was something reserved for folks a lot smarter than me and knowledgeable in all sorts of arcane network stuff.
Not so with the Pogoplug. The steps are as follows:
1. Plug it into your router,
2. Plug in a USB drive (or three or four - can you say terabyte?)
3. Plug it into the wall.
4. Log onto the pogoplug web site, let it find your little pink and white box and set up a password for access.
That's it.
From now on, you can access those drives from any other computer on the net. Just go mypogoplug.com, enter your e-mail and password that you signed up with and you will get a web browser view of the folders and files on your drive. From there, you can do all sorts of things. Pogoplug will let you

Download files to your local computer.

Share files or even whole folders with others by specifying their e-mail address. They get a note with a link in it to go to the file or folder via the mypogoplug web site. They don't have to sign up for anything, get an account or give up any personal information. This share feature can either be limited to viewing and downloading or can give the other person full access to the file or folder (or even the whole drive), allowing them to make changes. This has been particularly useful for me where I need to exchange numerous large files with others in my work. Instead of sending them an e-mail with a bunch of 200 page PDF files to clog up their Inbox, I share a folder with them where they can download the files at their convenience. Give them full access to that folder and they can upload other files and changes they need to share with me. And remember, all of this takes place on my drive, not from a remote server that I don't have control over.

Stream audio or video media over the net from the drive attached to the Pogoplug. Yep, all 50 gigabytes of your music collection and all of those YouTube videos you've saved, all of those movies you've ripped from DVDs (you know, the ones you own) are available anywhere in the world where you can hop on the net. All without any complicated set up.

And you don't even need a PC to do this. You can access, share and stream your stuff from an iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, etc.
If you are using a PC (or Mac) download the utility that integrates the drives attached to the Pogoplug into your Windows Explorere (or Mac Finder). This lets you access the files and folders from within other applications on your computer directly.
And the service and support provided by the Pogoplug people has been great. Send them an e-mail with your question or problem and you get back - usually within hours - a personal response from a real person that gives useful helpful information. And I've asked some stupid questions (Couldn't find the power cord when I unpacked the box - look under the packing tray was the answer that came back in literally minutes). I've even had them follow up with me several days later to see if I had sorted my problem out on one occasion.
And how much does all of this goodness cost? After all, there are all sorts of online storage services that range from free to $$$, usually the $$$ is a recurring annual fee. Well, with the Pogoplug you pony up your $$$ once - the garish pink and white box runs about $100. And that's it. There are no other annual fees to the Pogoplug people to keep things running smoothly. (yeah, I know, there's the cost of the drives, but you probably have a bunch of those laying around anyway) I guess the one danger to all of this is if Pogoplug goes out of business and they are not around to route the requests to the appropriate drive. So go out and buy one and help keep them in business. Seriously though, they have put the Pogoplug system software in escrow, to be released as open source in the event they go away.
One last caveat - I don't work for them, am not an investor or connected with them in anyway, except as a very happy and satisfied customer!
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google getting into's Skype's business.

2010-08-25T12:35:00.001-05:00

When I'm on my computer, I live in Google. GMail, Google Reader, Google Docs, Google News, you name it. Google's got me.
My "published" phone number is a Google Voice number. Now today that starts to become even more useful.
Google is now getting into the voice-over-IP (VOIP) phone service. From your GMail account (or Google Voice account) you can call any phone number in the US. Just like Skype. Except with Google, its free.
Write up in USA Today here: http://goo.gl/n8fz
And at CNN Money here: http://goo.gl/Ui01
(see, I even use Google's URL shortner (g))
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Anyone else see the irony in this? #Clements #Congress

2010-08-20T08:49:00.001-05:00

From the Boston globe today:

Former Red Sox great Roger Clemens ..... was indicted yesterday on multiple charges of lying to Congress when he denied plying himself with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Jeezzzz... they lie to us all the time and nothing happens to them. He just needed Charlie Rangle as his attorney.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google Voice vs The Fax

2010-07-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

This just struck me as funny.....
One of the slick features of Google Voice is that you can set it up to e-mail or text you a machine transcription of your incoming voice mail messages. Its not perfect, far from it. But its usually good enough to see who the caller was and the gist of what they were calling about.
This past weekend when I was running around doing some errands, I got a call. Since I didn't recognize the phone number, I punched it into voice mail. Turns out it was someone trying to send a fax and they had punched in the wrong fax number and instead had entered my phone number.

But GoogleVoice did its things with the recorded voice mail message. Took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on. Then had to chuckle.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Awesome Screenshot is..... awesome

2010-07-25T10:11:00.001-05:00

Tip of the hat to Simon Mackie at Web Worker Daily this week for passing on the Chrome extension Awesome Screenshot.

With a name like "Awesome Screenshot", it had better be pretty good. I think it is, in that its awesomely simple. This is a screenshot utility that grabs what is in the browser window. Find something you want to save as an image, activate the extension and you are given an option of either grabbing the whole page or the part of the page that is visible on the screen.

Once you have grabbed the screen, you can then crop a portion image, and annotate the image with rectangles, circles, lines and text. When you're done, right-click on the result and save the image to your local drive or send it off to Twitter, Facebook, Buzz or e-mail it using GMail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail. The e-mail option is particularly useful to send the image to another web based storage site, such as Picasaweb, Flickr, or Evernote.

All of this probably takes less time to do than it does to read it here. There are other screenshot tools and extensions that do more and have more features. Both Picnik and Aviary have extensions that will capture the screen and let you edit it in the web based image editors. For me, that's overkill most of the time.

You can get the extension at the Google Chrome Extension page here.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Quote of the day.... Defense of Liberty

2010-07-16T09:29:00.001-05:00

Quote of the day...

There are four boxes to use in defense of Liberty: SOAP, BALLOT, JURY AND AMMO. Please use in that order.

Pass it on.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Financial Reform....

2010-07-16T07:50:00.001-05:00

Well,
Obama and the Senate Democrats (and I include Snow, Collins and Brown in that label) yesterday wiped their collective asses with the Constitution.
From the NY Times:

It creates a council of federal regulators, led by the Treasury secretary, to coordinate the detection of risks to the financial system, and it provides new powers to constrain and even dismantle troubled companies.

Where does the government get any authority to dismantle a troubled company? It sure as hell isn't in the Constitution.
Who decides when a company is "troubled"? (Answer: the guy who can't figure out TurboTax)
This country and our economy is so screwed with this bunch.
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@RandyBrogdon or @MaryFalin ?

2010-07-13T06:41:00.001-05:00

I think its pretty clear that Oklahoma will have a Republican governor come November. The question is going to be who.
Straw polls to the contrary, Mary Falin may be the favorite. I've thought she has done a passable job as a representative although there were a couple of votes I thought she was wrong on, including the TARP bill and the recent bill on the path for Puerto Rican statehood. Both of these are a couple of bone headed moves that really made me question her decision making skill and whether she is a leader or just a "rubber stamp Republican" candidate. I just don't see the leadership skills - she's a two term representative among about 450 other representatives and doesn't really stand out. Sarah Palin has endorsed her - Sorry Sarah, I think you got this one wrong. She also has the endorsement of Arizona's Governor Jan Brewer - but it seems only after she switched her position on the Arizona immigration law from saying it was a federal matter to supporting the Arizona law.
Randy Brogdon is a state senator from Owasso. He calls himself a constitutional conservative and I have to say, I think his record supports that. He was against the TARP bailout and voted against the state budget that took that money - not exactly a popular position at the time, considering the economy. He has led the charge on state sovereignty and drafted legislation for a ballot initiative that would allow Oklahoma to opt-out of the Obama Healthcare bamboozle. He is strong on 2nd Amendment issues. He has proposed an interesting plan on reducing - maybe even eliminating - the state income tax on both individuals and corporations, thus attracting more jobs to the state and doing this in a way that is financially responsible. This doesn't seem to just be rhetoric - there's substance to this.
But there is one other overriding thing that has separated him from Falin for me. Falin seems to be a lifelong politician. Her resume is state representative, Lt Governor and then US Representative. She started that in 1990, almost 20 years ago. I couldn't find anything on her website or at congress.org that said what she did before that. Brogdon's resume shows that before he became a state senator, he was mayor of Owasso, OK (population 18,502) and ran an air conditioner business. That did it for me. This guy is not a career politician - he has run a business most of his life. He's paid bills, met payrolls, worked to satisfy customers and dealt with the same laws and regulations the rest of us have. As he said last night - "I've signed the front of the check". His legislative resume is just yummy icing on the cake.
I'm going with Brogdon.
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Google adds rich text sigs to GMail

2010-07-09T09:13:00.001-05:00

Google has finally added two of the features I have really been waiting for - Rich Text Signatures and unique signatures for different e-mail addresses. See Official GMail Blog.
Rich text signatures let you create a .sig for your e-mail account using different fonts, colors, links, images, etc. Make it as fancy as you want or keep it simple. Add a company logo, highlight your phone number, whatever.

The other feature was to allow you to have different signatures for each e-mail address you are sending mail from in that account. I use my Google Apps account as my central e-mail point. Mail from several accounts end up there and I send out messages from those accounts from there. In the past, if I let GMail add a signature, it was the same for each of the different accounts. Now I can set up a different signatures for my personal mail and my work mail. Or no sig file for the account that I use to post to Posterous with.

Much of this could be done using browser plug-ins or extensions, but this is a clean implementation that works really well. I've been using Wisestamp to do this. Wisestamp works in both Chrome and Foxpro, but had the limitation of only giving you two signatures - say one for business and one personal - but did let you embed your twitter, facebook and other social networking stuff in a really slick way.

Oh... this works with both GMail and Google Apps mail accounts.

Thanks Google.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

MSNBC AZ Immigration Poll

2010-07-07T10:34:00.001-05:00

Wow!
I realize that Internet polls are anything but scientific, but that fact that there were over 2 million presses of the "YES" button indicates that there must be some support for Arizona's immigration law. And for this to show up on MSNBC is even more interesting. Maybe President BO ought to pay attention to the news - even the news on his news station.

Tip of the hat to Randy's Place.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T11:01:00.001-05:00

Happy 4th of July and thank you to everyone past and present that made this great country possible.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

100 percent free wifi coming to Starbucks

2010-06-14T13:22:00.001-05:00

An interesting post over at ReadWriteWeb this morning, talking about how come July 1, Starbucks will offer free, unrestricted, no-strings attached wifi access at their coffee shops.
For a while now, you've been able to get a couple hours of free wifi at Starbucks if you used one of their Starbucks Cards, previously set up an account with AT&T and made somewhat regular (albeit not unreasonable) purchases. Starbucks is also planning on rolling out a new service called Starbucks Digital Network that would give free access to paid content such as the Wall Street Journal and other sites behind a "pay wall".

Personally, Starbucks has always been the wifi of last resort for me. Besides the hassle of using their Starbucks Card with an AT&T account, I always found their stores to be crowded with limited seating and the seating that was available was usually the hard wood chairs with a rickity small table to work on. Panera and even - gasp- McDonalds offered a better wifi experience and was more comfortable.

And I do think McDonalds makes a better cup of coffee. Just sayin'.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Obama Bin Lyin'.... Again

2010-06-12T09:44:00.001-05:00

In light of his ineptitude in providing any leadership in dealing with the Gulf Oil Spill, the President hit the campaign trail this week to talk up the one thing he has accomplished, his Obamacare that was shoved down the throat of the American people. Talking to seniors in Maryland this week, Barry came up with this whopper:

"First and foremost," President Obama told seniors on Tuesday in Wheaton, Maryland, "what you need to know is that the guaranteed Medicare benefits that you've earned will not change, regardless of whether you receive them through Medicare or Medicare Advantage." (quote from WSJ)

This is right up there with his statements about keeping your coverage if don't want to change (until your employer drops it or the carrier pulls out of the market) or not having to change doctors (until your doc decides he doesn't want to work for the peanuts paid by the government) . Obamacare makes drastic cuts in MedicareAdvantage. Obama knows it. This isn't parsing words or spin, its an outright lie and one more reason to not trust this man on healthcare or anything else.
Then in his radio address today, Obama called on Congress to pass the so-called "doc fix" to Medicare, which would avert a 21% paycut to doctors that see Medicare patients. This would cost the taxpayer billions and negate Obama's promise that his healthcare reform would result in a reduction in the deficit. For someone whose primary economic policy is to blame his predecessor for the economic problems he "inherited", the President seems to want to "kick the can on down the road" for future presidents and generations to deal with the deficits created by his healthcare bill. Unfortunately, Obama is between a rock and a hard place with no real way out in a government run system. If you pay docs what they need to make a living and run their business (and pay their exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums) and run up the deficit, or you cut the reimbursement rate to docs and run the risk of docs and other providers dropping out of Medicare system.
Yep, Barry seems to have a problem with selling his healthcare program and the truth.
Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Why do they think government is the answer to everything?

2010-06-10T16:34:00.001-05:00

Looking at Google News, the first headline I see is:

BP Oil Spill: Is it time for the Pentagon to take over?

Immediately below that is this headline:

Army probe finds 211 graves at Arlington Cemetery mishandled

Now if they can't keep track of a bunch of dead people, why does Congress think the Pentago is the answer to solving a problem like the oil spill? I'm not quite sure what the military would know about plugging a hole - they're real good at making holes and big ones at that, but plugging them 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, not so much.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

@chavezlinda sure made a snarky comment on Fox and Friends this AM

2010-06-02T08:53:00.001-05:00

Linda Chavez sure made a snarky comment on Fox & Friends this morning mid-way through the third hour.   She was on the "curvy couch" with Steve Doocy and a couple of other commentator types. I didn't recognize the other two gentlemen, but one was labeled "Democrat Strategist". At the end of the segment, both of the two guys were lamenting about Obama's lack of leadership and the current condition of the economy and unemployment. Both of them characterized their position as very "unhappy" with Obama. The Democrat strategist guy even said .."we need to create jobs to create wealth". Wow, this guys sounded more like a Reagan Republican.

The only thing Ms. Chavez could come up in response to the other two being unhappy with Obama at the closing was "Hey, I'm a Republican. I'm very happy, I think the Republicans are going to do very well in the elections in November."

Sorry, Ms. Chavez, that doesn't sound very good. You're happy because Obama is doing a bad job? As a result of Obama's bad job, a lot of people are hurting. I'd like to think the Republicans are going to do well because they have some good ideas and answers to this country's problems, not just because the other guy is making a mess out of things and you think the GOP should ride in on the coat tails of people's pain. Part of that pain is a result of the over-spending during the Bush years as well as the absolute mess Obama has made of things.   Show us why the Republicans should do well in November. Or is this just GOP politics as usual.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Cowboy Hall of Fame....

2010-05-18T07:39:00.001-05:00

A couple of shots from our visit to the National Western Heritage Museum and Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City this weekend.
This is really an amazing museum with a collection that includes just about every piece of American Western art you have ever seen. Russell, Remington, others... they are all there.

And it was a great place to sit out the local hail storm as well.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Posterous Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs

2010-04-20T07:49:00.001-05:00

Posterous co-founders named Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2010 by Business Week.
Wow - congratulations guys. Although this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has used this amazingly simple but very capable posting and blogging platform. And the Posterous crew does not rest on their laurels - it keeps getting better with the features that just keep coming - new editor, themes, domains, post scheduling, cross posting to more platforms, etc, etc, etc.

Posterous is a great tool and it has been a lot of fun watching this company do their thing.

Posterous FTW!!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Jobless Claims Rise Again - duh!?!

2010-04-08T08:31:00.001-05:00

After the exuberance from last weeks job report and conclusions that we had turned the corner, first time jobless claims go up "unexpectedly" by 18,000 to 460,000.
Not sure why it is so unexpected. Nothing has changed in this economy that would suggest that jobs would be created. There's no credit, business is stagnant at best, businesses are looking at what they are going to have to do with the new ObamaCare plan and what that is going to cost, and after promising the HCR would actually help cut the deficit, they are now talking about raising taxes and even floating the idea of a value added tax or national sales tax.

My basic craphouse economic theories question why anyone would want to hire someone in this economic environment? Its going to cost you money you don't have and won't be getting.
Keep going Barry - you'll be emasculated in November.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

20 Freedoms You Lose Under Obamacare

2010-03-24T06:35:00.001-05:00

This was the topic of conversation on the radio yesterday afternoon drive time. I'm not sure where the original source was - something like International Business Journal according to the radio guy. I found this at www.unitedstatesmilia.com via Google.

If all of this is true, one has to come to the conclusion that premiums will go up and insurance companies will be going out of business. Of course that was the plan all along wasn't it?

------------------
With House Democrats passing of the Senate health care bill, it is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.

Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”
The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.
1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)
2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).
3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).
4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).
5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).
6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).
7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))
8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).
9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 101 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).
10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).
11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))
12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))
13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a country where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)). And then you cannot increase your capacity by more than 200% (Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).
14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)
15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).
16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).
The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).
17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B).)
18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).
19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).
That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).
20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Give me Liberty or....

2010-03-23T07:53:00.001-05:00

On this date in 1775, Patrick Henry gave his famous speech before Virginia's House of Burgesses where he closed with the memorable line ".... but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."
After what happened this past Sunday, if he would have said that today, they would have said "OK", signed him up for Obama care and let him take curtain #2.

November 2 can't come soon enough.

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Life's Certainties - Death, Taxes..... and Obama's Healthcare

2010-03-21T22:33:00.001-05:00

It used to be said that the only things certain in this life were Death and Taxes.

You can now add Obama's Healthcare to that list.
And it will most certainly hasten the other two, by raising your taxes, and through the ruination of the American healthcare system will hasten your demise.

More than 55% of Americans were against this so-called reform. 80% of Americans are satisfied with their insurance. Yet Obama and the Democrats in the House and the Senate rammed this down the throats of the American people.

There is a a real anger in America over this. I have heard normally a-political people question the sanity of our elected officials and talk about how they will vote in November - "throw the bums out!!"

I truly hope that anger continues. Unfortunately, over the next 7 months, its likely that many of those people will fall back into their a-political complacency and many will not even bother going to the polls in a mid-term election.

I hope you will stay informed, continue to become educated about the fraud that has been perpertarted on the American people and keep your eyes open on the consequences of this legislation. While much of those consequences will not manifest themselves for several years, you will likely see an impact on your finances and may start to see an impact on your healthcare options as doctors, hospitals and other providers prepare for the coming regulations and meddling of the government.

Stay informed, stay aware, stay angry....... and vote the bums out!!

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Census form??

2010-03-17T10:16:00.001-05:00

Got you Census form yet? Our showed up yesterday, right on schedule after receiving the pre-census letter received last week alerting us that we would be receiving a census form the following week. Glad the guvamint spent the money on that 'cause I wasn't sure if the people on radio and tv were telling me the truth that I would be getting a census form.

After seeing the abomination of activity in Washington DC this week, my first reaction was to fill out the first question (as required and the only one required by the Constitution), send it back and tell them if they didn't like it, they could fold it up with square corners and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Question 2 seems like a "gotcha" question - "where there any additional people you didn't include in question 1?" No, I answered question 1 truthfully and you're not going to trip me up.

I don't understand why they need to know the mortgage or ownership status of the house, unless its part of the Obama Home Mortgage marketing effort.

I'll be damned if I'll give them my phone number. I prefer instead to support the previously unemployed that are now working for the Census. Let one of them come to the house. Thor needs some fresh meat.

I don't quite understand why so much emphasis is placed on specifying ethnicity. I thought we were aiming to be a "color-blind" society in the post-racial era of Obama. Maybe the DNC is using this as a recruiting tool.

I've been re-thinking this tho'. Time to pick your fights and it looks like there will be fights in the future. I'll fill it out and send it back. Heck, I think I'll even include the dogs. Answering the ethnicity questions for the pooches could be fun.

After all, I am just wanting to get my "fair share".

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Kucenich is the cheapest whore there is...

2010-03-17T09:36:00.001-05:00

Dennis Kucenich has to be the cheapest whore ever to come out of Congress. Give the boy a ride home on Air Force One and you get his vote. At least Landreau and Nelson got real money for their states.
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Evernote just got better...

2010-03-17T08:54:00.001-05:00

Evernote is one of my most used tools. It is billed as a way to remember everything. Just dump notes, pics, web site clips, etc into Evernote and it will be indexed and available by search any time later on any PC you have set up with Evernote or from their web site. It even does a pretty good job of indexing text it recognizes in images. If you haven't already, I really encourage you to check it out.

One of Evernote's strengths is the number of ways you can input stuff into Evernote. You can simply type in a new note, clip stuff from the web or e-mail your stuff into your Evernote account. I use the "e-mail in" feature extensively, sending in notes and pics from my cell phone. The downside has always been that stuff you e-mail in goes into a default notebook and is not tagged. Of course you can always change the notebook later and add tags, but that's another step.

Until now....
Evernote now lets you send in a note to your account and specify the destination notebook and assign tags from the subject line. In the subject line of your e-mail message to your Evernote account, specify the title of the note. Then after that you can specify a notebook by typing "@<notebook name>" and tags with "#<tag name>". \

So you have a shiny new recipe someone sent you, you could forward the message with the recipe to your Evernote address, with the subject line as follows:

Subject: Chicken Marsala @Recipes #chicken #Italian
This would dump the recipe into the Recipes notebook with the note title of Chicken Marsala and it would be tagged with "chicken" and "Italian".

A couple of cautions. This only works for notebooks and tags that already exist in your account. You cannot use it to create a new notebook or tag via e-mail.

Still, its a great increase in functionality for an already great tool.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Picnik, Google and Furballs...

2010-03-02T07:27:00.001-06:00

In the news today, I see that Google acquired on-line photo editing site Picnik. Picnik is one of any number of photo editing sites out there that let you do some basic and some not-so-basic editing and special effects on your photos. Interfaces nicely with other online photo sites such as Flickr and PicasaWeb. Of course the others do to. Picnik had about the simplist user interface to get the things done that I usually needed to do - crop, re-size, adjust brightness and contrast, tweak the color balance, etc. It has really become the photo editing tool of choice on my laptop since I don't have Photoshop Elements installed there.
The one thing I really liked about Picnik was the way it could correct "red-eye" in my pictures of my dogs. Red-eye is an artifact in flash photos where the light from the flash is reflected off the retina. It seems that dogs have a different structure in their retinas and when you take a flash pic of a pooch straight on, you don't get "red-eye" but rather "green-eye" from the light reflected off the back of the retina.

Photoshop, Gimp and most other photo editing software have tools to eliminate "red-eye" but I have not had much luck getting rid of the "green-eye" effect in the dog pics. Picnik handled this nicely with a "fur-ball" option in their "red-eye" tool. After selecting the tool, select the "fur-ball" option and then put the cross-hair over the green spot in the eye and click.

Here's a "before-and-after" shot of the same pic where Picnik was used to correct the green (blue?) spot in the eyes.

I wish the folks at Picnik well with the acquisition by Google - and Google, please don't screw up a good thing.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Backupify - backup your online self

2010-01-27T07:55:00.001-06:00

Backupify provides a service to back up your online stuff,... online. Stuff like GMail, Hotmail, Google Docs, Blogger and Wordpress blogs, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, .... and the list goes on.

You set up the services and accounts you want Backupify to back up and they take it from there. In some cases you need to give them your user id and password (yes, that did make me nervous) and where possible, they use the target service's authentification protocols.

Backupify uses Amazon's data services for storage, rather than build out their own infrastructure. If you have an Amazon S3 account, you can use that as the storage location and use Backupify to simply gather up the stuff to back up.

At first I was a bit skeptical of things. More than a little apprehensive to give out my Gmail password and so on. I heard a podcast by Leo Laporte where the head guy at Backupify was interviewed and that was interesting. The podcast is here (on "Net at Night" episode 135) and the interview starts about 31 minutes into the podcast.

If you're interested in this service, get signed up in the next couple of days - Their giving out free accounts until the end of January.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Upload anything to Google Docs..

2010-01-22T07:23:00.001-06:00

This showed up in my Google Docs yesterday.

About a week ago, Google announced they were opening up Google Docs to let you upload and store just about any kind of file - pics, sound, video, zip archives, etc. From there, you can share the files with other users, or send them out as an e-mail attachment. Files can be up to 250 MB in size, but with a standard Google account, you are limited to 1 Gig of storage space. You can by additional storage at $.25/Gig, not a bad price. This could certainly open up online storage to those who haven't used it before. And it would be handy if you didn't have a USB thumb drive with you to share files with someone.

Still, I wonder where this is going. With services like Dropbox, the Google app seems to be a bit anemic. To my knowledge, Dropbox has no file size limitation and their basic (free) service gives you 2 GB of storage space and features automatic synchronization with multiple computers. With the PogoPlug, I have all the storage I can plug in. Still, with Google, you never know. This may turn into a much more powerful "cloud drive".

Just don't put anything up there you don't want the Chinese to see.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Sorry Fast Eddy - people aren't buying it anymore #healthcare

2010-01-20T08:01:00.001-06:00

Ed Rendel is on the tube explaining the Brown victory in Mass by saying that the Dems didn't do a good enough job explaining the healthcare bill to the American people and why it was a good thing and that they would fix a system that everybody says is broken.

Sorry, Fast Eddy - the American people aren't stupid like you folks seem to think. They read the bill(s) (unlike most of the lawmakers) and saw that it was not a good thing - premiums would go up, taxes would go up (unless you're a Union member in Nebraska), quality of care would go down (you can't cut $500 billion from Medicare at the same time you have a massive infusion of participants from the baby boomers). 55% of the American people don't want this monstrosity. 85% of the American people are happy with their health insurance. The healthcare system may need some tweaks and fixes, but it definitely ain't broken. Come up with the tweaks and fixes - malpractice tort reform, insurance purchase across state lines, reasonable pricing for coverage of pre-existing conditions would be a start.

This turkey needs to have a fork stuck in it and tossed in the trash.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

THANK YOU Massachusetts!!! #MAsen

2010-01-19T20:47:00.001-06:00

With 75% of the precincts reporting, Martha Coakley 46% and Scott Brown 53% of the vote - Coakley is conceding the special election for the Senate seat to Brown.

Massachusetts voters have sent a clear message to Washington DC that we don't want this Healthcare bill, we don't the government to spend our future into oblivion. We don't want you bribing government officials to get your way. We don't want you in the hip pockets of the unions. We want you to be the government of ALL the people, not just the sugar daddy of your constituents.

Somehow I don't think they will get it. Oh well, maybe they will come November.

Ted Kennedy must be spinning like a top in his grave.

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New Tech in the House @pogoplug

2009-12-29T10:35:00.001-06:00
This just showed up in time for something to do this weekend. Supposed to get more snow so probably not going anywhere anyway. Kudos to PogoPlug fulfillment in getting it here so quickly over the holiday break.

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Obamacare to require super-majority for changes

2009-12-22T07:53:00.001-06:00

If this isn't enough to jack your jaws.
In an amendment to the Senate healthcare bill, the Democrats have slipped in a piece that will require a super-majority (two-thirds) to make a change  to any regulation imposed on doctors and patients by the Medicare Advisory Boards, the so-called "Death Panels".

See article at Red State Blog here: http://bit.ly/5LULRL

They're locking this in people. Its not only getting jammed down your throat, its not going to come out.

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Partners in Crime

2009-12-19T09:33:00.001-06:00

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B-Day of the Bill of Rights

2009-12-15T09:25:00.001-06:00
On this date in 1791, Virginia's ratification of the first ten amendments to the Constitution met the requirement for the three-fourths majority and the amendments became law. Driven by a concern of an overly powerful federal government, the first ten amendments articulated specific rights of all Americans. A quick summary of these amendments that became known as the Bill of Rights.
1. Freedom of speech, assembly, religion and the press
2. Right to keep and bear arms
3. No forcible quartering of soldiers during peacetime
4. Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure

5. Right to a grand jury for capital crimes and due process; Protection from double jeopardy, self-incrimination and public confiscation of private property without just compensation
6. Right to a speedy trial by jury and competent defense

7. Right to trial by jury for monetary cases above $20
8. Protection against "excessive" bail or fines and "cruel and unusual" punishment
9. Rights not enumerated are "retained by the people"

10. Rights not given to the federal government nor prohibited by the Constitution to the state governments, "are reserved to the States... or to the people".
Somewhere the government's power to mandate everyone buy health insurance seems to be missing...

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

New Tech in the House

2009-12-07T07:08:00.001-06:00

This weekend I broke down and bought a new laptop. I'll spare you the un-boxing experience.
I was looking to replace a six year old machine that - to say the least - had got to be a bit long in the tooth. It was having a hard time just running XP and a light weight browser such as Chrome. The battery was shot and it needed to be tethered to the wall outlet for any use at all. I don't travel that much and most of my "real" work is done on a desktop with plenty of juice. The laptop was for those times when I was away from the desktop, even if it was just in the living room watching tv and wanting to catch up on e-mail, do some browsing, light weight word processing and spreadsheets, maybe some basic photo editing.

Initially I looked at some of the netbooks from HP and Acer. All of these seemed to be cut from the same template - Atom processor, 1 GB memory, 160 GB hard drive, 10.1" screen size, etc. While the machines were attractive for their small size and portability, the minimal specs began to concern me as I thought more about it. I didn't expect to do too much more on this machine, but I didn't want it to become too bogged down too soon as Windows became bigger with more updates and applications got fatter. Also the small size struck me as.... small. While its very portable, the keyboard seemed cramped and I wondered how functional it would be for extended periods of time. And the small screen size was a bit much for my old eyes.

This Toshiba seemed to fit the bill for me near perfectly. The size is a nice compromise between the netbooks portability and the size of the bigger laptops. The keyboard is very functional (for a laptop - its still not a desktop keyboard). The Celeron is no dual-core processor, but combined with the 2GB of memory makes for a snappy experience. Windows 7 is running nicely and the connection to the household wifi could not have been simpler.

What is really impressing me is the battery life. Toshiba bills it as 8-9 hours and it looks like they ain't fibbin'. I'm still on my first charge and have used the machine quite a bit over the last 24 hours, just putting it in "sleep" mode when I close the lid between sessions. This was a deal maker for me as I really like the idea of going all day with just a laptop and not a laptop and power cord w/brick. Grab the thing, stuff it in my bag and go. No waiting on shut down or boot up.

And the $450 price tag was just sweet.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Thoughts on Obama's Afghan Strategy

2009-12-02T09:46:00.001-06:00
This morning the news networks are all reporting and analyzing President Obama's speech from last night on his strategy for Afghanistan and his decision to send more troops to that war. After listening to the speech and reading the text, a couple things struck me about his strategy and what appears to be his thoughts driving it.
About a third of the way into his speech, President Obama made the statement "... I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan." In the very next sentence, he then says "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home".

There are a couple things about these two statements that make me wonder just how committed President Obama is to this struggle.
It took him more than three months to come to this conclusion after the general he had appointed to the war gave his report on what was needed to win this war.

He is sending only 3/4 of the number of troops (actually that number is half the 60,000 that was indicated as optimal) that his general said was needed to succeed.
What happened to our vital national interest after 18 months? At that point is the effort in Afghanistan not so vital anymore?

Are the compromises in troop levels and deployment duration based on politics, trying to walk a fine line between the anti-war far left and the general population that is more in favor of winning this war?

I have a number of problems with setting a definite timeline for pulling out of Afghanistan, particularly one that appears to be much too brief.
Afghanistan is a tremendously difficult theater to wage a war. The area has been the target of invading armies for thousands of years and history shows that there is little success. Could the US and its allies be successful in winning this conflict in spite of the terrain and weather? I think so, but not with a tight timeline to fight as well.

The argument that the timeline imposes an incentive for the Afghan government to take responsibility for their own security is a straw argument. This part of the world is so fractured there is no real centralized government that could impose security and keep the Taliban and Al-Qaida out of the country - at least not within an 18 month time line.

And like it or not, specifying a time frame just tells our enemies when we are leaving and how long they just have to hole up and wait us out. Al-Qaida has shown they are perfectly happy to take the long view and not be in a hurry to strike any time soon if they can do so down the road with more effect.

My big concern is that the United States is going to send an inadequate number of troops to Afghanistan and deploy them for an inadequate period of time. There will be casualties - people will be killed - and it will be for naught because this president does not have the will to win this war. Our troops will come home and Al-Qaida will strike America again - and then the whole process will start over again with more dead Americans and more troops asked to sacrifice.

Mr. President - either fight this war to win, regardless of how long it takes, or get our troops out of there now and accept the consequences. Otherwise you are simply killing our troops without accomplishing anything.

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required

2009-12-01T19:17:00.001-06:00

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required

A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report. It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy. It includes secretaries of State, Commerce, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Energy, and Housing & Urban Development, and excludes Postmaster General, Navy, War, Health, Education & Welfare, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security—432 cabinet members in all.

When one considers that public sector employment has ranged since the 1950s at between 15 percent and 19 percent of the population, the makeup of the current cabinet—over 90 percent of its prior experience was in the public sector—is remarkable.

And Obama thinks he can run a car company, banks, insurance companies and the health care industry.

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Coffee break at Panera

2009-10-24T16:02:00.001-05:00

I am waiting on the wife so am doing a coffee break at Panera, soaking some of their free wifi goodness. Didn't drag the laptop with me today, instead stuck the old Palm TX and the wireless fold up keyboard in the car when we took off. While the TX is getting pretty long in the tooth, it is still quite functional for basic e-mail and simple web browsing. The wireless keyboard also extends its functionality as a mobile e-mail machine for typing in longer messages. (and with Posterous, that turns it into a blogging machine as well) Also makes for a good e-book reader, supporting both the eReader and MobiPocket format. It has good battery life so I don't have to drag along a charger and be looking for a table with an outlet. And its paid for, something not insignificant in this day of uncertain economics.
Interestingly, the keyboard also works with the Palm Treo and Palm Centro phones. So the keyboard usually gets tossed into my bag or into the car when I am out and about. Its one of those things that have kept me from seriously considering upgrading to an iPhone or Blackberry. That and an investment in a ton of Palm software that I have become quite dependent on. If Apple would support a wireless keyboard for the iPhone, that could be a killer. Of course it would also likely kill some MacBook sales as well. Better go - coffee will be getting cold.
(picture taken with the Palm Centro, then beamed via IR to the TX and then attached to this e-mail message)

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coexist... my ass

2009-10-18T13:44:00.001-05:00

I hate those politically correct "coexist" bumper stickers, but got a kick out of this when I was walking the pooch last night. Anyone else see the irony in this besides me?

Posted via email from greg-c - on the go....