Ever sit down to your computer which had some stuff running only to find you’re at the login screen (and not just the screensaver password prompt screen)? Did you lose some work? I have!
No easy option to change this, but it IS changeable.
I voted. And I’ve deliberately kept the TV off any channel likely to be analyzing the election or announing results. It’s not been easy (I watched other, pre-recorded stuff, or did some work). I will catch the result in the morning!
So this morning I was going to help my wife power wash her horse barn. She’d emptied the 3 stalls, and I showed her how to use the backpack blower to blow out the dust/hay first. So far so good. I brought the power washer over, started it up, put a spray tip in the wand (securely I thought) and hit the trigger and PHOOOM - the spray tip flew out into the grass! Hmm… go get the tip, put it back in, make sure it’s in properly this time, then pull the trigger… sh—- whaa— water spraying everywhere, f-#, da–… turn it off. Check spray tip, looks good, try again, same (soaking) deal. $#!+ After a few attempts to fix, I figure I broke the spray wand coupling somehow, and go back the house - somewhat unhappy!
I finished the mowing I had started earlier, showered, ate, had a swim, ate dinner, and the power washer was still on my mind. I decided to look at the wand again to see if I could figure it out. I thought maybe a rubber seal ring had somehow become dislodged or something. I decided to look carefully at the area where the spray tip landed in the grass and voila, I found a rubber o-ring! Took me half an hour to figure out how to install it (goes completely inside the wand coupling) but I knew I had it. Put the tip back on (SECURELY!), fired it up —– YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!
Another maintenance mystery solved. I was so pleased I didn’t have to buy parts or deal with warranty or get someone to fix it that I power washed her horse’s stall. Just another of life’s ups and downs on the farm.
I just saw the new Disney/Pixar movie WALL-E and I was blown away. I think critics of this movie may have been expecting a comedy, perhaps a Toy Story with robots, but it’s nothing of the kind. It certainly has humor, but it’s in a dark, tense, but ultimately uplifting (hey it’s Disney) backdrop.
To me it contains parts of many science fiction books and movies, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, all of Isaac Asimov’s amazing robot books, even Rendezvous With Rama, my favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke.
The movie’s web site is also amazing. Here’s a free embed they provide:
I recently saw Bjorn Lomborg interviewed about ‘global warming’ and his views on what we should do seemed about the most practical and effective imaginable. Instead of the shrill, slick, non-scientific, and dishonest ‘marketing’ by people like Al Gore, Lomborg looks at the effectiveness of solutions proposed by others. For example, he says if all the goals of the Kyoto treaty were met (no chance, but ok), the world would still only delay the predicted effects of ‘global warming’ by a year or so! So Al Gore and cohorts want to cripple the global economy to delay global warming by a year? Ok Bjorn, now you’ve got my attention.
He goes on to say that efforts to save arctic ice will likely save 1 polar bear a year, a popular cause among environmentalists. He said humans SHOOT 400 polar bears a year, so maybe stopping that would be more effective!
Despite all the great minds involved in the campaign such as James Carville, Terry McAuliffe, Harold Ickes, and both Clintons (see the rest here), their Achilles heel did them in. And what was that? Arrogance!
Their original plan appears to have been:
Raise a bunch of money from a few rich donors
Make speeches carefully worded to pander to voters without saying anything substantive that might be used against her
Put an organization in place to go after the big primaries, and ignore those annoying little caucus states for the most part
Be so far ahead after ‘Super Tuesday’ (Feb 5, 2008, a day that will live in infamy) that money will continue to roll in for the general election and coast to the nomination and crowning!
So what went wrong? Well everything really! Obama won the first ‘event’, a caucus, in Iowa. I’m sure the Clinton team thought “pfft, it’s a caucus, big deal, and we only just lost (well, ok, third), and we’ll be ahead shortly, stay the course”. She wins New Hampshire and they must feel like they’re back on track (remember ‘comeback kid’ in 1991?). February 5 comes along, and she doesn’t get the big lead. Money is POURING into the Obama campaign and the organizations are getting put together in EVERY state. Maybe they realized team Clinton had ignored the caucuses and went after those. Edwards doesn’t drop out which probably hurt Clinton further.
After a string of losses in caucuses and small state primaries, despite winning some HUGE STATES (CA, NY, PA, TX sorta, etc.), she still found herself behind, but the strategy had STILL NOT CHANGED except perhaps by highlighting her ‘experience’ over Obama’s message of ‘change’. ‘Experience’ came across as “more of the same” and “old”. Meanwhile Obama got a GIGANTIC push from Oprah Winfrey. “He is the one” she said, over and over. The crowd went nuts. Even I got goosebumps.
After it was already too late, her stump speeches began to get more specific, less boring, and less condescending and self-congratulatory. After agreeing that the results in Florida and Michigan, two HUGE and IMPORTANT states, wouldn’t count because they moved their primaries before Super Tuesday, team Clinton THEN decides they want to fight for them. Everyone saw through this as typical Clinton old school spin. But it was too late. Despite Obama scandals and distractions, he would not be denied. CNN, NBC, MSNBC, most bloggers, and idealistic twenty somethings had already fallen madly in love with him.
And then there’s Bill. The ex-President who is loved by so many as the creator of peace and prosperity in the 90’s. Well he quickly reminded people he has a temper and a mean streak too, and, like Hillary, is astoundingly arrogant. He did his wife NO FAVORS in this campaign, and without question cost her a ton of votes.
Other nails in the coffin were Hillary and Bill’s ‘flubs’, probably the most notable was her claiming to have landed in Bosnia under sniper fire when video showed she was greeted casually by smiling children with flowers! Unfairly or not, I think in people’s minds this might have subconsciously become linked to Bill’s “I did not have sex with that woman…” finger wagging bold faced lie. So she faced a credibility gap too.
And so today she finally conceded. Ms. “Inevitable” barely smiled. She wanted the speech to be historic, but it was still painful for her to deliver. She now clearly wants the VP spot, and I currently think it WOULD help Obama win the Presidency, BUT once he’d won it, then he’d have to put up with Hillary AND Bill for 4 or 8 years, a prospect he is no doubt thinking about.
It’s incredible that she and her oh so talented team blew this perfect opportunity. It just shows… you never know.
I have conflicted feelings about this. On the one hand I am glad she lost as I don’t like the calculating, cynical, manipulative, poll-driven way the Clintons operate. On the other hand, I’m sure this loss is very painful for Hillary Clinton and I feel bad for her. I do believe she was treated VERY poorly by the media.
With all this talk of oil and energy, I decided to look at the Department of Energy web site to see what it claims to be doing.
Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).
I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ‘09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?
Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.
So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?
It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?
This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm
By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.
EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????
So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.
What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?
So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ‘07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.
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