October 2004 Archive
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October 2004 Posts
Man time goes by too fast...
Tomorrow I'll be 29.
Chris and I will be hosting a Halloween/Birthday/Housewarming party. I've hosted these parties for the last couple years but this one is special since this time we actually own the house. In fact, we've spent most of this week fixing things up, buying new fixtures, installing Chris's projector and surround sound, and installed a chrome Fisher Patel Dishdrawer, which is a dishwasher but in much easier to use drawer form.
When you're a first-time homeowner, simple things like chrome dishwashers suddenly become exciting and cool. Or maybe I'm just refusing to be old.
I also need to give a shout out Scott Roth and Jessica Krenzel, both good friend who are also celebrating their birthdays tomorrow. Yup, a popular day for birthdays.
One week till election day!
It's really sad that the Bush campaign, desperate for mud to sling, has resorted to spending $8 million on distorted anti-Kerry ads, running those ads more than 9,000 times in 45 cities last week alone.
From FactCheck.org:
Both ads repeat claims we've repeatedly disputed here. They both attempt to portray Kerry as eager to raise taxes on middle-income taxpayers, which Kerry has said consistently he won't do. One ad characterizes Kerry's votes against proposed tax cuts as votes to "raise taxes," an outright falsehood.
At least it runs in line with the Bush-way: spend big and mislead the public.
A US-financed poll shows that the majority of voting Iraqi's want a religious leader leading the country, and not the US interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
The Bush administration calls this the "worst-case scenario."
I'm not sure how different that is to our voting situation here. Many Americans are voting for Bush, a born-again Christian, because of his drive to bring more religion to the US government.
Also, has anybody said what happens if Iraq elects a terrorist as their leader? Do we attack them again?
From the Associated Press:
A significant part of the insurgents' money is coming from sympathizers in Saudi Arabia, and the Saudi government is neglecting the problem, said the official, who was authorized by the Pentagon to speak on the issue this week, but only on condition of anonymity.
Why does theperson always have to be anonymous?Is this the Pentagon's way of making sure we never know what to believe?
Money is flowing into Iraq through Syria, the official said.
I'm sure this won't change many voters minds, but it does make ya think...
TEHRAN, Iran -- The head of Iran's security council said Tuesday that the re-election of President Bush was in Tehran's best interests, despite the administration's axis of evil label, accusations that Iran harbors al-Qaida terrorists and threats of sanctions over the country's nuclear ambitions.
Historically, Democrats have harmed Iran more than Republicans, said Hasan Rowhani, head of the Supreme National Security Council, Iran's top security decision-making body.
Continue: Bush Receives Endorsement From Iran
Last year we had enough flu vaccine to immunize every American who needed the flu shot. You could go to grocery stores, drug stores, hospitals, and libraries and get the shot for $5.
Still, with most of American vaccinated, 36,000 Americans died last winter from the flu. That's more than twice the number of Americans who died from AIDS last year, and more than ten times the number of Americans who died in 2001 terrorist attacks. In addition, 100,000 Americans were hospitalized because of the flu.
This year there aren't enough flu shots. If you're reading this web page chances are you do not qualify to get a shot. While that means having the flu should not be fatal to you, you will still suffer from an illness that should have been prevented, and you could be out of work for a week or more.
President Bush said during the third debate that he was not concerned about the lack of flu shots, even saying that he was not going to get one.
My call to our fellow Americans is if you're healthy, if you're younger, don't get a flu shot this year.
With 36,000 deaths last year, I'm worried about this upcoming winter. Will we see record amounts American workers required to stay at home? Will we see people afraid to be in crowded areas? Will we see record number of deaths related to the flu?
Flu Information: WebMD
From LostRemote.com:
Check my math. The Jon Stewart showdown on CNN Crossfire has surpassed 800,000 views on iFilm and just under 70,000 BitTorrent downloads. Crossfire averaged 550,000 viewers in Nielsen's third-quarter ratings. So unless Crossfire pulled off a huge night on Friday, more people watched the Stewart-Carlson exchange on the web than watched it on TV -- a first for a prime-time cable news show.
If you haven't watched this episode of Crossfire you're missing out. It's hilarious, insightful, and hopefully will cause some huge changes in the poor ways that the media has been doing a disservice to our country in how it covers political issues.
Jon Stewart for President?
(Yeah, Michael Moore has been saying the same things about the media for years, but Jon Stewart looks better on camera and has a more appreciatable sense of humor. Those things help.)
This Modern World: Channel Surfing
"It's a very funny dissection of Bush's distortions of Kerry and how the media plays along. Exaggerated, but not that much. "Hat tip: AmericaBlog
I've been holding out for a new cell phone for two years now, and I've finally found one that I think does everything I want: The AudioVox SMT5600, also known as the HTC Typhoon and Orange SPV C500.
Cool features:
- Windows Media Player 10 - replaces my aging MP3 player (also plays videos).
- Sync music, videos, email, contacts, tasks, games, applications, and more via USB and BlueTooth.
- Mini-SD flash ram slot for up to 512 MB of removable storage.
- Runs Windows Smartphone Edition, so lots of cool programs available, plus runs .NET programs as well.
- Huge screen, so mobile Web browsing isn't too limiting. (
- 2.2 inch, 176 x 220 pixels TFT LCD with 64K Colors)
- Weighs less than 3.6 ounces
- Dimensions - 4.24 x 1.82 x .69 inches - smallest smartphone in the world!
- Built-in VGA camera with 4X digital zoom and video recording.
- Recharge batteries via standard USB cable.
Some sites with more info:
- Official: AudioVox SMT5600 Product Page
- Cingular: Cingular Wireless
- Info: PhoneScoop information page
- Info: CNET Information and Reviews
- Review: CoolSmartPhone.com
- Review: PC Magazine
- Buy: Amazon: $224.99 with AT&T plan
- Forums: AudioVox.HowardForms.com
General MS Smartphone news and reviews sites:
As of October 19: Kerry: 284 Bush: 247 (270 needed to win)
Instead of trusting the results from any one polling company, Elector-Vote.com aggregates polling results from the following pollsters: American Research Group, Mason-Dixon, Quinnipiac University, Rasmussen, Research 2000, Strategic Vision, Survey USA, and Zogby.
The web site has other interesting graphs, such as an annotated time line of where the polls put the candidates after different events and the debates occurred.
The debate is over.
Kerry showed why should be the next president. He was clear, concise, answered the questions, had detailed plans, used facts not name calling, and was confident.
Bush avoided answering important questions, wasn't confident, and used numbers already proved false by FactCheck.org to back his arguments.
As of right now:
- MSNBC: Bush: 29% Kerry: 71% (757,900 responses)
- CNN: Bush: 46% Kerry: 54% (455,862 responses)
- CNBC: Bush: 15% Kerry: 85% (10,602 responses)
- FOX News: Bush: 46% Kerry: 53% (281,686 responses)
(Updated numbers at 1:40 am est.)
Tonight is the third and final debate.
If you are undecided I hope you watch the debate, then check FactCheck.org to get facts straight and Debates.org for the transcript..
If you've already decided who to vote for, well, nobody knows what's going to be said tonight, so maybe you should still watch anyway.
Oh no!
Hear the "exclusive" audio proof.
The freedom to vote has been taken away from "hundreds, perhaps thousands" of voters who, on November 2nd will think that they are registered to vote.
"We caught her taking Democrats out of my pile, handed them to her assistant and he ripped them up right in front of us. I grabbed some of them out of the garbage and she tells her assisatnt to get those from me," said Eric Russell, former Voters Outreach employee.
More reasons why the RNC scares me:
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee.Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.
A brief but powerful speech from US Rep Tim Ryan:
http://www.mydd.com/files/admin/TimRyan_Medium.mov
If you don't have QuickTime installed I recommend using QuickTime Alternative, which lets you play MOV files in any windows video player, such as Windows Media Player, which not surprisingly has better Windows support than the original from Apple.
Yikes! Looks like these things can burst into flames.
If your Dell laptop was sold between Sept. 1998 and Feb. 2002 (check even if it wasnt), and your adapter bears the part number 9364U, 7832D, or 4983D, Dells recalling that part immediately to avoid imminent risk of fire and electrocution.
Replace your adapter here: http://www.delladapterprogram.com/
I always keep an adapter plugged in at my desk at home and work... Since they are among the ones recalled I'm going to have to see about trading them in.
This is a quote from Bush during the second debate:
I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons, and we've got an intelligence group together to figure out why.
Here's what we can gather from wise ol' Bush:
- He's not happy that he was lieing and Saddam was telling the truth about the WMD's.
- He's not happy that Saddam wasn't fully armed (maybe he wanted a more fair fight).
- He has an intelligence group together to figure out why he's unhappy.
Unediteddebate transcriptthanks to debates.org.
And yes, "wasn't weapons"it should be at the very least "weren't weapons."
I post this in good jest. Obviously Bush isn't running against Clinton, but the numbers are interesting.
I took out a couple that were just kinda silly, like comparing the behavior of daughters.CLINTON VS. BUSH: What a REAL presidency looks like...
Clinton invades Kosovo, zero US combat losses.
Bush invades Iraq, 1,075 US service members dead and rising.
Clinton invades Kosovo and captures Milosevic.
Bush invades Afghanistan and lets Osama get away.
Clinton invades Kosovo, our troops have food and armor.
Bush invades Iraq, our troops are buying body armor on eBay and begging Iraqi civilians for food.
Clinton invades Kosovo, civilians greet us with flowers.
Bush invades Iraq, civilians cut off our heads.
WTC attacked when Clinton is president, only 6 people die.
WTC attacked when Bush is president, nearly 3,000 people die.
Clinton lied about having an affair.
Bush lied about reasons to go to war.
Clinton creates a record budget surplus in 8 years.
Bush creates a record budget deficit in 4 years.
Price of gas during Clinton presidency: $1/gal.
Price of gas during Bush president: $2/gal.
A big Clinton scandal: Firing some travel office employees.
A big Bush scandal: Abu Ghraib
Clinton held 42 solo news conferences.
Bush held 15 solo news conferences.
Number of new words invented by Clinton: Zero.
Number of new words created by Bush: A lot more than zero.
Clinton created the largest economic expansion in over 40 years.
Bush created the largest job loss since Herbert Hoover.
Clinton admitted trying pot.
Bush won'tdiscuss his allegedcocaine use.
Clinton's wife never killed anybody.
Bush's did (while in high school).
Sinclair stations to air anti-Kerry documentary
Calling it news, the Sinclair ownership group is requiring as many as 62 of its TV stations to preempt prime-time programming to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," a documentary highly critical of John Kerry's anti-war activities in the early 70s. But Sinclair's news division did not produce the program.Kerry campaign spokesperson: "It's beyond yellow journalism"
Reply from the FCC:
FCC COMMISSIONER COPPS CRITICIZES SINCLAIR CORPORATE DECISION TO PREEMPT LOCAL STATIONS FOR POLITICAL BROADCAST
Commissioner Michael J. Copps reacted to reports that Sinclair Broadcast Group will preempt more than 60 local stations across the country to air an overtly political program in the days prior to the Presidential election.
Copps stated: This is an abuse of the public trust. And it is proof positive of media consolidation run amok when one owner can use the public airwaves to blanket the country with its political ideology -- whether liberal or conservative. Some will undoubtedly question if this is appropriate stewardship of the public airwaves. This is the same corporation that refused to air Nightlines reading of our war dead in Iraq. It is the same corporation that short-shrifts local communities and local jobs by distance-casting news and weather from hundreds of miles away. It is a sad fact that the explicit public interest protections we once had to ensure balance continue to be weakened by the Federal Communications Commission while it allows media conglomerates to get even bigger. Sinclair, and the FCC, are taking us down a dangerous road.
It doesn't end there:
In an interview on CNN about this, Sinclair Vice President Mark Hyman said other TV networks were "acting like Holocaust deniers," prompting even more complaints, including this one from the Anti-Defamation League:
Anti-Defamation League
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
October 11, 2004
To the Editor:
The statement by Mark Hyman, vice president of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, that the television networks were "acting like Holocaust deniers" with regard to coverage of anti-Kerry veterans groups is grossly inappropriate ("Sinclair Stations to Air Anti-Kerry Documentary," Oct. 11).
Regardless of Mr. Hyman's opinion of the quality of news coverage relating to Presidential campaign issues, his analogy to those who deny the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others is insensitive and painful. Usage of Holocaust imagery to score a political point is unacceptable. He should repudiate the comment.
Sincerely,
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
John Eisenhower, son of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, joins other notable Republican families, such as the Reagans, in endorsing John Kerry for president and speaking out against Bush.
John Eisenhower's own words: Why I will vote for John Kerry for President
Microsoft's Bungie office has announced that Halo 2 is complete, tested, certified, and officially blessed, and will be in stores on time and in massive qualities on November 9th exclusive to XBOX.
To celebrate, they've put out a 87 MB video: Direct Download, BitTorrent.
This is a unmodified snapshot from the Michigan absentee ballot.
As you'll notice, the arrow by Bush/Cheney is missing. But if you look carefully at the full ballot (click on it to see the full thing), you'll notice that all of the arrows are down one notch, meaning a vote in the arrow next to Kerry/Edwards will actually go to Bush/Cheney. Sneaky!
How does this stuff get by?
How backwards is this?
A U.S. Senate candidate who said recently that homosexuals should not be teaching in South Carolina's public schools has added another group to his list of poor role models for children -- pregnant women with live-in boyfriends.
Continued... (CNN.com)
This isn't some loon running for office, this is Republican Jim DeMint, who's already been in the Senate for three terms. What's next? No overweight teachers, because they don't teach good eating habits? No Jewish teachers, because they don't believe in Jesus?
Remember back when America was about freedom?
Last night's debate was even better than the first one:
- Edwards was calm, funny, quick-thinking and full of facts and numbers.
- Cheney was grumpy, off-topic, and spewed so many lies that there's hundreds of blogs dedicated to them.
Some of his lies didn't even make sense, such as:
"The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."
Here's a photo of them together at a political event in 2001:
Obviously they have met, why would he say that?
And then there's the little things Cheney didn't do. He didn't smile. He did his famous "evil smirk" a couple times, but I'm sure that only made the Dr. Evil's out there proud to see their clone do his job well. At the conclusion he didn't thank Edwards after Edwards thanked him. And he didn't even use all of his 30 second opportunities to reply to Edwards. It was like he gave up.
CHENEY: Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.
CHENEY: Well, the reason they keep mentioning Halliburton is because they're trying to throw up a smokescreen. They know the charges are false.
They know that if you go, for example, to factcheck.com (sic), an independent Web site sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania, you can get the specific details with respect to Halliburton.
It's an effort that they've made repeatedly to try to confuse the voters and to raise questions, but there's no substance to the charges.
Well, actually the site is FactCheck.org - FactCheck.com is a anti-Bush site, but that's not the worst of it. If you are able to get into FactCheck.org (it seems to down at the moment, probably getting a bazillion hits thanks to Cheney), you find out that what Edwards was saying was true. Here's what he was saying:
According to all major polls, the number of Bush supporters continue to drop, however he still has enough electoral votes to win.While he was CEO of Halliburton, they paid millions of dollars in fines for providing false information on their company, just like Enron and Ken Lay.
They did business with Libya and Iran, two sworn enemies of the United States.
They're now under investigation for having bribed foreign officials during that period of time.
Not only that, they've gotten a $7.5 billion no-bid contract in Iraq, and instead of part of their money being withheld, which is the way it's normally done, because they're under investigation, they've continued to get their money.
After evaluating several VoIP providers, I came to these conclusions:
- Vonage: Popular choice, but poor customer support, hidden fees, complaints of outages.
- AT&T CallVantage: Expense, poor service, hidden fees.
- Packet8: Expensive, non-standard hardware, not much feedback.
- VoicePulse: Cheapest, no hidden fees, wonderful feedback, great customer support.
Well, that made the choice obvious! I went with VoicePulse, and I've been happy ever since.
Some cool features:
- Local calling area is about 4x as large as what the local phone company offers.
- Voice mails can be checked on the phone or via email.
- Carry the small hub with you on trips and your phone will ring wherever you are. (I'll probably never do this, but it's nice for those who travel a lot and MUCH cheaper than roaming cell phones or hotel phone bills).
- You use your normal telephone, which plugs into a small hubVoicePulse provides. You do not need a special phone with VoicePulse, and you do not use your computer to make calls. You don't even need a computer, but you do need an Internet connection.
- The only "fees" that VoicePulse tacks on is a $0.45 "Federal Exercise Tax".
- Caller ID with Name, voice mail, three-way calling, telemarketing blocking, do not disturb, filters, caller ID block, etc are all included for free.
Things to remember with Voice over IP:
- VoIP uses your Internet connection. DSL or cable modemsare perfect, but if you're getting this to replace your phone line, you might not be have DSL without an active phone line. Send complaints about this to your senator.
- 911 service is not guaranteed. This is because you can be anywhere in the world with these phones. You choose what area code you want. If you choose 212 and you live in rural Texas, the New York City police dept won't be much good for you.
- If the power goes out, you won't have a phone. Many of us have cell phones, but it's something to keep in mind.
Some other helpful sites:
- Voxilla- VoIP news, reviews, and discussion forums.
- BroadbandReports.com - used to be DSLReports.com, now they cover everything.
- VoIPWatch.com - industry news.
"It's on!"
Wish you could use a mouse and keyboard in games like Halo, Halo 2, Rainbow Six, or any of the multitude of other first person shooters on the XBOX?
This $29 device lets you plug in a normal PC keyboard and mouse into your XBOX controller port. It lets you map the keys and mouse buttons and mouse-wheel however you want, and even supports the XBOX Live headset.
This could be a great thing for people like me who just can't aim worth anything usinga controller, and wouldn't mind dedicating some space on the coffee table for the keyboard and mouse setup.
I haven't seen any reviews of this device, called the SmartJoy FRAG for XBOX, so there's no telling if this will actually work. XBOX games expect the analog pressure-sensitive buttons (the harder you push, the faster you shoot, for example), and that feature and otherscannot be reproduced with a keyboard or mouse.
- Connect PC Mouse and Keyboard to your Xbox
- Especially designed for First Person Shooters
- Supports all keys on Keyboard and Mouse (including Scroll-Wheel)
- Pre-Installed configurations for most FPS Best Sellers
- Fully programmable including advanced features such as Deadzone and Mouse Control Inversion
- Built-in Memory Card slot for compatible peripherals (incl. Headset)
- Works with any game, even without built-in Mouse + Keyboard support
- Compatible with all Xbox consoles (US, JPN, PAL)
- Compatible with standard PS/2 Mice, incl. USB Mice with USB to PS/2 Adapter
- Compatible with Optical and Wireless Mice
- Also available for PlayStation2
- Patent Pending
During the debates Bush used Poland several times as an example country in the coalition in Iraq, and even interrupted Kerry when Kerry listed several countries involved and didn't mention Poland.
Well, I guess Poland didn't want to be associated with Bush's mess over there any longer as they just announced that they are pulling out of Iraq. They only had 2,500 troops there, but that made them the fourth-largest contributor, behind the US, England, and US-hired mercenaries.
Did you miss the first debate?
This funny-yet-pitiful Bush debate remix sums up pretty all of Bush's talking points about national security, which was supposed to be his best topic.
It was like watching Abe Lincoln debating Alfred E. Newman.
Okay, this is just freaky.
Remember back when the Constitution had this thing about Separation of Church and State? Since when is spending money on "Healthy Marriage" (aka: no gays allowed) the responsibility of our federal government?
What about the more important things that need funding and aren't getting it?
I created a template engine for my blog engine and I'm testing it now. What you see might look like the old familiar look of DylanGreene.com, but in fact it's all new visual code. For example, instead of tables, the whole page is now CSS Divs. It was a pain to get it to work right in Mozilla (especially tabs above), but this means that making changes in the future will be easier to do. Plus, custom templates!
If you see any problems in your browser (I only tested the latest version of IE and Mozilla using Windows XP) please let me know. Thanks!
I agree 100% with Russell Beattie and his excellent post about the problems with the currenttrendof cell phone user interfaces.
Are cell phones too hard to use? Hell yeah. And with all the new features manufactures are adding, it's only going to get worse until they start re-thinking paradigms in how we interact with the software and information on our mobile devices.
The interface on the right looks cool, but looks can be deceiving. Read his post to find out how intuitive it really is.
While personally I think Kerry could have done an even better job (next time speak to the camera, not the moderator), the President once again showed how non-presidential he can be.
Too often Bush ignored direct questions like "Will you invade another country for the same reason you invaded Iraq?" with a unrelated details about Iraq being safer, totally dodging the questions. Kerry did this a couple times, but not on practically every question, and he came back to the question more often than Bush did.
Bush also invoked his famous blank stare accompanied with some mumbling. The worst of this bad habit was after interrupting Kerry to get his own two cents in. His blank stare lasted so long I'm surprised Jim Lehrer didn't speak up to remind him where he was.
Bush repeated several times a meaningless attack on Kerry: "You see, my opponent had the same intelligence as me!". It just made Bush look even less informed.
Finally, Bush's misleading statements are already becoming frequent blogging topics. For example, "75% of known members of al Qaida have been captured" is misleading because nobody knows how many unknown al Qaida members there are. These statements show him to be untrustworthy.
He mispronounced a few words, and I'm sure you'll never hear the word "peninsula" in a Bush speech again. On the good side, Bush didn't make make up any new words, but that's not the sort of thing we should be concerned about when deciding on the next president.
As of about 2am eastern time, America seems to agree that Kerry easily "won" this debate:
- MSNBC: Bush: 31% Kerry: 69% (620986 responses)
- CNN: Bush: 12% Kerry: 87% (40151 responses)
- CNBC: Bush: 23% Kerry: 77% (11076 responses)
- ABC News: Bush: 36% Kerry: 45% Tie: 17% (531 "random" phone calls)
- FOX News: What a shock, they aren't showing their results.
Note: None of these polls are scientific, and the results may change as thousands of blogs link to them and people start voting for the favorite candidate despite how they feel about his performance.
The next debate is next Friday, and the one following that will be on Saturday. Personally, I wish there were more debates, as it seems America spends more time and effort deciding on the the next "American Idol" than deciding on the president.