Nightly Ramble:Database Issues

• Sorry for the delay, and the site outage.  Apparently the host was having trouble with the SQL server.  We appear to be back online fully, as of now.  I’ll be watching.
• I see the new Harry Potter movie pulled $120m last night. That’s a new record for midnight screenings, as far as I can tell.  Based on experience with the previous movies, I’d have to guess it’s probably worth it, and that I will be seeing it myself, shortly. If you’re interested, here’s the trailer.
• I note with some degree of respect, the post about the death of Lady Bird Johnson, that DavidL put up, yesterday.  Without question she was a formidable woman.  Anyone who could manage to keep the likes of LBJ reined in, certainly deserves some credit.  I can’t get over wondering, however; she is credited with in many ways being a seminal champion of conservation.  I can’t help but wonder, however… What would she have thought of the extremes to which “conservation” has been taken to? what would your opinion, for example, be of Al Gore? Somehow, I suspect that they would not see eye to knothole, ya know?
• I see Rachel Corrie’s parents, nutballs that they be, are still trying to sue Caterpillar tractor, because they should have known that the bulldozer could be used to commit human rights violations.  They’re trying to get the suit reinstated, after it had been correctly dismissed two years ago for not having any merit whatsoever.  Can you say “frivolous lawsuit” ? I’m quite sure, that the wacko left takes this all very seriously.  At the risk of being obvious, they’re the only ones.
• Perhaps it’s just me, (although I doubt it) but I find John Edwards being patronizing toward “the poor” given his own financial situation, to be offensive.  Apparently, they do, as well, since his react ploy to attract their attention doesn’t seem to be working out all that well. Perhaps even the great unwashed, know a hypocrite when they see one.
• Along those same lines, perhaps we now have a functional reason for the lack of attention paid to Al Gore, and his recent attempts at political power by way of environmental extremism.
• So a couple of shoppers who happen to be black are suing Toys R. Us saying that they were discriminated against in subjected to unjustified scrutiny because they were asked for their receipt at the door?  Check this; they’re suing for 200 million.  What a hoot!  I mean, I’m WHITE, and I get asked for such every time, and in more places than Toys R. Us… like, Wal-Mart, less than an hour ago, as an example. Should I be suing, saying they did so because I was WHITE? I mean, that’s racial profiling, isn’t it?

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga a.k.a. Daily Kos, having promoted Mrs. Cindy Sheehan as an absolute moral authority, now rejects her.

Mrs. Sheehan has posted this message on Kos:

I can’t post here anymore because my potential run for Congress
is not on the Democratic ticket.

I have been deeply grateful for all of your support over the years.
Your love and kindness helped me through lots of sleepless nights
at Camp Casey ’05.

Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs, has a copy, original no longer links, of a response posted on Kos.

Unfortunately the power of your message declined the more you saw yourself as a leader of a larger political movement.

And this is capped off by the incredibly condescending statement today:

The story is rich with irony.  Two points.

One, the Daily Kos is merely a paid organ of the democrat party and not an independent blog.  The opinions expressed on Kos are those approved by the democrat party.

Two, the person the democrats promoted as an “absolute moral authority” was curtly dismissed like a hooker after the trick.

It is true that Mrs. Sheehan is snide and condescending.  So what!  This is nothing new.  When Mrs. Sheehan was condescending toward the president, she seen as an absolute moral authority, On the other foot, when Mrs. Sheehan was condescending towards Mrs. Pelosi she was dismissed.

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So now we see, the Europeans considering a ban on cars capable of exceeding 100mph.  The reason?  Why, global warming, of course.

“Cars designed to go at stupid speeds have to be built to withstand the effects of a crash at those speeds. They are heavier than necessary, less fuel efficient and produce too many emissions,” says Davies, who resigned as LibDem group leader last year following an unfortunate email exchange on the subject of Israel.* “At a time when Europe is worried about its energy security it is sheer lunacy to approve the sale of gas guzzling cars designed to travel at dangerous speeds that the law does not permit.”

Now, hold the phone just a moment; Did you notice?  “an unfortunate e-mail exchange on the subject of Israel ”

But let’s examine the charge that the cars are heavier.  Most performance cars, are intentionally made lighter, so as to improve the horsepower to weight ratio.  In pursuit of that lighter weightt, they often use aluminum, and fiberglass, another composites.  Consider the Corvette, the latest version of which tips the scale at a paltry 3100lbs, even in full street trim.

Or, since we’re talking about the EU, here, let’s try the Porche 911 turbo, weighing in at around 2900lbs. (OK, add 120lbs or so for the girl…. yowsers!)

Clearly, the reasoning here is off.  At least, the stated reasoning.

One wonders if his comments on Israel, were equally inaccurate. and isn’t it interesting, but here again we see the far left, denigrating both western values, (as in this case, individualism, and the ability to purchase the kind of transportation that you desire has opposed to what the government tells you to buy ) and denigrating Israel. amazing how frequently that meme pops up, isn’t it?

I can only imagine what this moron would have to say about the 5000lb. camper that I have in my driveway, along with the vehicle that tows it. Not that I much care… except for amusement value.

At some point, western society is going to decide as a whole, that the best way to deal with such liberloons as Davies is to tie them up with a long chain, connected to the trailer hitch on the SUV and take them for a long scrape around the neighborhood.

Apparently, we have another case of someone involved with the medical profession, giving money to terrorists.  In this case, Hamas.  I notice, however, that he only gets 21 months in prison.  And that for lying about the funding, not for the funding itself, which is the larger of the two crimes, in my book.
Perhaps someone can take the time to explain to me why I shouldn’t consider that the legal system has failed us as regards terrorism.  Perhaps they could even go further and explain to me why it is following the long list of failures of the kind, that I should trust them with our national security as the Democrats have been calling for.

By the way, I’m still waiting on a response to my challenge:  Can someone, anyone, come up with a terrorist who isn’t under the sway of Islam? Just one will do.

I admit it; I’m terribly behind on my reading.  As I plow through my inbox, I’m finding that there is an awful lot of notice being paid to the leftists who find themselves in an emotional and logical quandary about the country in which they live. (Look closely and you’ll notice I didn’t say “their country”, and with good reason: They clearly do not consider it so.) Example, McQ:

Someone named Joe Cole has managed to communicate his utopian disappointment in an op-ed. He begins by relating a terrible choice with which he was faced while accompanying his family to a baseball game:

But when the announcer declared that a choir would be singing “God Bless America” (which supplanted “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” for seventh inning stretches after 9/11), I faced a dilemma: Should I stand with my family or remain seated to protest the gratuitous patriotic cheerleading?

…

I read about the genocide against Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans, and learned how, even in current times, the U.S. armed and supported oppressive dictatorships from Southeast Asia to Latin America to the Middle East. The knowledge gave me headaches that crying didn’t relieve, but I kept reading. And because school, church and government had covered over all the blood and injustice with pretty patriotic myths about a Good America blessed by an ethnocentric god, my youthful disappointment and anger blazed even hotter.

Key words: “youthful disappointment”. How difficult it is to have your unsupported fantasies dashed. But note the loaded words and the contextless narrative he’s put together to support his disappointment.

I in fairness, I attribute that in large part to inexperienced writing.  But even his choice of loaded phrases, can’t hide what drives his comments…

Once when I was a graduate student in philosophy at Duke, someone on my Durham summer league softball team inquired what I was doing for Independence Day.

“Asking forgiveness for a nation built on slavery, genocide, and war,” I replied.

Our 40-something pitcher, who worked for the phone company and had taken me fishing a few times, glared at me. “If you hate America so much, why don’t you just leave?”

“Because I want to watch this system burn.”

Personally, I refuse to regard such an idiot as a “patriot”.  Rather, I would refer to him as a borderline psychopath.  I would remove the ‘borderline” and add the word traitor, were his saving graces not his laziness and lack of courage in his convictions. He’s never bothered to act on his twisted mentality.  It’s much easier to sit back, and enjoy the amenities that our way of life has afforded him… all the while complaining about it, and denigrating the achievements of the country, and the culture, that has provided him with so much.

One of the commentators to that thread, comes up with something that I find I must disagree with, stoutly.

Life isn’t politics, politics isn’t life.

I suggest, that out here in the real world the opposite is true.  I have said it on this site often enough that longtime readers will know my response before I write it, but here it is:

The opposite is true; One’s politics are the reflections of one’s most intrinsic values.

Billy Beck, noting the post, says:

It should never have to come to that, Eric. In a time and place where political principles are not in dispute (which is the ideal of “unity” originally set out in American politics, although we all know how racially defective it was), nobody would go about their lives with any political touchstone constantly at hand. Human action would be aimed at all kinds of other ethical goals. (This general premise is implicit in “the pursuit of happiness”.)

For whole generations now, however, the central political antagonism in this country — indeed the whole world — has been between collectivism and individualism. The former is diametrically contrary to American ideals, and more: it necessarily makes all personal values political. This is why the assertion — “Life isn’t politics, politics isn’t life” — is wrong, now. More and more, politics is life, less and less as metaphor and more and more in actual, factual reality. What do you think the fight over health care, for only one glaring example, is about?

The thing is, it did come to that.  The ideas and ideals that this country, and this culture was founded in, as in freedom, and individualism, are under attack as never before.  For the early part of this country’s existence, those principles were not in dispute, and as such the country had a chance to get itself going, while its political machine ground away on comparative minutiae.

Were our intrinsic values not in dispute as they are today, our political machine would still be traveling on, arguing on such small matters.  But at a more basic level, that lack of dispute, over our fundamental beliefs, far from disconnecting our politics from those beliefs, rather solidifies the connection.

Put another way; A lack of a political dispute surrounding those fundamental beliefs would be an indication that the intrinsic values of all concerned were in unity.  What I’m suggesting is, I don’t think you can disconnect our politics from our intrinsic value system regardless of whether those values are in dispute or not. Like it or not, man is a political animal. Politics, like it or not is the method that has developed in every culture, (Including the mini-culture of our families, for example) to express, and maintain our most closely held values.
To partially illustrate this, consider the specter of war, …which is, as the euphemism goes, politics expressed by other means… and for the moment, for the most part I am speaking irrespective of country… what else but a very personal, intrinsic value, would cause someone to risk their life in such a venture?  What is it that such individuals as where our uniform(s) seek to protect by their actions?  Is it land?  Is it a corporate name? No. The fighters seek to defend the culture they come from, and it’s values. Which, in turn, is precisely why the left of today’s America holds such dislike (dare I say, hate) for our military.  The military is standing up for values that the left does not share. they will tell you, of course, that they are against fighting of any nature.  But the number of military actions under Bill Clinton was higher than in any time in our history, including the current president.  Clearly, their argument is not against violence and against the military per se’, but rather the values that they are seeking to defend.

(Of course, this part of the discussion makes the assumption that the individuals in uniform have not been conscripted, or co-opted in some fashion, such as a communist state, let’s say. )

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Which, to tie it all back to the topic of the post , is precisely why Cole finds himself so conflicted.  He’s being asked by societal convention to stand up for values he doesn’t share.  But, as the saying goes, don’t question his patriotism.  The mere mention of such lack, will likely cause the subject become uncharacteristically violent in spite of his protests against others being violent.  (Chuckle)

With all this established, I could very easily get into a discussion about immigration, versus shared values, and the effect all that will have.  But I think the implications are fairly clear on that point without my diving into it.

Addendum: (Bit, following Billy’s Reply)

Politics is the overweening preoccupation of this country now where it wasn’t for long periods of American history during which free people produced as no one ever had before in human history, and the good reason for why it shouldn’t be that way is that the unself-conscious application of freedom is always an easier and better way of life than constantly having to fight for it.

Hmmm. Ya know, in a backhanded sort of way, I’m encouraged that such a debate exists, rather than us going to socialism by way of mere capitulation by either the ballot, or the sword. Perhaps we stand a chance, after all. There are, apparently, some willing to take the fight yet. But not enough to keep the fights from being as figuratively bloody as they’ve gotten.

And look… we agree…I can’t argue that on the whole, having it come naturally, as opposed to having to fight for it would be the preferable path. It might have rendered our past more productive, and significantly less (literally) bloody, particularly as regards to our own civil war.

That said, history speaks to the issue clearly; The reality is that Freedom has always had to be fought for, even before our country existed… and in more than just military means. There is always resistance to someone else’s freedom.  (Note the word use, here) We humans have to fight for it, because there’s always somebody willing to take it away.

Freedom has always had to be fought for…because there’s always somebody willing to take it away.Jefferson recognized this, when he allowed a revolution every ten years or so would be a good thing. It’s not much of a stretch, to suggest that that fight gets carried on, every time there’s an election…. and I wonder if that not precisely what the founders in mind, and specifically what Franklin was thinking, when he wondered if in voting, we could keep this republic, as opposed to allowing it to slide into a pure Democracy, which would clearly put our country at the mercy of such as Cole, or Erb.

We have a military, which has the express purpose of defending our freedom from external enemies. We have a ballot box, with the express purpose of defending our freedom from internal enemies. Granted, in fact more than granted, that the ballot and its purposes can be corrupted. On the other hand, that’s why we have elections fairly frequently. So can the military be corrupted in it’s purposes, for that matter. But there it is.

It’s that whole scene, that has me at the ballot box every time there’s an opportunity…. I’m busy plugging holes in the dike, myself. That’s a fight I don’t see myself ever giving up on. I recognize the danger that you’ve repeatedly pointed out over the years about using the ballot box to inflict my view on somebody else. But usually the somebody else is trying to inflict a lack of freedom on me and mine. I consider that to be the greater danger, and that danger multiplies when I’m not in the fight.

Indeed, I suppose that the reason that it has come to this point as you mention…

The point, however, is how seriously it’s come to dispute, and for how long, in a nation erected on the principle of freedom.

…is that so few are willing to stay in the fight; the numbers of people at the ballot box for even the major elections, are abysmal anymore. If there are so few people willing to fight to keep their freedom, is it any wonder that those willing to take it away from us have made such inroads?

It means that we can enjoy, for instance, “The Sound of Music” instead of having to put up with Michael Moore.

Damn it, Billy… now I’m flashing on the Great Rotundo trying to cover “The Lonely Goatherd”. Arrrgh.

Mrs,  Sheehan’s friend at Right Wing News, John Hawkins, has been kind enough to produce a second campaign video for her.  Let us all give Mrs. Sheehan the kind of support she deserves.

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I see that Matt Kibbe makes an excellent point this morning, and gets the Snark of the Day Award:

Remember the Parents Music Resource Center, co-founded by Tipper Gore a few years before her husband ran for president in 1988? The PMRC was the perfect political platform for the Gores to establish their deep concern for “the children” being exposed to suggestive lyrics in popular music.

…

Today, Al Gore gets along famously with the music industry, and has apparently gotten over his earlier concerns about lyrical content. “Music,” he now says, “is a universal language that can reach people in ways that no other medium can.” I agree with that, and humbly suggest that Tipper download Hamburg Live Earth headliner Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice.” She probably won’t like it, but hey, we all have to make sacrifices for the environment.

Ya know, I hadn’t thought of that. However; if any one wanted a good indication of the kind of opportunism exhibited by the left, they need look no farther than this.

BBCT: OTB, who, in turn, got it from Nick Gillespie… does this mean it’s going viral?

• After my comments of the other night, as regards John McCain, I’m not surprised to find some of the other great minds coming to the same conclusion. Limbaugh, for example.  Limbaugh is technically incorrect, when he says that McCain was never the frontrunner.  He did have the numbers to claim to be in front, though the frontrunner in what, seems a question, given the how early the measurements.  However, as he says, the real problem is that the Republican party nomination requires support from the base, which is precisely what Mr. McCain never had.  It got even worse when he started singing the immigration song with Ted Kennedy, and worse yet when the ripper cautions of McCain- Feingold started becoming apparent.  The “gang of fourteen” business didn’t help either.  Here it is, my friends, president Bush is currently in the poll number trouble he’s in because he is far too willing to lean left to be seen as “popular”.  McCain comes down to the left of George Bush on most everything.  No wonder the liberals were supporting him.  And no wonder his campaign is in the tank.  One wonders if the remaining RINOs are not looking at their own houses for similar trouble.  Mark this well; that trouble is coming and soon.
• It’s somewhat cooler around town, today.  A thunderstorm went through about 1:00, and brought the temperature down by 20° almost immediately.
• Of course the Pope is going to say that the Roman Catholic church is the only Church.  Look up the meaning of the word “catholic”. Try at least to have some idea of what you’re complaining about.  I mean, There’s enough intentional stupidity about all of this, let’s not try to be stupid in responding to the man.
• I’ve been watching this business with John Conyers trying to put together yet another show trial.  Make no mistake, that’s what this has devolved to.  Libby’s entire testimony, several days of it, are now available online.  Even the eight hours of secret testimony.  It strikes me as ludicrous, then a congressional show trial is going to reveal any facts that Fitzgerald’s investigation did not.  Like everything else the democrats have been doing of late, this entire thing is a show trial, and a sham.
• My wife is one of the millions that’s going to be out looking for a copy of the last of the Harry Potter books at midnight on the release date.  All of which will be in front of me on I-390 trying to get to the freakin’ bookstore, all at the same time. Makes me mindful of the traffic around the malls on black Friday.  And I wrote a whole article once about trying to avoid that. But this, I’ve gotta drive right into… and with a new truck, no less. Oh, Joy. Rapture.
• Of course Democrats don’t want people actually thinking about what they’re pushing.  That’s why they always go for the sensational, and the emotional. What Rusty informs us of is actually something we’ve known about for years , though admittedly they don’t often reveal it and so clear a detail.
• Captain Ed notes that Al-Qaida wants to open a new front in their war, this time in Pakistan.  Ed remarks about how they haven’t learned much from history.  Perhaps that’s true, but I’m not quite sure that history means much here.  We are, after all, fighting a completely different style of enemy, here.  I don’t recall an example in history avoid multi front guerrilla war. Perhaps you do?  Drop a comment.
• Katie, the word is “Sputum”. You’re welcome. And is it just me, or does “Bitch slap” now have a new meaning?
• I’m still waiting for an apology from John Murtha, for his charges about Haditha. You know…  Where Martha charged that the marines were covering up a “massacre”? It turns out the Marine investigator is going to drop the charges.  So where is John Murtha and his apology?  It would be about right for him to say nothing, or better yet, to try and claimed that the charges being dropped were further part of the cover-up he originally charged.  Let there be no doubt; them and never had the character or the credibility to make such charges in the first place.  He certainly doesn’t have the character in him, to admit that he was wrong.  but don’t tell him he’s not patriotic, and don’t tell me doesn’t support the troops.
• Are we as a people truly comfortable with Larry Flynt dictating to us who is moral enough to hold office in these United States?  Or, for that matter, Dana Milbank?

Former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson has died at age 94 due to natural causes:

AUSTIN, Texas -(AP)- Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady who championed conservation and worked tenaciously for the political career of her husband, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, died Wednesday, a family spokeswoman said. She was 94.

Rest in Peace.

The Useless Toady goes off the deep end assserting that the Forty-Fourth president will inherit an unprecedented mess:

WASHINGTON — The 44th president will move into the Oval Office with an agenda defined in large part by the 43rd president.In many ways, it will be George W. Bush’s third term.[….][….]No new president gets a clean slate — global politics and the economy don’t run in neat four-year cycles — but presidential scholars say the unfinished business Bush will leave for his successor is unprecedented since at least World War II.

[….]No new president gets a clean slate — global politics and the economy don’t run in neat four-year cycles — but presidential scholars say the unfinished business Bush will leave for his successor is unprecedented since at least World War II.”I can’t think of a single modern president about to bequeath to his successor such a difficult agenda and such a damaged presidency,” says Paul Light of New York University.

If Light is unable to think, let me think for him.

Some problems inherited by modern presidents.

Harry S. Truman:  Word War Two, making peace with Stalin and end the war with Japan.

Dwight D. Eisenhowr:  Korea.

Richard M. Nixon:  Vietnam.

Ronald W  Reagan;  Iran hostage, malaise, gasoline shortage and wrecked economy..

Unfinished wars seem to the norm for new presidents.  What the matter,don’t they study history at New York University?

Hat Tip:  Sister Toldjah.

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In a society that doesn’t lock up dangerously mentally ill people until they have killed someone, and where Congresscritters are talking about the dangers of terrorists obtaining guns, the last thing we need is more victim-disarmament zones.

Clayton Cramer.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

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Captain Ed, this morning, mentions David Brody’s column this morning in which he discusses Fred Thompson’s take on the uselessness of party platforms.

I tend to agree with the basic position that the party platform has become more of a problem than the problems it was designed to solve.  There are damn few things that most people can remember from each party’s platform of the last several cycles.  Indeed, should the parties decide to put up a platform in the conventions in this cycle, I will guarantee you that 3/4 of the voters wouldn’t be aware they had actually produced one, much less what it says.. Of those left, I can only imagine that there would be a very small number of points that would be remembered at all.  This is even true of the actual candidates. When was the last time you saw an elected official hold to his party’s platform during his tenure in office?  I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet that for the last several cycles, the candidates from each party, were at odds with at least some of their party platform.

So, as Ed says:

So, considering the vulnerabilities it imposes on individual candidates, the arguments and disunity it causes when drafting it, and the complete and utter lack of interest from voters, I think the question should be asked again: why have a platform at all? Brody says that the party should have a document which delineates “the principles that unite us,” but that’s not what a platform is or does. It’s not a simple declaration of principles, which might tend to unite, but a lengthy and detailed list of policy positions that tend to divide us.

I’d say a Declaration of Principles sounds like a great idea. It should be left to the candidates to apply those principles to their own policy decisions, and then defend those positions in primary elections. Thompson was right in 1996, and his advice should probably get heeded in 2008.

I find that idea of a declaration of principles interesting, in that I wonder how such a document will ever make it past the convention?  I suspect, based on the last several cycles, that the Democrats are going to have a lot easier time of putting a set of principles together on paper though I suspect that what they put out will be stretching the definition of “principles” by quite a bit.

The Republicans are different matter.  I have long held the idea that one of the reasons the Republicans are currently in the electoral trouble that they’re in, is because of a lack of principles, shared or otherwise. Frankly I think the same of the Democrats… regarless of what they list as being principles… however their voters are likely to be more forgiving about a lack of principles that are the average republican voter, I think.  I have always considered that regardless of whatever advantage is our given us by the republican “big tent” theory, that a lack of shared principles is invariably the largest problem with which the Republicans as a party have had to contend.

The most graphic picture of that problem, is the full on, no- holds- barred revolt in the Republican party, recently over the immigration bill, endorsed by the Democrats and the President, but rejected by the vast majority of his party.  The amount of disappointment would have been averted, had both the president and the remainder of the party remained true to a shared set of principles.  That didn’t happen, thus the current situation.
Given that it hasn’t been tried before, at least to my memory, one can only wonder what the larger effect of the Republic party working up a statement of principles in their convention would be.  While I would certainly hope that it would tend to limit the RINO faction, ( a statement of principles would certainly seem to place limits on John McCain, for example… ) I hold no illusions about its ability to do so in the short term.  But in the longer term it may serve very well indeed to bring the party back to its roots.

I for one would consider that a good thing.

By way of Billy Beck, I note Tom Bartlett has decided not to do his column anymore.

In the not-too-distant past, this was impossible. If you didn’t write for a newspaper, it was very hard to get out commentary on topical subjects in a timely manner. But if you were any good, it wasn’t too difficult to make a pretty nice living as a columnist because there were many newspapers and competition raised the value of those columnists that readers would follow from one paper to another.

…

As a result, the demand for traditional column writing has pretty much dried up, just as the demand for buggy whips collapsed when the automobile came along. I don’t mourn the old system. I am a great fan of bloggers and learn far more from them than I do from the Broders and Friedmans of the world, who have largely become irrelevant to serious political discussion.

Obviously, Bartlett takes a little longer to get to the second quoted paragraph than my edit would seem to suggest, The way he did all of this though, made me think of the reasons that I decided to leave broadcasting as a profession some years ago. Indeed Bartlett mentions broadcasters in his piece… though I think he’s looking more at news and comment types, which I was only briefly during the early 80’s when ABC Talkradio came to town.
(Sigh) When I was coming up in the early and middle seventies, one could make a fairly decent living at it.  And you can have a helluva lot of fun while you were at it.  For my money, there is nothing like the connection you make with listeners who have come to know you, who share your love for music, and are willing to give you feedback on the work you do.  There is nothing in my experience that comes close.  Add to that, that I was lucky enough to work with people that I’ve grown up listening to and whose abilities I admired. I found myself amazed when they held me and my abilities to be equal to their own. I’ll always cherish that. Despite how a topsy turvy the radio world could be, I was never out of work for longer than I wanted to be.  I’d take a short vacation, make a couple of phone calls, and I’d be back on the air, somewhere, by the next evening.  That’s the way it used to be… and the way it had been for a long time. I had thought to make radio my life’s work.
But, by the time I decided to pull the plug in 1988 the signals that already been there for a long time.  There will always be radio people around, but you’re never going to be able to make the same kind of money, and there won’t be nearly the positions open. Automation, satellite delivery for tourist rail stations , changing programming requirements, direct satellite radio, the CD player, etc… All of these led to putting my chosen field in pretty much the same situation as Bartlett describes, here. Radioed jobs were already approximately as stable as a fart in a windstorm, and all of those points just made it worse. And I knew it was time for me to move.  I’d always been a computer hobby type, even from the earliest days of personal computing.  I built not one, but two Sinclair ZX 81’s, for example. And so the career and the hobby switched their primary roles. And with Plan B successfully implemented, I’ve done all right for myself.  I’ve actually had two careers in my lifetime, thus far, both involving things I absolutely love doing.  In that respect, I suppose I’m very lucky.
As for this… I’ve wondered for a long time, about the specific effects that the blogging world was going to have on people such as Bartlett.  I’ve always known that would be at least in some cases similar to the situation he describes.  graoth and change, you know.

I guess what forces me to comment, here , however, is a bit of respect, and for lack of a better word, sympathy.  I’ve lived the situation he describes. And I know how hard that choice he’s made, is to make. It’s a choice that’s not made an easier when you know you’re good at the job you’re leaving. And, he is.

Allah Pundit, Hot Air, has the John  Gibson interview with Bill Kristol.. Salty language,  Now having been warned, go read and hear.

Posted without comment.link:

(Los Angeles, California) For the first time the leading candidates for the presidency will hold a televised debate devoted solely to LGBT issues.

The one-hour event will be held on August 9 and broadcast on gay network LOGO at 9:00 pm ET (6:00 pm ET) and through live streaming video at LOGOonline.com.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards have confirmed they will participate. Several other Democratic candidates also may join the debate.

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