Trackback Spam?

Guess James really means it.
What brought the reaction, I’ve no clue, but…(Shrug)

Call this a blogger’s inside joke.

Larry Kudlow points out something the press won’t tell you;

“This week’s Treasury report on the nation’s finances for December shows a year-to-date fiscal 2005 deficit that is already $11 billion less than last year’s. In the first three months of the fiscal year that began last October, cash outlays by the federal government increased by 6.1 percent while tax collections grew by 10.5 percent. When more money comes in than goes out, the deficit shrinks.

At this pace, the 2005 deficit is on track to drop to $355 billion from $413 billion in fiscal year 2004. As a fraction of projected gross domestic product, the new-year deficit will descend to 2.9 percent compared with last year’s deficit share of 3.6 percent.

Now ask yourselves; what would the press have to gain by not telling you this?

The Jawa Report has it right.

“Bout time SOMEONE did.

Don Hawthorne, over at Anchor Rising Notes Peg Noonan”s latest, and says she’s nailed it. Says Don:

“Information is power and information is now beginning to flow more freely. The facts about how high taxes in our state unnecessarily burden working families and retirees is now becoming more public. How those high taxes are driven by sweetheart deals where outrageous demands by public sector unions are agreed to by spineless politicians and bureaucrats – this, too, is becoming more public.

Just so, Don… which in turn is why the Democrat party is fading away.  I made this point yesterday over at Q&O, in response to a belch of Fineman that McQ posted… The degree to which the Democrat party has been losing voter share over the last 30 years has been in direct track with the number of viewers abandoning their mouthpeices in the MSM.

A few days ago, I made a long mention of the failure of the MSM to get the story of that South Carolina Train Derailment right.  I suggested it’s an exaple of how the press loses the ‘feel’ of the story, because they donb’t understand how things work. Well, here’s another example; CBS News is running a story on the failure of a major overhaul of FBI software.

Now, look, I’ve got about two decades of computer support under my belt, and I know without even talking to anyone on this, that the MSM has screwed up, bigtime. Here’s the problem; Such upgrades are NEVER a total failure, and therefore can never be considered a total write-off. Such upgrades almost invariably involve a lot of systems upgrades at the OS level and at the hardware and networking levels, all as a prerequisite for the proposed software working at all, much less correctly. The OS and hardware and networking upgrades are usually needed in any event, even if you’re not planing new software to run on it.

Example (and let’s bring this home for the purpose of really showing you what I’m talking about) ; You decide you need a video camera for your PC. But you find that most if not all cameras you can get only run on XP… and you’re still running Windows 98.  And in any event that old P-II/400 isn’t gonna cut it… not really. Well, you don’t complain much about the costs of the new computer and operating system, you simply replace it, since you really needed to do that anyway…and then get your camera.

Well, let’s extend this a bit further. Turns out the camera you’ve bought is a pile of crap. It doesn’t work. Do you call the hardware and software you bought a bust, or do you keep using it because it’s faster, and better than what you had? And in any event; anything else you buy for your computer’s gonna work better with the newer hardware and OS anyway, and many won’t work without it.

Well, that, I suppose to be the situation the FBI is finding itself in at the moment.

Trust me, gang… this is NOT a $171m loss.

Now, think; what advantage would the MSM see in spreading a story about $171m wasted, hmmm?

Word from many corners this morning that the Dmeocrats are complaining loudly about the costs involved with President Bush’s second inauguration. Among them, the Kansas City Star (That’s what I Are…) (I can’t imagine they’re not ticked to this day Roger Miller wrote that dopey little tune)

Anyway, I’m watching all of this complaining, with a bit of a grin going on.
For all of their complaining, the one question you don’t hear news types asking is… would they be complaining were John Kerry taking the oath?  The Star doesn’t mention that, either. That, you see, is their real issue; Kerry lost.

Here’s the hard drives being installed:


They tell me this hard drive with it’s 897 Petabytes, should handle my postings for the next few weeks at least. The trouble is, it needs a 5000hp GE diesel engine from a locomotive to get the thing up to speed. And, they tell me there are some problems with the track seek times being a shade slow.  They also tell me that defragging the thing will take upwards of 6 weeks, the resulting vibration from the movement of the heads will be heard in the next area code.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I can get the costs and the legal paperwork cleared up, but I’ll let you know.

Seriously; I’m working on getting the funding and some time together to move into my own domain. It’s the front costs right now, so soon after Christmas that have me hosed.
I’ll keep you posted.

Sad news from the AP wire

PETALUMA, Calif. – Spencer Dryden, the drummer for legendary rock band the Jefferson Airplane, has died of cancer. He was 66.

Dryden, who died at his home Tuesday, retired from performing 10 years ago, although he hadn’t been working much before that.

“I’m gone,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle last May. “I’m out of it. I’ve left the building.”

A benefit concert last year featuring Bob Weir (news) of the Grateful Dead and Warren Haynes of Gov’t Mule and raised $36,000 for Dryden, who was in the middle of two hip replacement surgeries and was facing heart surgery at the time. His Petaluma home and all his possessions had been destroyed in a fire in September 2003. He also had been diagnosed with stomach cancer.

Ouch.

Boortz makes an interesting comment today:

” hosted Newt Gingrich on my show yesterday to talk about his new book “Winning the Future.”  Now I can’t remember if we had this conversation during a commercial break, or during the actual show, but Newt came up with an interesting idea regarding space exploration.  I know I’m going to get this wrong, but Newt said something to the effect that the United States would be much further along in the exploration of space, and in the realization of benefits from that exploration, if we were willing to assume the same level of risk that NASCAR accepts.  There would be no shortage of volunteers who would be willing to accept that risk level in order to participate in space exploration.  Instead, we try to make space exploration as safe as walking across your living room to pick up a magazine.”

There’s a larger point here, and I wonder if even the Talkmaster sees this. No, I’m not talking about space travel alone.  Consider Social Security. Consider our lawsuit-driven society. Consider our regulaitons as regards transportation. Environmental exposures. All phases of healthcare… the very concept behind womb to the tomb government healthcare. The object of all of these is to remove all risk.  As an example, in the case of social security the cost of that risk removal is starting to catch up to us. What have we cost ourselves in terms of progress as a people, for our elimination of risk?

Ever watch a turtle? He’s unable to walk… and will never make any forward progress, without his head coming out of his protective shell. Put another way, you can’t cover ground when you’re concentrating on covering your ass. Our county’s greatest period of invention and achievement, was during a period when the concepts involving elimination of risk were flat-out unheard of. History speaks loudly to the point; Anything that has a large chance of wild success, has with it, an attendant chance of wild failure.

Hmmm. Here’s a concept; Charles Lindburg, flying across the Atlantic.  Imagine the good that trip did for the world, once the goal was achived. Think of the people who died trying to do what Lindburg had done. That kind of trip, I fear would never be contemplated today…. too risky.

No, I’m not suggesting we abandon the concepts of safety altogether… in space, or in anything else.  But here, it seems to me is the biggest demarc between left and right; their reletive understanding of the benefits of RISK. We’ve lost our sense of balance, here. 
Comments?

Will someone please explain to me why in the world I am in the least interested inPrince Harry and his choice of costume at a costume ball?

One of the basics of humor is doing the unexpected like.”Take my wife…. please”. So you can understand why, I suppose he’d have fallen to such a choice.

And yes… granted… it was a poor choice, but an understandable one, I think, and certainly not worth all this heat.

I can think of a recent occasion or two when some other poor choices were made. Whoopie Goldberg, Margaret Cho, et al.  I don’t recall that being developed into this kind of bruhaha.  Do you?

IN what is sure to be a negative point for the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, Outside The Beltway reports Bob Shrum has decided to retire from political consulting.

I must admit we’ve not seen much snow this year, but I found this worth the look…Yippee-Ki-Yay! has an interesting take on those government snowplows. Its a moving GIF… so go in with animation turned on.

If I think someone’s dead wrong, I say so, and usually loudly. When I think someone’s right, they usually get a loud reaction to that, as well. Example:

I took a healthy swipe at Michelle Malkin yesterday over Amrtsong Williams. Today, I’m in her corner on her coments about bias within the press on Iraq… particulalry on Abu Ghraib, and the testimony as it’s being repated in the WaPo as compared to other sources.

She’s right on the money with this one.

Roger L. Simon notes, regarding the Rathergate report:

“The lie that concerns me is the one that might actually have some public effect–that there was no proof that the National Guard documents were forgeries. It’s amazing Thornburgh and Boccardi could assert this with a straight face, considering their own expert–the only one they cite in their own appendix–says the exact opposite, just as every other reputable typography expert does without any of them being contradicted except in the most inept manner.”

Well, just about everyone who’s said anything about this with any credibility has now discredited this report as not going far enough, and/or inoring it’s own evidence to protect Rather and CBS.

So at what point does Sumner Redstone… who owns viacom…  who in turn owns CBS… take a hand in this and clean house?

I doubt he will. You see, Sumner redstone while he did make a rather large show of his support for President Bush in this last election, is still on a long term record of being a supporter of far left causes.. with his money.

Which kinda makes us mindful of who paid for this internal whitewash investigation, doesn’t it?

Ted Kennedy is telling is that the solution to the Democrat’s problems is for them to veer left.

Well, you just keep thinking that way Ted. It’s been working so very well for you the last 30 years, or so. Says Kennedy in his speech yesterday…

I categorically reject the deceptive and dangerous claim that the outcome last November was somehow a sweeping or even a modest or even a miniature mandate for reactionary measures like privatizing Social Security…

Yeah, well, you always did have trouble with reality, Teddy, boy.

There is no doubt that we must do a better job of looking within ourselves and speaking out for the principles we believe in and for the values that are the foundation of our actions. Americans need to hear more, not less, about those values.

It’d help if you actually HAD values. What kind of values were you pursuing in that Oldsmobile, when it went off the wide of a bridge, Ted? As I recall, you were veering left THEN, too….

If the likes of Teddy are the future of the Democrat party, we in America have little to fear. The Democrats will continue to lose voters for the forseeable future.