This comment, by “AnonymousDrivel” at Ace, does a good job of nailing down my dissatisfaction with our putative Presidential choices. It deserves quotation in its entirety:

As we evaluate our “top” Presidential candidates, consider their campaign performances and decision making. Now, what makes anyone think either will improve once in office?

This is not snark. These two possess inadequate judgment to make the difficult decisions correctly. Sure, McCain will righteously fall back on his Iraq stand (one that many had at the same time though certainly not any noteworthy Democrats, if any at all), but McCain was also making that stand to criticize Bush’s policies at the time and not purely as benevolent patriot. History shows he guessed right on one particular issue. In so many others however, he and Obama fail to address coherently, forcefully, issues that trouble this nation. Maybe one could blame their institutional training as Senators participating in the sausage-making that is national politics, but that might just be a copout, too. Just as likely it’s in their blood to be indecisive, muddling, and/or wrong. Neither has a core of principles other than the core that they believe in themselves to do the job. I'm sorry but that just isn’t enough.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 21:51:55 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Bill Quick gives Charlie Schumer the William Cowper Brann treatment (so I don’t have to!).

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 18:50:43 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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...and stuff that deserves a post gets pushed back by the Thing Of The Moment.  So, before this one gets away...

Mark Philip Alger’s blog already has a link in the sidebar, but his series on global warming merits it’s own shout-out before it scrolls too far down his homepage.  If your circumstances require arguing with the Believers, you should make these four (so far) posts a part of your ammo box.

Gentlemen, set your bookmarks:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 17:55:27 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Tam mourns a loss:

I used to go to the airport for fun.  I’d drive down to Hartsfield, ride the train between the concourses for a bit.  Pick a concourse at random and wander down to one of the gates and press my nose against the glass to watch the dance on the ramp and the plane get pushed back...

Damn the bastards who’ve taken that from me.  And don't tell me it was Achmed and Mohammed who took it away; it was the spineless politicians, career-minded bureaucrats and craven voters who immediately went into SNiVeL mode.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 16:41:59 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman are worried about terrorist-connected individuals using foreign libel laws to stifle free speech:

Individuals with alleged connections to terrorist activity are filing libel suits and winning judgments in foreign courts against American researchers who publish on these matters. These suits intimidate and even silence writers and publishers.

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 15:16:50 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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I am now about to attempt an uninstallation of Norton Antivirus on my primary computer.

If not heard from within two days, please send out search parties.


UPDATE 080713 03:37:   Process took about an hour, most of which was spent researching how to/backing up system settings and registry.  Everything seems to have worked.
(The rest of the day was spent on yard work and housecleaning.)

Posted by: Old Grouch in Meta at 22:05:13 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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C.G. Hill links to a post by Doc Searls:

If you have an HDTV and live within sight of New York TV station transmitters on the Empire State Building, you can probably pick them up over an antenna on your set or your roof.   In fact, a loop or bowtie antenna will do.  So will length of wire about 5 inches long, attached to the center conductor of your coaxial connection on the back of your set.

But if you live farther away, good luck.  Your old VHF TV station not only won’t have the range it did on VHF, but will probably not have the same range as an old analog signal on the same UHF frequency. It certainly won’t have the same behavior.  The signals tend to be either there or not-there.  They don’t degrade gracefully with increasing “snow,” as analog signals did.  They break up into a plaid-like pattern, or disappear entirely.

Speaking on the phone with RF Update..., [Barry] Goodstadt [vice president, Centris] said that... he was surprised by the massive scale of the potential OTA household decline.  Regardless of DTV’s better picture, elimination of multipath ghosting and higher resolution in the case of HD, the digital television transition will significantly decrease the number of OTA households, he said. - Broadcast Engineering: Will DTV Kill Over-the-Air Television?

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 21:52:16 GMT | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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This Summer’s visit to The Sibling (and Sibling-in-Law) had been planned to commence on July 3^rd, but wound up being delayed until early on the 4th by continuing altercations between the Current Cat and the New Cat^[1].
more...

Posted by: Old Grouch in Dear Diary... at 21:13:11 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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Could it be that the Federal Communications Commission will actually bring the hammer down on Comcast?

FCC chairman Kevin Martin told AP yesterday: “We found that Comcast’s actions in this instance violated our principles.” These require ISPs to provide open access to the network, “subject to reasonable network management”.

Martin has concluded that Comcast arbitrarily blocked filesharing apps, regardless of the amount of traffic they accounted for, and was not open with its customers about what it was doing.

Martin will circulate a recommendation on enforcement action, which the Commission will vote on next month. - The Register

Bowing to continued pressure from the New York Attorney General, two more big-name American ISPs have shutdown access to dozens of Usenet newsgroups that contain child pornography - and many more that don’t. [emphasis mine - o.g.] - The Register

Posted by: Old Grouch in In Passing at 18:52:04 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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“I don’t know.  Maybe I’m just being overly petulant that what could have been a wonderfully stylish late-Victorian piece is actually going to be full of people going ‘Duuuuuude!’”

Via:  C.G. Hill

Posted by: Old Grouch in Linkage at 14:59:59 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
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