Category: Uncategorized

Hmph

Some members of the Macworld community were in a state of moderate dudgeon this week over unflattering comments about the iMac in one of their forums.
I’m floored by this, largely because I thought that technical folk of any age enjoyed intellectual exchange with other bright people who don’t necessarily agree with them.
Gueesss not.

Continue reading Hmph

Taking the Plunge

I’ve started the wheels turning on the purchase of my second timeshare, which is not as stupid a decision as it sounds.
This is at a resort in my town, Mashpee, that has an indoor pool, locker room and a small gym, all of which are available to owners throughout the year.
Earlier this year, I did benefit from having a regular exercise program, and convenience is a bit part of that.

Continue reading Taking the Plunge

A Real Reason to Distrust John McCain

I really don’t care that John McCain couldn’t remember how much real estate his wife owns.
I’m also not overly concerned about the Roe v. Wade bogeyman that has certain progressives in a state of high dudgeon.
It does matter that McCain opposed a bill that would have made it easier for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination.
The bill was crafted in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last year that a former Goodyear supervisor couldn’t sue the company for pay discrimination because she filed later than the 180 day statutory limit.
Talk about a bread and butter issue of particular interest to women, whom Obama supposedly wishes to court.
Interesting, then, that the Obama campaign don’t seem to want to touch this one with a ten foot pole, even though the Senator from Illinois actually did vote in favor of the bill. They’d rather make a subdivision out of a cemetery plot over the house thing.
Besides the fact that the number of properties that Cindy McCain owns is irrelevant to my well-being, if I were Obama, I wouldn’t be baiting my opponent over anything to do with real estate. An heiress owning a couple of condos strikes me as less of a concern than a cozy land deal between a politician and a convicted felon.
Oh, sorry, that wasn’t “the Tony Rezko that (he) knew.”

Why Oh Why Oh

In this morning’s NYT, David Brooks puts the blame on the press, or at least a subsection of the MSM, for the otherwise incomprehensible tenor of this year’s Presidential campaign:
“McCain started out with the same sort of kibitzing campaign style that he used to woo the press back in 2000. It didn

Two Weeks to Labor Day, and a Memorial Service

Hundreds of people gathered at the Mashpee veteran’s memorial park this evening to pay tribute to two young soldiers, ages 19 and 21, who lost their lives in combat this past week, and to remember a third Mashpee citizen, a young mother, who was a casualty of the Iraq war almost a year ago.
Incredible for a small community like this one (around 14,000) to have the sad duty of mourning not one but three of its citizens lost to war within a 12 month period.
July was brutal, it seemed like summer would never end, but here we are, two weeks away from Labor Day.
I can’t wait for the tourists to go home. The increased volume of traffic really got to me this year.
If the whole business of being a vacation destination were to go away, it wouldn’t disappoint me. So, we’d have fewer restaurants, not so many summer activities and a smaller tax base. That’s a reasonable trade-off for never seeing another Florida or Connecticut license plate again (the folks from Alaska can come any time they like).

Where Do They Dig Them Up?

First, it was the loathesome White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, you know, the one who gave the esteemed Helen Thomas a patronizing tongue-lashing more suitable to a naughty child.
Now, the Republicans have a new embarassment in the person of Nicolle Wallace, campaign spokesperson for John McCain, for the following ridiculous nonsequitur: “The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous.”
I think the Republican party should impose a rule that any right-wing blonde other than Laura Ingraham, and that includes Ann Coulter, should kindly sit down and shut up.
This election is going to be difficult enough without unleashing the bimbo brigade on a public already fed up with both political parties, especially the GOP, with its seemingly endless supply of mind bogglingly ignorant, stupid, petty trolls.
Heaven help us, the McCain and Obama campaigns are making Nader look more and more like a cross between George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

Media Fools

NBC’s Olympics color is pathetic, awful. I finally turned The Games off when they announced that an in-depth interview with Michael Phelps’ mother was “coming up”.
If I had seen Debbie Phelps one more time, I think I would have thrown something at the TV.
Given, the woman deserves a point or two for raising her kids, one of whom is the greatest Olympic swimmer in history, on her own (their Dad walked when Michael was seven), but come on, she’s not exactly June Cleaver. In fact, it’s been reported that Michael’s sister, who is also a swimmer, took up the sport as a refuge from the yelling.
I’m used to the networks making otherwise intelligent people look like incoherent idiots, e.g., CNN’s regrettable lobotomy of political “reporter” Candy Crowley. But poor Bob Costas: his babbling fits right in with the cacophonous chatter of the B bus’s special needs patrons.
I don’t know much about Costas except that he’s been a sports reporter for almost 30 years. He could be a bona fide genius, but you’d never know it from the vapid pap he continuously spewed during last week’s interminable filler in between actual events.