Originally posted December 4, 2005 - 4:56pm We miss you Rick ~SPK

For the last decade or so, since our children have been old enough to appreciate the Experience, we have driven out to The Country to cut our Christmas Tree.

Today was no different, at least at first.

Mary Hudetz | Portland, OR | November 12

AP - Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the legendary Jimi Hendrix Experience of the 1960s and the group's last surviving member, was found dead in his hotel room early Wednesday. He was 61.

Schadenfreude - it's what's for breakfast - Rick

Deroy Murdock | New York | November 6

Scripps Howard - Congratulations to Barack Obama, the incoming 44th President of the United States. He soon will fill America's highest office after a nearly flawless, first-time White House bid. He demonstrates that education, eloquence, and elegance trump lingering racial bias. His staunchly left-liberal ideas aside, he inspires in many ways. May he govern justly and make every American proud.

Now, what about those who Obama and his supporters vanquished? What the Republican Party badly needs is a Night of the Long Knives.

The GOP has been laid low, thanks to politicians who swapped their principles for power and lost both. As the chief electoral vehicle for conservative and free-market ideas, the Republican Party cannot regain America's confidence, nor should it, until the guilty have been catapulted into the nearest volcano.

Comrade George W. Bush has spearheaded the most aggressive federal expansion since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a delivery system for socialism, he has been the most effective Trojan Horse since that pine steed rolled into Troy.

more at the link...

The North Coast airwaves of 1965 to 1971 featured genre-free wall-to-wall Top 40 hits spun by AM powerhouses CKLW (Windsor, Ontario) and WIXY 1260 (Cleveland). They were the stations of choice at the city pool and, when we were old enough to drive our girlfriends, blankets and radios there, at the beach.

Along with the British Invasion groups and the Folk Rockers, these were the singers that grabbed my soul and gonads when I was a hopelessly romantic – and terminally horny – adolescent:

Newsweek is running a seven-part series - presently on Chapter 6 - from a team given extensive access to both campaigns with the agreement that none of the material would be published until after the election. A must-read for political junkies. I highly recommend you download the pages and read them at your leisure.

Secrets of the 2008 Campaign

Supreme Cat Decisions"

November 3

NYT - Most of the post-election discussion will presumably be about what the Democrats should and will do with their mandate. But let me ask a different question that will also be important for the nation’s future: What will defeat do to the Republicans?

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Ignore the ghastly page design and enjoy the content...

The Real Origins of Halloween -
There appear to have been four major holy days celebrated by the Paleopagan Druids, possibly throughout the Celtic territories: Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane & Lughnasadh (in one set of Irish-based modern spellings). Four additional holy (or “High”) days (Winter Solstice or “Midwinter,” Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice or “Midsummer,” and Fall Equinox), which are based on Germanic or other Indo-European cultures, are also celebrated in the Neopagan Druid calendar, along with others based on mainstream holidays (visit the linked essay for details).

The most common practice for the calculation of Samhain, Oimelc, Beltane and Lughnasadh has been, for the last several centuries, to use the civil calendar days or eves of November 1st, February 1st, May 1st and August 1st, respectively. Since we have conflicting evidence on how the Paleopagan Druids calculated these dates, modern Neopagans just use whichever method is most convenient. This means, of course, that we aren’t all doing anything uniformly on any given night, which fits perfectly with the Neopagan saying that, “organizing Pagans is like herding cats.” It doesn’t match the Evil Conspiracy theories — which have us all marching to a strict drumbeat in perfect Satanic unison — at all.

...photo taken by my daughter:

Those of you who watched tonight's debate: what were your expectations for the session? Did the "new format" enhance the discussion? Do you think your candidate did well, did poorly, or merely treaded water? In which specific areas? Speculate the different turns the debate might have taken Palin been facing Obama, Biden facing McCain, or Palin facing Biden.

If you did not watch the debate, did the White Sox or Twins or Mets or Phillies or Brewers win?

background here

Jason Perlow | September 23

ZDnet - One month ago, I pledged that I would try Windows Vista on my new PC for a month before deciding whether I would keep it or revert back to Windows XP as my primary desktop OS.

The verdict? I’m sticking with Vista, begrudgingly.

Now the question begs, do I intend to upgrade any of my other PCs to Vista? No, at least not until I need to get new desktop PCs.


more at the link...

Rock and Roll music was spawned from the blues and also from country/western (where that genre came from is the subject for another day, but let it be said that the African-American seed took root there, too).

Growing up in Northeast Ohio, I wasn't exposed to country music at a tender age. But I heard hits by Little Richard. the Everly Brothers, Carl Perkins, and Elvis that didn't sound like the doo-wop and ponytail stuff that competed for airplay in the latter part of the fifties. When I got a little older and started playing music with guys who had grown up with other music playing in their homes, I learned how much country music was a presence in rock 'n' roll. In the late sixties, a number of artists went back to the pure sweet sounds of country for inspiration, electrified the rhythm section, and launched a hybrid that got labeled (as all music must be labeled - by non-musicians) as "country/rock".

"Country/Rock" is sort of redundant, as is "Blues/Rock". But let's leave that alone for now, and instead offer up some sides by the first artists who were driven to create popular music different from the prevailing teen pop, smooth soul and acid rock (nothing wrong with any of these!) and mix in some of the folkier lyrical, vocal and instrumental styles they heard growing up.

The song list is below the fold. Pile on your favorites.

Bob Herbert | September 6

NYT - If there was one pre-eminent characteristic of the Republican convention this week, it was the quality of deception. Words completely lost their meaning. Reality was turned upside down.

From the faux populist gibberish mouthed by speaker after speaker, you would never have known that the Republicans have been in power over the past several years and used that titanic power to lead the country to its present sorry state.

The populists’ garb hangs awkwardly on the frame of John McCain. Everyman he ain’t.

plenty more red meat at the link!

W. David Gardner | September 4

Information Week - The sky isn't falling and the Internet isn't running out of capacity either.

In a report that should placate the Chicken Littles who believe the Internet is heading for a monstrous traffic jam, Internet monitor TeleGeography Research said international Internet traffic grew more than 53%, but Internet capacity grew even faster.

In a report released Wednesday, TeleGeography said Internet traffic grew 53% between mid-2007 and mid-2008, a drop from 61% in the preceding year. Internet capacity, however, grew faster than the total Internet traffic, which resulted in lower utilization levels on many Internet backbones.

"Broadband subscriber growth has been slowing since 2001, but the volume of traffic generated by each user [has] grown," Alan Mauldin, the market research firm's director of research, said in a statement. "Traffic growth is fueled by consumer demand for video, delivered via Web browsers, peer-to-peer services, or streaming protocols."

Traffic in the mature U.S. market rose a modest 47%, but in the new market between the United States and Latin America, traffic growth took off, surging 112% for the period.

The TeleGeography findings could be meaningful input in the ongoing debate involving U.S. service providers and consumers concerning the imposition of downloading restrictions on heavy users. Some service providers maintain they will have to impose limits on some users who use too much Internet capacity.


more at the source

Dean Takahashi | August 7

VentureBeat - Bad hackers haven’t caused much damage this year during the online-heavy presidential campaign. But the potential is there. Consider “typosquatting.”

There are about 160 different ways to type in the wrong web site for barackobama.com. Oliver Friedrichs, former director of research at Symantec, knows this because he did a study of the sites that typo squat, or exploit users’ misspellings of web site names to siphon off traffic from the official candidate’s web site for a variety of commercial or corrupt purposes.

At Black Hat [conference August 7], Friedrichs described the typosquatting study as part of a broader talk offering a warning about how any big election could be threatened by a variety of different cyber attacks. The talk is partially chronicled in a chapter that he wrote for Crimeware, a new book published by Symantec Press. Typosquatting, while interesting, is one of the smaller cyber threats. Some of the more serious ones could actually undermine confidence of voters and skew election results. Fortunately, Friedrichs said, there hasn’t been a lot of use of the worst tactics yet in the current U.S. presidential campaign.


more at the source

Bill Ray | September 5

The Register - Termination fees - the money paid to a receiving network for connecting a call - are for the chop. The question is what, if anything, will replace them; moreover, will ordinary punters ever even notice they're paying to receive calls?

Ofcom recently announced it was going to take a good look at the question of termination fees, putting many of our readers into a tizzy and swearing they'd never pay to receive a call. But the rationale behind Ofcom's position, and the argument against termination fees, is worthy of examination, as it leads to the almost inevitable conclusion that it's just a matter of time before we end up paying to receive calls if we aren't already.


more at the source

Rush, man

Lee Dorsey

The Animals

Sam Cooke

Chrissy Hynde

Donna Summer

Cannonball Adderly

Bob Seger

Enjoy your day off (if you have one); remember why it's a National Holiday in the U.S.; remember how much Saint Ronnie and the Republicans have done to destroy it.

It was to be a winning, historical moment no matter what the outcome of the long Democratic primary battle was - we all knew by March that either a woman or an African-American would be named the Democratic presidential nominee.

We flipped the tube to BET at 10:15 and spent the next forty-five minutes discussing what Obama was saying. And I feel he said a lot; I hope many of us can lay to rest the "Messiah" thing and the "Inexperience" qualms and recognize that the Party has chosen a leader who loves his country and his fellow citizens and wants to help get the nation back on the rails leading to its essential promise - Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

This country of ours has more wealth than any nation, but that's not what makes us rich. We have the most powerful military on Earth, but that's not what makes us strong. Our universities and our culture are the envy of the world, but that's not what keeps the world coming to our shores.

Instead, it is that American spirit – that American promise – that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night, and a promise that you make to yours – a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west; a promise that led workers to picket lines, and women to reach for the ballot."

The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain. The men and women who serve in our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America – they have served the United States of America.

So I've got news for you, John McCain. We all put our country first."

Individual responsibility and mutual responsibility – that's the essence of America's promise."

I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you."

Strong, forceful, yet humble. He made my daughter and me feel good to be alive and American in 2008. McCain can offer us all Escalades and Frostees but he can't buy the sense of purpose that Obama projects.

Two images of true love:

These ads blow. Ya dig? I'm hearing this in my sleep, and I HATE IT:

One of the things that, duh, uh, has happened here is, uh, that the mahket for food has become connected with the mahket for energy..."

I'd rather have McCain ads. At least they're hilarious.

titled thusly so as to eliminate the Josh Grobans and Neil Diamonds and Garth Brookses of the world :)


John Lennon

Mick Hucknall

Neil Finn

Paul Carrack

Paul David Hewson

Paul Rodgers

Paul Young

Roger Daltry

Steve Marriott

GOD

What have you?

...chromosomes, that is, as promised the last time I did this.

What favorite female artists have you?

Aimee Mann

Rosanne Cash

Rickie Lee Jones

Michelle Shocked - since I can't pick just one, have a double scoop

Tanita Tikaram

Homegirl Chrissie Hynde

Bonnie Raitt with some old dude (having lkistened to her introduction to this classic, dig the look she gives her partner at 1:25)

...and I can't leave this theme without re-visiting Lucinda Williams and Kathleen Edwards!

Thanks for playing.

Note: I built this post Friday night, and carefully set the "autopublish" features to make it appear at 8:00pm Saturday. It didn't. It never does, for me.

Until earlier this year, when the atmosphere in my workplace went from manic-depressive to schizophrenic-with-a-side-of-Global-Thermonuclear-War, I typically brought my lousy attitude and gripes home each day to burden my family with my sunny mood.

I learned. My daughter, especially, forced me to learn how to sum up the days' events without crying and ranting.

Utterly random songs I love!

Barenaked Ladies: Brian Wilson

Restless Heart: Back to the Heartbreak Kid

The Swell Season: Into the Mystic (cover)

Vince Gill: Go Rest High On That Mountain

Three Dog Night: Never Been to Spain

Jay Farrar: Highways and Cigarettes

What have you?

Ed Bott | July 10

ZDnet - ZDNet Editor in Chief Larry Dignan asked me what I would do to fix Vista’s tarnished brand if I were in charge of Microsoft’s marketing for a day. OK, I’ll take the job, but on two conditions: First, I want face time with Steve Ballmer and Steven Sinofsky. Second, I want some of those dollars Steve was going to fork over to buy Yahoo, because cleaning up the Vista mess is gonna cost some bucks.

The context of the conversation, of course, is Microsoft’s campaign to “fight back” against Vista’s poor reputation and Apple’s relentless Vista-bashing ad series. Mary Jo Foley has more details in her report from Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in Houston. I’m hearing the same messages in my conversations with Microsoft executives and product managers.

In classic Microsoft style, they can be distilled into three key points:

* Hardware and software partners weren’t ready for the launch. As Mary Jo reports, Windows honcho Brad Brooks “acknowledged that partners stopped believing that Microsoft would ever manage to ship Vista and thus didn’t prepare adequately for the launch of the operating system.”
* Many of the architectural changes, especially those involving security and device drivers, caused existing hardware and software to work poorly or not at all. Most of those issues have been fixed in the past 18 months, and the exceptions are generally older products whose owners have decided not to invest in Vista support.
* Windows Vista as it exists today is not the same product that Microsoft shipped back in November 2006. Service Pack 1 is the biggest fix, of course, but Microsoft has been delivering bug fixes and compatibility updates continually via Windows Updates