Who's Running Things, Anyway?

Has our gubbermint gone mad?

Unless I am gravely mistaken, in any other era and just about any other country, this Wikileaks mess would be considered treason, punishable by death.

But in the United States of Wussies, in the year of Obama 2010? Not so much.

Please, PLEASE tell me somebody else finds this as seriously disturbing as I do!

And why, in the name of all that's holy, has the government not slapped about a hundred restraining orders on Wikileaks, or a cease-and-desist order, or something, ANYTHING to shut them down and stop them from spilling stolen national secrets!

Oh. My bad. This is the US Gubbermint circa 2010 we're talking about. They're running around like headless chickens warning everybody about how stupid the US Gubbermint is going to look and how embarrassed the administration will be when the information hits. Oh, and it's going to endanger countless lives too.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and I don't condone illegal activity, but let's just say I wouldn't be terribly upset if someone took the law into their own hands and put Wikileaks out of business, at least for a while.

Who Else Saw This The Way I Did?

Mostly the readers "of a certain age," I would guess....

So what was your first thought on seeing this?

My first thought is posted "below the fold." Did you think what I did?

There's more! Click here to read the rest!

Media Bias? Naw.....

For the second week in a row, the Yahoo! news front page has shown a photo of Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas with a headline about another cut having been made from "Dancing With The Stars."

And for the second week in a row, Bristol and Mark are SAFE.

In other words, they have NOT been cut from the show. Yet.

We report, you decide.

Why Sidebar Links No Longer Work

I just found out that Blogrolling has closed up shop, so until I re-code all my favorite links in the sidebar, they will not work. Sorry about that. Stay tuned for updates.

Brilliant!

This was actually posted 10 days ago over at Wizbang, by Jay Tea. I am quoting it here in full because it's just that good.

Stuck In The Miner Leagues

Posted by Jay Tea
Published: October 15, 2010 - 7:30 AM

You know, in the aftermath of the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners this week, it's clear why that nation is a third-world hellhole and not part of the developed world. The reasons are legion, but one of them stood out in stark relief over the past few months: their president simply doesn't know how to manage a major crisis.

I mean, look at this comparison with how El Presidente Sebastian Pinera handled that situation with how our own President Obama dealt with the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

Not once did President Pinera talk about how he was going to make certain that the mining company was properly brought to account for their misdeeds, promising to hold his boot to their throats.

He didn't demand an end to all mining everywhere.

He didn't snub offers of assistance from other nations.

He didn't vow to "not rest" until it was over, then take off on vacations and go golfing at the drop of a hat.

He didn't try to demonize the mining company.

He didn't use the crisis to advance his political agenda.

He didn't make sure that federal government officials were overseeing and micromanaging every aspect of the disaster response, keeping outsiders and other levels of government didn't get in the way.

Nope, El Presidente Pinera did just what you'd expect from any two-bit jefe from a two-bit backwater banana republic. He marshaled his nation's resources; requested and accepted aid from anyone, anywhere; kept the spotlight focused, laserlike, on the actual immediate crisis; ignored such matters as blame and responsibility who to punish; and most critically, failed to shore up the critical golfing industry by keeping his tee times.

Poor, poor Chile. Yes, your miners were rescued, alive and mostly healthy, but that was not because of your El Presidente and his response to the crisis, but despite it. The silly Chile-pepper simply doesn't have what it takes to be the leader of a modern, advanced nation.
Maybe some day, you will. Maybe some day you'll be as good as we are. But right now, you ain't there -- and you ain't headed in the right direction.

(This article is also instructional on how the rescue played out.)

The Year Of The Dead Computer

It's been a busy one.

Shall I list everything that has gone wrong?

• Network card on work desktop machine died.
• Personal desktop machine died.
• Laptop power supply temporarily died.
• Router died.
• CD-ROM drive on work desktop machine died.

And that all happened before last Saturday morning.

It all started when, silly me, I went to follow my boss's instructions and install PowerPoint on my work computer. It was then I discovered the CD drive was hosed.

No fear, said I, I'll just make the desktop machine's CD drive a shared drive, and install from there.

Easier said than done, when the target machine has suddenly decided to take 10 minutes to boot up, and then 5 minutes to open anything at all.

So I took a stab at a Windows repair installation. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The machine did boot up just fine in safe mode--but half my software wouldn't work.

Off to Best Buy to pick up a USB CD-ROM drive, cross all the fingers and toes, and re-format the hard drive, and reinstall the operating system.

Finished all that at about 7 o'clock last night, and then called company tech support to see when they could install all the company software so I could, um, do my job. You know, the thing that generates the paycheck.

Their first offer was Wednesday afternoon. Fine, I said, if you want to 'splain to my boss. They punted, and gave me Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. my time. And then the tech was late calling, and then he postponed the appointment until noon.

After that, it took 3 hours to get everything up and running.

All things considered, this wasn't how I wanted to spend the last 4 days. But at least the final result was a whole lot cheaper than buying a whole new computer, which was tech support's first suggestion.

Ahh, machinery. Can't live without it, but can't live with it either, a lot of the time.

I Missed This The First Time Around.

An acquaintance just sent me a collection of images via e-mail today. When I went hunting on the net... I found some of them posted to a blog entry as far back as April 15, 2009. This, in Obama's own back yard, less than 3 months after he was inaugurated. For your viewing pleasure, I am re-posting just a few images here, with the caveat that the copyrights belong to those listed.

Nice Try. I Don't Think It Will Work.

This item is again making the rounds of the in-boxes. Sent to me by a "friend" of the male persuasion. Actually, I think it's hilarious, and creative... but I won't be participating, so all of you who know where I live... just stay home, and don't stalk my house. There will be nothing to see here... move along... move along...

DON'T FORGET NEXT SATURDAY!

WALK NAKED IN AMERICA DAY

Don't forget to mark your calendars.

As you may already know, it is a sin for a Muslim male to see any woman other than his wife naked and if he does, he must commit suicide. So next Saturday at 1 PM Eastern Time, all American women are asked to walk out of their house completely naked to help weed out any neighborhood terrorists.

Circling your block for one hour is recommended for this anti-terrorist effort.

All patriotic men are to position themselves in lawn chairs in front of their houses to demonstrate their support for the women and to prove that they are not Muslim terrorist sympathizers. Since Islam also does not approve of alcohol, a cold 6-pack at your side is further proof of your patriotism.

The American government appreciates your efforts to root out terrorists and applauds your participation in this anti-terrorist activity.

God bless America!

P.S. It is your patriotic duty to inform others. If you don't send to at least one person, you're a terrorist-sympathizing, lily-livered coward and are possibly aiding and abetting terrorists.

Fluffy Feet

I didn't know until I watched a fairly-recent TV program on pandas that they actually have fur on the bottoms of their feet. Apparently this makes it more comfortable to walk around in the snow.

One of the panda fans, a lady known only as Rita Petita (yes, I do know her real name; no, I'm not going to tell you) has posted one of the cutest pictures EVER of Little Prince Fluffy-Butt (and fluffy-paws) recently on her Flickr site. Her pictures are all copyrighted, and I am doing her the courtesy of not getting around that by grabbing a full screen-cap, but I will send you to see this picture for yourself.

I did, however, make a screen cap of just one of his fuzzy paws, to whet your appetite....



As an aside, I met Rita Petita at the recent event at the San Diego Zoo. She was packing some serious photographic hardware, and I remarked to her that now I could see why she's able to get such great close-up shots. She smiled and said yes, the pandas have become a very expensive hobby for her. (Those great big lenses are EXPENSIVE.)

Bears. Rock Bands. What More Could You Want?

Yep, we've got everything you need, right here in the Land of She Who Is Cranky.

Thanks to good friend Janet, one of the "TER Ten" (don't ask, it'd take too long to explain), yet another video from the Dallas double-header. It's already been a whole year. Amazing.

Anyway. Yet another view from the hill --er, that's view from the balcony--where you can spot me by my glowstick. The flickering one, right in the front row, at the far left side of the frame, nearly in front of John the bass player (the guy wearing all black, for those not in the know). Mine is the one that flickers because it was a battery-operated glowstick, and when it's doing the color blue, it flickers and flashes.

Posted for your viewing pleasure as a public service of your Crankiest Beach Ever. Watch especially closely right around 4 minutes and 53 seconds... I pointed my glowstick at first Justin, then John, to acknowledge them--and John gave me a thumbs-up (or maybe it's a fist-up) in response. So very, very cool. Enjoy!

Bears. We've Got Bears.

Baby bear is now a year old and weighs 53 pounds. And he's STILL cute as a button!



Mama's on a mission, I think....



Peek-a-boo. Literally.



Precious Zhen Zhen (who is leaving for China momentarily with her big sister Su Lin) naps up against her water fountain. She learned this trick from mama Bai Yun.



These pictures are all from Friday. More to come, I'm sure....

Pandamonium.

The last event of the Black and White Overnight was that they put US happy campers on the Pandacam. Really. Honest.

As If The Earlier Fun Weren't Enough...

... my router decided it was a good day to die.

I tried everything. I figured out it wasn't my internet service or the DSL modem, because each of the computers is able to connect to the internet individually, if I take the router out of the chain (and remember to manually re-configure the IP address on each machine, since it was obtaining it from the router before).

It also isn't my laptop's wireless capability, because I was able to get online via a neighbor's unsecured connection that the laptop sniffed out.

I did a factory reset of the router, then painstakingly re-configured it from scratch, after I figured out that to get to the router's setup screens, the computer I'm using to do so has to have its firewall turned off.

Zip. Zilch. Nada. It's hosed. Bricked. Busted. Ka-blooey. It's a doorstop with pretty blinking lights that go nowhere and do nothing.

So I'm off to Best Buy to see what they've got.

This was not how I wanted to spend my weekend.

Told You I Was Right Up Front.

Somebody unearthed this Youtube video, nearly a year later, from the second night of the Moody Blues double-header with the Dallas Symphony. You can watch the entire video here, but here's a screen cap, so you can spot me:

Can You Believe...

... His Chubbiness, Prince Fluffy-Butt, will be a whole year old next week.

Good News and Not-As-Good News

The good news: The 'pooter is out of the shop. Finally.

The not-as-good news... I have to reinstall the operating system.

They put the new parts into it days ago... but it was having trouble booting up, and after several days of attempted diagnosis, they finally figured out that when the power supply blew, and took out the motherboard with it, there was a cascading effect on the operating system.

I told the guy I can do that myself. The truth is, I'd far rather do that myself, because I know exactly how I want it set up.

Guess how I'm spending my weekend....

Announcement From The Management

I have had to enable comment moderation because the Chinese pornographers are having a field day with Blogger blogs.

All this means is that your comments will not show up on the blog until I have approved (or disapproved) them.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

What Fun

I've just been chatting on Facebook with my grand-niece B, whom I have not seen since she was just a toddler. She's 10 going on 11 now, and is coming to this area in August for a visit. What fun it will be to see her. She friend-requested me last night, out of the blue, and until she did so, I wasn't sure she actually knew who I was... although, being her grandmother's youngest sister, she certainly SHOULD know that I exist, at the very least!

And all this and 50 cents will get you tomorrow's newspaper.

Some Days You're The Windshield...

I'll give you 3 guesses what I've been this week. (Hint: It's not the windshield.)

It all started Tuesday morning. I was minding my own business, when all of a sudden my personal desktop computer shut itself off, and I smelled something burning. So I took it to the hospital, and the prognosis was grim. Seemed the power supply blew--and took the motherboard with it. Since I'm on a budget, I took the option of new power supply and new/used motherboard instead of a new computer. All the other pieces are still good. But they had to order the parts, so the 'pooter is still in the hospital.

But I still have the company computer to do my work on. Or do I? Mid-shift this morning, it quit talking to the internet. Since I work over the internet, this was not good.

I rebooted it twice, also rebooted the router and the DSL modem. I even tried switching the network cable to a different port in the router, in case the port had gone bad. I knew the router was fine, as was my internet connection, because I had the laptop running on wi-fi in another part of the house, and it was talking to the internet just fine.

I called tech support and they said it was very likely the network card inside the computer, as those have a habit of dying at the most inconvenient times. He suggested I try a "dongle," which is a USB ethernet adapter. I finally found the thing, right where I last left it. I even found the driver CD.

Next problem. The CD drive in the company computer could not read the driver CD. Back to the laptop, to download the drivers (which are fortunately still available) onto a thumb drive.

Now we're cooking. Or so I thought, until I experienced the first Blue Screen of Death I've seen in a very long time.

After yet another reboot, now Internet Exploder keeps freezing up on me. This too is bad, because the company software platform is IE-based. Makes it kind of hard to work....

So now I'm running every diagnostic trick I know to see if I can settle this thing down. And meanwhile, I had the tech support guys install the company software on my laptop, so I have that for a backup now.

I should have just rolled over and gone back to sleep when the alarm went off this morning, I am thinking.

This Is MUCH Too Cute Not To Share.

There is no indication of what zoo, or what bear this is... but this panda tries to climb the enclosure wall to greet some delighted visitors.



(Hat tip: Velia, via Facebook)

UPDATE: Velia contacted the person who posted the video to Youtube, and they replied that the video was shot at the zoo in Chongqing, China.