From Pine View Farm

Give the Republican Party a 20, it will give you back five fours.

As I watch the Phillies game, I realize that the Fox Sports announcers are really really bad.

Bring back Harry Kalas for the playoffs.

At least he understands baseball.

You dodge, weave, lie, and attack.

It’s a Republican thing. They got nuttin’.

. . . with less than a month to go and McCain losing ground in opinion polls nationally and in some of the critical battleground states in particular, the Republican has gone negative. During the week of Sept 28 through Oct. 4, “nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative,” the Wisconsin Advertising Project at the University of Wisconsin reports today. “During the same period, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative.”

And they are leaving the rest of us with the same:

One year to the day after climbing to its peak of 14,164.53, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 678.91 points, its third-largest point loss on record, to finish at 8,579.19, pushing the blue-chip index under the 9,000 level for the first time since August 2003.

The Dow’s close leaves it 5,585.34 points, or 39.4%, under its year-ago high.

The Republican Party, the party of fiscal responsibility.

Yeah.

Right.

The National Debt Clock near Times Square has just run out of spaces to add more zeroes to its running count of our national debt, thanks to the one-two punch of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout and the $100 billion used to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before that.

Incompetent lying hypocritical bastards.

If my wording is too circumspect, please use the email link at the top of the page and I’ll tell you what I really think.

The outrageousness continues:

A federal judge ordered yesterday that 17 Chinese Muslims held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison be released into the United States by Friday, agreeing with the detainees’ lawyers that the Constitution barred holding the men indefinitely without cause.

(snip)

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina issued the landmark ruling in the case of a small band of captives, known as Uighurs, who have been held at Guantanamo nearly seven years and are no longer considered enemy combatants by the U.S. government.

The United States is refusing to repatriate the Uighurs to China, since China considers Uighurs to be prima facie terrorists and rebels, and doesn’t want to admit them to the United States because, for some reason or other, they just might be bearing a grudge.

But today, an appeals court enjoined the order so that the government could “have more time to make arguments in the case.”

Note the argument was described, in the first link above, as using to keep these innocent persons incarcerated (emphasis added). It boils down to “King George the Wurst doesn’t want to.”

Justice Department lawyers had argued that only the president had the authority to allow the men into the country. They also said the judge was barred from ordering the entry of detainees if they had ties to terrorist groups.

Just because I haven’t quoted it in a while, here is the oath of office that King George swore:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Frankly, Pascal nailed it.

Came in the mail. They really do not have to remind me.

I’d tell you which bank it was, but I don’t know what name they are trading under today.

And why are they mailing books all over the country when they are gasping for air already? This is they kind of good business sense that got them into trouble in the first place.

Furrfu!

Wanna buy a used car dealership?

In Pennsylvania, the number of dealerships expected to close or merge by year’s end will be three times the historic average. Hardest hit are those selling U.S. cars, whose gas-guzzling models have become auto-lot orphans.

The national outlook is likewise grim. Last week, Ford Motor Co. reported U.S. sales had dropped 34 percent in September. And yesterday, normally bulletproof Toyota Motor Corp. saw its shares experience their largest one-day drop in decades on fears of a global recession.

Penske Chevrolet is among a batch of dealerships in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey to close or merge during the last month. Dealerships in Hammonton and Elmer, N.J., also shut down in recent weeks or are on the chopping block, and others are rumored to be next.

Most affected are dealerships selling autos by the Detroit “Big Three” - Ford, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler L.L.C., said John Devlin, vice president of the Pennsylvania Automotive Association in Harrisburg.

Right over there—->

And carry it proudly.

This time it was getting the new Windows box on line, setting up the firewall, and verifying that it works properly as a print server for my network.

I also did a few things I always do to Windows XP computers.

I went into Control Panel–>Administrative Tools–>Services and disabled the “Security Center” nagware service. I have a firewall and I have an antivirus. If Microsoft “Securty [gag] Center” is too stupid to recognize the existence of the NetDefense firewall, it can go pound sand.

I went into Control Panel–>System–>Advanced–>Error Reporting and turned off Error Reporting. I have no interest in telling Microsoft anything about my computer usage. Goodness knows, they do enough sniffing on their own.

I went into Control Panel–>Date and Time–>Internet Time and changed the time server from Microsoft to a U. S. government server, although, heaven knows, the U. S. goverment has no more scruples about spying on citizens than does Microsoft.

My brain is tired.

Regularly scheduled imprecations and invective resume tomorrow.

said the Firesign Theatre.

It’s also happening here in Philly.

Like here and here.

The Family Windows box died.

“Hard Drive not found.”

Made sure everything was plugged in tight inside the box.

It was.

I ran out to Second Source and got another one. After a week-and-half playing IT Tech to my webserver, I really didn’t feel like playing bench tech to what is almost certainly a failed hard drive.

When I get a little energy, I’ll remove the harddrive, jumper it to slave, slap it into another computer, and see if I can salvage anything. All my important data is backed up in two or three different places, but I can’t say that about all the computer users in the house. . . .

At Tangier, 18th and Lombard, Philadelphia, at 6 p. m.

Briefly speaking, my database went kerfluie. My two or three regular readers will remember a short period during which posts were appearing twice.

It mysteriously started and mysteriously went from every post to occasional posts. I checked the database using the admin tools, and they found nothing wrong, but I think that was when the problems started.

You will note that I’ve had to drop back quite a while to find a valid backup. I did try to muscle the current database into MySQL, but it was too far gone.

I don’t kid myself that my drivel is all that important, but I apologize to those who have put time and energy and thought into comments and whose comments are gone.

I’m still have some tweaking to do and you may see some minor changes in performance over the next few days, but pretty much what you see is what you’re gonna get.

For the geekily inclined, the gory details are below the fold.

(more…)

Delaware chooses wind:

Gov. Ruth Ann Minner signed legislation today that will enable the completion of the Bluewater Wind/Delmarva Power agreement, announced earlier this week. The signing comes after both chambers of the state Legislature unanimously approved the legislation.

Tommywonk has more.

Eric Alterman & George Zornick in The Nation (emphasis added):

On issue after issue, and from every side of the journalistic political spectrum, a campaign of deception and distortion has helped to ensure that McCain’s extreme positions and politically inspired flip-flops remain far from the consciousness of the average voter. Just as the media-promoted notion that George W. Bush was the kind of guy with whom one might enjoy a few beers managed to obscure the predictable catastrophes that lay in store for this nation once he became President, so too can the deep-seated media denial of McCain’s extremist policies and addiction to political expediency mask the fact that his victory in November would result in a continuation–and even, in some instances, an expansion–of the very policies that have brought the nation to the brink of irreversible disaster.

According to an extensive Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in early May, only 27 percent of voters have positive views of the Republican Party, the lowest level for either party in the survey’s nearly two-decade history. A clear majority of voters in the same survey said they wished for a Democratic President. And yet, in what the Journal reporters termed a “remarkable” finding, McCain remained in a dead heat with Obama and Clinton in head-to-head match-ups. The authors’ explanation: “McCain’s image is trumping negatives such as the war and the economy.” More recent polls continue to show McCain running well ahead of any generic “Republican” candidate. It’s true that before the Rev. Jeremiah Wright became the most famous man in America, coverage of Obama had been extremely favorable. And McCain’s easy ride has seen some speed bumps in recent weeks, regarding both his army of conflicted lobbyists/advisers and a poorly received speech on the night Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. But decades of devotion to McCain’s causes and character are not likely to be erased overnight, even in the event of an unlikely U-turn on the part of most of the MSM.

Will Bunch hears the rhythm.

If it’s old news, shouldn’t it be referred to as “olds” (it’s an AP story; all you get is a summary):

Bushies prefer political loyalty over competence.

And this surprises us how?

Meanwhile, the Demon Princess points out that, in the Bush World, the wages of virtue is demotion:

Daniel Levin once worked for Alberto Gonzales’s Department of Justice ~ until he wrote a memo disagreeing with Bushco’s torture policies, whereupon he was asked to step down. “Too independent,” it was said, after he had himself subjected to waterboarding while researching the Bushco predetermined party line that waterboarding isn’t torture.

From ASZ:

I’m not sure there is any other way to look at it. Gordon Smith has served the citizens of Oregon since 1992, and has served in the Senate for nearly 12 years. He’s up for election in trying times for the Republican Party. Smith, it appears, has decided to deny that he’s a member of the GOP. At the very least, just check out the Gordon Smith for Senate web site. Do you see the word “Republican?” Nope, not on the first page. Take a close look and the word “Democrats” is there, though. But there’s more in the last couple days to show that Gordon Smith is running from the Republican Brand as fast as he can. Like a new advertisement where he tries to link himself with Barack Obama.

Follow the link for the links to the evidence. Or something like that.

I was fresh out of Publishers Clearing House brochures, but I figured the RNC could use some flyers from Haband.

Over at ASZ, Steve muses about what the phrase “overtly white” means, as the antonym to the phrase “overtly nonwhite,” as used below:

OK, maybe it is the English teacher in me, but that “overtly” is bugging me. I found it in this usage in the Washington Post this morning, in a quotation from a White Supremacist. The Post article is about the explosion of activity by racist groups on the internet in the last year or two, and how that explosion is being spurred by the candidacy of Barack Obama. Here’s the quote from the WaPo:

Neo-Nazi, skinhead and segregationist groups have reported gains in numbers of visitors to their Web sites and in membership since the senator from Illinois secured the Democratic nomination June 3. His success has aroused a community of racists, experts said, concerned by the possibility of the country’s first black president.

“I haven’t seen this much anger in a long, long time,” said Billy Roper, a 36-year-old who runs a group called White Revolution in Russellville, Ark. “Nothing has awakened normally complacent white Americans more than the prospect of America having an overtly nonwhite president.”

What the heck does that mean? If I’m having a hard time figuring out what “overty white” means, I’m having the devil of a time figuring out what “overtly nonwhite” means, especially as concerns Barack Obama. Let’s not parse this too much, but Obama is just as much white as he is black. Is that What Roper refers to, afraid that people will come back at him with the line I just used? “Overtly nonwhite,” then, means to him the mere color of his skin? Well, duh! That’s exactly what Roper means as he mangles the language, something the Harvard educated Obama is not likely to have done.

Well, this looks to me like what “overtly white” means in the context of Mr. Billy Roper’s statements and beliefs:

Racial epithets were spray-painted on the lawns of two houses and a playground in the Colton Meadow community near St. Georges on Friday night and Saturday morning.

Racial slurs in bold, yellow print were found on the lawns of homes of black and Hispanic families sometime Friday night, said county police spokesman Cpl. Trinidad Navarro.

The nearby children’s playground was marred with the words KKK, Jews and racial epithets as well as toilet paper.

Link to the full Washington Post story here.

Bonddad looks at the long(er) term:

This (S&P/Case-Shiller home-price-ed.) index has been dropping for a year and a half. That’s called a trend. And it’s not a good trend.

In addition, this isn’t going to end anytime soon. Inventory is still sky high and consumer demand is still hampered by massive debt and low confidence.

(snip a discussion of consumer confidence)

Short version: this is bad news all the way around. Period.

Link to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index here.

Ray, who’s off working on his post on how hedge funds work, thinks the Republicans are trying to stave off the crash the fruits of their economic failures until January 21, 2009, so they can then pretend that their policies of the last umpty-ump years had nothing–nothing!–to do with the results thereof.

The Booman asks a good question.

Her bra was an attention-getter:

A Colorado woman stranded on a rocky ledge in the Bavarian Alps for nearly three days was rescued after she used her sports bra to signal for help.

Berchtesgaden, Germany police officer Lorenz Rasp said that he helped lift Jessica Bruinsma, 24, of Colorado Springs to safety by helicopter on Thursday after she caught the attention of lumberjacks by attaching her sports bra to a cable used to haul timber down the mountain.

H/T Karen for the link.

The Associated Press reports that persons who depend on tips for a substantial part of their income are hurting, because their customers are hurting.

Remember that the minimum wage for the folks in food service is, well, minimal.

Bushonomics: Making the rich richer and the poor poorer in myriad ways.

Todd recorded his podcast in a live feed today.

I listened and joined the chat room.

When the time came, he asked us listeners to put our phone numbers into the chat room. Then he pumped the numbers into a randomizer.

And my phone rang.

Oh, yeah, and there was a monetary prize, just for answering the phone.

Now, if Opie others had been paying attention, they could have joined the fun.

I think I’ll go to Delaware Park tomorrow. I once hit an Exacta there for $237.00. Maybe my number’s about to come up again.

Addendum, Later the Next Day:

You can listen to the show here. If you really want my high-pitched whine of a voice (which Opie endured for must of a week), Todd called me about 58 minutes into the show.

My podcatcher hasn’t brought down the show yet.

(I was going to link to an article about Candidate McCain, but the website appears to be down. Never fear, I’ll certainly be linking to it later).

I will be drinking liberally tomorrow at Tangier Restaurant, 18th and Lombard Philadelphia, Pa., starting at 6 p. m.

The Federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that the Current Federal Administration can’t jail someone just because he wants to, however he trumps up the evidence:

A federal appeals court in Washington has invalidated the Bush Administration’s finding that a detainee held for more than six years in the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is “an enemy combatant,” and ordered the government to release him, transfer him, or offer him a new hearing.

In a ruling decided Friday but released today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Chinese Uighur captured during the early stages of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, was inappropriately designated an enemy combatant at a hearing known as a “combatant status review tribunal.” The court said the United States can no longer hold him.

It is time for Mr. Bush to recognize that this country has a president.

Not a king.

But he won’t.

The Geek News Central podcast is relentlessly non-political. Nevertheless, in Friday’s show, Todd asked his listeners to let him know what they think about opening up ANWR and the continental shelf for oil exploration.

So I did:

You asked for comments about opening up ANWR and the continental shelf for oil exploration.

No.

According to the discussion on this episode of the Diane Rehm Show, opening these areas would have little or no effect on current or future oil prices or on U. S. oil reserves.

The discussion indicated that one of the reasons for pressure to open these areas from the oil companies, who already have oil leases for areas that they have not yet started to explore or use, is the oil companies’ stock prices. One of the factors that affects their stock prices is how many reserves they have. In short, their interest may not be primarily oil supplies, so much as Wall Street supplies.

Opening up these areas would do little or nothing to help the everyday person and lots to help the rich get richer with paper profits.

The policy that got us into this mess is ably dissected in this article from The Nation.

GNC Shownotes.

Five steps to resurrect that old laptop.

Via GNC.

Michael D. at Balloon Juice.