I Wonder

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“ZURICH, Switzerland (CNN) — Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have “demanded the immediate release” of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland.”

Wo! Woody Allen demands his immediate release. We all better get going on this. After all, Woody is an authority on having sex with underage girls.

“It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.”

This is a revealing statement. It shows how important they believe “International cultural events” are to society. Obviously they think it is more import than the rape of a child. I think it is bad for society to consider apprehending the rapist of a child less important than giving an award.

Isn’t a part of punishment a recognition that you did wrong? Fleeing justice is not a display of remorse. 45 days in jail for the drugging, rape and….I’m not going to get into the details, of a 13 year old girl is not justice. Part of the problem is that Hollywood is so immoral that they equate the value of virginity roughly equivalent of a car stereo.

I don’t care about his past struggles or his so called talent. That doesn’t in any way excuse him for this horrific crime. Horrific is what it is. Rape is horrific.

I wonder if Hollywood would be picketing for the release of Roman Polanski if he were an Exxon executive.

You have to forgive…..you don’t have to trust

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We have been commanded by God to forgive. We have not been commanded to forget. To forget would be unwise. How can you learn from your mistakes or the mistakes of others if you forget? We need to remember and make judgments based on what we have observed. The product of these judgments is who we will trust and who we will not trust. We are not commanded to trust. Trust must be earned.

Detroit lost our trust in the 70’s and 80’s when they sold us the Aries K, pacer, pinto, gremlin, fairmont, reliant etc. To make it worse, while they were pushing these piles of junk they were lobbying the government to increase tariffs on the quality Japanese cars. These tariffs made us poorer as a nation. Detroit squandered valuable resources such as time, money, labor and raw resources. It made our nation poorer because it increased the inflation rate.

In addition to decreasing our standard of living by raising costs and decreasing quality, they made it an issue of patriotism. They pushing the public to “Buy American”. Television commercials, bumper stickers and the slogan, “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.” Give me a break.

I just finished watching “Flash of Genius”, the story about Robert Kearns who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. It’s no surprise that Ford raked him over the coals. Their management team was busy raking the whole country over the coals.

Twenty years later and we’ve got cash for clunkers and government bailouts.

Don’t forget; learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. Stop trusting and stop buying American.

So you purchased a new computer…

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When you purchase a new computer do the following:

1. Find the Microsoft Windows Media (DVD) that came with the machine. This DVD is your lifeline. Unless you buy a new copy of Windows, this is the only copy of Windows that you can install on your machine. Everyone carelessly loses these DVD’s. I guess they think they will never need them again. Unfortunately, operating systems become cluttered and need to be reinstalled.

The other day I was working on a friend’s machine that had the same copy of Windows on it for six years. It hadn’t even been patched. It was slow, sluggish and spitting our errors like crazy. I was amazed that it still worked.

Don’t think that if you lose the DVD you can just borrow one from a neighbor to reinstall. It won’t work even if you have your original Windows License Key. The DVD is built to match the make and model of the machine. You need the original DVD and the original license key.

The DVD may not be labeled “Microsoft Windows XYZ”. It might say, “Recovery CD”. If you are not sure, call the retailer.

I was able to get replacement media from Dell. I got lucky.

2. Write down the Windows License key. It can be in various locations. They used to print it on the DVD. Sometimes it’s on a sticker on the media envelope. Check the bottom of the computer for the sticker with the code. It’s conveniently put on the machine where it receives the maximum amount of wear. Write it down now before it gets rubbed off.

3. Next label the DVD with the make and model of the machine. Half the homes in America have multiple computers. It can be tough to find the right DVD. Dozens of times I’ve asked people for their DVD’s so I can repair their machines. It’s always a joy sorting through the DVD’s looking for the right one.

4. The next step is optional. It involves separating the operating system from your data. The process is more technical and many people can’t do it themselves. I’m not going to go through the details but just talk about it generally.

It has been a best practice for decades to separate your SYS (system) volume from your data volumes. Your Windows partition or partition is inherently vulnerable. Running your computer is like cooking a meal—it can be messy. You don’t fillet, chop or whisk in the living room and you shouldn’t store your data with your operating system.

There are dozens of things that can crash your computer. When the computer goes down, files can be corrupted. You want to separate your data from your system files. Doing so reduces the chance of data loss and makes backup and recovery much easier. Microsoft is keeping users in the dark ages by putting the “user” directory on the same partition as the operating system. Millions of people have lost their valuable data because of this.

I recommend you create two partitions. The first partition should be around 40GB in size. That is usually enough for the OS and all the applications you will install. The second partition can use up the rest of the available. This is where you will store your data (music, personal files, photos, etc.). Windows allows you to redirect your “Users” directory to another location. This will be your “D” drive or whatever drive letter you chose. The goal is to have one partition for the system to use and another for your data.

Some machines have additional partitions already created for automatic recovery. I wouldn’t destroy those volumes. Just leave them alone.

There are tools available allow you to repartition the drives without hurting the working boot partition. I’m hoping that Windows 7 will allow you to do it natively.

5. Finally, create a backup plan. Your machine will crash. It will absolutely crash. There is no doubt about it. Don’t risk losing your photos, financial data, music etc.

I recommend two things: an external hard drive and an online backup service. Get an external hard drive and use it to backup your machine once a week. Second, purchase an online backup service for continuous offsite storage. There are many providers to choose from: Mozy, Carbonite, iDrive or Sugarsync. These services are available for MAC’s and PC’s. Some of these services have a free offering for people with less than 2GB of data. Online backup costs around $5 a month and is well worth it. The great thing about an online backup service is that if your house burns down you still have all your data.

If you follow these steps you will make MY life much easier.

Modern Day Apology

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In last night’s US Open, Serena Williams went ballistic on a small woman line judge. Serena who is built like a dump truck couldn’t understand why the little lady would feel threatened. If you watched it you would see Serena walk over to her with racket in hand, point the racket angrily at the woman and said, “If I could, I would take … this ball and … shove it down your throat.”

That type of behavior is very rare in sports. Especially in Tennis. After twenty four hours of thought on the subject here is the statement Serena came up with:

“Last night everyone could truly see the passion I have for my job. Now that I have had time to gain my composure, I can see that while I don’t agree with the unfair line call, in the heat of battle I let my passion and emotion get the better of me and as a result handled the situation poorly. I would like to thank my fans and supporters for understanding that I am human and I look forward to continuing the journey, both professionally and personally, with you all as I move forward and grow from this experience.”

What is she clearly saying in this statement?

  • She should be applauded for taking her job seriously
  • She is no worse than anyone else
  • Forget about it because it is no big deal

I can’t stand it when people say, “I am human”. I’m pretty sure we don’t need to be reminded of that. It seems fairly obvious.

I’m sure that she will come out with a real apology in a few more days but she’s shown who she is, and at this point and I don’t see any class in her character.

All Time Worst Case of Liberal Media Bias

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This story about ACORN assisting two people in setting up a brothel in Baltimore is unbelievable. The fact that this story is not on USAToday or MSNBC is a flagrant case of liberal media bias. CNN covered the story but even more unbelievably took the side of the ACORN representative. Most other news outlets only picked up the story from the AP and buried it deep in their pages. Even these held off until ACORN fired the two employees.

The press consideres journalism a religion. I think they should be excommunicated.

One of my favorite quotes

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You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves. William J. H. Boetcker

Common Sense

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”? You likely heard this phrase from your parents as they tried to teach you lessons of humility, value, thrift and industry.

What would you think of a parent who said to their child, “if you want a new toy, you can throw your old one away and we will buy you a new one?”

Which of these two messages is the government saying with the cash for clunkers program? We all know people who turned in cars. How many were clunkers? Can you imagine such a program in the midst of WWII?

I’ve often heard my father say, “You can’t spend your way into prosperity.” I’m pretty sure this is true because I’ve tried it.

What would you think of a parent who said, “Get some credit cards and buy stuff until you your credit limit is used up?”

Our president has repeatedly said that consumer spending is necessary to get us out of the recession. When we didn’t spend enough they loading up the nation’s credit cards by printing money and giving it to the public to spend. They even discourage you from spending money on bills or putting it in the bank. They want you to go to the mall and buy clothes or to Best Buy to purchase electronics. They don’t encourage you to purchase goods of high quality. They would prefer you to buy something readily consumable like an expensive meal because the velocity of money if greater.

Just as I have influence and power over my children, the government has influence and power over us. We need to ignore these immature messages and stick with common sense.

Asprin

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Aspirin has been around for one hundred and ten years. I rarely see a commercial on television for it. So my question is……how long does Viagra need to be around before the commercials subside?

Tom Ridge–Cashing In

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Tom Ridge writes in his book that he was pressured to increase the terror level right before the 2004 elections. Now that he got buzz going about his book he says, that wasn’t what he was suggesting and that people are misreading what he said.

Disgusting