tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-201930012011-07-29T04:31:22.583-04:00The Musings of a FABMAWG (Fat And Bald Middle Aged White Guy)Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.comBlogger1991100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-14313396412342318442009-12-13T17:21:00.003-05:002009-12-14T08:04:16.428-05:00

It all began on Saturday, July 22, 2006 when Kevin Ksen, an IndyMedia citizen journalist, got arrested while covering some activity by Worcester Police, apparently in conjunction with the Fox TV show, "Cops"...The first mention of Officer Mark A. Rojas appears in the paper in Dianne Williamson's column on the following Tuesday. Beginning with that column, the following is a chronological list of

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-88341940151088716642009-12-01T14:45:00.001-05:002009-12-01T14:49:06.456-05:00

A compendium of links for the chronological story of the tennis court at 1 Montvale Rd in Worcester:March 24, 2008March 25, 2008March 26, 2008March 27, 2008March 31, 2008April 5, 2008April 15, 2008April 16, 2008April 18, 2008July 25, 2008October 25, 2009November 25, 2009

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-3832545241609753042009-11-02T16:35:00.000-05:002009-11-02T16:37:03.971-05:00

Taken from this link:Municipal Red Light CamerasSECTION 18. Chapter 90 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 20A1/2 the following section:-Section 20A3/4. (a) Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, any city or town may, upon the acceptance of this section and in accordance with section 2 of chapter 85, employ a “monitoring system” along any

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-36864824542374099822009-08-09T17:18:00.002-04:002009-08-09T17:43:30.295-04:00

For a while, now, I've been thinking about population control as its own subject.Lately, the starting point for my musing about this subject has begun at the local level, whenever I wonder about the motivations behind various news stories that obviously omit key data. And they do it to emphasize some spin, some angle. But it is, nonetheless, much more an exercise in propagandizing than simply

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-47200060907262621392009-03-21T18:35:00.002-04:002009-03-21T18:43:13.655-04:00

If a fiberoptic cable has an imperfect connector on either end, it can cause reflections of any signal to go back into the cable. With a simple digital signal, the reflection might look something look like this on an oscilloscope.It's probably called "jitter" because in real applications, the reflected signal artifact tends to wiggle.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-56946010480299148302009-01-24T06:52:00.002-05:002009-01-24T07:05:42.710-05:00

Dianne Williamson on January 18th.First January 16th article.Second January 16th article.Third January 16th article.Fourth January 16th article.First January 15th article.Second January 15th article.Third January 15th article.January 7th article.December 24th letter to the Editor of particular note.December 24th article.December 21st article.First December 18th article.Second December 18th

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-11452894588609340892008-07-17T20:36:00.000-04:002008-07-17T20:36:01.164-04:00

this is a test

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-20409605598844038922008-04-29T09:58:00.001-04:002008-04-29T09:58:19.703-04:00

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-57805007027507926842008-02-26T18:43:00.002-05:002008-02-26T18:49:34.460-05:00

I gotta tell ya: this post over on Volcano Boy today is right up my rant'n'raving alley!It all began one winter when I was snowblowing my driveway and suddenly a blizzard of shredded newspaper came flying out the chute! That spring, I had an interesting day's work, wherein the papier mache all over my yard had finally dried sufficiently to collect and dispose of.The next point in this saga

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-16706594459331812282008-02-13T06:31:00.002-05:002008-02-13T06:34:57.101-05:00

Scott Zoback left the following comment on my Wormttowntaxi post "Mini-Demolition":We ran an article on this last year. Here it is:Blink and you'll miss it; a dull, faded wooden structure at the corner of Temple and Harding streets, overwhelmed by the Heywood Building and other nearby old brick factories that are now gentrified into lofts, condos and restaurants.Once, the Buckley Store was

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-6909774157226961412008-02-01T18:02:00.000-05:002008-02-01T18:04:41.781-05:00

This test is to see if a different MP3 encoder eliminates the clicks and pops that I ended up with on the previous test file. I used a different song, entitled "Baby Boomer".

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-2713844811972513502008-01-19T05:43:00.000-05:002008-01-19T05:56:32.375-05:00

This is a test post for an embedded audio player for the song, "Any Idiot Can Be A Citizen"...

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-54616085832566985112007-08-11T06:41:00.000-04:002007-08-11T06:43:48.984-04:00

1938 was the hottest year on record during the twentieth century, with 5 of the 10 hottest years on record occuring before World War II. This newly adjusted data is the result of finding a flaw in the software used to present the data, and making a correction.Other links to this are here, here, and here.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-3737545369646493722007-08-08T09:45:00.000-04:002007-08-08T09:51:54.504-04:00

Last March's Dust To Dust energy report (pdf), often referenced by the gas-guzzling, anti-green pundits over the past year, has been soundly refuted by Dr. Peter H. Gleick, Pacific Institute, a couple of months ago in Hummer Versus Prius (pdf). There's a short post by Wayne Cunningham here that succinctly presents the fallout.I posted at lenght about the fact that there ain't no such thing as a

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-2340710833862502522007-08-04T11:35:00.000-04:002007-08-04T11:37:20.698-04:00

Glenn Reynolds says, "I think that shooting Bailey will turn out to be a serious mistake," at the end of this post on Instapundit today. I couldn't agree more.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-63305439989357750702007-07-30T04:29:00.000-04:002007-07-30T04:31:02.999-04:00

This story describes how discharged military personnel are being billed by the military for "lost equipment". The explanation from a veteran's advocate, Tod Ensign, is that this is part of the military's push to be run more like a business.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-80013774202106485442007-07-28T07:46:00.000-04:002007-07-28T07:48:24.293-04:00

It's important to have a good memory.In case you don't, however, over at the Think Progress website there's a clear and concise timeline of what the US military's mission in Iraq really is.Don't think for a moment that... well, I would have to say that "Don't think for a moment" would have to be George W. Bush's most basic desire for the American people.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-23520236935964030052007-07-28T07:34:00.000-04:002007-07-28T07:38:31.441-04:00

It's getting so thick, lately, that I find it difficult to locate any meaningful developments in science.The MSM forwarded various iterations of this story over the past couple of days, presenting it as "science" that who you hang around with will affect your weight. It's a tough nut to swallow. I don't see the exclusion of important variables such as economic, genetic, or the taking of

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-86258773151543365582007-07-28T06:37:00.000-04:002007-07-28T06:42:35.462-04:00

Yesterday, while Michael Moore was waiting in the dressing room to go on the Jay Leno show, he was served with a subpoena. The video is here.I was a pretty solid fan of Michael Moore until "Bowling for Columbine" when it struck me that he wasn't so much a documentarian as a propagandist. So, I watched all his movies over again with a jaundiced eye. I came to the conclusion that, yes, he's

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-31989217184064676232007-07-22T05:27:00.000-04:002007-07-22T05:32:42.456-04:00

Yesterday's article in the Washington Post concerning a Rand study commissioned by the US military suggests to me that nobody in our government has ever heard of Naomi Klein.I feel I'm on pretty firm ground to also suggest that nobody in our government has ever heard of Emmanuel Goldstein, either, despite the Rove-Cheney-Rumsfeld propaganda machinery's behavior in paralleling the works of Orwell

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-60265644148379881872007-07-10T10:02:00.000-04:002007-07-10T10:06:13.214-04:00

I don't have a link to the Drudge Report, and the only time I end up on that site is when someone else blogs a link. In most cases, I end up taking whatever's on there with a grain of salt.In this case, though, it's just too funny.Katie Couric, according to this report, was given a script for a report on tuberculosis that included the word "sputum" (the definition of which is here for those of

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-54107405422221808652007-07-06T05:20:00.000-04:002007-07-06T05:26:16.717-04:00

This story isn't particularly noteworthy, except to point out that the burqa really has only one useful purpose in today's world, ie- a convenient disguise for criminals. Claiming that it serves a religious purpose is offensive to me, as the only "religious purpose" of the burqa is to suppress women, subordinate them, and "put them in their place."Mine isn't an anti-Islamic stance, it's an

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-30627773991910986542007-07-05T18:07:00.000-04:002007-07-05T18:08:19.486-04:00

Techno-stress is how I describe the way I feel whenever anything computer related takes more than an instant.I still have a video that's "processing" on Google Video as I write this. It's been two days since I uploaded it, yet it's still "processing" away. Everything else uploaded and then came online within a relatively short time.(There's an entry on Wikipedia for the word "technostress,"

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-13061708766255003272007-07-04T08:10:00.000-04:002007-07-04T08:14:02.182-04:00

A couple of days ago, I rhetorically asked, "...what sort of mind will drive a human being to go through all those years of schooling to become a doctor, buy a house, raise a family, and THEN suddenly decide that it's time to blow themselves up in a Jeep Cherokee full of gasoline?" At that point, I only knew that two of the perpetrators were doctors. I did attempt to answer that question, but

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-29073215763048507412007-07-03T04:41:00.000-04:002007-07-03T04:45:33.967-04:00

A small "News In Brief" article buried deep inside yesterday's T&G about the leaky Thomas P. O'Neill Tunnel in Boston caught my eye with it's statistical information. According to the article's figures (and my calculator), the tunnel has been leaking an average of 43 gallons a minute, every minute, 24 hours a day, over the first three months of 2007. That's up from the average of 36-1/2 gallons

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-75737678218686272342007-07-02T16:06:00.000-04:002007-07-03T15:48:41.008-04:00

It's beginning to look like the upload of this particular song by the Danelectros is going to have to be done with more compression, so that the file I upload is under 100 Mbytes. This second attempt is a completely re-rendered file, different filename, and slightly different length, yet it stops streaming at about the same spot... roughly 100 Mbytes in.It's beginning to look like the upload of

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-38908910352246501532007-07-02T10:10:00.000-04:002007-07-02T10:13:04.415-04:00

Every time I see that little phrase, I fear that our society has gone past the point of no return.Over on the Daily Dish, where the author argues against the instillation of fear as a method of fighting AIDS, he does, nonetheless, participate like a good Republican in helping to promote the fear of jihadists. This piece explains how two of the car bombers at the Glasgow Airport were actually

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-57971409803336105862007-07-02T04:22:00.000-04:002007-07-02T04:26:32.699-04:00

...got up this morning, ...checked Google Video to see if the "processing" had finished yet, and found that finally WAS finished. Played the video and guess what? From the Google Video website stream, the video stream hangs a little over halfway through. Very frustrating...

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-3162838026289622272007-07-01T16:58:00.000-04:002007-07-01T17:02:19.611-04:00

It's not without a "grrrrrrrrrr!" and an "aaaarrrrrgggghh1" that I describe my frustrations with both YouTube and Google Video...There's basically just one advantage to Google Video, ie- getting a clip uploaded is pretty much problem free. With YouTube, just the re-starting from scratch over and over again is enough to send me looking for another site to host my videos. Unfortunately, the video I

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-57165288069883085782007-06-30T11:02:00.000-04:002007-06-30T11:12:50.917-04:00

Over on the Daily Dish one of Andrew's readers challenged the workability of the "market economy" healthcare system in the US helping to drive research. The idea that high future profits drive drug research is certainly valid, but the caveat pointed out by Andrew's reader is definitely a core problem in this system.My best example to call the reader's attention to is the big bucks bonanza that

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-4298129005101398652007-06-30T10:08:00.000-04:002007-06-30T10:16:12.579-04:00

Much as I like Michael Moore and the work he's doing, I find the level of factual reporting that he does in his documentaries to be lacking. You'd think that the places Michael Moore went to in order to show his viewers how healthcare SHOULD be would be populated by people who are overhwhelmingly satisfied with the single payer healthcare systems in their countries.But read this review of "Sicko"

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-43599323176180290902007-06-30T09:14:00.000-04:002007-06-30T09:17:59.176-04:00

On 12-30-06, the night before the First Night Reunion concert in Worcester, MA, the members of Zonkaraz got together to rehearse the songs they would be playing.Paul Vuona (vocals, keyboard), Ric Porter (vocals, guitar), Jo List (vocals), Jon Webster (vocals, bass), Walter Crockett (tamborine, guitar), and Bill MacGillivray (drums) had not played together for two decades. This rehearsal was the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-15491730081132574402007-06-29T19:39:00.000-04:002007-06-30T18:04:46.311-04:00

Well, after messing around with the Google Video website for a few days, it's much to my chagrin that I discovered their streaming framesize turns out to be the same as YouTube... And then they default the output stream to play that shrunk-down size (that they convert to no matter what framesize you upload) DOUBLED UP again!It really makes no sense to me that they put everything in that 640 x 480

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-53440816271479113682007-06-28T05:37:00.000-04:002007-06-28T05:42:59.746-04:00

Despite the fact that Google bought YouTube several months ago, there are big differences between Google's video server and YouTube's video server.The most frustrating thing about YouTube is the restricted frame size (352 x 240) which demands a lot of compression. In addition, the filesize to be uploaded to YouTube has to be under 100 megabytes, and the clip can't be over 10 minutes long. This

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-20754666246027679412007-06-27T11:07:00.000-04:002007-06-27T11:09:55.053-04:00

It never ceases to amaze me that the UN can make such accurate annual reports concerning illegal drug production and usage around the world. Here's a couple of articles on the UN's most recent annual report, from BBC and CSM. We get this information here in the US easily, but the mainstream TV media hardly notices.The strangeness of the UN being able to obtain all the information necessary to

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-9750137974227471252007-06-16T18:56:00.000-04:002007-06-16T19:03:45.284-04:00

The usefulness of "Depleted Uranium" is that it's a very dense, heavy metal. This means that if you make it into bullets or larger shells and fire them at something, they will penetrate better than softer metals because of the high density. Metal fashioned from depleted uranium also makes good armor, such as the armor plating on military vehicles used in Afghanistan and Iraq by the US

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-64278685881307584222007-06-12T09:55:00.000-04:002007-06-12T10:00:48.124-04:00

In Pennsylvania and other states, laws are now on the books that make it a felony to make audio recordings of police in public (or anyone else, for that matter), doing public functions such as traffic stops. These laws have been quietly passed as "anti-wiretapping" laws, expressly to prevent anyone in public being recorded (audio, not video) without their consent or a court order. The one

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-78556008379501052652007-06-12T09:31:00.000-04:002007-06-12T09:33:26.412-04:00

This is a must read, just for the sake of knowing what lengths our government is willing to go in making the world safe for democracy.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-57925923170283668042007-06-12T05:10:00.000-04:002007-06-12T05:14:03.703-04:00

As this story continues to unfold, albeit too slowly to ever be able to qualify as a "speedy trial," the most basic fact of these cases continues to be missing. WHO made the original complaint? If the sexual activity was consensual, then it couldn't have been the girls involved, and it certainly couldn't have been the boys who were charged. So, who was it that made the original complaint?The most

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-62295674938349072452007-06-08T10:21:00.000-04:002007-06-08T10:23:50.750-04:00

New Hampshire's motto, which can be seen on any NH license plate, is "Live Free, or Die." It's an interesting conundrum for Ed and Elaine Brown, however, after each them have been sentenced to 5-1/2 years in prison for tax evasion. The stance they took was that the federal income tax laws don't really exist, because, according to them and many others across the country, the ratification records

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-53467087140143436652007-06-07T05:20:00.000-04:002007-06-07T05:23:55.200-04:00

Back in December, I made this post regarding a 17 year old guy who had consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl and got caught, and charged with a felony. In my post, I didn't get the facts of the case entirely correct. It's not a "Romeo and Juliet" type of situation. It happened at a wild party where drugs and alcohol were apparently being used. Love and affection may not have been the main

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-2671017851618885772007-06-06T05:10:00.000-04:002007-06-06T05:12:33.203-04:00

Is it Science or is it Statistical Analysis or is it "stat cooking"? When it comes to the process whereby drug companies get their new drug products tested, it's beginning to look more and more like the same sort of manipulation that brought the term "WMD" into the language, ie- someone's cooking the statistics.In this Science Daily article we find that statistical analysis of drug testing shows

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-47062798800117584422007-06-02T16:59:00.000-04:002007-06-03T07:13:40.688-04:00

Adam Kokesh is an honorably discharged marine who fought in Fallujah, and is now a student at George Washington University. Now he's a target at home. Why? Because he isn't shutting up about what this so called war in Iraq is all about.Maybe you never saw the story of Ron Kovik, the marine who came back from Vietnam a paraplegic and ended up protesting that war, but it would be a good time to go

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-6499258820671550472007-05-31T10:15:00.000-04:002007-05-31T10:20:05.386-04:00

I find it beyond my ability to rationalize why, just why, this news story isn't the lead story in the mainstream media this week.Creekstone Farms Premium Beef wants to test 100% of their source livestock for Mad Cow disease. You'd think that this would be just fine, but because some big company(s) see this as "unfair competition" they've managed to get the US Agriculture Department to force

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-46285569661972988162007-05-30T05:18:00.000-04:002007-05-30T05:21:17.885-04:00

Here's a sample of what privatization is all about: A family in Gilbert, Arizona, lost their home to a fire. The privatized firefighting company that responded arrived too late to save it. But because the home was in an area that wasn't "subscribing" to the privatized firefighting company's services, there is a bill for them responding.Not only has this family lost their home and all their

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-58734298223877731802007-05-24T09:28:00.001-04:002007-05-24T09:28:38.763-04:00

It's tough to realize that Bob Dylan turns 66 today. If he ever reads this, I only have this to say to him, "Thanks for all the great music, Bob!"He was great when he was doing his Woody Guthrie impersonations. He was great when he went into his "I'd rather be a rock'n'roll star" phase. He was great when he went into his "wouldn't it be fun to sing like Johnny Cash" phase. And he's just continued

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-19844356969367050092007-05-23T09:44:00.000-04:002007-05-23T09:48:49.328-04:00

Yep.Up there in Hooksett, New Hampshire, four employees at tbe town hall were fired for gossiping. This is a news story where I have to scratch my head and ask, "What are we missing, here?" Is there some as yet unrevealed aspect to this story that hasn't been reported? I mean, HUH???So, the new rules for Hooksett include "no talking about the boss behind his or her back." The concept of "

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-53478517065568210532007-05-22T15:44:00.000-04:002007-05-22T15:54:41.539-04:00

About a hundred years ago, when Henry Ford was introducing his new "automobile" to the world, the fuel of choice was alcohol. Indeed, the fuel that Ford originally designed his first cars to run on was alcohol. As a renewable fuel, alcohol was a no brainer. Unfortunately, a by-product of kerosene distillation that had (up to that time) been thrown away was also available in much larger quantity.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-45348207068012049912007-05-21T16:18:00.000-04:002007-05-21T16:37:44.243-04:00

About five months ago, I joined YouTube and uploaded a video of my sister singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow from a practice session she did with her old band, Zonkaraz, at the Blue Moon Cafe on 12-30-06. I had videotaped the whole practice there, before an audience of, perhaps, a dozen or so people, and ended up editing it down for my sister onto a DVD.After I watched the YouTube clip a few

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-46664771551149231752007-05-17T11:54:00.000-04:002007-05-17T16:21:10.253-04:00

It would be too kind to refer to Alberto Gonzalez as an attorney, the Attorney General, or in any other way refer to this thug as a member of the United States of America's judiciary branch, or any other branch of our government. He is, in my opinion, the worst example of what this current administration is all about... well, so far.Here is an honorable man, James Comey, testifying to a

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-81786818003292167192007-05-11T09:52:00.000-04:002007-05-11T09:55:01.028-04:00

It's terribly difficult to imagine that some extremely simple idea can have any sort of big impact, but consider the proposition suggested on this webpage...If Google were to change their main webpage background color from white to black, it is calculated that this would save 750 MegaWatt Hours of electric power every year, from then on. This change would cost nothing.Compare that potential

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-8678009211231102212007-05-06T07:47:00.000-04:002007-05-06T07:49:45.320-04:00

With two million people in jail in this country, you'd think it would be more economically sensible to reduce the number of laws that put people in jail, especially for victimless crimes. This is an example of a felony that really shouldn't be a felony. The trouble with the aforementioned felony is that it's absurd. Denying such people future access to flying on that particular company's airline

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-69017900967358456482007-04-29T08:15:00.000-04:002007-04-29T08:20:49.383-04:00

Now that the story (about the woman in Ellsworth, Maine who accidentally broke a compact fluorescent lightbulb and ended up with a $2000 hazardous waste cleanup bill) has gained momentum in the blogosphere, I'm getting a bit more perspective on these bulbs.But the cat is now out of the bag. We can easily deduce that if you accidentally break one of these CFL's, the thing that you should NOT do is

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-19679891632929791322007-04-27T09:55:00.000-04:002007-04-27T10:07:52.143-04:00

Yesterday, I posted about how there's no such thing as a free lunch, when it comes to compact fluorescent lightbulbs... This is a new angle for me regarding things "green" and eco-friendly, since I had no idea that the bulbs contained mercury. Today, I spotted this article describing the plight of a Maine woman who purchased a bunch of CFL's and while attempting to screw one into her daughter's

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-43857341217478169222007-04-26T07:56:00.000-04:002007-04-26T08:02:23.686-04:00

In physics, the first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. In a closed system, energy can change form but you don't get something for nothing, or vice-versa. It's a very heady concept for many people, but it can be stated in a much more user-friendly fashion for those who don't swim too deeply in the intellectual seas... "There ain't no such thing as a free

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-54179530942354613812007-04-25T16:49:00.000-04:002007-04-25T16:56:10.310-04:00

The illegal alien amnesty plot seems to be moving forward, to some extent, in that nothing of any great import is being done by congress to stop it. Consequently, the situation merely goes along unaffected. One would attempt to make sense of this by supposing that there may be some missing information about it. Conspiracy theorists love this sort of situation, and there's plenty of noise to be

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-87607257416063600592007-04-25T04:52:00.000-04:002007-04-25T04:53:41.334-04:00

Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney. The transcript of his introduction of this measure in the House of Representatives was published in the Washington Post yesterday.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-26436168437968624522007-04-22T06:13:00.000-04:002007-04-22T06:25:52.564-04:00

Beginning today, there is a four day radio event in Washington DC called "Put Their Feet to the Fire" focusing on the issue of immigration amnesty. A full description of this event can be found here on the FAIR website.This is apparently an annual event, and if you've never heard of it then join the club... I've never heard of it either. What makes this year's event different, however, is the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-40431823120891108202007-04-21T18:16:00.000-04:002007-04-22T16:08:36.919-04:00

There's an idea floating around that something has to be changed in order to prevent such a thing as the Virginia Tech massacre from ever happening again.We could pass new laws, but the fact is that the perpetrator broke existing laws. What he did is already against the law. It's against the law to murder people, it's against the law to have weapons on campus, it's even against the law to merely

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-20101131989954974872007-04-21T17:42:00.000-04:002007-04-21T17:43:48.708-04:00

With the magical stroke of a pen, the Catholic Church has erased Limbo.What about purgatory? I mean, if eliminating the waiting room for heaven is so easy, why not be consistent and get rid of the waiting room for hell, too?

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-74997703602834342822007-04-18T04:30:00.000-04:002007-04-18T04:33:51.967-04:00

You know those ads on TV for prescription drugs that spend most of the ad time spieling off all the possible side effects... it's almost as if the funny ads for non-existent humorously-named products on Saturday Night Live has become a way of life, in real life! How about a drug that's supposed to handle stomach upsets with a side effect like nausea? Or a cholesterol-lowering medication that may

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-86052541922403395742007-04-13T10:56:00.000-04:002007-04-13T11:03:39.850-04:00

Aside from Don Imus being fired for high ridiculosity, and the fact that Alberto Gonzalez is still the Liar General, there really are other things going on in the world. One of them is "the Surge".Since I posted about this on the 21st of January, I'll just reiterate simply that there is no actual increase in the numbers of soldiers being sent with this "Surge". Rather, some soldiers will remain

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-70247330473479452712007-04-08T07:23:00.000-04:002007-04-08T17:49:31.617-04:00

As I sit here at my computer, I can plan ahead for my next meal. Since I got up so early this morning, that next meal will be breakfast. My wife and I talked last night about going out for breakfast this morning. I suppose we'll go out to Bickford's, since they have such nice large booths, and the service is quite good.Meanwhile, this story in the NY Times describes how people in Zambia are

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-33177201357976471232007-04-07T08:26:00.000-04:002007-04-07T08:54:18.823-04:00

In the 1967 court case of Loving vs Virginia, a comment was made upon "the pursuit of happiness" by Chief Justice Earl Warren. This case overturned a lower court's ruling on the illegality of a mixed race marriage. Warren's comment was, "The freedom to marry has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men." Thus, we find that

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-25976053324627590102007-04-06T10:21:00.000-04:002007-04-06T10:22:38.599-04:00

Back when Bill O'Reilly was working for Inside Edition, he did this report...It's absolutely priceless!

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-33111117351449798972007-04-06T10:04:00.000-04:002007-04-06T10:08:03.388-04:00

Let's see, now. We were attacked by foreign nationals on 9-11, and so our first order of priority in attempting to forestall a repeat of such a thing MIGHT be to make our borders more secure.Right?Read this article, and then tell me how Bush and company are doing on that score, will ya? I mean, the very idea of opening our border with Mexico to 100 foreign trucking companies so that their trucks

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-79450694570117853832007-04-02T17:15:00.000-04:002007-04-02T17:20:09.657-04:00

Back in June I posted a reference to a court case wherein the state of Massachusetts, et al, was suing the EPA for not doing anything about carbon emissions from automobiles.The contention was that the Clean Air Act mandates that the EPA actually do something about the carbon dioxide emissions coming from automobiles in this country. The EPA's contention was that carbon dioxide emissions are not

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-56606849387338185752007-03-30T10:14:00.000-04:002007-03-30T10:16:04.003-04:00

Of all the analyses of the George W. Bush presidency, I have to say that this one from Financial Times is probably the first to really hit the nail on the head.Anything and everything that the Bush administration has done can finally be put into its proper perspective.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-74834647348680693642007-03-20T17:36:00.000-04:002007-03-20T17:40:07.285-04:00

At seven minutes past eight (eastern daylight time) this evening, the spring equinox will occur and it will mark the beginning of the Spring season. The first full day of Spring will be tomorrow, March 21st.Every year, I look forward to the first day of Spring because, in my soul, this is the real beginning of the year to come. We can go by all sorts of different calendars that start each year

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-73643441320325047972007-03-16T13:28:00.000-04:002007-03-16T13:34:39.376-04:00

If you spent the time to read the three part Washington Post Op-Ed I linked to in my previous post, there is also a fourth part arguing the case for Patrick Fitzgerald as Gonzalez' successor.Yes, the story has moved so fast that some journalists are no longer bothering to speculate whether Gonzalez will go, and not even when, but who will succeed him as Attorney General.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-18785925367556991312007-03-16T13:18:00.000-04:002007-03-16T13:26:05.644-04:00

Gee, I really didn't think it would be this big...The Department Of Just Us is a humorous piece about it...Then there's Delay the Amputation...This is a really funny one, where the spin is that Sen. John Sununu is personally avenging his Dad's firing by Dubya.And there are lots more where they came from. The "Bring me the head of Alberto Gonzalez" game is at a fever pitch, now. Meanwhile, over at

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-76338622317972978502007-03-14T10:40:00.000-04:002007-03-14T10:44:44.979-04:00

This is just a followup post about a book written by Kathleen McGowan entitled, "The Expected One" which I finally found on the markdown table for a mere $4.98 last week. I posted about it last July here, although I hadn't read much of anything at that point. Now that I've read the book, I would say that I got what I paid for.The essence of the southern France connection to Mary Magdelene is very

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-53701449443289303662007-03-14T09:27:00.000-04:002007-03-14T09:30:25.874-04:00

Oh, gosh! Well, lordy me! Yes, well, he may be in charge but, ...but, well, y'know he really didn't KNOW that this was going on! Here's the quote... "As we can all imagine, in an organization of 110,000 people, I am not aware of every bit of information that passes through the halls of justice, nor am I aware of all decisions," he [Gonzalez] said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.The

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-92037683934986562992007-03-12T09:39:00.000-04:002007-03-12T09:52:30.322-04:00

Things are moving quickly in this undercurrent of abhorrence that people feel towards the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez... I wondered if this sense of disgust would spread rapidly, or perhaps take a more languid journey into the hearts and minds of Americans everywhere, and that was only a couple of days ago.Today, I find this article from Bloomberg which describes how distaste for this man

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-38346385959872105412007-03-09T11:13:00.000-05:002007-03-09T11:15:47.613-05:00

The problem with the Bush administration is that it is so corrupt, so unbelievably corrupt, that... well, people just don't believe it until the proof of the corruption is shoved in their faces. But then, an amazing thing happens. They get a little scared.If, as the proof often demonstrates, these people in the Bush administration are really capable of such deep seated corruption and dirty tricks

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-79867666457682081182007-03-07T16:14:00.000-05:002007-03-07T16:22:29.292-05:00

I think these two things go hand in hand. It's a "man thing". It's full of testosterone. I mean, do girls play with matches? Of course not... they know better.Our millenia long existence on this planet has been as a fire society and there's not much chance of that changing anytime soon. Why? Because most of our war machinery runs on petroleum products.It's all about the firepower.Tanks and

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-82726307564361721732007-03-07T16:01:00.000-05:002007-03-07T16:05:15.300-05:00

There's a whole bunch of people out there who are running their diesel cars on vegetable oil. They can get lots of free vegetable oil from the back doors of restaurants that use vegetable oil to fry food in. The waste vegetable oil that the restaurants used to pay someone to haul away and dispose of can now be taken away for free. And the people who take it away for free can use it to run the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-79164369082562107932007-03-06T10:31:00.000-05:002007-03-06T10:37:39.553-05:00

Somewhere back in the dim mists of pre-history, humans discovered how to make fire. We still make fire, and use it for just about everything. The whole world runs on fire. We are a "fire society" that has learned how to make hotter and more efficient fires with different fuels, thoughout the ages.This is a paradigm of our existence that's so basic, it's often overlooked in everyday life. Oil,

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-46254778190082575182007-03-04T17:52:00.000-05:002007-03-04T18:06:58.516-05:00

There's an intriguing geological sequence of continental drift, generally agreed to be an accurate description of how the Earth has looked over the course of the past 250 million years. This sequence begins with the supercontinent called "Pangea." It's composed of all the present day land mass on Earth, all smashed together.Here's a drawing of how that is supposed to have looked. As you can see,

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-82524830674688215202007-03-01T16:28:00.000-05:002007-03-01T16:45:04.830-05:00

Is it just me? Am I the only one who can calculate what time it is in New York, when it's 10pm in London?According to this YouTube clip of the BBC broadcast on the evening of 9-11-01, the news service is reporting the collapse of Building 7 in the World Trade Center twenty minutes before it collapsed. It calculates that because it's 10pm in London, then it's 5pm in New York, which would put the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-91131455452876130552007-02-25T07:25:00.000-05:002007-02-25T07:29:47.933-05:00

The trick to turning a whole population of free people into a population of slaves is to completely overwhelm them. Sensory overload, intellectual overload, financial overload, emotional overload, ...I sometimes wonder how much of this a person can take before they end up collecting returnable cans and bottles on the street, just to get enough money to buy a bit to eat every day.The first thing a

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-28560336447100530912007-02-19T09:17:00.000-05:002007-02-19T09:20:32.539-05:00

It has been only ten years since the laws governing prescription drugs were changed to allow the marketing of these compounds on TV and the rest of the media in the United States. Since that point, there has been a deluge of advertising for prescription drugs. Along with this marketing activity, there has been a tendency for doctors to willingly prescribe medications that their patients have been

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-75361180636287377142007-02-10T08:17:00.000-05:002007-01-21T07:13:59.743-05:00

This story from Friday's L.A. Times reminds me of exactly what it is that turns my stomach about making healthcare "available to everyone".Once upon a time in America, hospitals were non-profit, beneficent organizations. They were staffed by people who had chosen to work in medicine because they had that ingrained sense of wanting to do something in life that had meaning. Helping the sick and

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-26125693726260811622007-01-21T07:08:00.000-05:002007-01-21T07:11:45.236-05:00

As with anything else the Bush administration's public relations machine attempts to "inform" America about, the entirety of the so-called "Surge" of an additional 21,500 troops in Iraq is just more smoke and mirrors.In addition, there's the major media "reporting" of all this baloney. You'd think that there was a massive "issue" being dealt with in all of this, and that the "controversy"

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-788903787149708432007-01-13T07:17:00.000-05:002007-01-13T07:26:46.431-05:00

For over a decade, the Justice Department has had the hots for Bill Gates' little business up in Redmond, Washington. Maybe they had a lot of reasons for that long series of legal actions in the anti-trust litigation over the years, but the hype machine was all about "protecting the consumer" from the big blue monopoly. It wasn't until the high profile of this activity slowly submerged into the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-57887562203877241832007-01-12T07:59:00.000-05:002007-01-12T08:04:42.424-05:00

There's a website called Banged In for people to anonymously describe how they've called in sick to work.The term "Banged In" is defined here in the Urban Dictionary.I banged in today.Well, actually, I didn't really "call in sick" I just called and said I won't be in. No excuse needed. Essentially, I'm my own "boss" and if I don't feel like making any money on any particular morning, then that's

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1168528964142266822007-01-11T10:21:00.000-05:002007-01-11T10:22:44.153-05:00

Not much of a change, last night's speech by George W. Bush... Just more of the same.Of course, as Noam Chomsky commented earlier last year, and which I posted here as "Quote of the Decade" on 6-26-06, "We are supposed to believe that the US and Britain would have liberated Iraq even if its main export was pickles."Yes, pickles...The US government forces are not over there in Iraq because of the

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1167391300059693902006-12-29T06:16:00.000-05:002006-12-29T06:21:40.076-05:00

Going all the way back to the era of the Shah in Iran, whose ouster signalized the first big oil shocks in America during the 1970's, what "we didn't know" was that Iran's turnabout into an Islamic theocracy was the beginning of what we don't know today. What we don't know today began to turn into what we're finding out (at least for me) back at the beginning of the month when I posted part one

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1167143882771302952006-12-26T09:33:00.000-05:002006-12-26T09:38:02.783-05:00

First, you find a chaotic problem. If you can't find one big enough, then you just create one. I'll point out that the best example of creating one is the "war on terror" beginning with Afghanistan, and then Iraq.After you've got the population convinced that the chaotic problem really exists and that it really has to be solved, then you're all set. Now you can rape the US treasury. Throw

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1167141044668729932006-12-26T08:45:00.000-05:002006-12-26T08:50:44.680-05:00

Today marks 366 days since I started this blog. Originally, I said that I started it because I had been putting all this sort of stuff into e-mails to people, and the e-mails were just too long. But that wasn't quite on the mark. This is more like catharsis for me. Spiritual puking, actually, and a large amount of mental masturbation. And the process of spouting all these musings and

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1166861944939932332006-12-23T03:14:00.000-05:002006-12-23T03:19:04.950-05:00

When I was a kid and the way that automobiles work was explained to me, I was amazed. I hadn't even suspected that the car moved only because, down there at the bottom of it, the engine was using explosions of gasoline and air. The technology is so refined that these explosions happen several times a second.I had thought there was some far more advanced magic occuring under the hood, and I had

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1166714680777619322006-12-21T10:21:00.000-05:002006-12-21T10:24:40.800-05:00

It's almost Criss-Miss, which is often shown in print as "Xmas," although in today's politically corrupt language it doesn't appear much anymore... as people refer to the "happy holidays" instead. But I like to say, "Merry Criss-Miss" anyway. Then during the following week I can say, "Happy New Year."In those years when I had plenty of disposable income, giving presents was never a problem. But

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1166478414436868702006-12-18T16:42:00.000-05:002006-12-18T16:46:54.456-05:00

This particular news story just makes me want to puke!A seventeen year old boy and his girlfriend, two years his junior, engaged in oral sex. They were caught. Earlier this week, the Georgia Supreme Court upheld the sentence imposed on this boy, which is ten years in prison, and the rest of his life spent as a registered sex offender.What, in the name of all that's fair and right, is the state of

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1165672739954590752006-12-09T08:56:00.000-05:002006-12-09T08:58:59.966-05:00

To characterize the situation in Iraq at this point as "civil war" isn't really accurate. What's going on over there is tribal level loyalties and affiliations acting within small spheres where the members all know who belongs to their group and who doesn't. In other words, it's thousands of gangs, all fighting each other. And the American military is the biggest gang.Over here in the US, someone

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1165574530994940562006-12-08T05:40:00.000-05:002006-12-08T05:42:11.006-05:00

One of the things I didn't know was why Iran would have any slightest need for nuclear energy plants, when it's got one of the world's biggest oil reserves. This is a question that goes unanswered in the mainstream media, basically, because the mainstream media isn't doing anything intellectually viable. But you have to ask that question....All the noise about Iran wanting to build nuclear

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1165503787130897682006-12-07T10:01:00.000-05:002006-12-07T10:03:07.143-05:00

Today is the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, which precipitated the United States' entry into World War II.Here is a website run by the US Navy that's all about that day...

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1165329755430862492006-12-05T09:37:00.000-05:002006-12-05T09:42:35.466-05:00

About a month ago, I posted about NIH's new conflict of interest rules for staffers.Today, I spotted this article from the Washington Post about an NIH staffer who's been charged with violating conflict of interest rules. He faces a year in jail and a $100,000 fine, if convicted.Interesting, isn't it? But it doesn't end there. The big deal in my eyes is that this guy, Pearson Sunderland, III, is

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1164059474421584122006-11-20T16:49:00.000-05:002006-11-20T16:51:14.440-05:00

It was only a couple days ago that I seriously considered posting something here about the OJ Simpson book/show coming up, and would've said, "In a sane world, this man would not even be mentioned in the news, and would certainly never get a book deal."Today, in what is a publishing first, the actual publication of OJ's new book has been cancelled, along with the pre-publication interview that

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1163498196262649362006-11-14T04:55:00.000-05:002006-11-14T04:56:36.280-05:00

It's taken me a week to catch my breath. The train wreck that is the Bush administration continues to devolve as we speak. Where Clinton's eight years was a comedy, this current administration is a tragedy, and that tragedy has two more years of psychotic self-justification to go before we're quit of it.How terrifyingly obvious it is now that Dubya never read Shakespeare.

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20193001.post-1162910856212581892006-11-07T09:44:00.000-05:002006-11-07T16:04:55.273-05:00

As I write this, I have just returned from voting. I expect that the democrats will win big in this election, and I say that because it's an "everybody knows" that the republicans have really pissed off the majority of Americans over the past couple of years.But to really weigh in on how much the shift from neocon, pro-war support for the republicans has taken an about face, we have to turn to

Jeff Barnardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13048085339848723604noreply@blogger.com0