Tag Archives: 24

To Whom Do I Complain?1

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I sat down a couple of hours ago, all primed to watch Kansas Jayhawks basketball. They played the DePaul Blue Demons in Chicago this afternoon.

SWMBO and I buy the ESPN Full Court package each year, at a cost of $100.00 or so for the season. That usually gets us our games of interest. Today, ESPN saw fit to broadcast the game on something called ESPN/U, also one of their channels. DirecTV wants another $12 per month to get ESPN/U, which is part of something they call their “Sports Package.” This package includes 24 or so Fox Sports Channels, any 8 of which are broadcasting the same game simultaneously at any given point in the day.

Not willing to extend our DirecTV plan, we listened to the game on XM Radio, and cringed as the Jayhawks went down to defeat today.

I don’t know if it’s ESPN’s or DirecTV’s policies that resulted in our not seeing the game on TV. It’s not even worth the effort to call either network. What I will say is that I’d be all for kicking TV out of my life entirely, if there were a way to view the following:

  • Prison Break
  • CSI Miami
  • Jericho
  • Friday Night Lights

    • In addition, I’d like to be able to see a few sporting events throughout the year. I’m even willing to buy a Mac Mini, or something comparable, and dedicate it to teevee watching. I’d lash up any kind of gear necessary to make that happen, and pull the plug on the whole bunch. For what we pay DirecTV in a year’s time, we have a good down payment on an alternative.

    -k-

    1 – That headline, proper English and all, is in memory of all the long-suffering English teachers in my life.

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    Taser Roundup

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    Finally, something a taser is effective in fighting: eight-foot-long albino Burmese pythons. A 47 year old Uniontown PA man was feeding a rat to the reptile, which belongs to his daughter, when it bit his hand and wrapped itself tightly around his left arm. The snake, according to Uniontown police officer Ray Miller, was eating the man’s hand. And then:

    In an effort to free the man without permanently harming the snake, Miller said he shot the animal with his Taser, a gun that sends an electric shock through wired darts. The snake immediately went limp and released its grip.

    Maybe the smaller the target, the more effective Tasers are. The man who was bitten is OK; all hands safe. And the snake was spared.

    And then, in a non-funny Taser incident that makes one shake one’s head, in Jonesboro (GA I think, the link is to an Atlanta TV station), a sixth grader was Tasered by police following a playground incident. According to the article:

    School officials confirm that an 11-year-old, 6th grade male was tasered by a school resource officer. They say the boy was physically assaulting a female 6th grader and refused to listen to verbal commands to stop. As a last resort the officer tasered the boy twice – once to get the students separated and a second time when the boy tried to attack the girl again.

    Sixth graders? In my day, a visit to the principal’s office, a stern talking-to, an at-school ass whipping, definitely followed by another when the folks found out, would have put the kibosh on such shenanigans. But then ass whippings are cruel.

    Times have changed.

    -k-

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    Be it Ever so Humble

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    Arrived safely back home a couple of hours ago. SWMBO and the cat were happy to see me; the feeling was mutual. The big ol’ Buick rental has been delivered back to Avis, and all’s right with the world.

    The Buick economy numbers went from 24.9 life-to-date MPG on my arrival in Raleigh, to 24.5 while I was there, because of the start/stop short jaunts. I managed to get it back to 24.9 on the return trip. Those City/Highway MPG numbers are really true.

    -k-

    Road Bloggin’ again

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    Arrived in Raleigh safe and sound. A couple of cold beers, a plate of good BBQ, and I’m about ready to call it a night. The mighty rental Buick ran well, and I managed to boost its life-to-date mileage from 24.5 to 24.9, in one 320 mile trip.

    Looking forward to a good week at Red Hat, and the homecoming Buick economy run later this week.

    -k-

    New, Free Senseo

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    As I detailed here, I signed up, and was accepted, to get a free Senseo single-cup coffee maker. Mine arrived last night; it looks like the one in the post I referenced, only in black, instead of the trendy blue that adorns my office.

    Details on the apparatus at the Senseo website , with all kinds of incentives to get one of your very own. Right now, they have a $20.00 AmEx gift card when you buy one. For home or work, I heartily recommend you get one if you enjoy a good cup of coffee.

    I also discovered something else; examining the bag of 18 pods that came with the free machine, I see that the coffee pods are distributed by Sara Lee. Heckuva deal, because Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee. Exactly.

    -k-

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    False Market Forces

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    From the Cato Institute, pointage to the state of government-sponsored health care in the UK. The article provides startling and frightening insight into the false economies that inevitably result from government intervention in areas where they don’t belong. Apparently, UK hospitals are being forced to introduce minimum waiting times, as long as 120 days in some cases, for treatment of non-emergency, non-cancerous conditions. Because payments to hospitals are fixed by the government, the more productive health care facilities are forced to cut back on service, to avoid exceeding the government-mandated budget for the current year. From the article:

    After years of Government targets pushing them to cut waiting lists, staff are now being warned against “over-performing” by treating patients too quickly. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that at least six trusts have imposed the minimum times.
    In March, Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, offered her apparent blessing for the minimum waiting times by announcing they would be “appropriate” in some cases. Amid fears about £1.27 billion of NHS debts, she expressed concern that some hospitals were so productive “they actually got ahead of what the NHS could afford”.

    ….

    Doctors are also resigning. One gynæcologist said that he spent more time doing sudoku puzzles than treating patients because of the measures.

    And if you think that can’t happen here, the California assembly passed legislation which would have established state-run health care for the Golden State, funded, of course by

    … an 8 percent payroll tax and a 3 percent individual income tax.

    To his credit, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced he will veto the measure.

    A close call; but be forewarned, we haven’t heard the last of such nonsense.

    -k-

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    GTD, Old Man Style

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    Dave Slusher has cracked the cover of his copy of Getting Things Done, after having the book for two years.

    Like one of the commenters on Dave’s post, I’ve been following Lifehacker and 43 Folders for a while now. I also have been motivated to buy the book. SWMBO and I are off work this upcoming week, and in between the “Honey Do’s” on the list1, I hope to get some reading in.

    I’m not sure how to read something that isn’t subtitled The Definitive Guide, but it’s high time I gave it a shot.

    Thanks for the encouragement, Dave!

    -k-
    1 – The ol’ Honey-do list needs no GTD suggestions, being run as it is by SWMBO. She makes the list, I do the stuff thereon. Simple.

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    Don’t Use the Anagram1

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    The US Senate, that exclusive club of 100, has passed, by 50-49, an amendment to their immigration bill which allows illegal immigrants to collect Social Security benefits on earnings they earned while they were illegal. From the article:

    The Senate voted yesterday to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment — even if the job was obtained through forged or stolen documents.

    More precisely, Sen. John Ensign (R- Nevada) offered a motion to strike the language from the bill under consideration; the net effect is the same: The U.S. Senate is condoning illegal behavior, as well as fraudulent/stolen documents, and proposes to recognize them as valid. Can this be happening?

    From Villians Vanquished:

    They’ve decided to ignore one illegal act and offer these folks the equivalent of amnesty for sneaking into the country illegally. But now, they are basically granting amnesty again, this time for the real felonies of Identity Theft and Forgery.

    What’s more, they fail to bear in mind that multiple illegal aliens oftentimes appropriate the same stolen Social Security number. So now, my generation has absolutely no chance in hell of ever collecting a red cent from all of our legal contributions, because the system is going to be wide open to fraud and end up paying out to multiple parties for the same contributions. That “lockbox” is going to empty faster than a keg at a Packers’ tailgate party.

    Well said, with a lot less cussin’ than I could have mustered at this point. Never mind current wisdom which says that a comprehensive immigration bill is unlikely to pass during this Congressional session; the brazen fact remains that 50 of 100 of those elected to the highest legislative office in the land are prepared to throw their constituents under the bus.

    Remember this come November.
    -k-

    1 – And, to incorporate the post title, check the anagram for Senator.

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