On-line Opinion Magazine…OK, it's a blog

I will rarely be around for the next few days as I have multiple computer issues on multiple computers that I have to clear up.

First, they changed the assignment of delegates from Iowa, with Romney getting 13 and Santorum getting 12, and the others getting stiffed. No explanation, just the new numbers.

New Hampshire normally has 23 delegates on offer, but they moved their primary date and the RNC dinged them 11 delegates, so this is a race for a dozen delegates. Just so you know how totally irrelevant all of this is, it takes 1144 delegates to win the nomination.

With 95% of the votes counted it’s Romney [40%], Paul [23%], Huntsman [17%], Gingrinch [10%], Santorum [9%], and Perry [1%].

Next up is South Carolina, which is a much bigger state, so it is totally ignored because all it has are delegates, not the ‘magic anointing properties’ of Iowa and New Hampshire. That’s where the ‘Newtron bomb’ targeting Romney is set to be used by Gingrinch’s superPAC that is in no way affiliated with the official campaign [nod, nod, wink, wink].

The FAA has finally come to its senses: Whooping cranes are cleared for takeoff after getting FAA exemption.

A group has been raising whooping cranes, and then releasing them into the wild to increase the tiny number of the endangered birds. Part of the process involves teaching them about their migration flight, and this is accomplished by having an ultra-light aircraft act as the lead bird to show the young birds where to go.

The FAA got its knickers in a bunch because the people who fly the aircraft are full-time employees of the non-profit that conducts the program, and the pilots are thus being paid. The license used for an ultra-light is highly restricted, and it can’t be used for commercial purposes. It has been difficult for the FAA to understand that the people flying the aircraft aren’t professional pilots, they are bird handlers who have volunteered to fly the aircraft, to act like an adult whooping crane.

The FAA finally decided to allow the flight to continue, and we can only hope it didn’t destroy the chances of the birds to survive.

As has become routine, TSA not only didn’t back down, but it doubled down: TSA defends cupcake confiscation.

That’s right, they confiscated cupcakes because the frosting was ‘gel-like’ and violated the rules about carrying gels on the aircraft. This was the same excuse they used when they confiscated my Mother’s chocolate pudding, despite being a sealed commercial container.

It is irrelevant that this stupid rule arose from a British incident, and the British have since discontinued it, because the hysteria about the possibility was shown to be totally in error – you can’t do what ‘the terrorists’ said they were going to do. It was a dumb rule, prompted by ignorance, and pathetically still in force in the US.

The only good part of the article is the reaction of the bakery that made the cupcake – they have changed the name from red velvet to ‘National [Security] Velvet’.

With 100% of the votes counted in Dixville Notch [the polls open at midnight and close when everyone is done] Huntsman and Romney are tied with two apiece while Paul and Gingrinch are tied for third with one apiece.

All media outlets are required to send someone to Dixville Notch for all elections and report on the results, no matter how meaningless they actually are. Without the Internet you would have to wait until morning to find out this crucial piece of information.

New Hampshire gets to go first because … well, it could be traditional … or not.

It is a hell of a way to select a candidate, and it’s all ours.

Full disclosure: yes, I knew this trivia was coming, and I’m as guilty as CNN for reporting it.

Busy day, actually doing some real work for a client who is making a transition. Doing it I learned that you get the complete Windows 7 system no matter which version is running on a new computer, and then you have to pay for the ‘key’ to get the appropriate level [Home, Professional, Ultimate] that is used. It makes upgrading easier, and Microsoft saves money by only producing one product disk.

Since Windows 7 doesn’t include a calendar, I grabbed VueMinder Calendar Lite [the free version] to see if it would do the job. Overall, I’m very pleased with the results. I would recommend it for people who don’t want to trust their life to a Microsoft web app, the M$ solution for the absence of Outlook in Win 7.

My day was a lot better than Steve Bates’s. He had to deal with the flooding in Houston caused by a front moving through.

I gave a neighbor a ride to his job, because his car is down for repairs. There is nothing in the way of public transportation here, so his options were to get a ride from someone, or pay more for a taxi than he would make by going to work. The round trip is 25+ miles, so that’s at least a gallon of gas every day.

I heard the relevant quote on NPR when I was out today, but the link to the story on the CBS site wasn’t obvious, so here is the USA Today version of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta admitting that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program.

He falls back on a variation of the Hedgemony’s ‘weapons of mass destruction program related activities’, i.e. Iran is doing things that could be used in a nuclear weapons program in the future. He doesn’t say what those things are, perhaps it is physics courses or mathematics, but the fact that the possibility exists is enough to impose all kinds of sanctions on Iran.

I have no idea what Iran is supposed to do, because Saddam did everything required of him to prove that he didn’t have any WMDs, but he got attacked anyway.

Let’s be clear that Iran is following the rules and has the right to do what it is doing. The US did nothing about Israel, Pakistan, or India when they developed nuclear weapons, and the less said about the mess the Shrubbery created in North Korea when he reneged on the agreement put in place to stop their nuclear weapons program the better.

Iran has absolutely no reason to believe anything the West says. The West has broken agreements with Iran on multiple occasions, so promises of a supply of fuel rods from outside of Iran are not going to be accepted. The West, and especially the US, has no credibility anymore.

Iran has a right under international law to control the passage of shipping through its coastal waters, and portions of the Strait of Hormuz goes through Iranian waters.

Iran is not violating any rules, but at the insistence of Israel, the US is seeking to punish them.

Via Susie Madrak, a post on the MSNBC technology blog about a possible shut down on January 23^rd by Wikipedia, Google, Facebook, Twitter, and others over the pending SOPA legislation.

GoDaddy has already lost about 35,000 accounts after it came out in support for SOPA [the 'Stop On-line Piracy Act'] by people who have read the law and object to it.

This is another attempt by the half dozen media conglomerates to harass their customers who refuse to buy the over-priced garbage that the corporations are attempting to push. The bill aims to make ISPs agents of the media conglomerates.

If the media companies would like to put a dent in real piracy, they might consider not having their CD/DVD operations located in China. The same warning goes to the ‘designer labels’ pushing their over-priced trash. If it is produced in China, it will be copied, often by the same company that makes the ‘real’ product.

If you out-source the production of your product, you have lost control of the product.

С Рождеством Христовым to my Orthodox friends who are still waiting to see how the calendar reform works out.

The Eyes Have It

Are you serious?

[Editor: Property didn't believe I could take a picture of her without a flash, which previously allowed her to close her eyes.

Friday Ark

Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany, end of the twelve days of Christmas, and Día de los Reyes in Spanish-speaking countries.

This is the customary day for gift exchanges in many Christian cultures because it is the day that the Magi finally arrived in Bethlehem with their totally inappropriate gifts after putzing around for over a week because they didn’t want to ask for directions.

Following along on the retro kick among car makers, GM has decided to make a new version of the Ford Pinto called the Chevy Volt. Why GM thought people were pining for a small car that burst into flames in an accident is above my pay grade.

I understand the need for coolant, but there must be a serviceable, non-flammable coolant available.

Came across an interesting web site during the search for something else: Chilling Effects

A joint project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, University of San Francisco, University of Maine, George Washington School of Law, and Santa Clara University School of Law clinics.

If you get a take-down letter over content on your site, you can send that and appropriate links to the site, where the legal terms will be translated into English, so you can figure out what the letter is all about. They don’t give you legal representation, but you can at least figure out if you actually need it after the letter is translated.

Rick Santorum is apparently now considered the front-runner by the GOP establishment, because he is being attacked mercilessly by ‘fellow Republicans’. It is definitely time to declare Reagan’s ‘Eleventh Commandment’ to be null and void.

It is Zero all over again, with Ron Paul.

Stop projecting what you want onto the words of Ron Paul, and start listening critically to what he is saying. The man isn’t a libertarian, he is an old-fashioned states-rights Southerner.

Listen to him, and you will notice that all of the seemingly ‘personal liberty’ he talks about is based on removing the FEDERAL government from all oversight, and devolving power back to the states. He wants the states to make the decisions as to what rights people have and don’t have. While other Republicans dream of returning the country to the 1950s, his goal is the 1850s.

The only government he is interested in curbing is the Federal government.