All the correct connections

Tired of right and left, red and blue, well, try connecting correctly for a change to good solid thinking about some political issues, try

Friday Fronts: David Cole on Jack Goldsmith on The Daily Blague

and don't forget to try the PodCast.

Thawing out

Idling away the morning folding laundry and watching Iceman on AMC. Took my road bud back to his truck around six, came back home and took Pelé to school around seven, came back home again and began on the INet with The Solar Queen's new notebook, Compaq Presario C727, where the keyboard is just too small for my hands. On mine now, my laptop, Compaq Presario V6171CL, a bigger screen and a much larger and more comfortable keyboard. I don't think anyone truly understood the real meaning of "personal computer" until the advent of laptops, notebooks and handhelds or smartphones, they are for me truly an extension of my being. The physical devices themselves, my smartphone and my laptop are so personal, so known to me in their look and feel that they are like my shoes or my truck, they are in every sense mine and I am as uncomfortable using someone else's as I would be wearing someone else's shoes even if they were the same size and a proper fit. Iceman has been taken down now by The Solar Queen's preprogrammed recording of Democracy Now on Free SpeechTV with Amy Goodman. I'll dump Amy in a minute and probably hear about it later tonight but for now I just marvel at the marketing in play here with Amy's physical appearance and apparent left sided vagus nerve compression, she has all the signs of a mild case of Bell's Palsy to me. God forbid that she has Ramsey Hunt syndrome, not nice. Amy looks like a Mennonite or Amish woman in the privacy of her own room, plain straight unstyled hair, no visible makeup and certainly "plain dress". The content is not remarkable just the presentation format, image and marketing, it is all image and marketing. Style is everything they say, different styles for different marketing niches, I suppose. Where will all this fragmentation end or better yet lead us? Trent Lott is on now with video that was done on a cell phone or some lo res video but fairly high res audio device, it is noted in the upper right hand screen corner as " live on 26 Nov." Back to Iceman and soon back to my road truck to retrieve my own power adaptor for my laptop, I robbed The Solar Queen's just a moment ago to power up my laptop which had gone completely battery dead in "hibernate mode" since I last closed the lid on the road truck probably the day arrived here back on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. As I say, I have no one except Pelé to simply to talk with and he does a fine job within the limits of his small but ever expanding and developing realm. I try not to stretch him too far too soon. I suppose I talk to a lot of people daily but all within the bounds of the particular social context, fuel desk clerks, counter clerks at the food shops, drivers on the radio, my company's administrative staff on the phone, my shipper's and receiver's personnel on the phone and in person. Sort of an "open prison" I'm in it seems. Well, enough I'm sure, you have a life. This is in many ways the same stream of consciousness, the conversational monologue, if you will, reduced to writing that I was so prone to write for you three or four years ago but it seems more readable now. Not much better content but more readable. Perhaps we are on the way to really learning to write readable interior monologues for a larger and more organized narrative, a short story perhaps. But only perhaps, so many things stand in the way, mood, my personal mood and the time remaining in a lifetime not being the least of the obstacles.

I'm going to copy this to Quezon, if only to provoke an email conversation. I have other email to answer from him and will do the answering by one thirty when I have to leave to pick Pelé up from school. Pelé could, I suppose, ride the bus but we have fallen into the habit of my taking him and picking him up when I'm at home and able.

I feel a certain kinship with poor old Charlie, the defrosted Neanderthal, in Iceman. How long have I been thawed out now, thawed out in terms of relationships, loving or physical - it really doesn't matter at this point, physical will do - with other humans of my kind? What are my kind, I wonder?

Quezon has included in the email that I need to answer this morning a very well worded rant about his dissatisfaction, and the general dissatifaction of many educated Filipinos, with his country and culture. I will ask if I can excerpt that part and foward it to BoozWha for his comments to both of us.

Have a pleasant day. My phone is on and with me. Call, write or come by.

Tricks of the trade

How do I send email to someones cell phone?

Well, Bubba, here's how, at least for a number of CSP's that I've used successfully.

You have to know your recepient's CSP and then address the email to their "10digitphonenumber @ CSP MessagingPortal".

For example, for a Verizon cell phone whose number is 7135551212 use 7135551212@vtext.com.

Verizon: @vtext.com
Former AT&T customers: @mmode.com
Sprint: @messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: @tmomail.net
Nextel: @messaging.nextel.com
Cingular: @cingularme.com
Virgin Mobile: @vmobl.com
Alltel: @alltelmessage.com OR @message.alltel.com
CellularOne: @mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: @omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: @qwestmp.com

Remember, any charges incured and the way messages are
delivered and displayed depends on the wireless device and service
plan.

How cozy

How cozy and it will be that way for quite sometime in fact for evermore it would seem

2. Supporting the Republic of Iraq in its efforts to combat all terrorist groups, at the forefront of which is Al-Qaeda, Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups regardless of affiliation, and destroy their logistical networks and their sources of finance, and defeat and uproot them from Iraq. This support will be provided consistent with mechanisms and arrangements to be established in the bilateral cooperation agreements mentioned herein. 3. Supporting the Republic of Iraq in training, equipping, and arming the Iraqi Security Forces to enable them to protect Iraq and all its peoples, and completing the building of its administrative systems, in accordance with the request of the Iraqi government. ~read more~

I try to restrain myself from drinking this early in the morning but this morning I just might relent. Won't someone, please, rid us of these troublesome NeoCons! And, the sooner the better. Where are Lee Harvey, James Earl or Charles when we really need them or is that just the way crazy people do things? Why surely no one would go out and create a stable of the unstable just in case no one might need to push them over the edge. Pushed of course in the right direction over the right edge. Well, let's not pursue this line of speculation lest the professional speculators send their cretinous goons out to talk to us, eh.

Trouble, we ain't got no trouble. None!

Sidiki Conde lost the use of his legs at the age of 14. In Guinea, where he was raised, the handicapped are looked at with suspicion and fear. In an effort to fit in with his culture, Sidiki learned to dance on his hands. He now performs as a dancer and teaches other wheelchair users to do the same. This pod is set in Miami, Florida and follows several people in wheelchairs as they prepare to perform in public. ~read & see more~

Doesn't hurt my eyes any, no not at all.

Now the heart, well, that remains to be seen. I would rather sail through a storm or two than stand on the pier. Every storm comes between long periods calm seas and fair winds. Looks like a pair of very rosy sunsets to me. With any luck there will be no red dawn, least wise nothing we can't handle. Ain't that right there, Quezon, ain't that right? And, me mate, Quezon, he said,"Try oranges." Funny fellow, Quezon, perhaps too much Curacao in his coffee lately. And so, Quezon and I have put out to test the seas again. How does it go

If you smile at me
I will understand
'Cause that is something
Everybody everywhere does in the same language

Something about wooden ships on the water as I recall, very free and easy I believe it went. Oh yes,

Go take a sister, then, by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away, where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don't need us

And it's a fair wind
Blowin' warm out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I'll set a course and go

I'm sure David will forgive me this lifting, he got it so right, so very free and easy.

Such a sweet sound to my ears

Aggies top Longhorns!