With You and Only You

The Champion's Requiem

"f you see or hear goodness from me

Then that goodness is from The Creator

You should be thankful to The Creator for all of that

'Cause I'm not the architect of that

I'm only the...the recipient

If you see weakness or shortcoming in me

It's from my own weakness or shortcoming

And I ask The Creator and the people to forgive me for that"

Mos Def

Cee Lo Green - Bodies

Glad he decided to shoot a video for this, one of the best songs on a stellar album ....

The One

I say you're beautiful and you shyly look away, but what else am I to say as I'm in complete awe of you, glad to have you in my life, elated you gave me a chance, I love you for looking past my imperfections, for standing by me even when the weight of the world was upon my shoulders. I want you to know that I'll always be there for you, come rain or shine,I couldn't ask the lord for a better co-pilot.

To me you are, the definition of Love ...

James Morrison - Precious Love

Song Of The Day

Ray LaMontagne - Old Before Your Time

Song of the Day (SOTD)

Francis and the Lights produced 'Karaoke' off the new Drake album 'Thank me Later', you'll definitely be hearing about them in the next few months ....

Never again

Mobile OS Guide

A simple guide to the many mobile operating systems available

Android, Symbian, Bada, WebOS. The list goes on. The list of smartphone operating systems is growing by the day. Many are open source, a good number are proprietary and some are barely out of beta.

Android

Like many things from Google its Android operating system has gone from nowhere to being one of the biggest smartphone operating systems almost overnight. Most commonly seen on HTC and Motorola phones, Android is now popping up on the likes of Samsung and Sony Ericsson phones as well as tablet devices from Acer and others. Android is open source software.

Bada

Not a great deal is known about Samsung's Bada operating system except that it is open source and based on Linux. To date Bada has only been shipped on one phone, the Samsung Wave. In a world now crowded with Linux-based mobile phone operating systems, Bada's future is uncertain.

Blackberry OS

The Blackberry OS is a proprietary operating system created by Research in Motion for its range of Blackberry phones. Blackberry OS is specifically engineered to cater for things such as push mail.

iPhone OS

iPhone OS is the default operating system on Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. It is derived from Apple's Mac OS X operating system and is proprietary, although originally based on Unix-like BSD.

Maemo

Maemo is Nokia's other mobile phone operating system. Based on Linux, Maemo is specifically designed for the N900 smartphone. Maemo was recently merged with Intel's Moblin operating system to create MeeGo, an operating system mostly targeted at the tablet and smartbook/netbook market.

MeeGo

MeeGo is the result of Nokia and Intel combining their respective Maemo and Moblin operating systems. Maemo is Linux-based, open source and primarily targeted at the tablet, netbook and set-top box markets.

Symbian

Symbian is Nokia's mobile phone OS and the dominant operating system on smartphones with around 44% of the overall market. Earlier this year Symbian held more than 50% of the market but newcomers such as Android have made strong inroads into Symbian's share. Nokia has released Symbian as open source software but it doesn't have as much momentum among developers as many other smartphone operating systems.

WebOS

WebOS is a Linux-based smartphone OS developed by Palm, one of the early innovators in handheld devices. Recently, however, Palm fell on hard times and was bought by HP. HP isn't specifically active in the smartphone market but it is working on tablet devices which could be expected to run WebOS.

Windows Mobile

Microsoft's proprietary mobile phone operating system used to be among the most popular mobile phone OSes but was recently knocked down to fifth place with just 7% market share. Microsoft's Windows Mobile version 6 was originally released in February 2007 and, while it has had updates since then, is falling behind the competition as far as features go. Windows Mobile 7 has been repeatedly delayed and although it has been announced it hasn't actually featured on any phones yet.

Song of the Day (SOTD)

I never met a girl like you, that makes me want to settle down .....

The Future is Open Source

So I finally made the switch to Fedora. I've been flirting with it now for a few years but I've always had a fall back machine running a Windows OS.
This time I'm going all in, a complete format of my HD and a full installation of Fedora 13. I chose Fedora out of all the Linux distros because it offers a wide range of support options and it's sponsored by Red Hat, a company that leads the way in open source software development.

Some of the features in Fedora 13 are:

• Automatic printer driver installation
• Automatic language pack installation
• Redesigned user account tool
• Color management to calibrate monitors and scanners
• Experimental 3D support for NVIDIA video cards
• A new way to install Fedora over the Internet
• SSSD authentication for users
• Updates to NFS
• Inclusion of Zarafa open source edition
  
• System rollback for the Btrfs file system
  
• Better SystemTap probes
• Support for the entire Java EE 6 spec in Netbeans 6.8
• KDE PulseAudio Integration
• New Command Line interface for NetworkManager

Spent the better part of my weekend trying to get a few essential features working, tried the forums, but getting responses pertaining to the problems I was encountering was like pulling teeth, I finally decided to try the IRC option and was able to chat with a few knowledgeable individuals that definitely put me on the path to eternal Fedora love and loyalty. I'm wowed by the programming possibilities Fedora offers and plan to explore them fully.

I will be keeping y'all informed as the journey continues......

Song of the Day (SOTD)

One again Gaga hits us with a visually stunning and breathtaking video.

Voldemort

Weekly Address: Speaking from Louisiana on the Oil Spill

Caught in a Quagmire

So I've resisted the urge to get too personal so far in the history of this blog, but I've always found writing to be a tad bit therapeutic, so here goes some self therapy.

It's always easy to find fault in others but self introspection is a road less travelled by most people, been doing that for the past few days and my findings were both scary and hopeful, mostly scary though.
I've had the opportunity of meeting some awesome women in my life so far (some fillers too), and I've been wondering why I always seem to keep the fillers longer. I like and love hard, I can say I've only felt the latter for 2 people, don't really talk to one as often as I should and I speak to the other a little too often.
I recently had the unfortunate opportunity of feeling an emotion that I usually inflict on others, being in limbo. Met a wonderful individual that to me was both beautiful inside and out, didn't really want to convey too much mushiness to her as she was what I considered a strong willed and pragmatic individual, I didn't really see her as the emotional type. The time spent was short-lived though as everything ended as abruptly as it began. Why it ended will forever be a mystery to me as I find myself asking, what if?
I'm beginning to think I have too much faith in certain people, yet I ask for them to have none in me. Making time for those I care for has never been my strong suit, and I was told by an older friend a few years back that as I got older it would change, but here I am in the 24th year of my life and I'm still as selfish as ever.
I will stop here as I've started rambling, things might be a little too fresh to fully evaluate, but this was helpful nonetheless........

Song of the Day

Michael Buble - Haven't Met You Yet

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE WEEK

Book - The God Delusion (Christopher Hitchens)

Movie - Unthinkable

Music - Thank me Later (Drake)

St. Peter Awaits

Dem Prospects Getting Better

There has'nt been a lot of good weeks on the Senate election front for Democrats so far in 2010, but they have received good news on their chances of picking up five different Republican held Senate seats this week:

-In Arizona there have been two polls now showing John McCain under 50% against Rodney Glassman. J.D. Hayworth continues to be competitive among Republican primary voters against McCain, and it appears a Hayworth-Glassman contest would be a total tossup.

-In Iowa Research 2000 showed Charles Grassley only up single digits against Roxanne Conlin, and although Rasmussen has Grassley up by 13 that's a far cry from January when they showed him leading her by 28 points.

-In Kentucky PPP found both Jack Conway and Dan Mongiardo within the margin of error against Rand Paul, who all independent public polling continues to show with a double digit lead.

-In North Carolina, Rasmussen showed Elaine Marshall improving her standing against Richard Burr by ten points in just two and a half weeks and Cal Cunningham with a nine point movement in his. If we find anywhere near that much momentum for Marshall and Cunningham on our North Carolina poll this weekend then we'll find each of them almost tied with Burr for the first time.

-In Ohio Quinnipiac and Rasmussen now both show Lee Fisher ahead of Rob Portman, and in the case of Rasmussen that's a six point improvement for Fisher over the last month. Even if his primary victory wasn't exactly overwhelming, his standing's improved.

One thing I really don't know for sure yet is whether 2010 will be solely an anti-Democratic year, or more broadly an anti-incumbent year where there are some surprising Republican losses in addition to the expected Democratic ones. Although the GOP still has to be seen as favored in all of these races, the movement in a Democratic direction in each of them is an encouraging sign for the party.

Song of the Day (SOTD)

Fireworks in the PA DEM primary for the Senate seat

Joe Sestak really pulled out the big guns with this ad, I'm torn between supporting the real democrat or going with the elect-ability argument.

Joie de Vivre

Song of the Day (SOTD)

MY 2010 SENATE PICKS

It's 6 months left till the mid-term elections and the campaign season is in full swing. I'll be reviewing some of the most important Senate and Governors races individually in the next few weeks, for now though, here's a list of my picks for all the Senate races this year. Please feel free to visit their websites to familiarize yourselves with them and donate if you're supportive of their cause;

• Roxanne Conlin for the IA senate seat www.roxanneforiowa.com
• Brad Ellsworth for the IN senate seat www.ellsworthforindiana2010.com
• Alexi Giannoulias for the IL senate seat www.alexiforillinois.com
• Daniel Inouye for the HI senate seat www.inouye.senate.gov
• Chris Coons for the DE senate seat www.chriscoons.com
• Richard Shelby for the AL senate seat www.shelby.senate.gov
• Rodney Glassman for the AZ senate seat www.rodneyglassman.con
• Harry Reid for the NV senate seat www.reid.senate.gov
• Lisa Murkowski for the AK senate seat www.murkowski.senate.gov
• Ron Wyden for the OR senate race www.wyden.senate.gov
• Patty Murray for the WA senate seat www.murray.senate.gov
• Elaine Marshall for the NC senate seat www.elainemarshall.com
• Barbara Boxer for the CA senate seat www.boxer.senate.gov
• Richard Blumenthal for the CT senate seat www.richardblumenthal.com
• Bill Halter for the AR senate seat www.billhalter.com
• Charlie Crist for the FL Senate seat www.charliecrist.com
• Michael Bennet for the CO senate seat www.bennet.senate.gov
• Sam Granato for the UT senate seat www.voteforgranato.com
• Tracy Potter for ND senate seat www.tracypotterforsenate.com
• John Thune for the SD senate seat www.thune.senate.gov
• Tom Coburn for the OK senate seat www.coburn.senate.gov
• Robin Carnahan for the MO senate seat www.robincarnahan.com
• Charlie Melancon for the LA senate seat www.charliemelancon.com
• Russ Feingold for the WI senate seat www.feingold.senate.gov
• Jack Conway for the KY senate seat www.jackconway.org
• Lee Fisher for the OH senate seat www.fisherforohio.com
• Arlen Specter for the PA senate seat www.specter.senate.gov
• Barbara Mikulski for the MD senate seat www.mikulski.senate.gov

Weekly Address: Health Reform Starts to Kick In

The Immortally cool James Dean

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE WEEK

Book - The Bridge (David Remnick)

Movie - Iron Man 2

Music - The Swelly Express (Chiddy Bang)

Recommendations for the week 10/27/08

Book - The Law (Frederic Bastiat)

Movie - Rebel without a cause

Music - Plain White Ts - Big Bad World

Article - Paul Krugmans' monday NYT column

Blog - Andrew Sullivans' blog at The Atlantic

October 27, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

The Widening Gyre

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Economic data rarely inspire poetic thoughts. But as I was contemplating the latest set of numbers, I realized that I had William Butler Yeats running through my head: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre / The falcon cannot hear the falconer; / Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.”

The widening gyre, in this case, would be the feedback loops (so much for poetry) causing the financial crisis to spin ever further out of control. The hapless falconer would, I guess, be Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary.

And the gyre continues to widen in new and scary ways. Even as Mr. Paulson and his counterparts in other countries moved to rescue the banks, fresh disasters mounted on other fronts.

Some of these disasters were more or less anticipated. Economists have wondered for some time why hedge funds weren’t suffering more amid the financial carnage. They need wonder no longer: investors are pulling their money out of these funds, forcing fund managers to raise cash with fire sales of stocks and other assets.

The really shocking thing, however, is the way the crisis is spreading to emerging markets — countries like Russia, Korea and Brazil.

These countries were at the core of the last global financial crisis, in the late 1990s (which seemed like a big deal at the time, but was a day at the beach compared with what we’re going through now). They responded to that experience by building up huge war chests of dollars and euros, which were supposed to protect them in the event of any future emergency. And not long ago everyone was talking about “decoupling,” the supposed ability of emerging market economies to keep growing even if the United States fell into recession. “Decoupling is no myth,” The Economist assured its readers back in March. “Indeed, it may yet save the world economy.”

That was then. Now the emerging markets are in big trouble. In fact, says Stephen Jen, the chief currency economist at Morgan Stanley, the “hard landing” in emerging markets may become the “second epicenter” of the global crisis. (U.S. financial markets were the first.)

What happened? In the 1990s, emerging market governments were vulnerable because they had made a habit of borrowing abroad; when the inflow of dollars dried up, they were pushed to the brink. Since then they have been careful to borrow mainly in domestic markets, while building up lots of dollar reserves. But all their caution was undone by the private sector’s obliviousness to risk.

In Russia, for example, banks and corporations rushed to borrow abroad, because dollar interest rates were lower than ruble rates. So while the Russian government was accumulating an impressive hoard of foreign exchange, Russian corporations and banks were running up equally impressive foreign debts. Now their credit lines have been cut off, and they’re in desperate straits.

Needless to say, the existing troubles in the banking system, plus the new troubles at hedge funds and in emerging markets, are all mutually reinforcing. Bad news begets bad news, and the circle of pain just keeps getting wider.

Meanwhile, U.S. policy makers are still balking when it comes to doing what’s necessary to contain the crisis.

It was good news when Mr. Paulson finally agreed to funnel capital into the banking system in return for partial ownership. But last week Joe Nocera of The Times pointed out a key weakness in the U.S. Treasury’s bank rescue plan: it contains no safeguards against the possibility that banks will simply sit on the money. “Unlike the British government, which is mandating lending requirements in return for capital injections, our government seems afraid to do anything except plead.” And sure enough, the banks seem to be hoarding the cash.

There’s also bizarre stuff going on with regard to the mortgage market. I thought that the whole point of the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the lending agencies, was to remove fears about their solvency and thereby lower mortgage rates. But top officials have made a point of denying that Fannie and Freddie debt is backed by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government — and as a result, markets are still treating the agencies’ debt as a risky asset, driving mortgage rates up at a time when they should be going down.

What’s happening, I suspect, is that the Bush administration’s anti-government ideology still stands in the way of effective action. Events have forced Mr. Paulson into a partial nationalization of the financial system — but he refuses to use the power that comes with ownership.

Whatever the reasons for the continuing weakness of policy, the situation is manifestly not coming under control. Things continue to fall apart.

Arise

Arise

dedicated to Nigeria

East to west you are blessed
North to south you are bound
Arise O sleeping Giant
Arise and falter no more
Arise and take your rightful place,
as the sun rises in the morning.
Rejoice for you are a great nation
There will be no more
sleep nor slumber,
no more pain nor hunger,
your sorrow will not last till tommorrow.
With your rivers and fountains
Your forests and mountains,
you shall shine like a nova.
So Arise and behold your glory,
that it may end
A sweet story.

Abayomi Sadiq Adesanya

Copyright ©2002 Abayomi Sadiq Adesanya

October 20, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

The Real Plumbers of Ohio

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Forty years ago, Richard Nixon made a remarkable marketing discovery. By exploiting America’s divisions — divisions over Vietnam, divisions over cultural change and, above all, racial divisions — he was able to reinvent the Republican brand. The party of plutocrats was repackaged as the party of the “silent majority,” the regular guys — white guys, it went without saying — who didn’t like the social changes taking place.

It was a winning formula. And the great thing was that the new packaging didn’t require any change in the product’s actual contents — in fact, the G.O.P. was able to keep winning elections even as its actual policies became more pro-plutocrat, and less favorable to working Americans, than ever.

John McCain’s strategy, in this final stretch, is based on the belief that the old formula still has life in it.

Thus we have Sarah Palin expressing her joy at visiting the “pro-America” parts of the country — yep, we’re all traitors here in central New Jersey. Meanwhile we’ve got Mr. McCain making Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber — who had confronted Barack Obama on the campaign trail, alleging that the Democratic candidate would raise his taxes — the centerpiece of his attack on Mr. Obama’s economic proposals.

And when it turned out that the right’s new icon had a few issues, like not being licensed and comparing Mr. Obama to Sammy Davis Jr., conservatives played victim: see how much those snooty elitists hate the common man?

But what’s really happening to the plumbers of Ohio, and to working Americans in general?

First of all, they aren’t making a lot of money. You may recall that in one of the early Democratic debates Charles Gibson of ABC suggested that $200,000 a year was a middle-class income. Tell that to Ohio plumbers: according to the May 2007 occupational earnings report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual income of “plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters” in Ohio was $47,930.

Second, their real incomes have stagnated or fallen, even in supposedly good years. The Bush administration assured us that the economy was booming in 2007 — but the average Ohio plumber’s income in that 2007 report was only 15.5 percent higher than in the 2000 report, not enough to keep up with the 17.7 percent rise in consumer prices in the Midwest. As Ohio plumbers went, so went the nation: median household income, adjusted for inflation, was lower in 2007 than it had been in 2000.

Third, Ohio plumbers have been having growing trouble getting health insurance, especially if, like many craftsmen, they work for small firms. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2007 only 45 percent of companies with fewer than 10 employees offered health benefits, down from 57 percent in 2000.

And bear in mind that all these data pertain to 2007 — which was as good as it got in recent years. Now that the “Bush boom,” such as it was, is over, we can see that it achieved a dismal distinction: for the first time on record, an economic expansion failed to raise most Americans’ incomes above their previous peak.

Since then, of course, things have gone rapidly downhill, as millions of working Americans have lost their jobs and their homes. And all indicators suggest that things will get much worse in the months and years ahead.

So what does all this say about the candidates? Who’s really standing up for Ohio’s plumbers?

Mr. McCain claims that Mr. Obama’s policies would lead to economic disaster. But President Bush’s policies have already led to disaster — and whatever he may say, Mr. McCain proposes continuing Mr. Bush’s policies in all essential respects, and he shares Mr. Bush’s anti-government, anti-regulation philosophy.

What about the claim, based on Joe the Plumber’s complaint, that ordinary working Americans would face higher taxes under Mr. Obama? Well, Mr. Obama proposes raising rates on only the top two income tax brackets — and the second-highest bracket for a head of household starts at an income, after deductions, of $182,400 a year.

Maybe there are plumbers out there who earn that much, or who would end up suffering from Mr. Obama’s proposed modest increases in taxes on dividends and capital gains — America is a big country, and there’s probably a high-income plumber with a huge stock market portfolio out there somewhere. But the typical plumber would pay lower, not higher, taxes under an Obama administration, and would have a much better chance of getting health insurance.

I don’t want to suggest that everyone would be better off under the Obama tax plan. Joe the plumber would almost certainly be better off, but Richie the hedge fund manager would take a serious hit.

But that’s the point. Whatever today’s G.O.P. is, it isn’t the party of working Americans.

October 20, 2008

Op-Ed Columnist

Here the People Rule

By WILLIAM KRISTOL

According to the silver-penned Peggy Noonan, writing in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend, “In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics.”

Leave aside Noonan’s negative judgment on Sarah Palin’s candidacy, a judgment I don’t share. Are we really seeing “a new vulgarization in American politics”? As opposed to the good old non-vulgar days?

Politics in a democracy are always “vulgar” — since democracy is rule by the “vulgus,” the common people, the crowd. Many conservatives have never been entirely comfortable with this rather important characteristic of democracy. Conservatives’ hearts have always beaten a little faster when they read Horace’s famous line: “Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.” “I hate the ignorant crowd and I keep them at a distance.”

But is the ignorant crowd really our problem today? Are populism and anti-intellectualism rampant in the land? Does the common man too thoroughly dominate our national life? I don’t think so.

Last week, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released its latest national survey, taken from Oct. 9 to 12. Americans are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country and of course concerned about the economy. But, as Pew summarized, “there is little indication that the nation’s financial crisis has triggered public panic or despair.”

In fact, “There is a broad public consensus regarding the causes of the current problems with financial institutions and markets: 79 percent say people taking on too much debt has contributed a lot to the crisis, while 72 percent say the same about banks making risky loans.”

This seems sensible. Indeed, as Sept. 11 did not result in a much-feared (by intellectuals) wave of popular Islamophobia or xenophobia, so the market crash has resulted in remarkably little popular hysteria or scapegoating.

And considering what has happened, the vulgar public on Main Street has been surprisingly forgiving of those well-educated types on Wall Street — the ones who devised and marketed the sophisticated financial instruments that have brought the financial system to the brink of collapse.

Most of the recent mistakes of American public policy, and most of the contemporary delusions of American public life, haven’t come from an ignorant and excitable public. They’ve been produced by highly educated and sophisticated elites.

Needless to say, the public’s not always right, and public opinion’s not always responsible. But as publics go, the American public has a pretty good track record.

In the 1930s, the American people didn’t fall — unlike so many of their supposed intellectual betters — for either fascism or Communism. Since World War II, the American people have resisted the temptations of isolationism and protectionism, and have turned their backs on a history of bigotry.

Now, the Pew poll I cited earlier also showed Barack Obama holding a 50 percent to 40 percent lead over John McCain in the race for the White House. You might think this data point poses a challenge to my encomium to the good sense of the American people.

It does. But it’s hard to blame the public for preferring Obama at this stage — given the understandable desire to kick the Republicans out of the White House, and given the failure of the McCain campaign to make its case effectively. And some number of the public may change their minds in the final two weeks of the campaign, and may decide McCain-Palin offers a better kind of change — perhaps enough to give McCain-Palin a victory.

The media elites really hate that idea. Not just because so many of them prefer Obama. But because they like telling us what’s going to happen. They’re always annoyed when the people cross them up. Pundits spent all spring telling Hillary Clinton to give up in her contest against Obama — and the public kept on ignoring them and keeping her hopes alive.

Why do elites like to proclaim premature closure — not just in elections, but also in wars and in social struggles? Because it makes them the imperial arbiters, or at least the perspicacious announcers, of what history is going to bring. This puts the elite prognosticators ahead of the curve, ahead of the simple-minded people who might entertain the delusion that they still have a choice.

But as Gerald Ford said after assuming the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974, ”Here the people rule.”

One of those people is Joe Wurzelbacher, a k a Joe the Plumber. He’s the latest ordinary American to do a star turn in our vulgar democratic circus. He seems like a sensible man to me.

And to Peggy Noonan, who wrote that Joe “in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made.” At least McCain and Palin have had the good sense to embrace him. I join them in taking my stand with Joe the Plumber — in defiance of Horace the Poet.

Obama Hamas Ties Pushed In McCain Letter: So Much For "Respectful" Campaign

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/18/mccain-hamas-endorsement_n_97469.html