The View From the Outback© 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
A great deal of what we read in newspapers, magazines, and books, and what we see in the movies and on TV is written and produced in New York City or Los Angeles. Much of the "political wisdom" comes from the PR machines of the White House, the Congress, and from the Washington media corps. In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood. I am now a senior citizen, plus. My experience was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries. That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. Some insights come from talking with ham-radio operators in every major country and such idyllic places as the Cook Islands. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 14 years. Every few weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic. If you think that the Electoral College is a community college in Austin, you may be a goat-roper. There's joy in Mudville today. Mighty Casey has struck out! Dan Rather says that after he leave CBS Evening News, he will still be on TV. Please warn us far in advance. We are putting up fences on the N. Texas border in case he tries to sneak back in by car. The Congressional budget process is broken. I comment later about Sen. Byrd and the Omnibus bill that dumped nine spending bills into one, and which was largely unread. There were pretty much across the board cuts in some favorite programs in order to keep from breaking the bank any more than we already have done. Then, Sen. Kennedy arose to tick off the "uncaring" of "this administration," by noting cuts in several social and education-related programs. Yet, the bipartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, said it found 11,772 projects worth $15.8 billion - slipped into the bill. Just one example gives you an idea of the hypocrisy of politicians who decry cuts in programs while slipping the money out the back door for their pet projects: a $225,000 grant to study catfish genomes at Auburn University in Alabama. Every budget bill needs to be debated and posted on the Congressional Web sites early in the process, so we can see what is going on. No more Omnibus bills (combinations of several bills rolled into one incomprehensible mess). Most importantly, non-germane amendments should be banned from all legislation. That is, if the bill is about defense spending, it would not be allowed to toss in money for a new civic center in Podunk. If we could see the bills in draft, on the Web, then we could communicate with our fine representatives, "If you allow such and such provision to remain in the bill, you will not get my vote again." It was "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union.... What ever happened to "We the people."? It became Pork and Lobbyists. "Will and Grace," the NBC show with gays as the two main characters, ranks in the top 10 in New York but 22nd nationally. Interesting. I will not watch the show. Although I have no real beef with gays, I do not appreciate the lifestyle being glorified on TV. One more reason not to read The New York Times. On the NYT Web page for Nov. 20, David Pogue wrote a long article about the advantages of LCD HDTV over plasma TV sets. He got that part right. But, he never once mentioned Digital Light Processing (DLP) HDTV, such as produced by Samsung, Toshiba, and others. Mr. Pogue says that the new Sharp and Samsung 46-inch LCD sets run about $8,000 at retail. Then, the most incredible statement: "Plasma is the only way to go if you want something larger than 46 inches ...." First, a Samsung DLP 46-inch rear-projection set can be bought for about $2,800 versus the nearly $8,000 for a 46-inch LCD. If you need a better picture than you can get from a Samsung DLP set, then you may have super-vision or may be a little too finicky. Second, Samsung and others make great-looking DLP sets in 50 inches and larger - and which sell for a lot less than plasma sets. You can't hang a 46-inch or 50-inch DLP set on the wall. But, what is the big deal about this? My Samsung 46-inch DLP set is only 15-inches deep and weighs 69.44 pounds. The $2800 Samsung 46-inch DLP set (HLP4663W) looks like you are viewing a photograph. It is truly "like being there," especially if you connect the set to a formidable home-theater amp and speaker setup that will play Dolby 5.1 surround sound - which is available on most HDTV programs. Of course, I will send this paragraph to Mr. Pogue and suggest that he not do any more reporting on technical matters. Update: 11-24-04 - I ran across a daily tech blog by David Pogue of the Times (under Technology on the Times Web site). He has written about 35 books about computers and software. So, I will assume he knows something about that subject. Since I published the first simplified book on how to use WordStar, back in the 80's, and have written many complex software manuals, I don't get too excited about books that tell you how to use software. So, maybe I will amend my comments. Maybe David Pogue should not do any more reporting on HDTV, until he better understands the subject. Even the column that I criticized ran corrections about the thickness of plasma screens and an LCD model number he cited. Also, some of his readers took him to task about comments concerning the LCD screens. Now, I will probably read his column and blog just to see what else he messes up. If I truly learn anything, I will send him a complimentary e-mail message. The term "Evangelical Christian" is thrown about in the media many times a day. Can you tell me how an "Evangelical Christian" differs from a "Regular Christian"? Not much of a chance of that. Evangelical Christians are among the most vilified groups in America. Do a Google on "Evangelical Christian" and you will end up with a confusing hodge-podge of double-speak. So, if you meet a Christian, you should ask, "What kind of Christian are you?" If they say, "Evangelical," you should seize the opportunity to sit that person down and attempt to discover what the term means to them. Then, let me - and the media - in on the explanation. In the Outback for Oct. 4th I said: "Although it was painful, I watched about half of one episode of "The Benefactor," featuring Dallas eccentric billionaire Mark Cuban (owner of the Dallas NBA Mavericks and HDNet). They tried to make high drama out of people shooting 3-point basketball shots, and so on. The prize is a $1 million. How long can this piece of trash stay on the air? Reality TV is completely out of control, and this show is the poster child for dumb reality shows." The Apprentice has been cancelled. Whoever put that show on the air ought to be fired. Now, it will air in HDTV, no less, on HDNet, which is owned by Mark Cuban. I like HDNet. Mark, I am sorry your monstrous ego will take time on HDNet that could be better spent on "real" programming. I need not send this to Mark Cuban. I am sure he will run across it when he periodically Googles himself to see if he is more famous today than yesterday. Early on, I predicted that Jason Alexander would flop (again) in "Listen Up" on CBS. Strangely, the network picked up the show for the rest of the season. In a recent week, it came in 35th in the ratings. I'll watch to see if it can make it to number 30. Also, I continue to be amazed at the sucess of the CSI shows. I did not realize how morbid people are. Maybe somebody should sell tickets to autopsies in the morgue for the hard-core fans. Maybe even let them "open up" a cadaver. I simply can't watch all that blood and guts and have never seen a full episode of ER. What does Mr. Grouch like, if anything? JAG, Joey, Without a Trace, Boston Legal, NCIS (I close my eyes at some of the gore), Las Vegas, Monday Night Football, Scrubs (I once panned it as too silly, but it grows on you). I will not watch any reality show, but The Amazing Race may tempt me. One season of The Apprentice and American Idol (sporadic viewing) was enough for me. That is why there are so many shows, we all have different tastes. The FCC has completed a report requested by Congress on the feasibility and economics of "al-a-carte" choices for cable and satellite customers, that is, picking each individual program channel to which they wish to subscribe. Like others, I complain that I have to buy about 60 extra channels to get maybe three or four that I really want. But, imagine the nightmare if customers watched a channel for a while then called up to cancel just that one - even if they were locked in for a set period of weeks or months. That would be several million calls a week. A more sensible approach might be to provide for a few more levels, or blocks of programs, so that you would stand a better chance of getting what you wanted without 75% of what you do not want. I subscribe to 125 channels and watch about 20, for example. The FCC says the average family watches only 17 channels and that "a-la-carte" might raise rates 14% to 30%! Cable and satellite providers point out that they get "package rates" when they subscribe to a group of stations from one programming provider. They say that al-a-carte would mean higher consumer prices. Add in the cost of handling all those signups and cancellations for al-a-carte, and reluctantly, I must agree. In a letter-to-the-editor of mine published in The Dallas Morning News for August 13, 2000, I said in part: For those of you who do not follow the news closely, Condi Rice is going to be our new secretary of state. I was a little ahead of the time, but nevertheless, right on the money. Update Nov. 17, 2004: See the new letter published by The Dallas Morning News in which I speak of my earlier observation in Aug. of 2000 that Condi Rice had secretary of state written all over her. It is on my main Web page under Letters to the Editor. ABC apologized for the intro to "Monday Night Football" on Nov. 15, after receiving complaints from viewers and the NFL. A naked Nicollette Sheridan, shed her bath towel and jumped into the arms of Terrell Owens, the Philly wide receiver, who was standing in the locker room suited up for the game. You could not see her breasts or her buttocks, but the impact was there for sure. I never save Cowboy games on my DVR, even when they win, but so far I have replayed the intro to "Monday Night Football" three times. And I am a huge fan of "Desperate Housewives." If kids were watching MNF, then there might be a beef, but that will not be the worst thing they are exposed to. Parents ought to hang out with their kids and see what magazines they are reading and what videos they watch. Let me guess, if there is a poll, 75% will say they enjoyed the intro, and about 10% will say it was in poor taste, and 15% will say they were getting a beer from the fridge and missed it - damn. Congratulations to ABC's Sports section for great imagination. Sorry you felt you had to apologize for the MNF introduction. In truth, it was a timeless classic that will be shown for years, decades, on highlight films. Okay, Mr. and Mrs. FCC, since there were no showing of breasts, or the pubic area, or even a buttocks, are you going to keep your mouths shut? To even admonish ABC would be a form of censorship, prior restraint - a chilling effect on creative expression. An FCC fine should be out of the question. I see letters to the editor in the Dallas paper where people were shocked and are calling for fines. Think about what fines would mean folks, before you dash off these emotional letters. What kind of precedent would it set and where would it end? Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, expressed disappointment over the intro to "Monday Night Football." Mr. Powell is known to own a TiVo machine - and love it. I wonder how many times he had to replay the intro in order to come to his conclusion? And how many times later to make sure he was really disappointed in Disney and ABC? I predict that there will be no fine. And that CBS may well win its court battle over the $550,000 FCC fine for the Janet Jackson "boobgate." CBS had no control over the incident. Let's get real. Have you seen the stuff on daytime soaps? And many primetime shows, like "NYPD Blue," which has shown more than its share of butts and boobs. Kids have access to TiVos, too. We are awash in sexual content and sexual innuendo in primetime on the networks. Even "George Lopez" had a scene where his Cuban father-in-law got caught naked in the kitchen and hid behind some objects in the kitchen - more or less. And George's onscreen mother said to the naked Cuban father-in-law, that it looked like there was a "Cuban-missile crisis." Ha. Ha. Tee Hee. You can see the downward slide every week. Now, it is perfectly okay on TV to say "ass," and "boob," and "breast," and "penis" and "friggin'" - and on and on. When a program bleeps somebody saying "Sh*t or F**k, you still know what they said. Our days of innocence are lost forever. Kids will always find a way to see and hear what is "current and hip." It may be a magazine, on the Internet, a DVD, a CD compilation of images, a video game, or just "enlightened talk" among peers. As much as I want to see my grandkids protected from unsavory sights and influences, it is a battle that in the long run cannot be won. For a long time, I have advocated bringing back or repositioning some of our farflung troops abroad. Many are guarding allies who no longer need our presence, or should be providing for their own defense. No, we do it for them! On the Senate floor (Nov. 16, 2004), Sen. Carl Levin (D. Mich), made the following comments: We have about 270,000 U.S. troops stationed in 120 countries. The current staffing in Iraq for U.S. forces is 61% active duty and 39% reserves! And in coming months, the reserve percentage will be even greater. On TV the other night, I saw a 56-year-old grandfather (either in the Army Reserve or National Guard) who was shipping out to Iraq. A 56-year-old grandfather! This is ridiculous. Maybe Donald Rumsfeld ought to also tender his resignation. The buck stops at his desk when we find we are approaching nearly 50% of our deployed forces in Iraq being reserve or National Guard. And tours being extended, and people who thought they had resigned from the military being called back, and so on. Rumsfeld is wearing a little thin, anyway, with his glib answers to every criticism of the Pentagon. Do you know the name of the Secretary of the Navy? Of the Army? Of the Air Force? Probably not. They have been kept in a broom closet at the Pentagon while Rumsfeld spews his endless stream of bromides and platitudes. Rummy, you have served our nation over many decades. Go fishing. And please, take Paul Wolfowitz with you. Get a new guy who can clean house of some of the dim-wits who have gotten us into this untenable, and unsustainable, military manpower situation. The New York Times online reports that: "Tiny Antennas to Keep Tabs on U.S. Drugs." Oh, dear, now everybody will start calling RFID tags "antennas." The RFID tags will be placed on some drug bottles sent to pharmacies. The tags are not antennas. An antenna is a passive device used to transmit or receive RF energy. The Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags emit information when "excited" by a nearby radio transmitter. Similar, and often the same, technology is used in toll-tag stickers on vehicles. RFID tags are more like transponders on aircraft which respond with a code when "excited" by a radar signal. Let's nip this idea of calling RFID chips and tags "antennas" in the bud. These are the same media types who call a pistol cartridge a "bullet." A bullet is the thing that comes out of the end of the barrel when you fire a gun. I try not to watch network evening news as it is so full of agendas and half-truths. But, I wanted to see what they said about Condi Rice probably being our next secretary of state. I tuned to ABC News by chance (Nov. 15, 2004), as that was the last network I had watched on satellite. Speaking about the RFID devices that will be put on some medicine bottles, Peter Jennings said: "... tiny radio antennas on millions of medicine bottles..." ABC News, or Peter, probably read in the NY Times that RFID devices were radio "antennas" and repeated it like so many things they pick up from the "newspaper of record." As noted in the previous paragraph, RFID devices are not "antennas." Monkey see - Monkey do. Ned Potter talked about E-Z Pass, the toll-tag technology that uses RFID. "I can go," he said, "to a Web site that shows that yesterday I went through a tollgate at 12:29 and 33 seconds .... They know everything about me." Potter, you stupid twit. I am willing to bet that the Web site you went to is your toll-road Web site where you have an account and where you must have a password to enter. They "know everything about me" in the same way the phone company has a record of your phone calls and your credit-card Web site (with a password) has a record of your charges - so they know how much to bill you. I will send this to ABC News and challenge Ned Potter to tell me he is not a stupid twit and that he in fact had to use a password to access E-Z Pass. As always, I will apologize profusely if wrong. Not much of a chance of that. This little gem was part of the media scare campaign to make people think that RFID tags on boxes of Wheaties and Viagra are somehow going to invade their privacy. Take the stupid tag off when you get home if it bothers you that much. Pay cash on the tollways. And turn in those supermarket discount cards, because, "they know everything you buy." And don't write checks at Wal-Mart, because your purchases will no doubt be inventoried in their computer - with your name. It is called market research and stock-level management. In the case of drugs, it is a matter of security, tracking illicit use, and detecting counterfeits. Live with it. It ain't going away. (On Nov. 16, 2004, I sent the above two paragraphs about RFID by snail mail to David Westin, Pres., ABC News; Peter Jennings and Ned Potter, along with the heading from the Outback, with my mini-bio. We'll see if anyone wants to contest anything I said.) After I posted the information about E-Z Pass, I went to www.e-zpassnyc.com and discovered that the system works not only in the New York City area, but on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, on the Massachusetts turnpike, the West Virginia Turnpike, and more. Figuring that this must be the E-Z Pass that Ned Potter of NBC was talking about, I decided to look up where he had been using his E-Z Pass. But, I was asked to submit both my ("his") Account Number and Password (was there ever any doubt?). So, when Mr. Potter of NBC suggested that his information was available on the Web, he was using a typical media half-truth to promote an agenda. The only thing anyone with E-Z Pass has to fear is if they rob a bank and claim that they then did not drive through certain tunnels and over certain bridges that day. Of if someone gets caught in an affair and his cover story was that he never visited his girl friend in Jersey. I am sure that records can be obtained by a subpoena only to discover 50 trips that ended on exit so and so on the Jersey Turnpike. Like I said, pay cash if you have anything to hide, Ned. And wait for the green light, because if you bust the tollgate, your license number probably will be photographed. DMV knows "all about you," too. From Wikipedia.com: "In a typical RFID system, individual objects are equipped with a small, inexpensive tag which contains a transponder with a digital memory chip that is given a unique electronic product code. The interrogator, an antenna packaged with a transceiver and decoder, emits a signal activating the RFID tag so it can read and write data to it. When an RFID tag passes through the electromagnetic zone, it detects the reader's activation signal. The reader decodes the data encoded in the tag's integrated circuit (silicon chip) and the data is passed to the host computer for processing." Scott Peterson has been convicted of two murders. I did not follow the circus surrounding his trial. Based on a two-page summary - and bits and pieces I stumbled across on TV until I hit the mute button - I predict that Scott will not get the death penalty, but life without parole. He was convicted on a small amount of circumstantial evidence, compared to O.J., who walked completely. No cause of death, no murder weapon, no DNA linking Scott. The jury will wake up and realize that they let the assertions of his bad character and lying figure largely into their determination of his guilt. Then, the sobering thought that they might send him to his death will be too much for them to bear. If the jury does vote the death penalty, it will have little real meaning. There have only been 10 executions since California brought back capital punishment in 1978. None of the 650 on death row have completed their appeals, which can drag on for decades. One of my correspondents just returned from Little Rock. He said he could not find a single person who had a good thing to say about Bill Clinton. He described the Clinton Presidential Library as looking like "a mobile home up on blocks." How fitting. I am sure Paula Jones will see the irony, given the unfair characterizations that were often made of her. The ever dependable Statin press-release machinery keeps pumping out their message. This week, a Reuters release notes a "small study" of statins, a popular class of drugs that includes Lipitor, shows that statins may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The study included 46 people, with 25 receiving 80mg of Lipitor and 21 given a placebo (sugar pill). Is this tiny study worthy of articles all over the media? And one guess on who partly funded the study. A couple of days later, came a press release that statins can help lower blood pressure. Is there no end to the miracles of statins? About 13 million people in the U.S. take a statin. The pharmaceutical companies will not be happy until it is 50 million. I always look to Reuters and AP for my authoritative medical research - not. In fact, they are mostly just conduits for press releases from the drug companies and the U.S. government. Reuters and AP are insidious, in that whatever they put out get repeated in literally thousands of media outlets. Look in your newspaper and on the Internet and see how many stories bear attribution to Reuters and AP. Scary that two sources account for so much of the news we read. Ooops! On Nov. 12th, Reuters Health reported: "New study findings suggest that the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as 'statins' do not appear to lower the risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease except possibly in cases of early-onset Alzheimer's disease... the discrepancy may have to do with how the data were analyzed." What did I say? The earlier report did not even merit being distributed to the wire services. My advice. Just skip over all the reports of the "new" findings of the types of diseases that statins can help. Wait 10 years and we'll see. It is a con game. But, "There's a sucker born every minute." As promised, I did not watch the election coverage on TV. My ace-in-the-hole was going to be watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," which I had recorded on my digital-video recorder some time back during a weekend of free access to several pay-per-view channels. Got a hunk of cheese, a glass of Merlot, and fired up the DVR. Interesting, I thought, the opening dialogue is in Greek, to give it some flavor. Finally, it dawned on me. I had recorded a version with Spanish dubbing. So, I still have not seen Greek Wedding. Many were surprised that John Kerry gave a concession speech when there were still issues on the table, such as the number of uncounted provisional votes in Ohio being about equal to the Bush margin in that state, and so on. So far, I have come up with only two theories. One - John Kerry was worried that if the lawyers started to "do their thing" there would be revelations that Democrats had illegally registered voters (certainly to a greater degree than possible irregularities by Republicans), intimidated voters and poll workers - that many cases of election fraud and deceit by Democrats might be uncovered. Some had already been unearthed prior to the actual vote. Thus, by a quick concession, the Republicans would not press the issue of fraud. Why kick a man when he is down and bleeding? Two - perhaps Kerry deep down wanted to spare the country even the thought of Teresa as First Lady, and he could get a great weight off his shoulders by a quick concession. I suspect that the campaign caused more than a minor rift in their marriage. Stay tuned. Get your hands on a copy of their prenup. Not for a moment do I think his concession had anything to do with doing something honorable and decent. The media are sick, mentally unstable. They should be put in straight-jackets and their laptops locked away for a while. Nobody but them cares at this point who will run for President in 2008. We citizens will come to grips with that in about 2007 or early 2008, maybe. But, one day after the election, the 2008 handicapping has started. Hillary, Frist, Edwards, Ridge. How absurd. Do you not recall how wrong you were for the past few years about most every issue and candidate? Take a break and try reporting the news. Leave the handicapping to the bookies, who know what they are doing. At President Bush's press conference after the election, a reporter stood up and told the president that Yasser Arafat had died. The president was prayerfully sorrowful - commented about hopes for peace in the Middle East and moved on. But ... Arafat had NOT died. Whoever that media person was, he might as well ask to be taken off the White House beat, if he has not been already. That was an unprecedented foulup. The only "news tips" he will get out of the White House will be what the dogs had for breakfast. Update:11-11-04 Dear White House Reporter, it is probably safe now to tell the Prez that Arafat is dead. It is in all the papers and on reputable Web sites. It is not only those in the Red states who are turned off by the Democratic mantra of hate. In The Wall Street Journal for Tues., Nov. 2, 2004, the following letter was published: Also, in the WSJ for 11-12-04, the following letter was published: In the Outback, I mentioned Sen. Tom Daschle 28 times since 2002. Most were, of course, not flattering references. When he said he was going to run for President, I just laughed out loud, among my many insights into this devious little snake. In the Outback for Nov. 9, 2002, I called him a "sawed-off lying weasel." Thus when I went to bed on election night before there was a clear winner, I was almost willing to trade a defeat of Daschle for a Kerry win. I did not have to bite that bullet. But, it is nearly impossible to explain the contempt I had for Senator Daschle and the unbounded, giddy, joy I experienced when he was defeated. A promo for men fighting in cages induced a revelation. We have laws against "cock fights," "dog fights," and other forms of cruel treatment of animals. Yet, men are encouraged to go into a cage and beat each other into a bloody pulp and have it seen on TV. This proves what PETA and the other animal-rights groups have been telling us all along: "animals are superior to mankind." What other conclusion can one draw when PETA now tells us that fish are intelligent, sensitive animals no more deserving of being eaten than a pet dog or cat. If you run into a PETA member, force them into a steak house and cram the biggest Surf N Turf meal on the menu down their throats. If one of them comes up to me in a Red Lobster and protests what I am eating, they will be gumming their food for the rest of their lives, if they are able to walk out of the place on their own. We all love dogs and cats. How did they screw up such a simple concept of being kind to animals? These people are fruitcakes. President George W. Bush has a lot of people and events to thank for his victory of November, 2004. Here are just a few that come to mind: Boundless thanks to former Sen. Tom Daschle for obstructing most of the president's legislative agenda, even though much of it had already passed in the House with bipartisan support. Americans were watching, listening, and taking notes.
Thanks to the Democrats in the Senate for their historically unprecedented filibusters of nominees to the Federal bench. Americans were watching, listening, and appalled at such a perversion of the "advise and consent clause." People read the Constitution again for the first time since the eighth grade - just to make sure what it said. Thanks to the Democrats who prevented votes on drilling in ANWR in Alaska, even though there is not one tiny shred of evidence that there is any environmental concern. Americans watched as a Senator from Alaska made his presentations on the Senate floor, with overwhelming arguments in favor of drilling. Americans watched, listened, and wondered what the objections by the Democrats could possibly be. Other than Daschle's master-plan of obstruction. As gas hit $2 and more a gallon, Americans made some notes on the back of their gasoline receipts. Thanks to Sen. John Kerry for the idiotic decision to base much of his campaign on his "heroic" service (of some four-months duration) in Vietnam. And for the constant talk about his Purple Hearts, at least two of which were awarded either for self-inflicted wounds or scratches that required only a bandage. Veterans who had been in lengthy combat shook their heads in disbelief that anyone with such a short tour and clouds surrounding his medals, would make this a showpiece of his campaign. Ladies in the bowling league even questioned how such a short tour in a combat area could qualify someone to run three wars at once (Afghanistan, Iraq, and one against the terrorists). It made no sense. He could not even keep his wife under control. Thanks to Sen. Kerry for coming home and trashing his fellow Vietnam veterans and calling them war criminals. No amount of spin could undue this bit of treachery. Thanks to Teresa Heinz Kerry for some of her opinions and comments. Blacks, Caucasians, Hispanics, Asians, et al., were astonished to hear her proclaim herself to be an "African-American" - because she was born in Africa. There were so many gems along the way ("shove it," et al.), that one could only imagine what kind of malaprops she would come up with as First Lady. As said in this column earlier, she is not playing with a full deck. They say that potential first-ladies are not all that important in a presidential race. This time, the lie was put to that theory. Even John Kerry must have had nightmares about which foreign leader, among others, Teresa might insult once ensconced in the White House. The contrast between Teresa Heinz Kerry and Laura Bush was so enormous that even the most PC among us could not ignore the comparison. Out came the notepads. Thanks to Sen. John Edwards for bringing up in a debate that Dick and Lynne Cheney have a lesbian daughter. And to Kerry for repeating it - and Letterman and "Saturday Night Live" and many others for picking up on a cruel string of comments about the Cheney daughter. Lesbians and even those who oppose that lifestyle, were offended. Americans were listening and calling members of the choir at church to make sure they were going to vote for Bush. Many thanks to the judge who approved of gay marriages. Well, what a ripple effect that had. Thanks to John Kerry for his long service in the Senate. The American public were thus able to see that his record did not match much of what he claimed to stand for in this election. The Congressional Record is a permanent record of the actual words spoken on the Senate floor, for example. There is no real place to hide when you start making up new positions that you never really held in the past. An especial thanks to CBS and the pig-headed and egomaniacal Dan Rather, for the failed attempt (one of many) to discredit President Bush and his National Guard service - with their forged documents. Americans were tired of wasting time on what Kerry and Bush did decades ago. As former Wyoming senator Alan Simpson said in a hearing (I think it was the Judge Bork confirmation hearing when people kept bringing up what judge Bork wrote 25 years ago) "When I was a young fellow, I used to shoot at highway signs (or mailboxes, or both - I can't remember) - and I turned out pretty good." Americans were interested in: "What have you done lately and more importantly, what are you going to do in the future?" This will not doubt be the last time the Vietnam war will be refought in a political campaign. Thanks to all the late-night comedians who tried to "educate" their viewers with jokes and comments disproportionately slanted against George Bush. Apparently some of those viewers thought you went too far. Do you really know any dumb guys who went to Yale, have a Harvard M.B.A., and can fly a fighter jet? It is just too much of a stretch. Profound thanks to David Letterman when he said that Dick Cheney's daughter hit on Gwen Ifill at the debate Gwen moderated. Real class, David. And another Emmy to Jon Stewart of "Comedy Central" who said all along "with me, it is all about the comedy." How stupid do you think we are Jon? An overloaded schedule of guests who opposed Bush policies, and questions of Bush supporters that made one think that the person being interviewed was on trial for "high crimes and misdemeanors." Americans watched, listened, and saw through your little sham - and took notes. Thanks to CBS and to The New York Times and other liberal media for trying to tie the abuse of a few prisoners in a jail in Baghdad to a policy "encouraged at the highest level in the Bush administration." And for front-paging the story day after day when it had long become yesterday's news. The American people understood that we were in a war with some pretty vicious people and that a few of our people got overzealous and out of hand in the jail. Nice try, but you can't make a mountain out of a molehill even in 36-point type. Thanks to the Democratic thugs who vandalized or shot up several sites for the Republican campaign. It showed the real spirit of the Democratic party. Thanks to Michael Moore for producing propaganda in the guise of a documentary and forever casting a shadow on such transparent attempts at swaying an election. Had he not been such a fat, obnoxious, and unkempt person, say more like a Brad Pitt image, more people might have actually bought his act. He has all the trappings of a porn producer making skin flicks in garages, where the men have dirty fingernails and the women a lot of scabs. The American people were watching him, even if they did not watch the "documentary" and making a note: "Who is this slob and why should we believe anything he says?" Thanks to George Soros, the Hollywood elite, and foreign air-heads and druggies like Elton John, for their maniacal and very, very, very, expensive attempts to sway the election. The American people were watching and listening and decided that those shrill and vindictive voices were irrelevant. As the saying goes, "Consider the source." Take a lesson. Next time, save your money - and your heavy breathing. Thanks to Jimmy Carter for chastising Zell Miller in a letter for speaking what was in his heart at the Republican convention. And to Mr. Carter for suggesting that we needed "outside observers" overseeing our election. A real boost to American morale and confidence in our election system. We, who are going around the world telling anyone who will listen how to have "open, free, and fair elections." Mr. Carter, methinks it is time for you to stick to building houses for the poor and maybe judging peanuts at the Georgia State Fair. You are beginning to sound like you are losing it. Take it from one who knows the signs - me. The most profound thanks go to Osama bin Laden, whose video just before the election reminded viewers of the probable consequences of NOT electing George Bush. And thanks, too, to Walter Cronkite for suggesting that the Osama video might have been planted by Bush advisor Karl Rove. Americans were listening and could see how very desperate the Democrats were for an issue. "The Most Trusted Man in America" telling us that the Osama video was a put-up job? It was really sad to see and hear. Walter, you might think about refusing to give interviews in the future. You have a brilliant legacy. Why screw it up in your dotage? There are so many others to thank, and I will add them if my mind clears for an hour or so some day. This article is written for those who are computer literate, but feel that building a computer from components is beyond their grasp. Maybe you can pick up a few hints - and make the plunge. You may (probably) will spend more than a "comparable" computer from Dell, or Gateway, or HP, etc. But you will end up with a better case, a better power supply, a motherboard that does everything but cook lunch, and the ability to use the latest hard drives, CD-ROM and DVD burners - of your choosing - and so on. My goal with building my new computer was to make a very fast computer that was quiet. I chose an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ CPU. This is my first Athlon. It is hard to find good benchmarks, but it is safe to say that my computer is faster than most of the Pentium 4 CPUs. My RAM chips are Crucial (Crucial.com) DDR400 512MB X 2, with a 512MB stick in what is loosely called a dual-channel config, that is one 512MB chip in the first slot of the first RAM bank and a second 512MB stick in the first slot of the second RAM bank of slots. The total RAM is thus 1GB. In theory, requests for data are split between the two RAM banks, making the response faster. Who am I to argue? The case is an Antec P160, which is designed for quiet operation. The body is brushed aluminum. The 120mm exhaust fan is mounted on soft rubber mounts. There is a place for another 120mm fan in front, but so far, I don't need it. The hard drive(s) are mounted on rubber shock mounts. The case does not come with a power supply. There are many "quiet" power supplies. I chose a Zalman 400B-APS, whose fan is nearly inaudible. The floppy drive, the CD-ROM and DVD burner are all black faceplates, for a striking silver and black look. The Antec case has three blue LEDs on the front panel that come on with the power and reflect down off of some flutes in the front air intake. Again, striking. The motherboard is an ASUS A8V Deluxe, with SATA, RAID, ATA 133 IDE channels, eight USB 2.0 outputs (two on the front of the Antec case), a Firewire port, built-in LAN, Wi-fi, AGP 8X video-card support, 8-channel audio, and more. The motherboard also supports AMD's Cool and Quiet technology, which throttles back the CPU and slows the CPU fan when the CPU is idling or under light load. So far, the CPU runs cool enough that I have not engaged Cool and Quiet. The motherboard talks to me during the bootup process, giving a progress report, and will announce certain errors (none so far). You can turn that audio feature on or off. The ASUS manual gives clear explanations and drawings of how to install all the parts and make all the connections, well, except for making a SATA hard drive a single boot drive. Originally, I was going to buy a big third-party heatsink and fan, because I had always read that Athlons ran hot. But, I found an article that compared the temps of the Athlon 64s with the new Prescott P4s. The Athlons were actually cooler. One of the biggest heat sink/fans you can find is designed especially for the new P4s, some of which run hot as a pistol. I did use the heatsink and fan that came with the Athlon 64, but after much searching of geek sites, I bought a small plunger of Arctic Silver Ceramique paste. This is a novel thermal compound that slowly migrates to all the pores on the heatsink bottom plate and the top of the CPU, lowering temperatures a little more than normal, due to the good thermal bond. I had to remove the goop that came on the stock heat sink, and used 97% Isopropyl Alcohol (never user Isopropyl Rubbing Alcohol). So far, the CPU temperature is running well below what I had anticipated. The stock heat-sink fan is very quiet. The video card is a Matrox P650, which supports two DVI digital LCD monitors from the one card. This is the third Matrox dual-head video card I have used in computers. I use two Samsung LCD monitors, one 19 inch and one 17 inch. There are adapters if one or more of your monitors is analog, as is my 17 inch. The P650 has a huge heat sink and needs no fan. So, that means there are only three fans running; the power supply fan, the heat-sink fan, and the 120mm shock-mounted exhaust fan. From a few feet away, I have to sometimes look for the blue LEDs to remind myself that the computer is on (I set the power-saver to blank the screen and turn off the hard drives after 20 minutes of non use). I wanted a Maxtor Diamond Max 10 SATA (Serial ATA) 7200 rpm hard drive, because some versions have a 16MB cache (the 250GB and 300GB models only). I decided against the rather expensive Maxtor SATA drive, partly because I had problems with SATA drives on my last computer. Instead, I installed a Seagate 7200rpm Barracuda 120 GB drive with an 8MB cache ($91). The drive is inherently quiet, and when mounted on the rubber standoffs, and at idle, I don't even know it is running. When seeking data, there is a soft purring. The bad news is that I once again had trouble installing the SATA drive. I had read everything I could in advance. The motherboard manual has pages on setting up RAID (redundant drive arrays), but it very confusing on how to simply set up one SATA drive as the bootable drive. Finally, I got it to be recognized by the BIOS and installed Win XP Home. For about half a day, I loaded my programs - and suddenly the computer crashed and no attempts to repair Win XP or revert to an earlier setting worked. I formatted the drive again (which of course destroyed all my programs)- and re-installed Win XP Home SP2. Back to installing programs, but this time with Restore Points before the installation of every program and checkpoints in another recovery program I installed from VCOMM (Recovery Commander). After one more crash, I surrendered and put the Seagate SATA drive in the closet. A different hard drive is now installed. It is an IDE ATA 133 drive from Maxtor (DiamondMax Plus 9, 7200rpm, 120GB, with an 8MB cache). It is just about as quiet as the Seagate SATA drive, except during seek. My advice to anyone who is not very skilled with computers is - stay away from SATA drives if you build a computer! It is incredible that several years after their introduction, you cannot simply install a SATA drive and the computer will recognize it when you first turn on the machine. You have to stop in the middle of the XP install cycle and put in a floppy disk with the SATA drivers (which you earlier had to copy from a CD using another computer). What if you don't have another computer? Visit a friend? Ridiculous. A scouring of forums reveals that half the world is having trouble getting their Serial ATA (SATA) drives to be recognized as a single bootable drive.
My modem is the tried and proven U.S. Robotics (USR) 56K Performance Pro Modem (5610B). This is a V.90/V.92 modem with its own processor chip (as opposed to a cheap WinModem which uses the CPU for its brain). This is my third one. I sometimes log on at 40kbps on a country copper phone line, which is six miles from the central office. The phone man simply cannot believe it. I use a broadband computer in town for my big downloads and bring them home on the USB thingee. The DVD burner is a Plextor 712A, which burns DVD+R at 12X, DVD-R at 8X, reads and writes CD-R at 48X. It is smooth and quiet and is my third or fourth Plextor. The second optical drive is a Lite-On LTD167S CD-ROM/DVD reader only. It reads DVDs at 16X and CDs at 48X. My burning software is NERO, version 6.xx, which is simply superb. It does all the CD-R/CD-R and DVD burning, has a backup program and will make a image of your boot disk, or whatever partition you choose. It has too many other features to mention, and almost monthly updates on the Web site (www.nero.com). A few thoughts about Win XP with SP2. I had already installed the upgrade to Service Pack 2 (from the Microsoft CD-ROM) on my older P4 computer and was happy with the result. Now, you can buy Win XP Home OEM version with SP2 from several online vendors (e.g., Newegg.com). The OEM version is the full program and is intended for clean installs on a clean hard drive. You must buy at least one add-on component at the same time to qualify for the OEM version, such as a hard drive, a DVD burner, etc. Pay attention, since Win XP with SP1a is still available at some sites. You want OEM with SP2. Perhaps I agonized over the choice of a firewall and antivirus more than anything else. Normally, I had used Norton Internet Security, with antivirus, since it first came on the scene. But, I have grown tired of its huge footprint, use of resources, and their peculiar pricing policies, such as charging more to extend an antivirus contract for a year than the cost of an entire new program CD. And there are often horrible problems when you try to uninstall Norton NIS in preparation for installing a new version of it - or that of some competitor. Trend Micro gets good reviews (my ISP uses it). But their online descriptions were to my mind inadequate. When I wrote Trend an e-mail and asked if the online virus updates only sent what you needed since the last update or if they sent you a complete virus library as one file, I got a useless answer. Next. Finally, I settled on Zone Alarm Pro 5.1 (apparently 5.0 did not work well with Athlon 64-bit chips like mine). I downloaded the 15-day trial, and as soon as the second hard drive was installed, I paid for the program online. ZA Pro simply does everything you could ask of a firewall, ad and popup blocker, etc. Zone Alarm Pro is now up to version 5.5. NIS probably does better at blocking banner ads. I chose E-Trust EZ Antivirus 2005 from Computer Associates ($29.95 at Office Max). Actually, it appears that Zone Alarm sells a Security Suite that includes a form of EZ Antivirus. I prefer to have the two separate, and I was sure they would play together nicely, which they appear to do. EZ Antivirus only updates definitions to supplement what you already have, without going through the whole catalog with each update. This is the first program of any kind that I have allowed to do an "automatic update." So far, I get at least one update a day! Very seldom is it more than about 200K, so it is no big strain on my dialup system to wait for the download. A little icon shows up in the Task Bar to let you know that an update is in progress. EZ Antivirus has the reputation for being about the fastest scanner in the business, which it lives up to on my computer. I figure that whatever shortcomings EZ Antivirus might have, being put out by Computer Associates, who claim that 95% of Fortune 500 companies use their products, will ensure timely upgrades for any bugs - and new features as the customer input gains momentum. I must be psychic. Within hours of writing the previous paragraph, in came an e-mail from EZ Antivirus. They had discovered some vulnerability and had upgraded their 2005 antivirus program from version 6 to version 7. It had bug fixes and a new user-friendly interface. And they gave you the choice of downloading the update or running it from the Web. I always download, and archive for that rainy day when I might have to reinstall the program from scratch. After a long download, updating the virus defs, I scanned the hard drive. It took only about five minutes to complete the scan, but as yet I don't have much on the drive. Even so, muy rapido. My son paid for the downloadable version this past weekend and it was version 7, so if you have a broadband connection, that seems like the better way to acquire EZ Antivirus. (wwww.my-etrust.com) In fact, much of the software on CDs in stores is obsolete to some degree by the time you install it. If you use Zone Alarm or some other third-party firewall, Microsoft suggests that you turn off their internal firewall, which is easy to do with SP2, as there is a separate icon under Control Panel for "Security Center." By the way, Security Center monitors that your Zone Alarm is working okay and monitors your antivirus, even suggesting to you when the definitions are out of date. We are getting closer and closer to where nearly anybody can use a computer without a year of training. The Athlon 64 chip has a feature that is billed as an antivirus feature. It has to do with blocking some common hacker threats, such as buffer overruns. And the Athlon 64 CPU talks directly to the RAM memory chips, with no intervening "front side bus chip" as found in Pentium machines. So, AMD has made great strides since those days when a lot of people predicted that they were going to crater and self-destruct. I'll see how long my CPU lasts without a problem, being on 10-14 hours a day. After a couple of weeks, the CPU never runs over 50 degrees C and sometimes as low as 34C, depending in large part on the room temperature. The AMD Athlon 64 is rated up to 70 degrees C, so I don't intend to mess with the heat sink or add another case fan. Of course, the Athlon 64 is ready to run 64-bit programs, which is mostly a moot point for now, but runs the older 32-bit programs just fine. So, how does the computer perform? Like I said, it is quiet for sure. Programs snap into place much faster than on my P4 2.66MHz machine. Installing programs is much faster, from either the Plextor or the Lite-On drive. Transfers from my USB 2.0 flashcard dongle to my hard drive are lightning fast. Searches of the hard drive are much faster than before. Utilities, like the Belarc Advisor finish in seconds. Firefox Web sites seem to come up quicker, but that may be my imagination, because Web access times are usually mostly dependent on modem speed or broadband speed. But, my Internet cache in Firefox no doubt loads faster on often-visited sites. Screen redraws are much faster, and so on. All of my goals appear to have been met. With the minor exception of my desire to use a SATA hard drive, but the ATA 133 Maxtor is just about as fast. Here are some of the online vendors I use or know about: Newegg.com, zipzoomfly.com, upgradesource.com, pchardware4u.com, pcmall.com, pcconnection.com, computers4sure.com. I browse compusa.com and bestbuy.com, but practically never buy anything for a new computer I am building. Often, they do not have the latest or top-end gear, and the other vendors noted usually beat their price - and they are not really geared for mail order. Newegg.com is one of the favorites of computer builders and upgraders. Their stock level is stunning. Prices are all competitive. They have a box at checkout where you can ask that your credit card NOT be kept on file. I like that. They send you four or five e-mails letting you know the progress of your order and the tracking number. They send a lot of stuff second-day air with Fed-Ex. After years of having boxes crushed by UPS and the Postal Service, I asked the Fed-Ex guy why all my boxes seemed to be in perfect shape. He said that unless it got rough treatment on the conveyor belt, the van guys have a "don't toss, don't drop" policy. It shows. The driver even wished me good luck when I told him he had just delivered the last component for my new computer. How many 72-year-old geezers build their own computers? It's a struggle, but it keeps your mind active and keeps you out of the bars. And pretty much broke. I spent about $1450 to build this computer, but I got the best of everything I had on my list - and used my existing LCD displays and APC UPS supply. The sound is so good with the built-in audio on the ASUS motherboard, that this is the first computer I have ever built without an add-on audio card. And I am running Klipsch speakers with a sub-woofer - left over from the previous computer. It took me about six months of research to decide on what I wanted to buy and waiting for some of the new stuff to become available. I put the parts together and had the box fired up in about three hours, give or take some problems with the SATA drive. For a cynic and pessimist, who has no faith in electronics, it seems like a miracle when the Windows logo and music starts up the first time. How could I build anything and get it right the first time? Twenty-five years of practice and 50 years of fiddling with ham radios, I guess. Buying only the best components helps, too. Now, I am going to have to go back to killing fire-ant mounds to occupy my time. It will be nearly two years before I feel the need for a new computer. My son Rick, the high-powered computer guru, pointed out to me in an e-mail that I had come a long way from the day that he came to the house to install a hard drive (a Winchester drive) in my IBM PC. It was an original IBM PC with two floppy drives and the conversion made in into - more or less - what they would then call an IBM PC XT (around 1983). And a long way from my first computer, a Televideo one-piece with two floppy drives and running on the CP/M operating system. Before Rick started tutoring me, all I knew how to do was turn on the computer and use a few rudimentary commands. That was about 27 years ago. Oh, how I and others suffered over those years, with command line operating systems, 8.3 limits to file names, every program needing its own printer software driver, limits on disk storage, limits on RAM, and so forth. For all the beating that Microsoft takes, Windows brought some uniformity to computer operating systems. It took them about five iterations to get it close to right, and they are still working on it. I remember using one of my install disks for Windows 1.0 for target practice and sending the "shot up" disk to Microsoft - telling them that was all it was good for - target practice. By now, you all know of the study which says that people who take 400IU or more of a vitamin E supplement per day have about a 5% higher death rate than those who do not take vitamin E supplements. There is apparently no increased risk if you take 150IU or lower of vitamin E. The study was a meta-analysis of 19 previous studies. That means that no new study was run, just a massaging of the data from existing studies - which produced a new conclusion. The reaction to the study results were dramatic. Article after article, TV news segments, and one memorable spot with Dr. Tim Johnson on "Good Morning America." He seemed alarmed and suggested people stop taking vitamin E right now. You would have thought it was a Cyanide capsule. This must come as a quiet a shock to the authors of the innumerable studies on the efficacy of vitamin E supplements. For example, I just received my copy of the "PDR for Nutritional Supplements" (First Edition). This 575-page large-format book is published by the same company that prints the PDR (Physicians' Desk Reference) doctors rely on for information about prescription drugs. The new PDR-NS devotes over eighteen pages to Vitamin E! Study after study has shown E to be a potent antioxidant, which bodes well for your cardiovascular system. They note in particular that E appears to inhibit platelet adhesion and aggregation. To you and me, that means "helps prevents blood clots" - which then provides protection against heart attack and stroke. They go on to talk about studies, some of which are not yet conclusive, where Vitamin E is probably - or may be - helpful in the prevention or amelioration of: HIV, some forms of cancer, arthritis, asthma, Alzheimer's disease, PMS, to mention a few. Research is also cited that Vitamin E may play a role in the maintenance of the immune system. There are one and a half pages of bibliography citing much of the research. In many of the studies, test subjects were administered from 100 to 1200IU (400-800IU not uncommon). The PDR-NS is not my only reference source. I have a bookshelf of books on nutritional supplements and herbal supplements, written by or edited by doctors, micro-biologists - all manner of health professionals. They ALL have been on the Vitamin E bandwagon for years. Just one more quote from a prestigious book, which you find on many, if not most doctors' desks, "The Merck Manual" (Seventeenth Edition). On page 1660 under "Dietary Supplementation": In several media reports on the vitamin E study, there was talk about how taking vitamin E might increase your chance of internal bleeding. Who are they trying to scare? Even the PDR comments that vitamin E might increase the anti-platelet action of warfarin (Coumadin), often erroneously called a "blood thinner." Exactly! That is one of the reasons I take vitamin E, to add to the effects of aspirin and some other supplements, like Gingko Biloba, which have anti-platelet actions. Remember, I had heart by-pass, and a mild rhythm problem that can cause blood clots. So, I know I need to keep my platelets as "unsticky" as I can - without taking the rat-poison Warfarin. If I begin to bleed internally, then my doctor will insist that I drop the anti-platelet supplements. But, taken by itself, it seems unlikely that vitamin E poses any serious internal bleeding problem, unless you are predisposed to bleeding ulcers or some other existing problem. By no means can I refute the anti-vitamin E hypothesis in these few paragraphs, nor am I qualified to do so. I just want to point out that there will be a huge backlash to the "Vitamin E is bad for you" study. It was a meta-study of existing studies. While I have not read the full study results (I hope to), and am not a medical researcher or statistician, I am always a little leery of "meta-analysis" studies. That is, simply putting a whole bunch of studies in a computer, many of which did not have all that much in common in their methodology or subset of subjects studied. Some involved the use of other vitamins (how do you single out the effect of E?).
I am reminded of when I used to do a lot of research and writing in the field of crime and gun crime. Most of the articles and books by Criminologists where merely a rehash of other people's work, and some of the earlier works just a rehash of even earlier works. There were not very many Criminologists who had ever sat down in a jail and talked with a criminal, or hung out with police to see what the real world of crime is all about. Their work was often merely a "meta-analysis," if you will. To recap: Even if the meta-analysis of Edgar R. Miller, associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins, is correct, you can apparently take about 150 to 200IU of vitamin E per day without negative consequences. But, as I said, this will not be the last you hear of this matter. On his 87th birthday, Sen. Robert Byrd (D. W.Va.), took the Senate to the woodshed and gave them some words of wisdom. It took nearly 20 minutes, when it could have been done in 10, and the Byrd propensity to use flowery and grand words was there. But the message was clear and simple. Later, he spoke again on the same matter. The Senate had been screwing around all session and neglecting debate on budget bills. So, 51 days into the fiscal year, the government was still operating on temporary budget resolutions. On Saturday night, Nov. 20, 2004, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill was being debated. The bill was a catch-all that contained nine budget bills, seven of which had never been debated in the Senate. The bill stood stacked over a foot high on desks on the Senate floor. Sen. Byrd took the floor to chastise the Senate for not getting around to working on budget bills earlier in the session, so that they were faced with an 11th-hour crisis. He said that "There is not a single member in this body that can say that he or she has read this bill." He blamed the Bush Administration for injecting itself into the budget process in the Senate by not getting to the bills in a timely manner and presenting an omnibus bill at the last minute, some of the provisions included in the bill at midnight the night before. He noted that when he was budget chairman, bills got to the floor and were debated and examined. He railed against the Omnibus process in general, as well he should. At one point, he stop being partisan and lit into the whole Senate. "We only work three days a week," he said. His reference was to Monday as being get back to D.C. day and Friday as get-out-of-town day. Sen. Byrd noted that the Senate spends too much time on other matters, when its most important function is to examine, debate, and pass budgets. There was the matter of a provision of the bill, discovered at the last moment, that would authorize the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee or his designee to have full access to taxpayer's income tax reports and full access to IRS facilities and records. Both sides agreed that this was not acceptable and worked out a convoluted strategy to have the House delete the provision from the bill and hold the Senate bill at the Senate desk until the provision had been stricken. How the provision got into the bill seemed a bit of a mystery, although it was said that two staffers inserted the provision in the bill. OK, somebody has to take the blame. Later, Representative Ernest Istook, Republican of Oklahoma, was said to be responsible for the insertion of the provision. But, that it was only intended to give Congress better oversight of the IRS and was not intended to be used to snoop in tax returns. Whatever. The point is that with the largely unread Omnibus bill, it will be a long time before we find out what all is in there. One hell of a lot of pork - and that is the real disgrace, given our deficit. Shortly after Sen. Byrd had spoken about how much time the Senate wasted, Sen. Mary Landreau, the lovely lady from Louisiana, a Democrat, rose to praise retiring Senator John Breau (D. La.), complete with family photos and a photo of Sen. Breau on the tennis court. Charming. She jumped in while the leaders were in the back room trying to work out the complicated process for killing the provision regarding access to IRS records. She seemed nervous, perhaps fearing that Sen. Byrd would jump up and say, "This is what I am talking about." By this time, everybody was sufficiently chastised by Sen. Byrd, Kennedy, and others for the fast shuffle on the Omnibus bill. Sen. Boxer objected to a provision in the Omnibus bill and wanted assurance that early in the next session she would be allowed to introduce a bill to take out the offending provision(s) and allow four hours for debate. Sen. Frist, the majority leader, told Sen. Boxer that he would assure her of an opportunity to bring her bill to the Senate floor. He added with a smile, "with four hours of debate, evenly divided, and not on a Monday or a Friday or late at night." As Groucho Marx might have said, "A nervous titter ran through the crowd. And then he was arrested." The Omnibus Appropriations bill, covering $388 billion dollars in spending, was passed 65 to 30. Remember that seven of the spending bills contained therein had never been debated on the Senate floor, and most of the bill had not been read by the membership. What a sorry way to run a railroad. That is what you get when you high "temps" who can only make it in three days a week. And they spend those three days trying to find a way to blame the other side for everything that is wrong with the world. The Democrats have an issue for the 2006 Congressional elections, if the Republican majority does not get cracking in the next session and consider each spending bill individually and on its merits - and in a timely manner. A couple of members noted that there is no reason to have budget resolutions each year, that two-year budgets would make more sense. One suggested that it would also give more time for individual consideration. But, one suspects that, like college students procrastinating on a term paper, the Senate would still be playing "Redgap by Sundown," even if the budgets were laid out for four-year periods. Thanks to C-SPAN, we can see how dysfunctional the Congress is. By the way, this week there were a lot of eulogies on the Senate floor for members who retired or were defeated. Instead of debate on the budget! To hear the Democrats tell it, Sen. Tom Daschle was close to being a saint and probably ought to be up on Mt. Rushmore. It was hard to listen to. Sen. Daschle, the one man more than any in the Congress who probably cost the Democrats the White House this year and was responsible for a backlash that gave both the House and Senate greater Republican majorities. COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes You are welcome to quote sections from this page - or the whole page, as long as the source URL is included. Of course, I would be flattered if anyone linked to this page. It is very hard to be the writer, editor, fact checker, copy editor, and publisher of anything. So, I beg your forgiveness for the many mistakes that creep in. Suggested Reading From Past Columns Click Here for Suggested Reading List Archive of Back Issues Media List of Addresses and e-mails Postal Service State Abbreviations, etc. Postal Service Abbreviations - Richard C. Rhodes End |