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, in my 7th decade. 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. Some insights come from talking with ham-radio operators in every major country and such idyllic places as the Cook Islands. 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. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 15 years. Every other Saturday I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback - with dated updates as appropriate. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic. April 28, 2005: Note to the White House and President Bush. Would you please never preempt network primetime again for a press conference, especially during the showing of new episodes. If people did not already know everything the president was going to say, then they have had their head in a dark, dank, place. Try watching C-Span, cable TV, reading a major newspaper, or surfing the Internet. It's all been there for weeks - months. To deprive the faithful of Carmen Electra appearing on "Joey" nearly rose to the level of a "high crime and misdemeanor." Here in the Outback, I get one network in HDTV, so I missed "Without A Trace," one of only THREE HD network shows I watch each week. Millions must have been more put out than me, with my limited viewing choices. Here's the deal. There are about 60 million households served by cable and another 22 million served by satellite TV. Anything this president, or any president, has to say will reach a large enough audience by showing a press conference on cable channels (which are duped on satellite). Anyway, a lot of people like me who were upset with the intrusion reverted to watching an earlier show that had been stored on their Digital Video Recorder, or switched to Discovery HD to watch a guy trap Alligators in Florida, so we missed the carefully-scripted dog and pony show on the networks. April 25, 2005: The Saudi Prince was with President Bush at the Crawford ranch. President Bush continued to work on the Saudi Prince to increase oil output. But, a Saudi spokesman stepped to the mike and said that it would do no good to ship millions of barrels more oil to the United States - because we do not have the refinery capacity to process it into gasoline. I have been harping on this for years. Once more, I suggest that for a start the Pentagon stand up one or more refineries to produce gas and jet fuel for the military, which would free up an enormous amount of refined products for the civilian market. And this would do away in part with the need to entice private capital to invest in new refineries, which have proven not to be very good investments. It was amusing to see the Prez and the Prince playing oil patty-cake only to have the Saudi spokesman tell the truth. "You can't handle the oil." That is reminiscent of the classic movie line "You can't handle the truth." Both seem to fit in this situation. April 25, 2005: Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway balancing electric scooter, among other things, was a panelist at a Senate hearing on reform of the U.S. Patent laws. He came attired in denim pants and a denim shirt. Although he is very bright, Mr. Kamen is given to hyperbole, such as saying that the Segway scooter would "revolutionize transportation." He comes across as an eccentric, sort of looney-tune, inventor, albeit a very rich one. His appearance in denims at a Senate hearing further confirmed my impression of him. Although, it did look like an expensive denim outfit. I was unable to see if he was wearing motorcyle boots. April 25, 2005: Paint Shop Pro 9 is a fine image and photo-editing program. Somehow, a change in ownership slipped by the ever-alert computer central here in the Outback. Jasc, from whom I bought Paint Shop Pro, sold the program to Corel, the famous Canadian graphics firm who also owns WordPerfect (my WP of choice.) Corel produced a rather extensive free update for registered owners of Paint Shop Pro 9. You can download Paint Shop Pro 9.01 at www.corel.com and install it over the top of Version 9. After you do that, there is a small tweak update, V. 9.01.1, that you can download at the same site. Update 9.01 must be installed first! Paint Shop Pro 9 is available at some vendors for $79.99 after rebates. This is a real value for a superb program. With all the talk about "separation of church and state," banning the 10 commandment plaques, etc. from government property, and the lawsuits against those who use "Under God," in the flag pledge, it is interesting to see each daily session of the U.S. Senate opened with a prayer and a pledge to the flag that includes "Under God." There should be a clue in there somewhere for the pea-brains at the ACLU and elsewhere who attack these common manifestations of our country's Christian heritage as violating the separation of church and state. Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., posted a very interesting article regarding the debate over the use of statin drugs to lower cholesterol. Dr. Enig is an expert of world renown in the subjects of lipids and human nutrition. She was an early critic of the use of trans fatty acids in our processed foods. Sally and Mary are in the "cholesterol and saturated fat do not cause heart disease" camp. They also note some of the flaws in the research that supports the "common medical wisdom" on the subject of statins. (www.westonaprice.org/moderndiseases/statin.html) Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D., also teamed up to write "Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats." Of the 141 reviews of the book on Amazon.com, the overall rating was 4 1/2 stars. A few people were very caustic in their reviews, even suggesting that their heart disease was caused by following the dietary guidelines in the cookbook. But, on balance, the book received high praise. (See also www.newtrendspublishing.com, Sally's publishing company.) Low cholesterol in the elderly increases mortality rate. In an article in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 2005; 53 (2): 219-226, written by Nicole Schupf, Rosann Costa, Jose Luchsinger, Ming-Xin Tang, Joseph H. Lee and Richard Mayeux the conclusion is: "Those in the lowest quartile of total cholesterol, non-HDL-C, and LDL-C were approximately twice as likely to die as those in the highest quartile, after adjustment for age, sex, ethnic group, and level of education." Inclusion of treatment with lipid-lowering drugs in the model attenuated but did not abolish the associations between low plasma lipid levels and risk of death. Studies have also found that lower high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are a stronger predictor of mortality than total cholesterol in the elderly. In other words, having a high HDL cholesterol level is more protective than attempting to lower the total cholesterol level. (My earlier comments that I once had a total cholesterol of 150 and purposely raised it, and was not alone in this pursuit, seem vindicated by the above research. You might also read Dr. Ravnskov's article on the benefits of high cholesterol at www.thincs.org.) Firefox browser version 1.0.3 is available for download at: www.mozilla.org If you are still wondering how one unfavorable study of Vitamin E, among the thousands of favorable ones, could cause a minor panic, take a look at: www.nnfa.org/vitamine.htm The vitamin E study was junk science. Yet, Dr. Tim Johnson, of ABC news, came on the TV and said he was going to stop taking Vit E immediately. So much for his credibility in other areas. Camilla Parker Bowles has said that she does not want to become Queen of England. Of course not. She wants to become King. In the Outback for Nov. 27, 2004, in "Hi-Definition DVD - Another Beta/VHS Fiasco," I deplored the disservice to consumers that the industry was doing by attempting to develop two competing Hi-Def DVD standards. The appointment of Howard Stringer as CEO of Sony may have helped bring some sanity to the fray. The talk now is perhaps compromising to produce one standard incorporating some of the features of both Blue-ray and HD-DVD. So, don't rush into buying a $1,000 (plus?) player for one or the other standard now being touted. With any luck, we will be able to avoid the 8-track versus cassette, Beta versus VHS debacles. Somebody has finally figured out that only a few early adopters with more money than sense will pay $1,000 or so for a machine that will only read or write Blu-ray or HD-DVD. If they give us a "one-size-fits-all" Hi-Def DVD standard, a zillion people will jump in at around $500 and 4-zillion at $200 down the road. You don't need a Harvard MBA to figure this out. Just ask any clerk at Best Buy or Circuit City. Or people like me who waited until last year to buy my first DVD-R burner (at just over $100), because of the the chaos in the DVD marketplace over many years. Recently, I had a long ham-radio conversation with an old friend in Cuba, who is a school teacher. We talked about mutual friends and about how much I wanted to come and visit but was prohibited to do so my government. He suggested that things would get better and soon he hoped. He must know something I do not. President Bush has increased the enforcement and penalties for Americans who travel to Cuba without specific authority. Who the hell is he caving in to? The anti-Castro folks in Florida who help keep his brother in office as governor? Several bills have been introduced into the Congress which would allow free or freer travel to Cuba, but they never get passed, despite considerable support. It should be obvious to the most retarded among our politicians that our policy toward Cuba over 40 plus years has failed to prove anything - other than the Cuban people continued to get screwed. And although Canadians, Germans, et al., travel there on vacation and have a wonderful time with their gracious Cuban hosts, we Americans get treated like some kind of criminals under house arrest. I have been mad as hell for more than 20 years over this moronic policy. It appears that I may die still mad as hell - but never having been able to hug my Cuban friends, sit around the dinner table in their homes, drink a beer, and sit on the beach and watch the sunset. The Patriot Act is up for renewal in the Congress. I once challeged the librarians who were all upset about the Feds collecting records of books checked out in libraries to cite one case, just one case, where this had happened under the autority of Sec. 215 of the Act. I also challenged the idiots who were in the commercials (ACLU inspired) bemoaning the "erosion of our civil liberties," who spoke about the Feds being able to conduct some searches without warrants and get your personal records to cite just one case where anyone they knew had been the "victim" of such a search. Well, the Justice Department finally came out with some statistics on the use of the Patriot Act. Section 215 has only been used to obtain driver's license records, public accommodations records, apartment-leasing records, credit card records, and subscriber information maintained by telephone companies or Internet providers. The department has not obtained a section 215 order for library or bookstore records, medical records, or gun sale records. The Feds used the delayed notification type warrant (Sec. 213) only 108 times from Oct. 2001 to April 2003. These warrants are issued only after showing to a judge that there is probable cause that a violation is occuring. These type of warrants, where entry is made without the knowledge of the owner or custodian of the property, are used in terrorist invesigations, suspected espionage, and any federal felony or misdemeanor case. To me, a former Federal agent, the use of these warrants in the case of misdemeanors (not connected with terrorism, espionage, or national security) seems possibly to be going too far. The Congress may trim this use of delayed warrants in some, if not all, misdemeanor cases. But rather than do a knee-jerk reaction, the Congress ought to know if these warrants have been used in misdemeanor cases, and if so what the specific circumstances were. Bobby Kennedy was once quoted as saying that to get at the Mafia, they should be arrested for "spitting on the sidewalk." So, if all that a suspected terrorist is suspected of doing involves only a misdemeanor offense, most Americans would want whatever legal investigative methods to be used - including "delayed-notice warrant searches." Howard Kurtz, writing in the Washington Post for Mar. 29, commented at length about the liberal bias among college faculties. College faculties, long assumed to be a liberal bastion, lean further to the left than even the most conspiratorial conservatives might have imagined, a new study says. Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University, is a co-author of the study. By their own description, 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. The disparity is even more pronounced at the most elite schools, where, according to the study, 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative. The most liberal faculties are those devoted to the humanities (81 percent) and social sciences (75 percent), according to the study. But liberals outnumbered conservatives even among engineering faculty (51 percent to 19 percent) and business faculty (49 percent to 39 percent). The most left-leaning departments are English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative. With all the hot air being expended on reforming Social Security, a letter writer to the Wall Street Journal (Jan. 26, 2005) points out a glaring error in the way the fund's growth rate is calculated: Los Angeles In an earlier Outback, I stated that trying to uninstall Norton Internet Security had made a shambles of several of my computers. I finally retrieved the last one from my grandkids and substituted a newer computer I built - with Zone Alarm and EZ Antivirus installed. The protection also includes Microsoft Antispyware Beta, AdAware SE, and Spybot Search & Destroy. The one I brought home is so badly corrupted from trying to uninstall Norton NIS 2004 and install Norton NIS 2005, that I am going to Format the disk and install a clean version of Windows XP Home - and start over. I am now a "Norton-Free Zone." What a relief. If you are like most people, you use only about 15 % of the capabilities of your software programs. I have always marveled at the exact reproductions you get with the free Adobe Reader. In version 7.0, I started paying more attention and discovered some tools that were either new or I had overlooked. For example, there is a camera icon on the toolbar which is the "Snapshot Tool." You can cut and paste a graphic to the clipboard, cut and paste text and tables, or cut and paste the entire page you are viewing. To select specific areas, you drag a box to enclose what you want, just like in all graphics programs. There is also a "Select" tool to highlight text or graphics and use the Cut and Paste icons or use Ctrl-C to copy and Ctrl-V to paste into another document. The Help topic for Copying Text is worth reading, as many variations are discussed. If you use Firefox as your browser, and you seldom download files from the Internet, there is a box you might uncheck to prevent unwanted programs from being downloaded to your computer. Under Tools/Options/Web Features, uncheck the box for "allow web sites to install software." If you need to download something, it takes only seconds to recheck the box to allow downloads. In IE6, you can do the same thing, but you have to dig a little deeper in Tools/Internet Options/Security and be using Custom Level for security - and then find Downloads/File Download and check Disable. That is probably too much trouble if you even occasionally want to download a file. Why not use Firefox in the first place? If you have not heard, Mozilla.org is no longer going to work on upgrades to Netscape, but will concentrate on Firefox.
In the Firefox browser, under Tools, Extensions, you will find a way to browse through scores of free "add ons" to Firefox ("Get more Extensions"). This is all very nice, but as a parnoid computer user, I want to limit as much as possible anything that is not part of the Firefox code itself. But ... there is one Extension I would recommend. It is "IEVIEW 0.86," which allows you to right-click on a Firefox page and open the same page in IE6. This is handy for sites that use IE6-specific code. In my case, I use a Web Accelerator on Firefox (not an add-on, but a function provided by my ISP). My setting makes graphics very blurry. So, when I need to see or cut and paste a full-resolution graphic, I right-click and click on "View This Page in IE." With IE6, I either do not use the Web Accelerator, or if it is turned on there is a right-click capabilty to render a single graphic or all graphics in full resolution. Eventually, my Web accelerator will get up to speed and allow a right-click in Firefox to view graphics in full resolution, which requires a page reload - and on a dialup connection a sometime long wait. On some pages in Firefox, I do not allow any graphics to be loaded. There is a right-click choice that says "block images from" and then gives the URL of the page you are viewing. The images are permanently blocked unless you undo the command. One local site has a graphic with every story (www.ntxe-news.com). Now, all I get are blank windows and a very rapid load. Maybe they will read this and wise up. Or, in Firefox, under Options/ Web Features, you can uncheck "Load Images" and do away with all downloaded images. This last desperate measure will cause you problems, I am sure. Experiment and you will find a pattern that fits your needs. If you are given a choice of Propel or Slipstream Web accelerator, my vote goes to Slipstream, for a variety of reasons. I tested both on behalf of the owner of my ISP. We both agreed Slipstream was the way to go and that is what he provided. My Slipstream stats show from 6-9 times increase in browsing speed. Part of that is because I visit the same news sites everyday for about an hour. They are all most likely cached on Slipstream's servers, and I have chosen to accept max speed over the quality of the graphics (which are then greatly compressed). For example, Yahoo news pages and the Wall Street Journal snap into place almost like I was on DSL. Free Credit Reports Phasing InIn the Outback for Sept. 3, 2004, I documented the problems I had obtaining credit reports from the three major credit-reporting agencies - and I was paying the regular price, not trying to work an exception. Now, free credit reports are available to everyone, not just identity-theft victims. The free reports are already available in some parts of the country. They will be available for residents of Texas and the rest of the South on June 1, 2005, and in the East and in Puerto Rico and all U.S. territories starting on September 1, 2005. The free reports were mandated in a recent amendment to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Each person is entitled to one report from each of the three major credit-reporting agencies in each 12-month period. You may order all three at once, or take them one at a time spread out over the one-year period. I plan on ordering all three at one time, since I found several disagreements, and/or failure of reporting, among the various reports last time. The next year, I might opt for taking one report every four months from each agency in turn. A lot can happen to your credit history in a year. The three reports cover the same basic ground, so spacing them out would give you three chances a year to see if there was anything unusual going on with your credit history. There is no longer a need (certainly after Sept. 1, 2005) to be drawn to Web sites or ads on the Internet that tell you that you can get "free credit reports." There are only THREE ways to get the legitimate free mandated reports. One, log on to: www.annualcreditreport.com and apply online. Two, call 877-322-8228. Three, fill out the form "Annual Credit Request Form," which is available in .PDF form at www.ftc.gov/credit - and at www.annualcreditreport.com. The online request should generate a rapid response (nearly immediate?), but my guess is that you will have to be prepared to answer a number of questions to authenticate yourself. To answer some of those questions you may have to refer to financial files, loan applications, and credit-card information, for example. In my previous online experience, it was a nightmare trying to find all the answers, and I had to return to the site several times to complete my request for a three-agency report. A phone request will take about 15 days to process, and you will no doubt be asked similar authentication questions as with the online request. You could not pay me to try this on the phone again. I am put more and more trust in computers and online ordering than on voice contact on the phone. The printed form asks only for your name, Social Security number, date of birth, current address, and previous address if you have lived at your current address for less than two years. You check if you want one, or two, or all three reports at one time - by name. You can also elect to have your reports show only the last four digits of your Social Security number. That might be helpful if your reports got lost or stolen from the mail. I would opt for the short SS number. The printed form says that the request will be processed within 15 days and mailed to you. If they need more information, the request will come by mail, NOT by e-mail. I have my form printed and am waiting to post it on June 1, 2005. Ironically, today it is probably safer to send you Social Security number over an encrypted Internet link than to put it on a document sent through the U.S. mail. And programs like Zone Alarm Pro and others can be set up to notify you if your SS number, or any sensitive information, is about to be sent from your computer over the Internet. The three reporting agencies are: Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. When I bought my 3-agency reports, I also subscribed to a weekly e-mail alert that lets me know if there has been any change in my credit account info - or if anyone has asked to be provided with a copy of my credit history. It was quite inexpensive, and I will renew it, if it is still available when my one-year contract expires. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a very good summary of information and links concerning the free credit reports at: www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/credit/ycr_free_reports.htm or, if you like to hunt for things, try: www.ftc.gov/credit. 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 |