Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Article: "Cuban official says Obama lied in Copenhagen."

The link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091221/D9CO04700.html

Before I post any of the article and dissect it, remember this: This is a Cuban official who said these things. And, with Cuban's stance towards the United States you'd expect some blustering. Having said that ... read on.

" HAVANA (AP) - Cuba's foreign minister called President Barack Obama an "imperial and arrogant" liar Monday for his conduct at the U.N. climate conference, a reflection of the communist island's increasingly fiery verbal attacks on the U.S. government.

" Bruno Rodriguez spent an hour and a half lambasting Obama's behavior in Copenhagen, telling a news conference, "at this summit, there was only imperial, arrogant Obama, who does not listen, who imposes his positions and even threatens developing countries."

" He called the summit "a fallacy, a farce" and said Washington used back-room deals and strong-arm tactics to foist on the world a deal that he labeled "undemocratic" and "suicidal" because it urges - but does not require - major polluters to make deeper emissions cuts. "

There it is, in its entirety and without any emphasis or anything else added. Now it's time to distill some things down.

Mr Rodriguez sais that Mr Obama does not listen, he imposes his positions and threatens developing countries. Again, this is a Cuban official saying these things. But haven't we seen this right here in the United States?

"Don't think we're not keeping score, brother." (*1) Isn't that what the Obamessiah said recently to Rep. Peter DeFazio?

How many other people have called Mr Obama "arrogant?" Do a Google search for "arrogant AND Obama" and then stand back. Far back.

" Votes are being bought left and right to pass this health care reform bill that evolved into something that almost nobody in the left or right, not to mention the majority of the people, want but that Harry Reid is ramming down everybody’s throats for no reason other than to massage the ego of the arrogant Obama. " (*3)

But as another Wikipedia Editor told us recently "Google hits don't get us anywhere" (and then promptly used Google hits to bolster his/her own view), let's also consider this: Mr Rodriguez also said that Washington had used "back-room deals" and "strong-arm tactics." Again, this is a Cuban official.

But then there's this: " As polls have consistently shown, the more Americans learn about Democratic plans for health care, the more the opposition grows. Mr. Reid appreciates this dynamic, which is why he wrote his bill behind closed doors, when only Santa could have any real idea of who's earning a place on the naughty list. " (emphasis added.) Time for that full disclosure thing - the writer is talking about Mr Reid. But Mr Reid follows in the Obamessiah's footsteps.

There's also this: " President Barack Obama campaigned on health care reform, among other things, and he’s set one deadline after another to accomplish this. The Congress has so far failed to respond to his demands, despite strong Democrat majorities in both Houses. So, it’s time to pass something — anything. " (*4 (Emphasis and colour added))

His 'demands,' folks. Not requests, not suggestions: demands. Is this the 'change' you voted for? 'Change' for the sake of change?

We did try to warn you.

(*1) - http://thehill.com/homenews/house/72889-pelosi-rahm-do-not-scare-rep-defazio
(*2) - http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704304504574610512331342976.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular
(*3) - http://www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_355233643.html
(*4) - http://www.bdtonline.com/columns/local_story_355174119.html

Obama's PAI Score: -21


(Image Copyright and Courtesy of rasmussenreports.com. Used with permission.)
This honestly looks like a winter wind chill reading, doesn't it? -21. "Winds today will be easterly between 15 and 20 mph, giving wind chill readings as low as 20 to 22 below zero."
Yet this number, -21 (twenty-one below zero) is the President's PAI (Presidential Approval Index) Score. You'll remember that this number "...is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve." (*1)
25% - Strongly APPROVE
46% - Strongly DISAPPROVE
Perhaps most damming for Mr Obama and his policies are the number of African-Americans who now strongly approve of his job as President. That number is at 58%; one of its lowest readings yet, if not the lowest. You'll remember that it was only a few short months ago that this number was in the mid eighties (80+%.)
" For the second straight day, the update shows the highest level of Strong Disapproval yet recorded for this President. That negative rating had never topped 42% before yesterday. However, it has risen dramatically since the Senate found 60 votes to move forward with the proposed health care reform legislation. Most voters (55%) oppose the health care legislation and senior citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan. " (*1 (Link is Rasmussenreports.com's and is left intact (Emphasis added)))
Let's distill that down into two facts that the Democrats and this President are ignoring:
1) The President's approval numbers have taken a nose-dive since the Democrats bought (there's no other way to say this, they literally bought that last vote) got the votes for ObamaCare. And,
2) Senior Citizens are even more likely than younger voters to dislike the plan.
AARP, are you listening yet?

Monday, December 21, 2009

Obama's PAI Score: -17


(Image Courtesy and Copyright by rasmussenreports.com. Used with permission.)

That's actually quite telling ... and damming. For reference, Mr Obama's PAI score has been in negative territory since 30-JUN-09 (or 06/30/09.)

This, however, marks the lowest it's ever been. Oops

For further reference, he's been in the double-digits since 15-NOV-09 (11/15/09.) For that ONE DAY it was at -9.

You can see the trend (history) for yourself at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/obama_approval_index_history

Mr Osama (er...OBAMA) you've come the WRONG way.

No, That's NOT Me

For the record, I do not have:

1) A New York Post account ('gregb1967' posts there, but that is NOT me)

2) A Twitter account (Somebody named 'gregb1967' is there, but again, that is not me (And as an aside, I'm tired of hearing/reading about Twitter and Tweets. Ewwww....))

3) A Facebook account

4) A Myspace account (several different people have tried to get me to set one up, they've all been told 'no' and the reasoning behind it.)

5) A Sportingnews account

6) A linkedin account

7) Or any other social networking site account.

I DO have:

1) A Wikipedia account (but not on this name)

2) An account at michellemalkin.com (again, not on this name)

3) An account with homelandsecurityus.com (and again, not on this name.)

So when you see that 'gregb1967' says something ... be sure it's me. If it's not at gregb1967.blogspot.com, you've got the wrong one.

Friday, December 4, 2009

When does "UNINSTALL" NOT mean "UNINSTALL?"

Catchy question, eh? Not really? You're probably right. After all, there are plenty of other catchy things in the news right now, such as the MSM's refusal (save the New York Times) to cover the growing Climate-Gate scandal. I'll write about it soon, I promise. But for now...

When does UNINSTALL NOT mean UNINSTALL?

Sometimes, when you select "UNINSTALL" the program(s) being uninstalled will leave parts of itself (themselves) behind:

* registry entries
* installation folder (Main folder)
* auxillary folders (Game or data folders)

Given the complexity of today's programs, this could easily be expected. Plus, today's hard drives are gargantuan in size given yesterday's models, so programmers might not feel too badly in leaving small bits behind. But let's select one for the dubious distinction of NOT being able to UNINSTALL itself.

Star Wars Galaxies.

Last month, I cancelled my subscription to Star Wars Galaxies. Why? There are several reasons for this, none of which are important to the subject at hand - that is, the program's being unable to UNINSTALL itself. Since they bill one month in advance, the unsubscribe actually took effect today. So, today; when I tried to sign in, I was correctly told that I did not have a valid subscription. This is all well and good, and operated exactly as expected.

I selected the compete uninstall option from the options in Add/Remove Programs. Now to you and I perhaps, "complete" means "complete." Just to be certain, however, I went to dictionary.com for a definition of "complete."

1. having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full: a complete set of Mark Twain's writings. (This is exactly as it appears on their definition.) (*)

4. thorough; entire; total; undivided, uncompromised, or unmodified: a complete victory; a complete mess. (This is exactly as it appears on their definition.) (*)

The key points of this are, to me, "having all parts or elements; lacking nothing; whole; entire; full; thorough; total; and unmodified." To me, this means, the entire thing should have been uninstalled.

Alas, "complete" does not mean "complete" over at Sony Online Entertainment (SOE, the folks that publish Star Wars Galaxies.)

During the installation of the game, I had selected the installation drive as Drive D, the second physical hard disk on this computer. (I actually have a Western Digital USB drive that I sometimes use, but this is a detachable drive, so it was not used at the installation drive.)

The game installed itself into the Program Files folder on D. "D:\Program Files\StarWarsGalaxies) And, over the years of playing the game, it grew to a size of 6.35G, or, 6,821,743,799 bytes.

Today, I selected the "complete" uninstall option. Again, to you and I perhaps, this should have taken the "complete" folder with it.

But this is SOE that we're talking about.

SIZE BEFORE "complete" uninstall: 6,821,743,799
SIZE AFTER "complete" uninstall: 6,127,948,560.

::blink:: In dividing that out, we learn that the "complete" UNINSTALL left 89.8301% of itself behind.

Oops. Yes, it removed the entry in the Start Menu, but it somehow also missed the entry that had been pinned to the Start Menu.

But there's more.

Do you remember my telling you that I had specifically requested during installation that all files be installed onto drive D, the second physical hard drive? Again, to you and I perhaps, that means that everything should have been installed onto drive D.

But, again, this is SOE we're talking about.

Specifically, C:\Program Files\Sony\Station\LaunchPad.

Size BEFORE UNINSTALL: 15,625,583 bytes or 15.8G
Size AFTER UNINSTALL: same.

That's right, folks. Not only should it not have installed itself onto drive C, but it magically left every bit of itself behind.

To be honest here there are several different games that SOE publishes, all of which use LaunchPad to launch (start) the games. So in this regard perhaps, it's understandable that it should leave itself behind, and only remove the SWG portion of itself.

But, frankly, I would have expected itself to know that there were no other SOE games installed, and for it to have given me the opportunity to uninstall it. It did neither.

Nor does it show up under Add/Remove Programs. (Time for that full disclosure thing; if you manually install LaunchPad after installing SWG it will show up under Add/Remove Programs. However, during this install, I simply installed SWG only, which itself installed LaunchPad. And onto the wrong disk to boot.)

To make matters worse, it uninstalled not one single byte.

Oops.

(*) - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complete

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

I WON AGAIN!! - erm ... no, not really

But to believe the email I'd just gotten (again!) I won yet (another!) trip to Universal Studios.

It was signed this time by "Tim Monroe, Travel Getaways, Inc."

You should recognize "Travel Getaways, Inc." as being the same "company" that "Sue Madden" was from. It came from monroetravelinc.com, more on that in a moment.

But believe it or not, but they didn't use GoDaddy.com this time. I was shocked. I checked it twice - still not GoDaddy.com. Perhaps they learned?

Remember: WHOIS is your friend.

WHOIS information for monroetravelinc.com :[Querying whois.internic.net]
[Redirected to whois.netfirms.com]
[Querying whois.netfirms.com]
[whois.netfirms.com]
Registrant:
Domain Privacy Group, Inc.
c/o monroetravelinc.com,
7030 Woodbine Ave. Suite 800
Markham, ON L3R 6G2
CA

Domain name: monroetravelinc.com

Administrative Contact:
Domain Privacy Group, Inc. privacy-619635@domainprivacygroup.com
c/o monroetravelinc.com,
7030 Woodbine Ave. Suite 800
Markham, ON L3R 6G2
CA
Fax:

Technical Contact:
Domain Privacy Group, Inc. privacy-619635@domainprivacygroup.com
c/o monroetravelinc.com,
7030 Woodbine Ave. Suite 800
Markham, ON L3R 6G2
CA
Fax:

Registrar of Record: Netfirms Inc.
Record expires on 2010-11-21.
Record created on 2009-11-21.
Database last updated on 2009-12-01 06:54:31.

NOTICE the "record expires" and "record created" fields.

Created: 11/21/2009
Expires: 11/21/2010

This is a sure sign of a fly-by-nite corporation ... or a spammer.

This time our friend went through "Domain Privacy Group" which means that using such a company as the registrant means you don't put in your 'real' contact information.

Seems like "Pete Greenwood" finally grew a brain. But it won't help him. His shiney new site just got axed.

And I'm not sorry about it.