Merry Christmas Everyone

I hope everyone can spend the day with family and/or Loved ones. Peace on Earth. Good will toward all.

Enjoy these lovely Celtic Ladies singing some awesome Christmas carols.

Oh Holy Night

Celtic Women with the sound of angels in their voices.

The Odessy begins (Digital Stom Online)

The following is a fanciful log of the process to order my Digital Storm computer, something to entertain the Forum members and myself while I waited for this custom computer beast to be assembled. This process took quite a while as it was to utilize a brand new never sold before Liquid Chilled cooling system for the CPU which allowed the system to Overclock to 4.6GHz while maintaining very cool hardware temperatures to prevent thermal degradation.

These are the Continuing logs of the MagiK expedition into the uncharted realms of the DSO TEC Liquid Chilled Computer Systems.




11/16 Day 1 Great news, the expedition is fully funded and paid for, Stage 1

11/17 Day 2 The expedition mad eit through the first two stages and into the third today. Everyone is excited. All indications are that we might achieve our goal by the beginning of December. Stage 3

11/23 Day 7 Spirits are high and excitement is still running through the camp though in the background a very minor whisper of delays are in effect....we are still in the early phases of Stage 3.

11/30 Day 14 The excitement has worn off, though the expedition is still in good spirits. One expects some minor delays when venturing into the uncharted realms of super cooled liquid cooling systems. No contact has been received from the Builders of the new system, Expedition is still listed as being in the early phases of stage 3.

12/8 Day 22 The excitement and buzz is pretty much gone now, the crew is still looking forward to the expedition, but it has become routine now. A few members murmur of the possibility of not making the Christmas Deadline but I the captain remain hopeful that DSO will deliver the goods before 12/24. The expedition is still listed as being in the early phases of Stage 3.

12/15 Day 29 Oh my god, they killed Timmy!!!!! The bastards! In the middle of the night the camp was raided by Digital Stealth Ninja Penguins....the carnage was indescribable...they stormed in and went straight for poor Timmy, Timmys pet Collie came to me and told me Timmy had fallen down a well, but by the time I realized what was really going on the the DSNP had dragged Timmy out of camp to feed . No biggie though no one really liked Timmy anyway not even his dog, which explains why the dog was telling me he had fallen down a well.....any way I digress. Timmy's lack of popularity explains why the Penguins were not molested in any way in their forray into camp. On other Expedition news fronts. No reported movement on the Stage 3 issue.....we are still officially stuck waiting for stage 4 to be implemented. There were some changes to my configuration suggested to DSO that were made to prevent more delays and I received assurances that this expedition would see fruition by Christmas day.

12/17 Day 31 During a routine air drop of supplies, a pair of the Ditial Stealth Nija Attack Penguins launched a third penguin into the low flying planes engine intake...while the spray out the back of the engine was very pretty a nice shade of crimson spread agross the snow below, this caused the Digital Storm Supply plane to crash...on the up side we found a bit of paper stuck to the fusalage near the sewage port of the plane.....Apparnetly our Expedition has reached STAGE 4!

12/20 Day 34 Snow and Ice, arctic temperatures and persistant raids by savage wild penguins has really bogged the crew down. Our supply tent was stolen by a rare giant Antarctic Polar bear, we last
saw it being hauled away by two Killer whales that the Giant Polar Bear had harnesed and was using like
self powered water ski's. There have been rumors that the Expeditions water supply may have been contaminated with hallucinogens but I find these rumors highly unlikely. This evenings sing alog was topped off by a broadcast from the DSO home office. The Expedition has reached Stage 5.

12/22 Day 36: Freak blizzards and massive snow storms have struck our supply line, All hopes of resupply by 12/24 had been scuttled. Crew and assorted attack Penguins are engaged in skirmishes
around the camp, Flames everywhere, it appears the expedition is sunk.....but wait....a brilliant light has
pierced the snow filled winds, and is driving back the attack penguins....what is going on.....A white robed
figure riding a white horse appeared and has parted the clouds with his shimmering staff, the suns rays come down and bathe the crew in warmth and send the attack penguins running in fear. The rider looks around, nods to himself and then rides off....I see a name tag on his back, it reads "Alex" As he is about to disappear he gestures and I hear is voice in my ear as if he were standing right next to me. He said
"We will over night it at our expense tomorrow, for you are at STAGE 7!!!"


I have to comment that the cost of overnighting this huge thing is no trivial cost it is many hundreds of dollars. But it is the dedication of the DSO team that they want to keep their word that this system makes it to me by 12/24/10

A new Venture...an Expedition you might say

A large part of my life and my total income are derived from sitting at a desk working on a cheap company laptop. I decided some time ago that if such a large part of my time and the earning of my income is to come from a computer I was going to have the best for a change. So I undertook a years long research project to identify the Company I wanted to put my hard earned cash into, to make my "dream" machine.

Any computer is just a part of the equation, the ergonomics of the environment have a large impact as well. The desk must be spacious, the lighting good, the room spacious and most important of all, the CHAIR must be of the best quality. Fortunately for me My other half gave me the greatest gift ever, a top end Herman Miller Aeron office chair for my Birthday some time ago...this chair is fabulous and I can't thank her enough for it. My butt has to be in this thing up to 1/3 of my time or more every week. I cannot imagine a better computer/office chair.

Over the last couple of years I investigated any number of designer computer companies, each having its own special niche. For some it was custom paint jobs, some had custom crafting in the chassis, some used proprietary parts and methods.
Eventually I settled on Digital Storm Online as the company that would be getting up to $10,000 of my cold hard cash. I chose Digital Storm Online for several reasons. They had the usual assortment of High End equipment available for their builds and they have a wide array of choices available to choose from on the web site. More importantly than the "usual" things they offered, I found a fun community there on the company forums with a number of new and long time advocates of the Hobbyist and Computer Enthusiast. Names like !ender, Dragoonseal, DST4ME, Justin.Kerr and Venom and many others are constantly there to help new buyers navigate the traps and pitfalls encountered when undertaking to make a cost effective best bang per buck system. The thing that struck me about these forum members was that they did not care if they were advancing Digital Storm's agenda if they thought a mistake was being made they spoke up and DSO listened to them (more on that later). The large population of first time buyers and repeat buyers with this steady crew of knowledgeable people helps DSO give their customers the best chance of being totally satisfied with their final purchase decision.

One suggestion I would make that is of some serious consequence is that the forum lacks a private message function that would allow people to settle their differences of opinion in private, as it is set up now the various egos involved in a difference of opinion are forced to hash it out in public sometimes derailing the Original Posters request for information.

To sum it up, Digital Storm's reputation with the BBB, and the comments from past customers and DSO's beyond peer dedication to customer service and the dedicated band of people on the forums is why I chose DSO for my experiment into HIGH end custom computer purchasing.

In coming posts I will include pictures and some of the inside story about my quest to get my dream machine.

Happens every time

Every time they hold one of these global climate summits the area the meeting takes place in experiences record low temperatures.....quite a coincidence :D

Cancun 100 year low temp.


Seriously people, Man does not drive the climate, never has and probably never will be able to.

Giving Thanks

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Im not going to make a long post detailing my reasons for giving thanks.
Im just going to go enjoy the company of friends and family and hope everyone else gets to do the same.

I just keep coming back to this.

I love this song:

The man, and his Administration

Have absolutely no respect for our honored dead. They disgrace the memory of the Dead at ground Zero by supporting the building of a monument to the attackers and their supporters.

And now they halt the prosecution of one of the men responsible for the deaths of the Men on the USS Cole. You can read about this corrupt soulless governments actions here.

Luddites at the Washington Post

Are calling for us to ban Air Conditioning for private everyday use.
Citing a range of dubious facts and speculating that 50 years ago we didn't need it and got along just fine. There are many reasons why I think this guy is a moron, but hey, if DC bans AC more power to them. Just another reason Not to live in the Socialist center of the USA.

I'll keep my central air and enjoy the perks of living in the land of the free and home of those who realize you don't have any reason to live in the Stone Age.

Story is here:

Never thought I would ever link to the Daily KOS

But this article on the 2nd Amendment seem to prove that someone over there actually "GETS" it.
Normally I would nitpick that Liberals do not support the Constitution and tend to want to ignore it, but for the sake of this article Ill skip that discussion and leave it for another day.

Article on why Liberals should love the second amendment.

The great Chicago Shoot Out

8 Dead out of 52 shot in Chicago

Soooo how are those Zero Tolerance no Guns Allowed laws working out for you?

Russia...the New Capitalists

“Russia needs a real investment boom”, in order to achieve its modernisation goals, he said. To stimulate that, Mr Medvedev announced Moscow would introduce zero taxation on capital gains for companies working on long-term investments starting from January next year and said Russia was improving the legal system to provide better protection for businesses against the long arm of bureaucracy.

He added Russia had already simplified migration procedures to help attract “highly-qualified specialists” working in investment and high-tech sectors into the country.

Responding to criticism that Russia’s approach to building an innovation economy was driven from the top down and state interference could hinder development, Mr Medvedev said the state would concentrate its efforts on fostering a good business climate. “No matter how many state-owned companies we have, modernization will happen, above all, through private business. And only if there is competition,” he said. “The state should not tear down the apples from the tree of economics. What the government should do is help grow our apple orchard, develop our economic environment.”

Seems to me that that sounds an awful lot like Capitalism...minimal government intrusion, zero capital gains taxes....cutting taxes to increase investment and spending...hmmm where have I heard that?

The article can be found here:

Everyone needs to read Home on the Range

Find her Brigid's writings here for the rest of this work:

The Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The phrase, penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and written 11 years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, is said to have been influenced by the writings of John Locke, who expressed a similar concept of life, liberty and estate (property) in his work.

What is a Right? It's a principal that defines and sanctions a man's freedom of action within a social framework. There are many rights, but the one true right is the right to life, not in the context of the right to be born, but a man's right to his own life.
What is liberty? Again, I think Jefferson was somewhat influenced by the words of John Locke, who said in The Second Treatise of Civil Government (1690) -

The natural liberty of man is to be free from
any superior power on earth, and not to be under
the will or legislative authority of man,
but to have only the law of nature for his rule...
freedom of men under government is, to have
a standing rule to live by, common to every one
of that society...
and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown,
arbitrary will of another man....

Life and liberty as integral parts to a whole. He goes on to say:

This freedom from absolute, arbitrary power,
is so necessary to, and closely joined with a man’s preservation,
that he cannot part with it,
but by what forfeits his preservation and life together:
for a man, not having the power of his own life,
cannot, by compact, or his own consent,
enslave himself to any one....

A very provocative article

What is wrong with the President? One Shrink takes a stab at the analysis here

Correction

Apparently my graph understates the problem....but you can hardly fault people for using the data the government provides.....I didnt expect them to lowball the estimates by an order of magnitude :P My bad, I should know by now, NEVER ever under any circumstances believe anything coming from Barry or his staff :/

Do not believe the hype and hysteria

Oil spills in perspective. (source was the Limbaugh Web site.)

Outraged? Livid? I don't have the words

New York has approved plans to build a Mosque on the site of the Twin Towers set to open on 9/11/2011 Im left speechless at this...this...atrocity. I mourn for our Nation.

Some things are just too important to be forgotten

I really believe that the source of many of our problems is that we have stopped teaching real history. Many elementary and High Schools don't teach history at all, and those that do only at a superficial level. Our elected leaders also seem woefully ignorant on the truths of our past, of our founding principals and of the lessons learned from bitter struggles, trial and error and the shedding of blood sweat and tears. Which is why I urge everyone to read this Lady's post
on the Wild West

Everyman a Rifleman

The mood struck me so Im writing about our civic duties. The founders of the United States all believed in a citizens duty to bear and use arms. Not just to hunt food, or target practice, but to ensure equality among all men, to protect and defend your own.

Somehow over the decades the idea that one should protect oneself has become contorted into a "You must retreat and give up your home and goods" not stand and protect your family and property and possibly kill evil doers. Somehow it has become evil, to stand against "The poor unfortunates" that wants to forcibly take your property and / or lives.

Some liberals argue the Founders didn't know that Weaponry would become automatic or semi-automatic and more lethal than that possessed in the 1770's. These people are ignoring the words that were spoken and written by the founders, they clearly wanted Men (and women) to be armed sufficiently to not only fend off the wild hoards of groundhogs and pheasents in this Nation, but even GOVERNMENT troops if the need should rise.

Arming oneself is a duty and an obligation. Anyone worthy of being called a Man or Woman should own and know how to use a firearm. Abdicating your safety and protection to a slow to react police force is unwise at Best. The police are there not to protect YOU in a dangerous situation, but to clean up the mess and protect those others who survive the immediate danger..to contain the threat from society at large.

It is our duty to own and know how to use the best arms available to us. It always has been, despite what the Hoplophobes, Hollywood sissies and Washington Weenies want us to think.
So lets all do our duty and go out there and buy more guns, lets go to the range and hone our skills. It is the least we should do to be real men and women and not little children for the nanny State to take care of.

Ok, Im left without a response.

So umm how does one have a rational discussion about Obama's Health Care law...when the opposing party insists "It is a good thing that the Democrats passed the 2700 page bill without reading it, it allows us to make progress." I mean...what can you say to insane irresponsibility like that? Im left with nothing to say but walk away and wonder if post birth abortion should be included in the Health Care bill....

Obama says "The People" support

His Health Care take over...the polls seem to indicate that at best he has significantly less than half of the peoples support.

CNN: 39 percent.

CBS News: 42 percent.

Rasmussen: 41 percent.

Fox News: 35 percent.

Economist/YouGov: 48 percent.

Kaiser/PSRA: 46 percent.

NBC/WSJ: 36 percent.

Pew Research Center: 38 percent.

Obama displays lack of class AGAIN

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at the White House, consult with advisers and “let me know if there is anything new”, a US congressman, who spoke to the Prime Minister, said.

The Source:

Administrations Banking Scandal

Obama is telling banks that they cannot foreclose on the jobless, and the banks are only too eager to comply...of course they are being strong armed but there's another little secret Banks are carrying hundreds of billions of dollars of debt declaring this debt "interest accruing asset". These "Assets" are homes that people are living in, and who have stopped paying their mortgage payments on. These people are spending the money that they should be paying on their mortgage on other things, some necessary some very frivelous like nice cars and plasma TV's. These people have no interest in or motivation to ever pay their mortgage and the Administration is OK with this because that money they are spending is artificially inflating the economic reports....once again our government is encouraging people and banks to rob Peter to pay Paul. Just as they are doing with health care, stealing from our childrens children to wrest control from the people to the ruling elite. The banks will never recover the money owed on those homes, and will eventually have to settle for pennies on the dollar. There is another crash coming and it is when these invented "Assets".

On a side note, Government Motors is SO confident in the value of their products that for the first time in my life it costs more to lease a Car than it does to finance and pay for it out right. You see a Lease is designed to allow you to pay only for the amount of use you get from the vehicle then turn it in and the company then resells it making even more profit.....unfortunately GM is not confident that they can turn a profit if they have to take back a leased vehicle.... Makes one understand why Government is the worst way to run a business.

Green Zone: Movie Review

My lovely other half scored us a pair of free passes to a pre-screening of this Mat Damon movie, I liked the Bourne movies so figured what the heck...even if it was 35 miles away.

Overall if you just payed attention to the action is was an ok movie, definitely worth the price we paid for it. However while Hollywood didnt go too far out of its way to make the Regular Army look too bad, the only people depicted with any real honor were a single soldier, an old CIA operative and a woman reporter. The rest of the army were depicted with various subtle acts of savage treatment of peaceful well meaning Iraqi civilians who were only trying to help....or innocently standing around. Special Forces members however are depicted as unthinking amoral assassins that did the bidding of a civilian political appointee.

In the end this movie takes a handful of real events then ties it all together with a complete work of fiction to promote the message that Bush lied and that WMD were never actually an issue. It also promoted the idea that no other reason was involved in the second Iraqi war.

The movie ignores the little details like the Kurds in Norther Iraq who had WMD Chemical weapons used on them in the 1990s, and the fact that it was generally accepted by most western powers that there were WMD in Iraq and that there were Other reasons to go to war AND that Democrats in congress authorized the war......pretty lopsided story really.

Summation: If you are a hardcore lefty, you will like this. If you are a conspiracy nut who believes GWB manufactured the whole WMD issue out of nothing, this is a movie for you. If on the other hand you think that our Military is basically honorable, and that Special Forces units are more than lap dog assassins that work for political flunkies then skip the movie.

There was plenty to dislike about the Bush Administration, Hollywood doesn't need to manufacture fake issues.

I don't understand

Why adult human beings would look to government to provide for them, instead of working to provide for themselves. They don't seem to realize just how much the Government takes away from them. This is by design though, it is why people are not taxed directly but instead have their wages garnished by stealth at the employer level before the worker ever sees what is being taken from them. Do away with the employer middle man as tax collector and instead, give the worker his whole earned due, and make him responsible for paying his own tax debt and the fondue would hit the fan then.

Americans of this time have grown fat and lazy and rather than take responsibility for their actions and their lack of prudent planning. No too many of them would rather empower a Nanny government to take care of them and to give up their rights to do so.

This is the kind of asshat politician that needs

drummed out of office, it is NOT their town hall for us, it is OUR town hall for him, we allow him to serve us, and he had better run his district the way his constituents tell him to. These butt heads have forgotten that they work for us, not the other way around.

My town hall?

These are the people who are supposed to....

Run Government Health Care, 2/3 of the US auto industry and the Banking system....

--More than 10,000 census employees were paid more than $300 apiece to attend training for the massive address-canvassing effort, but they quit or were let go before they could perform any work. Cost: $3 million.

--Another 5,000 employees collected $300 for the same training but worked a single day or less. Cost $1.5 million.

--Twenty-three temporary census employees were paid for car mileage at 55 cents a mile, even though the number of miles they reported driving per hour exceeded the number of hours they actually worked.

--Another 581 employees who spent the majority of their time driving instead of conducting field work also received full mileage reimbursements, which investigators called questionable.

From a soon to be released Audit of the Census Beaureau

Snow.

Well, we got pummeled, two and a half feet in the open, drifted to four and five feet around the house and fences. Not really a lot compared to some places but for Silver Spring Maryland, its huge!

Fortunately for me, we are always well stocked with provisions and can quietly rest at home for the next few days till we get dug out. So far none of the side streets or our street have even been looked at for clearing, so even if I was silly enough to try and shovel this off the drive, there would be no where to drive to.

Wisdom from the past

"A wise and frugal Government which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry ….and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned…" Thomas Jefferson

Honor,

Honor: 1. Honesty Fairness, or Integrity in one's beliefs and actions: A man of Honor
2: A source of credit or distinction: To be an honor to one's family

Not many people these days think of honor, integrity or character. In todays life it is too easy to just let your principles go, to flex and sway and not be held to inconvenient and rigid set of rules imposed by Honor, integrity of character.

Everyone seems to think they are honorable, and yet blithely go on their merry way, just doing whatever is easiest to get along. There are a myriad ways we compromise our honor....

Plotting together to embarrass, harass or inconvenience someone who has views we disagree with using the excuse that this person or that person "Deserves it" because they are annoying or pushy. When in point of fact, if one has honor, one does not sneak and connive and plot with excuses like "He/she" deserves it. Honor compels us to conduct ourselves honorably despite the circumstances. While we may fail to meet the challenge, if we make our best effort to follow through with honorable and dignified action our honor remains in tact.

Promising to do something, trivial or substantial brings forth our honor in other ways. If one promises to do things with no intent of following through, one is then a liar, if one promises to do a thing and fails in an honest effort, honor is intact but attempts to do better must be employed, or honor is lost. Making excuses that one did not follow through on one's promise because of action X, Y or Z by another party is disingenuous and is a loss of honor, because the acts of another have no bearing on your promise, unless it was stipulated in the promise.

Honor, is tied to one's word, and integrity and trust, when one diminishes one's honor, there can be no trust, even those who conspire against others will lose honor amongst themselves, as if they can dismiss their honor to plot together against another, what then is to prevent the one from plotting against his former conspirators?

Probably not as deep and profound as I wanted to get, but time limitations prevent me from being more clear.

(edited for grammar and punctuation)