Middle America's Worldview

I am sharing this full story for STOP THE ACLU.

Seems Washington Post is after the Free Republic.com.


"The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years."

Here is the hit piece at Washington Post.

I know I whined in the past, but when you plug 10 bucks in the tank and get less than 3 gallons, it's disappointing.

We are the cheapest in the U.S., so I am told.

A bad glare, but that is 10.04 for 2.602 gallons.

Linked-IN has to be one of the more interesting sites, I have come across. The idea is basically to put up your job experience, but more importantly to link to other professionals you had dealings with.



When your searching around, the site also shows 3 things on the side. The picture above is a snapshot of a random individual. It shows 2 to indicate she is a 2nd degree contact to me, 1 recommendation, and has 35 contacts in her profile.

The site also provides a easy way to ask others to join your 'network'. You do have to choose a means of association. Whether that be a prior company, collegue ect.

I always had heard everyone is 7 degrees of connection, but this particular site is proving it.

If your a part of Linkedin, fire me a comment.

I had already returned the Netflix movies yesterday.

I plan to mow the yard today (if it doesn't start raining again).

I continue to enjoy the new location of my desk. I feel like I have more privacy. The office was right by the front door. So I would basically hear all the action. In the back of the house, it's rather quite. Next is just figuring out a means to move my office phone. I may purchase a new personal phone for that.

Regarding work, we had another meeting yesterday. Clarification was brought in on the new cellphone policy, telecommunication and remote policy. Sigh. I guess we will see what else falls from the shaking tree.

My wife's birthday is in 7 days. I have already made arrangments, ect as of Monday. However, there is still alot to do before next Thursday.

So the plans for today:
On the personal side.
Continue to clean the house.
Mow the yard.
Make some personal phone calls.

On the work side.
I have 4 conference calls already scheduled.
Continue on my 15 projects.
Give a webex on the new change order forms.


Doesn't sound like much, but yesterday I had only 2 conference calls. Yet, each one was over an hour and half long. Pretty much kills your day.

The 3 initial Netflix movies arrived Tuesday. Kel noticed they were sent out from Oklahoma City. I was impressed how quick they arrived.

It was a bum day yesterday at work. Busy, alot of changes at the corporate office, and the morale seems to be way down up there. I head up there in August. Seems information isn't flowing up there, any better than to the remotes. Everyone is keeping their head down and doing their own work.

I will be submitting my work phone back to corporate this month. A new policy for all cell phones, ect. was put in place. Everyone that has, had a work phone, will need to either put that number in their own name, or use their personal one. We get a monthly stipend to assist in our phone usage. I had the work phone for nearly 5 years. However, I knew it was going to this, hence my recent purchase of a blackjack 2.

Yeah, it will kindof be a downer to have my electronic dog collar on all the times, but realistically, corporate had all my numbers anyway.

On another scale, I moved my office desk last night. Having the kids growing up fast, we decided to change the office to a homeschool room. It was way past time to do this move. I moved my desk to another location, which will be a nice change for me, and the kids will have a dedicated educational spot. We are all excited about it.

Regarding work in itself, I read an interesting article called No way to be a programmer expert. It touched base on the fact, we now live in such a fast pace world, with technology changing too fast to keep up. There is simply no way, one individual can be an expert on any given programming language. Rather, the programmer is required to be knowledgable and capable of learning many small bits of many languages. I am finding the same thing at work. We are at a point now, where, yes it's good to be an expert in one particular area. However, the worker needs to be good at 're-learning', as the company changes and moves in different directions.

My only statement is, "I don't really care what direction the company moves toward, just train me to allow me to keep my job."

I have been enjoying one of my gifts from this weekend. A 3 month unlimited Netflix account. I can have up to 3 dvd's at one time. I opened the account Saturday and began strolling the huge database of availible movies/tv shows/documentaries Netflix provides. Not only am I really impressed with the massive amount of choice, but there are quite a pick from their "watch now" shows.

I have been digging MI-5 as of last night. The one question Kel had was, can you choose dvd's not released yet, or find those true new releases. Seem's you can. The love of the internet is, chances are someones already found it or created it for online.

I found a posting from a search on Netflix hacks showing all new releases. Here is the link.

Choosing movies couldn't be easier. Netflix has what they call "Your Queue", which allows you to choose an unknown number of desired dvd's. For me, they fire out the top 3 availible on the list. I can continue to build my queue, and then move my more desired dvd's to the top of the stack.

Not only that, but they also have the 'watch now' queue, where I can create a list of those as well. No need to push them to the top. Simply hit play when I am ready to view. The kids already watched Kangaroo Jack on the PC. I so far seen a Ben and Teller, and 4 episodes of MI-5.

Interesting enough someone already found a means to copy the 'watch now' videos. I read it, but it sure seems alot of work to me. The link is found here.

Next, I am looking to see if it would be feasible to keep Netflix, if I continue to use it to its full potential. I am also looking to crop down the cable, removing those higher channels we really don't watch. Maybe it will work out to being the same rate. (I doubt it though).

The only other thing I can think of is having a PC to TV cable to view/listen to the streaming movies on my living room TV. Yeah, that would be cool.

The big drawback I can currently see is Netflix is a big diversion. You find yourself spending alot of time, simply looking for stuff to watch. Personally, I am interested in those titles, not availible in my area.

We should be getting our first 3 dvd's in today. The queue tells you when your items are shipped and expected time of arrival.

I may post a followup as I learn more about it.

So a Clinton-Obama ticket this year?
Now that Obama looks to be the Democrat candidatefor this years presidential race.

Gee, I thought this would occur around January, sigh. I guess it was fodder for the news outlets.

Maybe now we will learn more of Obama on his stances, like anti or prowar, ect. I would like to learn more from him, rather than these preachers everyone is flocking too.

Recently, a new video emerged showing Obama is anti-Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Ali Abunimah, I wanted to ask you about the candidates in the United States. You’re speaking to us from Chicago, so let’s start with Barack Obama. The stances of the presidential Democratic and Republican candidates on the Israel-Palestine conflict. I can’t remember when in a debate they were asked about the mounting crisis there.

ALI ABUNIMAH: I don’t know if they’ve been asked in a debate, but whenever they have been asked, they have all gone out of their way to express full support for what Israel is doing. Barack Obama is not distinguished from the rest of the pack, except by for how far he has moved to try to appease AIPAC and pro-Israel movements.

I remember, Amy—I knew Barack Obama for many years as my state senator—when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community in Chicago all the time.

I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. And that’s just one example of how Barack Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation. And just yesterday, he apparently sent a letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador at the UN, to urge the US not to allow any resolution to pass criticizing Israel and saying how Israel was forced to impose this barbaric medieval siege on Israel.

None of the other candidates in the mainstream have spoken out for Palestinian rights. The only ones who have taken forceful positions opposing the current US strategy are Dennis Kucinich on the Democratic side and Ron Paul on the Republican side. The mainstream are all perfectly comfortable with the war crimes that Israel is committing, no matter how much they talk about human rights elsewhere.