Author Archive

Ashes Piling Up at Funeral Homes »

I’ve occasionally talked about my previous career working in the funeral service. Given that, any article about funeral homes tends to catch my eye, as did this AP report about unclaimed cremation ashes at funeral homes.

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The Price Paid for Power »

John McCain’s military service deserves the thanks and respect of the American people, especially given his time spent as a POW in Vietnam. However, the over-use of this status for political gain becomes laughable after a while. It seems to be used to explain everything. Problem is, according to George Bush and the Military Commisions Act voted for by McCain, the techniques used on McCain while a POW are merely, “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Who wouldda thunk it?

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Now How Does Dobson Handle This One »

It’s all that uncommon for me to, as my grandfather might say, let my mouth overload my ass. By that he meant saying things I’d regret later on. While I seem to have a knack for it, James Dobson seems to have perfected the art. To wit, his comments about John McCain from 2000.

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Justice Department Continues the Assault on Justice »

Most likely it will come as no surprise that the Bush Administration’s Justice Department continues it’s assault on freedom and the Constitution. According to a report in the Washington Post, the Justice Department is about to issue guidelines for starting FBI investigations that a number of U.S. Senators believe could lead to innocent Americans being spied upon by government agents or informants, “all without any basis for suspicion.”

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Was Fay a Fizzle? »

Tropical Storm Fay never quite made it to hurricane strength, but she has definitely dumped a lot of water on some parts of the state, and has caused some power outages and some severe flooding. She certainly gave forecasters a fit.

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Fay On The Way - 1 »

Tropical Storm Fay has crossed over Cuba, and is making the turn more toward the north, and heading toward Florida (most likely). I thought I’d give you an update on the storm and my preparations so far.

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Trading Places-The Karl Rove Wager »

Back in the early ’80s, a movie was released staring Dan Akroyd and Richard Prior called Trading Places. Two characters in the movie, Mortimer and Randolph Duke (played by Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) are wealthy commodity brokers who argue constantly over social issues, and enjoy a small wager from time to time. The $5 wager between the Mortimer brothers is that if they put the Pryor character into the right situation, he’ll rise to his new circumstances, and behave like a well-bread, educated wealthy person. On the flip side, if Winthrope has all the trappings of wealth and influence removed from him, he’ll quickly resort to a life of crime and scamming. In the end, the joke was on the Duke brothers, as Winthrope and Valentine came together to not only financial destroy the Dukes, but become rich themselves. I think Karl Rove made a similar bet some years back.

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The Will of God? »

Recently, my Sunday School class has been involved in a study of the “The Will of God.” We’re using a book by Leslie Weatherhead. I don’t find I’m in complete agreement with his definitions, but he does offer a comprehensive interpretation of The Will of God. It has led me to do some deeper thinking about words I’ve heard often. The concept has mostly dumfounded theologians, and I believe is primarily a construct of people looking for some kind of logic in illogical situations.

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John Edwards Blows It »

It seems that the tabloid National Enquirer has a knack for catching wandering politicians, and they’ve nabbed another now…my favorite recent presidential candidate, John Edwards. It appears that back in 2006 Edwards had an affair with Rielle Hunter, a lady hired to produce campaign films for the Edwards campaign.

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Upgrading to Office 2007? »

I seem to be doing lots of upgrading lately. I’ve been having an issue for some time now with my Outlook crashing several times each day, and often taking multiple attempts to restart it. In some cases, it will even break the connection to the pst file, and I’ll have to restart the computer. I’ve tried everything without success, so I’m now considering an upgrade to Office 2007.

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A Clean Upgrade to Deep Something »

If you visited Deep Something earlier this week, you might have gotten a message saying we were temporarily unavailable. I was performing an upgrade to a new version of the software. Normally, that’s not a huge task, but this time I wanted to get as clean a database and code base as possible. Over the years, a lot of additional tables for plugins and files and folders and options settings have been left behind. I wanted to get that cleaned out.

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Upcoming Administrative Council Meeting at Church »

I have previously published a resolution I intend to introduce at the next Administrative Council meeting at my church here in Tampa (Palma Ceia United Methodist). I was going to introduce it in June, but the meeting was canceled. It’s now been rescheduled for August 18, so I should be able to attend.

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