My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on July 1, 2010

I ordered the Glenn Beck audiobook “The Overton Window” a week or so ago, and it finally came in earlier this week. Since I had a few hours of driving on Wednesday, it was a good day to start it. As expected, it is both thought provoking and a bit disturbing. Let’s hope I don’t end up any more cynical about our government after reading this than I already am; I hope it remains a best seller in the  fiction category.

Overton Window: The premise for the title comes from Joseph Overton. He “observed that in a given public policy area, such as education, only a relatively narrow range of potential policies will be considered politically acceptable. This "window" of politically acceptable options is primarily defined not by what politicians prefer, but rather by what they believe they can support and still win re-election. In general, then, the window shifts to include different policy options not when ideas change among politicians, but when ideas change in the society that elects them.”

I’m looking forward to finishing it. Here’s a bit of a description from Mackinac Center’s Joseph Lehman.

Category: Books, Video | No Comments »
Tags: Books, glenn beck

Posted By RichC on June 30, 2010

Category: Automotive, Volkswagen | 2 Comments »
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Posted By RichC on June 29, 2010

The Dow Industrials closed down 2.6% or 270 points to 9870.30 on Tuesday afternoon. The Nasdaq stay in step down 3.85% to 2135 and S&P 500 closed at 1041.24, hitting its low for the year.

A report indicating consumer confidence was way down in June had investors’ concerned about the overall global economy.  Investors headed to safer assets which sent the dollar and gold higher. The rise also pushed Treasury yield on the 10-year note below 3% – the lowest level in more than a year.

Category: Financial | No Comments »
Tags: stock market, wall street

Posted By RichC on June 29, 2010

Sprint announced the second 4G capable phone to be marketed in their offerings and at first glance I thought, “it can’t really be that big?” From their webpage, the image doesn’t necessarily look as if it fits “in the palm of your hand.” It will be interesting to look at it in person.

I’ll also be anxious to see how the Samsung tweaked Android 2.1 OS runs on the 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird Application Processor since it will be the first physical keyboard 4G phone. With a large 4” AMOLED touchscreen display and a dual camera set-up offering a 5 MP camera/camcorder with 3x zoom with it should venture into the HD camcorder world as well as offer video chat. With its focus on multimedia and 4G speeds, it might make for decent portable streaming and archived video if the 1500 mAh battery can hold up. From the marketing perception, it looks like it could fill a slot somewhere between a small pocket smartphone (ie. Palm Pre/Pixi) and an Apple iPad, netbook or eventual tablet; can it make and receive phone calls?
🙂

Sprint (NYSE: S) and Samsung Telecommunications America (Samsung Mobile), the No. 1 mobile phone provider in the U.S.1, today introduced the second 4G-capable handset from Sprint, Samsung Epic™ 4G, a Galaxy S™ smartphone and Samsung Mobile’s first 4G Android™-powered device.

"Sprint takes another leap forward today, announcing its second 4G-capable smartphone," said Steve Elfman, president, Network Operations and Wholesale. "Samsung Epic 4G joins a portfolio of powerful devices offering an unprecedented simplicity and value to our customers as the only national carrier with a 4G network and devices and applications that can leverage the increased data speeds to provide a high-def entertainment and business experience in the palm of your hand."

"Samsung Epic 4G is a powerful member of our Galaxy S smartphone portfolio which offers premium screen, speed and content features," said Omar Khan, chief strategy officer for Samsung Mobile. "The Epic 4G ups the ante with a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a full QWERTY keyboard and lightning-fast 4G speeds."

Samsung Epic 4G is part of a new breed of Samsung smartphones offering their very best in screen, speed and content quality for a premium user experience, and offers a fully integrated multimedia, messaging and social networking experience. It also features an exceptionally thin smartphone design with a slide out, full QWERTY keyboard and 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display.

The brilliant Super AMOLED touchscreen display offers:

• The best representation of color on a mobile phone that matches original content, more than 100 times the contrast quality of other leading displays
• Faster response time that reduces "ghosting" images
• Wide viewing angles to prevent blurring or distortion
• Thinner design to offer more accurate and responsiveness to touch

MORE

Category: Cellphone | 6 Comments »
Tags: 4G, samsung, smartphone, sprint

Posted By RichC on June 29, 2010

As the gulf coast continues to clean up oil damaged shorelines, folks in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida resort businesses welcome home grown singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who with some friends will be helping to promote tourism with a free beach concert Thursday night. While oil gushes and a more noticeable oil slick moves closer to the shoreline, BP and government workers pull back after they were unable to seal off the well.  They will be regrouping as tropical storm Alex moves closer and still hope to install a better cap and more collection capacity. The oil siphoning equipment, tanker barges and personnel are finding it difficult to continue their work with the broad storm moving through the Gulf of Mexico, while the government still won’t accept foreign cleanup vessels due to the 1920’s Jones Act. Come on President Obama … show some leadership and expedite getting some additional clean up vessels here (like “A Whale”) and pressuring the EPA to offer dispensation for discharge so as long as they can clean up the majority of the oil before it hits the shore

As for the tropical storm, possibly hurricane, most computer models have Alex moving northeast, caution is in the forecast for those living and working from Mexico to Louisiana. Hopefully the free concert schedule for the Gulf Shores, Alabama beach will continued on Thursday night in support for those who’s livelihood depend on a summer tourist season. Country Music Television (CMT) will be televising the the concert, so set your Tivo if you want to enjoy the concert or just show your appreciation for those entertainers desiring to help the gulf coast residents. (BTW, have I mention I’m a Jimmy Buffett fan … I said “fan”because I go way back … way back “Before the Salt” … before there were Parrotheads.)

Category: Environment, Music, Politics, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: bp, cmt, gulf of mexico, jimmy buffett, oil

Posted By RichC on June 28, 2010

Category: Cellphone, Technology | 2 Comments »
Tags: docs, google, palm, smartphone, webos

Posted By RichC on June 27, 2010

Thank you Taylor for taking me to the Great American Ball Park where we baked on a hot summer Sunday afternoon with excellent right field seats. The Ohio Cup is a favorite game of mine,  pitting my old American League Cleveland Indians (lived there 13 years) against my hometown team the Cincinnati Reds. It really didn’t matter which team won, although I did have a Reds cap on!
😉

The game was rain delayed for over an hour, but the storm threat dissipated to light showers for the opening pitch. It didn’t take long for the Indians to jump to a 1-0 lead in the 1st as Shin-Soo Choo homered to right field. Reds followed in the bottom of the 1st as Brandon Phillips gambles by heading home from second. He would have been out if not for a dropped ball by Cleveland’s catcher Carlos Santana. The game slowed as the drizzle stop. The next 3 inning saw little action as the heat and humidity rose. At the top of inning 5, Shin-Soo Choo homers for a second time driving in Anderson Hernandez and Trevor Crowe giving Cleveland the lead – 4-1. A couple more scoreless innings and then in the top of the 8th Cleveland’s Carlos Santana homers making giving the Indians a 4 run lead. The Reds follow in the bottom of the 8th with a two run homerun by Joey Votto bringing Chris Heisey across the plate. The game ends with no additional scoring – Cleveland wins 5 – 3.

What a great day to be at the ball park with my son. Thanks again Taylor – Palm Pre YouTube uploaded video clip below.

Category: Personal, Photos, Sports | No Comments »
Tags: baseball, cincinnati, cleveland, indians, ohio cup, reds

Posted By RichC on June 26, 2010

I was drawn into World Cup soccer like most Americans after following their recent advancement … so Brenda, Taylor and I tuned in to watch Saturday’s USA – Ghana from South Africa. Although I’m not a big soccer fan, I did coach a few years and enjoyed playing on an intramural team, still I’ve never had an interest to follow soccer as a fan.

That said, the excitement intensified as Ghana and USA went into extra time after Black Star’s Kevin-Prince Boateng scored in the first half and US’s Landon Donovan tied it up 1-1 in minute 62. The winning goal was scored by Asamoah Gyan in a shot that went over the head of American goalkeeper Tim Howard.

Commentators were critical the US team’s lack of team effort in the first half and rightly acknowledged the consistent and disciplined team play of Ghana throughout the game. Disappointing as it was for the US, the Black Stars ability to control the ball and move it around the field to eat up the clock allowed them to defeat our US team and move to the quarterfinals.   will take on Ghana’s Black Stars are now the only African team to advance and will take on La Celeste Uruguay next Friday in Johannesburg’s Soccer City stadium in hopes for a spot in the semifinals.  The World Cup ends July 11.

In an event closer to home, my son Taylor was invited to a Justin Bieber concert (free tickets) and claimed he was the oldest non-father/grandfather at the concert. Nevertheless, he admitted he had a great time acting a few years younger with 3 of his friends … who looked as if they had fun too.

Category: Sports | No Comments »
Tags: cincinnati, concert, justin bieber, soccer, world cup

Posted By RichC on June 25, 2010

Category: Environment, Misc | 6 Comments »
Tags: alternative, cleveland, energy, lake erie, ohio, windpower

Posted By RichC on June 25, 2010

One wonders what this is all about – video below. (lots of stories)

The auto blog Jalopnik dug up a 2003 study that shows that oil on the open ocean could evaporate under the right conditions. And it’s unclear how the Corexit 9500 dispersant affects evaporation.

If it were raining Corexit 9500 in River Ridge, that would be very bad news. Calling the dispersant unnecessarily toxic, the EPA has ordered BP to stop spraying it on the slick, an order that the oil company has so far ignored.

Category: News, Video | No Comments »
Tags: bp, louisiana, oil, rainbow, spill