Road Apples, #74

Whitestock...Glenn Beck is planning a giant "I love people just like me" party tomorrow in Washington DC.  I think we should call the gathering "Whitestock".  Catchy?  Supposedly no signs will be allowed and it is billed as a non-partisan event.  Don't bet on it.  Glenn Beck is about as non-partisan as Bill Clinton, and I have absolutely no doubt that there will be plenty of not-so-subtle signs being hoisted at the event.  Think "Obama as African Witch Doctor".  The real kicker?  It's being held on the anniversary of the Martin Luther King "I Have A Dream" speech.  Now Beck has claimed he didn't know that August 28th was the anniversary of the speech, and besides, he has also said that black people no more own the legacy of MLK than white people own the legacy of Abraham Lincoln.  Fair enough...having seen and heard Beck's act a few times, I actually do believe that he didn't know of the anniversary.  Besides, I've come to one resounding conclusion about Glenn Beck's act:  it's an act.  Whitestock is more about promoting former "Morning Zoo DJ" Glenn Beck than it is anything else. 

Laptops...I've had some time off this week (not as much as originally planned, but that's life), so I've been working on reinstalling Windows XP on two previously dead laptops.  The results have been very good.  I'm now using my Sony Vaio again, after having removed the wretched abomination of an operating system known as Vista.  While I love my netbook, it's nice to be looking at a larger screen again and Sony has the best displays in the business, so the netbook will now be used now mainly for travel and remote surfing.  For the record my Vaio is not what I would call portable.  Between the Vaio and the other laptop I revitalized, I've probably spent about six hours or so on this project, and countless amounts of time catching the machines up with all of the updates they've missed.  As Klingons are fond of saying, KAHPLAH'

Harry Reid...The Nevada Senator is viewed by many Republicans as being, along with Nancy Pelosi, symbolic of all that is wrong with the Democratic party.  Why, if he is so out of touch with the mainstream, is he managing to run neck-n-neck with his GOP rival for his Senate seat?  It's not as if Nevada is a flaming liberal state to begin with (case in point:  it has the 4th largest population of Mormons in the country).  There is a decent article in the HuffPost that touches on the issue (link HERE).  From my politically un-astute perspective, Reid's opponent, Sharon Angle, is suffering from Rick Santorum syndrome, a disease whereby a candidate actually believes their own self-righteousness.  Reid may lose, but Angle will not survive more than a term or two at the most.  Americans are a "live and let live" kind of people who basically aren't comfortable telling people them how they should live.  It's a lesson Ricky has yet to learn.

Pat Toomey...apparently likes porn...porn money that is.  Reference HERE.  I'm wondering how long it will be until there is a "Tom Corbett cock-fighting" connection.

Federal Spending by State...I was doing some research for something work related the other day when I stumbled on a chart showing various forms of federal spending by state.  What's really interesting here is that Sarah "the federal government spends too much" Palin's home state of Alaska is 4th in terms of how much more federal money flows into the state than flows out of the state.  Specifically, for every dollar Alaskan's pay in federal taxes, they get back $2.62.  That's a hell of a return.  You can see the data HERE, on table 4. In case you are curious, for every dollar Pennsylvanian's pay in federal taxes we get $1.05 back.  Must be because we have a liberal governor.   

Father Pickard...I am not the only person who believes that it is patently wrong to keep Father Pickard from his ministry at the Lackawanna County jail.  Read the Scranton Times editorial HERE. The bruised egos of prison administrators need to be put aside.  Father Pickard's ministry is a blessing and a benefit to the prison and should be allowed to continue.  

Blog Roll...I've updated my blog roll & list of blogs I follow to better reflect some of the local blogs that seem interesting (at least to me).  I included blogs that were...

...written by adults
...updated with some regularity.

In looking for blogs I found it amazing just how sleepy the local blogging scene really is in NEPA.  Maybe the mountains that sit on either side of "da valley" are higher than I thought.