Seriously - someone thought this was a good idea?

More proof that the current administration possesses the foresight and clear thinking to lead this country out of the economic and political mess we find ourselves in. Even Senator Charles Schumer, one of the most liberal voices in the Senate, called this "outrageous and appalling". . . "knowing full well that New Yorkers would still have the memory of 9/11 sketched in their minds.". Of course he put the blame on the FAA for approving the White House request, not on the administration for even suggesting it.

You can read the article from the Chicago Tribune.

The White House did apologize for the incident, but shouldn't someone have thought this might not be a good idea? Why not let the media know they were going to do this ahead of time? The President wasn't going to be on the plane, so there could not have been a security risk.

As a photographer, there is a code we follow - "no photo is worth the risk if it poses a threat to the subject, the environment, or to someone else." No matter how dramatic a photo of Air Force One with an F-16 escort over the Statue of Liberty would be, it can not be worth even the momentary fear it would cause the people of New York.

I guess none of this should be surprising from an administration that continually downplays the threat of terrorism. We negotiate with Iran, we unofficially ban the phrase "War on Terror", and want to surrender Iraq and Afghanistan to the forces that oppose democracy and freedom.

Man am I behind with my reading

I just checked my Google reader and I have 248 unread posts - yikes! So what's the first thing I do - stop and write another post.

Good News

After 4 months of being more self employed than full-time employed, I was offered a full-time position today and I start May 4th! That noise you hear is a giant sigh of relief.

12 Step Plan for Creating More Jobs

From American Solutions - 12 ways we can stimulate the economy without having to save the people who caused this mess.

1. Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn.

2. Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers.

3. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America.

4. Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes.

5. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending.

6. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money.

7. More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels.

8. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America.

9. Protect the Rights of American Workers. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union, and the worker’s right to freely negotiate. Forced unionism will kill jobs in America at a time when we can’t afford to lose them.

10. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them.

11. Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington.

12. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year.

Support American Rights

For more information, or to sign the petition, please visit their website. People should be allowed to vote on anything without fear of repercussions.

I wonder who his pooplisher is

More From What the Duck #688

Finally!

After 103 days of unemployment - I have a phone interview. Time to go brush-up on the organic chemistry. Keep your fingers crossed for me on Thursday!

More What the Duck

From What the Duck #684 - This one made me laugh, probably because I saw the punchline coming as soon as I read the first panel.

Unable to find any other tax cheats...

Obama was forced to settle for Hollywood morons.  What better person to serve as the associate director for the Office of Public Liason?  You can't make this stuff up.

I'm sure he is well qualified, but are we really going to take Kumar seriously?  At least we don't have to worry about another Obama zombie - geesh.  He looks like a school girl at a Jonas Brothers concert.

Am I the only one who finds this stuff funny?

Ben Franklin is probably my favorite Patriot

Brutal

From What the Duck#682 

Brother can you spare a dime?

From What the Duck #680.

Update - Maybe even better?

In case you missed the great tip from Aaron in the comments of the last post, apparently Pandora has some competition.  Last.fm has a very similar application to Pandora.  Same idea - you enter your favorite groups or artists and they create customizable playlists.  The one advantage I see is that with Last.fm, you can create a widget to embed the Last.fm player on your website or blog and your most recent playlist will play on your blog.  That's a neat feature.  I haven't dug into the licensing of that player yet, so I'm not sure if you can use it on commercial site (read - one with advertising), but I would guess it will be fine on a personal site/blog. UPDATE: It turns out the widget only plays a sample of the songs you listen to, not the entire thing - bummer!

I'm going to compare the two over the next few days and see if I prefer the playlist from one over the other. Either way, competition only means that these applications will get better which is great for all of us.

Thanks Aaron for the heads up.  If you appreciate the tip, check out his blog  - Hot, Loud and Dangerous.  Maybe that will get him posting again - wink, wink!

Have you Pandora'd?

I know I'm not the coolest kid in town who knows all the latest technology available, I mean I was one of the last 5 people on Earth to join Facebook. Maybe I'm farther out of the loop than I thought, but the wife just tipped me off to one of the coolest things to ever hit the internet.

The biggest complaint I have in Charlottesville is that all the radio stations sound exactly the same. Clear Channel came in, who knows how many years ago, bought up all the stations, converted them to their formulaic style, and ruined it for me. No offense to Clear Channel - they make money at what they do, I just hate it :) This eventually led me to purchase a Sirius Satellite Radio which is awesome, but I only have a radio for the car, and if the kids are with me, that means Radio Disney (makes me want to blow my brains out) which is ok, but you can only dance the Hoe Down Throwdown so many times.

Of course, I can always listen to my CDs and MP3s on my laptop, but then I have to either load up my hard drive with files and create play lists, or listen to the same CD. I prefer a little more variety and a lot less work.

But yesterday, M heard about the greatest website - Pandora.  Pandora is an internet radio station that you customize to the type of music you prefer.  When you first access the sute, they ask you for your favorite song or artist.  Within seconds, they've generated a new "station" that plays only songs from the same genre with similar sound, vocal, and instrumental qualities!  How cool is that.

So what happens if you want to listen to another genre?  Simply add a new station - you can have up to 100 different stations.

Don't like one of the songs?  Give it a thumbs down and it will never play again on that station.

Don't like the artist?  Give them a thumbs down on two consecutive songs and he/she's history!

There are a few licensing restrictions that Pandora must comply with:

You can only skip 6 songs an hour.  They can only play each artist four times in a three hour block.  You can't rewind or choose a song on demand and it is only available in the US, but those are small prices to pay for customized radio with artist/song info.

For me, here's another great benefit - have you ever had a disagreement with a friend over the lyrics of a song?  Well with Pandora, the lyrics are available while you listen.  That should clear up any long running bets!

I hope you'll check it out.  I figure the more free subscribers there are, the more likely it is that the advertisers will keep coming back to Pandora and keep the site free.

Question of the day

If you had to dig a hole to China, where would you start?

Leave your answer in the comments section - I'll go first!