Sarah Who?

So John McCain, who was around when Washington , D.C. was built, picks a a great-looking woman of 44 named Sarah Palin who's an athlete, a mother of five, a former basketball point guard for a state championship team, a lifetime member of the NRA, an environmentalist, a whistleblower, a second place finisher in the Miss Alaska contest, a journalist major, a mayor, a governor, and now a vice presidential running mate of Prez Candidate McCain. But can she cook?

The BIGGEST question is what to make of all of this? Brilliant move in rejuvenating the Republicans for the long run, or did McCain turn over the election to the Democrats? Take your best shot. It's early, but it's fun.

Has Obama sealed the deal with you?

With Senator Barack Obama now the official Democratic Presidential nominee, the question begs to be asked, "Do you need to hear more from Obama or has he already given you enough info to seal the deal?" Check in with your comments here!

Tuesday's Tech Tip: Save back-to-school money

Do you have a ".edu" email address? Enrolled in any classes? How about your kids?

If the answers are yes to those questions (or you know someone who is eligible), you can buy Microsoft Office 2007 (and it's the Ultimate version!) for only $59. The Ultimate version comes with full versions of, well, everything. It's a download.

Visit Microsoft's Office discount site for more info. If you can't get your hands on Office at that price, don't forget OpenOffice, the open-source alternative.

Link to MS Office discount site.

And here's a bonus: Save on textbooks, too. They're already hideously expensive. Here are three sites that might help:

www.half.ebay.com (online store)
www.bigwords.com (searches deals)
www.chegg.com (rental system)

Pay attention to revision dates. From year to year, some revisions are incredibly minor (designed to justify an expensive new edition?), while others are actually important to your curriculum. Do your homework before buying. Heh. Pun intended.

NEXT WEEK: Freshen up your Windows XP interface.

So what do YOU think of Obama's choice of Biden?

Now that Senator Obama has chosen Senator Biden as his running mate onb the Democratic ticket, what do you think? Was it the safe pick? Did it represent change? How about the question of whether or not it gives Obama greater standing in terms of foreign policy? What do you think????

Who do you trust when it comes to guns?

With the shooting events at Columbine School and Virginia Tech on their minds, the small school district of Harrold in North Texas has passed a new rule, and it’s causing debate around Texas and the country. Starting this term, teachers in the district can carry concealed firearms as long as they are licensed and trained in use of guns. In order for teachers and staff to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun; must be authorized to carry by the district; must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.

Governor Rick Perry of Texas has backed the policy, and suggested that he would fully support other districts doing the same thing with similar safeguards. So the argument starts. Are schools better off gun-free with no one having the ability to fight back, or responsible teachers being armed and trained to defend against those who would attack without regard for life.

Sounds easy to me. The school has authority called In Loco Parentis which gives them authority over the child in place of the parents during the time they are in school. If I am a parent, I will trust the responsible teacher packing before leaving the school open to savage attacks by the irresponsible who know they are attacking the vulnerable and defenseless.

Society is tired of being victimized, and this is yet another example that they’re not taking it anymore. I’m Gary Sutton.

Tuesday's Tech Tip: DIY cranial protectection

Ahhh. Finally, a practical Tuesday's Tech Tip. Part Two in a series.

New poll: Who will be Obama's VP?

Well, "running mate" really, but I needed to abbreviate to fit it in the poll title.

Anyway, who will it be? Who should it be?

I'm voting for "other." I like Sen. Jim Webb and would like to see him as the running mate for either party. Maybe he's too principled to survive the process.

John Conyers and ICE enforcement

I am absolutely puzzled! I recently read that immigration reform advocates, including Democrats like Chairman John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee are calling for an end to Immigration and Customs raids at businesses that knowingly hire large numbers of illegal aliens. See why I’m puzzled? It doesn’t make any sense, does it?

What if law enforcement was watching a business which ended up illegally making drugs that were hurting people in our country? Would we claim that law enforcement should not raid that kind of place?

So now that I’ve posed some questions, try some of these facts that are actually happening. There was a report out of the Center for Immigration Studies last week showing that raids along with other enforcement methods are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing; reducing the number of foreigners illegally working and residing in the United States.

The illegal population has decreased by over one million persons in the past year. In fact, with the deportations, and self-deportations going on, the report states clearly that if this decline is sustained, it will reduce the illegal population by half in the next five years.

So why, then do people like Congressman John Conyers call these raids part of a “brutal, payback, gotcha” agenda being pursued by the United States government? No, Congressman. It would only be that if this were being done to law-abiding citizens who were living law-abiding lives. To equate them with those who are not is a lie. There is no brutality here, or payback, but there is gotcha.

In the end, lawful citizens are not puzzled so much as they are getting just outraged by your kind of pick and choose attitude on what to enforce in this land. The only “gotcha” that is involved is the fact that people are starting to see what hypocritical charlatans people like you actually are. I’m Gary Sutton.

Poll results: Anheuser-Busch sale to foreign company

Results: Meh. Four people cared. Everyone else drinks beer and couldn't care less.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense (and a second American Revolution)

A listener sent me this YouTube video today, and I found it to be provocative spurring lots of thought. I think it will jolt you as well, so I offer it below. I look forward to your reactions.

Guest: Theresa Burke of Rachel's Vineyard

Yesterday, we had a wonderful discussion about the American Psychological Association's recent assertion that

"having an abortion in the first trimester and bringing a baby to full term has the same psychological effect on the woman."

We had a number of women who have had abortions and children calling in with stories about the misery they have endured because of abortions, and the stories they are telling would-be abortion victims today.

In the course of the discussion, Theresa Burke's Rachel's Vineyard came up. She and this group are helping post abortion women with coping, and she will be on our show today at 10:10 to tell her story and take questions.

Tuesday's Tech Tip: Stop surfing stupid

Stop surfing stupid. That's today's tech tip.

If something looks sketchy it probably is. Wealthy Nigerian government officials do not need your help moving large sums of money. No website is really selling an Xbox 360 for $35.

Stop opening every random email attachment sent to you.

And for goodness sake, stop clicking on every ad banner that catches your eye. How stupid are people? An IT consultant posted an ad that offered a free virus infection from a site called drivebydownload.info -- and hundreds of people clicked on the ad! eWeek wrote:

Stevens [the IT consultant] says that he designed his ad to make it look fishy, but he had no problem getting Google to accept it and has had no complaints to date. And, although a healthy amount of people clicked on it, he said theres "no way to know what motivated them to click on my ad. I did not submit them to an IQ-test."

Job opening: Henchmen needed

Readers from London, England (or willing to move) may want to consider the help wanted ad recently placed on Craigslist:

20-30 henchmen needed for moderately-sized supervillain organisation with large expansion potential (fortresses built into geological structures, corruption of government officials, possible genesis of 'nemesis' vigilante). Electrical theme.

Applicants must be willing to learn new skills, including but not limited to operation of specialised 'lightning guns'. Applicants will also be required to wear specialised uniform when at work (functional rubber suits with my logo on front), except in cases where deception is required (posing as hostages in order to ambush vigilantes, etc)...

Great promotion opportunities - right-hand-man position constantly being unexpectedly opened. Would look good on any future supervillain resume/CV.

Serious inquiries only.

What do you now use all the time and can't live without?

What item do you now use all the time and wonder how you ever lived without it?

I'll start us off with two items:

Kitchen tongs. I remember when I finally started using kitchen tongs several years ago. Holy smokes! How did I ever live without 'em?

My cheap TomTom One GPS device. I don't need this often because I never go anywhere. On those few occasions that I do, however, this little device is fantastic piece of mind.

What's on your list?

Anti-science in our classrooms

We've been talking about education lately. Peter Wood recently wrote a commentary called How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

His premise is that science is hard work and that our society is not culturally-geared to the concept that hard work is necessary to attaining intellectual heights. This reminds me of a US Navy presentation that called the MySpace generation "coddled," "narcissistic praise junkies."

He writes

The intellectual lassitude we breed in students, their unearned and inflated self-confidence, undercuts both the self-discipline and the intellectual modesty that is needed for the apprentice years in the sciences.

I might add that efforts to teach religion thinly- and poorly-disguised as science in the science classroom also doesn't help.

Link to How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science

Tuesday's Tech Tip: Open-source office tools

Everyone needs office software. The basics are a spreadsheet, a word processor and a personal information manager (PIM) like Outlook. Some people also need presentation software, basic drawing software and database tools.

What to do? Most people have two choices: Microsoft Office and Microsoft Works (Works is like a stripped-down, icky version of Office). MS Works can be had for about $40 and while MS Office varies in price, expect an entry-level version to cost about $100 if you get a deal.

A lot of people use whatever their system came with. What about people who want something better than Works, but don't want to shell out for Office? Open-source software to the rescue (again).

OpenOffice 2.0 is a free and open-source productivity suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software (like PowerPoint), drawing software and a database program. Here's the cool part: It's compatible with MS Office.

I use it on one of my work PC's and I don't have any problems with interoperability between OpenOffice and MS Office. If I'm making a file explicitly for use on an MS Office machine, I go to "Save as..." and choose the MS Office program format.

One caveat: You won't have trouble opening documents saved in previous MS Office formats. You'll have to wait a couple weeks for OpenOffice 3.0 to open documents specifically saved in MS Office's latest file formats. It's scheduled for release on September 16th.

Now, how about a PIM? Our friends from Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) to the rescue with Thunderbird 2.0. That handles your email and contacts. You still need calendaring, which you'll get with the Lightning calendar extension for Thunderbird. If you want to wait until the end of this year, Thunderbird will have calendaring fully integrated as opposed to the extension.

Why doesn't OpenOffice have a PIM as part of the suite like the Microsoft products? It's a design philosphy thing. MS Outlook is closely integrated with the rest of the MS Office suite and the OpenOffice people believe that that approach invites nasty exploits from the bad guys.

Second caveat: Although I use OpenOffice, I don't use Thunderbird/Lightning yet. I plan to switch soon on some of my PC's.

Link to OpenOffice 2.0

Link to Thunderbird

FINALLY, a solution loooong overdue!

Pentagon's Unmanned Spokesdrone Completes First Press Conference Mission

Cinemagic, or Is it?

Just something lighter for a moment. Is it me, or do we keep seeing this same list every year? Do you have a case to make for a movie that ought to be on this list and isn't? Have at it.

According to a Harris Poll which asked adults to name their favorite movie of all time, the resounding number one response was "Gone With the Wind." Coming in right behind it were "Star Wars" and "Casablanca." The top 10 favorite movies of all time:

1. "Gone With the Wind"
2. "Star Wars"
3. "Casablanca"
4. "The Lord of the Rings"
5. "The Sound of Music"
6. "Wizard of Oz"
7. "The Notebook"
8. "Forrest Gump"
9. "The Princess Bride"
10. "The Godfather"



Want more?

1. Among men, "Star Wars" and "Gone With the Wind" are the top two favorite movies.
2. For women, "Gone With the Wind" and "The Sound of Music" are the top two favorites.
3. Men and women ages 18 to 31 and those ages 32 to 43 have the same favorite movie: "Star Wars." However, they differ on their second favorite movie. The young adults prefer "The Notebook," while the middle-age crowd cites "Lord of the Rings."
4. Baby boomers, ages 44 to 62, as well as seniors 63 and up, agree that "Gone With the Wind" is their favorite movie. When it comes to their second favorite flick, the boomers choose "Casablanca," while the seniors select "The Sound of Music."
5. Race and ethnicity also show some differences. For whites, "Gone With the Wind" is their favorite movie, while blacks cite "Casablanca" and Hispanics say their favorite is "The Notebook."