Click here for Vagabond Scholar's Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2012 (The Best Posts of the Year, Chosen by the Bloggers Themselves).

Mathematics For Dummies?

Click here for a 15-article collection of articles by Steven Strogatz on mathematics for you and me.

Before going on vacation for a week, you ask your spacey friend to water your ailing plant.  Without water, the plant has a 90 percent chance of dying.  Even with proper watering, it has a 20 percent chance of dying.  And the probability that your friend will forget to water it is 30 percent.  (a) What’s the chance that your plant will survive the week?  (b) If it’s dead when you return, what’s the chance that your friend forgot to water it?  (c) If your friend forgot to water it, what’s the chance it’ll be dead when you return?

Although they sound alike, (b) and (c) are not the same.  In fact, the problem tells us that the answer to (c) is 90 percent.  But how do you combine all the probabilities to get the answer to (b)?  Or (a)?

Read the article Chances Are, on probability theory, for the answers. There's also discussion of a couple of other problems -- one involving percentages concerning the incidence of breast cancer among women, and another involving the O.J. Simpson murder case.

The Chronicles of Mitt

Click here for 135 episodes of The Chronicles of Mitt, from Daily Kos.

Here's the first, from May 10, 2012:

Hello, human diary! This is Mitt Romney, your better.

My adviser units have advocated that I begin writing a diary of my experiences during this election. They believe the exercise will encourage the development of human-like emotions, which according to focus groups are a desirable quality. I fail to see the point of the process, but according to my advisers, money cannot be exchanged for emotional gratification. (They cite a group of musically inclined hippies from the 1960s for the discovery, which made us all skeptical but seemed to hold up during initial experimental testing. Upon further historical examination it turns out that group of hippies became quite wealthy, which seems to lend credence to their claims.)

I shall therefore entertain this process as necessary. If human emotions are necessary to achieve a leadership position, and a leadership position is necessary to achieve reductions in taxation, then emote I shall!

Today news reporters discovered that while attending human preparatory school, Cranbrook (every decent institution of preparation requires a -brook suffix, thus implying calm and natural settings), I once assaulted a fellow student who may have had tendencies towards the homosexual. This is false: I assaulted the fellow because his haircut personally offended me. Surely this counts as this "emotion" that my advisers speak of, but for some reason this one counts as bad, further confounding me.

Let me be clear; I do not remember the incident, except for the parts I do. Also, I cannot reiterate enough just how deeply offended I was by said haircut, the shape and relative dimensions of which I felt was an insult to my personal honor, as well as the honor of my fellow students, as well as the money their parents had expended to place us in an environment in which all haircuts would be of the correct dimensions. I would also like to point out that I was younger then and not nearly as wealthy, and it is a known fact that less wealthy people are more prone to violent behaviors. No, by current standards I was quite poor indeed, and the lack of regular contact with my current amounts of money sometimes made me light headed. I was the victim in this incident; let it be a lesson on how modern wealthy Americans ought to be subjected to reduced taxation rates, so that their children have access to slightly more cash and do not, therefore, turn into gauche and violent little bastards.

I wish I could reach out now to the young lad in question, so that I could explain to that poorly coifed homosexual that it does "get better," as the current phrasing has it. I am far wealthier now, and am running for president, so things have indeed worked out quite correctly! I have instructed my staff that, should the fellow wish to apologize to me for the incident, they should express human satisfaction to him. Mr. Cheney received a quite adequate apology from the fellow whose face intercepted Mr. Cheney's expended ammunition during an animal-killing expedition in the American wilds; that would be a good model to follow in this case, as both incidents involve fellows whose heads received the brunt of a wealthier American's momentary impulses.

Hmm. Yes, upon reflection I feel this new experiment at documenting my human emotions is going along quite swimmingly, Mr. Diary. I shall continue the proceedings as necessary. I admit I am uncomfortable with the feel of this paper, and so have directed my staff towards procuring some pages that more directly mimic the feel of fine, crisp currency.

Look - Up In The Sky! It's A Bird! It's A Plane!

Here is the first Superman cartoon, from 1940.

The first nine Superman cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios from 1941 to 1942 are a wonder of animated retrofuturism, giving us a peek into a world that not only had a flying superstrong protector, but also filled viewers' heads with dreams of autonomous robots, comet-controlling telescopes, and machines that could shake the Earth.

These films are in the public domain and have been available on the Internet Archive (as well as other corners of the Internet) for quite some time, but now Warner Bros. has officially released the remastered initial nine from its DVD collection on YouTube. The Academy Award-nominated first short, "Superman," is embedded above, and you can see the other eight from the first series below. Click here.

Crony Chronicles: Miracle On Wall Street

Care To Go For A Little Drive - In Russia? Well, Maybe Not

Execute The Cameraman.

The Guilty Pleasure Of Schadenfreude

I spent a couple of the days after the election taking some quiet enjoyment in browsing right-wing sites and seeing how they reacted to the apocalypse. But I didn't run across anything like the blog of one Kevin DuJan, apparently a gay Republican (and a big Sarah Palin fan). He blogged copiously on election day while he watched MSNBC in gloating anticipation of a lefty meltdown.

Click here for Kos's article entitled Reliving election night, through the eyes of a wingnut. It's cruel, but fascinating. This poor deluded sap was convinced -- CONVINCED, I tells ya -- that the election was in the bag for Romney. Too bad his blogging didn't feature a self-directed webcam.

Click on Kos's highlighted link near the end, predictions. (Or if you're not sadistic by nature, maybe don't.) What universe do these bozos live in?

What Does The WSJ Consider A Mandate? That Depends.

Click here for an article by Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker entitled Mandate With Destiny on how that Murdoch conservative bastion, The Wall Street Journal, views the matter of what it takes to earn a mandate in a presidential election. Surprise, surprise: Bush won a ringing mandate on his reelection in 2004, while Obama eked out a narrow victory in 2012.

In 2004, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, conservatism’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, congratulated President Bush for “what by any measure is a decisive mandate for a second term” and exulted, “Mr. Bush has been given the kind of mandate that few politicians are ever fortunate enough to receive.” This year, examining similar numbers with different labels, the Journal came up with a sterner interpretation. “President Obama won one of the narrower re-elections in modern times,” its editorial announced.

This is despite the facts that Obama in 2012 won the popular vote by more than 4 million, as opposed to Bush's 3 million in 2004; Obama won 332 seats in the electoral college in 2012, as opposed to Bush's 286. (270 electoral college seats are needed to win the presidency.)

Right-wing pundits confidently predicting a Romney blowout included Michael Barone, Peggy Noonan, Dick Morris, Glenn Beck, and George Will. None of these Members of the Conservative Priesthood guessed that Romney would win more than 325 electoral college votes, a number they all considered to be "a landslide." Obama's 332? A pretty shaky margin, apparently.

Chris Christie Prepares A Turkey

Oklatexarkalamissianageorgialinatuckysee!

Cartoon from The New Yorker.

Click here for an article entitled State of the Dis-Union, itself from an article on Crooks & Liars by David Neiwert entitled Can We Help the Would-Be Secessionists Pack? 675,000 people from all 50 states have signed digital petitions on https://petitions.whitehouse.gov to secede from the U.S. The White House promises to respond if there are more than 25,000 signatures on any one petition; so far, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas have met that requirement.

"... the primary backer of secession mania is the California-based TeaParty.org, also known as the 1776 Tea Party.

One article posted on the group’s website states: 'When the Federal Government sets out to ruin the lives of law abiding citizens by making laws that are against God’s law, then it is fit and proper to make a concerted attempt by any state to secede from the union to become a new government should the majority of the citizens agree.'”

There were similar rumblings when W was reelected in 2004. However:

The difference between 2004 and 2012, however, is the people grumbling about secession eight years ago weren’t taken seriously by their political party and didn’t wield much influence over its party’s leaders. Not so with the tea party.

Another difference that can’t be denied, said Hamilton County Democratic Party Chairman Tim Burke, is the role that race plays in the current debate.

“I continue to believe that a lot of people out there, unfortunately, have difficulty believing America could elect an African-American president,” Burke said.

Referring to comments that Romney made to donors after the election alleging Obama won, in part, because he promised “gifts” to black and Hispanic voters, Burke added, “You just can’t continue to alienate the non-white people of the United States.”

Most historians conclude the conservative wing of the Republican Party first came to prominence in the late 1960s, as part of what’s been dubbed “the Southern strategy.” (Click here for my blog posting, Republican Southern Strategy: Lee Atwater.)

That’s when the GOP began appealing to conservative, white Democrats from the Deep South who were upset by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the desegregation of public schools.

What to name the new entity? Hunter at Daily Kos suggests United Galts of America, or New Jesusland; I like Oklatexarkalamissianageorgialinatuckysee.

Luther, The Anger Translator (NSFW)

Setting Up A Wireless Network

Click here for a detailed but readable tutorial from Microsoft on setting up a wireless network.

Republican Southern Strategy: Lee Atwater

I've heard this story for years, and Republicans have always claimed it was apocryphal. Now the tape of the interview has been made public, and Atwater did indeed say these things. He was being interviewed in 1981 by Alexander Lamis, a political scientist at Case Western Reserve University. The interview was scholarly, not political. Say it, Brother Lee:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

Jacksonian Foreign Policy

Click here for a somewhat long and wonkish explanation of Jacksonian foreign policy (as in Andrew Jackson, "Old Hickory," U.S. president from 1837 to 1849; click here for his Wikipedia entry).

This has some relevance to the U.S. attitude toward Israel. From the hard-core right-wing site, Ace of Spades HQ:

... from the perspective of the most widespread of them [schools of American thinking about world affairs], the Jacksonians, what Israel is doing in Gaza makes perfect sense. Not only are many Jacksonians completely untroubled by Israel's response to the rocket attacks in Gaza, many genuinely don't understand why the rest of the world is so steamed about Israel-and so angry with the United States.

Sam Gordon, 9-Year-Old Football Superstar!

First season in a pee-wee boys' football league: 35 touchdowns, 1900+ yards rushing, 232 carries, 8.2 yards per carry, 65 tackles!

Oh, and "Sam" is short for "Samantha."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Here's a highlight reel, 3 minutes, 23 seconds. You can't always tell at first which player is her -- until she comes rocketing out of the pack carrying the ball! And football isn't pattycake; she takes some pretty serious hits. On one play, she breaks five tackles on her way to the goal line (and then there's the 65 tackles she made). I'd be concerned about her getting injured, but football isn't even her number one sport. Her dream is to play pro soccer -- a much better choice, I'd say. Go Sam!

Henri 4 - L'Haunting

Quel dommage! Mon pauvre Henri!

Mitt Romney, Job Creator

Click here for an article by Greg Palast, an economist and financial investigator turned journalist, at The Nation entitled Mitt Romney's Bailout Bonanza.

Romney and a group of his hedge-fund manager henchmen bought struggling auto-parts manufacturer Delphi during the financial crisis. Realizing that Delphi would have to be bailed out along with GM and Chrysler, this band of merry men paid 67 cents a share for Delphi. They then held the federal government to ransom for a $12.9 billion bailout from U.S. taxpayers, threatening to shut down if they didn't get their demands, a move that would be a death sentence for the car companies. Two years after their bargain-basement acquisition, they took the company public -- at a stock price of $22. (I checked today's price; it's $33.19.) Romney personally made over $15 million on the deal; his partners in crime made about $4 billion.

They did create a lot of jobs, though! When Delphi was purchased, it was an American company with a unionized work force of over 25,000 in 29 American factories. The noble job creators got rid of the union and started creating jobs. Delphi now employs over 100,000 people. Well done, boys!

Just one catch. The article says there are now 4 Delphi factories in the U.S., employing about 5,000 workers. The rest of the factories -- and jobs -- are in China. Delphi is now incorporated in the Isle of Jersey, a tax haven off the coast of France.

Read the article; there's more, including "foggy accounting" used as a justification to slash company commitments to its pension plan.

The New Yorker: Paragon Of English Usage?

I wrote the following letter to The New Yorker:

Long-time reader, first-time contributor. I wanted to make a point to a colleague about proper punctuation and grammar. For years I've referred to The New Yorker as the world's best-edited magazine. To make a point, I wanted to ask my colleague to go to The New Yorker site and pick an article at random to see an example of proper English usage. Fortunately, I did it myself beforehand. To my surprise, the very first blurb for an article included the following: "Now that New York has experienced two freakish storms in less than two years, has a conversation has begun about its future in a warming world?"

Huh? Is this The New Yorker, or has my browser redirected me to Fox News? Oh, well. I clicked on this article; surely the punctuation and grammar here would be illustrative. After a few seconds, I came across the following: "The Romney ad doesn’t say; it doesn’t mention the line about Republicans that proceeded Obama’s comments." Come on, New Yorker! Tighten up!

Free Remote Access And Screen Sharing Tools

Click here for another Bob Rankin article, Free Remote Access and Screen Sharing Tools.

No need to pay $20/month for GoToMyPC. Products discussed include Logmein.com and UltraVNC -- both of which I have used and recommend -- Crossloop and TeamViewer.

Maybe Someday ... Or Maybe Not

Free Phone Calls! (For $129 + $4 Monthly)

Click here for a Bob Rankin article entitled "Free Phone Calls With Ooma." It's $129 at London Drugs; taxes and fees are $4 a month. You can pay an additional $10 a month for a premium package; beats Telus, for sure.

Links To Articles In A Microsoft Newsletter

Click here for a link from Microsoft entitled Build the ultimate digital jukebox. It's information on using Windows Media Player 11. I use MusicMatch, but I'm not entirely happy with the interface, so I wanted to save this article for future reference.

Click here for another Microsoft article in the same newsletter, 6 ways to work more effectively on a virtual team, an article on group collaboration on a project.

Conrad Black vs. Jeremy Paxman

Bob Rankin - Get Free Movies On Line - Legally!

 Click here for this article from askbobrankin.com.

For example:

OpenCulture is a collection of “the best free cultural & educational media on the Web.” Its movie collection includes public domain films and indie productions that are distributed with no strings attached. There are over 500 films available, including some classics such as George Orwell’s “1984,” Gary Cooper in “A Farewell to Arms,” “All Quiet On The Western Front,” and others.

Yes, there are plenty of free movies online. They just might not be the ones you want to watch.

.

The New Yorker Endorses Obama

Click here for The New Yorker's excellent summary of the case for Obama over Romney.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? Here's the New Yorker's take on the situation Obama faced at his inauguration, when the headline on The Onion read "Black man given nation's worst job":

Obama succeeded George W. Bush, a two-term President whose misbegotten legacy, measured in the money it squandered and the misery it inflicted, has become only more evident with time. Bush left behind an America in dire condition and with a degraded reputation. On Inauguration Day, the United States was in a downward financial spiral brought on by predatory lending, legally sanctioned greed and pyramid schemes, an economic policy geared to the priorities and the comforts of what soon came to be called “the one per cent,” and deregulation that began before the Bush Presidency. In 2008 alone, more than two and a half million jobs were lost—up to three-quarters of a million jobs a month. The gross domestic product was shrinking at a rate of nine per cent. Housing prices collapsed. Credit markets collapsed. The stock market collapsed—and, with it, the retirement prospects of millions. Foreclosures and evictions were ubiquitous; whole neighborhoods and towns emptied. The automobile industry appeared to be headed for bankruptcy. Banks as large as Lehman Brothers were dead, and other banks were foundering. It was a crisis of historic dimensions and global ramifications. However skillful the management in Washington, the slump was bound to last longer than any since the Great Depression.

At the same time, the United States was in the midst of the grinding and unnecessary war in Iraq, which killed a hundred thousand Iraqis and four thousand Americans, and depleted the federal coffers. The political and moral damage of Bush’s duplicitous rush to war rivalled the conflict’s price in blood and treasure. America’s standing in the world was further compromised by the torture of prisoners and by illegal surveillance at home. Al Qaeda, which, on September 11, 2001, killed three thousand people on American soil, was still strong. Its leader, Osama bin Laden, was, despite a global manhunt, living securely in Abbottabad, a verdant retreat near Islamabad.

In a nutshell, the conclusion:

The choice is clear. The Romney-Ryan ticket represents a constricted and backward-looking vision of America: the privatization of the public good. In contrast, the sort of public investment championed by Obama—and exemplified by both the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act—takes to heart the old civil-rights motto “Lifting as we climb.” That effort cannot, by itself, reverse the rise of inequality that has been under way for at least three decades. But we’ve already seen the future that Romney represents, and it doesn’t work.

The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney—a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity. A two-term Obama Administration will leave an enduringly positive imprint on political life. It will bolster the ideal of good governance and a social vision that tempers individualism with a concern for community. Every Presidential election involves a contest over the idea of America. Obama’s America—one that progresses, however falteringly, toward social justice, tolerance, and equality—represents the future that this country deserves. 

Obama-Romney Debate II - Songified

Alas For the Great Zeferelli.

Click here.

Bill Clinton: "Where you been, boy?"

Can The Big Dog run for president in 2016? Hey, Putin did it.

Bad Lip Reading: Obama/Romney Debate

Vote Hedgehog.

Bryan Fischer, Radical Right, Thinks A More Moderate Romney Is Just Fine

"... liberals cannot be reasoned with, they cannot be dialogued with, they cannot be compromised with. They're not interested in compromise whatsoever. They cannot be collaborated with, they can only be defeated."

Click here for an article on Right Wing Watch by Kyle Mentyla entitled Fischer: Liberals Can't be Reasoned With, They Can Only be Defeated.

That refers to a radio broadcast by a Christian evangelical nutcase named Bryan Fischer. Fischer's bigotry was so excesssive that Romney disavowed some of his remarks early in the primary campaign. Fischer retaliated with more venom, and the two had a bit of a feud going for months.

Shortly before the Obama/Romney debate, Fischer took a poll of his listeners: Was he being too hard on Romney, and should he be more supportive of the Republican candidate even if his views were not sufficiently "conservative"? His listeners responded vehemently: Kick him even harder. They did not want to see squishiness in a Republican candidate.

Well, squishiness was what they got from Romney in the debate. I waited breathlessly for news of the vat of boiling tea that would surely inundate Romney the next morning. Surprise, surprise -- nothing. Romney was seen to have dominated a lackluster Obama, and his sliding fortunes had been reversed and his support rose steeply. Fischer decided Romney wasn't such a liberal monster after all, and that it's time for the faithful to silence their doubts and vote Republican.

You can imagine my shock and dismay at finding that the most rabid of tea partiers (Teahadists) are much more interested in winning the election than that their candidate stick to far-right principles.

Pete Peterson's 'National Debt' Curriculum For High School Kids

Ouch! Click here for an article from 2010 I hadn't been aware of. It starts out:

Teachers College has received a three-year $2.45 million grant from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to develop a comprehensive social studies and mathematics curriculum about the fiscal challenges that face the nation, which will be distributed free of charge to every high school in the country. Titled “Understanding Fiscal Responsibility: A Curriculum for Teaching About the Federal Budget, National Debt and Budget Deficit,” the non-partisan [yeah, right], inquiry-based curriculum will teach students the facts, significance and consequences for the United States and its citizens of public policies leading to persistent deficits and a growing national debt.

Peterson is in the news recently because he's contributed $30 million to a new organization, the Campaign to Fix the Debt. Its objective is to push through a "grand bargain" in Congress's lame-duck session that would slash Medicare and Social Security spending in exchange for new tax revenue.

By the end of the year, we're going to be sick and tired of hearing the phrases "grand bargain," "Bowles-Simpson," "fiscal cliff," and "Taxmageddon."

Gimme That Old-Time Religion

This bozo's a congressman from Georgia! (That's where the Devil went down to, by the way.) He's a medical doctor, and he sits on the House Committee on Science and Technology. He's up for reelection in November -- and he's running unopposed. Read more here at Talking Points Memo.

Well Said, FDR

FDR:  "Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that divine justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales. Better the occasional faults of a Government that lives in a spirit of charity than the constant omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference."

More FDR: "“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” 

Sensible advice from Cher (6 seconds)

Homer Votes For Romney Because He Invented Obamacare

"Why do we have to choose our leaders? Isn't that what we have the Supreme Court for?"

Hitler Views Secret Romney Video! Scheiss!

Not safe for work.

Mr. Romney/Mr. Burns

Click here for Mr. Romney/Burns criticizing his labor force.



Smithers.
Hmm?
Turn on the surveillance monitors.
Yes, sir!
Hmm. It's worse than I thought.

Each morning at nine, they trickle through the gate
They go home early, they come in late
Reeking of cheap liquor, they stumble through the day
Never give a thought to honest work for honest pay!
I know it shouldn't vex me; I shouldn't take it hard
I know I should ignore their capering with a kingly disregard

But look at all those idiots, oh, look at all those boobs
An office full of morons, a factory full of fools
Is it any wonder that I'm singing, singing the blu-u-ues?

I'm just getting started.

They make personal phone calls on company time
They Xerox their buttocks, and guess who pays the dime
Their blatant thievery wounds me, their ingratitude astounds!
I long to lure them to my home, and then release the hounds!
I shouldn't grow unsettled when faced with such abuse
I shouldn't let it plague me, I shouldn't blow a fuse!

But look at all those idiots, oh, look at all those boobs
An office full of morons, a factory full of fools
Is it any wonder I'm singing, singing the blu-u-ues?

What happened? Where are the instruments?
I believe they call this a breakdown, sir.
I can't have any breakdowns here! What if there was an inspector around? Play a guitar solo.
Oh, I'm a little out of practice, sir.
I said do it!!! So do it!!! do it!!! do it!!!
Yes sir. (Guitar Solo)
Yes, excellent. Well done. All right, it's beginning to grate. That'll be sufficient, Smithers. Excuse me?
I said that's enough!
Oh! Sorry sir. Thought I had my mojo working.
Humph.

That man by the cooler, drinking water as if it's free.
Oh, that's Homer Simpson, sir, a drone from sector 7-G.
Yes, well, call this Simpson to my office, and stay to watch the fun.
If he's 6 feet when he enters, he'll be 2 feet when I'm done.
It brings a ray of sunshine to my unhappy life
To make him kneel before me and slowly twist the knife.

Look at all those idiots, oh, look at all those boobs
An office full of morons, a factory full of fools
Is it any wonder, that I'm singing, singing the blu-u-ues?

Take me home, sir,
I'm trying.

Surrounded by idiots, outnumbered by boobs.
An office full of morons, A planet full of fools.
Is it any wonder I'm singing --
Maybe you should be singing, sir.
Oh. Singing the blu-u-ues.

(Look at all those idiots)
Mr. Burns, you -- you make Muddy Waters sound shallow and  (An office full of morons) cheerful by comparison.
Thank you, Smithers. Meaningless, but  (Is it any wonder)  heartfelt compliment. I feel like I got a few things off my chest, and onto the chests of my inferiors.
You did.
(Look at all those idiots)
Why are they still playing?
Um...
(Office full of morons)
They're not still on salary, are they?
We're not validating their parking, sir.

Bill Clinton's Speech, Democratic Convention 2012

Click here for the speech that may well have won the election for Obama and turned around the right track/wrong track assessment by the American people. 48 minutes. One of the best political speeches ever.

What's QE3? (Hint: You Need A Printing Press)

Click here for the Wikipedia entry.

Click here for a reader-friendly informative article from the New York Times.

On a related topic that we're going to be hearing more and more, with more and more intensity from both sides, click here for an article entitled What is the Fiscal Cliff? by Thomas Kenny at about.com.

Sheldon Adelson Rolls The Dice

Click here for an explanation of the probability theory behind Adelson's $100 million bet on Romney. It's from a diary on Daily Kos by Melanie in IA, and explains the calculation of EV (Expected Value). Here's the Wikipedia definition of "expected value":

In probability theory, the expected value (or expectation, or mathematical expectation, or mean, or the first moment) of a random variable is the weighted average of all possible values that this random variable can take on. The weights used in computing this average correspond to the probabilities in case of a discrete random variable, or densities in case of a continuous random variable. From a rigorous theoretical standpoint, the expected value is the integral of the random variable with respect to its probability measure.

For his $100 million bet, Adelson stands to win -- in addition to casino-friendly legislation -- $2 billion a year (payoff: 20 to 1) in reductions to his personal taxes; if the estate tax drops to zero, he and his family stand to win $11 billion (payoff: 110 to 1). Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

(Free bonus jackpot: War with Iran! Payoff from investments with your defense contractor cronies: You need more columns on your calculator!)

Tidbits

Texas Republican Party officially opposes the teaching of "critical thinking skills" in Texas schools. Here it is, as stated in the party platform:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

No wonder Texas has provided us with such legislative luminaries as Joe Barton and Louie Gohmert.
*******************************************
Bill Moyers, in an interview with Mike Lofgren, author of  "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted," says:

"... what gives Mike Lofgren more clout than the rest is decades of insider experience on Capitol Hill. He was a Fulbright scholar with two degrees in history when he went to work in Congress and became a senior staff member of the House and Senate Budget committees. His specialty was the cost of national security. After 28 years of government service, Mike Lofgren retired and sat down to write a powerful manifesto that took off like a rocket when it was posted on the website Truthout.org."

Lofgren says: "I left the party because it was becoming an apocalyptic cult."

********************************************
Wow, I didn't know Melissa Harris-Perry had an academic feud going with Cornel West. At one time West's protege, Harris-Perry split with West when he opposed Obama. Good for her!

“In an self-aggrandizing, victimology sermon deceptively wrapped in the discourse of prophetic witness, Professor West offers thin criticism of President Obama and stunning insight into the delicate ego of the self-appointed black leadership class that has been largely supplanted in recent years,” she wrote in a scathing article for the Nation.

Harris-Perry went on to mock West and his “dear brother” Tavis Smiley as hypocrites in bed with “Wells-Fargo, Walmart and McDonalds,” while simultaneously deriding the president for his inattention to pivotal issues in the African-American community.

I loved it when she recently blew up at a guest on her TV show recently, Hooray for strong women!
**********************************************
I think we'll be hearing the name "Mike Lofgren" more and more as time goes on. Click here for a link to an article in American Conservative entitled Revolt of the Rich. Here's a quote:

Our plutocracy now lives like the British in colonial India: in the place and ruling it, but not of it. If one can afford private security, public safety is of no concern; if one owns a Gulfstream jet, crumbling bridges cause less apprehension—and viable public transportation doesn’t even show up on the radar screen. With private doctors on call and a chartered plane to get to the Mayo Clinic, why worry about Medicare?

Stephen Schwarzman, billionaire CEO of the Blackstone Group, threw himself a $5-million birthday party, hiring Rod Stewart for the entertainment. His comment on Obama's attitude toward Wall Street fat cats:

“It’s a war. It’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”

Matt Taibbi's Savage Attack On Romney

Click here for Matt Taibbi's Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital in September's issue of Rolling Stone.

Granholm En Fuego

Click here for the complete speech of two-term ex-governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm, at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Romney/Ryan Must Be Defeated

Click here for a simply outstanding blog post by Kurt Eichenwald, who apparently is a contributor to Atlantic magazine. I found it by following a link from Daily Kos. Entitled The Five Reasons Why Romney/Ryan Must be Defeated in 2012 – And Why Conservatives Should Hope They Are, it's a devastating critique of the monstrosity the Republican party has become.

CrashPlan - Bob Rankin

Click here. Another Bob Rankin article I want to keep. This one is CrashPlan -- back up your data, remotely or via cable, to a friend's computer. There's a free version. If you both have CrashPlan, you can store backups on each other's computers. Each person can choose how much drive space they'll be willing to allow. 128-bit encryption means neither of you can access the other's data -- you don't even know what's there.

Radical Republican Platform, 1956

As the ultra-right toil away in Tampa crafting the most socially destructive Republican Party Platform ever, click here to link to the Platform created for Eisenhower's re-election campaign in 1956. Times have changed somewhat.

I've lazily cut-and-pasted some excerpts from another site:

“The Eisenhower Administration will continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:

• Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers; 
• Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers; 
• Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system; 
• Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits; 
• Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;
• Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts; 
• Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable; 
• Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex; 
• Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment; 
• Revise and improve the Taft-Hartley Act so as to protect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy of the Eisenhower Administration.”

Seven Free Cloud Services - Bob Rankin

Click here for a link to another Bob Rankin article I want to keep, but I don't want it to get lost in my massive collection of emails.

Who Is Paul Ryan?

Be afraid: Be very afraid. Paul Ryan, an acolyte of Ayn Rand who once stated that he made his staffers read Atlas Shrugged, is a dangerous man. In Batocchio's article at Vagabond Scholar, But Paul Ryan Seems Like Such a Nice Fellow, he cites an article in New York magazine by Jonathan Chait entitled The Legendary Paul Ryan. Batocchio says:

I wanted to link Jonathan Chait's piece "The Legendary Paul Ryan" again, because it's one of the best introductions to Ryan, especially for people who aren't political junkies.

It's a long article, but it's an easy, entertaining read.

Excellent Article On Keystone Pipeline

It's a long read, but well worth it. It presents points of view from both sides and doesn't make any killer arguments for or against, but it's good writing, and thoroughly enjoyable. By John H. Richardson -- and from Esquire, of all places. Who'd a thunk it? Click here.

Recover From A Hard Drive Failure

CLICK HERE for a link to another Bob Rankin posting which could save you in the event of (seeming) disaster -- ranging from rebooting in Safe mode to paying thousands of dollars for data recovery.

Vagabond Scholar

I've discovered a new blog that seems to be a "must read." CLICK HERE for a link to Battochio's blog, Vagabond Scholar. I read two of his articles recommended by Digby at Hullabaloo -- a solid source if ever there was one -- and I highly recommend it.

Here's what he says at his site when you click on "About Vagabond Scholar":

This blog covers politics, film, theater, poetry, literature, history and what-have-you. (Mostly, it's tardy long-form blogging.) For the brave of heart with lots of time at hand, my blogiversary roundups (linked below) provide a decent overview of past posts, wide in variety, uniform in their suspect quality. I've guest posted or cross-posted a few other places – Crooks and Liars, Hullabaloo, the Campaign for America's Future, and Blue Herald, where I did a series called Right-Wing Cartoon Watch. As for the blog's title, from my second blogiversary post:
…There are times I wonder why the hell I picked it. As I wrote early on, I've long thought it would be a fun name for a column, and later learned it was the title of a biography about historian George Santayana. I have a wide range of interests, and until a few years ago, I had spent most of my life moving around (seven states, three continents) studying or teaching. I think of a "scholar" as one who values the life of the mind and the arts, is driven to learn more and who tries to be honest, not someone who possesses all the answers already. There's a saying that "I don't trust the man who says he's seen the light. I trust the person who's still looking." That said, sometimes "Vagabond Scholar" strikes me as a stuffy or pretentious blog title that doesn't quite fit with the more satirical posts or my nom de blog, but I guess it sounds vaguely more respectable than "Semiliterate Bum."

Create Your Own Website

Here's another Bob Rankin article I need to save: Seven Steps To Create Your Own Website.

Who Is/Was Saul Alinsky?

Click here for a HuffPo article by Peter Dreier entitled The Right Wing Resurrects Saul Alinsky. By now, many of us know he wrote a book entitled Rules for Radicals, because we have had it drummed into our heads by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Andrew Breitbart, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and especially Glenn Beck. According to them, Alinsky was the Godfather of the Obama administration.

Anyway, Drieier's article is a long one, tracing the career of the Chicago activist "often considered the founder of community organizing" who died in 1972.

Ask Bob Rankin

I want to put in a plug for Ask Bob Rankin (askbobrankin.com), a technology newsletter I subscribe to. I get a lot of interesting stuff from them, and some of the articles need to be kept, like this one: Five Cool Things You Can Do With Skype.

The headings are:
(1) Free conference calling has never been easier.
(2) Manage contacts and block nuisance callers.
(3) Record your Skype calls.
(4) Skype games and whiteboarding.
(5) Skype home security camera.

Each of these headings is expanded upon and further links are provided, such as this one: Use Skype as a Remote Video Security Monitor.

Askbobrankin.com provides a free, and frequent, newsletter.

Click here for an article called "Seven Tips for Savvy Online Shopping," at askbobrankin.com. In summary form: 1. Use price-comparison sites to find the best deals. 2. Before you buy, look for coupons that can reduce your final price. 3. Look for rebates and rewards. 4. An Amazon Prime membership may save you money. 5. Don’t forget eBay, especially if the item you seek is a staple rather than a fad of the moment. 6. Take advantage of group buying power. 7. Use social networking to your advantage. Bob explains each of the points in detail.

Click here for a 25-minute speech by Bernie Sanders (Independent, Vermont) on the Senate floor concerning wealth disparity.

The Walton (Wal-Mart) family own more than the bottom 30% of Americans.


The bottom 30% of Americans own less than 3/10 of 1% of America's wealth.

The top 1% own more of America's wealth than the bottom 40%. 

The bottom 60% of Americans own less than 2% of America's wealth.

In 2009 and 2010, 93% of the new income generated went to the top 1%.

Now, thanks to the Citizens United decision of the SCOTUS, the very rich who own most of the country now have the opportunity to buy the U.S. government.

Click here for an article by Katherine Eban in Fortune magazine -- hardly a liberal publication -- publishing the truth about Fast & Furious just before Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress (really, who isn't in contempt of Congress?). The article was six months in preparation. Apparently Fast & Furious was fabricated by right-wing bloggers out of complaints by vindictive and disgruntled ATF guys. Fox News ran it non-stop for months, prompting Darrell Issa's investigative committee to use it as a club to beat Holder and the administration. I wonder who had the shining intellect to make the leap to defining F&F as a plot by Obama to crack down on gun owners in the U.S.

Henri 3 - Merde!

Henri and the vet.

Click here for a link to The Kingpins: The Fight For Guadalajara, an 11-page article by William Finnegan in The New Yorker about the Mexican drug trade.

Climate Change - 15 Minutes

This is a TEDx speech at Evergreen College by David Roberts. Our climate change future is on track to make the planet uninhabitable to life as we know it by 2300.

Click here for Ezra Klein's article in The New Yorker, Unpopular Mandate: Why do politicians reverse their positions?

When the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was signed into law, there were hardly any legal scholars in the country who considered the universal mandate -- forcing people to buy health insurance from private carriers -- to be unconstitutional. In fact, the individual mandate was first proposed in 1989 by the right-wing Heritage Foundation and enthusiastically endorsed and supported by dozens of prominent Republicans (Clinton's failed proposal proposed a mandate on employers, not individuals).

It was mainstream Republican policy for two decades. But the Republican position reversed, almost overnight.

"In December, 2009, in a vote on the bill, every Senate Republican voted to call the individual mandate 'unconstitutional.'"

Now, less than three years later, the Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision soon on the constitutionality of the bill -- and the consensus among legal scholars is that the decision is pretty much a coin toss.

How can mainstream political opinion shift so rapidly and dramatically? Says Klein:

Orin Kerr says that, in the two years since he gave the individual mandate only a one-per-cent chance of being overturned, three key things have happened. First, congressional Republicans made the argument against the mandate a Republican position. Then it became a standard conservative-media position. “That legitimized the argument in a way we haven’t really seen before,” Kerr said. “We haven’t seen the media pick up a legal argument and make the argument mainstream by virtue of media coverage.” Finally, he says, “there were two conservative district judges who agreed with the argument, largely echoing the Republican position and the media coverage. And, once you had all that, it really became a ballgame.” Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor, agrees. “Once Republican politicians say this is unconstitutional, it gets repeated endlessly in the partisan media that’s friendly to the Republican Party”—Fox News, conservative talk radio, and the like—“and, because this is now the Republican Party’s position, the mainstream media needs to repeatedly explain the claims to their readers. That further moves the arguments from off the wall to on the wall, because, if you’re reading articles in the Times describing the case against the mandate, you assume this is a live controversy.”

Klein cites psychological studies about why people's political beliefs sometimes seem irrational; I like the title of one of them, a 2006 paper, “It Feels Like We’re Thinking."

Four New Yorker pages, well worth reading.

Twilight of the Elites

Chris Hayes and Katrina vanden Heuvel discuss Hayes' new book, Twilight of the Elites (an hour and a half).

freespeechtv on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

TED Speech On Income Inequality

A six-minute clip of Amazon.com co-founder Nick Hanauer (a very rich man). Shame on TED for taking this clip off their site. (I got it from a copy taken by Lawrence O'Donnell and posted at msnbc.com.)

"We've had it backwards for the last 30 years. Rich people like me don’t create jobs. Jobs are a consequence of an eco-systemic feedback loop between customers and businesses. And when the middle class thrives, businesses grow and hire and owners profit. That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is such a fantastic deal for the middle class and the rich. So ladies and gentlemen, here's an idea worth spreading: in a capitalist economy, the true job creators are middle class consumers. And taxing the rich to make investments that make the middle class grow and thrive is the single shrewdest thing we can do for the middle class, for the poor, and for the rich."

Progressive Information Project

Click here for a list of progressive radio and video sites. It's an awesome list, but you have to follow the "Click here" link in the line above; the underlined items below are not clickable. 

Oh, wow, they are clickable! Enjoy!

All Power To The Positive—Featuring Sensei Gregory C. Lewis and Jacob “The Jacobin” Brown (radio)

Alternet Radio Hour—With Joshua Holland (radio)

The Anonymous Show—With Mr. X aka John Smith (radio)

BearMan Radio Show—Featuring the BearMan (radio)

Blacking It Up—Featuring Elon James White, L. Joy Williams and Aaron Rand Freeman (radio)

The Blatant Minority—Featuring Greg Hanson (radio)

Bob and Chez Show—Featuring Bob Cesca and Chez Pazienza (radio)

The Breakdown—With Richard Eskow (radio)

Brookland Café—(radio)

Captain Jack Show—With Captain Jack (radio)

Clearing the FOG (Forces of Greed)—With Kevin Zeese & Margaret Flowers (radio)

Coffee Party Radio—Featuring Annabel Park and Coffee Party volunteers (radio)

Create the Change—(radio)

The DC Sports Beat—With Mitch Malasky (radio)

DC Voice’s Education Town Hall—With Thomas Byrd (radio)

Democracy Now—With Amy Goodman (video/radio)

Digital Politics Radio—With Karen Jagoda (radio)

The DMZ at BloggingHeads.TV—With Bill Scher & Matt K. Lewis (video)

Earth Radio One—Featuring Doctor Drake and Doctor Truth (radio)

Equal Time Radio—With Frank Blair, Traci Kelly, Andrew Bacon (radio)

The Matthew Filipowicz Show—Featuring Matthew Filipowicz (radio)

Filter Free Radio—With Jacob Dean (radio)

Fireside Chats at BloggingHeads.TV—With various hosts (video)

The Flaming Sword of Justice—With Ben Wikler (radio)

Foreign Entanglements at BloggingHeads.TV—With various hosts (video)

The Richard Fowler Show—With Richard Fowler (radio)

The Frank Factor—With Frank (radio)

Friedersdorf at BloggingHeads.TV—With Conor Friedersdorf (video)

The Glenn Show at BloggingHeads.TV—With Glenn Loury (video)

The God Above God—Aeon Byte (radio)

GoLeft TV—Featuring Mike Papantonio (video)

Green Power—Featuring Akili West (radio)

GRITradio—With Laura Flanders (radio)

The Thom Hartmann Show—Featuring Thom Hartmann (radio)

ill doctrine—Featuring Jay Smooth (video)

In Deep and Live From the Left Coast—With Angie Coiro (radio)

In Your Face Radio—With JD & Greg Zollo (Radio)

The Inside Scoop—With Mark Levine (radio)

Leaning Left—With Rutherford Lawson and Sandi Behrns (radio)

Left Jab Radio—Featuring Mark Walsh and Dave Goodfriend (radio)

Liberal Oasis Radio Show—Featuring Bill Scher & Traci Olsen (radio)

The Josh Lopez Show—Featuring Josh Lopez (radio)

The Luv Lounge—Featuring Jamal Muhammad, aka Dj One Luv (radio)

Majority Report—Featuring Sam Seder (video)

The Leslie Marshall Show—Featuring Leslie Marshall (radio)

Media Matters Radio—With Bob McChesney (radio)

The Stephanie Miller Show—With Stephanie Miller (radio)

Moment of Clarity—Featuring Lee Camp (video)

MOMocrats—Progressive mom bloggers writing about politics from a mom's perspective (radio)

The Shannyn Moore Show—Featuring Shannyn Moore (radio)

The More Me Show—With DJ Downtown and Eddie Herradura (radio)

Moyers and Company—Featuring Bill Moyers (video)

The Nation Conversations—With various hosts (radio)

One on the Right—Maine politics with Gerald Weinand (radio)

The Other Side—With Ron Moten (radio)

The David Pakman Show—Featuring David Pakman (radio)

The Posner Show at BloggingHeads.TV—With Sarah Posner (video)

Power To The People—With Mike (radio)

The Power To The People Radio Program—Featuring The Bedouin (radio)

The Bill Press Show—With Bill Press (radio)

The Professional Left—Featuring Driftglass & Blue Gal (radio)

The Professor Rex Show—Florida politics with Professor Rex aka Kenneth Quinnell (radio)

Progressive Blend Radio—On Radio or Not (radio)

Progressive News Network—Florida politics (and beyond) with Richard W. Spisak Jr. (radio)

Ring of Fire—With Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio and Sam Seder (radio)

Roots Radio—(radio)

The Nicole Sandler Show at Radio or Not—With Nicole Sandler (radio)

The Ed Schultz Show—Featuring Ed Schultz (radio)

The Sara Schulz Show—Wisconsin politics with Sara Schulz (radio)

The Scream Cafe—With Grobeck and Monkeyhead (radio)

The Nancy Skinner Show—Featuring Nancy Skinner (radio)

Soulful Green Living—With Vicki Blues (radio)

SpeakEasy—With Kymone Freeman and Ron Pinchback (radio)

Take Action News—With David Shuster (radio)

Talking Left—With Danielle, the Left Neck Chick, and Shane-O (radio)

This Week In Blackness—Featuring Elon James White (video)

The Trees Radio—With Stone Kawala (radio)

True Blue Talk—With Steve M. (radio)

Turn Up the Night—With Kenny Pick (radio)

Virtually Speaking—Featuring Jay Ackroyd, Stuart Zechman, Alan Boyle, Tom Levenson and various other hosts (radio)

Washington Squares at BloggingHeads.TV—With Michael Brendan Dougherty (video)

A World of Progress Radio—(radio)

Worldwise at BloggingHeads.TV—With various hosts (video)

The Wright Show at BloggingHeads.TV—With Robert Wright (video)

The Young Turks—Featuring Cenk Uygur, Ana Kasparian, Ben Mankiewicz, Michael Shure, Brian Unger, Wes Clark Jr., RJ Eskow (video)

Your World News—From the University of Maryland (radio)

Edward R. Murrow: A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy

Click here for a transcript of See it Now (CBS-TV, March 9, 1954)

Here's an excerpt, as posted by Bill in Portland Maine on Daily Kos (Click on the last sentence for a short video clip):

"We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men---not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn't create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it---and rather successfully. Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.' Good night and good luck."

Canyonero!

Mon Nom Est Henri - Kitty Existentialism

There's skiing ... and there's parachuting ... and then there's this

If that's not enough for you, watch some of the clips afterward.

Obama's 17-minute Campaign Ad

Find The Originating ISP Of An Email

A tip from Windows Secrets:

Here's how to find the originating ISP of an e-mail:

• In Gmail, click the down arrow next to the right of the message header (next to the Reply button) and choose Show original. That shows you the entire message, including the full header information (the message routing information at the beginning of the message, which is normally hidden).
  
• Copy the entire header and go to the ipTRACKERonline header-analysis page.
  
• Paste the header info into the Email header analysis input box and press the Submit button.
  
• After ipTRACKERonline reloads the page, scroll down to the Email header analysis report box. There you'll see where the message has been and — most of the time — where it originated.

Send a Fax From Your Computer

Category: Fax

Lazy, lazy, lazy. This article is copy-and-pasted from a column by Bob Rankin.

Sending a fax from your computer is a convenient, money-saving way to communicate with people who cannot receive email, or insist on paper documents. There are several ways to send a fax from your computer, even if you don't have a fax machine. Here's how you can start faxing from your PC, Mac or mobile device...

No Fax Machine? No Problem!

Even though we live in a digital age, there are still plenty of faxes whizzing back and forth over the wires. If you deal with lawyers, banks, accountants, or almost any office that deals with lots of paperwork, you will occasionally need to send a quick fax.But what if you don't have a fax machine? You can drive over to the nearest copy shop or office supply store and pay them to send your fax, but that's no fun. Fortunately, you can send a fax right from your computer - no fax machine required!

The first and best option in most cases is to try one of the many free fax servers to be found on the Web. FaxZero is one these free fax services. Just go to their home page and enter your name, email address, and optionally your company or fax number. Add the fax number and name of the intended recipient. Upload a file in PDF, DOC, or DOCX (Word 2007 and higher) format, or type a short message in a Web form box to be faxed. You can fax up to three pages at a time twice a day for free. If you have hardcopy pages that need to be faxed, you'll need to scan them into PDF format first. (See Digital Scanners To The Rescue if you don't have a scanner.)

Faxzero and most other free fax services have subscription-based plans for higher volume customers. See my list in Free Internet Faxing for more options. If you're often on the receiving end of faxes, my article Top Online Fax Services will show you how to funnel all that paper into your email inbox instead.

If you use an iPhone or iPad there are apps you can use to send a fax from your mobile device. Look in the App Store for PC-FAX (offers one free page per day) or iFax Pro (charges 99 cents for up to 5 pages). If you have an Android-powered smartphone or tablet, look in Google Play (formerly called Android Market) for iFax Pro.

Desktop Faxing Solutions

Let's start with the Fax and Scan utility built into Windows Vista and Windows 7. To start Fax and Scan, click Start, All Programs, and then click Windows Fax and Scan. If Fax and Scan is not installed on your system, click Start, Control Panel, Programs, Turn Windows Features On Or Off, then Print And Document Services. Check the box next to Windows Fax and Scan and click OK to install Windows Fax and Scan services. Note that Fax and Scan is only available on the Business and Ultimate editions of Vista, not Vista Home Edition. If you're still running Windows XP, see How to enable and configure the fax service in Windows XP. All modern versions of Mac OS have fax sending capability built in.

You can send a fax using a standard fax modem, which most computers have. Just plug your phone line into the telephone jack on the back of your computer, and you should be good to go. Windows Fax and Scan lets you compose a text-only fax on the fly, or you can send any file, such as a Word document, a spreadsheet, a photo, or a scanned page to a remote fax machine. Cover pages are also easy to create with this program. On a Mac, open the document, click File/Print, click the PDF button, then choose "Fax PDF" from the pop-up menu. Unfortunately, most newer Macs do not have an internal modem, so the online fax solution may be the only option.

Third-party fax software for Windows is preferred by some users, and some of these programs offer features that Windows Fax and Scan lacks. Electrasoft offers a shareware program that can print incoming faxes, forward them to your email inbox, or use your cellular phone to send a fax. Snappy Fax 2000 can filter out unwanted junk faxes. There are plenty of free and low-cost fax programs with different features to suit every taste.

Enterprises which send lots of faxes each month can benefit from an in-house fax server. Such a server is a network-connected computer equipped with special telephony cards into which multiple phone lines can be plugged. Software handles receipt and queuing of digital fax documents from users on the network, and the transmission of faxes through multiple phone lines. A fax server can also store sent faxes, allowing users to quickly find, view, and print copies of what they sent.

Why not just buy a cheap fax machine? The short answer to that question is that they're not really so cheap when you factor in all the costs. See my article Five Good Reasons to Trash Your Fax Machine and join my crusade to stamp out fax machines in our lifetime! :-)

I Wish I Was In Dixie ...

Is The South a Nation of Toothless, Ignorant, Racist Rednecks?

Well, not really. Apparently Part 1 of 3; off to a good start.

IBM: The Next 5 In 5

The Next 5 In 5: 

At the end of each year, IBM examines market and societal trends expected to transform our lives, as well as emerging technologies from IBM's global labs, to develop a multi-year forecast called "The Next 5 in 5."

This year's somewhat cryptic headlines are:

• Energy: People power will come to life
• Security: You will never need a password again
• Mind reading: no longer science fiction
• Mobile: The digital divide will cease to exist
• Analytics: Junk mail will become priority mail

The Missing Middle In American Politics

The Missing Middle In American Politics is an article in Foreign Affairs magazine. The loss of George Romney moderates since the Goldwater days.

Rick Santorum And The Modern Know-Nothings

From CounterPunch:

The Revival of American Nativism:  Santorum and the New Know-Nothings

by DAVID ROSEN

Money matters, in politics as in other aspects of American life.  The March 6 Super Tuesday Republican playoffs in 10 states were one more round in the political-Nascar crash-dummy derby.  And for all his money and organizational muscle, Mitt Romney’s campaign yet again failed to win a decisive victory and secure his party’s presidential nomination.

Romney’s squeakers in Ohio and, earlier, Michigan, were slim, unconvincing showings.  While he will keep juggling, trying to be everything to everyone, the rest of the primary campaigns may well witness the same degree of fierce competition.  Big money, and the media buys and organizational follow-through that it pays for, gives him an undisputed advantage.  However much the Romney candidacy may stumble on its way to the Republican convention in Tampa, FL, the fix seems in.

Unfortunately for Romney, the Republican establishment, the corporate and country-club set, is facing a fierce (and apparently uncompromising) hardcore “radical right” insurgency.  This faction is represented by the Tea Party, rabid anti-abortion activists and Christian culture warriors, among others.  If they fail to name the party’s presidential nominee, they surely will have a say in selecting the vice presidential candidate.

The lame efforts of Govs. Tim Pawlenty and Jon Huntsman left only Romney to represent what traditionally would have been the Republican mainstream.  In the face of McCain’s failed 2008 campaign (even with Sarah Palin on the ticket) and the strong showing by the Tea Party right in 2010, the far right has been emboldened in its effort to capture the GOP.

Elements of this nativist sentiment have been expressed by all the major candidates: whether Christian reactionaries Rep. Michelle Bachmann and Gov. Rich Perry, opportunist clowns Donald Trump and Herman Cain, and hokum-masters Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.  Santorum’s relatively late emergence as the “true” Christian candidate touches a deep nerve among the Republican activist rank and file.

During the primary season, the ever-shrinking roster of Republican presidential candidates has ceaselessly genuflected before the god of corporate conservatism.  Instead of appealing to moral suasion, the essence of both Jesus’ message and the best of the American political tradition, these crusaders shamelessly call for the use of state power to impose their moral order.  While they want to “shrink” government when it comes to socially useful programs and for taxes on the rich, they (with the exception of Paul) want to “expand” the power of the state to enforce their moral dictates.

In all likelihood, if Romney becomes the official Republican presidential candidate, he will move toward to the “center,” attempting to appeal to a more independent, moderate electorate.  And, as with the more progressive wing of the Democratic party, the hardcore conservatives who vehemently opposed him during the primaries will likely vote for Romney in November.  Like progressives, many will be shamed into voting for the least of the worst.

 

* * *

A powerful right-wing nativist tendency has, for much of the last century, repeatedly attempted to gain control of the GOP and, through it, the state apparatus to impose its values on the nation.  This tendency is now galvanized around Santorum, but its roots go deep in American political history.

In fact, it dates from 1798 with the adoption of the Alien and Sedition Act that enabled the president during peacetime to deport aliens deemed “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.”  This tendency was rejected for much of the mid-20th century by mainstream Republicans as the “radical right” (e.g., John Birch Society).  It has come to increasingly define the party.

Nativism emerged as a political force in the Know-Nothing movement of the pre-Civil War era.  It drew together Protestants who felt threatened by the rapid increase in European immigrants, especially Germans in the midwest and Catholics in the east.  It found strong support among those who felt threatened by the large-scale Irish immigration that followed the 1848 potato famine.

Most troubling, they felt that Catholics, as followers of the pope, were not loyal Americans and were going to take over the country.   Religious intolerance led to numerous anti-Catholic attacks, including the burning of churches, and random beatings and killings in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington and Louisville, where 22 people were killed.  In 1849, a secret Order of the Star-Spangled Banner was formed in New York and spread to other cities.

However, during the 1850s, Know-Nothing supporters came out of the proverbial closet and formed the American Party.  It championed restrictions on immigration, exclusion of the foreign-born from voting or holding public office and a 21-year residency requirement for citizenship.  By 1855, 43 Congressmen were American Party members; in 1856, it backed Millard Fillmore for president, who secured nearly 1 million votes, a quarter of all votes cast.  The growing battle over slavery led to its demise.

A second nativist revival emerged in opposition to the profound social destabilization caused by America’s great industrial revolution of the late 19th century.  It drew together a diverse assortment of resentments, coalescing around temperance.

Alcohol, and the saloon, was seen as the root cause of all social ills.   But nativists also championed racial purity and sought to prevent the alleged “pollution” of the white Protestant American “stock” by freed slaves and immigrants.  They opposed science and the teaching of evolution.  Yet they supported the pseudo-science of eugenics and engaged in a war against “feeblemindedness,” especially targeted at African Americans and immigrants.  They opposed the “new woman” symbolized by the flapper, a modern, 20th century woman who was urban, held a job and had money in her pocket, had a basic education, some going to college, and (especially at night in speakeasies) liked to drink, smoke, wear makeup and dance to jazz.  Perhaps most threatening, the new woman had access to birth control information, contraception, sex education – and sex.

Most important, this round of nativism revival drew together sophisticated organizations like the the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League, the Immigration Restriction League and the Klan.  They not only captured the Republican Party, but used it to mobilize federal and state governments to impose its moral values on all Americans.

Only the Great Depression, World War II and the post-war economic recovery saved America from becoming the New Jerusalem envisioned by the Puritans.  A new world order suppressed this nativist tendency for nearly half a century.  However, its model of effectively using the power of the state to impose morality on a nation serves as the virtual blueprint of today’s nativism movement.

* * *

For much of the first half of the 20th century, the Republican Party – the party once of Lincoln – served as the political apparatus of the corporate establishment.  During the ‘10s and ‘20s, the GOP was famous for decision-making in smoked-filled rooms; that’s how presidential candidates were selected.  It put forward rather ho-hum, mainstream figures like Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover; surprisingly, it was a party that also included the progressive Robert La Follette.

With FDR’s election in 1932, Democrats held the White House for the next 20 years.  Roosevelt bequeathed to the nation the liberal state, one based on Keynesian economics, high taxes on the wealthy and meaningful social mobility.  He set the foundation for what is known as the American Century.  Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon might well be considered the last New Dealers.

In 1960, Nixon was the Republican compromise candidate; while the Vice President, the moderate Nelson Rockefeller and the conservative Barry Goldwater challenged him for the nomination.  More significant long term, the Democrats were splintering, beginning to refight the Civil War; Sens. Robert Byrd and Strom Thurmond deeply opposed the Yankee Catholic John Kennedy.  This division would set the race-based Christian conservative framework for the reborn Republican Party of the South.

Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign was the first indication of a revival of American nativism.  Nevertheless, his was the campaign of a sacrificial lamb.  If Americans of the post-WWII generation were asked to recall the defining image of the Kennedy presidency, it’s the shot of Lyndon Johnson, standing next to a grief-stricken Jackie, taking the oath of office.  Anyone who ran against that image was committing political suicide.  Further ensuring LBJ’s victory, Goldwater’s all-or-nothing nativist rhetoric was artfully exploited in a campaign ad featuring a child counting down flower petals to doomsday.

When LBJ announced he would not run in ’68, Richard Nixon reemerged as the safe candidate, flanked by Ronald Reagan to his right and George Romney and Rockefeller as more moderate options.  With the Democratic convention engulfed in street fighting in Chicago, Tricky Dick was a shoo-in.

The Republican Party started to unravel under Nixon.  While many of his policies were old-fashioned New Deal liberal (e.g., Public Heath Service Act (Title X), Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Air Act), his practices were arch-reactionary.  Nixon’s embrace of Patrick Buchanan’s “Southern strategy” in his 1972 campaign set in motion the current nativist revival and the realignment of the Republican Party.  The strategy was based on appealing to the basest of instincts, artfully exploiting old-time social insecurities about race, class and sex.  It proved a winner.

The old order was under attack. The Southern strategy was a perfect counter-offensive to contest the social unrest spreading throughout the country, one of mass movements championing civil rights, an end to the Vietnam war, women’s rights and counter-culture values (especially sexual mores).

In the second phase of post-WWII modernization, from the mid-1970s to 2000, the U.S. underwent a fundamental reordering.  Globalization superseded the domestic economy; finance capital replaced manufacturing as capitalism’s driving force; industrial unionism was decimated; and a two-tier society was forged.  Establishment Republicans and Democrats were complicit in the reordering of American society.

Parallel to the economic restructuring, the nation witnessed the rise of the culture wars.  Where abstinence campaigners drove the early 20th century nativist revival, anti-abortion crusaders succeeded in setting the nation’s moral values.  While Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land, the anti-abortionists have used it to lead a powerful campaign (especially at the state level) to restrict personal privacy rights.

As this reordering of America took place, the Republican Party was increasingly taken over by a hard-line nativist faction.  In the wake of Nixon’s abdication, Gerald Ford fought back the right’s candidate, Reagan, only to lose to Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The more conservative, nativist tendency within the party backed Reagan in 1980 against old-line moderates, George Bush, Sr., Robert Dole and Howard Baker.  Reagan's victories in ’80 and ’84 established the reign of corporate, free-market capitalism as the party’s gospel and gave legitimacy to state-imposed conservative “culture war” morals.  In ’88, his mantle fell to his VP, Bush-1, who had little difficulty putting down the threats represented by more conservative figures like the evangelist Pat Robertson and Rep. Jack Kemp.

In 1992, Bush-1 was challenged by far right militants Buchanan (the architect of the race-based Southern strategy) and David Duke (formerly of the KKK).  With the victory of Bill Clinton, the Republican Party’s moderate center began to unravel.  For all of Gingrich’s efforts to impeach the president, Clinton won reelection in ’96.  Dole served as the party’s throwaway candidate, but one threatened from the right by Buchanan and publisher Steve Forbes.

With George W. Bush’s run in 2000, the GOP’s axis formally shifted to the conservative right.  A born-again good old boy, Bush-2 knew how to accommodate to the Christian social values of Texas and play ball with the Republican establishment symbolized by his father.  He learned, as have his subsequent more mainstream presidential aspirants, that to be a Republican one had to be not only conservative but a godfearing, anti-choice, gun-toting, anti-immigrant, big-military, pro-big-money super-nationalist.

With McCain’s loss in 2008 and the 2010 Tea Party victories, the empowered nativist faction of the GOP demanded its pound of flesh from all 2012 presidential candidates.  And Romney, the shameless opportunist, gladly rediscovered his “true” conservative roots.  Fortunately, no one believes him, least of all those who vote for him.

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Today, the U.S. is once again being restructured, confronting an historical sea change in the way we live.  Worst case, it is shifting from a nation of shared prosperity to one of oligarchy and austerity, from a society of relative social equality and mobility to one of the rich “haves” and the rest of us “have-nots.”

We are now living through a third phase of the post-WWII modernization, a period in which capitalism is consolidating into a truly global enterprise.  Domestically, the nation is subject to a form of post-modern “structural adjustment.”  The outcome of these developments is fashioning a new, belt-tightened American reality.  An early symptom of this change is expressed in the widely-shared sense of lowered expectation articulated by the Occupy movement haunting the land.

Another symptom of this restructuring is the rise of a reinvigorated nativist movement.  Their campaign today, best represented by Santorum and, to a lesser degree, Gingrich, recycles many of the same fears that defined the nativism of the the late 19th century and culminating in Prohibition.

In place of alcohol, we have illegal drugs; in place of Asian and European immigrants, we have non-documented Hispanic immigrants; in place of race pollution, we have interracial amalgamation; in place of evolution, we have evolution and global warming; and in place of the new woman and sex, we have a more empowered new woman and even more sex.  One significant difference: we are living in the aftershock of the collapse of a bubble economy; the earlier wave helped promote the bubble of America’s first consumer revolution.

Those backing Santorum, as well as Gingrich, seem to be among the Republican Party’s whitest, least well educated, more blue-collar and older constituency.  Many of them might well be vulnerable to the social restructuring now taking place.  Like their Know-Nothing and Prohibitionist grandparents, today’s nativists invoke a certainty of purpose that the new world order of 21st century capitalism denies nearly everyone else.

Today’s nativism is, like the earlier movements, an attempt to halt the fundamental changes in demographics, society and values that are remaking the nation.  As political analysts of every stripe point out, the clock is ticking down (demographically speaking) on white people remaining the majority “racial” group in American.  If Census Bureau projections hold, the U.S. population will be minority white in the year 2042.  This is the same clock ticking for the Republican Party.

In all likelihood, Romney will win the nomination and, bowing to the nativist right, will pick someone like Marco Rubio (R-FL) as his running mate.  Like Palin, Rubio (or whoever is selected) will be a 2012 political trophy bride.

But just imagine if Santorum actually is the Republican candidate and somehow, miraculously, wins the general election.  A half-century ago, Kennedy ran not only believing in the separation of church and state, but assuring the nation that as president, he would not be influenced by the pope.

The world has surely turned upside down.  Santorum proudly tells the world that he rejects JFK’s two commitments.  He does not believe in the separation of church and state; nor does he believe that he shouldn’t accept counsel from the pope.  As president, Santorum could usher in a new Dark Age in America, one championed by his nativist supporters.  It remains to be seen if the Republican establishment can contain its nativist base.