Project: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

I've been playing with the HE-AAC codec over the last week, and I can testify to its quality.

At 24kbps HE-AAC, you get full frequency response, 30hz all the way to 15+ khz.  There's a tiny bit of grainyness to the audio quality, as if you were playing the track as a 45RPM record.  Stereo separation is quite reasonable.

Artifacting is roughly equivalent to what you'd hear out of an MP3 encoded at 96kbps - frequency response is there, but the audio sounds noticably "processed", and would turn off even casual audio purists.

The artifacting story gets more interesting when you pump a compressed stereo signal through a Dolby Surround 5.1 decoder. Often times, artifacting becomes more noticable in the surround channels and really detracts from the music.  I've noticed that even 192+kbps encoded MP3s sound *awful* when pumped thru a Dolby Surround decoder.  On the other hand, when AAC-encoded material is played through the same, the surround channels are quite listenable indeed, even at lower bitrates.  In this case, a 24kbps HE-AAC signal is still quite listenable when pumped thru the Dolby Surround decoder, as compared to even a 192+kbps MP3.

The stream metadata information reports the coding as "AAC+SBR+PS", meaning it's an AAC stream at its core (no different than any other AAC-encoded iTunes download), with the sideband replication and parametric stereo "add ons" that define the "HE-" in "HE-AAC".  You *can* play the stream in iTunes, QuickTime, and on your iPod, but it will be monophonic and with NO high end whatsoever, and sounds horrible!  This is because current Apple products do not support the HE-AAC codecs yet. 

There is a confirmed report that Snow Leopard WILL support HE-AAC.  This infers that iTunes > 8.2, iPhone, and the iPod Touch will all eventually get HE-AAC support.  There's no telling if Apple will extend this to legacy iPods (like my 5G iPod Video).  WinAmp, Nero, VLC and my BlackBerry Curve all support HE-AAC decoding.  WinAmp and Nero (win), and XLT and Max (OSX) support HE-AAC encoding.  The alternative Rockbox firmware Web site suggests support for HE-AAC decoding currently, so there's hope for you early adopters itching to free up space on your iPod.

Make no mistake, you would *not* want to archive your music at 24kbps. The artifacting is undeniable, but the music is still very listenable.  This codec makes for killer Internet Radio streaming (imagine full frequency stereo across GPRS!), and I've been lobbying Orb.com to add it to their product.  For me, the thought of moving 65Gb of music off my iPod and onto my BlackBerry Curve with a 16Gb MicroSD card is palpable.  If you're interested in stuffing the sonic equivalent of an elephant into a foot of drainpipe, this codec is for you.

Attn Linux Geeks: Access your remote filesystems natively within Windows by using sshfs and samba. EVEN BETTER: leverage autofs to auto-mount these remote "volumes" even as you come and go with your laptop losing and regaining connectivity!

http://www.mccambridge.org/blog/2007/05/totally-seamless-sshfs-under-linux-using-fuse-and-autofs/

The AutoNodetitles module cannot provide you with the [nid] during initial record creation, because it relies on the auto_increment feature of the MySQL database (which, of course, hasn't been triggered yet, because you are prepping the record prior to the record creation!).

Here is a solution that - while not perfect - does the job for Drupal 6.x running against MySQL.

It's not perfect because, as I'm sure your ACID-test database Nazis know, there's no implicit concurrency among the various database transactions that occur when the node is saved. But, given the site's load, it is close enough for my needs.

Add this as your autonodetitle script in the content type definition. Be sure to check the PHP checkbox.

<?php
if ( !empty($node->nid) ) {
  $nid = $node->nid;
} else {
  global $db_url;
  $url = parse_url($db_url);
  $schema = substr(urldecode($url['path']), 1);
  $nid = db_result(db_query("select auto_increment from information_schema.tables where table_schema = '%s' and table_name = 'node'", $schema));
}
return(trim('Node ' . $nid));
?>

Once I fully understood the details of the PKI (public/private key interchange) methods for managing secure connections between servers - like how to create tunnels between my client and a remote MySQL server over SSH without having port 3306 exposed - well, I was elated.

There was a problem, though. My laptop connects to my MySQL servers from various endpoints on the Intertubes. My hostname changes from day to day, depending on where I plug in. So PKI data would change from day to day.

I found an interesting solution that, while slightly less secure, provides me some flexibility with my laptop.

There's a utility called plink that ships with PuTTy, that may be used to establish SSH tunnels between hosts. With plink, you may supply the remote SSH server password to establish the connection, rather than rely on PKI!

Here is a sample invocation, complete with some convenient DOS-style window spawning code to boot (lines broken for readability):

start "SomeWindowTitle" /min cmd /c 
  "c:\program files\putty\plink.exe" 
  -batch 
  -N 
  -l yourRemoteSSHUsernameGoesHere 
  -pw yourRemoteSSHPasswordGoesHere
  -L localhost:33061:tunnelsEndpointHostNameGoesHere:3306 
  -P remotePortNumberUsually22 
  remoteSSHUsernameGoesHere@remoteSSHTargetHostnameGoesHere

This example lets my laptop connect to the remote MySQL server using localhost port 33061. Note the -pw parameter, which is where you'd type in your SSH password. No PKI keys needed.

Again, I'm not in love with the lax security here, but it's nice to know this is a viable fallback.

I hereby define a new term for our global Internet lexicon.

"Deja Goog": The feeling that you've been someplace before, if only because you've surfed it before with Google Street View.

This effect is of great benefit prior to travel to a new locale.  It makes you feel like a local, and amazes all those with whom you travel.

Downright unusable performance of sshfs getting you down in OSX Leopard?  Here's the fix:

• Download and install the latest MacFUSE 2.0.3.2
• Download and install the latest sshfs - I used the svn co method, and moved the downloaded executable into /Applications/ssh/.
• Use the following command line options when mounting a remote location via sshfs:

/Applications/sshfs -C -o reconnect,ping_diskarb,follow_symlinks,noappledouble,jail_symlinks,noreadahead,volname=YourVolName remoteuser@remotehost:/path/to/dir ~/yourLocalFolder

The clincher here is "noappledouble", which is a crowbar solution that disables OSX looking for auxiliary "dot" files that are not likely to be of any importance on your target SSH server. 

I'm also killing readahead cache of folders, which may have mixed effect on performance, depending on what your aim is (i.e. how often you browse folders in the Finder, and how massive the folder contents are).

Optionally, you may want to install MacFusion, which is a NICE GUI for MacFUSE+sshfs.  Be sure to add the command line options into each of your sshfs profiles.

Ed Note: Posted to my blog simply because I can't believe this qualifies as a legitimate story suitable for publishing in a respected newspaper. Wow. Just wow.

By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer, The Chelsea Standard
PUBLISHED: October 30, 2008 - Original Link Here

A Chelsea resident's pleas for leniency met with little sympathy as she tried unsuccessfully to get the City Council to waive the late fee on her tardy tax payment.

Marjorie Dack explained to the council at its Oct. 14 meeting that the problem stemmed from trying to pay her taxes over the phone as well as online through the city's Web site.

"I tried to pay my taxes on Sept. 15 by 5 p.m. but the jurisdiction number didn't work, and by the time I realized it wasn't going to work it was after 5 o'clock and city offices were closed," she told the council.

She added that she called the office the next morning and City Clerk Terri Royal informed her the late fee would be $86.55.

"If you had called me two days earlier I could have helped you," Royal told Dack at the meeting, while agreeing that a number of people "had problems with the jurisdictional number."

Even Mayor Ann Feeney told Dack there is a substantial discount for the convenience of using a credit card when paying online.

"The difference in the late fee is about $21, so you would have been charged about $65," Feeney said. "You must have waited until the very last minute to start the process; you won't get much sympathy here."

Dack countered that she went online only after the automated telephone payment system rejected her payment.

"I tried it on the phone a number of times, then went to the computer, but I'm not very good at the computer, it took me a long time and then I realized it was too late in the day," Dack said.

Council member Cheri Albertson proposed that the council split the difference and accept a reduced late fee.

"I suggest we lower the late fee to $65.55, which is what she would have been charged online," Albertson said.

However, Council member Rod Anderson reminded everyone that they should adhere to the late fee because Dack, like all other city taxpayers, had plenty of time to get her payment in on time.

"With all due respect, this is the price you pay for waiting until the last minute," he told her. "Taxes were due July 1, but we gave people two and a half months to pay before the late fee is assessed. Therefore I'm voting against any refund at all."

The vote was 5-2 to charge Dack a reduced late fee of $65.55, with Anderson dissenting as promised, along with Council member Frank Hammer.

Contacted after the meeting, Dack said she was "just blown away by what happened."

"I guess more than anything I was just disappointed and hurt — when did money become so important?" said Dack.

She noted that she is lived a lifelong Chelsea resident and considered many council members among her personal friends.

"I had no idea someone would be able to walk me through the process after I made the mistake," she added.

"They blamed me for waiting until the last minute, but when their numbers don't work that's not my problem, it's their problem."

I recently made a purchase on Amazon that fell $0.99 short of free Super Saver shipping. I quickly found a list of items that would bring my purchase "over the top" - one of which I chose, a set of 2 AAA batteries.

To my surprise, soon after arrival, Amazon solicited my review on the batteries.  I couldn't resist.

So, without further ado, here is my review of Amazon's "Universal (2) AAA Super Heavy Duty Batteries".

I hope you found this review as helpful as I intended.

Convicted of Charisma:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202354.html
 
So, then, why aren't the Dems stealing a play from the Republican playbook and attacking McCain's greatest strength?

His greatest strength?  McCain is a "maverick".  Or so he used to be, before the Neocons grabbed a hold of him (and his cell phone to boot), shook the feces out of him and told him to win the election at any cost.

Somehow, the Dem pit bulls - the ugly ones in the backyard, well outside of front porch view - are going to have to find a way to go negative on The Maverick.

Think "poison pill", perhaps.  Something that gives diehard red state inhabitants pause.  Like John McCain cozying up to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show for oh so many times.  Or this week's off the cuff suggestion that Colorado be forced to "give up" water rights to Arizona.  Pushing McCain's "forgotten home count" should be just a start. 

Never mind that these senators, McCain, Obama, Biden, Clinton, all actually have a healthy and deserved respect for each other, despite their differences.  It's not personal.  Really.  It's not about issues, either.  Really.

Well, shoot, that's what "swiftboating" is for.  Sooner or later, the Dems will have to play dirty - not play dirty themselves, but play "swift boat" dirty - find Dem scumlords that would be willing to smear the Repubs by playing their own game.  Certainly there's got to be another Jerome Corsi of the Blue persuasion out there!

C'mon, MoveOn and TrueMajority!  Time to create an obscure 504(c) with a Red name, and go after the Maverick.  I double dog dare you!

I'll refrain from the standard dogmatic rhetoric, but I want to make this comment.

Considering the OS alone, I'm exceedingly pleased with Leopard.  It deserves all its kudos and fanboydom.  Windows feels more like a tinkertoy with each passing day.

What might surprise you is that, from a capabilities standpoint, OSX really isn't very far removed at all from my latest experiences with Fedora 9.  My old F9 and current OSX systems each provide stunning virtualization capability via VMWare, fantastic cross-server connectivity via FUSE (filesystem in userspace) mounts, ability to connect with Windows-, Linux- and Unix-formatted hard drives, superior user and security management, seamless package upgrade management, and more.  Heck, even the User Home folders on F9 mimic the OSX layout, as does Gnome+Compiz's window, menu and asset management bars across the top and bottom of the screen.  Sometimes while in OSX, I forget that I'm on a Mac and not running Fedora!

So, if they're so on par, why switch?

1. Hardware.  The Mac mini is the perfect little package, solidly built, and with a fraction of the power demands of my old server.  I did the math, and it turns out that the Mini will save me more than $10 per month in electricity alone!
2. Software.  Don't get me wrong; I'm all for open source solutions.  But killer Apple software (like iTunes and Front Row, for example), are just too ubiquitous and impressive to deny.  I was quite impressed with Banshee, Audacity and gEdit, but the OSX functional equivalents have a much larger install base and salaried programmers working daily to quash bugs.  The open source wares on Fedora are distributed on a perpetual short-cycle, so you maintain that lingering feeling that what you are currently running is always a work in progress.
   
3. Configlessness.  Everything just works out of the box.  I was always able to clear my hurdles in Linux, contorting the box to do something strange and impossible in Windows.  With BSD under the sheets, I'm confident I can do the same in OSX, but I find time and again that the said "assemblage" has been done for me already.
4. X Factor.  There's no denying that Apple hardware is attractive.  Its software is well designed for the masses.  The Mac overall feels like a quiet, sprightly attractive kitchen appliance, whereas a PC Linux box comes across as a noisy, power-hungry basement-dwelling ventilation monster.  Both are capable and reliable.  One remains in the basement for a good reason.

Yeah, I could have bought "green PC" hardware and ran Ubuntu, but I didn't.  I would have spent hours building and configuring and installing and tweaking and such.  I've done all that already; my server-building days are done, and I have nothing left I feel I need to prove in doing so.  With the Mac, I shelled out the dough and turned it on.  It works perfectly, and I get my Unix on to boot.  The wife loves it. 

It shows that Apple's real triumph is in its packaging.

As for Linux, I've got VMWare Fusion on the Mac in the house, and a virtual server at VPSLink.com for tinkering and twisting to my will on the Intertubes.  The electricity cost savings defray half the cost of the virtual server!

Between Linux and OSX, Windows feels like it needs to be taken out back and shot.

Whatever happened to these department stores? Some still live on! Others die online as in real life. See:

http://www.wards.com/ - still around!

http://servicemerchandise.com/ - also still around

http://www.winkelmans.com/ - looks like a grandson is trying to revive the brand

http://www.jacobsons.com/ - there's still one left, in Florida!

http://www.mervyns.com/ - are they truly still around?

http://www.lordandtaylor.com/ - I guess they are still around.

http://www.hudsons.com/ just redirects to Target

http://www.marshallfields.com/ - meanwhile, goes in an infinite loop to nowhere

http://www.woolworth.com/ - redirects to FootLocker! Not to be confused with the UK and Mexican Woolworths (http://www.woolworths.com/)

http://www.eatons.com/ - Some kind soul has put up a eulogy to Eaton's of Canada. Long live Eaton Centre.

http://www.korvettes.com/ - not so much here. Someone bought the domain name and is sitting on it. Buy your stereo HERE instead: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7i5KdtfJM8

http://www.folands.com/ - In Royal Oak, and going out of business!

http://www.towneclub.com/ - still in business! Redirects to the distributing company's site, complete with CHEEZY music!

And in conclusion, I'll leave you with this fine testimony to all things Detroit Retail of years gone by:
http://www.angelfire.com/de2/detroitpix/ALL.html

I hope I'm not the only one to notice the resemblance. Compare and contrast, if you can!

Ron Silver:



Larry Ellison:



If Hollywood ever makes a film about Larry Ellison, I hope Ron Silver plays him.

After upgrading from Fedora 6 to Fedora 9, I took it upon myself to move my SSH daemon from port XXXX back to port 22 where it belongs. If I was lucky, the brute-force password hacks would have passed me by (I wasn't, coz they didn't); if unlucky, I would discover how long it would be before the InterTubes found me back on 22 (about 12 hours, rats).

I knew there were some intrusion detection scripts out there that try to intelligently handle these sorts of hacks - most of which use snort in conjunction with iptables. However, I found one here that works pretty much as well with only mods to my iptables script:

http://www.teaparty.net/technotes/ssh-rate-limiting.html

Pretty much all I had to do was add the following lines *above* my rule to open port 22 in my iptables file (/etc/sysconfig/iptables in Fedora 9):

-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW --dport 22 -m recent --name sshattack --set
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -m recent --name sshattack --rcheck --seconds 60 --hitcount 3 -j LOG --log-prefix "SSH REJECT: "
-A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -m recent --name sshattack --rcheck --seconds 60 --hitcount 3 -j REJECT --reject-with tcp-reset

Be sure to mod your iptables file after having brought down the firewall.  Save the iptables file with the lines above, then restart the firewall.

Sure enough, after 3  unsuccessful login attempts from a third party client workstation, iptables cut that client off.  Wait a minute, and I could reconnect and retry.

This is all great, coz I really don't like forgetting to put "-o port=XXXX" at the beginning of all my ssh and scp commands.  Of course, YMMV.

This message is posted from ping.fm's FB plugin. Let's see if it gets posted everywhere...

http://digg.com/environment/The_Huge_Hybrid_Few_Takers_for_a_New_S_U_V_Twist

I grew up in Detroit and now live in green-leaning Ann Arbor, so sometimes I feel as if I'm looking into Detroit from *just* outside the fishbowl that it is.  That said...

I suspect the biggest reason GM pushed to hybrid-ify its SUV fleet was from a cost-benefit standpoint, where the _cost_ amounted to the degree of effort necessary to *package* a hybrid powerplant under the hood, and the _benefit_ was the *percentage* improvement over the standard MPG as many have mentioned here, which the marketing-types love to tout.

The *packaging* aspect cannot be understated.  A team of automotive engineers would work less, and with less mental effort, to figure out how to bolt a simplistic hybrid module onto the gargantuan powertrain under that massive Suburban hood.

Lurkers here should read up on the details of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive transmission.  It's far far different, and far more advanced, from the shit that Detroit is haphazardly throwing at an internal combustion engine hoping it will stick.  The thought the Toyota engineers put into their hybrid powerplant would leave GM engineers walking away scratching their heads repeating, "I don't get it."

In the end, with $4/gal at the pumps, GM's truly was the wrong approach, for now obvious reasons - SUV buyers that can afford SUV markups can also afford the gas prices that come with, and lust after engine power over all else.  And why Ford hasn't launched an Edge hybrid yet is beyond me - the Edge's market includes left-leaning-but-union-friendly domestic progressives that would seriously dig flaunting their hybrid creds.  Personally, I would have traded my Dodge Caravan family-hauler in for one with a hybrid powertrain if one existed  3 years ago (bear in mind that I bought the Caravan as a thoughtful alternative to the then-popular SUVs, to hedge my bets [and wallet] against climbing oil prices).

Detroit was and remains a fishbowl of lazy slob automakers too dumb and complacent to stop dreaming about their coming weekend trip "up north" and start thinking innovative thoughts that might actually help them keep their jobs.

Ford And Why I Think It Will Sell Volvo--Do You Agree?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/24464958

Mr. LeBeau, I believe you focus on the wrong aspect of the Volvo acquisition (pardon the pun).  Volvo should remain a valued entity in the FoMoCo portfolio, but it's not about the brand, it's about the talent.

Ford's a company behaving like it's fighting for its life.  The latest products in their pipeline show that - the only way to strike back when you're down is with unmitigated vengance.  Fusion and Edge and Verve are the stellar products of that vengance.  The recent quarterly profit shows the fruit of that furor.  Good work guys.

But I also understand Alan Mulally and Bill Ford had to strip their engineering assets down to the very core to save money on operating costs in North America.  So, they leveraged the best engineering and product talent they had across the world to rebuild their product line.  In the end, that talent came from Volvo.

The first of these rebuilds was the Ford Five Hundred (now Taurus).  A Detroit News article a few years back detailed the etymology of how Volvo engineers came to Dearborn to work with the North American engineering team to transform the S80's platform into Ford North America's new full-size sedan.  While the Five Hundred was slow out the the gate, the Taurus a much-better second take, the industry's opinion is unanimous on the benefits of Ford using the S80's underpinnings.  All that chatter about safety over at Volvo, for example, bode well for the 5-star crash-rated Taurus.

The same, too, can be said for Ford Europe's Focus.  It's designed, along with the Volvo S40 and the Mazda 3, on the same solid compact platform.  I've had my S40 for the last 3 years, and pay close attention to the Mazda 3 and European Focus reviews and boards, and I am enormously impressed with not just my car, but the platform on the whole.  It's a mystery to me why Ford continues to run the North American Focus on its current aged platform.

Certain aspects and features of my S40 suggest to me that Volvo amounts to a bit of a technological "testbed" for FoMoCo on the whole.  Volvo owners don't mind paying for a bell or whistle here, and the brand is isolated enough that Ford can learn from Volvo's engineering experiences (like its fiber-based fully-digital HD Radio system, for example) and quietly refine and apply them to the larger core stable of Ford brands.  Jaguar and Land Rover were simply too niche to afford this opportunity.

Within management, Volvo appears to function as an intercessor, a common channel for communication between Europe and North America.  Volvo is something managers and engineers of both continents can talk to and understand.

So, rather than just strip the cream from Volvo and sell it, there's incentive to keep Volvo around - to shield, ensure, and build on the integrity of other Ford brands.  Believe it or not, I see Ford's rising phoenix discreetly wrapped in a Swedish flag, and engineers put it there.

Hail GBPVR users! As if you might care, here are my settings for auto-transcoding captured shows to a stream that's both (a) suitable for the video iPod and (b) is still watchable on the GBPVR-connected 27" SDTV we have in the living room.

<Conversion name="Video Ipod" cmd="-y -i {SOURCE_FILE} -title {TITLE_SUBTITLE} -f mp4 
-acodec aac -ar 48000 -ac 2 -aq 50 -vcodec mpeg4 -maxrate 512k -bufsize 224k -b 480k 
-s 320x240 -r 29.97 {DEST_FILE}" targetExtension=".mp4" />

Details:

• -aq 50 ensures that the audio quality retains a wide frequency response even as it is stored at a 64kbps bit rate
• -b 480k appears to be a nice-compromise bitrate that is small enough while still making high-motion scenes still pleasing to watch
• -maxrate 512k? I'm not sure if it does anything, but what the heck, it doesn't hurt.

This gets my half-hour episodes that had been taking short of 700Mb down to ~110Mb file size.  I can live with that!

We had a splendid trip to Florida these last 10+ days.  An uncommon road trip, for starters, with "alternate" routes both down and back that took us through the likes of the Carolinas, the Savannah GA coast, the Virginias, and the more majestic eastern side of Ohio.

Started with a quick stay at Weeki Wachee and Bucaneer Bay on the Gulf side.  Then, cut across to Cocoa Beach and the rest of the Space Coast complete with NASA visit and road jaunt as far north as New Smyrna Beach to Sebastian Inlet State Park just south of Melbourne.  Finally, cut back up to Orlando where we had a house rental on tap, complete with pool in backyard.

I don't want to appear glib, but I can easily and safely say that the best parts of the trip were those that did not include any Disney experience.  We went largely for Gabriel's sake, and he certainly liked it, but the Spring break crowds fanned the flames of stress that we were trying to escape on holiday.  Oh, the rides were nice and all, but something between the three of us was lost amidst the packaged delivery of sanitized entertainment at extortionate rates.  Yes, yes, yes, I get it - France-land at Epcot has French pastries!  Ain't that swell!

Indeed, after the Tuesday spent at the Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios (ex-MGM), we longed for the following day "off".  Wednesday, we decided to hop back in the car and head back toward the Atlantic beaches from Melbourne southward to Vero Beach - more of the real Florida, unpackaged and unfiltered.  We played in the surf and rode waves back to the beach.  Christy even got to get close up to a couple of manatees in the wild as we waded in a nearby tide pool.

Even our lodging arrangements were "alternative" - renting a spacious house in Orlando sure beat a hotel room and was cheaper overall too.  The Cocoa Beach "resort motel" sported a poolside tiki bar!

It has become much too easy to accept Disney as the de facto Florida experience for the typical family man.  But I don't claim to be typical.  I'm just glad we pushed ourselves so firmly away from such an assertion.  I'll take the beach as my brand of "magic" any day.

Watch "Bush's War" on Frontline, currently in heavy rotation on your local PBS channel.

Even if you're wayyyy left of center like me, you might walk away with these thoughts as I did:

• This is Rumsfeld & Cheney's war, with Saddam dangled like a carrot in front of an Napoleonic and spiritually fatalistic president.  Bush authorized it, Rumsfeld is a gutless coward that fscked it up even before it began.  Bush *never* admits to a mistake - he believes it to be a sign of political and moral weakness.
  
• The failure of the Iraq war is best described as a global epic breakdown of the most core basic management and communication principles.  Coalition Provisional Authority head Jerry Bremer all but declared himself temporary king all for lack of any direction from the Pentagon and the Executive Office.  His singular fatal flawed decision to disband the Iraqi army effectively started the insurgency.
• Condoleeza Rice, disagree with her politics if you will, remains the smartest man in the room, and now, with pal Robert Gates at her side, is responsible for cleaning up after Rumsfeld's epic mess - and is doing an almost-respectable job of it, finally, all things considered.
• Bush's expansion of Executive authority is almost entirely for the purpose of gaining an edge in political dogfighting within the various competing branches of federal government.  The curtailment of civil liberties is at most ignorable "collateral damage" in a larger war of political wills.
  
• Bush and company simply do not have the mental bandwidth to pay attention to public opinion.  They don't care what we think of them.  They're too busy keeping up appearances to save their own asses.
• The Surge is working, but not in the way you think it's working.  Google "clear hold build iraq Condoleezza Rice".
• Cheney is even more _______ than you think he is.  You fill in the blank.

I cannot recommend "Bush's War" highly enough.  While it may not change what you think about the war, this most candid documentary will help you better understand how we got here, which of the neocons might still deserve even a whiff of respect (even as we disagree with them), and what we really must do to get out of Iraq.
 

A passing thought...

Linux = Diesel

Think about it.  Why are those who own diesel cars considered fringe, deviants?  Why is the prior image of diesel fuel so hard to shake now that clean diesel fuel and engines are in abundance?  Why do American carmakers have such a shit fit about filling out the diesel market?

Now, replace "diesel" with "Linux" above.  It works.

(No apologies to the Mac fanboys, for whom the best metaphor I can find here is akin to something like "ethanol junkies".)