Boy was I pissed

That last blog was long ago, I must have had a real thick hair across my buttocks that day. Those who know me know I've been on one hell of a ride this year. I'm just checking in tonight, but will be blogging a bit more often I think.

BTW, try reading "The Driver" by Garet Garrett. It's in the public domain, written in 1922 about the Panic of 1893. If nothing else, read the first few chapters, it's deja vu all over again.

A Dirty Little Secret, and a Confession

You know, I have been working as an engineer since 1989, that’s 20 years. I've designed control systems for ships, lighting control panels for large office buildings, and even dabbled in the trucking industry. Most positions I hold have "Senior" as a prefix, as in Senior Systems Engineer, or Senior Hardware Engineer, etc, etc. My employers and clients have been universally satisfied with my work. I have references that say things like "the best" and "one of the best", etc. But I have a dirty little secret. I don't have a degree.

Has it hurt? A little bit. It's the rare company who needs me that won't overlook the lack of wallpaper, but it has happened. My first job was at minimum wage, $1.85/hour back then. Still, I'm dangerously close to lifetime earnings of $1,500,000. Yes, there is probably $300,000 - $500,000 I've left on the table because of the lack of a degree, but for the most part, I'd rather not work for a company who puts credentials ahead of credibility.

I mean after all, will you really feel better knowing that the idiot who designed the defective widget that destroyed your life had a 3.7 GPA from an Ivy league college? I am use to designing, installing and using what I design. I'll never forget the day I had finished installing a systems on a vessel, the port engineer asked me if I was sure everything worked. I said "Of Course." His response was "I hope you're right, because otherwise your the lead story on the national nightly news tonight." Yes, I've worked on systems that critical.

The job market is such right now that employers have their pick of the litter, so HR needs a few filters to help qualify candidates. So do they pick experience, capabilities, flexibility, etc? No, they are looking for wallpaper. A typical ad: "BSEE +5 -7 years experience, or MSEE +3 years’ experience, or PhD." Think about that, they are trading 2 -4 years of experience for 2 years of college, or all the experience for nothing but college. Do you want the brakes in your car designed by someone who has never designed a real world product before? Yes, I know there is some real world experience as you go up the wallpaper chain, but face it, it’s a course. If you screw up, it cost you 3 credits. In the real world, it cost lives, careers, or companies.

I can always order a degree from any one of the dozens of “colleges” who give degrees for life experience, or outright lie, but I respect the value of a formal secondary education, and will not disparage it. I just feel that after a number of years, or a number of projects, it just shouldn’t matter. I was trained in vacuum tubes and other electronics that weighed tons. Last year, I designed a wide input range (85VAC – 265VAC) 6W off-line switching power supply that fit in 1.4 cubic inches, two control boards for an elevator system, a navigation display, several communication gateways for Class 8 trucks, and some products for the utility and medical industry. None of those products had a vacuum tube in it.

I want one of two things. Either loosen up the degree requirements for a job after 10 or 15 years of experience, or provide a way to earn a degree that doesn’t require me to sit through, and pay for, course after course of psychology, sociology, etc. And before you tell me I need them, I know who Stanley Milgram is, do you? I’ve read De Tocqueville, have you? Do you know what the Magna Carta is? I’m sure I missed out on something, depending upon where you got your wallpaper from, but I’ll put myself against any graduate with majors in engineering for “balance” or being “well rounded.” I mean, when did you start following the Uyghur crisis in China? Bet I beat you by a month. How about East Timor, or the Tamil Tigers?

Back to the point. We need to worry more about those who can, and those who they know how to do. In a recession more than any other time, it’s more important to make product than to design product. Only stock traders buy designs, customers buy products. If you don’t know the difference, thank you for proving my point.

And go ahead; find a typo….is it true the dumber you are the more you nitpick? And the bigger your wallpaper?

www.finallyfu*ked.com

My fault, I had to try finallyfast.com, and let me tell you, it's practically a scam. You download their free scanner, then they want something like $25 to fix the problems. Oh, the scanner stays on your PC, money or not. Think you can remove the scanner? Of course you can, it's like pulling a wisdom tooth. You use control panel to run their uninstall program. Except it leaves just enough of itself behind to be come one of the problems they want $25 to solve! Now you either give the scam artists their $25, or you manually search and destroy the registry entries they so conveniently left behind. There has got to be a better way.

Where did all these pigeons come from?

For a long time I’ve said that America’s vision is myopic, and its business vision is damn near blind. Now we get to see what happens when faulty business visions finally come to the fruition, and the pigeons descend from the sky looking for a place to roost. The best examples are GM’s pending chapter 11 filing, Time Warner selling AOL, and Visteon filing for bankruptcy. Many words will be spoken about AOL and GM, but not so much about Visteon. Why is Visteon important? They own Ford!

Well, they own Ford’s electronics. Most of the electronics that comes with Ford vehicles, the stuff that makes the vehicles run, are manufactured by Visteon, who owns the designs. As of close of business today, you could buy every share of stock in Visteon for less than 10 million dollars. Think about if, for $10,000,000 dollars, you could control the future of Ford, market cap of about $16 BILLION. How did this happen?

Back in the MBA boom a decade or so ago, a bunch of bright children sat down to figure out what business Ford was in. They looked at all the various divisions of Ford, and discovered their captive electronics group wasn’t making money. Well, Ford makes cars, not electronics, so they spun off the group into Visteon. Of course, there were sweetheart deals, so Visteon wouldn’t try to make a killing; in fact, Visteon was never even allowed to make a profit. Think GM spinning Delco into Delphi, oops, that’s an old story, isn’t it?

Do you realize that today, for less than $110 million dollars you can control more than 50% of the electronics component of America’s automotive industry? Someday, some bright soul will see the past the debt (the purpose of bankruptcy is to “deal with” the debt, wink, wink) and see the potential value of essentially controlling the manufacture of nearly every car and truck made in the US (oh, and a few Kia’s and Hyundai’s. There is much more to be said, but I've got a years worth of nonsense to rant about, this is just the first of a lot. Gee, I think I’m hearing the call from mission control in Detroit “abort to orbit”.

Finally, I Can Speak

For most of the past year I have been working at the Truck Development and Technology Center (TDTC) of Navistar, manufacturer of Internation trucks. It was my first exposure to the automotive industry, and I have come to one major conclusion: I am overjoyed I drive a Scion XB by Toyota, and not some American made camel.

Yes, CAMEL! By the time a design makes it to production, it has been touched by EVERYONE, with each touch resulting in a compromise. I will have more to say soon, but had to post something now. Trust me, 12 months of watching purchasing decisions made based on friendships, ego battles and pure bribary, watching engineering decisions made to insure we never take a next step, just a slow crawl forward. And don't get me started about mis-management, or having to answer questions like "how long will it take to complete this 5 hour task" when it should take 5 weeks!

OK, enough for now, I need to breathe a bit.

Finally! A good weekend day on Oregon

It's kind of funny that I would complain about the weather out here. Corvallis is in a valley, so there is little snow or ice. Of course when there is ice, it's a disaster as they don't pre-treat the roads. Back home, there has been snow, ice flooding rains...here it is just rain, and mostly on the weekends. The office area I work in has one whole wall that is just windows, and it can drive one nuts to see bright sunny days during the week, only to end up with wet, cold weekends. Today was different. Today was perfect. 70 degrees, bright sunshine, low humidity, light breeze. Today was one of those days that causes all kinds of cases of spring fever. It's also one of those days one appreciates living in a coed college town.

It's been 6 weeks since I came out here (technically 7 I guess) and I'm settling in. Today I bought a microwave and a desk chair. I was tired of sitting in that chair that resembles a folding chair that doesn't fold. Now I can rock a bit, stretch a bit, feels nice. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all this stuff when it comes time to move back home, but I suspect someone is going to end up with a nicely accessorized apartment. Well, it's a room more than an apartment. I have a small vanity sink, bureau, bed end table, and I share 11/2 baths and a kitchen with 3 other people. For less than $400 a month including utilities I think it's a good deal.

No rant tonight. It's been a good day, a good week, a good 7 weeks. I think back to the drive out, and with the exception a I-80 being closed in Wyoming, forcing a hundred odd mile detour, it was wonderful, especially once you get past the Mississippi River. Without a doubt, I think it should be mandatory for everyone to drive or ride I-84 from Utah to Portland Oregon, at least when it's not snowing. You will see all that is great about America, and Americans. Not to take anything away from the other states I visited, but the scenery, the people, just the air alone (though I found Colorado air quite nice) is glorious. Definitely worth the price of admission.

All in all, this has been one of my better career adventures. I'm learning, teaching, challenged, and fulfilled. I hope to have more later...for right now, I want to enjoy the sunset and that glorious breeze.

A Slight Change in Location

Dateline Oregon.

I have temporarily relocated to Oregon for a few months, got a contract job that is just to good to pass up. I drove out the last week in February, and once I get settled down a bit more, I'll have much to say about the drive.

I do have one quick rant about Oregon. You are not allowed to pump your own gas here. It must be something about coastal states, they are just too paternalistic for my taste. The only other state that may be worse is Wyoming, which apparently shuts down I-80 (and all its bypasses) at the drop of a hat. I know the weather gets nasty up there, but the webcam images and the traffic reports showed a typical snow swept highway in winter, the kind we in New England see all the time. Why can't I be trusted to pump gas and know how drive in the snow?

Enough rant for now, I need to get ready for work.

Thoughts on the Great Flood

I'm working through some embedded stuff to control an ADF7021 transceiver, and I have the TV on in the background. They are talking about the Great Flood. Well, I'm stuck on a problem, I glanced at it. Worse still, I actually thought about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a preposterous concept the Flood is. A God who created the universe by speaking needs rain to destroy a small piece of it? A God who created the entire universe, down to Man, Woman and the rocks under feet in seven days needs 40 days of rain? Did he suddenly get weak? Did the strain of creating the Universe so drain him he needed help to destroy life on a small fraction of his creation?

This is why I'm an atheist. When you get down to any logical thought process, all religion falls into a maze of irrationality. Think about it, an omnipotent God decides the right way to destroy one of his creations is to flood it out of existence. We've all done this, right? You get a jar, put a bug in it, a little grass, and holes in the cover. Then the neighborhood JERK drops by, grabs the jar and slowly fills it with water till he drowns the bug. THAT is the God of the Bible. He is either not as omnipotent as we all think, or he is a thug that has his creation in a jar, with a water faucet, gas burner and sledge hammer not too far away. Worship such a sadistic weakling if you want, as for me and my house, we live without fear of the capricious actions of a bully.

Oops, there goes another one

Ron Paul, say it ain't so!

Say you didn't run away from questions about you old newsletters, hiding behind the "I was busy and didn't know" argument!

I guess it's time to find another candidate.

And sorry, Fred is just not good without a script. Can you picture him being wheeled into an ER with a gunshot wound? Would he be more likely to say "I hope you're all Republicans" or "Rewrite, get me Rewrite!"

Maybe it's time to look at Ralph Nader again!

Put a Bus Driver in Office

Hear the candidates......I am Change. Change!. I will bring Change! We need Change! I can make Change happen!

So can a bus driver, or a toll booth attendant, or a grocery clerk. Even a fast food cashier! All can make change.

I don't want change, I want courage of conviction (bye bye Romney and Hillary)

I want competence (I'm here, Huckleberry, er, Huckabee, so you can go)

I do want someone not tainted by Washington (farewell, McCain)

I want fiscal conservatism, but social liberalism (nice knowing you Obama)

I guess that leaves Ron Paul....or emigration.

The Hypocritic(al) Oath of the Press

I'll never forget the press conferences of Bill Belichick during the week of Spygate. He issued a statement and refused to comment on it, other than to say, "read the statement". He has been vilified since then for not being forthcoming, but the vilifiers have become fewer and fewer. Well, look at Roger Clemens. He has been forthcoming, he has denied vehemently the charges against him, he play a tape in which his accuser repeatedly asked "what do you want me to do" to which Clemens replied "I need people to tell the truth" (please note, saying anymore could be considered witness tampering). And yet, the press is saying because Clemens did not have McNamee fly down for the press conference (more witness tampering, offering a free flight), Clemens is still holding back. This is what Belichick was avoiding. The more Clemens feed, the more the the press wants. Belichick knew, you cannot feed the hypocritical press enough, therefore you must starve them.

And I said all that to say this, I wish the science channel would stick more to science and less to editorializing. They had a magnificent show "Pandemic:Bird Flu" showing how bird flu could mutate and spread, in a simulation by actors. And yet, at the end what did we have? A wasted, preachy rant "why didn't they tell us more?" Lady, I'll tell you why. Because there are hard truths in a hospital during a pandemic. Decisions are made about who gets what treatment, who is too sick to save, who is likely to get too sick to save, and who will survive with treatment. You know why the medical community will not say that? Because the press would seize on it, dwell on it, twist it and drive it into your skull, maximizing fear, uncertainty and doubt, playing up the dramatic, making sure you tune in. Hell, they will almost lie to make sure you'll tune in. You doubt me? Here are some examples:

The day of the Mitchell report on steroid use, a list of players was supposedly released by Bloomberg (they deny this!) but MSNBC decided to run with it. Now all the other news media can pick it up, saying "MSNBC reports that...." Except, the list was false. Apology on page Z5, sorry, Jason Veritek.

Hurricane Katrina evacuees were told to bring three days supply of food and water. When aid came 2 days later, the question were, why are you so late, we have no supplies? Excuse, but two is less than three, why weren't you prepared?

Iraq, the surge. The past 6 months of report went "FAILURE!FAILURE!FAILURE!FAILURE!FAILURE!well okay its working, IOWA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, OBAMA..... see, no more news of the surge.

Dan Rather and the letters about Bush written on a PC, years before the PC existed.

I can go on, but enough, I think you get the point. The press is too full of themselves. They will decide whether you are innocent or guilty, but not until the story has lost its luridness, or appeal. The Peter Kings of the world, pontificaters from on high, will not let go so long as ratings or accolades increase. I wish Roger Clemens had looked more carefully in the Bill Belichick method of handling the press, he could have saved a lot of ink, trees and bandwidth. Don't feed the beast, let it get hungry and move on. Maybe someday, we can starve it out at last.

How to Lose to the Democrats

It figures that the state which brings us such poppycock ideas like corn ethanol would attempt to give us President Huckabee. The man is the worst kind of religious zealot which is probably why he is so stupid (He APOLOGIZED for the death of Benizir Bhutto, idiot used the wrong word, or he did kill her). He is the WORST kind of Republican, a fiscal spendthrift and a social facist. I will have much more to say if this worthless piece of fecal matter wins anymore primaries or caucuses. I will say this - I would rather have Kucinich in office than Huckleberry

Separation vs Establishment

Wow, I guess my faith in the intelligence of the average American needs to diminish. Can anybody find the separation of Church and State in the Constitution? Anybody? You in back, you got something? Of course not! There is no separation of Church and State in the Constitution. There is a clause procluding the ESTABLISHMENT of religion, but nothing about separation. There is a difference, you know. One means you can have absolutely no religion in government funded anything. The other means that there will never be a Church of the United States, like there is a Church of England.

I'm not advocating prayer in schools, or 3PM prayers in the direction of Mecca. I am warning people that ANYTHING that can be construed as a religion is going to be under fire. Will we stop putting crosses on the graves of soldiers? Will we declare Darwinism to be a religion (evolution is not, Darwinism is, but we'll discuss that later). How about politcal philosophy's? Is socialism a religion? Is republicanism?(I assume if you found this blog, you know we do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. A democracy is mob rule, he who has the most votes gets his way. In a republic, you have representative government who decides, and there are checks and balances so that the many cannot destroy the few...but I digress). Where do we stop?

I'm not sure why I am ranting on this...an old subject, well discussed and documented. I get a'skared when I hear a debate between the luntic fringes of both sides of this aregument. I stick my by formula, T = 1/g, that is the technological capability of a civilation is inversly related to the number of gods they have. Whenever I hear people debating religion in a political context (i.e. ANY Rrepublican debate) I fear a little bit that g will increase...and T will go down. Anybody for the Dark Ages, the Inquisition...or maybe the Salem witch trials? I thought not. Let's hope we all keep thinking and stop this nonsense.

I guess we are taken for granted

CNN touts the release of Genarlow Wilson for having oral sex with a 15 year old when he was 17. Forget the fact that the act was illegal on the face of it, he RECORDED it. That is why he is in jail. But will you see that in the news stories tonight? Of course not. We are taken for granted, we will believe what they say. The Jena 6 incident makes sense, if he was sooo hurt, how did he make it to the dance (and the pity fucks for all those bruises). Wilson TAPED this 15 year old. Why, except to exploit her? But we will never hear about it.

By the way, anybody notice that when you tell SOME people to get three days food anf water and meet at the football stadium for improvised housing, they throw a party; versus OTHER people who whine and cry and lie? Can't say more, but look at the video from Charger Stadium this week versus the Superdome after Katrina.....

Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Forgot to add some comments about the book "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black (don't buy it Karen, you can have my copy when I'm done). 408 pages of text, only 316 is text, the rest is typical paranoid thinking that if you can document 2 words in an 3 word sentence, people will believe. Well, if the sentence is "Fred killed Tom", and you can prove Fred exists, and Tom exists, does that prove the assertion? Not really. In one chapter, a reporter is murdered by the subject of a muckraking article he is working on. Though the muckraking has little or nothing to do with the books premise (please see Amazon.com for a description) the murder is given front and center status, in hopes of the reader making a leap from logic to fantasy.

But you know, forgetting about the paranoia rampant in this book, there are nuggets of truth. His description of the current state of the ethanol industry is fascinating, as has his descriptions of how the early electric cars slowly disappeared. Unfortunately, he forgets about Thomas Edison's fatal mistake (choosing DC versus AC for his power distribution system) which would have doomed his dream of electric cars, and without distribution, electric cars will not exist.

In short, it's really too bad to see an author with a great concept (the electric car did not die a natural death, like the steam car did, but was murdered) get so obsessed with the conspiracy aspects that he ignores the facts that would back him up, without appearing to be a conspiracy nut. There is much good in this book, unfortunately, it is intertwined with stories to nowhere, and looking for "reds under the beds" type thought. I will say this, you can't help but yearn for an electric car after reading this.

BTW, for a better read, try "The Ghost Map" by Steven Johnson. If you ever heard of the Broad Street Pump, you will amazed at the REAL story, and if you haven't, you will be amazed at how the infrastructure in our cities started, and why. He starts out a little crass for my tastes (I prefer feces to sh_t) but when the story really gets started, it's a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, surrounded by a powerful misconception. Great book!

Ramblin on

This will meander for a bit, not quite sure what I want to say. I'm working for my upteenth startup, and it suffers from the same disease of all the other startups. In the face of cold hard facts, the powers that be, or at least a significant number of them, blithely go on with the original plans. Why worry that NOBODY wants or needs your product? Why worry about quality when there are stylistic issues to be handled? Grrrr...I'll get over it.

Then there is the coy coworker trying to hide she is having a long distance relationship. Lady, I really don't care who, where or when you get your jollys, so please don't waste my time torn between giggling and acting sober when you are dancing around the fact you are going to get laid this weekend after a long plane flight. Been there, done that, and not ashamed at all, why are you?

The reaction to the bridge disaster in Minneapolis really pisses me off. Excuse me, you asses who voted 20 million dollars for bicycle paths in RI, and over $250,000,000 for a bridge between two underpopulated places in Alaska, maybe, just maybe, you should better spend the BILLION's you pissed away on earmarks, rather than raise gas taxes, which will only be used for even MORE earmarks.

I see NASA dodged a bad one, letting the space shuttle land with tile damage. Haven't heard about the impact on shuttle turnaround yet, sure they will wait until we forget about this flight before telling us about frame damage. I don't blame them, their VSE is based around the external tank structure, if it is fatally flawed (and it is) they won't have a VSE. I remember a ST:TNG episode where Data and Troi are analyzing Rikers tactical approaches. After much over analysis by Data, Troi reminds him that in the end, he is the man he is, or as Popeye would say, "I'samwhatsIam".

OK, enough of a rant for now. Be back soon.

Willing Victims

I've been quiet for too long. The whole "nappy haired ho's" thing is out of control. If you feel victimized by words, YOU are the victimizer. Sticks and stones the saying goes, unless it's about blacks. Then it's an ATTACK. You know what it will take for blacks to rise out of poverty? Leave victimhood behind! Several hundred billion dollars ago, you could get away with it, but not today. The US passed an interesting law a few years ago, removing tarriffs from African garments. Problem is, bunches of Far Eastern comines imported their cloth to make garments. There was a catch to the US gift, after a few years, Africans had to make their own cloth. So what happened? The Africans made clothing in accordance with their masters (real Chinese) rules until the time was over. Now the tarriff gift is over, the chinese have moved on, and thousands of Africans are out of work. Racism, or just plain laziness?

The black community in this country is being split into victims and people. The sooner the victims go away, the sooner TRUE equality will exist

Lying at the EPA

Evaggelos Vallianatos was an analyst for the EPA and is now a self proclaimed expert on pesticide use and corporate farming. He recently pimped his book "This land is their land" on BookTV. After listening to the presentation, I couldn't help but feel that this man is not a scientist. He makes noises like any other liberal arts professor. Worse, he's joined the cult of organic farming. You know, the folks who brought us contaminated spinach? So, I checked his biography, and sure enough, he has a BA in zoology, an MA in Byzantine history, and a Ph.D in Greek and Russian history. With all that education in ecological issues, no wonder the EPA hired him...NOT!

At any rate, to prove how pesticide use has gotten out of control, he read a litany of statistics comparing present day use with 1962 usage. Problem is, in 1962, we were using DDT, an EXTREMELY efficient pesticide, a little went a lot. It was banned during the environmental awakening in the 60's and early 70's. So , no wonder we need more pesticides today! Plus, last time I checked, we got an extra billion of two to feed than in 1962. No one asked about this, they just sat in awed admiration of this huckster.

I know we can't stop universities from passing out advanced degrees in obsolete knowledge. I know we can't stop publishing companies from producing books written by fanatics like this one. And we can't stop people from grabbing the nearest soapbox and peddling their religion. But hopefully, we can stop the EPA and other government agencies from hiring incompetent fanatics and putting them in positions of power.

When 99.9% is not good enough

I'm getting just a tad tired of these commercials saying that some anti-bacterial whatever will kill 99.9% of all bacteria/germs/whatever. That can still leave thousands waiting to attack. Care to stroll through a minefield where 99.9% of all the mines have been cleared? Worse, those that are left are probably immune to the anti-bacterial, and in all likelihood have spawned several generations of resistant strains. Care to stroll through a minefield where the mines left are spawning new mines, all of which are undetectable?

We have gotten way too hygienic these days. With allergies at an all time high, and getting more viscous in their effects, with drug resistant strains staturating our hospitals, isn't it timer we thought about getting just a bit more dirty, and take our chances?

Why is politics so vitriolic?

I think I am beginning to understand why there is so much hate in politics these days. When the conservatives were out of power, they were fighting for their own rights from outside. Defending yourself is easy. It's your money, it's your property, it's your state, your schools...etc. You don't have to get angrily defensive about your position, because possession really is 9 tenths of the law.

The progressives, however, are trying to take over some of what you consider to be your possessions. They have to make the case that:
a) you stole what you have (which is why we have federal and state regulations)
b) you don't deserve what you have (taxes take care of this)
c) you don't need what you have (even more taxes take care of this)
d) others deserve what you have more than you do (the rest of the taxes are here)

It's a hard argument to make. This weekend on BookTV (C-SPAN2), I was amused to hear several different people argue that rural areas have disproportionate representation, and a disproportionate share of the Electoral College vote. Think about that. Electoral College votes are based on the number of representatives and senators you have. Wyoming has 3. California has 55. Imagine trying to argue, as Thom Hartmann and Brian Mann did, that California is not only under-represented, but that it was so under-represented that it was like disenfranchising the entire state of Colorado! Gee, I always though that 55 was much bigger than 3. As a politician, am I going to try to win 3, or 55?

So it's no wonder the progressives need stridency and hysterics to make their points. Over the years they have gotten used to bumper sticker slogans (Bush Lied, Thousands Died) and you cannot make some of their more intricate points with bumper stickers. Their base are people who don't know how to vote (think hanging chads and eliminating those horrible voting machines that are just too complicated) and the liberal affluent. They need to reach the middle class. What they really need is to learn that they cannot reach the middle class by being sly, and making specious arguments. I'm open to arguments I'm not paying enough taxes. But it will take a reasoned argument to wrest more money, or my vote, for the purpose of raising my taxes.

So where are the reasoned arguments from reasonable people? Silenced by Kossacks and scared by the attack on Lieberman, they are being very quiet right now. Instead the airwaves are full of Hartmanns and Frankens and Huffingtons, aiding the Rangles and Pelosi's of the world to fool people into supporting them. It may be working, the polls are tending to a Democratic take-over of the House. Maybe it's a good thing. Give the Democratics 2 years to implement their plans, and watch the Republicans come back in 2008 when the public at large see the fruits of their labors taken from them. Oh well, I can dream.....