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Nightly Ramble Monday

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web ; the BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

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  • OOPS…. WE MISSED: So how is it that every time an estimate on this neo socialist Healthcare bill comes out from one political body or another, or even the CBO, which is supposedly apolitical, they end up having to issue corrections [2] , and then corrections on the corrections, which make it look far less rosy than the initial report that all the headlines were about?  And, on what basis are we to assume that the correction is any more accurate than the real nonsense?
  • CITADEL BROADCASTING FILES CHAP 11: I see Citadel Broadcasting which is one of the largest broadcasting companies in the country owning something like 225 radio stations including a bunch of 50 clears  as we used to call the AM 50,000 watt flamethrowers, has filed for Chapter 11. I’ve been watching them for some time, having something of a history in a radio, and it appears that the majority of their debt load issues stem from having picked up ABC radio from Disney, some years ago.  Reduced advertising of late hasn’t helped much either.
  • BRITTANY MURPHY DIES:
    Brittany Murphy [3]

    Brittany Murphy

    Karen Carpenter [4]

    Karen Carpenter

    I’m probably going to get into trouble for this one.  I know, usually I will put this kind of announcement [5] up in a separate post, with an RIP somewhere in it. I think this one deserves to be broken out just a little bit into the Ramble, because I have a serious question for you.  What you suppose the chances are that anorexia was involved?  That, or drugs of some kind.   To this day, I still remember sitting in my production room at WSAY here in Rochester, and and sitting in shocked silence on hearing the news from the closed network circuits that Karen Carpenter had died and to be ready to take a bulletin feed at the bottom of the hour.  If I’m not much mistaken she had a heart failure as well.  That was listed as a cause of death, but what led up to that failure was the abuse you’d put her body through.  And as it just me, or does Brittany Murphy look alarmingly like Karen Carpenter? And before you start, I always thought that earlier in her career, Karen Carpenter was a nice looking girl.  So, yes, that’s a compliment….  Albeit an eerie one.

  • WATCH THE WATCH, WILL YA? I note Glenn  Reynolds making mention [6] of markdowns on men and women’s watchers.  Just in time for Christmas of course.  A very dear friend of mine gave me a very expensive Rolex watch a number of years ago.  The real thing, too. I’ve had it appraised.  Sadly, I’ve worn it perhaps twice in my lifetime.  A beautiful thing, it is.  Yet after accidentally wiping out several watches over the years, I never wear it, because it serves no practical function. I lost that very dear friend to a heart attack about ten years ago, and that watch was one gift of many that he gave me over the years. But that one is very important to me.   I’d hate to damage it in wearing it simply out of vanity.  Thing is, nobody ever where swatches anymore,  and I think I know why.   The most accurate timepiece I’ve ever owned in my life , I’ve actually owned several of those.  They are the time display in my cell phone.  We’ve certainly gained accuracy, but I can’t help but think that we’ve lost a little style, a little grace.
  • THAT’S A NEW WRINKLE: According to a report on CBS news’ web site [7] women tend to get more wrinkled than men.  I’ve been thinking all this time that they got wrinkled about the same it’s just that with guys nobody noticed.  Oh, well.
  • ARROGANCE OF MAN:Sarah Palin has this one right. [8]In the last hundred thousand or so years, the scientists tell us that there have been on the order of twenty buyouts of global warming.  The extent of that warming appears to be 18° moralize on each occasion, and on each occasion it took twenty years to get that rise.  Now that people over in Copenhagen last week will tell you that their concern is a rise of a degree and a half over the last 100 years.  (BBCT: Boortz [9]) The fact is, we can even measure things that accurately, much less accurately predict what will change it in either direction.  More, there is no way to determine whether not such a manmade change would be beneficial, or not.  The leaked emails we saw a recently are testimony to the fact that we are being lied to about all of this. It’s as I said yesterday …  Given the history of the thing it seems to me eminently reasonable to make the assumption that when a leftist speaks, his real cause… regardless of the stated cause…. is the increase in the power of a central government , and go on from there.  . Until we face that situation head on, we’re always going to have these discussions about the validity of leftist policy.
  • PERSONAL NOTES: First of all, in answer to a number of emails, yes the training precedes apace to put me behind the wheel of a Tractor -Trailer by the end of next month. Well, my own truck, I mean.  Believe me when I tell you, friends, there is a great deal more to handling one of those monsters than most people are aware.  As it turns out, I’m reasonably good at it.  Driving, for me has always been one of my favorite activities.  But much as I like driving, doing it in something that large is an intense experience.  It is made more intense by the rather odd assortment of idiots on four wheels. I’ll tell you some stories about that, when I have some free space.One of the problems involved with the scheduling of that training, however, is that I’m going to have to reschedule the Ramble . I’ve been posting it for the last couple of years at 4:00 EST every day.  That’s a situation that probably won’t work after the end of this year.  So, watch for my Nightly commentary in the Nightly Ramble to be posted some time around 9:00 every evening, starting January 1.  That may not be the last scheduled for a xiong, depending on the nature of the new job.  And, of course, my ability to maintain this website fully from the truck.  We’ll see how that goes.  I’m currently looking at laptops. Obviously, a cell card is required, and the monthly’s on those may be a little excessive until I get some money rolling from the new gig.  I’ll keep you posted.Secondly, I’m amazed at the traffic buildup on this web site, subsequent to my moving to the new server.  I have always known that there was inherent problems trying to run a PHP site on a Microsoft server.  Until I moved off the Microsoft server, I never fully understood just how bad that situation was.  They recorded traffic on this web site has better than doubled in the last month.  I have to assume, that I’ve actually had that level of traffic for this web site along, and that it just wasn’t recording it, or that there was a large number, (approaching 50% of total traffic ) of instances where the server dropped the request.  Take it as my advice of the day; don’t get yourself into a Microsoft server if you plan on relying heavily on PHP, OK?