radio free mount airy

Travel Notes #1

What the fuck is it with these cheap shit cable TV setups in hotels? 2 bible beater channels, 2 shopping channels, 2 spanish channels, 2 infomercial channels, 4 channels full of sports reruns and commercials, 4 channels so full of QRM that the television can't keep sync or sound, and 18 channels full of commercials?

Give him a few years

The National Football League has finally spoken, and handed an indefinite suspension for Michael Vick, an overrated football player caught up in the sordid underworld of dogfighting. The press is saying now that his current dilemma may prevent him ever from returning to his job as a football player. That's good. Despite the bullshit coming out of places like the NAACP, this bastard needs to show some remorse, and if he doesn't, he needs to go away for a long time and be separated from society. We don't need you, Michael. Go fuck yourself. You made your reality, and now I hope you soak in it. Let your legacy be that of a chew toy for dogs.

Cop a plea, salvage a career. Boycott the stupid NFL

Michael Vick's other co-abusers have copped plea deals with the Government, leaving the Atlanta Falcons quarterback out on a very lonely limb, facing federal charges and a superceding indictment on RICO offenses early next week. So what does he do? Negotiate concurrently with the Feds and the NFL to salvage his career.

The NFL should sever all ties with this criminal now. To pussy around with anything else reduces whatever credibility the league had to nothing.

Check out the utter hypocrisy of this from the Atlanta Constitution Journal:

Atlanta lawyer Dan Meachum, a member of Vick's defense team, declined to comment Tuesday on any possible negotiations.

"I stand by Michael Vick, " Meachum said. "He's a good kid in a bad situation. I'm a dog owner, a dog lover. I would not be involved in this case if I didn't believe in him."

Money talks and bullshit walks. Who's money is making you make such ridiculous statements, Mr. Meachum?

Emmitt Smith is an idiot

Here's another NFL player, this time retired Dallas Cowboys running back Emmitt Smith, displaying his ignorance while making a speech at an awards ceremony. Nice show of support for torturing and killing animals, you turd. First we had the moron Clinton Portis stick his foot in his very large mouth, and now Smith.

From Sports Illustrated (comments from the original author included):

"He's the biggest fish in the whole doggone pond right now, so they're putting the squeeze on him [Vick] to get to everyone else. Now, granted he might have been to a dogfight a time or two, maybe five times, maybe 20 times, may have bet some money, but he's not the one you're after. He's just the one who's going to take the fall -- publicly.'' -- All-time NFL rushing leader Emmitt Smith, speaking Saturday at his enshrinement in the College Football Hall of Fame.

Two issues here.

1. Nice to see Emmitt knows so much about the federal government's case. Didn't anyone ever tell him, "When there's an important issue out there, give an educated opinion if you have a good idea what you're talking about. If you're not sure what you're talking about, the only thing you can do by opening your mouth is look like you're 11 years old.''

2. It sounds very much like Smith empathizes with Vick's plight and doesn't find it very objectionable that Vick might have put a few bucks down on dogfights. Is he serious? Is there anything justifiable about Vick going to a single dogfight, or gambling a dime on a dogfight? Should the feds, once they had evidence from four corroborating witnesses that placed Vick in the middle of one dogfight after another, have ignored the evidence and not gone after him?

I have a bad feeling about Smith's tenure at ESPN, and it hasn't even started. His comments on Vick are so idiotic and inappropriate that a few people at the Worldwide Leader have to be thinking, "Uh-oh. What if we've gone and hired someone who's very famous but not very smart?''

The NFL does nothing to punish animal abusing criminals

Faced with virtually universal condemnation, disgust, and outrage, The NFL should have immediately kicked Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick out of the league for allegedly participating in an interstate dogfighting operation. However, they continue to waffle around, obviously more concerned about litigation and revenue than making a firm statement condeming the actions of Vick and his associates.

Consider this statistic put forth by Johnette Howard in Newsday:

If you do some simple math, the eight dogs that Vick and his cohorts are accused of executing are just the start of the casualties. Would NFL commissioner Roger Goodell change his mind and discipline Vick if he realized that most, if not all, of the 66 dogs seized when law enforcement officials raided Vick's rural Virginia property also will have to be euthanized because of their fight training?

Combined with 37 carcasses that authorities have been told are buried on the property, that means as many as 111 dogs -- a staggering number -- may have died or will perish because of what Vick and his pals allegedly thought of as "sport."

And that death toll has nothing to do with whether Vick is ever convicted.

The NFL's wishy-washy stance is echoed by a statement released Arthur Blank, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons, courtesy of the New York Times:

“This is an emotionally charged and complicated matter,” Blank’s statement said. “There are a wide range of interests and legal issues that need to be carefully considered as we move ahead, including our need to respect the due process that Michael is entitled to. Also, this situation affects everyone — our club, our players and associates, our sponsors, our fans and the Atlanta community among them — so we must consider all of our customers in making any decisions."

One would think that your club, players, associates, sponsors, fans, and the Atlanta community are pretty much disgusted and horrified at the allegations against Vick, and are united in the belief that this person does not deserve to flaunt his criminal behavior by prancing around on a football field and being paid millions of dollars.

Boycott the NFL

Now that a federal grand jury has indicted NFL quarterback Michael Vick and three co-conspirators for multiple felony counts involving barbaric activities such as running a criminal dogfighting enterprise and committing other unspeakable acts of cruelty to animals, it should be obvious that hyped-up, overpaid, and over-rated "professional atheletes" such as Vick have no place in our society. If the allegations against Vick and his "crew" prove to be true, they shoud all face the maximum penalty associated with their crimes. Vick should be immediately suspended from the National Football League, and the League's failure to do so quickly and resoundingly sends a message that they do not care, are too afraid of lawsuits, and actually condone the reprehensible behavior that Vick and his associates have allegedly committed.

I challenge all who read this to send a strong message to the NFL by engaging in a complete and total boycott of all of their products, teams and the rest of their multibillion dollar enterprise unless they quickly make a stand, condemn this behavior, and begin the process of severing all ties with Vick.

The mortgage angle

Yes, it's Countrywide. Yep, one of the biggest mortgage lenders in the country. And, do they value your pirvacy? No. They share your telephone number with spammers. Note the text in bold below.

I never (as they say) received "a privacy notice that includes a toll-free telephone number to call if you want to opt-out" from their spammer game.

Countrywide's opt-out number is 1-866-605-3467.

In today’s dynamic market, opting out may mean missing timely information about products and services that help you accomplish your homeownership and other financial goals. It's something to think about carefully. We don’t want you to miss out on any opportunities.

You've got to be kidding me. I am really creaming all over my fucking pants at the possibility of receiving "timely information" via a fax at half past fucking midnight on my land line.

Heh. 12:55am Sunday. 0455 UITC. Another call from a fucking spammer calling from a number Verizon says the call trace failed because "this feature cannot be activated" in this service area. Thank you Verizon for being worthless. Oh, I forgot to mention that Verizon arranged to have my fone service switched 7 days ago and has failed miserably at providing timely service. Thanks, Verizon. Thanks a lot. I hope the spammer's stupid fax calls make your bottom line drop, because they're not doing anything at all here but pissing off your customer.

Thank you, Verizon. Thank you, Countrywide. Thank you for making my land line worthless.

(from http://my.countrywide.com/privacy.aspx

How we obtain and use information Back to top
To fund and service your loan, comply with government regulations, improve our products and services, and better understand your financial needs, we collect and maintain customer and former customer data. We collect information:

* you provide us on applications and other forms (such as your name, address, phone, Social Security and account numbers, assets, income and employment history);
* about your transactions with us (such as your loan balance, payment history and other account information);
* about your credit history from a credit reporting agency; and
* about you or your property from business partners and service providers (such as a property appraisal, purchase contract or membership number).

We disclose some of this data to third parties (such as credit reporting agencies, regulators and loan investors). We may share some of this information with companies performing services on our behalf (such as the vendor who prepares our monthly statements). These service providers agree to keep the information confidential and not use it for any other purpose.

Additionally, to provide you with valuable product and service offerings, we share limited information (such as a list of customers in a certain income range) within our Countrywide family of companies and with business partners who are obligated to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

You have choices Back to top
You may limit how we share your personal information. This is called a right to "opt out." You have three options to consider.

1. Continue receiving valuable and convenient product and service offers
You can enjoy the benefits of valuable product and service offerings without taking any action.
2. Opt out of information sharing outside the Countrywide family of companies
This choice would stop us from sharing non-public personal information with our carefully screened business partners. This may limit our ability to inform you of valuable and convenient products and services from partner companies.
3. Opt out of information sharing within the Countrywide family of companies
This choice would stop us from sharing non-public personal information within the Countrywide family of companies. This may limit our ability to offer conveniences such as a tailored savings quote on homeowners insurance, a custom financial investment plan, and other financial service offers.

We honor our customers’ privacy choices across the family of companies. For loans to multiple borrowers, we will apply an opt out by any borrower to all borrowers on the loan. If you opt out, we will continue to share non-public personal information with our service providers (such as the vendor who prepares our monthly statements), with third parties as required or permitted by law (such as credit reporting agencies or regulators), and share transaction and experience information (such as your loan balance or payment history) within the Countrywide family of companies.

During the application process, you will receive a privacy notice that includes a toll-free telephone number to call if you want to opt-out. Please have your account and billing information available when you call. If you have any questions about our privacy policy, please send an e-mail message to privacypolicy@countrywide.com.

In today’s dynamic market, opting out may mean missing timely information about products and services that help you accomplish your homeownership and other financial goals. It's something to think about carefully. We don’t want you to miss out on any opportunities.

The junk fax saga continues

502-266-0928. The bastards are faxing me now from a new number,

*57 tells me

"this feature cannot be activated because the number is outside the serving area in which the service will work."

732-542-3012. Repeated annoying fax calls at half past midmight. Another Global Primeire Services scam.

Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, is a fucking dirtbag spammer. Avoid this business at all costs. They are scumbags. They annoy people needlessly and illegaly. They are the scum of the earth. Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services are scumbag spammers..

More fone abuse

908-575-3723, another scumbag spammer from New Jersey, is now calling me. This appears to be a fax-back service, but I'm willing to wager that it has something to do with the same dirtbag that called me 20 times last Sunday and Monday.

Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., is a filthy scumbag spammer.

Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., is a filthy scumbag spammer.

Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., is a filthy scumbag spammer.

Premiere Global Services is a Filthy Spammer

Premiere Global Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., Xpedite Systems, LLC, aka Global Premier Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer. Today I received over a dozen fax calls to my home voice phone number from one of their autodialers that's too stupid to know it's not calling a fax machine.

Here is a very useful page set up by someone who was also targeted by these bastards. It seems a lot of other people have also been harassed by these scumbags.

I suggest to anyone who comes across this post to avail themselves of the following tools to combat this disgusting spammer:

• File a complaint at The National Do Not Call Registry

• File a complaint with your local telephone service provider. Verizon is my landline provider, and after spending a long time trying to navigate their unhelpful website, I finally located this page where it states that "[w]hen calls exceed 5 per day, and the end user is willing to prosecute/testify, then the UCSC will handle the call as unlawful." The Unlawful Call Solution Center can be reached at 1-800-246-2800 for business customers or 1-800-518-5507 for residential customers.

• You can attempt to contact the spammer's so-called "Privacy Compliance Officer" at 877-771-8283 or privacy@premiereglobal.com but I did and all I got was a lousy voice mail box.

• File an online complaint with the FCC if you are able to receive a fax. I didn't feel like going to the trouble this time, so I can't use this vehicle.

• There is also a general FCC Complaint portal.

732-542-3012 is the number that called us incessantly.
732-389-3900 is the number listed for Xpedite Systems.
800-333-0568 is the number listed for Premiere Global Services or Global Premiere Services.
And, here's a contact page for the spammers in New Jersey.

Now for google.

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Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., aka Premiere Global Services, is a filthy scumbag spammer.
Premiere Global Services, aka Global Premier Services, aka Xpedite Systems Inc., is a filthy scumbag spammer.

Cat Mama Rant

Our one hundred and forty ninth voyage onto the airwaves was presented live at 2200 UTC on WBCQ 7.415 MHz worldwide shortwave. Listeners from Minnesota, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Missouri checked in today. WBCQ's internet connection crapped out in the middle of "Dead Girls of London" and so we had to switch over to Micheal's fone coupler to get back on air.

• Intro, Rev. Billybob, Porky & Petunia, Ren & Stimpy "I'm gonna be a monkey"
• SPCA rant
• Corrosion of Conformity - Clean My Wounds - Deliverance (1994)
• Joe Jackson - Fools In Love
• Lenny Bruce - God's Obscenity Rules of Thumb - Lenny Bruce Is Out Again
• Monty Python - Never Be Rude To An Arab
• Baby Ray and the Ferns - How's Your Bird - Rare Meat (FZ 1962 Del-Fi Rhino 1983)
• Bellamy Brothers - Redneck Girl
• Rev. Norel Pref - dead_wrong
• The Beatles - The Fool on the Hill [Demo Version] - Beatles Anthology
• Theme from The Man From U.N.C.L.E. season three
• Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys - How I Spent My Summer - The Street Giveth...and the Street Taketh Away (Polydor 1968)
• Tori Amos - Hey Jupiter (the Dakota version) - Hey Jupiter (Atlantic 1996)
• National Lampoon - Mr Rogers In The Neighborhood
• Shankar - Dead Girls Of London - Touch Me There (Zappa Records 1979)
• Jerry Garcia - They Love Each Other - Reflections (Round 1976)
• Al Clauser - Foolin' Around - Al Clauser and His Oklahoma Outlaws 1937-1948

[149]

Go away, Jerry

It's been only 30 hours or so since Falwell croaked and I am sick and tired about hearing platitudes given to that fat racist backwards thinking old bastard.

The following is courtesy of a poast on redandnater.com.

God To Falwell; Go to Hell... NOw!!

Jerry Falwell, one of the most despicable abusers of the teachings of Jesus and the earnest faith of religious Christians, a foul, mean-spirited power hungry neanderthal who sought to set back civilization has been called to meet his maker. I have no doubt, he will join the other racists, bigots, homophobes, war mongers, greedy money-grubbing corporatists and holy rolling religious hypocrites he supported, encouraged and empowered.

Falwell made his infamous, and perhaps signature statement after 9/11 on the 700 club, saying, "the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians," as well as liberal advocacy groups were to blame for the attacks, according to Fox news. He later made a weak, non-specific apology. This statement could well be the quote that he is (and should be remembered by.

We can expect to see the toadying right wing candidates for president quickly pay homage to this creep who blamed the 9/11 attack on homosexuality. John McCain, a fellow hypocrite, appears to be the first to pay homage to this man who, just a few years ago, lumping Falwell with other right wing zealots, described them as, “agents of intolerance.” Since running for presidential office, McCain realized that one does not win the Republican primary without kissing up to fundamentalist nutjobs.

CNN says he'll be remembered as one of the most outspoken and polarizing figures.

This crepulant walking pile of self righteousness and hateful intolerance lived his last few years being seen by many as a bombastic fool, even though so many right wing power seekers sought his blessing.

Falwell's organization, Moral Majority was credited with pushing the republican party further to the right and with helping Ronald Reagan to win his office.

There are those who say one should not speak ill of the dead. I disagree. Now is the time when others will try to honor and glorify an evil, small, ugly, meanspirited fool who did immense damage to so many spheres of modern life-- modern Christianity, American Politics, television, education and through all of those, the rest of the world. His support of right wing extremists enabled corporations and war hawks to exploit their opportunities to wreak war, havoc, violence, hate, irrevocable environmental damage, poverty and suffering upon millions.

If any soul is a candidate for hell, this man fits the profile.

WGMS flips to 'George' and WETA gets back into classical

I noticed this morning that WETA 90.9 has indeed dropped all news/talk and switched to classical, and that the former WGMS 103.9//104.1 has adopted a Jack-like format called 'George' and is playing nonstop crappy pop hits from the eighties and nineties.

There's no sign of change on WAMU 88.5 as yet. However the shuffle has only just started, since a number of people lost their jobs at both 103.9//104.1 and WETA yesterday.

WGMS’s owners had been in talks with upcoming media mogul and Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder recently. Snyder's Red Zebra sports network has gobbled up a number of lower powered AMers with weak DC metro signal coverage and Snyder is seeking to expand this drivel onto the FM band. However word is that WGMS gummed up the deal by asking too much money for WGMS and blabbing to the Washington Post as negotiations continued. So the new 'George' format may only be a temporary stunt while the real goal is to further destroy the FM band here with non-stop meaningless testosterone talk about the intricacies of professional sports bordered by commercials for all sorts of junk. After all, we already have a classic-rock station in WARW 94.7, a pop-leaning classic rock WBIG 100.3, and a “hot AC” WRQX 107.3, all which would appear to compete in some way with the new WXGG.

All this gossip is documented on the very fine dctrv.com website.

I’m glad to see classical survive on WETA. I was always baffled at why WETA switched to exactly the same news/talk format as WAMU, especially since we also have WCSP 90.1 doing non-stop “public affairs” programming as C-Span Radio on 90.1 (not to mention the liberals on Pacifica’s WPFW 89.3). However the realization that a stupid sports network may take up all that bandwidth on the FM dial is very disillusioning, and such an outcome makes sense only for the megabucks corporations that own the public airwaves here.

Oh, and I thought WETA was a public broadcasting station. Sure, they don’t run “commercials,” but they’re engaging in “cross-promotion” with the former WGMS? I guess you need to consult a lawyer as to the definition of what constitutes a “commercial” on a “non-commercial” radio station.

New Howard County TIS

Wednesday, Novemver 29, 2006, 1430, 1700. One of the new Howard County TIS services is sending out a reasonable signal into north-central Montgomery County. WQMV923 noted here with call letters and ID "Howard County Government AM 1700" and a tape loop of emergency preparedness PSAs. The station's putting out a fair to good signal from home to work at an average distance of around 8 miles.

FCC data for this station puts it off of Tridelphia Road south of MD 144 with an EIRP of 10 watts.

This is part of a cluster of stations run by Howard County's Office of Emergency Management, as reported in DX Listening Digest 6127 and 6117.

Howard's TIS has a better sounding signal in neighboring Montgomery County than either of the Montgomery County's TIS stations, WPBJ222 AM 570 and WPDD643 AM 1070. Nothing is generally heard on 570, and 1070 is always weak, bothered, and frequently putting out bad audio, even though I drive within a couple of thousand feet of one of 1070's transmiiters twice every day.

I've questioned the utility of the Montgomery County system a couple of times in the past. Montgomery County's two TIS clusters say they provide up-to-date traffic and travel information for the I-270 corridor (570) and US-29 corridor (1070) and they claim to broadcast in parallel. It seems silly and wasteful to have tax dollars funding twelve scratchy, weak and unlistenable stations broadcasting traffic information, when every commercial news station in the metropolitan area has up-to-date and regular traffic reports once every five minutes or so.

Howard County's system is providing a good public service as a standby network. Monkey County's needs some work. I say give both networks to the public school system, and let the high schools develop future broadcast professionals by running the public airwaves.

Florida gasoline vendors conduct despicable price gouging

Last week, I did some business travel to central Florida. As I travelled by air, I had to get a rental car, and as a standard practice, took the seemingly most cost effective option of returning the rental car with a full tank of gas.

I was horrified on my return to the airport that the nearest, most convenient, and only visible gas station for miles in proximity to the rental car outlet is charging a gas price that is between 90 cents and $1.20 higher than every other gas station I observed at the time in central Florida. I have a printed receipt from Lee Vista Chevron, 5928 Butler National Drive, Orlando, Florida, dated September 15, 2006, that shows a gasoline price of $3.599 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. Unless there is some kind of "mouse surcharge" in Orlando, the price of gas between there and the east coast ranged from $2.50 to $2.70 a gallon at this time.

This is not the first time I've noticed this unethical business practice from gas vendors near airports (I've noticed the same smarmy behavior from gas stations between I-95 and the Jacksonville airport in the past); but this is the most blatant price gouging I've ever witnessed and definitely put a sour note on my last day of travel.

It appears that Florida has a statute on the books that specifically addresses price gouging during an emergency. I don't think returning your rental car qualifies as an "emergency," though. I wonder if this Chevron station in Orlando, as well as the other price gouging bastards in the state located near airports, actually lower their prices during a hurricane warning?

Clueless Comcast

Comcast's e-mail filters, that they claim actually exist, didn't catch this phishing scam.

It has come to our attention that your Comcast Verification details records are expired. This requires that you update your Comcast Profile records immidiatley. Failure to update your records will turn out in account termination. Please update your records within 48 hours. Once you have updated your account records, your Comcast account will not be terminated and will continue as normal. Failure to update will result in Terms of Service violations, termination of service or future billing problems. Please click here to continue. (scam web site at domain fcq.unc.edu.ar deleted)

So, as a comcast customer, I sent the message to their abuse drop box, and got the following bounce message:

The email that you have submitted to abuse@comcast.net does not appear to contain a Comcast IP address. The abuse@comcast.net address is only for the investigation of incidents of network abuse regarding Comcast subscribers.

Why don't they update their freaking IP address lists? And how in the hell do they let comcast-targeted spam through their servers?

What a pain in the ass. Why anyone spend the time to send another message to a black hole about the spam is beyond me.

I suppose that they've reduced staff at the abuse desk and they're simply spending too much money on annoying commercials that endlessly market to existing customers services that they already have.

Satellite radio FM loggings

This is from fmqb.com via DX Listening Digest 6082:

Report: XM & Sirius May Halt Radio Production, May 30, 2006

Due to a small issue with FCC transmitter compliance rules, both XM and Sirius Satellite Radio may have to temporarily halt production on certain radios in order to address recent inquiries from the FCC. "The FCC issue could be more pervasive than previously believed," wrote analyst Jonathan Jacoby, according to a report from Forbes. "We believe that XM and Sirius could temporarily suspend retail shipments of certain radios, but the fix would be relatively quick and inexpensive and likely would not lead to stock-outs at retail."

So far, the devices in question are XM's SKYFi2 and Audiovox Xpress. The FCC has said that the transmitter for these devices is not in compliance with the operating bandwidth specifications of the commission's rules or the related emission limits. Other XM devices along with some from Sirius could possibly have compliance problems as well, says Forbes...

I was in Germantown, Maryland last Friday afternoon to run some errands, and as I've learned in this somewhat upscale and overdeveloped suburban area, there are many Part 15 FM transmitters that are continuously spewing forth all kinds of interesting programming onto the airwaves. While exiting the Box Store Lot onto Maryland 355, I caught something rare for the local FM broadcast band: profanity Yes, it was horrible, evil, profanity: Howard Stern's Sirius radio show spewing forth on FM 87.9 with a nice strong, clean signal. As I trudged my way up Frederick Road from Germantown to Frederick, I listened to the banalities of Howard's radio show for a half hour or so, about 20 miles up the highway until my satellite-equipped fellow commuter in traffic nearby made a turn and went quickly out of range.

Now this was a serious little so-called Part 15 transmitter. There were no fuzzies or fadings for the whole drive, just a smooth, clear and solid signal of Howard and his stories about trophy models and getting wasted and having hangovers in the big city at various parties and night clubs and feeling sorry for himself because his wife was on the west coast and he was all in a tizzy because he just spent eight million dollars on a house.

This had to have been the worst radio program I've listened to in a long while, not because of the frequent use of the word "fuck" and other profanities, but because the subject matter was incredibly stupid, banal, and utterly lacking in content of any type. Somehow, though, it was strangely compelling -- an escape, if you will -- from the endless sad stories of death, destruction and horror about the stupid meaningless war and the endless depths that Randi Rhodes goes to every weekday trying to make people wise up about the evil behind it.

Stern, it seems, is now the ultimate in junk food radio, kind of like Doritos for the mind. He can discuss absolutely nothing with his cronies and synchophants for hours on end and people are entertained, simply because his show's content is largely disposable. It's easily heard, easily forgotten, is absolutely meaningless, and largely irrelevant. It seems his broadcast does have a place. I'm not sure it's worth what Sirius paid for it, though.

Whiny billionaire causes idiotic local government to waste time

I've been watching this stupid story for some time now, and it's getting so incredibly ridiculous that I thought I'd take a moment to rant about it and clear my head.

Bill Requires Comcast To Broadcast Nats Games

(AP) WASHINGTON A bill that would require Comcast to put the Washington Nationals on television in the District was signed by Mayor Anthony A. Williams on Tuesday.

The measure would require the city and Comcast to enter into negotiations to explore getting the team's games on the air unless Comcast starts airing the games on Wednesday.

Most of Washington's games are shown on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which is owned by Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

Comcast is refusing the carry MASN because of a dispute with Angelos over the television rights to the Orioles.

The last two paragraphs tell the story. Peter Angelos, who has never done anything except for bitch, moan and whine as Major League Baseball moved the Expos to Washington, was thrown a bone by Baseball and was given control of his competitor's television coverage? Now that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Angelos plans to move Orioles telecasts to MASN next season after their deal with Comcast SportsNet expires. Comcast is suing Angelos, contending that its contract was improperly terminated.

"This standoff was not created by Comcast, and I am not taking sides in the legal dispute that centers on the broadcast rights for these games," Williams said in a statement.

However, Williams said that having the games on television locally would help the team "build a broad fan base."

DUH! That would make a lot of sense. A lot more than giving control over the team's television rights to a whiny old bastard who was always openly hostile to the very creation of the team. Too bad it's an empty gesture, and like many legislative wastes of time perpetuated by the "DC Government" (a contradiction in terms), has no legal standing and is about as effective as the amazingly self-righeous morons who talk about DC politics on WAMU on Friday afternoons.

Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen said in a statement that the cable company "is working to find a solution that will put the Nats' games on TV immediately."

MASN was created by Angelos and Major League Baseball as compensation to Angelos for sharing television territory with the Nationals after they moved from Montreal last year. Angelos receives 90 percent of MASN's revenues this season.

I suppose Angelos "needs" a few more tens of millions of dollars, given that his Orioles revenue is shrinking. This might have something to do with the fact that he has never been able to field or sustain an Orioles team that was actually worth a shit.

The House Government Reform Committee had previously called on representatives from both Comcast and MASN to enter into negotiations and settle the television dispute.

Like that's gonna have any impact. This situation is a joke and is unbelieveably stupid. It smacks of whiny billionaires all bent out of shape because they got their weiner smacked because of competition. MASN? Comcast SportsNet? Who needs another cable television channel with more brain dead infomercials than actual content? I guess that 0.2 percent of the population who are your run-of-the-mill sports-is-everything jock types actually cares about this nonsense. The rest of us are disgusted. There's much better things to think about and act upon in this community and this world instead of caring at all about Billionaire Angelos, his crappy team, and his crappier television network.

Let's not forget that this is the same Peter Angelos who charged the state of Maryland a billion dollars for his representation in the corrupt tobacco settlement.

WTOP Moves to FM (yawn)

Yeah, so the great DC radio switcheroo of 2006 happened and WTOP displaced WGMS and it's nice Class B 103.5 and demoted the classical station to the weaker 104.1 and 103.9, killing the pseudo-rocker Z-104 in the process. And even more, WTOP will be giving up AM 1500 and FM 107.7 to Washington Post Radio, what I've seen described as "NPR on caffeine."

Even though WTOP consistently ranks first in the Washington DC area radio market, it sucks. Okay, so they have great timely traffic reports, which really makes me realize even more the utter uselessness and wastefulness of the various weak and garbled Montgomery County-owned and operated traffic information AM stations. But come on, people! I listened to a news report on WTOP a couple of days ago that was so brief and cut up that it reminded me of one of Mr. F. E. Lemur's "PR Gnus" cut-ups of NPR News he posts on occasion to alt.binaries.slack. The typical WTOP news byte goes something like this:

Talking head: President Bush voiced criticism of Democrats this afternoon.

President Bush: They're wrong.

Talking head: He spoke from the steps of the Capitol. WTOP news time, eight oh four.

And this is a threat to National Public Radio on WAMU 88.5? As annoying as the stupid music in between news items on NPR is, it's nowhere near as annoying as the thirty commercials an hour crammed into WTOP. Hell, even Diane Rehm's delivery isn't as annoying as the incessant commercials on WTOP. WTOP's move may threaten WETA on 90.9, though. Who in the hell thought it was a good idea to put another NPR station on the dial so we could have dueling NPR's, especially when they sometimes have the same programming on at the same time? Maybe there's a market for it like there is for the non-stop wonking on C-Span Radio WCSP 90.1.

I suppose I should be thankful that The Washington Post may provide a more, say, balanced view of news when they arrive on the air, being as they're a bunch of commie liberals and gawd only knows we could use some balance to the idiots and morons like Rush Limbaugh and his many imitators who pollute the airwaves here (as if Amy Goodman's twice-weekdaily Democracy Now! on Pacifica's WPFW 89.3 doesn't qualify for a whole day's worth of left wing goodness all by itself). But a threat to NPR? NPR on caffeine? Unless you like spam with your caffeine this is going to be a hard sell. I seriously doubt that the new WTWP 1500/107.7 will have any less commercials rammed down our throats than the king of the hill, WTOP.

Is this a massive change in the terrestrial radio market that foments a new revival of the medium? Yawn.

Bring back bluegrass music on the drive home from work. Then maybe I'll start to give a crap whether of not WTOP kicks WAMU's butt.

Majority mistake, and we all suffer

One year ago I asked listeners of the Halloween election edition of my radio show to avoid voting for George W Bush. Not enough people listened, and now we’re reaping the sour fruit of another year of a sad and sorry administration’s mistakes.

Let’s examine the decisions made by this administration since you put this guy and his merry band of thugs and criminals back in office. Let’s see, the price of energy is up over thirty percent. We just learned of the death of the two thousandth soldier in Iraq. Our dead soldiers are drawn disproportionately from the ranks of the National Guard and the Reserve. This figure obscures the tens of thousands of injured and maimed whose injuries are a direct result of one of Mr. Bush’s most stupid decisions. The faux weapons of mass destruction haven’t been found, and everyone in the world now, except for the possible exception of Tony Blair and the insane extreme right, realizes that this was a ruse concocted by the military industrial complex so wonderfully symbolized by Dick Halliburton Cheney. It’s now obvious that after Mr. Bush cowed the country into a shameful military intervention in Iraq based on doctored intelligence that neither he nor any of the cronies, sycophants and toadies he put in charge had any plan for what to do once Saddam’s government was crushed. Maybe the plan was to put in Chalabi as a puppet of the regime, watch the Iraqi people bow down to him, and get the hell out of there? Fat chance. Perhaps the regime you people voted into office last year enjoys chaos and death. It certainly hasn’t hurt the profit margins of the companies they own and control, such as Halliburton and the oil companies.

These people were so intent on padding their pockets with the blood of innocents that the Vice President himself participated in a smear campaign against a critic of their foul plan. Yes, Libby’s been indicted, but justice won’t be done until Rove, Cheney and Bush are made to pay for their lies to the Congress and the American people.

“You’re doing a great job, Brownie!”

Mr. Bush is a walking icon of incompetence. It’s certain that he will never make a good decision as president. He certainly hasn’t made one yet. It appears now that Brownie was a couple of weeks away from resigning as head of FEMA when Katrina struck the gulf coast. What a wonderful decision it was for Mr. Bush to appoint a toady like Brown to be the head of FEMA so he could sit around and do nothing but wonder why he hadn’t resigned a few days before the hurricane struck. How many other federal agencies are being headed by under qualified morons who gave millions of dollars to Bush’s re-election campaign? How many of these agencies that you fund and you depend on are now crippled because of many other bad decisions Mr. Bush has made?

Now Bush and his political “base” wants to legislate more tax cuts (for the rich) while simultaneously funding the unprecedented disaster recovery for the Gulf Coast, and they’re going to pull off this rabbit-in-the-hat trick by cutting funds for “discretionary programs” (for the poor).

The next time you wonder why our cities are overrun by gangs and our rural country is dying of meth, consider how Mr. Bush’s tax cuts force our schools to teach poor girls how to be seamstresses and hairdressers instead of teaching them mathematics and science. I’m sure many of you will have the gall to get all whiny when you see the good jobs get outsourced to third world countries.

Think about Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for the rich when you’re almost bankrupt caring for an elderly relative in a society where the pharmaceutical companies, those who benefit from Mr. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism,” spend tens of billions dollars a year on advertising.

And yet, you felt that “family values” was more important. You’re so fucking scared that your kid’s teacher’s a devil worshiping lesbian who’s rending the moral fabric of America that you’ve traded good government for a road to ruin. Have you listened to some of the “family values” that windbags like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Pat Robertson have espoused lately? They could give a shit about family values. All they care about are themselves. They don’t care about you, or your family, or your community, or your church, or your quality of life. They want money and they don’t care how they get it. They can even call for the assassination of the head of a foreign state from a fake pulpit and ask for more money to serve Christ’s mission. Well, if that’s your idea of Christ and Christianity, I don’t want anything to do with it.

Did all of you pseudo-religious pobuckers vote for Mr. Bush because of “family values”? Tell me how much better off your family is today with Mr. Bush instead of any other alternative. Is your life any better because the man with true religious morals is in the White House? You mother fucking hypocrites make me sick. Bush and his regime aren’t in it for you or your phony morals. They’re in it for number one. Number one is themselves and their big businesses, most of which dodge the tax laws that suck a big percentage out of your paycheck to fund the chaos and anarchy that every day costs more lives in a hellhole in the Middle East ten thousand miles away. Number one is fulfilling a thirty year dream of stacking the Supreme Court disproportionably with far right ideologues who, like themselves, could give a shit about you or your quality of life.

You voted for him, I didn’t.

Coming Apart at the Seams

The following is excerpted from RetroKitten, written by Daniel Hamil Goode and dated November 1, 2005.

Sometimes, there is little satisfaction in saying "I told you so". It would be nice to have the time to be smug and lord the failures of the current administration over them, but this isn't a high school science fair or a pregnancy test taken by someone you hate. This is our future and it's not looking that bright.

I've written before about the frightening tendency of the people in power to keep mouthing lies over an over like a mantra, in the hopes that someday, it would be true. Didn't you know, if you say something enough, it becomes real.

"Mission Accomplished?" - Bite my shiny metal ass.

We've now had over two-thousand American death's in Iraq now and ten times than many Iraqi's. All so that we could punish the people who had nothing to do with 911. The Weapons of Mass Destruction that were our justification for starting this unjust war have never been found. We are stuck prosecuting Saddam for atrocities that we funded during a time when he was our Ally. Peachy.

At least it looks like Karl Rove and Scooter Libby may take a hit for getting caught outing a CIA operative, but who will take the hit for the war that never should have been fought? The Vice President is probably more responsible than anyone, but not a word has been spoken about that. What's frightening is that the Puppet Masters have been reigned in a little, but the puppet is now running around without his strings. If we learned anything from Pinocchio, its that letting puppets make their own decisions is generally a bad thing.

This wouldn't frighten me so much, but this particular puppet thinks he's the Messiah and that his decisions are mandated by god.

I tend to not voice my personal political opinions here, I believe that diversity of thought is important, but I think that's why the Nascar Dad's even had a chance to steer the future of the country. Well, look where it got us.

We have a lot of work to do, and there are many enormous messes to clean up. I'd like to be smug about being right, but for now, I'll just let Tom DeLay be smug. Hopefully, he'll smug himself right through his three to five.

It's quiz time!

A kook/troll has just invaded a web site that you administer and posted a lot of offtopic nonsense to one of the message boards on the site. You should:

1. Ignore it and hope it goes away?
   
2. Ask the troll nicely what his offtopic material has to do with the forum's subject and that he/she/it should consider an alternative method of getting his message heard, such as blogger or yahoo?
   
3. Have some of your black hat friends make the troll's life on the inetrnet a living hell?
   
4. Delete the troll's account, remove all his posts, and ban the entire internet subnet he/she/it uses on the internet?

One very callous president, revisited

The following is from a forum on deoxy.org. I'm glad that our contributions to radio4all.net are bearing fruit, and that people are listening and paying attention.

Notes from One very callous president, by Michael Ketter [originally broadcast at 0300 UTC in Sunday, September 4, 2005, on WBCQ 7.415 -- Lw]

(the rant starts 10 minutes in, these notes start at 17:42)

"If there is blame to be attached to anything that has happened over this past week it does fall squarely on the shoulders of one man...that man is our president George W. Bush. He made several key decisions, straight along the line, that have jeapordized many of the efforts of an agency that is bought and paid for by us: FEMA. He replaced people who were competent at their jobs, and who had proven that they truly were worthy of the positions they held, and replaced them with cronies and bureaucrats with absolutely no background in emergency management. That was a key mistake."

"Now let's go another step futher.

When George W. Bush took office FEMA said we really have three basic threats that we are concerned about. One is an attack on New York City. Two is an earthquake on the San Andreas fault, and Three is a category five hurricane hitting New Orleans."

"One of the key decisions that George W. Bush made was that the project of restoring the dams and levees throughout the New Orleans area, throughtout the whole Mississippi basin actually, were to be suspended and that money was to be spent on "homeland security". "

"Why didn't our government respond in time to the people of New Orleans? Unfortunately it is extremely straightforward. They were behaving in either an extremely callous, or a very very very clueless way...When you consider that...a week ago tonight, saturday, there was a clear indication that New Orleans was going to be hit by a severe hurricane. Ordinarily there would be water buffalos waiting in Texas, in Arkansas, in Missouri, in all these places they would be gathering saying, ok whoever's closest when things happen, you just head there, and that was because one person, the head of FEMA, was saying ok, this is important, get ready!"

"The Corps of Engineers gets things done, and you know where they're getting things done right now? In Iraq, and that is shameful...and isn't it odd that the National Guard is in Iraq? Because that wasn't supposed to happen...but somehow, some crazy way George W. Bush saw fit to send our National Guard...see, let's dissect that word: "National" "Guard"."

"It took 24 hours to get all the things necessary done in Florida to have the Shaivo woman kept alive on a respirator...They can get people together in 24 hours to respond to that, it took a whole week to allocate funds."

"George W. Bush, the son of George Herbert Walker Bush, has never been successful. One would think that to be president of the United States of America you would've had to have been good at something, but unfortunately G W Bush has never been good at anything. "

"He had the nerve to say, yesterday, that no one could possibly have forseen the levees breaking. He said that to the people of New Orleans while in New Orleans, and if ever there were a misstatement, that was it. Didn't somebody say Mr. President, this has been an issue for many many years, why, why wasn't this made a priority, why is there no plan?"

"Let this sink in very very clearly. If anything goes wrong in this country right now there is no plan. They have been lying to you. This is evidence of that. Southern Louisiana and parts of Mississippi are like a third-world country. But think about it, how far away are they from anything? It's not as though it's impossible to get there, it's actually somewhat easy to get there."

"Now answer me this, United States government, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, anyone who wants to claim any of the, well responsibility would just be too light of a word, the damnation for this fiasco, why was it on tuesday night and wednesday day when the Canadian government said we have planes ready to dispatch...for "homeland security" reasons they were kept out of the United States? Do you know also that Mexico and the United Kingdom also made similar offers? They had people, equipment, material, ready to go."

"What has happened over this past week has shown us very very clearly that...it doesn't matter, pick a city pick any city, there is no plan, there will be no help. They have taken and spent so much money on star wars--hundreds of billions, that's with a b, thousands of millions, that's what a billion is...a thousand million--hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent in GW's adminstration on star wars. It does not work. It is not protecting us. The threat from that is not as real as the threat of other things happening."

"George Bush, when he took office was told clearly there were three threats that FEMA thought were important. This is the FEMA organization that worked, the one that up until the year 2001, when George Bush took office, actually was a functioning real entity that got things done. And mind you, at that point our national guard, and the army corps of engineers and our soldiers were here in the United States, Now remember that, he was told clearly an attack on New York City, and then August of 2001 he was told planes, Osama bin Laden, attack on New York City."

"Now the second threat, well, earthquakes on the San Andreas fault. I sincerely hope that people out there have made preparations and that they are going to do what essentialy is going to be required of them and in a very zen way, you know, I hope it all works out because all of us are expendable in the Bush Administration. Republicans and democrats alike, we are expendable. Isn't that sick?"

"Point three...a huge hurricane on the Gulf Coast would be devastating to the United States for many reasons..."

"Now again, George W. Bush, the man who has never made a good decision in his life, who somehow got elected to a second term in presidency, how did you not see this as being a priority?"

"It became Lord of the Flies...you want to know why that happened? That happened because the obvious had not been dealt with...Once they got to the superdome why weren't there troop transports put there right away, because we have training bases in all states. How long could it possibly take to react? When you see our troops moving in there to New Orleans it is a sad and sickening sight because what you see is panic. Moving into New Orleans as a soldier is the same as going to war in Iraq. You don't know what you're going to find, there's snakes and alligators and dead bodies in the water and some of the people are shooting at you and nobodys got a uniform and what the hell's going on? And there were people who hadn't had water in three, four, five days."

"What about Iraq? Iraq was a middle class society that had really nothing to do with the "war on terror". The weapons of mass destructions nonsense was exactly that, a bunch of trumped up nonsense, that no one believed, except George Bush wanted to go back and do what his daddy didn't do, and it's the most assinine thing that could've happened because you know what happened at that point? We took a good middle class society, who sure enough had a dictator...and...we destroyed their society. The United States of America preemtively attacked Iraq. It was the stupidest thing to do. It is so wrong, it is entirely unamerican and I personally am ashamed of it because we have deprived them of the essentials of life. Look at the statistics right now, no drinking water in Iraq, no electricity, you're lucky to get one , two hours a day in cities. Complete lawlessness, no army, no police force to speak of, no security. All of these stuff we're sold as being these real achievements are achievements over the fact that we bombed the living shit out of them. We destroyed their infrastructure completely, much the same way as the flooding in New Orleans has destroyed its infrastructure. And you see what happens...people become like ants, they just swarm out of the damage and they just try to gather their lives together, and all around them chaos is breaking out, and the basic humanitarian issues are the last to be dealt with in an administration like this."

"Look at the stock market. Look at the top three earners this week, two oil companies and Haliburton. Gas is over six dollars a gallon in Atlanta and George Bush will not enact caps, he says it's good for the economy, this is supply and demand. Well King George you motherfucker I have had it with you...I have never ever ever in my wildest dreams thought that there could be someone as incompetent as you running this country, and I hope that we as a country have the ability to withstand the damage you are doing to us."

"What has the four years since September 11th taught you George Bush? What has anything taught you? You never made a good decision in your life."

"All of you poor people out there who voted for George Bush, all of you upright christian people who make up the majority of rural america, you made a foolish decision and we are all paying for it now."

"George Herbert Walker Bush, do you hear me? You bailed out your son, you and your buddies bailed out you son. You thought it would be a good idea. See what you did? You put an incompetent person in office. You have more in common with Bill Clinton than you do with your own son."

"You realize that wherever the president goes there has to be a huge entourage that accompanies him, and that to create what they call a staging area is really an elaborate thing. Now they were able to make a staging area for the president, they were able to make places for him to go. Now you tell me, no matter how casual that may have looked, structurally that was quite a feat, logistically that was quite a feat, and they pulled it off, so he could tell the people of New Orleans that no one ever could have suspected that those levees could have broken. Idiot! I mean, George Herbert Walker Bush why did you not box that boy's ears?"

"How many americans are going to be caught up in this terrible wheel of destruction that Bush has created?"

"Doesn't it strike you as odd the group of people who are in there now, how inhuman they behave, and how there seems to be no accountability for the bad behavior? It's like the emperor's new clothes."

"All of you out there your fuel bills are going up two to three times this winter, and George W. Bush has no intention of stopping it. He thinks it is good that people starve, he thinks it is good that people will freeze to death, he thinks that it is good because he has no contact with the real world. If you had hundreds of millions of dollars would you know the price of a loaf of bread? Would you even care how much it cost to put fuel in your Hummer? If you had hundreds of millions of dollars, especially if it were invested in oil companies...would you care?"

"This has got to stop. Regime change begins at home. The american system is stronger than George Bush and his administration, the american people are stronger than George Bush and his administration, and we have to take control of this. If we don't do it now we will not have the opportunity."

"I hope you're paying attention. The time has come my friends and we better start doing something about or we're not going to have the opportunity to do it. I hope and I pray for everyone in New Orleans, the worst it yet to come. So many people have died, so much work yet to do, so much human devastation, and one very very callous president."

A God with Whom I am not Familiar

The following article by Tim Wise originally appeared on www.counterpunch.com, in the September 3/4 weekend edition.

"Those Looters Should be Shot, Praise the Lord, and Pass the Guacamole!"

This is an open letter to the man sitting behind me at La Paz today, in Nashville, at lunchtime, with the Brooks Brothers shirt:

You don't know me. But I know you.

I watched you as you held hands with your tablemates at the restaurant where we both ate this afternoon. I listened as you prayed, and thanked God for the food you were about to eat, and for your own safety, several hundred miles away from the unfolding catastrophe in New Orleans.

You blessed your chimichanga in the name of Jesus Christ, and then proceeded to spend the better part of your meal--and mine, since I was too near your table to avoid hearing every word--morally scolding the people of that devastated city, heaping scorn on them for not heeding the warnings to leave before disaster struck. Then you attacked them--all of them, without distinction it seemed--for the behavior of a relative handful: those who have looted items like guns, or big screen TVs.

I heard you ask, amid the din of your colleagues "Amens," why it was that instead of pitching in to help their fellow Americans, the people of New Orleans instead--again, all of them in your mind--chose to steal and shoot at relief helicopters.

I watched you wipe salsa from the corners of your mouth, as you nodded agreement to the statement of one of your friends, sitting to your right, her hair neatly coiffed, her makeup flawless, her jewelry sparkling. When you asked, rhetorically, why it was that people were so much more decent amid the tragedy of 9-11, as compared to the aftermath of Katrina, she had offered her response, but only after apologizing for what she admitted was going to sound harsh.

"Well," Buffy explained. "It's probably because in New Orleans, it seems to be mostly poor people, and you know, they just don't have the same regard."

She then added that police should shoot the looters, and should have done so from the beginning, so as to send a message to the rest that theft would not be tolerated. You, who had just thanked Jesus for your chips and guacamole, said you agreed. They should be shot. Praise the Lord.

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.

Two thoughts.

First, it is a very fortunate thing for you, and likely for me, that my two young children were with me as I sat there, choking back fish tacos and my own seething rage, listening to you pontificate about shit you know nothing about.

Have you ever even been to New Orleans?

And no, by that I don't mean the New Orleans of your company's sales conference. I don't mean Emeril's New Orleans, or the New Orleans of Uptown Mardi Gras parties.

I mean the New Orleans that is buried as if it were Atlantis, in places like the lower 9th ward: 98 percent black, 40 percent poor, where bodies are floating down the street, flowing with the water as it seeks its own level. Have you met the people from that New Orleans? The New Orleans that is dying as I write this, and as you order another sweet tea?

I didn't think so.

Your God--the one to whom you prayed today, and likely do before every meal, because this gesture proves what a good Christian you are--is one with whom I am not familiar.

Your God is one who you sincerely believe gives a flying fuck about your lunch. Your God is one who you seem to believe watches over you and blesses you, and brings good tidings your way, while simultaneously letting thousands of people watch their homes be destroyed, and perhaps ten thousand or more die, many of them in the streets for lack of water or food.

Did you ever stop to think just what a rancid asshole such a God would have to be, such that he would take care of the likes of you, while letting babies die in their mother's arms, and old people in wheelchairs, at the foot of Canal Street?

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar.

But no, it isn't God who's the asshole here, Skip (or Brad, or Braxton, or whatever your name is).

God doesn't feed you, and it isn't God that kept me from turning around and beating your lily white privileged ass today either.

God has nothing to do with it.

God doesn't care who wins the Super Bowl.

God doesn't help anyone win an Academy Award.

God didn't get you your last raise, or your SUV.

And if God is even half as tired as I am of having to listen to self-righteous bastards like you blame the victims of this nightmare for their fate, then you had best eat slowly from this point forward.

Why didn't they evacuate like they were told?

Are you serious?

There are 100,000 people in that city without cars. Folks who are too poor to own their own vehicle, and who rely on public transportation every day. I know this might shock you. They don't have a Hummer2, or whatever gas-guzzling piece of crap you either already own or probably are saving up for.

And no, they didn't just choose not to own a car because the buses are so gosh-darned efficient and great, as Rush Limbaugh implied yesterday, and as you likely heard, since you're the kind of person who hangs on the every word of such bloviating hacks as these.

Why did they loot?

Are you serious?

People are dying, in the streets, on live television. Fathers and mothers are watching their baby's eyes bulge in their skulls from dehydration, and you are begrudging them some Goddamned candy bars, diapers and water?

If anything the poor of New Orleans have exercised restraint.

Maybe you didn't know it, but the people of that city with whom you likely identify--the wealthy white folks of Uptown--were barely touched by this storm. Yeah, I guess God was watching over them: protecting them, and rewarding them for their faith and superior morality. If the folks downtown who are waiting desperately for their government to send help--a government whose resources have been stretched thin by a war that I'm sure you support, because you love freedom and democracy--were half as crazed as you think, they'd march down St. Charles Avenue right now and burn every mansion in sight. That they aren't doing so suggests a decency and compassion for their fellow man and woman that sadly people like you lack.

Can you even imagine what you would do in their place?

Can you imagine what would happen if it were well-off white folks stranded like this without buses to get them out, without nourishment, without hope?

Putting aside the absurdity of the imagery--after all, such folks always have the means to seek safety, or the money to rebuild, or the political significance to ensure a much speedier response for their concerns--can you just imagine?

Can you imagine what would happen if the pampered, overfed corporate class, which complains about taxes taking a third of their bloated incomes, had to sit in the hot sun for four, going on five days? Without a Margarita or hotel swimming pool to comfort them I mean?

Oh, and please, I know. I'm stereotyping you. Imagine that. I've assumed, based only on your words, what kind of person you are, even though I suppose I could be wrong. How does that feel Biff? Hurt your feelings? So sorry. But hey, at least my stereotypes of you aren't deadly. They won't effect your life one bit, unlike the ones you carry around with you and display within earshot of people like me, supposing that no one could possibly disagree.

But I'm not wrong am I Chip? I know you. I see people like you all the time, in airports, in business suits, on their lunch breaks. People who will take advantage of any opportunity to ratify and reify their pre-existing prejudices towards the poor, towards black folks. You see the same three video loops of the same dozen or so looters on Fox News and you conclude that poor black people are crazy, immoral, criminal.

You, or others quite a bit like you, are the ones posting messages on chat room boards, calling looters sub-human "vermin," "scum," or "cockroaches." I heard you use the word "animals" three times today: you and that woman across from you--what was her name? Skyler?

What was it you said as you scooped the last bite of black beans and rice into your eager mouth? Like zoo animals? Yes, I think that was it.

Well, Chuck, it's a free country, and so you certainly have the right I suppose to continue lecturing the poor, in between checking your Blackberry and dropping the kids off at soccer practice. If you want to believe that the poor of New Orleans are immoral and greedy, and unworthy of support at a time like this--or somehow more in need of your scolding than whatever donation you might make to a relief fund--so be it.

But let's leave God out of it, shall we? All of it.

Your God is one with whom I am not familiar, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.

Seven more days

Seven more days. Just seven more days. That's what Comcast is telling me now. Seven more fuckin' days.

I don't ask for much. I am paying good money for a high speed internet connection. In return for that money I expect the service to be reliable and functional. However, ever since we got back from Boston at the beginning of July, the service has been anything but reliable and functional. I even got hassled by a nasty tech support human when I asked them to credit my account! Now, two on-site technician visits, a non-existant line technician service call, and at least seven phone calls to comcast's tech support, and I get seven more days. I suppose it takes a month of hassles to get a direct line to the tech support center. Seven more days, starting on Saturday, July 30. We'll see.

I was pleased with comcasts's high speed internet service. I was quick to get this service when it was first offered in December 2002. It's worked great until a month ago. But enduring endless fone calls to a computer, staying on hold for more time than I can handle, and waiting a month to try and get a problem fixed is almost more than I can bear. My internet radio station is offline, I am unable to push a simple low bandwidth stream to WBCQ for our radio show, I cannot reliably use the internet, and I am pissed off. Seven more fuckin' days. Yeah. The search for service alternatives begins now. Just in case.

Legislative priorities are all mixed up; stupidity ensues

The things idiot politicians waste their time on these days. This just in from The Washington Post:

WASHINGTON - Two high-profile U.S. senators, Joseph Lieberman and Hillary Rodham Clinton, are incensed over pornographic content "hidden" in the popular video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," and are demanding action from either the government or the game's maker.

The content can be unlocked by using the "Hot Coffee" code modification widely available on the Internet. By installing the modification, gamers can have their drivers find different girlfriends in the game who will have a "cup of hot coffee" -- a euphemism for sex -- with them.

So, let me get this straight. It's okay for a video game to allow the participant to stomp on peoples' heads, run them over with cars, shoot 'em in the head, and use flamethrowers against police. But God forbid that the game displays nudity and consentual sex between two adults. Oh hebbins! We demand 'action' now!

What utter stupidity. Don't these politicians have something better to do with their time?

The Incredible Senator Moron

Stupid Washington politicians always seem to come up with the best sound bytes. This time, we have some sewage from Arlen Specter, chair of the Judiciary Committee, commenting on the treatment of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales during Attorney General confirmation hearings. The following statement was made by Specter was broadcast this morning on NPR's Morning Edition radio show (Wednesday, February 2, 2005):

..if the winds of Guantanamo Bay and the winds of Abu Ghraib hadn't blown across this hearing, I think, perhaps, we would have had a unanimous vote in favor of Judge Gonzales. In this highly charged political atmosphere...one has to wonder if he isn't being a torture victim himself.

Yeah, right. A bunch of senators grilling a Judge with heated invective constitutes torture. Maybe we should subject Senator Specter to some of the tactics used by American citizens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, and elsewhere. Perhaps he might be enlightened by this experience and correct his definition.

Specter obviously has about as much sense as a horse's ass, so we should not be surprised in the future when he responds to some partisan bickering on the chamber floors in the Capitol by comparing those opposed to his viewpoint "terrorists."

What an incredible moron.

Gimme that ol' time religion

Here is the setlist for our latest irregular, broken and twisted assault of the airwaves. This one was originally broadcast at 2300 hours UTC on Saturday, January 8, 2004, on WBCQ 7.415 MHz shortwave worldwide.

Update 6/3/06: This was a really fun show. We garbled it up a bit on air at times; I blame it on 420 and the fact that we weren't really quite comfortable with live radio yet. The subject matter was almost overwhelming, and after the intro we were blown away. Transpositioning "Southern California Brings Me Down" with Mormons and Hard Right Evangelists and Brother Scare was quite fun. What else can I say. Let this one stand on it's own.

• Pastor Billy Bob - Butt Prints In The Sand
• Robin and Crystal Bernard - The Ecumenical Movement
• Frank Zappa - Duodenum
• Pinkard & Bowden - Elvis Was a Narc
• Monty Python's Flying Circus - Storytime
• Beavis and Butt-Head - Spanish Class
• Lead Belly - Old Time Religion
• Theme from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Smoke - Have Some More Tea
• National Lampoon - Southern California Brings Me Down
• Amos and Andy - Well this morning I walked in the kitchen
• Mormons - Chapter Two
• Janeen Brady & The Brite Singers - I'm a Mormon
• Man - You're Fired
• The Credibility Gap - Editorial Reply/Credibility Gap Potato Chips
• Red Green - Remote Control
• Rage Against The Machine - Guerrilla Radio
• Philosophy Corner
• Stan Freberg - Who Listens To Radio
• Carter Family - Worried Man Blues
• Frank Zappa - Revenge of the Knick Knack People
• Alan Parsons Project - Breakdown
• The Space Report
• Blue Steele and His Orchestra - All Muggled Up
• Eric Houg - Internet Radio
• Ribald Rhythm

John Kerry for President

I work in a cubicle farm. They've been blanketing their cubicles and common spaces with the worst of the far right propaganda for a long time now. In the past, this was another thing about working in a cubical farm that one puts up with and shrugs off as something that really doesn't matter too much.

Earlier this week I happened upon a rantfest from a group of my coworkers. On this particular occasion this group were all foaming and frothing about the democrats lying about some manufactured "headline-issue" of the day. Nearby, someone had posted a facsimile of a bumper sticker with Osama bin Laden's picture on it and a caption that read "I'm voting for John Kerry."

I used to have a fun time debating politics in the office. Time was, I had a co-worker who leaned to the right, just about as much as I leaned to the left. We had a lot of fun debating the issues of the day keeping in mind how stereotypical and hilarious our debate was. It was great fun.

Now, my favorite debating partner's gone. What's left is a bunch of people who completely trash the opposing viewpoint, and have no idea how stupid and insipid they look, as they hoist the flag of righteousness and purity spewed forth from so-called "news media" like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They appear to have no tolerance for any other viewpoint, and they now come across as a mob of zealots.

So now their mob rant tells me that I'm a liar beacuse I just happen to be a registered Democrat. And they implicitly state that I am somehow allied with Osama bin Laden and I support terrorists beacuse I support an alternative to GW Bush.

What's happening here? When did dissent become dangerous? Why does questioning the decisions of our leaders get one branded as unpatriotic, or worse, sympathetic to terrorists? When did our healthy discourse break down in such a way so that people can make such vicious and vile statements directed at people whose opinion differs just a bit? Maybe this is a reflection of the nastiness of this particular political campaign. Maybe it will fade once the election is over.

But to me, it seems that the quality of the discourse is gone. I suppose it was that Osama bin Laden bumper sticker that got me.

I would never print out and post in a public area a faux bumper sticker showing GW Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft in Nazi uniforms, gleefully stomping all over international agreements on human rights, the treatment of prisoners of war, and our own personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America. That doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. But I wouldn't print it out and stick it above the fucking printer so everyone could see it.

There's something wrong with this country today. There needs to be a reconciliation of the opposing viewpoints. In 2000, GW Bush said he would, but that turned out to be a lie. He filled up his administration with the far right. Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, the list goes on and on. There's no opposing viewpoint in the Bush administration that hasn't been forced to retire.

Sadly, there doesn't seem to be anyone in power, or anyone tring to be in power, who's capable of opening up a reconciliation between our rapidly polarizing country. And that's a shame.

And there's only one thing to say about that. Get Bush out of there.

Eric Idle's FCC Song

This little ditty I found on Usenet yesterday summarizes what I feel about the current administration, which shall go down as one of the most miserable failures of an American presidency in the last hundred and fifty years.

You may download this song directly from the Monty Python site, or else from a mirror site.

The FCC Song

Here's a little number I wrote the other day while out duck hunting with a judge.

Fuck you very much the FCC
Fuck you very much for fining me
Five thousand bucks a fuck
So I'm really out of luck
That's more than Heidi Fleiss was charging me

So fuck you very much the FCC
for proving that free speech just isn't free
Clear Channel's a dear channel
So Howard Stern must go
Attorney General Ashcroft doesn't like strong words and so
He's charging twice as much as all the drugs for Rush Limbaugh
So fuck you all so very much

So fuck you very much, Dear Mr. Bush
For heroically sitting on your tush
For Halliburton, Enron, all the companies who fail
Let's send them a clear signal and stick Martha straight in jail
She's an uppity rich bitch
and at least she isn't male
So fuck you all so very much

So fuck you dickhead Mr. Cheney too
Fuck you and fuck everything you do
Your pacemaker must be a fake
You haven't got a heart
As far as I'm concerned you're just a pasty-faced old fart
And as for Condoleeza she's an intellectual tart
So fuck you all so very much

So fuck you very much, the EPA
For giving all Alaska's oil away
It really is a bummer
When I can't fill my hummer
The ozone's a nogozone now that Arnold's here to say:
"The nuclear winter games are going to take place in LA"
So fuck you all so very much

So what the planet fails
Let's save the great white males
And fuck you all so very much

Hal Turner Implodes

Well, I suppose we should have seen it coming. I always suspected that Hal Turner was disturbed, but I had no idea how unbalanced he truly is. Now after a prime time kook out, he is gone from the airwaves.

Listening to tonight's rant, I assumed Hal was simply pulling another stunt in order to get some sustaining funds for his efforts from his green-toothed redneck racist followers. But the longer I listened, the more it became clear - he doesn't care about his listening audience. He doesn't care about the station he's broadcasting on. He is probably mentally disturbed, and would be pitiable if not for his all-consuming hate towards anybody not subscribing to his extreme viewpoints.

I thought he wouldn't be so stupid as to burn bridges with WBCQ, which has admirably stood up to all kinds of criticism over it's free speech stance over the time Turner's program has been carried over it's international shortwave broadcast facilities.

Then I noticed this excrement on his web site around 830PM ET on Monday, March 22, 2004:

I WENT TO SEE "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST" ON SATURDAY NIGHT THE MOVIE WAS UNLIKE ANYTHING I EVER WITNESSED BEFORE. GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

The evil of the jew was so clear as to remove any question about them as a people worthy of death! Not only did they outright LIE to justify charging Y'Shua (Jesus) with crimes he did not commit, but even after Y'Shua was brutally scourged, to the point of having scars on every inch of his body from whipping, the evil jews still were not satisfied. They screamed "Crucify Him."

After seeing this movie I am fully content to say ADOLF HITLER WAS RIGHT in the way he allegedly treated the jews. They DESERVED whatever Hitler allegedly did and they DESERVE far worse!

Let me state it plainly: Jews are evil. Throw rocks at them. Beat them. Burn them. Bomb them. Kill them. If you're walking down the street and you see a jew, stick an ice pick in its face. Smash a glass bottle and thurst the jagged broken glass in its face. Slit their throats. Bash their head with a baseball bat. Shoot them. Stab them. Chain shut the doors of their synagogues and set fire to them with the jews inside. Nothing you do to a filthy, rat, Christ-killing, jew will ever come close to what they did to Y'Shua. They are truly the children of satan. There is nothing good about them. They aren't even human. Show them no mercy for you will be shown none if they have their way. Jews are the shit of planet earth; lower even than the negro.

But this was gone an hour later, replaced by

I HAVE CANCELLED MY SHORTWAVE RADIO SHOW ON WBCQ AFTER SEEING "THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST" THERE IS NO WAY I CAN CONTINUE TO DO BUSINESS WITH A JEW

WBCQ is owned by a jew. As for the fate of the internet show, that is still up in the air. Support from listeners isn't coming in and so the Hal Turner internet show is probably going to go under for lack of funds. I will continue to air the other shows for as long as they pay their own way.

Those of you who want the Hal Turner internet show to continue should act now to support it, lest it be gone by the end of the month. Click Here to Donate (unless you're a cheap fuck)

This guy is truly unbalanced. And he is an idiot. After all the support Allan Weiner and crew have given this asshole he decides to kook out over a piece of film.

His actions have clearly shown that his persona is as sickening and disgusting as his misguided and unenlightened viewpoints.

I am a staunch supporter of free speech, but there comes a point where I say enough. I don't want to hear any more from this asshole.

Good riddance, Hal.

Merry Christmas, Hal Turner

This gem came across my radar screen lately.

Well, Hal, seeing as how my partner and I are paying for your internet feed, and providing this service as a service to our listeners, out of our own pocket, I invite you to listen to future programming on WBCQ's internet feed.

I hope you and your listeners will will be enlightened and entertained with WBCQ's internet feed in the future, especially Monday evenings at 8PM Eastern US time. And I will do it as often as I damn well please.

Merry Christmas!

Stop molesting little boys, you FREAK!

I miss Wesley Willis already. Even after his passing earlier this year, his music retains its topicality through this wonderfully accurate portrait of Michael Jackson.

Thanks to Rev. Norel Pref for sharing this with us in alt.binaries.slack.

The Organizational Standard Software Process

Does anyone else have an expansive bureaucracy to methodologize, categorize, and obfuscate software engineering activities at their workplace?

One of my coworkers described our "Organizational Standard Software Process" quite succinctly today using the following code snippet:

<ossp>
 <loop_step>
  <body_part name="Pud" action="Pull" />
 </loop_step>
</ossp>

New Maryland Governor moves fast in attempt to mess up the state

Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., newly-installed Governor of the State of Maryland, is proposing the installation of as many as sixteen thousand slot machines at four horse racing tracks in the state. That's right, let's soak the poor and stupid with more gambling, while critical issues like education suffers. Who's going to benefit from the massive infusion of legalized gambling interests in the state? Certainly not the citizens who will be wasting their time by dumping millions of dollars into cold machines for the thrill of the payoff of seventy five cents on the dollar, while their kids are home watching MTV, learning how to imitate gangs and criminals. Have you walked into any store in the state lately and not been upset at having to wait while some poor, misguided soul wastes money better spent on his or her children, buying a pile of lottery scratch-off instant-win flashy-game pieces of paper? Were you upset when that person threw all those scratch-off tickets in the trash, not only wasting your time, but helping fill up those landfills polluting the Chesapeake Bay? How about the Keno Counter where people waste hours staring at a TV screen full of numbers, programmed by a computer that guarantees that the house will always win?

Bob Ehrlich, our new Governor, wants to expand this "tax on the stupid", and invite organized gambling interests into Maryland, because he has no other viable solution to the state's economic woes. What a shame. We all will pay dearly if he gets his way.

Kook watch update

Ah, the paranoid conspiracy theories of kooks and crackpots. The cold weather appears to have resulted in a marked increase in kook activity. As the temperature tops out at 15 degrees with strong winds here at home, we present our top kook list for January.

1. Jeremiah 33:3 Ministries: M-F 1800 on 17495 WBCQ, Tu-Sa 0200 on 5050 WWRB. Shortwave kook extrordinaire, whose rantings we are using to brush up on out Bible studies (specifically as an example of how not to interpret the King James Version). This kook illucidly rants about David Rockefeller, "the little fella," who traces his lineage back to George Washington the Luciferian worshiper, who was ordained as the ruler of the United Nations, the Illuminati, Tri-lateral Commission, antichrist, five letters in David, five pointed star, Pentagon, Baphomet, Masonic Jewish conspiracy, Albert Pike, New World Order, (ad nauseum).

2. Edmond Wollmann: Now posting daily to Usenet. He recently failed miserably when he tried to create a moderated newsgroup, which turned out to be neither moderated or propagated. Once again his consistently incoherent postings of bizarre astrological pseudo-new age screed is the subject of universal ridicule, and yet he still manages to threaten fake law suits and complain to ISPs and news admins who killfiled him long ago. He and his sock puppets are now debating weird and meaningless astro-kookery in his new dead newsgroup alt.astrology.moderated.metapsych.

3. Dr. Turi: A self-proclaimed prophet who recently appeared on Usenet after a long absence. His trick is to make lots of puffed up vague predictions about common events, such as celebrity deaths, earthquakes, horrific crimes and war, and claim that he predicted such events after they happen, in order to sell penny paperbacks and fake "counseling" services to weak minded and stupid persons. This dirtbag claims to have predicted September 11 and the Washington DC sniper attacks, and in both cases he should be reviled as the fraud he is.

4. Pastor John Lewis: Usually three days a week on the "Black Brigade" radio show on WHRA 5745, Tu-Sa 0130-0200 (You best chance to catch him is early in the week. If conditions are poor you can catch the "angel two" real audio feed from World Harvest Radio). Pastor John is the ultimate far right redneck "independent baptist preacher" who travels around in a bus sporting huge revilingly graphic anti-abortion posters, and who's mastered the art of street preaching. He is in your face, and he dosen't care if you like it or not. Too bad he's so consumed by hate that, combined with his good ol' boy euphamisms, makes him appear stupid and misinformed, when he obviously possesses above average intelligence.

WWRB: we waste radio bandwidth

Thursday, December 26, 2002, 0500 UTC (midnight ET), 5050 KHz, SIO 444: WWRB broadcasting fifty thousand watts of dead air with a commercial at the top of the hour, then more dead air.

WWRB is a fucking laugh. The holier-than-thou so-called "world wide religious broadcaster" with "Government-approved" transmitters spewing non-stop bullshit programming is running open carrier on 5050 as we write this.

What a puffed-up bunch of scam artists these snake-oil salesmen are. They advertise the finest facilities available in getting your "sermon" online, then waste untold amounts of energy on open carriers. They're now running a strong clear signal of NOTHING on the shortwave bands.

How much of the cost of running dead air on 5050 is passed along to their clients?

It seems that they should cut the bullshit and open up their airwaves to broadcasters who would make use of the advertised capabilities of their multiple HF transmitters, instead of pandering to the "religious" movement that's left them with an open carrier on Christmas night.

Better yet, they should dismantle their dead-air transmitter and antenna farm and ship the whole lot to Allan Weiner, who would take advantage of the technology and open it up to the public.

From WWRB's web site:

This is total bullshit. Or worse, it's a scam.

There are literally hundreds of programmers who would benefit from getting their message out across a powerful HF transmitter like the one in Manchester, Tennessee, that WWRB is spewing out tonight with no content. It is disgraceful that WWRB chooses to spew an open carrier out to the world with no programming. It's even more disgraceful that they have such a powerful tool for a worldwide voice that's wasting power and bandwidth with an open carrier and no programming. So much for their so-called redundant backup engineering staff.

Recent reports state that they're testing a fourth transmitter, presumably so they can send more dead content into the ionosphere.

They've got a pretty good transmitter and antenna, but they have no content. How long can they exist spewing open carrier on 5050 to the world?

A Christmas memory

Two years ago tonight, we were woken up from a nice slumber with our freaking fireplace on fire. Twenty five thousand dollars worth of damage later, and the worst freaking Christmas on record, we emerged from the stinky mess into a six month house renovation featuring the worst of scumbag insurance adjusters, wood butchers, and contractors whose idea of getting a job done was to wait for seven weeks before showing up to screw up mounting a lousy piece of drywall. We ended up doing the majority of the renovation ourselves, thanks to Jane's brother Mark, the ultimate restoration expert. From this experience we learned to hang the Radio Free Mount Airy flag high and proclaim No more wood butchers!

To commemorate this event, we present Christmas On Acid, which I heard for the first time on a pirate shortwave broadcast on December 24, 2000. Those days we could use Napster to search for cool music, and I indeed found this tune on Napster around mid-day on December 25, 2000. Little did we know that 12 hours later the song would prophetically come alive with gingerbread men dancing around the tree, on fire.

A breath of hope on the radio

I have to admit, I don't listen to FM radio at all anymore, unless I'm in my vehicle. But, like most of my peers, I'm in traffic on the way to and driving away from work every weekday -- at least seven and a half hours a week. I try to keep calm from the ever persistent road rage tendencies by listening to music. There's nothing like a crufty Dead show from 1969 in rush hour traffic.

But sometimes I don't have a disc to spin, so I try and spin the dial to see what's on.

Kirk, Mark and Lopez are okay in the morning. I've been listening to Lopez doing news on the morning ride for at least twenty five years. Larry the Cable Guy's call-ins are almost always hilarious.

But these guys don't play any music, and worse, they're so popular with the "young adult male" demographic that they play, like, six or seven minutes of the most annoying commercials ever heard, in blocks two or three times an hour. I've heard that stupid Microsoft certification training commercial so many times, that even now the people making the commercial are saying "you've heard this commercial a thousand times, but..."

And as interesting as KML often is, they unfortunately have really stupid and annoying sidetracks into topics like wrestling and nascar, with commentary from classic people-who-need-to-get-a-life.

As the father Owl said in the classic cartoon I Love to Singa, "Enough is too much!"

So, what do we have left to listen to? I have de-programmed all Clear Channel-owned stations off my car radio (like DC-101 in Washington and B-104 in Baltimore), not just because Clear Channel has, in many ways, contributed to the destruction of American commercial radio, but because the Clear Channel-owned stations play a continously sterile playlist of highly programmed shit you've heard a thousand times before, and/or shit they'd like to cram down your throat because the record company that owns the music has paid them a lot of money to do so.

What's left to listen to?

The Greaseman is back; even though he's only on AM, his home-studio-produced show via WGOP is strong and steady on my commute to work, and he never fails to entertain.

Then I heard that Towson University's FM station was dropping their new-age jazz format for "adult album alternative".

I couldn't make WTMD's transition, because I was in-transit to Orlando and Melbourne to learn about some cool secure wireless networking technology. But on my first commute back to work after the snow day last week, I tuned to FM 89.7.

Wow.

I have a new favorite on my dial, even though their signal's right on the border here in Montgomery County. WTMD is doing an all-music format, liberally mixed with local music. Way cool. They're public radio, and not feeding from the slop mindlessly programmed by the commercial radio clones.

HFS is a far away memory, now -- there's not a personality on that station that's not an annoying boob. I zapped 99.1 for 89.7 on my car radio in a heartbeat, and I will send WTMD a couple of bux for the holidays. In fact, I will send them some bux every time they ask for contributions from now on, as long as they continue the format they're playing today -- the format they're basing their future on -- the format that I optimistically hope knocks the Clear Channels off the air. WTMD's rebirth is truly a breath of fresh air and hope for the FM band.

When conditions change, this station will be updated...not

So, we're taking a little trip down to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with the family, and as soon as we get onto Interstate 270 in Germantown, the traffic stops dead and is backed up as far as we can see. Naturally, I tuned to AM 1070, one of several so-called travellers advisory radio systems run by Montgomery County, Maryland. Did we hear anything about what later appeared to be a major traffic incident on the interstate? Of course not.

There's never any useful information on AM 1070. What's on there is a distorted loop of driving tips for complete morons, such as "there will be extra traffic on the road because of the holidays," DUH! Oh, yeah, there is more "useful" information for the traveller -- you can listen to this station on county cable TV. That bit of knowledge does a hell of a lot of good when you're stuck in a seven mile backup on the interstate.

You're invited to check it out for yourself, via the county's Traffic and Parking Division web site.

I have always checked this station whenever I encounter abnormal traffic conditions, and I have never heard the station updated with any information related to the event I happened to drive into. Oh, Georgia Avenue southbound between Olney and Norbeck (a major commuter artery that I use along with tens of thousands of others on a daily basis) has been closed for the last four or five hours during the morning rush hour because of an accident that wiped out an electric pole? You think you'll hear about this on the county's radio network? No way. The same, stale "when conditions change, this station will be updated" over and over.

WTOP AM 1500 does traffic "on the eights" all day long, and within two minutes after tuning to WTOP we learned that there was a major accident on southbound I-270 before 124 and that all but the leftmost two lanes were closed. So, what do we need the county system for? To tell us there's a new stop light on Father Hurley Boulevard?

The county-run stations are one of the most blatant waste of taxpayer dollars I've ever come across. I believe these stations should be converted into something useful, such as

• Student-run radio communications training in our high schools
  
• Montgomery College student radio
  
• Open access for the public to play music or bring a voice to their views
  

The county is shamefully wasting our taxpayer dollars on WPBJ and WPDD, and possibly on other TIS stations they own that turn up in an FCC search.

Information assurance runs amok

The "Information Assurance" people are driving us nuts by demanding that our network and systems designs conform to a rigidly defined methodology consisting of verifiable audit plans designed to guarantee compliance with Government criteria for Information Assurance. When we ask what the criteria are, the IA people can't answer---those criteria haven't been developed yet. Worse, they want us to pay them for telling us this!

Now, thanks to a tip-off via a post on alt.binaries.slack, we have proof that "Information Assurance", AKA "Information Awareness" in this case, is completely out of hand.

Don't get me wrong. I believe that a consistent and steadily funded research and development effort is crucial to the future of any technology effort. Still, it's been a long time since I saw such a huge pile of buzzwords all squashed together in one place.

The following is extracted from DARPA's Information Awareness Office web site:

"IAO Mission: The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.

"IAO Vision: The most serious asymmetric threat facing the United States is terrorism, a threat characterized by collections of people loosely organized in shadowy networks that are difficult to identify and define. IAO plans to develop technology that will allow understanding of the intent of these networks, their plans, and potentially define opportunities for disrupting or eliminating the threats. To effectively and efficiently carry this out, we must promote sharing, collaborating and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. IAO will accomplish this by pursuing the development of technologies, components, and applications to produce a proto-type system. Example technologies include:

• Collaboration and sharing over TCP/IP networks across agency boundaries
  
• Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users
  
• Foreign language machine translation and speech recognition
  
• Biometric signatures of humans
  
• Real time learning, pattern matching and anomalous pattern detection
  
• Entity extraction from natural language text
  
• Human network analysis and behavior model building engines
  
• Event prediction and capability development model building engines
  
• Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning
  
• Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance
  
• Business rules sub-systems for access control and process management
  
• Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control
  
• Other aids for human cognition and human reasoning
  

"It is difficult to counter the threat that terrorists pose. Currently, terrorists are able to move freely throughout the world, to hide when necessary, to find unpunished sponsorship and support, to operate in small, independent cells, and to strike infrequently, exploiting weapons of mass effects and media response to influence governments. This low-intensity/low-density form of warfare has an information signature, albeit not one that our intelligence infrastructure and other government agencies are optimized to detect. In all cases, terrorists have left detectable clues that are generally found after an attack. Even if we could find these clues faster and more easily, our counter-terrorism defenses are spread throughout many different agencies and organizations at the national, state, and local level. To fight terrorism, we need to create a new intelligence infrastructure to allow these agencies to share information and collaborate effectively, and new information technology aimed at exposing terrorists and their activities and support systems. This is a tremendously difficult problem, because terrorists understand how vulnerable they are and seek to hide their specific plans and capabilities. The key to fighting terrorism is information. Elements of the solution include gathering a much broader array of data than we do currently, discovering information from elements of the data, creating models of hypotheses, and analyzing these models in a collaborative environment to determine the most probable current or future scenario. DARPA has sponsored research in some of these technology areas, but additional research and development is warranted to accelerate, integrate, broaden, and automate current approaches."