In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood.
As I creep inexorably toward nearly 70 years of life experience - which was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries, I decided to put down some ongoing thoughts in a series I call "The View From the Outback." That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 10 years. Each Saturday I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback.
If you would like a terrific free Atlas and World Almanac, go to the CIA website and download The World Factbook (www.cia.gov). It is a 64MB zip file, but once you have it on your HD, there are indexes, and it acts just like a CD-ROM atlas/almanac. Browsing it will keep you off the streets late at night and out of the bars.
This week I got a nice hand-signed letter (note) from the White House from someone very close to the president thanking me for comments I had made in an earlier Outback column. Gee, they really are compassionate - to write somebody in the Outback.
The crew of our surveillance aircraft that landed in China apparently did a good job of destroying classified gear and documents. The thought struck me that they ought to have those planes rigged with thermite grenades in all of the sensitive gear and maybe a little C-4 for good measure. With proper precautions that the triggers are not "enabled" during flight, there could be a Red "Last Man or Woman Out" handle by the door. Pulling the handle as you exit the plane would set a timer to blow everything up in 3 minutes. A crew member would then hand the local troops a laminated card that says (in Chinese or Russian, or whatever). "The aircraft is rigged to explode in three minutes. For your own safety, evacuate the area immediately." I'm very serious, of course.
Major league umpires will be experimenting with machines that help judge balls and strikes. It seems that umpires have admitted, or got caught on tape, calling strikes on pitches that were two inches outside the plate. The majors are apparently going to go back to calling the "real" strike zone - over the plate, above the knees and just under the armpits (at the "letters"). It is amazing to me that there have not been more confrontations between batters, pitchers, managers, and umpires. The old cry to the umps of "are you blind," has taken a new twist. "A Strike? Are you kidding me? Wait'll you see the tape."
Stanford University Passes On Clintons For Commencement Address
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were nixed as commencement speakers at the Stanford University graduation. Instead, Carly Fiorina, from Hewlett-Packard was chosen to speak. This makes me especially happy, since in my column for Jan.5, 2001, in "The Hillary Chronicles," I mentioned Carly. Speaking of how much press Hillary got while running for Senate, even though she had no real accomplishments to her credit, I said: "It is a shame that women of real accomplishment do not have higher visibility...........One of my female idols is Carly Fiorina, the President and Chairman of Hewlett-Packard. HP is one of the great American technology companies. Compare what Carly has done with her life with that of Hillary Clinton, and you run out of similarities after "graduated from college."
It seems to me that this is the year that Chelsea Clinton graduates from Stanford. Imagine what it will be like when her friends ask her why neither her mother or father will be allowed to be the speaker at her own commencement. Maybe she ought to consider changing her last name.
Some Democrats Not Impressed With Streisand Memo
Anybody who has read many of my columns knows the contempt in which I hold celebrities who think they are political or environmental experts. I am not alone. Writing in The Weekly Standard (www.weeklystandard.com), on April 10, Mike Murphy shed some light on reaction to the "Memo" sent by Barbra Streisand to every Democrat in Congress. He recounts a meeting of Democrats about the cost to the party of giving up soft-money donations. One voice is heard. "Well, at least this means I can finally ignore those damn fruitcake memos I keep getting from Barbra Streisand." Heads nodded all around, reports Mr. Murphy.
What a great argument for banning soft money. Since the Hollywood elite would no longer be able to contribute vast amounts to Democratic coffers, the celebrities would lose their political clout. Nobody would have to pay attention to their rantings and ravings and maybe they would get back their day jobs - acting in the movies and on TV.
Mr. Murphy goes on, "What is amazing is the get-out-of-jail-free pass Hollywood blowhards get from the media. No lefty pop culture titan is every held accountable for inaccurate, insulting, or just plain nitwitted commentary. Instead, mouthy celebrities are indulged like precocious but gifted children."
Regrettably, there will be no banning of soft money, maybe just some caps, which will still be plenty high to demand a "stage" for your views. So Democrats had better hunker down. They will continue to get political tongue lashings from Streisand. And Martin Sheen will continue to call President Bush a "white knuckle drunk" and a "moron." And the Elton John's of the world, who are not even citizens here and don't vote, will continue to garner headlines for whatever alcohol or drug-induced political fantasy they might belch forth.
Doctors Have Written The Wrong Prescription For Guns
It has been fascinating to watch the gun-control debate since I first got involved with enforcing the gun laws as a Federal agent back in the 60's. The no-gun people have tried to trash the 2nd Amendment by a constant drumbeat that it only applies to militias and not to individuals. They have not made much headway, as the history and the law are against them on that score. They are suing gun manufacturers for making unsafe weapons or for lax supervision over the way guns are distributed and sold. Some of those lawsuits are already being thrown out by courts. They have tried to invoke the powers of the U.S. consumer protection laws to regulate "unsafe" guns. Not much progress here.
Years ago, I wrote a three-part series on the folly of gun control in The Dallas Times Herald. It was almost unprecedented for a major newspaper to give so much space to an outside contributor on the subject of gun control - unless maybe you were for more gun-control laws. I remember well one of the only letters-to-the-editor that argued with my conclusions, which were based on 30 years of working on or around the problem. The letter was from a doctor in Dallas, who was prominent in his field. I think I wrote him and suggested that I would not tell him how to practice medicine if he would not presume to lecture me about gun control.
There has been a movement among doctors to ask their patients whether they have guns in the home and "counsel" them about guns. It is hard enough to get a doctor to answer your questions about what is ailing you, without he or she taking the time to query us about our gun "habits."
For several years, we have been subjected to the idea that guns are a "public health issue," just like they were cancer or heart disease. Doctors have been publishing "scientific studies" which purported to support the notion that guns were a public-health problem. The liberal media picked up the chant and we have been inundated for years with things like, "a gun owner is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than an intruder." This, and other similar claims are patently false. And we heard the theory that gun availability increased the risk of suicide. In fact, it is most likely untreated or poorly treated depression that is the culprit. And on and on, study after study put out by doctors and often funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now, one of their own has blown the whistle on the scam. Dr. Miguel A Faria, Jr., editor of the Medical Sentinel, the journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Faria has written several articles in which he exposes the "junk science" behind many of the doctor-related gun studies. Dr. Faria debunks a number of myths. His bottom line is that these doctors and studies had an agenda, the elimination of guns, and they bent scientific research principles to the maximum to achieve reports that supported their agenda. He says, "Much of this information is tainted, result-oriented, and based on what can only be characterized as poor science.
Rather than go over a long list of myths and misconceptions taken on by Dr. Faria, you can read much of his work at www.newsmax.com , or you can do a search on www.google.com for Miguel Faria. It seems fair to say that the "scam" of guns-are-a-public-health problem will have a hard time surviving now that some of the underlying research is being exposed for what it is - a conclusion desperately looking for facts to support it.
I admire doctors. They are some of our brightest and best, as they say. But, there is the tendency among many doctors to think they are infallible on a wide variety of subjects outside medicine. When I flew small planes, I learned that doctors were involved in a disproportionate number of accidents nationwide. Many in the know attributed this to a feeling of omnipotence that one gets from dealing with life or death situations every day - and the public adulation for those in the medical profession. Thus, they sometimes overestimated their abilities and got into trouble with an airplane. One dear doctor friend hand-propped his airplane and it ran him into the side of a hangar, nearly decapitating him. The point is that the "gun problem" baffles even the best in law enforcement, criminology, and various legislatures. Doctors have a slim chance of having the "answers" where so many dedicated professionals are still groping for answers.
Outstanding Upgrades - Power Supply And A Plexwriter CD-RW
If you build your own computers or do your own upgrades, I have added a couple of things to my computer this week that are worth noting. The power supply that comes with the average computer is not normally of the best quality, as competitive pressures force vendors to use power supplies that "work" and not much more. I bought a case/power supply for my new PIII computer that cost about $50. When I ran the ASUS Probe program that monitors heat and voltage in the computer, the voltage graphs looked like an EKG.
Now, I have installed a PC Power & Cooling Silencer ATX 275W supply ($85.50). The voltage monitor shows constant voltage outputs, with no spikes or ripples. The fan is very quiet. I also added the Silencer 3.15" cooling fan to a cage inside the computer case. You cannot hear it running. Check out www.pcpowercooling.com for the entire line of products. Your motherboard, processor, video card, audio card, and modem will thank you.
For a long time, I used an HP 8X CD-RW drive to burn copies of CDs. It took about 20 minutes to copy to the hard drive, verify the data, and then burn a CD. I bought a Plextor Plexwriter 12/10/32A internal CD-RW drive this week. Although they make a 16X write-speed model, I usually don't buy the newest and fastest of anything - for obvious reasons. And I installed a 50X CD read-only drive I had in the closet for a while. Now, I can make a copy of a music CD in about 5 minutes.
The Plextor has "Burn-Proof." If your normal CD-RW does not get a continuous stream of data, or the data stream is not fast enough, the data buffer in the CD-RW drive may fall to Zero and your CD becomes a coaster. It is the famous "buffer under run" error. Plextor, and a few others, are now using "Burn Proof" technology. The laser knows exactly where it was writing if the data flow stops or slows down too much. Once the CD-RW buffer again has data in it, the "burning" continues where it left off. Thus, bad copies are a rarity.
When I first installed my 50X reader and my Plexwriter, I tried copying a CD without "Burn Proof" enabled. The 50X was not optimized for "audio extraction" and it fell behind. I saw the Plextor buffer rapidly go from 100% full to Zero - and I had a coaster. My first, I swear. After I enabled "Burn Proof" on the Plextor, the buffer could fall to 1% and the copy would continue without a problem. Finally, I tinkered with the DMA and other settings and got the 50X to extract audio data at 20X, which is faster than the 12X write speed I was using on the CD-RW. So, even without "Burn Proof," I was able to make good copies. With the 50X reader "tuned up" for fast audio extraction, and "Burn Proof" turned on, I do not expect any more coasters. The bottom line is, even if you have a slow CD feeding the data to the Plextor 12X or 16X, "Burn Proof" should ensure that you make good copies.
I noticed that on the Plextor site, there was a firmware upgrade for the drive I just bought, so I downloaded the file - and it failed to install. I sent a quick e-mail to Plextor and was stunned to get an answer within hours - at night. The first file they suggested I download from Adaptec cured the problem, and I was able to make the firmware upgrade to the CD-RW. So, not only do they make good stuff, they promptly answer e-mail with actual solutions. Incredible.
I use Roxio (used to be Adaptec) Easy CD Creator 5. Days after I installed it, there was an update (bug fix, etc.) to version 5.01, which I dutifully downloaded. This is very smooth-working software, with every possible task you could imagine doing with a CD-RW branching off from a main menu. It, of course, supports "Burn Proof." Incidentally, I am using Windows ME, a PIII 800, 256MB RAM, and a 30 gig ATA 100 IBM HD. I use the Verbatim 16X (80 minute/700MB) CD disks that I get at SAMS Club for about $12.95 for 20 disks.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Richard C. Rhodes
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