The View From the Outback

• Thoughts While Staring at the Ceiling Fan
• Internet Via Satellite
• The Kyoto Protocol & Global Warming - A Monumental Scam?
• PC WORLD Best of 2001
• A Love Letter To AOL Time Warner CEO
• Stranded In The Checkout Line - What The Heck is WIC?

A state prosecutor in Idaho has decided not to prosecute FBI Ruby-Ridge sniper, Lon Horiuchi, for the death of Vicki Weaver in the 1992 siege of the Weaver compound. I hope that my article in the Outback for June 9th at least helped remind people of the horrendous conduct of the Federal government at Ruby Ridge. We should never let Ruby Ridge and Waco fade in our memories. They were watershed events in American history.

Do you get your oil changed at one of those quick-lube places? Do they put air in your tires? Check your tire pressure when the tires are cold. Mine were 3.5 lbs over the maximum suggested limit - and the truck rode like a hay wagon.

President Bush was in Brussels for meetings with NATO. I was reminded of one day when President Lyndon Johnson gave a speech on the steps of the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. A man near me turned to another and said, "Does the president speak any other language?" To which his friend replied, "Hell, he doesn't even speak good English!" Such is the curse of being a president from Texas.

My fondest memories of Brussels were the three-hour dinners with members of the Belgium internal security force. Great steaks, french fries, cheese, fruit, and more than a snifter of Cognac - and marvelous conversations. These were great patriots and fine men whom I will never forget. I still have a couple of 45 RPM records of a rock group in which one of the men's son played. They were a gift to me. In the convoluted world of espionage, the donor never knew my real name.

Do you have HBO? I hope you are watching the new season of Arli$$. It is a wonderful spoof of an agent who represents big-time sports figures. The imaginative writing is superb. I laughed so hard at the episode where the tennis player wanted him to be her sperm donor that I nearly fell out of my chair. As a world-class cynic about the quality of TV shows, that was some accomplishment.

Internet Via Satellite

For those who live in a rural area where you cannot get a high-speed telephone Internet connection, such as DSL, there are several satellite solutions available. Starband is a 2-way satellite Internet system. (www.starband.com). DirecPC has one-way and 2-way offerings. For a couple of years, I have used the DirecPC one-way service. Most of the time, it either did not work at all, or was not much better than a 28.8 modem connection. In recent months, they have upgraded the software and presumably improved some things on the satellite. It now works as well, or better than, the claims on the web site - except possibly at peak evening hours. I download megabyte files in under a minute.

Put aside downloading MP3 files, which I seldom bother with. I have decided that you cannot maintain your computer without a high-speed download. At least not without considerable frustration and waste of time. There are the Norton Anti-virus updates, the Windows updates, 5 megabyte updates to various programs from time to time, and on and on. Try upgrading Internet Explorer on a 28.8 modem connection. Many shareware programs are available only as downloads. I capture an enormous number of Web pages to read later. Streaming video is nearly useless at 28.8, which is what my landline modem connection gives me - even though I have a 56K modem. I am too far from town.

The one-way DirecPC requires you to use your dialup ISP for the uplink (to request a web page or request a file download, etc.). I probably will not upgrade to the 2-way system, which is much more expensive. For $149 you can get a one-way DirecPC dish and service starts at $19.95 for 20 hours a month. You can still use your modem for casual surfing. If you are obsessed with being on the Internet 24 hours a day, get a 2-way satellite system. Because of "latency," the time it takes to send and receive a signal from space, satellites have limitations with applications like playing group games online or video conferencing.

There are duo dishes that allow you to receive satellite TV and Internet on the same dish. I prefer to avoid the dual-dish arrays, since they seem to offer a compromise in aiming at satellites in different parts of the sky. I have both DBS TV and satellite Internet. Aiming the Internet dish is more ticklish. Of course, you must have an unobstructed view of the southern sky.

Two-way systems require professional installation. I installed my one-way DirecPC dish and USB modem in about an hour and a half. The dish is clamped head-high to my TV tower with C- clamps! I do use redundant C-clamps, so it is nearly a professional installation - by Outback standards. The aiming of the dish is very precise, so have somebody at the computer to call out the percentage of signal you are getting. If you can live with having just high-speed surfing and downloads, keep you local ISP and try the DirecPC's one-way dish. (See: www.direcpc.com)

The Kyoto Protocol & Global Warming - A Monumental Scam?

President Bush traveled to Europe, where he received almost universal condemnation for his failure to embrace the Kyoto Protocol. It makes a good headline and a sound bite. But, what is the Koyto Protocol and why is everyone in Europe - and elsewhere - so fond of it? What is the scientific evidence that there is a threat from global warming? Where is the scientific evidence that we need to substantially reduce emissions of Carbon Dioxide (CO2)?

The Kyoto Protocol

At a conference held December 1 - 11 1997, in Kyoto, Japan, the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to an historic Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

A central feature of the Kyoto Protocol is a set of binding emissions targets for developed nations. The specific limits vary from country to country, though those for the key industrial powers of the European Union, Japan, and the United States are similar -- 8% below 1990 emissions levels for the EU, 7% for the U.S., 6% for Japan.

Only 39 industrialized countries are bound by the protocol to reduce greenhouse gasses. India, China, Mexico, and the rest of developing countries are not required to reduce emissions.

The Kyoto Protocol establishes a commitment period between 2008 and 2012 in which average emissions for the 39 industrialized nations are to be 94.8% of 1990 levels. Individual allowable emissions targets or "assigned amounts" are set for different nations. The differentiations agreed to at Kyoto were purely political. Canada is to reduce its emissions by six percent; the US by seven percent; European Union nations by eight percent. The Russian Federation is only required to stabilize emissions. Iceland is allowed to increase emissions by up to ten percent and Australia up to eight percent.

The Kyoto Protocol was opened for signature in March 1998. To enter into force, it must be ratified by at least 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 percent of the total 1990 carbon dioxide emissions of developed countries. It is common belief that without the U.S. ratifying the protocol, the required goal of being ratified by a group accounting "for at least 55 % of the total carbon dioxide emissions" cannot be met. So, those in Europe who lately have beaten their chests and say that they will "go on without the U.S. participation" are mostly posturing for political reasons. They know it is a lost cause.

U.S. ratification will require a ratification vote in the Senate. In a Senate Resolution, the vote was 95-0 in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, so it has never been brought to a Senate vote for ratification. Opposition stems from the fact that many feel the science is inexact, that the economic impact on the U.S. is too great, and that the protocol does not include requirements for reductions in emissions by developing countries. Even Bill Clinton, who was in favor of Kyoto, had concerns about the exclusion of the developing nations.

The greenhouse gases covered under Kyoto are:

Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Methane (CH4)
Nitrous oxide (N2O)
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)
Perfluorocarbons (PFCs)
Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6)

Foxnews.com posted a list of "Countries That Have and Have Not Ratified Kyoto." It noted that 34 countries have ratified the treaty. If you were not paying attention, you might think the treaty had a lot of support. But, other than Romania, those who have ratified the treaty are not required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! That is like somebody who makes $10,000 a year being asked to sign a petition which would increase taxes on the rich. Sign me up. It won't cost me anything. Of the 39 countries who are required to reduce emissions under the treaty, only Romania has ratified it.

President Bush has declared Kyoto "fatally flawed in fundamental ways." How is it flawed? First, the treaty is based on unproven scientific "modeling" of the probable effects of greenhouse gases on the environment. Second, it lists only 39 countries (Annex B) who will have to reduce emissions. Missing are most of the Third-World countries, Central and South America. More importantly, China and India did not pledge to participate! China is one of the major contributors of greenhouse gasses in the world. The economic costs of compliance would be ruinous. How did it ever get so much favorable press? Nobody read it!

Given that it is obviously fatally flawed, why is there so much passion about Kyoto and so much invective heaped on anyone - including president Bush - who fails to embrace it? Look first to the Green movement worldwide. Greens tend to think with their hearts - not their brains. They "know" that we are "killing the earth" with pollution, even though they do not have the scientific proof to back that up. To them Kyoto became a rallying point.

I wonder how many Greens have ever read the Kyoto Protocol? If they had read it, and considered the consequences, they would have handed in their ID cards. I downloaded it from the Internet. It is not hard to find. And consider the emergence around the world of Greens as a political force. We have Ralph Nader and the Green Party, and he made a few waves in the last election. But that is penny-ante compared to much of the world. Greens are more than environmentalists. They often include feminists, environmentalists, anti-nuclear, gay rights, and so on. The Green party emerged boldly on the world stage in 1983 with the election of 27 members to the West German Parliament. Greens hold a substantial number of parliamentary and legislative seats in many countries.

Not only do you get abuse and demonstrations from Greens about our withdrawal from Kyoto, but politicians rail about our abandoning Kyoto. They are playing to their substantial Green constituency. In private, many leaders no doubt welcome the apparent demise of Kyoto, as it would have been a nearly impossible economic hardship on many of their countries.

President Bush is also getting flak here and abroad for his cautious approach to global warming in general. The president requested an updated summary of global warming and global climate change from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

The headlines and sound bites about the NAS report indicate that global warming is a serious threat and that man-made "greenhouse gases" are responsible for the problem.

The media seemed to seize on any sentence that supports their general view that global warming is a serious threat - and that man is the villain. Part of the problem is that there was a press release on the NAS report and a Summary of the entire report. Neither of these give the true impact or express the many uncertainties in the report. Apparently neither the Press Release or the Summary were written by any of the scientists who prepared the report. Later, I will comment on some impressions from the full report, which I downloaded from the Internet.

Dan Rather, CBS News, lead into the NAS reporting by telling us that the report had proved that global warming is here and that humans were the cause. ( See Rep. Rohrabacher speech, June 12, 2001**). Michelle Mitchell of CNN, said that the report represented a "unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room." Speaking of the report on a segment of "The Capital Gang" on CNN, TIME columnist Margaret Carlson said that Bush "now knows what we already knew" (that global warming is a serious problem and that man is responsible for much of it). I guess it depended on which section of the report, press release or summary they read. And how carefully they noted the many caveats.You can download the press release, the summary and the full report of the National Academy of Sciences. Here are a few quotes and comments about the inconsistencies.

The Press Release

"We know that greenhouse gasses are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere, causing surface temperatures to rise" "... temperatures at the Earth's surface rose about 1 degree Fahrenheit (about .6 degree Celsius) during the 20 century. "Based on assumptions that emissions of greenhouse gasses will accelerate and conservative assumptions about how the climate will react to that, computer models suggest that average global surface temperatures will rise between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius) by the end of the century." "The committee ...... also emphasized that much more systematic research is needed to reduce current uncertainties in climate-change science." "Looking to the future, the committee suggested that improvements to the IPCC * process may need to be made to ensure the best scientific representation possible and to keep the process from being seen as too heavily influenced by governments which have specific postures with regard to treaties, emissions controls and other policy instruments. (www.nationalacadamies.org)

The Summary starts out by saying: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise." But, the Press Release says: "We don't know precisely how much of the rise to date is from human activity...."

And, when you read the actual report, you find under "The Effect of Human Activities" the following: "Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established. "... is suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal (decade) to century time scale"

In the full report, under "Climate System Models" the NAS paper notes that models are mathematical computer-based expressions. At one point: "However, climate models are imperfect. Their simulation skill is limited by uncertainties in their formulation, the limited size of their calculations, and the difficulty of interpreting their answers that exhibit almost as much complexity as in nature."

You should read the full report yourself. I was struck, however, by the use of words like "uncertain," "difficult to model," "difficult to estimate," "large uncertainties," "may modify," "difficult to predict its future atmospheric concentrations," "scientific uncertainties," "these estimates are partly subjective...," "for reasons that are not well understood," "is a large source of uncertainty....," "but with large uncertainty," "has been suggested," "believed to increase," "the greatest uncertainty is," and "are currently poorly characterized because they depend on complex modeling details that are still actively being improved."

The qualifications continue. "Because we cannot predict either the course of human populations, technology, or social transitions with any clarity, the actual greenhouse gasses could be either greater or less than the IPCC scenario." At this point, if I were President Bush looking for answers, I would have uttered an expletive and thrown the manuscript at the wall.

And finally. "A major limitation of these model forecasts for use around the world is the paucity (lack) of data available to evaluate the ability of coupled models to simulate important aspects of past climate.

I am no scientist. I took only chemistry, biology and physics in high school. But, I came away from reading the full report with the impression that the scientists preparing the report were not sure of much of anything. And with good reason. The full text can be found at:

http://www4.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10139.html?onpi_webextra6

If you get lost or turned back, start at: www.nationalacademies.org and go to National Academy of Sciences.

"Climate Change Science - An Analysis of Some Key Questions" (the National Academy of Sciences report)

*(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, set up by the United Nations)

**(Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California, gave a speech on the House floor on June 12, 2001)

Poor President Bush. He is taking it on the chin from all sides because he is stating the obvious, that Kyoto is flawed and that we do not have good scientific data about global warming. Even his own staff and cabinet are sounding like Al Gore or Ralph Nader. Christie Whitman at EPA is right in there with the global warming alarmists. He should have had a "litmus" test with her about global warming before he appointed her. I have said before that you cannot trust the reports you find on the EPA web site. Many were driven by the Clinton-Gore desire to "prove" the hypotheses of global warming. A good idea would be to delete all reports at the EPA site and start over.

Robert Novak, the respected columnist and TV pundit, has reported that in the final draft of the speech President Bush was to give on global warming there were huge amounts of monies committed to solving the "problem." Novak reports that Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs (reported as Deputy National Security Adviser, which he may also be?) Gary Edson inserted the money figures in the speech. Bush took them out! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill is another strong voice for global warming and the reduction of CO2 gasses. He might better spend his time thinking about fiscal policy and ensuring that the BATF does not engage in another Ruby Ridge or Waco (BATF is under his jurisdiction, which is a misplaced responsibility in the first place).

Other reporters have information that Bush is being given all kinds of global-warming advice by several on his staff or in the Cabinet, none of whom have any expertise in climatology. President Bush needs to go into Drill Sgt. mode and address the troops. He should tell them all to mind their own damn business, that "You all have enough on your plates without trying to be climate experts. I want the meddling and entreaties to stop." Somebody at the White House needs to be co-ordinating Climate Change matters. It appears now that it is being run by an ad-hoc committee, with none of the committee having any scientific expertise.

So, what do real climatologist have to say about the NAS report and about global warming in general?

Richard S. Lindzen (Ph.D. Harvard) is a professor of meteorology at MIT and was a member of the panel that drafted the NAS report on climate change. Writing in The Wall Street Journal on June 11, 2001 he tried to shed light on some of the reaction to the NAS report. "As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily prepared summary rather than to the body of the report." I read somewhere that the scientists on the panel did not prepare the summary. Prof. Lindzen continues: "But - and I cannot stress this enough - we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future."

"All attempts so far make the assumption that existing computer climate models simulate natural variability, but I doubt that anyone really believes this assumption." "Nor do we know how to predict changes in greenhouse gases." "What we do know is that a doubling of carbon dioxide by itself would produce only a modest temperature increase of one degree Celsius." "...the Kyoto Protocol would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming."

Prof. Lindzen adds: "Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes our ability to make rational decisions."

S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., is president of the Science & Environmental Policy Project, a non-profit policy research group. He is a professor in the field of environmental science. He served as Chief Scientist, U.S. Department of Transportation, held high posts at EPA and Interior, and was among other things, the first Director of the National Weather Satellite Service. He participated in two Arctic expeditions with the U.S. Navy. Here are some quotes from Dr. Singer, from various of his published articles:

"Yet, despite 50 percent increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases in the last 150 years, the climate refuses to show the warming trend predicted by the theoretical computer models. The only truly global data, available since 1979 from weather satellites circling the Earth, actually show a slight cooling trend."

"Ocean warming leads to more evaporation and subsequent precipitation and ice accumulation in the polar regions that cause a drop in sea level, not a rise" (This is his partial answer to those who told us that the polar ice-caps were melting due to global warming and that with the rise in oceans due to global warming New Orleans would be under water.)

"The Earth did warm between about 1900 and 1940, with the climate recovering from a previous cold period that climate experts refer to as the "Little Ice Age." As a result of these changes, which have nothing to do with human influences, it is warmer now than 100 years ago." (About 1 degree Fahrenheit, which is a suspect number due to the lack of clear methods of tracking temperature over the 100-year span.)

You may recall The New York Times article (Aug. 19, 2000) that warned of the melting of the polar ice caps. And how esteemed climatologists like CBS's David Lettermen took up the cause. Dr. Singer wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal, (Aug. 28, 2000) refuting the polar meltdown. He noted that there are always thin pathways among the ice for ships to navigate to the pole. He pointed out that there are thermometers at weather stations, radiosondes carried into the atmosphere by weather balloons twice daily, and Earth-circulating satellites which sense atmospheric temperatures remotely. All sources agreed that the polar regions have not warmed appreciably in recent decades. The Times eventually retracted the story.

More of Dr. Singer. "Recall that 1000 years ago the climate was so warm that Vikings settled Greenland and grew crops there for a few centuries." Climate change is cyclical and global warming and cooling are normal. "The problem is (with the global warming theory) is that the global data from weather satellites have been showing a cooling trend for the last 19 years."

There are four data sets used to calculate climate change. Of those, Dr. Singer says that only one shows any indication of global warming. Satellite data, which is global, show no warming trend. Surface measurements, which are often relied upon to "prove" the global warming hypothesis, leave vast areas of the Earth without data. This is particularly true in the Southern Hemisphere, and for the oceans, which cover 70% of the Earth's surface.

"We can do little about the climate itself, but we could try to stop the increase of atmospheric CO2. Even that task is daunting; it requires that we cut emissions - worldwide - by between 60 and 80 percent. In effect, this means cutting energy consumption by comparable amounts - including transportation , heating, air conditioning, and electricity use. It would have an enormous negative impact on people's welfare - particularly for the poor and those in developing countries."

A final thought from Dr. Singer. "Will scientific facts turn off the hype? Don't bet on it. Not until the public becomes fully aware of the tremendous costs imposed by policies now being developed to meet a non-existing problem." You can check out more of Dr. Singer's work at the Web site: www.sepp.org.

One of my favorites is Professor Philip Stott, professor of biogeography at the University of London. I quoted him in my column of April 7, 2001, from an article written in The Wall Street Journal (April 2, 2001). It is aptly titled "Hot Air + Flawed Science = Dangerous Emissions." He calls global warming a "necessary myth" for many politicians, and goes on to explain why. Prof. Stott says that global warming was "invented" in 1988, when it replaced two earlier myths of an imminent plunge into another Ice Age and the threat of Nuclear Winter. He says, "The idea that we can control a chaotic climate governed by a billion factors through fiddling about with a couple of politically-selected gases is carbon claptrap." That is polite British-speak for "bullshit."

In July of 1998, Prof. Patrick J. Michaels, professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia, testified before a Congressional committee. He presented proof that many assumptions and projections made by the IPCC (the U.N. scientific group) were way off the mark. In speaking of the possible results if all the Kyoto targets for emission reductions were met, he said:

"Wigley (1998) recently calculated the 'saved' warming, under the assumptions noted above, that would accrue if every nation met its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. According to him, the earth's temperature in 2050 will be 0.07 degree C lower as a result. My own calculations produced a similar answer. Wigley is a Senior Scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. 0.07 degree C is an amount so small that it cannot be reliably measured by ground-based thermometers. If one assume the more likely scenearnio that warming to the year 2100 will be approximately half of the IPCC estimate, the saved warming drops to 0.04 degrees C over the next fifty years. This is no benefit at an enormous cost.

Prof. Michaels' complete testimony can be found at: www.cato.org/testimony/ct- pm072998.html.

You can find scores of scientists who will make an argument for impending doom from global warming. What is their data, and for whom did they prepare it? Were they given a charter, like in the Clinton-Gore era to "prove" the existence of global warming? Are they on a national panel of a country which espouses the theory of global warming? And so on. Are men who have devoted their lives to climatology, like Singer, Stott, Michaels, and Lindzen wrong? I doubt it! Again, I invite you to do a search of the Internet, avoiding government sites and special-interest- groups sites where possible. I find www.google.com to be an excellent search engine. Try "global warming," "S. Fred Singer," "Kyoto Protocol,"and "greenhouse gases" for starters.

Rep. Rohrabacher (House speech of June 12, 2001) stated that "Eight years ago, when President Clinton took over the executive branch, he saw to it that there would be no one getting scientific research grants from our government unless they furthered the global-warming therory" He cites as one example, the case of Mr. Will Happer, Director of Energy Research for the Department of Energy. Mr. Happer wrote an article in which he questioned the global-warming theory's validity. He was fired. There are many other instances around the world where you can find a "scientist" whose job it is to make his government's case for global warming by presenting only data that tends to support the thesis. Even the NAS report speaks to that point.

Rep. Rohrabacher noted in his speech that 95% of high-school kids that he meets think that the air is more polluted in Southern California than it was 35 years ago. It is cleaner. He noted, as I have pointed out, "the NAS report is filled with weasel words and caveats." A few years ago, he said, a Federal administrator of an agency came into his office and told him that all global warming studies were flawed because they never took into account how cloud cover affected the temperature readings that were being recorded. The entire speech, which ranges to scuba diving around oil-drilling platforms (where fish are flourishing) to surfing, is posted at www.newsmax.com, and should be in the Congressional Record shortly.

President Bush is being attacked from all sides about withdrawing support for Kyoto. He has taken a firm stand. Science - rather the lack of it - is on his side. No matter how many people say that 17 acadamies of scinece agree that global warming is a serious threat, after a year-long search to find that evidence, I have struck out! We need more exact science and science not tempered by political agendas. Once we have that science, we will likely discover that Prof. Stott of London is right when he said: "The idea that we can control a chaotic climate governed by a billion factors through fiddling about with a couple of politically-selected gases is carbon claptrap."

And finally, I was struck by a quote on the front page of The Wall Street Journalfor June 14, 2001. Romona Bass, of Fort Worth, has been instrumental in opening a new kind of wildlife exhibit at the Ft. Worth Zoo. Driving her four-year-old from preschool, she said that her daughter started repeating part of the day's lessons. "We are all going to die from pollution and all the animals were going to go extinct because of what man has done."

It is an uphill battle to stand against Kyoto and requirements to sharply reduce greenhouse gasses when our preschooler's minds are already being poisoned with scary scenarios of doom.

PC WORLD Best of 2001

The July, 2001 issue of PC WORLD has a long list of "The Best of 2001." I was pleased to see that after years of honing my system, I was using many of the Best selections. Maybe you should, too. Here are some that I use:

Creative Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1 sound card. Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer. Plextor PlexWriter 16/10/40 CD-RW drive ( I have the 12/10/32). HP DeskJet 932C ( I have the more expensive HP 970Cse). Zone Alarm Pro firewall. Norton Antivirus 2001. Quicken Deluxe 2001. Internet Explorer 5.5. Eudora 5 E-mail program. Google.com (in my column, I often suggest you use it). The magazine also had a glowing review of Corel WordPerfect 2002. I use the previous version of WordPerfect, but will upgrade this week. I can't imagine a better word processor than WordPerfect - and I used WordStar and Word for about 15 years. Most people I know use Word because that is what came loaded on their system. They don't know any better!

For the record, I have Dragon Naturally Speaking 5.0 and find that on a PIII 800 with 256MB of RAM that dictation into word processing is very accurate. Even though there is now a version 11, I use Omni-Page Pro 9.0 optical-character-recognition scanning software. On clean documents, it scans the text 100% accurately in many cases. Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum, when used with the Plextor 12X CD burner, is smooth and virtually error free. And I simply cannot work on any computer without a copy of Ontrack's Powerdesk 4.0 file manager, unzipper, etc.

With Zone Alarm Pro, Cookie Pal, Ad-Subtract (kills banner ads, etc.), and Norton Antivirus, I feel reasonably secure on the Internet and with my e-mail. I seldom let a cookie be set and ads and those annoying pop-up windows are gone - with rare exceptions. Of course, I do not fill out registration forms on web sites (unless I fabricate the info requested), except for software I buy, or open e-mail attachments until I have viewed them with an external viewer. All mail with FW: (forwarded mail) is automatically sent to the trash, and I have a bunch of filters for Spam (in Eudora 5.1 paid version). I check for Windows ME updates automatically while online. About once a week, I defrag my drives using Norton Utilities, and periodically sweep out useless entries in the registry using Cleansweep. My system crashes, but I suspect less often than most who use Windows ME - because I spent so much time doing maintenance.

I back up new critical files daily to an LS-120 superdisk, and back up most every data file on the computer to a CD-R every month - which is (are) kept in my safe. Once in a while, I back up the entire hard drive(s) to tape. And honestly, when I am writing something original, I often back it up to a floppy as soon as I exit the file. (I have a floppy A: drive and a LS-120 B: drive.) Obviously, I have no faith in computers. And there is always that lingering threat that an e-mail virus will get through my safety net with one of those nifty "format c:" commands in it. You can never be too rich, or have too many backups.

A Love Letter To AOL Time Warner CEO

June 10, 2001

Mr. Gerald M. Levin, CEO
AOL Time-Warner
75 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10019

Dear Mr. Levin:

We share one thing - a connection to Philadelphia. One of my sons was born there when I served as a Federal agent in Philly.

Attached is one of your TIME solicitations, which contains the boldface STATEMENT OF BENEFITS. I have written in my Internet column about your predatory and deceptive marketing practices. Also, I have sent an earlier copy of this type of solicitation to the FTC, the Attorney General of Texas, and the Attorney General of Florida.

If I live to be 100, which is very unlikely, I will never buy anything from, or subscribe to anything from, TIME, TIME-LIFE, or AOL. I have never forgiven Steve Case for inundating us here in the Outback with floppy disks and CDs for AOL, when there never was a toll-free number we could connect to for AOL. In other words, AOL was useless out here.

Among many other things, I am a law grad, former Federal agent, writer, publisher, and former marketing director in a $9 billion company. There are two companies in the U.S. for whom I have complete contempt, in part because of their predatory and heavy-handed marketing practices - Microsoft and AOL Time-Warner.

About 40 years ago, I had the good sense to stop reading TIME magazine. Now, your Margaret Carlson has finally driven me away from watching "The Capital Gang." The last straw were her comments on June 9th about Geo. Bush and global warming. She said he finally has recognized "what we all knew" (about the effects of global warming). It was a perfect example of the condescending and supercilious attitude of the liberal media. After an exhaustive search of the scientific studies and data about global warming, most of us clear-headed people have come to the conclusion that there is no compelling evidence that global warming is a substantial threat. And that there is no compelling body of scientific evidence that man has contributed substantially to global warming. Now, it seems that even some members of the scientific community are coming to political conclusions rather than scientific conclusions about global warming.

Please take me off all your mailing lists. It will save your companies money. There is no chance I will ever order anything.

Regards from the Outback,

www.home.earthlink.net/~rickhgtx/outback.html "The View From The Outback" (You should have a writer in your stable with such a broad background. Most journalists have never held a real job.)

Stranded In The Checkout Line - What The Heck is WIC?

Two lady friends related a story to me about being stranded in the checkout line at Wal-Mart. The lady in front of them was receiving WIC from the Federal government. My friends surmised it was some kind of food supplement program. The WIC lady was told she had the wrong orange juice under the WIC guidelines and went back to exchange it for one that did not have calcium. When she got back, she was told that the cheese she had selected did not meet WIC guidelines. She could not purchase cheese that had individually-wrapped slices. And so it went. One friend, who recently had a major operation, gave up and went to wait in the car.

What is WIC? I could not resist the challenge to find out. WIC, which is pronounced "Wick," is a Federal program which provides pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding women, and children under 5-years-of-age with nutritious supplemental foods. Nutritional counseling is also available at centers throughout the United States. The program is administered by Food and Nutrition Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture. To qualify, the family gross income must be at or below 185% of the U.S. poverty guidelines. A household size of one (1) must not have income of more than $15,448 a year and ranges to $53,003 per year for a family of eight.

In fiscal year 2000, Congress appropriated $4.032 billion, which includes $15 million for the Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (grants to buy fresh produce at farmers' markets). I downloaded the regulations, which cover 73 pages in a .PDF file. I wanted to see how much work went into deciding that individually-wrapped slices of cheese did not qualify and that orange juice with calcium was not on the list.

WIC participants receive vouchers that allow them to purchase a monthly food package designed to supplement their diets. The food are high in protein, calcium, iron, and vitamins C and A. Yep, there it is. The guidelines for juice are "30 milligrams of Vitamin C per 100 milliliters." I don't remember seeing orange juice sold by the "milliliter" around here. I'll check back. Calcium is not mentioned. So, even though supplemental calcium is one of the program goals, you cannot buy orange juice with calcium. It makes me shudder to think how many people are employed in Washington working out these fine distinctions on your behalf.

I could not find any regulation that prohibited buying cheese in individually-wrapped slices. Maybe I gave up too soon.

But there is good news. WIC appears to have a good track record in helping the nutritional needs of pregnant women and small children. The downside seem to be that the participants need legal training in order to select the right items in the supermarket from the finely-honed list. And checkout clerks and those in line have their patience tested as WIC participants race back and forth trying to get items that meet the strict criteria set down by the gnomes with green eyeshades somewhere deep in the bowels of the Department of Agriculture.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Richard C. Rhodes

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