Can I have another 8 hours today, please?

UGH.
If it is not one thing, it is 10 others.

Woke up today assuring myself that I would finish the rebuild of my son's computer. Just a simple reload. But one failed HD after another, one problem after another means after one day, I am still trying to get windows to install from the start.

And, waking up today, found that my living room's DirectTV satellite receiver was not putting out audio. So, I restarted the receiver. It was at this point the day went downhill. I could not get a channel list back. I had good and strong satellite strength, but it would not retrieve the channels from DirectTV.

My upstairs bedroom unit was still getting channels. So, I brought that unit down thinking my living room unit was bad now. I plugged it in downstairs and it went through its turned on initialization. This unit then could not download the channels. DirectTV said that it was my setup. They will be sending out a tech on Monday between 8 and 12. yea. Can't wait. Well, guess I will have to.

I brought the bedroom unit back upstairs and plugged it in, and it STILL could not retrieve the channel list from DirectTV. So, therefore, I knew that the problem was not with my downstairs machine nor the downstairs cable. Switching out the feed cables from one room to another did not solve anything.

I did notice that through the day, my SAT C signal kept dropping. So, I adjusted the antenna so that I have 90 with Sat-A, 91 with Sat-B and 80 with Sat-C.

Now, I have a whole weekend with no playoff football games.

On Huckabee

From Peggy Noonan at the Journal:

Mr. Huckabee likes to head-fake people into thinking he's Gomer Pyle, but he's more like the barefoot boy of the green room. He's more James Carville than Jim Nabors.

What we have learned about Mr. Huckabee the past few months is that he's an ace entertainer with a warm, witty and compelling persona. He won with no money and little formal organization, with an evangelical network, with a folksy manner, and with the best guileless pose in modern politics.

From the mail I have received the past month after criticizing him in this space, I would say his great power, the thing really pushing his supporters, is that they believe that what ails America and threatens its continued existence is not economic collapse or jihad, it is our culture.

Very true to a point. Our culture has been/is under attack from within. Christians feel more attack, right now, from within our government's walls that from the external Islamic extremists. Though, tell Christians living in or near Islam dominated lands what is more important: their lives or their identity.

They have been bruised and offended by the rigid, almost militant secularism and multiculturalism of the public schools; they reject those schools' squalor, in all senses of the word. They believe in God and family and America.

They believe that Mr. Huckabee, the minister who speaks their language, shares, down to the bone, their anxieties, concerns and beliefs. They fear that the other Republican candidates are caught up in a million smaller issues--taxing, spending, the global economy, Sunnis and Shia--and missing the central issue: again, our culture. They are populists who vote Republican, and as I have read their letters, I have felt nothing but respect.

Again. True. But what about this feeling that Huckabee can make these changes to our culture? Peggy continues...

But there are two problems. One is that while the presidency, as an office, can actually make real changes in the areas of economic and foreign policy, the federal government has a limited ability to change the culture of America. That is something conservatives used to know. Second, I'm sorry to say it is my sense that Mr. Huckabee is not so much leading a movement as riding a wave. One senses he brilliantly discerned and pursued an underserved part of the voting demographic, and went for it. Clever fellow. To me, the tipoff was "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

I ask, Are his supporters really republican? they for sure are not conservative, esp those that call Huckabee a conservative. It is painfully obvious that he is far from being a conservative. I think he is being undercut by fake republicans who.. as Peggy calls.. are populists.

There is no way a true conservative, or even a good republican, can put their support behind Huckabee. Even if it is for pro-christian beliefs, they can't believe that voting in this guy will lead to changes just by having him in the office.

Utter Insanity Again Rears Its Head In France

From Fox News.com:

France's most drastic measure to curb smoking went into effect Wednesday with a full ban on lighting up in cafes, restaurants and discotheques, a sea change for a country where the cigarette came to symbolize the French way of life.

A New Year's Day reprieve allowed revelers their last legal drags in public places before the new law took effect.

"You have to be vigilant. We caught one at the counter this morning," said Maria Boyer at a cafe near the famed Champs-Elysees.

"I just ask people to be nice and avoid the fines," she said, noting that cafe owners who ignore the ban must pay up, too.

Banning smoking everywhere but in private homes and in the streets is the latest measure in a progressive crackdown that began 15 years ago with the start of steady price hikes on cigarettes and a requirement that public places create nonsmoking areas — the first curb on smoking in cafes.

Smoking is now allowed only inside special sealed chambers, which are costly to install.

Between a predicted drop in sales of cigarettes and possible fines for failing to capture cheaters, Boyer is worried about the health of her cafe, which also sells cigarettes.

"This money will be missing from the coffers at the end of the year," she said. "There will be people without jobs."

I still do not understand.... why allow the sale of cigs if it is illegal to smoke them?!?!!?!?!? If these socialist nazi governments want people to stop smoking, then make the cig illegal, don't cheat by making a legal product illegal to use. This is just so wrong.

This is just like selling cars but making them illegal to drive. INSANITY.

Is Clinton Back As President??!?!

From the International Herald Tribune:

Six months ago, the U.S. government quietly eased some restrictions on the export of sensitive technologies to China. The new approach was intended to help U.S. companies increase sales of high-technology equipment to China despite tight curbs on sharing technology that might have military applications.

But now the administration is facing questions from weapons experts about whether some equipment - newly authorized for export to Chinese companies deemed trustworthy by Washington - could instead end up helping China modernize its military. Equally worrisome, the weapons experts say, is the possibility that China could share the technology with Iran or Syria.

Isn't that what the Republicans lambasted the Clinton administration for years ago? For giving China technology that ultimately allowed them to launch rockets and ICBMs? And now China is shooting for the moon with aspirations of taking it over.

Well, you may say that the technology is not like that which was shared by the Clinton administration. I say you are wrong. Dead wrong.

The technologies include advanced aircraft engine parts, navigation systems, telecommunications equipment and sophisticated composite materials.

Why in the hell are we even doing business with China in a military fashion? I can understand allowing them to send us cheap-ass products, but to freely give them highly sophisticated equipment and materials that our own people could not get??? This is treasonous. This undermines the security of our nation in the most outlandish way: out in the open.

But you say, are there not licensing controls to make sure the right Chinese people get these things. Nay I say. Again, why are we even contemplating the transfer of high technological and militarily sensitive material to China?!!?!?!

But while imposing license requirements for the transfer of these technologies, the administration is also validating certain Chinese companies so that they can import these technologies without licenses. Five such companies were designated in October, but as many as a dozen others are in the pipeline for possible future designation.

This just makes me sick. Makes me really, really sick. We have more enemies within our own administration and legislature than exist outside our borders.

Mario Mancuso, the under secretary of commerce for security and industry, said the new system was resulting in more effective protections.

"We believe that the system we have set up ensures that we are protecting our national security consistent with our goal of promoting legitimate exports for civilian use," he said during an interview. "We have adopted a consistent, broad-based approach to hedging against helping China's military modernization."

cough, BULLCRAP, cough. "We have made the valley safer by making the cracks in the massive dam smoother. This way the cracks do not lead to further cracks. The increased flow of water out of the dam ensures that we are protecting our natural valley." cough, BULLCRAP, cough.

But the Wisconsin Project report, made available to The New York Times, asserts that two nonmilitary Chinese companies designated as trustworthy are in fact high risk because of links to the Chinese government, the Peoples Liberation Army and other Chinese entities accused in the past of ties to Syria and Iran.