Are Carnivals Really the Heavy Here,Our Reliance on "The Grid," Or Does $H1T Just Happen?

Of course, this is a rhetorical question -- at best -- if not a silly one.  And no disrespect is meant to those killed or injured during this terrible accident, or to those left to pick up the pieces.  

But it's difficult not to ask: how can this happen?

Well?  I'm not the only one asking the question.  Certainly, at the very least, the understandably distraught families of those lost, the men and women whose significant others are left tending very-open wounds, the children now without a loved one to kiss them goodnight before bed, and the cast of uncounted others left with only a void -- a void once filled by a friend, a confidant, or even a smile on an anonymous face passing in the croud.  I'm sure each of them have at least considered the question.

But year after year, Carnivale proceeds as though it is just a day on the calendar -- it happens without anyone's permission or assistance.  But in fact it does happen, and with the input and assistance of the hundreds of individuals without which Carnivale would be little more than an unscripted party, a large gathering of people who, by their own doing, would have no better chance at ensuring everyone's safey than that of the very well-scripted effort the Brazillians provide us, year after year.

Accidents happen: even the worse of them.  And accidents happen without assistance, and with the randomness of any one drop of rain in a rainstorm, and with the likeliness of occurring tantamount to that of that any one drop hitting any one specific person.  And whether you believe in a God, or in the many gods, or place bets on the randomness of chance: S#1T happens.

Carnival accident kills 16 in Brazil

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AFP/File – At least 16 people were killed at a carnival in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais when one of the floats …

By BRADLEY BROOKS, Associated Press – Mon Feb 28, 10:28 am ET

SAO PAULO – At least 16 people were electrocuted when a power line fell atop a packed pre-Carnival street parade in rural Brazil, police said Monday.

Witnesses reported a high-voltage power line sparked and fell on the dancing crowd after it was hit by metallic streamers commonly tossed during Brazil's Carnival or by fireworks, police said, though the cause remained under investigation.

"We have at least 16 dead, among them teenagers," said a police spokesman in the town of Bandeira do Sul in Minas Gerais state, north of Rio de Janeiro, where the accident happened Sunday night. "Most were hit by the line but it's possible the current passed from person to person because the crowd was so dense."  At least 54 other people were injured ...

Run For The BORDERS

http://www.wthr.com/story/14041646/three-borders-bookstores-closing-in-central-indiana



Well, we all wanted low-cost books, magazines, etc.  I've heard people say that they love to go to Borders, have a coffee, and you can spend the entire day just reading the first 30 or 60 minutes of most periodicals entirely free!

Wow! What a deal!  Really?

Now we can just surf to Amazon, drink our own coffee, and reflect on the incomparable smell of beautiful books lining the walls, and the way it used to be.

Financial Analysts vs. Soothsayers

Unisys Downward Momentum Looks to Continue (UIS) - Comtex SmarTrend Alert

I really love analysts, even more so the ones that look at computer models as though they mean something. A trendline on its own means very little. Even within its own channel it has little meaning.

How much does this one mean? In the face of what it doesn't tell you, not much, less even.

Sarah Larson 'Devastated' After Getting Dumped by George Clooney

Thoughts: FOXNews.com - Sarah Larson 'Devastated' After Getting Dumped by George Clooney - Celebrity Gossip

It should have come as no surprise, at least not to Ms. Larson, that George Clooney would made his hallmark "getaway" before things went beyond the point of no return.

Not that there's any real "point of no return," and though there are those who think Clooney's personality-type would make it difficult for him to just rollover on the $100,000 bet he has with Nicole Kidman on his marital state before he turns 50, that figure pales by comparison with what the divorce courts would do to him this time around.

Married once before to Talia Balsam, Mr. Clooney had little to lose in divorce courts; however, today even a reasonable prenuptial agreement could cost him millions.

But I doubt that losing a bet or the [monetary] price of divorce would scare George away from true love. After all, he's a man -- a man's man, really -- and there's a lot more to him than meets the eye. In his 40's, George has a lot of living to due, a lot of things to experience, and -- should he choose -- a lot of women to help him do just that. Handsome, talented, driven, and wealthy, who could possibly fault him for the choices he makes?

As for Sarah Larson, I'm sure he loves her dearly, just as I'm certain she's had an incredible year of memories to look back upon. And if she plays her cards right, she'll probably have a friend for life in George, and many more opportunities to share in his life -- just not as Mrs. Clooney. Or at least not any time too soon.

George Clooney has the combination of raw talent and nearly incomparable good looks. Though they would never be mistaken as family, one can appreciate the similar great looks that George Clooney and Sean Connery share, asthe photographs below suggest. It leaves one asking the obvious question, "George; will you be our next James Bond?"

Tags: relationships

IT Organizations Focusing on What Outsourcing Still Can't Provide

A recent Gartner survey apparently shows that IT Organizations are finally starting to "get it" when it comes to the topic of outsourcing.

Once seen for its promise -- albeit failed promise -- of lower cost resources, IT organizations are finally focusing on the golden carrot -- increased productivity and flexibility.

It's unfortunate, but completely understandable, that today's outsourcing doesn't provide the few things that IT organizations should have been striving for from the very beginning -- productivity increases, flexible workforce, and technological centers of excellence. But standing back from the oh-so-pretty PowerPoint presentation developed by some management sycophant that suggests when you take x-number of cut-rate resources, include his or her own Word document making claims of extraordinary expertise, and then there's a puffy cloud, and poof, you have productivity and expense savings! Wow!

But somewhere in the superfluous equation the years of real experience, experience with teeth, experience within one's company and their experience with the customers, and experience that could never be translated to procedural documentation even if exiting employees' remembered it when asked. Yes; that puffy cloud has a lot to live up to.

But at least corporate IT organizations are finally striving for the right thing.

Tags: outsourcing, corporate-ignorance, corporate-arrogance, human-resources,

Google's 'BLOGGER' -- Broken or Hacked?

OK; no one, or nothing, is perfect, ... well, at least not all the time.

Until today, I've been able to count on Google's Blogger site as my primary blogging site.  And why not?  It's got a fairly simple interface, and it integrates well with other applications, the least of which is not the many other applications with which Google's fine developers have provided us.

Until today.

But today I am "greeted" by a cold, impersonal 403 error message, or with a partially obscured "Google Error" display at the top of the page.  And that's when I realized that it is apparently impossible to contact anyone directly about a problem with their services.

OK; I know the service is free, but for those of us that have come to count on things such as blogger, it really sucks.

Tags: google blogger broken 403Error

India Gets Cut-Off

So an underwater cable gets cut and parts of India -- along with all the sheep who have outsourced their business to India -- are incommunicado.  Oh well, at least it wasn't Pakistan lobbing a nuke at them. ... yet.

Tags: Outsourcing, Internet, India, Business, sheep

Eli Lilly Mistakenly/Unfairly Under Fire over ZYPREXA

I can't help but to be continually amazed at man's ability to jump to conclusions. But then my father often reminded me of the cliché, "... you should walk a mile in his shoes before ..;" before what? Before pointing out the most passed over indication that litigation-happy Americans have had staring them in the face? And what is that, you ask? I'll save that for the end.

What I am referring to is best exemplified by an article recently written by a supposed ZYPREXA victim. I say supposed because the argument he points out is an old and tired one: that this guy took "A," and because "B" suggests -- without, I might add, any evidence whatsoever -- that taking "A" causes diabetes, that the big, bad, pharmaceutical company that provided him with "A" is involved in a conspiracy to cover up the fact that "A" causes diabetes. Go ahead, read the article for yourself.

And to add to, if not what makes it, the conspiracy theory, the big, bad pharmaceutical company also make a treatment for diabetes! Oh my! Could it be true? Sure; and Mars could be inhabited by little-green men (and women, I suppose) also.

So where does this argument break down, you might ask? Of course you won't ask, because he never made a good case in the first place, so there really isn't an argument. First of all, let's look at the drug, "A" (psssst! "A" = ZYPREXA). People who take the drug do not take it for the treatment of diabetes, they take it because they hear voices that aren't there, and they develop wild conspiracy theories. In other words, they treat people for a condition that makes them incapable of rendering capable decisions about what is real and what is not. That fact that it's still something he believes when he is under a treatment schedule suggests one of two things, either of which is very plausible: 1) the treatment is not working for him; or, 2) he developed the theory when he was at a "low," and cannot distinguish the correctness of something that developed when he hadn't the wherewithal to assess it.

Option 1 is obvious, so I won't go there, and option 2 is, well, you decide: if you as someone with schizophrenia -- but with his symptoms being successfully suppressed -- if he really heard voices prior to taking medication, he'll tell you yes, because it was very real at the time.

What's disturbing about the writer's comments is that he begins saying that the drug "... was ineffective for my condition ..," but went on to say that in spite of its ineffectiveness, he continued to take it "from 1996 until 2000." I certainly don't fault the writer for following the guidance of his psychiatrist, but what competent medical professional would continue to prescribe something that was ineffective? One can't help but wonder what other drugs may have been improperly prescribed -- drugs that by themselves, or in combination, could have caused the diabetes.

So what was it I was saving for the end? What is it that has been so easily passed-over by a litigious society? It's the link between certain psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and diabetes! That's right! I believe we should be taking a really close look at disorders of the islets of Langerhans and the [greater] possibility that the somatotropin release-inhibiting hormone, once thought to only impact one's growth pattern, could be the root cause of various psychoses.

This could be why so many people with weight problems, so many people with diabetes, develop schizophrenia!

After all, I'm just say'in.


Tags: diabetes, schizophrenia, psychoses, ZYPREXA

iPhone, Therefore I Am

So what do you think about the recent "bricking" of so many iPhones -- iPhones whose owners were foolish enough to either buy the iPhone in the first place, or to update its firmware with software that would allow its owner the control over his or her property that ownership should imply?

Well, if one could actually prove that there was a concerted effort to "brick" the offending iPhones, then my feelings might be different; however, as things are, I have confess myself unsympathetic for those who chose to do something for which the phone was not designed.  And though I still believe those who chose to update their firmware we completely entitled to do so, they do so at their own risk.

In the end, this should separate the true Apple fan-boys from the armchair fan-boys, and I suspect there will be a cure for the owners of these very design-effective doorstops --- very possibly engineered by Apple.

As for whether or not this tragic outcome for some of iPhone owners was a deliberate effort, we may never know for certain; however, it has been said countless times, by countless experts, that Steve Jobs is obsessed -- perhaps even fanatical -- when it comes to producing the complete, end-to-end consumer-experience.  And it could be said that this one was exactly that.

No great bits of wisdom here, except this: iPhone therefore I am.  And before you spend to much time wondering "what does this have to do with anything," as yourself if it would have made more sense to have said, "My Phone, Therefore I can."  I don't think so. 

Tags: iPhone, cavet emptor, brick

US cuts hurricane forecast, ...

US cuts hurricane forecast, ... OK, then; just one more small hitch for those who are heralding the horrors of Global Warming.

The frustrating part of the entire Global Warming debate is that there really is no debate about whether or not Global Warming really exists or is happening. Most of the more highly thought of individuals of the scientific community agree that the very same thing that has happened at least once in the past is beginning to happen again -- Global Warming.

So what is frustrating me so? The misguided, misinformed, politically motivated misfits that want to turn a perfectly normal process of environmental evolution into a political statement -- one filled with misinformation and lies about how man's actions are actually causing this to happen.

The best and most respected scientists agree that this process has nothing to do with the burning of fossil fuels or the increasing man-made greenhouse gases. Of course, these actions of man contribute to the situation, as much as man adding cups of water to the ocean in an attempt to cause world-wide flooding.

Man's contribution is so insignificant, but that doesn't stop the liberal potshots by those standing ready at the ocean, with their Evian in-hand.

For the full story, see: http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/index.php?news_id=2948

Tags: global warming, politics

Xdrive! Have You Tried It?

AOL's X-Drive Product
If you haven't had the opportunity to try out AOL's X-Drive offering, well, you may be missing out on something very interesting.

Basically, it's 5GB of free storage to be used as an online disk drive.  It's a great place to store pictures and just about any other type of file you would like to get off your hard-drive (or make a copy of) and onto a medium that is accessible anywhere you have access to the Internet.

It's free, but the service can be upgraded to 50GB of storage, and I believe even more.  This is where it becomes [perhaps] less competitive.

Though still in beta, it's worth a look. http://www.xdrive.com/

Tags: storage, pictures

Paris Watch

So is anyone surprised?

And I was so looking forward to my tax dollars finally paying for something that might actually improve the conditions of our American prison system, as she could "provide beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives".

Right. 

Tags: Hilton, miscarriage of justice,

When is Enough Really Enough?

Hi!  Do you ever find yourself owning multiples of just about everything you can own online?  I must have a 7 to 8 eMail addresses, and 5 or 6 more that are interfaces to something else like BLOGS; I have 5 or 6 BLOGS, I have 3 music subscriptions, ...

When will enough be enough?  I can use an external mail package to check mail from most of the eMail addresses, but the BLOGS, and the MySpace and FaceBooks and VOX's of the world could keep me busier than my day job.

But it's like an addiction.  And you have to join these all because your friends, and your potential friends, belong to different social networking sites, so, whatta' ya go'in to do?

I can't wait until when -- and this time is not far off -- there are so many interoperable widgets that anyone can add the best functions on there websites so that at least we have one-stop shopping.

How do you handle the confusion?

Face

Tags: BLOG, eMail, confusion

Initial Post

These are my puppies.