I Support the Resolution to Recognize the 50th State
In recognition of the admission of Hawai'i as the 50th state fifty years ago on August 21st, Representative Neil Abercrombie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Abercrombie) has proposed a House resolution to celebrate it (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:hr593ih.txt.pdf). Simple enough, except that it runs through a list of unique and notable features of my birth state, including the fact that our 44th President was born there too.
Should have gone forward no problem since no one in their right mind would object to recognizing the 50th anniversary of the 50th State. But on my list of people "in their right mind", there's a blank line where Minn. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Bachmann) might go. She objected on the grounds that a quorum was not present (http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/27/bachmann-hawaii-resolution-obama/).
Fair enough, but now instead of letting this easy resolution float through without fanfare, it will be voted on by a majority of the House, forcing the Republican members to show us where they stand on the "birther (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=birther)" issue and officially rebuke the ridiculous theory.
Still, it will be interesting to see if anyone feels the need to justify their vote or amend a resolution that does not affect their state. And I can't imagine how the "birthers" will react.
Why this "Birther" Conspiracy Really Pisses Me Off
Three of my wife's cousins are really amazing boys. Athletic, intelligent, courteous, attractive, they're the type of boys you'd think can accomplish anything and achieve any goal. In the land of opportunity that is the U.S., they can reach for any height... except the office of President of the United States of America.
While all three were birthed by an American citizen and now live in the rural midwest of our nation, they were born outside the country, not on American soil, which according to these "birthers," (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=birther) disqualifies them for our highest office. How strange it is that in our land of immigrants, one's point of origin, not citizenship, puts a damper on a child's ability to answer the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
3P: How to Keep Your Baby Safe From "Birther" Conspiracies
With the so-called "birthers" (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=birther) keeping their nutjob message in the media, I've become concerned that the eligibility of my future children to become President of the United States will be questioned because, like President Obama, they can only present a birth certificate, record of birth announcement in the local papers, confirmation from state officials, and passing an FBI security clearance. Thus, I've come up with bulletproof methods to ensure their eligibility. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Just returned home from another anti-adventure in Elkton, which finished with an hour-long drive on Route 66 through torrential rain. Best damn drive I've had in a while.
A lot of people freak out driving through the rain, but I honed my driving skills delivering pizza on the windward side of O'ahu. I've had to find unmarked homes in pitch black rainy nights. Today's storm was very focused, allowing sunlight to shine in from the distance. Visibility was incredibly good for such a deluge. It was treacherous enough to keep me alert yet easy riding compared to my previous experience. Feels like my focus has been restored after what's been a few weeks of mental static. Hope I can carry it forward a few days. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Continuing my look at how I blog, I thought I'd explain my signature format: digital ink.
Scribbles: Pretty much all ink here. Entries are penned on my Toshiba R25 Tablet PC. I like this model because it has a 14" widescreen that provides plenty of horizontal writing space in landscape mode.
I write my entries and most of my other notes in Windows Journal. It's a simple app designed specifically for ink. Pages are easy to size and zoom. Colors are easy to pick. Oh, and it offers a chisel tip option.
Once written, I create a text conversion and paste a copy to the end of the entry. the I use the tool ring from Inkseine (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/inkseine/) to capture the ink as an image and paste into Paint.NET (http://www.getpaint.net/download.html) for resizing and conversion to jpg.
The jpg is uploaded via ftp using Filezilla (http://filezilla-project.org/) and then I work my magic in Build 52 (http://www.markandtanya.us/scribbles/Build52.html). This is where I add hyperlinks to the image and the converted text, hidden but indexed by Google. The HTML is spit out and pasted into Blogger. It's lengthy but I have the method down. And that's how this got here.
Rambles: I ink here only occasionally. It's meant to be a quick blog, so I use Windows Live Writer with the ink blog plug-in (http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=80ddd0aa-585c-4191-b7a5-dbfb2341d284). Very simple, but without Links in Ink or converted text, so it's not searchable.
Notes to Self: Not a lot of ink yet, but I want to increase that, which is easy to implement since this is an Evernote (http://evernote.com/) blog. I can ink straight into Evernote on my Tablet PC. Not a lot of control over the formatting and the ink converts to flat images online, but handwriting recognition is built-in. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Friend of the blog Michael Venini posed a question I haven't answered fully in a while: How do I blog? For most people, this would be a pretty simple question to answer. For me, not so much. I post entries through four different outlets, aggregate them here on Scribbles, where I practice the very rare art of ink blogging, and each is done in a different format (yet hopefully retain my unique style). It's a little complicated, so I think I'll start with an overview.
Sumocat's Scribbles: (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/) My ink blog. You're reading it now. Just over four years and 1,300 posts, nearly all of them written in digital ink on a Tablet PC. Entries have almost all been written in Windows Journal then captured as image and text for posting online. Other formats have included cartoon strips, annotated essays, and videos. Posted using Google's Blogger.
Sumocat's Rambles: (http://sumocats.blogspot.com/) My micro/mobile/side blog. I reserve this one for quick entries and photos, usually taken and posted on-the-go from my iPhone via email. Takes advantage of Google's Gmail, Blogger and maps synergy to automatically map the photos, tying the images to locations thanks to the iPhone's geotagging. Other formats include brief text via email and ink via Windows Live Writer and the ink blog plug-in.
Notes to Self: (http://www.evernote.com/pub/sumocat/notes) An experiment with voice blogging via an Evernote shared notebook. Voice notes are recorded on my iPhone using the Evernote app. Starting to include inked and typed entries too. Mostly mobile, but I'm planning to expand this into a catch-all idea blog. Not indexed, but fully searchable within Evernote. Offers publishing with privacy.
GottaBeMobile: (http://www.gottabemobile.com/) Where I contribute news and opinions regarding mobile technology and connectivity. Entries are typed, but I try to include an image in every post, which is sometimes annotated by pen. Pretty normal blogging otherwise. System is Wordpress.
"The Thoughtstream": (http://feeds.feedburner.com/SumocatsScribbles)Basically the aggregation of these four sources. Analogous to a "lifestream" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestreaming) but I am more selective of what I publish. Content from the latter three sources appear in the sidebar on Scribbles and their RSS feeds are spliced into my main feed using Yahoo! Pipes. Each item is tagged by their source (Scr, Rmb, N2S, and GBM), so someone familiar with my formatting can know what to expect from each feed item.
Hate to say I told you so, but back in November 2007 (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2007/11/why-amazons-kindle-could-fail.html), I did...
[…when you buy a book for the Kindle, you’re actually buying the right to read that book. The data resides primarily on Amazon’s server and temporarily on the Kindle for access.]
[…Your rights to Kindle ebooks have an undetermined lifespan and are non-transferable. If Amazon loses the right to distribute a book, you could lose the right to read it, since the data resides primarily on their server.]
Yep. you don't own those ebooks and now it's been proven (http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/07/17/just-because-you-bought-it-doesnt-mean-youll-always-have-it/). Don't say I didn't warn you. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Yep, it's been four years (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2005/07/concept-blog-post.html) since I started the ink blog experiment, and I'm still here scribbling away! Well, not as much as I did at one point. I have a few more blog sources feeding into the thoughtstream and not all of them accommodate ink... or do they? Perhaps today's the day I put ink blogging to the real test. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Odd coincidences abound. I saw "Psycho" for the first time Thursday night (http://sumocat.blogspot.com/2009/07/going-to-psycho.html). Lot of common names tossed around in that film. Sam, Marion, Norman. But the one that jumped out at me was Arbogast, the private investigator. Not a name I hear every day, nor one I'd expect to see. Yet it's also the name of the lead actor in Microsoft's new office 2010 ad (http://www.gottabemobile.com/2009/07/09/spell-check-this-officie-2010-the-moive-is-live/), as I learned earlier that day from my friend Warner Crocker. Crane or Bates twice in one day, not that weird. But two shots of Arbogast? That's weird. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
My mother-in-law has developed an obsession passion for orchestral music so she's arranged for us to attend a screening of the classic movie "Psycho" in which the musical score is performed by a live orchestra. Going on at the Strathmore (http://www.strathmore.org/eventstickets/calendar/view.asp?id=4804), so I should have scenery to share on Rambles. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends today claimed a study in Finland and Sweden on the link between marriage and dementia doesn't apply to us in the U.S. because...
I don't know how this week of odd news could get any odder, but I gotta hand it to Sarah Palin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin) for getting the job done by doing what Republicans have been asking Mark Sanford to do: resign as governor (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/sarah-palin-resignation-s_n_225557.html).
She gave no real details in her press conference or in her official written statement (http://www.gov.state.ak.us/exec-column.php), which I made the mistake of reading, or at least partially reading. Good gravy. I know she's got that folksy image to maintain, but would it kill her to resign with intelligence and coherence? And ironically, she strike a note that sounds quite pro-choice.
And since she avoided specifying her future plans, speculation is running rampant. Most assume skipping out on her governorship spoils her chances at the presidency, but Bill Kristol wonders if it isn't a "shrewd move" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/03/palin-resigning-could-be_n_225594.html) to free her for a run, which pretty much kills that option. If Kristol thinks it could be shrewd, then it's not. Kristal couldn't call a coin toss with a two-headed quarter. Nope, this just unleashes the pit bull to roam free, unencumbered by the responsibilities of public office or its ethics rules. This is going to be so much more crazy than anyone thinks. [+/-] Hide/Show Text [+/-] Hide/Show Text
