HinesSight

Ads make CNN iPhone app hugely annoying

Yesterday I got excited when I heard about CNN's app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I forked my $1.99 over and started playing around with it. At first I liked it.

Then the ads started popping up.

And popping up some more.

Hugely annoying. I didn't expect to get so many ads (or any ads) in a non-free iPhone app. Especially in the middle of reading something.

CNN has updated its own story about the app with a lame acknowledgment of all the criticism it's been getting about the ads. Thanks for the feedback; we're not changing a thing.

Usually people upgrade to a paid app so they can get rid of ads. With the CNN app, you pay for the "privilege" of seeing ads. Ridiculous.

The iTunes store reviews have been decidedly mixed. Many people love the app. Lots hate it -- largely, but not only, because of the ads.

I'm with them. The more I use the CNN app, the less I like it.

The white type on a dark background is difficult to read. Major design error.

Then, I figured that "live video" meant live video. Silly me. I didn't see anything of the sort (like live coverage of the Senate Finance committee hearing that was streaming on MSNBC).

All I found was links to previously aired stories on CNN. Those already are available on the mobile version of the CNN website. And you don't have to pay to see the ads.

I'm sure CNN is thrilled that Lexus and Chevron have bought all the ad space on the app. This likely means that ads are going to stay.

Well, it doesn't mean that I have to keep on watching them.

Lexus and Chevron, you might want to rethink your commitment to this app. When I think of your products now, "annoying" is going to jump right to the front of my mind.

Passing a public option is a no-brainer

Watching the debate in the Senate's Finance Committee (streaming online), it's clear that passing a public option as part of the health insurance reform bill is absolutely essential.

Sen. John Kerry just nailed it.

Private insurance plans spend 25-30% of premiums on administrative costs and making outrageous profits. So what's wrong with allowing citizens to choose a more efficient public plan that spends much more of our premiums on providing health care?

Two-thirds of Americans support a government-run health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers. So vote for it, Finance Committee!

In constitution, community welfare trumps individual rights

Too many people these days falsely believe that the United States Constitution is all about individual rights, such as freedom of speech, the right to own a gun, and the right to have an abortion.

They forget about "promote the general welfare" in the preamble to the Constitution. 

Yesterday I read a great opinion piece by Paul VanDevelder in the Portland Oregonian: "Too many willing soldiers in the culture war." (In case that link stops working, I'll include the essay in an addendum to this post.)

My favorite part of the piece is a description of what happened when a couple of right-wingers, Kevin Mannix (an attorney) and Bill Sizemore (convicted racketeer) challenged the constitutionality of a proposed ballot initiative before the state Supreme Court.

We all rose as the seven judges filed into the courtroom and took their seats. Chief Justice Michael Gillette, a conservative Harvard-educated jurist with a deliberate manner and a short fuse, didn't dilly-dally. He gave a brief oral summary of the initiative in a stentorian voice, then asked Mannix to explain his protest.

Mannix, no stranger to the court, cut to the chase. He told the court that Section 8 of the initiative, which read, "In an equal contest between the rights of an individual and the welfare of the community, the welfare of the community is usually superior," was simply un-American. By subordinating the liberties of individuals to the well-being of the community, this concept, charged Mannix, violated every principle of freedom our nation stands for, and voters needed to understand what was at stake.

Mannix thrust his chin into the air. After an interval of electric silence, the chief justice rocked forward on his elbows and bellowed, "That principle, Mr. Mannix, lies at the heart of American foundational law! When was the last time you read the U.S. Constitution? Exactly what is your problem with our Constitution, Mr. Mannix?"

In one brief statement, Justice Gillette had measured the ground we have lost since James Madison and Alexander Hamilton set out to illuminate and safeguard the precarious balance that exists in a representative democracy between the rights of the individual and the welfare of the community.

I thought of these sentiments when I came across a story about how lawmakers in some states are trying to amend their constitutions to outlaw a requirement that everyone have health insurance.

(I assume next they will try to outlaw mandatory auto insurance for drivers.)

This requirement likely will be part of whatever national health insurance reform bill is passed by Congress. It's necessary to make our mediocre health care system better than Costa Rica's.

One reason, among several, is that if some people are able to opt out of health insurance, the rest of us are going to end up paying their bills when they end up in the emergency room after they get sick and need subsidized charity care.

But the individual right'ists don't care about the general welfare of this country. They're selfishly focused on me, me, me -- allowing a few people to gain benefits at the expense of the many.

VanDevelder goes to say that the Oregon Supreme Court voted 7-0 against the notion that individuals rights and freedoms should be allowed to triumph over the larger common good.

Hopefully Kevin Mannix used this as a teachable moment to learn about the United States Constitution (which you'd think he'd have been exposed to in law school; maybe he slept through those classes).

Here's the essay.

DIRECTV drops Versus sports channel -- it's DISH deja vu

Wow, that was fun, listening to the Oregon State-Arizona football game today on my tinny-sounding Radio Shack portable radio.

Since I wanted OSU to win, the game was crappy. And my mood wasn't made better by realizing this morning that DIRECTV has dropped the Versus channel where the game was on.

I should sue for bait and switch.

Back in January I changed from DISH to DIRECTV after getting irritated at losing the local ABC affiliate (KATU) when DISH and Fisher Communications got into a pissing match over an increase in programming charges.

I even got all lovey-dovey with DirecTV after making the move.

If you're thinking of getting rid of DISH network because it no longer has a favorite local station (like Portland's KATU, in our case), don't hesitate to jump to DirecTV.

That's what I decided to do, and after five days of experience with DirecTV -- the installer came last Thursday -- I'm wondering why I didn't dump DISH sooner.

Now, like they say, it's deja vu all over again. 

DIRECTV drops the Versus channel. Which means no Oregon State-Arizona game. DIRECTV blames Comcast, which owns Versus.

DIRECTV was already paying Comcast more than any other non-Comcast distributor to air Versus — and now Comcast is demanding an overall rate hike of 20% on top of that. Comcast also forces DIRECTV to make Versus available to a much larger portion of our customer base at our own expense than they require from other TV providers — most notably, DISH Network. We simply cannot accept these unfair and outrageous terms. All we're asking from Comcast is equal treatment.

Versus/Comcast blames DIRECTV, naturally.

If you are a DirecTV customer, you are most likely aware that VERSUS’ contract with the satellite provider expired on August 31. Throughout our discussions, VERSUS made fair and reasonable offers to DirecTV – simply asking them to carry the network at a comparable level of distribution as they had for several years, at the same market price that other operators are currently paying. Yet, despite our good-faith negotiations, DirecTV chose to remove VERSUS from its programming lineup and deny millions of passionate sports fans access to our comprehensive coverage of the sports they love.

Here's how I score the blame game: DIRECTV 0, Versus/Comcast 0. They're both losers, and I couldn't care less about who did what to whom, or why they did it.

Just give me the programming that was available when I signed up for DIRECTV, and now isn't. Pretty damn simple.

With the DISH vs. Fisher Communications dispute, a commenter on one of my blog posts said that the supposedly outrageous 82% rate increase Fisher was demanding amounted to eight cents a month per subscriber.

I suspect this DIRECTV vs. Comcast/Versus battle is over a roughly similar amount (though there's also another issue involved here).

It's interesting how neither side talks about actual cost numbers, just percentages. Probably this is because big corporate egos are fighting over a few cents, while DIRECTV customers get screwed as the CEOs play their petty games.

I accepted DIRECTV's offer to express my concerns by emailing them.

I didn't realize that DirecTV wasn't offering Versus any more until I saw a big ad in today's newspaper urging people to switch from DirecTV if they want to see football games like today's Oregon State vs. Arizona -- which is only on Versus. Great. I switched to DirecTV from Dish because Dish was in an argument with Fisher Communications about its ABC affiliate in Portland. Now DirecTV is doing the same thing.

Look: we subscribers would rather pay a few cents more per month and be able to watch what we want to watch. DirecTV bills itself as offering a large choice of sports programming, but now you shut off a major sports channel. Doesn't make sense. I hope you get your act together soon, or you're going to lose customers just like Dish Network did.
    --Brian

Tonight I got a marvelously impersonal email response from DIRECTV customer service: it was a copy of the exact page on their web site where I was invited to express my concerns -- incuding this identical line.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at [email protected].

Thanks, but no thanks. I'm going around in circles. I just hope the contract negotiations with Versus/Comcast aren't.

Hawk attacks on Portland swifts captured on video

Last Tuesday Laurel and I journeyed to northwest Portland to be part of September's daily swift watch -- when many thousands of Vaux's Swifts circle the large chimney at Chapman Elementary School before darting down it in a marvelous display of aerial avian acrobatics.

My You Tube video won't make it on the Discovery Channel, but I got some good shots of a couple of hawk attacks. Kind of sad, but part of the balance of nature. 

In addition to the swifts, who naturally are the main attraction, I show the happy crowd of swift watchers perched on the grassy knoll above Chapman Elementary.

I also took some still photographs with my Sony DSC-HX1, which proved to be quite capable as a video camera (first time I'd taken video with it).

The vibe at the swift watch was wonderful. A real feeling of community: lots of laughter, hugs, sharing of food, dogs, children playing. Living out in the country as we do, I was reminded of the appeal of city living in a got-it-together place like northwest Portland.

Walking to the school, I wondered why so many people were carrying large pieces of cardboard. Getting there, I saw that dry hard grass and a steep slope make for a lot of fun, no matter your age.

The Audubon Society of Portland does a great job organizing the swift watch. Their FAQs will tell you what you need to know.

An Oregon Public Broadcasting video supplies additional info about swifts. They can't perch, given how their claws are arranged, but they can cling. So when they aren't in chimneys (the modern replacement for hollow Douglas Fir snags), they're flying around.

Swiftly.

More photos of the Metolius (can't help myself)

OK, I admit it: I'm addicted to central Oregon's Metolius River basin. Can't get enough of this beautiful slice of Mother Earth. Have to share photos of my lovely every chance I can.

Some headless horses in the "Johnson meadow" near the head of the Metolius.

Looking upstream at Black Butte and toward the headwaters of the Metolius.

Stump carved into a double-sided "chair" on the bank across from the Riverside campground.

Laurel and Serena enjoying a quiet rest moment after going up and down a knoll near the Metolius.

In late afternoon the sun filters through tall Ponderosas along the banks, making for natural spotlighting.

The Forest Service recently dragged a bunch of logs out of the forest and laid them in the Metolius for fish habitat. I've got mixed feelings about this. Despite best efforts, some of the logs look decidedly artificial in this designated Wild and Scenic river.

Another view of logs. The trees were pulled out, rather than cut down, so the roots could anchor the logs and provide a richer fish habitat (or so I understand).

Along the bank, an interesting mix of red leaves and white fuzziness. Every time I go for a walk along the Metolius, something new catches my eye. Like life itself, it's an everchanging river.

Tricking out my Suzuki Burgman 650 maxi-scooter

I was going to use "customizing" in the title of this post, but I like "tricking out" better. When a guy is riding a white Japanese scooter, he needs all the hip street vibe he can muster up.

In fact, I'm going a bit backwards on the cool front, since I just replaced the tinted Clearview replacement shield that I wrote about last month with a taller untinted model.

I've now got the XL Clearview shield for my Burgman 650 Executive, instead of a medium. That adds three inches in height. I decided that I was happy to trade being able to look over the shield for less wind buffeting, which was still noticeable with the medium shield.

When I lower the shield (the Executive adjusts the height by 2.5 inches with a button touch), I can just see over the top of the XL shield if I get my six foot body sitting up straight.

So if I ever encounter a cloud of locusts, sort of unlikely here in Oregon, I'll be able to keep scootering along.

The tint on my first Clearview was appealing on bright sunny days. But when I rode on an overcast day -- which come along now and then in the Northwest, if you didn't know that -- it seemed unduly darkening. Ditto with an evening ride.

Live and learn. I'll probably see if I can sell the medium tinted vented shield on Ebay (I stuck with the vent option, which works great to get more airflow onto me on hot days).

I'm up to about 1300 miles on my Burgman 650, which I got in June. I ride it every chance I can. Which has been a lot, given how nice the weather has been in western Oregon this summer. Major grocery shopping, getting bales of hay, and such can't be done on a scooter, but just about everything else is more fun on two wheels.

Except for crashing, of course. I haven't had a single problem so far in that regard, not even close.

A few days ago, though, we drove our car to Portland and came back a few hours after a bunch of  Brother Speed motorcycle club members had gotten into an accident in the northbound lanes just before Wilsonville. The southbound traffic we were in was backed up for miles, purely due to gawkers.

Best wishes to the injured for a full and complete recovery.

On the KGW news last night they had an interview with the leader of another motorcycle club. He said that he knew the Brother Speed riders would want to get back on their bikes as soon as possible, because riding gets in your blood.

For sure. Whether you're riding a high-tech white Suzuki Burgman scooter like me, or a bad-ass tricked out Harley like many of the Brother Speeder's do.

When I checked out their web site to get a URL link for this post, I noticed a video section. Pretty cool. There's something powerful and primal about dozens of motorcycles coming down the road.

I've joined the Oregon Scooter Club, but haven't gone on any group rides yet. Probably one day I'll be able to experience the (considerably quieter) scootering version of the Brother Speed videos.

Survivor Samoa champions incivility with Russell Hantz

Watching the first episode of "Survivor Samoa" last night was bittersweet.

Sweet, because my wife and I are huge Survivor fans. We've seen each episode of every season, so naturally we were looking forward to the fresh drama that plays out as twenty contestants try to outwit, outplay, and outlast each other.

Bitter, because this was the most disturbing Survivor show I've ever seen. Plenty of jerks, assholes, and liars have competed for the winner's prize of one million dollars. But nobody like Evil Incarnate Russell Hantz. 

Usually it takes a while for a contestant to warm up to truly despicable behavior. Hantz, though, was off and running with the devil right from the beginning.

As Dr. House always says, “everybody lies.” And most “Survivor” contestants end up lying or leaving. This is not a Miss Congeniality contest.

But starting your “Survivor” journey with lies about being a firefighter who lost a dog while suffering through Hurricane Katrina? Then dumping out all the water from your tribemates' canteens? After making alliances with all the women in your tribe, most of whom you call “dumb-a**” girls? And the one not girlish woman you call an “old lady”?

Russell H.: “I plan on making it as miserable as possible for everybody.”

To me, the guy looks like a genuine piece of shit. If he's play-acting a role that isn't his real personality, he deserves an Academy Award.

Regardless, deceit is part of the Survivor game. Every hard-core fan of the show knows this. And applauds it. I love watching a good liar.

However, Russell Hantz elicited other feelings in me. Disgust. Irritation. Anger. And not just at Russell. At the producers of Survivor also. They're promoting the heck out of his evil'ness.

That bothers me, as it bothered this commenter on a People blog about Survivor Samoa:

I will not watch a show that promotes this man as the main focus of the show when he should not have been cast at all. He is sick and dangerous and that is not why I watch Survivor. You touched the surface a little bit at least, Stephen. What he does is not game play or strategy, it’s an outlet for his psychotic tendencies. I can watch horror movies for that. I am insulted that the Survivor producers and casting directors think the American public want to see that. I wanted to see so much more last night, but you’re right. I only got to see him. What a joke.

I just hope he goes out fast so I can watch Survivor again. He said he wants to prove how easy Survivor is to win. Well, yeah Russell, anybody could do what you’re doing. Someone, I think Jeff, said he was “charming”? What edit were you watching? There is nothing charming about him from his fat belly to his fat head. He is disgusting and does not deserve this chance that millions of people would do anything for. Get him off Survivor contestants and no more like him please.

The United States is suffering from chronic incivility.

It's evident everywhere, from Congressman Joe Wilson yelling "you lie" at our President, to Serena Williams cursing a line judge at the U.S. Open, to Kanye West usurping a MTV Video Music Award winner's acceptance moment.

And here comes Survivor Samoa, elevating super-jerk Russell Hantz to super-star status. CBS features him all over the show's web site, billing him as "The Biggest Villain in Survivor History."

Probably true.

If a network is out for ratings, it makes sense to go for the sensational jugular vein, making viewers bleed with cries of Ugh! I can't believe Russell acted so nasty!

Yet something bothers me about Survivor's producers choosing to feature Russell Hantz at this time, when our nation is struggling to stay on the civilized side of the boundary between intense debate and crazy ranting.

Jeff Probst, who oversees the contestants on Survivor, writes in his blog: 

A new star has most definitely been born. He stands about 5 feet tall and when he slips that buff on top of his head, he transforms into a pirate, missing tooth and all. He was discovered on Survivor, the greatest reality show of all time, his name is Russell Hantz and in addition to being absolutely captivating on television, he writes and delivers some of the greatest material ever heard in 20 seasons of Survivor.

As long as Russell is on the show you are going to be talking about him and I am going to be writing about him. Instead of protesting like you did last season about my infatuation with Coach, why not try “riding the horse in the direction it’s going.” ‘Cause trust me, that is the direction this blog is going.

Yeah, I believe you, Jeff. The nastier and more outrageous Russell Hantz gets, the more CBS is going to like it.

But I'm not.

I'll be visualizing assholes like Russell watching him on TV, their feet up on a beer-stained cushion, yelling "hey, woman, where's my fucking dinner?!," chuckling at his sexist demeaning insults, and thinking with their few brain cells, That mean motherfucker is kicking some ass!

If you don't watch Survivor, it looks like you'll be able to follow the plot line of the current season via Wikipedia.

I sure hope that soon, very soon, it shows that Russell Hantz has been voted off the island.

"We're Number 37" song shows mediocrity of U.S. health care

Why are so many people in the United States so eager to keep this country mired in mediocrity -- #37 in the world -- when it comes to our underperforming, yet wildly costly, health care non-system?

Beats me.

I just wish each and every one of those opposed to health care reform would take three minutes away from watching Fox News and expose themselves to some truth for a change.

In the form of a You Tube music video by Paul Hipp.

I loved it! And, yes, it's truly true. OK, "mostly true" according to the well-respected PolitiFact web site.

But that's a heck of a lot truer than the lies being spread around by the We're #37 and let's keep it that way! folks.

Problem is, the health insurance industry can generate a heck of a lot of untruthiness for $700,000 a day in lobbying cash. 

I was watching CNBC last week and heard one of their financial genius anchors utter an amazing bit of absurdity.

He opined that health care is a growth industry and the United States should want much more, not less, money spent on it. Currently we spend about 16% of our GNP on health care. This guy thought that a third wouldn't be too much.

Crazy.

If all that money really bought a commensurate amount of health and happiness for Americans, his stance would be more defensible.

But when we already spend a whole lot more per capita than any other industrialized country, and that's gotten us a world health care ranking just below Costa Rica, more of the same sure isn't the solution.

Unless our goal is to be able to sing, "We're Number 137."

Is a move to Bend, Oregon in our future?

I don't believe in destiny.

But as I was eating a marvelously tasty Southwest Tofu Wrap at Bend's Cafe Yumm in the charming Old Mill District, I gazed at the central Oregon sky from our outside table and thought, "We could easily end up living here someday."

So call this a premonition. Or better, a desire.

After I shared this notion with Laurel, who was totally receptive to it, we talked about some of the pros and cons of moving from the Willamette Valley (rural south Salem) to the Bend area.

First con that came to mind: winter.

We come to central Oregon frequently from May through October. But hardly at all in the cold weather months. We figured that we need to brave the Santiam Pass in January or February and see what Bend is like in a non-balmy time of year.

On the pro side, we used to enjoy skiing -- both downhill and cross-country. Also, snowshoeing. If we were close to these activities, rather than having to drive several hours, we'd probably drag our 60'ish bodies into the cold and enjoy ourselves.

That's a big plus about Bend, all the nearby outdoor activities, as this glowing Sunset article says. 

"Whoever visits bend, moves to Bend," people warned. So frequently, in fact, I took it to be the official motto of this always sunny central Oregon playground ― a blessedly bipolar high-desert home base, where you can trail-run along the rushing Deschutes River in the morning and hit the snowy slopes of Mt. Bachelor in the afternoon. My kind of town.

(A letter in Bend's Source Weekly from an athletic Portland guy talked about how he's a "jock" in his home town and a "woosie boy" by Bend standards.)

Driving into town, we saw the Trader Joes. And went, "ahhhhh." Actually, "ahhhhh, shit!" Because Salem recently was rejected by Trader Joes in favor of much smaller Corvallis. 

Which sums up the problem with Salem: blah'ness.

Bend is a much smaller town, and has a whole lot more going for it. It just feels more alive. Given that I'm approaching my Social Security eligibility years, that quality sounds pretty darn appealing.

So, we'll see. No move is in the cards for the foreseeable future.

We need to do a lot more pondering and planning. But if there's any place in Oregon we'd move to (and naturally we don't want to leave the best state in the union), it'd be Bend.

These facts, even discounting the Real Estate web site source, are definitely on the "pro" side of the equation.

Bend has the highest average number of sunny days in the state. Clear days average 158 days per year with an additional 105 days that are mostly sunny. Many of the remaining days provide substantial sunshine.

Days that are totally cloudy do not often occur. Bend is the outdoor recreation capitol of Oregon, with snow-capped peaks dominating the skyline.

Bend is one of few places that visitors can literally ski in the morning and golf in the afternoon. Known as "the sunny side of Oregon," the Cascade Mountains act as a protective buffer, giving Bend only 12 inches of precipitation per year. That compares to 42" for Portland, 36" for Seattle and 20" for San Francisco.

Head of Jack Creek erases life's problems

It'd been four years since we last visited the beautiful Head of Jack Creek (near Camp Sherman in central Oregon).

We shouldn't have waited so long. After contemplating the spring-fed waters for a few minutes, Laurel said, "I wish I could bottle a vision of this place and drink it whenever I feel bad."

So true.

Looking at the photos I took that day, to choose my favorites, was almost as moving as being there.

Nature...the natural healer of so much that ails us.

Being spring-fed, the almost constant water flow allows for wonderful low-level growth.

 

Vegetation growing in shallow water produces impressionistic images.

I wanted to pick this up and plunk it in our back yard, so I could look at it all the time. (Or rather, copy it, so others could still enjoy it.)

First I think, "This is like a Japanese garden." Then, more correctly, "No, a Japanese garden is like this."

Patterns of twigs in reflective water.

Wooden reflections.

En-earthened roots produce pleasant pools.

Just beyond the springs, the B & B Complex fire damage is painfully visible.

But life is returning. On our walk to the Head of Jack Creek, lots of small Ponderosa seedlings were evident in fire-damaged areas.

We had to leave eventually. But the Head of Jack Creek doesn't leave you, once you've made friends with it.

Republican "Liar!" guy lies. What a non-surprise.

Finally...Obama got his mojo back last night.

Like so many others, I was energized by his health care speech. I even sent $50 off to the Organizing for America folks whose email pitches I've been ignoring, because I've been irritated about how Obama was letting Republicans get away with so many lies.

But in his speech before the joint session of Congress he called them out on the ridiculous Palin'esque "death panel" claim. It's a lie, plain and simple, he said -- absolutely correctly.

It was amazing, but not particularly surprising, to hear a Republican congressman yell out "You lie!" when Obama said that health reform wouldn't insure illegal immigrants.

It takes one to know one, as the saying goes.

The Republican party is notorious for harboring gay-bashers who turn out to be homosexuals themselves, moralistic fundamentalists who turn out to be having affairs, and liars who are fond of accusing other people of lying.

It's a fact: Rep. Joe Wilson said that Obama lied, but this itself was a lie.

Along with most of the other crap that opponents of health reform have been throwing around, hoping some would stick to the inside of the brains of gullible Americans.

PolitiFact does say there is some truth to the claim that the reform bills currently don't have a 100% sure-fire mechanism to make sure that verification of citizenship would be required before someone could apply for benefits.

But this is a long ways from Wilson's "you lie!"

Obama's health reform plans make so much sense, the Republicans have to resort to lies and half truths in order to get any traction at all in their efforts to defeat the legislation.

It was interesting that the Republican side of Congress stood and applauded mentions of key reform goals: doing away from pre-existing condition exclusions, stopping insurance companies from denying coverage after someone becomes seriously ill, and so on.

And how can anyone be against helping low- and middle-income people obtain affordable health insurance coverage?

Two-thirds of those who watched Obama's speech favor his reform plans. Last night wasn't a game-changer, but Obama's impressive clear-headed performance went a long way toward shoving the right-wing lying machine out of the public spotlight.

Now, it's time for Congress to get going and pass a reform bill. Do your part. It just takes a minute or two.

Why I transferred domain names from GoDaddy to Dotster

This morning I noticed a Twitter Tweet from Blue Oregon's uber-progressive, Kari Chisholm, which said in part:

GoDaddy CEO is GOP activist. Try Dotster.com, local (Vancouver WA)

For many years I've used GoDaddy for domain name registration and web site hosting. I've been satisfied with the service, but the GoDaddy style has bothered me.

So Kari's suggestion pushed me to transfer four domain names to Dotster today. Before describing how that went, here's what rubs me the wrong way about GoDaddy.

(1) Over commercialization. Take a look at the home pages of GoDaddy and Dotster. Over the top sales promotions versus clean and simple advertising. This guy calls GoDaddy's approach "brainless marketing."

What he means, I think, isn't that the GoDaddy CEO (Bob Parsons) is brainless, but his web site often implies that users of his services are -- given the incessant offers to upgrade, buy more stuff, and such.

That gets irritating when you just want to do something simple, like purchase a domain name. I found that Dotster has a few "would you like to also buy..." enticements on its site, but to nowhere near the same degree as GoDaddy.

(2) Sexist marketing. More accurately, crude sexist marketing. I'm fine with having gorgeous females presented as mindless objects of desire. That's a great way to grab the attention of a male mind.

But Parsons and GoDaddy are notorious for the "enhanced" Super Bowl 30-second ad. (A lengthier and more revealing version is on the GoDaddy web site, along with other videos of the buxom GoDaddy girls.)

I don't find the commercials clever or entertaining. However, they do indicate what sort of company Bob Parsons is running, and something about his view of the world.

(3) The GoDaddy CEO is a right-wing Republican. Nothing wrong with that. Ordinarily I don't choose what to purchase because of the politics of a company president. But when Kari reminded me of Bob Parson's GOP activism, I took a look at some of the many videos on Parsons' v-blog.

Watching the September 4 video post for a couple of minutes, I felt good about having just transferred my domain names to Dotster. Parsons holds forth with a couple of his GoDaddy babes wearing a Marines "semper fi" t-shirt.

The guy defended torture at Gitmo. Doesn't sound to me like he truly represents the proud Marine tradition. 

For these reasons, with some trepidation I clicked Dotster's "transfer domain" link earlier today and started the process of moving my domain registrations away from GoDaddy.

An hour or so later, I came away feeling that if our nuclear arsenal has security procedures as tight as what's involved in shifting a domain name to a different registrar, there's no need to worry about an accidental WW III.

On the Dotster web site I typed in the names of the four domains, such as "brianhines.com", that I wanted to transfer from GoDaddy. Then the "fun" (quotation marks added for irony) began. I'd read:

Due to a change at the com/net registry, transfer regulations have changed for all .COM and .NET domain names. Authorization codes will now be required to transfer domain names to Dotster.

To obtain an authorization code, you will need to contact your current registrar. You will be required to provide this authorization code to complete the domain transfer process with us.

I headed over to the GoDaddy site. Searched the Help files. Found that an "authorization" link supposedly was on the domain name page, once I logged in with my user name and password. Except, the link wasn't there. I looked everywhere. Couldn't find it.

Phoned GoDaddy support. Got a nice lady. Fantasized that she looked like the girls in the Super Bowl ad. Almost certainly didn't. But she was competent and helpful.

Told me that I needed to turn off the domain name locking feature. Walked me through the process on my laptop. Reached the page where the registration info was shown. Told me, "the authorization code will be sent to your email address," which she read off.

"But that isn't my email address now," I said. "Then you need to edit the info under domain name administrator. Be sure not to change anything under registrar, or you won't be able to request a domain name transfer for 60 days."

Good advice.

That 60 day policy seemingly goes against ICANN rules, as this irritated GoDaddy customer says in his tale of a frustrated domain name transfer. (That post is on an anti-GoDaddy site, NoDaddy: "Exposing the Many Reasons Not to Trust GoDaddy with Your Domain Names.")

I dutifully entered my new email address into the "administrator" section of each domain name registration. Then I clicked the authorization links, which had appeared after doing the unlocking thing.

In fairly short order four emails arrived from GoDaddy, each containing a lengthy authorization code for a domain name transfer. Then I logged into my new Dotster account, wondering how the transfers were going from their end, since I hadn't gotten an expected email telling me what to do with the authorization codes.

I saw that the email already had been sent. But, not surprisingly, to the email address shown on the administrator info -- which I'd just changed. Luckily (this must happen fairly often) Dotster had an option to resend the email.

Which soon arrived at my current email address. Then I just had to re-visit the Dotster web page and copy in the authorization codes sent to me by GoDaddy. After a mere 20 email messages from GoDaddy and Dotster, I got the happy Dotster news:

Good news - Transfer of the following domain(s) is now complete.

So now my domain names won't be serviced by a company known for its chesty "enhancements." But I'm expecting that Dotster will fulfill me in other more Internet-meaningful ways.

Doonesbury cartoon champions "Reasonists"

Perusing the Sunday comics this morning, my wife called out to me. "You're going to like Doonesbury today."

Oh, yes, she was so right. I've copied in the strip below.

As he so often does, Garry Trudeau encapsulated the United States' biggest political and cultural problem in just a few cartoon frames:

Gullibility

Too many people will believe anything, if they want to believe it. Reality? Truth? Evidence? Irrelevant.

At the moment it's the Republicans and right-wingers who are playing the most games with American gullibility.

In PolitiFact's "Pants on Fire" section, where the most egregious lies are documented, nineteen out of twenty of the most recent vintage are from conservative Obama haters.

One is from Obama himself -- his claim that the number of Muslims in the United States makes it one of the largest Islamic countries in the world. Not true. But also not a big deal.

On "Meet the Press" today, I heard David Axelrod (an Obama advisor) asked how the administration lost control of the news about his speech to America's school children on Tuesday, which has been widely branded as an attempt to indoctrinate kids into socialism.

This, of course, is one of those Pants on Fire lies. How can you control idiocy like that?

Just one way, as the Doonesbury strip says: the Reasonists who believe in an evidence-based world have to assert themselves and become more numerous.

Reality, after all, is a terrible thing to waste.

I embrace my inner Anguished Artist

Anguished artist. Or tortured genius?

I'll go with either one, though if I went full-bore with my inner Tortured Genius there's a risk I'd end up doing a Van Gogh and cutting off my ear.

I did just get a haircut, though, so let's look on that gesture as a sort of performance art -- pointing to the pain my sensitive artistic soul has been suffering every morning this week when I get the newspaper, turn to a certain page, and feel like tearing my hair out.

That page shows the results of the Salem Statesman Journal State Fair photo contest. I've been dutifully entering one of my photos each day since I visited the fair last Monday.

So far I'm batting .000 in the winning department.

Not that I care about winning, not at all, not that this blog post has anything to do with me wanting to win one of the daily contests, because the root of my artistry isn't grounded in such crass considerations as winning and losing.

No, I merely seek recognition of my art for art's sake.

I've been entering the State Fair photo contest, submitting a new image each day, only so my unique vision will be more widely known to a humanity hungry to be fed the sort of point-and-shoot camera'ific genius that me and my Sony DSC-HX1 produce.

Thus when I scream "No, no, no! Unfair!" as I unfold the Local section and discover that one more time, one goddamn more time, a photo of a cute kid has gotten more votes than my photo, my Anguished Artist is protesting in the name of art, not my ego -- no matter how it may appear to those less attuned to how we Tortured Genius'es feel (such as my wife).

The past winners, and I bear them no ill will (aside from wanting to cast them into the depths of hell), are distinguished by one obvious characteristic: four of the six winning photos have featured a cute kid.

My photographic vision of the State Fair did not include a cute kid in the foreground. Mainly, I have to admit, because I didn't come to the fair with one, and I was worried that if I latched onto a child so I could get him or her into a photo, I'd be charged with kidnapping.

Anyway, like I said my Art (I capitalize that word to show how serious I am about it) is far beyond everyday notions of gain or loss.

My photos were taken for Art's sake, and my entering the State Fair Photo Contest daily is for Art's sake, as is the anguished suffering I feel when, once again, someone's cute kid photo beats me out.

Given all this, I am utterly uninterested in anyone clicking THIS LINK and voting for the photo I entered in today's contest. It is not something that I want anyone to do -- though as an Artist, I realize that when inspiration strikes, such as a desire to follow a web link, that intuition must be honored.

I also am not going to be so crass as to make it easy for someone to recognize my photo on today's State Fair Photo Contest page, which would have been easy to do using words such as "horse/ rider silhouette" and "a true patriot would vote for a photo of the American flag." 

Or, "top row on right."

I won't do that. Because we anguished artists are committed to art for art's sake. Not winning a silly newspaper photo contest.

Republican health care craziness has to stop

I don't think all Republicans are crazy. But most leaders in the Republican party are, when it comes to fixing this country's health care problems.

The insanity has got to stop. For a while it was sort of amusing to see how bizarre the lies could get.

Death panels! Socialized medicine! Veterans being encouraged to commit suicide!

Now, though, summer is almost over. It's time to get serious. No more funny stories.

Which, of course, aren't so funny if you can't afford health care, are getting screwed over by a health insurance company, or are a small business faced with another round of double digit premium increases for your employees that are making your bottom line sink like a stone.

The lies above are debunked by PolitiFact, a web site that does a great job of separating fact from fiction in political debates.

They catch both Democrats and Republicans in truth-shredding. But the truly stupendous "pants on fire" lies are almost always the work of the not-so-Grand Old Party.

I don't see how any reasonable person could be proud of being a Republican these days. The Democratic Party has its freakish fringe, but in the Republican Party craziness is mainstream.

Illegal aliens getting free health care if a reform bill passes? Utterly untrue, says PolitiFact.

But I hear this claim being made all the time on right-wing talk radio and cable news. Where's the shame in telling a blatant lie? How Republicans can call themselves "values voters" is beyond me, unless lying has become the Eleventh Commandment.

Fortunately, there are some truth-tellers in the media. I hugely enjoyed the Washington Post's "Five Myths About Health Care Around the World." 

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

And Newsweek recently exposed "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate."

1. You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.
2. No chemo for older Medicare patients.
3. Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
4. Death panels will decide who lives.
5. The government will set doctors' wages.

Interesting. Each of these myths and lies is being spread by opponents of health care reform, not by the proponents.

Like I said, there is some shading of the truth by Democrats and progressives. But the real down and dirty lying is all Republican and right-wing.

What oral sex teaches about blogging

For some (obvious) reason this Twitter tweet by "rawprincess" caught my eye:

14 things oral sex taught me about blogging
http://762ot.th8.us

Pretty true. Check them out.

I liked an addition suggested by a commenter on this post. A lot of blogs and web sites, not to mention talk radio, sure take this advice.

25. Keep the windows down and make them scream really loud so that the neighbors know what you’re up to.