This is a very funny Saturday Night Live sketch. It’s a tongue-in-check reference to the lies that the GOP, Fox News, and the health insurance cabal have been telling in the main stream media about Health Care reform.
(Hulu is about the worst video provider out there. Click Play below. Maybe it’ll work.)
Even though my teenage years were spent in the 70’s, most of my favorite music was from the 1990’s. Some of my favorite artists were Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nancy Griffith, The Cardigans, Letters To Cleo, and Green Day, to name just a few. The album "Warning" was released in 2000.
One of my favorite bands is The Cardigans. Besides their originals they have covered several Black Sabbath songs in slow motion. Black Sabbath’s original version of Changes was pretty slow already. It would make a pretty decent country song.
Singer Nina Persson has another group called A Camp. If you like The Cardigans, you should like them as well.
I am currently reading Richard A. Clarke’s book "Against All Enemies". I highly recommend it. It is well written and mostly easy to follow. Mr. Clark is a former long time government employee who had worked in the consecutive administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. He routinely held positions that required the highest of security clearance. It would include being Chief Counter-Terrorism Adviser on the U.S. National Security Council. That made him a member of the executive branch on 9/11. Published in 2004, the book is about his involvement in helping to direct the counter-terrorism strategy for the United States, through his retirement in 2003.
I came across these two paragraphs in the book. The context was a discussion on how some theories about government conspiracies were true while others were fabrications or distortions:
Another conspiracy theory intrigued me because I could
never disprove it. The theory seemed unlikely on its face: Ramzi
Yousef or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had taught Terry Nichols how to
blow up the Oklahoma Federal Building. The problem was that, upon
investigation, we established that both Ramzi Yousef and Nichols had
been in the city of Cebu on the same days. I had been to Cebu years
earlier; it is on an island in the central Philippines. It was a town in
which word could have spread that a local girl was bringing her American
boyfriend home and that the American hated the U.S. government.
I guess I should have known that the threats to withhold campaign contributions, and whatever other methods the corporate insurance elite have been using to get the current administration back in line would work eventually. Now there’s talk that President Obama will announce his surrender to them on the health care issues that I think would have the biggest impact, Single Payer and/or the Public Option. I sent an e-mail to the White House this morning and this is what I wrote:
President Obama,
I am a life long Democrat. I supported you through most of your campaign. I have never voted for a non-Democrat for president.
Now that you have decided (?) to surrender to the medical cartel, first on single payer and now on a public health care option, my only thought is that how “they” have won and “you (alone)” have failed. Do you think Fox News will ever let you live this down? Fox and their paymasters have beaten you and they know it. I, for one, am ashamed. I am ashamed that lies and money have finally gotten to you. Maybe I am the one that failed in believing that you were capable or willing to change anything.
This was your Waterloo and you did not win. You just managed to have an orderly surrender.
I have always liked Ten Years After. Alvin Lee has always has been an under appreciated great guitar player, that could also sing. This is not a performance video, but more like a slideshow. It’s pretty interesting though.
Ten Years After – I’d Love To Change The World (YouTube video)
During my recent adventures with ADAT digital audio transfers from my Fostex VF-16 digital multi-track recorder to my PC computer, I discovered ASIO (Audio Streaming Input Output). ASIO was developed by a musical company called Steinberg. It is a mostly open standard that has had a big impact on computer recording. I really didn’t know that much about ASIO before I started experimenting with my ADAT card. The only thing I knew was that my soundcard on my main computer was capable of ASIO audio production. I also knew that when I tried to use the computer in my studio area to record, I was terribly disappointed with the results.
Basically what ASIO does is take all audio information to and from a digital audio program, like Sonar 7, and routes it directly to the soundcard. The benefit of this direct connection is a reduction in the latency in the audio. Latency in this case, refers to the amount of time it takes to get from the input of the sound card, through all the sub-systems, and then on to the output. ASIO allows whatever is on the input of the sound card to arrive at the output in a more efficient manner. For ASIO drivers, Steinberg claims a latency of equal to or less than an imperceptible 2 milliseconds. Previously when I had tried to use a computer as a multi-track recorder in place of my Fostex, I noticed very discombobulating delays in monitoring what I was recording. It was so bad that I could not record anything at all. The latency (echo) was way too extreme.
Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards. He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.
All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
A reader on my blog contacted me recently. He asked for my help getting his music files from a Fostex VF-16 to a computer, and specifically to the digital audio workstation (DAW) software, Cakewalk Sonar. I have a VF-16 and I use Sonar as well, so I have lots of experience with that configuration. I have owned a VF-16 since about 2000 or so. I bought it at Peeler Music in Toledo, Ohio. I tried several digital multi track recorders before I found this one. I made the right choice, no doubt.
This made me curious about the optical transfer options as well. I’ve never had any need for them, having always used the SCSI port on my recorder. As a result, I had only limited knowledge of the S/PDIF and ADAT features. I started learning about, and experimenting with, the SAVE PGM option using both the ADAT and S/PDIF outputs. I also found a used ADAT interface for my computer. I have very seldom used the LOAD PGM option.
There are two connections for copying the files from the VF-16 using the three protocols, SCSI, ADAT, and S/PDIF. ADAT and S/PDIF share the optical connections on the VF-16. ADAT and SCSI are somewhat antique methods. So if you don’t have one of these devices, your only option might be eBay or a used parts store.
Alexander Fisher
