Another day, another dumb Apple product.

Dear Mr. President and members of Congress and Senate,

Please, stop listening to the corporate un-citizens. I say un-citizens because all they care about is lining their pockets with money. Not to say that most Americans wouldn't love to line their pockets with money as well, but only Corporate citizens (which aren't even real citizens as they can't be called to fight for their country, aren't held accountable for their actions unless someone with more money than them can fight them) have the money to pay for you to listen to their needs. The luncheons, the corporate sponsored getaways, the private flights and perks are all their way of buying you, you the representatives of us, not corporations.

If you really want to protect the creators of ideas and artistic endevours, you must do away with tyranical organazitions like the RIAA and MPAA which prosecute little children as well as dead or dying citizens for a percieved (never proven) loss of a few pennies, all the while wholesale stealing from the very creators they cry woefully to protect.

I'm going to copy en masse an e-mail sent to me - please read it, please consider it, and please, when you are done, think about pushing corporate citizenship back where it belongs, to non citizenship - without rights, without needs to protect as you would the individuals who actually do the creating of everything you wish to protect.

Pretty interesting if one reads all the way to the end. Follow this by reading "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins. We had a surplus in 2000 and no way does the banking industry and those who rule it want to see that again, even if it takes two wars.

EVERY U.S. CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.

Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red ..

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it........... Is up to you.

This might be funny if it weren't so darned true.

Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for peanuts
Anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid.

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service FeeTax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the hell happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

And I still have to 'press 1' for English!?

Not if you've disabled the pagefile altogether.
Don't forget to disable the paging executive as well.
If running Windows XP, see the following..
http://kadaitcha.cx/performance.html

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
DisablePagingExecutive - set to 1.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
LargeSystemCache - set to 1.

This is easily solvable, and with little effort on the software vendor's part.

Allow the game code to be *gasp* un-registered.

There... The game won't play on the computer you are removing it from, and the code is now clean for the new owner.

Of course, that would make too much sense, and would require a class action lawsuit to force the companies to do it, even though it would actually make the game industry compliant with first sale doctrine.

That's not disk caching, that's virtual memory. Huge difference.

The only way to avoid using disk as virtual memory is, you guessed it (or maybe you didn't), have enough RAM installed to be able to disable Virtual Memory entirely.

That's where you went wrong.

You were whining about disk caching, when you were talking about virtual memory.

FYI - Virtual memory, aka swap in the Linux/UNIX world is something used by all modern OSes which might need more memory than is physically available.

don't move it... just smash it.. until it fits in one space...

Really? What about jRockit from the BEA purchase they made?

http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/jrockit/index.html

Next thing you know, the RIAA will tax the ASCAP for a license to sell performances, and the ASCAP will try to tax the RIAA for every performance contained within every license sold....

Two black-holes formed from the dead-soulless-gravity-sink groups that kill the performers and rob them of their souls, money and livelihoods.

The real kicker is what can the company try and coax/cajole/force other companies / people to do based on their desire/want/need to get their product.

In the case of M$ Winbloze, they had the gall (and it worked) to demand that computer manufacturers buy 1 license of their product for every computer they sold, regardless of the O.S. it was distributed with.

They did this with a plethora of other currently existing and now extinct computer manufacturers.

They then continued to grab anything that they thought could entice users, and bundle it into the operating system. gui text editors, word processors, games, disk degragmentation, disk compression, networking, to name just a few...

They buddied up to software houses, talking about improving their products, only to release their own competition of said products within a fairly short development cycle.

They stole websites and product names from other companies, by threatening lawsuits, just so they could use the name. (A quick search can find at least one - look for a product with M$ main OS name, and defender in it)

They embedded their own borked web browser, then made the automatic update/patch processes only work with theirs, disallowing any 3rd party browser from being used to simplify fixing/patching their OS.

They took international standards and bastardized them, and released them as their own, under their own lock and key product names / tools - usually breaking them utterly.

They ran roughshod over the international standards boards across the world to force (in any way they could) their standard down everyone's throats, without it even really working, or having a truly definitive definition of said standard.

Those and literally thousands of other examples are the reason that a company like M$ can be considered to be monopolistic regardless of the number of competitors they have.

No, the construction company paid to get power run to the development, or the home-owner pays to get it run to an area if they are the only one out that way - the power company doesn't do anything for free.
(I worked with RECs and Municipals for 14 years, and I helped write software for their operations.)

No, I'm not saying that, are you?

The cost was covered at the installation. They have insurance to cover line damage due to storms. Damage due to man is covered by the liability insurance of the person who damaged the line. There aren't any *costs* to the power company.

No one is being *subsidised* here, if the line needs to be repaired, it is. Either insurance covers it, or the people paying their bills cover it. The costs are built into the rates, and the lower usage you have, the higher your rate per KWH. Solar users in general don't generate the equivelent to 100% of their usage, and even if they did, their minimum usage charge covers that (it's the same as someone who's on the line and turns off the power at the meter - the lines are still there, still need to be maintained, but no usage or draw is done.) This is done for idle rental properties, farmers who turn off power to grain bins during the spring/summer, barns when they aren't in use, etc... There are tons of users who have lines that aren't drawing power, and aren't being charged for not drawing power. Solar users aren't any different.

Yes it's greed, and it's simple. They aren't getting anything for free, there aren't any losses, or no more than the thousands of other users who turn off power to lots, farms, summer-cottages at the lake, etc... This isn't anything new here, it's just the power companies wanting *more* profit.

Okay - let's go with that option...

If the power line is underground, the construction company paid to have it run to the house - unless animals, or man with equipment dig into it, it won't be damaged (unless the shielding is faulty and degrades underground).

In any case, the company already got paid to run the wire. They get paid by all the other users on the grid to keep it going.

If a line goes down, does it cost more if 99 out of 100 people use the electricity than if 100 of 100 use it?

What about lines run out to a single house, who isn't using solar. Do they charge him more because he's the only one on the line? (Beyond the footing the bill to get it to his/her house that is)

If 99% of the users are drawing power, hell, even if there's 50% of the users drawing power constantly, there's more than enough to cover repairs.

This is greed - pure and simple.

A connection fee is a one time, at the time of *connecting the account to the grid* fee.

You aren't re-connecting every month, so there's no way to charge for "connecting" again and again...

I'm betting they already pay a *minimum charge* as well since that's been a common REC and Municipality charge for 20 years.

They've already paid that - it's called a connection fee...

They're also already getting charged more for the power they do use, since their usage is lower, they get onto a higher cost per KWH rate.

It's more than double dipping if they try to charge more, and too damned bad if their connection fee didn't cover future (I'm not using much of your power anymore).

I tried multiple *paper* style filters, ran for 2-3 months, then tried the next - checking mileage over time, none of them gave the improvement that the K&N did - with the K&N only costing about $10.00 more than the paper filters (shopping around).

Iridium plugs, and expensive wires only showed marginal improvements overall (2% to 3% total over stock plugs with 70k miles on them). Trading out to the pulstar plugs not only improved the mileage over time, but also keeps the emissions down.

Going from an average to around 173 to 215 miles per 13 gallon fill-up for in-town, traffic to between 260 and 300 miles per fill-up doing the same drive day in and day out.

Granted, I made the changes when gas was upwards of 3.75 a gallon, but they've more than paid for themselves with the improved mileage.

You can call them snake-oil if you'd like, but the results I've had speak for themselves.

oh - and if you want a quick fix - check your MAF - if it hasn't been cleaned in a while, clean it - the wires in the MAF will build up a coating that requires higher voltage to heat the wire and keep it at the required temp, which tells the engine that more air is flowing through the MAF than there really is, which causes your engine to push more fuel into the mix. cleaning the MAF clears that coating and returns the flow detection to a more accurate read, improving economy again.

Give a look at the pulse plug, from Pulstar - www.pulstar.com

That'll set your fuel-mixture on fire...

I use them, and between the pulse plugs and a simple K&N air filter replacing the stock filter, my car has gained close to a 16% increase in fuel economy...

Also - using a $3.00 can of MAF Sensor cleaner to clean your mass air flow sensor, every oil-change will help your fuel economy as well.