I’m not optimistic that Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) will connect the dots between her strong opinions against Secretary Sebelius’ stance on mammography screening and the Federal Government’s inability to get much of anything right.

U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln

Senator Lincoln seems much too self-congratulatory for my tastes regarding her success in convincing Senator Reid to post the bill 72 hours in advance of the debate.  Surely, Senator, your final analysis of the bill was deeper than that?  Here’s the letter I just sent to Senator Lincoln:

Dear Senator Lincoln,

I respectfully urge you to vote “no” on a cloture measure to close the health care reform debate tomorrow, or any time soon. On your website, you expressed approval that Senator Reid had honored your request to post this bill on a public website 72 hours in advance of the vote. I don’t know of a 2,000+ page book I’ve read in my life (and I read quite a lot). I certainly haven’t read one in 72 hours. I sincerely hope there’s more depth to your analysis of this massive bill than that simple litmus test.

In your press release yesterday, you expressed serious concern that I share concerning Secretary Sebelius’ recommendation against routine mammography screening for women under the age of 50. This is just one example of the absurdity of health care ideas flowing from Washington.

Americans support common sense reform, but we do not support massive experimentation on the national scale. Most Americans are very aware that the Federal government’s track record on health care does little to recommend it for anything but a reduction in its involvement in health care.

I urge you to vote “no” on cloture tomorrow. In the longer term, I urge you to remember that America was not built on a foundation of government oversight & control. Our many brave heroes have built this country over two centuries on a foundation of freedom. Seek common sense solutions to health care issues, not oppressive centralized control.

Please vote “no” on cloture. Vote “no” on H.R. 3590.

Respectfully,

Dave K. Smith
Huntsville, AL

On his website, Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) emphasizes that he has only decided to vote to open debate on health care reform.

U.S. Senator Ben Nelson

Senator, we will be watching your vote on cloture to end the debate tomorrow very carefully.  Here’s the letter I just sent to Senator Nelson:

Dear Senator Nelson,

I respectfully take you at your word that you are only voting to proceed with debate on health care reform. I strongly urge you to vote “no” on any vote for cloture to end debate on this issue tomorrow, or any time soon.

Americans support common sense health care reform. We do not support throwing the baby out with the bath water. We do not support massive social experiments that have a high risk of causing harm. We know that the U.S. Federal Government’s track record in the health care industry hardly recommends it for even a moderately expanded role.

Senator, when you consider this hugely important decision tomorrow, do not give away our hard earned freedoms lightly. Remember our Nation’s greatest, who have given their lives for the past two centuries for the great cause of liberty. Do not treat this as a run of the mill “this for that” bill. Please do not trade support for this bill for some short-lived regional gain for Nebraska. Know that a majority of Americans see this bill for what it truly is: an unconstitutional power grab at the Federal level.

On your Health Care Reform 2009 page, you are quoted as saying “I’m for health care reform this year…” Senator, please ask yourself why there is such a rush in Washington to push through a bill late on a Saturday night before Thanksgiving 2009 that won’t even take effect until 2013? We are not “obstructionists” – but we do grow extremely weary of every bill needing the urgent, gotta-get-it-done-right-now treatment. We’ve had to swallow quite a few of those in recent months.

I urgently request that you vote “no” on tomorrow’s cloture vote to end debate on the health care bill. In the longer term, I ask that you buck the trend of a Federal solution for everything. That approach continues to fail miserably for our country, again and again.

Respectfully,

Dave K. Smith
Huntsville, AL

As I write this, Senator Landrieu (D, LA) is still expressing willingness to do a deal for her vote on health care power grab.

U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu

Here’s the letter I just sent her:

Dear Senator Landrieu,

I respectfully encourage you to urgently reconsider the post at the top of your website.  The health care bill is obviously “imperfect” as all bills written by mere mortals are.  But Americans overwhelmingly disagree with your assertion that it “takes many important steps towards repairing our broken health care system.”

A huge majority of Americans know that this bill has nothing to do with fixing our health care system.  Who in our massive Federal bureaucracy would be qualified to make any improvements at all to health care?  The US Government’s dismal track record in the health care industry renders this question rhetorical.

Please see this bill for what it clearly is:  an unwelcome power grab by our Federal Government to restrict individual freedom.

Senator, please remember what all of our great nation’s finest have fought and died for throughout our great history:  liberty.  We do not authorize you to take that liberty away.  We certainly do not authorize you to sell that liberty by “pressing for aid for Louisiana.”

This is not a business-as-usual vote.  If you vote in support of this severely unconstitutional power grab, I will combine my efforts with other like-minded Americans to seek your defeat at the ballot box in 2014.

We will be watching your vote very carefully.  Do not expect us to forget.  Do not sell your vote for any price.  Vote no on the health care bill tomorrow.

Respectfully,

Dave K. Smith
Huntsville, AL

She makes my list again:

Senator Olympia Jean Snowe McKernan

“History calls“, Senator Snowe, not for your vote on the Democratic “health care” (uh, power grab assault on individual liberty) “bill” (uh, alleged bill), but rather for you to leave the GOP in disgrace.

OpenDocument Spreadsheet (Flat XML) (.fods) format in OpenOffice 3.0 is a great source format for spreadsheets. It’s human-readable XML, it’s good for “Save As…” into Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP (.xls) format.

Best of all, it allows you to easily configuration manage your spreadsheets (along with meaningful textual diffs) using Mercurial, git, etc.

I made a clean install of Kubuntu Jaunty (9.04) last week, and had some trouble getting wireless networking to work.  This post explains my current working configuration.

OS configuration:
kernel: 2.6.28-13-generic
wpasupplicant: 0.6.6-2ubuntu1
network-manager: 0.7.1~rc4.1.cf199a964-0ubuntu2
plasma-widget-network-manager: 0.0+svn966653-0ubuntu0.1

Router configuration:
Linksys WRT54GS ver. 6
Firmware version: v1.50.6, Feb 17 2006
Wireless Network Mode: G-Only
SSID Broadcast: Disable
Security Mode: WPA Personal
WPA Algorithm: TKIP

Steps to connect:

1. Network Management dialog showing that the connection I want doesn’t exist yet.  (Note: adding my connection information directly via this dialog box does NOT work):
   
2. Click on the plasma networking icon, make sure wireless is enabled, and click on “Connect to hidden network” (recall my router doesn’t broadcast its SSID):
   
3. Textbox for entering a hidden SSID appears:
   
4. Type in hidden SSID name, hit Enter:
   
5. Enter network security details in dialog that pops up.  In my configuration, “Connect automatically” doesn’t work – whether or not this box is checked is a dontcare for these instructions.  I currently have to manually repeat all these steps on each login:
   
6. KDE Wallet Service requests a password:
   
7. After entering password, rotating connecting icon appears on the plasma panel:
   
8. After a few seconds, connected icon appears:
   

My letter du jour to Congressman Griffith:

Dear Congressman Griffith,

I applaud your vote against the Cap and Trade bill in this morning’s “test vote”.  It’s a massive tax hike/power grab based on pure pseudoscience.

I would request that you not only vote against this bill when it comes to a live vote, but also speak out strongly in a leadership role against it.

We Americans are growing very weary of these supposed “emergency” bills that must be rushed to vote right now or else.  We’re not being given reasonable time to review the text of these voluminous bills.  I suspect our representatives have no time to truly digest them, either.

Vote NO, lead NO on cap and trade.

Respectfully,

Dave K. Smith
Huntsville, AL

My letter to Congressman Parker Griffith:

Congressman Griffith,

Please vote NO on the euphemistically named Employee Free Choice Act (aka Card Check).  Americans do not need to be strong armed into joining unions.  Misguided unions destroyed GM with their power to drive the company to a globally uncompetitive position.  Exporting that failure to the rest of our economy accomplishes nothing.

America doesn’t have “little guys”.  We don’t want or need faceless unions to stand up for us.  We stand up for ourselves.

I will be watching your votes very carefully on repressive power grabs like this one that seem to be all the rage in Washington, DC these days.  I will work diligently against those members who support such attacks on our cherished freedoms.

Respectfully,

Dave K. Smith
Huntsville, AL

(UPDATE 2009-09-23): LearnOutLoud.com has outstanding technical support if you ever have trouble with your downloads.

Today I found my Linux audiobook solution. LearnOutLoud.com allows paying for and downloading audiobooks in MP3 format. No annoying proprietary client-side app required. Books purchased in the past are available for later re-download from my LearnOutLoud account if I need them. Wow, it’s so nice not to be treated like a common criminal! Thanks very much, LearnOutLoud.

their customers aren't criminals

So I’m now officially a former iTunes Store customer. And I used to be a loyal one. I wrote an 8 part series last year about how to make the iTunes Store cooperate with Linux and an old iPod. But then Apple planted a bunch of doubt in my mind about DRM, and I eventually jumped ship and only bought music from Amazon’s MP3 store.  And then I discovered that Audible.com (iTunes Store’s only option for audiobooks, last time I checked) was completely wrapped in DRM.  Good grief, I just stopped bothering.  I had no option at all for audiobooks, and that was painful.

Linux buddies of mine told me to just buy audiobook MP3 CDs, and copy those over to my MP3 player.  But that sounded painful, too – I gave up messing with discs of any kind years ago now.

It’s nice to have an option again.

Yeah, I know it’s a poor man’s soft tail, but I’m hoping to break it in with 50 miles of trail riding this weekend. I’m psyched.

Cane Creek Thudbuster