Wine industry urges drinking, driving

"French winemakers try to counter anti-drunk driving push"

Things of interest only to me...

I'm making some minor cosmetic changes to the site this weekend. One of the things is the titles of the posts. Because of this you may see double titles on old posts. I won't be going back to fix those beyond this page. I'm also changing the number of posts that shows on a page. This means that the page loads faster but you will have to go to the archives (on the left) to see older stuff. Currently I have it set at 20 posts but I may change that. I'm also starting the process of changing to a new server. The results will become clear in the coming months but the reason is that I want to add features that my current provider, Yahoo, doesn't support.

CAT!

The Week in Pictures, Nov. 6 - 13, 2003

POSSIBLY THE VERY BEST CHICKEN JOKE EVER

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is leaning against the headboard smoking a cigarette, with a satisfied smile on it's face. The egg, looking a bit pissed off, grabs the sheet, rolls over, and says "Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question."

NEW STUFF

I just added an RSS newsfeed. The link is on the left. What is this? Put simply, if you read the news from a large number of sites that offer RSS feeds then you can use one program to grab all the headlines automatically from all the sites without going to the sites themselves. On my Mac, using OSX, I downloaded the free NetNewsWire Lite (below) and "subscribed" to my site. I did that by first "right clicking" on the link to the left and "copied the link". I then ran NetNewsWire and clicked on the "subscribe" button and pasted in the link (URL) of PrebleNY. That's it. It went to my site and got the most recent 15 entries and showed me the headlines. I can then click on the one I'm interested in and it will show me the text and a link to the full story. It's really quite cool. There are two RSS feeds, one for PrebleNY and one for Not Safe For democrats.

Special pieces of software called News Aggregators or Readers can read RSS feeds, examples are:

MacOSX
AmphetaDesk
NetNewsWire and NetNewsWire Lite
NewsMac
RadioUserland
Shrook
SlashDock
MacOS
AmphetaDesk
NewsXPress
RadioUserland
Windows
AmphetaDesk
BlogExpress
NewsGator (requires Outlook)
RadioUserland
SharpReader
Wildgrape NewsDesk

What is RSS?

Rich Site Summary (RSS) is a lightweight XML format designed for sharing headlines and other Web content. Think of it as a distributable "What's New" for a site. Originated by UserLand in 1997 and subsequently used by Netscape to fill channels for Netcenter, RSS has evolved into a popular means of sharing content between sites (including the BBC, CNET, CNN, Disney, Forbes, Motley Fool, Wired, Red Herring, Salon, Slashdot, ZDNet, and more).

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

Everyone who has read my writings over the years knows how much value I put on the right to vote. The right to have your vote count and be counted is paramount to liberty. The right to have your representatives in the congress and the senate vote on your behalf is equally important. Anyone who would do anything to stop your right to vote is anti American. For over a year the Democrat senators in the senate are preventing our representatives the right to vote on judicial nominations and in so doing are taking away your right to vote. Their actions are un-American and unconstitutional and they and anyone who supports them should be ashamed!

LIFE, WIND AND SNOW

The wind is blowing up a storm, it's getting colder and starting to snow. But the leaves I was going to have to deal with are now on my neighbors yard... Life is good.

I'M LOSING IT!

Gee, I wonder what happened at the town board meeting Monday night. I would know if I remembered to go. I completely forgot about it. Guess my mind is going. I intended to go, I wanted to go, I just forgot about it. Maybe it was that sinus pill I took, you know the powerful ones that cure your sinus problems but turn your brain to mush. Yeah, that's it! It was that darn pill! There, I feel better, not because of the pill although that worked nicely. No, I feel better because I can blame my short comings on something else. Hmm, now I'm starting to sound like a politician. Maybe it's the company I've been keeping. Perhaps it was a good thing that I didn't go to the town board meeting after all. Oh well, (sigh), there's always next month. On the very off chance that someone went and would be willing to fill me in I would appreciate it. Hardly anybody goes to these things so that's not likely, but if you did go then send me an email.

You Think It's Contentious in Preble?

Look at Virgil. I just read the two letters to the editor in Monday's edition of the Cortland Standard. The winner thanks the people and the loser preaches doom and gloom. Interesting reading about problems in somebody else's town for a change.

Gold keeper foiled theft by Taliban

"An Afghan security guard has told of how he prevented a hoard of gold bullion and priceless 2100-year-old treasure falling into the hands of the Taliban."

FYI on the Preble Election

Because of waiting for the military absentee ballots, the Board Of Elections will start counting absentee ballots on Monday the 17th. Preble's ballots will be opened on Tuesday the 18th at 1 PM. The Edinger/Albro election for council (Town Board) has a 5 vote margin. I am told that tradionally the absentee ballots go 80% Republican. That means that Albro could still win. I will call the BOE late in the afternoon of the 18th and post what happens here. Good luck to both candidates.

MSNBC: The Week in Pictures, Oct. 30 - Nov. 6, 2003

Puppies!