Facebook has been getting creepier by the day about how they’re altering the privacy settings on profiles.  Sometimes I think they’re just pushing the envelope to see how far they can go. Have you heard about Facebook Connections? It’s almost impossible to find any information about it on Facebook itself, but the Electronic Frontiers Foundation has done a lot of research about just what ‘Connections’ means to the average Facebook user. I’ve taken most of the personal information out of my profile, and blocked access to what’s left to ‘friends’. But this move is making me seriously consider the wisdom of having a profile at all.

Read the EFF article and decide for yourself.

It seems that every other blog is touting 12/31/09 as ‘the end of the decade’, much like 12/31/99 was dubbed the end of the millennium.

Once again, a counting lesson is in order. How did you learn to count when you were a kid? Did you start counting your building blocks with ‘zero’? No, you start counting with ‘one’ followed by ‘two’ then ‘three’ and so on.

It’s the same with years. There was no year ‘zero’ way back when. So the first ten years started with 01/01/0001 and ended with 12/31/0010. This (admittedly arbitrary) decade will not end until 12/31/2010, one year from today.

Can you tell that I don’t have much to write about these days?

Tomorrw is a red-letter day for me. I will pay $4.00 for a gallon of gas for the first time ever. To fill my 16-gallon tank will cost me around $64.00.

Meanwhile, everyone’s all up in arms about the tremendous profits that Chevron and the other big oil companies are raking in while the rest of us bleed as we tank up. When the company execs show up before Congress for their routine excoriation, what do the senators expect them to do or say? I suspect that without coming right out and saying it, they want big oil to use some of their profits to offset a substantial cut in gasoline prices. But the oil companies have a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders to maximize profitability at every opportunity. Bottom line: the shareholders are much more important to big oil than its own customers. And in a free market, capitalist society, I don’t blame them one bit. I’d do the same thing in their position.

So what’s the solution? Reduce consumption, lower demand, increase stockpiles, and the price will come down like magic. Drive 55, easy on the accelerator, check the tires, all these things will really make a difference.

This is just bothering me to no end, and I need to rant – what better place than on my own website?

There’s this website, see, called www.recordmeister.com. It sells used LPs (duh). I’ve bought an album from him in the past and was very happy, as I had been looking for it for a long time.

I recently revisited his site and found a few more things I wanted and asked him for a quote.

He emailed me back with his usual extraordinarily high prices, but then he added this kicker:

“I sold the (album i wanted), but made a cd of it before I did. For a copy of that, I’d be asking $24.Prices include postage.
Let me know if I can help you.Thanks,

Duane”

Pretty sweet business – sell the LP for an exorbitant price, and then sell it over and over and over and over again, ripping off his customer every single time. Now that’s the definition of eating your cake and having it too.

People say that music piracy is all over the Internet, but this is different – Internet piracy is mostly just trading/downloading files with money playing no part in the transaction. This guy is SELLING the music he steals. And that sort of elevates the issue into, oh, I don’t know, felony?

Thanks for your attention.

He claims to know what’s happening on the terrorist front in great detail, but he has no clue that we’re facing $4/gallon gas prices.

From today’s press conference (in his how-can-you-people-be-so-stupid talking-while-laughing-at-you delivery):

I guess you could be relaxed about all this if you didn’t think there was a true threat to the country. I know there’s a threat to the country. And the American people expect our Congress to give the professionals the tools they need to listen to foreigners who may be calling in to the United States with information that could cause us great harm.
So on the one hand the civil liberties of our citizens are guaranteed by a lot of checks in the system, scrutinized by the United States Congress.

And, secondly, I cannot emphasize to you how important it is that the Congress solve this problem.

The Senate has solved the problem. And people say, “Would you ever compromise on the issue?” The Senate bill is a compromise. And there’s enough votes in the House of Representatives to pass the Senate bill. It’s a bipartisan bill. And the House leaders need to put it on the floor and let the will of the housework.

My judgment happens to be the will of the people, to give the professionals the tools they need to protect the country.

I just LOVE that last line – how arrogant can one be??

And yet, when asked about $4-a-gallon gas:

BUSH: Wait a minute. What did you just say? You’re predicting $4 a gallon gas?

QUESTION: A number of analysts are predicting $4 a gallon gasoline this spring when they reformulate.

BUSH: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that.

QUESTION: Yes, sir.

BUSH: Yes. I know it’s high now.

Oh. Gee, thanks.

Priceless – the gas, that is – NOT our president!

…to paraphrase the Rolling Stones. And yes, I’m going to rant about health care.

My delicate condition has deteriorated somewhat, and my endocrinologist has added a new weapon to my arsenal of WMDs against my increasingly inadequate pancreas. The problem is that it’s a brand new drug, and as I predicted in his office, my insurance does not cover it. Would you believe $179.50? A month? Yes, it’s true. Hopefully I won’t be on it too long, and double hopefully my doctor can get my insurer to cover it via preauthorization.

Nothing to really worry about, by the way – Type II diabetics generally burn out their pancreata within about ten years of diagnosis, and for me it’s just short of nine.

By the way, I just learned that this new drug is derived from the spittle of the gila monster – a mouth-watering prospectus, eh?