Utah Open Source Planet

Edit: I got confused on the dates of my sources, which then used relative dates to refer to the event. It was in fact on Wednesday, 18 Mar 2009, that the Fed's actions took place.

Last ThursdayWednesday, as Glenn Beck calls it, was history. Not good history, no this is bad. Remember Zimbabwe? Ever heard the phrase "Not worth a continental"? Well welcome to the future, hyperinflation.

What happened ThursdayWednesday? $1 trillion dollars, new dollars, were printed, IN ONE DAY! The Federal Reserve "bought" a bunch of IOU notes from the US Treasury, and for it paid $1 trillion, in money it just printed out of thin air. "What?? " you say? Yes, the Fed bought debt the US Government didn't have, using money the Fed didn't have, all so that we can be poorer for it.

On ThursdayWednesday gold shot up over 6% in one hour. Likewise silver shot up over 8% in one hour. This is not because the value of gold and silver went up. The value of the dollar went down, dramatically. If you thought your 401K evaporated with the banking crisis, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Get out of the dollar, and then like me you can welcome the inevitable collapse, and finally a return to sanity!

I really like Glenn Beck when it comes to the economy:

This uncontrolled spending (and it’s underlying debasement of the currency) may well destroy us.

Inflation, as a means of overthrowing the free market:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens … Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of over-turning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. - John Maynard Keynes (via quoty)

Inflation, as a means of overthrowing our nation and our liberties:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. - Thomas Jefferson (via quoty)

Sadly the “change” mantra was nothing more than a seductive lie, because when it comes to the policies of spending and inflation, Comrades Obama and Bush (not mention McCain) are exactly the same.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. :(

Can you believe the hypocrisy, lies, and just all-out lack of respect the media, blogosphere, and the far-left are demonstrating with regard to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin?

Here's an example of a blatant disregard of the facts.

On his television show last night, Glenn Beck had a short segment where he debunks some of the flat-out ridiculous crap Barack Obama has said about Palin. Beck laid it all out and told it like it is. Here's part of the transcript.

How often do you make a difference in other people's lives? I often feel I don't make much of a difference in anyone's lives, mostly because I often seem to be on auto-pilot, tending to my own affairs and minding my own business. Some people, on the other hand, make it their life's work to help others in need.

I'm not suggesting that we should all beat ourselves up for not being more charitable or supportive, but I would like to share something I did that I know will help someone out who is a tough spot. The good news is that you can do the same exact thing!

Monica Ramos and Patty Compean

I don't think many people have heard the story of Monica Ramos and Patty Compean. Their husbands are serving time in prison, currently in solitary confinement. I believe they were unfairly convicted and sentenced for crimes they did not commit.

I first heard about this story on the radio and Glenn Beck has talked a lot about it. However, don't be misled into believing this is a conservative or Republican issue. No, this is an American issue and a case where the government has conspired against its own people.

You can read the story that landed Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean in jail on Wikipedia or a number of other sites. The short version of the story is this: Ramos and Compean were border guards working the US-Mexico border in Texas. In 2005, they were in pursuit of a drug smuggler who fled after they stopped his van (which was full of drugs). There was a shot fired, and the smuggler ran away. While it appeared no one got hurt, the smuggler was apparently struck in the buttock with the bullet. Later, the US government granted the smuggler immunity for his testimony against Compean and Ramos on charges they covered up the shooting and acted out of order. The immunity included a border crossing pass and while the trial was underway, the smuggler was apprehended again with a another load of drugs, but let go because he had immunity. In addition, it appears the US government paid for medical treatment for his gunshot wound.

After Ramos and Compean were sentenced to prison, their attorneys, of course, filed appeals. Meanwhile, members of congress, talk radio personalities, and concerned individuals in Texas and around the country, started digging up as much information as they could about the case. It was revealed the US district attorney that prosecuted the case lied repeatedly about the evidence and the circumstances surrounding the case. During the trial, he requested and was granted that information about the drug smuggler would be sealed so that the jury would not discover he had been caught smuggling a second load of drugs since the original incident.

The appeal was finally read by a panel of the 5th circuit court of appeals about five months ago. Those in attendance of the hearings said the judges were very concerned that the case was mishandled and chastised the prosecuting attorneys for prosecuting on ridiculous charges, and generally bungling the case so badly. However, five months later, just a week or two ago, the court upheld the sentences and only dropped minor charges against the men.

Many believe these men are political prisoners and that the fault goes clear to the White House. The US attorney general has longtime ties with Alberto Gonzales and President George W. Bush. Congress and others have asked President Bush to commute or pardon these men who were just trying to do their jobs as border guards, but he has done nothing and has said nothing.

Others believe the Mexican government is involved as well. Why? I don't know.

It is terrible that these men are in prison, but many don't realize the suffering their families have been going through. Both men are married and have children. These families no longer have a primary breadwinner and must deal with the stress and emotional trauma of having a loved unjustly imprisoned.

It probably goes without saying, Monica Ramos and Patty Compean are hurting-- financially, mentally, emotionally, and otherwise.

A local talk radio host in Houston set up a fundraiser to help these families and word got to Glenn Beck. He had both women on his radio show last week and asked one how much her rent was that she was struggling to pay. She told him it was $11,000 or so for the year. Glenn told her he would be writing her a personal check for $11,000 and would write one in the same amount for the other family.

I've followed this story for months and was heartbroken to hear that the families were struggling. One of the women said her son had been persecuted at school and that is one of the reasons they had moved. I was ready to donate some money myself even before Glenn announced his donation.

So, today, I wrote two checks. One to Patty Compean and one to Monica Ramos. I don't have the kind of money Glenn Beck does, but I sent fifty dollars and I'm sure it will help with something. Hopefully, I can make this a regular thing, sending a little money every month. I hope many others are doing the same thing. These families will suffer regardless of how much money people send because they can't be with the husbands/fathers they love, but the money will help make it just a little easier.

If you are touched as I have been, you can send a donation as well. Edd Henndee, one of the talk radio hosts in Houston, is collecting the donations and delivering them to the families. He asks that people make out two separate checks, one to Monica Ramos, one to Patty Compean, and mail them to:

Edd Henndee
Taste of Texas
10505 Katy Freeway
Houston, Texas 77024

A couple nights ago, I posted a quick entry here about Barack Obama on domestic oil.

Levi Pearson, a friend and a fellow local geek, got right on my case about some issues he had with what I said and left some comments. He had some really good points and most people will miss out on these because now they're buried in the thread of comments attached to the original article.

Also, this weekend, Pete Ashdown, owner of Utah Internet service provider XMission and former candidate for US Senate, posted a status update on his Facebook site that the Salt Lake Tribune had published an opinion piece he wrote about Utah's national GOP delegation and their... seemingly hypocritical grandstanding on energy and domestic oil production issues.

As a result of the back-and-forth with Levi and Pete, and my own research and introspection, I decided it would be best to write another entry explaining what I've learned and what I've concluded.

I'll admit, looking over what I originally wrote in my previous entry, it was a fluff piece. I was ranting without any facts or figures to back me up. That's not to say I think I was wrong. In fact, I think I've found information to back me up.

Pete's opinion piece was a pretty level-headed argument that Utah's GOP representatives (and presumed congressman-elect) and senators are unfairly pointing fingers at democrats and generally just adding to the dysfunction that is our congress.

Rob Bishop

I completely agree with Pete that Sen. Hatch and Sen. Bennett have way too much non-action under their belt to answer for to be out touting their newly discovered position on energy policy. This is especially the case for Hatch who has plenty of seniority. They both need to be voted out of office as soon as possible, in my opinion.

Rep. Bishop, I actually like. I looked at his voting record both since the Democrats have gained majority control of congress and before and found, while he treads a little closer to the party line than I would like, he votes the way I would like on most issues.

Now, I was concerned that I saw he vote NO on a bill last year (HR 6), the Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation act. This sounds like the kind of bill I would want an elected official representing our state to vote for, but then I looked at the details. This was one of the "first 100 hours" bills that Pelosi pushed when the Democrats first took control and contains broad, sweeping legislation to enact price controls on oil companies, remove select subsidies and deductions given to oil and natural gas producers, and add taxes on oil imports and domestic production to fund investment in alternative fuels and alternative energy.

California representative Wally Herger had some remarks on this legislation that were spot-on:

"A truly balanced energy bill would begin with the serious problem of record gas prices and reducing America's dependence on foreign sources of energy and then proceed with creating incentives that would unleash the power of American inventiveness and creativity in order to develop the next generation of energy technology and supplies. H.R. 6 relies on an outdated and failed belief that Washington knows best. Over 1,000 pages of legislative text contains little in the way of broad-based incentives, but is chock-full of new regulations and a higher tax burden, which will do little, if anything, for consumers. A better approach would get Washington out of the way and allow market-oriented solutions to provide for an affordable, diverse, and secure energy supply for America."
-- 17 December 2007

Another representative, Don Young of Alaska made a more ideological remark about the proposed legislation.

"I am wearing this red shirt today; it's the color of the bill that we are debating, communist red. It is a taking."
-- 23 January 2007

Anyway, back to Pete's article! It's probably just a coincidence this opinion piece came out the Sunday after a group of House republicans took to the floor of the house after the House had adjourned, to protest Pelosi not allowing an up or down vote on a bill that would allow more domestic oil production. Rob Bishop was the only member of the Utah delegation to join this group and I applaud him for standing on the issue like he did.

Where was Chris Cannon? Who cares? There's a reason he got tossed in the primaries and his absence almost says it all.

Jason Chaffetz

Pete threw a barb at Jason Chaffetz for going on a trip to Alaska telling the press he believes all our energy woes are attributable to the democrats. I agree with Pete that such a comment is, well, stupid. I went and looked for a media report on Chaffetz's comments. Sure enough, it's a pretty glaring comment and shows Chaffetz is, in some regard, just like every other person who has ever run for office and made vague, unsubstantiated criticisms of the opposition party.

"There's no doubt that Democrats are the problem. We've done what they've suggested, and look at the results -- since (House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi took over, gas prices have doubled,"
-- 18 July 2008

I know enough about the factors that have fed into the rising gas prices over the last five years to know that a Democrat majority in congress beginning January 2007 isn't to blame. However, I do think the factors that led to the Democrat Party wresting power from the Republicans is part of the problem.

That being said, Chaffetz was quoted in the same article saying something that reminded me why I'm glad I helped make him the GOP nominee for the congressional race:

"We have to explore every facet of development that's available -- wind, solar, hydro, nuclear -- we have to move forward on all fronts."

Pete's proposed solution... Re-run Carter?

Pete praised Jimmy Carter (which makes me a little worried about Pete) and his energy policy.

"It is more revealing to look further back to the much-maligned President Carter who, in 1979, during the first oil crunch, set goals for our country so we'd never see a second energy crisis. "Carter proposed that U.S. automakers attain a whopping 48-mile-per-gallon fuel efficiency by 1995. He demanded that we curtail imported oil by imposing fees. Finally, Carter proposed windfall taxes on oil companies to fund alternative energy and a goal of generating 20 percent of our power from solar by 2000. "

I think we now know solar power still isn't a viable source of "core" electric power. Otherwise, Pete would be running XMission on solar power, right? I've read some estimates that solar power might begin to be viable in as little as five years. I think it's fair to say President Carter's plan was a wee bit unrealistic.

And then there's Carter's "double-edged plan" to impose fees or tariffs on imported oil and then tax the heck out of domestic oil compnnies or penalize their profits.

I fail to see how this would have helped anything or how doing the same thing today would help anything. All this would do is hurt consumers more (with even higher prices at the pump) and possibly result in gasoline shortages.

Hurray for Jimmy Carter!

Oh, and while we're talking about windfall profits, consider that oil companies make about 8.5% profit. If that's going to be considered a windfall profit, what happens to companies in other industries like Publishing (34% average profit), Health Care Facilities (48% average profit), or Hotels (10.6% average profit)?!

Generally, I agree with Pete that we need to do something big, akin to the Apollo program or the Manhattan project, to get our country into a better energy situation. I also believe it will take years to accomplish the goal.

I believe the solution is for the government to get out of the way of business, within reason. Pete seems to think a massive government program is called for and he even insinuates that we may need a repeat of The Great Depression before the public agrees with him.

Maybe the ideal solution is something in between.

Levi and relief from gasoline prices

Levi criticized my claim that simple policy changes could lower gas prices to as low as $3.00/gallon or $2.50/gallon. That would represent a 33 to 42 percent drop in price. Yeah... Levi... I think you're right on this one. I don't know what I was smoking, but that's clearly quite a long shot.

That being said, I do believe that a combination of Summer driving season ending within the next month and, possibly, congressional policy changes on increased domestic production, could very well result in lower gas prices. Perhaps a more realistic estimate would be 10-15%. That would bring us down to the neighborhood of $3.65/gallon. You won't be hearing much complaining from me if that happens.

Levi, facts, media, and Glenn

One thing in Levi's comments really hit me hard:

"Most of my googling turned up articles reporting on opinion polls, which show that a majority of respondents believe that drilling for oil will reduce gas prices in the short-term. This, frankly, disgusts me. We're not lemmings, we should get facts and draw our own conclusions, not get our coverage of the issue solely based on some vague percentage of support in the polls. What a tremendous failure of the media!"

Levi's right. There's a symbiotic relationship between elected officials, public opinion, and media coverage of issues. The rise of a plethora of cable news sources, Internet news sources and more has resulted in news (and opinion) that is short on facts. In fact, it seems increasingly obvious that opinion makes the news as much as news does.

Levi has commented to me before that he thought a certain stance I had on an issue was indicative of "Glenn Beck thinking." I took that to mean he was inferring that I didn't really have a substantive opinion of my own on the issue, that I was just repeating what I had heard from talk radio.

Talk radio does get a bad rap for that -- that listeners are nothing more than lemmings or foot soliders lined up for marching orders.

I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh a lot. That was before I got hooked on Glenn Beck. Looking back, I think Rush is more of, dare I say, a shill for the Republican Party, than I was willing to admit. He's been very vocal about not liking John McCain this year and that would represent some independence from the party, but I think he's still quite beholden.

But Rush Limbaugh isn't the "blowhard" a lot of people like to make him out to be. If a caller phones into Rush's program and whines about this or that and says something like "Rush, I know we live in a democracy, but this is insane!" Mr. Limbaugh will stop everything and take five, ten minutes, however long it takes, to help this caller (and all the people listening) understand that we do not live in a democracy, we don't want to live in a democracy, and here's why: bam, bam, bam. He'll lay it all out and I have to respect the guy for using his forum to actually educate his listeners and not just indoctrinate them.

Anyone who has listened to (or watched) Glenn Beck for any significant length of time knows he's got a pretty cool team of researchers working for him on both his radio program and his TV show. They fact-check just about everything before it goes on the air. In addition, Glenn seems very sensitive about the typical talk-radio rumors that always go around. For example, lately it's that Barack Obama won't pledge allegiance to the flag, that he's not a Christian, etc. In fact, this last week, a guy called into Glenn's radio program to point out Obama's hypocricy in saying he was embarrassed that Americans don't know many foreign languages but that he delivered all his Europe speeches in English. Then, the caller thought it would be funny to add a little something. Read below and observe as Glenn deals with it.

CALLER: Well, you know, I'm not really sure about when he went to, oh, the Muslim countries. But I have a feeling he speaks their language, though.

GLENN: See, now wait a minute. I don't even know what that means. Why would you even go there?

CALLER: Well, because I'm just the evil conservative.

GLENN: Well, you know what? You know what? You give conservatives a bad name when you -- no, listen to me, Cliff.

CALLER: Okay.

GLENN: When you insinuate that Obama is a Muslim and he's not a Muslim, you give conservatives a bad name. You give people a bad name because that is the kind of argument where you lose immediately. You say something like that and nobody worth their salt listens to you anymore about what you have to say about Barack Obama. Don't say those things. There's no reason to say those things. You know what? You say something like that and then I stop looking to see if Obama ever, the elitist, ever did say, "You know what, you go over to other countries, I'm sick of these Americans" because I no longer believe you. I don't think you have any credibility at all.

--28 July 2008

To kind of get back on topic here, I admit a chunk of my opinion is shaped by what Glenn Beck says, but I'm willing to go with it because I know he (and his people) have done their work. Plus, Glenn encourages his listeners to learn for themselves and often gives them the sources where they can find the facts  themselves.

Facts to back me up

So, I went out looking for articles written by "experts" in energy policy and found a lot of what I was looking for at The Heritage Foundation.

• Supply, demand and gasoline prices by David Kreutzer, Ph.D.
• Oil speculators help consumers at the gas pump by David Kreutzer, Ph.D.
• Oil: Open up federal lands by Ben Lieberman
• No drilling? No excuses by Ben Lieberman
• More Energy Supplies, Not More Taxes and Regulations, Are What We Need by Ben Lieberman
• Lifting the Offshore Drilling Ban: A Positive Step in the Fight against High Energy Prices by Ben Lieberman

• Death of Reason, Again? - Article on windfall profits by Bruce Bartlett
• Oil Company Profits and Tax Collections: Does the U.S. Need a New Windfall Profits Tax? by Jonathan Williams and Scott A. Hodge of The Tax Foundation

Whew. I'm tired.

A couple weeks ago, Glenn Beck started doing a new bit on his radio program: "Battle Of The News Headlines" where he takes news headlines of the day about either Barack Obama or John McCain and pits them against one another. Then, after four or five of these headlines are revealed for each candidate, a winner is declared.

I found this to be hilarious and an ingenious way to demonstrate just how ridiculously biased (twiterpated, obsessed, etc.) the mainstream media is with B.O.

After hearing Glenn do this 3-4 minute bit for a couple of days, I came up with the idea of making some YouTube videos to go along with the audio of his show. And now, I've created video to go along with all eight of the "battles" aired so far. Enjoy.

• Battle #1 (16 July)
• Battle #2 (17 July)
• Battle #3 (18 July)
• Battle #4 (21 July)
• Battle #5 (22 July)
• Battle #6 (23 July)
• Battle #7 (24 July)
• Battle #8 (25 July)

On another note, while I'm editing these videos using a Windows application, I'm using open source software on Linux to edit the audio, create the graphic elements used in the video, and transcoding the video in preparation for upload to YouTube.

A couple weeks ago, Glenn Beck started doing a new bit on his radio program: "Battle Of The News Headlines" where he takes news headlines of the day about either Barack Obama or John McCain and pits them against one another. Then, after four or five of these headlines are revealed for each candidate, a winner is declared.

I found this to be hilarious and an ingenious way to demonstrate just how ridiculously biased (twiterpated, obsessed, etc.) the mainstream media is with B.O.

After hearing Glenn do this 3-4 minute bit for a couple of days, I came up with the idea of making some YouTube videos to go along with the audio of his show. And now, I've created video to go along with all eight of the "battles" aired so far. Enjoy.

• Battle #1 (16 July)
• Battle #2 (17 July)
• Battle #3 (18 July)
• Battle #4 (21 July)
• Battle #5 (22 July)
• Battle #6 (23 July)
• Battle #7 (24 July)
• Battle #8 (25 July)

On another note, while I'm editing these videos using a Windows application, I'm using open source software on Linux to edit the audio, create the graphic elements used in the video, and transcoding the video in preparation for upload to YouTube.

On Thursday, 17 July, I had the fortunate opportunity to be one of thousands who attended a special movie theater live screening of Glenn Beck's summer stage concert "Glenn Beck '08: Unelectable"

This was a first for Glenn Beck and, to my knowledge, the first of its kind. Glenn gave the performance to a sold out live stage theater in Dallas, TX. The performance was captured by about seven high definition video cameras, directed, and streamed to a satellite where it then went to 350 movie theaters.

I bought five tickets to the performance the first day they were available for Glenn Beck Insiders (about 4-5 days before they were available to the general public) to see the HD simulcast at the Jordan Landing Cinemark theaters in West Jordan, UT.

I don't know how big the other movie theaters were, but there were two sold-out theaters at the Jordan Landing Cinemark and they each probably seated 2-300 people. I' sure there were other theaters that were much larger.

I showed up a little more than two hours before the show was to start because the tickets were all general admission. I wanted to make sure our group had good seats and that we would be able to sit all together. There was one other person who had shown up before me, but she was in line for the other theater. So, I was the first person in line for theater #1. It wasn't long, however, before a handful of other people were in line behind me. Then, with over 90 minutes to go before Glenn went on stage, a young man came, told us we could begin seating, and showed us to the theater. I thought that was super nice because there was a pregnant woman in line behind me and I felt bad for her if she was going to have to stand in line for over an hour. Instead, she could relax in a theater seat.

I made some observations before the show. First of all, there were a lot of pretty attractive women there for the Glenn Beck performance, about half of which were pregnant. Also, the people were very friendly and very talkative, even with people they didn't know.

About 70 minutes before the show started, the projector came on and the dozen or so of us that were in the theater by that point were treated to a Windows "Active Desktop Recovery" dialog... in HD. It didn't inspire my confidence that the show was going to go without any snags.

After a couple minutes, however, the Windows message disappeared and was replaced with a young, pretty round-faced blonde with loop earrings holding a small seemingly homemade clapper board and she was opening and closing it in front of a pair of microphones about once every two seconds.

She was then replaced by a goofy-looking guy in need of a little orthodontic work (or maybe he was just had perma-grin from the excitement of being involved in something so... momentous) who did the same thing, but a little differently. His method of clapping the clapper board was just a little more... goofy. After a while, he was replaced by an older gentleman who had less muscle tone in his arms. It seemed harder for him to keep closing the clapper board and before long, he was replaced by a tall, intimidating fellow who repeatedly closed the clapper with great determination.

It was fascinating.

Twenty five minutes before 6:00, the Glenn Beck preshow began. This was just a slideshow presentation of funny trivia facts, pictures, and silly quotes. I didn't catch much of it because I was running in and out of the theater to meet the others in my group to get them their tickets.

Five minutes before six, a countdown timer appeared on the screen counting down the minutes and seconds "to Glenn." And then, there was a snow-filled screen and static noise.

On the screen appeared a man in an orange vest and an orange hat, like a construction worker or something, fist-bumping with three or four other people in a dark area. After a few moments of watching this, it became apparent we were seeing Glenn Beck backstage. He carried a plastic green toy assault rifle and walked out on stage as we followed, viewing him through the lens of a camera carried by a Steadicam operator.

The theater Glenn performed in was beautiful. It was smaller than I expected and looked more like a large stand-up comedy club than an opera house, an arena, or an auditorium (which I've seen Glenn perform in the last three times I've seen him live.)

Glenn started by introducing two "special" people in the audience. The first was Texas governor Rick Perry (who had perfect hair) and had to have been at least a little uncomfortable being an elected official at a show that was all about slamming "the weasels" in elected positions. The second was soldier/author/all around great guy Marcus Lutrell. Gov. Perry got some applause, but Marcus Lutrell got a standing ovation that went on for several moments. It was clear the audience loved this guy... and for good reason!

Once that was out of the way, Glenn jumped right into the comedy- talking about politicians that come out (as he had) wearing their "huntin' outfit" and carrying their gun that was given to them by a dear family member (never purchased, of course). Glenn said he thought people who don such ridiculous costumes to show the press they're in favor of the second ammendment make him sick and he took off the orange vest, orange hat, and the flannel shirt under the vest. Underneath was a light grey T-shirt with large black letters: "NRA." Hee hee.

The comedy went on for the next hour about politics, about Glenn's city government making ridiculous demands and imposing outrageous restrictions on what Glenn and his family can and can not build in their yard, about Glenn's experience traveling with a firearm through a New York area airport, and about stupid laws (Chico, CA will collect a $500 fine from anyone caught detonating a nuclear weapon within city limits.)

There was a short 15-minute intermission and Glenn came back on in a blue politician's suit and red tie and stood behind a podium with a "Beck '08" placard attached to the front of it.

The second part of the comedy show centered around what Americans (or at least Glenn-minded Americans) want to hear from their presidential candidates: the truth.

(The above picture was taken at a previous performance by another Glenn Beck Insider, but the gist is the same.)

The camera work was great. The timing was awesome. The comedy was the best I've seen of Glenn. My wife was a little... well, okay, very, disturbed by the number of times Glenn joked about wanting to kill someone with a gun.

The message in between the comedy was one about realizing the power in our country is not in Washington, not in your state capitol, not in your City Hall. It's in you! And it comes from God. Glenn encouraged the audience to read history, learn more about the founding fathers, learn more about the history of our great country, and never forget it is a great country worth fighting for, worth dying for, and worth saving from peril.

The message Glenn gave at the Freedom Festival Patriotic Service at Brigham Young University last month is essentially the same message, only without all the comedy mixed in.

So, all in all, I think it was a tremendous success and I congratulate Glenn and Company for a job spectacularly well done. They should be very proud of themselves. I'm certainly proud I could have participated in this special moment in history as an audience member at the first-ever Glenn Beck HD simulcast.

I should have attended this service. I definitely want to make a point to attend it next year, regardless of who is speaking, because of the way it made me feel to watch it.

KBYU has streaming video of the service. If you want to skip straight to Glenn Beck's speech, you can seek to 50-55% into the stream where Stephen Covey (yes, that Stephen Covey) introduces Glenn. 

Glenn shares some personal stories, stories from the history of our country, and some counsel for those "looking for a leader" in today's troublesome times.

Wow!

About a month ago, my hero Glenn Beck had actor, writer, artist, etc. William Shatner on his television program for an hour-long interview. I missed it and didn't record it so I was very pleased to find out it was re-run this last Friday and got snagged on my DVR.

Wow!

That interview was just amazing and, surprisingly, contained almost no Star Trek content whatsoever. There were some clips from Star Trek shown when they were talking about Shatner's reputation for "overacting" but that's about it.

What did they talk about for an hour if not Star Trek? Some politics, some philosophy, some Shatner history, and alcoholism (Shatner's third wife suffered from alcoholism and it ended up claiming her life.)

Maybe I enjoyed it so much because it was just an almost-informal hour of discussion between two of my favorite people.

It looks like some dude on YouTube has done the honors of capturing the entire hour in six parts. At least he a real job of capturing the video and didn't just smack a Flip video camera in front of the TV like I've seen some people do!

Here are the obligatory links:

• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 1
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 2
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 3
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 4
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 5
• Glenn Beck & William Shatner - Part 6

Get ready to be sick, twisted and freakay! Glenn Beck is coming to a "buttload" of movie theaters around the country on July 17 when his Dallas, TX live comedy stage show performance will be simulcast in HD nationwide to participating theaters.

Take it from someone who's seen Mr. Beck on stage a few times before, met him in-person, listens to radio show daily, and can't stop yakking about how Right he is... you won't want to miss this. Take your family, but make sure you invite someone who wouldn't normally go. You'll enjoy watching them pick their lower jaw up off the floor and wish they had worn Depends undergarments.

Tickets for this amazingly sick and twisted event go on sale a week from the day I'm writing this: Friday, 20 June 2008.

For more information, go here: http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/11224/.

Listen to any kind of syndicated talk radio program and you'll usually hear about some companion website the program has. Usually, there are a handful of free things you can get on a program's website, but many of these sites have a pay-to-play members' area where the really good content is. This includes MP3 downloads of the shows, access to live audio and/or video streams, special behind-the-scenes content, forums, desktop backgrounds, etc.

The MP3 downloads are very convenient for people who don't have the luxury of sitting in front of a radio (or driving a car) for a solid three hours while a radio program is broadcast (with advertisements). It's also a boon for people who find radio advertisements annoying.

The only problem with the MP3 downloads is that theme music and produced portions of the program can not, by law, be included in the MP3 file because otherwise the MP3 would be a copyright violation.

Live streams, on the other hand, are not subject to the above described restriction because they're like a broadcast in nature. They're not a time-shift of the original program. So, if you listen to the live stream or even listen to a pre-recorded program as a stream, music and produced segments may be included.

I listen to the Glenn Beck radio program quite often. I used to download the MP3 files to listen to in the car, but it got annoying everytime Glenn and his producers would put together a segment like "Sportscasters at the 2031 animal-human hybrid baseball games", or "The History Of the Democratic Superdelegates" and I would hear Glenn say, "Listen to this... [pause] Oh man! That was great! Wasn't that great, Stu? Oh yeah! Alright! Dan? Wasn't that just the best? Yeah. Oh yeah."

I decided I needed to figure out how to save a stream.

I knew it was possible. Lots of software applications exist for any operating systems that will convert audio from a live stream into a static WAV file or similar. The open source program mplayer is one such example.

Breaking it down

First of all, I needed to figure out how the stream content made its way to my computer.

After I've logged into the Glenn Beck website as an Insider, I can click a link to listen to a stream of a particular hour of the program (or the whole program) in Windows Media format or RealAudio format. I figured I'd have better luck extracting the audio from the Windows Media format, so I went that route. Instead of just clicking the link and letting my web browser find some program that could handle the content, I saved the content to a file and then looked at the file.

The file it saved was a fairly straightforward XML file that looked something like this:

<ASX VERSION="3.0">
  <TITLE>Glenn Beck</TITLE>
  <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>
  <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>

 <ENTRY>

    <TITLE>Glenn Beck 1</TITLE>

    <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>

    <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>
 

    <REF HREF="mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblah" />

    <REF HREF="http://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblahblah
  </ENTRY>

  <ENTRY>

    <TITLE>Glenn Beck 2</TITLE>

    <AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks</AUTHOR>

    <COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2008</COPYRIGHT>

    

    <REF HREF="mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603_CLIP01.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahblahblah" />

    <REF HREF="http://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/0011/6713/v08060322/glennbeck.download.akamai.com/6713/_!/shows/2008/06/03/GLENNBECKWIN20080603_CLIP01.WMA?auth=blahblahblahblahandblah" />

  </ENTRY>

...and so on.

This XML defines the MMS URLs for each segment of the show. There are several segments each hour. These individual MMS URLs are what I needed to feed to the application that was going to convert the audio stream to a file. In my case, I decided to use mplayer because it's just so good at everything it does!

The command line for doing the stream-to-file conversion looks like this:

mplayer -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:fast:file=dumpfile.wav \
    'mms://a0011.v67134.c6713.g.vm.akamaistream.net/blahblahblah...'

The real magic in the above command is where I use -ao pcm to tell mplayer to use the PCM file writer audio output driver (instead of sending the audio to my speakers).

This gives me a WAV file which I'll want to convert to an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file.

To convert a WAV file generated by the mplayer command above to an MP3 file, I use the open source lame tool:

lame -mf -q2 dumpfile.wav GlennBeck.mp3

Or, convert it to Ogg-Vorbis (the completely open and better-sounding-than-MP3 lossy audio codec):

oggenc -q2 --downmix -o GlennBeck.ogg dumpfile.wav

I've now covered the basic mechanical components of converting an audio stream into an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file. Next I automate it all.

Automation

Because I'm a long-time Perl junkie, I investigated how I could use a Perl script to act as the glue between the components and get the whole process of capturing a stream and converting it to MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis.

In the above walk-through, I manually logged into the Glenn Beck website with my web browser. To really completely automate this puppy, I wanted the script to log in for me. It didn't take me very long to figure out the Perl CPAN module WWW::Mechanize was what I needed to use.

WWW::Mechanize does several handy things for the programmer. It loads and parses web pages and can follow links, populate forms, and other basic kinds of interaction. It keeps track of its own cookies and session data too.

To get into the Insider area of the Glenn Beck website, members must enter their username and password on the Insider login page.

Looking at the HTML source for this page, I learned the form was named "aform", the username field was named "iUName", and the password field was named "iPassword".

I now had all the information I needed for WWW::Mechanize to log in:

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new(
    cookie_jar  => {},
);
   
my $resp = $agent->get('http://www.glennbeck.com/content/insider');
   
if($resp->is_success) {
    $resp = $agent->submit_form(
        form_name   =>  'aform',
        fields      =>  {   'iUName'    =>  'myusername',
                                'iPassword' =>  'shhhhhhhh!', },
        button      =>  'submit');

Walking through the code above: First, I create the WWW::Mechanize object with an in-memory cookie jar (cookie_jar => {}). Next, I use the object to get() the log-in page. If everything works well so far, I tell the object to find the form named "aform", fill in the username and password fields, and submit the form.

One thing I realized as I was debugging my script was that after I logged in on the Insider page, I was immediately redirected to another page. In order for my script to work, it needed to follow the redirect. This was an easy fix:

my $agent = WWW::Mechanize->new(
    cookie_jar  => {},
    redirect_ok => 1,
);

The page I got redirected to has the links on it for the streaming audio, so I'm exactly where I want to be if I want to capture and convert the latest and greatest Glenn Beck Program audio stream.

WWW::Mechanize can find links within the page with a variety of methods. One of these leverages Perl's excellent support for regular expressions. You can also search for links by the order in which they appear. The link I'm looking for looks like this:

<a href="http://www.premiereinteractive.com/cgi-bin/members.cgi?stream=shows/GLENNBECKWIN20080604&site=glennbeck&type=win_show"><img src="http://media.glennbeck.com/images/common/header_media5off.jpg" name="icon5" width="26" height="34" border="0" id="icon5" onMouseOver="MM_swapImage('icon5','','http://media.glennbeck.com/images/common/header_media5on.jpg',1)" onMouseOut="MM_swapImgRestore()" /></a>

So, my script has the following:

$link = $agent->find_link( url_regex => qr/${datestr}.*win_show$/);
$resp = $agent->get($link);

This assumes I have a scalar variable $datestr that contains a formatted date for the show I want to capture.

Originally, I was going to use one of Perl's several XML-parsing modules to make sense of the XML in the stream link, but in the end all I needed was a regular expression to extract the mms: URLs.

my $xml = $resp->decoded_content;
my (@urls) = $xml =~ m/HREF="(mms:[^"]+)"/msg;

This gives me a list of URLs stored in @urls. Now I just need to feed them to mplayer:

$i = 1;
foreach my $u (@urls) {
    my $seq = sprintf("%02d", $i);
    my @cmd = ( 'mplayer', 
            '-vc', 'null', 
            '-vo', 'null',
            '-ao', "pcm:fast:file=${datestr}-${seq}.wav", 
            $u);
    system(@cmd);
    if ($? == -1) {
        print "failed to execute: $!\n";
    }
    elsif ($? & 127) {
        printf "child died with signal %d, %s coredump\n",
        ($? & 127),  ($? & 128) ? 'with' : 'without';
    }
    else {
        printf "child exited with value %d\n", $? >> 8;
    }

    $i++;
}

This little ditty creates an output file for each of the segment streams. These are named something like 20080604-05.wav.

When the loop is finished, I have several WAV files sitting on the disk. Now I need to somehow sew them all together into one big WAV file so I can convert it to an MP3 or Ogg-Vorbis file. For this, I turn to sox. I decided to have the Perl script generate a shell script to run all the sox and lame commands needed.

open FH, ">/tmp/${datestr}.sh";
foreach my $j (1..($i-1)) {
    my $seq = sprintf("%02d", $j);
    print FH 'sox ', "${datestr}-${seq}.wav", " -t raw - | cat >> /tmp/${datestr}.raw", "\n";
}
print FH 'sox -w -s -c 1 -r 22050 ', "/tmp/${datestr}.raw ${datestr}.wav\n";
print FH "lame -mf -q2 ${datestr}.wav ${datestr}.mp3 ";
print FH "--tt \"Glenn Beck Show - $datestr\" ";
print FH "--ta \"Glenn Beck\" --add-id3v2\n";
close FH;

Then, I run the shell script:

system('sh', "/tmp/${datestr}.sh");

Finally, I do a little cleanup:

unlink "/tmp/${datestr}.sh", "/tmp/${datestr}.raw", map({"${datestr}-$_.wav"} (1..($i-1)));

And, I'm done. There are many other ways I could have gone about doing this, but I found a way that worked and ran with it. I'd love to hear from people who have done something similar and how they did it.

Do you remember when you were in elementary school and you learned that plants had some mysterious process that involved a substance called chlorophyll and energy from sunlight and it made them grow? Do you remember learning that plants emit oxygen and take in carbon dioxide, which is opposite of animal life like humans (we emit carbon dioxide and take in oxygen)?

If carbon dioxide is fuel for plants, having an increase of it in the ecosystem could result in more plant growth, you might think. I'd never heard anything reported about that until a couple days ago. I was listening to Glenn Beck's radio show and was talking to a scientist named Arthur Robinson who said, yes, several studies have shown a correlation between increased carbon dioxide and increased plant growth.

In addition, the conversation between Beck and Robinson touched on the Oregon Petition, another thing I had never heard of. The Oregon Petition is a petition signed by over 30,000 scientists, 9,000 or so of which hold doctorate degrees, which says, in a nutshell, "Global warming is a myth, a fraud, a lie, etc. and should not be the basis for government policy."

Considering that all of the three frontrunning candidates for the US presidency are in favor of sweeping policy changes in the name of global warming, it would appear to be up to us, as citizens, to raise awareness of these issues. "Cap and trade" policy is nothing more than hefty taxes on businesses which do nothing but funnel money into the government. On a global scale, these policies will seriously stifle technological development in less-developed countries and could result in widespread preventable loss of life!

I keep meaning to post some reviews of some of the books I've been reading, but it seems like I never do. So, to placate myself, I'm doing some quickie-reviews of a stack.

"An Inconvenient Book" By Glenn Beck

Oh, you were really surprised when you came across this book review, weren't you? Yeah, I'm a big Glenn Beck fan. Proof of just how nuts I am about Glenn Beck: I wrote a Perl script to convert the live streams on the Glenn Beck Insider site (which include bumper music and other types of material not fit for the "podcast" MP3s) into MP3 or Ogg files I can listen to when I want. Yeah. I'm a fan... a geeky fan.

Okay, so about this book... It is very, very good. In my opinion, this is how all conservative pundits and talk radio jocks should write their books. While a significant chunk of the book is about hot political issues like illegal immigration and global warming, there are chapters about less political topics... like going to the video store or tipping service staff. It's a pretty well-rounded capture of what goes on in the mind of the third-most listened-to talk radio host in all of America.

The layout of the book is also impressive: Every page is printed in 4-color process and the text is accompanied by charts, graphs, and humorous drawings/pictures that go along with the topic at hand. The designers also gave each page a seemingly unique watermark, or background, that gives it a well-handled, worn look- like maybe you've spilled a cup of coffee, or in the case of Glenn, a can of Coke Zero, on it, by accident.

From my perspective, as a rabid fan of Glenn's, I found the book a bit lacking in detail. That is, aside from the packaging of the book itself, there really wasn't much new here for me, content-wise, that I hadn't already read on Glenn's site, heard on his radio program, seen on his television program, or experienced myself at one of his stage shows. But... hey... I'm the exception here. If you've had some exposure to Glenn Beck or none at all, this book is an excellent way to jump in and find out what he's about.

Want to buy the book? Head over to Amazon and get it. It may be hard to find at your smaller local bookstore as it has been one of the top New York Times bestsellers since its release in November of 2007.

"The Real America" By Glenn Beck

Stop laughing, already. So, when I ordered something like six copies of "An Inconvenient Book," I went ahead and bought a copy of Glenn's previous book, "The Real America," which was written before I became turned on... uhm... exposed to Glenn (2003).

I enjoyed "The Real America" more than "An Inconvenient Book" because it's more about values and contains more personal history from Glenn about his battle to overcome alcoholism, his conversion to a member of the LDS church, meeting his now-wife Tania, and finding success in the world of talk radio.

There were parts of "The Real America" that made me put the book down and say "Wow," to myself.

A recurring topic with Glenn is "pivot points" -- significant events in a person's life at which things change. Glenn characterizes these moments as so memorable you can remember the song that was playing on the radio, or the pattern on the wallpaper in the room. This book gives you a unique insight into Glenn's personal pivot points and how he has been able to use these to make himself into a better person.

So, a little less humor and a lot more heart.

Buy it at Amazon.

"Twilight" By Stephenie Meyer

If you know anything about the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer, you know they're found in the "teen, fantasy" section and they're hugely popular among teens and young adults... especially girls.

How I came to read this book is quite interesting. I was searching Amazon for books on the development environment Eclipse so I could become more proficient with it at work when I ran across a link to the book "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer. It is the third book in the Twilight series. I couldn't tell what it was about, exactly, but a little digging told me that Meyer was a graduate of Brigham Young University, currently lived in Phoenix, AZ, and the series was about a young girl's relationship with a vampire.

I found that interesting, but I know vampire fantasy novels are almost a dime a dozen, right? I mean, Ann Rice popularized the genre quite a bit with the goth culture over the last twenty years and then you've got the popularity of films like The Lost Boys, the Blade series, and the television shows Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. Sure, it would seem there's plenty of interest in vampires, especially for young readers.

I didn't buy any of Stephenie's books at that time. I just ordered my Java and Eclipse IDE books and went along my merry way. Then, a couple days later, I was chatting online with my friend Jennie and she asked me, point-blank, if I had read the Twilight series of books by Stephenie Meyer. No, I replied, and before I could tell her it was interesting she asked because I just recently ran across the books online, she started yelling at me (as much as a person can yell in an instant messaging session) that I HAD to read them, they were absolutely awesome, etc., etc.

Within a couple days, I had a copy of "Twilight" in my hands, compliments of Jennie. She actually wanted Christine to read the book (because Christine's a girl, you see) and included a short note inside instructing Christine to go to Stephenie Meyers' website after she finished Twilight and "read Edward's version of Chapter One, but don't do it until you've finished the book!"

Christine wasn't really that interested. So, after a week or so, I decided to take a peek and started reading the book. Within minutes, the surface of my hands became like Gorilla Glue and my face grew blinders on each side of my eyes so that I could see only the pages of Twilight and nothing else.

It's a good book. It draws you in.

The story tells of Isabel (Bella) Swan, a junior in high school who moves to the Pacific northwest to live with her father in a small rural town. While attending high school there, she meets Edward Cullen, the member of a somewhat peculiar, but beautiful family. Bella eventually learns that Edward is a vampire, as is his entire (adopted) family.

Meyers creates her own breed of vampire and picks and chooses what characteristics to borrow from popular vampire lore. Meyers' vampires have no aversion to crosses or holy water; They don't die when exposed to sunlight (but they are affected by sunlight, which is why the Cullen family has settled in a small town in an area that gets very little direct sunlight); They can't (usually) control your thoughts.

That being said, vampires in Meyers' books are very dangerous. The Cullens are a rare group that have chosen to exercise self-control over their blood lust in order to coexist with humans, but they are the exception and not the rule. Meyers' vampires are effectively immortal and have superhuman strength (and speed).

Twilight is a gripping tale of suspense, mystery, teen drama, romance, and a little horror. It's not gory, but it's not sanitized either. I wouldn't recommend the books for anyone under the age of 12.

Incidentally, a film based on the book is currently in production.

Buy your copy today at Amazon dot com!

"New Moon" By Stephenie Meyer

Once you've read Twilight, you just have to read the second book in the series, "New Moon" because you're dying to find out what happens to Bella Swan. I didn't bother waiting to get Jennie's copy of book number 2. I just went out and bought it.

"New Moon" picks up a few months after the events at the end of "Twilight." Things are going pretty well for Bella and Edward, but then Edward mysteriously leaves and tells Bella to, in short, find another boyfriend.

The bulk of the book then follows Bella as she mind-numbingly tries to cope with the loss of her loved one and begins spending time with Jacob Black, a young Native American who is more of a friend of the family than a love interest (although, he doesn't quite see it that way). Bella doesn't admit it, but she's really using Jacob to exercise new masochistic impulses she has been developing since Edward left.

Good book, but nowhere near as good as "Twilight." If that was the end of the series, I'd say don't bother reading it, but it's not the end of the series. You have to read "New Moon" to understand what happens in "Eclipse," so, it's worth it.

Buy it, where else? A-Ma-Zon!

"Eclipse" By Stephenie Meyer

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

And now, we get to "Eclipse." I bought it at a Barnes & Noble in Los Angeles because that's where I was when I finished the second book.

The third book in the series makes up for the slowness of "New Moon" and, in my opinion, rises above both of the preceding novels to be the best of the crop.

Bella Swan, constantly occupied with becoming a vampire herself so that she can have immortality (and immortal love with Edward) finds herself caught between Edward (who obviously has come back), the affection of Jacob Black, the Cullen family, the less friendly non-human-coexisting vampires, and a pack of werewolves that exist to do one thing: eradicate vampires.

Oh, and she's also trying to finish and graduate from high school.

Yeah. Lots more action in this one. And, we learn more about what these vampires can and can't do, the history of the werewolves, the excruciating process someone goes through being "transformed" into a vampire, and some great history on the Cullens.

I thought this was going to be the end of the series because of the way the book ends, but book number 4 is coming to bookstores Fall 2008.

Get "Eclipse" at Amazon.com.

I've mentioned a thing or two about the book Liberal Fascism, but last week, Glenn Beck had author Jonah Goldberg on his TV program. I've uploaded the segments to YouTube for public consumption. Goldberg presents an interesting argument, not that liberals are Nazis as many accuse him of saying, but that progressive liberal movements such as those being pushed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, bear an eerie resemblance to fascist movements in history.

It pays to study your history or else you're doomed to repeat it.

View the video segments on YouTube.

Firefox 3 beta 2 came out this last week. After reading some of the press it has gotten, I decided to give it a try.

I went to the beta download page where there are several language options available for downloads built for Windows, Mac, and Linux. I selected the English (US) version for Linux and was given a bzip2-compressed tar file to download.

I would imagine a lot of less experienced Linux users would have no idea what to do with a tar.bz2 file as this is different than the way most common distributions package software (e.g. RPM files or DEB files.) I'll explain what I did to try Firefox 3 on my Linux system.

I downloaded the file to my /tmp directory. Then, I created a ff3 directory in my home directory:

shellprompt% mkdir ~/ff3

Then, I went into that directory and extracted the files.

shellprompt% cd ~/ff3
shellprompt% tar -xvjf /tmp/firefox-3.0b2.tar.bz2

At this point, I could run Firefox 3 by running ~/ff3/firefox/firefox, but I wanted something a little simpler, so I created a symbolic link in my ~/bin directory called ff3. Alternatively, you could use an alias command for this (e.g. 'alias ff3=$HOME/ff3/firefox/firefox').

shellprompt% cd ~/bin
shellprompt% ln -s ../ff3/firefox/firefox ff3

After that, I could run Firefox 3 by running the command ff3. I highly recommend you terminate any other Firefox processes (i.e. your distribution's Firefox 2 installation) so there's less possibility of the two fighting.

First impressions

It looks a little different, but not too much. All the familiar elements are still there. The first thing I noticed was the bookmark sidebar looked cleaner.

As I opened a few pages in different tabs, I noticed Firefox 3 does respond snappier than Firefox 2, confirming the reports that Firefox 3 employs much better memory management than previous versions.

Next, I checked out some of the cool features I'd read about, like the added functionality of the location bar.

This stuff is pretty dang cool! First of all, the location bar features a drop down button and an autocomplete feature just like it did before, but the drop-down list includes page titles and the autocompletion matches against titles as well! Again, the layout of this was markedly cleaner than similar features in Firefox 2 and the response was refreshingly snappy

Here's an image showing the new drop-down location bar list in action.

Next, an image showing the autocompletion matching against URLs and page titles. I typed ron p and several pages from my recent history were displayed in the location bar drop-down list. I'm not sure how they're ordered, though.

Another nifty feature of the Firefox 3 location bar is an even-easier way to bookmark pages with one click!. A small star icon is displayed at the right side of the location bar (next to the drop-down button). If the inside of the star is uncolored or white, the page is not bookmarked. If you click the star, the inside of the star becomes yellow and the page is bookmarked. Click the yellow star and a small popup appears allowing you to configure where the bookmark goes in your bookmark heirarchy. Very cool!

Here's a look at the unbookmarked location bar.

Below: The location bar after clicking on the star to bookmark the page.

Below: Clicking the "bookmarked" icon to activate the bookmark options dialog.

Another nifty new feature I discovered while preparing this post: When Firefox 3 displays a file upload form, simply clicking in the filename text box activates the file selection dialog. That's at least one less click!

I'll continue exploring this new beast and maybe report some more on what I find. So far, however, this is the most stable Firefox beta I've ever used and that's saying something.

I just finished watching the one-hour interview with candidate Dr. Ron Paul on Glenn Beck's show on CNN Headline News. I was very impressed with what Dr. Paul had to say. I agree with many who have said that he hasn't been given a fair shake by the media and they typically quote small snippets of his statements out of context and generally make him look ridiculous. The things he wants to do with the office of the U.S. President are radical, but they are good things and I am proud of the platform he's running on.

I haven't seen any video of the interview online yet, but it probably will begin showing up soon. In the meantime, if you did not see the show, you can read CNN's transcript of the show.

I just wish Mitt Romney or Barak Obama were saying the things Dr. Paul is saying. While he's spot-on with regards to the problems our country is facing and the solutions to those problems, he lacks the commanding leadership characteristics required to be “presidential.”

Yesterday was the Glenn Beck Christmas how at the E Center. The show was tremendous.

What not many people know is that I'm a Glenn Beck Insider -- part of a members only club that gets access to MP3 downloads of his broadcasts and access to a online discussion forum. Through the discussion forum, I organized an Insider get-together before the show. As we organized the event, a couple of the other Insiders indicated they might have a connection to Glenn's people and Glenn might be able to drop in for a few moments.

Well, it went about as well as it could have gone. I got to meet Mr. Glenn Beck, in person, for the first time. My impression: A tired, but sincere, genuine guy who is full of love for mankind.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm not sure I've ever felt so obligated to feel thankful for everything in my life as I do this year. What better way to express this than by posting a long-ass entry in my blog, right?

(Or, as our friends over at xkcd would say: "a long ass-entry".)

So, I've been creating a list in my head of things I'm thankful for, in no particular order.

I'm thankful to Robb Kunz at KnowledgeBlue for believing in the value Iodynamics could bring to his company and absorbing us so we can work together toward a common goal. It hasn't been the easiest thing for me to do, having been "my own boss" pretty much since 2003, but it has been a tremendous learning experience and II've tried very hard to keep looking at it as such.

I'm thankful to Thom, Adam, and Mike -- my colleagues and friends that shared the experience of running Iodynamics with me. They work alongside me now at KnowledgeBlue and I value their friendship, talents, and zeal. I'm also thankful to Stephen for working with us at Iodynamics. I'm glad we were able to teach him a lot of neat stuff and become great friends before he went off to teach for Guru Labs.

Dave and Chadd were instrumental along the way in making Iodynamics what it became, so I am very thankful for their contributions and for their friendship, which continues to this day despite the fact we no longer work together or see each other very often.

Where would I be today without Linus Torvalds and the open source community? I can't imagine where I would be. While I was a Unix person for a few years before Linux hit the scene, I didn't turn my back on the world of living under Bill Gates' thumb until Red Hat Linux was released. It's been about ten years now that I've been running Linux as my primary desktop operating system and twelve years I've been running it on servers as part of my jobs. While I would undoubtably still be doing something with computers had Linux not existed, I woudln't have been able to do the very cool things I've done and it woudln't have been as fun or as productive. Linux and open source software just rocks!

Before we leave the topic of Linux and the open source community, I want to shout out to some local folks that I'm very grateful for. Clint, for following through with the creation of the Utah Open Source Conference and the Utah Open Source Foundation and realizing a vision of a regional community of open source enthusiasts and supporters. Jayce, for his constant friendship and leadership.

I also can't go onto the next topic without expressing my thanks for the IRC community from the #utah channel on Freenode.net. The comradery and friendship I've enjoyed from #utah has been a great joy to me over the years. This has got to be perhaps one of the most fun, considerate, and polite groups of geeks I've had the opportunity to hang out with online in all my years on the Net.

I am very grateful to my church -- the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- and my local church leaders. I have been very standoffish in my participation in my religion for most of my life until this last year. While I'm still not a social butterfly as far as that is concerned, I have come to gain a much-needed new appreciation for the value of service to my fellow man during this last year. This began in April when I spent the entire day volunteering on Temple Square in Salt Lake City during the Spring session of General Conference. I was helping to direct vehicle and pedestrian traffic and over the course of the day, I saw thousands of fellow church members going to and from conference meetings and strolling about on the grounds of Temple Square. I came away from this experience with one very distinct impression: We are a beautiful people! I'm not just saying that because I saw a lot of pretty women (I did), but because just about everyone I saw was glowing, not just with happiness, but with a wonderful purpose. It was a subtle reminder that we're all in this life together and I can't think of a better group of people to be traveling through this life with.

I am thankful, of course, to my parents and my siblings. As I have grown older, I have realized two things: They are far from perfect; They are wonderful, good people. My mom and dad have been wonderful role models of service. Both of them are a lot more comfortable dealing with people than I am and it encourages me to get out of my shell. Many reading this may not know that my dad was a Utah state senator for twelve years when I was growing up. During that time, he worked hard to support the passage of bills that promoted conservative policies that were pro-Free Enterprise and personal responsibility. When I think back of some of the stupid ideas I had when I was younger and how tolerant my dad was of my misguided beliefs, it only increases my respect for him.

A couple years ago, I enjoyed listening to Jerry Doyle on the radio. He's a pretty cool guy, used to work as a Hollywood actor and now broadcasts his syndicated conservative talk radio program out of Las Vegas. His affiliate in Salt Lake removed his show and I was ticked off. I think they replaced him with Michael Savage who is angry, bitter, crotchety and not very satifying to listen to unless you are also angry, bitter, and crotchety. I wrote to the radio station to complain and, of course, got absolutely no response back. A few weeks later, my brother-in-law, Adam, asked me what I thought of this new guy they put in the afternoon spot Jerry Doyle used to occupy. I hadn't heard him, but I was happy they got rid of Michael Savage. Adam told me this guy was really funny, did a good show, and his name was Glenn Beck.

I gave Glenn a listen and was hooked immediately. In early 2006, I let my Rush Limbaugh 24/7 subscription expire and became a Glenn Beck Insider and a regular listener. It was also in 2006 that Glenn started up his TV show on CNN's Headline News and I was there from Day 1... even though the first episode really sucked. There were only about five of us that "got it."

Glenn's political philosophy mirrors mine almost perfectly and his re-embracing of religion in middle age is entirely relateable to me. His honesty, humility and sarcasm are refreshing. If I ever meet him in person, I'll probably bawl my head off.

In April of this year, right after radio personality Don Imus was fired for making a racial slur on the air, Glenn complained about the political correctness of the move without apologizing for Don Imus's comments. There was some talk of other prominent radio personalities like Glenn being taken off the air because their comments could be offensive to some people. Glenn took an extended vacation beginning April 16 but before he left, he appealed to his audience for more voices, not less. As he signed off he said, "You have your voice and others will start losing their voice if you don't start using yours."

I remember these words had a profound effect on me. I don't have a radio program, but I do have a couple ways of sharing thoughts with other people. One is this blog. Another is video. I decided I would work on creating my own brand of education and opinion through my blog and through my own video productions online. Thus, Solitary World was born. I haven't done much with it yet; Still trying to feel it out and find the best approach. I don't even know if it will be political, but it may be. We'll see.

I am very thankful to Glenn Beck... for everything he is and everything he does. Thanks, man.

Finally, there's my wife and kids. Sure, Glenn Beck is a nice guy and all, but if there was one person in this world who is singlehandedly responsible for me becoming a better person over the last decade or so, it's my wife. Her support (and tolerance) of me seems to have no boundaries. I don't know where I would be without her. I know it wouldn't be quite as nice as it is here.

My kids are wonderful and I can't be thankful enough for what the experience of being their earthly father has brought into my life. They are the most precious part of my life and I thorougly enjoy teaching them, guiding them, and helping them grow up.

If you've made it this far without falling asleep or bashing your computer into pieces, then have a Happy Thanksgiving!

If you've read any of my blog entries before, you know I'm a fan of talk radio host Glenn Beck. There have been a couple of recent developments in the Glenniverse lately.

First of all, The Telegraph -- a newspaper/website out of the UK -- ran a story all last week with their top-100 most influential United States liberals and conservatives. When Sean Hannity came in at number 44 and Bill O'Reilly showed up at number 82, I think most Glenn Beck fans expected he didn't make the list. On Friday, when numbers 1-20 were announced, Glenn showed up at number 18.

Here is the blurb they wrote about him:

That was cool, but then, over the weekend, the New York Times ran an article titled "A Folksy Guy, in Recovery, Is About to Land Millions" which talks about Glenn signing a new 5-year contract with Premiere Radio Networks reportedly worth 50 million dollars!

Sounds like Mr. Beck is doing pretty dang well for himself. On Monday's radio show, Glenn mentioned that, as part of the contract renewal, he brought many of the people he worked with as part of his radio and television shows who worked for other companies to work directly for him. For some of these people, they received 70% increases in their salaries. Everyone who works for Glenn gets the best health insurance money can buy and Glenn's company pays their premiums IN FULL. He also has a charity matching program in which he will personally match any donation to any charity by any of his employees.

Glenn's rise to success has taken about eight years. He mentioned in 1999, he could barely afford a $695/mo rent payment. He didn't say it in so many words, but seemed to imply that he attributes a great deal of his success to his faithful tithe paying as a member of the LDS faith.

So, it's been a great week for Mr. Beck.

In other news... I'm a Glenn Beck Insider. That means I have paid out some hard-earned cash to Glenn Beck's company so that I can have exclusive access to MP3s of his radio program, live streams, and other goodies. That's not the other news, however. As a member of the Glenn Beck Insiders program, I also have access to an online forums application where Insiders can discuss various topics. Now, I've never been a fan of web forums or bulletin board software, especially the PHP varieties that seem to be so prevalent online, but this community has really grown on me.

A few weeks ago, I found out about the Flat Glenn project. This was a project started by an Insider named Mae Lynn who wanted to start something akin to Flat Stanley in which a small, flat cutout of Glenn Beck was shipped from location to location in the United States to various Insiders. The Insiders would then take photographs of the Flat Glenn (affectionately called FG by most) at historic or noteable places. These pictures have been posted electronically to the Insider forums and to Mae Lynn's forums at flatglenn.com.

This sounded to me like a lot of fun, so I started asking around about it. I found out FG was bound for Utah, Logan to be exact, in a couple weeks and then would be going to Salt Lake. I had hoped to get my hands on him for a couple days, but discovered there's a LONG list of people around the country waiting for their chance to host FG in their town, so I'll just have to wait my turn to be a host. But I did hook up with FG's host, Gina, in Salt Lake City and met her at Temple Square for some picture taking.

Here's a picture of me, Gina, and Flat Glenn:

To see all the pictures that were taken of Flat Glenn in Salt Lake City, go here.

Wahoo! I got my tickets this morning for Glenn Beck's Christmas Show coming to Salt Lake City at the E-Center on Saturday, December 8. Insiders, subscribers to Glenn Beck's website, get first pick of tickets this week, but starting next Monday, tickets go on sale to the public.

I attended Glenn's Christmas show last year at Kingsbury Hall where he sold out afternoon and evening performances. It was a wonderful show and I can't wait to experience it again. It's a splendid mix of funny stories and Christmas spirit all mixed in with kick-ass lighting and multimedia.

This is a great show to go on a date to. Glenn's promised an extra hour as a special treat only for the Salt Lake City audience -- something he did last year too.

Check out this YouTube video about the show. See Glenn's tour page for more information about shows and tickets.

Look for me and Christine right up near the front!

Holy cow! Isn't it time for something already?!?!

Alright, I promised before I would deliver a review of the book, The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes. You can get this book from Amazon.com.

The Forgotten Man is a look at the events of the Great Depression in the United States during the 1930s from the perspective of policy. I found it to be a fascinating look into the lives and viewpoints of people who were involved in the landmark political events during this decade.

The book begins in 1927. Floods in the midwest caused widespread damage through a burgeoning heartland. Herbert Hoover -- Commerce Secretary for U.S. president Calvin Coolidge -- went to areas affected by the flooding to be of help. Hoover's presence on the scene of natural disaster like this set a new precedent of federal government involvement in disaster response.

Hoover was a paradox in the Coolidge administration and joining him in the Coolidge Cabinet was Andrew Mellon who served as Secretary of the Treasury. I'd heard of Andrew Mellon before. I think we all have. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grants funding for museums, performing arts, information technology and more. I'm sure I've heard the name a gazillion times announced as a major donor responsible for various public television programming.

I think Hoover and Mellon, personify the two core attitudes about policy in the late 1920s and going into the beginning of the Great Depression. Hoover's political philosophies were exemplified by his actions. He was an engineer who seemed to delight in architecting and managing solutions to problems. As a government official, he transferred that enthusiasm onto the government and a belief the federal government should be involved in helping people with big problems.

Hoover was elected president in 1928 and inaugurated in early 1929. In office for only a few months, Hoover presided over what became known as Black Tuesday in October 1929 -- the crash of the U.S. stock market many believe set off the Great Depression.

Like Coolidge, Hoover was a Republican. Hoover retained Andrew Mellon as his Secretary of Treasury, but Mellon had different policy ideas than Hoover. He was clearly more conservative and, as a result, became an unpopular figure as the country plunged into the worst economy ever.

Hoover was, of course, superceded by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 who then presided for an unprecedented 4 terms.

While Hoover was a moderate Republican who had leanings toward building a larger federal government with increased social programs, Roosevelt was a moderate Democrat who was popular among the rich business elite of the northeast.

While Hoover had smart businessmen in his camp to keep him somewhat tethered to more conservative policy, Roosevelt brought in clearly progressive and academic people to run the federal government with him. Roosevelt's cabinet used the Great Depression as an excuse to grow the government's role in people's lives. Many were fans of Joseph Stalin's rule in Russia and aspired to make the United States more like that country. This was, of course, before word got out that Stalin was slaughtering millions of people to "make things work."

The Forgotten Man traces the political, business, and personal lives of dozens of remarkable players during the 1930s. Besides the presidents and their cabinet members, outspoken religion leaders like Father Divine and business leaders like Wendell Wilkie are covered in amazing depth.

The book covers the contention between Roosevelt and the aging Supreme Court and Roosevelt's fuming animosity toward utility companies and the rich men that ran them, or pretty much any rich men at all. There were trials, witchhunts, and smear campaigns all orchestrated by the Roosevelt administration against men who had lost much of their wealth after The Crash, but still had more money than most people.

After reading this book, I think F.D.R. did a horrible job of managing the country during his first two terms in office. This book doesn't really expose much of Roosevelt's third and fourth terms, but we know Roosevelt is revered as a hero that helped The Allies win World War II. Before that, however, he seemed to have no clue how to effectively dictate healthy domestic or foreign policy.

I found out about this book after hearing about it on Glenn Beck's radio show. Glenn found this book particularly relevant today because the conditions of the financial markets today is similar to conditions prior to Black Tuesday. It is a frightening prospect to think we could see such an extreme and disasterous downturn in our economy and possibly see the country plunge into another lengthy depression. This book illustrates the best cure for a depression is not a leader that tries to bring government services to every man, woman and child, but a leader who will exercise conservative economic policy and limit federal spending.

Prior to reading this book, I really didn't know much about the political struggles of the Great Depression. All I really knew about F.D.R. was related to his wartime years. I generally believed stupid financial markets, bankers, traders, etc. were largely responsible for the Great Depression. Now... not so much.

Highly recommended reading for all Americans.

I was watching tonight's episode of Glenn Beck's TV show and his last segment featured a young lady as a guest talking about her 300-page iPhone bill.

I found the transcript for the show here and share it with you now:

Wow.

As for Justine Ezarik... just Google her to find her vlogging, blogging, flogging, etc. sites.

It's nice to find someone more narcissistic and "jacked in" than me so I can point my finger at her and laugh.

Fozzout.