ShowMeBlog

238 Presidential Scholars: Bush worst president

Dick comments on "238 presidential scholars: Bush worst president of modern era, fifth worst in US history."

"Gosh - I've been reading that Bush was the all time worst and this gaggle of scholars has him in fifth worst position all time -but yes worst in modern era.   So you differ with the 238 scholars on the details but the essence is that Bush was bad.
I'm going to guess he fares better long term but never very well.  And it is too early to say anything about Obama. He's victim of an attack from the right such that he'll never be "revered" but even Roosevelt had a hard core that hated him and those that still do while others put him in the top rank."  Dick

    Well those scholars should know about some of those presidents from the past.  I would not try and debate them on those guys from history and so I can go with their placement of President Bush.  Just as long as we all agree that President Bush was the worst president of the modern times.
    I do not think that President Bush will improve in standing over the years.  I think the only way he will move up is if we have some presidents worst than him and hope and pray, for our nation, that does not happen.  I also do not see how we could have a president worst than him.
   Yes, it is to early to make any decision on President Obama.  I have not seen anything yet that would make me think he would be one of our great presidents.  It might happen but I have not seen anything during these two years.  He is no FDR and no Harry Truman.
   God, I wish he was a Harry Truman.

Happy Father's Day

"Father's Day is a day honoring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. It is celebrated on the third Sunday of June in 55 countries and on other days elsewhere. It complements Mother's Day, the celebration honoring mothers. It is a widely known celebration…"

 

  The above card was made by my oldest daughter a long long time ago.  I am sure fathers and mothers around the world have cards, little gifts and notes and stuff like this put away someplace.  Moms and dads now days are very lucky..They can have photos and even videos to save and look at later in life to bring a smile to their face and a tears to their eyes. 

WordPress vs Blogger

  I set up a new blog on Blogger.  I will not give you the url yet because I do not have it set up good or any content.  I talked here about which is the best free site to set up a blog.  
  I said I loved WordPress but I use the self hosting one and not the free WP home site.  The "free" WP site hosting is great but if you want to have a good site there are a few extras that you want to add that they have a small fee for using.
  Blogger appears to be 100% free.
  I do see a problem with Blogger. There is no way to import an old blog.  So I can not import my old Howard's Notebook or import the content from ShowMeBlog.  If you already have a blog set up and you just want to move it there then you got a problem.
  With TypePad, WordPress and other sites you can move your data.

 
  So if I were a  person that did not have a blog and wanted to start one which hosting service would I use?  I would say it would be;  TypePad, WordPress or Blogger.
  If I already had a blog and I wanted to move the data over to a new service it would be TypePad or WordPress.
  Now TypePad is a pay site.  Over the years I have paid them close to $800.00 I am guessing. 
  I do not have a problem with paying for good service. I know many of you have the idea that things on the www should be free. I understand that feeling…I was around before the start of the www during the bulletin board days.  I ran a free bulletin board system from 1982 to 1995 and then I moved the BBS to the www.
 
  In the documentary "BBS: The Documentary" there is a lot of discussion about pay vs free systems and services.  I am in that documentary.  Yes, I am a movie star!  Smile

 

  A lot of "SysOp" and others are in the documentary.  I am only in it about three times and only for about a few seconds each time.
  It is a three DVD documentary.  Who do you think gets the biggest laugh out of the entire documentary?  Yes, my friends your humble blogger here Jim Howard.
  I was at the first screening in CA and Jascon Scott told me that I was the funny man of the documentary.  Smile

CNet version of Who's The Father of the Blog?

  Many years ago CNet posted a story asking "Who's The Father of the Blog?"  Then they answered their own question. 
  They got the answer very very wrong.  They say that blogging started in 1995 or 1996.
 
  I know I was blogging in 1982.  There may have been others blogging at the same time I was blogging or even before me.  But I know one thing for sure… I was blogging in June of 1982.
  I was even written up in a national magazine in 1984.

  Here is a reply I just made to their story:

 

"by hnbbs June 8, 2010 9:01 AM PDT

I was doing a blog in June of 1982. I was blogging at my site Howard's Notebook, a BBS, until the world wide was invented in 1995 and then I moved it to the web. It is still going. I have been online 24/7 since 1982.
In March of 1984 Ric Manning wrote in "Link-Up" magazine about my site. Part of what Ric said is; "...One of the menu choices is a chatty letter from Howard that discusses his latest tinkering with the system or his opinions on the general state of BBS communication. Another menu choice reviews excerpts from Howard's fan mail, and a third contains information on computer groups, local BBS numbers and computer ham networks..."
Folks I say that was a blog and that was the birth of Howard's Notebook. I say I am the father of all blogs and the inventor of the blog!
You could even dial into my blog and from a list pick information and then my system would dial out on another modem and phone line and connect you to the other site.
I think my site has all the marks of a true blog. Now there may have been others doing it at the same time and even before me..I do not know of them...
The one fact I do know is that blogging was NOT invented in 1995 or 1996. I was blogging in 1982.
www.hnbdo.com www.showmeblog.com"

  If you want to add your comment to my comment the link is HERE.
If you think you invented blogging or were blogging before 1995 feel free to leave a comment.
  If you think you know who the father of blogging is then feel free to tell CNet because they think blogging was invented in 1995. 

Comments about me from 01/02/2004

  I was looking at how people found their ways to ShowMeBlog.  I do that often.  I found a link from www.disclaimerband.com from Friday, January 2, 2004 and this is what the author wrote:

“Jon just sent me a link to a rather sad web journal: Howard's Notebook. It's written by a 63-year-old nudist from Texas, and it's very interesting. I've read all the posts since last October, and this struck me as the most depressing passage: "I got a can of Coke out of a vending machine and when I opened it ..it was warm and coke flew all over me.. So the bugs [were] after me on the way back home for sure.."

I also liked this bit: "I went to Wal-Mart and spent $60.00 on food and stuff like that... I got a rug for the bathroom.. there is a dirty looking one on the floor. Well it is glued down or something. I just put the new one on top of the old one."

I don't want to sound condescending or mean about this guy's journal, mind you. It's not like that site I posted last summer, where the people of Tupper Lake, New York congregate to gossip and slander one another; something that demands to be laughed at. This guy's just talking about his life, and happens to be in a situation that's not ideal. (You'll see what I mean.) And lots of the posts are about computer equipment, website fundraising, or current events- he doesn't spend page after page complaining about things like certain other web journals I could name... Actually, he seems to have a pretty upbeat attitude given the fact that he has to share a house with his belligerent ex-wife, and I admire that, bleakly funny as it is. But he records the sad things that happen in his life with such a fascinating existential detachment that it reminds me of something Chris Ware would write. I wish I could discipline myself to write like that, but I'm too infuriatingly enamored of my own wordy "cleverness" to ever strip things down that much.”

Show Me a Socialist

  Fox News, Glenn Beck and every conservative blog is yelling about all the Socialist running around the United States.  I just have one question.  Where are they? 
  I am 69 years old.  I have never seen an American Socialist! 
  I have been a liberal Democrat all my life.  I never have seen a Socialist.
  One summer I joined the Green Party because I was fucking a 24 year old Green Party member.  (I was 49 years of age and she was 24! You can understand why I had to join right? ) But I never found a Socialist not even in the Green Party.  Yes, Glenn the Green Party believe in "social justice."  If you are  Catholic or Jewish you believe in social justice.  In fact if you are a good Muslim you believe in social justice.  Only in the United States could someone believe in Christianity and not believe in social justice.  You know what Glenn you are a fucking idiot.
  
    Sorry, Charlie I have never met a socialist.  President Obama is NOT a Communist and not a Socialist.  If you think that President Obama is a Socialist then you have the brain of a tuna.

    I had a very good friend that was a member of the John Birch Society.  In fact when he heard the first news of John F. Kennedy being shot he called me on the telephone to make sure I was watching the news.  (I called my friend every name under the sun and then hung up on him! I was a little upset and blaming the right wing at that time.)

  I knew and worked with a very nice guy that was a member of a right wing Missouri
militia unit.    But I never met a Socialist.

  OK let me repeat myself again… I have never seen a Socialist.  I been looking every where for them.  I look under my bed every night because Fox News tells me that they are taking over the United States.  I can not find even one.
  I have lived in CA, MO, FL and Texas.  No Socialist.  I spent an entire summer in Council Bluffs (Iowa) No Socialist.  I spent an entire summer in Barnwell (South Carolina) in 1953 and saw lots of burned crosses  all around the area so the KKK had been busy.  But you know what?  NO Socialist!
  Hell my mother's father had been a member of the KKK! But we never had a Socialist in the family.

  OK, who the fuck is hiding them?  Fox News and Glenn Beck say the entire United States is filled with them and they are in government … Is Fox News hiding them?  
  I smell something rotten in Denmark.  Who the fuck is hiding them?
Someone is hiding the Socialist or Fox News and Glenn Beck are full of shit!

  Wait a minute…Wait a minute…I did not check under my bed tonight.

April 17th 2010

  On April 17th 1961 do you know what you were doing?  I know what I was doing.
On April 17th of 1961 armed Cuban exiles backed by the CIA invaded Cuba.  They landed at the Bay of Pigs and were attempting to overthrow the Cuban government.  They expected the Cuba people to rush to join them.  It did not happen. 
  I was 20 years of age.  When I heard the news I turned on my shortwave radio and tuned into Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Swan and other shortwave stations. 
I can remember later in the day tuning again into Radio Havana Cuba and listening, I do not speak Spanish, and waiting for the freedom fighters or the Cuban people to break into the station and take it over.  That did not happen.

  Bay of Pigs Invasion

  I got a QSL (confirmation of reception) from Radio Swan in the form of a letter from Gibraltar Steamship Company (CIA front organization). 
  All my QSL cards were lost years later.  I was married, at the time, and my wife did not like me spending anytime doing anything unless it was time with her.  Well she "accidently" knocked all my QSL cards on the floor of the laundry room and our washing machine leaked water.  They all got wet and I just tossed them out.  I miss my QSL cards.  I had a QSL card for Sputnik 1, Radio Free Dixie, WRUL and many other stations. 
  In case you are wondering…The QSL cards were in a big manila envelope at the time and it fell on the floor of the laundry room.  It laid on the floor of the laundry room for a number of days before I went to the room and saw it on the floor. My wife had done the laundry a number of times.
 
  My wife did not only object to my shortwave listening…She objected to me having a couple of pen pals.  I had a pen pal (male) in Japan and a pen pal in Spain (female) and they had both been pen pals with me since we were in grade school.  I got married at 26 years of age and Darlene just loved me so much and wanted us to spend all of our time with each other..So to make her happy I gave up the two pen pals.  Then 12 years later when Darlene wanted a divorce she told me that she never loved me and never found me attractive.
  I then wished I had my QSL cards and my two pen pals.  Smile

Did you call mom and dad by their first names?

  I think for a fat (208 pounds) bald old (69 years of age) man I am in pretty good shape.  I did have chest pains, and bad ones, for years but it turned out my heart and the rest of the system is in great shape.  I guess not drinking water and flooding my system with Coke must have flushed out my system.  Smile
  I have very little chest pain now.
  Now I do have an big fat prostate.  Do not laugh about it.  If you are a man you can look forward to the same thing. 
  I am very tired and weak.  I think it is the prostate and high blood pressure medications I take.  I also think the lower my BP goes the  weaker I get.  But it makes my doctor happy if my BP is low.
I can not look at Jim (my father) and Betty (my mother) and get an idea about what my health is going to be like.  Both Jim and Betty, I always called them by their first names, were heavy drinkers and smokers.  I do not drink and do not smoke and I never did.
  I would have got a lot of second hand smoke from living with Jim and Betty.  Plus I was a welder for ten years.  You breath a lot of smoke when you are a welder.

  I have a question for you all.  How many of you called your mother and father by their first names?  That seems sort of strange to me now. I did it all my life.

RadioShack's ZIP code hypocrisy kills merger - All Salon - Salon.com

"FORT WORTH, Texas. A rumored acquisition of RadioShack Corporation (RSHL:NYSE) sent the company's stock higher on Friday, but the suitor walked away from the deal over the weekend when the consumer electronics company refused to disclose its ZIP code..."

via www.salon.com

  Salon site has a funny story about Radio Shack.  If you know Radio Shack and want to read some humor check it out.

Decision makes schools chief loathed and loved - CNN.com

"STORY HIGHLIGHTS Inside embattled district, superintendent faces lonely battle after firing staff"I never anticipated this," superintendent Fran Gallo saysUnion unleashes wrath on Obama; Gallo finds an Obama effigy in classUnion chief: "Central Falls is a test case for the rest of the United States"...

via www.cnn.com

  You may wonder where I stand on this matter.  I have been a union member in the past (when I was a welder).  When I worked hospital security I stood up a number of times to administration at a number of different hospitals.  I made big waves. 
  The point I am trying to make is that I am a big union supporter.  I always was and will always be.. When I was a kid I helped my father right wrongs in his union.  Both my father and mother were union members.  In fact all three of us were in the same union.  
  OK ... I am going to surprise you.. on this matter.. I think Fran Gallo is right and a hero.  
  When you are working at the worst school in the state.. union or no union you have no legs to stand on...With the stats that the school has .. there is no defense.
  I understand how unions work.. But at that time and at that place .. The union should have said.. to the administrator we want to improve things and make this the best school in the state and we will WORK with you 100%.  What can we do to fix things at this school.  We are with you.
  It appears they did not.  It appears they walked in and sat across the table and said we are LABOR and you are MANAGEMENT we will listen to what you want and then we will tell you what we will accept and what are DEMANDS are.  That is how I picture it happening.

  Do I feel sorry for those employees.  Yes.. I have been fired by the way.  I know what it is like.  I was fired from a union welding job and I was fired from a job were I was a hospital security officer (in fact I was a supervisor).  In the case of the firing at the hospital I was all set to transfer out of security and into the bio-med department.  It was a dream job for me. I was looking forward to it. The paper work was all filled out and the first opening I was going to get.  But the director of security was a big racist and he and I had gone around and around on the subject. He pulled another racist event and I went after him.  He fired me.  (By the way.. in case some of you are wondering .. NO I am not black.)
  So I feel for everyone of those employees... even the bad teachers in the group.  But if I had been the school administrator I would have done the same thing.  
  Up to 50% of the fired employees can be hired back.  I am not sure I would hire any of the teachers.  The not teaching employees I would hire back first before I looked at hiring any teachers. There are of course lots of things you have to look at... It must be a small town.. Where are you going to get an entire school full of teachers?