NGC 4921...

Fantasic composite of 80 separate Hubble telescope images:

NGC 4921 is one of the rare spirals in Coma, and a rather unusual one — it is an example of an "anaemic spiral" where the normal vigorous star formation that creates a spiral galaxy’s familiar bright arms is much less intense. As a result there is just a delicate swirl of dust in a ring around the galaxy, accompanied by some bright young blue stars that are clearly separated out by Hubble’s sharp vision. Much of the pale spiral structure in the outer parts of the galaxy is unusually smooth and gives the whole galaxy the ghostly look of a vast translucent jellyfish.

I'd love to have a wall-sized poster of this!

I Want Some TARP!

Laugh or cry? You decide...

SDWISP...

Executive Summary: SDWISP is the real deal. If you need high-speed Internet access and you're within SDWISP's service area, call them – their stuff works, it's reasonably priced, and the service is great.

The slightly longer version:

If you live in Lawson Valley, Harbison Canyon, Lee Valley, Peutz Valley, or Dehesa, you've most likely noticed the little signs popping up everywhere promising high-speed Internet access by a company called “SDWISP”. We've seen these signs come and go before, sometimes by satellite Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and sometimes by salespeople for DSL ISPs who didn't know (or care) that DSL couldn't reach out into our valley. So there's good reason to be skeptical of the claims of low-cost, high-speed Internet access.

For almost nine years, up until late December, we had satellite-based Internet access. Years ago it was a very expensive technology by Tachyon that my company paid for; more recentely it's been a reasonably-priced ($79/month) service from WildBlue. Those services worked just fine, and beat the heck out of dial-up – but they suffered from a problem caused by the laws of physics. The problem is that the satellites they use are geosynchronous satellites parked in orbits 24,000 miles overhead. The radio waves from the satellite modem take about a half second to travel from my house to the satellite and back down to Earth. So when we try to browse to a web site, it takes about a half second to tell the web site we want to look at it, and then about a half second before the first bits from the web site come back to us. That slowness (called “latency” in the technical jargon) makes web browsing on satellite connections feel much slower than it does with a nice, high-speed terrestrial connection.

Enter SDWISP (which means San Diego Wireless Internet Service Provider). SDWISP is the brainchild of Eric Williams, a local tech (based in La Mesa) who's an expert on telephones and communications technology. He knew about the existence of relatively low-cost, point-to-point radio-based digital links, and he had the brilliant idea to combine those links with low-cost, high-speed wired access to provide a service for the remote valleys of San Diego County. Here's how it works for little Lawson Valley: Eric has a ground station in Crest that has a high-speed wired connection to the Internet. He put up a high-speed radio link from that Crest location to a location high on a hill on the south side of Lawson Valley (which just happens to be straight uphill from my home!). This location in Lawson Valley has a direct line-of-sight to Crest, so the radios can “see” each other.

The final bit is a short-range radio link between my home and that location on the hill above Lawson Valley. This radio link uses technology very similar to the 802.11 WiFi links that laptops all use these days. So now when we browse the web, our requests travel from our house about a quarter mile up the hill, from there they hop about 10 miles over to Crest, and from there they enter the wired Internet. End result: we're getting broadband, low-latency Internet access that is quite equivalent to what you'd get with a DSL connection down in the big city, and at a very comparable price. SDWISP has a number of pricing plans, depending on your need for speed. We chose a middle-of-the-road plan at $59/month that gives us over a megabit per second of download speed. Very nice!

We've been using SDWISP for about six weeks now, and we are simply delighted with it. Part of the attraction is the obvious one: better Internet connectivity at a lower price is a compelling proposition. But there's another attraction as well: SDWISP is a locally-operated small business operation, run by a local entrepreneur (Eric Williams). Eric has the classic mindset of every successful small businessman: he knows that the key to his success is happy customers, and he works very hard to get them happy and keep them that way.

Here's one example out of my own experience. As you read this, imagine what the same experience might have been like with, say, Cox Cable...

I've had a weather station operating in Lawson Valley for five years. This weather station is located about an eighth mile from my home, and communicates with my computers over a wireless link. In late December the weather station stopped working. I figured the battery died (the thing is solar powered), so I bought and installed a new battery. It was still dead. About that time it dawned on me that the weather station had stopped working right about the same time that we had SDWISP installed – so it occurred to me that the two wireless technologies might be interfering with each other. So I gathered some information about the wireless technology used by the weather station and emailed Eric at SDWISP to ask him whether his equipment might be doing this to me.

In very short order, I had my response: yes, it could be the SDWISP equipment. In fact, it most likely was his equipment, as it was configured to use a very similar frequency as the weather station. Eric offered to change channels on his equipment to one that was not adjacent to the weather station – and he did so that very evening. Presto! My weather station is back up, and my Internet connection is just as great as it was.

To borrow someone else's phrasing, SDWISP has been very, very good to me. I recommend it to you as the first reasonably priced broadband terrestrial Internet connectivity that's ever been available to those of us who live out in the boonies of San Diego County. Now we can enjoy the same Internet technology as those city folks, while living out in the beautiful chaparral...

Watermelon Art...

Amazing!

Your Morning Political Chuckle...

The People's Cube pointed me to a collection of “proverbs” from IowaHawk – which the People's Cube then parodied.

A few samples from IowaHawk:

“Give a man a fish, he will eat today. Promise a man a million fish, he will contribute heap big wampum to your tribal election campaign fund.”
Iroqouis

“While the polar bear bickers with the seal, that fat asshole walrus snarfs all the fish.”
Inuit

“All around us is a dream; the sky above and land we walk. Kangaroo dung is the nightmares.”
Aborigine

“The man who builds his well at a distance soon laments when his wife’s mustache catches fire.”
Khazhak

And from the People's Cube:

All good things are either illegal, immoral, or lead to obesity.
(Kennedy family proverb)

Surely you can fool all the people all the time.
(Proverb of the mainstream media)

To err is human, and we use this faculty frequently and with much pleasure.
(Proverb of the US Congress)

All work and no pay makes Jack an exemplary citizen.
(Proverb of Obama's Economic Recovery Team)

If toast falling off the table always lands butter-side down, it is safe to presume that toast buttered on both sides will stop and hover in midair.
(Proverb of Obama's Economic Recovery Team)

All that glitters must be taxed.
(Proverb of the Ways and Means Committee)

Heh! Go read ‘em all!

The Old Man Wonders...

From my sister-in-law Gina:

I took my dad to the mall the other day to buy some new shoes.

We decided to grab a bite at the food court. I noticed he was watching a teenager sitting next to him. The teenager had spiked hair in all different colors: green, red, orange, and blue.

My dad kept staring at him. The teenager would look and find him staring every time.

When the teenager had enough, he sarcastically asked, "What's the matter old man, never done anything wild in your life?"

Knowing my Dad, I quickly swallowed my food so that I would not choke on his response; knowing he would have a good one. And in classic style he did not bat an eye in his response.

"Got drunk once and had sex with a peacock. I was just wondering if you were my son."

Zach and Zoe...

From my brother Mark:

Just wanted to share...

This is Zach (at right)

Zach is bred for show (not field). Zach is large, larger than his sister Zoe by about two inches in height and about 10 pounds. Zach is basically a quadraped tank. Zach is not as fast as his sister. And, Zach doesn’t have near the “moves” of his sister. But ... if Zach catches his sister, or they play tug of war, or there’s an argument over a toy – Zach wins.

The yellow (left) is his sister Zoe (Zo-E).

Zoe is bred from a long line of field champions. Zoe is a very gifted diver (yes, the pool you see there is 32 feet in length and she can clear two thirds of it on the fly WITHOUT being on a platform like those woosie dogs on ESPN!). Anyway, Zoe is lightening fast and has moves that would make Dwayne Wade cry.

Below is my story from today.

So…

Today we got about 3 inches of snow on the ground. If you have Labrador retrievers at home, you know what an incredible event snow is in their lives. Anyway, I’m sitting at my desk typing away this morning. There is a window to my immediate left that overlooks the back yard. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash – it’s Zoe. Very shortly behind her is Zach (and he’s gaining on her). Zoe runs straight for the chain link fence that separates my property from the neighbors (as if she KNEW what was going to happen – I swear!). Zach is on her ass, I mean not a foot and a half away from her.

They are running directly at the fence as if they are both going to T-Bone the fence…

At the last millisecond, Zoe makes an INSTANT 90 degree turn and TURNS AROUND (as if she KNOWS what’s going to happen next). Zach can’t stop. There is just too much bulk, too much muscle, too much inertia. Zach SLAMS into the chain link fence. He hit in the center of the fence between the supporting posts. The energy of the impact actually made the chain link fence act like a horizontal trampoline. The fence absorbed Zach’s energy and proceeded to eject him back into the yard. He only flew for about 3 or 4 feet, but he slid along the snow real good and came to a stop on his back.

Zoe just circled him, taunting him, until he got up, shook, and proceeded to run after her again.

I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Anyway, no moral to the story. Just wanted to let you all know the highlight of my day.

Go pet your dog.

Divorce...

From reader Simi L.:

We Want a Divorce

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists, Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950s, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile, chalk it up to irreconcilable differences, and go our own ways.

Here is a model dissolution agreement. Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by land mass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

We don't like re-distributive taxes so you can keep them. You are also welcome to keep the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA, and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore, and Rosie O'Donnell (you are however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart, and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies, and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan Hockey Moms, greedy CEOs, and Rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .

You can make nice with Iran , Palestine , and France , and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or way of life are under assault, we'll protect them militarily.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian Values. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, and Shirley McClain. You can have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill. We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks, and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volvo, Subaru and Yugo you can find. You can give everyone healthcare, that is if you can find any practicing doctors (that is “practicing”, Howard Dean) who will follow to your turf. We'll continue to believe health care is a luxury and not a right.

We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and The National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach The World To Sing, Kum Ba Ya, or We Are the World.

We'll practice trickle down economics, and you can give trickle up poverty its best shot. Since it often so offends you. we'll also keep our History, our Name, and our Flag.

Would you agree to this? In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR on who will need whose help in 15 years.

I want to laugh, but I can't...

Orlosky's Retrial Commences...

Via 10News:

Joseph Robert "Bob" Orlosky, 57, is charged with voluntary manslaughter, two counts of attempted voluntary manslaughter and shooting into an occupied vehicle in connection with the Dec. 1, 2006, shooting that took the life of Charles "Chuck" Crowe.

If any of my readers are attending the trial, and would like to publish updates, I'd be happy to provide the service...

Many earlier posts on this subject are here.

The Bagpiper at a Funeral...

From my cousin Mike D.:

As a young piper, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a grave-side service for a homeless man, with no family or friends. The funeral was to be held at a cemetery way back in the country, and this man would be the first to be laid to rest there.

As I was not familiar with the backwoods area, I became lost; and being a typical man did not stop for directions. I finally arrived an hour late. I saw the backhoe and the crew, who were eating lunch, but the hearse was nowhere in sight.

I apologized to the workers for my tardiness, and stepped to the side of the open grave, where I saw the vault lid already in place. I assured the workers I would not hold them up for long, but this was the proper thing to do. The workers gathered around, still eating their lunch. I played out my heart and soul.

As I played the workers began to weep. I played, and I played, like I'd never played before: from My Home and The Lord is my Shepherd to Flowers of the Forest.

I closed the lengthy session with Amazing Grace and walked to my car.

As I was opening the door and taking off my coat, I overheard one of the workers saying to another, “Jeezuz, Mary'n Joseph ... I never seen nothin' like that before and I've been putting in septic tanks for over twenty years.”

Heh!

Ah, Those Irish Catholics...

Via reader Simi L.:

Mrs. McGervey was walking down O'Connell Street in Dublin when she met up with Father Flaherty.

The Father said, 'Top o' the mornin' to ye! Aren't ye Mrs. McGervey and didn't I marry ye and yer hoosband 2 years ago?'

She replied, 'Aye, that ye did, Father.'

The Father asked, 'And be there any wee little ones yet?'

She replied, 'No, not yet, Father.'

The Father said, 'Well now, I'm going to Rome next week and I'll light a candle for ye and yer hoosband.'

She replied, 'Oh, thank ye, Father.' They then parted ways.

Some years later they met again. The Father asked, 'Well now, Mrs. McGervey, how are ye these days?'

She replied, 'Oh, very well, Father!' The Father asked, 'And tell me, have ye any wee ones yet?'

She replied, 'Oh yes, Father! Three sets of twins and 4 singles, 10 in all!'

The Father said, 'That's wonderful! And where might be yer lovin' hoosband?'

She replied, 'E's gone to Rome to blow out yer fookin' candle!!!

Heh!

Poster of the Day...

Phrase of the Day...

From Little Green Footballs:

Hope-a-Dope

Heh!

That Didn't Take Long!

Go here.

Lamestream Media, Being, Well, Lame...

Here is the complete text of a very short story posted by one Ben Knight, of the AP:

The political leader of Hamas has declared that his organisation won the recent war in the Gaza Strip.

Khaled Meshaal who is exiled in Syria, says Hamas stopped Israel achieving its aims.

On Wednesday, Israel's army said it had completely withdrawn from the strip, although troops will remain near the border and its spy-planes continue to fly over the territory.

News of the withdrawal sent people back onto the streets for the first time in weeks, as shops opened and people began restocking, after three weeks when many had barely left their houses.

While the fighting has ended in Gaza, the battle to rebuild the territory is just beginning and the destruction is immense.

Whole neighbourhoods have been literally flattened. People are sleeping out under carpets strung across the branches of trees.

The Hamas leadership is still in hiding.

I did a double-take when I read this. If you didn't, just read the first line and the last line, and skip the rest.

What is wrong with these reporters, filing credulous stories on such obvious BS? Are they paid to produce such propaganda? I'm truly beginning to wonder...

Quote of the Day...

From Andrew, posting at the Protein Wisdom Pub:

You just had to, didn’t you? You couldn’t just enjoy your victory, couldn’t just let the man slip away beneath the radar of your Profound and Righteous Contempt. You had to channel your inner adolescent and flip him one last bird, just in case we haven’t been privy, with diamond clarity, to your exact opinions on the matter. You just had to get in that final kick.

That pretty much sums up my feelings about the grace and maturity of what appears to be the majority of left-leaning folks as Obama takes over from Bush.

Some of you wrote to ask how I was feeling about Obama's inauguration, wondering about my silence. Well, the silence was mostly about being busy. But also partly because I don't have a lot to say. I wish Obama well, and I truly hope he will prove to be an effective President. Most of all I hope he keeps us safe.

But I'm not filled with the hopeyness and changitude that the left seems to be a bit...delerious...with. The main hopes I have are these: (1) that Obama's actual approach to this country's defense doesn't resemble his campaign rhetoric, and (2) that Obama's actual approach to this country's economic woes doesn't resemble his campaign rhetoric.

So far, I think I'm happier than most liberals are on those two counts.

The rest of what he does is about 5 levels down on my priority scale...

Mexico: Obama's Iraq?

From yesterday's edition of El Economista (a Mexican newspaper), which included the photo at right of a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tijuana:

Indiscriminate kidnappings, almost daily beheadings, and gangs that scoff at government agents and kill them. No, it’s not Iraq nor Pakistan, its Mexico, which according to the American government and a growing number of experts is becoming one of the major world security risks.

The possibility that the neighbor of the United States could sink into violence and anarchy represents an unexpected challenge for Barack Obama’s next government.

In its most recent report about foreseeing possible risks to global security, the Joint Command Forces of the United States placed Mexico and Pakistan in the same category. It pointed out that both countries are in danger of a “fast and sudden collapse.” In its report published on November 25, the command pointed out “The possibilities that (that may occur in) Mexico appear small, but the government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure, are all under pressure and a sustained assault by criminal gangs and narcotraffic cartels. “The form that this internal conflict may take during the coming years will have a relevant impact on the stability of the Mexican government.”

One more challenge for Obama

The ex chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Michael Hayden told the Mexican press on Friday that Mexico and Iran represented the major challenges for Obama, including over Iraq.

The Department of Justice of the United States pointed out last month that Mexico’s criminal gangs represent the “major organized crime threat for the United States.”
Stephen Hadley, national security advisor, said last week that the worsening of violence threatens democracy itself in Mexico.

The Secretary of Internal Security (sic) of the United States, Michael Chertoff, told The New York Times that he had ordered the elaboration of additional security plans, at midyear, to avoid that kidnappings and assassinations would extend into American territory.

The alarm is also extending into the private sector. Mexico, Latin America’s second largest economy and the third largest provider of petroleum to the United States, is one of the 10 principal global threats for 2009 identified by the Eurasia Group, consultants based in New York.

Mexico has underestimated the preoccupations by the United States.

On Wednesday, Fernando Gomez Montt, Mexican Secretary of Government, said “What does seem to me inadmissible is that the Mexican State be considered as a security risk. There are problems in Mexico that are being attended to, that can be attended to more and better, and that’s where we are, what exists is everyone’s absolute commitment.”

Nevertheless, Obama will find a very different panorama in the neighbor to the south, compared with what George W. Bush found. In 2000, when Bush was elected, Mexico had just elected Vicente Fox in elections considered the cleanest in history, which put an end to 71 years of a single party in power. Mexicans were hopeful of a stable and democratic future.

Fox suggested that he was ready to confront the narcotrafficking cartels, but he placed them in a power vacuum by arresting its leaders. Since then, gangs fight each other for territory.

Seeking to regain control, Felipe Calderón, who succeeded Fox in 2006, immediately placed military forces in the whole country. But the soldiers and police are outnumbered and outgunned, and the narcotraffickers have answered with unprecedented violence.

Deaths attributed to narcotraffic doubled from 2007 and added up to more than 5,300 last year. Mutilated cadavers, some without heads, show up in the streets of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana practically every morning. Some victims are dumped at schools. The majority turns up wrapped in blankets and abandoned in empty lots.
Few cadavers are identified because relatives are afraid of coming to claim them. The majority of assassinations go unpunished.

The battling cartels continue controlling vast areas of Mexico, despite the offensive undertaken by Calderón more than two years ago.. They have let loose an extended culture of violence, from which no one is immune.

Some businesses have closed because their owners cannot pay the monthly extortion amounts which the local gangs demand. Many wealthy persons have fled to the United States so as not to join the list of kidnapping victims, a crime about which Mexico occupies one of the first places in the world. Others have decided not to leave their houses at night.

The government has also launched a campaign to combat corruption in its ranks, “Operation Cleanup” after some of its prominent security chiefs were accused of being at the service of the Cartel of Sinaloa, a northwestern state of the country.

Several soldiers who fight the narcotrafficking gangs were kidnapped, decapitated and dumped in a city to the south of Mexico (City), with a warning: “For every one of mine that they kill, we’re going to kill ten of theirs.”

Conditioned support

The United States government has manifested its support to the Mexican president decidedly (by) recently giving it more than 400 million dollars in assistance to combat drugs. Last week, Obama met briefly with Calderón in Washington and promised to combat the illegal U.S. firearms traffic destined to the Mexican cartels.
Although fewer Americans are willing to cross into the Mexican border area to enjoy a “margarita” or to buy handicrafts, visitors to other parts of Mexico continue to arrive. The Mexican economy seems more hurt by the global crisis than by the growing violence.

The gloomy perspectives arising from the border ruled the Mexican press headlines, but surprised few in Mexico.

Many say that the solution is for the United States to furnish more aid and to allow the entry of migrants who, otherwise, are tempted to dedicate themselves to drug smuggling to earn a living.

Otherwise, violence will propagate with more intensity toward the United States, said Manuel Infante, an architect.

“There is a wave of barbarism that is trying to reach you” said Infante, in reference to the Americans. “We are an uncomfortable neighbor,” he added.

It still amazes me how utterly invisible this problem is to most Americans – even those who live right next to hotspots like Tijuana...

Education...

An oldie-but-goodie via my cousin Mike, on the difference between teachers and educators:

According to a news report, a certain private school in Washington was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lip stick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.

Every night the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day the girls would put them back.

Finally the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses).

To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required.

He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers ... and then there are educators...

Heh!

Oh, Great...

I'm sure you've heard that California has a budget crisis. You may not be aware of the astounding magnitude of the deficit we're facing: $42 billion, which is about $1,200 for every man, woman, and child in the state. That means that the state has spent $42 billion more than it collected in taxes and fees last year – and this rate of deficit spending is continuing at an even higher level right now (because the worsening economy has greatly reduced “revenues”, and spending has actually increased as welfare programs kick into high gear).

Our legistators and governor have demonstrated themselves to be brainless and irresponsible to a degree I wouldn't have imagined possible in a democracy. Apparently I have grossly overestimated the competence of the average voter, because we keep reelecting these evil clowns year after year.

But yesterday came some news that might just wake up some of the voters: John Chiang, California's Treasurer, announced that he'd have to delay payment on income tax refunds by at least 30 days. This will free up some cash ($3.7 billion) California needs to pay its bills. This is a wonderful illustration of the way politicians think about such things: they're simply going to steal money from the citizens of the state to pay the bills that they never should have incurred in the first place.

It's highly unlikely that any bureaucrat or politician will be held accountable for their actions. It's far easier just to steal money from the citizens.

Rope.
Forest.
Politicians in Sacremento.
Some assembly required.
Citizen help gratefully accepted.

Miracle on the Hudson...

Just like everyone else, I was overjoyed to find out that everyone on board Flight 1549 survived the crash landing into the Hudson River. I remember well the very different outcome when Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River on a wintry day in 1982, and when I first heard about Flight 1549 going down, that was the outcome I was imagining. The miraculous news came in about everyone surviving, and the later reports of the cool competence of the pilot and the instant competent reactions of ordinary people nearby...ah, that was a very good feeling, which I will cherish for some time, I think.

But I got to wondering about the cause of the crash that's being bandied about (no official cause has yet been released). The crew of the aircraft, and passengers who witnessed it, all say that Flight 1549 flew through a flock of geese that took out both engines. From friends in aviation, I knew that airports expended considerable energy getting rid of birds – and especially large birds like Canadian geese – from the areas around airports. They do this because “bird strikes” are well-known aviation hazards, one that pilots have been worried about ever since the dawn of the jet age (jet engines are particularly vulnerable to bird strikes). So I wondered why there was (apparently) a large flock of geese so close to La Guardia airport.

With just a bit of searching, I discovered that Senator Chuck Schumer used our tax dollars to help fund an organization called GeesePeace that advocates “non-lethal” methods for controlling Canadian geese populations and location. Reading through the news stories, press releases, and other materials, one can't help but ask this question: did we make a bad tradeoff between risk to aircraft and humane treatment of geese? I'd have to know a lot more to reach a conclusion, but I know enough right now to be suspicious. And it doesn't help me feel one bit better that Chuck “showboat” Schumer is involved...