Privacy, Wiggles and Pujols

Privacy Policy - Crystal Clear
Here is a good idea, put a privacy policy on a website that is crystal clear to all non-legal, non-technical, non-marketing people out there using the internet.

The elements of a website privacy policy include:
(1) what personally identifiable information is collected from visitors to the website;
(2) who collects the information;
(3) with whom the information may be shared;
(4) how the information is shared;
(5) what choices visitors have about this data collection, use and distribution of the information;
(6) the kind of security procedures that are effective to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of information; (7) how visitors can access and correct any inaccuracies in the information has been collected.

Wiggles Singer Leaves the Kiddie Band
Greg Page, the lead vocalist for The Wiggles, has left the band for medical reasons. I have to admit, that I found watching the Wiggles with my son, (my daughter never got into anything but Elmo and Mickey Mouse) was quite entertaining. The songs were catchy and the shows had a good deal of content which an adult can relate to and discuss with their children. They were a much better alternative to Barney and the teletubbies.

Albert Pujols thinks the MVP should only be awarded to players on a playoff teams

"I see it this way: Someone who doesn't take his team to the playoffs doesn't deserve to win the MVP," - Albert Pujols

This is by far the stupidest and least educated quotes I have seen in a long time. Don't get me wrong, I generally like Albert, I think he is the best player in the major league today. He may or may not have deserved this award this year. I believe that Ryan Howard had an outstanding year and was equally deserving (having actually won the NL MVP) keeping the Phillies in contention seemingly single-handedly most of the year and challenging the HR record for a portion of the season. However, saying that the MVP has to come from a playoff team is ignorant, since it is supposed to be a measure of how much value did that player add to that team, and how much worse would that team had been without that player. A last place team should not have the MVP (see AROD 2003 in Texas), since they would still be a last place team without that player. But I believe the Phillies would have been much worse of without Howard therefore he is deserving of the NL MVP, regardless that his team did not make the playoffs.

Is Theo Epstein losing his mind?

Even Red Sox fans can't figure out why they are looking to trade Manny Ramirez. The Red Sox are looking to sign, the injury prone JD Drew, who has only played more than 100 games in 4 out of 9 season, to a 5 year, $70M contract to replace Manny. For those of you keeping score at home, this is more than they offered Johnny Damon. The Boston Herald also does not understand the fascination with JD Drew.

This could be the best thing that happens to the Yankees in 2007, if this trade is ever actually completed. I bet the Mets and Omar Minaya is kicking himself for signing Moises Alou to play left field at Shea next year, since he has always loved Manny. Bummer for the boys from Queens.

No Child Left Inside

This is a follow up to the discussion that I had with Dora and Eric a few weeks back about when and where kids are allowed to play. I saw this editorial today in the Stamford Advocate, written by Gina McCarthy, the commissioner of Connecticut’s Department of Environmental Protection. In researching this afterwards, I found that the state of Connecticut actually has an entire state program dedicated to just this topic, No Child Left Inside, who knew? It is a very interesting article. If I could find it on the web, I would just link it, but it is worth a read if you have kids.

When I was youngster, my friends and I lived to be outdoors. Staying inside was punishment that felt like torture.

Our most enjoyable after-school, weekend or summer-time hours were those spent in what we now call unstructured play. No matter what the weather, we stayed out til the streetlights came on or someone’s mom called them home.

I know the world has changed a great deal since I was a child, and these changes have taken a heavy toll on our children and their ability and willingness simply to go out and play.

Today, youngsters are not itching to go outside. They are stuck indoors, plugged in to cable TV, DVD’s, high speed internet access, and electronic games. Even if a child wants to go out, the cars drive too fast, and no one wants to let their kids out of their sight for safety’s sake. In many ways, our sense of community is confined to our homes, schools and places of worship.

Whatever the reason our kids stay indoors, the results are alarming.

Since the 1970’s, the rate of obesity among children in the United States has doubled and even tripled for some age groups. More children are getting an unfortunate head start on health problems such as diabetes and heart disease that will carry into adulthood.

Experts also tell us that spending time outdoors is not only important for physical health, it is critical to the development of cognitive and social skills. Is it any wonder that more and more of our homebound youngsters are taking medications for depression and other behavioral problems?

Finally, in time, society, as well as our children will suffer if we don’t them out to play. Show me a generation of adults who did not experience the wonders of nature firsthand when they were young, and I will show you taxpayers and voters who will not care about preserving open spaces, maintaining biodiversity, keeping the air and water clean, maintaining our forests and parks, and keeping our land free from pollution.

There is no way to turn back the hands of time, If we are going to get our children outside again, we need to make it easy, safe and fun for parents and their children to rediscover the wonders of nature and old fashioned sense of community.

The goals of No Child Left Inside are to reconnect youngsters with the outdoors, build the next generation of environmental stewards and showcase Connecticut’s state parks and forests.

No Child Left Behind is more than child’s play. It is a sustained effort to entice families and children back outside.

This kind of initiative makes me want to take my son fishing next year in a CT park now more than ever.

NPR can be so stupid

Driving home tonight, I turned on NPR and they were doing a story on carbon dioxide and were describing how cars are adding CO2 to the atmosphere adding to global warming problem. They went on for close to 5 minutes discussing alternatives, interviewing professionals and engineers who all concluded that under current circumstances nothing can be done but one thing, and I was expected an earth shattering revelation about how the automobile industry could be doing something different and change the world. But no, the message of this piece, drive a car that gets better gas mileage. It occurred to me, duh no shit, really. I am so glad I just wasted 5 minutes of my time listening to this drivel, clearly stating the obvious.

Random Thoughts

Iraq is now a civil-war

NBC news has decided that the escalating and continuing conflict in Iraq is now going to be called a civil war, rather that whatever it was called previously. President Bush refuses to concede that a civil war has broken out, but rather it is Al-Queda driven terrorist initiative that is causing centuries of disagreements between Shiites, Sunis and Kurds to finally bubble to the top of the political cauldron. You would think that getting his political parties asses spanked in the recent election and having the family consigleire James Baker telling him it is time to change course in Iraq would cause Mr. Bush to perhaps see the world through less than rosey glasses he has been wearing for the past 6 years, but so far that does not seem to be the case. It is shameful that the war on terror has now lasted as long as America's involvement in World War 2, and we don't seem anywhere close to even understanding how to actually win this engagement. Anyone seen Osama Bin Laden recently? Former President Carter has just called this "Iraq Invasion...One Of The Greatest Blunders That American Presidents Have Ever Made"

Dodd to run for President?

It was reported in the Sunday Stamford Advocate that CT Senator Christopher Dodd - Democrat, is considering a run for president in 2008. it just begs the question, does he realize that he along with Thompson, Frist, Bayh, Vilsack, Pataki, Dean, Richardson, Romney or Boxer have absolutely no chance in winning their parties nomination. I just have to wonder if my mother is correct, and that these psuedo-candidates are only trying to build some credibility, so they can wield some power come convention time. I suppose some Carter or Clinton southern governer might creep up in either party. Otherwise the republican front runners are McCain, Guliani or Condi if she throws her hat in the ring, with the wildcard being Colin Powell. The democrats should run anyone but Hillary. However, she is such a polarizing figure with more than half the republicans and all conservatives hate her to the core. This will not change regardless how far to the middle she moves. My guess the democrates will probably fuck this up to, and feel very self righteous and hurt themselves when they nominate a woman, who has no chance of winning. Other legitimate contenders, Obama, John Edwards and yes Virginia Al Gore.

Need more proof why Newt should not ever be president, look at his recent quote regarding the first ammendment. We need to "reexamine freedom of speech" in order to "get ahead of the curve before we actually lose a city, which I think could happen in the next decade." As Bob Cesca says in the Huffington Post:

In financial circles, it's called "the price of doing business." The price of liberty is that it inherently leaves us somewhat vulnerable to attack. The Framers knew this and so, for example, the Second Amendment was written to address one of several forms of national defense. But for men like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the restriction of liberty was never even remotely considered to be a viable option for shoring up American national security and defense. The sad fact that it has been, via the various Sedition Acts or the Patriot Act or the Military Commissions Act, is only made more ridiculous by the fact that the restriction of liberty is so widely embraced by Americans who wear flags on their lapels and who laughably call themselves patriots. Mr. Gingrich, to name one.

Jeter shafted by MVP voting

Congratulations to Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins on winning the AL MVP last week. However, I honestly believe that Derek Jeter, the NY Yankees superstar shortstop was shafted and screwed in the voting process. I have to believe that some anti New York and anti Yankee sentiments worked against Jeter in this years and that is truly a shame. Jeter carried the team for most of the season after Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield were injured and missed most of the season. This was by far his best individual year and some how the voters were able to find a way to vote for a player whose team did not even make the playoffs. Kudo's to Jeter for saying individual awared are meaningless, his job is quite simply to help the New York Yankees win the world series and in 2006 (and 05, 04, 03, 02, 01) he failed.

Red Sox bid $51 million for Daisuke Matsuzaka

There is a problem in the way that Japanese players are being sold to the Major Leagues. The $51 million is an outrageous sum to pay simply for the right to negotiate with a player. All that money is going to Matsuzaka's current team the Seibu Lions and not one dime of that fee is going to count against the salary cap or the luxury tax. The Red Sox now need to work out a contract that will count against the cap. First $51 million is an outrageous sum, and yes I would be saying the same thing if the Yankees won with the same bid. It is not fair to the smaller market teams, since they will never have any chance to benefit or particpate in this process. Second the small market teams will not get the windfall of the $51 million fee, since this is not part of the cap, so the Royals, the Pirates etc. never will be able to catch up to the Mets, the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Dodgers, etc.

Red Sox looking to trade Manny and sign JD Drew to replace him

As a Yankee fan, I am ecstatic at this possibility, but I have to wonder what the hell Theo Epstein is thinking here. I know Manny can be Manny, he does not play hard every single game, and he can be a distraction but no player, least of all JD Drew, is going to offer David Ortiz the protection that Manny did. I bet David Ortiz challenges Barry Bonds intentional base on balls record next year. Why on earth would any pitcher throw a strike to him when the game is on the line? As Mike Francessa at WFAN is saying, the Yankees will get better by doing nothing, if the Red Sox consumate this trade. Lets remember that Manny hit .545 with 9 HR and about 100 RBI's in the 19 games these two teams played last season.

Jets look respectable, Giants look terrible
Nuff said, not quite sure what to think of the Rangers yet. I guess I need to start watching the games more closely now.

Heroes rocks
"Save the cheerleader, Save the world" has to be one of the best taglines in recent television history. Not being a Lost fan (never watched it, so I have no basis of opinion) the writers are doing a great job of keeping the story fresh, gradually revealing clues and leaving the audience clamoring for more details, but never actually obtaining enough information to put it all together. I hope they can sustain this pace, since it makes Monday night fun. I am still in a quandry about how I am going to watch Scrubs season premiere on Thursday with the mrs dominating the TV at 9 while watching Grey's Anatomy.

TV Networks are pissing me off

This crap about running shows for 61 minutes is really starting to piss me off, primarily because it is totally messing with my Tivo's ability to record the few decent shows I want to watch. It started at the beginning of the season in September with Grey's Anatomy running until 10:01, and ER started either at 9:59 or 10:00, which caused an overlap and only one was being recorded. At least NBC got smart and pushed the start of ER to 10:01.

The reason for this rant tonight is because I look at my TV around 9:20, and notice the red record light is not on, which means that Heroes is not recording. I start freaking out, so I stop watching Iron Chef to go start recording tonights episode, such as it is minus 20 minutes. When I look at the guide, sure enough, it is running until 10:01, and overlapped with a repeat of Scrubs on Comedy Central. By the way, there is going to be a lot of conflict at home on Thursday Nov 30, when new Scrubs air at 9 pm against my wife's favorite show Grey's Anatomy. I bet I will be relegated to the second TV in the guest room. Oh well, such is life.

The other side bar regarding this new network feature of lengthening programs is that they are not adding 1 second of more content, but actually adding another 60-90 seconds of commercial advertisements. It is pretty annoying that they figure that they get sucker the audience into watching additional commercials on the top rated shows, and we are just force fed this garbage. None of these commercials are at all cutting edge or memorable. It would be nice if they put something memorable on to fill the extra time. But that is just me

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

This was sent to me by my cousin Peter, and it comes directly from Michael Moore. Clearly, there is a bit of gloating below. Now just for the record, I believe Michael Moore is a big fat blowhard, not too different from Rush Limbaugh. Neither of these gentleman represent the middle ground or come close to my personal views on the issues. What I did find interesting about this piece, was the unifying theme, what the liberals (certainly, not the libertarians) want to do will help and have a positive effect on all citizens regardless of their ideological beliefs. This is actually a pleasant change from the divisiveness of the neo-cons, which has been stuffed down our throats for the past 6+ year.

November 14th, 2006

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do /to/ you and /for/ you. Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we /encourage/ you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring /your/ sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever k ill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We wil l go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
(Click here to sign the pledge)
www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. Please feel free to pass this on.

What is wrong with CT voters??

I am disgusted that Shays and Lieberman have been re-elected. It leave a vile taste of bile in the back of my throat.

Lieberman is a liar, who has put his own personal interests in front of the state of the Connecticut, and in front of the party he claims he still wants to be part of, that I cannot ever accept as he is a tried and true Democrat. I just wonder how long until he bolts the Democratic caucus, time will tell.

Shays is a fine man, and a good legislator, but it was a time to send him home, and voters in this district have missed the mark.

Although it looks like the Dem's are making good gains in the both houses as of now, but it is just so frustrating.

Jacob and Mollie