I turned off the discussion on Jim Lehrer's show

I had wanted to watch the segment on Jim Lehrer's show where he hosts a discussion with David Brooks and Mark Shields. I turned it off, before it was over, as I was too angry. I get angry at what I perceive to be distortions and exaggerations. I also get angry that things are being handled in a way that they are easy to attack.

I also have lost my patience with John S. McCain, Jr. I voted for him in the 2000 Republican primary, but the more he talked, the more disillusioned I became. Now, his stance in support of Ted Koppel's attempt to bash the administration is inexcusable. Why doesn't John McCain go ahead and join the Democratic Party? I wondered that after the McCain Finegold bill was passed.

Part of the issue is that I am "Center-Right" while John McCain is "Center-Left". Hugh Hewitt is now calling himself "Center-Right", and I know exactly what he means. While I admire many things about my Southern Baptist friends, they often go so far over the top, that even I, who am pretty tolerant, wince.

You probably have heard the "joke" about John McCain. The joke is that John McCain will run as John Kerry's Vice Presidential running mate, as well as Bush's and Ralph Nader's running mate.

Nortel Networks

It was apparent, as the economic downturn started, that there were odd things about how Nortel had been managed. I was still stunned when the top management was sacked, even though I knew that Frank Dunn had been the CFO during the "old bad times". It was as if he had been part of the wrong thinking of the latter 1990's and early 2000's that pervaded the U.S. and Canadian governments. Top leadership in the 1990's had made it seem that ethics and personal character didn't matter, only results (or what they said they cared about).

I greatly resent the Canadian bankers who are said to be soliciting a hostile takeover. That would be devastating the company, people, and customers. Nortel is the last great hope among real North American telecom equipment manufacturers. Cisco just buys technology, they don't develop it. Lucent is is a death spiral, and Motorola isn't much better. Better to let Nortel get past this present unpleasantness and move on.

The Marines pulling away from Fallujah seems crazy

The Marines pulling back from Fallujah seems like a move that asks for trouble. We had the chance to finish off the enemy, and to satisfy the State Department, we give up. How can that be a good thing?

Qwest's outsourcing plans are now public knowledge

We talked about the article in the Rocky Mountain News, in Denver, about outsourcing. We believe that someone must have contacted the paper, in Denver, after hearing a call with the CIO, yesterday. Basically, it was what had already been rumoured. Qwest was investigating outsourcing all IT. In the meeting yesterday, which permanent employees heard, the CIO said ALL IT would be outsourced. When Qwest was contacted by the reporter, they insisted it would only be PART of IT that would be outsourced. The article indicated what had already been rumoured, that IBM had the inside track on the outsourcing contract.

Qwest is investigating outsourcing all IT

The big news, not particularly a surprise, is that Qwest is going to put out an RFP for outsourcing all IT. Whether they do it depends on the response they get for the RFP. They are going through the motions of cutting costs: no more coffee, no more cable TV to the break room, reducing IT consulting billing rates.

"Chicken Hawks", indeed

I was enraged to hear Senator Lautenberg, speaking on the floor of the senate. He was making a partisan attack on the President and Vice-President, because they deposed Saddam Hussein. His reasoning was that only someone who had served in combat should be able to order military action.

It seems like an odd complaint, because President Clinton, a Viet Nam War draft dodger ordered the carpet bombing of Serbia, and the bombing of Iraq. He also ordered the destruction of the aspirin factory in the Sudan. Now we hear that it was not acceptable for the current president, who served as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, during the Viet Nam era, to have ordered the liberation of Iraq from the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. What of the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis in mass graves? How about the corruption in the so-called "oil for food" program that was funneling billions of dollars to Saddam and to those he was paying kickbacks (in France and Russia, as well as the UN).

More catchy phrases

There is this guy who is a great leader and motivater, within a business group. I have mentioned at least one other thing he said. As he said: "Don't let anyone steal your dream." It is your dream, and it is what motivates and energizes you. "Stealing a dream" means that someone denigrates what you dream of having or doing, and you lose faith that it is attainable, or that it is even worth achieving. Living without a dream is like being dead. Nurture and protect your dream. The key point is to think big (as in "The Magic of Thinking Big", the title of a great book). The people who have "made it big" are those that didn't lose faith, and continued to grow and to realize their dreams.

I am a user of "CityDesk"

I have been a user of Joel Spolsky's product, "CityDesk". I have expanded my use of it to include a trick I recently learned. I make tables in Word documents, then copy and paste them into a blank CityDesk page (in WYSIWYG mode). The, I copy the HTML and paste it into Blogger. Presto! I have a nice table with a border. It beats hand coding tables without borders.

More about Dreadnought

The Elizabethans were fond of their distinctive compound words. Dreadnought is a famous example. Others are Swiftsure, Speedwell, and Warspite. Another, Bonaventure may or may not qualify. The main reason that I might include it is that it was used for a ship that took part in the Armada campaign. I probably could find others, if I were in a place to browse through my copy of "Colledge".

Sir John Fisher's favorite saying

I am an admirer of Admiral Sir John Fisher. He was a close confident of Winston Churchill's in the years before the Great War. One of the distinctive characteristics of Admiral Fisher were his pentient for phrases. For example, he said "Speed is armour". On the other hand, he said "Armour is vision". His favorite phrase, however, was "Fear God and Dread Nought", which was a biblical passage. It also came across as a pun, in that you could apply it to the Dreadnought battleship. Characteristically, we spell the word differently, so the American's called the ship type "dreadnaughts". In any case, it is good advice to "dread not".

"Don't let anyone steal your dream"

Obviously, that is not my quote, and you may know where it originates, but it is true and will continue to be so. I was reminded of this topic by reading about Greg Cotikyan attending a game design class, at Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI), the legendary game company, when Greg was 13 years old. Greg has gone on to make a career in gaming.

In retrospect, I always did what I thought I should be doing, not what I would have liked to do. Even now, I have to be content to pursue my passion on a part time basis. I still don't really have a clue about how to pursue it full time. My passion, doing historical research, almost like a detective or intelligence analyst, has been the one longterm thread in my life, since I was a teenager.

The closes I came to doing something with it was participating in the design and artwork for John Hill's original Bar Lev. John Hill has a flare for game design, much as Greg Costikyan must. John is best known for the Squad Leader game. When I knew John, he had a PhD in History, and was reduced to having a hobby store in Lafayette, Indiana, that I frequented. At the time, I lived close by, and just happened on his store. I was as big a customer as I could be, given a miniscule income.

Almost twelve years ago, I started listening to the guys who were talking about dreams and how to realize them. I pretty much tuned out that part of the message. Somehow, I thought you could go through the motions without really having a reason. It should not be surprising to those who have been educated by these guys, that it didn't work very well.

About four or five years ago, I was sitting around, grousing about how everyone else in my life was "chasing their dreams" (I would now say, "realizing their dreams"), and I had to be just working at something to earn money.

Then something clicked for me. Nothing said that I couldn't be doing something about my passion, just as my other close family members were. That is when I started to get more serious.

One of the things the guys I have been hanging around for so long say, is to find someone who is doing what you want to be doing, and associate with them, and learn what they do and how they think. My first attempt at that was to call up Frank Fox, in Birmingham. Thankfully, he was open to talking.

What I find, now, is that I am happy to talk with and return correspondence from people who are interested in the same subjects as I am. One of my failings is that I still think of it as being "far off in the weeds", as we would say in Texas. That probably diminishes my effectiveness, to be thinking that way. That is why I affirm that "I'm right where I need to be, doing what I need to be doing" and "I'm realizing my dreams" and "I'm worthy and my dreams are worthwhile". It may seem silly, but it is the kind of thing needed to reprogram one's "self talk".

Red States and Blue States

I had an insight, several days ago, about "red states" and "blue states". It seems oddly inappropriate for the Republicans to be "red" and the Democrats to be "blue". Then, I realized that for the Democrats to be "red" would be too apt a choice. The Democrats would be "reds", and that was too accurate. The Republicans being blue would be reminiscent of the Civil War and Blue vs. Grey.

Instead, we have the safe, from the leftist perspective, choices where the Democrats are the "blue states" and the Republicans are the "red states". I am not sure where this started, but it might have been as recently as the 1996 elections.

More about the Mozilla browser

I am starting to accumulate significant experience with the Mozilla browser, in that I have repeatedly visited sites that I routinely check, multiple times per day. There have been some nasty surprises. A major issue, for me, is that Mozilla is not working well with Blogger. There are some other less serious issues that have forced me to have to use Internet Explorer. For example, the WFAA radar (for Dallas) doesn't load properly with Mozilla. There have been issues with the Accuweather radar, as well. I haven't studied them to see what the common thread is, but there must be one.

I like John Kerry's 2mm injury for his first Purple Heart

No wonder that John Kerry's superior questioned whether his injury was sufficient for a Purple Heart. He received a 2mm nick, and he insisted on a Purple Heart. He was actually after minor injuries, apparently, as that was how he escaped from combat after 4 months (I had seen it characterized as 5 months, recently).

Yes, he was under fire and yes, it took courage to be a moving target, trying to draw fire, so he could potentially kill Vietnamese.

People have reacted to September 11th in different ways

September 11th was a significant event that people reacted to in radically different ways. Pat Tillman, the defensive back with the Arizona Cardinals quit football and joined the Army to be a Ranger. He was just killed in combat, in Afganistan.

Other people think that September 11th was not a big deal, and besides, it was something we brought on, ourselves, since we are such a big, imperialist power. The more extreme of this view either denies September 11th happened, or that our government staged the event.

These people are in the same general grouping as "holocaust deniers". When things are so contrary to your world view, you start to act crazy. They start talking about war for oil and other silly things.

What I think is that we are in a war we didn't want. All we did to bring this on ourselves is to educate women and let them work, we let people in the music scene produce anything they want, we make movies filled with violence and sex, we allow homosexuality, we don't make our women walk around in burkas. We allow freedom of religion. We don't force people to be Wahabbi muslims. That is what we did "wrong".

The answer is that we didn't do anything. Some men decided that they were going to change things. Either we would adopt their view of religion, or they would kill us all (if need be). I say that we need to fight back, to stop them. That is what Pat Tillman was doing when he was killed.

The Mozilla Browser

I am trying the Mozilla 1.6 browser. So far, I like it. The most serious problem I can see is that it doesn't seem to work with Blogger. I had to use IE6 to update the template. I got an empty template with Mozilla (not a good thing). The only other thing was that a few sites were not well-displayed. A notable example was "SlashDot". it wasn't he only example, but I don't remember what the other one was, right off.

I had been a longtime Netscape and Communicator user, until I finally had to "give it up". The problem was that Cascading Style Sheets didn't work well enough. IE5 and IE6 were good enough that it didn't occur to me to think about anything else (until the last two days).

Our favorite RBOC

There finally has been some news, at our favorite RBOC. There are no immediate plans to outsource IT to IBM (at least yet). The new regime in IT is going to evaluate the current practices, and decide what, if anything, to retain. Under the old regime, we talked a lot about being quick to respond, but we omitted many, if not most, of the practices that make that possible. What we ended up doing was rapid development, with almost nothing committed to writing. What we showed, is that with some pretty good people, you can still do a lot of good, regardless of process or procedure. I hope that survives, as I have seen lightweight processes and I've seen heavy weight processes, and all the heavy weight processes do is to increase cost and negatively affect schedules. They are not meant to do that, but they just are not worth the cost.

The one thing that would be good are to write down at least some of the requirements, so that we can all have a common understanding. The major negative about how we have been operating is that one person has does the communication with the customer, and he carries that in his head. Sometimes, he misunderstands or forgets.

Google Gmail and Yahoo Mail

It doesn't take much thought to realize that if Google's Gmail, with the 1,000 MB of mail storage, takes off, that Yahoo's pay business for extended mail storage should dry up. I am paying a modest amount per year for 25MB of Yahoo mail, and I have to be constantly deleting large mails. If I didn't have to do that, it would be EXTREMELY good. I probably would be abusing Gmail, to some degree, because it could become the new XDrive, accidentally, if they allow you to save attachments (which is critical).

I have a concern

I hope that my concern is baseless. My basic concern is that the "Blue State" radicals will not accept the results of the election, in the fall, if they lose. A secondary concern is that a "Blue State" looney might make an assasination attempt against high U.S. officials, perhaps even the president.

More search engines

I tested more search engines. "Ask Jeeves" failed to find anything for "Laurens Degelcamp". Yahoo passed the test. "AllTheWeb" failed. It returned a "Laurens, SC" result. "Looksmart" didn't return anything.

Search engines

My current test for search engines is to enter "Laurens Degelcamp" and click "search". All search engines have been failing on this. This morning, Google passed the test. The only result it returned was what I was looking for. Vivisimo sort of passed. It gave the right answer plus a wrong answer. My concept of a wrong answer is to return something about Laurens, SC.

My prediction is that there will be a steady stream of Democratic attacks on President Bush

Bob Woodward's new book is just the latest in a string of Democratic attacks on President Bush. Previous hit pieces included Paul O'Neil's book, Richard Clarke's book, the "9/11 Commission", and now this book. I expect it to continue, at least through the election. If the Democrats lose, the barrage will continue past the election. We can expect to see worse things than the ancient drunk driving charge of the first election. The Democrats apparently don't want to count on winning by issues, so they have turned loose their smear machine, instead.

The current "Smart Weapon"

15 years ago, I was involved with a demonstration program called the "Smart Weapons Program", funded by DARPA. The X-45 looks something like what the "Smart Weapons Program" envisioned.

The X-45 dropping a 250lb. inert smart bomb.

Some disquieting signs

In the last two weeks, I can see signs that the IT consulting job market is cooling off, again. Since last week, there have only been two views of my Monster.com resume. This needs to be viewed with some caution, as there could just be problems with the posted resume. This resume, though, has some 462 views, so there must be something good about it. This same resume also generated 12 contacts, three weeks ago.

One piece of good new in the IT picture

This is a major positive indicator to me. A friend, who has been unemployed for 1-1/2 years, after his job was sent offshore, starts work today in his first consulting job. The really striking aspects are that the job is in the Dallas area an entails Smalltalk programming.

Despite all the negatives, Smalltalk survives. Mostly, Smalltalk is still in use simply due to the replacement cost.

The buzz is reaching a crescendo pitch

Something big is in the air, at our favorite RBOC (Regional Bell Operating Company, an acronym which I found out is not widely known). As I walked in the door, it was obvious that "something was up". There were a crowd of people (well, maybe 6) at a open door, looking at boxes of equipment. The people were not denizens of this floor (possibly not of this building).

Then, our manager was circling the area, and seemed to indicate that something "could happen" today. I can only hope we are still employed, at the end of the day. A feature of the last three years, here (I am on my second contract) is that you don't know what will happen next, or if you will still be employed. It is not a pleasant situation. Actually, when I first arrived, it was not like this, but by the fall of 2001, you could see that things were deteriorating. Consultants are used to being on the "receiving end", but that doesn't make things any easier.

A new search engine

A friend called this new search engine to my attention, today. The link is vivisimo.com. I was impressed that I was able to search into the archives for my blogs and find obscure information. This is a product of research at Carnegie Mellon University, and of a new company, as well.

A software developer's guild

There are some detailed-oriented people, largely with a bean-counter mentality, that have tried to say that software development is either a science or an engineering discipline. Let us set the record straight. Software development is a craft. The logical conclusion, given that fact, is that software developers are skilled artisans, and should follow that model, and have a software developer's guild.

The main obstacle to such a thing, is that there would be a natural tendency to try to restrict entry into the craft, and to have all the usual sort of certifications. I am very free market in my view of the field, in that if you can do the job, and can demonstrate that through your work history (and if necessary, references, if you can find someone willing to give a reference).

Largely, "process is bunk", as software development is not manufacturing (where process really does matter). Instead, as in any skilled trade, what you need to be successful are good people who can write working software. A fact of life, is that such people are worth a good pay rate, as there are all too few of them. In twelve years of consulting and 25 years of software development experience, I have seen projects struggling, because they kept hoping that process and warm bodies would produce running software. "It ain't gonna happen".

The State Department reminds me of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT)

Most of the time, the U.S. State Department seems to be "on the other side". They constantly appear to be making statements and taking stands that are contrary to current U.S. policy, and even our best interests. That even applies to our Secretary of State.

I thought of the Corps Diplomatique Terrestrienne (CDT), invented by Keith Laumer, 40-some years ago. I imagine that I had read all the stories, as they were usually quite funny. The minor problem was most of the CDT diplomats were incompetent. Given our diplomatic track record, you have to wonder if the same is not true for our crowd.

The hot gossip is that a certain RBOC is going to outsource all IT to IBM

There was a crescendo of buzz, late last week, that a certain, struggling RBOC is going to outsource all of its IT to IBM. It is hard to see that it is a good idea, but that seems not to matter. This RBOC is more concerned about saving a buck than getting the job done.

Several months ago, there was discussion about the shortage of software developers and what that has meant. In spite of that, upper management really would like to get rid of external contractors. The minor difficulty is that these contractors are experts in subjects that are critical to the business side. Nonetheless, there is pressure to cut them by a certain date, not very far off. If you are involved, you will recognize your situation here. The names and exact dates have been omitted, so this is not quite so blatant.

Theresa Heinz Kerry

I had heard that Theresa Heinz Kerry was a South African, although when I had heard her speak, she didn't seem to have the right accent. The reason is that she is a descendent of Portuguese settlers in Mozambique. Her native language was Portuguese (or the dialect that was spoken there). I read about this interview where she "couldn't believe" that she had come to the US, had married not only one politician, but a second. I guess I was heartened to know that she drives an SUV.

She can't be all bad if she demands good business practices by recipients of aid from the Heinz foundation. She wouldn't give money to the Boston Symphony Orchestra, until they changed their ways. I may have the story wrong, but that is what I recall.

Rates for consulting are a risky topic

I know that rates for IT consulting are a risky subject to discuss. I suspect that there are contractors "out there" who are laughing at how low the rates are that I mentioned. I also suspect that there are people who are outraged at IT consultants being able to command such pay rates.

People who I have worked with in Minneapolis were receiving "billing rates" over $100 per hour, up until the "downturn". One or two were at $140 or so per hour. I certainly was being billed at over $100 an hour, at times, although I never actually received such a rate to me. Up until 2002-2003, I had never worked on a 1099. I am presently, and always had been, previously, working on a W2 basis. The consultants receiving the very high rates were always working on a 1099, and were almost uniformly "incorporated".

If we would regain better IT consulting rates, there are some local economies that would be greatly helped, as in the Dallas area. I was heartened, when I read in the Dallas Morning News, that 12,200 new jobs were created in the Dallas area last month.

IT Consulting: Rates to the Contractor and Billing Rates

Although my rate climbed from 1996 until 2001, the start of the decline started as early as November 1996, at least in one place. I had the pleasant experience, in late July of 1995 to have someone "make me an offer I couldn't refuse", to go to Charlotte. Sadly, it only lasted four months, but that was the start of my run up in rate to me, up until early 2001. The next contract started at $5 per hour more than the previous one. That lasted until January 1997, when I got a $3 per hour raise from my company where I was an hourly employee, working on a customer site. However, concurrent to that, the customer cut billing rates drastically.

Not only did they cut billing rates, but the customer eliminated overtime. They were a prominent company that was positioning itself for an acquistion, later in 1997. I believe that the billing rate was cut from about $100 per hour to $75 per hour. My employer only took $12 per hour out of the billing rate.

In my experience, I have rarely had any insight into billing rates versus "rate to the contractor". My first experience with it had been in Charlotte, where a coworker, also employed by the same contract company, told me that they were billing $85 per hour, while we received $55 per hour. They did that so that they could gain entry to the business. Previously, the project was all Anderson Consulting. They had brought in 8 young people, most right out of college, and were billing them at some figure like $110 per hour (probably low) and paying them $30-some thousand per year. They were probably overpaid at that, as I saw some very poor work, when I arrived.

When I moved home to the Dallas area in 1998, I accepted a somewhat lower rate, just to be home. Because of lower expenses, I did better, especially as there was ample overtime (paid as "straight time"). I had no knowledge of the billing rate, in that case.

After that contract ended, due to limitations imposed by the customer for time working for them, I moved to another local contract. There, I was subcontracted to a peculiar entity, which was said to be a joint venture between the customer and the a well-known big six accounting firm. The deal was that the customer would receive so many consulting hours and would pay $100 per hour (I believe it was). I went in at the same rate I had received in 1996. After a few months, when I was seriously considering leaving, I received a $10 per hour raise. Not only that, but we were required to work 45 hours per week, so that the necessary billed hours could be delivered. That was regardless of the assigned workload. It was a sweet deal, while it lasted.

The IT Consulting Job Market

I wanted to do a little reporting, not just commenting on news. I am PART of the IT job market, so the subject is of great interest. I have a resume posted on Monster.com that is searchable, and I monitor the "looks". Because of that, and previous networking, I receive calls and e-mail.

A feature of the market is that there are "ebbs and flows". In November 2003, there was a lot of activity, and it died away in December, until recently. Last week, I was contacted about 12 jobs. Because I have been consulting for 12 years, the contacts tend to focus on that area, although a consulting company contacted me about joining as a full-time employee. The downside was that it would involve extensive travel.

Since yesterday, there has been only one look at my Monster resume. The count for looks is now at 453. By the end of last week, I would have said that the Market is really hot, but this week, it has cooled off (at least for me).

Rates seem to vary widely, on a regional basis. For example, we are just now seeing rates, in the Dallas area, above $40 an hour. In Minneapolis, the rate has not been below that (for me) in the last three years.

I have a theory about the IT job market. I think it is like the airline industry (in reverse). What has happened to airlines is that many people now are picking the airline based on the lowest available price that matches their schedule. The online services, such as Orbitz, make that possible. In the IT job market, people go where the rates are highest. That is true as to skills and pay. IT consultants are constantly learning the hot new skill, so they can stay employed at a good rate. They also will leave companies where there are major negatives. Major negatives include management turmoil, threat of layoffs, threats of lower payrates, and too much stress and pressure to work long hours. "Life is too short" to spend part of that precious time where things are bad.

I see signs of higher IT consulting rates (rates may vary by the person, of course). Last week, I was submitted for a short term job, in Minneapolis, for $55/hour, which is the highest I have seen since 2001. Nothing has happened, but I have also been submitted, here, for $45-$50/hour, so that seems promising. I monitor what is happening, and I still have hopes that we will see some recovery in rates, even to the $50-$60/hour range.

I have no idea what people in other fields make. I know that teachers make much less than this. I could not do what they can do, and most would not be able to do what I do. I'm afraid that I am writing for the person in the IT consulting field. The rates we command, even at depressed levels, may make other people resentful, but the rates are why I am in the field.

I think we just need to fight

I'm sorry, but I think that the cease fire is a big mistake. What we need to do is just take out the enemy in Fallujah and Najaf. Our Shiite enemy leader is trying to save himself, at this point. I say, don't let hiim walk free. The best thing to do is to kill him, or worse, capture him. I would settle for capturing him, but if he would do us the favor of resisting, so much the better.

I am taking measures to see if I might be able to make this blog more visible to Google

As I could tell, now that I am able to see statistics on visits, this blog is essentially invisible and impossible to find. To counter that, I have added links to my other blogs, in hope of influencing Google.

Why they hate President Bush

I suspect that the real reason is that they (Democrats and the "Left", in general) hate President Bush is that they are poor losers. For the last four years, from before the election, there have been the personal attacks, the belittling, and all the hate and vitriol that have been generated, to no avail.

As we approach the election, the din will only get worse. The goofy leftist fringe can't be taken seriously. They include International ANSWER, Moveon.org, and the like. You could almost include the Democratic party, with that list. People that I respect and like, have essentially lost their minds, and can't think rationally, on this subject. What we are seeing is a mass hysteria, compounded by the repeated electoral setbacks. This group only gets more rabid and unbalanced.

What bothers me is that people that I like and respect are crazy on this one subject

Sadly, but predictably, my family, in Southwestern Michigan, are saying things for which there is no basis in fact, but that are fashionable in the usual circles. Even my mother has a blue sign "Another family for peace". My son says that there are fewer of them, then a few months ago. There are also other blue, anti-war (pro-terrorist?) signs.

When my younger brother started to "talk crazy" about President Bush, I told him that I couldn't understand why he would think that way. Even most Democrats were happy that Al Gore was not president on September 11, 2001.

My "take on things" is that people who talk this way are voicing what they wish were true, and saying things that allow them to vent their frustrations for losing in the market place of ideas (and the voting booth). My only concern is that there are so many misguided people (from my perspective) that we will really get someone who would be a disaster (i.e., John F. Kerry).

We are at a critical juncture in Iraq

We are at a critical point in Iraq. Fortunately, we have the leadership in place to win this major confrontation with the forces that oppose peace and democracy. The commandant of the Marine Corps is there, along with his division commander.

The important thing is to fight to win. We are not trying to make friends. This is a military campaign that must be won. I am glad to see that The New York Times and Washington Post seem to be "on board".

I hope this is not true, but I would bet it is

If John Kerry really believes that this Shiite "cleric", Moqtada al-Sadr, is a legitimate "voice" in Iraq, things have gotten really bad. My take is that Sadr just needs to be nailed, along with those who listen to him. We are in a showdown between the forces of good and evil, and this is probably going to be the decisive set of battles for the freedom of Iraq. Sadr is a pawn of Iran, and would like to make Iraq into another Iran, run by the Mullah's, such great guys, they are.

What really needs to happen is that Iraq should be partitioned into three parts. The Khurds should have their state. The Sunni minority can have their state, and the Shiites can have their own state, although we won't let them set up a little Iran. it is bad that we need to do that, but that is how things are.

Switching a GSM phone to a different network

My son gave me his old GSM phone, a Nokia 8390, that had been intended for use with AT&T Wireless, in the US. We tried just putting the T-Mobile SIM card into the new phone, but got a "Restriction Code" message, on powering back up. What do we do next, we asked?

I looked up for help, on the Internet, with Google, and found that there werea good number of sites that provided codes to remove the restriction, with a price. I looked at the options, today, and chose one that would provide the quickest service, while still being a reasonable price. I felt more comfortable with a site in Britain, rather than in Poland.

I chose this one, for Nokia phones:

Modtown.co.uk.

I paid with Paypal, and it cost me $9.30 US for the service. I received the e-mail with the code, within a half hour, and went to work. I had to read the e-mail closely (and reread it), to understand how to enter the first part of the code (#pw+).

To get the "+" press the * key 2 times

To get the "p" press the * key 3 times

To get the "w" press the * key 4 times

At first, I had thought that they were saying that I needed to enter the letters "p" and "w", but that is not the same thing. Instead, you just use the "*" key, and press it the required number of times. I did that, entered the entire code, and... it worked! The instructions had included, prior to entering the code, to remove the SIM card. Power up, then enter the code. The restriction was removed. I replaced the SIM card, and was "in business".

We could have expected trouble with radical Shi'ias

It doesn't take much imagination to have expected that there were radical Shi'ia elements (possibly linked to the Mullahs in Iran) that would be fighting our work in Iraq. The same could have been expected for the Sunni backers of Saddam Hussein. He was keeping them supplied with benefits for supporting his corrupt regime. They didn't like that ending.

What we need to do is be tough, get the Iraqi leadership involved in the decision making process, and fight them, on the "two fronts". We can out fight them, although it will be "nasty".

Fallujah has been a rat hole, the entire last year

The people of Fallujah, particularly those who committed the offenses, yesterday, need to be taught about civilized niceties that we expect of people who expect to have rights and be treated as equals. This crowd has a mass bad attitude, and they need to be sharply corrected, and it needs to be a bit more than a rap on the knuckles with the teacher's ruler.

The people of Fallujah have the same attitude problem that is rampant among the Palestinian "people in the street". They have the same need for "re-education". Where is Pol Pot when we need him?