Sojka's Call

If you are reading this post it is probably because you used iGoogle for aggregating your news feeds and the various blogs and websites you regularly visited. It is/was quite handy for putting all the new posts and news from those sources onto a single page that was easy to scan and then pick which stories you wanted to read. Today (10.7.2013) iGoogle said 25 days to shutdown. I am assuming that you have exported you current iGoogle settings in a XML file and now are looking for a site to upload them to. Sounds easy, but this has been a few months for me of trying different solutions. Google stated that usage had declined and that was the reason they were pulling the plug. I really liked the ease of use and how it saved me time gathering updates from multiple sources. So, I looked at many, many blogs and websites that recommended various substitutes. After trying many of them and getting pretty frustrated by multiple issues like: 1) Google exports your iGoogle page as a XML file a...

The latest from Brin and surprise - he is quoting a Fox News article and not to bash it! These are strange times. From Fox....   "'Compromise,' to these demagogues, is to mandate that Democrats scrap President Obama’s signature domestic legislative accomplishment, which was passed by Congress, signed into law by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court and ratified by voters who returned its architect to the White House last November." "Senate Democrats, of course, had been begging for a budget compromise for months – ever since the Senate passed its budget last spring. But Republicans rejected this attempt at compromise 18 times, refusing to allow the Senate and House of Representatives to go to a budget conference to hammer out a deal that would have put an end to this cycle of continuing resolutions," writes Julie Roginsky . If you watch the news the last couple days and listen to the Pubs complain about the unwillingness of the Senate ...

This is incendiary talk from David Brin : Despite all the pundit-ravings about a "civil war within the GOP," The 21st Century Republican Party remains (for now at least) the most tightly disciplined political force we have seen in American political life since the "solid south" of the old Dixiecrats, seventy years ago. Pundits tell us that discipline and the Hastert Rule are maintained by fear of Tea Party insurrections in next spring's GOP primary. Don't you believe the pundits. In fact, nothing happens in the Tea Party without say-so from Fox News. Fox is co-owned by Rupert Murdoch and several Saudi princes who have made their agenda clear. The government of the United States of America, which has functioned -- overall -- far better than anything else the world ever saw , helping to lead a consortium of other free nations and peoples to transform civilization for the better... that government and even the concept of "government" must be unde...

While looking for something else on a website, I came across this video and thought  it might make a good analogy for what is going in Washington DC yesterday and today. Being "adrift" seemingly was a bad state of affairs in my mind. After watching the video I realized that being adrift can be a good thing. This took me back to the time in the late 70's when my wife and I first moved to the Bay Area and we saw islands floating in the sky when riding along Skyline Blvd and looking back over the foothills towards the ocean around the Page Mill intersection. It was one of the things that made that time in my life so magical. Adrift can be a peaceful place and full of joy. Let's enjoy adrift and let the fools continue on their time and not ours. Adrift from Simon Christen on Vimeo .

Today there was a post over on David Brin's blog asking people to reread the Gettysburg Address and ponder the last sentence. Here is the last sentence: It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. For most of us, the part resonating today is ...government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Has it perished here in the USA?  When our politicians in Washington DC behave like they did yesterday it makes one wonder.