International House of Horrors: Less dagger, please...

The US Central Intelligence Agency is one beleaguered agency under investigation on multiple fronts. Including the latest coming slowly and sordidly to light: acting, it's now appearing, as some sort of secret hit squad with the involvement of then Vice President Dick Cheney. Giving a new meaning to word dagger in the phrase, "cloak and dagger."

To me the CIA, like any government agency, is primarily made of good hard-working men and women just doing the right thing. And yet it seems, from here on the porch, that a few of the decision makers are allowing the agency to be used in ways that don't stand the paper test. Decisions that instead reflect poorly on everyone in the agency; ultimately hampering any one of them from doing their jobs effectively.

I can't help but wonder why. Why allow themselves to be used like this?

I guess it all boils down to what my grandmomma said, "You can't expect people to respect you until you respect yourself."

- Farmer Ted

Those crystal moments...

I think everyone has those special moments where for just that second the world contracts into a crystal clear instant in time. I'm not talking about the "Where were you when..." moments, but a moment in time that couldn't get more perfect, more happy or more special.

Me? I try to remember my top 3. I was reminded of one of them when The Colonel was talking about a holiday including a trip to Paris that he and the Mrs just returned from. While in Paris, he told me about sitting at a cafe and who they met and how it turned into an incredibly fun day with new un-looked for friends.

Likewise there was a summer when I lived in Paris. A friend I hadn't seen in forever came over from London and with another friend from America and with hours before returning to our respective countries we decided to spend all day just going from cafe to cafe. Starting at breakfast, we went from one to another as the whim took us, sitting for hours talking about anything and everything, laughing and companionable. Our drinking went from cafe cremes, to menthe a l'eau, to beers then to wine as the day progressed into night. The moment came as evening was falling and we were in a little cafe on a square off Rue du Pot de Fer. The setting summer sun was striking the buildings across the square as kids were playing in the fountain. As we sat and I looked around the square to the lights coming on in the filling cafes and then at my chatting friends I suddenly realized here was a moment that had waited an eternity to come and would never come again. I felt warm and content, special and privileged to be there that second at that place. And so I remember.

So when are your moments in time?

- Farmer Ted

Little facts I can do without #2...

From a calendar:

In the 17th century Tsar Michael of Russia hated smoking so much he decreed beating for the first offense, a slit nose for the second and death for the third.

Gee. And people I know complain about having to step outside.

- Farmer Ted

Swimming upstream...

Did you know that people tend to walk on the same side of passageways and sidewalks as they drive?

While I don't know if there's a study that verifies this, I can tell you from painful experience that it's true.

Being here in Australia where people drive on the left, they definitely tend to walk on that side too.

And me, being from the US tends to walk on the right. Meaning - you guessed it - when walking I often find myself going against the flow.

Like a salmon swimming upstream.

- Farmer Ted

So what's in a name...

Remember when the names of stadiums and arenas were civic minded such that they actually meant something?

Pictured above is an aerial view of the stadium area in South Philadelphia circa 1971. From left to right they are John F Kennedy Stadium, The Spectrum, and Veterans Stadium. In these venues football, basketball & hockey, and baseball, respectively were played. Good sensible respectable building names that made sense (even "The Spectrum" as it was meant to be used by an array of arena sports).

Now JFK and Vet Stadium are long gone, having been replaced by newer structures. And the names? Hmph. All sold to the highest bidder: Lincoln Financial Field, Wachovia Center, and Citizens Bank Park. That does cause problems, of course, given the propensity of businesses to fail or merge. The plain Spectrum, has been called The CoreStates Spectrum and the First Union Spectrum until now being the Wachovia Spectrum as each of the institutions was successively swallowed by another. And with Wachovia's failure it's now part of Wells Fargo.

The Wells Fargo Spectrum.
Now that just rolls off the tongue, don't it?

- Farmer Ted

Take two & call me in the morning...

Norton Anti-Virus has to be about the worst anti-virus program out there. And I say that not because it doesn't do its primary job, which is to protect your PC from malware; just in the way it goes about it.

Not content to protect your PC against viruses and other malware, it also takes over your recycle bin (in case you want to undelete something), your network access (in case something tries to connect that shouldn't), and your operating system (in case something tries to install that shouldn't). Not taking into account these are things that happen normally all the time, in the name of protecting you this software presents you with warning box after warning box of things you can't do anything about or are unsure that you want to do anything about.

And by dire warnings from other product that do similar things, a user is duped into installing even more software. Take my poor cousin Red, for example: between the protection offered by Windows and layered products of Norton, AOL, and virus scan package by her ISP her entire PC is now in a paroxysm of conflicting indecision. Practically schizophrenic with all these things in its poor computer brain trying to protect it, it displays lots of confusing warnings but accomplishes nothing.

My solution to the whole mess? I bought a Mac.

- Farmer Ted

Little facts I can do without #1...

From the lid on a juice drink:

No. 100
Your mouth produces about 1.5 litres of saliva each day.

Yuk.

- Farmer Ted