You didn't get mad...

You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us
You didn't get mad we spent over 600 billion (and counting) on said illegal war
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq
You didn't get mad wen you saw the Abu Grahib photos
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown
You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark

You finally got mad when.. when.. wait for it... when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick.   Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all ok with you but helping other Americans... well fuck that.  That about right?  You know it is.

You people have all lost your fucking minds.  You are selfish, greedy, obnoxious, narcissistic, and frankly... stupid.  Your pathetic little misspelled protest signs are embarrassing.  Maybe you ought to find the smart person in your midst and let them make up all the signs, cause man, you look like a bunch of idiots.

Pirate Burgers

Inspired by some show (don't remember) I watched today on the Food Network:

1 1/2 lbs Ground Chuck
1 Dry Onion Soup Mix
Approximately 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/4 to 1/3 cup of dry bread crumbs
2 tbsp (approx) of beef stock
6-8 slices of THICK bacon (I prefer applewood)
Fresh sliced mozzarella cheese

Bake the bacon in the oven on 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until nice and crispy

Mix the chuck, soup, worcestershire sauce, bread crumbs, and beef stock in a large mixing bowl.
After the bacon is done, crumble it up and mix in with the rest of the mix.

Pull approximately 2 ounces of the mix out and flatten out in patty form.  Put a slice of the mozzarella in the center, then top with another 2 ounces of mix.

Firmly pat them out in patty shape.

Toss on a preheated grill for approximately 5-7 minutes per side, toast the buns, plate and enjoy.

My message to Jean Schmidt

As your constituent, I'm writing to tell you why I'm such a strong supporter of health reform.

My wife, an otherwise healthy 33 year old woman, suffered a stroke suddenly 18 months ago while we were at a Thomas the Train event in Lebanon, Ohio.  While we were fortunate enough to have health care coverage at the time to help us in our time of crisis, I can't help but be concerned about future coverage and protection.

You see she now has a "pre-existing condition."  The doctors were never able to identify what caused the stroke, and while she's made an amazing recovery we don't know what to work on to be sure we've eliminated the possibility of another stroke.

If I, just a normal voter from your district, have figured out that we can't guarantee she won't have another stroke, it shouldn't be that hard for an insurance company looking only to maximize it's profitability to identify her as a high risk to their bottom line and decline us future coverage.  Then what?

I've seen, read, and heard all of the rhetoric from the Republicans.  I'm sure somewhere in the viciousness there is probably a few valid statements of concern, but none of them have told me what your plan is for my wife to have coverage in the future.

I'm formally requesting as a registered, active voter in your district that you reconsider your stance on the pending health care vote.  Provide my family, my friends, my children, and my country with a health safety net so they don't have to face the same concerns in the future.

Please see my message to you, along with the stories and photos of other Americans from your district and across the nation, at http://my.barackobama.com/HereFor

Respectfully,
Robert Bennett

Cincinnati, is it really as bad as I think it is?

So Vanity Fair wrote an article about Cincinnati, or more specifically the Creationism Museum and attributing all the stupidity it stands for to the entire region.

It resulted in quite the uproar on my twitter feed and a couple of blog postings from one of my favorite local bloggers, Kate.

I read the article and honestly learned more about the museum than I knew before (which was basically just that it physically exists) but otherwise wasn't all that impressed.  It wasn't awe inspiring journalism and it wasn't written to inform, but rather seemed to be a piece written to take up a few columns in between ads for products that aren't meant and aren't marketed for me.  It was what I would call a masturbatory piece.  It's there for the edification of the author and those who dismiss all those who aren't "You" to prove just how much better "You" are than "Them."  More sophisticated, more educated, more everything I'm not.

OK, I'll give you pretty much all of that, you probably are.

But what the subsequent conversation about the article really made me do was rethink my opinion of Cincinnati.

I moved to the Queen City in the summer of 1993.  After my last class at Ohio University, we drove from Athens to Cincinnati where I spent the first several months of my tenure living in a pop up camper in Lebanon while working 80+ hours a week at Kings Island.  (For the record I was only in the camper because my parents hadn't finalized the move down here so there was no house for me to move into yet).

A series of extraordinarily poor decisions on my part led to my lack of return to Athens and probably tainted my overall impression of Cincinnati as a place that I have never been happy in.

I always felt the place was too conservative, too boring, too reclusive, too... not what I wanted.  As a sedentary person by nature, I never set out to prove my first impressions wrong.  I accepted them as fact, carved out my own little niche of friends and even managed to find a woman willing to tolerate me enough to marry me.

But always the opinions remained.  Nothing to do, noone to talk to, and let's face it - living in Jean Schmidt's district isn't doing wonders for my opinions on the local politics.

Then I started following some local people on Twitter.  Starting with my friend Heather I branched out to other local foodies such as Julie, the aforementioned Kate, the always opinionated Thadd, and the man who helped me become the first to monetize Twitter in a non-spammy way by buying Girl Scout Cookies via Twitter, Bob.  These are but a small but vocal segment of the "Bigger Cincinnati World" that was out there.

They are advocates for the region.  They look deeper than I do and find the gems hidden in plain site.  They share what they find.  They enjoy their lives and present it in a way that invites you to join in the fun.

But most importantly they've taken this lazy fat man and made him wonder about maybe giving Cincinnati another shot.

Windows Update error 403 fix

When a user goes to the Windows Update website, they may see an error that reads :

Server Error 403-Forbidden: Access Denied
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the
credentials you supplied.

As you can see on this thread on the Microsoft community website, this issue appears to have started some time on December 10th, 2009.

Have the user check their Windows Update log file which can be found by clicking Start-Run and typing %windir%\Windowsupdate.log and looking for an entry similar to this at the bottom of the file:

FATAL: Update required for C:\WINDOWS\system32\wuweb.dll: target version =
7.2.6001.788, required version = 7.4.7600.226

The fix I have been able to confirm here is to have the user (assuming they have the correct permissions on their system) download and install this file

This will update the failing dll file to the required version. (please note that this link will only be for this version of the windows update agent, any future updates would have a different link)

EDIT:  I'm seeing some google traffic hitting this post which is great.  If it works for you can you please leave a comment confirming?