Can I be a media whore, too?

So we hear that this guy, "conservative commentator" Armstrong Williams, was paid $240,000 of taxpayers' money by the Bush Administration to shill for the No Child Left Behind act. Immediately after it was revealed, the people who syndicate his newspaper column fired him, which was clearly the right thing to do. His contrite response:

"I understand the decision," Williams said when reached by E&P. He also said he would not be returning the $240,000.

Hey, I can understand that; he had been paid to be a whore, he had done the work, so he's gonna keep the money that they left on the dresser.

This follows the reports by the General Accounting Office that the phony "news reports" the Bushies ginned up to help pass the Medicare pork-for-big-drug-companies bill from 2003 were violations of law (don't hold your breath waiting for the prosecutions or Congressional investigations). To paraphrase something I read recently, the Republicans have become the Scratch 'n Sniff Party: Scratch anything they do, and the odor of graft, greed, and corruption wafts up.

But I want to know when someone will pay me that kind of scratch to sell out. I wait and wait, but my phone never rings. Sigh...

My new Quicken book is out!

I'm happy to announce the availability of my latest book, Managing Your Personal Finances with Quicken : Visual QuickProject Guide. If you're new to Quicken, this book will help you get up and running fast, just in time to start your financial year right. The book covers both Quicken for Windows 2005 and Quicken for Mac 2005. Let the selling begin!

Switcher movie parody

I've seen a ton of switcher movie parodies. This new one, though, made me laugh out loud: A Mac-to-PC switcher movie.

Check it out.

Another good pan

My response to Dori's post below: We already have a different 5.5 qt saute pan from Cuisinart, the Cuisinart Chef's Classic Stainless 5-1/2-Quart Sauté Pan. It's from their cheaper line, so it's not multi-clad up the sides of the pan, just on the bottom disk. But heck, I never cook on the sides of the pan anyway, and Cook's Illustrated says that they can't tell much difference between fully-clad and disk-clad. I got this pan about a year ago, and I love it. I use it more than any other pan I have. And at just 40 bucks, it's a total deal.

Al on Cookware

Al Hawkins has been doing some wonderful writing about cookware in the last few days:

I've decided to start building a kitchen the old fashioned way - by thinking about the value each purchase rather than just the cost, keeping an eye on the total expenditure, and trying to get the most culinary bang for my buck.

Go read the whole thing. But if you want the too-short version, he really likes Amazon's current sale prices on the Calphalon Professional Nonstick II Limited Edition 10-Inch Omelet Pan and the Cuisinart MultiClad Stainless 5-1/2-Quart Sauté Pan. Tom, do we need either of these?

Keynote AppleScript Support

This link is for Tom: Keynote AppleScript Support Plugin. Includes Salling Clicker support. Yay!

OK, I'm surprised. Later: OK, I'm really not.

Looks as though the word "shame" is in the vocabulary of the House GOP. House GOP Reverses Course on Ethics Rules. They decided not to weaken their rules further, and even reinstated the rule they wiped out last November that said that House leaders under indictment had to leave their posts. I applaud them for that, not that it should ever have been eliminated in the first place.

Now, since these people have previously shown that they can't be trusted, I'm looking for the catch. I see that they do plan to get rid of the GOP chairman of the Ethics Committee, who they thought was too harsh on DeLay. I suppose if they install a leadership lapdog who strangles future investigations in the cradle, that might solve the "problem."

Update: OK, here's the catch. The chairman of the Rules Committee said "...Republicans on Tuesday would present to the full House a proposal that ethics cases be dismissed if the ethics committee, which is divided equally between Democrats and Republicans, is deadlocked." The current rule is that a tie results in an investigation. So as long as the GOP leadership can maintain party discipline among Ethics Committee Republicans, which they can probably do unless DeLay is photographed screwing a goat, no charges will go forward. Add that to the replacement of the current Ethics Committee chairman with someone more pliant, and we can expect no effective oversight from the already all-but-toothless watchdog. And that's just the way the Republicans want it.

IDE to USB 2.0 drive adapter

It's not Firewire, but it's USB 2 and dirt cheap: PCMS IDE TO USB 2.0 drive adapter PC/MAC.

The USB 2.0 IDE Adapter turns any IDE drive into a convenient external drive.  The adapter supports all existing IDE/ATAPI devices such as LS-120, Iomega Zip, CD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD-ROM and IDE hard drives. Support up 250GB IDE hard drive.

He has. We want.

Tom's waiting for Comcast to get around to offering their HD PVR around here. Until then, he'll have to be content to just read James Duncan Davidson's description of his: High Definition PVR Arrives.

Color us envious.

Know anything about wine cellars?

In lieu of buying each other holiday gifts, Tom and I decided to go in on one larger, joint household purchase. We agreed to get a wine refrigerator, as it's difficult to live in an area like ours and not develop an appreciation for good wine.

The bad news? We don't know anything about buying wine cellars, and damn, some of them are expensive. So, I thought I'd throw it out to you folks—any of you have opinions on this topic? Is this 35 Bottle Slimline Mini Cellar a good deal, or a rip-off? (look at the shipping charge—yikes!). Got any suggestions about ones that you think would be better? Let us know, and thanks!