Thanks, Lorax

"A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean, kid." -the Lorax

As I lay awake it occurs to me that this idea has ominous implications for America because half of us pay no income tax. Fortunately that is the half less-inclined to vote but the margin is shrinking. This is why I'm not blogging as much any more. President Obama has cost me my hope. The country is doomed, whether Romney or Obama goes in, and if Romney goes in you can argue it will get worse FASTER. I already told you don't be surprised at anything that happens after they elect a socialist to the whitehouse. Rage against it all you like, Obama is an idealogue and he'll do what he "thinks" is "fair". If Mittens gets in I think I'll pick it up more, because there is hope that he can be persuaded. Okay, it is certain he can be persuaded and if you keep his phone ringing he'll do what is right. That is, after all, his platform: "you like that oh I like that too!" But Democrats have phones to call him also.

Romney: for big government, for gun control, and just came out and said he would KEEP parts of obamacare. Of course, we can't call it Romneycare because they already call in Massachusetts the bankrupt system he set up there as Governor. All we need is this guy with a compliant House and Senate. At least Obama would likely face four years of gridlock.

Also: waking up to noises and smells of a dog having messed the bed is not great, especially when you've just finished sleeping enough to not be sleepy any more, three hours before time to wake up at the start of a long day.

IF You Had a Sketchy Few Minutes There

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
[snip]
---you'll be a Man, my son!

You know it's a rough morning when Kipling is instructing you in manhood before 07:00. Well, it was a rough ten minutes, anyway. The morning is barely starting.

Don't Tell ME What To Compound, Sister.

Every once in a while I rub up against the government in a way that makes me want to scream and commit acts of violence against people just trying to do their jobs. I went with #2 and #3 to get my usual "your largest quantity generic 30mg pseudoephedrine tablet" at the local pharmacy counter and the girl asked me who it was for, as I was paying. I indicated it was for #2 and #3, and she was thrown totally off her game. She asked how old #2 is and I told her.

She came back with a timid " . . . well, you know he has to be at least 12 years of age . . . "

I told her " . . . or I could give him the liquid preparation (that they carry on the shelf above the box of pills I'm buying) or I could grind it up and give it to him in something else like y'all would do."*

she continues to ring me up as I am pretty obviously not having any of her jive and very obviously over 12 years of age, but she says " . . . but . . . he has to be at least 12 . . . "

After we exited the store, I did a little brainwashing against unreasoning government that started with "that lady said she wants you to suffer with allergies for four more years . . . "

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*What I also could have said was: "Excuse me but I can't help noticing you are rather young. Perhaps it has escaped your notice, but current recommendations and guidelines for administration of pseudoephedrine to children are based on questionable science and unquestionably bad legislation, due to kneejerk politics instead of logic. When you were still in high school, I would come into this very store and purchase -(turn around and point) right off that shelf over there- a tiny bottle called Infants' Tylenol Cold that was magic when used as directed on THIS boy (point at #2) when he was a few MONTHS old. I know that people are stupid and can't think, but I am not people I am a Person and a Man besides, and I know how to calculate doses based on weight just fine, and I read my labels to make sure I don't give anyone a fatal dose of anything. Which would be a neat trick with sudafed, now that this blessed wonderful drug is behind the counter and that crap phenylephrine which does nothing is on the shelf and the kids of America can't breathe. I happen to know for a fact that dosed by weight THIS kid (point at #2) takes one red pill and gets better. THIS kid (point at #3) takes half that much from (point at shelf behind counter) that bottle and gets better. Look at my face. See how the beard is cut, note the shape of the glasses. Remember this face and do yourself a favor. Never talk to me again about how old my boy should be before I give him the thing that makes him able to breathe.

But I didn't. One would hate to be escorted from the store for being mad at our Elected Heroes to the pharmacy clerk.

Mitt Romney Wins 3:1 Landslide Victory over Obama!!!1!

Borepatch puts more than his intuitive hunch to work and comes up with a landslide victory for Mitt Romney. I have said before, it would not surprise me to see a landslide win with very low turnout. Very, very low for the Democrats vs. moderate numbers for the Republicans. We'll see. If it weren't for the power over the rules made and enforced (or ignored) by the executive branch and the power to appoint judges, I wouldn't care about this election either way. Not that I don't care; that's just how big a Romney fan I am.

DIY/Solved! Move Windows AND Programs to New Computer for FREE

I'm ugrading my work computer. This is like a 50% power boost so it's worth some time. I put more time in it than I had to; this is a single-day affair if you're being slow and doing regular work in between telling the computer what to do. It went wrong in various ways, but finally I was able to transfer Windows XP from one computer to a totally different machine, with all my programs and files intact. When I finally found the proper method, it was super easy! NO extra software is required if you have two legit Windows licenses and a Windows installation CD.

First I used the Seagate-branded Acronis disk copying software to clone my hard drive in case something stupid happened (and it did, repeatedly, because I didn't do things in quite the right order the first go-round). Then I set the original disk aside and booted the clone hard drive, told XP to upgrade itself to the version of itself on the XP installation CD, then shut down the computer. Instead of letting it reboot and "complete" the update on my old box, I moved the hard drive to the new machine and let it continue with the "upgrade".

I had seen the MichaelStevensTech page with similar instructions but it was presented in an intimidating manner. Then I found this page at Development Stuff that covered it in more-accessible language.

Paul's Computer Service saved my bacon when it all seemed to work but hung at a black XP logo splash screen saying "please wait". It wanted a newer version of Internet Explorer than was on my XP installation CD. Boot into safe mode, install IE, install chipset drivers, reboot, activate, download a couple hundred megabytes of updates and we're done!

It works like a champ now. Thanks everybody!

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Travails along the way:

First, I tried the dead-easiest way: (clone the HDD and) slap the hard drive into the new PC. Believe it or not, this HAS worked for me in the past when the PCs were close-enough to the same configuration. This looked initially encouraging, but it ended up in an endless reboot cycle, only getting as far as the splash screen before restarting. Trying the whole thing again with a Repair Installation of XP also looked promising, but also ended in an endless reboot loop. In safe mode it would get as far as a 7B stop error (STOP! I can't read the hard drives, hoss!). I tried this a couple times and killed the boot sector on the disk somehow. I changed the BIOS SATA setting to Legacy (ATA also worked) and got past the 7B stop to an Error Loading Operating System error. That was because it couldn't boot from the disk with a broken boot sector. The data was all there, but this required a full low-level format (fixmbr, fixboot, fdisk/mbr didn't work). I installed a fresh copy of Windows on the new drive to be sure it would boot and re-cloned the drive. THEN I did it the right way.

Austin Teachers 2013 Pay Raise

It must be nice to have a job in a labor pool with such low demand and high supply that there are 50 applicants for every job opening, and they still talk about pay rises in a down economy. Excuse me for noticing that the pay increase going to teachers who have sweet, sweet union contracts come straight out of the pay checks of NON government employees.

Austin is stupid.

Why The Ryan Budget Balanced: Dynamic Modeling

The Congressional Budget Office, by law, must only consider static calculations when marking up budget proposals. By this logic, a tax decrease means revenues fall (in contrast to twice in recent history when revenues ROSE huge when taxes FELL huge). Static calculations also say that when taxes are increased revenues to the government will increase. Funny then, how in Spain when they raised taxes and expected 4.3% increases, revenue just fell by 3.5%.

Really, the international left should do something about this pesky reality mucking up the numbers.

Obama Campaign Wants You To Dislike Mormons.

Well, they did until Buzzfeed asked about it, and then the helpful suggestion was yanked off the Dashboard . . . but the Internet never forgets.
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Gee, if only someone could have guessed that those on Obama's side would try to make you dislike mormonism because Mitt is one. Oh wait, I did. Except I thought the actual campaign people would be decent enough to leave it alone and let the Press exploit the issue. No, that would be the actual campaign workers, encouraged to highlight the differences between LDS and Christianity. Well I guess somebody had to be first, and the campaign beat the press to it.

They will, of course, leave Catholics alone because both Ryan and Biden are them. Discussing Obama's reigion is old news, so why bother? Right? I mean didn't we run a 10-second spot once talking about it?

Hat tip: Instapundit.

Not Dead, Still Busy

The last many nights have been split between sleep, family, and getting the next batch of stuff ready for sale on eBay.

Can anybody loan me a few extra man-hours? Preferably for the really high-skilled labor-intensive stuff so I can just kick it with the family.

Sustainable Depends Upon Comprehension of Sustainance.

Tokelau is getting a solar-and-palm oil energy generation scheme, funded by a few million dollars from New Zealand. It will be rotten and dead and forgotten within a decade and Tokelau will be back on diesel, and the "environmentally-conscious" people who stole the $6M from the good people of NZ will have forgotten all about it (unless they send a full-time bureaucracy to maintain this madness).

But, until it all turns solid rust-brown and the coconuts are stolen to feed the children, look how very sustainable it all is!