JDPFu.com 2025

News media bias? Really? No way? Follow the money ….
Journalists dole out cash to politicians

Here’s the summary:
MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

Ok, one of my Senators responded to my Thoughts On Immigration that I forwarded to his office. The response follows:

Dear Mr. P :

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Senate debate on comprehensive immigration reform. I appreciate hearing from you and appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Many have asked why I became involved in a process to work towards a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate. I did it for two reasons. First, in my travels throughout the State of Georgia in the past three years, I had heard loudly and clearly from Georgians that they wanted us to end illegal immigration in America right now, plain and simple. We cannot leave it for future generations to solve. And second, quite frankly, the 2006 elections changed the landscape in Washington and put Democrats in charge of the legislative process. Had I not sat at the table and fought for conservative principles, Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi would have had the votes to pass last year’s horrendous Senate bill and send it on to the President. I could not let that happen. Therefore, I stood strong with other conservative colleagues in the Senate and worked towards a process by which we could to start the immigration debate in the Congress.

I started this process seeking to accomplish three main goals in this debate – to truly secure our borders, to prohibit a new pathway to citizenship and to stop the current climate of amnesty whereby millions of illegal immigrants are breaking our laws and facing no punishment for doing so. As a result of a severely flawed immigration law passed in 1986, some 12 million to 20 million immigrants have been allowed to enter this country illegally and remain indefinitely. They work tax-free, get free health care in our emergency rooms and educate their children for free in our schools. Our nation’s policy today is amnesty, and it must end.

The immigration bill we debated for the past two weeks differed dramatically from the one signed into law in 1986 and it is also very different from last year’s Senate bill. The 1986 law granted amnesty but failed to secure the border, and our country has been paying the price ever since. Last year, the Republican-led Senate repeated the same mistake of 1986 by passing a bill to grant legal status to illegal immigrants without securing our nation’s borders and without imposing any punishment for those here illegally. I voted against that bill last year because it was amnesty and because it failed to secure the border.

This year, I led an effort to ensure that any proposal contain the essential foundation for successfully reforming our immigration system – a requirement to truly secure our borders first before any reform of our temporary worker system takes place. This became known as the "Isakson trigger," and it mandated that Congress must fund, put in place and make operational true border security before any temporary work program could begin. As it currently stands, the bill states that border security must include at least 20,000 border agents, 31,000 detention beds, four unmanned aerial vehicles, 105 radar towers, and 300 miles of vehicles barriers. In addition, a minimum of 370 miles of the fencing mandated in last year’s Secure Fence Act must be constructed. I firmly believe that these security measures would finally provide comprehensive border security and would ensure that we have operational control of our southern border.

The final, key piece of my trigger was a biometrically secure identification card that will allow employers for the first time to instantly verify whether an immigrant is legal. Employers today must guess whether documentation provided by immigrants is fraudulent or not. A biometrically secure ID would replace this guessing game with certainty and would hold employers accountable with much stricter fines for hiring illegal workers.

Although opponents of the bill have suggested that there was nothing worthwhile in this bill, I would suggest that it contained several critical and necessary changes to fix our broken immigration system. It would have secured our borders first. It would have ended our current system of amnesty. It contained no new pathway to citizenship and would have forced illegal immigrants to go home before they could be eligible for a green card or for citizenship. It would have ended chain migration. It would have given employers a fraud-proof system to verify whether workers are legal. It would have forced immigrants to learn English. These are the kind of conservative Georgia principles that I brought to the table and fought for and was able to include. Even though these principles were included, I recognized it was still an imperfect product and that is why I worked through the amendment process to make it even stronger.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Bingaman to limit the temporary worker visa quota for the proposed Y-1 visa to a "hard cap" of 200,000 per year. The bill as originally drafted provided for 400,000 Y-1 visas for the first year, and that number could have risen to 600,000 in following years. This amendment passed and that number was instead capped at 200,000.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Graham to impose mandatory jail sentences for those who crossed the border illegally after being deported – at least 60 days in jail for the first offense and no less than two years for the second offense. Everyone needs to know that America is changing its immigration laws, and that if you break our laws, you will lose your freedom. This amendment passed.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. McCain to require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes on their earnings for the time they had been in the United States . This amendment passed.

I cosponsored and voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Coleman to close a loophole in existing immigration law to allow local law enforcement to acquire information about the immigration status of a person they have probable cause to believe is not lawfully in the U.S. There are several "sanctuary cities" around the United States that have prohibited their law enforcement to inquire about a person’s immigration status. In certain cities, a person can be charged and even tried without the local authorities ever inquiring about whether the person is in the United States legally. The amendment would make it clear that state and local governments may not prohibit their law enforcement from checking a person’s immigration status when they have probable cause to believe that the person is in the United States illegally. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Hutchison to prohibit anyone who worked here illegally from obtaining social security benefits based on earnings obtained while here illegally. This amendment passed.

I cosponsored and voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Inhofe to require that English be declared the national language of the United States . It also provided that the English language is the default language for government communication, and that no person has a right to have the government communicate in any language other than English, unless "specifically stated in applicable law." If an exception is made, then only the English language version of any government form can have legal weight.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Demint to require that temporary workers maintain a minimum level of private health insurance to keep them off public assistance such as Medicare and Medicaid. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Sessions to prohibit anyone who is not a green card holder in the United States from being able to take advantage of the Earned Income Tax Credit. This amendment passed.

I voted for an amendment offered by Sen. Cornyn to permanently bar about 635,000 "alien absconders," or immigrants who have received deportation notices, from obtaining visas. Unfortunately, this amendment failed.

I also voted to defeat all cloture motions designed to cut off debate on the immigration bill. The Democratic leadership in the Senate refused to allow up or down votes on additional Republican amendments that would further strengthen this bill. Among these critical initiatives that I supported but was not allowed an up or down vote on was an amendment mandating spending for border security as well as an amendment to require illegal immigrants to return home in order to participate in the Z visa program. The Democratic leader’s refusal to allow votes on these additional amendments was unacceptable.

As I have said throughout the debate, I would reserve judgment on the final bill until deliberations were complete on the bill. At the time the Democratic leadership moved to end debate on the bill, it was my view that this bill was not good enough yet for the people of Georgia .

I recognize the lack of trust that a majority of Georgians have in the federal government’s ability to follow through on its promise to secure the border. For that reason, I recently sent a letter to the President calling on him to use his emergency funding powers to fully fund the border security measures in this legislation as well as all outstanding border security measures that have previously been passed but not yet funded .

I have been working hard to address the number one domestic issue in the United States . I will continue my efforts because I believe it is absolutely critical to our state and to this nation that we secure the borders and restore credibility to our immigration system.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please visit my webpage for more information on the issues important to you and to sign up for my e-newsletter.

Sincerely,
Johnny Isakson
United States Senator

to be clear, this device is not not used anymore.

I have a Linksys WRT54GX-v2 that was available for just a few months before all the "pre-N" routers became available.

There are many, many good things about this router and only 2 bad things.
Bad Things about this router:

1. QoS is a feature, but it doesn’t work. Cisco support could only say – send it back.
2. $180!!!

My really old site was WebAPP based. There are many plugins available, but for most folks, it just isn’t worth the effort. That’s what I’ve found. Anyway, get it here.

My old site was TiddlyWiki based.

The current site is SoloWiki based. We’ll see how long that lasts. So far, so good.

The new site will be Typo based.

Voice Over IP – Voice Over Internet Protocol.

Basically, using your Internet connection for really cheap phone service.
Sunrocker and ‘Vonage’:http://vonage.com/ are popular providers. Sunrocker has gone out of business.

There’s also a free one-number service . These folks give you a local number (u chose it) that you control where and when it rings on other phones. I use it to ring the house, cell, and work phones simultaneously. It also announces callers, so i can send folks to voicemail if I can’t speak to them right then. The system has many other features and is currently free.

I came across a video editor – not fancy, but it works.
The name is ‘cbreak’. It is a MS-Windows command line utility – no don’t be afraid. It has a manual mode that goes through the entire AVI file (only works on AVI files) and figures out where the black frames are. Then it can ask you to confirm each segment to remove or keep by showing you the segment in question. It knows about key frames, so your cuts happen on them.

Sounds dumb? It is. Get it here What do you want for free?

I’ll keep a local copy in case he decides to stop publishing it. It is available in C source code and is released under the GPL

If you’re looking for MPEG file commercial skip, check out ComSkip – not nearly as useful, but with more features for detecting commercials. Eh.

April 2007 Update: I’ve given up and purchased VideoRedo, yes, it was worth it to me. It uses the same commercial location methods that all the other programs use, but with the added TiVo file reading benefit.

Get it here
Good tips are here

Swanson’s Rules shamelessly stolen written by Tyrone Taborn

William H. Swanson, CEO and President Raytheon Company Raytheon’s CEO Does Management Right, by the Numbers.

There are two things on which Raytheon’s William H. Swanson doesn’t need a lecture. One is management skills. The other is the value of diversity.
As diversity champion turned chief executive officer, president, and member of the board, Swanson has an unwavering commitment to increasing the number of minorities in the field of technology. And, as if to underscore the point, an appearance at Tuskegee University was his first speaking engagement on a college campus since he became CEO of the nation’s fourth-largest defense company.

That’s typical Swanson: setting the bar and jumping over it himself. On his staff are more than 40 Tuskegee alumni, not including interns, who, Swanson says, "fit very well into our structure because of the foundation that they learned here on campus."

Working for Swanson means facing perhaps the toughest defense executive in recent history. But according to Tuskegee alum Gaynelle P. Swann, M.Sc. in engineering, he answers 99.9 percent of his own e-mail and endears himself to those around him by remembering details such as the names of their children.
When Lester L. Lyles, then the Air Force’s only Black four-star general, received Lifetime Achievement honors at the 2003 Black Engineer of the Year Conference, Swanson sent personal congratulations. Such attention to the human element has made Swanson an admired executive.

Says the now-retired Gen. Lyles: "Raytheon is clearly in the top echelon of DoD contractors because of his leadership!"
Swanson’s success is no accident. He is highly principled. He hits the ground running well before 7:00 a.m.; his typical day ends 14 hours later. More than half of his weekends are spent away from home, and, if he could, he would shake hands with each of Raytheon’s 76,000 employees.
Swanson’s leadership is based on management rules he developed over his 30-plus years at Raytheon. "Swanson’s Unwritten Rules of Management" are 25 straightforward directives that also provide insight into what it takes to be successful.

"Swanson’s Rules" might explain how Raytheon emerged as the leader in high-tech warfare and remained a corporate powerhouse during a time of economic contraction.

Many inside and outside of Raytheon credit Swanson with saving the company. And some say it wasn’t just the business he rescued but Raytheon’s sense of social mission as well. As the company’s first executive champion for diversity, Swanson worked to build an inclusive culture. As he says, "Our commitment to diversity has made us a better company. To have diversity of thought and opinion expressed by the people in your organization is incredibly powerful. If you’re able to harness that, there is no [limit to] what you’re able to accomplish."

In 1997, as a corporate vice president, he received one of the toughest of assignments: integrating the newly acquired defense businesses of Texas Instruments and Hughes into Raytheon.

A lot was riding on his managerial acumen. Raytheon’s overall revenues nearly doubled with the acquisitions. The commercial groups, which had produced nearly 60 percent of total company sales in 1995, and close to half of total earnings, suddenly were eclipsed by the defense business groups. It was up to Swanson to assimilate the former rivals into the company.

It was probably at this point that Swanson’s third rule kicked in: "If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much." Swanson definitely got his share of criticism – from employees caught in painful layoffs and irate members of Congress disturbed by their states’ economic losses – but he was busy laying a foundation that would pay great dividends in just a few short years.

Swanson’s efforts would not be fully appreciated until Sept. 11, 2001, when the world was changed fundamentally with terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center. Then, it became clearer that the $3.3 trillion the U.S. spent on defense in the 1990s could not guarantee security. Our nation needed a new military that would fight a new kind of war. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld called it the era of "transformational military" initiatives.

Another of Swanson’s Rules came into play: No. 9, "Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement, or indifference…." Swanson’s role in handling the mergers was a thankless, seemingly no-win job. He found himself in California running a smaller division than he’d left. But those who expected him to fade from the scene were wrong. Swanson’s new unit, Raytheon’s Electronic Systems, provided key products to the new high-tech military, and, under his leadership, it ramped up to about 40 percent of Raytheon’s sales.

Rule No. 4 also applied: "Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there, but few can see what isn’t there." According to Carl Conetta of the Project on Defense Alternatives, military transformation meant moving away from capital-intensive armadas of heavy mechanized ground forces, artillery and missile systems, and advanced combat aircraft, toward full adoption of new information technology and restructuring of the armed forces to produce an "Information Age" military.
Bill Swanson saw this future. Acquiring the defense businesses of TI and Hughes proved him right and made Raytheon the company that provides the defense world’s most high-tech offerings.

This year, Swanson rose to be Raytheon’s president and CEO. But as his Tuskegee visit proves, one of his top priorities will be dealing with the disturbing reality that women, Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and persons with disabilities now make up two-thirds of the U.S. work force but hold only about a quarter of the technical jobs.
Another priority will be Swanson’s Rule No. 25: "Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump!"
Seeing Swanson at Tuskegee, happily chatting about the future with young students, it was clear he had learned his lesson well.

Bill Swanson’s 25 Unwritten Rules of Management

1. Learn to say, "I don’t know." If used when appropriate, it will be often.
2. It is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.
3. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what’s there, but few can see what isn’t there.
5. Viewgraph rule: When something appears on a viewgraph (an overhead transparency), assume the world knows about it, and deal with it accordingly.
6. Work for a boss with whom you are comfortable telling it like it is. Remember that you can’t pick your relatives, but you can pick your boss.
7. Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they are supposed to be. Avoid Newton’s Law.
8. However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best efforts.
9. Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement, or indifference. Don’t be known as a good starter but a poor finisher.
10. In completing a project, don’t wait for others; go after them, and make sure it gets done.
11. Confirm your instructions and the commitments of others in writing. Don’t assume it will get done!
12. Don’t be timid; speak up. Express yourself, and promote your ideas.
13. Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get it done.
14. Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports.
15. Be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements.
16. Don’t overlook the fact that you are working for a boss.
    • Keep him or her informed. Avoid surprises!
    • Whatever the boss wants takes top priority.
17. Promises, schedules, and estimates are important instruments in a well-ordered business.
    • You must make promises. Don’t lean on the often-used phrase, "I can’t estimate it because it depends upon many uncertain factors."
18. Never direct a complaint to the top. A serious offense is to "cc" a person’s boss.
19. When dealing with outsiders, remember that you represent the company. Be careful of your commitments.
20. Cultivate the habit of "boiling matters down" to the simplest terms. An elevator speech is the best way.
21. Don’t get excited in engineering emergencies. Keep your feet on the ground.
22. Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions.
23. When making decisions, the pros are much easier to deal with than the cons. Your boss wants to see the cons also.
24. Don’t ever lose your sense of humor.
25. Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump.

jdpfu notes: Swanson borrowed his rules from other really smart folks, which I like. Over the years, he didn’t keep track of who he got the rules from, which I don’t like – never take credit for ideas or work that isn’t your own.

SunRocket was my VoIP provider. They’ve run a number of specials – most recently $199 for 2 years of unlimited service
Let me know if you want to sign up. A referral would be much appreciated.

August 2007 Update — They’ve gone out of business. I kept my Gizmo and moved to a new, monthly only, provider. That provider has some problems. If I figure them all out, I’ll post an entry here.

Investing for retirement made simple. I’m not an investment advisor nor do I have any certifications related to investing.
If you don’t enjoy working with numbers, tracking down "cheap" companies selling at a good value and monitoring them daily, weekly, monthly, then here’s a simple set of ideas for doing reasonable well investing for retirement.

• Pay yourself first – whatever the monthly amount is that you are going to invest, consider it a bill just like your rent or mortgage.
• Save at least 10% of your GROSS income for retirement – this applies to both husband AND wife in a marriage. If you are single, you need to save more.
• Start saving early – it is amazing the difference that starting at 25 years old makes when compared to starting at 35 years of age. At age 55, the total amount is staggering.
• Asset allocation (putting a little money here and a little money there) is very important to ride the ups and downs for each part of the market.
• Unless you are 5-10 years away from retirement, avoid bonds. Some people will disagree with me on this.
• Ok, the target asset allocation for someone under 50 years old (in my opinion) is:
  • 50% Large CAP stocks (an S&P500 fund or ETF) These are the core of your investments, steady, predictable growth well above inflation is needed. If you want to be a little riskier, find a "value" Large CAP fund or ETF. Morning Star LrgCAP Funds
  • 30% Overseas (EFT or worldwide fund) You might ask why? Growth rates overseas are likely to be higher than in the USA over the next 30 years, IMHO. Morning Star Worldwide Funds
  • 20% Small/Mid CAP stocks (ETF) Smaller companies tend to grow faster than large companies, but they also tend to fail more. Morning Star Small CAP Value funds
• Be certain to take enough risks – Certificates of Deposit are not risky enough for your retirement, unless you are retiring within 5 years. Then you should ladder your CDs every year so that for any 5 year period, your income from your investments is completely guaranteed.
• Don’t put any money into any stock, mutual fund or ETF that you might need in the next 5-10 years. Sufficient time is important for risk management.
• Avoid market timing, something called Dollar Cost Averaging really does work – basically, this means send the same amount in every month. When the price is high, you buy fewer shares. When the price is low, you buy more shares. Simple. Be certain to buy those stocks that are cheap with your monthly inputs. AND don’t forget diversification! Never forget that.
• If you aren’t willing to do the time monitoring and researching, stay away from HOT TIPS from the gym and water cooler.
• Save for your retirement before saving for your child’s college education – college loans are easy. There’s no such thing as a retirement loan.
• A good enough guess for how much money you should have before retiring is 12x your annual salary. $50K calculates to $600K needed at retirement. There are many, many assumptions and your needs will be hirer or lower based on too many factors to assume. More conservative estimates go with 25x your annual salary – that’s $1.25M. Which do you think can better weather a 10 yr bear market or critical health issue?
• Here’s a retirement calculator that might be helpful to estimate how much you need to save to reach your goal – both IE and MS-Excel is required for it to work (sorry, it was too easy for me using these tools).
• Try to keep fees to a minimum by using a discount broker with lots of No Transaction Fee Mutual Funds and low fees to purchase stocks (Under $13 per trade). Avoid churn.
• Never buy a fund that requires a front-end or back-end load or 12b fees.
• Avoid high fee ETFs and Mutual Funds with fees over 1%.
• Look for top ranked mutual funds followed by Morning Star – try to purchase the mutual funds in the top 25% of short term and long term performance for the type of asset class you are trying to get. Mix Value and Growth AND Large, Mid, and Small CAP companies. Asset Allocation is critical.
• Be certain that you have 6-12 months of living expenses saved and available outside your retirement investments.
• You should be in good overall financial shape before you begin investing – no credit card debt, no long term car loans (over 3 years total), you get the idea. If you aren’t certain, you have a problem to be solved.
• Never have more than 20% of you total investments in a single investment – once you have $50K total. This includes the company stock that you work at. I count my annual salary towards this 10% rule and don’t have any company stock where I work – my salary is enough of an investment.
• Your house is only an investment if you can sell it. You will still need someplace to live.
• DO review your investments every quarter and verify you are in investments in the top, say 30% of the class for performance.and DO rebalance your portfolio annually to get back to the 50/30/20 allocations (approximately).
• If you do these simple things, anyone can retire with over $1M saved by saving $250/month. It just takes consistency over the 30+ years of saving. Average returns in your investments will get you there.
• Keep the market ups/downs in perspective with this graph

Some helpful links:

• Dollar Cost Averaging
• Asset Allocation | Asset Allocation is more important than the actual investments selected!=
• Yahoo Finance
• Mutual Fund
• EFT
• If you are looking for more Links … I currently use NAIC stock selection methods and Manifest Investing and have used The Chartist advisory service for multiple years. If you’re looking for an easy way to learn NAIC investing methods, check out.