But it’s good stuff.

My initial choice in the Republican primaries, Herman Cain, threw a major screwball in giving his endorsement. Hey, he’s having too much fun right right now, making the politico-comedic scene with Steve Colbert, to be messing with the campaign lunacy.

A candidate with half a brain (I understand that is a requirement to run for office in some states) would covet the nod from a DeMint, a Cain, or even the freshman Scott.

Politicians are funny about endorsements. When I edited a weekly paper in Arizona, a City Councilman kept bugging me about it during the election season. Somehow or other he got the idea I set the policy there — that privilege usually goes to the guy who buys all that paper and ink, and it sure wasn’t me. But the owner and I were on the same page there, so I got to make the endorsements.

In truth, though, I can’t tell you who really pays attention to those endorsements.

OK, I lied. Maybe I can:

• The candidates themselves.
• The ones making the endorsements.
• The drones.

Of course the candidates are interested in endorsements. They’re in a volatile business, and their fortunes are dictated by public opinion. They’re always checking the wind. A good endorsement from a fellow politician (why did I say wind?) shows the candidate he may be on the right track and wowing the right crowd. And a media endorsement is good, too. As laughably ineffectual as the mainstream media is these days, they still have enough muscle to set policy.

The endorser also has an interest here. To a politician making an endorsement, it can be genuine respect, the making of an alliance somewhere along the line, or a favor to be called later. Like it or not, horse trading is still a big part of politics. And a news outlet has thousands of advertising dollars riding on an endorsement — not just in the political season, but after the votes are counted and the signs torn down.

But that’s small stuff. Why did I mention the drones?

The drone factor is important here. Off the election results over the past couple of decades, they may be in the majority by now. More likely they already are; they only recently discovered voting.

I’d have no problem if these drones (y’all know who you are) merely retired in front of the television, watched the newest hottest reality show, kept up with the celeb du jour, got their news from the National Enquirer or TMZ, and left the voting to those who actually care.

The drones pay attention to such stuff as endorsements, and are more likely to base their vote from an endorsement than a person who actually engages his brain every once in a while.

Here’s the straight stuff: If I vote a certain way because my favorite movie actor or athlete says so, I’m a drone.

If I vote for someone because my union/teacher/boss/spouse/authority-figure-of-choice votes a certain way, I’m another drone.  Taking advice from someone you respect is one thing, but giving that authority figure the pink slip to your vote is something else entirely.

If I vote with an eye toward what I would get out of it and screw the rest of the country, I’m the worst kind of drone.

Please.

Stay home.

Go away.

Better to handle sharp objects than a ballot.

Oh, yes. That newspaper owner I actually saw eye to eye with on endorsements: We both agreed that to make an endorsement was to insult the voter’s intelligence. I did have the privilige of writing the editorial containing our endorsements, too. After listening to all the candidates bugging me for months and stringing them along a little bit, I wrote something like this:

“Here are our recommendations on how you should vote: Make sure the paper ballot is right side up before you punch out your choices.”

Fun days. But my boss wouldn’t let me write anything urging the drones to stay home.

Oh, well. There’s always this election.

###

My mom, who is older than I am (obviously!) sent this along via one of those Fw: emails, which I usually don’t mess with. But here it is.

Thanks, Mom. I think.

* * *

Just saying goodbye…

To help save the economy, the Government will announce next month that the Immigration Department will start deporting seniors (instead of illegal’s) in order to lower Social Security and Medicare costs. Older people are easier to catch and will not remember how to get back home. I started to cry when I thought of you. Then it dawned on me … oh, crap … I’ll see you on the bus!

The story, from Mediaite: http://www.mediaite.com/tv/msnbcs-andrea-mitchell-claims-mitt-romneys-family-entered-the-country-illegally/

I’m no fan of Romney, and if I vote for him in November it’ll be while holding my nose … but gee!

###

At 7:01 ABC News declared Newt Gingrich the winner. Gee, they could have waited for the corpse to cool off first.

This may make this a real race. A week ago Mitt Romney had the nomination in the bag, with victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, a ragtag field of opponents, and a double-digit lead in SC.

Y’all know what happened since. Iowa was since given to Rick Santorum after the final votes were counted, and Gingrich pulls this shocker off in my home state.

I’m still wondering what the powers that be were thinking, staging a primary election on a Saturday. Shoot, no one’s thinking about voting on the weekend.

When I went in too vote (a half-hour before the polls closed) I was surprised at the ghost town that Midland Park Primary School had become. This was the shortest line I’ve ever seen to vote (just me). The poll workers looked bored beyond belief. They didn’t even bother to check my ID, just my registration card. And the presidential primary was the only race going. So even with stopping to joke with the precinct workers, I was in and out inside of five minutes. It takes longer to get a hamburger.

Listening to coverage now; the ragtag field all conceded about an hour after the polls closed.

Race on!

###

A great singer and a real survivor. One of my favorites.

Here’s the AP story: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBIT_ETTA_JAMES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Or more correctly it takes:

• One alarm clock.
• Two mothballed cell phones.
• One active cell phone.
• Seven alarms.
• Zero death threats.

Check out the rest of the details in Random Hacks: Baling wire and duct tape.

###

So you can imagine my surprise when I felt my belt vibrate over my right hip, and when I checked it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t for anybody. It didn’t ring or vibrate at all. The phone sat inert in the belt pouch, and I only imagined the vibrations.

Welcome to the phenomenon called “phantom vibration,” which a study by the University of Worcester suggests is a sure sign you’re getting goofy about your phone.
It’s akin to those phantom pains amputees talk about, where a nonexistent foot itches or develops muscle spasms. Purely psychological stuff, and hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it.

Shoot, I feel enough like an idiot when someone else’s phone rings and I’m sure it’s mine. I’ve experienced enough of that to realize I get a little obsessed about that phone.
But when there’s no phone ringing anywhere near me, that’s when I know things are bad. What’s even worse is when I feel that vibration over my hip — while the phone is in my hand.

Turns out I’m not the only one who experiences this. I brought the subject up over dinner with a few good friends, all technophiles who would sooner leave the house without their pants than forget their phones. And all of these friends nodded knowingly when I mentioned phantom vibrations. The discussion became a heavy confession time for a few, and you’d swear a recovery group broke out right then and there. Lots of sympathizing but no solutions, but that’s normal. Like they say in recovery groups, we’re not trying to fix anything.

This study, as cited in the UK Telegraph, says workers who are issued a smart phone for on-the-job use, especially feel the stress that seems to trigger these phantom vibrations. They feel they’re not checking their messages often enough.
Psychlogist Richard Balding of the University of Worcester (why is it the British get to do all the cool research?) says it’s a stress thing — stress if you’re getting messages, and stress if you’re not.

According to the Telegraph:

” … this became a vicious cycle in which the more stressed people became, the more they compulsively felt the need to check their phone, the study showed … Balding, who led the research, said employers should seriously consider the burden that smart phones put on their workers … ‘Smart phone use is increasing at a rapid rate and we are likely to see an associated increase in stress from social networking,’ Balding said.”

(Note to employees everywhere: If your company issues you a smart phone, run like your hair’s on fire. Or negotiate a massive salary/wage increase. Your life is no longer your own.)

Others who use their smart phones as their link to social media may also feel the stress of always being “on,” or the anticipation of another message. Hey, if you get a text from Publishers Clearinghouse saying you’d won a few million bucks, you sure don’t want to miss it.

It’s crucial I stay in contact with the outside world. I do some social media stuff but it’s not a big part of my life. It’s not job-related, at least not related to my day job. But as I try to build something of a business on my own, contact is essential. It might not exactly be Ed McMahon calling from whatever realm he’s hanging out at these days, but potential customers and contacts have me keeping an eye on the phone. My own obsessive nature doesn’t help much either, but we won’t discuss that here.

Whoops. My phone is vibrating, and it’s nobody.

###

According to this eye-opening article by Mental Floss, you should be wary of ATM keypads and supermarket buggies. And I won’t even mention hotel bedspreads (OK, I just did).

Ladies, don’t look too closely at the bottom of your purses, either. Ych!

Hearty appetite, y’all!

The story: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/113103

###

Probably enough.

You’re surfing your favorite sites, and the ads seem to be for places that are awfully close to where you live, and for products/services you are interested in.

Like the man said about the Thermos bottle that keeps your coffee hot or your sweet tea cold, “how do it know?”

It’s almost accurate to say the Internet is stalking you. It sees you when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake. It probably knows what sites you surf, and what you’re using to surf these sites.

Check out these graphics, and tell me they don’t creep you out:

These goofy graphics aren’t anything new. I had these up for a long time on my old blog, and I’ve been meaning to put them up here for some time. Now’s my chance.

Syndicated tech columnist Kim Komando recently ran a piece on this, along with a link to a site that is powered by ip2location.com. When you click on the button below, it’ll bring you to the site with some really interesting information. OK, the linked site has the Kim Komando brand all over it, but … well, admit it, she’s not half bad to look at.

Anyway, click this graphic to find out all the gory details:

I copied/pasted the results from when I ran this test myself. For the record, I was using the wireless Internet system from my day job, running my Acer Aspire One with Bodhi Linux and Google Chrome:

* * *

Here’s what They Know

As I linked this into a social media site (Google+), I saw some of the values in the above box change. I don’t know if it will keep my information or read back yours. Probably the latter.

* * *

Below is from my own readout, and I excised some information that y’all probably didn’t need to know:

CHARACTER SET

ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

LANGUAGE

en-US,en;q=0.8

REFERRER (who told you to come to this page)

http://privacycheck.komando.com/?utm_medium=nl&utm_source=notd&utm_content=2011-01-11-article&utm_campaign=end-c

OPERATING SYSTEM

unknown

BROWSER

Default Browser 0

YOUR TIME

Mon Jan 09 2012 13:18:36 GMT-0500 (EST)

Sites you’ve visited

Sites must exploit a Web feature to see your history. By default, browsers display links you’ve visited in a different color. And sites can see how a page looks on your computer. If a link changes color, the site knows you’ve visited that link. Using special code, a site can check more than 25,000 links per second!

This page only checks to see if you’ve visited a handful of sites. If nothing is listed above, you haven’t visited one of the sites we checked (or you recently cleared your browsing history).

* * *

If you check the ip2location site itself, you might also find it quite interesting.

I saw that Net Speed entry on my readout (it says DSL) and this probably explains a bit. The wireless connection at work is really poky. But it’s a decent fringe benefit.

I will take the rest of the Komando readout to mean my computer is more secure than most. Unknown operating system, default browser, no history of sites browsed. Very good. Excellent, in fact. The more “unknowns” your readout has, the better.

You put enough of your business out there as it is.

###