Digital Video Formats:
It tough when you are at a party and all of the sudden some guy says “I like the new 3G2 format better than MP4” and I don’t have a clue what he is talking about. There is just so much to know! I have been kind of a jack of all trades when it comes to digital, and really not a master of any. I can hold my own in a conversation on the benefits of RAW, but that is something that most of the people that I know don’t care a bit about. If we are going to argue about MP3 vs. AAC the MP3 decision is firmly established in 99% of the people. So that covers photo and audio. When it comes to video I have never really given it much thought. There is DVD (VOB) and then there are a couple of computer video formats, primarily WMV (Windows), MPG, and AVI. That’s it right?

Oh my am I wrong! There are over 30 different video formats, each doing something that the others cannot. I started looking at all of these for a couple of reasons. First, I downloaded my first VCD last week and had a wonderful time figuring out how to watch it. It works and I am amazed. Then I had to get a program to convert to MP4 (the preferred format for the new video iPod that my beloved has). That has actually turned into an exercise of looking at nearly every single program out there that converts video. I settled into the Xilisoft Video Converter. This program takes any file source format and converts it into any others. So cool! I took the VCD movie and with a few clicks I had it on my wife’s iPod in the MP4 format. So later tonight when I am in bed I can watch the latest great flick on the small screen.

Creationism Exposed: There has been an ongoing debate in America for the past 50 years or so as to whether to ditch the Biblical principles of creation in favor or evolution. The subject tends to heat up then fade away for a while then heat up again. Recently the debate has shifted as the creationism folks have tried to change the terms (something I abhor) and now call it intelligent design. Well of course its intelligent, its God!

Today I saw a terrific set of photographs on a new development on Mt. St. Helens. It is a rock slab that is coming out of the middle of the once mighty mountain, and the thing is growing at 4-5 feet a day (currently as I write it is about 300 feet tall). The thing is smooth on one side and jagged on the other. My guess is that there are thousands of mountain climbers all over the world who are already planning on climbing this new formation, regardless of the fact that it is in the middle of a VOLCANO! Okay, so it is not actually spewing lava at the moment (actually never did the last time, it just blew up, I was there!) Still, it would be incredible to climb.

But the issue of creationism is being played out right now before our very eyes. The old school evolutionists will tell you that it took billions of years to make a rock, but here we are seeing the creation story unfold right before our very eyes. So cool!

From the brilliant minds of Michael Chertoff and Ray Nagin:

New Orleans disaster plan: Get out of town
Hurricane strategy stresses evacuation, not shelters
Tuesday, May 2, 2006; Posted: 9:22 p.m. EDT (01:22 GMT)

If this weren't so downright stupid it might be funny. You know that teams of brilliant minds working in a think tank day and night for months on end came up with this ingenious plan. It probably cost the tax payers millions of dollars to develop this amazing strategy. The US Printing Office is still printing the volumes of data to support this theory. But read on my dear friends. "Amtrak trains will also be used for evacuation purposes, which we're really excited about," Nagin said. This is the man who let hundreds of buses sit idle while he moved everyone to the LOWEST point in the flood prone city. So now he is excited about using an Amtrak train to evacuate the city (which might actually work because there are only about 150 people now living there). But here is the really amusing part, guess where the Amtrak station is? Next to the Superdome, a mile from the Mississippi River. So instead of getting people to move to the higher parts of the city and having fleets of buses (metro, private, and school) at the ready the plan is to again get everyone to move to the lowest spot and wait for a train. And this is somehow exciting for Nagin?

President Bush, enough is enough. It is time to take the position of leadership that you have been given. First, you need to fire Michael Chertoff. If this was indeed his best plan he needs to be fired immediately. Don't ask for his resignation, fire him. If this was not his best plan then he needs to be fired for being so incompetent in dealing with the press that he didn't get his message out. Second, draft someone to take control of this situation and take a loud public stance on whatever you are doing. Let's get Rudy down there for a few months. Since the good mayor wants to have New Orleans a "chocolate only" city, then find some great black leaders who want to turn this around. But please, take control of this. Your total abandonment of this situation has become an embarrassment. When you allow imbeciles to announce a plan such as this you show your total unwillingness to lead. Don't show up for a weekend for a photo op on trying to help clean up or rebuild a house, take charge and start moving down there every weekend until it is fixed. And don't do it for a photo op, just do it because it is the right thing to do.

Its what Rudy would do!

Congressman Ron Lewis, (R-KY, 4th Dist.), an Open Letter:

Today hundreds of thousands of people who knowingly break the laws of the United States of America received the center attention in the media because of their protests. I went to your web site to see your stand on the issue of the day, immigration, and found that the information is quite dated (references to things occurring last year).

While I do not agree with much that G. Gordon Liddy says, I agree with his position that we need to institute extreme penalties (fines and imprisonment) for those American’s who willingly employ people who are in the United States illegally. I am a small business owner and would never consider violating the law. Yet we seem to wink when others do it. The IRS allows for fines of $1000 for an I9 violation, why are we not seeing this? Why not step that up to $10,000 per employee? As a businessman I could easily make a business model that would justify the expense of those inspectors who’s only job it is to check the I9 compliance of companies. When companies realize that there are inspectors out there who will be checking on them they will be less likely to hire these people. When the illegal aliens (or the politically correct phrase of the day “undocumented workers”) have not place to work, they will go home. We won’t need a big fence, no one will come.

Please take a strong stand on this Mr. Lewis, we count on you!

And we pray for you.