IE7 (Internet Explorer 7) can be a pain.

Not terribly surprising is its tendency to “take over” and re-direct you to a Microsoft web page even after you have set your home page to a blank page or to some other specific page after installing it (or upgrading from an earlier version.

But even resetting the default home page wasn’t doing the trick, as every time I started IE7, it would still redirect to a page that would tell you to about how utterly fantastic the latest release of IE is (the final redirected URL is http://runonce.msn.com/runonce2.aspx).

I found a fix for it here which requires a little fiddling with the Windows Registry.

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I really guess I should not be surprised: PBS hates Christmas.

Why… (you might ask) am I writing about the war on Christmas so out of season?

The nature of my job allows me to telecommute from home a few days out of the week. Ordinarily, I’m in the “Den” but this morning found me in the living room, where Mrs. Seeker had turned the TV on to distract the wee one from pulling on power cords or lobbing LEGO bricks across the room … so one of the kid shows I’ve half-watched comes up, playing Christmas carols (to a themed in-show holiday called “the Starlight Festival”) with the words accordingly changed up.

Again I say not very surprising considering the source, but a bit saddening to see tis sort of indoctrination and/or political correctness starting so young (the show in question is probably geared to kindergarteners and maybe up to 2nd-graders.

Political correctness apparently has no lower limit.

This item found by my wife (who lived through the burstig of the Japanese Bubble of the early 1990s) :

At 3:30, note what Mr. Jim Rogers has to say about what Mr. Bernanke should do, and what he should do with the Federal Reserve.

I agree 100% with his assessment that at this point, the FED only serves the interest of corporate welfare, buy shuffling off hundreds of billions of dollars of bad debts and worse securities - pig swill dressed up as investments - and President Bush needs to step in and FIRE Mr. Bernanke, if he will not cease from debasing our currency and ruining our economy.

If this sort of thing is to be the order of the day, it is only a matter of time before the Red Chinese cash out their dollars, and the taxpayers find out that the Butcher’s Bill for all of this will be quite ugly indeed.

I’ve been trying to find out who is running in the NY state congressional races - and I am particularly interested in seeing more than a few of these men and women winning the state primaries in September, and of course, the general election against the Democratic incumbents. (It should go without saying that I’d like for the incumbent Republicans to hold their seats!)

I’ve created this as a separate page since I’ll likely be updating it as the congressional races develop. Given the amount of time it took me just to compile this for NY, and that the Greenpapers do as good or a better job (although minus the GOP bias I bring to it)…. I don’t foresee doing a mock-up like this for all the other states. I’ve just got better things to do with my time, ya’ know?

So without further ado, here goes everything.

Even if you don’t completely agree with the message, this is still a way cool video.

(Kudos to whoever did the production of it, well done).

The alternate title for this post was “Hyperinflation, and Reptiles, and Nibiru, oh my!”… but somehow, that would simply miss the doomsday quality I wanted to present.

I’m not a prophet nor a son of a prophet, so please don’t take these “predictions” too seriously. These are more like loose trends I’ve extrapolated well beyond any meaningful point, and I am certain that most of these ideas are grossly misinformed.

This is more of a vent of some of my doomer tendencies that I’ve likely harbooured into my salvation, and which also, in the light of the gracious gift of salvation I have by the redeeming love the Blessed Father has shown us through His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ… are not much of a thing to get worried about.

Here goes… by the end of summer 2008, I expect we will see:

• The Housing market continues to implode as $450k+ McMansions plummet to something closer to their true worth (depending upon local markets, possibly as low as 50% of the peak of the 2006 bubble — especially in oversaturated markets like North California and Florida)

  And having personally (helped) frame and build some of these McMansions, they really aren’t worth much more than the $20k lumber pack they are made from, if my opinion counts for anything.

• Gold creeping above $1500 an ounce (makes me wish I had listened to my gut feelings about buying some a couple of years ago when it was in the $400/oz range…. *urk*).
• The $USD falling under ¥70 JPY (Mrs. Seeker’s mum will be happy to visit us from Japan and buy several dozen designer handbags on the cheap while here, assuming hyperinflation hasn’t set in by this summer)
• The Euro (€) rising to over $1.80 USD (largely as a function of Fed cranking up the printing presses and the Red Chinese and most other people with a brain dumping the dollar as silently as possible … at first)
• The British Pound Sterling (£) trading at $2.40 USD
• Oil bourses switching to Euro, Russian Rubles, Saudi Dinars and Red Chinese Yuan Renminbi (RMB) over the dollar (this may serve to dampen the dollar collapse somewhat, but will also signal the end of American economic significance)
• Unemployment begins to ratchet up as layoffs cascade from a staggering economy, and the rise of tent cities (Bushtowns, ala the Hoovervilles of the 1930s, or perhaps if it takes effect in 2009, they might be Hillaryvilles or Obamaburghs)
• The distant rumblings of possible food riots in the Fall, and perhaps silent removal of overseas Army unit and National Guards units back to the States as grain prices skyrocket, and food generally creeps ahead of rising gas and diesel costs, (which will easily creep north and stay north of $125/Bbl) … oh yeah, and let’s not forget the rising cost of 30.06 and 5.56 ammo for the trusty weapons.

Well, that’s just grist for the doomer mill, I reckon… fit only to be mixed in with those reports of reptilian aliens, CFR and Bohemian Grove conspiracies, and Planet Nibiru popping in for its 3,600-year reunion with our solar system in 2012 to usher in the “end of the universe” according to the I-Ching, Nostradamus and some gigantic Aztec calendar stone with pretty carvings.

I’m sure the Annunaki and a pile of outsized cannibal Nephilim will nip on over for some tea, biscuits, and human cattleburgers to set things up for the Final Antichrist while their planet is in the neighborhood too.

…

Really, I got to start reigning in the dumb web sites I visit at night.

And here I thought the NYT was only capable of promoting anti-American defeatism and lavishing itself in its overdone estimation of itself as the Sole Rmaining Beacon of Rational Thinking™, they let loose with something that actually reflects the real progress we are making — especially in winning the hearts and minds of the next generation that will be able to stand up and govern a new Iraq, one that answers neither to tribalists, Islamist extremists, or other tyrants who would usurp the right of the people to govern themselves….

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/world/middleeast/04youth.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Quite possibly the best (if not altogether accurate) explanation (and certainly humourous) of what is behind the Sub-prime mortgage failure: (warning - some strong language)

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?docid=ddp4zq7n_0cdjsr4fn&skipauth=true

(h/t’s to Nick Douglas, managing editor at Gawker, and to the commenter “ADismalScience”, who provided some additional insights into the sub-prime debacle.)

From CBS News…

Hillary hints at the Democrat primary leading toward Obama being a possible VP pick, but also says that she’d want to be on top of the ticket.

Co-anchor Harry Smith fueled the flames of speculation when he said to Clinton, “We talked to a lot of people in Ohio who said there really isn’t that significant a difference between you two, and they’d like to see you both on the ticket.”

It was a question the New York senator could have easily sidestepped. But she chose to answer it head on.

“Well, that may, you know, be where this is headed,” Clinton said. “But of course, we have to decide who’s on the top of the ticket, and I think that the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me.”

Not that this would really be a surprise, or anything. It would make McCain’s fight much, much more dangerous, with Obama’s charm, race, and speaking ability, being leavened with Hillary’s aptitude as a (socialist, liberty-squelching) policy wonk, to say nothing of her influence within the Democratic Party establishment.

In fact, Hillary is so enthralled at the potential for a Democrat presidency (especially as one who nearly sees her “mandate from heaven” to be the first female president), that it is almost all but certain that she will seek to name Obama as her VP, as she goes into “everything, including the kitchen sink” mode to win, both as a magnanimous gesture and also in light of any weaknesses she alone might present to a well-handled McCain general campaign.

Indeed, as much as McCain would have his work cut out for him just facing Hillary, facing the concession to the nutroots far left in the form of a combined ticket with Obama would make McCain’s run a long, hard slog. And the MSM hasn’t even begun to uncork its heavy artillery, no, not by a long shot.

However, I do not believe that the converse would necessarily prove true: Obama would certainly be staggered back by strongly energized campaign with the most of the GOP now backing him as the nominee-apparent, based on a hope, of course, that McCain picks a more conservative VP to balance him out in the eyes of estranged social conservatives, wary fiscal conservatives, and openly disgusted paleo-conservatives.

If by some chance the “One whose Middle Name must Not be Spoken” (Obama) stays above water until September, or manages to keep the SuperDelegates™ split on her, I seriously doubt that she will willingly subordinate herself under him. I suspect this is so mainly because she could wield more influence over the party as NY senator than she could as a VP, but I must confide that I have a rather unpleasant suspicion that she just might not want to be denied her (self-perceived) rightful “place in the sun” at the expense of a black man.

Though of course, she’ll go to her grave denying any such multi-culturally impure thoughts.

Today’s internet derives tons of revenue from advertisements served up by third-party providers. Sometimes, the results can be amusing. I had poked Dan Riehl once or twice about his MSN code he has occassionally serving up McCain ads (while he was more-or-less speaking up for Mitt Romney’s defunct campaign prior to Super Tuesday I).

But then you get the really funny mismatches of banner ads to the sites sponsoring them:

RedState’s Obama Advertisement

I know it seems like I’m ragging on RS a bit more, but I just happened to stumble across this.

Hopefully the mods make a note of it and see if that ad can be pulled.