reyonthehill

While the Senate debates the children's health insurance program (the lesser know CHiP), I'll post some fluff.

A photo from last night's walk with Haley at Point Pinole...

Chapter 20: White House

Finishing the tour of the nation's capital with the White House is classy, you must admit.

- Republicans may duck the questions from the American people as the two leading GOP candidates -- Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani -- cite scheduling conflicts as the reason they can't make the proposed YouTube debate. Just admit it, you don't want to make an ass out of yourself, like some of the democrats did.

- House democrats will introduce a resolution that will start the process for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to "be impeached for high crimes and
misdemeanors." The Bush administration is this century's Ulysses S. Grant's.

- Another day, another dollar, another GOP corruption scandal, this time it's Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. The good ol' boys just can't catch a break.

- And the future of renewable energy may very well be nuclear. "Under legislation enacted in 2005, nuclear power qualifies as a clean technology because it does not emit carbon gases that contribute to global warming," making the industry eligible for loan guarantees in the Senate's recently-passed energy bill.

Jon Stewart on the subpoena of Karl Rove...

Looking back, I realize now, that the first contact that I had had with suicide bombings, or at least suicide bombing attempts (and terrorism in general), was not the nine-eleven or Oklahoma City attacks, but instead was every Sunday morning with Jokey Smurf.

Image: BlueBuddies.com

Well, I am all-but-done with Vimeo. I shouldn't say "all-but-done" when I am simply done. Although Vimeo is much better than YouTube and others, the service has now established itself as a "community," and that is not what I'm looking for.

I feel that converting my video files myself to flv and hosting them gives me more control. Most importantly, I can retain as much quality as possible. Where YouTube is deadly in this parameter, and Vimeo is much better but not perfect, I can be perfect by converting to the best quality, regardless of file size. Also, I can control the size of the video, whether it be as small as 160 x 120 cellphone video or as large as 640 x 480. And lastly, there are no upload limits. I can upload as many movies as I want to my domain.

(Note: All of the recent vlog entries are hosted on my server, as well as my first vodcast. What is the difference between a "vlog" and a "vodcast," you ask. Good question, and I've thought about this thoroughly. In my opinion, a "vlog" is a series of related videos, and a "vodcast" is a singular, stand-alone video (similar to a podcast, although there is no such thing as a "plog," well at least not yet). I should also make note that a blog that is itself a vlog would not have vodcasts, even if certain videos were stand-alone, since all of the individual vodcasts would be a part of the larger vlog. For this blog, which is not a vlog, I will post series' of movies from time-to-time, for example, the reyonthehill does dc series, as well as singular vodcasts, such as my 1461st post. Make sense? I thought so.)

When Flickr finally rolls out its video service, if it ever does, I may utilize that service for sharing, since I already use Flickr for photos. Neither YouTube or Vimeo offer both, and the two should go hand-in-hand, right? By the way, how hard is it for Flickr to roll out a video service? It couldn't be too difficult. Yahoo! already has one. What have the Flickr people been up to? Isn't this what these people do? No, I just do photos. Haven't you already done that. Well, yes, but video requires a lot of work. Let's see, 40,000 people x 8 hours a day = release the video already.

Chapter 19: Washington Monument

The Washington Monument provides great views of the National Mall.

- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "has told environmentalists she supports raising fuel economy standards to at least 35 miles per gallon and requiring utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources such as wind, solar or biomass by 2020." Unfortunately, the energy bill being voted on doesn't include either. A do-nothing Congress?

- The House is investigating the cellphone industry and it's potentially unfair practices, including "high termination fees for switching cell providers before a contract is up [and] handsets that only work with a single carrier."

- Another day, another dollar, another unsafe product from the under-regulated pharmaceutical industry. Increased heart risks, "combined with no unique short-term benefits in helping diabetics control blood-sugar levels, fail to justify keeping [popular GlaxoSmithKline diabetes drug] Avandia on the market." Maybe Glaxo, Smith and Kline should get away from one another until things calm down.

- And once television stations go digital (set for February 2009), Google would like to gobble up all the abandoned airwaves and make an open network. And what would be on this network? A lot of Google text-based ads, no doubt.

Staying on top of my pursuit of Bonds...

Number of Giants games from now until August 22: 23 (8 home, 15 road)

Number of home runs for Bonds to tie the record: 1
Number of home runs for Bonds to break the record: 2

Umh, I do not like my odds. They can only improve, right?

Chapter 18: Smithsonian

The Smithsonian museums were a real disappointment on our short trip to DC.