(Assoc. Press) photo source Sen. Kennedy's Office

I try to live by the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you…  Appropriate to quote Jesus on this holy day.  For me it seems so simple treat others with mutual respect and kindness.  Naively, I expect the same in return…so now you all know that the vent is coming (I cannot help myself).  UrbanZooKnitter and I go to work every day; we pay our bills – we obey the laws.

BREAKING NEWS!! Minutes after I posted to my blog, CNN  reports: American captain rescued, pirates killed, U.S. official says

The captain of the American freighter being held hostage by pirates off the Somalia coast was freed today and three of the four pirates holding him were killed, according to CNN.

The news station, citing a senior U.S. official, said that Capt. Richard Phillips was uninjured and in good condition. He was taken aboard the U.S.S. Bainbridge, a naval warship that was shadowing the pirates and the lifeboat that they and Phillips were riding in.  The fourth pirate was in custody, CNN said

I know that I am not alone in my dislike for Somali pirates! Not only has the brave Capt. Phillips been held hostage for five days; this week members of this same “gang” attempted hijacking a French family’s yacht with a hostage killed during the rescue.  Another band of Somali pirates released the Norwegian-owned MT Bow Asir tanker after receiving over 2.4 million dollars in ransom. And within the past year there have been 42 Somali pirate hi-jackings!

The Financial Market showed some improvements this week.  When will middle-class America see some relief?   Inflation has been horrible. The tax payers bailed out Wall street  – and I know there is no one reason companies like AIG, GM, Chrysler and Citicorp have failed miserably requiring the US government to pay out nearly a Trillion dollars – - which of course the repayment of these loans from foreign countries we, the American general population will end up paying off the National deficit.  I digress, I am not an economist; you all have heard the media and many different iterations of how we got into the crisis recession that we are all trying to survive

But this is one of my biggest peeves!  IMO, there still is no real accountability or pay back from the greedy Wall Street white-collar criminals, corrupt politicians, Enron execs, and all the other assorted embezzlers, “book cookers” and the general “mis-use” funds.  Even those convicted never really become poor or make any kind of retribution.  Oh, big deal they may do some time in a medium security federal Prison.

I leave you with this bit of philosophy about the idea of “The Golden Mean”  – - that in our actions we must seek the right measure and proportion. Excess or defect is a departure from virtue. For these reasons, the Four Cardinal Virtues exist.  The four cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance are interconnected. This means that if you do not possess one of them, all the others are spoiled, and so you do not possess virtue at all.

Not so cynical Knitting-gal said that I should have a weekly post for Tech tips!

Malware/Spyware is super annoying and slows down PC performance!  Weekly smart scans using free Anti-spyware tools will help keep your Operating System ( O/S ) and browser in good shape.  I recommend Lavasoft Ad-Aware which you can get for free from C-net site:  www.download.com this site has a lot of useful tools, but be careful to not click on the “advertisements”  and read comments/reviews before downloading.  AVG Anti-virus is freeware and provides good protection for a “healthy” O/S .

If you get a Trojan virus or a worm infection these are very dangerous and they require a strong removal tool and quite often a reinstall or repair of the O/S (Windows XP or Vista).  McAfee or Symantec’s Norton Anti-Virus tools are good, but find a good deal.  And quite often your broadband service will provide these tools free of charge.

I have instructional docs for Fighting malware, cleaning temp files and clearing browser cache if anyone wants me to email them a copy.

Oh, but now I recall that I did overhear some young Republicans making some ludicrous statements about President Obama and the economic crisis.  I fully support our President; after all he is cleaning up what the previous Administration gifted to him.  Over the weekend the 24-hour News channels showed old news paper articles and radio Sound-Bits of similar hyperbole from critics of F.D.R. and the New Deal.  It always takes the Democrats to clean-up the financial deficits of Republicans.

You don’t have to believe me; this is a fact confirmed in U.S. history books.

You cannot  miss  Media coverage of  the economic crisis; unemployment at it’s worst rate in decades.  Corrupt politicians in my state.  Wall street – where do I even begin?  The Tribune reports that Cook Cty Sheriff’s police removed as many as 70 puppies — some crammed into bird cages — after raiding a suspected puppy mill on the South Side this morning.

But now I digress…I want to let out the little annoyances that over time definitely build-up.  Like today,  I was finally going to book a trip  and discovered that I had allowed over 100k American Airlines miles to expire.  I go to heat up lunch and for like the thousandth time, I almost started a fire with the Toaster oven.  My male cat, stole one of my bagel dogs.  Chgo Streets and Sanitation dept has been non-stop drilling, hammering, and making noise for hours.  Also, with this ongoing Sewer project we had two days without water and last night it was not turned back on until after 8:00 PM!

Rain, rain go away…come back another day