Vandals attacked the Army recruiting station at University Square on Monday. I’m inclined to believe that Bill Anderson was either directly involved or knows who was involved. Why would I believe this? Because he’s been advocating this type of activity.

Madison Indymedia

Military Research at the UW Madison Campus
by Bill Anderson

“Besides exposing these ugly truths about the American empire, and showing just how close to home it is, we must also begin waging a campaign against militarism. On the UW campus, this should include building pressure for the UW Trust Fund to divest from “defense” corporations, to end all research contracts with the Department of Defense, and replace this research with a humanitarian oriented research, and the removal of military recruiters and ROTC from campus facilities.

To accomplish these goals will require a type of activism, and modes of thinking, which move beyond the traditional anti-war march, chanting slogans, and holding protest signs. A locally focused de-militarization campaign using escalation tactics, public exposure and embarrassment of officials like John Wiley who participate in the military system, direct action, and civil disobedience are the only way that those with power will adopt de-militarization policies.”

Bill has also made the outrageous claim that all embassies should be destroyed and has a blatant hatred for the troops and the military.

I hope law enforcement agencies put pressure on the anti-war groups to reveal who was responsible and that the anti-war groups pledge not to support this type of activity.

Tonight I enjoyed some fresh pineapple. Fresh pineapple is the only way to go. Canned pineapple doesn’t have the same texture and they soak it in pineapple juice, so the flavor is concentrated and often too acidic.

So anyways, as I was enjoying the pineapple I began to wonder what the Hawaiians called pineapple before Western explorers showed up. I did a little research and was surprised to learn that pineapple is not native to Hawaii. Pineapple is native to Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. One of the native tribes to the region called the fruit ananas. The native tribes had cultivated and spread pineapple plants as far as Central America and Columbus carried some plants back to Spain after his first voyage to the western hemisphere. From there, the Spanish spread pineapple fruit around the world because it was an excellent fruit for treating scurvy. It was only in the 19th century that pineapple was introduced to Hawaii.

I also learned about wines made from pineapple. Tedeschi Vineyards in Hawaii produces a highly recommended pineapple wine called Maui Blanc. I was tempted to order some from the winery, but Wisconsin’s antiquated anti-trade alcohol laws don’t allow it. You can get wine sent to you, but only from California, Oregon or Washington and only 27 liters per year. That’s pretty lame.

Britney Spears has recently been seen in public demonstrating that despite all of the fashion consultants she can afford, she would rather dress like Anna Nicole Smith. Completing the “white trash with money” motif was her husband, who was dressed in a suit coat, denim jeans, an unbuttoned dress shirt and a baseball cap.

Your freedom of speech is safe on the internet, for now. The FCC ruled that the Federal Campaign Finance Law, also known as the McCain-Feingold Act, will not be applied to most political activity on the internet. This was a long anticipated ruling and many groups and individuals have been fighting to keep free speech protected on the internet. This issue actually united the left and right side of the blogosphere. The most surprising collaboration was when Mike Krempasky of Red State and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of Daily Kos sent a joint letter to Congress urging action to protect free speech on the internet.

Our Representative for the Madison area, Tammy Balwin disagreed with efforts to protect free speech on the internet. She took a lot of heat on that issue and lost any chance of getting my vote. Tammy was still in the running to get my vote, due to her efforts on behalf of military veterans, but this coupled with her pandering to the extremist left has lost any chance of getting my vote.

I recently performed a complete software reinstall my old notebook computer so Kate could use it. I unfortunately had to reload it because when I went overseas it was configured to use on the DoD network. That was very cool that they did this for me so I could use the internet in the barracks. What wasn’t cool was when I left the network administrator didn’t remove all of the domain administrator settings. He gave my login local administrator powers, but with all of the configurations active, I was unable to control many things on my own computer.

I searched desperately for a way to solve my problem. I knew if I reloaded my computer I would lose Office 2003, which was loaded by the network administrator. I tried a lot of things, but time ran out and Kate needs a computer since hers decided to stop working. Thanks to my good preparation I could easily reload it because I have a XP Pro CD that I’ve been saving for an emergency.

What I’d like to share with everyone are the useful tools I install on my computers that are completely free.

Windows Defender
This application from Microsoft will help defend your computer from spyware and browser hijackers. It has realtime protection and will scan your computer daily.

Ad-Aware SE Personal
This is another application to help defend your computer against spyware. The free version doesn’t provide realtime protection or automatic scans, but this is a very trusted application. It’s probably the best anti-spyware programs out there.

Page Defrag
File fragmentation slows down your computer. Especially when your vital system files are fragmented. Normal defragmentation tools don’t defragment these system files because they’re protected when in use. This tool will operate when your computer is booting up before Windows is loaded and it is very quick.

PowerToysXP TweakUI
On this page you’ll find a lot of useful tools, but you definitely need TweakUI. It gives you easy access to many settings buried in Windows. The most useful I think is found under ‘Common Dialogs/Places Bar’. When you save or open a file from an application a window opens to file the location. On the left it provides buttons to quickly switch to some locations. With TweakUI you can control what locations appear on the left.

Another useful setting is found under ‘Templates’. When you right click on your Desktop or in Explorer and look under the ‘New’ menu, you’ll see a list of filetypes you can quickly create. With TweakUI you can control what filetypes appear on that menu. It seems like every application likes to add an option to that menu, so it’s nice to have a way to control that.

AVG Free
Last, is AVG free. This is a completely free anti-virus application. It will automatically update and scan your computer. Grisoft has been offering AVG Free for years and they have an excellent reputation. Their personal use version is offered free to advertise their business and network programs. I’ve been using AVG for years and haven’t had a problem. Ask yourself, do you want to pay $50 a year for an anti-virus program when there’s a free one that gets the job done?