Miscellaneous Items

I promised some discussion and research on the "what's wrong with Congress" topic and it will probably be a few days until you see my first post on the topic. Those few of you who followed my 2007 posts know that I tend to research a topic, gather my notes into a somewhat cohesive thought pattern, and then post/inform as I go. Shooting from the hip is not my style. I like to roll things around in my mind for a while.

I've collected information on Congress' problems that go back to 1984 analyses. There are some threads that you see running through different analyses and over the years, but there are also a lot of ways of looking at the problem. I need to first sort all that into some useful groupings. In the meantime, this post covers some miscellaneous items.

First, I plan on showing off my too-many hobbies from time to time. One hobby is painting and here's one selected at random, and completed in 1999.

Biloxi Porch, watercolor, 9x12, 1999, signature blurred on purpose

No Update on the Iraq Situation

I have nothing to add to the situation in Iraq. It is confusing. Operations in and around Basra and Sadr City are apparently ongoing or renewed. I question the size or progress of both operations. In my first post of this year, I referenced some knowledgeable reporters who said the operations were directed at the Mahdi Army. This was bolstered by actions in the Iraqi Parliament and statements by the Grand Ayatollah Sistani to marginalize al-Sadr.

But al-Sadr has responded with only lukewarm threats to end the truce. I have to suspect that either the operations are having little impact on the Mahdi Army or al Sadr is actually too weak to do anything other than threaten. It's too early to tell.

Web Research Tools

The Internet is a playground for this 71-year-old guy who's always been addicted to learning new things and to research. My first PC was in 1980, a TRS-80. By 1982, I was on the Internet before the web existed using the absurdly expensive Compuserve. Finding good Internet research tools is not easy. I've used several shareware and freeware clipping/organizer tools over the years and none have satisfied me until I started using Firefox.

There are several web clipping plugins for Firefox. Google Notebook and Dappad are two useful items but I quit using them. My longtime favorite is Scrapbook (with Multi-Scrapbook enabled). Scrapbook can clip (and save) any portion or all of a web page and the files into folders or categories you designate. Once saved you can then edit the pages to remove unwanted frames or sections, add inline or sticky notes, and highlight text. Scrapbook is extremely powerful. My only problem has been with accessing the files from a network drive. I often get corrupted files from my laptop.

Recently I've used EverNote. EverNote is kind of odd. You can categorize clips, but they're called tags, which makes sense. Notes can be selected by single or multiple tags and then scrolled like a very long tape. Scrolling uses two scrolls sliders, one for moving quickly from one clip to the next, and another slider for more precise scrolling. The second slider controls the speed of scrolling. It takes some getting used to. You can also search the clips with keywords.

Evernote has a free and a paid version but they recently offered a free invitation to the paid version. The free version is nice enough; I found their automatic categories (image, etc., and "this week," "this month," etc.) get in the way. The paid version removes those automatic categories and adds online synchronization of the database to their server (plus some other nice features if you use a graphics pad). Visit Evernote and see if the free invitation is still offered.

I use Scrapbook for research results that I intend to keep for some time and access infrequently. It has more sophisticated structuring and it is easier to find things you've forgotten about. I use Evernote for blogging research and other short-term research. I find Evernote is easier to use "on the fly" but I'm not sure why it seems that way to me.

I tried the Opera browser and I really like it. Compared to Firefox or IE7, Opera opens like a speed demon. Opera has a built-in note taker and I found it not to be very useful for extensive research. Since neither Scrapbook or Evernote are adapted to Opera, I stayed with Firefox.