New favorite beer

We were down in Naples, Florida yesterday visiting some friends who were out here from Washington state. While checking out the town (and before we popped over to Marco Island), we stopped for lunch at an inviting looking pub with some outside seating. I asked for a beer that was lighter than a Guinness and darker than a Stella. Our waiter suggested I try a pint of Bass. Well I must say I did truly enjoy that glass! Today I swung by the store and picked up a six-pack. Any beer is going to be best when fresh and on tap, but even poured from the bottle, this was pretty nice :-) I do believe I have a new favorite brew.

Republicans for Kerry 2004

For a rather long list of prominent Republicans and conservatives who are endorsing John Kerry for President, please have a look at the Republicans for Kerry 2004 site. Each of the many names is also a link to reference the source. This is not just some site claiming that so-and-so is endorsing a candidate. Follow the links for very serious arguments detailing why we need to elect John Kerry.

The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration

The Nation has posted 100 Facts and 1 Opinion - The Non-Arguable Case Against the Bush Administration. Each of the 100 facts is one or two sentences, followed by links to the source(s) for that particular fact. The 100 facts are divided into 12 categories:

• IRAQ
• TERRORISM
• NATIONAL SECURITY
• CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION
• THE ECONOMY
• EDUCATION
• HEALTHCARE
• ENVIRONMENT
• RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
• FLIP FLOPS
• BIOGRAPHY
• SECRECY

The conclusion reached at the bottom of the list is:

If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United States and the world.

I could not agree more.

XML link added top left

Bonj posted a comment that he'd had a tough time locating the proper link for this site's RSS feed. Click on the "RSS" in the preceding sentence if you need an explanation of RSS. Anyway....I've added a link for one of this site's XML feeds. OK, a quick bit of explanation - but real quick ...There are various standards out there for how content from a web site can be made available in XML. This site is using a service called TypePad, and by default this site has several formats of XML feed available. The link I've added under the photo at the top left is for one of those XML-format data feeds.

The idea is that you can read the data feeds from sites in which you are interested using, appropriately enough, a feed reader program. These programs are also called "news readers" and also "news aggregators". There are many available, and many of them are free. In a Windows environment, I prefer SharpReader. I've also used FeedReader (another free program) and NewzCrawler (about US$25). Your feed reader program of choice can then automatically go to the sites you've designated, and pull in any updates from the sites, so you have a much quicker way to read the updated content versus pointing your web browser to each site explicitly.

Personally, I've now got the feeds in my reader program categorized into Tampa bloggers, Tech sites, Domino sites (the kind of programming I do), political sites, and news sites. The program is set to automatically check the sites every couple of hours, and new entries are highlighted for me in the reader program. So...If you've been looking for where the heck my XML feed is, it should now be easier to find. If you've never tried a reader program, you may want to give it a try!

J2G - Slightly left of center

I've started posting on another blog. The J2G site's name is derived from "2 Jews and a Goy". Two other Tampa bloggers, Dave and Deron are the Jewish contingent, and I represent the Goyim. LOL ...I love it. My good friend Jerry used to call me "Goy" back in high school. Ahhh...good times :-)