I hate my espresso machine. For the past year-plus, I’ve been using a Krups XP4030 pump espresso machine, which is perfectly fine for occasional use (like Sunday morning lattes to be sipped whilst reading the New York Times), but really doesn’t hold up to daily use. After 10 months of daily use, I had to replace my original machine a couple months back.

I don’t know if it’s me, and the way that I’m grinding my beans, or if it’s the machine itself, but my coffee is either watery, or stupid-bitter strong (could be ground too fine, clogging the basket). No matter what I try, I just can’t seem to get it right anymore, and I used to be the master at this stuff, getting the perfect crema to top off the shot.

It’s not the beans, for the Caffe Ibis Moon Shot espresso roast is one of the better beans I’ve had the extreme pleasure of brewing into not only the perfect espresso shot, but also as a regular drip coffee.

I’d kill for something like the Saeco Primea Touch, but who has $1800 to drop on a coffee-maker for home use, especially these days, considering the state of the economy.

So for now, I’ll keep dealing with my morning frustration, trying on a daily basis to make that perfect shot once again, and creating that perfect froth on my somewhat less than adequate machine … I know it can be done; I’ve done it before, I can do it again. And I’ll continue to browse and explore and research sites like CoffeeGeek.

I refuse to knuckle under and start spending $4.00 a day at Starbucks.

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Political Radar: Palin Fears Media Threaten Her First Amendment Rights

In a conservative radio interview that aired in Washington, D.C. Friday morning, Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by “attacks” from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks.  Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Snicker. Only one problem there Sarah … you obviously don’t know what the First Amendment says. Here, let me quote it for you:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.“

See that? CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW … ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, OR OF THE PRESS. It does not say “I have the right to attack my opponent without being criticized in return”, or “The press shall not have the right to criticize an idiot who thinks she’s ready to run the country.”

You have the right to say whatever you want as long as it is not libelous or slanderous. You have been toeing that line awfully close, and personally, I think you’ve crossed it a few times, but it is an election, and a little more leeway maybe should be allowed.

However, we the people, the bloggers, and the press, have the right to criticize you, to mock you, and to laugh at you, and to attack you and your policies right back. The beautiful thing about the First Amendment is that it’s a two-way street.

And guess what … thanks to New York Times Co. v. L.B. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964), since you are now a public figure, the actual malice standard, which requires that the plaintiff in a defamation or libel case prove that the publisher of the statement in question knew that the statement was false or acted in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity, comes into play.

The irony? If you’re actually elected, there are several million of us “fake” Americans who fear for our own First Amendment rights … so if you want this job, then you better be prepared to put up with the crap that comes with it.

Now, I’d like for you to shut-up and go away, but I can’t force you to do so. What I can do is to continue to tear apart everything you say to expose and ridicule your naiveté and ignorance.

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Tonight is going to be the final debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. I wonder if McCain will be able to drop his condescending, petty, mean, attacking manner to actually engage Barack Obama in a fair discussion of the issues, without resorting to distortion and lies.

I doubt it.

Thankfully, McCain’s approach hasn’t been working, with Barack Obama now leading McCain by a 14 point margin.

Poll Says McCain Hurts His Bid by Using Attacks - NYTimes.com

The McCain campaign’s recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.

After several weeks in which the McCain campaign unleashed a series of strong political attacks on Mr. Obama, trying to tie him to a former 1960s radical, among other things, the poll found that more voters see Mr. McCain as waging a negative campaign than Mr. Obama. Six in 10 voters surveyed said that Mr. McCain had spent more time attacking Mr. Obama than explaining what he would do as president; by about the same number, voters said Mr. Obama was spending more of his time explaining than attacking.

Over all, the poll found that if the election were held today, 53 percent of those determined to be probable voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama and 39 percent said they would vote for Mr. McCain.

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As I noted a couple posts ago, I have officially become a propagandist, by posting and helping to share the Keating Economics documentary video, which goes into John McCain’s connections to Charles Keating, Jr., and the failed savings and loan crisis of the early 1990s.

The fight between the two candidates is getting nasty, with the worst attacks coming from the McCain camp, and specifically Sarah Palin’s outright exaggerations and bald-face lies … she makes it sound as though Barack Obama’s association with William Ayers includes the planning and planting of bombs back in the 1960s; when Obama was still a young child.

That’s why I’m looking forward to the debate tonight … I want to see how the two candidates do in an open, face-to-face town hall style debate. I want to see if John McCain still has the balls to lie and distort facts. I want to see if Barack Obama continues to slide down the negativity scale towards the low road.

McCain vs. Obama: Round Two - CNN.com

(CNN) — With just four weeks left until Election Day, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are preparing to face off in Tuesday night’s high-stakes presidential debate.

The debate comes amid stepped-up attacks from both sides.

Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” and Obama’s campaign released an ad quoting editorials that called McCain “erratic” and “out of touch.”

On Monday, the Obama campaign released an online documentary that criticizes McCain over his involvement in the “Keating Five” scandal of the 1980s.

The back-and-forth this weekend could set the stage for a more heated event than the first presidential debate — one that had few sharp exchanges as both candidates largely stuck to their talking points.

At a campaign event in Denver, Colorado, last week, a voter asked McCain when he was going to “let the gloves come off and go after” Obama.

McCain’s response: “How about Tuesday night?”

According to CNN’s latest poll of polls, Obama leads McCain by six percentage points, 49-43.

One thing I’m surprised that the media hasn’t really picked up on, however, is that Palin’s current speech’s seem to be inciting people almost to a violent intensity … at least when she’s not speaking at a $10,000 a plate fundraising lunch.

Dana Milbank - Unleashed, Palin Makes a Pit Bull Look Tame - washingtonpost.com

Palin, speaking to a sea of “Palin Power” and “Sarahcuda” T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. “One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers,” she said. (”Boooo!” said the crowd.) “And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ ” she continued. (”Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)

“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.

I wonder if the Secret Service went after the guy shouting “Kill him!” … since threatening the life of anyone (especially a Presidential candidate) is a felony.

Palin has a lot to learn about how to play to a crowd, however. From the same article in the Washington Post:

“If you turn on the news tonight when you get home, you’re gonna see that, yah, this is another woeful day in the market, and the other side just doesn’t understand — no!” she said at an afternoon fundraiser at the home of mutual fund giant Jack Donahue. “Especially in a time like this, you don’t propose to increase taxes. The phoniest claim in a campaign that’s full of them is that Barack Obama is going to cut your taxes.”

Of course, Obama never promised to cut taxes for people at $10,000-a-plate lunches in air-conditioned tents on waterfront compounds. And the crowd — among them New York Jets owner Woody Johnson — reacted without applause to Palin’s Joe Six-Pack lines. After they didn’t strike up the usual “Drill, baby, drill” or “USA” chants, Palin, rattled, read hurriedly through the rest of her speech.

I wonder how many of that crowd starting thinking “Oh fuck, what are we in for if McCain actually wins this thing?”

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The top two stories on the New York Times at the moment:

Georgia and Russia Nearing All-Out War - NYTimes.com

As Russia moved in more forces and continued aerial bombing, it appeared determined to occupy the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

In Phelps’s First Event, Gold Medal and a World Record - NYTimes.com

The American pulled away from the field in the final lap to win the 400-meter individual medley in 4:03.84.

It just goes to show that just because the Olympic Games are going on, it doesn’t mean that the world stops functioning or fighting.

I’m not really sure what I should be writing about … the “uplifting” story of Michael Phelp’s first of a possible 8 gold medals, or the depressing story of yet another war about to explode, especially one involving one of the few military superpowers in the world.

I wonder if I will live to see a day when there is not some sort of armed conflict going on in the world … just one day is all I ask, because one day could lead to two, and two days could lead to a week, and two weeks could lead to a month, and two months could lead to a year, and so on …

But somehow, I just don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.

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Apple itself is setting the record straight and says that iPhone 3G's GPS mapping unit is as powerful as in dedicated devices. Also, cut-and-paste is still a possibility, and outside testers have found the iPhone's battery life the best in its class.

Contradicting claims by the New York Times' David Pogue, who was told by Apple that iPhone 3G's GPS chip is too small to work for turn-by-turn navigation, Apple product chief Greg Woswiak tells ExtremeTech that the hardware is just as capable as in other GPS-aware phones, many of which provide live driving directions.

Instead, the lack of an existing program from Apple or someone else to handle real-time road navigation is due to "complicated issues," according to the executive. He expects full navigation functionality to be expanded once developers are given more time.

"It will evolve," Joswiak says. "I think our developers will amaze us."

At least two veteran companies of the GPS industry, TeleNav and TomTom, have already said they are developing fuller navigation software than what's offered with the iPhone edition of Google Maps.

Read more: AppleInsider | iPhone 3G clarifications: battery life, GPS, office apps.

Do I sense marketing spin? Especially marketing spin designed to make people money by not building in certain functionalities, so that other developers can sell an app to take advantage of capabilities?

Nah … couldn’t be.

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From the New York Times:

Study Shows Problems With Olympic-Style Tests

Although athletes have said EPO is in widespread use, few have tested positive. Most of the athletes who have been linked to doping in recent years have been caught not through drug testing, but rather through criminal investigations. In the August 2006 issue of the journal Blood, the American lab accredited to conduct EPO testing reported only 9 positive tests out of 2,600 urine samples.

The new study may help explain why: the test simply failed.

The study, to be published Thursday in the online edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, was conducted last summer and fall by a renowned lab in Denmark, the Copenhagen Muscle Research Center. The investigators gave eight young men EPO and collected urine samples on multiple occasions before, during and after the men were doping. The men’s urine samples were then sent to two labs accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, and EPO tests were requested.

The first lab found some samples positive and a few others suspicious. (A suspicious result does not bring sanctions for doping.) The lab also declared a sample positive, although the man had stopped taking the drug and it should have been gone from his urine. His previous urine sample, obtained when he was taking EPO, was negative in this lab’s test.

The second lab did not deem any urine sample positive for EPO and found only a few to be suspicious. The two labs did not agree on which samples were suspicious.

… [Investigators] realized they had an opportunity to investigate the validity of the EPO test. So, without telling the anti-doping labs what they were doing, the investigators sent the men’s urine samples for EPO testing.

One of the two labs, which the researchers refer to as Lab B in their paper, never declared a sample positive, even when the men were taking high doses of EPO every other day. Lab A was inconsistent. It found EPO during the high dose phase. But in the maintenance phase, it found EPO in only 6 of the 16 samples.

Great news, eh?

Not like “I never tested positive” meant a whole lot before, but with this news, anyone who claims not to have doped and “never testing positive” can have the “yeah, but the tests detect it every time” argument thrown back at them …

And clean athletes will never be able to prove that they haven’t doped … all winning riders are going to fall under suspicion.

“You won the race? You must have doped.”

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