Welcome Babies, More on Spyware, And Other

A list post:

1. Welcome Iowans! Thanks for stopping in. If we are not already in email contact, please email me at firstname.lastname@gmail.com with your latest address so Kate and I can keep in contact. Unless you don't want to keep in contact.

2. An update regarding the spyware situation. Another friend has been having trouble with pop-ups after viewing blogger. Here's some solutions. One of our friends got rid of the problems her computer was having by buying and running Norton antispyware software. Also researching the issue, it seems that Internet Explorer is particularly vulnerable to spyware. Friends of ours have switched from IE to Mozilla which blocks out 99.99% of the pop-ups and is supposedly far less vulnerable to spyware than IE. It is not too difficult to download and to install the new broswer. Once installed, instead of surfing the net with IE, surf with Mozilla.

3. My brother, who is not only Canadian (gasp!) but also a French citizen (oh man!) emailed me an attachment that purported to show the results of the 2000 US election through ranking states by IQ. Have you seen this? I don't know how to post an attachment that's not its own website, so I can't post the info up here. Predictably the chart went from solid blue (democrat) to solid red (republican). I'm assuming the chart is not fabricated. It claimed to have been published in the Economist[?].

I'm not a fan of IQ tests in general -- they should more accurately be called "level of education" tests. But there seems to be no more compelling argument for a healthy education system than these statistics. As people have argued time and again, a country should not be allowed to wage war on another country if the majority of the populace cannot find it first on a map.

4. fatwhitegeisha (Kate and I) rented Fahrentheit 911 a few days ago. If you haven't seen it yet, it's still worth a look, if only to remind oneself of the enormous suffering war causes. I thought the movie was Moore's best work so far. He relies so much less (in 911) on his schtick of pretending to be objective (or at least pretending that the sound-bytes he uses to make people look stupid are objective). For once, I found myself going along with the film and getting angry at Moore's target instead of getting angry with Moore himself the way I usually do.

5. FWG is addicted to the television show 24 -- a truly guilty pleasure. Who needs characters or theme when you got plot!

6. I'm reading David Guterson's Our lady of the Forest which most likely will disgust certain Iowa friends. Guterson's writing about the forests of Cascadia is lovely. Take that certain workshop teachers in Iowa City! Derivative of Cormac McCarthy my backside!