I'm not sure what I think, but I found some more background info. He headed the US Pacific Command, and most of the old articles mentioning him (other than during East Timor and the China spyplane affair in 2001) are about international military relations with Asian allies, i.e., going to visit the Singapore Air Force, joint exercises, etc. which has its uses but also advances the militarization of foreign relations.
I imagine his conduct in Indonesia had to do with his overall importance he put on maintaining a good relationship with Asian militaries, though that doesn't excuse it.
Why put him in this position? Possibly because the US Pacific Command has jurisdiction over the multiple services, and doing anything with that in peacetime is at least as hard as wrangling the 16 intelligence agencies. One article refers to him as a "great networker." And apparently he had a position under the DCI way back (when that office still existed). But overall it seems pretty uninspired - someone moderately respected without much tie to Bush other than serving under him for a year (retired 2002).
Isn't Dennis Blair that British guy who helped Bush get the Iraq War started?
I think there are three things at work in this nomination:
1. Blair has spoken against military interventions, particularly in the Middle East. I don't think he'll be cooking intelligence to get us to invade Iran. A war-skeptical intelligence chief would be a nice change.
2. Blair was a classmate of Mike Mullen, who will be the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and of Jim Webb. There may have been lobbying on his behalf by either or both Mullen and Webb.
3. Blair fits neatly into the Obama brain trust -- 4.0 at the Naval Academy majoring in Russian; Rhodes Scholar. (Mullen also is a Harvard MBA.)
Thought I read he also tried to waterski behind a destroyer.
Also: "[He has] close ties to the Clinton family, and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford with Bill Clinton. " -NYT
The first sentence of the post would be much improved by moving the comma one word to the right.
||
Is this a good thread to ask for technology help?
I want to get a new ringtone for my phone and I know the one I want. I even found it for sale on the internet. But I don't understand the part about how it gets to my phone.
I see a download to computer option and a download to iPhone option (I don't have an iPhone). But I don't get how those help me. I download to my laptop and then hold my phone really close to the screen while I play the ringtone?
(No. I don't see a place to type my phone number in. Can the internet really call your phone and tell it to sing something different? That's amazing.)
I am fairly sure that I will achieve complete enlightenment and happiness if I get this ringtone, so could someone please tell me how it arrives at my phone? Thanks.
|>
Blair Waldorf is National Intelligence Director? She's devious enough, I guess, but what about that shady character Chuck Bass she's always seen with?
13:
Megan, I've never done this but thinking about what would be needed I suspect you need a way to connect your phone to your computer (i.e. a cable or bluetooth), or you'll have to get it some way that routes through your own carrier (the bastards).
I wondered about a cable. I've been assuming there is a magic way to get the ringtone to my phone that I don't understand because I'm a luddite. Is the solution as prosaic as a cable?
Now I'm wondering whether I could put the ringtone on my camera, which I do have a cable for.
14: Not to mention the sketchy British aristos.
Megan's preferred ringtone is "Lollipop," which is of course really all about Senator Darrell Steinberg.
Crazy way he thrills me
Tell you why
Just like a lightning from the sky
He loves to kiss melegislate sound hydro policy till I can't see straight
GEE, MY LOLLIPOP IS GREAT
Now I'm wondering whether I could put the ringtone on my camera, which I do have a cable for.
Then people really would have to wait too long to be able to smile naturally.
16: I second 15, as on my pre-iPhone Motorolas I always had to use a cable or bluetooth to transfer ringtones. You may have to go to your cell provider to get a cable. Honestly, your best bet is to walk into the local cellular store and ask. If you want to avoid the possibility that your provider would try to force you into using some metered or for-pay means of getting it on there, try a generic wireless store that has your carrier's logo in their window and less incentive to turn your pocket inside out via your provider's network.
IIRC, on my old (now I have an iPhone! neener-neener-neeeener!) phone which was an LG something-or-other (just a mid, if I made a Bluetooth connection between my MacBook and it, I could use the file transfer thingy on the MB to drop downloaded ringtones into a folder called MyRingtones. But I'm not the ringtone-downloading sort, so I never tried it.
If your computer, phone models, and wireless carrier are not too personal of information to share, I bet we could figure this out for you.
"(just a mid" s/b "(just a mid-range model, nothing fancy)"
My phone has a removable chip, and I suppose yours might as well.
If it is only a matter of a few dollars (
25: do yo mean a mini-SD card, or a physical chip?
If a chip, how do you connect it to your computer? Any old card reader should work with mini-SD, so that should have been included in my list I guess.
This just made me realize, my current "free" phone came with a cable, bluetooth, and mini-SD. But I've never transferred anything on or off it.
less than $10), I'm happy to pay that for complete enlightenment and happiness. I've wanted this ringtone for a year or so. I'd pay some small money just to get it done.
I don't mind going to a cell phone store and asking, now that I know I'm not missing something obvious.
Oh wait! The phone came in a box. There were other things in the box that I never looked at.
Step 1. Find the box.
Step 2. Look at things.
23 - I'd tell you the models and carrier, but I don't know them without looking at the devices, which I don't have here.
I would guess that your phone and laptop both support Bluetooth, in which case it's just a matter of making them talk to each other? (I say, despite never having done this and not knowing the details of how it works.)
It depends on your carrier. Verizon (last time I checked when I tried to upload a ringtone, more than a year ago) had crippled the technology that would have allowed me to do it myself, because they want people to pay them for the download.
Is the ringtone "Who wants to sex Mutumbo?" or "Fuck you, Clown!"?
"The Soft Parade" is an excellent ringtone. You have 8 minutes and 37 seconds to decide whether to answer.
32. Neither. (Incidentally, I first heard the Mutumbo query as 'WHO will fuck Dikembe?', with a big booming WHOOOOO. I like that version too.)
had crippled the technology that would have allowed me to do it myself, because they want people to pay them for the download.
It's exactly this sort of thing that makes most carriers deservedly despised.
Off Topic: Can we start a betting pool on when George Packer will commit suicide? I can't imagine that "Joe the Plumber" as Middle East war correspondent is any better than Sean Penn as hard-hitting interviewer of Cuban dictators.
You can bluetooth a file to your phone. You can send a file by infared to your phone. You can move a phone by cable (connector dependent). You can the network send you the file (by paying for it), if you have a hookup that supports it (which you likely do). Sadly, it all depends.
You have 8 minutes and 37 seconds to decide whether to answer.
You gotta set the network to give you the time to answer, or else it'll skip out after 30 seconds.
max
['Which sucks, actually.']
do many phones have IR these days max? I thought that would be obsolete by now.
Perhaps it is late in the conversation to confess this, but I don't even know what it is to bluetooth something. (I know that they are the funny small phones that attach to the ear. But I have no idea what it means for my phone. Perhaps it is a wireless something something.) I will go look it up.
And this is the person who plans to control the American water supply. A Luddite with a seekrit ringtone.
I'm pretty sure IR is dead. I haven't had it on a phone since this baby back in 2002. Ah, memories. I still haven't had a phone since that matched the standby time and durability of that one.
39: bluetooth is a short distance wireless protocol. So that means bluetooth devices can talk to each other when authorized and close enough. This is how all those silly looking wireless one ear headsets work, and also how the nicer (eg expensive) hands-free ones work in cars.
It's also how wireless mice and keyboards work in many computers. If you've got it in your computer and your phone, they can exchange information. If your phone company hasn't crippled the functionality, you might be able to do this quite usefully.
"The Soft Parade" is an excellent ringtone.
I've been annoyed on an ongoing basis for several years now that the iTunes store won't sell me that song without me buying the whole album.
I suppose, in fairness, I should spread some of that annoyance to the fucker who stole the CD out of my apartment at Easter of 1995. I lost several CDs that I'm not willing to buy again but which I wish I had.
Hey! They've finally got it! And it's available as a ringtone, too!
Hmm. The 40th Anniversary Remix is about a minute longer; expanded enjoyment, or audio filler?
40. Heh. It is true that I'm not great with much post-50's technology. Fortunately, lots of water stuff hasn't changed since then. Also, I like mechanical systems better, since I can look at them.
I went to a town in the foothills that apparently was once run off hydraulic power. There was a ton of head off a local creek. Channels ran behind people's alleys and people had small mills in them attached to belts that drove their washing machines. It was said to be a nice quiet power source, kept the houses cool. I could have figured that out, because I could look at it.
The problem with figuring out ringtones is that sometimes internet stuff is magically easy and your ticket is at the airport and sometimes it isn't (oh, the tiny mice have to carry the song through the cable) but you have to just know which is which.
I still haven't had a phone since that matched the standby time and durability of that one.
When I was doing a lot of retail work for Verizon in '00-'01, the StarTek (?) was already a year or two out of date, but all the Verizon people were clinging to theirs, because it was so much better than any of the newer products. I assume it's been superseded by now.
In addition to that, I would have to know that bluetooth is the word for phone wireless, which I can guess because I've seen mini-phones not attached to anything, but don't know for sure because it could just mean tiny phones.
What kind of phone do you have, Megan? Given your line of work, I can recommend Samsung flip phones for water resistance; mine still works (sort of) after two trips through the wash, whereas my Motorola was demolished after just one.
I was thinking about that recently, that recently I've been stumped because I can think of too many options. When I took BART in Boston, I had to look at the ticket vending machines for a long time. It isn't that I don't know how to buy a ticket to ride BART, but it had a not-informative name and I can readily imagine a system like Muni or BART, in which you can buy the wrong ticket within the same station. I also don't trust the ticket because I don't know if I should buy for a stop, a zone, or pay a flat rate, all of which I've done before.
Recently when I look hapless and stumped, the problem is that I'm coming up with too many plausible outcomes, not that I'm so uninformed that I can't figure out even one.
0:40 of the extra time is a little recitation prior to the "When I was back there in seminary school" bit.
Additional updates to follow as events warrant.
Dude, it isn't here, so I don't know. It is shiny and red, and came free when my sister added me to her plan. Samsung?
For all that I yearn to, I'm not out walking canals very often. My cube looks just like yours and demands equally little of my phone.
50: if you care to, and remember the login, your phone carrier web page will probably tell you what phone you have.
but, as you say, you may have a cable in a box somewhere anyway.
44.last: This is a constant source of irritation for me. Add in the fact that over two decades since the introduction of the Apple Macintosh people still fuck up trivial elements of design for usability and it's enough to make me long for a return to the stone age.
The latest little pointless irritation - My cutting edge Motorola phone can't turn of the stupid synthesized beep that accompanies each keypress without also turning off the ringer.
While I'm kvetching - anyone who uses the "walkie-talkie" mode on their cellphone by holding the phone two feet in front of their face and yelling should be summarily shot.
I really want the NCIS theme song as a ringtone for my phone, but I'd be in danger of never answering on time because I'd be too busy dancing.
When I took BART in Boston
There's a BART in Boston?
Ah, I see. It's like Coke in the South.
All your coke are belong south to us.
Isn't Dennis Blair that British guy who helped Bush get the Iraq War started?
Blair Waldorf is National Intelligence Director?
What you need is a Which Blair Project to sort out all these names.
BART is the Coke of metros, assuming that metros are the soda of the North.
"Take BART from Downtown Berkeley to Embarcadero, where you have to transfer to BART. Take the escalators up, put your money in the machines labeled 'Muni,' and take the escalator down to the J-Church BART. If you get confused, ask for help. If the person you ask tells you you're not taking BART, punch him."
But heebie, south of us they still make real cokes.
We're not letting Megan get away with not telling us the song, are we? No one give her any more help until she dishes!
Yeah, Otto! No helping me use public transportation!
It is _I Believe the Children Are Our Future_.
Probably not the song that would lead me to "complete enlightenment and happiness either," but I'm just happy Megan knows what would for her.
But...why?
Because she hates goodness. Seriously, if that's the ringtone, I regret providing even the most meager assistance.
Mine needs to be someone in a queeny voice saying, "There was a ton of head off a local creek," as though reading from his memoir.
Otto, stop manipulating everyone with your generous spirit.
I was kidding. The ringtone I crave for real is from this song (starting around :26). Answering my phone will be unbearably heroic!
I need to get a cellphone just for the ringtone.
do many phones have IR these days max?
Damned if I know; I included it for, um, inclusiveness... and I forgot to mention that Megan could also dump the file to an SD card and plug it into the phone. (The file could moved through the camera if neccessary.)
FYI: my antiquated (meaning I got it on sale 12/2005 for 49$) does have IR, and bluetooth and SD and USB. Which is why I got it. I rarely talk on the phone, and I also hate paying for ringtones or similar crap.
max
['I AM SINISTAR!']
Crap. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg1IjbIBXZQ
Fire brigades risks them lives to save that of the others, for combatre of the fires which are often regrettably criminal. We can say never enough how much we adds them indebted.(This is the translation of my text in French)......Les pompiers risques leur vies pour sauver celle des autres,pour combatre des incendies qui sont souvent malheureusement criminels.Nous ne pourrons jamais assez dire combien nous leur somme redevable.
Are you being smug, Emerson? I tried a few times to get the link right, but a 'no follow' term kept appearing. I can do links, you know.
The twentieth century isn't for everyone. But don't worry your pretty head.
I was kidding.
I'm such an easy mark. I was sitting here feeling bad that I'd gotten Megan to tell us the song only to expose her to censure and ridicule.
Megan holds a grudge, you know. She was testing you.
I will carry around yellow bell peppers to bite into every time I answer my phone. That'll be easier than finding a burning building to dash into.
I do hold grudges, and PGD really believed that my favorite artist was Thomas Kinkade. I haven't forgotten.
Someday they'll all be gathered in one room, Megan, and their faces will pale when they see you standing in the doorway. The only doorway.
You know what song I'll be hearing when that happens.
I have the relevant portion of this as my ringtone at the moment. It helps that my phone makes it dead simple to make an arbitrary MP3 my ringtone.
Thought I read he also tried to waterski behind a destroyer.
In the best traditions of the service. Perhaps not your service, but ours would appreciate the spirit.
Ringtones: I hadn't realised the CDMA world didn't have an equivalent to WAP PUSH and USSD. Which is a relief, as I told that Swiss outfit things like that were still really important.
I realize genocide is terribly boring compared to ringtones, but here is a little more. And more, if folks didn't bother to read the link in my comments.
I have to say that I find it awfully frustrating that everyone is gossiping about the now relatively unimportant position of CIA chief, and Leon Panetta, and hardly anyone on the left seems to give a damn about the boss, the DNI chief, and the U.S. history of involvement in the East Timorese genocide. Somewhere between 100,000-150,000 thousand, out of a population of 650,000, were killed with our greenlight, and Admiral Blair deliberately disobeyed Clinton's orders, and further cozied up to the Indonesian military. And to what end?
I realize most Americans couldn't point to East Timor on a map, and have never heard of the genocide, let alone U.S. involvement in it, but it might be a wonderful thing if more folks took a faint interest.
I realize genocide is terribly boring compared to ringtones
But talking down to people is a proven winner in getting them to listen to you.
91, 92: Oddly enough, I was just looking up one of the eulogies for Sander Thoenes recently. Can't remember what prompted me to do it. It's as imperfect as these sorts of things almost always are, but there's one line I particularly liked:
When Sander died he was permanently enrolled in the humane college of ordinary life, and he took his education there more seriously than many of his peers did.
most Americans couldn't point to East Timor on a map
I certainly couldn't, except vaguely. Most of the people I come in contact with from that part of the world are from Surabaya; they bring their own stories and history but we don't spend a lot of time talking about genocides of any kind.
Being in enrolled in that humane college of ordinary life means something different to each of us, and I'm grateful to Gary for his doggedness, even if it did distract me from my perennial complaint about the flatness of cell phones for rounded human heads.
"But talking down to people is a proven winner in getting them to listen to you."
Well, you know, I didn't mean it in a bad way.
Gary, I completely agree with you, but I've been being depressed about Israel and Rubin-Summers all day. Timor will have to take a number.
Thought I read he also tried to waterski behind a destroyer.
I would not think much of a man who, when put in command of a destroyer, did not try to waterski behind it. (Submarines are obviously different.)
Cf. Billy Connolly: "Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cosy, does not try it on his head."
Last time I checked, heebie's ringtone is a recording of her going "brrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnng, brrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnng". It's awesome.