My Recent Blog Posts

I haven't been posting much over here lately. Most of my recent posts have been over at DailyKos. Click here if you want to see some of my more recent writings.

10,000

Sometime today I received my 10,000th hit. Thank you to all my readers who have supported my blog over the last year.

Congratulations Two-Headed Blog

Congratulations to Two Headed Blog for winning the Best Commentary Award at the Okie Blog Awards. The runner-up was Bounded Rationality.

Congratulations to all the other winners and nominees.

Blognetnews.com Ranks Satellite Sky Among Most Influential Political Blogs

You can see the ranking here.

Okay, I'm only #16, but at least I'm on the list!

Best Posts 2006-2007

I started this blog September 1, 2006. Now it is over one year old and I am up for another award -- this one probably more prestigious -- and I am curious as to what my readers think were my best posts over the last year. I would like to showcase my best posts for voters in the upcoming Okie Blog Awards. I can think of a few (Seven Years of Bad Luck, Social Security as a National Pension System, the Seasons of Life, Four Corrupting Influences), but what do you -- my regular readers -- say?

2007 Okie Blogger Award Nomination

Thank you to whoever it was that nominated me for Best Commentary in the 2007 Okie Blogger Awards. I am humbled by your kindness. I have been visiting some of the other nominees blogs, and I am quite impressed with the quality of the commentary I am finding.

Whoever wins the award will be quite deserving, I'm sure.

Sudden Debt

I am adding a link to the blog Sudden Debt to the the Blogs I Read links on the right side of the page. The writer seems to have a good insight to the financial markets and I agree with his general idea stated on the top of his blog:

How Much Debt is There? Too Much. Way Too Much.

So check out his blog; I think you will find a lot of good information there.

Connectivity

The reason I have not been posting has a lot more to do with the fact that I have not been able to get an internet connection where I am staying than any other factor. I can get a good connection quite regularly at work, but I usually only have enough time before work to read my e-mail and catch up on a little news. The place where I am staying is working on getting a new ISP with a larger capacity and a faster, more reliable connection.

Soon I hope to be back to my regularly scheduled punditry.

Okie Blogger Awards Now Taking Nominations

The nominations for the 2007 Okie Blog Awards are now open. You must be an Okie Blogger to participate. You may only make nominations if you are an Okie Blogger yourself.

Here is the Nominations page. Nominations must be e-mailed to Okiedoke at obawards07@okiedoke.com.

The Thinkers

I have been tagged by Independent Christian Voice for the Thinking Blogger Award.

The five blogs that make me think are:

1. Of Two Minds by Charles Hugh Smith. Charles is an author, carpenter and economics commentator who thinks outside the box;

2. Audience of One Brian is a public school principal who writes thought-provoking ideas about life and why we are who we are;

3. Pat Condell. This one is more or less a vblog. Pat Condell is a British comedian who has started making weekly comments on politics and religion on YouTube. His videos are irreverent and funny. His videos show how most Christians -- and other people of faith -- turn people like him to disbelief. It is his commentaries that Christian artists like Mark Heard (whose last album this blog is named after) "Everybody Loves A Holy War", Pat Terry "Sounds So Simple" from Humanity Gangsters (now rare) LP and DC Talk's "What If I Stumble" sing about in their referenced songs. Here are a few lines from Pat Terry's song Sounds So Simple that you can't find anywhere else online:

The rest of the world
Now they don't believe it
And I don't blame them
For the example we gave
It's hard to understand
Much less receive it
When the way they see it
Is through the way we behave

(By the way, as an aside, Mark Heard produced Pat Terry's Humanity Gangsters LP.)

4. Robert Reich's blog. Robert Reich is the nation's 22nd Secretary of Labor and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He is an accomplished Thinker. He is well-known for thinking outside the box.

5. The Big Picture by Barry Ritholtz. He doesn't need to get "tagged" by me as he already gets tens of thousands of hits a day. But he has become a leading thinker on Wall Street. When Larry Kudlow needs to find someone who doesn't just repeat the conservative free-market mantra, he turns to Barry.

Get Your "Hows" Right

In his New York Times column today, Thomas Friedman writes about the blogosphere:

When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a cellphone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload video on YouTube, everyone is filmmaker. When everyone is a publisher, paparazzo or filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. We’re all public figures now. The blogosphere has made the global discussion so much richer — and each of us so much more transparent.

The implications of all this are the subject of a new book by Dov Seidman, founder and C.E.O. of LRN, a business ethics company. His book is simply called “How.” Because Seidman’s simple thesis is that in this transparent world “how” you live your life and “how” you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor. To win now, he argues, you have to turn these new conditions to your advantage.

For young people, writes Seidman, this means understanding that your reputation in life is going to get set in stone so much earlier. More and more of what you say or do or write will end up as a digital fingerprint that never gets erased. Our generation got to screw up and none of those screw-ups appeared on our first job résumés, which we got to write. For this generation, much of what they say, do or write will be preserved online forever. Before employers even read their résumés, they’ll Google them.

“The persistence of memory in electronic form makes second chances harder to come by,” writes Seidman. “In the information age, life has no chapters or closets; you can leave nothing behind, and you have nowhere to hide your skeletons. Your past is your present.” So the only way to get ahead in life will be by getting your “hows” right.

...

“We do not live in glass houses (houses have walls); we live on glass microscope slides ... visible and exposed to all,” he writes. So whether you’re selling cars or newspapers (or just buying one at the newsstand), get your hows right — how you build trust, how you collaborate, how you lead and how you say you’re sorry. More people than ever will know about it when you do — or don’t.

This is why I like reading Thomas Friedman: he frequently writes very thought-provoking articles. He makes me think. Good writers do that.

I am reminded of the line from the movie Sneakers wherein the character Cosmo (portrayed by Ben Kingsley), tells Martin Bishop (portrayed by Robert Redford): "No more secrets, Marty. No more secrets."

It is been said that it is important to start a blog because you want to define yourself before others do it for you. I am not so sure writing an online diary is such a good idea. Certainly sharing some life experiences are important to fill in the blank spaces -- it is how we build our philosophy of life, after all -- but I don't think that having secrets is such a bad thing.

The openness that the advent of the internet has brought us is both good and bad. We are fragile creatures, you and I. So treat others with kindness. "Respect the dignity of all living things" as it says in the Book of Common Prayer. And to quote a line from Letters from Iwo Jima: "Do what is right because it is right."

New Okie Law Blog on Consumer Law

A fellow Oklahoma bankruptcy attorney, Elaine Dowling, has started her own blog on consumer law.

As if I didn't already have enough blogs to keep up with....

Seriously, she is writing about consumer law and bankruptcy issues. If you have any interest in consumer law issues, you might want to consider giving her blog a look.

Under the Weather

I haven't been posting much because when I came back from vacation I was:

1) ill (Allergic Rhinitis and Bronchitis, according to my doctor); and

2) trying to catch up on some work.

I have been following the roiling of the financial markets (down another 2% yesterday, with several world markets also slumping overnight) when I was vegging out on my sofa with my hacking cough and going through a box of tissues. The illness has just left me without much motivation to blog (or read) much.

The builders are supposed to be by today and tomorrow to fix my roof and build my new carport. Among the repairs, I have been making other improvements because I am still leaning toward selling the house I inherited (with its payment) to move into a smaller house. A 1700 square foot house with almost an acre of land is just too much for one person, really. That's not to mention the three storage buildings. I thought about converting one (the largest one) into an efficiency apartment/cottage, but my heart wants to move to another area. Most of my neighbors are elderly and I want to live in a more vibrant area.

The conundrum is that under current prices here in Oklahoma City, the realtors that I trust are saying that my 1700 sf house with almost an acre of land would only sell for about the same amount as one in the part of town that I want to live in for a house that is half the size, a yard 1/3 the size and about the same age as the one I am in now (and not necessarily in as good of a condition). Even with the new roof, new carport, new paint inside and out, new water tank, a remodeled bathroom, new gravel in the driveway and all the other repairs and improvements that I have made, the value of my house, I am told, will stay about the same. Just those repairs alone have cost me over $15,000. Mind you, the large repairs, like the roof and the carport, were mostly covered by insurance, but all the other stuff wasn't.

I am looking for ways to downsize and save money, but other than the savings coming from having a smaller electric and gas bill, I am not seeing much savings moving to a smaller place in another neigborhood. The insurance and taxes would actually be higher somewhere else. The payment would be about the same and there are the fees associated with both buying and selling a home.

What to do? I am not sure I can get a good answer.

Light Blogging Alert

My job as an attorney is very stressful. I try to make it a point every few months to take a break from the madness. So for the next few days I am going to take some time off to recharge. During the next 4 days, I will be posting lightly. In the meantime, a lot of important economic news is coming out, so I suggest you follow the links on the right side of the page to such places as Calculated Risk, Big Picture, Mish's site, and, of course Of Two Minds.

Also, a relatively new blog you may never have heard of is Bonddad Blog. Bonddad is a regular blogger over at DailyKos and his posts are always recommended.

I will post the Sunday Music tomorrow morning. After that, check back Wednesday evening, and I will try to bring you some pictures. I will be posting in the upcoming few days only if I have access to high-speed internet and only if I have extra time.

New Look

I figured out how to make a three-column blog. It wasn't quite the layout that I wanted, but it will have to do for now. What I like about the new layout is that I am able to separate out the advertising from the links and other related info. The advertising is on the left, the content in the middle and the links and widgets are to the right. Eventually, now that I figured out how to do three-column, I will be adding other features.

Let me know how you like the new layout.

The Iceman Cometh

Local weathermen are predicting one of the worst ice storms Oklahoma has ever seen this weekend. So, if I don't post for a while, don't panic. Your sometime daily dose of Satellite Sky News and Views will return as soon as I get my electricity back. (They are predicting widespread electrical outages this weekend.)

I had a very long day at court today. So I won't have a lot to say tonight. As we say in Oklahoma: I'm tarred (tired). I had to do some hurrying today. And I don't usually get in such a hurry. I'm an Okie. We don't walk, we mosey. I had to get a court order done during my lunchtime, and if you know how much I like my lunchtime, you know I wasn't moseying. So forgive me if I decide to somewhat take the night off.

After I got back from my long drive, I headed over to the local Wal-Mart Supercenter. Yes, I know, a moment of cognitive dissonance given what I have reported before. I filled up my car with $1.85 per gallon gasoline (something else that is far cheaper in Oklahoma than in California). I also stocked up on important supplies. The place was packed. Everyone else was doing the same thing that I was: preparing for disaster.

It's the end of the world! Run for your lives! The Iceman Cometh!

Too Many Voices

This is a follow-up to my post two days ago reviewing the Blue Man Group concert in Oklahoma City where I mentioned the information overload alluded to in the concert. I was thinking of how much time I spend every day reviewing all the different blogs and news sites for information and how there is more information than I have time to digest, it seems. Sometimes it seems that there are just too many voices.

Of course, I just had to add to the chatter of too many armchair pundits adding their two cents worth on the issues of the day. So I have a lot of room to talk, don't I?

Of course, the founding fathers of the United States always intended for there to be a clash of the cacophony of ideas among the participants in the political process. At the same time, the virtual smorgasbord of sources of information is almost too much to handle.

Although I suppose its better than the alternative. I would rather have access to all the information out there that allows me to make an intelligent decisions about politics, investments or any other interest I have. So maybe there aren't too many voices after all.

Editing My Blog

I have figured out how to add some advertisements from Amazon.com. However, what I want to be able to do is add a third column (that way I can separate the ads from other content-based information). If you know how to do this, please let me know.