With respect to the latest terrorist attack on the US (over Detroit)...

1) Why in the world do the liberal media in this country call this an "incident"? Because something went wrong and the bomb failed to detonate? This was not an incident, it was a full-blown terrorist attack that just happened to fail (thank G-d.)

2) Why do we keep on implementing these silly knee-jerk reactions to such attacks? How many years has it been since the shoe bomb attempt, and we are still removing our shoes before flying. Like they'd try the same thing now that we know about it.... Now I hear that international flights are removing blankets and pillows for the last hour of the flight, and mandating that cabin mobility is not allowed during the last hour. How stupid! Just because this was the plan THIS TIME? So let me understand -- setting off a bomb 65 minutes before landing is ok? How about 20 minutes after takeoff? Are Americans so stupid to be appeased with such silly measures and believe that the government is protecting them?!

3) So here are a few suggestions, based on recent analytical articles:

a) BAN ALL CASH SALES OF AIRLINE TICKETS. Paying cash is a means of hiding one's location and disguising one's trail. Sorry if this is inconvenient; that's life.

b) ANYONE WHO HAS VISITED ANY OF A LIST OF COUNTRIES THAT SUPPORT OR HARBOR TERRORISM WITHIN THE PREVIOUS 12 MONTHS IS AUTOMATICALLY SUBJECT TO INTENSIVE QUESTIONING/INVESTIGATION. **WE** define that list of countries (Yemen, Pakistan, most Arab countries, etc.) and I don't care WHO you are -- no matter how important. If you have nothing to hide that will become obvious. Put up with it.

c) NO ONE GETS ON AN AIRCRAFT FOR AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT IN OR OUT OF THE USA WITHOUT A VALID PASSPORT. And if the passport was issued withing the past 6 months, you are subject to more intensive scrutiny.

d) PASSENGER NAMES ARE CHECKED AGAINST **ALL** WATCH LISTS, NOT JUST THE NO-FLY LIST. If your name is on ANY list you are subject to extra scrutiny. If you have a name similar to one listed, then there could be a mechanism to obtain a special "clearance" ID card from the government, including at least a photo and fingerprint, for future flights.

e) How about developing a security screening device that uses a simple fingerprint scan to identify you -- perhaps coupled to a special database of "frequent fliers"? If you travel frequently (or just want to be prepared to travel) you could physically visit a special government office with your passport, proof of birth, and whatever else they decide would be useful. Subject yourself one time to a detailed investigation and interrogation. Once cleared, your fingerprint and identifying code would be entered into this special database. Every time you travel, your fingerprint scan will update the database with your location and the security clearance staff will get an "all clear" signal... they should still do their own checking, but could be less intensive, resulting in speedier check-in. Too much like George Orwell's "1984"? We're way past that!

Time to recognize that once on the plane there is no way to stop a terrorist other than sheer luck. The only defence is blocking their access to flying.

OK, so a new poll was released today that shows Obama with over 93% of the black vote and McCain with only 3%.

Now if only 3% of white voters were supporting Obama, the entire world would be screaming "racism!" But somehow this is not racism? Or racism permitted for black voters only? Certainly if non-racist views were at play we would have a split more like every other demographic in America?!

Why is this double-standard somehow OK? And why is no one talking about it?

I don't get it. With only 9 days left until the election, it seems to me that many important points about Obama's tax plans are being missed. OK, so the media is missing them -- given their pro-Obama bias, that's understandable. But where are the GOP speechwriters and strategists? I'm not financial expert, but I have been a part of the corporate world for over 30 years. Here are a few points that I see, but somehow no one seems to be talking about....

1) Obama talks about tax credits to "95%" of the population; reducing taxes. But he only ever seems to mention PERSONAL taxes, not CORPORATE taxes. Traditionally the Democrats like to tax business, and it's pretty obvious to me that he will hike corporate taxes... after all, the programs he plans need more money to implement! So when he tells "Joe the Plumber" that he will only be taxed more if he earns over $250K, that's Joe personally. If Joe personally earns 100K, he will get a personal tax credit. But what about Joe's company? Assuming it's a small, separate legal entity, Joe's business taxes will likely rise. So Joe is correct that he still needs to worry, because he is talking about a small privately-held business. The business tax increases will more than offset his personal tax credit, and he will be in trouble.

2) Obama talks about reducing tax credits for businesses bringing jobs back to America from overseas. That's a good idea -- provide an incentive for businesses to create jobs at home. But Obama then says that he will increase taxes for businesses sending jobs overseas. While this sounds logical, there is a big problem with it -- the reason many businesses send jobs overseas is to reduce costs. Even before the recent financial bust, salaries and job-related expenses in America are very costly. While I'm not in favor of sending jobs overseas, I understand the reasoning that causes businesses to do this. If we punish these businesses by taxing them more, like Obama says he will, these companies will end up RAISING THE PRICES OF THEIR PRODUCTS! It's really very simple: they send the jobs overseas to keep costs lower; if their costs go up, so will the prices. And who will pay for this? YOU WILL, every time you buy something. This will quickly eat into your "personal tax credit!"

3) Obama's health plan has some very serious flaws that no one seems to be talking about. I'll forget about the "socialist" aspects here (after all, I'm originally from Canada, so I understand the pros and cons of such a system.) Obama loves to say how McCain's plan will cause employers to drop coverage leaving employees on their own to get insurance. This makes no sense, since the employers are not being taxed any more for their contributions. Yes, McCain plans to tax the employer health plan contribution benefit, but that will be much more than offset by a $5000 tax credit for health insurance. It seems that under Obama's plan employees will be able to "opt out" of the employer-offered plan in favor of a government-run plan. One has to assume that this government plan will be cheaper, leading many to switch. As they opt out, the employer plan will become more expensive (as the groups shrinks, the plan usually gets more costly.) For small companies having a very small group (almost 90% of American businesses) it may no longer pay for the business to have a group plan, forcing many Americans to either switch to the Government plan (what happened to choice??) or fend for themselves and buy a private plan WITH NO HELP like the McCain plan offers! Another favorite Obama complaint about McCain's plan is that the "$5000 tax credit goes RIGHT TO THE INSURANCE COMPANIES, not to you!" Well... duh! You are using the money to BUY insurance -- so obviously the money goes to the insurance company!! But you get to pick the company and the plan you like. Then the government will PAY $5000 of the premium directly to YOUR SELECTED company. (If they paid it to you, there is a chance you might just buy lots of beer and pizza -- not too good for your health ;-)

Obama's tax "reductions" are smoke and mirrors! Yes, they may appear, but along with the credits will come many increased costs, because your costs for MANY consumer goods will rise, along with your costs for health care. (By the way, unless Obama plans to limit medical care charges like some socialist plans, the medical practitioners will slowly raise prices for lab work and other related services.)

McCain is criticized by Obama and the Obama-crazed media for including big business in his tax reduction plan... Obama loves to say things like "including the Mobil-oils". But these larger corporations CREATE JOBS!! How many people will Joe the Plumber type businesses employ? Tax credits to large corporations help to reduce their expenses and encourage GROWTH -- something that is much more critical in this new economic crisis we're in.

Wake up America! Stop acting as though you're selecting your favorite "Idol" performer. Have we totally forgotten that the President is NOT an entertainment icon? Charisma, oratory, and stage presence are fine, but no substitute for experience and judgement. Obama has NO PRACTICAL management experience -- not in business and not in government. His political experience is less than ONE TERM! His voting record is totally non-involved -- most votes were "present" meaning "add my vote to the party line, whatever that means." He talks about "changing the World" but gives no details of what he means -- because although he has ideas, he has no practical experience to understand what is or is not possible. Given all of his past personal associations (and I think it's a joke to say such things mean nothing!) he has what I would call "radical" thinking. In his own way he wants "revolution." Listen, America might have its problems, but it's still the greatest country! Obama harps so much on "CHANGE" that it's obvious that he doesn't really like this country very much. And the people he has CHOSEN to associate with over more than 20 years are also not fond of America -- his preacher HATES America and rails against the country, the government, and white people. Ayers is totally unrepentant of his domestic-terrorist past, and has said recently that we need to encourage revolution through the educational system! Obama's wife recently said that "for the first time she is proud" of this country! All this shows where Obama's loyalties and ideas lie. He is not a REFORMER, but a REVOLUTIONARY. He definitely wants change, but if he could he would change most of what has made America such a great country.

I don't care what color or religion Obama is. But I do fear his ideology and especially his total lack of experience. We don't need an "American Idol", we need a strong, experienced president.

Well I'm always happy to see a new interesting web site, and especially something that seems to hold promise of something "different". So I welcomed the announcement of the new "Cuil" search engine. Understandably there are (and will continue to be) lots of startup glitches, like crashed/overwhelmed servers, but I have a much more serious problem.

One of Cuil's features is that they display a small image near many site listings in an attempt to make the listing look more interesting, and hopefully show something visual about the site contents. Selecting an appropriate image from each site is challenging, but that's their problem.

To test how this works, I did a search for my own name. I'm a professional photographer, so besides for my own web site, I'm listed in a lot of various directories, etc. Imagine my shock when I see a small portrait displayed beside MY WEB SITE listing that I DID NOT TAKE, and that DOES NOT APPEAR ANYWHERE ON MY SITE!

This is more than a mistake. Cuil is representing my business with an image that isn't mine! Two thoughts (at least) come to mind: 1) that if this is not a good portrait, or simply not my style, then Cuil is misrepresenting my business! and 2) Whoever does own that image, assuming they are also professional, may be very upset to see their copyrighted image displayed next to my site listing! (They could even charge ME with copyright infringement!)

The same can be said about some of the other directory listings that appeared in Cuil's search results. While the text portion was relevant to my business, some random photo from the site was displayed beside my information! This MUST BE STOPPED.

On a more minor note, Cuil's search algorithm seems very strange if not obsolete. One might expect that when searching for my name, my own site would appear first, as it does on almost every other search engine. On Cuil, it's about 9th (if you go top to bottom) or 3rd if you read across. It appears to be a simple context text matching algorithm... so if my name is mentioned twice on a directory/index site and only once on my own site main page, the directories appear first. No exactly best match in terms of user objectives in searching!

I can see lots of potential law suits here if Cuil does not very quickly address the image problem. I spend over 30 years in information technology, and can easily see that selecting an image is a next-to-impossible task. For example, I have several sub-sites (completely different topics, but hosted as sub-domains under my site). While this is perfectly legitimate, a search engine has no way to tell that the images under one sub-site are completely irrelevant to another!!

My suggestion? Either drop the image idea completely, or (better): offer to display any image names "cuil-image.jpg"... that way they can let the webmaster decide what image would be most relevant to their site. Cuil could still make a decision as to whether or not to display the image, but if they want to display one it would have to be one with that pre-defined name. (Maybe the rule could include multiple choices for random selections, like cuil-image1.jpg to cuil-image9.jpg?)

I hope the developers of cuil will move very quickly to address this serious situation, which I could term "information corruption" -- since it misrepresents information that is already correctly represented on the web!

Professional photographers often feel that they must use only the top pro model of any equipment available -- or they won't be viewed as pros. I perfer to judge equipment by what it offers me in capability. That said, I have now had the opportunity to test and use Nikon's D200 DSLR camera for several weeks, and I must say that I am very impressed. Although some try to label this as a "pro-sumer" camera, there is no reason for pros to shy away from it. The quality, build, and results are certainly pro class. The only part that is "consumer" class is the price! I am amazed at how Nikon has managed to put so much into a camera at such a reasonable cost.

I have no intention of reviewing the D200. There are many excellent reviews out there, particularly on the dpreview site and also Ken Rockwell's site. But if you're looking for a pro photographer's endorsement of the nikon D200, you've got it! My only somewhat negative observations are: 1) In a bright environment the rear LCD display is very hard to see (this is true of most DSLRs), 2) The battery life is not quite what is advertised (I think Nikon based the figures on small, low-quality images). I get about 300 images per battery - I use the extended grip which holds two batteries, so I get about 600 shots. Note that I keep the display off most of the time.

On the topic of that display... there are certainly times that one would want to check an image. For example, if the lighting has changed it may be important. But I personally find it amusing to see pos shooting an event and looking at the camera back after every shot. Can't tell you how many good shots they've missed getting because they were busy looking at the last shot, but I'm sure they missed plenty! When I'm shooting, I want as few distractions as possible. I want to get into a flow of the event and the people. I can't do that if I stop after every shot! When we shot film we didn't have the luxury of checking our results. So what did we do? We made sure that our exposure was dead on before we started shooting! In my opinion, we shouldn't revert to sloppy methods just because our equipment lets us. I configure the camera to keep that display off. Sure there are times I pull it up to check a histogram, or to check the last few shots -- but that's when I'm ready to do so; when there's a lull in the activity or when I feel that I've already captured what I needed to in the current setting.

Back to the D200. For the most part I'm very happy with the available options and especially with the placement of controls. Very intuitive. Much better than burying popular settings in command menus. The camera "feels" right in my hands; I feel very comfortable shooting with it.

More later...

The new Jewish Stock Photography site is being well received! I've already had inquiries from photographers in the US, Russia, and Israel. Tonight the photographer support section was added to the web site, allowing photographers to register as contributors. Other improvements are planned. In addition, I've used my SEO skills (see my other site, http://SEOmaven.com) to promote the photo site, and it's already doing very well in the search engines. This will improve as I continue to work it, but expect http://jewishstockphotos.com to remain on page one of all the major search engines for a long time!

I've launched yet another small business... this one to provide a source for Jewish-themed stock photography. I am currently soliciting other professional photographers (particularly Jewish photographers, so they understand the themes!) to participate and earn some extra money from sales of their images. The new site is http://jewishstockphotos.com. The add-on photographer support will be activated in about a week.