Who is Bill Shirley?

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Some people think that Shirley is an uncommon name. It’s not. You come across many more less common names when you’re going about your life. It’s more common than less (being in the 43rd percentile of last names in the US – it’s a bit more common in Texas)

Last time I checked the Houston phone book (which was admittedly a while ago), there were nearly thirty Shirleys and I didn’t know any of them.

Of course, William is a very common name (fifth most common in the 1990 US census).

Almost twenty years ago I met via the internet a guy named Shirley, and then his brother Will. They lived outside of London, were a few years younger than me, and were both in computer work for a living. I always hoped to visit them, but never did. I’ve lost track of them.

Bill Shirley (1921 – 1989) was an actor and singer and singing voice of Prince Philip in Sleeping Beauty (1959).

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To Be Free Requires Diligence

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The Declaration of Independence is one of the most profound documents in human history. Today is the anniversary of it’s adoption by the American states. Despite it’s prominence in our history, it has no hold in our law. Everyone knows the the main phrase from the Declaration All men are created equal, that they are … Read more

Donna

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So, when you receive a MySpace friend request from “Donna” who doesn’t have a picture, and lives in another state, and who’s only friend is “Tom”, what do you do? Yes. And I was just about to delete the invitation, but I noticed some oddities. She wasn’t 18 or 21 or 26, like most MySpace … Read more

Dark Markets of Enron

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If you haven’t noticed, our government hasn’t been regulating things in this country for about eight years. It cuts across almost every agency in the bureaucracy. Mostly they just unfunded the regulators or told them to stop doing their jobs. See recent headlines on airplanes being grounded because they hadn’t been inspected in timely fashion … Read more

Tim Russert, 1950 – 2008

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58 doesn’t seem that old (and it isn’t) when you’re sitting here with your age starting with a 4.  Droping dead at work, hard to believe. So many people survive heart attacks these days; it’s hard to believe a witnessed one can be fatal. Here’s the reminder. Here’s Tim from a month ago, speaking what … Read more

DVD-rama

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I used to use peerflix.com to get DVDs, but I got busy at one point, and didn’t have time to watch the movies I was receiving. So, I let the account go stagnant. They threatened to remove my account for inactivity, and though I can still login, the account page is all wonky. When I … Read more