Hope to be back soon...

Well, I've been struggling for days with a tech problem. A series of very weird system freeze-ups have afflicted this particular 'puter. Even though the gauges show low CPU usage and perfectly normal memory usage, even though every anti-virus and anti-spyware scan comes up clean, and even though the hard drive seems fine, everything will lock up while using Photoshop or even Firefox -- sometimes even when moving largish files.

In Task Manager/Resource Monitor, the green lines show that everything is cool with the CPU -- yet the blue line depicting the CPU's "maximum frequency" is freaking out. Googling reveals that lots of others have had this issue, but nobody seems to understand why it happens. There's nothing for it but to re-install. Everything.

Sometimes this process is a breeze. Sometimes not. If I'm absent for a while, you'll know why.

In the meantime, check out:

1. Eliot Spitzer on what OWS should do now. His is the wisest, most bullshit-free list of desiderata yet offered. Nothing here about being kind to animals or respecting mother nature or marijuana legalization or gay marriage or ending the federal reserve. This isn't a laundry list; Spitzer gives us ECONOMICS ECONOMICS ECONOMICS. (Also publicity, publicity, publicity, which is, alas, a necessary part of the deal.)

Schedule OWS rallies and events at the various State of the State addresses delivered by governors in the first week of the new year. Use the fact that most state media congregate to hear what is usually a rather plebian speech. Create another story for them to cover that day from the capitol.

Call for a full rollback of the Bush tax cuts for all those above $1 million in annual income.

Start a petition drive in every state demanding that the state municipal governments stop using Goldman Sachs for advice and underwriting until Goldman Sachs returns the $12.9 billion dollars it received, from the taxpayers, as a part of the AIG bailout.

Better idea: Let's not call for Goldman disinvestment as part of a we-want-our-money-back deal. That's too limiting. Let's call for Goldman disinvestment for the same reason a previous generation called for disinvestment from South Africa. Evil is evil.

2. OWS does so have leaders. Remember when I told you that the leaderless movement actually had hidden movers-n-shakers? I was right. The concerns here are legitimate but can, I think, be addressed and rectified.

3. The (or at least some) truth about Occupy Oakland. (Via Skydancing, which has had lots of good stuff lately.)