Less than three hours ago, I asked here if someone could recommend a piece of software I need. Several folks, the first of whom was Steve Billnitzer, suggested dbpoweramp Music Converter. I'm using it now and it seems like exactly what I need, especially since I downloaded some extra codecs. Thanks, all.

In the past here, I've plugged the heck out of Zero Hour, a one-man show in which the one man is my buddy Jim Brochu playing Zero Mostel. A great evening in the theater. If you're in New York between November 14 and the end of January 2010, you have a chance to see it. See it.

I'm looking for a piece of PC software that can do the following. You specify a directory and it goes through that directory (and maybe any sub-directories) and automatically converts all the .m4a and .wma files to .mp3 files.

I saw something of the sort a while ago but foolishly did not obtain it then. I can't find it or anything like it now. Anyone here have a thought?

The schedule of programs on the C-Span website is always a mess. It's a great batch of channels but they have a dreadful website. Anywho, I don't know how it is on everyone else's screen but on mine, shows always overlap and run into each other and it's hard to tell what's on at what time…which matters a lot with a channel like C-Span that's forever deciding what to put on or changing their minds about it at the last minute.

And the way they overlap or truncate names can be annoying, as you can see from the actual screen capture above. I have a pretty low opinion of George W. Bush but even I wouldn't call him that.

I used to have a friend who would jokingly quote the maxim, "A lie is as good as the truth if you can get anyone to believe it." Funny how I keep thinking of that as I read about this whole "Death Panels" nonsense.

End-of-life Counselling is a very good idea, not only for the government but for the person whose life may be ending soon. If someone wants to make the case against things like Living Wills and Advanced Directives, I wish they'd speak up and make it honestly…but I don't think anyone does.

Newt Gingrich certainly doesn't. As noted here, just a few months ago, he was saying that it "empowers patients and families to control and direct their care." He also noted how much money it would wind up saving our health care system while simultaneously doing better by the folks receiving that care.

Sarah Palin certainly doesn't. In April of '08 as governor or Alaska, she signed a proclamation for a "Healthcare Decisions Day" to note "the need to plan ahead for health care decisions, related to end of life care" and went on to "encourage hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, continuing care retirement communities and hospices to participate in a statewide effort to provide clear and consistent information to the public about advance directives."

As far as I can tell, no Republican leader does. The 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill which the G.O.P. wrote and passed overwhelmingly contained funding for such counselling.

But we're now in that wonderful realm where you campaign by deliberately misrepresenting the opposition's position. Democrats have sometimes done this by claiming that some G.O.P. proposal would destroy Medicare or Social Security, thereby panicking older voters into shunning it. Some Republican or Insurance Company stooge (not that there's much separation there lately) looked at the Health Care Reform proposals, noticed the same end-of-life counselling provisions and thought, "Hey, we can pass this off as giving the government power to kill your grandparents!"

The Republican leaders spreading this manure don't believe that. In fact, once this country passes whatever kind of Health Care Reforms it winds up passing, there will probably be a bill to reinstate whatever part of the provision gets dropped, and the reinstatement will probably be co-sponsored by Republicans. But right now, folks like Chuck Grassley obviously think it's a dandy way to stall the bill and weaken the parts of it that they really think should be weakened…so they're willing to go along with this lie. And it's a sad fact for everyone that lying seems to be working. That just means there'll be more of it — from everyone.

According to a new report, income inequality — the gap between the richest Americans and the poorest — is greater than it has ever been.

In other news, more stupid people are planning a demonstration because they're afraid this country is turning Socialist on them.

…I keep reading about all these nutcases who are carrying guns (or at least signs threatening violence) because they think Barack Obama is about to do something that will make this country into the Soviet Union…

…and the thought that keeps coursing through my mind is Max Bialystock stuffing money into the hands of the bestraught Franz Liebkind, and Max is saying, "Here…buy bullets! Go! Kill the actors!"

And of course, in this analogy, Max is played by Rush, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, et al.

Esquire surveyed a group of what they call the nation's top chefs and asked them to pick their favorite fast food joints and meals. The winner, by a large margin, was In-N-Out Burger. Which figures.

After every Writers Guild strike, there's the unfortunate business of investigating claims of scabbing and charges that members (and non-members) crossed picket lines to perform writing services. As I wrote in this article for New Republic during the last strike, there is surprisingly little scab work done during one of our strikes. There are often a lot of accusations but then they rarely prove to be valid. When the WGA takes a hike, very little writing gets done.

The Guild has just closed the books on that strike with only minor disciplinary actions. One member was fined for writing a pilot script during the strike. Another is being disciplined in unspecified ways.

One non-member has been permanently barred from membership…and that's about it. Especially notable is that Jay Leno, who was accused of violating Guild rules when he went back to work during the strike and generated his own monologues, appears to be unmentioned in the final report. What I am hearing is that the Guild concluded that what Leno did fell into a "gray area" and that given Jay's otherwise strong support for the strike, and the fact that he did confer with the Guild before making his decision and there was some ambiguity in those discussions, they've elected to not make an issue of it. There are, I know, folks in the Guild who'd love to "string up" someone famous for violating strike rules but even most of them didn't think Jay's case was clear-cut enough for that.

I suspect we'll see some of the language in those rules revised and made clearer before the next Writers Guild strike. And don't think there won't be one in the next decade or so.

If you live in or around Sacramento, there's a production of Man of La Mancha there this week at the Music Circus at the Wells Fargo Pavilion. I don't know anything more about it than that my friend Valerie Perri is playing Dulcinea. But that's all I need to know to recommend it. I've seen Valerie in the role and…well, let's put it this way. If I were singing the lead, it would still be worth going to see.