Thursday, May 31, 2007
Bush SucksYes, I am not a Bush fan. I have never really liked him, but I never hated him either. I didn’t vote for him the first time, and the second time was a vote against Kerry who I detest. But the fact is, Bush is in many ways a terrible president. He has done some good. And I approve of those few things he’s accomplished. But Peggy Noonan sums it up best in this article in the Wall Street Journal. I have tried niot to rail on Bush as it is a cliche in the blogosphere. And I don’t want to be confused with some of the lefties who use really lame, pointless arguments to scream at him. But the immigration bill he’s trying to ram down our throats is the last straw.
Bush has not only alienated his supporters (as I knew he would before he was even elected) but he has seriously damaged the Republican party. He has done to the Republicans what Clinton did to the Democrats. Make them look irrelevant and utterly stupid. It’s really dumb and dumber in the halls of the government now. Not that this is new, but both parties have sunk new new lows.
The reason I am an independent is I have never trusted either party to do what’s right. They constantly fail us. Bush has taken this to new levels of audacity.
This is not to say I agree with the arguments the left has been making all these years. Many of their points aren’t fair. But in essence they were correct. He has done nothing to deserve the job, yet he was practically rammed own our throats by the party in 2000. I do think he barely won that election. Built 9/11 hadn’t happened, he would not have been able to get away with the obscene mistakes he has made and that includes the way he has monumentally increased government powers while building monstrous bureaucracies that are almost Soviet in scope.
Do I think he’s stupid? No. Arrogant? Yes. The man is where he is because he was born into a dynasty. He has accomplished nothing on his own and certainly has proven his string of failures in the past weren’t a fluke. Yet he really comes off like he expects everyone to snap to his orders. Like a lot of politicians he forgets who he works for. Us. He never seems to give the impression he gets that and this is what really pisses some people off.
I am not about to join the Bush haters club. I am not a hater in general. But I have to say this immigration bill is really the deal breaker. I have tried to be civil but shit like this is the stuff of bureaucratic nightmares. Bush didn’t write it, but he endorses it and actually chides anyone who is against it. That’s Bush in a nutshell. If you don’t do what he says, he’ll insult you and call you unAmerican. Then do what he wants anyway.
Well, here’s a newsflash Mr. President. Most of your edicts are unAmerican. I am willing to support the war on terror but not the destruction of the bill of rights. Nor the advancement of a police state. Nor the selling out of American citizens.
I really can’t wait for your term to end.
Whoever follows him has the unenviable task of cleaning up some massive messes. Let’s hope they are up to the task.
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Culture Clash
This picture says it all. It’s easy to see which side you’d want to be on.
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Here We Go Again
The world may soon find itself running out of rare metals used to form key components in high-tech devices from cell phones to semiconductors to solar panels, according to a report in New Scientist magazine.
In the respected British publication’s audit of “Earth’s natural wealth,” David Cohen writes that reserves of elements from platinum (used not only in every pollution-reducing automobile catalytic converter in use today but also in fuel cells) to indium (used in flat-screen TVs and computer monitors) and tantalum (used in mobile phones) are “being used up at an alarming rate.” These metals are chemical elements—no synthetic replacement can be developed.
Even more common metals like zinc and copper are in increasingly short supply as they are used in rapidly developing economies like India and China. Over the last year thefts of copper from power lines and electrical substations have soared, as has the price of copper.
Cohen cites the work of researchers like Armin Reller, a materials chemist at the University of Augsburg in Germany, who has predicted that supplies of indium, used in liquid-crystal displays, and of hafnium, a critical element for next-generation semiconductors, could be exhausted by 2017. The world’s zinc will be gone by 2037, Reller contends.
They were saying the same things in the 70s about the 80s. Gee.
The Earth is composed on an insane amount of raw material. All they have to do is find new sources. They’re out there. Copper is still a common metal. But I think we need to come up with something better as a conductor. I believe carbon nanotubes might be one answer. And that’s something we can manufacture.
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Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Going Ape over Green FuelsEvery time people come up with an idea how to save the earth by using an alternative source of energy, someone will claim it is killing the planet. Wind farms are accused of killing birds. Now, bio-fuel is accused of killing apes.
The threat to great apes, such as the orang-utan, is “growing visibly” as a result of the demand for greener fuels, Richard Leakey, the paleo-anthropologist and conservationist warned yesterday.
Orang-utans: Apes under threat from green fuels, warns Leakey
Orang-utans’ habitat has been cleared by 80 per cent in 20 yearsOn a visit to London, the former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service said that the shift away from fossil fuels to biofuels was “a great concern” as huge areas of forest in south-east Asia had already been cleared for palm oil plantations, and the pressure could only increase.
Let’s hope that dude with the water splitter (turns water to hydrogen) has the answer, though I am sure someone will complain.
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Smile!
People are having a lot of fun with Google Maps new street photos, which seem to only be of San Francisco so far. Here’s one of a guy coming out of a strip club.
hey have vabs driving down streets taking pictures which let you see the street level shots of the buildings. But people get in the pictures, of course and some of them might be embarrassing. I wonder how long before the lawsuits start?
Dolphin Accents
Dolphins living off the coast of Wales whistle, bark and groan in a different dialect from dolphins off the western coast of Ireland, scientists have discovered.
Different physical environments might have contributed to the mammals developing distinctive sets of vocalizations or “dialects”, said Simon Berrow from the Shannon Dolphin and Wildlife Foundation.
Berrow supervised a master’s thesis by student Ronan Hickey at University of Wales, Bangor, who analyzed 1,882 whistles from the dolphins in the Shannon estuary and bottlenose dolphins in Cardigan Bay in Wales.
I wonder if Irish dolphins have a bit of the blarney about them.
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DRM Doom
Apple continues to be a leader in the music business by offering DRM-less songs on their new version of iTunes, out today.
Apple released iTunes 7.2 updated in the Mac OS X Software Update tonight, which offers support for “iTunes Plus”, Apple’s new DRM-free $1.29 offerings announced in April.
With iTunes 7.2, preview and purchase iTunes Plus music—new higher-quality, DRM-free music downloads from participating music labels.
Despite the software update, the Apple iTunes Store itself does not show any DRM-Free music currently available for purchase. The DRM-Free launch will likely occur later this morning (Wed, May 30th).
I predict this will be the beginning of the end for DRM, whose time has passed.
Incidentally, while I was at the iTunes store this evening I checked out the new EPs from teh American Idol finalists. I bought two Blake Lewis tracks and one from Jordin Sparks. “Wishing on a Star” is one of my favorite songs and she does it justice (though not as good as the original) but Blake really does a great job with all his tunes. I picked “You Give Love a Bad Name” for his excellent beat-boxing in it and “You Should Be Dancing” which he really rocks out.
These are not the versions from TV. They are rerecorded in the studio and they changed the arrangements somewhat. The Blake Bon Jovi cover goes from a slow tempo it it’s drum/beatbox finale. It’s pretty cool.
I commend Apple and Steve Jobs for being the first major distributor to drop DRM from their downloads. Of course, it won’t be on all the tracks right now. But give it time.
Now, if they could just get more songs.
UPDATE: iTunes now lets you update your previous tracks to DRM free versions (which are also higher quality) for a nominal fee. So I just did.
DRM free tracks (iTunes plus) are slightly more expensive, but I will support something like this because it needs to be the standard, not the exception. About 1/5 of my purchased songs were translated to the plus versions. Yay!
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Tuesday, May 29, 2007
From Windows to “Surface”
Minority Report style computer monitors are just around the corner. And Microsoft’s got them.
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Free Gas
Did I say free gas? Who needs it?
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Dark Knight in IMAX
Christopher Nolan is shooting parts of the new Batman movie in IMAX. Above is a shot of the Joker’s henchmen.
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