u l t r a m o o k i e

At the risk of being completely insensitive…
I watched the Vice Presidential debates last night and I saw a winner.  That winner clearly was not Sarah Palin.  She was ambiguous.  She was completely scripted.  She did not answer questions, rather she steered them back to the scripted talking points that she memorized.  I am reading the [...]

At the risk of being completely insensitive…

I watched the Vice Presidential debates last night and I saw a winner.  That winner clearly was not Sarah Palin.  She was ambiguous.  She was completely scripted.  She did not answer questions, rather she steered them back to the scripted talking points that she memorized.  I am reading the papers today and the media is saying that the debate was a tie.  They are saying that the debate was “close”.  People are saying that Palin did great.  What?  Huh?  Did we all watch the same debate?

Reading further, I was horrified.  The only benchmark for Palin “winning” was that she did not screw up badly.  What kind of benchmark is that?  If I were Palin, I’d be embarassed.  Is that all people think of me?  Am I so bad that people have to set the bar extra low for me to be able to jump over it?

The way — and this is where insensitivity may kick in — I see it is that the comparisons are completely on different scales.  Biden is running a sprint in the Olympics.  Palin, on the other hand, is running a sprint in the Special Olympics.  Sure, they both can win their respective races.  But, that’s comparing apples with oranges.

And lets get something straight.  Only unintelligent dopes would fall for the whole “I’m great because I’m a hockey mom” bit.  Look, you’re second in line to run this country.  The man you’re running with is 72 years old and may kick the bucket at any time.  I don’t want a “hockey mom” running the country.  I don’t want a “hockey mom” dealing with Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on issues of nuclear (not noo-cu-lar) weapons.  I want someone who has foreign affairs experience and that is not Sarah Palin.  Hell, she only got her passport in 2006 and I’ve traveled to more foreign countries than she has.

I’m sorry.  But, those of you who thought Palin did well, you are all die-hard Republicans who are unwilling to look past the partyline.  She’s a kindergardener playing in a college football stadium.  If you can’t see that Biden knows what he’s talking about and follows up with facts, you are not being objective.

Go ahead, flame away.

I was exclaiming to my friends, after the Bailout Bill failed, that “We’re all going to die!”  And no one except JR caught me on it:  Yes, we’re all going to die eventually.  As Palpatine knew and used in Star Wars, fear is an excellent and potent weapon.  And it seems that in our society, [...]

I was exclaiming to my friends, after the Bailout Bill failed, that “We’re all going to die!”  And no one except JR caught me on it:  Yes, we’re all going to die eventually.  As Palpatine knew and used in Star Wars, fear is an excellent and potent weapon.  And it seems that in our society, there are a lot of people who fall for it.

Witness the people who feared (and continue to fear) “terrorists”.  That was the driving force behind W Bush’s plan to invade Iraq — “If you don’t invade Iraq, they will use their WMDs to blow us up to bits!”  Now, W Bush tried to use fear to get the Congress to pass the bailout bill quickly without much thought — “If you don’t pass this bill our country will crumble into oblivion!”  The bill has failed, good.  But, I think that we still need something to help out the economy, so I hope Congress gets their asses to work and figures something out soon.

On the subject of Palpatine, I was thinking about the different Force powers given to me in Force Unleashed:  Force Push (push stuff around), Force Grip (grab and throw people without actually touching them), Force Repulse (like making a huge explosion of air around you), and Force Lightning (lightning bolts shooting out of your finger tips).

Which would I want in real life?  Force Lightning, no question about it.  Oh, the times when I wanted to reach out and shock someone.  No killing, just a good can of electrical whoop ass.  I’d vary the shock depending on the situation.  With the fear of someone coming around and shocking you until you poop in your pants, people would think twice about doing silly crap.

Which Force power would you like to have in real life?

Are you really serious President Bush?  Are you really?  You want to lift the ban on off-shore drilling, but you will say…
“I readily concede it won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology,” Bush told a White House news conference.
Hey, how about this sir:  Just tell the American public that [...]

Are you really serious President Bush?  Are you really?  You want to lift the ban on off-shore drilling, but you will say…

“I readily concede it won’t produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it will reverse the psychology,” Bush told a White House news conference.

Hey, how about this sir:  Just tell the American public that you’ll be spinning up the printing presses at the US Federal Reserve and that you will be handing out millions of dollars to each American citizen.

That money won’t really get out to the American public; but,  you know, “it will reverse the psychology” and help Americans spend more during this economic downturn.

That would be a better way about going at it than opening up for off-shore drilling, which will not help anyone.  And could potentially destroy our environment.  Stop trying to help your oil drilling buddies President, try helping the environment instead.

I don’t know what this says about what President Bush this about the American public.  Does he think that the American public is dumb enough to buy into this “off-shore drilling will lower the price at the pump” deal?  Or is the American public really dumb enough to believe that bunch of shit?

Sheesh.

What do these countries have in common, Israel, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the good ole USA?
These are countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.
Canada has put the US on their list of countries that torture prisoners.
Sad, that the USA has let itself drop to such lows.

What do these countries have in common, Israel, China, Iran, Afghanistan and the good ole USA?

These are countries where prisoners are at risk of being tortured.

Canada has put the US on their list of countries that torture prisoners.

Sad, that the USA has let itself drop to such lows.

President Bush spoke with Pakistani President Musharraf and gave this advice:
“You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time,” Bush said.
Hmmm…If I recall my American Government 101, the President of the USA is also the Commander-in-Chief of the USA military.
Sigh.

President Bush spoke with Pakistani President Musharraf and gave this advice:

“You can’t be the president and the head of the military at the same time,” Bush said.

Hmmm…If I recall my American Government 101, the President of the USA is also the Commander-in-Chief of the USA military.

Sigh.

…SCO, you suck.  SCO, you don’t own Unix.  And now that everything is said and done, SCO “owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses.”  Heh.  Nice.

…SCO, you suck.  SCO, you don’t own Unix.  And now that everything is said and done, SCO “owes Novell a lot of money from the Microsoft and Sun licenses.”  Heh.  Nice.

Our schools suffer from inertia. It is not a good thing. Damn those unions. This is from a classmate in my Unix class:
In terms of public education, the student’s don’t learn much about an operating system thought the educational system. I work in a public school system in IT. [...]

Our schools suffer from inertia. It is not a good thing. Damn those unions. This is from a classmate in my Unix class:

In terms of public education, the student’s don’t learn much about an operating system thought the educational system. I work in a public school system in IT. If the district were to change to Linux for the desktops it would require an alteration of the curriculum. While in theory the change is a good idea, it would require a change in mindset for not only students, but staff as well. We have a very strong teacher’s union in our district and it takes almost an act of God to make a change such as this.

What makes it even sadder is reading something like this:

With 4,000 students and just 21 computers, the Cotton Hill Girls High School in the south Indian city of Trivandrum wouldn’t appear to be at the vanguard of anything related to information technology. Yet the 71-year-old school is abandoning Microsoft Windows software in favor of its free, open-source rival, Linux. So when students — typically eight to a machine, seated at two benches — turn on their PCs they see Linux desktop software that helps them navigate their way to all manner of math, graphics, and writing programs.

The desktop is a different story: Just 3% of India’s PCs use Linux. Still, that’s about triple the level in the U.S. ‘We expect India to be the first country to use Linux extensively over a large user base across many sectors by the end of the decade,’ says Deepak Phatak, an open-source evangelist from Bombay’s famed Indian Institute of Technology.

It’s a wonder why we are handing out H1Bs like mad and outsourcing. It may not just be about inexpensive labor, rather it may be all about qualified labor. And the disparity will only grow larger in the future as American students grow up computer illiterate and students in the rest of the world are completely computer literate.

If we can’t start our kids early on technology, who’s high-tech in the future?