The Republican’s won’t stop the gravy train

The Push to Tighten Lobbying Rules Loses Strength

Statements like;

while the Senate did vote this week in favor of a ban on gifts and meals from lobbyists, the real fight will be over whether to limit a much more lucrative perk: private travel, and lawmakers’ use of corporate jets.

Results in responses like this:

…the new majority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, is not keen on the travel ban

“The fervor for reform in this case was driven by a fear that a match was about to be lit to dry tinder. They were scared to death they would go back home and people would be waiting as they got off the plane with buckets of tar and bales of feathers.”

But

Congress tends to have a short attention span.

as

There has been little political fallout from the Abramoff case

so

Without a grass-roots hue and cry of the sort that pushed lawmakers to block the Dubai port deal this week, it was perhaps inevitable that the push for lobbying law changes would diminish.

and everyone will forget, and it will go back to the way it was. Lobbyist in control of Congress.

Left wing teaching, looks fair and balanced

It is quite evident that some of the commentaries here (thanks for the link Fi Fie Foe) have not been in a High school in the U.S. The audio of a so called left wing teacher teaching a class sounds to me, more or less a balanced world view from different perspectives.

(You can read a better review here )

They would have known that for a teacher to even get the attention of the class they would have to engage in controversial subjects and current affairs. The class sounded quiet, and interested. Unlike most classes where the drone of canned ‘facts’ clouds most students minds to the point that they pay no attention at all and chat amongst themselves.

Students in the U.S. Today (but not in Ireland), have immense access to the internet, mass media and other alternative sources for information. They are immersed in information far beyond the textbook learning of the past. And if a teacher does not engage that information, they loose the class.

Much of the far right would love to have only their facts (read propaganda) drilled into students, without critical thinking being part of the plan. Independent thought and freedom of speech are not what they are seeking from the next generation of students.

The very fact that this recording was made (by one of the students who holds an alternative opinion), is evidence that the students have the intellectual capacity to understand the subject matter, even if they are of an opposing viewpoint.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence, translated!

I have been giving the Declaration of Independence a lot of thought lately. With all the talk of changing governments around the world. I wanted to focus on, and translate into modern English, my favorite part.

The original paragraph:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security

My translation is this paragraph:

You should take care not to change governments because of simple or temporary reasons. History is full of examples where people will put up with an abusive government rather than change it because it is familiar to them. But when the abuses escalate and rights abolished with the objective being absolute control by one person or one group. It is then the right and their duty to overthrow the abusive government, and create a new government that does not abuse their people or denies them their rights.

Sound familar to current events?

The last days of Fundamentalist Righteous Superiority

In recent weeks in the U.S., there have been numerous attempts by fundamentalist christians to force State legislatures into passing laws reflecting their religious beliefs. A South Dakota Rape Law in the form of a anti-abortion law, Intelligent Design teachings in schools, a law authorizing the establishment of a State Religion. Mad things, and with no hope of them withstanding a constitutional review. (I hope)

On the surface they don’t seem to have much in common except their republican, right wing religious pinnings. But what they share is desperation.

That’s what I said, Desperation. They all have the same fear, that the Republican GOP has run out of steam, and is facing a massive back lash in the upcoming elections. The expectation that the corruption, lies and constitutional violations by the Republicans in Congress and the Executive branch are going to bring about a massive Democratic reversal.

This all comes on the heels of calls for NSA reviews, impeachment and lobbying corruption scandals.

There is also an expectation that now that the Judicial Branch has a decidedly right wing slant. There could be some hope that these State Laws might pass Supreme Court Review, and hence force these laws upon other states.

There is even more fear, as the government is continuing to force states to implement electronic voting machines which clearly do not work, or worst, results in republican bias in their reporting.

The monster that the republicans have created is facing a revolt of the public. There is even more talk of a real overthrow of the current administration.

Some republicans are now having to consider if there needs to be some change in direction. A distancing from the president, and I can only hope that in their desperation that they finally choose to Impeach the President in a effort to save their own skins.

I have a faint hope that they will impeach, and also fail to sustain their majority one world government.

I hope that the American people get their government back without a violent revolution and that just a small revolution will reestablish the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America.

Defending a Castle

After a long discussion with a representative of An Taisce about methods to save Ballincollig Castle from the grasping urban sprawl and rampant uncontrolled construction of housing estates. The advice was, Patronage and Publicity. Of all things community support, and involvement has no place in the preservation of Irish history and heritage.

And this is what the Irish have become, a nation of Patronage, where politicians travel around the countries like country lords granting ‘Favors’ to the peasants. I thought that the Irish had thrown down the kingships of the English. And yet this is also the reason that many politicians use to deny support the preservation of Castles and heritage sites around the country. “Their English” is the proclamation and should be destroyed as the English were evil.

Well some of these sites predate this presumption and the real reasons are profit for the builder, and brown envelopes for the politicians-Lords.

Even, if any of these sites were locations for English evil, they were built by Irishmen, with Irish hands and from Irish stone. They are Irish to their foundations, and their preservation above the heads of political gain.

This particular Castle history tells an Irish story of a Knight call Coll who sold a castle to a Barrett who held it for nearly 400 years and of it’s fall as one of the last forts of Irish insurgency in the face of Cromwell’s assault on Cork. A castle of almost 800 years of age, and older than Blarney Castle, should be reserved and honored.

But it appears not to be, as Irish politicians seek to gain from it, none will lift a hand to save it, short of coinage in the pocket.

So to preserve Irish heritage, we will have to seek foreign money, the Queens shilling, to preserve an Irish Castle.

Origami FUD

The tech world has the shortest memory and the most hopeful beliefs in the world. The fact that Microsoft’s history contains more FUD than any amount of true innovation, has been cast aside in the face of artful photo editing. Reality has little to do with it.

The observation of the so called origami device points at a failed tablet concept that now has acquired a dock. So lets cash in this reality check by reviewing a few items in the video.

• The device is smaller than a 12″ laptop screen
• The device has no keyboard (optional external)
• The device requires a dock
• The device is wireless, both 802.11x & Bluetooth
• The device may have GPS

The demonstrated features appear to;

• Remote control of linked PC (windows)
• Cell phone linkage
• Graphic editing
• General communication (email, IM, etc)
• long and short range roaming
• Play Music and video

Current examples of this type of device are the Palm T/X and the Nokia 770. These devices while smaller, have a roaming life of about 2 hours, this tends to indicate that a larger (faster?) device would consume even more power than this. And hence a shorter battery life. As an example my old 12″ iBook can operate at about 4 hours, until I turn on my WiFi, and then that drops to 2 or less. Another problem is range, both Bluetooth and WiFi are short range less than 100 Meters, and generally much less probably under 20 meters. So many of the wireless features are restricted to under 20 meters of the docked PC or WiFi connections.

These are real restrictions, in fact the same one’s the Apple Newton faced years ago. The whole video reminded me of the original Newton advertisement teaser. These represent a complete niche device and will not have any better success than the table PC has enjoyed. (Note: I bought one of the Original Newton’s and used it for years)

But getting back to the original point, this device seeing the light of day are questionable. The marketing, I suspect, has more to do with Microsoft one-upping Apple than it does producing a real product. Microsoft has a long history of claiming development of products to short circuit competitors. And this has all the earmarks of just such a product. And I believe that while Apple might have been developing this type of product, the fact that they did not announce such a product was due in large part to the Microsoft announcement. Should Apple choose to produce this type of device, they will wait until MS fails to deliver their FUD device.

Update: As expected, 15 minute battery life, MS to try and fit Vista on it, too heavy, no software, only Gate’s “Vision” and no substance.

I’ve added it to my Myths tag, as that will be what it becomes.

Update: Seems like the press have finally caught on Origami is a paper tiger

Update 2: Origami UMPCs are a disaster

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Apple design and the whole shebang

If anyone needs another reason that Apple switched to the Intel processors it just appeared. The new mac mini contains the same processor and buss as that of the iMac.

How it this a reason? Simple, part of what makes Apples OS-X operating system so stable is that it targets Apple’s own hardware. The G5 powerPC chip had created a schism between the Apple G5 desktop, and the Apple G4 laptops. And this complicated the support issues. Now all development will be contained in Duel Cores and phasing out of the PowerPC inventory.

Looks like I will have to upgrade my G3 iBook AND my G4 iMac now 🙁

The circus marches on.

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