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Palm and the mysterious nosedive

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I am seeing all sorts of articles about Palm and handheld devices in general being in a nosedive. Handheld Sales Nosedive and Handheld sales continue to slide and it represents what is wrong in market research. Market Research!

The primary reason that Handheld sales, and most notably Palm, it this. While most companies are in the replacement/upgrade mode of operation, Microsoft/Intel mindset. Where every time a software release is, well, released. You must buy a new computer. Palm has had a serious problem with their systems, they don’t need replacement. At least not very often. And while they are not perfect, they have bugs, and issues, they do something that other machines don’t do. They are consistent, focused products. Once a bug becomes a known bug, there is a known work around by the owner. And once learned, it’s not a problem. They don’t break often, I still have my Palm Vx, the battery still holds a charge for weeks, it’s reliable and still syncs with my Mac. The only upgrade I ever had for the palm was from a V to the Vx and that’s only because I crushed the screen on the V. Mind you the crushed V still works, but the screen is a bit unusable. And that is the problem. Lots of people have Palms, almost no one needs an upgrade. So the appearance of a ‘slide’ is sales is more about saturation than about lack of interest. I still use mine, and I’ll bet many people still do. But an upgrade, not really. Though the Palm T/X has been tempting with it’s WiFi abilities.

So get over the ‘sales’ figures, if you need a Palm, go buy one. It’ll last for years, and you probability won’t need another. And forget about this UMPC thing, it won’t keep up with a Palm.

Iran-Hostage, Iran-Contra, Iran-Nuclear, a pattern?

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We know that the Bush family has had dealing with the Iranian government for many years. In fact many Illegal dealing with them. There is more than a little tin hat theory that this current Iranian ‘Crisis’ is yet another Bush deal to have a ready enemy for the fall elections. Something to scare the grumbling herd of GOP voters back into the republican camps and ensure at least some republicans get reelected and to prevent one or both houses of congress do not fall into Democratic hand.

From The Iran Hostages Fix

Suspicions about a deal between the Reagan campaign and Iran over the hostages have circulated since the day of President Reagan’s inaugural, when Iran agreed to release the 52 American hostages exactly five minutes after Mr. Reagan took the oath of office. Later, as it became known that arms started to flow to Iran via Israel only a few days after the inauguration, suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded….

There is, however, widespread agreement on three points: William Casey was a key participant: the Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on Nov. 4…At least five of the sources who say they were in Paris in connection with these meetings insist that George Bush (senior ed) was present for at least one meeting

…suspicions deepened that a secret arms-for-hostages deal had been concluded. Five years later, when the Iran-contra affair revealed what seemed to be a similar swap of hostages for arms

What makes it more interesting is this article Administration Blocks Ex-Hostages’ Bid for Damages From Iran

But the administration has thwarted every effort in the courts or in Congress to win a monetary judgment against Iran, even as other victims of Iranian-linked terrorism have secured hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation

…the Bush administration intervened, saying the suit violated an agreement with Iran that had secured the hostages’ release…

To make more of a point, the current President of Iran, was one of the Iranian kidnappers. Interesting circularity here, don’t you think.

Pissing match over Iran.

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The The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the The President of the U.S. George Bush have a lot in common. Aside from them both having small penis’s (hence the current pissing contest). They both like to rule from fear. Ahmadinejad, by making his people afraid that the U.S. will attack Iran. And Bush, the American people, of a potential nuclear weapon that the Iranians might produce.

As I may have mentioned before, I had an Iranian roommate in college. This was when the Shah was in power. And the student was in the engineering school trying to avoid getting a degree in nuclear physics because he did not want to help the Shah develop a nuclear bomb. The U.S. of the time, supported this effort of the Shah, just as they supported Saddam.

The U.S. has been making a potential hell out of the world for a long time.

I just wish one of the presidents grows up, and grows some balls, and steps back from the brink. I suspect it won’t be Bush, as I pretty sure that as a chicken hawk he has no apparatus.

Nuclear First strike was granted years ago.

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With all this talk about a Nuclear First strike on Iran, no one bothered to notice that this plan has been in the works since December 2002 since the start of the Iraq war and published here in the Washington post September 11, 2005 Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

To quote:

The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

Bush has been planning to Nuke somebody for a long time, that would surely guarantee his place in history. The First Strike Nuclear Killer.

The last time nuclear weapons were used was as a Last Resort, By Harry S. Truman. If you use Nuclear weapons at the beginning of a war, where does it escalate from there?

That should scare any sane person, too bad the U.S. does not have a Sane President. (If the president is not sane, does that mean you could replace him on medical grounds?)

This is your most Dystopic Science Fiction movie plot, an Insane President with his hand on the nuclear option.

Funny, I don’t remember any of these movies working out very well.

War with Iran, a dead certainty

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Lets be entirely clear, I’m not i favor of a war with Iran. I wasn’t in favor of a war with Iraq either. But it happened, and the war will happen with Iran, just a sure as the sun rises in the east if George Bush remains as president of the United States. There is nothing in his past experience that would force him to rethink his ability to make war on anyone he wishes. With the republicans in control of Congress, and the Supreme Court. There is little expectation that he will face any opposition to his madness.

So the real question is this, what are we going to do after

Bush Nuke’s Iran in the name of the American People

hits the front page of the world newspapers?

It will be like watching the elite Iraqis scrambling to leave Iraq, we will see the wealthy and well connected in the U.S. vanish out of the country leaving the poor and middle classes to suffer the wrath of the Muslim/Iranian reaction.

And 9/11 will look like ants at a picnic.

History repeats

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If you do this simple exercise with history in mind.

If you refer to George W. Bush as King George II (King George I, being his father)

Then Iraqi insurgencies could be rename as American patriots rebelling against their King.

The Iraqi ‘problem’ is sounding more and more like the The American Revolution

Or if Iraq is headed for Civil War, you could translate the causes from the American Civil War as this.

Change the conflict origins from

States Law VS Federal Law
to
Religious Law VS Secular Law

And guess what, you gain more perspective here

Religion vs Morality

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I have been struggling with the concepts of Religion as the source of morality. Each religion I have encountered believes it is the sole source of morality. That to be anti-religion is to be the same as amoralism. I always find that I am very much anti-religion, as it seems to make most people blind and dumb to the world. I think of myself as a scientist, looking at the world as a reasoned individual, but I believe that I am also very moral. Perhaps due to my brushes with a religious upbringing, but I believe that I have, at this stage in life, created my own moral compass removed from any religious aspects. And while I remain spiritual, I am not a religious person. The term ‘Religion is an anathema to reason’ or ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ has strong meaning for me.

This has been brought to the forefront by the ranting of Radical Islamic Clerics, and Fundamentalist Christians ministers who both believe that they are locked into a war of beliefs. And all I see is two factions fighting over political control of an ignorant public.

I believe that if education was allowed to teach the facts, and that people could realize that there is morality without religious foundations. Most of the public would choose the secular morality. And that clerics and minsters who interpret their respective texts, are using these works as a control for their own purposes. That under the appearance of being a moral tool, they are deliberately distorting the message to strike out at opposing religions in a desperate attempt to prevent a secular approach to morality.

Both religions (in fact all religions) are fighting for control, in a vain attempt to preserve their institutes. And that real education, and real truth are the enemy. This appears to manifest in the so called Republican war on Science, and the secular religious schools of Islam. The truth, and perhaps the rational view of facts is being subverted to prevent a more just view of the facts and a clearer view of the truth.

We did not walk out of the jungle, or climb out of the evolutionary ladder just because God Placed us there, we got there, by way of our reasoning minds, and rational thought, corroboration, cooperation and trust.

Update: I heard about this when I posted this article, but I’ll link it now as another confirmation that religion is more concerned with ‘turf’ and not the spiritual nature of the human condition. It also reflects a ‘Burnt Earth’ policy. If we can’t have him, no one will!


Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could face the death sentence under Sharia law unless he recants.

Afghan Faces Death Penalty for Converting to Christianity

RTE at Ballincollig Castle

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Looks like a crew from RTE will be snooping around Ballincollig Castle tomorrow (16 March 2006) the day before St. Paddy’s Day.

Hope they find a good story about the urban encroachment that is seeking to surround the Castle grounds and destroy and archaeology that might still be there. I wish we could have gotten Time Team to do a dig for the the BBC.

More to be found at Ballincollig Heritage

Republican Congress, unaware of the U.S. Constitution

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If anyone doubts that most of the Republicans in Congress are unaware of the U.S. Constitution, Here is an example:

Eavesdropping bill spurs concern

So just for the Republicans, who skipped U.S. History and Civics I’ll quote

Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Left wing teaching, looks fair and balanced

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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!

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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

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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

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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.