Month: July 2003

Baseball

The Cleveland Indians have a player named Coco Crisp who’s on a hitting streak, but the A’s beat them anyway, right after the Cubs beat the Giants on a 3-run homer by Moizes Alou, son of Giants manager Felipe Alou. While the Giants were 11-1 since the break, they failed to score a run against … Continue reading “Baseball”

The Cleveland Indians have a player named Coco Crisp who’s on a hitting streak, but the A’s beat them anyway, right after the Cubs beat the Giants on a 3-run homer by Moizes Alou, son of Giants manager Felipe Alou. While the Giants were 11-1 since the break, they failed to score a run against the Cubs on account of they never play well when Dusty Baker is in the room.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, just like Dusty stuck it to the Giants by blowing the All Star Game and with it, home field advantage in the playoffs.

Hot potato

Calblogger is as irritated as I am with Arnie and Dick’s little game of gubernatorial indecision: We’re not looking at Riordan getting ready or Arnold trying to decide. We’re watching two men playing hot potato with the governorship with the belief that it belongs to one of them and only one of them. Look, boys, … Continue reading “Hot potato”

Calblogger is as irritated as I am with Arnie and Dick’s little game of gubernatorial indecision:

We’re not looking at Riordan getting ready or Arnold trying to decide. We’re watching two men playing hot potato with the governorship with the belief that it belongs to one of them and only one of them.

Look, boys, the governor’s office doesn’t have either of your names on it yet, and if you keep this up it never will. For all the muscles, Arnie is a obviously a momma’s boy who can’t make a move without his wife’s permission, and Dick is a dilettante who’d rather sip martinis and tell stories than get down to business. While this tea-party is taking place, serious candidates like Tom McClintock are in the race and running hard, and the Dems have started a “Draft Dianne” movement that’s gathering steam toward a more plausible replacement.

If the race comes down to Feinstein and Riordan, the karma factor will be intense because both have been slimed by Davis so intensely, Feinstein with the Leona Helmsley ads and Riordan with the $9M in ads during the Republican primary.

The best part of it

The blogosphere is a-flutter with praise for Marxist Norman Geras’ criticism of the anti-liberation left, and rightly so. My favorite part was the conclusion: When the war began a division of opinion was soon evident amongst its opponents, between those who wanted a speedy outcome – in other words, a victory for the coalition forces, … Continue reading “The best part of it”

The blogosphere is a-flutter with praise for Marxist Norman Geras’ criticism of the anti-liberation left, and rightly so. My favorite part was the conclusion:

When the war began a division of opinion was soon evident amongst its opponents, between those who wanted a speedy outcome – in other words, a victory for the coalition forces, for that is all a speedy outcome could realistically have meant – and those who did not. These latter preferred that the Coalition forces should suffer reverses, get bogged down, and you know the story: stalemate, quagmire, Stalingrad scenario in Baghdad, and so forth, leading to a US and British withdrawal. But what these critics of the war thereby wished for was a spectacular triumph for the regime in Baghdad, since that is what a withdrawal would have been. So much for solidarity with the victims of oppression, for commitment to democratic values and basic human rights.

Similarly today, with all those who seem so to relish every new difficulty, every set-back for US forces: what they align themselves with is a future of prolonged hardship and suffering for the Iraqi people, whether via an actual rather than imagined quagmire, a ruinous civil war, or the return (out of either) of some new and ghastly political tyranny; rather than a rapid stabilization and democratization of the country, promising its inhabitants an early prospect of national normalization. That is caring more to have been right than for a decent outcome for the people of this long unfortunate country.

Conclusion. Such impulses have displayed themselves very widely across left and liberal opinion in recent months. Why? For some, because what the US government and its allies do, whatever they do, has to be opposed – and opposed however thuggish and benighted the forces which this threatens to put your anti-war critic into close company with. For some, because of an uncontrollable animus towards George Bush and his administration. For some, because of a one-eyed perspective on international legality and its relation to issues of international justice and morality. Whatever the case or the combination, it has produced a calamitous compromise of the core values of socialism, or liberalism or both, on the part of thousands of people who claim attachment to them. You have to go back to the apologias for, and fellow-travelling with, the crimes of Stalinism to find as shameful a moral failure of liberal and left opinion as in the wrong-headed – and too often, in the circumstances, sickeningly smug – opposition to the freeing of the Iraqi people from one of the foulest regimes on the planet.

But the question this raises is: why is it remarkable that a leftist supports the liberation of an oppressed people all of a sudden?

My, how the Movement has fallen.

Monkey business

Following up on findings generated from Original Internet Architecture (demonstating that mediocre programmers in a snit-fit could design network architecture), researchers have learned that baboons can program Visual Basic and XML: Research by scientists suggests that higher primates represent certain kinds of knowledge internally by discrete symbol structures, called scripts. This research tends to support … Continue reading “Monkey business”

Following up on findings generated from Original Internet Architecture (demonstating that mediocre programmers in a snit-fit could design network architecture), researchers have learned that baboons can program Visual Basic and XML:

Research by scientists suggests that higher primates represent certain kinds of knowledge internally by discrete symbol structures, called scripts. This research tends to support the hypothesis that primates can program. Other scientific research also supports the idea that primates may be used for routine programming, such as maintenance and report writing, within 10 years.

The implications of McAuliffe’s work has wide scope, and may effect software developer education, open source programming, H1-B visas, and commercial software testing. The research is already making waves in the business community. Some early adopters– and even some venture capitalists– are funding business models based on so-called ‘primate programming’. One such firm is the VC-backed startup Primate Programming Inc. It remains to be seen how effective the exploitation of this research will be in the marketplace.

baboons.jpg
Primate blogger types: read the whole thing.

Massive Grayout

Nice insight on Davis in Matier and Ross (Energy crisis pulled plug on Davis, pollster says / Overpriced energy deals that drained the state budget also cost the governor’s popularity plenty) Politicians live or die by their defining moment. For George W. Bush, it was Sept. 11. For Gov. Gray Davis, it was the energy … Continue reading “Massive Grayout”

Nice insight on Davis in Matier and Ross (Energy crisis pulled plug on Davis, pollster says / Overpriced energy deals that drained the state budget also cost the governor’s popularity plenty)

Politicians live or die by their defining moment. For George W. Bush, it was Sept. 11. For Gov. Gray Davis, it was the energy crisis of ’01 — and in most voters’ eyes, he came up short.

“No question about it,” said pollster Mark DiCamillo, who has been tracking Davis for the past five years. “That was the trigger. That’s when he crossed the line.

“Look at the numbers,” DiCamillo said. “In January of that year, Davis’ approval ratings were at 57 percent. Four months later they were under 36 percent.”

Davis never recovered.

Neither did California.

Real stuff

Verizon’s acting like the Internet bubble never burst, according this article in Bidness Week that was linked over at Hit and Run: “When you’re the market leader,” says Seidenberg, “part of your responsibility is to reinvent the market.” At the heart of this reinvention is the most ambitious deployment of new telecom technology in years. … Continue reading “Real stuff”

Verizon’s acting like the Internet bubble never burst, according this article in Bidness Week that was linked over at Hit and Run:

“When you’re the market leader,” says Seidenberg, “part of your responsibility is to reinvent the market.”

At the heart of this reinvention is the most ambitious deployment of new telecom technology in years. Verizon plans to roll out fiber-optic connections to every home and business in its 29-state territory over the next 10 to 15 years, a project that might reasonably be compared with the construction of the Roman aqueducts. It will cost $20 billion to $40 billion, depending on how fast equipment prices fall, and allow the lightning-fast transmission of everything from regular old phone service to high-definition TV.

No “World of Hippies” propaganda, just the facts.

Organic farming meets Venture Capital

Tim Oren’s funded a company that builds a GPS-guided automated tractor used, in part, by organic farmers: Part of the plantings at American Farms are certified organic, and the GPS system was originally bought for them, exploiting the reduced till concept for weed control and making it safe to leave irrigation piping in place while … Continue reading “Organic farming meets Venture Capital”

Tim Oren’s funded a company that builds a GPS-guided automated tractor used, in part, by organic farmers:

Part of the plantings at American Farms are certified organic, and the GPS system was originally bought for them, exploiting the reduced till concept for weed control and making it safe to leave irrigation piping in place while tilling, due to the greater precision. If your image of organic veggies involves aging hippies working their few acre truck farm, think again. What I saw was industrialized organic farming, 40 acres of raised bed lettuce ‘garden’ at a go, plowed and planted automatically under the control of Silicon Valley gadgetry, guided by Defense Department GPS satellites.

“Reduced till” means shallow tilling, preferred by organic farmers because it doesn’t bring so many weed seeds to the surface, it isn’t so hard on your worms, it reduces topsoil erosion, and is all-around a good deal, except it requires some precision, hence the farmbot.

This is some cool shit, in other words, doing well by doing good.

Audie Bock is in the race

Former Green Party assemblywoman Bock to run in recall Former state assemblywoman Audie Bock today announced that she will add her name to the ballot in the recall election. As the first Democrat to break ranks with the party, Bock will go up against a slate of Republicans should Gray Davis be recalled in October. … Continue reading “Audie Bock is in the race”

Former Green Party assemblywoman Bock to run in recall

Former state assemblywoman Audie Bock today announced that she will add her name to the ballot in the recall election.

As the first Democrat to break ranks with the party, Bock will go up against a slate of Republicans should Gray Davis be recalled in October.

Audie asked me to be her policy advisor in her run for the Congress, so maybe I should sign up to serve the next governor. Sweet.

Link via Cal. Insider.

Why there’s a recall

California has adopted some truly loony measures through the initiative process, not the least loony of which was Prop. 13, the measure that sets property taxes at sharply different levels for houses in the same neighborhoods depending on when they were last sold. But by far the worst such measure was the term limits law … Continue reading “Why there’s a recall”

California has adopted some truly loony measures through the initiative process, not the least loony of which was Prop. 13, the measure that sets property taxes at sharply different levels for houses in the same neighborhoods depending on when they were last sold. But by far the worst such measure was the term limits law limiting members of the Assembly to six years in office and senators to eight.

The main effect of term limits was to make the executive branch stronger, as well as to amp-up the power of un-elected lobbyists and staffers. With so much riding on the governor, we can’t afford to have a slacker like Davis on the throne when the state’s in trouble, hence the recall.

Recognition that term limits have hurt us is not a partisan issue, as my friend Ray Haynes explained to the Chronicle reporter Mark Martin:

Lack of leadership in the Assembly is so bad that one of the most conservative members of the Legislature, Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Riverside, longs for the days when San Francisco liberal Willie Brown ruled the Assembly as the always-in-charge speaker.

“Today the Assembly is out of control,” Haynes wrote in an opinion piece for the North County Times in Escondido (San Diego County) in which he noted how much better the Assembly ran when Brown was in charge. “It is in serious need of adult supervision.”

When Ray Haynes is publicly yearning for the return of the Ayatollah of the Assembly, you have to know things are bad. But the trouble is that term limits remain popular with the political outsiders who make up the vast majority of the electorate, because of their low confidence in politicians generally and the dearth of good news coverage of state government.

If I had my way, we’d recall term limits right after we recall The Invisible Gray.

Link via Rough and Tumble.

It’s about time

The Register reports: Chipmaker Agere Systems today announced plans to integrate wireless LAN and VoIP technology on a single integrated chipset. Agere’s wireless VoIP phone technology offers the promise of making low-cost, mobile phone calls over the Internet more widely available once the chips become available from September. So once again, the bar gets raised … Continue reading “It’s about time”

The Register reports:

Chipmaker Agere Systems today announced plans to integrate wireless LAN and VoIP technology on a single integrated chipset.

Agere’s wireless VoIP phone technology offers the promise of making low-cost, mobile phone calls over the Internet more widely available once the chips become available from September.

So once again, the bar gets raised higher for WiFi chips, but this is an 802.11b-only chip, with no .a or .g support. So there’s the next opportunity.