Month: December 2004

Count every vote

Just so there’s no confusion, I’d like to make it crystal clear that I endorse protein wisdom for Best Humor Blog in your Weblog Awards competition this year. I don’t have anything against IMAO and Scrappleface, mind you, and I’m sure they’re patriotic Americans, but nobody can hold a candle to protein. So vote early … Continue reading “Count every vote”

Just so there’s no confusion, I’d like to make it crystal clear that I endorse protein wisdom for Best Humor Blog in your Weblog Awards competition this year. I don’t have anything against IMAO and Scrappleface, mind you, and I’m sure they’re patriotic Americans, but nobody can hold a candle to protein. So vote early and vote often.

When you vote, you’ll notice you have to type in 5 numbers and letters to prove you’re not a script on account of the Daily Kos’ trying to steal even this election.

Have they no shame?

California recovering

Despite a housing bubble, UCLA economists expect California to grow in 2005: Yet the fallout from the bubble in California won’t be devastating, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast. Indeed, the Golden State’s economy will expand at a faster clip than the nation’s in 2005, thanks in part to a recovering Bay Area, the widely … Continue reading “California recovering”

Despite a housing bubble, UCLA economists expect California to grow in 2005:

Yet the fallout from the bubble in California won’t be devastating, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast. Indeed, the Golden State’s economy will expand at a faster clip than the nation’s in 2005, thanks in part to a recovering Bay Area, the widely watched forecast says.

All in all, next year is shaping up as “solid but not spectacular” for California, said Christopher Thornberg, a UCLA Anderson Forecast senior economist and author of its state outlook.

Welcome back.

The End of an Era

So it’s official, IBM is getting out of the PC business: SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) — Lenovo Group Ltd. will buy IBM’s personal computing business in a $1.75 billion deal, creating what the companies said Tuesday night will be the No. 3 PC maker worldwide. I thought this day would never come. The IBM PC, from … Continue reading “The End of an Era”

So it’s official, IBM is getting out of the PC business:

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) — Lenovo Group Ltd. will buy IBM’s personal computing business in a $1.75 billion deal, creating what the companies said Tuesday night will be the No. 3 PC maker worldwide.

I thought this day would never come. The IBM PC, from its inception in 1981, had the most dramatic effect on the computer industry in general and my career in particular of any technology or event of the last 30 years. Before the PC, I was a system programmer at Texas Instruments developing operating systems and protocols for closed, proprietary systems, systems that were full of fun and complexity with multi-tasking, real-time priorities, virtual memory, and interprocess communications. The PC, with its deficient operating system and marginal hardware, put an end to that sort of system, bringing about a massive shift to bare-metal programming, a retarded CPU architecture, a return to proprietary communication protocols, and assembly language instead of block-structured high-level languages.

As the virus spread, it gradually overcame its origins and evolved into a lower-cost version of the kind of systems I used to work on, only without my having access to the system code so I could simply change it if I didn’t like the way it worked until Linux came along.

But now IBM has decided the whole experiment wasn’t such a hot idea. Presumably, they’re still in the server business as well as services and consulting, so the more things change the more they remain the same. Sorta.

Political pollution

Speaking of Washington’s pollution, we’re going to have yet another recount in the governor’s race thanks to some out-of-state money raised by the Howard Dean blog. These people have no shame. This recount will be fully manual, making it substantially less accurate than the first two, and the only possible reason for it is to … Continue reading “Political pollution”

Speaking of Washington’s pollution, we’re going to have yet another recount in the governor’s race thanks to some out-of-state money raised by the Howard Dean blog. These people have no shame. This recount will be fully manual, making it substantially less accurate than the first two, and the only possible reason for it is to go fishing for enough ballots, legal or otherwise, to alter the certified outcome of the election.

The one bright spot to this debacle is that losing the third count will brand Christine Gregoire a sore loser and end her political career forever. If her people are able to find enough mystery ballots to win the election for her, she’ll have no legitimacy either, as the fraud stories are bound to come out. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic Party can’t win a fair election so they have no choice but to hope for the other kind.

This is a sad day for democracy.

No. 1 air polluter

The state of Washington has some pretty nasty pollution, what with coal-fired power plants, stinky paper mills, and the King County Democratic Party. But the identity of the number one polluter is probably a surprise: But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn’t a power plant, pulp mill or anything … Continue reading “No. 1 air polluter”

The state of Washington has some pretty nasty pollution, what with coal-fired power plants, stinky paper mills, and the King County Democratic Party. But the identity of the number one polluter is probably a surprise:

But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington isn’t a power plant, pulp mill or anything else created by man.

It’s a volcano.

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas that causes acid rain and contributes to haze.

I say we slap some fines on that bitch.

The Liberal Agenda

My old buddy Kim asks me to comment on a laundry-list of proposals that pretty well encapsulate a great deal of the liberal/progressive agenda for America. Here’s his list in bold, with my comments in roman: 1. Return war powers to Congress They never left – while the executive claims it has war powers, they … Continue reading “The Liberal Agenda”

My old buddy Kim asks me to comment on a laundry-list of proposals that pretty well encapsulate a great deal of the liberal/progressive agenda for America. Here’s his list in bold, with my comments in roman:

1. Return war powers to Congress

They never left – while the executive claims it has war powers, they haven’t been exercised without Congressional approval in a very long time.

2. Repeal the Patriot Act

You may as well say “Surrender to Al Qaeda”. The Patriot Act contains necessary powers to fight the terrorist threat, and while any act can and should be amended until it reaches perfection, we shouldn’t radically alter this one as long as Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Hamas are active.

Continue reading “The Liberal Agenda”

Crude-Oil Prices Slide $3.64 As Heating Inventories Climb

Here’s a little bit of good economic news: The price of oil dropped $3.64 a barrel to $45.49 in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration reported that commercial stocks of distillates, which include heating oil, rose 2.3 million barrels to 117.9 million barrels for the week … Continue reading “Crude-Oil Prices Slide $3.64 As Heating Inventories Climb”

Here’s a little bit of good economic news:

The price of oil dropped $3.64 a barrel to $45.49 in trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration reported that commercial stocks of distillates, which include heating oil, rose 2.3 million barrels to 117.9 million barrels for the week ended Nov. 26.

That’s a good start, but we aren’t done yet.