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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Justice Thomas marches to his own tune Justice Thomas marches to his own tune

Interesting take in LAT: Thomas marches to his own tune, given the biases of that paper. It suggests that Justice Thomas serves an important purpose on the Supreme Court, that of pointing out when the emperor isn't wearing any clothes. It is almost as if being hated already because he is a black conservative on that Court, he has nothing more to lose by telling it like it is.

I think it likely though that this article was written before today's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, where Thomas hammered the obvious, that this case wasn't about desegregation because the Seattle school district had never been segregated, and the segregation in the Louisville one had been official desegregated. Instead, the case was about racial balancing, which typically falls prey to strict scrutiny, as it did here.

It is inevitably in areas of race that Justice Thomas most angers those on the left, because he seems to always burst their pretenses.

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Democrats Denounce Desegregation Ruling Democrats Denounce Desegregation Ruling

Notice the framing here in the title of this article: My Way News (AP): Democrats Denounce Desegregation Ruling. The Supreme Court explicitly stated that the case did not involve desegregation, but rather racial balancing. Yet, the AP uses the word "Desegregation" in the title. And then, in the lead-in paragraph:
An historically diverse field of Democratic presidential candidates - a woman, a black, an Hispanic and five whites - denounced an hours-old Supreme Court desegregation ruling Thursday night and said the nation's slow march to racial unity is far from over. "We have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough," said Sen. Barack Obama, the son of a man from Kenya and a woman from Kansas.
Of course, the last line there, pointing out that Obama isn't a real Black, and never suffered racial discrimination due to slavery was interesting.

What the Supreme Court did say was that the case was not about desegregation, despite the posturing here by the Democratic presidential candidates to the contrary. The Seattle school district had never had a history of government mandated segregation and the Louisville court ordered desegregation had been ruled complete several years before. Rather, this was a case of attempted racial balancing through explicitly making race the deciding factor in deciding which kids got to go to which schools.

What is really scary is that a number of these candidates are lawyers, and indeed, two of them, Clinton and Obama, graduated from the top two law schools in the country. Either they can't understand fairly straight forward case law, or they are intentionally misleading the American public. Neither speaks very highly of them.

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Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran

Unrest grows amid gas rationing in Iran points out that things are not going well right now for the Iranian government:
TEHRAN: Unrest spread in Tehran on Thursday, the second day of gasoline rationing in oil-rich Iran, with drivers lining up for miles, gas stations being set on fire and state-run banks and business centers coming under attack.
And this is primarily a result of trying to ignore basic economics:
The Iranian government had planned for a year to ration gasoline but had postponed the move, fearing unrest. Iran offers the highest subsidies for gasoline in the region, buying foreign gasoline for slightly more than $2 a gallon, according to official figures, and offering it for 34 cents a gallon.
..
The price of subsidized gasoline was raised by 25 percent last month. The new regulation allows private cars 26 gallons of gasoline a month for 34 cents a gallon. Taxis are allowed 211 gallons a month.
This would not be a problem if mass transit were available, but that, along with refinery capacity, were never properly funded. So, Tehran at least has about half the buses it needs, and the people don't have the gas to get to work. But the gas they do get is cheap.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007

4 for $11 or 2 for $5.50? Revisited 4 for $11 or 2 for $5.50? Revisited

I posted earlier about how packaging pricing does seem to work in: 4 for $11 or 2 for $5.50? where I compared different prices for Coke, based on packaging. And, surprisingly, there was no correlation between cost and value. Here are some pictures I tried to take tonight.

Here we have 8 8oz cans of coke for $3.49:


Now we have 6 12 oz plastic bottles for $3.49:

Here, 12 12oz cans for $2.75, or 4 for $11:


Here are 6 12oz glass bottles for $4.29:


And two liter bottles for $1 (10 for $10):


I should note that the Kroger's brand was even cheaper: their cola, etc., cost $.50 for a two liter bottle (20 for $10).

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Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder

Pajamas Media: Ahmadinejad's Inflammable Blunder by Meir Javedanfar points out that the Iraqi government, and in particular, their president, have screwed up royally when it comes to gasoline. It is heavily subsidized, costing a fraction of what it should cost. That was because Ahmadinejad used low gas prices to bribe the less wealthy to vote him into the Iranian presidency. But, the problem with an artificially low price is that consumers respond by greatly increasing demand for the product. But Iran, one of the richest countries in the world in terms of oil reserves, imports some 40% of its gasoline, due to a shortage of refineries. Instead of building refineries, which would have helped to reduce this, the government committed to spending money on any number of less urgent, but more politically advantageous products. So, with demand exceeding supply, which is inevitable with subsidized pricing, the government imposed severe rationing. To make matters worse, the purchase of more buses was also left mostly undone, again because infrastructure money was spent elsewhere. The result is not surprising - there are a lot of very angry Iranians right now. Not the rich, because they easily find ways around the gas rationing, but rather, the lower and lower middle classes.

None of this should be a surprise. This is economics 101. But it did point out the failings of the socialist philosophies off the Iranian leaders to understand how economics really works. Of course, if they did understand economics, they probably wouldn't be socialists.

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RIAA's Turn to Be a Defendant RIAA's Turn to Be a Defendant

In RIAA's Turn to Be a Defendant, the tables seem to be turning against the recording companies. Unfortunately, the current Administration doesn't seem willing to pursue antitrust allegations against anyone, and, in this case, against the coordinated efforts by the recording companies to shut down on piracy.

But it appears that some people victimized by RIAA are starting to strike back. Notably,
Former RIAA defendant Tanya Andersen is now suing the major record labels and the RIAA for negligent and illegal investigation and prosecution. In a thirteen count civil suit filed in Oregon District Court, she alleges that record labels didn’t use properly licensed investigators and violated her privacy.
As an IP attorney, I have some sympathy for the recording interests. But I seriously fault their tactics, and thus lose much of the sympathy I would give most others in their position.

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Understanding General Petraeus's Strategy Understanding General Petraeus's Strategy

Weekly Standard: Understanding General Petraeus's Strategy by Frederick W. Kagan in Testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs makes a lot of important points about our new tactics in Iraq. For one thing, the troops are just now in place, and aren't fully supported yet. And, thus, much of the work being done now is preparatory, with Iraqi and American forces being prepositioned for later clear and hold actions. Some of the prepositioning is aimed at developing better intelligence. Also, many of the forces are being moved into blocking positions, so that the terrorists can't as easily just flee from one location and reemerge from another.

Of particular note, to those who say that we have failed already:
To say that the current plan has failed is simply incorrect. It might fail, of course, as any military/political plan might fail. Indications on the military side strongly suggest that success--in the form of dramatically reduced violence by the end of this year--is quite likely. Indications on the political side are more mixed, but are also less meaningful at this early stage before security has been established.

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Edwards camp again turns to cash cow Coulter Edwards camp again turns to cash cow Coulter

This is pathetic: Edwards camp again turns to cash cow Coulter:
With the second quarter drawing to a close, the presidential campaign of former North Carolina senator John Edwards (D) on Wednesday again turned to one of its most reliable “fundraisers,” Ann Coulter.
Apparently, the reason to support John Edwards is that he is the brunt of some of Ann Coulter's humor. That is not the best reason I have heard of to support someone for president.

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Making the big time - quoted by Instapundit Making the big time - quoted by Instapundit

I may have finally made the big time with this comment of mine quoted from volokh.com by Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com concerning the pending immigration bill:
The problem as I see it, is that most of us don't really understand the bill all that well. And Congress is really to blame for that - my impression is that it was not drafted out in the open, it is quite large, and amendments are not welcome. Plus, it seems like it is being rushed, possibly because the more that the people know what's in it, the more they are likely to complain.
Well, I am not going to hold my breath for the next time, but still, it is kinda nice.

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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

The real Club Gitmo The real Club Gitmo

Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor at Gitmo, in NYT: The Guantanamo I Know tells the reality of what is going on there. While ABC News is still using footage of Camp X-Ray from five years ago to illustrate Gitmo, X-Ray was replaced by ultra-modern facilities five years ago, and the real Camp X-Ray is now covered by weeds. The reality is that the detainees are treated significantly better than prisoners at our federal prisons. Plus, they get three (large) culturally appropriate meals a day, a chance to pray five times a day (apparently with arrows pointing towards Meccca, JIC), a Koran, etc.

Col. Davis also points out the reality of the legal system that is in place there. The detainees are getting more due process, etc. than is required by their status under the Geneva Convention, with the biggest difference between their rights and those in the U.S. are somewhat relaxed rules of evidence, to take into account the reality that most of the detainees being caught on the battle field.

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Understanding Current Operations in Iraq Understanding Current Operations in Iraq

Dave Kilcullen in Understanding Current Operations in Iraq (SWJ Blog) goes in a fair amount of depth about the changes that have been implemented in Iraq. The added troop levels in the "Surge" were only enabling. The big thing is the major change in tactics.

The tactics being implemented are similar to, and no doubt derived from, the French experience in Algeria, as described by Arthur Herman in How to Win in Iraq—and How to Lose. To some extent, we have an easier time in Iraq than the French did in Algeria, since the major players on the other side are foreigners in our case, either Wahhabi Sunnis, primarily from the Gulf states, or recently, Iranian Shia agents. On the other hand though, both the French and the U.S. have similar troop levels to work with, but Iraq has several times the population that Algeria had in the late 1950s.

But that is what is critical, separating the terrorists from the population in which they hide. And to do this, the population has to be made secure enough that enough of them are willing to finger the terrorists hiding in their midsts. The way that this was done in Algeria, and is now being done in Iraq, is that areas where the terrorists hide, or may try to hide in the future, are cleared, and then protected. This later is the big difference between the present tactics and those we used in the past. Then, we would clear an area, and then have to come back later and do it again. Instead, after areas are cleared, fortified compounds are installed in each such area, staffed by local police and military, and with U.S. (or in the case of Algeria, French) troops, all working together. Then, the local police and military personal take the lead in working with the people in that area, maintaining peace, and going after any terrorists who are there, or try later to come in there.

One reason that I suspect that this is going to go more easily than the French experience in Algeria, is that Public Enemy Number 1 in Iraq is al Qaeda and its associated groups of foreign terrorists. They have, in short, worn out their welcome in Iraq, primarily by trying to implement strict Sharia law, over a people who prefer a somewhat more liberal view of Islam. Also though, it appears that the foreign terrorists trampled on tribal sensibilities in the tribal areas of, for example, Anbar, by insisting on marrying the women there, in a culture that still practices arranged marriages. So, women were stolen and/or raped. Their male relatives who resisted were killed. And as a result, many of the Anbar tribes apparently have declared blood feud againstjavascript:void(0)
Publish al Qaeda. And because of these terrorists have worn out their welcome, all the Iraqis need to turn them in is the security that the terrorists are unlikely to be able to retaliate if fingered. And that is what the new tactics provide.

So, it really isn't that important that all the terrorist leaders are caught in these operations, since what is important is that they are prevented from hiding within the population in more and more of Iraq.

Of course, the biggest problem in Iraq continues to be the anti-war movement in the U.S., and in particular, in Congress. It almost seems like the better we do on the ground there, the more politicians jump on the "War in Iraq is Lost" bandwagon.

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Hillary v. ??? Hillary v. ???

Right now, I don't see how any Democrat can overtake Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. Obama is too inexperienced and is making novice level mistakes. Edwards is a blatant hypocrite, and an experienced lightweight as well. Richards is the most qualified, but can't get traction and isn't photogenic.

Sure, some of these impressions may be false, but where do they come from? The fact that the Clinton team (with the help of the MSM) has managed to infect the electorate with these impressions is significant in itself. That they are that vulnerable indicates that Hillary and the rest of the Democrats are competing on different playing fields.

Which means that it is likely that Hillary will be Democratic nominee. The question then is how well can any of the Republicans stand up against the onslot that the other Democratic candidates are withering before. I don't see McCain being able to maintain his temper long enough, and being likely to lose it when pressed. While I like Romney, I see him as fairly brittle. Maybe not, but we shall see. Guliani maybe. But he bailed instead of running against her in 2000 for the NY Senate seat. Right now, my money would be on Fred Thompson. But he really hasn't taken that much flack yet, from either side.

But then, picking a nominee that could beat Hillary would possibly be making the same mistake that the Democrats made in 2004 - somehow John Kerry convinced a lot of people that he was the only one who could beat President Bush. Who knows how he did that, but he did. So, he got the nomination, despite the fact that a number of serious Democratic contenders didn't have his Vietnam ere baggage.

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Vista #10 - Searching Vista #10 - Searching

If I had to prioritize my gripes with Microsoft's new Vista operating system, I would put its search capabilities near the top.

Vista has a brand new search facility that seems aimed at competing with Google Desktop for control of searching users' computers. And it is fast. It gets its blinding speed through indexing files beforehand. Think of it as using a humongous relational database with all the nifty file information stored therein. Which is fine when the relevant files are indexed, but many aren't. So, you do your first search, and don't find what you want. Then, you notice that it didn't search unindexed files, and you try again, and voila, you get the answer. I am not quite sure yet why some files are indexed and others aren't. I didn't have this problem with earlier versions of Windows, where I was able to control this fairly well (and it was much less important).

Then there is the problem that it no longer makes my most common types of searches easy. Up through XP, if I wanted to search for a file folder with "Canon" in its name, as I did the other day, it is simple to do, using "Advanced Options", and selecting "Folder" as a file type. No longer. You can search for all files, including folders, with that name. But not just for folders. Similarly, for other file types. There though, if you know the extension of the file type you want, you can, maybe use that.

Overall, in the name of providing a broader use tool, I see the search facility in Vista being significantly less useful that its predecessors. This sort of thing is not uncommon with Microsoft, where they throw away useful features to generalize a tool to make it more powerful - but less easily used.

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Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target for the 21st Century Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target for the 21st Century

SPACE.com: Scientist Calls Mars a Terraforming Target for the 21st Century points out that we probably now have the technology to terraform Mars, and to do it within a reasonable period of time.

As with a lot of things that we can do, the question ultimately is, whether we should. I somehow find it unlikely that the same people who panic over nuclear power, nanotechnology, and the like, will lie down for this affront to, if not Mother Earth, then Father War. Yet, isn't it worth the risk? I think so, esp. given that the population on this planet is nearing capacity (maybe).

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The Real Deal The Real Deal

Amity Shlaes in AEI: The Real Deal takes to task historians, and probably economists, for refusing to look at the reality of the New Deal. The evidence continues to mount that Hoover screwed up by walking away from his free enterprise roots, but then FDR came in and totally demolished the economy, greatly lengthening and deepening what should have only been a couple years of hardship into the Great Depression. Little of what FDR did helped the economy, most hurt it, and some was devastating. And one of the oft missed problems was that FDR never could hold the course very long, whatever course he chose to chart for the country.

One interesting point that Ms. Shlaes points out is that much of the socialism of the New Deal is forgiven as necessary to prevent a socialist takeover of this country. But this ignores the reality that FDR's Brain Trust had spent time with the Communists in Russia and the Fascists in Italy before coming to power in this country. They were, in essence, fellow travelers with the socialists taking power then in Europe, whether they be Communists in Russia, Fascists in Italy, or Nazis in Germany.

What she doesn't address is the why for this failure to investigate one of the more momentous epochs in our history. My belief is that it is almost entirely a result of the extreme liberalism we now find in academia, and notably in the social sciences. This questioning of the demi-god FDR and his legacy would be political suicide in many universities right now, the height of political correctness, worse than challenging affirmative action, white male oppression, etc.

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Back Talk: The Democrats are Lying about the War in Iraq Back Talk: The Democrats are Lying about the War in Iraq

Back Talk: The Democrats are Lying about the War in Iraq points out that the Democrats and the MSM are either lying or very naive. Everything is viewed in the context of the sectarian civil war. Whenever there is a mass atrocity, it is most often blamed on "insurgents" or maybe a bit more accurately, "Sunni insurgents". But if you were to just stop there, where the MSM and the major Democratic politicians do, most of us would think that meant Iraqi Sunni insurgents. It doesn't. It mostly means foreign born Sunni terrorists belonging to, or allied with, al Qaeda, who are using indiscriminate mass violence against mostly civilians in order to try to incite that civil war that everyone keeps talking about. That means that most of those suicide and vehicle bombs that kill so many civilians are not a result of the civil war, but rather a cause of it.

Everyone on the left and in the anti-war movement is so heavily invested in the idea that the War in Iraq is mistaken, lost, etc., and that we should be concentrating on al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and maybe in our putative ally, Pakistan. And so, the reality that al Qaeda is killing a lot more people in Iraq right now than it is anywhere else in the world doesn't fit the story.

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Saturday, June 23, 2007

Drudge and Firefox Drudge and Firefox

I used to follow the Drudge Report fairly religiously. After all, we can thank him for breaking the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and many other stories since then. Yes, he gets some things wrong, but also a lot of things right, esp. in cases where the MSM seems willing to ignore news that is politically inconvenient to its liberal biases.

I have a list of sites that I typically have loaded in tabs in my browser. A couple of years ago, I removed the Drudge Report because it automatically reloaded at fairly short intervals and spawned a lot of pop-up windows.

Recently though, Firefox has gotten good enough at suppressing reloading and pop-ups that I thought to give it another try. And it seems to be working just fine. Now, if Matt would just implement RSS feeds, I would be even happier, since I tend to have to read the whole report to see if anything has changed.

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Ticket to Ride Ticket to Ride

John J. Miller at The Corner at NRO: Ticket to Ride:
Pulled over for driving 78 mph on a 55 mph road? In Virginia, it will soon cost more than $1,000. This isn't because Virginians are especially reckless drivers who require draconian disincentives in the name of public safety—it's a Richmond money grab. The state legislature wants to increase revenue but doesn't want to be accused of raising taxes. It's being called a "civil remedial fee." And thus our state troopers will become glorified tax collectors. Brilliant.
What he is possibly ignoring is the corrupting effect of traffic tickets on law enforcement. If the police see any of the money resulting from this, they are going to become even more zealous about enforcing speeding tickets. We see this time and time again, where the primary goal of a police force becomes revenue generation through the use of police power. So, instead of cracking down on petty crimes and low grade felonies, they spend their time cracking down on speeders, letting the more important stuff slide.

It gets even better:
John, It seems the legislator who introduced the higher fines, which the article you cite says will lead to an influx of business to law firms specializing in traffic cases is, you guessed it, co-founder and partner in a firm specializing in traffic/criminal law cases. His government position is part time, so the rest of his time, he can work on the cases his legislation generates. Gotta love Virginia politics.

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Friday, June 22, 2007

Fred Thompson talks about a Federalist solution to malpractice abuse in Texas Fred Thompson talks about a Federalist solution to malpractice abuse in Texas

I am betting that one subject that John Edwards would not want to debate: Fred Thompson talks about a Federalist solution to malpractice abuse in Texas. In short, Texas was losing doctors fast. In response, they passed an initiative that capped non-economic damages in malpractice suits. And, voila, the legislature has had to allocate more money to process all the doctors trying to open up shop in Texas.

Edwards, of course, got rich (today, I saw that his net worth was around $30 million) by exactly this - winning pain and suffering verdicts against doctors, using what turned out to be junk science. What was worse, was that his primary target were the ob/gyns who performed vaginal deliveries. And, no surprise, the biggest backers of Edwards are the plaintiffs' contingency fee tort lawyers, including those who litigate medical malpractice cases.

Of course, we can all dream about an Edwards/ Thompson debate, where Edwards tries to talk about his "two Americas", and Thompson about malpractice reform.

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Fred File: the link between tax cuts and our children's well-being Fred File: the link between tax cuts and our children's well-being

Fred Thompson writes about the link between tax cuts and our children's well-being:
Since 1993, according to Justice Department statistics, the juvenile homicide rate was cut in half. For kids between the ages of 14 and 17, the reduction was even greater. The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System shows child abuse declined by 43 percent and childhood sexual abuse by almost half. Sexual assaults against adolescents dropped by more than two thirds and aggravated assaults by almost 75 percent.

This is dramatically good news, especially for children and their parents. And the reasons behind these improvements in the lives of American children are linked to economic growth. With increased revenues on a state and local level, more police were hired. Financially healthy families took their children to doctors more often, who were more likely to prescribe medications and other treatments. The study even pointed out that increased financial health reduces family tensions and produces happier children -- less prone to problem behaviors.

The irony is that we got these improvements in our children’s lives from a strong economy driven by tax cuts. Now we're being told that tax cuts have to end, so that the government can tax us and spend the money on programs to accomplish what Americans already did for themselves. And they did it far better than any bureaucracy ever could.
Sen. Thompson has a decent chance at the Republican nomination because he is saying what should be said to combat the Democrats running Congress right now. Most of their ideas are brain-dead, and they likely know it. But they throw them out, believing that the American people can either be bought off, or are dumb enough to believe them. Thus, despite all the evidence to the contrary, they insist that we need to raise taxes in order to balance the budget. But as always, they use "static analysis", which has been repeatedly discredited. They use it because their goal is to raise taxes, in order to fund more government programs, and have no real interest in helping the American public.

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Thursday, June 21, 2007

Vista #9 Vista #9

Well, I solved by parallel port driver, but I will get to that in a minute.

When I woke up this morning, my Vista computer was dead. It wouldn't boot. Rather, I would get the Compaq flash screen, and then nothing. A totally blank screen, except for a character cursor in the top left corner. I tried different ways of booting, etc., all to no avail.

So, I called up Compaq, and got a technician in India, whose English proficiency wasn't quite there yet. It was rather humorous.
HP: Is the computer acting any differently?
Me: Yes, it isn't running.
HP: What did you change?
Me: A lot.
HP: What services are running?
Me: None. The computer is dead.
HP: What applications are running?
Me: None. The computer is dead.
HP: Did you install any software?
Me: Yes, that is what computers are for, running software.
HP: Let's check the event log.
Me: Sorry, the computer is dead.
HP: What is the last thing you did?
Me: I went to bed.

Ultimately, it turns out that the problem was that I had set the system to go to sleep after two hours of inactivity. Initially, that wasn't an issue, since it would wake up with activity on the network, and my server (H) would broadcast WINS status checks every twenty minutes or so. But then, a day or so ago, I disabled having the Ethernet interface wake the system up.

I had also manually put the system to sleep, both by the external switch and the internal button. Of course, programming the external switch to put the computer to sleep meant that it was nearly useless when I wanted to reset or reboot the computer. Of course, the solution to that was to unplug the computer and then plug it back in. Then, the external impulse switch works as a boot switch, at least for a moment or so.

It took rebooting a couple of times, trying to get into the setup menu, and finally, moving the cursor around a lot and hitting the space bar a couple dozen times (under the supervision of the helpful HP technician) to finally get the system back up.

Then, I was referred to another HP technician who seemed to know a lot more. I first asked him about my parallel printer port problem. Whenever I would boot the system, I would get an error message that the parallel port driver couldn't start, and the most likely reason was that I didn't have a parallel port - which for the first time ever, I don't.

The solution was to go into the registry (and how many HP customers would know how to do that?). Under current settings, etc., there is a key for "parpor" or something like that. Guessing, I clicked on it, and, sure enough, the description said "Parallel Port Driver". The startup parameter was set to a 3. The technician had me set it to a 4. I then rebooted, and no error message.

Looking back, it is obvious that I should have looked up parpor under CurrentVersion under Windows under Microsoft under SOFTWARE under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE in the registry and changed the Start value from a 3 to a 4. I am just embarrassed that I had to have that HP technician tell me to do so.

Actually, of course, most people who use Windows don't know what the Registry is, don't know how to access it, how it is organized, etc. And worse, Microsoft suggests very strongly that you run in Vista (and XP) as a User, and not as an Administrator. Of course, the Registry is likely inaccessible in User mode (I haven't verified this, because I almost always run as an Administrator).

I am used to mucking around in the Registry, and have shortcuts already set up for the two programs that Microsoft supplies to view and modify it. One nice thing that Windows does provide is an environmental tag for the current Windows directory. This has been true at least since Win 2K. So, you can code shortcuts utilizing this environmental tag, and move them from system to system. So, I did this once, and now have shortcuts on all my Windows systems (2K, 2KSE, XP HE, XP Pro, 2K3SE, and now Vista HP) for all sorts of Windows utilities.

Still, despite all the above, I am curious whether this whole thing was an HP programming problem, when they customized Vista for this computer (and they didn't verify the customization by checking the Event log), or whether I actually inadvertently activated the Parallel Port driver. I won't likely know until have to reinstall Vista.

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Computer Failure Stalls United Airlines Flights Computer Failure Stalls United Airlines Flights

cbs2chicago.com: Computer Failure Stalls United Airlines Flights. First, the computer system crashes that determines flight weights, etc. And then, in order to maintain its on-time takeoff record, the United planes push back and then sit on the ground for a couple of hours. OK for the company, but not so great for its customers.

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Father of the Iranian revolution Father of the Iranian revolution



I like this by the Jerusalem Post: Jimmy Carter - Father of the Iranian revolution.
We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism...

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Vista #8 - disappearing control panels Vista #8 - disappearing control panels

It seemed like all of a sudden, and my control panels disappeared out of Windows Vista. After a lot of investigation, I found that I could execute them directly from the Windows\System32 directory. But, I couldn't get them to run from the start menu.

I went through a system restore to a point a couple of days ago, to no avail. Then, I started playing a bit more with Services, and found the culprit: "Software Licensing". Apparently, in my attempts to turn off some of the nagging, irritating, Vista stuff, I had turned that service off. Reading it carefully, it indicated that the service:
Enables the download, installation and enforcement of digital licenses for Windows and Windows applications. If the service is disabled, the operating system and licensed applications may run in a reduced function mode.
Apparently, MSFT's definition of "reduced function mode" means no Control Panels. But I still can't figure out the logical connection between "Software Licensing" and the Control Panel.

Now all I have to do is figure out why the parallel port driver is being started, since I don't have a parallel port and it therefore error terminates after each boot.

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Realtors and antitrust Realtors and antitrust

Probably some 20+ years from when I first acquired a real estate license, I formally was sworn in as a "Realtor" yesterday, after a day long training session. This meant that I formally joined the National, Colorado, and local Board of Realtors. While in some states, joining is mandatory, in Colorado it is not, and only about 2/3 of the brokers are members.

Much of that training was in ethics, and in particular, the ethics standards of the National Board of Realtors (NAR). For the most part, nothing that unexpected. Interestingly, the NAR standards are not that different from the Colorado state standards for RE brokers, except that in several places Colorado has gone further, and indeed, overrides the NAR standards. So, there are apparently several places in the NAR standards that apply to 49 states (plus presumably D.C.), but not here. These mostly have to do with Realtor relationships with each other.

As noted, there was little surprising throughout most of the presentation. But the end of it involved a section on antitrust and price fixing. This was brought home by an example of two single mothers who got a little drunk, compared commission rates charged customers, and were ultimately sentenced to prison when their kids are old enough - in apparently another three years. And, esp. troubling to me, the attorney who accidentally overheard them and didn't turn them in, was suspended from the practice of law for six months.

Colorado has been somewhere in the front as far as negotiable commission schedules. I talk to people in other states who are surprised that our state RE commission doesn't set commissions. It doesn't, and those utilizing the services of RE professionals benefit. Indeed, this is becoming the Wild West here, with some brokers charging separately for different services, most often on a flat fee basis.

Maybe we, as RE brokers here in CO, might be safer if we were back with state mandated commission rates. But that is the point here - the customers wouldn't be better off. Fixed fees benefit the members of the guild. Negotiable fees benefit the customers.

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World's biggest airliner to serve as private jet World's biggest airliner to serve as private jet

World's biggest airliner to serve as private jet:
Attention hip hop stars and billionaires: the world's biggest airliner, the 73-metre-long (239-feet) Airbus A380 superjumbo, has been ordered by a mysterious buyer for use as a private jet.

The order sets new heights in the private plane sector, leaving the Learjet, which used to be the ultimate symbol of ostentatious air travel, in second class.

The doubledecker A380, which enters service later this year, is capable of carrying 840 passengers, has 900 square metres (10,000 square feet) of cabin space and towers over its biggest rival, the Boeing 747.
I probably wouldn't have commented on this, except for its ending:
"Aviation is now so out of control, we're not only seeing unnecessary binge-flying, it seems we're starting to see 'bling-flying' too," said Joss Garman, from the British anti-pollution group Plane Stupid.

"Buying a superjumbo like this to use as a private jet is like buying a filthy coal-fired power station just to use to charge up your mobile phone."

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Monday, June 18, 2007

Vista #7 (IE 7) Vista #7 (IE 7)

Finally, something good about Vista. It comes with Internet Explorer 7. While IE 7 lost some of its buttons, etc., it made up for that by being able to properly render this blog.

As with a lot of things, Microsoft has been reluctant to conform to standards, in this case, HTML standards. My default presentation mode is "chopped" in this blog, and IE level 6 and earlier did not properly render that mode, which uses the following CSS to implement:

.Post-Chop .post-item-body{
max-height: 3in;
overflow: hidden;
}


Apparently, IE 6 and below don't support the max-height attribute nor the overflow: hidden.

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Vista #6a Vista #6a

This is in response to a commenter who was quite upset about not being able to use the built-in FAX that has been a part of Windows for at least a decade now.

Here is an official comparison of the different versions of Vista.

You can, of course, upgrade to Vista to the Ultimate version that has everything. Here is a Vista upgrade calculator. For me, it would cost $159 to go from Home Premium to Ultimate.

Right now, I don't need the FAX functionality. I primarily use send2fax.com to send and receive FAXs electronically. But I also have several computers running with older versions of Windows that have FAX software and have two multifunction printers that can also FAX (though I only really use them for scanning and copying).

Rather, if I do end up upgrading to Vista Ultimate, it will be to have more control over the security settings, be able to back stuff up en mass, be able to host remote desktops, and synchronize files on different systems.

I should note that some of these differences are only visible when you start digging into the documentation. For example, I found out about the remote desktop stuff and synchronization when trying to set them up. I am currently using Synchronize It! to synchronize files among my different computer systems. The problem is that it is becoming laborious to make sure that they are all up to date. The Vista synchronization facility looks like it might be useful for me - if it were available. It isn't in the version of Vista I have (Home Premium).

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Sunday, June 17, 2007

Vista #6 Vista #6

One thing that I do like about Vista is that it provides a quick and easy way to put the computer to sleep or to hibernate. It actually seemed to try to eliminate hibernation, but that is still available via the sidebar. But there is a sleep button on the Windows Start menu, and the power button can be programmed to sleep also. It is easy enough that I am actually starting to use that feature if I will be gone for a day or two.

I did set the system to sleep if inactive for four or more hours. It hasn't availed itself of that yet. I suspect that it is because the Ethernet adapter was set to wake it up, and the server periodically makes sure that its WINS entries are up to date, and so queries all the computers it can every ten minutes or so, and this probably kept the system up. I have disabled that, and hopefully the system will go to sleep on its own. We shall see.

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Vista #5 (and other stuff) Vista #5 (and other stuff)

Not really a Vista problem this time. I have had any number of problems with Vista and one of them was that PDFcreator doesn't run yet under Vista. Every time I run it, it generates some sort of error message that is tied to the print queue. The message is "Interactive Services dialog detection", and if you click on it, it takes you into some weird mode to display the message.

Currently, I have taken PDFCreator offline and marked the print file for deletion, all to no effect. I need to reboot to get rid of the silly error message, which I plan to do once I have posted this.

Which brings me to another weird problem today.

I was desperately trying desperately to file a provisional patent application electronically today with the USPTO. The USPTO EFS system requires limits submission to .pdf files (and some of them are required to be updated only by Acrobat reader 7.0.9 - not 7.0.8 or 8.0, which is what you get when you have a government monopoly). I needed to submit them from my server (H) which is running Server 2003. Unfortunately, both PDFCreater and CutePDF were not working correctly there. And the Vista computer (I) couldn't run PDFCreator since it doesn't run under Vista. That left my laptop (E) running XP. But because of the weird Home Edition stuff of both Vista and XP, I couldn't go directly from the server (H) to the XP (E) computers. Rather, I had to move everything via the Vista (I) computer. At first, I was moving stuff from server (H) to Vista (I) to laptop (E) and back. But then I found I could just skip the middle step, and have a window for the server's desktop and one for the laptop's desktop open, and move the files back and forth between the two desktops - from the Vista machine. Weird. And what is even weirder is that the laptop (E) is connected to one Ethernet port on the server (H) via a crossover cable. Meanwhile the server (H) is connected to the same Ethernet hub as the Vista system (I) (and hence to the Internet). And then all the server connections are bridged together. Thus, in order to transfer a file from the server (H) to the laptop (E) via the Vista machine (I), it actually travels from the server to the Vista machine back to the server and thence to the laptop. And then, of course, the reverse is also true on the flip side.

A final note on Home Editions, etc. Last night I brought up a DHCP server on the server (H) primarily to make assignment of an IP address easier, etc. for the laptop (E). This way it can always automatically acquire its IP address, regardless of whether it is connected to my office network or another network. DHCP assigns the same IP address to the laptop based on its MAC address. It also provides it with the latest DNS settings, etc. And that worked great the first time. For once. So, now the laptop can operate on my network with a static IP address, and all the systems have that IP address loaded statically.

But while I was working on that, I also tweaked my WINS server there. I noted that most of the WINS entries were static (via lmhosts) - except for two critical ones. The Vista computer (I) invariably ended up as the network browser. And the Laptop (E) invariably ended up owning the workgroup. The first seems a bit harmless. But the later may be the reason that I often have problems with the XP laptop connecting to the other systems. Initially, it can't access the workgroup. I suspect that is because at that time it is owned by one of the other computers. But once the laptop gets ownership of the workgroup, it works just fine.

I should note that part of the problem here is that both Vista and XP systems are running Home Editions. That means that they have stripped down security systems. I don't have this problem with either XP or 2K Professional, or 2K or 2003 Server, where I have full security control.

Which brings to one final point - I should be bringing back up another desktop computer (D) in a couple days that runs Win 2K Professional. In the past, it has worked great with 2003 Server. It shall be interesting to see how it works with Vista HE. Probably as poorly as the server does.

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Saturday, June 16, 2007

Vista #4 Vista #4

I mentioned in a previous post that Vista can find other computers in the local network significantly faster than can previous versions of Windows. Well, now I need to qualify that - if Vista finds another computer, it does so faster than do the older versions of Windows. But currently, I have a situation where an XP computer (E) is routed through a Server 2003 system (H). The new Vista computer (I) cannot find the XP system (E) and there is no way to look for it in Vista.

I should note that the problem is likely due to Microsoft intentionally maiming its home editions. I am running XP Home Edition on my laptop (E), which is why I can't just hook it up to the Ethernet hub like everything else. No, I have to hook it directly to my server (H) via a cross-over cable, and then bridging it in the server (H) to the hub and modem. But I can't search for computers on my network with my other "Home" edition, this time, Vista (I). The brand new fancy Vista search engine didn't bother to include the ability to search the local network for specific computers. I am sure things work find in the professional version of Vista - for a $150 upgrade.

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Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize | Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize |

Jerusalem Post: Looters raid Arafat's home, steal his Nobel Peace Prize:
Enraged Fatah leaders on Saturday accused Hamas militiamen of looting the home of former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat in Gaza City.

"They stole almost everything inside the house, including Arafat's Nobel Peace Prize medal," said Ramallah-based Fatah spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman. "Hamas militiamen and gangsters blew up the main entrance to the house before storming it. They stole many of Arafat's documents and files, gifts he had received from world leaders and even his military outfits."
I am sure glad that the Palestinians aren't involved in a civil war right now. It is bloody enough already, without one.

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Nifong to be disbarred Nifong to be disbarred

Nifong is found to have violated a number of ethics rules and the state bar has decided that he needs to be disbarred. And some 400 posts to Durham-in-Wonderland within the first two hours.

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Vista #3 Vista #3

I am still getting used to Windows Vista. One of the nice new features is the Side Bar. It allows you to load up one side of your screen with "gadgets". Currently, I have three clocks, showing Mountain, Pacific, and Eastern time, followed by two weather gadgets showing the weather in Dillon and Golden. Then, I have tasks and calender items from Outlooks, followed by RSS feeds from a bunch of web sites. Finally, I have some performance gadgets on the bottom. I have their opacity set to the minimum so that they don't distract me, but when I put the cursor over them, they fully appear. Pretty slick.

One big problem with gadgets is that most of them that reference Office, reference Office 2007 only, and I am not about to pay for that as long as Office 2003 works just fine. Besides, it appears that Microsoft has reorganized their look and feel even more than it did Windows with Vista. I have spent a decade or so getting a good system working with the various Office programs, with menus and button bars that expedite my work. I am not about to throw that away until I have to.

Final problem though is that the bizarre security system in Vista can't figure out that shortcuts to its own products should be treated the same as the underlying products. So, if I create a shortcut to a Microsoft product and then click on it, Vista makes me verify that it is legitimate before executing it. Come on guys, if you can't trust your own software, you shouldn't be selling it.

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Acobat 8 versus Visio 2003 Acobat 8 versus Visio 2003

I was recently testing out Acrobat 8, and for the most part, it worked quite well. I created three .pdf files from Visio 2003 files, and then one .pdf from those three, sorting the pages as I needed to. Some of the Visio files were landscape and some portrait. Nevertheless, I could rotate just the landscape files, resulting in a .pdf containing only portrait pages. Then, I applied a dozen different backgrounds to the generated .pdf to generate a dozen or so unique files of Visio drawings, which were then successfully submitted as parts of patent applications to the USPTO.

However, Acrobat 8 (professional) has a very nasty habit when coupled with Visio 2003 - it constantly overrides the Visio button and menu bars in order to make sure that its own button bar and menu items are persistent. So, I will set up the button bars and menus like I want in Visio. It will run just fine, until I exit. Then, when I restart Visio, Acrobat has reset the Visio button bars and menus to their initial state and added buttons and menu items for itself.

I wasn't absolutely positive that it was an Acrobat problem until today. But my 30 day Acrobat 8 test license is expired and I managed to uninstall it (not without having to reboot both before and afterwards). And guess what? Visio is running great - remembering button bars and menus across program executions.

What is interesting here is that Acrobat 8 tries to do the same thing with the rest of Office 2003, but doesn't screw the rest of the programs up this way. The button bar and menu customization, etc. look the same across all these Microsoft products, but apparently isn't, since Acrobat only screws up Visio.

Nevertheless, I am hesitant to purchase and install Acrobat 8 for just this reason.

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Weird computer problems Weird computer problems

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I have a new computer. Ignoring that it comes with Windows Vista, otherwise it works great - except that I was loading a page in a Firefox and an advertisement was flashing so fast that it was almost uncomfortable to watch.

My guess at the problem is that the new computer has two 3 ghz processors. That is a lot of horsepower, and when misused as was done with that advertisement, the results are not always pleasant. My guess is that the designers of the ad just assumed that it would run slow enough that they didn't have to worry about inserting delays. They were wrong.

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Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Vista #2 Vista #2

I am still underwhelmed with Windows Vista, esp. as I find more and more places where Vista Home Premium has been intentionally crippled to entice us to upgrade.
  • I downloaded some free software from the HP web site to my desktop. Well, I thought that it was to my desktop, but it didn't show up there. But I was able to see it if I opened the desktop as a folder. I refreshed the desktop. Not dice. What was going on? Apparently, the install file is downloaded with a "do not index" attribute set, and because of that, it wasn't showing on the desktop.
  • Vista comes with folder menu bar disabled. It took two days to figure out how to turn it back on. I still can't set up a folder icon bar.
  • Folder shortcuts have mostly disappeared. These are like regular shortcuts, except that when you put them in the start menu, you can traverse them as pull-down menus. This can be quite convenient.

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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Google Complains About Microsoft's Vista Google Complains About Microsoft's Vista

Google Complains About Microsoft's Vista points out a different problem than the one I expected after bringing up a Vista computer last night. I was struck by the fact that IE has a similar search window to Firefox, but that it defaults to Yahoo. This was again one of those places where MSFT seemed to be using its strength here to push out Google. I was ultimately able to set up Google as my default search engine on the Internet, but not without some pain.

But apparently MSFT is going a bit further in trying to thwart Google. It appears that MSFT is crippling the operation of Google Desktop, while embedding its own competing product in Vista.

I should note that this is just another place where I think Vista went in the wrong direction. Searching for the sort of stuff that I typically search for (i.e. files on my computer) has just gotten notably harder. Vista generalized the search interface, with the result that the types of searches that I do are significantly more cumbersome.

Maybe the difference is that I pretty much know where I store stuff. I tend to look for something very specific, such as a file with a certain extension created w/i the last week.

I did find it interesting that CA AG Jerry Brown is looking into Vista. This is governor moonbeam of a previous era, and then mayor of Oakland. I actually agree with him for once on something.

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Vista #1 Vista #1

Yesterday, I got my new computer, connected it up, booted it, and had my first experiences with Microsoft Vista (Home Premium). I had been dreading this, and now it was upon me. But, since I had essentially purchased the OS, I figured I might as well try it out.

The good news is that it wasn't as bad as I expected. The bad news is that it is still very questionable. First some of the good, before we get to the bad:
  • Nice new spiffy interface (that sucks CPU and memory). Icons are more three dimensional.
  • I could actually connect up to my local network and the Internet w/o as much trauma as I expected. Much better than XP Home Edition, whith makes connecting to other computers almost impossible.
  • Possible to set up standard shortcuts for starting to look for files.
  • Vista comes with IE 7, which has a lot of Firefox features, esp. the use of tabs.
  • Vista finds the other computers in the local network almost immediately. No five minute lag until the next update, etc. No having to search for computers you know are there because they are both hooked to the same hub.
Now some of the bad:
  • Its a bigger pig than I thought. I have two 3 mhz processors, and it still doesn't run that fast.
  • With over six times the processor power that I have on my server running Windows Server 2003, it still takes notably longer to boot.
  • Microsoft seemed to go out of its way to change things around. This was esp. bothersome as configuration stuff that went together intuitively, isn't together any more.
  • Most old drivers don't work. This was esp. bothersome with my MSFT keyboard and mouse - I spent twenty minutes tracking down the right drivers for my MSFT hardware. You would think that the company could at least include drivers for its own hardware.
  • No Tweakui. That means that I can't get rid of any number of annoyances that I have in the past, such as removing "shortcut" from all the shortcuts I create.
  • When you first sign on, the default security is so ridiculous that you have to approve of every program you run, even MSFT programs residing in the Windows directory.
  • Eventually, you can turn that off, but not without getting nasty error messages whenever you boot.
  • MSFT and HP have taken their tie-in advertising to a new high. You have to stand on your head to use your own ISP. There are dozens of shortcuts on the desktop, in the favorites, etc. that need to be dumped. It is about twice as bad as XP, which was pretty bad already.
  • A lot of nice features are in other versions of Vista, but to get them all, you have to upgrade to Vista Premium - for another $169. For example, there is no FAX software in either of the Home editions. And you can't play media with the Business edition. In other words, what used to be standard features are now only available through an expensive upgrade.
These are just off the top of my head. I am sure there will be more. So far, if I had been given the choice of XP or Vista, I would have picked XP in a heartbeat. I would never have paid for Vista, and am only using it because it comes bundled with new systems and XP does not (and I was never a fan of XP).

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Monday, June 11, 2007

DEFEAT 'EM ALL DEFEAT 'EM ALL

JOHN PODHORETZ: DEFEAT 'EM ALL:
SOMETHING revolutionary occurred Thursday in Washington: A major piece of legislation with bipartisan backing and the strong support of the president failed to pass the Senate.
Why? Because major legislation in the form of the immigration bill made it to the Senate floor with the backing of the Majority Leader (and the President), and was defeated on its merits. It consisted of 400 pages of revisions to the U.S. Code, and up until now, no one, outside the Congressional staffers who wrote it, would know enough about the legislation, soon enough, to defeat it on its merits. But an army of lobbyists, lawyers, and bloggers went to work on it, tore it apart, and showed that it wouldn't do what was being advertised, but rather would make the situation far worse.

Now, if we can just overcome conference committee earmarks. The problem there is that the earmark process has apparently moved to conference committee in order to shield it from just this sort of scrutiny. Now, instead of being able to vote to remove them, all Senators and Representatives have available is an up or down vote on the entire bill, massive earmarks and all.

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Sunday, June 10, 2007

Al Qaeda's new enemy -- Iraqis Al Qaeda's new enemy -- Iraqis

LAT: Al Qaeda's new enemy -- Iraqis. A somewhat surprising source for this. Al Qaeda has gone too far, and has alienated many of those who would be expected to be its most loyal supporters, the Sunni Arab tribes. A year ago, Anbar province was declared lost. Today, violence is plummeting, and other provinces are following suit. The Sunni tribes in the lead, backed by Iraqi Army and U.S. troops is working to cleanse these provinces of these mostly foreign born terrorists.

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George Will: Democrats' Prosperity Problem George Will: Democrats' Prosperity Problem

George Will: Democrats' Prosperity Problem
They have a problem. How do you exclaim, as Hillary Clinton does, that today's economy is "like going back to the era of the robber barons" and insist that the nation urgently needs substantial tax increases, in the face of these facts:

In the 102 quarters since Ronald Reagan's tax cuts went into effect more than 25 years ago, there have been 96 quarters of growth. Since the Bush tax cuts and the current expansion began, the economy's growth has averaged 3 percent per quarter, and more than 8 million jobs have been created. The deficit as a percentage of gross domestic product is below the post-World War II average.

Democrats, economic hypochondriacs all, see economic sickness. They should get on with legislating their cure.
President Reagan talked about a rising tide raising all boats. The reality is that it does. Crying about rising inequality is class warfare language aimed at garnering votes from the less fortunate. The problem is that if it is pursued, all suffer, and those at the bottom, suffer the most.

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Screaming Paris Hilton Sent Back to Jail Screaming Paris Hilton Sent Back to Jail

Screaming Paris Hilton Sent Back to Jail:
Screaming and crying, Paris Hilton was escorted out of a courtroom and back to jail Friday after a judge ruled that she must serve out her entire 45-day sentence behind bars rather than in her Hollywood Hills home.
Some have asked why so many conservatives are showing compassion for Ms. Hilton. At least for me, it is that I hear her pain. She sounds like a five year old being disciplined. The problem is that she isn't five any more, and so the discipline doesn't stop after a stint in her own room for an hour or so. It hurts to discipline the five year old, and it hurts to discipline a woman twenty years older who wasn't disciplined as a five year old, and so is being disciplined that much more harshly now.

The other emotion I feel here is embarrassment, embarrassment for her patents to whom she cried for help. Embarrassment for the public humiliation of being shown to having been abysmal parents for not disciplining their daughter as a five year old, but rather letting her grow into an adult who had no concept of the consequences of her actions.

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Poll: Majority Says Paris Hilton’s Plight Good for America Poll: Majority Says Paris Hilton’s Plight Good for America

ScrappleFace: Poll: Majority Says Paris Hilton’s Plight Good for America:
An overwhelming majority of Americans say they’ve never felt better about themselves than during the past several weeks as they follow the story of Paris’ Hilton’s conviction and incarceration.

Indeed, some 87 percent of those polled said they relished feeling superior to someone who, according to cultural norms, should be considered superior to them. In brief, researchers say their findings show: “What’s bad for Paris Hilton is good for America.”

The CBS News/New York Times survey also showed that, 58 percent of Americans were willing to see Ms. Hilton suffer further disgrace, prolonged imprisonment or even death for the good of the nation.

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Saturday, June 09, 2007

What Roosevelt Didn't Know What Roosevelt Didn't Know

TCS Daily: What Roosevelt Didn't Know points out that many of the actions that presidents Hoover and then Roosevelt undertook during the Great Depression were counterproductive at a minimu, and in some cases, quite harmful.

Many have argued that the major fault was in following the precepts of John Maynard Keynes. This article suggests that Keynes wasn't really that wrong, but rather, these administrations didn't understand what was going on well enough, and so in many cases, did exactly the wrong thing.

Probably the best example is that of inflation/ deflation. Closing all the banks, and then reopening only some of them, was horribly deflationary. But possibly as destructive, the Roosevelt Administration attempted to fight inflation by reducing supply, by essentially destroying foodstocks, despite people going to bed hungry. It didn't solve the deflationary problem, but did send even more people to bed hungry.

A lot of critics have suggested that much of the New Deal was implemented in order to forstall a communist revolution here. The idea being that if we had some socialism, the more radical communist version would not be as attractive. But this article suggests that most of the negative impact of the New Deal was rather just a result of totally misunderstanding economics.

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Journalists, You're in the Army Now Journalists, You're in the Army Now

TCS Daily: Journalists, You're in the Army Now
The days of the independent, neutral war correspondent, objectively reporting from a war's front lines, are quickly coming to an end. In the future, a war correspondent will either effectively be a soldier for one faction of a conflict, or he will literally not survive in the war zone.
In this war, the only way that journalists can safely survive is by being protected by the military. The journalists who embed with our troops are fine, it is just the ones who try to go it alone.

What the article doesn't address is that our enemies are using captive journalists much more effectively than we are. What is worse, is that much of what these captive journalists generate in the way of news, film, etc. is being relayed to the MSM with little questioning of its accuracy.

So, in the end, we have journalists being advocates for one side or another, which is fine, just as long as everyone knows the score.

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Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle: June 2007 Update Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle: June 2007 Update



Fourth Rail: Iraqi Security Forces Order of Battle discusses the current status of the Iraqi army. The map shows the status of the status of the Iraqi provinces. White areas are still under U.S./coallition control. Light green provinces have Iraqi forces in the lead, and dark green are provinces that have been fully turned over to the Iraqis. The big gray area to the left (west) is Anbar province, and it is moving a lot faster than anyone expected, even a couple of months ago.

Some of the commenters questioned the accuracy of the Iraqi army figures. The U.S. does appear to be doing some verification as to actual troop levels, etc.

Finally, it looks like the Iraqi army intends to grow by 50,000 troops a year for the forseeable future. Many of those will go to replace our troops, as we hopefully start pulling them out.

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Democrats trying to soak the "rich" (again) Democrats trying to soak the "rich" (again)

According to WaPo: Democrats Seek Formula To Blunt AMT, the Democrats running Congress are trying to crank up the taxes on the "rich" to alleviate the AMT that is expected to bite 23 million taxpayers this next spring. One proposal by the Urban and Brookings Institutes would raise taxes on individuals making more than $100k (and families over $200k) by 4% in order to reduce the bite of the AMT. Never mind that $100k is far from rich, or that those getting hit by this surtax are already paying most of the taxes in this country. So, the more reasonable proposal is making the rounds, of only applying a (slightly larger) surcharge of 4.3% to incomes over $250k (or $500k for married filing jointly).

Of course, the solution would be to just eliminate the **** AMT. But that can't happen, because of the static analysis that Congress has intentionally imposed upon itself. Tax cuts must be offset with either spending cuts or other tax increases. And, of course, Congress is incapable of cutting spending. But this rule ignores that taxes significantly cut into economic growth, so cutting tax rates can often bring in more taxes.

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