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Friday, August 28, 2009

Potpourri CII

Working on clearing my inbox while I do laundry and pack for Europe. One week to go. HOO-wah!

This is important and disturbing, so it's moving to the top of the pile: aides to Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) are drafting legislation that would give the president power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet during a "cybersecurity emergency," whatever the heck that is. An amazing amount of commerce is performed via internet. If this bill passed, a large segment of the population and the private sector might find itself unable to conduct busines or communicate electronically. How's that hope and change working out for ya?

The first image of a complete molecule has been captured. Amazing!

Don't try this at home or on safari!

More from the animal kingdom...painting elephants. I can't help wondering if these elephant artists have started smoking and complaining about how the bourgeois tourists don't understand how they suffer...

Mahmoud Ahmadenijad wants to prosecute his political opponents in the recent Iranian election for stirring up trouble (e.g. daring to question him)...you know: kinda like prosecuting Bush administration officials after the last election.

From @skytland, a panel summary from "South by Southwest" (a.k.a. SXSW), one of the largest new media events in the country. The panel topic? "Moon 2.0," which is to say, participatory space exploration of the moon. My buddy Doc might be going to this event. I'll get my media fixes vicariously through him.

Someone else is looking to build a space hotel. I've got to confess: the more I think about the effects of weightlessness, the more I think staying the heck here sounds like a great idea. Is it heresy for a space advocate to say that? Probably, but there ya go. Happy to have the opportunity to go, but really, I've got laundry to do. Or something.

CNN is reporting that some sectors of the economy are reviving themselves without government assistance. You know: that whole "invisible hand" thing that some of my liberal friends don't trust or don't believe exists. My question is: if that's the case, can we stop with the bailouts already and not spend the rest of that trillion-dollar "stimulus?" As Father Dan puts it to me when I ask silly rhetorical questions, "Get a grip!" The stimulus isn't about stimulating the economy. We already had proof when Bush did it that government stimulus spending does not work, and that was $700 billion worth. Then Obama doubled down with over a trillion. So the answer to my question is, yes, we can stop with the bailouts, but we won't because President Obama has a different agenda in mind. So here's the game plan:

  1. Jack up government spending to show that he's "doing something."
  2. Admit after the fact that the deficit is too high.
  3. Raise taxes to pay down the deficit, which is what Obama wanted to do in the first place because he's a strict redistributionist.

As usual with government-centered attempts to redistribute wealth in an economy, this plan will fail because rich people will either move out of the country, stop working, or eventually run out of money. Once that happens, he goes after the middle class and raises their taxes so that their money can be used to "make things more fair." And when there are no more rich people or middle class (except, of course, the government officials dispensing this "social justice"), well then we'll all be equal...in our misery. How's that hope and change working out for ya?

Michael Vick played his first game in Philadelphia and got a standing ovation from the fans. Which more or less proves what I was grousing about when he first got his gig with the Eagles: social stigma and bad publicity don't have any force anymore. Shame on them and shame on us when all that matters is victory without considering the character of those achieving it. If the fans in Philly don't have any shame about hiring this thug, will the fans of the teams playing against the Eagles reject Vick and not show up for the games? To repeat Father Dan's comment, "Get a grip!"

Laundry is still in progress, but I'm done clearing out the inbox. Never mind my grumpiness, have a great day!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That bill from the yokel in WV not only won't pass, the technology doesn't really work like the bill seems to assume. Sound and fury, signifying nothing (except a certain legislator's complete ignorance of how computer networks work :P).

Bart said...

Well, that's good to know. There ARE ways to screw up the internet--as hackers and the ChiComs well know. My guess is that the Wizards of Smart in DC could still use this bill to target/take down specific web sites. THAT is most definitely possible.