Friday, January 27, 2006

Dowd: Clinton a "Poignant and Endearing" Liar


The egregious Maureen Dowd was visiting (where else?) the Keith Olberbat show which -- if Nielsens are a measure of health -- is in the ICU and fading fast. The issue? Lying Presidents. Ding ding! We've got a winner: Bill Clinton. And Dowdy is somewhat infatuated with the ex-Prez; when Clinton lied, it was "poignant and endearing":

No, they're two entirely different things because when Bill Clinton would deceive, he would throw in a semantic clue that let you know he was deceiving. 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.' We knew what he meant by that. You know, 'I did not,' about dope, 'I didn't break the laws of this country.' So it was sort of poignant and endearing. He would let you know he was lying, and then the right wing would come down so hard on him and overpunish him. And in the case of Bush, he's just in a completely different reality. You know, they call us the 'reality-based community,' and they create their own reality, and so Bush is just in a bubble. And when you're in the bubble, you don't know you're in the bubble.


Ain't it the truth? The bubble part, that is. Someone's in the bubble, all right, and it ain't George W. Bush.

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Latest at Google: new results page and algorithms?

There are reports that some Google users are seeing a spiffy new version of the search engine's results page (a direct link to a screen shot is here). The new page includes a graphical representation of results in each category (image, video, etc.) using simple bar-graphs.

In addition, there are rumors that a major new page-ranking algorithm will be released soon (code-named: "Big Daddy"). Supposedly, the IP addresses 66.249.93.104 and 64.233.179.104 represent gateways to the new algorithm. In a quick test, I did notice a few minor differences in search result order, but nothing dramatic. A more comprehensive test is certainly warranted, however.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Alpha Five wins CRN Database of the Year


I missed this the first time around, but in perusing Dave's blog -- and then Pete's -- found out that our illicit love-child -- Alpha Five -- recently won a major award. Alpha Five is a popular end-user database and its most recent incarnation, version 7, beat out FileMaker and Microsoft Access to take Computer Reseller News' Database of the Year for 2005.

This is truly an amazing accomplishment for Alpha, and a testament to the design abilities of Selwyn Rabins and the develpment talents of Cian Chambliss. It's astounding to think that such a small company could meet Microsoft -- head to head -- and beat it hands down in this type of competition. It truly is a David-against-Goliath story.

Back in, oh I don't know, 1989, I worked for Alpha. It was a small, but growing company, selling a very popular database for DOS called Alpha Four. Jim Gerow had helped create the original version of the product ("Database Manager 2 - The Integrator"). Pete and Jim then collaborated on subsequent products: Alpha Three and Alpha Four. The latter, an immensely popular product, was written in C and had -- by that time -- grown to a point where it was well nigh unmaintainable. Pete and I used to go on long walks to discuss the nature of the beast, which was getting close to driving us both insane.

We knew that Windows was coming out shortly (actually, May 1990) and I used to walk into the co-President's (Selwyn's) office on a regular basis to bitch and moan complain that the code was not going to take us into the Windows 3.X world. He probably just got sick of hearing me say it, but he did give me permission to begin work on the design of a new, Windows-based database.

I began sketching out a layered architecture for the product and Pete soon finished up his A4 tasks and joined me. Dave also was a key hire who -- I think -- was the third member of our team. Soon others, including the inimitable Gerry Polucci, joined us -- Gerry straight out of school as a CS grad -- and contributed greatly to the product.

This team, with the invaluable counsel of product manager Peter Mesnik, delivered the first two versions of Alpha Five back in the mid-nineties. Of course, the product now probably bears scant resemblance to what we created, but I'm sure each of us is proud of our involvement in the product line even if little of our code remains.

Two things I wanted to mention:

1) Selwyn is a design genius. Not graphical design, but user-interface design for databases. What Adam Bosworth might have been to Borland and Microsoft, Selwyn has been to Alpha -- with far fewer weapons to bring to bear. His understanding of the fundamental problems related to small business databases, his empathy for users, and his willingness to think outside the box are truly without peer.

This sort of design effort is art, not science. Selwyn -- with the equally incredible business acumen contributed by his brother, Richard -- has been able to translate that into an outstanding suite of products.

2) Cian is a development genius. His original work on the award-winning AlphaWorks product (which competed with Microsoft Works -- and actually beat it in some reviews -- was subsequently sold to Lotus and then ruined later discontinued). His most recent work on the astonishingly complex Alpha Five database (even version 1 was over 600,000 lines of C code... I shudder to think how big it is today) demonstrates that he is truly a master of complex software design.

Go visit the Alpha site. And if you need a database product, buy yourself a copy. You'll be amazed. I promise.

ABC: The Education Monopoloy is Cheating our Kids


Lackadaisacal students. Poor test results. An unceasing litany of tax hikes. John Stossel's report on our disfunctional educational system is aptly named. It's called, "Stupid in America."

Jay Greene, author of "Education Myths," points out that "If money were the solution, the problem would already be solved … We've doubled per pupil spending, adjusting for inflation, over the last 30 years, and yet schools aren't better."

He's absolutely right. National graduation rates and achievement scores are flat, while spending on education has increased more than 100 percent since 1971. More money hasn't helped American kids.

Ben Chavis is a former public school principal who now runs an alternative charter school in Oakland, Calif., that spends thousands of dollars less per student than the surrounding public schools. He laughs at the public schools' complaints about money.

"That is the biggest lie in America. They waste money," he said.


So what's the solution? As usual, competition. Not only does it work -- and it's been proven to do so in other countries -- it's astonishingly successful:

To give you an idea of how competitive American schools are and how U.S. students performed compared with their European counterparts, we gave parts of an international test to some high school students in Belgium and in New Jersey... [the] Belgian kids cleaned the American kids' clocks, and called them "stupid."

...American schools don't teach as well as schools in other countries because they are government monopolies, and monopolies don't have much incentive to compete. In Belgium, by contrast, the money is attached to the kids — it's a kind of voucher system. Government funds education — at many different kinds of schools — but if a school can't attract students, it goes out of business.


Sip the sweet nectar of wisdom and read the whole thing.

MetalStorm


The U.S. Army is planning tests for its next-generation "super-gun" from a company appropriately named Metal Storm. It can fire 240,000 projectiles per minute and operates without any moving parts. Among other capabilities, it can take out enemy mortar rounds.

Two thoughts: (a) I want one; and (b) "Come get some, alien b***hes!!".

CNN's Interview with a Crackpot


How CNN could devote several precious minutes of airtime to a delusional crackpot is anyone's guess. Hugh Hewitt provides the transcript and valuable commentary.

Wolf Blitzer: ...those are powerful words, calling an agency of the US government, the Department of Homeland Security, with what about 300,000 federal employees, the new Gestapo. Do you want to take that back?

HB: No not really. I stand by my remarks... [rant omitted]

WB: But let me interrupt for a second. Are you familiar and I am sure you are because you are an intelligent man, what the Gestapo did to the Jews in World War II.

HB:: Absolutely.

WB: And you think that what the Department of Homeland Security is doing to some US citizens suspected of terrorism is similar to what the Nazis did to the Jews?

HB: Well, if you are taking people out of the country, and spiriting them someplace else, and they are being tortured, and they are being charged or not being charged so they will know what it is that they have done, it may not have been directly inside the, inside the Deaprtment of Homeland Security, but the pattern, the system, it is what the system does, it is what all these different divisions have begun to reveal in their collective...

WB: But no one has taken you or anyone else as far as I can tell to an extermination camp and by the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, even millions decided to kill them which is what the Nazis did.

HB: Mr. Blitzer, let me say this to you. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the Jews of Germany and people spoken out much earlier and had resisted the tyranny that was on the horizon, perhaps we would never have had Adolph Hitler and the Gestapo.


I take it from his statement that Mr. Belafonte is an avid gun-rights supporter because -- long before the Gestapo came into being -- Hitler had issued comprehensive gun-control laws. Surely, if the Jews had been permitted to possess light weaponry, they could have "resisted the tyranny" brought about by tens or hundreds of thousands of heavily-armed Nazis.

Ivins: "I will not support Hillary"


Famed liberal columnist Molly Ivins makes it clear she won't be supporting you-know-who:

I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president.

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges...


Uh oh. Sounds like the Mediacrats' Left Bank has given up on all of Hillary's reconnoitering, poll-reading, and pandering to the American centrists.

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Hacks, Hacks, and still more Hacks

The jamokes over at O'Reilly have published a great cheat-sheet of hacks. The categories include:

Access | Amazon | Apache | Astronomy | BlackBerry | Blogging | BSD | Car PC | Digital Photography | Digital Video | eBay | Email | Excel | Firefox | Flash | Gaming | Google | Greasemonkey | Halo 2 | Home Theater | iPod and iTunes | IRC | Java | Knoppix | Linux Desktop | Linux Multimedia | Linux Server ........

read more | digg story

Key Democratic Voting Bloc now online in Maryland


The Mediacrats are moving their chess pieces around the board, trying to maximize their constituency for the '06 and '08 elections. Their key voting blocs include, of course, felons, corpses, and multi-state voters (hat tip: PoliPundit):

[Maryland] Measure restores vote to all felons

Democratic lawmakers, who have long pushed to restore voting rights to Maryland felons, say racial politics and election-year considerations make this the year they open the polls to every ex-convict.


Sometimes these stories just write themselves.

And now you know why the Mediacrats fight voter-ID legislation at every turn: corpses can't vote if you card them.

NSA International Wiretaps: Hayden slam-dunks the Mediacrats


The invaluable Powerline informs us of the definitive interview relating to the legality of the NSA's international wiretaps. Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, spoke at the National Press Club and also entertained questions from a bevy of mediacrats (and a few others).

And, no, you won't see any of this detail reported in your daily newspaper. I know, I just checked a few online. The money question and answer:

QUESTION: General Hayden, the FISA law says that the NSA can do intercepts as long as you go to the court within 72 hours to get a warrant.

I understood you to say that you are aggressively using FISA but selectively doing so. Why are you not able to go to FISA as the law requires in all cases? And if the law is outdated, why haven't you asked Congress to update it? [Ed: Note how the journalists immediately encapsulate the Democrats' critique of the NSA program in their questions.]

GEN. HAYDEN: Lots of questions contained there. Let me try them one at a time. First of all, I need to get a statement of fact out here, all right? NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours.

In the instances where this program applies, FISA does not give us the operational effect that the authorities that the president has given us give us. Look. I can't -- and I understand it's going to be an incomplete answer, and I can't give you all the fine print as to why, but let me just kind of reverse the answer just a bit. If FISA worked just as well, why wouldn't I use FISA? To save typing? No. There is an operational impact here, and I have two paths in front of me, both of them lawful, one FISA, one the presidential -- the president's authorization. And we go down this path because our operational judgment is it is much more effective. So we do it for that reason...


Go ye and read of it, for it is good.

Monday, January 23, 2006

World Tracker - Turns anyone into a cellphone spy

It may only be available in the UK -- for now -- but this GoogleMaps-based service has spy-gear written all over it. You can track someone's physical location using their mobile phone number. And it's especially useful for keeping tabs on your teenagers.


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Mouseless Firefox

Lifehacker describes how to use Firefox without ever touching your mouse. If you're an old-school, keyboard-preferring user -- or you just hate moving your arm over to grab the mouse -- check it out.


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When Moonbats Attack


This week, Washington Post columnist Deborah Howell discovered just how open-minded and tolerant today's far-left wing of the Democratic party is. Don't the ultra-liberals among us revel in free speech, open debate, and honest dialogue? Especially when it's written in one of the mediacratic bastions -- the WaPo? Read the whole thing.™

Speaking of Moonbats


Harry Belafonte, as you may have heard, went off on another barely coherent political rant:

Entertainer Harry Belafonte, one of the Bush administration’s harshest critics, compared the national Homeland Security department to the Gestapo and attacked the president as a liar during a fiery Saturday speech.

“We’ve come to this dark time in which the Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended... You can be arrested and not charged, you can be arrested and have no right to counsel,” said Belafonte, who called President Bush “the greatest terrorist in the world” during a trip to Venezuela two weeks ago. Belafonte, 78, made that comment after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.


That would be the same Hugo Chavez accused of electoral fraud, human rights violations, political repression, and virulent anti-semitism.

After the speech, Belafonte was arrested and sentenced -- without trial -- to fifteen years at Gitmo.

The phrase "out-of-touch" isn't quite sufficient to deal with the likes of Belafonte, whose Moonbat-Blinders™ keep him sufficiently insulated from all events occurring in the real world.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Could Zonealarm be... spyware?

It appears that the ZoneAlarm Security Suite surreptitiously phones home, even when instructed to remain mute. InfoWorld Editor James Borck reports that ZA6 appears to transmit encrypted data back to four different ZoneLabs servers, even if all of the suite's communication options are disabled.

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Not so Hillary-ious Hijinks


Ladies and gentlement, may I present the one, the only, the countess of hypocrisy, the mistress of mendacity, the governess of gullibility...

We cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons," she said. "In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations.

-- Hillary Clinton


Uhmmm, grarrumph, *** throat-clearing noise ***

The Russia the Senator refers to would be the same one [Clinton VP] Al Gore cut a deal with that emboldened "sales of missile and nuclear technology to Iran" and, if you believe Zbigniew Brzezinski and James Schlesinger, the sale "of highly threatening military equipment such as modern submarines, fighter planes, and wake-homing torpedoes."


...and there's also this:

Senator Clinton has accused President Bush of downplaying the threat from Iran while she has been accepting money from supporters of the Iranian regime.

Wealthy businessmen Hassan Nemazee and Faraj Aalaei are associated with the American Iranian Council, a pro-regime anti-sanctions group. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Namazee has contributed $4,000 to Clinton's reelection while Aalaei has given $1,000...


Yes, Hillary talks a hard-line -- bashing the administration -- while reportedly banking Iranian money for her campaign coffers.

There may be some sort of record for duplicity here, although the litany of questionable behavior in her husband's administration represents formidable competition.

"Rendering... nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete"


ENDGAMEThere's this:

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering those nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

-- Ronald Reagan, Address to the Nation, March 23, 1983


and then there's this:

...a group of countries, led by Israel and the U.S., had been working since 1981 on a mega-secret project to develop and deploy a weapon system that can neutralize nuclear weapons.

The highly advanced, space-deployable, BHB weapon system, code-named XXXBHB-BACAR-1318-I390MSCH, has extraordinary potential and is a key part of the West's deterrence strategy. For the past twenty-five years, the project and the scientists involved in it were kept in strict secrecy and their existence denied. The scientists rejected Nobel Physics prize and Nobel Peace prize nominations and have been
repeatedly and deliberately the subject of intense military disinformation through the media in order to divert attention from their highly secretive work...

...Although we have only limited information, it appears that Iran's rapidly developing nuclear capabilities could be neutralized and rendered obsolete, as could the capabilities of other rogue countries...

-- Thomas McInerney, Paul Vallely writing in Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror

Top Ten Ronald Reagan Quips


If there was a better orator (or quipster) than Reagan, I have yet to hear him. I still get goosebumps thinking about his last major speech at the '92 GOP National Convention.

10. "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." —Remarks at a business conference, Los Angeles, March 2, 1977

9. "You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans." —The Observer, March 29, 1981

8. “Thomas Jefferson once said, "We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying." —Circa 1988

7. "I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting." —Said often during his presidency, 1981-1989

6. "How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." —Remarks in Arlington, Virginia, September 25, 1987

5. "The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." —Remarks to the White House Conference on Small Business, August 15, 1986

4. “I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.” —Said often during his presidency, 1981-1989

3. "All great change in America begins at the dinner table." —Farewell Address to the Nation, The White House, January 11, 1989

2. "I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born." —The New York Times, September 22, 1980

1. "There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit." — First Inaugural Address, January 21, 1981


Human Events: Top 10 Greatest Quips from Ronald Reagan and Miscellaneous Reagan Quotes

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Mark Steyn's Prediction for Hillary


Hypocrisy and Hillary. Those two words go together like wine and cheese... Abbott and Costello... Anna Nicole Smith and "diet-pills". Now Mark Steyn casts his prediction in stark terms:

Hillary: I believe that we lost critical time in dealing with Iran, because the White House chose to downplay the threats, and to outsource the negotiations. I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others, and standing on the sidelines. We cannot, and should not, must not, permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support, vigorously and publicly expressed, by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations.


HH: Now Mark Steyn, she says we can't outsource the negotiations, but what we need is more support from China and Russia.

MS: ...she's complaining that America outsourced the negotiations with Iran to France and Germany, instead of outsourcing them to China and Russia. You know, this is a pointless kind of oppositionism of the Democratic Party. If Bush had taken a unilateral line on Iraq. It he'd had Condi Rice going out there dealing directly with it, and saying we don't care what anybody else things, this is our position, this is what we're going to, they would have been the first to say oh, no. John Kerry would have been up there saying oh, no. You've got to get Jacques Chirac involved. It doesn't count unless the French and the Germans are on board. And the fact of the matter is, that Bush sat back here, and he let the multilateral thing go on, and the multilateral thing has failed, because essentially, these are mid-20th Century institutions that in Iran, the mullahs, think are a total joke.

HH: Now, she says we cannot, must not, let Iran have nuclear weapons. Do you think that extends, in Hillary's mind, to doing the one thing that will stop it, military action?

MS: ...She'll be in favor of Iran not having nuclear weapons until the planes start flying in and start bombing and destroying them, and the projection of American force becomes the means by which you stop Iran from having nuclear weapons. You know, at some point, the Democrats...I believe...I mean, a two party system requires two functioning, healthy parties. And this party has failed to play its part in the necessary Constitutional balance of the Republic. They've got to make some contribution to the existential challenge of the times. This is just pointless, sour oppositionism of no value whatsoever.


Precisely.™

Gaffney on Iran


Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center For Security Policy, discusses Iran on the Hugh Hewitt program:

I think it would be very foolish to rely upon the Israelis to try to do this. It may be that they can help us in various ways, but I think this is ultimately one that will determine much of the future of the free world, not least, Hugh, because of this fact. The Shiite extremists who run Iran today, subscribe to a view of the end state, the 12th iman's arrival, a messianic moment, will be presaged, and the prerequisite for it is death and destruction on a massive scale. It is the height of folly to leave in the hands of people like those the decision as to when we will do something about this metastasizing danger in their nuclear program.