A brave new world ...

... where energy is plentiful but no one uses it.

Driving continues to decline as gas prices drop - Yahoo! News

It appears to me that Americans have felt the sting of energy shortages and are actually doing something about it. $4/gal gas has finally burned enough wallets that people are conserving. Luckily, even with the glut of energy we now have with the drop in the economy, people are still conserving energy.

Hopefully this trend will continue. We can avoid an energy crisis while advancing alternative fuel technology, avoiding the political quagmire that was offshore drilling.

We'll have to see what happens when the economy comes back up.

On the other side of the world, I can see all these oil countries panicking right now. Consider Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. Their entire economies are based solely on oil and they can't make any money off of it. They've been trying desperately to raise the price of oil by cutting production, but all they manage to do is spike the price temporarily and it continues to fall. I wonder what will happen in those countries as they lose this vast wealth. Soon, they'll be nothing but dust pots once more. Except for Venezuela, which will just kinda rot. They'll see Chavez' true colors soon.

Charity linked to Mumbai attacks

Pakistan turns screw on charity linked to Mumbai attacks - Yahoo! News

Yet another "Muslim charity" that serves as a front for terrorist activities. I think we should start looking at those politicians who defend these charities and start charging them with conspiring with terrorists.

War on Terrorism Update

6 alleged Islamic extremists charged in Belgium - Yahoo! News

Another victory in the War on Terror, another terrorist off the streets.

Hopefully, the Belgian authorities won't be coyed into thinking she's harmless because she's a woman, or be coerced into releasing her by terrorist sympathizers.

It's cold

Bitterly cold air hits much of nation - Yahoo! News

I guess it gives me a small amount of comfort that other people agree with me. It's cold. Very cold. Usually, my apartment is rather toasty, even with the thermostat set to about 65°F. It even tends to get very warm when it's cold out and I open the blinds.

Not this morning.

Playstation Home update

Penny Arcade! - A Penetrating Look

Tycho seems to hate it much. I wonder how much hate is deserved.

Perhaps I'm too masochistic.

Microsoft and Open Source, not versus?

Microsoft Revising 'us vs. Them' Attitude Toward Open Source (PC World) by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

This is the most surprising thing I've heard out of Microsoft in a long time.

When I heard they were including an RSS feeder in IE7 and they asked Firefox how they did it because they wanted to MATCH behavior, I was shocked. They apparently did that because they did NOT want to play the "well, it works in IE" game anymore. Other things about IE7, including the enhanced standards support, and especially IE8, which will BREAK certain IE specific code because it either relied on bugs or incorrect standards implementation, are starting to make me think that Microsoft is becoming far more amenable to the idea of fairly competing with rivals.

But this nearly blows everything out of the water! If they fully embrace this point of view, they may release many of their patents and make more of their systems interoperable in open source. Can we say IE for Linux? I don't think that's too far a bad thing.

Of course, they will always tout their software. As well they should. They're putting a lot of time, effort, and resources into developing these products. But now, with the inspiration of open source, it seems that they might actually be trying to develop something that actually helps people rather than selling crap because there was no other choice in the world.

Microsoft is evolving. And it will succeed in its new form.

Playstation Home

PlayStation Home Arriving as Open Beta From Thursday (PC World) by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

I shall be trying this soon. Let's see if I post a review.

The Blagojevich Senate Scandal

This is a juicy one, make no mistake. It's absolutely incredible how in the 21^st century, we can have '20s-style political maneuvering.

Ill. governor arrested in corruption scandal

Rod Blagojevich, the governor of Illinois, arrested on corruption charges related to his constitutional authority to appoint a new Senator upon the seat being vacated by President-elect Barak Obama. Incredibly, he was apparently trying to either get paid for the appointee, or get political favors by appointing someone. In addition, he was trying to force Tribune Co. to fire editorial writers who were criticizing him.

Probably the most amazing thing about it are the conversations. He did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he was literally selling Obama's seat! A quote from the above article, "'I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden,' he said of his authority to appoint Obama's replacement, 'and I'm just not giving it up for (expletive) nothing. I'm not gonna do it.'"

Probably one of the most comical things, though, is that he knew that it wasn't safe to use the telephones, even warning some of his people against using them, but he used them himself to discuss all these other things. He must have literally believed in "Do as I say, not as I do."

I like some of the comments the pundits here say: Illinois governor's arrest stuns politicos, like Don Rose, "I think this is beyond ordinary sanity. We're talking about something clinical here."

And poor Obama. He's not exactly in the middle of this mess, but he is a product of the same Chicago machine. This article discusses some of that: Big risks for Obama in Blago scandal. I think it's very likely that the media are going to take a microscope to the Chicago political machine and all its corruption, personified by Gov. Blagojevich, and it will be extremely difficult for Obama to differentiate from that, especially since he made it a point during the campaign to mention his involvement in Chicago politics as an example why he's ready to lead. About the only thing he can do now is call on him to resign, which he has. He can't really even pardon him of the crime, either. Leastaways, not until he's a lame duck.

The group that obviously has the most to gain from this would be the Republican Party. Not only would they have something to be able to keep Obama's feet over the fire a little bit, they would also be able to gain a seat in the Senate at the same time. There are calls out—from Democrats—to have Obama's seat up for special election rather than by gubernatorial appointment. With a special election comes the (sidelong) possibility of another Republican in the Senate. I have no party affiliation and intend on keeping it that way for a very long time, but the concept of ANY party having nearly a stranglehold on government is an abberation. More discussion: Special election could give GOP hope.

Be Aware!!!

I'm going to have another glut of posts! Hold onto your seats!

Royal Pomp

No sign of hard times as Queen opens Parliament - Yahoo! News

This is one of the coolest things I've ever read about. It's such a dramatic event in England just to open up Parliament.

Oh dear God

'Nanny' state? Drescher eyes Clinton's Senate seat - Yahoo! News

Senator Fran Drescher?! Why does New York want to torment the rest of the country?! Why can't we have a serious person actually try to run for a position of office? Oh, I'm sorry, she's not. She's vying to be APPOINTED to the seat. She perhaps thinks she can't handle being elected, so she's going to bypass the whole thing and be perpetually selected in a system that by default almost entirely ensures that an incumbent is placed in office as long as they don't get convicted of a crime (though I may actually be proven wrong on that one).

I guess it could be worse. After all, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to not suck massively as a governor, though I think several in California may think otherwise...

Obama, the techie president?

Civil Liberties Group Asks Obama for Tech Changes (PC World) by PC World: Yahoo! Tech

In my semi-humble opinion, I've seen very little to show that Obama knows technology any more than necessary to use a Blackberry, which is almost nothing. I don't have anything against Blackberries; they're very useful devices that enable people who need the connectivity to have it seamlessly. Very powerful devices they are indeed. But a tech-head a Blackberry user does not entail.

That said, I hope that this group, the Center for Democracy and Technology (this is the first time I've ever heard of them) isn't speaking to a brick wall. While the Patriot Act may very well be repealed only because Bush touched it, and therefore evil in the minds of leftists, I would like to see some sensible Internet policy being made.

There is an extraordinary lack of any form of privacy regulation to protect us except from the authorities, and even this is frequently ignored by groups such as the FBI. But even though some people consider personal information to be private—even though many people throw their personal information all over the Internet and somehow expect it to remain private—any information about anybody collected by a corporation belongs to the corporation. As in, the person who collected the information OWNS the information and can literally do with it as they please. Only a company's privacy policy, which they can change or rescind at any time, prevents them from selling that information to anyone they please.

I'm not sure what this "universal broadband" idea is. I've heard it several times, but it's just a catch phrase to me. Catch phrases uttered by any politician means absolutely jack squat (ok, maybe less) to me. Does he mean free? That sounds like a dumb idea, even though Democrats seem to love such ideas. Internet is not a right, nor should it ever be. Free speech is a right, but we don't demand that Shure place a microphone in the hands of every American, nor force Bic to give a pen to everyone in this country. Does he mean treating it like a public utility? That's a really interesting concept, and I'd like to learn about such a thing. I would, however, like to know how we don't have that already, considering how broadband internet is currently disseminated.

All in all, I'm most interested to know what he is going to do about freedom of information. I was surprised to learn that Ashcroft had sent a memo to government offices directing them to withhold FIA request information, directly conflicting with the spirit of the law. I don't know what it actually said, and the limited discussion of this in the news article suggests to me that a bias exists, but I do not like any restrictions of information from the Federal Government.

I also would like to see some extra protections on the Internet. It is a global forum on which anyone with a keyboard and a mind can propound whatever he or she so feels important enough, regardless of another's opinion of the intrinsic value of such. Lawmakers and political pundits like to make broad overreaching statements about "problems" that only they can fix (thereby ensuring their continued election in their respective offices), but when it comes to the internet, they don't get it. They hear the song "The Internet is for Porn" and believe it, and probably believe that the Internet should be outright banned because of such activity. Good luck with that.

So let's see what happens.

NATO-Georgia relations

NATO agrees thaw with Russia, boosts ties with Georgia, Ukraine - Yahoo! News

I'm really hoping that NATO can speed up its relations with Georgia and Ukraine to try to protect these nations from Russia. They're getting blatantly belligerent against any nation in its former sphere of influence having any identity of their own apart from Russia.

Every single country in the world (except Russia and Nicaragua), together with the United Nations recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia to be within the borders of Georgia and under its sovereignty. Russia has absolutely no respect for Georgia and does everything they can to destroy it area by area.

Let's see if our new president will have the balls to actually stand up against Russia and do what's right for the world. If Georgia wants to be a member of NATO, they should be, with all the protections thereof.

War on terror update

Charity convicted in terrorism financing trial - Yahoo! News

I'm glad they finally got something on the terrorists' financial network.

This "charity" group called "Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development" had been funding Hamas for years under the guise of helping Palestinians. Who knows how many other "Muslim charities" are out there "helping the disadvantaged". Funny how the disadvantaged are able to do so much killing and destruction.

Probably my favorite things is the woman in mourning. It seems that the tradition of professional mourners is alive and well in the Muslim world. They do a real good job ripping their clothes and beating their chests, sobbing seemingly inconsolably. Truly a sight to behold. Especially for television cameras.

First extrasolar planet pictures!

First fuzzy photos of planets outside solar system - Yahoo! News

I is a science nut.

This is one of the coolest things I have heard in a while. They have been trying to get a picture of an extrasolar planet for a long time. Thus far, they've only been able to detect planets based on measuring a nearly immeasurable "wobble" caused by the gravitational pull of the planet on the star. Now we very well may have actual pictures of these planets.

Unfortunately, these are pictures of massive gas-giants, 10 times larger than Jupiter. It's about the same with the above-mentioned "wobble" technique since you need a big enough gravitational force for us to be able to measure the shifting of the star.

Still, this is really cool. It was measured using the Hubble space telescope, which was a big deal when I was a kid. It's a rather old telescope. We have telescopes on earth that are able to compensate for the atmospheric disturbances and take pictures that are even clearer than Hubble.

Can you imagine that in the Victorian era they actually believed that there was nothing left in the universe to discover and it was the end of science?