Resistance Is *Not* Futile

Microsoft tried its usual trick -- forcing its new release down the throats of computer users. Vista is such a botch that this time customer pressure has forced hardware makers to back up and put XP on their new machines instead of the flawed and hated Vista.

When I heard about what sorts of pitfalls Vista invited, I had Linux installed on my new machine. I am sorry to report that, for average users, Linux is not yet friendly enough to just accept games and other things that were written for Windows without software in between that provides emulation and special handling. I am not going to install any Windows products on this machine, however, because it is time for me to learn to live without Microsoft.

You all know, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that one day we are going to have to learn to live without oil -- whether because Mr. Lunatic makes war on Iran or whether because all those imaginary oil deposits on the maps of wishful dreamers are nonexistent or inaccessible.

Learning to live without Vista is going to be a snap by comparison.

Just Say No.

Am I Misremembering History Classes?

Just because the Senate passes a piece of yellow, war-mongering legislation, wouldn't the House have to pass a similar or identical bill for it to become something ready for signing, and for being actual policy?

Just because we have a passel of morally blind, ethically crippled, blood sucking, blood-letting Senators, doesn't it mean that it is the duty of the House to stop them?

Just askin'....

That was not exactly an unannouced blogging break. It's just that Congress has been so distressing, and the news has been so same-ol' same-ol' that it was depressing to consider making comments. I've been making short ones elsewhere on the web, notably at The Sideshow, Whateveresque, The Mockingbird's Medley and assorted other places. But I really have just had no heart to discuss how miserably the Democrats have been rolling over.

The one news item that really annoyed me was the Ahmadinejad at Columbia stuff. Look, Columbia has a largely Jewish student body. Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier. The combination was a little predictable, except that introducing a speaker by insulting him is the rankest form of bad behavior -- the President could at least have waited until Ahmadinejad was a bad guest before being a bad host. It was a perfectly crappy thing for the representative of a University to do.

De Facto

BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government Monday ordered Blackwater USA, the security firm that protects U.S. diplomats, to stop work and leave the country after the fatal shooting of eight Iraqi civilians following a car bomb attack against a State Department convoy.

Now we will see who actually rules in Iraq. The Maliki government, or the Bushies.

Blackwater has been running loose in Iraq. The US strongarmed the government of Iraq into letting the "contractors" run around armed, and with immunity from prosecution. After the incident of fatal shootings this weekend, the Iraqi government has had enough.

I hope the government of Iraq makes this stick. It is time and past time that mercenaries stopped collecting blood money from US taxpayers for the privilege of killing the citizens of Iraq. We don't need to be paying them. Iraq doesn't need these vermin infesting their country. Let them go off and get jobs that are not taxpayer funded.

The Amount I Can Pay Attention

to politics, right now, is awfully tiny. I am glad that at least Edwards has the guts to want us to leave the sands and bring the troops back. My enthusiasm for other candidates hovers between a microgram and a negative amount.

I really wish that when Petraus came back and "clarified" his answer on safety, that the next question had been "Did a civilian give you an order to 'clarify' in this way?" That would have been ... illuminating, one way or the other.

Why is it that congressmen so often duck asking the hard questions?

Here is Another

(as if we needed another) reason never, ever to buy version one of any machine, no matter how revered and prominent the company that sells it.

A family took their iPhones on vacation outside the US. When they returned home it was to bills of $5,000 on those phones.

It turns out that iPhones check e-mail at regular intervals without prompting. Those phones were eating hundreds of dollars in net time every day without owner intervention.

Oh sure, all charges are "legitimate" according to the phone company. Just like all charges on a stolen phone are "legitimate".

Leaving US cellphones home and buying a disposable at one's destination seems to be the only way to go. If you lose it, only a bunch of prepaid minutes are available to the finders -- and your disposable will never make transatlantic calls to check e-mail, of all the stupid tricks.

iPhone. iScorn.

Bailouts

Normally, I don't like bailouts. Why should taxes make up the money from bad loans? From bad business decisions. To keep the rich just as rich as they think they ought to be?

Bush has suggested that high-end house loans should be bailed out.

Of course, the poor people will be left to drown ... uh, go under financially; but the half-millionaires will be rescued.

Why does that stink even worse than the usual bailout suggestion?

Bailouts in particular rescue the incompetent rich. The housing market is going down. Bush will figure out some way to rescue those with deep pockets. I hope that Congress refuses to play. Too many financial institutions have bought into the get-rich-quick of real-estate turnover. It's time to let them all just crash.

And When it is Too Late

When it is too late* will you wish you had impeached this lawless, arrogant, treasonous monster?

All of you who swore you would uphold the Constitution, are you really religious? Do your really believe that your God will punish you for lying in His sight?

Perhaps the rest of the world will have to take God's place. Perhaps the US Congress will have to stand with the administration in a massive war crimes trial. What reason is there for the US to attack any other country, aside from the insanity of its lying, cheating administration?

You, in Congress, know your duty. If you are afraid to do it, quit and let someone with a spine do it in your place.

[crosspost Mockingbird's Medley]
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*New link inserted

The missing link via Kos was a story about a lower level Navy person who was twitching because every last missile is being brought in, a list of targets exists, and every person who questions the wisdom of bombing Iran disappears, and is replaced by someone who spouts the party line.

One particular line said "everything flows from the top down. There is no discussion, not among commanders, and not among the people who will be expected to carry out the orders." It spoke of someone asking a question that was perfectly normal -- and the fact that it was then discussed in undertones out on the flight deck rather than in normal tones in the wardroom.

And now the story has disappeared. It doesn't exactly undermine the character of what the story reported, to have it disappear, now does it? But folks other than Kos preserved it.