Bill's Words

Well thank God for that.

Let’s just hope that the legislature sees it as an open issue, too.

That’s a whole lotta’ Lego..

An observation about rants, in particular, this one.

Silly Mr. Leeeeee who wrote that rant claims there’s no person at the North Pole named “Santa Clause.”

Just like there’s no guy in the White House named “George W. Bushe.”

Seriously… If you’re going to rant about something, at least spell it right.

And… did you have to be so darned mean?

(Thanks, Laura!)

After reading the liberal-leaning, Obama-lovin’ status updates and posts of a bunch of my liberal friends on FaceBook, I realized that I wasn’t reading any comments—none—from right-leaning, McCain-friendly conservatives.

I pondered this for many moons. And last night, I finally understood why there aren’t any conservatives ranting about McCain this or Obama that:

It’s because we’re conservative.

Duh.

Where are the right-wing loudmouths? You wanna’ talk about the definition of oxymoron…

In general (with exceptions, of course), it’s because we’re naturally disinclined to share our opinion. We keep our values and opinions close to the chest because we’re (get this, now) conservative. And that’s why Tom Cruise and Madonna and their ilk suck up the headlines. It’s because there’s no competition!

Not that they’d get any headlines even if there were…

I just hope all these silent majority show up at the polls this November.

Article here.

Stop selling!

Don’t you idiots know that the best way to drive a market into the ground is to sell, sell, sell?! That increasing supply lowers prices?!

What the heck do you expect to do with the proceeds of your sales? Invest in worthless bonds? Or put your money away in a bank so that inflation can destroy it for you?

Good God, people! Look at the bargains out there and buy, buy, buy!!

Article here.

The subject and title of the page is a bit misleading in that the problem really seems to have nothing to do with Parallels, but the solution is right on:

If you are experiencing really slow typing performance (“slower than frozen snot”) in Excel 2008 for Macintosh and you have files in File>Open Recent Items… which are from a Windows network volume, then go to Excel>Preferences>General and disable Show this number of recent documents.

Performance should become snappy again.

I was flipping channels and saw something called “Link TV,” a whole channel which was apparently in the process of fundraising because, as it claimed, it is viewer-supported TV.

Nobrain and Numbnuts were on and, since they were wearing Link TV T-shirts, I assume they are somehow associated with LinkTV. They were being interviewed by Talkingheadinasuit who was throwing them softballs.

Nobrain declared that “You could be in the military and learn stuff, like throwing grenades and shooting things, but that’s not a job with real-world skills.” Numbnuts then said something about a group of kids who had “started a document, a manifesto,” and I had to change channels. (Red Dawn on MGM, if you must know. How fitting.)

I wish I could have told them that I went to school to learn how to be an electrical engineer, that I did learn how to be an electrical engineer. That the United States Air Force paid me to do so. That the USAF then hired me to work for them. That I did nothing in the USAF that didn’t help me in my current job as an electrical engineer. That in my training, I learned exactly nothing about grenades, though I did learn how to shoot a 0.38 special (how’s that for firepower?!). And that my job when I graduated was, strangely enough, a job in the “real world.” My boss just happened to be the USAF.

What Nobrain doesn’t realize, of course, is that there’s a lot more to being in the military than shooting guns and throwing grenades. Somebody has to lead, nay, manage these gunslingers and grenade-hurlers, for one. And then there are a bunch of people who have to support those people on the front line, and those jobs require specific, skilled knowledge with real-world applicability. Furthermore, these support personnel require leaders, er, managers, too, who have also done those real-world jobs in the very-real military.

I maintain that if these military jobs aren’t real-world jobs, providing real-world experience (and from which you can retire with real-world retirement benefits), then there is no way in hell that Nobrain and Numbnuts could convince me that a community organizing, lawyering lecturer can possibly have the right stuff, the experience, to be the leader of the free world.

So McCain’s not your cup of tea? At least he has done something. And, for those of you who don’t think the military is the “real world,” remember that people in the military are fighting, bleeding, and providing deterrence in their “pretend” world to protect your very-real butts.

Article here.

Just as soon as Steve steps down as CEO and they hire an idiot a visionary to take his place, I’m sure Apple will do just as Ballmer suggests.

Article here.

The subject article doesn’t come out and say it, so I will:

If you want money to go towards a good cause, just give the money to the good cause and skip the middleman.

You’re just getting the same product at a higher price, and someone else decides how much money goes towards the cause.

And takes your tax deduction.

It used to be that Digg used to be a great place to find a neat link to something new and different. A place where I would see how the “pulse of the Internet” was beating.

However, it’s become a dumping ground for liberal manure. There’s nothing of value on it anymore for a conservative websurfer. I find it hard to believe that the entire population of websurfers in the world are liberal, but that is the conclusion you could be reasonably expected to draw if you look at the most popular links for the last 24 hours on Digg.

Then I Googled “conservative Digg” and, Lo! I found some interesting things. First, I found TechRepublican.com, but that’s more incidental to my quest than anything else. Second, I discovered that Yahoo!’s Buzz drew more traffic than Digg in April of 2008.

Hmmm. Buzz? What’s that?

Buzz is a Digg-like site, but it’s considerably more balanced in its readership, apparently. I like it.

I like it a lot.

Reading today’s list of popular articles, there’s a pretty even mix of news (OJ, Paul Newman, some other stuff), not alarmist liberal manure, and tech (a phone from Nokia, that kind of thing), and even some conservative smackdown on liberals, though it’s balanced by liberal smackdown on conservatives.

And that’s OK. Because, as I’ve said before, there’s no such thing as a conservative Digger.

Buzz. If you used to use Digg, give it a look. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, I think.

Article here.

Well, whaddaya’ know. Even the bastion of the liberal mainstream media agrees with me:

It was fear, not greed, that was driving everyone’s actions.

As I’ve said before, and will probably say again.

Sarah Palin will face a pretty tough opponent in tomorrow’s Veep Debate. Biden is pretty good with the rhetoric, thinks fast on his feet, and will run over her if she’s not careful.

So how should she approach this monumentally-difficult task?

First, and foremost, she should deflate his sails however possible. Right up front, she should admit to her inexperience in international affairs and do her best to show that she, though a tough “hockey mom,” is also a fallible human being, that she’s not perfect. Biden won’t be able to use those points against her then.

Second, she’ll have to do a great job of differentiating herself from the old white guys (OWGs) in Washington without alienating the people who are relying on the fact that McCain is indeed an OWG.

Third, she’ll have to defend herself against the one-heartbeat-away argument by emphasizing that she is a leader, not a follower as many in government are (and which Obama aspires to be).

Finally, obviously, she can’t promote herself as anything similar to Obama; portraying herself with “young is better than old” would only serve to promote Obama’s position. And she should stick to her guns. If indeed she adheres to creationist doctrine, she shouldn’t waffle if questioned. If she thought the “bridge to nowhere” was a good idea at one point until she changed her mind, she should emphasize that she isn’t so dogmatic in views that she can’t be swayed by logic and reason. The McCain-Palin camp would be wise to have worked each of these attacks into Republican-winning, undecided-swaying rhetoric which—and this is important—she really believes.

It’s going to be tough, but, hey, if Obama can make it on looks and youth, his primary strengths, then Palin should be able to kick his butt, even though she’s playing second fiddle to McCain.

Here’s an interesting definition for you from InvestorWords.com:

Investment: In finance, the purchase of a financial product or other item of value with an expectation of favorable future returns. In general terms, investment means the use [of] money in the hope of making more money.

And here’s another definition for you, this time from The Free Dictionary:

gam·ble (gmbl) n. 2. An act or undertaking of uncertain outcome; a risk: I took a gamble that stock prices would rise.

I abridged the definition, and, no, I did not make up that example! And since gamblers count on making more than they lose, I can’t really tell much difference between the two definitions.

To recap:

If you consider yourself an investor and you have money tied up in the stock market, you’re a fool, because expectations don’t generally influence reality.

If you have money tied up in the stock market and you consider yourself to be a gambler, you’re on the right track.

So when your shares in Wachovia took a nosedive today, as mine did (what was worth five figures last month is now worth only a few hundred bucks), consider yourself unlucky today, and better luck next time!

I just finished watching No Country for Old Men.

Three letters and one punctuation mark summarize my opinion:

WTF?

Article here on HuffingtonPost.com. (Surprise! Not the Daily Koz!)

And in completely unrelated news,

Scientist Uncovers Miscalculation In Geological Undersea Record.

Huh. Scientists make mistakes (and that includes me, too). Whaddaya’ know.

Funny thing, though:

82% of the population are Christians, meaning that they adhere to beliefs which specify that a man rose from the dead.

One more time for extra-added emphasis:

82% of the population believes that a man rose from the dead.

Dead.

But then not dead.

And all according to some words written in a book. A very old book. Just words. No proof. No evidence. Just words. Written. Words.

And yet somehow they have a hard time believing that the earth is only 6,000 years old, according to that very same book. And its words.

We ridicule people who believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old. Openly ridicule them. Throw in dinosaurs and you become a laughingstock.

…

Don’t you think that the God who raised a man from the dead could possibly… just maybe… make the universe? In however long He felt like? And, more to the point, make it look however old He might want it to look?

Just askin’.

Google wants California gays to have the right to marry, and John Gruber approves.

But he implies that if someone is anti-gay-marriage, then they’re an “anti-gay bigot.”

No, John, they’re not. They’re anti-gay-marriage bigots. And lumping anti-gay-marriage bigots in with anti-gay bigots is like lumping Windows users in with anti-Mac Windows users. Some Windows users just use Windows. Other Windows users really hate Macs. But they’re not one in the same, so don’t go there.

Of course, if you’re using the word “bigot” in an inflammatory way, as I suspect you are, then recall that by definition you are equally and oppositely a bigot yourself. And you probably should be proud of it, or your values aren’t as deeply-rooted as you pretend.

At any rate, stick to Apple- and tech-related punditry, John. You’re good at it.

The rest of it? Do your Apple-related products and services sponsors a favor and drop it. I usually look at your sponsor announcement and think, “Meh. If they sponsor Daring Fireball, they’re probably happy sponsoring John’s political fantasies, too. Guess I won’t buy one of those.”

Check out Hyperion here.

I’ve said it all along: nuclear’s the way to go.

I still get these.

Somebody must fall for them, or they wouldn’t sill be in circulation.

Article here.

PETA needs to… how can I put it gently?

Oh, screw gently.

PETA needs to check out Ezekiel 8.

When they finally stop worshipping animals, then maybe I’ll have a listen to what they have to say.

Article here.

Great, it’ll replace 2 million barrels of oil and 724,000 tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime.

But I want to know something that nobody seems to be asking: How much oil and carbon dioxide is it going to take to make the darned thing? The mining process for the raw materials, the production, the shipping, the installation… it all takes oil and makes that awful carbon dioxide stuff. (Shouldn’t we outlaw expiration? That’s a huge source of carbon dioxide.)

There’s a lot of copper in that thing, too. I’m buying copper futures. (Is there such a thing?)

These may be small potatoes compared to what it’s going to replace, but nobody seems to have those numbers.

Just wondering because nobody else seems to be.