Wednesday, February 23, 2011

To Filibuster or Not to Filibuster, generally there is no question

Fox News reported that Wisconsin Democrats kept the assembly all night with a good ol' filibuster, attempting to prevent Gov. Scott Walkers new "anti-union" laws.

I am more interested in the concept of Filibustering than I am in the shinanegings taking place in the midwest. Is it truly an efficient, appropriate and dare I say, mature way of developing law?

I have no real answers to those questions. I will continue to think and read about it, but maybe you have an answer?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Should I be Protesting About Something?

Protesting is in vogue, and I have nothing to protest about. The world is going protest-crazy. For a while now, all the protesting has been on the other side of the pond, but last week changed that. The cheese heads of Wisconsin have decided that they want to get in on the global trend and have started a protest of their own. According to Yahoo! news,

"Tens of thousands have demonstrated throughout the week against Republican Governor Scott Walker's proposed legislation, which supporters say is needed to bring spending under control and opponents contend would break the back of state worker unions."

Nope, I have no interest in protesting, on either side, for that. Perhaps I am supposed to want to protest. Should I get on a plane and hop on over to Super Bowl country for some Grade A, NYT front page worthy, protesting? I will find something worth protesting about, hopefully it will be a subway ride away.

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin




Computer for President... Follow up

IBM has decided to put world domination on hold while it racks up the chesed hours. That's right, Watson, the IBM computer that danced on Ken Jennings, is coming to our neighborhood, as none other than a doctor! I will be taking my yearly physical to Columbia Medical Center.... Mr. Luxenberg, Dr. Watson is ready to see you.

read more here...

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Presidential Facebooks

George W. Bush still has a fully functional Facebook page with 736,290 followers...not to shabby right? wrong. Barack Obama has a whopping 18,351,991 and the first lady not too far behind with 3,559,028

Now, do these numbers reflect popularity or are they merely reflective of the sudden boom in usage of Facebook and other social networking sites for politics. In other words, is Obama using Facebook better than Bush did? or are more people using Facebook in general. Also, when will my computer stop telling me that Facebook is misspelled... that will really be a testament to its popularity.

Only time will tell and by 2012 when we have a new president we will see how large of a role Facebook plays in White House politics.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Computer for President!

It is often said that computers are only as smart as their programmers. For programmers, however, this sentiment is a challenge. In the last decade or so, IBM has taken it upon themselves to spearhead the computer takeover. In 1997 IBM created a computer named Deep Blue, which was able to beat chess champion Gary Kasparov to a 6 game match. Fast-forward a decade or so to last night, when Watson, IBM's latest challenge to human intelligence, tied Jeopardy champion Brad Rutter at his own game... round two to air tonight.

Chess and Jeopardy champions are the paradigms of human intelligence. Other than the IQ test, humankind has developed no better litmus test of brilliance than Chess and Jeopardy...and computers are beating us!

How much time do we have before IBM runs a presidential candidate. They'll be able to program the candidate to say everything and anything that needs to be said. Best of all, he or she, will have no religion no race and no history of drugs.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Rumsfeld Paper's...TMI

In his Rumsfeld Paper's, Donald Rumsfeld writes "My experiences in the Nixon administration gave me a much broader perspective on the workings of government than I had had in Congress"

Perhaps the Presidency is more corrupt than the Congress after all. Or, Rumsfeld was at the right place at the right time.

Anyway, to read more about this check out. http://www.rumsfeld.com/about/

or http://www.salon.com/books/political_books/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/09/rumsfeld_nixon_congress

Monday, February 7, 2011

Canadian Newspaper Get Biblical

Canada's National Post puts Biblical twist on protest in Egypt. (http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/31/gary-clement-on-the-situation-in-egypt-2/)
Other such references can be found:



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