I can see Russia from my house...

Thank you Tina Fey.

I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime...

...and I'm glad to have been proven wrong. Obama is now the first Black Presidential nominee, as he's secured the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination from the Democratic Party. Clinton's essentially been a shining star, and done the best thing for the party and will be easing to the left in order to keep the Democrats from tearing at each other's throats.

GOP...look out. I'm foretelling that McCain will not be able to stand up to the wave that Obama is riding in...and given McCain's close relationship with Bush, Americans do not want to elect a Bush II candidate. Dubya has done more to turn Americans off of 'compassionate conservatism' than any U.S. President before. Perhaps it was necessary, else how could we have arrived here. This must feel like what my parents felt when JFK was elected. Let's hope that it doesn't the same way.

Also in the news...several white papers describing how to implement a stable and clean manner of nuclear fission was discovered in Dubya's desk today, strategically hidden under a hardbound copy Scott McClellan's White House expose. When asked about it and the incontrovertible truth it contained, he said, 'How did that get there? That's not mine!'

The Tesla motor company received anonymous donations today, enabling them to flood the market with affordable and spirited electric cars, thus severing American dependency on the petroleum teat.

Chevron recorded record losses, while public education spending increased and state and national ledgers finally edged back into the black.

Recent non-partisan surveys revealed that Americans feel pretty good about the changes and are happy that we're moving away from a government that thrives on stagnant fear, to one that thrives on optimism and moving forward.

All silliness aside, you know what's so compelling about Obama, and what's going to put him in office? Our votes of course, but the fact that he genuinely resonates with people. I think some older, perhaps more Conservative-oriented people don't get this. It's like a dog whistle, some people hear it, and others can't. Excellent comparison, Howard.
Totally unrelated, and for a certain reader, who recently exclaimed 'I like reading your blogs on gaming', here's some fabulous coverage of one the newly released COD 4 PC multiplayer maps...'Creek':

My hard drive just crapped out on me last night, and I spent a few hours getting a new drive installed and configured, so haven't been able to check this out yet, but will soon. This time around, I'm going to be running a dual-boot machine (Windows XP Pro SP3 and Ubuntu's Linux). Gaming and iTunes will be relegated to the XP partition, while all the evil dastardly deeds will be executed from the Ubuntu environment.

Interested in doing it to your XP machine? Did you know that you can install Ubuntu directly onto a machine running XP? Yup. Check it out here. The Ubuntu install comes with OpenOffice.org apps, which are fully compatible with Windows and Adobe formats. the best thing: it's free and constantly updated by the Ubuntu user community.

Things are looking good, my friends.

Obama punches Thompson

It's nice to hear when something you worked on was well received by a much larger audience...especially when you spend so much time at work that you're seriously considering bringing in a cot to put under your desk.

During the whole pre-primary Presidential race we worked on producing some information that was feed to an integrated marketing piece on the Washington Post. Here's the details.

The functionality of the piece is still there, so the queries work. I wonder what kind of results are coming up now for Fred Thompson...

Nobody puts baby in a corner

That's got to be Hillary's new campaign theme. Bill can deliver it at press conferences. I can just hear him say it:

Obama...you've got some serious momentum behind you. I can't deny that, but as we've just seen from results in Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island...nobody puts baby in a corner.

Can't you hear it?

As always, Democrats have problems getting behind one candidate. Both are electable, and both would be landmark Presidential candidates. Unfortunately, the pleasantries have been put aside and now the uglies come out.

The only thing good that will come out of this for Dems will be that while the GOP has McCain, the race for Republican delegates is over and some of the excitement and energy will dissipate for GOP voters. On the other hand, if Obama and Clinton 2 battle it out for the nomination to the bitter end, you can be certain that Dem voters will be fired up for the November ballot.

Of course, while we're all happy that we're moving a chimp out of office, and the rhetoric has been lovely (because really, doesn't the Bush administration provide excellent fodder for debate...this was a great time for a person to run for President...the platform was 'I'm not Dubya') there's the nagging suspicion that political machinery in place isn't changing...just the oilers.
Oh well. At least Huckabee's outta there. Just the fact that Chuck Norris was backing him was disturbing...that and the fact that we all know what's under his beard.

Super Bowl meet Super Tuesday

So for my money, the best Super Bowl ad (that I saw) was Careerbuilder.com's, 'Follow Your Heart'.

Maybe it's because my recent employment had something to do with it. Being at a certain large non-profit healthcare provider, headquartered in Northern California maybe had something to do with it. If I had to compare my employment history to a chapter in the Star Wars saga, I'd liken my time at Kaiser to those of the rebels in 'Empire Strikes Back'.

Or it could've been that the primaries are tomorrow, and we're going to be rid of this wretched administration, unless Dubya continues with equating war and 'economic stimulus packages'.

The spending package for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 contained no big surprises, especially since its key elements had already been reported in detail in recent days. The Pentagon’s proposed budget, for instance, is $515.4 billion, an increase of 7.5 percent over this year, meaning that military spending would be the highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. And the White House’s plans for trimming Medicare and Medicaid have also been previewed.

The NY Times article goes on to say,

At first glance, the outlines of the budget debate appeared to mirror the situation in 2000, when President Clinton was a lame duck, the country was focused on the presidential election and the proposed budget for the next fiscal year was labeled a non-starter before the telephone book-sized budget documents even arrived at the Capitol.

But things were really much different in 2000. There was talk then about what the country would do with all its surplus money, given the booming economy and the demise of the Soviet Union, which was supposed to reduce military spending in the long run.

Then the dot-com bubble burst, heralding a recession. The Sept. 11 attacks touched off new spending for a new kind of war, and the campaigns in Afghanistan and especially Iraq began consuming enormous amounts of money.

The recession that began in the spring of 2000 was relatively short-lived. The current economic slowdown is linked in large part to the housing slump, which many analysts say could have deeper and longer-lasting effects than the dot-com collapse, and could leave the government short of money for a longer time.

I guess if this administration is also akin to that of the Galactic Empire headed by the Emperor and Darth Vader, then I'm glad. This means that next term will be more positive and will garner real change, although I can do without the Ewoks.

At least we'll know that we'll have a President that speaks English and doesn't make a mockery of the office.

Be sure to vote tomorrow! Check your CA county's website to locate your polling station, if you don't know it already.

If you don't vote, the Martians win

So what do you want the next President and his/her (first time I get to say that, pretty cool) administration to achieve?

For me, I'm seeing this next election as the opportunity to inject some new blood and their fresh ideas into the highest office of an elected official.

I want someone ,who, when they say 'The American people want...', is actually talking about things that I consider to be relevant for me and for the global community. We can't shirk the 'community' tagline anymore. We are a global economy. Economic markets are becoming further and further dependent on efforts taken by a companies in separate hemispheres, acts that impact the environment aren't confined to one country's shoreline or horizon, and with an ever increasely 'connected' technological infrastructure governmental power cannot reside solely in the hands of those who graduated college when the television was the next biggest thing.

There is undoubtedly incontestable value and wisdom in our older generations, and in order to make such wisdom actionable, extensible, and flexible in an ever-changing world is to incorporate it within newer power structures and people familiar which such structures. For example, you wouldn't put Ted Stevens in charge of a government body charged with defining the nation's goals associated with Net Neutrality.

Oh wait...maybe you would.

Alaskan Sen. Ted Stevens (R) is a prime example of such this disparity between those in political office and their understanding of the ever-expanding haze of the Internets, or in his words, a 'series of tubes'.

I'm not saying that the next President needs be a sys admin, but he or she must have a basic grasp of email, networks, blogs, instant messaging, wireless security concerns (if they set up their own wireless network at home did they change the username and password from the manufacturer's default), consumer privacy (nicely brought to the forefront by Facebook's Beacon scandal - thank you CA researchers), and issues of broadband accessibility.

Unfortunately, I'm not too clear on how we're going to get the model changed. It's not like there is an army of lobbyists charging up Capitol Hill trying to get issues (for example) like consumer privacy dealt with on the scale of, say, legions of T2000s that descend from pharm or medical industry dropships.

For one, I'm not sure the government is the best tool in place in order to contend with something like consumer privacy. I'm thinking that Beacon and its PR nightmare have helped to awaken some people to the issue that we've been like lobsters sitting in a pot that's slowly been getting warmer, and only when it's too late do we realize that we're cooked. Plus, given the broad reaching impacts of the Homeland Security Act, and Mitt Romney's desire to get biometric devices installed in people, I'm even more loathe to have someone who gets puzzled when the computer tells them to push the 'any' key run anything related to my privacy.

Second, I think candidates are recognizing the fact that they need to be more tech savvy. That's why they flock in droves to the Google campus to talk about their ides on innovation. The nice thing about technology is that for the most part it's usually a binary issue: it's on or off, it's either this or it isn't - meaning, a candidate will know what SQL does or a candidate will not. There's not much wiggle room there, and typically wiggling in this area is an indication that you don't know, and don't want others to know about it.

Third, the sooner we get on board with the integrated village model the better, since we're going to have to start talking about the Martian invasion at some point, and it'd be better if we're all on the same page as a species. Those Martians just love to see us tearing at our throats...makes conquest easier.

What would Valerie Plame be thankful for?

OK, so this has nothing to do with Valerie Plame, who happens to be a hot ex-secret agent who was outed for her husband's criticism of the Bush administration, but while thinking of a title for this post, it just popped into that dark, cobwebbed attic I call a mind.

With the mortgage market crumbling, the war in Iraq remaining a constant legacy that we entrust to new generations (along with the hefty multi-billion dollar price tag), and oil spills in the SF Bay Area, it can seem like there's a constant stream of negative shite being spewed upon us.

It's easy to feel desensitized to the daily announcements of trains running over people, people being killed in auto wrecks, soldiers dying because of 'roadside bombs' or some other variation of an IED, the Bush administration jacking itself off on the American people with Congress and the Senate mired in CYA initiatives with the pending 2008 election, Oprah's Leadership Academy's South African officials raping its educational wards, and other general macro downers.

But there are some items out there that are cautious positives, weighing against the tide of geo-political detritus. Sometimes they're harder to see because for some reason 'good things' don't always get the press they deserve or because sometimes they never make the news. I guess this post could be considered an all-purpose 'thanks' for Thanksgiving list.

Here are just a few...

Senator Obama running for President...hell, there are some great candidates out there, and I'm just glad we can change the course away from that of the Bush regime. 2008's candidates have the advantage (thank you President Clinton for not inhaling) of being more frank about their 'formative years'. While Bush never wanted to discuss how many lines he did, or how many whiskey sours he slurped off of the strippers at his ranch, Obama came right out and indicated that he's made some 'poor choices' in his youth. While he's mentioned this before in his memoir, let's face it, unless it's on TV or the internets, people might not be aware of it. It's good to see that we're no longer pulling the wool over our eyes and making our Presidents more than an man...or a woman (wink-wink Hillary).

Open source software. Saving money, now more than ever, is on everyone's mind, and if you're looking for ways to cut costs with regards to spending on productivity software use at home there are some amazing and completely free open source alternatives out there. CNet's Crave has 10 alternatives that are completely free and will most likely satisfy most non-intensive needs. These include an open source equivalent to MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access), Photoshop, CD/DVD burning software, audio conversion/authoring software, etc.

Stem cell developments. Scientists in Japan figured out a way to make skin cells develop into stem cells. This is amazing. While the current method isn't exactly perfect (10 out of 50,000 cells only seem to take the change, and so far the method causes cancer which isn't good), future research could make this a viable option for repairing a failing liver, heart tissue, brain cells, etc. Will religious zealots move to strike this research down calling it hubris and immoral, as the extension of this type of technology suggests that creation of life need not be achieved via the union of sperm and ova? Perhaps. But even Nancy Reagan got on the bandwagon when the Gipper was going. Of course, the Bush administration took credit for the recent success:

On Tuesday, senior aides to Mr. Bush said he drove the experiments by holding his moral ground.
“This is very much in accord with the president’s vision from the get-go,” said Karl Zinsmeister, a domestic policy adviser to Mr. Bush who kept the president apprised of the work. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the president’s drawing of lines on cloning and embryo use was a positive factor in making this come to fruition.”

Come on! If Dubya gets to claim this, can Gore get the credibility that he did indeed invent the internet?

Khymer Rouge war crime trials. Ever see the 80s movie, The Killing Fields? Atrocities upon atrocities were committed by this political party in Cambodia, to which this movie attested. Recently, one of the party members, known as Duch, was on trial in his native country to account for his actions. What were they? The NY Times reports his actions thusly:

At least 14,000 people were tortured under Duch’s orders at Tuol Sleng prison, also known as S-21, and sent to the killing fields. Only a handful are known to have survived.
“Under his authority, countless abuses were committed, including mass murder, arbitrary detention and torture,” said a presiding judge, reading the indictment to the court.
He listed methods of torture that included beating, stabbing, suspension from ropes, removal of fingernails and drowning in pits filled with water.

Not one of the people for whose death he's responsible can be brought back, but he's being brought to justice, and I don't think Cambodians will be attempting to rewrite their equivalent of the War Crimes Act, recently attempted by our own favorite little war chimp.

So. Happy Turkey Day. Hug your loved ones, and if you don't have any go out and make some. At least Boba Fett had Han Solo...according to Robot Chicken, that is...(if you're getting this via RSS feed or in an email, you're not seeing this video - head over to the actual blog to view)