It’s shaping up to be another busy weekend. Aside from a nice long bike ride (I’ll post some pictures soon), it’s been busy. I thought I would have some free time tomorrow, but it’s since been filled :-).
Next weekend will be busy too . . . oh well. Hopefully one of these days I’ll get a nice, relaxing, do-nothing weekend. Those are nice now-and-then. It’s been a while.
Take care!
Fiscal conservatives like myself, despite being continually painted as Bush-supporting deficit-building hypocrites, actually didn’t like a lot of President George W. Bush’s (R) policies. In my case, while I supported much of Bush’s foreign policy, I clashed with his administration often on domestic and economic policy. Some elements were right-on—a hands-off approach to business regulation, for example—while others were either extraordinarily ineffective or terribly misguided. The federal deficit under Bush was too high through most of his presidency, and the bailout bonanza he embarked upon last October was absolutely appalling.
Senator John McCain’s (R-AZ) campaign for the presidency was, in part, derailed by his fervent support for the same socialist government bailouts championed by Bush and now-President Barack Obama (D). Worse, Obama adeptly countered McCain’s claims of being a fiscal conservative with a simple reply: under Bush and a Republican Congress, we have had record-breaking federal deficits. Why should we trust the same party to rein-in federal spending?
To this, Republican candidates like McCain had no viable response. But the shameful big-government deficit spending of the last eight years, reprehensible as it may be, pales in comparison to the first year of the Obama administration’s spending policies.
For perspective, in 2004 the Bush administration set a record for largest annual federal deficit: 413 billion dollars. His administration broke this record in 2008 with a deficit of 455 billion dollars. For 2009, however, we are seeing incomprehensible numbers. With the fiscal year only 3/4 complete, the federal deficit has already passed a whopping 1 trillion dollars. It is projected to pass $1.8 trillion before the end of the fiscal year, with some estimates projecting the deficit to break 2 trillion dollars.
Palm has finally made their Web OS software development kit (SDK), including a device emulator, available for free download. As such, I am now initiating official Off on a Tangent support for the Palm WebOS web browser.
Palm launched the ‘Pre’, their first phone running the new operating system, on June 6 without a publicly available SDK or emulator, which prevented me from supporting it at the time. I initiated preliminary support on June 22 after messing around with a demo unit at a Sprint store.
I have to say, I’m very glad to be seeing some convergence in mobile web browsers. The included browsers on Apple iPhones, Palm WebOS devices, Google Android devices, and Nokia (Symbian) S60 devices all run browsers based on the same WebKit display engine. This makes support very easy, since if a site works in one there’s a good chance it works on the others.
I’m also a long-time Palm fan, and am thrilled that the company has started to make itself relevant again. I’m looking forward to the proliferation of WebOS to other carriers and other form-factors (I’m a fan of the ‘Treo’ or ‘BlackBerry’ arrangement with a front-facing screen and keyboard with no sliding or opening required).
I don’t really understand why, but public schools in this country often seem to think they have far more power than they rightfully should have. They declare themselves the arbiters of what medications students take, what students write in their newspapers, when students urinate, what students wear, what students put on their private web sites, and more. Meanwhile, most indicators show that our educational system lags compared to those in other countries and, anecdotally, it’s deteriorating year-to-year.
Well, just when you thought the misguided power trip couldn’t get any worse, now we have schools policing the activities of adults at private parties.
Frederick County Public Schools here in Virginia terminated the employment of Brad Young, a beloved softball coach. Young held a private post-season cookout and pool party at his home, which he has done in past years, and invited his softball team and their parents. At least one parent brought some beers, and they were consumed by parents. None of the kids were offered any alcohol and, indeed, Young didn’t consume any either. The school system, however, declared the event to be a school function and declared the presence of alcohol (which, I reiterate, was brought to the party by parents) as being in violation of the system’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy.
Once upon a time, I did my banking with First Union. First Union bought-out a smaller company called Wachovia and, in a curious twist, renamed itself to Wachovia. Then Wachovia went under in the midst of the mortgage implosion, and got bought-out by Wells Fargo. I still have the same checking account I opened with First Union in 2001 or so, which is now technically a Wells Fargo account (even though I still do my banking at Wachovia-branded web sites and branches).
As a Wells Fargo customer, I found it pretty interesting to hear that Wells Fargo has filed court papers in Florida to sue . . . itself. According to Al Lewis writing for Dow Jones Newswires, Wells Fargo Bank NA is suing Wells Fargo Bank NA. The firm has even hired two separate law firms to represent each side of the case.
Apparently Wells Fargo holds the first mortgage on a Florida condo and, as part of the process of foreclosing, they sued all other lien holders with an interest in the property . . . including itself, holder of a second mortgage on the same condo.
Strange times indeed. . . .
Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.
