Pointman’s Page

This pretty much speaks for itself….

Recession? Its on hold thanks to exports which are a bargain at the current exchange rates. We want more US manufacturing so if we can hang on long enough for the dollar to stabilize (or better, gain a bit) this is a golden opportunity.

But it has a cost which is born largely by those who can least effect it. Of course, the same are the ones most likely to benefit from new manufacturing jobs.

It is sad, though not necessarily unexpected, to read that one of the great Conservative icons of my time suffers from dementia.

Unfortunately, if Reagan was any indicator, Maggy’s detractors will start piling on now - accusing her of suffering from this sad condition while she held the office of PM. Or worse…

The last great leader of Britain as night time encroaches on the Kingdom.

To steal a line, Obama’s HOPE is that the press doesn’t out that his CHANGE is to hard line socialism and the confirmation came with the naming of Biden as his running mate. If ever there was a member of the party that represents the left edge of the party Biden is it. Even Lieberman pales in comparison, though neither has anything on Daschle.

Biden is a long familiar enemy of the civil rights movement surrounding the 2nd amendment. He has lead almost every insane anti-gun charge of the past two decades.

Scratch the surface and you find a hardline marxist putting the lie to Obama being a new Progressive leader of the party that will throw off the shackles of the old and usher in a new era….

Just typing that makes me want to puke!

This is the CHANGE Obama promised, the HOPE of Communist Amerika. It is certainly the path he’s chosen by joining an old hardliner like Biden.

But then… who’s really surprised?

And while we’re on the subject… so you believe Bush hate the environment, hates renewable energy - Gore is the Eco-Messiah and that we “must act NOW!”.. If this is in your head you’ve been duped, probably willfully. But if you’re ready to open your mind a bit check out the tale of two houses.

This year may be the coolest in 5 years and they’re still trying to explain how though the earth is moving into a cooling trend global warming is still real it may be on hold for a decade. But as evidence mounts at least some people are starting to wake up to the simple truth - its the Sun stupid.

The real fun is watching all the doomsayers switch their vocabulary from “global warming” to “climate change”… I think they forgot… weather happens….

“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.”

Thomas Jefferson

After recent sensationalized reports that something like half of US corporations pay no taxes RealClearMarkets sets the record straight.

If you’re following the drill here, drill now debate you’re likely heard of those 68 million acres of leases “Big Oil” has that are “non-producing” and how those evil Republicans blocked a Democrat bill that would have forced the oil companies to produce or give up the leases.

These acres are being used specifically by the anti-drill forces and Obama to reinforce their stance that the Government does not need to open up additional acreage.

The problems are several fold here the first of which the lessee’s have 10 years to make the acreage produce, and “non-producing” in the vocabulary of these leases does not mean improvements are not underway - only they’ve not reached production level yet.

So what we have in the bill that would have turned all those leases back to the Government is a brick wall oil companies would never overcome in making these leases produce. With the governmental red tape and the environmentalist court challenges oil companies need very bit of those 10 years to make these leases productive.

Such legislation as was defeated would have ensured huge legal cost savings to the Sierra club and a dramatic decrease in the future production of domestic oil.

An interesting blog entry on O’Reilly, Why Corporates Hate Perl touches on the knowledge barrier between technology and non-technology in corporations and how a lack of understanding technology at the business level can contribute to the silo mentality so prevalent today.

The biggest point to take from the article is that programming languages are only as good or bad as those wielding them and while there are better and worse choices in matching a language with a job a lot of those in the middle of the spectrum are suitable to a wide variety of applications.

One thing not mentioned is this Boolean attitude found in technologists as well as corporate types. Everything is good or bad, right or wrong. Politics, computer languages, vehicle makers, operating systems and text editors all have prominent examples.

The worst part is the tendency of people, and technology people seem to be worse than most at this, to tear down what ever exists that they didn’t build or get credit for. For example, a new Java guy is going to be squawking to his boss about how lousy the old guy is and point out the old guy’s choice of Perl as proof.

Doesn’t have to be Perl, I’ve seen both Java and Perl guys do it to FORTRAN guys….

After all, this great technology has done little to improve human nature itself. Only given us new bludgeons to use for advancement.

I don’t “hate” Flash but I frown on it for casual use such as site navigation, headers and especially advertising. And here comes another malicious use of Flash through advertising which steals what ever you copy to your clipboard.

Advertising presents a larger problem to police mainly because the content is sometimes a couple of entities removed from the publisher. For example a publisher may use an outside service to manage advertising who in turn may link ads from the advertiser’s servers rather than the publisher or management company’s servers.

I realize I’m in a very small minority in believing Flash as a tool is abused by site builders, but more so by large publishers…

“Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.”

Samuel Adams

Considering Democrats almost total animosity toward God, the Christian faith and especially the name Jesus Christ….

Obama was introduced at the dinner by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who called him ‘‘a leader God has blessed us with at this time.’’

.. whom is she referring to as the ‘god’ that sent them Obama?

They believe the complete opposite from Conservatives and Republicans on everything so it begs the question: To whom do those who call black, white and white, black refer when invoking the name of God.

I have a thought it is closer to the god of Islam and “this world” rather than the God of the Christian and Jew.

The last 100 people I’d expect to encourage lawmakers to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18 would the the top 100 college presidents. Considering drinking causes more visible problems on campuses than almost anywhere the request seems illogical.

First let me say I’m not necessarily in agreement on lowering it. BUT… I understand their logic and have not only witnessed it first hand but have, to some small degree, experienced it.

In a nut shell, teens are enticed to do what is forbidden - the ancient forbidden fruit problem. So remove that big VERBOTEN sign. How rebellious is it to do something that’s legal? Unfortunately, those that have come to continue their risky binge drinking because they like it won’t be effected and it may be too late to help those already in trouble - how to deal with them?

The answer is rather obvious but quite unpopular…

WHERE
ARE
THE
PARENTS?

Ultimately, like most “solutions” proposed by or enacted by government, all they can address are symptoms.

I’m not going out for the dire predictions of the global warming crowd any more or less than the global cooling crowd (though NASA and NOLA acknowledge we’re in a cooling trend since 1998) but articles such as this one out of Mexico on the coming mini ice age certainly shows there is a lack of that thing Global Warming moonbats keep talk about.. what was that word?? Oh yes… CONSENSUS.

It will be interesting seeing how this is dismissed because it originates in Mexico

Given their unprecedented low approval ratings, ratings that should make Nancy Pelosi envious of George Bush’s approval rating… you’d think the Congress would knuckle down and get to work. But are they? No, they’re earning their low approval rating as well as the contempt of the American people as they pass meaningless resolutions and ignore everything else.

I started to say they’re ignoring the elephants in the room, but donkeys always do..

I have bought a lot of motorcycle parts from a lot of manufacturers and there are those that stand out and those who do not. One that does is Rivco who’s customer service is outstanding. If I need a part this is one of the first manufacturers I check.

Something to make you scratch your head… An American Expat in Southeast Asia: Obama and the Inconvenient Truth

The AP is throwing a pitty party for the Iowa town ICE raided. You’d think they’d hauled off pillars of society. Building a town’s economy on illegal workers is little different than building it on Mob dollars. When it all comes crashing down don’t come crying to me.

Follow the invasion at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia off-shore website. Seems the Soviets, er… KGB, er… Russians cut off Georgian government websites….

So much for global warming. Not only is Indiana had a cooler than usual summer, a longer than usual spring, the weather patterns here are those of late September not early August. Indiana has had 2 90 degree days this year. Last year there were 22 and the average is in the upper teens. But its not just Indiana. Chicago’s number of 90 degree days over the last decade has fallen to the fewest since 1930.

So much for global warming… but then the temperature data shows warming stopped in ‘98 anyway as the cycle completes. So why are we surprised?

Never forget people - weather happens….

Mr. West asks, now that The War in Iraq Is Over. What Next?

For the first time in 15 trips across the country, I didn’t hear one shot or a single blast from a roadside bomb. In Anbar Province, scene of the fiercest fighting during the war, the tribal sheiks insisted to Barack Obama on his recent visit that the U.S. Marines had to stay because they were the most trusted force.

The number of American fatalities in Iraq for July2008 were less than 1/2 the number of Hoosiers gunned down in Indianapolis.

So you bought the bull about CFL bulbs and have replaced all the bulbs in your home or business. But are you aware of the dangers if you break one? This isn’t new news by any means, but news that warrants frequent reminders as the main stream is almost as enamored of CFL’s as they are of the big O. And I don’t mean Opra.

Rasmussen reports a majority believe so…

The movement has been underway for sometime to revoke the policy which bans individuals with valid handgun carry permits to carry their firearms in national forests and parks. Naturally the liberals went all hysterical questioning the need for it, predicting the “peace and quiet” of the preserves would be disrupted by redneck antics, our parks would become Dodge City and so on and so on.

What they’ve missed is criminals don’t abide the policy which puts these forests and parks into the same category as local schools and government buildings - criminal safety zones, or more recently Mexican cartel pot farms.

As the anti-gun crowd doesn’t even acknowledge that, despite the evidence, the general notion is there should be no guns in civilian hands at all. And now that they’ve lost that battle in 46 states they’re hanging tenatiously to the last few states such as Wisconsin where they still cling to arguments and rhetoric so long proven false. It is therefore no surprise they’ll continue to prevent the removal of these anti-freedom policies by any means.