Back at work

Was off for part of last week. Had 4 days of vacation I had to use or I'd lose them so we went to Vegas. I'm able to take the time off because I'm on Spring Break from school. College kids think they "need" spring break to recover from their studies. Try going to school full time and working full time. Then one will understand the need for vacations.

The other two posters on this site have or are currently getting their advanced degrees while working full time so I'm sure agree with the above.

Anyway, Vegas was fun, went to Valley of Fire, saw the petroglyph made by the original settlers and the sandstone formations. Truly beautiful. Also saw a B-1 flying out of Nellis AFB. Too bad I was driving so couldn't get any pictures. It's a beautiful plane to see in the air. We also saw a B-17G in the air in Vegas. I wonder if it was the same one that was in Torrance last weekend. The B-17 is another beautiful plane to see in the air, wish I was able to photograph it, but was driving and don't have the correct type of camera to capture planes in the air. The boss does but he wasn't there.

Since we didn't win eough to retire, back to work we went. Well, its Vegas, we didn't expect anything different, but still had fun.

School starts again on Monday and according to the syllabus, its going to be a LOT of work. But keep telling myself, 14 weeks and its all done.

Email "High Priority"

Too funny and regretably all too true.

Virginia Tech

What can be said about the shootings at Virginia Tech that hasn't already been said by the media and blogs over the last 24 hours. A good write up is by Dean Barnett

Nothing.

One comment I will make about the criticism about the police and university administrators for not locking down the campus after the first shootings, which took place about 20-30 minutes before the second group (where most of the students were killed).

(from news conference with the police department on NBC news on 4/16/07, 8:30pm PDT)
Virginia Tech is a commuter school, so the majority of the students drive to class from off campus and with classes starting at 8am, a lot of students were in their cars heading in towards school. There wasn't anyway to warn the students who were on their way in there was trouble on campus.

Even on campus, I don't know but am willing to guess there isn't a PA system that covers the entire school. I've attended 2 universities and two community colleges and none of them had a campus wide PA system so how to alert the entire school is a question.

Could the police have done more? Possibly. Could the administration done more? Possibly.

How can we prevent this in the future? I only see two options.
1. Turn the campus into a supermax prison which controls the movement of each student.
2. Allow students to carry their firearms to campus if they have a concealed weapons permit.

The first option isn't going to happen. The second is opposed by most college administrators.

History Professor Turned Blogger Makes History

It appears that the recent exoneration of the Duke lacrosse players was in no small part due to history professor,
KC Johnson who meticulously documented the misapplication of justice by potentially-soon-to-be-possibly de-barred prosecutor, Mike Nifong who may have been pushing the case a little too hard so that he could

[use] the case to win support for his re-election campaign from Durham's black community, which largely sided with the players' black accuser.

Johnson spent his days and nights documenting the case, digging up facts, and applying comparison to what had happened. That is, just being a historian for the events as they occurred. His blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, continues to document the case, the impact, the outcome, and the context. From what little I've gathered, and I admittedly have not paid the case much attention, the case has become a lightening rod of race and justice. Here is an example from his Redeeming the Times post of today (April 16, 2007):

Essex Fells mayor Ed Abbot noted, “People had racial agendas, economic agendas, media-driven agendas, and who these boys were got totally lost. You feel like you’re in the middle of the forest screaming and no one can hear.”

Tricia Dowd, whose son, a lacrosse player, graduated from Duke last year, recounted her experience at the NCCU forum (yes, she actually went): “Maybe I’m naïve. I didn’t know there was so much hate in the world.”

And Nona Farahnik, who lived in the same dorm as Reade and Collin, lamented how “they became a perfect example of all the injustices in society, except in their case, justice went out the door. And the same people usually championing basic human rights were so intent on denying it to them.”

Imus

Radio shock jock Imus gets the ax for an ill-advised and crude remarks about the Rugter's team. Was he wrong? Yes. Was his remark hate filled? Yes. Is he within his rights to say those things? Yes.

Protected speech, as odious as it might be, is still free speech; although one is free to speak, one is not free of the consequences. Still, I can't help but suspect that his firing will bring a chill on like media, where other personalities are forced by the specter of job loss to toe the societal line and cave in to a vocal wing. It isn't official censorship, but a societal one.

15 1/2 weeks to go

Well the Spring semester ended last night for me, finals for others will continue for the rest of the week. I'm on spring break for the next week and a half and then only 14 more weeks of the summer semester to go until I finish up!!

After I finish up some year end stuff for work (fiscal year ended on March 31), I'm going to Vegas for 4 days to unwind and relax and spend more time with the wife instead of with Excel, PowerPoint or my classmates.

Tuesday's presentation went well and should end the semester with A's which is nice for the ol GPA.

Hope to see you tomorrow.

9 Hours and counting

Last night's presentation went well. After explaining how our Limo service could make money and its own fuel, lots of questions about making bio-diesel. When I mentioned the EPA forms to fill out by number, the number of questions dropped to zero. Nothing like being prepared to quiet other students from taking apart your business plan.

Tonight have a presentation in my information system class and the semester is over. The presentation topic is interesting, how a certain security software can impact, positively and negatively the health care industry, but the limo service was more fun.

Two news items to share today:

California needs to be able to secure additional supplies of natural gas. The pipelines are maxed out and very expensive to build and cities are not welcoming new pipeline construction. Also, there are limits to the amount of gas California can get from other states, so that leaves importing gas from over seas. Problem is no one wanted an LPG terminal in their harbor. I DON'T want one in LA Harbor and I live over 10 miles away from the place. So a company said they would build it 20 miles off the coast, easy to protect and if a mishap occurs, it won't harm the harbor or city.

California Government said no for a load of reasons that boil down to, we don't like the idea. So get ready for more blackouts, higher electrical bills and higher natural gas bills. Oh and forget about increasing the number of natural gas powered cars, we don't have the fuel to fill them.

Our government in action. Hat tip Lucianne.

The second item is how the forests contribute to global warming. Yes, you read that right and the article is from Nature, not bad oil company inc. So we should cut down all the trees, paint everything white or just concrete everything over and the temperature will go down.

And we are supposed to listen to these people about climate change? Hat tip Lucianne.

DCM Catalog

The Fall/Winter 2006 catalog is here.

Only two problems.

1. I'm not a member of an affiliate organization so can't buy anything anyway.

2. No money to spend on these toys.

36 hours and counting

Yep, 36 hours until the current semester of school is finished for good or ill for me (last class is Tuesday night), then will get a week and a half off and then start the final semester and then FREEDOM!!!!!!!

But before then have a few things that popped up of interest, and no they are not my final projects so you don't have to go run screaming into the street trying to avoid them (although some VC's have expressed interest in our business plan).

From Newsweek, yes Newsweek, a story on Global Warming and how Al Gore and his ilk are being chicken little. Amazing considering the source of the story. Hat tip Lucianne.

Australian Muslims are (surprise, surprise) NOT a monolithic group and not all support Taj Din al-Hilali's comments. I'm glad to see this and hope more folks will denounce the fool and make it publicly clear Taj Din al-Hilali does not speak for them. Hat tip Lucianne.

Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Syria is almost certainly a violation of the Logan Act. This act forbids anyone who is not expressly authorized by the President from conducting foreign affairs. I seriously doubt Pelosi was authorized by President Bush to speak on behalf of the US government. Andrew C. McCarthy thinks it should lead to a debate, one the President will win instead of pursuing the legal action which the government could lose.

Eli Lehrer thinks we need MORE federal regulation, and could be right. Its definitely worth a debate.

Magazine Solicitation

Over the last week, I have been pestered by solicitors visiting my home--in my neighborhood. They’re buying uniforms for a baseball team; looking to earn points for a trip; looking to raise money for school; selling candy; etc etc. They were all youths and all had tattered sheets that served as their catalog. Frankly, Mr. I-Need-A-Baseball-Uniform was pudgy and surely wasn't playing baseball. Mr. I-Want-A-Trip-To-Hawaii was a little too glad-handing. The warning bells went off.

After a bit of basic Internet research, it seem that the basic scheme is this:

“Magazine subscription companies contract with independent sales crew managers, who hire young people to sell subscriptions door-to-door. The sales crews travel from town to town. Working on commission, the salespeople often use “sympathy” sales pitches, such as claims that the sale will enable them to earn or keep the job, or earn “points” towards a prize or scholarship. Sometimes there’s high pressure, for example, the salesperson won’t leave. Complaints also allege non-delivery of the magazines.”

Did a quick search on the web and found the same thing happening all over the US, St. Petersburg and even on campus at OSU:

“A man or woman, usually a man, approaches an unsuspecting student and explains he or she is in a contest for which they are trying to collect points. They say they will receive points for selling magazine subscriptions. The solicitor tells the student he or she is trying to earn cash or a trip to a sunny locale. The solicitor then turns up the charm and uses every trick in the book to convince students to part with upwards of $100 of their (or their parent's) hard-earned cash.”

And a “51 dollar subscription to People Magazine” that smacks a lot like coercion:

I kept backing up, but he kept coming a little closer. I was like no I don't want to do that but he kept on, and kept on and he was very persistent, more or less he wasn't leaving until he got my check. (emphasis mine)

Scams, my friends, all scams.

Words Somehow Fail Me

"[Dad] was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared," he said. "... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

--Keith Richards

No, wait, it was a joke.

Tuesday Roundup

Two stories, both hat tip Lucianne.com

Back in January, I wrote about the jumbo rabbits that a German farmer had gown and how he was sending 12 to North Korea to start a rabbit farm there to help alleviate hunger there.

Well, like South Korea, Japan, the US and others, he was burned by North Korea. In a follow-up story, his trip to North Korea has been cancelled and he believes the leaders there ate the rabbits instead of using them as breeders. That is called eating the seed corn and will only make things worse for North Korea. The generosity of the farmer (who sold the rabbits at a 60% discount) has been rewarded by his charity being wasted and he being caste by the NK media as the bad guy. Welcome to the real world.

America is coming closer to the day the incandescent light bulb is no longer available for sale in the US. The article has some interesting points on why this is a bad idea, who will profit and what the consequences are likely to be. What it doesn't say is if any of the members of Congress supporting the bill have a financial interest in seeing it passed.

Monday Roundup

3 items to talk about today, all from Instapundit.

1. Income Taxes, April 15 is near and the number 1 tax item missed so far is the Telephone Excise Tax credit. Don't miss it. If you use Turbo Tax or TaxCut it should catch it for you.

2. California has just passed legislation that would divest pension fund money from companies that do business with Iran. US companies were already banned from doing business with Iran since around 1979. Nice that the states are finally going to get on board, if US companies can't do business with Iran, why are public pension funds investing in European and Asian companies that do? While I generally don't like divestiture for political reasons (the Presbyterian Church USA have proposed or passed a policy to divest from companies doing business with Israel), I do like putting pressure on Iran where possible. Instapunid link here.

3. New X-prize competition. This one is for automobiles. The car must be a production capable, no design cars or experiments, and it has to reach 100 MPG. Should be interesting. Now this concept car just looks cool and at 225 MPG would be fun but maybe not practical to own.

Two weeks of school left for this semester, papers, projects and presentations to finish up. Busy but then its over, until the next and last semester on my MBA quest.