Firefox Goes AntiSec

I used to be a Mozilla evangelist, preaching Firefox to the masses, but nowadays Firefox has aligned its star with that of Yahoo, the worst search engine on the planet, which serves up malware and spam to the unsuspecting. Just do a search for Dell drivers and see what comes up. The way to get a computer user infected is to set his default search engine to Yahoo. I can no longer in good conscience recommend Firefox for security reasons. What other reason would there be? And as for me installing Firefox on client systems, why should I spend extra time reconfiguring Firefox to do what it should do by default in the first place--namely, search Google, not Yahoo. Alas, Firefox has lost its way, squandering precious dev time on pointless projects reminiscent of Don Quixote, like Pockets. Wiser would have been to incorporate Thunderbird into Firefox and build real functionality into its browser that would beat its competitors. But perhaps that required too much creativity out of poor little Mozilla. Well then, welcome to the dustheap of browsers. Care to make the acquaintance of Netscape Navigator?

The New Vice: Gas Stations

The way to promote electric vehicles is easy--create an environment where there are plenty of electric recharge stations and less gas stations. There are far too many gas stations at the moment. You eliminate approval for new gas stations right off the bat. That is the first thing. Then, increase the business license fee for each gas station by 2% per year, with no end in sight, but with a waiver for those gas stations that offer electric recharging stations in addition to gas pumps. Then, increase direct taxes on gas by 2% per year. All of this extra revenue can help to pay off the U.S. deficit, instead of being spent. I don't believe any incentives are wise. Just increase taxation on "vice", which gas is nowadays, in a similar category as cigarettes, booze, and pot.

The trouble with Republicans is they talk about wanting to reduce the deficit, but only when it comes to programs for the poor and the middle class. In reality, the Republicans want to spend all the money they can on their two love birds, the military and the rich. Tax breaks for the rich, and at the same time big increases to buy expensive toys from the defense industry, which means huge bonuses and cost overruns and the usual corruption, negligence and lack of oversight that allows Republican cronies to get richer without breaking a sweat. That's the real reason Republicans want the increased defense spending, because it is a way to spirit off vast quantities of moolah from the U.S. treasury.

Adobe is FUBAR

I am familiar with three Adobe products: the abominible security hole known as the Flash player, Adobe Acrobat-out-of-Hell, and Photosh**.

Acrobat won't print .pdf's half the time and does not even have the common courtesy of giving the user an error message when it fails to print an ordinary, humdrum .pdf to an ordinary, humdrum printer. You know, with a PDF editor, printing is kind of a big deal. I have been on the phone with Adobe tech support for hours. They do not know what time of day it is. It is time for Adobe to stop publishing software and go bankrupt. That is what time of day it is.

My, how I wish market forces were even half as efficient as Republicans think they are! That would be a good thing.

As for Photosh**, it won't work on half the graphics cards out there, and won't tell the user why, either. Just very user-unfriendly, slow and sluggish, and rather irresponsible of Adobe to stop supporting graphics cards that are less than fifteen years old. Come on, not everybody has the cash to buy a new system every five years. That would include businesses and government as well. Desktops are built to last a long time and should last a long time. That is one of the many things desktops are good at.

I am not sure what sort of lame-brain computer programmers Adobe has working for it. I think they are using spaghetti code a mile-long coded by morons twenty or thirty years ago and patched a little bit year by year by an ever-changing base of employees until they don't know what does what or how. I think if you asked every Adobe developer in existence to fix the problem with printing in Acrobat, they could not do it, even given a year, because they don't know how to fix it, or fixing it will break fifty other things, because the dirty secret in Adobe is that their code is FUBAR. The only reason printing ever works at all is probably because of accidental bugs. I have seen spaghetti code, worked with it, reformed it (or tried to), and I know what it is like. That's what's wrong with Adobe. A mile of legacy spaghetti code, with no veterans around to figure it out.

Canada Got It Right

Fixing health care is easy. All the Republicans need to do is look North. Canada got it right.

But no, they won't adopt Canada's system, and why? Because the penny-pinching bean-counters want to leave the middle-class saddled with an inadequate, complicated and confusing maze of health care insurance. As for the poor, let the chips fall where they may, seems to be the motto. I suppose it is ironic that those who don't believe in Evolution seek to practice it upon their fellow Americans.

Ironically Scared of Death

I don't understand those on death row making clemency requests based on the convicted killer's mental status, upbringing, hardships in life, or just because an attorney thinks the death penalty is bad.

If a man kills another person, it is a bit rich that he objects to society exacting justice. Scared of death? Grow a pair, I'd say. Easy to pull that trigger--not so easy to be on the other side, eh?

If people object so much to the death penalty, one option I would support is that these folks personally pay 100% of the cost of incarcerating the killer for life, as well as the cost of reparations to all victims' families, the exact amount to be determined by the victims at their own discretion. If the victims want millions, then that's what the death penalty opponent should pay. Billions or trillions would most likely exclude any possibility for parole, although perhaps collections could be taken among all the death penalty opponents in the world. I'd like to see the first victim-trillionaire.

I also believe those opposed to abortion should pay 100% of the cost of raising those fetuses that would otherwise be aborted. They can pay for college, as well, at a four-year institution of the parents' choice. That would probably run to about a million dollars. I say cough up the money, if abortion is so bad. Get a second job moonlighting at McDonald's.

What we don't have in the world at this time is any shortage of human beings. The number being generated far outnumbers the number lost through the death penalty or through abortion, and it could be argued, the quality gained is better than that lost. If a mother seriously wants to off her offspring, if that is her final choice, then she probably was not about to give birth to a rocket scientist, a saint or a great leader. Daddy must not have been all that great, is the most likely conclusion. Never a good scenario for a kid to grow up unwanted. And there are killers a-plenty in the world, and offing a few here and there through the death penalty is not going to keep this world from turning. If a killer's death brings a small measure of solace to the victims, or relief that they won't have to attend any parole hearings, so much the better.

Johnny Depp

Reading about Johnny Depp's horrible management of his money, I'm reminded how overpaid are the male superstars of Hollywood. They are worthless. Completely without value. They could be replaced in a day just by browsing the theatre department at a local university. Talent is plentiful. Talent is everywhere. There is not an actor in Hollywood worth more than a million a year. Instead of spending 2 million a month on a lavish lifestyle, Depp should be moonlighting at McDonald's. Real, honest work would do him a world of good. Never saw the fascination with spoiled, addicted, selfish, puffed up no-talents like that one. Spending $5 million to blast Hunter Thompson's ashes over Colorado is the height of stupidity. Why not just gather millions of dollars and have a bonfire with it, why don't you? Meanwhile, the rest of us work for a living.