Wind Farmer's Almanac

"Kennedy elaborates on this - he goes on to describe Nantucket Sound as 'among the most densely traveled boating corridors in the Atlantic.' As such, Cape Wind's turbines would come 'perilously close to the main navigation channels for cargo ships, ferries and fishing boats.'

The project would also come 'perilously close' to the Kennedy compound, although no mention of this is made in the column. "

The Road to Hell...

Someone on Slashdot claimed that the Democrats were the more financially responsible party. After I cleaned the coffee off my screen I had to set them straight.

(1) I don't consider just raising taxes to cover every spending spree you go on to be "financial responsibility". Republicans regularly vote for smaller spending increases than Dems. And I can't think of the last time a departments budget was actually cut. ("cut" means CUT, not just reduce the increase).

(2) The reduction in the size of government that Clinton likes to take credit for consists almost entirely of military base closings that were voted into place during the previous Bush administration. How about we do the same thing for domestic departments that have long since outlived their function? I don't hear any of these responsible Democrats calling for such things. If they did, I'd vote for them.

(3) Most Republican voters as well as Democrats are "good" people. What confuses you is that you have been told that all Republicans are evil when in reality most Republicans have a distrust, that is well founded in history of governments that get too big and try to live people's lives for them. There is no instance of government "giving" money to individuals that does not come with strings attached. As "kind hearted" as many of those programs sound, they will, and have largely already, produce a population unable to think for themselves and such a society cannot sustain itself. Never has, never will.

If there were a "Leave Me the Hell Alone" party that had electable candidates I would vote for them. Until then, I will continue to vote for the party that comes closest to that philosophy, even if there is only a hairs breadth of difference between the two existing parties.

Here is a quote from Jimmy Carter's new book "Our Endangered Values":

"Soon after arriving in Washington, I was surprised and disappointed when no Democratic member of Congress would sponsor my first series of legislative proposals -- to reorganize parts of the federal bureaucracy -- and I had to get Republicans to take the initiative. Thereafter, my shifting coalitions of support comprised the available members of both parties who agreed with me on specific issues, with my most intense and mounting opposition coming from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. (One reason for this was the ambition of Senator Ted Kennedy to replace me as president.)"

(NPR Link)

When Carter took office, even though I hadn't voted for him, I thought he was a nice guy, and his statements on reforming government gave me hope that he would do the right thing. His presidency was one disaster after another, some probably beyond his control (the gas crisis), but his own party sabotaging him is not a reason for me to consider voting for another Democrat until the Democrat party does more to distance itself from people who for all practical purposes are extreme socialists. Again, the problem with the socialist philosophy isn't that the intentions are bad, it is that the system does not work.

As they say, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Maybe that should be the motto for the Democrat party.

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation: Honor the Victims of Communism and Those Who Love Liberty

"'The fall of the Communist empire,' said Czech President Vaclav Havel, 'was an event on the same scale of importance as the fall of the Roman Empire.'

And yet in Washington, D.C.--the city of memorials--there has been no monument marking this epic event or memorial to the many millions who died under communist tyranny. Until now."

Europe must face ugly truths of communist past

"What is needed to accomplish this is a Europe-wide Truth and Reconciliation Commission, composed of scholars and elder statesmen of undoubted democratic loyalty, who would hold hearings and report not just on the crimes of communism — remember, they included mass murder and widespread torture — in eastern and central Europe but also on those in the Soviet Union itself and even on the culpable failures of Western statesmen to halt or restrain those committing them."

BREITBART.COM - Hecklers Cause Coulter to Cut UConn Speech

"During the question-and-answer session, someone asked Coulter if she really was against a woman's right to vote.

'Not having women vote is a joke,' she said, reversing comments she has previously made.

Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore journalism and social welfare major at UConn, didn't attend the speech.

'We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech,' said Knudsen, head of Students Against Hate."

Clueless in Connecticut.

It’s anybody’s guess | The Register

"However, unlike with my train journey, it is very unusual for software developers to be asked to estimate from a position of certainty. To gain a competitive advantage, organisations need to be delivering new and, hopefully, unique functionality. 'New and unique' is, by definition, something we have not done before and have no experience of. It is, therefore, unknown."

Good coverage of why things go wrong, but there is more.

Of course it doesn't cover government contracting. There are additional factors here. For example, your government "management" was supposed to tell you to start working on a new feature in January, but they either forgot, or failed to attend the internal meeting where this information was passed down. So, when you actually begin work on the "planning" phase of the project in July, you post date all the items on your project plan to make it look like you actually started work in January. While you're still trying to figure your ass from a hole in the ground the schedule says you are midway into the coding phase. You still have to go to status meetings with your government "manager's" peers and engage in fantasy-land talk so as not to embarrass the bozo/bimbo, and it is you, not the bozo/bimbo who must take that lashes for things being "not quite finished yet". Of course, reporting the facts of the matter is out of the question, as your "manager" and the people you would report him/her to are all in this lifetime employment scam together and are probably at least as incompetent as yours is.

Every now and then the cumulative disparity between your fantasy-land project and reality actually has an impact on something that the public might become aware of. But the good news, is that by then, there is so much blame to go around that it is indistinguishable from nobody being to blame. Steady as she goes, slower, slower slower: The game goes on.

New Scientist Breaking News - Liars’ brains make fibbing come naturally

Clinton(s) Explained: “Some people have an edge up on others in their ability to tell lies,” says Adrian Raine, a psychologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “They are better wired for the complex computations involved in sophisticated lies.”