Greetings.
(4/3/2007)
The Trouble with Islam
by Tawfik Hamid is well worth reading. He's a former member of
Jemaah Islamiya (terrorists) who's now a reformer. "When
Westerners make politically-correct excuses for Islamism, it actually
endangers the lives of reformers and in many cases has the effect of
suppressing their voices."
BTW, I'm a moderator on R3000 Forums and the HP forum at Notebook Review.
I had LASIK done several months ago. No more glasses! At my last checkup I was 20/15 in one eye and 20/30 in the other. I went to the Kellogg Eye Center. Highly recommended.
Got allergies? Cromolyn sodium is wonderful stuff. The usual corticosteriods do nothing for me but cromolyn does. It's a mast cell stabilizer, not a steroid. I'm using cromolyn eye drops too. What's really interesting is that the prednisolone acetate (prednisone) eye drops I used briefly after LASIK dramatically cleared up my allergies. I don't know what's going on... and neither do my doctors. The really weird symptom is the sticky chalk-white gunk in my eyes and sinuses. If anyone has any theories feel free to drop me a line. I'm a lot less bad than I used to be but I'm not there yet.
Did you know that most artificial food coloring, flavoring and preservatives are petroleum based? That can't be good for your neurology. It's scary what's being passed off as "food" these days. ADHD and assorted other problems are driven in large part by the synthetic chemicals in our food supply. Visit the Feingold Association website for more info. It was enough to get me on the whole foods bandwagon.
I'm having some trouble with neck pain. The list of things not to do pretty much describes my day. It's nothing that will require anything dramatic, just a little behavior modification and heating packs, but it does explain a few things. If you sit in front of a computer all day you should check the link.
Everyone should learn about the Battle of Vienna. Note the date the battle began. You'll understand what bin Laden and the other jihadis (the Iranian theocracy, etc) are up to after you read a little history. They see the past few hundred years of Muslim empire being a non-threat (rather than a mortal one) as an anomoly and they're making one heck of a mess trying to change that. If you're still wondering what the big deal is about these jokers getting nukes (remember, we built nukes with 1940's technology), it's all about erasing the West's technological dominance that has kept us safe from Islamic military conquest for the past few hundred years. All it takes is a determined minority (remember, the Bolsheviks didn't need a majority either) who take the nastier parts of the Koran literally and a West that doesn't believe that that barbarian minority is serious. Don't believe me? The Christians of Constantinople didn't take the barbarians seriously enough either. The Armenians could tell you a thing or two too (guess where Hitler got his big idea from?). It's not like dealing with such people is anything new to America. The sad thing is that Iran's government appears to be about where the Soviet Union's was in its final years, hated by its people and primed to fall if we give the dissidents a hand, but we don't appear to be doing that? Our State Department actually wants to negotiate with the mullahs who clearly have no interest in such diplomatic niceties? Successful Muslim democracies should marginalize the jihadis but golly, such success might disrupt the Democratic Party's 2008 campaign message...
I'm hoping for a Giuliani/Gingrich ticket in 2008. Bush tries too hard to be liked. I want to see Giuliani prosecuting the War on Terror.
Since everyone asks, here is my standard recommendation for new PCs:
That about covers it. MultiWave and NewEgg are still my two favorite toy stores.
(9/25/2003)
I decided to do the traditional thing when one can't find a job:
I've gone to grad school. I'm going for a MSA (Masters of Science in Accounting)
with an AIS (Accounting Information Systems) concentration at
Eastern Michigan University's College of Business. It seems
like everyone gets an MBA; I wanted to do something different.
Things are
going surprisingly well so far. The biggest downside is that the
price of tuition and books for this semester is over twice what
my worst bill as an EMU CompSci undergrad was. Apparently someone
has to pay for the new President's House, football stadium (built
on the theory that by tripling the number of seats they'd triple
game attendance, no joke), convocation center...
(2/5/2003)
I got downsized from ADI last week, along with several other engineers.
Oh well, the recreational drug addicts (smokers) were driving me nuts
anyhow. Anyone in/near Ann Arbor hiring C++ and/or Java software engineers?
Drop me a line.
Refined sugar is Bad. I stopped getting sick stomach and dropped back to my college weight after I cut refined sugar out of my diet over a year ago. Outside of special occassions I avoid the stuff.
(9/21/2001)
Tom Clancy wrote an
editorial
for the Wall Street Journal this week. Worth reading. Insightful as
always.
(9/17/2001)
To our men in uniform and our allies: Good hunting.
Athlons rock. If you're in the market for a new computer, buy one.
When the Dell PC I'm using at work came off lease, I persuaded my employer
to let me custom-build its replacement a few weeks ago rather than accept an
obsolete P3 or brain-damaged P4 from Dell.
(7/22/2001)
For anyone wondering where the quote from my email .signature is from
(Wherever there is a jackboot stomping on a human face there will be
a well-heeled Western liberal to explain that the face does, after all,
enjoy free health care and 100 percent literacy),
this
is the article.
(7/8/2001)
I went in for allergy tests last week. I redlined all the grass pollen
scratch tests, and interdermal tests for tree pollen, mold, and dust mites
lit up. Now I know what's been increasingly messing with my head over the
past few years. I'll start allergy shots in a couple of weeks.
I wish I'd done this a lot sooner. If there's a history of allergies in
your family, by all means get yourself tested.
(9/20/1999)
If you didn't catch John Stossel's "Is America #1?" ABC
News special last night, you missed the absolute best
news program I've ever seen.
Anyone else notice the similarity betweek HK's 15%
Flat Tax and Forbes' 17% Flat Tax?
The Ann Arbor News published this rant from me on Labor Day:
"I figured out why it's so difficult to afford a house.
Consider a family with a household income of $50,000. That household pays $6,200 (12.4%) in Social Security taxes each year. Lacking the mortgage interest deduction costs an additional $2,000 per year, give or take. After 5 years that's $41,000, plus interest, more than enough for a 20% down payment on the average Ann Arbor house. And the mortgage could be paid off in well under 10 years rather than 30. Which would leave plenty of time to save up for retirement.
Too bad you can't be trusted to use your money for that purpose. To quote President Clinton (the day after this year's State of the Union address): "We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right. But I think-here's the problem. If you don't spend it right..." That's why it's Big Brother's duty to put a gun to your head and confiscate such a high proportion of your labor. You might blow it on... well, Clinton didn't say. But in the federal government's capable hands, that money will ensure that if you live long enough past the government decreed retirement age, you'll get your Social Security taxes back, perhaps even with interest. A month and a half's labor per year for half a century is a lot to ask of a citizen, but isn't it worth it?
At least, assuming the younger generations aren't so crippled by the crushing federal tax burden that they can afford to raise the children who will pay the taxes that will finance their grandparents' pay-as-you-go Social Security checks."
Pretty good, if I do say so myself. Rather distressing lack of response, though. Doesn't anyone read the paper anymore?
(6/20/1998)
I'm employed once again. Applied
Dynamics International hired me as a Software Engineer. Nice
place so far, and a couple miles closer to home than ADP was.
I hope the rest of the engineers who were laid off by ADP (especially Sue, who was just getting back from maternity leave when the layoffs hit) have made their way back to gainful employment.
(ADP was co-founded by New Jersey Democrat Senator Frank Lautenberg, senior Democrat on one of the major tax committees, who thinks the existing tax code that ADP makes hundreds of $millions off of is just peachy. Senator Lautenberg still owns several $million worth of ADP stock.)
Automotive Reviews Online is, well, offline. Best of luck to Steve Gatt, ARO editor, as he finishes up his journalism degree and moves on to bigger and better things.
I can do JavaScript! I spent the past few days reading "Designing with JavaScript: Creating Dynamic Web Pages" by Nick Heinle (O'Reilly, September 1997). Turns out that JavaScript is fairly easy for someone who knows C++ well (like me). Hit the above link to see my JavaScript 1997 Flat Tax calculator.
First Federal of Michigan is EVIL! Follow the link to read why. If you value your finances, time, and sanity, you'd do well (in my not so humble opinion) to learn from my experiences with them. I'd very much like to hear from other people who have had similar problems with the company and their parent, Charter One Mortgage.
I'm a big proponent
of the
Flat Income Tax and phasing out Social(ist) Security, or
at least returning it to its original mission of being old age
insurance (kicking in if you live three years past average life
expectancy so you don't exhaust your savings and become a
financial burden on your family).
Do your taxes on the Flat Tax form on the right, or use my JavaScript Flat Tax Calculator and see for yourself how much better it is. Demagogues like Democrat House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt intentionally ignore the large personal deductions when they trash the Flat Tax ($36,800 for a family of four, $13,100 for single me), so watch out for that. Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) has written a book, "The Freedom Revolution", that is about the plan and the economics behind it. Yes, I've read it (and Newt's book, "To Renew America").
I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan. I'm on the southwest side of town. Occasionally I'll show up at Ann Arbor Computer Society meetings. One of these days I'll go to a Washtenaw Linux Users Group meeting.
Brian Stretch -- Email: bstretch@mindspring.com
