Palin Not for President!

Alaska Governor (still) Sarah Palin announced her resignation 18 months before her term ends. I think that's fine. One quote mentioned that "... off-color jokes by talk-show host David Letterman contributed to her decision to step down, Palin's attorney said Monday". I even think that's fine. However, if she decides to enter the Presidential race in 2012, I think that's not fine anymore. Palin mentioned a 'higher calling' as one of her reasons to resign, and I'm just a bit afraid she refers to the U.S. Presidency as that higher calling. I can't imagine any sane person voting for somebody who's a quitter and on top of that can't handle a joke from Letterman. However, many people voted twice for Bush (the shrub), so what do I know.

Howard Milano

The Catholic Church hates Obama

I have never had a high opinion of the Catholic Church, and I am happy to see my low opinion justified yet again. Some Catholic priest refuses to give communion to Obama supporters, and the Catholic Bishops are fighting Obama over abortion rights. It seems that nobody has heard of separation of Church and State, and Catholics are happily condemning anybody who is not as holy as the Pope. I wished people would understand the true purpose of religion, which is the pursuit of study, contemplation and spirituality. Instead, for many people the main purpose of religion seems to be the pursuit of hatred and contempt towards everybody who shows some kind of 'fault'. True religion is oriented inwards, not outwards.

Howard Milano

Gay marriage

It's sad to see that voters in California and Arizona passed amendments to the constitution to define a marriage to be only valid if it's between a man and a woman. This is a typical example of a majority suppressing a minority. Many of these voters are probably religious, and their religion teaches them to treat others like they would want to be treated themselves. Yet these same people hear 'gay' or 'lesbian' and they go out of their way to treat others NOT like they want to be treated themselves. I'm not gay myself, but at least I have the decency to treat others well. If gays and lesbians want to get married, please go right ahead. You have my blessing.

Howard Milano

Soon we will be able to phone on planes

Despite the fact that the government wants to extend the ban on cell phone use in planes, there is at the same time a push from airlines to offer wireless service for computers in planes. Well, guess what, wireless access for computers means phone access through your computer, there are lots of voice over IP programs people can use. Yes, your computer might be a bulky phone to bring on your trip, but at least you can tell your family and friends how fun it is to be flying! Then there will be people gaming on their computers using their headset to communicate with other gamers. Soon it will be time to invest in noise canceling headphones.

Howard Milano

One more achievement for Bush

I guess President Bush wanted to do one more "notable" deed before leaving office. He approved the execution of a private, convicted for rapes and murders, who has been on military death row since 1988. Bush is the first president in 51 years who approves a military execution, I guess Bush really wanted to make his mark here. He could easily commute the sentence to life long imprisonment, which I think is a worse sentence, but instead he went with the execution. Bush approved about 150 executions in Texas when he was governor there, so he obviously has zero qualms about executing people. Bush has a very low approval rating in the polls, somewhere in the high 20%; I don't think this latest deed will make his approval rates go up.

Howard Milano

Torture is okay!

From an article of The Associated Press: "The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed 'in good faith' that harsh techniques used to break the will of prisoners, including waterboarding, would not cause 'prolonged mental harm.'". This to me typifies the whole (younger) Bush government. Torture is not torture if the person being tortured recovers mentally in the long run! Forget about any harm to their body, forget about any pain, now or forever. Anything goes as long as the prisoner does not end up in a crazy house for a long time! Even better if they die during torture, since the prisoner can't have 'prolonged mental harm'! Anyway, this is pretty disgusting behavior of the good old U.S. of A.

Howard Milano

Arctic Oil

Now that it become more likely that countries will start drilling in the Arctic, I was surprised to learn that the total oil output of Arctic drilling is only about 90 billion barrels, enough for a paltry 3 years of world demand. Yes, that's where we are now in the world. We're considering invading and polluting a majestic nature reserve, the Arctic, and all that for 3 years of driving our cars. And it's not that it's just 3 years of drilling, I would sort of be fine with that. No, it's probably 30 years of messy drilling. By the time they're done it'll be the black Arctic or the oily Arctic. I hope everybody is considering buying a hybrid or electric car as their next car because the world has to wean itself off the oil habit. And start working remote from home if there's any way you can.

Howard Milano

Batman, The Dark Knight

The Batman, The Dark Knight movie came out and lots of people went to see it. That's all fine since I think it probably is a great movie (will know more when I see it). Here is what I don't get: tickets for the Dark Knight movie were sold on eBay for around $50, with buyers bidding around $40 and sellers asking for around $60. In this time and age when people are complaining about $4/gallon gas and record grocery bills, those same people are grossly overpaying for a cinema ticket in a theater that is guaranteed absolutely overcrowded, meaning you'll be sitting in the very front or next to the wall unless you stand in line for hours. Wait a few weeks and you'll be able to catch that same movie for half price in the matinee and you'll still see it on the biggest screen with no waiting line and plenty of room to pick a good seat.

Howard Milano

George W. Bush Sewage Plant

San Francisco voters get a chance to vote for the new name of a sewage plant: the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. I think it has a nice ring to it. The San Francisco Republican Party thinks otherwise, the White House has no comment. It appears that the measure might easily pass. In 2006 58% of the voters supported a local initiative to impeach Bush and Cheney.

Howard Milano

High school dropout rate

Disturbing news from California. Almost 1 out of 4 high school students dropped out before graduating. For Black students the percentage is 41.6, for Latino students it's 30.3, for White students it's 15.2, and for Asian students it's 10.2. I can understand that some people don't want to go to college and rather start a business or learn a trade, but high school is where you learn basic skills such as reading (and comprehending), writing (intelligently), and math, science, languages, etc. The majority of people who don't finish high school have very little chance to succeed in life simply because they don't know much. Yes, school can be hard and time consuming, but it's one of the best investments a person can make. If you talk to anybody who dropped out of high school, show them the alternatives such as online study and passing the GED.

Howard Milano

Tasteless cartoon

The New Yorker magazine has pulled a stunt that takes tastelessness to new heights. They put a cartoon on their cover that depicts Barack Obama in traditional Muslim gear, with his wife dressed up as a terrorist with a machine gun, a picture of Osama Bin Laden on the wall, and the U.S. flag burning in the fire place. Normally I love cartoons and see them for what they are: cartoons. But the U.S. is a most uptight country with regards to elections, the U.S. doesn't necessarily elect the candidate who has the most skills and is best suited for the job, but rather the candidate who appears the best in other ways, such as how Christian they are and how unblemished their past is and how few rumors there are about them. This cartoon can easily convince many Americans that Barack Obama is ill-suited for president. So I can laugh about this cartoon, but at the same time I see that this cartoon can change the U.S. elections in November.

Howard Milano

Gay marriage

Massachusetts is trying to make it easier for out-of-state gay couples to marry there, by repealing a 1913 law that originally blocked out-of-state inter-racial couples from marrying. In 2004, then-Gov. Mitt Romney used that 1913 law to block out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts. The current governor Deval Patrick supports the repeal, perhaps because his daughter is a lesbian? I think this is all good. My philosophy is: if it doesn't hurt anybody, people can go right ahead. Most hetero people who condemn gay marriages base it on the 2000 year old Bible, as if the Bible has any relation to current society. We don't enforce laws passed 2000 years ago, why would we enforce morals that were acceptable 2000 years ago. The Bible is fine for religious study. It's a poor manual to learn to live in modern society.

Howard Milano

Inflation Zimbabwe style

In case you're upset about $4 gas prices, read this article about the Zimbabwe runaway inflation or try this Google search. One of the biggest threats to Zimbabwe is not the inflation, but the repeated printing of new bank notes! Germany is withholding paper and also parts for printing machines in retaliation for the recent shady elections, and there is a good chance that Zimbabwe will not be able to print bank notes anymore in the near future. The only bright spot is that many Zimbabweans are now multi-billionaires.

Howard Milano

Rangel's rent-stabilized apartments

Ah, it's always good to belong to the "have's". U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel owns four rent-stabilized apartments in Harlem, and thinks there is nothing wrong with that. This in a place where landlords love to kick out long term renters of rent-stabilized apartments so the rent can be adjusted or the apartment can be changed into a market-rate apartment. This is in a place where many people would love to live in a rent-stabilized apartment to get some relief from ever increasing rents. Landlords regularly kick out renters who rent more than one rent-stabilized apartment, and rightfully so, but Rangel is apparently thick with his landlord and is in no danger of losing any of his four apartments. Like I said, make sure you belong to the "have's", it's a lot more comfortable.

Howard Milano

Super bishops in Church of England

The Church of England keeps busy with infighting about women bishops and gay priests. The latest idea of uptight male members of the Church is "Super Bishops". Yep, the brilliant plan is to allow women to become bishop, but elevate male bishops to "Super Bishops" to make sure men keep the ultimate power positions. The excuse is that Jesus was a man, had only male disciples, and wanted only men to be in power positions. At least the Church of England is doing slightly better than the Catholic Church, who released a communication that they were disappointed. That figures since the Catholic Church doesn't even allow women to be priests. I just can't understand that religions put such severe restrictions on their believers. As a Catholic you pretty much can't do anything (no sex outside of marriage, no condoms, no drugs, etc. etc.). When I heard that Bahá'í Faith followers are not allowed to drink alcohol I immediately knew I would never join that religion! I guess a lot of people believe that a religion without restrictions is not a religion worth following. You have to suffer to reach heaven. Well, my religion is really simple. Be nice to the people around you and treat them as you would want others to treat you.

Howard Milano

Sometimes you just have to admire the ingenuity of a criminal, in this case a man who would steal gasoline from gas stations by parking his trailer over the access hatch of the underground gas tanks, open a trap door in his trailer, and pump gas from the underground tanks into a tank in his trailer. Then he would transfer it to bigger tanks at his business and resell it! He probably got caught by becoming too greedy. But still, my hat off to this man for coming up with such an excellent plan.

Howard Milano

The RIAA won their first juried trial against a file-sharing person, and the jury ordered the woman to pay $220,000 to the RIAA. I wonder if the RIAA is celebrating now, because if I were them I wouldn't. This is not exactly going to make the RIAA more popular. Even if many people think the file-sharing woman was indeed guilty, there is hardly anybody who thinks the punishment is fair. An outcome like this makes people lose faith in the justice system, and by sheer association, the RIAA will become even more the outright bully they already are. It will be interesting to see if there will be more lawsuits. The RIAA has a weaker case against some other people who are seeking a trial, and if the RIAA loses a trial, we will see a lot more excitement! In any case, file-sharing is not going to stop because of this, and in the long run the RIAA will have to stop pestering people. RIAA, a smart person seeks peace, not war.

Howard Milano

Some of the big banks raised their ATM fees to $3. Bank of America, naturally, is spearheading this effort. I call them a bunch of crooks. It actually saves the banks money when people use the ATM to get cash, instead of going in the bank and taking valuable time away from teller people. These ATM fees really are extortion, and with all extortion, it's tempting to charge more. They're designed to get easy money from the unlucky, in the wrong place, not well connected, underfunded person. Sure, banks are supposed to waive the fee if you're a customer, or your bank is a member of a recognized surcharge free network, or you have plenty of money, but there are still people to which this doesn't apply. Plus the burden is on the customer, I've been charged fees on machines that were part of my bank's surcharge free network, and it's up to me to spend hours trying to show I should get my fee back.

Howard Milano

Here's another man proclaiming that abortion is not a human right, this time it's the Catholic Pope who's saying it. People often get criticized when they give opinions about things they don't know anything about, but that's not true if anybody gives opinions about abortions. Here is a man who apparently never had sex, and he freely gives his opinion about abortion, and we're supposed to accept his words? He has two strikes against him, a man and no sex! Opinions about abortion should come from women, and preferably women who had abortions.

Howard Milano

Yet another Republican scandal, Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho arrested in the men's bathroom in an airport after making sexual advances to a police officer under cover. Apparently he made a confession during or after his arrest. Now the Senator claims he was confused and made false statements because of the stressful situation, and he says he's not gay! What's disturbing about this is not that the Senator is gay or not, he can be as gay as he likes to be, but how little control the Senator has over his actions, decisions, and life in general. He even admits that he "overreacted and made a poor decision" while being arrested and he didn't consult attorneys, family or anybody. He now blames everybody and everything except himself. And this man is a Senator leading our country, he sounds and acts more like a ten year old. As they like to say here in the U.S.: God help us all!

Howard Milano

Johnson & Johnson, supposedly a "family" company is suing the charitable Red Cross organization for using a red cross on commercial products benefiting the Red Cross. Yes, I know all about defending your trademarks and such, but please, isn't this going a bit too far? The Red Cross organization was even started, using a Red Cross their symbol I'm sure, before Johnson & Johnson began to use the Red Cross as a trademark, making the case of Johnson & Johnson not very convincing. I would say that there can only be negative publicity coming out of this for Johnson & Johnson. The Red Cross organization probably has 95% or more positive name recognition in the world, and I can't see too many people taking the side of Johnson & Johnson in this case, except the lawyers of course. Johnson & Johnson, if you want to be smart in this case, you should manufacture and market the merchandise for the Red Cross, combining the use of your trade marks.

Howard Milano

Almost 200,000 weapons are missing in Iraq, weapons supposedly given to the Iraqi forces, but more likely by now used to fight American soldiers. One surprising bit of news is that the U.S. doesn't keep track of the serial numbers of the weapons given out, it only registered the numbers of 3% of the weapons. It's hard to believe that anybody still thinks the Bush administration and the U.S. Army are doing a great job in Iraq after such news. One cause of this mess is the fact that the U.S. Army disbanded the Iraqi Army soon after Iraq was occupied. They had plenty of soldiers willing to be part of a new Iraq Army, but the U.S. wanted to start fresh, hand picking the new soldiers, and the new Iraq Army has had troubles restarting. But rule #1 should be registering serial numbers of weapons handed out, to the U.S. troops, and to anybody else. Otherwise you don't know who is going to shoot at you next.

Howard Milano

John C. Dvorak's recent article "Bubble 2.0 coming soon" is filled with unhappiness. The point he is trying to get across is that the world will soon experience the end of yet another Internet Bubble, Bubble 2.0 (Web 2.0), child of the previous Internet Bubble, the 1999 - 2000 Dot.Com Bubble. The end of Bubble 2.0 will be more severe than the Dot.Com Bubble, and all we have to look forward to is an endless progression of new Internet Bubbles, each collapsing more violently than the ones before. Dvorak paints a bleak picture. However, I wonder if he's been looking around lately. If there are any current Bubbles, it's the collapsed Housing Bubble, which caused the currently collapsing Mortgage Bubble, and is threatening a more globally collapsing Finance Company Bubble. Who, except apparently Dvorak, thinks Web 2.0 is in any trouble right now? Internet companies are doing fine, P/E's are not at crazy heights, online ads are supplying tons of money, social interactions are thriving online, T.V. is merging with online video offerings. Web 2.0 seems a lot more healthy to me than the Dot.Com craze.

Howard Milano

I have been wondering why Google bought YouTube, and articles about YouTube participating in the Presidential Debates are making me realize that Google wants to use YouTube as some sort of T.V. station. Not a real T.V. station that broadcasts on the regular T.V., but a T.V. station broadcasting on personal computers. Finally it makes sense why Google bought YouTube. Sure there are news stations that publish on-line, and have printed stories in addition to video stories, but YouTube is more powerful, it's all video. It's simple to add more categories to YouTube, and make some of the categories more "serious", such as news categories, commentary categories, etc. Google is positioning YouTube to be the next T.V., or at least the next T.V. broadcasting on personal computers.

Howard Milano

The Iraq war has been a hot topic lately. An Intelligence report claims Iraq based Al-Qaeda is most likely to attach Americans on U.S. soil. The next day Iraq based Al-Qaeda is shown to be not as strong as suspected, and mostly run by foreigners. The Democrats hold an all night debate to try to gather votes to pass a law for early withdrawal of U.S. troops out of Iraq. Even Discover Magazine, not known for war or politics stories, published an article about the medical care breaking down in Iraq, many doctors fleeing if they don't want to be killed, lots of civilians dying and suffering. And Republican politicians are distancing themselves from the way Bush is handling the Iraq war, in fear of losing elections. Meanwhile Bush, of course, is doing his normal routine, everything is fine in Iraq, we're making progress, the recent troop surge is having the desired effects, etc. It's a nasty, dirty war, with no end in sight (yet), and anybody claiming the U.S. did the right thing invading Iraq might take a closer look at the current situation.

Howard Milano

Some nice examples of Wall Street seedy stock price manipulation activity: both Home Depot (HD) and Expedia (EXPE) announced huge share buy back programs, which sent their share prices soaring. The companies pledged to buy back "up to" a certain number of their own shares. A quick look at their financials (use the "Key Statistics link on the financial Yahoo pages) shows that if either company bought back all the shares they pledged to buy back, they would be hugely in the red, and Home Depot is already in the red, even after they go through with their planned sale of the contractor's division. The key words are "up to". They will buy back 10 or 20% of those shares pledged, if at all, and at a steep price, and then life goes on with a higher share price. A smart, decent company would buy back the shares quietly, at a cheap price, and announce the buy back later. Invest at your own risk!

Howard Milano

Salman Rushdie recently got knighted. I was a bit surprised that Salman wanted that much publicity, I thought he was enjoying a quiet life now that every Muslim was not out to kill him. Remember he published "The Satanic Verses", and a Fatwa was issued to kill him because the book insulted Islam? That Fatwa was later retracted, although some Muslims believe a Fatwa is issued for life. Now every Muslim is upset again, claiming this is a new insult, and I'm not surprised, if you can get upset about a book, a Knighthood that says the writer is the most excellent guy will most likely upset you again, and even more. Curiously neither the writers organization lobbying for that Knighthood, nor the committee that recommended the Knighthood, nor the Senate that approved that Knighthood thought this was a bad idea! This shows me that you can put a bunch of intelligent people together and they can still easily come up with a catastrophic idea. Seems any common sense was completely lacking here.

Howard Milano

Just great, Senator Joseph Lieberman said recently that "the United States should consider a military strike against Iran because of Tehran's involvement in Iraq." And that from somebody who is running for President of the U.S. in 2008. Is this a statement that is supposed to make us all feel warm and cozy and protected and make us vote for Lieberman? As I have said before, war is one of the most primitive ways of solving conflicts, and a first strike war has no place in this world anymore if we want to call ourselves civilized in any way. Lieberman also shows he completely misunderstands how badly overstretched the military, and the tax payers, already are with 2 U.S. supported conflicts raging in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yeah, I want to vote for somebody who will spend even more on war efforts and drive us all into military ruled poverty. Let's hope a more peaceful person will become the next U.S. President, the U.S. really needs that.

Howard Milano

Here is a link to a recent PBS story about credit card companies. It's the usual story about big banks robbing little people while maintaining they're doing nothing wrong. Think your credit card rate is fixed for a certain time? Banks can change their rates for any reason with 15 days notice. Think a high credit score insures a low rate? People with high credit scores who pay off their cards religiously likely have the highest rates (I am one such example). Many people have high credit card balances while they have money in the bank to pay off those balances (their excuse is they need to maintain a nest egg for emergencies), which indicates those people have troubles understanding interest rates and especially compounding interest rates. Meanwhile there's hardly anybody who reads and actually understands credit card agreements, violating a basic notion that contracts should be understandable by both parties involved. A good story to watch.

Howard Milano

Al Gore is busy, but he's not busy at running for U.S. President. Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election to lame duck President Bush the Younger, called Shrub by some, and Gore has gained in popularity since then. Many people believe that Gore could win the 2008 Presidential Election with no problem. There are oodles of Republican and Democrat candidates who have been campaigning it seems forever already, and it's still a long, long time till the election. The bitter infighting and name calling has already started, and it usually gets much worse when we get closer to the election. There is the usual positioning on issues such as abortion, gays, sex before marriage, divorce, etc., all issues that have zilch to do with being a good President. The digging up of scandals to disqualify contenders is a nation-wide pastime. No wonder Gore is relaxing, not ruling out running for President, and not announcing he is running. He has already been grilled, vetted, and approved several times in the past, he has nothing left to prove. I expect him to join the race at the last moment, spend the least time necessary campaigning, and become the next U.S. President.

Howard Milano

The Anglican Church keeps stirring up the gay/lesbian debate, and gays and lesbians are not welcome at the Lambeth conference, despite the fact that the conference is "an occasion to rediscover the reality of the Church itself as a worldwide community united by the call and grace of Christ". Notice "community united", as in united as long as you're not gay or lesbian. This is the main reason I'm not religious, the insistence of every religion to condemn certain people or certain behavior, where those people and behaviors are perfectly fine and accepted by the majority of society. It's funny how your work will allow any religion or sexual preferences, but your religion will discriminate on sexual preference. Jesus Christ is about accepting, and treating others the way you want to be treated. I see little of that in any of the major Christian religions.

Howard Milano