Cheeseburger poisoning claims another "victim"

Well, well, well: Apparently someone bought into his own legend, and alarmingly quickly.

Needless to say, Spitzer will not fare well behind bars--like any other dirty cop. I think, though, that he has the smarts--and residual sense of propriety--to resign. As well he should. Not for extra-marital sex, understand--unless it involves workplace issues, it's no one's business. But lawbreaking is another matter. With extra points for egregious hypocrisy.

Despite all the history I've ever read, despite the mucky tracks of corruption across the headlines of late, I still can't begin to fathom what gives anyone in power that sense of entitlement, of carrying a free pass from the rules others are expected to live by.

Geeze, this just brasses me off. I would have considered Spitzer decent Veep material in 2012 or 2016.

Yet I'm beginning to think that this country doesn't need more reformers or crusaders or white-hat-wearing cowboys. What we truly need is a Court Jesters Guild. Clone Jon Stewart and Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert and Gary Trudeau and Burke Breathed, et. al. umpteen times and put them to work as the official balloon-prickers to the Egos-in-Chief of this world. Something--anything--to neutralize the private clubs and chauffeured SUVs and woeful lack of the word "No" in these lives. Trust me, the jesters' salaries would pay for themselves in cheeseburgers alone.

And speaking of PHBs...

Someone who's been my friend for over half my life has been laid off from his job of 18 years, which brings the recession a bit closer to home. And adds even more acid to my attitude toward the PHB country club.

That being said, I don't think that the government interest in the issue of CEO paychecks will even begin to bridge the "Two Americas." But Ted Davis should be formally censured for the sheer hypocrisy of the following:

"The impact of corporate executive compensation is debatable," said Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, top Republican on the committee. "Fine, but that debate ... should not degenerate into a sanctimonious search for scapegoats."

Will Rogers observed that the problem with giving someone a lesson in meanness is that they usually learn it. And the GOP has done nothing if not set the platinum standard for both sanctimoniousness and scapegoating.

Apparently, such behavior is only acceptable when the sanctimoniousness couches itself in Old Testament idiom, and the scapegoats are immigrants, gays, or brown people who have the gall to live near Third World oilfields. Not rich, powerful (and overwhelmingly white) males whose mistakes and hubris damage thousands upon thousands of working families.

Every.

EmEffin'.

Year.

Unbelievable. If that's what rubbing elbows with people who have less sense of responsibility than a spoiled teenager does to your perspective, I'll stick with my crowd. We'll start a gopher ranch next door to the country club...

A contribution

The http://www.oldapps.com site saved my bacon today when I needed to find downlevel versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader for testing browser plug-in detection code. Assuming that Adobe makes those downloads available anywhere on their site, they did an excellent job of hiding them.

This is the second time in fewer than 24 hours that I've found critical development information about Adobe products on a third-party site. Apparently Adobe's going the way of Microsoft in the sense that they no longer grok the fundamental rule of platform-building: Don't piss off your developers.

On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer. That is, I suppose, until you factor in the effect of PHBs in corner offices. It's not even that these wankers are twelve-o-clock flashers. It's merely another facet of the One Cheeseburger Too Many Syndrome that you find everywhere else in that feudal Ponzi scheme otherwise known as corporate capitalism.

But in this age when programmers have more tools to play with than ever before, only the megalomaniacal egos of prima donna companies like Microsoft and Adobe can believe that manufactured "cool" will draw much mind-share--much less the best and brightest of those minds--to their tools and toys.

Or at least that's my opinion. Now that Sun's open-sourced Java, I'm pretty certain that I'm no longer developing with any proprietary code. Even the PDFs are cut straight from OpenOffice, not Adobe. Granted, I'm not doing anything remotely bleeding-edge, and the cool factor is probably in the negative. But the fact that I can do that--just the fact that I have the option of ditching the buggy and temperamental BlueFish for Geany, for instance--should keep the IDE suite-peddling crowds at the proprietary companies awake at night. But you and I know that the the barons of the corporate world are too busy slipping stilettos into their rivals to pay notice if the kingdom is crumbling about them. But, then, it's not like they've ever had to pay the price of their arrogance, greed or stupidity: That's only for the little people.

Sadly (from my perspective), the OldApps website does not have a PayPal donation link. All they ask is that you post a link to their site, and if interested, visit the websites of their advertisers. They, like so many other non-commercial resources (Wikipedia, SourceForge, etc., etc.) are making developers' lives easier in ways that would never, ever occur to the 800-lb. gorillas to try, even when their bottom line is directly affected.

Another something I do not grok.

Dearest was nearly frothing with indignation after reading the 60 Minutes investigation into the kangaroo court trial of Alabama Governor Bob Seigelman. And it's hard not to understand why.

I didn't appreciate "Stranger in a Strange Land" as much as I probably should (rather like the--hopefully fictional--person who complained of "Hamlet" being full of cliches). But Heinlein's character Mike's horror at the idea of imprisoning a person--and, more to the point, his further dismay that the "...worst ones are on the outside" come to mind right now.

Innocent until proven Republican

Wow, I was almost starting to jones for a GOP scandal. The schadenfreude of watching the party of "moral values" caught with its hand in the cookie jar and its privities illicitly engaged is rather addictive. Hat-tip to Dearest for feeding the monkey: Congressman indicted for Fraud, Extortion. The funniest part was:

Renzi's attorneys also suggested that the prosecution may have been politically motivated. "We fear that the Department of Justice may have allowed the investigation to have been influenced by political considerations, which should never have a place in the administration of justice."

Memo to Senator Renzi: If you think that throwing your own party--that would be the same one which denied the "politicizing" of the DOJ when they were only sacking Democrats--under the bus to save your career is a good idea, you're gonna need a muuuuuuch bigger bus, sir.

The thing is, if I were in any way connected with that investigation, I'd seriously consider hiring a bodyguard for the duration. If the allegations are true and Renzi was that thuggish in the flush of power, I'd hate to know what he's like when cornered.

If the senior Senator from Arizona was envying Clinton and Obama for stealing the media limelight since his anointing as GOP heir presumptive, this is one of those "be careful what you wish for" kind of situations... Bad enough that Allen was caught trolling the Florida men's rooms for sex--this will just breathe a new glow in the embers of that embarrassment. Not to mention resurrect the ghost the Lincoln Savings and Loan (a.k.a. "Keating 5") scandal more times than a slasher-movie bad-guy.

Obama in November. 'nuff said. (Clinton lost my preference when she couldn't be bothered to show up to throw her vote in the way of the FISA disgrace. Neither did McCain, but it's not like he had anything to lose. Somehow men who broadcast their sperm shotgun with multiple extramarital affairs--a matter of record, by the bye--and then consistently vote anti-choice don't don't get my nod. Funny how that works...)

Two desserts

It's a full week, what with meetings, cheerleading a friend through her fisticuffs with cancer, remembering of Dearest's mother, who lost a much sharper skirmish with cancer ten years ago Monday, and fretting over a nephew hospitalized with mononucleosis.

But last night was a halcyon evening, mostly spent making dinner--specifically and pointedly a meal that Dearest's mom would have made--or enjoying it. Time enough to slip outside to watch the lunar eclipse at points in its progress. The bite of cold made those ventures short ones, though. I made the mistake of bringing the cat out on one foray, but he bolted once back indoors. (Somehow I doubt that the experience will cure him of whining to be let outside.)

So much of my world is defined by an LCD monitor (or, at work, two); it's good to gawp at a larger Universe once in awhile...

Who's fooling whom?

A big software rollout is slated for tomorrow, which pretty much rules out making the two-hour run to the old stomping-grounds for the annual screening of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." And that's assuming that I could scrounge up garters for the fishnet stockings to go with the French Maid outfit that's stored in a box somewhere in the garage-and-a-half.

So I settle for playing the RHPS soundtrack--with the obligatory (and disturbingly reflexive) mouthing of lines--while I pen a freebie article destined for the yet-to-be website of the as-yet-unincorporated entrepreneurship that will lure me away from the day-job when the latter gets around to brassing me off enough to leave. One of these days.

If I didn't know better, I'd almost think that I've accidentally staggered into adulthood.

Nah... If this were actual adulthood, my children would only have two legs (and no feathers).

Never mind. False alarm. Party on. ("Lettttts dooooo the Tiiiiiiime Waarrrrp againnnnn!!!")