In case you don't know, Kentucky and surrounding areas are still trying to dig out from a two day long ice/snow storm. According to this story, more than one million people are without electricity, although that number grows smaller every day. The entire Kentucky National Guard has been called to duty.
Where, you may ask, is FEMA? On the way. It seems that FEMA was not activated until Friday, over 72 hours after the storm began. Weathermen all over this part of the country predicted this storm last week, yet it took three days for the federal government to respond. Shades of Katrina?
Yet, His Awesome Lordship Obama will never see or hear criticism for this delay. He will not visit affected towns. He is, after all, Barack---the creator of miracles. President Bush was excoriated for the FEMA delay in the wake of Katrina (which occurred with less warning), but Lord Obama will get a pass.
Why? I believe there are two reasons. First, the majority of people without power are white, so the liberals really don't care what happens. You must be an "oppressed" minority to feel the love from the mainstream media elites. Second, Kentucky is on the northern border of The South, the area that is the focus of constant derision from those whose experience with the Bluegrass State occurs at 30,000 feet. So the formula is simple: white, southern, hillbilly trash just doesn't stir the blood enough in the halls of power on either coast.
The result is different, however. Instead of waiting for a handout or a rescue, the people of this area will pick up and rebuild by themselves, as we have always done. We are not helpless babies crying for the Giant Federal Tit.
After nearly three days without power, we are back home. Louisville and the surrounding area experienced a bad snow/ice storm early Tuesday morning that left more than 250,000 people without power and, thus, without heat (if you don't count generators and wood-burning stoves). We stayed with our very accommodating in-laws, but I never sleep as well as I do in our own bed with at least one cat trying to steal my body heat for his own evil uses.
I can't help but think of all the people for whom every winter brings the possibility of constant cold and even death. It makes me realize I am both soft and not grateful enough for the wonderful life most of us have in this nation.
Earlier today, I found myself driving east of Utica, Indiana. It's not far from the Devil's Backbone, the ridge of land that used to be part of the Rose Island amusement park. On that point of land (which is hard to get to, and I'm not sure you can get there without trespassing on private property) are the remains of some sort of stone defensive works. Many locals, like me, believe that this was one of the castle/forts built by Prince Madoc of Wales when he lived in this area in the 12th century, 300 years before Columbus.
There is little doubt the Vikings visited Newfoundland and other North American areas around the year 1000. For whatever reason, they did not stay. Some historians believe the Phoenicians fished off the Grand Banks, maybe before the birth of Christ. Then there are the Chinese, who are thought to have visited the west coast of the future United States around the same time Columbus was visiting the other side of the continent.
No matter what you believe, I think we can all agree that the story of Columbus "discovering" the New World in 1492 which we were all taught in school was a bunch of bunk. We were not taught this as a deception, but as the result of assumptions about what happened before any of us were born. Other assumptions about history live on even today.
Sorry, but I just came back to this post after taking a 20 minute break and I don't remember my point. Anyway, we've been here for a lot longer than we think and ancient people traveled much further than we know. Bet on it.
I have mentioned here before my perspective on President Obama. I agree with him on little, I didn't vote for him and I think he's way too far to the left (although we'll see if that stands up in practice rather than in speeches). However, I pray for him every day. I pray that he becomes a good President, a strong leader, and that he has a change of heart on issues such as abortion. I wish him no ill will and if I met him, I would treat him with the respect that he and his office deserve.
Evidently, this respect doesn't exist on the other side of the fence. While the new President sits on a throne in the midst of a media honeymoon, George W. Bush is mocked and made fun of as if he had won a third term. Celebrity interviews, videos on YouTube and blogs are full of hate towards the former President. Michael Savage has termed liberalism as a mental disorder; I'm beginning to agree with him.
The Left needs to get over it. Your guy sits in the Oval Office. Congratulations. Liberals in the US remind me of Palestinians---they cry for self-determination, but when it is given they prove that they can't manage to organize even a soccer game. These next two years are going to be very interesting. Blame GW?
Well, I'm ready to break my promise already. My friend Dave was right---I can no sooner give up talking about politics here than I could cut off my own arm. So I will continue much as before. You've been warned.
For those of you who didn't vote for Barack Obama, remember that today is a reminder of what a wonderful nation we live in, where power is transferred from one party to another without a shot being fired. President Bush will leave office willingly (probably gladly) and go about his business. The majority of people living on this planet live in nations where such a transition is impossible.
For those of you who did vote for Barack Obama, please begin lowering your expectations right now. The economy is still going to stink on Wednesday. Our troops will still be in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran will still be working on a nuclear weapon. And on, and on, and on...
A friend of mine on Facebook wrote that he was glad the "darkness" was lifting after, presumably, eight years of the Evil Bush. I countered that, yes, my part of the country looks like the Stone Age, with jack-booted thugs watching everything I do, eager to cart me off the Gitmo. No worries-----BHO is going to fix that too.
Those on the left who feel they have somehow been oppressed over the last eight years (and who don't know real oppression) are going to run out of excuses at noon today. What will they do with all their free time?
I'm so impressed with Windows 7 Beta that I have installed it as my main operating system on our desktop PC. It feels faster than Vista and had driver support for every device in and connected to the computer. I'm currently copying pictures, videos and music back over from the backup drive, but once that's finished I'm going to install Flight Simulator X, the most demanding flight sim ever created. If it runs faster than it did on Vista, I will probably leave 7 on this machine until the beta expires (in August, I think).
So will Windows 7 be a success? If that depended solely on performance and ease of use, I would say yes. The problem is that there's a lot more to it than that. The first thing that comes to mind is price. If MS charges $199 for an upgrade DVD, no one is going to be interested in buying a retail copy. Of course, most copies of Windows come on new machines, and I do think many people will buy new machines in order to get rid of Vista. We'll see.
I've been thinking a lot about "Sully" Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who set his Airbus down in the Hudson River yesterday with zero fatalities. According to people on the plane, Sully walked through the flooding cabin twice to make sure everyone was out before he left the aircraft. He's the real deal, the airline pilot we all hope for when we get on a jet---the guy who can handle an emergency and bring you home safe and sound.
I don't think I'm alone when I say I have thought about many emergency situations and how I would handle them. I would like to think I would be calm, rational and decisive. But when I think about sitting in that cockpit and taking the decision to ditch that plane, I get scared.
Maybe that's the point: heroes get scared. The difference lies in how we react to fear. The hero continues to do his job, regardless of his personal feelings. Others don't, and people die. That's why I believe we should lionize people like Sully---he is rare.
As I type this, I am getting ready to install Windows 7 on a partition I left empty just for that purpose. It's the latest public beta, so it should be fairly smooth if not quite ready for prime time. We'll see.
I hope this version of Windows sees Microsoft emerge from their operating system fog. After three service packs and innumerable security updates, Windows XP is, in my opinion, an excellent operating system. All was well until Microsoft introduced Windows Vista, an OS that was both a resource hog and, at least initially, in need of serious tweaking. If you have a fast machine with lots of RAM and a decent video card, you have no worries. But most IT staffers won't go near it, and with good reason.
I want Windows 7 to bring back simple and fast. Most people don't need visual doo-dads unless those things make the user interface easier to use. It needs to run on three- or four-year old hardware. It needs to support all sorts of new and legacy equipment. Ubuntu, SUSE and other Linux distros manage this, so why can't Microsoft?
We'll see. This may be some sort of dark wishful thinking, but I believe bad press about Windows 7 will do serious damage to the brand. Every company releases back products from time to time (Apple has a long list going), but Windows IS Microsoft. One bad OS can come along once a decade; two could be a death knell. Bigger giants have fallen.
After thinking about it for the better part of two weeks, I have taken the decision to focus this blog on two things (other than personal snippets from time to time): history and technology. I love both topics and both are part of my everyday life. They also don't bring the emotional baggage (for me) that political talk carries. Some of you may not like this and I can certainly understand. Do what you must.
If you're a listener to Coast to Coast AM, you know that Art Bell does a yearly prediction show in which callers make on prediction for the new year. With this in mind, I offer my list of predictions for 2009. Please add your own. Any post mentioning assassinations will be deleted immediately; the Secret Service does not take well to that kind of thing.
1. Apple will introduce some sort of "netbook" device. It will be reminiscent of the MacBook Air, albeit much smaller.
2. Steve Jobs will step down as CEO of Apple. He may remain on board in some other capacity.
3. Gasoline prices will once again rise dramatically, probably in the summer. $4 a gallon will return.
4. There will be a 6.0+ earthquake centered on the New Madrid fault. We're overdue.
5. There will be a 6.0+ earthquake centered on the San Andreas fault. They're always overdue.
6. There will be some sort of foreign policy "test" thrust upon the Obama administration requiring the commitment of US military assets for a short time. He will confer with past Presidents.
7. Israel will strike targets in Iran.
8. Something will be discovered that will change our perception of early Christianity, but will reinforce Catholics' claim of being the One True Church. Because of this, many Protestants will consider it a fake, but it is genuine.
9. Osama Bin Laden will provide undeniable proof that he is still alive.
10. US troops will enter Pakistan with or without Karachi's permission.
2008 will be remembered by most people as a bad year. Personally, it pretty much sucked for Kelli and I as well. I had an accident in January that left me off work for three months with the accompanying financial stress a five-day stay in the hospital can bring. While Kelli did become certified to teach in 2008, the stress it introduced into her life was tremendous.
The US and European economies slid down a steep slope in 2008---and we don't know if we've hit the bottom yet. The war in Afghanistan is heating up as we wind down our presence in Iraq. The nation is as divided politically as it has not been since the Civil War.
Yet, we are still here. I still have faith in the resilience of the American people. We may be richer and fatter than we've ever been, but underneath the gilded surface I believe we are made of the same stuff that allowed this place to become the greatest nation on Earth. I hope this core of our national being begins to show itself in 2009. Happy New Year.