Why are American's Hated World Wide?

At least one American gets it:

Americans have more and more occasion to wonder why we are disliked around the world -- why the polling data routinely shows citizens of other nations listing us as the greatest threat to world peace, for instance, or why so many of the citizens of Iraq say they think our occupation is worse than Saddam's rule. The Bush administration insists that our critics "hate freedom," and hence us; many others suspect that they envy our prosperity. I think they mostly resent the toxic (and unnecessary) combination of arrogance and cluelessness with which we treat them. The trouble with being the unchallenged top dog is that you get to win without having to try very hard to persuade, and since you rarely lose you rarely learn. We're like the pointy-haired boss in the Dilbert cartoons -- because we have all the power, we always talk, never listen. We do as we please.

The entire article is well worth reading.

This doesn't mean that I agree with many (or even any) of the author's other opinions. I don't think I'd agree with any of the contents of his book "Enough", for instance.

Me, A Job?

I posted something a few months back in which I mentioned that I had gotten two possible leads on jobs. One of the them fell though, and the other lapsed into complete silence. Now though, the silent one has suddenly come back. I've actually got tentative plans for a meeting with someone who is expecting to be hiring folks within a month. He's currently looking for people to hire while his backers work on getting him the money.

So, *IF* he actually gets the money, and *IF* he is interested in hiring me and *IF* the job turns out to be something that I'm capable and willing to do, I could end up with a job. Its all extremely tenuous and may easily turn out to be a false lead. Even then, as a start-up it could self-destruct in a few months. Until I've signed an NDA, I won't know enough to even guess at the risks, but for now I've decided to be cautiously optimistic.

One step closer to a holosuite

Who needs matter scrolling, when you've got smart floor tiles?

I have a theory...

Its not a pleasant theory either. It has to do with Murphy and his renegade band of outlaws. You see, I haven't gotten much mail in the last couple of days. In fact, I just noticed that its only the mail being relayed through my OLD email address that is getting through.

This makes me think that the machine that accepts mail at the new address is down, possibly due to our thunderstorm. Now the person that owns said machine is on vacation for the next couple of weeks, so I have a problem. I HAVE been working on a backup system, and it SHOULD be working now, but I guess the only way to test it is to try and take it live.  We'll see if it works...

If you've been having trouble emailing me, this will either make it better, or worse. We'll soon see.