Individual Liberty — Individual Responsibility 

Three Good Things: 12-04-2006

Successful Projects, Los Cabos Family Mexican Restaurant, Remote Desktop

Last week was a rather hectic one for me at work. What with being snowed in, and having some rather high-profile projects to work on with a tight schedule, I nearly ended up pulling my hair out trying to stay on top of it all. To top it off, the client kept changing their requirements, right up until the project was due, with the last changes practically requiring a rewrite of a large portion of the back end.

I listed this as one of the "good things" that took place last week, because I love a challenge. I'd much rather be working on something that requires me to stretch myself a bit than coasting on past projects. None of the work was particularly hard mind you. The challenge was in hitting a moving target and anticipating what would be needed to keep things together.

At nearly the last possible minute I finished the back end work to specification. When the front end developer hooked her code up to it it ran perfectly the first time. After a few more tests to make sure that wasn't a fluke, we reset the database and this morning the client put the application through its paces. Everything went off without a hitch and the project is live.

I love it when things work out.

Tonight is the last night my mother is spending with us (no, that's not the good thing). To cap off her visit, she decided to take us out to dinner. We chose the Los Cabos Family Mexican Restaurant for our venue. The food was great, as always, and we had the whole restaurant practically to ourselves. Naturally with circumstances like that the service was excellent as well.

It was a wonderful meal to cap off a fun visit from my mother. Now all I have to do is get up at 4:00 AM to help load her bags into the car so she can head home to Tennessee. Ah well, at least I get to roll back into bed afterwards.

Remote Desktop is a pretty cool application. Right now, the family has gone off to bed and I'm downstairs on the laptop writing this blog entry. I'm also working on updates for the site to render an Atom feed as the primary feed for the site (I'll leave the existing RSS 2.0 feed in place). I'm also working on implementing support for the latest version of the Atom Publishing Protocol for the site.

My primary development machine is upstairs in the bedroom. I can't really work on code up there while my wife is trying to sleep, so I'm using Remote Desktop. It's a great way to stay productive and keep the peace in the household.

It's also a pretty darned useful thing to have when you get snowed in. Without a VPN tunnel to work and remote desktop I never would have completed last week's project. You've gotta love it when the tools conspire to help you to succeed!

Justice may not be served after all...

This bit of disturbing news courtesy of NewsMax: 

Saddam Hussein waited until the last minute before filing an appeal to his death sentence, and frequently delayed his trial with verbal tirades.

It all makes sense considering a little-reported Iraqi law, which bars the execution of anyone age 70 and above.

Saddam turns 70 in April.

... 

The case now goes to a higher court. But there is no time limit for the appeal court’s review, and the earliest realistic date for the former Iraqi dictator’s execution, if it stands up to review, would reportedly be in the spring.

...

So there is a good chance, if Iraqi law is not changed, that the appeal process could stretch past April 28, Saddam’s 70th birthday – allowing the convicted mass murderer to cheat the hangman.

It would be a shame if Saddam manages to cheat justice on a technicality. Let's hope justice picks up her skirts and takes off running, because justice delayed will be justice denied in this case.

Previously:

• Hussein Death Penalty Is Formally Appealed.
• Ramsey Clark - Useful Idiot for Evil.
• Death penalty for Saddam Hussein.
• Justice delayed - A bit.

Should congress use federal funds for drug needles?

The Harm Reduction Coalition wants the federal government to change its view of illegal drug use and fund needle exchange programs. The claim is that government funded needle exchanges would reduce the number of new AIDS infections.

The president and congress have resisted federal funding for needle exchange programs. The reasoning is that such programs are not consistent with the goal of reducing illegal drug use.

From the Cybercast News Service:

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government should change its view of illegal drug use and fund needle exchange programs that could help reduce new cases of HIV infection from dirty syringes, according to a group that advocates for drug addicts.

"The AIDS epidemic will continue to spread unless government leaders on all level [sic] - local, state, federal and international - embrace and support syringe exchange," according to the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC).

...

The HRC called on Congress and the Bush administration to use the 19th annual World AIDS Day, observed Dec. 1, to free up federal funds for syringe exchange and promote the programs internationally.
...

 Allen Clear, executive director of the HRC, said an ideal exchange program would take "a used and potentially contaminated syringe from a drug user and [replace] it with at least one sterile syringe but hopefully as many as the drug user needs to keep themselves safe."
...

Clear, a native of southern England, added that while many local governments and private charities already support needle exchanges, it's important for the federal government to fund them because "it's up to the federal government to provide as much health care as possible for its citizens."

Since when is it up to the federal government to provide health care for its citizens? And who is a citizen of some foreign government to decide what our federal government should do?

Where is it found in the U.S. constitution that the federal government must provide health care of any kind to its citizens? Nowhere in the text of any of the articles of the constitution, nor in any of the amendments to the constitution is health care even mentioned.

The constitution of the United States strictly limits what powers are granted to the federal government. What is not expressly permitted to the federal government by the constitution is not authorized. Those powers are instead reserved to the states and to the people.

Both sides in this argument ignore the most important issue of all. The federal government has no business funding social programs of this nature. Neither does it have the authority to do so. Nowhere in the constitution is congress granted the authority to appropriate funds for social work.

Linked at Basil's Blog.

Several hundred racists gathered outside U.S. Supreme Court

From the Washington Post comes this quote in an article on the Supreme Court hearing arguments in two cases regarding schools and racial preferences: 

Several hundred demonstrators, many of them college or high school students, gathered on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court early this morning to proclaim support for using skin color as a factor in admissions in order to maintain racially diverse public schools.

In the name of diversity and political correctness these students want to perpetuate racism. Basing an admissions policy on skin color goes completely counter to the original intent of the civil rights movement. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would be appalled at the way the left has perverted his dream.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution says, in part:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Using skin-color to choose who can go to what school is directly contrary to this amendment. Equal protection applies to all people, regardless of the color of their skin. Affirmative action is just another name for institutionalized racism.

It's long past time we stopped playing this game. Racism is still racism, whether the victim is black or, as is increasingly the case, white or Asian. It's time we realized Dr. King's dream. It's time we grew up and realized that skin color is a ludicrous criteria for judgement.

Linked at Sister Toldjah.

Hussein Death Penalty Is Formally Appealed

The Washington Post reports on Saddam Hussein's mandatory appeal of his death sentence:

BAGHDAD, Dec. 3 -- Attorneys for former president Saddam Hussein on Sunday formally appealed his death sentence for the killing of 148 Shiite men and boys from the town of Dujail in the 1980s, a spokesman for the Iraqi High Tribunal said.

The case will now go to a higher court, which can rule on it at any time. If the court upholds Hussein's conviction, his execution, by hanging, must occur within 30 days, according to Iraqi law.

Raid Juhi, spokesman for the tribunal, said Sunday that two of Hussein's attorneys had submitted the appeal papers.

Hussein was convicted on Nov. 5 of crimes against humanity for the Dujail killings, which took place after an attempt on his life in 1982. Hussein and two of his seven co-defendants, including his half brother, were sentenced to death. Four defendants received prison terms ranging from 15 years to life, and an eighth was acquitted.

Under Iraqi law, death sentences are automatically appealed within 10 days. But defense lawyers must still file a formal appeal within 30 days of the verdict.

A recent report by New York-based Human Rights Watch concluded that Hussein's trial was so seriously flawed that the verdict could be called into question.

Hussein is currently on trial in another case, involving the killing of tens of thousands of Kurds in the late 1980s.

Human Rights Watch's conclusion is laughable. If the trial was flawed it was flawed due to grandstanding by Saddam Hussein and his lawyers like Ramsey Clark, who tried to make the trial a mockery and failed to present any evidence of value in his defense. Saddam was convicted on his own words and on written evidence in his own hand.

The other half of the article is on completely unrelated news...

Linked at Sister Toldjah.

McCain denies his record, Liberal columnists feign disappointment

Joel Connelly has been taken in by John McCain's campaign strategy. 

The 2000 John McCain-for-president campaign was the last big show of strength for our state's moderate Republicans, with ex-Gov. Dan Evans defecting from George W. Bush and a granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt serving as honorary chairwoman.

...

Hence, John McCain is positioning himself as a conventional Republican as he explores another run for the White House.

That's all it really is, positioning.

Or, as McCain put it to the Washington Post, "My record is the same on all issues, which is that of a conservative Republican. Not a liberal Republican. Not a moderate Republican."

If that's not a crock of horse manure, I don't know what is. McCain may be hawkish in the War of Terror, and he may be anti-abortion, but he's no conservative. How else could liberals like Hillary Clinton have embraced the possibility of his being a Democrat vice presidential candidate in 2004?

In an astute analysis, Matt Welch of the Los Angeles Times recently wrote: "If his issues line up with yours, and you're not overly concerned by an activist federal government, McCain can be a great and sympathetic ally.

"But chances are he will eventually see a grave national threat in what you consider harmless, or he'll prescribe a remedy that you consider unconscionable. Nowhere is that more evident than in his ideas about the Iraq war."

It's laughable that a liberal like Matt Welch is worried about an "activist federal government". Isn't that what welfare, medicare, and the ESA, and the EPA are all symptoms of? These programs aren't mandated by our constitution.

McCain has been virtuous on issues that matter here.

He has tried to get the Senate to vote to cap and then reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. His chief co-sponsor is Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.

The science regarding a link greenhouse gas emissions and global warming is hardly settled. The fact of the matter is that even if we eliminated all CO2 generation in the United States the impact on global warming would be negligible. Rather than hysterical alarmism about CO2 emissions "dooming" our planet we should prepare for the inevitable, if it is really inevitable, and deal with the consequences of climate change. Using the power of the federal government to increase regulation of our energy sources to pursue this bit of the liberal agenda is another example of what Matt Welch is worried about.

TR raised hackles by designating a Grand Canyon National Monument in northern Arizona. McCain and a Democratic mentor, Rep. Morris Udall, passed a statewide wilderness bill for Arizona over the objections of two Republican congressmen. McCain opposes oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

McCain opposes any effort at energy independency by the United States. He's an environmental extremist cut in the same model as Al Gore. He's just not quite as looney as Mr. Gore. This is hardly what I'd call a "far-right" position as Joel Connelly suggests.

Ideologues demean even the good deeds of those they oppose. Look at how the Democratic left has demonized Lieberman.

So the point must be made: John McCain has, at times, defied the orthodoxy -- and the president -- of his party in service of the national interest.

John McCain has, at times, defied the orthodoxy -- and the president -- of his party in service of his own selfish gains. He's been pandering for votes at every opportunity and pandering for media attention. The man is not a conservative. He never was one, and despite his positioning now, he won't be one should he attain the Presidency.

As McCain swept the 2000 New Hampshire primary, big crowds turned out to cheer his denunciations of big money and its corruption of the American political system.

They turned out to cheer his "incumbency protection act." They turned out to cheer his assault on the freedom of speech of all but the "chosen few" of the mass media. McCain-Feingold wasn't about rooting out corruption in the American political system. It was about suppressing the political speech of all but the "blessed" in the 60 days leading up to an election. It has been used to suppress and chill the political speech of radio talk-show hosts speaking out against a government that would tax the people while denying them their opportunity to be heard, one of the primary issues that led to the American Revolution.

The heady spirit of a reformer on the road is gone.

It was never there Joel. McCain is an opportunistic liberal politician through and through. You're just worried because you know that conservatives will see though his posturing, and reject him.

Linked at Basil's Blog.

Monday Open Trackbacks

Here's your open trackbacks post for today, Monday December 12, 2006.

If you've written something interesting, feel free to link to to this post with it and request a back-link via trackbacks. Just remember to observe the trackback policy.

Three Good Things: 12-03-2006

Well, I guess the first one on the list is another Seahawks win. It came as a pleasant surprise anyway.

Second, I managed to find all of the Christmas decorations, and we got the exterior decoration for the house done. Now for the interior.

Third, well third is tough today. Betty's oldest son Zach, my stepson, decided to move to California today. I don't know that I'd call that good. I worry about him. Still, he's 20 and it's up to him to chart the course of his own life. I wish him luck and success. Perhaps this will be the push he needs to stand up on his own and have a successful life.

I have mixed feelings about it, mainly because I'm worried about him. If he's ultimately successful, then this is a good thing for today. I'm praying that he will find what he needs and do well in the course he's chosen.

So I choose to believe this is a third good thing for today.