Greenpeace also links Apple’s decision to locate a huge cloud data center in North Carolina to that state’s cheap electricity supplies, which come mainly from coal-fired plants. Other companies, including Google, also run big data center operations in the Carolinas.

link: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Greenpeace raids the cloud

This is another example of media games (or misstatements). While it is true that these facilities are in NC and it is true that most of NC’s power comes from coal, it is not true that these particular facilities are powered by coal. In fact, the specific facilities that he is referring to were intentionally located near Nuclear power plants. This is the CLEANEST and cheapest energy available.

Propagating that falsehood is another example of the modern media’s tendency to avoid fact checking or exaggerate in order to make a point. The bad thing is that the thousands of people that read that report or his blog that do not live in NC will never know that the…

So, now, the left are the ones saying that speech should be curtailed? How on earth do they call themselves liberals. By definition, the term liberal is based on the concept of individual liberty. Aren’t they supposed to be the free speech advocated? Did democrats expect everyone to just go home and say nothing? The health care vote was the most contentious national issue of my time. They pushed it through without majority support using a combination of deals and parliamentary tricks. Did they expect people not to say anything? Really??

In this country, we believe in the freedom of speech. If you can’t take what people are going to say about you, don’t put yourself in a position to be talked about. If you think what people are saying is idiotic, then why worry about it? What ever happened to “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”?

Just once, I wish one of the talking heads from Washington would say that they do not approve of protest actions which injure of damage property, but that they believe in free speech. People should be…

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is confirming Amazon.com’s controversial 1-Click patent following a re-examination that lasted more than four years.

link: Amazon.com’s 1-Click patent confirmed following re-exam

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program, a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium, reached Montreal on Saturday to complete a top-secret U.S. operation.

link: CBC News – World – Uranium shipped to Montreal from Iraq in top secret mission

I have been a believer to a certain degree. Though I was never certain enough to back efforts that would have significant impacts on the global economy. Last year, some material, from Lord Monckton, made me start questioning whether the political influence on the debate had tilted it from real science to political posturing. Today, more evidence was released of the latter. Granted, the source of the article may be considered biased. However, the report that it quotes is from the Chief Meteorologist at the Weather Channel. Frankly, there are only a few guys with better credentials.

The global warming scandal keeps getting worse. Revelations over the few weeks show that many important assertions in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were based on misquotes and false claims from environmental groups, not on published academic research as it was originally presented. This is on…

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

link: Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

The malware used to hack Google is so sophisticated that researchers brought in by the company to investigate believe the attack code was designed and launched with support from Chinese authorities.

Thursday, Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee, called the attack code “very sophisticated” and added, “We’ve never seen anything this good in the commercial space. In [attacks on] government, yes, but not commercial.”

link: Chinese authorities behind Google attack, researcher claims

It appears pretty clear that this attack was orchestrated by the Chinese government. These “infiltration attempts” go on between governments all the time. However, it gets hidden from the public eye to preserve our government’s…

Crappy government software — and failure to use that software right — almost got 289 people killed in the botched Christmas day bombing.

link: Obama: Software Flaws Let Christmas Bomber Get Through | Danger Room | Wired.com

I’d love to speculate on how the government’s document based approach, their efforts to isolate software developers into security divided silos, and efforts to obfuscate security protocols are to blame. More than likely, it is not necessarily the programmers (though I am sure they have both bad and good programmers). On the contrary, it is probably the same series of compromises that any good programmer has to make in dealing with bureaucracy. That, however, would be speculation.

As a programmer, it is interesting to note that this was not just a bug. Likely, it is was a series of bugs. It was significant that did not impact a users in some minor way, but kept the software from achieving it’s core purpose (Denver Airport anyone?). For production software, that has been in use for years, this is odd. It is understandable if there were bugs that prevented users from certain novel operations. It us understandable if there were bugs that effected small subsections of the system. However,…

“If you will read the bill … you will find a number of states are treated differently than other states. That’s what legislation is all about: compromise,” he said. “We worked on different things to get a number of people’s votes.”

link: Special deals, carve-outs keep health care afloat – CNN.com

Most americans are fed up with Washington. In fact, that was the sentiment that fed Obama’s campaign. They were looking for change. Well, is this change?

It seems to me that this is just more of what we have been seeing out of Washington for the past couple of decades. The irony is that the politicians know that this infuriates people, they just don’t care. Is it really so far fetched that ideas be good enough to pass on their own merit? Are our legislators really so greedy that they are not willing to vote on the merits of an idea without being given something in return? Is this what happens when our leaders put selfishness above wisdom?

Personally I am against this health care bill for a number of reasons. However, I think I am more against how they are passing this bill. I’m not sure I remember a point in…

“Forcing every American to purchase a product is absolutely inconsistent with our Constitution and the freedoms our Founding Fathers hoped to protect,” said Senator DeMint. “This is not at all like car insurance, you can choose not to drive but Americans will have no choice whether to buy government-approved insurance. This is nothing more than a bailout and takeover of insurance companies. We’re forcing Americans to buy insurance under penalty of law and then Washington bureaucrats will then dictate what these companies can sell to Americans. This is not liberty, it is tyranny of good intentions by elites in Washington who think they can plan our lives better than we can.”

link: United States Senator – Jim DeMint

Is this type of plan not the entire reason for the revolutionary war? I am not far from wondering if we will start hearing taxation without representation claims.

I don’t find myself aligned very much with either party anymore. For the most part I believe both parties act in self interest and not in the country’s interest. However, I have to agree with Sen DeMint on this one. Then again, doesn’t this make it similar to income tax? If that is the case, are we…