The impending collapse of Microsoft.
Apparently Bill Gates is under severe stress and lacks leadership.
At least according to the so-called hand-writing experts. The ownership of the sample under scrutiny was initially assigned to PM Tony Blair. This goes to prove,
as I had mentioned previously, what a pseudo-science that psycho-analyzing penmanship really is. It's fortunate that neither Gates nor Blair will need to find a new job and has to pass a graphologist's test.
What is a passing grade?
President Bush can sound grandios and pragmatic all at once. In his mind, at least when articulated to the public, the Iraq war is a success. While accepting the fact many Iraqis will not vote this weekend, he believes that he has planted a flag of liberty, and that
"the fact that they're voting in itself is successful."
Yes, compared to 30 years of Saddam, a free election itself does sound pretty good. He had me going for a while, until I remembered something.
Saddam had been gone for nearly two years.
If you wanted an election that is merely free, but disregard any security concern, we could have had one in May of 2003. Now to think of it, back then it was actually a lot quieter. Turn out may have been higher without an impending civil war hanging over everyone's head.
Why didn't they hold an election then? Well, clearly any idiot knows that securing WMDs is more urgent than securing the lifelihood of millions of people.
So in essence, as the pioneer for the new history of freedom, what have we done for the Iraqi people in the last 21 months towards securing their "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and what grade does the Bush administration deserves on this demo-nation project?
Dirty word.
I caught pieces of Dr. Rice's senate confirmation hearing yesterday (Tuesday). The following clip caught my ear:
This was never going to be easy. It was always going to have ups and downs. I'm sure that we have made
m-multiple, (slight pause), many decisions, some of which were good, some of which might not have been good, but the strategic decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was the right one.
Transcript is from NY Times, and the italic insertion was made by yours truly based on video file from C-SPAN. So reading the transcript one did not notice anything. However, if you hear the actual recording, and based on the two sentences leading up to it, which I did, one get the impression the m-word that she was going to say was not "multiple" or "many," but rather MISTAKES. I thougth she was going to slip up, but true to her aspiration as the most visible diplomat in the world, Ms. Rice found a way out. You can hear the entire
Tuesday recording here, and the clip is about 2:43:19. A search of the transcript text for the tuesday hearing, revealed that Dr. Rice used the word "mistake" only once, and it was only referring to the inaction of pre-Bush administration on al qaeda. Batting 1.000 and counting.
Mistake-free
By now, the view of our President on mistakes during his first term, expressed in last week's interview with the Washington Post, has been finally clarified--there is none. Why? Because 51% of us didn't care during the last election. So Dr. Rice was merely keeping up with the status quo. Many people have jumped on Bush for believing as the President, he only has one accountability moment every four years, and a single decision by people, who had to weigh a multitude of issues and non-issues, can be used to wipe the entire slate clean. Maybe that's why he won the election last year. In a sense, Bush, the Evangelical Christian, had an edge over his opponent Kerry, a Catholic. At least as a Catholic, you have to go to the confessional, state every sin you have committed ("father, I have sinned. I shot an innocent Viet Cong in the back when he was running away with a ROCKET LAUNCHER.") then repent. Bush merely proclaims that the LORD is in his heart, and everything can be forgiven.
But is his view that stupid? College students have two or three exams each term per class. Pass them you pass the class. Med students have USMLE step1, 2 and 3, pass them you are a doctor. Whether you studied everyday, or you crammed the night before, your accountability moment is the day of the test. People in the working world have deadlines. Athletes have track meets. Again, you make the deadline or win the medal that day, you are golden. So I can personally see why this result-oriented think could lead Bush to believe that he did his job.
Except an election is not a good measurement of how well he did his job. His 2004 win is like a C student in a class that everybody failed and grades were given on a curve, or an athlete on steroids beat an opponent who got stabbed repeatedly by his zealous fans. Nor is the job of a President to solely, if at all, win elections. In addition, if he thinks 51% win is vindication, what does he think about his sub 50% ratings in recent polls that directly assess the public's view on individual issues? I hope he learned how to round up.
Accountability
So some people are calling
Laurance H. Summers, the president of Harvard, a sexist. I wonder if the school will hold him accountable for his statements. Probably not. But this just points to that as a public figure, or at least a private citizen with considerable visibility, there are too many opportunities to be mis-presented, or presented in an unfavorable light. Should Dr. Summers be held accountable, especially since he's the president of the foremost institute of higher learning in the U.S., which all of us will admit the last bastion of equality and policital correctness? If the president of the school's view contradicts the views of its majority members, should he or she be punished? Or is it his first admendment right? I would side with the latter.
Oh, by the way, I just heard somebody say last night on NPR, "women sometimes make better CIA field agents (when it comes to flipping foreign nationals for intelligence) because they tend to be more intuitive." Well, is that true? Can you say that? Of course you can, you hear it all the time, and people accept it as facts. But is that science? The last time I checked, the world series of poker never have any female finalists.
What is science?
On Bill O'Reilly last night, he interviewed a biology professor. He claimed evolution as incomplete, and is only a theory. The professor came back with a statement taht "all science is incomplete," which is true. O'Reilly comes back with "well, that's not true. some science is complete." Like there is 24 hours in a day. The professor was devastated so badly he did not immediately cut off the stupid interview, but let O'Reilly go on talking. 24 hours in a day as science?
1. A scale of time is not science, only a tool for measurement. Hey back in China, they used to have only 12 hours a day. guess what? Each hour back then was twice as long.
2.There is not necessarily 24 hours on other planets in the solar system.
3.24 hours, 60 minutes, 60 seconds are only approximation of the length of an earth day. Eventualy we will need to add a leap second, sort of like a leap day every four years to correct the calendar.
4.If you are on a satellite circling earth, your day is probably not 24 hours.
Take that Bill O'Reilly. I am pretty sure he's proud of himself of his quick wit to come up with 24 hours in a day. I was screaming to guy on TV to destroy that careless comment, but to no avail. Just wait until I get my own TV show.
