A Decade’s Advancement At A Snail’s Pace

IT Wire of Australia:

As general manager, business strategy, for the Information Worker Group at Microsoft Corporation, Alan Yates develops and guides new business initiatives for the Office products group at Redmond. While we await the release of Microsoft Office 2007, promised to hit our shelves before the end of 2006, Yates dismisses open source rival Open Office.org 2.0 as being 10 years out of date.

Allowing for a little bit of a stretch, then Office 97 was the office suite offering from Microsoft a decade ago.  Quite honestly, there really hasn’t been any real innovation in office suites since the mid-1990s, so it matters not to almost all people if OpenOffice.org (OOo) 2.x is functionally akin to MSO 97.

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Clinton-Obama Ticket Stirs Fear In Me

USNAWR:

The possibility that a potential Democratic presidential primary matchup between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama could lead to a Clinton-Obama ticket is raising concerns in GOP circles that it might be unbeatable.

(snip)

“Listen, we’ve got some lackluster people running on our side, and that is exactly the kind of ticket that would get their side in a fever pitch,” said a Bush ally. Democrats aren’t so sure it would work, though, because of Clinton’s high negatives and Obama’s short résumé and race. But the Bush adviser said those factors are actually winners: Obama could help soften Clinton’s image and bring more African-American voters to the ticket as well as independents seeking real and symbolic change.

After the debacles of Blackwell, Steele and Swann, the Stupid Party is STILL embracing the “we’re gonna get the black vote” delusion.  This is why they really fear Rodham-Obama, because they think it will undercut their imaginary share of the black vote.

I don’t think that a Rodham-Obama ticket would win ceteris paribus.  However, the real world is not a vacuum, the Democrats’ opponents are the Stupid Party.  I fear that if the Ds pick Rodham-Obama, the Stupid Party will reciprocate by demanding that Condi Rice be somewhere on the ticket.  Her presence will chase away that certain percentage of white people who would not allow a non-white in the White House, meaning Rodham-Obama would beat a Rice-Somebody or a Somebody-Rice R-ticket.

A microcosm of this effect was Obama’s own 2004 election for his Senate seat in Illinois.  The Illinois Stupid Party, even more Stupid than usual, trucked in that six short of a six pack from Maryland, and his antics meant an Obama blowout instead of an Obama narrow victory, which is what would have happened if the Illinois GOP picked a responsible replacement.

They Might Have Known

Swift raid update, from the Denver Post:

Swift had been told that immigration agents were going to raid the packing plants on Dec. 4. Swift’s lawyers went to court to stop the raid, arguing it would cause “substantial and irreparable injury” to the company. A federal judge denied the request last Thursday.

Yet, every MSM talking head reminds us that Swift did nothing wrong, because the IDs used look authentic enough.  Then why did Swift lobby a Federal judge to stop what it knew was coming, due to harm to their business?

Did management know that they were hiring illegal aliens?  Is there some evidence of this underneath some stacks of paper or hidden and encrypted on some hard drive?  Did they really not take all the ID checks that they were legally supposed to undertake?  Or do they mean “substantial and irreparable injury” in terms of their being deprived temporarily of cheap labor?

How Can This Be?

There is a serial killer/stalker running around Suffolk, England, and he has already nabbed at least four women.

Now, the local police are clueless in the hunt to apprehend him, and have admitted that the Suffolk Stranger is “out of control.”

How can this be?  There’s a spy camera on every street corner, and when you throw in the extensive databases (including DNA and fingerprint) and ID card requirements, then you know Britain has become Big Brother.  We’re all told that fighting crime is the reason for these draconian measures.