Supreme Court Nominee - Alito

Today President Bush nominated Samuel Alito to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. This seems like a much more natural choice for Bush after the debacle of his nomination of Miers.

 

Personally, I liked Miers. She was politically moderate and had the potential to bring two very divided sides of the senate together. Yet, the right wing shot themselves in the foot by shooting her in the back. I am politically moderate in general, and agree with both sides about some things. For instance, I agree with the right wing that abortion is wrong (though, I don't necessarily agree with outlawing it, doing so just means more dangerous illegal activities for fragile pregnant mothers), but I agree with the left that homosexual familes need equal rights. I am unsure if Samuel Alito agrees with either of these opinions, his record on the former is not terribly well defined. Yet, conservatives seem to really like him. Ok, so what? Well, what it boils down to, is that before I make a decision on whether I support him or not, I want to hear a lot more about his views and decisions...

Google: Darth, or Anakin?

 

So the question keeps comming up... Is Google turning into an evil empire or not? With each new service that it unveils, the question comes up time and time again. Many Google critics have claimed that it has, ever since the release of Gmail. Their arguement? They argue that Google invades our privacy by it's target advertising crawl.

 

So I'm going to write about this arguement first. It is understandable, but absurd. Simply put, Google has published it's stringent privacy policy in which it states that no human being will ever read the contents of your e-mail unless the law forces them, or you authorize them. So, they say plainly that they aren't going to go poking around. Case taken care of. However, opponents of Google argue that this isn't enough, that there is nothing stopping Google employees from poking around, and beyond that, if even if they didn't, they do not want machines combing through their e-mail. Guess what, guys... if you have a webmail account, and even if you don't, your e-mail is not safe from being combed through.

 

The question I have to ask to opponents of Google's privacy policy, is this: Do you have anything to hide? Personally, I don't care if Google wants to put in an ad for an airline agency when it sees I'm trying to book a flight to New York. It is, in fact, rather helpful, especially since I don't have to do a subsequent search.

 

People worried about having their personal information stolen should not be using webmail of any sort...

 

So, the next few things, it appears that Google has decided to wage an all out war against the online community, giving consumers free products that are (often) better than paid services existing out in the cyberverse. No company or service has gone untouched... Microsoft, Yahoo, Aol, and E-bay are just some of the ones targeted by the search giant.

 

But with more and more people hailing Google as the next evil Microsoft, even as Microsoft continues to soften its public image, is Google really becomming Darth Vader? Or is it still the young Anakin Skywalker flexing the power that he now knows he has?

Hurricane Wilma - The Aftermath

To put it simply, Hurricane Wilma was an all out suprising storm, in every way. Let's review:

1) It exhausted the list of 21 names listed each year by the National Hurricane Center.

2) It became the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin with an internal pressure of 882 millibars. There were reports that gusts at this time were up to 196 mph. It was a category 5 storm.

3) It hit the Yucatan Peninsula right at the heart of Mexican tourism: Cancun. It then hovered over the Yucatan for quite a bit of time, weakening substantially.

4) After moving back into the Gulf of Mexico, it restrengthened and made landfall in southern Florida as a fast moving (almost 30 mph) Category 3 storm. Once over the Florida peninsula, it weakened into a Category 2 storm.

5) Then the unthinkable happened, it restrengthened, while still over land, into a Category 3 storm once again, devastating the east coast.

It was the massive 5 ton iron bar that broke the camel's back, crushed it, and used it as a fine powder to spread accross the atlantic basin.

So why did this storm catch Floridians so off guard? It was predicted to "weaken substantially" after sitting over the Yucatan for so long, and it did. It weakened from a Category 5 storm, to a Category 3 storm, I would call that substantial. However, we know that Category 3 storms can still be just as dangerous, and devastating.

Floridians all but ignored the warnings that Hurricane Wilma was still a very dangerous, and potentially catestrophic storm, imagining instead that it would weaken to a Category 1 storm. News Flash: Hurricanes never do good things. They do damage period.

The news since then has been devastating to hear from both the Yucatan and the Floridan Peninsula.

In the linked article, people are criticizing the government, once again, for not acting quickly enough to get aid there. But, is it possible that the government also underestimated Wilma? If so, then they are guilty for nothing less than the people who decided to ride out the storm. I am positive that they could not have predicted that Wilma would knock out gas stations, preventing trucks from getting gas and making it to the devestated area. Even if they could, could they do anything about it?

It seems that we go through this after every hurricane, grumbling because the government isn't in there the moment the winds stop blowing making everything alright. Guess what: the government is made up of people too, they cannot be perfect planners in unknown circumstances. They are not gods, who have control over everything, and when something is as unpredictable, they may not be able to assist immediately.

Of course there are many arguements against this, some that are quite valid. My own opinion is that in the worst Hurricane season on record, the government's emergency relief services are stretched thin. And though I can understand why people are unhappy because they lost everything and need these supplies, they were also told to get the hell out of there. Grant it, not all areas of the state were told that, but the worst effected areas, such as the keys. If they stayed, then it's their own fault if the government can't get help to them immediately.

As devastating as Hurricane Wilma has been, I wish the people of Florida would concentrate on helping eachother recover instead of complaining that everyone else is not doing enough.