About Relational Bases

Some smart Fox, who's a Pro at this stuff, told me that an Oracle at Delphi told him how to Access all the knowledge of the world directly, not indirectly using some  base data method (DataBase Too?) or some sequential (or was it SQL?) method, was possible by just asking the right question.

 

The only problem is that any query asked of it always comes back with the same answer: "42".

 

Presidential Power and By-Passing Congress - A long Tradition

When President Bush did not re-hire some Attorney Generals after asking all of them to tender their resignations the national press was up in arms about him misusing his stated and authorized powers. Yet when President Obama did the same thing the current press did not even cover this same quadrennial process. This double standard is actually quite normal in American politics - but it misses the point that a President has a LOT of powers that is often never reported by The Press - the appointments that are made and the directives issued (or not issued) to all employees within the Executive Branch of Government.

 

By-passing Congress to accomplish a political goal and sometimes even implement a truly functional improvement in the USA is nothing new. President Truman by-passed Congress when he ORDERED the desegregation of the Military in 1947. As the Commander in Chief of the military he ordered it and they HAD to implement it - it was a direct order. It achieved a political goal prior to the 1948 campaign and it actually made it easier for the supply and personnel system within the Military. It eliminated having duplicate paths and redundancies to service two identical units with two sets of people in order to adhere to segregation policies.

 

President Obama has issued published Executive Orders to the Executive Branch to implement "green policies" in all Agencies by-passing Congress. Never reported. And of course when he first was elected over 3,000 political appointees were made to agencies within the Federal Government which is also normal. However, once these people are in place THEY in turn publish rules and regulations, granted under existing law, which can completely change the purpose of the law and how it now will affect people. Example: The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes a Notice for Proposed Rule Making, ask for comments from the public in out of the way places and never really advertises the notice, then it can publish the new rule in the Federal Register after the comment period, and 90 days later the "rule" is actually now a "law" and must be obeyed. This is where the true power of a President lies - getting agencies to publish new regulations or rescinding regulations and rules to change the whole nation effectively by-passing Congress completely – and legally.

 

Congress CAN override these regulations - by passing a bill and getting the President to sign it - but that can seldom be accomplished unless it REALLY affects a vast majority of people from all spectrums of life and people find out about it. Most rules published by Agencies affect very few people directly - loads of people indirectly - but when only a few people are affected they have no high numbers to get motivate to complain and get a larger following behind them to bombard Congress about it. You cannot complain to any agency since you have no standing with them. A law change affecting 500 people (or businesses) will not have the same impact as one affecting 5,000,000 people or a million businesses and thus will end up staying on the books.

 

The President can also order the US District Attorneys NOT to enforce laws - and/or direct them, as President Obama has done with one immigration issue, just put the enforcement as a "low" priority and thus effectively render the law he is sworn to enforce meaningless. The DA cannot refuse to follow his orders - he hired them and he can fire them - so they do. This is what President Obama has done with the problem of people crossing into the USA without getting the proper VISA or work permits. He has told the AGs of each area to just not prosecute those who crossed into the USA who have not been convicted of any violent crime, to just ignore them and leave them alone, even once discovered to be here illegally.

 

This is also done throughout the USA by those in charge of police departments - they take their cue from the President so they too implement policies to flout the laws they don't like by telling their city or state DAs to NOT bring charges against certain class of crimes. Often citing "cost savings" or it being a "victimless" or property crime that is not worth pursuing in order to prosecute for violent criminals. Whole cities now ignore Federal Immigration Laws using this method - which since a President can order it means that they can do it also. The President is certainly NOT going to order his DA to sue a city for ignoring a Federal law that he has ordered his own DAs to ignore!

 

The USA was founded upon the "rule of law" which is slowly being eroded from the top. Why would people want to obey ALL laws when they see that a President, State, City or Local government deliberately orders people to ignore laws that does not suite them - and get away with it.

 

Under our law system ONLY the Government can bring criminal charges against anyone - no individual can EVER bring a criminal case against anyone else. If the Government can pick and choose which laws to enforce and when, then eventually everyone will learn to ignore the laws they don't like. The only problem is that when an individual breaks a law the Government likes the individual WILL lose as compared to when a Government entity breaks a law that a higher government does not like nothing happens.

 

Any President can use these methods - it is all a matter of degree of how much they have abused this power and if once discovered what the press does to report it. President Obama seems to get a pass on doing all of these actions. People complained to Congress about SOPA and PIPA and they were stopped - yet the President signed an international "executive" agreement in October of 2011, really a treaty, implementing this same thing within the USA after secret negotiations - by-passing Congress again - and no complaints came from the Press Corps.

 

This is where the true power of a President lies.

 

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Security/Secret-Government-Talks-Create-Treaty-Stricter-than-SOPA-or-PIPA-522416/1/

 

Dumb users or Dump Computers Design?

Tech Republic had a "great debate" article (http://www.zdnet.com/debate/great-debate-securitys-greatest-threat-dumb-users-vs-dumb-design/6316982?tag=mantle_skin;content)  about users vs design.

 

I think it is a feedback loop of both.

 

Dumb users exist. Designs are written to account for them as the lowest common denominator to accomplish a given task.

 

The more you hide complexity of any given item the less anyone has any ability to even recognize when something goes wrong since they have no clue as to why it works the way it does so cannot even guess as to why it is behaving differently now.

 

It took over 70 years before all cars (in the USA) STOPPED having manual chokes and carburetor controls on the dash.

 

Course now if you something goes wrong with a car's engine there is NO way the "average" person can even guess at the problem let alone fix it. It has been abstracted so far out that only a small group of people with the right equipment can even look at it. And only they can repair it.

 

Course when  a person goes out and turns the key it just works - but when it does not . . .

 

That is the price paid for dumbing things down.

 

In 70 years I expect computers will function like a car. They will just work but only doing that certain task in ONLY that one way and nothing else. It will be so locked down that it will be, in essence, hundreds of cars in a single device but no ability to do other than a single task that it was designed to do.

 

People will be locked out and not expected to know anything but doing that one task by clicking on that one button. 

 

Kind of like that one soldier sitting at the desk in the original movie  "The Andromeda Strain" where his sole job is to listen for that bell to ring and nothing else. And he has no way of knowing if that bell is working or not since he was designed out of that whole process.

 

 

 

 

Global Warming - It's all about Statistics

 

A new UC Berkley study reports (October 2011) that the Earth is getting warmer. The study has not been “peer reviewed” yet but since they are ALL using the same data as other research people it would not be surprising that they all come to the same conclusion!

 

A good scientific blind study requires using the same method but creating different test data and getting to the same conclusion. If every study uses the same test data then that is just not possible.

 

The issue about testing for global warming is that the data gathered is based on location AND the type of equipment used then "normalized" by some statistical (often proprietary) method to account for local and equipment variances and THEN is used to create a conclusion.

 

A weather "station" from 1830 records temperature by a person using "local" time by using a glass thermometer (and no way to know  how accurate it was) is now at the "same" location of an automated station that is now inside a city which states that it is now 6 degrees warmer than the same date and time in 1830.

 

Heat islands, extra heat put into the air by loss of heat by buildings and extra absorbed heat by the buildings and which in turn heats up the surrounding air, is "calculated out" of what they EXPECT the actual temperature to be if there were no heat islands. They cannot actually use the recorded temperature because of this fact – it would knowingly show every city getting warmer and the surrounding countryside staying the same – because of humans being there!

 

The math used to calculate and then subtract the "extra" heat often is a problem.

 

You can see this easily on the east coast around DC. West of DC temp is 50, over DC 55 to 57, then along the Chesapeake Bay it is again around 50. The island affect is local - but may cover a 40 mile diameter.

 

However, there were NO remote temp reporting stations in the middle of the US, Europe - anywhere in the world till around WW I when it become important enough to create stations to help in military operations. Of course in WW II due to air operations reporting stations were created around the whole world as well as aircraft reporting weather data. This is why cold and warm air masses are reported as "fronts" – it is derived from military combat terms.

 

Now you become suspect when they report as "fact" the temperatures back in 1700s, 1300s etc - they are guessing based on MODERN observation and projecting it onto past events (growth rings in trees for example).

 

And when they state they have never seen a glacier this small "since 1806" then HOW did it get that small in 1806?

 

The problem comes in that each person uses a different set of statistical methods, but the SAME sets of reporting stations, applies these to "normalize" them all to a standard, THEN comes a graph to show trends and makes a conclusion.

 

The problem is that NO ONE agrees on how to do any of those things.

 

If there were just 100 stations that reported temp all at the same TRUE time of day over 200 years - they all would be in cities by now and then you still would have the heat island effect to account for by people burning wood / coal in each house then and now gas heated / electric heated houses now (with some wood still).

 

No matter what is done the method they use to wipe out reporting errors, heat islands, time of day reporting etc this statistical problem will always exist as to definitively state that compared to year 0 (A.D.) the Earth is now 1 degree warmer than it was then.

 

Oh wait, the Earth is actually 1 degree colder than it was then – they still cannot grow grapes in Scotland.

 

IPhone 4Gs and The English Language

An article about the iPhone talked about how 38 million people who DO NOT SPEAK English, who live in the USA, is at a disadvantage in using them since the voice app is ONLY in English for people living in English speaking USA.

 

If you are here on a "Green Card" it means you are here legally AND your skills are needed and most often that means that you have learned workable English to do your job and function in our society - you can use the phone.

 

If here on a Student Visa that means you are here to get an education and that also means you are either learning English ore have enough understanding to go to school and understand what is being taught IN English - you can use the phone.

 

If you are becoming a CITIZEN then you are REQUIRED to not only learn the real history of the USA but have to learn functional English in order to gain your citizenship - you can use the phone.

 

If the 35 million who do not understand English are living in the USA then either they:

 

1) are too old to learn (maybe 1% of people over 45 are just incapable of learning ANY language, as seen by studies in the 1930s of the immigrant wave from 1890 thru 1920, not a CHOICE by them)

 

2) refused to learn English wanting to keep their "old" language and culture - which in case they should have never come here to begin with since to become an AMERICAN is to learn the language of the nation - English - regardless if it is in law or not

 

3) are here to make money from the USA and then return to the nation where they came from which is not possible to do so. They came here and are exploiting our freedom and opportunities which is due in part to a COMMON LANGUAGE. If they do not care about learning English and we should not care about them in ANY way either and should not help them in any way.

 

4) Are newly legally arrived in the USA - it is one way to learn English!

 

5) Illegally arrived over the past 40 years and to avoid being deported they stay in a community where they all speak the SAME language and never leave - thus no need to learn. Again, we should not worry about them since they made a CHOICE of not wanting to learn English for themselves OR their kids.

 

Over history people coming to the USA from hundreds of nations and thousands (dialects) of languages and ALL learned English after they got here.

Over the last 50 years is the first time people MADE a decision NOT to learn English after getting here because the "intellectuals" have championed and promoted that people who come here should NOT learn our language at all in order to be American.

 
If people who had NO education from the wilds of Russia in 1910 who were dirt poor came here and by 1930 they spoke English and their kids spoke English by the time they were all surveyed in 1930 by the Census bureau - how in the world can someone say that people coming here in the 21st Century who all have at least 12 years of schooling are INCAPABLE of learning or having their kids learn because it is "too hard" and need special help to learn  when NONE of those "special" classes were even though of in the 1910s?

 
They made a CHOICE of not wanting to learn English - so don't worry about them.

 

How Greece Can Become Part of Germany

The debt crisis in Greece has implications around the world if they default, but then, what is the NORMAL things that happen when a company, or a person, defaults? The creditors now OWN what was put up as collateral.

 

Where Greece only put up its name as an asset, and like any business it has lots of things "off the books" that it owns - in the case of Greece it's its sovereignty.

 

If Greece defaults, then Germany, THE real monetary engine that allowed the money to be loaned out and really supports all of Europe, should assume ownership of Greece.

 

It can become another part of Germany. LOTS of Germans already vacation there, and if they, the people of Germany now own it, they can make even better vacation package deals for themselves as well as the rest of Europe.

 

Think about it. The whole concept of the EU is to eventually wipe out all the individual nations and have just the EU. As each nation defaults it can become part of Germany and after 20 years then there is ONLY Germany left.

 

Then the EU can change the name of Germany to EU and now there is only EU.

The way you pronounce it would be of course: EWW

How to Solve The Debt Ceiling Problem Easily

Greg: Rounded corners. Jared, I mean, once we have rounded corners it's utopia, right?

Jared: It absolutely is. I think the whole reason for the debt ceiling problem is because every chart that they show us has square corners.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. We could solve so much.

Jared: Exactly.

http://www.uie.com/articles/snapshot_css3_html5