novatownhall blog

Sorry for the bleg but I am desperate:

My (day job) company is considering a Web software purchase which is a content management system that runs on Microsoft Server, and I need to get some information on Web site hosting companies. There are many Web sites that tout themselves as “Web hosting review” sites but a tiny bit of digging reveals the vast majority are simply advertising outlets that reprint each company’s promotional literature.

There is a special place in Hell for the guy who started that trend, believe you me.

The very few sites that actually do seem to be trying to provide reviews or compilations of customer ratings are either really outdated or – judging by other “reviews” for software and such that I happen to know about – don’t seem to have much going on between the ears, so I am not taking their word for anything.

The basic specs for the potential host would be dedicated (co-located) server, very powerful machine to pull the gargantuan pile of ore which is Microsoft software, and MS SQL Server. Backups and such, obviously. If anyone knows of any place on the Web or elsewhere where there are actual reviews or test center results for any hosting companies, that info would be greatly appreciated.

This is the question the parents and community around St. James Catholic School in Falls Church are presently dealing with. There is a petition among local residents who want to stop the Hilton from developing this project.

Someone with an interest in the issue e-mailed me with the following:

The parents are concerned that with the development being built so close, during the initial construction phase, it’s going to be very loud and disruptive for the kids in class, and potentially there’s going to be a lot of dust and other stuff that could affect air quality in the immediate area.

On a long-term basis, they’re concerned about increased traffic around the school (with all the attendant risks to pedestrians), and the possibility of the hotel attracting prostitution and drugs.

Here are some recent news stories on the controversy:

Video 1 on St James Catholic School
Video 2 on St James Catholic School
Video 3 on St James Catholic School

More news stories and the petition at Too Conservative.

Bravo to the kids of Central Washington University.

Last Saturday, in an NCAA girls softball playoff game between Central Washington University and Western Oregon University, WOU’s Sara Tucholsky hit her first home run of the season over the center field fence – the game winner.

Unfortunately, after rounding first base, Sara collapsed with a torn ACL injury. And as it turned out, she had missed first base.

She crawled back to first but could do no more. The first-base coach said she would be called out if her teammates tried to help her. Or, the umpire said, a pinch runner could be called in, and the homer would count as a single.

But then, Central Washington first baseman Mallory Holtman and shortstop Liz Wallace asked the umpire if they could assist Sara, and the ump said there was no rule against it.

So the CWU players carried Sara around the bases, ensuring she got her good leg down to touch every base, and thus assuring CWU’s defeat.

“It has been magical and crazy at the same time,” Tucholsky said Thursday. “I’m surprised at how many people have paid attention to this and how far the story has gone. But there are so many negative images of athletes now. Here is one with a positive image.”

Holtman, who had the idea to assist Tucholsky, has also been caught off guard by the ripples.

“At the time, we never thought it would be that big a deal. It just seemed like something anyone would have done,” Holtman said.

In an editorial vein, I would just say “mega-dittoes,” and hope my compatriot Redskin fans would encourage THEIR team to exercise similar sportsmanship next time Tony Romo is a bit under the weather after a week at Cancun, and shoot the boy some love.

The Washington Times has an interesting commentary by Richard W. Rahn, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.  In addition to the fallacies pointed out in the article, I would like to bring up another, the idea that government mandates for alternative energy can create jobs.

Like anything else, the production of energy requires labor.  Even the most automated production system was designed and built by human labor.  So mandating a less efficient form of energy production, such as ethanol, wind turbines, or solar, seems to require more labor to produce the same amount of energy.  And so it does.  Thus, stopping with this simple analysis, we would conclude that less efficient energy production results in more jobs.

But energy is used to produce other things.  Thus, the cost of producing those other things has now gone up.  This cost can either be borne by the owner of the company in lower profits, by the employees in lower wages, or by the consumer in higher prices.  Whoever bears the burden, and it is probably a combination of the three, the purchasing power of these people is reduced.  They will buy less because they have less to spend.  Because they are buying less, companies will produce less, and employ fewer people.

The net result is that there will be fewer jobs because of the less efficient energy production.

Adam Smith’s seminal work on Economics, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, is available online.  Although economic theory has progressed since 1776, like Newtonian Mechanics, Smith’s theories are still applicable 99.9% of the time.  For a more up-to-date economic treatise, try John Kenneth Galbraith’s The New Industrial State.  For those of you who want something a little lighter, try Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics.

An understand of economics is critical to one’s participation in politics today.  When our leaders are proposing Universal Health Care, windfall profits taxes on oil companies, and taking so much of our money in taxes, it is a dereliction of duty for a voter not to have as much understanding of economics as he can.

Thanks to the miracles of modern medical technology and the liberal definition of a “person,” it is now possible to have a child with no mother.  How is this possible?  Well, human ovaries are complete — eggs and all — before birth.  Let us say that a mother-to-be, near full-term, is killed in a car accident, and the unborn child, too.  The distraught father not-to-be could have eggs extracted from the unborn child, which eggs could then be fertilized and implanted in a surrogate.  The resulting child would have no mother.

Obama still leads in the delegate count, but his star is fading fast.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, it is not likely to fade fast enough for Clinton to overtake him in the pledged delegate count before the Convention.  If Obama wins the nomination, you can expect the union workers, a.k.a. the bitter clingers to God and guns, and the Hispanics, to stay home.  Even worse, they might actually vote for McCain — especially the Hispanics, since McCain wrote the Amnesty Bill.

The other possibility is that the superdelegates can put Clinton over Obama.  The job of the supers is to nominate the candidate they think has the best chance of winning in November.  If they do put Clinton in, the Blacks will not stay home, they will go out and riot.

Either way, it’s lose-lose for the Democrats.

Can you say, “President McCain”?  I knew you could.

I am only going to give you this heads-up one time.  For those of us with ADD, ADHD and Altzeimers-too bad.  Staple a post-it to your forehead and look in the mirror often!  What?  Can’t read backwards either?  I have no other suggestions for you.

It seems that decisions made elsewhere and from middle-managment are about to give us a complete scenerio of how to kill a satellite; from beginning to end.  The interviews are still being made as I type this.  The program should include those people that made the decision, those people that implemented the decision, and those people that revamped everything to make it workable.  If we get really lucky (and I believe we will), there will be nose camera footage of the missle to target up to the last few seconds before impact.  Some things just have to remain classified as it should be.  Oh, stop crying and whinning.  If you want to see what missle impacts look like, google footage for the first Gulf War.

All this should come about around mid-June timeframe.  It is developed and brought to you by the Discovery Channel BUT will air on the Military Channel.  Get those VCR’s (or TiVO’s) ready.  Ought to be a good time!