Come ‘n get ‘em, folks! They’re almost gone! Everything must go at Crazy Maggie’s Once-A-Year Monroe County Fire Sale!! She’s INSANE!!!!

The Democrat and Chronicle’s editorial board has decided to take up the issue of the latest round of one-off sales that the County Republicans insist will balance the budget. They council caution when choosing prospective buyers, even as one bidder offers 23 million dollars to the County for the Mill Seat Landfill electricity production. At the risk of asking the impossible, I can’t help noticing the disparity here:

No more one-shots || Democrat & Chronicle: Editorials

In efforts to close out the year on a positive fiscal note, Monroe County is exploring one-time revenue options that demand careful examination. The last thing the county needs is to make a decision that it will regret later. After all, while the county could bridge its budget gap of more than $20 million by exercising the options it outlined more than a year ago, there looms the prospect of losing lucrative long-term financial benefits. . . . Here’s where the county must do due diligence. . .

No, no. Let me get this one! The reason they must do due dilligence is because they chose not to when they ganked your kid’s lunch money. I know I should expect no better, but let me ask anyway: why does the D&C insist on ignoring the fact that the F.A.I.R. plan promised to balance the budget, and now we still find ourselves in debt?  Can no one at the D&C do us at least the small favour of asking County Republican why there is this seeming contradiction?

I mean, you could at least ask a softball question and let them give a half-assed answer.  I’d personally appreciate at least the appearance of adequate reporting.

About a year or so ago, now, I paid heavily for a 1.2 MegaPixel camera phone with the express intent to be able to moblog to my heart’s content. The term means posting blog entries of photos directly as they happened, from the phone to the blog. Well, forget that, Charlie. Verizon blocks their phones so that you can only post pictures to just one place: their crappy PixPlace.com site.

Well, now Verizon says that they’re going to open the network to non-proprietary software, which for you non-geeks means stuff not created by them, by 2008:

Verizon Wireless promises openness to any software | Technology | Reuters

Verizon Wireless promised on Tuesday to allow its customers to download any application they want to their cell phones by the end of 2008, appearing to cave in to demands by Web search leader Google Inc.

Well, they may indeed be caving to Google, but in reality, this is one benefit of the iPhone. The iPhonies have been carping about not being able to write software for the iPhone since it was released, and Macintosh has recently capitulated. That means that if you get an iPhone, you’ll get to use whatever Open-Source or otherwise neat little toy you want to. . . on AT&T’s network.

So you see, it’s not in anyone’s interest to block software if they plan on competing with either AT&T or Macintosh. Moreover, not only is this pressure put on Verizon by AT&T - not only is it a race for network supremacy - but there is also a vested interest by companies like Motorola, who is up to their asses in Verizon, to open that network.

It should go without saying to anyone who has a nose for networking news that where there is open software, there is a threat of viruses. Nevertheless, an open network is a good thing for all of us, because it eventually means an end to the mindlessly-proprietary network schemes of the past and a more open, mobile world for us to collaborate in.

Oh, yeah. And moblogging!

Wow, what a title! Sounds like someone needs to go get the spare towels!

But in fact, all those above concepts do belong to one story, and that is the Niagara County HSBC call-center dillio I discussed yesterday. It seems that, as always, there are even more details to be found within the HSBC deal, things look like a raw deal, and whaddaya know? There’s an IDA involved:

KUCHARSKI, FERRARO, GOP SHAMELESS || Niagara Falls Reporter ANALYSIS

Two days after a news conference that featured Reynolds, on a stage filled with children, expounding on topics like sexual predation and masturbation while essentially blaming his congressional bosses for not taking action sooner against Foley, his fellow Republicans gathered at the offices of the Amherst IDA to announce the HSBC proposal.

So while Republicans rallied around Tom Reynolds at the hight of the Foley scandal, it seems others were trying to make the embattled Congressman look better with yet another tax sop IDA deal.

How wonderful.

Well, whatchagonndo?

Schumer acts like a complete wienie when it comes to appointing an Attorney General, votes to weaken the voice of the anti-war movement, and otherwise irritates us no end. But then he goes and does something meaningful like introducing this bill and you’re glad he’s in the Senate. Thanks, dude, but you’re driving me nuts, already.

OpenCongress - S.2346

A bill to temporarily increase the portfolio caps applicable to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, to provide the necessary financing to curb foreclosures by facilitating the refinancing of at-risk subprime borrowers into safe, affordable loans, and for other purposes.

McClatchy has an interesting article this afternoon discussing the U.S. military’s activities mobilizing to find ways to use the Internet to conduct war. It was, of course, an inevitability. And of course, as a wise person recently wrote, dictatorships call their armies armies, whereas democracies always use the ruse of “defense:”

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/26/2007 | Into the wild new yonder: U.S. prepares for cyber-wars

The blueprint for the military is the “2006 National Military Strategy for Cyberspace Operations,” a classified document that includes both defensive and offensive measures, according to officials and analysts. Likely offensive tactics include disabling an enemy’s command-and-control networks, destroying data or dispatching false information to weapons networks, often as part of a larger attack with air power and other traditional weaponry.

What new devilry will come of this is, for now, an open question. Certainly like all covert operations, the question will be answered when opportunities present themselves. And my sense is that, with Russian leader Vladimir Putin making dangerous moves and Condi Rice (an expert in Russian affairs under Bush the First) and the helm of the state department, a fair amount of the attention is aimed squarely at the activities of the Kremlin.

When we think of unions, we must remember that their purpose is to support the working men and women who make up the bodies of those unions. It’s about getting a fair deal for the work that you do. It’s about the boss man with his billions being forced, when necessary, to relinquish a few morsels for those on whose backs those billions were made.

Having said all that, unionism has come a long way from those old Wobbly days. Not all picket lines are populated by gruff longshoremen and work-weary steel men. That doesn’t make their cause any less legitimate, however silly it may occasionally look. I’ve never seen a picket line of pasty-white IT guys like myself, but I’m sure I will soon enough. Meanwhile, have a look at this free-for-all:

A Jovial Air on Picket Lines for Hollywood Writers - New York Times

There have been other attractions for striking writers. A special theme day, Picket With the Stars, drew celebrities like Ben Stiller, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Ray Romano in Los Angeles. Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams turned up in New York.. . . Pickets have been well fed. The longshoremen’s union sent turkey baskets, and stars have played caterer roles. Justine Bateman brought tacos, Jay Leno chipped in doughnuts, and Jimmy Kimmel contributed burritos. Eva Longoria handed out slices of pizza.

Just so you don’t think that Saudi Arabian law is at all unreasonable, justices in the Hizzle of Saudizizzles inform us that the woman who was gang-raped and then sentenced to 200 lashes was in fact having an affair:

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saudi rape victim ‘having affair’

Saudi justice officials say a woman who was sentenced to prison and flogging after she was gang-raped has now confessed to an extramarital affair.

OIC. . . .

Saudi justice is like the Dimsdale of Justice, “A hard man, but fair.” (This reference is extremely obscure. If you get it, you probably grew up with an Atari Tan, like me)

But you’ll be happy to note that the United States, a chief ally of the Saudis, has wasted no time in responding to the verdict:

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Saudi rape victim ‘having affair’

Several governments and human rights groups have condemned her sentence and urged it to be lifted. Canada described it as “barbaric”. The US, a major Saudi ally, declined to condemn to sentence, but did call it “astonishing”.

Wow. They couldn’t even muster up a “grave concern,” for this poor woman?

Paul B. Farrell introduces us to what he believes will be the positives of what may well be an inevitable recession.  I’d say that, on balance, it’s an interesting set of ideas but probably reckless wishful thinking.  There’s no doubt but that economic growth is entirely tied up with the political fortunes of our leadership (a concept hinted at in the article, though not directly expressed).  I don’t doubt that all the cited benefits of recession would, in a perfect world, be excellent opportunities.  We should probably use the impending recession to get our house in order, but do we really think that’s what’s going to happen?

Hardly.  It’ll just be one more reason to “throw the bums out,” while we continue to pile up credit card debt like there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’d thought that when Maggie Brooks told us the F.A.I.R. plan balanced the budget (you know, the “R” in FAIR) that meant that the budget was balanced?

Monroe County looking to short-term fix for $24 million budget gap || Democrat & Chronicle: Local News

Monroe County will likely give up future revenue to balance this year’s budget.County budget officials are looking to the one-time revenue to bridge a budget gap of more than $20 million.

Here’s an interesting ripple in the Subprime debacle: Niagara County has been looking forward to a new HSBC data center project worth millions of dollars in tax revenue, but those plans have apparently been put on hold by the company who is reeling from the Subprime fallout:

Lockport Union-Sun & Journal Online - DEVELOPMENT: HSBC passes up Cambria property

“Given the current overall business climate, we are not proceeding at the original development pace we had planned for our data center in Niagara County, New York,” the statement said. . .The reference in the statement to a business climate may be a way for the bank to point to the recent subprime mortgage market crisis which has hit the industry hard.