It’s the time of the year for best of/worst of lists, and The Beast has an interesting list of the Most Loathsome People in Amercia, 2007, mainly for who was picked for slot No. 9 – You:

You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism — it’s nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears’ children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you’re going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques.” You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can’t spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don’t want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy’s doing well. You’re an idiot.

While the whole article is part tongue in cheek and part right on the mark, this one still resonates with me.

And we are the people who elect our representatives at all levels of government.

Yes, we do seem to be idiots…

Well, it really comes as no surprise, but Feb. 1, 2008 marks when development of Netscape Navigator ends.

While the Netscape browser (now part of AOL) has pretty much slippped off everyone’s radar over the last few years (down to a market share of 0.6%, if I recall a recent article correctly), this is the browser used by just about everyone first peering into this new-fangled thing called the World Wide Web. Heck, for most folks Netscape was the vehicle for their first trip on the internet.

Microsoft’s IE browser put the brakes on Netscape’s popularity; the acquisition of Netscape by AOL helped this decline. With the rise of the open-source Firefox and the newly resurgent Apple and its Safari browser, Netscape was relegated to the “remember when?” scrapheap.

Still, this is a piece of internet history that’s going away. It won’t be missed, but its legacy shouldn’t be forgotten.

Update: Netscape does have a 0.6% market share.

Update 2 (12/30/2007): – Henry Blodget, who’s usually pretty down to earth on such matters, suggets the Mozilla foundation buy Netscape and rename the browser Netscape Firefox, among other suggestions.

While he’s correct that the Netscape brand has a certain cachet, so does the Chevrolet Corvair, and that’s not coming back.

Blodget’s totally wrong on this one.

The people today who are familiar with Netscape are those pretty much familiar with the whole Netscape story, which includes the browser no longer relevant since version 4.2 or so. And AOL is up to version 9 of the browser.

And if the name is so valuable and a so-called selling point for (in Blodget’s view) a combined Netscape Firefox, how come only 0.6% of browsers in use are Netscape? Doesn’t seem all that valuable, now does it?

A Netscape Firefox browser would be a combination of a once-powerful but long-since-relevant tool with one that is on the ascent, and highly regarded by the geeks that help drive adoption of certain standards (in some cases).

It would hurt both names; let Netscape die in peace.

As reported by CNN, Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated just hours ago by a suicide bomber.

This’ll stir up an area that’s already a tinderbox.

Yipes.

The New York Times has an interesting article (which I read through news.com) about the battle between Microsoft and Goolge, Google gets ready to rumble with Microsoft.

What struck me about the article was how much of what Google is doing that is not getting ready to rumble with Microsoft.

It’s more like Google realizes what they are doing might step on MS’s toes (Gmail, Google Docs) and so that’s a reason to tread lightly, so they don’t get MS’s hackles up until Google is in a position to not have to worry (too much) about the MS reaction/retaliation.

To me, it’s MS that’s reacting to Google, not the other way around. Before Google, search and online advertising weren’t on MS’s radar: Desktop software was. Now MS is fighting back, trying to take back some of this relatively new territory (that Google virturally [pun intended] owns).

Take Gmail, for example: While I’m sure MS was in the minds of everyone at the GooglePlex, that wasn’t the why of why it came about.

It came about because it was a natural for what Google does best – cloud-computing apps. And it had the benefit of giving more ad impressions.

Yes, it was ding on MS and Outlook/Exchange, but that was just gravy, to me.

Google was just building something only they (at the time) could. It could have well ended up in the Google dumpster, such as other highly promoted Google projects. Remember Froogle? Few do…

Remember Netscape – the browser? It didn’t come about to kill MS – it came about to harness the power of the new-fangled thing called the internet.

It appeared to be a threat to MS (remember all the talk about browser-based apps, which are only today becoming real), and MS – to its credit – turned the huge company around very quickly to address the internet.

But that was not the reason for the Netscape browser.

Ditto for Google in general. Google is moving on its own, following its own continually evolving agenda, towards something it’s not quite sure of.

Along the way, it may stumble across developments that threaten MS, but Google is not (to me) targeting MS. Google is just aware that it may cross MS along the way, be it with apps like Gmail, which compete with existing MS apps, or online advertising, which MS is getting into to “get ready to rumble” with Google.

To paraphrase Othello, “It is not the cause.”

As you can tell from the plethora of posts (or lack thereof) here the last few days/weeks/months/year, I’ve been busy (the desire to post is still strong; the time to do so isn’t).

So – just a quick hit of new music I’ve been listening to lately. Not necessarily new music, just new to my ears.

That’s the one nice part of spending a lot of evening/weekend time in front of the computer: iTunes with my ripped music playing to make the time (a little) less stressful.

Without any further ado, some sounds I’ve been sampling:

• While Chalk P.J. Harvey – Probably my favorite new singer; this is a new album, but I’ve been backfilling her older material over the last six months or so.
• Challengers The New Pornographers – Currently my favorite new CD.
• Kismet Jesca Hoop
• Children Running Through Patty Griffin – As with P.J. Harvey, this is a recent album. I’m busy getting all her older CDs, as well
• Faithless Street Whiskeytown – I had never heard of this band until a couple of months ago; man, I’ve been missing some good stuff.
• Across the Universe Movie soundtrack – Gets better with each listen,
• Gold Brick Jon Langford – Purchased for “Lost in America” (one listen on the radio and I was googling for it and purchased less than a half hour after first hearing it); at least two or three really strong songs on here, as well.

Yes, another powerful demonstration of Symantec/Norton’s ineffectualness: My auto-renew sub for Norton email notification ends up in … the Norton Spam Folder.

WTF?

Is it just me or is this a little crazy??

Obesity rates in U.S. leveling off.

In other words, we can’t get any fatter…

I’ve been a big fan of Norton Utilities and so on (now Symantec); I’ve used the products since my 286 days.

Like MS Word, each new cut of the product has had more features but way more bloat, most of which I will never use. And finding the stuff you need to find is, today, almost impossible.

A couple of days ago, I renewed by subscription to Norton Internet Security (virus, spam, ad blocking etc – the suite), and the email confirming it took two days to arrive.

And that email ended up in the (irony alert!) [Norton] spam folder.

Next time I think I’m going to look for a different solution…

Just take a look that new, opaque government we’ve been governed by the last half dozen years or so, and counting…

Bush Admin: What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Us, 2007 Version (Via Josh Marshall/TalkingPointsMemo.com.)

This is an effort to compile all the programs cancelled/classifications added and so on over the past year or so.

While the title is deliberately paranoid, I think we all realize that there will be changes to programs, to the classifications of programs and so on. That’s a given. And we (taxpayers) won’t always be given a reason for these changes, and we’ll often think something is fishy where it really isn’t

But still.

Take a look at the list, the volume of such, and the strangeness of some – closing EPA libraries for budgetary reasons, when a recent study showed these programs produced a surplus of funds, for example. Can’t have it both ways.

Just doesn’t pass the smell test.

And when you lump them all together, well, paging George Orwell…The Ministry of Truth is alive and well.

And when President Bush – and others in the administration – talk about bringing democracy to Iraq and the rest of the tinderbox that is the Mideast, is this the type of democracy they envision? One of disdain for judicial oversight, for classification of potentially embarrassing/damaging reports, for a more imperial presidency?

Or the one of our founders, based on the lively exchange of dissenting view, of checks and balances, of “advise and consent”?

Something I noticed recently – on both my home and work computers – is that CNN.com is pegging my CPU.

I noticed this at work today. I usually have at least two Firefox instances open, each with 5-10 tabs open.

Firefox was consuming my CPU.

OK, I closed and restarted Firefox (some memory leak?).

Still bad.

So I began the “scientific process” – close a tab at a time; see what appears to be the culprit.

It’s CNN.

Same here at home tonight.

I’m guessing it’s a Flash issue, but I’m not certain. But all I have to do is close CNN and my CPU use goes from 98-100% to 10% or so.

I’ll monitor, but it’s not much of a loss. CNN used to be my fav site for news online, but it has gone downhill dramatically recently.

Just not news.

Doubt me? (As you should.)

View screenshot from now (11/01/2007 9:10pm CDT), below. Look at all the yellow that is NOT news. This is CNN’s TOP page. A sweepstakes? Oprah cutting hair?

I thought there were a bunch of wars going on…