If you want to reduce government corruption...

...then reduce the size of government.

The Death of XSLT in Web Frameworks | Javalobby

The Death of XSLT in Web Frameworks | Javalobby: "The interesting point is: how the XML-based processing works in practice? The short answer is: very poor. And the weakest link in the whole chain is XSLT."

These are my comments on his 5 problems with XSLT:
1. Conditionals are a pain but are they common enough to be big to be a deal-killer?
2. Creating an extra variable occasionally isn’t a big deal.
3. Can be a pain.
4. Functional programming is different but it is gaining utility if large systems
5. I don't have enough experience with this to comment.

Some quick benefits of XSLT over JSP:
1. Push processing to client.
2. Reduce data sent to client
3. Depending on the data and HTML that needs to be applied, XSLT may be the best fit (just like JSP may be the best fit in other situations).

Some time spent learning the different ways of XSLT may have improved the experience. XSLT doesn't work in all cases (what language does) but I think its a little bit premature to claim it is dead. Not even languages that "nobody uses" like COBOL, assembly, and Fortran are dead.

It's Earth Day so change a light bulb and pat yourself on the back

First I think it is very important to conserve the Earth that God gave us and pass it on in good condition to our children.

But it bothers me when I see people promoting changing a few light-bulbs and commending people for doing that. The reason that it bothers me is because they don't show which actions are most effective (most bang for the buck) and try to promote the most effective methods. It seems that most people just want everyone to do some token action when if they really cared about the environment they would promote the most effective actions.

For example (from Google) an LED light bulb costs about $75 while using 22% of the energy of a regular bulb. Assuming the light is used 3 hours per day after a year that would save 42.7 KWH and 22 pounds of carbon (per PGE). It costs $3.41 per annual pound of carbon saved. Could that $75 have saved more carbon a different way?

$60 could buy 24 CFL bulbs (per Home Depot) and that would save 34 pounds of carbon per year (per PGE). That would cost $1.76 per annual pound of carbon saved. That's twice as effective as the LED bulb.

I'm sure there are more options that are even more effective so those who care should care enough to do the best they can with the resources available.

If I Were a Rich Man

Some friends did a spoof of "If a Were a Rich Man" from "Fiddler on the Roof" with a theme of the government bailouts.

Study: P2P thieves buy more music | The Open Road - CNET News

Study: P2P thieves buy more music | The Open Road - CNET News: "As Ars Technica reports,
When it comes to P2P, it seems that those who wave the pirate flag are the most click-happy on services like the iTunes Store and Amazon MP3. BI said that those who said they download illegal music for 'free' bought 10 times as much legal music as those who never download music illegally."

The movie industry fought VHS because movies could be copied but who would argue that VHS was bad for the movie industry?

Innovation can breathe again: Patent filings decline | The Open Road - CNET News

Innovation can breathe again: Patent filings decline | The Open Road - CNET News: "While the PatentlyO blog suggests this is a 'crisis,' I'm with TechDirt: the only crisis is that it has taken so long for patent filings to decline:
Considering the large number of bad patents that got through over the years, and the resulting flood of applications from others hoping to strike it rich by gaining monopolies on obvious ideas, it should be seen as a good thing that applications are finally dropping.
If anything, we should be wondering why they're not dropping more. Patents were supposed to be given out in the rarest of circumstances, when other incentives weren't enough. Somewhere along the way, those who controlled the patent system seemed to forget this and lose their way."

A conservative

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

A conservative is a man who realizes that when the government takes a step forward it often forces man to take a step back.

Obama Repeats '90 Percent' Stat for U.S. Guns Recovered in Mexico - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com

Obama Repeats '90 Percent' Stat for U.S. Guns Recovered in Mexico - First 100 Days of Presidency - Politics FOXNews.com:

'This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States. More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that line our shared border,' the president said on the subject in his joint press conference with Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Thursday:

To some, it might sound as if Obama is saying 90 percent of all guns captured from the cartels originated in America. But that's not what the president means, senior National Security Council Spokesman Denis McDonough told FOX�News on Saturday.

"By recovered he means traceable, guns traced back to the United States," McDonough said. "These are ATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) numbers. These are the guns submitted to the ATF for tracing. That's what we mean by recovered."

"Recovered" does not seem like the correct word to describe this. "recovered in Mexico" to me covers all guns that the Mexican government has found.

"Do You Austrians Have a Better Idea?" - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute

"Do You Austrians Have a Better Idea?" - Robert P. Murphy - Mises Institute: "n one sense, the critics are right when they ask, 'Oh, so we should just sit back and do nothing and let the market fix itself?' Yes, that would be a perfectly good idea. The whole reason we are in a recession in the first place is that the capital structure of the economy had become unsustainable due to the Fed's massive credit expansion following the dot-com bust and 9/11 attacks. Resources — most notably, labor — are currently idle, because the economy needs to readjust. Overextended lines such as housing and finance need to shrink, while others need to expand. (And no, I don't know what those understaffed lines are; that's why we have a price system.) Because Americans lived beyond their means for so many years, they now need to live below their means, consuming less while they rebuild their checking accounts and portfolios."

Ten specific proposals are listed in the article.

Campaign For Liberty — File This Under...

Campaign For Liberty — File This Under...: "... 'You know you're in trouble when...'

The former head of the KGB warns you that you're embracing too much socialism:

Russian Prime Minister Vladamir Putin has said the US should take a lesson from the pages of Russian history and not exercise 'excessive intervention in economic activity and blind faith in the state's omnipotence'....

Sounding more like Barry Goldwater than the former head of the KGB, Putin said, 'Nor should we turn a blind eye to the fact that the spirit of free enterprise, including the principle of personal responsibility of businesspeople, investors, and shareholders for their decisions, is being eroded in the last few months. There is no reason to believe that we can achieve better results by shifting responsibility onto the state.'..."