Price Harry smokes pot, do we care?

Celebrities often say that the biggest downside to such status is the fishbowl within which they are fored to live. For the English royal family, that intense spotlight appears to be even worse. This morning, for example, papers all over are running some variants of Reuter’s story: Prince’s Drinking, Drug Use Give Press a Field Day. Similarly, the (unlinkable) SJ Mercury News ran a story in today’s paper discussing the difficulties SJ Mayor Ron Gonzalez is having settling the spousal support amount with his former wife, down to the details of amount sought by each and monthly spending habits.

My question to you all is do you really care? Do you want to read about some 17 year old’s experimenting with getting high? About the dispute of a few dollars between two relatively unimportant people? Is that how you get your thrills? Would you seek celebrity or notoriety and willingly subject yourself to the spotlight?

Auditors: why do they do these things?

Already, the knives are out and coming after Big 5 accounting firm Andersen, saying the firm’s future is at stake after the debacle with Enron. Pundits are claiming that Andersen will be forced to go under or be acquired due to the loss of credibility and the money they will lose in the tidal wave of litigation that has already begun. This isn’t the first big problem for them either, as Andersen just paid the largest civil fine ever assessed by the SEC. Another great American company taken down by greed, I suppose.

Football coaching merrygoround still spinning

Hmm, George O’Leary had a cup of coffee at Notre Dame and now is assistant head coach of the Vikings, thanks to having coached the Vikes’ head coach in high school. O’Leary will also be the defensive line coach, reporting to defensive coordinator Willie Shaw, which sounds odd. Another oddity: Shaw used to be the Raider’s defensive coordinator and a few years ago was mentioned as the best potential head coach out of all the NFL assistants, but he wasn’t even able to get interviews due to CWB (coaching while black); I don’t know what happened between then and now but his name was not mentioned with any job so far this year.

Stanford went in an interesting way with University of Florida offensive coordinator Buddy Teevens. Teevens previous major college head coaching experience was with Tulane where he was fired after going 10-45 in five seasons. However, a big factor seems to be that he’s an FOT–a friend of Ted Leland, the Stanford athletic director. Also, since the Tulane gig he’s spent time working under two highly regarded head coaches, Steve Spurrier and University of Illinois’ Ron Turner. The word on Teevens now is look for a high output offense, something that will work very well against the mostly porous defenses in the Pac-10.

Florida, after being turned down left and right, plucked Ron Zook of the New Orleans Saints staff. Zook, like Teevens, apparently also had the good fortune to be friends with the athletic director who hired him. He’s not an unknown to the Gators after serving as Spurrier’s defensive coordinator from ’91-93 though there is the weirdness of Zook having been demoted to special teams coach for ’94-95.. I have to like his choice of Ed Zaunbrecher for offensive coordinator after Zaunbrecher’s stint in the same job at high scoring Marshall. Some people who count must like the choice: Rex Grossman is going to return and pass up a shot at the NFL this year, though backup QB is transferring to Miami (don’t ask me, doesn’t make a lot of sense here either).

Then, in the NFL, there’s Tampa Bay. Highly regarded and fairly successful Tony Dungy reportedly must win at Philadelphia tomorrow or be replaced by Bill “The Big Tuna” Parcells. I love Parcells for what he did with the Giants but Dungy has done a terrific job even though he’s never had a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback and shouldn’t be on the hot spot.

Another coach looking over his shoulder is Marty Schottenheimer of the Washington Redskins as team officials are reportedly in Gainesville to talk to Steve Spurrier. The ex-Florida coach is also bein wooed by the Carolina Panthers but at least that team had the graciousness to get rid of their previous coach first. Schottenheimer apparently is not interested in resigning and losing out on at least $7 million owed for the rest of his contract. Ol’ Joe Theismann thinks Schottenheimer is the better coach for the Redskins.

Still open: San Diego, Indianapolis, and Carolina. Indy ownership apparently wanted to Jim Mora to stay one more season so they could go after the Raiders’s Jon Gruden. Rumors, though, have Gruden on the outs with Al Davis due to his flirtation with Notre Dame and Florida so perhaps the Irsays will get their wish a little sooner.

This is an update of a previous entry, if you’re tuning in late. More as news develops…

New tools can be as fun as toys

I was asked this morning if I’d like to try the new Radio Userland 8 release candidate and decided to give it a whirl. You can see the results at billsaysthis on ru8. RU is a content management system, about to be available for $39.95 a year, from Userland Software, which also sells Manila. Not too clear on the differences between the products. Userland is the company Dave Winer founded. garret has a more comprehensive writeup of RU8. Seems like a good idea but I wonder if I can import my Blogger archives.

AIDS Ride lawsuit petition

Last month, I wrote about the lawsuit filed by Pallotta Teamworks against the SF AIDS Foundation and the LA Gay and Lesbian Center regarding their dispute over the annual AIDS Ride fundraising event. The non-profit SFAF and LAGLC, after contracting with Pallotta Teamworks to manage the previous bicycle rides between SF and LA, have decided that Pallotta has mismanaged the events and spent too much on overhead and are therefore going to hold their own events without Pallotta involvement. Pallotta is suing, claiming the contract it has with the non-profit orgs prevents the orgs from organizing their own bikeathons.

Former riders and crew volunteers are very upset about this and feel Pallotta should withdraw it. They’ve set up an online petition asking Pallotta to drop the lawsuit. They registered the domain RidePetition.org and hopefully that will work soon too but there is little time–the suit goes to court this Monday (Jan. 14). So if you or anyone you know has ridden in or volunteered for the event, please send them to this URL ASAP. Thanks!

A side note: I actually did the authoring of this little website. Felt really cool to help out on a good mission and to stretch my skills in a small way.

Must read Safire: Iran must be an anti-terror target

William Safire has been a political pundit/NY Times columnist for nearly 30 years and my frequency of agreement with him varies from extremely low on domestic social issues to fairly high on foriegn policy. In his column in today’s Times, Arafat’s Implausible Denials, I find that what he says is completely plausible and extremely important. The recent capture by Israel of a shipload of arms sold/provided by Iran to the Palestinians shows that the ayatollahs in Iran are still sponsors of terrorism and must be dealt with, eventually, the same as the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

Politicians: why do they do these things?

I have been following the spate of news coming out of East Palo Alto politics recently and just don’t understand most of it. To give some context for this, remember that EPA is probably the poorest municipality in the Bay Area and surely the poorest on the Peninsula. In general, these politicians are pouring dollars down some drain for no apparent reason than to keep themselves in power. Or worse.

Topping the list is the court battle the EPA police and city council are fighting and losing against Robert Cole, who apparently was dismissed from the police force for being a whistle blower but has gotten a court to reinstate him. Compounding the thousands of dollars the city has spent already, they have reinstated him and immediately put Cole on paid administrative leave even though this will mean further big legal fees as Cole is insistent on going back on active duty. Neither the city council, before which Cole appeared last night, nor the police department will comment on why he cannot be on active duty. They already have to send him a backpay check of $70,000 plus about $22/hour for doing nothing on leave.

The next news from East Palo Alto is the ongoing battle of it’s Ravenswood school district and the district’s superintendent to (a) hold on to power and (b) somehow escape blame for submitting a fraudulent petition in the related court case. Parents and the state have been suing the district over their programs for handicapped children, of which there are a suprisingly–to me–high percentage. The case has been going around for a long time but the school district seems to be almost out of time as the next (last?) deadline is in March.

And then former mayor R.B. Jones went to jail last week for taking a bribe.

XML Tower of Babel

eWeek has the article XML: Plugging into ‘Standard’ Hybrids today which brings up the very important point that far from being a saviour, so far XML is just another IT silver bullet wannabe. Almost every industry has come up with their own XML ‘dialect’. Emerging vehicles like ebXML and Universal Business Language may provide an answer but they are very slow in coming to a usable state. Of course this is completely in line with the history of software in the enterprise.

AOL first big winner in write-off sweeps

bst fav biz writer Christopher Byron pops up on MSNBC with the article AOL plays the blame game, in which he dismantles the AOL conference call of yesterday, but also points out that the company is using the new rules on goodwill to write off $60 billion from the Time Warner merger. Damn, that was fast! First up to the plate and we get the largest single write-off in corporate history. One third of shareholder equity down the drain. I suppose the accountants are just recognizing reality and trying to take every last bit of the hit in one shot. Wall Street cheered at first, driving the stock up 70 cents at the open but reality has set in and know the stock is down 23 cents. So they didn’t get much out of it, unles you consider that the book value of the company in comparison to the market cap is vastly less and yet investors still value the company at the same level.

We do not appreciate political correctness

In yesterday’s Washington Post (and today’s SJ Mercury News), reporters Dan Eggen and Cheryl W. Thompson reported that U.S. Seeks Thousands Of Fugitive Deportees. Normally I would have read this article, been peeved that the main quotes used come from only one side (representing the aggreived people, naturally), and passed on to the next article. However, my brain jammed up at the article’s use of the phrase undocumented immigrants. Further research (i.e., comparing the Post and Mercury News versions of the story) showed me that the Merc changed the story; in the Post the phrase was undocumented aliens.

What a phrase! This country, like any other, has arrogated to itself the ability to determine who may and may not reside or visit within its borders. To use the phrase undocumented immigrants implies that our country has abrogated that function to individuals to determine for themselves. We have not done so and these people, whose reasons for being here are not in question, are in the United States illegally. Further, the phrase rises to previously unnoticed (and undesirable) heights of political correctness for a major newspaper such as the Post.

Ziff-Davis: really feeling the pinch

eWeek, the former PCWeek, magazine used to be one of the most important publications in computerdom. Everyone wanted that free subscription but only a few were chosen. Then the Web came along and blew away the need for most print news publications, particularly those focused on computers. The Spencer F. Katt gossip column was one of the most enjoyable reads each week but lately it’s totally fallen off. This week’s effort, Microsoft Leaks Another Glum Valentine, isn’t even original. As I wrote to the author in complaint:

Gee, nice of you to rerun week old Register stories:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23518.html

Heck I even wrote about in my weblog a week ago:

http://www.billsaysthis.com/blog/blogarch.phtml?archdate=2001_12_30_blog_archive.phtml#8352401

Another personal illusion sadly bites the dust.

Gone: Wendy’s Dave Thomas

And he really was Wendy’s, not just the food chain he built but a daughter who loved him. Lovable Dave Thomas died today at 69 after battling liver cancer. For the last 12 years he’s made those lighthearted TV commercials even though he’d retired seven years before from the company. But he really was one of the good guys even if he couldn’t choose between the sourdough bacon jack burger and the ham and chicken sandwich. His ad campaign has been running so long, I wonder if the company will try and use the new digital tech to make new commercials. Dave was adopted and about 10 years ago founded the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption to support adoptive families and organizations working to help them. Bye Dave, thanks for the value meals!

Strange dreams

I will tell you that I’ve had some strange dreams lately. Some people in a chat room I frequent have been talking about going to Las Vegas in May. So the last few nights I have had dreams where I am in a casino but not nice ones like they have in Vegas. And each night something strange happens that wouldn’t in a real casino. Like last night, I was playing craps and instead of paying me off on a small bet, like $20, the casino workers took me and my buddy (not Byron, oddly enough) and dragged us out into the middle of nowhere, punched us a little, and then left us there. We had to struggle to find our way back to the city and then confront them, which is when I woke up. The previous night I met a beautiful woman at the casino bar, a different casino, and she asked if I wanted to play (gamble!) with her. I said sure and she took me over to a section where they dealt out cards and then played some kind of bingo-like game, where players sat in tall chairs with no table in front of them. Very odd, eh?

The words “oh” and “bugger” seem appropriate

No, not the old school whisky. I recorded Blackadder Back and Forth a few nights ago and got a great reminder of why Rowan Atkinson can be so funny. Except, of course when he plays the idiotic Mr. Bean. “A dung ball in a dress.” “As thick as clotted cream.” What great villainous language. Imagine Baldrick inventing a working time machine. If the PBS station or BBC America is broadcasting one of the four Blackadder series or one of the specials, catch it and laugh.

Miami, Miami, Miami

Just to wrap up the college bowl season, I point you to the College BCS News for the wrap up. The University of Miami Hurricanes were so impressive that you have to think they could give the Raiders and 49ers a good game. What speed on both sides of the line! Just a little embarassing for Nebraska, eh what? Oregon were certainly impressive in wiping out Colorado but Mike Belotti protests or not, they don’t match up to the ‘Canes. As a Nebraska player said when asked what he saw in the Miami films, “Nine first round NFL picks.”

Microsoft: No dividend so BillG doesn’t get slammed with taxes?

Ralph Nader and Merrill Lynch & Co. technology strategist Steve Milunovich have both posted reports recently calling for Microsoft to use its $36 billion cash hoard to start paying dividends. One clear difficulty is that Bill Gates would get 12% of any payout, which would more than likely then be subject to income tax at a rate of 39.1%; a $5.39 billion payout (25 cents per share per quarter) would pay BG nearly $647 million of which he would send the IRS nearly $253 million. OTOH he has transferred a large amount of MS stock to his foundation, which presumably could always use a few more million dollars to disburse to good causes. The only other comparable tech company, Intel, pays a small (8 cents/share) dividend. MS claims that tech companies need cash for various reasons but their pile always seems to be going up. As a small MS shareholder, I’m not sure which way to lean, to be honest, but this is a very interesting question.

Vaxgen: more good news

The company furthest along in releasing an AIDS vaccine has released more good news: the HIV/AIDS vaccine, AIDSVAX B/B, induces antibodies to the five most common HIV subtypes according to an article published today in the journal Vaccine. “Once again we see evidence that AIDSVAX induces a more robust immune response than we originally anticipated,” said Donald P. Francis, M.D., D.Sc., president and co-founder of VaxGen. The stock is up 30 cents on the report. Now if they could just get some analyst coverage to bring in the insitutional investors.

Tonight’s TV: The Prisoner

Have you ever watched this short British series from the ’60s? Only 17 episodes but still widely loved today. Patrick McGoohan stars as Number 6, a man who was once a top secret agent but handed in his resignation only to be drugged and transported to The Village. This is a mysterious place where each episode features McGoohan trying to find out where he is, how he came to be there, or how to get out and each week there is a new local boss or Number 2.

One of the local public TV stations is currently running the show on Sunday nights and tonight broadcast Many Happy Returns. In this episode, McGoohan awakes to find The Village empty, the water and electric turned off. After exploring and taking some snapshots (with a camera borrowed from the store), he makes a primitive boat and sets sail. After 25 days at sea, he has a run in with a boat but ends up ashore in England. Returning to London, he meets a kindly old woman who has taken posession of his flat and sports car and confronts his former employers with his photos. They finally believe him and provide a jet to search for The Village. Finding it, the pilot ejects McGoohan, who returns to his Village home to find the kind old woman is actually this week’s Number 2.

The preceeding paragraph seems simple and straightforward but it in no way captures the psychedelic nature of the show. From the color schemes, clothing, furnishings to the pseudo-druggy behavior of the supporting players. Let me say that I’ve never taken LSD or mushrooms but when watching The Prisoner often feel I have an inkling of what that would be like.

Kipp Teague has a wonderful site dedicated to the show with plenty of detail and photographs. There is also a considerable fan club, Six of One. Allegedly Simon West (director of Tomb Raider) is preparing a new major motion picture version, but there have been efforts to do this in the past which never came to fruition.

All your piggy bank are belong to us

David McCusker, writing on the Hack the Planet discussion board, posts an impressive analysis of Microsoft’s Hailstorm whitepaper. The title I used for this entry is lifted from his remarks on the whitepaper section entitled The HailStorm Business. Let’s just say that his overall take is not terribly favorable to MS. McCusker wrote his post as answer to Robb Beal’s urgent request to “Break it Down.”