The buzz word for the last 18 months or so in the IT world has been cloud computing.  This term has been applied to pretty much everything revolving around virtualization and parallel computing.  It gets on my nerves because I don’t feel virtualization environments, while extraordinarily useful and buzz worthy, really fall into the cloud computing category.

For example Ubuntu defines Cloud computing as such: Cloud - A federated set of physical machines that offer computing resources through virtual machines, provisioned and recollected dynamically.

I wanted to comment on the NY-23 race, Hoffman, and Scozzafava.  I am going to reference what I wrote previously the day after the last election.

So my advice to Republicans is go back to your roots.  Be principled proponents of small government, fiscal responsibility, national security, and social conservatism.  People want a balanced national budget.  The debt hitting 10 trillion scares the crap out of them and it should shame Republicans that it happened on their watch.  People want a secure border.  Physical wall, technological wall, they don’t care too much as long as there’s real security on our points of entry.  At the same time they absolutely want to share the American dream with every soul that wants to come here and make a new life.  Find a way to make both happen!

Most important though is trust.  Over the last eight years Republicans have squandered the public’s trust in them by not being who they said they were and who they were elected to be.  That will be the most difficult to regain.  It will be done by consistent stands on all conservative principles.

Some Republicans, and far too many political commentators, are shocked by the reaction of people to the NY-23 race.  They seem surprised that the Republicans in the district supported Hoffman over Scozzafava and “ran her out”.  I think many, both general public, Republican leadership, and political writers, have taken to the idea that Democrats and Republicans are no different than the Yankees and Red Sox.  You pick a side, wear your colors, and root for your team.  The problem being that conservatives do not feel that way.  Folks like me have no great care for the Republican Party as an entity only the principles we feel it has stood for in the past and should continue to stand for.  If it abandons those principles we will abandon it and not shed a single nostalgic tear.

I’ve been watching a lot of Youtube lately.  They have inspired me to do a series of videos myself.  I was turned onto the concept of sheep, sheepdogs, and wolves by Nutnfancy.  This caused me to realize my desire to be a sheepdog and started me down that path.  I want to chronicle it by creating a video history of the steps I take.  I think it will be a fun project.

What does that mean you ask?  Well if you were lucky enough to have missed Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull then you are blissfully unaware of the scene in which Indy survives a nuclear blast by jumping inside of a refrigerator.  Think jumping the shark only a magnitude more absurd.

Obama has a few key points with which he pushes his health care initiative.  First is costs are climbing out of control.  Second is the major cause of rising costs is health insurance greed.  Third is the only force able to compete with the greedy insurance companies is the government.  The funny part about this is that these main points are pretty much self defeating with anyone who has any knowledge of free markets and the slightest critical thinking skills.

I have pretty much given up on trying to keep up with politics.  The Obama administration is moving on so many different issues that by the time I get the chance to formulate a blog post that isn’t just a recycling of stuff already out there we’re onto the next three topics.  It is heartening to see the breaks put on some of this nonsense.

So my personal life has been rather busy this summer.  Professionally I have the day to day stuff at the data center to stay on top of as well as a major new project we’re bringing together.  I’ve been doing a lot of reading and a lot of learning along the way.  That’s a good thing too.  I think you’ve run out of usefulness if you stop learning and being hungry for more knowledge.

The big event of the summer was taking a much needed vacation.  Twelve days split between Makato, Kansas and Houston, Texas let me see some friends and family and really refocus on some of the important things in life.

Its days are numbered I’m afraid.  In computer terms its 3.5 years has been a long and fulfilling life.  At this point I almost feel bad asking it to continue working for a little longer until it can be replaced.

Ok yeah I can’t keep that up.  The real question is what should I get to replace it?  I’m being pulled in two opposite directions.  On one hand I’m tempted to get one of the really tiny laptops and a monitor etc. for my desk at the office.  On the other I’m looking at a monster HP that could replace my TV for some things.  I really want a blu-ray player and its cheaper to buy the laptop than a 1080p capable TV and player.  I just am not sure about lugging around an 11 lb. laptop.

Just the other day I called Obama’s budget unserious.  I guess Senator Gregg agrees with me.  That is not some great achievement on my part.  Any rational person would have but what is surprising is just how closely the Senator’s criticism of the budget resembled mine in tone.  He called the deficit cutting claims “spurious” and said that the tax claims were “Alice in Wonderland” fantasy.

What makes Gregg’s criticism so cutting is that he was formerly the Obama nomination for Commerce Secretary.  Obama made it a special point to praise Gregg’s fiscal discipline and credited it as the leading factor in his nomination.  Gregg later withdrew his nomination because of deep seated policy disagreements.  I wonder if he had gotten a peek at this budget before then?

This certainly gives me hope.  Cap and Trade looks like it is getting pulled from the budget along with a host of other items that are especially offensive.  I don’t expect to like it in its final form but at least I have hope that we may survive this yet.  At least there is someone left on Capitol Hill not ready to jump on board with the President’s war on prosperity.

Fox News has an interesting story out today.  I’m really curious what the reaction to it will be.

Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

The press followed Carville's orders, never reporting his or Greenberg's desire for Bush to fail. The omission was understandable at first, as reporters were consumed with chronicling the new war on terror. But months and even years later, the mainstream media chose to never resurrect those controversial sentiments, voiced by the Democratic Party's top strategists, that Bush should fail.

At least one member of the media is attempting to maintain perspective in the Age of Obama.

Washington Post is reporting Obama’s plans to raise taxes in the coming years.  The pipe dreams expressed here are amazing and not surprisingly the WaPo doesn’t even begin to question the figures.

Even before Congress approved the stimulus package earlier this month, this year's deficit was projected by Congressional budget analysts to approach $1.2 trillion, or 8.3 percent of the overall economy, the highest since World War II. With the stimulus and other expenses, some analysts say the annual gap between federal spending and income could approach $2 trillion when the fiscal year ends in September.

Obama proposes to dramatically reduce those numbers by the end of his first term, cutting the deficit he inherited in half, said administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the budget has yet to be released. His budget plan would keep the deficit hovering near $1 trillion in 2010 and 2011, but shows it dropping to $533 billion in 2013 -- still high in dollar terms, but a more manageable 3 percent of the overall economy.

To get there, Obama proposes to cut spending and raise taxes. The savings would come primarily from "winding down the war" in Iraq, a senior administration official said. The budget assumes that the nation will continue to spend money on "overseas military contingency operations" throughout Obama's presidency, the official said, but that number is significantly lower than the nearly $190 billion the nation budgeted for Iraq and Afghanistan last year.