In the discussion about the continuing name of the dorm, I read it was mentioned that UT promotes “diversity” and as a result continuing to recognize a former Klansman was inappropriate.

Apparently, only “approved” diversity is permitted.

I’m NOT going to justify the former Klansman. There are many reasons why a UT dorm should not be named after him.

The bigger question is the concept of “diversity”.

It should mean, among other numbers, accepting a number of viewpoints, including those viewpoints one does not like or even finds repugnant.

Now, ironically, UT may be less diverse. Only “politically correct” perspectives are allowed.

That is not diversity.

One sees this all the time, a typical formula found especially in academia: We promote diversity. Because you do not like ______ you are not allowed.

It is never questioned that by restricting the opinions and perspectives that are unwanted, and which may even in fact be false, that the very concept of diversity is turned on its head. You have to like ______ to be diverse.

More accurately, diversity is simply a code word for, mainly, approved liberal think.

Now the yearly State Fair is upon us.

Animals. Rides. Fried Twinkies. Fun to be had by all.

Sacramento County inspectors will be out in full force. Not to make sure rides are safe. Not to make sure people are having a good time.

But to inspect over 150 food vendors to make sure there are no artificial trans fats in any food they may sell.

The Sacramento county food inspectors will be testing anything cooked in oil, any food that is not baked or pre-made such as hamburger buns, pre-prepared box mixes, and batter.

Just keep this in mind whenever you hear the County squealing about budget problems.

The money is there. It’s just a matter of prioritizing what you want to spend it on.

Now, Bing gets most of my searches. Then Yahoo. Finally Google – mainly just because I’ve used the service for so long and still feel some need just to ‘check it’.

I have even changed the primary search engine in my Firefox browser from Google to Bing.

How did this happen? Changing from the ‘no evil’ startup Google back to the corporate borg Microsoft.

- Relevancy. Google is simply not returning as relevant of search results. It appears Google has lost its way while trying to diving what every searcher is “really” searching for. How about: exactly what I am searching for. Not what some computer thinks I should be searching for.

Google still shows more results. But more of what? Irrelevant pages which only seem to make using Google feel even more useless.

I’m not referring to spam or junk pages, although there is plenty of that on Google. The results are clearly not as relevant as they were a year ago.

I’ve done many searches and found Bing and Yahoo have similar, but not identical results. They do a good job returning primarily relevant results.

Google? It’s now from another planet.

- Poor details about search results. This is harder to articulate, but the informational snippets from pages Google is showing in its search results are often unintelligible. A mass of gobbledy-gook on the page.

- Junk all over the search results page. Google used to have a nice clean interface. Just search results. Now, it is mainly ads, menus and submenus of options and more menus, and then some results.

- Google’s Ego interferes with its results. Have you noticed that more and more of the search results are simply pages Google owns? For instance, medical searches. Google now shows at the top a page from Google. A page of information that is merely copied from a federal website. Ouch. The Google of old would have had as its top listing the actual federal website so a searcher would directly go to the most relevant information.

Now, Google thinks of itself as another website to compete with all other websites – instead of a world class search engine directing people to the most relevant information.

It’s not just medical searches. There are only 10 search results shown by default on the first page of Google. Between Google’s own pages. Google’s books. Google’s products. Google’s news. Google’s YouTube videos. There isn’t much space left for the billions of web pages.

Apparently, Google search is becoming a search of Google.

Google has become the new evil. Bing is now focused on quality for its customers.

Maybe Google should focus on search instead of the 100s of other products it has become involved with that now demand its attention and resources.

I thought this was a current book, created now in 2010 with ‘Megatrends’ projections for the next decade. I read the original Megatrends, thought it was really good, so was anxious to read the 2010 version.

Wrong was I.

Megatrends 2010 was published in 2005. Meaning it was written in 2004.

That’s OK. Perhaps better as one should now be able to see clearer some of the effects and truthfulness of the new Megatrends.

Unfortunately, all that has been proven is that this book is a bunch of liberal, Ivy-league, idealistic clap with little mooring to reality.

The premise of the book is that the Age of Information is dead. Gone. No longer exists.

Now, we have the age of “Conscious Capitalism” by which companies seek to maximize the common good for all people on the planet – and not profits.

Yeah, right.

Imagine if you will, a college student writing an essay. And then (trying to appear smart) going through and changing every other word so it is at least three syllables. The more syllables the better. The more amorphous and ‘enlightened sounding’ the better. No sentence is less then three lines long. Each paragraph includes references to transformation, consciousness, spirituality, etc. (Not just one of these terms – all of them.)

In other words: unreadable.

After slogging through much of this mess, it becomes quickly apparent (before page 1) that this is a morass of utopian ideas – such as the need to save capitalism (which is dying) by corporations becoming more socially conscious of their empirical and not theoretical need to transform the spirituality of consumers for the ethical advancement of humankind. [Hee, hee - just had to throw in the type of writing this book uses for the fun of it ]

Needless to say, I was a little surprised – having remembered that I enjoyed Megatrends so many years ago. Turns out, the author of Megatrends 2010, Patricial Aburdene, is the ex-wife of the author of Megatrends (John Naisbitt). Or, as she put it, a co-collaborator.

That’s fine. But this book is not about future trends. It is not about trends proven true that few years. OK, I’ll give the book a bone. Everyone is calling themselves “green” – but not due to increased spirituality and increased participation in yoga. (For some reason, the author refers to yoga a lot. Apparently, everyone is doing it.)

Hey, this blog is green. I’ll call it that to get you to read it. Or to sell a product. That doesn’t mean “conscious capitalism” exists.

FYI: The Age of Information is not dead. Capitalism is not dying. Rather, just the opposite is true. I will not be buying any more books from Ms. Aburdene.

Draw Mohammad Day

That is a good idea. About time people turned on the Muslim extremists and made fun of them.

Father Amorth apparently became an exorcist in 1986, and has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession.

That’s a lot of demons.

Since the Times Online in London, where the story came from, was too lazy to consider what was being claimed, let us help them out.

70,000 cases over 25 years is 2800 per year. Working 365 days a year, that is 7.7 cases per day, every day, for 25 years.

Of course, ‘dealt with’ does not necessarily mean a full-bore investigation and exorcism – although Father Amorth is an exorcist and not an investigator.

Either the math is wildly wrong, as in 70,000 is too high a figure – or maybe the Vatican needs more exorcists as it appears to be a losing battle.

According to the article, anything bad that happens is the work of the Devil.

But more importantly – WHERE ARE THE EXORCISMS OF THE PEDOPHILE CATHOLIC PRIESTS? Surely if this is the work of the Devil, a top priority would have been exorcising the Devil out of priests.

Does the company have a death wish?

Now, it has no rate increase. My prediction – it never will get anything more than a token increase.

Publicity is now trained on this company and its billions in profits. It had a 50+ increase percent in profits during the last year – a year when supposedly the country was in the great recession.

In February 2009 Anthem Blue Cross in California had to reinstate a couple thousand members and pay a one million dollar fine. Why? Because it was dropping subscribers once they got sick and had expensive care.

And of course the California Insurance Commissioner is publicizing 700 recent legal violations by Blue Cross, and that fines of up to $10,000 per violation will be sought. That is $7 million in potential fines. Here’s hoping Wellpoint gets whacked. Another prediction: lots of lawyers are looking for potential angles to sue.

But that is nothing comparing to the whacking the company is about to take in Congress. If a bill is passed regulating health insurance at the national level, Wellpoint Anthem has only itself to blame. Instead of laying low they have pointed a huge bullseye on their back.

The characters were real. Interesting. Likable.

This year, it’s a different show. Just a few of the mashed together story-lines and themes after only three episodes:

* Gay sex everywhere. The leader of the compound is gay. So is a receiver. Anal sex in the family.
* Incestuous desires in the family.
* Gambling and running a casino.
* Drinking alcohol.
* LDS Church bashing.
* Guns.
* Digging up dead bodies to cover-up a murder.
* Intentional lies to the real Mormon Church.
* A polygamist running for public office so he can expose his family’s criminal lifestyle.
* The family creating their own church.
* Extortion … and crazies everywhere.

An out of control mass of ridiculous story-lines that is beyond silly. Just plain stupid.

Why the change in tone?

Last year the Mormon Church had an issue with one of the episodes. A complaint I felt was premature and ultimately wrong. There is also the current highly publicized political debate in California and warfare between the Church and the gay community.

Big Love is created by two openly gay guys from Hollywood. Looks to me like they’re now trying to hurt the Church. Ultimately, they’re just hurting the show.

Ring of Fire – Wow
Mad World – Wow Wow

Like them or not, there was no denying Lambert’s talent.

Suddenly, Adam Lambert was hot.

Was he gay? Probably. But he refused to talk about it because it had nothing to do with his performances and the personality he was trying to express.

Then American Idol ended. There was the tour where all the Idols, except Adam Lambert, would spend time signing autographs for fans waiting hours after the concert. Adam Lambert was straight to the bus.

Now, with a few songs out and a first album one wouldn’t know this was the same person.

Cool perspectives on songs? Nope. Very, very boring – anyone could be singing – songs. Heard them on the radio? Nope. If a song is lucky enough to crack the Top 100 for one week it immediately dies and disappears.

Now, of course, the only thing anyone, including Adam Lambert, wants to talk about is being gay. It’s no longer about the music.

His flaming album cover didn’t help either. While Adam Lambert surely racks up a couple hundred thousand album sales – that is from pre-orders BEFORE anyone heard any songs, before anyone saw the album cover, before the sex stunts at the awards show, before Lambert decided that being gay was more important than being a musical talent.

Fame is fleeting. Lambert is talented and certainly deserves a second shot, a second album to redeem his American Idol aura which led to his initial fame. Otherwise, it will soon be back to backup theatre roles – or maybe he can cash in as a gay porn star.

Sadly, though, do you think Lambert realizes what is happening?

Update: 12/10/9 – Once again, Adam Lambert’s latest song touched into the Top 100 last week and is gone this week. Now that the pre-order numbers are done, album sales are tanking. Given all the incredible hype and free media publicity (that even the Idol winner Kris Allen has not received) – this is really embarrassing.

1. Free condoms are needed for population control to reduce global warming, and now today -

2. Global warming is forcing women into prostitution.

On actual ‘global warming’ news, scientists (even the biggest proponents of global warming) are apparently now agreed that there has been no global warming the last 10 years – and they can’t figure out why.

Is global warming a concern or not? I don’t know.

But I do know that hysterical pronouncements that have no factual support and which are simply absurd on the face, hurt the credibility of those who say we should be concerned.

Does the UN do anything useful?

By the way, if you don’t like this post – blame global warming and not me