Mokka mit Schlag » 2006 » September

Wildcat Ridge parking lot, 2006-09-17

The primary is over here in the Eleventh Congressional District of New York State. I don’t yet know who won the judicial races (Surely, someone somewhere posts complete election results; but whoever it is I haven’t been able to find them with Google) but not counting those races I’m 2 for 6. I.e. of the six candidates I voted for, 2 won.
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Will we ever get high speed train service in this country? After riding the Acela roundtrip from New York to Boston and back this past week, I’m afraid the answer is no. As the crow flies, Boston is about 306 kilometers from New York. On the most expensive train that trip takes just about three and a half hours, thirty-forty minutes faster than the cheap train. As near as I can tell, this time savings is achieved mostly by skipping stations. Why Amtrak paid so much extra for these trains, I don’t know. The Acela poked along at a leisurely speed that afforded excellent views of the Atlantic coast and marshes. We rarely seemed to exceed 100 kilometers per hour. Cars on the adjacent highways regularly passed us. Once we were passed by a Metro North commuter train! And I’m not even counting the twenty minutes we stopped waiting for a bridge to be fixed in Rhode Island.
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When I first started speaking at the Software Development conference in 1997, I lugged my PowerBook 5300c with me. Typically this was one of maybe two Macs to be found anywhere at the show. After the first year or two, it was usually the only Mac at that or any other show I attended.

When I started talking about XML, my PowerBook was no longer capable of running enough software to support the talk. The Java VM was atrocious and years behind what was available for Windows or Unix. Much XML software didn’t run at all. At first, when I spoke at a show, I made sure a PC was set up for me; and I’d load my presentation onto it from a CD. Then around 2000 I bought a Dell Latitude LS laptop that served me for the next few years. At this point, there were usually no Macs to be seen anywhere at any show. The presenters didn’t use them. The exhibitors didn’t use them. The attendees didn’t use them.
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Some races are so lopsided they amount more to an anointing than an election. Such is this year’s race for the governor of New York. Eliot Spitzer‘s active, well respected service as Attorney General for the last eight years has given him an aura of invincibility. Even three-term incumbent governor George Pataki dropped out early when it became obvious he didn’t have a matzo ball’s chance on Orchard Street of stopping the Spitzer juggernaut. Nonetheless, he still needs votes to win, which is why I plan to show up at the polls on Tuesday and vote for Eliot Spitzer for Governor; and I ask you to do the same.
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Like many other races I’ve been blogging about today, the next New York State Attorney General is going to be chosen on Tuesday in the Democratic primary. This race is unusual in that there are two solid, respectable candidates for the post, Andrew Cuomo and Mark Green. However, while both have distinguished themselves, only one of them has a record of defending the rights of New Yorkers in the courts, and that candidate is Mark Green.
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