Catching up

Kind of had my hands full the last week, which is why I haven't posted anything. Not much of an excuse, I suppose, but there you go...

* Got more information on doing my own CNC system. My laser idea won't work for doing printed circuit boards -- not only is copper difficult to cut with a laser, anyway, but the way a laser cuts metal precludes using on a PCB. My emergency fallback position is to go ahead and build a 'regular' CNC that uses a rotating cutting bit to create my boards. An additional benefit is that I can also use it to drill the holes in the board, as well as engrave any panels and such that I might need.

* Watching McNeil/Lehrer last night, I saw a bunch of Congressweasels giving one of the big Financial weenies in Gummit a hard time -- seems the Congressweasels didn't understand that the $750B funding they voted for was not for bailing out people with bad mortgages, but simply to stabilize the financial system. The guy they were dishing shit to tried to explain to them (repeatedly) that there had been no mention of mortgage bailouts or anything else; that he (and others) had EXPLICITLY said that the money was for the financial system. Congressweasels simply couldn't get that concept to stick in their tiny little minds, and were all upset and offended that people were still losing their homes -- and wanted Something To Be Done about it, and right now. Morons. Pretty much all of the folks that have lost their homes did so because there was a "mismatch" between what they claimed their income was, and what they were really earning -- essentially, they lied to get themselves into a house they couldn't afford, and calmly proceeded to spend 101% of their income via MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and all the rest. My thought is: fuck 'em. Yeah, it's gonna hurt the economy for a while -- but when it's over, the financial system (and no, I don't mean just the banks and such) will be a hell of a lot more stable, and stronger.

* The U.S. automakers are now begging and grovelling for a handout, too, and there's no small controversy over whether or not they should get anything. On one side, if the automakers go tits-up, that throws a metric buttload (which is roughly 10% larger than a regular buttload) of people out of jobs, which seriously fucks economies all over the country. Opposing that is the fact that it's the automakers (and all the demands from the unions) dumbassery that got them to this point: there's no reason not to think that they'll just end up pissing the money away and cratering, anyway. Me, I don't think they should get anything until and unless the Autoworkers union is obliged to give up a goodly chunk of the assorted crap that they've demanded over the years, and the automakers trim a bunch out of their bloated administration and management (so they can respond to the market in a timely manner). Then give the bastards a ONE-TIME loan of about half what they're asking for before letting them sink or swim on their own.

* The news media has caught wind of the fact that people that already own guns are buying more of them -- but can't seem to figure out why. Dumbshits.

* The Obamessiah is promising to dismantle a lot of the "protection" bullshit (i.e. warrantless wiretaps, anti-terrorism measures, etc) that the Bush administration hosed us with. That only makes me worry that he's going to try to do even worse shit.