OneMind

So far I’d give the Niners a B+ in their 2006 college draft peformance.

Their second pick was LB Manny Lawson out of NC State. This guy seems like the real deal. He’s big, fast, and a real leader. He’ll help shore up an anemic pass rush and may be a first-year starter.

Their third pick was a wide-out named Brandon Williams of Wisconsin. The guy has decent stats and was highly rated in the Big Ten but he’s only 5-11, which makes me suspect he may not be able to make much of a contribution in the NFL where wideouts typically have to square off against quick safeties who have size and speed.

For the past few years, the 49ers have tried in vain to run the West Coast Offense without a world-class tight end. Drafting sixth in the first round of today’s NFL picking spree, the Niners picked up the best tight end in college country, Vernon Davis of Maryland.

Davis turned in the fastest-ever time for a tight end in the combine (running a 4.04 40) and is a workout warrior who is strong and likes to hit people. He’s exactly what the Niners needed to shore up an offense that was bleak at best last season. Now Alex Smith will have someone 6’3″ tall and 256 pounds of lean muscle to get the ball to over the middle. By himself, he can’t bring the 49ers to playoff pitch, but he’s a big key to building a future three or four seasons out.

Great move, Niners!

Thanks to the wonders of Tivo, I just finished watching “Real Time With Bill Maher” from last Friday. I generally find his show entertaining and informative, but I seldom get fired up as a result of watching it. Friday was the second time he tackled the pre-eminent issue of our time, global warming, and he did so in a way that my fellow Democrats and Liberals need to listen to very attentively.

In his “New Rules” segment, Maher said, “Democrats have to claim their rightful place as the party of environmental protection.” Right on, Bill. His opening guest was Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the chairman of the DNC’s Congressional election team and the author of a book called “The Plan” which outlines a five-point proposal for retaking the House in the upcming mid-term elections. Emanuel’s sharp and articulate but he and his book and his party don’t mention global warming.

Maher wondered if it’s because the Democrats can’t figure out how to summarize the issue of global warming in a 30-second spot. “How about this?” he suggested. “‘The Republicans want your children to die.’”

Exactly.

Getting lost in the sudden power surge from Giants’ slugger Barry Bonds is the pathetic state of the NL West (aka, from the 2005 season, NL Worst).

Bonds has hit three homers in his last 11 at-bats, including a very impressive No. 711 on his career last night, to close to within three of tying Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time list.

Meanwhile, the G-Men are tied for first in their Dismal Division with a puny 11-10 record. You’ll recall that last year, the division titlist finished a scrape of three games above .500. Just to put that all into perspective, if the G-men were in the NL Central, they’d be in sixth place. OTOH, in the NL East, their record is good enough for second where the Mets are soaring and the rest of the division are all below .450.

I’m a huge fan of Brett Favre despite the fact that he quarterbacks the team that consistently made mince-meat of my once-favorite Detroit Lions. But I think he’s made a huge mistake by deciding to return to the gridiron for another season.

Watching Favre last year, it was clear he’s lost more than a bit of his famous edge. He was confused, off-target, indecisive and a bunch of other things that the Brett Favre of well-deserved fame never was. I can’t see how that gets any better with a body and a mind that are a year older, a year more banged-up, a year more in pain.

I got an email today (actually I got several of them) purportedly from PayPal telling me my account had been accessed by a third party and that I had to log in to my account within 72 hours to confirm I was legit or they’d suspend my account.

Since I know this doesn’t conform to PayPal policy, I knew this was a phishing attempt, I didn’t click on the link. Interestingly enough, though, this link wasn’t a fake text link like most of these scams are. Rather, it showed a purportedly real URL link address that would make you think it was a real PayPal address.

Hovering over the link, however, I was able to see that the apparent PayPal link would actually go to a clear scammer’s address, as you can see in the screen snapshot below. When in doubt, hover.

The headline says it.

I am running a PowerBook G4 with plenty of RAM (1G) on what should be a fast Internet connection (cable modem) and yet whenever I go to view online video in my Web browser (Firefox or Safari), I get herky-jerky downloads.

If this is the ultimate in online multimedia experience, I ain’t happy with it. But who do I blame? What do I fix? Where do I look?

My cable modem speed test out just over 600MB/second, which is just under half the average cable modem speed in California according to BandwidthPlace.com, so is that the problem? Or is my browser mucked up somehow?

Anybody?

Leave it to the Linspire folks. The people who produce what is in my experience the finest Linux desktop experience available have a new free distribution of Linux desktop that incorporates proprietary codecs and player software as an option right in the kernel.

This hybrid approach to a desktop Linux is going to raise a lot of eyebrows. Mixing open source and legally licensed proprietary code in one distribution is (as far as I know at least) a new idea. Some are going to object that doing this will hinder the development of open source competitors/equivalents to the proprietary stuff. Nonsense, I say. As Linspire CEo Kevin Carmony says, “I honestly believe it’s time to take a realistic approach. The world just isn’t going to throw away their millions of iPods, or stop watching DVDs. Until viable alternatives emerge, Linux needs to offer a total, usable experience. Freespire doesn’t force any proprietary code on anyone, it simply gives them that choice as an option.”

For now, Freespire is supported only on x86 hardware, but versions for OS X are bound to come out because Freespire is a community project. I’m looking forward to this next advance in Desktop Linux. It hastens the day when I can be rid of both proprietary OS solutions.

A long-standing Internet political-position quiz came to my attention again this morning thanks to my buddy Tony Seton. I’ve taken it before and it’s at least reassuring to know that I’m still a Liberal ( ) even if, according to the poll results, I’m part of only about 19% of respondents who are. (The quiz may be accurate but the polling sample is clearly skewed by its home on the Internet where Libertarian ideas tend to dominate at least among the active and visible participants.)

Take the quiz yourself. It’s only a few questions long and takes almost no time. (BTW, I found the descriptions of the various political positions to be among the most objective and accurate I’ve ever read.)

I don’t know if George Bush is the poorest communicator ever to hold the office of President of the United States but I do know he’s been the source of more public gaffes than anyone in recent memory. He makes Dan Quayle look bright and articulate.

Here’s a line from a speech he gave the other day at Tuskegee Institute. “There’s nothing we can’t do if we don’t put our mind to it.” Huh? (And you can’t blame the press. This is the official White House released transcript of what the man actually said.)

Now these little slip-ups by themselves would only be semi-humorous. But read in the context of a speech filled with fits and starts, bad analogies, poor grammar, stumbling…this guy just isn’t capable of putting together, in public at least, coherent thoughts. Don’t believe me? Read the transcript of this speech. It’s pathetic. He’d be lucky to get a D in a high school speech class.