Winter Break Update

Ok, Ok. So we haven't updated. I'm lazy (but I won't speak for Nick). However, definitely look for regular updates when we return from break after New Years. I know for sure I will have a review of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare for PlayStation 3 ASAP.

So for all of our dedicated readers (all less than ten that there may be) please check back in after January 7.

You would think the government would have learned by now

As an addition to SpeakGood, this post was written by our more liberal friend and Oakland University correspondent Mary Maloy. Any opinions expressed within are hers.

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You would think the government would have learned by now: the American Public gets antsy when you start editing recordings. The C.I.A, in a Nixon-esque fashion, destroyed two tapes of interrogations of terrorism subjects, including Zacarias Moussaoui, in which severe interrogation methods were used. Naturally, scandal has erupted.

A problem arises in the fact that these videos have been requested to be used as evidence in the terror suspect Moussaoui’s trial, but the tapes were destroyed even though they were requested. The CIA explained that the tapes were destroyed because they may endanger the safety of the undercover officers working, and that the tapes didn’t have any intelligence value. Somehow this isn’t legally considered “withholding evidence”.

CIA, is that the best you got? Surely you have learned from Nixon. Remember how he said by being president he had executive privileges to withhold the tapes from trial? He was the president, and he got denied. You are just an agency, and not mentioned in the Constitution. What powers do you have to wield?

Blog readers of SpeakGood, contrary to popular belief, I can and will defend a Republican from time to time –I really liked Lincoln- and CIA Director Michael Hayden isn’t to blame. I’ll give you a moment to let this sink in.

He was not the leader of the CIA when the tapes were produced. He wasn’t the leader of the CIA when the 9-11 Commission asked for those tapes. He was not the leader when the tapes were destroyed in 2005. In fact, he doesn’t have much to do with it, and from what the interviews have been reporting, he doesn’t seem to know much about it either. Maybe Mike isn’t the guy we should be going after. Sure, I’m upset he hasn’t been able to provide us with many answers regarding why the CIA didn’t tell anyone that they had records of these waterboarding interrogations, or who authorized the destruction, but he wasn’t in charge then.

I normally would demand more out leaders of massive intelligence agencies, but it seems mediocre performances out of political leaders is trendy, and I’m feeling forgiving. So maybe we should be giving these former leaders the third degree. George Tenet was the leader when the recordings took place in 2002, and Pete Goss was leader when the tapes were destroyed, and both knew that videos of interrogations were being collected. Why aren’t they being burned at the stake? I know Democrats love to bash Republicans, and God knows I do too, but we are going after the wrong guy, America. We aren’t going to get decent answers from this guy. How about seeing George and Pete sweating it out in front of a crowd of pseudo-shocked congress people?

GVSU loses to Northwest Missouri State, record streak over

Northwest Missouri State finally got their revenge.

After losing the previous two Division II National Championship games to the Lakers, the Bearcats ended the nation’s longest winning streak in convincing fashion Saturday night, defeating GVSU 34-16. Leading the way for the Bearcats was senior running back Xavier Omon, who torched the Laker defense for 292 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

Though I did not attend many games this year, I was disappointed by the play of the Lakers on both sides of the ball. Our offense looked somewhat stagnant and predictable. Only when we were down late in the fourth quarter did we actually have success throwing the ball downfield. The defense was a mess. Whether it was the slick field or not, our players took terrible angles and attempted far too many arm tackles. With a top-tier running back like Omon you simply cannot have mistakes like that happen. For instance, Omon raced untouched 98 yards for a touchdown because of a bad angle taken by our safety. Other times, he broke numerous tackles before finally being hauled down.

In any case, NW Missouri simply outplayed GVSU. However, two good things can come out of this. First, the Lakers get their first taste of a loss in three years. Hopefully, this will light a fire under the returners and we should see another successful season coming next year. Second, it was a pleasure to watch Omon, and I’m definitely hoping that a team like the Lions will take a chance on him in the draft. He’s big, has decent speed, and can catch; something that would be a great asset in Mike Martz’s pass happy offense.

Never fear, Vista SP1 is here!

Maybe Microsoft can clean up this Vista fiasco after all.

The first service pack for the latest and often buggy Microsoft operating system is expected to be released as a public beta sometime next week. The update will address several bugs and also is anticipated to increase the overall performance of the OS.

Hooray! Maybe Vista will start to run at a decent pace again. Though it is not terribly slow on my laptop, Vista surely isn’t as fast as XP would be on lesser hardware. However, I still am far too in love with the look of it to shut off performance robbing features such as Aero.

Seriously though, SP1 should help out with many of the problems with Vista. It took two service packs to work many of the kinks out of XP and they still constantly are issuing updates to protect it from new threats. Since upgrading to Vista, I’ve only had to update the OS a handful of times, which I think is awesome.

Hopefully, the fixes will usher in a new wave of Vista installations because it is quite an amazing OS if you have the hardware to run it.

Tigers acquire Cabrera, Willis

It’s a great day to be a Detroit Tigers fan.

As a lifelong fan, I’ve come to enjoy the past two years of success that the storied franchise has given us. And, apparently, the Tigers are looking to make it three successful seasons in a row, with the prospect of many more to come. Let’s just say Christmas came a little early to Detroit.

Not only did the Tigers get one of the most prized diamonds of the offseason in Miguel Cabrera, they also got a spectacular pitcher in Dontrelle Willis.

Cabrera’s numbers compare well to Manny Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez, but he is only 24 years old. Dontrelle is 25 and is a very dominant pitcher when he’s at his best.

Sure, the Tigers give up quite a bit, including super prospects Andrew Miller and Cameron Maybin. But, what GM Dave Dombromski did is pure genius. He traded raw talent for two proven all-stars. Maybe Miller or Maybin work out, they both did show flashes of brilliance last season. But, the odds aren’t that great that Miller becomes the next Willis, or that Maybin becomes the next Cabrera.

The only thing that I dislike about the trade is that it may mark the end of the Brandon Inge era in Detroit. However, I would rather see Cabrera play left field and Jacque Jones become a backup than to see Inge get shipped out.

Now, if only Matt Millen would take a page out of Dave Dombrowski’s book. Then maybe the Lions could actually win a game here or there.

New Mac ad is definitely pushing it

Yes, I wrote about this already in the past month. However, the newest Mac vs. PC ad absolutely pisses me off. In the ad titled “Misprint”, Apple makes a statement that their Macbook was faster at running Vista than all PC notebooks.

Personally, I do not understand the point of this advertisement. On one hand, Apple says their Macbooks are fast. Yes, but they are fast running VISTA of all things. Hmm… what does that say about OS X? Is it slower on a Mac than it would be on a PC? Oh wait, that’s right, Apple is so closed minded it won’t let OS X run on a PC without hacking it.

I’m sure the Macbook they tested was pushing nearly $2,000. Most PC laptops are far cheaper than that. Plus, current generation Macs are not very far at all from your everyday PC. Sure, the motherboard might be a bit different, but almost everything else is the exact same. A new Mac has essentially the same processor that Nick has sitting 10 feet away from me in his Dell.

So what if Vista runs a little faster. Isn’t the point of buying a Mac to get OS X? Or at least that is what I was led to believe by previous ads. What is the point of buying an overpriced Mac to run the supposedly failure that is Vista (according to Apple mind you) anyways?

Facebook continues to lose its luster

It is no doubt that Facebook is the most popular website around here at GVSU. However, it is slowly starting to go downhill, unbeknownst to many who use it.

A little while ago, Facebook introduced a new ad system dubbed Beacon. The purpose of the program is to broadcast products you buy or services you sign up for to your Facebook friends. And as a result, the program has been criticized heavily by groups that fight for privacy on the internet.

It turns out the Beacon system sends way more information than many thought. For instance, in the PC World article linked to above, an expert found that even if he was logged out of Facebook, information was still sent to Facebook that registered his activity on the internet. Also, the system is very hard to opt out of.

Like I’ve said before, Facebook has to start going back to what got it to the top: simplicity. All this over the top stuff like ads and applications are just slowing suffocating the site to death in my opinion. I cannot tell you how annoying some of these things are.

I’m still not to the point where I’m giving up on Facebook. But, they are beginning to walk the line between serious social networking site and MySpace. There are too many up and coming sites that could take over the number one spot around college campuses. To be completely honest, it’s all theirs to lose.