Well, it is the fourth of July holiday and, apart from recalcitrant Canadians and Europeans, who else is going to be reading this? It doesn't seem like a bad time to flail wildly and tilt at windmills.

That's all I have in my defense, and the fact that today is marked as Independence Day in the calendar, a time fit as any to point the proverbial finger at all those still shackled or yoked to diminished empires.

Déjà vu all over again .

Actually, what really got me thinking was the perverse reaction, in some quarters, to AMD's second announcement in as many weeks about a shortfall in second quarter revenues. First, it was $620 million to $700 million, and then, it was barely $600 million. You'd think people would be a little more miffed about this in the tech community. You'd think they'd actually say it like it is.

The Truth Will Set You Free

The financial community had no qualms about saying it like it is: Crap news. Crappier for having come within two weeks of the last announcement. Hardly makes for great confidence.

I would like to lay the blame at AMD's doorstep on this one, but upon reflection, it seems that the real culprits are the AMD fanboys. Intel had made its own comments about the poor showing in Q2. The crowd of fanatical, rabid AMD supporters on the Web who seem to live in the shadow of their freakier ancestors, the 3dfx lovers. Granted, graphics are infinitely sexier than CPUs, so you can forgive the AMD fanboys their humorless demeanor. On the other hand, the stakes are much higher, so you'd have to hold them up to higher standards.

This picture is probably worth a couple of million extra hits on the site. Ooooh, look! An AMD chip. Is that the cache? I think I see the cache!

Well, where shall we start? How about taking notice of the fact that AMD gets virtually limitless free press for itself in the online press, but for all that, it can't sell any more than enough to keep the Justice Department off of Intel's back.