Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Gingrich over Obama in projected match up

Rasmussen: Newt Gingrich has a two-point lead over Obama in a hypothetical general election match-up.

1920s KKK

Jonah Goldberg on the nature of the 1920s KKK. This group is getting used for modern political purposes.

What do Democrats stand for?

What do Democrats really stand for today? Are they opposed to wealth? Do they support the working class, the little man? Is it identity politics?
Ah, but look, today’s Democratic party isn’t really about addressing economic opportunity or even dealing with America’s most pressing problems – for starters, many Democrats are not persuaded in the slightest that the annual deficit, accumulating debt, and ticking time bomb of entitlements are pressing problems at all. If Democrats really expected that electing Obama would solve problems, they would be angrier with him than we are. No, for most Democrats, their political party is about a cultural identity. That identity is heavily based on not being one of those people, i.e., Republicans or conservatives.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Steve Jobs' last gadget is set to appear next summer. It's the iTV. No one knows what it will do except it will supposedly revolutionalize the TV industry.

Countdown Begins For Congress On 'Doc Fix'

The perennial "doctor fix" is the latest casualty of the Super Committee's inability to come to a deal on deficit reduction. Without the temporary boost in payments Medicare sets for medical professionals to take care of seniors and the disabled, doctors warn that millions could see their health care choices limited.

"I don't see how primary care doctors could take anywhere near like a 27-percent pay cut and continue to function," said Don Klitgaard, a family physician at a local medical center in Harlan, Iowa. "I assume there's going to be a temporary fix, because the health care system is going to implode without it."

Barney Frank is stepping down

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank will not seek re-election

ESPN: Meyer to Ohio State

Urban Meyer, the really great sports broadcaster and former Florida coach, is the next Ohio State coach. For some reason he's been denying the possibility for more than a week.

Holiday shopping and identity theft

Speaking of holiday shopping, here's some advice on how to avoid identity theft. We all know them, but we don't take proper precautions. I urge you to change your passwords on credit card and other accounts.

But identity theft takes even more sinister forms. See here

Holiday shopping off to a good start

I'm glad to read that retailers have had a good start for the holiday shopping season. Fortunately I managed to avoid the lines and made only one small purchase online.

Herman Cain story goes no where

After a month the Politico story on the accusations against Herman Cain have pretty much gone no where.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

2011 NCAA College Football Polls and Rankings for Week 14 - ESPN

2011 NCAA College Football Polls and Rankings for Week 14:

1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma State

Arkansas dropped to No. 6.

Money intended for health law gets detoured

Washington Times: Congress has raided health care funds for the third time in less than a year.

Harry and Tonto

I'm impressed with this retro look at an Art Carney film called Harry and Tonto. Harry, a retired teacher, loses his apartment and is looking for a place to live. Tonto is his cat. Sounds funny and even touching. I think I'll look try to see it. For more see here.

Kapp-Mosca fight

Ann Althouse has a post about CFL football legends Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca, who are still nursing old, old grudges. I would embed the video of their recent fight but that's not allowed. I remember Joe Kapp as a Minnesota Viking QB who lost Super Bowl IV to the Kansas City Chiefs.

A Message from Career Services: Ladies, Please Learn How to Dress Yourselves

How female lawyers and law students should dress.

Tea Party debate in 1980?

Thomas Sowell debates Frances Fox Piven in a 1980 video. According to the description, it's "like ACORN versus the Tea Party but 30 years ago."

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Black Friday mayhem gets better every year

Black Friday got crazy this year. Customers should equip themselves with bullet proof vests and goggles next year. According to one expert, "There's an awful lot of psychology going on here." Wow, can we box it up and sell it? 

Throw them all out

I haven't read Peter Schweizer's Throw Them All Out, but the idea is irresistible. Like a lot of people, I've reached that point.
A beam of light shines on a fallen soldier's dog.

Black Friday's game

Despite having a good team this year, Arkansas still needed a perfect game to defeat LSU. They led 14-0 early but couldn't put LSU away. LSU won 41-17.

Friday, November 25, 2011

The Dow and S&P have the worst Thanksgiving week since, gasp, 1932.
Michael Barone: The rules of political campaigning are changing for the 2012 election.

Don't call me smart

Smart meters screw up home electronics. So let's change it to smart meters.

CO2 may not warm the planet all that much

New Scientist: "The climate may be less sensitive to carbon dioxide than we thought – and temperature rises this century could be smaller than expected. That's the surprise result of a new analysis of the last ice age. However, the finding comes from considering just one climate model, and unless it can be replicated using other models, researchers are dubious that it is genuine."

A hell of a football game

This is a huge day in college football. LSU plays Arkansas at Baton Rouge in a game that recalls the Big Shootout of 1969. The winner has a chance to win the national championship.

It's crazy but I'm for both, having strong ties with both schools. 

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Is there a tablet in your stocking?

Tablets go mainstream as a Christmas gift this year.

Russian reporter fired for insult

In a live broadcast, a Russian newsreader is fired after giving Obama the middle finger insult.

NBC "insulting and inappropriate"

When Michele Bachman came out on stage for the Jimmy Fallon's "Late Night" show, the band played "Lyin' Ass Bitch." NBC has apologized, but that's just not enough. Somebody needs to be fired.

Kindle Fire

Here's a review of Kindle Fire. The comments are good, too. It seems like you need to know exactly what to expect if you buy one. Well, that's true of anything.
Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm thankful this year for friends and family, as always, but also for the Internet. I have been without TV, phone, and Internet since Monday. As you probably know, living in the pre-internet, pre-television, and pre-telephone age is not fun. I'm thankful for my iPhone that helped get me through.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Facebook and privacy

Glenn Reynolds notes that people are quitting Facebook because of their concerns over privacy. That's exactly why I canceled my account.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

SEC rules

LSU 1
Alabama 2
Arkansas 3

The latest AP college football rankings has the top three teams in the SEC. The only other time the top three teams all came from the same conference was the final poll of 1971: Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Colorado.

Student loans: the next subprime mortgage crisis

Nancy Smith:
Student loans are more than fire traps for millions of American families. Trust me, they're the next subprime mortgage crisis.

They're the easiest loans out there. Enrolled in a couple of classes? Congrats, your loan application is accepted.

Fiscally mismanaged colleges and universities that should have been out of business long ago? Propped up by mediocre-at-best students paying their tuition with easy-peesy student loans.

Now all of a sudden, here's what we've got:

Student loan debt that surpassed total credit card debt in the U.S. This year’s graduating class of college seniors had the highest average debt to date, and that total just jumped above the $1 trillion mark.

All of the what-ifs in the BCS

The BCS is jumbled as a result of yesterday's upsets. 
However, the biggest winner is Arkansas, who before this weekend needed to beat LSU and win the wacky three-team SEC tiebreaker to play for the national title. Now, the Hogs might be in the BCS championship picture even if they don’t represent the West in the SEC title game.
If Arkansas beats LSU, then the SEC tiebreaker goes to a combination of BCS standings and head-to-head results. To make it as simple as possible, if there’s a three-way tie in the West, here are the most likely scenarios:
• If LSU drops behind Alabama and Arkansas in the BCS standings, Alabama would play in the SEC championship. This would be most likely to happen.
And here’s where it gets interesting. If LSU falls to No. 3 in the BCS standings, Alabama would move up to the No. 1 slot and would play for the BCS championship with a win over Georgia in the SEC title game.
But how far up would Arkansas move? Let’s assume the Hogs are No. 3 in the BCS standings on Sunday night — moving past Oklahoma State, Oregon and Oklahoma — then they’d probably move up to No. 2 with a win over LSU and would be assured of a spot in the BCS championship no matter what happens in the SEC title game.
To make this even more bizarre, let’s say Arkansas beats LSU and moves up to No. 1, Alabama stays at No. 2 and LSU drops to No. 3. Then Alabama would STILL win the tiebreaker and play for the SEC championship with a chance to go to the BCS championship to play the Hogs in a rematch of the Tide's 38-14 thumping on September 24.
• If both Arkansas and LSU finish ahead of Alabama in the BCS standings as of next Sunday night, Arkansas would play in the SEC championship and No. 2 LSU would be all but assured of a spot in the BCS championship unless Oklahoma State makes a huge jump up after playing Oklahoma on December 3. Don’t expect this scenario to happen; the human pollsters aren’t going to drop Alabama lower than No. 2.
• If Arkansas doesn’t jump past LSU and Alabama and finishes third in the BCS standings (regardless of whom is higher in the BCS standings between the Tigers and Tide), LSU would play in the SEC championship. Don’t expect this to happen, either. Projected BCS No. 3 Arkansas would almost certainly move up with a win over LSU.
But LSU is probably going to beat Arkansas.

What Congress can do

Congress can make you buy broccoli, but they can't make you eat it. Not yet anyway.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Can government be limited?

George Will: Is there no limit to Congress' power under the Commerce Clause?

Get a hamburger flipping job

Ann Althouse has an extraordinary post on a Newt Gingrich speech. ... "You go out and talk to people, as I do, you go out and talk to people who are really successful in one generation.... They all learned how to make money at a very early age... What do we say to poor kids in poor neighborhoods? Don't do it. Remember all that stuff about don't get a hamburger flipping job? The worst possible advice you could give to poor children. Get any job that teaches you to show up on Monday. Get any job that teaches you to stay all day even if you are in a fight with your girlfriend. The whole process of making work worthwhile is central."

Absolutely correct. Some advice that you hear assumes that people are going to start out as CEOs. The way to get there is to work your way up. Failing schools are just holding kids back.

Here's more from Gingrich. 

New college sex scandal

Are we going to have to go through another sports sex scandal? I'm not over the current one yet.

You can compare statistics of the two scandals here

What is a Tebowist?

Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos seems to do everything wrong for a quarterback but he wins.
This is a slideshow of cartoon images of popular bloggers.

Hybrid cars are safer

More fuel efficient cars are smaller and lighter, and therefore more unsafe, but hybrids are an exception.

Hope and change

Apple ads 1975-2002.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Getting old and older

AP: The rolls of America's oldest old are surging: Nearly 2 million now are 90 or over, nearly triple their numbers of just three decades ago.
It's not all good news. They're more likely than the merely elderly to live in poverty and to have disabilities, creating a new challenge to already strained retiree income and health care programs.

Shocker in N.H.:

Gingrich and Romney are in a virtual tie in New Hampshire, according to a new WSJ poll.

Oklahoma State coaches dead in plane crash

Two Oklahoma State coaches died in a plane crash in the Ouachita Mountains. They were women's basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna.

Natalie Wood's death re-opened

Natalie Wood's Drowning Case Reopened By L.A. Homicide Division but no details are revealed.
Jennifer Rubin "shudders" at the prospect of Newt Gingrich becoming president.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

If you are thinking about retirement, wait. 80 is the new 65 when it comes to retirement.
Drudge is featuring this lead article. Gingrich is surging in Iowa.

It's a toss up

Walter Russell Mead thinks that today not even the White House is sure whether Obamacare is constitutional.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Advice for women job seekers

Forbes: How to get a job if you're a twentysomething woman.

Two reviews of the Kindle Fire

Popular Mechanics

Glenn Reynolds

Not the same thing

Mike McQueary didn't make a report to the local police, a Pennsylvania police chief says. Maybe he called campo.

Another recent report is here.

Who's the amateur?

Newt Gingrich's response to a reporter:
….AP’s Tom Beaumont: “Does this remind you that your background comes from being a Washington insider?”
Gingrich: “It reminds people that I know a great deal about Washington and if you want to change Washington, we just tried four years of amateur ignorance and it didn’t work very well, so having somebody who knows Washington might be a really good thing.”

» Why I Support Newt Gingrich - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Legal Insurrection (Bill Jacobson) supports Newt Gingrich "as the most conservative Republican who is electable and most qualified for the position of President."

My Way News - Review: Kindle Fire sacrifices to get under $200

We have several choices in computer tablets now. This review gives an overview.

Deadly parallel

James Taranto: "If the camps are today's Hoovervilles, who is today's Hoover?"

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Football is life itself

Margaret Wente: College football is America's true religion. This statement was prompted by the Penn State mess. Joe Paterno was fired. If you didn't notice, the school's president was also fired, but nobody rioted about that.
You can tell a lot about a civilization from its monuments. The Greeks built temples to the gods. The Romans constructed roads and aqueducts. The United States built railroads, skyscrapers, majestic post-office buildings and public libraries. Today, it builds temples of worship called football stadiums. This may not be the end of empire, but sometimes it feels that way.

The Prius C

Reviewing the 2012 Prii, which Toyota says is the plural of Prius. Yes, there's more than one of them.

Chelsea gets a job

Chelsea Clinton, through sheer grit, hard work, and determination having nothing to do with her celebrity status, has landed a job at NBC.

The Iron Lady: Meryl Streep is 'cashing in' on Thatcher, say friends of former PM - Telegraph

Meryl Streep's depiction of Margaret Thatcher is not popular in Britain.

We want to know!

Is Your Congressman Trading on Inside Information? - Megan McArdle

Just horsing around

Jerry Sandusky says he is innocent of the sex charges.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Open your eyes and see

Shawn Hubler on the cult of Penn State. But the light came on, and he could at last see clearly. "I began to distance myself from football. I started hanging around with pre-med students, pot smokers, Young Republicans, kids who majored in economics, kids of other ethnicities, foreign kids."

Answer yes or no!

Ann Althouse has a good analysis of Newt Gingrich's answer to a question during the recent GOP debate. That question was: "As president of the United States, would you sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas who you believe is a terrorist suspect?"

It was a trick question, requiring a yes or not answer, but Gingrich didn't fall for it.

Paul Ryan's speech

Paul Ryan will someday be president, predicts John Hinderaker. Here's Ryan recent speech at the Claremont Institute.

LSU No. 1

LSU is the unanimous number 1 team in college football.

Vandals Strike Lincoln’s Tomb

Vandals climbed up on Lincoln's tomb and stole a copper sword.

What's your name?

Should married women take the last name of their husband? You can read the pros and cons, but I think it is good when everyone in a household has the same name. If they don't, a question mark pops up. Most importantly, you have to be concerned about the name of the kids. I personally believe the practice of hyphenating names after marriage is unnecessarily complicated -- Mary Smith-Jones? Try to get an ID with that. On the other hand three names sounds good to me -- Sarah Jessica Parker or Lady Bird Johnson.

So I understand why some women don't want to change their name. I don't want to change mine either.

à la carte financial services

I found this article on Wal-Mart's push into banking interesting. Many people today are unhappy with their bank because of high fees. Wal-Mart has wanted to charter a bank for years, but these moves have been blocked by the banking industry. Now they have gone into à la carte financial services. This has an appeal to many unbanked people and those who just want to pay less for financial services. You can cash your pay check and load it on a cheap Wal-Mart debit card.

I use Wal-Mart as a bank myself, even though I am not unbanked, lol. When I want a small amount of walking-around cash I use my debit card at Wal-Mart rather than at an ATM. You have to buy something, if only a small purchase, but you're going to do that anyway.
Winners and losers in the most recent GOP cattle show.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The future of education

WSJ: My teacher is an app. We will see a lot more computer courses and, I hope, less classroom courses.

Sandusky indictment

Ann Althouse has a post on the grand jury indictment in the Penn State/ Jerry Sandusky case. The indictment was filed under seal, but a computer glitch, lol, let it out on the internet. Follow her links. One of the commenters gives the specific link to the report.

Well, that was unexpected

Since Obamacare, 4.5 million Americans have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance.

Newt is now 2nd in polls

Newt Gingrich is coming up in the polls.

Baby boomer philosophy

What you can expect older baby boomers to say: "Paws off, Junior, this cash is mine." Or IRA...
The EU and its euro may soon be a thing of the past. Here's why. It's the wealthy northern Europe vs poorer southern Europe. And that's not all.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Believe it or not, Herman Cain is still polling ahead of Romney and Gingrich.

11/11/11

Today is Veteran's Day. Thank you.
Today is also the anniversary of the end of World War I, which is almost forgotten now. The guns fell silent at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918. Today's date is to me particularly interesting: 11/11/11.

Screwed by government

Want to know how government agriculture programs work? 
"If agriculture is any indication of government programs, if it ... is a good indication of what goes on with Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military spending and whatever, we are just so screwed," said [Vance] Ehmke, the farmer. "We are squandering just untold huge amounts of money."

No battery fix for iPhone4S?

You may not want to install the iPhone battery fix. Some people claims it makes the problem worse.

But some users claim the fix worked perfectly. 
The bad news keeps coming at Penn State.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Check out this bird murmuration captured in Ireland:

See also here.
Jefferson County, Alabama, has just declared bankruptcy, the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The county, where Birmingham is located, has voted to file, actually. Maybe Obama will bail them out.

Honey, Honey?

Most honey sold in stores isn't honey, honey. But they still want money for it. The pollen is filtered out as a way of hiding where the honey came from. That compromises the product's quality.
Urban Meyer, former Florida coach, could be Joe Paterno's successor at Penn State.
Ohio voters in a symbolic gesture approved a ballot measure that keeps government from requiring Ohioans to participate in any health care system.
Clint Eastwood likes Herman Cain. He can't think of one Democrat he's voted for.

Just in time

Obama is going to impose a new Christmas tree tax.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A sad column about Joe Paterno.

Penn State is discussing an exit plan. 
Fiscal Times: We are in far financial worse shape than anyone is willing to admit.

Best and worst advice

The worst and best advice Susannah Breslin has ever received.

Blaming the wrong people

Margaret Wente:
These people make up the Occupier generation. They aspire to join the virtueocracy – the class of people who expect to find self-fulfillment (and a comfortable living) in non-profit or government work, by saving the planet, rescuing the poor and regulating the rest of us. They are what the social critic Christopher Lasch called the “new class” of "therapeutic cops in the new bureaucracy."
The trouble is, this social model no longer works. As blogger Kenneth Anderson writes, “The machine by which universities train young people to become minor regulators and then delivered them into white-collar positions on the basis of credentials in history, political science, literature, ethnic and women’s studies – with or without the benefit of law school – has broken down. The supply is uninterrupted, but the demand has dried up.”
It’s not the greedy Wall Street bankers who destroyed these people’s hopes. It’s the virtueocracy itself. It’s the people who constructed a benefit-heavy entitlement system whose costs can no longer be sustained. It’s the politicians and union leaders who made reckless pension promises that are now bankrupting cities and states. It’s the socially progressive policy-makers in the U.S. who declared that everyone, even those with no visible means of support, should be able to own a home with no money down, courtesy of their government. In Canada, it’s the social progressives who assure us we can keep on consuming all the health care we want, even as the costs squeeze out other public goods.
The Occupiers are right when they say our system of wealth redistribution is broken. But they’re wrong about what broke it. The richest 1 per cent are not exactly starving out the working poor. (In the U.S., half all income sent to Washington is redistributed to the elderly, sick and disabled, or to those who serve them, and nearly half the country lives in a household that’s getting some sort of government benefit.) The problem is, our system redistributes the wealth from young to old, and from middle-class workers in the private sector to inefficient and expensive unions in the public sector.

The Cain charges

We are set up to have another big, ugly fight over sexual harassment. Herman Cain has announced a press conference today. The latest accuser is Sharon Bialek. For some of the internet traffic see here. And here.

College debt crisis

Glenn Reynolds asks, Can technology fix the college debt crisis?
Probably not. My advice: learn a trade. We always will need people who can fix stuff.
Glenn says: "The higher education establishment needs to ask itself if it's really adding value commensurate with the costs...." That's a definitely not.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Federal loans, law students, and law schools

Federal loans for law students are justified as “providing access” to a legal career for the middle class and poor.  That’s one side.  When you examine how the funding operates, however, it becomes apparent that federal loans are an irresistible (and life-sustaining) drug for revenue addicted law schools.When a student applies for a federal loan, the law school processes the application.  Loans are granted by the government without any evaluation of the likelihood of repayment.  Accordingly, a student at Thomas Jefferson Law School is treated exactly the same as a student at Harvard Law School, without regard to the fact that the former is far less likely to repay the loan.

The Nina and the Pinta

We went to see replicas of the Nina and Pinta today on the Arkansas River in Little Rock. The two ships were awesome. They were anchored together side-by-side. The Nina, which made three of Columbus' four voyages, was the smallest of the ships. The Pinta, under the command of Captain Martin Pinzon, sighted the new world first. She was the fastest of the small fleet. I understand the replica of the Pinta has her larger than the original ship. She was actually only a little larger than the Nina. The replica is supposed to be about the size of the original Santa Maria.

The crowd was large, the ships small and crowded. The day was overcast, but not cool. Click for larger image.

Blue San Francisco Plans To Stiff The Unions | Via Meadia

Walter Russell Mead: The next public sector union fight will be in San Francisco.

Exercise Ball Mishap

Exercise Ball Defeats TV News Crew Guy

Steve Williams and Tiger Woods

Steve Williams, Tiger Woods' former caddie, is back in the news.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Movie star doubles.

Is that you, Blanche?

Former Senator Blanche Lincoln now thinks that small business is over-regulated.

Romney's "drastic" actions

Mitt Romney is making a number of budget proposals. He wants to slash federal spending by $500 billion his first year, including privatizing part of Medicare, cut Amtrak, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Foreign aid would lose $100 million. Repeal Obamacare. Seniors would get vouchers to purchase their own health insurance.
The Men's Warehouse in Oakland, Calif., supported OWS but a day later protesters vandalized it. I bought a belt at Men's Warehouse not long ago. Never again.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

See the Nina and the Pinta

Replicas of the Nina and the Pinta, Columbus' ships, have docked at North Little Rock for a brief stay. They are leaving November 8, and then will be in Fort Smith from November 11-20. 

I saw the Nina about 2 years ago and was very impressed with the workmanship and with her size. So small.

Re-reading books

What re-reading a book means. I have re-read many books because I had forgotten I'd read them in the first place.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Massive fraud in social psychology

Scientific American reports years of "data manipulation and blatant fabrication" in the work of Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel. Does that mean they will also examine the work of climate-warming scientists?

The Arab world enters stage 3 of the demographic transition

Discover Magazine has an interesting chart on the demographic transition in Arab countries. Who would have guessed that Lebanon’s fertility rate is now the same as Finland’s?

Cain: Perry did it

Herman Cain claims that Perry's campaign is behind the sexual harassment allegations against Cain.

What "is" is

Charles Krauthammer to Herman Cain: “Both in the morning and on the Greta show you used the word ‘settlement.’ Many people will say the candidacy is so attractive you aren’t a politician and you aren’t a guy who dances around, you shoot it straight,” Krauthammer said. “And when you make a distinction between settlement and agreement, it sounds like you – it sounds Clintonian.”

Is that a new expression?

The NCAA vs the Sioux Nation

It's funny what can happen when you start to enforce political correctness.
FORT TOTTEN, ND – Speaking at the tribal headquarters of the Spirit Lake Sioux Nation, attorney Reed Soderstrom announced a lawsuit against the NCAA alleging copyright infringement and civil rights violations. The Sioux tribe supports the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” nickname and logo, but the NCAA has deemed them to be “hostile and abusive.”
“Today, the Spirit Lake Tribe of Indians, by and through its Committee of Understanding and Respect, and Archie Fool Bear, individually, and as Representative of more than 1004 Petitioners of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, filed a lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association in direct response to their attempt to take away and prevent the North Dakota Sioux Indians from giving their name forever to the University of North Dakota,” said Soderstrom in prepared remarks.

The goose that laid the golden eggs is dead

Colorado voters have rejected a massive statewide tax increase that was favored by the big government/ big labor lobby. Voters are running out of money.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Truth of Bin Laden raid?

A new book disputes the official version of the Bin Laden raid.
See also this report. The book is Chuck Pfarrer's SEAL Target Geronimo: The Inside Story of the Mission to Kill Osama bin Laden. Other books on the mission are available.

Bank of America backs down

Bank of America has backtracked on their $5-debit card fee.

Siri, oh, Siri, talk to me

I've been reading about Siri, and I'm in love with her.

"Siri, what are you up to?"
"Nothing. What do you want to do?"
"I want to talk to you. I'm in love with you."

This all reminds me of a scene from Star Trek in which Scotty tries to talk to an old 1960s Macintosh computer.



Déjà vu

The Herman Cain sex harassment charge is reminiscent of Clarence Thomas. Remember the term "high-tech lynching"? See Ann Althouse.