In light of the remarkable string of bad news that has emanated from the American economic system for the past three years, one wonders who on earth found the sudden increase in unemployment “unexpected”. When every major economic indicator has been heading down for over two years and the financial markets are in the middle of a complete metldown, why on earth would it be surprising that companies are shedding jobs because they have less business to conduct? 

We know that the economy has been shrinking because the “growth” of the last four years was nothing but a house of cards built on subprime mortgages. Unfortunately, American journalism is far too incompetent to keep up with what’s going on.

Liberal media, my ass!

The Google Chrome browser identifies itself as Safari to other web sits, as seen in this screen capture from www.spyber.com

There is very little difference between Google’s new Chrome browser and Apple’s Safari. Both are based on the fantastically beautiful and fast and open source KHTML browser foundation, and each has simply been optimized for its own particular niche. I have to admit that based on only one day of testing, I like Chrome better than Firefox. Even though Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine is fast, the KHTML engine is faster and lighter on resources, yet.

The browser wars are on, and one wonders whether Firefox will perish as collateral damage in the war against Internet Explorer.

As if Microsoft had not provided its users sufficient reasons to abandon the Windows platform, it has now provided the ultimate reason. Microsoft is contemplating building a digital rights management scheme that will disable or erase content whose provenance it cannot verify. In other words, if your Zune player or Microsoft Windoze Vista cannot verify that you obtained your music or movie “legally”, it will prevent you from playing this content. Of course, “legally” in this context means through Microsoft’s proprietary means of ascribing legality: whether you bought it through Microsoft or not.

This report is very much on the rumor mill level of things, but it is entirely credible because it is not such a drastic departure from the existing Microsoft DRM schme. if it proves true, then every Microsoft user will have to register every CD she or he owns with Microsoft so that she or he can play it on the computers that she or he has authorized. Indeed, every Microsoft user will have to ask Microsoft for permission to play anything on her or his computer or Zune player.

“Thank you, sir. May I have another?” is the phrase that may be relevant to Microsoft users at this juncture. And, apparently, they do want to have another, and Microsoft is all too happy to deliver the blows.

The Chinese Olympic games are now history, and the viewership of these games was stellar because there were so many Chinese watching the games and because the games were so magnificent. Whether the human and environmental costs of the games were greater than the $40 billion (hey, this guy uses the same template as I do) that the government is said to have spent on the games will not detract from the magnificence of the spectacle. These games were truly something to behold.

What is disturbing, however, is the remarkable reach that modern media have. As the above BBC article states, it is estimated that 800 million Chinese people watched the opening ceremonies, and that estimate may possibly place the number of global viewers at nearly 2 billion. One wonders how quickly a lie could propagate given such an immense audience. The digitally enhanced fireworks and the lip-syncing child were exposed, but what tricks were not?

Without a doubt, this is the sort of propaganda platform after which Hitler was lusting when he hosted the 1936 Olympic games. Although the Chinese regime cannot be compared with the Nazi regime, certainly it cannot be said that the zeal with which the Chinese regime pursued and conducted the Olympic games was born of pure benevolence. Most unfortunately, the remarkable success of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the phenomenal reach that its coverage enjoyed serve as reminders that the world is more vulnerable to propaganda than ever before.

Will some combination of responsibility in media management and regulatory regimes stop the ongoing decline of mass media into abject irrelevance and pure propaganda? We cannot hope so. People should take action.

Spotted at the 99 Cent Store on Main Street in Ventura.

On a lazy Sunday about a month ago, I spotted these Major League Baseball shower gels at the 99 Cent Store on Main Street in Ventura, and I captured the event with my trusty iPhone. 

Why is this a big deal? Well, we finally know how much that Major League Baseball smell is worth. $0.99.

I wonder how much MLB was originally charging for “Homerun Apple Body Wash”. That product description says volumes about the marketing prowess-or lack thereof-of of MLB. I don’t think the NBA or the NFL have yet gaffed this conspicuously.

One wonders if there is someone out there who believes that he is going to “hit a homerun” on the first date with this apple body wash.

What the hell was I doing at the 99 Cents Only Store? Definitely not shopping for soap. I bought some pens.

America's new global status.

Tom Toles’ genius is scarcely doubted by anyone anymore. One only wishes that  his cartoons did not constitute such eerily accurate portraiture of the United States and its  political system.  In that vein, it is hard to refute the fact that in the aftermath of the Cold War, Russia has just scored a significant victory.

At least at the Ventura County Fair.

It is absolutely impossible to quibble with the entirely just verdict handed down in the Mosley case. It is indisputable that the scion of British fascism is entitled to privacy, and it is true that the tabloids went too far in order to expose Mr. Mosley’s depravities. The judge was entirely correct that the crux of the matter was not whether Aryan supremacist overtones are better than Nazi overtones. The crux of the matter is that is that even billionaire fascist white supremacists have a right to privacy in a civilized world. We can only hope that such sage verdicts serve to prevent the fascists who would deny others such rights from ascent to power.

As for Mrs. Mosley, let us hope that this verdict will provide her with some consolation for the embarrassment that she has had to endure during this ordeal. After all, her husband has been an absolutely ideal partner for the past forty odd years, and this is undoubtedly the first incidence of infidelity and the first public humiliation that she has had to endure. May the Lord provide solace for her soul. It is so clear that her husband loves her.

As for Formula One racing, why would anyone care what the CEO does? There is little evidence that such matters ever entered the minds of the beer guzzling masses who show up to watch the races. In fact, it may even increase attendance by increasing white supremacist fan base. These revelations should have no effect on the “normal” fan base. Where else can they get their fix? 

The evil liberal media dominators at the New York Times report on a Bush initiative that has had an apparently remarkable impact on the chronically homeless in the United States. What is especially surprising is that all sides of the issue seem to be in agreement that the data are reliable. If such consensus is born of truth, then it is true that the chronically homeless population has declined by nearly 30% in the United States over the past four years.

Coupled to this report on PBS’s The News Hour about how resoundingly successful the President’s AIDS relief program in Africa has been, this astonishing development compels one to think of all the remarkable good that could have been achieved with the trillions of dollars (projected costs including interest) currently being squandered in Iraq. After all, the total cost of these programs ($15 billion for AIDS relief as cited by The News Hour report, and ostensibly no more than a few billions of dollars for the “housing first” program; I can’t presently find a citation) absolutely pales when compared with the $752 billion cited by the CBO for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far. Had such resources been allocated to AIDS relief and homelessness, the earth may well have been purged of both scourges.

Could the President be asking himself if the pursuit of the war in Iraq was a gross misappropriation of resources? After all, the three-quarters of a trillion dollars thus far spent in Iraq has had the sole effect of bringing the American economic engine to a halt by sending the price of crude oil into the stratosphere. Thus, the military operation in Iraq has, in effect, quashed all effective programs undertaken by the government in two ways. First, it has absorbed moneys that would otherwise have been dedicated to such effective programs like AIDS relief and housing first. Second, it has reduced the capability of the American economy to provide for any government program by reducing economic output.

Thus, the reasons why the neoconservatives keep insisting on the validity of the military operations in Iraq are almost understood. Any admission that moneys spent elsewhere would be more effective than the moneys squandered in Iraq would reveal these war mongers to be the frauds and the hucksters that they are. It is, therefore, nothing but an article of fear that compels the cowards who wage war to deny their misdeeds.

And, that is why their cowardice is almost understood. Those occupying positions of power must have the courage to make such admissions. It is their duty. It is, in fact, their legal obligation to confess to their mistakes so that these mistakes can be rectified or remedied before they erode the public’s trust and destroy the institutions that guarantee accountability and efficacy in governance. This very fact that persons vested with authority must carry a higher responsibility is the reason why such childish denials of fault in government are labeled high  crimes and misdemeanors, while those of the child who had broken a vase are labeled mere fibs.

If the constitutional mandate that punishments fit crimes were observed, then such high crimes and misdemeanors would merit harsher punishments than those meted out by parents for their children’s fibs. As it is, however, children are being held accountable for breaking vases, but politicians are exonerated for their squandering of the common wealth and the nation’s prestige. Who is measuring the merits of spending a pittance for the sake of the welfare of humanity against the spending of fortunes to increase the misery of mankind and opting for the latter?

Perhaps the only thing gloomier than this picture is the fact that no American news source can be bothered by the simple process of consulting publicly available data from the government. The Brits seem to have grasped the utility of the internet browser better than American journalists. Perhaps that’s because it was a Brit who invented the world wide web and the browser.

We are led to believe that the huge stash of cocaine found in this undercover Dallas police officer’s car was an accidental discovery. The car in question was an asset seized from a drug operation, and the police claim that drug traffickers have become so sophisticated in their means of concealing contraband within the various open spaces of a car that the police had no idea that nearly $400,000 worth of cocaine remained hidden protected by various hydraulic schemes inside this car which was seized from a drug dealer.

The NPR series on how drug seizures have become a means for police departments–especially those in the south states of the United States–to fund themselves casts serious doubt on the authenticity of this claim of accidental discovery. Incidents in which police seize private assets legally but illegitimately are on the rise, and the impetus seems to be the independence that the departments gain from the municipalities and constituencies that support them. Confined by meager budgets that restrict their hiring practices and their appetites for high-powered fire arms, police departments have found a bounty in poorly written laws that empower them to declare private assets as ill-gotten arbitrarily and to seize those assets thus declared  illicit. Thus, the poorly written drug-related asset seizure laws have become a means for police departments to disentangle themselves from the accountability that binds them to the communities that they serve. If these drug seizures are appreciable, police departments no longer need popular support to receive additional funding. They can simply seize what they need.

At least, one can only pray that this is not the destination toward which we are headed. For if it is true that police departments do view and employ drug seizure in the manner outlined above, then the war on drugs has been transformed from the politicians’ wet dream to a perverse vehicle that empowers the most corrupt elements of society against the society that created them. If any of the foregoing has any truth, then the war on drugs is what the war on drugs is seeking to protect.

In other words, the war on drugs is no longer the pursuit of the protection of the public. It has become exactly what the most pessimistic among us had predicted. The war on drugs has become a power grab that seeks only to perpetuate itself. More drugs lead to more war which leads to more power to those who are waging the war.

Put away that joint, if you know what’s good for you. In truth, this means “put away that joint if you want to keep your car and your house”.

Our wealthy hero must have struck a very resonant cord today in court when he managed to get one of his sadism and masochism partners to confess in court that calling the proceedings “Nazi” constitutes overreaching. After all, one of the lovely maidens tending to Mr. Mosley testified that:

Witness B said that during the session she played a guard wearing a German Luftwaffe jacket, which she had previously bought in Camden Market to wear to a concert.

Naturally, she didn’t mean a Nazi guard, because there must have been Luftwaffe officers who were not officially in the Nazi party. Ergo, the depravity lies in the minds of those who would be so presumptuous as to associate a Luftwaffe leather jacket with Nazis.

Yes, the British are clearly superior to the Germans, and especially to the Nazis, and more especially to Nazi sadomasochists.

Mea culpa. The concept seems to have been lost on the obscenely wealthy.

Shakespeare, a mighty famous Brit, famously declared that that which we call a rose, if we called by a different name would smell as sweet. The ugly parallel of this maxim seems not to hold for Mr. Mosley. That which we call depravity is more depraved if it happens to smack of racist role playing, and he really needs to clear his name because he is not that depraved.

It is precisely these sorts of revelations that make one take comfort in the fact that the world is more and more ruled by the spectacularly wealthy.

The digital media infrastructure is still undergoing much debugging. This is how hardcore pornography interrupted the feast of violence known as the game of rugby. Rugby fans in New Zealand had their feast of violence interrupted by four minutes of hardcore pornography that was destined for a different channel.

It would have been incredibly entertaining had the Superbowl been similarly interrupted a few years ago. So far, it seems, cooler heads have prevailed in the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” incident. It would have been awfully funny to find out what the repercussions of this (hardcore) software bug would have been.

Life imitating art. In this instance Max Mosley, head of Formula One Racing, got himself into some hot water for what he did with five prostitutes. His situation imitates a sick joke by the legendary blue comedian, Robert Schimmel. (His Wikipedia entry.) The joke goes something like this:

A guy was tried for animal necrophilia. What’s the guy’s excuse going to be in court? “Sorry your honor. I could have sword the cat was alive when I started fucking it.”

Now, Mosley has to resort to a similarly pathetic excuse like “Aryan doesn’t mean Nazi“. Apparently, Mr. Mosley feels no need to apologize for sleeping with five prostitutes simultaneously, but that he may have partook in an orgy that might be potentially misconstrued as racist or anti-semitic is cause for apology and legal action. The depravity of sleeping with five prostitutes is apparently better than the depravity of pretending to be Aryan or Nazi in bed.

That’s ok, Max. We all know that the British are far better than the Nazis and the Aryans. Especially the rich Brits. Your orgies are far cleaner than the Nazi orgies that the Allies finally quashed in 1945.

Not that the rest of us have not contemplated that prospect.

It bears the scars of its only fall quite well. The fall happened at the platform at the Rheine (Germany) train station while en route from Amsterdam to Muenster, Germany. pMac was in its trusty Timbuk2 laptop bag at the time, and the cushioning provided by the bag was sufficient to keep it alive.

At 3.5 years of age, the original Toshiba (40 gigabytes) hard drive failed, but it was promptly replaced by a similar Toshiba model with an 80 gigabyte capacity by the wonderful technicians at CNG in Westwood the same afternoon! This replacement drive used to be the former back up drive, which contained an exact copy of the main drive thanks to the wonderful free backup utility, Carbon Copy Cloner. (Thus, I only lost about two weeks of work as a result of the failure.)

Now it chugs along nicely, albeit slowly at times, but without  any problems at all. It runs Leopard at a reasonable speed. It is now awaiting  the arrival of a MacBook Pro so that  it can be demoted to home entertainment center. The transition may happen in 2008.

Barack Obama will choose either Bill Richardson or Wesley Clark as his running mate because both men are without peer in their respective fields. Richardson is peerless in issues of foreign affairs, and Clark is peerless in military affairs. Either man will round out the ticket nicely.

The most likely choice is Bill Richardson because he was the first to endorse Obama.

Sorry Hilary. You just blew it big time.

So, strike a blow against inferior browsers and help to set a new internet record for the most software downloads in one day. Download Firefox 3 on Download Day. The Guinness Book of World Records awaits.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The diametrically opposed directions that the European Community and the United States are taking ought to be extremely disconcerting to those who reside in the United States. The United States, the country that invented the internet and the addressing protocol that identifies computers on the internet (known as Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP), is moving rapidly to relegate TCP/IP to a means of spying on its citizens. The awful–perhaps nonexistent–regulatory regime in the US allows providers of network services to monitor what users do, to track their habits, and to share that information with just about any entity that requires. That entity could be marketers or the watchful eyes of the government.

Meanwhile, the EU is conducting the most rational debate on the status of the IP address of computers users. As the computer becomes a significant means of communication–through applications like Skype, Gizmo, Yahoo! MSN AIM and other instant messaging clients–the IP address will become as unique and as important as a telephone number. Hence, it ought to receive as much protection as a telephone number. Global governing bodies are beginning to realize this, but the different ways in which the US and the EU governing bodies are approaching the IP address’s significance is alarming.

The American government is actively extending and abusing the regulatory vacuum surrounding the IP address to let American companies and government bodies to gather information on every citizen. In contrast, the EU is actively discussing a regulatory regime that recognizes the importance of the IP address. While the US government is diminishing privacy, the EU bodies are seeking to protect and to expand privacy. Hence, the liberties in which Americans take excessive pride are being, in effect, exported to the European Union, where people can surf comfortably now and perhaps with even greater privacy in the future.

Perhaps only Warren Buffett can declare the American economy dead, stick a fork in it and pronounce it dead. All the Americans who still consider Europe “socialistic” ought to heed the great oracle’s declaration that Europe is his prime target for business acquisitions.

Note that he is looking for business acquisitions in Europe, not the acquisition of communes or other socialistic constructs and some such.

And, yes, the oracle of Omaha does declare that Europe has a terrific economy, one considerably better than the American one.

Perhaps the United States ought to consider becoming “socialistic” like Europe. It seems to be good for business. 

The animosity between George W Bush and John McCain is insufficient to moderate the latter’s desire for power.  Consequently, the former is conveniently building up troops in Iraq in order to aid McCain’s already lackluster campaign. The strategy is quite clear, and it will most likely become apparent when the troops who are slated to be relieved will be retained. It is an escalation of the military conflict that  will create a circus of fear and greed come September, and there is little doubt that McCain will gladly oblige W by continuing the fear mongering that has thus far guaranteed reelection for every Republican who is utterly bereft of creativity, desire for serving the nation and scruples.

Never before could it be said that the success of one man will guarantee failure for everyone else.

nicworks :: downloads ::  brokeback mountain icons set

Customized, clean, artistic and professionally rendered icons are one of the many nice things that the Macintosh developer community offers the Macintosh user community. An icon set based on Brokeback Mountain, however, is a mystifying contribution from this incredibly generous developer community. The offering of the icon set begs a lot of questions.

Is the gay Macintosh user base so large that catering  to it is useful? Or is the heterosexual base small enough that it can be ignored? Does the gay user base want gay icons? Does my writing on the subject qualify me as a member of the gay user base, or merely as a curious metrosexual? Why would anyone be so obsessed with this movie so many years after the fact?

Will the fundamentalist Christian community condemn the users of this icon set?

Most fortunately, however, no one will ever bother answering these questions.

The only thing more puzzling about the rapid decline of Los Angeles as a functional, livable city is the bold transparency with which the destruction of the city is undertaken by its elected officials and the contractors who have successfully corrupted them. The above link cites but the most recent instance of the grotesque cronyism and lack of accountability that  has made Los Angeles the most unlivable and unmanageable city in the United States. Even though Los Angeles has the most unsafe airport in the country and the worst traffic in the country, no leader in this city can sustain moral fortitude long enough to address problems that imiserate millions of people daily.

One would surmise that  after hosting the most embarrassing public works project in human history (one in which the Federal Government calls the Los Angeles Government corrupt!), the processes of improving the city’s infrastructure would improve. As the above articles shows, quite the contrary is true. The city’s airports, roads and public transit system are destined to wither and perish under unrelenting corruption before the eyes of a citizenry apparently too sleepy to care for its own well being.

As nature has demonstrated time and again, evolution is more likely to eliminate the weak than to promote the strong. Evolutionary data from the primordial soup that is Los Angeles strongly suggest that  evolution on occasion favors the stupid and the weak over the judicious and prudent. Whatever organism emerges from the primordial soup, I am ecstatic that, for now, I have managed to extricate  myself from the unbearably ugly evolutionary process that is shaping the primordial soup.

You should be too, if you don’t live in Los Angeles.

Photo by VirtualErn.