Let a conservative drive the final nail in the birther coffin We like to think we have an open mind and we will consider most things. We were waved off this issue by Obama's campaign opponents not finding it worthwhile. But the craziness persisted. And there is ample room for speculation that the most base motivations are driving the insanity.

Taranto does a good job of following the twisting lunatic logic and putting their claims to rest.  ¶ 7/31/2009 07:37:00 AM 0 comments

  Clammer for Clunker claims cleans account This could be seen as a positive economic indicator.  ¶ 7/30/2009 10:45:00 PM 0 comments

  Right turn on racism is wrong Nothing could be further from what we need in the national consideration and this has to be considered a product of the rudderless despair gripping the Republican party. Now that this stupidity has shown itself in the mainstream media, we can only hope that it does not become a staple of the sensationalistic shout-machine.

Suddenly, this has turned serious. We admit to feelings of great amusement as the Republicans chased the obviously dead-end endeavors of the 'birthers' and Sarah Palin: Hell, it was funny. But the bumbling has now stumbled into dangerously stupid territory.

We don't feel that Glenn Beck should be fired or suspended. We really don't see much of him except in the comedy highlights.  ¶ 7/30/2009 07:01:00 AM 0 comments

  Today's Windows "critical" update kills IE 8 Had email but no Internet Explorer: Restored it to before the update and it worked fine.

Update: Spent more than an hour and a half in chat with MSFT support and finally got the update loaded.  ¶ 7/29/2009 01:41:00 PM 0 comments

  Acer and Asus: no new netbooks in 2009 Not what we expected (thought Christmas this year would be flooded with new models) but the ultra-thin segment of notebooks has promise since the infatuation with netbooks appears to be waning.  ¶ 7/29/2009 04:01:00 AM 0 comments

  They called her barracuda for a reason We thought it was Sarah Palin doing some local arm twisting ("You'll never rinse a another head in this town!", maybe?) when the hairdresser jumped on the NY Times but we held back. The Times producing the emails would seal it for us.  ¶ 7/20/2009 11:52:00 PM 0 comments

  To coup or not to coup Computers with certified election results for the June 28 referendum, planned by ousted President Jose Zelaya, have reportedly been found. The election never took place but according to the certified results Zelaya won it overwhelmingly.

This situation has seemed hinky from the start and a forensic examination of the computers is warranted.  ¶ 7/19/2009 09:04:00 PM 0 comments

  Cronkite and journalism: The aftermath We really like Glenn Greenwald's work and are impressed with the quality of comments on his blog. An interesting debate developed in the comments on this piece as to how journalists should stand up to power (government).

Our answer: Just do it. You can never go wrong by questioning the group-think that goes into the decision making processes. Seldom are the occasions when better solutions cannot be found and the citizens' interests better served. Journalism in our country will never have the largely unified voice as would any given current regime. This will dilute their efforts and make it difficult to judge the effectiveness of our profession but in the end will make it more useful.

Our decision to oppose the invasion of Iraq (in seeming contrast to the majority of our citizens) did not come with a revelation from on high but rather from information available in the MSM. This, again, makes it difficult to paint the institution of journalism with any broad strokes, even considering that so many of the major players in the the media gave the invasion their tacit, if not direct, approval. The nature of our work does mean that we take in a larger sweep of journalism than most but there are no sources not readily available to any engaged consumer.  ¶ 7/18/2009 09:04:00 PM 0 comments

  "The most trusted man in America" With the news anchor we grew up with now dead, it seems like a really long time ago when that could be said of a journalist. But if anyone ever deserved that description, Walter Cronkite most certainly was the one.  ¶ 7/17/2009 09:32:00 PM 0 comments

  #Iranelection Tear-gas fired at religious service. This throws another slant on the issue of piety into the mix for the moderates and undecideds in the country.  ¶ 7/17/2009 01:48:00 PM 0 comments

  via Mediaite: Brother Hersh just ain't gettin' the love And here is the really scary part:

"Hersh also spoke at length about Cheney on NPR shortly after the Minnesota speech, suggesting that Cheney had left “stay-behinds” in the Obama administration, including in the NSA — allies who would keep him in the loop and through whom he could potentially influence policy. "

  ¶ 7/17/2009 12:58:00 PM 0 comments

  Let the Palin jokes congeal They already have at /.Slashdot .  ¶ 7/17/2009 02:33:00 AM 0 comments

  Obama needs to make a real change on surveillance “Using this shadow network of surveillance devices, defendants have acquired and continue to acquire the content of a significant portion of the phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages, web communications and other communications, both international and domestic, of practically every American who uses the phone system or the internet,” the EFF wrote in its lawsuit.
The civil liberties group told Judge Walker the spying is as an “unprecedented, suspicionless general search through the nation’s communications.”  ¶ 7/15/2009 12:36:00 AM 0 comments

  #Crowdsourcefail   ¶ 7/11/2009 10:18:00 PM 0 comments

  Van Susteren jumps to Palin's defense: Wants to convert her to Scientology There is as much substantiation for the Scientology claim in the Fox piece as there is for Van Susteren's claim that Sally Quinn mocks Palin's son: Just about zilch.  ¶ 7/10/2009 01:09:00 PM 0 comments

  Up next on Fox News: The liberal science bias The reason why "Intelligent Design" isn't getting a fair shake from science?  ¶ 7/10/2009 05:56:00 AM 0 comments

  Google's Chrome OS to launch 2010 The blog says it will be targeted at the netbook class of devices and we think it should fit into the Google vision of cloud computing.

We don't imagine Google will be worried about screen size in the implementation of the OS, as Microsoft and Intel have been with their products.

Intel has also been aiding the development of Linux based Moblin for use in netbooks and other devices.

We've installed the Chrome browser on a few machines and with somewhat limited use have found it capable. We are not happy with IE 8.  ¶ 7/08/2009 01:04:00 AM 0 comments

  "Bhopal Coale" and Palin He was on our radar earlier as Greta Van Susteren's husband advising Sarah Palin: A very tangled web.  ¶ 7/07/2009 09:09:00 AM 0 comments

  Intel and Microsoft in agreement on netbook size Anything with a screen size greater than 10.2 inches could mean the end of preferred chip pricing from Intel and Microsoft looks as if it will do the same for Windows 7.

While it could run the risk of killing the netbook niche, this type of enforcement of a convention is rather pointless. Better to let the market find the efficiencies to keep the price down. On the other hand, MSFT is afraid one of those cost-cutting measures would mean using Linux.  ¶ 7/07/2009 08:08:00 AM 0 comments

  Thank you, David Letterman His "off-color jokes" help persuade Palin to quit.  ¶ 7/07/2009 02:34:00 AM 0 comments

  Palin resigns, something is brewing This broke a few minutes ago, so we'll be updating on this. Obviously this is not anywhere near the end of the story, with her two most likely motivations either a scandal ready to break or she has decided to begin preparation for a run at president.

We apologize for the last three posts all concerning Palin: But it's like a wreck on the highway from which you can't turn your gaze.

Update: There appear to be hints of the next steps in Palin's arc. We think they largely fall within the run for president explanation, although she may have opted for one of the less demanding options of media personality or NGO/think tank for the money. The amount of money required to outweigh her other drives being a long shot, it would be just a stop along the way.  ¶ 7/03/2009 04:14:00 PM 0 comments

  We're all for Palin We really want to see her as the next Republican candidate for president. We don't think Palin would be the best thing for the Republican party, it would just make things easy.  ¶ 7/02/2009 04:31:00 PM 0 comments

  Cat fight over Palin We emailed a link to this story early this morning and as the day went by noticed increasing amounts of traffic surrounding it, the links to it and Kristol's blog post on the Vanity Fair article.

Palin has been, from the start of her rise in national Republican politics, Kristol's ingenue. We find her to be artless but far from innocent. We are not prepared at this time to concur on the Purdum article's placement of her in the DSM. But we are quite sure she does not enjoy full mental health. Her actions surrounding the birth of her son, Trig, are most convincing in this matter and can only be characterised as not of sound judgement.  ¶ 7/01/2009 07:55:00 PM 0 comments

  #iranelection is still alive As the government crackdown stymied further protests and Jacko (in case we haven't made it clear, hope the POS turns to compost quickly) ate up the bandwidth, it looked as if the tyrants had won.

Mousavi has a new statement that would indicate things are far from over. Our reading of statements by other opposition voices indicates they are preparing for action of a more long term nature.  ¶ 7/01/2009 11:06:00 AM 0 comments

  Destined for the Internet curio shop   ¶ 7/01/2009 10:26:00 AM 0 comments

  Lawyers back fired inspector The firing sounded somewhat dicey at first but ample grounds were provided by Walpin when he politicised the position with his repeated public announcements.  ¶ 7/01/2009 08:05:00 AM 0 comments