(via A sad day ‘08)

(via YouTube - CBS Sarah Palin interview)

(via YouTube - John McCain Says HORSESH*T During the 9/26 Debate)

(via McCain suspends campaign for ‘historic’ crisis - CNN.com)

Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington and focus on the “historic” crisis facing the U.S. economy.

(via Macs Used To Help Make New Microsoft Ad)

Uh-oh. It’s been discovered that some of the images used in Microsoft’s new ‘I’m a PC’ commercial were created with Macs.

Four of the images that Microsoft made available on its PressPass site today display the designation “Adobe Photoshop C3 Macintosh” when their file properties are examined. The images appear to be frames from the television ads that Microsoft will launch later today. One of the images is of a real Microsoft engineer, identified only as “Sean,” who resembles John Hodgman, the actor who plays the PC character in Apple Inc.’s iconic ads.

Well seeing how Microsoft hired ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky to create the commercials, it’s not surprising that they were using Macs since there wasn’t a “no Macs” clause in the agreement. Probably should have been though. I told you to let me handle the law, Microsoft, I’m mad legal. Ha, well technically I’m 17, but I have a good fake. On a side note, today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so get out there and avast, ye maties and whatever the hell else pirates do.* *Raping unacceptable, pillaging fine. Microsoft’s ‘I’m a PC’ ad images made on Macs [computerworld] Thanks to Stephen and Huggy Bear, who are both half PC, half Mac, but 100% pirate.

(via Gospelr: Twitter For Christians)

“First things first: Praise God.” That’s how Gospelr starts out its announcement that the company’s microblogging service is officially ready for users to sign up and “spread the word.”

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Gospelr is quick to point out that it’s not “just another Twitter.” Instead, the site prides itself on being the world’s first “Ministry Microblogging” tool for those that want to share thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings, and oh so much more.

The company’s founder wants it to be more than a Christian Twitter, though. Beyond being a place where people can chat it up about ol’ JC, the company wants to be the place to “share the Gospel with those that have already heard the Good News (because we all could use a good reminder… daily!) and those that have not.”

Gospelr tries to change the way people interact on the service too. A normal “tweet” is colored in brown, while replies are green, and imported tweets from services like Twitter are colored in blue. That coloring scheme will make it easier to identify what’s being said and who is saying it.

The service can also let users upload and share files like Pownce, and most importantly, it auto-refreshes the page so you don’t have to.

Gospelr gained Twitter API source parameter approval, so whenever you tweet something in the service, you’ll notice an update on Twitter saying “from Gospelr.com” and it will also work with TweetDeck and other applications that let you syndicate material to Twitter.

Gospelr is available now for those that are looking to try it out.

I’m sure you’re wondering what is my favorite feature of Gospelr. Is it the chance to tell the world what I read in the Bible today? Nah. Is it the ability to hear others tell me about JC? Nope. It’s the RSS button. Check it out. Awesome, huh?

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

(via Osama Bin Laden’s Dream of US Economic Collapse — RoughlyDrafted Magazine)

Supporters of the Bush administration like to say that there have been no terrorist attacks on US soil since the tragedy of September 11, 2001, suggesting that President Bush has kept the country safe from terrorism. What they forget is that Osama Bin Laden clearly outlined his strategy for battling America, not by flying more planes into new buildings, but by driving the US into bankruptcy..
The current economic collapse among US banks has cost taxpayers over $800 billion so far in federal bailouts. Add in the trillions spent off the budget in financing the occupation of Iraq and a maintenance mode war in Afghanistan, and it’s obvious that the yet uncaptured Bin Laden can declare “mission accomplished.”

In November 2004, CNN reported that Bin Laden released a video monologue to Al-Jazeera where the terror-savvy, extreme fundamentalist announced plans to continue a “policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy” using similar tactics to those used when fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 80s, “guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers.”

CNN.com - Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S. - Nov 1, 2004

“Easy to Provoke and Bait this Administration.”

Bin Laden bragged at the time that al Qaeda has found it “easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations.”

“And it all shows that the real loser is you,” Bin Laden said. “It is the American people and their economy.”

Bin Laden said of President Bush that “the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.”

In 2004, the US national debt was more than $7 trillion, but today it has grown to $9.6 trillion, roughly $31,640 of debt for every American citizen according to the U.S. National Debt Clock. The US is currently spending an astounding $12 billion per month in Iraq.

McCain Doesn’t Understand the Economic Crisis.

While Alan Greenspan called the current economic crisis “by far the worst financial crisis in a century,” John McCain has repeated over and over that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” even while the market tumbled and major financial institutions went on fire sale earlier this week.

McCain has failed to articulate any understanding of the economy or any interest in doing anything differently. His position has repeatedly been to follow the strategies of William ‘Phil’ Gramm, a Democrat turned Republican who sat in the House from 1978 to 1985, and then the Senate through 2002.

In the second half of the 90s, Gramm received over a million dollars in campaign contributions from the securities and investment industry during his five years on the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. His wife sat on the board of Enron, and Gramm himself authored the “Enron loophole” in 2000, enabling the Enron scandal.

Gramm pushed to dismantle regulations enacted during the Depression to separate banking, insurance and brokerage activities, passing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999. That legislation was key to enabling today’s mortgage crisis.
Gramm served as McCain’s campaign co-chair and his most senior economic adviser through July, when he famously downplayed the economic crisis by saying, “You’ve heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession,” and, “we have sort of become a nation of whiners, you just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline.” Gramm stepped down from his official role in the McCain campaign following those comments, but continues to advise McCain on economic policy.

ABC News: The Note: Fundamentally Unsound
Not Just a String of Bad Luck.

While some pundits have tried to spin blame for the current economic crisis everywhere but the “Gramm negative” economic policy of deregulation that has forced America to front hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out the fraud and poor business decisions Gramm’s own deregulation policies enabled, the solution is quite obviously not more of the same.

The contributing problem of spending trillions to finance an occupation in Iraq based on false pretense while ignoring Bin Laden and enabling him to continue his efforts to bankrupt the US through guerrilla warfare should cause anyone who thinks that there is no difference between Barack Obama and McCain to wake up.

Obama plans to scale down the unwelcome operations in Iraq that are costing the nation absurd amounts of money while watering down the country’s military strength, provide a $1,000 tax break to the middle class, and stop the out of control profiteers that are devastating the economy as they take full advantage of Gramm’s catastrophic deregulation policies to manipulate the market and then promptly abandon any accountability and leave the taxpayer to pay for the damages.

Barack Obama Speaks With Educators
McCain Plays Depressing Hoover Tune.

McCain has continued to describe himself as “fundamentally a deregulator” and has repeatedly stated that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong,” echoing the lack of understanding voiced by President Herbert Hoover the day after the stock market crashed on Black Tuesday in October 1929, when he said, “The fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.”

Despite Hoover’s comments, the market continued to fall. John D. Rockefeller repeated the same line of optimism days later, “Believing that fundamental conditions of the country are sound . . . my son and I have for some days been purchasing sound common stocks.” The market didn’t hit bottom until the middle of November.

Hoover promised a tax cut and voiced further optimism, but over the next year, things only got worse as the economy contracted, a thousand banks failed, and the nation experienced widespread poverty for years.

In a similar fashion, the McCain campaign has attempted to cloud reality by trotting out billionaire democrat and wife of a knight Lynn Forester de Rothschild to insist that McCain knows what he’s doing on the economy but that Obama is an “elitist,” while she also says she sees no political difference in social issues between Hillary Clinton and the McCain/Palin campaign.

Once Upon A Time in October - TIME
Palin Drone Says the Same Thing Backwards.

McCain’s running mate is even further out of touch with reality in economic matters. As mayor, Palin was able to hire John Cramer as a full time city manager to do her job so she could focus on turning Wasilla into a town modeled on the evangelical teachings of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. Alaska is swimming in oil money, so most of the town’s infrastructure and planning was subsidized and managed by Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough, a regional govenment.

A Salon article quoted Michelle Church, a member of the borough, as saying Palin was “unprepared to be mayor — it was John Cramer who actually ran the city,” and noting that, “the borough takes care of most of the planning, the fire, the ambulance, collecting the property taxes. And on top of that she brought in a city manager to actually run the city day to day. So what executive experience did she have as mayor?”

Still, Palin managed to leave behind massive debt after building a sports complex so far out of town that kids couldn’t ride their bikes there, and an unnecessary and duplicative new emergency dispatch center. Both as mayor and as the governor of Alaska, Palin has requested massive earmarks for Federal dollars, despite the fact that local residents pay nearly nothing in taxes due to Alaska’s oil wealth.

In her acceptance speech and repeatedly afterward, Palin has come out as being against earmarks and wasteful spending, claiming to have said “thanks but no thanks to that bridge to nowhere,” to Congress, then admitting that she accepted the money after the earmark was canceled by Congress, and then returning to her line about “thanks but no thanks” in subsequent recitations of her speech.

What Palin seems to fail to understand is that earmarks are the mechanism Congress uses to ensure that funding is spent on a specific project. There is nothing wrong with earmarks themselves, as they can be used to ensure that Federal money isn’t just spent frivolously with nothing to show for it. The real problem is wasteful spending and requesting funding for unnecessary projects.

In the case of Palin’s bridge to nowhere, while Congress removed the earmark, Palin took the money anyway and spent it at her own digression. By presenting herself as a champion of “ending earmarks,” Palin reveals that she is either grossly ignorant of how things work, or simply a disingenuously hypocritical liar.

In neither case is Palin qualified to help sort out economic policy for McCain, who has admitted that economic matters are not his strong point and who is surrounded by lobbyists and career politicians who have served the needs of those lobbyists in removing the economic regulations that were originally put in place to prevent the Depression from occurring again. Neither McCain nor Palin can offer real change, just more of the same as things get worse.

Sarah Palin, faith-based mayor
Sarah Palin’s wasteful ways

We Don’t Need Not Another Hoover.

America has to fight to take the nation back from the profiteers who have been cashing in at the trough of deregulation just like speculators in the 20s, who bought stock on margins hoping to make a quick profit. That worked well until everyone began selling at once. Today, bad home loans and speculative investments have resulted in a similar crisis, and are setting up a domino effect of future disasters.

On top of this, the nation has taken on a fantastically expensive war on multiple fronts, playing right into the hand of Bin Laden’s attempts to bankrupt us. McCain and Palin not only plan to stay in Iraq indefinitely, but threaten to start new wars in Iran, Syria, and between Georgia and Russia. This is ridiculous.

And for all my rich readers who fear Fox New’s propaganda that Obama will redistribute their wealth, remember that the market has always performed better under a Democrat for president. According to Ned Davis Research cited by MarketWatch, “the Dow Jones Industrial Average produced an annualized return of 7.21% during Democratic presidents, in contrast to an average of 3.6% during Republican presidents,” and when accounting for inflation, “2.5% annualized during Democratic presidencies, versus 1.7% during Republican presidencies.”

If those making more than a quarter million a year are afraid of Obama repealing parts of the Bush tax reductions that overwhelmingly favored them above the majority of Americans, imagine the consequences of more deregulation and another century in Iraq at $12 billion per month. Your taxes will eventually have to pay for that too. Stop deluding yourselves with Depression era Hooverism and wake up to the real threat: Bin Laden Bankruptcy.

Democratic presidencies aren’t always bad for stocks - MarketWatch

(via Obama offers remedy for economic turmoil :)

Barack Obama spent two days in Colorado under the cloud of a collapsing Wall Street but departed by offering a plan to cleanup a mess he accused his opponent of failing to comprehend.

“We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet, Sen. (John) McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” Obama said here Tuesday.

The Democratic presidential nominee described a six-point plan that would subject all financial institutions that can borrow from the government to more oversight and crack down on trading practices he said border on market manipulation. Such action is needed to repair America’s faltering confidence in housing and financial institutions, Obama said.

On a half-dozen talk shows and in an campaign appearance Tuesday, McCain also called for reforms, saying there must be more effective regulation of investments and a commission to examine causes of the current troubles. But his campaign also criticized Obama for what it said was the Illinois senator’s pessimism about the American economy.

The dueling messages were the culmination of a week in which Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was sold and the government agreed to provide an $85 billion emergency loan to rescue the insurance giant AIG.

The economy suddenly is back at the forefront of the presidential campaign, as Obama showed by spending the bulk of his 41-minute speech at the Colorado School of Mines on the topic.

“America is a place where you can make it if you try. . . . But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided that market with an invisible hand of principle that America prospers when all Americans prosper,” Obama told the receptive crowd of 2,000 at the Lockridge Arena. “Too often over the last quarter century we have lost this sense of shared prosperity. . . . The American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules of government.”

Obama said he would push a $50 billion emergency economic plan, offer a 10 percent tax credit on mortgage costs to middle-class homeowners and change bankruptcy law to make it easier for people in financial trouble to stay in their homes.

New regulations must ensure that all financial institutions strengthen their amount of capital and that government investigates potential conflicts between ratings agencies and the institutions that they oversee, he added.

Obama attempted to draw sharp contrasts between himself and McCain, who has described himself as “fundamentally a deregulator.” The Illinois senator argued that a reduction in regulation and oversight led to the savings-and-loan crisis of the 1980s and the recent problems that saw the collapse of three of the country’s five largest investment banks.

“John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and time again that he does not believe in it,” Obama said.

McCain backed away somewhat Tuesday from his remarks that the economy is fundamentally strong, elaborating that he believes that the American workers who drive the economy continue to be strong. But his discussion of the economy took a different tone than Obama’s.

The Arizona senator spoke of cutting taxes to fuel the economy and warned that government should not bail out flailing private companies like AIG for fear that this could encourage additional risk-taking. He promised to end the “reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed” that had caused both the financial crisis and the recent foreclosure crisis.

Both men agreed that regulatory agencies must be streamlined.

As the financial crisis has worsened, McCain has cut into Obama’s significant lead in polls on which candidate would do a better job handling the economy.

William Galston, co-editor of the public-opinion journal The Democratic Strategist, sent an open letter Tuesday criticizing Obama for not offering a clear message on what has gone wrong with the economy or how to fix it.

Vicki Snider, an Obama precinct captain from Brighton, recalled a recent conversation with a Republican she said complained that Obama hasn’t offered specifics to back up his campaign promises. Tuesday’s speech included the kind of details that will capture voters’ attention, Snider said.

Peter Lohaus, a retired business professor from Arvada, agreed that it was the specifics of the six-point plan that set the address apart from many of Obama’s other speeches.

“I’m really glad that he basically addresses Mr. McCain’s ideas and doesn’t fall into a personality battle,” Lohaus said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

(via VMware Fusion 2.0 Officially Released [Virtualization])

Mac only: Windows virtualization software for Mac VMware Fusion’s version 2.0 has graduated from beta and is now officially available. In our test drive of Fusion 2.0 beta 1 and beta 2 we were impressed with 2.0’s better multi-monitor support and integration of the Windows VM with OS X in Unity. The final highlight reel of Fusion 2.0 features include:

• More Seamless with Unity 2.0: Application Sharing, Link Handling, Mirrored Folders, Driverless Printing, True Multiple Display Support, and Custom Keyboard Mapping
• Safer Windows on Mac experience with AutoProtect automated snapshots and a 12-month complimentary subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus security software for Windows XP and Vista
• More Power with DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 3D graphics, 1080p HD video playback, Multiple Snapshots, 4-way vSMP, and Better Linux Support (Unity & Easy Install)
• More Mac-like, More Mac-friendly with all new Welcome Screen, Virtual Machine Library and Virtual Machine Settings, Cover Flow and Quick Look integration, and Apple Help
• Mac OS X Leopard Server now is supported in a virtual machine on Mac hardware

A single license for VMware Fusion 2.0 will set you back $79.

VMware Fusion 2.0

(via SDK 3.3.3: The iPhone Podcaster Surprise Myth — RoughlyDrafted Magazine)

Daniel Eran Dilger
According to a growing swell of supposedly outraged developers, the creator of the Podcaster app had no warning that Apple might restrict the app from the iPhone App Store because there are no clear guidelines about what apps might be rejected or why. They’re wrong, here’s why.

(via ‘Line Rider iRide’ Released to App Store)

As noted on our Newest iPhone Games listing, InXile Entertainment has released the official version of Line Rider [App Store] to the App Store.

The $2.99 app provides a physics simulator in which you draw a track that the main character rides:

In Line Rider you draw a track with a simple pencil tool then send Bosh on his sled careening down the course until he wipes out! Create a landscape with as many ramps, hills, and jumps as you can imagine. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination and the physics of a boy on a sled.

The app provides a blank canvas for you to draw the track from a toolbox of options, including pencil, line, eraser, undo, zoom and more. You then set the rider loose to see him zoom across your creation. The iPhone version allows you to use the accelerometer to affect the direction of gravity on the track, and also provides a method to load and save tracks from a central repository. While fans of Line Rider will likely enjoy this title, those unfamiliar with the franchise might simply go “huh?”.

Line Rider originated as a Flash-based web game which became quite popular. An unofficial clone called Flying Rider was briefly available for the iPhone but was pulled in August due to legal pressure from inXile.

A Flash and Silverlight version of the game is also available for play online (older version).

Here’s a remarkably impressive track from the non-iPhone version that was found on YouTube:

I just hope they’ll find out they shouldn’t have blocked it in the first place and release it soon.

(via The Broken Record Keeps Playing: Why Apple’s App Store Approval Process is Broken)

I feel like we’re a bit of a broken record on this topic, but I just don’t think people are grasping how big of a deal this really is. So let me say it right up front so you know what I think: Apple’s App Store approval process is broken and seriously must be fixed if they want to continue fostering a thriving marketplace.

Last week, my article on farting iPhone apps presented the question, “Where should Apple draw the line or should they draw a line at all?”. Comments ranged from “Apple needs to lighten up” to “You seriously think Apple should have let a farting iPhone in the store?” (as well as a “how is this more important that war, life, and death?”, but I digress). 

Then this week a “legitimate” application, Podcaster, was rejected. This time it was on the basis that “it duplicates the functionality of the Podcast section of iTunes.” Basically, it competes with Apple so back off.

The issue here is not one of application quality and it is not one of usefulness or utility. It is an issue of a fair and thriving marketplace where iPhone/iPod touch users get the best quality applications and the developers get an honest opportunity to make some dang money.

“But what does that mean Josh?,” you ask. Well, gather ’round.
(more…)

(via null)

http://www.wcsh6.com/video/default.aspx?maven_playerId=immersiveplayer&maven_referralObject=850878100#

(via YouTube - New Family - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates (Long Version))

(via Barack Obama dominates in new poll — of folks who can’t vote here | Top of the Ticket | Los Angeles Times)

This is the way matters have been going of late for Barack Obama. New poll numbers are in that give him an overwhelming advantage over John McCain — and it will help him not one whit.

Indeed, Republicans will probably figure out a way to spin the results against him.

The BBC World Service poll gauged attitudes toward the U.S. presidential race in 22 other countries — and found Obama the preference in every one, in many cases by overwhelming margins.

Obama’s best showing was in Kenya — his father’s home country. There, a whopping 87% supported him, whereas 5% backed McCain.

Italy emerged as his second hotbed of support; Obama was favored there over McCain, 76% to 12%.

The Democrat’s overseas trip this summer that included stops in France, Germany and Britain may have sparked taunts from the GOP, but it paid off in this poll. In each of those countries, support for Obama swamped McCain’s showing.

The findings for America’s two closest neighbors? Canada: Obama 66%, McCain, 14%. Mexico: Obama 54%, McCain 16%.

The race was closest in India, where the figures were Obama 24%, McCain 15%. As those figures indicate, a large number of India’s citizens did not care to make a pick between the two candidates — an attitude that was even more pronounced in …

… Russia. There, fully 75% did not express a preference; among those who did, the findings were Obama 18%, McCain 7%.

Overall, among the 22,000 foreigners interviewed, Obama was backed by 49% and McCain by 12%, with the rest of the respondents taking a pass.

The survey also found that in 17 of the 22 nations, the most common view is that with Obama in the White House, “America’s relations with the rest of the world are likely to get better.” Under a President McCain, in 19 of the countries the prevailing opinion is that “relations will stay about the same as they are now.”

(via Sarah Palin’s Alaskonomics - TIME)

Back to reality. Of the 50 states, Alaska ranks No. 1 in taxes per resident and No. 1 in spending per resident. Its tax burden per resident is 2 1/2 times the national average; its spending, more than double. The trick is that Alaska’s government spends money on its own citizens and taxes the rest of us to pay for it. Although Palin, like McCain, talks about liberating ourselves from dependence on foreign oil, there is no evidence that being dependent on Alaskan oil would be any more pleasant to the pocketbook.

Alaska is, in essence, an adjunct member of OPEC. It has four different taxes on oil, which produce more than 89% of the state’s unrestricted revenue. On average, three-quarters of the value of a barrel of oil is taken by the state government before that oil is permitted to leave the state. Alaska residents each get a yearly check for about $2,000 from oil revenues, plus an additional $1,200 pushed through by Palin last year to take advantage of rising oil prices. Any sympathy the governor of Alaska expresses for folks in the lower 48 who are suffering from high gas prices or can’t afford to heat their homes is strictly crocodile tears.

As if it couldn’t support itself, Alaska also ranks No. 1, year after year, in money it sucks in from Washington. In 2005 (the most recent figures), according to the Tax Foundation, Alaska ranked 18th in federal taxes paid per resident ($5,434) but first in federal spending received per resident ($13,950). Its ratio of federal spending received to federal taxes paid ranks third among the 50 states, and in the absolute amount it receives from Washington over and above the amount it sends to Washington, Alaska ranks No. 1.