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So, who is this man? He's the anchor baby of an activist Arab muslim who came to the U.S. on a student visa and had a child out of wedlock. He's a non-Christian, arugula-eating, drug-using follower of unabashedly old-fashioned liberal teachings from the hippies and folk music stars of the 60s. And he believes in science, in things that science can demonstrate like climate change and Pi having a value more specific than "3", and in extending responsible benefits to his employees while encouraging his company to lead by being environmentally responsible.
Every single person who'd attack Steve Jobs on any of these grounds is, demonstrably, worse at business than Jobs. They're unqualified to assert that liberal values are bad for business, when the demonstrable, factual, obvious evidence contradicts those assertions.
Author: swanksalot
Always good to have a second user look at things
links for 2011-08-18
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Lawmakers and some administration officials have since questioned the agency’s secretive process, its credibility and the competence of its analysts, claiming to have found an error in its debt calculations.
In the mortgage inquiry, the Justice Department has been asking about instances in which the company’s analysts wanted to award lower ratings on mortgage bonds but may have been overruled by other S.& P. business managers, according to the people with knowledge of the interviews. If the government finds enough evidence to support such a case, which is likely to be a civil case, it could undercut S.& P.’s longstanding claim that its analysts act independently from business concerns.
links for 2011-08-17
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The incidence of actual allergies is rising in adults and children around the world, for reasons that aren't totally understood. A popular theory is that modern hygiene has reduced the number of germs children are exposed to, so that their immune systems don't develop fully and attack harmless substances. Allergies may develop late in life, or seem to do so, in adults who had mild seasonal allergies that went unnoticed when they were children; the allergies may have become more severe as pollen counts have worsened.
Some environmental triggers are getting worse. In northern U. S. and Canada, pollen season in 2009 lasted 27 days longer than in 1995, a recent study found. Ragweed season in the New York-New Jersey area started last week, 10 days earlier than usual, says Leonard Bielory, an allergy specialist at Rutgers University and co-author of the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. "My prediction is that next week, it will just explode." -
Things that aren't "almost treasonous": the chairman of the Federal Reserve printing money.
Things that are "almost treasonous": threatening secession from the Union. -
Look at Google’s financial results. They reported $8.5 billion in net income this year, and $6.5 billion last year. That’s for all of Google. They’re offering $12.5 billion for Motorola. So Google just spent almost two years of its profits to buy a second-rate phone maker that itself is unprofitable,1 almost went bankrupt, and is arguably only the third-best maker of Android devices, behind HTC and Samsung.
links for 2011-08-16
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Here’s the biggie: in order for a specific device to get a license for the apps, it must pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite and meet the Android Compatibility Definition. How Google exactly determines what passes the test is really the core issue in this case — Skyhook claims Google uses the threat of incompatibility to act anti-competitively.Interestingly, the license allows Google to change the applicable Compatibility Test Suite and Android Compatibility Definition at will up until the time a device is certified for launch… by passing the CTS. So basically there’s nothing keeping Google from changing the CTS or ACD any way it wants in order to keep a particular device off the market.
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Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World’s disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman. In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday, Goodman claims that phone hacking was “widely discussed” at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with “the full knowledge and support” of other senior journalists, whom he named.
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I saw a Bloomberg report on the reverse break-up fee Google and Motorola Mobility (MMI) agreed upon: it’s a whopping, mindboggling $2.5 billion that Google has to pay to MMI if the deal falls through. I’m still researching this but it seems that this is, in relative terms, the highest-ever break-up fee agreed upon in this industry. “On an equity value basis, Google’s fee amounts to 20 percent, compared with the 4.2 percent median since last year”, reports Bloomberg. The same source that told Bloomberg the $2.5 billion figure claims that MMI “would pay a $375 million breakup fee if it decides not to sell to Google”.
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How stupid and reckless is the Tea Party? In addition to shrugging off a default threat – or perhaps welcoming one – they believe austerity is the correct medicine for a weak economy!! Where did they study economics, in a cornfield outhouse?? It defies belief that Tea Party members actually think spending cuts will create jobs. No – spending cuts will eliminate jobs. The Know-Nothings don’t understand that, but hey — it’s good for my bonds !!
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While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks. Some of us are investment managers who earn billions from our daily labors but are allowed to classify our income as “carried interest,” thereby getting a bargain 15 percent tax rate. Others own stock index futures for 10 minutes and have 60 percent of their gain taxed at 15 percent, as if they’d been long-term investors. These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It’s nice to have friends in high places.
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But a simple step that may lower the risk, especially in warm weather, is to stay properly hydrated. Dehydration causes blood volume to drop, researchers say, resulting in less blood and oxygen flow to the brain and dilated blood vessels. Some experts suspect that a loss of electrolytes causes nerves in the brain to produce pain signals. Anyone who has ever woken up dehydrated after a night of heavy drinking knows this feeling as a hangover. But migraine sufferers may be more sensitive to the effects of dehydration.
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Look, I can understand if you get frustrated with Barack Obama. Like all politicians, he’s imperfect. He has taken some positions that are completely wrong (his education policy leaps to mind; his foreign policy has been at best a mixed bag), and he certainly hasn’t done a good job of articulating the counterargument to the nihilism that defines current Republican policy. I believe that he’s better in many ways than his liberal detractors think, but that doesn’t mean he’s perfect, it doesn’t mean he never deserves criticism, and it doesn’t mean you can’t state that frustration and still be a supporter of liberalism. Indeed, sometimes being a supporter of liberalism requires it. But when you take the next step, and declare that you’d rather vote for Michele Bachmann than support Barack Obama for president, you have completely lost the thread.
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Now, I personallly have little patience for people trying to prove how hard they are generally speaking, and especially when said people are highly privileged liberals preening like they’re tough because they’ll “punish” the Democrats with their precious, precious votes—didn’t you know their votes count five times as much as yours? Well, they should anyway. The belief that the choice is to do things 100% your way or to give up altogether is what drives the Tea Party, which is why Rhodes has functionally become a Tea Partier, who will give the resentment vote to whatever asshole the GOP runs. I’m not going to argue the relative merits of Obama over fucking Bachmann, or Perry, or Romney. That just creates more opportunity for idiots and assholes to preen about how they’re lefter-than-thou, so left that they’re willing to destroy this country in order to make a point about how superior they are to everyone else.
links for 2011-08-15
Rasputin with Bachman Eyes
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The Police Chief of Long Beach has confirmed that his department’s policy is to detain photographers who do nothing more than take pictures in public places, and that he neither has, nor plans to implement, any guidelines for these detentions. He classes photography with other “suspicious activity” such as “attempts to acquire illegal or illicit biological agent (anthrax, ricin, Eboli, smallpox, etc.)” and “In possession, or utilizes, explosives (for illegal purposes).”
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Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is dropping out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
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A central air-conditioning system made by Advantix Systems, formerly an Israeli company but now based in Miami, removes moisture from air and cools it with a mixture that is 60 percent water and 40 percent salt. Humid air is pumped past the salty mixture and water from the air tends to flow into the salt. If the salt is chilled, the air will be cooled, too.
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Condemnation was swift and widespread. “There was no demonstrated risk to the public safety at all,” said Kevin Bankston, senior staff lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “And even if there had been, the action was unacceptable from a First Amendment point of view.” He said, “Having offered the option of cellphone service, they cannot withdraw it for the specific purpose of cutting off free speech,” he said.
Reliable, ADM In afternoon light
Reliable, ADM In afternoon light, originally uploaded by swanksalot.
Ogden.
slightly increased saturation in Photoshop, but not by much
Newsweek’s Queen of Rage
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: Lucifer VI
Flash: Off
Film: Kodot XGrizzled
If Rick Perry enters the race, I would wager that Michele Bachmann’s support would fade a bit. His political and religious views appear to be quite similar to hers, but doesn’t have to “submit” to his husband like Bachmann does.
One could argue Rick Perry does submit to his husband, corporate America, but that’s a different kind of submission.
A Ziggurat for Lease
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Film: Pistil
Flash: Off
embiggen:
decluttr
Downtown Milwaukee last spring
The Crimson Leaves of Autumn
Door County somewhere
from 2009
The Longhorn Saloon – Main Street, Scenic, South Dakota
I kid you not, this *is* Main Street, in Scenic, South Dakota, right outside of the Badlands. Unfortunately, I did not have time to stop in for a beer.
[ maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Rapid+City,+SD&dad… ]
Next time.
I think the sign says, “Indians Allowed”. Check out the large version to read the lettering (though since I enlarged a small crop, it is a little “soft”)
from 2008. Apparently it is for sale. No, not just the Longhorn Saloon, but the whole town:
For less than the price of a one bedroom apartment in much of Manhattan, you can buy a whole town in South Dakota. The catch: it’s right on the edge of the remote Badlands, 50 miles from the nearest town of any size. The population is 9.
One-time rodeo star Twila Merrill, owner of 12-acre Scenic, South Dakota is selling up due to an illness. According to Coldwell Banker agent Dave Olsen, everything in Scenic (“so-called because it’s beautiful,” he said), is included in the sale: an old-fashioned Western saloon, two shops, and a dancehall, among other buildings. They mostly date back to the town’s 1906 founding, and Olsen hopes the new owner will preserve them as relics of the Old West.
Scenic has been on the market for two months, but there wasn’t much interest beyond local business people until the Rapid City Journal filed a story on the listing on Monday. In the last 24 hours, CNN and ABC got in on the act, and a shocked Olsen told Forbes that the international press is descending on tiny Scenic.
(click here to continue reading Entire South Dakota Town For Sale For $799,000 – Clare O’Connor – Filthy Rich – Forbes.)
Schlitz on Belmont
and James Levatino Street…
articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-08-30/news/0808290711_1_…
More on the Schlitz “Tied House”:
forgottenchicago.com/features/tied-houses/
As far as Schlitz houses go, this is a modest example. There is none of the usual distinctive brickwork, and all of the ornament is confined to the turret. Notice that the globe is styled differently. The belt is not as pronounced, the words “Trade Mark” are not included to the left of the buckle, and “Schlitz” is rendered in a different typeface. There is another example with this style globe, located at Broadway and Winona (below). This is only a theory, but perhaps this and the Broadway location are older than the rest, considering the more primitive, less distinctive rendition of the globes.
(James Levatino was a long-time resident of this neighborhood)
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before, originally uploaded by swanksalot.
Alleyway, Fulton Market
might an interesting print, I’ll have to see
Max Ernst – Spanish Physician
Art Institute of Chicago’s Modern Wing
www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/145243
randomly selected for your viewing pleasure
A Pale Light and a Mournful Rustle
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Off
Film: AO BW
River North
Made In Chicago
Shot with my Hipstamatic for iPhone
Lens: John S
Flash: Standard
Film: Claunch 72 Monochrome