Glen Greenwald of Salon.com has written what should be the wake-up call of the century. The $700B Federal bailout of Wall Street rewards all the fat cats who made billions through irresponsible, high-risk gambling, letting them keep their ill-gotten profits, while sticking the American public with the tab for the market’s collapse. And your CongressCritters, Republicans and Democrats alike, are responsible.

“This is “redistribution of wealth” and “government takeover of industry” on the grandest scale imaginable.“

“What is more intrinsically corrupt than allowing people to engage in high-reward/no-risk capitalism — where they reap tens of millions of dollars and more every year while their reckless gambles are paying off, only to then have the Government shift their losses to the citizenry at large once their schemes collapse? “

“We’ve retroactively created a win-only system where the wealthiest corporations and their shareholders are free to gamble for as long as they win and then force others who have no upside to pay for their losses. More amazingly, they’re free to walk away without having to disgorge their gains. How can these bailouts not at least be categorically conditioned on the disgorgement of ill-gotten gains from those who are responsible?“

The current plan: 

“(1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled “assets”);

(2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme; and 

(3) best of all: “Decisions by [Treasury] Secretary [Hank Paulson] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency”.

“Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.”

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/09/20/bailout/index.html

View from Windows on the Green restaurant.

photo posted from my iPhone

When I first read this story, I assumed the quote was taken out of context. But here we have a video clip proving just how low Fox News can go.

Sunday on Fox, the former New York bureau chief of the Washington Times, Liz Trotta, discussed Sen. Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks about Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, which was pretty shocking on its own – even for Hillary. After mistakenly calling Obama “Osama,” Trotta joked that it would be nice to see them both killed:

TROTTA: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that sombody knock off Osama — Obama. Well, both, if we could.

HOST: Talk about how you really feel.

Theatrical trailer for this Summer’s Star Wars animated flick from Lucasfilm Animation. The story takes place after Attack if the Clones and before Revenge of the Sith. In theaters August 18th, to be followed by a weekly series on Cartoon Network this Fall.

Finally, a cool new feature leaked! The latest beta release of the iPhone 2.0 software sports location-based services for its camera and map applications, opening the door for geo-tagged camera photos. Can’t wait to see how this might integrate with Google Maps and iPhoto. And of course, this feature will be available free of charge to current iPhone owners as well as buyers of the upcoming 3G iPhone model.  

Though the “liberal media” has yet to call out John McCain on his habitual flip-flopping and lying, here comes a great YouTube video to the rescue. Enjoy, and unless you have the stomach for eight more years of neocon government, please pass this video on…

According to Gizmodo, a highly reliable source has confirmed that Apple will announce their next-generation 3G iPhone model at the WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) in San Francisco on June 9th. And contrary to some rumors, the new phone will be available for sale immediately after launch.

Unfortunately, no new clues as to which additional features will be offered beyond support for the faster 3G data network. Here’s a partial wish list of my most-wanted new features:

• True GPS
• MMS – Mobile Picture Messaging
• Spotlight Search – Everywhere (mail, contacts, calendar, etc.)
• Sync Notes & To Do lists
• Louder Ring / Stronger Vibrate / Louder Speakerphone
• LED Flash for camera
• Video Capture
• Video iChat
• Separate icon for Contacts
• Bluetooth DUN (iPhone as Bluetooth modem)
• View multiple inboxes together
• Wide Keyboard available in all apps including Mail
• Rotate view in Mail
• Mark All Mail as Read / Delete All
• Cut/Copy/Paste
• Voice Recorder
• Improved Voice Quality
• Improved Battery Life
• Save Images from Web and Email

The Broadcast Flag was an attempt by the FCC to mandate software and hardware controls on consumer devices. Put simply, this “feature” would have rendered every digital video recorder on the market, such as TiVos, useless and obsolete by allowing broadcasters to dictate which TV shows viewers were allowed to record and for how long the recordings could be stored. It would have killed the concept of “time-shifting” overnight.

But in May 2005 Judge Harry Edwards of the DC Court of Appeals told an FCC lawyer, ”You crossed the line,” and the court struck down the Broadcast Flag by a 3-0 vote.

Fast-forward to the present, and Microsoft’s Media Center has been caught enforcing this non-existent rule, preventing Windows users from recording certain NBC broadcast TV shows. And now Microsoft has acknowledged including this awesome feature in Windows.

“Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission),” a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. “As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed.”

Danny O’Brien, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, had this to say:

“Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want. They’ve imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they’ve bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.”

Is this what Microsoft meant by “The WOW starts now”?

By now many of you have probably seen that YouTube video of Bill O’Reilly acting like a psycho in some old video out-takes from Inside Edition…

Link: O’Reilly Meltdown

 
Now some clever individual has made this even more enjoyable by filling in the missing scenes of Bill’s producer behind the camera. Enjoy…

Link: O’Reilly’s Producer

So here’s what happens when you accidentally drop your beloved MacBook Pro on the edge of a hard, wooden footstool. Thankfully everything is still in working order – even that USB port on ground zero.

More painful images here:

MacBook Photos