How nice that working for capitalist fat cats like Tiffany & Co. and Citibank allow this kid to have the free time to create an app for the folks disparaging capitalism. The irony - or is this hypocrisy - is astounding. Funny how there was no need for "getting arrested" apps during those so-called violent Tea Party protests... Jason Van Anden, a software developer for Tiffany & Co. and Citibank, has released a new app in support of Occupy Wall Street. “I’m Getting Arrested” is available for free download in the Android app store. |
After the GOP win on the debt limit plan in the House today, I think Noonan's article is even more salient. There is no leadership from Obama, just finger-pointing and scare tactics. Now the Democrats in the Senate will become the party of "NO". Clearly, the people want fiscal restraint and belt-tightening. If Senate fails to listen - again, the American people may be even less forgiving in 2012 than they we were in 2010. They've Lost That Lovin' Feeling
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At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." |
There were people who loved George W. Bush when he was at his most unpopular, and they meant it and would say it. But people aren't that way about Mr. Obama. He has supporters and bundlers and contributors, he has voters, he may win. But his support is grim support. |
Why is Mr. Obama different from Messrs. Clinton and Bush? "Clinton radiated personality. As angry as folks got with him about Nafta or Monica, there was always a sense of genuine, generous caring." With Bush, "if folks were upset with him, he still had this goofy kind of personality that folks could relate to. You might think he was totally misguided but he seemed genuinely so. . . . Maybe the most important word that described Clinton and Bush but not Obama is 'genuine.'" He "doesn't exude any feeling that what he says and does is genuine." |
The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn't really very good at politics, and he isn't good at politics because he doesn't really get people. |
he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire. |
And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out |
He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it. |
So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser. |
I have not heard of any of the authors on this year's long list. I may wait until the short list comes out to choose a new novel to read. Have any of you read these authors before? Any suggestions? The longlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - the ‘Man Booker Dozen' - is announced today, Tuesday 26 July. The 13 books on the list include: one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The list also includes three new publishers to the prize - Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books. |
Julian Barnes The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House) |
The shortlist of six authors will be announced on Tuesday 6 September at a press conference at Man Group's London headquarters. The winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be announced on Tuesday 18 October at a dinner at London's Guildhall and will be broadcast on the BBC. |
This is interesting. I would like to read more about their ROI program and methodology. However, my account does not fit within any of the categories they are targeting. If anyone has access to the details about this program, would you mind sharing it with me? Meredith to advertisers: Here's a ROI guarantee |
Call it a money-back guarantee for advertisers. At a time when return on investment is of greater importance than ever, with lingering worries about the recession prompting advertisers to scrutinize every dollar they spend more closely, Meredith is offering a new program that guarantees an increase in sales for products advertised in the company's magazines, or their money back. The so-called Meredith Engagement Dividend was announced this morning by the company. Meredith employed analytics from Nielsen's Homescan and data from 85 million consumers collected by the company to find that advertisers in the beauty, household goods, OTC drugs, and food categories saw a 10 percent increase in sales over a 52-week period by using high-frequency campaigns in Meredith magazines. There are, of course, some caveats. To receive the guarantee, advertisers have to commit to at least 12 months of advertising across several titles. The number of participants will be limited this year as Meredith perfects the system. Read more at www.medialifemagazine.com |
I like the idea of assigning time to projects. I need to try a calendaring approach to my tasks. Number 10 would solve most of my GTD problems. Is there a 12 Steps program for social media? 10 Time-Management Tips That Work |
Tip 1: Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You'll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions. |
Tip 2: Any activity or conversation that's important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they're unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments. |
Tip 3: Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results. |
Tip 4: Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you're doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having "office hours." Isn't "office hours" another way of saying "planned interruptions?" |
Tip 5: Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time. |
Tip 6: Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what's missing in your next call or activity? |
Tip 7: Put up a "Do not disturb" sign when you absolutely have to get work done. |
Tip 8: Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. |
Tip 9: Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls. |
Tip 10: Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business. |
This is super cool. The universe is awe-inspiring. My son Jack is studying space during summer school at his school/daycare. Too bad he does not grasp the concept of time yet - only "right now", "today" and "after this". Anything longer than a day is hard to understand. Still, I'm going to share this with him. Could you imagine if our hot, dry Texas summer lasted 40 years - or that Wisconsin's frigid, icy winter lasted 40 years. Ugh! Don't think I'll volunteer for the colonization of Neptune. Neptune completed its first orbit since being discovered 165 years ago. NASA aimed the Hubble Space Telescope at the blue planet to commemorate the event. |
That’s 165 years to complete one single orbit around the Sun |
The white fluffy streaks are indeed clouds, but not of the Earth variety. Instead, due to Neptune’s low ambient temperature, they’re actually high-altitude swaths of frozen methane. |
While here on Earth we switch between pants and shorts every few months, on Neptune each season lasts 40 years. |
I sure do wish I had listened to my mother when she begged me to study computer science at Texas A&M. My Spanish degree was not a bad choice for these times, but I can't help but wonder what direction my life might have taken me if I had followed Mom's advice... Too late to learn? Making Strides at Start-Ups
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Mentoring Groups, Increased Openness Create a New Generation of Female Leaders |
When Marissa Mayer was growing up in the 1980s, she knew only one female computer scientist. Now Ms. Mayer is a vice president at Google Inc.—and a role model for many women entrepreneurs. |
A growing number of U.S. female executives, mentoring groups and women investors are helping to crack the glass ceiling in start-ups. The percentage of women among start-up capital seekers grew to about 20% last year, up from 12.6% in 2000, according to the University of New Hampshire's Center for Venture Research. Of those women, the number who received funding grew to 13% in 2010, up from 9.5% in 2008. |
women are far from being on equal footing with men, a notable disparity in an industry that prides itself as a meritocracy. Women represent just over 15% of angel investors, and only 5% to 7% of partners at high-tech venture capital investor firms in the U.S. |
In an attempt to close the gap, a number of mentoring and investing organizations have popped up or grown significantly over the past few years, such as Women 2.0, Golden Seeds and Pipeline Fund. |
Still, many women say that venture capitalists, a male-dominated group that can make or break a company, often don't understand the reason for some female-founded start-ups. |
Julia Hu dropped out of the M.B.A. program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to start Lark |
she cited research explaining that women are more sensitive to high-pitch frequency noises and cannot fall asleep after hearing them. But male financiers didn't get it—until they ran the idea by their wives. "A day later they would always email me frantically or call me and say: 'What can we do to get one? I talked to my wife, and she said...this has been a problem for the last 10 years,'" |
I have been missing James Spader ever since the Boston Legal-induced addiction I suffered during my pregnancy. Think I might have to tune in to The Office for a fix... NBC picks James
Spader for 'The Office |
James Spader, who appeared on the seventh-season finale of the hit comedy, will be joining the show as Robert California, who takes over as boss of the entire Dunder Mifflin operation. |
Spader has proven brilliant at playing people offbeat enough to fit right in at Dunder Mifflin, and that sort of chemistry will be the key to preserving ratings in Carell's absence. Read more at www.medialifemagazine.com |
Glad I did not tune in. Sounds like nothing new. 'Countdown With
Keith Olbermann,' ugh |
He's back, and the rants are what you'd expect |
Olbermann spent most of the episode talking with his new regular contributors. It turns out they’re all people with whom he couldn’t agree more. First he and the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore discussed the current war in Libya. |
Olbermann hesitated to call for the end of our support of the bombing there, perhaps because that would align him with the most conservative voices in the Republican party. |
Since neither of them had a strong opinion or a fresh angle, and since both of them seemed terrified of saying something that might make conservatives happy, they probably should have picked another topic. |
An odder contributor, the Watergate conspirator John Dean |
Olbermann and Dean agreed that the majority in the recent Supreme Court decision about class-action suits was voting to protect corporations and weaken the little guy. No one discussed the constitutional arguments for or against the decision. |
Olbermann mocked one talk-show host for having a high voice. Later, he would accuse a Republican politician of dyeing his hair.
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The “Worst Persons” segment, another holdover from the MSNBC show, criticized Sarah Palin for trying to trademark her name for certain uses, including educational materials. This is funny if, like Olbermann and his audience, you assume that she is stupid. |
And the winner was a woman in a viral video who was told to lower her voice while talking on her phone on a commuter train |
Olbermann named her and quoted mildly ironic things from her LinkedIn profile. |
Another regular contributor, Markos Moulitsas, the founder of the liberal web site the Daily Kos |
Moulitsas went on at length about how he had supposedly been banned from MSNBC, including Olbermann’s show, after getting in a Twitter war with the channel’s morning host, Joe Scarborough. |
He seemed to think that getting in a spitball fight with another commentator was an accomplishment. |
Jon Stewart basically killed CNN’s “Crossfire” when he went on the show and said that its fake arguments were “hurting America.” Moulitsas, by contrast, told Olbermann, “I believe you’re a national treasure.”
They’re both wrong. Left or right, shows like “Countdown” aren’t part of the problem, but they’re definitely not part of the solution. Read more at www.medialifemagazine.com |
After September 11th, I completely understood the desire for more invasive surveillance, even if it meant giving up some of my privacy. I wasn't doing anything suspicious and could care less if someone heard my boring phone calls or read my mundane e-mails. However, I do see how the powers could be abused. If the "powers that be" are certain that there is still an imminent threat, I would rather be safe than private.
My problem with the news today is the hypocrisy of all of the liberal do-gooders who bashed Bush and Cheney about the Patriot Act relentlessly. Obama obviously misled his base about his intentions to limit/abolish the Patriot Act's abuse of civil liberties. Where are the angry calls for his resignation?? Where are the fired up college kids and professors? Where is the ACLU? Oddly enough, the angry cries are coming from the conservative-leaning Tea Party. More hypocrisy? I don't think so. The Tea Party has always included a strong Libertarian base. Libertarians have been screaming about the Patriot Act (and the "kinetic military actions") from the beginning.
Personal freedom and liberty or a nanny state - what do you prefer?
Rand Paul is still a lone voice in the wilderness. He needs to keep it up. Patriot Act extension OKd by Senate
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Because of strong support from the Obama administration, a bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate is expected to ensure passage this week, preventing a lapse of the federal enforcement powers. The provisions expire Friday. |
The law has troubled civil libertarians and conservatives since its enactment after the Sept. 11 attacks. The debate has drawn new interest from the Tea Party movement, whose supporters argue that the law gives the federal government too much authority to spy on terrorism suspects. |
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., led opposition to the measure on the Senate floor Monday, arguing that the act allows the federal government to peer too deeply into Americans' private lives. He questioned the wisdom of trading privacy for national security. |
"We cannot give up our liberty. If we do, if we trade it for security, we'll have neither," Paul said. |
The sections of the law expiring Friday include the so-called roving wire tap provision, which allows investigators to continue eavesdropping even when a suspect switches phones. |
Another section allows authorities to conduct broad personal records investigations, a provision that has become known as the library records provision. And a so-called lone-wolf provision allows the government to track foreign terror suspects even if they are not linked to a known terrorist group. |
In all cases, a court order is required for monitoring. |
Four Democrats voted no - Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both of Montana; Mark Begich of Alaska; and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, opposed it, along with Republican Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Paul. |
Several senators are seeking to amend the bill, and a bipartisan amendment from Paul and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., would impose limitations and oversight. |
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