Recently in Rants Category

These folks don't seem to understand what's gone wrong in America. They just know something has gone really wrong. They are trying to make sense of it. I suspect that we all are.

I guess Glenn Beck offers some bizarre and simplistic way for them to vent that frustration and to have hope that things will get better if they believe in empty slogans that they repeat through out the interviews: "restore honor," "take back America," "work for freedom," "bring this country back together."

For Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and FOX to create such a divisive, ill-informed nation is just shameful and unpatriotic. All self-proclaimed news organizations have a duty to journalistic integrity that informs citizenry. FOX perpetuates an unfair and unbalanced, propagandized, limited world view that promotes ignorance, fear, angst, powerlessness, and a class-based society that preys on the less fortunate.  It's just wrong!

Related articles:

• 'America Is Better Than Glenn Beck' (newser.com)
• Judge H. Lee Sarokin: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Restoring Dishonor to America (huffingtonpost.com)

And I hate it that the front door to the house isn't private property.  Daily, people leave fliers and business cards and unsolicited junk on the door!

This week's big news story:  the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that the government can, without a warrant, sneak onto your property, your driveway, and place a GPS tracking device on your car that tracks everywhere you go.  We no longer have a reasonable expectation of privacy for our driveways, which even delivery people can use.

Shockingly, this ruling is actually getting some media coverage.

Plenty of liberals have objected to this kind of spying, but it is the conservative Chief Judge Kozinski who has done so most passionately. "1984 may have come a bit later than predicted, but it's here at last," he lamented in his dissent. And invoking Orwell's totalitarian dystopia where privacy is essentially nonexistent, he warned: "Some day, soon, we may wake up and find we're living in Oceania."

Source:  Time

Some have pointed out that if you are wealthy, you probably live in a gated community or have gates around your property that would extend your zone of reasonable expectation of privacy.  So only the poor people have less privacy.  But that's OK, isn't it?  I mean, wealthy people don't commit crimes.  Wealthy people don't bilk billions, even trillions out of the unsuspecting.  Enron never happened.  No Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme.  No Wall Street bail out while the captains of capitalism lived off the slaughtered fatted cow.

Besides, privacy died long ago in this country — during the George W. Bush administration, I do believe.  His cronies called it The Patriot Act.  Just the name says "Run!  Don't walk!"  During his administration and the Republican rein of terror, not only were hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras installed all over this nation, but warrantless wiretaps, "enhanced interrogations," and god knows what else were made the order of the day.

And who are we kidding?  I'd bet my last dollar that the US government routinely snags the GPS satellite data from specific cars at will.  There really is no need to place anything on the cars of serious criminals.  That's so last century.  Only puny local police departments have to actually walk onto someone's driveway to plant a GPS under their car.  The big time crooks already have GPS as part of the most fashionable bling package.

The totalitarian state is here.  Is now.  We live it.  The Constitution and Bill of Rights are just window dressing from a time gone by.

Related articles

• Court allows agents to secretly put GPS trackers on cars (cnn.com)
• Warrentless GPS Tracking Of Your Car Is Legal If You're Not Wealthy Enough To Protect It (dvorak.org)
• The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves (time.com)
• The Government's New Right to Track Your Every Move With GPS (time.com)
• Judge Kozinski Doesn't Track with the Ninth Circuit on GPS and the Fourth AmendmentCalls his fellow judges 'cultural elitists' when it comes to privacy. (abovethelaw.com)

I've had all of the Tea Party insanity I can stomach.  They now want a Constitutional Renaissance.  What kind of horse shit is that?!

They want to revisit the 1st amendment, the 14th amendment, and states rights.

Freedom of religion only will apply to the religions they want it to apply to.  The 14th amendment should only apply when they want it to apply.  When civil rights gets in the way of what they want, they want the states to be able to vote civil rights back into the stone age when you just grabbed you a woman by the hair of the head.  And no more income taxes!  (But what of their precious military budget?!)

These people aren't just racists.  Their "movement" isn't just a well-funded marketing stunt to hinder the elected government.  They are dangerous.  They are home grown terrorists with deep roots in religious extremism — probably not much different than the beginnings of the Taliban.  They are the ignorant puppets of the super wealthy.

The day these fools get elected and start mucking up the US constitution is the day I leave the USA.

And while I'm venting my disgust for the sell out of America, I've decided to boycott Target because of their recent large contributions to radical extremist conservatives.  And then we have Fox so-called-news that just donated $1,000,000 to GOP gubernatorial candidates.  Fair and balanced my ass!  Are they going to disclose these contributions when they cover matters related to those races?!

We will soon have the best laws money can buy.

Related articles:

• Exposing Tea Party frauds (thehill.com)
• Constitution à la carte (dailykos.com)
• Tea Party: It's Not Just Taxes, It's The Constitution (npr.org)

I recently was in a very large church facility.  My visit had nothing to do with the church.  The event managers had simply secured this facility for the event.  I was sickened by what I saw.

The people of this church have built a mega-multi-million dollar facility.  It was beyond enormous.  The power bill alone would be beyond the entire budgets of the churches I attended as a child.  The facility was so large, I felt as though I were in one of the super malls:  one section had a two story (at least) plexiglass enclosed children's play area with the largest set of the tubes kids can crawl around in I've ever seen in my life, one section was bigger than several Starbucks combined and had that wonderful freshly ground coffee bean smell, large living trees were all about, the "sanctuary" could easily stage any contemporary rock concert, broadway show, or symphony, the gym facilities and enclosed olympic pool were stunning.  And I only walked in and later walked out.  I didn't go exploring the vast hallways to see where they led.

As I walked in, along the right side of a large corridor was at least 12 wireless credit card-based cash registers on rolling carts.  They could be wheeled anywhere in the enormous facility to take your payments.  Who knows what the church sells on Sundays besides their mocha lattes.

I was devastated.  This "place of worship" is a testimony to greed and selfishness, part of the "it's all about me" philosophy that has brought our nation's economy to brink of bankruptcy.

I found this organization to be revolting.  I felt tainted for having been in it.

This is not a church.  It's an enormous business enterprise.  It was built from the ground up with tax-except dollars that gave each contributor a tax benefit.  It can therefore offer its "services" at below market value.

I can't imagine the people of this organization (I can’t bear to call it a church.) living the beatitudes that the savior they claim to follow taught from his own lips.  Instead, I see their Jesus, the Christ, coming into that place and, in a complete rage, ripping out the wireless cash registers and money-making ventures.

How have they so lost touch with the teachings they claim to follow?!  This isn't just hypocrisy or big tax-free business.  This is evil!

And, tragically, I am confident that the vast majority of the people who attend and support this mega-enterprise are good people.  But their organization has lost touch with what the church is all about.

Related articles:

• Anne Rice discusses her decision to quit Christianity (knoxnews.com)

A few weeks ago I was in Saratoga, NY.  I had landed in Albany and took a cab to the wonderful inn in which I staid.  My cab driver was a young man from Afghanistan, of all places.  We had an interesting conversation about the whole Afghanistan mess.

He echoed what I had heard in the news:  that suitcases literally filled with millions of US dollars (in cash) are flown out of the Kabul airport every day.  This, he says is common knowledge.  It's business as usual.  No one asks any questions.

Juxtapose this against the lavish inequities of poverty and extreme wealth in the city.  It's insanity.  Then, add to this mix the fact that 96% of the $9.1 billion dollars designated for reconstruction in Iraq is unaccounted for.  That's &8.7 billion with a "b" dollars that has vaporized into thin air.  (Read this Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction pdf report.)

Now I realize we are talking about two different countries, but how much has been designated for Afghanistan?  How much is accounted for?

This should be a scandal of the highest order!  This should be bleeding from every headlines in this country. Why do we so rarely hear about this in our media?!  I'm a fiscal conservative.  The Republican party is wailing about the deficit.  Wail about $8.7 billion in missing government funds!!!!  Those are deficit bucks, baby!

But that's not the only interesting part of our conversation.  I expressed to the young cab driver that I didn't know why we were really in their country.  He asked me politely if I wanted to hear his ideas on the matter.  Certainly!

1.  The drug trade coming out of Afghanistan is powerful and lucrative.  He was unsure of the US roll in the drug trade but thought it indeed was involved.

2.  The country is sitting on a fortune in rare minerals the world wants, even needs.  The oil is pretty meaningless.  He thinks this is why Russia was there for a decade and now the US.  Interesting that this has been common knowledge among the people of Afghanistan but only recently has surfaced in the western media.

Our government is out of control and a direct part of the problem!

If this TED talk by toxicologist Susan Shaw isn't depressing and a powerful call to arms, then nothing is.

She begins by mentioning the chemical industry, which is all but completely unregulated, and how many chemicals can be found in our bodies.  In Europe, the numbers are vastly, vastly lower.  The worst offender:  flame retardant.  It's in everything you can imagine (your clothes, cars, furniture...), including your blood stream now!  At least we are less likely than the rest of the world to spontaneously combust!

But her talk is on the deadly cocktail that is the chemical dispersants and the oil combination designed to cause the oil to drop to the bottom of the Gulf so we don't see the damage it is doing.  Apparently the deadly dispersants make the oil vastly more likely to enter the organs of body through the skin.  We don't even know all of the compounds in the dispersants because the chemical industry is not required to disclose them by law.  What a revolting shock!

Our US government has completely failed to protect people.  What good is it?!

I just get so angry at what we as Americans tolerate without a second thought!  Such short-sighted, live for the comfort of the moment idiocy!

I find it so unspeakably maddening that important, reflective, intelligent voices of reason such as Susan Shaw's, are ignored in mainstream media because the influence peddlers would prefer we receive a steady diet of buffoons like Sarah Palin!  Dear god!

Related articles:

• TEDTalks: Susan Shaw: The oil spill's toxic trade-off (huffingtonpost.com)
• "Toxic Chemicals Industry Designs PR Campaign for Survival: Exclusive Leaked Footage!" and related posts (naturalpapa.com)
• Cancer panel: Unregulated chemicals pose serious risk (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I have had growing concerns about the growing surveillance state in the USSA:  The United Surveillance State of America.  Apparently the Washington Post has them too.

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

Source:  A Hidden World Growing Beyond Control

With the ineffectiveness of such unencumbered agency work as well as the unparalleled and unknown true cost of this growing secret "security" dark side, with no oversight, and with the unprecedented deficit, we have a huge problem.  The Republican party is always ranting about reducing the size of government while they are funding the largest top secret buildup of hidden government right in plane sight.  Let's reduce government.  And this is where we need to start.

I do not trust my government at all.

Watch the trailer to the upcoming (Fall, 2010) PBS Frontline Special, Top Secret America at this link. Keep in mind that for a healthy democracy to work, it must function in the public forum. Tyranny lives in the shadows. What is the post USA democracy going to be?

PBS wbesite for Top Secret America.
Follow the story on Twitter @PostTSA
Use the hashtag #topsecretamerica

Related articles:

• Top Secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control (washingtonpost.com)
• WaPo Reveals "Top Secret America": How Post-9/11 System Is Not Working (mediaite.com)
• Wash Post's series on 'A hidden world, growing beyond control' (americablog.com)
• Top Secret America (slog.thestranger.com)
• WaPO Secret America, site up (warintel.blogspot.com)

Today we went walking along the beach and plopped our beach chairs surf side to enjoy a moment of sunshine and the cool ocean breeze. When I sat down, I noticed I had a glob of tar near the heal of my foot. And since I had forgotten to wear my "official beach shoes," I was going to have a very hard time getting the tar glob off.

While seated I frequently rubbed my heal in the sand. No help at all.

So, when I got home, I Googled "remove tar foot" and saw two suggestions:

• use olive oil and a toothbrush
• use regular white (not gel) toothpaste on a wet washcloth

All of the toothpaste here at the house is gel;  so, I got the olive oil out and the tiny new toothbrush my dentist gave me when I had my teeth last cleaned.  The tedious process took about 20 minutes, but it worked.  Below are the pictures documenting the trauma. Consider this my own personal exhibit of "Crude Awakening" that I blogged about before.

The tar (combined with the beach sand) becomes hard and is completely stuck to the skin.  I couldn't even scrape it off with a sea shell.  It has the dank tar smell.

The Tar Glob Proper

The Tools for the Procedure

Twenty Minutes Later

This is quite the week for tar.  The city of Manhattan Beach is in the process of redoing the slurry on the streets (that black tar goo with little tiny pebbles in it).  They just did the two streets by the house.  It's incredibly messy.  The workers also got black tar on the grass by the side of the house.  Not happy as that oil spill will probably kill the grass.

Oil is gushing freely into the Gulf of Mexico today as BP is trying to cap the well again.  And I just read an article online about the potential of a massive methane gas bubble from all of the methane gushing from the well in the Gulf (40% is methane gas and 60% is oil) rising from the Gulf and causing the extinction of all life on earth as methane gas is deadly.  She claims the sea floor around the gushing well is rising for about a 5 mile radius.  I hope the author is a crackpot.  If not, at least BP was kind enough to only kill all life on one planet in the solar system.

Check out the link at the bottom for a more detailed description of the methane gas theory including a link to the original article.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the realization that I have lived here in Manhattan Beach for about 2.5 years now, and today was the first time I've actually sat out on the beach.  That will be rectified this summer!

Related articles:

• Happy Sunday! The BP spill could trigger a methane explosion, mass extinction (crunchgear.com)

No wonder cancer is rampant in our world today.  Unbelievably, by the time I was born, 134 atomic bombs had been detonated on our planet:

• USA:  87
• Soviet Union:  38
• Great Britton:  9

And, horrifying as it may be, 2,053 atomic bombs have been exploded on the planet through 1998 with over half being detonated by the US.

NPR's Robert Krulwich reports that in 1962, shortly after the discovery of the magnetic Van Allen radiation belts were discovered, the US military exploded an atomic bomb in outer space to see if they could disrupt the Van Allen belt to use it as a weapon against the USSR.  The project, named Starfish Prime, produced an astounding light show in the heavens.

I can think of little that could be so irresponsible and nothing that better demonstrates the evil nature of the military industrial complex that runs this nation.  Those military officials and scientists discover something they do not understand and then want to see if they can blow it up.  This is insanity.

What other lunatic experiments have the unknowing people of the earth been victimized by because of this military experimentation?  I have no doubt that thousands have died and probably will continue to die of cancer as a result of these bomb tests and god knows what else (biological experiments, etc.).

View the interactive graphic of when, where, and by whom the atomic bombs were detonated.  Source:  CTBTO

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Rainbow Bombs (greg.org)
• Exploding H-Bombs In Outer Space (milkandcookies.com)
• US detonated a nuclear bomb in space in 1962 (slashgear.com)
• Mapping Nuclear Bomb Explosions (neatorama.com)

Everyone was excited about getting the new Apple iPhone 4.  But seriously, did these people test this device much at all?

First, the issue with the antenna signal decreasing surfaced right away.  My first call on the iPhone 4 fell victim to this problem when it went from a full strength signal to dropping the call with no signal at all.  Steve Jobs tells the world to stop hold the phone incorrectly —basically, don't hold it in your hand, and spend an extra $30 for Apple's new bumpers.

But I am finding other quirky issues with my new phone.

During calls, my phone appears to become confused as to whether I'm holding it to my ear and talking on the phone or whether I'm just holding it in my hand.  (Oops!  I forgot.  I'm not supposed to hold it in my hand.)  When I'm talking on a call with the phone to my ear, the handset appears on the screen, and my cheek presses the keys making the audible key tones we're all familiar with when dialing.  Then the screen blanks out when I remove the phone from my ear and the screen remains invisible and completely non-responsive no matter what I do from that point on.  I have to do several repeated hard reboots (Home button and Power simultaneously) to kill the phone and get it to work again.

During my first call about this issue to Apple technical support, the lady told me to do a complete backup and restore of the phone to correct the problem. Regrettably I got a phone call in the middle of the resyncing process and the resync didn't complete.  I called Apple back to make sure I wasn't going to lose all of my folders, etc.  This technical support lady asked me two questions about my issue:

1. "Are you using a screen protector?"  No, I'm not.
2. "Is your iPhone in a case?"  Yes, it's in a leather case I used for the iPhone 3Gs.

Oops!  Well, there we have it.  Not only must you hold the iPhone 4 "correctly" when placing a call so the signal strength doesn't drop to zero, you can not place your phone in a case or use a scratch resistant film to protect the front of the phone.  Doing the later apparently upsets the proximity sensor.  Oh, and if you want to hold the phone in your hand when placing a call and avoid having to hold it parallel to the orbit of Pluto the former planet, you have to spend an additional $30 for Apple's new bumper.

I've read in the blogosphere that despite Steve Jobs' claims that the new glass surface on the front and back of the phone is stronger than Iron Man's suit, it scratches rather easily.  I've always worn my previous iPhones (I've had them all.) on my belt in a leather case both to protect them and provide easy and continuous access.  I guess I could tie a string around my belt and around the bumper of my iPhone 4 and hope that doesn't disturb the proximity sensor.

I planned to purchase an iPhone 4 for my mother whose purse abuses every object it contains.  Without the phone being in some full-bodied protective case, it will be destroyed in her purse.  I'm sure she's not the only one that runs a roller derby inside her purse.

Another problem I have experienced was corrected by restoring the phone:  people can once again hear me when I use my Bluetooth Jawbone headset.  I could always hear them just fine.

Years ago Steve Jobs was credited with saying that customers don't know what they want until Apple shows it to them.  For the most part, that may have been true at the dawn of the digital era.  But today's tech-savvy customers do have a rather clearly defined sense of what they want and expect from their high tech devices:  continuous advancement without any regression from formerly attained benchmarks in design, function, and reliability.

I've always been a die-hard Apple fan boy, but Apple needs to start doing a better job of "getting it right" before they have to tell their customers they are "using it wrong."

[Update:  Others appear to have this issue too:  Macworld Article ]

Related articles:

• Updates on iPhone 4 Antenna Problem Articles [Apple] (gizmodo.com)
• Updates On iPhone 4 Antenna Problem Posts (gizmodo.com.au)
• Apple iPhone 4 Hit With Class Action Suit (abcnews.go.com)
• Apple Sued Over iPhone 4 Antenna & Reception Problems (macstories.net)

Apple isn't a victim of their own success.  They are badly managed at the distribution and retail levels — abusing their customers to feed their hype-driven marketing machinery.

It starts with my trying to reserve a phone on the date Apple themselves said everyone could place an order.  Their system, probably AT&T's databases, were overloaded and my first attempt to place an order didn't work.  I received a browser message to try my order again later.  I immediately did.

This time I tried to have the phone delivered to my home address.  The order went through!  I got my phone yesterday.

I then got an email saying my first order had also worked and I should pick up my phone at a specific Apple store.  What?  How weird!  But, OK.  Cool.  I could give that phone to the HU, who planned to get one anyway but hadn't placed an order.

My subsequent attempts to order a phone for my mother all failed repeatedly and said I had to go to the Apple store.  The nearest Apple store to her is about a 6 hour drive.  At her age, she won't be doing that.

Yesterday I and the HU went to the Apple store to be sure I could give my phone to the HU.  We were told that as long as we were both there I could.  Cool.

Today I drove by to check out the line.  Apple advertised that they will have two lines:  one for those customers who pre-ordered their phones and one for those who were just hoping to get one.  One line extends from the Mall entrance all the way off of the mall property and all the way down to the golf course at the Marriott.  Literally thousands of people are standing in this line that is probably a mile or more long!

I asked one of the store employees who was near the mall entrance how long the line was for people who had pre-ordered the phone.  He said, in not too pleasant a tone, that he had no idea.  It was all one line.  The store didn't divide the line up until people got to the door of the store.  What???!!!!  So the people that pre-ordered are having to wait even longer because of the people who didn't pre-order?!  That makes zero sense!

He went on to say that if I wasn't standing in the line (currently in the blazing sun) when the store closed, I would lose my reservation.  (A female employee had just told another customer the exact opposite.  Who go the correct information?!) He said that hundreds of people had spent the night in line.

This is insane.  This is inept management.  This is inexcusable.  Sure, it was fun the first time, but Apple has had 4 tries now to get this process right.

I told him Apple had lost their mind and that they could keep their precious little phone.  I wonder who will get the phone I ordered not realizing that the order had even worked?!

This is pure horse pooh!

Just wait until they all get their shiny new devices only to realize that the marvel of engineering, the new antenna system that is the outer edge of the phone, doesn't work so well when you hold the phone with your hand.  But then, who actually holds the phone in theirs hands when they place a call??????

Related articles:

• iPhone 4 has folks lining up in droves at Apple Stores worldwide (edibleapple.com)
• Apple iPhone 4 Release: Lines Grow As Frenzy Kicks Off (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Hundreds line up to buy new iPhone (washingtontimes.com)
• IPhone 4 sells briskly on first day of sales (cbc.ca)
• IPhone 4 Launch: The Scene From Austin (blogs.wsj.com)
• New iPhone selling briskly as hundreds line up (mysanantonio.com)
• iPhone Lines 2-3 Times Bigger This Year, Stores Are Selling Out (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)

of an iPhone 4!

It arrived at 9:30am at the front door via the stork (FedEx guy).

I unboxed it ceremoniously. It is beautiful, and smart — just like it's father (me, course)!

I turned it on. It asked to be connected to the mother ship. I plugged it into my Macbook Pro. iTunes then displayed my phone number and requested my billing zip code and the last 4 numbers of my social security number. It then said my activation session session had expired. Retry.

After three failed retries, I called Apple support. They told me to reboot my computer. I did. It activated after requiring 3 DNA samples —well, not really, but you are forced to agree to god knows what*. The moment it activated, my call to Apple support on my old iPhone was disconnected.

I then unplugged the new phone from iTunes and replugged it in as directed. iTunes is now installing all of my old iPhone's content onto the new phone.

I must say, and this is really actually very important to me, this is the best product delivery and activation process Apple and AT&T have ever had. I all but went on a safari camping out when I purchased my first iPhone from the Apple store at Lennox Mall. Activating it took hours (almost a whole day)! And each subsequent purchase was fraught with stupendously long lines but better activation times. This one they almost got completely right!

Amazing how long it takes to transfer about 24gb of data to the new phone via USB 2. It's now finished transferring all of my applications and is now working on sending over the video and audio content.

*Apparently iOS 4 users are now sending Apple retina scans, urine samples, blood and stool samples, along with our current location at every breath we take. The mother ship will use this information benevolently, of course. They will ply us with iAds tailored specifically to our personal DNA profile so as to extract as much money from our bank accounts as possible. The power of the tethered device is not to be underestimated!

Oooooooh!  Loooook!!  It's teething already!!

Related articles:

• Preparing for iPhone 4 Launch Day (cbsnews.com)
• Christmas Coming One Day Early? iPhone 4 on 6/23 For Some? (geardiary.com)

The hyper, militant, radical, evil, ultra-conservative, Republican noise machine has reached a new level of shill: stop beating up poor little innocent BP. [Insert a string of vile profanities of your own choosing here.] Listen to these idiots.

At the very least, BP should go out of business. Frankly, I favor the US nationalizing all of their assets. Just please spare Tony a yacht.

Related articles:

• Krauthammer: Barton's apology was "the most politically stupid statement of the year" (hotair.com)
• Michael Tomasky: BP and the GOP (guardian.co.uk)
• GOP Defending BP: Cutting Off Their Heads To Spite Their Necks (alan.com)

The banks were too big to fail.  Google is too big to be anything but evil.

I'm sure everyone has heard by now that the little Google street car that has mapping our world (while very cool, it takes away our privacy) was also snooping around everyone's wireless networks.  If your network was unprotected when the Google street car came by your home or office, Google took your email and password information as well.

Don't tell me the very bright people at Google haven't been doing analysis on the human cognition of password creation.  To the nefarious among us, we are nothing more than data.  I'll never forget overhearing a restaurant dinner conversation here in LA, "Yeah, I like so-and-so, but that's just one data point!"

As far as I am concerned, Google can never be trusted.

Wi-Fi traffic intercepted by Google’s Street View cars included passwords and e-mail, according to the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL)."

[Source: Google Street View Wi-Fi data included passwords and e-mail | Security | Macworld.]

I'd vote for her!  Shoot, I'd campaign for her!  She's attractive and charming.  She's witty and articulate.  She speaks core American values.  She does her homework.

Obama, while infinitely better than his wretched predecessor, has been astoundingly disappointing as president.  This disaster affords him the opportunity to do right by the American people and fulfill one of the primary duties of government:  protect and defend — not from some invisible "terrorist" threat, but from the very visible threat of capitalism gone awry, greed and excess, of government beholden to transglobal corporations and not the people.

Once again, Rachel Maddow nails it in her "fake speech to the nation as fake President Obama."

Texas Republican Joe Barton shows he only cares about the oil industry.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House,” Barton said today as a House Energy Committee panel began a hearing on BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The Obama administration called Barton’s comments “shameful.”

The London-based oil company agreed yesterday to Obama’s request to establish a fund to pay damages from the spill, and to temporarily suspend dividends as Gulf residents and businesses begin filing claims. BP said it will commit $20 billion to the fund.

Source:  Bloomberg:  BP's Spill Fund a $20 Billion Shakedown, Rep. Barton Says

Tony Hayward's appearance before Congress is just another expensive governmental "go-through-the-motions" sham.  I still maintain that the oil industry as a whole should be regulated like any other public utility.

Related articles:

• Rachel Maddow Blasts BP COO Doug Suttles: 'Not Even Remotely Believable' Answers In Interview (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• BP Destroying Evidence at the Scene of the Crime - Why the Hell are They Still in Charge? (videocafe.crooksandliars.com)
• No BP Dividend; Feinberg to Oversee $20B Spill Claim Fund (themoderatevoice.com)
• BP chairman apologizes for Gulf oil spill (sfgate.com)

I have made no secret of my disdain for the Mormon effort to influence the outcome of an election in the state of California by spending millions of dollars to mount a campaign of lies and deceit.  I have never understood why the Mormon church is so aggressively funding this campaign against civil rights, and I had no idea as to the magnitude and scope of their efforts and their financial influence in the election.

Why, exactly, are these people so insistent on forcing people who do not share their religious beliefs to live by their religious beliefs?

What is striking about the numbers is that although Mormons make up less than two percent of California's population, they made up more than 71 percent of campaign contributions, according to the film. Jeff Flint, a strategist with Protect Marriage, the group that spearheaded the Prop. 8 campaign, told the New York Times that 80 to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts were Mormons. "

[Source: '8: The Mormon Proposition' - Exclusive Clip Reveals Church Coerced Members to Raise Millions For Prop. 8 Campaign (VIDEO).]

I haven't seen this Sundance Film, but this very excerpt is shocking and disturbing, portraying their church more as a cult of strong armed coercion than a faith practice.

Related articles:

• '8: The Mormon Proposition' is a powerful expose (trueslant.com)

In light of the fact that AT&T is ending their unlimited data plans for iPhone users, capping them for fees to punish the data hogs, I find this tweet by Josh Helfferich excellent.

"Let's just get AT&T to fix the oil spill, they've been capping everything else lately." -- Josh Helfferich via Twitter"

[Source: "Let's just get AT&T to fix the oil spill, they've been capping everything else lately." -- Josh Helfferich via T....]

Software Updates
I admit that I use technology more than the average person. Maybe I need to change that, because I am sick to death of sitting down to work at one of my computers only to be greeted with a bunch of software updates — which I always feel compelled to do immediately and be done with. Then, 5 minutes later I launch an application I need to use only to find that there is a new version available for download. Three minutes later I'm ready to get to work.

Only now, the new version has a damned bug in it and will not do what the old version did just fine. It crashes. I relaunch to try it again. The crash reporter comes up. I fill it out. I get so fed up trouble shooting software that I pay to own. Obviously these software companies do not test their work!!! Then the software crash reporter has to gather my system information. Well damn —that takes a good 5 minutes. And of course it will take a day or two (or week or month) for the support team to respond and then weeks before a software update is issued — oh god!!!! another software update. Hell!!!!! A half hour passes and I haven't accomplished anything! This pisses me off in a HUGE, HUGE way.

AT&T Has New Data Plans
AT&T is trying to get the message out that the new plans will save most users money unless you are a "data hog!" Well, let me tell AT&T something. I am a data hog. And I pay damned good money to be one too! Get off your greedy, stingy ass and stop trying to blame your customers, who pay for your service, for the fact that your service is crap! Instead, --novel idea here-- invest some of your profits in upgrading your network!

And AT&T wants you to believe that the new rates will save 95% of their customers money. Yeah, right!!! This year. Just wait boys and girls. How long before they raise the rates and make even more money off their already over-priced, crappy network?!!

I bought an iPad without 3G, because I refuse to give AT&T another penny of my money. I loathe this company! I use my MiFi from Verizon for my network access when I'm out of range of one of my WiFi networks. Screw you, AT&T. Verizon has a pervasive 3G network that works!

BP MUST Go Out of Business
I have never in all of my life seen a company CEO that is as arrogant, self-serving, calloused, and evil-hearted as the CEO of BP! He is tired of the oil spill and "just wants his life back?!" What a #$%@ing bastard!

What about the 11 people that were killed by what appears to be company negligence*? What about the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico? Watching the poor birds violently gasping trying to catch just one more breath to stay alive before their inevitable death is too heartbreaking. What we can't see are all of the different kinds of sea life that have been poisoned to death in the water by BP's oil, toxic chemicals, greed and negligence! And they are spending $7,500 a day to purchase search terms from Google to get their spin out as the top search results about this horrific environmental catastrophe.

These poor creatures have no idea what is happening to them as their flesh is burning, their eyesight is taken, and they painfully struggle to survive the impossible.

As far as I am concerned Tony Hayward and his company can rot in hell!

Photos Source: Caught in the Oil: boston.com

*See the 60 Minutes exposé

Related articles:

• AT&T says 'enough' to you data hogs (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• AT&T Sparks User Backlash With End to Unlimited Plans (Update2) (businessweek.com)
• AT&T Sparks User Backlash With End to Unlimited Plans (Update1) (businessweek.com)

On one of my flights today I noticed a heavyset man in the row in front of me reading some religious magazine.  I caught the title of one of the articles and almost threw up.  I forget exactly how it was worded, but it basically was about how much more religious persecution could the church take in these last days.

My god!  The very people who persecute other people whining about their little fantasy persecution complex.  I was disgusted.  I remember this same language when I was being brought up in the extremist religious right:  how God was blessing us every time we were persecuted for our faith.

The problem was, only the most mentally unstable among us would believe that religious people in Pensacola, one of the most religious and extremely conservative cities in the nation, were being persecuted!  By who?  By what?!  But oh, the yoke of persecution was just so hard to bear.

Nutcases!

Then, to explicitly bring my point into the sharpest possible focus, the title of the next article was:  Same Sex:  Different Marriage!  I've blogged before about this perverse mingling of church and state with religion owning a civil right over which government should be a guardian and protector.  If religion wants to have it's own holy sacrament above and beyond the civil right to all of the benefits and accommodations of legal marriage, fine.  Knock yourself out.  Call it something else.  Make it your own.  You can even deny people your holy sacrament if they aren't willing members of your little religious club.  You've got that right!  But don't deny people civil rights!  That's evil.

I wanted so badly to say to this man:  Over Weight:  Different Marriage.  (Both he and his wife were exceedingly so.)  You see, even if these extremists were correct, and I personally don't believe they are, and being gay were a choice, certainly they must admit that being overweight is a choice.  And, in the church in which I was raised, it was called a "sin!"  You were defiling the temple of god — your body, because of your own selfish, hedonistic, gluttonous ways.

So, why shouldn't we vote on fat people's right to marry?  Why shouldn't fat people be denied the right to marry?  The research indicates they have children who also grow up to be fat.  See, they are recruiting, just like the wacky religious extremists insist the gays are.

Isn't it all just ridiculous and absurd?!!!!!! There is just no difference!  I don't know:  Maybe some gay people choose to be gay.  Maybe some fat people choose to be fat.  Maybe some gay people are born to be gay.  Maybe some fat people are born to be fat.  The point is people should have the legal right to marry the person they love when the other person is of age and consents because they love them back.

You probably find my calling this man and his wife "fat" offensive and disrespectful.  Good!  You should.  Just as you should find calling a person a fag just as offensive and disrespectful.  But one is condoned in this culture and the other not.  Oh, the difference a single letter makes!

My god, sometimes I think we live in the weirdest world filled with people trying with incredible meanness to impose their will on others!  Enough already!

I had no idea that the grandson of the renowned late Jacque Cousteau lives just a few miles up the road in Santa Monica, California. As a child I loved watching his grandfather's expeditions. This interview is so depressing.

I could cut my leg off, I could cut my arm off, I could gouge my eye out, I'd still probably survive, but not very well," Cousteau said. "And that's what we're doing to our oceans.

Pointing to massive annual dead zones off the U.S. coast, Cousteau explained that our oceans are past their tipping point:

The Florida Keys, third longest barrier reef in the world, is a dead zone. Ninety percent of the big fish, the tuna, the sharks, and other things, are already gone in the oceans. There's a dead zone in the Gulf Of Mexico every summer the size of New Jersey, where there's not enough oxygen for things to live. So it's not a question of 'Can the oceans take any more?' The oceans can't take any more. They couldn't take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?

Source: Phillippe Cousteau To Bill Maher: Even Before Oil Spill, The Oceans Couldn't Take Any More (VIDEO)

He also speaks of the enormous mass of non- biodegradable plastics in the middle of the Pacific ocean larger than the size of the state of Texas! Ironic, isn't it.

Related articles:

• Phillippe Cousteau, Jr. To Bill Maher: Even Before Oil Spill, The Oceans Couldn't Take Any More (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Phillippe Cousteau Joins Bill Maher to Talk Deepwater Disaster (VIDEO) (treehugger.com)
• Philippe Cousteau dives into the Gulf oil spill (theworld.org)
• Behind the Scenes With First Divers To Descend Beneath the Surface of Gulf Oil Spill (Exclusive) (treehugger.com)
• Underwater nightmare: 'What BP does not want you to see.' (thinkprogress.org)
• Cousteau's grandson: "This is a nightmare." (crooksandliars.com)

 

I am living in Edgar Allen Poe's, Tell Tale Heart. And it's driving me similarly mad.  The only difference:  it isn't the beating of his hideous heart incessantly ringing in my ears.  There is a distinct yet soft "beep" in the kitchen.

The beep sounds intermittently but about every 20 minutes or so.  It has been beeping for months now.

I can't find it!

I don't know what it is!

It's driving me mad!

At first I thought it was the UPS for the iMac at the desk.  I replaced it and was shocked to hear the beep a while later.  No!

I've unplugged everything in the kitchen that requires electricity and that can be unplugged.  The beep continues to mock me.

If the refrigerator requires a change of a filter, I can find no documentation of it.  And I still hear the beep when I turn the refrigerator's sound feature off.

What makes the beep maddening is the imperceptibility of its location.  No matter where one stands when hearing it, it always sounds like its over there—even when you're standing "over there."

It is the beeping of his hideous heart!!

But he, BP senior VP Kent Wells, really is anything but Mr. Clean.

The carefully placed shine on the top of his head is brilliant marketing!  Godlike.  Saintly.  Trust me.  I am your savior.

The LCD TV screen instead of a poster spends your BP dollar well while making the white on the graph look as white as possible — much brighter than a poster board would appear!

A wrinkle-free grey shirt. The perpendicular lines on the beige wall behind them to make the graph appear as tall and as white as possible.

Tech update...  Oh really?  Interesting that BP would title the picture for everyone.  I think of it more as an ongoing environmental Chernobyl update!

Wow! This spin machine is in high gear!! They left nothing to chance!

But think of his work more like Mr. Filth. 

He is deceiving the world with his trickery: graphs. Oh, the lies data can tell. Looks likes things are getting a lot better. The green bars are going up high! Lots of white space. Even some blue. How environmentally pure.

Pooh authentica!!

Sure, the syphon is collecting more and more oil. The bar should be going up. But why does he not include a black, oily, slimy colored bar for the millions of gallons of crude oil that are NOT being syphoned off?

Let me tell you: perhaps the ceiling in the room is not tall enough for that graph!!!!! The little green line would be shockingly  dwarfed by the enormous, hideous bar representing the volume of oil already and continuing to be dumped into the Gulf!

Cut to the chase, liars: first you told us the well was only leaking at most 5,000 barrels (or gallons, I forget) of oil a day. But then, oops, we find out that the syphon is sucking up 2,000 - 3,000 and not even making a visible dent in the huge volume of oil we see leaking out. Then experts confess the well could be leaking as many as 100,000 per day!

Don't forget boys and girls, am I the only one that remembers they said the oil was leaking in three places???? Yet we only ever see one of them???? And why is that??????

And the Republicans want to turn the tide with their spin machine: Obama's fault now.

Yeah, right!

Drill baby, drill!

Lie baby, lie!

Screw people.  Screw the earth.  Screw wildlife.  After all, it's all about profit!

Related articles:

• BP tries to mislead you with graphs (flowingdata.com)
• BP Oil Collection - Is the Effort Really Improving? (perceptualedge.com)
• BP Spins The Oil Spill (huffingtonpost.com)

When the Exxon Valdez spewed 10.8 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska in 1989, I was horrified. I was so angered by not only that companies irresponsible destruction of habitat and commerce, but their callus and irresponsible lack of sufficient and meaningful effort to redress the horrible wrong they had perpetrated on our planet, people, and wildlife.

I don't know that I've ever made this public, but from that day forward, I've never purchased gasoline from any Exxon, Esso, Enco, Mobil, and Humble stations—all owned by Exxon. I never will purchase gas from Exxon as long as I live. This was significant to me because Exxon had always been my preferred brand of gasoline all of my life. No more.

Now, BP has committed an even greater atrocity against the earth. No one can have watched the CBS 60 Minutes exposé on the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon without being overcome with the level of irresponsibility of British Petroleum. And to see their arrogance surrounding this matter ... I just have no words. These companies are making record profits and just are raping the earth. The have secured legislation limiting their liability in any disastrous event to only $75 million dollars. Obvious, with Dick Cheney and George W. Bush as glowing examples, they own our government.

The oil these companies take from the earth what belongs to the people of the United States. Why do these companies pay nothing for its taking? Why is this industry not regulated like the water, gas, and electric industry as a common utility for the public good?!

Since our government has once again failed us, I call on all Americans to boycott the irresponsible corporate greed of Exxon and BP by no longer purchasing their gasoline. Put them out of business. Chevron. How long until you desecrate my trust?

Related articles:

• The Gross Negligence of BP -- Oil Giant's Trying to Slick Its Way Out of Controversy (alternet.org)
• BP Oil Spill Reaches Louisiana Shores (milkandcookies.com)
• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (slideshare.net)

When the Exxon Valdez spewed 10.8 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska in 1989, I was horrified. I was so angered by not only that companies irresponsible destruction of habitat and commerce, but their callus and irresponsible lack of sufficient and meaningful effort to redress the horrible wrong they had perpetrated on our planet, people, and wildlife.

I don't know that I've ever made this public, but from that day forward, I've never purchased gasoline from any Exxon, Esso, Enco, Mobil, and Humble stations—all owned by Exxon. I never will purchase gas from Exxon as long as I live. This was significant to me because Exxon had always been my preferred brand of gasoline all of my life. No more.

Now, BP has committed an even greater atrocity against the earth. (BP includes ARCO.) No one can have watched the CBS 60 Minutes exposé on the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon without being overcome with the level of irresponsibility of British Petroleum. And to see their arrogance surrounding this matter ... I just have no words. These companies are making record profits and just are raping the earth. The have secured legislation limiting their liability in any disastrous event to only $75 million dollars. Obvious, with Dick Cheney and George W. Bush as glowing examples, they own our government.

The oil these companies take from the earth what belongs to the people of the United States. Why do these companies pay nothing for its taking? Why is this industry not regulated like the water, gas, and electric industry as a common utility for the public good?!

Since our government has once again failed us, I call on all Americans to boycott the irresponsible corporate greed of Exxon and BP by no longer purchasing their gasoline. Put them out of business. Chevron. How long until you desecrate my trust?

Related articles:

• The Gross Negligence of BP -- Oil Giant's Trying to Slick Its Way Out of Controversy (alternet.org)
• BP Oil Spill Reaches Louisiana Shores (milkandcookies.com)
• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (slideshare.net)

You know, I think democracy is just much too expensive: all of those expensive campaigns and elections, the cost of congress, the presidency, the supreme court. And then running all of those state governments. It's simply not cost effective.

I suggest we combine state and nation government into one and just have all the CEO's of the very largest transglobal corporations, regardless of their country of origin, run government. To keep military spending high, they can have a huge military to enforce their regulations on the poor, stupid masses.

We can abolish all rights of individuals—again, they are not cost effective. The only rights will be reserved for corporations to make profit.

Then we can convert all of the earth's natural resources into profit! We can privatize public schools to make even more money. And we save a fortune not having regulations and regulators!!

I think this is a great idea! Freedom, democracy, and the environment are much too over rated! Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Drill, baby, drill!!

It looks very scary. It's not good. I really feel... not good about that." That's what the International Space Station Commander, cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, says about the Gulf's oil disaster. This is the last satellite image.

 

Captured by NASA's Aqua satellite, the image shows only part of the oil surface, with the Sun shining over. I've exaggerated the image contrast so you can clearly see the extend of the damage."

I'm enraged that CBS is being blocked by the US Coast Guard from reporting on how bad this catastrophe really is.  But you never know!  Those liberal commy reporters are probably terrorists seeking to set the entire Gulf of Mexico on fire by tossing a match into the water!  Can't trust them!  No, no, no!!

Related articles:

• Astronaut: Gulf Oil Disaster "Looks Very Scary" [Oil Disaster] (gizmodo.com)
• Gulf Oil Slick Looks 'Very Scary' From Space, Cosmonaut Says (space.com)
• Astronauts open space station's newest room (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

I have been asked numerous times why I do not have a Facebook page.  Originally, I had three main reasons:

1. I thought Facebook would be another digital fad like AOL, MySpace, etc.  It would go away—and indeed probably will in time .  Something else would replace it.  Would I then have to jump on that social tool-du-jour?
2. I have two blogs that I enjoy using to share my professional and my personal "online me."  I don't need another online presence.
3. I became concerned that Facebook was an enormously successful marketing tool that, like almost any other American business, would, in the blink of an eye, sell its soul and all of the marketing data it accrued for profit and then to the devil called greed.

Then along came the huge issue of privacy concerns that is now plaguing Facebook.  The foolhardiness of this quotation, from Facebook's founder dropped my jaw!

You have one identity… The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly… Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity” – Mark Zuckerberg, 2009

Source:  Why Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Come Clean about His Views on Privacy by:  Kim-Mai Cutler

Is he serious?!  There is one me—the me, me. And I have numerous "identities," as does every other human being on this planet. Identity is the product of relationship or association. People have a work or professional identity, their identity as a spouse, their identity as a parent, their identity as a friend, their identity as a neighbor, their identity as a member of community, etc. To insinuate, let alone state, that all of these identities living in each of us somehow lacks integrity is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about humanity and the definition of integrity.  But there are additional layers of complexity here.

The notion of “radical transparency,” a term being brandished about lately, is, I think, based in a naïve and simplistic world view.  I recall as a young school administrator listening to adults confide to me the complexities of their life situations.  At the time I was too young to actually even believe them as they recounted the circumstances of their lives.  I couldn't imagine that so many people lived in such incredulous circumstances.  At the time, I didn't have enough life experience to understand how fragile the easy life of even simple privilege I had always been lucky enough to enjoy was.  I had little, if any, experience with the complexity of a broader scope of life.

A significant percentage of people would not live life better if they lived in complete, radical transparency.  And a significant percentage of twenty-somethings, like Zuckerberg, might think they can now but later find that life brings things into their lives they may wish to leave forgotten, not plastered all over the Internet.

And what of context?  Without context to clarify meaning, to provide an illuminating perspective, many things could be so misunderstood as to be immensely damaging both today and at some unexpected time in an unforeseeable future, especially when people only know the "virtual you" before getting to know the actual you living within the context of your life.  Moments in time that are the tiniest reflections of the whole of a person can supplant the essence, the potential, the intent and focus of a future life better lived.  If being an administrator taught me anything, it was that people need a dignified option to find a better way forward that provides them with the hope of a good future.

At the very least, Zuckerberg is brilliant (attending Exeter and Harvard) and exceedingly wealthy (Forbes estimates his 2010 net worth at $4 billion.)  He is a young man of wealth and privilege.  What he lacks is a sensible world view for the masses of people who lack the resources to ever control their own destiny.  He's foolhardy enough to think he can manage that for the 400,000,000+ Facebook users.

As things are now, Zuckerberg stands to profit most when you naïvely live his vision of radical transparency, of one identity—your Facebook identity.  He can then continue to mine and aggregate every bit of information about you shared on his platform.  You will be powerless to do much about it.  He can monetize and redistribute that information in ways oblivious to you, and oblivious he wants you to remain.

May 31st is set to be "Quit Facebook Day."  I think it's time for millions of people to send Mr. Zuckerberg a "It's time to get real!" wake up call.  Or, you can continue to let him control the future of your privacy.  It's your choice—for now!

Graphic Above Source: MoveOn.org

Related articles:

• Facebook CEO Allegedly Mocked Users For Sharing Personal Data With Him At Harvard (huffingtonpost.com)
• Change Facebook or Change Ourselves? (jilliancyork.com)
• On Facebook's Selective Transparency (allfacebook.com)

I saw these glasses for sale online a few weeks back and couldn't resist them.  This morning, when the sunlight struck my glass of glowing Diet Orange Crush, the breakfast of champions, I grabbed my iPhone and shot this picture just before the sunlight went to visit someplace else.

Picture from the online store:

Warning:  if you are one of my really ultra-conservative friends, you might want to skip this post.

First, I want to make it perfectly clear that I could care less if Dr. George Rekers is gay, straight, or anything in between.  It makes no difference to me.  That's his personal business.  Hiring a male prostitute from RentBoy.com to "lift his luggage," as he claimed, is his own thing — whatever.  It will not be the first nor the last time any man in this country has paid for or lied about sex.

What I find loathsome and detestable is his lying, his hypocrisy, his co-founding the Family Research Council and work with Focus on the Family with his good buddy James Dobson to profit from condemning and persecuting his very own lifestyle while he has the hubris to post this to his Facebook page, "Like Jesus Christ, I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them."  Yes, Jesus did hang with the prostitutes.  But, I'm not so sure he did that to have sex with them.

Excuse me George.  You are nothing, nothing like Jesus Christ.  Your perverse and self-destructive lifestyle has only hurt people—many, many good and well intentioned people.  In my mind, you are evil.  You are not evil because you're gay.  You're evil because your religious work (profiting from targeting restricting rights of gay people and your organization's odd notions of conversion therapy, etc.) hurts gay people—people like yourself.  How destructive is that?—totally self destructive!  Sadly, you must be a real nut job.

In my world view, you can live your life any way you wish until you start hurting people.  When you are hurting others, you must be stopped.  At least you have now clearly shown everyone how perverse your heart really is.  Exposing your evil heart is a great step to stopping your hurting others.

Some good, however, has come from George Rekers' spectacle—humor.  The US now has a new euphemism for sexual activity:

• South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford gave us: "hiking the Appalachian Trail"
• Senator Larry Craig gave us:  "wide stance," and now
• Religious nut job George Rekers gives us: "lift my luggage"

I especially liked this Alpha Dog of the Week video segment from the Colbert Report.  (Further warning:  this is filled with sexual innuendo and double entendre.  Don't watch it if you are easily offended.)

Rachel Maddow has a few insightful comments, and, as she so often does, lays it on the line.

Related articles:

• Christian Leader Denies Gay Prostitution Claim (cbsnews.com)
• George Alan Rekers goes on a trip (washingtonmonthly.com)
• Shades of Larry Craig (talkingpointsmemo.com)

Even I have been growing increasingly wary of Apple becoming another loathsome, all-about-money, screw-the-customer corporation as it has experienced explosive growth and success in the past 10 years.  I've posted about some of these concerns before.  People seem to be increasingly sharing that concern.

It's appropriate that the Apple logo on the iPad is black. The Cupertino, California, company's image is taking on some awfully sinister tones lately.

 

For a company that made its name fighting for the little guy, it's a surprising reversal. In the past, Apple touted itself as the computer company for nonconformists who "Think Different." Now the company is making moves that make it look like the Big Brother it once mocked.

First Apple tightened its iron grip on the already-stringent iPhone developer policy, requiring apps to be made with Apple-approved languages, which disturbed some coders and even children.

A short while later, Apple rejected some high-profile apps based on their editorial content, raising journalists' questions about press freedoms in the App Store.

Then, police kicked down a Gizmodo editor's door to investigate a lost iPhone prototype that Apple had reported as stolen. Even Ellen DeGeneres and Jon Stewart have mocked Apple's heavy-handed moves.

Plenty of us love our shiny iPads, iPods, iPhones and MacBooks — state-of-the-art gadgets with undeniable allure. But it's tough to imagine customers will stay loyal to a company whose image and actions are increasingly nefarious. We want to like the corporation we give money to, don't we?

Here are five things Apple should do to redeem its fast-fading public image."

[Source: 5 Things Apple Must Do to Look Less Evil - ABC News.]

Here's the video of Ellen DeGeneres after getting a call from Apple.

Related articles

• Apple demands public apology for iPhone parody (go.theregister.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres gets a call from Apple (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres apologizes to Apple for iPhone spoof (edibleapple.com)
• Apple Isn't Laughing at Ellen's iPhone Commercial Parody [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
• Ellen DeGeneres Says "Sorry" To Apple (geardiary.com)