You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.
– Steve Jobs

In recent weeks, the Senate Commerce Committee has been holding hearings about handset exclusivity. That’s when a phone maker (like Apple) offers a particular model (like the iPhone) to a carrier (like AT&T) exclusively for a period of time (like five years).

Come to think about it, that example — the iPhone — is pretty much the only one anybody cares about. These aren’t handset-exclusivity hearings; they’re “Why can’t we have the iPhone on Verizon?” hearings.

As always, I’m just so glad that we’ve obviously solved all the SERIOUS problems facing our nation.  Why else would the senate be wasting time with this nonsense?  And maybe nonsense is a bit too strong a word, but you’ve got to admit that cellphone exclusivity has to be, or at the very least should be, so far down the list of important issues currently facing our nation that only the most technology-centric blogs would devote ANY time it, no?

[via TL]

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple said Monday that Steven P. Jobs, its co-founder and chief executive, had returned to work following a five-month medical leave during which he had a liver transplant.

“Steve is back to work,” said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman. “He is currently at Apple a few days a week and working from home the remaining days.”

The Tennessean:

Sherri Goforth, a legislative aide for Senate Republican Caucus Chairwoman Diane Black, sent the e-mail last month to other staff for Republican senators. It shows a portrait or photo of each U.S. president except Obama, who is depicted as just a pair of cartoonish white eyes in a black background.

For fucking crying out loud!  Doesn’t everyone on the planet by now know that you shouldn’t send an email on an office computer that you don’t want the entire fucking planet to see?

The legislative aide has been reprimanded and the letter of reprimand placed in the aide’s “file”.  Democratic legislatures are calling for the aide’s termination.

But aside from the obvious public and political appearances (is a reprimand enough? should she be fired?) the incident raises larger concerns.  Yes, this is merely one incident of a low-to-mid level staffer engaging in what can only be described as incredibly bad decision making, but is it also indicative of a legislative culture that condones racism?  And let’s be clear here, what is colloquially referred to as “good-natured racism”–an oxymoron if ever there were one–is still racism nonetheless…

The Tennessean:

The Tennessee legislature may have to pass more laws to protect bars, said Nashville attorney David Raybin. Until that happens, he says, he’d advise clients to post the sign and let someone else be a test case if a shooting were to happen.

“My prudent advice would be that, because you have the capacity to exclude people with firearms, if you don’t and someone is injured, you run the risk of a greater liability,” Raybin said. “Whether that will pan out as a court holding that way is another matter.”

[...]

All of the business owners Walt Baker has talked to have felt the same way. Baker, CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association, said not a single restaurant owner he’s spoken with has planned to go along with the new law.

(CBS) Millions of your stimulus tax dollars are already going to work in affluent Redmond, Wash., the home of Microsoft, where unemployment is among the lowest in the nation.

The stimulus money will help build a bridge over Redmond’s only freeway, reports CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson. It’s at a spot that happens to connect Microsoft’s east campus to its west campus. The project has been on Microsoft’s wish list for years, and includes fancy landscaping, a bike lane and pedestrian walkway.

I’m told that an unnamed source inside Microsoft was quoted as saying, “All I know is, Apple doesn’t have bridge connecting its campuses.  See?  Microsoft rules!”

But, seriously, I do think it’s important–in these difficult times–to help struggling companies like, wait, did that say “Microsoft”?  What the fuck?

LEBANON — Developers of the proposed Bible Park USA were scrambling Wednesday to determine where the project stands after Tuesday’s surprise action by the Lebanon City Council to withdraw its support.

Mayor Philip Craighead said the $175 million project was “torpedoed” by the council’s unanimous vote to rescind all previous Bible park legislation. The ordinance was crafted by Councilman Alex Buhler, a consistent park opponent who said California-based EDG Inc. has ignored repeated requests to produce financial statements.

Job well done, council. Where there’s smoke, there is often fire…

“I am for development, but I don’t want anybody in Wilson County or Lebanon hurt by this project like they were in South Carolina,” Buhler said Wednesday.

He was referring to the $400 million Hard Rock Park, which opened in Myrtle Beach, S.C., last summer and sold recently at a bankruptcy auction for $25 million.

No shit! Hopefully, this marks the beginning of the end for Bible Park USA, at least in Wilson County, Tennessee.

And, because of the anti-science nature of that Act, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology has announced that they will not hold its annual meeting in Louisiana as long this Act is law, and has so informed Governor “Bobby” Jindal of their decsion.

For those of you who may be thinking “so what, this is not a huge organization, and an annual meeting that brings 2000 people to New Orleans for a week isn’t going to bring the state to its knees”, just remember that even the largest dam (or levee, for that matter), can be completely destroyed by a single trickle of water (piping, I believe it is called).

So kudos to the SICB for being the first to make a bold statement regarding Louisiana’s hostility to science and science education. They surely won’t be the last.

[via Mississippi Atheists, Pharyngula, and Louisiana Coalition for Science]

DENVER (AP) – Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard’s former church disclosed Friday that the gay sex scandal that caused his downfall extends to a young male church volunteer who reported having a sexual relationship with Haggard – a revelation that comes as Haggard tries to repair his public image.

Brady Boyd, who succeeded Haggard as senior pastor of the 10,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, told The Associated Press that the man came forward to church officials in late 2006 shortly after a Denver male prostitute claimed to have had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with Haggard.

Boyd said an “overwhelming pool of evidence” pointed to an “inappropriate, consensual sexual relationship” that “went on for a long period of time … it wasn’t a one-time act.” Boyd said the man was in his early 20s at the time. He said he was certain the man was of legal age when it began.

What a fine example of Christian evangelical fundamentalism this guy continues to be. I used to work with a fundagelical who, back in 2006 when Haggard was first “outed” as a patron of both gay sex and methamphetamine, used to tell me that Haggard’s actions did not “diminish his message”, but that’s another story…

Don Randall, the marketing dynamo who gave Fender’s Stratocaster guitar its name and led the brand to onstage ubiquity, has died. He was 91.

Randall died of age-related causes on December 23rd.

The Obama family recently received its new (and alliterative) names: “Renegade” (Barack), “Renaissance” (Michelle), “Radiance” (Malia) and “Rosebud” (Sasha).

These not-so-secret names are chosen by officials at the White House Communications Agency, which was not inclined to comment on the selection process. In a previous news report, an agency spokesman said the names are assigned by “sheer whim.”

Thus Ronald Reagan became “Rawhide” and Rosalynn Carter “Dancer,” Jacqueline Kennedy “Lace” and Caroline Kennedy “Lyric.”

Though not always perfectly fitting the individual, the White House Communications Agency does a commendable job generating names that carry a certain grace or gravitas, unlike, say, the meteorologists who name hurricanes.

Of course anything is a step up from the generic names: POTUS (President of the United States); FLOTUS (First Lady of the United States); and the barely pronounceable VPOTUS (Vice President of the United States).

You and I don’t have to like it, but unless you or I live there, it really isn’t our concern (that’s the way freedom works, for those of you who didn’t know, and judging by the numbers of Americans who see it as their “right” to tell other people how to live their lives, I’d say that a lot of you didn’t know that). Besides, there are some very strong reasons to decriminalize it. Not that I’m advocating — it won’t bother me one bit whatever they decide. I’m just happy to see that no one has been murdered — yet — for daring to “talk” about it (oh, dread!).

Stand back folks, this is freedom at work.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Republican Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida Friday asked American International Group Inc., to stop using taxpayer money in its effort to soften new federal controls over the mortgage industry.

Even after receiving an emergency loan that gave the government an 80% ownership stake in AIG, the company has continued to lobby states implementing a federal law that subjects mortgage originators to greater scrutiny, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Executive retreats are one thing. But using taxpayer bailout money to lobby states to minimize the impact of a federal law designed to increase “protections against misrepresentations, deception and fraud in mortgage lending”? Fuck me!

I’m just waiting for the “three strikes” provisions of the bailout to kick in.  They did put in some sort of “three strikes” provisions, right?

One week ago, Joe Wurzelbacher was just another working man living in a modest ranch house in Toledo, Ohio, thinking about how to expand his plumbing business. But when he stopped Senator Barack Obama during a visit to his block this weekend to ask about his taxes, he set himself on a path to being the newest media celebrity — and, like other celebrities, found himself under scrutiny.

I’m sure this suspension will do the trick and after serving a four game suspension, during which his conduct will be exemplary, we won’t hear anything else about anyone having any trouble with Adam Jones off the field!!!

I’m losing count of Pacman’s “second chances”, but this one’s the charm, of that I’m certain. (Yeah, right!)

Or, and I’m just speculating here, he could be beyond redemption, at least in a football sense. It could be that he’s not a quality individual of good character. It could be that his obvious football talent will never outweigh the destructive force that he brings to an organization and a locker room. Good luck, Cowboys!

On a personal note, this is exactly why I never patronize Chik-fil-A. I tried to go to Chik-fil-A once on a Sunday after church and AH-HAH! — Oh OK, just making sure you were paying attention…

But seriously, I know I’m not hurting their bottom line, and this isn’t the most offensive thing along these lines that I’ve ever seen, but I have no interest in supporting a restaurant that closes it’s doors on Sunday.

To be fair, it’s not like they’re beating anyone over the head with the message that you shouldn’t go to a restaurant on Sunday or any such nonsense (in fact, even though it’s extremely doubtful that this corporate policy, which was started in 1948, is anything other than a “god’s day” policy, their website does offer a non-offensive explanation with secular as well as religious justifications for the policy — meaning that someone who “needed” to see it as non-religious would, if she were willing to strain a little, be able to do so).

And, of course, I’ll go ever further and tell you that I completely support their right to make bad business decisions like closing on Sundays. It’s just that it rubs me the wrong way, so I don’t spend my money there.

Management is telling people what to do, which is a vital part of any industrial economy. Leadership is figuring out what ought to be done then getting people to do it, which is very different. It is a vital part of any successful post-industrial economy, too, but most managers don’t know that.

I suppose there’s something to be said for someone willing to put his money where his mouth is, no?  I mean, we may not agree with this guy’s beliefs, but there’s something to be said for him sticking to his convictions, right?  You know, like all those KKK members back in the 1960s who were convinced that racial equality was wrong.  Ah, kinda puts it in perspective, doesn’t it.

At the outset, let me be clear.  I don’t care whether any high school has a gay student club or not.  I DON’T CARE.  But this is America.  And, first and foremost, this secular nation of ours is all about freedom. Freedom, at one time, was considered to work like  our  “rights.”  You’ve heard people talk about how you have the right to (whatever) so long as by exercising your right you don’t impinge upon the rights of others.  Well, as an American you should have the freedom to do whatever you like, so long as you don’t impinge on anyone else’s freedom.  Get it?

Principal Eddie Walker could have resigned his post quietly “for personal reasons” if he was at all concerned with freedom (not to mention decorum).  No, Eddie Walker isn’t an honorable man caught in a tough situation who feels compelled to not be a part of this thing that goes against his personal beliefs. Oh no. Eddie Walker is a man with a plan. Eddie Walker’s plan is to threaten resignation (as if the school would just implode without his expertise), as a means of trying to influence the decision of the school district.  And, if that fails, as it should, he knows that his threat of resignation might still server as a means by which to influence public opinion. You see, Eddie Walker isn’t happy just being an American and going about his business.  Freedom isn’t enough for him.  No, Eddie Walker has that most pervasive of character flaw: he feels he has the right to tell the rest of us how to live our lives.

So let me be the first to say it Eddie: GO FUCK YOURSELF.  I don’t give a good god damn what school you are in charge of, THEY ARE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU AND YOUR UN-AMERICAN PERSONALITY DEFECT.

Yeah, I didn’t think that would help…