more than 70% articles on obama flattering

if the whole situation last week with the senate voting against the president on gitmo had happened to bush and the republicans, the u.s. press would’ve been livid. but not so with barack obama.apparently it’s okay to lie as long as your a member of the democratic party. the british press seems to have the only journalists in the western world willing to thorough cross-exam barack obama.

american government ready to hand over hundres of millions if not billions to european companies

to build its high speed rail system. not that the u.s. actually has a company that knows anything about the technology behind high speed rail. i mean, look at amtrak still chugging along.

but wouldn’t it make more sense to tell these companies that in order to get the contract they have to establish offices in the u.s. and vocational schools that will specifically train people to be engineers. who does the government expect will ultimately maintain these trains? france? spain? canada?

consumption tax on the way in the u.s.?

the obama administration is considering the possibility of implementing a value added tax. this could be a 10% national tax on products that would be added to the state and city taxes on goods and services. so if a state has an 8% tax, this would raise the price of a purchase to 18%. thereby putting the nail in the coffin for retailers during this trying recession. you can find out more information here. and here.

the international monetary fund says: “VAT can be a regressive tax, especially when implemented at a single rate, as the IMF usually advises. This can worsen already-high inequality in developing countries, cut the tax base and cause a decrease in overall tax revenues. In addition, the ‘complex’ record keeping of VAT has been the source of problems: small businesses can be pushed into the informal sector, while governments may not have the administrative capacity to implement the VAT and its refund system.”

ufo over siberia

101 years ago an unexplained event that would make fox mulder and the lone gunmen (r.i.p.) take notice occured over siberia. there was a bright light and many trees were destroyed. a russian scientist now claims that a ufo crashed into a meteorite to save planet earth.

father has 21 different children

by eleven women. gotta wonder what’s going through his head.

organizing men in the u.s.

men in power is a new student group at the university of chicago. the article, in the chicago tribune could be a companion piece to the book ‘trouble with boys,’ detailing their problems in school. you can read about the book on amazon.com.

perhaps such a group might get feminists and other identity groups’ panties in a bunch. but there is a sort of crisis brewing in the u.s. and it’s all about men. they are beingin disproportionately hit by the recession. and education hasn’t been so nice to them. the majority of bachelor degrees in the u.s. go to women. and apparently (need to look the exact figure up) only 46% of undergraduates at u.s. universities are male.according to the tribune article, in the states, women get 135 bachelor degrees for every 100 males.

perhaps this is an ‘iron john moment,’ in the early 90s the book ‘iron job’ moved men to go into the wilderness and re-connect with their inner id. or something like that. but there are endless books like boys adrift that are being written at the moment concerning the woosification of men with some blaming public grammar school educators for not acknowleding the obvious. that testosterone works differently than estrogen. and just because sally can sit down nicely and do her homework doesn’t mean that johnny can. or something like that.

latina girl called loser student by high school math teacher wins national science foundation scholarship

well, she didn’t exactly say loser. but this just underscores how bad teachers are in california.

has tea party comment hurt anderson cooper’s ratings

cnn’s anderson cooper (you know, the man with 2 last names) have seen his ratings drop since barack obama was sworn into office. but they have dropped dramatically since his tea party/bagging comment last april. you know the time when he basically made a lude comment about the protests on april 15 and outted himself in the process. because many americans, including ‘a blog about whatever’ took to their computers and googled the phrase ‘tea bagging’ ‘cuz they just didn’t know what the hell he was getting at.

upgrading fringe for season 2

isn’t it great that fringe has been picked up for a second season? and that leonard nimoy will now have a reoccuring role? but now what? is there anyway to get the show out of the CSI/miami vice loop. you know, where every episode is essentially the same.

the beauty of the x-files was not only its quirkiness was that every episode was a bit of a surprise. there was the alien mythology episodes that came and went. there were the horror inspired ones and the drug inspired ones. then there were the humorous ones. hell, even in the 6th season, we discovered that an episode could be written without mulder in it and still be quirky and good.

what is the solution for fringe? what would you tell j.j. abrams. plz give walter bishop more airtime. plz figure out what massive dynamics really is. give the blond chick less airtime and make her more rounded. hell, we even met scully’s brother and bits of her family over the years. don’t these people even have friends?

weak link in fringe let go?

has kirk acevedo, one of the weakest links in the j.j. abrams produced series ‘fringe,’ may be on the outs.

love ‘fringe’ because its the only remotely sci-fi/x-files-esque show on tv at the moment. ‘fringe’ has great potential.one problem with the first season is that in virtually every single episode someone ends up in a chair with a thing strapped to his head, a la dr. frankenstein. the show could do better than that and move further into the abstract nether. the blond chick gets too much air-time. joshua jackson’s character needs to be more developed. he’s quite flat at the moment. and the show should be given to walter bishop. he’s the only actor that makes the camera dance. the head of the agency could stand to be let go to. and aren’t you tired of hearing about massive dynamic? is it code for general dynamics?

but maybe the move to canada will free up some funds so the producers and writers can add an additional dimension to the show.

healthcare coverage and your family vs. gay marriage

you know. once the whole gay marriage thing goes through more u.s. states, here’s what you’re probably gonna see happen.

a lot of businesses will cease to offer healthcare coverage that covers the entire family. statistically speaking, 33% of gay men are HIV positive, and the medication needed to keep AIDs suffers alive is really expensive.

if a small business, for example (this example is based on first hand knowledge) has a family with a severly handicapped child, for instance, medical insurance companies tend to drop these companies because of the prohibitive expense in caring for such a child. from a value perspective, it is unfortunate. it doesn’t always happen, but it can. in the end, everyone in the company ends up with really marginal health insurance with a super high deductible that doesn’t really cover diddiley squat.

additionally, loads of people will claim to be in these ‘relations’ with their friends so that their best friend dying of cancer will be able to get healthcare coverage as well. this may already be the case with heterosexuals, but the level of fraud will increase exponentially.

companies are not obligated to provide healthcare coverage to entire families. in business school, we call this negative hygiene factors, meaning, this has been available for so long and people just accept that it is part of the package and don’t think about it, but when taken away people will really feel it.

american companies are always looking for ways to cut costs. this can be done by laying people off, slashing benefits, and cutting out perks. as these things are neither mandated nor regulated by the u.s. government, and every state has a different set of laws on the books, companies will do what they feel is best for the bottom line.

arguably, this might call for better oversight and more regulation. but as the u.s. is essentially 50 different fifedoms, if a business does not love the business client in one state, it will relocate to another state. which is what has happened to california over the past 20 or 25 years. it’s an un-userfriendly state when it comes to big business. and colorado and states in the hinterlands (read mountain time) have benefitted substantially because of the unfriendly business climate in california.

citigroup charman parsons has love child

wonder what the nwife and children of citigroup’s chairman think.

kris allen american idol

not a big fan of these casting shows. but it seems worth noting that 100 million votes were cast for the american edition of this highly annoying variety show (yes, IT IS). the clean cut guy whose active in his church won out. what could this mean? are americans just not into guyliner. teens and tween girls probably aren’t. but kris allen is adorable. in a safe kinda way. he sings just fine and can actually play a guitar and piano, unlike many of the idol contestants. and in times like these (read finance crisis) people are all about safety and security. but the real question is when did the every day guy lose his southern accent?

dutch paper to fund journalist salary france bail out for newspaper industry

the guardian newspaper reports that the dutch government plans to fund positions for those on the lower rung of the job ladder while nicholas sarkozy has offered €600m in emergency aid to it’s failing newspaper industry and supply young people with a free subscription to any paper of their choice to save france’s troubled print industry. this coupled with some u.s. states offering newspapers a reduction in taxes of course underscores the seriousness of what is happening to the newspaper industry. but perhaps it is a good thing. the old advertising model must go. and the old hiring practices should be upgraded. but rupert murdoch’s proposed micropayment scheme isn’t the answer. this would be the model that some ISPs used in the 90s. aol used to charge people for internet access according to usage. but once companies like earthlink and regional access providers began to surface, that model went out the window. if the u.s. media collectively walls off content -especially now, in the middle of a recession, their present audience will just find their information elsewhere. like the bbc and so forth. the u.s. media should probably realise that their competitors are located around the globe.

66% children born out of wedlock in iceland, 40% in united states

forty percent of children are born out of wedlock in the united states. that number is 66% in iceland but only 2% in japan. along with the financial crisis that has devastated iceland, what has become of the family unit? could the low rate in japan explain why, despite 10 years of financial meltdown in the 90s, during it’s own banking crisis, there was no social unrest?

research has shown that kids raised in 2 parent homes tend to go on to have more stable lives. single parent families, at least in the united states, tend to be poorer and the children and families have more social problems.

the onion announces new detroit housing project

this story is thought provoking. according to the article, ‘baneberry heights has the very worst that money can buy.’

the obama’s take a walk, holding hands

that’s the headline of a recent washington post story care of the associated press. you can google this to find the link as we won’t link directly to a propaganda piece here or an ap story. is this newsworthy?

gop plans yet another tea party

the original boston tea party took place 236 years ago on dec 16, 1773. the naughties versions began trickling in in march culmulating to a large national event on tax day. the u.s. republican party is planning next month.

the original boston tea party was one of a series of events that triggered the american revolution, coined the phrase ‘no taxation without representation,’ and cummulated in the u.s. breaking ties with its colonial oppressor, the united kingdom. this could conceivably be why americans drink tea with lemon and honey as opposed to with milk and sugar.

are newspapers necessary?

this opinion piece by frank rich in the new york times, argues that without newspapers google news wouldn’t exist. which isn’t entirely true as google news also runs press releases.

newspapers and journalism. americans seem to have less and less use for the print and for the profession. is this perhaps because american newspapers have failed the u.s. public? for instance in terms of the twin towers disaster in manhattan as well as the current financial crisis. where were the investigative reporters pre-bear sterns’ implosion. and not just in the u.s. but on both sides of the atlantic and the pacific oceans. wasn’t it queen elizabeth II who said ‘why didn’t anybody see this coming?’

since the american media has sort of wrapped itself (and joined in some cases) the obama administration, its credibility has taken a nosedive. not that there aren’t legitimate news sources floating about.

but perhaps the mumbai attacks which one could follow in real time via twitter and with slight delay on youtube, showed that the newsgathering media has been a bit slow on the uptake.

it’s like the music industry in 1997. ‘people will always want to hold something in their hands.’ i was told when writing an article on digital distribution for wired back in the day.

star trek prequel opens to 24M on friday and 26M on saturday

in the u.s., the new j.j. abrams directed star trek extravaganza opened to 24M dollars on friday. with the saturday numbers rising slightly. this 2 million increase would indicate that the word-of-mouth on the film is excellent.for film, the trend is, when word-of-mouth is bad, the saturday numbers fall.

whats 539K plus 66K

if the u.s. government hadn’t hired 66,000 people last month, april unemployment numbers would’ve looked similar to those of preceding months. so why are people excited that the u.s. has ‘only’ lost 539,000 jobs? unemployment is just below 9% –which isn’t the true unemployment number. this number only applies to those still collecting checks from the government and doesn’t take into account people formerly working full-time who are now only in part-time jobs.

amazon’s kindle wants a 70 percent cut

the cs monitor reports amazon told one newspaper executive that it wanted 70 percent of kindle subscription revenue and the right to license the content elsewhere. and what’s in it for the news guys? well, they have the opportunity to be available on kindle.

the luck of the irish

christopher caldwell, in the latest issue of the weekly standard writes about the origins of the current woes of ireland. it’s worth reading.