Dear Sarah,You really should have left Levi in Alaska last year. Quite simply, it was the third dumbest move after saying yes to the Maverick's offer to run as VP and not being able to tell Katie Couric which newspapers you read.Have fun fighting a custody battle with your family values self!Smooches,angrymonkey
On his website John McCain introduced the The Internet Freedom Act of 2009. This bill would essentially abolish the idea of the consumer being protected by Net Neutrality. McCain’s bill would allow your Internet provider to alter how efficiently you currently load websites on the Internet. For example, if your service provider owns a website that is competitive to TrueSlant.com, McCain wants to grant your provider the “freedom” to block and/or slow down TrueSlant.com for their financial interest. Jon Stewart explains in this clip. (Full Daily Show Segment here)
Rachel Maddow also spoke about this topic at length with BoingBoing.net blogger Xeni Jardin, that can bet watched here.
Just a couple of notes, McCain’s bill is not to be confused with Rep. Edward Markey bill titled the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009, which essentially has the exact opposite goal as McCain’s. Also, I believe it’s fair to note that John McCain is an admitted “computer illiterate,” Why the sudden interest in the Internet? Well, McCain is the largest recipient of contributions from telecom corporations. So decide for yourself if “Internet Freedom” has the interest of the people at heart, or the interest of the corporations.From Reuters.
Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is the top recipient of campaign contributions from large Internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast over the past two years, according to a new report from the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. McCain has taken in a total of $894,379 (much of that money going to support his failed 2008 bid for the presidency), more than twice the amount taken by the next-largest beneficiary, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. ($341,089).
Meanwhile, McCain has emerged as the ISPs’ biggest champion against new “network neutrality” rules from the Federal Communications Commission, which voted Thursday to move forward in the process to adopt such rules. Shortly after the FCC vote, McCain introduced a bill (the “Internet Freedom Act”) that would block regulation of the nation’s largest broadband networks.
If net neutrality isn’t fought for, you could someday see this offer in your mail from your internet provider. (Created by a Redditor)
- Reuters – McCain Biggest Beneficiary of Telco/ISP Money
- BoingBoing.net – Xeni on Rachel Maddow Show: John McCain vs. the Internet
- McCain.Senate.Gov – McCain Introduces Internet Freedom
- OpenCongress – Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009
- The Daily Show – From Here to Neutrality
- CBC – Net Neutrality FAQs
- Mahalo Answers – Do you trust John McCain to make important decisions about the future of the Internet?
GOP. The party of hecklers.
Especially in politics it is of the utmost importance to try to look behind the facade: who makes up the team of the presidential candidate? The future president of the United States of America is for a large part dependent on and being fed by his team of advisors and future cabinet members. Webster Tarpley wrote a book on the men and women behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama. He argues that there is more to Obama than his charismatic appearance and that some of his advisors pose a danger to the US and the world in case Obama might be elected to become the next US president. Whether Tarpleys view is correct for now is a matter of opinion and remains to be seen, but for the public debate it is relevant to take note of his facts and arguments. Therefor DeepJournal interviewed Webster Tarpley on the topic of his recently published book Obama, The Postmodern Coup,The Making of a Manchurian Candidate.
Especially in politics it is of the utmost importance to try to look behind the facade: who makes up the team of the presidential candidate? The future president of the United States of America is for a large part dependent on and being fed by his team of advisors and future cabinet members. Webster Tarpley wrote a book on the men and women behind presidential hopeful Barack Obama. He argues that there is more to Obama than his charismatic appearance and that some of his advisors pose a danger to the US and the world in case Obama might be elected to become the next US president. Whether Tarpleys view is correct for now is a matter of opinion and remains to be seen, but for the public debate it is relevant to take note of his facts and arguments. Therefor DeepJournal interviewed Webster Tarpley on the topic of his recently published book Obama, The Postmodern Coup,The Making of a Manchurian Candidate.
From Karl Rove, former Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush
President Barack Obama and his West Wing lieutenants are playing on the world's largest stage, yet act as if no one is watching them when they contradict their campaign promises. That behavior is unwittingly giving the Republicans an opening.
For example, Team Obama thinks the president, having spent a good portion of the campaign decrying the $2.9 trillion in deficits during the Bush years, can now double the national debt held by the public in 10 years. Having condemned earmarks during the campaign, the Obama administration now believes it can wave through 8,500 of them in the omnibus-spending bill, part of the biggest spending increase since World War II.
With the Dow at 7,486 and unemployment at 8.1%, Mr. Obama says the economy is fundamentally sound. Does he suppose the nation won't recall him attacking John McCain last September for saying the same thing, when the Dow was at 11,000 and unemployment at 6.2%?
Candidate Obama vowed to end "the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics." Yet his administration geared up MoveOn.org to lead a left-wing coalition to pressure Republicans and centrist Democrats, organized a daily conference call to coordinate liberal attack dogs, and strategized with Americans United for Change on ads depicting the GOP as the party of "no."
Rather than working with Republicans on the budget, the administration attacked them as mindless obstructionists. Yet the administration's policies are not nearly as popular as one might suppose.
For example, the liberal Center for American Progress recently found that 61% of Americans say government spending is almost always wasteful and inefficient, and 57% think free market solutions are better than government at creating jobs and economic growth. A late February poll by NBC News/Wall Street Journal found that 61% were concerned "the federal government will spend too much money" and "drive up the budget deficit" versus 29% concerned the government "will spend too little."
These general attitudes translate into opposition to specific policy initiatives. For example, CBS found support for the stimulus bill falling to 51% in February from 63% in January. Meanwhile, opposition to more money to bail out banks rose to 53% in March from 44% in February.
This, in turn, is affecting Mr. Obama's job approval ratings, already just average for a new president. Last week's Pew poll showed Mr. Obama's approval at 59% with 26% disapproval, down from February's 64% approval and 17% disapproval. His standing on the economy is also falling: Newsweek found in January that 71% were confident Mr. Obama would be able to turn around the economy, while 26% were not. By March, his ratings had fallen to 65% confident, 33% not.
Republicans sense the opportunity. The House GOP leadership deputized the top Budget Committee Republican, Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, to prepare an alternative budget. The GOP budget won't raise taxes, gets spending and debt under control, and will result in a stronger economy with more jobs. House Republicans plan a major selling effort back home during the coming recess. Minority Leader John Boehner is already up on YouTube extolling the plan.
Senate Republicans will not prepare a complete alternative, but they will offer a robust package of amendments, with a wave of proposals for each of the three weeks the upper chamber will devote to the budget. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander foreshadowed the GOP's theme by saying the Democratic budget taxes, spends and borrows too much.
Sen. Alexander is also working with Sen. Judd Gregg, the ranking Budget Committee Republican, on a statement of budget principles that sharpens the contrast between the two parties' approaches to America's economic future.
The GOP's challenge is winning attention for its vision. True, its megaphone isn't nearly as big as those of the White House and the Congressional Democratic majorities, and Mr. Obama still has the upper hand. Yet by discarding so much of what people found appealing in him, Mr. Obama may change that.
Every president eventually depletes his political capital. Some have done so advancing great, difficult causes. Others squander it because of missteps, and what the public views as breaches of faith. Having been president for all of eight weeks, Mr. Obama retains much residual goodwill and could still change course on the budget to reach across the aisle. But his current strategy has made him weaker than he was and weaker than he needs to be. It's turning into a costly two months for America's 44th president.
Guy Kawasaki is busy. He's a founding partner of seed-stage and early-stage venture capital fund Garage Technology Ventures, co-founder of "online magazine rack" Alltop, and author of nine books, including Reality Check and Rules for Revolutionaries. And if you follow him on Twitter (and more than 19,000 people do), you will probably realize the truth of his words—that he's discovered a way to use Twitter as a weapon.
Clearly this is someone who has something to say about innovation, and we wanted to hear what that was. In a frank discussion with CIO.com (via e-mail), Kawasaki discusses the difficulty of prioritizing innovation when you are worried about financial survival, why we can't know whether Twitter and other social networks gave Obama the win, and how anyone can be an innovator.
First off, how would you define innovation?
Innovation is creating something before people know they need it. The process involves building upon the work of others—a.k.a., "copying," grinding it out, and deleting what doesn't work to jump to the next curve.
Innovation isn't a lightning bolt of inspiration in the middle of a muse. More often than not, it's a process of grinding, cogitating, and doubting. There truly is no shortcut to innovation. Over the course of a career, you come up with dozens, if not hundreds of ideas, and reject most, try some, and you are lucky if a handful succeed.
You cofounded Alltop, which has an interesting origin. How might those beginnings illustrate an innovation lesson to others?
There's a very good lesson in the origin of Alltop: We created it because we noticed that Popurls, a site that aggregates business and tech feeds, generated as much traffic as Google for another site that we owned. Because of this, we got curious about Popurls and decided to copy what it was doing. The lesson here is watch what others do that succeeds and don't be proud about what inspires your innovation. I also believe Alltop itself can help foster innovation because it helps people keep tabs on what others are doing and showcases inspiring ideas, especially at http://innovation.alltop.com/ and http://enterprise.alltop.com.
What about innovation today? In this recession, many companies may decide innovation is an extra. They're just trying to stay afloat, people are getting laid off, and each employee is likely doing the work of two or three employees; the idea of putting time into innovation may seem like fluff. What are your thoughts on such an attitude—in other words, how important is innovation during a recession?
This falls into the category of "it's easy for me to say." That is, it is easy for me to say that innovation is the key to survival and now more necessary than ever. Intellectually, I—and probably your readers—know this is right, but when you're bleeding cash, it's tough to keep innovating. Frankly, it's tough to do anything right now because of the economic times. Still, if you only innovate when things are going good, you won't innovate enough.
On that subject—companies who are still interested in innovating, even during these tough times—what would you recommend? How can they create a culture of innovation when fear is rampant?
Again, at an intellectual level, no company laid off its way to success. On the other hand, it's easy for "experts" to say that one must keep innovating when your company is running out of cash since it's not their necks on the line. There are no magic bullets. It's just a tough time.
That said, one assumption that companies should not make is that money equals innovation. That is, two guys/gals in the lab might create the great innovation. It doesn't have to be the $10 million budget line item for R and D. I could make the case that money can't buy innovation—if it did, then large companies would get larger and startups would never innovate.
Speaking of startups, do you think there are lessons that traditional companies can learn from startups, especially those in Silicon Valley?
Honestly, instead of trying to learn from Silicon Valley startups or any other companies, companies should simply start prototyping. This isn't rocket science for crying out loud. Tell your engineers to create great stuff and get out of their way. Just remember: If you don't create the products that kill your products, guys in a garage are going to.
But what if you're stuck at a company that doesn't want to innovate? In this economy where jobs are scarce, do you have any advice to guide a person in such a situation?
In this economy or even if the economy is booming, I'd say use open-source tools to build your prototype at night and on the weekends. Ship it. Make sure that the dogs eat the dog food, and then quit.
The most beautiful trend in innovation is that it's getting cheaper to innovate for many types of products. Two gals in a garage using MySQL, PHP, Rails, and Wordpress can do a lot of damage now—indeed, this puts large companies at risk. A second beautiful trend is that you can deploy innovation faster and cheaper now with Web-based products and services compared to the old days when you physically shipped out upgrade kits and manuals.
With more than 19,000 updates, it's safe to say you're a Twitter power user and one of the most followed people on Twitter. Do you think Twitter and other forms of social networking play a role in innovation?
For most CIOs, it's hard to imagine that social networking or Twitter plays big role in the process of innovation. Both can play a large role in the marketing and selling of innovation, but much as I love this stuff, I don't think they "cause" innovation. The innovation comes first, and then you use social networking to spread the word about it.
Barack Obama is also on Twitter and the site's most-followed user, with more than 322,000 followers. Many people noted Obama's use of Twitter and other social networking activity during his presidential campaign and thought it played an important role in his win. What do you think?
Obama's use of social networking proves that if you have a fundamentally good product, many people will claim that they know why it's successful. The test is not whether social networking won the election for Obama. The test is whether social networking could have won the election for McCain and Palin. That would prove something.
Which individuals or companies stand out to you right now for their innovation?
I haven't worked for Apple for more than 10 years so it's not self-referential, but Apple and Steve Jobs impress me. Apple I, Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone—notice that I left out the failures—are a remarkable track record. Most companies would be fortunate to have done one of these.
As you said, you haven't worked for Apple for 10 years, but what did your time there teach you about innovation?
I [used to think] that if you built a better mouse (-based computer) trap, people would beat a path to it. [But] the most important lesson that Apple taught me about innovation is that the most innovative product doesn't necessarily win. There are many other factors that are as important—including luck and good timing.
What about Apple's continued growth since you left the company?
Apple's continued growth has taught me that some subset of people do appreciate better ways of doing things. It might not be everybody, but there are enough of them so that least-common denominator product development isn't necessary or even wise.
