Within 'Somewhere' We are transported to a time where the boundaries between what is real and what is simulated are blurred. We live online and download places to relax, parks and shopping malls. We can even interact with our friends as if they were in the same room with simulated tele-presence. Everyone is connected and immersed in nanorobotic replications of any kind of object or furnishings, downlodable on credit based systems. Distance and time become as alien as the 'offline' The local becomes the global and the global becomes the local. Consumer based capitalism has changed forever. A truly 'glocolised' world. The singularity is near.
We propose a new law: Let's call it The Millionaire Subsidy Elimination Act. It would prohibit anyone with an annual income over $1 million from receiving any government benefits. There's a big advantage to cutting benefits to millionaires rather than raising their tax rates to 40% or 50%. Slashing expenditures would help grow the economy, while raising tax rates would hurt U.S. competitiveness and job creation.
Let us be clear on one point: We do not mean to demean the wealthy. The gratuitous bashing of rich people by the president and so many others in Washington is downright offensive. The United States is an affluent society because Americans reap rewards when they employ their talents, their innovative ideas, their entrepreneurial drive, and their sweat equity in ways that make products or provide services we all enjoy.
Senator Coburn's report: http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=bb1c90bc-660c-477e-91e6-91c970fbee1f
Steve Jobs book in 3,000 words and the odd topics vexed on. --
It was the choice of a washing machine, however, that proved most vexing. European washing machines, Jobs discovered, used less detergent and less water than their American counterparts, and were easier on the clothes. But they took twice as long to complete a washing cycle. What should the family do? As Jobs explained, “We spent some time in our family talking about what’s the trade-off we want to make. We ended up talking a lot about design, but also about the values of our family. Did we care most about getting our wash done in an hour versus an hour and a half? Or did we care most about our clothes feeling really soft and lasting longer? Did we care about using a quarter of the water? We spent about two weeks talking about this every night at the dinner table.”
Occupy Atlanta protesters return to streets after police crackdown
Topic: Movies
10:55 pm EST, Nov 6, 2011
"A large Atlanta police force including motorcycles, mounted police, officers on foot, a SWAT team in riot gear and a helicopter moved in aggressively and faced off with the marchers," protest organizers said in a statement. "Peace was maintained until a policeman on a motorcycle accelerated into a demonstrator."
Police said a protester was charged with aggravated assault and obstruction for assaulting a motorcycle officer patrolling the area.
Editorial: 'Redshirting' kindergartners getting out of hand
Topic: Movies
9:33 pm EDT, Sep 13, 2011
More states now require children to turn 5 before they enroll in kindergarten. And more parents are voluntarily delaying their kids' entry into kindergarten — a step sometimes called "redshirting," after the college athletes who practice in red shirts but do not compete in games as freshmen, giving them an extra year of eligibility. Theoretically, the redshirted child gains by being the oldest rather than the youngest in the class. Not only might he or she be better prepared for classwork, being older might also make the child more confident or likely to be a leader.
Video: Climb onboard for Rhys Millen's 2011 Pikes Peak run
Topic: Movies
5:03 pm EDT, Jun 29, 2011
Rhys Millen put in a heroic effort at the 2011 Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The brakes on his Hyundai-powered RMR PM580 decided to give up before he did, which makes his 10:09.242 that much more amazing. Are you curious what it would be like to drive that beast up the Colorado mountain? You're in luck, because Rhys and his team slapped a few cameras on the car.
In a recent note to clients, the members of the strategy team at Credit Suisse outlined all the reasons they are looking for a period of weakness in the stock market, not unlike the multi-month swoon seen last summer. They point to a big drop in new orders in the service sector, rising jobless claims, falling interest rates on Treasury bonds, a fall in copper prices and underperformance of small stocks as reasons for worry.
The strategy team at Société Générale led by Albert Edwards goes even further, suggesting that our current situation resembles the post-bubble, debt-deflation aftermath suffered by the Japanese in the 1990s. He points to a sharp drop in the growth rate of orders of durable goods (fewer aircraft and defensive goods), a stalling of corporate profits as measured by the government and a downturn in optimism by stock market analysts.
Given all this, and unattractive valuations, Edwards notes that "this is the point in the cycle when investors should be becoming more cautious."
In the wake of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, seven men and one woman are arrested and charged with conspiring to kill the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State. The lone woman charged, Mary Surratt (Wright) owns a boarding house where John Wilkes Booth (Toby Kebbell) and others met and planned the simultaneous attacks. Against the ominous back-drop of post-Civil War Washington, newly-minted lawyer, Frederick Aiken (McAvoy), a 28-year-old Union war-hero, reluctantly agrees to defend Surratt before a military tribunal. Aiken realizes his client may be innocent and that she is being used as bait and hostage in order to capture the only conspirator to have escaped a massive manhunt, her own son, John (Johnny Simmons). As the nation turns against her, Surratt is forced to rely on Aiken to uncover the truth and save her life.
