That’s billion with a “B.”

They are doing some beautiful food in Taipei

“New Rule: IF your company is too big to fail, your company is too big to exist.  The next Prez. needs to split up huge companies like we did with AT&T.”

Agreed.

[via Reddit]

John Gruber does a brilliant job of explaining both the difference between Apple and Microsoft and their repective products, and why Microsoft’s new ads are so bad.  Here’s my favorite quote:

“Microsoft’s new ads emphasize the same message as Apple’s: that the Mac is the one and only brand-name computer in the world.”

Go read the whole thing; Gruber does good work.

This is a good looking device.  I like the size, I like how simple it is, and I like the way the text looks on the ‘page.’  The concept of the ebook is an attractive one to me.  Paper is precious — that is, the trees paper is made from are precious, and any effort to conserve them is welcome.

Unfortunately the powers that be make the ebook something I cannot get behind.  Unless I can buy an ebook and give that copy to a friend for as long as she or he needs it, I am opposed to the idea. Ebook distributers and their DRM prevent me from doing this.  I also need the built in features paper gives me: The ability to underline, cross out, scribble, and jot in the margin are integral to the way I experience a book.  And for that, the only hardware I need is a pen.

If the BlackBerry is a “miracle,” what does that make the iPhone?

“Lehman goes bust, Merrill Lynch sold to Bank of America. Perhaps this will refocus presidential campaign coverage on the economy rather than bullshit.”

Something tells me that won’t be the case.

[Daring Fireball]

Rudy Giuliani chants: “Drill, baby, drill!“

Thomas L. Friedman asks: “Why would Republicans, the party of business, want to focus our country on breathing life into a 19th-century technology — fossil fuels — rather than giving birth to a 21st-century technology — renewable energy?”

Raptor Jesus Says: “Verily I say unto you — The Republicans are afraid, afraid of change, afraid of losing power, afraid of the unknown, afraid of that which they may be unable to control.  They do fear change, and lobbyists, and scientists, and the Toyota Prius.  They fear change, logic, reason, and rationality.  But most of all they fear change.  So, drill little baby.  Drill.”

Via the New York Times:

“… the Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments…”

All in the name of fighting the Terrorisms.  Haven’t your heard?  It’s the new Communism.

The Air Force deputy under secretary makes the argument that “this is not about being gunrunners… this is about building a more secure world.”

I’ve no doubt that the $32 billion in weapons our government is exporting to the world are very effective in killing bad guys.  I suppose the logic is, if you kill all the bad guys and scare all the rest you get security. Except it has been proven time after time that security does not equal peace.

Violent revolutionaries prove the point.  See Robert Mugabe for starters.  Now, contrast with Gandhi. Colonialism takes a beating in both cases, but in one case violence begets violence.

A secure world is a worthy goal, but peace is a higher calling — and $32 billion in new arms do not a peaceful world make.

I couldn’t have said it better myself:

“Instead of selecting someone on the basis of skills, proven experience and demonstrated competence, McCain made his choice out of pure political calculation to pander to Republican special interest groups and the news media. Instead of putting the national interest first, McCain has chosen to put his political interest first.

For nearly eight years this country has watched a president repeatedly delegate power to people not on the basis of ability, but on the basis of personal loyalty, appeal for his base and political ideology. As a result, we are poorer, less safe and more divided as a nation. We cannot afford another president who would govern with the same lack of regard for the national interest.”

One of the major problems in this country of ours is that those interested in governing for the common good, or the national interest, are in the minority. The significant minority.  Luckily, in this election you don’t have to look too far to find a candidate who shows indications of interest in the common good.  I’ll give you a hint:  His name rhymes with “bobama.”