What I’m Reading: Tuesday

Barack Obama won’t be the first black president (David Palmer was).

What will an Obama Presidency look like?

Black. No seriously, we elected an African American, and history suggests this has never happened before. Like most people though, history is wrong. There have in fact been many black presidents in America’s past. Our research indicates there is one who is a particularly strong comp to Barrack Obama. His name is David Palmer [of television's 24].

[...]

As Obama selects his staff, consider the precedent of David Palmer. Can we state, unequivocally, that Rahm Emmanuel is not somehow aligned with a crazy hawkish intragovernment syndicate with unclear objectives [AIPAC]? Precedent says No. Can we feel comfortable that Michelle is not some backroom political power broker and/or criminal mastermind? Precedent says No.

What will an Obama Presidency look like? – LoSC

T-Mobile is giving out free Motorola ZN5′s (on contract) this weekend only. Kodak 5MP auto-focus cam w/ xenon flash and WiFi are standard.

I want a Moncler coat for the slopes this season (they go best at Chamonix and Gstaad but work equally well in Aspen, Tahoe, and Sun Valley). They’re opening a new store in Aspen on Thursday

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Branding bomb: Samsung, WTF is BizBee? And why would executives want to buy products with such a childish name? Try again.

Pragmatism.

I’d labeled Barack Obama a pragmatist long ago, and I’m clearly not alone in this characterization. Want an example of his pragmatism? He chooses to stay in shape rather than waste his time studying 2,000 year old fairytales:

Obama skips church, heads to gym – Politico

Time to roll into equities…

(if policy continues to limit contagion effects)

Now is the time to increase exposure to equities – Financial Times

Agreed.

Bush’s Parting Gift

This is it. Today, the Bush administration is poised to issue a last-minute regulation that will impose harsh new restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care any moment now.

The new rule is Bush’s parting gift to the anti-choice extremists who have supported him for the last eight years. The rule could allow health care organizations that receive federal funding to redefine abortion to include the most common forms of birth control — and then refuse to provide these basic services. For any health provider to intentionally withhold information about widely embraced health care options from a patient is absolutely unconscionable under any circumstances. The federal government has no business funding providers who do not abide by this most fundamental standard of care.

But that’s exactly what the Bush administration is proposing. More than 35,000 Planned Parenthood supporters have already signed a petition demanding that the Bush administration withdraw the proposed regulation. And just moments ago, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Patty Murray spoke out saying,

“In the final days of his administration, the president is again putting ideology first and attempting to roll back health care protections for women and families. This HHS rule will threaten patients’ rights, stand in the way of health care professionals, and restrict access to critical health care services for those who need them most. Senator Murray and I are standing up once again to the administration against this rule and will continue to fight for women’s reproductive rights.”

The Bush administration promised not to release any new regulations after November 1. Sneaking this regulation through at the last minute could have a devastating effect on countless individuals who rely on their health care providers to provide complete and accurate reproductive health information. The Bush administration should keep their word.

With the economy in such bad shape, more and more people are being locked out from receiving complete medical care. This is the worst possible time to undermine patients’ ability to access the comprehensive health care they so desperately need. This proposed rule will force women and families who already have limited health care access to pay a dreadful price for the administration’s anti-choice ideology.

Stop the attack on women’s health – PP

What I’m Reading: Last Week

The amount of tabs open in my Chrome and Firefox windows is astounding (I usually keep them open until I catalog them in these posts).

This is a couple days’ worth:

LG’s Prada II debuts:

Fujitsu’s DoCoMo PRIME F-01A Hands-on:

(it’s waterproof, has a 3.5″ VGA touchscreen, 5.2MP camera, 30fps VGA video recording, and a fingerprint reader):

Zimbabwe’s inflation right now is somewhere north of 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% (imagine a society in which prices double every 22 hours!)

Honda’s FC Sport fuel-cell hybrid debuts:

Ford’s Most Advanced Assembly Plant is located in……Rural Brazil. No wonder manufacturers want to leave the USA! The UAW won’t allow such automated plants to be built here! I wonder why our auto industry is bankrupt?

Got a BlackBerry and use GMail? Now your contacts can sync seamlessly.

Now you can buy 50 euro cent coins that secretly contain microsd cards, 007 style:

Quarter Pounders in Shibuya

Add this onto your list of restaurants to visit in Tokyo.

(The super simple menu is limted to a Quarter Pounder, Double Quarter Pounder, fries and drinks):

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It’s Official…Everything in Japan is better. – A Continuous Lean.

Pirate-Placements

VENTURE CAPITALISTS INVEST IN SOMALI PIRATES

LONDON – Financiers in New York and London are pumping millions of dollars into Somalia’s booming pirate sector. The sharp-eyed investors say Indian Ocean piracy has replaced Bangladeshi t-shirt factories as the developing world’s strongest source of high-growth revenue streams. “The margins are very impressive. These guys can board a Chinese freighter or Saudi oil tanker and turn it around in less than a week. Usually without killing anyone,” said Julian Cook, head of strategy at Porter, Pinkney and Turner. “The tax position is also very favourable given that Somalia isn’t really what you would describe as a ‘country’ with ‘laws’ and a ‘government’.”

Starting out early

J.C.: So yesterday I start out early
happy hour at 3
scotch
a guinness
glass of white wine
B.H.: yeah
J.C.: then I decide it would be a fantastic idea to go to a free open-bar networking night
B.H.: classy.
J.C.: three gin and tonics later I was blacked out and hitting on some hot little account executives from some startup or another
then walked out of The War Room and gobbled half a pumpkin pie and an entire baguette.
B.H.: epic
you are a true master
J.C.: I know
oh, I tried to make out with my ride home
don’t even remember getting dropped off
B.H.: all this on a thursday?
J.C.: i’m starting to think i may have a problem
B.H.: don’t give up so fast
you are blessed by teh alcohol gods
AA is for quitters.

Loving Gmail Themes

Check out the new Gmail Themes by clicking on Settings in the top-right corner of your screen, and then clicking Themes. I’m using the Shiny theme — it’s pretty slick.

Spice up your inbox with colors and themes – GMail Blog

You know it’s getting bad when…

People are paying their bills with drawings of spiders

Hilarious conversation between an Australian man and a collection agency/receivables administrator.

Elbow Patches

Cameron: Max, those are some ill elbow patches on your baby-blue v-neck. Classy.
Max: Yeah, it’s because I drop so many elbows in the boardroom.

Tags: Max Cameron

Mad Deal: Sharp 42″ 1080p HD LCD TV – $799 Shipped

Crazy deal over at Dell Home (nearly 50% off):

Sharp LC42SB45U 42″ Widescreen LCD HDTV for a low $799.00 Free Shipping. Tax in most states.

1920×1080 @ 1080p; 3 HDMI; HD tuner.

LINK

Bond Girls

The new girls from Quantum of Solace are the best-looking ever:

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Via Josh Anderson.

Also, beautiful design on Quantum of Solace, the book, by Penguin Classics:

Via Kottke.org.

What I’m Reading: Tuesday

NVIDIA has launched its power-saving personal supercomputer, the Tesla:

It runs on a GPU with various chipsets provided by others, including ASUS. Sick.

Flickr find: Faroe Islands (via A Continuous Lean):

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The Space Needle in 1962:

A genetic study of 3,200 Europeans shows the mix of genes of various citizens of the continent. The map on the left shows you the color-coding of countries, and those colors correspond to their citizens shown on the genetic map on the right. It shows that physical barriers such as the Alps and the Pyrenees limit the mixing of cultures, and geographically-isolate cultures, genetically.

via Microsiervos

How to combat procrasti…

Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone – Flash would be the new preferred development environment, allow alternative music/video services that would cannibalize iTunes.

VERY interesting. I hadn’t thought about this angle.

Railroads brought us standardized time zones in 1883

Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers

Malcolm Gladwell, noted author of thought-provoking and sometimes-criticized tomes on human behavior and trends, has a new book out today:

Outliers: The Story of Success

Here’s what NYT had to say in its review:

Malcolm Gladwell’s two humongous best sellers, “The Tipping Point” and “Blink,” share a shake-and-bake recipe that helps explain their popularity. Both popularize scientific, sociological and psychological theories in a fashion that makes for lively water-cooler chatter about Big Intriguing Concepts: “The Tipping Point” promotes the notion that ideas and fads spread in much the same way as infectious diseases do, while “Blink” theorizes that gut instincts and snap judgments can be every bit as good as decisions made more methodically.

“Outliers,” Mr. Gladwell’s latest book, employs this same recipe, but does so in such a clumsy manner that it italicizes the weaknesses of his methodology. The book, which purports to explain the real reason some people — like Bill Gates and the Beatles — are successful, is peppy, brightly written and provocative in a buzzy sort of way. It is also glib, poorly reasoned and thoroughly unconvincing.

The San Francisco chronicle gave the book a glowing review, due to their not being bound to kowtowing to literary snobs, as is the New York Times.

This is a book you should definitely read.