Despite the loss of Steve Jobs, it's turning out to be a good week for the iPhone, with the 4s breaking sales records and bringing the magic:
Android phones seem to come out every Tuesday at 3:45 p.m. Apple updates iOS and the iPhone only once a year. So Apple had a lot of catching up to do, even some leapfrogging. There are some rough spots here and there; for example, every now and then the 4S’s camera app gets stuck on its startup screen. And while the battery still gets you through one full day, standby time is shorter than before (200 hours versus 300). But over all, Apple has done an excellent job.
The question isn’t what’s in a name — it’s what’s in a phone. And the answer is: “A lot of amazing technology. And some of it feels like magic.”
One could argue that Jobs' death adds to the marketing as well. In addition, it was an exceptionally bad day for the usually reliable, if not-so-magical Blackberry:
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has been posting updates on its U.S. site since Monday, when service outages were reported in Europe, India, Africa, the Middle East and throughout Latin America — but not here in the States. Well, that’s changed as of today, when the “core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure” has begun affecting U.S. customers, who are experiencing messaging and browsing delays owing to a massive backup in data.
The GOP is going haywire, desperate to (a) at least share credit with President Obama for his leadership on eliminating bin Laden and, by extension, (b) desperately claim that this success means that torture works.
Neither is true. President George W. Bush, led by Vice President Richard Bruce ("Dick") Cheney overturned terrorism intelligence review policies put in place by President Bill Clinton, cockily ignored memos like "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within U.S." and managed to get away with relatively little criticism for allowing the largest attack on U.S. soil in American history under their watch. Just imagine how they would have led a firestorm of criticism against a Democratic President had it happened under Clinton or Obama.
Then the Bush/Cheney Administration, after allowing bin Laden to escape in Tora Bora, admitted that they had stopped thinking about him, eventually dismantling the unit tasked with finding Most Wanted Terrorist #1. Not exactly leadership that contributed to President Obama's success in this area -- since Obama reinstated the mission of tracking down bin Laden once in office, eventually leading to the tip, eventually leading to the gutsy decision that could have ended his Presidency one week ago.
To wit:
And now:
The fact is that President Obama is a very different type of leader than George W. Bush. The most telling example is former Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card, one of the "geniuses" behind the Mission: Accomplished chest-thumping debacle that began with his boss, W., landing in a flight suit, calling out President Obama for supposedly having "pounded his chest" over killing bin Laden. Really, Andrew? After you put up the banner and, it has been revealed, made secret plans for a bin Laden-killing celebration by the Bush Administration? How fucking hypocritical do you think you can be? Or are you just blinded by partisanship?
In fact, by not releasing the photo of bin Laden's corpse, by giving credit to the Navy SEALS, by refocusing on American unity, by swiftly countering false stories of bin Laden using his wife as a human shield, Obama's treatment of this success has been marked by alack of swagger and lack of lies typical of the Bush/Cheney approach to war stories. Surely this is due to the fundamental insecurity of the previous Administration. Obama doesn't have to gloat -- he's a real great leader, not a fake one.
As for torture, not only does former CIA head Gen. Michael Hayden indicate that the intelligence that lead to bin Laden did not come from "enhanced interrogation," but Andrew Sullivan has a great post on how the Cheneys (Dick and Liz) are back in a desperate attempt to make torture the hero in their false narrative:
There is no evidence that torture was integral to capturing bin Laden. Of three tortured prisoners among the countless leads and tips and interviewees, one was deemed "quite cooperative" before being tortured, thereby leaving open the question of whether the shred of information he provided could have been gotten by non-barbaric methods; and two denied any knowledge of the courier under the torture technique called "waterboarding." So in order to defend torture, Cheney has to say that it's a success when the tortured tell lies. Heads he wins, tails we lose. Moreover, in the last two years or so, torture has been forbidden - although its legacy remains with war criminals protected by the US government, in violation of Geneva - and it was after those two years of a return to decency that bin Laden was found and killed. As for the Bush administration's over-arching goal - democratization of the Middle East - it was only under Obama that we got the Green Revolution in Iran, the successful revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, and the power-struggles now happening in Syria and Libya.
When these fanatics are presented with clear evidence that Obama has been far more successful against terror and its causes than they ever were, they return to their precious, their torture program, and claim ludicrously that, without it, bin Laden would not have been captured. Rumsfeld joined in the chorus of mass distraction this weekend on the same basis. All this really tells you is that these people realize that if their torture regime is found to have been counter-productive, if bin Laden was caught two years after the torture program was ended and with no evidence it helped, then their barbaric policy is exposed once again as unnecessary and a violation of core human values.
As the finance reform bill made it out of House/Senate conference committee today somewhat stronger thanks to CSPAN coverage that took it out of the backroom, now on to almost certain passage by both houses of Congress, and with our President once again asserting his authority in no uncertain terms, it's time to take stock again of how much is actually getting accomplished.
This is no do-nothing Congress; you may not favor the legislation they are passing, but they're stimulating the economy while getting started on 21st Century infrastructure, reforming healthcare including the elimination of pre-existing conditions and the creation of exchanges, passing some campaign reform to counteract the Supreme Court blank check for corporate influence, creating a financial Consumer Protection Agency with real teeth (depending which party and leader is in power) and regulating bank involvement with derivatives, working on Don't Ask Don't Tell, working on a climate change / energy future bill, passing the Lilly Ledbetter Act...and lots more I don't even know or remember.
The President accomplished a significant milestone when he fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal and reasserted civilian control (Executive control) over our nation's military, he got $20B out of criminally negligent BP just at the end of last week, he took Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Hell Burger and signed some technology deals, and is now at the G8/G20. There is no denying that he's getting things done. Per Taegan Goddard, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform the country." I'd argue that while some on the Left find the comparison to FDR wanting, he's on track to best every President since with essentially a (small-c) conservative form of Progressivism, very much a common sense form less interested in lofty ideology but still believing that it's the responsibility of government to lessen the suffering of its peoples and stand up against vicissitudes of nature, moneyed interests, criminal elements and global enemies.
With Republicans determined to stall another jobs bill, per 1930's W-shaped Depression Era history more than likely to cause another recovery stall, one can only imagine the Party as a whole is still betting on obstructionism in order to keep conditions from getting so good that they have no platform to run on. It's funny that they actually choose to do the opposite of what The Bible recommends, saving up during the seven fat years so as not to be boned in the seven lean ones (Genesis 41:27), i.e. cutting taxes on their wealthy patrons while spending insanely during the good times of the Bush Administration, then allowing the population to starve after the bubble burst.
I know they're feeling like their voter base is enthused and Tea'ed up, but I'm wondering what they actually will have to run on, especially if the jobs market continues to recover. Obama as Hitler?
Useless Republicans. Incapable of governing. Obama's been taking heat lately from left as well as right, and through it all (including his own admitted missteps) he's actually gotten some governing done. As opposed to either ruling or doing nothing, which was the behavior of the previous eight-year administration.
The stimulus is already a success in keeping the U.S. from spiraling down like 1929, and it's positive effects are still growing, per Obama's discussion of the substance of the Recovery Act, how it targets energy efficiency technology designed to give America a competitive advantage:
