Obama Unraveling Over Syria

"Far more damaging have been a series of disclosures that more subtly undermine Obama's claim that the Syria action will be quick and clean, punitive and tailored. Earlier this week the New York Times reported on doubts that the main weapon likely employed against Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Tomahawk cruise missile, would have a meaningful impact on the regime's chemical weapons facilities . . . " (source infra)

Putin sits and watches, quietly smirking.
Cameron is on the sidelines after being chained like a naughty dog by Parliament.
France, bankrupt but willing, offers little in the way of real military force.

Obama goes it alone, but is learning a lesson the hard way: the limits of power. Oh to be in the reality distortion field and bubble known as the Presidency, surrounded by hordes of aides, Secret Service personnel, and multitudes of government types telling you what they think you want to hear. So will Obama continue in his warmongering ways or revert to another Benghazi stand-down (hey, maybe now's the time to fly off to a political fund-raiser)?  Either way, he has already lost -- credibility, respect -- at home and abroad. And he and his administration look like fumbling, bumbling fools.

White House peeved at Pentagon leaks - POLITICO.com: "One top leader who has been publicly skeptical of the costs and dangers of getting involved in the Syrian civil war is Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey who offered a cost estimate of $1 billion per month for a no-fly zone and buffer-zone ground force during congressional testimony earlier this summer." (read more at link above)

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Syria, Obama and his mainstream media shills, New York Times coverage condemned by one of its own

The (New York) Times seems to take the government’s position at face value. It’s a tiny example, of course, but in the aggregate it’s the kind of thing the readers I’ve quoted here are frustrated about. --New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan (see link below)

"After falsification of intelligence leading up to Iraq, We can’t ever accept at face value what we’re told" http://t.co/OXaIOAhx2K
— intelfail (@intelfail) August 31, 2013

In News Coverage and Editorials on Syria, How Much Skepticism in The Times? - NYTimes.com: "I’ve been observing The Times’s Syria coverage and its editorials for many weeks, with an eye to this question. While The Times has offered deep and rich coverage from both Washington and the Syrian region, the tone cannot be described as consistently skeptical. I have noticed in recent weeks the ways that other major newspapers have signaled to their readers that they mean to question the government’s assertions. For example, although it may seem superficial, The Washington Post has sent a strong message when it has repeatedly used the word “alleged” in its main headlines to describe the chemical weapons attacks. I have also found that The Times sometimes writes about the administration’s point of view in The Times’s own voice rather than providing distance through clear attribution." -- source: Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor, New York Times

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Camille Paglia, Hillary Clinton, Benghazi, PR

Camille Paglia -- a woman who speaks her mind --

"As far as I’m concerned, Hillary disqualified herself for the presidency in that fist-pounding moment at a congressional hearing when she said, “What difference does it make what we knew and when we knew it, Senator?” Democrats have got to shake off the Clinton albatross and find new blood. The escalating instability not just in Egypt but throughout the Mideast is very ominous. There is a clash of cultures brewing in the world that may take a century or more to resolve — and there is no guarantee that the secular West will win." -- Camille Paglia (source below)

Camille Paglia: “It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton is our party’s best chance” - Salon.com: "It remains baffling how anyone would think that Hillary Clinton (born the same year as me) is our party’s best chance. She has more sooty baggage than a 90-car freight train. And what exactly has she ever accomplished — beyond bullishly covering for her philandering husband? She’s certainly busy, busy and ever on the move — with the tunnel-vision workaholism of someone trying to blot out uncomfortable private thoughts. I for one think it was a very big deal that our ambassador was murdered in Benghazi. In saying “I take responsibility” for it as secretary of state, Hillary should have resigned immediately. The weak response by the Obama administration to that tragedy has given a huge opening to Republicans in the next presidential election. The impression has been amply given that Benghazi was treated as a public relations matter to massage rather than as the major and outrageous attack on the U.S. that it was."

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Ron Paul, Snowden, Manning, Heroes

Ron Paul: Snowden, Manning 'should be treated as heroes' — RT USA: (see the video here )

"I think highly of them (Manning and Snowden). I think of them like Daniel Ellsberg, who they tried to put away for a long time and they tried The New York Times for releasing the truth of how the Vietnam War started and how we were lied into that war,” he said. “The people now telling us the truth about what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan should be seen more as heroes. A guy like Snowden knows exactly what he was up to and he knows the danger of it. I sincerely believe, although I’ve never met him, that he believed he was doing a service to the people by doing this. We shouldn’t be calling people like this traitors.”

Julian Assange, the founder of the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks who has supported Paul's position of opening the conversation up for a more beneficial political dialogue, was also discussed in the interview.

“I want as much government transparency as possible and think WikiLeaks has worked very hard to make sure no one has been hurt, and there’s no evidence anyone has, but if our government is doing something wrong and they’re hiding it from us I think there is a moral obligation of those who know it and can reveal that to us to let us know," Paul told King.

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Obama, NSA, the "witless and harebrained"

I'm not the only one who thinks this is crazy--

Michael Wolff: Officials seem clueless in Snowden saga: " . . . . it is hardly just the Brits who are acting like morons. There is President Obama and his mano-a-mano combat with Edward Snowden. The most basic rule of institutional management, of which the president of the United States ought to be the ultimate example, is that you don't get into pissing matches with individuals. And surely not individuals who themselves have no institutional standing. And surely not those who have nothing to lose. But here we are: The president of the United States — jaw tightening, lips pressing, veins throbbing — is personally chasing little Edward Snowden through the Moscow airport.   And then losing him. And then admitting that, indeed, what the NSA has gotten up to does seem troubling after all. Hence, there is hardly anyone of sound mind, on the right or the left, who doesn't think that the people who should be in charge of the NSA and the bureaucrats in American intelligence are not. Not just because it is wrong to institutionalize a massive invasion of privacy, but, more damning, because everybody who ought to be in charge — most of all the president and, as well, the allies eagerly aiding him — looks witless and harebrained at every turn in this story, and gives no indication that they have any idea what they are doing." (emphasis added)

And to think, just one guy -- Edward Snowden -- brought the entire Obama Administration down to become the laughing-stock of the entire world, heck, even Putin  joined in "toying" with the "witless and harebrained,"  -- like a cat playing with a mouse.  The Emperor wears no clothes!

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How Snowden did it, NSA Eyes Wide Shut

Merely confirmation of what I said before --

How Snowden did it - Investigations: "When Edward Snowden stole the crown jewels of the National Security Agency, he didn’t need to use any sophisticated devices or software or go around any computer firewall. All he needed, said multiple intelligence community sources, was a few thumb drives and the willingness to exploit a gaping hole in an antiquated security system to rummage at will through the NSA’s servers and take 20,000 documents without leaving a trace. “It’s 2013 and the NSA is stuck in 2003 technology,” said an intelligence official. . . ."

Billions and billions of dollars wasted on the NSA and its lame contractors in the last 10 years, but I guess if you're going to have a government agency trashing the Fourth Amendment (with no accountability, nor oversight, and complete with secret rubber-stamp Courts) and spying on all Americans, it is better to have an incompetent agency than a competent one. And at this point, it is obvious the only oversight being given to agencies like the NSA is for whistleblowers like Snowden to come forward. Thank you Edward Snowden --  not only did you expose the Constitutional violations of the NSA, you also exposed how inept and incompetent the NSA truly is!

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Snowden, NSA, Security, Safeguards, Forensic Investigators Clueless

NSA stands for National Security Agency? Is this a joke or what? And now the leaks from NSA are about the NSA's lack of security --

Edward Snowden's digital maneuvers still stumping U.S. government - CBS News: "The government's forensic investigation is wrestling with Snowden's apparent ability to defeat safeguards established to monitor and deter people looking at information without proper permission, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the sensitive developments publicly."

As I've said before-- LOL -- you can't make this stuff up!

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Hewlett-Packard, Past as Prologue, More Layoffs Inevitable

HP's sad saga following the disastrous decisions of Leo Apotheker and HP's Board of Directors in the past, have left Meg Whitman, its gallant current CEO, little choice but to struggle to move forward in a fast changing tech landscape. Meg is doing a good job under very trying circumstances, but unfortunately, the way forward will be to lay off a LOT MORE employees, slimming down the company to focus on core competencies, and to morph to Linux, Chrome OS, and Android devices, putting the disastrous Windows 8 in the dustbin where it belongs. Tragic mistakes of the past still haunting HP include buying Autonomy at an exorbitant price, buying Palm and then dropping WebOS devices -- just throwing away billions of dollars in shareholder money. If only HP had saved its money and bought Sun Microsystems and its Java software . . . . and then it would have been in a position to rescue BlackBerry and get its QNX OS -- but that it is all just part of what could have been, but for the disastrous leadership of HP's past --

Hewlett-Packard under fire after earnings report - SiliconValley.com: "Although HP wouldn't provide a current estimate of how many people it employs worldwide, its most recent annual report listed the total at 331,800. Even with the 29,000 positions it is eliminating, it still has nearly three times as many workers as the next biggest Silicon Valley employer, Oracle (ORCL)."

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NSA, DEA, IRS, Obama, Holder -- Time For A Special Prosecutor

Credibility? That's something the US government has lost, along with integrity, honesty, and common sense good judgment --

NSA, DEA, IRS Lie About Fact That Americans Are Routinely Spied On By Our Government: Time For A Special Prosecutor - Forbes: "Think about what the current Attorney General, Eric Holder, could do to bring down these reporters who cover – sometimes in ways the Obama Administration doesn’t like — the conduct of American foreign policy. At this point, it’s plain to see that the Obama Administration has no intention of honestly fixing this mess. So it’s time now for Congress to act. A good first step would be to appoint a Special Prosecutor with wide power to subpoena Administration officials, and to bring criminal indictments where appropriate. Congress should then begin the process of reforming surveillance law to make absolutely clear that the NSA has no power to conduct warrantless mass surveillance of Americans."

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Just admit it -- the secret FISA Court is a sham

One thing for sure -- secret Courts don't work (at least in a free society) --

Court: Ability to police U.S. spying program limited - The Washington Post: "The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes."

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NSA statements to The Washington Post, Lies and More Lies

NSA statements to The Post - The Washington Post: The National Security Agency offered these comments on The Washington Post’s article about privacy violations. (read more at links) -- I've had enough of the NSA's lies, how about you?

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Has the US Government Lied to You? (video)

▶ Has the Gov't Lied on Snooping? Let's Go to the Videotape - YouTube: ""

Short Answer: Yes--repeatedly--(see video above and links below)

Since Edward Snowden leaked documents detailing the NSA's sweeping surveillance programs, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was forced to admit that part of his congressional testimony was "erroneous." Here are six claims about NSA surveillance that have been undermined by recent disclosures.
Read the full story: http://propub.ca/nsa-claims  Published on Jul 30, 2013

FULL CLIPS:

James Clapper, Senate Intelligence Committee, March 12, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVU...

Gen. Keith Alexander, DEFCON, July 27, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm5cT-...

Gen. Keith Alexander, American Enterprise Institute, July 9, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTwiZn...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Senate floor, May 23, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBRqm8...

President Obama on the Charlie Rose Show, June 16, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlThTT...

ADDITIONAL CREDITS:

Document designed by Erin Standley, from the Noun Projecthttp://thenounproject.com/noun/docume...

Microphone designed by Erin Standley, from the Noun Projecthttp://thenounproject.com/noun/microp...

Music composed and performed by Bensound
http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-...

Bubbling sound by MattJ99
http://www.freesound.org/people/MattJ...

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How to stop telephone spam

Nobody likes spam--whether its email, mail (yes, unfortunately, the US mail system now encourages spam mail -- and yes, it is pathetic when a business or government agency has to depend on scammers to justify its existence), or by phone. How to "manage" your phone spam (because you can never completely stop it)--

1. Use the Do Not Call Registry (if you live in the US).

2. Do Not Answer the phone unless it's a "known number" --let it go to voice mail (some people program their phones so any call from a number not on their contact list will go straight to voice mail; on my phone, one touch on the volume key also sends the call straight to voice mail.)

3. Be proactive, use the block number list features of your carrier, your phone, or your phone system.

4. If by mistake you answer a "spam call"--just hang up. If they call back before you can block the number, do not answer.

5. Great tools for managing phone calls (in conjunction with having a "smartphone" and a pro-consumer carrier) are Google Voice and Google Talk.

Here's one good article (out of many available on the internet) on managing "phone spam"--How to keep telemarketers at bay - 08/02/2013 | MiamiHerald.com: (excerpt follows--read more at the foregoing link)--" . . . . And software also allows telemarketers to hide their identity by “spoofing” or faking the caller ID that shows up on a consumer’s phone. In the last three years, there’s been “an explosion” of consumer complaints about unwanted robocalls . . . The FTC recommends that consumers avoid responding to a robocall, even when asked to press a number that will remove you from the company’s marketing list. The only exception is when you ask a live telemarketer to remove you from the business or charity’s phone list. The best response: Hang up. “We encourage people to just hang up the phone. The last thing you want to do is get added to a list of people likely to engage with scammers,” Daffan said. . . ."


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Washington Stench

The Stench of the Potomac - Washington may be a dysfunctional place to govern, but it’s working better than ever as a marketplace for cashing in. And that’s thanks, more than anything, to the Democratic Establishment.(source infra)

Frank Rich on 'This Town' and Washington's Dysfunctional Bipartisanship -- New York Magazine: "Delicious as it is to watch preening boldface names make asses of themselves as they network at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the Aspen Ideas Festival, talk-show greenrooms, and the incessant book parties for books no one will open, what lingers from This Town is what will linger in Washington well after its current dinosaurs are extinct: the political culture owned by big money, Wall Street and otherwise, that the Democrats, no less than the Republicans, have done their best to perpetuate over the past two decades. At least Mitt Romney didn’t pretend to care about the hoi polloi below. Democrats once did."

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Albert Einstein, Circle of Compassion, Abby Martin, Breaking the Set (video)

Einstein's Circle of Compassion | Brainwash Update - Abby Martin

If you're not watching Abby Martin, you're missing the best news journalist on American television --catch her show Breaking The Set on RT America (replays on YouTube).

Abby Martin gives a heartfelt remark about Einstein's 'Circle of Compassion' by reflecting on how to balance personal stability with the plight of humanity by establishing a sense of global empathy.

LIKE Breaking the Set @ http://fb.me/BreakingTheSet
FOLLOW Abby Martin @ http://twitter.com/AbbyMartin

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Foraging in the Urban Wilds

Foraging in the Urban Wilds: "Mads Refslund, executive chef at Acme, forages in the overgrown spaces and hidden markets of Hong Kong for regional delicacies."

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"That Dell guy" Snowden also downloaded NSA secrets

It was a BIG job -- it took a LONG time, and a LOT of thumbdrives --

Snowden downloaded NSA secrets while working for Dell, sources say | Reuters: " . . . . Two U.S. officials said the investigations into Snowden's activities confirmed that his downloading of sensitive information began at Dell. He is believed to have moved from Dell to Booz Allen with little time off in between . . . Snowden wrote under the screen name "The True HooHA." "Society really seems to have developed an unquestioning obedience towards spooky types." In addition to a Justice Department investigation, which has produced criminal charges against Snowden, U.S. intelligence agencies are conducting an extensive inquiry to determine precisely what documents Snowden had access to, what he downloaded . . ."

Top Secret? "Oh, it's just 'that Dell guy' . . . "

You can't make this stuff up! LOL (and you gotta either laugh or cry) -- and with this kind of national security, no wonder the Chinese have robbed us blind!

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Cuba - No Internet Freedom When Everything is Run by the Government

This Cuban Internet: Still No Bed of Roses | MIT Technology Review: "Cuba is showing that when everything is run by the state, it’s possible to allow digital expansion without providing much if any digital freedom." (read more at link above)

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Escape From North Korea (video)

Escape From North Korea: "A smuggler named Dragon attempts to guide North Korean defectors across China into safe asylum."

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Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas (video)

A Chinese Threat to Afghan Buddhas: "In Afghanistan, a Chinese mining company threatens to destroy the remains of an ancient Buddhist city, which archaeologists are now racing to excavate."

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Federal agency spent $3 million fighting non-existent malware - LOL

These clowns--what a waste of money--no wonder they claim they "need" more money in Washington--

Federal agency spent $3 million fighting non-existent malware - Jul. 9, 2013: "The report's most jarring revelation is that the EDA brushed off its contractor's conclusion that the agency faced no significant threat and could solve its problem with some simple repairs. Instead, the EDA's top IT officer decided instead that the only way to be 100% safe was to physically destroy all of the agency's technology gear, including TVs, cameras, computer mice and keyboards. The EDA set out to trash $3 million worth of equipment, stopping short of its goal only because it ran out of money. Meanwhile, it relied on the U.S. Census Bureau for loaned equipment and BlackBerry service."

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Obama's Justice Dept defends secret Orwellian FISA court

US Opposes ACLU at FISA Court

http://www.scribd.com/doc/152378942/US-Opposes-ACLU-at-FISA-Court

Justice Dept. defends secret rulings in new spy court filing — Tech News and Analysis: " .  . . The Obama administration, in a new court filing, urged the nation’s surveillance court to throw out a request by civil liberties groups to disclose its secret rulings about the scope and legality of the Patriot Act. In the filing, embedded below, the Justice Department quotes with approval the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s own view of its power, expressed in 2007, that “[t]he FISC is a unique court … [o]ther courts operate primarily in public, with secrecy the exception; the FISC operates primarily in secret, with public access the exception.”. . . "

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9/11 Memorial Museum video

A Peek Inside the 9/11 Memorial Museum: "A tour inside the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, as it unveils some of the exhibits that will go on display when it opens to the public at the World Trade Center next year."

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Statue of Liberty video

Statue of Liberty: Back in Business: "The Statue of Liberty, which had been closed for eight months since Hurricane Sandy, reopened this Fourth of July."

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Broad Channel in Queens (video)

A Soggy Neighborhood Fights to Stay Dry: "In order to mitigate flooding in Broad Channel, Queens, which is built on a marsh jutting into Jamaica Bay, city engineers have a plan to raise parts of the neighborhood."

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INSANE: Obama administration wants SOPA felony legislation

INSANE: SOPA died in 2012, but Obama administration wants to revive part of it http://t.co/jL3cRKZL5l #SOPA #Obama
— johnmpoole.com (@johnmpoole) August 6, 2013

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Snowden surveillance leaks open way for challenges to programs’ constitutionality

Snowden surveillance leaks open way for challenges to programs’ constitutionality - The Washington Post: "“There is one critical difference from the Bush era. We now have indisputable physical evidence that the conduct being challenged is actually taking place,’’ said Stephen Vladeck, an expert on national security law at American University law school. He said Snowden’s disclosures make it “more likely” that cases will at least be allowed to go forward in court, leading to a years-long legal battle over surveillance and privacy."

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NSA, chatter, noise, FUD

OK here's  the headline du jour: Al Qaeda threat: 19 US diplomatic sites to remain closed through next weekend (+video) - CSMonitor.com

Sad, and so pathetic, and one wonders--have they given Susan Rice (see below) more "talking points" (more like "lying points") like she spouted last year on national television about Benghazi--none of which were true?

NSA defenders: embassy closures followed pre-9/11 levels of 'chatter' | World news | The Guardian: "The incoming national security advisor, Susan Rice, chaired a meeting on Saturday at the White House and was expected to further brief Obama, who was celebrating his 52nd birthday on Sunday. A number of Congressional leaders concerned by the NSA's powers, particularly regarding domestic surveillance, urged caution over linking the latest terrorism alert. Adam Schiff, a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said: "This is not the usual kind of chatter … it had to be corroborated or come from very reliable sources to take this kind of action. "You have to be very careful how much you represent that any particular programme has contributed to our security. There is no indication that the metadata programme [related to domestic surveillance] contributed to information about this particular plot.""

Could it all be false alarms--is al Qaeda now  playing the NSA (et al) at its own game? If so, NSA has no way to separate the "chatter" from the "noise" and their "intelligence" is "useless." It's just more FUD being used to manipulate others.

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Must reads from week ending August 3, 2013

Bradley Manning verdict
"The Obama administration's war on leaks and, by extension, the work of investigative reporters who dare to challenge the most secretive government in our lifetimes, has been unrelenting. The Manning verdict had plenty of bad news for the press. By finding Manning guilty of five counts of espionage, the judge endorsed the government's other radical theories, and left the journalism organization that initially passed along the leaks to the public, Wikileaks, no less vulnerable than it had been before the case started. Anyone who thinks Julian Assange isn't still a target of the US Government hasn't been paying attention; if the US can pry him loose from Ecuador's embassy in London and extradite him, you can be certain that he'll face charges, too, and the Manning verdict will be vital to that case." Dan Gillmor in The Guardian

"The prosecution of Manning was intended to send a signal. If nothing else, it has done that. It has shown that when faced with evidence of its own wrongdoing, the current US administration focuses on punishing the messenger. It shows the first amendment is easier to honour in the abstract than in reality. And it risks sending a message to nations that routinely imprison, assault or even kill journalists and activists, that when it comes to the crunch, the supposed leader of the free world is not much different."--James Ball in The Guardian 

 Abu Ghraib anyone?

Student locked in room at DEA facility for 5 days (without food or water) to get $4.1 million - latimes.com

Former NSA Lawyers Attack Senator Wyden For Hinting At NSA Surveillance Excesses That Are Now Confirmed | Techdirt

Lawmakers Who Upheld NSA Phone Spying Received Double the Defense Industry Cash | Threat Level | Wired.com

Surprise and Creativity | The Weekly Standard: by George Gilder is a founding fellow of the Discovery Institute. His latest book is Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It Is Revolutionizing Our World (Regnery).

We are doomed! Or so says the author of the article at the following link--4 reasons capitalism is morally bankrupt, dying - Paul B. Farrell - MarketWatch

Latest Trademark Email Scams | Gray Plant Mooty - JDSupra

Robocalls and third-party violations: FCC rules on vicarious liability under the TCPA | DLA Piper - JDSupra

How to use the internet without being a total loser | Hadley Freeman| The Guardian

Official Blog: Starbucks’ WiFi goes Google

How Bank of England 'helped Nazis sell gold stolen from Czechs' | The Guardian

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Snowden Makes Appeal From Airport (video)

Snowden Makes Appeal From Airport: "Video of Edward J. Snowden with international rights activists in Moscow on Friday July 12, 2013, was posted on the Russian news site Life News."

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Snowden No Narcissist - David Bromwich "must read"

David Bromwich calls out the US government (including Obama) and its thugs, its shills in the media, and other enemies of liberty--must reading--excerpt follows:

David Bromwich · Diary: The Snowden Case · London Review of Books 4 July 2013: ". . . . Of the public expressions of contempt for the man (Edward Snowden) who opened the door, one deserves particular attention. The New Yorker legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin said that Snowden was a ‘narcissist’, and the word was repeated by the CBS news presenter Bob Schieffer. What were they thinking? ‘Narcissist’ is so far from capturing any interesting truth about Snowden that the slip invites analysis in its own right. In this twelfth year of our emergency, something has gone badly wrong with the national morale. There are cultured Americans who have lived so long in a privileged condition of dependence on the security state that they have lost control of the common meanings of words. A narcissist in Snowden’s position would have defected anonymously to Russia, sold his secrets for an excellent price, and cashed in by outing himself in a memoir published in 2018, studded with photographs of his dacha and his first two wives. Whatever else may be true of him, the actual Snowden seems the reverse of a narcissist." (read more at link above)

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Businesses Should Fear States' Big Pension Debts

Better think twice before locating in Illinois, etc.--

RealClearMarkets - Businesses Should Fear States' Big Pension Debts: "Smart businesses are starting to figure out that their decisions on where to expand, relocate or otherwise invest their resources have to take into account the staggering debts that some states and cities have accumulated, especially since the retirement debt burden is not dispersed equally across the country. Some states are in far worse shape than others. As the Chicago Tribune, writing about Illinois' formidable pension debt, astutely observed last year, "Companies don't want to buy shares in a phenomenal tax burden that will unfold over the decades." Businesses in Illinois already know what this means. In January of 2011 the state, facing incredible pressure to pay its bills, instituted $7 billion in new corporate and income taxes. But the legislature did nothing to reform spending. Raising taxes, it seems, is easier in Illinois than reforming employee pensions. Absent reform, about half of the Illinois tax increase simply went into the state's pension system to keep it afloat. Meanwhile, state debt continues to mount. . . ."

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Even Apple shills admit Chromecast is a "winner"

This is good--even Apple shill Walt Mossberg, who reviews Chromecast from the "Apple perspective"  (see his review at the link below), can't deny Chromecast is a "winner"--

Review of Google’s New Chromecast - Walt Mossberg - Personal Technology - AllThingsD: " . . . .If you’re an all-Apple household with $99 to spare, AirPlay and Apple TV work great. But, if you want a less costly solution that works with all your devices across platforms, and can wait while Google gradually gets more apps to adopt it, Chromecast is a winner."

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