The Biggest Outside Spending In This Election is Not the Chamber of Commerce
October 22, 2010 No CommentIt’s the unions : The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union has emerged as the largest outside spender of the 2010 campaign season, doling out $87.5 million to help elect Democratic candidates, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We’re the big dog,” Larry Scanlon, the head of AFSCME’s political operations, told the WSJ. “But we don’t like to brag.” Later in the same article, AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, declared: “We’re spending big. And we’re damn happy it’s big. And our members are damn happy it’s big—it’s their money.” The latest revelations blow a hole in several arguments the White House and their liberal allies have been making over the past year. So all that blather about how the Chamber of Commerce is a threat to democracy is just blather. If Obama doesn’t go after the unions the way he went after the Chamber and the Supreme Court, he’s a hypocrite. And though the unions are spending big, they’re going to lose big.
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Honestly, while Apple’s Magic Mouse is a bit of a pioneer in its application of a multitouch surface on a “regular” tracking mouse, it’s not exactly easy or comfortable to perform multitouch gestures with it. Plus there’s the little problem of no official driver for Windows. Speedlink’s Cue mouse looks to be solving at least one of those problems, maybe even both. The wireless 1000 dpi optical mouse is naturally PC-compatible, with software to allow you to configure your own gestures, and it has a somewhat flatter and more extensive touch surface than the Magic Mouse, which might make gestures a bit more doable. Basically, it’s somewhere in between the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad , minus the hyperbole, and plus clear demarcation of right and left click. It’ll retail for €40 when it ships in November (about $56 USD). Speedlink Cue does the multitouch hybrid mouse thing originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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There seems to be a constant perp walk of Israeli soldiers since its war in Gaza two years ago. This week the hand of justice has turned to investigate several senior Israeli officers who allegedly authorized an air strike that killed at least 21 Palestinians in Gaza in 2009. The Israeli army is being criticized for demolishing a family’s three-story property in order to take over the abode as a military position. This follows of course several other accounts of Israeli soldiers and officers acting inappropriately, such as the case of two soldiers who used a Palestinian boy to test out booby-traps. —JCL The Guardian: Senior Israeli army officers are under investigation by military police over the authorisation of an air strike that killed at least 21 members of one family during the three-week Gaza war in 2008-9. The officers are reported to include the commander of the Givati Brigade, Colonel Ilan Malka. No decision has been made on whether they will be charged. The air strike took place on 5 January 2009, nine days after the war began. The extended Samouni family were ordered to gather in one house after a three-storey property belonging to them was taken over as a military position. Read more Related Entries October 14, 2010 Ahmadinejad Holds Rally at Lebanon-Israel Border October 13, 2010 Computer Nerd Barbie
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Photo: Nissan It’s Really Real Now Nissan has officially started production on the Nissan LEAF in Japan’s Oppama plant. The LEAF is slated to go on sale in December in Japan and the United States, and from early 2011, in select markets in Europe. The Oppama plant has an annual production capacity of 50,000 units. Nissan LEAF will start production at Smyrna (USA) in late 2012 and at Sunderland in early 2013 (UK), so at first the LEAFs will come from Japan…. Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …A stagehand who was setting up the area at USC for the Obama rally today was fired off the job because he dared to wear a hat and sweatshop that celebrates the Navy aircraft carrier his son serves on – the George H.W. Bush: Looking at this guy’s reaction I don’t believe he had any political motivation in mind when he wore those items, but was simply showing pride in his son’s service and the vessel he on which he serves.
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Britain’s newest nuclear-powered submarine ran aground off the coast of Scotland Friday but officials say the incident was not serious and no one was injured. (Oct. 22)
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After 23358 submissions and countless double-clicks, the results are in for YouTube’s ‘biennial of creative video.’ The winning works are going on display at an art museum in New York, showcasing creative possibilities of the online world. (Oct. 22)
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Who knew a support thread on corporate WiFi login issues would lead to anything we’d care about? Cut to Google code’s Android forums, where an anonymous Google engineer confirms that this problem will be patched in the “next major release” of Android, specifically version 2.3. So… does this mean Android 2.3 is the oft-discussed (and close on the horizon) Gingerbread ? Not necessarily — while possible, there isn’t any indication to that effect, and logic doesn’t arbitrarily equate the two. After all, recall that Eclair was both 2.0 and 2.1, so there would be some historical precedence to this 0.1 leap being nothing more than sprinkles on frozen yogurt . Android 2.3 ‘next major release,’ says anonymous Google engineer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …That’s the opinion of Peggy Noonan (and many others): Two central facts give shape to the historic 2010 election. The first is not understood by Republicans, and the second not admitted by Democrats. The first: the tea party is not a “threat” to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself. In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP’s highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?) Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph. However, the GOP will make a terrible mistake if it takes Tea Party support for granted. The Tea Party people are an impatient bunch and if they don’t see the kind of action they voted for happening very, very quickly, those third party ideas will get started in earnest. The GOP has the choice of listening to the people and remaining in power, or ignoring the people, going back to the old go along/get along ways in Washington, and becoming relegated to minority third party status. The GOP will join the Whigs in the pantheon of former national parties if they don’t get the correct message from this election. I’m not a fan of third parties, but could become one if the GOP refuses to get this right.
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Supermodel turned film director Christy Turlington talks about screening her documentary feature ‘No Woman No Cry’ about maternal morality at the London film festival. (22 Oct. )
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