[now that the executive branch tries to restrict the legislative which tries to circumvent the judicial which tries to establish its credibility.]
In the past week, Washington [D.C.] has been up in arms over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. From what I have gathered, being somewhat politically uneducated by my own non-action, the white house is fighting for the executives right to remove any U.S. Attorneys with the consent of the DOJ [Dept. of Justice]. Congress has come to terms with the awkwardness of the attorneys expulsion but they are not satisfied with the explanation thereof. Because of inconsistencies between the white house explanation and the U.S. Attorney General Al Gonzalez’s statements, NY Sen. Chuck Schumer is heading the legislative investigation into the proceedings involved with the firing of those 8 attorneys.
This whole fiasco is a wonderful test of the stability and effectiveness of the U.S. system of checks and balances within government. However, with media as a form of impartial litigator upon government, we citizens and contributors to media [aka bloggers and the like] are doing the checking and balancing. Look how fast documents and news can be spread. The Dept. of Justice papers and emails were released at after midnight and by 130am there were over 200 posts regarding excerpts and interpretations of the documents.
I can see from various articles and speeches that the investigation is, at the core of it, made up of partisan drives. Some Democrats are continuing forth with the view that the republicans are trying to make a last stitch effort to get done what they want done before the President’s term is up. While some Republicans continue forth with the idea that the Democrats are out to remove and tarnish the Republicans name while the President is still in office. They [r] placate their motives behind a veil of protecting future president’s right to executive privilege. The President warns democrats to not take this further on their premise of partisan politics, but in making that statement he is protecting his own partisan motives. Dems want nothing more than to be in complete power, they are close, and so need to show they have weight. By criticizing the President at each and every turn they gain more and more supporters.
I’m sure my readers will fill me in soon enough. Let the conversation BEGIN!
[Edit -- if you would like a transcript of the wp.com articles, send me an email. Otherwise use Bugmenot.com a bypass of compulsory registration.]
Well well well … Starbucks is signing a one-album deal with Paul McCartney on their Hear Music record label, NYTimes reports. I seem to recall a big hub-bub about Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, calling for his company to return to their niche, coffee, coffee making, and coffee innovating. John Moore from Brand Autopsy with Paul Williams of Idea Sandbox together began a series of posts concerning the Starbucks outcry by Schultz for a return to its roots. They touched on the idea of Starbucks marketing music to its customers. John said:
"What about books and music? Neither links directly to coffee. Yet, the
company has been successful in selling both. Three weeks ago Starbucks
began selling a memoir by a former Sierra Leonean child soldier. So
far, the company has sold over 62,000 copies of this book.
(Folks, that’s a lot of books!!!) Starbucks has also been very
successful in selling CDs of established artists like Ray Charles and
emerging artists like Antigone Rising. Rumor has it the company will step deeper into the music business by forming its own record label, Starbucks Records, and release Paul McCartney’s next CD."
Well, now they are delving deeper into the music business. I wonder how it will turn out. Good for business? Bad for coffee making? Branching too far from the plant? [Coffee plant!]
So now, Mr Schultz, I have a question for you. By furthering Starbucks as a record label, are you keeping true to your request to return to the core?
More to come later, my Calculus class is calling my name.
Many do it, sharing links, so why don’t I try my hand at it.
Palm, the venerable creator of the Treo Smartphone, may be bought out by the end of this week.
Implications of a wireless service provider controlling the product?
Garlic and Clam pasta with Pancetta, an delicious twist on traditional Alio e Olio from the talented Joe DeSalazar
I love to eat food and love to cook food. In fact I have my own version of this recipe using Mussels and Goat Cheese.
Heh, Dean Baker knocks The Post [Washington Post that is] for faulty reporting.
I like to read his posts, they are both confrontational and informative.
Well, the end of a long day at school. I am mad tired, and running till my tank is on empty otherwise I will never get this work done. Registration for next semester is tomorrow. Errands in the city. Thursday beholds hours and hours of class and then the El-P concert at BoweryBallroom in the evening. Hmm… those past few sentences seem very twitter-worthy. I would like to get into the twittering movement but alas I do not know many people who use it. If you use it be sure to let me know and add me as a friend. See right –>>
Generally search engines follow the same format of query and list results. Maybe it is time to change this. Time to move on to something hands on, interactive. Lately I’ve been noticing search engines following different rule sets. Check out this article via MSNBC.Com which reports on a company developing a search engine which bases its query on a drawing. Meant to be a business solution for engineering and design companies, the user draws their query on a tablet or scans it into the field. The search engine finds all those results which match the structure and shape. This could make product development faster and more efficient, thereby reducing costs and prices.
Another interesting search engine I came upon is Quintera, a search engine based on a cloud of tags. You can navigate search results via the tag cloud. It seems to be similar to the digg, technorati, etc tag systems. Development and formation of Quintera Inc. finished in 2005; the two year old company bases their searches on context and word association. A great notion to explore. In fact, I have my own take on these two ideas.
A search engine which is based in a 3d environment. The same query and results functions but with the results set in a different area. My vision is that a results cloud will appear which can be navigated based on a full 360 degrees in every direction. A sort of "space" in which we travel through results in a cloud. That way associations can be made in a variety of directions. This would create more results for a query but with an easier method to sort through them. I search, "leather", and I come up with results displayed in a 3 dimensional cloud environment. Where I can navigate and "fly" around the cloud between results and moving in different directions toward the results I want. The results would be on the first level geared to broader topics and then as we navigate and click on key words or tags, we can siphon out that which we don’t need.The power of tags is already being exploited, I just think that they would do better within an environment in which we can roam around in limitless directions. Limitless directions because it always seems the case that we don’t find exactly what we are searching for. Instead of the search engine predicting what we it assumes we want, we search for what we want via the engine.
I think it is a cool concept. Maybe you could give me some feedback as to the downfalls or irrelevance of such an application.
So, what is really good about going green?
The green revolution, global effort to cut back on detrimental exhausts and byproducts by adopting eco-friendly technology, is coming into full swing. With Al Gore’s film, An Inconvient Truth, reaching critical acclaim and being honored with an oscar; much of the country and the world are proposing plans to reduce their "carbon-footprint". A Carbon Footprint is a term used to describe a certain groups negative impact on the environment in the form of carbon emissions resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. More and more business and corporations are promoting "green campaigns" within their business model.
This step is smart, considering the increasing concern for the environment on the parts of their customers. If customers are working to be more eco-friendly, they would LOVE to see the companies they invest in doing the same. In fact in some cases by promoting a brand as an eco-friendly brand, they draw in their original customer base as well as those who recognize that they should support a company who is supporting the environment. One downfall, which most cope with, is usually a slight rise in costs coming from the green transition. It is more expensive to don an environmentally friendly business but an investment now would prove to be smart considering the future of energy consumption.
I speak of energy consumption because I was looking through my BW.com feed and 6 out of 24 articles were about ethanol and other eco-friendly energy sources. Ethanol from corn is becoming quite the fiasco in Washington, as livestock farmers are protesting corn subsidies for ethanol producers. If corn is expensive for livestock farmers to acquire in order to feed their animals, the animals will be expensive for food producers which will in turn increase the prices on beef, chicken, pork, etc. that we buy from the grocery store. Another interesting twist in the ethanol story is that the government has put a tax on sugar ethanol produced in Brazil in order to corner the market in corn ethanol within the U.S. Why can’t we support our environment and energy concerns by buying some of our ethanol from Brazil? Buying from Brazil creates competition in an emerging market. It would force the corn ethanol producers to bottom out their prices and urge the public to transfer to their energy source as opposed to gasoline and other fossil fuels.
A couple quick questions for you all:
1. Should the U.S. follow through with subsidies for corn ethanol producers?
2. If so, how would this affect agriculture within the country?
3. If not, what could we do to promote alternative energy consumption?
Think GREEN!
