OK, so the iPad looks like an overgrown iPod Touch and does all of the same things. Sadly, it does not have a camera so there go the photography apps, but everything else is supposed to work peachy and Apple whipped up a version of iWork because they insist businesses will use their stuff someday! Just when you thought you were out the 3G version pulls you back in, with AT&T that is. They have another exclusive deal with AT&T, but no contract this time. Either pay the monthly fee or don't. Surfing the web via 3G will cost fifteen clams per month if you can limit yourself to 250mb of porn (so that's out) or thirty bones for unlimited porn-gazing. It surfs more than porn, too, for those rare occasions you need the web to augment your non-porn trivia bank. All in all, not as much to write home about this time.

We can and should be getting excited about the A4 chip, though. Should you still have an Edge model or plain 3G, how is it performing? Notice it slowing down? Try putting some larger apps on it an try again. If we're going to really use this stuff we need powerful chips and, according to Apple, the A4 is a screamer. Let's hope they soon start stuffing them in the phones. Opening the iPhone up to other carriers is the only thing higher on our wish list.

The Supreme Court didn't mitigate Obama's shitty week with the 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC or at least you can draw that conclusion from his reaction. Frankly, the Department of Justice shouldn't have taken it that far. Obama's DOJ took one for the team, though, the team of Democrats and Republicans that have been limiting speech (money) in politics for as long as they've had control of government (what are campaign finance laws written by the two parties if not to limit the rise of a third?). The poor progressives who haven't already jumped off a bridge, succumbed to catatonia or just tuned out are worried that the Republicans will somehow use corporate dollars to buy the Democrats out of their half of the franchise. C'mon, do you really think George Soros will let that happen? Or, the trial lawyers, or the unions, or even corporations? Obama raised over 1 Billion dollars in the last election cycle. Remember how he went without government matching funds in keeping with the ridiculous and, thankfully, now anachronistic McCain Feingold campaign finance law? He got a lot of that from small donors, yes, and large donors alike. Really, a billion fucking dollars last time around. Do you think he's sweating the next election for want of money? What he and Republicans all worry about is the possibility of money going to an independent or third party candidate that will fuck up the two=party franchise they've crafted for over a century.

If you still don't feel any better check out OpenSecrets.org, good people that keep track of such donations. Witness how the top donors are equally corporations and unions alike. This and sites just like it are now more important than ever. As before, we will want to know who our politicians are beholden to, won't we? If you don't like from whom a candidate has taken money you don't have to vote for that candidate. You don't have to give them your money, either. In fact, what's to keep the disaffected from pooling their money into a third party rich enough to pull along side and change the political discourse once and for all? Nothing, now.]]>Apocalypse Tuesdayhttp://www.slobzilla.com/slobservations/2010/1/22/apocalypse-tuesday.htmlSlobzilla2010-01-22T22:38:24Z

The sky fell Tuesday when soft-core porn model (kidding) cum politician Mark Brown beat Martha Coakley, heir apparent to Ted Kennedy for his Senate seat, or so it seams she thought. Now, the Democrats no longer have their filibuster proof 60 seat majority and, since the Republicans promise to be as obstructionist as possible, Democrats are beside themselves. Obama repopulated his populist repertoire with another threat to punish banks or bankers. The DJIA rightfully finished the week in a free-fall. And everything had just been going so well. Maybe floating the idea of national health care before anyone felt the warm breeze of economic recovery after the winter chill of our worst recession wasn't such a good idea after all.

My fat fingers, taken with my iPhone, posted with Squarespace App!

There's (finally) an app for that! Our friends and hosts at Squarespace have released their long awaited iPhone/iPod Touch app and I am excited as a schoolgirl. Why schoolboys are usually not perceived as excitable as schoolgirls (at least not to the extent they deserve a cliché) or what it will take to finally calm those girls remain elusive topics. However, Squarespace has come through for it's patrons and good on 'em.

Passion84Autos@flickr

GM is making big news on the plug-in hybrid called the Chevy Volt they promise to make someday. None of the splashy stories (read press release touch-ups) today mention when it is supposed to go into production but they all have the same laser like focus on the 230 miles per gallon GM claims the Volt will achieve. The car will go 40 miles on the batteries, has a 300 mile range and gets 230 miles on a gallon of gas. 230+40= roughly a one gallon fuel tank? Both of the vessels in this picture look like they hold a few gallons so why isn't the range even more? If there were ten gallons of gas on board wouldn't the car have a range of 2300 miles or more? I'm guessing the engine doesn't do the job of an overnight charge. Hey, who am I to ask?

Good on GM if they really pull it off. Let's hope they have more going on than press releases. Otherwise, we'll never get that money back. Then again, if they can't make money selling cars they already have a foot in the door with the government. They could probably work out a deal to sell these things to the defense department for 30 million each. It works for fighter jets.

gilest @ flickr

Apple ads have been mopping the floor with the anemic Windows ads for a long time. Who hasn't seen the Mac & PC switcher ads, right? Now that Windows has come back with something interesting, the "Laptop Hunters" campaign, Apple gets huffy? Something doesn't compute. For one thing, Apple dropped the price of the skimpiest Macbook to $999 so the premise of finding a laptop for less than 1K is no longer the issue. With what does that leave the Laptop Hunters? Really cheap laptops for the sake of being cheap? Not the greatest marketing platform ever. You'd think Apple would just come back and beat them some more.

To that end, I wish for Apple's rejoinder to be a Laptop Value Hunters ad. Take these cheap nerds who need to score the sub $1000 laptop and let them pick out a real cherry Windows machine. Supply a typical Mac user (or Ellen Feiss if she's available) with the cheap Macbook and check back with those people periodically. Watch the Windows people trying to get rid of that bloatware the OEM adds to subsidize the price of the machine, the ensuing dll hell, the crashes, the anti-virus ordeals, all of Windows life versus the (usually) more straightforward Mac experience. Or not, but don't bitch, Apple. Don't give Redmond the satisfaction.

Irish Typepad @flickr

Darryl Hannah and NASA guy James Hansen were recently busted for trespassing at a coal mine. The funny thing to me is the one quote blocked in the NYT article is Hansen bitching about mountaintop removal. Is he mostly pissed about aesthetics? Mercury poisoning of our air, water and bodies might get turn more heads but who am I to criticize a NASA scientist? Hopefully, fusion will be solved by the time the last mountain has been topped how about marching for more research to that end, Doctor?

Obviously, this viral video of Obama swatting a fly will go on forever. That's great since it's a good video. Too bad PETA has to piss all over it with shit about killing the fly. Come off it! I thought it was People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? People for the Ethical Treatment of Arthropods must be a sub-group. Luckily, the US has a President for the Ethical Treatment of Assholes, so they should be fine no matter what they bitch about next.