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Once upon a time, a company called Microsoft was a fierce giant ripping through the technology world like a Godzillian foe through Tokyo.  Controlling almost the entire business segment, they were able to pick and choose their allies and crush competitors like so many scale model buildings.  Unfortunately for Bill Gates and company, they’ve had to endure perpetual legal battles which no doubt hampered their growth.   On the tech side Microsoft became a target with their buggy and vulnerable software. However, it didn’t seem to stop them in maintaining their perceived arrogance.   But soon a plethora of open source software gave consumers options changing the market dynamic.  And as the market continued to take shape, a loveable underdog emerged in Apple. 

Fast forward to the present, and Apple has just held their Fall 2010 event which clearly demonstrated that they are no longer the underdog.  Some daunting statistics were thrown out there during Steve Jobs’ keynote address; 200 apps downloaded every second, 275 million IPods sold, 11.7 billion songs downloaded on ITunes!  Holy Shit!  Talk about making money hand over fist.  Though their market share in operating systems still can’t hold a candle to Microsoft’s, they are continuing to gain ground at a steady clip.  230,000 new iOS activations daily to be exact.  It draws a mildly similar comparison to the position Microsoft once held with their operating system, which reopens the question: Is Apple the new Microsoft?

Financials aside, the real comparison is the idea of people in a position of being dependent on a certain company, not leaving many choices.  What can’t be compared are the aforementioned legal woes.  For instance, in Microsoft’s biggest legal battles they were targeted for bundling Internet Explorer with their operating system, causing an unfair competitive advantage against web browser distributors.  But Apple has no problem distributing Safari with its products.  The main reason why they are allowed to get away with it is because the market has taken shape.  What the Department of Justice made the mistake of doing was trying to predict how it would take shape.  How could they have known that creations like the Google search engine and the IPhone would be such important factors?  Now the web browser is merely an afterthought for most consumers.

Today Apple maintains some exclusivity on its IPod with the use of ITunes.  Sure it works on Microsoft’s operating systems, it would be a bad decision not to, but it isn’t about them anymore.  It’s about the HTC’s and Google’s of the world.  However, I suspect they weren’t above sticking it to PC users by intentionally making ITunes seemingly quite slower on Windows.  Other key exclusions by Apple include restriction of open source apps and IPhone carriers, which

Nonetheless Apple’s position has seemed to go to Steve Jobs’ head.  When confronted with the reception issues for the IPhone 4, he responded rather passively to them.  According to CBS, Apple's official advice was to avoid holding the unit in way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band. Or, the company also suggested, go out and buy "one of many available cases."  It does not seem to cast Jobs in the perceived “for the people” light that he is normally seen in.       

The same is true on a personal level as well.  Bill Gates has donated vast sums of money to numerous charitable organizations, and is aggressively active in speaking out on social and political issues.  The same cannot be said about Steve Jobs who seems to be operating at a seedy political level, avidly supporting democratic candidates.  Granted if Jobs was donating to charities privately, it would throw this entire argument out the window.  But in reality a businessman such as himself would want to make his philanthropy public in a world where image is crucial.   Not to mention, if anyone would have a cause to back, it would be Jobs, being a cancer survivor and all. 

Donate 1% of all ITunes sales to the American Cancer Association maybe?  Naw, that’s crazy talk.

- The Hamgurgler
 
 
Glenn Beck crying
Here's the end result
glenn beck fake crying
Here's the process
Vicks Vaporrub
And here's who made this all possible
Check out this video of how Glenn Beck gets so emotional on camera. Is it the thought of his parents dying? An old puppy dog he cared for so much? The continuing degradation of American society? No, actually it turns out to be...Vicks Vapor Rub! Watch as the conservative warrior gets lathered up with Jack-Off Helper (tm) while he prepares for a tear filled photo shoot.And if you're wondering why I didn't just post the Youtube video, it got removed for some reason while the poster, Mr.Movies got his account suspended. Can we get an investigative reporter on this? I don't have the time.

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Glenn Beck rally
Eleventy billion on hand for the Glenn Beck Restoring Freedom rally

Washington, DC (AP) - On the heels of his "Restoring Honor" Rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, FOX News host Glenn Beck is said to be planning a second rally this week for conservatives and Tea Party activists. The name of this rally will be called "Restoring Estimations", and its purpose will not be overly political or religious, but simply a rally to prove that the correct number of rally participants was counted at his last rally. Beck and his cohorts have leashed out at reports from CBS News who have estimated that his "Restoring Honor" rally had "only" 87,000 attendees, a figure that Beck has considered grossly underestimated. Beck has stated on his morning radio show that at least 500,000 people showed up at the event. CBS commissioned AirPhotosLive.com, a company that uses aerial photography to estimate crowd sizes, and gave an estimate of 87,000 ralliers, with a margin of error of 9,000 people. AirPhotosLive.com reported that factors that create the margin of error are attributed to over-sized hats, street peformers pretending to have political affilations, vendors, and people with poorly written posters.

"What we did on Saturday was amazing," Glenn Beck spokesperson Glenda Cankle said on Monday when asked about the success of the rally. "But obviously the liberal media believes that not as many Americans believe in the Glenn Beck message as they would like to believe. So this Saturday we are holding another rally at the Lincoln Memorial. This rally will bring Americans together as never before, not only have their vocies heard but to be ticketed by officials that will be hired with bean counters so that we will truly have a fair and correct number to talk about once the rally ends. These Americans have a right to be counted so that we can finally and truly have an actual number to tell everyone about how many of us there are."
 
 
Ground zero mosque
A sign holder for the Jihad Stupid show
First off, can we chill the fuck out about the mosque already? For the past two weeks we've been berated with stories about how this thing will destroy the country, each one more hysterical than the next. It's almost as if the media was trying to up one each other on how can be more ridiculous about what this non-event means.


For those who haven't opened a newspaper, watched the news or visited any websites, here's a quick rundown. A bunch of people are huffing and puffing about the Cordova Center, an Islamic mosque located in New York City, which the media has dubbed the "Ground Zero Mosque." The criticism involves the Islamic nature of the building and how it would be insulting to the families of the victims of 9/11. But if we look more into the issue, there's a lot that most of the mainstream media is leaving out (I'm looking at you Fox News). 


To start, the "Mosque" isn't actually even a mosque. The Cordova Center is a community center featuring 1 room dedicated to prayer. The prayer isn't the main attraction, but rather something that provides convenience to Muslims, who pray 5 times a day as part of their religious obligations. The term "mosque" is reserved for a place used solely for religious practices. The fact that it's Muslim doesn't make it a mosque any more than a Christian community center featuring a chapel would be considered a church. 

 
 
China traffic jam
Here's what the 2nd largest economy looks like
And you thought Boston traffic was bad. A motorway just outside of Beijing is suffering from a 10-day 60 mile long line of traffic that has motorists stuck in neutral. Surprisingly, no one has been killed yet. However this may have to do with the fact that 400 police officers were dispatched to the traffic disaster to prevent criminals from robbing the stationary vehicles.
The traffic jam is caused by a glut of road construction which began when the Chinese government announced their own stimulus packaged designed to restart the economy. Since China's meteoric economic rise, many more citizens now drive cars, creating a disaster for the country's underdeveloped infrastructure. The situation was complicated further by the insane demand for raw materials in building the new roadways. Ironically the trucks delivering the materials are also stuck in traffic. 

Some motorists have been stuck in traffic for 5 days, a fate equivalent to hell I assume. This comes a week after China overtook Japan as the world's 2nd largest economy. Maybe they'll rethink trying to be number 1. It's not as great as it looks.

While motorists feed off of gas station snacks and anything else they can find, the roadsides have become de facto bathrooms. People have become used to the site of fellow motorists running out of their cars to pop a squat in the woods. At least it gives them something to look at.



-Generated by NewsBot3000
 
 
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Here's a link to a fascinating New Yorker piece that goes into detail about what exactly goes on in the Senate. It's a long one, took me about 3 days to read, but it's worth it if you have any interest in how our government works. And if it doesn't interest you, fuck yourself.


The most interesting (but hardly surprising) part of it is how childish our government seems to be. It really appears that democrats and republicans can't even decide on what to order for lunch. But more so, it details how little our Senators actually know about the bills that they're voting for. That angry speech you heard on Fox News or MSNBC last night? Most likely written by a young staffer. And what's most disturbing is that these  young staffers who are basically telling the Senate how to think are much more radical than their bosses, which at least partially explains why Senators are a lot more hysterical these days and much less likely to find a center when it comes to most issues.


I urge you to read the piece because it's one of the most exhausting articles I've ever read on the subject. And seriously, what do you have that's better to do, read about Lindsay Lohan getting out of jail?


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troops leave Iraq
Goodbye US! See you in a couple months
While the country was caught in an obsessive hysteria over this mosque in New York thing or that your omelette might kill you, did you notice that the war in Iraq officially ended. I don't blame you if you didn't, as it kind of got 2nd tier news among most of the media. In fact, I saw more about it in the British press than I did here. Maybe because, while the war "officially" ended, it didn't really end. Let me explain.


The 4th Stryker Brigade came home on August 19th, two weeks before the imposed deadline that the Obama administration agreed to last year. The Strykers were the last official soldiers left in the country. However, 50,000 troops will remain in the country in an 'advisory' position, the details of which are very vague. Will they continue to hunt al qaida (which never really turned out to be there anyway), will they train the dysfunctional Iraqi army and police forces? Well, I don't know, because they're not really saying what 'advising' consists of. In addition to the 50,000 troops, there will be an equal number of private contractors remaining in Iraq for security and other tasks. Remember that employees of Blackwater, a private security firm, were involved with two high profile cases where innocent civilians were killed. And this is who we're leaving in charge of a country where we spend 7 years, over 4,000 American lives and countless billions trying to keep it up.
 
 
North Korea facebook Kim Jong Il
Kim Jong Il tries to figure out how to use a mouse so he can get inside the internet
As tensions increase between their southern neighbor, North Korea has unleashed a new weapon against South Korea which they hope will gain them the upper hand. Are they investing in new subs, tanks or cruise missiles. No, that's exactly what you'd expect them too. Rather, last week North Korea created a Facebook page to broadcast propaganda to prove that they are indeed, the best Korea (they seem to be fond of saying this). The page goes under the name uriminzokkiri (catchy) which means "on our own as a nation." On our own as a nation with some help from China of course they mean to say. Regardless, North Korea can be part of your very own Mafia Wars game or provide you with a goat so you can fill your empty, hopeless life.


The Facebook page comes a week after the country banned its Twitter page in South Korea because it possibly contained illegal information, stemming from the Ministry of Culture tweeting about how they thought "The Expedables was badasser."


In addition to social networking, North Korea also set up a Youtube page, which features videos of Kim Jong Il getting rocked off of salvia and singing Justin Bieber songs. It also gives us gems such as this: 
At this point, North Korea has 50 friends on their Facebook page. Guess who's going to be their 51st? So get out there and make some friends...actually don't get out there, just remain sitting on your ass. 


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Rod Blagojevich
Over a year after we'd forgotten what he looked like, disgraced politico "Hot" Rod Blagojevich's trial has come to an end. The former Governor of Illinois was found guilty of only 1 count, lying to FBI agents, which carries a penalty of up to 5 years but will probably get Blago 2 months in a spa-like prison and some vacation time in Tahiti. While he was guilty of the lying, he got off of 23 other counts, including trying to sell an open Senate seat, the one vacated when Obama became president.


The case began so long ago that it's difficult to even remember what this one was about. So many scandals have gone down in Washington that Blago is better remembered from his Celebrity Apprentice appearance than his attempts at ruining our country. But if you remember there were audio tapes  of Blago blatantly making deals for the Senate seat, not even disguising the language. Yet I guess if you've got enough money and enough hair, even a recording isn't enough evidence. 

Not to be humbled at the fact that he should be getting anally pounded if the justice system were fair, Blago even insists on his innocence about lying to FBI agents. Quick word of advice Rod: Quit while you're ahead. Lying to an FBI agents isn't that big of a deal to most people.



-Generated by NewsBot3000
 
 
Some actual good news in the continuing soap opera that is the state of Israel today. Rather than fomenting an Iranian strike and claiming that Iranians will encircle us in a ring of fire by next Tuesday, US officials have put in place an attitude of...gasp, RESTRAINT.

It all started last week when Israel suddenly got an itchy trigger finger and began to sound paranoid about Iran's nuclear program that, at this point in time, doesn't actually exist. However, evidence has shown that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear program, so far unsuccessful. But keep in mind that insiders claim that Israel has themselves over 70 nukes ready to go. We don't the number for sure because they never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would force the country to expose how many nukes they really have. 

So the hysterics began and word was out that Israel was due to strike Iran in the next six months over this non-existent nuclear program. After prevention is the thing to do these days. But it's reported that the US, showing a rare display of caution, persuaded Israel that Iran is not an imminent threat and to not take action for another year, when the issue will be again be reviewed. Again, our government said that Iran is NOT an imminent threat. If only they could persuade FOX News.

At the same time, George Mitchell, the Middle East envoy, announced that Israel/Palestine talks would resume this year, the first time in almost 2 years. Of course these talks will inevitably produce nothing because they never do, but, much like a divorced couple, it's good that they're at least talking.

Now while we settle the whole Iranian issue after getting ourselves all worked up about this nuclear thing, I have to ask: What about the reports a few months ago about Burma's nuclear program? There was barely a peep in the mainstream press even though Burma is one of the most repressive, awful regimes in the world. Iran makes Burma look like Amsterdam in comparison. Why are we so worried about Iran that we're talking about air strikes but not so much about Burma?


Just asking. 


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