Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin Lies on Fox

Casey Luskin Liar, Hypocrite, Imbecilic Assclown. This is the video in question but click on the title to go to the article which explains the whole story.

eBay CEO Sees an Economic-Plateau

Recently I've been reading the Business Journal, starting with this article on pay-per-tweets. Another article that grabbed my attention was the report that EBay CEO is 'cautiously optimistic'.

I guess it is good news for eBay that their decline has leveled off, but I don't think the performance of online businesses are an accurate measure of the economy. There are too many advantages online businesses have and not enough of the same underlying factors that real-world companies have to rely on. For instance, online businesses are right there in your own home. You can access them from your computer, and the products come to your door (plus, if you have the patience, the standard shipping is most often free). This does not require a lot of time on the consumer's part, nor the need to use oil - which is still rising in many parts of the country. If eBay's numbers start to rise, this may mark a turn around in consumer spending, but that doesn't mean a turn around in the economy anytime soon. After all, if you're looking for a product on eBay, your most likely trying to get a better deal than what you'd find in the store. This in mind, it will be some time before this spending climbs back to what companies will need to stay afloat.

Above is my comment which I posted on the article. I just thought about it more and realized I might not have been dead on. Disposable income is disposable income and I think that consumers are spending it at all is a good sign rather than saving and preparing for the worst. The only wonder I have is if other businesses are seeing similar patterns right now. Are they really at rock bottom? I don't know how you feel, but I think things are going to get much worse before they get a lot better.

Cartoon Network's Johnny Test

Today I was watching just the most absurd cartoon that must be on the air today; and I do not necessarily think that because of the comments I'll discuss shortly, but because of the just absolutely ridiculous idea this cartoon is based on. What I wrote on my own blog earlier was my disgust with some of the messages this cartoon was sending about our military - or so I assumed. If there was another theme you found please share.

Hatred in America

I made a post on my other blog about the shooting that took place in Washington D.C. at the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Unfortunately it tied into what I was originally going to talk about, and that was the history of hatred in America and a lot of the themes of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's. I am currently working with my university to create digital copies of historically related documents and materials from that period of time, and while I was scanning several folders of papers, I came across a few flyers that I found interesting. Not supportive interesting, but just thought provoking as to understand the mindset of people at that time, and how for many that mindset hasn't changed. I wish I went into more detail in my original post but I hope you read it and feel free to comment. I will surely be discussing more of my work as the summer progresses.

iPhone 3G... not for me

The iPhone 3GS is well on it’s way, and guess what? It’s the same price as the original iPhone 3G!* Even better, the iPhone 3G was knocked down to $99!!

Oh, you did see the asterisk? Hmm.. damn, I was hoping you would just take it as a typo. Alright! Fine! If you insist, here it is: *If you’re a new AT&T customer…

Hmmm… okay, so I thought about checking that out for myself, and indeed. If I go to the AT&T website and look at my upgrade options for the 3GS, I will have to pay full price ($299/399) since I am only a year into my two year contract. What. The. Fuck? To be honest, if it weren’t for my awesomely not family plan, I probably wouldn’t even own an iPhone. On top of the monthly service charge, AT&T also asks for $30/month for unlimited text messaging - even though the service plan includes “unlimited data”. The last time I checked, SMS was data.

I’m not about to say AT&T is the devil amongst cell phone carriers, after all, I did go from Verizon, to T-Mobile, to Cincinnati Bell, back to Verizon, before finally landing on AT&T. They all legitimately suck. These companies are basically the RIAA of the cellular industry with more contracts and legal jargon to give anyone a headache, but honestly? AT&T, you’re dealing with a whole new breed of customer: Apple Fanboys.

Apple fanboys do not want anyone getting in between them and their Lord-provided technological devices that even Zeus himself would feel comfortable using - and that is exactly what AT&T is doing. AT&T is alienating a customer base that they must have bid through the nose with Apple to have full access to. Why? Why throw all that away? As if all the users jailbreaking their phones wasn’t enough. As soon as customers have warranty-preserving rights to leave AT&T for their own preferred cellular providers, I’m pretty sure AT&T is going to see a sudden drop in renewed contracts.

Of course, we could also be witnessing a last ditch effort to suck dollars from consumers as they renew / pay-up the cancellation on their AT&T contracts; then as soon as the iPhone 3G/S becomes portable service plans from AT&T will drop to remain competitive. We’ll see, but I hope Apple doesn’t let AT&T keep their monopoly on the iPhone (which we should find out within the next few months or so). All I know is I’ve got plenty of good reasons not to upgrade, and by plenty, I mean it’s gonna cost me plenty of money.

Spreading myself out

So apparently I am very very far behind on the social networking scene. I don't use Flickr, I've just started tweeting, my Last.FM account was last updated in January of 2007, I haven't logged into Xanga since high school, and my MySpace only garners my attention when once in awhile I find an email from a spammer trying to send me a message.

However, I have had an account for all these services for years! Why have I been so out of touch? Probably because I have been busy? No... that can't be because facebook sure has me by the balls. Oh, and fmylife.com is a godsend.

Anyway, I was creating my new website and figured I better replant my stake in the virtual world. After all, I have to link to things from my website, so why not link to other worthless entrampments of information? Muahahaha...