Davison online
The life and times of the world’s
most self-deluded online superstar
News & Commentary
CEO doubles down
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/10/united-ceo-passenger-disruptive-belligerent.htmlDude is about as tone deaf as possible. He's casting this as United versus its customers. (I didn't know you could have a train wreck in an airplane.)
United “re-accommdates†a customer
...three men in black shirts and black baseball caps yanking a middle-aged man out of a seat. The men dragged him down the aisle, while someone screaming could be heard in the background….United CEO Oscar Munoz responded to the incident on Twitter on Monday afternoon."This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to...
The Trump budget
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2017/03/16/trumps-budget-makes-perfect-sense-and-will-fix-america-and-i-will-tell-you-why/?utm_term=.bd36e0ce85d1All schoolchildren will be taught by an F-35 wearing a Make America Great Again hat.The best part may be that the White House just read the headline, their standard for intellectual engagement, and...
Trump’s DHS plan
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/exclusive-trump-admin-plans-expanded-immigrant-detentionUnder the plan under consideration, DHS would break from the current policy keeping families together. Instead, it would separate women and children after they’ve been detained – leaving mothers to choose between returning to their country of origin with their children,...
Starship Troopers
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/03/20-years-ago-starship-troopers-showed-us-what-happ.html It’s in Starship Troopers that Verhoeven does his job too well, essentially throwing a desperate warning at the audience that says, “The right action movie director can even make fascism look just this cool, guys.†Twenty years later, half of your...
School vouchers
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-devos-vouchers-20170228-story.html“These results are without precedent in the educational literature,†says Kevin Carey, director of the education policy program at the think tank New America. “Among the past results, none were as positive as these are negative.â€I think we we can safely say that...
Fox talks Swedish immigration
http://www.dn.se/nyheter/varlden/fake-sweden-expert-on-fox-news-has-criminal-convictions-in-us-no-connection-to-swedish-security/Marie Pilsäter at the Swedish Defense Ministry says that no-one called Nils Bildt works there. â€We have no spokesman by that nameâ€, she said. The Foreign Office also denies that he works there. â€We do not know who he...
Trump’s EPA
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericmack/2017/02/21/scott-pruitt-lays-out-a-vision-for-the-epa-that-contradicts-the-mission-of-the-epa/#34b2d1825829The EPA's mission is "to protect human health and the environment — air, water and land." That the EPA is now led by someone who doesn't share that mission—indeed seems overtly hostile to it—is a tragedy for...
GOP still looking to hose the little guy
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/319686-congress-takes-aim-at-state-retirement-accounts By all means let's protect Wall Street.
That’s one way to say it
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/13/politics/michael-flynn-white-house-national-security-adviser/"I inadvertently briefed the Vice President-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador. I have sincerely apologized to the President and the Vice President, and they have accepted my apology," Flynn wrote,...
Essays
VUI: The New Paradigm
I talk. Computer listens. Computer does things. Finally somebody who cares what I have to say! 2001: A Space Odyssey a few years early. The latest in human-computer interaction, featuring the Macintosh. This story got me over 400 hits on the hit counter. Imagine what it was like for Steve Jobs in 1979 when he took his now-famous trip to Xerox' PARC research facility and discovered the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Here was the new paradigm in human-computer interaction...
What a Surprise
You couldn't write a novel that would be any more tawdry than what Bill Clinton has foisted upon America's 6 o'clock news. You wouldn't want to. Recommendation: Call your local HazMat team, this is a presidential chemical spill of epic proportions. President Clinton gave his version of an apology Monday night, finally admitting what the rest of America already knew: That he'd had an affair with a subordinate—an action that were he a business executive would get him fired...
Good Times, Bad Times on the Internet
A mea culpa regarding my computer virus rants over the years. I wasn't really that wrong since the latest represents an innovation in virus technology, but you can listen to me grovel anyway. Includes "bonus rant" on the First Amendment and free speech on the Internet. Good Times Ever since the "Good Times" e-mail virus hoax of a few years back, I've been telling everyone who needs telling that e-mail simply doesn't work that way. Even if somebody sent you a virus in an...
Getting Down with Titanic
James and the giant metallic peach. Hope floats? Not hardly, and neither do big broken ships. From good to bad in the time it takes to freeze an ice cube. WARNING: This review may include spoilers! The $200 million Titanic that Writer/Director/Producer/Editor/Egotist James Cameron brought to the big screen is the most lavish, beautiful picture I have ever seen. It's also—and this will come as no surprise for those of you who know me—the most depressing, topping even...