Rosalea Barker: The week has a thousand i's

The week has a thousand i's

::iDiot::

No, I'm not referring to the first person who comes to mind in that category for last week, but Steve Jobs, whose iDiocy dominated the news Tuesday. If dropping the word "Computer" from the company's name is a signal that Apple is now going to concentrate on handheld content delivery systems instead, then the company is in its first flush of going down the crapper for good.

It's not just the name "iPhone" that is a steal from somebody else. Anybody could have guessed what Apple's device would offer just by reading the comments posted at the five-month-old YouTube of gizmodo's review of the Sony Mylo personal communicator. "I want a spreadsheet." "Where's the camera?" "Why doesn't it make cellphone calls?"

Rectos of the world rejoice! Now you've got something rectangular that will tie you forever into some megagiant telecom's monthly rate plan AND a spreadsheet on which to track a budget you hope will allow you to pay for it! Meanwhile, us Roundies have in the Mylo a palm-friendly device that lets us make VoIP calls using free WiFi networks. And no monthly charges.

Mylo review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koQFjKwVFB0 (Click "oldest" to see the comments from five months back.)

::iRark or iRort?:: The first I saw of President Bush's Wednesday night speech was snippets on the local morning news next day. Kudos to KRON4 for also carrying live--the only news station here in the Bay Area to do so--comments being made that post-speech morning by General Pace and SoS Rice.

On the bus to work, a fellow commuter had a paper with a front-page story of the President delivering his address to the nation and he pointed to it and asked me what I thought of the speech. We had quite a discussion about the wisdom or otherwise of even being there in the first place and which branch of the military has been most used and abused in the process.

I began to realize this wasn't just another address that people felt they had to suffer the consequences of: now there's a Democrat-dominated Congress! So, will Congress rark up the President, or has he rorted them because already the money is in place for this surge? Don’t forget Bush has D/I Senator Joe Lieberman on his side, giving Democrats and Independents a bad name everywhere.

::iRate::

Of course, since I live and work in a Democratic-voting area of the nation, all that horn-honking in support of the protesters at intersections on my way home on Thursday night was to be expected. But it would be interesting to know just where the (un)popularity polls get their figures from.

In fact, I have a recommendation for pollsters of presidential popularity: Since the President isn't elected by popular vote, but by Electors, you should report such polls in terms of how many Electoral College votes the President would get and where. The US could do with some constant reminding of how the system actually works. And maybe the President would start taking some notice.

::GWI::

Talk about Governing While Ill-informed! To my astonishment this morning, on ABC's nationally broadcast Sunday talking-head show This Week with George Stephanopolous, Schwarzenegger said: "As a matter of fact, within the next 20 years, the Independent Party will be stronger than the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, the way the trend is going right now." Stephanopolous then asked how much medication he was on. Politely, of course.

California's voter registration form does list the American Independent Party, but that is very small cheese indeed. What the Governor is presumably referring to is the option to choose "Decline to State". This option is related to primary elections, at which voters in a particular party choose who their candidates will be for the later general election.

From the California Secretary of State's official Guide to Voter Registration: "Decline to state is the box to mark if the voter wants to receive non-partisan or 'independent' primary election ballots."

Well, let's give the guy a break for not being the first person in the world to have mis-spoken in an interview. Previous comments in the same interview show he does understand the difference between independent candidates as opposed to Independent Party candidates, so I'm guessing he really does understand the difference between "independent" and "Independent Party" voters as well.

Or maybe he’s about to launch a whole new party!

You can see the interview or listen to the podcast at ABC's website: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE—

ENDS

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