Eideard

Two leading members of the lyin’ bastards club

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry have been accused of telling TV viewers blatant untruths about Barack Obama.

The candidates deny their TV commercials are deceitful and dishonest but both ads selectively quote the president to make it appear he is saying one thing when he is saying another.

The advertisements have been widely scorned for crossing a line from a longstanding practice of political campaigns pushing the truth to its limits, over to misrepresentation. One ad appears to show Obama admitting he will lose next year’s election if he talks about the economy. The other has him calling American workers lazy.

Romney’s campaign ad is airing on TV stations in New Hampshire, which holds its primary in January. It shows the president saying: “If we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.” But Obama’s words were from his 2008 campaign, and he was quoting a statement by a strategist for his Republican opponent, John McCain, who was the one on the back foot over the economy.

Perry’s ad shows a short soundbite of Obama saying: “We’ve been a little bit lazy I think over the last couple of decades.”

The ad switches to Perry saying: “Can you believe that? That’s what our president thinks is wrong with America – that Americans are lazy. That’s pathetic.”

But a viewing of Obama’s full statement shows that he was saying the US government had been lazy in attracting foreign investment.

Darrell West, director of governance studies at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution in Washington, said that Romney and Perry had gone further than previous campaigns in misrepresenting the truth.

“Those ads are blatant misrepresentations,” he said. “They are much more egregious than what we’ve seen in the past. Typically candidates have tried to be close to the truth because they know journalists are paying attention, but with all the problems of the news industry politicians have concluded they can get away with murder…”

But West acknowledged that politicians are less concerned about being exposed by reporters. “Politicians think that the news media have completely collapsed, based on the financial crisis, and so they are acting as if there’s no accountability and they can say whatever they want,” he said.

West makes a great point about American journalists having as little integrity as Republican candidates. Since their employers are either corporations controlled by Republicans or clown who consider news as entertainment – or both – there’s little encouragement for any of them to point out any of the lies or liars.

Applications developers looking for a low power, small form factor computing solution that won’t break the bank will no doubt appreciate the DreamPlug from Globalscale Technologies. Expanding on the company’s GuruPlug system, the new low-profile plug computer is powered by a Marvell processor, has half a gigabyte of DDR2 RAM and a generous helping of onboard micro-SD flash memory to store the Linux kernal and root system files. Physical connectivity and expansion options include USB, eSATA, JTAG and UART and the unit also has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless capabilities.

Unlike the similarly compact Jack PC, the 4.3 x 2.73 x 1.9-inch (110 x 69.5 x 48.5mm) DreamPlug doesn’t offer onboard graphics. This always-on computing solution would therefore most likely find itself being used for such things as high-end audio systems or media servers, home and industrial automation, network storage and monitoring and security/surveillance systems…

The last-named being an area where I used to spend some time earning a living. Wish I had hardware like this available, this small, this cheap, back in the day.

Connectivity takes the form of a couple of Gigabit Ethernet ports, an eSATA port, a couple of USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR. Both analog and digital audio output are on offer, with S/PDIF audio out taking care of the digital and analog being provided by stereo headphone and mic jacks.

The DreamPlug is far from power hungry, having a draw of under 5W – which is not quite as energy efficient as the Plug PC or the Trim-Slice but it’s still pretty impressive.

I can see hobbyists loading this critter up with their favorite Linux distro and running a media center or a bank of webcams. You can set it up with a keyboard, mouse and monitor – then take the externals away and communicate with whatever system you’ve designed – through Bluetooth or WiFi.

Pricing starts at $149.

Blood-spattered, flesh-eating monsters have been roaming the Cuban capital, Havana, in recent months – all part of filming for the country’s first zombie movie.

Bearing a similar title to Britain’s 2004 comedy horror Shaun Of The Dead, Juan Of The Dead’s plot is actually closer to the 1984 ghoul classic Ghostbusters.

In the film, an entire city is overrun by zombies while Cuba’s Communist leaders insist it is just a plot by US-backed dissidents to bring down the government.

So it is left to hero Juan – played by Cuban actor Alexis Diaz de Villegas – to rid the island of the undead for money. But as the zombie outbreak begins to spread, he is left with no choice but to fight for his own survival.

The film, due for release later this year, was written and directed by 34-year-old Alejandro Brugues.

It is only his second movie since graduating from Cuba’s International School of Film and Television.

“It’s a zombie film but it’s about Cubans and how we react in the face of a crisis because we’ve had a lot of them here over the last 50 years,” Brugues told the BBC World Service’s The Strand.

“It is a social comedy, it has a bit of everything. It has horror, it has action and it pretty much laughs in the face of problems…”

A theme that played well in the United States during the Great Depression. Not that we did it very well this time around – through the Great Recession.

On title alone – Juan of the dead should do well at the box office and on the Syfy Channel.

Hope he grows the beard back

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, on his final day in office Friday, did not pardon legendary outlaw Billy the Kid.

“It was a very close call,” Richardson said from his office in Santa Fe when announcing he “decided not to pardon Billy the Kid,” one of New Mexico’s more infamous native sons, on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Richardson said his decision was based in part on ambiguity surrounding the record in which territorial Gov. Lew Wallace agreed to pardon Billy the Kid — real name Henry McCarty but also known as Henry Antrim and William H. Bonney — in exchange for the outlaw’s testimony in a range war killing, but later reneged on his promise.

Billy the Kid testified but “Wallace didn’t keep his end of the bargain,” Richardson said, and the criminal, romanticized by oral tradition and Hollywood, later shot and killed two deputies…

Richardson said a decision about Billy the Kid’s fate in this matter was important because “this is America’s history” and the issue has festered since 1881.

Legend says Billy the Kid killed 21 men but it is generally accepted that he killed between four and nine before he was shot to death by Sheriff Pat Garrett at the age of 21.

This is a special chuckle here in New Mexico. As well as Governor Bill plays the media in New Mexico, he games the national and international media-types even more thoroughly.

That’s OK, though. Next week our shiny new Republican governor takes office and she can start increasing the unemployment numbers with the state employees she will lay-off. Newspapers and TV will forget about the Lincoln County wars for another decade or so.

Security barriers begin to go up – don’t fall in the water!

Canada’s government has been criticised for spending huge sums to host G8 and G20 summits at the end of June, including two million dollars on a fake lake inside the media centre.

The artificial lake will reportedly include canoes, trees, lounge chairs and a fake dock.

It is being built in downtown Toronto to showcase the site of the June 25-26 G8 summit in Huntsville, 140 miles north of Toronto, which is to be accessible to only a small pool of journalists…

Liberal and New Democrat MPs ridiculed the Conservative government in the House for spending lavishly on the lake, as well as earmarking nearly one billion dollars for summit security.

“We have a government here that has to create an artificial lake when Canada has more lakes than just about any other country in the world,” said NDP leader Jack Layton…

Liberal MP Mark Holland said: “Did anyone in government not think that two million dollars (on a) fake lake to host a 72-hour meeting on fiscal restraint was a bad idea?”

Government flunkies say they need an appropriate backdrop for the media of the world. I’d suggest the nearest politician’s hospitality suite.

Apple’s iTunes music store will soon reach 10 billion songs sold since its inception in April of 2003, and is marking this accomplishment with a contest rewarding the purchaser of the 10 billionth song a $10,000 iTunes card.

While Apple’s iTunes took nearly three years to reach its first billion, it will soon surpass 10 billion songs sold since the online music service was introduced in 2003…

“iTunes changed the way you buy music, making songs and albums available for download, day or night. Seven years later, we’re about to celebrate our biggest milestone for music, yet — 10 billion songs downloaded,” states Apple’s website.

You can enter at the site without a purchase, BTW.

Apple celebrated 3 billion songs sold in July of 2007 after four years of sales. Thursday’s contest announcement reveals that sales trends since then have greatly increased. iTunes has taken only three years to make its 10 billion song milestone.

In many ways, iTunes has been a core qualitative change in entertainment communications – usually unmentioned by pundits who only focus on hardware and the software running on that hardware.

iTunes and the AppleTV serve the same function for programs, documentaries, I download from the Web and import into iTunes to be distributed throughout the house as required. It’s all simple and easy – as it should be. I don’t mind mentioning, as I often have to content providers, if you’re sensible enough to make your content available on iTunes the market for your intellectual wares is broadened and deepened so much more over making consumers search for it through the whole web.

Update WINNER: Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia. The 10 billionth song downloaded? “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash.

Living in America, it is easy to forget that the plot to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day actually failed.

No one was killed and – apart from the plotter himself and the man who tackled him – no one was hurt.

Yet the country seems to be reeling.

Pundit after pundit frets that the threat is not being taken seriously enough, that the world – changed after 9/11 forever – has just changed again and that America is insufficiently aware of just how serious this is…

Military fighter jets escorted an airliner back to a Midwest airport when a passenger would not put away his hand luggage.

Newark airport was closed when a man nipped under a security barrier to kiss his girlfriend and several flights have been cancelled after sniffer dogs started barking. The culprit in one case – a jar of honey! It is a sticky business getting it right…

Terrorists want to create terror. It is in the job description..!

Of course it is one of Obama’s trade marks that he is cool and analytical but the commentators want, not a problem solver, but an emoter-in-chief.

They have a political objective but their complaint boils down to the fact he did not appear frightened enough. He was not terrified.

The danger is that al-Qaeda did succeed on Christmas Day with the help of their unwitting foot soldiers in the American mass media.

The United States has been a nation of obedient hypocrites for so long, I think the American people don’t even recognize when they are being herded from one corral to another. A nation of sheep, so accustomed to being told how to part their hair, how to dress and smell – that whether it’s Madison Avenue hucksters or Karl Rove and his liar-in-chief, Dick Cheney – the patriotic American public says “How high do you want me to jump, sir!”

Three tabloid newspapers have been secretly filmed at meetings they thought were concerned with the possible purchase of private medical information about public figures who had undergone cosmetic surgery.

The Sunday Mirror, News of the World and People were caught in the sting after they were approached by an undercover documentary-maker. He claimed to have a contact working as an administrative nurse in what was in fact a fictitious cosmetic surgery clinic.

The newspapers were offered the chance to obtain confidential medical information about famous clients of the clinic, including actors Hugh Grant, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans and Ricky Gervais. There is no evidence any of the celebrities received consultations for surgery, and the filmmaker, Chris Atkins, said he came up with the hoax to test “how far tabloid journalists are prepared to go” in pursuit of intrusive information.

The response of three tabloids, which sent journalists to meet the undercover documentary-maker, ranged from cautious expressions of interest to an offer of £3,000 for every story printed and a request for the nurse to obtain a “document on everything” held at the clinic.

A fourth Sunday tabloid, the Sunday Express, refused to meet Atkins, telling him his proposal breached the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) code, could be deemed illegal and constituted “a gross breach of ethics”.

The documentary, Starsuckers, will open at the London Film Festival this month before going on show at independent cinemas across the country.

Always a heartwarming treat to see thugs and hustlers trapped in their own slime.

Vicki Reggie Kennedy at memorial for her husband Senator Edward Kennedy

The Massachusetts Senate voted on Tuesday to allow the governor to name an interim U.S. Senate replacement for the late Edward Kennedy and fill a key 60th seat for the Democrats during the healthcare battle.

The heavily Democratic state Senate passed the bill 24 to 16, following approval by the state House of Representatives last week. The bill will go back to both chambers on Wednesday for a final vote and then requires a signature from Governor Deval Patrick, a Democrat who backs the legislation.

Patrick is likely to name a temporary replacement for Kennedy within days and is certain to pick a Democrat. That will return the party to the 60 votes it needs in the U.S. Senate to override Republican procedural hurdles, giving President Barack Obama a boost as he tries to get healthcare reform and other contentious legislation passed this year…

Without an interim replacement, Kennedy’s seat would have lain vacant until a January 19 special election of a permanent senator to serve through 2012, hurting Obama’s plan to pass an overhaul this year of the $2.5 trillion healthcare system.

I was chuckling over newspaper articles claiming Blue Dog Democrats were going to keep this from happening. They may be in the pocket of corporate lobbyists slightly more often than run-of-the-mill Dems; but, Massachusetts is still a state with above average education [for the U.S.A.] and an electorate with some understanding of how to function as part of a nation.

Multitaskers of media activities like watching YouTube, writing e-mail and talking on the phone are not very good at any of their tasks, according to a Stanford University report.

Researchers who published the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences said the results had surprised them. They were looking for the secret to good media multitaskers but instead found broad-based incompetence.

“Heavy multitaskers are lousy at multitasking… The more you do it, the worse you get,” said Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass.

Compulsive media multitaskers are worse at focusing their attention, worse at organizing information, and worse at quickly switching between tasks, the Stanford scientists wrote…

“We knew that multitasking was difficult from a cognitive perspective. We thought, ‘What’s this special ability that people have that allows them to multitask?’ … Rather than finding things that they were doing better, we found things they were doing worse,” Stanford symbolic systems professor Eyal Ophir said.

I wonder how this would play out in other cultures, other nations?

For example, nations without decades of dedication to ignoring commercials. Add that to MTV and Americans have the attention span of a cricket,