“It’s encounters like this that make me think Emily Bell might be right when she ranks Twitter up there with the printing press as one of the great all-time inventions for journalists.”
—Twitter awesomeness: I get schooled in genetic sequencing | The Panic Virus
August 2012
35 posts
“One 53.7-metre yacht with a designer interior, a spa pool, waterfall and wine cellar is relegated to second best. “The real diamond of the Kremlin flotilla,” the report says, is a five-decked yacht with a jacuzzi, barbecue, a maple wood colonnade and a huge bathroom faced in marble. A 930-hectare (2,300-acre) residence on Lake Valdai in northwestern Russia has a cinema, a bowling alley and a “presidential church”, the report said.”
—“Galley slave” Putin savours yachts, planes, palaces, critics say - TrustLaw
“Over the last 12 months both Facebook and Twitter have quietly removed RSS links from their webpages, eliminating an easy way to receive notifications without the need to interact with the services directly. Meanwhile Google+ has never offered RSS feeds. Of course it’s clear that these social media services have an interest in killing off RSS. They all want to usurp its role as the web’s universal subscription platform and become the de facto gatekeepers of the web.”
—
Apple joins the war on RSS Gerd Leonhard comments: the ever increasing death of The Commons - this can’t be a good thing for the majority of users… (via futuristgerd)
FJP: Everyone wants to control the plumbing.
(via futurejournalismproject)
If the Reuters blogsite stays down… | Felix Salmon →
felixsalmon.com
What should I do? Please answer this poll!
“I like to think of the Treasury and the Fed as two characters in the Mafia movie The Godfather.”
—An actual line from Paddy Hirsch’s new book. And it gets better: apparently the Treasury secretary is Tom Hagen (the Robert Duvall character), while the Fed chairman is Luca Brasi. (“Brasi is a hired gun. He’s highly trusted by the Corleones, but he’s not a family member.”)
“It’s a pretty nice gesture by the old man,” said Michael McAllister, a partner at Satterlee Stephens Burke & Burke LLP in New York who specializes in employment law within the securities industry.”
—Carl Icahn Hands Son Brett $3 Billion to Prove His Mettle - Bloomberg
The Veepstakes Postmortem
1. Paul Begala: Rob Portman (link)
2. Mark Halperin: Rob Portman (link)
3. Charles Krauthammer: Marco Rubio (link)
4. Chris Matthews: Marco Rubio (link) or Rick Perry (link)
5. Robert Reich: Marco Rubio (link)
6. Dick Morris: Marco Rubio (link)
7. Eleanor Clift: Rob Portman (link)
8. John McLaughlin: Rob Portman (link)
9. Mark Shields: Rob Portman (link)
10. Michael Tomasky: Susana Martinez (link)
11. Rich Lowry: Rob Portman or Bob McDonnell (link)
12. Mort Zuckerman: Rob Portman (link)
“One Stapleton driver drives less and spends less due to the price of gas. “It’s ridiculous,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. “They need to lower these prices. I don’t drive as much, plus I have a V8. They should have some mercy on the guys that have the V8 engines, the big engines. “It’s not even worth it to drive to Jersey to buy gas unless you’re going there for some other reason,” he added.”
—Staten Islanders getting pummeled at the pump | SILive.com
“One of the things that surprised me in investigating parking in Zurich was that the city has an inventory of all parking in the city; even more surprising, this inventory goes back to 1908.”
—
Any other city, this might well be surprising. In Zurich? Not so much.
Lessons From Zurich’s Parking Revolution - Commute - The Atlantic Cities
“When I think about the direction our country is rapidly drifting in, I can’t help but look at California as a cautionary tale. The Golden State once boasted the entrepreneurial innovation of Silicon Valley, the American creative engine of the arts, economically powerful and beautiful cities from San Francisco to San Diego, and fertile farmlands that helped feed the nation. Now it is descending into financial ruin accompanied by an exodus of middle class Californians leaving for other states. As one writer put it, California’s “fastest-growing entity is government and its biggest product is red tape.” Obama’s vision for America will make the rest of the country look like California.”
—
Sarah Palin, national treasure.
“The good news is that India’s one per cent club is growing rapidly. Sample this. In 1993-94, the top quintile or top 20 per cent of households in India accounted for 37 per cent of total income. This grew to 53 per cent of total income in 2009-10, and is expected to touch 59 per cent by 2014-15.”
—
I love the idea that the 1% can be “growing rapidly”. And/or, that rising income inequality is “good news”.
Say something about this
Together we can take it to the end of the line
Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time
I don’t know what to do and I’m always in the dark
We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks
Really. That’s all I can say.
