Tag Archives: apple

Films to Quench Your 60’s Music Nostalgia

by HymanLeist Posted on December 12, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Beatles
Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years
Capitol/UMe

T.A.M.I. Show/The Big T.N.T. Show
Shout! Factory

Courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd./UMe

Nostalgic fans of a certain age who like to pontificate about how great music was in the ’60s can cite a couple of new home video releases to back up their argument. Directed by Ron Howard, documentary Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years offers a concise, 100-minute survey of the Fab Four’s career up to the point they stopped touring in 1966. Inevitably, it only skims the surface, but the music is (of course) terrific and the footage of the lads sending audiences into a hysterical frenzy captures the bizarre, sometimes frightening energy of the day. Extras on the two-disc edition include charming reminiscences by American fans and uncut performances of five songs that prove what a cooking live act they were. While The Beatles probably had to stop touring just to preserve their sanity, it’s hard not to conclude from this engaging film that a special spark left their music when they retired from the road, even as their artistic ambitions expanded exponentially.

T.A.M.I. Show/The Big T.N.T. Show pairs two mid-’60s concert films presenting rock and soul acts live on stage, each delivering a brief set in the style of multiple-artist package tours of the day. The previously available T.A.M.I. Show offers strong performances from the likes of Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, The Beach Boys, Lesley Gore and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, among others, as well as a few duds, but the centerpiece remains James Brown’s surreal, over-the-top display of genius. Writhing and shouting, yet always fully in control, the Godfather of Soul embodies performance art at its mind bending best, and makes the Rolling Stones, who follow him in the movie, seem like capable but callow little boys by comparison. (T.A.M.I. is “Teenage Awards Music International,” fyi, but there were no such awards.)

Long unavailable, The Big T.N.T. Show isn’t quite in the same league, but more than bears watching. Highlights include the sloppy and charming Lovin’ Spoonful, witty country songsmith Roger Miller and early rock’n’roll great Bo Diddley, laying down deep grooves (not to mention The Byrds, Ray Charles and The Ronettes). The weirdest moment occurs when folk queen Joan Baez fronts an orchestra for a faithful cover of The Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” with Phil Spector, who produced the original, conducting the musicians. It’s as astounding in its own puzzling way as James Brown’s titanic “Please Please Please.” Those were the (strange) days.

Original post: 

Films to Quench Your 60’s Music Nostalgia

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Films to Quench Your 60’s Music Nostalgia

Google Says It Will Achieve 100 Percent Renewable Energy Next Year

by EfrenGell0 Posted on December 7, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Tech giants are jockeying to be the first to hit a 100 percent renewable energy goal. Google, which has invested in solar and wind energy for a decade, intends to get there by 2017.

Google is the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy and plans to buy enough wind and solar energy to offset all the electricity used by its 13 data centers and offices in 150 cities worldwide, the company said Tuesday.

Apple seems close to reaching its own 100 percent goal as well. The company said it achieved 93 percent in 2015. An Apple spokeswoman said the company has yet to set a year for when they would likely cross the finish line.

For Google, hitting the 100 percent target means for every unit of electricity it consumes—typically from coal or natural gas power plants—it would buy a unit of wind or solar electricity. The company wouldn’t say how much electricity it will need to have purchased by the end of next year to reach its 100 percent goal, but did say that the amount would exceed the 5.7 terawatt-hours solar and wind energy that it bought in 2015.

“We want to run our business in an environmentally responsible way, and energy consumption is the largest portion,” said Neha Palmer, head of energy strategy and development at Google’s Global Infrastructure Group.

Google is taking a big leap to that 100 percent goal, having achieved just 37 percent in 2014. The company has invested in renewable energy ever since it kicked off the construction of a 1.6-megawatt solar energy system in 2006. Since 2010, it’s signed 2.6 gigawatts worth of solar and wind contracts.

The tech giant isn’t alone in setting the 100 percent target. A global campaign to promote 100 percent renewable energy use in the business world includes Ikea, Facebook, Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson.

Businesses, like homeowners, have historically relied on their local utilities for power. In 2015, about 67 percent of the electricity generated in the United States came from fossil fuels. Businesses would have to build and run their own solar or wind farms if they want to hit their 100 percent more quickly, but that will require hefty investments and expertise they don’t have. As a result, when companies set strong renewable energy goals, they often reach them by buying enough solar and wind electricity or renewable energy credits to offset their use of electricity from coal or natural gas power plants.

Some companies, such as Google and Microsoft, have invested in solar and wind power plants to help increase the amount of renewable energy in the local electric grids. Or, using their clout as large energy customers, they work on convincing their local utilities to invest in renewable energy.

Once extremely expensive, solar and wind have seen their prices falling significantly in the past 10 years. Government tax breaks have also helped to make solar and wind more affordable to both businesses and homeowners.

The price for building large solar farms that have the scale to supply utilities dropped 12 percent in 2015, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, part of the US Department of Energy.

Market analysts expect the prices to continue to fall even with the abundance of cheap coal and natural gas. The pressure on countries around the world to meet their targets from the Paris climate agreement, which went into effect last month, will make renewable energy attractive, said Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The research firm has projected that solar and wind will become the cheapest sources of electricity for “most of the world” after 2030.

“Renewable energy has become incredibly cost effective,” said Dan Kammen, a professor of energy at the University of California-Berkeley. “There is no company on the planet that can’t make a 100 percent energy target a viable, cost-effective strategy.”

Yet most businesses have yet to set a renewable energy target. That’s because cost isn’t the only issue. Big companies tend to have an advantage over smaller firms because they have the resources to understand the energy markets and negotiate contracts to buy renewable energy, said Colin Smith, solar analyst for GTM Research.

“You’re talking about very complex deals and arrangements with unique risk profiles that most companies aren’t fully well equipped to understand,” he said.

Google currently pays for wind and solar power from 20 renewable energy projects in the United States and abroad, in places such as Sweden and Chile. However, it doesn’t limit itself to buying solar and wind only in regions where it operates and sees itself as a champion of reducing the emissions produced by the electric industry, which is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

“Wind and solar developers couldn’t get financing without us guaranteeing to pay for the power in the long term,” said Palmer.

Setting the 100 percent renewable energy goal is not the only way to reduce a company’s carbon footprint, said Dan Reicher, executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University.

Businesses should first look at cutting down on their energy use and becoming more energy efficient, said Reicher. That will then reduce the amount of renewable energy they need to procure.

“Energy efficiency tends not to sound as sexy, just as putting solar panels on your roof is more interesting than putting an efficient furnace in your basement,” he said. “But from an economic and environmental perspective, you want to start with energy efficiency.”

Reicher also noted that electricity isn’t always the biggest source of energy for a business. FedEx, for example, uses far more energy in transportation, he said.

“Often a big chunk of a company’s business goes beyond electricity,” said Reicher. “What are they doing on the industrial side, on the transportation side, for heating and cooling?”

The election of Donald Trump as president has worried renewable energy supporters about the progress made to make solar and wind competitive against coal and natural gas.

With the new administration under Donald Trump, renewable energy supporters worry that the government will stop supporting renewable energy. Trump has vowed to revive the coal industry, which has seen half a dozen bankruptcies in recent years as it struggles to compete with the cheaper natural gas. But whether the new administration will create anti-renewable energy policies remains to be seen, Reicher said.

Google doesn’t anticipate changes to its renewable energy initiatives in the near future.

“The results of any one election won’t change our plans,” said Palmer.

This article: 

Google Says It Will Achieve 100 Percent Renewable Energy Next Year

Posted in alo, ATTRA, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, solar, solar panels, solar power, Uncategorized, Venta, wind energy, wind power | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Google Says It Will Achieve 100 Percent Renewable Energy Next Year

Happy Anniversary to Us!

by LukeBusby011 Posted on October 21, 2016

Mother Jones

Mother Jones was born in 1976 (the same year, incidentally, as Apple Computer, The Muppet Show, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Big Red gum). We celebrated our birthday on October 20 with a gala where former Republican Party Chair Michael Steele made some news, and where we also premiered a new video that takes you inside MoJo‘s journalism.

We’re on a mission to save investigative reporting by building a new, reader-supported revenue model. If you think this kind of journalism is an essential element of our democracy, please make a tax-deductible gift now.

Original article – 

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Happy Anniversary to Us!

You know the drill: 11 of the last 12 months hit record high temps.

by JustinaWalder9 Posted on October 17, 2016

The company is reportedly focusing instead on developing software for driverless vehicles that could be used by other car companies.

The shift has led to a mass exodus at Apple’s secretive car division, Project Titan, anonymous sources tell Bloomberg News. Hundreds of people from the once-1,000-person-strong team have either been reassigned to other divisions, been let go, or quit, though some new people have also been added.

In 2008, after Apple released the iPhone, Steve Jobs talked with Tony Fadell, a senior VP at Apple, about taking on a car as the company’s next game-changer, and redesigning it from scratch. “What would a dashboard be?” Fadell said, describing one conversation. “What would seats be? How would you fuel it or power it?”

But those big dreams seem to have hit hard realities. Among other things, Apple had trouble getting suppliers to make small quantities of parts, Bloomberg reports. Ultimately, it’s very difficult for a company to get into the car manufacturing business — even an established tech behemoth. And for those of us who’d like to see more innovation in the transportation sector, that’s too bad.

Read article here – 

You know the drill: 11 of the last 12 months hit record high temps.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, Goodmans, LG, ONA, PUR, Ringer, Ultima, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on You know the drill: 11 of the last 12 months hit record high temps.

Is the First National Bank of Cupertino Coming Soon to an iPhone Near You?

by Sherita73O Posted on March 29, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Today the FBI announced that it had managed to unlock Syed Farook’s iPhone without Apple’s help. So that particular fight is over for now. But why was Apple so hellbent on refusing to help the FBI in the first place? Was it really because they’ve suddenly decided to become the white knight of consumer privacy and mass surveillance backlash? Maybe! Or maybe there’s more to it.

Hold that thought for a moment and consider something else: Apple is sitting on a cash hoard of $150 billion that it seemingly can’t find a use for. Stock buybacks, acquisitions, R&D—those are all fine, but there’s no way these things can make much of a dent in a bankroll that’s this big and still growing. You need to think different—way different—to find a good use for that much dough. So what’s the plan?

Charlie Stross has a suggestion. Although $150 billion might be a lot for an ordinary company, it’s a pretty modest sum if you’re thinking of capitalizing a bank. So maybe that’s what Apple plans to do with it:

I’m going to assume you know what Apple Pay is: you use your iPhone, iPad, or Watch as a trusted, authenticated identity token in a shop to pay for stuff. It ties into your bank account and basically your phone swallows your debit and credit card.

Ultimately the banks are going to discover—the hard way—that getting into bed with Apple was a bad idea….Apple is de facto an investment bank, right now: all it needs is a banking license and the right back end and regulatory oversight and risk management and it will be able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of Chase or Barclays or HSBC as a consumer bank, too.

….Here’s my theory: Apple see their long term future as including a global secure payments infrastructure that takes over the role of Visa and Mastercard’s networks—and ultimately of spawning a retail banking subsidiary to provide financial services directly, backed by some of their cash stockpile.

The FBI thought they were asking for a way to unlock a mobile phone….They did not understand that they were actually asking for a way to tracelessly unlock and mess with every ATM and credit card on the planet circa 2030….If the FBI get what they want, then the back door will be installed and the next-generation payments infrastructure will be just as prone to fraud as the last-generation card infrastructure, with its card skimmers and identity theft.

And this is why Tim Cook is willing to go to the mattresses with the US department of justice over iOS security: if nobody trusts their iPhone, nobody will be willing to trust the next-generation Apple Bank, and Apple is going to lose their best option for securing their cash pile as it climbs towards the stratosphere.

It’s as good a guess as any, I suppose. When you outgrow the biggest normal business sector in the world, what’s left except to become a bank?

Link: 

Is the First National Bank of Cupertino Coming Soon to an iPhone Near You?

Posted in alternative energy, FF, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Ultima, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Is the First National Bank of Cupertino Coming Soon to an iPhone Near You?

Was the Great Ad Blocker Freakout of 2015 Justified?

by bileteavion Posted on March 23, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Six months ago, after years of power surfers happily using ad blockers with no real problems, Apple decided to ruin things for everyone by supporting ad blocking in its products. Since everything Apple does is, by definition, the most pivotal event ever in the tech world—if you happen to work in the online journalism biz, anyway—this caused instant panic in the online journalism biz. Suddenly you could hardly click your mouse without running into a site nagging you about your ad blocker, or even flatly refusing to allow you in unless you turned the blocker off.

It’s time to take stock. Was this panic justified? The use of ad-blocking apps has certainly grown over the past few years, but has it specifically skyrocketed since Apple’s announcement? I’m unable to find any reliable data on this score, and my gut tells me that the panic over this was probably unjustified, as panic usually is.

Needless to say, though, my gut is not infallible. I’d prefer actual evidence. With the benefit of several months for tempers to calm, I think it’s time for someone to examine this and tell us what’s really happened. Who out there has the data to do this?

View the original here – 

Was the Great Ad Blocker Freakout of 2015 Justified?

Posted in alternative energy, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Was the Great Ad Blocker Freakout of 2015 Justified?

Ever Wondered What Happens to All Those Old iPhones?

by KoryE15urb Posted on March 1, 2016

What happens when electronics come to the end of their useful life? For the vast majority of these devices, they either collect dust somewhere in our homes or offices or get sent to the landfill.According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, only12.5 percentofelectronic waste,or e-waste, is recycled in the U.S.

Bloombergrecently dug intoApples e-wasteproblemnamely the fate of the more than 570 million smartphonesthat have been sold since the first generation iPhone debuted in Jan. 9, 2007and found that the tech giant has collected more than 40,000 tons of e-waste in 2014, recovering enough steel to lay 100 miles of railway track.

Apple has sold 570 million iPhones in the past 9 years. What happens to these phones when they reach the end of the road? Photo credit:Flickr

Its clear that our increasingly digital world has left ashocking impact on our planet. These gadgetsrequire amassive amount of energyto manufacture and its potentially hazardouscomponents can havea toxic and evendeadlyimprint on planetary inhabitants.

With agrowing number of smartphones, computers andtablets piling up in our drawers or the landfill, United Nations officialsestimatedthat the volume of e-waste generated worldwide is expected to climb by 33 percent by 2017 to 65 million tons.

Apple will have to face thismounting e-wastecatastrophe as each

new product

comes along. However, asLisa Jackson, Apples vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives told Bloomberg,Apple has led theindustry in recycling efforts:

In the electronics recycling business, the benchmark is to try to collect and recycle 70 percent, by weight, of the devices produced seven years earlier. Jackson says Apple exceeds that, typically reaching 85 percent, including recycling some non-Apple products that customers bring in.

That means it will have to get hold of and destroy the equivalent of more than 9 million of 2009s iPhone 3GS models this year around the world. With iPhone sales climbing to 155 million units last fiscal year, grinding up Apple products is a growth business.

Apple has afree reuse and recycling programthat allows users to turn in their old iPhones, iPads or computers (Mac or PC) for Apple gift cards if the device qualifies for reuse. If it doesnt qualify for reuse, Apple will recycle it at no cost to the consumer.

Apple works with the Hong Kong-based electronics recycler Li Tong Group that follows a strict and secretivemulti-stepprocess that consists of breaking down every single element of an old phone and capturing 100 percent of thechemicals and gasses thats released during the process, Bloomberg reported.

Jackson saidthat the never-endingbuildup of new tech gear is a global issue.

Theres an e-waste problem in the world, JacksontoldBloomberg. If we really want to leave the world better than we found it, we have to invest in ways to go further than what happens now.

Jackson, who once headedthe U.S. Environmental Protection Agecny, has achieveda number of green initiatives since she was tapped to take charge ofApples environmental affairs in 2013. Frombanning a number oftoxicchemicalsfrom their products tooverseeingthe companys $1.5 billion green bond,the largest such bond from a U.S. business.

Apple has banned these chemicals in their products out of concern for the environment. Photo credit: Apple

The Cupertino, California-based company is currently running its entire nation-wide operation on 100 percent renewable energy and has committed to running its overseas supply chain on renewables as well.

I think people expect it of us. I think our customers hold us to a high standard, Jackson told Bloomberg.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is a big believer in big businessestaking charge on environmental sustainability.

The environment must also be on the business agenda, hesaidin a speech at Bocconi University in Italy in November.

As business leaders, we have a responsibility to address this, and urgently, he continued. We have obligations to our companies and our shareholders becauseclimate changeimpacts supply chains, energy crises and overall economic stability.

Written by Lorraine Chow. Reposted with permission from EcoWatch.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

See the original article here:

Ever Wondered What Happens to All Those Old iPhones?

Posted in alo, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Ever Wondered What Happens to All Those Old iPhones?

This Case Just Gave Apple Some Major Ammo in Its Fight With the FBI

by AngeloLcgdvmdq Posted on March 1, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A federal judge in New York denied the government’s request to make Apple help unlock the iPhone of a suspect in a drug case, potentially dealing a major blow to the FBI’s effort to compel the company to assist the bureau in accessing an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters.

In both cases, the government requested that Apple help bypass the lock screen security on an iPhone to assist a federal investigation. The New York case was one of at least 12 in which Apple has refused to give the government the technical assistance it was seeking. The government’s argument in each case rested on the All Writs Act, a law first passed in 1789 that allows the government to issue orders, or writs, that are “necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.” But that power is also subject to limitation, including such orders being a last resort and not imposing an “undue burden” on the person or organization to which it applies.

Apple argued the government’s requests overstepped its ability to demand cooperation. “We’re being forced to become an agent of law enforcement,” complained Apple’s lawyer, Marc Zwillinger, in arguments in the New York case last year, and Judge James Orenstein agreed. “After reviewing the facts in the record and the parties’ arguments, I conclude that none of those factors justifies imposing on Apple the obligation to assist the government’s investigation,” he wrote in his decision issued on Monday evening.

Orenstein echoed points made by Apple in its challenge last week to the court order in the San Bernardino case. The company wrote that the government’s demand that Apple write new software for the FBI created a “boundless interpretation” of the All Writs Act, allowing the government to order virtually any assistance it wanted. The court filing raised the specter of “compelling a pharmaceutical company against its will to produce drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection in furtherance of a lawfully issued death warrant, or requiring a journalist to plant a false story in order to help lure out a fugitive.” Orenstein similarly wrote that he rejected “the government’s interpretation that the All Writs Act empowers a court to grant any relief not outright prohibited by law.”

The judge’s ruling in the New York case rested on another Apple-friendly premise: the notion that what the government wants “is unavailable because Congress has considered legislation that would achieve the same result but has not adopted it.” Apple’s court filing argued that “Congress and the American people have withheld” the power to make companies break the security features of their own phones—for example, by expanding federal wiretapping laws to include cellphones—and thus the government should not be allowed to simply take that power through court orders. Orenstein backed that argument, saying that forcing Apple to comply would “transform the All Writs Act from a limited gap-filling statute…into a mechanism for upending the separation of powers.”

Even if the All Writs Act applied, Orenstein wrote, he found that the government’s request would still place an undue burden on the company. That’s further good news for Apple’s argument in the San Bernardino case. The company says complying with that order would take a team of 6 to 10 engineers at least two weeks to write the necessary software, and the technical assistance that Orenstein rejected in the New York case is less complicated.

Sheri Pym, the federal judge in the San Bernardino case, actually granted the FBI a court order similar to the one Orenstein rejected on Monday. But she kept her order from taking effect until Apple filed its challenge. And while the New York and San Bernardino cases aren’t identical, Orenstein’s ruling, as FBI Director James Comey put it in a congressional hearing last week, will likely be “instructive” as Pym considers Apple’s argument—and could severely dent the FBI’s hopes of getting the powers it wants.

Visit site: 

This Case Just Gave Apple Some Major Ammo in Its Fight With the FBI

Posted in Anchor, Casio, FF, Gandhi, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Case Just Gave Apple Some Major Ammo in Its Fight With the FBI

We Are Live-Blogging the GOP Debate in Houston

by ChaunceKozak Posted on February 26, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Well, that was bracing. Rubio and Cruz obviously both decided to take on Donald Trump at the same time, and they actually gave Trump some trouble. Aside from simply attacking him more than usual, they adopted the Trumpian tactic of interrupting at every opportunity so he had a hard time responding coherently. The downside is that it made the whole debate look a bit like kindergarten play time. The upside is that they finally got under Trump’s skin.

Trump ran into a couple of land mines tonight. Asked about his tax returns, he made up a feeble excuse about how he’s always being audited and that’s why he can’t release his returns. He could release them anyway, of course, and he can certainly release returns from a few years ago, since presumably those audits are done. He’s going to have to address that, though he can probably bluster his way past it long enough to get through Super Tuesday. In any case, Trump tried to make it look like he’s being persecuted by the IRS with all these audits, but Rubio and Cruz now have a really good attack line: If Trump is being audited, maybe there’s something fishy going on. Shouldn’t the public know about that?

The other land mine was on health care. Dana Bash joined Cruz and Rubio in pressing Trump on whether there was anything more to his health care plan than simply allowing insurance companies to compete across the entire country (in debatespeak, this was “getting rid of the lines”). Oddly enough, Trump allowed himself to get pressured into saying that this was literally his entire plan, which even for Trump strains the boundaries of idiocy. “Getting rid of the lines” might or might not be a good idea (it’s probably a good idea if it’s properly regulated), but its effect on health care costs would be quite modest. Beyond that, suggesting that insurance companies would all be happy to insure people with pre-existing conditions if the lines were eliminated—well, I’m not sure what to say about that. It’s fantasy land.

Trump had a minor hiccup when he claimed that the US has the highest taxes in the world. He probably meant to say that we have the highest corporate rates—which is close to true if you look at statutory rates—but instead he insisted that this applied to everything: “We pay more business tax, we pay more personal tax. We have the highest taxes in the world.” That’s basically the opposite of the truth. But I suppose this is the kind of flub that never seems to hurt him.

Best line of the night: After Trump reminded everyone about Rubio’s repeat-o-matic meltdown a couple of weeks ago, Rubio produced the night’s best zinger: “I see him repeat himself every night, he says five things: everyone’s dumb, he’s gonna make America great again, we’re going to win, win win, he’s winning in the polls, and the lines around the state. Every night.” It’s funny because it’s true! And I’m not even sure if it was rehearsed.

Scorecard: I think Trump took some real hits tonight. He could start to lose a few points in the polls, especially if he spends the next week fending off questions about his tax returns and his $1 million fine and his health care plan. Rubio and Cruz both did well, but I give Rubio the edge. His attacks were a little sharper and the rest of his debate performance was a little better. Carson and Kasich were, of course, nonentities. Never has it been so obvious that no one cares about them anymore.

Debate transcript here.

10:53 – And that’s a wrap.

10:52 – Trump: Politicians are all talk, no action. Vote Trump!

10:51 – Cruz: Blah blah blah. He’ll do everything.

10:50 – Rubio: The time for games is over. We need to bring an end to “the silliness, the looniness.”

10:50 – Kasich says he has loads of experience. He wants people to “think about” giving him their vote.

10:49 – Closing statements! Carson says his hands have saved lots of lives.

10:44 – When are we going to get a question about general relativity?

10:39 – Kasich thinks President Obama should have brokered an agreement with Apple. You bet. That would have worked great.

10:36 – Rubio says the government isn’t asking Apple to create a backdoor for the iPhone. In fact, that’s exactly what they’re asking for. Rubio clearly has no idea what a backdoor is.

10:34 – Wolf has completely lost control of this debate. In fairness, I’m not sure anyone could do any better.

10:32 – Cruz does an extended riff on Trump being a liar. Trump responds with an attack on Cruz for his Iowa shenanigans.

10:30 – Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are now in a three-way fight. Trump: “He’s a joke artist Rubio and he’s a liar Cruz.”

10:25 – Donald Trump is not just criticizing the Libya war, he’s literally praising Qaddafi.

10:21 – Carson whines about not getting called on. This is true, but it’s because no one cares about him anymore. Now that he finally gets some time, he complains that the IRS suddenly started auditing him after he began criticizing President Obama. The IRS is corrupt and it should be eliminated.

10:17 – Wolf asks about North Korea. Trump wanders off on the $21 trillion deficit. “We can’t afford to defend everyone.” Japan, Korea, Europe, they should all be paying us to defend them.

10:15 – The Rubio-Cruz-Trump fights have been great! The gloves are finally off, I guess. I wonder if it’s doing Trump any damage?

10:10 – Trump says he doesn’t want to take sides between Israel and the Palestinians. “But I’m totally pro-Israel.” Okey doke.

10:07 – Cruz asks again why Trump won’t release past tax returns. Trump: I’m being audited. Cruz: How many years? Trump: Four or five. (It was two or three ten minutes ago.) Unfortunately, Wolf goes to a commercial just as it gets good. Trump really has no excuse for not releasing returns from before the years he’s being audited. He blew it big time on this. He should never have used the audits as an excuse.

10:05 – Marian is distracted. She says the debate background looks like a hot dog.

10:03 – Cruz: The only reason Trump isn’t releasing past returns is because there’s something bad in them.

10:01 – Cruz says Trump needs to release his taxes because he’s being audited. Public needs to know if there’s some kind of fraud the government is investigating.

9:57 – Trump says you don’t learn anything from tax returns. Now he says he’ll release his tax returns when the audit is done. Uh huh. Hugh Hewitt says Trump promised to release his tax returns on his radio program. Trump says no one heard that because no one listens to Hewitt’s program.

9:53 – Now Wolf pushes Trump on what he’s going to cut to make up for his $10 trillion tax cut. Trump: “Waste fraud and abuse.” That’s it!

9:52 – Trump says we have the highest taxes in the world. Naturally Wolf doesn’t question this. Even for Trump, this is wildly removed from reality.

9:50 – Now Cruz going after Trump on health care too. Wolf wants to move on, but none will let him.

9:43 – Hmmm. Rubio must have been practicing holding his ground against a loudmouth. He’s dishing pretty well against Trump.

9:41 – Bash asks Trump to talk more about his health care plan. He drones on some more about the lines. Bash: “Is there anything you’d like to add to that?” Trump: “No! There’s nothing to add. What’s to add?”

9:39 – Trump: I watched Rubio melt down two weeks ago. Rubio: Trump only knows five things: Everyone’s dumb, we’re going to make America great again, win win win, we’re leading in the polls, and lines around the states. Bash breaks up the fight.

9:38 – Trump: Rubio doesn’t know about the lines. Rubio, sarcastically: That’s it? What’s your plan? Trump: You’ll have so many different plans. It’ll be beautiful.

9:36 – Bash: “Getting rid of state lines will solve all our health insurance problems?” Trump: You betcha.

9:35 – Trump says insurance companies are wrong when they say they need a mandate if they’re required to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Just another insurance company hustle.

9:33 – Zzzzz. Rubio reciting his index card on health care.

9:29 – Rubio says Trump was pro-life until recently. He wouldn’t trust him to appoint judges who defend religious freedom.

9:27 – Trump now hares off on a spiel about Cruz attacking his sister. He wants an apology. Cruz isn’t buying.

9:25 – Trump goes off on a tangent about Ted Cruz supporting the appointment of John Roberts, who allowed Obamacare to stand. Cruz throws Roberts under a bus, saying he only supported him because he was the nominee of the party.

9:22 – Cruz refuses to say whether he’d trust Donald Trump to appoint conservative justices.

9:20 – Trump: Hispanics love him, Univision loves him. He’ll be the greatest president for Hispanics ever.

9:09 – Trump accuses Rubio of lying. Rubio accuses Trump of lying. Trump says it was 30 years ago. Rubio: “I guess there’s a statute of limitation on lies.”

9:06 – Rubio now asking people to google “Trump Polish workers.” I think they were Romanian workers, but whatever. Then some stuff about Trump going bankrupt and Trump University getting sued. Then Trump goes after Rubio for his mortgage. Then they just start shouting at each other.

9:03 – How is Trump going to get Mexico to pay for the wall? Trump doesn’t answer, of course. He starts ranting about the president of Mexico using a bad word on television.

8:56 – Trump is now just randomly insulting Cruz for not having any friends.

8:54 – Rubio doing his best to take on Trump over immigration: he hired illegal immigrants and paid a fine, he hired foreigners at Mar-a-Lago, etc. Seems to have drawn a little blood.

8:45 – Kasich, Rubio, and Cruz are having none of Carson-geddon. America is great, anyone can become president, etc.

8:42 – Ben Carson starts off apocalyptic: “America is heading off the abyss of destruction.” Um….

8:40 – Hey! The debate is starting already? I guess I screwed up. I thought 8:30 was for the pregame chitchat. But it looks like we’ll be starting up any second.

Source – 

We Are Live-Blogging the GOP Debate in Houston

Posted in Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We Are Live-Blogging the GOP Debate in Houston

Apple Challenges "Dangerous" Request to Help FBI Break Into iPhone

by KentOFarrell Posted on February 25, 2016

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Responding a federal judge’s order last week that Apple help the FBI unlock the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, the company shot back on Thursday with a challenge that accused the government of seeking a fix that is “too dangerous to build.”

The judge’s order mandated that Apple write new code allowing the FBI to enter an unlimited number of passwords on the phone’s lock screen without triggering the phone’s auto-erase feature. That request sparked a firestorm among people who felt the needs of the government were superseding the privacy and security rights of citizens.

Apple CEO Tim Cook insisted from the start of the controversy that complying with the FBI’s request would set a dangerous precedent, allowing the government to order companies to provide essentially any service needed to aid an investigation. The company repeated that argument in its challenge to the court order:

This is not a case about one isolated iPhone. Rather, this case is about the Department of Justice and the FBI seeking through the courts a dangerous power that Congress and the American people have withheld: the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe. The government demands that Apple create a back door to defeat the encryption on the iPhone, making its users’ most confidential and personal information vulnerable to hackers, identity thieves, hostile foreign agents, and unwarranted government surveillance. The All Writs Act, first enacted in 1789 and on which the government bases its entire case, “does not give the district court a roving commission” to conscript and commandeer Apple in this manner.

Apple says the demand for new code, which it’s calling “GovOS,” violates its First Amendment right to free speech. Courts have previously ruled that computer code is free speech, and Apple executives told reporters on a conference call that the company views an order to rewrite its code as coercion to adopt the government’s views on privacy and security. The company is also challenging the court order on the basis of the Fifth Amendment right to due process.

You can read Apple’s complete challenge below:

DV.load(“https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2722221-Apple-Motion-to-Vacate.js”,
width: 630,
height: 800,
sidebar: false,
text: false,
container: “#DV-viewer-2722221-Apple-Motion-to-Vacate”
);

Apple-Motion-to-Vacate (PDF)

Apple-Motion-to-Vacate (Text)

Original source – 

Apple Challenges "Dangerous" Request to Help FBI Break Into iPhone

Posted in Anchor, Casio, Citizen, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Apple Challenges "Dangerous" Request to Help FBI Break Into iPhone