Author Archives: Matt
Some posts just write themselves
Let me start by showing you the “official response” to this from Palin.
“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this ‘news’ magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant,” she wrote on her fan page, adding, “The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.” (Full Article)
What is unfortunate for Sarah is the fact that she thought this photo shoot was something that is…OK…for an American candidate, especially in light of the the “VALIDITY FACTOR” that is in play these days. She told Barbara Walters that the photo on the cover was “a wee bit degrading.” OMG! SHE POSED FOR THE PICTURE BEFORE IT WAS PRINTED!
Maybe her realization that that photo is a bad idea coming too late is an indication of her decision making skills??????
WAIT, put your pitch forks away….let me explain further.
Is it wrong for a male/female political figure to pose for Runners World in 8″ shorts. NO. Does it increase her visibility in the country? YES. Is it looked on favorably by the country in terms of what we expect our politicians to be? NO. Is that my fault. NO. Well, maybe.
Maybe it is all our faults that Sarah Palin thinks that Runner’s World photo shoots, in attire that wouldn’t meet the dress code in her own fund raisers, is what she needs to do to really gain market share and appeal to all the “Joe Six-Packs” and “Hockey Moms” out there.
This part is to Sarah Palin. Just another thought about your exposure issue
AARP: The Magizine has roughly 24 million (UNREAL) copies going out every month. Whereas Runner’s World has approximately 650k copies (ITS NO AARP) every month in distribution. Lets be honest you need to appeal to your base and they read AARP not Runner’s World.
EVEN I KNEW THAT
My China,Debt crystal ball is dead on!
If you didn’t see my post about debt look below. If you didn’t see my post on China look deeper below….ANYWAY. Sometimes it is nice to see what you think validated by someone else. READ!
Obama’s leverage in China negotiations limited by massive U.S. debt
By: Lita Epstein
The U.S. and China are partnering more than ever in the battle against global warming, but the nations differ on hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has some severe environmental problems because of its emissions. Perhaps a technology exchange could build a stronger bond on global warming and while developing a market for technologies developed in the U.S. for cleaning the environment.
China does support sterner sanctions to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. But it differs with the U.S. on reining in Iran’s uranium enrichment program. It is possible the two countries can come to an agreement on how to move forward in parallel on Iran.
Improving the trade imbalance will be the biggest item on the agenda for President Obama. China could be a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services. But as long as China will not allow its currency to float freely and instead keeps it closely tied to the U.S. dollar, U.S. goods will remain expensive in China, while Chinese goods will continue to be cheap in the U.S. The only way to improve the trade imbalance would be for the yuan to be allowed to appreciate. While I’m sure the discussion will come up, I doubt the Chinese will budge on this issue.
For the Chinese, the biggest issue on the table will be the U.S. deficit and their biggest question will be how President Obama plans to get it under control. China has a big stick it can wield if it doesn’t like the answers. If China stops buying U.S. debt, most of President Obama’s plans — such as health care reform — would have to be shelved until the U.S. finds another lender.
Of course, if the Chinese did start selling U.S. debt, the drop in its value would cost them many billions as they tried to unwind their U.S. bond holdings. Unless they are willing to risk major losses, they would be ill-advised to wield their big stick. But for Obama to call this trip a win, he needs to bring home evidence of change from China, while for China, maintaining the status quo is a win. They don’t have to use their doomsday weapon — just having it is enough to let them say ‘no’ to Obama.
Lita Epstein has written more than 25 books including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Foreign Currency Trading and Trading for Dummies.
Linda, Thank you for making me smarter.
Sadly, Inspiration Is Too Strong To Ignore
As I was heading to work today my mind was deciding on what topic I should write about today. Honestly, I was not feeling overly creative, until inspiration struck. There, at a convenience store ATM, was the spark I needed to choose a topic. (See above) It was a print out that made me realize something about the state of most American’s lives…as well as America as a whole. Credit card abuse is a pandemic that effects the USA. Poor education and brilliant marketing are at the root of the problem. Let’s face it. Most American’s don’t understand how interest works. (WANNA LEARN? CLICK HERE) Learning how credit works, frankly, isn’t stressed enough in our lives. If it was illustrated and taught as is SHOULD be our financial system in the US would crumble due to no one accepting horrible terms on that line of credit. I KNOW…I KNOW. That may be an overestimation. (Maybe not.)
Surely our elected leaders, the best among us would not let our country be based on money we OWE SOMEONE ELSE…
Yeah they would-and have-and its bad for us all. (SEE!) Our country is being slowly owned by our lenders. The Christian Bible says the “Borrower is slave to the lender.” Well, get used to the shackles everybody, because your share of our nations debt comes to (CLICK HERE TO SEE). I think that is over our collective credit limit. Maybe they will take a check????
PETS OVER PEOPLE!
In these troubling,global economic times, there is a ray of sunshine out there. In the face of high unemployment rates and a stagnant recession,I give you this: THE CHINESE PEOPLE ARE DOING GREAT! Want to know how I know? They are making more pet food and owning more pets. Isn’t that great? Concerning China, Euromonitor.com (Whole Article) reports that:
For pet food manufacturers there is new profit margin to be derived from falling raw materials costs. After a long period of rapid growth, pet products’ raw materials costs fell in 2009, mainly as the real economy began to deteriorate following the late 2008 downturn. At the retail-end, demand for pet food products, especially dog and cat food, has not halted. This actually provided better margins for pet food manufacturers, with lower costs on the production side, concomitant with an upward retail unit price trend.
With the pet industry soaring (SOARING HOW HIGH YOU ASK?)the pet food industry in China is skyrocketing (ZOOM) !
THAT IS SO GREAT … OR IS IT?
This is not all squeaky chew toys and Alpo for China’s government. Chinese people owning pets shows disposable income (YEAH!) and a the people are focued on things other than strange disappearances, unwarranted imprisonment, executing mentally ill people, and religious discrimination and persecution that the hard line communist regime in power needs to promote to survive. Owning a Cockatoo is hardly a common sign of socialist/communist tyranny. Is Hu Jintao and Wen Jaibao‘s Chinese Government a “kinder,gentler” socialist/communist government?
Not hardly. (THE PROOF)
With a human rights violation list a mile long (THE CURRENT LIST) thank god the pets are being cared for and their rights being looked after.
When will the Chinese government do for their citizens what the citizens are doing for their newly acquired pets?
you arent alone…see?
I was looking at Will Richardson’s content feeds and came across this. It is from Dana Boyd’s blog.
I think many of us can relate to this post.
sometimes I feel like a bitch
For the most part, I’m a fuzzy lovable energetic creature (or at least I like to think so). But new technologies combined with information overload sometimes bring out the inner bitch in me. And then I feel guilty.
I am drowning in information overload. I cannot read everything that I want to, engage in conversations with everyone I’d like to, let alone deal with high-bandwidith content like video. Over the last decade, I’ve developed a set of coping mechanisms for dealing with online conversations. Ways of keeping myself sane amidst the onslaught. The problem is that each new genre of communication and consumption brings new challenges and forces me to adjust. And just when I think that I’ve got a grip on what’s going on, the genre gains mainstream adoption and I’m forced to get all rigid on people. And I hate that.
Let me be a little more concrete. And self-involved. I get hundreds of emails per day that I have to directly respond to. (Hundreds more get filtered into the “will read one day” folders that get very little attention.) I do a huge amount of my responding offline (on airplanes, public transit, cafes, etc.). Thus, messages with links take much longer to get my attention than messages without links. But there’s something nice about turning an INBOX into something manageable before people have the chance to respond. The problem with Web2.0 technologies is that each one wants to replace the INBOX (or at least be an additional channel). For example, there are private messages and comments on social network sites, direct messages and @replies on Twitter. There are blog comments. And RSS feeds. And then there are all of the online communities and bulletin boards and chat spaces that have evolved from those developed in olden days. For me, it’s too much. Too much I tell you. And we haven’t even gotten to voicemail, text messages. Let alone all that’s coming.
The onslaught of places to check makes me want to crumple. And, for better or worse, it’s simply 100% not manageable if I want to keep up my research and stay sane. So I’ve developed my own quirky habits to cope and rather than be flexible for others, I’ve become demanding. I check voicemail sporadically (so please don’t leave a message – send a text). I refuse to even check the private messages on social network sites (so if you’ve sent something there, I’ve never seen it). Because of how @replies are overloaded with retweets and references, I’m simply incapable of keeping up with the stream of directed @replies with requests to respond. And I almost never check online communities or bulletin boards and have bowed out from all collaborative projects that require that kind of engagement.
It’s terrible you see. It’s not that I *like* email (cuz goddess knows it’s been a long time since “you’ve got mail” made me do anything other than cringe). But I know how to manage it. Too many years of Getting Things Done training has taught me to manage it as a glorious ToDo list that can get resolved. But I don’t know how to meaningfully manage streams of content. And I don’t have the structures in place to deal with content in the cloud that requires connectivity. And I don’t like having to deal with Yet Another Walled Garden’s attempt to replicate email. For my own sanity, I need one pile of ToDo. So at the end of the day, the only channel that actually works for me is email. And if you need me to respond to something, don’t message me elsewhere; send me an email.
This is exactly the kind of issue that Bernie Hogan deals with in his dissertation. The complexities of multiple channels and people’s individual preferences. And there are huge issues here – should someone be flexible to others’ preferences or demand that others work around them? And here’s where I feel like a bitch. I’m asking people to work around me. Because I can’t cope with the alternative. And that makes me feel guilty and selfish. And I don’t know what to do about this. Le sigh. So please forgive me.
This article has been translated. En francais. Thanks Ulysse!
When someone tells you to cheer up…
…tell them you are thinking critically.
Then send them here…
http://www.chrisnull.com/2009/11/03/be-mad/
This blog is a good read all around.
Graffiti-the new impressionism.
If you want a social barometer or a heartbeat of the real world around you, look at the graffiti adorning the world around you. In my humble opinion, Graffiti is hands down the most innovative style of art. To take an otherwise “blah” environmental space and adorn it to make it more interesting is something that is impressive to me; Not to mention that this art is all “criminal” in the nature of its creation and canvas selection. “I LOVE YOU KAREN” spray painted on an overpass is not exactly what I am talking about here. As genuine a sentiment as that is, the artistic value is somewhat lost in the stick man type lettering and obvious lack of craft.
If you believe that graffiti isn’t difficult to create, or you think that it isn’t art, or you feel that it is wrong because it used a post office label as its canvas…step back and look at it again and pretend that it isn’t “wrong.” Do you see the art now?
For more art:
The “Word”
First off, I have no issue with any religion placing material in public places. That being said, I suggest you at least spell the name of whatever super being you promote correctly. It adds validity and intelligence to your recruitment efforts. Just a FYI for ya.
“By the People: The Election of Barak Obama”
I am watching this documentary about the election of Pres. Obama and all I can think of is how “political” he looks. As much as I like the man- he looks like a politician. That is unsettling to me. The screen is showing David Poluffe talking about how little sleep they have going into the Iowa primary while Wolf Blitzer and his expert discuss the ” Viability” of the candidates. There is a baby toting mom searching the caucus for Obama supporters as Obama’s Iowa victory is announced. At the after party Tommy Vietor shrugs and says, “Who knew?” I think he should have. After the volunteer cries to his mom on the phone about how happy he is that his work for all these weeks is not in vain, Obama is shown on a private jet flying away from Iowa to focus on New Hampshire. It looks like he is saying “Thanks…See ya.” I love watching Chuck Todd and Chris Matthews discuss the emerging political scene with questions firing back and forth at each other. Ryan Lizza from the New York Post spouts stats like he is reading a text book. When Axelrod and Gibbs broke the news to Obama that he did not win the New Hampshire primary he looked at them and said, “This is going to take a while, isn’t it?” That question led to his realization that American politics is a corn maze that sometimes has no end. I think Obama knows now that you have to be a politician, you have to take certain steps, you have to pay the pipers and the gate keepers and yes President Obama…It is going to take a while for any change to happen.
sometimes right - sometimes not - always correct 
