David Yamada and I definitely see eye to eye on this issue. I have no retirement investments on Wall Street, so I am one step further away. Still, I am very upset by the self destructive tendencies of the Congress of the United States and its effect on world markets. I’m looking to the elections in 2012. Surely we can do better than this!
James Pilant
I like the cartoon. jp
I wonder what would have happened if we had actually defaulted. I guess it would have been very entertaining from a news standpoint. Of course, from the point of view of an American trying to get by, it would have been less entertaining.
How bad is this going to be? I expected this to be the kind of response an actual default would have caused. So, I’m not that good a guide. Apparently these financial gurus bear more resemblance to an overpopulation of lemmings than to coldly analytical Ivy League grads.
The next shoe to drop will be the reaction of the overseas markets especially the Asian ones. If there is a sell off there. We may continue the sell off here.
Great fun. I tell my students we are in the midst of history being made. This history does not seem to me to be fairly similar to other historical eras. I think the self destructive tendencies of the Congress are worse then at any other time besides the Civil War. We could be creating a fiscal situation unprecedented in all of world history, a great power literally committing financial suicide – a great power giving up its planetary pre-eminence to avoid raising taxes on the rich.
James Pilant
I looked at the cover. It is obvious that Newsweek chose the photo to make the presidential candidate look foolish or worse. I am no fan of Michele Bachman but this is wrong. It will always be wrong.
I expect on the front page of a tough conservative magazine less than flattering pictures of Obama, etc. On magazines like Rolling Stone, I expect satirical cartoons of any politician currently in the news. But Newsweek is not supposed to be a advocacy magazine or a satirical publication.
I expect a campaign style picture of any candidate for higher office. Anything else is insulting, and intended to be.
James Pilant
From Yahoo! News –
With the newsgathering techniques of its sister publications in Britain under fire, News Corp. is facing a probe into the use of drones by its U.S.-based digital publication, The Daily.
They have their own drones? And then they didn’t get permission to use them.
Here’s more –
Flight of the Paparazzi Drone (from the article which appears in Forbes)
In thinking about news organizations’ uses of drones, there are a variety of potential applications. News Corp’s The Daily used a drone to gather footage of disaster areas in Mississippi and North Dakota. While unobjectionable journalistically, it may have violated FAA regulations in doing so, as the agency currently prohibits strictly commercial use of drones. I asked the Daily about the FAA investigation and whether they had legal certification for use of their MicroDrone MD4-1000. “We’re not going to comment on our newsgathering,” said a spokesperson.
This is a you tube video of this model drone –
Microdrones MD4-1000 behind the scenes (real live footage- not stabilized by software)
Here’s another video –
Orbit MD4-1000 Microdrones filming Super Bikers From Above
This is the lead in Andy Borowitz’s new essay. I tend to like a lot of his material and I’m happy here to call attention to particularly timely and funny column on his part.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Just days after downgrading the credit rating of the United States, Standard & Poor’s was on high alert this morning after an unmanned Predator drone was seen hovering over its headquarters in lower Manhattan.
While the mission of the Predator was unclear, some insiders speculated that S & P might be in for a downgrade of its own.
Please go to his web site and read the whole essay. It’s worth the trip.
James Pilant
This is a call for “digital natives” to stand up and start changing the world.
Yes, my thoughts as well.
James Pilant
via inDiginous
I think I have grown as much as I can in terms of audience in the straitjacket of a free web hosting service. It has not been an unpleasant experience. I have learned a lot. But I can’t help but feel that if my blogging software offered more choices like pulling up relevant pictures, graphics, news articles and links automatically, my work would be more effective.
I have purchased a book on setting up my own web site and it will arrive on the 12th of August. Until it arrives I have studied the material available on the internet about setting up blogs. I have budgeted the money for a domain name and monthly services for a year from a paid hosting service. I plan to have everything for the move in place on September the 1st.
My big worries are that I won’t be able to arrange for hits to the site to roll over to the new one and that I could lose those people who have been kind enough to subscribe. Hopefully I can work those problems out.
I am open to any ideas. If you have any experience in these matters and would like to add your advice, please comment.
James Pilant
David Yamada, whose blog I am a great admirer of, tell the story correctly. The great mass of Americans suffer while a small minority reap unprecedented profits.
James Pilant
This disaster happened in March. Virtually everything you can think of went wrong and now, they fire people. I’m not impressed. Once it became obvious that the people in charge were grossly incompetent, it might have been better to fire them immediately than waiting for months for what is apparently a better political climate.
James Pilant
via 1 Real News
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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