1. Iowa … why (since 1972) has the first major electoral event of the nominating process for President of the United States been held here?

Though only about 1% of the nation’s delegates are chosen by the Iowa State Convention, the Iowa caucuses have served as an early indication of which candidates for president might win. It’s by far the most important State. Unfairly.

If you want to be nominated you try to win Iowa. And how do you win Iowa? You buy Iowa …

2. Super PACs (new since 2010):

… which can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. …

Supposedly independent, both Romney and Gingrich have Super Pacs … run by former employees. They are a joke and a lie.

To mock Super PACs, Colbert legally formed his own — Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow (also known as the Colbert Super PAC)

Here’s one of Colbert’s real TV ads. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Parliamentary Democracy of Canada is not perfect. But I like it far better than the system in the USA.

Isn’t Newt Gingrich the lowest of the low? An egomaniac with no morals whatsoever?

The guy who earned $1.6 million consulting for Freddie Mac?

Why did South Carolina Republicans vote for a guy so brashly amoral?

He can’t win the Presidency. And the Republican establishment knows it.

That would be a disaster for the USA. And the world.

related – Democrat Chris Dodd is a scumbag, happy to sell his soul for $1.2 million / year as chief lobbyist for the movie industry. He and Newt will be in the same circle of Hell, so far as I’m concerned.

… Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said …

How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work

That article has been getting wide circulation. Not even an embargo of Chinese goods by President Newt is going to bring back manufacturing. Read the article to see why.

applying to work at Foxconn

Foxconn City has 230,000 employees, many working six days a week, often spending up to 12 hours a day at the plant. … many workers earn less than $17 a day. …

related – why you shouldn’t use the new Apple iBooks Author software

But if I could vote in the USA, I don’t think I could get past Gitmo — promise #1.

“I DON’T want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantánamo.” So said Barack Obama in January 2009, giving himself a year to do it.

Economist – How to close Guantánamo

… Despite promises to close Guantánamo and reverse the illegal policies of the Bush administration, President Obama has attempted to legitimize them. He has signed an executive order formalizing indefinite detentions at Guantánamo, resumed illegitimate military commissions, and refused to hold U.S. officials accountable for torture. …

CNN – Gitmo: 10 years of injustice and disgrace

Read Lakhdar Boumediene’s story and tell me YOU wouldn’t have freed him long ago, regardless of the political consequences.

I don’t care if the President didn’t have the power to close Gitmo. If you can’t deliver, don’t promise.

I’m reading Game Change, the story of what happened exactly 4yrs ago in the American election.

(via Kottke)

For many cities you can get a vehicle for $50/week. Or even $6/day. … At least that’s what their website claims.

So why was my bill — still cheaper than the competition — more than double what I saw online:

$82 / week
$3.61 SEA Concess
$8.13 Tax SEA
$6.59 WA Rental Tax
$.26 WA MotVehTx

$35 CFC … (explained to be some sort of new building fee)
$3.36 VLF

Of course you are hassled with a scary up-sale of insanely expensive daily insurance options.

All in all, a terrible customer experience. Like this guy had:

On a recent trip to the airport rental counter I marveled at the ability of the Avis/Budget representative to make me feel like a criminal, a moron, and an irresponsible lout gambling with my life all in the space of about eight minutes. Welcome to modern car rental. …

Renting a car sucks

Are there any rent-a-car companies who actually tell you the entire cost? …

Canada must have more rules against deliberately obfuscating prices. The same company prices online are about double in Canada for the same vehicle as in the States.

more Fox complaints on Yelp

DJ Earworm just dropped his latest annual edit:

… “World Go Boom,” combines 25 of the year’s most-successful pop songs from artists such as Adele, Britney Spears, Foster the People, Lady Gaga, LMFAO, Maroon 5, Nicki Minaj and Rihanna. …

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

… pretty lame, I’d say.

What was the great Pop hit of 2011? … Adele?

(via Mashable)

Exactly.

The bodies of most of the models H&M features on its website are computer-generated and “completely virtual,” the company has admitted.

H&M designs a body that can better display clothes made for humans than humans can, then “dresses” it by drawing on its clothes, and digitally pastes on the heads of real women …

Jezebel

(via Kottke)

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Yes Inn, one of the many cheapos in Hong Kong.

Not friendly. Not much helpful. Crowded. No instructions on how to get the shower hot. Bad.

I’d gone there because of this offer on their website:

That was posted on this page.

Seems to be a ‘bait and switch’. At least that was the experience of me and a couple from Utah. No response to the ‘inquiry’. And then a renegotiation on the 7 night cost once you get to the desk.

I was happy to move over to another cheapo — the Ah Shan Hostel (reviews) in Mong Kok. Better — only 1 giant cockroach sighting … but I still left after 2 nights.

From the same desk they run Dragon Inn / A-Inn hostels. All the private hostels in Hong Kong are crappy I’m hearing from other travelers. Now I’m happily ensconced at Mt Davis hostel, my hangout many times in the past.

That photo is from 1983 … but not much has changed since. They’ve added high speed WiFi.

Now Apple is building in similar cloud back-ups. Will it work?

… I have not had the best experiences when experimenting with Lion Internet Recovery. One attempt to use it on my MacBook Air during the week when iOS 5, iCloud and the iPhone 4S launched resulted in a recovery, just for Mac OS X Lion, that was going to take well over nine hours to complete! Ouch. …

… recovering and restoring a computer to full working order could take up to two days …

Cult of Mac – The Reason Why The World Isn’t Ready For Lion Internet Recoveries [Opinion]