He's not even responsible for anything yet.
If this were a Republican, the SNL jokes would already be part of the cultural mainstream. But Obama is a Democrat, which means we're not allowed to make fun of it.
Screw that.
O_< "I, uh, I represent, uh, hope and, uh, change!"
(I've just decided that "O_<" is the new official Barak "Tweek" Obama emoticon. Use it.)
So apparently ol' Tweek (sorry, make that "President-elect Tweek") is serious about his civilian security force idea. The concept came from Robert Gates who--guess what!--Tweek has selected as his Defense Secretary.
And now it's unofficially official that Hillary Clinton will be our next Secretary of State. How interesting. Apparently there was a bunch of legal wrangling that had to be attended to before Tweek could announce it, but the papers have been signed and it's a done deal.
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TV sales aren't what retailers think they should be. "Why aren't people buying TVs?"
Reason 1: Next February, the analog broadcast goes away. This is first because it effects all the other reasons. The people who know this and who are prepared for it are going to wait simply because they can--why spend money now?--and don't feel the need to upgrade to a newer TV. (The others, who have somehow managed not to see any of the commercials or news stories announcing the fact, will be caught flat-footed and probably try to sue someone.)
Reason 2: TVs are expensive. If you have a 27" glass tube sitting in your living room, getting a new TV with the same vertical screen dimension is going to cost upwards of $500--and that's for a 720p TV, not the full-on 1040p resolution. Most of the time, people don't replace a television unless they have to. With convertor boxes and cable and satellite services, most people won't "have to".
Reason 3: With increased demand starting, oh, about February of 2009, the prices for new TVs will drop as more manufacturing capacity is devoted to producing them. The economy of scale works in the consumer's favor.
Reason 4: Regardless, retailers will find that demand isn't as great as they had expected/hoped, and there will be bargains.
Reason 5: The RIAA and MPAA are still trying to get various hardware copy-protection schemes emplaced. Buying a TV right now might mean you end up with a nice flat-panel display that can't show the latest DVDs or TV shows.
Prices won't drop much in the short term--over the next six months--but if you can wait a year to buy a new TV I expect prices to fall further.
Thanks to Moore's Law, technology always gets cheaper as time goes on. It may not seem that way, but it's a fact--the $1,000 flat-screen TV sitting in the stores now is cheaper (when adjusted for inflation) than the early color TVs and the first black-and-white sets were in their respective days--and has more functionality to boot. (For one thing, there are no manual picture controls to fuss with--no horizontal hold, no vertical hold.)
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I can't read Greek so I don't know to whom to attribute this post on Eternity Road, which is a worthy read.
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I had a laugh last night when Mom told me we're supposed to get "five to seven inches" of snow.
A few days ago we were due for "light accumulation". Then it was an inch. Then it was a couple, then it was maybe three...and now suddenly it's 5-7. Maybe if it actually starts snowing they'll increase it again to 9 or maybe 12--but so far I haven't seen so much as a single flake, and when it comes to snow in Chicago I am agnostic: I believe it when I see it.
But even if we do get snow, it's going to be 45° on Wednesday. So it won't last long.