Headlines

Tech sell-off resumes, NASDAQ down more than 8 percent in 3  days

Senate to vote on coronavirus stimulus plan as soon as this week

U.S. marshals have found 72 missing children in past two weeks

Mystery: Piles of mail dumped in California

Trump defends his campaign spending as cash advantage evaporates

Apple announces Sept. 15 event where it’s expected to reveal new iPhones

Iraqi forces kill two senior ISIS militants in raid

Lightfoot’s Chicago: At least 51 shot, 7 killed over Labor Day weekend

Vaccine makers promise safety amid shaky public confidence in Covid developments

Oil drops 8% to multi-mont low on demand fears

China offers to build the Taliban a road network in exchange for peace

Joe Biden touts Wall Street support for plan to abolish suburbs

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

IPhone Robots

Next time you use your iPhone think of all these Chinese regimented robots who assemble your cherished device.

STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Headlines

New York City could begin easing coronavirus restrictions in June

Coronavirus live updates: Mnuchin backs Tesla in push to restart production, UK details plans to reopen

Trump accuses states of reopening things too slowly ...

Report: Xi Jinping asked WHO chief Tedros to delay pandemic warning

Ex-Stone prosecutor condemns DOJ interference in Flynn case

WHO warns that coronavirus cases have jumped in countries that eased lockdowns

Outbreak White House ... Race to contain....

Report: Apple plans to move some iPhone production from China to India

Kamala emerges as early Biden VP candidate as sting of debate attack fades

Detroit’s automakers have enough cash on hand to last the year without a bailout after learning the hard way

U.S. deaths: 79,825

Germany’s Das Bild newspaper  says ‘lockdown was a huge mistake’

Headlines

Senate may pass new trade deal before impeachment trial starts

Boeing posts negative commercial airplane orders in 2019 for the first time in decades

Pelosi moves ... Senate doesn’t have votes to dismiss

Mike Lee co-sponsors Sander’s bill to limit unilateral Iran action

Warren promises to cancel student loan debt using executive powers

Tesla rally sends Wall Street analysts scrambling to catch up

Poll: Biden moves to top in Iowa ...

DHS chief admits will not build 450-mile border wall by November

European powers trigger mediation over Iranian violations of nuclear deal

Apple refuses government request to unlock Pensacola shooting suspect’s iPhone

USA budget deficit running 11.8% higher this year ...

Chinese media: ‘No excuse’ for Iran to shoot down Ukrainian airplane

Headlines

‘Family Feud’: Trump still grumbling about witness-free impeachment trial

Elizabeth Warren releases $10.7 trillion plan to create 10.6 million green jobs

NOONAN: Crazy won’t beat Trump ...

Iceland’s 30 feet of snow: ‘We’ve never had on this scale’ ...

Democrat legal expert: Trump isn’t impeached until articles go to Senate

Boris Johnson’s Brexit bill passes Commons vote

Boeing Starliner fails key NASA mission as autonomous flight system malfunctions

Apple wants to bypass mobile carriers ... Beam Internet right to your iPhone ...

Federal funding bill gives Democrats $25M for gun violence research

Trump lashes out as Christian magazine calls for his removal

Trump says he had a ‘very good talk with President Xi’ about China trade deal

GDP unrevised at 2.1% ... Record 9,300 stores closed in ‘19 ...

Schumer: Pelosi withholding impeachment articles is a ‘win-win’ for Democrats

Polishing the Apple

Apple is featuring a huge Mac Pro manufacturing plant in Austin, Texas where its CEO, Tim Cook, visited yesterday with President Trump. This move conforms with Trump’s pledge to emphasize domestic manufacturing over offshore venues. We also know that Apple has gotten tariff relief from Trump for its China-manufactured iPhones ... but will also bring some of its manufacturing of this product to Mesa, Arizona.

Is this all quid pro quo? Very likely. And will this help Trump’s re-election chances? Most certainly, since this is a fulfilling of his campaign promise to expand domestic manufacturing and return the US to robust economic expansion.

The question then presents itself ... will Rep. Adam Schiff hold more impeachment inquiry hearings on this bit of Trump’s political self-dealing? I think we all know this answer.

Headlines

Klobuchar jumps into presidential race

As older Americans ‘age in place’ younger buyers struggle to find houses

Trump 52% approval jolts Washington, best in years

Texas lawmakers propose state wall funding

Poll: One third of Americans say blackface Halloween costumes are acceptable at times

CDC blames spike in teen tobacco use on vaping, popularity of Juul

Gallup: Optimism about personal finances 16 year high ...

Business lobby unite with GOP to strip Trump from implementing tariffs

Warren: Trump ‘may not even be a free person’ in 2020

iPhone shipments crash nearly 20% in China because Apple charges too much: IDC

Soros: Europe on cusp of nightmare ...

Trump to Dems: ‘Loosen up and have some fin’

Headlines

Sanford's fatal sin: crossing Donald Trump

Fed's Powell: Some companies are holding back investment due to Trump's trade conflicts

Russian NP warns against having sex with foreigners ...

Scarborough: GOP primary voters 'have devolved into a Trumpist cult'

'Ludicrous': Pompeo snaps at reporters seeking clarity on North Korea deal

Apple has a new app that let's you measure almost anything with your IPhone

Boom: Fed raises outlook for the economy

Robert DeNiro at Tony's: 'F*** Trump'

Pruitt's conservative support cracks

Elon Musk just bought another $25 million in Tesla stock

55 illegals found in tractor-trailer in Texas ...

Self-driving cars could cost 4M jobs

Headlines

All from Internet news sites. Guess which from Politico?

Trump, in Alabama, wades into interparty battle

Chuck Schumer coached Jimmy Kimmel behind the scenes on how to oppose Obamacare repeal

Apple fans not lining up for release of new IPhone?

U.S. Says NAFTA helps Chinese goods reach American market

Trump bashes McCain in early morning Tweets

Suspicious earthquake hits North Korean nuclear test site

Study: Fraternities lower GPA -- but raise future income ...

Trump approves 100K+ illegal aliens for DACA in last 3 months

Carson breaks with Trump, backs Moore for Alabama Senate seat

NYT writes nearly 1.500 words on Berkeley with zero mentions of ANTIFA

Glitch allows non-U.S. citizens in PA to vote ...

Iran unveils long-range missile capable of hitting Israel

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Politico?

EU death match: Le Pen vs. Macron

White House reception for conservative media ...

Uber secretly tracking IPhone users after they deleted app ...

Trump and Congress eye shutdown showdown over border wall

NYT refuses to use the term 'female genital mutilation' as it's 'culturally loaded'

Exclusive: New study says EPA's calling CO2 a pollutant 'totally false'

Sanders: 'The model of the Democratic Party is failing'

Willie Brown: 'Free speech is being buried at Berkeley'

U.N. elects Saudi Arabia to Women's Rights Commission

House Democrats grow bullish after Trump's stumbles

Five killed, 26 wounded in Chicago shootings over the weekend

Bibi: 4M lives would have been saved if allies had bombed death camps immediately

Headlines

Another of My Entertainment Ciphers

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

George Michael: From closeted life to gay rights advocate ...

Norquist: Liberals see gov't the way that kids see Santa ...

Germany hunts accomplices of Berlin killer ...

Giuliani: Obama 'lackadaisical' with regards to terrorism

Obama: Would have won, if could run ...

Trump in position to reshape judiciary with 100+ vacancies ...

Berlin plans ministry of truth ...

CAIR wishes for twice the dead in Russian plane crash

Nobel economist: Robots far greater threat to jobs than globalization

[Governor Jerry] Brown grants another 112 pardons for Christmas

Turkey is asking Apple's help in unlocking IPhone of Russian Ambassador's killer

Blizzards, ice storms wreck havoc across northern plans ...

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

New EU 'travel tax' ...

Obama and Merkel: Globalization is here to stay

Axelrod tells transition critics to chill ...

Thanksgiving meal much cheaper: Turkey prices drop ...

DNA breakthrough could 'fix broken genes in brain, delay aging' ...

Paris Hilton: 'I voted for Trump'

London's Muslim Mayor urges anti-Trump migrants to flock to UK

War on Christmas: Saudis ban international schools from observing non-Islamic holidays

Department of Education wasting money at an incredible rate ...

Switzerland considers banning Koran distributions

Obama sets new record for regulations, 527 pages in just one day

Apple may produce IPhones in USA ...

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Tesla 'on autopilot' crashes on the Autobahn ...

Trump to Obama: Do not pardon Hillary 'or her co-conspirators'

Solar storm headed towards Earth

Space probe Rosetta set for comet collision

Detroit newspaper endorses Gary Johnson

Clinton names Merkel as her favorite world leader

[U.S.] Signed secret doc to lift sanctions on Iran banks ...

Snap: Man smashes every IPhone in Apple store ...

Mess: Obama maneuvering to pay health insurers billions of dollars ...

Mexico worried by influx of African and Asian immigrants ...

Debate Commission admits: Trump mic was messed up

Airline moves woman for Pakistani monks that can't sit next to female ...

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Tampons in men's rooms at [Brown] university ...

Goldman Sachs bans donations to Trump, but not to Clinton

Report: U.S. may have given Iran $33.6 billion in secret payments

FACEBOOK Co-founder commits $20 million to defeat Trump

Apple IPhone 7 slogan in Hong Kong translates to 'This is Penis' ...

Dr. Gorka: 'Good generals have been removed,' 'Political yes-mem have survived'

Italian high court rules public masterbation not a crime

Soros pushes online voting ...

Appeals Court blocks proof-of-citizenship voting requirement

Muslim men sentenced for raping 13-year old girl

Obama halts North Dakota pipeline after judge okays its construction

Apple pumps breaks on self-driving car strategy, laying off dozens

Justice Blinked

The Department of Justice blinked in its attempt to force Apple to open up the IPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist, Sayed Farook. The FBI now says that it has found a third party (NSA?) to open up this possible source of further intelligence and doesn't need the court to force Apple to comply ... see: Politico Story. This all sounds very fishy and halfway supports Apple's position that this FBI request was a red herring really meant to open up the IPhone to generic government access (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that.)

This FBI vs. Apple issue is all about personal privacy. American people want to believe that our Constitution guarantees them an inviolate cocoon of privacy that our government cannot pierce no matter what national security issues involved. Clearly this may not be the case. However, in a related development, Edward Snowden, our traitor hero,  avers that the federal government is not the only risk to our personal security. He says that large technology companies such as Microsoft are equally guilty of the invasive collection of our personal information ... far more than we suspect ... see: Sputnik News Story. I agree with the rat-fink Snowden and would add at least Google, Apple and Facebook to his named snoop.

If you think that Big Brother government is the only risk to your little secrets, you are just another babe in the woods.

More on Apple vs. the FBI

Just heard James Comey, the Director of the FBI, testifying in front of Congress regarding the contretemps between Apple and the FBI about opening up the IPhone of the San Bernardino terrorist ... hoping to find more about possible further plans or accomplices. The interesting aspect of this testimony was that the FBI was not just asking for the simple solution of providing it with the access code (which I previously suggested that they do) but the FBI wanted Apple to disable two functions in this particular IPhone:

- the function that erases everything in memory after ten tries at entering the access code, and
- the function that requires a few second pause between each attempt at entering this access code (thwarting super-computer attempts to try every possible combination)

Now, to me, this request is an around-the-barn way of getting into this particular IPhone vs. my previous recommendation and suggests that the FBI has its eye on bigger fish to fry in the future ... and is probably why Apple is pushing back.

However, Apple's Tim Cook's riposte that all security mechanisms would be futile in the future if Apple relented in this instance is also a little disingenuous. Why not just offer to provide the access code in this instance in the manner I had suggested? And then see what happens.

Apple vs. the FBI

Apple's dilettante CEO, Tim Cook, to me, is grandstanding about not giving the FBI access to the terrorist Syed Farook's IPhone ... see: ABC News Story. Already the FBI has a court order and, the way I read it, it doesn't want to compromise Apple's security mechanism on this or any other of its devices. This is not magic. I have a little experience in this area. Apple knows exactly how and where the access code is stored in this IPhone's memory ... which is the property of San Bernardino County anyway. All Apple would have to do is to recover this access code ... without revealing its process ... and provide it to San Bernardino County which then would provide it to the FBI.

Problem solved ... and, possibly, a few more terrorists might be caught ... and Tim Cook would have grown a few inches taller in the eyes of the American public. And in the future, this court-order process might be repeated whenever there is a sufficient and compelling need for such access into IPhones. I'm sure that the government might even be willing to pay Apple for their efforts.

Yes, I also realize that Apple might not sell quite as many IPhones to criminals and terrorists ... small price to pay.

Afterward: See how Apple treats digital privacy issues in China: Breitbart Article.

A Lesson in Obsolescence

The problems that are plaguing Research in Motion (see: Battered Blackberry Maker) have got me thinking about obsolescence.  Why do some products die quickly while others seem to prosper with facility?  Often the answers are not obvious.  For instance, the rapid growth of the iPhone and iPad technology can be attributed to the sexy new user interface ... using touch-screen swipes to quickly get things done.  However, this may not be the primary reason.  I had another thought tonight that I would like to pass on ... and I hope my lack of user experience on this new i-interface doesn't make me look foolish.

The classic Microsoft/PC interface which still dominates the Internet world has an Achilles heel.  That is the requirement that users constantly perform utility clean-up operations to maintain the integrity and speed of their systems -- antivirus scans and updates; registry clean-up operations; defragging of hard-discs; and purging of file clutter (temporary Internet files, shortcuts, cookies, usage-history, etc.).  One need only see the repeated TV-commercials for companies that offer these services to realize what a pain this overhead has become.  And I repeatedly run into people whose PCs have become doorstops because they haven't realized that they must perform such nagging periodic maintenance.

Now, I don't believe that this same syndrome is suffered by iPhone and iPad users (Droids too?).  If in fact this is the case, then Microsoft need quickly emulate the genius of Steve Jobs in revamping their operating system and user interface ... or in a few short years they might well walk the same plank that Research in Motion seems to be currently trodding.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to do a Registry clean-up.

What's NeXT?

One of the premier examples of the extraordinary entrepreneurial spirit in the United States, Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. has just sadly stepped down as its CEO yesterday.  An original founder of Apple Computer in 1976 (see Apple Computer.), who pioneered the Apple 1 computer kit, the Apple II, and the Macintosh with its innovative Graphical User Interface (GUI).  Jobs was ousted in 1984 and went on to found NeXT Computer (see NeXT Computer) with enormous financial backing ... including Warren Buffet. 

The 1986-released NeXT computer was not a commercial success, primarily, in my opinion, because it did not include a floppy disc drive.  Steve Jobs, in his typical visionary way, was years ahead of his time, substituting an early version of a CD-RAM for both a mass storage device and input/output (I/O) device.  This was one of the few mistakes Jobs ever made in his technical career ... primarily because it became difficult (and expensive) to move data and applications from the rest of cyberspace onto the NeXT computer and the data-access rates of this device were snail-slow.  Today, 25 years later, CD-RAMs are often the primary hardware I/O devices on personal computers ... and mass data storage is rapidly moving off of its miniature hard discs and onto static-RAM memory (such as flash drives).  Here, Steve was just a few years too soon.

But Jobs can easily be forgiven this one technical hiccup for, after returning to Apple in 1997, he went on to lead the creation of the IPod, the IMac, the IPhone, and the IPad (with its GUI on steroids) which have fostered enormous worldwide markets for American technology.  Even the Apple Store is a technology marketing innovation which can be partially attributed to Jobs.

Now, Steve Jobs is leaving and the future of Apple Inc. is in question.  One has to echo all the kudoes being lavished on Steve Jobs.  In fact, they may not be lauditory enough.  So, when The Barry gives his early September address to the nation with the shibolith "jobs, jobs, jobs," my mind will certainly wander to that health-plagued founder of Apple.