(Ben Sargent via GoComics.com)
__
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Willard’s ongoing campaign underplatform — “An entity without a soul never has an ethical conflict” — may be depressing as a marker of conservative ideology in modern America, but it’s been a gold mine for snarkists. Ask Mr. Charles Pierce:
Willard Romney, onetime dauphin prince of the Mexican outback and current presumptive nominee of the only Republican party we have, has been having a rough week there up at his lakeside retreat in the small town of Silly Rich Bastard, New Hampshire. He’s gotten himself tangled up (again) with his previous incarnations, particularly the Self that once deigned to govern Massachusetts for about 11 minutes back in the early Aughts. That one put in place a mandate requiring that all citizens of the Commonwealth (God Save It!) buy health insurance, or else pay a penalty that would be collected by the state revenoo’ers. The current Willard, of course, is opposed to mandates because he is the nominee of a party full of crazy people. He and his campaign have spent a week trying to decide if the crazy people are less likely to disembowel them if they call such a mandate a “penalty” or a “tax” in relation to the Obama administration’s success at bringing Romney’s original Massachusetts plan to the masses. He’s also being sniped at by various allegedly non-crazy leaders of his party for not being the candidate of their dreams. All of which seems to be harshing the general mellow up in the piney woods…
Jon Chait at NYMag‘s Daily Intel also points and jeers:
For those of us old enough to remember the time when President Obama’s reelection campaign was flailing and desperate allies were bombarding him with advice — it was about two weeks ago — it feels a little soon for Republicans to dissolve into panic of their own. And yet here we are.
The basic chronology of the latest panic is as follows. First, Rupert Murdoch — who commands a vast global media empire — decided his personal Twitter feed was the medium of choice to communicate his belief that Romney needs to replace his campaign staff. Fellow right-wing business titan Jack Welch concurred. Then the Wall Street Journal editorial page fired off a jittery editorial bemoaning his “insular staff and strategy that are slowly squandering an historic opportunity.”…
Here is the deeper problem. Conservatives say they want Romney to change his staff or alter his campaign tactics. But what they really want is a different candidate and a different electorate. They want to believe that the American people are hungering for detailed endorsements of Republican plans to cut entitlement spending and taxes for the rich and launch a philosophical assault on the welfare state. But that’s not what the public wants and Romney knows it.
***********
Apart from androids dreaming vainly of electric sheeple, what’s on the agenda for the evening, or the weekend?
MattF
Pope Romney turns out to be nekkid. Oops.
Violet
I’m working on a project for a class I took. Of course I decided on a challenging and difficult project rather than something I could do in a few hours. At least it’s interesting.
In other news, I’m still looking for smart phone recommendations. Plus carrier recommendations. Anyone got a phone they love or hate? Why do you feel that way about it? Anything you wish you knew before you bought it?
The Sheriff's A Ni-
Ronald Reagan isn’t walking through those doors.
BGinCHI
How insanely insane is it that no one just says: it’s about people’s health, about living and dying loved ones and family members. We can afford it and we can actually make our economy better.
That instead of the starting place it’s a place we can’t even get to is an index of how fucked up politics is in this country.
It’s the surest sign that national politics is a contest for power and not for governing by at least half of our political process.
Derelict
But what they really want is a different candidate and a different electorate.
And that, my friends is the GOP conundrum since the beginning. Republicans of all stripes hate Romney. They tried to elevate a non-Romney candidate all the way through the primaries,. but each proved more flawed and lunatic than the previous one. And none could withstand the pounding from Mitt’s money cannon.
And so here they are, putting forward a candidate they all hate and hoping that it will work.
Valdivia
@Violet:
Love love my iPhone 4s. Mostly because it has a great camera I can play with and the slimness and efficiency. The ease of switching to wifi anywhere is great too. Where I am AT&T works great too, other carriers might be better elsewhere.
gogol's wife
@Derelict:
I’m sorry, but given the Debbie Downer messages I get from the Obama campaign every day about how much more money Mitt is raising, and how scared I should be, I’m afraid it will work, too. I really think it’s a bad strategy for Obama. It’s depressing the hell out of me and making me not want to contribute, because I’m not Sheldon Adelson and never will be.
beltane
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: Hell, they can’t even get George W. Bush to walk into those doors. The only reason this will be a close election is that approximately 50% of Americans are full-fledged members of some weird, nihilistic racial identity cult.
Punchy
107F in KC metro. May cook dinner on my driveway.
Violet
@Valdivia: Thanks! I like the seeming ease of the iPhone, but another family member got burned by Apple on an iPod/iTunes issue and refuses to get an iPhone, so I’m keeping that in mind.
I’m thinking of going with AT&T because one of the things that’s a must-have for me is a plan where I can add an international plan for a week or so while I’m abroad. I need a US number that works overseas. The AT&T folks said I could do that. It’s not cheap, but given certain family situations, it’s essential for me at this time.
PeakVT
But that’s not what the public wants and Romney knows it.
I would suggest neither knows what the public wants.
Ruckus
But that’s not what the public wants and Romney knows it.
I’m pretty sure he does not know it. I’m not sure any rethuglican knows it. To be the way they are they have to be true believers. Let no facts stand in their way. Let no reality be their guide. They believe therefore they are. Rethuglicans have become a cult. (It may have been so for a few decades, it’s just taken a while for the rubes to out number the disciples.)
Violet
@Punchy: I completely sympathize with all of you folks who are suffering in the heat. We had that last summer. Every day was 100 or higher for about four months. Just brutal. No rain at all. Of course since it didn’t happen in NY or DC, it didn’t get a lot of press. Flyover states represent.
Redshift
@Violet: I got a Samsung Galaxy SII (Android) phone about three months ago, and I like it a lot. I’m on Credo Mobile, which runs on the Sprint network. I get pretty good reception most places around here, but I understand that Sprint isn’t great everywhere, so you’d want to check that out. I have flat-rate unlimited data, which is awesome; I don’t know if I’d like it as much if I had to worry about data caps. (I don’t do video or anything really heavy on it very often, but I like that I can surf and download without thinking about it.)
The screen is great, and Android seems very intuitive to me, and it has this great feature called Swype that lets you trace out words on a keyboard instead of pecking them out one letter at a time. (I’ve also used my wife’s iPod Touch, so I’m somewhat familiar with the Apple side of things and I wouldn’t give a clear edge to one or the other.)
I actually don’t have all that many apps, but I’ve found I like being able to check my email wherever I am, and I love always having something to read in my pocket.
WereBear
@Violet: I just got (a few months ago) an LG Cosmos™ 2 which is an incredible upgrade from my Samsung Intensity I can’t tell ya.
It says who is calling if the person is in your phone book: “You have a call from… MOM… ” and it actually rings when you get a call.
I’m poor. I’m easily pleased.
Lots of nice features. Not a smart phone.
Aw, Anne Laurie. Such (setch?) prose is why I cannot Quit You.
elmo
@gogol’s wife:
You too? Damn, I thought I was the only one with that reaction.
Martin
@Violet:
That’s curious. I can’t fathom what that might be.
Anyway, wife loves her iPhone 4, me my 4S. Lots of useful apps for us. We have AT&T and it’s overall pretty good. Verizon has somewhat better coverage in our area, but AT&T has been reliable – and is cheaper for us.
lamh35
@gogol’s wife: Here’s the think, I think you should be scared though. Cause hearing that Karl Rove’s lie factory is planning a $25million ad buy in swing state and another $25million already spent, then heck yeah I’m wary.
Doesn’t make me wanna not give though. Like you I’m not Adelson and I honestly don’t believe that the campaign wants us to be. I give when I can, I don’t when I can’t, but the “fear” is real. I console myself by thinking that at least by giving directly to campaign, I at least know it’s gonna go to GOTV as well as ads.
But I rather those emails downers though theya re, but they are true that Romney seems to be outraising them at least monthly. At least they aren’t trying to make is seem rosier than it is in terms of fundraising.
I rather the true as depressing as it is than a delusional sunny lie about it.
trollhattan
@Violet:
Just got a Razr Maxx (typing that makes me feel illiterate) and use Verizon. ATT and TMoblie are the two other regional carriers and their coverage is rather poorer, especially traveling out of the city. Mine’s 4G and dang fast.
Wife.gov has an iPhone 4s and this phone suits me far better–I don’t like hers at all. But wow, what a steep learning curve from my last phone (which I’d had for close to four years, I think). Me no as smart as smart phone.
Also, too, Verizon in California now lets you bundle many devices under a single account, which is the only reason I went with a smartphone. Adding me under the new program saves more than fifty bucks per month than it would have cost before.
YMMV.
smintheus
My potatoes here in PA mostly gave up the ghost this week, though I’ve kept them watered throughout the drought. The only ones hanging on are in a small patch that gets shade after 3 PM. It should have been a magnificent crop of spuds I planted this spring.
Redshift
@Ruckus:
Hmmm, I think Romney could know it if he wanted to. After all, he turned himself into a pro-choice creator of health care reform to become governor of MA. I think it’s entirely possible that if he were unencumbered by the howler monkeys on the right, he might be able to focus-group himself into an appealing platform. Not that I’d trust him to actually implement it.
The one thing I’m sure of is that Romney is not a true believer. To be that, you first have to have things you believe. Romney believes nothing other than that he is entitled to whatever he wants, including the presidency.
WereBear
If you are going AT&T & smart phone I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want an iPhone; however, I have Macs at home and am an unapologetic Apple Fangirrl so there you have it.
Have an iPod touch and love it very much. Just can’t/don’t wanna pay the freight for data charges & setch.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
I tend to agree, although I’m sure on the flip side there are too many complacent folks or just procrastinators out there, and it’s to them these emails are directed towards.
Martin
@WereBear:
I think all smartphones do that now. And they should all let you set custom ring and text tones for each person as well. These things have gotten handy.
Baud
@WereBear:
You have a phone. You can’t be poor. /GOP
lamh35
So there’s that story about the diner owner who died today after meeting POTUS (livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/restaurant-owner-dies-hours-after-meeting-obama)
So From TPM, stay classy Tucker Carlson:
“Keeping It Classy”
talkingpointsmemo.com/a…..8;tw_p=twt
Redshift
@Martin:
One of the unexpected things I like having upgraded to a smartphone is that it tells me what number (or name, if it has it) I have voicemail from, rather than having to call in and listen to it to find out.
smintheus
@lamh35: As I posted on earlier thread, the haters on this post at The Hill are as thick as pig mud.
SiubhanDuinne
Open Thread, right?
Good.
That imbecile Representative Thaddeus McCotter (R-Incompetent) just resigned.
Good.
RossinDetroit
On the agenda? Electrical power service, I hope. Storms put 200,000 people in the Detroit area in the dark on Weds, including us. Should be up on Sat or Sun, they say.
It’s 102 degrees here and I’m trying not to think about the insides of the ‘fridge.
So today in the 102 degree heat I got conscripted to wet-sand a 10,000 square foot gymnasium. This took all day plus. I’ve been guzzling water during these exertions and none of it makes it to my kidneys. Just drains right out my skin on the way.
Violet
@Redshift: Thank you. I’m glad to hear it seems intuitive. I’ve wondered about that. I also want a flat rate unlimited data plan. I know I’ll end up wasting plenty of time on it, so want to make sure I’m not paying way too much.
@WereBear: My super old phone does that. It’s certainly not a smart phone. Hmmm…
@trollhattan: Is the 4G something I should definitely be looking for? I swear all this terminology makes me feel like I should be in the old folks home.
WereBear
Har, exactly.
I have two reasons for having a cell phone: one is that we live in a remote area where it gets to -40 in the winter: it can mean life or death.
The other is that when I need to make personal calls at work, the least I can do on my break is take my cell phone outside (not in the winter, obviously) and use my own time and my own dime.
Stooleo
So, Mitt Romney is going to be doing a fund raiser in my home town of Hamilton MT. This will be hosted by Charles Schwab. The ironic thing is that the fundraiser will be held in the restored Daly mansion. Marcus Daly was one of the copper kings that ruled Montana politics of the late 1800’s. I wonder if Mitt, while he is there, might take a trip up to Pinesdale Mt. Pinesdale is somewhat notorious due to the fact that its citizens are crazy as shit house rats and they all belong to a polygamous Mormon sect called the Apostolic United Brethren. I’d love to see someone ask him about those folks.
Violet
@WereBear: I like the iPhone and some friends and family members have them and love them. Other family member doesn’t like Apple because, like I said, a problem with iPod/iTunes. So I’m still mulling it over.
MikeJ
@Violet: Google charges developers a one time fee of $25 to have as many apps as they write in the app store. Apple charges $100 per app, even for free/open source software, and you still have to get the blessing of your betters before it can go up, and that blessing can be withdrawn any time and your program deleted from the phones of your users any time.
I like writing programs for my phone that I find useful, and I like giving them away to my friends. Apple fucking hates that.
Ruckus
@Redshift:
Romney believes nothing other than that he is entitled to whatever he wants, including the presidency.
It’s a belief system. Not a good one but there you go. My contention is that this is the rethuglican belief system in a nut shell. IGMFU.
Violet
@Martin:
Bought a new computer. Tried to transfer iTunes library across, couldn’t. Couldn’t get stuff off old iPod. Went to Apple store. Genius bar folks gave some advice, but it’s an incredible pain and basically requires moving one file at a time, by hand. It’s a nightmare. Needless to say, the “I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER APPLE ANYTHING” is a commonly heard sentiment.
Roger Moore
@Redshift:
Visual voice mail is a massive step up from the old style. I like having a list I can pick from where there’s a clear indication of who it’s from, when I got it, and actual buttons for play/pause, delete, store, etc. I cringe every time I have to use the ancient system at work where I have to remember button codes to go to the next message, delete, etc.
22over7
I’m hearing something a little different from this sniping (except for Pierce, who continues his genius streak): I think these people are complaining about Romney’s staff. Now I have no idea what actually goes on in that conference room, but I keep hearing rumors of long-time aides, yes-men, and other assorted syncophants. In other words, Romney has staffed his campaign like he would staff a corporation. The lords of commerce can’t influence the candidate if they can’t get in.
Has the Romney campaign got any boots on the ground? Seriously, I haven’t heard a word about his volunteer organization, and all I know about his web presence is that whoever runs it can’t spell.
HRA
I had an Android I gave up on and gave to my daughter who in turn gave it to her daughter and she loves it.
I went with the I-Phone. No one will ever get it out of my possession. I have had Verizon for years now and am satisfied with the service.
danielx
Shorter (h/t Charles Pierce):
I’m Mitt Romney, bitches, and I’m all you got left.
Violet
@MikeJ: Yeah, that’s part of why I’m interested in the non-Apple options. I used to use Apple computers as part of my job, but I’ve always owned Windows machines. I have felt that while Apple is extremely innovative, it’s also proprietary and that’s kind of a pain.
The Other Chuck
@SiubhanDuinne:
Glad he’s gone but damn if Thaddeus McCotter didn’t have the awesomest name in congress. Sounds like the kind of name an old hillbilly moonshiner would have.
smintheus
@SiubhanDuinne: One of the great examples of the Republican Question: Is McCotter stupid or crazy?
SteveinSC
@PeakVT:
The public, my good sir, is an ass. The average American, with his saurian brain is not paying any attention to the in’s and out’s of this campaign. Ugh, I am off to a dinner get-together. Two right-wing males, a know-it-all right-wing ex-school marm, my liberal wife, me and the crazy but left-radical wife of one of the guys. God help me get through this tonight without a squabble. The last time something like this happened here was followed by firing on Fort Sumter.
SiubhanDuinne
@The Other Chuck: With that name, by rights he should’ve been one of the good guys.
SiubhanDuinne
@smintheus:
Yes. Next?
Ash Can
@SiubhanDuinne: Good riddance! Here’s hoping he’s replaced by someone decent, but if his constituents were dumb enough to elect this jagoff in the first place, I’m not holding my breath.
Martin
@Redshift: Yeah, the visual voicemail thing was really big for many of us.
@MikeJ:
That’s not true.
Apple charges $99 per year for the developer program/tools. You can submit as many apps as you want – there’s no charge to submit.
Apple does have another program at $299 per year that lets you distribute apps without going through the app store.
And according to the contract with Apple, they will only delete your apps from users phones if they are found to cause harm – malware, etc. Even if an app is pulled from the store for some other reason, it still lives on users devices. Users can delete and reinstall it. Apple just prevents new users from buying it. The whole point of Apple’s approach is to prevent situations like DNS Changer and Conflicker from happening on their platform. Google can remotely delete apps from Android phones as well, so there’s nothing new there. In fact, Google has actually deleted apps from users more than Apple has.
LanceThruster
This is the World of Commander Mitt Bragg
Your hair will curl in the World of Mitt Bragg.
He fights monsters galore
And then asks for still more
Or so says the brag of Mitt Bragg.
When on the hill the marines plant a flag
They may be led by Commander Mitt Bragg.
With a cannon in hand
He can beat any band
Or so says the brag of Mitt Bragg.
Fencing and fighting and round table knighting
And slaying of dragons, too.
Shipping and sailing and great harpoon whaling
There’s nothing Mitt Bragg can’t do.
Hunting and trapping and gold miner mapping
And flying to Timbuktu.
Roping and riding and Indian guiding
Commander Mitt Bragg comes through.
This is the World of Commander Mitt Bragg
Your head will whirl in the World of Mitt Bragg.
He can do anything
In his world he’s a king
Or so says the brag of Mitt Bragg.
source: lyricsondemand.com/…..yrics.html
WereBear
Ay yuh. (New Englander, for those who wish to know: I am a student of American accents, and have mastered many.)
I am still stunned that after all this time, the Confederacy lives on. I suppose that is what happens when a lot of people refuse to let it die.
Martin
@Violet:
Ok, I’m not sure how that’s Apple’s fault. I just bought a new machine and transferred my account, music, books, everything from the old one. Apple has a utility called ‘Migration Assistant’ to do it – and has had it for ages. Works between any two Macs. There’s even one to migrate from Windows to a Mac.
Fire it up on the old machine, and then on the new machine, verify that they’re looking at each other, and then sit back and wait. Everything comes across – settings, icon placement, passwords, music – everything.
And even the one file at a time thing doesn’t make sense. Copy all of the files onto a thumb drive/server/mount old machine as client to new machine then drop all of your old music on iTunes, it’ll ask you for your AppleID/password to authorize the new machine, and you’re done.
Sorry, but the story sounds like complete bullshit to me.
trollhattan
@Violet:
My take: 4G is the latest mobile broadcast spectrum and the fastest because it handles more data, but mostly makes a difference when doing data-heavy things like watching video or pushing big files around. I don’t find it makes a difference in basics like sound quality. (This is strictly from a consumer standpoint, and I’ll gladly step aside for a techie to chime in.)
However, a lot of 3G networks are overwhelmed because they’re oversubscribed and, for example, my bride’s iPhone sometimes gets bogged down because of this while mine mocks her in a Nelsonlike voice: “Ha-ha!” This phenomenon is very area-specific. Try to quiz other locals, as my experience may not have any similarity to what you have in your area.
Comments between the two phones overall usefulness remain, however. Mine has an AMOLED screen that I can actually read all the time. Yay.
Villago Delenda Est
“Cardboard” implies some firmness and form.
How about “tissue paper”?
Redshift
@trollhattan: I’ve never turned on 4G on mine because from what I understand, it eats battery power, and I don’t do anything that uses a lot of bandwidth. Most of the nice phones will probably have it anyway (though not enabled by default), but I wouldn’t worry about it when comparison shopping.
Martin
@trollhattan: The other tradeoff with 4G is that the 4G radios still suck a lot of power – so the tradeoff for 4G is either a phone that doesn’t last all day, or one with a really big display to coverup the larger battery. If you want a big screen, then all’s good. If you want a smaller phone thats 4G – it may not be worth having to recharge mid-day for the faster speeds.
And then the carriers fuck up the benefits of 4G with their data plans. Yeah, you can download big files over 4G but if you have a 2GB/month data plan, you can exhaust that in no time. The 4G really makes sense if you have an unlimited plan or a very high cap, but it gets wicked expensive really fast.
I think the carriers need to advertise their plans also in terms of how long your data plan lasts at the high-speed that they advertise. AT&T and Verizon will get you 9mbps, which will exhaust a 2GB/month plan in 37 minutes. It’s great that the network is fast, but you can’t actually use it for more than a minute per day.
Jay in Oregon
@Violet:
I’ve migrated my iTunes from one Mac to another; it shouldn’t have been as hard as you describe. (I do tech support for a living, so I have a healthy respect for how computers can get screwed up—both by users and on their own.)
The catch is that your iOS device can only be tied to one library. I haven’t migrated to a new Mac in a while, so I’m not 100% sure that the iOS device will recognize the iTunes library on the new computer as the same as on the old computer, or whether it will want to re-sync everything. Depending on what you have on your iOS device, this may be a huge time-waster.
EDIT: I suspect part of the problem is trusting the Geniuses at the Apple stores for anything other than replacing hardware (which for iOS devices amounts to replacing a defective unit with a new one).
Xecky Gilchrist
@elmo: We really do need to work on reflexes other than “curl up and die” in the face of adversity.
Lurker
@Violet:
The typical iPhone plan is too expensive for my modest needs. AT&T does not offer any of their super-cheap cell phone services for iPhones at this time, so I ended up going with Android.
Last November I bought a contract-free, AT&T compatible Google Nexus S for $550 from Best Buy. It was a hassle, because you can ONLY buy the contract-free Google Nexus S over Best Buy’s website even if you want to pick it up from a local store. I should have just had the Best Buy website mail it to me.
The phone itself is great, though. I slipped in my SIM card from my old AT&T-compatible phone, and I was able to continue using my cheap AT&T Pay-as-you-Go service without a single hiccup. I paid a minimum of $0.10/minute, $0.20/text, $5/month data. This meant my phone costs could continue to go as low as $100/year.
However, last April AT&T changed the terms of their Pay-as-you-Go service. The data plans are no longer offered with their $0.10/minute plan. I had a choice of either dropping the data plan, or upgrading my voice/text to a $25/month plan that includes 250 minutes + unlimited texts.
I opted for the $25/month plan in order to keep paying for $5/month data. It still comes out lower than what I would have paid for iPhone service. And the phone itself is great. It does everything I need it to do — Kindle, LoseIt, web browsing, flashlight, calculator, Remember the Milk, everything.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
And unfortunately, the only one of the big carriers that has an unlimited plan is Sprint, which is still primarily on WiMax for 4G. WiMax suck ass for mobile phones, primarily because it apparently can’t pass off seamlessly between towers, so you have to reconnect to their network regularly as you move. It’s probably fine if you’re sitting still and using it for your laptop, but it’s so lousy for phones that they’re already moving to LTE just 2 years after getting their WiMax network up and running.
ETA: Shorter: If you’re going with Sprint, get one of their LTE phones, not WiMax.
Patricia Kayden
My fear is that based on the poor job numbers (probably going to stretch throughout the summer), Romney’s electability will keep going up. Today’s job numbers were fair to middling, giving Repubs courage and Romney some talking points: “Obama is bad for the economy, doesn’t know what he’s doing, blah, blah, blah”.
Of course, apart from cutting taxes and getting rid of all financial regs, the public has no idea what Romney will actually do to create jobs once he becomes President. All we have now is “I will do the opposite of Obama”. That may be enough.
But, I’m still hopeful for Obama. His head is still above waters in many of the battle states. And Romney appears to be susceptible to unforced gaffes.
Martin
@Jay in Oregon:
With iCloud, all of those problems have basically gone away. Anything attached to your ID that you bought from the store – apps, music, books, etc – can be redownloaded from the store and all of the rest of your settings and files, contacts and junk stays synced with your account. Resyncing is really quite painless now. I wiped and resynced my daughters iPod Touch a few weeks ago and it took about 20 minutes. Her brother set a lock screen password as a joke and then proceeded to forget what it was. Doofus.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@gogol’s wife:
Imagine a giant grizzly bear, being stung to death by 10,000 bees, or getting eaten alive by a nest of fire ants.
(It helps me, anyway).
gogol's wife
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Yes, that’s good.
Jay in Oregon
@Martin:
I don’t trust Migration Assistant to do a good job of pulling data and applications from one Mac to another.
Moving stuff using Migration Assistant can’t guarantee that the apps on your old Mac will work on your New Mac.
I’ve talked to too many customers who have file permission errors (such as not having write permissions to their own user folder!) after migrating.
I’ve put together a straightforward plan for migrating from one Mac to another (or upgrading from one version of Mac OS X to another):
1) Connect an external drive to the Mac
2) Use an app such as SuperDuper To clone my existing HD to the external drive
3) Disconnect the drive, reformat, and install Mac OS X
4) After installing, my starting user account is a generic “admin” account
5) Install my applications and utilities
6) Copy my home folder from the external drive to the internal drive
7) Create my actual user account: if you create an account with the same name as an existing folder in /Users, it asks if you want to use that folder and updates the file and folder permissions for you
The advantage of doing it this way is, if I need to actually use my Mac, I can reboot to the external drive, and I have my old setup back. Then I reboot back into the internal drive and keep updating. I can check between the two drives to make sure that I haven’t missed an app somewhere.
lamh35
Panoramic view of the 6500 crowd at Obama’s stop in Pittsburgh.
360.io/4jEemz
lamh35
@gogol’s wife: Some Obama & baby cuteness to pick u up.
youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0AmVBtQA4Zk
ETA: Just in case that didn’t pick you up here’s somemore Obama & Baby cuteness
buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/president-obama-and-the-cutest-baby-ever
trollhattan
@Martin:
I know squat at this point about my usage rates, but am watching the battery and data meters to get an idea of what to expect from both. Power data can be evaluated in detail, to give an idea of what functions consume individually. Our data allowance is spread across all devices on our account and I’ve assured wife.gov my pr0n watching will all be in standard def.
I give and I give.
Opted for the Maxx because the reg-lar Razr has a reputation for briefish battery life, enticingly slim thing that it is (and it’s the only phone in the entire store I lusted for, to a near embarassment level–composite shell, are you kidding me?!). The MAXX is chunked up (hello, Reese) to accommodate a bigger battery and seems to last a day between charges when used frequently, far longer on standby.
Anyhoo, coming from a tiny twelve-key unsmart phone it’s quite a change.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
@Patricia Kayden:
Rmoney’s electability is dependent on having a coherent message and vision that says ‘This is why I’m not just different from the President, but also why I’m different from the last schmucks my party threw at the Presidency.’ So far he hasn’t been able to articulate any.
burnspbesq
@Violet:
iPhone. If you live in NYC, go with Verizon. Otherwise, go with AT&T.
kay
@22over7:
I haven’t seen any Romney organization.
This is an important county for the GOP because they have to run up huge margins in rural counties like mine to offset “the three C’s” ( the three big
cities
We’ve had an Obama organizer since early spring.
McCain didn’t have an office open here until the debates, though, although I did meet his organizer once prior to the office opening, so he did have someone in the general area, at least, before the debates.
Anyway, I don’t think Romney is BEHIND McCain, although he IS behind Bush 04, but Bush 04 campaign was like a machine, very focused, to the point of cult-like, actually, IMO.
I’ll take pictures as soon as I see some sign of life.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Roger Moore:
I had an HTC Evo Shift 4G on Sprint until a few months ago.
Nice enough phone, hardware-wise (bigger/better screen than the iPhone 4S that replaced it, nice HW keyboard etc), but it never once tasted a 4G signal. And this includes tries in Boston and San Francisco (i.e. not just a problem in the boonies), so I eventually just turned off 4G altogether to save the battery.
As for Android, I liked the idea… but it was flaky. Flaky enough that that I eventually just gave up and embraced Steve’s Well-Managed Experience, limitations and all.
lamh35
Huntsman won’t attend Republican convention, cites party’s narrow focus
NonyNony
@kay:
But that’s how you win elections of this size (not the cult-like part – the focused machine part). I thought that was the BIG LESSON of 2008 – that Obama’s team was organized and disciplined and wiped the floor with the less organized and less disciplined Clinton and McCain camps.
That was also one of the lessons of 2000 – where Bush’s team was motivated and organized and Gore’s organization was only so-so in comparison.
Honestly the idea that Romney doesn’t have the manpower in the states baffles me – he ran a primary campaign for months to get the nomination and he’s been preparing for this since 2008. How the hell does he not have a campaign office in every county in Ohio and every other swing state in the country by this point?
mai naem
@Violet: I hate sprint -long story . Crappy crappy company to work with. Also too, their coverage totally sucks.
I have verizon personally and work related I have tmobile and cricket. I had alltell(which I loved) since ’98 which got bought out by verizon. Verizon has the best coverage but is the most expensive. Cricket used to be the cheapest but because its a no contract you pay for everything. Tmobile’s been pretty good. Tmobile’s got a no contract $50/mo/ deal. I talked to a salesperson at Best Buy a few months ago. FWIW, she said AT&T and Verizon watch your data usage carefully and they know if you are using the wifi on another device but that you can get away with it on tmobile. IMHO, go with a no contract deal. You pay for the phone but you aren’t stuck with a contract and it’s going to cost you $250 to get out of a contract which is what a lot of phones will cost you.
Percysowner
I have an LG Optimus Slider with a contract through Virgin Mobile. VM runs off of the Sprint network, so you have to check that you’re covered by them. For $35 I get 350 minutes talk time, unlimited text, unlimited WiFi in 3G (although they do throttle back to 2G after a certain amount of data is used). For $55 you get unlimited everything (3G still throttles). You have to pay for the phone, the slider was around $200 because it has a slide out keyboard, a regular Optimus is around $100. It does everything I want and the price is right.
Cap'n Magic
T-Mo here. Got unlimited everything for $60 after my contract ended, using a Galaxy S II.
And its vacation time for the cranky Cap’n-going from the frying pan (MN+BJ) into the fire (CO).
lamh35
This dude ain’t nothing but a freakn’ bully. There is just no way he’s gonna be number 2 on Romney’s ticket. Romney too “gentile” for the like of Christie’s brashness to have him as #2
Christie Gets Into Another Shouting Match
kay
@NonyNony:
The Bush people here were all religious fundamentalists or war-crazed hawks. They were exactly the sort of people he needed to man his machine.
We used to joke about the “YES” stickers on their cars. YES is the call letters of a religious radio station.
Hill Dweller
@lamh35: It’s easy to act tough when you’re surrounded by security. If that bulbous buffoon ever got into a physical altercation, he’d be winded after two swings.
Cap'n Magic
ICYMI: Dogs grieve.
mai naem
@lamh35: He’s got the same problems as Rushbo and Breitbart.
The Sheriff's A Ni-
On the topic of phones, I upgraded from an iPhone 3GS to a Galaxy S II Skyrocket and haven’t been happier. Even on AT&T. A larger and more vibrant screen and more freedom to fark up my phone- er- do stuff with it than I could being chained to Apple. And the ‘4G’ speed is pretty sweet, even if it truly isn’t 4G.
Cap'n Magic
@The Sheriff’s A Ni-: HSPA+ is actually pretty decent. And the 1st gen LTE radios have issues. As my late Computer Shopper editor one opined: “Nothing works until Revision E.”
Schlemizel
I know I am not the first person to note this – but – WTF is up with Kansas? Driving across this turd on I70 and its a cornucopia of crackpot. The puss cherry on top appeared just outside of Fort Riley. A billboard with a very dark picture of our President and the words “WANNABE MARXIST DICTATOR” and then “paid for by Anne something or other
bemused
@lamh35:
Lovely. Contrast that with estimated 200 who listened to Pawlenty and Jindal at Soldiers and Sailors Hall. I do want to see photos because I wonder if those two actually drew as many as 200.
Violet
@Martin:
My family member tried the Migration Assistant. Didn’t work. Tried a couple of other programs that were recommended on some Apple forums. They didn’t work. And, like I said, went to the Apple store Genius Bar and those guys couldn’t figure it out. I’m not sure what happened because I don’t use iTunes, but it truly did stump everyone, including Apple experts on online forums, and the guys at the Genius bar who looked at both the iPod and the computer.
It’s Apple’s fault, in the view of my family member, because of the way they code things in iTunes that makes it impossible to do what needs to be done in this case. That was the Genius Bar guys said. So…
Are you saying I’m lying? Wow. Okay. Not quite sure why you are saying that.
Schlemizel
But some good news from Colorado – several people who should be Republican votes are very unhappy with the GOP and Willard Rmoney.
The ads on TV are already shrill though so it could be an ugly summer & autumn there.
bemused
@lamh35:
I wouldn’t mention his weight but carrying all those excessive pounds around, that dude can’t afford to blow his top constantly.
kay
@NonyNony:
I just think it’s a WEIRD campaign.
Why are they sending the governor of Louisiana to Ohio? What normal non-wingnut voter in OH is going to give a shit about what the governor of Louisiana says, about anything?
Jindal drew 20 people at his appearance near here. Are they surprised by that, and why isn’t John Kasich Romney’s OH surrogate?
Cap'n Magic
@bemused: He’ll be able to, depending on how much booze he’s pounding down.
Anne Laurie
@lamh35:
And yet according to Romney’s church, we’re the ‘gentiles’! Seriously, I think Romney would love to have his own personal “attack dog” as his underticket — teenage Willard was too chickenshite to beat up the gay kid without a team preassembled to hold the other kid down, and grownup Willard hasn’t changed that particular ‘personality quirk’. But I don’t think Romney’s ego wants to share the convention stage with a Media Star like Christie, and I don’t think Christie’s ego wants to be labelled Number Two on the ticket. As you say, Romney thinks Christie is un-genteel, and Christie thinks Romney is a rude-word-beginning-with-P…
Cap'n Magic
Don’t know ho many of you follow the Ghost In The Shell Metaseries, but this to me seems to have nailed what the political climate is like (give or take a few states:)
Calouste
@NonyNony:
Romney closed his campaign offices after the primaries were over in each state. And then you have to keep in mind that even during the GOP primaries, Obama had more campaign offices in some states than all the Republican candidates combined.
I’ve stopped being baffled by anything Romney does. He has basically been running for President since about 2005, and there are still a lot of basics he hasn’t sorted out yet. He has had 5 years to come up with a consistent story about his time as governor, and instead he just decides to ignore it. Frankly, the only thing he has come up with in 7 years about his life story is “Rah, rah, I’m a job creator!!”.
Violet
Thanks for all the thoughts and info on phones and carriers, everyone. Definitely some stuff I didn’t know and things I hadn’t thought of. Thanks for explaining the 4G and battery life. I really am just starting to look at this stuff, so am not quite sure what I’m getting into.
Cap'n Magic
@Calouste: Romney is trying to do in the temporal plane what his father (now in the spiritual plane) could not do when he ran for president unlike the Bush House.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
gogol's wife
@lamh35:
Oh, yes, that’s good. Thanks!
Chris
@Derelict:
Indeed.
About all those Not Romneys, a question for my elders: do you think any of them would have been accepted back in, say, the eighties? In other words, what is it that doomed the “real conservatives” – the fact that the country’s moved away from the right wind or the fact that the right wing’s finally moved too far right for the country? Or both? Or is it just the fact that all those candidates individually happened to suck?
gbear
I was on the MN north shore of Lake Superior for the last two days for work and got to experience some blessedly cool temps. It was 64 degrees all down the shore today but when I got back to St Paul at 6:15 the temp was 101. Just as I got home a front was coming through town and now (an hour later) it’s 83, and we managed to drop that 18 degrees without having a major thunderstorm precede it. Excellent! (and knock on wood…)
NotMax
@Cap’n Magic
In Romney’s case, shouldn’t that be
Cap'n Magic
@NotMax: Almost. It’s Draw, shake, repeat.
Roger Moore
@NonyNony:
He won the primaries with an air campaign, not boots on the ground. He’s counting on that same kind of media-heavy, top-down campaign as his main effort for the general. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet that this is a reflection of his leadership style. He doesn’t want to depend on a distributed ground game because that puts too much of the operation of the campaign into other people’s hands; he’d rather run things top down because it gives him more control.
NotMax
@Cap’n Magic
Heh.
And don’t discount that he’s also still rankled by his mother’s dismally unsuccessful run for the Senate.
gbear
@lamh35:
This. Money given to Obama helps pay to help Get Out The Vote. The billionaire ads are trying to Scare Out The Vote.
Catsy
Nailed it.
There is almost nothing the Romney campaign has to offer the vast majority of Americans other than the “R” beside his name. He can’t please both his base and the rest of the country.
He’s a shit candidate who was nominated only because the alternatives in the willing GOP bench were that much worse, he oozes the kind of sleaze snake-oil sincerity by which most people are instinctively repulsed, and he’s being driven by an increasingly crazified base to take more and more extreme positions further out of the mainstream of what Americans will accept.
bemused
@Cap’n Magic:
Morbid obesity, anger control issues and booze….what could go wrong!
Calouste
@Chris:
Well, you had Newt “I last held office in the previous century” Gingrich, Rick “I lost my re-election bid by 18%” Santorum, Rick “Oops, too dumb even for the GOP” Perry, Ron “racist goldbug” Paul and Michelle “crazy eyes, crazy thoughts” Bachmann, so while Mitt “30% job approval” Romney sucks just as hard as the rest of them, he just had more money.
rikyrah
I wanna thank folks for the phone information. As someone whose cellphone is nicknamed
‘ the 8-track’, I’ve decided to use it until it dies, and then I’ll be forced to enter the modern cellphone era.
Cap'n Magic
@bemused: While everyone is different, many studies point to those who consume alcohol as having extended lifespans vs. the mean. OTOH, he may have other underlying conditions that negate the positive benefits of alcohol consumption.
Regardless, the perception of his image he presents has more negatives to it than his actual positives.
rikyrah
And the reason Willard has no ground game, is because they’re gonna send out the Mormons to do his ground game.
no lie..read it in an article
Cap'n Magic
@rikyrah: Just saw your blog.
Maila and Bo rule.
gbear
@rikyrah: My cell phone would be more of a cassette. I’m also just planning on using it until it dies.
CW in LA
@gogol’s wife: That’s where I’m at, too. I understand what some other responses have said about warding off complacency and procrastination.
But the most depressed I’ve been about the prospects this election has been after reading some of the fundraising appeals from the president (or rather, his campaign). They leave me thinking I better hang onto my money so as to have better odds of surviving the theocratic-corporate totalitarian nightmare state that the Rethugs will impose once they get control of all three branches of the governments
Canuckistani Tom
@rikyrah:
I didn’t breakdown and get a cell (Blackberry) until last week.
Original Lee
@Violet: We have AT&T for our iPhones. The data plan is expensive. We have a national family calling plan, because some people in the family travel a lot for business. We also have the international plan, for the same reason. IIRC, the international calling plan is $5/month per line as a permanent add-on, but it’s more expensive if you keep turning it on and turning it off. We have yet to hit a country where we can’t use the phone part, although I’ll have to admit that we’re rarely out of urban areas when not Stateside. Internet is a whole ‘nother story, so I would not recommend getting the international data plan unless you really really need it.
We have had AT&T mobile for a very long time, though, so it’s possible some of the pieces in our plan have been grandfathered in and are not generally available to new customers.
Valdivia
@Violet:
I would say, if you are still reading this that with the iPhone you can use Viber, a free app that uses your phone to call others with the viber app through wifi for free. I used it abroad and worked like magic. Free!
gocart mozart
Androids Dreaming Vainly of Electric Sheeple
-a novel by Philip K. Dick Armey
Violet
@Original Lee: @Valdivia: Thank you both. Very interesting info. I didn’t know that about turning on and off the international plan and I’d never heard of Viber. Thanks for the tip!
gocart mozart
@smintheus:
Yes
Robert Sneddon
@Calouste:
Speculation but…
What if Governor Romney is only in it for the money? He is raising lots of cash, big lump sums from the well-heeled and ten-dollar donations from the Joe Soaps who can be persuaded to help his Restore America project and get that dark-skinned fellow out of the Should Be White House. We know he’s skilled at manipulating large amounts of money and having chunks of it appear in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland etc. under his name.
Closing the primary campaign offices and not paying for boots-on-the-ground is obvious cost-cutting, the sort of thing he did at Bain Capital. With good accountants and careful use of consultancy fees, sub-contractors etc. he could corral a few hundred million bucks into places where it would never be seen again.
Sure Federal election law is supposed to prevent this king of skimming happening but any rigid set of rules can be gamed and he has a lot of expertise on tap in his upper-level staffers and finance guys, old buddies from his days at Bain.
Elie
@lamh35:
Christie needs to chill. He is a big man with some medical issues. Rage attacks and anger with large size and age over 45 can end you up in the hospital..
On another vein — this election is such a marker for what this country is going to be. All the money pilled up on the Bishop’s side is frankly a negative adverstisement… and team Obama is going to play that hard, closer in. What will make it work is that over time, as I fully expected and see manifest, Romney is going to gaffe and make himself into such a buffoon, that having all that money associated with such a clear buffoon is going to melt his campaign. That and real world events — the Libor scandal and other related shenanigans are beginning to really boil — again, highlighting for even the most clueless that these folks may be rich, but they are very stupid and will blow up your world as well as their own trying to steal a few more nickels. They have way too much excess crazy and greed to cover up anymore… they can’t and Romney cannot hide the beast underneath the mask..
JR in WV
The greed is so hard it makes my eyes bleed!
Our power came on last night about dusk, almost exactly 7 days after the storm blew the local grid to bits. The worst part was that my generator won’t run the submersible water pump, so we carried water to cook with, drink, and flush.
We used a pan and a washcloth to pretend we could get squeaky clean, NOT! No replacement for a shower, which I took a long luke-warm one at length after getting everything reset to run off the grid from running on a generator.
I will say the Yamaha genset worked like a charm, ran silently 20 or 24 hours a day for 7 days. We did shut down Friday early afternoon to do an oil change, which it wants every 100 hours. It was ugly oil when we drained it.
The Repugnants are running on fear and greed and lies. They don’t have any principles any more, not like when there were Rockefeller Republicans. I grew up in a GOP household, and grew away from the GOP as Nixon lied about Vietnam, and grew away a little more after I got a draft notice.
Notice Williard Romney never got a draft notice – maybe I should have converted to MMism adn gone to the south of France to missionary too. At least GEB pretended to be a patriot, until it got in the way of his party. Then he deserted.
McCain deserted too, just a few hours after he helped burn the Forrestal, which I know from reading his autobiography. He’s so divorced from reality he confessed to multiple violations of the UCMJ in his own bio – anyone without a father AND a G-Father as Admirals would still be in the stockade.
But his daddy was CINCPACFLT or something like that, so anything McCain did was OK. As long as hid daddy was the boss. Then he got out while the getting was good.
I hope the storm scheduled for tomorrow won’t tear up the newly repaired power grid, I’m too tired to do it again.
Best, all. Good to be back. In a 100 degree heat wave, there’s NOTHING better than a luke warm shower, nothing. Not even an ice cold beer.
JR