Retrophisch“The central question in this debate is not whether government should decide how much money it will allow us to keep. Rather, it is how much of our money we will allow the government to spend.” —Cal Thomas
A return to the constitutionally-granted powers of the federal government would go a long way toward bringing down the tax burden on all Americans.
“Today’s ‘stimulus package’ is psychotherapy for a nation that very recently has become too fixated on the stock market, which has declined three consecutive years for the first time since 1939-41. But the stock market and the economy are not identical, and indeed they have diverged–the market slump has been more severe than the recent recession, the mildest since 1945.” —George Will
I wholeheartedly agree; we have been way too focused, and continue to be so, on the stock market as our primary economic indicator. It is an important indicator, I’ll grant you, but if we learn anything from the dot-com bust, it is that no matter how hard we would like to become a paperless, information-based economy, real money is still to be made in industrial and service sectors of the economy. This recession that we’ve found ourselves in is merely the economy, and the stock market, correcting itself after the overvaluation and over-inflation of the stock market during the dot-com boom.
Friday’s Federalist opined on President Bush’s proposed economic policy, and this gem on tax cut vernacular:
“And Sociocrats depend on one tactical tool–control the debate using their army of sycophants in the Leftmedia. Together, the political and chattering tribes conspire to control the debate by manipulating the vernacular: government spending becomes ‘investment,’ tax cuts ‘cost’ the government, letting you keep your money become ‘a rebate,’ and they ask questions like can government ‘afford the tax cuts’ and suggest that reducing taxes causes deficits when anyone with half a wit knows that spending causes deficits.”
Some time yesterday, Apple released a new beta of Safari.
Eric shared this tidbit with the ATPM staff on the ongoing hacks of the Recording Industry Association of America’s web site.
Steve didn’t mention it during the keynote, but it’s been generating lots of buzz: Apple released a public beta of X11 for Mac OS X. X11 is the common name for the X Window System, used by Unix developers to create graphical applications. So if you have a graphic-based Unix app that hasn’t been ported to Mac OS X, and you don’t want to fiddle with Fink and XDarwin, like me, then download this installer and get started.
Steve Jobs reported during his keynote that the iPod is the #1 MP3 player in the United States and in the land of consumer electronics, Japan, with a 42% market share in the latter.
I love my iPod; it goes practically everywhere with me. During the 16-hour round-trip drive of our Christmas vacation, my iPod provided more than enough music for us in the Jeep. Now to get my wife to spring for the 20-gig version for my birthday this year. . .
Safari is generating quite a bit of buzz:
Former Mozillian and Chimera inventor Dave Hyatt is part of the Safari team and has several interesting posts regarding his new employer’s browser project.
Chris Sorenson blogs on why Safari is yet another reason to switch. Mark Pilgrim is putting Safari to the grindstone. Zeldman offers his initial impression.
There’s a tip on accessing all of Safari’s keyboard commands over on Mac OS X Hints. Mena Trott, half of the force behind Movable Type, offers her impressions, as well as a pro/con breakdown between Safari and Chimera, her current favorite browser. Speaking of Chimera, waferbaby offers a rudimentary way to get your bookmarks from Chimera into Safari. Folders are not currently supported, but it’s better than nothing.
Finally, if you want to get rid of Safari’s brushed metal look (yes please), and don’t want to use a haxie (just say no to haxies), Michael has detailed instructions. Hmmmm. Now to do this with the other Apple brushed-metal apps. . .
Whew! Too many links for a single post?
MacCentral is reporting that Safari, Apple’s new browser for OS X, has broken Apple’s single day download record.