The Governator Looks Out for EMS/First Responders

Governor Vetoes 131 Bills, with Hundreds to Go
Schwarzenegger has until Tuesday to decide measures
John Wildermuth
The San Francisco Chronicle
2008 Sept 29

SACRAMENTO -- Facing a Tuesday night deadline, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger continued to work his way through a stack of legislation on his desk Sunday, vetoing twice as many measures as he signed.

The governor vetoed 131 bills Sunday, bringing his total for 2008 to 278. With 341 bills remaining to be dealt with, Schwarzenegger has a good chance of surpassing the 311 vetoes he handed out in 2004.

The 61 bills Schwarzenegger signed Sunday included:
AB2737, by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, which allows a court to order blood to be withdrawn involuntarily from anyone arrested who has exposed police officers, firefighters or emergencymedical personnel to blood or bodily fluids.

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This is very important since the federal protection for EMS and first responders were stripped from the Ryan White Act in 2006 -the last time Congress reauthorized it. I applaud Gov. Schwarzengger for his approval of this bill!

Preparing for the Next President

Walked by the Capitol today - the side that faces the mall is all shut down to pedestrian traffic. According to the sign, they are getting ready for the inauguration.

Stay Vigilant!

As of September 30, 2008, the
Current Threat Level is Yellow - Elevated.

Given the current financial crisis facing the nation, I think that the Homeland Security Department should increases the threat level to High or even Severe. The inability of the House of Representatives to pass legislation that would deal with the economy yesterday has left the American economy in a very fragile state.

As all of the major news networks were quick to point out - we have not seen losses on Wall Street of this magnitude sine 9/11. It is a terrifying thought, and one could only imagine, what another terror attack on US soil would do to our economy in its present state.

Therefore, now, more than ever, it is important that law enforcement officials and the general public be vigilant in this time of tough economic uncertainty. Citizens should take notice of their surroundings, and report suspicious items or activities to local authorities immediately.

Hopefully Congress will pass legislation by the end of the week that will help us deal with this economic uncertainty and get our economy back on track. Until then, keep an eye out and pray for our men and women in uniform who risk their own lives protecting us everyday.

Missile Defense System

As stated yesterday, the recent actions by Russia have highlighted the need to get the proposed missile defense system in place soon. Now, because of the economy issues facing the USA, it is unclear when and if the proposed missile defense shield will be in place. This issue is causing the Polish to take a second look at the issue, and the candidates.

Both candidates, in fact, back the plan. Obama, however, has said that he would want to test the effectiveness of the missiles before they are activated.

According to Poland's foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski:

""I have spoken personally to both Senator McCain and twice by telephone to Senator Obama. We are confident that President McCain would continue with the deal. Senator Obama told me that he is conceptually in favor of missile defence," he said.
"My interpretation of that is that it is a higher than 50 percent chance that he (Obama) would go along because we are pretty confident that it is not directed at Russia," he told reporters at an EU meeting in Avignon, France."

The Czech foreign minister, Karel Schwarzenberg on Friday, September 26th said that Czech officials had been in contact with the campaigns of both presidential candidates, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain, to discuss the future of the missile shield. He said a delay would be more likely if Obama wins the November 4 election.

Days after Russia's military intervention in Georgia this month, Poland and the United States signed a long-awaited deal to station parts of the shield on Polish soil.

The 10 interceptor rockets in Poland, along with a radar complex in the Czech Republic, will form the European part of a global system Washington says will be able to shoot down missiles from enemy states or groups such as al Qaeda.
Despite U.S. assurances to the contrary, Russia sees the ballistic missile shield as a threat to its own security and some Russian politicians and generals have said Poland must be prepared for a preventive attack on the site in the future.

This missile defense shield is not popular with the Russians. On Friday, September 26th, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, visited Warsaw, the first visit by a senior Russian official since Russia’s war with Georgia in August to an EU member state. Mr. Lavrov spoke of Warsaw’s deal with Washington for 10 interceptor missiles in the north of Poland:

“A simple military analysis proves that a US base in Europe for global anti-missile defence has no other, and for many years will have no other, target but Russian missiles “All objective experts understand that Iran’s missiles pose no threat to Europe and even less to the United States.” He added that Poland had naively been drawn into a dangerous game “perhaps not fully understanding the ramifications of its decision.” Complete Story

One of the sights for the proposed missile defense program is Slupsk, Poland – Slupsk is 65 miles away from Gdansk, (which we all know) was home of the Solidarity labor movement which helped overturn Poland’s communist system. Complete Story

Under the defense deal, 10 missile interceptors will be placed in underground silos at Redzikowo airfield, on the outskirts of Slupsk. By 2011 to 2013, they will work in conjunction with U.S.-run radar based in the Czech Republic to thwart a potential attack by Iran. In an attempt to quell the Kremlin’s worries, The U.S. Missile Defense Agency says the system cannot be used for an offensive attack without obvious modification of the football-sized field it will occupy.

"The people of Slupsk are more interested than ever in the U.S. election," Mayor Maciej Kobylinski said.

It will be interesting to see how this issue plays out in the future, especially given the weak state of the US economy. In the meantime, one thing is certain - both Poland and the Czech Republic will be watching closely.

Election 2008 - Polish Priorities

Polish News has offered this list of Polish-American priorities for the 2008 election:

- Immigration-law reform enabling Polish immigrants to obtain legal status – permanent residence or US citizenship;

- Ensuring more Federal Government appointments, including cabinet posts, for Polish Americans;

- Vigorous prosecution of anti-Polonism through the creation of a special Polish anti-defamation unit at the US State Department similar to that which now monitors anti-Semitism;

- More student, academic and cultural exchange programs with Poland;

- Increased US military aid for Poland in exchange for its agreement to host parts of the anti-missile shield on Polish territory.

- Increasing business opportunities for Polish companies in the United States;

- Making good on the F-16 offset program, whereby the US pledged to promote investments in Poland in exchange for Poland’s purchase of F-16 jet fighter planes;

- Inclusion of Poland in the visa-waiver program, enabling Poles to visit the US without having to apply for an American visa; the US is now the only NATO country that still discriminates Poles in this way.

I suppose it goes without saying, but the recent actions by Russia have highlighted the need to get the proposed missile defense system in place soon. Now, because of the economy issues facing the USA, it is unclear when and if the proposed missile defense shield will be in place. This is becoming a big issue in Poland, and I will be blogging about it tomorrow.

Mourning the Loss of Some Great Folks

As you are aware, I spent Tuesday flying with Trooper 1 (one of 12 helicopters run by the Maryland State Police) I am very saddened to report that early today the Trooper 2 helicopter, based out of Andrews Airforce Base crashed in the line of duty.
The troopers that I flew with were outstanding and my thoughts and prayers go out to all of the Maryland State Police today.

Medevac helicopter crash kills 4 in Md.
DC State Wire
Published: Today
FORESTVILLE, Md. (AP) — A medevac helicopter taking accident victims to a trauma center crashed in suburban Washington early Sunday, killing four of the five people aboard, authorities said.

The accident killed two police officers on board the Maryland State Police craft, one of them the pilot. Also killed were an Emergency Medical Services staffer and one of the accident victims, said Mark Brady, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department.

A second accident victim survived the crash, which happened near Andrews Air Force Base.

The helicopter was sent to the scene of a traffic accident in the Waldorf area about 11 p.m. Saturday and picked up two patients and a rescue squad member for transport to Prince George's Hospital Center, according to a press release from the Maryland State Police.

As it returned to its base, the helicopter disappeared from radar and officials lost radio contact with the craft, known as Trooper 2. The crew had radioed in just before midnight that it needed to land due to weather conditions, according to the release. After an intensive search, public safety officials found the downed helicopter about 2 a.m. on a trail in a wooded area of Walker Mill Regional Park in Forestville.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.

The Maryland State Police Aviation Command, which includes the medevac program, flies 12 twin-engine helicopters out of eight bases across the state.

Sunday's crash marked the first fatalities in the command since 1986 when a helicopter crashed in fog in West Baltimore, killing two troopers who had just transported a shooting victim. The command saw two other fatal helicopter crashes in the 1970s.

A recent state legislative audit revealed that about a third of the medevac helicopters were out of service for 51 days during the past fiscal year. The audit also faulted the police agency for failing to document maintenance needs and costs and failing to comply with federal and manufacturer repair orders.

Nine of the choppers are more than 18 years old.

But state police have defended the unit. And the General Assembly's Office of Legislative Audits also noted that the operation is highly regarded throughout the nation and has an "impeccable" safety record.

State lawmakers are likely to face major budget cuts in the coming months that could threaten a three-year plan to replace the helicopters.

In the last legislative session, lawmakers struggled to carve out money to upgrade the fleet or buy new helicopters. The fiscal year 2009 budget has about $33 million for the fleet. About $110 million is planned over the next four years.

Napierdalać Się - Election 2008 Debate 1

Ah, Poland made it into last nights debate!

Senator Obama:
"It is absolutely important that we have a unified alliance and that we explain to the Russians that you cannot be a 21st-century superpower, or power, and act like a 20th-century dictatorship.

And we also have to affirm all the fledgling democracies in that region, you know, the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the Latvians, the Poles, the Czechs, that we are, in fact, going to be supportive and in solidarity with them in their efforts"

Yet on July 16, 2007 when Obama met with Polish President Lech Kaczynski - Obama made the following comments Link Here:

“Not long ago, we looked to Poland as a country that needed American help in its own efforts to be free and secure; now we look to Poland as a critical partner in building a safer, freer world." and

"“Poland has been a steadfast champion of liberty in the countries to its east. America and Poland should stand together to help Ukraine build a strong and stable democracy, and to help the people of Belarus regain their human rights." and

“Since joining NATO in 1997, Poland has become one of America’s most important strategic partners, dedicating troops and resources to our operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

So why, then, did Obama refer to a Poland as a 'fledgling democracy' during the first presidential debate. Let's review the definition of 'fledgling' -
–noun
1. a young bird just fledged.
2. an inexperienced person.
–adjective
3. young or inexperienced

It seems odd to say that Poland is a critical partner and that Poland should help Ukraine build a strong and stable democracy, and then call them inexperienced in the next breath. Perhaps this was a misstatement by the 'fledgling Senator'.

Flying High with Trooper 1

I had the incredible opportunity to spend the day flying with the Maryland State Police Aviation Division today. I flew with the crew of Trooper One, which is based in the Baltimore area.

We even got to provide air support for local police who were looking for an armed robbery suspect.

Below are some of the videos that I shot:

Taking Off


Flying Around


Landing


Thanks again to the brave men and women of the Maryland State Police Aviation Division!

gNavy??

From The Times
September 15, 2008
Google search finds seafaring solution
Murad Ahmed, Technology Reporter

Google may take its battle for global domination to the high seas with the launch of its own “computer navy”.

The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km) offshore.

The “water-based data centres” would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google’s costs. Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which are sited across the world, including in Britain.

The increasing number of data centres necessary to cope with the massive information flows generated on popular websites has prompted companies to look at radical ideas to reduce their running costs.

The supercomputers housed in the data centres, which can be the size of football pitches, use massive amounts of electricity to ensure they do not overheat. As a result the internet is not very green.

Data centres consumed 1 per cent of the world’s electricity in 2005. By 2020 the carbon footprint of the computers that run the internet will be larger than that of air travel, a recent study by McKinsey, a consultancy firm, and the Uptime Institute, a think tank, predicted.

In an attempt to address the problem, Microsoft has investigated building a data centre in the cold climes of Siberia, while in Japan the technology firm Sun Microsystems plans to send its computers down an abandoned coal mine, using water from the ground as a coolant. Sun said it could save $9 million (£5 million) of electricity costs a year and use half the power the data centre would have required if it was at ground level.

Technology experts said Google’s “computer navy” was an unexpected but clever solution. Rich Miller, the author of the datacentreknowledge.com blog, said: “It’s really innovative, outside-the-box thinking.”

Google refused to say how soon its barges could set sail. The company said: “We file patent applications on a variety of ideas. Some of those ideas later mature into real products, services or infrastructure, some don’t.”

Concerns have been raised about whether the barges could withstand an event such as a hurricane. Mr Miller said: “The huge question raised by this proposal is how to keep the barges safe.”

Complete Article

What if Obama Loses?

Randall Kennedy has a piece in the opinion section of today, September 14, 2008, Washington Post (link posted below). In the piece, he speaks about what it will mean to him if Obama loses. His piece starts off by talking about how he was moved to tears on the night of Obama's acceptance speech.

He then questions, "Yet the possibility is very real: Barack Obama could lose. If that happens, then what? How will I feel? How will other black Americans feel? How should people like me feel?"

He opines that if Obama loses, then the African American community will have to decide if the presidency was won on the issues, or if it was decided due to prejudice.

"Whether black onlookers believe that this election was decided "on the real issues" and that Obama was "judged fairly" will be shaped in part by future developments, including the nature of the campaign in its closing weeks (will race-baiting intensify?) and the demographics of the final voting tally (will people who have traditionally voted Democrat vote differently this time around?)."

"I anticipate that most black Americans will believe that an Obama defeat will have stemmed in substantial part from a prejudice that robbed 40 million Americans of the chance to become president on the day they were born black."
"... deep in their bones, they will believe -- and probably rightly -- that race was a key element, that had the racial shoe been on the other foot -- had John McCain been black and Obama white -- the result would have been different."

He went on to say: "My mother will be sorry if Obama loses, but she won't feel disillusioned, because she hasn't allowed herself to get her hopes up. She has insisted throughout that "the white folks are going to refuse one way or another to permit Obama to become president.'" and he further continued, "...the climate of this election year so clearly favors the Democrats, because this was supposed to be an election the Republicans couldn't win, and because in my view, the Obama ticket is obviously superior to McCain's."

In other words....

So basically, it has nothing to do about the debates, the issues or the experience levels that both candidates bring to the table. If this is true, perhaps we should just save the time, energy, and money and cancel the debates now. Seems like the decision is already made.

Of course, this is an interesting twist - because this now frames the election in a racial light. I, for one, am not quite ready to concede the point that the Obama-Biden ticket is the superior ticket. I will reserve my judgment until after we learn more about the policies of the candidates.

One of the most disappointing things for me is that we have essentially known for 18 months who the potential candidates would be. Yet, we are still yet to hear about the ISSUES, the real problems facing America. However, we have heard all about which candidate goes to what church, and which candidates have crazy pastors and who is pregnant and who wears lip stick - come on. America is looking for better than just a reality show about the candidates - Americans are looking for real debate and real solutions to challenging issues. The debates are great, but how much can we really learn about a candidates policy preferences in a 30 second sound-byte?

What Mr Kennedy has provided us with here is an excuse. An excuse in case Obama is defeated. Obama's defeat, of course, would have nothing to do with his light resume or his questionable decision making skills or people's disagreement with his proposed policies - it was merely because he was black. So the excuse is set. Now, what should the response be? Mr. Kennedy has framed the response to an Obama defeat for us as well:

"This conclusion will be accompanied by bitter disappointment, and in some quarters, stark rage." ""Obama is a once-in-a-lifetime black candidate," wrote a black student in a memo for my course, "our one shot, probably the only real contender that my parents and grandparents will ever see, and maybe the only contender my generation will see. All my hopes ride with him." Imagine the pain of such hopes dashed."

He continued: "If Obama loses, I personally will feel disappointed, frustrated, hurt. I'll conclude that a fabulous opportunity has been lost. I'll believe that American voters have made a huge mistake. And I'll think that an important ingredient of their error is racial prejudice" "If Obama is defeated, I will, for a brief time, be stunned by feelings of dejection, anger and resentment."

If Obama is defeated, then people will feel frustration, anger, maybe even RAGE? Oh my, does this scenario have the makings of another L.A. Riot? It sure sounds like it to me. The table is set, we now have an excuse for if Obama loses - he was black, and now have a proper response - hate, rage, anger, frustration. Emergency Managers take note - Police overtime may be needed on election night!


Washington Post Article

Why the Polls are Wrong!

I have said it before, and will continue to say it until this election cycle is over. The polls are wrong. Why? Simple. No one is going to admit that they are not going to vote for a woman or an african american. I have had the privilege of traveling a fair portion of this country and one thing is clear to me - racists still exist and chauvinistic people still exist. When you couple the sex and race factor with the growing number of Americans who have moved away from landline based phones it can only lead to one conclusion - the polls are not an accurate representation of the American pulse.

Update: I do not know where CNN found this guy (or how drunk he was) but this just reinforces what I was saying about the race/sex divide that still exists in this country.

Transcript: "Well honestly I am an old southern boy - and I just don't know if I can see a black man making a change. The only black man I have seen with change has had a cup of it."

OMG These High Rates G2G

Sen. Kohl challenges wireless carriers on rising text-message rates
From the Associated Press, From the Associated Press
September 10, 2008

WASHINGTON -- A key Senate Judiciary Committee member is asking the nation's top four wireless carriers to justify the "sharply rising rates" they charge people to send and receive text messages.

In letters to Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc., Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said Tuesday that he was concerned that rising rates reflect decreasing competition in the wireless business.

Kohl leads the Judiciary antitrust and competition subcommittee. His inquiry comes as European Commission regulators threaten to impose a cap on roaming fees for text messages sent by Europeans traveling outside of their home nations, an effort to force prices down as much as 70%.

Kohl said he was concerned that consumers were paying more than 20 cents per message, up from 10 cents in 2005. This increase, he said, "does not appear to be justified by rising costs in delivering text messages," which are small data files that are inexpensive for carriers to transmit.

Kohl said he was particularly concerned that the companies seem to have adopted identical price increases at nearly the same time.

Leave or Die!

The National Weather Service warned in a bulletin early on Friday of deadly flooding in some Gulf coastal communities during the period of peak storm tide.

"Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family one- or two-story homes may face certain death. Many residences of average construction directly on the coast will be destroyed," it said.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center reports that Ike should reach Category 3 strength as it moves west-north westward through the Gulf of Mexico.

Landfall is forecast early Saturday morning between Freeport and Galveston, which puts Houston and surrounding Harris County on the dangerous east side of the storm.

Because of the expected intensity of the hurricane at landfall and the angle at which Ike will approach the upper Texas coast, a storm surge of up to 20 feet may occur in Galveston Bay with a storm surge of 12 to 16 feet expected on the immediate coast. Gulf water will be pushed into the confined area of Galveston Bay. Hence the higher storm surge.

2nd Rate Choice?

Biden: Hillary a Better Pick Than Me

September 10, 2008 5:17 PM

ABC News' Matthew Jaffe reports: Sen. Barack Obama's, D-Ill., vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., Wednesday said that Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., might have been a better pick for the position than him.

At a rally in Nashua, N.H., a man in the audience told Biden how glad he was that Obama picked him over Hillary, "not because she's a woman, but because, look at the things she did in the past."

"Make no mistake about this," Biden responded. "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be president of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight."

2% of U.S. Medical Students Plan To Become Primary Care Physicians

2% of U.S. Medical Students Plan To Become Primary Care Physicians, Study Says

Two percent of medical students in a survey said they planned to go into general internal medicine, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, USA Today reports. According to the study, general internists provide a large portion of care for older patients and people with chronic illnesses, but the number of students becoming general internists is declining as the number of older U.S. residents is expected to nearly double between 2005 and 2030. The survey notes that according to one estimate, there will be a shortage of 200,000 doctors in the U.S. by 2020.

As I have recently learned, the hot new area of practice for physicians is dermatology. Think about it- you rarely have to be 'on call', there are not many dermatology emergencies, and most of your clinics are well to do and pay CASH. Makes sense right?

A first year med school graduate in the United States makes around 194,000 on average - compare that to France, where they would earn around 55,000.

Someone Take Away The Check Book!

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - the objective nonpartisan office charged with analyzing economic and budgetary issues faced by the United States released a new report today. Here are two passages from Peter Orszag's blog. Orszag is the Director of the CBO.

"CBO estimates that the deficit for 2008 will be $407 billion, substantially higher than last year’s $161 billion."

"The budget deficit has risen substantially over the past year. And according to CBO’s updated economic forecast, the economy is likely to experience at least several more months of weakness. (Whether this period will ultimately be designated a recession or not is still uncertain, but the increase in the unemployment rate and the pace of economic growth are similar to conditions during previous periods of mild recession.) Finally, the Treasury and Federal Housing Finance Agency have announced significant steps regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which carry important implications for how the operations of those entities should be reflected in the federal budget. The estimates presented in the report CBO released today do not reflect the specific details of those actions."

The $407 billion dollar figure does not take into account:

+The recent bail out of Fannie and Freddie.
+The possibility of a new stimulus package that is currently being considered in Congress
+The substantial amount of money that will be spent on hurricane response / recovery operations

$407 Billion dollars is a tremendous amount of debt - especially when considering that last years debt was $161 billion. With all of the lofty campaign promises - one has to really wonder - how will we afford all of these promises? One thing is certain, if this was a business we would be beyond bankrupt by now.

You can find the complete CBO report here.

Double Standard?

Eric Cartman on Terrorists

Taken from the episode called 'The Snuke'

Common Sense Solutions

Here Comes Hanna

WASHINGTON, D.C. officials are urging residents to prepare for the possibility of severe weather as Tropical Storm Hanna spins toward the East Coast.

Hanna has spent the last several days meandering between the southern Bahamas and Haiti, where it is blamed for at least 25 deaths. The National Hurricane Center forecast is calling for the storm to turn northwest, gradually curving more toward the U.S.

Early forecasts indicate the storm could hit Washington on Saturday, bringing heavy rain and high winds.

D.C. residents are urged to prepare an emergency kit that includes nonperishable food and water for 3 to 5 days. Residents also are advised to obtain a battery or crank-powered radio.

For More Information - Examiner Website

PALIN POWER!! (Or as we say in the Hockey Community - She Shoots... SHE SCORES!)

What a tremendous speech by Sarah Palin. We will see how it gets spun, but I can not see how anyone who watched her speech tonight can call it anything but 'perfect'.

Here are a few of my favorite lines from her speech tonight:

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."

"Here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of the country."

When speaking about Senator Obama:
"This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word "victory" except when he's talking about his own campaign. But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan? What does he actually seek to accomplish, after he's done turning back the waters and healing the planet? The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world."

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GOP Lawyer Free

This has been floating around all day today via email and now it has finally showed up on the Washington Times Website:

"When the Republican Party formally nominates its presidential and vice-presidential candidates Thursday, it will achieve something the Democrats have managed to do only twice since the two parties began contesting elections in 1856 - keep a lawyer off the ticket.

With Sen. John McCain, a naval aviator, and Gov. Sarah Palin, a former television reporter with a degree in journalism, the GOP team will be the third straight lawyer-free Republican ticket, and the fifth in eight elections for the party.

By contrast, the duo of Sen. Barack Obama (Harvard Law, 1991) and vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Syracuse University College of Law, 1968) continues a Democratic streak of having at least one lawyer on the national ticket since the 1856 pairing of lawyers James Buchanan and John Breckinridge, broken only by the elections of 1960 and 1964."

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Democratic Response |11:20 p.m. Here’s the response from Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s spokesman: “The speech that Governor Palin was well delivered, but it was written by George Bush’s speechwriter and sounds exactly like the same divisive, partisan attacks we’ve heard from George Bush for the last eight years. If Governor Palin and John McCain want to define ‘change’ as voting with George Bush 90 percent of the time, that’s their choice, but we don’t think the American people are ready to take a 10 percent chance on change.”

From The New York Times

iSUIT

A second lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed this week against Apple - this new suit arises right after the data outages reported on Wednesday - apparently portions of Chicago, DC, Boston, and St. Louis were without data service for an unspecified period of time. According to AT&T's support line a "routing issue" in the Northeast region caused the problem.

Quoting now from Wired.com:
"William Gillis, who filed a lawsuit late last week. In his 18-page complaint, Gillis -- a retired Chicken of the Sea executive -- alleges that AT&T's network is not strong enough to support the millions of iPhone 3G users, and therefore the handset is not performing as advertised, according to Michael Ian Rott, Gill's attorney.

"The bottom line is iPhone 3G users are not getting what has been represented to them," Rott said in a phone interview. "[The iPhone 3G] is kind of like a Dragster: A Dragster can go 500 miles an hour, but you only have a short amount of track space so you'll never reach that 500 miles per hour.... Similarly the 3G iPhone isn't working to the specifications Apple represented."

I must admit that my data service has been acting up this week - especially on Sunday when I returned to D.C. from Chicago. My Palm Treo used to act the same way - whenever I traveled it would seemingly take about an hour to get 'reoriented' with the local area. I chalked it up to 'reorientation' but apparently the data problem affected more people than just me.

To Read More Details on the Apple iPhone Suit CLICK HERE

How the Candidates Line Up on Health Care

A new website has been launched which provides analysis on the health care positions of Senator McCain and Senator Obama. Healthcare needs to be a national priority in 2009 and this website does a good job laying out the positions of each candidate.

HealthDecision08

Also of interest, Medpedia is gearing up for its launch in late 2008. According to the website:

"The goal of The Medpedia Project is to collaboratively build the living encyclopedia of health, medicine, and the body. The process of making the content and the site better is, by its nature, an ongoing one, and everyone is going to be invited to participate in some way in its evolution. Medpedia is a collaborative project, so giving your feedback and ideas is essential."

Find Medpedia on the web at http://www.medpedia.com

Google Announces Launch of Google Chrome

Google to enter the Browser market! Google Chrome is due out tomorrow, September 2nd

Quotes below from the Official Google Blog

"9/01/2008 02:10:00 PM
As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends -- all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

This is just the beginning -- Google Chrome is far from done. We're releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We're hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust."