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Pepsi's iPhone AMP App Is Mobile Trash--Good Riddance
Tweet Share on Facebook October 26, 2009 Comment (3)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It took tomes of online and on-air protests for Pepsi to remove its ridiculous iPhone "AMP" application, which is nothing more than a low-brow commercial for its highly caffeinated drink. The Los Angeles Times reports:
The soda company created an iPhone application called "AMP UP Before You Score"—aimed at helping men "score" with women—to promote its AMP energy drink.
The application provides pick-up lines and other charming tools to seduce a "wide" variety of female stereotypes—24 in total—including the bookworm, the cougar, the athlete and the women's studies major. It also has a "Brag" feature which encourages users to "include the name, date, and whatever details you remember" about successful hookups or failed conquests.
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As Independents Move Right, Virginia is Likely to Follow
Tweet Share on Facebook October 26, 2009 Comment (7)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The Virginia governor's race will be held a week from tomorrow—see my column this week on the lessons it holds for the national parties—and the independents are a key factor in that race, as they are in the New Jersey governor's race. According to RealClearPolitics, a website that aggregates the latest news and polls, Americans' attitudes are "changing rapidly," and independent voters have "flipped negative," according to executive editor Tom Bevan. Here's an excerpt from the site:
The first gubernatorial races since Democrats took control of Washington, in New Jersey and Virginia, show voter angst and ire. Those races appear to be heading in different directions but are two sides of the same coin.
In Virginia—which swung Democrat first in 2006 to Jim Webb in his Senate race, then further to Obama in 2008—Republican Bob McDonnell leads Democrat Creigh Deeds by widening margins.
In New Jersey—which last went for a GOP presidential candidate in 1988—Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine averages about 40 percent. GOP challenger Chris Christie has fallen more than six points in two weeks. The beneficiary is independent Chris Daggett, winning double-digit support.
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Iraq and Afghanistan Strategy Debates Need to Remember the Troops
Tweet Share on Facebook October 26, 2009 Comment (9)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
DALLAS—The debate over the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is reduced too often to arguments about numbers and throw weights and force projections and politics. And, almost secondarily and from the level of about five miles up, the troops—what they need and what they deserve.
Saturday night I got to see some of them, up close and personal, at an event called Sky Ball, in an airport hangar here. I would challenge any reporter or journalist or blogger to do the same and then remain unaffected by what they saw and what they heard there.
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Biden on Cheney Criticism: 'Who Cares?'
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2009 Comment (33)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Kudos to Vice President Biden for putting Dick Cheney in his place. According to today's New York Times, Biden was asked about Cheney's criticism that President Obama is "dithering" over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan and had made a "strategic blunder" in ditching the Bush administration's missile defense plan. "Who cares what—" Biden apparently said, before catching himself. He went on to give a political answer about circumstances changing in Afghanistan and blah blah, so on and so forth. (OK, he did say Cheney was "irrelevant" too.)
But his first instinct was correct: Who cares what Cheney says? If the last eight years have taught us anything it's that Cheney is reliably wrong, especially on foreign policy. He is, to use the expression that Dwight Eisenhower coined, a gloom-doggler. Sure the news media has to take him seriously because he is a former vice president of the United States; and sure, Democrats stand to gain by taking him seriously because it keeps him in the public eye as a face of the GOP.
But Biden was right about his views: Who cares?
Update: Mea culpa—it seems that Biden's specific quotes referred to a report left behind by the Bush-Cheney administration, but he was broadly dismissive of Cheney's comments. He was correct to dismiss Cheney, whose views are irrelevant.
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Halting Violence Against Women in India and Elsewhere a Win-Win
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2009 Comment (17)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Here's a perfect example of why it's important that the United States do more to stem violence against women in developing nations. CNN posted this story about debt-ridden Indian farmers "selling" their wives to the lenders to whom they have become beholden:
To survive the bad years, some farmers say they turn to the "Paisawalla"—Hindi for the rich man who lends money. Farmers say the loans from these unofficial lenders usually come with very high interest.
When the interest mounts up, lenders demand payment. Some farmers work as bonded laborers for a lifetime to pay off their debts. Others here say because of years of little rain and bad harvests they are forced to give money lenders whatever they ask for.
Sometimes that includes their wives.
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Anglican Deal Could Lead to Married Catholic Priests
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2009 Comment (28)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Earlier this week, the Pope announced that Anglicans who are dissatisfied with their church could join the Catholic Church, yet still have parishes that celebrate Anglican rites and use the Book of Common Prayer. What makes this interesting is that the Anglican Church allows married priests, unlike the Catholic Church.
It's good that the Pope is reaching out to people of other faiths—even if it is only to those who are as traditional as he is. According to CNN, "The number of Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church has increased in recent years as the Anglican Church has welcomed the ordination of women and openly gay clergy and blessed homosexual partnerships, said Cardinal William Joseph Levada, the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." It's mostly the conservative Anglicans who want to join the Catholic Church, because they're upset with their own church over the ordination of women and homosexuals. And it's one of the most conservative offices at the Vatican—the one that deals with the Doctrine of the Faith, that the Pope headed when he was a Cardinal—that negotiated the deal.
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The Bush Legacy: The Business is Personal
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2009 Comment (93)By Jamie Stiehm, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Colleague Mary Kate Cary sent a black and white bouquet of words George Herbert Walker Bush's way this week, praising President Obama for speaking at the former president's library to honor his charitable initiative, A Thousand Points of Light, and salute his public service. She said she had worked for the elder Bush and loved him very much.
The personal element is what caught my eye, as that lies at the heart of the Bush way of doing business. Everything is personal if your name is George Bush, father or son. The loyalty gene runs deep in this American dynasty, which has cost our country dearly.
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Obama's Democrats Blame Deeds for Poor Campaign in Virginia
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2009 Comment (7)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Just days before President Barack Obama is scheduled to campaign for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, the White House is sending signals that Deeds's campaign is over, or as tweeted by CNN's Peter Hamby this morning, "keeping it classy by trashing Deeds anonymously."
At issue is a Washington Post story headlined "Deeds ignored advice, White House says."
Publicly airing complaints that Deeds is a weak candidate, one who didn't embrace key Obama constituencies—especially African-Americans in Richmond and the Norfolk/Newport News area (Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder's refusal to endorse Deeds was surely a blow)—and indeed, has not fully embraced Barack Obama himself, all lays the groundwork that if Deeds loses, despite the best efforts of the Obama team, he has no one to blame but himself.
Anyone who was worked political campaigns can tell you that when your candidate is down in the polls, the Washington chattering class, regardless of party, will start pointing fingers and say, "If only Candidate X was listening to our advice..." Anonymously, of course. This is what's happening to Creigh Deeds now.
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Government Can't Bend the Healthcare Cost Curve
Tweet Share on Facebook October 23, 2009 Comment (14)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The proponents of healthcare reform claim costs will spiral out of control if the government fails to fundamentally change the nature of the American system. They are quick to point, for example, that the United States spends more per capita and more as a percentage of GDP on healthcare than any other nation. And that these expenditures are, for the most powerful economy in the world, somehow unsustainable unless something is done to, in the words of White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag, "bend the cost curve."
President Obama said much the same thing in his joint address to Congress, in which he pledged he would not sign a healthcare bill that added to the deficit. Which is part of the reason—the other is to reduce the total advertised cost of healthcare reform—that Senate Democrats tried to move a piece of legislation that would freeze the automatic cuts in the reimbursements made to doctors and hospitals under Medicare. With that provision included, as I wrote Wednesday, a healthcare reform bill that also included what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refers to as "a robust public option" would do to the spending and deficit targets what the iceberg did to the Titanic.
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Georgetown Student Seeks Personal Assistant? More Power to Him
Tweet Share on Facebook October 22, 2009 Comment (89)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Today's Washington Post contains the story of Georgetown University sophomore Charley Cooper, who is advertising for a personal assistant to help him with his busy life:
Cooper, 19, logged on to the university's student employment Web site last week and posted an ad for someone to tackle "some of my everyday tasks," such as organizing his closet, dropping him off and picking him up from work, scheduling haircuts, putting gas in the car and taking it in for service, managing his electronic accounts and doing laundry (although the assistant will be paid only for the time spent loading, unloading and folding clothes, not the entire laundry cycle).
The successful applicant can expect to work three to seven hours a week and make $10 to $12 an hour, although "on occasion it will be possible to work additional hours and/or receive bonuses at my discretion." Preference will be given to Georgetown undergraduates, Cooper says in the listing, and the assistant can spread his or her tasks throughout the day.
