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Apple should buy Sony. Apple should buy Sun. Apple should buy SGI. Apple should buy Alias Research. Apple should buy Nintendo. Apple should buy AMD. Apple should buy PortalPlayer. Apple should buy Pixo. Apple should buy Palm. Apple should buy into the 700 MHz spectrum. Apple should buy Pixar. Apple should buy Disney. Apple should buy Universal. Apple should buy TiVo. Apple should buy YouTube.

Apple has bought 2 years of flash memory, 50 more acres of land in Cupertino, Next, Coverflow, CUPS, Emagic, Nothing Real, Soundjam MP, plus goodness knows what else (feel free to add to this list.)

But Apple buying Adobe?

That'd scare the heck out of a lot of folks. Apple has bought numerous products & smaller companies for code, patents, or teams before but Adobe (+ the former Macromedia) is a peer on the software side. That'd alienate the huge Windows userbase as well as freak out the many Adobe partners.

And to gain what?

Adobe already sells massively to Apple's customers. Sure their apps may lag, but Adobe has a huge set of codebases that has gone through 68000 -> PPC --> MacOS X --> x86, so if getting things up to speed & certified on each new iteration of MacOS X takes a bit that's not unreasonable.

To Mac-ify the apps? Again, why? Sure Apple is famous for doing really good (if not perfect) UIs but Adobe has some serious credibility too. Indeed it's been pretty clear that Apple & Adobe competing directly in some areas has improved both offerings.

Sorry, but I'm guessing Apple has enough on it's plate now. They'd just be complicating an already good, already mutually profitable situation for little reason or much greater profit.

Indeed look at the list above of companies & products folks think Apple should have bought, and in retrospect consider if they really would have been good investments...

I love the endless circles...:-) I can't wait to see the FTC taking on the German security apparatus. Oh, heck, the FTC could probably find lots of involvement by the FBI, homeland security, etc., etc. Should be quite a show, pass the popcorn.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/31/1955205&from=rss
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-security30oct30,0,3975040.story?track=mostviewed-storylevelproposal

And it's really depressing to note that even now, the majority of Americans see no problem with ripping up or ignoring international law and treaties, so long as they're told it's being done to "terrorists". On the contrary, Republican candidates are competing to make the most outraegously statement of support for the blatantly criminal action that is Guantanamo. Very, very sad (speaking as a non-American.)

They basically have two choices - sell games for cheaper in poorer countries, or not sell them at all in these countries. I commend them for choosing the first option; people in less wealthy countries deserve entertainment too (without the Windows 3rd world crippling mentality). Arbitrage threatens to cut their main sense of revenue: American gamers who can afford American prices. Obviously they could choose the latter option I mentioned above, but this is lose-lose. The Thai can't play Valve games, and Valve loses a legitimate source of revenue.

Bonus points if they can kill/intimidate civilians indiscriminately without Congress finding out.

Racists, like conspiracy theorists, realize the truth of the world even though it runs contrary to dominant, irrational memes propagated by the opinion-makers of media.

There are plenty of racists with PhDs, including Harvard professors... the fact that moderators at a pop-culture geek site give a kneejerk negative response to any racialist post doesn't make it "stupid".

As with anything, really, the more popular the idea, the stupider it is -- so it is with the P.C. notion of ultimate equality and myopia with regard to hereditary intelligence and behavior.

I hope you didn't mean to imply that non-USA citizens cannot be convicted in US courts, because they can. Anyway, presumably government added the people on the http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-holyland23oct23,1,1922726.story?coll=la-headlines-nationHoly Land Foundation donor list to the Watch List. Seized the foundation assets and investigated the case for six years but something went wrong with the trial. No guilty verdict. Are the people who donated still worth watching? (And for six years they have been watched in newly allowed ways.) Is there any way to get off the Watch List?

i found a few other articles about this and other incidents that appear to have been related. it is mentioned that this "hacker" used a free web hosted hearing impaired service to have the operator relay the story to the 911 service. there was no hacking involved. http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20071014&Category=NEWS02&ArtNo=710140456&SectionCat=ETN&Template=printart http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hacker17oct17,1,2753897,print.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true

Wow. Unlike some of your other posts, this one didn't even start off logically. Your giant leap to you spewing your limited knowledge of the banking system (as most all your posts eventually do) could have sent you clear across that landslide-- which was apparently all the investment bankers' faults.

"You never see Jack Bauer go to the bathroom. That's because nothing escapes Jack Bauer."

I believe he had to pee in a cup at the police station after he was pulled over while driving drunk.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-parker22sep22,0,1326069,full.story?coll=la-home-commentary

From OJ's [if] I Did It: p 132:

Both he and Nicole were lying in giant pools of blood. I had never seen so much blood in my life. . . . I again looked down at myself, at my blood-soaked clothes, and noticed the knife in my hand. The knife was covered in blood, as were my hand and wrist and half of my right forearm.

Another passage from page 132:

Now I was standing in Nicole's courtyard, in the dark, listening to the loud, rhythmic, accelerated beating of my own heart. I put my left hand to my heart and my shirt felt strangely wet. . . . The whole front of me was covered in blood. . .

Nowhere does he say "if" he was standing there, or "if" his hands and knife were drenched in blood, or "if" two innocent people lay dead before him.

So, that's OJ's side of the story.....let's hope terrorists don't get real good lawyers....hey, if Phil Spector can get a 10-2 mistrial, Robert Blake can walk, and OJ can go to Vegas to Stay in Vegas, Osama could get off, and, get a settlement for cash as well--with a good lawyer.

but surely you realise that traversing the passage slowly and delicately due to the presence of ice flots is different from commercial shipping viably using the route. Or perhaps you dont, but clearly by making untrue statements, you're giving fuel to those who are skeptical. Are you a conservative?, this difficulty adapting to new information has a neural cause

The kilogram is defined as the weight of the standard cylinder, whatever it may be. It is logically impossible for the kilo cylinder to lose or gain weight, at least within the metric system of measurement, because it is itself the standard by which all weights must be judged.

Thus it is impossible to "discover" that the cylinder has lost weight. The instruments by which the cylinder is weighed are wrong because the cylinder itself, by definition, is always right. Indeed, it is possible that the rest of the material in the universe, including the silicon atom, has become slightly heavier. But it is not possible that the weight of that cylinder has changed.

[....]

Now one suspects that in the long run the kilogram cylinder will continue to shed atoms. By my calculations (or rather, those of my wife, who can do stuff like multiply), at a rate of 50 micrograms per century, the cylinder will disappear entirely in 200 billion years.

Then the kilogram itself will disappear, which entails that all objects will weigh an infinite number of kilograms: Any given feather or dust mote will be infinitely heavy. And, at that point, the universe will collapse under the influence of infinite gravity into a disk about the size of a lentil, inhaling everything into a dimensional wormhole. And that will suck, with infinite force and acceleration.

In other words, that standard kilo platinum-iridium cylinder is the smoking gun, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.

10-to-1 this study was conducted by Liberals. By the way, the study is COMPLETELY invalidated due to poor procedural set-up.

The selection of M & W are an example of exceedingly poor scientific implementation. Why? Because almost every Liberal I know reacts extremely strongly to the letter "W" ever since the Presidency of George W. Bush. Therefore selecting the one letter of the alphabet that a liberal is going to over-react to if seen individually creates an inherent bias in this test. (Not even included the fact it's such a narrow scope with broad conclusions.)

This test needs to be re-conducted with the following letters. "b", "d", "p". That said, it does not prove anything conclusive. In fact, all this might do is prove that conservatives, or at least those conservatives in their study, had a higher tendency of dyslexia. Of note, not all forms of dyslexia correspond to learning disabilities. Some aspects tend to also correspond with those of higher intellect and creativity

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-politics10sep10,1,5376455.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

What this study does prove is that those who conducted it are failing to utilize intelligence.

SLASHDOT....can we stop with the constant "conservative bashing".

Here's a link to that article via Google for Libertarians who don't want to register. Greens can click the "Print" link for the ads free version.

With that kind of attitude, we would still all be living in caves.

Only if we wanted to.

Dada21 only makes one error(*): he sees (or at least limits himself to writing about) the market. There's more to private action than profit motive.

We don't want to live in caves. If getting out of the cave is what drives you, then you're going to do it whether or not you can sell the idea of houses to other people. Or to put it another way: if you're willing to pay taxes for research, then why wouldn't you be just as willing to give out grants yourself (or if you can't take the time to be so hands-on, pay into a private foundation whose goals match your own)?

Don't underestimate peoples' sense of personal responsibility, or their curiosity, or their passion.

Why do some people pay into their church's collection plate, even without a gun to their heads? Do you really think they're still paying indulgences to keep out of Hell? And even if they are, perhaps they'd also think that funding science is the right thing to do, and will also keep 'em from roasting for eternity. ;-) [Folks, don't take that too literally; I'm aware of some of the weird shit going on, but I also think my point is less ironic than it first appears.]

Research into quantum physics would have seemed useless..

And yet people wanted to do it anyway.

However, 50 years later, without that research, there would have been no transistors.

I can think of lots of positive things that could be done through tyranny. Whatever your hearts' desire, give me enough power to be able to squeeze it out of unwilling workers or funders, and I'll give it to you.

But what's fair? If someone doesn't give a damn about transistors, how can I forcefully make them pay to research it? Don't you see that open me up to having to pay for their agenda? What do you think is the source of pork barrel politics and questionable earmarks?

(*) And it's not really even an error. Sometimes markets can be subtle, and people spend money on nebulous and intangible satisfaction. Look at how some people are (possibly foolishly) spending money. People are willing to spend money to feel good. Do you feel good about spending money on science?

"I prefer the term MiKKKro$hit myself. Not only does replacing soft with shit indicate my opinion of their software, along with the dollar sign indicating how greedy they are, I believe replacing the 'c' with KKK will portray them as the oppressive organization that they are, along with completely destroying any semblance of respect my post might have commanded up until that point."

GP is probably referring to Kenneth Foster Jr..

No. "It's exciting," said Joerg Meyer, a professor of computer graphics and visualization who helped develop the screen's software. "This display has higher resolution than the human retina can see." http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/californi a/la-me-highdef13aug13,1,5603082.story?coll=la-hea dlines-pe-california

Well if you have a Blu-ray player and you really would like to like to see one of the movies that come out exclusively on HD-DVD you can get the DVD and save some money since a good Blu-ray player will upscale a DVD on a HDTV but then again why would you want Shrek HD-DVD or Blu-ray for that matter when an upscaled DVD will look almost as nice.

If you don't have a HDTV and are not contemplating one in the next few years this is a non event, although for those people with PS3's (approaching 5M world wide) then Blu-ray is the way to go. Surprisingly people do use the PS3 to play movies upscaled DVD and Blu-ray as well as playing games and in a family environment that is the norm not the exception. Of course you cannot tell some Movie execs that as the following following article http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi -hddvd21aug21,0,3873825.story?coll=la-headlines-pe -business snippets mention:

Katzenberg and Rob Moore, Paramount's president of worldwide marketing and distribution, declined to comment on Internet reports that hefty payments were the motivating factor spurring the two studios. Are we surprised to read this?

Sony has sold 1.4 million PlayStation 3s in the U.S ( No over 1.8M). since launching the game console in November 2006, according to NPD Group. Ninety percent of Blu-ray movies are being played on the PlayStation 3, which consumers buy primarily to play video games, analyst Roden said. Hmmm I wonder how he arrived at that conclusion?

Well there are unsubstantiated http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi -hddvd21aug21,0,3873825.story?page=2&coll=la-headl ines-pe-business rumors of $100M and $50M being handed out to the interested parties. But we all know that is not a bribe for them to push HD-DVD.

"I think there would be enough support in that [rightwing Democrats] group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us [to easily change course in Iraq]" Clyburn said. "We, by and large, would be wise to wait on the report."
[...]
Clyburn said that [a generally positive report] would be "a real big problem for us."

Which the WP reporters paraphrased as:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Mond, ay that a strongly positive report on progress on Iraq by Army Gen. David Petraeus likely would split Democrats in the House and impede his party's efforts to press for a timetable to end the war.
[...]
Without their [rightwing Democrats'] support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

Balz and Cillizza are two Republican boosters writing for the Republican corporate media Washington Post. The simple fact is that Democrats have a small (but larger than their majority margin) fifth column faction, the "Blue Dog Democrats", who vote with Republicans, and who wait for any pro-Bush propaganda Bush manufactures as excuse to vote with Republicans. Balz and Cillizza have turned that propaganda problem for the Whip, who marshals Democratic votes on bills, into a material problem for Democrats, implying that Democrats would find winning to be a problem. When the problem is that Bush, not Petraeus, is writing the report to lie about progress when it's still a worsening catastrophe.

And of course you pick up that propaganda victory and run with it, Anonymous Republican Coward. Because you are a coward. You let Bush scare you into invading, when we needed to capture Osama (where is he, anyway, tough guy?) and destroy the Taliban, who your DC boys are letting retake Afghanistan and threaten the (nuclear) Pakistan that harbors them.

I'd point out that Vietnam's fate, after we stopped propping up its fake government to massacre its people, was to next successfully defend itself from the China (now among our greatest "allies" with Pakistan) we pretended was going to engulf the world in Communism. Next Vietnam shut down the Cambodian genocide we created with our covert war there. And since then, Vietnam has finally lived in decades of peace after centuries of the colonialism your favorite US buddies (including specifically Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies) fought so hard (though not in person, of course, but in air-conditioned remote control offices) to keep for themselves. But lost, and lost horribly, at such terrible, irreparable cost to America. Instead of just accepting Ho Chih Minh's post-WWII plea for a Marshall Plan for SE Asia, which would have given the US the same leverage there against China that we had in Europe against Russia. But the Vietnam War was too profitable for US corporations and Cold War fearmongering to Republican cowards like you to pass up. Exactly like those same Republican mass murderers are doing with Iraq right now. I'd point it out, but what's the point? You Republican cowards can't hear the truth about the blood on your hands and the piss in your pants. You need to kill more people to distract yourselves from your record of failure.

You sick bitches have got everything about Iraq wrong, just like you alzheimers fucktards got Vietnam so horribly wrong last time around. You should never be let anywhere near decisionmaking power. O

The U.S. military practices genetic discrimination in denying benefits. Those medically discharged with genetic diseases are left without disability or retirement benefits.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/kids/la-sci -genes18aug18,1,5560499.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

I was up too darn late watching the Nasa TV press conference. Questions were asked about maybe the debris source being space junk from an old rocket;

"NASA also revealed that Endeavour came within a mile of a piece of floating space junk during the launch. The garbage was an old Delta rocket body that has been orbiting for years, NASA said".

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- sci-shuttle11aug11,1,1712330.story?coll=la-headlin es-nation&ctrack=2&cset=true

Tracked back to a '70s launch apparently, though I can't confirm this apart from what I heard.

LA Times has a complete list and map of that city's homocides.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/crime/homicidema p/

I'm not a gun control nut (nor am I a regular gun nut). But the vast majority of deaths by gun are suicides, as you state. The usually pro-gun response is that if someone is going to commit suicide, they'll find a way to do it. However, this overlooks the fact that a gun makes it easy, quick, and irreversible, while other methods might take more effort and more planning, and can be reversed with timely intervention.

I'm not going to quote statistics because there are so many statistics, and they're regularly abused by either the pro or anti control people. The only statistic that really seems to be holding for the moment is that gun deaths have been going down since the late 90s, and that better enforcement is usually given as the reason (but who knows?).

However, a good portion of gun homicides is due to crimes of passion, including domestic violence. So, my half kidding idea of requiring therapy does have some basis in reality.

After suicide, it seems that gang related homicide is the second highest type of death by gun. However, I'd dispute that it's mostly gang members killing each other. In some cases, it's innocent bystanders at a gang-on-gang crime scene, but in just as many instances it is a gang member wrongly identifying and targeting an innocent victim. I'm a regular reader of my city's main newspaper's Murder Blog, so while I don't have solid stats, I'm not just pulling a number out of my ass, but I'd say that at least half of the gang related homicides by firearm are innocent bystander or wrongly targeted innocent victim.

As I said, I don't consider myself to be in either the gun control or the gun freedom camp, so my ideas for dealing with the problem might seem inconsistent at first glance.

1) Most states ban convicted felons from owning a gun. I think this should be expanded to include any crime that shows a propensity for violence. Beat your wife, you gave up your right to own a gun. Perhaps have a ten year wait period before allowing someone with a misdemeanor to own a gun. Perhaps counseling and anger management training could fit in here.

2) Allow more people to carry concealed weapons, but also have a stringent screening process to insure that calm, cool headed, and rational people are allowed to have CCWs. (Anecdote: I've thwarted crime twice by pretending to have a concealed weapon. It's all in the body language and attitude.)

Yeah, I know this sounds very nanny-state, but I think it's actually a good middle ground. There will be some unfairness, but it strikes a good balance between the rights of the individual to own a gun and the rights of the individual to be safe from guns.

Now, your other idea I support wholeheartedly. All drugs should be legalized. Even the very worst of them. It's not like doing this would really make drugs easier to get. I don't see how it could get any easier. What this would do, as you suggest in your comparison to Prohibition, is remove the criminal element. Hell, let the state have the monopoly, for all I care. They can tax the hell out of it, and use part of the money to offer rehab to those that don't kill themselves and education/prevention. The other part can go towards relieving the rest of us of part of our tax burden.

if a big enough number of common people were to take an interest

The carbon also acts as a conductor, and is flammable. So yes they were used, no they were not popular. Just like the nappies or diapers. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-spacediaper 9feb10,0,2527297.story has a nice informative article about the maximum absorbency garments.

The LA times had an article on this two months ago. The most interesting part of the article may be where the refer to a California study that found the average underground monthly average tank temp ranged from 64 to 83 degrees F. At 83 degrees F, that's about a 1.2% volumetric change from 60 degrees.

Is 1% worth a law suit? Depends on your perspective I guess . . .

Yeah, Philanthropy... Right.

Giving away 5% to charity is a much better business decision than paying taxes. Especially when you can invest the other 95% in some of the nastiest companies in the world.

They don't apply YET. The RIAA has said that they fully intend to push these royalties upon terrestrial stations as well. Read more here: Artists and Labels Seek Royalties From Radio

Are the going take the RAM out of the servers and examine it? It seems as though the MPAA is getting everyone to spy for them. According to the L.A. Times AT & T has agreed to spy for the MPAA as well. Because AT & T wants to make money from pay-television. It is just like my ISP here. They started shaping bit torrent traffic 1 day and announced their television service the next day. http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-piracy13ju n13,1,5531531.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

>Our small little school gets windows for $60/copy. We also buy office for $60/copy.

Idiot. As a teacher who deals with students who have difficulty getting food to eat, etc., that $120 could do a lot more than it does in Bill Gate's pockets. Muliply that $120 by the millions of idiot administrators/decision makers in school systems, and you might begin to see the idiocy of your limited thinking. And if you want an inkling of how you have contributed to problems, via sending your $120 times x number of machines, you might take a look at these, for a starter:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-gates8jan08,0,7911824.story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story

>Our small little school gets windows for $60/copy. We also buy office for $60/copy.

Idiot. As a teacher who deals with students who have difficulty getting food to eat, etc., that $120 could do a lot more than it does in Bill Gate's pockets. Muliply that $120 by the millions of idiot administrators/decision makers in school systems, and you might begin to see the idiocy of your limited thinking. And if you want an inkling of how you have contributed to problems, via sending your $120 times x number of machines, you might take a look at these, for a starter:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-gates8jan08,0,7911824.story

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la- na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-mccartn ey3jun03,1,5298355.story

As for your link, it doesn't state that they can't unzip the DOCX .... blah blah blah

What it shows is that you can't get the text out, which is all the man wanted. How's that for Open?

... the specs are published in their entirity with the exception of a few minor obsolete things which should be removed anyway.

Just stop while you are behind! Those "few minor obsolete" things are people's work that M$ should have translated for them not thrown away. But M$ can't do that because their formats are mutually contradictory. That's why much of their spec simply states do it like prints of the old versions without further explanation.

The OOXML propaganda is bigger and dirtier than Mnt. San Diego but will cost much more. You just can't wash this stuff and the truth will be out soon enough. Microsoft has wasted their time and money making yet another M$ only format and they should be punished by market rejection, not rewarded with state money.

This piece in the LA Times hits the mark a little closer for most of us: 'Yabba-dabba science'.

They did have to stop letting people return big screen TVs and video cameras because to many people were returning the TVs after the big football games and the camera after their vacation. but other than that it "30 dyas no questions return for refund"

Its return policy for consumer electronics was cut to 90 days in California. The policy will take effect nationwide over the next month. The changes come as many in the industry are rethinking return policies. Customer reaction was mixed. The policy change was no surprise to Mike Lopez, a police officer shopping at Costco's Atwater Village store Tuesday. When a plasma TV he bought in 2004 started losing color last year, the Glendale resident returned it with "no questions asked.". "It was awesome. It was great," Lopez said. "It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone was going to abuse it eventually." Others were annoyed. Glendale resident Ofelia Ayvazyan said Tuesday that Costco staff made her wait more than 20 minutes before letting her return a 42-inch flat-screen television she bought three years ago She said she would shop for electronics elsewhere from now on -- after she spent the store credit worth $2,932.72. "I'm not happy with the new policy," Ayvazyan said, but "at least I got my money back to buy a new one."

Or they just rob you (that would be the geek squad division).

In some states you are required to declare out of state purchases (Internet purchases) in some form or another. A lot of people ignore it though or argue the interpretation. Wisconsin also requires out of state purchases to be declared on income taxes.

http://www.revenue.wi.gov/faqs/ise/usetax.html
http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/pub79b.pdf
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-perfin18mar1 8,1,6878957.column

I'll get some polyethyl the next time I demonstrate the peace in Baghdad.

Yours Alzheimersly,
Senator John McCain,
former POW, former teenager, former child, and currently a Military Expert

John Simson of SoundExchange, the "non-profit" set up to collect internet radio royalties. Didn't I just hear this guy's name somewhere? Oh yeah, he was just mentioning how "The time comes that we really have to [start collecting royalties from terrestrial radio]" on Slashdot yesterday. I guess he just figures we won't need to take money from all of the internet stations since they'll be able to grab more from the standard sources sooner or later.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f g-gazeta21may21,1,1616926,full.story?coll=la-headl ines-world&ctrack=3&cset=true/
For those who don't RTFA, this basically says there is one independent newspaper which publishes 3 times a week, is funded mostly by Gorbachev and another prominent politician, incurs huge losses, and has had mysterious accidents including death happen to several reporters. Any political scientist can tell you that this is not a sign of a healthy free press, and without a healthy free press democracy suffers due to lack of good information. Basically, the West has been worried about Putin and his backsliding into authoritarianism for quite some time but hasn't had the balls to do much about it. Yes, there is the internet, but you assume that a) everyone in Russia who wants to can get their news from the net, which is not true for many poor elderly folks, and b) those who might be politically savvy are tech savvy enough to find the independent sources on the net. If you lived through Soviet times, you'd be skittish about seeking out politically sensitive info if you had any sense.
In other words, this is a big deal.

Can you show a link detailing the accusation you bring up?

If a white man beats up a black person, that's a hate crime, but if a black person beats up a white man, that's a rap video. Very hypocritical.

Not quite: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lbhate11ma y11,1,6059198.story?track=rss

Instead of worrying about how criminally minded their customers are, perhaps they should be worried more about their OWN CEO who has been beating up on his girlfriends...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-fi -hbo10may10,1,2446921.story?coll=la-headlines-entn ews&ctrack=1&cset=true

Perhaps CDS (CEO Defense Shield) is in order.

For example, see a current LA Times story...

I am not sure what the answer is, but by the time kids are in high school, you ought to be able to stop coddling them and tell them straight-up; "you suck, learn to work a cash register", "you should work hard, you have the potential for a career", and "you are heading for a hard, short life on the streets and in jail - leave school now."

Rating the Jack Valenti Obits
from Gawker

The nation has now had a weekend to mourn the passing of Jack Valenti, man who made possible the groundbreaking cultural artifact known as the special unrated DVD version of Turistas . Yet, beyond such obvious accomplishments, there's still so much more to know about the MPAA chief/L.B.J. confidante/ Napster destroyer. Happily, on a dreary Sunday evening like this, there's no better family activity than reading the week's obituaries! But how do we know which ones will be appropriate for the kids? Alphanumeric codes, obviously! The following obits have been submitted for review to the Gawker Weekend Rating Board; out of respect, we are following the brilliant, equivocally definite guidelines set forth on the M.P.A.A. website.

—

New York Times:
Jack Valenti, 85, Confidant of a President and Stars, Dies

• Key Concerns:

  Mr. Valenti, a bantam 5-foot-7 who forever looked up to the towering Johnson, picked fights with critical Johnson biographers like Robert Caro and Robert Dallek.

  So he banned screeners altogether. A storm of protest ensued -- loudest of all from the major studios' own specialty divisions, which rely heavily on awards attention to publicize their films -- and the policy was overturned by a federal judge, who said it ran afoul of antitrust laws.

  A voracious reader, he devoured everything by Macaulay, Churchill and Gibbon, and his speaking and writing style would mix his native twang with the rhetorical flourishes of his heroes in a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers that one critic called "a kind of Texas baroque."

  Mr. Valenti spent more time socially with the president than any other aide, often bringing along his wife and their toddler daughter, Courtenay Lynda, a Johnson favorite.

• Comments:
  The level of violence in this obituary is not what concerns us so much as its contextual basis. "Picking fights" is a form of social discourse that we feel many, though not all, parents may object to. It is obvious, however, that "a brew of cliché, cornpone, compelling phrases and clunkers" makes impossible a G-rating, which of course allows for only "some snippets of language [to] go beyond polite conversation." The dilemma here is whether the Times deserves a PG or a PG-13. Ultimately, despite the absence of drug use or graphic sexing, the highly untraditional domestic structure of Man, Wife, President of the United States, and Toddler Who is Said President's "Favorite" almost certainly eclipses the baseline community standards of all extant communities.

• Final Rating: PG-13 Parents Strongly Cautioned
  for pugnacity, use of non-Standard American English Dialect and reminders of the Gulf of Tonkin involving young children.

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Los Angeles Times:
Jack Valenti, 85; former Hollywood lobbyist pioneered film ratings system

• Key Concerns:

  In public, his Texas-accented eloquence was reminisce