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Elect Steve Jobs President of the United States
Will Foster writes "There is a groundswell of support for electing Steve Jobs President of the United States." I'll vote for him if I can write in my vote -- with a Newton stylus!
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"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No", said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd", said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did", said Ford. "It is."
"So", said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them", said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes", said Ford with a shrug, "of course".
"But", said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said", said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them." he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it." - Douglas Adams, So long, and thanks for all the fish, chapter 36, 1984
Kent: Senator Dole, why should people vote for you instead of President Clinton?
...
Kang: It makes no difference which one of us you vote for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!
Kent: Well, a refreshingly frank response there from senator Bob Dole.
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system; you have to vote for one of us. [murmurs]
Man1: He's right, this is a two-party system.
Man2: Well, I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away. [Kang and Kodos laugh out loud] - The Simpsons, 4F02
"It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." - Eugene Debs
...is that it's getting harder and harder to tell what's a put-on. More and more things I thought were parody at first turn out to be real.
Anyway, say what you will about Jobs, but he certainly got a LOT more done in his 20's and 30's than our current President, and by all accounts wasn't that much more of a jerk.
And Jobs's rescue of Apple certainly shows that he has an extraordinary ability to balance short and long term needs. Given what they've had to work with, technically, from Motorola for the last few years, can you believe that Apple is not only extant, but profitable?
Anyway, I'd probably vote for him over a fair number of other politicians. While we know a lot of his youthful indiscretions, I think that's just because he's been famous for so long. I imagine our previous two presidents were just as wild in their youth. The real question is how good a job who he is now could do, and I'd say the evidence is promising, or at least intriguing.
For all the "Jobs is a visionary" rhetoric, running a company on a knifes-edge like Apple has been for the last half decade implies a good ability to roll with the punches, and be flexible when appropriate.
My video compression blog
Apple has a monopoly on Apple computers. Just like those bastards at Ford who have a monopoly on Ford brand cars.
Weren't you around when monopoly was downgraded from 'Near complete control of a market' to 'Makes a product that isn't free'?
well, the mac community is probably larger than the perot community. ;)
If Jobs got to be the president of the USA, that would not be the first time that Perot got burned by Jobs. Perot was one of the largest investors in a little venture which was at one time known as NeXT.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Steve wouldn't want the job unless he could be president number 0.
For those of you that don't know, when Apple got round to issuing employee numbers, Steve Jobs was pretty peeved that he couldn't be employee number 1 as Steve Wozniak had already nabbed that priviledge for himself. Unable to convince Wozniak to change, Jobs took employee number 0 rather than be stuck behind Wozniak with the employee number 2 tag.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
You guys must be kidding! Insightful? The guy thinks Dubya is up there doing "leadership"?
No doubt we're going to invade Iraq to free their people and bring them democracy, right? And clamping the international price of petroleum forever has nothing to do with it, right? And funneling several hundred billion dollars through the defense industry while ignoring the growing crowds of unemployed has nothing to do with it, right? And giving the top 5% income bracket lots of new tax breaks and only giving the rest of us a few hundred bucks has nothing to do with it, right? And imposing the Christian version of the Taliban on us has nothing to do with it, right? And suspending our rights to privacy and due process so we don't get in their way has nothing to do with it, right? And, and...
Dude, pass me the fucking pipe!