I've waited 20 years for a simple device to access the internet. That's it. And now the wait is (almost) over. The iPad is here.

100 years from now, this day will be seen as a historic day. They'll still have an internet, of course, and it will be everywhere. They'll think of life before the internet as the "dark ages". They'll have no comprehension as to how we survived, or learned, or communicated, or thrived, without it. And they'll wonder what took us so long to develop a device to take the internet with us. Everywhere. As it should be. As it should have been all along.

And now Apple has found a way to take the internet everywhere. As it should be. As it should have been all along.

Apple will eventually become the largest company on the planet by market cap. Bigger than Exxon. Bigger than Walmart. Bigger than GE and P&G combined.

Why?

Because they invented magical products and services, loved by their consumers, and were miles ahead of their competition. Steve Jobs is a genius, but Jonathan Ive is from outer space. Between the two of them they changed the world. They showed everyone what American (and British) ingenuity looks like. And they simply changed the world.

Apple's competitors will get stories planted poo-poohing the iPad. Laggards will complain about this and that. And some of you will see lines to buy an iPad as consumerism run amok.

For me, I see the iPad as a dream come true. And I see it not as a product - a noun - but as a verb. It's not a computer. It's simply the internet. Information. Knowledge. Newspapers. Magazines. Films. Games. Ball games. Encyclopedias. Phone calls. Books. TV Shows. Stocks. Travel reservations. Blogs. In bed. At the pub. In the john. At the cafe. On a plane. In Bulgaria. In France. In Texarkana. Everywhere.

As it should be. As it should have been all along.

Bravo Apple.

Bravo.


(disclosure - of course I still own Apple stock. And now they need to get iPad to Europe ASAP!)

Happy Easter

From S&A: "Top 10 Ways You Know You're a Tea-Bagger"

1) You've conveniently forgotten who got us into this mess

2) You only watch Fox News, morning, noon and night

3) You call yourself a christian, but you hate poor people, and think if you're sick and uninsured you should just go ahead, suffer and die

4) You didn't go to college, and if you did your degree is of Sarah-Palin-quality

5) You hate science, you hate scientists, you don't understand evolution, you dismiss global warming, and you think dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth together

6) You have guns in your house. Lots of 'em.

7) You're in a dead-end career, or you've already lost your job

8) You enjoy your government benefits, but you don't want to pay taxes to the socialist US government

9) Tim McVeigh, the Branch Davidians, Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder are heroes of yours

10) You're a sucker born every minute. Even if you don't know it.


[bonus edits...]

11) You're white

12) You're easily conned

Read this book: The Next 100 Years, by George Friedman (STRATFOR).

Easily the best non-fiction book I've read this year.

HP and S&A have been about what comes next. And although nobody can accurately predict the future, some do come close.

Get popcorn. Enjoy The American Century. Watch Poland and Turkey. Say goodbye to old dying decaying Western Europe. Get ready for us to start PAYING people to come to America. Wait for drone wars, country break-ups and space power. And seriously, read this book. It's a fun one.

The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century

Sean Hannity admits the truth. His supporters, the Tea Baggers, are simply "Tim McVeigh Wannabes". Wow.

Pretty sick to see the audience cheer at that one. You know, instead of recoiling in horror. Instead of booing. Instead of walking out in droves.

Tim McVeigh - hero of the right? The Original Tea Bagger? Are you serious? Are we no longer Americans?

At this rate folks, they won't be simply "wannabes".

No, I'm afraid, soon, they'll be the real thing.

Dead innocent women and babies. Assassinated politicians. Domestic terrorist bombings. Militia crazies doing their thing.

Why? Because Fox News, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey and the rest of their ilk called for it. Encouraged it. Asked for it by name.

I think they did it for the money. I think scum like Hannity and Beck simply sold their souls for a buck. But soon enough, they'll have (even more) blood on their hands. And you have to wonder, at that point, will they have any shame?

Don't hold your breath.

NEWSFLASH! GUAM MAY TIP OVER!

Why do we put morons in Congress?

Serious question.

Utter, complete, total morons.

I guess in total though Congress is indeed a good representation of America. Morons, corrupt criminals, religious whackos, sexual deviants and the insane.

Nice job American voters.

Perma-Bears and Tea Baggers will hate this post

HousingPANIC was about the shit-storm to come. Before people knew. And then it came.

Soot & Ashes was the pivot, from crash to recovery. Before people knew. And then it came.

Even my March 2009 "green shoots" call was rejected by 94% of readers here, although it was the EXACT bottom, perhaps to the hour, but it doesn't matter, history proved me right yet again. Perma bulls get slaughtered. Perma bears get slaughtered. Smart and open-minded people who read Manias, Panics and Crashes do OK.

And now, a year later, it's nice to see The Economist on it yet again. Their "In Come the Waves" article was hands-down, without-question the single best piece of reporting during the Great Bubble. And this piece, "A Special Report on America's Economy", is one of the best pieces I've seen during the recovery.

So many of you are still (wrongly) perma-bears. Still sickeningly Glenn-Beck-Fox-News-Tea-Bagger negative. Still stuck in 2007, and 2008. And still see so much as what's going on as the future, when instead it's a trailing indicator. You have no hope, you think we'll never recover, you're angry, you want problems and not solutions, and, as always, you're wrong. Dead wrong.

The US is rising from this disaster, whether you want it to or not. We fired the corrupt GOP f*ckers who got us into this mess, and we're rooting out the corrupt f*ckers now on both sides of the aisle who want to keep us down.

We hired a great president, not just a good one, but a great, for-the-history-books one, even if he is to be hated or killed in his time.

We realized that the current path was unsustainable. We accounted for (most of) the bad debts. We took the 30% - 50% haircut on home prices. We stopped the stupid lending. And we got on a long, long path, that will eventually take us to solvency and fiscal and social responsibility. Eventually.

Now is the time for radical change, and radical change we shall have. Health care. Social Security. Medicaid. Medicare. Energy policy. Taxes. Trade. Education. Fiscal policy. Social policy. Infrastructure. The military. Transportation. Gays and civil rights. Commerce. Immigration. NCAA football playoffs. Internet devices. Pop culture. The American brand. Views on religion. Scientific knowledge. How we get our news.

You name it, everything will soon change. Dramatically. Like it or not, everything will soon change. There will be ups, and there will be sickening oh-dear-god downs, but everything, for the better, will now change.

So buckle up. Get out of the bunker. Bet on America. Bet on knowledge. Bet on change.

In the end, as always, you'll win.

Sarkozy to America: "Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor"

"Welcome to the club of states who don't turn their back on the sick and the poor... The very fact that there should have been such a violent debate simply on the fact that the poorest of Americans should not be left out in the streets without a cent to look after them... is something astonishing to us."

-French President Nicolas Sarkozy, telling Americans who despise taxes, government services and poor people (of course, that is, funny enough, until they need, consume or qualify for government services, or become poor - then they love their government cheese) his views on America, March 2010

Welcome to the FoxNews.com Hot Sex Channel

I dropped by FoxNews.com, to check in on attractive missing blonde girls, porn stars, hot celebrities and sex tapes. And no, Fox News did not disappoint!

Oh, there was some stupid stuff about politics and ugly old men too. But I skipped right over that.

Gotta love Roger Ailes. Genius. Suck 'em in with hot babes, christian paranoia and some American flags, and then feed them your corporate-sponsored GOP political hypnosis.

Genius.

Straight from foxnews.com yesterday - you know, the right wing family values conservative christian network - here you go. You can't make this stuff up folks. Bill Loofah O'Reilly must be in heaven.

• 

  Mindy McCready Sex Tape

  EXCLUSIVE: Troubled country star in explicit sex tape, talks about alleged affair with Roger Clemens, others | NSFW: VIDEO COVER

• 

  'Hot Tub' Hot Stuff

  MAXIM MONDAY: Lyndsy Fonseca, John Cusack's girlfriend in 'Hot Tub Time Machine,' talks about her zebra-striped, spandex cat suit in the movie...

• 

  Bombshell Blindsided

  Jesse James' tattooed lover thought they were an item, until she watched the Oscars, dad says | DO YOU WISH YOU HAD JESSE'S GIRLS?

• 

  Eat Your Heart Out Reg!

  FOX411: Kim Kardashian looks to have bounced back nicely from last week's breakup with Reggie Bush | KIM'S TWIT PICS

• 

  More Stars Without Makeup

  BEFORE/AFTER: Brooke Mueller looks worse for wear from the drama surrounding her marriage. How do other stars fare without the warpaint?

• 

  VS Model Dreams of Curves

  POP TARTS EXCLUSIVE: Alessandra Ambrosio may seem perfect to us but she wishes she could beef up one body part ... | VICTORIA'S SECRET ALL STARS

• 

  Uchitel Longs for Privacy ...

  Yet, she still showed up at gossip blogger Perez Hilton's birthday bash, where she bragged that anybody would want to be her friend | RACHEL HOT SHOTS

• 

  Kate's 'DWTS' Disaster

  More trouble for Gosselin on 'Dancing With the Stars' as her partner threatens to quit during rehearsals and judge slams her performance as a 'nightmare'

• 

  'I Won't Be Edited'

  FOX411: Heidi Montag, famous for editing her own body with multiple procedures, looks forward to life after 'Hills' | HEIDI'S

I think this is a joke. An SNL sketch. A gag. But like a lot of things on Fox News, I'm not quite sure.

I guess nobody else in America was available to have on Fox News?

Wow.

At one point, you'd figure the Fox News news actors would be like "OK, this is a gag, right?" and cut it off. And you'd figure they wouldn't make the mistake of having crazy lady keep coming back to reinforce their tea party narrative.

I love Fox News. Best entertainment channel on the TV, bar none.

Tea Baggers are gettin' angry. They're "on their last piece of chewing gum" if you know what I mean.

Man, I hope the FBI and Secret Service are staffing up.

Hate and rage sure goes good with some country music, don't it?

And why are they so angry at the government? Shouldn't they start with the realtors? Or maybe the people no longer in government who got us into this mess?

We wondered where the rage was, when the crooks were getting away with the loot. Well, the rage finally came, albeit too late. And stay tuned. Some kooks are going to go over the edge soon enough.

How'd that buying cheap crap from China at Walmart work out for you Americans?

You did it to yourselves. You offshored your jobs. You sold you soul. You gutted your downtowns. You destroyed your small businesses. You permanently altered your way of life.

All because of you love cheap crap from China, more than your fellow (now jobless) man.

Such a shame. It didn't have to be this way.

Enjoy your trip today to Walmart.

Try not to notice the blight on your way there.

US Unemployment Rate

Goodbye US manufacturing jobs.

Americans used to make things. And then they purchased things that other Americans made.

And then came Walmart, corrupt and incompetent unions, bad management at GM, lots of robots, idiots in DC, and, of course, communist China.

Well, I guess everyone can work at Walmart. Or maybe they can build robots and have their robot go to work for them?

BTW, are charts supposed to do that?

Jon Stewart destroys Glenn Beck

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Conservative Libertarian
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

Epic.


(FYI traveling, back Sunday)

Hate. Rage. Danger. Ignorance. Disinformation. Self Enrichment.

History will be brutal.

We've seen as*holes like these guys before.

Don't worry. Eventually the people wise up, and they go away.

"We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat." - Bush speechwriter David Frum

There are some adults left in the Republican Party.

Not many.

Some.

And the adults know the truth. That their party has been hijacked by whackos, liars, discredited hacks, con artists, ignoramuses, lobbyists, the military industrial complex and corporations. And that even though the American population's memory is short, and they may soon escape the blame for the economic catastrophe they caused our land, and they may soon escape blame for leading us into an idiotic and unjustifiable war, they won't be able to escape trying to score political points while attempting to sabotage the Obama presidency. They won't be able to escape not working in good faith toward good policy, and good government.

Because, yet again, they failed. Epic fail. Yet again.

They failed their party. They failed their nation. They failed.

And America is better off for it.

I know I've seen these angry ignorant racist white teabagger mobs before...

I saw them here...




I saw them here...




I saw them here...


I saw them here...



And, of course, I see them here...

If you're a "Tea Party" member, you're associating yourself with right wing racist ignorant intolerant thugs, sponsored by Fox News, the GOP and FreedomWorks.

The "Tea Party" is now a Republican/Fox News/FreedomWorks/Corporate-Sponsored movement of paranoids, racists, ignoramuses, fringe right wingers and thugs.

You know, just like the ones we've seen time after time, bringing shame to America.

History, again, will not be kind.

Finally

Good.

Evil.

What side are you on?

Without comment.

Been there. Done that. From 1989: "Is Government Dead?"

Twenty years have gone by, and still no solution for America's biggest problems - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance, financial regulation, manufacturing, energy reinvention, and of course, the deficit.

Twenty years.

But soon you'll be able to take health insurance off that list. Next must come entitlements. You think Congress and Obama are unpopular today? Wait until they (rightly) try to touch the social security retirement age. Or try to defuse the medicaid/medicare $61 trillion timebomb.

People (especially selfish baby boomers) want the streets paved with gold. They want to be treated as children. They want services, but they don't want to pay for them - they want to leave that up to their kids. And they elect leaders who promise them everything will be fine, no need for change, until the day when the whole ponzi scheme unravels (and that day is getting close).

The incumbents are going to lose their jobs anyway. Maybe they'll do the right thing for the nation on the way out the door.

Fix this mess now. Or else history will not be kind.

Hint - I think history will not be kind.