Year: 2007

Life Magazine will shut down, for the third time, after it releases the April 20 print issue. It is the latest magazine to shut down as more readers desert print publications for online news and photos.

“Growth requires taking risks and the potential upside was huge, but unfortunately the timing worked against us,” Time Inc. Chief Executive Ann Moore said. “The market has moved dramatically since October 2004 and it is no longer appropriate to continue publication of LIFE as a newspaper supplement.”

Duh.

One cool thing though…

Time will make LIFE’s collection of 10 million images available online, with “the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century” available for free for personal use, it said.

That’s smart.

Turncoat.

“Any president who says, I don’t care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don’t care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed — if a president really believes that, then there are — what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that,” said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

So, according to Sen. Chuck Hagel, when a president doesn’t lead by polls he’s committing high crimes and misdemeanors? It’s pretty clear what’s going on here. Hagel wants to be president, and he thinks he can get there by dangling carrots in front of the Nutroots while keeping his GOP membership card firmly in his wallet.

It’s time for regime change in Nebraska.

South Carolina’s “The State” reprints an Edwards campaign press release touting local endorsements for his candidacy. This just seems so manufactured, especially after Edwards’ announcement last week that his push for the White House would continue even though his wife is suffering from a relapse of cancer. I can just about hear the conversation at campaign headquarters. “O.K. guys, you heard the boss, he’s not quitting (yet). Let’s rush out a fact sheet highlighting the support he’s got state-wide. Gotta keep pushing that momentum!”

This would really be news if the state was going for another candidate.

According to Evan Derkacz, the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., “rips the New York Times a new one”. You be the judge.

Tags:
Obama, Presidential Race, 2008, Politics, Election

It’s an illusion.

With all the rumors swirling about Leopard’s possible April release date, developers close to the matter want to make something very clear: we’re all crazy.

There have been a lot of rumors lately from “unconfirmed” sources about Leopard’s expected ship date. For a while, everyone was sure it was going to ship mid-to-late March. Then mysteriously, the ship date (according to these anonymous sources) got shifted to mid-April—perhaps because we are already in late March. Oops.

Developers who work closely with Apple have been dying to tell the world how very, very wrong we all are.

There are 7 computers in my house. 5 are Windows machines and 2 are Macs. I upgraded one of the Windows machines to the latest “Vista” version. Lots of stuff didn’t work. I couldn’t find drivers for my wireless card. My printer didn’t work until I found updated drivers. I had to buy a new sound card. Yet still today, I feel like that machine isn’t quite right. It’s no longer reliable. That’s why I only updated one of my machines. I didn’t want to mess ’em all up. Such is the case when you jump on board the first release of a new operating system. Problems will happen.

I don’t expect a similar experience with Leopard, but I won’t be grabbing for my credit card the day the OS is released either. There’s no real reason to. With Vista, I got a new user interface, but not a lot more. With Leopard, it seems I’ll get a Time Machine (heh), something called “Spaces” and some cool new animation. There’s got to me more ‘There’ there if I’m to get overly excited about OS X 10.5.

My advise to Apple? If what I see today about Leopard is true, don’t rush it to market. I can wait.

Tags:
Mac, Apple, Leopard, OS X 10.5, Microsoft, Windows, Vista

The D.C. Voting Bill has been pulled by Democrats after Republicans added a motion that would repeal the gun ban for the district.

The move is a clear signal that Democrats have lost control of House floor after minority Republicans presented the Democratic majority with a politically unpalatable motion that their conservative members would be forced to support for fear of angering the gun rights community.

Fifty-two Democrats voted with Republicans on a similar measure to repeal the gun ban in 2004. That would be more than enough support for Republicans to add a repeal to the voting rights bill – something a majority of Democrats would vehemently oppose.

Republicans have taken great pride in offering motions to recommit during their time in the minority, an often over-looked legislative procedure that has allowed them to amend various bills on the House floor.

Attaching unrelated motions to bill is an act mastered by both sides of the aisle, so this move by the GOP isn’t the exception, it’s the rule. Like it or not, it’s how Government works (or doesn’t work) today.

I gotta admit – it’s fun to watch.

According to Drudge, FOXNEWS reports all charges may be dropped as early as tomorrow in Duke Lacrosse rape case. There are predictions of a dismissal in the coming days.

Contrary to earlier reports, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards will not suspend his campaign, and likely drop his bid altogether to care for even though his wife has had a recurrence of cancer.

No matter how much I disagree with this guy politically, he’s got his priorities straight. Family first.

Godspeed Elizabeth. 

MORE: Getting it wrong.

STILL MORE: From Time…

Edwards said nothing would change; his campaign would continue and Elizabeth would be by his side on the road. Elizabeth spoke about the importance of her husband’s campaign, how the country needs him to be president. Both said there was never a debate yesterday, as they were receiving the news about her condition, about whether he should drop out of the race. John said that when the two of them were alone, Elizabeth was concerned about everyone but herself—her children, her husband and her country, in that order, but not herself.

He clearly meant it to be inspiring, but there is also something discomfiting about that statement. Even more discomfiting was Edwards’ claim that by soldiering on while his wife has incurable cancer, he would be proving that he could deal with the pressures of being president. I wonder how voters will react to that sentiment.

Finding fake issues and feeding them to the news machines is not what we elected our senators and members of Congress to do.

Mary Laney, Chicago Sun-Times.

Nevermind.

North Korea stayed away from six-nation talks on its nuclear program Tuesday in a dispute over $25 million of its funds, dimming prospects for progress on getting the communist regime to disarm. But Christopher Hill, the chief American envoy to the negotiations, met with Kim Kye Gwan, his North Korean counterpart, and later downplayed concerns that efforts to meet goals outlined in a landmark Feb. 13 disarmament agreement were in vain.

Spin, spin and more spin. The fact remains – the North Koreans cannot be trusted.