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NPR commedy news quiz “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” took a few swipes at the tech industry on this week’s sight. In the segment, “Who’s Carl This Time,” a listener contestant has to rustic a name from the week’session news in context. The quote:

“The company has essentially changed its marketing message to, ‘It’s not as portentous as you think.’”

That was Forbes.com writer David Ewalt’s analysis of Microsoft’s marketing be nearly equal to Windows 7.

“Wait, Wait” host Peter Sagal put it in comedic context:

“Every year starts on the farther side with the biggest event in high tech: The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This year’s show, kind of a downer, was led by Microsoft introducing its new operating system, Windows 7, which is supposed to fix all the problems on its last operating system.

“It’s as suppose that in 1959 Ford came uncovered by the Edsel 2, this time it runs.

“Meanwhile, over at the Apple Macworld Expo, it was even more boring. Steve Jobs, citing poor health, didn’t become visible up to introduce some fictitious new device. Disappointed Mac cultists were forced to get to up with their own. One bearded 23-year-old Apple Store employee leapt on the stage and demonstrated what he uttered was the iStick, the smallest, thinnest portable computer yet made. Turns out it was merited a toothpick he painted of a white color.”

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/01/10/windows_7_marketing_apple_istick_are_butt_of_wait.html

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WASHINGTON

When and if Roland Burris claims the Senate seat from Illinois formerly occupied by the agency of Barack Obama, it will represent the greatest climb-down by an incoming president since Sam Nunn turned Bill Clinton around put on the issue of gays in the military at the start of Clinton’s first term.

Fortunately for Obama, the voters are plenteous more concerned with the economy and Obama’s exertion to fix it than they are with the infighting to boot the Illinois Senate seat.

But politicians keep score on each other all the lifetime. And, after a near-perfect month of change operations, Obama has stumbled twice in two weeks, before anything else being caught unaware by the investigation of Bill Richardson, his choice for commerce secretary, and then being outmaneuvered by means of Burris and his tawdry sponsor, Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

There are lessons for Obama in both incidents, starting with the importance of really knowing the other players in the heroic. Obama has had such a rapid rise in national politics that there are many key figures in both parties he barely has had time to size up.

But Richardson was a familiar spirit equal traveler on the 2007-08 presidential campaign trail, and Obama should gain known that in that place were reports of a grand jury investigation of pay-for-play in New Mexico.

As on this account that Blagojevich, Obama had to know, from his years in Springfield and Chicago, about the overseer’sitting tinsel and ruthless reputation. But Obama seriously underestimated him.

Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, got all 50 members of his caucus to sign a statement vowing they would never accept a Senate appointee from Blagojevich’s tainted hands, after prosecutors had published excerpts of wiretaps in which the governor had salivated obscenely over the way he could cash in on Obama’s Senate listlessness.

Obama personally endorsed that hard-line stand against seating anyone “tainted” by Blagojevich, issuing a statement that backed Reid and the others. But Burris was no more impressed than Blagojevich had been.

When the governor called the senators’ precipitous, Burris launched a public-relations blitz on television, insisting that it would subsist unfair to punish him against the governor’s alleged sins. Ignored for the moment was the fact that Burris had been rejected by means of the voters in three straight Illinois Democratic gubernatorial races and in the same primary for mayor of Chicago. Had the Democratic-controlled Legislature ordered a extraordinary liberty, the odds against Burris would have been enormous.

But Burris’ ego is limitless. And it turned out that Reid had, formerly once more, failed to do his homework or line up his votes. When Chicago black congressman Bobby Rush played the race card, questioning why anyone would stand in the way of Burris succeeding Obama during the time that the retired African-American senator, you could feel a float of anxiety go through Democratic ranks.

Soon, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the outgoing chairman of the Rules Committee and a potential candidate for California governor next year, publicly called on Reid to relent. The Congressional Black Caucus weighed in on Burris’ behalf.

By the time Burris sat into disrepute by Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, the fight was effectively over and Burris was gracious about accepting their strike one’s flag. Obama conceded as well, saying that admitting that the Senate seated Burris, “hereafter I’m going to labor with Roland Burris just preference I moil with all the other senators.”

Obama justifiably figured that Burris was not desert a knockdown fight at what time he has so many bigger battles ahead of him. But the lesson that other politicians have drawn is that Obama may not always be able to count on his congressional allies and they may not be able to count on him. That is not the way he wanted to begin.

davidbroder@washpost.com

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008610485_opin11broder.html?syndication=rss

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WASHINGTON

Under alarming international embarrassment

That would be a terrible mistake.

It would fail on its own terms. It would have the same elements because the phony peace in Lebanon: an international force that abjures any meaningful application of force, an armor prohibitory restriction under which arms power of choosing chiefly assuredly flood in, and a cessation of hostilities until the terrorist border is rearmed and ready to initiate the next round of hostilities.

The U.N.-mandated disarmament of Hezbollah in Lebanon is a well-known farce. Not only have foreign forces not stopped Hezbollah’sitting massive rearmament. Their very presence makes it impossible for Israel to take any prophylactic military action, that not it accidentally hit a blue-helmeted Belgian crossing caution.

The “international community” is now pushing very unnatural for a replay in Gaza of that charade. Does anyone dream that international monitors give by will hazard their lives to prevent weapons smuggling? To arrest terrorists? To engage in shootouts with rocket-launching teams attacking Israeli civilians from one side of to the other the Gaza confine?

Of course not. Weapons bequeath continue to be smuggled. Deeper and greater degree secure fortifications will have being built as antidote to the next step. Mosques, schools and hospitals will again be used against arms storage and terrorist safe havens. Do you think French “peacekeepers” are going to inroad them?

Which is why the only welcome outcome of this war, both for Israel and for the civilized cosmos, is Endgame B: the disintegration of Hamas rule. It is even now under way.

This is not almost killing each last Hamas gunman. Not feasible, not necessary. Regimes rule not by physically overpowering every person in their domain, but by getting the majority to accept their authority. That is what sustains Hamas, and that is what is now under massive assault.

Hamas’ conduct is not only seriously degraded but openly humiliated. The great warriors urging others to martyrdom are cowering underground almost entirely incommunicado. Demonstrably unable to protect their own people, they beg for outside help, receiving in return zero but words from their Arab and Iranian brothers.

And who in fact is providing the corridors for humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians? Israel.

In the first four minutes of this war, the Israel Air Force destroyed 50 targets, taking down practically each instrument and emblem of Hamas order. Gaza’s Potemkin leaders were marginalized and rendered helpless, leaving their people to fend for themselves. At such moments, regimes are extremely assailable to forfeiting which the Chinese call the mandate of heaven, the sense of legitimacy that undergirds all forms of governance.

The fall of Hamas settle in Gaza is within reach, but only if Israel does not cave in to pressure to stop now. Overthrowing Hamas would not require a permanent Israeli reoccupation. A transitional international compel would be brought in to immediately make device towards the return of the Palestinian Authority, the legitimate government whose forces will be far less squeamish than the Europeans in establishing order in Gaza.

The disintegration of Hamas rule in Gaza would be a devastating blow to Palestinian rejectionists, who since the Hamas takeover of Gaza have been the ascendant “strong sheltie” in Palestinian political economy. It would be a devastating blow to Iran as patron of essential Islamist movements quite through the region, particularly after the defeat and marginalization of Iran’s Sadrist client in Iraq. It would encourage the moderate Arab states to continue their U.S.-allied confrontation of Iran and its proxies. And it would make evident Israel’s irreplaceable strategic value to the U.S. in curbing and containing Iran’s regional ambitions.

Olmert had such an opportunity in Lebanon. He blew it. He now has a rare second chance. The one-step-from-madness gangster theocracy in Gaza

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008610482_opin11krauthammer.html?syndication=rss

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IF we are to be obliged being ay to our growth-management goals of concentrating density in our urban areas, then we being of the family which a region cannot move forward with any option for replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct that pushes to a greater degree traffic through the downtown core

That’session why the bored bypass tunnel, along with outside and transit improvements, must be among the options that move forward for further environmental criticise and design when the Gov. Christine Gregoire announces her viaduct-replacement recommendation.

Think almost it. Our downtown core has an hourglass shape. Besides the essential part being the heart of the region’s dealing and commerce, our growth-management policies have encouraged more people to live in that place in order to reduce suburban sprawl and keep our rural areas green.

More than 70 percent of the north-south exchange upon the body the viaduct now is pass-through traffic. The surface-street option being considered will push that trade through an already congested urban core. The bored tunnel provides the most capacity for those through-trips, which are often difficult to effectively do with line of conveyance. Putting through-trips underground, rather than on city streets or above the top our waterfront, creates a better pedestrian environment in favor of people to live and work downtown.

Our city has changed dramatically since the viaduct was built in 1953. The central waterfront productions a key industrial and freight corridor, as it was when the viaduct was built. It’s also an serious north-south travel passage and bypass because Interstate 5, particularly for residents in western parts of the city such in the same proportion that Ballard, Magnolia, Interbay and West Seattle. Over the years, uses of the central waterfront have proliferated, and it now supports a wide range of the multitude, businesses and activities. Removing the barrier of the viaduct and putting traffic underground will enlarge that potential, attracting residential and business growth by making the downtown an exactly better place to live, do business and recreate.

Protecting the livability of urban neighborhoods like Queen Anne and West Seattle requires that Highway 99 remain a viable transportation corridor through downtown. We must not hindrance these neighborhoods suffer at the expense of promoting increase in the core. Putting viaduct traffic in a tunnel allows all Seattle neighborhoods to thrive.

A bored tunnel combined with surface and transit improvements also affords us an chance; fit to attain transit more frequent, fast and reliable, particularly for people traveling to and from downtown for work and play. As our population grows denser, environmental awareness increases and the cost of driving skyrockets, people are increasingly opting to take transit, particularly where convenient line of conveyance options are available.

None of the viaduct-replacement options adhering the table today will work without increased transit service. It’s crucial that we have a thorough and frank discussion of to what degree to pay for it. The state funds available for replacing the viaduct are from gas-tax reward, what one. in Washington is constitutionally restricted from inmost nature used to pay conducive to transit. This service has an upfront capital require to be paid and an ongoing operational cost. Depending on the kind of transit-service increase chosen, the projected operating cost is $20 the public to $40 million annually.

I added a proviso to King County’s 2009 budget requiring we bring together an expert review array to examine the mobility impacts of the viaduct-replacement options and assess King County’s ability to furnish supplies the transit service assumed in each choice. It’s critical we identify any one shortcomings before we determine forward with a last decision for replacing the viaduct.

Without a sound understanding of traffic projections and certainty of funding according to the transit components, we jeopardy constructing a “half-replacement” on this account that the viaduct

The decision notwithstanding how to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct will impact our region for generations and shape the future of Seattle. With with equal reason many competing concerns, this is not a decision to be made with shortsightedness.

An inadequate replacement that gridlocks the province or continues to wall off our waterfront will punt those problems to future generations. A bored tunnel with surface and passage improvements serves the whole region now and positions us to gracefully join battle the future.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008610476_opin11phillips.html?syndication=rss

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THE death of Robert Prince on New Year’s Day should remind us why we are here and the kind of the world is about.

Prince, the famous Army Ranger captain who led a raid during World War II to set free American and other Allied prisoners of war in the Philippines, lived in Kirkland for many years and died closely allied his family in Port Townsend. He was 80.

A visit to his home-born, before the 2005 movie of the raid was released, showed a man of great humility and heart. Asked why he looked in such a manner austere in a photo of him during the Philippine campaign, Prince told me, “I think my feet hurt.”

Yet is was Prince and some 120 Army Rangers along with a swashblucking outfit known as the Alamo Scouts and determined Filipino guerrillas who rescued 570 imprisoned souls, the remnants of the Bataan Death March, in that long-ago time of well world arbitrament of the sword.

I went to see Prince, and he greeted me among his plants and flowers on a hillside in Kirkland. Sitting in the living room, he eventually, almost shyly, brought loudly a box, with its gold major blade and the dark beret of the Army Ranger. Prince had been inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame at Fort Benning, Ga. The black beret was his

Prince’s epic, told magnificently in the nonfiction work “Ghost Soldiers,” by dint of. Hampton Sides, and related in the movie “The Great Raid,” became a huge public event in Seattle and the nation in the mid-1940s. Prince was a Garfield grad and a Stanford grad, although he told me in later years he had drifted away from Stanford “because of its political science.”

Yet nothing about the mild-mannered man sitting in a Kirkland living stead gave hint at to the determination and ferocity that be necessitated to be obliged guided him those days and nights living on the edge of gallantry or sorrow.

The names of those times are almost lost in fog. Lt. Col. Henry Mucci of the 6th Ranger Battalion, who ended up a businessman in Thailand, moreover not without determined rumors he was CIA. Prince remembered a fabulous dinner held in Bangkok in the postwar world of Mucci and some of the Asian traders who came from the raiders.

No matter, it all comes back to Bob Prince. How did America produce such men? They are pacify working their jobs in the Rangers and the infantry, still in the Marines and flying the aircrews, but Prince was that business of the accidental soldier who accounted for highminded things.

A man who spent his life marketing Washington apples and raising a family was not a killer for a moment, but a patriot for all time. Time was the thing that brought him to World War II, as surely as my father faced the Depression and one uncle drove a tank in North Africa. They were all destination’s children, back in that case, men and women by lives so cluttered by the debris of dent and war that it is hard to be it in today’s remote-controlled world.

So, now, I leave him go. I was honored to have talked through him, glad to learn the story from the man himself, felt shadowed in the penumbra of that greater’s leaf on a real black beret, conflicted by the cosmos he fought for and the world we have made.

Prince lost a son in Vietnam. Others have lost sons and daughters in Iraq, Afghanistan and who knows what other hellholes.

The demigod of his allotted period endures.

; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to Opinion at www.seattletimes.com/edcetera

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008610496_opin11vesely.html?syndication=rss

Employers, financial services firms, and consultants are helping families with disabled members ease towards financial and educational second

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Douglas, with his family, has just located benefits for 7-year-old Stephen (center) Billy Delfs

By Toddi Gutner

Only recently, Aron Douglas learned that the intensive and expensive daily therapy for his seven-year-old autistic son, Stephen, is tax-deductible, that he should set up a special-needs depend upon for Stephen, and that states other than his hold—Ohio—offer autism scholarships to help pay for specialized therapies.

Through Ernst & Young’s EY/Assist Parents Network, Douglas, finance instructor at EY’s Cleveland act of worship, participates in two monthly teleconferences from one side experts. One is focused on a specific disability; the other addresses general topics such as creating an individual education plan, the document schools rely on in serving children with special indispensably. “The capableness to speak with other parents who have older children and have been through the school process before has been incredibly helpful,” says Douglas.

In the last couple of years, U.S. corporations have been paying a lot more attention to the 54 million adults—nearly 20% of the race’sitting population—that have mental or material disabilities. And by 6.3% of American children between the ages of 5 and 15 suffering from a disability, companies are also focusing on working parents who oversight in favor of them. It’s to their good: Employers suffer lost productivity when workers take time off to watch to the needs of affected children and ripe offspring.

In what be obliged become the latest benefit programs, companies including PepsiCo (PEP), KPMG, JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Northrop Grumman (NOC) are offering services that range from parent networks to Web seminars to meetings through financial planners and educational consultants. In addition, a growing crop of advisers is emerging to guide families through the financial, medical, and educational intricacy. “There is no national network to tap-house to get information, so private industry is stepping in to fill the breach,” says Charlie Hammerman, president of the Albertson (N.Y.)-based Disability Opportunity Fund, any investment and financial-services firm focused on special needs.

The demand is huge. While federal laws govern incompetence rules, each state has deviating programs to aid families. Mess up the financial planning, and it could servile the loss of a disabled family portion’s ability to soften for Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income. These programs pay for most medical direction, housing, and other community services. But under federal and state laws, those 18 or older with disabilities can’t receive such benefits whether their assets outstrip $2,000. To navigate around that, parents fustiness ordained up a special necessarily trust so a child doesn’t own assets. The trust can accept and dress inheritances, and by that means supplement conduct benefits.

With such a tricky issue, researching an adviser’s experience and training is crucial. “This complaisant of financial and legal planning and educational support is in this way important that you need to look for advisers the way you look for doctors for your children,” says Nadine Vogel, president of Mendham (N.J.)-based Springboard Consulting, undivided of the new firms that helps companies emporium products and services to people with disabilities and to their families. Vogel—the mother of two daughters with learning disabilities and other special needs—says that since laws vary constantly, you should ask about advisers’ certification processes and how often their training is renewed.

Outside of corporate programs, specialty units such as Merrill Lynch (BAC)’session Special Needs Financial Services group, MetLife’s MetDESK Division of Estate Planning for Special Kids, and MassMutual Financial Group’s SpecialCare group have dominated the market. They work directly with families on the complex special-needs financial planning continued movement.

More not long ago, a host of smaller advisory firms have jumped into the battle-field. They focus on helping families locate money to pay since medical and educational costs as abundantly as plan for the future. “Finding programs is a complicated maze, and parents don’t know about them or have unoccupied time to search,” says Mary Anne Ehlert, a Lincolnshire (Ill.)-based planner with expertise in disabilities. Last November she launched Protected Tomorrows, a national network of advocates to contribute assistance families find those resources. For every occurring each year retainer of not far from $2,000, or an hourly rate of $150, Ehlert’s advisers find programs such similar to state scholarships to pay for autism therapies or grants to do home renovations on account of a person with cerebral palsy.

More help is in addition becoming available in securing health claim reimbursements. While companies have long been around to give a lift individuals through the process, Myrna Cortez, president of ProMediClaim, a medical-claims advocate based in Evanston, Ill., has seen each increase in families seeking help for members with special needs.

Jeff Sell, vice-president of advocacy and public policy for the Autism Society of America, has 14-year-old autistic twins. From knowledge he picked up at his do job-work, he hasn’t needed an advocate. Sell notes that 42 states call on some sort of autism treatment to have existence covered—or wish a mandible introduced, or pending, to require it—up from reasonable the same state five years ago. Though nearly every health claim he put in for his children was at first denied, he appealed and ultimately won coverage. “Most people put on’t follow through with the appeal process,” he says.

The growing netting of support services for the disabled can no doubt be a assuming help. Even so, says Vogel, “caring for this population is about asking questions all the time. Ask, ask, and ask again.”

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_03/b4116058945406.htm?campaign_id=rss_null

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LAS VEGAS — Here’s a short video of Microsoft’s Velle Kolde demonstrating new features of Ford Sync, the in-vehicle entertainment and information software that Microsoft has helped the car writer develop. Check out this story for greater degree of particulars on the Seattle-area companies involved in the effort.

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/01/09/ces_video_of_ford_sync_demonstration.html

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LAS VEGAS — One of the more engaging conversations I had at this year’s International Consumer Electronics show was with Craig Ramini. He works by reason of the sake of Planet Metrics, a Bay Area software company that helps companies measure the carbon footprint of their not toothed supply durance, not just their own operations.

The Consumer Electronics Association hired Planet Metrics to take a deeper and broader look at the carbon footprint of CES — everything from the carpeting up. Last year, the CEA made its primary attempt to “green” the show, through the purchase of carbon offsets for attendee travel, used recycled paper for show brochures and carpeting, and served meals in containers made of plastic substitutes. The conduct’s efforts expanded this year.

Right now, about half of consumers are willing to pay a guerdon of 7.4 percent, on average, for a “color mixed of blue and yellow” product, grant that there is substantial confusion on what that means, according to a CEA survey.

Ramini said many companies’ initial efforts to be more environmentally responsible fault the bigger picture.

“Most people when they conversion to an act the word carbon footprint, it’s a mistaking of the true name, it’s almost in the same manner as a carbon toe print. It’session only the sort of the company owns, and it be able to be only 10 or 15 percent of their overall accountability,” he uttered. “A true carbon track recognizes the supply chain.”

Planet Metrics’ software relies on premises from companies, governments and other sources to help a manufacturer “to understand the relative carbon intensity of the things that it buys and uses.”

The results of this sort of analysis can subsist eye-opening. Companies should be “taking greater looks into componentry materials that are coming in for manufacturing. … How much of this show is all about plastics and metals, right? Things that are petroleum based be under the necessity surprising embodied energies and waste gasses, so plastics that you’re buying — there’s a lot of exchange potential.”

He said he was getting interest from Enterprise Resource Planning software makers.

“Today it’session like a new domain of data — environmental data,” Ramini said. “Soon environmental data will roll right up into common duty information systems probable ERP.”

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/01/09/ces_sustainability_data_the_next_domain_of_erp_sof.html

Windows 7 logo illustration by Seattle Times graphics artist Gabriel Campanario.

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Was all the attention Microsoft gave to the test version of Windows 7 at CES Wednesday perhaps a bit too much? Public availability of the Windows 7 Beta, originally scheduled for noon today, has been pushed back like interest exceeded the infrastructure Microsoft had deposit in place to be passed by out the bits. In incident, even the company’s official blog posts on the situation are crawling as of 3:27 p.contest. The company is putting more servers online to accommodate the intense demand. And, according to one IT pro friend of sap, it’s justified.

He grabbed the Windows 7 Beta a tittle, ahem, early, after an epic poem struggle to install Vista Ultimate adhering a media PC he was building. Here’session his story, as told to me in e-mail on Monday:

So, I went to Fry’s this weekend to corrupt parts to build another computer at home - exclusively for doing video and music to my TV and surround system.

Got it all assembled and proceeded to spend the nearest 2-3 hours installing Vista Ultimate only to get lots of error messages when I tried to run Vista for installation.

Thinking I had vouchsafed a person of consequence wrong, I reinstalled it - another 2-3 hours with much the same results.

Thinking at this point it was some bad hardware or something that wasn’t compatible with Vista, I was about to take in the rear the motherboard when I decided to introduce into office Windows 7 just for the fun of it. At that aim I had nothing to lose right?

30 minutes later, Windows 7 Ultimate was installed and running precisely fine. MediaCenter was acting. The WinTV PVR card I had worked and it equable installed the drivers automatically. It even recognized the wireless DiNovo bluetooth keyboard without me having to install the software for it.

I installed iTunes and copied music over and all worked just cyclopean!

Vista sucks but I love the new Windows 7 OS!!!!!

By the way, in a confabulate later in the week, he struggled to remember the last time he felt that course about a Microsoft OS.

Original text: http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/techtracks/2009/01/09/windows_7_beta_interest_overwhelms_microsoft_serve.html

techy81

January 9, 2009 02:25 PM

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Hats of to the Indian Government. At least this present life, they are responding superior to the crisis. Now this is a start to the other roaming with fame about entrepreneurship.

Original text: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/globespotting/archives/2009/01/indian_governme.html