I blogged earlier about how Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 has a U/I that is very similar to that of Chrome, and the several drawbacks as a result.
Well, I've finally gotten around to upgrading from Firefox 3.6.17 to 4.0.1 and, guess what? They made the essentially same changes.
Not to detail the many shortcomings here, but only highlight the first "positive" element of the design from a review at Techie-buzz.com:
... the user interface for Firefox 4 is completely different from earlier versions. It is similar to what other browser look like including Internet Explorer 9, Opera and Google Chrome.
This is definitely good because users will have a unified experience across multiple browsers. Firefox 4 has combined all the menu items into a single menu item. ...
Why bother with having a good user interface? Just do what others are doing - even if it's crummy - and you get kudos.
You've gotta love Firefox ditching "all the menu items" - which were a massive total of seven, and quick to access - with "a single menu item". That's progress for you.
CODA: Several add-ins don't work with 4.0.1, so even if you don't agree with this assessment of the U/I, you might want to wait a little longer before making the transition.
ALSO: The default Firefox 4 does not remember tabs when you close the application. Boo! But there is a way to re-enable that valuable feature.
FINALLY: A remark that pretty much explains why this is happening:
Mozilla also is experimenting with another idea that's all the rage, a minimalist user interface frame. Firefox 4 did away with some items, such as its menu bar ...
Chrome, which has long embodied the minimal-UI ethos, has a similar option called compact navigation under way that makes the address bar part of the tab, too, so that a few more precious pixels of Web page are visible.
So get a bigger display. Or make the browser minimalist only when it's on a small screen.
Trying to do something effectively within a small space is like knitting inside a mailbox. You can only do that with three-inch knitting needles. So now everybody has to do it that way? It's a terrible design philosophy.
File this one away. Here is an editorial in the Washington Post:
Benefits for programs such as Social Security and civilian and military pensions, and eligibility levels for other programs, are indexed to inflation. As the cost of living rises, benefit checks grow, too. ...
Indexing makes sense, but the measurement is inaccurate. ...
An alternative measure, known as the Chained CPI, adjusts for change in consumer behavior and provides a more accurate inflation measure. The difference is small — a fraction of a percentage point annually — but the effect compounds over time.
Over the decade, switching to the Chained CPI would save $112 billion in Social Security alone, $33 billion in other federal retirement programs and $23 billion from other programs with eligibility or benefit levels pegged to the cost of living, according to a new paper from the Moment of Truth Project, the successor to Simpson-Bowles.
Today [the Washington Post's] lead editorial told readers that reducing the annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security by 0.3 percentage points won't hurt. This would come as news to most seniors who rely on Social Security for most of their income.
This 0.3 percentage point cut is cumulative. After a person has been retired for 10 years benefits would be roughly 3 percent lower than would otherwise be the case. Benefits would be almost 6 percent lower after 20 years, and almost 9 percent lower after 30 years, when most beneficiaries will be in their 90s.
Dean Baker was referring to the headline for the editorial at a different URL (but with the same content -link) that reads: This cut won’t hurt
CAIN: Nobody’s talking about the fact that the centerpiece of Ryan’s plan is a voucher. Now, a lot of people don’t like to use that term because it has a negative connotation. That is what we need. [...]
CARLSON: It sounds, Mr. Cain, like you’re supporting Congressman Ryan’s plan. It’s interesting becuase other Republican candidates like Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are not outright supporting it because they say they’re going to come up with their own plans. How do you respond to that?
CAIN: I support Ryan’s plan 100%. We don’t need to come up with another plan.
As for Rep. Ryan, he doesn't like to use the word "voucher". He'd prefer people talk about "premium support". Cain is working against the Republican message discipline.
In the immediate aftermath of the New York 26 congressional election that was won by a Democrat who criticized the Paul Ryan / frepublican Medicare proposal, we get this:
FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: I'm afraid that the Democrats will draw the conclusion that, because Congressman Ryan's proposal, I think, is not the best one, that we shouldn't do anything. And I completely disagree with that. I think there are lots of things you can do to bring down Medicare costs.
Way to go, Bill. You can't let the election result define the Democratic party as a clear defender of Medicare against the Republicans. You have to dilute and fuzz-up the message with wonkishness right away.
There will be plenty of time to get into the details of reining in medical costs and all that, but it's better if it's done from a public perception that Democrats are going to do their best to make Medicare work and be efficient. Bill Clinton should have held off talking about the "lots of things you can do" for some other day.
Also, what's the opposite of "faint praise"? This:
"Congressman Ryan's proposal, I think, is not the best one"
"not the best one". That'll get people worried, won't it?
In an article reporting on how the Republicans are backing away from the Ryan plan for privatizing Medicare. the NYT quoted former President Bill Clinton on the need to cut Medicare spending. Mr. Clinton was speaking a daylong conference of the deficit sponsored by Wall Street investment banker Peter Peterson.
It would have been worth reminding readers that Clinton is a big proponent of cuts to Social Security. At the deficit conference that Peterson sponsored last year, Clinton boasted that he had wanted to cut Social Security but congressional leaders from both parties blocked him. The cuts that he wanted would have reduced benefits by approximately 1 percent a year. This means that retirees in their 70s, 80s, or 90s, would be getting almost 15 percent less in Social Security benefits today, if President Clinton had gotten his way.
His desire to cut Social Security puts Clinton far outside the mainstream in the Democratic Party. In fact, it puts him far to the right of the majority of the Republican Party. It would have been appropriate to remind readers of this fact so they could put Mr. Clinton's interest in cutting Medicare in context.
When [Chris] Wallace asked [Sen. Mitch] McConnell if he supports "turning Medicare from a fee-for-service plan to a voucher plan," the senator replied, "Paul Ryan would say it's not a voucher plan, it's a premium support plan." When asked what the difference is, McConnell simply replied, "He says it is different."
For all the hot rhetoric of the last 2+ years from Republicans slamming Obama and his policies, you'd think there would be a rush of credible candidates to oppose him. Instead, there is a very odd collection (Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum, Cain, Paul) that have the party excited. Romney, who may end up with the nomination, hardly excites the base.
The audacity of arrogance of this President in the recent light of the phony Osama Bin Lane videos of him watching TV and all the Photoshop pictures released released of the raid. The staged photo in the White House situations room.All is a big complete hoax foisted on the American people as the latest attempt to boost his poll numbers,justify torture,an excuse to go into Pakistan and to implement draconian measures to be groped on the American streets taking TSA beyond the airports.
Osama Bin Laden has been dead for almost 10 years. It is old news to the world. I sat there and watched 60 minutes on CBS. I rarely watch this show. This time I watched because the President was going to regal his tale of how this phony raid went down. I found it very hard to sit through the whole show listening to this liar in chief regurgitate the lies and falsehoods that have been disproved as a hoax all week long.
I do not care how much they say "This is a good day for America because Osama Bin Laden is dead" It was not a good day for America at all. When it has been proved Osama Bin Laden has been dead for a good long time with reliable sources to prove it. I did not believe a word the President said in his interview with 60 Minutes. It seemed like everything was staged and choreographed in a script. (...)
An extensive write up at search engine land. Good luck if you can make any sense of it.
As the social network companies continue to expand their pursuit of "relations" that pertain to you, they almost certainly will get to the level where their constructed network for an individual will extend to "six degrees of separation". In other words, whatever Kevin Bacon likes may end up determining what ad appears on a webpage you visit. So what's the point?
x "the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War"
x Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama
"President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history"
x "maybe we should also have a voting standard that says to vote ... you should have to learn American history"
Those talking points will resonate with those who have a dim view of blacks, or their economic and civil rights history, which is probably the intention.
I try not to write a lot of posts in the “politician said stupid/inflammatory thing” genre, and so I’ve ignored most of Alan Simpson’s piquant outbursts on the grounds that they’re largely irrelevant to the issues at hand. But if he seriously doesn’t know that life expectancy from birth has increased dramatically over the last 70 years while life expectancy at age 65 hasn’t, well, he needs a new job.
As co-chairman of the President Obama’s deficit commission, Simpson is one of the guys tasked with figuring out what to do about Social Security, and one of the arguments he’s charged with evaluating is that we should raise the retirement age specifically because people are living so much longer. There’s no way for him to make a sound judgment if he lacks a basic familiarity with this data.
There's not much you can say when influential policy makers don't know squat about what they are in charge of. That, of course, allows venal people to twist the system in ways that hurt millions of people.
On the Charlie Rose show of May 5, Brian WIlliams was guest-hosting due to Rose's absence. In a segment with Bobby Ghosh, Doris Kearns Goodwin and Adam Gopnik, the following exchange took place:
ADAM GOPNIK:
I ... went to the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Everybody saw that [Obama] was extremely funny, relaxed. What you probably couldn't see ... was that he was completely relaxed and seemed to be taking great delight in getting zinged by Seth Myers and the other people ...
I thought it was impressive at the time. When you realize he had already given the order, he knew that his entire presidency was on the line and could very well blow up in his face tomorrow. Say what you like about what he does, if this man doesn't have the right temprement for that job, I don't know who does.
BRIAN WILLIAMS:
Yet why didn't George Bush get credit for remaining in that classroom, going ahead with the lession plan, reading to those children and not running out of the room ashen-faced.
There are significant differences between those two situations. On September 11, when Bush was notified of what was happening, he was told the nation was "under attack". In the initial stages of a surprise attack, time is a critical resource. There is an immediate need for presidential involvement, for things like authorizing shooting down aircraft and other decisions pertaining to national security. "Running out of the room ashen-faced" was not the only alternative to sitting there for 7 minutes. For Brian Williams, NBC's top news honcho, to consider Obama's and Bush's coolness-under-fire to be essentially the same is absurd.
In other Bush-love, the Sunday shows for May 8 are loaded with former administration officials. Including Liz Cheney! Given that her outfit, Keep America Safe, has already issued a proclamation congratulating the military and intelligence services, and pointedly omitting Obama, you know what her attitude will be when asked about the mission.
Today, Keep America Safe released the following statement on the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden:
“Today marks a major victory for the people of the United States and the forces of freedom and justice all over the world. We are grateful for the bravery of the Americans who raided the compound near Islamabad and killed Osama bin Laden. We are also grateful to the men and women of America’s intelligence services who, through their interrogation of high-value detainees, developed the information that apparently led us to bin Laden. The war goes on and al Qaeda continues to plot and plan against us. We must remain vigilant and we must continue to provide our men and women in uniform and our intelligence professionals all the tools they need to fight and win this war. Today, especially, we remember the brave Americans who have given their lives in the service of our nation and the nearly 3,000 men, women and children who lost their lives on 9/11. Justice has been done.”
The National Review posts a picture of the White House situation room during the Bin Laden mission. In the comments section:
Did Obama bother to take off his golf shoes? because he is still wearing that days golf outfit. How ridiculous is it that he strolls off the golf course, having to cut the game to 9 holes, to sit in on the raid to get OBL? Mr. President, you sent the best America has into harms way, show some respect.
White house photostream: External Link notice the clothes the CIC is wearing?
Obama returning to White House from Sundays 9 holes: External Link
p.s. this was the 5th weekend in a row playing golf
Congratulations to the American special forces who executed the bold and sophisticated raid (a blend of overhead surveillance and one-on-one precision shooting). Congratulations to the intelligence agents who extracted key information from turncoats, analyzed and developed those leads, and scoped out the situation beforehand. Congratulations to President Obama for making the mission a priority and for seeing it through. And congratulations to former President Bush for vowing that Osama would be taken, dead or alive.
He's already demonstrated his failure to grapple with mathematics (especially regarding the debt and Paul Ryan's plan), but that leaves language where he could exhibit competence. After all, a lot of people say he's a good writer. Alas, his assertion that Limbaugh's praise of Obama for catching Bin Laden demonstrates is genuine - and not sarcasm - shows he's losing his touch. Either that or become lazy.
From this collection over at the Atlantic of images related to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. It had been a long and stressful day, with Obama in the Situation Room in the afternoon while the operation was taking place, then giving the speech in the late evening. The picture shows Obama leaving the East Room of the White House.
Republican candidate John McCain said on Wednesday that if elected president, he will capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
"President Clinton had opportunities to get Osama bin Laden. President Bush had opportunities to get Osama bin Laden. I know how to do it and I'll do it," he told ABC's "World News" in an interview.
"I understand and I have the knowledge and the background and the experience to make the right judgments. Senator Obama does not," McCain said in a reference to his Democratic rival for the White House, Barack Obama.
