Steve Jobs is taking another medical leave:

Jobs will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company, but has asked Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day-to-day operations, Jobs said in an an e-mail sent to Apple employees.

“I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011. I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can,” Jobs wrote.

Apple shares dropped 6 percent in trading in Frankfurt following the announcement.

During (before and after) Jobs’ last medical leave, Apple stayed inexcusably tightlipped about his condition. Given his importance to the company — and its share price, as noted in the last line above — will they do things differently this time around?

UPDATE: Business Insider isn’t confident that Jobs will be back at all.

Comments

Trifecta: Go behind the scenes again for Part 2 of our pitch meetings.

Comments

Gas prices are up, Don Draper is back in style, and Sheriff Dupnik beclowns himself — all on another exciting episode of… The Week in Blogs!

Comments

Just noticed in my Twitter feed that Dick Lugar says he expects to face a Tea Party primary challenger next time around — I’m assuming because of how he helped sheppard New START through the Senate.

A couple weeks ago I had an in-depth conversation with someone working missile defense on the contractor side of things. More clearances on this person than most hippies have dandruff flakes. And I put it to them like this:

From what I’ve read, New Start is either a good and necessary treaty, an OK but mostly harmless treaty, a useless treaty, or the worst thing since canned bread. So which is it?

And my friend said, “Yes, it is — a little bit of all four.”

Comments

Coast to Coast Tea Party: ObamaCare is a CROC.

Comments

Trifecta: Come on out of the closet and reveal your fetish for the Constitution.

Comments

He has a thought without a care
He has no editor
He sends it off to Twitter
Or into the blogosphere
Right beside his Nobel prize
Is where he blankly stares
Doesn’t he know that beard makes him look shabby?

He slights his own ombudsman
So his biases are real
But judging by that waistline
He’s never missed a meal
I hate to have to say it
But I very firmly feel
Paul Krugman has been sounding very crabby

(I’d like to say a word in his defense
Paul Krugman loves offense)

How do you solve a problem like Paul Krugman?
How do you help a man who self-beclowns?
How do you find a word that means Paul Krugman?
A bad columnist! A twister-of-facts!
Pipe down!

Many a thing you know you’d like to tell him
Many a thing he ought to understand
But how do you make him stay
And listen to all you say
When his thinking is already second hand?

How do you solve a problem like Paul Krugman?
How do you tell a moonbat he’s unmanned?

When I read him I’m confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
As predictable as weather
His thoughts can’t hold a feather
He’s a lefty! He’s statist!
He’s a con!

He’d out-pester any pest
Drive a Palin from her nest
He could throw a scheming Sully out of scheme
He is crazy, so we deem
He’s no riddle, he’s extreme!
He writes nonsense, so it seems
That’s his theme!

Blame Ed Driscoll, who inspired this bile.

Comments

Ever wanted to sit in on a Trifecta pitch meeting? Now you can.

Comments

The Great White North — where irony goes to die. Read:

Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” can no longer be played in Canada in its original form since the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has deemed the song offensive.

The decision stems from a listener’s complaint last year calling the lyrics — which contain the word “f—-t” — extremely offensive to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

If you don’t remember, the song is sung in the voice of a appliance installation technician — or “handyman,” as we used to call them in 1986 — envying those rich guys on MTV. He lugs big screen TVs around, while they get their money for doing nothing. Here’s the offending lyric:

Now look at them yo-yo’s that’s the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free
Now that ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain’t dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these color TV’s

(See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s a millionaire)

Gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
Gotta move these color TV’s

It’s pretty obvious that the person being made fun of here is the semi-literate handyman, not the MTV pop star. Apparently, however, it isn’t obvious to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, where a motion to adjourn should always be in order.

Comments

So, how many group blogs feature sitting governors? Well, The Tatler has Texas Governor Rick Perry on right now.

Comments

Trifecta: Gun control and the six killed in Tucson.

Comments

Trifecta: Sarah Palin and you and me shot Gabby Giffords.

Comments

Here’s that loon, Michelle Bachmann, and her biggest contribution to the climate of hate:

But you can get all the latest information on this event, this . . . a must-go-to event with this Chris Horner. People will learn . . . it will be fascinating. We met with Chris Horner last week, 20 members of Congress. It takes a lot to wow members of Congress after a while. This wowed them. And I am going to have materials for people when they leave. I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us, having a revolution every now and then is a good thing, and the people–we the people–are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country. And I think this has the potential of changing the dynamic of freedom forever in the United States and that’s why I want everyone to come out and hear. So go to bachmann.house.gov and you can get all the information.

That must be some dangerous pamphlet she was handing out. Maybe it could even have been a… PowerPoint show.

Comments

Trifecta: In which we wish a happy 60th birthday to Rush Limbaugh.

Caution: Potential singing.

Comments

Verizon will also sell a CDMA version of the iPad. No dates are given, so I suspect it will come with iPad 2, due out most likely in April or May.

It’s tough, as I noted yesterday, to ween people off their phone wireless network, but I suspect it will prove much easier to get iPad users to switch.

Comments

At 6PM Mountain I’ll be on The Rick Moran Show along with Jazz Shaw and Doug Mataconis.

That’s about as much small-l libertarian contrarianism as any one show can possibly handle, but it ought to be good.

Comments

When the unrelenting awfulness of the national headlines gets to be too much, I click over to Google News to see the latest is my community.

Please note that the robot aggregator had to go back to the days before Christmas, just to dig up a third headline.

Comments

Ladies and gentlemen, Bill Whittle.

Comments

All right, I’ve ignored these articles for a week or so now, but enough’s enough. We’ve seen a series of columns claiming that the Right or the Tea Party, or Just Plain Scary People “worship” or fetishize“* the Constitution. The latest is this one from The New Yorker‘s Jill Lepore:

If you haven’t read the Constitution lately, do. Chances are you’ll find that it doesn’t exactly explain itself. Consider Article III, Section 3: “The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.” This is simply put—hats off to the committee of style—but what does it mean? A legal education helps.

Ezra Klein was right — nobody can understand the Constitution because it was written over one hundred years ago in old-timey language! But more seriously, to those of us who worship this particular idol, Lepore has these words of warning:

The Constitution is ink on parchment. It is forty-four hundred words. And it is, too, the accreted set of meanings that have been made of those words, the amendments, the failed amendments, the struggles, the debates—the course of events—over more than two centuries. It is not easy, but it is everyone’s. It is the rule of law, the opinions of the Court, the stripes on William Grimes’s back, a shrine in the National Archives, a sign carried on the Washington Mall, and the noise all of us make when we disagree. If the Constitution is a fiddle, it is also all the music that has ever been played on it. Some of that music is beautiful; much of it is humdrum; some of it sounds like hell.

No one I know thinks the Constitution is perfect. On the Left, like Lepore has just done in her lengthy article, they debate what the Constitution means. They want to know how this clause or that might be stretched to cover the progressive power-grab of the moment. But on the right, we’re pretty certain what the text means. Instead, we love debating how we’d amend the Constitution — how we’d try to perfect an imperfect law. Which, if we really worshipped the thing, would be a bit like listening to the Sermon on the Mount and frequently interrupting Jesus with, “Yes, but…!”

What we recognize is that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. That is, what it says must be followed, until the text is amended or a new basic law enacted. Because a Constitution that is not knowable, a Constitution that is twisty-stretchy and dictated by the needs of the moment, is no Constitution at all. When the law becomes whatever the current ruling clique decrees, then we have taken the first step (and middle, and last) on the road to serfdom.

Yes, there will be misunderstandings and fights about the Constitution’s meaning and proper application along the way, but that’s why we establish courts and hold elections. This much to me is clear: We do not worship the Constitution; we dread tyranny.

For Lepore and her intellectual kin, however, it would seem they dread the Constitution and…

…well, you can figure out the rest.
(more…)

Comments

It’s official — iPhone is coming to Verizon. They haven’t announce the date yet, but think weeks, not months. And probably not many weeks.

What will happen to AT&T’s bottom line, losing iPhone exclusivity? Not very much at first. Customers are locked in two two-year contracts that are expensive to break out of. Also, it’s very difficult to get people to change carriers, even ones with as many issues as AT&T has. So, yes, AT&T will lose iPhone users to Verizon, but not all that many or at least not all that quickly.

The thing instead to keep your eye on is how big a hit Verizon has here. In other words, what will iPhone do to Android and BlackBerry sales? iPhone expansion won’t be any kind of nail in any kind of Android coffin — but I suspect it will accelerate Android’s “race to the bottom” as the low-cost leader.

And will we see a price war between AT&T and Verizon?

UPDATE: Place your orders as soon as February 10. Same prices as the AT&T models, but with an included mobile hotspot for up to five devices. To compete, AT&T will have to lower prices or allow tethering. Sweet, delicious competition!

Comments

GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty preemptively caves in to false lefty narrative:

Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty this morning added to the political debate about the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by taking exception to Sarah Palin’s use of cross hairs on a 2010 election map.

That gives us some clue as to how he’d behave as President, yes? I’m tempted to scratch him off my 2012 short list.

(Crossposted from the PJ Tatler.)

Comments

Hope and change and you totally have to feel my shirt right now — it’s Obama-shaped ecstasy.

Comments

Finally, good news from Tucson:

Doctors treating Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ brain wound said Monday the congresswoman was responding to verbal commands by raising two fingers of her left hand and even managed to give a thumbs-up.

“When she did that, we were having a party in there,” said Dr. Peter Rhee. “That’s a purposeful movement. That’s a great thing. She’s always grabbing for the tube.”

I’ll raise a glass to that.

Comments

Hair of the Dog: It’s not easy to find the fun & absurd on the Sunday shows when the chat is all about Jared Loughner — but given enough vodka, I can do most anything.

Comments

Hugh Hefner is retaking Playboy magazine private, in a $27 million deal financed by Rizvi Traverse Management.

Let’s hope he has a solid prenup.

Comments

There are already 70 members of the “Kill Sarah Palin” group on Facebook.

Do we need to round them up and try them for hate crimes?

UPDATE: The group’s founder, Elliot Parker, appears to be a kid. Let’s hope he gets the help he needs.

AND ANOTHER THING: Facebook has now taken down the group.

Comments

Bombshell:

This is the report that Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been dreading since the tragic event on Saturday January 8.

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it. He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation.

Emphasis added, but hardly necessary.

Was Loughner, obviously unstable, allowed to walk the streets because his mother has the same employer as Sheriff Dupnik? If so, it’s no wonder he keeps trying to blame anyone to the right of Lenin.

(Hat tip, Clarice Feldman.)

Comments