My bet is Federal court, which would have diversity jurisdiction.

I write this because I’m trying to negotiate with a particular QM computational software company, which is living down to its poor reputation.

For example:

Scottrade recently polled 226 registered investment advisers on the topic and found that 71% don’t believe $1 million is enough for the average American family. Most said families need to save double, or more than triple, the amount.

Why would a person need $3,000,000 to retire?  Does that take into account inflation? Does it assume very low interest rates in the long-term future, even though it might make such a figure even more difficult to accumulate?

It seems like a firm just polled investment advisors, who said that we ought to consume a large quantity of their financial products.  I’m sure they would say that all Americans should all have $1.5MM in disability insurance too (the product that Ameriprise got in trouble for pushing).

They belittle the retirement calculators, but without actually running the numbers, how would a person plan? The approach suggested by this– use a one-size, ballpark figure–seems to be the opposite of the smart approach.

I don’t think I’ll be able to post a comprehensive review of the kind at Ars Technica (link coming). The one thing I’ll point out is that typing on the on-screen keyboard is not too bad– this post was composed using the WordPress universal app, for example, and the speed of composition was limited by my mental speed of composition, not my flitting fingers.

The one tricky thing seems to me is the ability to move data/content/information between applications, and the lack of a repository for files. Especially without the ability to multitasking, it’s vitally important to be able to cut-and-paste in a way that would replicate the intuitive dragging in Mac OS X.

In this app, for example, it seems that pasting is disabled (!), which makes no sense to me. Maybe it’s because the word press app would know how to deal with copied pictures or something.

I suppose this is a complaint, fundamentally, that the iPad offers slick-looking applications that appear so promising, but aren’t running on a general-purpose computer. We’ll see if my growing experience or the new os update coming on thursday addresses any of these issues.

Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full, Conrad Black
Nixonland, Rick Perlstein
What’s the matter with Kansas?, by Thomas Frank
A biography of the most emotionally complicated president in modern times, and a look at the political world in which he operated, and which he left behind.

The Pornography of Power, Robert Scheer
Takeover, Charlie Savage
Law and the Long War, Benjamin Wittes
A look at how defense law and policy changed during the Bush administration, from an insider’s point of view (Wittes) and from more jaded ones.

The Unaffordable Nation, Jeffery Jones
Not Keeping Up with Our Parents, Nan Mooney
Not Buying It, Judith Levine
A set of books that ask, What has happened to the American dream of a decent, middle-class life?  If it’s gone forever, we might as well learn to be happy without its excesses of consumption, hence the book by Judith Levine about a year without shopping.

Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam
Better Together, by Robert Putnam
Bobos in Paradise, by David Brooks
On Paradise Drive, David Brooks
Class Matters, collected stories the New York Times series of the same
A series on the state of the American community.  The books by Robert Putnam take a more sociological approach, with figures and data to back up every assertion, while David Brooks psychoanalyzes the upper middle class.  Somehow his broad statements, likely based on his anecdotal experiences in suburban circles of Washington and New York, so often ring true to me.

Fiction
The English American, by Alison Larkin
Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O’Nan
As an Anglophile, I can’t resist the first novel listed.  The second is a slim volume, almost a novella, and was well-reviewed.

To commemorate our re-launch, we’ll be running three substantive posts this week: the first about a pair of notable advertising campaigns, the second about the EFF’s suit to end the warrantless wiretapping program, and the third on the media coverage of the Wall Street bailout proposal, which failed today.

But first, an acknowledgment: the Bagel was wrong.  Sen. Dodd was not selected as Barack Obama’s running matel; that job went to Sen. Joe Biden.  Likewise, our un-published prediction that Sen. McCain would choose Lindsay Graham or Olympia Snowe went unfulfilled, although there’s a slim chance that Graham may get the job after all.

Sen. Chris Dodd

Joe Biden would work, too, but we’re feeling contrarian today.

A grilling at the Olympics

In the interest of fairness, we’d like to excerpt the response of Beijing Olympic Committee secretary Wang Wei:

I think I’ll add something to Giselle’s answer. I was the secretary general of the bidding committee. I was confronted with many questions about the opening up and reform of China. And I did say that the Olympic Games coming to China will help China to open up further and to reform better. And the facts show after 30 years of reform, China has developed greatly. People enjoy more freedom. People enjoy more wealth, have a lot to say. And people’s welfare and people’s economic situation are improved a lot. So everybody can see that. Olympic Games are a good platform. Everybody I see who comes to China for the first time will say to me, China is so different from what they read, what they saw in films and papers. People are so friendly. People (are) leading a good life. Everybody is happy. People are optimistic about their own future. That’s a fact.  Of course, there are exceptions, like in any other country. Some people are not satisfied, that is true. But we need to take the legal procedures to resolve their own issues, their problems. We cannot allow the country (to fall) into chaos.

So I think we welcome people coming to China to celebrate the Olympic Games with us, to enjoy the festivities with us. Of course, we also welcome suggestions, constructive advice from all the people, all the kind people. And, uh, I think a few, a very few, people come here to be critical, to dig into the small details, to find fault with that. That does not mean we are not fulfilling our promise. So I think the whole country can see how China is progressing, how China is genuinely welcoming the world to China to enjoy everything with us…

I do think that the person-to-person contacts that will emerge during the Olympics are an enormous benefit.  Even Bejing’s taxi drivers are learning English in order to accomodate foreign visitors (if only New York’s could do the same!).  

Reading between the lines, at least Mr. Wang is being honest the supposed tradeoffs involved: after raising the question of increased openness and reform, China’s tremendous development over the past thirty years (and which continues at a rate of roughly 10% per year in GDP) is cited.  And of course, the prospect of chaos, were China’s society to rapidly open, is raised.

As we wrote in a few comments on other sites, if the American print media and foreign journalists weren’t covering stories like these, we wouldn’t read them: NBC is going to touch on these extra-Olympic, societal issues at all in the coming three weeks.

Below is a quick link to a New York Times article on the three so-called “Protest Zones” established in Beijing during the Olympics.  (It should be pointed out that World Park is quite a distance from central Beijing.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/sports/olympics/14protest.html

In an authoritarian country that bans almost all forms of public protest, the newfound openness seemed too good to be true. And it was.  

[...]

Five days after the Olympics began, not a single demonstration had taken place in the official protest zones. The authorities have declined to say whether any applications have been approved, and they did not acknowledge the detention of would-be demonstrators.

  After promising the IOC it would make an effort to improve human rights in advance of the Olympic games, it seems that China’s government has certainly tried to create appearances to that effect.

To be fair, it’s impressive that Andrew Jacobs, who reported this story, was able to accompany a permit applicant to a police station.  This fact probably speaks to the importance placed on accomodating the international press over the coming three week, especially after the internet censorship fiasco last week.

The irony, of course, is that the practice – greatly expanded over the past eight years – of establishing “free speech zones” undercuts American credibility on this issue.

Gao Chuncai, a farmer with grievances about local officials.

The last paragraphs of the NYT story are chilling.

Over the years, he said, he has been jailed a dozen times and beaten repeatedly for trying to publicize corruption in Xingyi, a village just outside Harbin in China’s northeast.  

[...]

At the reception area, a pair of officers questioned him about the nature of his protest and asked him to fill out a lengthy form that included the names and numbers of the officials who had wronged him. Mr. Gao was reluctant, but he complied.

After an hour, they smiled and told him to return in five days. As he walked out the door, he overheard one of the officers on the phone. He was calling the police station in Harbin.

(For a foreign visitor’s firsthand view of security at Beijing’s public spaces, see a post at the Beijing Olympics Blog.)

Myths About America poster

There are four videos of lectures given by Howard Zinn, Alan Wolfe, Eric Foner, and Leo Marx.  Each is about an hour long, followed by Q&A.  We’re making our way through them ourselves and will post reaction/commentary soon!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-novick/arrested-in-tibet-a-young_b_118342.html

A plain-clothed Chinese man was holding up his cell phone unusually high in her direction. Wen didn’t think anything of it, but as she was walking down, the police officer who had come to her room and threatened her the night before, stopped her and told her to follow him to the police station. “I thought, this is it. I can’t believe I took those pictures.”