Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
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Politics

Spirit Airlines Claims Government Forcing them to Hide Taxes in Fares

January 24, 2012


Check out this email I got from Spirit Airlines discussing how our U.S. government wants to HIDE government taxes from the American people. Most transparent Administration ever! NOT! Seriously? How can we as a republic support or oppose a particular political party or candidate if we cannot see the policies they've enacted?

President Obama Has VoIP Glitch

January 4, 2012


Apparently, President Obama had some VoIP glitches when he attempted to tried to steal some of the Republican Iowa Caucuses' spotlight last night via a live address to his Democratic supporters over the Internet. The video teleconference had sporadic audio issues making him hard to understand. It's bad enough trying to understand some of President Obama's policies when he is speaking clearly never mind when he's encountering VoIP packet loss and jitter!

According to ABC News, Obama's video teleconferences utilized a proprietary software program developed for the Obama campaign by Adobe Systems Inc. It's likely a derivative of the Adobe Connect VoIP, video, and collaboration platform.

In one part of the video, he sounded like Max Headroom "(static) In some ways, I'm actually more optimistic now then I was when I first ran cuz we've already see...




Yelp Mocks Rick Perry in App Store

November 11, 2011


Yelp fixed three bugs in its iPhone app yesterday, but the interesting part  was how they got a 'dig in' on Republican candidate for President, Texas Governor Rick Perry. Yelp lists the three bug fixes as:

- Bookmarks-related bugs
- iOS5 styling and layout bugs that are now gone
- And the um… uh, what’s the third one? Let’s see… Bookmarks iOS, layout and the um.. the third one we can’t recall.




Vince Flynn Predicts Tea Party Back in 1997?

July 29, 2011

I just started listening to Vince Flynn's Term Limits (audiobook), (hardcover published in 1997), and I found it uncanny how what is happening in this book reminds me of our current debt debacle and the rise of the Tea Party. In Term Limits, retired American special forces kill a few Senators and Congressmen, who they feel is spending too much on pork barrel projects, adding to our national debt and not doing anything about cutting spending, which is leading to the destruction of our country.

Of course, today, Tea Party activists aren't assassinating Congressmen or Senators for their inability to tackle debt, but they are certainly very vocal about their opposition to out of control government spending and many are opposed to raising the national debt ceiling. Certainly, the Left has has tried to paint the Tea Party as violent and anti-government, but so far tea party protests have been peaceful and opposition to big government spending has been spirited but civil.

Mitch Rapp, the main character of every other Vince Flynn novel isn't in this book, but other familiar characters are. Earlier in the book, the President's helicopter entourage is painted by several surface to air missiles on the way to Camp David.



IRS Closes Online Sellers Income Tax Loophole

December 28, 2010

Starting in 2011, all U.S. payment providers including PayPal will be required by the IRS to report sales information about certain merchants to the IRS. Power sellers on eBay and other online selling websites will be impacted by this new tax requirement. Before PayPal did not report your income to the IRS, so online sellers could 'fudge' their revenue reporting.

Net Neutrality Passes, But Is It Necessary?

December 21, 2010

The FCC voted 3-2 in favor of deploying net neutrality rules. I agree with net neutrality in principle, but as always, the devil is always in the details.

I suspect like anything the government does, there will not be an equal application of net neutrality. For instance, hundreds of companies already got waivers from Obamacare.

If the FCC is the determiner of who breaks the rules, don’t forget FCC chair people are political appointees that change. Even this decision was a 3 (Democrat) to 2 (Republican) split, indicating a clear political split.

If an ISP wants to get away with bending the rules a little all they have to do is fund an election campaign for some high-powered politician(s) in either party to get a “favor”.





Mystic Aquarium Gets Political

September 22, 2010


I just received an email from Mystic Aquarium that is very political. Considering Sea Research Foundation, Inc., the owners of Mystic Aquarium, is a charitable non-political organization and one of my favorite destinations to take my family, I was a bit miffed. (Note: My wife and I have paid Mystic Aquarium memberships and have donated to them as well)

First let me point out that Connecticut currently has a Republican Governor (Jody Rell) and the email takes two direct swipes at the current Governor. The first salvo was, "As many of you know, this past year tourism in Connecticut has taken a major hit, particularly due to the fact we are the only state in the United States who budgeted no money for tourism marketing.


Today's NY Times Headline Misses Scott Brown Victory?

January 20, 2010

I was looking forward to reading the post-election analysis from my copy of the NY Times left outside my Miami hotel room. But alas, the headline reads "A Supermajority in the Balance - Massachusetts voters went to the polls Tuesday to select a successor to Edward M. Kennedy, in a race that could deprive Democrats of a 60th Senate vote. Page A12. Results at nytimes.com."

Huh?

Massachusetts Miracle in the Making

January 15, 2010


Came across a patriotic video that will have your patriotic heart soaring - at least for the first 42 seconds. After that, how you view this video depends on how you view the current Obama administration. The premise of the video is how on April, 19, 1775 Americans first fought the British in 'the shot heart round the world'. The battle took place in Massachusetts and marked the start of the Revolutionary War to throw off the British monarchy and tyranny.

Well, fast forward to today, and once again Massachusetts is at the center of the battle between more government control (national healthcare) and less government control.


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