Manly Thoughts
If you haven't been reading MANzine lately, here's what you've missed: Features: Fixing College Football (James Joyner) - Most of the first weekend’s college football games are a joke that make a mockery of sportsmanship and competition. Manliness in the Modern Age (Alex Knapp) - I’ve never understood why so many of my male peers have so much trouble with what it ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 12, 2009 09:09
USAA iPhone Check Deposits
This is just awesome: The Internet has taken a lot of the paperwork out of banking, but there is no avoiding paper when someone gives you a check. Now one bank wants to let customers deposit checks immediately — through their phones. USAA, a privately held bank and insurance company, plans to update its iPhone application this week to introduce the check ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 10, 2009 15:31
Bad Customer Service: Why Do We Put Up With It?
Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Daniel Indiviglio argues that "We like bad customer service." Actually, though, while he states it, he doesn't really argue that at all. Rather, he argues that we're not willing to pay more for good customer service and thus provide no incentive to companies to provide it. Let's say you have two options for a flight from ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 7, 2009 08:45
iPhone Mania
Megan McArdle and Peter Suderman camped out overnight in front of a Washington, DC Apple store in order to be among the first to get one of the new iPhones. Megan assures us that this is a mere sociological exercise for her: "I feel no desperate urge to get my hands on one of the VERY FIRST 3G IPHONES, but ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 11, 2008 08:10
McCain and ‘Privatizing’ Social Security
Quite a few commenters are accusing John McCain of flip-flopping because he favored privatization of Social security in 2004 and now adamantly rejects the insinuation that he supports it now: This is a clumsy rhetorical game rather than a policy shift. Then and now, McCain's position is that Social Security would remain as a government program but that younger workers ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 14, 2008 09:17
Reggie Love: Barack Obama’s Body Man
Reggie Love was a standout wide receiver and basketball player at Duke that the Dallas Cowboys, for some odd reason, unsuccessfully tried to turn into a pro linebacker. Love was occasionally flat on his back in his college days. He's landed on his feet, working as the body man for the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Ashley Parker has ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 27, 2008 13:58
When Taco Trucks Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Tacos
Los Angeles County has strengthened its law against taco trucks and other mobile food vendors at the insistence of brick-and-mortar restaurant owners, Jonathan Gold reports. Last week, led by Gloria Molina, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors passed a law basically outlawing taco trucks, making it a crime for them to linger at one location for more than an hour, punishable ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on May 4, 2008 07:24
Perils of the iPhone
Via the LAT: The risk for iPhone users: They know too muchWhen she whipped out her iPhone, Erica Sadum could feel her husband's eyes roll. But she had a point to prove. And in less than a minute, she was able to report to the skeptics around the dinner table that Menno Simons, whose followers are known as Mennonites, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 22, 2008 08:02
Weekend Caption Jam
Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . . Rodney seldom hears a discouraging word. Wizbang has the diabolic duo.Posted in Outside The Beltway on March 1, 2008 10:46
Apple Drops iPhone Price, Apologizes
Apple has dropped the price of its 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, making many people happy but generating "hundreds of emails" from angry early adopters. CEO Steve Jobs explains that, "It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent'." Moreover, [T]he technology road is bumpy. There is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on September 7, 2007 08:34
What’s a Phone For?
To over-40 types like Kevin Drum and myself, the primary function of a telephone is self-evident: Talking to other people. Young whippersnapper Matt Yglesias reminds us, though, that mindset is so 20th Century: Personally, I don't like talking on the phone very much. My old Razr's primary function was sending and receiving SMS messages. My new iPhone's primary function is ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on August 15, 2007 15:27
Stop iPhone Tyranny Now!
Salon's Farhad Manjoo notes the fight of one brave lawmaker to end the impossible tyranny of Apple and AT&T over the Must Have Gadget of the Century, the indispensable iPhone. Edward Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the committee, began the affair by holding up the phone and hailing its "sheer brilliance and wizardry," noting that "undoubtedly consumers will cherish this ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 18, 2007 16:13
Plan B Sales Surge Due to Availability
WaPo fronts a seeming non-story: Now that Plan B is available over-the-counter rather than requiring a prescription, its sales are up. Shocking, that. Next they'll tell me that sales of iPhones are way up over this time last year. More interesting is the reaction. "This is exactly what we hoped would happen," said Susan F. Wood of the ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on July 13, 2007 13:03
A Tough Week for Chinese Imports
This week has been a tough one for Chinese imports. Early in the week there was a recall of truck and SUV tires made in China. The tires were made without gum strips—the thingummies that keep the strips of tire together. We import more tires from China than anywhere else (32% of our imports of tires) ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 30, 2007 10:22
Getting Rich Off Public Service?
The editors at the Washington Examiner wonder how it is that politicians who come to office with little money leave it as millionaires. They intimate that it's good old fashioned bribery, although the examples they give are far afield and rather inconclusive. They rightly note that Bill and Hillary Clinton's "worries about paying off a $10 million legal bill ...Posted in Outside The Beltway on June 18, 2007 08:35
