Loblogomy

According to Gizmodo, it’s likely going to be difficult to obtain the new iPhone 3G, especially for those of us with obligations that will keep us from standing in long lines when it becomes available 07/11:

We just talked to AT&T’s President of National Distribution Glenn Lurie, who gave us all the pricing and activation details for the iPhone 3G, which won’t be getting special treatment anymore. It will be using all AT&T’s standard voice and data plans, which means $30 for unlimited 3G data for consumers, $45 for business users, on top of voice. Also, no in-home activation for iPhone 3G—it does require a two-year contract, and it will have to be activated in store (at AT&T or Apple Store), which takes 10-12 minutes, meaning that first day line is going to SUCK.
(Source)

At $3 a gallon, Americans just grin and bear it, suck it up and, while complaining profusely, keep driving like crazy. At $4, it is a world transformed. Americans become rational creatures. Mass transit ridership is at a 50-year high. Driving is down 4 percent. (Any U.S. decline is something close to a miracle.) Hybrids and compacts are flying off the lots. SUV sales are in free fall.

…

Some things, like renal physiology, are difficult. Some things, like Arab-Israeli peace, are impossible. And some things are preternaturally simple. You want more fuel-efficient cars? Don’t regulate. Don’t mandate. Don’t scold. Don’t appeal to the better angels of our nature. Do one thing: Hike the cost of gas until you find the price point.
(Source)

Obama secured this country’s chief domestic priority for 2008: denying Sen. Hillary Clinton the presidency. Obama has earned the eternal gratitude of millions of relieved Americans who understand how calamitous a Hillary Clinton administration would have been. She combines ruthless ambition, a pathological sense of entitlement, and the ethical restraint of Richard Nixon’s “White House plumbers” unit.
(Source)

Despite her clear victory in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary, opinion polls suggest that Hilary Clinton will lose forthcoming primaries in North Carolina and Oregon, effectively crowning Barack Obama the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee. Clinton’s solution? Break with the Democrats, and run as an independent candidate, or so EIN News reported her advisors leaking to the press today.

Such a move would be a serious gamble for Clinton, who, in leaving the Democratic Party, may very well destroy any chances a party other than the Republicans would have in winning the next Presidential election.
(Source)

So, I guess yesterday was “Earth Day.” What exactly that’s supposed to mean, and what you’re supposed to do on Earth Day that’s different from any other day is a mystery to me. As Lugosi points out, though, it’s a pretty decent reason to watch this clip of Carl Sagan waxing philosophical about the Earth.