Morning News - It's All Bill Clinton's Fault

Brett Singer — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 13:00:00 GMT

One current theme I've heard leaking out of the GOP Hive Mind lately is the idea that the Obama Administration needs to stop blaming the Bush Administration for, well, anything. For example: "I think people will be blaming George Bush until they die. We are almost halfway through the 1st year of Obama’s Presidency and they are still blaming the last administration for EVERYTHING. I think the blaming needs to stop and people need to start taking responsibility for their destinies."

Here's a little item from Business Week about the failures of the auto industry: "The Clinton Administration, as many before it, simply could not figure out how to force the Japanese to open their auto market, so in 1995 after a bout of highly publicized negotiations, it declared victory, even in the obvious face of failure. And the Clinton Administration was also unable to address the absence of a national health-care system. These two failures were huge, seen in retrospect."

So. Let's review. The Obama Administration and/or all Democrats need to stop blaming the Bush Administration because, you know, c'mon. It's been MONTHS since Obama took office. But blaming the Clinton Administration, which has been out of office for NINE YEARS, makes perfect sense. Yes, these articles are from two different sources. But the idea that nothing a former President did has any effect on our current situation is just silly. Thus endeth the opinion portion of Morning News.

Malls are in trouble, and therefore stocks in mall companies may not be a good buy right now, according to the Motley Fool (me, I know nothing about finance). To me, the problem with malls was always the excessive amount of useless stores. "I Can't Believe They Put A Clock In It!" That sort of thing. These are not stores that will survive in weak economic times. OK, that's opinion as well.

Funny item from Buzzfeed -- Ferris Bueller's best friend's house is up for sale. The house, located at 370 Beech Street in Highland Park, Illinois, can be yours for a mere $2,300,000. Four bedrooms, four baths, and the coolest garage ever to appear in a classic 1980's film. ("When Cameron was in Egypt land... Let my Cameron go...")

Dopey iPhone app of the day -- ShakeIt, which attempts to simulate the shaking that people used to do with Polaroids. As a commenter on Wired puts it: "That seems silly. Got any apps to add pops and hisses to my MP3 files?"

And also from Wired, news of a new Wii accessory that will monitor your heart rate while you get your Wii on. The Wii Vitality Sensor attaches to your WiiMote and will do more than just tell you your BPMs, according to Nintendo. “It intends to have you see the information relating to the inner world of your body, achieve greater relaxation." Or it could tell my son that he's waaay too into the game he's playing and needs to take a little break.

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iPhone app for nursing, diapers, wedding day

Brett Singer — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Actually, these are all separate apps, and are not necessarily to be used in that order. (Not that there's anything wrong with doing things in that order, of course.)

Proving that the iPhone is good for more than just viewing dopey YouTube videos, ANDESigned has released iPhone apps to help busy parents remember that the kid is hungry, smelly, and oh yeah, shouldn't you be married?

Here are the apps:

- Baby Tracker: Diapers
"With the tap of a button, Baby Tracker: Diapers records everything you need to keep track of concerning this “stinky” part of child rearing! Forget about journaling, lists and charts...Baby Tracker: Diapers does the remembering for you!"

Me, I didn't keep track of any of this stuff, but if I did, this seems like it would be an easy way to do it. At 99 cents, it's actually cheaper than some notebooks.

- Baby Tracker: Nursing
This more expensive ($7.99) app "keeps track of your nursing sessions with just a few clicks, allowing you to relax and focus on feeding your baby without worrying about lists and sheets of paper, stop-watches and safety pins in your bra, or extraneous ribbons and bracelets!" This one I admit to being totally ignorant about, so I ask the readers: is this something nursing mothers keep track of, which breast, etc.? To my completely untrained eye, it always looked like the schedule was partly dictated by baby hunger, and partly by reality (must… get… milk… out… NOW…).

This feature is interesting: "Multiple baby support (up to 6), with names and easy switching (slide your finger left or right)." Is it possible to nurse that many babies? That's a LOT of milk.

- Wedding Day
Again, the order these are listed in is probably accidental, but with teen pregnancy being much in the news of late, it's sort of funny that Wedding Day comes after diapers and nursing.

This app (not yet available) will cost 99 cents, and seems to be arguably the most useful in terms of helping someone to organize things. I found my wedding plans to be incredibly complicated, and most of my involvement was limited to, "If we use that band, I’m not coming."

Any iPhone users out there planning on trying these apps?

See also: techmamas, Gizmodo, daddytypes

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