Monday, September 26, 2011

Could the Amazon Tablet be the IPad Competitor of Choice?

I was reading my daily "Fast Money" transcript and came across an interesting idea.

How worried should Apple be about Amazon's(AMZN_) new tablet? Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research, said Amazon's first table will be formidable because it will offer content and services. She said the tablet will be more of a concern for non-Apple competitors. She said Amazon will be the Android tablet market a year from now.

I have to agree with this Rotman Epps person. First of all you will be getting a built-in Kindle which is a selling point for me right there. Then if you can run Android apps you actually have a whole host of different options open to you. Plus you have the option of watching Flash if you want to see that type of content. I am seriously going to watching the price of the Amazon tablet and maybe pulling the trigger on it if it is cheaper than the IPad 3.

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Obama's Job's Bill: Same old Crap

I was expecting more from his huge speech that was supposed to save his presidency. It turns out it is just an extension of the same stuff that wasn't working before. The only difference is:

The newest and boldest element of Obama's plan would slash the Social Security payroll tax both for tens of millions of workers and for employers, too. For individuals, that tax has been shaved from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for this year but is to go back up again without action by Congress. Obama wants to keep it and deepen the cut to 3.1 percent for workers.

He also had some crap about cutting another $41 per paycheck for middle class workers. I'm not sure how that creates a single new job. He did talk about cutting corporate taxes but nothing about corporations getting an incentive to bring jobs back from overseas.

I do like the idea of cutting loopholes out of the tax code. I think GE should be paying the same tax rate as Siemens and not have a fleet of tax pros and lobbyists to reduce that rate. He did go after oil companies again but they are such an easy target it doesn't matter.

All in all Obama just served up left-overs and hopes America looks at it like its something completely new.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Nooo! Lucas Messes with the Blue-Ray version of Return of the Jedi

I guess Lucus just doesn't know what to do with his time.

If you're having having flashbacks to the awkward moment in "Revenge of the Sith" when the newly created Darth Vader screams "Noooo!" after the Emperor lies to him about Padme's death (awesome parody here), you're not alone. "Star Wars" fans far and wide have voiced their displeasure. Among the disappointed is filmmaker Simon Pegg, who wrote on Twitter that he "always loved Vader's wordless self sacrifice." Pegg then goes on to use salty language to bring home his point.

I agree with Pegg. The original without the stupid Nooo! is a classic. You get to imagine what is going on inside Darth Vader's head as his master is murdering his son. I guess Lucas isn't the kind of person that lets you imagine what you want and has to slather on the worthless sentimentality. You can add this to the Greedo shoots first as yet another Lucas misfire in a long line of tinkering with the originals