I'm Sorry #GeneMunster Apple Glasses will not cut Meaningfully into iPhone Sales by 2020

I just can't see this happening in my estimation.

"We expect iPhone revenue to grow at 15 percent in FY18 (essential the next iPhone cycle) and account for 64 percent of revenue," Munster said. "We believe tough comps after the next iPhone cycle will have a negative impact on iPhone growth in FY19, and in FY20 we believe Apple Glasses will start to impact iPhone sales."

Munster doesn't explain why sales might drop off, but the reason might be simple. Augmented reality glasses could offer features that are redundant on an iPhone, allowing users to interact with apps right on their faces without having to pull out an iPhone.

I'm sorry but wearing glasses that "augment reality" is just not a realistic thing. I just can't see millions of people wearing janky looking glasses instead of pulling out their phone. Will they be swiping the air or sticking their hands out into space to pull up an app? They would look ridiculous doing it out in public. Maybe it will all be voice controlled but Siri will need to get way better to keep up with the commands you would have to send the glasses.

Also if the glasses have a camera on them then privacy concerns will be raised. If you see a guy with Apple glasses in the bathroom will there be a confrontation? Will the glasses have to be confiscated in movie theaters and such? It is the same thing that cropped up when Google Glasses crapped out.

One thing I know will happen in 2020 is the rise of the glasses wearing celebrity that will "live-stream their lives." Imagine a Kardash-ite wearing the glasses 24/7 and having people pay to access their live stream. Just watching celebrities in those glasses on the red carpet or while shooting a film or TV Show would be very interesting. I know Jimmy Fallon would wear one as he does the Tonight Show for sure. And of course the porn usage of these glasses would be multitudinous.

I just don't see the Apple Glasses as something that would cut percentages off of iPhone sales though. I think they will become another iWatch. It will be a nifty device that only a certain small slice of people will actually own. You will see them from time to time but won't see them to the extent you see smart phones.

The Media is Obsessed with Trump and Russia and the Hard Data is Nuts

Now this really is some serious obsession.

Russia, Russia, Russia is a fixation for all the networks, with a new study by the Media Research Center showing 55 percent of Trump coverage on nightly broadcasts was related to the Russia investigation.

That adds up to 353 minutes of airtime since May 17, compared to 47 minutes on Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate pact, 29 minutes on the fight against terrorism and 17 minutes on the efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, according to the Daily Caller’s summary of the study. It said tax reform got a mere 47 seconds of coverage.

Tax reform got 47 seconds?! Even though it will probably help nearly every American in some way or another. I would also be willing to bet the story was "How will Trump's Russia Collusion Hurt Tax Reform" or something similar probably by CNBC. If 353 minutes of airtime on a non-story doesn't convince you that the Media is an enemy of Trump nothing will.

It is Official: @CNN is Out to Get Trump for Ratings

Well at least according to this undercover video.

The video taken by Project Veritas, the political group founded by the conservative provocateur James O’Keefe, shows a CNN producer from its medical coverage team commenting pointedly about the network’s coverage of the alleged ties between Trump and Russia.  
When asked by an unrevealed videographer why CNN has been aggressive in covering the story, the producer, John Bonifield, replied: "Because it's ratings."

Maybe Trump should seriously consider freezing out CNN like Obama froze out Fox News. Stop calling on them or sending his people their way. Kind of a CNN stonewall.

@CNNs Obsession with Russia links to Trump Just Cost 3 Reporters Their Jobs

I guess just running every stupid thing about Russia even if it is wrong is finally catching up to people at CNN.

Lex Harris, executive editor of CNN’s investigative unit, was the highest-ranking official to resign. Thomas Frank, who wrote the story, and Eric Lichtblau, who edited it, also turned in their resignations. Lichtblau is a highly regarded reporter who spent nearly a decade and a half at the New York Times.
The story tried to draw a link between Scaramucci and the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Scaramucci was a Trump transition team member who has been nominated to an ambassadorial-level post based in Paris.

Yeah CNNs Russia links was the guy working at that fund saw Scaramucci in a restaurant and said hello. You can almost see the leaked memo saying "words were exchanged between the two but it was not recorded." Then CNN filled in the blanks with their own Trump hatred.

This #AlienMummy found in Nazca Peru looks Kind of Fakey

This is from a totally untrained eye but this thing just looks kind of fake.

According to the website Gaia, the body, which stands 5 feet 6 inches tall and appears to look like a human, has three long fingers, an elongated skull and does not have ears or a nose. In a Gaia YouTube video, Professor Konstantin Korotkov of Saint Petersburg University in Russia described the body as belonging to “another creature, another humanoid.”

The skin just doesn't look very old and mummified to me. It just looks like something made out of paper mache or painted over. Supposedly it is 1000s of years old but it just doesn't look that way. They need someone to do a full autopsy on it to be sure though.

Nebraska Dems Show their True Colors: Say they are Glad Scalise was Shot

At least they fired the guy.

Phil Montag, now-former co-chair of the state party’s technology committee, was recorded saying he wishes Scalise, R-La., were “dead.”
“His whole job is to get people, convince Republicans to [expletive] kick people off [expletive] health care. I’m glad he got shot,” Montag said in the audio recording. “I wish he was [expletive] dead.”

He is glad a political opponent got shot. Now this is the kind of thing that needs to be fixed in government. I would not be glad if anyone who isn't an ISIS terrorist was shot. I always go back to the Dennis Prager quote "Republicans think Democrats are wrong while the Democrats think the Republicans are evil."

Sorry but "Economic Fairness" is Not a Vote Getter: It Makes You Think They are Going to Tax you more

It must really be nice to be running in a very blue district because this is really tone-deaf.

But Murphy also said that Democrats must do more to convince voters they have plans to boost the economy -- promoting “economic fairness” rather than broader growth is missing the mark. And Democrats can’t simply depend on voters defecting from the GOP over the array of legal and political woes involving Trump and his circle.

Yeah I agree with Sen. Murphy that "economic fairness" misses the mark. Economic fairness only works when people are already okay with socialism or don't have much money to tax. If a person built a successful business or makes a good living it sounds like it means they will tax you more to give freebies to some other person.

A Democratic message of job creation through middle class and small business tax cuts might be a winner. Grab onto the GOP tax reform effort and shape it toward their own voters. Maybe put in a federal minimum wage onto the cuts or maybe bigger earned income tax credits for families. I would love to see a so-called "Democratic Growth plan" if such a thing exists. The bad part is some leftist economists think growth is bad. So good luck getting to 3% GDP growth and all the good that will bring the country as a whole if that is the prevailing argument.

It Looks the Guy that Shot up the Baseball Field was an Insane Leftist: Hopefully this is the High Water Mark for Hate

I'm really hoping we can take down the temperature in this country because this should be a wake up call.

The gunman who was killed after opening fire at a GOP baseball practice in Virginia Wednesday morning has been identified as James T. Hodgkinson, an anti-Republican from Illinois who campaigned for Bernie Sanders.

Hodgkinson frequently aired his left-leaning political views on Facebook along with photos of presidential candidate Sanders and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Charles Orear worked with Hodgkinson on Sanders’ campaign and said he was a passionate progressive and “quiet guy” who was “very mellow, very reserved,” the Washington Post reported.

I'm glad Sanders quickly disavowed this guy. Although he did use some UN-style wording.

"I am sickened by this despicable act. Let me be as clear as I can be: Violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms," he added.

Sessions Testimony Yet Another #DampSquib #NothingBurger: More Waste of time Questioning

I think they need to stop hyping these hearings because this is pretty much a big waste of time.

The number of hearings have been seemingly innumerable — former FBI Director Jim Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the intelligence chiefs and others —  and yet the outcome is always the same: No evidence of Russian collusion, no evidence of Trump obstruction of justice. 

They pretty much ran in place. About the only new things that came up are Trump is not under investigation and Comey is a leaker. Sessions' testimony is basically him not answering certain questions because he had to check with Trump first. Yet another so-called "nothing-burger" Now we will probably have a few more of these waste-on-time fests to wade through before these Congress-critters can do some actual work.

Looks Like Trump is Letting up on the Dreamers

I'm sure this won't go over well with his far-right base but I guess there is some movement on this.

But immigrant rights advocates, who were harshly critical of Mr. Trump during the campaign, said he deserves some credit for defying his right wing and keeping the program intact.“I definitely think that he does deserve credit for continuing a very successful program for young people who grew up here,” said Cesar Vargas, a Dreamer who is now a practicing lawyer.Mr. Trump appears to be maintaining the pace of the Obama administration, with more than 17,000 new two-year amnesties and more than 107,000 renewal applications approved from Jan. 1 to March 30. Both numbers are comparable to the final full three months of President Obama’s tenure.

Maybe he is just so caught up with the Russian thing he forget to shut the program down. You never know with this guy.

More Leftist Fever Dreams: New York Production of Julius Caesar has Trump Being Killed

They certainly are a violent bunch.

Two major corporate sponsors have pulled their support for a New York City production of Julius Caesar. At issue: The titular role has an unmistakably Trumpian air. And, um, spoiler alert: He gets assassinated.

The Julius Caesar in the The Public Theater's production "has blond hair, a fondness for long ties and a fashionable wife who speaks with a Slavic accent," as NPR's Jeff Lunden reports. Conspirators stab him to death onstage, making for some Kathy Griffin-like gore.

It Seems that NSA leaker Reality Leigh Winner Might be More Dangerous than First Thought

I'm wondering how many more of these people are in government waiting to pounce on Trump.

Winner allegedly wrote "I want to burn the White House Down ... find somewhere in Kurdistan to live. Ha-ha!” assistant U.S. attorney Jennifer Solari told a federal judge.

On another page in one of the notebooks found by investigators, prosecutors said, Winner listed the names of several Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

Her writings also included plans to travel to Afghanistan.Prosecutors added Winner, 25, might try to flee the U.S. if she were released on bail. "She would undoubtedly be a target of recruitment from our adversaries," Solari told Judge Brian Epps, according to NBC News.

It looks like she had TOR on her laptop as well.  Which isn't a crime at all.

Solari also said a laptop belonging to Winner and seized by federal agents contained software that could enable her to access online black-markets and buy items — such as a fake ID or passport — without revealing her identity or location.

It Seems Memes are the 2017 Version of Writing 23-Skidoo on Your Jalopy for Todays College Kids (Look it up)

Very interesting read about meme's and the 2017 college experience. This part was an interesting ideas on free speech.

The memes in question, some of which were published online by college-oriented news site The Tab, made light of sexual assault and minority groups, and included references to Mexicans, the Holocaust and child abuse.Tynes said one reason these “dark” memes can spring up among elite college students is the implicit privilege and superiority some group members feel after being admitted.“[These memes] cement your position in society,” Tynes says. “If you feel threatened in some way, or you’re a privileged group in society. … It cements your status on the hierarchy when you can share this meme that denigrates a woman, or denigrates a Mexican person.”

That last part is spoken like a true USC college professor. It's all about hierarchies and privileged groups and such. I look at it differently as kids being kids (ie subversive) in a world that is incredibly politically correct. The college campus might be the most clamped down anti-free thought zone in America these days. Any non-approved thinking is thoughtcrime punishable by not allowing them access to the Ivy. 

Those "dark" memes seem to be a way for kids just entering college to engage in so-called "thought taboo." I would be willing to bet sharing those racist, sexist, whaterver-ist "jokes" gives them the same thrill that snorting coke did with college kids in the 80s. 

I kind of fall on the side of not rescinding their admissions to Harvard and instead finding some other way to discipline them. Maybe have them do community service in some low income neighborhood. Maybe wearing dunce caps or banning their access to social media for 1 month or something. However, rescinding their admission seems very harsh.  

Looks like Trump is off the Hook: Comey Admits POTUS Isn't Under Investigation

Well it seems that Trump is right and the MSM and the Dems were dead wrong according to this.

“I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally,” Comey said. “That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.” Later, at a Jan. 27 dinner, Comey said Trump asked him to investigate the origins of a salacious unverified Russian dossier. Comey said it would not be a good idea because it “might create a narrative that we were investigating [Trump] personally, which we weren’t.” Then on a March 30 phone call with the president, Comey reminded Trump again that the FBI was “not personally investigating” him.

That is 3 times all right. The reason Comey said that he didn't let the MSM know that fact is hilarious.

“I did not tell the president that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change,” Comey said.

So he didn't tell the MSM because he might have had to investigate him in the future? Why couldn't he just say that if new evidence came to light then the FBI would open an investigation of Trump? This kind of thing happens all the time. New evidence appears and then new charges are filed. It seems cut and dry. I hope a Senator grills him on this nonsense. 

It looks mighty partisan of him to not state the truth that Trump was not under investigation. That one statement could have taken the pressure off of Trump (and probably saved Comey's job.) But Comey was only interested in taking the pressure off of Hillary by not bringing charges against her for her email server. I can see why Trump fired this guy.

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: $AMZN is Coming for You

It seems that Amazon is trying its hand at going after lower income shoppers.

The discount slashes the cost of Amazon's monthly Prime membership nearly in half, to $5.99 a month, for customers who have an electronic benefit transfer card, which is used for government assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.

Seems like a fairly reasonable rate because you can borrow books and watch TV and movies as well for that $5.99. I did not know this fact though.

About 20% of the US population receives government assistance, and most of those customers are more loyal to Amazon's retail rival, Walmart. Nearly $1 out of every $5 in SNAP benefits was spent at Walmart last year, according to Morningstar.

If some of this money can get transferred online it will go right into Amazons pocket. What AMZN now needs to push is some kind of Internet for everyone type of social program. Maybe a free wireless or something similar. 

Win One for British Imams: They Refuse to Perform Rights on London Terrorists: Guess Who is Going the Hell?

Well the souls of the four terrorists are now meeting up with Satan as we speak because British Imam's are showing their patriotism.

“Consequently, and in light of other such ethical principles which are quintessential to Islam, we will not perform the traditional Islamic funeral prayer for the perpetrators and we also urge fellow imams and religious authorities to withdraw such a privilege. This is because such indefensible actions are completely at odds with the lofty teachings of Islam,” the statement continued.

If they don't get those rights then their souls are sent to hell according to Islamic teaching.

Hopefully the Final Push Against ISIS: Forces move on Raqqa

Lets hope they can encircle them so that very few escape the cordon of death.

Lt. Gen. Steve Townsend, commander of the U.S.-led coalition in the region, cautioned that the offensive "will be long and difficult," but is necessary to deal a final blow to the idea of an Islamic State caliphate, which has been a powerful recruiting tool for the militants.

The campaign to surround the city has been underway for months. The offensive announced Tuesday is the final phase, which involves attacking into the city and began with a foray into the eastern reaches of Raqqa.

Every ISIS scumbag that gets out of that city might be a potential suicide bomber or truck killer in the future I should bet.

Hillary Lashes out at the DNC as one of the Million Reasons Why She Thinks she Lost

I guess she has to take everyone down friend and foe on why she lost against Trump.

Hillary Clinton had bitter words to share about the Democratic National Committee while speaking with journalists Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at Recode's CodeCon on Wednesday. "I get the nomination, I'm now the nominee of the Democratic Party," she recalled. "I inherit nothing from the Democratic Party."

Asked to clarify, Clinton added: "I mean, it was bankrupt; it was on the verge of insolvency; its data was mediocre to poor, nonexistent, wrong."

She could rightly blame their cyber-security since the Russians breached it and then made it a huge issue in the campaign. They should have spent far more money or just approached their surrogates in Silicon Valley. They probably would have jumped at the chance to secure the DNC systems and probably would have done it for free. Instead the hacks were a huge distraction that split the campaigns focus.