Gizmodo and the like probably don’t care that the Kindle is the perfect device for so many uses like this that people encounter on a regular basis in Real Life. But Kindle owners, and Amazon, don’t need them to.

He explains why the Kindle is his favored reading device.

This just points, though, to the reality that the Kindle is a niche device.

Most current digital publications are simple text (ebooks, online articles), so the Kindle’s e-ink screen functions well for this. The lack of color and inability to quickly refresh the screen aren’t an issue. But as we move more types of publications onto digital devices, this will change. Magazines don’t work on current e-ink screens and interactive elements certainly don’t work.

This may change as color e-ink-like screens with quick refresh ability develop more, but allowing publishers to publish their content in this manner would require a very serious platform. Amazon would have to invest an incredible amount of time and money into developing a publishing platform that can compete with others who are already know how to develop good software. It would be a tremendous risk for Amazon.¹

I don’t think Amazon’s intent is to develop the Kindle into a general publishing platform. Rather, they are trying to make a book software platform, so you can read your Kindle Store books on any device you have. In this view, the Kindle is just one device among many for reading your Kindle books. The focus is the Kindle Store, not the Kindle.

In this view, Amazon did not cut the Kindle’s price to $189 and add a WiFi-only $139 model just in response to the Barnes and Noble Nook price change, but also to serve as an affordable way to use the Kindle Store. The Kindle is the cheap gateway to the store. The more Kindle users there are, the more Kindle Store users there are, too. Amazon wants to dominate the store part.

Seth Godin thinks the Kindle should get even cheaper—closer to $50 than $140. So cheap that if your Kindle breaks, gets soaked in water, or you leave it on the subway, you’ll just go out and buy another one. Godin calls it a “paperback Kindle.”

That’s brilliant and is exactly what Amazon should be shooting for: a no-frills Kindle that everyone can afford. I would buy one immediately to complement my iPad.

1. Somewhat contradictory to this is Amazon’s Kindle developer program. They certainly could build a color, quick-refresh Kindle and use third-party developers to build richer publishing applications, but I don’t think this is the case. This would still require them to build a very powerful SDK and these applications would not function on other Kindle devices, like iPhone and iPad.

Hell of an opportunity.

The simple truth is that the wealthy in the United States — the people who have made almost all the income gains in recent years — are undertaxed compared with everyone else.

Consider two reports from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. One, issued last month, highlighted findings from the Congressional Budget Office showing that “the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest fifths of the country more than tripled between 1979 and 2007.”

The other, from February, used Internal Revenue Service data to show that the effective federal income tax rate for the 400 taxpayers with the very highest incomes declined by nearly half in just over a decade, even as their pre-tax incomes have grown five times larger.

The study found that the top 400 households “paid 16.6 percent of their income in federal individual income taxes in 2007, down from 30 percent in 1995.” We are talking here about truly rich people. Using 2007 dollars, it took an adjusted gross income of at least $35 million to make the top 400 in 1992, and $139 million in 2007.

So, his reasoning for why households with income more than $250,000 per year should be taxed more is:

1. their wealth is growing quicker, so the government should take more of it to… what? “Equal the playing field?”
2. the government is only taking 16% of the top 400 households’ income, which is no where near $250,000, so we should increase tax rates on them.

His first argument reveals precisely what he (and many on the left) truly believe government is for. Government is a tool to be used to change and order society into their perfect model. Not equal opportunity—he wants to level outcome, as well. He wants to create equality of outcome by reducing how much one person has rather than increasing how much the other has. Shouldn’t we be focused on progressing so the less well-off are better, rather than making the well-off worse?

His second argument is specious. He says, because the top 400 individuals have an average tax rate of 16.6%, we should tax households with income over $250,000 at higher rates. He is justifying taxing households with $250,000 income per year with evidence for individuals with $138 million of income per year. Forget sleight-of-hand. It’s just idiocy.

But worse, Dionne ignores that individuals have an effective tax rate of 16.6% not because their tax bracket has too small of a rate, but because (1) much of that income is likely from capital gains, and thus taxed at 15% (a lower rate encourages investment), and (2) due to the maddeningly-complex nature of our income tax law.

Our tax law is riddled with exceptions and deductions which allow people to decrease their effective tax rate. Increasing their tax rate is like turning the water pressure up on a leaking hose: yeah, you’ll get more pressure, but it is a hell of a lot more efficient just to fix the leak. His complaint only highlights that our tax law must be eliminated and replaced with a much simpler system at a lower rate. Paul Ryan’s Roadmap for America has an excellent plan for doing just that.

Dionne wasn’t quite finished, though. He then argues that the Senate should be reformed because:

Does any other democracy have a powerful legislative branch as undemocratic as the U.S. Senate?

When our republic was created, the population ratio between the largest and smallest state was 13 to 1. Now, it’s 68 to 1. Because of the abuse of the filibuster, 41 senators representing less than 11 percent of the nation’s population can, in principle, block action supported by 59 senators representing more than 89 percent of our population. And you wonder why it’s so hard to get anything done in Washington?

The filibuster is absolutely being abused by Senate Republicans, but Dionne isn’t targeting the filibuster with his angst; he’s criticizing the Senate’s fundamental structure.

Congress was set up with two houses for a reason. The House was meant to represent the people directly, a true representative democratic body, with advantages to larger states. The Senate, however, was not; it was meant to represent the states on equal ground. Not the people. The states, where Rhode Island has just as much power as Virginia. Or New York.

We have already severely weakened this arrangement by allowing popular elections of senators, but if we based representation in the Senate on population just as we do the House, there would be no reason to have a bicameral legislative body. There would be no difference between the two.

Dionne’s agitation at the Senate’s anti-democratic structure points to his misunderstanding of what the U.S. was meant to be, and to some extent still is. The U.S. was never intended to be a democratic nation. It was intended to be a republic, where democracy is utilized to preserve the rights of the people and welfare of the nation. “Democracy” in the U.S. is not an ideal; it is a means, a tool, toward achieving greater ideals.

Rule by the people is a good tool, but it must be utilized properly. Providing no check against larger states abusing smaller states threatens our union. This must not be forgotten.

The law, signed last week by President Obama, exempts the SEC from disclosing records or information derived from “surveillance, risk assessments, or other regulatory and oversight activities.” Given that the SEC is a regulatory body, the provision covers almost every action by the agency, lawyers say. Congress and federal agencies can request information, but the public cannot.

Change we can believe in.

If I didn’t know any better, it’d all make me believe Obama doesn’t really believe in transparency.

The dish may have honest folk roots, but many Korean taco makers across the country recognize Roy Choi, a Kogi founder, as the pioneering force.

“Chef Roy was the alpha,” said Bo Kwon, who has been serving Korean Oregon Infusion BBQ from his Koi Fusion trucks in Portland, Ore., since May 2009.

“We just Portlandize what he did in L.A.,” said Mr. Kwon, whose menu borrowed from Mr. Choi’s in the manner that 50 Cent sampled Biggie Smalls.

Roy Choi is, absolutely, a genius. There may be a number of Korean BBQ taco places opening across the country, but the original is Kogi here in Los Angeles, and they’re incredible. Why else would I routinely drive to a random location at 10:30pm for a taco truck?

Choi’s newest place, Chego, is equally as amazing. He’s taken rice bowls, something tame and calm, into something completely new yet also familiar. The prime rib bowl with a side of ooey-gooey fries is an experience.

If you live around Los Angeles, and haven’t tried Kogi or Chego, you need to fix that now. You’re missing out on something special.

Under this more realistic scenario, debt would hit 87 percent of GDP by 2020. “After that, the growing imbalance between revenues and noninterest spending,  combined with spiraling interest payments, would swiftly push debt to unsustainable levels. Debt as a share of GDP would exceed its historical peak of 109 percent by 2025 and would reach 185 percent in 2035.”
…
Indeed, under this scenario, in 75 years, revenues would reach 19.5 percent of GDP, expenditures would constitute 28.2 percent of GDP, leaving a fiscal gap of 8.7 percent of GDP (Table 1-3, p. 15).
…

• Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to higher interest rates, more borrowing from abroad, and less domestic investment—which in turn would lower income growth in the United States.
• Growing debt would also reduce lawmakers’ ability to respond to economic downturns and other challenges.
• Over time, higher debt would increase the probability of a fiscal crisis in which investors would lose confidence in the government’s ability to manage its budget, and the government would be forced to pay much more to borrow money.

But Paul Krugman says high debt levels isn’t an issue and we should add another trillion dollar stimulus on top of our current spending.

Even though Amazon is selling way more titles than any app retailer, the problem they’re solving is more tractable because there’s a whole ecosystem, which includes a big chunk of the world’s academic community, devoted to discovery and criticism of books and music and movies. It operates against a fixed background context, rich with powerful brands; examples include J.K. Rowling and Madonna and Johnny Depp. As we gaze across Amazon’s nearly-infinite virtual retail space, we’re all standing on a platform of largely-shared perceptions of what it is we’re looking at, and for. 

The app ecosystem just doesn’t have that. It’s being made up as we go along.

True, but don’t we have something similar with, for example, reviews provided by Macworld writers and users? iTunes reviews tend to be basically useless, but Macworld provides excellent reviews and their readers are likely much more informed than a typical iTunes reviewer. Why not factor Macworld’s ratings in, or at least display them, just like Rotten Tomatoes is shown for movies?

Nonetheless, Apple made two errors—one serious, and one slightly less so.

The slightly smaller mistake was made at the press conference itself. Apple not only explained what was causing signal attenuation on the iPhone 4, but did two things: they tried to argue the media was looking for a good story rather than reporting things factually (effectively positioning Apple as the victim) and that this problem isn’t unique to the iPhone 4, but is an industry-wide problem.

While it may be accurate that the media dramatized the story, and it is somewhat unfair that Apple garnered so much criticism over it when most phones exhibit similar issues, they did so because Apple is different than RIM, HTC and Motorola. Consumers expect those companies to put out products with issues, because that’s how most companies work. They put out products with problems, but consumers either don’t notice them or ignore them. But because Apple is so good at what they do, and we buy Apple products not just because they are functional but because Apple puts so much effort into their design. Apple has become a symbol of exceptionality, of making something whose quality and detail is beyond what we expect. Any issues become a lot more glaring in that case.

Apple made a mistake in arguing “hey, everyone else has this problem, too” because they aren’t everyone else, and they shouldn’t want to be. They should accept their unique position, acknowledge there is a real issue (whether it was a conscious trade-off they made or not) and move on. “They did it, too” is never a valid excuse when your entire advantage is your uniqueness.

The second, and more damaging, mistake Apple made was early on. When the iPhone 4 was released and the signal attenuation story was just breaking, Apple put out a response basically saying most phones experience this problem and that users should just avoid holding the bottom-left corner.

Well, first, no, not all phones experience this problem. While all phones do suffer signal degradation if your hand covers the antenna, the iPhone 4′s signal degradation is much worse than comparable phones. Anandtech compared the iPhone 4′s signal degradation to the iPhone 3GS and HTC Nexus One, and the iPhone 4′s signal was reduced much more significantly than the other two. This doesn’t result from some forced, awkward way of holding the phone, either—it results from holding the iPhone 4 so the bottom-left seam touches your hand, and in use it results in more dropped calls. When held like this (the natural way I hold my iPhone), my iPhone 4 will garble or drop calls where my iPhone 3G had no problem holding a connection.

Worse, though, Apple didn’t get out ahead of the problem. By refusing to acknowledge there was a problem at all, Apple allowed this to develop into a full-blown controversy. We’ve all experienced it—over the past few weeks, people who see me using my iPhone 4 don’t ask me how great the screen is but whether I have the antenna issue. Apple chose to allow this to develop by not acknowledging the issue immediately.

That’s the worst mistake a company can make when they have a potential disaster and the impact has been clear. The iPhone 4 has still been a terrific success, but the antenna issue is a black mark on what is Apple’s most successful product launch ever. Sometimes, even Apple needs to show a little humility.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

I’ll just get the tragically amusing part of this in real quick, because it isn’t what I want to focus on. During the push for their bill, Obama insisted the mandate wasn’t a tax, because it would amount to a tax increase and thus would violate his pledge not to raise taxes on individuals with less than $250,000 of income. So he lied to get his bill passed. I’m sure you’re shocked.

But what concerns me more about this story is the final line of the above quoted section. Congress has the power to levy taxes to provide for the general welfare of the nation, and the article goes on to say that in the Supreme Court’s decision on Social Security, they held that it is Congress’s duty to decide what is for the general welfare, not the courts’. Thus, the Obama administration argues, the individual mandate is constitutional because Congress has decided this tax is toward the general welfare of the nation.

Think about that for a second. Under the Supreme Court’s 1937 decision, Congress is free to levy a tax on almost anything it wants—provided they believe it to be in the “general welfare” of the nation—and there’s no check against it. There’s no court that can overturn it, no legal test to decide whether something is toward the general welfare of the nation, nothing. The court completely abdicated its power to Congress.¹

A tax is an incredibly powerful tool in influencing societal behavior. If the individual mandate, which requires every American to purchase health insurance or be fined, is constitutional, then why can’t Congress tax anyone who doesn’t donate x percentage of their income to charity each year? Why can’t Congress tax companies without unionized labor? Why can’t Congress tax music or filmmakers whose work is deemed indecent or obscene, to discourage their polluting of society?

A “tax” is not just a means for government to raise revenue. The power to tax is also a bludgeoning tool to make certain practices prohibitively expensive for people to do so they are less likely to do it. Basically, it’s a tool for government to control individual behavior. Using the power of taxation in this way is terribly contradictory to the spirit of the Constitution and the intent of our nation: to allow people to live their lives how they choose, without a government dictating to them. It is an end-run around the Constitution, which was created to limit the federal government’s power to very specifically defined powers. As interpreted, and as used by the Obama administration to justify their individual mandate, the power of taxation becomes an arbitrary power for Congress to control society however it pleases.

This should be quite disturbing for all Americans, including people who support the Democrats’ healthcare “reform.” In this case, you might believe being forced to purchase health insurance is a small price to pay for covering the medical needs of more Americans. But please remember, you may not like some of the controlling and authoritarian laws this produces in the future. Your guy will not always be in office. This marks the road toward authoritarianism, and it is a trail of tears no matter what your party.

1. Please note that the Supreme Court could, technically, overturn this decision. But under current case-law, this holds true.

Subscribed. This should be quite helpful.