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The death of John Smale on Saturday was a missed opportunity by several outlets to…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged auto_business cars gm Google+ on by (updated 4705 days ago)

The death of John Smale on Saturday was a missed opportunity by several outlets to examine the negative impact that he had on General Motors during his tenure as a director and chairman of the board. Smale is best known in the business world for being the former CEO of Proctor and Gamble but like many high ranking executives in American business he served other companies as a director.

The extended obituary published in the Detroit News (written by AP reporter Dan Sewell) only mentions his GM role in passing in the opening paragraph while the brief piece on Autoblog focuses on Smale replacing Bob Stempel as Chairman and helping to bring GM back from the verge of bankruptcy. As chairman, Smale probably had little to do with the actual slashing of costs and spending at GM but he nonetheless had a huge impact on GM in another way and it wasn't good.

Smale was responsible bringing Ron Zarella, one of his former P&G colleagues to GM to institute brand management. Brand management was a totally bungled and wrong-headed approach to building and selling cars. At P&G Smale and Zarella found a way to sell the same products under multiple different brands and get away with it. Unfortunately this approach doesn't translate to the car business and resulting in such an unappealing car lineup that despite growing discounting, GM's market share continued to shrink throughout their tenure and consumer's attitudes to GM plummeted.

GM's lineup didn't begin to improve until Bob Lutz joined up and Zarella left in 2001 and even then it took several years to demonstrate that the company could build interesting vehicles. Even then, the company's problems were so deep seated that time that they couldn't earn enough to avoid bankruptcy in 2009. Perhaps if the company had focused on great products and a pared down brand lineup in 1992 instead of waiting more than a decade, that fate might have been avoided.

#gm #cars #auto_business

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If UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi ordered the pepper spraying of students she not…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4708 days ago)

Reshared post from +Jason Calacanis

If UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi ordered the pepper spraying of students she not only needs to be fired, she needs to face criminal charges.

Additionally, I hope she is sued personally and wiped out financially.

Here she faces he students who lined her long walk to her car according to +Xeni Jardin's awesome +Boing Boing coverage.

Students at UC Davis should be outside of her home and the home of the cop who did the pepper spraying. Seriously, 500 people outside your home for a couple of nights, with your neighbors looking on, might give these absolute idiots some time to think about their behavior.

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In many ways the world is a better place because Steve Jobs lived in it, but I wouldn't… 2

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4708 days ago)

In many ways the world is a better place because Steve Jobs lived in it, but I wouldn't have wanted to work with him.

I listened to Walter Isaacson's authorized bio of Jobs and while it is flawed in some ways, including some fundamental technical errors, the author should at least get credit for not making it into a hagiography. Jobs was a deeply flawed and troubled human being that often mistreated those that worked and lived with him. He is definitely someone that I would have wanted to work with or attempt to call a friend.

At the same time, I'm glad that he brought together the teams of people that created products like the Mac, iPod and iPhone. Despite the flaws in those products, they helped drive technology and communications forward in some very important ways.

Unfortunately his disdain for most people and his need for control also shows through in the way these products were actually manufactured. By shifting all production to China, he got lower costs by taking advantage of the lack of regulation and labor protections. Isaacson reports that Jobs "described how easy it was to build a factory in China, and said that it was almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs" during a meeting with President Obama. The only thing that is hard about building a factory in America is treating your workers well, something Jobs was loathe to do.

Jobs was also reluctant to take responsibility for his own actions including supporting his own daughter Lisa. He also gave almost nothing to charity or any philanthropic causes.

In Rolling Stone, the brilliant Matt Taibbi submits the Jobs case to his Supreme Court of Assholedom and raises a very interesting point. Because Jobs was a purveyor of consumer products, shouldn't we the consumers also take some of the responsibility for enabling Jobs buy actually spending money on all those Chinese made trinkets? I'd say we probably should but you should read Taibbi's post and make up your own mind.

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Supreme Court of Assholedom: The People vs. Steve Jobs | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
NOTE TO READERS: I will have something on the developments at Zucotti Park soon, and will also be appearing on Countdown tonight to talk about it. In

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Retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis demonstrated this week that not all… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ occupy OccupyWallStreet OWS on by (updated 4708 days ago)

Retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis demonstrated this week that not all cops corrupt hooligans. Too bad there aren't more cops like Lewis still on duty.

#OWS #occupy

Reshared post from +Beau Kahler

Emotionally intense images of retired Philadelphia police captain Ray Lewis – who has joined the #OccupyWallStreet protests – being arrested by the NYPD.

Captain Lewis has been outspoken against the NYPD’s wrongful use of violence against peaceful protesters.

From what I have seen, Ray Lewis’ conduct defines honor, bravery, and dignity.

There is a media blackout on images of his participation in the protest, and on his arrest:

I couldn't find the photographers name to mention. This is quite an emotional set of photos, I am proud of this man for standing up for what he believes in such a pressing time in our countries history. Bravo!

When will the government realize that this situation is not going away, stop hiding from the truth, let's be honest.

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If you haven't already contacted your representative and senators about SOPA…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4708 days ago)

If you haven't already contacted your representative and senators about SOPA and PROTECT-IP, please head over to the EFF and demand that they stop these bills that will give big corporations the ability to censor internet communications.

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

I'm in China, where everyone takes Internet censorship for granted. Will the same be true soon in America? Stop SOPA…

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Take Action | Electronic Frontier FoundationStop the Internet Blacklist Legislation
The Internet Blacklist Legislation – known as PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House – is a threatening sequel to last year's COICA Internet censorship bill. L…

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An excellent post on all of the brutality we're seeing by police against peacefully… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ occupy on by (updated 4709 days ago)

An excellent post on all of the brutality we're seeing by police against peacefully protesting Americans. It's long past time for President Obama and other leaders that claim to support democracy to stand up and call for the police to stand down!

This is not acceptable behavior in any country much less one that claims to be a bastion of freedom. #occupy

Reshared post from +Alexander Howard

On #Occupy, civil disobedience and the disproportionate use of force*

Last week I found myself quite upset about the arrest of journalists covering the protests in NYC and beyond. This weekend, video showing a UC Davis police officer spraying non-violent protesters with pepper spray cemented a deep and growing concern about the actions of law enforcement with respect to peaceful civil disobedience. If citizens do not follow orders to lawfully disperse or otherwise commit civil disobedience, they can expect arrest. To make those arrests with disproportionate violence, however, seems to me to violate the 4th Amendment. If the people who are sworn to protect our rights violate them, I perceive that there's an issue for our social compact.

As +Trevor Timm pointed out today, there is a legal precedent to hold the officer in question culpable for his actions.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1332957.html

Where isolated acts of disproportionate violence in one city might have simmered, now a nation connected with smartphones, YouTube and the Internet can see what others bear witness to where ever it occurs. http://witness.org has been hosting these stories for years. Over the last year, we've watched violence from across the Middle East filmed and shared on YouTube. Now we're seeing the impact of those connection technologies upon the understanding and awareness of civil unrest here in the United States.

That iconic photograph from Portland, Oregon and the video from this weekend are now focusing the eyes of millions upon a different issue than economic inequality, the financial meltdown or high unemployment: police brutality.

+James Fallows captured something important today over at the Atlantic:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/pepper-spray-brutality-at-uc-davis/248764/

"Let's stipulate that there are legitimate questions of how to balance the rights of peaceful protest against other people's rights to go about their normal lives, and the rights of institutions to have some control over their property and public spaces. Without knowing the whole background, I'll even assume for purposes of argument that the UC Davis authorities had legitimate reason to clear protestors from an area of campus — and that if protestors wanted to stage a civil-disobedience resistance to that effort, they should have been prepared for the consequence of civil disobedience, which is arrest.

I can't see any legitimate basis for police action like what is shown here. Watch that first minute and think how we'd react if we saw it coming from some riot-control unit in China, or in Syria. The calm of the officer who walks up and in a leisurely way pepper-sprays unarmed and passive people right in the face? We'd think: this is what happens when authority is unaccountable and has lost any sense of human connection to a subject population. That's what I think here."

It's unclear as of yet how our national elected officials will act in response to these events. If the President of the United States condemned violence committed in Egypt by police officers against peaceful protesters (See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/10/10/statement-press-secretary-violence-egypt ) what about will he say about its use in New York City or the University of California Davis?

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Airlines frequently repaint some of their airplanes for special occasions but this… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4709 days ago)

Airlines frequently repaint some of their airplanes for special occasions but this is definitely one of the more amusing examples I've seen as Quantas honors Movember.

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Airline Livery of the Week: Qantas Boeing 737 Gets a Mustache
That is one styl'n Boeing 737-800 with a mustache.Photo by Qantas.
For some reason, it seems that November is connected closely with men growing facial hair. A few years back the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia started promoting Movember with men growing mustaches to support prostate cancer research. Think of it as a pink ribbon to support breast cancer, but involving hair.
Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce is a survivor of prostate cancer and obviously the company has a special motivation for t…

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Nathan Brown is very likely putting his job at UC Davis in jeopardy but he deserves…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4710 days ago)

Nathan Brown is very likely putting his job at UC Davis in jeopardy but he deserves applause and more for calling out the chancellor for allowing this deplorable behavior by police.

Reshared post from +Bill Gross

This is an absolutely amazing, courageous letter, written by a NON-tenured UC Davis Assistant Professor.

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Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
18 November 2011

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

Linda P.B. Katehi,

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I te……

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