How cheap is cheap?

There was a time when “Made in Japan” did not equate with high-quality goods. Before everyone started watching Sony Trinitrons and driving Toyota Camrys, Japan was the center of cheap goods sold in bulk that lasted a few weeks and broke down. Who’s the next country to jump from also-ran to pack-leader? How about India.

c|net reports on the Indian computer companies producing inexpensive, portable, simple computers for around $250, and a plan by one company to introduce a full-featured desktop for under $100 (sans monitor) by year-end.

India’s computer technology is thriving, in part because they no longer need to outsource their talent to Western companies, and also because PC penetration within India is so low that innovation to produce better, cheaper products is a necessity in order to get those products into their customers’ hands.

All roads lead to terror

The White House’s current resident said “terror” or “terrorism” 34 times last night during his speech to pump up his poll numbers, and invoked September 11 six different times in an effort to make a connection between his Iraq War and terrorist attacks on American soil.

This redirect back to a previously successful propaganda tact linking two actions that are otherwise unrelated supercedes his previous proclamations that the Iraqi war was all about the spread of democracy. That worked for a while, but with the war dragging on and over 1,700 dead soldiers to account for, Bush is returning to what has always worked for him in the past.

Predictably, Republicans echoed the terrorist rhetoric to stay the course and not “allow the terrorists to shake our resolve,” while Democrats called the policy “adrift, disconnected from the reality on the ground and in need of major mid-course corrections.”

The latest USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll found that 61% of Americans say that Bush lacks an efective strategy, 53% said that going into Iraq was a mistake, and 56% disapprove of the President’s handling of the war. And for the first time, a majority of those surveyed felt that Bush deliberately misled them on the WMD excuses for going to war in the first place.

Intelling on you!

After being found guilty of violating Japan’s antitrust rules and being investigated by the European Union for also violating their antitrust laws, Intel is again under fire in the courts by rival AMD. The company claims that the chip maker freezes out competition by using price cuts and rebates to get exclusive deals with computer makers (Dell, HP and Sony, to be specific). Then, Intel threatens to withhold payment of the kick-backs in retaliation if those manufacturers consider using AMD’s chips instead.

Intel denies the charges, unsurprisingly, and pretty much calls AMD a jealous, petty little whiner. AMD points its finger right back stating that it has “nothing to be jealous of, you big fat hack, because our chips kick your chips ass!”

In Japan, Toshiba admitted that it was receiving $25-$30 million per quarter from Intel to use their chips exclusively, labeling such financial inducements ‘cocaine.’ Gateway’s Ted Waitt reportedly told an AMD executive that in order to return to profitability in 2001, he’d be willing to drop AMD’s chips in favor of Intel. And when HP started using AMD chips in 2002, the company wanted AMD to choke up $25 million in compensation for Intel’s expected financial retaliation.

AMD has sent letters to 40 PC-makers, retailers and distributors asking them to save all internal communications regarding the choice of chip maker for a possible future court date.

Fusion finalist

A 35-year, €10 billion nuclear fusion reactor project has been won by France after an 18-month delay while the parties involved tried to broker a solution. Japan was second in line for the honor.

Essentially, the plan is to build a small star on Earth and use that to produce power, replacing fossil fuels and nuclear (or “nucular”) fission, both of which contribute vast amounts of icky crap to our planet as waste material. The European Union, The U.S., Russia, Japan, South Korea and China are partners in the ambitious project.

One kilogram of fusion fuel produces the same energy as 10 million kilograms of fossil fuel, but the technology required to produce fusion — including heating gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million Celsius — are somewhat elusive, to put it mildly.

Goin' to the chapel and we're...

Canada’s Parliament voted to legalize same-sex marriages throughout the nation Tuesday, and the bill now passes to the Senate for final approval, which is expected to pass easily. Canada then becomes the third nation to allow homosexuals to legally wed one another.

The 158 to 133 vote wasn’t without controversy, of course, and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said he’s going to “revisit this in a future Parliament.” Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler threw some cold water on the heated words by explaining that “they’re going to have to acknowledge that they want to override the (Charter of Rights), override constitutional-law decisions in nine jurisdictions in this country, override a unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, override the rule of law in this country.”

So there.

Meanwhile in the U.S., nothing is any better, most people polled still think the gays aren’t worthy of the institution of marriage and the Bush League mouths its platitudes to the far, far, far right about changing the nation’s constitution to include legalized inequality. Yay, us.