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Showing posts from February, 2012

Rick Santorum wants healthy babies to die.

  CBS News reported today that Rick Santorum criticized President Obama's health policies requiring medical insurance plans to provide free prenatal screening. Santorum said, " ...free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and therefore less care that has to be done because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society... That, too, is part of Obamacare, another hidden message as to what President Obama thinks of those who are less able than the elites who want to govern our country. " This position is not the least bit new to me.  Since I was a kid, I've been aware of the March of Dimes, which works to fight birth defects - and I've heard the mantra that people are likely to abort babies who they know have defects.  I also know that Santorum himself has a three-year-old daughter who suffers from Trisomy 18, which is usually fatal in much less than three years. My wife any I are Christians of modest income, living in a small city, do

A tale of two ad-supported ecosystems

Both Google and Facebook have long made most of their money off ads, and given away their services mostly for free. In Google's case, ads are delivered based on search terms, or based on the content of other web sites where context-sensitive ads are being served.  So they can be served to anyone in a reasonably sensible manner, regardless of whether Google knows anything at all about them. Facebook, on the other hand, tries to "target" ads based on personal information about their users. I'm sure this works in some cases, but if I had a dollar bill for each time I've been shown a beer ad (I don't drink beer), or a car insurance ad when I didn't have a car, or a "buy a house from this guy" ad for some realtor I've never heard of  just because he claims to have an office in my town (oh, and I already have a house)... I'd be a pretty wealthy guy by now. Now, Facebook is IPO'ing and trying to raise (*bites pinky*) fiv