Apple’s New I-PAD

Is Steve Jobs crazy?  $499 for the new Apple I-PAD? 

Well, he’s reaped new profits for Apple from international sales of the I-Phone, but the I-PAD?  It looks like an enlarged Apple phone but also like a very thin laptop/notebook.

Now seeing that you can buy an Apple I-Phone for $99, why pay $499 for something not quite but as expensive as a laptop?

Well, consider that $99 buys you a 3G  I-Phone, but you’ll need a contract of two years for it.  Then look at E-BAY where unlocked (contract-free & open) I-Phones sell for an average of $399.    So APPLEnow you can buy a thin laptop like  an I-phone for $499 without a support contract; then return and buy all kinds of accessories for it; use it most places; buy applications (software programs for its varied optional uses); and so on.

Like is Steve Jobs crazy?

Mr Phelps/ Peter Graves

An American actor, characterized for the Mission Impossible TV series star, Peter Graves, has died according to news sources, of natural causes at his California home.  Famous as Mr. Phelps, the character of dubious US State Department assignments -

“Your Mission Mr. Phelps if you choose to accept it.  As usual, the Department will deny any knowledge of your activities if captured.  This tape will self-destruct in 30 seconds!”

Mission Impossible, and Mr. Phelps became so credible and possible to some unworldly Communists bloc  figures, that post-cold war government personnel, Communists, still insisted that that was how the non-communists nationals and the Western powers changed the Balkans etc.  The show’s plots were famous for theatrical substitution of key government personnel of the target country, with ringers.

A veteran actor of many other TV series shows and film, including the famous Airplane satire pilot scene; he is also remembered as the brother of Gunsmoke’s James Arness - “Matt Dillon”. 

Rest and return, Jim, er, Mr Phelps.

US Consulate in Juarez Mexico – killings

Tonight’s news referencing the murders of US Consulate employees – who were US citizens in Ciudad Juarez was first reported as a drive-by killing of three Americans in that city.   It read as an assault against government to intimidate the alternative tourist trade.  The fuller actual news later  is a concern for diplomats and the issues of  tactical and strategic billeting and exchange of Federal and State anti-narcotics/crime agents of Mexico and the USA.

The Consulates of either nation should not, and can not  be used as a shield or cover employment for those agents.  It is entirely possible, that these people died as American or anti-authority targets.  It is also possible that they were believed to be narcotics agents.

Americans and Mexicans can petition their state and federal governments for better assistance to law enforcement, and join an increasingly diminishing – yet still evidently constant  demand – market for contraband narcotics and recreational drugs.

Like cocaine, it is all too bloody by the time any buyer obtains and uses it.