McCain Campaign Still Making Mistakes

You'd think that more than a month after the election the McCain campaign would be finished at least with making glaring mistakes. You would be wrong.

You may recall this story from PC World posted a couple of weeks ago:

What do you do when you lose a presidential election by a sizeable margin? Sell everything associated with your prolonged failure, that's what! The McCain-Palin campaign is selling leftover equipment -- including some sweet tech -- at bargain basement prices at McCain's Arlington, Virginia headquarters.

An e-mail sent to McCain-Palin campaign staff -- subsequently released to The Washington Post -- reads:

"Starting Monday December 8, 2008 the prices will be slashed to 36% of the original price for furniture, office supplies, blackberries, and many campaign computers. This is a great opportunity to own a piece of history, finish your Christmas shopping, or simply replace your old laptop."

I don't know about you, but owning a "piece of history" shouldn't be on par with replacing "your old laptop."

Among the tech goodies for sale are:

- A Dell Latitude D620 laptop for $417.00.
- A Dell Latitude D820 laptop for $570.00.
- Brother multifunction printer for $189.00.
- RIM Blackberry 8700c for $30.00.
- Folding chairs for $3.60 each.
- A 55-cup steel coffee urn for $77.00.
- A power strip for $1.
- Ethernet cables for $1 a pound.

Wowwie! Those are some primo deals. But I'm holding out for the Blackberry that McCain invented, or the computer used by Palin to discover that Africa is not, in fact, a country.

So how did that work out? Fast forward to a few days ago, and this story. From ChannelWeb:

Oops! McCain Camp Sells Loaded BlackBerry

An Arlington, Va.-based Fox 5 investigative team this week said they bought a Research In Motion (RIM) BlackBerry from the McCain-Palin camp containing a plethora of confidential campaign information including phone numbers, emails and other information.

According to the reporters' take, the campaign was selling off used office inventory at bargain prices at its headquarters, including phones, computers and other equipment. Among the hot items, several $20 BlackBerry smart phones with dead batteries and no chargers included. The reporters bought a couple.

"When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 BlackBerry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night," Fox 5 investigative reporters Tisha Thompson and Rick Yarborough wrote in their account.

The pair was able to trace the BlackBerry back to a "Citizens for McCain" staffer, a group of Democrats that put their support behind the Republican presidential nominee. According to the reporters, the emails offered an inside glimpse into how grassroots operations work and included a host of scheduling questions and please (sic) for support.

Many of the numbers the campaign failed to wipe, or permanently delete, from the device were private cell phone numbers for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists, the report said. Failing to remove information from a device before selling it could result in a serious breach of security.

Selling an unwiped BlackBerry is not really a flub expected from McCain, considering one of his advisors once credited McCain with inventing the smart phone.

The pair decided to call some of the numbers.

"Somebody made a mistake," one owner told them. "People's numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased."

Another noted: "They should've wiped that stuff out," later adding "Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise."

Maybe McCain didn't invent the smart phone after all. Seems to me that the phone, like any piece of high-tech equipment, is only as smart as the person using it. McCain deserved to lose, and the nation dodged a bullet when it elected Barack Obama. It continue to be the case that no matter how disappointing the Democrats are, the Republicans are much, much worse.

TAGS: John McCain, Used+Equipment

Yahoo! and MSN: partners in oppression.

Yahoo! and MSN are helping the Communist Chinese dictatorship track down Tibetan protesters, who, if caught, face terrible consequences at the hands of the regime:

From The Observers (France 24): Yahoo China pasted a "most wanted" poster across its homepage today in aid of the police's witch-hunt for 24 Tibetans accused of taking part in the recent riots. MSN China made the same move, although it didn't go as far as publishing the list on its homepage.

The "most wanted" poster has been published on several Chinese portals like Sina.com and news.qq.com. It reads "The Chinese police have issued a warrant for the arrest of suspected rioters in Tibet" and provides a phone number for informants to use in total anonymity. Along with the text are photos of Tibetans taken during the riots. Of the 24 on the list, two have already been caught.

Yahoo's human rights values have been under fire since it was revealed that the company helped the Chinese police in its inquiry over the journalist Shi Tao, who had an email account with Yahoo. He was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2005 for "divulging state secrets". After that case, it was also found out that Yahoo had provided evidence against at least three other Chinese dissidents. Following the allegations, the company had to offer an explanation to the American congress. It defended itself by explaining that the management of its operational arm in China had been delegated to Alibaba.

China, which has blocked access to YouTube since the beginning of the riots, is known for having a sophisticated censorship system when it comes to the internet. This event shows that the Chinese authorities are also using the web to root out their opponents, and once again,with the help of a foreign company.

This is outrageous stuff. But typical. Google has been kowtowing to China for years now, allowing their search engine to be cenosred. Be truly UnRuly. Don't use them. Ever. Again.

And while you're at it, can somebody lead us (me) to a search engine I can use with a clear conscience?