Look, ma, the competitor loves us

 

It's always flattering when other Web sites link to articles written by my colleagues and me for Electronic House and CE Pro.

It's doubly flattering when those Web sites are competitors.

And triply flattering when our articles comprise the majority of the competitor's email newsletter.

My CE Pro article "Next-Gen Apple TV Doesn't Play Nice with Home Control" headlined the most recent news roundup from friendly rival Custom Retailer.

There are seven more articles from CE Pro and our sister EH publications:

• Thinking About Expanding To Provide A/V Installation Services? ProSound Web
• Are You Celebrating National AV Week? CE Pro
• Apple’s iPad and Automation, Weighing the Good and the Bad, Electronic House
• How to Use iPads for Security-Only Applications CEPro
• A New Era of Energy Management CEPro
• Meet Your 5 Biggest Energy Hogs Electronic House
• 3D TV Sales Not Reaching Expectations Electronic House

Damn, we're good!

I'm famous!

Eager exhibitor

EH Publishing produces the Robotics TechZone at CES and we just sold another booth.

In fact, we sold it to one of the most eager exhibitors ever. He writes:

Sure I read your e-mail. Thank you for fast reply.

However, I am at a hospital because my wife is having a baby and she is struggling right now.

I can do internet but I don't think I can fax you until the baby's birth.

Hopefully tomorrow morning I can send you the document.

I am not sure that will be okay to you. Let me know if you need it faster so I can find solution.

 We granted the reprieve not because his wife was having a baby but because she was struggling at the time.

City Hall candidate continues run after assault with a remote control

Don MacNeil, a candidate for city hall in Canada, was found guilty of throwing a remote control at his wife.

The woman suffered a bruised thigh, but the condition of the remote was not reported.

Unlike most remote-control attacks, this one was not spurred by arguments over channel and volume controls.

Instead, MacNeil says he threw the device at his wife because she was domineering and “would not allow him to have friends or have any money,” Canada’s cnews reports.

The news report continues:

"I am a victim of spousal abuse and the only reason I was charged is because I am a male," MacNeil insisted, weeping on the witness stand. "I contacted the women's shelter because there are no shelters for abused men in the country."

The domestic abuse charge will not deter MacNeil’s run for city hall in Barrie, Ont.

“It won’t stop me,” he said.

Will no Americans pick a bail of cotton?

The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press reports, "Americans reject jobs in fields," based on an AP story by Garance Burke (emphasis added):

It's a question rekindled by the recession: Are immigrants taking jobs away from American citizens? In the heart of the nation's biggest farming state, the answer is a resounding no.

Government data analyzed by the Associated Press show most Americans simply don't apply to harvest fruits and vegetables. And the few Americans who do usually don't stay in the fields.

"It's just not something that most Americans are going to pack up their bags and move here to do," said farmer Steve Fortin, who pays $10.25 an hour to foreign workers to trim strawberry plants at his nursery near the Nevada border.

The analysis showed that, from January to June, California farmers posted ads for 1,160 farmworker positions open to U.S. citizens and legal residents.

But only 233 people in those categories applied after learning of the jobs through unemployment offices in California, Texas, Nevada and Arizona.

One grower brought on 36. No one else hired any.

[MORE]

$0 or $7.25 but nothing in between

Now this is interesting:

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and other public officials campaign for higher minimum wages, but then they recruit "interns" for unpaid positions.

So it's OK to pay less than minimum wage if the job is in the public sector, or if the employee potentially learns something on the job, but it's not OK to hire someone who's desperate for income and is willing to work for $5.00 per hour?

So, here are your choices: You can work for $0 per hour or $7.25 per hour, but nothing in between.

[inspired by Donald Boudreaux, CafeHayek.com]

Where's the decolletage?

I was all set to cheer when I saw this WSJ headline: The Bosom is Back.

There was talk of "chest-centric fall style" that "celebrate a well-endowed figure."

In one fashion show, "Decolletage shone" on the runways.

So what, pray tell, is this model doing in the story?

No bosom here

If this represents a "curvy new road," then I'm friggin' Lombard Street.