In case you don't know or can't tell--because really, it's not that great a picture on the left--that's Julian Assange of "Wikileaks" on the left.

Remember when GM's Onstar seemed like a good and innocent idea?

Yeah, me too. That's how old I am. Now? Did you see this? "OnStar to sell customer location and other data" “'Big Brother' is not only watching, but may soon be selling what he sees. Wired magazine’s “Threat Level” blog says OnStar, a vehicle tracking service owned by General Motors, emailed subscribers this week alerting them to a change in policy that allows the company to sell customer data to anyone they choose, even after the service is canceled."It seems everyone, everyone, from the government to Facebook to Onstar and who knows who all, is bound and determined to get information on us and sell it to the highest bidder. Links: http://blogs.ajc.com/news-to-me/2011/09/21/onstar-to-sell-customer-location-and-other-data/; http://www.bing.com/search?q=onstar+selling+data&src=IE-SearchBox&FORM=IE8SRC

More on the "them that has, gets" theme

Ray Charles was quoted as saying "Them that has, gets", I believe, and I've repeated that over the years, many times.

It's always been that way if you have money.  They get the trips to Europe and the tax breaks, etc., etc.

Now?  Now it's information, too.  News out today:

AT&T ends unlimited broadband data plan

The telecom giant restricts how much customers can download each month.

Extra charge if you go over

What this means from now on?

If you have money, you can have all the information and entertainment you want.

If you're poor--and keep in mind, the Middle Class is shrinking mightily--you will be limited and have less time and access.

Ray knew what he was talking about.

Interactive, online newspaper map

I got this in an email today.  Perhaps you've already seen it:

Go to this site, you just put your mouse on a city anywhere in the world and the newspaper headlines pop up:

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/

Double click and the page gets larger...you can read the entire paper on some if you click on the right place. You can spend forever here.

Also, if you look at the European papers, for instance, the far left side of Germany will pop up as The Stars & Stripes (European edition, of course). Additionally, this site changes each day with the publication of new editions of the paper.

Pretty cool, really, isn't it?

The things they come up with.

It seems we have all the information in the world, nearly, but we still don’t know much or we just aren’t very bright.  We have all this information about our world but we don't seem to be able to solve our problems.

We have data but not solutions.  Data but not wisdom.

Did you hear the one about the congressman?...

I'm sure you read or heard about the Congressman--one Christopher Lee (Repub., NY)--who sent the picture of himself shirtless to a woman on Craigslist, got caught and had to quit that same job?

Yeah.  Great, wasn't it?

What a dolt.

Anyway, it's gotten better, since.

Check this out:  It's out today that A) he was at an annual GOP retreat and---wait for it--B) he had just left a GOP conference on "Intelligent Use of Information Technology".

Man, you just can't write 'em any better than that.

Have a great weekend, y'all.

Link:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/chris-lee-craigslist-photo-gop-retreat_n_823979.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/us/politics/10lee.html

"Did you know?": A presentation given to an executive conference for Sony