Snarling SCOTUS Set to Deliver Good News to Obama

This promises to be a “I win or you lose” week for the President. If the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) rules his health care law constitutional, then he has a historical, signature accomplishment as President. Add the Bin Laden capture, our extraction from Iraq, reduction in Afghanistan, and avoidance of going over a economic cliff to depression (so far), most thinking people will judge that a successful first term (though paraphrasing Stevenson, “thinking people” do not constitute a majority, which is needed by Democrats if not Republicans to win).

If the Supremes say “no”, it deflates the agitated right-wing clamoring for repeal, galvanizes the left and center to vote for he who bringeth (or promises) the much-needed health care reform, and underscores the importance of having a moderate President (i.e. Obama) appoint the next justice. He loses only an imperfect program about which even lefties are ambivalent. He is left (pun intended) with a clean slate for a better effort during his second term, with the support of a Democratic House that will be elected in a landslide.

Or am I hallucinating?  Maybe I need to have my medications adjusted. 

Facebook friends (FBF) are not BFF

Facebook, with a billion users (rounding off), was until recently widely thought to be on a course to dominate communication on the internet. Now the suspicion is dawning that it is, like MySpace before it, a fad. Fie on you fickle friends of Facebook!

Whatever it proves to be, FB has earned a “like” for nearly single-handedly ensuring against another tech 'bubble' by right-pricing their initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which promptly sank. FB's purchase of a photo-sharing start-up for a cool $1 billion in the weeks before trying to raise cash, probably raised some eyebrows and suspicions about the company's direction and understanding of value.

 FB could throw around many more billions so long as it remained the main site for hundreds of millions. However, its cool is cooling. The most chastening or dispiriting barometer of lost coolness is a Toyota ad mocking a young woman worried about her parents not having many “friends” on FB, while they are shown doing many things with real people (involving driving around, inevitably). Hilarious. It is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?