OS X Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper: You Should Probably Trust Us, but You Don’t Have to

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Feb 162012
 

The Cult of Mac article Gatekeeper: First Step Towards App Store-Only Software On The Mac? has a slightly misleading title, but a site’s gotta eat, I guess. Let’s break it down:

Screenshot courtesy of The Verge

Mac App Store – our preferred method, at least until the one below becomes the standard.

Mac App Store and identified developers – because we care enough to verify what goes on your machine (which is more than we can say for some platforms), we want to make it easier for developers to achieve “trusted” status and we want a way to control installs from developers caught dabbling in the dark arts. Android apologists note: this is the default setting.

Anywhere – we don’t care where you get it from, but rest assured any response from us to your linkbait malware headlines will state that this was the setting you had on your machine when your bank called with the bad news. We think controlling which apps are installed on your machine is a good thing, but you have a right to disagree.

Apple Announces 10.8 Mountain Lion

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Feb 162012
 

I was caught totally flat-footed on this one, which I think was the case for a lot of Apple’s followers. The Verge’s Nilay Patal has a nice write-up and video here.

It’s no surprise that Apple is continuing to migrate iOS features such as Messages, Game Center and Airplay to its desktop OS.  I could do with fewer skeuomorphs, but it’s an easy trade-off against more Apple “just works” device integration. Mountain Lion is a beta now, and scheduled for release this summer.

TMA RantSS: Because Long-form Writing is Hard

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Feb 152012
 

There’s a lot of stuff covered on the Apple beat daily, usually by multiple blogs. Because I tend to dwell on one topic and post infrequently, I’m going to try something a little different: taking some of the headlines from my RSS feed and commenting on their gist. The news items are plucked somewhat randomly, as 12 other blogs usually post something on the same issue within 20 minutes of each other. Some other pieces are thrown in for “color”. I’m hoping this is a way for me to add a small amount of original commentary on topics I’d either never get to or before they are processed to death by the technorati blogging machine. Comments/suggestions are always welcome.

RantSS for 2-15-12

Your iPhone’s Privacy Sucks Because of Apple—and Even Steve Jobs Agrees – Jizzmodo

We’re taking the address book permission issue and blaming it on Apple, because Google Analytics tells us that baiting people in possession of common sense accounts for 93% of our traffic. We even found a video of the brilliant dead guy who ran the company being quoted on a somewhat similar issue out of context.

Did Samsung just reveal a Galaxy Note 10.1 for MWC? – The Verge

Samsung makes a 5.3″ Galaxy Note, which is a giant phone with a stylus; they also make a 10.1″ (7″ and 8.9″) Galaxy Tab, which are tablets. The “10.1″ Galaxy Note” is either a PR screw-up created by the confusion inherent in maintaining a product line consisting of a bajillion undifferentiated knock-offs or of jamming a phone into a 10″ tablet is sheer deperation. Both possibilities are even money.

How Realistic Would a Robot Have to Be for You to Have Sex with It? – Jizzmodo

Read about the trending topic at all the Jizzmodo IRL meet-ups.

Apps uploading address books is a privacy side-show compared to DPI – TechCrunch

Deep Packet Inspection is a lot more intrusive than what Path did. Here’s a bunch of companies that do it now! Did we mention that more than 50 other apps do what Path did? Have we covered how Apple’s address book permission policies allow Path and others to do these things? Did we mention that TechCrunch enjoys 100% editorial independence from potential influencers like CrunchFund?

Video: Photoshop CS6 Content-Aware Move, Extend Makes Us Drool – Mac|Life

Here’s one feature that you can use to justify spending $600 on a program that’s now 90% feature redundant with programs costing 5% as much. Remember to fasten your bib prior to buffering.

News: Realmac Software releases Clear - iLounge

Absolutely every other tech site has reported on this app and I’m stumped as to why this is. It’s maybe the 12th most useful and 3rd prettiest app in the most crowded category of the App Store, but I predict it will be upheld as an example of app excellence because you can pinch, spread and pull to manipulate the UI. For this reason it will also be a deserved object of competing platforms’ ridicule.

FLA head describes Foxconn plants as ‘way above average’ – MacNN

/cue Change.org response about 1. the FLA being paid plants with no objectivity, 2. use of the term “average” and a warning to guilty westerners that “average” in Chinese means life-threatening and/or soul-sucking. 3. Apple having too much money, gotten through arbitrary means and compounded at an interest rate derived from the value of the souls and backs of cheap, exploited labor.

Congress Wants Answers From Apple On Apps Stealing Address Book Contacts – Cult of Mac

Dear Mr. Cook:

I really don’t have a clue about technology, but I do know that your company receives the vast majority of technology coverage in the media today, which means my political future could stand to benefit from your answering my questions relating to an ongoing issue that has only recently been getting media attention. Apple has a track record of answering inquiries issues from elected officials, so I have a better than average chance of being able to parley this letter into some future favor among this country’s younger voters.

I’ve cut and pasted something taken from various blogs across the intertubes that I think frames my inquiry, and juxtaposed it against an excerpt from your own developer guidelines in a way that I think makes it look like something important. The following is a list of questions, most of which overlap each other, that I will have a young person on my staff, Felipe Mendoza, to translate the answers to in “elected official speak” for me. I’ve added a respond-by date, because I want it to look like I mean business.

Sincerely,

Some generic politician

Some trumped-up title

Some subcommittee that does nothing

Apple: iOS update to require user permission for apps to access contacts – Macworld

Last call for all editorializing about Apple’s contacts permission policy, 7 day extension granted to all blogs who want to bitch about how it should have been done sooner.

To Read, Or Not To Read – parislemon

Sigh.

Proview: David’s IP is Totally Going to Waste the Apple Goliath or Something

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Feb 152012
 

Proview Shenzen is a company that is financially one clockwise revolution away from the sewer pipe. Its only asset is a name, a name for which Apple has a licensing agreement with the company in 10 different countries, including one with China under a Taiwanese affiliate. Proview claims that the agreement is not valid, and at least for now some judge in China agrees. Proview is lobbying the Chinese government for Apple to either pay them off or use the infringement on their trademark to not only block the flow of iPads into China, but also block their export from the assembly facilities that Apple (and no one else) so famously utilizes in-country. Proview’s claims have allegedly prompted Apple to pull the iPad from some Chinese retailers, such as Amazon (this is according to a spokesperson from Amazon, a company that in no way competes with Apple and would totally not have a reason to pull it off their site prior to Apple asking). For something that I guarantee will turn out to be a non-issue, variations of this story have been popping up in blogs everywhere for the last month. But that’s the core truth of what constitutes 99.9% of Apple “news”: bullshit that is guaranteed to blow over repackaged in semi-titillating headlines. Let me give you a sense of what’s going on in China regarding Proview, ripped from the pages of my latest screenplay titled “Make Linkbait Hay While the Media Sun Shines, You No-Value-Added Little Bitches” (it’s a working title):

(phone rings)

Chinese government: ”Hello, Chinese government”

Tim Cook: ”China? Oh, I’m sorry, I thought this was Brazil”

CG: ”No, China here. Who is this?”

TC: ”It’s Tim Cook over at Apple. Listen, I’m sorry, I meant to call Brazil. I’ve got a shitload of business to discuss with them…”

CG: ”Business?”

TC: ”Yea, boring stuff, really. I guess they don’t have as many bankrupt assclowns wanting to fuck with our supply chain or cash in on moo shu wrapper-thin IP. That reminds me – I have to catch up with you later to talk about demobilization phasing. Anyway, gotta go!”

(click)

GC: …

MG Siegler is Making Things Too Easy for the Wrong People

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Feb 142012
 

Disclaimer: I love MG Siegler. I think he’s one of the best writers on the Apple beat today. He’s smart, has access, quotes popular movies to make his points and uses foul language. He’s the complete package. That said, I have a beef, which started taking shape a couple of weeks ago.

When the Times ran its hit-pieces on Apple’s China manufacturing, I was plenty pissed. I waited for other tech writers I respected to vent their speen, but the outcry from people I expected to go after the Times didn’t happen. Gruber’s response didn’t really shock me. He linked to some stuff by Krugman about how people who criticized Apple didn’t understand how global manufacturing worked. I guess for him to step out against a news source largely identified as “left-leaning” would have resulted in some kind of Directive 4 shutdown. I also looked to Siegler and got something, but it was not the profane, knife-twisting that would provide my point of view with vindication. It was decidedly weak tea. After some delay, I began banging out some screed, but I was largely disappointed that the big names covering Apple had apparently phoned it in.

Fast forward to the recent Path fiasco. Straight up: I don’t give a shit about Path’s purported jacking of my address book. There’s a lot more profitable companies with some pretty mediocre products jacking my personal information. I think the practice in general is shitty, but I’ve been conditioned to the point where unless the jacking is balls-to-the-nose obnoxious or done by an app that exchanges it for no value, my sentiment is anecdotal and mostly based on how well it’s executed. Path didn’t execute its jacking very well. It didn’t allow users to opt-in and it got outed by a geek Carrier IQ-style. Path double-clutched, people got mad, Path relented and did the right thing. Case closed, right?

That’s where things break down a little for Siegler. For context: MG moved from mostly-writing to sometimes-writing and mostly VCing, which is great for him. I thought his talents were largely wasted by pointing out the obvious to Apple naysayers.

/sigh

Anyway, he now spends a lot of his time with Michael Arrington managing CrunchFund, which is a VC fund started when Arrington still headed TechCrunch, but is now autonomous. I thought the fact that TC created a vehicle funded by and sponsors of businesses in the sector about which TC writes was stinky cheese, but I threw my feelings in the big bucket labeled “Michael Arrington”, shrugged and moved on. Until Path, that is.

You see, in the course of all the gang-stomping Path was bound to take, most of it warranted, Arrington called out the Times’s Nick Bilton for drawing out Path’s transgressions in all of the comically one-sided and selectively factual style that I’ve come to expect from them (minus the dozen anonymous sources leaned on in the Apple-Foxconn articles). The fact that CrunchFund is an investor in Path made it a little inappropriate. Then MG piled on, and in that bless-his-soul writing style I’ve come to know and love began a piece that ripped Bilton a new one, then proceeded to rip the tech writing practice in general a new one, in summary: “Most of what is written about the tech world — both in blog form and old school media form — is bullshit”. As someone similarly sick of the phenomenon, the words were directed straight at the choir, but in the context of his new role, belied an obvious conflict of interest. It got worse. He went after a Gawker’s Ryan Tate, something I’d normally celebrate naked, but did it in defense of Path. A perfect opportunity to char-broil the blog network guilty of the most legendary mishandling of user information in recent memory (which cost me money just last week –  #fuckyouNickDenton) was squandered. Meanwhile, the people who might take exception to Siegler’s screed – and that boy had compiled quite the list – now had a 50′ strawman to light up. While numerous writers nibbled around the juicy center, the writer who ended up wielding the torch was none other than Dan Lyons. He got ahold of the issue and – strike me dead for saying this – wrought a piece of damning firebrand that had me nodding my head with respect and self-loathing in equal parts. MG, who is the only person I’ve read who possibly hates Lyons more than I do, retaliated. Arrington tried to high-road him, which is just about as funny to actually read as it is to envision reading. To channel Siegler, this was about the time in Animal House when Belushi yells “Food fight!” and the cafeteria explodes into a cloud of flying lunchgoods.

To me, MG Siegler represented one side of Apple’s coverage: informed, aligned with reality, speaking truth to stupid. Lyons was firmly entrenched on the other side: almost always contrarian (where the establishment is represented by “logic” and “facts”) and one of the most articulate pure click-baiters in the blogosphere.  I’ll continue to read Siegler, but I’m a little disappointed that he’s letting his current involvement with Arrington and CrunchFund compromise his attempts to righteously crucify idiots like Lyons. By definition, he can never be right about Path. Every word used to take down those who want to pile on will be another squirt of gasoline on the fire, no matter how smart, astute or funny they are. The smartest thing he can do at this point is to stop writing about it. I hope it’s a lesson he carries with him in his future VC endeavors. Let Arrington wave his hand dismissively at those pointing out the inappropriateness of mixing self-interest and content – no one expects more from him. Let other hacks walk into punches like this.

And screw you for making me concede anything to Dan Lyons.

Apple’s Foxconn Problem: a Practical Approach to a Solution

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Feb 082012
 

The reason I object to causes that aim to improve working conditions in Chinese tech mills by protesting and/or boycotting Apple isn’t because I don’t think people deserve a humane employment environment. It’s because the rationale that makes up this pressure is half-assed, if it exists at all. Because Apple makes the biggest margins on its smartphones and tablets, Apple should empty its pockets into some kind of the rainbow puppy fund which magically improves the lives of workers. How that transaction gets created, funded and administered is usually met with some kind of dismissive hand motion on the part of the people who already signed up at SumOfUs.org, and have therefore fully registered their indignation.

I hate to break it to all the armchair philanthropists out there, but Apple makes upward of a 45% margin on their products is because what people are willing to pay – and in some cases how much wireless carriers subsidize – is far in excess of what these products cost now. The reason the iPhone can leverage large subsidies out of carriers started because Apple spent an enormous amount of effort and several years to build a non-shit mobile phone. Once it was designed, they shopped their product around confidently, and got Heismanned by Verizon before falling into the arms of AT&T, who signed them into an exclusive agreement. If you recall, the first iPhone wasn’t subsidized by AT&T. Enough people paid full price for it that Apple was able to parley its success into a subsidy, probably at the expense of market freedom that let the army of shitpile Android knock-offs bust down Verizon’s and other carriers’ doors. Apple commands its margins because it built a superior, minimalist piece of consumer electronics kit vacuum-packed into Apple incredible App Store ecosystem, sold in the most pristine retail environment and supported in a way that earns the company best-in-class consumer satisfaction awards every year. In other words, they didn’t trip and fall into their current success – they earned it.

Part of the reason – a minor part, mind you – that Apple is able to offer its unicorn tears at a reasonable price is because Apple, like every consumer electronics maker on the planet, assembles their products in other countries, China chief among them. The part of the January 21 New York Times article that wasn’t unsubstantiated former Apple employee heresy highlights why: it’s less about the economics and more about the logistics. Apple makes wildly successful products that requires wildly massive outlays of human capital on demand. I have no doubt that some variation of the overtime abuse claimed in these pieces happens when Apple shifts into balls-out production mode. The speed at which the products are assembled is actually the biggest bottleneck Apple currently faces, something that’s been mentioned by Tim Cook on more than one occasion. That’s why Apple’s building factories in other countries – to address the throughput issue in a way that’s less taxing on existing resources. But that’s in the future, and it may not be a complete solution. So how does Apple, who has been causing some stress to the channel used by others to assemble its wares, improve the conditions of workers fairly? Of course I have some ideas, the listing of which represents more effort than I’ve seen applied to it to date.

  • Contact all the manufacturers of devices that use foreign labor to assemble their wares. Here’s a partial list, from our friends at Wikipedia:

Acer Inc.
Amazon
ASRock
Asus
Barnes & Noble
Cisco
Dell
EVGA Corporation
Hewlett-Packard
Intel
IBM
Lenovo
Microsoft
MSI
Motorola
Netgear
Nintendo
Nokia
Panasonic
Samsung
Sharp
Sony
Sony Ericsson
Vizio

  • Announce that you’re spearheading an initiative to improve working conditions in factories that their products are assembled and invite them to contribute. The fairest contribution methodology I can come up with is that it be a “tax” derived as percentage of the value of the components making up the device multiplied by the number of devices. Apple doesn’t pay more per device because it makes more money, but it does pay more into the kitty because of its insane volume. Proceeds from Galaxy Tab assembly can be used for a “coffee of the month” subscription. Don’t want to be a part of the Apple solution to the industry’s problem? No sweat. Apple will make sure a list of contributors and non-contributors is publicly available so every crackpot .org can scream about boycotting your ass.
  • Have Mike Daisey contribute $5/ticket from net proceeds of “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” to the same fund. As long as we’re punishing Apple for making money off of its name, we may as well be thorough. I’m sure he’d agree. I’m kidding. Sort of.
  • Have one of these watchdog groups administer the fund with input from representatives of the workforce. If it were me, I’d throw down a raise across the board and some extra incentive for overtime, but I don’t know what floats the average factory laborer’s boat. The point is that the spending decisions gets made based on worker input.
  • Have the watchdog group also monitor the factories so they don’t pull any bullshit like yanking down worker’s salaries to account for the extra money they get from the Collective. They would also keep an eye on all the usual stuff like consecutive hours worked, total hours worked and appropriately-aged laborers. I assume that’s the kind of stuff you pay these people for.

If the people caterwauling about Apple are interested in bettering the conditions of the people that assemble their consumer electronics, something like this represents a rational starting point. Singling out Apple, while probably more cathartic than indicting all manufacturers, is disingenuous and lazy. Real world problems spawned by globalization require solutions that go beyond shaking your fist and blindly boycotting. Real solutions don’t penalize some companies more than others because some of them worked harder to enjoy their current level of success. They distribute the responsibility to all the parties involved. I hope Apple’s response to its critics resembles a real, sustainable solution.

Philip McCracken Supports the Boycott of Apple

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Feb 082012
 

Change.org and SumOfUs.org are combining their angst to deliver petitions to Apple Stores across the world. According to the site, 250,000 people have registered their concerns about the conditions under which their iPhones are being made. Because nothing communicates extreme discontent like scrawling your name on a piece of paper. From SumOfUs.org’s press release:

“Apple’s attention to detail is famous, and the only way they could fail to be aware of dozens of worker deaths, of child labor, of exposure to neurotoxins is through willful ignorance.”

Dozens eh? I recall seeing that four people died making iPads in the Times article, but I guess if you want to pin every Foxconn suicide on Apple, by all means do so. You’re not going to make a difference in the world without a little hyperbole. What exactly should Apple do?

…sign the petition to Apple telling them to make the iPhone 5 ethically.

Ethically. Pay workers more? I kinda think Apple would be all for it. How about the rest of the dozens of manufacturers that use facilities like Foxconn? Should they kick in too?

Apple is the richest company in the world, posting a profit margin for the last quarter of 42.4% yesterday.

So Apple should pay…wait – how does that translate into what Apple should do on behalf of the entire consumer electronics industry?

They’re sitting on $100 billion in the bank.

Upon reflection, this cause is beyond petty details like “fairness in implementation” or “shared responsibility”. That’s why Philip McCracken has just joined the rest of his fellow citizens in answering SumOfUs’s call to arms against teh ebil Apple.

The Most Compelling Argument Yet for an Apple Television

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Feb 082012
 

I’ve gone on record about how much sense it makes for Apple to graduate from making a set-top Apple TV to Apple making an actual TV. Several times. But the evidence keeps piling up – if by “evidence” you mean “totally unsubstantiated rumors and bullshit ‘supply chain checks’”. But after much digging, I’ve finally uncovered some data that makes a strong case for Apple to make a television.

*source

This is for all of you who haven’t been tracking the recent financial performance of TV manufacturers, a group that apparently includes Gene Munster. Every one of the top five have experienced a drop in sales in their most currently reported quarter compared to the previous year. Seems like a business you’d want to get into.

Some people contend that this is only evidence of a market ripe for the kind of breathtaking innovation that Apple brought to mobile phones. I contend that these people will never be involved in the decision-making at Apple, Inc.

Some Rational Thoughts about Apple and Foxconn

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Feb 032012
 

I admit, when I peruse TechCrunch’s articles about Apple, I don’t expect to agree with what’s written (unless its penned by every TC commenter’s least favorite fanboy, MG Siegler). John Biggs submitted a short piece today, however, that outlines something in between the screed of bombastic Michael Moore wannabes and the see-no-evil rationalizations of robot fanboys:

To go into the Foxconn factory is to see a place staffed by college-age kids and engineers who work 10 or so hours a day building electronics. There is no great Dickensian work house nor are there sad-eyed madonnas of the assembly line chained to the soldering irons. This isn’t the mundanity of evil – this is just mundanity.

Tim Cook is a supply chain guru. You don’t get to be exceptional at it without knowing what’s going on inside the companies that assemble your kit. Apple has – and will continue to – improve the conditions of the people who work on its products. And God have mercy, I think the Gawker commenter quoted in the article sums it up well: ““I believe Tim Cook will do more good for those employees (and already has, in point of fact) than Mike Daisey ever will.”

The New York Times: 1851 – 2012

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Feb 022012
 

There was a time when any paper worth its salt wouldn’t accept quotes from anonymous sources and considered it an insult to investigative journalism. But as newspapers became more competitive, the exceptions became more common. Their use peaked (for a while) in 1981 when the Washington Post’s Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer documenting the life of an 8 year old heroin addict whose identity was concealed for his protection. Unfortunately for the Post and the Pulitzer Prize Board, the child was a complete fabrication. The use of anonymous sources remains controversial, and some papers have banned the practice altogether. The founder of the most read newspaper in the country, USA Today, Allen H. Neuharth, didn’t allow them at all, saying “There’s not a place for anonymous sources…on balance, the negative impact is so great that we can’t overcome the lack of trust until or unless we ban them.” Today, among the country’s elite papers, it is still used sparingly.

That practice went out the window when the New York Times published two pieces documenting the emigration of manufacturing jobs to China and a follow-up piece detailing the failure of Apple to maintain a humane work environment for companies assembling i-Devices on its behalf. Of the eleven quotes attributed to current or former Apple employees in the article that ran on January 21, only two are named. The remaining Apple sources: “One former executive”,  “a current Apple executive”, “one former high-ranking Apple executive”, “a former Apple executive”, “another former high-ranking Apple executive”, “one Apple executive”, “a person close to Apple” and “a current Apple executive”. None of the Apple sources in the damning piece written on January 25 are named. This is from The Gray Lady, a paper that used to represent the high bar of journalism.

One could argue that Apple’s legendary secrecy would endanger the employment of the current employees, but former executives as well? Not one former Apple executive thought enough about the abhorrant human rights violations alleged by the Times to speak on the record. Although it allows a freedom that leads to sensational journalism, basing the entirety of you insider perspective on anonymous screed doesn’t reflect very well on respected news sources. Think Star Magazine or The National Enquirer. Here’s what I found to be the most hilarious example of this unattributable “Internet avatar journalism”:

For Mr. Cook, the focus on Asia “came down to two things,” said one former high-ranking Apple executive. Factories in Asia “can scale up and down faster” and “Asian supply chains have surpassed what’s in the U.S.” The result is that “we can’t compete at this point,” the executive said.

When using anonymous “sources”, shouldn’t one “make an attempt” to get “more than one sentence” in quotes? Could you really not get an unnamed source to put two coherent clauses together?

Utter lack of attributable quotes aside, the first piece isn’t very enlightening. Apple, like every other consumer electronics maker, assembles their products in China. It soon became apparent, however, that the first piece was a set-up for the punchline that was delivered January 25: Apple has negligently contributed to 2 industrial accidents in plants where iOS devices were assembled and has consistently turned a blind eye to the conditions that workers in these plants are forced to endure. Unfortunately for any standard bearing a resemblance to serious journalism, not a single source is named. Among the identity-free accusations from Apple:

“You can set all the rules you want, but they’re meaningless if you don’t give suppliers enough profit to treat workers well,” said one former Apple executive with firsthand knowledge of the supplier responsibility group. “If you squeeze margins, you’re forcing them to cut safety.”

“We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on,” said one former Apple executive who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of confidentiality agreements. “Why? Because the system works for us. Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice…If half of iPhones were malfunctioning, do you think Apple would let it go on for four years?”

And the masterstroke that serves as the closing of the piece:

 “You can either manufacture in comfortable, worker-friendly factories, or you can reinvent the product every year, and make it better and faster and cheaper, which requires factories that seem harsh by American standards,” said a current Apple executive.“And right now, customers care more about a new iPhone than working conditions in China.”

Even a consultant hired to advise Apple on working conditions couldn’t name himself, but that didn’t prevent a damning allegation:

“We’ve spent years telling Apple there are serious problems and recommending changes,” said a consultant at BSR — also known as Business for Social Responsibility — which has been twice retained by Apple to provide advice on labor issues. “They don’t want to pre-empt problems, they just want to avoid embarrassments.”

“We could have saved lives, and we asked Apple to pressure Foxconn, but they wouldn’t do it,” said the BSR consultant, who asked not to be identified because of confidentiality agreements. “Companies like H.P. and Intel and Nike push their suppliers. But Apple wants to keep an arm’s length, and Foxconn is their most important manufacturer, so they refuse to push.”

Of course people at BSR who do go on record had a decidedly different outlook on working with Apple. From BSR’s President:

“My BSR colleagues and I view Apple as a company that is making a highly serious effort to ensure that labor conditions in its supply chain meet the expectations of applicable laws, the company’s standards and the expectations of consumers.”

I wonder how many off-the-record pussies it takes to make one Eileen Foster. Maybe someday the Times will produce one.

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