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Indian software firm Wipro plans to open a big software design center in Atlanta. The Bangalore, India-based firm expects to hire around 500 computer programmers in the next three years. It’s a curious turnabout from the much more familiar story: a U.S. software company creating jobs in India.

Another story about jobs being outsourced to a 3rd world country. When does it ever stop?

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State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill and his family, returning from an Italian vacation last month, were pulled aside and detained by customs agents at Logan International Airport after one of his four daughters was caught with contraband – three peaches.

“We were treated like criminals,” said Cahill, whose teenage daughter had stowed the fruit in her carry-on to eat during the nine-hour flight. “They made us feel like we were guilty of smuggling.”

[..]

“They just said, ‘You have to pay a $300 fine.’ I was threatened by another agent that if I didn’t pay the fine, I would have to spend the night in jail,” he said. Cahill said he was not told that if he paid the fine, he would waive any right to appeal.

Cahill, who did not tell the agents that he was an elected official, had been reluctant to speak publicly about the encounter until yesterday because he “didn’t want to make it a big issue that the state treasurer and his family were treated inappropriately.”

He changed his mind after recounting his story to a group of lawmakers and travel and tourism industry representatives last week. At the meeting called by US Representative William Delahunt, attendees recounted difficulties encountered by overseas travelers entering the United States since increased airport security measures were put in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Cahill said.

“I do respect the difficult role that Homeland Security has,” Cahill said. “It’s a balancing act. Unfortunately in my case, the balance was not struck very well. As a citizen who cares about security, I think that the time needs to be spent better and maybe on less serious issues than peaches.

Duh. And until your country grows up, you’re not going to get my tourist dollars.

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IllegalSigns.ca tracks illegal billboards in Toronto. You can use their Google Maps mash-up to find illegal signs in your neighbourhood.

The first comment on this post explaining advertising abuse through mural applications is also pretty funny.

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Meet Wonkette’s new favorite Baptist preacher and Christian Radio deejay, 58-year-old Tommy Tester of Bristol, Virginia. He was just hanging out at a car wash, in Tennessee, drunk and high, wearing a skirt, “relieving himself in front of children,” with an open bottle of vodka and an empty oxycodone prescription sitting in the car. Oh, and he was “offering police officers oral sex.”

You can just imagine the cops pulling up to haul off the preacher pervert and their utter disbelief when, instead of showing any shame or denying everything, he offers to suck them off.

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Do they really expect us to believe them this time?

“The terrorists and the Baathists loyal to the old regime will fail because America and our allies have a strategy, and our strategy is working.”
President Bush

November 1, 2003

“Our strategy is working.”
Vice President Cheney
September 28, 2004

“That’s our strategy. And it is working and it is going to work, for the good of the country.”
President Bush
June 24, 2005

“Our strategy is working.”
White House’s “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”
November 30, 2005

“This approach is working.”
President Bush
December 7, 2005

“It is a concrete example of how our strategy is working.”
Frm. White House spokesman Scott McClellan

March 20, 2006

“It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq. Yet the strategy is working.”
President Bush
March 20, 2006

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Sometime around February 2004, a top military official in Iraq estimated that there were about 15,000 total insurgents. About a year later, U.S. military leaders in Iraq announced that 15,000 insurgents had been killed or captured in the previous year.

In private, a skeptical military adviser pointed out to commanders that the numbers didn’t make sense. “If all the insurgents were killed,” he asked, “why are they fighting harder than ever?”

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Doctors have discovered 26 needles embedded in the body of a woman in China, believed to have been inserted not long after she was born by grandparents upset she was not a boy, state media said Friday.

The sewing needles were found in an X-ray after the 29-year-old, Luo Cuifen, went to a hospital in Yunnan province complaining of blood in her urine, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

Doctors plan to operate to remove as many of the needles as they can, it said, but face “great difficulties” as the images show several had penetrated vital organs including her lungs, liver, bladder, small intestine and kidneys.

She also had needles in her head, neck, and shoulder — some of which are dangerously close to major arteries — and one in her brain that has broken into three pieces, the paper said.

“Her grandmother and grandfather are suspected of doing it because they had wanted a boy, but as they are dead now there is no evidence,” the paper said.

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A 24-year-old singer and guitarist named Marié Digby has been hailed as proof that the Internet is transforming the world of entertainment.

What her legions of fans don’t realize, however, is that Ms. Digby’s career demonstrates something else: that traditional media conglomerates are going to new lengths to take advantage of the Internet’s ability to generate word-of-mouth buzz.

Ms. Digby’s simple, homemade music videos of her performing popular songs have been viewed more than 2.3 million times on YouTube. Her acoustic-guitar rendition of the R&B hit “Umbrella” has been featured on MTV’s program “The Hills” and is played regularly on radio stations in Los Angeles, Sacramento and Portland, Ore. Capping the frenzy, a press release last week from Walt Disney Co.’s Hollywood Records label declared: “Breakthrough YouTube Phenomenon Marié Digby Signs With Hollywood Records.”

What the release failed to mention is that Hollywood Records signed Ms. Digby in 2005, 18 months before she became a YouTube phenomenon. Hollywood Records helped devise her Internet strategy, consulted with her on the type of songs she chose to post, and distributed a high-quality studio recording of “Umbrella” to iTunes and radio stations.

In an Aug. 16 blog posting on her MySpace page, Ms. Digby wrote: “I NEVER in a million years thought that doing my little video of Umbrella in my living room would lead to this . tv shows, itunes, etc !!!”

Yeah. Right.

So when is the “private” sex video going to be leaked?

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Let’s deconstruct the incident. Apple announced a variety of new and kinda-new iPods dominated by the iPod Touch (iPhone minus the phone) and an iPod Nano with video (great for watching miniseries). At the very end of the presentation, Jobs announced the iPhone price cut. Why did he wait until the very end? Because he knew the news would be disruptive and might have obscured his presentation of the new products. He KNEW there was going to be controversy. So much for the “Steve is simply out of touch with the world” theory.

So why did he do it? Why did he cut the price? I have no inside information here, but it seems pretty obvious to me: Apple introduced the iPhone at $599 to milk the early adopters and somewhat limit demand then dropped the price to $399 (the REAL price) to stimulate demand now that the product is a critical success and relatively bug-free. At least 500,000 iPhones went out at the old price, which means Apple made $100 million in extra profit.

Had nobody complained, Apple would have left it at that. But Jobs expected complaints and had an answer waiting — the $100 Apple store credit. This was no knee-jerk reaction, either. It was already there just waiting if needed. Apple keeps an undeserved $50 million and customers get $50 million back. Or do they? Some customers will never use their store credit. Those who do use it will nearly all buy something that costs more than $100. And, most importantly, those who bought their iPhones at an AT&T store will have to make what might be their first of many visits to an Apple Store. That is alone worth the $50 per customer this escapade will eventually cost Apple, taking into account unused credits and Apple Store wholesale costs.

So Apple still comes out $75 million ahead, which is important to Steve Jobs.

You could wait for this…

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.

A. A. Milne (1882 – 1956)

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SECURITY at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum seems designed to foil terrorists by sheer bafflement, judging by the experience of two Herald reporters yesterday.

Last month they had to fill in a nine-page questionnaire, including every address they had occupied in the past 10 years (with the dates when they had moved in and out).

They were told that to obtain a photo identity they had to appear in person with photo identification. At the Sydney Convention Centre they were confronted by a wall of police and security guards. “You can’t enter without your APEC photo ID passes,” a guard said, barring the way.

“But that’s what we have come to collect,” the reporters pleaded, waving emails advising that their passes had been approved. The security officers went into a huddle before ruling the reporters could enter this time.

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This is a picture of the 1,300 unopened rebate forms a Mercury News reporter found in a dumpster near Vastech, a rebate processor for Fry’s Electronics.

When confronted, the company’s owner blamed it on a lazy employee who no longer works for Vastech and offered to process and sign checks for all of the envelopes in front of the reporter.

The employee was probably lazy in that he was ordered the shred them first. Rebates are swindles.

[Steve Jobs:]

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

[..]

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple’s website next week. Stay tuned.