john mccain
Latest
John McCain applauds Tim Cook for automatic app updates in iOS 7
Back in May, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked Apple CEO Tim Cook, after grilling him on Apple's tax practices, why he constantly finds himself needing to update the apps on his iPhone. "What I really wanted to ask," said McCain in a lighthearted moment, "is why the hell do I have to keep updating apps on my iPhone all the time?" Cook smiled politely and responded, "We're trying to make things better all the time." Now I'm guessing that McCain was far too busy handling more important matters than keeping up with the latest developments from Apple's WWDC keynote, but he did manage to get wind of one of the one upcoming features in iOS 7. In a tweet sent out on Monday afternoon, McCain said: Thanks to Tim Cook for the automatic iphone app updates! #apple #wwdc - John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) June 10, 2013 So now the waiting game begins -- will Tim Cook sign up for Twitter and give it a re-tweet?
Ireland says it has no special "tax deal" with Apple; Senators Levin and McCain dispute claim
Despite claims to the contrary, Ireland Ambassador Michael Collins this past week penned a letter to US Senators Carl Levin and John McCain exclaiming that Ireland has no special tax deal with Apple. The letter reads in part: First, Ireland's tax system is set out in statute - so there is no possibility of individual special tax rates being negotiated for companies. All tax resident companies in Ireland are liable to corporation tax on the chargeable income at the rate of 12.5% on trading income and at 25% on non-trading income. The tax rates attributed to Ireland in the Memorandum appear to be calculated by reference to the companies' entire profits, as if those companies are tax-resident in Ireland. This is despite the fact that the Memorandum clearly states that the companies concerned are not tax-resident in Ireland. The tax rates attributed to Ireland are wrong and misleading. Second, building on this analysis, the Memorandum refers to Ireland as a "tax haven". As you will be aware, the OECD has identified four key indicators of a tax haven. None of these criteria applies to Ireland. Understandably, many politicians are upset over Apple and other multinationals leaving billions upon billions of profits overseas. However, in their ostensible effort to paint Apple as the bad guy, they are not only ignoring the tax code which allows Apple to do what it does, but have also gotten a number of key facts wrong. For instance, Carl Levin initially stated that Apple's operation in Ireland was nothing more than a ghost operation with no employees. Come to find out, Apple actually employs upwards of 4,000 employees in Ireland. In any event, both Carl Levin and John McCain responded to Collins' letter wherein they disputed his assertions. Their statement reads: Records obtained by the subcommittee clearly reflect that, for years, Apple paid Irish tax authorities a nominal rate, far below Ireland's statutory rate of 12.5 percent, on trading income. Testimony by key Apple executives, including CEO Tim Cook and Head of Tax Operations Phillip Bullock, corroborates that Apple had a special arrangement with the Irish government that, since 2003, resulted in an effective tax rate of 2 percent or less. Most reasonable people would agree that negotiating special tax arrangements that allow companies to pay little or no income tax meets a common-sense definition of a tax haven. Well, this clearly isn't a topic that's going to die down anytime soon. Note, though, that until Congress changes the law in some regard, Apple will continue to keep its $100 billion cash hoard overseas.
Obama, Palin, others playable in NBA Jam
What, you expected any less? Yes, of course various political and cultural icons will be showing up in EA's just released reboot to NBA Jam. ESPN revealed as much in a recent interview with the game's creative director, Trey Smith, who said not only is former President Bill Clinton a playable character, but also the Beastie Boys, President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former VP Al Gore. A team of republicans is helmed by Miss Wasilla 1984 herself, Sarah Palin, with former President George W. Bush, former VP Dick Cheney and Arizona Senator John McCain backing her up. "Secret characters were on the list from day one," Smith said, adding "these secret characters and the element of surprise is something we hung our hats on very early." EA wouldn't reveal how said characters are accessed, but considering the game was released today for Nintendo Wii (with 360 and PS3 versions coming "in time for the holidays"), we'd suggest you start pounding away at buttons on that character selection screen right now.
FCC net neutrality rules enter drafting process, face McCain challenge
Our old friends at the FCC have started to put words into action, as the net neutrality regulations proposed by Chairman Julius Genachowski have now entered the rule-drafting stage. The provision of most import here is that broadband providers would be forbidden from traffic discrimination or "management," and compelled to provide equal access and services to their users, irrespective of the type or bandwidth uptake of their internet activity. Of course, this is hardly a bumpless road, with Senator John McCain proposing the Internet Freedom Act of 2009, whose sole reason for existing will be to prevent the FCC from putting those rules through. Even if things do go smoothly, though, "reasonable network management" will still be an available recourse for telecoms, where it is necessary to block spam and illegal content, such as child pornography. Which sounds kinda like censorship to us. Look, we have no more interest in child porn than we do a pair of Lady Gaga Heartbeats, but any time we hear of internet providers having either the right or responsibility to block content, we get an uneasy feeling in the pit of our libertarian stomachs. Anyhow, the great big gears of regulation have finally started turning, and we can look forward to more political wrangling as the rules take shape over the coming months.
Presidential race celebrated in mini golf game
Data Design Interactive, the folks responsible for such titles as Ninjabread Man and Anubis II, decided they needed to make a gesture in honor of the election, and what better to do than use their NotMiis to represent a golftastic throwdown between President-Elect Barack Obama and his former opponent, John McCain? Well, there's not much actual golf in the trailer in question, for Crazy Mini Golf, but there is a victory dance, as well as some dudes who somewhat resemble the politicos.
38 Studios head Curt Schilling stumps for Senator McCain
Tomorrow is election day here in the United States. On the eve of the candidates' final battle, Senator McCain is making some of his last appearances on the campaign trail with well-known former Red Sox player Curt Schilling. Well known as a phenomenal pitcher, Schilling is best known to those of us in the MMO world as an enthusiastic World of Warcraft player and head of the 38 Studios development house. Schilling is also a supporter of the Republic party generally, a fact we noted in a story about MMO-industry political contributions back in early October.Schilling has even been known to get into verbal debates with fellow players over political issues in forums like that run by the Fires of Heaven guild. As reported by the Boston Globe, Schilling provided a sort of centrist voice at his campaign appearances. Casting aside some of the more serious accusations made against Senator Obama over the last few months, Schilling primarily stated he had questions about the Illinois politician's judgement. You can check out the Globe piece for full details.Regardless of your political affiliations, even MMO players have to vote. Make sure to hit the polls tomorrow, gamers.[Via GamePolitics]
Is Azeroth a red state or a blue state?
From comedians Rich Kuras and Sandeep Parikh (who you know best from The Guild, most likely) comes a look at the United States presidential election through the eyes of Azeroth. If all of the 11 million active World of Warcraft subscriptions were US citizens, Azeroth would be the 8th largest state in the union. Rich Kuras looks to find out whether Azeroth would be a red or a blue state. I think the last thing any of us want is political fisticuffs, so just take this video as the light political humor that it is and don't read too much into it.The polling stats at the end are a little silly because the numbers most certainly wouldn't come out that way on a larger scale survey, but that's alright, it's not meant to be super accurate. It's just a silly little thing, and I chuckled at the commentary from the people they spoke to on both sides of the fence. Deep political commentary? No. Mildly entertaining? Yes! And I admit, I smirked at the mention of Mike Gravel.Thanks to all of you that wrote in about this video the last few days!
Obama, Palin coming to Mercenaries 2 DLC
The hardest thing about picking a presidential candidate is that you can't test them first. You can't see how they'd actually handle real presidential duties, like attempting to balance the federal budget, representing the citizenry abroad and punching out Venezuelan troops before dropping grenades in their tanks. Thankfully, you'll get the chance to see how presidential candidate Barack Obama and VP nominee Sarah Palin will stack up as they'll soon be added as DLC to Mercenaries 2. You can see the video right after the break.Why no John McCain, you ask? Man, you don't need a video game to help you imagine what John McCain would be like as a war hero! McCain doesn't call blowing up an attacking helicopter with a rocket launcher an adventure ... he calls it "Tuesday."[Via GP]
John McCain, inventor of the BlackBerry
Politics aside, we're totally cracking up that McCain policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eaken told reporters today that his BlackBerry was "the miracle that John McCain helped create" -- dude, BlackBerrys are Canadian.[Via Wonkette, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Gamerpick: Xbox Live Rock the Vote polled, Obama ahead
The get-kids-voting people behind Rock the Vote recently spread out beyond the limitations of MTV's core demographic and decided to enlist the Xbox Live community, long known to be an e-bastion of enlightened political discourse. So, being the politically (and mathematically!) astute bloggers we are, we took a look at the live poll results, as presented by MyGamerCard.net.As of press time, Democratic-nom Barack Obama had a commanding lead over Republican oppollnent John McCain, with 4,623 gamerpics in circulation versus just 2,076 – a nearly insurmountable lead of 2,547 gamerpics. That's fine, but what's the real story here? How the pundits and the pollsters – clouded by the corruption and cynicism of a two-party election system – have ignored the dark horse in this election: Gears of War skull face guy, who right now controls a most impressive 87,626 of The People's votes. Ignore the political machine and vote your conscience! [Via Cheap Ass Gamer]
See John McCain in POW Bros.
Right, so the Mario Bros. remake below the jump -- by former Joystiq writer Jared Rea -- might be just the slightest bit offensive (and not in a NSFW way). But, it's also very funny, which has always trumped offense in our book. He says it's the result of a Twitter joke gone too far, but in our book it's gone just far enough.Mr. Rea does provide some additional explanation for the gag on his blog, but we hope you don't need it (you're not that removed from the outside world, are you?).
Obama and McCain gamerpics available, you read that right
Don't you just wish there was an easy way to identify Democrats and Republicans that didn't require DNA testing? Well, now there is! Hitting Xbox Live a few nights ago were a pair of free gamerpics that showcased the logos of both Presidential candidates in the Xbox Live Rock the Vote promotional menu. Now you can showoff your favorite candidate in between your daily grind of Team Slayer. Promoting the importance of selecting the next President of the United States, Rock the Vote allows gamers to register, download awesome music videos and anti-gaming politicians even promise to stop calling all gamers potential ticking time bombs! We'll let you decide which part was a joke. You're right, those videos are probably crap.
Daily Show talks campaign games
We already brought the fantastic John McCain Space Invaders clone (which has you firing vetos at pigs shooting what we've recently realized are upside-down crosses) to your attention, but The Daily Show picked up on it last night, and added some of their own politically-themed games for your consideration (skip to 4:20 in the video after the break for the bit).We know they're both fictional, but are we the only ones who would totally play Yes We Cannon? No? Just us? OK.
McCain campaign releases facebook game: Pork Invaders
While most of our time on popular social networking site Facebook is spent trying to impress our cohorts with our favorite bands and films or attempting to propel porpoises into the far reaches of the spiral galaxy, we recently took notice of a new application added by Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's campaign staff: a simple flash game titled Pork Invaders, an obvious parody of the similarly titled arcade classic.Don't mistake the game's title to mean the Arizona senator harbors any disdain for unkosher meats -- rather, the act of firing vetoes at familiar patterns of descending pigs symbolizes the candidate's contempt for pork barrel spending -- the earmarking of funds for seemingly unnecessary projects. It's not a particularly good game, though it is worth noting when the U.S.'s prospective new leaders enter the intimidating world of game development. We hope for a swift response from the presumptive Democratic candidate's campaign -- Obomberman, perhaps?[Via GamePolitics]
Obama and McCain face stiff competition
If you live in the U.S., you probably know that there's a presidential election coming up this November. As it stands, you currently have a few front-runner options: John McCain, Barack Obama, or ... Mario and Luigi?Yes, the joke's been done before (especially because of the nine thousand Mario Party games out there), but now it's on a t-shirt. Yet, that's not where Nintendo stops interfering in politics.Supporters of presidential candidate (and popular Mii), Barack Obama, have made a ton of 1up themed paraphernalia endorsing the candidate. The "O" in "Obama" was replaced with the green power-up, and the slogan reads, "Obama: 1up for America." Check past the break (or just click here) to see the design made by the Leftique.Now all we need is some game gear for McCain, and Nintendo will have completely taken over this election.
What if politics were more like Pokemon?
If politics were more like Pokemon, we would be campaigning for Meowth. How can you lose when your platform consists of being totally awesome?But we digress ... One gamer has captured his view of this year's election lead-up with a mock Pokemon battle between the three presidential hopefuls. It has an obvious pro-Barack Obama slant and an anti-other candidates bias, but it's still clever enough to warrant a look no matter which politician you're leaning towards. Check it out past the post break as an animated GIF image and its evolved form, Youtube video!
