Last Call

Bye Ricky.  We'll miss you.  Not.  Signed, Blah People everywhere.

Rick Santorum announced Tuesday that he is suspending his presidential campaign, all but bringing to a close the 2012 GOP presidential contest and effectively handing the nomination to Mitt Romney.

“We made a decision over the weekend that, while this presidential race for us is over — for me — and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said at a campaign event in Gettysburg, Pa., the site of the historic and pivotal Civil War battle.

The former Pennsylvania senator had been Romney’s top opponent, but he suffered a trio of defeats last week in Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia, and over the weekend his daughter, Bella, was hospitalized for the second time this campaign due to complications from a rare genetic disorder.

In announcing his decision, Santorum said Bella’s condition caused him to reconsider his campaign but that she “is a fighter and doing extraordinarily well.”

He did not endorse or urge the delegates that he has won to support another candidate, but spokesman Hogan Gidley told MSNBC that the Romney campaign has requested a meeting about an endorsement, which he said Santorum is “open” to.

I bet.  And I'm sure everyone will forget the last three months of brutal Santorum attacks on Romney, just like everyone will magically forget Romney's extremist positions in order to stay ahead of him.  Please.

Let the real games begin.

Bull Fighting, SCOTUS-Style

Buzzfeed's Ben Smith posts this "argument" as to how a 5-4 decision to overturn the entire Affordable Care Act would be justified:

We aren’t being asked to radically revise the Commerce Clause and throw out seven decades of law, and we won’t. But we know the founders never intended the Commerce Clause to allow the Federal Government to regulate everything on the planet. So we are going to accept Randy Barnett’s basically spurious exception to that basically spurious idea, and throw out the Affordable Care Act on the grounds that the Commerce Clause regulates “activity” (which we don’t really believe), but not “inactivity” (because, why not draw the line somewhere?).

In other words, the Court's conservatives won't specifically say that the Commerce Clause itself (and the last 70 years of law predicated upon it) is complete bull, just that the lynchpin of the ACA (the individual mandate) is.  Ergo,  they'll use a complete bull argument to overturn what they believe is a complete bull law.

Like Ed Kilgore says, if that's the case it's clear what the next steps would be:

Under this construction, of course, the Court wouldn’t admit what it was actually doing, but would embrace the “spurious exception” in order to avoid a direct reversal of the “spurious doctrine.” But it would definitely burrow into the foundations of the “fantasy mansion” in a way that would make it relatively easy for a future, more radically conservative Court—say, the kind that might exist after eight years of a Romney administration—to “throw out seven decades of law,” and with it, the underpinnings of seven decades of social progress, including such minor items as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Better hope the Dems are in a position to stop it, and in the White House.

Go Big Red (And Screw You Blue)

Oh, Nebraska, the state of my birth.  How far will the GOP go in Huskers territory to prevent President Obama from splitting one of five electoral votes off like he did in 2008?   Changing the rules back to winner-take-all failed.  Changing Voter ID laws failed.  So, we're down to plan C.  Why do you have to go there?

But it is recent changes implemented by Douglas County Election Commissioner Dave Phipps, an appointee of Republican Gov. Dave Heineman, that are really raising eyebrows.

Last month, Phipps' plans to close 150 polling places_ more than half of the previous 357 _ in and around Omaha surfaced. That led to complaints that the state's poorest voters with limited access to transportation would be, at best, discouraged from voting and, at worst, unable to get to a polling place.

Within days, Phipps confirmed that his office had knowingly sent out polling place cards to nearly 2,000 north Omaha voters _ a precinct of mostly low-income Democratic voters _ with the wrong polling place information on them.

Phipps defended his actions, saying that the county's voter information cards were already being printed when he honored a request from the area's Democratic representatives to reopen a closed polling place.

"Trying to find 1,745 cards out of 315,000 cards, when they're not printed precinct by precinct, was almost certain to fail," Phipps said. "It's like finding a needle in a haystack."

"We knew we could send out a correction," he said. "We send these types of corrections all the time, and we've never had calls about being confused."

He said he closed polling places because of the combination of redistricting, a state law passed last year that requires larger precincts and his desire to save money.

And why shut down nearly half the precincts in and around Omaha, Nebraska's largest city?

"They're attempting to suppress north Omaha voting," said state Democratic Party Chairman Vic Covalt, who has called for Phipps to be removed from office. "I think it's most material that the precinct that was confused was 82 percent Democrat and a minority population location."

Poor urban minorities don't need "convenient polling places" or anything for something that only really might matter one day out of every four years.  Time to put em in their place.

Way to go, Big Red.

Ahnold Steps In It Again

Arnold Schwarzenegger reportedly slammed Terminator Salvation, saying it missed the boat.  Perhaps it was because he didn't appear in the film.

Though there is some good news from his sudden and random criticism.  We learn that there will be yet another installment, going in the same direction as Salvation, and starring Christian Bale and Sam Worthington.

For what it's worth, I'm a fan of the series, and I thought they did a really good twist in keeping the story fresh and alive, while giving new characters a chance to add to the backstory.  Salvation wasn't a masterpiece but it was different and gave another generation a crack at telling what has become a classic tale.

Show me some more Linda Hamilton and I'll be thrilled.  I'm just saying, dream big.

StupidiNews! Celebrity Roundup

Lindsay Lohan is a walking target.  Whether it's money or fame a person seeks, dragging her down seems to be the goal of many wannabes.  She is the subject of yet another accusation, this time that she became physical at a club after a fellow partier got too friendly with one of the guys in her group.  Lohan has done better lately, but she is so nuts and people are so greedy it's hard to tell where the truth lies in this.  For some silly reason, I am still rooting for Lindsay.

Anne Hathaway stepped out with a stubby pixie cut, and it's adorable.  It takes a lot of confidence to pull this off, but anyone who saw her in that marvelous leather outfit knows she can pull it off.  It's not the signature look of a lifetime, but it balances out her big doe eyes and gives her some much-needed edge.  If it's for an upcoming role, nobody has said anything so far.

Wil Wheaton's law is gaining worldwide momentum.  Anyone who stalks Wheaton like I do knows his favorite rule is "don't be a dick."  It's on his Google+ and other accounts, and he points to it when forced to by unruly fans.  A smoke grenade borrowed a page from his book and included "don't be a dick with our products" on the instruction label.  It's translated, so if thy Wil be done in French, now we will know how to pronounce it.  Mostly.

Climate Change Marches On

Just how hot was last month?  An all-time record monthly average high for the US for March with over 15,000 individual daily high temp records tied or broken.

There’s never been a hotter March in the history of the United States than that of 2012, according to the 117-year-old temperature records kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).

Exactly 15,272 distinct local, all-time warm-weather temperature records were broken across the country in March, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center revealed in its monthly report. The total included 7,755 daytime temperature records and 7,517 nighttime records.

Handily, NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Lab created an animated video showing exactly where and when the various temperature records were broken over the course of the month, allowing viewers to literally see the hot weather spreading throughout the continental U.S. day by day.

Watch:




Hot enough for you?

Steal This Bike

Via Gawker, The Daily Caller's Mark Judge lives in DC and is white.  His bike was stolen last week.  This means that because DC's population is mostly black, that Mark Judge is now free to unleash his inner racist upon the Capital, unfettered by "guilt" or "the common sense God gave a spiny echidna" or "humanity".  Handy!

When I got home I vented to my friends. I told them I was going to scour those neighborhoods until I found the bike. In reply, a liberal friend gave me a lecture about profiling and told me to just forget about the bike. “That person needs our prayers and help,” she said. “They haven’t had the advantages we have.”

That’s when I lost it. I had been carefully educated by liberal parents that we are all, black and white, the same. My favorite movie growing up was “In the Heat of the Night.” Yet that often meant not treating everyone the same. It meant treating blacks with a mixture of patronizing condescension and obsequious genuflecting to their Absolute Moral Authority gained from centuries of suffering. It meant not treating everyone the same.

It meant leaving valuable things like a bike in a vulnerable position in a black part of town because you didn’t want to admit that the crime is worse in poor black neighborhoods.

And the shattered shards of Mark Judge's broken soul go flying around in his own personal blame-nado, shredding whatever decency he had left.  It gets worse from there.

I decided that I’m just going to let go of my white guilt. We’re all human, we all experience pain in our lives. And black pain is no different than white pain.

It felt good to say it: Black pain is no different than white pain. I’m tired of people using the moral authority of past generations for their own personal gain and self-aggrandizement. Soledad O’Brien, a Harvard graduate, acts like she just stepped off the Amistad.

Sure.  It's cool to ignore, belittle, and denigrate the black experience because you're tired of black people basically being black in your life, and if we would just stop being black, right?  Like Trayvon Martin?  Like those five shooting victims in Tulsa?  Like President Obama and the Obama family?

See, here's what guys like Mark here mean by "white guilt" and that is "I really don't like black people, and I really want to affix blame for racism in America on them exclusively, because I'm sick of having to keep the presence of mind to not offend them and I really haven't taken the time to try to understand them outside media stereotypes and the right wing bashing on the President for the last four years, and besides being a racist ass is just easier."

So yeah, another guy goes and "speaks the truth about blacks" and he'll be "unfairly persecuted in our overly politically correct society".  Which is where garbage like this always ends up in the end, down the same chute of racism as the rest.

Can't wait to hear the defense on this one.  But of course it's our fault because we had to have collectively stolen his bike, right?  And most of all throughout American history privileged white males have of course been the real victims of the last 250 years, right?

Jesus wept.

StupidiNews!

• A UN deadline for Syrian troop withdrawal has passed without any halt to the al-Asaad regime's bombing of rebels in Homms and other cities.
• As with North Carolina, the White House has weighed in against Minnesota's ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage.
• Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio is proposing a toned down version of the DREAM Act, but few Republicans seem interested in an election year.
• Facebook has gone shopping and picked up internet photo sharing service Instagram for an even billion.
• Iran plans to cut the country off from the net and replace it with the regime's sanitized, nationalized version with no access to the outside world.

Last Call

What's going on here in Kentucky's employment scene is typical nationally:

With the economy slowly reviving, an executive from Atlas Van Lines recently visited Louisville, Ky., with good news: the company wanted to hire more than 100 truck drivers ahead of the summer moving season.

But a usually reliable source of workers, the local government-financed job center, could offer little help, because the federal money that local officials had designated to help train drivers was already exhausted. Without the government assistance, many of the people who would be interested in applying for the driving jobs could not afford the $4,000 classes to obtain commercial driver’s licenses. Now Atlas is struggling to find eligible drivers.

Across the country, work force centers that assist the unemployed are being asked to do more with less as federal funds dwindle for job training and related services.

And that's because Republicans have cut job training programs again and again.  Both this year's version of the Ryan Austerity Plan and last year's version called for massive cuts to job training programs, and the Republicans got a healthy chunk of those cuts as part of budget deals (that they are looking to renege upon now).  By the way, every single Republican in Congress voted to keep paying federal oil subsidies which would have more than covered the job training budget several times over. 

Instead, these programs are out of money in April already.

To bolster training and other services for jobless workers, the Obama administration recently proposed consolidating two programs. The general dislocated worker program paid for under the Workforce Investment Act would be combined with the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which provides training and other benefits to workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition.

The trade program, which has an annual budget of $575 million, is typically more generous, but narrow in eligibility. The combined program would make all funds available to anyone who had lost a job, regardless of the reason.

In his latest budget proposal, President Obama also requested an additional $2.8 billion a year for job training over the next decade. “Even in this very tight budget,” said Gene Sperling, national economic adviser, “the president felt that there was an imperative to call right now for a more simplified and effective training system” that also had an increase in funds.

You're probably saying to yourself "Why cut job training programs for people who want to work when unemployment is as high as it is?"  You've answered your own question, same as why Republicans want to eliminate federal programs for birth control, preventative care, sex education, early childhood education, and day care.  They don't want anything to get better for the working poor.  They might end up with an extra five bucks to give to a Democrat.  Can't have that.  Gotta have tax cuts for the Job Creators instead.  That'll teach you to be poor.

Mittens: Too Little, Too Late

I guess Mitt Romney just remembered women can vote.  All of a sudden, when it can help him, he thinks women are just the bestest thing ever.

And apparently, he's married to the female Mittens, because like always he brings out his wife anytime someone asks about his ideas on women.

"She reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy, and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves," Romney told the Newspaper Association of America on Wednesday. "They are concerned about gasoline prices, the cost of getting to and from work, taking their kids to school or to practice and so forth after school. That is what women care about in this country, and my vision is to get America working again."

A few days earlier in Middleton, he was asked how he'd counter the Democrats' narrative on contraception. He prefaced his answer this way: "I wish Ann were here … to answer that question in particular."

Well, not quite.  See, we also care about government letting us retain our medical and legal rights, and not subject them to change whenever it suits them.  It would be kind of nice if we were allowed to speak up without being called sluts and treated like vapid little decorations, but I know that clashes with the GOP mission to keep women in their place.  And again, don't forget the GOP voted unanimously to smack down equal pay for women, which is a really stupid way to show their concern about women getting good jobs for their kids and themselves.

She reports to him regularly.  I just bet she does.

Gosh darn it, though, he does see that moms are struggling to drive their kids to school or practice.  I've heard a lot about that in the news, haven't you?  I mean, some women have had to cancel Tupperware parties and combine sewing circle and recipe club.

He knows as much about what women think as I do about killing kittens for profit.  What a jackhole.  Thusly, The Bon knocked the dust off the jackass tag and officially brings it back from semi-retirement.

Now There's Some BS For You

Safety experts are stunned after a passenger plane filled with smoke while trying to land at a snowy Denver International Airport, but  the air traffic controller dismissed the call for help from the pilot as “B.S.”

The April 3 flight from Peoria, Ill., was scheduled to land in Denver. Everything was going according to plan until smoke filled the plane.  The pilot of the United plane called the control tower to request an emergency landing.

There is some debate, saying these prank calls are fairly common, and the pilot should have announced himself by giving United Airlines and the number, which may have made the controller suspect that something was wrong.  However, his blunt dismissal was shocking, because I would think they would have to err to the side of caution.

“And, ah, I apologize. If you probably heard there, that’s not real what we’re hearing on the frequency,” the controller announced to his coworkers.

The plane prepared for an emergency landing believing that fire crews had been dispatched and were ready to assist.

When the plane landed, the pilots called the control tower again in a panic.
“We’re on the runway!  We’ve been evacuating! We’ve been evacuating!  34 right!” the pilot screamed.

But even with the plane on the ground, the controllers still didn’t believe the emergency was real. 

Yeah, he's probably going to feel pretty bad about this once all the facts roll in.  I almost feel sorry for the guy, but he really doesn't seem to take a possible disaster seriously.  As it is, glad to hear they landed safely and there were no reports of injuries.  I can't imagine anything more terrifying than an airplane malfunction of any kind, but maybe fire above all.

Fair Enough

NBC has fired the producer responsible for the edited Zimmerman 911 call.

What Zimmerman did was deplorable.  It did not need to be altered to make it more so.  Given the edit, it's hard to believe it was accidental.  It was damaging, and could actually backfire and gain sympathy for Zimmerman being a victim of the press (and the likes of Roseanne Barr).

Truth should speak for itself.  In this case it's loud and clear who was in the right.  It's shameful for the press to alter information for ratings.  Normally, I am not a fan of sacrificing an employee to show remorse, but it was their job to know that call and the facts inside and out.

Now, let's get back to doing what we can to take care of the real underlying issues here.

Tooting My Own Horn

Sometimes experiments turn out well.

For those who don't know, I write a little fiction blog called Dead Shuffle.  It really started as a personal project, a blog that kept my fiction moving.  What has happened has been awesome.  The readers have contacted me (it's been mostly positive, thank goodness) and most have enjoyed watching a rough project turn into a dandy good time.

Two things have changed that I wanted to mention here.  First, Dead Shuffle is accepting submissions.  Anyone who has a hankering to kill off characters in fun and exciting ways should use my site to pitch an idea.

The other bit-o-coolness is that there will be a limited edition comic based on the blog.  It will be run with the launch of another comic, by the same artist.

I won't do this often, but when a big event comes up, or we attend a major convention, I'll post it here.  For all events, you can check on the front page of my site and I'll start listing them as we book events.

With Mali's Aforethought

Things continue to get more tense in the African nation of Mali as President Toure has officially resigned...at least, official by some accounts.

A parliamentary official in Mali says the democratically elected leader of Mali, who has been in hiding ever since a coup last month, has turned in his resignation.

President Amadou Toumani Toure's resignation paves the way for a new interim president to be named in keeping with the constitution.

Issa Togo, the chief of staff of the National Assembly President Dioncounda Traore, said Sunday he had just received a phone call letting him know the president sent an emissary with a resignation letter.

The president was just months from stepping down when soldiers on March 21 stormed the presidential palace, toppling his government.

The nations neighboring Mali imposed harsh sanctions and on Friday, the military junta agreed to step down.

But the junta and the President they opposed are gone, so it's entirely possible that the interim President will be able to calm things down.  On the other hand, it's entirely possible things could go straight to hell, too.  We'll see how this goes.  It's possible too that the junta may not actually step down anytime soon, either.

The Funda-Mitt-al Problem With Romney

Melissa Harris-Perry takes a look at why Mitt Romney can't connect with voters along with her panel.  They spend a good 20 minutes or so on the subject, but the answer's really easy.



Hey Professor?  Mitt Romney is an inveterate liar.  Period, full stop, end of analysis.  It has nothing to do with his Mormon faith, or his bland personality, or even his wealth, really.  It has everything to do with the fact he can't tell the truth to save his own campaign, especially when that truth has anything to do with President Barack Obama.

Here's a thought.  Have a chat with your colleague Rachel Maddow, who at least has the decency to call Mitt Romney what he is: a liar.  Have her come on the show, and ask her about Mitt.  Because 20 minutes of trying to show me Mitt Romney isn't so bad is the reason I turned off the MHP show after the first half hour.

It really isn't that complicated.

StupidiNews!

• Reports from South Korean intelligence suggest North Korea will be engaged in another round of nuclear weapons testing in addition to testing a rocket launch this week, raising tensions.
• Tulsa, Oklahoma police have arrested two white suspects in connection with the shooting spree that left 3 African-Americans dead and two more injured last week.
• Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff arrives in Washington for a visit with President Obama, carrying a 77% approval rating in her country after sacking several corrupt ministers.
• The FBI is increasingly looking to foreign students and investors who may be spies for other countries.
• Netflix is getting more involved in the politics game with its own PAC to influence Washington.

Last Call

CBS icon and 60 Minutes mainstay Mike Wallace has passed at the age of 93.

Mike Wallace, the long time journalist at CBS News, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 93.

Wallace’s passing was reported by Face the Nation host Bob Scheiffer at the beginning of the program, who said he died in New Haven, Connecticut with his family.

Wallace was apart of 60 Minutes since the inception from 1968 to his semi-retirement in 2006, helping shape the program into a prominent newsmagazine telecast. He was reportedly ill for years before his passing.

Some 60 plus years in the business, the man who put 60 Minutes on the map will be missed.  The AP's wrapup of Wallace's life is here:



Amazing stuff.  There will never be anyone quite like him, and that's unfortunate.

Happy Easter From The GOP, Folks!

This Easter Sunday, the NY Times has this Jason DeParle story on red states shredding welfare safety nets and the people who keep falling through them.

Faced with flat federal financing and rising need, Arizona is one of 16 states that have cut their welfare caseloads further since the start of the recession — in its case, by half. Even as it turned away the needy, Arizona spent most of its federal welfare dollars on other programs, using permissive rules to plug state budget gaps.

The poor people who were dropped from cash assistance here, mostly single mothers, talk with surprising openness about the desperate, and sometimes illegal, ways they make ends meet. They have sold food stamps, sold blood, skipped meals, shoplifted, doubled up with friends, scavenged trash bins for bottles and cans and returned to relationships with violent partners — all with children in tow.

Esmeralda Murillo, a 21-year-old mother of two, lost her welfare check, landed in a shelter and then returned to a boyfriend whose violent temper had driven her away. “You don’t know who to turn to,” she said.

Maria Thomas, 29, with four daughters, helps friends sell piles of brand-name clothes, taking pains not to ask if they are stolen. “I don’t know where they come from,” she said. “I’m just helping get rid of them.”

To keep her lights on, Rosa Pena, 24, sold the groceries she bought with food stamps and then kept her children fed with school lunches and help from neighbors. Her post-welfare credo is widely shared: “I’ll do what I have to do.”

And as any conservative can tell you, this is working 100% as intended.  If those on welfare turn to crime, then it's clearly permissible to cut welfare even further to stop coddling these criminals, and then of course pass those savings through tax cuts on to the Almighty Job Creators, who will then certainly create more jobs and uplift these broken souls back into society.  Any time now, those jobs will be just pouring out.  Yep.

Of course without that vital last part, it becomes and endless conveyor belt to transfer wealth to the wealthy and drive the poor into other states (preferably blue ones) where they become somebody else's problem.  Meanwhile, red states like Arizona get to claim they've cut welfare rolls and that the rest of America needs to follow their success.

Meanwhile, the expensive private prison conglomerates designed to incarcerate the increasingly desperate among us costing taxpayers far more per person than the welfare did in the first place is beside the point, that money's well spent because we're tough on crime.  Certainly the GOP is licking their chops at the latest iteration of the House GOP budget, turning safety net programs into block grants they can raid for even more tax cuts and wealth transfer.  And if the GOP gets control, guess what's happening to these programs in the future?

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, the top House Republican on budget issues, calls the current welfare program “an unprecedented success.” Mitt Romney, who leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination, has said he would place similar restrictions on “all these federal programs.” One of his rivals, Rick Santorum, calls the welfare law a source of spiritual rejuvenation.

“It didn’t just cut the rolls, but it saved lives,” Mr. Santorum said, giving the poor “something dependency doesn’t give: hope.”

As in "hope God chose you to be rich, because otherwise you're screwed."  Happy Easter Hunger Games from the GOP.  Don't worry, when you die, your suffering will be rewarded in the next life.  Oh wait, it won't because you were poor and wasted your life so you obviously sinned, so it's okay if we kick your face in a few more times.

Like I said, working as intended.

Step One: Drill. Step Two: The Gas Face. Step 3: PROFIT!

The Power Line guys go after President Obama for drill baby drill again, because a right wing think tank says so!

So I followed a link from Glenn Reynolds to a piece from the always worthy David Goldman (aka, “Spengler”) on oil prices, namely, that today’s high oil prices are owing to simple supply and demand rather than the Middle Eastern “risk premium” that everyone (including me) supposes:

It’s complete and utter nonsense. Oil is trading in lockstep with expectations for economic growth, as reflected in stock prices. There’s not a shred of evidence that geopolitical uncertainty has added a penny to the oil price. Obama’s $20 to $30 per barrel risk premium is a number pulled out of a hat, without a shred of empirical support. In effect, the President is blaming Israel for high oil prices.

He makes an interesting case, noting the close correlation with the stock market, which may also correlate with a weak dollar and paltry bond returns as much as improving economic prospects. See David’s nifty charts at the link.

Oh it's a great theory,  and since it "proves" that increased domestic production will lower prices, $4 gas is all the Kenyan Socialist's fault.  The problem is fellas is that your little theory here?  It's easily testable thanks to the fact our oil production is now at an eight-year high and growing.  Except for the actual correlation between increased domestic production and gas prices showing that increased production doesn't lower prices, which the AP destroyed last month.

A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you'd now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you're paying the highest prices ever for March.

Hayward, Instadoofus, and the "Gatestone Institute" here conveniently forget that little point, the one where actually pitting the data against their theory kind of obliterates their theory as complete garbage.

By the way, the Gatestone Institute is a right-wing think tank dedicated to the US turning Iran into a parking lot.  Kinda cool the way they lie about President Obama, who seemingly doesn't want to do that, yes?

An Open Letter To Google

Dear Google,

I know you'll never read this.  However, after our long and tedious years of mutually taking advantage of each other, I want to say I will never leave you.  But there are a few things you can do to make our lives more enjoyable, and justify the shameless harvesting of our personal information.

Give us choices.  I know it's tempting to harvest all the information you can, but by giving users a choice you will win people over to your side without being a complete bully.  Let people opt out of what you want them to do, at the expense of what you know they want most.  It's simple, it works, and the person at least has the choice to control information usage if they care about it.  This would open your market up to all the private folks.  Right now, people who are holding back or won't join or share because of privacy concerns are the only real obstacle you face to dominate the web.  Think it through.

Keep it up with Google+.  You have finally managed to hit Facebook in it's weak spot, the overwhelming amount of crap and spam posts that drive us nuts.  Google+ not only lets us filter those easily, because it's not so damned overpopulated we can enjoy content that is much closer to what we want to see.  Plus, the ability to host meetings and ad hoc group chats is amazing.  Again, there could be more freedom and choices, but this is one case where your clean and narrow design really works.  Please don't screw up a good thing and go to the Mafia Wars side.

Stop messing around already and make a Google Workspace.  With Docs and Sites as two invaluable services, why not make a quick progression and let us have something with all the utilities in easy reach?  The personalized Google page isn't enough, but if you want us to rely on your products giving us a place to live is crucial.  This would rely on heavy customization, but we just had that talk.  Docs has given us so many ways to be productive and share, sites gives us virtual offices to use, but when it comes to purely our view, we are aliens without a home.  Host some built-in IDEs as well and look at your growth explode and stay there.  Python, Java, the basics.

And finally, while I know it's small in your view but important to others, give us some control over what we see.  Your super light and pastel blends are obnoxious.  You have allowed us dark schemes for some apps such as Gmail.  Please take fifteen minutes and give us two or three universal themes that meet the most obvious needs.  Hi-contrast, light on dark, and grayscale would be helpful.  Really, you have a whole staff of coders, this should be a Tuesday afternoon sort of project.

Sincerely,

Bon The Geek