Uranium Futures Set to Trade on May 6

This should be good for the Uranium Producers mentioned in this article.

And Nymex has "correctly identified that the nuclear power industry is
undergoing a renaissance with tremendous growth ahead, as the world struggles to deal with strong emerging market and Asian growth, while facing the reality of
peak oil and an energy-constrained world," he said.

He is right because the Chinese are building reactors like crazy to reduce the amount of oil they need to run their industry.

Physicists and engineers at Beijing's Tsinghua University have made the
first great leap forward in a quarter century, building a new nuclear power
facility that promises to be a better way to harness the atom: a pebble-bed
reactor. A reactor small enough to be assembled from mass-produced parts and
cheap enough for customers without billion-dollar bank accounts. A reactor whose safety is a matter of physics, not operator skill or reinforced concrete.

I think the US needs to seriously look into what China is doing with their reactors. If we can copy them cheaply we may get out the global warming disaster zone that Gore keeps hitting us with. In any case these futures contracts will be a good deal for the companies mentioned in the article. Here are the companies:

Cameco (CCJ)
Denison (DNN)
Uranium Resources (URRE)
Uranium One (CA:SXR)
Energy Metals (EMU)
Uranerz Energy (URZ)
Strathmore Minerals (CA:STM)

These seem like the pure plays. (I have only researched Cameco myself) These companies are the bigger integrated mining companies that also mine uranium as well as gold, iron, etc. They are:

Rio Tinto (RTP)
BHP Billiton (BHP)

This article explains how a SXR Uranium One (CA:SXR) might become the 2nd biggest uranium producer by merging with UrAsia Energy. The combined company will end up hauling in 19 million pounds of uranium by 2012. In any case I'm going to fimiliarize myself with this industry in the same way as I did with the Tanker Industry last year. You can't beat a metal that has gone from $20 a pound in 2002 to $113 a pound today.

Magneto Movie Greenlit

This should be an interesting movie for the most part.

Per the trades, the film will be an origin story, showing the powerful
mutant in his early days when he was still friends with a young Charles Xavier,
played in the films by Patrick Stewart. The movie will reportedly show Magneto coming to grips with his metallic-attracting powers while living in Auschwitz with his parents, and his subsequent quest for vengeance against both his Nazi captors and anti-mutant factions.

So we will get a little WW2 movie mixed with the early life of the X-men bad guy. This would be a perfect spring board for a Captain America movie if Marvel didn't kill him off. I would have had Captain America in WW2 garb as one of the unit that liberated Auschwitz. Or maybe just a mention in the WW2 part of the movie would suffice.

PS3 Claims first Victim at Sony

Ken Kutaragi is out as chairman and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment. It looks like the PS3s missteps and the Wii taking the lead in the head to head console fight for Japan is the reason why.

The company's latest console, the PlayStation 3, hit shelves in Japan
on Nov. 11 and those in North America shortly afterwards. However, component
shortages meant the European launch was delayed until March. The launch hasn't
gone as well as Sony had hoped, in part because of the success of Nintendo Co.
Ltd., which has managed to outsell Sony to-date with its Wii console.

The Wii is just too cheap and fun for the PS3 to catch up with. Also there is no must have category killer type game for the PS3 yet. The Wii has Zelda and a few others that seem to be selling pretty well. I think there will be more PS3s sold when Grand Theft Auto 4 comes out in Oct 16 of this year.

Amazon On the Comeback

The best part about this story is there margins are finally going up a bit after tightening for years:

One of the most watch Amazon metric its margins, which is a measure of
how much it profits from the sale of an item.

According to Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, Amazon's operating
margin for the quarter was 5.9%, which is "materially higher" that what Wall
Street expected and the result of a more positive contribution from Amazon.com's
international sales.

"This marked the first quarter of year-on-year margin expansion
since the second quarter of 2004," Mahaney said, in a note to clients. He rates
Amazon as a sell.

It is also interesting to see how much of there sales ($1.4 billion for overseas and $1.62 billion from US) is now coming from overseas. A weak dollar might be able to boost Amazon's bottom line going forward.

Possible Water World Found 20 Light Years Away

It looks like they found a pretty good candidate for life in a nearby solar system.

Computer models predict Gliese 581 C is either a rocky planet like
Earth or a waterworld covered entirely by oceans.

"We have estimated that the mean temperature of this super-Earth
lies between 0 and 40 degrees Celsius [32 to 104 degrees Fahrenheit], and water
would thus be liquid," Udry said.

We need to send a probe out to take a look at this planet. Too bad it will take at least a generation or two to get back any data from the thing.

Marker-pointing Gets Professor Canned

Now this is sensitivities run amok.

The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two
days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a
discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the
public's "celebration of victimhood," said the professor, Nicholas
Winset.

During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students.
Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the
gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been
armed.

So he pretended to kill students with a marker and it got him fired? I think Emmanuel college should review the 1st Amendment of the Constitution again. Or maybe Emmanuel College would rather no one discusses this thing at all. Ah, censorship in the Ivory Tower.

Iraqi Blood Will be On Reids Hands

I think the Bush Admin. needs to press this point home as much as they can.

Reid is in denial about the vicious nature of the enemy and about the
U.S.-led plan to provide more security in Iraq, said deputy press secretary Dana
Perino. "He's also in denial that a surrender date — he thinks it is a good
idea. It is not a good idea. It is defeat. It is a death sentence for the
millions of Iraqis who voted for a constitution, who voted for a government, who
voted for a free and Democratic society."

What is even worse Reid says this kind of thing:

In a question and answer session after his speech, Reid was asked what
the U.S. should do if U.S. troops leave and Iraq collapses into
chaos.

"We know this is an intractable civil war going on now," he
responded.

What sort of idiotic answer is that? Yes, a civil war is going on right now and our troops stand in the way of it becoming far worse. Isn't that a good thing? We are keeping possibly millions of people from dying by us being in the country. Once the security situation gets better maybe then we can pull back. Perino is right that early withdrawl from Iraq would be a death sentence for millions of Iraqis carried out by the Democratic Congress.

Bye Bye Limbo, Slaadi Outraged

It looks like the Catholic Church finally got rid of the idea of Limbo.

In a long-awaited document, the Church's International Theological
Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of
salvation."

I don't think the Slaad and the Githzerai are going to like that though.

Google Beat the Street Again

They sure seem to be hitting on all cylinders now. I think this may be one of the more important metrics that you should be looking out for:

Figures released last week by another Internet metrics company,
Hitwise, showed Google gaining search market share and its competitors
declining. According to numbers provided by Hitwise, Google accounted for 64
percent of all U.S. in March 2007, up from 58% in March 2006. Yahoo Search, MSN Search and Ask accounted for 22% (-1 percentage point), 9% (-4 percentage points) and 3% (-0.5 percentage points) respectively.

That gain in market share is huge because it looks like Yahoo stumbled badly missing their numbers and it might be getting worse in the future. One thing I have been noticing is that Yahoo seems to be back to a point when they have to self advertise again. Before they released Panama almost every ad on their site was a Yahoo ad. Then when Panama was first released you started to notice car companies and other stuff taking the place of the Yahoo ads. Now it seems to be back to the pre-Panama days with tons of Yahoo ads again.

Couple this with the fact that you are now paying 38 times earnings for just 7% revenue growth and -11% income growth. Compare this with Google where you are paying 48 times earnings for 66% revenue growth and 69% income growth. There just isn't any comparison in the search space. Google is the winner and with that Doubleclick merger they will be crowned the "Internet Adking."

Iraqi Insurgents Battling Al-Quida

Just when the Dems want us to quit it looks like the Sunni's are starting to kill off the Al-Qaida elements in Iraq.

U.S. officers say a growing number of Sunni tribes are turning against
al-Qaida, repelled by the terror group's sheer brutality and austere religious
extremism. The tribes are competing with al-Qaida for influence and control over
diminishing territory in the face of U.S. assaults, the officers say. The influx
of Sunni fighters to areas outside the capital in advance of the security
crackdown in Baghdad may have further unsettled the region.

It looks like the "surge" may at least get the insurgents out of Baghdad so we can battle them a little better. Oh well, it looks like the country will be sacrificed by June if the Dems get their way and attack the supply lines of the US forces.

Reid Admits Defeat in Iraq

Well it is official. American troops in Iraq are fighting for a lost cause according to the Dems.

"I believe myself that the secretary of state, secretary of defense and
— you have to make your own decisions as to what the president knows — (know) this war is lost and the surge is not accomplishing anything as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday," said Reid, D-Nev.

We might as well bring the troops home and let the country fall into civil war because the Dems are hell-bent on letting that happen. They even plan to starve our troops out according to Reid.

Reid has left that possibility open. The majority leader supports
separate legislation that would cut off funding for combat missions after March
2008.

Yup no more body armor or bullets by March of next year. It is almost as if Reid is working hand and hand with Moktada Al-Sadr or Al-Quida in Iraq or something. He is certainly going to do something that the insurgents could only dream of doing. He is going to hang a defeat on the US. I wonder what the "Air America Chopper leaving the US Embassy moment" will be this time?

I used Yelp and it is Pretty Good

Yelp may be the next big Web 2.0 thing. I have used it for the past day or so and it is very good. Again the content is only as good as the reviewers on the site but many of them are very informative. Now I just need to find some reviewers on there that match my tastes. In fact I may even start putting reviews up own reviews to exercise my "Inner Ebert & Roper. "

NBC Criticized over Killer's video

It looks like people are speaking back against NBC showing this sickening video by a psychopathic mass murderer. Gee, I wonder why?

Family members of victims canceled plans to appear on NBC's "Today"
show Thursday because they "were very upset" with the network for showing the
pictures, "Today" host Meredith Vieira said.

And it looks like they are using the "if everyone jumped off a cliff then we would too" defence:

"The decision to run this video was reached by virtually every news
organization in the world, as evidenced by coverage on television, on Web sites
and in newspapers," NBC said in a statement. "We have covered this story — and
our unique role in it — with extreme sensitivity, underscored by our devoted
efforts to remember and honor the victims and heroes of this tragic
incident."

Yeah they covered it all right by making the killer into the just the kind of celebrity that he apparently wanted to be. At least Cho offed himself so after this wall-to-wall news cycle is over we don't have to hear about this scum for years to come. Well at least not until the next spree killer wants the NBC star machine to air his rants from beyond the grave.

Bullying Caused Cho to Kill?

It seems like it was one of the many things that turned this kid into a psychopath according to this article.

Once, in English class, the teacher had the students read aloud, and
when it was Cho's turn, he just looked down in silence, Davids recalled.
Finally, after the teacher threatened him with an F for participation, Cho
started to read in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in
his mouth," Davids said.

"As soon as he started reading, the whole class started laughing
and pointing and saying, `Go back to China,'" Davids said.

This was similar to what happened with the Columbine Killers as well. I think schools need to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to bullying in any grade. If they treated Bullying with the same seriousness as bringing a gun to school, or sexual harassment then maybe we can prevent the next mass killing. I think educators should really be on the lookout for this stuff and make more of an effort to get these kids into some kind on counselling.

Cho Seung-Hui Trying to Ignite Class War?

It looks like the motivation behind the killings may be revealed because the maniac sent a manifesto to NBC.

The package included digital images of him holding weapons and a
manifesto that "rants against rich people and warns that he wants to get even,"
according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the
case.

MSNBC said that the package included a CD-ROM on which Cho read his
manifesto.

"NBC Nightly News" planned to show some of the material Wednesday
night, MSNBC reported.

And what is even more sick is NBC Nightly News is going to air this crap. In other words NBC is really going to keep with the maxim "If it Bleeds it Leads." NBC news is giving this killer the publicity that he obviously wanted.

One thing that is interesting is that Hui wanted to kill "rich people" and he rambled on about the promiscuous women that he was stalking. I wonder if the anything-goes, bling-bling culture that is going on today will breed any more Hui's?

I mean it seems he wanted to get even against the rich and promiscuous people. If I was Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan I would take on a few extra armed bodyguards. You never know how many more Hui's are waiting out there to "get even." Plus as an added bonus, NBC will play your star making reality show audition tape. Now I see why people watch only the Daily Show for their injection of news.

Bubble 2.0?

Well it seems like it according to John Dvorak.

The event itself was characterized by sessions that did nothing more
than discuss "exit strategies." Hey boys and girls, how about making a good
product before getting into exit strategies? Is that asking too much?

I don't recall seeing something about customer satisfaction, but
plenty about customer acquisition.

It sure sounds like Web 2.0 could become Bubble 2.0 in a hurry. I remember the days when stock would trade at triple digit P/Es because capturing eyeballs was more important then getting those eyeballs to party with their money. It seems everyone is chasing the YouTube megabucks with this talk of "exit strategies" just like people were chasing "buying groceries online" with crap like Peapod.com.

One gripe I have about YouTube is that it is vastly inferior to regular TV. I have played around with YouTube off and on but a video of some fake college girl talking about her life or a dog on a surfboard cannot match stuff like the Sopranos or Rome. I would rather watch Spiderman 3 100x before I watch some crap like Ask a Ninja.

However I think user created content can take off if it is better than professionally created content. For instance the edited version of Phantom Menace (aka the Phantom Edit) is a far better movie then the crap that Lucas put out.

Also user created content shines when it fulfills a need that professional content cannot. You see this in the blog community because the Main Stream Media is always slanted one way but pretends they are not. The Blogosphere lets you read the news slanted exactly how you like it. If you are a leftist you can read DailyKos if you are to the right you can read InstaPundit. They don't make any pretensions to being fair arbiters of news content.

So until someone can churn out the Hobbit on a Mac that could rival anything that Peter Jackson (or now Sam Raimi?) can film then I will be convinced that the YouTube era has actually arrived. Until then I'll take a pass on the Mentos Guys, LonleyGirl15, or the Boy from Brooklyn.

Jack Thompson blames Shooting on Games

Well according to this article mentioned in this Digg he does. I have to admit that the first time I heard the shooter used a 9mm Glock I thought of Counterstrike. I wonder if this madman was hearing things like "Headshot" and "Wicked Sick" when he was killing those people.

I really hope the searching of his laptop doesn't come up with any gaming content. From what I heard from an interview with his roommates he wasn't much of a gamer. He mostly was writing stuff on his laptop from what they said. He does kind of fit the young anti-social video gamer stereotype though. They are usually portrayed as Asian, don't talk to you when you say hi, and are really quiet. This describes like 80% of the people at the game cafe across the street from my office.

The Next Big Thing for Web 2.0

It looks like we may get the next YouTube out of these 6 hot new Web 2.0 properties. I have only got a chance to check out Yelp but so far it looks pretty good. I love reading reviews from non-pros because they usually give an honest opinion. Also there seems to be lots of Hawaii content on the site.


Yelp users post recommendations and reviews on everything from restaurants to dentists.

Visiting StumbleUpon lets you channel-surf Web sites.

Veoh is a video upload site similar to YouTube.

WeeWorld lets users create visual identities that they can then use to represent themselves online and on their mobile phones.

Imeem is a playlist and content sharing site for artists.

Photo sharing site Piczo touts itself as a safe place for you and your friends.

What does Ismail Ax mean?

Now this is an important side note to find out what made this maniac Cho Seung Hui go on a rampage like he did. The things in the article seem like a big stretch however:

In Islam, Ibrahim is known as the father of the prophets and, upset
that people in his hometown still worshiped idols and not Allah, he smashed all
but one statue in a local temple with an ax. Ibrahim's son is Ismail, who also
became a prophet. Ibrahim is Arabic for Abraham, who plays a significant role in
Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Ibrahim smashed the idols with the ax and not Ismail so this wouldn't make much sense. Now this one I would give some credence to:

Other theories speculate that Ismail Ax could be a reference to Cho's
nickname on a video gaming site...

I checked some World of Warcraft sites but only came up with one 3rd level Tauren Warrior named Ismail. It might be a Counterstrike nickname since one of the pistols that he used was a 9mm Glock like the Terrorists start with.

ESPN needs to fire Colin Cowherd

I didn't even know about this guy until I started listening to this ESPN radio show called "Up All Night" with some guy who is a big Jets fan that I forgot the name of. On that show they usually run ads about "The Herd" with Colin Cowherd.

Well this Colin character has advocated a DDOS attack against a sports blog called The Big Lead for pissing him off somehow. These attacks are already illegal in the UK and will soon be so in Sweden and punishable for up to 5 years in prison. These DDOS attacks make it hard to go to web sites and sometimes cost companies millions of dollars. Cybercrime is not a joke.

So this idiot pretty much advocated for someone to commit a crime just because he is pissed at a blog. After this stunt, this Colin character shouldn't be working for ESPN radio. Asking people to commit crimes in your name is far worse then anything Don Imus has said. ESPN needs to do the right thing and fire this guy.

1 Terabyte Drive Introduced

Hitachi just came out with a 1 Terabyte internal drive for $500. Now we can start looking forward to these types of drives once this tech hits the 50T barrier.

Incidentally, for planning purposes, the next level is the petabyte (a
quadrillion bytes); and then the exabyte (one quintillion bytes); and then
the zettabyte (one sextillion bytes); and then the yottabyte (one septillion
bytes.)

I can't wait to say "fark, my 1 zettabyte drive crashed and I lost every HD-DVD ever created in the history of mankind. Luckily I have a 10 yottabyte external NAS that I stored a backup copy on." I'm betting on 30 years until I can say that.

Cocoa Reduces Blood Pressure more then Tea

Or so says this German researchers:

The fall in blood pressure credited to cocoa could be expected to
reduce the risk of strokes and heart attacks by 10-20 percent, the report
said.

Both cocoa and tea contain polyphenols, a class of chemicals known
to help prevent cardiovascular disease that are present in most fruits and
vegetables. But cocoa has a different type than tea -- procyanids -- that appear
to be more active.

So now whenever you eat some chocolate you can say I am trying to work on my blood pressure.

Diamler offered an Out from Chrysler Merger

It looks like Kirk Kerkorian is finally tired of changing things at GM and decided to just run his own car company.

Tracinda Corp., the investment vehicle owned by billionaire Kirk
Kerkorian, said on Thursday it has sent a letter to DaimlerChrysler (DCXGn.DE)
offering to acquire the money-losing Chrysler unit for $4.5 billion.

In a letter to DaimlerChrysler's supervisory board, Tracinda said that
it is willing to post a $100 million deposit as a sign of good faith.

$100 million is quite a good faith deposit. I think Daimler without Chrysler would be a pretty good buy as well. And it looks like quite a few people are agreeing with me too bidding the stock price up by 4.4% in 4 times the average volume.

Cool Tomb found in Greece

Now this is a cool Roman era discovery:

Archaeologists on a Greek island have discovered a large Roman-era tomb
containing gold jewelry, pottery and bronze offerings, officials said Wednesday.
The building, near the village of Fiscardo on Kefalonia, contained five burials
including a large vaulted grave and a stone coffin, a Culture Ministry
announcement said.

And it seemed to be from around the time that they portrayed in the HBO TV series Rome:

Previous excavations in the area have uncovered remains of houses, a
baths complex and a cemetery, all dating to Roman times — between 146 B.C. and
330 A.D.

Stupid Couple want to Name Child Metallica

Now these are some dumb Swedes.

Michael and Karolina Tomaro are locked in a court battle with Swedish
authorities, which rejected their application to name their six-month-old child
after the legendary rock band.

"It suits her," Karolina Tomaro, 27, said Tuesday of the name.
"She's decisive and she knows what she wants."

I wonder if they rejected The Who Tomaro, AC/DC Tomaro, and Guns N' Roses Tomaro before they settled on Metallica? I think the Swedes would approve Queen Tomaro though.