Meredith Vieira is an IPhone Doof

I was watching the Today show this morning and I think the IPhone had its first major gaff. This article had the rundown of Meredith Vieira failing to use the IPhone on national television.

Apple's media blitz didn't escape first-day glitches. On NBC's "Today"
show, co-host Meredith Vieira first met with problems simply getting the iPhone
to work to show off its features, laughing that "this is why gadgets drive me
crazy."

Later, with a team of Apple representatives hovering off-screen,
Vieira was supposed to receive a call from co-host Matt Lauer in London. The
iPhone — billed by Apple as the most user-friendly smart phone ever — displayed
the incoming call, but she couldn't answer it.

She was furiously trying to get the thing to pick up and couldn't do it correctly. I wonder if other clueless folks out there are having trouble with their IPhones as well? It that is true then Research In Motion (RIMM) with today's massive numbers will probably be the big winner. Maybe I'll look carefully at RIMM stock when they have their 3 for 1 stock split on August 17th.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/29/07

+$419.99 +0.86%

Info on the Uranium Market

This is a great article on the ins and outs of the Uranium Market.

The physics start with the little-understood but widely recognized
formula E=MC². Einstein's formula reveals the energy in nuclear reactions that
convert matter into pure energy--something physically impossible with chemical
reactions. A large nuclear reactor that powers some 700,000 homes invisibly
destroys just five pounds of uranium (roughly a 2-inch cube of pure uranium)
each day. The same amount of energy from a combustion power plant is produced daily by combining 20 million pounds of coal with 200 million pounds of air, not
incidentally yielding an equal weight in ashes and gases.

This is real reason why nuclear power is such a good idea. You can either destroy 5 pounds of something or 20 million pounds of another thing. Add this to the amount of green house gasses that is pumped out by coal plants and there is no comparison. I think all environmentalists should be pro-nuke if they are serious about avoiding global warming.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/28/07

+$554.01 +1.14%

Cytori has an Interesting New Product

I was recently researching Stem Cell stocks and came across Cytori Therapeutics (CYTX) This article really went into detail on a new product that they will take to market later this year.

Cytori has invented a device that can withdraw stem cells from patient
fat for re-use elsewhere in the body. The entire process takes around an hour
and, at $2,500 to $10,000 per treatment, looks downright cheap for stem
cell-based therapy.

Unlike fat itself, once used with limited success for breast
reconstruction surgery, Cytori says that fat-derived stem cells bring needed
blood supply to reconstructed breasts. Thus, the company says that breast
reconstruction surgery patients should finally have an option that will work and
actually last.

This market might bring in $85 million and they can also leverage it into the breast augmentation market as well. If they can get that process approved it would be a $100 to $300 million opportunity.

In fact since these cells come from a persons own body they would be far preferable to silicone or saline implants. There will be no risk of rejection and there will be no foreign objects leaking into a woman's body and possibly giving her cancer down the line. If it is easier to pull off and results in less scarring or complications this process might be able to dominate the industry.

They are also working on this as well:

Still, Cytori expects to pursue an even bigger opportunity down the
road. Right now, the company is enrolling patients in a study designed to test
its stem cell treatment for cardiac ischemia, a common ailment characterized by
poor blood flow. That therapy, unlike current drugs on the market, aims to
regenerate heart tissue rather than simply slow its deterioration.

"It depends on how good the data is," he admits. "But if we can get 3%
to 4% of the market share (for cardiac ischemia), that would be $1.5 billion in
revenue even at our price point ... That's an enormous market."

This is far down to road so and actual therapy will not come about for years. In the future it would be an interesting stock driver as it moves through the FDA.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/27/07

+$762.20 +1.60%

Tom Cruise Barred from Filming in Germany

I guess the Germans don't like those weird cultists filming movies in their cities.

Defense Ministry spokesman Harald Kammerbauer said Monday that the
production "will not be allowed to film at German military sites if Count
Stauffenberg is played by Tom Cruise, who has publicly professed to being a
member of the Scientology cult."

Even Count Stauffenberg's son is against Cruise doing his dad wrong.

Stauffenberg's oldest son, 72-year-old Berthold von Stauffenberg, told
a German newspaper Saturday that Cruise "should keep his hands off my
father."

"I hoped for a while that it was all just a publicity stunt by Mr.
Cruise," the younger Stauffenberg told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

"It is sure to be crap. Of course, I could be wrong—I would like to
be."

He called Cruise's involvement with Scientology "off-putting," and
referred to the church as a "business."

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/25/07

-$772.00 -1.55%

"Pants Suit" Pearson Loses Case

It looks like common sense and decency has prevailed in the "Pants Suit" case.

The owners of Custom Cleaners did not violate the city's consumer
protection law by failing to live up to Roy L. Pearson's expectations of the
"Satisfaction Guaranteed" sign once displayed in the store window, District of
Columbia Superior Court Judge Judith Bartnoff ruled.

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction
Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's
unreasonable demands" or to agree to demands that the merchant would have
reasonable grounds for disputing, the judge wrote.
Bartnoff ordered Pearson to pay the court costs of defendants Soo Chung, Jin Nam Chung and Ki Y. Chung.

I think the Chungs should sue him for emotional distress as well as attorneys fees. There should also be some sort of frivolous lawsuit fine that he should pay as well. In any case this guy should never be allowed onto the bench again for pulling this stunt. If he gets his administrative law judge job back then someone needs to resign.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/22/07

-824.00 -1.63%

Manhunt 2 to get Kiss of Death AO rating

This is really bad news for TTWO.

In the United States, the video game industry's self-regulated ratings board gave a preliminary version of "Manhunt 2" an "adults only" rating instead of the more lenient, and far more popular, "mature" rating for ages 17 and up.

Slapping "Manhunt 2" with the Entertainment Software Rating Board's most stringent rating would likely doom sales. Large retailers including Best Buy Co., Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. won't stock AO-rated games.

Blackstone IPO prices at $31 a share

It looks like it will be the biggest IPO in 5 years. And the founder got some big money from the deal as well. That is quite a feat to turn $400K into $7.7 billion.

For Blackstone's founders -- who launched the private equity firm in
1985 with a $400,000 investment -- the IPO will mean a big payout. Chief
Executive Stephen Schwarzman will walk away with a stake in the company worth about $7.7 billion, putting him among the richest of the rich on Wall
Street.

White House May Finally Close Gitmo

From the it should have happened 2 years ago file. The Bushies may finally close Gitmo and shut up all those critics.

The advisers will consider a proposal to shut the center and transfer
detainees to one or more Defense Department facilities, including the maximum
security military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where they could face
trial, said the officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were discussing internal deliberations.

They should have done this ages ago instead of concentrating them in one place. Having them in Gitmo just made it easier for them to be in contact with one another. It was like putting all the Crips in one prison so they could hang out together.

It also just made America look bad. If they simply spirited them away all over the US then allegations of torture and waterboarding and things would never have gotten human rights groups in such an uproar. Also why they didn't have a trial for so long is ludicrous as well. Almost all of them are guilty so just try them and lock them up for life.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/21/07

+$840.00 +1.69%

Blackstone to Price Thursday Night at $29-$31

It looks like it is time for Blackstone to IPO starting Friday.

The Blackstone Group L.P. confirmed its initial public offering of
common units will price Thursday night at a range of $29 to $31 per unit and
begin trading Friday.The offering was originally scheduled for next week.

It should be an interesting day of trading for it. I wonder when options are going to trade on it though so I can hedge downside if I consider pulling the trigger.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/20/07

-$933.00 -1.84%

Bush to Veto Stem Cell Bill Again

I'm really tired of this argument brought by the right in support of the President.

Opponents of the latest stem cell measure insisted that the use of
embryonic stem cells was the wrong approach on moral grounds — and possibly not even the most promising one scientifically. They cite breakthroughs involving
medical research conducted with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood and
amniotic fluid, none of which involve the destruction of a human
embryo.

How do they know if it isn't promising? We might have cures for diabetes, spinal cord injury, and Alzheimer's possibly tied to stem cells. They might even be able to cure heart disease. Some of the best stem cells can be harvested from embryos that are currently destroyed as medical waste. Why doesn't Bush wise up and let women who abort fetuses sign a waver that allows scientists to harvest the stem cells. The scientists won't be deliberately making embryos for stem cells but just reusing something that would normally be thrown away as medical waste. Bush is such a moron when it comes to this issue.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/19/07

+$664.00 +1.33%

Judge "Pants Suit" Pearson

Hopefully we will soon be able to write ex-judge and former lawyer Pearson but that is up the the Washington D.C. establishment.

Best Rundown of the $67 million dollar Pants Suit

This is a court case that I am following very closely. It is case in point on why there needs to be tort reform and an end to the idiotic lawsuits out there.

It all began two years ago when Mr. Pearson walked into Custom
Cleaners, a Northeast D.C. establishment owned by Jin Chung, Soo Chung and Ki
Chung. He laid down $10.50 to have a pair of pants altered. The results
dissatisfied him: The job wasn't finished on time, and he says the pants he was
given were someone else's, which the Chungs deny. He demanded $1,150 for a new suit; the Chungs demurred. So it was off to court, with the claimed damages
subject to alterations, in an expansive direction.

How billowy did those damages get? Well, it seems Mr. Pearson
needed to be paid for 10 years' worth of weekend car rentals so that he could
patronize a different dry cleaner. He wanted $500,000 for emotional distress
and--though representing himself--$542,000 in legal fees. Best of all, he
claimed that the signs on display at Custom Cleaners, "Satisfaction Guaranteed"
and "Same Day Service," were fraudulent, entitling him to damages of $1,500 each per day under D.C. consumer law. He multiplied 12 violations by three defendants by 1,200 days, and soon was up over $65 million (later cut to a mere $54 million).

This Pearson is now an administrative law judge who makes $100K a year. Let's hope they fire him, then disbar him, and finally fine him a few million for engaging in a frivolous lawsuit. They need to give him the proverbial "Nifong."

Semel Out at Yahoo

Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel stepped down as chief executive in a
surprise move Monday, ending his increasingly ineffectual pursuit of online
search leader Google Inc. -- a losing battle that had demoralized Yahoo's
shareholders and employees.

Finally, this stock might start to go up again. They faced a shareholder revolt just last week that didn't seem to prove anything other then people want this guy out. Now lets home that the next guy Jerry Yang can allow them to compete one-on-one against Google. The stock has already seen a 7% jump today and after hours.

I think that Yahoo is going to sell the company to Microsoft or someone in the next several quarters. It just seems like a likely conclusion of ousting a rock-star CEO and then putting in one of the founders at the top spot. In any case we will probably see a Carly Fiorina-out-at-HP bump in the stock going forward depending on how things play out.

Even More Web 2.0 Sites

It seems like these things are multiplying like rabbits. Here are 25 more sites and my comments on a few that I tried.

BuzzDash: It seems like a pretty fun site but I don't like how it shows the results before you voted. This sometimes skews how you vote. If you see that there are lots of people on one side then that might effect how you vote. They need a button that you can put on to hide the results until after you have voted.

Spock.com:

Spock is a search engine dedicated to finding information about
people. If you spend more time than you should googling folks, you need to
check out Spock.com, a search engine designed to dig up
information about people. Start by typing in a name, or a search term that
describe a group of people--for example, Motown Singer, or Rastafarians. The
site then searches through various social networking sites such as MySpace and
Friendster, along with more-general Web sites, and reports on what it
finds.

It seems like a good idea but since it is beta we can't try it out. I guess it would be better then Google so you can filter out the ads from the regular stuff. I just hope they don't link to Google maps and show the location of your house or something like that. I think that would suck.

Swivel.com: This site would only be as good as the charts listed on the site. The stuff on there currently is kind of crappy and are mostly links to other sites. I do like the chart of which console is kind the Wii, Xbox360, or the PS3. I've never thought about how badly the PS3 is getting whipped until I saw it in chart form. If would be cool if it could tie into a universal survey collecting service so you can gets lots and lots of data points to put up against one another.

Trulia: This is the home run site of the bunch. Being able to see on a map all the houses and apartments that are selling close to you and their prices is outstanding. If they could add rentals in your area as well this site will be the next million dollar or more acquisition from Google or whomever. And I agree with this as well:

The Trulia Voices section hooks you up with other people to discuss
neighborhoods, housing issues, or real estate in general. Trulia is relatively
new, so that section is as yet quite sparse. But if the site gains traction,
Trulia Voices may prove to be the most useful tool of all.

I think this will be something that would make it so you might not need a real estate agent to tell you a bunch of crap anymore. You can actually go to this area and see what other people say about the neighborhood, the schools, the amenities etc. This should be closely watched if you are a real estate professional or investor.

What People Are Doing Online

This is a very interesting chart from Business Week that breaks internet users down to what people are doing and how old those people are. Gen X Breaks down to:

19% Creators (write blogs etc.)
25% Critics (comments on blogs, writes reviews)
16% Collectors (Gather information with RSS)
29% Joiners (Part of social networking sites)
41% Spectators (Read blogs, watch YouTube etc.)
42% Inactives (No social media use)

One interesting thing is that 18-21 year olds use Social Networking sites more than double the amount of time as Gen Xers do. Also there is a 19% dropoff for teens using those sites. Could it be because schools are banning MySpace etc. and this it becomes less popular as a result? It might be something NewsCorp should bo on the look out for in a few years.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/18/07

-135.00 -0.27%

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/15/07

+$999.00 +2.03%

Goldmine Sachs Hit By Subprime Lending Woes

I guess the subprime market's implosion has really been a drag on Goldman Sachs. I wonder if the whole subprime mess has worked its way out of the market or do we still have a few more quarters to absorb the pain?

Goldman reported that revenue from its trading and principal
investments business fell 6 percent from the year-ago period to $6.65 billion,
and was down 29 percent from the first quarter. Though stock trading was higher, the investment bank blamed the drop on weak results in its mortgage business because of "continued weakness in the subprime."

Hamas Takes Control of the Gaza Strip

While America had its head in the sand about Paris Hilton it looks like Hamas has suddenly taken control of the Gaza Strip.

In Gaza, it was a day of major victories for Hamas and its backers in Iran
and Syria and of devastating setbacks for the Western-backed Fatah. In one
particularly humiliating scene, masked Hamas fighters marched agents of the
once-feared Preventive Security Service out of their headquarters, arms raised
in the air, stripped to the waist and ducking at the sound of a gunshot.

I wonder if the UN is going to make the West Bank into a Fatah controlled Palestine and the Gaza Strip into Hamasistan? Whatever the case the Israelis pulling out of Gaza has pretty much made an enemy Islamist state right on its border. It looks like Israel has just gone back to 1968 and are surrounded by enemies once again.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/14/07

+$1,122.29 +2.34%

Mars 2 Billion Years Ago

There might have been giant oceans on Mars 2-3 billion years ago.

The ocean may have covered a third of the Martian surface during
the first half of the planet's history before disappearing at least 2
billion years ago for unknown reasons, the researchers said.

It would be very interesting to figure out why these oceans of Mars boiled away. My money is on global warming caused by George Bush? In any case here is a picture of Mars 2 billion years ago.

Unbelieably Boring Finals

This has to be the most boring NBA Finals ever. Even their ad campaign shows how desperate they are by enlisting David Blaine to "spice" things up. Maybe his new stunt is to endure the slow, ponderous, low scoring games like he had to endure all that time in the glass box and underwater.

This last game was an absolute joke and had a college basketball score as well. Too bad the NBA can't inject a little March Madness into what has become the June Slog. I just want the Spurs to finish the Cavs off as fast and possible so we can fast forward to football season arleady.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/13/07

+$1,661.71 +3.59%

Sheriff to the Stars Lee Baca on the hotseat

They should recall this guy and get someone in there who doesn't coddle celebrities at the expense of regular lawbreakers.

At a morning hearing, County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Yvonne B.
Burke said that Baca must outline why Hilton was allowed to go home as opposed to the other inmates at Century Regional Detention Facility compatriots
complaining of emotional and physical problems, especially since Los Angeles
Superior Court Judge Michael T. Sauer expressly forbade home detention and
electronic monitoring in his sentencing ruling.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/12/07

-$761.00 -1.62%

Paris Wall-To-Wall Sad Commentary of News Media

Even Variety is dumping on the wall-to-wall coverage of Paris going to jail, being put on house arrest and then heading back to jail again.

Story proved its irresistibility long after Hilton was again behind
bars. On Saturday, ABC's "Good Morning America" led with a story about
President Bush's visit to the Pope, but then quickly turned to Hilton.

"This is the decline of Western civilization as we know it, and
we're watching it live," TMZ.com's Harvey Levin told "GMA."

I followed the story how you would normally follow a celebrity story in the pages of the online gossip press like Defamer, A Socialites Life, and the Superficial. I wasn't even aware of the circus until we saw an OJ White Bronco style coverage of the Paris motorcade. Then we went from a gossip pages story to a media event with the real "old-school" 4th estate weighing in.

This shows how this celebrity culture that has grown to monstrous proportions in the last few years. All of this stuff belongs in the gossip pages and in the celebrity press and should never get out of the entertainment portion of Good Morning America.

This is essentially a story about a rich talentless girl who screwed up and now has to serve the time. No one died, or was murdered, or even got hurt. So the media can't use the "if it bleeds it leads" defence. I guess you can paint it as the justice system treating the rich and poor differently. It would actually have been newsworthy to compare Paris's sentence to national averages or interview other probation violators to see what their prison experiences were like.
Even getting man-on-the street interviews on what people though tabout Paris would be better then what they put on.

Instead they follow the Paris motorcade like it was an actual breaking news story and go into every twist and turn like it was something other then entertainment news. At least the Anna Nicole crappola had a dead person, a mystery, and the custody of a child to give it some legs.

I think it is up to news editors to police themselves and make sure a story about an heiress going to jail for a few weeks doesn't become more important then real news stories. They need to show integrity by keeping the entertainment news about entertainment and the "real news" as the "real news."

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/11/07

+$192.00 +0.41%

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/8/07

+$786.02 +1.70%

Acropolis, Chichen Itza lead 7 Wonders Race

It is shaping up to be a real big deal worldwide.

Some 50 million people have voted so far in the competition designed to
produce a 21st century list of the world's greatest man-made heritage sites, but
Tia Viering, a spokeswoman for the organization, said the result is wide
open.

I wonder why there is no American sites on the top list though. It might be anti-American rhetoric that bumped Mt. Rushmore, the Empire State Building, or the Statue of Liberty off of the list? However the other sites on the list are pretty impressive though:

The most popular 10 sites so far include both the Taj Mahal and Christ
Redeemer, along with the Colosseum in Rome, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of
China, Peru's Machu Picchu, Petra in Jordan, and the statues of Easter
Island.

J. Michels Uranium Index

-$1,052.02 -2.23%

Rise of the Religious Left?

I thought it was just lip service that Hillary has been giving to religious folks but there may be a real religious left brewing.

The candidates' easy willingness to appear at the forum also represents
a watershed for the modern Democratic Party: Intimate discussion of faith, and
how it informs policy views and personal behavior, is no longer an arms-length
proposition at the party's highest levels.

I guess the atheist, anti-God wing of the Democratic Party is starting to lose favor. It would seem that "progressive" values and religious values would have coincided years ago. I mean the Catholic Church has usually been anti-war, pro-peace, and anti-poverty for years. However, the reason why the religious left will never be as strong as the religious right is as follows:

But to some activists, especially those who are fighting to maintain
strict separation between church and state, the growth of a religious left
raises the risk that the public loses sight of the proper place of religion
and faith in government.

London Olympics Logo Causes Epileptic Fits

It is getting worse and worse for the "Ugliest Logo Ever Made"

Charity Epilepsy Action noted they had recieved calls from people
saying that they had seizures while watching the animated footage.

One person told BBC Radio London how both he and his girlfriend had
seizures when watching the film, leaving his girlfriend needing hospital
treatment.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/6/07

-$1,353.00 -2.79%

Merger Mania in Uranium Space

Well one of the Uranium Index companies is going to be bought out.

Canadian uranium explorer and developer sxr Uranium One Inc. agreed to
buy Energy Metals Corp. in an all-stock deal valued at about $1.7 billion, fully
diluted, the companies said on Monday.

The price paid is $17.84 a share which was only a little higher then where the stock was trading when the deal was announced on Monday. This could mean that Uranium producers are fairly valued in the marketplace. It would have been nice if they had a 30% premium or something but oh well.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/5/07

-424.00 -0.87%

London Olympics Logo Ugly as Sin

Now this is one crappy looking Olympic Logo.

I love the funny British responses in this article.

Bob Neill, 2012 Olympics spokesman for the main opposition Conservative
Party, was disparaging about Coe's optimism, despite him being a fellow Tory
lawmaker.

"Lord Coe has described this logo as 'ambitious, interactive and
youth-friendly'. I would describe it as hideous," he said.

"Questions need be answered as to how we have ended up in this
situation. Was there an open competition to supply the designs? If so, what on
earth do the rejected ones look like!

"We need to know how much money this exercise has cost, because
whatever it was, it's been a complete waste of money."

A poll by the BBC News website asked readers to give it a gold, silver
or bronze medal, or a wooden spoon if they really didn't like it. Eighty three
percent gave it a wooden spoon.

Weird Purple Frog Found

Now this is a pretty funky looking frog that was recently found in Surinam. It looks poisonous so I bet it would be a lousy pet

IPhone Launch Day June 29

I wonder is we will have insane Macnuts camped outside of Apple stores or AT&T cell phone places waiting to be first adopters of this thing.

Sunday night's ads showed off several of the gadget's features and
ended with the pronouncement that the phone will be available "Only on the new
AT&T" and "Coming June 29." One aired on the CW network before a 7 p.m.
broadcast of "7th Heaven."

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/4/07

+$279.01 +0.57%

Real World Denver Cast the Sickest Yet

I was watching the Real World Denver: The Shit they Should have Shown show last night and this cast is perhaps the grossest ever. Each one of these freaks did some sickening stuff. One roommate crapped in a mailing envelope instead of stopping the car like a regular person. While another got drunk and left his poop in his underwear and then threw the underwear poop and all into the washing machine. And a third peed in the corner of the house instead on in the toilet and didn't remember a thing afterward. Finally, one person had a jellyfish sting (or so she though) and 2 cast members peed on her.

They were also drunk and disorderly throughout the show. You couldn't count the times when someone said they were passed out or couldn't remember what they did. One cast member even got so drunk that she kept puking until they had to take her to the doctor. Also one cast member named Jenn was a full-blown alcoholic and was drunk maybe 90% of the times they showed her. She seemed to get drunk every single night no matter what and would black out and not remember what she did. She would cook food, hook up, and generally stagger around in a Tara Reid stupor almost all the time.

Whatever the case this Real World showed a terrible trend when it came to 20 somethings. They kept saying over and over that they were in their 20s and that justified being serial hook-up artists, alcoholics, and not showing general hygiene or common sense. They repeatedly engaged in the most destructive behavior and the shows producers glorified it. The Real World message is you can get fall down drunk every night, hook-up with whomever, crap wherever you want and there are no consequences.

I could just hear Jenn in a drunken stupor yell "You don't know me!" Well, we may not know the real you Jenn; but the one portrayed on the Real world is a statistic waiting to happen. Go to AA and maybe your late 20s won't be a spiral out of control ending in firefighters pulling your mangled corpse out of a car at 3AM. It sure would have been nice if the producers of the Real World showed that this behavior came with a price but they were too busy getting everyone drunk to "spice up the show." I guess you can't expect much from MTV nowadays.

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/1/07

+$636.00 +1.32%