11 Disruptive Ideas and some Comments

This is a great article on 11 innovations that will disrupt how we do business and even how we live our lives. Some of these ideas are revolutionary sounding while others may not be as big as one might think. Here are my comments on each item:

NETVIBES: (cutomizable web start pages)
I think this is a pretty good idea from the most part but I can see Yahoo, Google, or even Firefox adapting to do alot of the work that this article claims that this thing does. Perhaps it will really catch on with people that haven't already customized their browsers with lots of toolsbars and addons. Also I'm not sure if portals will allow this thing to post their content without a fight of some kind. I need to test the thing out to give a good opinion on it.

EESTOR: (super powerful ceramic power source for electric cars)
This thing sounds like one of those "cars that are powered by seawater" kind of things. If it is true (and I am kind of sceptical) it will change the way we drive. It will single handedly break the oil monopoly and make the Saudis, Iran, and Venezuela paupers. If this thing is as powerful as they claim I would be willing to lay even money that every oil power has a spy in that Cedar Park, Texas lab.

COGHEAD: (Easy to use tools to make Business Apps)
Sounds like an interesting idea but are users smart enough to create custom business apps that work without any problems? We have to see what apps are created from this thing to make any judgement calls on it. If it is as easy to use as they claim then we will see these custom apps pop up all over the net so companies can take a look at them.

NEXTMEDIUM: (Automated Product Placement big through an online exchange)
This sounds like something that could change the ad industry. You can't fast forward through product placement and if this company can measure its effectiveness then it will be a major player. This will probably lead to a world where we will see Jack Bauer holding up a can of Coke and then moving it to clearly show the label and other crap like that.

APPLIED LOCATION: (GPS system for toll collection, traffic congestion management etc.)
Now this is the dumbest idea on this list. The only way a person would install a GPS tracker onto their car is if it was mandated by the government. If carmakers were forced to put this into all cars then it will be one of the most heavily hacked items next to a computer. If you thought the wiretapping was bad wait until they get GPS data that shows every single place you drove during the year.

SALESFORCE.COM: (AppExchange 2.0 is shared programming for enterprise apps) This sounds like alot of hot air but it could be a great deal. It looks like they are using the Linix model of shared programming to help them build enterprise apps. The Linix model is proven to work so the chances of Salesforce.com pulling off a big win is definately possible.

BLUELITHIUM: (Highly Targeted Ads that spawn due to your Clickstreams)
This idea sounds almost like spyware.

Each of those ads drops a cookie on your browser, and when you show up on another site that serves BlueLithium ads or on one of its advertisers' websites, it adds that history of clicks to its database. Using this "clickstream" data, it determines within 10 milliseconds which ad to serve up the next time you come to any of the 1,000 handpicked sites where it buys ad inventory from.

So you go from Tacobell.com to Yahoo.com you will get a Taco Bell ad instead of some other banner. It seems that bluelithium is almost like tar that sticks to you whenever you go to another affiliated site. So now it seems that Taco Bell will follow me like a ghost and pop up in every affiliated banner space until I delete the bluelithium cookie. I like Taco Bell but I am going to set anti-spy to block that tracking cookie in a minute.

CLEARWIRE: (National Wi-Max Broadband)
Now this could be the big change once the modem becomes smaller then a paperback book. If you can just put a card into a laptop and you get Wi-Max connectivity speed you can kiss wired broadband goodbye. Plus it is available in Hawaii. I may be testing this innovation first hand before too long.

ZOPA: (Peer to Peer Lending)
This seems like a very interesting way to earn 7% on your money. The uncollectable debt rating is pretty low but it will rise as more and more borrowers get on this thing and default. I could see big companies getting into the act if this thing takes off. I know that some asian societies have lending clubs like this and they have been popular since ancient times. Too bad it looks like it is only in England right now.

JAJAH: (Free phone calls without all the crap you need for VOIP)
Now this could be a category killer. The only drawback is you do need some kind of network connection to get yourself to the Jajah.com site. So if your power is out like we had recently in Hawaii then this little service is worthless to you. It's hard to argue with free though.

NANOLIFE SCIENCES: (cancer treatments using a proton beam)
This sounds very Star Trek but it may be a good deal when comparing it to chemotherapy. This one is quite a few years off so it is still Future Tech. It would be great if it does come to pass.

The Dems and the Next Ethanol Bubble?

Hmm it seems that Ethanol stocks are going to pushed again in the new Congress. I wonder if the Dems are going to switch the subsidies for big oil to big Ethanol instead. I would certainly applaud them for that. The article has a list of some Ethanol stocks that are currently publicly traded. I kind of like VSE after it has sold off so much. I also like ADM for their size and high production capacity. They would be able to take advantage of any Dem pork going toward renewable energy.

December Delirium Would be Massive

I think Terry Bowden is projecting some of the best games of the year packed into the Christmas and New Years Holidays. These games would be outstanding any way you look at them. Here is a look at Bowdens Brackets:



That Ohio St./Texas Cotton Bowl game would be absolutely outstanding. I would actually a half day off work to see these two games back to back. The hype and the leadup would be otherworldly and would seriously make postseason college football a bigger deal then it already is. I would love to see that Michgan/Auburn Sugar Bowl game as well.

Bush is Being Conciliatory

Let's hope his bipartisan skills that he used to such good effect in Texas haven't left him yet. He could conceivably ratchet down the rhetoric and the Washington heat machine and come out of his term with a semi-decent approval rating. All he needs to do is pick his battles carefully.

Agree with anything that isn't worth fighting for. For instance agree on raising the Minimum Wage, attacks on Big Pharma and Big Oil, and clean energy. Only fight on socialized medicine, calls for all the troops out of Iraq by summer 2007, or anything spouted by the Far Left Fringe Elements. His goal now is to make himself an asset and not a liability to the GOP crop in 2008 .

I Agree with the Governator

I think Arnold is spot on with this assessment of the Dems win.

"I think it is good that there are new ideas and new blood because
Washington was stuck. They could not move forward, not much was accomplished; I think it was terrible," he told reporters on a trip to Mexico.

The GOP Congress was just a bunch of squabbling, scandal prone idiots that didn't get much done other then confirm some conservative judges. They did cut taxes but they were so inept that it will probably run out without becoming permanent. And all that immigration mess was just a sideshow that showed that they were willing to get rid of a potential source of votes/jobs/tax dollars/patriotic Americans in the name of xenophobism. I can say that the do-nothing Congress really fit them to a T. Lets see if the Dems do better.

Allen Macacaed Right Out of the Senate

Well it looks like he is the bigger man and conceeded rather then drag Virginia through months of litigation and bad feelings. Not like a certain wooden Global Warming Alarmist we all know. This loss was another self-inflicted injury that the GOP managed to pull off.

Allen was comfortably ahead in polls until August, when he mockingly
referred to a Webb campaign volunteer of Indian descent as "Macaca," regarded by some as a racial slur. The incident, caught on videotape, became international
news. Some former football teammates from the University of Virginia also
charged that Allen had commonly used a slur for blacks — something he
denied.

Sometimes it is just better to keep your mouth shut about something rather then try to say an off the cuff remark. They almost always backfire a la John Kerry.

Bye Bye Rummy

It looks like he is going to be the first casualty of the Dem sweep.

The Iraq war was the central issue of Rumsfeld's nearly six-year tenure, and
unhappiness with the war was a major element of voter dissatisfaction Tuesday and the main impetus for his departure. Even some GOP lawmakers in Congress became critical of the war's management, and growing numbers of politicians were urging Bush to replace Rumsfeld.

It looks like Bush is tapping a veteran spook as the next Secretary of Defense:

Bush said Robert M. Gates, 63, who has served in a variety of national
security jobs under six previous presidents, would be nominated to replace
Rumsfeld. Gates, currently the president of Texas A&M University, is a Bush
family friend and a member of an independent group studying the way ahead in
Iraq.

This guy had a long history in the CIA and may be able to plug all the leaks coming out of the Pentagon in recent years. I wonder howthe defenseee community is going to accept this guy coming out of the CIA and all. Maybe Bush should have gone with an ex-general. Whatever the case Gates is going to have a tough road ahead of him trying to prevent a full scale civil war in Iraq with the Dems pounding on him the whole time to "get the troops out faster."

K-Fed and Britney Split

This was two years in the making but it has finally come to pass.

In the divorce papers, Spears asks for custody of the couple's two
children, with visitation rights for Federline. The filing lists as separate
property, and thereby off-limits to Federline, "miscellaneous jewelry and other
personal affects," earnings and other assets to be determined later.

I guess the easiest gravy train in America has finally come into the station.

The Dems and the Iraqi Death Spiral

After the Dems win the House their first order of business will be to create a referenda on Iraq and try to ram some sort of "redeployment timetable" through. They will probably try to shift some of the troops into Afghanistan but end up sending the majority home.

This timetable will be exactly what the Jihaddis have been waiting for. As the time table nears its end the Jihaddis will ratchet up the violence and turn things into a full scale civil war. This will put pressure on the Dems to try to pull the troops out as fast as possible. A 100 dead in a month will look like small potatoes compared to a poorly thought out withdrawal under heavy fighting. It will then look to the whole world that the US can be beaten if you just wait them out. This will embolden all rogue powers that threaten their neighbors and give them the freeist hand that they will probably ever get.

Iraq will certainly fall into a civil war as soon as we pull out. I have a feeling that the Shiite majority will totally annihilate the Sunnis without Iranian intervention. The Shiites will probably increase the Death Squads by 100 times and Sadr City will be cleaned out to the man. When all eyes are off of Iraq then you will see the real slaughter begin. That blood will certainly be on the Dems hands for getting out or Iraq without any thought about whether the Iraqis are ready to perform the security tasks and keep their nation from falling into civil war.

In any case I think Iran will be the biggest winner when the Dems get into power. They will finally be able to create nukes and be the leader of the region. They will certainly dominate post-America Iraq and might mold it into a client state. Or they can simply annex the southern half of the nation to "protect their fellow Sunnis" with only a "condemnation in the strongest possible terms" by Pelosi and her ilk.

The Dems will never use force no matter what Iran does. I think they could conceivably go to war with Iraq to "stop the Shiite Death Squads" but mostly just seize Iraqi oil wealth. When the only force standing in your way doesn't have the stomach to fight, is tired of hearing about the area, and won't give you any payback then the sky is truly the limit. If I were the Mullahs I would send Nancy Pelosi and her ilk a gift basket with a card saying "Job well done. You got our only obstacle to Middle Eastern dominance out of our way. You should be highly commended"

2006 Election Predictions

Here is my fearless predictions for this 2006 midterm election:

The Dems will get 26 seats in the House to give them a majority and win only 2 Senate seats.

That prediction is based on gut feeling and nothing more. I think the voters are pissed off enough about Iraq and the do-nothing Congress to change the House but not enough to change the Senate too.

Now if the Dems do win and they *don't* go after Bush on some trumped up impeachment charge then I will give them all the credit in the world. They know that they can't go after a sitting President in a time of war and not get burned by it. I think the Repub. Congress that went after Clinton damaged our national security. The White House and the Senate were going over what the meaning of "Is" is and debating stained dresses while Osama was putting the 9/11 pieces in place.

If the Dems go after Bush I would be willing to lay even money that a major terrorist attack will get through while people are preparing depositions and other stupid stuff. It will probably happen on the next president's watch but it will still be devastating to the people involved.

Chinese Gamers Protest Japanese Flag in Game

Now this is a weird sort of deal that actually affected Netease's (NTES) top line this quarter.

In addition, our revenues from online games were affected by increased
competition, particularly from free-to-play games offered by some of our
competitors, and in-game protests by certain users of our Fantasy Westward
Journey game who mistakenly identified an image in this game as being a Japanese flag.

Wow and this accidental flag adding even led to some conspiracy theories that led some Chinese gamers to think that NTES was actually taken over by a Japanese company.

Netease (Nasdaq: NTES) gamers are protesting an in-game image on the
wall of a building that resembles a Japanese rising sun flag, reports Beijing
Evening News. The offending image appears in Netease's bread and butter game
Fantasy Westward Journey. The image touched-off deep-seated anti-Japanese
sentiments in many gamers, and on July 7 almost 10,000 gamers have gathered at the location to express their disapproval. According to the report, some
protestors have even speculated that the image was added as a result of some
change in the shareholder structure of Netease.

I guess some gamers will believe anything.

Nintendo Wii to Offer 62 games by December

Wow they are really going to launch this thing in a big way. Now this item mentioned in the article, along with the $250 selling price, is really making this system look good.

In addition to the new selections Nintendo will offer, it will also
sell 30 classic games for the Wii Virtual Console on or shortly after the
systemÂ’s launch, including games from the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), the Super NES, Nintendo 64, Sega Genesis and the TurboGrafx16
console. Gamers will be able to purchase “Wii Points” via Nintendo’s
website or at participating retailers at $20 for 2,000 points, according to the
release. The points can then be exchanged for games to be downloaded and
played on the Wii Virtual Console. NES games will sell for as little as
500 Wii Points, Super NES and Sega Genesis games will start at 800 points,
Nintendo 64 games at 1,000 points and TurboGrafx16 games will start 600 Wii
Points, according to the release.

That means I can finally play Kid Icarus, Legend of Zelda, Megaman, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Contra, Golden Axe, Final Fight etc. in a non-emulated form. To think I was just bashing this thing in April. I still think the name is a colossal mistake but I guess people have gotten used to it more or less. But $250 for the Wii vs $499 for the 20GB or $599 for the 60GB version of the PS3 makes the choice much easier.

Kerry Bashes Troops but Says it is a Joke

Well it looks like Kerry is showing his true Far Left colors in this statement.

Kerry, D-Mass., said he meant no offense to troops when he told a college audience Monday that young people might get "stuck in Iraq" if they don't study hard and do their homework.

This is the same far left liberal view that anyone serving in the military is an idiot that doesn't know any better or has been duped by someone. The Far Left have a long history of holding the military in contempt that goes back to the Vietnam war and Kerry has let it loose again. He says his statement was a joke and he actually meant to say this line instead:

Kerry said he mangled the delivery of a line aimed at Bush. According to aides, the language was originally written to say that "if you're intellectually lazy, you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq — just ask President Bush."

What is he talking about? The first statement was about if you don't do your homework and study then they send you off to Iraq. I guess he said this to scare the kids or to say that the troops fighting over there are too stupid to have gotten out of it. I guess he still thinks there is a draft on or something. He should that these men and women signed up for the military knowing what they were getting into. I guess they just didn't study hard enough in Kerryworld.

Why Economists Suck with the Crystal Ball

This is a great article on why economic predictions are so off the mark usually. I have noticed that economists almost never get the numbers correct. I have seen predictions of growth and their is a slowdown. Then I see a prediction of a slowdown and then there is unexpected growth. It seems like they are sometimes picking numbers at random. These are the 10 reasons from this article. I wonder if anyone keeps percentages on how close/far off these predictions are to the mark?

1. The forecasting skill of economists is on average about as good as
guessing. In fact, predictions by the politically driven Council of Economic
Advisors, Federal Reserve Board and Congressional Budget Office were often worse than guessing.

2. Economists cannot predict the turning points in the economy. Of 48
predictions made by economists, 46 missed the turning points.

3. Economic forecasting accuracy declines with longer lead times.

4. No economic forecasters consistently lead the pact in accuracy.

5. No economic ideology consistently produces superior forecasts.

6. No economic forecaster has consistently higher forecasting
skills predicting any particular economic statistic.

7. Consensus forecasts do not improve accuracy (although the press
loves them).

8. Psychological bias affects forecasters and their forecasts. Some
economists are naturally optimistic and bullish, others are consistently
pessimistic bears.

9. Increased sophistication provides no improvement in forecasting
accuracy. Remember the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund? Two brilliant Nobel Economists backed by Wall Street's elite nearly sabotaged the world economy.

10. Finally, Sherden says there's no evidence that economic
forecasting has improved in recent decades. In fact, forecasting appears to be
deteriorating as partisan politics, Wall Street gaming and unpredictable global
events invent new illusions.

Red Cross to Reform itself

It looks like they are trying to push through some much needed reforms. I did not know they had a 50 member board. It must have been like a meeting of the UN general Assembly every time they had a board meeting. Here are the other reforms that they are trying to impliment:

_Explicitly delegating responsibility for day-to-day operations to the Red Cross' full-time professional management, with the board focusing mainly on longer-term strategic oversight.

_Reducing the board of governors to between 12 and 20 members by March 31, 2012. An interim goal is to have no more than 25 members by 2009.

_Creating a single category of board members. Now, most are elected by local chapters, some are elected by the board, and others, including the chairman, are appointed by the U.S. president.

_Shifting seven of the presidentially appointed governors — all but the chairman — into a newly created Cabinet Council that will be merely advisory.

Safeway's Prices are Outrageous

I have shopped quite a bit at Safeway since there is one within walking distance of my apartment. It always seems like their prices are more then anywhere else in Hawaii and this article confirms it. I am part of the Safeway Club thing so it seems like I am getting a deal when I shop there. However it seems that I am getting ripped off.

J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen C. Chick said a food-retail pricing study
showing that prices at Safeway are at an 18.5 percent premium to Wal-Mart, while Kroger's prices were at a 19.6 percent premium to Wal-Mart. That gap makes it hard for the grocery chains to raise their prices in hopes of improving their profits.

"These were still high relative to the premiums 6 months ago,
when SWY (Safeway) was at 27.5 percent and Kroger at 11.5 percent," he wrote in a research note. "As the result of continued price reductions, gross profit
margin expansion is unlikely for the group, despite what the stocks' valuations
seem to imply."

So just 6 months ago prices at Safeway were almost 30% higher then that of Wal-Mart? I know people that comparison shop probably knew this a long time ago but it was quite shocking to see it in print like this. I guess Safeway is pretty good at fooling its customers into paying 30% more (and now just 18.5% more) for the same exact thing you can get at Wal-Mart.

Pretty soon a Whole Food Market is moving into my area and I'll probably do more grocery shopping there instead of the rip off artists from Safeway. I will be willing to pay more for fresh or organic foods that I can't always get.

Vampires Impossible According to Math

It seems that Math trumps Vampires every time.

Efthimiou's debunking logic: On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was
536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one
person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A
month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years
the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.

In some vampire mythos the vampire can feed off of one person up to three times before that person turns into a vampire. That would increase this by a few years before the earth would be thick with vampires. Only in the game Anne Rice novels can vampires feed off of something with blood and not turn it into another vampire.

Cell Phones Make you Infertile?

Now this is ripe for Jay Leno territory.

Within the study group, those men who did not use mobile phones were
found to have average sperm counts of 86million per millilitre. This dropped to
69 million per millilitre for men with mobile phones who used them less than two
hours a day, 59million per millilitre for usage of two to four hours and
50million per millilitre for more than four hours a day.

I think this researcher may need to do more research rather then just making up the causes of this lowering of the sperm count on the fly.

"The effect of mobile phones on sperm may be due to the electromagnetic
radiation the devices emit or to the heat they generate," Dr Agarwal said
yesterday.

I'm pretty sure these guys are not using the cell phone with their crotches. Well with wireless Bluetooth earphones maybe people in Ohio (where the study was conducted) are doing just that. Perhaps they are storing the phones in their underpants while they talk hands free for some freakish reason. However this guy is probably on the right track:

"People who spend more than four hours a day on their mobile phone are
probably not doing physical work. They're probably sitting down for long periods
of time, which increases heat to the scrotal area, which affects sperm
production," Professor Driscoll said.

If you are on a cell phone for 4 entire hours a day then low sperm count will probably be the very least of your worries.

U.S. Starts "Out of Iraq Countdown"

It looks like the Bush Administration has finally switched gears in Iraq in what kind of looks like a purely political move.

General George Casey, who commands 140,000 U.S. troops still in Iraq
despite hopes early this year that a pullout might be under way by election
time, again forecast Iraqis would be able to handle most tasks in 12 to 18
months, with some U.S. support.

So that looks like the timeline for all intents and purposes. It sure is interesting that this revelation comes just two weeks before the election. It makes Bush look like he is actually doing something about Iraq and not just parroting "stay the course over and over."

It finally looks like he has gone to the generals and they gave him a strait answer. It isn't from some leaked reports or crap like that but it is the real deal from the guy commanding the troops. Bush should have done this far sooner and the American people would have had an idea of where we are going in Iraq far sooner. Thus they might have been able to head off what I think would be sure Dem win of the House.

Christmas in October?

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas whether we like it or not.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and J.C. Penney Co. are some
retailers hoping to get consumers into a Christmas shopping frame of mind two
months early. Sears Holdings Corp.'s Sears and Kmart stores kick off the
Yuletide mood in late October or early November. Costco Wholesale Corp. said
it's always put out Christmas ornaments, gift wrap, cards and artificial trees
as early as September.

I guess this is a good deal if your the kind of person that likes to finish their Christmas shopping early.

Wal-Mart Thinks They Are Too Big

Yup they are going to sacrifice capital expenditures to focus on profit growth. So you might see less Wal-Mart stores opening in favor of growing same store sales.

"Our long-term goal is to have our capital expenditures grow at a rate equal
or less than sales growth," said Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe.
"Over time, we expect our new capital efficiency model to reduce the impact of
cannibalization."

I guess they are finally tired of competing with themselves in certain markets. Maybe they will start of focus on bringing up their profit margins or return some of that cashola to their shareholders. I have a feeling that this could be the thing to propel this stock out of that almost 5 year or so trading range the stock has been in.

Why I Don't Mind if the Dems Win the House

It makes the Stock Market go up for the most part. Check out this article.

One of the more noteworthy aspects of the chart given the upcoming election
is that divided executive and legislative branches have generally been good for
the stock market. In fact, in the thirteen instances where the same party did
not control both houses of Congress and the Presidency, the market has risen in
all but two periods for an average gain of 23%, while in the ten periods where
the same party controlled all three branches, the market has risen in seven
periods for an average gain of only 11.3%.

That chart they have on that site is pretty good because it shows which sectors do well in a divided government. The 1981-1985 period is where the Senate and the Executive is controlled by the Repubs and the House is controlled by the Dems. In those years the best performing sector was Consumers Discretionary for one year and Consumer Staples for two years.

China Puts Pressure on North Korea

It looks like the only country that could talk sense into North Korea has just done so.

An Asian diplomat at the United Nations said Friday that Kim's comments to
the Chinese could provide an opening to restart six-party talks. The diplomat,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue,
said the United States should not be so dismissive of Chinese efforts and that
Beijing has developed sticks in addition to carrots.

The idea of sticks in addition to carrots is very interesting. I wonder if China threatened North Korea with serious sanctions or maybe even a military response if they didn't ratchet down the tension. I still think it was Chinese operatives that tried to blow up Kim's train at Ryongchon, North Korea in 2004. If they get rid of Kim they can get rid of the wild card that keeps the US in the region and blocks their road to hegemony in Asia.

This is Why France is an Economic Basket Case

Why should their courts have anything to do with how long people in hotels, bars and restaurants work?

On Wednesday the country's highest administrative court -- the state
council -- decided that a 2004 deal under which the 850,000 employees in hotels,
bars and restaurants can work 39 hours a week instead of 35 contravenes the key reform of the last Socialist Party (PS) government.

The decision left an estimated 200,000 businesses in legal limbo,
uncertain over the costs of implementing the measure, as staff expressed fears
that they will see their already low-level incomes shrink still
further.

This is clearly stealing 4 hours of pay right out of the pockets of people who are already not getting a ton of money. This is the kind of "reforms" that keeps Old Europe's growth so stagnate. If people are willing to work 4 more hours then why is the government stopping them. Oh well, this is just another thing that makes us lucky to live in the USA.

Rogues Everywhere Rejoice

It looks like scientists have invented a cloak of invisibility.

It's like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks
the road ahead behind an image of the sky.

"We have built an artificial mirage that can hide something from would-be observers in any direction," said cloak designer David Schurig, a research associate in Duke University's electrical and computer engineering department.

Why Yahoo is Doing So Badly

This is according to Henry Blodget. He's calling for Terry Semel to either crack heads or step aside for someone who will. This is pretty much the situation that Yahoo is in now:

From the outside, it seems as though Yahoo!'s senior managers, having
rescued the company from a brush with death, have collectively decided that
they've done enough and that just being "good" is now good enough. (A less
charitable interpretation, one I've floated before, would be that the company
got fat, happy, and lazy.) Unfortunately, Yahoo is now competing against
companies for whom being good isn't enough (Google) as well as against old media giants that are thrilled to finally be playing in the Internet big leagues
(Newscorp). And these companies are kicking Yahoo!'s ass

Yahoo Has a Bad Quarter but Project Panama Goes Live

All of that self advertising is hitting the bottom line this quarter.

Net income for the third-quarter dropped to $159 million, or 11 cents
per share, weighed down by $80 million worth of stock-compensation expenses,
compared with the year-earlier quarters profit of $254 million, or 17 cents per
share.

They have to get rid of some of those options expenses or it will be like an anchor on them. However there is one ray of sunshine that the stock sorely needs. They at last got their new Search Technology called Project Panama online.

Yahoo was supposed to unveil Panama in the third quarter but told
analysts in July that it would come out during the fourth quarter
instead.

But during the conference call, Semel said that Panama was now live
and that the company was in the process of shifting advertisers to it over the
next few months.

Boyd said that it was crucial for Yahoo to not postpone the rollout
of this new search technology any further or else many investors would have
given up hope on the company.

Now if if they can buyout Facebook and make it a success they might be a credible threat to Google's Ad Search supremacy.

Vote for the New 7 Wonders of the World

Here are the finalists for the 7 Wonders of the World contest. You can vote for your favorties at this site. I would probably go with Pyramids, Acropolis, Colosseum, Great Wall, Stonehenge, Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty.

1 Acropolis, Athens, Greece
2 Alhambra, Granada, Spain
3 Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia
4 Chichen Itza Aztec site, Yucatan, Mexico
5 Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
6 Colosseum, Rome
7 Easter Island Statues, Chile
8 Eiffel Tower, Paris
9 Great Wall, China
10 Hagia Sophia church, Istanbul, Turkey
11 Kyomizu Temple, Kyoto, Japan
12 Kremlin/St.Basil's, Moscow
13 Machu Picchu, Peru
14 Neuschwanstein Castle, Fussen, Germany
15 Petra ancient city, Jordan
16 Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
17 Statue of Liberty, New York
18 Stonehenge, Amesbury, United Kingdom
19 Sydney Opera House, Australia
20 Taj Mahal, Agra, India
21 Timbuktu city, Mali

Tough Life for Goalkeepers

Wow I did not know that this was one of the most dangerous jobs on the Soccer Field.

Bert Trautmann was a German prisoner of war who stayed in England after
World War II and played for Manchester City. At the 1956 FA Cup final at
Wembley, Trautmann dived at the feet of Birmingham City's Peter Murphy and
injured himself. He continued playing for the last 15 minutes of his team's 3-1
victory. He later discovered he had a broken neck.

In 1931, Celtic goalkeeper John Thomson dived at the feet of
Rangers striker Sam English and his head smashed into his opponent's knee.
Thomson never regained consciousness and died soon after.

APPL may have a Merry Christmas

It seems that the Intel Powered Macs may be selling like hotcakes this holiday.

"In a world where a 1% market share change represents $2 billion in
sales, we're forecasting a historic market share shift in the PC space for
laptops and desktops with these new Intel-based Macs," said Tobin Smith, founder of ChangeWave Research and editor of ChangeWave Investing. "Market share grabs like this just don't happen in the PC world. Our numbers say that the Mac is surging."

This could be a really nice add on this holiday season since they are already forcasting brisk IPod sales.

Air America Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

I guess the Liberal Talk Radio format just doesn't work in practice. I wonder if the Libs are going to still be going on about the inequality of media outlets now? They had their chance and it ended up going bankrupt.

Air America Radio, the liberal talk and news radio network that features the
comedian Al Franken, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network
official told The Associated Press.

Weird Temple

Now this looks like a dreamscape out of a fantasy novel or maybe a D&D adventure.

Buyblue.org has a list of Blue Companies

Upon researching this Blue Fund I came across this site that has a rundown of different "progressive" companies. There are some interesting things on this site that I can actually get on board with. I like the idea of sustainable living and cutting back on oil so we don't have to put more money in the pockets of the Iranian Mullahs and crazy idiots like Chavez. I don't give a crap about Global Warming I just don't want my money to fund suicide bombers and anti-American crazies.

Some of the Stocks in the Blue Fund

This article has a few more of the stocks listed in the Blue Funds stock prospectus:

Among the 75 different companies included in the Blue Fund are eBay (Charts), Apple (Charts), Liz Claiborne (Charts), Lehman Brothers (Charts), North Fork Bank (Charts) and Starwood Hotels (Charts).

There are some tech names including GOOG like the last article has said. It does seem to be heavily weighted in the Big Caps though.

Here is a link to their site and sure enough the people they have touting the fund are the usual suspects when it comes to "progressives." You have the grey haired 50-something woman that remembers when her generation could "change the world." She's all "Free Huey" and "Hey Hey LBJ how many kids did you kill today" but is probably living the Yuppie dream. Then you have the asian woman with the interesting blouse ties to fit the multi-culti bill. Finally, you have the dreadlocked black guy with the blue short sleeved collar shirt. All they would need is a grey haired guy with a pony tail and a tie-dyed T-shirt and you have all of the usual suspects.

Be a Dem when it comes to Picking Stocks?

This is a very interesting article on the comparisons between Democratic giving and Republican giving when it comes to stocks. A "blue" stock is one that gives more money to the Dems then to the Republicans.

According to the firm's research paper, "The Blue Factor," an index of
76 companies in the S&P 500 meeting certain ethical criteria and favoring
Democrats -- "blue" stocks -- would have topped a group of about 380 Republican
"red" stocks by 15.6 percentage points annualized over the five years through
August.

In addition, the large-capitalization blue companies did 13.1
percentage points better than their S&P benchmark, the study said. Moreover,
blue S&P companies achieved this result without any representation in the
high-octane energy sector.

I have a feeling that most of the "blue" stocks happen to be tech names like GOOG and APPL while "red" stocks are mostly big oil, tobacco, etc. Also I would have a hard time comparing a list of 76 companies to a list of 380 companies. I'll hunt around for the lists to compare them better.

Lacey Rose the Author of the Forbes Jessica Simpson Article

My mom always wants to know what women that I think are good looking. I have to say that the woman that wrote this Forbes celeb piece is very good looking. She is also pretty talented as well. I think the reason why I find her attractive is because she looks like this girl Kristine that I had a crush on in high school.

Are You Sick and Tired of Jessica Simpson?

It seems that America sure is according to this article.

According to Encino, Calif.-based E-Poll Market Research, which
ranks more than 2,800 celebrities on 46 different personality attributes,
Simpson's "overexposed" score went from 17% in September 2003 to 41% in
mid-2006. (The average for most celebrities at the peak of their careers is
between 3% and 7%.) During that same period, Simpson's "talented" score
dropped from 36% to a disappointing 28%. Other stars the public would
supposedly like to see less of include Tom Cruise, Anna Nicole Smith and
both Britney Spears and her husband Kevin Federline.

That is very interesting how her overexposed score goes up while her talented
score goes down. People get so so tired of seeing her that figure out that she
just isn't very talented in the first place and has no reason for being a
celebrity at all. She then joins the ranks of Anna Nicole Smith and Paris
Hilton. You kind of forgot why she is famous in the first place.

I think Americans get the most tired of having a celeb filling up to much of mindspace.
Everytime you see them you cringe and have a feeling that they have worn out
their welcome. So every time you see them after this period you get more and
more tired of them and start to dislike them. Kind of like you feel when a guest
hangs around too long. You liked them at first but now if you never hear
anything about them forever it would be okay.

I think you can chalk this up to the tabloid treatment and the wall-to-wall entertainment press that goes on and on about a celeb. The tabs take something that almost all Americans do
like having a baby and pound it into the ground. As soon as a celeb announces
they are preggers you hguaranteedteed 9 months or more of news.

You first have endless shots of her with a big tummy. I bet the tabs love these
because they finally see a formally skinny celeb finally looking like an average
American. Then you have speculation on where she will have the baby. Will it be
in some tiny African nation or in some upscale birthing pod in Beverly Hills?
Then you have the first shots of the mother, father, and baby sold to the
Tabloids for millions. Then you have a story on how the celeb lost her baby
weight through eating tons of wheat grass and exercising like a Navy Seal.
Finally, you have some stories of the celeb raising the kid wrong by driving
around with the kid on their lap. By the time the baby is 2 years old you are as
tired of seeing them as you are of seeing the mom.

This Gitmo Report Seems Fishy

This almost seems like a hitjob by close Gitmo Operatives.

The lawyer sent the statement on behalf of a paralegal who said men she
met on Sept. 23 at a bar on the base identified themselves to her as guards. The
woman, whose name was blacked out, said she spent about an hour talking with
them. No one was in uniform, she said.

This paralegal was sent into the area to talk to the guards at a bar and I would bet even money that she is pretty good looking. So these guys were bragging to her that they roughed up the captured terrorists possibly to make themselves look like badasses in front a good looking woman. That happens in bars all over the world.

So they could have been bragging that they were tough guys simply to impress this woman (who probably didn't tell them that she was a paralegal digging up dirt on Gitmo) to hopefully get into her pants. Also if these guys didn't have some liquor in them in a bar I would be really surprised. I would think that getting information like this would be illegal but the Inspector General is held to different standards. I guess just taking these guards aside to interview them was not getting the dirt they wanted.

Paying for the Boomers Retirement

Even Ben Bernanke is worried about when the Baby Boomers are going to retire.

Shoring up the finances of Social Security and Medicare will make for
difficult choices, Bernanke said.

For instance, if the government tried to finance projected
entitlement spending entirely by revenue increases, the taxes collected would
have to rise from about 18 percent of the total size of the economy to about 24
percent in 2030, he said.

If the government attempted a fix through spending cuts, spending
for programs other than Social Security and Medicare would need to fall sharply
-- the equivalent of "a budget cut of approximately $700 billion in
nonentitlement spending," he said.

I have a feeling that they are going to cut entitlements using some arcane method in an 11th hour session before a real crisis develops. So it is pretty much guaranteed that I won't see a dime of the money I am paying into Social Security.

Great Commentary on the N. Korean Nuke Test

I agree with this article 100%. I could see Japan either starting a nuclear program or asking the US to base some nuclear weapons just in case North Korea gets froggy. That move would put China on Red Alert. Indeed shock waves would be felt.

A test would shake up northeast Asia, sending shock waves through South
Korea and possibly inciting a regional arms race - causing Japan and even South
Korea to consider it a necessity to reverse course and develop their own nuclear
deterrents. That, experts say, would very likely mean that the international
nonproliferation regime is dead.

Findings of APPLs Stock Option Mess

We got some mea culpa from Apple and one resignation so far. It seems like it was all before 2002 though so the current team should be okay.

Apple's investigation "committee" consisting of outside directors,
together with independent counsel and accountants confirmed a clean record of
the current leadership, but revealed somewhat unexpected results. After
searching through 650,000 emails and interviews with "more than 40 current and former employees, directors and advisors," the team identified "stock option
grants made on 15 dates between 1997 and 2002 [that] appear to have grant dates that precede the approval of those grants." The most recent "irregularity" dates back to a January 2002 grant.

Checking out those 650K e-mails must have been quite a job in itself. I would have hated being on that "committee." Maybe they used some kind of filtering software that searched out every usage of the word options or something to make it less work.

North Korea to Test Nuke

This would be a good time to do it as well. The House is caught up with they Foley mess. The President is in election mode and bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't even help out Darfur with troops even if we wanted to. Everyone is distracted so they could test the thing now and might get off with only a stern warning from the West. Or it could just be another head fake by Pyongyang:

A U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity
because of the highly sensitive situation with North Korea, said the United
States is now seeing the movement of people, materials and automobiles and other activity around one possible test site. But, the official said, it could be
similar to the activity a couple of months ago. At that time, no test occurred.

Foley Scandal a Death Blow to Republicans

I think this thing is going to get worse and worse the further we go along.

Speaker Dennis Hastert's political support showed signs of cracking on Wednesday as Republicans fled the fallout from an election-year scandal spawned
by steamy computer messages from disgraced Rep. Mark Foley to teenage male
pages.

Now they are turning on Hastert because he didn't clean up this mess a year ago when it first came to light. They should be rightfully angry with him too. A year ago they should have run Foley out of there and tried him. This whole thing would have blown over and the guilty parties would have been punished.

Now it could be a spoiler that puts them all out on their butts. If they did cover up for Foley then I think they *all* deserve to be out on their ear. Also if it is true that the party leadership covered up for a scumbag like Foley then I don't want any part of their party at all.

American Eagle's Same Stores up 19%

They really knocked it out of the park.

Total sales for the year-to-date thirty-five week period ended September 30,
2006 increased 17% to $1.635 billion, compared to $1.395 billion for the
thirty-five week period ended October 1, 2005. Comparable store sales increased
11% for the year-to-date period.

Based on better-than-expected
September performance, the company is raising its third quarter earnings
guidance to $0.61 to $0.63 per share, compared to $0.47 per share last year.
Previous third quarter guidance was $0.56 to $0.58 per share. Third quarter
guidance includes stock option expense of approximately $0.01 per share. For the
year, stock option expense is expected to be approximately $0.04 to $0.05 per
share.

And all of the things that I thought would make this a good stock a few weeks ago turned out to be right on the mark:

September sales performance was driven by a well-received fall collection,
which added freshness to stores during a key back-to-school selling period.
Stores featured fresh colors, on-trend silhouettes and strong key items.
Additionally, in early September, the company's new intimates sub-brand, aerie
by American Eagle, debuted across the chain, to a positive customer
response.

David Camerons Windmill?

This is the kind of Windmill that David Cameron is supposed to be using:

Brown/Blair War?

This is the kind of article that shows that the Brits can really write some witty stuff when it comes to politics across the pond.

Manchester this week was crawling with resourceful and aggressive political journalists who left no stone unturned to find some new casus belli with which to reignite the Blair-Brown war. So what did all these media bloodhounds bring home? An almost inaudible comment, supposedly muttered under her breath by the Prime Minister’s wife, who is not even a politician, and overheard not by some eminent BBC, Sun or Guardian pundit, but by a US wire-service reporter on her way to the loo. If this was the strongest “Blair-Brown feud” story that the best and brightest of British political journalism could come up with, then surely the Labourites have beaten their swords into ploughshares and the ultra-Brownites can now lie down with the über-Blairites.

I was reading an Economist Article about a Brownite Britian and it mostly talked about some of the other people that would come after Brown. It seems they just want to get rid of Brown already and get some energetic and charismatic, younger guy in there like David Cameron.

British opposition leader David Cameron rides a bike to work, is building a windmill on his roof, wears sneakers and likes to be called "Dave" _ all of which endear him to urban yuppies but disturb many of his fellow conservatives.

Cameron's supporters say his brand of compassionate conservatism will make him Britain's next prime minister. Critics claim the Conservative Party _ once led by Winston Churchill and "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher _ has gone soft.

Too bad he is not running for President in the US. A guy who rides a bike to work, and has a windmill on his roof is the kind of guy that I like.

Democrats "Fancy" Terrorism Cure

Great Op-Ed piece that my friend pointed out to me about what the Dems strategy in the war on terrorism.

I call this Democrat approach to geopolitics the "Fancy" strategy after a Reba McEntire hit. In the song a mortally ill and destitute mother delivers her teen aged daughter named Fancy into a life of prostitution with the advice

"just be nice to the gentlemen Fancy and they'll be nice to you."

This is pretty much what Democrats and their allies in the intelligence community are recommending to the rest of us. Of course, there is an important difference. Fancy's mother was articulating a strategy of desperation.

Democrats have inexplicably adopted a strategy of desperation as a strategy of choice, which creates a serious political problem for them. The nation's average intelligence is only average, but a clear majority is smart enough to understand that striving to be inoffensive is a losing strategy for a superpower.

Desperation is the typical appeasers cry. If we pull out of the Middle East and leave Israel in the lurch then maybe the terrorists will leave us alone. Maybe if we all convert to Islam and then pay the Jizya they will leave us alone. If we elect Mullah Omar as the next Ruler For Life of the US maybe they will leave us alone. This is why the Dems can't be trusted to fight the war on terror. They don't know what it takes to win.

Carl Icahn Boosts Holdings in Federated

This seems like a precursor to a closer tie to the FD board.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, known for challenging the management of various corporations, wants to acquire up to $500 million in additional shares of Federated Department Stores Inc., the operator of Macy's and Bloomingdale's said on Wednesday.

I wonder what Icahn is planning to do to shake up this company? Could we see spinoffs or maybe more consolidation in the department store space? In any case I just like the idea of risking my money at the same time as a billionaire investor.

What the Hewlett-Packard Spies Did

They sure did a lot of stuff to get the leak.

Documents have shown that investigators working for HP intruded into the personal lives of seven HP directors, two employees, nine reporters and family members of the targeted individuals. In addition to impersonating those targeted to procure phone records, they also spied on an HP director and his wife, sifted through their garbage, and concocted an e-mail sting to dupe reporter Dawn Kawamoto of CNet Networks Inc.'s technology news site.

It kind of sounds like what paparazzi do to stars sometimes. That going through the garbage thing especially.

Abe's Japan to Check China?

It seems that Shinzo Abe is going to be the next Prime Minister of Japan.



I wonder if he is going to be a thorn in Chinas side?

He has also pledged to bring more patriotism to schools, and boost Japan's military alliance with the United States — both sore points with the Chinese, who feel that Japanese textbooks gloss over Japan's wartime atrocities, and that the U.S.-Japan alliance is aimed at containing Beijing.

Those stands have raised concerns in the region.

"Abe's rhetoric is very dangerous, given China's growing clout in the region," said Hiro Katsumata, a research fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

I think a Japan with a strong military will be China's worst nightmare. The US will be perfectly willing to hook up Japan with the latest military hardware in order to slow China's influence in the region.

It would also give North Korea pause the next time they fire a rocket over Japan. Instead of stern words and China watering down a Security Council resolution you might have 100s of Japanese F-22s ready and willing to take North Korea out. It will be interesting to see Japan's international stature after Abe comes into power.

Schwarzenegger Signs Bill Forbidding Sudan Investment

This seems like a nice step but it seems no one knows how much California was investing in Sudan beforehand.

Officials could not place a precise value on state investments in Sudan.

The University of California system doesn't hold any stock directly in companies doing business with Sudan, but it does have pooled investments in those companies. The amount of money involved, officials said, would be a small fraction of its $66 billion in pension and endowment funds.

The state pension system is trying to identify any Sudan investments.

It would be an interesting list to see about which US companies (if any) are directly investing in Sudan. This is a site that has a few companies doing business in Sudan to divest from. These are the companies that the site mentions:

ABB
Alcatel
Petro-China
Siemens
Tatneft

PS3 Previews in Japan

It seems like they will have quite a few games available for it at launch. It seems that the press likes the games so far.

Titles such as "Resistance: Fall of Man," "Genji: Days of the Blade" and "Ridge Racer 7" will be among the games available at the console's Japan launch on November 11 but there was also considerable interest in some of the software that is on show in an unfinished state. The show was also the first chance for most potential customers to get their hands on a console.

Here is a list of the games. I'm looking forward to Metal Gear Solid 4 myself.

The list is formated with the PS3 game followed by the game's developer.

• 6Gun 2 - BattleBorne Entertainment
• Avalon - Climax Studios
• Dark Sector - Digital Extreme
• The Darkness - Starbreeze Studios
• Devil May Cry 4 - Capcom
• EA Sports Fight Night Round 3 - EA Chicago
• Eyedentify - TBA
• Fifth Phantom Saga - Sonic Team
• Final Fantasy PS3 - Square Enix
• Formula One PS3 - SCE Studios Liverpool
• The Getaway PS3 - SCE Studios Soho
• Heavenly Sword - Ninja Theory
• I-8 - Insomniac Games
• Infraworld - Quantic Dream
• Killing Day - TBA
• Killzone PS3 - Guerilla Games
• Metal Gear Solid 4 - Kojima Productions
• Mobile Suit Gundam - TBA
• MotorStorm - Evolution Studios
• Ni-Oh - KOEI
• Omikron 2 - Quantic Dream
• Possession - Blitz Games
• Project Delta - Playlogic International
• ShadowClan - Tiger Hill Entertainment
• Tekken PS3 - Namco
• Vision GT - Polyphony Digital
• Warhawk PS3 - Incognito Entertainment

We can Bring Some Liquids on Planes Again

Finally, I can put my contact lens stuff in my carry-on bag again. It looks like they figured that you can't blow up a plane with 3 ounces of liquid.

Passengers will be able to carry lotions and gels onto airliners again after a six-week ban — but only in tiny containers of 3 ounces or less and only if they're in clear zip-top plastic bags.

Also we can buy a drink at the Airport shop and bring them on the plane. No more sucking down your soda before you have to board.

Starting Tuesday, air travelers also will be able to buy drinks or other liquids or gels at shops inside airport security checkpoints and carry them on board under partially relaxed anti-terror rules.

The Worlds Most Expensive Marmalade

This stuff is coming in at 5000 British Pounds. Too bad I prefer Raspberry jam.

HP Chairwoman Out

It looks like Dunn resigned in the wake of the spying scandal. This is why she got in trouble in the first place.

Determined to protect confidential board discussions, HP hired
investigators who impersonated board members, employees and journalists to
obtain their phone records. The detectives also surveilled an HP director and
concocted an e-mail sting to dupe a reporter an online technology
site.

I think HP got a little too involved with playing James Bond and not consolidating their lead over Dell and other computer makers.

Remember Those on the Far Left that are Pro-Chavez

Don't forget these pictures whenever a Dem has one of these Far-Left Nutjobs coming out in support of them:

Sheehan Loves Chavez


Belafonte Loves Chavez

Dems Back Bush Against Chavez

Now I have to give some respect to the Dems for backing up Bush against that idiot Chavez. They are really showing some backbone and coming to the aid of a fellow American after he is slurred in front of the world by a crazy dictator:

"I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other
president - don't come to the United States and think because we have problems
with our president that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that
Americans do not feel offended when you offend our Chief of State," Rangel said.

"Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and
Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us," Rangel
said.

Maybe the Dems and the Repubs can work together in a bipartisan manner after all.

Hugo Chavez Plugs Chomsky Book

I'm glad Mr. Chomsky can get a plug from a crazy dictator that hates our country. And people wonder why the far-left cannot connect with Main Stream America? I'm pretty sure most Americans hate this idiots guts but the far-left keep cozying up to him like he is the best thing since sliced bread.

Real Tan in a Bottle Now Possible

This is very good news for Conan O'Brian and other fair-skinned Irish seeking a tan without getting skin cancer in the process.

By applying a cream that causes darker pigmentation, scientists in the
United States successfully gave tans to mice that were genetically engineered to
be fair-skinned.

The research could eventually lead to a cream that tans human skin
without the risks of skin cancer attached to sunbathing.

Interesting Media Reaction to Vietnamese Double Agent

Now this is a very telling reaction to finding out that a top reporter in the Vietnam war who just passed away just happened to be a double agent for the North Vietnamese.

Former media colleagues expressed mixed feelings, from bemusement
to a sense of betrayal, after An revealed in the 1980s that he had been a
spy.

Mixed Feelings? I mean the guy was a spy for the people our nation was fighting against. There were actually people that were bemused at finding out that this guy was stealing secrets and getting Americans killed?

Outside critics vilified An for his role in espionage activities that may have led to the deaths of many Americans and South Vietnamese. But most of An's ex-colleagues refrained from criticizing his deception.

So did his colleagues gave him a free pass while "outside critics" were the only people that criticized what this guy really did? These reporters couldn't even denounce him for possibly getting our troops killed?

"If ever there was a man caught between two worlds, it was An. It is very
hard for anyone who did not serve in Vietnam in those years to understand the
complexity," said David Halberstam, who covered the early years of the war for
The New York Times.

What is so complex about posing as a journalist while giving secrets to the government of the nation we were locked in a mortal struggle with? I think that would be wrong no matter how you look at it. This is very telling on where the media's allegiances really lie. It certainly isn't with the troops of their native country. And these are the same people (or taught/inspired the current people) that are covering the Iraq war. The Jihaddis don't even need a 5th column when they have people like this working for our country.

Hopeful Photo Op for Middle Eastern Peace

Lets hope this little meeting leads to something bigger. Maybe a Rose Garden ceremony with Abbas and Olmert after signing a sweeping peace plan? It sure would be funny to see Bush was win the Nobel Peace Prize by bringing these two sides together. It would make Liberals crazy.

Interesting Article About Vietnam

This is a very interesting article about the fall of Saigon. I have a feeling that it may be almost a repeat once the Dems get in power. All the idiots like Brian Schatz who is running for Congress from Hawaii wants to begin pulling troops out of Iraq "immediately."

State Rep. Brian Schatz and state Rep. Gary Hooser both called for
withdrawal to begin immediately.

"The war hurts America and costs $250 million per day," Schatz
said, adding his argument that reducing the number of troops would help
stabilize the area.

In other words they don't care what the generals think are appropriate troop levels because we can't afford to lose more money! I'm sure Schatz knows much more then General John Abizaid about stabilizing the area so we should elect him then put him in charge of reducing US Troop strength.

In any case I would be willing to bet even money that we will see the Iraq equivalent of the Air America helicopter rising off the US embassy. The last one out of the Green Zone please turn out the lights.

Yahoo gets Bashed in the Head with a Shovel

Wow it looks like the admen are pulling the plug on Yahoo spending and the stock sold off to the tune of an 11.2% loss.

``We have seen a little bit of weakness in the last three or four
weeks'' from automakers and financial services providers, Chief Financial
Officer Susan Decker said today at a Goldman, Sachs & Co. conference in New
York. ``It is having an impact on our quarter.''

Decker's comments surprised investors and sent the shares, already
hurt by a 26 percent stock slide this year, down as much as 13 percent. Slowing
sales growth at Yahoo, the most-visited U.S. Web site, sparked concern of a
general reduction in demand for Internet advertising and shopping, prompting a
drop in shares of Google Inc., EBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc

I noticed this trend about 2 months ago when I saw that the ads on Yahoo were almost all for Yahoo branded services. I can't tell you how many times I saw an ad for Cakemania, or for Yahoo Personals in a prime spot like the side banner of Yahoo mail.

Yahoo mail is something a person will look at almost every day so you would think it would bring a pretty nice fee. This is where you would see an ad for the new Yaris or something like that. I figured they were not able to sell that space so they were forced to put up their own banners or end up with a blank white space.

So it seems they were being forced to self promote in prime ad real estate. It is kind of like putting up a billboard advertising the billboard company right in Times Square. You just know that a company like that going to be hurting. Ms. Deckers comments just confirmed this. I should have went short YHOO when I first saw this trend emerge way back when.

I wonder if this ad downturn is only attributed to YHOO? Or will GOOG and to a lesser extent ValueClick VLCK (who makes software that helps advertisers create online ad campaigns) get smashed as well. I think we have to wait until Google puts out their numbers on October 19 to be 100% sure.

Bush Should Stop Ducking Ahmadinejad

I think Bush should just go up to this blowhard and shake his hand and be cordial. If Ahmadinejad freaks out and starts shouting or something then take it in all in good humor and smile politely.

Give him a dose of good old fashioned Texas Charm. Show the world that Bush has no ill will toward the Iranian people or even Ahmadinejad and is not afraid to confront him on a personal level.

A photo op of him shaking Ahmadinejads hand with a big smile while the Iranian leader has a scowl or something would be very interesting. It would be one of those breathless moments that would have the eyes of the world on it. Maybe Bush could even get Ahmadinejad to take a swing at him or something. Now that would really be funny.

Instead it looks like Bush is purposely trying to avoid him.

After delivering his address at 11.30am local time, Mr Bush plans to
attend the traditional banquet for visiting presidents, princes and prime
ministers. A total of 144 world leaders and their foreign ministers will gather
for the feast, providing ample opportunity for unexpected diplomatic encounters.
But Mr Ahmadinejad, Iran's devout Islamist leader, has told the UN he will not
be attending the luncheon because alcohol is being served.

Military Overthrows Thai Government

Now this should put the fear of God into unpopular and corrupt leaders leaving their countries for a UN shindig.

THAILAND fell to a bloodless coup under the cover of monsoon rains last
night as tanks and Humvees surrounded Government House and took control of radio and televisions in the capital Bangkok.

From New York Thaksin Shinawatra, the controversial Thai Prime
Minister, declared a “severe state of emergency” after calling the Channel 9
television station in the capital. But he was cut off mid-speech.

Gas Prices Down And Bush Approval Up

I think this is a great correlation on how gas prices affect a President. When gas is up Bush was in the 30% approval rating. When gas prices drop to $2.50 Bush has a 44% approval rating. If gas prices keep dropping then Bush might crack the 50% mark again.

Children of Hurin to be Published

It seems that there is going to be a new Tolkien book about elves and dwarves that has never been published before. I wonder in what age it will be set in?

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on "The
Children of Hurin," an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned.
Excerpts of "The Children of Hurin," which includes the elves and dwarves of
Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and other works, have been published
before.

Neo-Neocon a Great Blog!

This Blog entitled neo-neocon is a very good read. I spent most of the afternoon reading through this blog and I went ahead and added it to my list. There is quite a bit of insight from a woman that was a lifelong liberal who changed into a conservative due to 9/11. The stuff about Iran and how the Islamic revolution ate its children was very enlightening.

Deadly Spinich Outbreak Grows

Wow more states are being affected by the wave of Deadly Spinach.

The FDA warned people nationwide not to eat the spinach. Washing won't get rid of the tenacious bug, though thorough cooking can kill it. Supermarkets across the country pulled spinach from shelves, and consumers tossed out the leafy green.

"We're waiting for the all-clear. In the meantime, Popeye the Sailor Man and this family will not be eating bagged spinach," said Dr. William Schaffner, chairman of preventative medicine at Vanderbilt University. The Tennessee university's medical center was treating a 17-year-old Kentucky girl for E. coli infection.

P.T. Barnum Mummy Real

Now this is an interesting devlopment:

The Egyptian mummy in his museum is for real. A pair of Quinnipiac University imaging experts, who specialize in mummies, confirmed Thursday that the mummy - Pa-Ib - was a real person. Barnum's second wife had donated the mummy to the museum in 1892. The mummy is supposedly that of an Egyptian priest who lived more than 2,500 years ago.

OPEC to cut output in 2007 due to lowered demand

That would be bad news for the energy patch and good news for consumers.

Some worldwide economic softening was acknowledged on Friday by the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which said fourth-quarter demand for its oil would be 320,000 barrels a day lower than previously forecast, or 28.86 million barrels per day.

In 2007, OPEC expects demand for its crude to average 28.1 million
barrels per day, or 800,000 barrels per day less than the 2006 average, in part
because non-OPEC supplies are rising. As a result, some analysts believe the
Vienna-based cartel, which is pumping close to 30 million barrels a day, may end
up cutting its output by 1.5 million barrels a day or more.

Ford Inches Closer to the Drain

Wow it seems that US carmakers just can't compete with the Japanese. Ford looks like they are really restructuring their operations in a big way:

The company announced it would cut 10,000 more white-collar positions
in addition to offering buyout and early retirement packages to all of its
75,000 hourly employees. It also suspended its dividend.

That last bit is what I would be wary of if I was an investor in F stock. It is always a bad sign when a company pulls its dividend. Even if they have to save money that is a bad sign IMO.

ICE to buy out NY Board of Trade

A stock that I have been watching for some time Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and it looks like they are buying out the NY Board of Trade. This is the part of the deal that I like and will save ICE some money in the long run:

ICE will also acquire the New York Board of Trade's clearinghouse, the New York Clearing Corporation. Until now, ICE had relied on outsourcing services to LCH.Clearnet, a clearinghouse based in the U.K., which put it at a disadvantage to competitors like the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Whenever you can stop paying some other guy to outsource some of your core business and rely on your acquisition then you can easily reduce those costs. This deal also allows ICE to participate in selling commodities like coffee, sugar, cotton and orange juice. They specialized mostly in trading energy futures before so this diversifies them nicely. It should make for a nice move upward in ICEs earnings in the coming years.

Pope Blasts Islam, Pakistanis in Uproar

It looks like the Pope has gave a little condemnation of Islam via Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel Paleologos II:

"The emperor ... said, I quote, 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was
new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command
to spread by the sword the faith he preached,'" he quoted the emperor as
saying.

Then the Pakistanis condemned this quote and it shows something interesting:

"Anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages
violence," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.

I wonder if Tasnim means that Popes words encourages violence toward Islam or from Muslims? Judging from the uproar over the Danish Cartoons he might meant from Muslims. In other words if you describe Muslims as intolerant then they will beat you up, threaten to kill you, or actually kill you in the case of Theo van Gogh.

Spinach Deadly!

Now this is a real reason not to eat all of your greens.

An outbreak of E. coli in eight states has left at least one person
dead and 50 others sick, federal health officials said Thursday in warning
consumers nationwide not to eat bagged fresh spinach.

FDA officials do not know the source of the outbreak other than it
appears to be linked to bagged fresh spinach. "We're advising people not to eat
it," said Dr. David Acheson of the
Food and Drug Administration Center
for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

Washington Post on Nancy Grace

I agree 100% with this Washington Post writer Andrew Cohen on his take on this Grace thing. This line is an especially good indictment on some of these TV lawyers from the "scream media"

In fact, I'm surprised that violence hasn't surrounded her shtick already
and more often. The combination of rage, revenge, accusation and innuendo that
permeates her show and her television personality is precisely the sort of
roiling, viscous, corrosive potion that leads people to think they are heroes
when they are about to act as villains.

Yeah Grace comes from the school of thought where you have to be an outrageous bulldog to get any ratings. It doesn't matter who you destroy or how you may harm the cases that you are publicizing.

You have to grill those suspects until they die or they confess the crimes that you have already convinced they are guilty of. I mean Grace isn't a detective grilling a suspect at the jailhouse. She is supposed to be running a TV show. Whatever the case I kind of hope that this thing wakes up CNN and they fire Grace.

Air America in a Death Spiral?

I guess liberals just don't want to listen to talk radio with the same conviction that conservatives do. It seems the liberal bastion radio might be nearing Chapter 11.

Horn, without getting specific, said there were "a handful of layoffs"
that followed a move of the network's New York outlet from WLIB-AM to
WWRL-AM, a station with a less powerful signal. The network launched in March
2004.

Also they seem to not be paying Al Franken and he complained about it on air.

Franken, in a recent interview, said the network was suffering from "a
cash flow problem."

"No cash has been flowing to me," Franken, who makes a reported $2 million a
year, told The New York Sun. "That's the first inkling I got of a cash flow
problem."

So they were forced to move to a weaker station and can't even get their payroll sorted out enough to pay their on-air talent. That does not bode well for liberal talk radio. Soon we are going to hear about how talk radio was not really the correct venue for "progressive ideas" or something like that.

Nancy Grace Caused Woman's Death?

I think this is a case of the media attacking someone so badly that it pushing her over the edge.

Two weeks after telling police that her son had been snatched from his
crib, Melinda Duckett found herself reeling in an interview with TV's famously
prosecutorial Nancy Grace. Before it was over, Grace was pounding her desk and
loudly demanding to know: "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?"

A day after the taping, Duckett, 21, shot herself to death, deepening
the mystery of what happened to the boy.

So basically you could say that Nancy Grace's grilling pushed her to the breaking point and she offed herself. This woman's blood is on Grace's hands. If Duckett did kill her kid then we will never know since she has taken that knowledge to the grave. If she was innocent then the so called "scream-media" that goes after any suspect without sufficient proof or evidence and convicts them on national television has just claimed their first victim. In any case we will probably never learn the fate of Trenton Duckett. The kid will just be milk carton fodder while Grace and her other "scream-media" cohorts move on to their next victim.

Stingrays Targeted After Irwins Death

I guess Aussies are taking some revenge on the weird fish.

Stingray bodies since have been discovered on two beaches in Queensland
state on Australia's eastern coast. Two were discovered Tuesday with their tails
lopped off, state fisheries department official Wayne Sumpton said.

I wonder if they are going to get a bad rap now that they killed off the beloved environmentalist. I noticed a few Stingrays with their tails cut off when I was in Vegas at the Ceasars Palace fishtank in front of Cheesecake Factory. It must have been payback time for Stingrays.

BMW rolls out the Hydrogen Car

This seems like an interesting Green initiative by BMW.

The BMW 7 Series Hydrogen 7 Saloon is powered by a 260 hp
twelve-cylinder engine and accelerates from 0-100 km/h (62 mph) in 9.5 seconds. Top speed is limited electronically to 230 km/h.

BMW has said it intends to build a few hundred such cars at first.
They will be able to switch between burning standard petrol and hydrogen so that drivers will not be left stranded while the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen
is built up.

I would hate to get into a wreck with a hydrogen powered car. Hopefully the gas tanks are well shielded because the explosion that it would create would be pretty nuts to see.

More Bad News For Dell

They are canceling their analyst meeting, stopping their share repurchase plan, and delaying their quarterly results. This scandal is really taking up a lot of their time and it looks like it has pissed off the Wall Street guys as well:

Tech sector analysts were left furious by the last-minute cancellation of Dell's financial presentations, due to be held tomorrow in New York. Many had already traveled to the city from the west coast. It is the second time that Dell has delayed the presentations, which were originally scheduled to be held in April.

If you have a strong stomach DELL might be a great contrarian play in the near term. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole though because I'm seeing an era where the physical computer will become as ubiquitous as the the desk it sits on.

Companies like Dell will just have to exist on a paper thin margin and try to make money selling the PCs in bulk or to emerging markets or something. Dell's glory years of fast growth and heady profits are behind it unless they reinvent themselves by making some other thing. Selling tons of personal computers through the mail is not going to cut it no matter how efficient the process is.

I think companies like Lenovo (who can rely on cheap Chinese labor) and HP (which can sell their PCs without a shipping markup) will become the new leaders in this industry. I would put decent money on Dell starting to lose money every quarter in the next few years unless they do something drastic. Could this be what Dells are good for in a few years?

Iranian Standoff-A Rundown

Here is a petty good rundown of all of the events and the things at stake in the Iran going after a nuclear bomb and what led up to it. Like I have been saying for a while that Iran has a fairly formidible military. Although we will have air superiority in the first few hours the land war will be horrendous. Here are some highlights of the Iranian arsenal:

• Upgraded Shahab-3 missile, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. forces
in the region.

• The construction and set-up of sophisticated defenses around its
nuclear facilities.

• Possible possession (from Ukraine) of a dozen Soviet-era Kh-55
cruise missiles—designed to carry a 200-kiloton nuclear warhead 1,860 miles,
virtually undetectable by radar; a recent satellite deal with the Russians would
supply digital maps for improved accuracy.

• Possible stockpile of sophisticated military equipment such as
armor-piercing sniper rifles and night-vision goggles.

• In addition, Iranian hardliners have assembled a list of 15,000
suicide bomber volunteers.

“It is code to America: ‘If you hit us, we will play dirty, using
Hizbullah and volunteers to hit the U.S. across the region,’” said a European
diplomat, echoing analysts who have warned that Iran could easily destabilize
Iraq and close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. “There is an enormous danger
of miscalculation” (Ibid).

Iran has the largest army in the region, with 540,000 active-duty
troops and 350,000 in reserves, plus more than 1,600 battle tanks and 1,500
other armored vehicles. A veteran Mid-east military analyst at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote last December, “There is
considerable evidence that [Iran] is developing both a long-range missile force
and a range of weapons of mass destruction” (Ibid).

Video Games to Measure Player Behavior

This seems like a pretty interesting idea from game manufacturers.

More than 15 years in development, Metrics Element, a tool to
collect, analyze and distribute game data within a Web-based user interface,
will ship around the first of the year.

The software would provide answers to many questions, from what
players do in the game and how long it take to reach level 20, to where they spend their money and how many people saw the Pepsi product pitch in the game, for
example.

I wonder is this program will record if you repeatedly shoot up a Pepsi product billboard that is distracting you during a game. Will it record it as a good interaction or a bad one. Some of the information will be very interesting to see though. I would really like to see the numbers for how many people farm gold or gear on MMORPGs.

Grandma and the Video Game

I would be willing to bet that I will probably be a gamer when I am in my 70s-80s like this woman.

A video gamer for three decades, the foul-mouthed granny who favors
role-playing games and admittedly stinks at sports titles, says she indulges her
habit for about 10 hours a day -- significantly more than her 23-year-old
grandson, Timothy.

She has an extensive collection of game consoles that would turn
many teenaged boys green with envy, and has just finished playing a pair of
zombie-slaying titles -- "Dead Rising" on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and "Resident
Evil" on Nintendo's GameCube.