Low Carb Diets better then Low Fat Diets

It looks like the hard evidence is finally in.

After 12 weeks on the low-carb plan, study participants had lost an
average of 4.9 kilograms (10.8 pounds), compared to 2.5 kg (5.5 pounds) for
their peers on the low-fat diet.

It is no longer considered pseudo-science and all of the scare tactics from the bread industry seems to have all been for naught. I have kept off about 20 lbs from switching to a low carb diet whenever I get above a certain weight limit. There is no way I could do a portion control diet because you end up wasting food. So a low-carb diet is proven to get results and now the science back this up. I agree with this though:

The researchers say more research is needed to clarify the mechanisms
responsible for the greater initial losses of body weight and fat associated
with the RGL diet, to evaluate the persistence of these losses over longer
treatment periods, and to obtain greater insight into strategies that would
improve long-term weight-loss maintenance."

Hillary/Obama to ride Wave of Iraqi Corpses into the White House

It looks like we are going to sneak out of Iraq by Sept 2008 if the House gets their way. So lets see who they are going to mess up by doing this. First they are ignoring the Iraqi Vice President. He of course warns that chaos will reign if we pull out too early. I guess listening to a man whose life literally hangs in the balance when we pull out isn't what the Left like to do.

They are also tying the hands of the generals in charge over there. If there is a firm time table then he has maybe a few months to stabilize the country before he has to plan on pulling troops out. So about the only thing he could do is be as brutal as he can. He has to use as much force as possible to neutralize as many insurgents as he can before his forces are weakened by the Dems. I guess some extra collateral damage is fine for the Left.

All the insurgents have to do is go to ground until we have maybe 30,000 troops or so in country and then go crazy. We however look like a paper tiger that abandons its allies at the worst possible time. So it will tell every enemy of the US all they have to do is wait until the Left get into power over here and they will win every war. North Korea and Iran you now have a friend in Congress.

The worst part about this whole thing is how politically motivated it is. Why did they pick the month before the elections to have every troop out of Iraq? I think this is timed to make it so the chaos will get as bad as it can be right before the election. Then the Dems can look like we are pulling our troops out of Iraq right in the nick of time before the blood closes over the heads of the Iraqis. In other words Hillary/Obama gets to ride a wave of Iraqi corpses right into the White House. Some "progressives" we have here in this country.

Iran Siezes British Sailors

It looks like Iran is going to test the West now to see how we respond.

Cmdr. Kevin Aandahl of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said the Iranian
Revolutionary Guards had radioed a British warship explaining that no harm had
come to the 15 Britons and that they were seized because they were in Iranian
waters. The British Defense Ministry said the Iranians took custody of the
sailors and marines in Iraqi waters.

Tech Error Wipes out Billions

Now this is one dumb-assed technician.

Perhaps you know that sinking feeling when a single keystroke
accidentally destroys hours of work. Now imagine wiping out a disk drive
containing information for an account worth $38 billion.

That's what happened to a computer technician reformatting a disk drive
at the Alaska Department of Revenue. While doing routine maintenance work, the
technician accidentally deleted applicant information for an oil-funded account
— one of Alaska residents' biggest perks — and mistakenly reformatted the backup drive, as well.

There was still hope, until the department discovered its third
line of defense, backup tapes, were unreadable.

Now I don't understand why the backup tapes were unreadable. Were they corrupt or did they have a bad tape reader or something? They should have brought in techs from Maxtor or whoever made that tape drive and got the information that way. Instead they decided to rescan 800,000 images by hand at the cost of $200k in 9 days. I guess that worked out but I would have tried to get the information off of the tape by any means necessary.

Subprime Mortgages Drop Markets

It seems like all those No-Interest, Reverse Mortgages are finally started to come due much to the chagrin of the sector. Now we might see some more sub-prime bankruptcies coming down the pike.

The San Diego, California-based Accredited said it needed to raise
money after paying $190 million demanded by its own creditors, and said it was
cutting an unspecified number of jobs and was exploring "strategic options,"
including raising new capital.

Trading in New Century stock was suspended by the New York Stock
Exchange prior to delisting. The Irvine, California-based company also
said it had received a notice from the U.S. attorney for the Central District of
California that it was the subject of a criminal probe of trading in its
securities.

Good thing I have been in cash for the last couple of weeks.

Hillary Dons the Tinfoil Hat

Well it looks like Hillary is still on about that Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

Clinton asserted on Tuesday that the conspiracy is alive and well, and
cited as proof the Election Day 2002 case of phone jamming in New Hampshire, a
case in which two Republican operatives pleaded guilty to criminal charges, and
a third was convicted.

I think it was Rove wearing his black hooded robe sending out mindwaves to his hideous minions to block those phone calls. And they did so using Deep Republican Magic tomes culled from the Lost Library of Barry Goldwater! And this woman wants to be our President? At least Obama is mentally stable.

Dems to Cut and Run by 2008

It looks like the terrorists can finally circle a date on the calendar in which they can drive us out of the country if this Dem bill passes.

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives have tentatively
settled on a timetable and conditions for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq
which they hope to attach to a $100 billion Iraq war spending bill, senior
lawmakers said on Wednesday.

What makes it even better is that they are trying to attach the thing to a spending bill as well. In other words Dems want us out of there by 2008 even if they have to take away the troops bullets and body armor to do it. Well, at least they have a plan now. They plan to lose Iraq to Iran/chaos/terrorists/Islamic terror. At least it will be another battle won for them in their long "Get Bush" war.

Sniper Kills Captain America!

It looks like Marvel is finally trying to get rid of one of its first heroes. Maybe he is just too Red, White and Blue for the commies at Marvel.

Captain America is dead!

Assassinated, in fact, as he walks into a federal courthouse in New
York, under arrest and in handcuffs, headed to his arraignment for refusing to
sign the government's Superhero Registration Act and forcibly revealing his true
identity.

Dollar Coins Struck without In God We Trust

It looks like these coins are about to be worth somewhat more then a dollar:

Bailey said it was unknown how many coins didn't have the inscriptions.
Ron Guth, president of Professional Coin Grading Service, one of the world's
largest coin authentication companies, said he believes that at least 50,000
error coins were put in circulation.

"The first one sold for $600 before everyone knew how common they
actually were," he said. "They're going for around $40 to $60 on eBay now, and
they'll probably settle in the $50 range."

I wouldn't mind finding one of these coins and turning $1 into $50 in an instant.

Anti-Greenhouse Bulbs

That new USAToday opinions section is the gift that keeps on giving. This is another great article about compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and whether the government should ban regular incandescent bulbs. I didn't know that this fact was true:

More important, the potential greenhouse-gas reductions are
stunning: The U.S. government estimates that if every American household
replaced just one bulb with a CFL, it would have an impact equal to taking a
million cars off the
road.

I would be in favor of a ban on the sale of regular bulbs. If these CFLs are such an energy saver then we should embrace them for the sole purpose that it will reduce our need for "Terrorist Oil." Anything that prevents more money from going into the pockets of the Mullahs or Chavez is a good thing. If it takes buying a whole bunch of weird looking light bulbs to prevent the building of one more bomb belt or Hezbollah rocket then I am all for it.

If Al Gore sold Inconvenient Truth as a way to break the Mullah's grip on power and less as a scare story of 60 feet of water drowning the coasts in 100 years then he would get more conservatives in his camp. Conservatives care a lot about security and the best way to get that security is to stop making our enemies rich.

Iraq War Defeatism

I was reading an article on how USA Todays new site design had a 92% negative reaction (I kind of like it so I am in the 8% camp) and I came across a very interesting opinion blog.

There's a deep irony to the Democratic Party's dilemma over Iraq. For
30 years, the party's left-wing base has reflexively proclaimed every foreign
policy challenge "another Vietnam." These voices rise and fall with America's
fortunes. In 1991, again in 2003 and ever since, they've insisted Iraq is Arabic
for Vietnam. They also claimed that Afghanistan was Pashtun for Vietnam. There
were even some who insisted Kosovo was Serbo-Croatian for Vietnam and, of
course, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Grenada were each feared to be Spanish for
Vietnam. Like the old saw about Eskimos having a hundred words for snow, it
seemed that anyplace the United States sends troops creates a new word for
Vietnam.

The funny thing is that Dems were the original "war-mongers" when it came to Vietnam. It was Kennedy and later LBJ that got us into that war in the first place. It was then up to Nixon to escalate the war in order to try for a decent peace. When that wasn't possible the US was forced to cut and run and sacrificed Vietnam to the commies.

Now we have the exact opposite situation in Iraq. The Repubs started the thing and now the Dems want us to end it in defeat. Now lets say we listen to Obama and pull everyone out in 6 months. Then when the humanitarian disaster breaks out do we go back in? In Vietnam the Repubs didn't go back into Vietnam when the North attacked at the end of the war. And I would be willing to lay even money that the Dems will go hammer and tongs against sending troops back in when the death squads go wild. So I would agree that there are parallels to Vietnam because it looks like we are again going to save American lives at the expense of foreign lives. I wonder how many dead Iraqis is equal to one dead American to a Dem?

US. Attorneys Intimidated By Hangups!

Now these are some wimpy attorneys:

A fired federal prosecutor told a Senate committee Tuesday that he felt
"leaned on" and sickened as Republican Sen. Pete Domenici (news, bio, voting
record) hung up on him in disgust last fall when told that
indictments in a corruption case against Democrats would not be issued before
the fall elections.

And this is why he was leaned on and sickened:

"He said, 'Are these going to be filed before November?'" former
federal prosecutor David Iglesias, one of eight U.S. attorneys summarily fired
in recent months, told the panel. "I said I didn't think so. And to which he
replied, 'I'm very sorry to hear that.' And then the line went dead."

So Domenici didn't say goodbye and apparently this guy felt leaned on and sickened? Then he recieved another "pressuring" phone call from Rep. Heather Wilson:

Iglesias told the panel he received a call from Wilson about two weeks
earlier, in which she asked him about sealed indictments — a topic prosecutors
cannot discuss. Wilson's question "raised red flags in my head," Iglesias said.

"I was evasive and nonresponsive to her question," Iglesias told
the panel, saying he talked generally about why some indictments are sealed.
"She was not happy with that answer. And she said, 'Well I guess I'll have to
take your word for it." The call ended almost immediately, Iglesias said.

Asked by Schumer if he felt pressured by that call, Iglesias
replied: "Yes sir, I did."

Pressue to do their job? That is unheard of! I think these guys were fired because they didn't do their jobs in a timely manner. So now they know how it is to work in a regular job.

What is the Yen Carry Trade?

This article explains everything you need to know about one of the factors that made the market decline this week.

A carry trade occurs when a speculator borrows in one currency and
trades in another. Few markets have been riper for carry traders than Japan,
because of a depressed yen and near-zero borrowing costs. This condition has
been in place for years, a result of nearly two decades of recession in Japan.
To spur economic growth, the Japanese central bank has kept its prime lending
rate at essentially zero.

Oscar Curse?

I wonder if Jennifer Hudson is going to succumb to this so-called Oscar curse? Or maybe she will break the curse the same way as Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, and Renée Zellweger did. I unfortunately have my money on Marisa Tomeiisville for her but I could be wrong.

Lou Dobbs is Off Base

I just read this article that Lou Dobbs wrote on Feb. 21 and I have to refute some of his points.

The Democratic Leadership Council is obviously frightened that my brand
of independent populism is a threat. The council claims that I, and those who
agree with me, "are simply, factually, decisively wrong about the strength of
the U.S. manufacturing economy itself," and that the more than three million
jobs lost in manufacturing are a testament to corporate America's
technology-based efficiency, not outsourcing and offshoring to cheap foreign
labor markets. Then why are foreign-produced imports rising so dramatically and taking an ever-larger share of many of the most important sectors of our
economy?

I think Dobbs discounts the lower prices that Americans pay for these foreign produced imports and how that savings contributes to the middle class. If you save money on a TV that is manufactured cheaper in China then that money goes to buy other things and pay bills. This free trade dividend is almost always forgotten when people talk about foreign made goods. Dobbs just looks at the bad things behind cheap manufacturing but never looks at the good things for both the US and the Chinese. We get cheap goods and they get a better standard of living. I thought Progressives like Dobbs want people to do better in other parts of the world?

Also I think Dobbs also doesn't understand that the people that held these 3 million lost manufacturing jobs didn't just disappear off the face of the earth. Quite a few of these Americans found jobs in other sectors of the economy. That means the unemployment rate has actually been dropping in the last few years. It went from 5.7 in 2002 to 4.6 in 2006. So it seems that quite a few of these people aren't making stereos in a factory but are doing construction, working in front of a computer, or are working for some big corporation. In other words doing knowledge based jobs instead of manufacturing.

About one-third of the families in this country bring in less than
$35,000 of income each year, according to the Census Bureau, a figure that's
nowhere close to ensuring the quality of life and standard of living to which
many Americans have grown accustomed. I fear the American Dream may finally
become the American Pipe Dream.

I don't know what world Dobbs lives in but making $35,000 a year is a decent amount of money and is more then enough to live on for many Americans. Sure they can't afford to drive around in a new car every year and then go home to their McMansion but they should be able to get by pretty well. If the American dream is to own your own home then more and more Americans are actually getting achieving it. Maybe the quality of life and standard of living that Lou Dobbs is accustomed to is different then that of most regular, working Americans. Or maybe the American Dream is different in Dobbs view.

Iran In Violation of Nuke Accord

UN to do pretty much nothing I would bet.

The IAEA detailed recent activities showing Tehran expanding its
enrichment efforts — setting up hundreds of uranium-spinning centrifuges in an
underground hall and bringing nearly 9 tons of the gaseous feedstock into the
facility in preparation for enrichment. It added that Iranian officials had
informed the agency that they would expand their centrifuge installations to
have thousands of them ready by May.

This will pretty much raise oil prices in the near term. Maybe Iran is stoking tensions so they can make out like a bandit on oil sales. It might be time to dip your toe into some United States Oil ETF (USO) if these tensions keep up.

Hillary Okay with Racism but Husband called "Reckless" not okay?

Now this is some interesting attacks between the two Democratic front runners. This is what the Hillary camp want Obama to apologize for:

The Clinton campaign demanded that Obama denounce comments made by the
DreamWorks movie studio founder, who told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in Wednesday's edition that Sen. Clinton was ambitious and polarizing and her husband "reckless."

Sounds like the truth to me. While it seems that Hillary is okay with the support of a racist like Robert Ford:

"It is also ironic that Senator Clinton lavished praise on Monday and
is fully willing to accept today the support of South Carolina state Sen. Robert
Ford, who said if Barack Obama were to win the nomination, he would drag down the rest of the Democratic Party because 'he's black,'" Gibbs' statement said.

It sure is interesting to see Dems sniping at one another like this. I thought Geffen was a good Democratic soldier/check writer. But if he is on Obama's team then it is time to throw him under a bus. Good job Hillary.

AmeriCone Dream! It's Truthilecious!

Steven Colbert comes out with a new Ben and Jerry Ice Cream flavor called AmeriCone Dream! Liberals quake in fear!

Billed as "the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth," Americone Dream
is vanilla ice cream packed with fudge-covered pieces of waffle cone and a
caramel—or is that a conservative?—swirl.

"I'm not afraid to say it. Dessert has a well-known liberal
agenda," Colbert said in a statement. "What I hope to do with this ice cream is
bring some balance back to the freezer case."

Americans must buy it by the case! To not do that is a betrayal of all of our essential freedoms! To not buy it lets the terrorists win!

Is Gold a good buy?

It looks like that may be the case because the Chinese and the Saudis have lots of liquidity and people are forecasting dollar weakness. This article is pro-gold but it seems that every article you read is also pro-gold as well.

Meanwhile, crude is back to $58 a barrel, leaving the Saudis with lots
of petrodollars to sock away. China's in the same greenback-heavy boat, having
kicked off 2007 with another huge monthly trade surplus. And the standoff over
Iran's nuclear program doesn't appear especially likely to end well.

Well some of the risk premium might come off now that North Korea is out of the mix. That Iran thing is still front burner though. I wonder what is keeping the Saudis and Chinese to plow that excess money into US or European debt instruments instead of gold? It always seems that every time I hear about gold they have the price going to $1300 an ounce or some crazy thing like that. You never see that kind of pie in the sky talk from Growth mutual funds or something similar. Oh well it seems gold-bugs are always chasing that big gain even though $1300 an ounce gold will mean that the economy is in the toilet.

TRL Circles the Drain

It just seems like the show is not relevant anymore to the tastes of its viewers. So it looks like Viacom is going to put the thing on the chopping block:

Speculation inside MTV and at the major music labels has been mounting
that TRL, a daily afternoon show that has been experiencing declining ratings,
will soon be canceled or scaled back to two days a week. The newest fuel for the
rumor mill: the fact that much of the staff at TRL's studio at New York City's
Times Square was laid off late Tuesday, including members of the wardrobe,
makeup and technical staff.

Bumpkin Restaurant Offers Free Food to Skinny Models

Well at least someone is thinking about fattening up those wafer thin models. This restaurant sounds like they have good food (at least to me) as well:

"If I could recommend a dish to a size zero model, it would be a
charter pie containing leeks, chicken and bacon; it's enough to keep you warm
and energised all day," Bumpkin general manager Dariush Nejad said in a
statement on Monday.

Too bad there isn't a place like that in Hawaii. I would love to eat a meat pie that had leeks, chicken and bacon in it. I wonder if it would be too salty though? Oh well, another thing to look forward to when I finally get around to travelling to England.

Mystery Ailment Killing Bees

Now this is a real mystery to be solved. What is killing all those bees?

Reports of unusual colony deaths have come from at least 22 states.
Some affected commercial beekeepers — who often keep thousands of colonies —
have reported losing more than 50 percent of their bees. A colony can have
roughly 20,000 bees in the winter, and up to 60,000 in the summer.

And here are the clues that they have assembled so far:

• Although the bodies of dead bees often are littered around a hive, sometimes carried out of the hive by worker bees, no bee remains are typically found around colonies struck by the mystery ailment. Scientists assume these bees have flown away from the hive before dying.

• From the outside, a stricken colony may appear normal, with bees leaving and entering. But when beekeepers look inside the hive box, they find few mature bees taking care of the younger, developing bees.

• Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive's honey. That's not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.

NYC Cabbies are Honest; Dallas Jewelers are Cheap

Now this is a story of an American immigrant being a better person then some rich-bitch jeweler from Dallas.

Never mind diamonds- a New York cabbie was a Texas
girl's best friend. The driver returned 31 diamond rings he found in his cab
after dropping off the passenger, who had left him with a 30-cent tip on a
$10.70 fare.

Then to add insult to injury for returning maybe a few hundred thousand dollars in diamond rings she does this:

The woman, who said she was a jeweler, got back the gems on Monday when
she arrived at the alliance office around midnight — incredulous at her luck.
She offered Chowdhury a reward — a check for
$100.

I hope this guy goes on Jay Leno and gets his 15 minutes of fame from him being so honest. Also I hope this woman is made fun of from the Daily Show/Leno/Letterman for a few weeks. A $0.30 tip is an outrage and should be hung on her like a shaming board.

India Growth in 2007 Seen as Massive

It looks like India might be one of the fastest growing countries this year according to this.

On Wednesday, India's Central Statistical Office changed its gross domestic
product estimate for fiscal year 2007, which ends in March, to 9.2%.
The government recently revised its GDP estimate for fiscal year 2006 to 9% from 8.4%.

This seems to be one of the reasons given by the government and India watchers:

The so-called National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme guarantees
that one member of each of India's 60 million rural households will work for 100
days every year or receive unemployment benefits if there's no work.

Now that is a pretty weird sort of name. They put the word scheme right in the name to make it seem kind of like a crazy experiment that might not work. They should have just given it a more American name like No Rural Worker Left Behind or something like that.

Root Servers Attacked

It seems that this article is engaging in a little scare tactics to get people to read it. It says that a D0S attack "cripples" Internet root servers however this is what the article says:

Three of the servers were nearly overloaded by the attack, but they did
not go down, says Petro, who adds that they were in a slowed down brown out
stage.

A slowed down brown out stage is not "crippled." If they actually went down then I would say that they had be crippled. They should have put the word "nearly" in there to show what actually happened. In any case this is what would worry me about this story:

Johannes Ullrich, chief research officer at the SANS Institute and
chief technology officer for the Internet Storm Center, says more investigation
will have to be done before analysts can figure out where the attacks were
coming from. The Internet Storm Center is a cooperative cyber threat monitoring
and alert system.

If the attack was a little stronger it might have crashed the Internet and then all hell would have broken loose. What is worse is they would not even know where the attack came from. I think they need to develop stronger tracking tools to catch these DoSers before they cause billions of dollars in damages.

Biden Takes Back Racist Remark

It sure is funny to see a liberal run for cover trying to make himself seem less racist. This is what Biden said:

In an interview published Wednesday in the New York Observer, the same
day he officially entered the presidential race, Biden described Obama as "the
first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a
nice-looking guy."

So the other mainstream African-American guys didn't meet one of these criteria I guess. So the other guys were either crooked, dumb, ugly, or little bit of everything according to Biden. It is also funny that Biden went right for the Michael Richards defence after his verbal blunder:

Let me tell you something I spoke to Barack today," Biden told
Stewart.

"I bet you did," Stewart quipped.

"I also spoke to Jesse (Jackson) and Al Sharpton" Biden
said.

Yup when in doubt meet with those black leaders so you don't look as racist as you might seem to everyone else. I wonder if they are going to send Biden to the black rehab camp like they sent Isaiah Washington to the gay rehab camp?

Sony Loses More then Expected on PS3

It looks like Sony is screwing up again.

Facing strong competition from Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY.PK - news - people )’s Wii, Sony blundered strategically by cutting the price of PlayStation3 by 20% before the consoles went on sale in November last year. Yuhara admitted Sony had underestimated the startup costs of it.

"In the PS3 business, production was very tight, but we knew the market wouldn't wait," Yuhara said. He added that the price cut was aimed at getting the machine a strong debut.

I mean why did they cut the price on the thing right out of the gate like that? I guess they were worried that people would go for the Wii in large numbers since it was quite a bit cheaper then the PS3. This is a very interesting fact though:

Nonetheless, at the end of December, Sony only sold 687,300 units of PS3 in US since its launch while Nintendo shipped 1.1 million sets of Wii and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) sold 4.5 million units of Xbox 360 in the States, according to research house NPD.

This low amount of of PS3s sold would trouble me if I were Sony. It looks like both the Wii and the Xbox360 trounced them in this crucial holiday season. You could chalk this up to just having more Wiis and Xbox360s around for consumers to buy. I know lots of people that went with the Xbox360 instead of the PS3 since they didn't want to wait in some long line or get robbed or beaten for it.

In any case, it seems that the Wii was the big winner this holiday season. They sold 1.1 million in the US and 3.2 million in Japan. That is quite an installed base right out of the blocks. Now they need a Super Mario Bros. style category killer and they could have the potential to bury their competition.

2006 Savings Rate Negative

Hmm it seems that Americans are spending all of their disposable income plus 1%.

The savings rate is computed by taking the amount of personal income
left after taxes are paid, an amount known as disposable income, and subtracting
the amount of spending. Since the figure has dipped into negative territory, it
means consumers are spending all of disposable income and then some.

For December, the savings rate edged down to a negative 1.2
percent, compared to a negative 1 percent in November. The savings rate has been in negative territory for 21 consecutive months.

I wonder if this savings rate calculation takes into account that some Americans are having their IRAs automatically withdrawn from their paychecks? This automatic withdrawal might not come up in these numbers so boomers won't be left destitute when they retire.

Could the IRS Tax Virtual Gold?

Well it seems that the Republicans are blocking the push though.

The antitax position isn't surprising coming from a solid Republican
like Saxton, but there's more to it than that. His chief economist, Dan Miller,
is a veteran gamer, with hours of World of Warcraft under his belt and the level
41 night-elf priest character to prove it. "We're not approaching this as a
partisan issue," says Miller. "But if there's a new issue, you want to set the
terms of the debate...to make sure that we're talking about this in a sensible
manner, not waiting until it's too late. I don't think it's a good idea to wait
until the IRS has already started writing rules."

When your economist is a Night Elf Priest then you know Saxton knows what he is talking about when it comes to taxing virtual Gold.

Wii does great in Japan

It looks like the Nintendo Wii like a great success at least in the Japanese console wars.

The company sold 3.2 million Wii consoles in November and December,
together with 17.5 million pieces of software, it said today. The console
launched first in the U.S. on November 19 and sales totaled 1.25
million units by the end of the year. In Japan, where it debuted on December 2,
sales were 1.1 million units and in Australia and Europe, where it was on sale
within a week of the Japan launch, sales reached 800,000 units before the year
ended.

Arab's Speak out Against Glenn Beck

I have started listening to this radio commentator about a year ago and it seems he has riled up the Muslim groups. It looks like if you give an opinion contrary to these groups then you need to lose your job. Why don't these groups just boycott Good Morning America?

The groups said that Beck _ who's drawing strong ratings with his
evening show on CNN Headline News _ has stated on his show that Arab and Muslim Americans are apathetic to terrorism. During an interview in November with Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress, Beck asked him to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

8th Century Ship Found

Now this is quite an interesting find in the Mediterranean.

The wreck [image] was found almost a decade ago but only today were details released after a prolonged series of excavations. Using carbon dating techniques, the wreck was dated to the early 8th century, some 1,300 years ago.

It was carrying some pretty interesting trade goods as well. I wonder if this ship was Roman or was it from the people that lived in this area during that time?

Kahanov said it is a rare find given the amount of wood that's been
preserved in the hull. Also found were 30 vessels of pottery of different sizes
and designs containing fish bones, ropes, mats, a bone needle, a wooden spoon,
wood carvings and food remains, mainly carobs and olives.

Motorola Cuts 3500 Jobs

It looks like Motorola is feeling the pain in the high end phone market and they are cutting expenses to compensate

Facing stiffer competition from its rivals' new products, Motorola
aggressively cut prices of its phones during the quarter, especially in emerging
markets, to gain market share but at the expense of profit margins. Executives
also acknowledged misjudging some markets and, as Zander put it, making wrong assumptions about how many products would sell at what price.

I think they just need a solid followup to the RAZR to compete in the high end phone market again. I mean they should still have the same design pros that came up with the RAZR on staff so they could probably do the trick. I think there is much more innovation and elegant design at Motorola then in their competitors. I think this will translate into higher margins in the long run. Of all the people that could create something to compete with the IPhone in the high end market MOT would be the one to do it.

LG Comes Out with Touch Phone

It seems that the big cell phone companies aren't waiting around to go after the IPhone.

The new phone has no traditional keypad but instead sports what LG
terms "the world's first advanced touch interface". This is said to make he
overall user experience a highly tactile one. It's a new design, said to be the
result of fashion legend Miuccia Prada, in charge of the
eponymous luxury goods producer, and LG.

The PRADA (KG850) looks like a black, Lucite covered, brick though. And this has to be one of the dorkiest looking displays I have ever seen on a consumer electronics product. It looks like something that should retail for $20 in the toy section and not something that can compete with the Iphone's elegant design. I think LG needs to hire some design gurus from Japan or something to make their products look less generic.

McDonalds Opens First Drive Through in China

This should be a nice growth driver for McDonalds Chinese operations.

The Beijing drive-through is the first in McDonald's venture with China
Petroleum and Chemical Corp., which McDonald's China CEO Jeffrey Schwartz said would open 25 to 30 more in the next 12 to 18 months. Both gas stations and
drive-throughs are booming as car purchases by newly affluent drivers speed
China's change from a bicycle culture to a car culture

I think there is some Jay Leno joke waiting to happen with them teaming up with Sinopec to do this. Something about them needing an oil company so they can get enough oil to fry their McNuggets.

Netflix Rolls Out Video on Demand Service

It seems that Netflix is starting the long migration to digital downloads.

The Los Gatos-based company plans to unveil the new "Watch Now" feature
Tuesday, but only a small number of its more than 6 million subscribers will get
immediate access to the service, which is being offered at no additional
charge.

It seems like this would bode well for the stock but not so fast. They have gone from a 2 horse race between them and Blockbuster to a very crowded field:

Online movie delivery already is available through services like CinemaNow,
MovieFlix, Movielink, Vongo and Amazon.com Inc.'s recently launched Unbox. Apple Inc. also is emerging as major player, with hundreds of movies and TV shows on sale at its iTunes store and a new device that promises to transport media from a computer to a TV screen.

Unless Netflix can rise above the others and become the king of digital downloads they will probably go the way of the dodo. I would still rather get a DVD from the mail and put it into my DVD player at the present time. It is much better then waiting forever to download the thing and then having to move it to my TV through the purchase of some other $300 piece of hardware. I guess that attitude may be old fashioned in a few short years.

Great Article on Using RSI to pick Stocks

Now this is a very good article on Tradingmarkets.com about using a 2 period RSI (Relative Strength Index ) to pick stocks. And this is quite a sample size that they are using as well:

We looked at over seven million trades from 1/1/95 to 6/30/06. The
table below shows the average percentage gain/loss for all stocks during our
test period over a 1-day, 2-day, and 1-week (5-days) period. These numbers
represent the benchmark which we use for comparisons.

I certainly like when the 2 period RSI is 1 or less. A 1 day return is (+0.27,) 2 days (+0.62%,) and 1-week later (+1.05%) I am going to add this to my list of things to check on for a stock. It will certainly help time an entry point. They even have some trading strategies based around this aspect of the 2 period RSI as well:

This research we're presenting here is just the tip of the iceberg
using the 2-period RSI. For example, greater results can be found by looking for
multiple day readings under 10, 5 or 2. And, even greater results can be
achieved by combining the readings with other factors such as buying a low level
RSI stock if it trades 1-3% lower intraday. As time passes we'll share some of
these research findings, along with handful of trading strategies with
you.

The IPhone Suppliers: another way to play the gadget

Well it looks like the periphery companies that might be making IPhone parts are seeing a little lift in these past few trading days.

Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Craig Berger in a client note said
Broadcom Corp. is rumored to supply the touch screen controller chip for the
iPhone, which could add 2 cents to 7 cents per share to 2007 earnings. The
company could also be providing the AlphaMosaic video processor for the new
gadget, as it does for current iPods, but is not probably not providing the
item's Bluetooth enabler, added Berger.

However, Broadcom has sold off 2.8% today after it went up 4% yesterday. Maybe the big boys are running the stock down in order to buy back heavy. Or it could just be some profit taking now that analysts have run the numbers and aren't flying blind. I found this interesting though:

The analyst noted many people believe Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
is supplying the iPhone Wi-Fi chip. Sales related to the device could boost
Marvell's 2007 earnings by 2 cents per share, or $36 million in sales, he
added. Marvell shares added $1.05, or 5.3 percent, to $20.78 on the
Nasdaq.

I wonder if that Wi-Fi chip will let the IPhone share music and files through a short range ad hoc type network? It would be kind of like the Zune's Share-through-the-air feature but with a phone attached. The IPhone could actually be that true digital convergence device combining all of a persons multi-media apps in one easy to access place.

It certainly would be a whole new way of selling lots of videos, music, ringtones, games, etc. through that Ipod store at a buck a toss. If this is the case then Apple at $110+ a share might be in order.

Cisco Sues Apple over IPhone

Hmm it seems that Cisco had the IPhone name already trademarked and were in negotiations that Apple had backed out of.

Cisco said Apple had approached the
company a number of times over the past few years about a licensing agreement to use the name, and that the talks heated up in the past few weeks.

However, Cisco said communication between the companies ceased Monday, and even while Jobs was holding court at the Macworld Conference and Expo, Apple
lawyers had not signed and returned the final contract.

I wonder if this lawsuit will get as heated as the ones that went after Microsoft a while back? War of the Tech Titans is just the kind of thing that the business media eats up.

Scorpions on a Plane!

Now this is an interesting story. How did this scorpion get onto the plane? Maybe they are storing these planes in the desert or something when they are not in use or in maintenence.

"It felt like a shock, a tingly thing. Someone screamed, 'It's a
scorpion,'" Sullivan recalled. Another passenger stepped on the two-inch
arachnid, and someone suggested Sullivan seek medical help.

He scooped up the scorpion and headed to the hospital in
Burlington. His wife stopped at the United counter and was told the plane they
were on had flown from Houston to Chicago. The Sullivans surmised the scorpion
boarded in Texas.

The bad part is that this isn't even the first time it has happened:

Such incidents are not unheard of. An American Airlines flight was
delayed for an hour in Toronto on Sunday after a passenger was stung by a
scorpion that had made its way on board. Paramedics treated the man when the
flight from Miami landed. The delay came when officials searched the aircraft to
ensure no other critters had stowed away.

O'Reilly to be on Colbert Report

Now this is going to be a fun show! The show is going to take place on January 18th. Now this is a classic Colbert line:

"I look forward to the evening," Colbert said. "It is an honor to speak
face-to-face with a broadcasting legend, and I feel the same way about Mr.
O'Reilly."

Apple Unvails IPhone

It seems like an interesting new direction for the what will be now known as Apple Inc. and not Apple Computers. I wonder if they are going to change the equasion when it comes to seasoned competition like Motorola, Nokia, and RIMMs Blackberry? It certainly is expensive though:

The iPhone, which starts at $499, is controlled by touch, plays music,
surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system. Jobs said
it will "reinvent" the telecommunications sector and "leapfrog" past the current
generation of hard-to-use smart phones

It does look cool to me. It is nice and thin and has a pretty big screen. It looks very high tech and elegant like you would expect from Apple. However I wouldn't buy the thing when it costs the same as a low end PC. I'll wait until the early adopters get their hands on it before I'll make any final judgement calls. Also you would have to switch to Cingular if you want a crack at it in the first place.

Somali Escalation

It looks like we are widening the war on terror a bit. I wonder if the Dems are going to jump all over him for this action?

Witnesses said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in the
assault by two helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills
close to the Kenyan border 220 miles southwest of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu.
The report could not be independently verified.

A Somali Defense Ministry official described the helicopters as
American, but the local witnesses told The Associated Press they could not make
out identification markings on the craft. Washington officials had no
comment.

College Coaching is Far Better Then Pros

At least according to this columnist. This is the statement that I agree with the most.

We have written this before: Fans should remember that a very good
college job tends to be a better overall job than most NFL positions.

I agree with this 100%. Now that Bama is giving someone like Saban the big money to coach in college, there is no real reason to be a pro coach anymore. First of all they have to work 20 hour days to out think their opponent. Then they don't get much of an off season because they have to go to the Combine, NFL draft, etc. He has to constantly think about salary cap issues or which player is in jail this week. He is pretty much a slave to football and winning for the majority of the year. In times past these were the reasons why Pro coaches made the big bucks. Now that Alabama is dishing out the big checks what incentive do pro coaches have to deal with all the aggravation, stress, and the destruction of family life that comes with coaching in the pros?

This push to either make the playoffs (and do better if you are already a playoff team) or get fired is why I keep thinking many coaches are better off coaching in college. When I see a talented coach like Jim Mora pretty much get the axe because he was forced to stick with Michael Vick even though he isn't a passer (and will never be a passer) it makes me ill. Teams just loaded up and made Vick beat them with his arm instead of his feet. How can you win if you are forced into a corner like that?

Then you have an owner like Blank breathing down your neck and hanging around on the sidelines. I mean what does Blank care? He can't lose money on the team no matter what he does because the NFL has profit sharing. I think Mora is much better off coaching the Washington Huskies. He has all the time in the world to build that school back into a national power again. In fact he may even get the chance to stay there for 30 years if he wants to. He has the opportunity to become a legend.

That is why good coaches like Pete Carroll should stay in college and get the money, the recognition, and the fame without having to please some insane owner. I mean even winning a Super Bowl isn't enough for some owners. It looks like they are going to force out Cowher just a year after winning the big game. This is also after a decade of faithful service. You don't see people trying to force out the Longhorns' Mack Brown after Texas loses a few games and misses the BCS. I mean Cowher was forced to stick with an idiot QB that injured himself in a motorcycle accident, who threw a ton of picks, and was generally ineffective. He still was almost able to take the Steelers to the playoffs. Thanks for winning a Super Bowl coach, here's your pink slip.

That "win now or your fired" attitude is what I hate about the Pros. You can never have a coaching legend like Bear Bryant in the Pros because he would go 8-8 after winning 2 national championships back to back and then get fired. There is no sense of loyalty when you can't even stick with a guy that was able to win it all for you just a year after he does it. Oh well, the Pros loss is colleges gain.

UFO Spotted Over O'Hare Airport

Now this is pretty strange to be national news. This is usually relegated to the Fortean Times type of magazines but this is an actual AP news item.

Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather
phenomenon, but a group of United Airline employees swear they saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport last fall.

The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn't have lights
and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds,
according to a report in Monday's Chicago Tribune.

December Madness at What If Sports is Awesome!

Now this would be some awesome games with a 16 team playoff instead of an 8 team field. Some of the first round games they have may be different if the games were actually played. I agree with Ohio State smashing Troy State but I can see Florida losing a close one to Central Michigan. They might be looking ahead to that Oklahoma game and get shocked by the Bulls.

That elite 8 they pick though would be one football feast! We have Ohio State/Auburn, LSU/USC, Michigan/Louisville, and Oklahoma/Florida. Every one of those games will be a barn burner and no sports picker will be safe. I would pay good money to watch Michigan's insane defence verses Louisvilles massive offence.

I think the top teams would like Bowden's 8 team playoff system a little better. If they follow that format they could dodge the potential for a Central Michigan to shock the world. However what red-blooded football fan in America would not be rooting for the 16 seed to knock off Ohio State and throw the whole mess in the hopper?

I think it is just a matter of time before the NCAA wises up and goes to a playoff system. They get to keep the Bowls but now they would make 15 of them actually count toward the national championship. Also Ohio State would have to knock off Troy State, Auburn, LSU, and Michigan for the 2nd time to win it all. If they do all that, then they will truely deserve to be called National Champion.

More on Ford's Athletic Skills

Ford was quite a football player at Michigan:

Ford, who has died at age 93, played center on the University of Michigan football team, where he was a three-year letter winner. His teams enjoyed consecutive undefeated, national championship seasons in 1932 and 1933. He was the Wolverines' most valuable player in 1934 and, on Jan. 1, 1935, he played in a college all-star game known today as the East West Shrine Game.

I didn't know he could have gone pro and could have played for either Detroit or Green Bay but decided to go to Yale law school instead. He also played both ways at Michigan at both Center and Linebacker.

Speaking of IPod Sales

They seem pretty robust at least at Amazon.

Top sellers in Consumer Electronics include Apple iPods (various),
Canon Powershot Digital Elph Cameras and Garmin GPS Systems.

It is interesting to note that Amazon also sold 1000 Xbox 360s in 29 seconds as well. Notice that this doesn't say PS3 or Wii here. I wonder if this shortage is going to affect them in installed base. I know that if I had a so-called "shittin kid" that wanted a PS3 for Christmas I would buy them a XBox 360 because it is basically the same thing. I mean almost all of the games are cross platform anyway.

I just want the PS3 for the Blu-Ray player installed in it. I will probably use it to watch Blu-Ray DVDs more then play games on it anyway. The fact is I can wait until they are everywhere before I go out and spend the bucks on it.

Apple falls on "Falsifying Data" Claim

As long as the CEO isn't indicted or something this may be a good buying opportunity for APPL shares.

Apple shares fell $3.37, or 4.2 percent, to $78.14, in morning trade on Nasdaq. It was the biggest one-day drop
since July. Earlier they traded as low as $76.77.

"Any time you get the stock options probe mentioned, especially
with rumors of falsifying documents, the hot money tends to shoot first and ask
questions later," said Tim Biggam, options strategist at Man
Securities, an options brokerage firm in Chicago.

I hope there is more bad news that comes out of this options probe so it will drive the shares down even lower. One of my biggest winners came from buying Citigroup after they were plagued by a scandal. As long as the company doesn't go bankrupt due to fighting the SEC then scandal time is the best time to buy a stock. However, if IPod sales are light this holiday this stock will really get pounded. Either way it may be a good Straddle Opportunity.

Russians Make Wild Claim on Litvinenko murder

How is an oil tycoon living in Israel supposed to get Polonium 210? I guess he whipped it up in a homemade nuclear generator in his basement or something. I still think the KGB should have just killed him in a random "mugging gone bad" or or just sent Red Grant with a garrote to kill him when he was alone in his house. Instead they had to get all fancy. Oh well I guess they are going to tap dance this thing forever until Putin is out of office.

"A version is being looked at that those who ordered these crimes could be
the same people who are on an international wanted list for serious and very
serious crimes, one of whom is ... Leonid Nevzlin," the prosecutor-general's
office said in a statement.

Gerald Ford Dies.

It looks like Gerald Ford has finally passed away after a long illness. He seemed to be one of the funnier presidents who seems to have taken one too many hits to the head in the leather helmet era of football. I hope the Michigan Wolverines do something nice for him like put his number on their helmets or something. He was even immortalized on the Simpsons for liking Nachos and Beer. He seemed like a pretty good guy who just happened to be President.

Dem Machine Goes after Obama Already?

And there is still 2 years to go before the election. Hillary plays for keeps, and I think Obama stands in her way, so he is going to get squashed by any means necessary. This is just the first salvo in this long war. And they say Rove is a ruthless bastard.

Rezko has pleaded not guilty to charges he plotted to squeeze millions
of dollars in kickbacks out of investment firms seeking state business. He also
has pleaded not guilty to obtaining a $10.5 million loan from GE Capital through
fraud and swindling a group of investors.

Rezko's wife bought a vacant lot next door to Obama on the same day
last year that Obama and his wife, Michelle, closed on their home, according to
published reports last fall. In January, Obama paid Rezko $104,500 for part of
the lot to balance the space between his house and the fence.

Letters From Iwo Jima doing well in Japan

It seems like this movie is really affecting people in Japan.

About halfway through a showing of "Letters From Iwo Jima" - Clint
Eastwood's epic about Japan's futile stand during the World War II battle - a
30-something Japanese salaryman takes off his glasses to wipe
away the tears from his eyes. He does this several times during the movie, the
first time after a young American soldier dies.

It is odd that Clint Eastwood, a non-Japanese guy, is putting humanity into the portrayal of Japanese soldiers. I would think that Japanese filmmakers would be doing this for years but not according to this article. In fact the last Japanese movie about Iwo Jima was made in 1972. I guess all that emphasis on ignoring what happened in WW2 is why there are not so many war movies made in Japan.

In the US WW2 is about as popular as ever before with hundreds of video games, series, and movies being made about it. I guess Abe (with some help from Dirty Harry) is out to change that by making it cool to be patriotic again.

Turkmenbashi is Dead Long Live the Next Guy!

Saparmurat Niyazov the nutty leader of Turkmenistan is finally dead after 21 years of rule. this is quite significant because that country contains the third largest amount of natural gas in the world and is pretty much unexplored. These are some of this guys weird acts:

A massive golden statue of a leader known as Turkmenbashi rotates to
face the sun in the capital Ashgabat, just one of many ostentatious gestures
towards his own self-regard. All children must learn a book he wrote, weaving
medieval fantasy tales with his philosophy of life.

In perhaps his most notorious gesture, the book was blasted into
space in a Russian rocket and then burned up on re-entry over the Earth, so that
the Turkmen people could look up at the skies and think of their leader's
writings for inspiration, rather than the stars.

Yup they paid money to blast a book into space and have it burn up so he can have their eyes on him instead of the stars. In other words he was trying to outdo the stars. He sounds like Dr. Doom.

Red Wine May Prevent Obesity

Hmm this seems like just the thing for all those winos out there.

The researchers further discovered that resveratrol activates a Sirtuin
protein located in the mitochondrion organelle, which is responsible for energy
production, Nutraingredients.com reported. This activated protein in turn
stimulates the activity of another protein involved in mitochondrial
functions.

The enhanced mitochondrial activity led to increased
energy production, which may result in a reduction of weight gain, the
researchers were cited as surmising by Nutraingredients.com.

Bush to Outflank on Minimum Wage Hike

It seems like Bush is pretty good at taking the fight to the opposing team. It seems like the Dems winning winning the Congress was just the smelling salts this Admin. needed.

Bush said he supports a $2.10 raise for minimum-wage earners, but over
a two-year period instead of three, and added that "we should do it in a way
that does not punish" small businesses.

"I support pairing it with targeted tax and regulatory relief, to
help these small businesses stay competitive and to help keep our economy
growing," he said.

This is a great piece of outflanking since he puts the Dems on the defence again. He says you get what you want and at a faster pace but you have to accept this round of tax cuts for small businesses. So if the Dems nix the thing then they look bad because the Repubs. can portray them as anti-small business as well as not taking "yes" for an answer. Very shrewd move.

It Costs $12 Billion to Run Santas Workshop?

Now this is a neat breakdown of Santas expenses. This line I though was pretty interesting:

Elves, the backbone of the entire enterprise, make about $14.50 an
hour. Benefits at the nonprofit operation match the average at about 40% of
payroll, bringing total elf compensation to $4,228,432.

Workshop operations also required temporary help from Kelly
Services, whose elves-for-hire pitch in during the last two months when
telephone hotlines start buzzing and the mailroom overflows with children's
letters. The extra elfpower comes to $116,970, including data-entry clerks hired
at $14.65 an hour and mailroom clerks hired at $13.20 an hour.

I think these elves are going to unionize after they find out that seasonal temp staff makes more then them. I mean these elves are supposedly highly trained manufacturing workers that in years past have built the toys from scratch. They also have to work in arctic conditions at the North Pole and probably can't leave the area or they freeze to death.

Maybe their low pay reflects globalization since the majority of toys are probably made in China. The days when an elf can make a toy train out of wood or something have gone the way of the buggy whip. Now that same train is made from injection molded plastic in a Chinese manufacturing plant and then shipped to the North Pole. The elves now simply unload the pallets and then take the toys and load up Santa's Sleigh for Dec 24.

Perhaps if the elves unionized they would make the same as dock workers in the US which is $19.94 per hour and increases by $1 per hour after accumulating 1,000 hours. I wonder if Santa would be a cruel union breaker and keep his elves from making that extra $5.44 per hour by any means necessary.

I guess the elves are lucky since Santa could go to a Japanese automaker model where he has the toys made in the target country (or shipped there) and then warehouse them for that Dec. 24th delivery. That way he would only need tech guys and data entry clerks to update his Naughty/Nice Database and sleigh and reindeer maintenance engineers in his Arctic Lair. Santa could then cut his entire elf staff and reduce delivery time and cost.

"You" Media Goes to the Next Level

It seems a British Magazine is going to fill its entire issue from MySpace.

Reports from the United Kingdom find Marmalade magazine sending out an
open call for content to flesh out its March issue, cover to cover. The monthly
read, with an estimated 30,000 subscribers, is accepting submissions through its
MySpace page and scouring through the site to recruit talent.

It doesn't say anything about paying for that talent though. It would seem that most of the stuff you would get off of MySpace would probably be pretty crappy. There might be some gems. However judging from most MySpace pages I have seen it will probably be lots of shots of guys and girls holding up liquor.

Gifts that Give Back

Here is a list of gifts that help people other then the person that gets the gift. I thought these two gifts were kind of funny:

Adopt an animal from the World Wildlife Fund and help your friends save their favorite animals. Plus, they get a card, stuffed animal, or other gifts as acknowledgement.

I'm pretty sure noone is going to adopt one of those weird, ugly creatures. There will be alot of adopting of baby seals or kittens but not too many razorbacked boars or Praying Mantis adoptions.

No child could possibly resist a horse tire swing, and you'll feel good
knowing it's made of recycled tires. That's just one clever find from Joe
Lazarus of the Yahoo! Shopping team

I could resist getting poked by the steel belted pieces that lie inside some tires. I remember swinging on those things when I was a kid and getting poked all the time by those little bits of wire. I guess they need to donate gently used tires and not those that are falling apart.

Funny Bush Photo

Hmm this Baby must be a Blue Stater. By the way Reuters has all sorts of funny pictures here.

Retail Sales up Big for November

This seems pretty good for a person that is overweight retailers right now.

Retail sales surged in the important holiday shopping month of November
as shoppers flocked to malls in search of juicy deals on toys, electronics and
other popular gift items.

The Commerce Department said retail sales jumped a much stronger
than expected 1 percent last month, compared with a revised 0.1 percent decline
in October. The government had originally reported a 0.4 percent decline for
October.

It seems that gas prices dipped at exactly the right time to get everyone into the malls. I wonder what January sales will be like so we can see how many gift cards are being redeemed. This year I vow to use every gift card I have been given and not let them sit and gather dust.

More on "Tommy Hilfiger is a Racist"

This is a pretty good rundown debunking the rumor that Tommy Hilfiger said that his clothes aren't for poor blacks. Oprah even had to come on her show and deny the rumor in person. This is a really interesting example of an internet rumor that blows up and becomes an urban legend.

Virgin Mobile USA and American Eagle Outfitters Helps Homeless Kids

This seems like a pretty good program that helps homeless teens.

Virgin Mobile has introduced "Txt2Clothe," allowing anyone to donate
clothing to homeless teens via his or her cell phone, regardless of carrier.
Specifically, anyone who texts the word "KARMA" to mobile number 68405 will
trigger Virgin Mobile to have one piece of clothing given to a homeless teen.
American Eagle Outfitters is the first apparel company to step up and partner
with Virgin Mobile by making a specific contribution of clothing to this
program.

You notice Abercrombie & Fitch isn't following suit on this program. Maybe they think that their clothes don't belong on homeless teens but only on affluent ones. Perhaps they think it will "cheapen the brand" or something like that. Kind of like how Tommy Hilfiger was thought to have said that his clothes aren't for black people. Or it was just the case of noone asking ANF if they wanted to get in on this pretty easy to do tax writeoff.

Ahmadinejad Pops Off About Israel Again

I think he just wants to get his country nuked saying stuff like this:

"Thanks to people's wishes and God's will the trend for the existence
of the Zionist regime is downwards and this is what God has promised and what
all nations want," he said.

"Just as the Soviet Union was wiped out and today does not exist,
so will the Zionist regime soon be wiped out," he added.

Um, all nations don't want an end to the Zionist Regime Ah"MAD"inejad. Maybe just your little cabal of Holocaust deniers and Mullah crackpots. And they want to be responsible wielders of nuclear weapons?

Olmert Spills the Nuclear Beans

Now this is a real slip up but probably designed as a direct threat to Iran.

In a German television interview broadcast on Monday as he began his
first official visit to Berlin, Olmert said: "Iran, openly, explicitly and
publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same
level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France,
Israel, Russia?"

I think this is a little nod to Israel having an arsenal and willing to use it to smack down any Middle Eastern power that is willing to challenge them. Especially if that power wants to wipe them off of the map. If the UN fails on this one I would be willing to bet there will be mushroom clouds rising up all over Iran.

What Me Worry?

Bush sure has a knack for looking like a doof:

Merry Christmas Is Back

It looks like another big win for the anti-Happy Holidays crowd.

The majority of Americans surveyed - 95 percent - said they were not
offended by a "Merry Christmas" greeting in stores, according to a poll by Zogby
International.

However, 32 percent of respondents said they took offense at "Happy
Holidays," the religiously neutral alternative promoted over the last few years
as inclusive and inoffensive.

Not only are people not offended by Merry Christmas but they actually took offense at the term Happy Holidays. I think these far left secularists who keep pushing their atheist agenda are way off base. They need to know that this holiday rose out of Judeo-Christian beliefs and separating the holiday from its roots is just not going to work. These people need to know that they are the fringe group and the vast majority of Americans are not listening to them and are offended by what they are trying to do.

First Litvinenko now Kovtun?

It looks like the Russians might be knocking their critics off one by one.

Dmitry Kovtun, a contact of dead Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko, is in
critical condition in hospital from radiation poisoning, Interfax news agency
quoted an unnamed source as saying on Thursday.

It also doesn't pay to talk to investigators into Litvinenko as well.

Interfax also reported that Kovtun fell into a coma after British and
Russian investigators working on the Litvinenko case had finished questioning
him in a Moscow hospital. However, it gave no source for the information on a
coma.

I keep getting a picture in my head of Rosa Klebb firing a hidden polonium 210 bullet into Litvinenko from her shoe while doing the bidding of SMERSH.

Wii has Faulty Strap

It seems that the strap on the Nintendo Wii breaks off sometimes when you swing it around.

"We are investigating," Iwata said of reports about the Wii's strap
coming off as players swung around the controller, at times causing the remote
to fly out of their hands.

Players use the Wii remote like a tennis racket, sword and other
devices to play games.

"Some people are getting a lot more excited than we'd expected,"
Iwata said. "We need to better communicate to people how to deal with Wii as a
new form of entertainment."

That would be just my luck. One vigourous swing of the controller and it slips out of my hand and breaks my TV.

Blockbuster Desperate

Now Blockbuster is really getting desperate with their tactics.

From Dec. 5 through Dec. 21, folks bearing the Netflix tear-off sheets can
go into Blockbuster and get a free movie rental. They will have to sign up for a
free Blockbuster membership. And of course, what does the customer care if he or
she is signing up for a free account? Increasing membership this way doesn't
necessarily translate into revenues for Blockbuster.

I'm waiting for Blockbuster to offer some kind of free DVDs or coupons or something to switch over. They need to make it worth my while to go through all the trouble of cancelling my Netflix and switching over to Blockbuster Total Access. I still hate driving over to the video store so they have to make it better then walking to the mailbox to get my movies.

Russell Simmons Gives Back to Africans

Now this is a good deal from a Hip-Hop Mogul.

The 49-year-old entrepreneur announced his "Green Initiative" jewelry,
which is manufactured and designed by Simmons Jewelry Co. Twenty-five
percent of proceeds from sales will go toward the Diamond Empowerment Fund,
which will support institutions, like schools and colleges, in South Africa and
Botswana and help boost economic development.

I feel Africans really need the money and concern much more then blacks in the US. I mean many Africans live in some of the worst conditions in the world and the black community in the US doesn't seem to care. There are more activists speaking out about Kramer shouting racial slurs in a comedy club then about blacks being murdered every day in Darfur. Maybe fighting a racist Kramer here at home is more important to them then fighting Umar Hassan al-Bashir (the Sudanesse head of state) on some other continent.

Wii vs. PS3: Motley Fools Take Off Base

I think this article by Motley Fool is off the mark from what I see. This is the passage that I take issue with:

This market clearly represents a huge opportunity for Nintendo, but it also
poses a dilemma for Sony. As Christensen accurately explained in his first book,
The Innovator's Dilemma, Sony must now figure out how to create products for
this new "nonconsumption" market of first-time gamers.

I agree that this "nonconsumption market" will be big for Nintendo but only at the very beginning. Mark my words it is going to wane before too long. Nongamers don't become gamers for the most part. What I mean by gamer is one that buys multiple games per year (or sometimes per month.) A nongamer will buy a few games at first but eventually forget about the system once they get tired of it. They might go out and buy a new game later on based on word of mouth or media reports but they can't sustain the system for a number of years. More then likely the nongamers' Wiis will be collecting dust by this time next year. It might be possible to turn these nongamers into gamers but the numbers will be too small to sustain the console throughout its life. So Sony could safely ignore this fickle market and focus on the true cash cows of the industry, the gamer.

Nintendo however could keep up with the PS3 if they serve up enough exclusive fare that will make the gamer crowd stick with them instead of Sony. That means they need to crank out the Metroids, Zeldas, Mega Mans, Mario games and make them compelling for both crowds. It would be a tough balancing act because a Metroid made for the nongamer crowd will make for a lot of angry gamers. Or they need to crank out enough nongamer titles and make them compelling enough for the these people to dust off their Wiis several times a year. If Nintendo can manufacture a Sims type of game (big seller with sustainable sequels/addons) that is exclusive to their console then they will move into the top console spot.

Lindsay Lohan in AA

At least she is admitting that she has a problem. I have to give her a load of respect for at least knowing that partying to much isn't the right thing for her even though she is still young. This is the kind of thing that would make me angry if I had to read it as well:

A sad Lohan wrote the rambling letter "on the fly" on her Blackberry,
Sloane said.

The letter, in which Lohan signs off with "BE ADEQUITE," has been
criticized by a number of media observers for its grammatical errors and
misspellings, among other things — including exploiting Altman's death for her
own publicity purposes.

Patt Morrison, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, derided it on
The Huffington Post Web site as "alarmingly incoherent" and said Altman might
find it "comedic."

So pretty much everything that she does is scrutinized in the media. Even when she writes a sad message about a legendary director's passing she is ripped apart by the press. She really can't do anything right in their eyes. I saw an interview with her on Leno and she was really prickly about how thetabloidss and press see her. I see that things like this are the reasons why.

Casino Royal Movie Review

My review of Casino Royal is up on my Personal Blog.

Neolithic Tsunami had 130 Foot Waves

Now this thing sounds almost like something out of a movie.

Their recreation suggests the tsunami's waves reached heights of up to 130 feet and maximum speeds of up to 450 mph, making it more powerful than the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 180,000 people in 2004.

It was caused by 6 cubic miles of rock falling into the sea from Mt. Etna.