J. Michels Uranium Index 6/22/07

-824.00 -1.63%

Manhunt 2 to get Kiss of Death AO rating

This is really bad news for TTWO.

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

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

Blackstone IPO prices at $31 a share

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

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

White House May Finally Close Gitmo

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

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

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

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

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/21/07

+$840.00 +1.69%

Blackstone to Price Thursday Night at $29-$31

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

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

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

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/20/07

-$933.00 -1.84%

Bush to Veto Stem Cell Bill Again

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

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

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

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/19/07

+$664.00 +1.33%

Judge "Pants Suit" Pearson

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

Best Rundown of the $67 million dollar Pants Suit

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

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

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

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

Semel Out at Yahoo

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

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

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

Even More Web 2.0 Sites

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

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

Spock.com:

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

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

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

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

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

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

What People Are Doing Online

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

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

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

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/18/07

-135.00 -0.27%

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/15/07

+$999.00 +2.03%

Goldmine Sachs Hit By Subprime Lending Woes

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

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

Hamas Takes Control of the Gaza Strip

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

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

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

J. Michels Uranium Index 6/14/07

+$1,122.29 +2.34%

Mars 2 Billion Years Ago

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

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

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