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$600 a share? That's freaking ridiculous. Google, I like some of the stuff you're doing, but you're going to crash, and you're going to crash hard.

Maybe, maybe not. Part of the reason it's so high is because Google refuses to split, a la Warren Buffett. This has its benefits, (for example, a higher level of institutional vs retail ownership)

> Here's a clue: real wealth comes from real savings.
> Federal manipulation of currency inflation and interest rates makes dollar savings worthless.
> Savings of any form in the US dollar will get you exactly that. No worth.

While I'd say your investment in gold is a bit risky - it seems like gold-prices have been rising continously for almost 6 years now (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000081&s id=au0kxz2v7Sm8), but gold can de-valuate quickly and then nobody wants to buy it - I'd also not underestimate the dangers of money-inflation.
One way to get rid of a giant budget-deficit is to just "inflationate" it away...

So, the strategy is not totally "looney", just not mainstream ;-)

Something that the CNN article doesn't mention is that one of the judge's findings is that ID does not meet the criteria to be considered science.

From a Bloomberg article: In his opinion, Jones said the key issue is ``whether Intelligent Design is science,'' and said, ``we have concluded that it is not.''

The difference between this and FISA is that FISA requires prior approval by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISC, as you would have known had you actually read the first three lines of the page you linked to:

Requests are adjudicated by a special eleven member court called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

These taps were done without any judicial permission, which even FISA requires. The time required for a FISC approval (as short as a few hours if a case is urgent) was claimed to be too short, justifiying this.

One of the things I find most worrying about the entire thing, though, is summed up in this statement by Trent Lott:

``I want my security first. I'll deal with all the details after that.''

(see e.g. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=aJFRC0JDD0lY&refer=us)

I don't want any man who puts security before freedom in my government. If I lived in Mississippi I'd try to do something about him; alas, I live in Utah, so I've got Orrin Hatch to worry about.

According to this article, it sounds like they caught the mistake quickly. However, events occurred too quickly. The order was entered at 9:27 AM. By 9:29 AM, the brokerage realized its mistake. They tried a number of times to cancel the trade. By 9:38 AM, 607,957 shares had traded.

When events happen this fast, it is very hard for human beings to keep up. I think it would be a good idea to use some sort of AI or statistical software checking to watch for outliers such as this trade, placing the trade on hold until a real person can double check.

I think it is the extroverts who we come to love and hate. But its the introverts who are well respected within the institution and you may not know them unless they represent you. I'd guess Pennsylvania Representative John Murtha is one of those guys.

Yes. And whenever I receive a Dell brochure, what is prominently displayed?

Clock speed.

BTW, notice Dell tanking a bit. Think they're considering AMD a little more seriously now?

I don't see any of these people appearing on the list you posted.

Wrong. This is about preventing BUSINESSES from allowing unapproved access to customer records. The law does not apply to non-commercial access points.

And I'm not condoning the proposed law, but consider this: The Port Authority of NY & NJ (owners of the WTC site) was recently found partially liable for the 1993 bombing, because they allowed unsecured access to the basement garage despite knowing the dangers. Even though they didn't cause or provoke the attack, they were still deemed predominantly liable for not exercising reasonable care in preventing it. Do you see the analogy? Simiarly, a law like this might help prevent otherwise careless businesses from getting sued for disclosing credit card info.

As someone in the Energy business - in Australia - but I watch the US markets, some advice.

1) all forecasts are wrong. But the trend is your friend.
2) try and get real independent data, the EIA is OK, but the US is large and the markets vary wildly from region to region
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/energ yprices.html
the futures markets can be a good guide - if you are severely exposed to Energy prices hedge at least part of your load - by contract with supplier or however. The board will not like the excuse that something could have been done but wasn't.
3) if the cost of energy can stop you eating or slow your business, read your contract very carefully, watch out for stuff like - "market adjustment" and "pool" . If in doubt their are any number of consultants who will take your money to help you - perhaps find one who will take a percentage of the savings between old and new contract. If you are on a regulated tariff, sorry you are about to be screwed as the regulators almost always give pool price pass through.
4) natural gas (my specialty) - if you are relying on natural gas in winter to keep the lights on/datacentre humming - DON'T PANIC. Be prepared. Can your emergency generator take liquid fuels? If so has it been tested? Has the fuel been checked? What does your fuel contract say about resupply in the event of a shortage? What resupply priority do you have is a good question to ask your provider. There may or may not be a natural gas shortage in the US this winter, but if so who will get priority - houses or businesses? Where do you rate?
5) extreme weather will test the energy delivery system - if there isn't enough natural gas or the price skyrockets, the price of electricity (as gas is often the marginal supplier) will also go up. There also may not be enough transmission capacity in you area if everyone tries to turn on their own site facilities.

Possibly. But, that's the problem: they weren't able to identify the vector.

I saw in another article that she hadn't started Tamiflu until after she was already ill, when it's not expected to work as well.

The original article that I quoted wasn't clear about it, but this one is:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=adU.gGtVZZ2g

A sample from the patient was resistant to Tamiflu in a laboratory test. However, it wasn't resistant to Relenza:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapac ific/view/173522/1/.html

I'm not sure she was ever treated with either drug. Fortunately, the resistant strain of the virus apparently doesn't reproduce well. An article in Nature is supposed to be published next week. Hopefully, there will be more detail.

The US does build them, except they don't lead from anywhere to anywhere.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=aWA7joXO0bRk&refer=us

Funny I didn't hear Slashdot bark about the last Supereme Court nominee that Bush picked. John Roberts argued for the 19 states against Microsoft.

Ah, the glorious tradition of Slashdot.

A office product is more about GUI than searching a index. Have used Yahoo or MSN lately? If not try them - you will be surprised. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewssto ry&refer=conews&tkr=GOOG:US&sid=ai5kOjsz5THc Don't let hype blind you. Use your own judgement.

Do you stil (sic) think the US is 'the richest nation on earth'? Look at unemployment, illiteracy, innumeracy, infant mortality (43rd, after Cuba!) and poverty figures for the last decades. Compare to any other country and then do the same for the added figures for the whole EU.

The United States IS "The Richest Nation on Earth." The value of our assets dwarfs the values of the assets of most nations, with only a couple coming anywhere close (Japan, China, Germany).

Look at the value of our prime assets and liabilities: our owned equity, money, real property, inventories, capital goods, net our net debt. I don't have hard numbers, and I challenge someone to find them. I'd imagine the wealth US owned (by citizens, government, and share of corporations) to be about $100 trillion. I'd estimate that this is 30% of global wealth. Probably only Japan comes even close, with maybe $30 trillion, or 10% of global wealth.

Unemployment: United States labor markets are so efficient, that unlike the socialized economies of Western Europe, if you don't have a job, you can get one. Only in Japan is unemployment better managed (at the cost of growth). Some people might be into something called 'facts' - here you go.
August 2005 - US: 4.9%. Germany: 11.6%. France: 9.9% . China: 23%, +/-20% (pick a number, any number). India: 9%. Indonesia: 9%. Japan: 4.4%.

Illiteracy: Literacy rates of countries with population of more than 150 million - US: 97% China: 91% India: 59% Indonesia: 88% Brazil: 86% Pakistan: 46%. While I'd assume EU Literacy rate is 99% (quite commendable), 3% of our population being miseducated is not a condemnation of our wealth - just our education system. Imagine what our unemployment would look like if everyone could read... (Source: CIA World Book)

The main wealth Americans have, however, is institutional. We have the ability to choose from a variety of goods and services, more enforceable rights than almost anywhere else, and impressively low corruption. When the Chinese can buy any American goods, have the right to due process and continuous ownership, responsive government, and don't have to pay off the police on a daily basis, maybe then they could build wealth.

Try this link. Just go to MSN Search and type "Jerry Yang", pro-Beijing Taiwanese immigrant living in the USA.

"The Bush administration can indefinitely detain a U.S. citizen it determines to be an enemy combatant in the war on terrorism, a federal appeals court ruled."

It's the same as Microsoft's "we have to package IE with Windows" argument.

This article has more details. Basically, customers only want to deal with one "suite," but Oracle and Siebel do slightly different stuff.

Telecom - Death for all. The great dot-com boom, a pot full of lies filled and fuelled by companies like Enron, Bankers like Citigroup and other Wall Street associates, Optical Fiber innovators and greedy scientists like Gururaj Desh, Star Telecom Analysts like Jack Grubman together brought down the entire nations economy. Conservative and federal reserve guard, Greenspan had a hard time stearing it back to where we are. In the aftermath of Dot.Com bust, the Big 3 of Internet emerged, Yahoo, Ebay and AOL. Cisco, Sun, Amazon, MSN and others existed but their business models were not too consumer centric and they only tried hard to survive the growth. A new Stanford born baby was already conceiving and came to limelight in 2001. Yes you got it right, Google. With it's powerful Search technology it replaced AOL to join the Big 3. Google focused on web-services technologies, unveiled new model of business with its cool web based applications like search, gmail and google maps. It is always said that many of us have herd mentality. So when Google unveiled their Google Talk, the Redmond company which has already lost its focus announced the buy-out of Teleo (teleo.com). The telecom and VoIP bug has now bitten eBay. According to Bloomberg, it is willing to pay a whopping $3 Billion (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&s id=aLvNorCTFLZM&refer=us ). So is eBay willing to pay so much just for the subscribers it has? What about Yahoo/MSN integrated instant messaging and VoIP based services it offers? These Telecom analysts are all set to ruin the recovery in the IT world, which came back in the real form of web-services. Don't forget, Skype is a big hype. Not every customer will pay you for the low quality service that Skype offers. The entry cost for Skype like services are very low. Any company with a million dollar in its treasury and a good negotiator across the table can use much of open source tools and build such a service. Where are the customers? In my experience, between Google Talk and Yahoo!, the former got better customer rating because of the clarity compared with Yahoo!. But Google has 1/100th the number of users compared to Yahoo! and far more better features. So lesser the number of customers better the quality. I think the VoIP market will evolve as a fragmented market with at least 2 service providers for every small town and more than a dozen providers for large cities. I only hope someone will save eBay from shelling out couple of billions for a useless services as this. I will not immediately jump to VoIP unless they come up to the quality of fixed line Telco's otherwise, I can never conduct my business with lost words in-between deals. Maybe eBay and Skype officials must negotiate using Skype VoIP to know what eBay is paying for and what Skype is offering.

Rumor has it that trusted sources from The Wall Street Journal say

Um, why the hell the contorted syntax? Why not just say:

The Wall Street Journal is reporting EBay is in talks to acquire Internet-telephony company Skype for $2 billion to $3 billion, in a deal that would represent a dramatic shift in strategy for the online auction giant. Bloomberg has the details for those without a WSJ account.

Geez, Taco. Grow up and act like a real editor.

How about...
Bloomberg, ZDnet, Financial Times, BBC, Reuters, USAToday, or Washington Post?

Well, you will if your senator is head of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Cough http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=aWA7joXO0bRk cough.

Because the rest of the time, all he is doing is cashing his checks.

Damn I wish I owned some oil wells right now.

As in, say goodbye to your rights online and off.

It wasn't enough that Roberts, one of the judges who ruled people accused of terrorism don't deserve trials, was nominated. Now we'll have another who is probably far worse than Roberts.

This means the idiocy of the USA PATRIOT Act, and the disposal of most of America's due process rights, will live far past the current President and Congress.

Well I have heard reports of aid being offered by many countries from sri lanka to israel, the uk and others.. some of that will no doubt be largely symbolic but still they were made..

What I haven't heard is if the US has accepted any of those offers or if any of it arrived in the area yet.

"Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Honduras and Sri Lanka are among countries that said they would send aid. A special United Nations task force is ready to help also, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a target of criticism by the U.S., offered $1 million to the Red Cross through Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of the country's national oil company. Cuba's President Fidel Castro offered to send 1,100 doctors and 26 tons of medicine to the U.S. Gulf Coast areas stricken by Hurricane Katrina, CNN reported last night."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=a3BvGso1ZFb4&refer=us

Patently incorrect.

Have you watched the news at all? All people questioning the slow federal response make mention of the 5 days.

For example, take the following snippet from a Bloomberg news article :

" In Congress, Democrats including House Democratic Caucus Chairman Robert Menendez are stepping up their criticism, and the Democratic National Committee today issued a statement under the title, ``Where is the leadership, Mr. President.'' ``Why is it that five days after hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast many of our fellow Americans are still without food and water, living in squalor in dangerous, inhumane conditions?'' the statement said. "

"Profit is set to be divided equally among workers, and the members elect their supervisors..." Taken from the following Bloomberg article.

The article also contains references to the number of Oracle employees (9000) in India, and it should be clear that whatever the reported working conditions (in the parent post), there are enough people to step in should someone decide to leave.

As to quality, the big IT companies attract tens of thousands of resumes for a fraction of that number of jobs. Their ads (I am told) carry the line: those who have applied before need not apply. Draw your own conclusions about quality from that.

As to the issue of accents, there are first of all some 270 languages and dialects in India, and even Indians have difficulty with understanding one another when conversing in English. People learn the local Indian language, plus English, and a third language. The individual's English accent contains traces of his first language. A southern accent sounds different and is sometimes ridiculed by northerners. Many Indians speak and write what is called "babu-English", the language of a non-native speaker, which is characterized by long, complicated sentences with big, often Victorian, words. A large number, composed of people who have been to private schools speak and write English, as a first-language, that is recognized by the English as being of superior quality. Nevertheless, their intonation (similar to the Welsh or Scots) can be off-putting to Americans. That said, the yelping about accents that I read here on slashdot, seems to be generated by persons who are making the mistake of seeing themselves at the center of the universe -- and speaking English without a trace of an accent, and being totally reasonable in their expectations of others.

Now, here is the URL to the Bloomberg News story
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&si d=aLjAOufh4Dmg&refer=columnist_mukherjee

I don't believe it'll hit $5.00. The reason gas prices are so high is because there were a bunch of outages (fires, accidents, lockdown due to terrorist threats in Saudi Arabia, strikes in South America), and because OPEC underestimated oil demand for this year.

The summer season, too, works against you. Every summer, gas prices go up.

They will be back to normal soon, probably within a year.

A barrel of oil is currently running at approximately $63. This is 42 gallons. I'm not sure how refining $1.50 / gallon oil into $0.50 / gallon gasoline works, but I'm guessing the oil companies would be willing to give you millions of dollars for the secret.

(And yes, I realize that portions of the refined oil become other products, but the largest portion does become either diesel or gasoline. Point is, $0.50 / gallon is extremely incorrect.)

Looks as if the deed is done. Any guesses as to what we see from here? My personal guess is that the repercussions of this ill-advised decision will vary market by market, ILEC by ILEC, but that the fallout in some markets could be swift and painful. Furthermore, I have no numbers or inside knowledge, but would fear that loss of even a few major markets might be sufficient to pull Covad under altogether.

Wha! Slashdot did it again. http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Microsoft-Toshi ba-HD-DVD-Alliance-Changes-Xbox-360-3902.shtml This article was posted on 28th of June 2005, 16:45 GMT ... juNE juNE juNE. On a 2nd note ... softpedia is wrong too. Bill Gates said it (over 1 month ago): ``The initial shipments of Xbox 360 will be based on today's DVD format,'' Gates said. ``We are looking at whether future versions of Xbox will incorporate an additional capability of an HD DVD player or something else.'' It's not confirmed what-so-ever! see: http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8591/Xbox-360-Might- Incorporate-HD-DVD-Drive/ or http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000101&si d=aIoj6W6mNl_M&refer=japan

Ah, found the quote here. And the stock is only down 1.7% -- not too bad. The sky isn't falling for Nintendo.

Sony posted a loss in this past quarter (the first quarter in this fiscal year) and cut their projected full fiscal year profit by... get this... 87.5%.

To quote the Bloomberg article:

The Tokyo-based company said in a statement today that net income will be 10 billion yen this fiscal year, compared with an April forecast of 80 billion yen.

Nintendo, on the other hand, has not cut their full year forcast.

From the Gamasutra article the parent linked to:

Despite the apparently significant downturn in results both the company and independent analysts contacted by news agency Reuters appear unconcerned by the results, with Nintendo's share price falling by only 0.1 percent in initial post- trading. "I think the results came in pretty much as expected," said Yuta Sakurai, senior analyst for Nomura Securities. "This is a seasonally volatile industry and Nintendo's biggest games will come later in the year. They didn't change their full-year forecast, so I'm not worried," he said.

And:

Nintendo officials claim that operating profits for the whole year are expected to rise by 3.1 percent from ¥111.52 billion ($991.73m) last year to ¥115 ($1.02bn) this year.

But of course, no self-respecting, mass media, gaming site is going to report on such fiscal trivia. Nintendo, as always, appeals only to children under 12 and is teh doomed1

1up the FOX News of gaming.

A quote buried in this article says that Google "copied" a feature of Virtual Earth "only 72 hours before Virtual Earth was to be released"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=a1jaZMqSC2Fs&refer=us

so you can see that MS has been forced to release prematurely because of these "copies" that are threatening them

In an article about MSN Earth (Episode IV: Parts of the United States), Google is singled out for pre-copying one of MSN's features, only 72 hours before MSN Earth (Episode IV: Parts of the United States) was set to launch. That's gotta hurt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=a1jaZMqSC2Fs&refer=us

Let's hope they can also stop the scurrilous cads who've pre-copied their trademarked Vista name!

# above was just to get attention
# all my real messages include
# the words "I'm normally as much
# against Microsoft as anyone, but
# this one time ...
\begin{realmessage}
All kidding aside, I'm normally as much against Microsoft as anyone, but this one time you've got to admit they're in the right. After all, they came out against crime. If you're not with them, you're for crime!
\end{realmessage}

"Google's ability to beat MSN in unveiling maps, new search and e-mail functions has helped boost its market share. Google now has 55 percent of the market for search queries, up from 47 percent a year ago, according to Internet researcher ComScore Networks Inc. "

So I would say Google is becoming ever more dominant.

For more information, see this article.

The fact that the article you cite is based on analysts' predictions made before the earnings announcement numbers I cited were announced...well, doesn't say much for your reading comprehension, friend. But you didn't read the article you linked to anyway, did you?

The article you cited is titled "Apple May Say Earnings Jumped, IPod Shipments Fell in 3rd-Qtr". The big giveaway is the word "may" the title of the article; Bloomberg's story was about what analysts were speculating Apple would say later in the day. Turns out that the analysts (as they so often are with Apple) were wrong.

Forgive me for being a little pedantic; it's just so obvous you wanted a reason to rant about iPods that I felt it appropriate to point things out in minute detail for you.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=a_E1xJZdLLHc&refer=us

umm, yeah. facts: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&si d=a_E1xJZdLLHc&refer=us i don't understand why the ipod has this god-like status on /. it's not quite fair to just call it a trend. it's like sony trinitron tv in the 80's. for a lot of consumers, it was the only tv to get. it was a solid product that was well advertised. the ipod is no different. it's not just a fad like a pet rock. but there is no infallible product. and.. get ready for this. some ppl like alternatives. there is no single product that will be "best" for everyone. ipod is best for u? great! but don't try to tell me it's best for me. saying things like "why would anyone want anything other than ipod/itunes" is like "why would anyone use anything other than windows". yes, i went there. now mod me down quick!

http://www.bloomberg.com/ reports:
U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow Visits U.S.'s Biggest Oil Supplier: It's Not Saudi Arabia ....

`It's not well known in the U.S. the degree to which the U.S. is dependent on Canada for energy,' John Manley, a foreign affairs and finance minister under former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said in an interview.
Canada's oil exports to the U.S. averaged 2.12 million barrels a day in 2004, or 10.3 percent of daily U.S. consumption, compared with 1.64 million barrels from Mexico and 1.56 million barrels from Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration

Here's somebody who's succumbed to the dark side.

The EPO (European Patent Office) has granted patents on algorithms for years, despite the fact that they are illegal under the current European legislation. And it seems that the fight will go on there (cf. this article).

However, considering today's vote, the patent offices can not anymore claim that their interpretation of the law have a political backup.

Just to round of the thread, the actual vote against software patents was 648-14 with 18 abstentions. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006& sid=a.QckuA8V3H8&refer=home
``We buried a bad law and did so without flowers,'' Eva Lichtenberger, a member of the parliament from Austria's Green party, told reporters.

Bigger news on this front would be the Nuclear Fusion reactor Being built in France, and China announcing the next day that they will also be building a Fusion reactor. Clean energy? Not for at least another decade..

this article claims it's only $223 million; a few more details here but not much. Nothing about a revolution in keyboard technology though.... This all sounds fishy, or at least incomplete.

Or, maybe go for real pirates that carry guns and steal from the poor..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&si d=aRo40A8Muqmg&refer=asia