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Some might even say this is just a part of Microsoft's proxy battle with Google, a quid pro quo after Microsoft's heavy investment in Facebook. But everyone would just laugh if Ballmer said the same stupid thing.

The loans are part of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, which provides incentives to new and established automakers to build more fuel-efficient vehicles.

It's better to give companies loans for actually doing something. Rather then giving them 25 billion dollars just for "struggling".

Especially if the reason they're struggling is because they make shitty cars. At least the when we fund companies that create electric cars we get a quality product out of it.

Due to all the international pressure and bad publicity gathered from the original move to mandate the installation of Green Dam on every computer, China backpedaled from the decision.
So it seems weird to me that this kind of protests are being organized. It would make a lot more sense to educate people about how to uninstall the dam(n) software out of their machines, or why people should not willingly accept to install it under the usual "think of the children" argument.
Having said that, it's a free country, and he can protest whatever he wants... Wait, no... I'll be back to you on that one.

I'm Canadian and I carry cash almost everywhere. It is my preferred method of completing financial transactions, because of the fees that banks charge. Although I'm 34, so I guess I'm an oldtimer by your metric.
And this service is insanely overpriced when you compare it with anywhere that doesn't have government sanctioned monopolies:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_39/b3901068.htm (look at the date on that article...).

1. Get China to bring NK to heel. A transition from the cult-of-Kim to a dictatorship-by-committee (like in Myanmar) maybe just enough of a change to make the regime's external stance less volatile. How much leverage we have with China to force this is questionable. The alternative that China faces is surgical strikes on their neighbour, which they definitely do NOT want. This must happen before NK get delivery capability.

I'm the AC you responded to. While China (and maybe Russia) is basically the only power-player in the region, the only way they'll apply pressure to North Korea is if Japan starts making noises about developing their own nuclear program. The United States is no longer in a position to use its economic power to influence China (short of saying we're going to default on our loan guarantees). Proliferation breeds proliferation, which is another reason to nudge Iran away from that path. How do you tell Egypt and Saudi Arabia that they can't have nukes when Iran and Israel do?

I don't know they're not ruled now by committee and I'm not sure North Korea really cares either way about how they come across to others. Nobody will stand up and preemptively stop them, so it's a moot point. In a previous thread, narfspoon pointed out that a unified Korean peninsula is a scary prospect as we'd have "a hybrid nuclear + crazy + high-tech (former S. Korea half at least) rogue nation with a lot of western military tech."
But, they don't need nuclear delivery capability to achieve that.

2. At the same time, get the 1st world nuclear powers to establish a "civilian nuclear power" board (perhaps under IAEA aegis) to guarantee delivery of tech, advice, construction and low-interest loans for proliferation-resistant nuclear power plants. No country would be refused. This could even be linked to any global climate-change agreements.

I really like this idea. Not because I believe in anthropomorphic global warming (I'm neutral on the issue), but because I believe in nuclear power. Solar/wind/wave power have one serious drawback: you have to go out and collect it. Nuclear and fossil fuels have the benefit of having a high energy density. Dubai has an excellent model on how this would work in practice. Cheap and plentiful energy provides a net positive effect on the world.

3. Get serious with nuclear disarmament. Western powers just cannot claim the moral high-ground while adding to their stockpiles.
4. Raise the stakes with respect to sanctions for proliferation. Enable automatic sanctions if a country refuses 2 (above) and begins a weapons capable nuclear power cycle.
All of these must be done together as part of a package - a kind of global, nuclear "new deal".

Others have discussed #3 in much greater eloquence than I could. The main argument against #3 and #4 being realistic options is, coincidentally, North Korea. Let's say you could get the rest of the world to chuck their nuclear weapons into the sun. What do you do when you have a nation that has nothing to lose by starting a new nuclear program? I doubt the latest round of sanctions on North Korea will have any effect whatsoever and if you unilaterally disarm while another doesn't then the guy wielding a wooden board with a nail through can hold the world hostage.

So far, BING is not impressive, nothing more than their old search with a new name, still sux..MS can screw up anything now days..Ballmer is wrecking the company.. Needs to go "spend more time with his family" We are watching in realtime latter stages of Stage 4 of How the Mighty Fall. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_21/b4132026786379_page_4.htm

A quick google search will land you at a link to http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_32/b4045001.htm That article, while talking about pets, states "Americans spend on the movies ($10.8 billion), playing video games ($11.6 billion), and listening to recorded music ($10.6 billion) combined"

So according to the RIAA and MPAA we spend 33 billion on movies, video games, and music combined but some how piracy is costing the American economy almost twice what it actually spent on that industry? I know they inflate numbers, but this is beyond hyperbole.

There are 736 members in the European Parliament.

200 more than the US Congress. It all seems a little unwieldy. Difficult to make an impression.

The median age:

Sweden 41 US 37 CIA World Fact Book

Reality shows are the most successfully exported European television programmes, notably to the United States.

Programmes such as Survivor - produced by British-Swedish company Planet 24 and which has contestants competing in the wilderness for cash and other prizes, Big Brother of the Netherlands' Endemol - where a group of people live together in a house isolated from the outside world while constantly watched by cameras, and British 19 Television's Pop Idol - a show for music star wannabes, have become massively popular with American viewers.

Under EU rules, the majority of the European channels' programming must be devoted to European works, with at least 10 percent of that time or of their programming budgets to independent European productions.

Currently, certain channels in eight EU member states - Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK - still do not comply with these requirements however, and European productions account for less than 50 percent of their programming.

Europe's Biggest TV Export: Reality Shows [May 29}

This suggests to me that support for piracy is strongest where support for the politically-mandated domestic product is weakest.

The book (and PBS documentary series) "They Made America" apparently debunk the flying story.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905112_mz063.htm

But, check out this article: http://www.businessweek.com/
It says painting everything white is better than solar!

When was this?

Crack open a history book and read about why government started regulating things.

Crack open history books and read about how government gave corporations power. About 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson warned about them, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

"Free markets must convince you to voluntarily consume their products instead of a competitor's."

When all the meat-producers practice unclean methods, they don't have to convince you of jack.

True but they don't get business from me or others either. There are still some of us who know how to hunt and fish if we want meat. And for those who don't even large grocery store chains are starting to sell free range meat and organic food. No body's forcing people to pay more for them yet a lot of people do. Whole Foods seems to be doing better than many thought. Personally I'd rather hunt for my meat, when I have it, otherwise I prefer growing my food. I don't have much space but I'm growing Thai basil, blueberries, carrots, lettuce, mustard, onions, 3 different peppers, radishes, rhubarb, strawberries, and 3 different tomatoes. I'd grow more if I spent more tyme and had more space.

Government (who's sole motive isn't greed for money, but rather fear of being elected out of office)

BS! While most people say congress is bad, when asked many say their own reps and senators are okay.

Free-market economics have had failures throughout history.

Name one tyme a free market failed.

Falcon

One page article: http://www.businessweek.com/print/lifestyle/content/may2009/bw20090514_058678.htm

... since according http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption and http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2007/gb2007123_556880.htm linux fronts are opened there... :)

Larry Ellison used to spout off that PCs were ultimately doomed. That the Internet would allow for hosted services and remote computing power and our local computers would merely be thin clients hosting the view portion of the application.

Yet this concept never truly took off. Instead of personal computers getting lighter and thinner, they got bigger and more featureful. The exact opposite of Ellison's prognostications.

Businessweek had an article in 1996 describing the move we are seeing today to "cloud" services.
http://www.businessweek.com/1996/26/b34813.htm

And the ones who will reap the profits are still the server-side service providers. Netscape is gone, now there is Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Sun still lives on as part of Ellison's own network computing powerhouse Oracle. If someone could monetize a server-worthy version of Linux, there would be massive profits for that company as well.

Many people have protested the Iraq War. And with good reason. It is almost wholly a bad war to have started without a plausible benefit for the American people. In fact, the only thing it has done is to deplete our treasure and kill many of our fine soldiers (not to mention many many of innocent Iraqis). Undertaking the war in Iraq is an act against our beloved American countrymen.

Other than the oil. The war got the taps going again, and they now provide about 2.5% of the world's consumption, though that could rise as high as 10%.

Perhaps you do not assign any value to that, but the free market sure does. The cost of energy redounds in the cost of everything else, which means that our (everyone's) net quality of life is a function of it.

This is especially relevant becuase the demand curve for oil is highly inelastic. Do you know what that means re: amount supplied? A 2% increase in supply is a very big deal when the demand curve is nearly flat.

...and so your tv/phone/net bill each go up an extra 10% to cover the costs.

I'm curious how this would have ANY effect on net-neutrality.

Plus, if the costs get too great, the ISPs will either "ask" for more free taxpayer money or stop running wires anywhere but big cities.

The real question is why municipalities aren't running fiber along with power/sewage/etc. That would instantly solve the "last mile" problem.

Then, to serve the town, an ISP would only need to run wires to the town wire closet.

So simple... there must be a reason why everyone isn't doing it.
Oh, that's why

A small town in Minnesota wants to build its own fiber to the home network. The local telco didn't want to do it, but it doesn't want the city competing with it, either. That means one thing: lawsuit.

Of course, this whole discussion has very little to do with net neutrality.

The reason used video game stores exist is that many people aren't willing to pay $50 to $60 for a new game.

The reason games cost $50 to $60 is because people *are* willing to pay that much for a game.

In micro-economics, if the maximum price you are willing to pay is $30 for a game, then the game publisher would like to sell it to you at your maximum price (given that the marginal cost to make, sell and support the game is less than $30) . The used game market exists because game publishers have trouble implementing price discrimination. This 2003 article about adaptive pricing gives some good examples of why it is difficult to implement price discrimination.

Now if PC game companies were more aggressive with their pricing then they could compete with the used market.

Game companies could compete - but could they do so profitably?

1. Game companies reduce their price to the point they are "competing" with second hand dealers.
2. i.e. second hand dealers stop trading because their overheads leave them without enough profit.
3. Game companies have approximately same overheads, but they also have high dev costs and risks.
4. Where is the profit?

Assuming share repurchasing is really the intent here, and that's not a bad guess, let me offer a contrarian view to your rosy perspective to MSFT's move.

By borrowing dollars in the bond market to fund a share buyback, MSFT's board is effectively using borrowed money to place a wager that the market is currently undervaluing MSFT's stock. By choosing to throw their extra cash, along with borrowed dollars, at this share buyback scheme, MSFT is betting that they can predict the future better than the market.

What would be really great is if someone had done a study of the effect of share buybacks undertaken by S&P 500 companies, to test whether they work at all. Oh wait, S&P itself has. If you're a MSFT shareholder, ask yourself whether MSFT should be using their extra cash to pay dividends instead of embarking on harebrained schemes like this. Actually, I take that back -- you'd probably prefer they spend money buying back their own shares and paying bond interest rather than flushing it down the Zune toilet.

No, the total sales is 37 million: http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=25810 .

Which is a drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of millions sold by the other companies, as I said in my other post.

Not to mention that the other phones are generally compatible with each other across different make/models - whilst Apple think their 37 million is an "enormous platform", the Java platform runs on 2.1 billion phones.

Well if China says it's safe, that's good enough for me!

Their safety record speaks for itself.
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2008/10/product_safety.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/fury-as-china-baby-milk-scandal-escalates-934993.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/08/19/MNV1RKN0L.DTL
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/business/worldbusiness/19toys.html
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/series/toxicpipeline/index.html

3. Free medical care, if with the occasional bureaucratic nightmare or incompetent doctor

No different than in any expensive private facility. The VA may have well publicized problems, but it still ranks up there as some of the best medical care you can get in the united states.

Post dot-com failure Scott McNealy said:

But two years ago we were selling at 10 times revenues when we were at $64. At 10 times revenues, to give you a 10-year payback, I have to pay you 100% of revenues for 10 straight years in dividends. That assumes I can get that by my shareholders. That assumes I have zero cost of goods sold, which is very hard for a computer company. That assumes zero expenses, which is really hard with 39,000 employees. That assumes I pay no taxes, which is very hard. And that assumes you pay no taxes on your dividends, which is kind of illegal. And that assumes with zero R&D for the next 10 years, I can maintain the current revenue run rate. Now, having done that, would any of you like to buy my stock at $64? Do you realize how ridiculous those basic assumptions are? You don't need any transparency. You don't need any footnotes. What were you thinking?

Wall St was unrealistic during the dot-com era, at least in their advice to others.

Unfortunately McNealy didn't seem to realize there was a bubble either and didn't react to the crash quick enough. Sun might have borrowed too much during the dot com era too.

There's some stellar examples of AT&T employees (formerly SBC, formerly Pacific Bell) at the dslreports.com site. The "SBC Direct" forum is for bypassing tech support and speaking directly to somebody who knows what they are doing.

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/sbcdirect

Also, for Comcast, there's "comcastcares" on Twitter. There was a recent article written about this person recently.

http://twitter.com/comcastcares

http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jan2009/ca20090113_373506.htm

Very nice! Both of these have saved me a lot of time, trying to fight my way through a large corporation, trying to reach a person who had both the knowledge and the power to fix the situations I found myself in.

You forgot "GOTO 10".

Seeing as every administration since Clinton have been throwing money at big Tel/Cable in the name of "Broadband for all!"

Obama is on track to continue the tradition.

But of course, that's not what this is really about.

Link to the actual article

most likely they pushed developers to focus first on microsoft based search engines, but really, I also find it hard to believe not a single person would have tried google first

Actually there is a high probability that the Microsoft employees used google until they were given their top down directions.

Utilizing a monopoly position to crush competition has worked for Microsoft in the past, why would anyone expect tactics to change now.

Most of the money give to AIG actually went to other banks that had contracts with AIG, even foreign banks such as UBS and Deutsche Bank. Most of the money went to banks located outside the United States.

German and French banks got $36 billion from AIG Bailout

Don't forget that all of these bailouts combined ($12.8 trillion) are nearing the United States entire GDP.

The CRA is a red herring that has been trotted out and dismissed all ready http://www.businessweek.com/investing/insights/blog/archives/2008/09/community_reinv.html . The long and short of it is most of these subprimes loans were made by firms not even subject to the CRA, so saying they were "forced by the gov't" to take these loans is naive at best.

The GP is spot on.

Time Warner completed it's "spin-off" of Time Warner Cable in mid March. Couple that with what Time Warner Inc. execs are saying about "TV Everywhere". With that in mind as well as the rise of streaming video services such as Netflix it is hard to not see these ridiculous bandwidth caps as an attempt to hang on to their current Cable TV business model. Especially since they are charging about the same for a full TV, Phone, and Internet package now (almost $140 a month after taxes) as they will charge for an Internet only connection with a 175 Gig cap (100 cap for $75 and $75 more gigs over that...). I live in Austin and honestly I am looking at AT&T (who only offers a 3 Mb downstream in my area) as a viable option. At least they are talking about caps of 150 GB a month... and that speed is only a a third of what I usually get from TWC. On the up side at least 2 mayoral candidates here have issued statements against the caps. While that is encouraging I am not sure if it will still be an issue after the election but it is nice to live in a city where this issue gets noticed by the politicians. The thing about this though that really gets to me is that it isn't a consumption model. After all one of the main points is that there will be NO rollover of unused bandwidth. To return to the over used analogy of a restaurant for the consumption model. If I pay you for a plate and don't finish it... give me a doggy bag! I understand if it is a buffet and I don't get one, but to have someone pay for a plate of food and then snatch the plate away after half an hour regardless of whether or not they are finished... that's just cruel! Now, can we all agree to NOT use the restaurant analogy again?

Well the Japanese and European car makers have good, profitable markets for their small cars. GM and Ford have narrower markets and are more exposed to changes in market conditions.

I don't know about GM but Ford makes more fuel efficient vehicles in Europe. Here's a "Business Week" article about "The 65 mpg Ford the U.S. Can't Have". TFA says it's not available in the US because it runs on diesel and that the fuel has a bad rep. As biodiesel is getting more popular in the US I say this is BS as an excuse.

Falcon

Iceland?

Does it seem premature to declare this the savior of our energy troubles before you have even put up a single test/prototype site?

There have been offshore wind farms for a while now. There are some in the North Sea, however they're falling victim to the financial crisis.

Land based wind power has been hamstrung by NIMBY folks

The same applies to offshore wind farms. No less than Ted Kennedy has opposed them. Someone above this pointed out this article: "Kennedy doesn't play by the rules".

Falcon

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives/2009/04/an_ipod_for_the.html

Subsidies: the oil industry is already HEAVILY subsidized, much more than alternative fuels...but I'm glad to hear you support repealing those oil subsidies. Then there's the undocumented 'subsidy' of oil in that the true cost of its production and use isn't known yet. The environment, global warming, is by all credible accounts going to have very significant effects around the globe. How much cost is associated there that isn't reflected in oil's price?

The reason we shouldn't offshore drill, or do much more in Alaska is twofold.

1. it wouldn't lower oil prices much more than a NICKEL. $0.05/gallon. it's just not worth the environmental risk. From a Businessweek article, estimates are it *might* produce up to 1% of global production. Currently that's $0.02/gallon but I'll round up assuming increased prices when it comes online in TEN YEARS. The same article actually says it would be closer to 20 years but what's a decade amongst friends right?

2. even if it were 'worth the risk' why not save our oil for when it's really expensive. Why use our reserves now when its relatively cheap? Save for a rainy day so to speak. Don't blow the bridge at the first sign of trouble, save it for when its really needed.

Oil is simply a pipe dream that's going to end. We can throw money at it now by trying to squeeze every last cent out of the ground.

Or we can take that money, and invest in something that will quite literally never run out (unless you're talking billions of years from now). you inflate the cost of the bad behavior (oil) through increased taxation on it, and redirect that money towards alternatives.

Since other people seemed interested, I figured I might as well look it up, and here is what I have:

Company : H1B/Total Employees : Percentage

Microsoft: 4437/57,588 : 7%
IBM: 1413/130,000 : 1%
Hewlett-Packard: 520/65,000 : <1%
Apple Computer: 291/20,000 : <1%

I also found an interesting article talking about how many jobs the ipod creates. The result is 13,920 in the US, and 27,250 outside the US. This breaks down to $753 million in the US and $318 million outside the US. Something to think about.

They should have gone with someone with a cooler name. Like Padmasree Warrior her name kick's Wolf Blitzer's name any day of the week and she's better looking too.

In Sanskrit-derived hindi, Vivek means "wisdom". Obviously you're proposing we discard brains for brawn.

You're assuming the Obama administration has brains to discard.

At best, your assumption lacks supporting evidence.

You are assuming that my assumption lacks evidence. Let me be clear here: in Soviet Russia, evidence lacks assumption.

Yeah, it's the excess brains of the Obama administration that has caused them to:

1. Pick a Commerce secretary that had to quit.
2. Pick another Commerce secretary that had to quit.
3. Pick as CTO a person who had a direct report running a massive contracting scam for five years.
4. Pick as a senior intel officer someone who has been on Chinese and Saudi payrolls, who has gone on the record whitewashing the Tianneman Square massacre, and when held accountable ranted, "It's the JOOOS!!!!"

Yeah, it's their excess brains that are causing them to recycle Dimwit Carter's tax-and-spend economic orgy FAILURE of the 1970s at the rate of something like a billion dollars a minute - literally.

The only reason Obama is in office now is because the media overlooked all this obvious-in-hindsight crap because of the tingle he sent of their collective leg.

Don't think this is obvious?

Ever seen those videos of Obama off-teleprompter? You know, akin to the ones the media would repeat ad nauseum if Bush would slip up?

No, the media buried videos of Obama being a mouth-breathing babbler when he's off his teleprompter.

So, I say again: there's no evidence whatsoever that the Obama administration is gifted with brains at all, much less enough excess to be able to discard any.

All you Obama enablers will now reap the results of the rancid political climate you've sowed for 8 years.

And don't you just love how the media has pretty much stopped giving Obama a pass for his corrupt connections?

Guess what?

That's not going to stop.

With the Democrats in power across the board, the need for the media to fill up empty pages and empty air time with relevant news/crap means the only viable targets are Democrats. So the standard pass Democrats get is over.

Although Dems still aren't held to the same standard as Republicans are. Don't think so? Grow a pair and research how Nancy Pelosi uses Air Force jets as her private taxi service and ask yourself why that's not all over the news.

They should have gone with someone with a cooler name. Like Padmasree Warrior her name kick's Wolf Blitzer's name any day of the week and she's better looking too.

In Sanskrit-derived hindi, Vivek means "wisdom". Obviously you're proposing we discard brains for brawn.

You're assuming the Obama administration has brains to discard.

At best, your assumption lacks supporting evidence.

You are assuming that my assumption lacks evidence. Let me be clear here: in Soviet Russia, evidence lacks assumption.

They should have gone with someone with a cooler name. Like Padmasree Warrior her name kick's Wolf Blitzer's name any day of the week and she's better looking too.

In Sanskrit-derived hindi, Vivek means "wisdom". Obviously you're proposing we discard brains for brawn.

You're assuming the Obama administration has brains to discard.

At best, your assumption lacks supporting evidence.

They should have gone with someone with a cooler name. Like Padmasree Warrior her name kick's Wolf Blitzer's name any day of the week and she's better looking too.

In Sanskrit-derived hindi, Vivek means "wisdom". Obviously you're proposing we discard brains for brawn.

They should have gone with someone with a cooler name. Like Padmasree Warrior her name kick's Wolf Blitzer's name any day of the week and she's better looking too.

$25 billion in profits last year. Yep, that $31 million fine is staggering.

Citation please? According to http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.asp?symbol=6581.T

Hitachi's revenue for 2008 was 175B yen or $1.8B. Which is not even the net profit, it's the all monies coming in before expenses. This is no where near $25B in profit.

In fact they made a net profit of 1.5B yen or $129 Million for 2007. $31 million is almost a quarter of their profits for 2007. For 2008(3-08 to 3-09) they are posting a $7.8B loss.

http://retrenchment-blog.breaking.sg/2009/01/hitachi-cuts-7000-jobs-worldwide/

Apple's laptops are much more traditional than their desktops, and sell much better.

They only appear to be traditional, because every laptop maker on earth abandoned the traditional designs and copied Apple's radical Powerbook design in the early 90s.

It's rather amusing that your own link disproves your claim.

Compaq LTE: Released October 1989 (first "traditional" looking clamshell laptop).
Macintosh Portable: Released September 1989 (still not quite a "traditional" clamshell - you need the 1991 PowerBook for that).

Apple's laptops are much more traditional than their desktops, and sell much better.

They only appear to be traditional, because every laptop maker on earth abandoned the traditional designs and copied Apple's radical Powerbook design in the early 90s.

If you are running a business in the new Capitalist China and you prescribe to the new Greed is Good mentality you suspect that you can get away with watering down the milk and adding Melamine to make the protein count look good and sell more product at a lower price than competitors. Unfortunately the plan backfires and Sanlu Group is bankrupted by the scandal and the one time entrepreneur Tian Wenhua is sentenced to life imprisonment. The communist government tries to cover up the incident and amazingly points fingers at other countries but in the end it was the capitalist entrepreneurs that chose to taint their product with Melamine, not the communist government.

Fixed that for you.

Maybe the biggest nail in the coffin for Netscape was twofold: Microsoft started bundling IE for free with Windows, and at a certain point IE started to eclipse Netscape in features and stability (shock, I know).

Those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat history class. That "certain point" was when AOL announced they would be partnering with Microsoft and their new AOL client would basically be a re-branded version of IE. At the time AOL was wildly popular and it instantly added approximately 1 million new IE users overnight. AOL went with IE to get real estate on the new Windows 95 desktop. AOL had been negotiating with both Microsoft and Netscape.

Nintendo takes a calculated risk with the "piracy" when they move manufacturing to China. Cheaper labor compared to low oversight causing a lot of bootleg material. Then, they pressure the governments (the tax payers) to foot the bill to enforce the IP laws to cut "the losses" they have from the cheap labor. They get the best of both worlds. Cheap labor and tax payer funded enforcement. Cisco does the same thing. EVERYONE in the world knows that the China government has little regard for IP. Normally, you would not do business with a government or manufactorer that screws you over but the tax payer enforcment makes it worth while to take the risk. If their games were made in another country that had more IP oversight, this would not be a problem.

I say FUCK you Nintendo, its your own damn fault for choosing a company in China to package your games. BTW, Cisco does the same exact thing. OMG!!! These "bootleg" gbics made from our supplier in China might by hacked and the US government is using them causing a security risk! Lets get the FBI to track these down and protect our income. How about this Cisco, stop using that cheap ass labor and supplier in China and stop using tax payers money to protect your income?

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_41/b4103038201037.htm

Obviously the security risk is FUD or they would pull out of China.

until people start using Ryanair's new in-flight cell phone system. I can just hear the people whining about how much their calls to the ground cost them.

Or to put it otherwise, there's a reason why everyone from Bill Gates to some obscure singer tries to whitewash their PR image, by means varying from posing as the great philanthropist (e.g., Bill Gates)...

Uhhh... Bill Gates has given over $28 billion to charity as of 2007. Just saying, I think he's doing more than "posing" as a great philanthropist...

I had "heard" about habanero pepper being dried and actually built into the cable extrusion, but never saw any proof of it. So when I read this story, I went looking for it, to no avail. Anyone else hear of this?

This was the closest link I could find, which tends to support what the hytechdistributors.com link above is doing.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2001/nf20010712_107.htm

VIA Technologies Inc.'s Market Cap is 461.0M according to: http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?capId=679305