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Euro displaces dollar in bond markets
The euro has displaced the US dollar as the world's pre-eminent currency in international bond markets, having outstripped the dollar-denominated market for the second year in a row.

The data consolidate news last month that the value of euro notes in circulation had overtaken the dollar for the first time. Outstanding debt issued in the euro was worth the equivalent of $4,836bn at the end of 2006 compared with $3,892bn for the dollar, according to International Capital Market Association data.

BTW, I'm sorry for Taco, my gorilla told his Mom it only wanted to do her ass but she insisted it'd preferably cum in her greasy cunt than in her bloody stinky 'nuss.

I'd say that all the evidence of Steve Jobs' corporate cover up and the lack of reportage about it on geek sites. Apple: Another Enron? Well, maybe not, but at least another scum-bag at the top of a corporation.

The internet is buzzing withspeculation that Steve Jobs may step down over reports that he profited $7.5 million in stock options by falsifying an executive board meeting. The financial times has a good overview of the unfolding story.

From the Article:

"Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorization from the company's board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter.

Records that purported to show a full board meeting had taken place to approve Mr Jobs' remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified. These are now among the pieces of evidence being weighed by the Securities and Exchange Commission as it decides whether to pursue a case against the company or any individuals over the affair, according to these people."

UPDATE: The Financial Times is now reporting that Apple 'falsified' files on CEO Steve Jobs' options to show that a full board meeting had taken place to approve 7.5m stock options that were handed to Jobs in 2001 without the required authorisation from the company's board of directors.

FTA:|The chief executive of Novartis, a drug company with a history of social responsibility, said "We have no model which would [meet] the need for new drugs in a sustainable way ... You can't expect for-profit organizations to do this on a large scale."| I haven't looked at the cost to bring a drug to market (from discovery to preclinical work through to NDA filing) recently, but last I saw it was in the region of $800 million US. Most big pharmas are tweaking the winning compounds they already have rather than pushing riskier candidates through the later stages towards approval. If you can play with the other enantiomer of your already approved product rather than mess with a new molecule, you do that first, assuming you own the rights :) Most of the big pharmas do R&D and spend enormous sums, but the biotechs and biopharmas still do the work on the less favored sons, hoping for a wedding or at least an invite, but as the man from Novartis indicates, it's a business fraught with peril, not many compounds make it through the regulatory authorities like the FDA, EMEA, etc. Pfizer and Lilly and the others do their due diligence and throw seed money at the little guys along with venture capitalists, but sustainability is a big ask when the percentage of compounds receiving approval is as low as it is.

I'm sorry but you are distorting the words of the Novartis CEO whether or not you know it. Please read the article. He was specifically referring to the production of cheap drugs for the 3rd world. More specifically, Novartis was pointing out that government and NGO organizations had failed to meet their commitment to purchase enough of Novartis' anti-maleria medication such that it could be produced at economically sustainable levels (Novartis had to subsidize production by 10m/year -- ignoring R&D costs). If anything, this illustrates some of the pitfalls of these centrally planned & non-capitalistic models of drug development (while they may be a necessary evil for drugs which only have 3rd world markets, like malaria,... it does not mean that they are actually effective)

As for your blathering on line-extensions and what not... your reasoning and facts are flawed. Yes, drug companies prefer easy money to hard money, all things being equal (like everyone). However, your belief is based on the flawed premises. First, line-extensions are low-hanging fruit. They are very cheap to develop and market when compared to finding, developing, and proving the clinical efficacy of wholly new drugs. Second, the revenues of line-extensions are much smaller (like 75% smaller) and they tend to only last a limited amount of time. Many consumers know that their original compound is often as good, don't have the funds to pay extra, and HMOs/insurers/socialized medicine and other entities put a lot of pricing pressure on them (if they pay for the extension at all). Third, the line-extensions really only make financial sense with more popular drugs. Fourth, they tend to earn positive returns in a fairly short amount of time. In other words, your belief that drug companies dump most of their available funds into isn't even logical given the facts. They devote a small percentage of their available capital to line-extensions. However, while this may divert some capital in the short-run, it generates profitable positive returns in a few short years which are inevitably plowed back into serious R&D.

* * * *

Novartis chief in warning on cheap drugs
By Andrew Jack in London

Published: September 29 2006 22:04 | Last updated: September 29 2006 22:04

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical group, warned on Friday there was no economically sustainable system that could provide low-cost innovative medicines to the developing world.

Daniel Vasella, the company's chief executive, unve

Yeah, Bush clearly wasn't involved with this at all. And why does everyone keep blaming him for this "Iraq" thing? Man, that Bush guy is just SOOOO a scapegoat.

Seems like the free marketeers are dropping lot of talking points and propaganda, ignoring the reality anyone who isn't sunk in masturbatory ideology can see. A bunch of bobble heads parroting "a rising tide lifts all boats," or getting high thinking about the truth of how much good it's doing that the rich have their money in banks instead of a shoebox, or how much better off poor people are now that they have cellphones. News flashes: debt for working people is higher than ever. Health care is unaffordable. Wages aren't keeping pace with inflation. Pensions are evaporating. And our "high employment" is only true if you're down with a part time job in retail. The poor and middle class are getting poorer. Hence the recent increases in the minimum wage. All this and the rich are richer than ever. Why? Sqeeze the poor and make more profits. It isn't hard to see that that's what's happening if you take off the ideological binders. How about some warrants! A couple easy to read ones, broadly applicable. From http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/articl e?res=F50912F8385A0C758EDDA80994DE404482 "It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn't use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. ''How can this be fair?'' he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. ''How can this be right?'' Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare. ''There's class warfare, all right,'' Mr. Buffett said, ''but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.''" That's an interview with Ben Stein, by the way, not Krugman. This one pulled the rug out from under my support of globalization. I think it speaks for itself. From the Financial Times, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/886583be-7a00-11db-8d70-00 00779e2340.html "The real income of the poorest 10 per cent of China's 1.3bn people fell by 2.4 per cent in the two years to 2003, the analysis showed, a period when the economy was growing by almost 10 per cent a year." So can we get back to reality? The poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer, and that is, contrary to popular belief, a BAD thing. Also in the newsflash department: a progressive tax structure is NOT the same as Stalinism. If raising taxes on the rich bombs the economy, we can lower them again. Last time I checked, the economy rose and fell to a more mysterious tidal pull than that. The people at the bottom don't care whether their healthcare is delivered in the most "efficient" way possible. They just need it, period. When we're talking about basic necessities, we need to start putting all this juicy and crackheaded free market theory in the context of life and death, and then see how it stacks up. C'mon, guys, your bosses aren't here, you don't need to suck up with your impression of the WSJ editorial page.

Singapore to tighten curbs on free speech

Some restrictions? You can't say anything negative about the government, and you especially can't say anything remotely critical of their "dear leader" Lee Kuan Yew. See the current brouhaha with the Far East Economic Review.

Sony does not provide a breakdown of its sales by region. But last year, Japan accounted for 20 per cent of overall sales of Y7,159bn, while North America accounted for 23 per cent and European countries 26 per cent.

Countering warnings from some observers that its entry might fragment the fast-growing Linux world, creating multiple incompatible "distributions" of the software, Oracle promised that its version would be identical to that produced by Red Hat.

Asked whether Oracle had the legal right to take its rival's code, strip out the trademarks and redistribute the code under its own brand, Larry Ellison, chief executive, said: "It's an open-source product, right? That is what open source means."

If I were Larry, I would create a great deal of hype about doing my own Linux distro, to soften up the price of Red Hat in anticpiation of a takeover.

I agree, and this is exactly what I said in April, when this whole rumor started. But there's not much evidence that Larry is really interested in such a take-over. If you look at TFA, they're just dredging up this quote from the Financial Times from back then. There's nothing new from Oracle on this. If anything, Larry has refuted the idea of buying up either Red Hat or Novell, repeatedly. Just a few days after this rumor started, he reiterated to the Financial Times his belief that Red Hat is an unsuitable purchase because "they own nothing." Still, he likes to drop hints and innuendo about things like this from time to time because it creates buzz around his company and that's good for his own stock price. If the little voices are whispering rumors again now, I assume it's just because of the Oracle OpenWorld show that kicks off in San Francisco next week.

Is here at the Financial Times.

Wasteful television standby settings and the energy efficiency of computers and water heaters are to be targeted in a new legislative drive aimed at slicing 100bn a year from the European Union's energy bill, in a move that could impose Europe's green agenda on the world. Stringent new European Commission energy efficiency targets for items such as electrical appliances and cars could set new global standards, since all imports into the European market would have to comply.

Some previous EU deadlines have resulted in some pretty dismal performances (the Lisbon agreement springs to mind), but the EU's very high standards for energy efficiency and recycling have been adhered to across the continent with admirable results. Not to mention the fact that EU enforced limits on car pollution (as one example) have led to high efficiency cars in Europe and across the globe, as manufacturers are forced to comply with EU levels to gain access to the EU market.

The proposed regulations - including extensions of existing rules - would impose European energy efficiency standards on any company worldwide seeking access to the EU's 480m consumers, including US manufacturers. European standards and norms in the car sector and mobile telephony have already become accepted in many countries worldwide, to the annoyance of Washington, which believes the EU sets too many rules.

If there is one criticism that is levelled at the EU a lot, is that it sets too many rules. But the high standards they have raised in efficiency for cars and electronics (think about those EU energy labels on all fridges, freezers and so on, they've come a long way from D's and E's a decade ago, how much energy did that initiative save?), so it's A-OK by me.

Bush took the Clinton success limiting N Korea's nuke program and sabotaged it by goading them into going nuclear while ignoring their progress.

Bush has been in charge for 6 years, the leader in facing down N Korea.

If I were president now, I'd have a lot more trouble cleaning up after Bush with a fully nuclear N Korea than cleaning up after Clinton. And with Bush ignoring or cooperating with China's attacks on us, it's even harder to control N Korea. But if I were president right now, I'd probably require China to force N Korea to destroy its nukes and missiles. I'd force Japan to join them. If they didn't, I'd shred China's "Most Favored Nation" trading partner status, and require Japan to pay for the American forces protecting them. And I'd probably airbomb N Korean missiles myself, unless the real intelligence (not that crap Bush makes up to rationalize his insane schemes) indicated they had other nukes they could deploy otherwise.

But then, I wouldn't have wasted America's military forces in Iraq at all, so we'd be better prepared. Or any of the thousands of other things Bush did to weaken the US and strengthen our enemies.

You don't have to make me president. Next month, on TUE November 7, 2006, you can throw out your Republican Congressmember, and likely your Republican Senator, for Democrats who will stop Bush from hurting us. They're in a better position to clean up this terrible mess.

Having moved from the UK to Spain I have some sympathy with this however I suspect this is more the case with ASDL lines than with cable. One DSL provider in particular is offering 20MB (DSL2+) down + 1MB up for about 35/month. Which sounds great (or sounded great in my case) until you have a problem. The company has so much demand for it services it cannot cope with new activations or problems with new activations. From what I had heard all their internal systems are not linked so when you call their service center any tickets/issues raised to get an engineer out to test your line never make it to the engineers. To add to that Telefonica (the national equivalent of British Telecom or AT&T (or what ever they are called)) is being investigated for anti-trust business practices in their provision of broadband.

Saying that since I moved here I have been with Ono the largest (if not only now) cable provider and have had on the whole a fault-less service. Not as fast as the ADSL2+ offerings but it works which is what I need for working from home. More than I can say for Jazztel

What his 'representatives' are doing with his music seems to be the very antithesis of his philosophy. Indeed, recall the lyrics to Imagine

Try telling that to his former wife who not so long ago licensed Nike to make a pair of sneakers with exactly those lyrics printed across them. It's hard to 'imagine' a worse choice (pun intended!)

Big Blue's chairman and chief executive writes in today's Financial Times that traditional multinational companies need to abandon their almost colonial approach to operations outside their home country. He cites as examples of this old-style method the way GM, Ford and his own company built factories in Europe and Asia but kept all the research and development in the US.

Instead, he argues they need to move towards full global integration of their operations...

In Microsoft's case this would be about $5.5m-a-day.'

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c55bc756-1047-11db-8f6f-00 00779e2340.html

I would imagine that there would be stiffer penalties (i.e., non-financial aimed at curtailing MSFT's ability to trade in the EU) available if MSFT continued to defy the commission. If there were not this would be a de facto admission that companies can break the law in the EU with impunity if they are rich enough. I very much doubt the commission would tolerate that state of affairs.

There was an imode virus in Japan in 2000, that caused phones to dial emergency services:

http://specials.ft.com/telecoms/sep00/FT3R3BJ29DC. html

1.) In the US, it's not about the best "system" as much as it's about the best care one can afford.

2.) In the second to last paragraph, a British Professor says the British system is not better than that of the US: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6c9dee06-d9ff-11da-b7de-0 000779e2340.html

I have a much better appreciation of the challenges the Japanese carmakers faced when attempting to break into the domestic US market while competing against historical industry practices and the personal networks that stood in the way of customers having access to a lower-cost, higher-value alternative. Open source software and Red Hat continue to face similar challenges. But in the end, through innovation and a commitment to the customer, the Japanese automakers delivered choice to the customer. The US automotive industry is a good case study, in comparison to the state of the domestic US software industry.

Skype encrypts all calls and instant messages end-to-end for unrivaled privacy.

[Sorry for ranting a bit off-topic. Must be the late hour.]

Keep in mind it's not that good in most places yet.

FT link

eweek.com link

"corporate IT departments .. have specifically demanded that patches be released on a regular schedule"

"blame the corporations for bringing that pressure to bear in the first place."

"the whole notion of improving software and making it better for users has been attacked because it makes it tough for competitors"

The Financial Times (requires subscription) ran an article on this subject on 2nd of August 2005 here

If ordered to do so, mobile telephone operators can also tap any calls, but more significantly they can also remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call, giving security services the perfect bugging device. "We have inadvertently started carrying our own trackable ID card in the form of the mobile phone," said Sandra Bell, head of the homeland security department at the Royal United Services Institute.

A reference to this FT article can be found here.

• only 5% or less of activities are searches, therefore Google has a limited growth model
• tracking users through cookies is a new and promising advertising model, now called "behavioral targeting"

At the same time, Mr Gates claimed that official censorship could never succeed completely in thwarting the free flow of information over the internet.

"The internet overwhelmingly makes information available. It is not possible to block information, it is just not," he said. "It's [not like the situation] when newspaper publishers and TV owners were small chokepoints that controlled the distribution of information. I think people have to [understand] what an open tool the internet is despite any firewall stuff, or any takedown orders that get given."

More of an artificial constraint by a few well-connected groups. In particular, the US grows much more corn than sugar cane, so it's locally easier to get. Additionally, imported sugar has an artificially high tariff to protect local growers. So we end up in a position where corn production is partially subsidized and sugar production is pretty thoroughly protected from international competition.

It's so bad that in the past companies have resorted to unusual tricks, such as converting international sugar to molasses, shipping it to the US, then converting it back to sugar again; that was eventually stopped. The "LifeSavers" candy had a manufacturing plant in the US as recently as a few years ago, but had to close it due to the cost of sugar. It's far cheaper to make the candy in Canada and send it south.

Interesting twist: the "high fructose corn syrup" product has recently been linked to excess weight gain in rodent studies. Even when the mice consumed the same number of calories in sugar compared to HFCS, they still gained more weight.

Link: Sugar Prices

Another source for you then.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/3ced445e-91c5-11da-bab9-0 000779e2340.html

From that article, quote from Ed Whitacre (AT&T CEO)

"I think the content providers should be paying for the use of the network - obviously not the piece from the customer to the network, which has already been paid for by the customer in Internet access fees - but for accessing the so-called Internet cloud."

The real kicker here would be if the courts rule that since google doesnt advertise on the news page it's not making money off them so it's fair use. Then at some point what happens when Google needs to start turning revenue streams on from all these projects (look at http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c7108d38-929e-11da-977b-0 000779e2340.html for why) and puts some discreet ads in the news page. Does the court revisit and change rulings if Google is making money off them?

According to this article Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Cisco will have to account for their actionsin China.
I hope they get a good thrashing as well.

You might like to read up on this one:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/99610a50-7bb2-11da-ab8e-0 000779e2340.html

EU implemented a database IP right to encourage production of databases, USA didn't. USA ended up with many more databases than EU. It didn't suddenly flip, we didn't wake up one morning and EU was far behind, it was a slow and steady change, more companies in the USA could enter the market, leading to more successes and slow competitive shift to the USA.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/results.aspx?fr eetext=KB912919

So is there a patch for older versions of Windows?

Apple has some nice stuff, but other stuff that Steve doesn't care about are absolutely atrocious (perfect example: Quicktime for Windows). ... Not every company can be a personality cult.

Sure Steve may be a problem, but the particulars around that specific example tend to indicate that the problem may be elsewhere...

And speaking of personality cult, or just plain cult, when's ol' Chairman Gates there going to drop the fascade of having anything to do with IT?

According to the Financial Times on Jul6th this year Platinum is an essential catalyst for Hydrogen Fuel Cells and there is only enough Platinum left on and in Earth for a 10 year Hydrogen car economy.
Ft article :
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/97b0b9ce-edbb-11d9-9ff5-0 0000e2511c8.html

Sure current Fuel cells require a lot and advancements in the technology may reduce the amount needed but this will just spin it out a bit - it will only be decades at the most.
So we will have to change everything again if Hydrogen is adopted.
Why not Biodiesel? A Carbon Neutral technology that requires little change to the current Infrastructure and will work with current Diesel engines.
Hydrogen for cars is clearly a dead duck, why then is it being foisted upon us ?

Everyone has an agenda. You just happen to dislike Forbes'. And of course, it does pay to bash Microsoft sometimes.

BTW, I remember you, you posted something once claiming that anyone who disagreed with you had an 'enslaving mouth' or some such nonsense. What a hoot. I guess we'll take your comments on this matter with a grain of salt, eh?

It's sounds the same as Sony's MagicGate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MagicGate

The copy protected memory stick from Sony they did as part of the failed SDMI system.

In other COMPLETELY UNRELATED news, Sony plans 10000 job cuts after poor product sales:
http://us.ft.com/ftsuperpage/superpage.php?news_id =fto092220051313320477&referrer_id=yahoo&utm_sourc e=Yahoo&utm_medium=OrganicSearch&utm_campaign=URLC rawl

Currently there's an interview with Matthew Szulik of Red Hat, who says he was first inspired by the potential of open source by work undertaken by Richard Stallman at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Also there's a commentary by Lawrence Lessig headlined "The march of the web-enabled amateurs" about "grand collaborative projects carried out by volunteers made possible by wikis."

See Financial Times Digital Business

Then be more amazed:
How open source gave power to the people
By Richard Waters, September 19 2005

The sedentary art of software development and the extreme sports of kitesurfing, sailplaning and canyoning would appear to have little in common.

However, both are examples of a new force that could eventually affect a far broader range of companies and industries: the power of users to shape how products are developed.

More...

Then be more amazed:
How open source gave power to the people
By Richard Waters, September 19 2005

The sedentary art of software development and the extreme sports of kitesurfing, sailplaning and canyoning would appear to have little in common.

However, both are examples of a new force that could eventually affect a far broader range of companies and industries: the power of users to shape how products are developed.

More...

dude, what "global warming nutjob"s? Even *BUSH* admits it.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cb0c3b94-ee84-11d9-98e5-0 0000e2511c8.html
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2005/07/ 04/bush_makes_climate_change_concession.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20050704/bushcli mate.html
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/070705EB.shtml
http://www.geopoliticalreview.com/archives/001076b ush_admits_global_warming.php
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/09/g8_global_ snoring/

Although I admit, it's better to say "climate change" because temps drop in some areas and raise in others so the "average" is misleading (even though it's going up), but that's really splitting hairs.

You know I am in Australia, just changed to 100% wind power from my utility, costs me $16 AUD extra per month. People aren't changing because they don't want to change, because they are lazy. It's easier to keep spending money on junk food, cigarettes etc.

What's needed in the short term is:
Quick move to pebble bed nuclear with serious money (actual money, put aside in an account that can't be touched, not empty promises of safety) invested in stable multi-thousand year storage. Change all older cars over to ethanol and biodiesl. Ban/Tax out of existence SUVs for non-farming/ultraremote citizens rather than give them tax breaks like americans do ("light truck" catergory so it isn't classified as a "car") . Solar water heaters. Carbon trading (put a real price on a commons and it will be worth money). Put money geosequestering remaining coal/fossil fuel plant pollution. And oh, I dunno, plant a tree for every one you cut down? Not an unreasonable proposition I think.

Long term projects:
Public Transport, money put into getting wind and solar up to 40% of power provision in a decade and develop ways to manage their flutuating supply. Serious money into hydrogen and battery tech. Control population growth - why should there be infinite population growth on a finite planet? Sure you can increase the population when you terraform mars, but there should be a cap on earth's population, there is nothing morally good about having more people, it just means we all get a thinner slice of the pie. We passed six billion in 1999 we are almost at 6.5 billion in 2005, totally unsustainable rate of growth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population

Thank you for that fascinating string of ad hominems, misinterpretations of both my statements and motives, and uncited factually incorrect assertions. That is certainly a wonderful way to bring up the level of discourse and help others whom you believe misunderstand the situation to come to a better understanding.

As I am in a generous mood, I will go ahead and let you know the thing you desperately need to know:

No matter how earnest or angry you are, citing links to specific non-partisan sources to back up your assertions is much more persuasive than writing things you wished were true punctuated with bits of all caps ranting and using lots of exclamation points.

Here is an example. I have a position. FEMA and the White House screwed up royally in this crisis. Besides the obvious top level things like Bush staying on vacation through the disaster and for days afterwards, besides Condi Rice going on vacation after the crisis started, besides Dick Cheney staying on vacation for a week after the hurricane hit, Mike Brown screwing up so badly he was fired, etc., how else have they screwed up since the disaster started? Take a look at the evidence:

Some have denied that FEMA was responsible, or wasn't called in until after the disaster hit. This is false:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20 050827-1.html

The White House held up deployment of other state's Nat'l Guard in LA:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/ka trina_national_guard

Bush dragged his feet on rubber stamping deploying the navy - it was his job to authorize their use and he sat on his hands. The USS Bataan, a naval vessel with helicopters, doctors, hospital beds, food, and water had been cruising off the Gulf since the Friday before the hurricane unable to act for more than a week:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi -0509040369sep04,1,4144825.story?page=1&coll=chi-n ewsnationworld-hed

FEMA sent back volunteers with flotilla of 500 boats:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0509/01/acd .01.html

FEMA prevented a convoy of Wal-Mart trucks from delivering food and water:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9179790/

FEMA won't accept Amtrak's help in evacuations:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/84aa35cc-1da8-11da-b40b-0 0000e2511c8.html

FEMA turned away power generators:
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/WWLBLOG.ac3fcea .html

FEMA prevented the Coast Guard from delivering diesel fuel:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/05/national/nationa lspecial/05blame.html?ex=1283572800&en=1d14ebfbd94 2a7d0&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

FEMA won't allow Red Cross deliver food:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05246/565143.stm

FEMA blocks morticians from entering New Orleans:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15147862 &BRD=1817&PAG=461&dept_id=68561&rfi=6

FEMA snubbed Chicago's offer o

This is not about integrating VOIP into eBay's auction business. It's about large tech companies scrambling to get a share of the predicted-to-boom VOIP market.

Just recently, Microsoft purchased Teleo, which will allow MSN messenger users to make PC-to-Phone calls. Yahoo purchased Dialpad, which has similar capabilities to Skype (PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone). And of course Google introduced Google talk, which is the first step in the process. eBay just doesn't want to be left out.

This is not really my insight. See for example:

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d1218d8c-2097-11da-81ef-0 0000e2511c8.html

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

I read this story this morning (London time) in the FT on my way into work.

When I read a classic Slashdot story like this in a print publication 8 hours before it appears on Slashdot, then it says to me that Slashdot's going seriously downhill...

Exactly. And the Slate Article points out - all this author did was poorly recap the 8/20 speculation from the Financial Times. I hope I can write (without having pesky things like research or interviews) about whatever is next week's headline in Time Magazine and people will fancy that a Slashdot article.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9b0af6ca-0409-11da-a775-0 0000e2511c8,ft_acl=.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3724/i s_200310/ai_n9331263

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/dollar-surfs-o n-a-wave-of-euro-buying/2005/08/04/1123125853217.h tml?oneclick=true

Oh, wait, I have that wrong, you thought the dollar was doing better...

Given this article about China using a full onslaught of nuclear weapons agains the US if we defend Taiwan, would you WANT the US to give up control right now? FUCK NO!!!

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/28cfe55a-f4a7-11d9-9dd1-0 0000e2511c8.html