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Maybe at Amazon, but page B1 of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required, I get it in print) says that the xBox360 is eating the shorts off of the PS3 in the US market, and the Wii is beating the PS3 by a long margin.

Amazon may not be where most people buy gaming consoles.

Wait for demand for Blu-Ray drives?

Is there any demand, whatsoever?

Hell - demand for HDTVs isn't even all that high.

Actually, even the tech pages at the Wall Street Journal admit that most people shouldn't buy HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet, as it will be at least a year before anyone really has a need for either, and noone can predict what will happen. But you're correct about HDTV - demand won't really kick in until 2009, when everyone will start buying them (since they won't sell non-HDTV-capable sets in the US after that). That's when a nice 40 inch HDTV with full 1080p will go for $300 to $500. No sense jumping in until then - which makes the whole PS3 Blu-Ray setup a waste.

Also, in general, I read an article that congress is really pressuring the IRS to start trying to close the 'tax gap'. Basically, I think they're gonna get meaner and go after more people in order to close the gap between what they think they should be bringing in.....and what they actually do bring in.

This is in fact true. The IRS is more carefully examining middle-class tax returns.

"you do know that 79% of the tax burden is carried by the top 20% of income earners, right?"

You mean those folks that hold the vast majority of the assets? Sure just cherry pick a single statistic from a single source and proclaim 'look what I know, you dip shits didn't know this did you, huh, huh?'. Look the issue here is just how out of balance things can get EITHER way before it breaks the system. The balance right now grossly favors those at the top of the economic food chain. If it continues to the point of breakdown just what do you think the fate of the top x% will be? In the end it is in everyones interest to not break the frickin system.

"Maybe for once we should stop being partisan"

Yea, thats rich, considering the drivel to from the "conservative" party I have listened with great restraint, and admittedly often with amusement, for most my life. Can you make a clear argument just using common sense instead of falling back on a single cherry picked statistic form BillO's list of "facts" to throw at a liberal---remember you have to use this word in with a dirty slur pretext or voice. Don't take this to mean I am a just another sheep in the Democratic flock, which in contrast to the Republican flock, is actually more like a herd of cats anyway. I will say I like many others are sick of the "good cop - bad cop" routine the two parties have used so successfully for so many years. So exactly whose drivel is it you like best? Oh thats right you like to quote the "fiducially conservative ones", hehehe, yea.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

read...

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2 007/20070206/default.htm

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f5e905ce-69d8-11db-952e-00 00779e2340.html

http://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/povert y_and_inequality/index.html

http://www.chicagofed.org/economic_research_and_da ta/wp_abstract.cfm?pubsID=732

http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03 interviewswolff.html

http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?st ory_id=7055911

http://ideas.repec.org/a/ecj/econjl/v112y2002i478p c68-c73.htm

http://dollarsandsense.org/archives/2004/0704tilly .html

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18995

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB11418244330 8492484.html

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/71954e1a-ad43-11da-9643-00 00779e2340,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http% 3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F71954e1a-ad43-11da -9643-0000779e2340.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fne weconomist.blogs.com%2Fnew_economist%2Fpoverty_and _inequality%2Findex.html

http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/

Mossberg got Sony right when commenting on the all the crapware they put on their PCs:

"The problem is a lack of respect for the consumer. The manufacturers don't act as if the computer belongs to you."

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20070405.html

Not your computer, not the "CD" you just bought, nor your DVD, nor anything else. They didn't even respect the EULA for the LAME code they used either.

Sony do not respect the public. The public should return the sentiment.

I read somewhere that 9 out of 10 rap albums are purchased by male, white, middle class teenagers. Not sure if that's true, but it doesn't seem too far off the mark.

It's more like 70 to 80%.

That is one thing that bothers me about the majority of rap music.

It's not necessarily the "majority" or rap music, although it certainly is a large part of popular rap music.

If black people really want to be divorced from the stereotypes of pimps and ho's and a bunch of thugs, they need to stop supporting the people that glorify and sell that image to white America.

The implication there is that blacks, in large numbers, are "supporting the people that glorify and sell that image to white America." Question 1: what are the major media and entertainment outlets that are projecting that image to white America. Question 2: how many of those major media and entertainment outlets are run by blacks?

(I realize that there are in fact a ton of people that do stand up against it, but it doesn't seem to be a large group IMHO.)

Spend some time in inner-city community centers, black churches and professional organizations and I think your eyes might be opened. Just because the opposition isn't front-and-center on CNN doesn't mean that it's not there. And please remember that "Flavor of Love" and "Martin" are no more an indication of "black culture" than "Friends" and "Desperate Housewives" are indicative of "white culture." Better yet, read this and this.

It is trivial to break in to a laptop when one has unrestricted physical access.

It is usually non-trivial to break into a server that is in a data-center behind firewalls given zero-knowledge.

Fortunately for the bad-guys, laptops have been proven over and over to contain network information, passwords, and raw protected data:

Chicago Public Schools
FBI
Boeing
Starbucks
Towers Perrin
US Commerce Department
US Department of Transportation and Sovereign Bank, et al.
US Navy
US Department of Veteran Affairs
Federal Trade Commission
Equifax
Ernst & Young (many times)

Unless "Get competent administrators" is software that prevents users from putting data on their laptops, this suggestion is meaningless.

"Get competent administrators" is a finger-waving nebulous non-solution from those that have no idea what competent administration looks like.

Competent adminstrators recognize that security problems are not simple and they are only solved by tangible, disciplined, and rigorous solutions, rather than dismissive statements of "be smarter."

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20070409-70657 6.html?mod=wsjcrmain (subscription only)

EA reps say there is no deal in place: "The9 Ltd. (NCTY) saw its share price jump as much as 17% to a record high Monday on a report of a $200 million investment deal with Electronic Arts Inc. (ERTS), although EA later denied reports that it has signed such a deal with the Chinese game site....A spokesman for EA denied the two companies have signed any deal, but declined to comment on whether they were discussing such a relationship."

The Geek lives in a bubble. Bubbles burst.

Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates proved even more appealing than cuddly babies in the eighth-annual Harris Interactive/The Wall Street Journal ranking of the world's best and worst corporate reputations.

Top-ranked Microsoft managed to beat Johnson & Johnson, whose emotionally appealing baby-products business had kept it in first place for a remarkable seven consecutive years. In the Reputation Quotient survey conducted by market-research firm Harris Interactive Inc., respondents gave Microsoft very high marks for leadership and financial results. But Mr. Gates's personal philanthropy also boosted the public's opinion of Microsoft. How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation [January 31, 2007]

By design, but not for technical reasons, the iPod is not accessible to the blind nor the Deaf. Both RockBox and VoiceOver demonstrate, independently, paths to solving the first challenge. Captioning for video is an even easier fix that effects even more people. Apple only last month made iTunes accessible.

You gotta hand it to IBM

No matter how crappy their business is they can always find a chunk of fool's gold in the pile of dogshit and then get someone in the media (or everyone in the media) to focus on that. Latest example was this story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal about how IBM's software division is just setting the world on fire. According to our spies at Fortune, IBM's flacks have been shopping this story around since January. At last someone bit. Wow, software sales were up 14% in the last quarter and a galloping 7% for the full year, and now Steve Mills is the second coming of Gerstner. Never mind that the way IBM did this was to move some revenue that used to get recognized in other categories over into the "software" division. Never mind that IBM spent $4.8 billion acquiring companies last year, and most of that went to software shops. Never mind that IBM's track record in software has been to buy up companies and ride them into the ground. Total assets at the end of 2006 are lower than at any time since 2002. Liabilities up, working capital down. Oh well. Who cares when that software division is setting the world on fire, baby?

Remember when the IBM story was the services division? Then that crapped out. Then they tried the "second coming of the mainframe" story. Then it was Linux. Then it was "business transformation outsourcing," which our good pals at Fortune swallowed and said here was a $500 billion market, "an ocean of potential revenue" that IBM was going to tap into. They predicted IBM would top $100 billion in revenues by 2005. Ahem.

Well, now it's software. Yup. That red-hot IBM software division. You know, someone ought to profile the one division that really is hot at IBM and which never gets any credit: the publicity department.

Is this bad? Hard to say--maybe our new overlords know better than we how to spend society's resources. We shall see...

Yes, switching to these kind of fuels will leave less of an environmental impact, but it will hurt poor people the most who consume corn frequently and will certainly lead to an increase in price in corn-produced food. (Think Corn Syrup in soda) This is why we can't radically switch to biofuels like some people are calling for.

Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are already reporting it.

Actually TJX disclosed the breach in January, this is just a follow up after the initial investigation. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117518693034653329 .html?mod=hps_us_my_companies

Financial terms weren't disclosed, but involve various payments between the two companies, including Microsoft's paying Novell for a minimum of roughly 70,000 "coupons" that Microsoft corporate customers can convert into annual subscriptions to receive support for Suse Linux.

Here's more detail about this on the WSJ "Numbers Guy" blog.

See here, here, and here.

The articles are on Amazon ranking manipulation. From the 3rd link:
"One major quirk: Used and new book sales are counted equally. So an author anxious about his sales ranking could put a few dozen of his books for sale for a penny apiece and ask a friend to buy them all."

Hey, if it boosts your Amazon rankings, you'll make up for it in volume!

See here, here, and here.

The articles are on Amazon ranking manipulation. From the 3rd link:
"One major quirk: Used and new book sales are counted equally. So an author anxious about his sales ranking could put a few dozen of his books for sale for a penny apiece and ask a friend to buy them all."

Hey, if it boosts your Amazon rankings, you'll make up for it in volume!

I've also been frustrated by trying to mix and match different music listening formats in the digital age. iTunes music doesn't show up on my Windows Media Center via my Xbox 360 and some WMA downloaded songs can't be listened to on my iPod. I own about 800 LP's and nearly 1000 CD's so I too have fattened the pockets of Sony/BMG/Warner/etc. over the past thirty years. The music industry is due for a collapse of epic proportions...just read today that music sales are down 20% so far in 2007. Here's hoping the entire industry falls apart and artists can start dealing with fans directly.

Most folks at Apple I know don't have time for an agenda.

I take it you don't know anyone from Apple's legal department?

Moderator obviously didn't RTFA, of which this was a parody.

"I'm liable - wether I knew they uploaded it or not. "

There's more than a reasonable case made, ironically, by the DMCA that as long as YouTube follows DMCA takedown notices that there is a safe harbor in the law. Your opinion doesn't change that. Neither does mine, but what I can say is that Viacom be involved in a lot of lawsuits and seems to settle a lot:

http://www.dailyhaggis.com/2003/07/08/spike-lee-vs -spiketv-lawsuit-settled/
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/070122/0206077.html
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/lawsuit-between -vh1-and-liza-&-david-fizzles-an-end-1785.php
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB11704750557 2997191-E8lh6c1jyY_4v0U_jLlgu4YnUQk_20070210.html
http://play.tm/wire/click/185873
http://www.acls.org/exdab.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/24/stern-cbs-sirius- cx_gl_0524autofacescan12.html

Sometimes they even commit fraud:
http://www.legalnewsfeeds.com/RssFeed/newsDetailed .php?Category=Business-Litigation&ArticleID=513

I'm suggesting that Viacom sues regardless of their real legal position. They're a "sue first and then hash it out" company. I'm guess Google wins this after a judge strongly suggests the law is on Google's side.

I hope you aren't drawing this conclusion based on what you read here on /. Group-think and group-speak run rampant in this place.

It's a bit of a stretch, perhaps. Still something seems to be driving the recent spate of high profile open source migrations. I doubt they'd be happening if the numbers didn't make some sort of sense.

Isn't "group-think", the psychological term for "no one around here takes me seriously?" ;)

check out the U3 initiative at http://u3.sandisk.com/download/Download_no.asp [sandisk.com]

Useful site, thanks.

One thing you can be certain of - if I use it and am impressed by it, I will freely and willingly say so. I am not blinded by ideology or envy (of the Redmondians). I just want good products that help me be productive.

Good for you. You might check back in a year or so when they finish the graphing re-write. They'll probably still not use the same formula syntax though. Pity you're not on Linux or I'd suggest Gnumeric which used to boast bug-for-bug compatibility with Excel. I don't know what the graphing is like though.

But really, do what works. So far as I'm concerned, the argument is all about choice. And that includes the choice to use MS products if you so choose.

It's just that, personally, I don't think they're destined to remain a popular choice, not once the world's expand a little more.

That is not true. Can you point to one instance where someone doing proper, scientific research (meaning: not just making shit up) has lost grant funding for not predicting global warming? You can't.

In fact, anyone who did would still be able to get fat stacks of cash from the oil industry, or don't you remember that story?

US District Court Filing

---and, it would seem, very successfully, as well.

But the Geek always stumbles badly when he equates his opinion of Microsoft with the public's opinion of Microsoft. How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation

The point spread is narrow between companies that score well. Cold comfort for the Geek in that.

1 Microsoft
4 Google
8 Sony

11 Amazon
13 Disney
16 Intel
22 Apple
23 Dell
37 Verizon
38 HP
40 Wal-Mart
49 Time-Warner
58 Comcast
60 Haliburton

Reputation Rankings

---and, it would seem, very successfully, as well.

But the Geek always stumbles badly when he equates his opinion of Microsoft with the public's opinion of Microsoft. How Boss's Deeds Buff A Firm's Reputation

The point spread is narrow between companies that score well. Cold comfort for the Geek in that.

1 Microsoft
4 Google
8 Sony

11 Amazon
13 Disney
16 Intel
22 Apple
23 Dell
37 Verizon
38 HP
40 Wal-Mart
49 Time-Warner
58 Comcast
60 Haliburton

Reputation Rankings

Alternate translation:

"it's our job to help DOT maximize the value of its Enterprise Agreement through the adoption of our technology. We are engaged with large, strategic customers across government at every level,"

really means:

It's our job to sabotage this in any way possible, but we haven't adopted a strategy just yet. If necessary we will go to your boss, or your boss's boss, including, if necessary our many opportunities to influence the law in our favor.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117328195388829568 .html?mod=djemTECH

Bill's article is probably just a weak attempt to increase the supply of CS graduates who are employable at Microsoft. He writes for his own self interest--to increase the supply of CS grads and therefore decrease the price of labor for Microsoft. There is probably no shortage, he may simply be trying to drive down your salaries.

Your reference to bankers and lawyers makes sense. New lawyers at big New York firms are now making $160,000, almost twice the amount quoted above for a science or engineering PhD. http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/01/22/simpson-thache r-raises-the-bar/ Some of these new lawyers make significant bonuses on top of their salaries. This increase in salary is reported to have been caused by a shortage of qualified grads.

Financial terms weren't disclosed, but involve various payments between the two companies, including Microsoft's paying Novell for a minimum of roughly 70,000 "coupons" that Microsoft corporate customers can convert into annual subscriptions to receive support for Suse Linux.

Wii: Hello, I'm a Wii.

PS3: And I'm a PS3.

PS3: What are you reading?

Wii: Just The Wall Street Journal, it's not --

PS3: Lemme see that link. Oh, it's a review of us.

Wii: Oh, no no no, PS3, you know what --

PS3: Oh, it's by Walt Mossberg, one of the most respected technology experts on the planet. Apparently the Wii is "the more exciting, fun and satisfying" of the consoles and "won their heart". Very nice.

Wii: Just one man's opinion.

PS3: I actually read a different review this morning. They said Wii's exciting launch was just "a temporary phase". So, we're the same.

Wii: Yeah -- what was that in?

PS3: The, uh, Computer And Video Games ... Review ... Journal. :/

apologies

Indeed, that is the danger. It should be noted too that there are reasons why the Nordic countries have been so succsessful with socialism. One, they are quite culturally homogenous, so one never feels that outsiders are leaching off of them. Two, they have a culture of cooperation brought about by extremes of climate. That's my theory, anyway.

While these factors may partially explain why Sweden and other Nordic countries have not crashed as spectacularly as other socialist movements (e.g., Germany, France, New Zealand, etc) to call their model a success would be to ignore its many current problems, its historic economic instability, and what is almost certainly a lack of sustainability of the model.

Sweden's real unemployment is estimated to be between 15 and 20%. Although their official stats count just ~6% as being unemployed, this excludes a lot of people on long-term sick leave (which count as being employed -- 16% of public spending pays for this!), welfare recipients, people that simply give up (e.g., students, early retirees, etc), etc.

What's more, many of those who are actually employed are employed by the government (about 30%). Sweden has created almost no new private sector jobs in 50 years. Only 1 of their 50 largest companies was created after 1970. Many of their biggest companies have left the country (e.g., IKEA) or moved their taxable entities outside recently. Despite having a large highly educated population, it is an unfriendly place for entrepreneurship and creates little of it due to labor laws (v. expensive to sack people), high taxation, very high sales taxes, etc.

Their tax revenues are significantly more than 50% of GDP (their middle class pay a much higher rate of tax than we do here). The Swedish people pay much higher taxes than we do across the board. They don't have a lot of wealthy people so they've been forced to raise taxes on the middle class to sustain these benefits. Some may try to excuse it as simply being a product of a welfare state, but it is a very real economic burden on their economy. For instance, their GDP per capita has fallen dramatically relative to the rest of the OECD since 1950.

Consider, for instance, that the difference in disposable income (after taxes and all social transfers) between the poorer 30 decile of income and the richest 80 decile is just 12K Krona per month (about $1500). This itself represents a small change in lifestyle but consider just how wide that gap is: the entire middle class (from poorest full-time working class and the upper middle class). There is very little incentive to work hard, to risk a stable job for a new one that might pay better, to take a new job if you get laid off (cushy benefits), to show up to work, to take a more stressful job, and to take business risks, etc. What has happened is that people are working less and less (and, ironically, many of those that want to work can't find it), taking more sick leave, etc. In fact, if you look at the number of hours worked in their economy it has fallen dramatically.

To further stress their system, Sweden's retirees is set to increase to roughly 54% of their working age people by 2050, i.e., 1 senior-pensioner for every ~2 working people (much of it happening soon). They've also acquired a significant number of foreign immigrants (many of them no longer of Nordic heritage) -- roughly 10% of the country now (who are heavily unemployed). The system is already showing signs of stress and tax payer unrest (at least 65B in overseas tax avoidance, rising non-market work, etc). Sweden an

That was a load of crap. The reason Vista was late was because Microsoft screwed up.

The article itself says that "this high percentage is likely helped by the bundled Talladega Nights Blu-ray disc with the first 500,000 units of PlayStation 3."

Exactly. Think about this - if every PS3 shipped included a Blu-Ray DVD movie, then their numbers would automatically be higher than the HD-DVD, since neither the 360 nor the Wii ship with HD-DVD, nor do they ship with any movies at all.

But, as a corallory, don't believe the numbers about Wii Sports being such a big seller in the US, since it was bundled with the Wii here, even though it's a separate game in Japan. Even if it is a very fun game.

Analysis at the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required) shows that HD-DVD units are selling faster worldwide than Blu-Ray units, even with the bundled Blu-Ray player in the PS3. So don't believe the numbers until you think them thru.

Directly contradicting this story, I read the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required) and it said that in point of fact - as also backed by articles in Fortune and Forbes - that Sony is losing the format war to HD-DVD, due to low adoption rates by pr0n providers, low sales of the PS3 consoles, and labels shunning the format. Perhaps if someone were prognosticating back in October 2007, such a forecast might have seemed reasonable, but the post-Christmas sales figures in the US and Japan as well as worldwide show that adoption rates are sub-par.

But, live in a dream world if you must.

I see all the shelves full of Wii games but theres no Wii's or Wiimotes to be found.

No, they're selling them like hotcakes and they've ramped up production, but people keep wanting them. Maybe it's the stacks of unsold PS3 consoles in the stores that make you think this, though.

In fact, recent market metrics published in today's Wall Street Journal (uber-expensive subscription required) indicate that demand has not really slackened much since product launch for the Wii, although demand for the PS3 is sub-par.

That said, once you get a Wii, it's pretty easy to find the games for it now. I've got Elebits myself - which I regard as a game to play when I just want a quick game I don't need to have bunches to think about in. Kind of oriented for casual gamers, IMHO. I give it 4 stars out of 5, personally.

Why is the EU being forced to pay twice as much for the same product? The Wall Street Journal (expensive online subscription required) reports today that not only is the street retail price of the PS3 in Japan half that of the MSRP for the EU, but apparently adult entertainment providers are avoiding Blu-Ray and going to HD-DVD worldwide, making the doubled price highly questionable, even as PS3 consoles are piling up on store shelves in Japan and the US, due to lack of demand.

Well, if the retailers are marking it down, isn't that called supply and demand? Analysts show that PS3 stocks in stores aren't going out the doors, while they can barely keep the Wii in stock for more than a couple of hours max at almost any store.

To me, that's the market sending Sony a price signal to cut their MSRP to $299 USD. Or at least cut it $100.

Nobody in the US cares about 1080p HDMI, though, that's at most 2 percent of the actual market - few even have 720p HDTV nowadays, and most still have digital or analog 480i or 480p standard TV sets. Based on recent Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required, I read my home print copy) articles.

Oh wait, by most accounts, Tiger is still as good or better than Vista.

Apple's excuse of charging $1.99 for the software update to satisfy accounting rules is not credible, according to members of the Financial Accounting Standards Board. FASB writes the rules, known as GAAP, that Apple is eluding to. So there goes that excuse. See the full article on WSJ (Reg. required): http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116925153861582055 .html?mod=home_whats_news_us (Can someone find a free version of this story?)

Fresh data from the International Energy Agency show oil consumption in the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fell 0.6% in 2006. Though the decline appears small, it marks the first annual drop in more than 20 years among the OECD countries. . . . The fall in oil use by the industrialized world is a sign that the reactions to higher oil prices by businesses and consumers from the U.S. to Germany to Japan may be adding up to a cycle-turning downdraft in demand.

No, as I indicated, license fees were included.

What peripherals? If you have a Blu-Ray player as part of the PS3, you have no need for another ...

Again, check a large number of stories on this issue in the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required), as they detail the actual subsidized costs and address many of the same sub-issues you bring up, as well as how many factories are online and where the shortages actually are.

That given, we see neither a large wave of consumers buying Blu-Ray discs (music, movie, or games) in the numbers sufficient to pay for the subsidy level to even break even on the manufacturing costs. Internal short-selling shows that even the Sony people don't buy the hype.

Maybe if Microsoft hadn't already announced their support for HD-DVD format, Sony wouldn't have to worry about it, but it looks like the market is already deciding the format war in the detritus left behind by the PS3 launch.

Nah, I'll just use the estimates reported in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as to the Sony console losing more than $240 per unit sold (and more for the other version of the PS3) - which requires them to sell that many games, based on license fees and mix of ownership of games.

Note that if they sell movie titles and music in Blu-Ray format, they partially make up that amount in license fees, but all music stores show that demand for these - especially movies - just isn't there, unless you count Taladega Nights, which was shipped in an included bundle with the PS3.

You can rely on the Sony "estimates". I'll rely on the independent financial whizzes.

If you read some of the original PNAC docments, gaining access to the oil and a central permanent base in the middle east in the center of all the oil *was* the primary purpose of the war. Well, that and making the area safer for Israel, but that's a side issue. Unless you are still living in denial that the documents exist and all the top leadership in the original bush admin are PNAC (and AIPAC) members. I still see that occasionaly, funny how it gets ignored by some. Anyway, here is a quick reference about what is to become of the oil, from today:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070107/bs_afp/iraqoi l_070107160241

It's all about gaining access to infrastructure and resources, from oil in the middle east to water in south america to mines in africa to even selling off domestic US infrastructure,roads to waterworks to prisons to ports to airports to minerals in the ground on public lands to whatever and etc. Governments now are tools of the multinationals, where their hardest push is to privatize function of governments into their private sector hands and make profit from it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&si d=aFOJc1vWmTRo&refer=home

http://online.wsj.com/google_login.html?url=http%3 A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB11677762055326 5272.html%3Fmod%3Dgooglenews_wsj

You want more it is out there, those were extremely easy to find

government by corporation = fascism, no two ways about it. Concocting lies then changing them as they become untenable to another version of some lie is how the bush administration operates. So, yes, they are indeed swapping lives for oil, and for selling more hummvees and helicopters and bombs and rebuilding what was blown up. Later rinse repeat. It also serves as a good excuse to have perpetual boogiemen to use to further get rid of born-with rights to be replaced with government/corporate granted priveleges all at the point of a gun.

Are there any sets of pictures that allow me to see them in action?

Why yes, in TFA you'd notice a link to a "Mossberg on Microsoft Office" video with a peek of the revamped Microsoft Office. Read: it's 3min 51sec of Walt Mossberg crapping-on with about 20 seconds total showing Office 2007 just sitting there not actually doing anything. It unfortunately doesn't show Office doing any of the extremely useful things Mossberg is talking about.

According to a number of detailed articles I read in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required, ain't paying), it's not just the actual console sales of Wii consoles, but the actual purchase of Wii controllers, games, and memory cards, that made the Wii the blockbuster seller this Christmas season.

Unlike the PS3, where most people bought the one really good game (Resistance Fall of Man), or the existing game purchases by xBox360 owners of Gears of War, the Wii console buyers ended up buying a lot of games and extra controllers, leading to situations where controllers were usually only found in back rooms and behind counters, as they were snapped up the second they appeared. Games were in reasonable supply, but most console owners bought quite a few games - probably affected by the MSRP of $50 for Wii games, compared to $60 for 360 and PS3 games.

However, sales of the PS2 games were fairly strong, especially that rock guitar thing (forgot the name) and a number of other strong titles.

Flat-screen TVs pass CRT sales. 2007 will be the year Joe Sixpack gets a flat screen. Look for low-end units with fewer cables and connectors.

According to my print edition of the Wall Street Journal (expensive subscription required), flat screen TVs already passed CRT sales in the Christmas 2006 season. In fact, the two big winners in the November to December Christmas season were the Nintendo Wii and HDTV-capable flat screen TVs.

Why would people continue to want a PS3 given the complete shortage of games for it.

Not only that, but even the Wall Street Journal, had a main fold front page story (in print) on how the Christmas shopping season was dissapointing, with the exception of the Nintendo Wii and HDTV sales.

And, in the G4 TV program, they have only given one 5 star rating for the entire PS3 lineup - the PSP is doing much better, of course.