Update on the Skype Purchase:

Ted Schadler makes the argument for why Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for a service with no business model. He's got some good points.

The Skype Business Model – Sheer Genius:

I love Skype. What's not to like about free phone calls and messaging? But just how do you make money out of it if you're an investor or founder? Wait till Microsoft finds itself looking foolish in front of Apple and then sell it to Steve and the boys for $8.5 billion! Works for me! Or it would had I been smart enough to invent the service. Sheer genius. Now let's just hope that Microsoft doesn't screw it up for us little folks who just like the good service and low cost. (You still have to have some sort of device and an IP.)

Cash Rich Companies Buy Back Stocks:

While unemployment remains near 10%, the companies that laid off workers are flush with megabucks that they are now using to buy back their stock from investors in an attempt to drive the value of that stock even higher. Jia Lynn Yang reports on the development in The Washington Post. Never fear, though, these same companies are investing heavily in political advertising after the recent Supreme Court decision defined corporations as human beings, granting them, under the guise of free speech, the ability to dump millions of dollars into political advertising while hiding behind the masks of dummy nonprofit organizations.

American Productivity: The Big Lie

Alan Tonelson and Kevin Kearns address the myth of American productivity on today's Op-Ed pages in The New York Times. It seems off-shoring labor accounts for much of what has generally been perceived as increased productivity. Lobar employed overseas is never counted in the analysis. All a business has to do to demonstrate its increased productivity is ship jobs across national lines.

I recently heard the story of an international film company that has shipped much of its technical work to China where labor costs are substantially cheaper, only to discover that the Chinese labor force is technically far less sophisticated than its American and European counterparts, forcing the company to go to considerable cost in an effort to train their Chinese workers. Perhaps if they were just stamping out plastic buttons, this would not be an issue, but the more highly technical matters appear to be a different matter.

My guess is, though, that the stock price for the company went up, because "productivity" rates were increased as a result of the off-shoring of labor, even though real productivity declined dramatically. Of course the company's productivity might also be increased by simply not meeting payroll and begging its employees to keep working even while they're not being paid.

Surprise! Surprise! E-mail Torture Messages Disappeared!

Shockingly, many of the e-mails sent by torture specialists within the Bush administration have vanished. (See today's New York Times.) John Yoo and Co., the young hawks who sought to emulate the Fox TV show, 24, have been practicing their "dumbfounded" look in response, claiming the messages didn't add anything to what is already known, sort of like the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes. Nixon would be proud.


Hey! Stephen Cobert, It Ain't the Bears You Need To Be Afraid Of:

Deadly bacteria are becoming more resistant to antibiotics. "[C]lassified as Gram-negative because of their reaction to the so-called Gram stain test" these bugs are beginning to proliferate, as reported in today's New York Times. The "supergerms are … spreading worldwide." Unfortunately, the drug industry is conducting very little development in antibodies. Money, as always, is the issue.

Where do people come by these bacteria? Hospitals. Your biggest risk for infection in the developed world exists in the very place where you go for treatment.

The Deal with Dr. Evil:

Bill Gates famously announced on Charlie Rose a number of years ago that the one man he feared above all others was Rupert Murdock. So guess who's coming to dinner at the campus in the great northwest? That's right, you got it.

Microsoft is going to pay Mr. I-intend-to-control-the-world's-media to prevent Google from searching Murdock's content, allowing Bing sole access.

Is this the future of newsprint revenue? One set of billionaires paying another billionaire, with us left to decide what's fair and balanced?

The Student Loan Rip Off Made Clear:

The federal government borrows money to finance the national debt (and the Iraq War) at an interest rate of 3 to 4 percent, so why do federally financed student loans on which the government pays the loan interest while students are in school cost the government (i.e. the taxpayer and eventually the student) 7 to 8 percent?

Michael Kinsley, founder of Slate, takes a look at the the student loan fiasco, pealing off another layer of government scandal foisted upon us by the Republicans over the course of the past 13 years. What's clear is that the student loan fiasco that has been high lighted by college administrators receiving kickbacks from banks for funneling student loans to them has come about because the government, controlled by Republicans until 2006, has been the dairyman for the banks, milking you and your children.

Follow the money.

Nixon's America Alive and Well in 2007:

Bush signed into law a bill to make it legal for the N. S. A. to continue spying on people whom it "reasonably believes" to be overseas, without warrants. According to a White House spokesman, "the new law is to give the government greater flexibility in focusing on foreign suspects overseas, not to go after Americans" The New York Times reported today.

It is generally believed that the legislation came about as a result of pressure from the telecommunications industry who were being faced with major lawsuits in the wake of the government's warrantless wiretapping program. Now the various members of that industry can simply turn over all communication, foreign and domestic, to the government so that members of the Nixon, errr, Bush administration can decide which of it is useful for them to act upon and which isn't.

Don't worry. The Bush family and Dick Chaney have nothing but your very best interest at heart.

Read The Washington Post's take here. At least the bill is scheduled to expire in six months. And, uh, there is no means of checking on the government in terms of determining whether any U. S. citizen's privacy has been compromised.


China Still Shipping Lead Children's Jewelry to America:

The dangers associated with lead poisoning have long been realized in the U. S. Recently it has come to light that China has been shipping products, notably children's toys, to this country, containing levels of lead that could lead to brain damage, possibly even death. According to today's New York Times, "of the 17.9 million pieces of jewelry items pulled from the market since the start of 2005, 95 percent were made in China."

The Myth of Multitasking:

Steve Lohr of The New York Times addresses the issue of multitasking in today's issue. Think you can handle the cell phone while you're driving? And then there's your kid in the bedroom, watching TV, listening to music on the iPod, text messaging, answering his teachers e-mail, and studying for tomorrow's math test all at the same time. Think that A he will get is because he's a brilliant young multitasker? Or is it just your regular brand of grade inflation at work?

Turns out that human beings aren't the wonderful multitaskers we try to convince ourselves we are. Efficiency and effectiveness collapse under the distraction of multitasking. Just ask anybody who's ever tried to shoot a freethrow, much less hit a baseball. The human brain is wonderful at multitasking, just as long as it doesn't require the conscious mind.

Russia v. Microsoft:

Some 650 miles east of Moscow, a Russian judge found the principal of a school guilty of pirating Microsoft software to the benefit of the children in his school. The sentence: guilty but no jail time and no fine. The judge ruled that the damage to Microsoft was too insignificant measured against Microsoft's world-wide profits.

Russia, as The New York Times points out, is rolling in cash as a result of its vast oil and natural gas resources, but the folks who benefit from these riches have no intention of sharing the wealth by helping to educate the youth of their country, especially in the deep backwaters. Pirating goods and services, especially those coming from the west, is a way of life in Russia.

Of course it's difficult to muster much sympathy for Microsoft, a company that has been found guilty repeatedly of its own infractions against the laws of many nations, through which it has enriched itself and its owners.

On the other hand, the principal might have simply downloaded a free copy of Linux, complete with OpenOffice and all of the other free software available, and he could have avoided the whole issue. Then he would have really made a statement about Microsoft.

It's worth noting that how this trial has worked out might tell us here in the west something about the Russian national character that we've failed to pay attention to in the past.