Michael B. Duff

Last Wednesday, my life changed forever. I got an iPhone. I consider it the greatest thing to happen to the blind for a very long time, possibly ever. It offers unparalleled access to properly made applications, and changed my life in twenty-four hours. The iPhone only has one thing holding it back: iTunes. Nevertheless, I have fallen in love.

The scientists determined that the planet, which they have called Gliese 581g, has a mass three to four times that of Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days.

"I was thinking today that government corruption on this scale is a relatively new concept for the American people to absorb into their very bones. I'm not talking about politicians taking some bribes, I'm talking about wholesale and systemic fraud and corruption in the economic and social systems."

The officers continued to demand his surrender and explained that the paint would not affect a Taser's capability nor would it cause his death if used.

David Tepper says that if the economy is good, the market will go up. If the economy is bad, The Fed will print more money and devalue the currency, and the market will go up. Nobody questions the obvious disconnect (since when can you borrow your way to prosperity, or debase your way there – and in what instance in history has this ever worked?) but the magical buy-fairy shows up and the markets scream higher, rising nearly 3%.

"When I read these stories, I cringe. The personal savings rate, like the federal deficit, is a made-up, accounting measure, with no economic content. Its value and changes through time are entirely dependent on how we classify things. For example, counting Social Security contributions dramatically raises the personal savings rate, but lowers its recent growth."

When Castro declares that the Cuban model no longer works, Mr. Goldberg turns to Ms. Sweig, as if there is something profound to be grasped. He is not saying "the ideas of the Revolution" have failed, she explains, but only that the state "has much too big a role" in the economy. Right, except that the state-owned economy is the idea of the revolution.

"I'm going to tell it like it is. And what it is is this: statistically speaking women have a huge advantage as entrepreneurs, because the press is dying to write about them, and venture capitalists are dying to fund them. Just so no one will point the accusing finger of discrimination at them."

Hirshman implies it is because white women are tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic party, and just about everyone else. "The white women didn't boycott the election of 2008 as some hyperventilating commentators predicted. But if the Gallup polls are right, the Democrats may get a chance to see what it's like to run for office when women are staying home," she says ominously.

Greer, who had a negative experience with commenters on the original “Too Few Women In Tech? Stop Blaming The Men” article, shared her somewhat meta perspective, “We’re on a panel for a blog that just got acquired for a bunch of money, that is run by a woman. [TechCrunch CEO] Heather Harde is proof that we can be successful too.”

Less than 20% of the speakers at Disrupt [the conference] are women, rapper/CEO Chamillionaire is the only black, and there aren't any Latin@s. Just 8% of startup founders are women,* only 1% are African-American. Blacks, Latinos and women have all lost ground at Silicon Valley tech companies, and Intel's age discrimination is front-page news.

President Barack Obama served as the closing act Tuesday for a rock-n-roll, fire-up-the-troops extravaganza on the UW-Madison campus — a giant rally meant to recapture the excitement of the campaign trail and bridge the so-called "enthusiasm gap" among younger, Democratic voters.

Here's a new one for the cyber age: When women in tech hold a provocative panel discussion about being women in tech, Twitterers call it a "catfight." Elaine from Seinfeld would be livid.

A draft of the legislation, leaked by The Hill yesterday, would give the FCC authority to adjudicate Net neutrality violations on wireline networks on a case by case basis, but would stop the agency from shifting broadband from a Title I information service to a Title II telecommunications service.

Trade unions said they had called rallies in 13 capitals from Lisbon to Helsinki, while Spanish unions held a general strike to oppose measures such as spending cuts and pension and labor market reforms intended to stave off economic crisis.

The Tea Kettle movement can’t have a positive impact on the country because it has both misdiagnosed America’s main problem and hasn’t even offered a credible solution for the problem it has identified. How can you take a movement seriously that says it wants to cut government spending by billions of dollars but won’t identify the specific defense programs, Social Security, Medicare or other services it’s ready to cut — let alone explain how this will make us more competitive and grow the economy?

An analyst from Citigroup or Citibank announced on Monday that the Federal Reserve System is doing too much, while the Fed has failed to accomplish its goals to increase inflation or interest, which are different things. In addition, he was critical of the Fed's efforts to regulate the Bernanke.

Spain struggled to cope on Wednesday with its first general strike in eight years as a day of labor unrest began across Europe, reflecting fears of unfamiliar austerity in lands once seen as among the world’s most cosseted.

I haven't seen the new Twitter yet but IBN's got a preview.

"The woman, identified by neighbors as Margaret Matthews, was released from police custody without being charged, on the grounds that she acted in self defense, police said."

The golden ratio, 1:1.61803399, is very important in mathematics and has show up in architecture, art and design from ancient times. The number has gained a rather mystical nature about it since it can be found in the proportions of the Egyptians pyramids or the Greek Acropolis. Since the Renaissance, the number has been studied and applied to works of art as way of creating pleasant proportions. In Twitter's case, the number plays a role when designing the two-pane layout of the "New Twitter."

For the fourth straight year, the majority of Americans say they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. The 57% now saying this is a record high by one percentage point.

Among likely voters, Republicans now hold a three-point lead in the generic-ballot test for control of Congress, down from their nine-point lead last month.

Militants based in Pakistan were planning simultaneous strikes in London, as well as cities in France and Germany, according to Britain's Sky News.

"But I recognized Whitman tonight as a species I got to know all too well during my dotcom days: the dull, untutored powerpointillist with a genius for changing the subject the moment her talking points start to fail. The second time you're using the old Einstein's-definition-of-insanity chestnut in one night is twice too many."

Must see graphic of Spider-Man.

Remember that commodities bubble I was expecting in six months? It seems to be starting early…

In a New York Times article today by Charlie Savage, news that the Obama administration is proposing new legislation that would provide the U.S. Government with direct access to all forms of digital communication, "including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct 'peer to peer' messaging like Skype."

A man with an automatic weapon opened fire inside the library, and no shots were fired outside. Weldon says "he subsequently shot himself. He is deceased."

Yes, a private fire department, funded by insurance policies. A model of efficiency, if you believe the press release.

"Social Security won't much change, keeping in mind that the number of elderly voters is growing larger every day. Given all their elderly white voters, the Republicans are already "the party of Medicare." The Democrats have become "the party of Medicaid." That locks three major programs into place, more or less. I don't hear serious talk of major cuts in defense spending."

The “adult conversation” line is really laying it on thick considering that what he’s actually demonstrating is that, at best, the GOP wants to baby voters through the basics of the entitlement situation before actually broaching the topic of specific policy changes.

The hitch is that customers sign up for the day's deal on a conditional basis — the deal only works if a sufficient number of people apply for it. If that happens, then everybody who signed up has his or her credit card billed and can then print out the Groupon to bring to the merchant in question. On the other hand, if not enough people apply for a particular day's deal, then it is canceled. The people who signed up don't get billed, and they just check the website (or get email notifications) for the next day's amazing deal.

The shift away from gold selling comes as European central banks reassess gold amid the financial crisis and Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. In the 1990s and 2000s, central banks swapped their non- yielding bullion for sovereign debt, which gives a steady annual return. But now, central banks and investors are seeking the security of gold.

Just awesome.

"Jesus, so simple. Nothing else needs to be said. For one brief bloody minute, advertising serves a purpose in the world."

Brilliant. I'm a sucker for this kind of "broad new category" stuff.

I try to avoid the Rosensphere in my daily links, but this bit is just too brilliant. Starts out with a discussion of media trust, makes some awesome points about Dan Rather and the National Guard memos and winds up with a devastating point about the power of Internet forwarding and distributed fact checking.

Yelvington thinks Facebook is going to release an Android phone with their brand name on it. How well would that actually sell? How much is the Facebook brand really worth? Most people I know view it as a necessary evil. I think it all comes down to how good the hardware is.

Last week we pointed out that Jefferies group, one of the last few remaining non-BHC broker-dealers, has just experienced its single most disastrous drop in trading volumes, as its principal trading revenues plunged by 80% QoQ. This is merely confirmation of what we have been warning ever since we started highlighting the series of 20 consecutive outflows from domestic equity funds: banks will soon be forced to lay off thousands of people as the primary revenue driver for the bulk of Wall Street firms – stock volumes – is now gone. BofA and RBS have already confirmed they are letting people go. Next up: the electronic trading giants such as ITG, Knight and Schwab. And it will only get worse. As the FT reports, September trading volumes are already 8% below August's, which in turn was the lowest in 3 years! Of course, the Fed is fully confident that if the DJIA ends September at 11,000, investor confidence in stocks will return. We have one word for that – LOL.

The article detailed the carpet's many uses – military, as a means of aerial attack; commercial, as a vehicle for the transport of goods; and cultural, as a device to help readers in the library at Alexandria reach the high books – and explained how they were finally wiped out during the Mongol invasion of Central Asia.

The plane crash killed 14 people (11 office workers and the three crewmen) plus injured 26 others. Though the integrity of the Empire State Building was not affected, the cost of the damage done by the crash was $1 million.

When we bought Toxie , in January of this year, she seemed like a great deal. We paid $1,000. That was 99 percent less than she cost dring the housing boom. Every month, when homeowners paid their mortgages, we got a check. We thought we'd make back our investment before she died. But in the end, we collected only $449.

Affluent and educated voters show no signs of shaking off the Democratic label. Just like the Silk Stocking liberal Republican WASPs of yore, it’s simply not a sign of sophistication to countenance socially conservative beliefs. But there are limits to how much the folks who drive the economy will accept meddling in the economy when it starts to stifle their innovation and whop them in the wallet. Libertarians shouldn’t be afraid to appeal to this segment’s social liberalism—and take credit for being out front on issues of personal freedom decades before those stances became fashionable—and argue that government meddling in the boardroom can be just harmful as meddling in the bedroom. A dose of “liberaltarianism” here may be just what the doctor ordered.

Friday's NYSE SI update now explains the seemingly ceaseless surge in stocks despite constantly deteriorating economic news. The reason: the gross short interest between August 31 and September 15 was completely unchanged! It appears that just as retail investors refuse to allocate capital to stocks regardless of how artificially high the market goes…

For those of you that don't know the meaning of the shoeshine boy reference, JFK's father, Joe Kennedy claimed that he knew it was time to get out of stocks in 1929 when he received investing tips from a shoeshine boy. Ever since, the shoeshine boy has been the metaphor for "time to get out"; for the end of the mania phase in which everyone, even the shoeshine boy, wants in.

In an exclusive interview with National Journal on Thursday, Shepard Fairey expressed his disappointment with the president — a malaise that seems representative of many Democrats who had great expectations for Obama.

The Supreme Court of the United States has never ruled in favor of the patentability of software. Their decision in Bilski v. Kappos further demonstrates that they expect the boundaries of patent eligibility to be drawn more narrowly than they commonly were at the case's outset. The primary point of the decision is that the machine-or-transformation test should not be the sole test for drawing those boundaries. The USPTO can, and should, exclude software from patent eligibility on other legal grounds: because software consists only of mathematics, which is not patentable, and the combination of such software with a general-purpose computer is obvious.

Hats off to David Cameron and Nick Clegg. The phrase "left and right setting aside their differences and coming together to get things done" usually forebodes a disastrous expansion of government reach and power. It's almost miraculous to see the two sides embracing—rather than shedding—their limited government tendencies upon assuming power. Anyone know where I can get a "Daniels-Feingold 2012" bumper sticker?

A great example of how modern technology could facilitate toll roads. The government is using it to manage traffic in London but the principles are the same.

A nice bit of perspective here.

Between 2001 and 2009 George W. Bush did not "cut back on investments in education," he increased them by 58 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. Regulations? "The Bush team has spent more taxpayer money on issuing and enforcing regulations than any previous administration in U.S. history," Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy wrote in January 2009, in a piece that should be distributed to every audience member before an Obama speech.

They both come off like hateful, arrogant pricks. Sick of both of them at this point. And most people watching will immediately say, "X really wiped the floor with Y!" based on who they agree with. But they were both an embarrassment.

"Where can we find prophets who are not arsonists?"

Jenkins has since been charged with "using the Internet to entice an underage person into sexual activity", her undoing being that, during their earlier communications, the boy eventually and explicitly told her he was only 15, yet she kept up her pursuit, later telling a Federal Agent "it did not matter how old he was".

My out-on-a-limb-please-do-not-anyone-follow-this-advice statement is that the equity markets will ramp in the morning after a sluggish showing in the overnight and in anticipation of the Fed announcement. 1155 gets hit around noon.

The Fed announces, et vous y voila! the top has been put in place in exactly the right spot. That means to get short all "risk" pair trades, especially the EURJPY pair after the announcement- maybe even wait a couple of days before you strike. Stocks won't see this level again for several years.

You'll have plenty of time.

😀