article on the future of free speech ...

... relative to terrorism and the 'net.

http://m.yahoo.com/w/ygo-frontpage/lp/story/us/50927/coke.bp%3B_ylt=A2KIP62CT.1MGlkAvAIp89w4%3B_ylu=X3oDMTIxczZmZmR1BGNjb2RlAzMEY3BvcwMxBGNzZWMDbW9iaWxlLXRkBGludGwDdXMEcGtnA2lkLTUwOTI3BHBvcwMzBHNsawNtb3Jl?ref_w=frontdoors&view=today&.intl=us&.lang=en

tip jars

in the past i never thought i'd see those damn things on every fricken
service counter in the future.

i just used an electronic boarding pass ...

... off my hiptop for the first time in my life. really really fast.

very accurate.

and to think, i lived in the silicon valley for 20 years ... and it happened in vegas.

Hunters Exchange Fire Over What's Fair Game

great article about the past, and possible future, of hunting:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704518104575546253717892686.html?

travel documents of the future

given that:

a) the federal government is continuing to push on the concept of documentation -- both in the name of anti-terrorism and for the sake of illegal immigration.

and 

b) a change of parties at the top of the has changed nothing relative to travel and security ... the entire obama administration the US has been at homeland security threat level orange (the penultimate level -- red is the top, roughly translated as "planes are flying into buildings") ... americans have never been told by their government what needs to happen to lower the threat level.

and 

c) efforts to establish national ID cards seem to forever start-then-stall.

and

d) foreigners traveling to the US have to be finger printed and/or eye scanned.

my guess is that in less than 10 years, if you fly -regardless of nationality- you'll be required to have a passport.  this is going to shock a country where 85% of the people don't even carry that document.

data of the present

•    83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of
the people.
•    For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share
of residential housing net worth in the United States than all
individual Americans put together.
•    As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held
about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
•    The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States
now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation's wealth.
•    Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States
are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20
years.
•    Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in
the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
•    The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of
our national income.
(from the article here:
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/the-u.s.-middle-class-is-being-wiped-out-here%27s-the-stats-to-prove-it-520657.html?tickers=%5EDJI,%5EGSPC,SPY,MCD,WMT,XRT,DIA)

Blacks, Hispanics Continue to Lead in Mobile Data Usage - eMarketer

interesting stuff concerning the present:

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007807

quote of the moment

"Predictions of the end of civilization are nothing new, but the direst
prognosticators have, traditionally, existed on the fringes of society
where their dark visions can be comfortably attributed to an excess of
libertarianism or a shortage of Prozac."

-- bruce watson

companies that may die in 2011

pulled this off y!, who in turn grabbed it from a Douglas A. McIntyre article on 24/7 wall street.

***

Reader's Digest 

Blockbuster 

Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group

T-Mobile

Moody's Corp. 

BP: (i'm leaving their description because it's interesting) The case against the BP brand is not so much that the company will enter bankruptcy. It is that BP may end up breaking into pieces for its own sake. This may be to put the liabilities for the Deepwater Horizon spill into a company that also holds escrow capital to cover the huge costs of clean-up and suits. BP may also want to separate its successful refining operations from its exploration business, or recreate an American- based company similar to BP America, which existed for two decades. A restructuring of BP would also allow the firm to take a badly crippled brand and give the oil operation a new name -- much as it did when it changed its name from British Petroleum. The second time may be the charm.

RadioShack 

Zale Corp. 

Merrill Lynch 

Kia Motors Corp. 

quote of the moment

"The number of new cars registered in Beijing in the first four months
of 2010 rose 23.8 percent to 248,000, according to the Beijing municipal
taxation office."

-- reuters