Senator Schumer Calls for Probe

In an update to yesterday's post, Senator Charles Schumer called today for a probe into whether or not big oil companies were in collusion and withholding supplies in an effort to drive up prices.

The average price of gasoline has jumped up to $2.79 (although it was $2.29 here while I was driving home from work this evening).

Frankly speaking, I highly doubt that an investigation like this will go anywhere - especially when we have two ex-oil executives running the country. In the mean time, I'm still looking for a great deal on a Prius.

It Don't Stop...'Cause It Can't Stop

Oil prices settled above $70 per barrel today for the first time since Killer Katrina stormed her way on shore in early September.

Gas prices where I live are relatively low compared with prices in the rest of the donations. I put Premium Unleaded fuel in my SUV this morning and spend $2.53/gallon. These prices aren't that bad, however, the sad thing is, these are prices before the summer driving season starts on Memorial Day weekend - a weekend in which traditionally Gas Stations typically raise their prices $.10-$.15 regardless of what gas prices are currently at.

Normally I'd be fine with this, but if oil continues to be be in $65-$75 per barrel range, it's quite possible that even I could be paying $3 a gallon for gas this summer (goodbye 5x's a week sbux).

The question is, how do we resolve the situation? When we first went into Iraq, I was excited because I thought it meant that we were going to paying $.25 for gas in a matter of weeks. However, we all know how that one turned out.

Now with Iran pissing and moaning about having WMD's, and further instability in the MidEast, the oil situation is anything but stable. The Bush Administration has proposed 'weening' us off Oil, however, how serious can he be about this? He and his family have a vested financial interest in seeing the United States buy oil at the rate that it does.

Another thing, I was watching one of those pathetic morning news show on the always credible Fox News Channel, and actually heard one of the commentators state that "American's are discovering the Hybrid vehicles aren't as cracked up as they first thought they were." Uhm, excuse me? Is that why Toyota Prius' can't stay in stock at my local Toyota dealer? Is that why there's a significant premium on hybrid cars?

Frankly Speaking, we as people DO need to stop relying on foreign oil, but it's not going to be a quick fix. It's going to take time, and it's not going to be pretty. But I think eventually it can be done. Are there alternative energy solutions that can be developed? Absolutely (that is, if all our scientists don't move to another country, I digress). Instead of spending billions on a space program right now (that isn't feasible) maybe we should focus first being able to travel down the street to the local sbux without having to rely on a substance produced mainly by the enemies of the United States.

I will now go back to my venti carmal frap.

Syndication Thursday: Valleywag

A fairly 'new' blog from the wonderful world of Gawker: I give you www.valleywag.com - a social commentary on the life and times of Silicon Valley. I will also be linking to it on the right-hand of my blog. Hope you enjoy:

The New York Times today touts Zunafish, the revolutionary sharing site that lets users swap books, CDs, and other media. It's like Mediachest or Delicious Monster or Peerflix or GameTZ or Lala -- but with fewer options.
So the online sharing business is booming. (It's not piracy, it's sharing! It's not socialism, it's Web 2.0!) This is all well and good, but there must be something grander out there...say, a place where everyone would put their media, and it could be shared from this centralized source.
Users could pay a fee when they lived in a city with one of these centers, and then access them for free. Accounts could run on, um, some sort of card system. Yeah. This'll be brilliant! We'll give it a bubbly logo and call it Shareby.

Red Sox are in First Place!!

Just in case you've been living in a cave for the last week and a half, baseball is back and the Red Sox are off to a fast start!

The Sawx are 6 - 1, in first place and three games up on the evil Yankees. Of course, there is still 150+ games to go, but you can never start knocking on the Yanks early enough. Pitching (which has long been the death knell) has been as strong as ever, with Curt Schilling and new -comer Josh Beckett starting out a blazing 2-0 against opposing teams.

So far, so good, but as always with the Sawx, stay tuned, you never know what will happen.

Is MySpace Really Your Space?

MySpace announced today that it will begin to run ads warning users to be wary of sexual predators on the Internet.

The announcement comes after an onslaught of news reports of predators prowling the popular website to pick up on the teens who make up the website. Many of the recent reports have featured the Website as unhelpful when it comes to protecting kids from these nefarious people.

This raises the question, does MySpace have the responsibility to 'police' its own website? The answer is not as easy as it seems. Obviously, the demographic target of MySpace users is male and females between the ages of 18-34. However, the website has become extemely popular with teenagers 16-18, and has prominant usage with kids younger than 16.

According to a report on Dateline last night, MySpace has 30 people who actively 'patrol' the website, looking for people who are too young to use the site, and occassionally running into shady characters.

However, like all websites, MySpace has grown to a point where its almost impossible to control. With 60 million users, it's nearly impossible for employees of the website to look at ALL of the profiles to make sure that they are compliant with their rules.

With this in mind, who then, should be responsible for monitoring the Web activity of 25 million plus teenagers? Here's a thought - what about their parents? Call me crazy, but if parents actually took an interest in what their kids were doing on the Web, or watching on television, we wouldn't need all these 'automated controls' to be put in place by public 'censors'.

Parents, instead of demanding that companies stand up and clean up the content that they make available to the public, why don't you do YOUR job and take an active part in your childs life. Talk to them about what they see on television and read on the Web.

Sure, I think Sexual Predators are a huge problem on the Web, however, if the family computer was placed in a public place in the home, a child would be far less likely to converse with someone they didn't know, without their parent finding out.

Republish: How I Met Tiger Woods

Unbelievable story from the Grouch Golf Blog:

An amazing thing happened to me several months ago, but I was hesitant to write about it due to the sensitive nature of the topic. However, after realizing the low-profile nature of this site, I now feel comfortable telling my story...
As a member of Shady Canyon Country Club in Irvine, CA, I try to work out in their 1st-class gym at least once a week. On one such morning, I was working out when none other than Tiger walked in!
Since it was very early in the morning and it was during the holidays, there was only Tiger and myself in the free weight section. He initiated a conversation with me when he sat down at a weight bench and said, "Morning." I reciprocated and then he asked me, "Hey Bud (that's not my name, but he could call me Alice if he wanted), you mind spotting for me here?"
Although my nerves disabled most of my motor functions, I managed to say, "Sure thing T." In knee-jerk reaction, I cringed at myself for being such a jackass to call him "T". What right did I have to call him anything else but "your royal golf highness"? I thought to myself, just act normal you imbecile. Once I composed myself, I dropped my 10 pound barbells and came to his aid.
We actually spent quite a bit of time working out together and talking. It turns out that we actually have a lot in common. The key icebreaker was the revelation that we attended rival colleges. He attended Stanford while I attended Cal. As we engaged in some playful trash talking, I realized that Tiger is a really cool and down-to-earth guy. He has a dry, sarcastic sense of humor that had me in stitches.
After he was done working out he asked me, "Hey Bud, I have a tee time here at 10:30am, you wanna join me?" I felt like I had won the lottery. I looked around for cameras to check whether I was about to be Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher. When Mr. MILF didn't show up, I knew that it was legit. Unfortunately, I had to be at work by 9:30am to deliver a big presentation. There was no question what I had to do. I had to make that tee time.
After calling in sick and tossing my career down the drain, I met up with Tiger at the cart loading bay. Noticing my bag full of Nike Blades glistening in the sun he quipped, "Nice irons."
"Well, I saw Michelle Wie playing with a set and I was sold."
He flashed that world-famous Cheshire Cat smile and acknowledged, "That was a good one." He paused and then continued, "So you wanna make it interesting?"
"Are you kidding me? You better give me at least 30 strokes a side!"
He laughed and asked about my handicap. I gave him a well-sandbagged figure and he said, "OK, how about I give you 10 strokes a side Bud?" Only 10 strokes! I usually shoot in the mid-90s on this course from the tips whereas Tiger would break 70 easily. Therefore, I needed at least 14 stokes a side. I couldn't believe it, but Tiger was trying to screw me!
After some negotiating, I managed to extract 16 strokes a side. Satisfied, I said, "Well, what are we playing for?"
"You name it. I think I can cover it." I laughed as I pondered his offer. Considering that I was getting 32 strokes, I knew that I had a good shot at beating Tiger if I just played smart.
"If I win, how about I get to hang out with you for the next couple of days as your 'personal assistant'?"
He chuckled and remarked, "Don't you have a job to get back to?"
"Actually, I probably don't."
After some thought he said, "Well, I already have a couple of assistants, but I could always use another. What do I get if I win?" I thought about it for a while before he said, "Oh, don't worry about it, let's just play!"
I have always considered Tiger to be the primary member of my "dream foursome." So to actually play with Tiger is truly a dream come true. And the experience didn't disappoint. He is the most amazing golfer, period. To describe every incredible feat that I witnessed during our round would fill a book. Let me just say that I was in awe all day.
On the final hole I needed a double-bogey to win by a stroke. I was nervous beyond belief, and the constant ribbing by the best golfer of all-time didn't help. But I managed to hack it around good enough for a bogey and a win! Ecstatic over my victory, I gladly offered to void our little wager. He would have none of it. He insisted, "A bet's a bet Bud. You won fair and square. Now let's go get some grub."
We cleaned up and then headed to the clubhouse for lunch. The hostess led us to a table that was occupied by two stunning blondes. Not just blondes, but identical blondes! I was shocked. Tiger could only laugh at my bewilderment and then introduced me to his wife, Elin and her twin sister, Josie. Could this be for real?
It turns out that they are both sweet and almost too friendly. Surprisingly, I really hit it off with Josie. Unlike most hotties, she laughed at all my jokes and took a genuine interest in my stories.
After lunch, Tiger had to take care of some business at the GM PR office in Thousand Oaks. However, he called for a car to take us up to Beverly Hills for an extravagant shopping spree. He simply instructed us to call the number on the back of his Amex Black card when we were about 15 mins. away from our destination. Upon our arrival, two personal shoppers greeted us and escorted us to Rodeo Drive. I felt like a rock star shopping at the hippest boutiques accompanied by twin blonde bombshells!
After our shop-a-thon, we met up with Tiger at LAX. Straight out of a Puff Daddy video, our car pulled right up to a Gulfstream 550 private jet! Only then did I learn that we were to fly us back to his Isleworth home. Things were moving so fast that I didn't begin to question what was going on. It was only on the plane that I started to think about my life back home. What would I do about my job, my car, my clothes, etc? I explained my concerns to Tiger and he said, "Don't worry about that stuff, Bud. Just hang out with us and everything will take care of itself. You can stay at my guesthouses as long as you want." I couldn't believe my ears as the stewardess was filling my glass with bubbly.
The rest is history. In a million years, I never would have imagined that my life could change so dramatically in such a short time from a chance encounter. I now have a new job as Tiger's personal financial manager. In short, I monitor Tiger's expenses on the road. As a result, I've become a full-fledged member of his entourage and I get to travel with him all over the world. The only bad part of my job is that I've also been designated the "dog-sitter". Tiger likes to take that damn border collie of his wherever he goes and I'm the one who has to take care of it. There's nothing more in the world that I'm allergic to than pet dander and I think that Tiger assigned me this responsibility on purpose to drive me nuts. But hey, we all have to make some sacrifices, right?
It's been quite a whirlwind adventure and I am rapidly becoming close friends with the World's #1. In fact, there's a realistic chance that I may become his future brother in-law. Yes, things are going fabulously with Josie and me. We're even discussing moving in together into one of Tiger's newly planned guest homes! My life has never been better. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pack my bags for my first trip to Augusta!
P.S. With all my travel and other obligations, I'll likely be completely offline for at least a week. So please don't be upset if I can't respond to your emails in a timely manner.

Frankly speaking if this is true, it's INCREDIBLE!

Can You Cross the Border

There has been lots of debate recently regarding the issue of immigration - specifically, should we deport illegal aliens (people without proper documentation) and how easy should it be in order to for foreigners to enter the country.

Frankly speaking (see, I told you that I'd throw one in there) I haven't researched the issue enough to take a solid position, one way or the other. I do know that all tis talk of immigration has caused enough commotion amongst Latinos in the United States to cause large protests all over the United States.

What purpose would deporting illegal aliens serve? Well, obviously, it would relieve the number of people in this country who clamour for social support from the state. It has been well documented that undocumented foreign workers earn well below both state and national adverages. Because of this, they are forced to rely on the state in order to subsidize their lack of salary, and this in turn causes those funds to go to undocumented workers, instead of those who may be rightfully deserving of them.

However, lots of these people come here from obviously poorer countries, where they often earn less in a day than what they can make in an hour here. They, in turn, send the excess to family that they left behind in their home country. That money is then deployed to that nation's economy, which, eventually trickles down to paying off that country's debt owed to the United States, World Bank, or IMF.

The above are just an example of the plusses and minusses involved on both sides of the issue. The issue is very big in the United States, and won't go away for a long time.

New Title of My Blog

Most of you who read my blog noticed that I recently changed the title of my blog from My Daily Dime to Frankly Speaking. I'm doing this because I believe Frankly Speaking is more of a catchy title, and if I really want to, I can start using those cliche statements towards the end of my blog where I begin a sentance with Frankly speaking....

In any case, I still focus on news, and business news, and try to write from an ordinary person/consumer perspective. I'm also going to start a Thursday feature (beginning next week) called Syndicating Thursday, where I will republish one of the blogs that I enjoy reading.

As always, if you want to know something special, leave a comment or send me an email.

eBay v MercExchange

eBay v MercExchange hit the Supreme Court today, and already it looks as if the Justices who sit on the Court have already made up their minds on the case.

The issue in this lawsuit contends with eBay's Buy It Now feature, which allows people to immediately purchase items from the Auction website. The patent was allegedly developed by MercExchange in 1995, just before eBay began it's rise to the top of the online world.

Justice Scalia reminded eBay's lawyers of the following, ""You're talking about a property right, and the property right is explicitly the right to exclude others. That's what a patent right is ... give me my property back."

Whether or not the Court agrees with eBay appears not to be the issue anymore - eBay claims to have already updated the back end coding of their BIN feature. What I believe is still at issue is the right of patent holders to arbitrarily sue successful companies who use technology that is similar to their patent.

Think about it, if eBay was a scrawny little company, MercExchange would not bother wasting their time suing them. However, after eBay has proved itself as the behemouth it is, MercExchange obviously wants a piece of the action.

eBay, for it's part, has not sat on their ass about this. I recall while working there when this lawsuit first came down, eBay's primary focus was changing the back end of their BIN feature to make sure that it didn't infringe upon MercExchange's patent.

I think the Court will likely side with MercExchange in this case, simply continuing their history of siding with patent holders. They did this recently by siding with NTP in its patent suit against Blackberry. However, at some point patent laws are going to have to reviewed and revisited. Too many people are taking advantage of this country's stringent laws, and one day, it could cause a lot of us a lot more harm than good.

A Couple Thoughts about Today's News

A couple interesting stories that piqued my interest today:

First, Doctors removed two fetuses from an infant today in Pakistan. Considering that the feat took place in Pakistan is the first thing that makes it amazing. It was apparrently a case of triplets, however, two of the fetuses developed inside each other.

Secondly, our friend Britney Spears was in the news again. This time because of a piece of art that was sculpted over her pregnant body. Be sure and take note of the picture, it may be the only time that you get to see her without any clothes on.

Alleged 5th Plane Hijacker

Interesting news today from Zacarias Moussaoui when he allegedly confessed to having a plan to (along with his pal Rich Reid) to takeover a 5th plane on 9/11 and fly it into the White House.

Maybe it's just me, but it's a little hard to believe that this alleged 5th Highjacking would've gone off without any problems. The reason I say that is, Rich Reid, the guy who was supposed to help Moussaoui do this thing, is the same guy who in December of '01 came up with what is (in my opinion) probably one of the most innovative ways to blow up a plane by building a bomb in his shoes. However, when it came time to light the match, he couldn't do it right.

Even more interesting to me is the fact that, if Moussaoui and Reid were going to fly this alleged fifth plane into the White House, what does that mean for United Flight 93? Were they going to take that one into the capital building? A couple more questions: If Moussaoui doesn't get arrested in the summer of '01, and the White House is destroyed, is 9/11 10 times worse than it already was?

No News is Good News

I really meant to blog about something today - really, I did. However there is absolutely NOTHING to talk about. Is it just me, or is everything eerily quiet, like right before 9/11.

Instead of blogging about one particular subject today, here is a collage of different things that are going on:

-The news around town in Salt Lake City is Karl Malone's number being retired.

- Here is a link to a quite amusing story I found on Wonkette. (By the way, if you're not reading Ana Marie Cox's new book "Dog Days", you're missing out. Good times).

- An interesting story on cnn about a girl who claimed she was kidnapped, but was apparrently living a couple miles from her father. All this over a time - span of 10 YEARS! And I thought that this only happened in Salt Lake City.

Hopefully, this should keep you all occupied until I write again - possibly tomorrow.

Google Finance

I suppose the big news of the day (other than Helen Thomas bitch-slapping President Bush) was the release of Google Finance.

I took this baby out for a joy-ride and to be perfectly honest, I wasn't that impressed. The site itself looks very rudimentry in nature, though the site is still in Beta. (Quick tangent: is it just me, or does Google stink when it comes to UI?)

One thing that I do like about Google Finance is the fact that it does relate to all information with regard to a paticular stock. For example, YHOO's finance page only displays mainstream news results when you are looking up information about a website. However, on Google Finance, it will also serve you with results from "less-than-mainstream" sites (read: blogs).

John Battelle had the following to say about Google Finance in his blog today:

"This marks a rolling shift at Google - the company is getting into publishing, whether or not it wants to admit it. The product manager, Katie Jacobs Stanton, admitted as much when we spoke - Google Finance will have a Groups section where stocks are discussed with paid moderators - that's editors to you and me. And that's a shift, a shift that is worth noting. "

Quattrone Case Thrown Out

A Federal Appeals Court in NYC threw out a conviction against Frank Quattrone. The Judge said that the Jury in the Quattrone case was improperly instructed when it went to deliberate about the case.

For those of you who don't remember good ol' Frank, he's the guy who was convicted on obstruction of justice charges because he allegedly told bankers to shred important documents relating to an IPO.

The case received a mistrial during its first time around. Quattrone was convicted his second time around and received 18 months. He is currently free while his conviction is appealed.

Quattrone was a classic poster boy (along with Bernie Ebbers, Martha Stewart, Enron, et al) of everything that was wrong with the business world during the bull market run of the late 1990s. It should be interesting to see if the government decides to retry the case, or decides that this fish isn't worth the fry.

Drug Causes impulsive Sex and Gambling

This won't be a long post but I wanted to share this interesting article that I found in the Post this morning about a Parkinson's drug that has lead to increased dopamine levels in the brain. Enjoy the read and the rest of your weekend.

We're on a Slippery Slope

A judge today ruled that Google must handover Search records to the Justice Department. As I posted in a related blog, this is the beginning of a slippery slope as far as our privacy online.

The DOJ is claiming that they have legitimate need for the records in an effort to determine exactly who is looking for child porn on the Web, however, can you really trust a government who was caught red-handed in tapping the phone lines of its own citizens.

Sergey Brin has publicly said many times that this could be the beginning of a slippery slope. This raises many questions on what limitations are in place when it comes to the government asking for data. What's to stop them from claiming they need to do research about people doing searches with the keywords 'dirty bomb', 'atomic bomb' or 'join terrorist group'.

We're headed in the wrong direction and I'm earnestly looking forward to anyone standing up to the government and telling them that they crossed the line.

Wal-Mart: How Good is Too Good?

I listened to a really interesting interview tonight on the local station of NPR about a recently published book entitled "The Wal-Mart Effect" by Charles Fishman.

In his book, Fishman describes the world's leading retailer and how far consumers go to find the best price. One of the many examples that was used in the interview was the fact that Wal-Mart sells lawnmowers for $99.99. To most people, $99 for a lawnmower seems like a great deal, but think about it, why would a 'quality' lawnmower only cost $99. Think about it, what if your lawnmower doesn't start 6 months after you stop using it? You have to take it in and get it repaired, which will likely cost you anywhere between $50-$60 - which is 66% of WHAT YOU PAID FOR A NEW LAWNMOWER!!

What Mr. Fishman implies in his interview that with every purchase, there is a 'quality' cost that has to be factored in. Wal-Mart does a very good job at excluding this 'quality' cost in an effort to achieve the lowest price.

Another example that Mr. Fishman included in his interview is that Levi Strauss recently introduced a line of jeans specifically to Wal-Mart. Normally, a pair of Levi Strauss jeans will set you back $33. At Wal-Mart, you can get a pair for $23? Is this a great deal? At face value, it's a great deal, but let's dig a bit deeper. What's the probability that these jeans last you more than 6 months after 'normal' use? I'd be willing to bet they wouldn't last me 3 months.

Wal-Mart has been in the news for soliciting the assistance of bloggers to help polish its image (I suppose this is there attempt at guerrilla marketing). I recently read a hilarious article indicting Wal-Mart for doing this.

You can download the podcast of the interview on iTunes, and you can purchase his book here.

Email Marketing Settlement

Datran, a huge online marketing company based in NYC recently settled a lawsuit with the State of New York. They were found guilty of marketing to customers to whom they collected personal information from while they were doing other projects from some of their clients. Consumers were usually duped into giving their personal information when they clicked through banner ads or text links that advertised free iPods or free plasma televisions.

Datran is a marketing company that will send out email advertisements, do banner ads, and text links in favor of other online Merchants. Companies provide Datran with basic information about their customers such as a name and an email address and Datran in turn does a online marketing campaign to get those people to buy from certain merchants.

Datran was accused by New York Attorney general Eliot Spitzer of spamming customers with discount drugs and diet pills. This article proves that you better be careful to whom you provide information about your customers to.

New List of Billionaires

Forbes is out with its annual list of billionaires. Once again, Bill Gates was on top of the list with his net worth rising to a eye-popping $50 Billion dollars. This reminds me of the old Chris Rock joke, where he says "If Bill Gates woke up and realized that he was only worth as much as Oprah Winfrey, he'd jump out the building and slit his throat on the way down!"

Warren Buffet ranked second on the list, although the value his net worth dropped by a cool $2 Billion to $42 Billion. You can read the complete article from the AP here, or wait until the next edition of Forbes.

Google Settles Click Fraud Case

From John Battelle's Blog:

The company has posted on the topic here. My original posting is here. This is clearly not just about the Lane's suit, it's about Google rejiggering its policies with regard to click fraud.
From Google's post:
We’re very near a resolution in that case, so we thought we’d offer an update.
We’ve been discussing the case with the plaintiffs for some time and have recently come to an agreement with them which we believe is a good outcome for everyone involved. As a result, Google and the plaintiffs are going to ask the judge to approve the settlement, which would resolve the case.
Until the settlement is approved by the judge, it is not final. And the details are confidential, but will become public when it is formally filed for the judge’s consideration. However, we can share the major pieces of our proposed agreement.
Google currently allows advertisers to apply for reimbursement for clicks they believe are invalid. They can do this for clicks that happen during the 60 days prior to notifying Google. Under the agreement with the plaintiffs, we are going to open up that window for all advertisers, regardless of when the questionable clicks occurred. For all eligible invalid clicks, we will offer credits which can be used to purchase new advertising with Google. We do not know how many will apply and receive credits, but under the agreement, the total amount of credits, plus attorneys fees, will not exceed $90 million. What I am not sure I grok is - is this $90 million set aside only for the plaintiffs in the Lanes' case, or is that the total Google is setting aside for all advertisers, period? I've asked Google for clarification. Seems to me, if they are changing their policy, the claims, and the costs, could go well above $90 million.

I will be following this very closely. The company that I work for does a lot of SEO work through Google and this will be interesting to see how it turns out.