The Waterkooler

As the number of workers using the Internet for pleasure as well as business grows, so does anxiety among corporate higher-ups worried about productivity and exposure to security risks.

Many executives and managers have turned to computer surveillance. Low-cost technology is making it easier than ever for businesses of all sizes to monitor computer misuse among employees.

The market for this so-called secure content-management software -- which includes applications that monitor Web surfing, e-mail, instant messaging, and even keystrokes -- is expected to grow to $6.4 billion by 2007, more than double what it was just three years ago, according to the research firm IDC.

I love the fact that this judge encoded a secret message in his ruling on "The Da Vinci Code" copyright lawsuit.

London lawyer Dan Tench and The Times newspaper on Friday both claimed to have solved the riddle of a code embedded in a judge's ruling in "The Da Vinci Code" copyright lawsuit.

It reads: "Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought."

The message was created by Peter Smith, the High Court judge who presided over the copyright infringement suit brought by authors of the nonfiction book "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" against the publisher of Dan Brown's mega-selling thriller.

Smith's entry in the society bible "Who's Who" lists him as a fan of John "Jackie" Fisher, a 19th-century admiral credited with modernizing the British navy and developing its first modern warship, the Dreadnought.

related items: here and here

WK OPINION

When gas prices hit record highs, it is not uncommon to look for someone to blame and many people are looking to the oil companies, who made record profits this year. Are they gouging us?

The short answer, is no. They make a lot of their money in gambling on energy markets and this in no way affects the prices of oil - unless you are trading oil on Wall Street. True, that is not where most of the profits come from, but when you factor in research and exploration, the oil companies are not even in the top 40% of companies in terms of profit margin.

If you are looking for an industry that really gouges you, why not go right to the top, where the pharmeceutical companies make 18.5 cents on the dollar, or banks which make 18 cents. Now compare that to the oil companies who make 8 or 9 cents. By the way, the national average of all industries is 6.8 cents per dollar.

Each time accusations of price gouging have come up over the years, the oil companies have come out unscathed.

So why are gas prices so high? Who is to blame? The question is not a difficult one to answer if you think clearly about it.

Blame Mother Nature. Remember Hurricane Katrina? A number of refineries are still offline. Three refineries on the Gulf Coast shut down by last fall’s hurricanes are only now reportedly beginning to return to operation, or soon will be.

Blame the EPA. Can you say MTBE?

Blame China. Global demand has SOARED with the explosive growth in China and India, among other places.

Blame all the SUV-driving folks out there. Everyone has the right to drive what they want, but these decisions have consequences. These vehicles waste a LOT of gas. The consequences are felt at the pump.

But CRUDE prices are at an all-time high, you say. Can't we blame OPEC? Yes and no. Crude prices are high because we are buying more of it to protect possible shortfalls due to our refinery limitations due to Katrina after effects. The cycle always starts with DEMAND.

So when looking for someone to blame, look at yourself first. Look at your neighbor, look at China, look at the EPA, look at Mother Nature, and look at the environmentalists who will not allow us to build any refineries for over 30 years.

WK

Tony Snow On President Bush: ‘An Embarrassment,’ ‘Impotent,’ ‘Doesn’t Seem To Mean What He Says’

Fox News’ Tony Snow is expected to be named White House Press Secretary. Here’s some of what he’s had to say about the President:

– Bush has “lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.” [3/17/06]

– “George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.” [3/17/06]

– “President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy.” [2/3/06]

– “George Bush has become something of an embarrassment.” [11/11/05]

– Bush “has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal.” [10/7/05]

– “No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.” [9/30/05]

– Bush “has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!” [9/30/05]

– “When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed.” [11/16/00]

– “Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!” [8/25/00]

– “George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother’s attractive feistiness, but he also got his father’s syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette’s.” [8/25/00]

– “He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.” [8/25/00]

– “On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.” [8/25/00]

Cheating on your taxes is almost as bad as cheating on your spouse...

Drinking excessively is worse than smoking marijuana...

Engaging in homosexual behavior and having an abortion are equally fraught...

Telling a lie to spare someone's feelings is worse than gambling...

Overeating is almost as objectionable as sex between unmarried adults...

So says the collective judgement of the American Public when asked in a Pew Research Center survey to assess the moral dimensions of different kinds of behaviors.

The daily audience online for news has grown dramatically since 2002 - a surge that has been fueled by the rise in home broadband connections. Some 50 million Americans now seek out news on the internet on a typical day.

In a survey in December 2005, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that a major segment of broadband users now say the internet is their primary news source, surpassing even television and newspapers as their source of choice. Some 71% of these high-powered online news consumers go online for news on the average day, while 59% get news from local TV. Just more than half get news from national TV and radio on the typical day and about 40% turn to local papers.

Across age groups, the impact of online news is greatest for American adults under the age of 36 who have a high-speed internet connection at home. For this group, the internet is now on par with local TV and newspaper as a daily source for news, and surpasses national TV, radio, and local papers as a news source. Fully 46% of this group gets news online on the typical day, compared with 51% who turn to local TV, 41% who turn to radio, and 40% to national TV news.

Just The Facts

FACT: Copyrights are not forever. Typically, a copyright lasts for 50 years past the natural life of the original author.

FACT: The Stradivari Kreutzer violin sold for 946-thousand-dollars in 1988.

FACT: Automobiles built before 1904 are called veteran cars. Those built between 1904 and 1931 are considered vintage, while cars that are at least 20 years old are called classic.

FACT: In 1924, four Douglas World Cruisers and eight American crewmen set out from Seattle to attempt the first around-the-world flight. One-hundred and 75 days later, three of the aircraft completed the flight. Nine years later, another American did it in only seven days.

LAS VEGAS -- Technology that allows people to get their news faster and in more forms than ever must never supplant scrupulous reporting and careful writing, according to a panel of journalists and media executives.

Journalism is undergoing tremendous change, with blogs and citizen journalists proliferating and news consumers having more control over what they read, hear and see. But those advances do not change the need for media organizations to tackle tough subjects and report what they find, even when it's highly unpopular, the panel told the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention on Monday.

...Ramos said the American press is spending a lot of resources reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan, often at the expense of other important international news.

"There are other parts of the world that we're ignoring," he said.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Bra producers have been forced to offer bigger cup-sizes in China because improved nutrition is busting all previous chest measurement records.

The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology released a report last week saying the average chest circumference of Chinese women has risen by nearly 1 cm (0.4 inch) to 83.53 cm (32.89 inches) since the early 1990s, the daily said.

This phenomenon, it said, was due to women eating more nutritiously and taking part in more sport.

Similar growth in the average height of children prompted a rethink last year in Beijing on the height allowance for free bus rides.

Willing to swap free rent for chores? A new living arrangement falls back on old-school gender roles... (warning, this will piss some of you feminists off).

Feminists?! Heck, I'm a GUY and I'd consider cooking all the meals for free rent! I cook all the meals as it is now. You want to pay me $1,000 per month to do what I am already doing? Where do I sign up?

-- Would you hire a live-in maid?
-- Would you BE a live-in maid?

Who do we hate more? The nicotene peddlers, the Drug Pushers, or the lawyers that make a living off of suing them?

Lawsuits over prescription drugs carry perhaps the highest stakes of all product liability litigation, lawyers on each side say. Plaintiffs' lawyers may spend years and millions of dollars to prepare for a single trial, but a victory can come with a verdict of $10 million or more.

...lawyers who defend drug companies say that the rise in pharmaceutical suits is a reflection of changes in the plaintiffs' bar, not a reflection of the dangers of the drugs.

"This is really like cattle moving around a pasture, grazing on the greenest part of the grass," said Peter Bicks, a defense lawyer at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. "The greenest part of the pasture now appears to be, in the post-Vioxx era, drugs."

That is an issue the United States Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. Already it costs the mint well more than a cent to make a penny.

This week the cost of the metals in a penny rose above 0.8 cents, more than twice the value of last fall. Because the government spends at least another six-tenths of a cent — above and beyond the cost of the metal — to make each penny, it will lose nearly half a cent on each new one it mints.

...

"What is really new in the commodity world is the extent to which hard commodities have been converted to financial assets through exchange-traded funds and hedge funds," said Ed Yardeni, the chief investment strategist of Oak Associates.

"In the late 90's," Mr. Yardeni added, "my hedge fund friends were all experts in technology. Now all they talk about is zinc, lead and oil. There is a lot of money that has poured into these areas."

That may mean that a bubble is brewing, but Mr. Yardeni thinks the run is not yet over.

Gotta love those day-traders!

Only in America. Someone has found a way to make a profit off of the guilt we have for driving around in our beloved SUV's.

Just go to one of several carbon-offset Web sites, calculate the amount of carbon dioxide produced when you drive, fly or otherwise burn fossil fuels, and then buy an offset that pays for an equivalent amount of clean energy.

Of course, emissions could be reduced the old-fashioned way — by flying less, turning off the air-conditioning or buying a more fuel-efficient car. But that would probably require some sacrifice and perhaps even a change in lifestyle. Instead, carbon-offset programs allow individuals to skip the sacrifice and simply pay for the right to pollute.

"To some extent, it's a way for people to buy their way into heaven," said Chip Giller, who is president of Grist.org, an online environmental magazine.

Ha! Sounds like a bunch of Bobos in Paradise to me!