Category: News

As I was thumbing through the weekend edition of the Financial Times (my favorite newspaper) on a lazy Sunday morning, my eye fell on a little boxed off squib titled Dr Mehmet Oz on the January Detox (scroll to bottom to see the piece).  If I ran across something like this in a local daily newspaper, I wouldn’t think much about it, but in the venerable Financial Times?  Since we all know how much good the wonderful Dr. Oz has done Oprah (as evidenced by the photo to the left – were I she, I certainly wouldn’t be toasting him), I decided to read it to see what he had to recommend on detoxing.  I wasn’t disappointed.  He lives up to his billing.

How does Dr. Oz recommend we detoxify our livers?  Let’s read and see.

I like a simple cleansing fast as an easy, inexpensive means of flushing out toxins and rebooting the system (a juice detox, say, which involves a short-term diet of raw vegetables, fruit juices and water). But it is important to remember that detoxifying the liver, the organ responsible for detoxing our bodies, would take a month of healthy living.

Brilliant!

Let me see if I get this straight.  You detoxify your liver by a fruit-juice fast, right?  Which means throwing back at least three or four glasses of fruit juice a day.  Okay, got it.

Sounds great.  But bit of critical thinking.

What happens to the liver to cause it to need detoxifying?  How about fat accumulation?  A fatty liver is one that needs detoxifying.  Fatty livers are way more common than you might expect.  Studies have shown that about a third of Americans are walking around with fatty livers, a disorder called non-alcoholic fatty liver disorder (NAFLD).  No one really knows what the long-term effects of this problem are going to be, but it is known that fatty accumulation in the liver can lead to an inflamed liver, which can then go on to develop cirrhosis and possibly even liver cancer.  Since this epidemic of NAFLD has arisen fairly recently, it’s unknown how it will play out over the long haul, but I doubt that it will be a good result.

So where does all this fat in the liver come from?  Most researchers think it comes from excess fructose consumption.  The pathways of the metabolism of fructose lead to fatty accumulation in the liver, and giving laboratory animals a lot of fructose gives them fatty livers.  If you couple this information with the fact that fructose consumption has skyrocketed over the last three decades, it makes sense that at least part of the NAFLD we’re seeing comes from too much fructose.

With these facts in mind, let’s take a closer look at Dr. Oz’s recommendation to undertake a juice fast to cleanse or detox the liver.

If you go on a juice fast, how much juice do you drink.  Three or four glasses a day, I would imagine.  And I would also guess that these would be decent sized glasses.  Most people don’t drink an eight ounce glass of anything.  Eight ounces is only a cup, which really isn’t all that much.  Even those little weenie juice boxes that parents put in their kid’s lunches are 8.45 ounces, and most glasses of juice that people drink are larger than that.  A regular-sized soft drink can contains 12 ounces, which is probably much closer to the size of a glass of juice most of us would drink, especially if we were on a juice fast.  Four glasses of juice – a not unreasonable amount to drink in a day if that’s all you’re drinking – would end up being 48 ounces of juice.

I went through the USDA database of foods looking for all the juices I could find that had fructose broken out from the total carbohydrate figure and tabulated them.  Take a look at the chart below which is total carbs and fructose in grams.  And remember that 100 grams equals a half a cup.  So when you see something listed at 111.6 grams of fructose, that means more than a half cup.

It should be clear from this chart that a fruit juice fast provides a whole lot of fructose and a whole lot of carbs.  The fructose is particularly problematic in that it encourages fat accumulation in the liver.  The amounts in 48 ounces of any of these fruit juices would be more than enough to stimulate the synthesis and storage of fat in the liver.

How Dr. Oz thinks this would detox the liver is beyond me.

One other note on his cleansing fast.  It’s not just fruit juices; it includes raw vegetables, too.  I assume Dr. Oz recommends the raw vegetables for all of the flavonoids, carotenoids, lycopenes and other phytonutrients.  I guess he never learned that most – if not all – of these nutrients are fat soluble.  Consuming raw vegetables and fruit juices without some fat along with them means you don’t absorb any of the nutrients.  Dr. Oz must have missed that day at medical school.

So, the actual result of his cleansing detox that is supposed to “flush out toxins [while] rebooting the system” is that more fat accumulates in the liver, insulin goes up thanks to all the carbs and you don’t even absorb the phytonutrients.  Sounds like just a hell of a deal to me.

Let’s spend just another moment looking at yet a different piece of idiocy in this small, small piece of writing.

Says Dr. Oz:

Caffeine throws off all the systems, so drink green tea, which has only a quarter of the caffeine of dark tea or coffee but packs a powerful energy punch.

Oh dear.  Where do we start?  Green tea has almost as much caffeine as coffee, not a quarter of the caffeine.  And, please tell me Dr. Oz, where do we get the “powerful energy punch” from green tea if it’s not from the caffeine?
No sooner had I finished reading the Financial Times Oz recommendations, which, by the way, struck me much more as a prescription from a witch doctor than from a trained physician, than MD pointed out that the same Dr. Oz was on the cover of the Sunday magazine that comes with our local paper.  Yep, USA Weekend features our friend expanding on his recommendations.

I’m not going to go through them all (you can read them here), but one did catch my attention:

Ditch extreme diets. People almost always fail to lose weight because they try diets that are too radical to stick with. For a lifestyle change to succeed, it must be sustainable. So instead of eliminating all foods that fit into a certain category or counting every calorie, try making changes that are less noticeable but no less significant. If you can eliminate just 100 calories from your daily intake, for example, you will lose about a pound per month. How hard is that?

This is a blatant attack on the low-carb diet without saying it in so many words.  And the notion that “if you can eliminate just 100 calories from you daily intake’” you will lose weight over time is the ultimate recommendation of someone who is clueless about the operation of the energy balance equation.

Pitiful.

I’m going to leave you with a poem that I believe is prophetic for Dr. Oz and his nutritionally-unsophisticated compadres.  Sooner or later science will out and these folks will be shown for the idiots they are, and they will be left as part of the detritus of the desert of faulty nutritional thinking.  Too bad they will leave a lot of corpses in their wake.

The poem by Shelley is titled, appropriately enough, Ozymandias

OZYMANDIAS

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

*Said by Great and Powerful Oz
in The Wizard of Oz

Have you ever wondered what the authorities use to gather data from your computer? One of the big tools they use is call COFFEE, or Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor. It is a tool that runs on a USB stick that the Feds can plug into your laptop to automatically gathers a whole boat load of data that could potentially land you in the slammer. I mean, I am sure you are all just downloading free Open Source applications, and Creative Commons music from Bit Torrent right? Ha!

According to Microsoft’s COFFEE page, Coffee allows you the Feds:

… to run more than 150 commands on a live computer system. It also provides reports in a simple format for later interpretation by experts or as supportive evidence for subsequent investigation and prosecution. And the COFEE framework can be tailored to effectively meet the needs of your particular investigation.

To combat this tool, a group of Hackers put together their own counter-tool called DECAF! I first heard it mentioned on HAK5, and when I Googled it I found an article on Wired saying this about DECAF:

[Decaf] deletes temporary files or processes associated with COFEE, erases all COFEE logs, disables USB drives, and contaminates or spoofs a variety of MAC addresses to muddy forensic tracks.

I fairly certain that using this tool to hinder an investigation is probably illegal. You know, obstruction of justice and all that jazz, but if your privacy is a concern to you, and you don’t want Uncle Sam’s minions digging through your laundry, then perhaps DECAF is right for you!

What is your favorite anti-authority program? Know of other programs like COFFEE and DECAF? Hit us up in the comments!

Filed under: Car Buying, GM

Coming out of bankruptcy with four fewer brands, General Motors wants to help its dealers present a fresh face to the public. So it’s offering dealers a deal of its own: remodel your dealerships and GM will help pay for it. Ah, but just like a clever salesman, GM has a few conditions on its offer. For one, any dealer in the business of selling new cars other than GM models must separate them from The General’s products. Also, while the renovations should take about three years, GM won’t be sending dealers a check for something like five to 10 years. And when the money does come, the amount each dealer receives won’t be based on their receipts for the renovations, but rather sales performance. Suddenly that new shiny showroom courtesy of the Mothership ain’t looking so new and shiny.

While we don’t know exactly what a remodeled GM dealership will look like, Automotive News reports that they will feature renovated entryways, new reception desks and – wait for it – free WiFi! Take that Starbucks.

[Source: Automotive News – sub. req. | Image: Scott Olson/Getty]

Report: GM offering to help dealers remodel, with a few conditions originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The University of Chicago’s Frank Richter, SM’71, PhD’72, has received the 2009 Harry H. Hess Medal for outstanding research on the constitution and evolution of Earth and its sister planets.

“Frank’s mode of research is to identify critical problems, develop a fundamental, first-principles-based understanding, and then to delve deeply into the broader consequences and implications for the earth sciences,” said David Rowley, Professor in Geophysical Sciences, in his nominating citation.

In recent studies, Richter, the Sewell Avery Distinguished Service Professor in Geophysical Sciences, has focused his studies on the isotopic characteristics of rocks and minerals from the continents, oceans and meteorites.

Measurements of isotopes, which are varieties of a common element that differ only in their atomic mass, can be used to reconstruct a variety of Earth’s dynamic geological and oceanographic processes.

“His approach is to identify an earth science-related problem where he can make a significant contribution, work rather single-mindedly until he succeeds to some satisfying degree and then move on once he feels that further efforts would not yield as significant results as what he has already achieved,” Rowley said.

Consequently, Richter’s specialization defies classification. At various times in his career, he has conducted in-depth, influential research in fluid dynamics, geodynamics, geochemistry, experimental petrology and cosmochemistry.

In each of these areas, Richter has combined theoretical and analytical insight with experimental data “to better understand how physics and chemistry affect the evolution of natural systems,” according to Rowley.

On a personal level, Rowley said, “Frank is also a careful listener and reader, whose questions and input can often be transformative of his friends and colleagues.”

Richter became a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after completing his UChicago doctoral degree. He returned to the University on a faculty appointment in 1975.

An elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, Richter has received many honors for his work. These include the Arthur L. Day Medal and the George Wollard Award, both from the Geological Society of America, and the Norman L. Bowen Award of the American Geophysical Union.

He also is a fellow of the GSA, the AGU and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Previous recipients of the Hess Medal include Alexandra Navrotsky, PhD’67, the Edward Roessler Chair in Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of California at Davis, in 2006; Edward Anders, the Horace B. Horton Professor Emeritus in Chemistry, in 1995; the late George W. Wetherill, PhB’48, SB’49, SM’51, PhD’53, of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, in 1991; the late Julian R. Goldsmith, SB’40, PhD’47, the Charles E. Merriam Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Geophysical Sciences, in 1987; and Gerald J. Wasserburg, SB’51, SM’52, PhD’54, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geology and Geophysics Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, in 1985.

In Japan, it’s customary for companies to come out with statements regarding their plans for the new year. It’s like us going crazy with fireworks and getting outrageously drunk after. Drop that last part, that might just

Cool-er’s lineup of readers is getting new models such as the super-small Compact, the Wi-Fi-enabled Connect, and the appropriately named 3G. Based on previous models, it’s quite possible that these will find a place in the hearts of bargain shoppers.

We’ve seen 3G, Wi-Fi capabilities, touchscreens, and the like in plenty of readers on the market. What Cool-er focuses on is putting those features into lighter, thinner, and cheaper gadgets. I suppose that explains why they saw the need to make the Compact and announce that it’s got the smallest footprint of any reader out, even if Sony might disagree with that claim. Either way, the Compact is still among the smaller devices and still sounds rather good given Cool-er’s budget-friendly price tags.

Thes new readers will be shown off at CES, but they’ll be hitting the shelves Spring to mid-2010.

Interead Announces New COOL-ER Ereader Models

LAS VEGAS, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Interead, makers of the COOL-ER line of ereaders, today announced new models that will be introduced at the 2010 International CES® in Las Vegas.

* At only 6.7″ x 4.6″ x 0.41″ (170 mm x 117 mm x 10 mm), the amazingly affordable and portable COOL-ER Compact has the smallest footprint of any ereader while still maximising the reader experience with a 6″ E Ink® screen. With 2GB onboard memory (expandable via SD card to 6GB total), it easily holds thousands of ebooks.

* COOL-ER Classic, the lightest and most elegant ereader currently available, has quickly become a favourite of readers around the world, and will be offered in exciting new colours.

* Weighing in at only 5.8 ounces (164 grams), COOL-ER Connect adds the convenience of WiFi and ease of a touch screen, ideal for readers on the move.

* Available in mid-2010, COOL-ER 3G adds robust 3G connectivity to the ereader experience to download 1,400+ periodicals and 2 million + books wherever they are.

All COOL-ER ereaders come in numerous vibrant colours, which now include Midnight Blue and Orange Crush, bright new additions to the colour line-up. Working in every country on the planet, COOL-ER ereaders support ebooks in every language and have menus in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Russian, Japanese and Chinese, and also support multiple zoom levels to create a customized and comfortable reading experience.

COOL-ER Classic is currently available from premier global retailers and www.COOLREADERS.com. COOL-ER Compact and COOL-ER Connect will be available in Spring 2010, and COOL-ER 3G will be available in mid-2010.

Any of the more than 2 million books from COOL-ER’s companion online bookstore, COOLER-EBOOKS.com, can be shared with up to five other readers to let friends and families share the works they love. COOL-ER works with ebooks in all commonly used ebook formats, including EPUB and PDF.

Neil Jones, Interead’s CEO, commented: “As we have seen the ereader market evolve over the last year, it has become clear that the ereader is now a lifestyle device—not just a niche gadget. As such, it’s important that we offer a range of ereaders to accommodate a variety of preferences and reading habits, and this product range does just this.”

[COOL-ER]

Beyonce is featured on the cover of the January 11, 2010 issue of US Weekly. Click on the preview below to see the scans.

1. A tower in Dubai that opens today has earned the title of world’s tallest building with a height of 2,717 feet (828 meters). That’s more than half a mile high. Actually, it grabbed that title during construction back in July 2007 when it passed Taipei 101, which stands 500 meters tall.

2. Until its official opening today, the building’s exact height was a closely held secret known by only a few people. The building’s architects, Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings, and Merril, speculated last week that someone might try to steal the thunder from the big announcement by measuring the building’s shadow to figure out its height.

3. The opening ceremony included another surprise. The tower, which had been known as the Burj Dubai, was renamed the Burj Khalifa, in honor of Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the neighboring emirate Abu Dhabi. The last-minute switch carries a symbolic weight in light of the billions of dollars oil-rich Abu Dhabi has poured into Dubai in order to cover its debts [The New York Times].

4. The Burj is not only the tallest building in the world, it’s also home to the highest observation deck, swimming pool, elevator, restaurant, and fountain in the world.

5. Speaking of the acrophobia inducing elevator, it travels at speeds roughly 40 miles per hour (65 kilometers per hour) and reaches the observation deck in about 2 minutes.

6. Once at the top, visitors can enjoy temperatures that are nearly 15 degrees cooler than at the building’s base.

7. Dubai is built in the middle of the desert, so to withstand the UAE’s 120-degree blistering summer heat the tower is covered with 24,348 cladding panels.

8. Many skyscrapers are built to bend with the wind—the Burj, which will be exposed to strong desert winds, more than others. According to lead architect George Efstathiou, “the building is tuned to sway slowly so your middle ear doesn’t pick it up,” Efstathiou explained. “They tune it just like a musical instrument so that the harmonics of the building don’t coincide with the harmonics caused by the wind…. We tune it so that on the floors where people are going to be, you don’t feel it that much” [CNN].

9. Before all those floors fill up with people, Burj Khalifa has an empty weight of 500,000 tons.

10. The building won’t be empty much longer, however. So if you want in, you better hurry; 90 percent of the 900 residences (not including the soon-to-open Giorgio Armani-designed hotel) have been sold.

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Image: flickr / joi

There’s a lot of talk this morning about a speech yesterday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. At the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta, he provided some concrete views on what caused the housing bubble. Several articles I’ve read about the speech imply that Bernanke is shoving off blame, since he says the Fed keeping interest rates extremely low shouldn’t be faulted. But what he says did cause the mess should still keep the Fed in the hot seat. Yet, he’s using it to ask for even more responsibility.

First, I’m not trying to agree that the Fed keeping rates so low had nothing to do with the housing bubble. I actually believe that played a role, but certainly shouldn’t take on close to all of the blame. The more major cause according to Bernanke: not enough regulation. After a lengthy argument that rates weren’t the problem, he says:

What policy implications should we draw? I noted earlier that the most important source of lower initial monthly payments, which allowed more people to enter the housing market and bid for properties, was not the general level of short-term interest rates, but the increasing use of more exotic types of mortgages and the associated decline of underwriting standards. That conclusion suggests that the best response to the housing bubble would have been regulatory, not monetary. Stronger regulation and supervision aimed at problems with underwriting practices and lenders’ risk management would have been a more effective and surgical approach to constraining the housing bubble than a general increase in interest rates. Moreover, regulators, supervisors, and the private sector could have more effectively addressed building risk concentrations and inadequate risk-management practices without necessarily having had to make a judgment about the sustainability of house price increases.

My first observation is that this hardly deflects criticism. The Fed doesn’t only wear a rate-setting hat; it’s also a regulator. It could have stepped in and created rules for subprime mortgages, adjustable-rate mortgages, underwriting standards, etc. It didn’t do so in time. So even if its rates setting policies didn’t fail, its regulatory oversight certainly did.

Second, Felix Salmon makes an observation that I agree with regarding a paragraph following the one I quoted where Bernanke goes on:

The lesson I take from this experience is not that financial regulation and supervision are ineffective for controlling emerging risks, but that their execution must be better and smarter. The Federal Reserve is working not only to improve our ability to identify and correct problems in financial institutions, but also to move from an institution-by-institution supervisory approach to one that is attentive to the stability of the financial system as a whole. Toward that end, we are supplementing reviews of individual firms with comparative evaluations across firms and with analyses of the interactions among firms and markets. We have further strengthened our commitment to consumer protection. And we have strongly advocated financial regulatory reforms, such as the creation of a systemic risk council, that will reorient the country’s overall regulatory structure toward a more systemic approach. The crisis has shown us that indicators such as leverage and liquidity must be evaluated from a systemwide perspective as well as at the level of individual firms.

Salmon says that he sees a power grab. Presumably, he thinks Bernanke really means something like, “Gee, look: if we could regulate more, then we could have avoided this whole mess.” Salmon is probably right. Bernanke doesn’t appear to so much be looking for absolution for messing up as he does to try to argue that the Fed should be able to do even more regulation.

I think that’s nuts. The Fed already had sufficient power to regulate mortgage banking, yet it failed to do so. If it’s given even more regulatory authority, such as systemic risk regulation, why do I have any reason to believe that it will do better next time? To me, this amounts to someone dropping a dozen eggs and saying that he will do better if he has to carry two dozen next time instead.

I’ve argued before, as the central bank the Fed has too many a conflicts-of-interest to be trusted to spearhead financial regulation. One of its major priorities is to protect banks. The moment that mission conflicts with sensible regulatory restraint, I worry that the Fed will defer to the banking industry’s stance. You could even imagine back in 2004 that the Fed might have liked the housing boom and worried that full employment could suffer if the mortgage industry had more regulation. Which priority should it put first — regulation or full employment?

While the Fed is talking loudly now about new regulation while we’re in the recessionary trough with 20/20 hindsight, let’s see if it will be as quick to create and enforce new regulations when happy times are here again. I remain highly skeptical.

People who live with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) are often faced with trial-and-error to find treatments that work for them. One type of treatment that can be successful for some people with IBS is using antidepressant medications. This isn’t to say that IBS is related to depression, but some antidepressant medications have other properties, such as providing pain relief from chronic pain. In the case of IBS, the antidepressants may work because there are chemical transmitters in the brain that are also present in the colon.

When it comes to antidepressants, some people swear by the supplement St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum). Because of the antidepressant properties found by some people, researchers wanted to see if St. John’s Wort would be a reasonable treatment for IBS, as well.

The researchers studied 70 people (86% women) with IBS. They were divided into two groups and randomized to receive St. John’s Wort or a placebo. The medications were taken for three months.

Symptoms of IBS, such as stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation and bloating were observed. When the researchers assessed the incidence of the symptoms in both groups, they found that the people who took the placebos were actually doing better than those who took the St. John’s Wort.

According to the study’s authors:

“The challenge with IBS is that there is no cure, no one treatment tends to be wholly effective and some treatments come with significant side effects,” explains Dr. Saito [M.D., M.P.H., gastroenterologist and lead physician scientist]. “However, well-designed studies of herbal supplements are important so that physicians and patients can make informed decisions about which supplements to recommend or try. Studies of alternative treatments are generally lacking and patients are forced to use a “trial and error” approach to over-the-counter treatments for their IBS.”

~~~

Image: MorgueFile.com

Post from: Blisstree

St. John’s Wort Doesn’t help IBS

Lithium-ion battery maker EnerDel once expected to generate 800 jobs and invest $184 million in an Indiana manufacturing plant – but no more. Although it has not disclosed revised numbers, the company has scaled back its plans for the new facility, according a county official quoted in local media reports this morning.

Reining in the size of the project […]

Brian T Klug has balls, I’ll give him that. Why else would he have bought a Discovery Channel CD-ROM (Windows 98) incorrectly priced on Amazon to the tune of $2,904,980,000 just to see what would happen?

As you can see from the image above, the result was that…well, he spent $3 billon on an ancient CD. However, It wasn’t long before Amazon noticed the record payday and cancelled the order. Despite the fact that the payment was impossible to process, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Klug’s little fiscal adventure backfired in a big way—either with destroyed credit or crippling debt.

The seller behind the CD has a good rating, and it is obvious that this was a typo. What I don’t understand is why a new seller jumped in to sell the CD at a comparably inexpensive $250,000. Looks like Orbit Inc is trying to pull a major scam. [reddit via Consumerist]

Last week, the news that the TSA visited two travel bloggers who had written about some rather obvious “security directives” that the TSA had refused to confirm publicly (i.e., that everyone boarding a flight to the US would get a pat down) got a fair bit of attention. Beyond just seeking their sources, the TSA agents had subpoenas and with one of the bloggers, were quite threatening and ended up confiscating his laptop (which was then damaged when it was returned). With the story getting so much attention, the TSA withdrew the subpoenas saying they were no longer necessary. While some are attributing this to the negative publicity received in the press, it seems more likely that they had figured out what they needed (especially with Steven Frischling handing over his laptop).

There are two other aspects of the story that remain in question and are somewhat troubling. The first is the issue raised by Danny Sullivan about Google’s role in this effort. It came out in the early reports that both bloggers had received the notice from someone with a Gmail account. Google won’t comment on whether or not it received a subpoena in this case, but it seems likely that it did. In fact, as Sullivan points out, Google — unlike some other companies — often seems quite willing to comply with such subpoenas without giving users a chance to protect themselves. This is the company’s right, of course, but given Google’s own positioning as a protector of user rights, you would think it would be a bit more aggressive on this front.

The second issue concerns reports that the TSA more or less forced Frischling to post a Twitter message, asking the guy who sent him the original email to email him again. Again, earlier reports had noted that Frischling had already deleted the email when the TSA agents had arrived. So, the suggestion is that they wanted to get him to email again. An “anonymous source” (so take it for what it’s worth) is claiming that the TSA agents typed a message into Twitter asking the guy to send Frischling an email, but told Frischling to actually “send” the Twitter message, so they could deny that they had posted it.

Given all of this, it seems like there’s a half decent chance that the TSA withdrew the subpoenas because it already had what it needed. It could get the guy’s email from Frischling’s computer after the guy emailed back — and then could subpoena Google to find out who it was, without getting much pushback. The bigger question, though, remains why this is happening at all. The “security directive” wasn’t classified. It wasn’t secret and it was obvious to anyone who happened to fly into the US from a foreign country. If the TSA really thinks that keeping something like this secret somehow makes us more secure, it’s even more messed up than previously thought.

And, once again, we’re reminded why we should have a federal shield law to protect anyone engaged in journalism from having to reveal their sources.

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Check out the action on chipmaker Rambus (RMBS). The stock is off over 8% on no news, and the rumor among traders is that it was fat finger. Zouch.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• High Frequency Funds Flock To Japan As Tokyo Rolls Out High Speed Trading

“There hasn’t been this much hype about a tablet since Moses came down from the mountain,” David Carr gushes about the forthcoming Apple tablet, which promises to be something like the missing link between e-reader and computer. I’m excited, too! There’s a lot to talk about with Apple’s new “iSlate,” from tech specs to industry implications. But let’s focus on the most proximate question — for me at least. Can it save journalism?

One way to look at the last ten years in online media is that the
aughts were the decade when tech savvy Americans learned to expect
everything they could read, watch and hear to be free. The next decade
will have to be The Empire Strikes Back for media companies. Consumers will have to re-learn the mental muscle memory of paying for what we consume.

The e-reader is a huge part of the puzzle. Publishers who blew it by
giving away everything for free on computers have a raft of new
e-reader gizmos where they can charge for access to their content and
train readers to expect to pay for the content. The Apple “iSlate”
represents the apotheosis of the early e-reader revolution. Ideally,
techies expect a blown-up iPhone with a touchable screen, readable text
and goshwow graphics capabilities. This kind of machine combined with an online digital storefront for magazines and newspapers could presumably persuade readers to start paying for the privilege of reading news again. Carr elaborates:

A simple, reliable interface for gaining access to paid content can do
amazing things: Five years ago, almost no one paid for music online and
now, nine billion or so songs sold later, we know that people are
willing to pay if the price is right and the convenience is there.

I’m on Carr’s side here: salivating for the Apple tablet; excited for
the Hulu-for-magazines project; rooting for a Journalism Savior; and so
on. But the first step is key. Newspapers and magazines have to
eventually put up a paid wall for readers. This is very simple: Nobody
will pay for something they can easily get conveniently, and for free.
Without a pay wall perimeter around journalism’s finest estates, the
Apple iSlate won’t be a savior. It’ll be just another device where we
get free stuff.