Today's Tids Issue 2,774
Opening Stuff:
 
Eye on the News: Personally, I think that sequestration is going to happen, and will be a good thing. First, it could reduce TV face time for the President and his backdrop of the day. Second, it would be a start into the difficult journey towards economic reality. Third, I don't think the economy will fail because of it; It will readjust to new circumstances. Fourth, the longer a decision is postponed, the more it is going to hurt.

As far as I can see, the debate in Washington has drifted away from the essence of the question and onto how to cleverly place blame on someone else.

While everybody was being mesmerized by the Public Relations efforts of Apple, Google with Droid and so much more, zoomed past 800.

Every time some natural cold event occurs, the Global Warmers create a new science that explains away the frigidity as being the result of man made warming.

The Question:
Name the Top Ten Most Popular Social Networking sites.

The Headlines:
--Simpson And Bowles Blast Inaction In Washington; "This Is Madness," They Say While Introducing Anew Plan.
--Expensive Vegetables Pushing Producer Price Index Up; Housing Begins New Slump.
--Once Again, Greeks Protest Austerity.
--Bulgarian Government Resigns Amid Protests; Tunisia Seeks New Premiere To End Political Crisis.
--Cadaver Dogs Looking For Possible Bodies After Giant Kansas City Restaurant Blast.
--New Products For Yahoo! Will Have Company Going After FaceBook And Twitter.

Duh, Department:
Obama's chief henchman Axelrod has a new job with NBC and MSNBC. He should be paying NBC, considering what the news departments did for his guy. Now, you know where not to go when looking for unbiased news. Hey, wait a minute, Fair and Balanced Fox hired Carl Rove.

It's pretty obvious that big grocery stores are designed for the store marketing plans and not the customer.

The Providence Friars-Syracuse Orangemen Basketball game tonight will be a war. Syracuse is a media darling, and Providence is the resurgent team nobody wants to play right now.

I see where Office Depot is going to acquire Officemax. It's about time. I couldn't tell them apart anyhow.

Is Dell joining Xerox as great business names hanging on by their fingernails. Xerox has been a shadow of it's earlier gigantic self for twenty years or so. (BTW-It's TV commercials have over time been the worst on a continuous basis.) As you all know, Dell not looking forward to laboring under the eye of Wall Street going forward, has put together this dandy little $23 Billion (Yikes!) stock buy back. Yesterday the former premiere PC builder beat Street estimates. Yes, the 30% decline (Yikes again!) in earnings wasn't as bad as the analysts thought. Nice for the Street, but not for reality. But looking beneath the facade of manufactured earnings reports, we see double digit declines in it's main source of revenue, PC's. Over the past thirty years or so, many "Unstoppable" computer giants have disappeared off the face of the earth, Just like that! And I'm sure some of those ghosts of Bytes past had declining earnings that beat estimates.

Remember a couple of days ago I advised you never to go beyond headlines that included the word "Could". This morning I broke my own rule when I went to the story exclaimed by the head, "Higgs Boson Particle Could Spell Doom for the Universe." Zowie!, I said. That is not good news coming out of the humongous and very expensive Hadron Collider in Geneva Switzerland.  And then I read further that, "It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable, and at some point (The calculations tell you) many tens of billions of years from now there might be a catastrophic end to the world. Now, I call that a good news headline.

How come President Obama ordered the flag lowered to half mast for drug soaked Whitney Houston, but not for murdered war hero Chris Kyle?

I'm all for Simpson-Bowles as long as it doesn't affect me.

Sequestration sounds like economic castration. Ouch!

The Conscience: Chapter 14 continues.
   "So, James, why again are we so interested in the yacht business?"
   "It's just something I've been following for a number of years. I always liked watching the boats in Mobile Bay. Comin' and goin'. Maybe some day going with a little ole black boy from the south on board." he paused and looked out the window at the Financial district skyscrapers below." "Just  one-a my dreams, Milton."
   "Maybe you'll get a free jumbo yacht out of the deal, Jimbo."
   Jim smiled at his eager friend. "Have we heard from Baglietto? Do we know what's going on over there?"
   "I know that a glassy eyed, alcoholic lawyr showed up to represent Bernard. I know that Angelica didn't throw him out of the office."
   James smiled to himself. "Just let this one run its course, Milt. Things will fall into place, I guarantee you that."
   "From what I see, that Bomb blast made both sides skitterish. That's for sure." Milton waited a second watching James peer into his computer screen, press a few keys and then turn back.
   "We just made a couple of million." James smiled and Milton gave him a remote Fist bump. James bumped back.
   Milton now looked down at $300 shoes, wiped a piece of dust off the shiny tip and then back up to his friend. "I guess, what I'm thinking Jimbo, if, if we can make a couple of million pressing keys on a computer, why do we have to get involved in tis crazy yacht thing. You ain't tellin' me everything."
   "No, I ain't, but I guarantee, you'll know it when you see it."

The Answer:
The first two are easy, Facebook 750 Mil Unique Monthly Visitors (UMV) and Twitter 250 M UMV. The rest are Linkedin (110M), Pinterest 85.5M), My Space (70,5M), Google Plus (65M), DeviantArt (25.5), LiveJournal (20.5), Tagged (19.5 and #10 is Orkut (17.5). The rest in the top fifteen are CafeMom, Ning, Meeting, myLife and Multiply. And, this morning Yahoo! says they will enter the battle.

A good old friend and reader sent this tale about two Mexicans sneaking across the border, starving, wandering aimlessly. One, Luis, says, "Eh Pepe, do you smell what I smell? Ees bacon, I theeeenk.". "Ees bacon I'm smellin too, Luis. Motivated they crawl over a dune and spy in the distance what looks like a Bacon tree. Every branch loaded with crispy bacon that looks delicious. And now smells stronger. Luis shouts, "Wees saved. Eeet's a Bacon Tree." Pepe cautions that in this desert it may be "a meerage." Undaunted they move forward, "No meerage smells like Bacon," says Luis, who is now staggering towards the bacon tree. Suddenly, a machine gun opens fire and Luis drops like a wet sock. In his dying breath, he warns his friend, "Pepe, pepe, go back man. Ees not a Baocn tree. "Ees," he coughs, "Eees, ees, ees....a Ham Bush."