August 31, 2003

Shakedown Street

Tiny towns trying to scam major acts out of nuisance dough. Doesn't this type of behavior in fact violate the Interstate Commerce Clause?

Dean Scene

Preliminary election pieces like this one are always wrong. Over the years, there have been the Seven Dwarfs or the Little Nine, or whatever diminutive the press decides to apply as a sobriquet to the challenging party that year. President Bush I was still considered invincible at this stage in his 1992 campaign season. And President Clinton was considered to be dead in the water as late as February -- or a full 6 months further out. So these type of horse race analyses are usually wrong.

Dean has done a good job energizing core Democrazies with somewhat outlandish attacks on President Bush. But comments like these are simply not going to win over the middle 20% of America:

John Ashcroft is not a patriot," he said, referring to the attorney general's advocacy of the Patriot Act. "John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy.

With Americans regularly experiencing the distinctly un-biased nonsense of airport scrutinizers strip-shoe-searching grandmothers, the hyper-charge of wild witch-hunting bias don't ring true.

I do believe the Democrats have a tough mix to concoct for next year. But they don't seem to heed the professor. It's to their disadvantage.

Moving on up....

6,141.

Iraq Worries

We need to listen to Thomas Friedman, who is a sober, level-headed commentator on Iraq. And concerningly, an increasingly alarmist one. His data from the field, and the increasing signs of trouble fomenting in Iraq, are indeed a wake-up call. Is President Bush listening?

August 30, 2003

Wayback

Remember when the Dancing Baby was a craze?

August 29, 2003

Demos by zip code

Demographic data for my hometown and my current residence.

Interesting.

This is cool

2000 Tax Statistics by ZIP Code.

Amusing Musicking

Seems like there are some heated opinions on iTunes.

Dude, where's my car?

Bummer.

On this date...

My birthday in Dead History.

Employment market doldrums

According to folks in the know, job searches are twice as long as they used to be.

An Afternoon Diversion

A great game, a great day at the ballpark.

Celebrate Victoire

I'd buy a burger from this guy.

Google News

Interesting that a site with no humans, advertising, or marketing is already the 18th most visited news site on the net.

An Interesting Way to Spend Your Vote

Arnold talks turkey.

August 28, 2003

China Emerging

It's about time that China started acting like the major power it is. Our long-term interests are surprisingly aligned. Both Chnia and the U.S. want freer trade, fewer terrorists, and stability in Greater Asia. The U.S. does not have the gold, people, or interest in monitoring far-off Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and especially North Korea. Those are Asian problems that require Asian solutions, and China is far more apt, able and aware of them. The emergence of China as a diplomatic power is, I believe, in our long-term interests and we should aid and abet the development.

August 27, 2003

My, What a Big SPAM You HAve

Is So.Big a spam scam? Slashdot has an interesting take.

It Could Happen to Anybody

I just, you know, spaced.

Loons

No smiling on your passport, Canuck!

What if you've had a few Molsons, eh?

My Favorite Mugshot

Let this be a warning to the lurking, smirking monopolists out there.

August 26, 2003

Yahobloogs coming soon

Enjoy the always entretaining Slashdot commentary while you're at it (hint: set the "comment" threshold to '4').

Liberal Arts People Can Be Such Morons

Repeat after me: cause does not equal correlation. Even if this would be a nice anti-Hillary meme, it doesn't make any sense!

Drink More Live Longer

I can't tell you how welcome these findings are around the StoneHome.

Runnings Dogs

I'm agog at this bit of agitprop from the BBC. Where the hell can you find an unreconstructed Stalinist these days? Here's your answer:

The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a "capital imperialist" who wants to destabilise the corporation because he "is against everything the BBC stands for".

Don't people get mocked for this sort of thing?

August 25, 2003

VCster

Interesting article on the boomlet in social netowrking start-ups.

The Mess With Texas

A reader writes:

can you sic your bullshit radar on this and get back to me? truth or what?:

Dear MoveOn member,

Impeachment.
The 2000 Election.
The California Recall.

The pattern is becoming clear: there's a group of men in power who will do anything to consolidate that power, including undermining our democratic institutions. We've got to fight back. In Texas, they are fighting back. And while the world is focusing on the California mess, they are fighting alone. They need our help.

A partisan plan pushed by Karl Rove and Tom Delay will redistrict up to 7 Democrats out of Congress. Right now, 11 Democratic State Senators are hiding across state lines -- with the Texas Governor calling for their arrest -- to prevent this illegitimate plan from being strong-armed into law. They have put their reputations and careers on the line for all of us. A letter below from State Senator Rodney Ellis explains the situation in detail. Please read it, and then please help us launch a hard-hitting ad campaign to fight back in Texas. Whether you donate $5 or $5000, you will be helping to hold accountable reckless leaders who think they can get away with anything.

The Texas special session that was called to gerrymander the Texas congressional districts ends early next week, and the pressure is building. These courageous leaders need to see real support now, or they won't be able to hold out.

Our numbers our great enough now to fight back effectively against these attacks on democracy. Please get even more people involved by forwarding this email to everyone you think would like to help.

Thanks,

--Zack and Wes
MoveOn.org PAC
August 20th, 2003

Well, dear Reader, Texas is, not surprisingly, a Republican-leaning state, and would have a majority of Republican congresspeople if the districts were drawn completely fairly by, say, a computer. District lines are never drawn fairly (gerrymandering is almost 200 years old) and in this case Democrats got the upper hand on the Republicans and succeeded in creating a 17-15 bias in favor of Democratic congressmen. In Texas! Where every statewide officeholder is a Republican.

So Republicans are trying to draw the lines 'fairly' according to the Republican Party of Texas.

All in all, completely legal ball on both sides (Republicans to try to draw the lines, Democrats to pull stunts like moving out of state to avoid voting).

I imagine the PR war will end up slightly in the Republicans' favor on this, though there is widespread disaffection among rank-and-file Democrats about "political tactics" such as these and the California recall (though, not surprisingly, those sentiments don't cover such de noveau developments like filibustering Federal court appointees.)

McDismal's

How much are they paying this guy for insights such as these?:

"Bathrooms are very important to customers"

McDonald's was founded on fast, decent food; attractive stores; and clean bathrooms. The US McDonald's have none of the three, while any overseas franchise usually gets all of them right.

Privacy Markets

Interesting piece from HBS on using markets to protect privacy, not regulation:

Q: What is the advantage to consumers to think of their identity/privacy in terms of being an asset? A: I want Amazon to know my identity, in particular my taste in books and music. I know that they respect the value of that knowledge so that the issue of sharing the data won't ever come up. I want American Airlines to know my flying habits and preferences because I want them to keep giving me the best service they can deliver in exchange for my commitment to fly them whenever I can. Consumers can achieve anonymity today by declining to join supermarket frequent shopper programs, but by so doing the average household pays $200 a year more for products. The points awarded by airline frequent flyer and hotel frequent guest programs, if redeemed, amount to discounts of 1 percent to 5 percent over the prices paid by non-subscribers. They also lose out on a variety of non-monetary benefits like recognition and preferential service that may matter more than money.

I believe this is a development that has simply been waiting for micropayments to catch up to it.

You've got another link coming

As part of an earlier post, Marc questioned the proper etiquette of linking to subscription-only Web sites. Not surprisingly, the world of bloggers has already generated a fair amount of digital ink on this very topic. In one relevant post from last year, Denis Howell at "Bag and Baggage" outlines some of the legal scuffling between online publications and people who link directly to the printer-friendly (read: ad-free) pages of those publications. She also provides a link to Declan McCullagh's Politech in which Slashdot's Robin Miller makes the case for linking "to ad-laden pages on commercial sites instead of directly to images or to pages that do not allow their publishers some benefit from our link to them." I tend to agree with Miller on this point, and I think the logical corollary to this proscribes the direct posting of content from subscription-only sites. Excerpts, maybe, but not full articles.

WWGD?

An extensive, intelligent, persuasive piece on Google's future from Seth Godin. I'm not typically too fond of paid talking heads or "futurists" (like Faith Popcorn or the Tofflers) but Godin always seems to come up with things that a) make sense and b) make me feel - -'gee, why didn't I think of that?'.

Unfortuantley, I already think some of his doomsaying comments are coming true:

It leads the A people to hire B people, who, of course, hire C people.

And there is this very simple rule:

The first rule of Permission Marketing is simple. After you’ve spread the ideavirus, after you’ve got people excited about you, ask if you can talk to them in a way that they want to be talked to.

Read the whole thing, it's excellent.

By Lobster Futures

The WSJ sets off a new fad for the idle rich today with an article on the tastiness of a 14.9 pound lobster.

p.s. What's proper ettiquette for blogging the Journal, since a paid subscription is required? Should I cut and paste the article here?

Would you like a Taedonggang Beer?

Since last summer, residents of North Korea's capital city have had a welcome respite from flood, famine, work camps and re-education: "Taedonggang Beer has a special taste and a high alcohol content. Its alcohol content is 5.7%. If you drink it without restraining yourself, you will get quite high."

August 23, 2003

Impose Martial Law Now

Vandals and saboteurs destroying property and flouting the law, amid a chaotic political environment. It's time to send in the troops to this troubled region.

August 22, 2003

stonelunch

Your hard-working authors enjoyed luncheon at Chanterelle Restaurant in TriBeCa today. Herewith a photographic record of the Stone editorial team at their sup.

We rarely rest in our pursuit of the truth, the odd, the root cause or the gateau. But when we do, we do it over unsalted butter from Devon and grilled Dorade. You can slumber secure in the knowledge that your Stones are well rolled-and-buttered.

August 21, 2003

No Tax Deductions on the Wagons Either

A reader writes with this morsel:

Dear Yahoo!: Do the Amish pay taxes? Dan Reno, Nevada

Dear Dan: Just like the rest of us, the Amish are not exempt from life's two certainties -- death and taxes. However, there is a reason behind the persistent myth that the Amish do not pay taxes. The Amish live within self-sufficient communities and do not collect Social Security, unemployment, or welfare benefits. According to their religious beliefs, paying Social Security, an insurance premium for the elderly, is tantamount to not "taking care of their own." Amish people who are self-employed are not obliged to pay Social Security tax, but they do still pay all other taxes, including property, income, and sales tax. If an Amish person decides to work outside of the community, he or she must also pay Social Security tax like any other American.

In 1955, the IRS extended the Social Security Act of 1935 to include farm operators. At the time, some Amish people immediately complied with the tax, while others conscientiously objected to it. Many felt that it violated the separation of church and state, some did not want to accept monies for government programs, and still others believed that paying a commercial insurance for the elderly went against their trust in God to take care of them.

The IRS and the Amish played a convoluted shell game for close to a decade, until it all came to a head with the seizure of a struggling farmer's horses in 1961. The Amish elders stuck firmly by their principles, and the ensuing media and community outrage over the incident led the IRS to relent four years later. Tucked away in the 1965 Medicare Bill was a clause exempting the "Old Order Amish" and other religious groups that conscientiously objected to paying insurance premiums from Social Security tax. To be exempt, the group or sect must have been established prior to 1950 and maintain reasonable provisions for their elderly.

Chaoteria names leader

Liberia, where nobody has liberty due to chaotic lawlessness, has named a new leader. But what does a businessman do in Liberia?

August 20, 2003

Sniper Sign Language

Useful.

Someday...

...it will be my birthday.

Lying: A Personal Account

Hilarious, if typical. Pious puffbag Al Franken, who's latest book is "Lies and the Lying Liars that Tell Them" is himself a liar when it is in his interests. Hypocrite.

A No-No Fails

Here's the first failed no-interest no-couponconvert offering I've seen. A weird interesection of interest rate environment and highly priced volaitlity enabled a few dozen companies to raise $100 mm from the sales of bonds that paid no interest and were issued at par. Yahoo! even got out of the gate with a $750 mm offering. Looks like the gate is shut.

Ignorance = Strength

Um, Gray, when over half the population votes you out consitutionally, how is that, um, like, a power grab? (Must be asked in that rising questioning tone of Caliornia teens, as in 'I went to the movies? And I saw Terminator?')

August 19, 2003

Did I mention?

Over.

Another reason I'm truly mystified...

...by the LookSmart bulls. This is a one-customer, one (old) trick pony, that's going nowhere. God help fools and LOOK longs.

Worth remembering

Our Business Now is North

Speech given by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins, 20 March 2003, Kuwait, near the Iraqi border.

"We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.

"There are some who are alive at this moment who will not be alive shortly. Those who do not wish to go on that journey, we will not send. As for the others I expect you to rock their world. Wipe them out if that is what they choose. But if you are ferocious in battle remember to be magnanimous in victory.

"Iraq is steeped in history. It is the site of the Garden of Eden, of the Great Flood and the birthplace of Abraham. Tread lightly there. You will see things that no man could pay to see and you will have to go a long way to find a more decent, generous and upright people than the Iraqis. You will be embarrassed by their hospitality even though they have nothing. Don't treat them as refugees for they are in their own country. Their children will be poor, in years to come they will know that the light of liberation in their lives was brought by you.

"If there are casualties of war then remember that when they woke up and got dressed in the morning they did not plan to die this day. Allow them dignity in death. Bury them properly and mark their graves.

"It is my foremost intention to bring every single one of you out alive but there may be people among us who will not see the end of this campaign. We will put them in their sleeping bags and send them back. There will be no time for sorrow.

"The enemy should be in no doubt that we are his nemesis and that we are bringing about his rightful destruction. There are many regional commanders who have stains on their souls and they are stoking the fires of hell for Saddam. He and his forces will be destroyed by this coalition for what they have done. As they die they will know their deeds have brought them to this place. Show them no pity.

"It is a big step to take another human life. It is not to be done lightly. I know of men who have taken life needlessly in other conflicts, I can assure you they live with the mark of Cain upon them. If someone surrenders to you then remember they have that right in international law and ensure that one day they go home to their family.

"The ones who wish to fight, well, we aim to please.

"If you harm the regiment or its history by over-enthusiasm in killing or in cowardice, know it is your family who will suffer. You will be shunned unless your conduct is of the highest for your deeds will follow you down through history. We will bring shame on neither our uniform or our nation.

"[Regarding the use by Saddam of chemical or biological weapons] It is not a question of if, it's a question of when. We know he has already devolved the decision to lower commanders, and that means he has already taken the decision himself. If we survive the first strike we will survive the attack.

"As for ourselves, let's bring everyone home and leave Iraq a better place for us having been there.

"Our business now is north."

Continuing Weakness

The New York Times reportscontinued weakness in its help-wanted revenue. Employment is a lagging indicator, but this is nonethelesss unwelcome news.

August 18, 2003

CEO Steals Company, Judge Approves

A bit of dirty work from this CEO. He founded the company, and is now stealing it for less than net cash on the books. Shame. Shame.

The Coming Evisceration of the Yellow Pages

Yellow Pages companies -- big, fat, ahppy cash cows, increasingly owned by LBO firms milking them for dough -- face a horrific threat from the search conglomerates as they move into local search. Watch them take it in the shorts, just like the newspapers.

Whack! (Part Two)

Because employers like CMGI are still retrenching.

p.s. In a two-part post like this should Part One be above (geographically prior to) or below (chronologically prior to) Part Two? A Guinness to the most off-topic answer at news * at * cenedella * com.

Whack! (Part One)

Headhunters are seeing a steep decline in the Boston area.

Bottomfeeders Blue Plate Special

Anybody looking for a search engine on the cheap should consider AltaVista at the top of their shopping list. With Yahoo! now owning Overture, Inktomi, FAST (Alltheweb.com) as well as its own homegrown search technology, if somebody came knocking and offered the right price, I bet Terry just might be interested in listenin'.

Score One for Stone

We beat GMSV on this angle -- Palm embarks on new brand-dilution strategy -- by a full workday (almost).

Weird

Well, I couldn't do it either:

Proof that the same side of our brain cannot do 2 different things at once...

While sitting at your desk make clockwise circles with your right foot.

While doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand.

Your foot will change direction.

Friends close, enemies closer

OK, well, on the one hand, who cares that former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler has been appointed as Queen Elizabeth's new representative in the southern Australian state of Tasmania? But on the other hand, it's a nice lesson in neutralizing political opponents with a smile. The job has the prestige of a plum diplomatic posting, but it also takes Butler off the screen as a vocal, knowledgeable critic of Tony Blair's support for the US invasion of Iraq, since Butler will have to stay out of political debates in his new role. It also happens that Butler supports Australia's growing republican movement, so now the Aussies don't have to worry about him in the capacity either.

Upgrade!

I've upgraded Stone from Movable Type version 2.51 to 2.64 this morning. This most recent version is three months old and so we'll hope that nothing funkizzy has crept into the code. Unfortunately, no upgrade for the present author was available. If you'd like to read the riveting account of version updates, here and here you go.

I Admit It, I Have a Problem

72 hours without e-mail is the longest I've gone since my trip to Ghana in 1998. This blackout plus weekend (unprepared and with dead batteries) left me feeling disoriented, disconnected and disabused as well.

Tool Wars

The recent round of consolidations, mergers, and innovation in the search engine business is spawning more and more cool tools, features, and sub-sites. There's probably a niche available for secializations as narrow as toolbar guy. Check out Google's and Teoma's as well.

Somehow beating Neasden, Milton Keynes and Slough...

The Evening Standard says that according to a new survey, Britain's capital is regarded by the rest of the UK as its favorite big city. I don't know why I'm wasting your time with a non-story like this, but I just like the incongruity. Seriously, even the newly rejuvenated northern party capitals like Manchester and Leeds are nowhere near the scale of London, which manages to be the UK's combined political, cultural and financial capital.

The groping governor

The Daily Mail of the UK has a story by a woman who wrote an unauthorized biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger. It's a good summary of his misbehavior: "Arnold has developed an apparent penchant for groping nubile young women."

Lileks again

This time on customer service:

Spent an hour on the phone with the DSL people. Not pretty. A Qwest operative from the department of Customer Calming gave me a ring to apologize for, well, everything. I appreciated that. I gave mad props, as the kids say, to the fellow who handled my call this morning, as well as the tireless efforts of Harold, the Dispatcher; Harold and I did a conference call that lasted for-fargin-ever as we attempted to get someone in COVAD to send out a tech to meet the Qwest guy. Yes, I know, I know - I said I had a tech coming today. Well, someone at Qwest saw that call on the daily roster, and thought “we can’t fix the wires for someone who doesn’t use us as an ISP - why, I must make a snap judgment based on nothing at all and cancel this service request.� This was relayed via answering machine. Hence my pique.

Deanspam

Howard Dean's been caught spamming. Notice the gestapo / cult / true believer comments of his supporters when any organization raises (legitimate) questions about the campaign.

Dumb

You have one of the most recognized brand names in gadgetry today, and for a title="Palm reveals new company name | CNET News.com" href="http://news.com.com/2100-1047_3-5064858.html?tag=fd_top">corporate control and structure reasons you decide to jettison it, confusing your customers and destroying brand equity. That's dumb. The juice:

Wall Street will also notice a change, as the familiar "PALM" ticker symbol will be replaced by PalmSource's "PSRC" and PalmOne's "PLMO."

1 stone = 6.35029318 kilograms

Our namesake band is
vending on the web. We should probably put up a link to capture the synergies.

Our emerging ally

I saw firsthand last year the emergence of China as a country with essentially Western predilections, a booming entrepreneurial and capitalist class, and the mqkings of an ally with effectively the same regional and global interests as the United States. These skirmishes, while hinting that backsliding is always possible, do bring the larger reality home -- China is more capitalist than Europe, willing to pursue its interests militarily, and gradually enshrining liberal democratic rights in its constitution and habits. The juice:

"Today's China is more capitalist than many capitalist societies," says Ding Xueliang, a professor of social science at Hong Kong's University of Science and Technology. "You cannot talk about it, but you can do it."

August 17, 2003

Faking it

A man, a plan, Photoshop! Check out the amazing differences in images under the designers scalpel (mouse?).

Get your thinking back inside the box

Using soldiers as freelance combat video game cameramen is a really, really bad idea.

Additionally, through a relationship with the Department of Defense, the game also will incorporate exclusive raw video shot by U.S. troops stationed in the relevant regions.

Opening up military policy to criticisms based on spurious profiteering claims is not in our national interest. And it's dumb.

Keeping things in perspective

Arnold has this sobering take on the pursuit of happines in his new land:

"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50m, but I was just as happy when I had $48m."

A Great Journalist

Tom Friedman's asking great questions in Iraq. The implications of this re-making of the Arab world, particularly the extent to which it will help us undo the (necessary) damage we inflicted during the Cold War by supporting bad allies in the great fight against communism, dazzle.

I'm waiting for the political class in Iraq to wake up and realize that having 3 or 4 huge American military bases in their country will:

Commoditization comes to the Street

Many firms are now asking themselves: why pay an analyst $2 million just because he has been around for 10 years and has been ranked by Institutional Investor when you could pay a smart, hungry kid with an M.B.A. $300,000 to do the same job?

Way, way, way over

flash mob, noun: An impromptu gathering, organized by means of electronic communication, of the unemployed.

August 14, 2003

BLACKOUT!!!!!

The Wall Street Journal:
NEW YORK -- A massive power blackout hit U.S. and Canadian cities Thursday, closing nuclear power plants in Ohio and New York state, driving workers in New York City and Toronto into the streets, and shutting subways in blistering heat. The blackout apparently was due to natural causes and there was no sign of terrorism, officials in New York and Washington said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was likely the blackout started in the Niagara Falls area and quickly spread.

Cubist Architecture

Edward Tufte is a genius.

Poppycock

Methodologically weak and spurios findings from the academic community.

Fakester

One of the reasons that Friendster isn't going to make it.

Deeply Cool

Check out how Google's new calculator works. It'll tell you the mass of the earth, convert tablespoons to liters, and more.

I'm Surprised They Haven't Surrendered Yet

Yahoo! News - In France, About 3,000 Die in the Heat.

Recursionary

Wow.

August 13, 2003

Shameless

The Napster tidbits
are so hot!

August 12, 2003

Can't beat a giant at giantism

This article on a start-up seeking to out-Google Google highlights a common stumbling block of start-up companies. Despite the mythology, you can't
actually beat the incumbents at their own game. They're too well-funded, well-staffed, and well-entrenched. The incumbent will always get the marginal business from the customer base.

In order to build a new dynasty, you have to pursue a market that is small, unprofitable, and different (strategically, economicall, or technologically) from the David in your space. I found religion on this after reading Clayton Christensen and seeing his speech at my fifth HBS reunion.

Cultural Missteps

This fahionista pulls off one of the all-time great cultural blunder of marketing. To be fair, I can actually imagine a Chinese, familiar with how the Japanese have white-washed their World War II atrocities not realizing the deeply negative resonance of the swastika to we inscrutable Westerners.

p.s. Also in the mitigating category is the widespread utilization of the thouasands-years-old swastika as a Buddhist symbol throughout Asia.

Something to grouse about

It's August 12 -the day known in British hunting circles as the Glorious Twelfth, as it traditionally marks the start of the grouse-hunting season. This year, it seems it's a bit too hot for the grouse to fly. This is hardly the first time the Brits have kicked off the season with a whinge instead of a bang, though:

1998 - BBC: "Bang Goes the Glorious Twelfth" (scarcity of birds)
1999 - BBC: "UK Glorious Twelfth Starts With A Whimper" (scarcity of birds again)
2001 - The Guardian: "Glorious Twelfth Hit By Foot and Mouth"
2002 - The Guardian: "Poor Weather Hits Grouse Numbers"

Etc... etc...

Inside the Overture Deal

Terry Semel's good. He waits and stalks Overture for a year before finally nailing down the deal.

MicroPayments

I had thought as long ago as 1996, that micropayments were an imminent feature of the web. Alack, it's not come to pass. Although I've never lookd -- isn't PayPal usable for micro-payments?

Bambi on the Ball

Bambi Francisco is the best writer to read on internet businesses. Here's a nice ditty on a pentathalon's worth of internet business start-ups.

MetaBlog stats

A cool utility site that crawls, trawls, and recalls the day's top links.

Let Me Count the Ways

The One Hundred Ways that the war in Iraq has made the world safer and better.

August 11, 2003

The Truth Dribbles Out

CareerBuilder's paying huge fixed upfront fees to AOL and MSN is my read on this story. The money quote:

"As the established leader in Internet recruiting, Monster wanted pay- for-performance terms that would have required Monster to pay mainly for new customers who actually used its services. But AOL wanted a large guaranteed payment up front for touting Monster to AOL members, he said. Moreover, the two couldn't agree on how to measure performance."

I Can't See Any Harm in That...

Headline says it all:

Unabomber Seeks Return of Papers, Bomb

Marc curses the darkness, I light a candle

Wh