Dvorak News Blog

DH Unplugged #70
China Syndrome

By John C Dvorak Tuesday June 22, 2010

5 Comments

Here is the latest conversation I had with money manager Andrew Horowitz…. new insights for anyone who invests in anything. This week the market goes through gyrations because of China and its currency..

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Aussie Bees Implicated in US Bee Decline

By honeyman Tuesday June 22, 2010

11 Comments

SYDNEY: A virus, potentially imported from Australia, has been identified as the likely cause of a mysterious blight that has decimated honey bee populations across the USA.
[…]
“Our extensive study suggests the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) may be a potential cause of colony collapse disorder,” said one of the experts behind the discovery, epidemiologist W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University in New York. “Our next step is to ascertain whether this virus – alone or in concert with other factors such as microbes, toxins and stressors – can induce CCD in healthy bees.
[…]
The virus, first isolated by Israeli researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2002, includes symptoms such as shivering wings, progressive paralysis and bees dying outside the hive – some of which have been linked to CCD.

Another twist in the tale links the appearance of CCD with potentially IAPV-infected bees from Australia. The researchers said that all of the beekeeping operations in the study that were infected with IAPV had imported bees from Australia or come into contact with them – while none of the uninfected hives had.

Bees had been imported from Australia to bolster pollination efforts following a shortage in 2004, the same year that CCD started to take hold.

Another great Australian export. Killer bees.

DU Poll: Should General McChrystal Resign?

By Uncle Dave Tuesday June 22, 2010

86 Comments

He’s meeting with Obama and Biden tomorrow and offered to resign.

Barack Obama will confront General Stanley McChrystal at the White House tomorrow as he decides whether to sack the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan over disparaging and “contemptuous” remarks about senior administration officials, including the president himself.

The White House said “all options are on the table” after an “angry” Obama summoned McChrystal to Washington to explain quotes in the latest issue of Rolling Stone magazine in which the general and his senior aides accuse the US ambassador to Afghanistan of undermining the war, call the president’s national security adviser “a joke” and mock Joe Biden, the vice-president. There is also indirect criticism of the president as “uncomfortable and intimidated” by senior military officials.

Obama said he is considering McChrystal’s future. “I think it’s clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed poor judgment. But I also want to make sure I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions,” he said.

Read the Rolling Stone article that started all this:

‘How’d I get screwed into going to this dinner?” demands Gen. Stanley McChrystal. It’s a Thursday night in mid-April, and the commander of all U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan is sitting in a four-star suite at the Hôtel Westminster in Paris. He’s in France to sell his new war strategy to our NATO allies – to keep up the fiction, in essence, that we actually have allies. Since McChrystal took over a year ago, the Afghan war has become the exclusive property of the United States. Opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany’s president and sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him.

A separate question is assuming he has to go, should he be fired instead of being allowed to resign? Another one, of course, is McCrystal being impolitic, but right in his statements?

The Envelope of Shame, Or If You’re Tiger Woods, A Basket Full Of ‘Em

By Uncle Dave Tuesday June 22, 2010

23 Comments

So, women who cheat are exempt? And what business is it of a government to pry into people’s lives like this? Next step: branding.

Sweden’s justice minister Beatrice Ask wants families to know if their husbands or fathers are suspected of buying sex and has proposed that coloured-coded envelopes be sent to their homes.

“It is a little like being shamed on the town square,” the government minister said at a seminar on Thursday.

Ask made her controversial statements at a parliament seminar on prostitution on Thursday, saying that a sex-buyer’s family and friends should be informed.

“I could imagine having envelopes in a very garish colour and sending them home to people suspected of this offence,” she said.

Ask argued that naming and shaming sex-buyers would be an effective deterrent.

“I think that the worst thing which can happen to many of them who are out there buying sex, is that someone in their circles finds out about it,” said Ask. […] “In practice maybe we can’t have coloured envelopes, but we have to show who they are and let those around them know,” she said to the newspaper.

Found by Brother Uncle Don

Google Voice Free-for-All

By John C Dvorak Tuesday June 22, 2010

7 Comments

Dell going private is still in the news.
CNET calls out Microsoft.
IBM getting into mortgage processing. Why?
Best Buy coming out with media display.
Google voice now open to the whole world. What a deal!
Nintendo opens to idea of 3D console.
Apple sells 3 million in 80 days.
Apple shipping iPhone 4 early.
Electronic license plate ads coming.
Old ladies drive better than you.

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No Agenda #210
Medical Marijuana

By John C Dvorak Monday June 21, 2010

15 Comments

This Episode’s Executive Producer: Michael Fesig
Art by: BFF

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June Swoon

By John C Dvorak Monday June 21, 2010

4 Comments

Too many boring stories about Apple iOS4.
E-readers drop below $200.
Summer at Stonehenge.
Xbox Kinect looks to be a winner, for the short term. Xbox has become a cult machine.
IPhone 4 orders canceled.
Toshiba back on the Libretto track.
Google music search?
Dell going Chrome.
Motorola Droid phone going gangbusters.
The Space Shuttle should stay flying says astronaut.
New Xbox cools itself better.
Stop the presses. Verizon FiOS month-by-month.

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Amazon Forced to Slash Price of Kindle to $189

By hhopper Monday June 21, 2010

27 Comments

Business Insider

Amazon has cut the price of the Kindle by $70 to $189 in response to Barnes & Noble’s Nook price cut and, probably, Apple’s iBooks threat.

A WiFi only Nook is still cheaper at $150, but for the extra $40, it’s worth having an always on 3G wireless connection.

The 3G Nook is $199, which is more expensive than the Kindle.

At $189, there’s almost no reason to buy a Nook, which means…we can probably expect ANOTHER price cut from Barnes & Noble.

There’s nothing like a price war for consumers.

Betcha Can’t Wait Until Your State Gives You An Ad-Revenue Generating License Plate!

By Uncle Dave Monday June 21, 2010

48 Comments

Let’s have a contest. Who can think of the most creative way this could go wrong?

As electronic highway billboards flashing neon advertisements become more prevalent, the next frontier in distracted driving is already approaching — ad-blaring license plates.

The California Legislature is considering a bill that would allow the state to begin researching the use of electronic license plates for vehicles. The move is intended as a moneymaker for a state facing a $19 billion deficit.

The device would mimic a standard license plate when the vehicle is in motion but would switch to digital ads or other messages when it is stopped for more than four seconds, whether in traffic or at a red light. The license plate number would remain visible at all times in some section of the screen.
[…]
“We’re just trying to find creative ways of generating additional revenues,” he said. “It’s an exciting marriage of technology with need, and an opportunity to keep California in the forefront.”

Where’s Some Of Flagrant Regulation Violator BP’s Cleanup Funds Coming From? Our Military (ie, Taxpayers).

By Uncle Dave Sunday June 20, 2010

60 Comments

Admittedly, not a surprise.

There’s one aspect of the BP story that most of those angry residents of the Gulf states aren’t aware of. And the president hasn’t had a thing to say about it.

Even as the tar balls hit Gulf beaches, their tax dollars are subsidizing BP and so far, Obama has not shown the slightest indication that he plans to stop their flow into BP coffers, despite the recent call of Public Citizen, a watchdog group, to end the nation’s business dealings with company.
[…]
While the president has been on the verbal warpath, the US military has – with little notice – continued to carry on a major business partnership with BP, despite the company’s poor environmental record.
[…]
In 2009, according to the Defense Energy Support Center, the military awarded $22.5 billion in energy contracts. More than $16 billion of that went to purchasing bulk fuel. Some 10 top petroleum suppliers got the lion’s share, more than $11.5 billion, among them big names like Shell, Exxon Mobil and Valero. The largest contractor, however, was BP, which received more than $2.2 billion – almost 12% of all petroleum-contract dollars awarded by the Pentagon for the year.

While one exceptionally powerful department of the federal government has been feeding money into BP (and other oil giants) with abandon, BP has consistently run foul of US government regulators from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

According to the Center for Public Integrity, “BP account[ed] for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the [oil] refining industry by government safety inspectors over the past three years.”

WTF? Police Taser Guy for Not Wearing Seatbelt. Courts Says It’s OK.

By John C Dvorak Saturday June 19, 2010

41 Comments

A federal appeals court reversed itself Friday and dismissed a lawsuit by a Southern California man who was Tasered by a police officer after being stopped for not wearing a seat belt.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco had initially ruled in Carl Bryan’s case in December, saying police must have reasons to believe a suspect is dangerous before firing a Taser and can’t use the weapon merely because the person is disobeying orders or acting erratically.

The court reaffirmed that conclusion Friday, setting legal standards for excessive-force suits against police who use stun guns in the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdiction of California and eight other Western states.

But the three-judge panel also said – contrary to its previous decision – that the laws governing Tasers were unclear at the time of the incident and the officer would not necessarily have known that he was violating Bryan’s rights.

You know how they always say that ignorance of the law is no excuse? Well apparently it is an excuse for cops.

Sexting Isn’t Just For Kids (Who Need To Get Off My Lawn!!!)

By Uncle Dave Saturday June 19, 2010

19 Comments

Teenagers aren’t the only ones sending racy pictures and text messages over their cell phones. Believe it or not, the AARP says “sexting” is catching on with the 50-and-up crowd.

Debbie Nigro is 52 and started getting “sext” messages a couple years ago.

“The world is becoming ageless. There is no expiration date on sexy. There just isn’t,” said Nigro, who runs FirstWivesWorld.com, a group she helped create for divorced women. She told CBS 2 HD with so many out there, sexting is becoming a lot more popular.

“Women in particular are crashing that middle age stereotype. And divorce, being what it is in this country right now, has half the population out dating right now at a much older age than they’d ever imagined,” said Nigro.

She said it’s a lot more common than one might think, since folks don’t run around talking about it. She said it’s important not to cross the line of respect, and that sensuous talk is a lot better than blatant sexual messages. But have fun.

“The only difference between being 50 and sexting and being 20 and sexting is you need reading glasses to see what the heck they’re saying,” she said.

Education trend: Prevent Children from Having a “Best Friend.”

By John C Dvorak Saturday June 19, 2010

27 Comments

Educators want group-centric friendships

But increasingly, some educators and other professionals who work with children are asking a question that might surprise their parents: Should a child really have a best friend?

Most children naturally seek close friends. In a survey of nearly 3,000 Americans ages 8 to 24 conducted last year by Harris Interactive, 94 percent said they had at least one close friend. But the classic best-friend bond — the two special pals who share secrets and exploits, who gravitate to each other on the playground and who head out the door together every day after school — signals potential trouble for school officials intent on discouraging anything that hints of exclusivity, in part because of concerns about cliques and bullying.

“I think it is kids’ preference to pair up and have that one best friend. As adults — teachers and counselors — we try to encourage them not to do that,” said Christine Laycob, director of counseling at Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis. “We try to talk to kids and work with them to get them to have big groups of friends and not be so possessive about friends.”

“Parents sometimes say Johnny needs that one special friend,” she continued. “We say he doesn’t need a best friend.”

That attitude is a blunt manifestation of a mind-set that has led adults to become ever more involved in children’s social lives in recent years.

Reading this article it appears as if there is a movement afoot to create a collectivist mentality in children under the guise of preventing bullying — the great bugaboo of the day. Children should not have best friends but be “group” oriented loners say these counselors. No mention as to how this actually encourages gang behavior.

found by Tanya Weiman