Hybrid Car Design Battles

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Norihiko Shirouzo & Jathon Sapsford:

A battle for power and influence is under way in the auto industry, as the basic technology under the hoods of mass-market cars goes up for grabs for the first time in nearly a century.
Amid soaring gasoline prices, car makers are rushing to use hybrid engines, which boost fuel efficiency by combining a traditional gasoline motor with an electric one. The result is a race among the world’s automotive giants that — like the VHS vs. Betamax brawl in the early days of videocassettes — could redraw the industry’s hierarchy and system of alliances for years to come.

1958 Edward R. Murrow Speech

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Edward R. Murrow:

Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about fifty or a hundred years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER.

via Xeni

Part-Time Entrepreneurs: www.cmbsweets.com

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Stephen Grocer:

Carolina Braunschweig, 28, worked as a reporter covering the venture-capital industry for Thomson Corp. in San Francisco. During that period, she also began contemplating the direction of her career and considering ways to supplement her modest reporter salary.

Ms. Braunschweig launched cmbsweets in June 2004, selling jams over the Internet at cmbsweets.com. Today her product line, which includes strawberry, boysenberry and olallieberry jams and apple-honey butter, is also sold in stores in New York, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bruce Springsteen’s Madison Concert Notes

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Bruce Springsteen’s acoustic concert tour stopped in Madison this evening. I found the event quite enjoyable. A few notes:

  • The 8:00p.m. event began at 8:20. He finished a great show 10:50.
  • The tour program was $20 (I offered 10)
  • T-Shirts were $45 while a coffee mug was $15.00
  • I purchased tickets (section 212) via ticketmaster the “moment” they were available. I understood that there would be 4,000 seats. That seems to have changed. I wonder how the seating distribution actually worked out?
  • I thought his performance was wonderful. His voice was powerful and he seemed to be quite engaged, mentioning that someone told him it had been 30 years since he performed (commercially) in Madison.
  • Mentioned he had not been invited to the White House lately – though he had been there some years ago, “when it was more fun”.
  • Former State Senate Majority Leader Chuck Chvala sat not far from our seats.
  • I was very impressed with the rather elegant lighting.
  • Springsteen mentioned a number of “almost stalkers” who follow him around, including one who passed along photos on top of various mountains with a Bruce Springsteen banner.
  • He also spoke briefly about what it’s like to be the “boss” ie rich (“Houses, money”)
  • He said he would be back with the E Street Band but when a fan asked for a date said that he did not know when it would be.
  • The crowd was a very interesting cross section of Madison area (I think) people. I’d say the average age was late 40’s to early 50’s.
  • Tickets were being sold outside the Coliseum for 40 to 45 each.

Springsteen appears next in Worcester, MA on October 20.

Tax Shelters: Miers to the Supreme Court While KPMG, etc. are Indicted?

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A rather amazing paradox: Harriet Mier’s Dallas law firm: Locke, Liddell & Sapp provided legal opinions for Ernst & Young’s tax shelters. The firm, unlike KPMG and it’s former partners, has not been indicted.
Allen Kenney has more (PDF):

“Ms. Miers was obviously not directly involved in the CDS opinions. Most otherwise sophisticated non-tax lawyers inside law firms wouldn’t be able to decipher what is or isn’t accurate in a lengthy tax opinion,” said Chuck Rettig, a tax litigator in the Beverly Hills, Calif., firm of Hochman, Salkin, Rettig, Toscher & Perez. “If [E&Y] approved something like CDS, it was historically unlikely to be significantly questioned by other professionals.”
However, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee might be forced to consider whether Locke’s involvement with the opinion letters affects Miers’s fitness to serve on the country’s highest court. President Bush has emphasized her experience managing a major law firm in defending her nomination.
“She had the opportunity to have her ethical antennas tweaked here,” said Paul Caron, a tax law professor at the University of Cincinnati and the operator of the popular “TaxProf Blog” Web site. “Those ethical antennas were, perhaps, not as sensitive that they should have been.”
One item on the Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire for Miers asks her to disclose if her firm has been subject to any investigations: “State whether, to your knowledge, you or any organization of which you were or are an officer, director, or active participant has ever been under federal, state, or local investigation for a possible violation of any civil or criminal statute or administrative agency regulation.” Another item asks Miers to provide the committee with any “unfavorable information that may affect your nomination.”