Barry Bonds Grand Jury Testimony

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Lance Williams, Mark Fainaru-Wada for the 2nd day reveal grand jury testimony in the BALCO case. This time, it’s Barry Bonds:

Barry Bonds told a federal grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by the Burlingame laboratory now enmeshed in a sports doping scandal, but he said he never thought they were steroids, The Chronicle has learned.
Federal prosecutors charge that the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, known as BALCO, distributed undetectable steroids to elite athletes in the form of a clear substance that was taken orally and a cream that was rubbed onto the body.

It will be interesting to see how Milwaukee based commissioner Bud Selig deals with this…..

Broadband Shackles, or the power of telco lobbying

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David Isenberg references a broadband report that tells us that Japan, with half the population has about 10 times as many fiber to the home installations as the US.
At the same time, naturally, entrenched telcos are successfully lobbying to kill local givernment’s ability to deploy municipal broadband services. This is bad news all around. SBC certainly has not been rushing to bring Wisconsin broadband services up to 21st century standards. Nope, we’re stuck in the 1990’s here. Jonathan Kim takes a look at the telco lobbying… Xeni has many links on Philadelphia’s plans to offer free or low cost wifi access and the deal that Verizon cut with Ed Rendell, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor to give them the right to veto any other municipal broadband plans.

Fred Alger: A Call for Energy Independence

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This New York Investment Firm sent this letter to President Bush, advocating a change in US energy policy and taxes. Alger’s proposal makes sense:

“Beginning in 2008, any car or SUV that cannot meet a fuel efficiency standard of 30 miles per gallon will have to pay a tax of $1,000 per year.” And the tax could generate “as much as $200 billion in revenue” in its first year, and “may increase in subsequent years,” the letter says. The money management firm says that one of the biggest issues for Americans is the soaring price of gasoline and that the prospects for lower gas prices are not likely due to increasing demand from U.S. consumers, as well as soaring demand from nations such as China and soon from India. Alger asked President Bush to set a national goal of cutting gasoline consumption in half over the next 10 years. This, they say, needs to be adopted quickly in order to reduce America’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil, which “allows U.S. motives to be questioned, fairly or not. Reducing gasoline consumption and increasing our energy independence will enhance not only our economic and military security but also ensure that the legitimacy of our foreign policy is not undermined by our energy needs.”

Read the enter document [278K PDF]

Virginia Postrel on Life in a Declining Industry

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She writes:

This long American Journalism Review article on troubles at the LA Times made me think about the question media critics consistently dodge: What strategies are realistically available when you’re caught in a declining industry, which the metropolitan daily newspaper most assuredly is? How do you sell localism–local news, local advertising, locally produced articles on national subjects–in a market saturated with cheap substitutes whose quality has been tested in national competition? What niche can you fill?

Frank Ahrens has more on the recent circulation scandals.