The creator of the popular online file-swapping software BitTorrent has lined up $8.75 million in financing from a venture capital firm in a bid to build his software into a commercial distribution tool for media companies.

BitTorrent Lands $8.75 Million in Funding - Yahoo! News

After a gap of three decades in orders for nuclear power plants, two companies interested in building new ones announced Thursday that they had formed a partnership intended to create a new business model for the industry.

Its about time something starts happening in the nuclear energy space again. its time to build new plants and decommission old ones.

Partnership Formed to Build Nuclear Plants

At first glance, auction giant eBay and net phone firm Skype seem to have little in common apart from the fact that both do almost all of their business online.

I figured Google would have picked up Skype. Screw first glance, this does seem strange. It seems like a big stretch out of eBay's space. The deal was worth $2.6 billion. They couldn't have built what Skype has for a fraction of that? That seems like an insane valuation. The Skype name isn't worth that much. 53 million users isn't worth that much to someone who already has 100 million users and a $51 billion market cap. Skype must have something else going on in development we don't know about. To put this in perspective, the deal for Paypal was only valued at $1.5 billion.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Portal bid drives eBay Skype deal

BEIJING (AP) -- China dropped its politically volatile policy of linking its currency to the U.S. dollar but retained controls on its exchange rate, switching the link to a basket of foreign currencies in a move that could push up the price of Chinese exports to the United States and Europe.

China dumps dollar in favor of basket of currencies

The News Corporation, making one of its largest bets on the Internet, announced today that it is paying $580 million in cash to acquire Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles-based company whose chief asset is MySpace.com, a Web site that is enjoying surging popularity with young audiences.

News Corporation to Acquire Intermix for $580 Million - New York Times

Bernard Ebbers, the folksy entrepreneur who built WorldCom Inc. into a telecommunications giant, was sentenced on Wednesday to 25 years in prison for his role in the business fraud that led to the largest U.S. corporate bankruptcy.

The sentence means Ebbers, 63, could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Now when does something finally happen to Lay and Skilling?

Ex-WorldCom CEO Ebbers sentenced to 25 yrs

Decius wrote:
An odd thought occurs to me as I contemplate this. How do you kill a scene? How do scenes actually die? Scenes die because they cease to be cool. Because they get coopted by the thing they exist to resist, so that participating in them no longer means what it once did. Because the Gap opens up on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. Because the gangster rappers have million dollar video budgets and all drive luxury cars. If there is anything that can take the cultural iconography of radical islam and shuck it of any possible meaning it is our consumer marketing system. Jihadi Cola, indeed.

This idea seems too trite to be reasonable. Its the sort of thing Gibson would use for irony. Maybe you can offer a better one...

Here is another thing Gibson could use for irony:

Despite their differences, most major world religions warn that attachment to fleeting material objects is an obstacle to spiritual transcendence. Therefore, religious fundamentalists, who try to strictly follow the tenets of divine scripture, ought to care little for worldly possessions like cars and clothing, says Nancy Wong, assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Tech College of Management.

However, fundamentalists actually tend to form strong personal connections with particular product brands, according to a new study conducted by Wong in partnership with Aric Rindfleisch, associate professor of marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and James E. Burroughs, assistant professor of commerce at the University of Virginia.

Dr. Nancy Wong is cute.

Study: Religious Fundamentalists and Brand Loyalty

Chinese state-controlled oil and gas company CNOOC Ltd. is waging a high-stakes public relations campaign to focus its bid for U.S. energy producer Unocal Corp. on shareholder value, and away from politics.

Even before making public its $18.5 billion for Unocal last week, competing with a $16.6 billion deal with Chevron Corp., members of Congress sent President Bush a letter warning him of the threats posed by China's "pursuit of world energy resources."

"This is a commercial deal, a commercial bid from one New York Stock Exchange listed company to another New York Stock Exchange listed company designed to improve shareholder value for both," said Mark Palmer, a managing director at Public Strategies Inc. of Austin, Texas, one of two public relations firms hired by CNOOC.

Paul Krugman thinks we should be worried about this.

Two things that have been said often apply here. First, Chinese foreign policy consists of one word: oil. Second, its likely that any conflicts with China would be fought out on an economic battlefield.

So what does everything think? Should we be concerned about this?

CNOOC: Unocal Bid Not About Politics - Yahoo! News

It is known, somewhat deceptively, as a cooperative advertising agreement. In plain terms, it means that many of the books on display at the front of a store or placed face out at the end of an aisle are there because the publisher paid for them to be there, not necessarily because anyone at the bookstore thought the book was noteworthy or interesting.

Pay-for-display programs are nothing new in the retail world, but the practice seems less savory in bookselling, where bookstore owners and managers were once assumed to serve as an editorial presence, recommending and featuring books they liked.

Co-op advertising has acquired a reputation as a kind of dirty secret of the publishing business.

In many Barnes & Noble superstores, about 70 percent of the books on front-of-store tables are there because co-op money secures their spot.

While publishers disagree about the merits of paying for display, one thing about the arrangements is clear: they further concentrate money and attention on the books that need it least.

The phenomenon has been called the reverse Robin Hood effect.

The bookselling business has fallen prey to the blockbuster, too.

Cash Up Front

I am not worried about the rise of the cultural conservatives. I am worried about the disappearance of an internationalist, pro-American business elite.

C.E.O.'s, M.I.A.