Pretty neat video of performance art using sand to make drawings.

Korean Performance Sand Art

] "There can be no reason for the board to support an offer
] to MCI owners that is substantially inferior to what
] Verizon has just agreed to pay for a non-control block of
] stock," Miller said in the letter, which was made public
] late Saturday. "Shareholders would be outraged if the
] Board did less than insist that the identical terms be
] made available to all other owners. That, of course,
] implies a higher value than the $25.72 cash price Mr.
] Slim will receive, since he will have the use of that
] cash shortly, while other MCI owners would have to wait
] until closing if Verizon offered the same price,
] including the same effective call option on Verizon's
] stock. Our rough calculation of the present value of what
] Verizon agreed to pay Mr. Slim, including the call, is in
] excess of $27.00."

How crazy this all is.

Brief recap:
* Qwest makes generous offer to buy MCI. MCI says No.
* Verizon makes low offer to buy MCI. MCI says Yes.
* Shareholders say Qwest. MCI says No. Shareholders say "lawsuit".
* Verizon makes a slightly better offer ($23.10/share). MCI says Yes.
* Qwest makes more generous offer ($27.50/share). MCI says No. Shareholders say WTF
* Verizon makes deal to buy 13% stake from prominent billionare investor (make the takeover easier). Offers $25.72 plus an option. MCI says... nothing. Shareholders say WTF.

Why is this significant? This is MCI executives probably behaving badly. MCI, the company known as Worldcom. What a shock. Here are the forces in motion: MCI shareholders, post bankruptcy, are value players who saw a buyout as inevitable and lucrative. They are looking for the best price. Qwest wants to buy MCI for its customer list -- and needs to have it to survive, so it will pay whatever it takes. Verizon sees big market assets cheap. MCI execs see themselves without jobs if Qwest buys, and sweet offers of something from Verizon. So, 20% premium be damned.

I think it was in really bad taste for Verizon to make this side offer. They want a voting block (13% is as big as they can get before the poison pills) to help the merger. But they can't sweet talk an investor out of an equity position -- not someone who lost in the debt-equity conversion post-scandal. So they had to make a reasonably attractive offer. Not like the one for the rest of the company.

It will be fun to watch the justifications for why they have a higher price for a non-majority share than the company. Or how the MCI people continue to say it is the best deal they could get for the company, despite the obvious evidence that they are selling it cheaper than the buyer is willing to pay. Gross.

Verizon's Slim Deal

] With him, as usual, was his indispensable new exercise
] toy: an iPod music player loaded with country and popular
] rock tunes aimed at getting the presidential heart rate
] up to a chest-pounding 170 beats per minute.
]
] Which brings up the inevitable question. What, exactly,
] is on the First iPod?

Yes, Fortunate Son is present.

NYT | White House Letter: Tunes for the Freewheelin' George Bush

] Google Sightseeing takes you to the best tourist spots in
] the world via Google's satellite imagery.

Google Sightseeing

A Photographic History of Michael Jackson's Face, with commentary.

We continue to ask the question.. What the fuck is Michael Jackson?

The History of Michael Jackson's face

] Ominously, Vieira continued by saying his "bottom line"
] for dealing with the Supreme Court comes from Joseph
] Stalin. "He had a slogan, and it worked very well for
] him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no
] problem,' " Vieira said.

Unbelievable! In very unmistakable terms, this guy advocated the assassination of federal judges. There is a certain disconnection from ethics and reality here that is truly terrifying.

Now, let me go out on a limb here.. After reading this, I feel pretty damn safe saying a radical thing or two. Hell, I feel driven to balance it out. Madness does beget madness.. You'd think that in comparison, it would be pretty hard to breech some line missed by Edwin Vieira. Google this guy and scan over a few items. In short, he is very unhappy with "the Establishment", and thinks that the dollar and the federal reserve system is a bad idea.

So, In a world where someone making purchases with two-dollar bills can be arrested on terrorism suspicions, are fools invoking Stalin and talking about "fixing" the judiciary the answer? I don't think so, and I'm pretty sure Jefferson would agree with me. Would it be acceptable for me to say that people like this should be rounded up and send to "education camps"? Shit, maybe that is the plan. After all this guy does have several college degrees, including a doctorate and a law degree, from Harvard no less.

On one page it said he argued the "last" case involving money the Supreme Court heard, quite awhile ago. I didn't look that hard for any information involving his cases before the court, but I get this image in my head of this guy arguing before the justices and thinking about how he wants to kill them..

This guy needs to get hip to the Conspiracy. Its much more fun than the Establishment. You can't prove it exists, but you can take part! If you build your delusions on something solid, like the Conspiracy, it offers much more personal freedom. Rather then fight the Establishment, join the Conspiracy! Start conspiring! That's how we made the dollar! ho ho ho..

We are all about the principles of the founding fathers in the Conspiracy. Edwin would like that. However, we are not about whacking judges or using Stalin as a role model. Edwin's world view is broken.

One man, one problem.

Eva, the socially interactive robot, is pretty damn cool. In 15 years, will these will be serving me lattes and muffins?

Movie of NASA's Socially Interactive Robot

] Hunter S. Thompson's ashes will be blasted from a cannon
] mounted inside a 53-foot-high (16.15 meter-high)
] sculpture of the journalist's "gonzo fist" emblem, his
] wife said Tuesday

] She said the gonzo fist will be mounted on a 100-foot
] pillar, making the monument 153 feet (46.63 meters) high.
] It will resemble Thompson's personal symbol, a fist on an
] upthrust forearm, sometimes with "Gonzo" emblazoned
] across it.

] Anita Thompson has said the monument will be a permanent
] fixture on the writer's 100-acre property.

Many explosions are planned.

CNN.com - Thompson's ashes to be shot from cannon - Apr 5, 2005

terratogen wrote:
] The satellite feature is pretty neat.

It sure is.. I was disappointed when MapQuest removed a similar feature. Google Maps is going to eat them alive.

Check this out.

RE: Google Maps

Warning, this is not a test. The world is flat. "Hello, my name is Rajiv, how can I help you?"

NYT | Friedman: It's a Flat World, After All