The Supreme Court may soon have its own YouTube channel if the Senate gets its way.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday that would require the Supreme Court to televise its proceedings.

The measure, SB 1945, orders the Supreme Court to “permit television coverage of all open sessions of the court.” The bill, which now needs approval from the full Senate, allows a majority of the nine justices to override the legislation if a “particular case would constitute a violation of the due process rights of one or more of the parties before the court.”

Bill Opening Supreme Court to Cameras Heads to Senate Floor

DETROIT (AP) - General Motors Corp. will run out of cash long before the end of the first quarter if it doesn't get the second installment of government loan money that was due Jan. 16, the company's chief operating officer said Tuesday night.

Fritz Henderson told the Automotive News World Congress in Detroit that the company has said the money is critically needed to pay its bills, and it expects to get the second installment soon. He attributed the delay in receiving the second installment of $5.4 billion to the Treasury Department's workload and the change in administrations.

"If we don't get our second installment of the funding we'll run out of cash, it's that's simple," he said. "We've been finalizing what we need to do. We anticipate receiving it. But it's critical that we receive it."

GM official says cash could run out by March 31

Boeing (BA, news, msgs), beset by repeated snarls that have delayed commercial deliveries of its 787 Dreamliner into early 2010, is rethinking the global outsourcing model that critics say has caused much of the nearly two-year holdup. The company is making plans to bring more work back in-house.

Frustrated by production and design snafus that Boeing engineers say have led the company repeatedly to send staffers out to suppliers to iron out difficulties, the company's top executives are suggesting they will rely less on their outside suppliers.
...
While the forthcoming version of the Dreamliner, the 787-8, may be affected by the plans over time, efforts to scale back on outsourcing are expected to be more aggressive on future versions of the plane, especially the 787-9, scheduled for delivery in 2012.

Big changes for Boeing's Dreamliner

today Diebold, a company once known primarily for making safes and ATMs, announced that it has decided to put some distance between it and its beleaguered voting machine division -- Diebold Election Systems Inc, (aka DESI), which the company purchased from Global Election Systems in 2002.

The company said that after failing to find a buyer for its voting machine business, it was changing the name of the division to Premier Election Solutions Inc (or PESI) and was giving it more "independence" by establishing a separate board of directors to run it.

Diebold to Change Its Name | Threat Level from Wired.com

NEW YORK (AP) -- E-Trade Financial Corp. shares spiked 25 percent Friday on continued speculation the struggling online brokerage might negotiate a takeover by chief rivals TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. or Charles Schwab Corp.

There's no doubt the companies have been interested in exploring a potential deal for the past few years. And, recent comments made by Ameritrade Chief Executive Joe Moglia about his interest in buying at least part of E-Trade has sparked expectations that more serious talks might have evolved.

E-Trade shares spike 25% on takeover talk

While politicians and the U.S. Census Bureau may disagree on how many illegal aliens are living in the United States, the big credit reporting agencies have a pretty solid handle on the number and it is 17 million. That's 17 million adults of unproved nationality who have ongoing financial relationships with businesses or — believe it or not — governments. It's likely that there is some duplication in this total number, that is an illegal alien who is counted twice because he has, for example, a different relationship with his electric utility than he does with his phone company. But since the 17 million figure doesn't include children, the two are likely to wash out and 17 million is probably pretty darned close to the real number. But it isn't in any way close to the total number of U.S residents who have financial identities not tied to a Social Security number. That would be 37 million, meaning there are 20 million participants in the U.S. gray economy who aren't illegal, who are legitimate citizens. This means about 10 percent of U.S. residents are financially invisible, or think they are.
..

Which brings me, as usual lately, to Google.

Google?

Stick with me, because this is good.

Getting to Know You: Think you have a secret life? Think again.

] But something smells funny. Why would Blofeld, er, Bill
] Gates fold? He's got all the cards. And then it hits me -
] I've seen this movie before. The camera pulls back to
] reveal a giggling Gates. He ain't playin' macho Texas
] hold 'em; he's carefully playing chess and has just made
] another calculated move to protect Microsoft's position.
]
] The open source dudes freak, insisting McNealy sold them
] out to save Sun. And they're probably right, but they
] have to look at the whole board to recognize that McNealy
] is just a measly pawn in a bigger game.
]
] Gates has a history of investing in companies with inept,
] bumbling management to keep them in business and provide
] flanking protection for Microsoft's monopolistic
] backside.

Good article how Microsoft is supporting the dieing businesses to
keep the Govt off there back.

Microsoft is supporting some of the industry

] In a surprise move, Gateway today
] says it will acquire privately held eMachines for $235
] million in stock and cash. The deal comes one day after
] Gateway reported a $114-million net loss, or 35 cents per
] share, on sales of $875 million for the quarter ended
] Dec. 31, 2003.
] EMachines is clearly doing something right. With 130 employees, the company
] is generating $8.4 million in sales per employee. Gateway, on the other
] hand, with a headcount of 7,500, is generating about $453,000 per head.
] That may indicate cuts ahead at Gateway once Inouye takes over.

I hope each and every employee at Emachine is a millionaire.

Forbes.com: Gateway's EMachines Buy May Help It Survive

] Among other things, the documents indicate that for
] internal IBM accounting purposes, a programmer in China
] with three to five years experience would cost about
] $12.50 an hour, including salary and benefits. A person
] familiar with IBM's internal billing rates says that's
] less than one-fourth of the $56-an-hour cost of a
] comparable U.S. employee, which also includes salary and
] benefits.

IBM Data Give Rare Look at Sensitive 'Offshoring' Plans - Jan. 19, 2004

] One of Warren Buffett's companies is fighting charges it
] helped a customer cook its books.
]
] For insurance gumshoes it's as improbable a scenario as
] finding a man with a smoking gun standing over a corpse.
] The scam is for a company to lend money to another but
] call it "insurance" instead so the borrower doesn't have
] to put debt on its balance sheet. The problem is, the
] perpetrators are usually smart enough not to put any
] incriminating stuff in writing.

Berkshire Hathaway unit accused of fraud