| Beautiful Miss Idaho in LCHS Parade
Below, Family Phil's shot of historic downtown Wallace. BTW, Phil has a Little-Ears-Have-Big-Windows post here. *HBO's still trying to figure out what Stebbijo/Your Choice means by done-r here. *CDADave/Thin Air is trying out a new look as he prepares to return to the HBO blogosphere in a big way on Monday. He's asking folks what they think here. *Amy Crooks/That's Life. Life Goes On sounds as though she's been working hard for her money and not blogging too much here. *Marianne Love/Slight Detour has some fascinating historical info about Bonner County, including how Hoodoo Creek was formed and how Sagle got its name after losing out to Eagle in southern Idaho here. Also: Herb Huseland/Bay Views puts in his 2 cents about the inheritance tax here, Digital Fog has another fine parody here, ErinG/Idaho Native is getting nervous about the birth process here and Cis Gors/From A Simple Mind analyzes an online quiz she took here.
Business Digest
BSkyB bought the stake last November while cable operator NTL, since rebranded as Virgin Media, attempted a takeover of ITV. BSkyB’s acquisition of the ITV stake was referred to the commission following recommendations from the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom, the media regulator. The OFT said BSkyB’s stake posed a risk of a material reduction in strategic competition between the satellite broadcaster and ITV. Ofcom said concentration of news provision was an issue. The commission could order BSkyB, whose largest shareholder is News Corp, ultimate owner of The Sunday Times, to dispose of part or all of its stake. Activist’s bid for Bionostics THE activist fund-management group North Atlantic Value, led by Christopher Mills, is poised to launch a takeover bid for Bionostics, valuing the medical diagnostics firm at about £15m.
Alrosa attacks African diamond beneficiation
Diamond-miners are wolves; diamond-cutters are sheep. At least that's the way it has usually appeared to the governments of countries fortunate enough to supervise lucrative mineable diamond deposits. Expressed in terms of the diamond supply pipeline, the mark-up in value of diamond mine sales, compared to the costs of production at the minehead, can be a wolfish 500%. By contrast, the mark-up in value of the polished, which cutters realize in relation to the cost of the rough they buy, can be a sheepish 25%. Why, then, for the decade of the 1990s did Alrosa and the Russian government resist the advice of De Beers, and insist on preserving, indeed expanding, the domestic diamond-cutting industry? In those years, De Beers managing director Gary Ralfe never tired of telling his Russian counterparts that profitable mining companies don't make cost-efficient diamond manufacturers.
Trader Made Billions on Subprime
An index of those made in the first half of 2006 appeared in July 2006. The Paulson funds sold it short. The index weakened in the second half. By year end, the new Paulson Credit Opportunities Fund was up about 20%. Mr. Paulson started a second such fund. On Feb. 7, 2007, a trader ran into his office with a press release: New Century Financial Corp., another big subprime lender, projected a quarterly loss and was restating prior results. Once-complacent investors now began to worry. The ABX, which had begun with a value of 100 in July 2006, fell into the 60s. The new Paulson funds rose more than 60% in February alone. But as his gains piled up, Mr. Paulson fretted that his trades might yet go bad. Based on accounts of barroom talk and other chatter by a Bear Stearns trader, he became convinced that Bear Stearns and some other firms planned to try to prop the market for mortgage-backed securities by buying individual mortgages.
Direct marketing provides bright spot in Harte-Hanks’ Q3 results
Direct marketing company Harte-Hanks Inc. reported that operating revenue for the three months ended September 30 declined 2.7% for a total of $286.7 million. Net income dropped during the same period by 20.9% for a total of $21.9 million. Diluted earnings per share dropped 14.3% to $0.35 per share. During the nine-month period ended September 30, the company's revenues were down 1.3% for a total of $859.9 million. Diluted earnings per share during the same period were $0.87 compared to $1 for the 2006 nine-month period. The company's direct marketing revenue was up 4.1% during the third quarter. The direct marketing segment incurred approximately $1.6 million in restructuring costs in connection with flattening the organization to make it more efficient and bringing sales, marketing and operations closer to customers.
Injured Chargers limp to Foxborough after Rivers, Tomlinson are ...
Back on Sept. 16, a Sunday night game in the second week of the season, the Patriots were just getting started on their 16-0 run and blowing away anyone in their path. Their margin of victory dropped markedly in the second half of the season, but New England will still be 17-0 when it plays host to the Chargers next Sunday. "A lot's happened since then," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said after the Chargers beat the Colts to qualify for a trip to Foxborough and the AFC title game. "We'll definitely start all over on the preparations. It's like it's a new team." .
A new spin on internships
Students toil away on random projects for peanuts in exchange for workplace exposure and credit toward their degrees. Two years ago, David Frej and wife Nancy Lerner founded Brill Street to more systematically place interns and part-time college students with employers genuinely in need of their services. "There are a lot of internships out there that are not career-building, which is a waste for students who do not get paid," Frej said. "Companies also need a better way of tapping into the college work force without sifting through a bunch of resumes." After receiving $825,000 from angel investors (including $200,000 in founder's capital) in 2006, Brill Street recently closed on $2.75 million in its first institutional round of venture capital financing. Chicago-based OCA Ventures led the Series A round, which also included commitments from the Evanston-based Ceres Venture Fund and Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Tgap Ventures.
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