The Mini Cooper Clubman: Fast, Fun, and Hard-to-Find

The Mini Cooper Clubman: Fast, Fun, and Hard-to-Find: "BMW's sporty but fuel-efficient Mini Coopers are among the hottest cars on the market right now. The company's plant in Oxford, England, is running 24/7 and still can't keep up with demand. Jim McDowell, vice-president of the Mini Division, recently told Automotive News magazine that U.S. Mini Cooper dealers are out of cars and will be mainly selling pre-ordered units for the rest of the model year. So, unless you get lucky and find an '08 Mini Cooper on a dealer's lot, your best option is to sign up now for an '09 model that won't be delivered until this fall."

Honda Goes Green and Sporty

Honda Goes Green and Sporty: "One of the big attention grabbers at the 2008 British International Motor Show is Honda's low-emission sportscar dubbed OSM (for Open Study Model). The open top two seater design out of the company's R&D facility in Offenbach, Germany, is being shown alongside the CR-Z sports hybrid which was unveiled at Tokyo last year and the Honda Honda FCX Clarity which is being produced in Japan and available in the US under a lease plan. While a version of the CR-Z has been confirmed for production, there are no plans to bring the OSM online anytime soon."

Google Moves to Reinvent Transportation

Google Moves to Reinvent Transportation: "Google is also betting that the future of transportation will be networked and controlled via software, just like our laptops and gadgets. And not just connected via the Internet, but through the network of the power grid, too. Rolf Schreiber, an engineer with RechargeIT, says that beyond these initial investments, Google is also looking to back companies that build software that can control the rate at which plug-in vehicles charge. And much the way Google has built a business of providing information via the web, the company could add its broadband expertise to the future of connected transportation. Schreiber, for example, recently completed a test of Google's own, in-house plug-in vehicles, using wireless communications and GPS to determine that the cars are getting more than 93 miles per gallon."

Merrills Fire Sale May Burn Other Firms - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times

Merrills Fire Sale May Burn Other Firms - Mergers, Acquisitions, Venture Capital, Hedge Funds -- DealBook - New York Times: "Will Merrill Lynch’s latest mark-downs spell trouble for other investment banks? That was one big question on Wall Street after Monday’s surprise announcement that Merrill was selling a big pile of risky assets at a deep discount."

Can America Go Bankrupt? - Capital Commerce (usnews.com)

Can America Go Bankrupt? - Capital Commerce (usnews.com): "Can America Go Bankrupt?
July 29, 2008 12:51 PM ET | James Pethokoukis | Permanent Link

Let's see here: $500 billion budget deficits, the possibility of a $500 billion bank bailout in 2009, and exploding entitlement costs. Surely, this can't be good. My pal Arnold Kling doesn't think so:

Think of the U.S. government as the world's biggest hedge fund. One thing a hedge fund does is engage in credit arbitrage. When you can borrow risk-free, you can make a profit holding risky assets. That is what Congress is hoping will happen with the Freddie-Fannie bailout. We have grown accustomed to the assumption that the risk of default of U.S. government liabilities is zero. That in turn allows Congress to act like the biggest hedge fund on the block. Consider the long-term obligations of the U.S. government: Social Security, Medicare, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, public employee pension plans. Add to those the risks of the securities that the government is effectively choosing to guarantee in the Bear Stearns merger, the Freddie-Fannie prop-up, and other steps that are being taken or will be taken in the mortgage and financial market. It seems to me that in order to achieve short-term stability we are piling on long-term fragility.... If people do not have confidence in the long-"

New IBM tool analyzes code for mistakes as it's written

New IBM tool analyzes code for mistakes as it's written: "IBM's Rational Software unit today unveiled a development tool that can scan and check code as it's written to uncover errors before they make their way further into the development life cycle where fixes are far more costly.

The IBM Rational Software Analyzer automatically scans the new code up to 700 times before an application is complete. Its operation is similar to the grammar check function in Microsoft Word, according to IBM."

Microsoft Calls Forrester's Windows Vista Report 'Schizophrenic' -- Microsoft -- InformationWeek

Invoking a common misnomer for multiple personality disorder, a Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) blogger called IT research group Forrester "schizophrenic" for publishing a report on Windows Vista that Microsoft claims contradicts previous Forrester reports on the beleaguered operating system.