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Fed Sends Signal with Deep Cut to Interest Rate

The Federal Reserve, confronted with a global stock sell-off fanned by increased fears of an American recession, cut a key interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point on Tuesday, the biggest one-day move by the central bank in recent memory.

The Fed said it was cutting the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other on overnight loans, to 3.5 percent, down by three-fourths of a percentage point from 4.25 percent.

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The Writers Strike

The studios and the guild prepare for a long work stoppage. They remain far apart on Internet residuals.
By Richard Verrier and Claudia Eller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
November 5, 2007
Hollywood 's film and television writers went on strike early this morning after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a deal with the major studios failed Sunday. Despite the aid of a federal mediator and back-channel talks between top writers and studio executives, the sides were ultimately too far apart to bridge the massive divide between them and avert the first writers strike in nearly two decades. After three months of contentious negotiations, talks broke down Wednesday night when the writers' three-year contract expired. Although they made minimal headway on some issues Sunday, the parties could not come to terms on such key issues as how much writers are paid when their shows are sold online.

The question now is no longer whether or when they will strike, but how long a walkout will last and how much pain it will inflict.
Both sides are girding for what many believe will be a long and debilitating strike, potentially more disruptive than the 22-week walkout by writers in 1988, which cost the entertainment industry an estimated $500 million.

"Once it starts, it's going to get ugly," said one of the guild's strike captains Sunday.

A strike doesn't necessarily preclude the writers and producers from continuing to negotiate on a new contract and could even accelerate that process as both sides try to minimize the financial toll it could take. Negotiators for the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers spent more than 10 hours in talks at Sofitel hotel in West Hollywood . At 9:30 p.m., writers guild officials walked out of the meeting.

"It is unfortunate that they choose to take this irresponsible action," alliance President Nick Counter said.

The guild said that although the union had agreed to withdraw its proposal to double DVD pay, which had been a stumbling block in negotiations, producers refused to make concessions in other key areas. Among other things, producers refused to grant the union jurisdiction for most new-media writing, the guild said. They also insisted on a proposal that would allow them to reuse movies or TV shows on any platform for promotional purposes with no residual payment.

"This proposal alone destroys residuals," the guild said.

Sunday's talks marked the most substantial meeting since the parties began protracted negotiations this summer, raising a glimmer of hope that a deal might be within reach. Back-channel efforts by some of the industry's top writers and chief executives appeared to break a logjam that had stopped the sides from starting the negotiations in earnest.

The apparent headway came amid outside pressure from such respected writers as "ER" creator John Wells, a former guild president, and "Desperate Housewives" executive producer Marc Cherry as well as News Corp. President Peter Chernin, Warner Bros. Entertainment Chairman Barry Meyer and Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger.

A federal mediator brought in last week had coaxed both sides back to the table Sunday. But ultimately, not enough progress was made to avert a strike. Even as negotiators were hunkered down behind closed doors, strike captains were sending e-mail notices to guild members and guild directors, informing them where to show up today on the picket lines. Earlier in the day, writers at the guild's West Coast headquarters in the Fairfax district had loaded their picket signs onto trucks.

The union had organized a network of 300 strike captains who were ready to stage daily pickets at all the major studios, including Disney and Warner Bros. as well as CBS Television City and NBC headquarters in Burbank . Guild members were asked to sign up for shifts beginning at 9 a.m. or 1 p.m., captains said. The guild's East Coast office went on strike at 12:01 eastern time even as talks were still continuing on the West Coast.

Any1 eat fish? I don't but this is something to question says the NYT

• China produces about 70 percent of the farmed fish in the world

• Harvested at thousands of giant factory-style farms that extend along the entire eastern seaboard of the country.

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WHERE CAN I SIGN UP FOR HIS JOB?!?!?!

This guy has THE COOLEST JOB EVER!!!! He basically just travels the world. Check out his video and look around his web page! He talks about his journey to students at Champlaign College in Vermont here:

Below
I linked his website and the other two parts to his lecture. On his
website you can see bloopers of his videos dancing as well as contact
him, ETC.

WHAT A COOL GUY TO LISTEN TO!!!! We should try to get him to come here????

-Bridget Quigley

Did you know?

THIS IS SO COOL!!!!!

The things that struck me the most:

-the fact that so many kids, LITTLE kids have used computers.... do YOU remember computer labs in grade school?

The little computers you learned to type on? Life BEFORE computers? Before cell phones?

WE ARE THE LAST GENERATION TO REMEMBER LIFE BEFORE THE INTERNET!!!!!

-Note that the fastest growing countires aren't the richest, in fact Africa's birthrate more than doubles our own and most

of their countires GDPs are less than 10% of ours.

-Africa provides the world with over 75% of our natural resources

-IF EVERY COUNTRY USED AS MANY RESOURCES AS THE USA WE WOULD NEED THE RESOURCES OF AN ADDITIONAL 7 PLANETS!!!!!!!

just
some things to think about. I thought this video was the coolest thing
I'd seen in a LONG time. Blows my mind and argues a lot. Who says

we wont build our own OZONE layer one day? Who knows?

-Bridget Quigley

The Story of Stuff

Neera Singh shared this link, and i thought it was very interesting. Give it a go if you have some time. Makes you think. Let me know your thoughts!!

click here

Guitar

So I am searching youtube, as I usually do when I am bored, and I cam across this video. It is one of the most viewed videos of all youtube history. Bare in mind when i first saw the title it read, GUITAR, i thought oh a video of a kid attempting to play the guitar, and everyone on youtube is prolly laughing and forwarding it to their friends. But WOW was I wrong, yes it is a kid but he is FREAKEN SWEET. Check it out for yourself. (a little twist on a "Classic")

The 7th Anual Year In Ideas

Contributed by Meredith

For the seventh consecutive December, the magazine looks back on the passing year through a special lens: ideas. Editors and writers trawl the oceans of ingenuity, hoping to snag in our nets the many curious, inspired, perplexing and sometimes outright illegal innovations of the past 12 months. Then we lay them out on the dock, flipping and flopping and gasping for air, and toss back all but those that are fresh enough for our particular cut of intellectual sushi. For better or worse, these are 70 of the ideas that helped make 2007 what it was. Enjoy

some topics Meredith suggest are:

the 'cat lady' conundrum

suing god

smog eating cemen

The future of Search

With Google currently dominating the cyber world... are the becoming too powerful and is there any stopping them?

This is a topic I know Brett and I debate over and over. This article only touches the brim of a debate, and proves nothing, but it does raise an interesting point. Go search in your free time and post some other articles. I am interested to see what hard evidence there is out there for this claim. As a disclaimer I do not believe google will take over the world, I am simple interested in keeping a close eye on institutionalized technology front runners. Also I love gmail and many other FREE apps google provides.

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Watch This

Contributed By Jon Wiita

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate (biodiesel) Truck

by Tom Schueneman, Triple Pundit Nov. 28 2007
Contributed By Neera Singh

I thought you might be interested in this truck that left London for Timbuktu on biofuel from chocolate...Though many of us would want to eat the chocolate instead of fuelling our cars with it - but still...good ideas for future...for lean and sustainable societies,

Check it out

Can the African Sun Power Europe?

by Patrick Metzger Dec. 4 2007
Contributed by Jon Wiita
The European Union is considering a $10 billion plan that would see a string of solar power stations in North Africa and the Middle East deliver electricity to Europe via undersea cables.

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See for Yourself

by Tim Laseter and Larry Laseter Nov. 29 2007
Contributed by Brett Kopf

Sam Walton discovered the advantages of centralized checkout counters by taking a 500-mile bus trip to visit a competitor in 1951. In the 1960s, Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota production system, trained his managers by having them stand in a small circle on the factory floor for eight-hour stints simply observing the manufacturing process. Today, Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, spends 60 percent of his typical 100-hour workweek on the road.

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