FRIDAY, MAY 18, 2007
Friday Edition: Food Prices Rising Rapidly
The
Los Angeles Times
says:
Nationally, food prices rose 3.9 percent in April compared with the same
month in 2006, and the outlook is equally chilling wherever you shop. It is
happening for many reasons: inflation, drought, freezing weather, even the
rising cost of corn -- highly sought after not only as ingredients for thousands
of food products but also to make ethanol.
Food prices in 2007 are increasing at their highest rate in years.
"We are going to see grocery store prices show one of the
most rapid increases in the last 15 years or so," said Patrick Jackman, an
economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Just click here and select,
for example, the tracking tables for bread, ground beef, eggs, apples,
tomatoes, frozen OJ and fresh oranges. (Keep in mind, however, that these prices are not adjusted for inflation.) To adjust for inflation, you might
try this calculator.
You can get local by going to this page
and clicking on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' interactive map.
By way of comparison, here is a Web site that
lists some historic food prices. It is interesting stuff. You know, a Hershey
bar pretty much cost the same 5 cents from 1921 to 1968. The size of the bar
changed a little, but not much.
Nine Ways 2007 is Like 1974
It is not just the record gas prices. A lot more is going on
that makes this year eerily like 1974. The Boston Globe's Web site did a very clever job with this one. The site says it got tons of
traffic on this one when it went up. A real "talker."
The Value of a Domain Name
I will not pass judgment on what this means. I just report it
to you.
This week, an investment group paid $9.5 million
for the domain name Porn.com -- the second-highest amount paid for a domain name. Last year, Boston firm Escom paid
$12 million for Sex.com.
Domain names sell
all the time on auction sites like this one. There are even appraisal companies that will
tell you how much they estimate a domain name is worth.
The
Los Angeles Times says:
The
Porn.com deal is one of many in the last two years in which common nouns were
exchanged for uncommon money. Cameras.com sold for $1.5 million and Scores.com
fetched $1.2 million. Like Porn.com, they were sold by domain broker and
manager Moniker.
It might be worthwhile to look at cyber squatters and domain
speculators.
Several years ago,
PCQuest explained:
Simply put, cyber squatting means the
registration of a domain name in violation of a trademark or business name or
other intellectual property of its owners. This includes the registration of a
name deceptively similar to such business name or trademark. Usually, domain
squatters register these domains before the company does and offer these domain
names to such business houses at a premium. In some cases, domain squatters
unscrupulously divert traffic to their sites and use their site for profiting
illegally or for posting objectionable and defamatory messages. In other cases,
a misspelling of such trademarks or business names is used to confuse the end
user. This constitutes domain infringement or cyber squatting and makes the
illegal occupant liable for eviction.
U.S. Judge Berle Schiller gave a precise definition
of cyber squatting or cyber piracy as "the deliberate, bad faith, and abusive
registration of Internet domain names in violation of the rights of trademark
owners."
Domain speculation is the registration of generic domain names,
which do not infringe any trademark or company name. Such generic names are
generally descriptive in nature, like cheapflowers.com, houses-for-sale.com and
getyourcomputershere.com. Speculators register generic names in the hope that
a business house may wish to buy them for their commercial use. While cyber
squatting would constitute domain infringement and make the delinquent liable
for eviction and penal liabilities, domain speculation may not attract any
harm. The difference lies in the motive of registration and the mala fide
intention of the squatters.
How are
domain-name disputes settled? There are several
ways -- personal negotiation, courts and arbitration. You can also try using the policy explained here if the domain has been registered "in bad faith."
Here is a listing of the
jillions of disputes that have settled using this policy. In some cases, as you will see,
the squatter loses the domain. This is a
great way for you to get local.
Did Falwell Really Say That?
I
wanted to pass along a question to all of you journos. Al's Morning Meeting
reader Frank Lockwood, religion editor at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, sent me a thoughtful note wondering if
he could trust the quotes attributed to Jerry Falwall from a
site I linked to.
It got me
searching for more attribution for what might seem to be an especially strange
quote attributed to Falwell: "Billy Graham is the
chief servant of Satan in America."
In articles about Falwell this week, there are
121,000 references to this quote using a Google search alone.
However, accepting
Frank's challenge, I searched hundreds of these references yesterday, and I can
tell you that not one column, article or site that included that quote about
Rev. Graham says the location, the date or the circumstances under which Falwell
allegedly uttered that line. Not one article included first-hand knowledge of
anybody hearing that quote.
While it may well be
that Falwell said it (I mean he was a quote machine), it could just as easily
be true that it is some legend or slime job by Falwell haters. If any of you
can help point us toward a first-hand reference for this quote, please post it
in the reader feedback section to this column.
By the way, Snopes.com, the Internet myth-busting site,
says the quote seems to be everywhere, but there is not direct confirmation that
Falwell ever said it. Yahoo
Answers says the same thing.
Al's Morning Multimedia: Memories of a Lost Town
The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle is making good use of reader-contributed
photographs, forums and multimedia in covering the tornado that leveled a small town and killed a dozen people on May 4.
I like this photo essay
on faith in a Greensburg church's tent meeting.
The paper smartly has
been keeping a daily collection of pictures sorted by date. Imagine how
many people have not had access to online or have been so busy surviving
that they have not had time to see all of the images. This is a nice idea.
Leverage your digital assets.
Forums
help people find help and find lost loved ones. One writer asks, "Where's my
barber?" while another is looking for family members.
There
is a useful microsite for people who want to offer help to victims.
There is
a Q&A site -- the kind of place where one person asked where
displaced cows and horses are being taken.
There
is a separate guestbook page for each of the 12 who died in the storm.
Until last week, reporters kept a
daily blog.
To preserve the memories of the town of Greensburg, lost in
a tornado, the paper is posting before and after photos of the town sent in
from readers. I love this passage from a
reader attached to a photo of the town's water tower crumbled on the ground:
How will
the children in Greensburg know when it is time to go home? The whistle on the
water tower blew at 7 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. all of my life, until May 5.
We didn't all have wrist watches when we were growing up. We didn't need them.
We had the whistle. Our folks would tell us to come home for lunch or dinner
"when the whistle blows." It was the same for all the neighborhood
kids. Up for school at 7 a.m. in the winter. During the summer while playing we
all knew when to break and head home for mealtimes. It was such a peaceful
existence growing up in Greensburg.
Al on the Road and Online
Speaking of The Wichita
Eagle, I will be in Wichita this weekend for the National Writers Workshop. I do
hope I will see you there. It
looks like an outstanding lineup of speakers, teachers and topics. I will
be handing out 100 free CDs full of my favorite Web sites -- the same kind of stuff
I will be talking about in my first live webinar on Monday. More than 200
individuals, classrooms and newsrooms have signed up so far. We can
squeeze you in if you register right away. Registration closes today at noon eastern time. See
you on the road or online! -- Al
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
Posted at 12:55:11 AM
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