Random Thoughts From This Week (Feb 27 - March 5)

World Events
What's in a name? - I find it interesting that the news outlets are referring to military casualties in Afghanistan as "NATO" casualties - even if it's an American. Usually the headlines will read something like, "Two NATO Troops Killed...", then the body of the article will breakdown the nationality of the troops.

Finance
GM's Missed Opportunity - A couple weeks back I commented on Toyota's problems, and how how they were a golden opportunity for Ford and GM. Well, it looks like Ford took advantage of that opportunity and GM completely missed it. Ford's sales increased thirty-two percent for the month of February, while GM's only increased seven percent.

Technology
Washington Post iPhone App - Finally! The Washington Post (WP) has an iPhone application. It's very similar to the applications offered by the New York Times (NYT) and Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The big difference is the WP application costs $1.99 annually, whereas the NYT and WSJ applications are free, but to get some content on WJS you have to have a subscription for online content. As I wrote earlier, the NYT will be introducing a model similar to WSJ in 2011. I'll gladly pay $1.99 annually for WP content. We'll see what my price point is as NYT evolves to a pay model.

Sports
Tiger Woods - I'm waiting for the steroid issue to pop back up. If you remember, right about the time Woods' sex scandal broke, there was reporting about a Canadian doctor, Anthony Galea, who was arrested for selling an illegal drug to athletes that helped them "heal" faster, and during the investigation Canadian police found files linking the doctor to Woods. It appeared that the good doctor saw Woods around the time he had knee surgery. That story seemed to die pretty fast. I remember watching Woods a year, or so, back on TV playing a golf tournament and thinking to myself, "For a golfer, he looked huge." My first thought was steroids, but then I said, "Nah, it's Tiger Woods." Now I'm rethinking that thought process. It appears that Major League Baseball's walking pharmacy, Alex Rodriguez, is also connected to Galea. So, with the light back on Galea, and a potential tie to Rodriguez, it's only a matter of time before it comes back around to Woods.

Entertainment
Netflix app for the iPhone - Apparently, Netflix is exploring the idea of creating an application for for the iPhone. The application would let you stream movies while using a Wi-Fi connection. I think this is a great idea.