The News @ Krombie

Anna Patterson's last Internet search engine was so impressive that industry leader Google Inc. bought the technology in 2004 to upgrade its own system.

She believes her latest invention is even more valuable -- only this time it's not for sale.

Patterson instead intends to upstage Google, which she quit in 2006 to develop a more comprehensive and efficient way to scour the Internet.

The end result is Cuil, pronounced "cool." Backed by $33 million in venture capital, the search engine plans to begin processing requests for the first time Monday.

Full Article on FoxNews.com

The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tells Asia Times Online, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently.

Article here

The state of Texas should not have removed more than 400 children it took from a polygamist sect's ranch, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

Article

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won't get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding whom to let die. In the event of a mass-casualty situation, medical resources woul be have to be rationed. Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn't be treated.

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Both Qatar's oil minister and the head of OPEC can see oil hitting $200 a barrel before the end of the year and one analyst says gas could reach $7 a gallon within four years. That could mean cataclysm for the global economy.

Article from Wired.com. Photo by John Perkins.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most enduring bits of cinematic comedy is the auction scene in the espionage thriller North by Northwest. Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a businessman who has been mistaken for a CIA agent by the ruthless Phillip Vandamm. At a critical juncture, Thornhill is cornered by his enemies inside a Chicago auction house, and the only way he can escape is by drawing attention to himself. When the bidding on an antique reaches $2,250, Thornhill yells out, "Fifteen hundred!" When the auctioneer gently chides him, he loudly changes his bid: "Twelve hundred!" When the bidding on a Louis XIV chaise longue reaches $1,200, Thornhill blurts outs, "Thirteen dollars!" The genteel crowd is outraged, but Thornhill gets precisely what he wants: the auctioneer summons the police, who "escort" him past Vandamm's henchmen to safety.

Original Article

The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room" -- the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

Original Article

InfoWorld confirms that Dell will sell and support Windows XP to consumers beyond the June 30 Microsoft sales cutoff date that Microsoft reaffirmed today, after comments from CEO Steve Ballmer yesterday seemingly indicated it might reconsider that decision.

Dell will take advantage of a licensing option in Vista Business and Vista Ultimate that lets PC makers provide XP under the Vista license, which Microsoft calls a "downgrade" license. (Enterprises with site licenses have these same rights with any version of Vista.) In essence, the user is buying a Vista license that it can apply to XP, and Microsoft can still claim a Vista sale.

Original Article.

With oil prices surging to almost $120 a barrel on Friday April 25th, 2008 the sky is certainly looking like the limit. There are analysts and speculators that are now saying they don't feel that $200 a barrel oil is unrealistic at this point. It's definitely easy to question who is making money here, who is laughing all the way to the bank as the price rises and who might be responsible for the meteoric price rise in the barrel of oil. An unfortunate truth to who is helping the price levels stay high could be looking back at you in the mirror.

http://businessshrink.biz/psychologyofbusiness/2008/04/26/americas-dirtly-little-oil-secret-plastic-bottles-and-bags/

High price and a strange color. No, we're not talking about a hairdo. Those are the two factors that have kept light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, from becoming a mainstream light source.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9923048-1.html