Once the Senate voted in July to stop buying F-22s, that success reverberated down to help sustain billions of dollars of cuts in Army modernization, missile defense and other programs.

Military analysts said Defense Secretary Gates, originator of the cuts and a holdover from the Bush administration, aimed at the most bloated programs. And Senator John McCain of Arizona, the former Republican presidential candidate, who has criticized the Pentagon's cost overruns, provided Mr. Obama with political cover to make the cuts without being seen as soft on the military.

Mr. Obama has said that he does not intend to reduce military spending while the nation is engaged in two wars. But Mr. Gates also wants to cut more futuristic programs to free money for simpler systems like helicopters and unmanned spy planes that can help the troops now.

The Company posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $7.46 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.07 billion, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

The NYT is reporting that Apple handedly beat Wall Street's expectations. The company reported increased sales of not only iphones from this time last year, but also ipods, and mac laptops (up to 2.5 million from 2.3 million). Contrast this to Microsoft, who the NYT is reporting as:

closed out perhaps its most difficult year as a public company in less than stellar fashion. On Thursday, the company significantly missed Wall Street's fourth-quarter revenue target and reported the first decline in full-year revenue in its 34-year history. The company, the world's largest software maker, posted net income of $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share, for its fourth quarter, which ended June 30. That was down sharply from the $4.30 billion, or 46 cents a share, it earned in the fourth quarter a year ago.

"It will be a different business," said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, "Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems."

A 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office estimated that 70 percent of card issuers' revenue came from interest charges, and the portion from penalty rates appeared to be growing. The remainder came from fees on cardholders as well as retailers for processing transactions. Consumer advocates say they have little sympathy for credit card issuers, arguing that they have made billions in recent years with unfair and sometimes deceptive practices.

"It will be a different business," said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, "Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems."

A 2005 report by the Government Accountability Office estimated that 70 percent of card issuers' revenue came from interest charges, and the portion from penalty rates appeared to be growing. The remainder came from fees on cardholders as well as retailers for processing transactions. Consumer advocates say they have little sympathy for credit card issuers, arguing that they have made billions in recent years with unfair and sometimes deceptive practices.

The announcement seemed to signal a rapprochement between the music industry and its biggest distributor: record companies gave up their demand for copyright protection (called digital rights management) and Apple allowed flexible pricing, so the labels could charge more for new or popular tracks. Behind the scenes, however, the relationship remains as tense and antagonistic as ever.

But according to one music industry executive involved in the negotiations, Apple's primary goal was securing distribution of music over its iPhone, as mobile phones are expected to become an increasingly important outlet for music. Disagreements over the timing of the changes also resulted in a particularly tense conversation on Christmas Eve between Steven P. Jobs, the chairman and chief executive of Apple, and Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, the chairman of Sony Music.

Apparently, as some of us here on slashdot speculated earlier, there was an quid pro quo between Apple and the Music Industry. The article further details just how much power Apple still has over the Music Industry:

Even if Mr. Jobs does not get personally involved in future negotiations, music executives still fear dealing with Apple. One chit the company holds is the power of the iTunes home page, where it promotes music. They also say that the entire Apple staff, including Eddie Cue, the vice president in charge of iTunes who handles the relationships with the record labels, do their best to follow Mr. Jobs's style in their own negotiating.

Net Applications' monthly surveys are conducted by sampling browser data from some 160 million visits to Web sites operated by firm's clients. Although the company describes the results as "market shares," Net Applications does not actually measure share of market in the traditional sense of sales revenue or unit sales. It does, however, provide a consistent methodology by which to measure browser and operating system trends.

In the images available Thursday, the cranes working to fix the breach of the 17th Street Canal are gone. Blue tarps that covered roofless homes are replaced by shingles. Homes wiped off their foundations are miraculously back in place in the Lower 9th. So, too, is the historic lighthouse on Lake Pontchartrain.

...the maps now available are the best the company can offer. Numerous factors decide what goes into the databases, "everything from resolution, to quality, to when the actual imagery was acquired."

Unlike the earlier wave of Homo erectus into Asia a million years ago, the first modern humans, the ancestors of everyone today, departed Africa about 66,000 years ago... These pilgrims were strikingly few. From the amount of variation in Y chromosomes today, population geneticists infer how many individuals were in this "founder" population. The best estimate: 2,000 men. Assuming an equal number of women, only 4,000 brave souls ventured forth from Africa. We are their descendants.

The lawsuit was filed in New York on behalf of Arista Records, Warner Bros, Capitol and UMG recordings. They are suing Moscow-based Mediaservices, which runs Allofmp3.com and another music site, allTunes.com. The record labels say the sites are selling songs without permission. But Allofmp3.com argues it is paying royalties to a Russian licensing body.

"The defendant's entire business... amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law," according to papers filed as part of the US legal action.