It’s almost a cliché that great Silicon Valley entrepreneurs don’t go sit on a beach when they make a lot of money, they get back to work building another company or at least investing in other people’s companies. But what did eBay founder Pierre Omidyar do? Moved to Honolulu where he can be found sitting on beaches.

But don’t let the top line narrative fool you, Omidyar hasn’t just been looking at sunsets all these years. He’s been busy making good on his commitment to give away some 99% of his multi-billion dollar fortune and lately has been launching Peer News, a new kind of online news service that won’t have reporters or articles in the classic sense, nor will it allow anonymous comments or make money off advertising. He’s definitely got at least the media world captivated once again.

eBay, philanthropy and now a local Hawaiian news site may seem like wildly disparate ventures for the same man to take, but as Omidyar explains in the video below they’re all connected by the ideas of platform and community—two words that have also underlined much of the Web 2.0 movement.

Just like eBay was a platform that gave people everywhere the opportunity to build out a business and change their economic reality, so too does the Omidyar Network seek to give passionate, would-be entrepreneurs an opportunity to change their world and their reality. As Omidyar puts it, he doesn’t have a “cause;” he gets excited about other people’s causes. Similarly at eBay he wasn’t a collector, but he loved hearing about other people’s collections.

On community, eBay was one of the first places that pioneered trust online through its reputation and feedback systems. Omidyar is hoping to bring that same kind of trust and fair-dealing to the local news world with Peer News—which is the reason anonymous commenters will not be welcome.

Omidyar talks about all of this and more in the video below, shot in his office in Honolulu. I started out by asking him about that great founders myth that he started eBay so his wife could trade Pez dispensers. (The one people claimed years later was just a good pitch for reporters.)

The Horseman

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It seems that Y Combinator and TechStars-like incubators are popping up everywhere. BoomStartup just launched an incubator in Utah and TechStars is expanding to other cities in the U.S., as is The Founder Institute. Chicago has a new incubator that recently launched, called Excelerate Labs.

Excelerate is the brainchild of OKCupid entrepreneur Sam Yagan, Kapil Chaudhary, Kelli Rhee, and Troy Henikoff. Yagan says the Chicago-based incubator has a similar model to TechStars and Y Combinator. Six to ten startups will be chosen for a three month long program, where founders will be given resources to build their products, access to mentors and funding. Each startup will receive anywhere from $15,000 to $20,000 (depending on the number of founders) for five percent of equity.

The program is currently accepting applications until April 2. Yagan says that one of the reasons that we wanted to start the program was to help make Chicago become “the Silicon Valley of the Midwest.” Sandbox Industries and i2a Fund have invested in the incubator, but Yagan says that other venture funds have taken an active interest in Excelerate, including DFJ Mercury. Mentors include TechStars founder David Cohen, OpenTable’s Chuck Templeton, Apex Ventures Partners’ Lon Chow and a host of other notable entrepreneurs and investors.

Groupon directors Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, also recently launched Lightbank and will invest as much as $10 million annually in early-stage technology companies through a new fund dubbed. Similar to Excelerate, the fund aims to help establish Chicago as a technology hub.

It’s always great to see investors and former tech executives investing time (and money) in promising startups and ideas. And we are seeing a plethora of innovative startups emerging from a variety of incubators around the country and world, including Y Combinator, TechStars, The Founder Institute, Launchbox Digital and more.

The Dual Electronics XGPS300 GPS Cradle for the iPod touch was announced a few months back, and it has taken a while, but the device has finally started to ship directly from Apple. It’s currently going for $199.95, and will come with the obvious built-in GPS receiver, rechargeable battery, speaker, NavAtlas US/Canada map app. It might seem a tad more expensive that some of the dedicated GPS devices in the market, so you might want to think carefully before you drop your hard-earned money for this. That being said, granting your iPod touch GPS capabilities is certainly cool, right?

XGPS300 product page.

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In the next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of social media case studies.

How do you like your events calendar? As a world map? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.

Sponsor

Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo

Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include:

• Digital Asset Optimization
• Deep Dive Into Analytics
• Augmented Reality: It's a Brave New World
• Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons
• Advanced B2B Search Marketing
• Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

S.F. Beta 4.0

After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.

Freemium Summit

The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.

Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.

Social Fresh Portland

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

ConnectNow

TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh).

The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010.

For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

ConnectNow

ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au.

PubCon South

PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here.

Under the Radar: Cloud

Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.

FutureMidwest

FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow.

Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.

Social Fresh St. Louis

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

DrupalCon

DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts.

Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management.

Future of Money and Technology Summit

The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more.

Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration.

ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010

The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference.

An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences.

We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks.

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• Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform?
• 
  
• Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel?
• 
  
• Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices.
• 
  
• Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices.
• 
  
• Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data.
• 
  
• Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR.
• 
  
• Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian.
• 
  

Click here to register now, or to become a sponsor, or to help shape the conference.

FinovateSpring

FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day.

Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available.

SF MusicTech Summit

The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off.

25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado

Glue

Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world.

ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12".

Corporate Social Media Summit

The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:

• Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
• 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
• Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business
• A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media

Cloud Computing World Forum

The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include:

• Co-located with CloudCamp London
• Co-located with Green IT conference
• Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
• Free-to-attend evening awards presentation
• Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices
• Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services
• Evening networking party for all attendees

FinovateFall

FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders(...)

Balatarin web community is raising money for Iranian journalist refugees. The goal is to raise 15000 dollars.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Conservative party would impose unilateral tax on banks to recover taxpayers' billions if elected, party leader says

The Conservative party would impose a unilateral tax on banks to claw back the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money used to prop up major financial institutions during the economic crisis, David Cameron said today.

His pledge came as the Financial Times reported that the chancellor, Alistair Darling, is to use next week's budget to signal government support for a global bank tax, although only as part of an international agreement.

Darling will set out detailed options in his budget statement but will insist that the money raised should go to national governments and not be used for an insurance fund against future collapse, the paper said.

There are fears that the existence of an insurance fund could encourage risk-taking and that any unilateral action could prompt an exodus of banks from the City to less punitive regimes abroad.

But Cameron said the Conservatives' proposed levy, similar to unilateral measures announced by the US president, Barack Obama, was needed to protect British taxpayers from future bank collapses.

He said the banking industry was one of the vested interests he would confront if elected and accused Gordon Brown of failing to stand up to the financial sector.

"We had the biggest bank bailout in the world. We can't just carry on as if nothing happened," he said.

"In America, President Obama has said he will get taxpayers back every cent they put in. Why should it be any different here?

"So I can announce today that a Conservative government will introduce a new bank levy to pay back taxpayers for the support they gave and to protect them in the future.

"No, it won't be popular in every part of the City. But I believe it's fair and it's necessary."

The prime minister has been a leading advocate of a globally co-ordinated levy on banks, which could bring in tens of billions of pounds a year from the financial services sector worldwide.

He was forced to abandon his preferred option – a "Tobin" tax on financial transactions – but hopes the International Monetary Fund will back the measure at its April meeting in Washington ahead of a G20 meeting in June.

The FT said Labour's manifesto could commit to diverting some of the proceeds of the levy into aid for poorer countries – in line with a campaign for a "Robin Hood tax" on the banks.

• Conservatives
• Banking
• Tax and spending
• Recession
• Global recession

Fox News' Special Report suggested that a "deal" in the health care bill was sought by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) for a proposed hospital in Connecticut and discussed other purported "deals" for Tennessee and Louisiana. In fact, Connecticut would potentially have to compete for funding against other states, and Republicans and Democrats have said that provisions for Tennessee and Louisiana are crucial to fixing an imbalance in Medicaid funding in those states.

From the March 19 broadcast of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier:

BRIAN WILSON (correspondent): Deals still alive for the moment? Well, Republicans claim that Democrat Bart Gordon changed his vote from "yes" -- from "no" to "yes" after he got $100 million for Tennessee hospitals that treat the poor. Other deals still in play? Yes, the Louisiana Purchase: $300 million in Medicaid money is still alive; Connecticut hospital handout -- $100 million sought by Senator Dodd.

From the March 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

HANNITY: Retiring Congressman Bart Gordon is doing a 180 as well. Now he voted "no" in November, but after securing millions of dollars in Medicaid funding for low-income patients in his home state, well, he's now in the "yes" column.

Connecticut would reportedly have to compete for the hospital funds. The Hartford Courant reported that Connecticut would have to compete for the funds. Also, Dodd reportedly said that at least 14 other states could apply for the grant.

Funding for health care facilities would be decided by Health and Human Services secretary. The text of the Senate health care bill as passed states that the $100 million grant for "infrastructure to expand access to health care" "may only be made available by the Secretary of Health and Human Services upon the receipt of an application from the Governor of a State" that meets certain requirements:

(b) REQUIREMENT.-Amount appropriated under subsection (a) may only be made available by the Secretary of Health and Human Services upon the receipt of an application from the Governor of a State that certifies that-

(1) the new health care facility is critical for the provision of greater access to health care within the State;

(2) such facility is essential for the continued financial viability of the State's sole public medical and dental school and its academic health center;

(3) the request for Federal support represents not more than 40 percent of the total cost of the proposed new facility; and

(4) the State has established a dedicated funding mechanism to provide all remaining funds necessary to complete the construction or renovation of the proposed facility.

Proposed UConn hospital part of Republican Gov. Rell's health care proposal. Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, a Republican, has reportedly proposed a $352 million University of Connecticut Health Center that would rely on $100 million in federal funds available as a grant in the health care bill under the provision inserted by Dodd.

Under health care bill reconciliation "fix," $100 million in Medicaid would go to "disproportionate share hospital" payments. Changes proposed to the Senate health care bill included a section that, in part, gives disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments to states that otherwise would receive no payments after FY2011. The House Rules Committee summary of the changes describes Sec. 1203:

Sec. 1203. Disproportionate share hospital payments. Lowers the reduction in federal Medicaid DSH payments from $18.1 billion to $14.1 billion and advances the reductions to begin in fiscal year 2014. Directs the Secretary to develop a methodology for reducing federal DSH allotments to all states in order to achieve the mandated reductions. Extends through FY 2013 the federal DSH allotment for a state that has a $0 allotment after FY 2011.

Entire TN delegation asked Energy and Commerce Committee to deal with the fact that the state is scheduled to get no DSH money. As reported by the Nashville Business Journal, a May 2009 letter from Tennessee's entire House delegation -- consisting of both Democrats and Republicans -- to the House Energy and Commerce Committee requested DSH funding. According to the letter, Tennessee had given up DSH funding in 1993 when it created a special state insurance program, TennCare, in lieu of traditional Medicaid. The letter added that, since March 2006, Tennessee hospitals have "returned to a traditional Medicaid population," but are not getting DSH payments, unlike almost every other state. From the letter:

As you may know, with the onset of the TennCare waiver in 1993, the state agreed to eliminate the DSH payment for Tennessee, using the rationale that the majority of the uninsured and uninsurable would have the opportunity to enter the new TennCare program and, consequently, hospitals would be getting TennCare reimbursement for the majority of the patients that would have been charity care patients. Although there was an initial 25 percent-decline in charity care under the program, the cost of charity care in Tennessee hospitals returned to pre-TennCare levels by 2000 and has continued to grow at a pace consistent with hospitals across the country. As of March 2006, the state Medicaid program began to disenroll adults who were eligible for TennCare as uninsured or uninsurable previously. This leaves Tennessee hospitals in the dilemma of having returned to a traditional Medicaid population covered by a Medicaid program with no DSH payment. Tennessee is one of only two states with no DSH payment. The other state is Hawaii.

Tennessee reportedly got temporary fixes in the past. The Nashville Business Journal article also reported:

The imbalance has existed since Tennessee gave up its payments when it created TennCare in the 1990s -- and it has been similarly addressed by lawmakers in the past. Early last year, a $32.8 billion bill to insure poor children included a provision extending DSH payments to Tennessee hospitals by $30 million a year for two years.

TennCare spokeswoman Kelly Gunderson said the majority of Tennessee hospitals receive some level of DSH payments.

Funding would fix FMAP rates for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." The Senate bill as passed includes a provision -- often referred to as the "Louisiana Purchase" by conservative media -- that would adjust the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) rate for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." The bill requires that it only apply to states "for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster" and "determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government."

The Department of Health and Human Services states that FMAP is "used in determining the amount of Federal matching funds for State expenditures for assistance payments for certain social services, and State medical and medical insurance expenditures. The Social Security Act requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to calculate and publish the FMAPs each year."

Times-Picayune: Temporary post-Katrina spending "spiked" per capita income "long enough" to skew Medicaid funding formula, causing state Medicaid funding shortfall. The Times-Picayune reported on January 22 that "FMAP refers to the percentage of a state's payments under Medicaid that are covered by the federal government. Louisiana usually gets a higher match because of how poor the state is, but because of all the recovery and rebuilding money that poured in after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, state per capita income spiked long enough to throw the formula out of kilter and threaten to blow a hole [in] the state budget. [Sen. Mary] Landrieu's fix was, according to state officials, only the beginning of a solution for a huge Medicaid shortfall the state is facing." The article stated that Landrieu said "attaching the Medicaid provision to a health-care bill made sense, and there is no obvious and feasible legislative alternative."

Jindal: "If not corrected in Washington, D.C.," FMAP problem will cost $500 million a year. Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal's fiscal year 2010-2011 budget proposal states that the "Louisiana state government faces significant, multi-year budget challenges, compounded by a faulty federal FMAP formula that, if not corrected in Washington, D.C., will cost the state approximately $500 million a year in Medicaid funding, impacting services for the poorest in our state, and often those who need care the most." The proposal also says that "[w]hile there is discussion in Washington about extending the enhanced federal Medicaid match rate for six months for all states, without a permanent fix to Louisiana's faulty FMAP calculation, combined with the loss of federal stimulus funding, Louisiana will still face a projected $1.7 billion shortfall for FY 12."

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During my recent trip to India, I flew down to Bangalore for one reason: To meet N.R. Narayana Murthy. Murthy is the co-founder, executive chairman and former CEO for 21 years of Infosys, the first Indian company to go public on Nasdaq and effectively the company that began the $30 billion Indian IT outsourcing market.

Murthy’s idea was so successful that it quickly became controversial—not only within the United States where some Americans feel Indians are “stealing jobs,” but also in India where many are concerned about a tech economy that doesn’t make anything. I wanted to meet with Murthy, because in many ways he’s the best person to address what Indians at home and abroad are facing and where Indian entrepreneurship goes from here.

Here are a few highlights from our meeting:

His Day Job. Murthy thought he was stepping down from Infosys back in 2002, but he couldn’t fully let go. As such, he still works pretty much full time for the company, traveling to meet with customers and running a lot of the company’s mentoring and training programs. The more surprising aspect of his job: He personally signs off on the architecture of every building on each one of Infosys’ campuses that employ some 17,000 people around the world. The one we were sitting in was spread of eight acres and had some remarkable buildings, including one that looked like the Luxor casino in Las Vegas.

I asked why this was a top priority—after all, many Valley campuses are plush but from an architecture standpoint look about the same. He said when GE and other American multinationals were starting to come into his business everyone thought Infosys would lose the local talent war. So Murthy studied why people want to work at a particular place. One of the results was the comfort and design of the facilities. That was in 1994 when Infosys was designing the very building we were sitting in as we had this conversation. “I’ve been in charge of every building since– all over the world,” he says.

Hurting or Helping Local Entrepreneurship? Given exactly how plush Murthy and his colleagues have worked to make Infosys, has he indirectly hurt Bangalore’s entrepreneurship scene by making the risk of leaving so daunting? He smiled when I asked this and said, “We may have unwittingly. But I do feel like the spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and kicking in Bangalore.”

Further, I asked about Bangalore’s Zippo-flipping, free-spending generation of young techies who’ve graduated to a huge wave of multinational jobs that pay them far more than their parents ever made, in many cases more than the rest of their families combined. Murthy didn’t deny that that instant-gratification, “gimmie” contingent was strong in the city he helped build, economically speaking. But he blames the Internet and the mass-cross-pollination of Western pop culture, not the bigger paycheck from companies like his.

“We are moving towards a uniform, global culture with an intense competitive spirit and an intense desire for instant gratification,” he says. “But I have a firm belief that each generation is better than the previous one. The Indian entrepreneurs today are more daring than we were.” (This from a man who became a capitalist after after hitchhiking across communist Eastern Europe and getting thrown in jail for chatting up someone’s girlfriend on a train. “More daring” is a tall order, young Indian techies.)

Is India’s Tech Community Too Addicted to Services? Clearly, services has been a great business for Infosys and the hundreds of dollar-millionaires and even more rupee-millionaires that the company’s generous stock program has created. But a lot of Indian CEOs and investors complain that in most cases services-based tech businesses are a great way to get revenues quick, but not a way to build a huge, high-growth business. There’s a big question of whether India’s tech sector has a worrying lack of product-building know-how.

Murthy says it’s a progression. “India missed the industrial revolution, but Indians had intelligence,” he says. “We had to make do with pen and paper. We were always forced to look at the abstract. What is happening in India today is the creation of jobs. Let’s create jobs as long as they are legal and ethical, it doesn’t matter, as long as we make money. The time will come for creating products. I wouldn’t lose sleep over this. If we create enough jobs we’ll raise the confidence of the youngsters and they’ll create products.”

India’s Infrastructure. Here’s something it’s hard for even Murthy to be upbeat about: India’s shoddy physical infrastructure. Murthy has traveled the world and it’s frustrating that so much money has poured into the country he loves, and yet, the infrastructure is still so shockingly bad.

There is progress—Infosys for instance has benefited from a new overpass that cuts down on the drive to the campus by more than thirty minutes. (See!) But it’s not moving nearly fast enough, he says. “I don’t know if we will reach the level of the United States or China,” he adds.

Murthy gave a more nuanced explanation than the usual “it’s corruption” answer you get in India. He explained that 65% of India’s population lives in rural areas and 35% live in cities. And there’s such polarity between the quality of life that politicians have to appear to be doing more for the villages than the cities if they want to get re-elected. That leaves prosperous economic cities blighted by poor sewage systems, pollution spewing generators and beggars weaving through traffic tapping on car windows. “Different emerging nations take different paths,” he says. “In China, they chose to emphasize giving people economic freedom first and political freedom second. In India we chose the opposite path.”

Hurting or Helping US-based Indians? All you have to do is read the comments on one of Vivek Wadhwa’s posts to see the ugly, anti-immigrant, anti-Indian fervor that’s been whipped up in America, post-recession. A lot of it has to do with outsourcing. I asked Murthy if he felt his company and industry’s huge success has indirectly made life harder for Indian-Americans. He turned the blame on xenophobes like Lou Dobbs and grandstanding politicians who use the wedge issue to get viewers and votes.

But it’s an issue he has to address a lot. He answers it by saying every morning he gets up and gets a Pepsi out of his GE Fridge and drives his American car to work where he sits down at his Dell computer. India used to have companies that made soft drinks, refrigerators, cars and computers. But the American ones were better. Allowing them in hurt Indian workers in the short term, but provided a far better quality of life for a much bigger swath of Indians long term. He argues outsourcing has done the same thing for US companies. Greater efficiencies and cost-savings enables these companies to stay competitive and there’s no reason they can’t—in theory—plow those savings into better local jobs or job training.

This argument isn’t going to pacify hate-mongers, because nothing will. Murthy knows that too and while he regrets it, he seems to accept it as reality.

Advice for Entrepreneurs. Murthy has started a $170 million venture fund, so although he spends most of his time still at Infosys, he clearly cares about encouraging the next generation of entrepreneurs. He had two big pieces of advice for them. One, be able to articulate what you do in one sentence. If you can’t, you don’t have a good idea. And two, make sure the market is ready. Businesses are killed, not congratulated, for being ahead of their time.

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You know those special amps used by Spinal Tap that go to 11, in order to provide "that extra push over the cliff"? It appears Fox News has gotten a hold of some and hooked them up to its coverage of health care reform.

As the reform bill moved closer to a vote in the House, the Fox News noise machine went into overdrive, hurling every false and misleading claim it could muster.

The week in Fox News health care hysteria began with an oldie-but-goodie -- Steve Doocy, Bill Hemmer, and Bill O'Reilly all claimed or suggested that the bill will, in O'Reilly's words, "require American taxpayers to fund abortion." But it doesn't, at least not beyond what is currently permitted under current law. Fox News, unfortunately, is not alone in repeating this falsehood.

Then, Doocy and Hemmer, joined by Neil Cavuto and several other hosts, jumped on the idea that a legislative procedure the House is reportedly considering to pass the Senate's version of health care reform would allow them to do so without a vote. Wrong again -- the House would need to vote to implement that procedure.

Carl Cameron, however, broke through the noise on this issue, pointing out that the process would simply pass the bill "in one vote instead of two" and that the process "has been used, literally, for centuries" -- indeed, Republicans made copious use of the "self-executing rule" when they controlled Congress. Even Charles Krauthammer conceded that it's constitutional. Still, that didn't keep Alisyn Camerota from scoffing that the rule "might as well be a self-immolating rule."

Fox News then pounced on a survey claiming to have found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care reform passes. O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and contributor Dr. Marc Siegel all portrayed the survey as having been published by the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.

Except it wasn't. The article was written by the physician-recruiting firm that conducted the survey, and it actually appeared in an employment newsletter produced by the publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine, not the Journal itself. Further, the survey itself was not all that scientific -- done via email contacts taken from the recruiting firm's database -- so any claim that the survey's results accurately reflect the view of the American medical community is dubious at best.

Fox News' Megyn Kelly did eventually note that the survey was "not a scientific poll." But that didn't keep Glenn Beck from insisting -- hours after Kelly corrected the record -- that "The New England Journal of Medicine says that if this bill is passed nearly one-third of doctors will quit practice medicine."

(Beck, meanwhile, is keeping up the long tradition of Fox News hosts pushing partisan political agendas by joining with Republican Rep. Steve King to promote an anti-reform rally in Washington.)

Fox News contributor and serial misleader Dana Perino made her own non-contribution to the health care debate, asserting that the reform bill's Medicare investment tax on those making over $200,000 a year is "so disturbing ... because the people who make that money are the small business owners." In fact, fewer than 1.3 percent of small business owners would be affected by the tax.

When the Congressional Budget Office released new numbers detailing how the reform bill would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, Fox News didn't want to talk about that -- it spent far more time highlighting how much the bill would cost instead of how much it would save. And when that didn't seem to work, it tried to discredit the CBO as untrustworthy and unreliable. Never mind that when the CBO issued "favorable" numbers last fall on a Republican health care reform plan, Fox News praised the CBO as "nonpartisan."

The Fox News spin is even confusing its own hosts. Brian Kilmeade can't quite comprehend how a bill can cost money yet reduce the deficit, and Kelly admitted, "I don't understand anything they're talking about when it comes to this potential law."

Fox News' inept war against health care reform, while in keeping with its function as the communications arm of the Republican Party in exile, is making itself look like the Spinal Tap of news. It doesn't really need that "extra push over the cliff" -- after all, that's what it's been speeding toward for years.

At this rate, it probably won't be too long before a Fox anchor spontaneously combusts.

A whole lot of shaky earthquake claims goin' on at Fox

How much does Fox News oppose health care reform? It's pretending natural disasters didn't happen if they're inconvenient to the anti-reform agenda.

On March 18, Doocy took exception to President Obama's statement that a provision in the health care reform that would help Louisiana cope with Medicaid shortfalls resulting from Hurricane Katrina might also help Hawaii because it "went through an earthquake. "Hold it. What Hawaiian earthquake?" Doocy asked. "There was an earthquake in 1868 that killed 77. There was an earthquake in 1975 that killed two." After noting that the provision applies to states that have suffered a natural disaster "within the last seven fiscal years," Doocy added: "Essentially it boils down to just one state, and that is Louisiana."

Doocy seems to have forgotten that there was an earthquake in Hawaii in 2006. Not only did it cause tens of millions of dollars in damage, the Bush administration "declared a major disaster exists in the State of Hawaii and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts" as a result of the quake.

But Doocy didn't need to rely on federal agencies for information on the quake -- Fox News reported on it at the time. (Investor's Business Daily similarly ignored its own reporting to suggest there was no recent Hawaii quake.)

It seems that rather than trust the federal government or his own news organization, Doocy chose instead to trust right-wing bloggers, who were spreading the misinformation. That runs counter to a 2007 memo -- issued after Doocy and other Fox hosts falsely claimed that Obama was educated in a madrassa -- in which Fox News vice president John Moody reportedly wrote, "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC."

Media Matters has written Fox News requesting that Doocy correct the record. We shouldn't have to, since Fox News is supposed to have a "zero tolerance" policy toward on-air mistakes, but then, these are the same folks that ludicrously insisted that a Fox & Friends graphic in which poll numbers added up to 120 percent contained no errors.

The latest right-wing witch-hunt target: Jim Wallis

Fox News has long been a leader in witch hunts against Obama and his administration (or, really, anyone who can be remotely tagged as liberal). Now Glenn Beck, as an extension of his repeated challenged Beck to a debate over social justice, Beck demurred, his vaguely threatening statements making it clear his witch hunt was more important than reasoned debate: "In my time, I will respond. ... Just know the hammer's coming. ... And when the hammer comes, it's going to be hammering hard and all through the night, over and over."

Right-wing website WorldNetDaily, meanwhile, blundered into the breach with a poorly written article that attempted to put words in Wallis' mouth. WND claimed that Wallis was a "champion of communism," even though Wallis has declared communism to be a "failed" system; asserted that Sojourners has published "a slew of radicals" while ignoring that it has also published a slew of conservatives; and alleged that "Sojourners' official 'statement of faith' urges readers to 'refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class,' " even though the word "capitalist" -- inserted by WND -- actually appears nowhere in the statement. WND even falsely claimed that Wallis "labeled the U.S. 'the great captor and destroyer of human life.' "

Somehow, we suspect that Beck's upcoming assault on Wallis will be just as divorced from reality as WorldNetDaily's.

Erick Erickson joins the "scumbags" at CNN

Should a blogger who once called a retiring Supreme Court justice a "goat f---ing child molester" be rewarded with a regular commentary gig on CNN? Doesn't matter -- the deal's been done.

CNN announced this week that RedState editor Erick Erickson has joined the network as a political contributor, mainly appearing on John King's new show. The network claimed that Erickson is "a perfect fit" for King's show, adding that "Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach."

Media Matters has detailed Erickson's history of outrageous statements, of which the aforementioned is but one.

Predictably, conservatives defended Erickson's new job, his fellow RedStaters among them. One of Erickson's RedState defenders, however, went a tad off-message: "From Non-Conservatives, to Academics and Liberal Elitists, to self-soiling and unprincipled Professional Politicians and firmly-entrenched good ole boys inside the M(ostly) S(cumbags) M(edia), each of these clowns has a tale of doom about the hell we're headed for compliments of CNN's hand basket."

We have to wonder: Does Erickson consider his new CNN colleagues to be "scumbags"?

This week's media columns

This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert examines the media myth of Obama's "falling poll numbers," and Karl Frisch tells you how to annoy Glenn Beck in five minutes or less.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and Digg

Media Matters maintains active online communities on the nation's leading social networking sites. Be sure to join us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and Digg and join in on the discussion.

Media Matters Minute now on YouTube

For some time now, radio shows and stations throughout the country have been carrying the Media Matters Minute, a daily, minute-long recap of our work topped off with the "most outrageous comment" of the day. We encourage you to subscribe (YouTube / iTunes /RSS) to the Minute's daily podcast, hosted by Media Matters' Ben Fishel.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled and edited by Terry Krepel, a senior web editor at Media Matters for America.

Musicians, DJs and authors to reveal their favourite hangouts

Have your say on the Travel blog

HiFi is the best rock'n'roll bar in NYC.The room is covered with empty album sleeves and the juke box is hands-down the best in the city – I believe there are about 3,000 albums on it, so you can't complain about them not having your song. There is a fantastically affordable happy hour and a great local crowd. Like the rest of the East Village, it can get a bit much on weekend nights, but most of the time it's my favourite bar in town.
· 169 Avenue A, +1 212 420 8392.
Craig Finn, lead singer of the Hold Steady

The entrance to the Pegu is an unassuming doorway on the south side of West Houston Street. It's only when you are up the stairs that the glory of this place hits you. It is like going back to the great clubs of the 20s, when the staff were pretty and jazz and cocktails ruled. On a recent visit, two amazing Django Reinhardt-style guitarists were swinging through 30s classics. Cocktails are taken seriously here – the art of proper, classy drinking is almost a motto. At the weekend it can get pretty busy as it is becoming the "in" place.
· 77 West Houston Street, +1 212 473 7348.
James Pearson, artistic director, Ronnie Scott's, London

It was a balmy night in September when I visited Po' Monkey's juke joint. It's a ramshackle hut powered by a single cable in the tiny town of Merigold, deep in the Mississippi delta. A poster on the door warned: "Bring your liquor inside but not your beer." The walls were cluttered with posters and age-old postcards, while toy monkeys swung from the rafters. It was low lit – smoky but inviting, with beer and whiskey flowing freely. Terry "Harmonica" Bean took to the tiny stage, elbow to elbow with the crowd, and delivered a mind-blowing, foot-stamping performance that will stay with me forever. Delicately soulful cries came from his ageing gruff voice, while stupendous bluegrass melodies oozed effortlessly from his antique steel guitar. This was raw blues at its authentic and spine-shivering best.
· +1 662 514 7488, 15km from Cleveland.
Dan Hipgrave, co-founder of Original Music Company (originalmusictravel.com), which launched this month and specialises in music-themed holidays

The Spirit Store in Dundalk, County Louth, is on the edge of town beside a small harbour. There's a small, friendly bar downstairs which opens around 4pm, but it is the live music upstairs that is the main draw. You would be hard-pressed to find anywhere as welcoming to an artist and more genuinely music-driven in its programming of events. That's why I keep going back there to play, and why many other artists who have outgrown the 120- or so capacity venue keep returning. So many venues and promoters are about the money but Derek Turner, who books the music, is driven by something much more.
· +353 42 9352697.
Duke Special, musician. His DVD box set, The Stage, A Book & the Silver Screen is out now

Not exactly a venue, not exactly a bar, entrance to Trishas/The Hideout/that door on Greek St (as it is variously known), is obtained by boldly knocking on what appears to be the entrance to a flat above a shop, striding through a starkly lit corridor and down a flight of stairs, before mumbling an explanation to the owner as to why you don't appear to be in possession of a membership card – having accidentally put it through the washing machine normally does the trick. Inside, you'll find a cupboard-sized, candle-lit cavern which can be hired out for private music showcases. But stumble in unannounced after hours on a weekend and you might also find a doo wop or jazz band sandwiched into the corner between the usual crowd of transvestites, metropolitan hipsters and veteran Italian locals.
57 Greek Street, Soho, London.
Krissi Murison, editor, NME

I first played at this blink-and-you'll-miss-it shed in the tiny village of Brawby back in 1998. It only held 64 people and we scraped our legs on the front row's knees. It has since moved to Hovingham village hall, though it retains its name. The man behind The Shed, Simon Thackray, has presented events from the Fish and Chip Van Tour with a trombonist, to mixed media knitting installations – saxophonist Lol Coxhill playing free jazz in a skip to coach trips for folks in knitted Elvis wigs touring sites of Elvisian interest in Ryedale. My own band, Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys, started a tradition of Christmas gigs at The Shed, where we play morose songs and have a riotously miserable time. The Shed was the inspiration for my village hall tour around Britain, which I am currently writing up as a book. And, after 235 villages, The Shed is still the loony best.
· 01653 668494.
Hank Wangford, writer and musician. His CD, Whistling in the Dark, is out now

For me, the greatest gig of 2009 was at A38, a huge old ship that used to lug coal up and down the Danube. The lower deck is now a state-of-the-art live music venue, but bits of engine room equipment are still there. Even though the boat is held down in dry dock by 100 tonnes of concrete, the bottles still jingle on the shelves of the bar when the parties get wild. The booking policy is great – they've had cutting-edge electronic artists such as Ikonika, Dorian Concept and Foreign Beggars play recently. And nothing compares with the signature dish of the restaurant on the upper deck: rooster stew, complete with the crest and testicles of the bird.
· +36 1 464 39 40.
Mary Anne Hobbs, Radio 1 DJ. Her show is broadcast on Thursdays 2-4am

Wild At Heart is a whisky-soaked, no-nonsense rock'n'roll joint in Berlin's old anarchist district, Kreuzberg: a seven-nights-a-week venue painted blood red, crammed with Elvis memorabilia, Hawaiian gods and a lifetime's supply of hard liquor. For 15 years it has presented bands from all over the world – mostly punk, rockabilly, psychobilly, 60s garage and surf. I spent a memorable evening there talking to TV Smith from the Adverts and another with Wreckless Eric, both of whom started out with punk label Stiff Records in 1977, and I've played there with my band, the Flaming Stars. The music's loud, but the welcome is friendly, and the club also runs the Tiki Heart cafe and clothes shop next door, where you can eat, drink and kit yourself out in a spectacular variety of rock'n'roll clobber.
· Wienerstrasse 20, +49 30 610 747 01.
Max Décharné, singer in the Flaming Stars and author of A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster's Guide to Rockabilly, to be published by Serpent's Tail in June

Mesa de Frades in Alfama, the oldest district of Lisbon, is the sort of place you dream of hearing fado, the traditional soulful Portuguese music. A tiny converted chapel with tiled walls, it is full of locals and quality performers booked by owner Pedro Castro, a great guitar player. You can come for the music, which starts late – around 11pm – or book a table and come for an excellent dinner beforehand. A couple of years ago I sat here watching Carminho, the amazing young fado singer who is now the talk of Lisbon. When the music starts, the doors are shut to enclose the tiny performing space. It's what fado in Lisbon should be, but so rarely is.
· Rua dos Remedios 139A, +351 91 702 9436, mesadefrades.com. Booking is essential.
Simon Broughton, editor of Songlines magazine (songlines.co.uk/musictravel)

In the heart of Turin, off Piazza Statuto, you'll find the best of all worlds: from Wednesday to Saturday Il Folk Club plays host to Italian and international jazz, folk and world musicians. How this Italian institution – legendary in Turin for over 20 years – has remained generally unknown to travellers and music junkies outside Italy is a mystery. Alongside its regular programme, Il Folk Club is also the launching point for Radio Londra, a monthly mini-festival which fuses British musicians such as Jim Mullen, Kit Downes, Brandon Allen and Quentin Collins Quartet, with local stars such as Mario Pozza, Enzo Zirilli and Dado Moroni. The bar is simple – one central room with space for about 150 people, exposed brick walls, and a stage – so the focus is always on the incredible music.
Via Ettore Perrone 3, Turin.
Sam Sollai, buyer and events coordinator, Ray's Jazz at Foyles

This little neighbourhood bar used to have a green door with panes that rattled when you opened it, but it has now been replaced with something more solid, partly to keep the sound in. It's run by Mar and Nacho, both dyed-in-the-wool culés (Barcelona supporters), and nights there are long and loud. You can hear Sam Lardner, an American resident who plays his own fusion of flamenco and bossa nova, or wonderful classical and flamenco guitarists like Daniel Figueras and Pedro Javier Hermosilla, or the Covers Project, with frontman Philip Stanton. The eating and drinking are delicious too – Galician-style octopus, traditional meatballs, pimientos de padron (small green peppers), and wine for not much more than a euro a glass. A great night out in the Alta Zona.
· C/ Ivorra 24, Sarria, Barcelona, +93 203 4988.
Rupert Thomson, author living in Barcelona. His latest book, This Party's Got to Stop, will be published on 8 April

Salta, in north-west Argentina, is well-known for its folk music heritage. This has given rise to the creation of pena, which roughly translates as a place where musicians and music lovers come together. Seven nights a week you can experience this at La Casona. The venue's five colonial rooms are filled to the brim with musicians, professional and amateur, folk, jazz and others, locals who come down from the Andes bearing pan pipes and drums, and some foreign visitors, all coming together to jam the local tunes. As a musician, I found great comfort in the fact that this kind of place exists in the world. And of course, many people come simply for the music.
· La Casona del Molino, Caseros.
Lizzie Ball, violinist and singer. She will be performing – and launching her album – with Machaca at La Linea Festival in the Purcell Room on London's South Bank on 27 April

The first time I asked a taxi driver to take me to Havana's Salón Rosado de la Tropical back in 1989 he said it was a place for Cubans, not foreign tourists – and certainly not lone women – and I'd better watch out as it could be rough. He'd obviously never been inside this mecca of Cuban dance music, where all the top bands play regularly, testing their latest material in front of the sexiest dancers on the island. In Cuba, most music venues are geared to tourists and too expensive for ordinary Cubans, who are often not allowed in anyway. Not so the Salón Rosado. This is the closest you can get to hanging out with a Cuban clientele. Dedicated to the memory of Beny Moré, Cuba's touchstone band leader of the 1950s, it started out life a Spanish cultural centre at the beginning of the 20th century. These days there's a balcony reserved for tourists overlooking the dance floor where, if you're lucky, you may rub shoulders with the musicians as they gather for the gig. Although today reggaeton and hip-hop dominate street tastes, Salon Rosado continues to offer a window on to the latest music scene and is a dancer's dream.
· Avenida 41 esq. 46, Nicanor del Campo, Marianao, +53 7 203 5322.
Jan Fairley has been travelling to Cuba since 1978 and is writing a book on women and music in Cuba

Leading Japanese venue Liquid Room has been going for about 15 years and hosts weekly bands and DJs from Japan and around the world. The website may say it closes at 12, but the last time I played there, as The Orb, they didn't let us out till 6am. There's a beautiful cafe upstairs and the friendly enthusiasm of Tokyo clubbers has to be experienced to be believed. The last time I played there I took a bag of Space Dust (the sweet!) which made me very popular.
· Higashi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, +81 3 5464 0800, liquidroom.net.
Alex Paterson, co-founder of The Orb and HFB, his new project. HFB's first three EPs are available from 12 April on Malicious Damage Records

Lagos is not your classic tourist destination; it's a prohibitively expensive city of 14 million people and a crime record to frighten even the toughest traveller. But Nigeria's notorious capital does have one musical landmark worth going the extra mile for: the New Africa Shrine. It's named after the legendary club run by the late musical activist Fela Kuti, which was razed by soldiers. Fela's daughter Yeni and her musician brother Femi have built up a nightclub that can hold thousands and has live music throughout the week. It's not for the faint-hearted, but the Shrine is probably the safest place in Lagos: it has its own police force. You'll get a warm welcome, and hear some of the best live music in the region.
· Pepple Street, Ikeja.
Rose Skelton, music and travel journalist specialising in West Africa

• Bars and clubs
• United States
• New York
• Ireland
• World music
• Budapest
• Hungary
• Berlin
• Germany
• Lisbon
• Portugal
• Yorkshire
• Argentina
• Havana
• Cuba

Compensation for staff at Ground Zero who suffered ill-health is not a fair deal, federal judge rules

A judge has rejected a $657m (£437m) deal to compensate workers who suffered ill-health after helping out at New York's Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks, ruling the sum is not adequate.

Federal judge Alvin Hellerstein said the proposed payout was not a fair deal for about 10,000 police officers, firefighters and labourers made sick by the dust and debris.

Under the settlement, the amount received by each responder is based on a complicated points system that would give some workers only a few thousand dollars while others might qualify for $1m or more.

The judge said he was concerned too much of the money would be eaten up by legal fees and that the plaintiffs were being pressured into signing up to the agreement before they knew how much they stood to receive.

A third or more of the cash was expected to go to lawyers.

Workers have been given just 90 days to decide whether they agree to the terms, far too short a time for such an important decision, said Hellerstein.

"I will not preside over a settlement that is based on fear or ignorance," he said.

Hellerstein, who rules over all federal court litigation related to the terror attacks, had heard from several tearful responders speaking about their illnesses, and received letters and phone calls from others expressing confusion about the deal.

The settlement has taken years to negotiate and was announced last week. Hellerstein said more negotiations were now needed.

The payouts will come from a fund set up after the attacks when New York City was unable to find private insurance to cover claims originating from the clean-up effort.

• New York
• September 11 2001
• US domestic policy
• United States

Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we take a look at Tony Isabella and Eddie Newell's run on Black Lightning...

Enjoy!

The second Black Lightning series debuted at the end of 1994, and very quickly, writer Tony Isabella (who created Black Lightning about twenty years earlier) quickly established that this Black Lightning comic book would be a lot different than most other superhero comics on the shelf.

In the issue, Jefferson Pierce has moved to a new city, Brick City, and he is debating how best he can help people - as a teacher? as a superhero? as a fellow with some (Bruce Wayne supplied) money?

Ultimately, he decides that he is going to try to make some fundamental changes to the drug trafficking system in Brick City, beginning with a dramatic "hello" to the neighborhood in #1...

Isabella also slowly populated the supporting cast with various students and teachers at Jefferson's new school.

Early on, though, Isabella threw a total curveball when, at the end of #4, a member of a gang bursts into a room where Jefferson and another teacher (Walter Kasko, a guy who seemed to be cut in the "Steve Lombard" mold) were with a teen who had spurned a gang (through their help). She opened fire, and Walter shielded the boy with his body, thereby getting riddled with bullets (Jefferson also suffered terrible gunshot injuries).

That led to the absolutely brilliant #5, which was one of the most critically acclaimed issues of 1995, but sadly, since it has not been reprinted, a lot of people have forgotten how excellent of an issue it was (although I featured it during the Year of Cool Comic Book Moments, so you might be familiar with it by now!).

The issue shows Jefferson recuperating, and mostly feeling sorry for himself and mourning Walter's death.

There's a great touch when Jefferson's ex-wife visits, and he talks about where he was when Superman died...

Then we get a stunning sequence when a man (who had stared at Jefferson when he first came into the hospital) comes by again...

Beautiful, huh?

That doesn't even fully give you the appreciation of how good #5 is - do yourself a favor and find yourself a copy!

There's a good story arc in #7 and 8 involving Gangbuster, but sadly, that's as far as Isabella ever went. Even before #1 had come out, Isabella had already been fired, with #8 being his last issue.

And after he left, the book quickly fell apart and only last four more issues (which really paled in comparison to Isabella's run).

But that eight-issue run by Isabella and Newell remains a wonderful read. Be sure to check it out and maybe someday DC will put together a trade collection of the run (although I'm not holding my breath)!

• At March 19, 2010, danjack wrote:

  Thanks for showcasing this. i don't think that i bought this series, as i hear that Isabella had been fired ...

Let’s say it’s 2005 and online video is in its infancy. If you’re a Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, how much would it cost to start up and run a video sharing site with the hopes of flipping it for more than $1.6 billion? As of this week we know, thanks to confidential Profit and loss information released as part of filings that have been made public in the copyright infringement case between Viacom and YouTube.

Based on those filings, we were able to put together some numbers about how much it cost to run YouTube leading up to the Google acquisition. During the first 18 months of YouTube’s operations, from February 2005 when the domain was first purchased through August 2006 when it was desperately seeking acquirers, the fledgling video company spent more than $11.5 million to grow its user base big enough to become attractive to Google.

Most of that money — about $8 million or so — went to paying for infrastructure needed to run the site, with a vast majority of that money going toward the site’s web hosting costs. In the three months from June 2006 through August 2006, the company was spending about $1 million each month on hosting costs alone, and that wasn’t even taking into account data center costs that YouTube was also paying for or ad serving costs as the firm began selling its own advertising.

In addition to web infrastructure costs, YouTube had other operating expenses and personnel costs to contend with. In the first 18 months of its existence, YouTube spent about $3.6 million on employee compensation, travel, facilities, costs and the like. By November 2005, its regular operating expenses were about even with infrastructure costs — at a little more than $130,000 per month, but not long after that, the company’s web hosting bills really started to take off as the video sharing site gained traction.

It wasn’t until December 2005 that YouTube started clocking revenue — a meager $15,000 during that month — and by that point, the company had spent more than $400,000 on operating and infrastructure expenses. But costs began to increase rapidly after that, and topped out at about $2.6 million during August 2006 — just two months before Google’s purchase of the company was made public.

YouTube was never profitable before the Google acquisition — in fact, it pulled in just $5 million in revenues during its first 18 months — but it came close in August 2006, which might have been one reason that Google had an interest in the firm. That month, it posted revenues of $2.5 million. The site did post a gross profit of more than $575,000 during the month if you don’t take into account its monthly operating expenses. Otherwise, with total opex of about $2.6 million, the site fell about $100,000 shy of hitting profitability.

The site raised about $11.5 million in two rounds of financing before being bought by Google in a deal valued in excess of $1.65 billion in October 2006 — which wasn’t a bad return on investment for YouTube’s investors or founders. Famously, though, YouTube has yet to reach profitability, in part because Google had remained committed to growing its user base after its acquisition.

As reported in Viacom’s filings, Google CEO Eric Schmidt mandated for the company to focus on aggressively growing the site, aiming “to grow playbacks to 1b/day [one billion per day].” That mandate remained in place until early 2008, when Schmidt decided the site should shift its focus to monetization of its video assets. Since then, the company has been increasingly focused on bringing more premium content to the site and increasing the number of videos it can place ads against. That focus means that the online video site might finally become profitable this year, according to some analyst projections.

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