Events

Two more opinions this morning about the Justice Department sued to block the American-US Airways merger. First, from Cranky Flier: [I]f DOJ really wanted to settle for slots at National, it would have done so before filing such a strongly-worded, broad case. Now it has sort of pinned itself into a corner. If it settles, it sets precedent that can be used against it in the future. If it goes ahead with trial, it risks everything. See, if it goes to trial, then the judge will review the case on its...

A couple I know asked me to take some photos of their 10-month-old daughter recently. Et voilà:

Yesterday the Cardinals spanked the Boys in Blue 6-1, and I got to see the whole thing. Here's Edwin Jackson: I'll give him one thing, boy: he threw 117 pitches, the 113th at 160 km/h. Impressive. Also, I got to sit in a different section than usual, because my cousin and I got our signals crossed on which games to sell. Apparently we broke even—including the extra fee for the better (section 430) seats.

After fending off the Brewers for 8 weeks, the Cubs finally slipped into last place last night by losing to the Cardinals 0-4: I'm going to today's game. I am not optimistic.

Kindle/paper

It seems that Google is doing away with its 20% R&D policy: When Google went public in 2004, the founders’ letter from co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin cited 20% time as instrumental to the company’s ability to innovate, leading to “many of our most significant advances,” including AdSense, which now accounts for about 25% of the company’s $50+ billion in annual revenue. Google engineers also used 20% time to incubate Gmail, Google Transit, Google Talk, and Google News, among other projects....

The judge in the American Airlines bankruptcy just expressed doubts the airline will survive: A judge asked AMR Corp for guidance on whether he should approve its plan to exit bankruptcy, in light of an antitrust challenge to its planned merger with US Airways Group Inc. The request suggested Judge Sean Lane would hold off on approving AMR's plan at a hearing in U.S. bankruptcy court in New York on Thursday. Lane said he had "lingering doubts" as to whether it was appropriate to confirm the plan. He...