Six Myths About Oil Speculators

By Rick Newman, U.S.News & World Report

So now we know who's really responsible for $4 gas. Finger-pointers from Washington, the International Monetary Fund, and even Saudi Arabia no longer seem to buy the idea that the demand for oil around the world is simply growing faster than the supply, driving prices to record highs close to $140 per barrel. There must be a more nefarious reason, it seems. So now entering this drama is a villain everybody can hate: The Evil Speculator.

At recent congressional hearings, politicians and energy experts argued that speculators have artificially added $30 or more to the cost of a barrel of oil, turned oil trading into a global poker game, and doubled the price of gasoline practically overnight.

But who are these party crashers? Where did they come from? How are they doing this? And who can stop them? We'd all like to see a superhero swoop in and smite the speculators, saving Gotham from the peril of $4 gas. The only problem is, speculators aren't quite the bogeymen that politicians want us to think--and they even play an important role in the oil markets and the global economy. Some major misconceptions:

Speculators are inherently bad for the economy. There's no doubt that speculators are out to make money, by buying a commodity like oil (or gold, or real estate) when they think the price is likely to rise and they'll be able to sell for a profit. But they also help sustain the market for buyers and sellers and provide ways for individuals and businesses to offset risks.

Many companies, for instance, want to lock in the price they're going to pay down the road for petroleum products and other supplies they need to run their businesses. So they make agreements with suppliers on a price they'll pay next year, or the year after, when they actually take possession of the oil. Buying and selling such "futures contracts" makes these companies speculators by definition, since they're placing a bet on the future price of oil.

Companies doing this kind of hedging include gasoline refiners, airlines, shipping companies, and others that spend a lot on fuel or petroleum. Often they use investment banks or other intermediaries to arrange the deals. They might be gambling, but this kind of speculation actually helps companies run their businesses more smoothly, and if they guess right on future prices, it may give them a competitive advantage against other companies that don't plan as prudently.

There's a Speculator Star Chamber somewhere. Global markets are so abstruse to ordinary folks that it's easy to imagine a cabal of evil geniuses pulling the levers from some fortified complex in London or Geneva. But that's the Hollywood version. "The market is so competitive that that's nonsense," says Bob Hodrick, a finance professor at Columbia Business School. "There's no way for everyone to communicate and get together and say, 'We're going to buy and drive the price up.' " There are thousands of investors around the world placing bets every day on whether oil prices will go up or down--and they have no way of knowing who their fellow speculators are. All they know is the current price, shown on a computer monitor, plus whatever their own research tells them.

Speculators are super-rich market manipulators. Certainly some are super-rich, including investors in sovereign wealth funds from Middle Eastern and Asian nations. But new data show that many oil speculators these days may be big pension and index funds that invest on behalf of ordinary working Americans. These huge investment funds have typically invested in equities, but in recent years they've been adding commodities--including oil--to their portfolios as a way to diversify.

Even if the commodity portion of these portfolios is just 3 or 4 percent, that can trigger big swings in the oil markets, where most investors up till now have been smaller players. "There's no malice or manipulation here," says Ed Krapels, an analyst with the research firm Energy Security Analysis. But the entry of such big institutional investors into the oil market could definitely contribute to rising prices, especially since they tend to buy and hold securities like futures contracts, instead of quickly selling--which contributes to scarcity and rising prices.

The government tracks speculators and knows who they are. Part of the reason nobody's really sure what effect speculators have on the oil markets is a lack of information. Exchanges like the New York Mercantile Exchange track the activities of their members, but even then, a trader could be a speculator one day, buying oil or futures contracts, and a seller the next day: Nobody checks a "speculator" box when making a trade.

A recent study by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which regulates commodities markets, found a big increase in the percentage of speculators buying oil contracts for investment purposes--"paper barrels"--instead of buying because they need the oil. But oil markets are less regulated than markets for stocks or bonds, and there's still a lot that's unknown. Congress has ordered more studies, with new regulation likely as well.

Speculators are creating a huge bubble in oil. We've just seen a bubble pop in the housing market, with home values now plummeting. And before that, the tech bubble inflated, then burst. But the run-up in oil prices is probably different. The housing boom was generated by cheap and, in some cases, fraudulent mortgages, not by a huge increase in the number of people who needed housing. The tech boom was similar to old-fashioned manias, where investors raced in hoping to cash in on a gold rush and bid the price of technology shares way above their inherent value.

But in the oil markets, there is in fact growing demand because of strong Asian economies. And supply is fairly fixed for now, since adding more oil to the market means finding new sources and spending billions to extract it, not just opening a spigot a little wider. "There are pretty strong fundamentals behind this run-up," says Sarah Emerson, another analyst at Energy Security Analysis. Speculators may be pushing oil prices somewhat higher than they would otherwise be--but a bust similar to housing or tech stocks seems unlikely.

Speculators should be banned. Few, if any, economists or energy analysts advocate this. In fact, some fairly modest regulatory changes could bring greater transparency to oil markets and force them to operate more like stock and bond markets. Buying a contract for oil futures, for instance, typically requires the buyer to put down less than 10 percent of the value of the contract; the rest can be borrowed. That allows buyers to roll up big stakes with relatively little cash. Raising the "margin requirement" to 50 percent, the usual threshold for stocks, would cool demand for oil futures, while still keeping the speculators in business. And maybe get the witch hunters off their case.

Appointment with E2 at Pasta Zanmai

Natto is typically eaten with rice

Today I had an appointment with E2 at Pasta Zanmai.

We had these acquired taste natto as the side dish. Natto is a traditional Japanese food made from fermented soybeans, popular especially for breakfast. As a rich source of protein, natto and the soybean paste miso formed a vital source of nutrition in feudal Japan. It has powerful smell, strong flavor, and sticky consistency.

We had a pretty good conversation and talked nineteen to the dozen at time. Later, we went to Oldtown White Coffee for a cuppa.

Luck on Ivanovic's side at Wimbledon

Ana Ivanovic kisses the net after the match with Nathalie Dechy

By LOUISE WATT, Associated Press Writer

WIMBLEDON, England (AP)—Nathalie Dechy thinks it might be a good time for Ana Ivanovic to buy a lottery ticket.

Facing match point in the second set of her second-round match at Wimbledon, the top-ranked Ivanovic drove a forehand into the top of the net—it somehow trickled over.

From the brink of an embarrassing exit to a player ranked 97, she recovered to beat veteran Frenchwoman Dechy 6-7 (2), 7-6 (3), 10-8, in a match lasting 3 hours, 24 minutes.

“Someone from upstairs made the ball roll over,” Ivanovic explained, laughing. “I just feel so lucky.”

“I felt like time stopped for a moment. … I just thought the match would be over.”

“After that point I felt like it was a new match for me and I had a new opportunity.”

Dechy had an instant of thinking she had won. “Then I saw,” she said. “I was like, gee, there’s maybe somebody in the sky who help(ed) her on that one.

“Maybe today she can go and play lotto also a little bit. It would be a good day for her.”

In her first tournament as a Grand Slam titlist and the No. 1-ranked woman, the 20-year-old Ivanovic seemed to be in a big rush, trying to finish points quickly.

It worked to start. The Serbian star won the first three games in six minutes.

But Dechy, determined, patient and no-frills, rallied and took the first set in a tiebreaker.

The second set began in a similar fashion with Ivanovic up 3-1, only to fall behind 3-4, with Dechy serving well and Ivanovich having problems returning.

So it went to Ivanovic serving to stay in the match in the 10th game.

Facing two match points, she fired a big serve and followed with a forehand winner.

One to go.

The pressure compounded with a fault. But rather than back off, Ivanovic produced a big second serve and charged in, driving a forehand into the net. That’s when time stopped for both players. Ivanovic’s ball clipped the net, and dropped over.

She smiled nervously, then pulled her sun visor down over her face to stifle a laugh.

Dechy grimaced and looked up. She pushed Ivanovic for the rest of the match, but never seemed to get on top again after Ivanovic dominated the tiebreaker.

The Frenchwoman was broken twice in the deciding set to fall behind 2-4 and then 3-5. But she clawed back again to 5-5, when another slice of fortune fell Ivanovic’s way.

Dechy played a forehand volley which ought to have sent her 15-30 up on the Ivanovic serve, but her hat fell off in the process. It was extremely unlikely Ivanovic could stay in the point, but she asked for and was granted a replay—a fair call under the strict definition of the rules.

Ivanovic won that point and regained some momentum. After converting her fourth match point, Ivanovic went over to kiss the net because she felt “so lucky.”

“If it wasn’t for that net and that place, I would be booking my flight back home.”

Dechy sat down on court with a towel over her head and cried. It was her 13th trip to Wimbledon and “for sure one of my best matches so far this year.”

Ivanovic praised Dechy’s game. “She deserved to win also because she played really well,” Ivanovic said. Asked if she was still feeling lucky about the Championships, she laughed and replied: “Well, I don’t know,” she said. “I think I used a lot of luck today.”

Sharapova goes for tux at Wimbledon

Maria Sharapova with her tux-like outfit and shorts

By LOUISE WATT, Associated Press Writer

WIMBLEDON, England (AP)—First, there was Roger Federer’s cardigan and Serena Williams’ trench coat. Now, Maria Sharapova has set her own fashion trend at Wimbledon—a tuxedo.

“I love men’s wear in general,” Sharapova said Tuesday after beating French qualifier Stephanie Foretz 6-1, 6-4 in the first round. “I love tuxedo jackets.”

The 2004 champion played the match in a sleeveless top with a tuxedo-style bib front. She strode onto Court One sporting a single-breasted jacket with gold stitching on the collar lapel and front edge, which she hung on her chair.

Sharapova also wore shorts—the first time the 6-foot-2 player has done so in a Grand Slam tournament. But not just any old shorts: ones worn low on the hip with a wide-tailored waistband, pin stripe-effect and gold-stitched buttons.

“It’s hard to do things different with white,” Sharapova said, referring to Wimbledon’s strict dress code. “I thought ‘why not do shorts this year?’ I’ve never done it at a Grand Slam. You know, if there’s one place to do it, it’s here.”

Sharapova didn’t wear the other half of her tailored, tuxedo-inspired warmup suit—wide-legged pants.

“I love things that are actually a bit baggier and wide,” she said. “I loved it when that whole wide-legged pant trend set in. I’m tall and I can pull those things off.”

If Serena Williams can wear a short rain coat on court when there is not a cloud in sight, as she did on Monday, why shouldn’t Sharapova wear men’s clothes? Even if Williams described hers as “ladylike.”

The 21-year-old Russian’s outfit was inspired by “London’s history in bespoke tailoring,” according to her clothing sponsor. It may have been inspired by a man’s suit, but she made the seamless, lightweight vest look feminine. Perhaps the $5,000 Tiffany diamond and platinum dangly earrings helped.

While Federer played up to Wimbledon’s old-style traditions by donning a herringbone-patterned cardigan on Monday, Sharapova’s take on the classic tuxedo caused more of a stir.

Her post-match news conference was dominated by questions about her outfit, to the extent that she remarked it was “amazing.”

She thought Federer’s gold-trim cardigan was “classic and beautiful.” And Serena’s raincoat? “I didn’t see it,” Sharapova said.

What does she think of all the attention being paid to players’ clothes?

“I think it’s great,” she said. “I mean, look, tennis is not a a sport where you have to wear uniforms. It’s an individual sport. I’ve loved fashion since I was very young. … I loved working with thread and needles, making things on my own.”

Sharapova also revealed that because of retail demands she already knows what she’s wearing in fall 2009. But when asked what she will wear next year at Wimbledon, she laughed.

“Oh, goodness,” she said. “I still haven’t finished the tournament. We’ve got a lot in store.”

One player who isn’t particularly interested in all the fashion talk is Andy Roddick, the two-time men’s runner-up.

“I personally don’t care,” he said.

If attention is drawn to tennis for whatever reason, that’s fine, Roddick said. If that means Federer’s cardigan, “then so be it.”

“I don’t know if it would be a good look for me,” he said. “Or any of my friends. Or relatives.”

Russia into last eight of Euro 2008

Russians celebrate on the street


A sexy Russian supporter


A pretty Russian supporter inside the stadium


Supporters waving Russian flags


Russian supporters before the game with the Swedes

Incredible! After so many group matches had finished, I really can't see any stand out teams in Euro 2008. Not anymore, I found it in Russia when they defeated Sweden two days ago. It was totally a deserved victory and dominant display by the Russians. They had really missed Andrei Arshavin for the first two group matches. This guy pulled the string from the midfield and scored one marvelous team goal himself early in the second half.

In the last eight, the Russian football team will take on the mighty Holland. Not an easy task as Holland had shown why they are the hot favorite in this tournament by defeating World Cup champions Italy and runners-up France convincingly in group stage. My friend had asked me which team in my opinion will go into the final before Russia versus Sweden game, I said Russia will go into the final if they can clear the group stage by beating the Swedes. Now, they had done it. So, I still stand firm with my opinion.

Holland coach Marco van Basten was a great player himself during his heyday in the 90's but not yet show his caliber as a great coach. Perhaps, this will be the very tournament he will announce his arrival in the international coaching arena in big time for he will be coaching Ajax after Euro 2008. But comparing coach to coach, Guus Hiddink still has the upper hand with his vast experience with other national teams that he had coached. Interesting point is, Guus Hiddink of Holland nationality will be pitting his wits against his home country. Kinda intriguing prospect.

Let's see how the game against Holland turn out.

Arshavin already cashing in on his success

By Martin Rogers, Yahoo! Sports

It is rumored in Russian football circles that Andrei Arshavin refused to entertain a possible move to Barcelona because it meant the Zenit St. Petersburg and national team star would have to take a pay cut.

In all probability, some creative license has been used in the telling and re-telling of that apocryphal tale, but it still shows the incredible strides made in the Russian game in recent years and the reason for its rapid progress.

Money talks loudest in football and the noises emanating from the east are of some concern to clubs in England, Spain and Italy. Gone are the days when those leagues could snap up a player from that part of Eastern Europe, give him a respectable salary and a car and earn his undying gratitude.

Arshavin’s stock is soaring now after his latest display of talent in Wednesday’s decisive 2-0 victory over Sweden, a win that booked Russia’s place in the last eight of Euro 2008. A series of outstanding performances for club and country has made him one of the most sought-after players in Europe this summer, but it would be no surprise at all if he went nowhere and remained with Zenit, a club which barely registered a blip on the European landscape until last season.

If he does go, it will not be for the money. Arshavin is rewarded handsomely at Zenit, with a gigantic salary of around $100,000 per week plus a mind-blowing bonus structure. Given that Arshavin ran the show in the UEFA Cup final, as Zenit tore apart Glasgow Rangers at the City of Manchester Stadium, it is fair to suggest that another avalanche of roubles came tumbling into his bank balance.

Those roubles, like most of the wealth in Russian football, is drenched in oil. President Vladimir Putin encourages, gently or otherwise, the oligarchs who have made incredible fortunes from selling the natural resource to invest in sports, particularly football. As a result, the national team benefits from having a coach with the pedigree of Guus Hiddink, whose salary is paid by none other than billionaire Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich.

Hiddink can also pick his squad almost exclusively from home-based players, now that the Russian league, ranked 15th in Europe by UEFA just a few years ago, is pressing Holland for the fifth spot and rising fast.

The upshot is that players like Arshavin – who, at 27, was born in an era when St. Petersburg was still called Leningrad and the Communists still controlled the Soviet Union – need not head overseas in search of financial reward.

“Arshavin is a player who can decide very, very fast where he can create danger … he can turn left, right, he knows where an opponent is so he is a very smart player,” Hiddink said. “You can see he can make the difference, not for himself by the goal but for the other guys on the field.”

Suspended for Russia’s first two games at Euro 2008, he showed how much he had been missed against Sweden. He scored Russia’s second goal and was his team’s driving force in a performance that surely grabbed the attention of quarterfinal opponents and tournament favorites Holland.

If Arshavin can mastermind a shock victory over the rampant Dutch, his value will soar even further. But even if salary offers of $150,000, $200,000 or even more per week come flooding in, the oil company that pays his salary would not even need to scratch the surface of its coffers to match it.

Stagflation, the latest Asian export?

By Stephen Roach

Fears of 1970s-style stagflation are back in the air. Global bond markets are growing ever more nervous over this possibility, and US and European central bankers are talking increasingly tough about the perils of mounting inflation.

Yet today's stagflation risks are very different from those that wreaked such havoc 35 years ago. Unlike in that earlier period, wages in the developed economies have been delinked from prices. That all but eliminates the automatic indexation features of the once dreaded wage-price spiral – perhaps the most insidious feature of the "great inflation" of the 1970s. Moreover, as the stunning surge of the US unemployment rate in May suggests, slowing economic growth in the industrial economies is likely to open up further slack in labour markets, thereby putting downward cyclical pressure on wages over the next couple of years.

But there is a new threat to global inflation that was not present in the 1970s. It is arising from the developing world, especially in Asia, where price pressures are lurching out of control. For developing Asia as a whole, consumer price index inflation hit 7.5 per cent in April 2008, close to a 9 1/2-year high and more than double the 3.6 per cent pace of a year ago. Sure, a good portion of the recent acceleration in pricing is a result of food and energy – critically important components of household budgets in poorer countries and yet items that many analysts mistakenly remove to get a cleaner read on underlying inflation. But even the residual, or "core", inflation rate in developing Asia surged to 3.8 per cent in April, more than double the 1.8 per cent pace of a year ago.

Given Asia's new-found role as the world's producer, such an outbreak of surging inflation in this region is not without serious risks to the global economy. The globalisation of trade flows is a new transmission mechanism of worldwide inflation that was not evident in the 1970s. According to estimates from the International Monetary Fund, overall exports should hit a record 32.5 per cent of world gross domestic product in 2008, more than 50 per cent above the export share of 21 per cent prevailing in 1980, when the "great inflation" was nearing its peak.

At the margin, that means cost pressures and price determination today are shaped much more in the global arena than they were during the domestically driven stagflation of the past. Asia's outbreak of surging inflation is especially problematic in that regard. Nowhere is that more evident than in China – the new engine of Asian output and exports.

Chinese inflation has surged at an 8.3 per cent average annual rate over the four months ending May 2008, the sharpest sustained increase on a year-on-year basis since the mid 1990s. China's inflation problem is much deeper than the food and energy price shocks that thus far have played a disproportionate role in driving its consumer price index higher. Also at work are serious wage pressures reflecting, in part, increases in minimum wages associated with new labour reform laws. Meanwhile the People's Bank of China has held its policy lending rate below headline inflation, resulting in negative real short-term interest rates.

The result has been an ominous increase in Chinese inflationary expectations, strikingly reminiscent of similar occurrences that plagued the developed world in the 1970s and early 1980s. History does not treat kindly a serious deterioration in inflationary expectations. The longer such a trend persists, the more wrenching the monetary tightening required to arrest it – and the greater the risk of a subsequent hard landing. That is the last thing China wants or needs.

China is hardly alone in its reluctance to take firm action against a worrying build-up of inflationary pressures. That is true throughout most of developing Asia, where hyper-growth is viewed as the panacea for the aspirations of a growing middle class. Throughout the region, central banks are keeping short-term interest rates far too low to combat these inflationary pressures. For developing Asia as a whole, a GDP-weighted average of policy rates is currently about 6.75 per cent, fully three-quarters of a percentage point below the 7.5 per cent headline inflation rate.

Such monetary accommodation in an increasingly inflation-prone developing Asia spells a persistence of elevated price pressures in this vital segment of the global production chain. Not only does that threaten living standards for newly prosperous households in the developing world; it also takes an especially severe toll on those at the lower end of the income distribution. And, of course, it provides a price shock to imported goods in the developed world, which now play a much greater role in meeting the demands of domestic consumption.

Notwithstanding recent pressures in bond markets, the world remains largely in denial over the outbreak of a new strain of stagflation. The hopes of "core inflationists" depend on a reversion in food and energy prices to take headline inflation lower in the developing world. Yet this will be the sixth year in a row when that has not happened. The "market purists" are counting on currency adjustments – especially sharp appreciation of currencies in developing Asia – to temper the transmission of price pressures from these export-led economies. Yet these are not economies that want to use the currency lever to put their growth imperatives at risk.

The risks of a new stagflation are mounting. But it will not be a replay of the 1970s. Like nearly everything else in the world these days, this one is likely to be made in Asia.

The writer is chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia

Firefox 3 comes out sizzling

By Paul Venezia

San Francisco - As the window to the Internet, the Web browser is arguably the most important application ever developed, and it will only become more important in the coming years, as applications continue their retreat from the local system and into Web frameworks built on Apache, IIS, Python, PHP, Perl, Ruby, and countless other languages and tools. Against this backdrop, today's official introduction of Firefox 3 may in fact be a watershed event in the history of computing.

It's no secret that Firefox isn't the most popular browser. Internet Explorer, for better or for worse, enjoys a significant advantage in market share, but data gathered from all corners of the Internet show this advantage eroding. Judging by the traffic at a Web site that handles more than 100,000 unique visitors a day, Firefox gained almost 8 percent over Internet Explorer for the month of May, year over year, moving from just over 26 percent of all visitors to 33 percent. Internet Explorer lost a total of 9 percent to other browsers in that time frame.

Oddly, the difference seems to have been taken up by Apple's Safari, which gained almost 3 percent. These numbers will differ depending on the site -- for instance, sites focused on technology will have higher numbers for Firefox, since most tech-savvy users prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer -- but the general trend shows that Firefox is making significant inroads all over the globe. Judging by the advances in Firefox 3, this is likely to accelerate.

Turning up the heat
Firefox 3 has been in development for years. While not exactly a start-from-scratch rewrite, it's certainly been overhauled, and those changes are apparent in just about every aspect of the browser. The new look is more streamlined, less clunky, and the active elements such as the newly retooled location bar offer a new way to work with the Web. On the back end, the days of Firefox being a notorious memory hog may be over, or at least reduced, and the security measures in the new release are not only far better than any other browser, they also manage to be less intrusive than you might expect. The ease-of-use additions, such as the ability to save a session on exit, and the wonderfully implemented full-page zoom are instant winners.

I've been using Firefox 3 since the November beta, moving through to the very latest release candidates. While I've hit a number of issues over the months, they've all but disappeared in the past few releases. Over the course of the beta period, I've found it difficult to go back to Firefox 2, and certainly difficult to use Internet Explorer; they're missing key Firefox 3 features that have become instantly indispensable.

Smart security
Browser security is of paramount importance. Particularly on Windows, browsers have served as a vector for an enormous number of realized and unrealized vulnerabilities. From malware and spyware to viruses and outright system exploits, all browsers have had their share of missteps. Generally speaking, user education could significantly reduce these occurrences, but that's easier said than done. Firefox 3 makes a valiant attempt, however, with a bevy of new features tuned to the average user.

Clicking the Favicon in the address bar on Firefox 3 offers a quick view of the current site and a button for more detailed information, such as the SSL certificate data, how often you've visited the site, the use of cookies, and so forth. If you happen to come across a forged page (such as those used in phishing attempts), Firefox will block the page and display a surprisingly attractive warning screen explaining the problem and offering a link to return to your home page. There's also a small link allowing you to continue to the content regardless of the warning.

If you browse to an SSL-protected site with a valid certificate, the address bar notes the verified owner of the certificate in a green highlight, giving immediate feedback on the validity of the site. If the site's SSL certificate isn't valid, Firefox 3 presents a method of either quickly navigating away from the site or an option to pull down the certificate and continue to the site. For those of us who use self-signed certificates, this is an extremely useful feature.

On Windows, Firefox 3 now integrates with Vista's parental controls to prevent downloads and so on in accordance to the system-wide settings. Firefox 3 can also integrate with some anti-virus tools to initiate scans when downloading executable files.

On a smaller scale, Firefox 3 has improved add-on management. It will detect outdated add-ons and offer to update them if possible. Add-ons that don't provide updates securely are disabled.

All told, these measures seem to effectively prevent novice or general users from hurting themselves while sacrificing very little for the power user -- a goal that's typically all but impossible.

Smooth moves
Firefox 3 has broken new ground in browser usability. The address bar has taken on a life of its own. Going far beyond address-matching as you type, Firefox 3 also matches your entered URLs against keywords within the title or tags of the page. It sorts by frequency and recency, and tunes itself as you use it. I've found that it gets the right page or link for me just about every time.

The combination of the smart address bar and the new page-tagging feature for bookmarks can make finding pages you've visited incredibly simple. Bookmarks are now organized in a database, not in a flat file, and thus are easier to manage and search. Smart bookmark folders can be created to automatically arrange bookmarks meeting certain criteria based on tags and other information. All of these features are impressively handy no matter what I seem to be doing with the browser.

On platforms other than Windows, Firefox 3 has made a great effort to integrate better with the host OS. Firefox 2 on the Mac platform, for instance, always had the feel of a foreign app. It functioned well enough, but it didn't share the OS X look and feel. It does now, and it even supports OS X Widgets and Growl. On Linux, Firefox 3 uses the native GTK theme running on the system to provide a better visual fit.

As with Firefox 2, the customizable Search toolbar is right at home, offering any number of existing search engines from Google and Yahoo to Wikipedia, YouTube, and eBay.

As far as add-ons go, it might take a little while for all of your favorite accessories to come up to speed with Firefox 3, but I've had few problems in that area. In fact, Firefox 3 has led me to use some add-ons that I probably never would have discovered, all due to the Recommended page in the add-on manager.

Some of the most important add-ons for me, such as the simply indispensable Web Developer toolbar, have been Firefox 3 compatible almost since day one. Others will follow soon. Sadly, I can't seem to find the Abe Vigoda status add-on anymore. Surprising that Abe outlived it, I suppose.

Binge browsing
The speed and resource requirements of Firefox 2 were a sore spot for many users. There were certainly instances where Firefox 2 behaved nicely, but those were overshadowed by the times when loading a page with certain embedded elements or other code would cause Firefox to crank up the CPU and start eating RAM like candy. Often, closing the offending page would reduce these symptoms, but sometimes quitting and restarting the browser proved the only solution. Firefox 3 hasn't been free of these episodes, but the frequency has been greatly reduced.

Now I find that I can run with dozens of windows open and not take a terribly significant performance hit. Mozilla.com claims that the Gecko 1.9 rendering engine has improved CSS and SVG handling, as well as JavaScript performance. I've noticed that pages do seem to load faster, and the overall experience seems snappier in Firefox 3 than in either Firefox 2 or Internet Explorer. It might be a tie with Safari, however.

If the Web browser isn't the most important application ever developed, it might be the most personal. If you're working in a company that regrettably invested in Web-based applications that cannot function without using Internet Explorer, you have my sympathy. For those of you who have a choice, you no doubt want a browser that functions as an extension of yourself: customizable, quick, reliable, and stable. Firefox 3 meets all those criteria for me, and there's no looking back.

Jim Rogers - Hot Commodities

If anyone has any doubts over recent spike of crude oil price to the all-time high of over USD139 per barrel, read this book. Written by no other than the commodities guru Jim Rogers himself.

His insight is purely based on the supply and demand of the world crude oil reserve and reasons why we should invest our money in commodities, especially in crude oil. According to him, no major elephant oil fields have been discovered over these years in the world. This is coupled with huge energy demand from China and the rest of the world.

According to him, if the world is experiencing recession or economy downturn, or bear market in equity, it always coincide with the commodities bull market. He believes there could still another 10 years or more for the bull in the commodities market.

Jim Rogers also reasons why we should invest directly in commodities itself and not the company that link to the underlying commodities in order to get a better returns.

Sometimes I wonder whether the recent sharp increase in the crude oil price is due to the speculators and fund managers who take Jim Rogers advice and hedge their investment in crude oil futures.

Believe this guy. He knows what he is talking about.

E2 -- She's the One

The exam is over now -- at least for the time being. What a gruesome and time-consuming four months of intense preparation. Seconds after the proctor came and collected my answer sheet, I could finally inhale some of the freshest air of my life. Despite the fact result will not be released two months later. I felt my life has been rebooted again. Indeed it was -- only moments later.

I met her -- E2, the most gorgeous and true to herself girl I've ever known.

[to be continued...]