Farewell...

In the first year of The Beaver Reader, we attempted to maintain a Current Events section that focused on real-world issues. However, with a limited staff spread thin, it quickly began to lag behind our other sections, and received only limited coverage in our two print issues.

From Year 2 onward, we are consolidating the Current Events and Fun sections into "Miscellany." Most coverage of current events will happen in the Opinion section; occasionally, non-editorial content will be put in Miscellany.

Thank you for reading. All old Current Events posts have been moved over to Miscellany; unfortunately, your comments failed to make the jump. They are preserved here for posterity.
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Microsoft pulls out of Yahoo deal

TOPH TUCKER '08

Last night, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote in a letter to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang that Microsoft had decided to abandon its three-month bid for the faltering Internet giant. He wrote, “I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares. By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table. But clearly a deal is not to be.” This comes as a surprise to many who had been expecting either a done deal, or an announcement by Microsoft that it would go hostile.

Early reaction online has been that by rejecting Microsoft’s offer, Yahoo! is putting the nail in its own coffin. One blogger titled his post “Ballmer to Yang: Dear Jerry, Drop Dead.” Another called the move “Yahoo’s Hari-Kari.” Yahoo’s stock will likely plummet to near its pre-bid point, and it could face stockholder revolt.

Yahoo! has threatened to outsource search advertising to Google, either to ward off a Microsoft bid or to intentionally cannibalize a key Yahoo! business in the event of a hostile takeover. (Apparently Yang was threatening to burn Moscow.) However, such a deal would face regulatory scrutiny, as an alliance of the #1 and #2 search providers would leave an overwhelming 85% of the market in Google’s hands. In addition, it would essentially throw away the heaps of work that Yahoo! has been doing in that critical arena. Even by signaling it would consider such a deal, Yahoo! is practically admitting defeat.

While most pundits see this outcome as a loss for Yahoo, there is also the belief that Ballmer botched the deal. Still, if Yahoo stock drops to bargain basement levels, Microsoft could return later this year with another deal. Alternatively, it could pick up the scraps of AOL or expand its Facebook alliance.

UPDATE 5/5/08 12:27 AM: Sure enough, Yahoo stock has fallen 17% (and counting), while Google and Microsoft have gained.

Further reading:
Microsoft Press Release
MSNBC Article
MarketWatch Article
Yahoo’s Nightmare Scenario: I’m From Google and I’m Here to Help!
Microsoft To Yahoo: Take a Hike!
Yahoo Responds: “The distraction of Microsoft’s unsolicited proposal now behind us”
Microsoft has options after dropping Yahoo bid
Yahoo CEO Yang is now on the hot seat
Ballmer’s drive was key element in Yahoo bid
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Clash of the Titans: Potential Yahoo! deal brings industry behemoths head-to-head

TOPH TUCKER ‘08

Microsoft. Google. Time Warner. News Corp. Four of the biggest names in business; combined market cap of half a trillion dollars. And they’re all getting involved in the battle over troubled Internet giant Yahoo.

It started on February 1, when Microsoft announced an unsolicited $44.6 billion takeover bid for Yahoo. Since then, Yahoo has looked for every possible way out of the deal, but analysts agreed it was a waiting game. No white knight emerged, and Microsoft is now threatening to turn the bid hostile if Yahoo doesn’t accept quickly. They have refused to raise their bid, instead countering that, if anything, it would only go down.

By Wednesday, though, things seemed to be heating up. Yahoo entered into a limited trial run of a Google ad partnership, and late that night, the news broke that other deals may be looming. Specifically, Time Warner was mulling a deal that would combine AOL and Yahoo, while News Corp. was considering a joint bid with Microsoft. The latter coalition would potentially combine Yahoo, MSN, and MySpace into a single entity.

Whichever way the deal goes, it stands to dramatically shake up the Internet landscape. The fate of search, email, portal and instant messaging monopolies hangs in the balance. Yet any merger would be messy. Aside from the simple stuff—where employees go, which services are discontinued—each of these companies controls a huge amount of backend infrastructure that would have to be consolidated.

Everyone knew this was going to be fun; so far, it hasn’t disappointed. What remains to be seen is the quantitative effect on the marketplace.

Further reading:
MSNBC: Yahoo takeover battle takes dramatic twist
WSJ Article
Reuters Article
Marketwatch Article
Wikipedia Entry
Site Statistics
More coverage
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BREAKING NEWS: DUMBLEDORE IS STRAIGHT

Early this morning, during a press release, special correspondent Rita Skeeter revealed that deceased Hogwarts Headmaster, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, considered one of the greatest wizards of modern times, is in fact of the heterosexual orientation. Professor Dumbledore is known for his defeat of dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald in 1945, a man who was perceived to be his first love. He also was famous for his discovery of the twelve uses of dragon’s blood and his work on alchemy with Nicholas Flamel.

At a young age, Dumbledore befriended Godric’s Hollow neighbor Grindelwald. They were united by their mutual dreams of finding the Deathly Hallows and conquering the wizarding world for the “greater good,” together. Following Dumbledore’s tragic death at the hands of Severus Snape, he was widely believed to be of the homosexual orientation. A year ago, Sybill Trelawny, great-great-granddaughter of the celebrated seer Cassandra Trelawney and professor of Divination, revealed that she had a “vision” of Dumbledore’s true nature. Not long after that, Gilderoy Lockhart, author of Magical Me, published a tell-all novel of his time at Hogwarts, which mentioned his (now proven false) accusations that Dumbledore made sexual advances towards him.

“Its bloody ridiculous that this git could make such a stupid comment about Dumbledore,” complained Auror Ron Weasley, previous student of Dumbledore. “That nutter has never spoken a true word in his entire pathetic life.”

After Harry Potter’s defeat of dark wizard Voldemort this June, Minerva McGonagall, longtime colleague of Dumbledore, was forced to take veritaserum, the “truth” potion, in order for the ministry to determine the truth of what happened that night, and what led up to it. In the interview, when asked of her relationship with Dumbledore, she revealed the truth of his sexuality. Apparently, throughout their long time friendship, their relationship grew to be something more than “just colleagues.” Their escapades included late night rendezvous in the Room of Requirement and secret trips to the astronomy tower to gaze at the stars.

Needless to say, this revelation brings up questions of what the other Hogwarts teachers might be doing at night. It makes us ponder the existence of illegitimate children who might be the result of this clandestine affair and heir to Dumbledore’s fortune of unique treasures and considerable wealth.

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Facebook preps new privacy, chat, and application features

TOPH TUCKER ’08

Early Wednesday morning, Facebook rolled out a new set of comprehensive privacy features. Members can now create “friend lists” and control how much information the people on each list may access. For instance, a person may create a “School” list and a “Family” list in order to display school-related photo albums only to school friends, and family-related photo albums only to family friends. In fact, users can even control what individual friends see, making it possible to create, for instance, albums that everyone except a single person can see.

For years, Facebook has had some of the most comprehensive privacy features of any site on the web. For a service that hosts such a wealth of information about its users, that level of control is necessary for users to remain comfortable. Yet as the privacy page continues to expand, Facebook runs the risk of making settings too daunting, discouraging users from delving into them at all.

Upon clicking “privacy” in the upper-right corner of the page, users are presented with four options: Profile, Search, News Feed and Mini-Feed, and Applications. Some categories contain multiple tabs, sometimes with close to a dozen subcategories on each tab. And each subcategory may present a whole pop-up full of options about exactly who may see exactly what. For instance, a user could go to the Profile privacy page, click on the Contact Information tab, look at the Current Address subcategory, select Customize from the drop-down menu, choose the “Some Friends” bullet point, enter certain friends or friend lists, and then enter specific people to exclude and click “Okay.” Going so deep is certainly not necessary, and the capability is certainly appreciated, but one still wonders at what point (if ever) people will be scared off.

Meanwhile, a Facebook-sponsored page presents information and screenshots of what profile pages of the future will look like. These screenshots depict the Wall being combined with the Mini-Feed, as well as each profile being separated into different tabs: Wall, About, Photos, etc. Facebook stresses that these developments are still in the early stages, and is open to user feedback. (To give your suggestions, email profilespreview@facebook.com.) And the company has recently confirmed reports that they are working on a “Facebook Chat” application that will allow for instant messaging without leaving the site.

As Facebook continues to grow and bring more and more content into the site, some wonder whether it will return the favor by allowing for increased openness that might break down some of the walls currently surrounding the site. Such interoperability is in part facilitated by the Facebook API—allowing, for instance, desktop widgets to show a slideshow of your friends’ photos—but other efforts to use data from Facebook on other sites have been shut down. Considering Facebook's devotion to privacy, that’s understandable. But the question remains: how long can Facebook continue to absorb more and more features before it finds its domination contested by the open-er internet at large?

Sources:
MSNBC: Facebook adds privacy controls
Facebook Preview Page
Facebook Blog: More Privacy Options
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How Do the Beaver Mock-Elections Compare to the Real World Results?

ELIZABETH COBB ’08 & GABBY GUTMAN ‘11

Last Tuesday millions of Americans from 22 states went out to vote in the Super Tuesday presidential primary. Additionally, Beaver’s student council held a mock election, giving students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to support their favorite candidates. Polls were open in the morning and afternoon, giving voters the option of choosing a Democrat or Republican ballot. For the Democrats one could choose from, Barrack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Mike Gravel. The Republican candidates were John McCain, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Both ballots also had the option of a “write-in” candidate, where voters could vote for someone not listed on the ballot. Though this option had been exploited in the past (David Ortiz got over 20% of the freshman votes for president in 2004) there were only 10 ballots with write-in candidates. The write-ins consisted of Stephen Colbert, New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, Dennis Kusinich, Beowoulf, former presidential hopeful Bob Dole, middle school teacher Jon Greenberg, Jesus and “Democracy.”

Though the results of the election were not surprising, the turnout was lower than expected. The middle school had 68% participation. Of the 80 student who voted, an overwhelming 92.5% used Democratic ballots, leaving 6 Republican supporters in the three grades. In the upper school, student involvement ranged from 75% of the 10th grade voting to a mere 53% of seniors going to the polls. One of the most surprising parts of the election was the representation of republican voters in the junior class. Beaver, often assumed to be a liberal and strongly democratic school, had 39 upper schoolers opt for the republican ballot, with 36% of the junior class supporting the GOP. However, by far the most disappointing group of voters was the faculty and staff; of 100, only 34 teachers and administrators showed up to support the candidates at school. The poor showing by seniors and staff is most likely due to the fact that many seniors and faculty members could vote in the real election, and saw that opportunity as more important than a mock election.

In the final tally, Obama won the mock election in a landslide with 74% of the Democrat vote. Clinton received 20% of the Democratic vote, while the generally unknown Mike Gravel was only chosen by 11 people. For the Republicans, John McCain won with 51% of the party’s votes. Ron Paul came in second with only 20% of the GOP’s support.

Though it is clear that Beaver “has a crush on Obama,” many results across the country on Super Tuesday were not so one-sided. On February 5, 2008 there were 24 primaries held throughout the country. These results will help determine who the republican and democratic nominees would be. For the democrats, Hillary Clinton won 782 delegates, barely beating Barrack Obama, who won 757. The number of delegates needed to win the democratic nomination is 2,025, but the closeness of the delegates at this point shows how important the upcoming primaries will be.

On the republican side, John McCain had a huge lead, with 605 delegates, Mitt Romney had 201 and Mike Hukabee came in third with having 152. (Note: for the republicans to get the nomination they need 1,191 delegates.)

For the state-by-state break down, Obama won 13 out of the 22 states that held democratic primaries, leaving Clinton with 9. Here in Massachusetts, Clinton won with 56% of the democratic votes, and Mitt Romney, who has since dropped out, came out in the lead with 51% of the republican votes. Following was McCain with 41%.

Super Tuesday is the day when almost half of the states have their primaries, and the results have a large impact on the final outcome for the presidential nominees. This year much was decided for the Republicans while very little was decided for the Democrats. At the end of the day, Obama and Clinton were neck in neck, while McCain has enough of a lead that his nomination is almost already guaranteed. As the primaries continue the race is very close on both sides, with many suspecting that party candidates will not be decided until the party conferences this summer. The primaries to come will be very exciting as we get closer to the convention.
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Decision ’08: Barack Hussein Obama

TAYLOR HAIGLER '08

Bio
Barack Obama is currently a United States Senator from Illinois. He was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Throughout his early years, Barack’s friends and family called him “Barry.” When Barack was two years old, his parents separated and a few years later divorced. His mother re-married an Indonesian Oil manager and the family moved to Jakarta in 1967. Barack returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents when he was ten. After graduating high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years. He then transferred to Columbia University where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations. Right after college, Obama moved to Chicago and took a job as a community organizer with a church-based group. He worked with low-income neighborhoods to improve living conditions. Wanting to create change in a bigger way, Barack attended Harvard Law School and completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991. He returned to Chicago and practiced civil rights law, served eight years in the Illinois State Senate and in 2004 was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Caucus/Primary Results
Obama currently has the support of 1,319 delegates, 69 more than Hillary Clinton.
For more information, click here

Political Views
Iraq: Obama opposed the war from the beginning and will immediately bring troops home, removing up to two combat brigades each month, and all combat brigades out in 16 months. No permanent bases will be built. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats. As troops are removed, Obama will engage representatives from all levels of Iraqi society to seek a new accord on Iraq’s Constitution and governance. Will launch an aggressive diplomatic effort to stabilize the Middle East (ie. secure borders, isolate al Qaeda, financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction). Will provide at least $2 billion to aid Iraq’s humanitarian crisis.

Education: Obama calls for the expansion of Early Head Start and Head Start programs. Will make affordable and high-quality child care available to working families. His "Zero to Five" plan emphasizes early care for infants to ensure that all children are ready to begin their education when they reach kindergarten. Obama's plan will reform No Child Left Behind to support schools that need improvement rather than punish them. Obama has developed a "recruit, prepare, retain, and reward" program to ensure the presence of quality teachers in every classroom. Obama will simplify the application process for financial aid, and create a universal and fully refundable tax credit, which will go toward the first $4,000 of college education.

Energy & Environment: Obama will reduce carbon emissions 80% by 2050. He will invest $150 billion over 10 years towards the advancement of renewable energy (ie. plug in hybrids) and double the current funding for research and development. His plan includes reducing oil consumption by at least 35% by 2030 by increasing America’s fuel economy standards. Obama wants to improve energy efficiency 50% by 2030 by setting national goals and offering grants to those states and corporations that implement the goals. Essentially, Obama wants to make the U.S. a leader by creating Global Energy Forums and re-engaging the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Poverty: Obama will expand access to jobs by investing $1 billion over five years in transitional jobs, creating a green jobs corps, improving public transportation and working to ensure that ex-offenders have employment opportunities. He plans to provide tax relief, increase tax benefits and raise minimum wage. He will increase the supply of affordable housing by creating trusts and funding community development programs to increase resources to the highest-need Americans. Obama will invest in rural small business, improve rural schools and ensure community-based resources to address community needs.

Sources:
http://www.barackobama.com/
iTunes Podcast: ABC News Presidential Candidate Profiles


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