in

My boss David decided to declare June 27 "Nacho Libre Day" and take the entire office out to see the movie this afternoon. What a nice guy.

So, we're closing here in an hour and heading out. I demanded that Cari meet us at the movie with Hot Tamales in hand. Her life depends on it.

Read the company press release I wrote about this momentous occasion. It's a keeper.

in

In a meeting of wealth that made most countries tremble in awe, Bill Gates, the world's richest man, and Warren Buffet, the world's second richest man (unrelated to Jimmy Buffet of Margaritaville fame), announced today a donation by Buffet that will essentially double the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's annual financial distribution.

The Seattle-based foundation, which has assets of $29.1 billion, gave away $1.36 billion in 2005, and Buffet pledges approximately $1.5 billion annually.

To put it bluntly, that's a shitload of money that will be spent on world health, poverty and access to technology in developing countries. In the United States, the foundation focuses on education and technology in public libraries and has been a savior for Seattle schools.

Buffet's announcement comes just a week after Gates annouced he would be stepping down from his position at Microsoft to focus on the foundation. Call it a mid-life crisis for the 50-year-old Microsoft founder, or consider it a gift to humanity that one of the world's greatest minds is taking on the world's greatest problems. Now controlling the two deepest pockets in the world, Gates is up for the challenge, and his accomplishments could overshadow what he did with that little start-up called Microsoft.

in

Score one for Homeland Security. The AP reports today that seven young men seized in a Miami warehouse have been charged in a federal indictment with conspiring to "maliciously damage and destroy by means of an explosive" the FBI building in North Miami Beach and the Sears Tower in Chicago.

The indictment identifies Narseal Batiste as being the ringleader who started recruiting and training the other accused "for a mission to wage war against the United States government" beginning November 2005. Batiste allegedly met with an "al-Qaida representative" requesting financial sponsorship in February and planned a "full ground war" against the United States in order to "kill all the devils we can." The indictment claims that Batiste boasted his mission would "be just as good or greater than 9/11."

Coincidentally, the LA Times reports today that the greatly unpopular government surveillance programs extend to bank data. The article reports, "The U.S. government, without the knowledge of many banks and their customers, has engaged for years [since 9/11] in a secret effort to track terrorist financing by accessing a vast database of confidential information on transfers of money between banks worldwide." The confidential information includes names and account numbers.

I'll be curious to see if this banking surveillance activity receives the same criticism as the telephone surveillance did a few weeks ago in light of the anti-terrorism success story today.

in

What a great day! Italy beats the Czech Republic 2-0 with goals by Marco Materazzi and Filippo Inzaghi (pictured). Ghana sends the U.S. home with a 2-1 victory!

Now if I only had a way to catch the Japan-Brazil game...