Financial Woes for the New York Times

(American Thinker) - New York Times Company's reported financial results, outlook, and stock price keep getting hammered by poor business performance.


The prospects are grim. The newspaper industry is in serious trouble. But the Times faces a special challenge in the arrival of Rupert Murdoch as new owner of the Wall Street Journal, not to mention any further problems which might grow out of the MoveOn ad scandal and the regulatory risks associated with the Federal Election Commission and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.


Rupert is all about top line growth. Pinch is reduced to selling off valuable assets and hollowing out his core business with drastic expense cuts just to pay the current dividend!
If I were a betting man I would take Murdoch over Pinch any day of the week. Pinch inherited the New York Times, a global icon in newspaper publishing. Murdoch inherited a tiny paper called the Barrier Miner, in Broken Hill, New South Wales, (2000 population: 21,000), and Southdown Press, a small publisher of American comic books. While not nothing, it is an awfully humble beginning compared to Pinch.


All told, the Murdoch's companies were probably worth at most a few hundred thousand US$ or so when he took control of them. Today, the News Corp. market cap is $68.82 billion, while the Times is $2.89 billion. News Corp., in other words, has a market cap almost 24 times as much as the New York Times.


It's as if Pinch left England on the QE2 and washed up in New York harbor in a lifeboat, while Murdoch left Austrailia in a rowboat and sailed into NewYork commanding the Seventh fleet. More...


I didn't know that News Corp. had such humble beginnings.

745 mile-long golf course set to open in Australia

(Cybergolf) - It may soon be possible to play a 750-mile long course in Austrailia. The Austrailian government has put up seed money to transform a treeless place called the Nullarbor Plain into an 18-hole golf course.


You'll need a cart or survival guide as your caddie to play this ginormous layout. The course will stretch along a busy highway and will run almost 750-miles. Each hole will be located in a town along the way, incliding one at a remote sheep farm.


The course will start in the western mining town of Kalgoorlie and end in the southern city of Ceduna. The people behind the project believe people will be waiting in line for access. "The Japanese are prepared to play golf on a rooftop, that's how keen they are," promoter Alf Caputo tells the Australian Associated Press. "Can you imagine? They'll be flocking in hordes to get over here and play this." More...

Grass is now legal in Austrailia

Since I'm the President of Austrailia I decided that it is legal to plant grass here.

Team USA beats Austrailia

Team USA beats Austrailia
by John Altovila - Hartford Currant



UNCASVILLE - As UConn women's basketball fans understand by now, Tennessee junior center Candace Parker likely played for the final time in Connecticut Wednesday when Team USA defeated Australia 70-66 in an exhibition game at Mohegan Sun Arena.


Oh, she'll be back when her WNBA career eventually begins. She just won't be wearing orange and if you don't know why that is, don't expect Pat Summitt or Geno Auriemma to clear it up before she graduates. More...

Welcome to Austrailia Blog

This is where I tell you that you might have meant Australia, not Austrailia. If not, well, welcome to Austrailia.