| Gas costs forcing drivers to cut back
Inveterate drivers are carpooling, combining errands to eliminate trips, trying mass transit, and even walking. As a result, gasoline consumption, which grew steadily in recent years as prices passed $2, $2.50, and $3 a gallon, has flattened and even declined, according to the US Energy Department. Average daily gasoline consumption in the United States has decreased in each of the past four weeks from a year ago, according to recent data. In the past six months, average daily consumption slipped two-tenths of a percent from a year earlier, after growing 2.5 percent in the previous year. In the Northeast, gasoline demand has dropped as much as 3 percent, after growing 1 to 2 percent annually in recent years, said Joe Petrowski, chief executive of Gulf Oil LP, a Newton wholesaler and distributor that supplies about 10 percent of the region's gas stations.
Rascal Flatts Join the Rubik's Revolution(TM)
NEW YORK, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Techno Source, the leader in electronic toys and games, announces today a partnership with Rascal Flatts granting the group the exclusive right to host the Rubik's Revolution(TM) Light Speed(TM) online game on their Fan site www.rascalflatts.com. Rascal Flatts fans also have the chance to win one of 100 award-winning Rubik's Revolution cubes by April 30, 2008 and one lucky winner will win a pair of tickets and passes to meet Rascal Flatts at a concert of his/her choice. "Since the Rubik's Revolution came out last summer, we have watched it become a pop-culture phenomenon," says Jay DeMarcus, Rascal Flatts. "We're excited that we can share the Light Speed online game with our fans on our Web site and give them the chance to win a Rubik's Revolution cube of their own." Toy industry analyst Gerrick L.
Good news from Iraq!
Things are so much better now that we have worked out all those messy civil unrest details in Pakistan and have the freely-elected Pakistani administration rooting out Osama Bin Laden, the true and actual mastermind of 9/11. No need to worry about those Pakistani nukes falling into the hands of Islamic radicals. And those crazy Afghans have calmed down, too. The Taliban comeback has been squashed, the drug trade has been eliminated and Afghans are free to live without the permission of brutal regional warlords. Meanwhile, all is well at home where we finally have in place port security, border security, natural gas depot and nuclear power plant security, transmission line security, school security and that nifty threat scale that makes life so colorful.
Jim Salisbury: Phillies' Gillick not sweating about Lidge surgery
Lidge's injury led to the inevitable question of whether Myers would need to repeat his 2007 move from the starting rotation to closer. (Myers would do it, by the way.) "He's absolutely staying," Gillick said. "Why should we move him? Lidge will be back." It's probable that Gillick isn't sweating this situation because he truly believes Lidge will be back shortly after opening day. At the same time, though, he seldom sweats things. He faced a disaster when Freddy Garcia showed up hurt last spring - no one was worried about him at first, either - but kept mixing and matching until a kid named Kyle Kendrick showed up. The loss of Chase Utley in July could have been a nightmare, but Gillick mitigated that possibility with a quick acquisition of Tadahito Iguchi. So, Gillick has a pretty good record in crisis management.
Japan household shift from safe deposits a slow one
Households with more than two persons held an average 12.59 million yen ($117,400) of financial assets in 2007, up from 11.19 million yen the year before, according to the annual survey conducted in October and November. Deposits accounted for 53 percent of financial assets, down from 54 percent in 2006. Securities holdings -- including stocks, bonds and investment trusts -- rose to 19 percent in 2007 from 16 percent the year before. Nearly half of respondents, or 46.5 percent, cited safety as the top priority in choosing financial assets. Liquidity and profitability were cited by 28 percent and 16.5 percent, respectively. In the past few years Japanese investors have turned to foreign assets like New Zealand bonds and Chinese stocks, trying to earn better returns than they can get at home where interest rates are very low and the equity market has underperformed others.
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