News round-up: 8 Sep 2008

However, there is a lot of other news out there like the fact that Hurricane Ike has hit Cuba and still a Cat 2 storm, or that the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling or new elections, that WaMu has finally ousted their embattled CEO Killinger, and that RBC had been mulling a bid for Lehman Brothers but backed away.

There are a number of merger stories in the business section. An interesting tidbit is that last year I did some consulting work for UST, the makers of Skoal and Copenhagen. They were looking at some serious restructuring. Anyway, within 15 minutes of my arrival to present to the Board of Directors, half of the board including women were spitting their chewing tobacco into little dixie cups. Needless to say, it was a bit strange to be giving a presentation to the Board of a major company while everyone was dipping Skoal Long Cut. At least they like their product. I was expecting something a lot different since they are based in Greenwich, CT. I now see they decided to merge rather than deal with the restructuring issues on their own.

By the way, Google is also celebrating its tenth anniversary.