California the Worst State in Which to Do Business, by Far: "The Wall Street Journal reports on a survey that reveals yet another Gray Davis legacy. The survey reveals that California has the worst rating among business executives for the desirability of 'doing business.' California's negative reading is worse than the next two 'worst states' combined."

Google News Could Change Online News Industry: "With the new Google News, I think I've seen the best implementation of the global newsstand to date. The service calculates what are the most significant stories being published at any given time, and ranks them according to time published, number of links to the story, and credibility of the publishing organization. It then presents them in a way that highlights news by its importance. The Google News main page is a sort of 'front page' of a global online 'newspaper' (or a more accurate analogy might be 'wire service'), with stories placed in categories including top stories, U.S. news, world news, sports, business, science-tech, health, and entertainment."

Here's your $500,000: Now go do something smart! "The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded the no-strings-attached grants to scholars, artists and others since 1981 to free them to pursue their work without having to worry about making a living."

Who needs sleep? New pill hits scene: "Just to see what it was like, the Cambridge computer programmer stayed awake four straight days. He felt fine, he reported later, not jittery, nicely focused. 'Imagine,' he wrote in an e-mail, 'having all the time you could want to goof off, knowing that you still have just as much time as usual to spend on things you have to do.'"

When porn permeates Web personals: " Her online personal ad said she liked the outdoors, camping, hiking, biking, blading, and -yes, even fishing. Don was online looking for love, like millions of other men, and thought -Amyloov was sexy, so he dropped her a note through Yahoo.com's personals. But finding out if Amyloov was -the one came with a price tag - $4 a minute, in fact. Amyloov turned out to be just a cleverly disguised advertisement for a pay-per-minute sex line."

Instapundit: "Rumor has it that the Boston Globe is interested in weblogs and is planning a weblog-related initiative for its Boston.com site. I hope it's true. UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis emails with this link, which leads to more info. Cool."

Unacceptable names an 'emotional abuse' of children: "This week, Children's Commissioner Roger McClay pleaded with parents to take a commonsense approach when naming their children after receiving a complaint about a Gisborne baby named after a Mongrel Mob chapter."

Energy Department to move at-risk nuclear material to Nevada:" The Energy Department confirmed Friday it plans to move several tons of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium to the Nevada Test Site from a federal laboratory in New Mexico where critics said it was at risk from terrorist attacks."

Reporters Find New Outlet, and Concerns, in Web Logs: "Given the space and time constraints of most news media companies, audience reaction often gets little attention. But Eric Alterman has so much room in his Web log on MSNBC.com that earlier this month he devoted an entire entry to readers' e-mail - 8,000 words of it."

Nevada officials step up deer, elk testing: "Nevada wildlife officials are stepping up testing for chronic wasting disease in the state's deer and elk populations."