RTFA: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&si…

James Watson, winner of the Nobel Prize as co-discoverer of DNA’s molecular structure, retired as chancellor of New York’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory amid a controversy over racial remarks.

The lab suspended Watson from his position earlier this month after he questioned the intelligence of Africans during a book tour. Watson announced his decision to retire and leave the lab’s board in an e-mail.

“Closer now to 80 than 79, the passing on of my remaining vestiges of leadership is more than overdue,” Watson said in the e-mail. “The circumstances in which this transfer is occurring, however, are not those which I could ever have anticipated or desired.”

RTFA: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071025/ap_on_go_ca_st…

The Bush administration imposed sweeping new sanctions against Iran Thursday – the harshest in nearly three decades – cutting off key Iranian military and banking institutions from the American financial system for Tehran’s alleged support for terrorism and nuclear weapons ambitions.

In the broadest U.S. unilateral penalties on Iran since the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in 1979, the administration slapped sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, a main unit of its defense ministry, three of its largest banks and eight people that it said are engaged in missile trade and back extremist groups throughout the Middle East.

The timing of this is a bit suspicious.

RTFA: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic…

The Internet’s key oversight agency is investigating suspicions that insider information is being used to snatch desired domain names before an individual or business can register them.

The Security and Stability Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers termed the practice “domain name front running” and likened it to a stock broker buying or selling shares ahead of a client’s trade, in anticipation of a movement in price.

In the case of Internet addresses, many people who see a domain name available the first time they check find it already taken by the time they return to buy it.

That has led to suspicions that someone with access to search requests has been using the information to gauge interest in a domain name.

I’ve definitely had this happen to me before and had similar thoughts.