我不反對博益結業。

像Leona所說，大家多久沒有買博益的書了？我家裏有大量倪匡、畢華流、錢瑪莉（鄧小宇）、赤川次郎、川上春樹等的藏書，但都是最少十年前買的了。近年見博益也偶有佳作，在本地的出版市場上不算頂尖，但也不算潦倒。

然而，作爲一盤生意，好的管理層除了應要求一項業務有利潤之外，也應時時檢討該業務是否使用資本的最佳方法。而SCMP作為一家上市公司，絕對有義務盡這管理的責任。因此，博益結業，是一項商業決定；雖然令人惋惜，但大喊結業 = 無良未免過於嚴重了。

問題是，博益有沒有考慮過它結業的安排是否妥善？為什麽不讓作者買回版權？為什麽不把回書作大減價以一次過清倉？能不能把版權庫一次性賣掉？有沒有嘗試為博益這個老字號找買家？實在有太多能帶來雙贏局面的選擇。一家以營利為目標的公司，在準備完全把資產減值前，應該盡辦法為資產找變現的方法，而絕對沒有理由讓一項這麽有價值的資產隨便地一筆勾銷。

這些愚蠢的決定，除了不是competent的商業做法，也嚴重地損害了南華的名聲及出版界的地位。作為一張需要有社會公信力的報紙，把它的作家這麽公然地踐踏，實在是太不漂亮了。

時間會過去；出版社亦然。只是，就像男女分手的時候會問：這是最好的處理方法嗎？做事留一線，他日好相見。還是有點氣度好。

• Facebook group: 支援博益作者及反對博益結業大聯盟 (I only agree with the first premise)
• An online petition: 博益停業(一人一名支持博益作者取回版權並反對南華早報作出銷毀書籍行為！)
• A collection of bloggers' responses at Sidekick

A follow up to my previous posts.

Zimbabwe bank to issue $10m bill
By Peter Biles
BBC Southern Africa correspondent

Zimbabwe's central bank is to introduce new higher-denomination banknotes in an effort to ease the critical shortage of cash in the country.

Zimbabwe has been in economic decline for the past eight years, with annual inflation widely thought to be in excess of 50,000%.

The highest value note that will go into circulation on Friday is worth 10m Zimbabwean dollars.

But that is worth less than US$3.90 (£2; 2.60 euros) on the black market.

...

The government's only response is to print more money - and that is seen as the main reason for the hyperinflation.

There have been no official inflation figures published for the past three or four months.

Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank governor, Gideon Gono, has called on the business community not to increase prices every time new measures are taken to adjust the currency.

When I was an analyst in an investment bank, I had to spend a disproportionate amount of time on whipping up the best looking league tables by tweaking various parameters and recording such tweaks in minuscule font. Here is one that no banker would touch with a 10-feet pole:

1. Citi - $32.1bn
2. Merrill Lynch - $19.3bn
3. UBS - $13.7bn
4. Morgan Stanley - $10.6bn
5. Credit Agricole (Calyon) - $3.7bn
6. Barclays Bank - $3.3bn
7. Deutsche Bank - $3.2bn
8. Bank of America - $3bn
9. JPMorgan - $3bn
10. Bear Stearns - $2.8bn
11. Royal Bank of Scotland - $2.5bn
12. Credit Suisse - $2bn
13. Goldman Sachs - $1.7bn
14. Lehman Brothers - $1.5bn
15. WestLB - $519m

The worst is yet to come, my dear friends.

BRACE! BRACE!

January 21, 2008
Richard Owen in Rome
From The Times Online


Mafia bosses do not come much more brutal than Giuseppe and Filippo Graviano. Among the crimes, for which the brothers have been serving life sentences since 1994 are involvement in the murder of two anti-Mafia judges, the killing of an anti-Mafia priest, the bombing of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and another in Rome that killed 10 people and injured 93.

Yet both have shown an unexpected aptitude for turning their brainpower to a higher purpose: academic study. They recently gained first-class degrees — Giuseppe in mathematics and Filippo in economics.

Prison authorities said that a growing number of imprisoned Mafia killers are taking degrees, and that their motives may not be entirely to do with academic achievement.

“A favourite subject is law,” Giuseppe Giustolisi, an expert on the Mafia, said. “Either they want to find out where they went wrong, or they hope they will get out one day and that detailed knowledge of the law will help them to evade prison in future.”

He said that another motive was that they were allowed to travel to the university where they had enrolled to take exams — and the universities were often in their home towns.

“I am worried that this loophole in the high-security system enables them to somehow communicate with their local henchman,” Sebastiano Ardita, the former head of the Italian prison service, said.

...

Mr Ardita said: “I do not believe they have changed their ways. There is something more to it.” He said that a display of intellectual superiority helped Mafia bosses to maintain their “supremacy” over clans, and travelling to their home turfs to take exams offered “a loophole in a system that is supposed to isolate them”. Antonio Ingroia, an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Sicily, said: “It does seem absurd to relax a high-security regime intended to ensure they have no contact with the criminal underworld.”

However, Emilio Santoro, a professor at Florence University, said that even Mafia bosses deserved a chance to better themselves. He cited the case of Carmelo Musumeci, a mafioso from Catania, who gained a law degree with a dissertation on “the experiences of prisoners serving life sentences”.

Mafia prisoners are held under a security regime known as 41b, which the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has criticised as excessively harsh. They are allowed only two visits a month and open-air exercise for up to four hours a day.

This is freakishly amazing.

[His son] Jimmy’s service is the lone subject about which McCain will not answer questions – "We’re proud of all our kids, is what we say." He has another son, Jack, who is a midshipman at the Naval Academy, like his father and grandfather and great-grandfather before him. McCain will talk about Jack, because Jack is safe in Annapolis. But McCain will not talk about Jimmy, whose imminent departure represented one of those rare instances when a family’s and a nation’s dramas unfolded on the same front line. Not since Adlai Stevenson had a presidential candidate seen his son off to war.



Another reason why McCain is perhaps the most honest and honorable Republican candidate of the decade.

魔兽世界“入侵”传统媒体
包括央视在内的主流媒体屡次发生借用网游地图事件


　　显然，很多媒体从业者都是魔兽世界的忠实玩家。前不久，沈阳一家报纸在讲古代中美洲瘟疫的时候配上了魔兽世界西瘟疫之地的地图，河南一家报纸在描述股票牛市的时候借用了魔兽世界牛头人种族的形象，央视的节目里也几次出现了魔兽世界的主题音乐渲染气氛。

　　没想到，这几天央视军事栏目似乎也找不到世界地图了。

　　1月2日，CCTV七套军事纪实栏目中总结2007年全球军事演习时，用了一张插图标明土耳其、伊拉克和伊朗的地理位置――同样是魔兽世界里的一张地图。