| Betfair scores 100 per cent uptime Down Under
When UK-based online trading site Betfair was granted a licence to operate in Australia this January, it built a new data centre and flew the entire set-up from the UK to Tasmania on two chartered aeroplanes. In the first three weeks of going live, the company has achieved 100 per cent uptime. Betfair is an online trading exchange and according to the company's director of infrastructure Paul Moss, the challenges of keeping such a system available are similar to - and sometimes more demanding than - a stock exchange. Moss said: "The site always has to be available. Unlike the stock exchange, which shuts down at 17:00 for storage upgrades and firmware upgrades, Betfair can't stop. It is just like a stock exchange but 24/7. .
Five things you need to know today
1 Smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk, scientists in New Zealand have found. 2 A state archivist was charged Monday with stealing hundreds of artifacts from the New York State Library, including Davy Crockett Almanacs and Currier and Ives lithographs, to pay his household bills. 3 Margaret Truman Daniel, the only child of former President Harry Truman, died Tuesday. She was 83. 4 EBay Inc. said Tuesday it will cut by up to 50 percent the fees it charges sellers to list their goods online, in an effort to boost listings. 5 Wal-Mart announced Tuesday that it will chop prices between 10 percent to 30 percent this week on groceries, electronics and other home-related products in an effort to keep its cash-strapped consumers excited about shopping.
Knocking Hillary for All the Wrong Reasons
Besides the bully pulpit, a President must know how to use the levers of power to get legislation passed. It would be nice to think Clinton could achieve sweeping, civil-rights-movement-scale reform in government. But not even Obama is promising that. Both Clinton and Obama eschew a single-payer health care system, for example. Both are talking about incremental change. Obama, like Clinton's husband, just says it better, in a way that appeals to our more hopeful, idealistic feelings. That might be reason enough to vote for him. But beware the misogynist subtext of the stories of Hillary Clinton's demise. Ruth Conniff covers national politics for The Progressive and is a voice of The Progressive on many TV and radio programs. © 2008 The Progressive .
Michigan's Circa Estate Winery plans a summer opening in Leelanau
Call it the lure of Northern Michigan and a passion for making wine. That's how David and Margaret Bell arrived on a farm 16 years ago in Lake Leelanau, and why their dream of opening a winery is about to become a reality. The Bells are preparing to open Circa Estate Winery this summer on their 50-acre farm in Leland Township, where they renovated an 1883 farmhouse and painted it pink, planted vineyards and are completing a planet-friendly winery and tasting room set into a hillside. "We moved here with a five-year plan," Margaret said. "And here we are 16 years later." .
Cadbury misses party amid rival's woes
Cadbury Schweppes was among just four blue chip stocks to end in the red yesterday as sentiment switched from panic selling to buying. The FTSE 100 closed up 266.5 at 5,875.8, nearly 5 per cent higher, but Cadbury Schweppes fell 2 per cent, hit by a warning from its struggling US rival Hershey. Hershey – sometimes seen as a potential Cadbury merger candidate, although its controlling trust is thought to be more interested in turning the business around - gave warning that input costs had increased dramatically in 2007 and that it expected commodity and energy costs to increase at similar levels this year. Cadbury, which is to report full-year figures next month, fell 11½p to 552½p. Last month it said it was aiming to raise prices in 2008 to offset input costs that would be up to 6 per cent higher.
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