INFORGRAPHICS GENERALIZING GENERAL SUBJECTS

We love infographics at GOOD. And boy do we have our share of them. So this visual snark courtesy of ThinkBrilliant (it's a few months old) is directed pretty squarely at publications like ours. We can take it.

Like all quality infographics, this effectively conveys relevant information and makes a point—that there are a lot of infographics, or rather, that lots of infographics make lots of general points. GOOD

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I would like to make a toast to lying, stealing, cheating and drinking. If you're going to lie, lie for a friend. If you're going to steal, steal a heart. If your going to cheat, cheat death. And if you're going to drink, drink with me.”

CHARLIE SHEEN

I think it's safe to say Charlie is an udder and complete asshole with total disregard for others, but I must say I'm particularly impressed with how well spoken and articulate he really is at times. Yeah it's easy to hate the guy, and I'm in no way defending his behavior, but don't let the manic and obvious heavy withdrawal symptoms, and near death looks afflicting Mr. Sheen distract you; despite himself I think he's being very truthful about the whole situation, and gives all of us a rare glimpse behind the curtain to the ugly dirty business that is Hollywood. 


It's the quiet ones you have to worry about and at least with Charlie you know what you're getting. I mean how many stories are being leaked these days about drug use, hookers, and just out right greed and disregard for human life by those in the highest authority. If anyone thinks this is anything other than how the majority of the rich and powerful perceive themselves and operate on a daily basis your crazy. 


So thank you Charlie for the brutal cracked out honesty, and the laughs, maybe it will be enough to wake a few dimwitted boobs up in this country. 

ARMY RECRUITMENT MEETS IPHONE

The latest addition to the U.S. Army’s arsenal of recruitment tools is an iPhone app that launched Monday. The free app gives access to more than 600 soldier bloggers’ content as well as allowing users to share their own “Army Strong” stories, photos and videos.


A release from the U.S. Army Accessions Command called the app and a mobile website that also launched on Monday “a natural extension of the Army’s ongoing commitment to engage potential recruits via social media channels.” MASHABLE

JPMORGAN SAYS ITS READY TO GO HEAD TO HEAD WITH TRADING ELITE

Frank Troise, managing director and global head of electronic trading, joined JPMorgan from Barclays Capital last April. He inherited an established electronic trading desk with a full palette of algorithms, smart-order router technology and post-trade analytics. Still, the brokerage firm needed to distinguish itself from the crowd to raise its profile. Troise went to work.


Since then, he's been adding staff across the board, as well as tweaking code and modifying routing logic to make JPMorgan more competitive. And finally, after 10 months, Troise believes the pieces are in place and the firm is ready to make a major push. TRADERS

MILITARY MIND MELD DISPUTED

The accusation was explosive and unambiguous: A top general in Afghanistan used illegal “information operations” to influence visiting U.S. Senators. But military documents obtained by Danger Room show that at least one Army lawyer deemed the work legal. What’s more, the alleged information operator’s bosses repeatedly told him that he was just another communications staffer, not some bender of minds.


At the very least, this new information complicates the charges, first leveled by Lt. Col. Michael Holmes in Rolling Stone magazine. At most, it could neuter Holmes’ allegations, just as an investigation by the office of Afghan war commander Gen. David Petraeus gets underway. DANGER-ROOM

GOOGLE FAIL: 150,000 GMAIL ACCOUNTS LOST

For years now, Google has touted the reliability of its cloud-based products — web services like Gmail and 


Docs that live on remote Google servers, which users can access from anywhere.


Of course, if you were one of the estimated 150,000 people whose Gmail accounts vanished into the ether Sunday night, you may be re-evaluating the efficacy of these cloud-based services.


In a statement, Google said the bug is affecting less than .08 percent of the Gmail user base. WIRED

INSPIRON DUO EARNS HARD FOUGHT GEE WHIZ CRED, FALLS SHORT ON SUBSTANCE

You can’t deny Dell some hard-fought Gee Whiz Cred with the new Inspiron Duo.


In a world of commoditized portables, it is nothing if not a unique product. Show it off to your friends — it looks like a netbook, and you pop open the laptop-like clamshell and wait for the bored expression to appear. Then comes the sucker punch: you rotate the screen horizontally within its frame and snap the laptop back shut. Ta-da, it’s a freakin’ tablet, bro! People are duly impressed. It’s a neat trick and, at the very least, a clever feat of engineering.


But what is the Dell Inspiron Duo? Cut through the mystery and you will find — sorry to burst your bubble — a Windows netbook with a rotating touchscreen.


And that begs the question, what is it good for?


Well, we’re still working on that one. WIRED

OIL'S BLEAK FORECASTS

This oil price spike is going to be anything but short lived, if you believe this chart from Morgan Stanley.


It details how by the year 2013, there's not going to be any excess supply in the system. That means, even if the Saudis aren't lying about being able to ramp up production like Jim Rogers says, they've only got two more years to do so before that spare capacity evaporates.


So beyond the Middle East instability trend, there's a much bigger problem lurking. MONEY GAME

PHOTOJOJO RING FLASH ADAPTER

Photojojo has a new ring flash adapter that allows you to shoot soft, studio-style portraits without shelling out the big bucks for an actual ring flash. It’s a plastic add-on with a reflective circle that simply channels the light from your existing flash, so it doesn’t require any batteries. PETAPIXEL

HSBC'S LIMP PROFIT ESTIMATES LEAVES DISAPPOINTED INVESTORS

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Banking giant HSBC Holdings PLC said Monday that its 2010 net profit more than doubled to $13.16 billion, though the result wasn’t enough to satisfy investors, who were disappointed by rising costs and a lowered profitability target.

HSBC /quotes/comstock/23s!a:hsba (UK:HSBA 676.10, -33.10, -4.65%)   /quotes/comstock/13*!hbc/quotes/nls/hbc (HBC 54.99, -2.28, -3.98%)  said it generated a profit in every customer group and region for the first time since 2006. The group’s performance was driven by a return to profit for its retail banking unit and continued strong growth in emerging markets, while the investment-banking profit fell back slightly. MARKETWATCH    

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

Step one: Open all doors. Learn a little about a lot. Consider as many options as possible, then add more.

Step two: Relentlessly dismiss, prune and eliminate. Choose. Ship. SETH GODIN

PRE-DESIGN

I have helped businesses craft effective marketing materials for almost 25 years now, and I’ve had every type of client.

There are the clients who want their website to appeal to everyone — no matter if that means making the design and content so bland it might as well not be there at all.

There are clients who don’t really know why their service is good, or the ones who don’t have a marketing strategy beyond “pitch this product.”

Sure, I could take their money and create a single-product promotion, a bland one-time campaign, or help them run one ad that they think will turn everything around. But it burns me up inside.

Because I know that even with a limited budget, they can create an effective marketing campaign.

So here it is: before you throw money at a designer to start a project, ask yourself these questions: COPYBLOGGER 

GADHAFI BARED BY THE UN

The United Nations Security Council voted 15-0 Saturday night to bar travel and freeze the foreign assets of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi and four other officials in an effort to halt his regime’s attacks on protesters.


The resolution, which also imposes an arms embargo on Libya, calls for an immediate end to violence that it says “may amount to crimes against humanity.” The text, while referring the allegations to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, cites as authorization for all the sanctions a provision of the UN Charter that precludes military intervention. TVS

QUOTE OF THE DAY

They say people are motivated by two factors, sex, and money, so which are you? Sex, or money. 

Rapid Prototyping

Tech TalkBack 2011.01.27

Tech TalkBack 2010.11.18 - Robert X. Cringely

QUOTE OF THE DAY

Believe those who are seeking the truth.  Doubt those who find it.

RIGHTHAVEN CALLED INTO QUESTION

Marc Randazza was kind enough to send over the amicus brief his law firm filed on behalf of the Media Bloggers' Association in response to one of Righthaven's lawsuits. You should read the whole thing (it's embedded below). I'll repeat: you should read the whole thing. It rips apart Righthaven's entire strategy and shreds it to pieces, accusing the company of champerty among other things. Here's just a snippet:

If the Las Vegas Review-Journal (hereinafter, the "LVRJ") or its parent company, Stephens Media LLC (hereinafter, "Stephens Media"), were the plaintiffs in these cases, this argument would not apply. But Righthaven's exercise in champerty seeks to make an end-run around the rule of law limiting the right to sue for copyright infringement to creators and those legitimate enterprises that make creativity possible and protectable. Nobody can seriously believe that Righthaven, which publishes nothing anywhere, has acquired the full ownership of the articles it sues upon. The assignments it secures -- only after finding "infringed" articles to sue over -- contain mysterious (and heretofore unexamined) language about a "right of reversion" which, on frank consideration, demonstrates how transparently illegitimate these "assignments" are. TECHDIRT 

UNVEILING THUNDERBOLT

Intel's long-awaited Light Peak technology, now known formally as Thunderbolt, is finally available on its first consumer device, and the company today unveiled more details about when we'll be seeing it in consumer PCs and gadgets.

First unveiled at Intel's Developer Conference back in 2009, the data transfer tech promises to replace a handful of ports with one that can do more things, and do them faster.


Its first inclusion in a computer is in Apple's MacBook Pro line, which refreshed earlier today with Thunderbolt ports across the line (see CNET's hands-on here). Intel followed up a few hours later with a press conference about the technology, as well as its plans to bring it to computers and devices over the next year or so. CNET

THE NEW FACE OF MEDIA: A PASSING OF THE BATON

A lot of the buzz that has turned the South by Southwest festival into a media monster has been paid for and delivered by the big brands that sponsor it.


SXSW in Austin is one of the biggest conferences of the year for techies, filmmakers and musicians. Even the part of the conference known as SXSW Interactive -- previously geared at tech geeks and internet junkies -- is now a major mainstream production, with sponsors such as Miller Lite, Chevrolet and PepsiCo. And while there are plenty of old-school journalists there to cover the buzz, there are any number of bloggers sent specifically by corporate sponsors to help build buzz.


Attending SXSW is expensive. And this is where the brands come in -- they have the cash and want coverage of whatever it is they're doing. After all, if it isn't blogged, Facebooked or tweeted, then it didn't happen.


Ethical, professional and legal considerations come into play when there is an exchange of buzz for money, and could even hurt the credibility of some bloggers who want to be taken seriously. And then there is the matter of disclosure.  ADAGE

A MOMENT OF ZEN

Twenty-five years ago, Markus Koch was a defensive lineman for the Washington Redskins. During his third season, he broke his lumbar vertebrae, but he continued to play for three more years. Now in his late forties, he suffers from depression, and when he stands for extended periods of time, his legs go numb.


Recently, Markus Koch reflected on the gap between football fans watching the game at home and the physical experience of the players on the field. To close that gap, he facetiously suggested, players might be fitted with a mouth guard that “registers the impact they’re getting on the field, and at certain g-forces the helmet shell would crack and explode and leak gray matter and blood.” Or, conversely, the fan might be fitted with an adjustable pneumatic suit, which would be “telemetrically linked to a player on the field.” In that way the fan could “experience what the player is going through.” THEPRACTICEOFZEN

RIGHTSIZING YOUR BUSINESS

The magic of the periodic table is that every atom is one thing or another--there isn't a stable element that's sort of oxygen and sort of nitrogen. If there were, there would be millions of elements, not a few hundred.

That's because electrons are (more or less) either here or there. The quantum levels ensure that there are no weird hybrids.

A business follows a similar model. A local mom and pop store is just the right size for mom and for pop. The rent is low enough for the two of them to cover it. It's stable. They can't afford a $200,000 a year CFO. It wouldn't be a stable situation.

This is backwards but here you go: businesses that exist exist because the marketplace allows them to function at the right size. There were a lot of bowling alleys in the 1960s because the number of people you needed to run one plus the rent was just covered by the revenue you could expect. There was a right size, one that people were willing to take on and run. SETHGODIN

WRITING IS A STRANGE AND DANGEROUS CALLING

My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus.
~ William S. Burroughs

Writing is a strange and dangerous calling.

I do mean calling. Like Burrough’s word virus, the craft of writing compels us to it in a way that is beyond our ability to resist.

A writer writes.

A writer who does not write inevitably descends into a booze, coffee, sex, nicotine and/or guilt-driven world of pain. Steven Pressfield has covered this ground well.

If you’ve got the touch, the way with words, I’m betting you understand what I’m saying. I’m also betting you’re nowhere near having it “together” as a writer. COPYBLOGGER

SME ON THE BEST NEW SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

Are you looking for the hottest new social media tools and services? We asked our team of Social Media Examiner writers to share their best new social media discoveries.

What follows is an amazing list of social media tools you’ve likely never heard of—covering a wide range of categories:

• Tools for pictures, video, audio and screen capture
• Tools to measure and track results
• Tools to manage content
• Blogging tools
• Twitter tools
• Other social media tools

Try them out. And be sure to report back here with your thoughts. SME

QUOTE OF THE DAY

I don't care about the facts, I only care about the truth. 

3XN TRIES TO FUSE BANKING WITH TRANSPARENCY IN THEIR NEW DESIGN

The notion that the words "banking" and "openness" might walk hand in hand today, in 2011, is positively laughable to anyone born before 2008. But that's precisely what Swedbank is suggesting with its proposed headquarters in Stockholm, a 484,000-square-foot glass- and light-filled confection that (fingers crossed) hints at a sunnier future for the financial industry. FASTCPDESIGN 

GRAN TURISMO MEETS REALITY

To paraphrase Justin Timberlake: driving a European supercar in a videogame isn't cool. You know what's cool? Driving that same European supercar in real life. The Citroën GT only existed in the virtual streets of the Playstation game Gran Turismo -- until 3D printing brought it to life. Yes, we're serious: this is a street-legal, fully functional Citroën concept car made from a combination of hand-crafted and 3-D printed parts, based on the designs from a video game. Car geeks, eat your heart out: FASTCODESIGN

TAX INFOGRAPHICS

Do you really know what your taxes are paying for? Google and Eyebeam gallery want you to figure out the answer, in their very first Data Visualization Challenge, which offers $10,000 in prizes. And as fodder for inspiration, they've created this nifty little chart: FASTCODESIGN

XBMC ADDS TV, PODCASTS, AND VIDEO GAMES TO IT'S MEDIA CENTER

Whitson Gordon — In its latest update, much-beloved media center application XBMC added one-click add-on installation, bringing browser-like extensions to your Media center. If you've ever wanted to incorporate watching TV, listening to podcasts, or playing video games to your XBMC box, the new add-on system is incredibly easy to use, and can power your box up to do all sorts of things. Here's how it works, followed by a few of our favorite XBMC add-ons. LH

THE NEXT GENERATION OF DIGITAL PHOTOG

The next generation of digital photography is here: built-in cameras, photo-splicing apps and image-sharing communities such as Instagram and PicPlz. It’s inspired many to turn their smartphones into miniature picture-editing and collage-making studios.


Now, in partnership with CNN iReport, we’re challenging you to get creative. Use your digital photo tools to make a collage showing the role technology plays in your life. MASHABLE

HTC'S 7PRO

Punch sprint.com/arrive into your address bar and the above is what you shall find. Not a generic error marker but a URL-specific "coming soon" message that would seem to confirm the existence and indeed near-future arrival of the HTC Arrive. Beyond that bit of web sleuthing, we also have ourselves a proven tipster informing us that this will be a carrier-branded version of HTC's 7 Pro and confirming that it will be launched tomorrow. ENGADGET

SCOTT WALKER ISN'T BUDGING

This is amazing.


Buffalo Beast -- the online newspaper founded by onetime editor Matt Taibbi, has a recording of a phone call between Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and current Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy -- pretending to be 


David Koch.
(Note: the Buffalo Beast website has been on and off all morning.)
Where did Murphy get this idea from? THEWIRE

HIMSS11 EXPLORING NEW OPPORTUNITIES IN HEALTH

I will be attending the HIMSS conference again this year and look forward to a great week exploring new opportunities in health information technology.


There was an excellent panel discussion Sunday at HIMSS that looked at innovation in health care with Aneesh Chopra, CTO of the United States, Peter Levin, CTO at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Farzad Mostashari, Deputy National Coordinator at the ONC. They discussed a three-pronged approach to health care innovation: RADAR

NINA NGUYEN OUT OF THIS WORLD

Nina Nguyen Designs is unleashing an otherworldly collection of bracelets, guaranteed to catch the eyes of many with its sparkle. TRENDHUNTER

LOCAL ALGAE ANESTHETIC BREAKS GROUND

Chile collaboration is bringing surgical patients closer to having a long-acting local anesthetic. In a randomized, double-blind trial, patients given neosaxitoxin, a new local anesthetic derived from algae, had significantly less postoperative pain and recovered about two days sooner than those given the commonly used local anesthetic bupivacaine. Based on this finding, Children's Hospital Boston, a co-investigator on the study, has signed a collaboration agreement with biotech start-up company Proteus SA (Santiago, Chile) to move the new anesthetic toward clinical adoption. Tens of millions of patients have operations requiring local anesthesia each year. Current local anesthetics act for less than 8 hours; when they wear off, patients generally need opioid analgesics, which cause substantial side effects, including nausea, sedation, shallow breathing, sleepiness, constipation and itching. These side effects often delay recovery and can result in prolonged hospitalization. ESCIENCE 

AN ECONOMICAL WAY TO SYNTHESIZE LIQUID FUEL FROM CO2

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion are major contributors to global warming. Since CO2 comes from fuel, why can't we recycle it back into fuel rather than releasing it into the atmosphere? An economical way to synthesize liquid fuel from CO2 would help mitigate global warming while reducing our need to burn fossil fuels. Catalysts that induce chemical reactions could be the key to recycling carbon dioxide, but they need to have just the right activity level-too much, and the wrong chemicals are produced; too little, and they don't do their job at all. SCIGURU

GEORGIA TECH'S NEW VIRTUAL WORLD

Georgia Tech is taking the lead on creating a new virtual world to improve Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education for all students, especially those with disabilities. The project is part of a National Science Foundation Alliance collaborative grant that partners Georgia Tech with the University of Georgia as lead institutions. Georgia Perimeter College and three Georgia public school systems are also critical partners in the project.


Robert Todd and his research team in the Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA) are creating a virtual island in the popular Second Life world that will be a place for students with any kind of disability to go and get help with STEM subjects. The project, known as the Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance, or GSAA, will serve Georgia students from high school through graduate studies. SCIGURU

ALZHEIMER'S EARLY DETECTION SYSTEM

Alzheimer is a disease which greatly impacts on affected patients and on their close relatives. Moreover, given the greater life expectation of the population, it is expected that its incidence will notably increase over the coming decades. For health care bodies, Alzheimer's is a huge challenge for two reasons: first, for the health budget it absorbs and, secondly, because there is still no effective treatment therapy. The current quest for therapies to tackle Alzheimer's disease is a prime research challenge which behoves the close collaboration of specialists from various medical spheres. In this sense, the Vicomtech-IK4 Technological Centre and the Bilbomatica and the eMedica companies are designing and developing a novel computer tool which seeks the early diagnosis of the condition. The main technological novelty incorporated into the platform is the capacity of the system to automatically propose diagnostic judgements, based on the results of all the medical tests undertaken to date on a specific patient, using latest-generation semantic technologies. SCIGURU

QUICKEN LOAN INC. SINKS TO NEW LOW

A West Virginia judge has slapped online mortgage giant Quicken Loans Inc. with more than $2.7 million in punitive damages and legal costs after finding the lender had defrauded a borrower by misleading her about her loan and using an inflated property appraisal.

Ohio County (W.Va.) Circuit Judge Arthur Recht awarded the borrower just under $2.17 million in punitive damages. He also ordered that Quicken pay her attorneys nearly $600,000 in legal fees and costs. In a ruling last year, Recht had called Quicken’s conduct “unconscionable.” PUBLICINTEGRITY 

AUDI'S A3 CONCEPT

Audi's A3 line used to be its smallest, but with the A1 hatchback slotting in beneath it, Audi looks eager to differentiate the A3 from its smaller sibling. And to that end, it is planning to unveil a new concept car at the upcoming Geneva Motor Show. LUXIST

10 TIPS WHEN BLOGGING FOR A GOOD CAUSE

Darren Rowse of Problogger is heading to Tanzania to write about the work of international disability rehabilitation organization CBM. He’s set up a blog for the trip so we can follow along.

Jonathan Blundell saw Darren’s tweets about the upcoming trip and suggested he check out CompassionBloggers.com for some good examples of bloggers writing for a cause. (Thanks, Jonathan!) And then Darren tweeted asking me if I had any advice for good cause bloggers.


I sure do. Hope this helps, Darren. SHAUNGROVES

EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS

At length corruption, like a general flood,
Did deluge all; and avarice creeping on,
Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.
Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks,
Peeress and butler shared alike the box;
And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town,
And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown:
Britain was sunk in lucre’s sordid charms.—Pope.
GUTENBERG 

PROFIT-SHARING CLAUSE LIKELY TO BE REPLACED BY HIGHER ROYALTY

MUMBAI: The government is likely to dilute a provision in an upcoming legislation on mining that would have required companies to share profits with local communities, according to two people familiar with the issue. Instead, miners may be asked to pay higher royalty — a tax which is calculated as a percentage of price.

Vehement opposition from industry coupled with the fact that profits from mining operations could be difficult to calculate in many cases has brought about the change in the government’s thinking, the people said. A final decision on the legislation — the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Bill — which is currently being considered by a Group of Ministers, has not yet been taken, they said. ECONOMICTIMES       

THE COMPETITION FOR THE CPSRS HEATS UP WITH THIS SADAR AND VUGA ENTRY

The competition for the Center for Promotion of Science of the Republic of Serbia (CPSRS) has received some incredible designs. Sadar and Vuga envision the Center as a sleek, streamlined, modern building to accompany the existing buildings of the Faculty of Drama Arts.  


Sadar and Vuga’s Center is a one storey building that touches the ground with four outstretched legs in each corner, connected by four arches. The modern design presents a futuristic form to contrast with the landscape atrium at the center of the building, blending science with nature, the major theme of the CPSRS. The atrium was created to be the focal point of the design. EVOLO

WIKIA THE FOR-PROFIT WIKI PROJECT MAKING A SPLASH

The revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia have been dubbed by some to be "Wiki Revolutions" because "just as people can self-organize to contribute to Wikipedia...they can participate in social change and coalesce into revolutionary movements as never before." Now, it seems that wikis may not only be behind toppling governments, but also stripping plagiarizing government officials of their educational titles.


This week, German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg has said he would remove the "Dr" from his name while a plagiarism investigation of his PhD took place. Where did this investigation originate? Wikia, the for-profit wiki project started by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. READWRITEWEB

WATARU YOSHIDA SERIES BODY

Wataru Yoshida is a graphic design major at Tama Art University who seems to have taken a fancy to the inside of bodies. His appropriately-named series Body is comprised of hand-made illustrations creatively put together on a series of blank tees. TRENDHUNTER

A PLAN TO ATTACK

In a document titled "The WikiLeaks Threat" three data intelligence companies, Plantir Technologies, HBGary Federal and Berico Technologies, outline a plan to attack Wikileaks. They are acting upon request from Hunton and Williams, a law firm working for Bank of America. The Department of Justice recommended the law firm to Bank of America according to an article in The Tech Herald. The prosed attacks on WikiLeaks according to the slides include these actions: WIKILEAKS

FAMILY SQUABBLES OF STRONGMAN MUAMMAR AL-QADDAFI

As Libya spiraled further out of control today, WikiLeaks posted two new cables from the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli detailing the family squabbles of strongman Muammar al-Qaddafi's family. Both are from March 2009, and both are signed by U.S. Ambassador Gene Cretz, the United States' first ambassador in Libya since 1972, who lost his job last month following the release of the infamous "voluptuous blonde" cable (and/or other more serious dispatches) he had signed.


The cables date from an eventful period in the life of the Qaddafi family. The previous July, Hannibal al-Qaddafi, the Qaddafi son best known for getting in trouble in Europe on a semi-regular basis, had been arrested in Switzerland for beating his servants at a Geneva hotel. Meanwhile, Saif al-Islam, Muammar's heir-apparent and the best-regarded Qaddafi outside of Libya, was fuming over the growing closeness between his father and his brother Muatassim (above, with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April 2009), the elder Qaddafi's national security adviser and Saif's only real competition for the family business. According to the cable, "Saif reportedly bridled at the fact that Muatassim accompanied Muammar al-Qadhafi on the latter's visit to Moscow, Minsk and Kiev last year..., and played a key role in negotiating potential weapons contracts." WIKILEAKSFP WIKILEAKS