Uh oh, coca production in Bolivia "has exploded". Apparently, coca acreage has risien in Peru and Bolivia because of aggressive anti-drug efforts in Colombia. So, basically the US war on drugs, specifically the coca eradication tactic, has managed to move coca production.  Hurray, must be time to ask Congress for more money to fight the war on drug. We need to produce more anti-drug commercials for kids not to watch.\

Peru and Bolivia were top cocaine producers in the 1980s. But after officials cracked down on coca farmers, most of the production moved to Colombia in the 1990s. Since 2000, Washington has spent more than \$4 billion to help Colombia combat cocaine and heroin production, although many critics have predicted that traffickers would simply move to other places in what is known as the "balloon effect.''

Also noteworth, two-thirds of the increase in coca cultivation in Peru was dur to changes in how the US gathers data on coca acreage. Hmm, I wonder if someone is manipulating the numbers for exageration? The changes may be outlined here.\

In Peru, coca cultivation in 2005 soared 38 percent to 94,000 acres. But Arias said two-thirds of the increase was attributable to a change in the way the U.S. government gathers data on coca acreage.

NBC's Olympic ratings in the US just made the guarantee to sponsors.  An analysis of the ratings is posted at the Sports Economist "Olympic TV Ratings in the US" I'm posting this here for future refrence as it'd be interesting to compare the Olympic's ratings with those for the World Cup this summer. I don't expect the World Cup to have ratings anywhere near this high, since most of the games will not be shown on a major network.

[Through Saturday night, NBC has averaged 20.6 million total viewers for the Games and a 6.3 adults 18-49 rating. That makes Torino the lowest-rated Olympics since at least 1992 and likely ever among 18-49s, according to numbers provided by Nielsen. The second-lowest, 2000's Sydney Summer Games, averaged an 8.3 rating.]{.body}

The Motley Fool has a good feature looking at the outlook for TiVo from both a bullish and bearish perspective. I still have hope for TiVo, I know Sandy and Greg were impressed a bit when I pulled up my music collection to stream to my living room. In the next few years, I think we'll see the major networks focus more on content/show production and let new mediums like iTunes, TiVo, and the Internet take over content distribution. Generic DVR's may end up in more homes than TiVo's set top boxes, but TiVo can position itself as a premium product ala the HBO and Apple brand. The Bullish perspective is very forward looking at the possibilities for TiVo. The Bearish perspective focuses on TiVo's past unprofitability and subscriber numbers.\

The Bullish Persepective

Sure, there's competition, but in the long term, it isn't from the other box makers. The real fight is to combine the Web and TV in a single, well-built player capable of delivering highly targeted, relevant ads. That's TiVo. Right now.

 The Bearish Perspective

Why? Let's begin by counting TiVo's profits. Now let's stop, because it doesn't have any. TiVo's business hasn't earned a dime in the seven years it's been public. On the contrary, the company has racked up nearly \$850 million in losses.