Apparently Wikipedia had John McCain's Sarah Palin pick for VP first. Check the following edits from late last night (that were then deleted, and reinstated):

IP address for the edit source was 68.106.201.11, which is Cox.net account, but I can't geolocate any more tightly than that. Anyone else more adept at that sort of thing than me, feel free to chime in.

I have a bet with Arik Hesseldahl over at BusinessWeek on the current Apple quarter. Check it here, and feel free to tell me, post-Dell, I'm wrong in my bearishness.

Much to the chagrin of their many boosters, prediction markets missed the boat on the Obama candidacy -- they had Clinton for too long -- and they totally whiffed on John McCain's Sarah Palin pick.

Employee stock options at 1 in 10 Fortune 500 companies are essentially worthless, and stock options are currently underwater at 40% such companies. That is up from a little over 30% being underwater at the end of Q1, according to a new study.

Some more specifics:

• Five of the ten most underwater companies are in financial services
• Freddie Mac has the most deeply underwater options, with 90% below its weighted average share price of August 15th. Fannie Mae and WaMu aren’t far behind.
• VMware is already trying to get shareholder approval to reprice employee options.

Is a wave of option repricing looming? You have to imagine it’s up there as an issue, but a weak employment market is likely taking some of the pressure off job-hopping option-seekers.

[via FinancialWeek]

We keep hearing about warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico fueling the rise of Cat 3 hurricane strength from tropical storm Gustav, but just what does that mean? Well, studies generally suggest hurricanes require water temperatures over 26 C to grow in strength, and one major recent study found that every 0.5 degree C higher water temperature is associated with a 40% increase in hurricane activity and frequency.

So, with the preceding in mind, consider this figure from earlier today in the region showing current water surface temperatures in the Gulf. In essence, once you cross between Cuba and the Yucatan, you’re in 30 C water temps – and higher – all the way to the Gulf coast.

Compare this image to the Gulf surface water temperatures three years ago at this time during Hurricane Katrina. You can see that central Gulf water temperatures are warmer now, but the temperatures closer to the Gulf coast are marginally cooler. You can see that the Gulf waters were generally warmer than today, although the likely Gustav path through the central Gulf is sporting temperatures fairly similar to what we saw then. It’s all relative, of course, with temps mostly exceeding 30 C. (For you keensters curious to see what Gulf water temps looked like after Katrina stirred the waters, check here.)

[via Johns Hopkins University, Ocean Remote Sensing Group]

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As a semi-related aside, the stocks to watch in here are less the oil companies than the cat insurers. Companies like AIG, Zurich, Swiss Re, etc. have all changed policies and models since Katrina. They have upped rates, and capped coverage at $500-million per incident per company, well below the $1-billion cost of replacing a rig. Some intrepid sorts have even launched nifty new “cat-in-a-box” coverage, where you can buy coverage for a single looming storm. As morbid as it might sound, this event could be good new for the group.

More here.

I’m checking out shortly, so a link to some wonderful photos to put you in a contemplative frame of mind for the weekend. The Boston Globe has up a series today taken over London’s financial district at night, and they are bleakly ethereal, like the movie Blade Runner relit by the people who did the closing ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

More here.