It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Three years ago, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, jogged onto a San Francisco stage to shake hands with Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, to help him unveil a transformational wonder gadget ”” the iPhone ”” before throngs of journalists and adoring fans at the annual MacWorld Expo.

Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google’s search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Mr. Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo.”

“Steve, my congratulations to you,” Mr. Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot.” Mr. Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.

Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.

Read it all.

It looked like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Three years ago, Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, jogged onto a San Francisco stage to shake hands with Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, to help him unveil a transformational wonder gadget ”” the iPhone ”” before throngs of journalists and adoring fans at the annual MacWorld Expo.

Google and Apple had worked together to bring Google’s search and mapping services to the iPhone, the executives told the audience, and Mr. Schmidt joked that the collaboration was so close that the two men should simply merge their companies and call them “AppleGoo.”

“Steve, my congratulations to you,” Mr. Schmidt told his corporate ally. “This product is going to be hot.” Mr. Jobs acknowledged the compliment with an ear-to-ear smile.

Today, such warmth is in short supply. Mr. Jobs, Mr. Schmidt and their companies are now engaged in a gritty battle royale over the future and shape of mobile computing and cellphones, with implications that are reverberating across the digital landscape.

Read it all.

While it doesn’t have the voltage it once did, Social Security is still the third rail of politics. Politicians are afraid to touch it out of fear of damaging their careers.

Their decades of cowardice have led us to 2010, the year that Social Security begins its descent into the financial abyss. This year it will pay out $29 billion more in benefits than it takes in through the payroll tax that funds the retirement program.

A Sunday Associated Press report highlighting this deficit suggests that “it’s time to start cashing” in the $2.5 trillion Social Security trust fund that has built up through the decades of the system taking in more than it has paid out.

Only problem: There is no trust fund.

As the story notes, “the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs.”

Read it all and make sure to check out the chart carefully.

While it doesn’t have the voltage it once did, Social Security is still the third rail of politics. Politicians are afraid to touch it out of fear of damaging their careers.

Their decades of cowardice have led us to 2010, the year that Social Security begins its descent into the financial abyss. This year it will pay out $29 billion more in benefits than it takes in through the payroll tax that funds the retirement program.

A Sunday Associated Press report highlighting this deficit suggests that “it’s time to start cashing” in the $2.5 trillion Social Security trust fund that has built up through the decades of the system taking in more than it has paid out.

Only problem: There is no trust fund.

As the story notes, “the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs.”

Read it all and make sure to check out the chart carefully.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Scotland and England in September in a four-day visit combining preaching and diplomacy, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.

British officials described it as an unprecedented “papal visit with the status of a state visit,” though some of the usual trappings laid on for a visiting head of state will not be offered to the pope. An earlier visit by Pope John Paul II in 1982 was a pastoral visit only.

During his visit Benedict plans to conduct a public mass in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, where some 300,000 people swarmed a mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during his pastoral visit in 1982. John Paul’s visit was strictly to visit his flock ”” rather than as a head of a state. John Paul was not received by the queen.

Read it all.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit Scotland and England in September in a four-day visit combining preaching and diplomacy, Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday.

British officials described it as an unprecedented “papal visit with the status of a state visit,” though some of the usual trappings laid on for a visiting head of state will not be offered to the pope. An earlier visit by Pope John Paul II in 1982 was a pastoral visit only.

During his visit Benedict plans to conduct a public mass in Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park, where some 300,000 people swarmed a mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II during his pastoral visit in 1982. John Paul’s visit was strictly to visit his flock ”” rather than as a head of a state. John Paul was not received by the queen.

Read it all.

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CoGS members heard a report on the Anglican Communion Covenant from two members of the Covenant Design Group: Dr. Eileen Scully, interim director of the Faith, Worship and Ministry department at the national office of the Anglican Church of Canada; and Dr. Katherine Grieb from the Virginia Theological Seminary. The Covenant has been proposed as an agreement among all the provinces of the Communion on their shared faith, mission and interdependence and as a mechanism to help resolve conflict over issues of sexuality

The fourth section of the covenant looks at how the provinces relate to one another and resolve disputes. Although this section has been approved by the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and sent out to the provinces for consideration, it has raised concerns for some.

Bishop Michael Ingham of the diocese of New Westminster gave notice that his diocese, where some churches have been authorized to bless same-sex unions since 2003, “will not assist the churches to grow together in unity.” Specifically, he said his diocesan council expressed concern that the Covenant could be used in a punitive way against member churches who have taken actions to which other provinces object.

Read it all.

CoGS members heard a report on the Anglican Communion Covenant from two members of the Covenant Design Group: Dr. Eileen Scully, interim director of the Faith, Worship and Ministry department at the national office of the Anglican Church of Canada; and Dr. Katherine Grieb from the Virginia Theological Seminary. The Covenant has been proposed as an agreement among all the provinces of the Communion on their shared faith, mission and interdependence and as a mechanism to help resolve conflict over issues of sexuality

The fourth section of the covenant looks at how the provinces relate to one another and resolve disputes. Although this section has been approved by the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and sent out to the provinces for consideration, it has raised concerns for some.

Bishop Michael Ingham of the diocese of New Westminster gave notice that his diocese, where some churches have been authorized to bless same-sex unions since 2003, “will not assist the churches to grow together in unity.” Specifically, he said his diocesan council expressed concern that the Covenant could be used in a punitive way against member churches who have taken actions to which other provinces object.

Read it all.