Today's Republicans, staying in the shadow of Ronald Reagan

"Great men have two lives," the diplomat Adolf Berle once observed, "one which occurs while they work on this Earth; a second which begins at the day of their death and continues as long as their ideas and conceptions remain powerful."

Berle was speaking in May 1945, the month after Franklin D. Roosevelt died, and his words captured the enduring influence that FDR would exert over Democratic politics and liberal ideology for the half-century to follow. In 2011, they could just as easily apply to the totemic force that Ronald Reagan continues to hold over the right, on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

These days, no Republican with national ambitions will miss an opportunity to remind us of his or her Reaganesque bona fides. Reagan's precepts of a smaller government, a bigger military, lower taxes and conservative social policies demand absolute fealty.

The irony is that Reagan would not have become such a transformational figure if he had not challenged the political orthodoxy of his own time. His self-declared legatees invoke his name as a pledge to do the opposite, a reassurance that they will not venture beyond what has become conventional thinking in the GOP. What starts as a touchstone, however, can over time become a millstone, if history is any indication.

The power of the Reagan dogma has grown in the years since the 40th president left the scene. In 1994, when Republican Mitt Romney was challenging Democrat Edward M. Kennedy for his Senate seat in liberal Massachusetts, he declared during a debate: "Look, I was an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush." But the evolved Romney now refers to Reagan as "my hero."

Google's paying $20,000 to hack Chrome -- any takers?

So far, Chrome is the only browser of the big four -- Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer being the other three -- to escape the Pwn2Own hacking competition unscathed the past two years. (Sorry Opera aficionados, looks like there's not enough of you to merit a place in the contest... yet.) Evidently, its past success has Google confident enough to pony up a cool $20,000 and a CR-48 laptop to anyone able to find a bug in its code and execute a clean sandbox escape on day one of Pwn2Own 2011. Should that prove too daunting a task, contest organizer TippingPoint will match El Goog's $10,000 prize (still $20,000 total) for anyone who can exploit Chrome and exit the sandbox through non-Google code on days two and three of the event. For those interested in competing, Pwn2Own takes place March 9th through 11th in Vancouver at the CanSecWest conference. The gauntlet has been thrown -- your move, hackers.

Nokia, Microsoft announcing partnership next week, possibly involving Windows Phone 7?

If Nokia has come to Capital Markets Day this Friday - an event where the company traditionally has revealed interesting information and important initiatives - rumors are swirling again that they are announcing a major platform shift by a competitor. Both Android and Windows Mobile has in the past several times, including no small part to the fact that an appearance Nokia's rotating wheel platform is the backs of S60 and Maemo for far too long but so far is not true. This time around, it is said that Microsoft has announced a partner in the 11th - and although Nokia's inclusion of Windows 7 Phone is obvious strategic shift, it is important to note that companies are actually in front of a collaboration with relatively small effect on the market, it is quite possible to be ramping up to do that again, sharing applications and services between S60 and Windows 7 Phone / MeeGo. We doubt it, but it is within the realm of reason. 

But turning our attention back to the main platform shift, there are several factors that are a little more to add credibility to the rumor this time. First, the elephant in the room recently appointed CEO Stephen Elop is the Microsoft of good and it is clear that got marching orders from Nokia to include a new, more profitable direction of the Symbian Foundation has made to guard decorated Elop, for example, and He only hinted a few days ago that the joining of an existing ecosystem can help. More importantly, however, we have a reliable source of our own now saying that tide is back and it seems to happen in the Capital Markets Day - and that one of the existing platforms from Nokia has dropped as a direct result. It is difficult to choose which one is this: S60, but terribly outdated, still very popular in Europe and emerging markets, while MeeGo are technically promising, but yet to have any effect on the market whatsoever. On the other hand, noted Microsoft pundit Mary Jo Foley has not put much stock in this latest round of rumors. 

So, this is the question: Can Nokia is another Samsung, LG, and HTC, betting his hopes and dreams about his chops as a manufacturer of hardware only? Historically, the Nokia is defined as many (if not more) than its hardware platform, the Samsung's character for end-to-end in-house sourcing. Whatever happens next week Friday, it's all for a very interesting indeed MWC.

Source: Larry Drew II leaves UNC

In a jarring February development, North Carolina point guard Larry Drew II has left the Tar Heels team and will transfer, according to a source close to the situation.

The source did not cite a reason for Drew's decision to transfer but did say the junior left campus Thursday, roughly 48 hours after recording nine assists in 19 minutes in North Carolina's 106-74 victory over Boston College.

The source also said North Carolina's coaches were aware of Drew's decision.

Drew essentially has shared the point guard position this season with freshman Kendall Marshall; he lost the starting role to Marshall in mid-January.

As a result, Drew's playing time, scoring and assists have dropped from last season -- minutes down from 28.8 to 22.8 per game; scoring from 8.5 points to 4.4; and assists from 5.9 to 3.9.

However, he's had some of his better floor games in the Tar Heels' past three games, all victories, racking up 19 assists and only two turnovers while playing fewer minutes than Marshall.

Bill Gates: Vaccine-autism link 'an absolute lie'

Davos, Switzerland (CNN) -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates sat down recently with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta in Davos, Switzerland. The billionaire philanthropist was attending the World Economic Forum to push his mission of eradicating polio by 2012. Gates, through his foundation, also pledged $10 billion to provide vaccinations to children around the world within a decade.

Gupta asked Gates for his thoughts about the alleged autism-vaccine connection. He also asked: Who holds ultimate accountability for the billions of dollars being spent on aid? Is a certain amount of corruption and fraud expected? Below is an excerpt of their conversation.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Ten billion dollars [pledged] over the next 10 years to make it "the year of the vaccines." What does that mean exactly?

Bill Gates: Over this decade, we believe unbelievable progress can be made, in both inventing new vaccines and making sure they get out to all the children who need them. We could cut the number of children who die every year from about 9 million to half of that, if we have success on it. We have to do three things in parallel: Eradicate the few that fit that profile -- ringworm and polio; get the coverage up for the vaccines we have; and then invent the vaccines -- and we only need about six or seven more -- and then you would have all the tools to reduce childhood death, reduce population growth, and everything -- the stability, the environment -- benefits from that.