Is there a more explosive economic concept than combining iProducts with China? Didn't think so. In that vein, MarketWatch reports that China Unicom starts to ship iPhone 4 in China next month.

Our mind is boggled by the concept of hundreds of millions of frenetic Chinese citizens roaming the fastest growing country on earth clutching iPhones and iPads.

On to the rest of the news:

Well, what's more important -- a generous severance package or avoiding being disgraced by a sketchy expense-account scandal involving a sub-contractor that happens to be a reality-show actress? That's the moral balance former HP boss Mark Hurd is contemplating this morning.

Hurd resigned on Friday after the Hewlett-Packard board had decided he had broken company policies by falsifying expenses and conducting a personal relationship with a contractor named Jodie Fisher, a former "actress" (yes she has been in porn) and a reality TV contestant. Meanwhile, Hurd's severance package could reach $40 million, reports CNBC.

Pretty weird. Pretty creepy, and I imagine it will only get more so. Here's some other goings-on in the news:

• Skype files to raise $100 million in an IPO (Bloomberg). The phone calls might be free, but the investment bankers won't be, I'm sure.
• Naomi Campbell took blood diamonds from a brutal dictator. She also flirted with him. Mia Farrow is testifying against her, saying she lied about it (ABCNews). I just find this story fascinating. Maybe Mark Hurd is involved as well?
• Yet another Black Swan event: Tiger Woods now sucks at golf (WSJ). He might not even make the Ryder Cup.
• Apple's executive in charge of the iPhone has left the company after only one year (PCWorld). Yeah, but how weird is it that his name is "Mark Papermaster"? Is he related to Chris Moneymaker?
• Is Net Neutrality Socialism? (PCWorld). Some broadband apps are more equal than others.
• A giant ice-sheet is breaking off a Greeland glacier (BBC). I don't know if y'all saw "Day After Tomorrow," but I think that means it's about to get really cold, before it gets really hot. Or something. As long as it doesn't involve Randy Quaid playing a scientist again, I'm cool with that.
• Needham says AAPL will go to $375 (Macnn). But can they do it with out Mark Papermaster?
• Why do people hoard (Time). I'm glad we have those serious journalists over at Time to answer these important questions for us.

Today's headlines are filled with the usual obsessions: bank risks, online video, iPhone's and search.

What I find interesting about today's market dynamics is the dichotomy between Silicon Valley, where everything's gravy and people think it's still easy to get rich -- and the rest of the world, where people are worried about their state or country going bankrupt and making a dime is very tough.

Here's the news for today:

• As we predicted a while ago, YouTube would go to HTML5 soon. It has now, with a mobile version of YouTube (TechCrunch).
• Fast Company says Twitter now has the world's fastest growing search engine. But Silicon Alley Insider begs to differ, saying the numbers are inflated. 
• Speaking of Twitter, it can get you in a lot of trouble. A CNN Senior Editor is leaving the company following a tweet in which she praised Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. Say that three times, very fast (Mediaite).
• It was only a matter of time before we got naked pictures of the "Sexy Russian Spy" (Mediaite). “I found her Russian accent such a turn-on,” says her ex-husband.
• Meanwhile, back to the economy. A reader of Jim Sinclair's Mineset has pointed out that the banks being seized by the FDIC had their assets inflated by 20 to 80% (MineSet). Amazing stuff, that is.
• Speaking of greedy, lying banks. Yes, the European stress tests probably are a joke (Bloomberg). 
• "American Dream Elusive for New Generation," declares the New York Times, profiling a recent college grad. And then you read that da guy lives in a "comfortable suburb West of Boston," he's pictured with a nice road bike and a computer, and he turned down a job for $40,000 per year. Shall I play the violin on my small pinky?
• They've picked an English ref for the World Cup final (Telegraph). Hmm, it's hard to figure out who he'll be more biased against, the Dutch or the Spanish.
• Bond market signals depression, nobody cares (Telegraph).
• Pharma giant Merck is closing 16 factilities (WSJ).They just don't make drugs like they used to.
• Greece "Paralyzed By Strike" ahead of key pension vote (WSJ). Let them eat Souvlaki!
• Experimental solar aircraft makes a historical overnight flight (BusinessWeek). Yes -- a solar night flight. I had trouble figuring it out to. Add in the fact that it averaged 26 miles-per-hour, and it becomes a real head-scratcher.
• The next iPod Touch will include most of the features of the iPhone 4, says this reporter (CNET). Yes, that means all of the features except for the phone -- which doesn't really work that well anyway.

Another Monday, another predictable news flow: Apple is selling millions of iPhones, oil is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, the stock market is falling, and FIFA refs are botching calls in the World Cup.

It would be more fun to be distracted by the World Cup if there were better officiating (On two hand, I can count major, game-changing botched calls I have witnessed). Bloomberg has pointed out that it may now be time to use technology -- can I suggest some eyeglasses?

Meanwhile, Apple's money machine churns along and the G-20 accomplishes exactly nothing. Here's this morning's news:

• Apple says iPhone 4 sales have topped 1.7 million already (Apple).
• Oh dear. What's Steve Jobs going to do about iPhone sex chat? (Business Insider)
• BP says it's now capturing 24,000 barrels of oil per day (Reuters). Of course, this is the same company that once pegged the spill at 5,000 barrels a day.
• Elevation Partners -- otherwise known as the VC Firm of Bono -- is putting another $120 million into Facebook (TechCrunch).
• G-20 decides that debt is bad, flying in the face of Obama administration policy of running up the tab (Bloomberg). Go ahead, a dare you to name the 19 and 20 countries in the G-20.
• A Macallan 50-year-old for $10,000, anybody? (Bloomberg)
• Wondering why gold is rallying? Veteran bank-watcher Ambrose Evans-Pritchard says another round of quantitative easing is on the table (Telegraph).
• Senator Robert Byrd, 92, is dead, and there's a scramble on to figure out how he will be replaced (Wall Street Journal).
• England gets a good kicking from the press after its demoralizing 4-1 loss to Germany (Guardian).

According to recent news reports, it's 84 degrees in NYC, and climbing rapidly. And it's only 9AM. Of course, that doesn't stop iPhone fanatics who are queuing up like mad to get their hands on the new goods.

See below, for some video footage shot and posted to YouTube by BTIG research.

Yes, these people are fanatics. Apple seems to manufacture more of them every year.

In other iPhone news:

Piper Jaffray says 1 million iPhones are likely to be sold in the first 3 days (MocoNews).

A shortage of the devices is likely to frustrate consumers (The Guardian).

Bloomberg puts the tally at 1 million in the first day (Bloomberg).

Nothing to get a bunch of slathering sycophantic tech journos rolling like a new iPhone upgrade. This morning's news focuses on the rollout of the new iPhone and related upgrade and connectivity issues.

Excuse the brevity, but this morning we were delayed this morning by the important professional business of watching the U.S. World Cup victory over Algeria! Here are the links:

• Walt Mossberg: iPhone is "Top of Class." (Wall Street Journal)
• Engadget: iPhone 4 is the best smartphone on the market.
• If you are shopping for all things Apple, the iPhone 4 is slower than an iPad, says MacRumors.com.
• In non-Apple news, how many people would like to be a fly on the wall for the Obama/McChrystal meeting? (Bloomberg). I would!
• Sales of new homes plunge to lowest level on record (Bloomberg). But seriously, would you expect anything else? The country is awash in empty, new houses.
• Unemployed people are frittering away their free time (Wall Street Journal). This comes from a government study. Better question: is the government studying unemployed people a good use of government-employed people?
• The Fed is likely to do nothing (Wall Street Journal). Possibly for another 10 years.
• Uh-oh. BP's taken the cap off (BusinessWeek). What will they screw up next?
• Scammers were all over the U.S. homebuyer credit, says a watchdog (Reuters).
• Adobe was down on earnings of 28 cents per share, up from 24 cents last year (MarketWatch).
• Facebook CEO says: We're really gigantic (Guardian).
• New meaning to the word, "GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!" (USA Today).

Can AT&T stop messing up? In this morning news, Gawker appears to have broken the scoop that 114,000 iPads have been victim of a security breach exposing email and iPad IDs.

The security breach has "exposed the most exclusive email list on the planet, a collection of early-adopter iPad 3G subscribers that includes thousands of A-listers in finance, politics and media, from New York Times Co. CEO Janet Robinson to Diane Sawyer of ABC News to film mogul Harvey Weinstein to Mayor Michael Bloomberg," writes Gawker.

AT&T confirmed the story this morning (Wall Street Journal). Just another black eye for AT&T, which is still trying to work out connection issues with the iPhone.

In other news:

• Why just focus on bad news from AT&T? They're rolling out 3D coverage of the World Cup with ESPN (Businessweek).
• AllThingsD reports that a Wall Street analyst says T-Mobile will be the next carrier to get the iPhone. InformationWeek's Eric Zeman says that's completely wrong.
• BP tries to reassure investors (New York Times). No, really, we're not a disaster! We know what we're doing! Really!
• Meanwhile, BP's bonds are starting to look like junk (Zero Hedge)
• Global markets rally (Bloomberg). Well, you can't go in the same direction all the time. That wouldn't be very interesting.
• Six strange iPad accessories (Newsweek).
• The HTC EVO is seriously flawed, says TechCrunch.
• Far out news of the day: Is the Obama administration looking at a plan to scrap social security? (Washington Post)

You know what's fun? When the president threatens to kick some ass.

President Obama's highly visible comments on national TV are garnering many video and Google searches worldwide, as everybody pitches in on exactly how Obama can kick some ass down there in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP has turned an entire ocean into a toxic waste dump.

One version of the ass-kicking threat can be seen below:

Now, can Obama actually kick somebody's ass? Debatable. But certainly this is a historic moment for the president. When we reached deep into our archives (i.e., many Google searches), though, we did find evidence of other presidents kicking ass. For example, George H.W. Bush (Bush I), said he kicked some ass in a vice presidential debate.

Don't you love the way that Apple dominates the news? Steve Jobs could put out a press release saying he's going to have his teeth cleaned and it would dominate the news flow on Financial TV. Oh really? Who's the dentist? Will this delay a product release?

Yesterday, of course was the release of the new iPhone 4, which had every tech pundit and their cousin covering every angle. For that reason, I'll keep this post short, giving you a few links to coverage and a few thoughts for what it means for Apple.

The main points of iPhone 4:

• It's slimmer, .37 inches vs. .45 inches for the prior iPhone (PC World review)
• It's got video calling (mirror.co.uk).
• It's got a sharper screen. And a Gyroscope (CNN)
• Actually, they are calling the screen a "retina display," because its density of 326 pixels per square inche allegedly rivals the human retina. Yeah, right Apple (Tom's Guide).
• IOS 4, which includes support for multitasking, iBooks, and other stuff (Mashable).

Okay, so what's it all mean? What's interesting to me is the statement that Apple has made with its last two releases: iPad and the iPhone 4. Have you noticed that Apple and Steve Jobs in particular claim to be "driving industries forward." For example, the message of the iPad as that it will enable the publishing industry to function in the digital world.

But rather than focus on whether or not the iPhone is driving some industries forward I can't help but think how it's driving the telecommunications industry backward. What do I mean by that? It is becoming more evident that the iFranchise is making the telecommunications provider increasingly commoditized and irrelevant.

What's AT&T's role in the iPhone franchise other than to connect the thing to a mobile network and then disappoint users. is AT&T adding any other value at all?

If all of the innovation is coming from Apple, what value are the service providers adding? What does this mean for the future of the mobile telecommunications industyr? Check out the videoconferencing component of iPhone which uses a WiFi connection and could certainly accelerate the trend of Internet communications platforms cannibalizing service provider networks.

Think about that, AT&T: Just look at what's happened to Apple's shareprice when compared to yours. Clearly they are the innovator and you are now the commoditized service provider.

Now, who has derived the most value out of the iPhone franchise?

Well, AT&T has eliminated the unlimited data plan, and Internet anarchists everywhere are having a cow. The funny thing is AT&T's headline on the announcement: "AT&T Announes New Lower-Priced Wireless Data Plans..."

First question: Are the plans really lower priced, as AT&T claims? Now that's funny. If you read the headline on this press release you would think it was some mundane, tiny pricing shift -- like AT&T thought it could slip one by millions of frothing-mouthed, blogging mobile data heads. Of course the digital-media addicted Internet anarchists note that by definition eliminating an all-you-can eat plan is raising prices. MobileCrunch calls this a "sad day in data land."