Greetings for Tuesday, January 19th. That new year goes fast eh? It's almost February. In today's news, we have Massachusetts Politics, Matt Taibbi's slam, a Krafty deal, and a rising stock market. What more can you ask for? Here's a rundown of what's going on, through the eyes of the Rayno Report:

• Massachusetts politics -- what fun!  Republican Scott Brown is grabbing the headlines, with his possible come-from-behind victory over Democratic favorite Martha Coakley in a special election for a Massachusetts senate seat today (Politco). Not only would a Republican candidate taking the late senator Ted Kennedy's senate seat be a shock to the Democratic party, but it jeopardizes the Obama Adminstration's entire agenda (New York Times) Kind of a  big deal!
• The market rallied today. Folks who don't study statistics say it's because of the Massachusetts senate election. Even though we don't know who won. Okay. (Bloomberg)
• The disaster that is Haiti continues (CNN.com). Remember to help out, if you can.
• I'm still laughing at Matt Taibbi's rant on Thomas Friedman's greenish hype (NY Press). He even tells you what it has to do with what midgets think of Austrailia. It was so inspiring, I had to flatter him with my own derivative rant below.
• Interesting, Taibbi is onto something. Conflicts around "greeness" may be rising (New York Times).
• Did anybody notice that China is putting together a national strategic oil reserve? (Kuwait News Agency)
• Speaking of Kuwait, the Kuwait foreign minister has called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "stupid and insane." (Al-Manar TV)
• I guess it's time for another Middle East conflict (Xinhua).
• Avatar is now the most popular movie shown in China ever. That's enough for censors to start yanking it, apparently (Sphere).
• Speaking of battles in China, Google is yanking its Nexus One from China until it can sort out that pesky negotiation with a totalitarian regime.
• Microsoft wants to launch a Zune phone (All Things D). Go ahead, try to stifle your laughter.
• HarperCollins Publishers is negotiating with Apple for books to appear on a new Apple tablet device (Wall Street Journal).
• More men are marrying wealthier women. And women are rejecting rich men for poor men. (New York Times). No word on whether poor men can marry poor women.
• Speaking of wealth, a man masquerading as a fashion model has been bilking wealthy men (L.A. Times).
• The man was posing as fashion model Bree Condon. Here's what Bree Condon looks like, in case you were wondering:
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• The Cadbury board has accepted Kraft's improved $18.0B takeover bid (Associated Press)

The markets are entering a "digestive" phase today with what looks like a pullback, possibly driven by -- what else -- China? The Chinese government raised capital requirements in a move to slow the credit expansion and economy. You have to wonder if the the Chinese ministers were reading the Economist, as I was last night, which is warning of the potential for growing asset bubbles in emerging markets and especially China. Well, what do you want, you can't have it both ways. Economic depression or bubbles -- take you pick. Personally I prefer bubbles, but that's just me. Let's run through the other news, because as always there is lots happening across the globe:

• Some jobs won't return, says the Wall Street Journal. Well, duh. I know mine's not coming back. Shouldn't have put that Whoopee Cushion on the boss's chair.
• Alcoa disappoints, driving down shares in Europe (New York Times). I can assure you that's not the first time that's happened.
• Paul Krugman: Learning From Europe (New York Times). I thought the Krugster was going to give is tips on how to make Espresso. Alas, no. He's trying to convince us that they like to work in France.
• Speaking of France. I thought I'd catch up on what Le Monde has to say. Holy cow, Sarah Palin makes the front page!
• Don't you hate it when you are awash with data from drones? (New York Times)
• Some reactions to the Mark McGwire steroid admission (L.A. Times).
• Next time, I have to remember to hire a mermaid for my party (L.A. Times).
• The Nexus One honeymoon is over (PC World)
• Google's Nexus One termination fee is $350 (Engadget)
• Best and Worst of CES (Scobleizer).
• Shanda Games acquires Mochi Media for $80M (TechCrunch)
• New sex hormone found -- could lead to male birth control (National Geographic). I can't think of a more dangerous idea.
• The birth of a massive star (MITnews).

A big focus at CES in Las Vegas this week is on the growing smartphone wars, as a number of mobile manufacturers gear up to battle the dominance of RIMM and Apple. One of their new weapons: Android, the new open mobile OS from Google which gained attention in the last few weeks with the launch of Google's own phone, the Nexus One. Is it possible to break down the new mobile smartphone warfare in a short roundup that takes you less than 30 minutes to read? I've spent much of the week brushing up on my reading about the Nexus One, reading up on smartphones, talking to some smart mobile guys, and looking at research in this market. So let me try to wrap it up for you in 800 words and 12 links or less. Reviews First up, the Nexus One is probably one of the most important developments in the smartphone market since the launch of the iPhone. Let's look at some of the reviews of the Google's Nexus One, to set the stage of the competition: Techcrunch: Nexus One is the "best And roid phone to date". It looks more like an iPhone "than any other phone on the market. TechCrunch's Michael Arrington is also hot and bothered about the Nexus One's integration with Google voice. Good touch screen. Noise cancellation features. Possible microphone issues. Good camera. Overall, an "important milestone in the smartphone market." Walt Mossberg (Wall Street Journal): Walt also likes the Nexus One, calling it a "beautiful, sleek new" phone. He points out that the fact that it operates on the Verizon 3G network, which is superior to AT&Ts (and subject to a lot of controversy for iPhone users), this could help draw iPhone users away. "Packed with tricks." He likes the social networking features. He points out that the iPhone still has better multimedia features, appears to have more reliable battery life, and likely will have a better apps platform for a while. Engadget: This review is somewhat wordy and lukewarm (are there editors over at Engadget?) As a phone, "not dramatically different." They've "succeeded" with the sleek design. A highlight is the 1GHz Snapdragon CPU. This makes it fast, a bit faster than Motorola's Droid. Display is nice but has some "issues." Camera is good. Not sure about an Android phone without a physical keyborad. Bottom line: "it's not in any way the Earth-shattering, paradigm-skewing device.." Hmm. It took 1000s of words to say that? Breakdown of features Nexus One vs. Apple iPhone 3GS:

Feature	Google Nexus One	Apple iPhone 3GS
U.S. carrier	T-Mobile at launch, Verizon later.	AT&T
Price	$529 unlocked; $179 with T-Mobile contract	$199 or $299 with AT&T contract, depending on memory
User-accessible memory	4 gigabytes, expandable to 32 gigabytes	16 or 32 gigabytes, fixed
Minimum monthly service fee*	$79.99	$69.95
Available 3rd-party apps	Around 18,000	Over 100,000
Memory for application storage	190 megabytes	Nearly the full capacity of phone
Syncs media files with PC or Mac	No, manual copying only	Yes, iTunes
Multitasking of apps	Yes	Only Apple apps
Screen size	3.7 inches	3.5 inches
Screen resolution	480 x 800	480 x 320
Removable battery	Yes	No
Camera	5 megapixel, flash	3 megapixel, no flash
Length	4.68 inches	4.5 inches
Width	2.35 inches	2.4 inches
Thickness	.45 inches	.48 inches
Weight	4.58 ounces	4.8 ounces
Claimed voice-calling battery life on 3G	7 hours	5 hours
Claimed Internet battery life on Wi-Fi	6.5 hours	9 hours
Claimed music-playback battery life	20 hours	30 hours
Claimed video-playback battery life	7 hours	10 hours

Sources: Google, Apple, T-Mobile, AT&T Smartphone Trends Okay, so what does this all mean? The introduction of Android, and the fact that Google is pushing its own phone in this market, means the market is going to accelerate with this new competitive juice. It also means that Google is going to work very hard on building up the apps platform for Android, whichmeans that mobile smartphones are going to become the most powerful and fastest growing devices on the planet. And smartphones currently only have 17% share of the mobile phone market! This sucks if you are Nokia or Motorola. Let's face it, Google and Apple have the mojo, and they have key competitive advantages over the niche players who came to life primarily as "phone manufacaturers." What are those advantages? Huge, growing software platforms. And software is the key to these new phones. I think these new developments also call into question the future of Microsoft's mobile strategy, since there appears to be nary a chatter about Windows Mobile-powered devices. How will this affect market share? Below are some useful charts from an outfit called ChangeWave Research which show how the new smartphone market and mobile operating systems markets may evolve with the introduction of Nexus One and the growth of the iPhone platform: Clearly, the Nexus One has a lot of people nervous, because it is showing the viability of Android as a major-league mobile OS. The fact that is open and is likely to spawn a new generation of app developers must be leaving a lot of people tossing and turning in bed. Clearly the trend is to go "off deck," or into open, Web-based mobile platforms. Ilja CEO, the founder and CEO Getjar, a mobile phone apps supermarket, sees apps and Android "Taking off" in 2011 (Source: Go to a very interesting slideshow here.) Conclusion What does this all tell me? It reaffirms my view, which is that a massive warn is brewing between Google, Apple, and RIMM in the smartphone market! Microsoft has already lost the war.  Microsoft is a value stock, so that doesn't really affect my view of whether you can buy Microsoft -- mobile is a small pie of their pie (Disclosure: I own Microsoft shares), but I think this has more implications for Google and Apple's stock. Most to lose: RIMM, Motorola, Nokia. Static: Apple (but slowing growth could damage the stock) Most to win: Google, Getjar, mobile apps developers I do not think the market has signficantly priced in the potential gains for Google, so I think Google has the most to win in the mobile wars. RIMM has the most to lose because it is so concentrated in this market.I can't see how Motrola comes out of this doing well, because the Nexus One is likely to signficantly cannibalize Droid sales.