Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 205

Was President John F Kennedy off his head on cocaine and meta-amphetamine when he faced down Russian President Kruschev during the 1961 Cuban missile crisis?

Apparently and allegedly so. According to <The Complete Social History of LSD by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlaim, a certain Dr Jake was the drug dealer for the Andy Warhol set at the infamous Factory in New York. This Dr Jake turned out to be Dr Max 'Feelgood' Jackson whose next job was to be JFK's personal physician where he often administered vitamin injections (aka coke/speed cocktails) that left JFK 'flushed and excited'.

No kidding, happy birthday to you every day, Mr President, and thanks for saving the world from nuclear disaster. It could have been so different if Dr Feelgood had diagnosed cannabis. We might all be speaking Russian and genuflecting to Lenin. Thank God for cocaine!

While that particular revolution didn't happen, another one has just hit North America... and you heard it here second. While US carrier Sprint's decision to invest in a US-wide WiMAX network isn't going to sell many Che Guevara-type T-shirts, this is news of the highest magnitude.

A very well-written article on The Register sums up this news perfectly, but in a shell of a nut, it means that Motorola will probably take over from Nokia as the best-selling handset in the US, mobile TV in the US will become the same as cable TV, it will mean the end of Wi-Fi and it will dramatically reduce the prices of fixed and mobile telephony.

Then, once the model has proved itself, the rest of the world will watch and adopt similar systems. Rather like Western capitalism in fact. Which reminds me. JFK stared down Kruschev via a special telephone hotline. Do these still exist or do national leaders now have special mobile hotlines?

And what handsets are they? Does Bush have a Motorola, does Putin refuse to use a Nokia because of Russian/Finnish history and why does that pesky Bin Laden always forget to turn GPS on his handset? Maybe, much like JFK's alleged chemical proclivities, we'll find out in 35 years' time