Appointment Setting

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A set of good knives is among the most essential tools in the kitchen, and as with all tools you need to take care of them for you to get your money's worth.

Even the best of knives will get dull over time and need to be worked on to restore their cutting edges.

To get knives professionally sharpened, look in the Yellow Pages of your telephone directory under "Sharpening service" and "Saw - sharpening" to find out which is near you and what it charges. The going rate is around $2 apiece, but some shops may charge by the inch, perhaps 20 or 15 cents an inch. A set with smaller knives may come out cheaper that way.

It is a good idea to go to the professionals every six months or so. But keeping knives in shape needs daily care. A quality knife will hold its edge for quite a while, but this thin, sharp edge tends to curl microscopically to one side or the other with use, especially through contact with the cutting board.

Not fast enough: Why investing in Italy is ‘like driving with the ...

Some people have no doubt that the business and political environment acts as a deterrent. Ronald Spogli, US ambassador in Rome, wrote a ferocious letter to the Corriere della Sera newspaper after AT&T abandoned its bid for a stake in Telecom Italia. “You should concentrate less on who wants to invest and more on the fact that Italy is last in Europe in terms of economic growth," he told Italians, warning: “Investments are not made where they are not welcome, where the rules of the market can be changed continuously."

Preliminary figures from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development show a collapse in new foreign direct investment in Italy just when such inflows elsewhere in the European Union have been booming. Unctad estimates that investment into the EU as a whole grew 15 per cent to $610bn (£313bn, €419bn) in 2007.

Week 17 NFL Rundown

Okay, maybe not that last one.

The Patriots will be crowned on Saturday. The Meadowlands crowd will give them a standing ovation, just as Orange Bowl fans cheered Unitas. Fans of the old Dolphins should use this opportunity to celebrate the memory of a great team, not curse the youngsters who dared to match their accomplishments.

Panthers at Buccaneers: Momentum is a slippery concept. Is a late loss to a poor opponent a sign of vulnerability or just pre-playoff doldrums? Is a team that wins four straight games hot or due for a loss? If a coach benches his starters in a still-meaningful game, as Jon Gruden did in the second half last week, is he prudently avoiding injuries or starting the avalanche that will bury his team? Does any of this "momentum" stuff mean anything, or is it just fodder for busy sportswriters typing frantically on Christmas Eve?

These weighty questions mean little to the Buccaneers, who reached the postseason thanks to a rebuilt defense, some Jeff Garcia-to-Joey Galloway heroics, and a cookies 'n' milk schedule.

FCC To Investigate Comcast Filtering; Questions Why Comcast Wasn't ...

The FCC hasn't appeared to have much of an issue with the various telcos spouting off about how they need to block certain kinds of traffic. In fact, even when AT&T agreed to keep its network neutral (sort of, but not really), FCC chair Kevin Martin made it clear that he wouldn't hold AT&T to its concessions on network neutrality. However, when a cable company, such as Comcast, starts doing some traffic shaping... well, that's a different story. There was a big fuss last year about Comcast's traffic shaping efforts. While it took a little while, the FCC has now said that it's going to probe Comcast's traffic shaping actions. Now, as we've said from the beginning, if Comcast feels it needs to do this kind of traffic shaping, that's one thing -- but there's simply no good reason (and a number of bad ones) not to be upfront and let its customers know about this.

Andy Oram Reports

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - Three issues recently highlighted in the news lay out privacy risks that modern Americans face on three fronts: from our own government, from faceless criminals, and from the companies we turn to for most of our purchases and services.

Here they are: President Bush's supporters in Congress have repeatedly introduced bills to retroactively shield phone companies from prosecution for releasing customer information to the National Security Agency. A vote on one such amendment was postponed on December 16, but the brazen attempt to avoid the consequences of illegality continues. In the 1980s, declines in the American automobile industry led to talk of companies "too big to fail"; now I guess we have "too big to jail."

TJX has mostly put behind it the embarrassing release of 45 to 100 million credit card numbers.

Metaphorical 'Body of Water' is well worth the navigating

The husband and wife (the wonderfully dumbfounded Buck Schirner and Cynthia Raff, who charge their roles with alternating jolts of hopelessness and enlightenment) spend much of Act I with a visitor who seems off the wall. She says she's on a team of lawyers representing the pair against charges that they've committed a heinous crime, and she's snarky and condescending and altogether unbelievable. You have to give A Body of Water a chance, because in the second act the character's demeanor becomes clear - even as the identity of the woman herself becomes A Body of Water's most curious mystery. (I won't be a spoiler, so I can't describe how.) The woman, named Wren, is played with style by Emma O'Donnell, who is in one scene preposterous, in the next sensible, and in the end credible - a lot to ask of an actor, given that her chameleon character is essential to the play.