Short version: Forbes says Readers Digest is take-over bait.

Cover contrarian: What can an investor learn from the covers of financial magazines? A lot, it seems. Specifically, investors should be looking for all the covers to agree: that’s the time to do the opposite of what they tout. While not in this article, there is a similar truth in newsweeklies: Whenever they all do a cover story on a new trend or fasion, it’s the final days of its trendiness.

Craps: If there’s something deja vu-ish about the launch of a magazine called Vegas, it may be because it sounds awfully similar to the announcement in April of a vaporzine called JAQK.

Corporate CEOs blogging: Wow, the NY Times reports today that some CEOs of companies have started blogging. Can you believe that? Why would they want to do such a thing? I guess since I launched the rexblog on August 28, 2000 (granted, it was the universal first post of all blogs, the word ‘test,’ and it remained the only post until Jan. 3, 2002), I can claim pre-trendy status.

American dream: I don’t want to rain on anyone’s launch parade, so I’ll just cheer for the read, white and blue of American Magazine, published in Memphis, Tenn., USA. It’s not the first American Magazine (that honor goes to the one started in 1741, the very first magazine published in America) and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Heck, I even publish one with almost that name. And it’s pretty good, if I don’t say so myself.