In what is one more nail in the HD-DVD coffin, Netflix and more importantly Best Buy have stated that they will abandon HD-DVD high definition and exclusively endorse competing Blu-Ray high definition disc technology. As I have previously written this format war runs along the same lines as the VHS/Betamax wars of many years ago with VHS winning out.While the Netflix endorsement hurts, the Best Buy endorsement is a crushing blow to the HD-DVD format. Best Buy is the #2 retailer for DVDs and the #1 retailer for next generation format DVDs. The next huge domino in line has not yet fallen. Wal-Mart has stated that they are currently undecided. If Wal-Mart backs Blu-ray, its over…..

I expect Wal-Mart to continue to carry the HD-DVD line while they determine if they have their own market for it. Of course if HD-DVD’s biggest backer, Toshiba decided that the market is no longer there for their players, the whole thing is academic.

In what has to be one of the more bizarre trials and verdicts to come out of the Federal Courts in quite some time, actor Wesley Snipes was acquitted of tax fraud and conspiring to defraud the Federal government with regards to his refusal/failure to file income tax returns and pay income taxes on over 38 million dollars of earnings spanning a number of years. He was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of failure to file income tax returns over three years but strangely was acquitted of failure to file returns over another three years.

Snipes didnt even put on a case. In closing his attorney argued that the positions that Snipes has taken regarding why he doesnt have to pay taxes may be bizarre and kooky but they are not illegal.I guess I will never be a tax attorney as I shared what I think is the general public impression that refusal to pay your taxes is in itself a crime. A perception that the Federal government certainly encourages to keep the masses writing checks. It apparently is not. I guess you also have to have some sinister intent when you dont pay and buy that Lexus instead.Snipes apparently will still have to “pay the piper” when the IRS goes after him in Civil Tax Court.In the great tradition of BLADE, I guess we can say score one for the “working stiff”……..