The Europeans are really, really, really serious about creating a level competitive playing field, as Microsoft learned once again yesterday to the tune of a $732 million fine for a mistake it chalked up to a "technical error." Or are they?

It seemed like dj news all over again in Manhattan yesterday: Paparazzi jockeying for position outside the state courthouse, scribes jostling for a seat inside and Martha Stewart -- "dressed in a short brown skirt and matching vest over a cream-colored shirt," according to Reuters' Karen Freifeld -- in the glare of it all.

Roy Brown, Jr., by all accounts of his death at 96 recently, was a man of refined taste and affability who unfortunately had a singular negative achievement for which he will always be remembered. "Somebody had to take it on the chin for what was the disaster at Ford known as the Edsel," writes Hot Rod's Thom Taylor, "and that person was Roy Brown."

Using full-page ads in 10 Sunday newspapers, Anheuser-Busch InBev humorously, if indirectly, addresses a class-action lawsuit filed in several states last week that claims the brewer waters down several of its brands, and that the actual alcohol content of the brewski does not reflect the amount indicated on the label.

Using full-page ads in 10 Sunday newspapers, Anheuser-Busch InBev humorously, if indirectly, addresses a class-action lawsuit filed in several states last week that claims the brewer waters down several of its brands, and that the actual alcohol content of the brewski does not reflect the amount indicated on the label.

Like many a defeated and depleted executive before him, Groupon co-founder and CEO Andrew Mason emailed his staff yesterday that he was leaving the company to "spend more time with my family." Then, in his typically offbeat style, he did what most executives don't: "Just kidding -- I was fired today," he wrote.

Michelle Obama has been anything but sequestered this week. First, she and Jimmy Fallon-in-drag showed off their "mom dancing" moves to celebrate the third anniversary of her Let's Move initiative Friday night. Then she presented the Best Picture award to "Argo" on the Academy Award telecast. This morning, she makes "The Business Case For Healthier Food Options" in the opinions section of the "Wall Street Journal."

You'd be forgiven if, after glancing at the business page headlines this morning, you are left wondering what's up, besides home sales, because everything feels like it's down but nobody wants to believe it.

The storyline is that William J. Lynch, Jr., the CEO Leonard Riggio brought in to develop its Nook e-book reader and, oh-by-the-way, run his chain of bookstores, never really cared for retail. So an 8-K SEC filing yesterday confirmed reports over the weekend that Riggio is putting together a proposal "to buy the struggling bookseller's 689 stores in an effort to save them from a stormy future in the public markets," as Michael J. de la Merced puts it in the New York Times.

The official press release about the death Saturday of Paul Carr Polk McIlhenny, CEO and chairman of the family-owned company that makes and markets Tabasco Sauce, tells us that he not only fostered new products such as Buffalo Style Hot Sauce, broadened distribution to 165 countries, expanded the name of the condiment with co-branding ventures such as Slim Jim and merchandising like the "popular" neckties, but he also was an ardent defender of the Louisiana's coastal wetlands, an epicure who co-wrote a popular cookbook with Barbara Hunter celebrating 125 years of Tabasco, and he mixed it all up with an …