It’s tough to make a living placing bets. Things never seem to go exactly how you think they will. But there are some sure things. One of those sure things is that Martha Stewart will come storming back in 2005.

It’s still almost impossible to imagine her in prison. But somehow she has emerged not just as a cell block cookie baker, but as a voice for the disenfranchised in prison. Is Martha getting ready to take on The Man?

Here is her latest missive from the joint.

I beseech you all to think about these women — to encourage the American people to ask for reforms, both in sentencing guidelines, in length of incarceration for nonviolent first-time offenders, and for those involved in drug-taking. They would be much better served in a true rehabilitation center than in prison where there is no real help, no real programs to rehabilitate, no programs to educate, no way to be prepared for life “out there” where each person will ultimately find herself, many with no skills and no preparation for living.

I am fine, really. I look forward to being home, to getting back to my valuable work, to creating, cooking, and making television. I have had time to think, time to write, time to exercise, time to not eat the bad food, and time to walk and contemplate the future. I’ve had my work here too. Cleaning has been my job – washing, scrubbing, sweeping, vacuuming, raking leaves, and much more. But like everyone else here, I would rather be doing all of this in my own home, and not here — away from family and friends.

With less crowded malls and lower sales than expected, some retailers are asking themselves where the holiday rush is this year.

Well, we may have found it at FedEx shipping hubs. With their 600 planes and 70,000 trucks, FedEx delivered a cool 8.1 million packages yesterday. And the rush is still coming.

According to one FedExec: “The peak used to be the week of Thanksgiving. But now that we’ve gotten into e-commerce, people are waiting longer.”

Are we having an economic slump that is leading to a worse than expected holiday season at the nation’s cash registers or is it more simple than that? Maybe we just haven’t gotten around to shopping yet.

Chuck Hagel blames the nearly continuous string of bad consequences in Iraq on “the arrogance and incompetency of the civilian leadership at the Pentagon.” [link via]

But do those descriptions really stop being accurate at the Pentagon, or do they work as one goes up a few notches?

Hagel adds: “It’s always the uniformed military that has to bear the brunt of bad decisions. They do the dying and the suffering … The buck does stop somewhere.”

Time Magazine just launched the web version of their archives going back to 1923. Here is a look at the first time the magazine mentioned five people who managed, it turns out, to make their way into the news cycle a few more times over the years.

Heartbreak Hotel (Elvis Presley; Victor). A new singer with a new twist: a double voice that alternates between a high, unpleasant quaver, reminiscent of Johnnie Ray at his fiercest, and a rich basso that might be smooth if it were not for its spasmodic delivery. Heartbreak Hotel, yelps the high voice, is where he’s going to get away from it all. Answers the basso: he’ll be sorry.

“Hallelujah.” Said the Rev. Martin Luther King, 27: “This is not a tension between the Negro and whites. This is only a conflict between justice and injustice. We are not just trying to improve Negro Montgomery. We are trying to improve the whole of Montgomery . . . If we are arrested every day; if we are exploited every day; if we are triumphed over every day; let nobody pull you so low as to hate them.”

It is a familiar mix—the gaunt but unmarked face and the insinuating nasal rasp. He slouches buzzing over his guitar, his voice dry as locusts. Then, without warning, Bruce Springsteen rears back and uncorks a geyser of white hot sound. Cataracts of electrically charged fragments of sound lacerate the air, scattering intimations of Dylan and colliding with the fierce rhythms of Springsteen’s own wild fusion of rock, jazz and folk rock.

She was a house guest at Balmoral Castle in September, a pretty girl with an almost pre-Raphaelite air of sweet naturalness, sitting demurely by the River Dee, while Prince Charles fished for salmon. In October, swathed in a sporty green coat and boots, she cheered excitedly from the Ludlow racecourse grandstand as the Prince rode his Irish chaser, Allibar, to a second-place finish in a three-mile steeplechase. By the time the Prince of Wales’ 32nd birthday arrived on Nov. 14, Britain was rife with rumors that Charles’ engagement to the sunny blond so often at his side, Lady Diana Spencer, 19, was about to be announced.

Indeed, when Microsoft (1982 sales: $34 million), the Bellevue, Wash., company that developed the operating system used on the IBM personal computer, wanted someone to run its marketing program, it looked to the cosmetics industry. Last month Microsoft hired Rowland Hanson, vice president of Neutrogena, a maker of skin-care products, as head of marketing and public relations. Admits Hanson: “When I came here I didn’t even know how to turn a computer on.” But he does know how to sell packaged goods. Says company President Bill Gates, who founded Microsoft at age 18 and is one of the industry’s veterans at 27: “We’re past the point where technology is all important. It’s the marketing, the reputations that are important now.”

The family of a Marine killed in Iraq is trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get access to his Yahoo email account. Yahoo has a policy of not sharing passwords, even with family members, and according to the terms of service (you all read those carefully, right?), accounts not active for 90 days are deleted.

This is tough one. You want the family in this case to have access to the account. Yet, one understands Yahoo’s policy of privacy when it comes to such general matters.

This conflict seems like it leads to an idea for a company or at least a service. I’ve often wondered about the topic myself. If I was run over by bus, how would my family do such simple things as, say, let you know why my blog hasn’t been updated for awhile. So much of my life is online. I’d want my wife and family to be able to access some (but, for godsakes, not all) of my accounts.

There ought to be a way to desginate a person or people that are to be given access to some or all of your digital content and/or email and site passwords.

If nothing else, I’d like someone to turn off my sponsored ad word buys at Google and Overture.