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Netflix has attracted more than 20 million subscribers, more than 20,000 movies and television shows for its online service, and more than its share of headaches in Hollywood.

There’s one thing it has yet to attract: competition. Netflix is the only company that streams a large selection of movies and TV shows online for a monthly fee.

That will probably change. Retail giants such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Amazon.com Inc., and Best Buy Co., Internet television provider Hulu, and satellite broadcaster Dish Network Corp. are weighing plans to launch online subscription video services or expand nascent ones to take on Netflix, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Such moves would win cheers in Hollywood, where many are worried that Netflix is amassing too much clout. Some also believe that Netflix’s fast-growing customer base is buying fewer DVDs and watching less television, contributing to the financial struggles of studios.

“This is a battleground that’s just starting to brew,” said Dave Sanderson, head of the global media practice for Bain & Co.

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BARTO — From the castle facade on the outside to the extensive multi-page menu on the inside, The New Pied Piper Diner and Restaurant at 1605 Route 100 is working hard to change the old image of diners as being nothing more than “greasy spoons.”

Owner Peter Yannaris purchased the restaurant nearly four years ago from a longtime family friend who owned at the same site a former diner which had been closed for nearly a decade. The dilapidated diner was torn down, and a new restaurant was designed and built as the eye-catching structure of turrets and towers that it is today.

“It was just rundown,” said Yannaris of the former diner. “He gutted it, ripped out the whole place, and built a brand-spanking-new diner. He used the same facade, the same skeleton as the Pied Piper in Trexlertown, so he called this ‘The New Pied Piper.’ He did a very good job. I’m really glad with what he did. It’s working out very well for us.”

Yannaris was no stranger to owning diners when he opened The New Pied Piper, his seventh restaurant, in 2007.

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Yesterday Standard and Poors, a credit rating agency, lowered its outlook on the prospect of the US political system making serious progress on dealing with the mounting debt. There was no change in the actual rating they give to US treasuries and bonds which remain at AAA, but it hardly matters because no one cares what S&P has to say about US debt.

Why? Well, the point of the rating agencies is to tell us something about bonds that we dont know. For example, how safe are the bonds of Kenosha, Wisconsin?

But everyone knows about the situation in the US and the bond market sets the price daily. How risky is US debt? Check the price on the bond market:

The bond market confirms what everyone knows, the US is not going to default on its debt obligations. US debt has been a safe haven for money during the global recession.

S&Ps announcement has not gone over well with some economists, here is a sampling from the NY Times Room for Debate feature:

Yves Smith

Barry Ritholtz

Barry Eichengreen

Of course Smith and Ritholtz referring to the central role the credit rating agencies (who are paid by banks for their services) had in the mortgage market meltdown and subsequent recession.

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Shannon Bailey and her son Grady, 15, from Birmingham, Ala., pick out clothes at Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Ala.

AP Photos In this March 17 photo, multiple Ipods left behind on flights are available for purchase at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro, Ala. Along a country road next to a muffler shop and a cemetery is a 40,000-square-foot store filled with all the items that never made it home from vacation. Shoes, samurai swords, iPods, even lingerie, all available for 20 to 80 percent off.

AP Airlines Writer

SCOTTSBORO, Ala. — Welcome to the final resting place for lost luggage.

Along a country road next to a muffler shop and a cemetery is a 40,000-square-foot store filled with all the items that never made it home from vacation. S

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WASHINGTON (KTLA) — Drug store chain CVS has agreed to pay $17.5 million in fines Friday in connection claims that it overcharged customers for prescriptions, the Justice Department said.

CVS is accused of collecting excessive funds from Medicaid for submitting inflated prescription claims in 10 states.

Those states are California, Indiana, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, Rhode Island, Minnesota and Alabama.

Officials said the drugstore chain was collecting more from Medicaid than it would’ve if it had followed correct policy procedures and submitted claims to third-party insurers. Medicaid policy only allows pharmacies to bill for patient’s co-pay.

The Justice Department did not specify how much the government was overbilled.

The claims were brought to the Justice Department by a whistleblower in Minnesota. They will receive $2.6 million from the settlement, which will come from the monies recovered from CVS.

AP Business Writer

LOS ANGELES — Computer animation has a problem: When it gets too realistic, it starts creeping people out.

Most recently, moviegoers complained about the near-realistic depiction of humans in Disney’s 3-D flick “Mars Needs Moms.”

A theory called the “uncanny valley” says we tend to feel attracted to inanimate objects with human traits, the way a teddy bear or a rag doll seems cute. Our affection grows as an object looks more human. But if it looks too human, we suddenly become repulsed.

Instead of seeing what’s similar, we notice the flaws — and the motionless eyes or awkward movements suddenly make us uncomfortable.

“Mars” may have plunged to the bottom of this valley of fear.

“People always comment on things feeling strangely dead around the eyes,” said Chuck Sheetz, an animation director of “The Simpsons” and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “If

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