Other than, say, a suitcase nuke exploding in Palo Alto, or a hedge-fund implosion, the only thing that could stop this internet boom is a bad set of earnings from Google. Which is why you should all breathe a sigh of relief. The Mountain View search engine — which provides a lodestar to other internet companies, their main source of traffic, and often revenue, too — once again kept ahead of analysts' expectations. Excluding stock-based compensation, the company scored $3.68 a share in profit, compared with an average estimate of about $3.30. Phew.

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