Apple settles options backdating lawsuit

No. It means the executives have insurance to cover any civil legal exposure. Doesn't matter whether the allegations creating the exposure are substantive or not.

I don't know if I am reading this wrong and I would like some clarification.

"The money comes from the insurance companies, as the executives had policies in place to cover them in case they had to pay up."

Does this mean that the execs have insurance policies in place so that they can profit off of stock manipulations and not have to give the money back when they get caught?

Wrong. The reason the case is being settled for next to nothing is that under any available cause of action the petitioners would have had to prove actual harm to Apple Inc. No damage, no case. That was impossible, so these complaints were dismissed twice. Rephrasing the same claims again would have been equally useless. The respondents saved themselves additional legal costs defending themselves by settling, even if represented by in-house legal staff.

The only entities to profit from this tempest in a teapot were the petitioners' lawyers. The few million left over for Apple Inc. is too little to be meaningful.

Or...

How about that shirt with a TUAW dollar bill?

Eh? See where this is going?

I'm not wrong to dream am I?

Count me in too. I want a shirt like that two.
No really, a two dollar bill version.

I want a shirt like that

I wonder if Apple lawyers get iPods... because they've been really shuffling around lately. (ba dum chh)