Liberty Newspost Dec-06-2011

Curated News Edition
- 06/12/11
http://www.LibertyNewspost.com
Poll: Cain's fall fuels Gingrich's double-digit lead

(USATODAY.com News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:01:16 PM
By Susan Page, USA TODAY Updated WASHINGTON Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has taken a double-digit lead over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination in a new nationwide Gallup Poll. By Seth Wenig, AP Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is ahead of other Republican presidential hopefuls in a new Gallup Poll. Gingrich's 37% standing is higher support than any Republican candidate has scored to date in Gallup surveys this year that have been led, at various times, by five other contenders. Romney is at 22%.
The findings illustrate how Gingrich has benefited from the precipitous fall by former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who on Saturday suspended his campaign in the wake of allegations of personal misbehavior. Compared with a Gallup Poll taken in early November, when Cain was at the top of the field, the former business executive's support has dropped by 22 percentage points. Gingrich's support has risen by 24 percentage points. And Romney? His support was at 22% then and 22% now a signal of his strength and weakness: His support has remained steady while other candidates have soared and crashed. But he has yet to significantly expand his appeal.
The other contenders are in single digits, including Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 8%, Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 7%, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann at 6%, former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum at 3% and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman at 1%. The survey released Tuesday launches a daily poll that will track the GOP standings based on interviews with more than 1,000 Republican and Republicanleaning voters, taken over the previous five days. For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and
state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. USA TODAY is now using Facebook Comments on our stories and blog posts to provide an enhanced user experience. To post a comment, log into Facebook and then "Add" your comment. To report spam or abuse, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box. To find out more, read the FAQ and Conversation Guidelines. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
China sentences Australian CEO to 13 years in prison - USA Today

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Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:52:33 PM
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Zee News China sentences Australian CEO to 13 years in prison USA Today BEIJING (AP) An Australian businessman detained in southern China was sentenced Tuesday to 13 years in jail for embezzlement and bribery, Australia's government confirmed. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in an emailed statement that... In Surprise Move, China Jails Australian for 13 Years New York Times China Sentences Australian Citizen To 13 Years On Bribery Charges Wall Street Journal (blog) China delivers shock 13 years jail for Aust businessman ABC Online Ninemsn- Zee News all 248 news articles
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W.Va. mine disaster deal could boost safety in industry

(USATODAY.com News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:10:15 PM
not be charged with any crimes in the blast as long as the company abides by the settlement, U.S. T h e r e c o r d $ 2 1 0 m i l l i o n Attorney Booth Goodwin said. settlement announced Tuesday in But the agreement does not t h e M a s s e y E n e r g y m i n i n g prevent individual employees disaster that killed 29 men could from being prosecuted. result in better mine safety "No individuals are off the hook," throughout the industry, according Goodwin said, adding that federal to one safety expert involved in prosecutors are still investigating. the investigation. The settlement includes $46.5 By Jeff Gentner, AP million in criminal restitution to A memorial at the entrance to the miners' families, $128 million Massey Energy's Upper Big for cutting-edge mine-safety Branch coal mine on April 5 improvements, research and marks the one-year anniversary of training, and $35 million in an explosion that killed 29 coal penalties for years of safety miners. violations at Upper Big Branch Davitt McAteer, a former federal and other mines operated by mine safety chief who conducted Massey. West Virginia's investigation into The $46.5 million in restitution the April 2010 blast at the Upper aims to guarantee that the families Big Branch mine in Montcoal, of the miners and two co-workers says parts of the settlement are who survived the explosion each "interesting, novel and creative" receive $1.5 million. Eighteen b e c a u s e t h e y a d d r e s s families of deceased miners have improvements in technology, filed wrongful-death lawsuits, and t r a i n i n g a n d p e r s o n n e l eight of those already have settled requirements. with Massey. Nine other "In terms of the mining industry employees have sued, claiming in this country this is a record emotional distress because of the settlement," McAteer says. "The explosion. settlement is of sufficient size that Those who accept the payout still it catches the attention of the can pursue lawsuits over the industry and hopefully we'll have disaster, but the $1.5 million the deterrent effect." would be deducted from any Under the deal, Alpha Natural future settlement or jury award. Resources which acquired Virginia-based Alpha will invest Massey earlier this year will $48 million in a mine safety
research trust and spend an additional $80 million to improve safety at all of its underground mines with the latest technology and equipment. The upgrades include sufficient workers and gear to coat mines with crushed limestone to dilute the coal dust created during mining. The cutting-edge improvements also include digital sensors that continuously monitor air flow and methane levels; meters to measure coal dust levels; and emergency oxygen equipment, similar to what firefighters rely on, that would give miners an uninterrupted supply of air while trying to escape from an underground accident. At a time when Congress is loath to add regulations on to industry, the settlement mandates the introduction of handheld computerized air quality monitors that pre-shift inspectors would download to a central computer instead of using pen and paper records, which Massey was accused of forging, McAteer said. "We're circumventing the regulatory system and saying 'Look the technology is out there, you need to put it in your mines,'" he says. "The hope is this company will take the lead and other companies will follow." Goodwin called the settlement "a revolutionary resolution."
"We wanted it to be something constructive and forwardlooking," he said. Alpha CEO Kevin Crutchfield said the company cooperated fully with authorities and believes the agreement represents "the best path forward for everyone." "We're particularly pleased that a substantial portion of the settlement is going toward furthering miner safety, which has always been Alpha's guiding principle," Crutchfield said. "We're mindful that the Justice Department investigation arose from a terrible tragedy, which took the lives of 29 miners. Our thoughts will always be with the fallen miners and our sympathies with their families." For the families, the deal is about half of what Massey initially offered. Within a month of the blast, the daughter of one dead miner told the Associated Press that Massey was offering $3 million to each of the families. One victim's mother was furious that a deal had been struck. "I have no intentions of settling with these people that have killed my son," said Patty Quarles, whose son Gary Wayne was among the victims. "They need to be put in jail." A disappointed and angry Clay Mullins, whose brother Rex died in the mine, said he was frustrated
that all the money Alpha will spend under the settlement "basically benefits them and MSHA. It doesn't help the families." Mullins said he and his family want to see criminal charges brought against executives at Massey, not just against low- and midlevel managers. "It was an act of murder," he said. "They murdered 29 men, and I'm not satisfied one bit." The settlement will "raise the bar" on safety but it won't provide justice to the families of the men who died, said Phil Smith, spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. "Nobody's gone to jail yet and until somebody goes to jail for what this company did nobody's received justice," Smith said. Massey CEO Don Blankenship"would be a good place to start" with criminal prosecutions, Smith said. The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and the state investigators agreed that "the corporate culture of this company is responsible for what happened here," Smith said. "Don Blankenship directed and created that corporate culture. Nobody is more responsbible than him." Attorney Tim Bailey, who W.VA. page 4
Headline/
Moscow police clash with anti-Putin demonstrators

(USATODAY.com News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:42:21 AM
MOSCOW (AP) Police clashed Tuesday on a central Moscow square with demonstrators trying to hold a second day of protests against alleged vote fraud in Russia's parliamentary elections. By Dmitry Lovetsky, AP Riot police detain protesters during Tuesday's rally in downtown St. Petersburg, Russia. Hundreds of police had blocked off Triumphal Square on Tuesday evening, then began chasing about 100 demonstrators, seizing some and throwing them harshly into police vehicles. Pro-government United Russia supporters also rallied late Tuesday at Revolution Square near the Kremlin. State television footage showed a crowd appearing to number in the thousands. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party saw a significant drop in support in Sunday's election but it will still have a majority in parliament. Opponents say even that watereddown victory was due to massive vote fraud. In neighboring Lithuania, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton again criticized the Russian election and urged that widespread reports of voting fraud
be investigated. Some Moscow demonstrators Tuesday shouted "Putin is a crook and a thief!" referring both to the alleged election fraud and to widespread complaints that United Russia is one of the prime reasons for Russia's endemic corruption. Among the detained was Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the liberal opposition, along with prominent radical Eduard Limonov and Oleg Orlov, head of the renowned human rights group Memorial, the Interfax news agency reported. Hundreds of young men with emblems of United Russia's youth wing, the Young Guards, also gathered on the outskirts of the square and tauntingly chanted "Putin victory!" Large crowds also gathered on a square in St. Petersburg, visibly outnumbering police, a Danish election observer reported. United Russia won slightly less than 50% of Sunday's vote, according to nearly complete preliminary results. Although that gives the party an absolute majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, it is a significant drop from the 2007 election when the party got a twothirds majority, enough to change the constitution unchallenged. Yet Sunday's election results reflected public fatigue with
Putin's authoritarian streak and with official corruption in Russia, signaling that his return to the presidency in next March's election may not be as troublefree as he expected. Putin, meanwhile, called his party's reduced number of seats in Sunday's parliamentary election an "inevitable" result of voters always being dissatisfied with the party in power. Putin also dismissed allegations of corruption among his United Russia party members, calling it a "cliche" that the party had to fight. United Russia party won slightly less than 50% of Sunday's vote, according to nearly complete preliminary results. Although that gives the party an absolute majority in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, it is a significant drop from the 2007 election when the party got a twothirds majority, enough to change the constitution unchallenged. Even that smaller majority is seen as questionable in the wake of numerous reports of voting fraud to inflate United Russia's total. Russian officials, however, have denied any significant vote violations. Still, the election results reflected public fatigue with Putin's authoritarian streak and with official corruption in Russia, signaling that his return to the
presidency in next March's election may not be as troublefree as he expected. Russia's beleaguered opposition has been energized by the vote. Late Monday, thousands marched in Moscow chanting "Russia without Putin!" That demonstration apparently caught authorities by surprise, and police and troops on Tuesday substantially increased their visibility in an apparent effort to discourage more gatherings. Police detained about 300 protesters in Moscow on Monday and 120 participants in a similar rally in St. Petersburg. Two of the Moscow rally's leaders, Ilya Yashin and Alexei Navalny, were sentenced to 15 days in jail Tuesday. Security forces already had been beefed up in the capital ahead of the election. Moscow police said 51,500 Interior Ministry forces were involved, all part of increased security for the election period. Putin's comments Tuesday appeared to aim at saving face and discouraging the opposition from seeing United Russia as vulnerable. "Yes, there were losses, but they were inevitable," Putin said at a meeting of party supporters. "They are inevitable for any political force, particularly for the
one which has been carrying the burden of responsibility for the situation in the country." Putin also rejected the popular characterization of United Russia as "the party of crooks and thieves," saying corruption was a widespread problem not limited to a single party. "They say that the ruling party is associated with theft, with corruption, but it's a cliche related not to a certain political force, it's a cliche related to power," he said during a meeting with provincial officials. "What's important, however, is how the ruling government is fighting these negative things," he said. Clinton criticized the Russian vote for a second straight day, saying Tuesday that "Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation." Konstantin Kosachev, a senior United Russia member, described Clinton's statement as "one of the darkest pages in the Russian-U.S. relations" and warned Washington against supporting the opposition. Russia's only independent election monitoring group, Golos, which is funded by U.S. and European grants, came under heavy official pressure ahead of MOSCOW page 4
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W.VA.
continued from page 2
represents several families of miners who died in the mine, said the families are pleased that safety measures "are being forced upon and accepted" by Alpha and that the U.S. Attorney's office "is making it clear that the individuals who were personally reponsible for killing these men will be pursued and their day of reckoning is closely to follow." The U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, meanwhile, was expected to brief the victims' families and the media Tuesday on its final report on the cause of the disaster, the nation's deadliest mining accident in 40 years. Federal investigators have blamed the blast on a combination of methane gas, a buildup of explosive coal dust and broken or malfunctioning equipment.
Tuesday's settlement will also fund a West Virginia laboratory capable of testing technology under conditions that would be too dangerous to allow in actual mines. In addition, Alpha agreed to review all its underground mines and correct any problems within 90 days. Preliminary reports on the disaster by state and federal investigators have said that poorly maintained cutting machines caused a spark that ignited a small amount of naturally occurring methane and a huge buildup of coal dust. Malfunctioning water sprayers allowed what could have been a small flare-up to become an epic blast that traveled seven miles of underground corridors, doubling back on itself and killing
men instantly. The United Mine Workers union said last month that conditions were so dangerous that Massey executives and managers should be prosecuted for "industrial homicide." Contributing: Oren Dorell in McLean, Va.; Associated Press This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
China's Hu urges navy to prepare for combat - AFP

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Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:15:00 PM
AFP China's Hu urges navy to prepare for combat AFP BEIJING Chinese President Hu Jintao Tuesday urged the navy to prepare for military combat amid growing regional tensions over maritime disputes and a US campaign to assert itself as a
Pacific power. The navy should "accelerate its transformation and... Blackstone Asia head eyes growth in China, Southeast Asia Reuters US: China has right to develop military Independent Online Obama's (and Hillary's) Pacific Century Kansas City Star Hindustan Times- China Daily all 124 news articles
MOSCOW
Sunday's vote after Putin likened Russian recipients of foreign support to Judas. Golos' website was incapacitated by hackers on election day, and its director Lilya Shibanova and her deputy had their cell phone numbers, email and social media accounts hacked. The Russian election even drew criticism from one of Putin's predecessors. "There is no real democracy here and there won't be any, if the government is afraid of the people," former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said on Ekho Moskvy radio.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it (china - Google News) on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:11:28 PM only/faq.php#publishers. Five Wall Street Journal Filters recommends: Donate to UN chief: Major climate deal Wikileaks. unlikely USA Today DURBAN, South Africa An all -encompassing climate deal "may be beyond our reach for now," the UN chief said Tuesday as China and India delivered a setback to
UN chief: Major climate deal unlikely - USA Today

European plans to negotiate a new treaty that would bind all parties to... China Seeks Legally Binding Climate Pact Voice of America "Big Three" polluters oppose binding climate deal Reuters Chinese Overture Jolts Climate Talks Wall Street Journal CTV.ca- BBC News all 2,058 news articles
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Rare Attacks on Shiites Kill Scores in Afghanistan - New York Times

ROD NORDLAND (Top Stories - Google News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:56:17 PM
Bryan Denton for The New York Times A young Shiite boy waited outside the police cordon at the site of an attack in Kabul on Tuesday. More Photos KABUL, Afghanistan A Pakistan-based extremist group claimed responsibility for an unusual series of coordinated suicide attacks aimed at Shiites on Tuesday, in what many feared was an attempt to further destabilize Afghanistan by adding a new dimension of strife to a country that, though battered by a decade of war, has been mercifully free of sectarian conflict. The attacks, among the wars deadliest, struck three widely scattered Afghan cities Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif almost simultaneously and killed at least 63 Shiite worshippers on their holy day of Ashura. Though Afghanistan has suffered numerous suicide attacks over the years, such strikes by Sunnis against Shiites are alien to Afghanistan. So it was no surprise to Afghans when responsibility was claimed by a Sunni extremist group from Pakistan, where Sunnis and Shiites have been
energetically killing each other for decades. The group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, had not previously claimed or carried out attacks in Afghanistan, however, and its emergence fueled suspicions that Al Qaeda, the Taliban or Pakistans spy agency or some combination of them had teamed up with
the group to send a message that Afghanistans future stability remained deeply tenuous and indeed dependent on the cooperation of outside forces. Never in our history have there been such cruel attacks on religious observances, said President Hamid Karzai, in a statement released by his office.
The enemies of Afghanistan do not want us to live under one roof with peace and harmony. The timing of the attacks was especially pointed, coming a day after an international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany, that had been viewed as an opportunity for Afghanistan to cement long-term support from
the West. The conference fell considerably short of the objectives that officials had envisioned, however, because both Taliban insurgents and Pakistani diplomats were not present. Pakistan pulled out of Bonn as a protest against the RARE page 6
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deaths of 24 of its soldiers in an American airstrike, launched from Afghan territory, which American officials have depicted as a misunderstanding. Critics of Pakistan were quick to read both Mondays boycott of Bonn and Tuesdays bombings as a signal from Islamabad, using Lashkar-e-Janghvi as its messenger, that Afghanistan could not afford to ignore Pakistan. Pakistan is our historical enemy and wants us to never live in peace, said Noor Mohammad, one of the wounded worshippers, who was covered in blood minutes after the explosion. What should we do, where should we go? The terrorists are not even letting us carry on our religious practices. Abdul Qayou Sajadi, a Hazara member of parliament, made similar assumptions, though he did not mention Pakistan by name. As you know, the peace efforts by our government and the international community are going on but some of our neighboring countries failed in this regard, he said. Now they are trying to divide our people along religious lines, and create another war among Afghans as they did in the past. While Afghanistans Shiite minority community, mostly ethnic Hazaras, was savagely discriminated against during the years of Taliban rule, they had not been singled out for attack during the current insurgency. The actual designs of the attackers remained murky,
however, not least because the tangled history of Lashkar-eJhangvi, which once operated openly in Pakistan with the support of its spy service, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, but has since been outlawed and in recent years has struck up deepening alliances with Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella group of Pakistani militants that has turned its violence on Pakistans cities and security services numerous times. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is inspired by a Deobandi philosophy that justifies killing Shias because of their faith, and has on several occasions targeted Americans and Christians as well. It has no previous known operations in Afghanistan, however, so no one seriously thought Lashkar-eJhangvi could carry out a coordinated series of three nearly simultaneous bombings in three Afghan cities without substantial support from somewhere. Tuesdays bombings aroused fears that the extremists were trying to provoke a reaction like the one which followed the 2006 bombing of a Shia shrine in Samara, Iraq, which ignited two years of tit-for-tat sectarian violence in Iraq. That attack was carried out by militants aligned with Al Qaeda, which also has a Deobandi-like, anti-Shia philosophy. Pakistan is responsible for this, the ISI wants to create a conflict between Sunnis and Shias, said Mohammad Akbar, as he waited
anxiously outside a hospital for news of his brothers fate. Shiite religious and political leaders in Afghanistan were quick to call for calm, warning that a violent backlash was just what the killers were trying to provoke. Our Hazara people should be cool-headed and not react because our enemies will take advantage of that to divide our country, said a prominent Hazara leader and Shiite cleric, Mohammad Husain Mohaqiq. The three bombings all took place around midday as Shiite devotees marched in processions to honor the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the holiest of specifically Shiite holidays. In the southern city of Kandahar a bomb on a parked motorcycle exploded and narrowly missed an Ashura procession, wounding two policemen and three passersby, according to police chief Abdul Razaq. In the northern city of Mazar-iSharif, a suicide bomber apparently on foot blew up among worshippers, killing four and wounding more than 20, according to Sirjan Durani, the police spokesman there. The deadliest attack occurred in Kabuls crowded Murad Khani neighborhood, when a suicide bomber infiltrated a procession in front of the Abul Fazal Abbas Shrine. The blast was so powerful it damaged the mosque, and cut down scores of worshippers. Many people, terrified of a follow -on attack, jumped into the nearby Kabul River, which is choked
with sewage. In the processional, men had been beating their bared chests to show their sorrow at Imam Husseins martyrdom, with some of them also flagellating themselves, using barbed chains to whip themselves on their backs. The processions on Ashura are always highly emotional, although many clerics try to discourage the self-flagellation, which often becomes very bloody. The explosion took place inside the crowd, said a wounded man, Said Zaki, 18, whose face and clothes were covered in blood. We didnt see who the bomber was but he was definitely on foot. We saw 30 or 40 people on the ground missing arms and limbs. Throughout the day, the official count of the dead climbed from one to 59 as more and more of the nearly 200 wounded people died of horrific injuries. In one hospital alone, five infants were among 14 victims declared dead on arrival. Every hospital in the capital took in victims. At the Emergency Hospital, when corridors had filled up with the wounded, doctors put the overflow patients in a laundry room, and the dead on stretchers in the courtyard. Outside, angry and sometimes hysterical relatives tried to climb over the hospital walls, then forced their way in when doors were opened to bring in blood donors for urgently needed transfusions. Kabul Police Chief Mohammad Ayoub Salangi confirmed the latest death toll of 59, with 130
wounded people still in hospitals nine hours after the attack. Ghulam Sakhi Kargar, the spokesman for the Afghan Public Health Ministry, said 164 wounded had initially been admitted to hospitals in Kabul. General Salangi was aware of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claim, which was reported by the BBC and Radio Free Europe quoting the groups spokesman, Qari Abubakar. But he said none of the Pakistan-based extremists could carry out operations without Taliban support. All the militant groups have very good cooperation with the Taliban in Afghanistan, so I am sure they were aware of it. An email to news organizations from the spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied responsibility. We strongly condemn this wild and inhuman act by our enemies, who are trying to blame us and trying to divide Afghans by doing such attacks on Muslims. Sarifullah Sahak, Luke Mogelson and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul, and Taimoor Shah from Kandahar. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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How The "Internet Of Things" Is Turning Cities Into Living Organisms

Christopher Mims (Fast Company)
gauges that tweet. It may sound like a trivial problem, but the EPA estimates Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:17:19 PM that the U.S. has $13 billion When city services can i n v e s t e d i n w a s t e w a t e r autonomously go online and i n f r a s t r u c t u r e a l o n e . M o r e digest information from the cloud, importantly, the majority of t h e y c a n r e a c h a l e v e l o f America's largest cities--more performance never before seen. than 700 in all--dump millions of First up, water systems that gallons of raw sewage into our automatically know when it will waterways every time it rains, rain and react accordingly. because their sewer and With a little help from what's s t o r m w a t e r s y s t e m s w e r e called the Internet of Things, d e s i g n e d a c e n t u r y a g o . engineers are transforming cities These overwhelmed cities from passive conduits for water include New York City, Detroit, into dynamic systems that store Boston, Portland, St. Louis, and manage it like the tissues of Chicago, Seattle, Philadelphia, desert animals. By using the Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Internet to connect real-world many other cities, mostly in the sensors and control mechanisms Rust Belt and New England. With to cloud-based control systems the notable exception of Los that can pull in streams from any Angeles, almost every major other data source, including urban center in the U.S. is in need weather reports, these efforts of a way to soak up rainstorms enable conservation and money- rather than dump them straight saving measures that would have down the drain in a desperate been impossible without this attempt to prevent flooding. virtual nervous system. That's where "high performance" Marcus Quigley, principal water infrastructure--infrastructure that engineer at the infrastructure can react to its environment like a engineering firm Geosyntec, has living thing--comes in. been tackling this problem using "The conventional way to build a hardware from Internet of Things city is you build what you want, company ioBridge, whose Internet and then you get rid of water as -connected sensors have been q u i c k l y a s p o s s i b l e , " s a y s used in everything from location- Quigley. Historically, that's meant aware home automation to tide massive projects to redirect all the
water sluicing down impermeable streets and concrete and into the Moria-like recesses of a city's sewer system. Green infrastructure tries to control runoff on-site, rather than sending it below, through the use of "bioretention cells" and rain gardens, which absorb and filter the water into collections of plants and artificial wetlands. High-performance green infrastructure takes things a step further, by anticipating demand for water storage and preparing a system accordingly. For example, in seven projects deployed in St. Louis and one in New Bern, North Carolina, Geosyntec integrated a building's rainwater catchment system with software that uses weather predictions from the Internet to know when a basin should be partly emptied to accommodate incoming stormwater. Many more projects of this kind are on the way, including installations in Washington, D.C. and New York City. "Instead of trying to use what I consider sub-optimal passive systems to control these ... components of the urban environment, what we're doing is making decisions in real time to achieve specific environmental goals," says Quigley.
Dynamic control of a rainwater catchment allows these basins to be used to their maximum without fear that they'll be overwhelmed by weather events. Giving building planners the assurance that they'll always have access to a free water supply means they can actually use it. And putting these on enough buildings could go a long way to solving the problem of combined sewer and stormwater systems being overwhelmed when it rains. It's early days for these kinds of systems, and managing runoff is just one of the applications they could be put to use. "The big picture is that we are able to take any piece of information that is Internetaccessible, any feed, and integrate it into the logic of how we operate these components of our city," says Quigley. Geosyntec's cloud-based infrastructure is just as important as the physical infrastructure it puts into place on-site. Led by software developer Alex Bedig, the company has created a general -purpose platform for handling all the relevant inputs, sending instructions to valves and other control points, and never, ever failing in an emergency. Taken together, these physical and virtual systems are explicitly
biomimetic, says Quigley. "The intent of an active system is to take the built environment and have it perform as if it were natural. We're fundamentally saying that passive systems are unable to do that in an optimal way. In many cases they are unable to do it at all." It's a story we've heard in the energy industry for years--hence the notion that a dynamically managed "smart grid" is not only helpful, but absolutely essential for integrating our powergenerating infrastructure with the natural world through renewables. The smart grid extends all the way down to the level of the individual through demand management for energy conservation, but these principles have yet to show up on the same scale in the management of physical resources like water. Humanity has a sorry habit of neglecting its waste stream, whether its the 99% of precious rare earth elements we fail to recycle or the complete absence of curbside composting from most American cities. The handy thing about water is that, through evaporation, it recycles itself. Now all we have to do is make the best use of it we can while it's coursing through our cities.
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Time for Mitt Romney to take on Newt Gingrich? - Christian Science Monitor
Linda Feldmann (Top Stories Google News)
He needs to show hes a fighter, because that will demonstrate hes up for the task ahead: taking on Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:08:39 PM President Obama in what will With Newt Gingrich passing Mitt surely be an epic battle against a Romney in the polls, some highly organized incumbent. politicos say the affable Romney But others suggest Romney has must ramp up attacks on Gingrich. to be careful. He has kept his But others say that could ruin message focused on the economy, Romney's brand. his strong point as a former Republican presidential candidate businessman, and he doesnt want Mitt Romney speaks to supporters to take his eye off the ball. He and volunteers during a rally in also doesnt want to bathe himself Manchester, N.H., Saturday. in negativity right as many GOP (Jim Cole/AP/File) voters are beginning to pay By Linda Feldmann, Staff writer attention to the race in earnest. posted December 6, 2011 at 3:06 When asked Tuesday whether its pm EST Washington time for Romney to attack To attack more forcefully or not? Gingrich, one Romney adviser Thats the dilemma former said no. I dont think that he Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney f u n d a m e n t a l l y c h a n g e s h i s faces as former House Speaker strategy in the direction of an Newt Gingrich surges in polls and attack on Newt, former Rep. Vin threatens Mr. Romneys grasp on Weber(R) of Minnesota told the Republican presidential Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. nomination. Hes building a campaign Four weeks before the first capable of defeating President nominating contest the Iowa Obama. caucuses differing views are In particular, Gingrichs rocky emerging. Some Romney personal past marital supporters quoted in the media infidelities, two messy divorces say its time for the mild- is best left for others to discuss, mannered Romney to get more says Stephen Wayne, a political aggressive. He cant count on Mr. s c i e n t i s t a t G e o r g e t o w n Gingrich to self-destruct or on U n i v e r s i t y . other candidates to take Gingrich For Romney to go there lowers down for him, the thinking goes. him a notch in the eyes of voters,
says Mr. Wayne. Hes got an economic focus going against Obama, and he should stay on that route. The moment people turn from the economy to social conservatism or other issues, Romney loses his advantage. Republican strategist Ford OConnell agrees that Romney has to be careful. Romneys caught between a rock and a hard place, says Mr. OConnell, head of the CivicForumPAC. He cant rely on Newt being Newt. But if he goes after him, he looks like a whiner and out of character. Hes got to hope another person or organization comes up with information on Gingrich. In a mild way, Romney has already upped his game against Gingrich, calling him a Washington insider who isnt the sure-thing nominee that Gingrich has portrayed himself to be. "I must admit that Newt has had a very extensive, long record of working in Washington with various governmental and nongovernmental agencies, and I just don't think that's the background that's ideally suited, one, to replace Barack Obama, and No. 2, to lead the country," Romney said on Fox News last Friday. "This is not a matter of
that America needs better lobbyists, or better dealmakers, better insiders I think America needs a leader." Romney surrogates have also made polite attacks on Gingrich, without getting too deep into the weeds on Gingrichs professional past. Gingrich has never run anything, and hes been a legislator, New Jersey governor and Romney backer Chris Christie(R) told a F l o r i d a w e b s i t e , FLDemocracy2012.com, last week. Look at the guy we have in the White House now, he never ran anything and was a legislator. Polls show that while many GOP voters have warmed to the Gingrich candidacy, some remain unaware of his baggage: the fact that he was driven from the speakership in 1998 amid charges of weak leadership and under an ethical cloud, after just four years; the $1.6 million to $1.8 million he received in fees for advising controversial mortgage giant Freddie Mac; a record of flipflopping on policy issues. Mr. OConnell suggests that it matters how new information comes out on Gingrich. If it comes from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi or a pro-
Romney super political action committee, voters are likely to discount it. Fergus Cullen, a former GOP state chair in New Hampshire, says that because Gingrich represents a threat to everyone in the Republican field including former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul Romney will get help. Mr. Cullen also questions the notion that Romney will look bad if he goes after Gingrich. Romney went after Perry on substance back in September, and it didnt harm Romneys image, says Cullen, who is neutral in the race. In fact, it made him look tough, and strong enough to take on President Obama. So having Newt as a foil can help Romney. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Top News/
Donald Trump GOP Candidate Debate a Harmful Distraction?

(Christianpost.com > Politics)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:15:47 PM
Other GOP candidates such as Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul have rejected to participate in the debate, citing Trump as the (Photo: Reuters / Don Himsel) reason. Real estate magnate Donald GOP heavyweights such as Trump smiles as he leaves a Arizona Senator John McCain and Greater Nashua Chamber of political analyst Karl Rove have Commerce business expo at the come out slamming the Trump Radisson Hotel in Nashua, New debate. Hampshire, May 11 2011. Like us on Facebook While appearing on Fox News, Trump will play host in a debate M c C a i n w o n d e r e d i f a n y with Republican presidential candidates should participate in candidates on Dec. 27 in Des the debate at all. Moines, Iowa. The debate will be Its their decision, but I do think broadcast on Ion Television, a that on Dec. 27, on an obscure cable network, and many people, network, I wonder if that is the considering Trumps flair for the best use of the candidates time, I dramatics, are wondering if this think they should be resting up will be the most memorable GOP over Christmas and the next few debate yet. days and be ready to go right after So far, GOP candidates Newt the first of January. Gingrich and Rick Santorum have When asked by Fox host both agreed to participate in the Gretchen Carlson if he would d e b a t e . C a n d i d a t e M i c h e l e attend the debate if he were Bachmann has announced that her running for election, McCain said campaign is still in the process of that he didnt know and added: looking at participating. Her I guarantee you, there are too main concern with the debate is many debates and we have lost Trumps ability to be objective, the focus on from what the she said on CBS Early Show. candidates vision for America is Bachmann, however, has met t o w h o s g o i n g t o m a k e a with Trump several times during mistake? Lets have a gotcha the campaign and noted that she question to see if theyll stumble has great respect for him. and surprise everybody, and thats
not what debates are supposed to be about and I dont think its helping the Republican Party or our candidates, he said. Rove also appeared on Fox News questioning Trumps integrity in being the debates moderator. "We've got a guy who is not only saying 'I'm going to make a decision about who I'm gonna endorse shortly after this debate and I'm already leaning someway and I may run myself,' and we expect him to be the impartial moderator of the debate?" he said on "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren. "Could you imagine what would happen if MSNBC was hosting a debate and the moderator said, 'well, I'm going to endorse one of the Republican candidates after this debate'? Everybody would say 'we're not showing up!'" He also warned the GOP candidates about appearing at the debate while further questioning Trumps ability to ask impartial questions. "This is not a newsman, this is not somebody who's gonna sit down and meticulously prepare for this like a Bret Baier would do or some of these other anchors would do," Rove said. "This is a guy who is an active
actor in this. He's already indicated he's leaning toward endorsing somebody, you know he could do a lot of damage to somebody and I suspect it's not gonna be to the candidate that he's leaning towards. This is a man who says himself that he's going to a potentially run for president of the United States starting next May. Why do we have that person moderating a debate?" Trump hit back on MSNBCs Monday edition of Morning Rundown, and said that Rove was responsible for giving America George Bush who crashed and burned and because of that we have Obama. The Republicans need to get rid of Karl Rove and they need fresh blood because Karl Rove is going to lead them into doom." But not everyone is against the Trump debate. Our readers and the grassroots really love Trump, said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax Media, a conservative magazine and sponsor of the upcoming debate, according to The New York Times. They may not agree with him on everything, but they dont see him as owned by the Washington
establishment, the media establishment. Trump is not the only controversial figure associated with the upcoming debate. Eason Jordan, the former CNN chief news executive who resigned after saying the U.S. military was killing journalists in Iraq, will be the executive producer. Many fellow journalists and readers alike accused Jordan of sitting on stories about the Saddam Hussein regime in order to protect the regime in exchange for access, according to The Hill. In 2005, Jordans comments stating that he believed the U.S. military was purposefully targeting journalists in Iraq forced him to resign from CNN a month later. If controversy draws viewers, then this debate may just receive the highest ratings of all the debates yet. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
10
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Obama Charges GOP With Hypocrisy on Payroll Tax Cut

(Christianpost.com > Politics)
RARE
of Congress were controlled by Democrats at the time, but they Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:57:03 PM had lost seats in the Senate and lost control of the House in the (Photo: REUTERS/Joshua election held the month before. Roberts) President Barack Obama Obama had wanted to extend makes a statement from the those rates for all but the top two briefing room of the White House income brackets, or those making i n W a s h i n g t o n , u r g i n g less than about $200,000 per year Republicans to extend the payroll for a married couple filing jointly. tax cut, December 5, 2011. He continually refers to those in the top two brackets as Now, I know many Republicans millionaires and billionaires. have sworn an oath to never raise Though his party has even fewer taxes as long as they live, Obama seats and controls only one house said. How could it be that the i n C o n g r e s s , O b a m a a g a i n only time there's a catch is when it proposed increased taxes on the comes to raising taxes on middle top two brackets to pay for his class families? How can you fight proposed jobs bill, which would tooth and nail to protect high-end also extend and expand the tax breaks for the wealthiest payroll tax cut. Americans and yet barely lift a Like us on Facebook finger to protect taxes going up In my jobs bill, I proposed not for 160 million Americans who only extending the tax cut, but really need the help? It doesn't expanding it, to give the typical make sense. working family a tax cut of The tax breaks Obama referred to $1,500 next year, paid for by were passed in 2002 and 2003 a s k i n g a l i t t l e m o r e f r o m under President George W. Bush. millionaires and billionaires. A Those cuts lowered the tax rates few hundred thousand people for all income brackets, not just paying a little bit more could've the brackets for high income not only extended the existing tax Americans. cut but expanded it. Last week, O b a m a s i g n e d a t w o - y e a r virtually every Senate Republican extension of those rate cuts in voted against that tax cut, Obama December 2010. The extension said. was passed during a lame-duck Obama also noted that session of Congress. Both houses Republicans did not demand that
the Bush tax cuts be paid for, as they are demanding now with the payroll tax cut. Some Republicans, who have pushed back against the idea of extending this tax cut have said that we've got to pay for these tax cuts, and I just point out that they haven't always felt that way. Over the last decade, they didn't feel the need to pay for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which is one of the reasons we faced such large deficits. Obama is correct that most Republicans had not demanded that the tax cuts under President Bush be paid for with spending cuts. One notable exception was Senator John McCain (Ariz.) who voted against the cuts for that very reason, and went on to face Obama in the 2008 election as the Republican presidential nominee. The impulse to not add more to the national debt did not come, however, from Republicans who voted for the tax cuts under President Bush. Rather, it has been mostly the influence of Tea Party Republicans, first elected in 2010, who have demanded that the federal government not take on more debt. Both parties in Congress are currently working on a compromise. Democrats offered to pay for the extension with a
surtax on income above $1 million. Republicans proposed a three-year federal worker pay freeze, shrinking the federal workforce through attrition (reducing the number of new hires), and requiring millionaires to pay more for their Medicare benefits. Republicans did not like the idea of adding a permanent tax increase to pay for a temporary tax cut. Democrats did not like the idea of having the federal workforce shoulder much of the burden. If the two sides do not come to an agreement before Jan. 1, 2012, the payroll tax cut will expire and the average American family will pay about $1,000 per year in additional taxes. C o n t a c t : napp.nazworth@christianpost.co m Be the first of thousands of iPosters by sharing your news, views, and analysis. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Nothing found for N2 _nj Php Rss Php?type=all

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1. Lessons About Longevity From a 256-Year-Old 2. Pandas Arrive, Press Freedom Chilled, in Edinburgh 3. Cambridge University Disbands Chinese Students and Scholars Association 4. An Interview With Yo Yo Ma 5. Habitable Exoplanets Catalog: An Online Database of Liveable Worlds This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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11
Verizon Wants Google Wallet Off The Galaxy Nexus, Ralph Lauren Puts Catalog On E-cards, Flipboard Launches In China
Nidhi Subbaraman (Fast Company)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:36:37 PM
Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. .xxx Domain Names On Sale Today. 100,000 domain names ending in .xxx have been bought in early sales and several went live in September. But the controversial domain names will go on general sale in just a few hours, overseen by the ICM Registry, amid stiff opposition from the adult film industry. --NS Facebook And Zynga To Launch ForestVille? Facebook game maker Zynga and its host, Facebook, seem to be cooking up another game for their roster. It'll be called ForestVille, All Facebook explains, and will star "Daisy the fox and her furry friends." An official announcement is pending, but Zynga's already registered a slew of domain names related to the name "ForestVille." --NS --Updated 10:15 a.m. EST Starbucks' Mobile App Sees Success. One in four Starbucks card-owning customers are paying for their$4 caffeine kick with the Starbucks app on their mobile
phones. "Millions" of customers have downloaded the app on the iOS, Android, and BlackBerry, senior VP and GM of Starbucks told Mashable, contributing to 26 million mobile transactions since the app was launched. The app's early and continuing success hints
that the time may be ripe for mobile payments for daily purchases to take off. Well, among coffee drinkers anyway. -NS Apple, E-Book Publishers Investigated In EU. Apple and four major book publishers are
being investigated by the European Commission, to check if their agreement on pricing in the iBooks store holds back competition in the e-book environment in Europe. The publishers involved are Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins,
Hachette Livre, Penguin, and Holzbrinck (owner of Macmillan Germany). --NS --Updated 8:10 a.m. EST Indian Government And Facebook Comment On VERIZON page 13
12
Top News/
Fate Of Netflix-Facebook Integration In Hands Of Congress--Right Now!

Austin Carr (Fast Company)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:43:04 PM
Bipartisan bill H.R. 2471 would create a way for people to expressly allow companies like Netflix or Facebook to share their video rental history on the web. And it's scheduled for a floor vote later today. If passed, it would correct a frustrating situation outlined by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in September, when he joined Mark Zuckerberg on stage at the f8 developer conference to make a surprise announcement: Netflix's domestic subscribers would not be able to integrate their accounts to share films and TV shows on Facebook's open graph. Fourtyfour of the 45 countries where Netflix is available--in Latin America, Canada--have access to the new Facebook integration that lets them share their movie watching choices. But in the U.S., an antiquated 1988 bill called the Video Privacy Protection Act forbids the disclosure of one's video rental information--even if the renter is okay with the disclosure. So domestic subscribers of Netflix would have to wait. Seems like an easy fix--today's legislation adds a sentence-length amendment to the original law. However, the legislation, which
has supporters and co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, is facing detractors, namely one sources say is Rep. Mel Watt of North Carolina. "My understanding is that, in committee, he didn't understand why people would want to share this content. He doesn't use social media in his everyday life, so how can we expect him to understand the value of sharing content? I
don't think he gets it," says Matt Lira, the digital communications director for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. "Second, it seems he's concerned that people might be duped into sharing this information. My response to that is if you knew anything about the social web, you'd know if I started sharing your content without your permission you're going to know right away because it's an
extraordinarily public app. You'll stop using the product [if that happens] because you'll be pissed off. And if any company has a sensitivity now to listening to their users, it's Netflix." Requests to Rep. Watt's office for comment were not immediately returned. Netflix could also not immediately be reached for comment. Lira stresses that this is a
remarkably simple, bipartisan bill. Myriad applications, such as Spotify, already provide users with the ability to share content on Facebook. But because of the outmoded Video Privacy Protection Act, designed before renting and subscribing to a video service online was even a possibility, Netflix is not able to FATE page 14
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13
Cain PAC Reconsiders Its Mission After the CEO Drops Out
VERIZON
Censorship Move. India's IT minister Kapil Sibal met representatives from Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook yesterday in the latest in a series of meetings to discuss offensive content on social networks and platforms. In a press conference today, Sibal said the government (Christianpost.com > Politics) were at peace with each other, $43,773 to boost Cain abandoned wanted the companies to screen he announced he planned to now him in late November in favor of content "taking into account Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:04:13 PM pursue change from outside of the a broader mission. Now the Beat community standards in India." The 9-9-9 Funds campaign political race. Obama PAC, it has positioned The companies declined to director, Jordon Gehrke, told Cain raised $5.34 million during itself to impact the greater GOP cooperate. Today, Facebook Politico that it is making plans to his campaign, according to nominee race as well as the 2012 issued a statement saying that its existing policies allowed for stay relevant in the 2012 race for research conducted by the Center general election. the White House despite the loss for Responsive Politics. Federal Its possible the 9-9-9 Fund will blocking and reporting report of the candidate for whom their campaign laws prohibit him from fund new front-runner Newt abusive content, but, they would political action committee was using those funds for personal Gingrich. The former speaker has "continue to engage with the once named. expenditures. He can donate the surpassed former Massachusetts Indian authorities as they debate This all just happened. So were funds to charity or another Gov. Mitt Romney nationally by this important issue." Meanwhile, making calls. Our plan is to stay candidate or super PAC. as much as 4 percentage points in spooked Indian users have taken active, but we want to do that in Like us on Facebook some polls. A recent Iowa poll to Twitter and Facebook to conjunction with our donors, H o w e v e r , h e s e e m s t o b e revealed that Iowans also prefer criticize the government's stance, Gehrke told the publication. interested in saving those dollars him to Romney, 33 percent to 18 fuelling tags like#IdiotKapilSibal on Twitter. --NS Because the 9-9-9 Fund, formerly and putting future endeavors to percent. Americans for Herman Cain, is a work. In emails to campaign Conservative super PACs raised Verizon Wants Google Wallet super PAC it can raise unlimited supporters, Cain said he hopes to $35 million in the 2010 mid-term Off The Galaxy Nexus. The Galaxy Nexus, Google and funds from donors without advocate for solutions that work elections. disclosing donors names or t h r o u g h a n e w w e b s i t e , Be the first of thousands of Samsung's Android baby running dollars raised until end of the year T h e C a i n S o l u t i o n s . c o m , a n d iPosters by sharing your news, the Ice Cream Sandwich OS, will launch on Verizon without reports. possibly a new PAC. views, and analysis. Cain officially suspended his The 9-9-9 Fund spent $418,445 This entry passed through the Google Wallet. Verizon requested campaign in a Saturday press to help the Atlanta candidate and Full-Text RSS service if this is that Google's built-IN NFC conference outside of his Atlanta may very well decide to follow your content and you're reading it payment system be disabled on headquarters. The campaign him in his upcoming ventures. on someone else's site, please read G a l a x y N e x u s p h o n e s t h a t c l o s u r e c a m e a m i d v a r i o u s Gehrke has not ruled out this the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- Verizon would support, CNET accusations of sexual harassment possibility, but also said the PAC only/faq.php#publishers. Five reports. Yet another indication and of an extramarital affair. Cain a l s o w a n t s t o h e l p e l e c t a Filters recommends: Donate to said the media coverage of the conservative to the White House. Wikileaks. accusations had taken their toll on The 9-9-9 PAC can follow the his family particularly his wife, footsteps of the Draft Herman Gloria. Though he reported they Cain PAC. The PAC which spent
that NFC payment systems will first take off elsewhere in the near future before catching on in the U.S. --NS Ralph Lauren Puts Catalog On Customizable E-Cards. Techsavvy fashion house Ralph Lauren is letting customers design Ralph Lauren holiday e-cards featuring products from their online catalog. In the e-cards, models wearing gear from Lauren's Rugby line walk on and off animated blocks holding letters to spell out a custom greeting. Meanwhile, the names and prices of their outfit show up below. -NS Flipboard Launches In China. Slick social iPad reader Flipboard is set to debut in China, available today as a free download from the Apple China App store. The China edition will snap up content from news feeds, microblog Weibo, and updates from the Facebook-ish Renren. --NS --Updated 5:45 a.m. EST [Image: Flickr user mangpages] Yesterday's Fast Feed: Microsoft Reveals Xbox Update, U.S. Court Rejects Apple's Request For Galaxy Tab Ban, Syria Bans iPhones, and more!
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Top News/ Technology/
Obama hits Republicans in starkly populist speech Reuters

(Top Stories - Google News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:17:45 PM
FATE
By Jeff Mason OSAWATOMIE, Kansas| Tue Dec 6, 2011 3:14pm EST (Reuters) - President Barack Obama turned up the heat on his Republican foes on Tuesday as he portrayed himself as a champion of the middle class and laid out in the starkest terms yet the populist themes of his 2012 re-election bid. In a speech meant to echo a historic address given by former President Theodore Roosevelt in the same Kansas town more than 100 years ago, Obama pressed his case for economic policies he insists will benefit ordinary Americans struggling through hard times. He seized the opportunity to step up pressure on congressional Republicans to extend an expiring payroll tax cut that independent economists say is needed to keep the fragile economic recovery from unraveling. But Obama's broader message was a call for people to get a "fair shot" and a "fair share" as he
pushed for wealthier Americans to pay higher taxes and for Wall Street and Big Business to play by the rules. "This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class," Obama said in Osawatomie in eastern Kansas. "At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement." With the 2012 presidential election just 11 months away, Obama's trip was part of a strategy by the president and his fellow Democrats to cast the Republicans as the party beholden to the rich. Many Republican lawmakers are skeptical that extending the tax cut beyond this year will spur job creation. But Republican leaders, fearing a possible backlash from voters in the 2012 ballot, have expressed a willingness to find a way to prevent the tax cuts from lapsing. But they remain at odds with Obama and his Democrats on how to fund it. Obama used his speech to accuse
provide that same access. "Spotify shows that while not everyone is going to use it [on Facebook], there are millions of people want to use it," he says. "For one guy who doesn't even use social media, to stand in the way, is offensive to me." Of course, the bill could still Republicans of suffering from pass. But because H.R. 2471 is a "collective amnesia" about the suspension, a procedure designed recent economic and financial to pass non-controversial bills, crisis, and he strongly defended passing it takes more than a h i s W a l l S t r e e t r e g u l a t o r y majority vote on the floor. Lira is overhaul that many Republicans concerned that if any naysayers are able to drum up support, the opposed. T h o u g h p o l l s s h o w m o s t bill might not pass. Americans support Obama's effort With Congressional job approval to increase taxes on the wealthy, at a shockingly low 12.3%, this his public approval ratings remain wouldn't come as a surprise to the in the low to mid-40 percent public, which has already endured much Washington gridlock range. R e p u b l i c a n s c h a r g e d t h a t through debt ceiling talks and jobs Obama's latest speech, as well as bills. But for something as simple a series of campaign-style trips to as an update to the VPPA, to push his stalled $447 billion jobs provide users with Netflixplan, was intended to distract Facebook integration, Lira finds it from the struggling economy and persistently high unemployment, considered damaging for his reelection chances. (Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Eric Walsh) This entry passed through the (TREND HUNTER - The Latest Full-Text RSS service if this is Trends) your content and you're reading it Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:19:03 PM on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- ( TrendHunter.com) These Homer only/faq.php#publishers. Five Simpson creations demonstrate Filters recommends: Donate to the cultural impact the longWikileaks.
especially frustrating. "This is how it's supposed to work: Republicans and Democrats didn't play partisan games with it, there are no poison pills, no riders, no like tax provisions or something," he says. "It's just simple. There's a problem, we've heard from the public about it, and we've moved to fix it. It has Republican and Democratic cosponsors. This is a bipartisan coalition--hopefully it will get through." Lira adds, "I believe that this legislation is an example of how Congress should work--a technical problem that prevents the public from innovating, fixed in a bipartisan way without any riders, that simply solves the problem." [Image: Flickr user Nouspique]
14 Homer Simpson Creations - From Chomping Cartoon Decals to Iconic Daddy Drinks (TrendHunter.com)
running television series has had on the art and design world. With over 20 seasons under its belt, The Simpsons is considered a cartoon...
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15
President Obama Says No to Trump's $100 Million Gift

(The Front Page)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 4:01:00 AM
Donald Trump tried to give the U.S. a $100-million gift, but the Obama White House wasnt interested. More specifically, he says, they never returned his call. News broke recently that Trump had filled out the paperwork to disclose his financial resume in preparation for a Presidential run, and those documents showed a net worth of more than $7 billion. Now Trump reveals that he tried to give $100 million of it to the U.S. government. As Trump reveals in his new book, Time to Get Tough, just released this week, I called up the White House and they put me on with President Obamas top senior strategist, David Axelrod.
We have a very nice conversation and I told David that I will build you, free of charge, one of the greatest ballrooms of the world so that the president and all future American presidents can host events at the White House in a proper manner. To do it to the
me. No one ever called back. My offer still stands, says Trump. And then he points out: If someone wants to give Americaa nation that is flat brokea nice gift, you call them back, regardless of what party they belong to. Adam Tragone is the managing editor of HUMAN EVENTS. Follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it highest standards, it will cost on someone else's site, please read anywhere from $50 to $100 the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentmillion. I will cover the expenses only/faq.php#publishers. Five and give the ballroom to the U.S. Filters recommends: Donate to government as a gift. Wikileaks. Wow, Axelrod said. Thats very interesting. He then said he would talk it over and get back to
Charming Building Block Men - The LEGO necklace by Guylook is RetroChic (TrendHunter.com)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:29:02 PM
( TrendHunter.com) For only $15.00, you too can own this playfully cute unisex LEGO necklace from online Boutique Guylook. The glamorized silver and bronze LEGO-man pendants, which dangle stylishly from a coordinating chain,...
The U.S. Navy's Belated Robot Revolution

(World Politics Review: Articles)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:52:00 AM
It was an ignominious start for a potentially profound technological revolution. On June 21, 2011, a U.S. Navy MQ-8 Fire Scout robotic reconnaissance helicopter was shot down near Tripoli by
forces loyal to then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The 24-foot-long, gray-painted drone was one of two launched from the frigate USS Halyburton and remotely controlled by operators aboard the vessel. Carrying classified sensors, the Fire Scouts likely helped detect targets for
NATO forces flying top cover for Libyan rebels. The Fire Scouts' Libyan missions represent the major combat debut for the U.S. Navy's growing arsenal of unmanned vehicles. In coming years, the world's biggest maritime force could add hundreds of flying, swimming and
diving robots to its existing fleets of surface warships, submarines and manned aircraft. The new unmanned systems promise to greatly expand the Navy's ability to locate and attack enemy forces. ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is
your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Business/ World News/ Featured/
This AOL Patch-Killer Has An Army 85,000 Writers And 21 Million Unique Visitors
Kevin Lincoln (Business Insider)
Canada spending $7.5 million on Diamond Jubilee - Toronto Star

(Nation - Google News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:22:16 PM
are called, covers a specific topic in a specific area say, boxing Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:00:07 PM in New York City. Only three years old, local- Each examiner and reader oriented entertainment, news and inhabits one of 70 regions across lifestyle site Examiner.com had the country, though the site 21 million uniques and 64 million c a t e g o r i z e s t h e e x a m i n e r s pageviews last month, according internally in one of 240 markets. to the company. There are now 85,000 Those are big numbers. And examiners, about 20% of which according to Quantcast's site post at least once every 90 days, rankings, Examiner.com is the and 15% of which post at least 96th most-visited site in the U.S. every 30 days. Examiners are paid 77 spots ahead of AOL's by a formula that considers traffic hyperlocal news site Patch.com, and other factors. which is 173rd. Examiner.com runs on Drupal 7 Now, Examiner.com isn't the about 20% of the Drupal 7 same as Patch, which is part of code was developed by Examiner what makes it intriguing. We and posts about 2300 articles a talked with COO Ashish Kapur day, with a catalogue of 2.5 and board member/interim CEO million articles. Paul Yanover, both former execs About 80 people total run the at Disney, as well as Clarity s i t e , s c h e d u l i n g c o n t e n t , Digital president Leonard Brody managing the examiners and about the site. working in tech and sales. Examiner.com focuses on "authentic local voices" and the Brody said the company is idea of "experiencing" topics c u r r e n t l y t e s t i n g d i f f e r e n t versus reporting on them. Each b u s i n e s s m o d e l s , i n c l u d i n g "examiner," as the site's writers traditional advertising, and while
he wouldn't reveal specific numbers, he called revenue "not insignificant." The most intriguing possible model is what the company calls "directed content generation." Essentially, they've built up an army of 85,000 writers. Other businesses can partner with Examiner.com to sponsor writing on a particular subject for example, Iams worked with them to foster articles on pet adoption. A unique, innovative way of monetizing content, this speaks to the new model of coverage Examiner.com is pursuing, which stresses topic-based content refined by location. While this doesn't pursue the same strategy as AOL's Patch network, which stresses hyperlocal coverage in the oldmedia vein and heavily emphasizes event listings, it also circumvents many of the difficulties currently hamstringing Patch. Where Patch faces overloaded reporters and editors,
Examiner.com just finds more examiners. The model is hardly perfect. Examiner.com's content ranges in quality from professional to unreadable, and though only 1/3 of applicants are accepted to be examiners, the company still has to do a huge amount of internal evaluation and monitoring of its personnel. But this could at least be a step in the right direction toward curing what ails local coverage. Please follow SAI: Media on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg And Her Husband Have Done The Impossible Facebook Security Flaw Allowed Access To Mark Zuckerberg's Private Photos We've Just Witnessed A Major Turning Point In The Euro Crisis
24 Hours Vancouver Canada spending $7.5 million on Diamond Jubilee Toronto Star Queen Elizabeth II inspects a Guard of Honour outside the Canadian Parliament, after arriving to attend the Canada Day celebrations on July 1, 2010 in Ottawa. The Queen has visited Canada 22 times since being crowned in 1952. Canadians will be spending... Schoolchildren plant trees ready for Queen's diamond jubilee Times Series Fit for a Queen: Government digs into coffers for Elizabeth's jubilee Montreal Gazette How we'll celebrate Royal d i a m o n d d a y Thisisgloucestershire London Free Press- KL.FM 96.7Ledbury Reporter all 48 news articles
Cruise News (II)

The Scrapbook on Board (The Weekly Standard)
As we sail past Guantanamo Bay at mid-day Tuesday (the ship's captain turned down a request
from team TWS to stop there to pay our respects), we thought we'd report who's leading in some
of the award categories so far:
Business/ World News/
17
These Ads Will Ferrell Made For Old Milwaukee Will Be Huge
Jim Edwards (Business Insider)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:00:00 PM
Back in September, Will Ferrell approached the Pabst Brewing Co. and asked if he could shoot a series of ads for Old Milwaukee, for no charge. The company said yes. Three spots are now running in local TV ad buys in the Davenport, Iowa, area, and they are hilarious. Why, exactly, Ferrell wanted to do the ads, is a mystery. Also, why he chose to shoot them in Davenport -- the beer is from Wisconsin, after all. And why he likes Old Milwaukee in the first place. The discount brand is, infamously, not well liked. (Typical review: " nothing special. or horrendous.") Pabst chief marketing officer Bryan Crowley did not immediately return a message
seeking an explanation of how this all came about. The ads, meanwhile, are likely to garner a far larger audience on YouTube than they ever will in Davenport, and that, perhaps, is the point: SEE ALSO: The 3 Most Powerful Men in Advertising Are About To Retire At The Same Time Please follow SAI: Media on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: World Domination For Pandora? CEO Says Don't Hold Your Breath Business Insider's 10 Best Ads Of 2011 9 Million Advertisers Use Facebook But Only 3.2 Million Have 'Pages'
Whether You Want It Or Not, 'Hangover III' Is Coming

Dana Eisenberg (Business Insider)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:00:00 PM
Govt hopes allparty meet will help resolve FDI logjam - NDTV
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:29:05 PM
Bradley Cooper confirmed to The National Ledger this morning that there will in fact be a third installment of the "Hangover" series, and that as of now it will begin filming in September 2012 in Los Angeles. Though the second film was a commercial success -- it grossed $581,464,305 at the box office and now has the record for the highest-grossing worldwide opening for a comedy film -- it was a critical disaster. Viewers thought that the writers were lazy, following the same formula the first film used. Cooper says the third film will be
different. It would "need to close the trilogy," he said. "I think it'll take place in L.A. and not adhere to the structure." Please follow The Wire on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: COMEDY POWER COUPLES: We Bet You Had No Clue These Hilarious Stars Were Married Guess What Role Lea Michele, Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson And Evan Rachel Wood Are Battling Over? Jesse Eisenberg Sues Lionsgate For Making Him Look Like The Star Of A Trashy Horror Movie
Globe and Mail Govt hopes all-party meet will help resolve FDI logjam NDTV New Delhi: The government on Tuesday said it hoped that today's all-party meeting on the issue of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the retail sector will restore normalcy to parliamentary proceedings after two weeks of adjournments.... Parliament set to resume normal work today Deccan Herald India against FDI in multi-brand retail Daily Pioneer Govt buys peace at FDI's cost Business Standard Hindustan Times- Rediff- The Hindu all 1,271 news articles
Falklands warning - Telegraph.co.uk

Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:34:30 PM
Telegraph.co.uk Falklands warning Telegraph.co.uk
The Government would be well advised to pay heed to the distant sound of sabre-rattling in the South Atlantic. In recent months, Cristina Kirchner, Argentina's president, has taken a steadily
more belligerent stance over the issue of the Falkland... UK protests to Argentina over Falklands Reuters UK Falklands - ELECTION MANIFESTO SPEECH BY
JOHN BIRMINGHAM SARTMA.com Fury as Argentina operates 'blockade' of Falklands by boarding Spanish fishing... Daily Mail
Defence ManagementExpress.co.uk- British Forces News all 15 news articles
18
News Wire/
Misquote Revealed, But Envoy Still Faces Criticism

(FOXNews.com)
with the quote marks around it, the Republican Jewish Coalition called the remarks "outrageous." Also citing the quoted portion of U.S. Embassy in Belgium U.S. the Israeli newspaper, the Simon Ambassador to Belgium Howard W i e s e n t h a l C e n t e r c a l l e d Gutman. Gutman's comments "beyond shocking," and said they would Remarks by the U.S. ambassador "only serve to further embolden to Belgium about anti-Semitism hate from Islamist extremists in among Muslims living in Europe Europe and beyond." The group have spurred furious calls for his called on Secretary of State resignation, but some reports Clinton to "immediately clarify" about the speech cited by critics whether Gutman's remarks are in didn't state Ambassador Howard direct contradiction of "U..S Gutman's actual words. policy vis--vis anti-Semitism." On Sunday, The Weekly Presidential candidate Mitt Standard quoted the Israeli Romney, without mentioning the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth's q u o t e d m a t e r i a l , s a i d t h e summary of Gutman's remarks to " a m b a s s a d o r ' s c o m m e n t s European Jewish groups in d e m o n s t r a t e t h e O b a m a Brussels last week. administration's failure to "A distinction should be made u n d e r s t a n d t h e w o r l d w i d e between traditional anti-Semitism, campaign to delegitimize Israel which should be condemned, and and its appalling penchant for Muslim hatred for Jews, which undermining our close ally." stems from the ongoing conflict Gingrich, who linked back to the b e t w e e n I s r a e l a n d t h e original Israeli news report, Palestinians," reads the quoted tweeted on Saturday: "Pres material in the magazine. Obama should fire his ambassador The statement, however, is the to Brussels for being so wrong Israeli newspaper's depiction of about anti-Semitism." the content of the speech, not the Texas Gov. Rick Perry concurred actual words Gutman spoke to the late Monday, without signaling crowd. whether he read Gutman's Nonetheless, it spurred angry r e m a r k s . reaction and calls for Gutman's The long and ugly history of anti resignation. -Semitism has seen all too many Referring to the characterization episodes of apologists justifying
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:55:04 PM
Middle East over the continuing Israeli-Palestinian problem," he said. Daniel Halper, The Weekly Standard writer who penned the online post, told FoxNews.com on Monday that it was obvious to him he was quoting the newspaper's reporting -- not Gutman's actual speech. A Romney aide told FoxNews.com on Tuesday that the candidate read the full remarks and stands by his statement. Representatives from hatred of the Jews. Given the the ongoing conflict in the the Gingrich and Perry campaigns gathering threat posed by the Mideast. so far have not clarified whether brutal regime in Iran, now is the "There is and has long been some those candidates had read the time to strengthen ties with Israel amount of anti-Semitism, of transcript. to achieve our mutual security hatred and violence against Jews, The White House did not offer interests. President Obama must from a small sector of the comment when contacted by send a clear signal to the world by population who hate others who FoxNews.com. But critics of the relieving Ambassador Gutman of may be different or perceived to Obama administration say the h i s p o s t , s t o p p i n g h i s be different, largely for the sake misattribution is a distinction administration's Israel bashing of hating," Gutman said in his without a difference. and recognizing that a two-state address, according to a transcript "This should not be an issue of solution requires good-faith of his remarks published in the how this speech should be discussion and negotiation from European Jewish Press. covered. The speech itself should the Palestinians as well as "Let's turn to the harder and more b e c o v e r e d . T h e r e s t i s a Israelis, he said. complex part," he continued, smokescreen," said Dan Gainor, In his speech, Gutman, who is "What I do see as growing, as vice president of business and Jewish and described how his gaining much more attention in culture at the Media Research f a t h e r s u r v i v e d t h e N a z i the newspapers and among C e n t e r . " T h e O b a m a occupation of Poland, offered a politicians and communities, is a administration is the most antidetailed explanation about the different phenomena. ... Israel since the founding of that r o o t s o f " t r a d i t i o n a l " a n t i - "It is a tension and perhaps hatred nation. Obama's ambassador came Semitism, much of which is held largely born of and reflecting the out and obviously blamed Israel by people who also hate most tension between Israel, the minorities, and Muslim hatred for P a l e s t i n i a n t e r r i t o r i e s a n d MISQUOTE page 22 Jews, which he said is fueled by neighboring Arab states in the
News Wire/
19
S&P threatens euro zone, EU chief urges bigger fund

(Reuters: Top News)
on how to tackle the immediate market confidence crisis," S&P put the ratings of 15 countries, France's President Nicolas including Germany and France, Sarkozy reacts as he speaks to on review late on Monday for a G e r m a n C h a n c e l l o r A n g e l a downgrade by 1-2 notches. Merkel following a joint news The U.S.-based agency went a conference at the Elysee Palace in step further on Tuesday, placing Paris December 5, 2011. the top-notch rating of the euro Credit: Reuters/John Schults zone's 440 billion euro rescue By Luke Baker and David fund, the European Financial Lawder Stability Facility (EFSF), on BRUSSELS/BERLIN| Tue Dec negative watch since it depends 6, 2011 2:40pm EST on the creditworthiness of the (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's currency bloc's six AAA-rated fired a second warning shot at the sovereigns. euro zone in 24 hours, threatening European Council President on Tuesday to cut the credit rating Herman Van Rompuy, who will of its financial rescue fund as chair a crucial summit of the 27European leaders raced to find a nation European Union this week p o l i t i c a l s o l u t i o n t o t h e i r aimed at turning the corner on the sovereign debt crisis. crisis, proposed giving a bigger German Chancellor Angela permanent euro zone rescue Merkel and French President mechanism the status of a bank Nicolas Sarkozy want to change that would allow it to access ECB EU rules to impose mandatory funding. penalties on euro zone states that Germany has so far opposed any exceed deficit targets, aiming to such move, which it says would restore market trust and prevent breach a treaty ban on the ECB the crisis spiraling out of control. financing governments. Visiting U.S. Treasury Secretary Van Rompuy said tighter budget Timothy Geithner said after talks oversight sought by Paris and in Berlin he was encouraged by Berlin for the 17-nation euro area recent moves towards fiscal union could be achieved quickly with in Europe and stressed the central only minor tweaks to the EU role of the European Central Bank treaty that might not require full (ECB) in tackling the crisis. ratification procedures in many Citing "continuing disagreements countries. among European policy makers "To restore market confidence in
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:40:31 PM
the euro area, and to ensure the political sustainability of solidarity mechanisms, it is crucial to enhance the credibility of our budget rules (deficit and debt levels) and to ensure full compliance," he wrote in a report to EU leaders obtained by Reuters. He also said the issuance of joint euro zone bonds should be a longterm objective, challenging another German red line in a text likely to be the object of heated negotiations. S&P warned of slowing economic growth amid so much austerity, predicting a 40 percent chance of a fall in euro zone output. A downgrade could automatically require some investment funds to sell bonds of affected states, making those countries' borrowing costs rise still further. Merkel brushed off the threat, saying: "What a ratings agency does is its own responsibility." Her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the wake-up call was S&P's way of urging European leaders to act. But Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of euro zone finance ministers, said he was astonished by S&P's announcement, which he called "a wild exaggeration and also unfair" because it failed to take account of Italy's new
austerity plan. In Paris, Sarkozy's office said S&P had taken its decision last Tuesday, before both the Italian budget and the Franco-German plan for stricter budget rules. POLITICAL COVER Geithner met ECB President Mario Draghi in Frankfurt and Schaeuble in Berlin, starting a round of consultations with top European policymakers before the EU summit on Thursday and Friday, a sign that Washington shares the view that the event may be a decisive moment for the global economy. He will also meet the leaders of France, Italy, Spain, and EU institutions to press for decisive action to halt the crisis. That could provide the political cover that the ECB needs to buy more bonds of ailing countries as a stopgap, preventing countries from running out of money if they cannot sell bonds on the open market. ECB chief Draghi has signaled that a euro zone "fiscal compact" could encourage the central bank to act more decisively on the crisis. It has been reluctant to buy up debt from distressed euro states more aggressively, arguing doing so would take pressure off governments to fix their finances. Investors cheered a plan announced on Monday by new
technocrat prime minister Mario Monti, slashing its borrowing costs. Yields on Italian 10-year bonds fell below 6 percent for the first time since October 28. Just last month, Italy - the euro zone's biggest debtor with 1.9 trillion euros of bonds outstanding - appeared headed for a crunch after the interest rate demanded by investors to lend to it soared above 7 percent, a rate at which other countries needed bailouts. Were it not for his 30-billioneuro austerity plan, Monti declared, "Italy would have collapsed, Italy would go into a situation similar to that of Greece." Goldman Sachs Asset Management Chairman Jim O'Neill told Reuters that Italian government debt yields now looked very attractive unless there was a "complete fiasco" at this week's EU summit. There would be no euro without Italy, he said. Sarkozy and Merkel say they want treaty changes to be agreed in March and ratified after France wraps up presidential and legislative elections in June. They won a boost on Tuesday when incoming Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy said he would support a new treaty. Although not yet in office, Rajoy S&P page 22
20
News Wire/
Court approves Lehman plan to exit bankruptcy

(Reuters: Top News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:05:29 PM
A view of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy report prepared by court-appointed examiner Anton Valukas is seen in Washington April 14, 2010. Credit: Reuters/Jim Bourg By Caroline Humer NEW YORK| Tue Dec 6, 2011 2:05pm EST (Reuters) - Lehman Brothers Holdings Corp, now just the odds and ends of the global financial behemoth that collapsed in September 2008, received court approval on Tuesday to exit bankruptcy early next year. Lehman may now wind down its remaining operations, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James Peck said at a hearing in New York. Once a mammoth investment bank and brokerage, Lehman is now a collection of assets including real estate, private equity and banking investments. "Lehman may one have been a too -big-to-fail ... global financial institution, but it was not to big to resolve in Chapter 11," Peck said, his voice choked up. He has spent more than three years overseeing the bankruptcy. Lehman proposed to the court on
Tuesday that its bankruptcy exit occur no earlier than January 31, giving it time to prepare to stand on its own, and paving the way for payouts to creditors to start in 2012. The company had $639 billion in assets when it went bankrupt. Some of that money was returned to brokerage customers in a separate proceeding. There remains $65 billion to be returned to creditors who have $450 billion in claims, a group that includes debt investors and trading partners from before the bankruptcy, like Goldman Sachs. While Lehman winds down, it will continue to manage its holdings in real estate company Archstone, banks, asset manager Neuberger Berman and private equity. Looking back to the long day that began on September 14, 2008, and continued into the bankruptcy filing the next day, Lehman's lead lawyer, Harvey Miller of Weil Gotshal & Manges, remembered how the meltdown started. "I see the chaos, the confusion and the distress on the faces of hundreds of Lehman employees flooding into the enterprise's headquarters at 745 Seventh Avenue in their attempt to gather
their belongings before a potential lock-down of the building," Miller told the court. UNWINDING At the time of the bankruptcy, Lehman was an international company with businesses and employees around the globe. Many of Lehman's 25,000 employees were saved by asset sales but thousands still lost their jobs. In the end, 23 different Lehman companies were included in the bankruptcy proceedings. In bankruptcy, Lehman sold many of its assets, from valuable artwork to complex Wall Street securities; achieved settlements with creditors, investors and trading partners; and exited real estate leases like its Canary Wharf building in London and sold buildings. The bankruptcy has been tumultuous, with lawsuits creating sideshows to the already complicated business of unwinding and valuing securities such as credit derivative swaps. One of those legal cases put Lehman and Barclays executives on the witness stand to determine if the deal struck selling Lehman's bank to Barclays was fair. At times, the bankruptcy has
provided a deeper look at the kinds of conversations that took place in the months ahead of the company's collapse, when the credit markets were contracting and taking down competitors, such as Bear Stearns. Lehman's own role in its downfall, particularly the actions of executives like CEO Richard Fuld, were also the subject of numerous investigations by government agencies. Fuld was forced to testify before Congress and said that he did not know about an accounting tactic known as Repo 105 that a bankruptcy court examiner said had contributed to the company's decline by creating the illusion that it had a lower debt-to-equity ratio than it actually did. Fuld and others at Lehman argued that many of their problems were due to investors who in the months ahead of its implosion sold the stock short. POST BANKRUPTCY Lehman attorney Miller told Judge Peck on Tuesday that only one objection remained among the thousands of claims that have been made against the company. That objection, which kept the proceedings from moving even more quickly, was withdrawn.
The Lehman wind-down plan, which 95 percent of voting creditors approved last month, was the end game to lengthy negotiations to a massive settlement. Under Lehman's plan for post-bankruptcy dealings, it will pay periodic distributions to its creditors. "It seems almost like yesterday that we started this journey. In another context to some of us it seems we have spent a lifetime working on Lehman," Miller said. Fees for the Lehman bankruptcy's advisers and lawyers have totaled about $1.5 billion. The case is In re: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 0813555. (Reporting by Caroline Humer; Editing by Steve Orlofsky) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
News Wire/ World News/
21
CFTC chief slammed for ties to MF Global's Corzine

(Reuters: Top News)
the repeated questioning, said he stepped aside from the MF global investigation in early November The sign marking the MF Global so that he would not become a Holdings Ltd. offices at 52nd distraction or risk creating an Street in midtown Manhattan is appearance of a conflict of seen in New York November 2, interest. 2011. He said he thought it important to C r e d i t : R e u t e r s / S h a n n o n do so once it became clear the Stapleton CFTC's review "could become a By Dave Clarke and Sarah Lynch specific investigation about WASHINGTON| Tue Dec 6, specific individuals." 2011 1:55pm EST Gensler and Jon Corzine, who (Reuters) - Republican senators resigned as MF Global's chief skewered the top U.S. futures executive early last month, both regulator for his ties to former MF worked at Goldman Sachs in the Global chief Jon Corzine and said late 1990s and held prominent h e w a s " d u c k i n g " h i s positions. responsibilities by stepping aside They also worked together in from a probe into now-bankrupt Congress when Corzine was a futures brokerage. senator and Gensler worked as an At a congressional hearing on advisor for Paul Sarbanes, then Tuesday, Republicans accused the chairman of the Senate Commodity Futures Trading Banking Committee. Commission Chairman Gary MF Global collapsed in late Gensler of trying to preserve his October after it was forced to reputation rather than take the reveal that it had made a $6.3 heat for MF Global's collapse and billion bet on European sovereign its missing customer money. debt. Investigators are searching "To me it looks like you are for up to $1.2 billion in missing ducking the responsibilities of customer money, and are probing your job," said Senator Mike w h e t h e r M F G l o b a l r a i d e d Johanns. customer funds for firm use. " A s P r e s i d e n t T r u m a n s o Multiple congressional panels are famously observed, the buck stops probing whether regulators, with you." including the CFTC, failed to Gensler, who appeared pained by police MF Global.
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:55:22 PM
They are also seeking to compel Corzine to testify before multiple hearings, including one by the House Agriculture Committee on Thursday. Republican senators took turns on Tuesday pressing Gensler on whether MF Global got preferential treatment before its collapse and about his decision to recuse himself, despite the fact that a fellow Republican senator Charles Grassley - had called for Gensler's recusal in early November. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, questioned how often Corzine got face time with Gensler. Gensler said he had a "courtesy meeting" with Corzine when Corzine became CEO of MF Global in spring of 2010, and said there was one other staff call with MF Global that he joined. He noted the agency has met more than 1,100 times with industry officials and the public in the Dodd-Frank financial oversight law was enacted last year. Senators then dug into Gensler for not removing himself earlier from MF Global matters if he believed his involvement could be a distraction.
"It never occurred to you prior to November 3 that you shouldn't be participating regarding MF Global?" Senator Johanns asked. Gensler responded that he stepped aside as soon as it turned into an enforcement matter. He added that he has sat out other investigations into specific individuals during his time as head of the CFTC. He did not elaborate. "It feels to me like you panicked, and it's more about a careerenhancing situation to avoid accountability," Senator Bob Corker told Gensler. "I made a judgment," Gensler responded. "It was certainly not for the reasons you are saying." Shelby has requested that the CFTC's inspector general look into the agency's oversight of MF Global including Gensler's decision to recuse himself from the investigation. (Reporting by Dave Clarke; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Police name victims of suspected triple murder - ABC Online

Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:35:56 PM
BigPond News Police name victims of suspected triple murder ABC Online Police have named a mother and two daughters killed in a suspected triple murder on Western Australia's mid-west coast. The bodies of 46-year-old Heather Glendinning and her two daughters, 12-year-old Jane and 10-year-old Jessica, were found by police... Mother, two young girls 10 and 11, dead in Port Denison NEWS.com.au Impact of slain family 'far reaching' WA today Father's grief after daughters slain in murder mystery The West Australian Sydney Morning Herald- The Daily Telegraph- The Australian all 156 news articles
22
Sports/ Featured/
MISQUOTE
S&P
for anti-Semitic attacks in Europe. According to the original report, the audience and even another speaker were upset. That is the news." Under prolonged questioning Monday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that the ambassador "was very vocal about condemning anti-Semitism in all its forms" and "expressed regret that his words might have been taken out of context." Toner added that by virtue of Gutman giving a public speech, the ambassador was representing the United States, but Toner was not certain whether his comments had been cleared by Washington. Toner also averred that the administration can criticize Israel's government and its policies without being antiSemitic. "I think that when it comes to trying to keep the parties focused on the peace process and in citing behavior that is not constructive to that process, we are certainly able to do that and have done so in the past," he said. "What Ambassador Gutman was -- I believe what he was trying to convey is that there are different forms of anti- Semitism. We condemn them in all their forms." A spokeswoman for Gutman in Brussels told FoxNews.com on
Monday that the ambassador is not doing interviews on the matter, and referred back to a Sunday statement issued by Gutman saying he's sorry if his comments were misinterpreted. "I strongly condemn antiSemitism in all its forms. I deeply regret if my comments were taken the wrong way. My own personal history and that of my family is testimony to the salience of this issue and my continued commitment to combating antiSemitism," he said. But House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., said explaining anti-Semitism as a byproduct of the IsraeliPalestinian conflict undermines efforts to combat global antiSemitism. "Furthermore, the ambassador's comments fail to recognize that Israel has made sacrifices for peace time and again, while Palestinian leaders refuse even to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state," she said. In a letter sent by The AntiDefamation League to Gutman on Monday, the group's head wrote that while he recognized the ambassador was trying to "provide an analysis of the new forms of anti-Semitism," Gutman should have avoided
"characterizations that contradict efforts by the U.S. to dispel the notion that anti-Semitism could be rationalized in any way as an outlet for frustration with Israel or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." "When one tries to attribute this anti-Semitism to outside forces -in this case the ongoing ArabIsraeli conflict -- one not only misunderstands the role of antiSemitism in that conflict, but provides an unacceptable rationale for inaction," wrote Abraham H. Foxman, ADL national director. FoxNews.com's Cristina Corbin, Judson Berger and Sharon Kehnemui contributed to this report. Related Video President Obama Blasted by GOP for Israel Policy Which party will win the Jewish vote in 2012? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
is expected to meet Merkel and Sarkozy and outline his policies at a congress of European conservative leaders in Marseille on Thursday. However, some other EU governments, notably Britain, Ireland and the Netherlands, are reluctant to amend the treaty, either due to eurosceptics at home or because they fear losing possible referendums on ratification. If countries such as euro outsider Britain blocked a treaty change for all of the 27 EU members, the 17 states that use the common currency could proceed with an agreement on their own, Merkel and Sarkozy said. S&P said it would conclude its review "as soon as possible" after the summit, making clear that it wanted to see political as well as financial solutions. European stocks, bond futures and the euro recovered early losses after the warning, with
analysts cautiously optimistic that the S&P move would spur European leaders into more decisive action. Sarkozy and Merkel will send their own proposals to the EU's Van Rompuy on Wednesday, who would have preferred to avoid treaty change but is sounding out other governments on their receptiveness. (Additional reporting by Michael Shields and Sylvia Westall in Vienna, Catherine Bremer in Paris, Andreas Rinke in Berlin; Writing by Peter Graff and Paul Taylor; Editing by David Stamp) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
In Defense of The Donald

Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:25:00 PM
A lot of fair-minded Republicans and conservatives are saying that the GOP candidates should avoid
the presidential debate moderated by Donald Trump.
Photo: George Karl in high school, with game for days

Kelly Dwyer (Y! Sports Blogs Yahoo! Sports)
Denver Nuggets coach George Karl sort of looks like Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson in this high
school picture, courtesy of the most-follow Twitter feed @si_vault, and you're damn right
we're jealous of his blazer.
News Wire/ Technology/
23
Specialty Plates Causing State of Confusion in S.C.

(FOXNews.com)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:55:04 PM
COLUMBIA, S.C. Specialty license plates raise money and awareness for a variety of groups and causes. But that variety can lead to confusion, especially in states where there are hundreds of designs, say officials calling to limit variety. "The average South Carolina tag is covered by a frame from a car dealer," said Kevin Shwedo, executive director of the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, as he held up a license plate honoring military veterans. "In this case, it would cover the words 'South Carolina.' Yet, you would see the 'VT' and assume that it is a tag from Vermont." According to officials, the difficulty reading the increasing variety of plates affects police officers, witnesses and even computerized optical scanners. "If you are going to ask me my personal opinion which one is most important, public safety or
vanity, it is always going to be public safety," Schwedo said. "But I believe there is a balance, and that is what we are looking to strike." States across the nation have increased the number of designs available to meet growing demand from organizations and constituencies wanting to increase funding and visibility for their
causes. A bill before the South Carolina Legislature would increase the number of specialty license plates from 370 to more than 700. The augmented list would include tags for individual high schools, librarians and lovers of beach music. "One of the features of our plate is the money that we make goes into
our foundation, which helps with youth scholarships," said Roy Copelan, vice president of the South Carolina Cattlemen's Association. South Carolina may eventually follow the route of neighboring Georgia, which has standardized the right two-thirds of its license plate, while allowing customized logos for various groups and
causes on the left side. The group's name or slogan appears at the bottom of the plate, while "Georgia.gov" is printed in large letters at the top. "It's critically important that the community comes out in a way to make sure that the plates are easily legible and that law enforcement officers can identify what they need to identify," said Ian Grossman, vice president of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Specialty license plates raise money and awareness for a variety of groups and causes. But that variety can lead to a state of confusion. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Students win college scholarship with Kinect hack

Mark Brown
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:00:00 AM
In the US, a pair of students from Oak Ridge High School in
Tennessee have split a $100,000 (64k) scholarship prize from Siemens, for using Kinect to analyse human walking patterns. E a c h y e a r t h e S i e m e n s Foundation invites high school
students from across the US to By: Mark Brown, Edited by: compete in a research tournament, Nate Lanxon Continue reading... where the pupils have to put forward projects in the fields of maths, science and technology.
24
News Wire/ Technology/ World News/
Facebook Not So Private? Security Flaw Exposes Pics

(FOXNews.com)
customers. To avoid further legal wrangling, Facebook agreed to submit to government audits of its privacy Facebook practices every other year for the next two decades. The company A surprising security hole in committed to getting explicit Facebook allows almost anyone to approval from its users -- a see pictures marked as private, an process known as "opting in" -online forum revealed late before changing their privacy Monday. controls. Related Video Even pictures supposedly kept Facebook Shuts Down Spam hidden from uninvited eyes by Attack Facebooks privacy controls Social networks stops hacking arent safe, reported one user of a Related Stories NYPD Officers discern. In FoxNews.com tests, R e p o r t e d l y C a l l e d P a r a d e popular bodybuilding forum in a requests for comment. The issue stems from the sites this function consistently revealed Attendees 'Savages' on Facebook post entitled I teach you how to own reporting system, which private pictures, which the user Facebook Prepping for Massive view private Facebook photos. Facebook appears to have acted Facebook has designed to give can then resize and enlarge by Hiring Spree Is Facebook Being quickly to eliminate the end-run users power to police each other. adjusting bits of code. Unfriendly to Major News around privacy controls, after In this case, after a user reports Last week Facebook settled with O u t l e t s ? word of the exploit spread across a n o t h e r f o r n u d i t y a n d the Federal Trade Commission for This entry passed through the the Internet. It wasnt long before pornography in their profile allegedly exposing details about Full-Text RSS service if this is one online miscreant uploaded picture, Facebook presents them users' lives without getting legally your content and you're reading it private pictures of Facebook w i t h t h e f u r t h e r o p t i o n o f required consent. In some cases, on someone else's site, please read founder Mark Zuckerberg himself selecting additional photos to the FTC charged, Facebook the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentallowed potentially sensitive only/faq.php#publishers. Five -- evidence that the hack worked, include with your report. If a user chooses to continue, details to be passed along to Filters recommends: Donate to he said. A Facebook spokesman did not Facebook provides them with an a d v e r t i s e r s a n d s o f t w a r e Wikileaks. immediately return FoxNews.com album of additional photos to d e v e l o p e r s p r o w l i n g f o r
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:55:04 PM
Sky News demands $2m compensation over TV tender row - Land

Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:45:33 PM
Brisbane Times Sky News demands $2m compensation over TV tender row Land SKY NEWS has demanded up to $2 million in compensation following the termination of the tender process for the Australia Network and the decision to leave the service with the ABC forever. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, said yesterday the... Network tender caught in tit for tat feud Sydney Morning Herald (blog) 'Monitor how ABC uses network funds' The Australian Rudd in the loop on Australia Network decision: Gillard ABC Online Herald Sun- NEWS.com.au- The Daily Telegraph all 439 news articles
Biggest-ever black holes spotted in distant galaxies

Duncan Geere
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:35:00 AM
Astronomers working at the Gemini and Keck observatories
in Hawaii have spotted what appear to be the largest black holes ever discovered. The pair, which each have masses equivalent to about 10
billion Suns, are quietly sucking
away at galaxies more than 300 By: Duncan Geere, Edited by: million light years from Earth. Dan Smith Continue reading... It's thought that they could be the remnants of collapsed quasars from the early Universe.
World News/ Technology/
25
Seeds of Confrontation: The New Naval Balance in the Eastern Mediterranean

Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:57:00 AM
Below the Surface: The Implications of Asia's Submarine Arms Race

Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:53:00 AM
have raised tensions and focused attention on the naval balance of power in the region. Times are changing in the Historically the area has been Eastern Mediterranean, defined contested by great powers, most for the purposes of this article as recently by the U.S. Sixth Fleet the area bounded to the north by and the Soviet navy, the latter of Greece and Turkey, to the south which was granted base facilities by Egypt and to the east by the at various times by friendly Arab Levantine coast. The area has states. The end of the Cold War recently been the scene of several saw that period fade away, naval incidents sparked by the although significant relics of it Arab-Israeli and related conflicts remain in Russia's relationship as well as by equally well- with Syria. The residual Sixth established tensions between Fleet is also but a shadow of its Greece and Turkey, largely -- but former self, with the Italian-based not wholly -- over the divided command ship the USS Mount island of Cyprus and related W h i t n e y b e i n g t h e o n l y issues. As U.S. naval priorities permanently based asset. The shift and those of Europe decline, Sixth Fleets strength fluctuates major offshore energy discoveries widely from a full-scale carrier
battle group transiting between the Atlantic and Indian oceans; to the force deployed against Libya, which included an amphibious flat top; to the destroyer and coastguard cutter that accompanied the Mount Whitney to the Black Sea in 2008, when the U.S. engaged in gentle gunboat diplomacy to demonstrate its concern following the Russia-Georgia War. ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
The sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan by a North Korean submarine in March 2010 has already been recognized as a human tragedy and a significant escalation by Pyongyang in its multi-decade confrontation with Seoul. But in the years ahead, the Cheonan incident may come to be remembered more as the inaugural event in a new era of subsurface naval competition and confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region. Asias rising powers are investing in submarine capabilities at unprecedented levels, and the nature of this investment is fundamentally changing the regions subsurface environment. While this trend is certainly part of a broader regional investment in naval power writ large, the subsurface aspects of these
investments are particularly significant, due to the unique attributes and capabilities of submarines. Whereas surface ships can be used both for traditional and nontraditional purposes -- such as peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and counterpiracy operations -- the cost and attributes of submarines make them suited for missions of particular sensitivity: destroying the maritime power of another state, supporting special operations, laying sea mines and covertly collecting intelligence near an adversarys waters. ... This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Christian World Adoption

Christian World Adoption is one of the largest international adoption agencies in the United
States. Since 1991, Christian World Adoption has placed thousands of children from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. These children now enjoy the love and security of
a forever family. Christian World
Adoption currently offers adoption programs in Bulgaria, China, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine. Explore our website to learn more about international
adoption. Then, when youre ready, call our friendly adoption counselor, toll free, at 1.888.97ADOPT.
26
World News/ Technology/
Sharad Pawar slap not Accusations fly as D'Arcy files for bankruptcy wrong, says Anna Hazare - Times of India Brisbane Times
(Nation - Google News) (Nation - Google News)
Father of the iPod aims to reinvent the thermostat (video)

CNET News staff (CNET News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:46:26 PM
minister Sharad Pawar had an "old... Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:12:19 PM Anna flips again, says Pawar slap Zee News justified Hindustan Times Sharad Pawar slap not wrong, Hazare justifies 'just one slap' says Anna Hazare remark Daily Pioneer Times of India Just one slap? comment violent Social activist Anna Hazare on but not wrong, says Anna Hazare Tuesday alleged that Union The Hindu agriculture minister Sharad Pawar Economic Times- IBNLive.comhad an "old habit of protecting Indian Express (blog) corrupt people". PUNE: Social all 57 news articles activist Anna Hazare on Tuesday alleged that Union agriculture
bankruptcy. The move would allow him to avoid having to... Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:54:39 PM Nick D'Arcy bankruptcy muddies Sydney Morning Herald waters for Olympics tilt The Accusations fly as D'Arcy files Australian for bankruptcy D'Arcy files for bankruptcy in Brisbane Times cost 'cop-out' Sydney Morning Nick D'Arcy has filed for Herald bankruptcy in a move which Nick D'Arcy Files for would allow him to avoid paying B a n k r u p t c y damages for assaulting fellow SwimmingWorldMagazine.com s w i m m e r , S i m o n C o w l e y . all 45 news articles Controversial swimmer Nick D'Arcy has reportedly filed for
Lokpal panel completes report UK snow warning: Weather but asks House to decide on forecast says 2 inches tomorrow as far south as ... - Daily Mail PM - Hindustan Times (Nation - Google News) warnings for England to be hit by
Parliament by Friday. The committee's tenure was to end on Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:10:55 PM Tuesday,... India Today PM under Lokpal? Draft leaves it Lokpal panel completes report to House Deccan Chronicle but asks House to decide on PM 'Group C employees not under Hindustan Times Lokpal' Daily Pioneer The committee on law and Lokpal panel leaves it to justice, headed by the Congress' Parliament on PM inclusion Abhishek Singhvi, will meet for Times of India the last time on Wednesday to IBNLive.com- The Hindu adopt the report before the all 104 news articles government placing it in
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:32:26 PM
BBC News UK snow warning: Weather forecast says 2 inches tomorrow as far south as... Daily Mail The Big Freeze is set to sweep south into England tomorrow with snow expected as far down as Birmingham accompanied by icy 80mph winds. Forecasters issued
snow Thursday evening and through Friday,... Weather latest: Drivers warned of more ice overnight Scotsman Roads set for more icy conditions The Press Association Drivers urged to take care as more black ice and sleet predicted stv.tv BBC News- Mirror.co.uk- Metro all 761 news articles
It's hard to get excited about a thermostat, but we may be warming to one in particular. Its creators have set out to create a simple, elegant, and intelligent thermostat. At Nest Labs, former Apple product engineers Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers have molded their thermostat with many of the design and technology characteristics of Apple products like the iPod and iPhone. SmartPlanet's Sumi Das visits the startup to see what they've been up to and finds out what Fadell-who oversaw the design and production of the iPod--learned from Steve Jobs. This video originally appeared on SmartPlanet with the headline " iPod father Tony Fadell shows off latest gadget--a thermostat." Related SmartPlanet links: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Technology/
27
CloudVerse: Cisco Gathers Its Cloud Platforms Into One Platform

Scott M. Fulton, III (ReadWriteWeb)
Announced today, CloudVerse is a congregation of existing Cisco technologies, with a few new ones Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:15:00 PM thrown into the mix. It Cisco's history at building brands departmentalizes Cisco cloud around consumer-grade devices products into three classes, which and services has been not only it describes as the "traditional less than stellar, but a bit below pillars of the cloud" (though mediocre. It failed to make the others' traditions may vary). most of the Linksys acquisition in Obscuring the branding for just a 2003; it ended up killing its moment and focusing on concept, actually-popular Flip camera last C i s c o ' s t h r e e p i l l a r s a r e April, then shut down its Eos infrastructure, interconnect, and social platform the following applications(although you should month; and its recent social CRM avoid the temptation to try to tool SocialMiner and social parallel these against the various " collaboration platform Quad have -aaS" categories). been dwarfed into obscurity this Infrastructure will be given the year by Salesforce.com. collective brand Cisco Unified So you might think the strategy D a t a C e n t e r , w h i c h w i l l of marketing enterprise services incorporate three products known the way it's marketed its consumer up to know as Unified Fabric, brands in the past, might warrant Unified Computing, and Unified a t l e a s t a m o m e n t ' s Management. Think of "fabric" reconsideration. Today, however, in this instance as the connections Cisco is going forward with a between physical devices, so branding campaign for cloud Cisco's switches do fall under this management software and class. Unified Computing s e r v i c e s f o r c l o u d s e r v i c e automates server configurations in providers (CSPs) to resell to order to apportion exactly the customers or redeploy within an image that's appropriate for enterprise under its own brand. hosting a given set of roles. That T h e c l e a r o b j e c t i v e f o r image may float a single virtual CloudVerse is for Cisco to platform. Unified Fabric then maintain its customers within a provides connectivity between Cisco cloud corral the way physical processing and storage V M w a r e h a s d o n e w i t h resources, including NAS; and virtualization. Unified Management provides Sponsor admins with the front-ends and
of certain classes of services, such as videoconferencing or virtual desktop infrastructure. So for example, Network Positioning System (part of Intelligent Network) can perform an inventory of addressable resources on both sides of the firewall, to determine what's available within the organization as well as out on the public cloud. And judging from the latencies involved in addressing remote tools necessary to provision resources, and the topologies of resources as necessary for the the physical networks supporting configured servers. Here one has those resources, it can provision to be careful to distinguish services that are load-balanced " c o n f i g u r a t i o n " f r o m across both sides. (You configure "provisioning;" the former applies systems; you provision resources to setting up physical hardware, and services.) whereas the latter applies to The Unified Management selfacquiring and releasing virtual service portal (shown above) also resources (such as storage pools counts as part of this class. This or printer queues) on the fly. gives a CSP's customers a simple Interconnect will go by the name front end for provisioning their "Cloud Intelligent Network." You own resources on its cloud have to be careful here too; platform in an automated fashion, whereas competitors use the brand without having to deal with the name "intelligent network" to myriad of complexities that refer to devices, Cisco uses it to Cisco's tools are managing on the refer to protocols delivered by back end. software. Once physical cloud Applications in this context refers platforms are configured and to services (many of which do provisioned, Cisco's Intelligent qualify as SaaS) that service Network software and services providers can resell to customers (unlike any other vendor in the once their underlying resources business, you dare not use are provisioned and deployed. abbreviations with Cisco) enables Cisco has been a bit fuzzier here integration and cooperation than with the other two classes in between systems in the delivery
spelling out contents, but some examples of existing Cisco services we've seen today include Videoscape, the company's carrier -grade, Internet-based delivery system for TV program providers; WebEx, the company's wellestablished conferencing platform; and SecureX, Cisco's cloud-based security policy management and deployment service. So CloudVerse will give companies the means and tools for delivering these services through their own private cloud platforms, paired with public cloud resources. You can expect the company's existing social and collaboration platforms to appear in this class as well. There are perhaps several thousand white papers on the subject of cloud products available from Cisco's Web site. The problem there is, Cisco's own cloud strategy has been relaunched so often, including just this year, that you're likely to run into outdated material. Even independently produced literature dated as recently as last October is, to some small degree, no longer relevant. The most informative, recent explanation of CloudVerse can be found in this PDF document. Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO, CLOUDVERSE: page 28
28
Technology/
EU's Reding to Cloud Providers: Stop Sheltering Yourself from US Patriot Act
Scott M. Fulton, III (ReadWriteWeb)
Sponsor "I am reading in the press more and more about European internet Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:30:00 PM companies offering a cloud As the U.S. Congress stays on computing service which stays in track to pass a sixteen-year record Europe," Comm. Reding told low number of bills this year, its attendees. "Just yesterday I read counterpart in the European about a Swedish company whose Union continues on nothing less selling point is that they shelter than a data privacy rampage. In a users from the U.S. Patriot Act speech this morning at a continent and other attempts by third -wide data privacy conference in countries to access personal data." Brussels, European Commission The outfit she was referring to Vice President Viviane Reding w a s t h e r e c e n t l y m e r g e d renewed her call for a single data operations of Sweden-based protection authority to oversee Severalnines with London, U.K.privacy policies in all member based City Network. Two weeks states - a measure whose main ago, the new operation began o b j e c t i o n s n o w c o m e f r o m actively promoting itself as a safe member states themselves, rather haven from the CIA and FBI. than Parliament. "E.U. customers can now benefit But in an effort to keep her end from the savings and flexibility of the bargain, Comm. Reding enabled by cloud-based database openly called upon cloud service services safe in the knowledge providers to refrain from a nasty that they will not fall under the habit that more and more of them jurisdiction of the Patriot Act," have gotten into this year. reads a joint press release issued Apparently referring to this story November 23. "Under the Patriot from IDG's TechWorld UK, she Act, data from E.U. users of U.S.said CSPs should stop offering owned cloud-based services can t h e m s e l v e s t o E u r o p e a n currently be shared with U.S. law customers as data shelters from enforcement agencies without the the prying eyes of American need to tell the user." lawmakers. This made the plain spoken
services that could guarantee their data would never be routed to servers in the U.S. The CSPs with whom I spoke said it was not their policy to issue such guarantees, although they mentioned there were competitors who were only too willing to oblige. One of the multitude of unpassed bills wallowing in the halls of the U.S. Congress this year is the Commercial Privacy Bill of justice commissioner a bit upset. Rights, sponsored by Sens. John "Well, I do encourage cloud Kerry (D - Mass.) and John computing centers in Europe - McCain (R - Ariz.). As originally because we need more innovation, conceived, the bill would include m o r e r e s e a r c h a n d m o r e a provision that would prevent investment in the ICT [ any service provider from information, communications, and disclosing a customer's personal technology, the European term for data with any agency, even under "IT"] industry. But this cannot be g o v e r n m e n t o r d e r , w i t h o u t the only solution," she told the notification and consent of the Brussels meeting. "We need free customer. E.U. officials have said f l o w o f d a t a b e t w e e n o u r passage of this bill would bring continents. And it doesn't make U.S. law more in line with much sense for us to retreat from European law, as well as with the each other." terms of a Safe Harbor treaty Last July, this reporter spoke between the two governments that w i t h s e v e r a l c l o u d s e r v i c e guarantees E.U. citizens' data will providers both in the U.S. and n o t b e t r a v e r s e d b y U . S . abroad, who confirmed that authorities - which would appear Europe-based customers were to contradict the terms of the more openly seeking public cloud Patriot Act.
Up to now, Comm. Reding has supported the concept of the Kerry-McCain bill, but has kept relatively quiet (as best she can) with respect to the process. That changed this morning: "You might remember that last year I welcomed the DemocratRepublican joint initiative on data protection," she told attendees. "It made headlines. The Senators made clear that a federal law is necessary to ensure the protection of privacy in the United States. They argued that the U.S. government had a substantial interest in creating a level playing field for all collectors of personal data both in the U.S. and abroad. This sounded encouraging indeed! However, I have been told that only voluntary codes of conduct based on multi-stakeholder consultations are envisaged. Well, I hope I got it wrong, because I am worried that U.S. 'selfregulation' will not be sufficient to achieve full interoperability between the E.U. and U.S." Discuss
CLOUDVERSE:
featured in the video above, also provides a pleasant alternative to
much of the marketing morass that can often bog down one's
brain. Discuss
Technology/
29
I have no need for a tablet

Chris Burns (SlashGear)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:50:35 PM
Though your humble narrator may review tablets, smartphones, desktop computers, laptops, and gadgets of all kinds, and would give you a fair look at the load of them, one thing remains true of the first item on that list without fail: at the end of the day, I really could do without a tablet. The same could be said about a desktop computer, but that ship sailed a long time ago if you believe your everyday average tech blogger. Why would I want a machine that I had to leave in one place when Ive got this perfectly good portable screen connected to a keyboard right here in front of me? More to the point, why would I want then to remove the keyboard piece of this puzzle when it wasnt causing me any trouble or amount of discomfort in any way in the first place? I should come clean with you folks before you start to call me out on the fact that I did give a pretty favorable review on the ASUS Transformer Prime just this past week, saying that it was one lovely piece of equipment and my new choice for best Android tablet on the market. The most important piece of that review though (aside from the processor) was in the hardware, not even in the fabulous display, but in the optional keyboard dock. Have a peek at this: The magic in this device is not
only in its keyboard dock, but once you get a taste of the ta on its own, its hard to resist the desire to own what basically amounts to the other half of it. The keyboard dock has been sent to us to review in a box right alongside the tablet itself, and indeed it does belong with the tablet let me reiterate: this isnt a tablet, its a collapsible notebook. your Humble Narrator Youve got to know this: without
the keyboard dock, I may well have put the tablet back in the box the moment I got done reviewing it. Theres no reason for a person in my position to have a tablet other than for the following several functions: Netflix player out to HDTV ( iPad 2) Game console out to HDTV (Toshiba THRIVE) Game tester ( Galaxy Tab 8.9, Transformer PRIME, iPad 2) I literally still have a Toshiba
THRIVE hooked up to my HDTV to play games like Riptide and Shadowgun because it has a fullsized HDMI port and a full-sized USB port the USB port works with the Logitech wireless gaming controller NVIDIA sent my way, and the HDMI port allows for simple plug and play action. Check out how that all works in a post I added to Android Community a few weeks ago. With the Prime hooked up to the keyboard dock (which has a full-
sized USB port), I could do essentially that same thing, mind you, but why unplug the THRIVE? No-ones going to want to buy a tablet thats out-dated by more than a month. For testing games or new apps of all kinds, I use tablets to see how they function. You can see how fun these apps can be in such reviews as the Shadowgun double -hands-on with the Galaxy Tab HAVE page 38
30
Technology/
Vote for the 2011 Tech Car of the Year

Wayne Cunningham (CNET News)
in a first rate audio system and a very innovative cabin tech interface. Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:59:21 PM Embracing fuel efficiency, Audi As 2011 rolls to a close, we look puts a direct injection 3-liter V-6 back at the cars we've reviewed u n d e r t h e h o o d , u s i n g a over the last year to see which one supercharger to pump up the should earn our Tech Car of the power. The latest version of allYear Award. This year's nominees w h e e l - d r i v e , w i t h t o r q u e come largely from the luxury vectoring, ensures superior market, where automakers are handling. The A7 is a near perfect pushing their best cabin tech and tech car. most advanced driver assistance 2011 BMW X3 features. Connected features are At long last, BMW updates its also starting to appear, with online X3 SUV, and it benefits from all search available in navigation o f t h e c o m p a n y ' s l a t e s t systems. All of these vehicles use technology. Similar to the Audi advanced engines, but the Volt A7, the BMW X3 also gets p u s h e s t h e b o u n d a r i e s t h e connected features, such as furthest. Google search integrated with the Please vote for the car you think navigation system. BMW gives should be the 2011 Tech Car of the X3 a wide, 8.8 inch LCD, the Year, and discuss it in the making it easy to display a lot of comments. The Car Tech staff information. jury will place their own votes, The X3's direct injection engine and we will announce the winner uses BMW's innovative Doubleon December 21. Voting closes on VANOS fuel delivery system and December 19, 2010. an eight speed automatic Nominees 2012 Audi A7 transmission to help fuel Audi has been unstoppable lately, e c o n o m y . A t w i n s c r o l l pushing the tech envelope in the turbocharger ups the power cabin and under the hood. The A7 without causing turbo lag. The X3 is the first car we've seen with a is an excellent showcase for dedicated Internet connection, efficiency and connected features. powering such features as Google 2011 Chevrolet Volt Earth navigation. Audi also brings The Chevy Volt came in too late
to be included in last year's Tech Car of the Year contest, but it comes on strong this year with the most innovative powertrain of our 2011 nominees. Driving the front wheels with an electric motor, the Volt relies on a battery pack with stored electricity and a gas engine acting as an electricity generator. But the Volt's innovations don't stop at the drivetrain. Chevy fitted the cabin with plenty of technology as well. Through an OnStar app, owners can set charging times remotely. The center stack uses touch buttons, which seems like something from a concept car. The Volt may have faced a year of criticism, but most owners seem quite happy. 2012 Infiniti M Hybrid For a long time, Nissan promised to launch its own hybrid system instead of merely licensing Toyota's. It is finally here, deployed in the Infiniti M, turning this big sedan into a powerful and economical driver. This next generation hybrid system uses a lithium ion battery pack to turn waste energy into electricity. Infiniti has also been very strong on driver assistance features, crash prevention technology that automatically hits the brakes in the M and keeps it from drifting
across lane lines. With all this tech, the Infiniti M Hybrid should remain dent-free. 2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS550 Mercedes-Benz hit a solid balance between an efficient powertrain, cabin tech, and driver assistance features in the sleek CLS550. The navigation system shows beautifully rendered 3D maps, while the Harman Kardon system delivers excellent fidelity. The MBrace smartphone app gives drivers remote control features and concierge service. A new engine lowers displacement from the older V-8, using direct injection and twin turbochargers to get better efficiency and make up for any lost power. Driver assistance features include adaptive cruise control which can bring the car to a dead stop and blind spot detection. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
The Amazings: a marketplace for retirees to trade their skills

Olivia Solon
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:26:00 AM
The Amazings is a social enterprise that lets people who are about to retire, or have already retired, share some of the skills or knowledge that they have accumulated with others. The not-for-profit organisation aims to address the fact that we live in atomised communities where most people don't even know their next-door neighbour. This leads to isolation, which in turn means we are less able to look after our older people and support young people. The Amazings is a new take on the volunteering model, which aims to "pull people back into the social fabric". By: Olivia Solon, Edited by: Nate Lanxon Continue reading...
Technology/ Featured/
31
Try, Try Again: The XYBOARD Tablets Make All The Same Mistakes
Matt Burns (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:40:10 PM
Listen, Ive yet to play with the new Xoom 2 models or, as the new devices are called at Verizon, the XYBoards. Im sure both the 8.9 and 10.1 models are fine tablets. They probably power through the hundred or so Honeycomb apps like a championship thoroughbred. But it doesnt matter. No one is going to buy the new-ish tablets. They will flop harder than the original Xoom. Right now there are essentially two tablets that matter on the market: the $500 iPad and the $200 Kindle Fire. Because of this, there are just two price points. The iPad set the bar at $500 for full-featured tablets while the Fire is doing the same for budget models. Any tablet that attempts to jam itself into this pricing scheme is currently destined to fail. The low-end wants the Amazon pedigree while the high end knows that they want an iPad. The mid-range Android models are strong, I will admit, but they arent what compels the average shopper.
Take the Motorola Droid XYBoard LTE tablet. Never mind that its essentially the same hardware as the original Xoom with the silly addition of an IR blaster. Never mind the dumb name. Heck, forget that its lacking the SD card slot found on the original. Its priced completely out of its market. Only ignorant fanboys will buy it. The 10.1 model costs $529 out the door but requires a two-year agreement with plans starting at $30 a month. That means, two years from now, when the Tegra 2 tablet is countless generations behind current models, the customer would have spent at least $1250. Even worse, because the data package is tied to a contract, the XYBoard owner is liable for a costly early termination fee if they decide to cancel the data package early. As shocking as it might be, this absurd pricing scheme isnt exclusive to the XYBoard. The HTC Jetstream hit AT&T in September and initially carried two-year contract price of $699 (it was later dropped to $599). The iPad is available from Verizon and AT&T for slightly more than
both the HTC and Motorola model, but does not require the same two-year contract. Subscribers can turn the 3G wireless on or off at any time without paying a penalty. Im a big fan of Android but the past nine months were painful. Nearly every month a hot tablet would leak, which would cause the Android community to itch uncontrollably. But then the official details would be announced and the MSRP would most often kill the buzz. With the notable exception of Asus pricing the Transformer at $399, Android manufacturers ignorantly priced their first generation devices directly against the iPad. They didnt stand a chance. Slowly but surely the iPad chopped each one down until the Fire hit the scene. Now, as an Android supporter, my de facto champion is a $200 budget tablet that strips away all the beautiful user elements found in Honeycomb in favor of an enhanced Amazon storefront. The XYBoard will likely be quickly replaced with another model. Its built on an old NVIDA platform, and with Ice Cream Sandwich nearly here,
Google and Motorola Mobility likely have a flagship device ready at launch. But thats the Android game now: Flood the market with tablets built on repurposed parts. It might be good for the maker and wireless carriers bottom lines, but the practice of tying top-tier models down with 2-year contracts will ultimately slow the adoption rate. Recent studies show that Android tablets have a very limited market appeal and these buyers arent likely willing to pay early termination fees just to get a slightly upgraded device. 2012 should by all accounts be a big year for Android tablets. Ice Cream Sandwich is said to unify the development of Android tablets and phones, which will hopefully lead to an influx of tablet apps. Plus, while Android does have a limited consumer interest, its doubled since the first part of 2011. However, if Android tablet makers continue following the same pricing schemes as they did in 2011, the platform will start to tread water, creating an easy meal for the great white shark that will be Windows 8.
Remodeled Retro Abodes - The 'House Lam' by Nico van der Meulen is a Modern Take on a Vintage Home (TrendHunter.com)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest Trends)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:39:02 PM
( TrendHunter.com) Located in a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, the 'House Lam' by Nico van der Meulen is a project focused on the remodeling of a classic 1950s-era home. With many successful designs throughout South...
Rep. Rothman Disagrees with Amb. Gutman's Comments

Daniel Halper (The Weekly Standard)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:13:00 PM
Democratic congressman Steve Rothman just released the following statement regarding the comments on anti-Semitism made by Howard Gutman, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium:
32
Technology/
GTA III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition for Android and iOS priced and dated
Chris Burns (SlashGear)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:57:58 PM
Last we heard about Grand Theft Auto III for the mobile platform, it was back when the action figure special edition was announced, then when the NVIDIA Tegra 3 optimized news came out now weve got a date and a price for the apps thatll be blowing up your mobile devices soon. What were dealing with here is the 10th Anniversary Edition of GTA III, and the price for both Android and Apples iOS devices will be a cool $4.99 with a release date of December 15th thats next week! Get your guns out and start preparing to mow down some hookers, because its thieving time again! What youre going to be looking at here in the image above and the gallery below is a set of screens provided by RockStar Games showing off the Android version of the newest release of GTA III thats the hooker scene and the one with our hero wielding a bat. Below this paragraph and in the gallery below are two iOS screens as well, one with a couple of automobiles flying through the night, and another with our hero running past some trash bins with a shotgun. Youll be suitably impressed in both cases, Im sure. What were hoping for here is not
only a good experience on the iOS platform as is usually the case, but an above-average experience on out brand new quad-core Tegra 3 processor toting Transformer Prime tablet. NVIDIA has sent down the word that this game will be optimized for the Tegra 3 processor, so were sure well be seeing some amazing gameplay, and with the device lineup shown for compatibility right out of the box, theres something else you should all see clear as a bell: Apple iOS Devices: iPad 1 & 2,
iPhone 4 & 4S, iPod touch 4th Generation Android Phones: HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R, T -Mobile G2x Android Tablets: Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S, Toshiba Thrive These devices, with the exception of the Apples and the HTC
Rezound, all tote the NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor. This would normally mean that NVIDIA would be releasing the game on their Tegra Zone app store (connected to the Android Market, of course), and the game would be exclusive to Tegra processor holding devices, at least at first. Instead there is that strange addition of the HTC Rezound, which is a device running a Qualcomm processor. So well see when the time comes how many devices are
ACTUALLY compatible with this game, if its just NVIDIA-laden machines or if any dual-core or higher can work with the game. Only your device will know for sure! High five until then! Relevant Entries on SlashGear.com GearDiary celebrates their one year anniversary with a givaway Nintendo Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary DSi LL Edition System Unveiled GTA page 33
Technology/
33
Yahoo sued over crosstalk bidding provision

Don Reisinger (CNET News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:26:38 PM
Yahoo's business and affairs." Reports of Yahoo forcing potential suitors to agree to the A Y a h o o s h a r e h o l d e r h a s provision cropped up in October. launched a class-action lawsuit The clause effectively bans against the online giant, alleging companies from working together that a ban on crosstalk for firms to bid for Yahoo. When the i n t e r e s t e d i n a c q u i r i n g t h e requirement was first made company is anticompetitive and public, it was viewed as a simple harms shareholders. way for Yahoo to increase "The No Cross Talk Provision competition as it pondered offers. constitutes an unreasonable anti- But M&C sees it another way. takeover device, designed to The shareholder acknowledged entrench and favor [Yahoo co- that in some cases, such a founder Jerry] Yang and the provision can be useful, but said current Board," M&C Partners III, that Yahoo "is the classic 'difficult the case's plaintiff, wrote in a suit sell,'" and therefore, should obtained by CNET and filed with attempt to give buyers any the Delaware Chancery Court last o p p o r t u n i t y t o p r e s e n t t h e week. "It tilts the playing field company with a solid deal. unreasonably in favor of Yang, If Yahoo is a "difficult sell," it w h o i s w o r k i n g t o a t t r a c t appears many companies don't investors who will take a large seem to notice. Over the last minority position in Yahoo (less s e v e r a l m o n t h s , a h o s t o f than 20 percent, but enough to investment firms, including Silver effectively block any future proxy Lake Partners and Bain Capital, contest), and who can be expected have reportedly shown interest in to support Yang's desire to retain acquiring all or part of Yahoo. a disproportionate influence over Tech giant Microsoft and China's
Alibaba Group are also reportedly considering buying a piece of the company. M&C's lawsuit is just the latest shot Yahoo has taken from a shareholder. In September, following the company's ouster of former CEO Carol Bartz, major Yahoo shareholder Third Point spoke out about the online company's failings. "From the failed Microsoft sale negotiations, to a subsequent bungled and disappointing search deal with Microsoft, through a series of misguided CEO selections, and most recently the Alipay debacle, this board's failures have destroyed value for all Yahoo stakeholders," Third Point CEO Daniel Loeb wrote in a letter to Yahoo's board. "Against this background, it is evident that merely replacing the company's CEO--yet again--will not be enough to alter the direction of the company. Instead, a reconstituted board with new Directors who will bring fresh eyes, relevant
industry expertise, and increased investor alignment to the table is immediately necessary." M&C appears to agree. Along with suing Yahoo, M&C included the company's board members in its lawsuit. For its part, Yahoo hasn't immediately responded to CNET's request for comment on the lawsuit. But if the company loses, it will be forced to eliminate the crosstalk provision, rescind "any ensuing unfair transaction" that results from the provision, and resist any takeover requests until it "implements a procedure or process to obtain the highest possible price for shareholders." (Via San Jose Business Journal) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Donate to World Vision

Your gift to provide seeds, tools, and training will be multiplied 4 times by grant funds, and can mean the difference between life and death for hungry children.
GTA
Casio rolls out 25th Anniversary Limited Edition GShock, only 200 units available HTC Desire S priced and dated by Amazon Dell Streak 7 tablet UK launch detailed; Stage to get sync
upgrade Tony Hawk: RIDE plus limited edition controller priced for UK Halo Wars announced; set to launch in February 2009 Acer Iconia Tab A100 priced and dated
right reserved. GTA III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition for Android and iOS priced and dated is written by Chris Burns& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2011, SlashGear. All
34
Technology/ Policy/ Finance/
UXPin Instantly Converts Photos Of Offline User Experience Prototypes Into Digital Wireframes
Josh Constine (TechCrunch)
Afghanistan's Bloody Tuesday An FP Slideshow

(Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:09:12 PM
significantly streamline the process for experts, and become a Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:35:17 PM powerful player in the Bootstrapped Polish startup wireframing and mockup tool UXPin is about to revolutionize space. t h e u s e r e x p e r i e n c e d e s i g n UXPin launched the first version process. Typically, building a of its design pads last year, but project requires a steady hand, they were strictly for offline use paper and pencil prototyping, and with no way to convert them to then a redundant, painstaking digital wireframes. Still, they manual conversion of offline made a splash and the company designs into digital wireframes. broke even within a couple of Its slow and hinders startups days thanks to customers from from rapid iteration. But with Google, Myspace, and Salesforce. todays launch of UXPins new Now Im holding their new, web app and design pads, you can digital conversion-ready pads for arrange sticky notes of popular web, iPhone, and Android design design elements, take a photo, and a n d t h e y f e e l g r e a t . S o l i d , a perfectly aligned, fully editable hardbound, with tons of sticky digital wireframe is created for e l e m e n t s , s t r o n g g l u e , a n d you. Users can then can share instructions for use printed inside. t h e i r U X P i n p r o j e c t w i t h The pads cost $30 each, and a teammates, simultaneously chat s u b s c r i p t i o n t o t h e o n l i n e a n d m o d i f y t h e d e s i g n o n wireframe editor is $7 a month UXPins monthly subscription after the 2-week free trial. site, and export their product as Ive never done serious design HTML. prototyping and it was quick and UXPin has the potential to ease intuitive to build the design of an entry into UX design for novices, app. Thanks to tiny symbols on
The annual Shiite holiday, Ashura, is a self-flagellatory festival of blood. But the shocking the sticky notes, UXPins site to create ideas very quickly and bombing in Kabul is anything but recognizes the placement of the collaborate with their team. holy. Warning: graphic images. elements from an iPhone photo I Though bootstrapped to date, the DECEMBER 6, 2011 shot of my creation. It then set up company isnt opposed to taking This entry passed through the a wireframe I could move, resize, funding, and I think a seed round Full-Text RSS service if this is c o l o r , a n d a u g m e n t w i t h to propel product development your content and you're reading it additional elements or images. and grow the 5-person team on someone else's site, please read Theres still some kinks in the would be a wise investment. the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentflow of adding an uploaded UXPin offers a cheap, innovative only/faq.php#publishers. Five wireframe to a new project and product that drastically reduces Filters recommends: Donate to editing the elements from ones busywork and increases output for Wikileaks. offline prototype, but UXPins designers. Currently, Balsamiq CEO Marcin Treder tells me its says 30,000 pay for its service, addressing them. and Axure counts some of the UXPin is the first product that biggest design companies in the a u t o m a t i c a l l y t u r n s p a p e r world as customers. However, I prototypes into wireframes, and it wouldnt be surprised to see some could seriously disrupt the of them toss out their pencils and established UX tool companies g r a p h p a p e r , d i t c h t h e i r like Balsamiq and Axure. Treder uncollaborative wireframe editors, is actually a full-time UX man and switch to UXPin. that uses Axure every day and he Watch the companys demo Emily Gosden (Finance News says it is poorly designed, overly video to see exactly how it works, Business news from the UK and complicated, and doesnt properly and the first 5 people to reply with world) s u p p o r t d o c u m e n t a t i o n o r t h e i r e m a i l a d d r e s s t o m y Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:27:41 PM collaboration. Contest comment on this post Oil prices are so high as to risk stunting global economic growth, Treder tells me I think UXPin will get a free team license. according to BP chief executive has a great chance to get popular Bob Dudley. among startup founders that need
Bob Dudley says high oil prices threaten economic recovery
Business technology: Christmas 2011

Telegraph Staff (Finance News - Business news from the UK and world)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:54:50 PM
What do you want for Christmas? office technology essentials If you'd like something practical and useful as well as delightful, here are the newest must-have
Technology/ Economy/ Finance/
35
Red Hat 6.2 Brings Better Resource Management

Joe Brockmeier (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:00:00 PM
THe EURO DeToNaToRS

williambanzai7
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:15:38 PM
Red Hat has taken the lid off Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.2, Though it's a modest update, Red Hat has a laundry list of improvements to KVM and the kernel that will make it easier to set resource limits and improve performance for virtualized systems. Last week I spoke to Tim Burke, VP of Linux engineering for Red Hat to get a look at what's coming in the release. Aside from the usual collection of security patches and bug fixes since 6.1, Burke says that 6.2 is emphasizing performance, scalability and manageability. Naturally, Red Hat is also including support for new hardware in this release as well. Sponsor In RHEL 6.2, Burke says that it will be easier to use cgroup resource controls to control CPU consumption, memory consumption, and I/O
consumption. This is important for a lot of shops that need to ensure that virtual machines don't go over their limits. Burke says that it's also usable for bare metal applications, and for hosted cloud providers like OpenShift. OpenShift and RHEL 6.2 It's unclear how much Red Hat's OpenShift effort is driving features in RHEL 6.2, but Burke did say that Red Hat is learning quite a bit from developing OpenShift and is already using 6.2 to host its PaaS. For example, Burke says that OpenShift makes heavy use of Linux Containers and "really stresses" logical volume management (LVM). "It's so dynamic, and we want it to be as rapid as possible to deploy [on OpenShift]." Linux Containers don't get as much attention as KVM, but they can be used in cases where a full virtual machine may not make sense. With 6.2, the features for managing Containers are available via a GUI or using libvirt. Note that Containers are considered a "technology
preview" in 6.2, though. Burke says it's "not generically suited for a full spectrum of workloads," but says it is being used heavily in OpenShift. He also says that OpenShift "heavily uses a lot of the tool stack" that ships with RHEL, such as Perl, Python and Ruby. RHEL 6.2 is also a major component of Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization 3.0 which is in beta right now. Burke says that RHEL 6.2 has made it easier to configure resource policies. If you're using RHEL 6.2 with RHEV 3.0, Burke notes that a lot of the resource
policy management is now exposed via GUI tools that ship with RHEV though those are not available just with RHEL 6.2. Additional Updates On the device side, RHEL 6.2 has added support for new Infiniband devices, a bunch of new 10GbE network cards, and better utilities for configuring Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). It's worth noting, of course, that the cgroup and KVM features are not exclusive to Red Hat. The features are being developed in the upstream Linux kernel, and they're available to any vendor that's using the Linux kernel. Red Hat may be one of the first to market with these features in an enterprise Linux distribution, but the kernel/KVM improvements aren't exclusive. For a full list of improvements, see Red Hat's What's New Guide(PDF) for 6.2. Discuss
Contact Information: Tips: tips [ at ] zerohedge.com General: info [ at ] zerohedge.com Legal: legal [ at ] zerohedge.com Advertising: ads [ at ] zerohedge.com Abuse: abuse [ at ] zerohedge.com Suggested Reading: Make sure to read our " How To [Read/Tip Off] Zero Hedge Without Attracting The Interest Of [Human Resources/The Treasury/Black Helicopters]" Guide It would be very wise of you to study our disclaimer, our privacy policy and our (non)policy on conflicts / full disclosure. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
The arrogance of eurozone elites could kill the European Union

Jack Straw (Finance News Business news from the UK and world)
We face a democratic crisis unless EU reforms have popular consent, says Jack Straw.
36
Technology/
CrunchBase Reveals: Most New US Cox Communications Startups Founded In Silicon Valley, brings live TV to the Followed By New York City iPad
Eric Eldon (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:23:00 PM
Lots of US cities claim theyre the best place to do a startup. So where are entrepreneurs actually starting companies these days? TechCrunch reader Yuval Baror took a look at CrunchBase to try to answer the question. His most surprising result is that New York has been getting quite a few more startups than other cities outside of Silicon Valley. There is something to all the hype being cooked up by New York media companies and politicians, apparently. Of course, the San Francisco-Silicon Valley region is still the clear leader. Here are the results. Ill follow with some discussion of the methodology, and explain why you shouldnt read too much into the numbers. Over the last two years, CrunchBase indicated that 46 companies were founded in Silicon Valley, followed by 24 in New York, and 11 apiece in Boston and Los Angeles. If you include all of 2008, the number rises dramatically, with Silicon Valley increasing its lead.
And that trend continues if you remove any limitation on the time of founding. Beyond the unsurprising Silicon Valley numbers, New York still comes in way ahead of all of the other cities. But hold on. Dont all these numbers look ridiculously low since CrunchBase lists almost 80,000 companies? Yes. Many companies dont provide their founding information, or headquarter locations, so they wont show up correctly here. However, this missing data is presumably a trend thats consistent across all companies everywhere. Its possible that Silicon Valley companies are more likely to self-identify as Silicon Valley companies, for example, but we dont have any evidence either way. What about any inherent biases in CrunchBase? TechCrunch is based in Silicon Valley and has historically focused on local companies, so its quite likely that Silicon Valley companies overrepresented. (Want to change these results, entrepreneurs? Go rep your cities on CrunchBase.] More broadly, a startup can mean
a lot of different things to different people. Self-identifying as a small business versus a startup obviously skews the results here. TechCrunch is itself a good example: Michael Arrington started it as a side blog, and he didnt think about it as his main business until it was taking off. A new Mexican restaurant in Omaha might not look like a startup now, but maybe itll become a chain one day. Another wrinkle in the methodology is that Baror queried all companies located within 10 miles of a given city to try to capture the relevant suburbs. But he expanded that to 50 miles for San Francisco to capture Silicon Valley. And then, of course, theres the international question. How do Beijing and London and everyone else stack up? If you feel like running the numbers before I get to it, send over the results and Ill write them up. You can reach me at my increasingly spammed email account, eldon (at) techcrunch (dot) com.
Steven Sande (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:30:00 PM
Cable provider Cox Communications has a new app available for subscribers that makes it possible to watch live TV shows and movies in your home -- on an iPad. The Cox TV Connect app (free, requires cable subscription) brings live shows from 35 different popular channels to the iPad. While that's just a fraction of the channel lineup carried by Cox, it's a start. A similar iPad app from Cablevision allows viewers to watch all channels available to them, but Cox VP of Video Strategy Steve Necessary told GigaOM that they're in the process of negotiating rights with TV networks to add more content to Cox TV Connect. Some cable carriers such as Comcast only provide on-demand content to subscribers, while other operators like Cablevision and Time Warner Cable are also providing subscribers with live TV. Necessary noted that "A screen is a screen is a screen" in
terms of allowing consumers to watch their favorite shows regardless of what device they're looking at. Cox expects to eventually blend the functionality of Cox TV Connect and another app ( Cox Mobile Connect) that lets users browse content and program their DVRs from their iPads or iPhones. Cox Communications brings live TV to the iPad originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Technology/ Culture/
37
Verizon denies blocking Google Wallet on Galaxy Nexus, blames hardware

Rue Liu (SlashGear)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:35:42 PM
10 Most Sought -after Classic Muscle Cars

Jacob Clifton (HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:00:56 AM
Verizon has issued a statement today denying claims that it is intentionally blocking support for the Google Wallet mobile payment app on the upcoming Galaxy Nexus. The response comes after a Google spokesperson confirmed yesterday that Verizons Galaxy Nexus would not support the companys NFC-based payment app, spurring rumors that rivalry from Verizons own NFC payment system was in play. Recent reports that Verizon is blocking Google Wallet on our devices are false, said the carrier in a statement today. Verizon does not block applications. Instead, Verizon explains that the reason Google Wallet cannot be supported is related to a hardware issue. Unlike other applications, Google Wallet would have to be integrated into a secure element
where sensitive financial data is stored. This component is proprietary to Verizon phones. Hence, the two companies are still in commercial talks regarding the issue. However, since Verizon is involved with AT&T and TMobile in their own NFC-based
mobile payment joint-venture called Isis, it was inevitable to speculate that the move was to block competition. Google Wallet is currently only supported on the Nexus S on Sprint and its continued lack of support on Verizon will certainly hinder its momentum ahead of the launch of
Isis sometime next year. [ via CNET] Relevant Entries on SlashGear.com Google confirms Verizons Galaxy Nexus wont support Google Wallet Google Wallet confirmed to launch on Nexus S 4G Verizon confirms Galaxy Nexus exclusive Galaxy Nexus spotted with Verizon 4G LTE Galaxy Nexus uses same NXP NFC solution as Nexus S December launch for Verizons Galaxy Nexus confirmed Galaxy Nexus visits FCC again, but with AT&T bands Google Wallet app delayed until Friday Verizon denies blocking Google Wallet on Galaxy Nexus, blames hardware is written by Rue Liu& originally posted on SlashGear. 2005 - 2011, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Restoring, showing and enjoying classic cars has always been an American obsession. The sleek lines, powerful engines and machine strength of muscle cars, in particular, have attracted us since the late 1960s, when performance and design filtered down from the luxury model and into the realm of the attainable. Since then, those early designs -and all their later developments, refinements and modifications -have captivated our imaginations. Today, the combination of rarity and nostalgia has made some of those old beauties harder to come by, which only increases the fervor and passion with which true classic enthusiasts pursue the hobby and lifestyle of muscle car collection. In this list, we'll look a bit more closely at 10 of the most popular models, tracing their histories and connections, and discover exactly why these particular cars are still so beloved. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
38
Technology/ Culture/
Daily Mac App: Keka

Samuel Gibbs (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 3:00:00 PM
Great free archive utilities are pretty hard to come by on the Mac. Keka is the exception. If OS X's built-in compression utility doesn't do enough for you, Keka could be the answer. Keka's been around since 2009, but only recently made it into the Mac App Store. Unlike Growl, Keka is available both as a paid, US$2 app from the Mac App Store and as a free download from the Keka project site. The two versions will be kept in sync, so there'll always be a free option. Of course if you use it, supporting the developers, either by a donation or buying it in the Mac App Store, will help them continue to update it.
Keka allows you to compress files in multiple formats. Zip, 7z, Tar, Gzip and Bzip2 are all included. What's more Keka can extract even more with RAR, 7z, Lzma, Zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, ISO, EXE, CAB, PAX, and even ACE supported.
HAVE
10.1 or the original Infinity Blade review on the iPad 2. Other than that, theres simply no time for a person such as myself to spend playing video games anywhere, this including the tablet space. Then theres the Netflix situation. I do have an iPad 2 here, one I literally own, and its primary function in this house is to play Netflix out via its HDMI converter to my HDTV. Every once in a while, again, Ill use the
iPad to review an app, but other than this, not much goes on in the halls of the great A5. So I ask you, the reader, and the owner of a tablet do you use your tablet as much as you thought you would when you purchased it? For those of you who will get a tablet, inevitably, for the holidays as a gift do you think youll use it? Relevant Entries on SlashGear.com
Playlist | Extreme Sports Videos Learn more with the 40 extreme sports videos in this playlist. There are 40 videos tagged "Extreme Sports"' + ''; $('#googleAdRightRail').html(rt); Keka also supports encrypted } function getValidChannel() { archives meaning you can var getChannel = password protect compressed function(subDomain) { return files, as well as split archives -subDomain; } var validChannels handy when you have file size = new Array("adventure", limitations. "auto","computer","electronics"," Like the Unarchiver and others, entertainment","food","health","h you can set Keka as the default ome","mobiltravelguide","money" ,"people","recipes","science","trav el","www","reference","maps","vi deos","history","geography","ani ZTE V55 tablet spied in pics Could the mystery tablet in this m a l s " ) ; v a r Sony Tablet P hits UK and isnt Verizon ad be from HTC? subDomain=document.domain.spl cheap it(".")[0]; if (subDomain) { var Rumor Asus is working on I have no need for a tablet is x; for (var x = 0; x Apples Mac Tablet w r i t t e n b y C h r i s B u r n s & This entry passed through the New Gateway Tablet packs originally posted on SlashGear. Full-Text RSS service if this is some power 2005 - 2011, SlashGear. All your content and you're reading it MIPS unveils Ice Cream right reserved. on someone else's site, please read Sandwich Tablet under $100 the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content 11% of US adults own a tablet only/faq.php#publishers. Five according to study Filters recommends: Donate to IN Media Tablet PC 7 runs Wikileaks. Android, coming next month
extraction client, so files can be decompressed with a double click. If you want to get a bit more advanced, the Keka Dock icon serves as the one-stop shop for compression. Drag and drop files onto it to either decompress or create a new archive in the default format of your choosing. Format and compression method can be changed quickly from a pop-up menu from the Dock icon. It's all very slick. Daily Mac App: Keka originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Source| Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Extreme Sports Videos

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:00:56 AM
Technology/ Economy/
39
Steve Jobs bio Amazon's best selling hardback book of 2011

Steven Sande (TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:00:00 PM
No Private Losses And EFSF x2

Tyler Durden
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:10:15 PM
When Steve Jobs selected Walter Isaacson to write his biography, he probably knew that the book about his life would be a bestseller. Sure enough, the hardcover edition of "Steve Jobs" topped the bestseller list for 2011, edging out "Heaven is for Real," "Unbroken" and other titles. This is an amazing feat considering that the Jobs biography wasn't actually in bookstores until October 24. Many of the other titles have been on bookshelves for well over a year. While the hardcover of the book is at the top of the stack for 2011, the ebook version is (with about three weeks left in the year) only in the #21 spot in the list. If you're one of the few Apple fans out there who hasn't had a chance to read the book cover-tocover by this point, take a look at TUAW blogger Chris Rawson's excellent review of "Steve Jobs". Chris wrote his Master's thesis on the concept of truth in biographical works, and notes that "In the process of telling the
with a fresh 500 billion. Where do they plan on getting the first 440 billion, let alone the next 500 Via Peter Tchir of TF Market billion? Who is going to raise Advisors, that money? Germany? France? I would like to start a mine, mine, I mentioned earlier that we had to mine, buy em, take em, mine, pay attention to the statement that mine, mine, lift the offer, mine, France could get two notches. Is mine, and get me some more desk that another 150 billion for at a bank France? Can the rating agencies If I understand the concept let that go? Doesn't anyone in correctly, I could buy sovereign power there see that France's debt and be "promised" that it will willingness to throw money at the never default. And if I'm a bank, I problem is making them part of can fund that position at the ECB the problem? Someone at the for almost free. Why didn't they rating agency, who got screamed think of this before? at yesterday just threw his hands They were really doing much up in disgust, and said that these better when people weren't guys just don't get it! speaking. The reality is that they Who is coming up with these unvarnished truth about Steve cannot guarantee that private ideas? It makes no sense to me. Jobs, it dispels much of the myth investors won't have losses. They They need IMF, ECB, or Fed and magic surrounding the man can come up with enough capital money. Make believe stories and his legacy." and programs that demonstrates a about doubling something that is Steve Jobs bio Amazon's best sovereign will never default, but nonexistant isn't going to cut it. selling hardback book of 2011 they haven't done that, and in fact Two times zero is still zero. I originally appeared on TUAW - are further than ever. think this is a very bad idea. They The Unofficial Apple Weblog on So the FT is now saying that they d o n ' t h a v e t h e c a s h , a n d Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:00:00 EST. may allow EFSF to continue to guarantees won't cut it, and this Please see our terms for use of run after the ESM goes into effect may push France down to AA+ feeds. Source| Permalink| Email this| Comments
regardless of any treaty agreement. Then EFSF is AA+. ESM would have cash if the countries can raise it. I really thought they were making progress, that they had a script that could work. Now I think they have once again proven they don't understand credit, they don't understand credit market concerns, and that they are back to grasping at straws. I didn't like the idea of IMF, ECB, and Fed money, but thought it was the direction they were heading and that it had a chance to drive the market higher. This idea and the promise really just seems dumb to me. Average: Your rating: None Average: 2.5( 2 votes) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
40
Policy/
The LWOT: U.N. Tightens Sanctions on Eritrea - Jennifer Rowland

JENNIFER ROWLAND (Foreign Policy)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:52:25 AM
Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation bring you a twice weekly brief on the legal war on terror. You can read it on foreignpolicy.com or get it delivered directly to your inbox -just sign up here. BY JENNIFER ROWLAND| DECEMBER 6, 2011 U.N. tightens sanctions on Eritrea The United Nations Security Council on December 5 approved greater economic sanctions on Eritrea, whose government is accused of funding and arming violent terrorist organizations including Somalia's al-Shabaab, by a vote of 13-0 with two abstentions ( AP, AFP, BBC, WSJ, CNN, Reuters). The resolution slams Eritrea for violating previous sanctions, including an arms embargo, continuing to support militants groups, and imposing a "diaspora tax" on remittances sent by Eritreans living abroad. However, the new sanctions are much weaker than the ban on investment in Eritrea's mining industry and a block on the diaspora tax that was initially proposed; the resolution only asks Eritrea to prevent money they put c o u n t r i e s t o e n s u r e t h e i r into the country from contributing companies exercise "vigilance" in to violence ( Reuters).
Eritrea's Foreign Ministry later said the sanctions will only bring more destabilization to the region
and economic suffering to the administration to scapegoat Eritrean people, calling the LWOT: page 41 resolution "an attempt by the U.S.
Culture/
41
LWOT:
Eritrea for its faulty and failed policies in the Horn of Africa" ( Bloomberg). White House repeats veto threat over detainee provisions White House spokesman Jay Carney on December 2 reiterated the Obama administration's intention to veto a $660 billion Defense Department budget bill that was passed in a 93-7 Senate vote, calling a provision requiring military detention for all terrorism suspects "political micromanagement" ( AFP, AP). Mark Ambinder has a must-read on the reasoning behind the administration's veto threats, while CBS presents the arguments of Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who supports the controversial provision, and Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO), who opposes it ( National Journal, CBS). The White House will reportedly provide two official witnesses to a joint hearing on December 7 investigating "homegrown" Islamist terrorism called by Senate Homeland Security Committee chair Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and House Homeland Security Committee chair Peter King (R-NY) ( Reuters). The hearing, which has been dubbed a "witch hunt" by critics, will be the first joint hearing held by the two committees, and will focus on the purported threat to the U.S. military posed by Islamic extremists in the United States. And U.S. Homeland Security
Director Janet Napolitano said in an interview in France on December 2 that she has seen a shift in the global terror threat toward the likelihood of "lone wolf" attacks not directed by or affiliated with a terrorist network ( AP). Napolitano was in Paris to garner support from French officials for a U.S.-E.U. deal on airline passenger information sharing that is facing resistance in the European Union parliament over privacy concerns. Supreme Court to hear Gitmo detainee petition The U.S. Supreme Court on December 5 said it would accept from Guantnamo Bay detainee Hussain Salem Mohammed Almerfedi a sealed petition for a writ of certiorari -- an order from the Supreme Court to the lower D.C. Court of Appeals to review their reasoning for blocking Almerfedi's habeas corpus petition in June ( CNS). A federal judge had previously granted Almerfedi's habeas petition, or request for release from unlawful detention, on the grounds that the government had failed to prove Almerfedi's membership in a terrorist group by showing that he briefly stayed in an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Iran, but the Appeals Court supported the government's motion to keep the suspect in custody. Jubair Ahmad, a 24-year-old Pakistani living in Virginia, pleaded guilty on December 2 to providing material support to a
designated foreign terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), for creating and uploading a video to YouTube glorifying the members and actions of LeT ( AP, DOJ). Lawyers for Tarek Mehanna, who is accused to distributing terrorist propaganda on the Internet and travelling to Yemen in 2004 to obtain terrorist training, sought on December 5 to discredit a terrorism "expert," Evan F. Kohlmann, called by the prosecution on December 2 to describe the history and operation of al-Qaeda ( Boston Globe, Boston Globe). Defense attorneys attacked Kohlmann's inability to speak Arabic, lack of teaching experience, and lack of government security clearance, while prosecutors hope his testimony on al-Qaeda propaganda methods will convince a jury that Mehanna was providing tangible support to the organization through his online material. Prosecutors and a defense attorney for Jose Pimentel, who was arrested last week in New York City accused of trying to build a bomb he planned to use against police stations and post offices, among other targets, agreed to delay having a grand jury decide whether to indict the suspect ( AP). Pimentel was supposed to hear from a grand jury on December 5, but will instead remain in custody for about a month until both sides in
the case feel prepared to present their evidence. Trials and Tribulations Militants belonging to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are reportedly using a "hearts and minds" strategy to win support from the local population in Mali by giving sweets to children and baby gifts to couples that have recently given birth ( AP). Five suspected terrorists detained in Canada learned on December 3 that the country's intelligence agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) did not believe it could win the cases against the men without using information obtained through torture ( National Post). A recently discovered neo-Nazi cell in Germany reportedly designed and sold to other farright extremists a Monopoly-style board game called "Pogromly," with concentration camps in place of the railroad stations and a large swastika in the center ( Tel). This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Travelin' Light: Are you an expert on frugal travel?

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:00:56 AM
Most people like to hit the road for a spell, but it can be a challenge to keep a close watch on finances when things like airfare and hotel reservations are expensive. Fortunately, there are many ways to stay one step ahead and enjoy vacation on a budget? If you think you know what it takes to be a frugal traveler, take this quiz. Earn a point for every right answer! Save your score at the end of the quiz. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
42
Economy/
Eurozone Treaty Changes to be Finalized in March, Then a Vote in May, Then CountrySpecific Referendums, Then?
noreply@blogger.com (Michael Shedlock) (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)
require a convention, unless the European Parliament were to Automatic sanctions. In case of decide to wave its rights in this non-compliance with the deficit respect. Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:54:00 AM On December 8 Merkel and rule, countries are subject to Given that these proposals entail Sarkozy will have reached a 6- automatic sanctions, which will a transfer of sovereignty, national p o i n t a g r e e m e n t r e q u i r i n g require a majority of 85% to referendums in Ireland and ratification of a new treaty. overturn. possibly other countries may be However, details will not be Golden Rule: All EU member r e q u i r e d . W h i l e t h e r e a r e finalized until March. At that states, but in particular the possibilities for the eurozone to time, if all goes to plan (and it e u r o z o n e , s h o u l d s u b j e c t adopt its own set of policies, won't), a vote by all 27 EU themselves to uniform debt limits. points 1 and 2 (which are the nations will take place. If that The ECJ will adjudicate in case of main element of the fiscal fails (and hopefully the UK a dispute, and should have the agreement) require a full treaty torpedoes it), various aspects of right to declare national budgets change, to be ratified by all 27 the treaty might still be ratified by illegal. members (even if the provisions (and apply only to) the 17- Private Sector Participation will are only implemented in respect member Eurozone nations. follow the rules of the IMF. The of the eurozone). However, fiscal rules will still PSI agreement on Greece remains We suspect therefore that require individual referendums in valid, but is a unique case that Sarkozy agreed to these measure I r e l a n d a n d i n m y o p i n i o n should not be repeated; in the full knowledge that this will Germany. Got that? Germany and France want the never be implemented. If you Eurointelligence writes That ESM to start end-2012. subtract the treaty change comprehensive agreement in T h e h e a d s o f s t a t e a n d proposals, one is left with a full government meet once a month as shallow agenda. Angela Merkel and Nicolas t h e e u r o z o n e s e c o n o m i c Also, newspapers reported that Sarkozy essentially agreed on the g o v e r n m e n t . Merkel gave up PSI. That is not German position. These should be There shall be no eurobonds. true. The position is now that the embedded in a New Treaty, and IMF rules will be applied, which they have asked Herman van These proposals indeed require are not all that different. CACs Rompuy to put those proposals substantial treaty change, but we will also remain in the ESM formally on the agenda for the are surprised that this could be treaty. Shallow Agenda or No Dec 8 and 9. Here is a summary concluded so quickly, given the Agenda at All? o f t h e s i x m o s t i m p o r t a n t necessary procedures, and their Ambrose Evans-Pritchard weighs decisions taken. As so often, the own implantation record. A in with Zilch again from Merkozy newspapers cover only a short change in the EU treaties would No fiscal union, no Eurobonds,
subset.
no ECB as lender of last resort yet. Just the usual blather and a revamped Stability Pact (Fiskalunion). Yawn. Merkel seems to have backed off on demands that budget breaches will be justiciable before the European Court, so the Treaty chatter is mostly Quatsch, btises, and eyewash. This Merkel climb-down makes it less likely that she will give in on real rescue measures, so why the market exuberance in Italy? Beats me. Private investors will not have to face further haircuts after Greece (if you believe anything they say on this subject) but that was already the case. Nothing further to add at this stage. Will 27 Nations Sign on the Dotted Line? Those treaty changes may sound good on paper, but what is the likelihood these treaty changes pass? The Washington Post chimes in with Sarkozy, Merkel call for new E.U. treaty to address debt crisis Under growing pressure from nervous financial markets, the leaders of France and Germany reached a difficult compromise agreement Monday to seek mandatory limits on budget
deficits among debt-laden European governments. If adopted by other nations in the union, the deal would mean drastic cuts in European budgets. It would also spell the end of three decades of overspending that helped finance a cozy social protection system envied by much of the world. Although France and Germany represent the core of the European Union, it is far from certain that the rest of the groups 27 nations will go along at a crucial European summit scheduled for Thursday in Brussels. The deal could face significant opposition from those reluctant to surrender national sovereignty over fiscal policy. This package of measures is a proof of our absolute determination to guarantee a stable euro, Merkel said at a joint news conference with Sarkozy in Paris. The Franco-German accord is to be outlined in a letter to E.U. leaders Wednesday and voted on at the special summit conference the next day, making this a makeor-break week for the ideal of European unity. Sarkozy said the EUROZONE page 46
Economy/
43
The Consumer Won't Look So Hot When Gas Prices Catch Up To Oil Prices
Lance Roberts (Money Game)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:11:00 PM
thinking about how the price of gasoline could be so cheap at the same time the price of oil was Yesterday I pulled into my local cresting the century mark? gas station and went through the The implications from a rise in automated motions of filling up gasoline prices in an already weak my non-green, oil consuming, economy would have negative emission generating vehicle while ramifications not only on the t h i n k i n g a b o u t m y d a y o f consumer but the markets as well. meetings ahead of me. Considering the consumer went While the pump did its job I into the retail shopping season checked my email and scrolled cash poor, as shown by the the web for the latest headlines rampant usage of credit cards out of Europe. on"Black Friday" which As the pump shut off I extracted outstripped cash and debit-card the nozzle from my car and payments by more than a two-toreplaced it on the pump while one, the recent sharp drawdown in looking up to see what the the personal savings rate and the damage was going to be to my declines in incomes; any rise of credit card. gasoline prices would quickly What? I had to look twice as the deplete the already thin consumer pump read $39.02. I am normally wallet. pushing over $50 during my When I got to the office my first regular fill-ups so breaking $40 thought was to look at the was delightful. correlation between oil and I then looked down to see what gasoline prices. Historically, the cost of the unleaded fuel was gasoline tends to lag movements per gallon - $3.08. My only in the price of oil. If we look at thought at that elated moment just the nominal price data going was"cool". back to 1990 we can see that there As I got back into my car I is indeed a very high correlation decided to do two things: 1) take between oil prices and gasoline myself out to a more expensive prices. lunch today with my new found While divergences from each savings; and 2) I quickly scrolled other do occur on occasion those my phone to find the price of oil. divergences tend not to last for At $101 a barrel going into the very long with gasoline usually market open our commodity longs correcting towards the price of were doing great - but it got me to oil.(This really should not be a
shocker considering gasoline is a byproduct of oil but stay with me here...) What was surprising with the most recent data was the shear magnitude of the divergence between oil and gas prices. The current gap is very similar to the gap that was witnessed just prior to the recession starting in 2008. Gasoline prices declined temporarily even as oil prices were still rising - however, the divergence quickly melted up until the back of the consumer was broken. What is also important to note for commodity bulls, like us, is that recessions have a very negative impact on commodity prices and swings can be very large. Therefore, it is prudent to hedge long commodity exposure going into a potential recessionary environment. We can see this current divergence a little differently if we look at the rolling 4-month average(smoothing) change in oil prices versus gasoline prices. While oil prices maintain a much higher volatility level there is a very high correlation between the movements of oil prices as they relate to gasoline prices. The recent surge in oil prices leaves the price of gasoline diverged from its normal correlation. If oil prices remain where they are for much longer the price of
gasoline should start to rise and sharply. Again, it is very questionable whether the consumer, and ultimately the economy, can withstand much higher fuel costs at the current time. We have written recently that our prediction of a recession in 2012 is still very much on the table given the underlying economic environment. Outside of the mainstream headlines of upticks in economic data the underlying trends remain exceptionally weak. If we look at the spread between oil and gasoline prices we are currently approaching levels that triggered the last recession. Of course, the question that needs to be asked is whether oil prices will remain at these levels, or potentially higher, in the near term. There are several points that support that case for stable to higher oil prices: If another Quantitative Easing program is implemented in either Europe, the U.S or both - the flood of liquidity will roll into the commodity markets. Not getting a lot of headline attention currently due to the impending crisis in Europe is the threat of Iran. If there is any escalation in Iran in the coming weeks it will well provide a catalyst.
If a year end"Santa Claus" rally continues money flows will chase performance. Any decline in the dollar due to some positive news out of Europe. Of course, this doesn't even mention all the trips to"Grandma's house" that are about to launched by drivers all across the country to deliver Christmas cheer. Retail gasoline providers will surely be moving prices higher to capture additional driving miles for the season and ringing in of the new year. The conclusion here is that with food and energy prices already consuming more than 23% of a wage and salary base, which have declined over the last 2 quarters lower gasoline prices, which act as a tax rebate in this case, have given consumers more flexibility to make ends meet. With the GOP and the Democrats locked up over an agreement on how to pay for further extensions of last year's tax cuts - this could lead to higher payroll taxes come the first of the year. That additional drag on incomes combined with any rise in a"gasoline price" tax are going to hit the consumer, and the economy, where it hurts the most. This post originally appeared at CONSUMER page 44
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Economy/
12 of 26 Economists in Financial Times Survey See Probability of Eurozone Breakup at 20 to 30 Percent; What are the True Odds?
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:47:00 PM
CONSUMER
Financial Times Deutschland says the key to whether or not the Eurozone holds together depends on Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann. Will he or won't he go along with ECB president Mario Draghi's hint that the ECB is about to purchase more sovereign debt. Via Google Translate, please consider Everyone looks at Weidmann Twelve of 26 economists see the probability of a breakup of the euro zone at 20 to 30 percent. From the perspective of ten economists, the risk is ten percent. Anna Grimaldi, the Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo sees a 40 percent chance and John Greenwood of Invesco investment company rates the probability at 70 percent. At the other extreme are Anders Matzen at Swedish Nordea Bank, which estimates the probability of survival of monetary union to 95 percent, and Ulrich Kater from Deka Bank who sets the value at 99 percent.
Most economists indicated that they were convinced that the position of Weidmann will be crucial in deciding whether the ECB more than at present to save the euro is taking. "The attitude of the Bundesbank to the program for the purchase of government bonds is more important than their normal attitude to monetary policy, since the program moved to the edge of the contractual mandate," said Torge Middendorf from WestLB. Not So Simple Certainly a huge feud between Weidmann and Draghi will not help. However, that is not the only issue. The German supreme court can step in at anytime and demand a voter referendum. The UK can and probably will single-handily torpedo the treaty changes proposed by Merkel and Sarkozy. According to the Washington Post, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he did not intend to pass any powers from Britain to Brussels. He noted that if the treaty changes suggested by Sarkozy and Merkel require such a transfer, he would have to call a national referendum to approve
them. Will UK voters pass that referendum? I see a zero percent chance of that. Then what? Please see Eurozone Treaty Changes to be Finalized in March, Then a Vote in May, Then Country-Specific Referendums, Then? for further discussion. Ireland, Germany, or Finland may also torpedo the agreement. Moreover, voters in Spain, Portugal, or Greece may eventually (and correctly) say to hell with all this austerity just to pay back French and German banks. To repeat what I have said several times: Eventually, there will come a time when a populist office-seeker will stand before the voters, hold up a copy of the EU treaty and (correctly) declare all the "bail out" debt foisted on their country to be null and void. That person will be elected. What are the True Odds? A few months ago, economists would have pegged the probability close to zero percent. The shift of 14 economists to 20% or greater probability is a
Street Talk Live. Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook. Join the conversation about this story See Also: Pipeline Changes To Fix WTI / significant shift in the right Brent Spread Are Likely To Add direction. New Problems It's important to remember that Facebook COO Sheryl economists are a perpetually Sandberg And Her Husband Have optimistic lot. Ironically, a Done The Impossible b r e a k u p i s l i k e l y b e f o r e Facebook Security Flaw economists agree it will happen. A l l o w e d A c c e s s T o M a r k T a k i n g e v e r y t h i n g i n t o Zuckerberg's Private Photos consideration, the probability the Eurozone stays intact is arguably 15 percent at best. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http:// www.sitkapacific.com/ account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Economy/ Culture/
45
ECB Ready to Push Boundaries on Interest Rates and Bond Purchases; One Size Fits Italy
the euro zone economy teetering on the brink of recession. With the ECB increasingly concerned about falling consumer prices, Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:28:00 PM Get ready for record low interest further cuts may be in the offing rates in Europe as ECB ready to even if the ECB has never cut push boundaries of crisis role rates below 1 percent before -- not A Reuters survey of 73 analysts even after the collapse of Lehman. showed a 60-percent chance the Draghi made his comments a day ECB will cut rates by 25 basis after the world's major central points to a record low of 1.0 banks took emergency joint action percent -- a floor it previously to provide cheaper dollar funding reached during the financial crisis for starved European banks. in 2009. It cut rates by a similar This was the latest in a slew of amount in November. actions aimed at propping up New ECB President Mario European banks, which are Draghi reinforced expectations for struggling with the fallout from a rate cut last week when he said the debt crisis, such as higher the bank had a responsibility to capital requirements and rising e n s u r e i n f l a t i o n d i d n o t tension in the interbank money undershoot its target of just below market. 2 percent, not just to stop it Banks are increasingly turning to exceeding it. the ECB and the recent jump in Markets have taken it to heart. overnight deposits at the ECB has Three-month Euribor futures -- highlighted the freeze in interbank one of the main gauges of market lending markets. expectations -- point to rates Sources have told Reuters that being be cut this month and then the ECB is looking at extending even further. the term of loans it offers banks to The case for a cut is supported by 2 or even 3 years to try to prevent
the euro zone crisis precipitating a credit crunch that chokes the bloc's economy. One Size Fits Italy Under ECB president JeanClaude Trichet, ECB actions were best described as "One Size Fits Germany and France". Under Draghi, ECB policy has morphed into "One Size Fits Italy". Central banks say and do what they want when they want. Eurozone inflation remains at 3 percent, for 3 consecutive months. So where did this concern for falling prices come from? It certainly did not come from Eurozone price data. Rather it came from the desire of Draghi to help Italian bonds. That also explains Draghi's comments to the European Parliament last week, that the ECB could take stronger action to fight the crisis if European leaders agree on tighter budget controls. Tighter budget controls will not be realistic of course, but the illusion will give Draghi the cover he wants to buy more Italian
bonds. The can-kicking exercise continues. So does the ticking of the clock before the market once and for all decides it has enough of proposals that do nothing. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http:// www.sitkapacific.com/ account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
Give the Gift of Better Apps for Windows and Mac [Gift Guide 2011]
(Lifehacker)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:00:01 PM
The gift of software may not seem like the coolest thing to give a loved one, but think about it like this: Those invisible 1s and 0s can potentially affect a person's life and productivity in significant ways whenever he or she's using a computer. Seems like a potentially great gift opportunity to us! We've got you covered with our favorite giftable apps, whether that special someone uses Windows or Mac OS X. Plus, we've got some printable cards you can hand out so you've still got something physical to give. More
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Economy/ Culture/
EUROZONE
hope is that all 27 E.U. nations will adhere to the plan. But he said it could also move forward with consensus from only the 17 countries that have adopted the euro as their common currency. The swift schedule for the treaty change is unheard of in the history of the European Union, which is notorious for slow-moving bureaucracy and endless bickering among governments at all-night conferences at the unions Brussels headquarters. The deficit limits a golden rule of 3 percent of gross domestic product would be enforced by elected leaders of the European Community acting with a supermajority of 85 percent, according to explanations provided by Sarkozy and Merkel at the news conference. The E.U. leaders would rule on any government cited as overspending by the European Court of Justice, they added. In a suggestion of the debate still
to come, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he did not intend to pass any powers from Britain to Brussels. He noted that if the treaty changes suggested by Sarkozy and Merkel require such a transfer, he would have to call a national referendum to approve them. Would the UK voters agree to this in a referendum? Ireland? Germany? Austria? Netherlands? I think the answer is no. So what is left in this much ballyhooed great compromise between Merkel and Sarkozy? Here is the compromise in case you missed it. Merkel gets the "no eurobond" position she wants Sarkozy gets the "no bondholder haircuts except Greece" position he wants. This proposal solves absolutely nothing. For some reason the market seems to love "nothing" these days. Don't expect that to
last. Mike "Mish" Shedlock h t t p : / / globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List Mike "Mish" Shedlock is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction. Visit http:// www.sitkapacific.com/ account_management.html to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.
FT Releases Mother Of All Rumors

Tyler Durden
be added: EU WEIGHS PULLING Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:48:46 PM GOLD FILLINGS FROM Remember when everyone would C I T I Z E N S T O B A I L O U T dread the 3pm hour when the FT G O L D M A N S A C H S A N D would mysteriously come up with O T H E R B A N K S some about to be discredited deus E U O F F I C I A L S H A V E ex machina rumor? Those days REACHED OUT TO ALPHA are back, and this time the FT hits CENTAURI FOR PREFERRED us, baby, one MOAR time: SHARE INVESTMENT; EU OFFICIALS WEIGH I N I T I A L RESPONSE RUNNING TWO RESCUE F A V O R A B L E FUNDS TOGETHER, FT SAYS FITCH PLANNING TO RAISE EU WEIGHS RUNNING TWO EUROPE CREDIT RATING TO RESCUE FUNDS, MORE IMF AAAA+ SUPPORT: FT EUROPE PREANNOUNCES EU WEIGHS GIVING ESM M A S S I V E E P S B E A T O N ACCESS TO ECB FUNDING, B L O W I N G O U T C D S FT SAYS SPREADS In other words, Europe has now given up on nuances and has resorted to nuclear rumormongering: it is commingling all failed funds, adding the IMF, and promises to add Marsian capital as soon as said capital is discovered. That the EFSF was unable to raise 3 billion (and only did so with underwriters retaining half of the issued bonds) on its way to 1 trillion (let alone 2) remains irrelevant. Some rumors that remain still to And so on. This idiocy confirms we have officially rached the beginning of the end. Average: Your rating: None Average: 4.7( 10 votes) This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
OneReceipt Tracks Both Your Online and Offline Purchases in One Convenient Location [Web Apps]
Adam Dachis (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:30:00 PM
OneReceipt is a hub for every receipt in your life, whether it's in your email account, saved as a PDF, or in paper form. It'll help making it simple to both keep and you track them all easily and with a n a l y z e a c o m p r e h e n s i v e the minimal amount of effort, p u r c h a s e h i s t o r y . M o r e
Economy/ Culture/
47
There Aren't Enough Diamonds In The World To Meet Indian And Chinese Demand
Julie Zeveloff (Money Game)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:54:00 PM
Markets Are Rallying, And There Are Reports Of New Funds And ECB Involvement In Europe
Joe Weisenthal (Money Game)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:49:00 PM
The demand for rough diamonds will boom in the next decade, driven primarily by the growth of the markets in China and India, according to a comprehensive new report from Bain & Co. Demand will far outpace supply, which is limited to production at a small number of mines worldwide, the report said. While production rates are expected to hold steady, it's unlikely that any major new diamond deposits will be discovered. Worldwide rough diamond demand is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 6.6%, to nearly $23 billion by 2020, while rough diamond supply is estimated to grow at a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.8% in carat terms and 3% in volume in the same time period. In China and India, demand is fueled by two related trends-growing urbanization and the rise of the middle class, Bain said. As the middle class continues to expand in both countries, the retail landscape will adapt by adding physical and online retail stores that require inventory. First, a look at supply. 13 new mines are expected to open by 2020; they could add up to 23 million carats by the end of the decade. Global production is expected to grow 2.8% annually, to nearly 175 million carats in 2020. That figure is slightly above the precrisis peak production level of 170 million carats in 2007. In terms of demand, a key driver
of diamond consumption in developed countries will be total private consumption. The compound annual growth rate is forecasted to increase the most in the Persian Gulf. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow The Life on Twitter and Facebook. See Also: PHOTOS: A Glowing City Built From Ice And Snow At A Festival In Northern China The Weirdly Cool Liveries Of Russia's Domestic Airlines Why This New Commercial Condo In The Diamond District Might Actually Be A Smart Idea
leverageability. The whole thing's a little bit shaky, but apparently the The Dow is near its highs of the "sherpas" are busily debating this day -- up 95 points -- and there idea right now ahead of this are some fresh headlines coming Friday's big summit action. out from the FT about new more Read the full FT report here > powerful bailouts in Europe. Please follow Money Game on The basic gist is this: The ESM Twitter and Facebook. (European Stability Mechanism), Join the conversation about this which is slated to be a successor story to the EFSF (European Financial See Also: Stability Facility) might be Goldman's Top Strategist Sets allowed to run concurrently with His S&P 500 Target For 2012 the EFSF, thus creating two Markets Are Surging Like Mad bailout funds at once. In Europe And The US Furthermore, the ESM might get Deutsche Bank's Top Strategist access to the ECB somehow. Presents His Bullish S&P 500 T h a t ' s p r o b a b l y t h e m o s t Target For 2012 important part, as anything that has backing by the ECB instantly has more firepower, and
18 Jupiter-like planets orbit massive stars

(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:31:00 PM
A team of astronomers have found 18 Jupiter-like planetsthe largest collection ever confirmedin orbit around retired stars that are one and a half times more massive than the Sun.
To look for planets, the astronomers searched for stars of the type that wobble, which could be caused by the gravitational tug of an orbiting planet. By searching the wobbly stars spectra for Doppler shiftsthe lengthening and contracting of wavelengths due to motion away from and toward the
observerthe team found 18 planets with masses similar to
Jupiters. Its the largest single announcement of planets in orbit around stars more massive than the sun, aside from the discoveries made by the Kepler mission, says John Johnson, assistant professor of astronomy at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the first author on
the teams paper. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: NASA Permalink| Leave a comment
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Culture/
Exclusive Video: Tension, Dissension and Construction in Occupied DC

Sean Captain (Wired Top Stories)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:07:00 PM
Occupy DC protestors hold the fort on Sunday night. Several men held the roof, while a larger group of men and women stayed inside on the ground level. WASHINGTON Eat your heart out Zuccotti! exclaimed Sophie Vic, chiding the far-morecelebrated former occupiers of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan. Vic, camping in DCs McPherson Square since October 6 while keeping her full-time day job, was literally jumping with excitement as compatriots assembled a 24-by24-by-17-foot wooden meeting hall designed to hold 100 people. It bent, to the breaking point, the definition of temporary structures that are allowed in the park by the National Park Service Police. Occupiers had been hiding parts of the building in tents for several days. Around 12:00 AM Sunday morning, Wired witnessed the rest arriving in giant sections on a flatbed trailer, pulled by a pickup truck. Think modular home, with a sense of urgency. After two and a half hours marked by frequent glances for and particleboard and hoisted cops, about 50 occupiers had them up, Amish-barn-raising nailed and screwed together the style. modules made of two-by-fours The People's Pentagon went up in
the wee hours of Sunday morning when National Park Service police were not around to see it. And if the cops say Take it
down, well say, No, you guys try, declared the designer, an architect who went by only the name Paul.
If they want to take it down, theyre going to have to hire a EXCLUSIVE page 49
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EXCLUSIVE
wrecking crew, said David Givens, an occupier who had helped build the structure. Naturally, the cops obliged less than a day later, but only after a 12-hour media stunt that ended with police on ladders and in a cherry picker wrestling Givens off the roof. Coming just before a week of national protests in the capital, the mini-drama both revived DCs Occupy momentum and revealed its fissures. Unlike nearly all occupations, DC until Sunday had essentially no legal friction no scuffles, pepper spraying or arrests and hence very little attention. The National Park Police has issued a four-month permit (through February, 2012) for a well-behaved, even scholarly, encampment on Freedom Plaza along Pennsylvania Avenue. And the agency has stretched its own rules for overnight vigils to allow indefinite settlement by a rowdier, mostly younger crew at McPherson Square along the lobbyist lane of K Street. Known as the Peoples Pentagon,#peoplespavilion or simply the barn, the popup building was a feat of structural, symbolic and media engineering. Paul, the architect of the barn, surveying his creation. It consisted of three segments, each 24 feet wide, 17 feet high and eight feet deep (a fourth section never made it). Viewed head-on, the building had the shape of a pentagon as if the Pentagon had been turned on its side. Yes, that was symbolic, said
a man known as Solo, another of the 31 people who were later arrested. But it goes deeper, said Paul, who plans to feature the project in a future lecture on axes of power. Buildings in D.C., such as the White House and the Capitol, are aligned to represent political power relationships, he said. A barn in a park stands in defiance of this axial power structure, said Paul, who stayed far from the building the next day. It also defies the power structure at occupied McPherson Square by seeing how far the occupiers could push the National Park Service Police. But before that could happen, some occupiers defied the military by mounting an American flag upside down right before two Marines walked through the park. One of the Marines tall, especially clean-cut, and rather drunk was beside himself. When people fly a flag like that, it offends a lot of fucking people, he said. Did any of your buddies lose his legs in Afghanistan? A middle-aged occupier with curly hair pulled into a ponytail said that his fellow soldiers had died in Iraq. Another occupier, who goes by Michael, had been an Army interrogator in Iraq. After alternating between discussion and argument with the Marine and negotiating with the other occupiers, the Iraq vets finally got the flag down. They folded it reverently and handed it to the sober Marine, whod been trying to coax his
friend out of the park for a while. I just gained a level of respect for you guys, he said. But it wasnt a perfect resolution. People under the guise of the American flag disrespect others around the world, a woman said angrily to the drunken vet. The fellow Marine steered him out of the park before the argument got much worse. Wired was back in the park at 10 a.m. Sunday when a police officer finally discovered the barn, providing the mellow camp with a mind-focusing crisis. Facing a one -hour demolition ultimatum, they gathered in the condemned building for an emergency general assembly, to decide if they would take the barn down or fight for it (until the police take it down). If you want to be their bitch, grab a hammer, said one woman. Others warned that police might close down the whole camp. Just keep in mind that some of us are homeless, like homeless for real, said another woman. Mike, the young Iraq vet, chose the barn as his Alamo. If the cops have an alternative solution to housing thousands of people on the streets, let them join stack, he said, referring to the roster of speakers at a GA. Otherwise, he would defy them. (See video below.) Also on stack was a man wearing a goalie mask. When his turn came, he started chanting, We are the ninety-nine percent! and climbed up into the rafters. Ultimately, he set the course. Giving an ultimatum, police
cordoned off a wide zone around the barn. The first arrests about dozen including men and women came shortly after when people pushed against the line. Police took them down about as gingerly as anyone could wrestle and cuff an individual. But the barn occupiers remained for hours and hours in a Feliniesque standoff with the police. The seven men on the roof sang Bohemian Rhapsody. Supporters threw bottles of water, packs of cigarettes and bags of Oreos to their compatriots, over the heads of the police. A woman among the spectators began playing a conga, until a street preacher tried to pontificate over her. Let her drum! chanted the crowd. But the preacher was ultimately allowed to read The Sermon on the Mount over the peoples mic. Not all the occupiers were amused. Its a perch for a bunch of pigeons who want to be on the news, said James, a stocky guy clad in a leather jacket. And several were worried about ticking off the cops. You cant have ten percent talking for everyone, said a man named Darrell. Were being the aggressor here. The police brought in floodlights as the sun went down. Local news crews and newspaper reporters crammed up against the police line. The cops gave a quick succession of three final warnings around 5:40 p.m. They slowly took protestors out, first about ten
from inside the barn, included several women, and then the seven men on the roof. The People's Pentagon lasted not long after police removed the protestors. Some dove gleefully into a giant air mattress the police had set up. Others offered various amounts of struggle. The last, David Givens, kept wrapping himself around beams and rafters for about ten minutes before police wrested him down a ladder. Most of the arrestees were out a few hours later, including roofsitter Benjamin, a bearded, horned -rim hipster whos often the comedian of the crew. Asked if he was pleased, he grinned and said, I think its a great idea. The media attention we got was astounding. And it came right before a string of occupy protests that start in D.C. on Tuesday. Its going to resonate around the country now that we are the mecca of the occupation, he said. Photos/Videos: Sean Captain/ Wired This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Culture/
Money to Burn? Try Dyson's Supercool Space Heater

John C Abell (Wired Top Stories)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:31:00 PM
Space heaters have always struck me as inherently how shall I put it? low-echelon devices. They seem best suited to college dorm rooms, along with Simpsons VHS tapes and a Costco-sized box of ramen noodles. Relying on one is maybe one small step above warming your cold-water flat with the gas oven. In other words, the thought of a Cadillac of space heaters seems a bit of an oxymoron. But the Dyson of space heaters? Having tackled vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and artificial summer breezes, Dyson is once again taking a mundane home appliance to task. Meet the Dyson Hot. It is, of course, a thing of beauty. Like Dysons Air Multiplier fan and its Stick mini-vac, the Hot is something you wouldnt mind leaving out to impress your party guests. It costs $400, so there is the hint that part of what you are buying is cachet even if company founder and product designer Sir James Dyson insists that what hes selling is the technology, not the cool factor. Space heaters aim to be economical. You pay only for the power needed to keep a small
space comfy, as opposed to paying to heat the entire house, as my father used to say when I turned up the thermostat. They are the descendants of the fireplace (and the fire pit, if you want to go back that far), though these days we are less likely to gather around heaters than we are the screens in our living rooms.
Ive owned several space heaters, mostly to keep pets warm in the hide-aways where they like to hole up. They are expected to heat up quickly, maintain a steady temperature, operate with a reasonable level of power efficiency and, above all, be safe. Heaters that use fossil fuels are non-starters (no pun intended) but
even most electric-coil models dont instill enough confidence that youd feel comfortable leaving them unattended. None of these concerns exist with the Dyson Hot. It heats up quickly and runs quietly compared to the other forced-air space heaters Ive owned. Youd have no qualms leaving it
in a room with pets or children. The heating plates are fully enclosed they run vertically along the flattened sides of the oval. Its tough to knock it over, since its bottom-heavy. But, like most space heaters if it does fall over, it shuts off. And it oscillates! And tilts forward and back! Which means the whole room will get heat, not just the narrow area at which its pointed. Its still remarkably efficient even without the oscillation in smaller rooms. In an overnight test with the oscillator off, it kept an 810 room warm despite an open window (about 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside). A couple other small usability features worth noting: The remote is the familiar, slightly arched variety that ships with Dysons air multiplier fans. This one, however, can be attached to the unit by a magnet at the very top. Dyson also claims the Hot doesnt stink up your abode with a burning smell. I didnt use the review unit long enough to determine if this was true or not, but since the heating elements are vertical and encased, the chance it would collect dust does seem minimal. As usual, theres really nothing to complain about with a Dyson MONEY page 53
Culture/ Obituaries
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Mashtival Brings Mashup Masters Together for Online Music Festival in Turntable.fm
Angela Watercutter (Wired Top Stories)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:40:00 PM
The Mashtival music festival will bring more than 20 mashup artists together to play on the same virtual stages in Turntable.fm. Image courtesy Darren Pillen and Mashtival Music festivals usually happen in big open fields or at large stadiums. But during Mashtival, the entire gig featuring three rooms of mashup music will take place on social music site Turntable.fm. More than 20 mashup artists in three different Turntable rooms will gather Wednesday night for the first Mashtival music fest. Each rooms five DJ spots will be occupied by two or three VIP DJs (headliners include 3LAU, Wickit the Instigator and Kap Slap) and a couple of up-and-coming mashup artists. What we are hoping will happen is that fans/listeners/the audience will discover new music, Mashtival organizer Nicolas Gutierrez said in an e-mail to Wired.com. Whether it be
another track from an artist they know or just discovering a new artist, the goal of Mashtival is what it has always been to share and listen to great music. The virtual festival is a natural progression for Turntable.fm, one of a new wave of group-listening sites that are transforming the way internet users enjoy and discover music. Turntable.fm mimics the feel of a dance club, with users
taking turns at DJ tables to spin their favorite tracks. The idea for the Mashtival festival grew out of the community of mashup artists and fans that gather daily in the MashupFM room on Turntable. The events three rooms will be handled by MashupFM (the main stage is the main MashupFM room; the other two will be Mashupfm2 and Mashupfm VIP).
And, really, where better than Turntable to hold a music festival for a genre that is made almost entirely on computers? The MashupFM room itself grew out of a group of music heads (Gutierrez, DJ EEP/Andrew Peron and SoSimpull/Aaron Ho) who met in a room where mashups were being played. They then decided to form a place dedicated to the musical style. From there it
became the benchmark for rooms playing mashups, said Gutierrez (aka Gutz), who also writes a mashup column for music blog Earmilk. In a sense, our blogging connections wouldnt be possible without Turntable, but at the same time this lineup for the MashupFM event wouldnt be possible without having legitimized ourselves within the blogging world, Gutierrez said when asked if his blogging connections helped him pull together the Mashtival lineup. Mashtival starts Wednesday at 7 p.m. Eastern. The up-and-coming artists go on about an hour before the headliners start DJing. Each room is limited to 200 listeners, so get there early. Keep up with events leading up to the fest on Mashtivals Facebook page. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Poland's Villas, Las Vegas star in 1960s, dies (AP)

(Yahoo! News: Obituaries)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 9:12:11 AM
AP - She was a coloratura soprano who spurned opera for popular music, a Polish singer
who became a cabaret star in Las Vegas, an artist trapped for years behind the Iron Curtain when she
flew home to tend to her dying mother.
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Culture/ Talk/
Carrier IQ
Victor Krull (AskMen Latest Articles)
Well, the Carrier IQ cellphonetracking fallout continues with the latest bomb being dropped that AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile have all been using the software to play Peeping Tom on their users. After Senator Al Franken went buck wild on Carrier IQ and the recent spate of lawsuits aimed at handset makers using the software, were expecting this saga to continue on like a nerdy version of Days of our Lives. Wait, Carrier IQ has a non-evil twin? Carrier IQ: the latest Big Brother If you havent heard the name Carrier IQ before, heres a brief rundown: A researcher found that his Android phone was running software that was tracking everything he did (buttons pressed, encrypted transactions, you name it) and sending it to a server. The hidden software and service was found to be run by legit software company Carrier IQ, and since the initial finding, its come to light that
pretty much every Android phone has it installed. (Apple said that it had been installed on older versions of its phones, but its already been removed from iOS 5 for all hardware but the iPhone 4.) Likely the only reason it was on the iPhone to begin with was because Apple threw AT&T this bone until it had enough clout to get it off there.Since the name "Carrier IQ" is now the mobile equivalent of flaming genital warts, we suspect Apple will be keen on lancing that last software boil ASAP. Android users eager
to get it off their phones will have to resort to more creative methods until carriers and handset makers wise up and make an uninstall available for the creepy software. Our internal lab tests reveal that tinfoil hats make fashionable items for your mobile phone but dont do much to stop Carrier IQ from working its black magic. More on AskMen: Why Men Are More Likely To Get Skin Cancer What Really Happens To Your Sex Life After She Has A Baby Continue Reading
Packer Green
owned model might be an example for other (especially small-market) teams. Taxpayers don't have to shoulder the huge Want to own an NFL team? Well, burden of updating old stadiums, dig into the nooks and crannies of and by having a voice in the your sofa and return your empties team's affairs, the shareholders because if you can scratch make sure the team can't be together $250, you can buy the relocated by one greedy owner. Green Bay Packers. At least a There are currently 112,158 piece of the team. A small, small s h a r e h o l d e r s w h o o w n a piece.The Packers, the league's combined total of 4,750,937 n i n t h m o s t v a l u a b l e t e a m shares. While Green Bay is worth according to Forbes, is the NFL's over a billion dollars, don't expect only publicly owned franchise. anything in return for your hardThe team will be putting 250,000 earned cash -- except bragging s h a r e s u p f o r s a l e s t a r t i n g rights. The Green Bay Packers are December 6th. With each share a non-profit organization; all valued at $250, the Packers are income goes back into the team hoping to raise $62.5 million. The and the stadium.You'd better stock sale will help pay for hurry, though. The stocks are only improvements to Lambeau Field, on sale until February 29th. which will include the installation Continue Reading of 6,500 seats. During tough financial times, this publicly
AskMen Editors (AskMen Latest Articles)
TED: Luis von Ahn: Massive-scale online collaboration - Luis von Ahn (2011)
TEDTalks (TEDTalks (video))
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:39:04 AM
After re-purposing CAPTCHA so each human-typed response helps digitize books, Luis von Ahn
wondered how else to use small language while translating the contributions by many on the Web quickly and accurately -- all Internet for greater good. At for free. TEDxCMU, he shares how his ambitious new project, Duolingo, will help millions learn a new
Culture/
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MONEY
Men And Skin Cancer

spurred a unique inflammatory white blood cell called myeloidderived suppressor cells to travel from the bone marrow to the P a u l y D a n d M i k e T h e exposed skin. In short, there was a Situation should be concerned if higher population of these cells they keep fake baking. Thats moving to the skin in males because men are three times more compared to females, and the likely to develop skin cancer than general theory is that these cells women. While thats not breaking can lead to the creation of skin news, scientists have struggled to cancer and other tumors. In any figure out the reason why men are case, you might want to avoid the more susceptible, and there UV rays as much as possible, so appears to be a breakthrough. opt for Jwowws bronzer instead While testing mice at the Ohio of the tanning bed. Its a good State University Comprehensive thing that tanning is a far bigger Cancer Center, researchers found priority for women than it is for that women may have more men. More on AskMen: What natural antioxidant protection in Really Happens To Your Sex Life their skin than men, and thats one After She Has A Baby The 10 of the key reasons for the Greatest Hangover Meals disparity. Secondly, the study also Continue Reading discovered that UVB exposure
Dave Golokhov (AskMen Latest Articles)
product except the price. There are plenty of options priced at one tenth the cost. And even though the Dyson Hot doubles as a cool air fan in the summer months, the total cost of ownership argument is still a stretch. Dyson is free to charge whatever the market will bear, of course, which is usually a hefty premium above both the good enough alternatives and the luxe competitors. Because youre paying a premium for the design, the company is often compared to Apple, an association which quickly becomes tiring. But there it is. And its hard to argue with success. Vive le capitalism! WIRED Compact and stylish. Safety features are comforting. Doubles as a cool air fan in the
warmer months. Remotes design is the best use of a magnet since the iPad 2s Smart Cover. TIRED Ive said it before, and Ill say it again: Price. Company CEO James Dyson indicates the Dyson Hot's general position in space and time. Photos courtesy of Dyson This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Give the Gift of Better Apps for Windows [Gift Guide 2011]
Whitson Gordon (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:00:00 PM
Charlize Theron on Being a Teenage Ballerina, and Her Own High School Crush
Chi Diem Chau (PopSugar)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:46:30 AM
Software isn't exactly the sexiest of all gifts, but it can actually be a great thing to give. There are a lot of apps out there that can make your friends' life easier or more enjoyable, that they might not pay for themselfand that's where you come in. Here are some of our favorite paid Windows apps that fit the bill. More
Charlize Theron stars in Young Adult, which opens in limited release Friday, as a teen fiction writer returning to her small hometown in the hopes of reuniting with an ex-boyfriend. She told us about her own high school crush, who she says somehow never even knew she existed. Watch to hear what Charlize has to say about her
"imaginary" relationship with him, as well as her comments on life as a teenager with ballerina aspirations.
Young white kids identify with language more than race

Language YOUNG page 54 (Holy Kaw!)can loom larger than race in defining a persons
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YOUNG
identity, particularly for young white children. University of Chicago researchers showed children images and voices of a child and two adults, and asked, Which adult will the child grow up to be? One adult matched the childs race, and one matched the childs language, but neither matched both. For example, children saw a white child speaking English, a black adult speaking English, and a white adult speaking French. The exercise was intended to gauge whether the children
perceived language or race as more central to an individuals identity over time. The responses from young, white, Englishspeaking children surprised researchers. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: University of Chicago Permalink| Leave a comment
Would you kill 1 Kate Hudson and Matthew person to save 5 Bellamy Stick to a Strict others? Training Schedule
(Holy Kaw!)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:34:00 PM
A new study suggests a vast majority of people are willing to violate a moral rule if it means minimizing harm, in this case letting one person die to save five others. Participants watched a threedimensional scene in which a runaway boxcar was heading toward five people who could not escape its path. The study participants were given the power to reroute the car to another track with only one person along the
route. Ninety percent of them threw the switch. What we found is that the rule of Thou shalt not kill can be overcome by considerations of the greater good, says Carlos David Navarrete, an evolutionary psychologist at Michigan State University and lead researcher on the project. Full story at Futurity. More research news from top universities. Photo credit: Michigan State University Permalink| Leave a comment
Katie Henry (PopSugar)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:16:56 PM
Kate Hudson and Matthew Bellamy were spotted once again outside their Primrose Hill gym earlier today with a pal. Matt and Kate have been spotted on walks to and from the gym almost daily since they touched down in the UK. Kate's fitness routine got her red-carpet ready for last week's British Style Awards. The actress stepped out in a sexy Stella
McCartney dress just five months after welcoming baby Bing into the world. Kate normally spends time in Aspen with her family
during the holidays, but it seems the Hudson-Bellamys might enjoy Bing's first Christmas in London. It's been an exciting year for Kate and Matthew with Bing's arrival and their engagement. Kate and Matt were often spotted sharing sweet kisses on both sides of the Atlantic and for that reason the couple nabbed a spot on our list of favorite PDA moments of 2011! View Slideshow
Culture/ TV/ Gaming/ News Photos
55
Kate Middleton and Prince William Kick Off the Holiday Season in London!
Allie Merriam (PopSugar)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:29:53 PM
Kate Middleton donned a black and tan dress from Zara and a Ralph Lauren jacket today for a special concert at London's Royal Albert Hall. She joined her husband, Prince William, and her in-laws Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles for a Gary Barlow show benefitting the Prince's Trust and the Foundation of Prince William and Prince Harry. Camilla was decked out in an ensemble from one of her favorite designers, Anna Valentine outfit. Gary, who rose to fame as a member of the pop group Take That, apparently addressed Will,
GTA III mobile out next week for $5 on select devices

Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 3:30:00 PM
Photos: Colorado Rockies acquire pitcher Kevin Slowey from the Minnesota Twins - Denver Post
(news photos - Google News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:29:43 PM
Photos: Colorado Rockies acquire pitcher Kevin Slowey from the Minnesota Twins Denver Post ( Photo by Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images) Kevin Slowey #59 of the
If you've been aching to wrap your thumbs around the smartphone-based Grand Theft Auto III: 10 Year Anniversary Edition(despite our concerns), you'll have your chance next week. Rockstar has announced that the title will arrive on select Alex Moaba (AOL TV) Kardashian's wedding. iOS and Android devices As part of Rancic's double Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:45:00 AM December 15, for the low, low mastectomy, which will price of $4.99. Filed under: TV Replay Giuliana dramatically reduce the chance of You can check out the full list of Rancic somberly announced the cancer's recurrence, she'll also supported devices after the jump. Monday on 'Today' that she would b e u n d e r g o i n g a b r e a s t We did not elect to include the be getting a double-mastectomy in r e c o n s t r u c t i o n . " I ' m d o i n g PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC, her fight against breast cancer. reconstruction at the same time, because, well, you're smart Minnesota Twins poses during Rancic and her husband Bill so they might come out looking enough to figure that one out on photo day at the Twins spring stopped by'The Wendy Williams even hotter ... Bill helped pick your own. training complex on February 23, Show'(weekdays, syndicated on them out and everything. I'm like, Continue reading GTA III mobile 2008 in Fort Myers, Florida. ( ABC) on Tuesday, and tried to 'Bill, that big, really?' He always out next week for $5 on select Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty look at the bright side of her scary said he wasn't a boob man, but devices Images) Kevin Slowey #59 of health situation. Rancic talked that's not true," she joked. GTA III mobile out next week about the disease and her path Permalink| Email this| Linking the... for $5 on select devices originally forward, and had a few laughs Blogs| Comments and more appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 06 about her treatment and Kim Dec 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments Kate, and the royals before commencing his performance. He said, "Good evening to our beautiful royal family." He then went on to do a medley of Take That's greatest hits. View Slideshow
Giuliana Rancic Looks at the Bright Side of Her Fight With Cancer (VIDEO)
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Politics-Left/
Kinshasa tense ahead of DRC vote result

Azad Essa (AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:45:58 AM
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo- The winner of last week's presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is due to be named on Tuesday, stirring fears of new unrest in the conflict-prone country. The latest result projections, announced early on Tuesday by the country's electoral commission, gave Joseph Kabila, the incumbent president, 46.4 per cent with votes from just over two -thirds of polling centres counted. His main rival, Etienne Tshisekedi, has 36.2 per cent. But opposition candidates, including Tshisekedi, have rejected the results, claiming that the electoral process was a complete sham and calling on supporters to rebuff the results. An official from Tshisekedis UDPS party told Al Jazeera that the electoral commission "must publish the correct results". Meanwhile, doubts r e m a i n e d t h a t t h e commission would be able to release provisional results as expected, as the central counting centre still had thousands of ballot sheets from Kinshasa's four constituencies. A spokesman for Congo's election commission said that the body was working to release results before midnight on
Tuesday, as required by law, but a delay may be inevitable if tally sheets are not compiled in time. Matthieu Mpita told the AP news agency by telephone that helicopters had been dispatched to the remote corners of the country to pick up compilation sheets. He said the numbers have not been transmitted to the central compilation centre in Kinshasa due to a technical glitch with the communications equipment. Mpita said, "It's our objective to release the results before midnight tonight," but it depends on whether the body gets a full count. David Pottie, from the US-based Carter Center monitoring organisation, said that completing the count [by Tuesday] would take a "tremendous amount of work". Pottie told Al Jazeera that the monitoring team had not completed their assessment of the entire electoral process, but had issues with the level of transparency and lack of ready information. Threat of violence Security intensified on Monday in the central business district of Kinshasa, the capital, and residents saw an increase in tanks, army personnel and riot police as fears grew of a possible backlash on the streets if Kabila was reelected in an election which critics say was dogged by irregularities.
white UN vehicles on the streets of Kinshasa after dark, a sign that UN agencies and certain embassies have issued security warnings to their staff urging them not to travel around the city at night. But Kinshasa is not the only city reported to be on edge. Officials in Mbuji-Mayi, the capital of Kasai-Oriental province where Tshisekedi enjoys much support, imposed an overnight curfew. In Lubumbashi, in the southeastern Katanga state, the presidential guard has been deployed to deal with security At least 18 people have already Jazeera that she was leaving for concerns. died in election-related violence four days because Kinshasa was While the threat of violence was palpable in some parts of the in the DRC, according to Human not the place to be right now. capital, some observers said Rights Watch. Business as usual As a precautionary measure Despite the tension, Kinshasa suggestions that violence was against possible clashes in the remained bustling with activity on inevitable were unhelpful and city, hundreds of Congolese Monday. Businesses were open, premature. flocked to the port on Monday to the local blue and yellow taxi It is arrogant to assume that make a journey across the Congo services ran as per normal and parties are not talking to each R i v e r t o B r a z z a v i l l e , i n informal traders sold their wares, o t h e r , " A n i t a V a n d e n v e l d , neighbouring Congo Republic. including fruit and clothes on the Country Director of National Democratic Institute (NDI), told Weekend reports indicated that city streets. an estimated 3,000 people had By early evening, however, the Al Jazeera. already made the boat trip across centre of town saw the parade of No one I have spoken to, from the river, in expectation of traffic emptying, with locals any party has expressed any violence brewing in the city. rushing home or buying last desire for violence, and the onset City insiders, however, said only minute groceries under the of violence would mean that talks have broken down, she said. a handful of passengers were twilight. boarding the ferry to escape and A manager of a local supermarket On Monday, the UN stabilisation if the situation really deteriorated, in the city centre said that mission in Congo, known as the port will most likely be closed business would open on Tuesday, MONUSCO, led a delegation of and people will use any means to but would probably close early if diplomats, including ambassadors from Russia and Gabon to hold cross the river but that not there were problems. happened yet. Nevertheless, heightened security talks with Tshisekedi. Rike, 24, a manager of a local m e a s u r e s i n t h e c i t y w e r e KINSHASA page 58 nightclub in Kinshasa, told Al conspicuous in the absence of
Politics-Left/
57
Shias targeted in deadly Afghan shrine blasts

(AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE))
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:02:00 PM
witness Ahmad Fawad said. "Some people around me fell down injurefd. I wasn't hurt, so I Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse: 'The got up and started running. It was a t t a c k s a r e a n a t t e m p t t o horrible," he said. destabilise peace' In a separate attack, a bicycle Two bomb blasts apparently bomb near a mosque in the targeting Shia Muslim shrines as northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif hundreds of people gathered to killed four worshippers, a district mark the day of Ashoura have police chief said. killed at least 60 people and A Taliban statement said the injured scores more, according to group had not been behind either Afghan police and media reports. incident. At least 56 people were killed by The Taliban condemned the a suicide bomber who detonated bomb attacks in Kabul and the explosives at the gate of the Abu- northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif as Ul Fazil shrine in the capital the brutal work of "enemies", a Kabul on Tuesday, many of them spokesperson for the armed group children, the AFP news agency said. reported. "Very sadly we heard that there Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse, were explosions in Kabul and reporting from the blast site in Mazar-e-Sharif, where people Kabul, said police had confirmed were killed by the enemy's unthe death toll. The ministry off Islamic and inhuman activity," health said that more than 100 Zabihullah Mujahid said in a people had also been injured. statement published on their Ambulances rushed to the scene website. to take the wounded to hospital Ahmad Shuja, an Afghan blogger while some berated police for and commentator, based in allowing the attack to occur on a Washington, told Al Jazeera major religious holiday, our "there isn't a strong likelihood of correspondent said. sustained violence" as a result of 'Huge explosion' these two bombings. "I was there watching people "We may see a scuffle or two in mourning when there was the streets like, what has suddenly a huge explosion," happened in [Afghanistan's
western city of] Herat in the past but there are a few reasons why it won't lead to sustained sectarian violence," he said. "No Shia group has the arms, organisation or experience to indulge in sectarian violence based on suicide attacks. They have been disarmed by the Disarmament, Demobilisation, and Reintegration (DDR) process and Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) in Afghanistan [as a result they] have been fairly successful of stripping every one of their arms. "It's important to consider that Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia have in the past supported various Shia and Sunni sectarian groups and could potentially fill that void now." Karzai flies home Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has cancelled a visit to the UK to return to Afghanistan after the deadly attacks. Karzai was in Germany on Tuesday evening after attending the international conference on the future of Afghanistan after NATO troops pull out at the end of 2014, in the German city of Bonn, and was later due to travel
to the UK. Earlier he spoke of the unprecedented nature of the attack, saying it was "the first time that, on such an important religious day in Afghanistan, terrorism of that horrible nature is taking place". In Depth Karzai also appealed to Afghanistan's neighbour Pakistan, which boycotted the Bonn meeting, saying it had "a very important role to play in the peace process in Afghanistan". At Monday's conference, delegates pledged sustained support for Afghanistan for another decade, in exchange for clear progress on good governance. Pakistan and the Taliban - both seen as pivotal to any end to the fighting in Afghanistan - decided to not attend the talks, undermining already modest hopes for real progress. Kabul has been targeted by a series of bold attacks in recent months; include assaults on the US embassy, a major hotel and the offices of the British Council. The blasts occurred as Shias gathered to carry out religious rituals to mark one of the most significant days in their
calendar. Ashoura, a public holiday in Afghanistan, is marked by Muslims as a whole, but for Shia Muslims it is a major religious festival which commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Shias were banned from marking Ashoura in public under the Taliban. This year, there are more Ashoura monuments around the city than in recent years, including black shrines and flags. Meanwhile, a bomb placed in a motorcycle exploded in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Tuesday afternoon, injuring three civilians, a spokesmfan for the provincial governor said. The site of the Kandahar blast was not near any mosque or shrine. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
58
Politics-Left/
Arrests in Russia after anti-Putin rally
KINSHASA
On Sunday night, Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, called the incumbent and two of the main opposition leaders, including Tshisekedi and Vital Kamerhe, (AL JAZEERA ENGLISH (AJE)) following for exposing corruption Putin said on Tuesday that the Clinton also raised "serious and impressed on them the need for sound leadership and unity at at state-owned firms and he government needed changes after concerns" in an address to OSCE Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:47:28 PM this time. coined a phrase - "Swindlers and a March 4 presidential election. officials in Lithuania. Hundreds of Russian opposition thieves" - which has now been "There will of course be a " W h e n a u t h o r i t i e s f a i l t o T h e y a s s u r e d m e o f t h e i r supporters are being held by taken up by all the opposition. significant renewal of personnel prosecute those who attack people willingness to co-operate and put the country first," Zuma said in a police following protests in the During the rally, organised in the government," Putin told for exercising their rights or country's two largest cities against mostly through online social members of his ruling United exposing abuses, they subvert press statement. This entry passed through the t h e r e s u l t s o f S u n d a y ' s networks, protesters chanted Russia party. justice and undermine the people's Full-Text RSS service if this is p a r l i a m e n t a r y e l e c t i o n s . "Russia without Putin" and "Putin After the biggest electoral upset confidence in their governments," your content and you're reading it Police said they had detained should be in prison." of his 12-year rule, Putin said he said Clinton. on someone else's site, please read more than 300 people in St Al Jazeera's Neave Barker, would adjust to society's demands "As we have seen in many places, the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentP e t e r s b u r g a n d M o s c o w a s reporting from the rally, said for modernisation. and most recently in the Duma protesters attempted to stage police locked down the centre of United Russia obtained 238 seats elections in Russia, elections that only/faq.php#publishers. Five mass demonstrations for a second the city after several hours of in the 450-seat Duma, down are neither free nor fair have the Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks. day on Tuesday. violent clashes between anti- sharply from the 315 seats it won same effect." Several thousand people first government protesters and riot in the last polls in 2007. According to police, 2,000 took to the streets of central police backed by interior ministry Its biggest opposition will be the people showed up at the Moscow Moscow late on Monday to forces. Communist Party with 92 seats. It rally while Shorina said up to protest against alleged fraud and He said protesters had gathered to was followed by the A Just Russia 10,000 attended the rally and v o t i n g i r r e g u l a r i t i e s listen to opposition leaders but party with 64 seats and the ultra- 1 , 5 0 0 - 2 , 0 0 0 m a r c h e d l a t e r after Vladimir Putin's United many demonstrators ended up nationalist Liberal Democratic towards the offices of the Central Russia retained power, albeit with clashing with police who had Party with 56 mandates. Turnout Election Commission. a greatly reduced share of the hemmed in rally participants. was just over 60 per cent. It was the largest protest in many vote. Meanwhile, officials said that The United Russia only managed years and a boost for Russia's Among those detained was interior ministry troops were sent to win 49.35 per cent of the vote, embattled opposition which Russian opposition leader Boris to Moscow and the alert level of down sharply from over 64 per traditionally struggles to mobilise Nemtsov who was stopped as he security forces was increased cent in 2007. protesters in a country which lost tried to join protesters defying a after the protest. The opposition claimed the its taste for street politics in the ban against rallying in Moscow. "They (the troops) have just one results would have been even turbulent 90s. Police said they had also arrested aim - to ensure the security of the more dramatic in clean elections. This entry passed through the Ilya Yashin, a prominent activist, citizens," interior ministry forces 'Procedural violations' Full-Text RSS service if this is a n d A l e x e i N a v a l n y , a n s p o k e s m a n C o l o n e l V a s i l y Monitors led by the Organisation your content and you're reading it opposition blogger, after the Panchenkov told the Interfax for Security and Co-operation in on someone else's site, please read protesters marched towards news agency. Europe (OSCE) said the polls the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentLubyanka Square where the "The number of troops deployed were slanted in favour of United only/faq.php#publishers. Five headquarters of Russia's FSB is determined by the Moscow Russia and marred by "frequent Filters recommends: Donate to security service is located. police," Panchenkov added, procedural violations" including Wikileaks. ELECTION COVERAGE without giving numbers. ballot stuffing. Navalny has won a huge online Ballot box setback US Secretary of State Hillary
TV/ Gaming/
59
Republicans Hate 'Jersey Shore,' Love 'The Bachelor'

Chris Harnick (AOL TV)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:30:00 AM
Adorable Zelda fan video will fill up your hearts

Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:30:00 PM
Filed under: TV News Snooki's poof apparently doesn't work its magic on Republicans. A new study by ExperianSimmons found conservativeleaning viewers tend to favor reality programming like 'Dancing With the Stars,' 'The Bachelor,' 'The Biggest Loser,' 'MythBusters,' but one exception to that trend was'Jersey Shore.' Also among GOP favorites is the History Channel's block of Alex Moaba (AOL TV) was eliminated," he said. programming: 'Only in America He declined to reflect on his with Larry the Cable Guy,' Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:00:00 AM temper-tantrum that went viral 'American Pickers,' and 'Swamp Filed under: TV Replay Astro after he refused to perform after People.' m a y h a v e b e e n e l i m i n a t e d being put in the Bottom Two. Two other popular liberal shows, from'The X Factor' last week, but "That's the past ... I'm not even on 'Glee' and 'Modern Family,' the 14-year-old rap phenom isn't the show anymore, I don't even topped the conservative list last exactly bummed about it. Tuesday find a reason to talk about it. Not year, but are no longer two of the on'Good Day N e w to seem like a jerk or anything, York,'(weekdays, syndicated on but that's the past ... I'm good. I'm Fox) Astro insisted that he's put on 'Good Day New York' right the talent competition in his rear- now because of what happened," view mirror, and is now focused he said. on writing his own new music. Permalink| Email this| Linking "I'm just ready to work on some Blogs| Comments music honestly ... my mind was focused on writing as soon as I
Astro Puts 'X Factor' in the Past, Says He Won't Be Writing Raps About Simon (VIDEO)
favorite shows among Republican viewers, according to EW. They did, however, still rank high with those on the more liberal end of the political spectrum. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments
Sometimes, you find a video on YouTube and you think there just might be hope for humanity after all. Adorable Zelda fan video will fill up your hearts originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
60
Products/ Politics-Right/
Pioneer 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers (Pair)

(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
GOP Naitonwide: Gingrich 37%, Romney 22%

(The Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:34:40 PM
BASS, A 1 SOFT DOME TWEETER FOR CRISP, Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:48:27 PM ACCURATE HIGH The Sounds Of The Season FREQUENCIES, THE WHOLE Look, honey! Carolers! No, no, BIT! ANYWAY, I GUESS YOU dont bother with the hose. I have SHOULD GET TO IT! a better idea. NOPE, IM SORRY! I CANT Well, hey there! Dont you all TELL IF THATS JINGLE look all festive and rosy-cheeked? BELLS ORI SAW THREE I bet you guys would LOVE some S H I P S ! Y O U R E G O N N A hot chocolate, wouldnt you? Or HAVE TO DO BETTER THAN perhaps some figgy pudding? I THAT IF YOU WANT THIS hear you people just adore the COCOA BEFORE IT GETS stuff. Well it just so happens I C O L D ! A u t h o r i z e d f o r happen to have a ton of the stuff SquareTrade Extended Warranty right here and would be more than Warranty: 1 Year Pioneer happy to share for a song or two! Condition: New I just have one tiny little Features: condition. You have to sing These speakers are designed by louder than the bands on my Its internationally renowned speaker A N o r w e i g a n D e a t h M e t a l engineer Andrew Jones Christmas album. Honey, could Chief Speaker Engineer, you start the music please? Andrew Jones has designed some Thanks! I SAIDTHANKS! of the worlds finest loudspeakers SO YEAH, WHENEVER YOU and now he has brought his highGUYS ARE READY, YOU CAN end expertise and passion to the GO AHEAD AND START creation of this affordable SINGING! I GOTTA TELL b o o k s h e l f s p e a k e r YOU, THOUGH, YOUVE GOT These speakers utilize a true YOUR WORK CUT OUT FOR curved cabinet design, so besides YOU! MY PIONEER 2-WAY the aesthetics being considerably BOOKSHELF SPEAKERS ARE more pleasing, this stiffer design P R E T T Y P O W E R F U L . reduces standing sound waves THEYVE GOT OVER-SIZED inside the cabinet, resulting in MAGNETS FOR POWERFUL high-performance and exceptional
sound quality The unique speaker grills are not just visually pleasing, they do a superior job of protecting the speaker drivers Sophisticated 6 component high -quality crossover design for fullspectrum clarity 1 soft dome tweeter for crisp, accurate high frequencies Over-sized magnets for powerful bass Curved cabinet construction designed to reduce vibration Designed for both home theater and 2-channel music applications Owners Manual Product Video (Pioneer's Chief Speaker Engineer, Andrew Jones) Additional Photos: Cable Terminals Back and Front Profiles Package Contents Specifications Enclosure: Bassreflex bookshelf type Configuration: 2-way Frequency Range: 65Hz-20kHz Nominal Impedance: 6 Ohms Sensitivity (2.83 V): 84 dB Maximum Input Power: 80W Cross-Over Frequency: 2kHz Magnetically Shielded: N/A Dimensions: (W x H x D) 7 1/8 x 12 5/8 x 8
1/16 Weight (each): 8 lbs 6 oz Woofer: 4" Tweeter: 1" About Andrew Jones Andrew Jones has been designing speakers for 30 years and has worked for some of the worlds finest loudspeaker companies. As chief engineer of both KEF and Infinity, Jones played a crucial role in developing many highly regarded products. Joining Pioneer in 1994, he led a multinational engineering team to develop many new and innovative speaker products. Since 2001, when he started the development of the remarkable series of TAD home audio speakers, Jones has served the dual roles of director of engineering for TAD as well as chief speaker engineer for Pioneer, designing both the best and the best value speaker products. In the box: (2) Pioneer SP-BS21-LR 2-Way Bookshelf Speakers Discuss this product Price: $69.99 I want one!
Via Gallup: PRINCETON, NJ Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney 37% to 22% in Gallups inaugural Daily tracking of Republican registered voters preferences for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, with all other candidates in the single digits. . . Can a Romney fan explain to me how he wins the nomination when he cant get above the low t w e n t i e s i n a poll? Greg Pollowitz This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Products/ News Photos
61
Altec Lansing T612 Digital Speaker for iPod and iPhone

Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:55:56 PM
come. And when you finally pass on, it will be with the sweet sweet sound of oh, lets say the Dont You Wish Your Speakers Pussycat Dolls playing in the Were Hot Like These background. And isnt that just Its not for you its for them. slightly better than listening to Those last moments. Your your family tear itself apart? c h i l d r e n a n d g r a n d c h i l d r e n Authorized for SquareTrade gathered all around. Theyre Extended Warranty watching you with smiles of love. Warranty: 1 Year Altec Lansing Someone goes to play a song Condition: New but your speakers wont take their Features: iPod 9! Now theres a fight! Your 4-speaker audio system offers grandchildren are disowned! Your full-spectrum sound with bass children slap each other! Someone enhancement lets you enjoy your has a gun! The cops bust in! Your digital music to the fullest final words of wisdom are forever Enjoy music on your iPhone lost, all because you couldnt be without worrying about missing a bothered to get our Altec Lansing p h o n e c a l l T 6 1 2 w i l l T612 Digital Speakers with their automatically stop the music auxiliary stereo input. when a call comes in Will this be your future? It T612 is shielded to suppress doesnt have to be. This is your mobile phone interference, so chance to get a four speaker theres no need to use Flight audio system with full-spectrum Mode while listening to music sound that can grow with TIME Built-in dock recharges your ITSELF! While it works with iPhone and dockable iPod your iPod and iPhone today, the Speaker offers rich, distortionaux jack ensures that youll be free sound able to plug all sorts of things in, Auxiliary stereo input lets you both today and in the years to connect another MP3 or CD
player Full-range sound with 4 specially engineered drivers two 3-inch full-range drivers and two silkdome 1-inch tweeters Built-in amplification provides 60 Watts of power The convenient wireless remote control puts track forward/back, volume, and bass/treble controls, all are at your fingertips Certified to meet all made for iPod and works with iPhone requirements provides great compatibility with all dockable iPod models and iPhone, including iPhone 3G Wall Mountable via the Wall Mounting Kit(not included) Additional Photos: Package Contents Packaging Specifications Dimensions: 14W x 5.4D x 8.2H Weight: 5 lbs Sound Pressure Level (spl): 100 DB Total Continuous Power: 60
Watts RMS Total Peak Power: 120 Watts System Response: 60 Hz 20 KHz (-10 DB) Signal To Noise Ratio: @ 1 KHz Input: > 70 DB Drivers: (per Satellite): Two 3 Full-range Drivers And Two Silkdome 1 Tweeters Compatibility: iPod mini; iPod nano 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G; iPod classic 4G, 5G, 5.5G, 6G; iPod touch 1G, 2G; iPhone 1G, 3G In the box: (1) Altec Lansing T612 Docking Speaker System for iPod and iPhone (1) Remote Control with Battery (1) Power Supply and Power Cord (1) 3.5mm Stereo Cable (for secondary input) Miscellaneous adapter for iPhone and iPod User Guide Discuss this product
Photos: Greek students clash with riot police on shooting anniversary of ... - Denver Post
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:25:52 PM
Photos: Greek students clash with riot police on shooting anniversary of... Denver Post AFP PHOTO/ LOUISA GOULIAMAKI Youth throws stones towards riot police in front of the parliament in Athens on December 6, 2011 during a demonstration to commemorate the police killing of a student three years ago which sparked violent riots lasting... and more
62
Products/ News Photos
Repairing flat tires is heating up the industry

Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:29:59 AM
Walt Disney: A life in photos Los Angeles Times

Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:28:04 PM
Repairing flat tires is heating up the industry Repairing flat tires is nothing new. Hence, youd think there would be a standard practice that all service providers would follow. In fact, the Tire Industry Association (TIA) has been at it for a long time, providing training to service professionals. Also, the Rubber Manufacturers Association (RMA) has had guidelines for professionals to follow. But repairing tires is not an air-tight practice. Tire manufacturers take different positions on the repair-ability of various types of tires. Plus, there are many different products available claiming to repair tire punctures. An improperly repaired tire may fail or blow out. RMA is seeking to address and reinforce the practice of proper tire repair, with some initiatives including updating consumer and technician repair information materials. Can enforcing tire repair through
legislation be far away? The reality is a proper tire repair is best handled by an experienced technician and a shop equipped to do the job. Fixing a broken tire requires removing it from the wheel, inspecting the inside of the tire, and assessing if the puncture is repairable. If repairable, the puncture should be filled and the inner-liner sealed to prohibit air and moisture from leaking through or seeping into the internal structure of the tire. If all is done right, the repair will last the life of the tire. Temporary repairs, however, are the gray area. They are usually cheaper and easier to do and get the motorist back on the road quicker. Any method used to seal a puncture without removing the tire from the wheel is considered a temporary repair. Common practices include using tire sealant or having a service attendant cram a plug into the puncture. Either method may successfully stop the leak, but without knowing the extent of the tire damage, consumers are taking a big gamble. What should you do?
Here are some tips: You can actually determine if the tire might be repairable. If you drove the car on a flat tire for any length of time, or the tire appears to be leaking air from the sidewall, its not repairable. Buy a new tire. If the tire is more than half worn, it may not be economical to have it repaired. A proper repair requires identifying the puncture area, dismounting the tire, inspecting and cleaning the damaged area, repairing it, and remounting and rebalancing before installing it back on the car. Local dealers in the Connecticut area charge between $10 and $20 to fix a tire, if its repairable at all. You can use a soapy sponge to identify the puncture area. If you see bubbles forming where you applied the
wet soapy sponge, you may have found the leak. Only punctures in the tread can be repaired, typically no more than -inch in diameter, and the puncture has to be about an inch away from the shoulder or edge of the tread. Keep in mind that these are only guidelines; a technician might judge the puncture beyond repair based on the route of entry through the tire carcass. If in doubt, buy a new tire. Read the tire warranty literature and vehicle owners manual before seeking a tire repair. Some manufacturers void the tire speed rating if it is repaired or prohibit repairing some tires.
Los Angeles Times Walt Disney: A life in photos Los Angeles Times (D23: The Official Disney Fan Club) Walt Disney in a promotional photo. (D23: The Official Disney Fan Club) Circa 1920, Walt Disney works at the Kansas City Film Ad Company. (D23: The Official Disney Fan Club) Walt Disney in a promotional photo.... and more
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63
Recall: Iams dry dog foodunacceptable levels of the toxin Aflatoxin

Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports)
Banana Republic Says The Sale Items I Ordered Are No Longer Available, But Really They Are
Mary Beth Quirk (The Consumerist)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:00:00 PM
if consumed in significant quantities. Pets which have consumed this product and exhibit Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:29:59 AM symptoms of illness, including Recall: Iams dry dog sluggishness or lethargy foodunacceptable levels of the combined with a reluctance to eat, toxin Aflatoxin vomiting, yellowish tint to the One lot of P&G's Iams ProActive eyes or gums, or diarrhea, should Health Smart Puppy dry dog food be seen by a veterinarian. is being recalled due to high shelves, and that no health effects Consumers who purchased the levels of a naturally-occurring related to this recall have been recalled Iams dry dog food should toxin that can sicken pets, Proctor reported. No other dry or canned stop using it and throw it away. & Gamble and the U.S. Food and dog and cat food (or dog and cat Consumers can also contact Iams Drug administration announced biscuits, treats or supplements), at the number below for a voucher today. toward a replacement bag of dog are affected by this recall. According to the FDA, the The recalled dog food has a use food. For more information, or a recalled dog food was distributed by or expiration date of either product replacement or refund call t o s p e c i f i c r e t a i l e r s i n t h e February 5 or February 6, 2013, P&G at 866-908-1569, or visit following states: AL, CT, DE, FL, and includes the following www.iams.com. GA, LA, MD, ME, MS, NC, NH, specific products: Size Code Date P&G Voluntarily Recalls One NJ, NY, PA, SC, VA. The U P C C o d e 7 . 0 l b b a g Production Lot of Dry Dog specific retailers are not named in 12784177I6 1901402305 8.0 lb Food[US FDA] Subscribe now! the recall notice, but the FDA bag 12794177D2 S u b s c r i b e t o does say that it is a limited 12794177D3 1901410208 17.5 lb ConsumerReports.org for expert number. It is also unclear how bag 12794177K1 Ratings, buying advice and many bags of Iams ProActive 12794177K2 1901401848 reliability on hundreds of Health Smart Puppy dog food is The toxin, Aflatoxin, is a products. Update your feed included in one lot. naturally occurring by-product preferences The FDA reports, however, that from the growth of Aspergillus r e t a i l e r s h a v e r e m o v e d t h e flavus and can be harmful to pets affected dog food from store
Spotting a 40% off sale is a gleeful event better than a measly 30% and almost at that sweet half-off price. So when Andrew stumbled upon just such a sale online at Banana Republic's site yesterday, he acted quickly to nab some of his favorite items. Speed didn't matter, in this case. When Andrew saw the sale, he went ahead and placed an order for a number of items to stock up on on winter clothing. But his plan for discounted goods went awry soon afterward. He says: Overnight, I get the email below indicating that several of the items are no longer available. I found this to be odd since normally most merchants would tell you that the item was on back order, and give you the opportunity to wait until it is back in stock. Further, since these are all basic items that BR has been selling for years, I highly doubted that in some sudden, strategic brand shift, that Banana Republic would be exiting the sweater business right before Christmas. Shenanigans! That's what Andrew thought too, so he checked Banana Republic's site. And there they were, the same
cashmere sweaters and a v-neck he'd selected, all in his size and still listed as on sale. So, what could be going on here? Andrew thinks the items they stood to lose more money on were removed, instead of just a general website error. Andrew even had a chance to wring some more savings out of Banana Republic by returning items purchased during a previous sale and repurchase them at 40% off, but chose not to. Now he's just asking for the same level of respect. I am not sure I want to do anymore business with them if they can't live up to their advertised prices (I realize 40% is a huge discount, but if they don't want to sell items at that price, then don't have the sale). Between the two orders I placed, I spent over $700, and hope they would see me as a valuable customer. Also, contrary to their claim below, my credit card was charged for the full amount of all the items. Presumably, that means they will issue a refund at some point. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Products/
News Show Investigates Penny Recall: Schwinn Auction, Finds Out It Is Being elliptical exercise hazard equipment for fall Used To Promote The Site
Consumer Reports News (Consumer Reports) Chris Morran (The Consumerist)
Tucker. "I said if it's good enough for you, how bad can it be," one Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:30:00 PM Zbiddy.com user says about When Chicago's CBS 2 went to seeing the news clip on site. "I report on the rash of Better w a s j u s t a m a z e d h o w t h e y Business Bureau complaints manipulated your report to make against penny auction sites this whole thing work for them." which promise bottom-dollar Someone on the phone at Zbiddy deals on everything from laptops denied CBS 2's accusations that to sports cars but which critics say the website is misleading, saying is nothing but another form of customers just need to "read gambling it probably wasn't everything." expecting to find out its own news Zbiddy.com appears to have show was being used to promote scrubbed itself of promo videos the very site it was investigating. since being contacted by CBS, but But when the CBS 2 reporter it still has the video at the bottom w e n t t o t h e h o m e p a g e o f of this story on its YouTube page. Zbiddy.com, she found a link to a Meanwhile, the original purpose video montage of heavily edited of the CBS story was to write news reports on penny auctions, about how the Better Business including a clip from CBS 2. Bureau in Chicago has seen a "Left out of the butchered version 400% increase in the number of w a s i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e complaints against penny auction difficulty of winning a hot item," sites. writes CBS reporter Dorothy "There are more and more of
these sites each and every week, it seems to be. They can be here in America, they can be in Third World companies," Steve Bernas, president and chief executive officer of the Better Business Bureau, said. Back in March, our investigative in-laws at Consumer Reports put penny auctions under the microscope and found that, "For everyone who gets an amazing deal, many others spend a lot of money only to be disappointed." 'Penny Auction' Websites G e n e r a t i n g Complaints[CBSlocal.com] This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Submitted at 12/6/2011 10:29:59 AM
Recall: Schwinn elliptical exercise equipment for fall hazard The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a recall alert for elliptical exercise equipment made by Nautilus of Vancouver, Wash. Approximately 10,000 Schwinn 460 models have faulty foot plates which can detach and cause the exerciser to fall off the machine. The federal agency says Nautilus has received nine consumer complaints of foot plates breaking off during use of the elliptical exercise machines. One of those incident reports the user struck his knee from unexpectedly falling from the machine. The machine is 73 inches tall and 54 inches long. It is made of gray anodized aluminum with two moving and two fixed handlebars, all with black rubberized padding. The fixed handlebars have heart rate sensors on both sides. The machine also features a touchscreen console, an adjustable fan, and an orange-colored, oversize water bottle holder. A medallion with the Schwinn logo is on the bottom right side of the base of the machine.
The recalled Schwinn 460 elliptical exercise equipment were sold at specialty fitness retailers and sporting goods stores nationwide such as Dick's Sporting Goods as well as online at Nautilus.com and Amazon for about $1,000 from July 2008 to May 2011. Consumers are urged to stop using the defective pieces of exercise equipment and contact Nautilus (toll-free: 800-259-9019 website: www.schwinn.com) for a free repair kit, which includes an extended warranty. Nautilus Recalls Schwinn Elliptical Exercise Equipment Due to Fall Hazard[CPSC] Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences
Products/ Sports/
65
Cohesion 9 Queen Air Bed with Built-in Pump

Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:28:57 PM
AT&T Once Again Brings Up The Rear In Consumer Reports' Cellphone Satisfaction Survey
Chris Morran (The Consumerist)
Its A Family Affair The holidays just arent the holidays until youve tried to make love to your wife on an air matress in the room you grew up in. Yes, honey, I know my parents are in the next room. Yes, I know this Cohesion 9 Queen Air Bed with Built-in Pump isnt exactly what youd called certified for mattress dancin no matter how comfortable and supportive the ergonomic wavy top style pattern is. And yeah, okay, the old Cindy Crawford poster on my door is a little off-putting for you even
with the lights off. But, seriously, theres a fifteen year-old boy inside my head thats really, REALLY excited about having a girl in my room. Come on. You dont want to disappoint that kid, do you? I mean, its Christmas. Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty Condition: New Ergonomic wavy top style pattern provides comfort and support Flocked surface provides feeling of warmth 21 gauge top; 14 gauge sides and bottom; 12.8 gauge coil Built-in air pump Inflation time: 1:40
Deflation Time: 1:51 Fits most bed sheets Carry bag included for convenient storage Dimensions: 78(L) x 60(W) x 9(H) Weight: 12.8 lbs Additional Photos: Package Contents Packaging In the box: Cohesion COH-9Q 9 Queen Air Bed with Built-in Pump Carry bag Discuss this product
subscribers to prepaid and smaller standard-service providers are happiest overall with their cellSubmitted at 12/6/2011 2:15:00 PM phone service," said Paul For the second year in a row, Reynolds, electronics editor for AT&T's wireless service finds Consumer Reports. "However, itself at the bottom of the ratings these carriers aren't for everyone. in a customer satisfaction survey Some are only regional, and done by our cohorts at Consumer prepaid carriers tend to offer few Reports. or no smart phones.The major With good scores from customers carriers are still leading options on texting and data service for many consumers, and we satisfaction, Verizon Wireless found they ranged widely in how also repeated as the highest-rated w e l l t h e y s a t i s f i e d t h e i r of the four major cell service c u s t o m e r s . " providers, followed closely by The CR survey questioned more Sprint. than 66,000 subscribers about T-Mobile followed behind both their service and customerthose providers but still rated support experience with both significantly better than AT&T. AT&T page 66 "Our survey indicates that
Disabled MMA fighter Nick Newell, without a forearm or hand, submits opponent
Steve Cofield (Y! Sports Blogs - Yahoo! Sports)
he's accomplishing without a forearm or fist on his left arm is simply incredible. Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:07:15 PM Watch him finish off Hernandez N i c k N e w e l l ' s d r e a m r u n (3:44 mark) with a nifty heel continued on Friday during a hook. Legacy Fight championship event. Newell, who debuted in MMA in He moved to 6-1 in his young June of 2009, began his athletic MMA career with a win over journey in his school where he Denis Hernadez at XFC 15. What won 153 wrestling matches.
Newell knows his MMA career serves a bigger purpose. "My goal is to prove that people with disabilities can go out and win," he said. "It's more of a message I'd like to send, that if you have a goal, go out and do it. Try it, whether it's fighting or something else. Whether you want to be the best at your job, or
at sports, just do your best," Newell told MMAFighting.com in 2009. Give it everything you have. Winning is very important to me, but at the end of the day, even if I lose, as long as I know I gave it everything I had, there's no shame in that." Newell, 25, may never make it to the big-time in the UFC, but he's
going to give it a run. "That's every fighter's goal, you know? To fight for the UFC," he said. "I think it'd be great. Regardless of whether I have a disability or not, I always want to win and be the best."
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AT&T
standard and no-contract providers. AT&T rated lowest (again) in our annual satisfaction survey[Consumer Reports] From ConsumerReports.org: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
ESPN fires NHL analyst Matthew Barnaby after DWI charge - Chicago Sun-Times
(- Bing News)
Updated: December 6, 2011 10:22AM BUFFALO, N.Y. Former By JOHN WAWROW AP Sports NHL forward Matthew Barnaby W r i t e r D e c e m b e r 6 , 2 0 1 1 was fired by ESPN as the cable 10:20AM networks hockey analyst on In this photo provided by UA Monday, a day after being Athletics, Alabama defensive charged with drunken driving for lineman Damion Square, left, being found behind the wheel of celebrates with kicker Jeremy an SUV that was missing its front Shelley, center, and running back tire. Trent Richardson during a team In an email sent to The dinner, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2011, in A s s o c i a t e d P r e s s , E S P N Birmingham, Ala., upon hearing spokesman Josh Krulewitz wrote the announcement that the team the network informed Barnaby was chosen to play LSU in the that his contract was terminated BCS national championship effective immediately. football game scheduled for Jan. The decision was made a day 9, 2012, in New Orleans. (AP after Erie County sheriffs office Photo/UA Athletics, Kent Gidley) said Barnaby was driving a storyidforme: 22360898 Porsche Cayenne with front-end tmspicid: 8341938 damage and a sparking rim in the fileheaderid: 3759231 Buffalo suburb of Clarence,
Submitted at 12/6/2011 10:13:32 AM
and 300 points. He also had 2,562 penalty minutes in 834 games. He retired in 2007 because of a concussion sustained during a fight. He joined ESPN as a studio analyst in 2008. This is Barnabys second run-in with the law this year. where he lives. Barnaby was In July, he was ordered to arrested after failing field sobriety complete 500 hours of community tests and refusing a breath test. service to have charges dropped The 38-year-old had his license stemming from an argument he revoked and was given tickets to had with his estranged wife in appear in Clarence Town Court. May. Barnaby was accused of H i s l a w y e r d i d n o t r e t u r n causing about $300 damage by messages seeking comment. kicking a garage door in an Barnaby broke into the NHL with attempt to enter a home where his the Buffalo Sabres during the wife and two children live in 1992-93 season. He played for suburban Buffalo. seven teams over 13-plus NHL Barnaby was barred from taking seasons, earning a reputation as a offensive action against his wife pesky agitator during a career in and to avoid contact with his which he finished with 113 goals wifes boyfriend. He was also
ordered to attend anger management counseling. As part of the plea agreement, the misdemeanor charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment would be dropped if he fulfilled the judges order within a year. Barnaby, whos from Ottawa, would have faced potential deportation had he been convicted. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Sports/ Featured/
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Colombia Yields Fall to Podcasts in Three-Week Low After Android? Inflation Report - Bloomberg
(Dave Winer's "Scripting News" weblog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:26:28 AM
(- Bing News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:33:58 PM
Colombias peso bonds fell, pushing yields to rise the most in two weeks, after Standard & Poors warning that it may downgrade 15 euro nations led to reduced appetite for higheryielding, emerging-market assets. The yield on the nations 10 percent bonds due in July 2024 rose six basis points, or 0.06 percentage point, to 7.6 percent, according to the stock exchange. Thats the biggest increase since Nov. 23. The bonds price fell 0.544 centavo to 118.973 centavos per peso. Germany, France and four other nations may lose their AAA credit ratings depending on the result of a summit of European Union leaders on Dec. 9, S&P said yesterday. S&P said today the European Financial Stability Facility may also lose its top rating. European leaders are due to gather in Brussels amid an ongoing effort to resolve the euro regions debt crisis.
The market is awaiting results of this weeks summit, said Omar Escorcia, an analyst at Asesores en Valores SA brokerage in Bogota. The S&P warning adds to the uncertainty, and it translates into less demand for emerging market assets. Colombias benchmark bonds due 2024 earlier gained after a report showed consumer prices rose less than estimated last month. Consumer prices rose 0.14 percent in November, led by an increase in communications, transport and health costs, the national statistics agency said in a report late yesterday. Economists expected monthly inflation of 0.19 percent, according to the median of 30 forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. Prices for food, which has a 28 percent weight on the consumer price index, fell 0.05 percent, according to the report. Low trading volume this month, as is usual ahead of the year-end holidays, will likely keep the bonds due 2024 trading between
7.50 percent and 7.85 percent for the remainder of 2011, said Carlos Ramos an analyst at Interbolsa SA, Colombias biggest brokerage. Annual inflation was 3.96 percent in November, down from 4.02 percent in October, which was the first time in two years that inflation surpassed the central banks 2 percent to 4 percent target. The peso rose 0.1 percent to 1,933.40 per U.S. dollar, from 1,935.55 yesterday. To contact the reporter on this story: Andrea Jaramillo in Bogota at ajaramillo1@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: David P a p a d o p o u l o s a t papadopoulos@bloomberg.net This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
I've started walking for exercise, which I expect to do through the winter (if it ever arrives) so that means I've been listening to podcasts again. I don't listen when I'm riding the bike, it doesn't seem safe to me, even though lots of riders do. Anyway, I've been using my Nexus/S and the built-in Music app to listen to the podcasts. Synching on Android is, theoretically, easy. You just plug it in with a USB cable, and copy files onto the memory card. There's lots of room, and usuallly it seems to find some of the podcasts you put there. Until
recently, when I haven't been able to get it to find any of the stuff I've put on it. For a while rebooting the phone would help, but now even after a reboot it can't find the new podcasts. I'm stuck listening to the same old ones over and over. Or I walk in silence. Which ain't so bad. But I'd like to get some educating while walking. So my questions are thus: 1. Do you use Android to listen to podcasts? 2. If so, have you seen this behavior? 3. Found a workaround? 4. Should I be using some other software? 5. Should I forget about listening to podcasts on Android?
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Sports/ Politics-Right/
Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood welcome Tiger's return to winning ways after a 2year drought - Minneapolis Star Tribune
(- Bing News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 11:46:36 AM
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Tiger Woods is back to his winning ways, and some of the best golfers in the world are relishing the chance to face him again. Woods won the Chevron World Challenge on Sunday, ending a two-year title drought that began shortly after his personal life imploded. "It's something I look forward to," said Rory McIlroy, the U.S. Open champion who has moved up to No. 2 in the world and is playing at this week's Dubai Championship. "(Playing against Tiger) would be a huge experience and a huge learning curve for me just to see how I would handle it. "But it's not something I have experienced and it's not something that a lot of players in my sort of generation have experienced yet." Before Sunday's victory, Woods had last won on Nov. 15, 2009, at the Australian Masters a 26-
tournament drought. But that win moved Woods from No. 52 to No. 21 in the rankings. Unlike a year ago when he blew a four-shot lead in the final round at Sherwood Country Club to lose in a playoff to Graeme McDowell, Woods this time made his clutch putts on Sunday and came from two-shots back to beat former Masters champion Zach Johnson. It was a performance that seemed to show that his recent success in Australia was no fluke. He showed signs of coming back with nine solid rounds in the wind in Australia, finishing third at the Australian Open and delivering the clinching point for the Americans in the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne. "With Tiger, obviously it's nice for him, I think, that he could win again," fourth-ranked Martin Kaymer said. "It's good for us. He did a lot for the sport and the status that golf has in the world. "It would be nice to play against the best player whoever played the game in their top form and see if you can beat them."
Third-ranked Lee Westwood also welcomed Woods back, calling him "the biggest name in golf and probably one of the biggest names in world sports." Westwood said it can only help when Woods is playing at his best and on the top of the leaderboard in any tournament. "You know, obviously, Tiger getting back into the winner's enclosure is great for golf," Westwood said. "I think everybody likes to see the best players in the world playing well. Tiger has been one of those, that kind of player, and might well get back there. Starting to play well is the first start of that process." ___ Follow Michael Casey on Twitter at https://twitter.com/mcasey1 This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Your Morning Newt Basket

David Frum (FrumForum David Frum)
smartest guy to ever run for president, The Washington Post plays with Submitted at 12/6/2011 6:58:51 AM Republicans heads, writes a story John Podhoretz on Gingrich in suggesting that Newt Gingrich t h e N e w Y o r k P o s t t o d a y . does not carry Wall Street [Republican primary voters] baggage and might succeed at know him mainly from Fox c h i p p i n g a w a y P r e s i d e n t News. Obamas support among From a funny story in Politico H i s p a n i c s . that I missed while traveling: This entry passed through the Hes going to blow up at some Full-Text RSS service if this is point, and Im just hoping it your content and you're reading it c o m e s b e f o r e h e g e t s t h e on someone else's site, please read nomination, said one unaligned the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentRepublican insider, who has only/faq.php#publishers. Five w o r k e d w i t h p r e s i d e n t i a l Filters recommends: Donate to campaigns before. Im waiting Wikileaks. for him to say, Literally, Im the
Sports/
69
Calif. school fires legendary baseball coach for no clear reason

Jonathan Wall (Y! Sports Blogs - Yahoo! Sports)
over his many years in PUSD," Robinson said in a statement on Friday regarding the termination. Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:01:38 PM "The timing of this was not the When you've been coaching in best." the same school district for as That's an understatement. While long as Rancho Bernardo (Calif.) Robinson may have a legitimate High baseball coach Sam Blalock reason for firing Blalock, this has, you expect to be treated with whole situation spiraled out of a little respect. Blalock taught and control when he refused to give coached in the Poway Unified the coach a reason for his School District for 40 years, termination. Even if it was for winning 10 California budgetary reasons, Blalock had a Interscholastic Federation San right to know why he was getting Diego Section baseball titles a pink slip. four at Mt. Carmel (Calif.) High District officials had scheduled and six at Rancho Bernardo their next meeting for December and turning Rancho Bernardo into 12th, but with this ordeal getting from his coaching post, he'd be Almost a week after his firing, Thursday following the firing. But a baseball powerhouse. out of control, most assume they'll Blalock still isn't quite sure why it took them another two days, But despite his recent success at fired. have things cleared up in the next the school -- his team had won the "I was called into Principal Paul he was fired. After being forced and two revised release dates, to couple of days. last two San Diego Section Robinson's office and was asked out at the school for no apparent get a quote on record. One district Want more on the best stories in baseball titles -- the principal felt to resign," Blalock told the North reason, the principal at Rancho superintendent told NBC San h i g h s c h o o l s p o r t s ? V i s i t his best wasn't good enough. As County Times. "If I didn't resign, Bernardo and district officials Diego that they were still trying to RivalsHigh or connect with Prep have refused to release any find out what "exactly what the North County Times reported, I was told he'd have to fire me. Rally on Facebook and follow us "I didn't resign. information to back up the firing. transpired" during the Wednesday Blalock was called into Rancho on Twitter. B e r n a r d o p r i n c i p a l P a u l "There wasn't much I could say As the North County Times meeting. Robinson's office on Wednesday back. I'm stunned. I don't know reported, officials had said a "I have nothing but respect for statement would be released on Sam and the teams he has coached and told that if he didn't resign what I did wrong."
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Gaming/ Publishing/ Science/
iPad/Android-based games mag PXL looking for assistance on Kickstarter

JC Fletcher (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 3:00:00 PM
PXL is a proposal for a new game magazine on Android tablets and iPad, combining elements of traditional magazines and websites in a neat way. Each issue of the upcoming magazine will have a news section that updates weekly, and reviews that magically arrive on the day of release, so that issue always has the latest news (stretching the definition of an "issue"). PXL founder and former Joystiq editor Randy Nelson has
assembled "a crack team of gamers who've written for PSM, Nintendo Power, Next Generation, Official Xbox Magazine, PlayStation: The Official Magazine, Joystiq, and
more" to write for the magazine. The team plans to release the first issue in February, for $.99. A Kickstarter campaign is active now, offering free subscriptions and other bonuses in exchange for
the funding to get the magazine off the ground and into your tablet. If you're interested in a new outlet for games writing (in addition to Joystiq; never stop reading Joystiq), or more stuff to read on your iPad than Atomix, why not help out? iPad/Android-based games mag PXL looking for assistance on Kickstarter originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
Living in the Future: Play Any Song, Anytime, Anywhere

Dan Nosowitz (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:05:00 PM
Float Reader user-testing

deemanator (The Scribd Blog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:10:34 PM
Your session will last about an hour and will be done in person at Scribd HQ, located in the SoMa Scribd is conducting user-testing district of San Francisco. sessions for the new iPhone app, You will receive a $25 Visa gift Float Reader, and would love for card for your time and energy. you to participate! Requirements for participation: Sessions will be during the week 1) Complete a preliminary survey of December 12, 2011. Well be t o d e t e r m i n e u s e r - t e s t i n g asking you to test and play with e l i g i b i l i t y . our app. 2) Own and be willing to use
your iPhone or iPod Touch for testing. 3) Have not used the Float Reader iPhone app before. 4) Available to travel to the Scribd office in SoMa, San Francisco. 5) Willing to communicate your experiences with the Float Reader app with Scribd staff. If you would like to participate,
please email us at testers (at) float.com. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
A Blurred Road Trip Flickr user Bruce Berrien The future of music, and a hangover Living in the Future is a new column about those rare moments, as we go about our daily lives, when we realize that what we're doing is amazing. These days, we have a tendency to assimilate new tech into our lives without giving it much thought, much less gratitude, as Louis C.K. reminds us. But every once in awhile, we're struck by a moment, as visceral as it is literally incredible: "Wow. I can't believe this is possible." A few weeks ago, I went on a road trip up to the Berkshires, in western Massachusetts, near the Vermont border. The car, one of those odd little Volvo hatchbacks, was packed full of camping gear, food, beer, and four people LIVING page 71
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entirely too tall to be sitting in a car the size and shape of a bathtub. We were all hungover, a necessary next-day result of meeting college friends and "showing them New York." Between the two front seats was a banjo. On every lap was a jumbosized Gatorade. The Volvo has a nice stereo, we discovered in between listening to the how-is-it-that-loud pounding in our heads. In the car were CDs left over from high school--Wilco, The Rolling Stones--but also an auxiliary-in jack, for plugging in any kind of gadget that can play music. "Dan," my roommate weakly bleated from the back seat. "Do you have that song I like?" I knew what she meant--an old Allen Toussaint song we'd listened to the night before--and in the old days (like, two years ago), I wouldn't have been able to play it. It's not in my regular rotation, and I wouldn't have taken up precious storage space on my phone for a song I listen to that rarely. But I didn't need to. I opened up the Rdio app on my phone, searched for the song, tapped Play, and we all settled back to mentally combat the nausea that the torn-to-shit Brooklyn roads only exacerbated. "Jesus Christ," I thought, through
the grape-Gatorade-flavored haze. "I can't believe I can just think of a song, any song, and play it. This is like a superpower." Rdio is one of several subscription music services that are, in broad strokes, pretty much the same. You pay a pittance a month, usually $10 for full access (which includes stuff like mobile apps and offline downloading), and then you can listen to an unlimited amount of music from a catalogue of millions upon millions of songs. Spotify, MOG, Rhapsody, Rdio--there are differences between them, but those are less important in the big picture than the fact that they exist at all. Rdio lets you bounce around, trying new artists, in ways that have never been possible before. The artist you're listening to at that second also has a biography, a complete discography (often satisfyingly deep, especially in bsides, live albums, and rarities collections), and a list of similar artists, artists that have been influenced by and were influences of whatever is playing at that second. You can jump from song to song, album to album, genre to genre, like you would on Wikipedia: follow the trail from The Who to Big Star to Matthew
Sweet to Zumpano to the New Pornographers, and find out that the second rhythm guitarist in the New Pornographers has two great solo albums. Or use the recommendation service, or the Pandora-like "radio station." Or just look at what your friends are listening to--these services are all deeply intertwined with Facebook and Twitter, and it couldn't be easier to recommend or receive recommendations from people you actually know. For music fiends, it's like stepping through a door into a totally new world: suddenly, everything you've ever wanted to listen to is there, and you have the tools to find it. Having access to essentially every song you've ever heard of, all the time, pays off in unexpected ways. Some scenes: I'm at a friend's house. She has no stereo, just a laptop (which is depressing in its own way), and she doesn't have the song I'm currently obsessed with. I open up her web browser, go to Rdio's website, sign in, and bam: that song, and every other song, is there. Or: I'm trying to learn by ear the piano intro to that K-Ci and Jojo song that was a mainstay at middle school dances (look, you attract ladies your way, I'll do it my way). I can sign in to Rdio
and play it without downloading it, or buying it, or repeatedly reloading the YouTube video for it. Of course, now all my online friends know that I listened to it sixteen times in a row, but them's the breaks. Music subscription is the future of music. Ask anyone who takes music seriously, really seriously-the most annoying person you can think of, basically--who also uses one of these services, and they'll tell you the same thing. This is how we'll be listening to music in the future. Of course, we can't ignore that artists earn basically no money from these services, especially smaller artists--it's clear that the system for paying royalties will need a complete overhaul once these services get more popular. But there's surely a way to do that, and we're looking forward to the time when we can get the benefits of instant access to all music, while artists get the proceeds.
A Dead Sea Microbe's Fluorescent Protein Sheds Light on Brain Activity

Rebecca Boyle (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:15:10 PM
Hippocampal neuron (63X) Courtesy Nikon Small World Photo Micrography Competition: Photographed by Dr. Carlo Sala A fluorescent protein derived from a Dead Sea microbe could be a novel way to track electrical signals in the brain, researchers say. It's noninvasive and nontoxic, so it could enable neuron tracking without harming the neurons. Neurons communicate via chemical and electrical signals, DEAD page 72
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A Nuclear Plant's Cooling Canals Help Save Endangered Florida Crocodiles

Rebecca Boyle (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:30:48 PM
DEAD
American Crocodile Wikimedia Commons Here's something you probably don't hear very often: A nuclear power plant that lights up thousands of homes in Florida has become a major refuge for a onceendangered species. Canals designed to divert power plant water provide a safe haven for crocodiles, a supremely coldsensitive species that once numbered fewer than 300 in this country. The closed-loop cooling system channels warmed water into the canals, heating the crocs' once-disappearing habitat. "It's wound up being a win-win situation for the animals," said Bianca Martinez Cruz, spokeswoman for Florida Power & Light's Turkey Point nuclear
power plant. Crocodiles' only habitat in this country is in south Florida (where they coexist with the more common alligator; it's the only place in the world that boasts both species), but that habitat was slowly eroded by development throughout the mid-20th century,
as this AP feature story says. By the 1970s, there were fewer than 300 crocs in the state, and the federal government classified them as endangered. But in 1977, Turkey Point employees happened upon a crocodile nest in one of the thennew plant's cooling canals. The
and monitoring these channels could help neuroscientists understand brain function and degenerative diseases. But tracking electrical impulses is tricky. Molecular tags can be slow and even toxic to cells, which must be exposed to light for the fluorescence to work. And company set up a monitoring p i e r c i n g a n e u r o n w i t h a n program to ensure they didn't hurt electrode will damage and kill the animals (none has been found them. But a new fluorescent with any radiation), and this protein appears to track these program has helped track their synaptic action potentials without rebound, according to the AP. toxic side effects. It is derived Crocodile monitoring entails from the Dead Sea bacteria c a p t u r i n g t h e b e a s t s , Halorubrum sodomense. microchipping them and weighing The protein was previously used them. A video below shows what to dampen overly active neurons, this work looks like. Florida but in a new study, researchers at Power has a team of biologists Harvard used it as a super-fast who keep tabs on the crocs - not v o l t a g e s e n s o r , r e p o r t s exactly the type of job you would Technology Review. A team led by biophysicist Adam Cohen used expect to find at a nuclear plant. Now there are something like archaerhodopsin-3, or Arch, as an 1,500 crocs in south Florida, electrical sensor. They determined hundreds of which live at Turkey that an electrical potential could Point. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife change the protein's color, which S e r v i c e c r e d i t s t h e p o w e r could then be detected, serving as company for the population an electricity monitor. The team used a virus to add the increase. Arch protein into rat hippocampal [ AP] neurons in a petri dish. Using laser light (and watching through a CCD), the researchers were able to map neuronal activities at submillisecond time scales, they write. It worked faster and with a better resolution than sodium-ion monitoring, as well as other fluorescent compounds like jellyfish protein, they added. DEAD page 73
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Next, they plan to use Arch to measure neuronal activity in live animals, starting with zebrafish and the worm C. elegans, Tech Review says. "Microbial rhodopsin [protein]based voltage indicators promise to enable optical interrogation of complex neural circuits and electrophysiology in systems for which electrode-based techniques
are challenging," the authors say. The paper is published in Nature Methods. [ Technology Review]
dwelling bedbugs in New Jersey and North Carolina. They found remarkable genetic similarities among bedbugs living under one roof. Schal says all it takes is one mated female to check into a room for the bedbug party to get started. Once her sons and daughters become adults about 35 days they will mate with
each other. Their offspring will repeat the cycle and so on. "Inbreeding allows bedbugs to establish a large population with a small start," Schal says. The amount of genetic similarity among the offspring suggests that outside bugs are rarely getting in on the action. BEDBUG page 75
Consumers Need Protection from Consumer Protection Bureau

Diane Katz (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Bedbug Infestations Are A Family Affair

(Shots - Health Blog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 10:52:00 AM
financial regulation statute, the CFPB enjoys sweeping powers over all manner of consumer credit, including consolidated and Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:26:21 PM The Senate is slated to vote this e x p a n d e d a u t h o r i t y o v e r week on the nomination of consumer financial products and Richard Cordray as director of the services previously wielded by Consumer Financial Protection seven federal agencies. Were Bureau (CFPB). talking credit and debit cards, If confirmed, the former Ohio mortgages, student loans, savings attorney general would become and checking accounts, and more. the envy of regulatory zealots far (None of which had anything to and widewielding unparalleled do with the financial crisis, by the p o w e r s w i t h v i r t u a l l y n o way. But that didnt prevent accountability. President Obama, Messrs. Dodd and Frank from of course, thinks such regulatory exploiting the recession for hegemony will benefit consumers, regulatory gain. If anything, the but those who embrace a balance bureaus meddling will make of powers within government financial products and services know better. All of which is to say h a r d e r t o o b t a i n a n d m o r e that Cordray ought to occupy e x p e n s i v e t o u s e . ) himself in some other way until Fortunately, the bureau is Congress remedies the bureaus statutorily barred from imposing structural flaws. new regulations until a director is Spawned by the vast DoddFrank confirmed. And thats the very
leverage that bureau critics are relying upon to force a restructuring. Although the Senate banking committee approved Cordrays nomination in October, a contingent of Republicans has wisely pledged to oppose any nominee until the bureaus autonomy is curtailed. The problem is that the CFPB is ensconced within the Federal Reserve. Therefore, its budget is not subject to congressional control. The bureaus status within the Fed also effectively precludes presidential oversight. Its accountability is also minimized by the vague language of its statutory mandate. It is empowered to punish unfair, deceptive and abusive business practices. While unfair and deceptive have been defined in other regulatory contexts, the term abusive is largely undefined,
granting the CFPB officials inordinate discretion. These sweeping and virtually unconstrained powers of the CFPB would be a matter of concern no matter who heads the agency. Rather than rush to confirm a director, the Senate should as has already been pledged by 44 of its membersproperly limit the authority he would wield. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Janice Haney Carr/ CDC When it comes to bedding down with a mate, bedbugs aren't too choosy. Bedbugs don't mind sleeping with their sisters and brothers, if you know what I mean. And bedbugs' eagerness to mate with their kin is one reason their populations have taken off so dramatically. Inbreeding comes naturally to them, and it doesn't seem to hurt their offspring much, as is the case with most other creatures. "When we look at the genetic makeup of an apartment building, we found that most of the time, the bugs are all related to each other," entomologist Coby Schal tells Shots. "That suggests that there is a lot of inbreeding occurring." He and another entomologist named Ed Vargo examined genetic markers of apartmentBEDBUG page 73
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Health/
A Rarity: Earn More, Pay More For Health Coverage

(Shots - Health Blog)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:55:00 AM
iStockphoto.com At most companies, the little guy pays the same for health insurance as the head honcho. One-size-fits-all health insurance premiums that don't take into account how much an employee earns strike many people as
unfair. Why should someone who makes $30,000 a year pay the same premium for health care coverage as his boss, who pulls down three times that amount? Yet most companies continue to keep employee contribution rates the same for all employees, regardless of how much they're paid. Why don't they switch?
One of the obvious reasons to steer clear of a salary-based premium model is that plans with more variables are harder to administer. Companies already charge different rates for single, couple and family coverage and for different types of plans. Working salary into the mix adds a layer of complexity. Some raise questions about
whether an employee's wages are actually a good measure of how much he can afford to pay in premiums, particularly if there's a working spouse in the picture who earns a good salary. "Maybe it's not adopted more because it looks fairer than it is," says Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health. Then there's the from-here-to-
eternity argument. Once you start charging lower wage workers less, you can never go back, say experts, even if, for example, the composition of your workforce changes and you have many more workers that qualify for lower premiums. "You have to be able to live with it forever," says RARITY: page 75
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The findings was presented today at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in Philadelphia. The good news is that bedbugs' incestuous ways can help people cut off a looming invasion. Since most infestations start with only one or two bugs, Schal says, "if you detect them early and get rid of them, chances are you won't see another infestation for a while." One look at a list of the most infested areas shows that bedbugs love the city life. So, where are these itchy individuals coming from? Turns out, when Schal and Vargo looked at bedbug populations across the country, they found large amounts of genetic diversity among locations.
Most likely, this means bugs from various places around the globe are started new colonies in different buildings. For example, one apartment complex may house a line of descendants from Betty the bug, but down the street another apartment may have a line of progeny started by Barbara. Betty may have been smuggled into her building on a used couch. Barbara may have hitched a ride on a jet-settter's luggage. Next up for Schal is finding where bedbug population originated. "We want to identify where the ancestral population coming from," he says. "Where's Eve? And from a mechanistic perspective, how can bedbugs withstand the detrimental effects of inbreeding that other animals can't."
Schal and Vargo's work is documented in two papers that are currently under peer review for the Journal of Medical Entomology. Other research announced at the meeting includes the identification of bedbug attractants as well as the possibility of shutting down a bedbug's insecticide resistance. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Karzai cancels Downing St visit

(Evening Standard - News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:46:06 PM
RARITY:
Raetzman. Even so, some companies have added pay differences to the premium equation. Ten percent of employers currently vary worker contributions based on salary, according to benefits consultant Mercer. And more are considering moving in that direction in coming years as a way to avoid health law penalities that could be assessed if their workers' premium contributions exceed 9.5 percent of their household income, says
Steve Raetzman, a partner in Mercer's health and benefits consulting practice. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
6 Dec 2011 Afghan President Hamid Karzai has cancelled a visit to the UK, Downing Street confirmed. The decision to pull out of talks with Prime Minister David Cameron was taken after a series of bombings in the country in the first serious resurgence of sectarian violence in a decade. At least 56 Shia worshippers were killed by a suicide bomber at a mosque in the city while four more Shias were killed in a second bombing. President Karzai was due to meet Mr Cameron to sign a long-term partnership agreement between the UK and Afghanistan. At the one-day Bonn conference on Monday, about 100 nations and international organisations, including the United Nations, jointly pledged political and financial long-term support to prevent Afghanistan reverting to a safe haven for terrorists.
Foreign Secretary William Hague had vowed Britain would continue to support Afghanistan "long after" 2014, when UK forces will finally be withdrawn from combat roles. No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, which were carried out on a holy day, but Afghan's Ministry of Interior accused the Taliban. President Karzai said it was the first time attacks of such a "horrible nature" had taken place on a religious day. The Afghan leader had also been due to give a lecture called Afghanistan: Achievements, Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects for the Future at the London School of Economics. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Politics-Right/
U.S. Should Encourage Strong Japan-India Relations

Jeffrey Meyer (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
between Japan and India, but there was no consensus on the role security should play in this relationship. K.V. Kesavan, Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:39:00 PM India is steadily emerging to be distinguished fellow at the one of the worlds top economic Observer Research Foundation in p l a y e r s b u t s t i l l f a c e s India, argued that even though development challenges and things have changed in the past 15 infrastructure bottlenecks that y e a r s , s e c u r i t y s h o u l d n o t hinder growth. Heritages Lisa overtake economic interests in the Curtis has been arguing that the region. From the perspective of U.S. needs to acknowledge the United States, Daniel Twining Indias growing global role and argued that U.S. goals and the changing Asian strategic aspirations for India and Japan landscape. With new relationships cannot be attained if we make emerging in Asia, the United massive defense cuts. Maintaining States has an opportunity to a strong defense presence in the strengthen its presence in this region serves our greater strategic vital region. ambitions and gives the U.S. Following the State Departments g r e a t e r l e v e r a g e i n A s i a , announcement that the first round according to Twining, senior of U.S.IndiaJapan trilateral fellow for Asia at the German talks will occur before the end of Marshall Fund of the United the year, it is time to examine how States. the U.S. can encourage the One of the more controversial b u r g e o n i n g J a p a n I n d i a aspects of the IndiaJapan r e l a t i o n s h i p . I n a r e c e n t relationship continues to be conference titled IndiaJapan nuclear nonproliferation. For Ties: Asias Fasting Growing years, Japan was opposed to Relationship? hosted by the Indias nuclear ambitions, but Woodrow Wilson Center, three Tokyo was fully on board with the speakers stressed the need for 2008 Nuclear Suppliers Group Japan and India to strengthen their (NSG) decision to provide a e c o n o m i c a n d m i l i t a r y waiver allowing India to import partnership. civilian nuclear technology and The panelists agreed on the need fuel without signing the Nuclear to promote economic interactions Nonproliferation Treaty. Nuclear
dialogues between the two nations have intensified over the last year, though they were weakened by the Fukushima disaster. Heritages Curtis has stressed that incorporating India into the international nonproliferation framework should be viewed as an ongoing process that will take hard work and innovative thinking by the United States, India, and other partners. While Japans reaction following the Fukushima disaster is understandable, hopefully the two countries will not squander the progress made in their nuclear discussions as India seeks to join the ranks of nuclear nations. Takenori Horimoto said China is a major security threat on which India and Japan agree. He argued that the axis of Japans maritime policy and the JapanU.S. security alliance have gradually shifted from the fight against terrorism toward Chinas oceanic assertiveness in the past two years. The 2011 meetings between Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh emphasized the need for the two nations to strengthen their security cooperation regarding Chinas maritime expansion. The United States should consider the rise of
Chinas maritime power as a threat not only to its security interests but to overall stability in Asia. Now is not the time for the United States to make military cuts, which would severely weaken our security and economic interests in Asia. As part of its Asia strategy, the U.S. needs to strongly support the emerging relationship between Japan and India. Any U.S. retraction of its engagement in Asia would only embolden China and hurt the interests of the U.S., Japan, and India. Jeffrey Meyer is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: http://www.heritage.org/ about/departments/ylp.cfm This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
EPA to Raise Electricity Prices, Risk Blackouts

Romina Boccia (The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:30:00 PM
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seemingly undeterred by the slow economic recovery, is marching ahead with air pollution regulations that would increase electricity prices, raise costs for businesses and consumers, and risk power outages. The EPAs Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) are scheduled to go into effect in January of 2012 and 2015, respectively. Other pending related regulations include the Boiler MACT and Utility MACT rules, coal ash regulations, and new standards for cooling water intake structures. All of these are expensive and put jobs at risk. Earlier this summer, Americas largest utility explained that the EPAs multipronged attack on traditional energy sources could EPA page 79
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77
Democracys Enemies in Pakistan

Submitted at 12/6/2011 8:08:33 AM
A horrifying act of sectarian terrorism targets Shiite worshipers in Afghanistan: KABUL Twin blasts at Afghan shrines on the Shiite holy day of Ashura left at least 58 people dead on Tuesday, with one massive suicide attack in Kabul ripping through a crowd of worshippers including children. The attack in the capital and another in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif came a day after an international meeting in Germany aimed at charting a course for Afghanistan, 10 years after US-led forces drove the Taliban from power. The Kabul blast alone killed 54 people, in the deadliest strike on the capital in three years. The Taliban condemned the attacks as inhumane and instead blamed the bloodshed on the invading enemy. The explosion erupted at the entrance to a riverside shrine in central Kabul, where hundreds of
singing Shiite Muslims had gathered to mark Ashura, with men whipping their bare backs as part of the traditional mourning. Anti-Shiite violence, so common in Iraq, has been comparatively seldom in Afghanistan, where Shiites form only about 15% of the population. However, anti-Shiite violence has been rising in Pakistanand what befouls Pakistan seeps into
Afghanistan too. In October, a total of 39 Pakistani Shiites were gunned down by unknown and unpunished attackers in Pakistan. The attacks were all carried out in the vicinity of Quettathe same place where a suicide bomber killed 57 people in September 2010. Now take a look at a map. Quetta happens to be just down the road from Kandahar, which is
descended from the ancient Mongol invaders. Who are the killers? How can they act with such impunity? What is the real attitude of the Pakistan army and intelligence services toward the killers? Those are some questions to keep in mind. Also important to keep in mind: the Bhutto family that has dominated Pakistans civilian politics since 1971 (the current president, Asif Ali Zardari, is the widower of assassinated former PM Benazir Bhutto and thus the son-in-law of executed former PM and president Zulfikar Ali Bhutto) is both despised by the intelligence servicesand also the capital of what you might call Shiite by origin, although they T a l i b a n i s t a n . Q u e t t a h a s avoid mention of those origins historically been Pakistans main today. o p e r a t i n g b a s e a g a i n s t This entry passed through the Afghanistan, the headquarters for Full-Text RSS service if this is Pakistani intelligence operations. your content and you're reading it In both Pakistan and Afghanistan, on someone else's site, please read the victims of sectarian violence the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contenthave not only been Shiite, but only/faq.php#publishers. Five they have belonged to an ethnic Filters recommends: Donate to minority, the Hazara, who speak a Wikileaks. variant of Persian and supposedly
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Democracys Friends in Pakistan

Submitted at 12/6/2011 7:47:35 AM
Pakistans national security establishment may be the most dangerous force threatening world peace. Yet not all the news is bad. Eli Lake has produced an astonishing report detailing the construction of a pro-American counter-establishment within the Pakistani services which is struggling at enormous personal risk on behalf of a secular, democratic Pakistan oriented to the West. Officially, Americas relations Pakistans military and intelligence services were in a tailspin in August. Furious at having been kept in the dark ahead of the Americans May 2 raid on Osama bin Ladens compound, Pakistans military had kept U.S. investigators out of the place until it was scrubbed for evidence and had refused them access to bin Ladens wives for some time. And the Pakistanis had outed the CIAs Islamabad station
chief, putting his life at risk. Meanwhile, back in America, fears were rising over possible al Qaeda attacks on the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11. But in the shadows, far from the public rancor, Pakistani-U.S. cooperation quietly continued. In Quetta, the Talibans capital in exile, U.S. intelligence was monitoring the cellphone of the presumed planner of any Qaeda
anniversary attacks, Younis alMauritani, the groups newly named external operations chief. The Americans tracking datasignals intelligence, or sigint, as its known in the professionwas being shared in real time with the local branch of Pakistans paramilitary Frontier Corps. When his exact location was discovered, the Pakistanis smashed through the doors of his
safe house and grabbed him along with two deputies. Soon he was hundreds of miles away, at a special detention center in Punjab province, under intensive interrogation by a proU.S. faction of Pakistans InterServices Intelligence directorate. The Americans began getting regular reports on potential threats connected to the anniversary. CIA officials were even given an
unofficial visit to question Mauritani directly. Its an amazing piece of work, impeccably sourced, and a rare note of hope in the grim-US Pakistan relationship. Essential readingand a partial atonement by Newsweek/ The Daily Beast for their incredibly reckless action in offering Mansoor Ijaz a platform to broadcast wild fictions that have shaken Pakistans never very secure democracy and callously endangered the life of one of the finest of Pakistans dwindling group of sincere democrats, former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
Politics-Right/
79
Video: Arsonist Sets Himself on Fire by Accident

(The Feed)
EPA
always wanted to be a partial owner of an NBA team, but just Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:29:10 PM didn't have . . . Go NRO Live Blog Feed Kudlows Money Politics The Agenda One-on-One with Jon Huntsman Newt Gingrich on the GSE GOP presidential candidate Jon Model Huntsman dismissed Donald This interview has been floating Trump and the debate hell be around the web a little bit, but I moderating, telling me last night don't think it's gotten quite the that hes . . . Go attention . . . Go The Home Front The Corner Christmas in the Britain Means The Stupid Party Stocking Up on the Abortion Pill I took some grief on the recent Fantastic. The Brits treat the NR cruise by telling the group morning-after pill like a stocking that I thought Mitt Romney would stuffer. Telegraph: The British lose . . . Go Pregnancy Advisory Service The Feed (BPAS) will encourage GOP Naitonwide: Gingrich 37%, w o m e n . . . G o Romney 22% Exchequer PRINCETON, NJ -- Newt Governor Cuomo Backslides Gingrich leads Mitt Romney 37% New Yorks fiscal situation is so to 22% in Gallup's inaugural dire that Gov. Andrew Cuomo Daily tracking of Republican was doing a pretty good Rick registered voters' . . . Go Perry impersonation there . . . Go Right Field Planet Gore All I Want for Christmas is to Be The U.S. Navy's Biofuel an Owner of the Packers Boondoggle And now, you can: If you've Good news. The U.S. Navy is
cost Southern Co. up to $18 billion and increase electricity costs for Southern customers by an additional 10 percent to 20 percent during the next 10 years. Energy prices are expected to rise by several percentage points across the country. Higher electricity prices also mean higher only spending four times the price p r i c e s f o r m o s t g o o d s a n d o f o i l o n i t s b i o f u e l services. Possible blackouts are another experiment. . . . Go concern. Utilities announced that Bench Memos Cloture Defeated on Halligan they would have to retire older coal plants in response to the Nomination The Senate has just defeated the r e g u l a t i o n s . B u t g e t t i n g c l o t u r e p e t i t i o n o n C a i t l i n replacement electricity plants up Halligans nomination to the D.C. and running can take several years Circuit. Sixty votes were and is subject to potential regulatory delays of many more needed . . . Go years. In the meantime, an Phi Beta Cons 74-Year-Old Prof Allegedly Ran overloaded grid could be subject to blackouts. Meth Lab A recent report by the U.S. Septuagenarian Irina Kristy has taught math at Boston University Department of Energy fending off f o r d e c a d e s . B u t n o w concerns that pending air investigators claim she was pollution regulations pose risks to electricity reliability is far from involved in a . . . Go This entry passed through the settling the question of possible Full-Text RSS service if this is blackouts. Just a few days prior, your content and you're reading it the government-designated expert on someone else's site, please read p a n e l t o e n s u r e e l e c t r i c i t y the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content- reliability, the North American only/faq.php#publishers. Five Electric Reliability Corporation Filters recommends: Donate to (NERC), warned that the EPAs proposed regulations pose one of Wikileaks. the greatest risks to the electricity sector. In addition to reliability issues
from plant shutdowns, pending MATS create uncertainty. From The New York Times: about 600 large plants are likely to be shut for several months for the installation of pollution controls, executives said, and coordinating the shutdowns to avoid local electricity shortages will be a formidable task. Part of the uncertainty is that no one is sure how strictly the Environmental Protection Agency will enforce its rules or exactly what the rules will be. The agency is supposed to publish a new rule on mercury and air toxics on Dec. 16, for example. These misguided regulations pose a further obstacle to the return of a strong and vibrant economy. Congress should roll back the EPAs costly and risky attack on the American electricity sector. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Social Media/
T-Pain Talks Autotune, Apps and the Future of Music

Zachary Sniderman (Mashable!)
wave of auto-tune success with the release of an iPhone app, novelty microphone and a brand Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:32:32 PM new album, rEVOLVEr, released Technology has permanently in 2011. The app, I AM T-Pain, changed the way we listen to lets users auto-tune their voice by music. One of the artists credited singing into an iPhone, whereas (or blamed) for that shift is T- the microphone, called the I AM Pain, the perpetually auto-tuned T-Pain Mic, is a stand-alone toy R&B and rap hit-maker. dedicated to auto-tuning. Some years ago, auto-tune was Mashable had a chance to speak inescapable. Every rapper seemed with T-Pain about auto-tune, his to have an auto-tuned hook or run. app and microphone and the T h e t a c k y t e c h n o l o g y w a s future of music in the age of originally used by producers to technology. The Road to the App help correct notes that an artist Store couldnt hit or hold. The hope was T-Pain has always had a mind on that listeners wouldnt be able to technology and saw a perfect tell the difference. opportunity to get into the app In the mid-2000s, auto-tune game when other celebrities, such broke onto the hip hop and R&B as Britney Spears, Pink and Lil scene with producers and rappers Wayne, started releasing their e x a g g e r a t i n g t h e e f f e c t t o own apps. extremes. T-Pain was one of the I said, Well, I guess Im so first of those artists to feel the famous for the auto-tune, I guess I success and also the inevitable should make an app. And its just backlash of auto-tune. Critics said been flying off the shelves, Tthe technology was disingenuous Pain, born Faheem Najm, says. and destroyed any need for vocal The app was a smart move. It has talent. Auto-tune wasnt just been downloaded more than 2 decried by music purists and million times since its launch in angry bloggers celebrated 2009, according to T-Pains team. artists such as Jay-Z came out That was just the start: You against it, and even released a k n o w I h a d p r e t t y g o o d song on his 2009 album The projections with the mic and a lot Blueprint 3, titled D.O.A. (Death of adults buy it, like, pretending of Auto-tune). theyre buying it for their kids Well T-Pain survived the barbs Adults would call me saying and is currently riding another t h e y r e t i r e d o f t h e i r k i d s
slobbering all over their phones, T-Pain says of his decision to create a mic version of his autotune app. T-Pain insists that the mic is all about making music fun. I dont do the whole, Put my name on it, make me famous thing, Pain told us, although there is a video on T-Pains site in which he says of the mic: I mean, were just, were milking this thing baby. Were milking it. Regardless of the intent, T-Pains mic is selling well.Hard & B Its hard to stay mad at T-Pain, who swears by a type of music he calls Hard & B. Its more about process than genre. Basically its the hard way of doing music, TPain says. I write my music. I produce my music. I sing it. I damn near record all of it myself
expressive and unfiltered voices. After years of success, however, T-Pain still enjoys talking about the tech he applies to his voice as a way of educating people on how it works. T-Pain says he studied the technology behind auto-tune to better understand his craft. Auto-tune, it turns out, is actually sort of hard to pull off: You know, because it was made to correct bad notes and stuff, of course people say you just slap it on your voice and anyone whos tone-deaf can make a half-decent and you gotta go out and perform song. It also turns out that T-Pain it. Its a hard way of making is a decent singer even without the music. On the other hand, [some tech. The crazy thing is artists] get someone to write and theres always a song [on my produce it and you just sing it in albums] with no auto-tune and those are always the songs that go the middle like a puppet. In that sense, auto-tune is less a overlooked, T-Pain says. way for T-Pain to hide his voice Social media has helped alleviate but to create music in a different some of that frustration thanks to way. My dad always told me that massive support from T-Pains anyones voice is just another followers. Although he has more instrument added to the music. t h a n 7 0 0 , 0 0 0 f o l l o w e r s o n There was a time when people Twitter, he tries to stay humble: I had seven-minute songs and five dont know man, because you minutes of them were just straight look at someone like Soulja Boy instrumental, T-Pain says. I got and all these other people and a lot of influence from [the '60s they have millions of followers era] and I thought I might as well and Im proud to even have two j u s t t u r n m y v o i c e i n t o a follows; my mom and my dad . saxophone. He credits the core of The way that people show me his music and lyric style to R. love on Twitter? I dont know Kelly and Cee Lo Green, two T-PAIN page 81 R&B artists known for their
Social Media/
81
Can Gaming Change the Climate Change Conversation?

Zoe Fox (Mashable!)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:31:41 PM
T-PAIN
drop a reality fact. Parlors Climate Reality Patrol users tag their online comments with From Foursquare to Angry Birds deeper explanations relating to to Farmville, theres no denying climate change, earning rewards social gaming is exploding. and badges. Riding this trend, new ideas and While these games might not inspiration site PSFK recently share the addictive appeal of challenged designers to use social World of Warcraft their gaming to combat climate change. combination of a pressing topic At this months Gaming for Good and points and badges make them in New York City, 10 finalists exciting educational tools and presented gaming concepts, which conversations starters. If these address challenges presented by concepts come to fruition, do you The Climate Reality Project. think they can impact climate Environmental activist and former change? U.S. Vice President Al Gore evidence, some people are still not where youll feel compelled to Disclosure: PSFK is a publishing selected five gaming concepts he convinced that climate change and take care of the trees. partner in the Mashable believes have the potential to its effects are real. Other favorites included Publishing Platform change conversations about SEE ALSO:Trash Tycoon Zemogas Climate Trail, based on More About: climate change, climate change. Brings Eco-Responsibility to retro favorite Oregon Trail, in Gaming, Social Good In his opening remarks, Gore said Social Gaming For more Dev & Design which players follow a money private companies such as the One innovative gaming solution trail tied to false information, and c o v e r a g e : PSFK gaming entrants rather Gore loved was REALiTREE, a use that information to work Follow Mashable Dev & than governments, are leading the digital representation of the local toward a healthy environment in Design on Twitter way to slow the rate of climate environment and our role in 2 0 3 6 . A w k w a r d H u g s Become a Fan on Facebook change. Our democracy has been sustaining its well-being. As seen Greensquare is a geo-location Subscribe to the Dev & Design hacked, he said. It no longer in the photos below, large video game where you get points based channel functions with the integrity of our screens, powered by renewable on your checkins green scores. Download our free apps for founding fathers. energies, display images of Arnold Worldwides Reality Drop Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad Gore is a known supporter of conversation-provoking trees. provides you with the tools to win Zachary Sniderman climate change prevention and Creators Stark Design compare it any climate change argument on (Mashable!) believes the U.S. government to a communal Tamagotchi, online discussion boards and Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:59:22 PM does not do enough to protect the essentially a digital environment gives you points for each time you environment. Despite the People awaiting Microsofts shiny new user interface for Xbox 360 will have to keep holding
man. Its amazing. T-Pain has a busy year ahead. After our phone call, T-Pain had a day of interviews with press before heading to Jimmy Kimmel Live! to perform Drowning Again on piano and without auto -tune. Through the madness, his iPhone app and auto-tuning microphone continue to sell to legions of would-be crooners and lotharios practicing their Hard & B. More About: App, features, interview, Music, technology
Microsoft Delays Major Xbox Update, Without Explanation
MICROSOFT page 82
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MICROSOFT
their breaths. The update, which adds the tiles aesthetic seen on Windows phones and Windows 8, was supposed to go live around 10 a.m. EST on Dec 6. Larry Hyrb, a member of the Xbox team, started tweeting shortly before then to say that the update was being delayed; no reason was stated. As of 3 p.m. ET, the update had still not gone live. Hyrb has been updating his Twitter feed throughout the day, assuring followers that the team is working on it and to expect more news in the afternoon (Pacific time) on when the updates would officially start rolling out.
The hotly-anticipated update expanded the Xbox 360 into a multimedia hub with the inclusion of voice recognition, gesture controls, Bing search, television and social options. The delay might tick off some customers, but its not yet a disaster for Microsoft especially if the delay is to help smooth out and clean up the new interface before launch. Mashable will report back once the update has been officially released. BONUS: A Look At the Xbox 360s New Interface An Example of a Media Splash Page Media is front and center with the
new Xbox 360 interface, as seen with the HuluPlus app. Click here to view this gallery. More About: Gaming, microsoft, video games, xbox, Xbox 360 For more Entertainment coverage: Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter Become a Fan on Facebook Ed Morrissey (Hot Air Top Subscribe to the Entertainment Picks) channel Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:40:39 PM Download our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad posted at 2:40 pm on December 6, 2011 by Ed Morrissey Like Guy Benson, Im not a fan of filibusters on judicial nominees. Elections have consequences, and among them
Senate cloture on Obama appellate nominee fails

are the ability to appoint people to the federal bench. Instead of spending time rallying for filibusters on judicial appointments, political activists should spend their time defeating their opponents in presidential SENATE page 83
Cameron to demand 'safeguards'

(Evening Standard - News)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 12:09:03 PM
allow far tougher rules and sanctions governing the eurozone in future to reassure markets 6 Dec 2011 about the euro's long-term David Cameron has warned that s t a b i l i t y . he will block plans for a new EU Mr Cameron said he was heading Treaty unless European leaders to talks in Brussels later this week agree to a list of British demands. "to defend and promote British The Prime Minister insisted that interests". if eurozone countries want to use "Now, the most important British the "institutions of Europe" to interest right now is to sort out the rescue the single currency, they problem in the eurozone that is will have to back a number of having the chilling effect on our "British safeguards" in return. economy that I have spoken French president Nicolas Sarkozy about," he said. and German chancellor Angela "That obviously means eurozone Merkel renewed calls for reform countries doing more together and of the treaty after emergency talks if they choose to use the European in Paris. The aim would be to Treaty to do that, then obviously
there will be British safeguards and British interests that I will want to insist on. And I won't sign a treaty that doesn't have those safeguards in it, around things like, of course, the importance of the single market and financial services. "Now if they choose to go ahead with a separate treaty, then clearly that is not a treaty that Britain would be signing or would be amending but, of course, if they want to use the European institutions, then we will be insisting on the safeguards and the protections that Britain needs. "Britain is a member of the European Union, we benefit from
our membership of the European Union. Key to that is the single market. We want the single currency crisis solved but we will protect and defend British interests at the same time." Asked if he was prepared to reject a treaty that would save the single currency, Mr Cameron said: "To save the single currency you need more than a treaty, you need to address the competitiveness problem, the deficit problem, you need to take action to convince the markets that you are serious. "You need all the institutions of the eurozone, including the European Central Bank, to get
behind that. What I'm saying is that if - and eurozone countries do need to come together, do need to do more things together - if they choose to use the European Treaty to do that, Britain will be insisting on some safeguards too. As long as we get those, then that treaty can go ahead. If we can't get those, it won't." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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SENATE
races. On the other hand, Im not going to cry over the loss of Caitlin Halligan to the DC Appellate Court, nor join in the outrage from the party that invented Borking: Senate Republicans on Tuesday filibustered President Barack Obamas nomination of Caitlin Halligan for the U.S. Court of Appeals, prompting Democrats to denounce the move as setting a new standard for confirming judicial nominees. Republicans cited Halligans controversial stance on gun laws as a reason for their opposition. The new standard applied by Senate Republicans to nominations to the D.C. Circuit will make it nearly impossible for nominees of any president to be confirmed to this important court, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who before the vote made the case that Halligan had broad support and experience in both the public and private sector, said after the vote. Aformer New York state solicitor general, Halligan is the kind of nominee we should all welcome to public service, Leahy added. This filibuster is a disservice to the federal judiciary, and to the millions of Americans it serves. Yeah kind of like Miguel
Estrada, huh? Remember the basis for the filibuster led by Leahy and Ted Kennedy on that nomination? Cry me a river, Senator. Halligan didnt get derailed just for her position on gun rights, either, although that certainly played into it. She argued as Solicitor General for the state of New York that gun manufacturers should be held liable for any criminal acts committed with the use of their products. Shall we also hold car manufacturers liable for accidental deaths on the roads, and for robberies in which criminals use cars as getaway vehicles? Halligan also has never served as a jurist in her life, which makes her appointment to an appellate court unusual (although not unprecedented); why not start her at a district-court level instead? Are there no experienced judges who could fill this slot? As Guy explains, she has argued a number of rather extreme positions in the past as well. Halligan essentially wanted the Supreme Court to reverse itself on Hamdi by arguing that the President has no authority to detain al-Qaeda terrorists captured overseas. She also wanted to apply RICO statutes against prolife groups, as Mitch McConnell
noted in invoking the extreme exception for the use of the filibuster, and more: On the Second Amendment: As solicitor general of New York, Ms. Halligan advanced the dubious legal theory that those who make firearms should be liable for third parties who misuse them criminally. The state court in New York rejected the theory, noting that it had never recognized such a novel claim. Moreover, the court called what Ms. Halligan wanted it to do to manufacturers of a legal product legally inappropriate. Let me say that again, the New York appellate court termed Ms. Halligans activist and novel legal theory to be legally inappropriate. The Congress passed legislation on a wide, bipartisan basis to stop these sorts of lawsuits because they were an abuse of the legal process. Undeterred, Ms. Halligan then chose to file an amicus brief in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in another frivolous case against firearms manufacturers. Not surprisingly, she lost that case, too. On enemy combatants: In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, that the President has the legal authority to detain as enemy combatants
individuals who are associated with AQ. Yet despite this ruling, Ms. Halligan filed an amicus brief years later arguing that the President did not possess this legal authority. On abortion: Ms. Halligan filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that prolife protestors had engaged in extortion within the meaning of federal law. The Supreme Court roundly rejected this legal theory, 8-1. On immigration: Ms. Halligan chose to file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court arguing that the National Labor Relations Board should have the legal authority to grant back pay to illegal aliens, even though federal law prohibits illegal aliens from working in the United States in the first place. Fortunately the court sided with the law and disagreed with Ms. Halligan on that legal theory, too. The point here is that even in cases where the law was perfectly clear, or the courts had already spoken, including the Supreme Court, Ms. Halligan chose to get involved anyway, using arguments that had already been rejected either by the courts, the legislature, or, in the case of frivolous claims against the gun manufacturers, by both. In other words, Ms. Halligan has time and
again sought to push her own views over and above those of the courts or those of the people, as reflected in the law. Ms. Halligans record strongly suggests that she wouldnt view a seat on the U.S. Appeals Court as an opportunity to adjudicate, even -handedly, disputes between parties based on the law, but instead as an opportunity to put her thumb on the scale in favor of whatever individual or group or cause she happens to believe in. We shouldnt be putting activists on the bench. Indeed and Halligan falls well within the extreme exception that Democrats demanded in the Gang of Six compromise of 2005. Republicans are operating from their precedent, going all the way back to Robert Bork. They now have to live with it. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
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Politics/
Jon Huntsman Goes Squishy on Climate Change

Molly Ball (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:05:30 PM
Is the moderate Republican candidate making a late attempt to pander to his party's base? If so, he's not very good at it Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman has spent most of his presidential campaign being liberals' favorite conservative. His defenses of evolution and global warming represented a refusal to go against his beliefs to cater to his party's base, even if it meant his presidential bid would go nowhere. But on Tuesday, Huntsman sounded a different note. Asked about man-made climate change at a Heritage Foundation talk, Huntsman said he needed to see more scientific information before he would act. "I don't know -- I'm not a scientist, nor am I a physicist," he said to a question that asked whether he believed global warming was human-caused and if so what he would propose to do about it. "But I would defer to science in that discussion. And I would say that the scientific community owes us more in terms of a better description or explanation about what might lie beneath all of this. But there's not enough information right now to
be able to formulate policies in terms of addressing it overall." Huntsman added that it was "a global issue" and said the U.S. can't afford to "unilaterally disarm our economy or job creators in this country." A little later, Huntsman was pressed on whether he was being inconsistent. He insisted he wasn't, but he seemed to be arguing with himself. First, he asserted that, as a nonscientist, he'd trust those who are
scientists in this area, and he acknowledged that "99 percent of members of the Academy of Sciences have weighed in on the subject matter." But he proceeded to criticize the overwhelming scientific consensus as being based on potentially skewed information, referencing "one university over in Scotland." (Multiple investigations have found that the "Climategate" emails from the University of East Anglia did not undercut the
rationale for man-made climate change.) Huntsman then trotted out the analogy that if 99 percent of scientists told you you have cancer, "you'd pretty much say the scientific community has spoken, let's generally respect what they have to say about it." But where that parallel would seem to argue in favor of action on global warming, Huntsman tried to make it mean the opposite: "If there's some interruption or disconnect in
terms of what other scientists have to say, then let the debate play out within the scientific community." This dodge -- that the jury is still out on climate change and we shouldn't do anything about it until we know for sure -- is precisely what Huntsman was criticizing when he called out Rick Perry for his climate skepticism. Perry had said that the JON page 87
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85
Remember When Republicans Didn't Like Newt All That Much?

Chris Good (Politics : The Atlantic)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:03:16 PM
GOP poll respondents love the former speaker now -- but they used to see him as one of the least likable 2012 candidates Newt Gingrich is sounding pretty confident these days. "I'm going to be the nominee," he told ABC's Jake Tapper last week, not even a specter of doubt visible in his face. "It's very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I'm going to be the nominee." Gingrich spoke in the confident tones of an NFL wideout promising a Super Bowl ring -and he's right that current polling in Iowa and South Carolina indicate quite obviously that he has an advantage over Mitt Romney in those states. His star has re-risen, but it wasn't long ago that Republicans were cool on Gingrich. Not just on wanting him to be president, but on Gingrich himself. It's a strange trend that shows how fickle voters can be in deciding whether or not they like someone personally. Throughout his campaign, few on the right have questioned Gingrich's intellect, or his mastery of policy, or even his presidential leadership skills. But Republicans didn't always see him as more
than moderately likable. While personal likability was propelling Herman Cain to the top of the GOP poll charts, Gingrich's favorable/unfavorable ratings lagged behind those of his more successful rivals -- suggesting, perhaps, that his brash imagination had won him the respect of Republican voters, even if they didn't necessarily want to be friends with him. Which -- I think we can be sure -- is something Newt Gingrich was probably fine with.
From Sept. 10 - 15, while Rick Perry and Mitt Romney were adorated by GOP poll respondents, Gingrich's favorable/ unfavorable ratings were mediocre at best for a serious primary candidate, CBS/ New York Times polling showed: With Sarah Palin listed as an option, just three percent of Republican respondents told CNN in September that Gingrich was the most likable candidate: Things have turned around for Gingrich -- dramatically. A full 64
percent of Republicans view him favorably, while only 10 percent view him unfavorable, according to a late-November Quinnipiac survey. That's better than Romney (58/15) and Cain (45/21), the other two candidates whose favorability was polled. It doesn't seem as if Gingrich has done much to merit the shift in likability during the last three weeks. Maybe it has something to do with his calm performances in televised debates, which have accounted for so much of the
candidates' national visibility. When Fox's Chris Wallace asked Gingrich, on Aug. 11, about the mass resignation of his campaign team, the former speaker had little to lose. His campaign looked like a joke. He came out swinging. Gingrich hasn't had any major blow-ups with debate moderators, but he hasn't really backed off his prickliness either. On Nov. 9, he slammed the media and engaged with a little bit of back-and-forth REMEMBER page 87
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Politics/
Video: Energy Good for Obama, independence could be as Bad for easy as 1-2-3 Huntsman
Tina Korbe (Hot Air Top Picks)
unemployment is that those backward energy policies that restrict access to our own Submitted at 12/6/2011 1:05:29 PM resources also force us to forgo posted at 2:05 pm on December badly needed jobs. Research 6, 2011 by Tina Korbe shows that reduced job creation Bet youll never guess which not increased layoffs explains country is the worlds largest the high unemployment we have holder of natural gas, oil and coal now. Here is a readymade way to resources combined. Thats right. create jobs, which, again, the This country. According to a president says is his top priority. report released today by the In fact, the IER report shows we Institute for Energy Research, the could create 1 million jobs just by United States has 1.4 trillion (1) unlocking more federal lands, barrels of recoverable reserves of (2) developing shale resources oil or more than the entire and (3) eliminating excessive world has used in 150 years. regulation. Thats enough to fuel the United Why, why, why is this States for the next 250 years. Add controversial again? I understand natural gas and coal resources to that fossil fuels are nonrenewable that and were good to go for all and that people are properly the foreseeable future. concerned about the potential for But, thanks to backward energy their total depletion. But what policies, were still dependent on good does it do to conserve them foreign sources of oil. What is just to never use them? Or, better, perhaps even worse at least at why is it so hard to grasp that a t i m e o f 8 . 6 p e r c e n t depletion is hundreds and
hundreds of years away? Why not use the energy resources we do have, trusting the impending exigency of depletion to spur innovation and the probable development of an economically viable renewable energy source? Time and time again, technological innovation has enabled us to use oil and gasoline more efficiently and to access new reserves. Similarly, a creative and affordable fulfillment of the need for a renewable resource will emerge. In the meantime, we could be enjoying energy independence and an expanded job market. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
James Fallows (Politics : The Atlantic)
vacancies deemed "judicial emergencies" by the Administrative Office of the Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:05:18 PM Courts. No " false equivalence" from the And remember back when Jon White House today, in blaming Huntsman bragged about his "call the Senate minority for blocking, me crazy" status for believing by threat of filibuster, yet more scientists about climate change? judicial nominations: Ah, those were the days -- back I am deeply disappointed that a before he sensed that his chance minority of the United States to get some of the BachmannSenate has blocked the > P e r r y - > C a i n - > N e w t nomination of Caitlin Halligan to conservative vote might be at serve on the U.S. Court of hand. See the unfortunate details Appeals for the District of at TPM. (And when I get around Columbia Circuit.... Today, her to it, something further about the nomination fell victim to the big Obama speech today.) R e p u b l i c a n p a t t e r n o f This article available online at: obstructionism that puts party http://www.theatlantic.com/ ahead of country. Today's vote politics/archive/2011/12/good-fordramatically lowers the bar used obama-bad-for-huntsman/249576/ to justify a filibuster, which had This entry passed through the r e q u i r e d " e x t r a o r d i n a r y Full-Text RSS service if this is c i r c u m s t a n c e s . " T h e o n l y your content and you're reading it extraordinary things about Ms. on someone else's site, please read Halligan are her qualifications and the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contenther intellect. only/faq.php#publishers. Five Currently, Senate Republicans Filters recommends: Donate to are blocking 20 other highly Wikileaks. qualified judicial nominees, half of whom I have nominated to fill
Politics/
87
Obligatory: Glenn Beck vs. Newt Gingrich

Allahpundit (Hot Air Top Picks)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:15:29 PM
REMEMBER
posted at 3:15 pm on December 6, 2011 by Allahpundit Heres the transcript, although I recommend watching the clip purely for the drama of tea-party godfather GB confronting the possibility that this is the guy the new populist GOP is going to hire to remake Washington. Its all here: The Medicare prescription drug expansion, the cheerleading for health-care mandates, and of course Newts enthusiasm for tackling global warming. Watch for the part
where he reminds Beck that he testified against cap and trade before the House without mentioning that he once thought it was a fine idea. Ultimately, I think this interview was less about
debating ideology (note that Beck rarely engages him in a sustained exchange on any topic) than fostering an uneasy but necessary rapprochement between Becks get government out of the way
wing of the party and Newts use government to foster conservative policy goals wing. If hes the nominee, therell have to be a detente in the interest of defeating you-know-who. Heres the first olive branch as Newt tries to convince the Beck faithful that he agrees with them on the ends, if not the means. Click the image to watch. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo ( skip to 1:00). Without much substantive difference discernible in his own behavior, it's probably safer to assume that voters have just changed their minds about Gingrich. Image credit: Mark Lennihan/AP This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2011/12/ remember-when-republicansdidnt-like-newt-all-that-much/ 249435/ This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
JON
U.S. shouldn't spend money on "a scientific theory that has not been proven"; Huntsman lashed back that the Republican Party couldn't become the "anti-science party." At the time, he cited "98 out of 100 climate scientists" and the National Academy of Sciences as the basis of his conviction that humans contribute to climate change. The scientific evidence hasn't changed in the last couple of months, but Huntsman's view of it
apparently has. Conveniently, his new line comes just in time for his renewed attempt to woo the conservative media. But it might be difficult to convince his party when Huntsman doesn't sound convinced himself. Image credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder This article available online at: http://www.theatlantic.com/ politics/archive/2011/12/jonhuntsman-goes-squishy-onclimate-change/249578/
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/contentonly/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: Donate to Wikileaks.
88
Technology/
Android Market reaches ten billionth download, sells Minecraft, Swiftkey X, others for a dime
Brad Molen (Engadget)
Submitted at 12/6/2011 2:39:00 PM
Jawbone Up review
Dana Wollman (Engadget)
assumed it would at least have a Bluetooth radio, tying it together Submitted at 12/6/2011 3:00:00 PM with all the other products Back in July, Jawbone did Jawbone sells. s o m e t h i n g s u r p r i s i n g . T h e As it turns out, the wristband company, best known for its doesn't sync your vitals wirelessly Bluetooth headsets, announced it and for better or worse, it doesn't was cooking up a wristband called work quite the way we thought it " Up" -- a wearable device that would. To use the wristband, would track the wearer's sleeping, you'll need an iDevice -- no other eating and exercise habits. At the platform is supported, and there time, we didn't know much more isn't even a mobile website to than that, but given the company's which you can upload all your expertise in wearable tech, we data. Then again, it does things
other fitness trackers don't: it monitors when you're in deep or light sleep, so that it can wake you when you're just dozing. And because it's waterproof up to one meter and promises up to 10 days of battery life, it's lowmaintenance enough that you can wear it every day, which could be key to making some healthy lifestyle changes. So how did Jawbone do, stepping so far outside its comfort zone? And should you consider this over
Happy milestone, Android Market! It's a busy place, full of hustle and bustle -- so much so, in fact, that the applications plaza for Google's mobile OS just had its ten billionth app downloaded. In identically priced fitness trackers honor of hitting this mark, it's such as the new Fitbit Ultra? Let's passing the savings on to you, see. placing ten apps on sale for ten Gallery: Jawbone Up review cents. The sale will last for ten Continue reading Jawbone Up days (notice a theme?), so review procrastinators will have a little Jawbone Up review originally extra time to decide which ones appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 are worth a dime. There's a few Dec 2011 15:00:00 EDT. Please classics on the list, such as see our terms for use of feeds. SwiftKey X, Minecraft, Asphalt 6 Permalink| | Email this| and SoundHound. Check the Comments source link (or glance at the ANDROID page 89
Technology/
89
ANDROID
screenshot above) to see what else is available, as well as a press release straight from SwiftKey below the break. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Continue reading Android Market reaches ten billionth download, sells Minecraft, Swiftkey X, others for a dime Android Market reaches ten billionth download, sells
Minecraft, Swiftkey X, others for a dime originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 14:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Android Central| Android Market| Email this| Comments
Verizon planning streaming video service, gets ready to take on Netflix

Terrence O'Brien (Engadget)
its competitors will be watching closely... and we don't just mean Submitted at 12/6/2011 3:45:00 PM Netflix. Cable and satellite TV We can't say we're entirely providers are already wary of the s h o c k e d b y t h e m o v e b u t , public embracing cord-cutting, according to Reuters, Verizon is when one of their own seems to g e t t i n g r e a d y t o e n t e r t h e be encouraging the behavior it streaming media market. Reports sets off alarms. are that the company is in talks Verizon planning streaming with programming partners to video service, gets ready to take provide content for a Netflix-like on Netflix originally appeared on video service that it could offer to Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 customers not currently covered 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our by its high-speed FiOS network. terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Obviously, details are scant, and Reuters| Email this| Comments there's no telling when it might actually launch, but you can bet

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