Liberty Newsprint Jan-21-10 by Liberty Newspost

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The complicated question of Haiti’s orphans By Deborah Zabarenko (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 1/20/2010 3:10:22 PM

The devastation caused by Haiti’s earthquake has extended to some of its youngest and most powerless victims: orphans awaiting clearance to join adoptive families in the United States. The U.S. government has already said it will allow orphaned children from Haiti to come to the United States temporarily for needed medical treatment, and on Wednesday expanded its effort. Now three departments — State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services — say they’ll join together to deal with what is a complicated question, according to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “It is something that needs to be handled very carefully, because there are many issues involved in terms of making sure that … children that come to us are indeed orphans, until all the

search and rescue is done, or other families are located,” Napolitano told a Senate hearing. She was responding to a direct plea for help from Senator Jon Tester of Montana. Tester said five of his constituents “have completed all the paperwork to get the children from Haiti … and yet, they’re being held up.” “I need to get a commitment from you that the Citizenship and Immigration Service, an agency within your department, will

work with my office to help expedite our ability to get those kids out,” Tester asked Napolitano. She immediately agreed, and then described a complex situation. She said the problem of Haitian orphans was tragic and was likely to grow as the days pass and the number of casualties rises. But beyond that, she said, there are questions about whether adoptive parents in the United States are legally

qualified for adoption. Napolitano added that many children brought to the United States need to be immediately put in the care of the federal health department and checked before they can be moved. “So we have formed a team: it’s the State Department, it’s us, it’s HHS, as three of the big components, to really work on this adoption issue. Because we all want the right things for these children,” she said. “This issue is only going to grow over time.” For more Reuters political news, click here. Photo credit: Reuters/stringer (Haitian girl stands in front of a wall at the Croix de Bouquets Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti September 5, 2006, where more than 60 children receive care), Reuters/David Denoma (One of 53 Haitian orphans carried into a hospital in Pittsburgh, Jan. 19)

The Palm Pre Plus Can Run 50 (50!) Apps at Once [Palm] By John Herrman (Gizmodo) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:31:36 PM

As mentioned in our review, the added RAM in the Palm Pre Plus means you can run "a LOT" of apps. You know, like 10! Absurdist logic site PreCentral asks the obvious question: why not 50? Anyway, I'm stuck on the third mission of GTA: Chinatown Wars on my iPhone, because I keep getting calls while I'm playing, which shuts down the game completely. So, my question is, is this Pre Plus making fun of me? Because it sure feels that way. [ PreCentral]

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Chatty White House party crashers turn mum on Capitol Hill By Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington)

Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades and Initiations: ADS, CL, DWA, MON, MS, SBUX, WFC ... By Eric Buscemi (BloggingStocks)

target to $50 from $35. • Colgate ( CL) was upgraded to Submitted at 1/20/2010 7:03:11 PM conviction buy from buy at Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:30:00 AM Goldman. The most famous party crashers Filed under: Analyst reports, • F5 Networks ( FFIV) was (hint red sari and tux) who so A n a l y s t u p g r a d e s a n d upgraded to buy from neutral at gaily chatted with President downgrades, Starbucks (SBUX), BofA/Merrill. Barack Obama and Vice Morgan Stanley (MS), Analyst • Applied Industrial ( AIT) was President Joe Biden at a swank initiations, Wells Fargo (WFC) upgraded to overweight from White House state dinner in Analyst Upgrades equal weight at Stephens. November (photos still proudly • FBR Capital upgraded Wells displayed on Facebook), Fargo ( WFC) to market perform Continue reading Analyst clammed up when they attended from underperform and raised its Upgrades, Downgrades and a different event on Capitol Hill respectfully assert my right to William Pascrell interrupted target on shares to $26 from $21 Initiations: ADS, CL, DWA, Wednesday. In fact, Tareq and Michaele remain silent and decline to with: “Are you here today Mr. following the company's better- MON, MS, SBUX, WFC ... Analyst Upgrades, Downgrades were decidedly not engaging in answer your question,” he said, Salahi? Are you here right now?” than-expected quarter. Salahi looked around with a • Deutsche Bank upgraded and Initiations: ADS, CL, DWA, conversation with members of and she repeated. C o n g r e s s a t t h e H o u s e One lawmaker had enough of slight smile as if unsure how Starbucks ( SBUX) to buy from MON, MS, SBUX, WFC ... hold following the company's o r i g i n a l l y a p p e a r e d o n Homeland Security Committee the one-liners. “Let me ask you a to answer that one. Photo credit: Reuters/Larry better-than-expected Q1 results. BloggingStocks on Thu, 21 Jan hearing and basically had only question, were you there?” When Tareq Salahi started to Downing (Michaele Salahi at The firm raised its target price on 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see one line for them: shares to $30 from $19. repeat his refrain, Congressman congressional hearing) our terms for use of feeds. “On advice of counsel I • UBS upgraded Dreamworks ( P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | DWA) to buy from neutral, C o m m e n t s citing upside from its upcoming film releases. The firm raised its

Stocks to Watch in 2010 By Andie Francese (BloggingStocks)

words like "Dow" still strike fear into the hearts and minds of the many who lived throughthe stock Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:00:00 AM market crashes of 2008 and Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), 2009. But the market is on the Nokia Corp. (NOK), MasterCard m e n d a n d t h e r e a r e s o m e Inc'A' (MA), Stocks to Buy, promising stocks that could American Eagle Outfitters become breakout hits for 2010 if (AEO) The stock market and investors don't get overly trigger-

shy. Telecommunications and

computing stocks are some of the safer bets, but credit and gaming stocks could potentially offer big rewards to the more aggressive investor. So what are my picks for 2010? Continue reading Stocks to Watch in 2010 Stocks to Watch in 2010

originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Gene Barry obituary By Ronald Bergan (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:10:51 AM

Elegant star of US TV series from the 1950s onwards For any regular television viewer in the 1960s and 70s, the elegant actor Gene Barry, who has died aged 90, was inescapable. Most prominent was his portrayal of the Los Angeles police captain Amos Burke in 81 episodes of Burke's Law (196366). No ordinary cop, Burke was an immaculately dressed, jetsetting millionaire bachelor who left his Beverly Hills mansion in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce to investigate a murder. Barry as Burke, a wisecracking, sophisticated ladies' man, was the nearest thing on TV to Cary Grant. Each episode – bursting with Hollywood guest stars, one of whom was revealed as a murderer – allowed Burke to deliver an aphorism such as "never drink martinis with beautiful suspects: Burke's Law", or "never ask a question unless you already know the answer. Burke's Law". Before playing Burke, Barry had triumphed in the western TV series Bat Masterson (1958-61). The opening song says it all: "Back when the west was very young, there lived a man named Masterson. He wore a cane and derby hat … A man of steel, the story says, but women's eyes all

glanced his way. A gambler's game he always won. His name was Bat. Bat Masterson!" Stylishly dressed in a black derby, fancy waistcoat and jacket, and preferring to use his gilt-tipped cane rather than a gun to defend himself, Barry played the western hero with his tongue firmly in his cheek. "The costume dictated my performance," Barry remarked. "It changed my life. Every role I've done since has been a guy who looked good in clothes." Despite coming so early on in his long career in films, TV and stage, Bat Masterson and Burke's Law were his greatest successes, though almost two decades later, Barry, still the dandy, almost topped them with his performance as the gay owner of a drag nightclub in the Broadway musical La Cage aux Folles (1983). Barry was born Eugene Klass into a Russian-Jewish family in New York. His parents, who worked in the jewellery trade, sent him for singing and violin lessons as a child. While attending high school in Brooklyn, the young Eugene won a singing contest and consequently a scholarship to the Chatham Square school of music in Manhattan. Changing his last name to Barry, in homage to his idol, John Barrymore, he began his career as a singer in leading roles in Broadway operettas, using his rich baritone in a revival of

Sigmund Romberg's New Moon (1942); in Rosalinda (1942-43), an English-language version of Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus; and in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow (1943-44). He met his future wife, Betty, during rehearsals for Catherine Was Great (1944-45), written by and starring Mae West (Betty was fired before the opening night as West could not tolerate another blonde in her show). After being offered a contract by Paramount, Barry left New York for Hollywood, where he had leading roles in 14 movies, bringing as much charm as he could to rather dull roles. Many of his films were products of cold war paranoia. In his debut feature, the low-budget thriller Atomic City (1952), Barry is a nuclear physicist whose young son is kidnapped by Russian agents who demand the secrets of the H-bomb as ransom. Evil Martians attacking the Earth were, more or less, surrogates for the Soviet Union in the producer George Pal's impressive The War of the Worlds (1953), an updating of HG Wells's novel to contemporary California. Intermittently bespectacled – always a Hollywood signifier of intelligence – Barry was again the hero scientist who survives to see the defeat of the godless enemy, mainly through prayer. His final part was to be in the 2005 remake. In Edward Dmytryk's Soldier of Fortune (1955), Barry had the

thankless role of a photojournalist held prisoner and tortured in China, waiting to be rescued by Clark Gable. The main interest in Sam Fuller's simplistic China Gate (1957) is the racist character played by Barry, an American explosives expert helping the French defeat the Chinese communists. In a studio backlot cheapie, Hong Kong Confidential (1958), he played a US spy, posing as a nightclub singer, sent to rescue a kidnapped Arab prince from the Russkies. Barry also appeared in two minor Technicolor musicals, as a saloon owner in Those Redheads from Seattle (1953) and as a stereotypical Latin lover in Red Garters (1954). His last film, before working almost exclusively on TV, was as a tough treasury agent who proved to be the nemesis of the moonshine trader Robert Mitchum in Thunder Road (1958). After his long stint on Burke's Law, Barry played another debonair millionaire in 44 episodes of The Name of the Game (1968-71). This time, he was a magazine owner. Many years later, Barry said regretfully: "I have not been able to play just an ordinary human being … a man who is not the elegant head of an industry. I didn't like it much – the fact that I trapped myself or got entrapped in that type of performance." He gave variations of "that type of performance" in scores of TV

roles over the next 30 years, including appearances in Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Charlie's Angels and The Twilight Zone, plus a reincarnation of Captain Burke in Burke's Law (1994), now a widower working with his detective son. However, Barry was highly praised for his creation of Georges in the Jerry Herman musical La Cage aux Folles in 1983. As the suave partner of the flamboyant drag queen Albin (George Hearn), Barry was nominated for a Tony. He had the less showy part but brought realism and humanity to the proceedings, and delivered two nostalgic songs. "I was not playing a homosexual. I was playing a person who cares deeply about another person," he recalled. "I didn't camp him up, and that's what the gay community loved. I played him sensitively, caringly." Barry was almost fired during rehearsals, but, finally, the director, Arthur Laurents, asked him to look into Hearn's eyes more often to convey a greater sense of tender affection and to introduce the club acts with more panache. Barry, whose wife of almost 60 years died in 2003, is survived by two sons and a daughter. • Gene Barry (Eugene Klass), actor; born 14 June 1919; died 9 December 2009 GENE page 5

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Peter Fraenkel obituary (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

pumping house or lock been restored. The Fraenkel report (1975) argued persuasively that there was a case for restoring Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:16:51 AM much of the network, aided by Award-winning civil engineer central government funding. r e s p o n s i b l e f o r w o r l d w i d e This report, for the Department projects of the Environment, was a Peter Fraenkel, who has died catalyst for some early projects, aged 94, was a civil engineer at such as the restoration of 39 the heart of a movement of locks on the Kennet and Avon British consulting engineers canal and the restoration of the responsible for infrastructure all Avoncliff aqueduct, which Peter over the rapidly developing post- Fraenkel and Partners (PFP) colonial world of the 1970s and carried out. By the turn of the 80s. He built up a 160-strong millennium, he was able to look p r a c t i c e t h a t p r o d u c e d back with pride at his role in the innovative, heavy engineering UK-wide regeneration of the solutions to such problems as 1 8 t h - a n d 1 9 t h - c e n t u r y how to support the world's then w a t e r w a y s . longest cable-stayed bridge in Fraenkel was born in Breslau, Thailand and how to build the Germany, now Wroclaw in biggest road projects at that time Poland. His German parents – t h r o u g h t h e c h a l l e n g i n g his father was Jewish, though topography of Hong Kong. Peter was brought up as a In the UK, he quickly made a Lutheran – horrified at the rise of name for himself by carrying out nazism, sent Peter to London r e s e a r c h t h a t l e d t o t h e aged 16. He rapidly learned regeneration of Britain's stricken English and won a place to study canal network. Fraenkel was civil engineering at Imperial asked to put together teams to College. walk along some of the country's When the second world war 3,100km of canals to research broke out, Fraenkel was assigned the feasibility of bringing them to the Ministry of Works to back into commercial use. Many supervise the building of brigade had fallen into dereliction and c a m p s n e e d e d f o r s o l d i e r only through the efforts of training. After the war he joined enthusiasts had the occasional the consulting engineers Rendel

Palmer and Tritton, specialising in heavy marine engineering projects. His most notable job was the Port Talbot harbour in south Wales. The presentation of this project at the Institution of Civil Engineers led to his being awarded the Telford medal, the most prestigious in its field. He took the bold step of setting up his own consultancy in 1972. It grew rapidly, winning projects all over the world, and received the Queen's award for enterprise in 1982. Projects in the UK included the loading jetties at the Sullom Voe oil terminal in Shetland, completed in 1978, and the floodgates to protect the entrances to the Royal docks and Tilbury docks, east of London, which were threatened by the rise in the water level after the completion of the Thames barrier in 1982. Overseas, Fraenkel opened an office in Nigeria in 1976 and worked on 600km of highways, including the 200km highway from Biu to Maiduguri, in the north of the country, which required clever solutions to ensure that the road and bridge structures resisted flash flooding in the rainy reason from the Ngadda river. He opened another short-lived office in Cameroon and lost a lot of money due to the

misappropriation of funds. Chastened, but with important lessons learned, Fraenkel moved into the next decade by turning his attention to the far east and south-east Asia. Notable projects included a dockyard built in a mangrove swamp for the Thai navy at Pom Prachul, near Bangkok, in 1980; the Rama IX bridge in Bangkok, which – when it was completed in 1987 – was the longest cablestayed bridge in the world, with a main span of 450m; and a highway in Malaysia from Sandakan to Kinatanga, which aided economic development in the east of the country. In Hong Kong, PFP designed the Tolo highway (1985), built along land reclaimed from the sea from Shatin to Tai Po in the New Territories. Another Hong Kong triumph in the mid-1980s was the enlargement and realignment of the congested King's Road. By the late 1980s, however, work overseas began to dry up, as foreign consultants from the US and elsewhere challenged the market-leading UK engineering consultants. Project funders, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, had also begun to redeploy their support for developing economies away from

Box.net gets a killer app: previews for everything By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com)

File storage service Box.net has a new trick up it's sleeve: it can now show you a quick preview

of any file without having to open it up in its native software application.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

infrastructure and into improving governance. Fraenkel kept the firm afloat by breaking into the UK highways sector, where there was a boom in bypass building. After winning the Bicester southern bypass, he opened an office in Leicester and undertook many other highways schemes in the east Midlands. When the UK's road-building programme came to a halt in the mid-1990s, Fraenkel, by then an octogenarian, refocused the firm back into the heavy marine engineering that had made its name. He remained involved in the firm into his 90s, and was remembered by colleagues as a shrewd operator. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Barbara, and by two daughters, Laura and Sarah. • Peter Fraenkel, civil engineer, born 5 July 1915; died 18 November 2009 • Engineering • Road transport guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Obama announces dramatic crackdown on Wall Street banks By Jill Treanor (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. He also wants to prevent further consolidation of the financial Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:13:45 AM system in the US and will ban President announces "new Glass takeovers and mergers among -Steagall Act" to prevent banks American firms in the sector. that take customer deposits from Obama said the new proposals taking risky investment bets, and would keep taxpayers from being p r o m i s e s a c r a c k d o w n o n "held hostage" by banks that financial mergers to prevent have become "too big to fail" institutions becoming "too big to and that pose a risk to the entire fail" financial system. President Barack Obama today Wall Street was nervous ahead declared his intent to take on of the announcement, with the Wall Street by announcing plans Dow Jones Industrial Average for stringent rules on the banking down more than 160 points s e c t o r t h a t p r o m p t e d before he spoke and then falling comparisons with the draconian a further 40 points once he had regulations introduced after the finished. The FTSE 100 index in Great Depression. London fell sharply in afternoon In the boldest move taken by trading as the markets feared the any government around the impact on UK banks such as world to respond to the financial Barclays and RBS. crisis, Obama told banks they "We simply cannot return to would no longer be able to take business as usual," said Obama. risky bets with their own capital His words were immediately to make money on the financial interpreted as a Glass-Steagall markets. Act for the 21st century, in Banks which take deposits will reference to the legislation not be allowed to use their own i n t r o d u c e d i n 1 9 3 3 t h a t money to take bets on markets, prevented commercial banks run hedge funds or make private w h i c h t o o k d e p o s i t s f r o m equity investments through what customers from carrying on he called the "Volcker rule" after investment banking activities.

GENE Television United States Musicals Theatre Broadway

and reducing the proportion of revenue allocated to pay from 48% in 2008 to 35.8% in 2009 – the lowest on record. The 141-year-old New Yorkbased bank has been pilloried as the exemplar of banking pay excess. Its London-based employees will be subjected to the chancellor's 50% special tax on bonuses of more than £25,000 and expects to a receive a contribute "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to the UK exchequer. Goldman has pushed back against criticism although its chief executive Lloyd Blankfein was recently lambasted for claaimed that his employees were doing "God's work". Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman said: "It's restraint, but to everyone else it's gross greed. they are on a different planet." Shares in Goldman were hit hard by Obama's announcement, falling 5%. Obama has already tried to show Main Street that he is trying to restrain Wall Street through the "financial crisis responsibility fee" he announced last week to bring in $90bn over 10 years into

the US coffers. An EU proposal to tax banks in Europe also gained ground yesterday when a Swedish proposal to introduce a levy on profits was backed by Spanish finance minister Elena Salgado, whose country currently holds the EU presidency. Salgado said the tax, which will be set aside in a stability fund, will be examined at an informal gathering of European finance ministers in Madrid. The meeting in April could endorse the tax, which Sweden believes could raise £7bn, before going forward to the Commission. • Banking • Barack Obama • Financial crisis • US politics • United States Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Comity of Errors

continued from page 3

• • • • •

Fresh from the historic loss of a Democratic senate seat in the Kennedy-stalwart state of Massachusetts this week, Obama's assault on Wall Street followed the release of nearrecord profits from Goldman Sachs and bonus average pay for its 32,000 staff of $500,000. Obama made it clear that he was appealing to the electorate. "Over the past two years more than 7m Americans have lost their jobs; rarely does a day go by that I haven't heard from folks who are hurting," he said. "Even as we dig our way out this deep hole it is important we do not lose sight of what got us in this hole in the first place," Obama said, referring to the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street in October 2008. "While the financial system is far stronger today than it was one year ago, it is still operating under the exact same rules that led to its near collapse." Goldman, the most closely watched bank on Wall Street, insisted it was showing "restraint" in its bonus payouts by demanding its 400 partners donate a combined $500m to its charity, Goldman Sachs Gives,

Ronald Bergan guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

By E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 1/20/2010 9:00:00 PM

Charles Lane: Haiti's deteriorating democracy.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Photographs by 'Snowflake Bentley' go on sale in New York By Ian Sample (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:17:26 AM

In the late 19th century, at the age of 19, Wilson A Bentley had the bright idea of taking photographs of snowflakes through a microscope. The results are still spectacular Vintage photographs of snowflakes taken by the first person ever to capture them with a camera went on sale yesterday at an antiques fair in New York. The pictures are just a fraction of a lifetime's work comprising thousands of spectacular images taken by the self-taught photographer and Vermont farmer Wilson A Bentley at the end of the 19th century. Ten of Bentley's snowflake images are up for sale at $4,800 (£3,000) each at the American Antiques Show. They appear alongside other work by the photographer of winter landscapes.

"They're remarkably beautiful," Carl Hammer, whose Chicago art gallery is selling the images, said. "There are imperfections on the outer edges of the image itself and on the paper, but the images themselves are quite spectacular." Bentley's obsession with snow crystals began when he received a microscope for his 15th birthday. He became spellbound by their beauty, complexity and endless variety. He told a magazine in 1925: "Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind," he said. Bentley started trying to draw the flakes but the snow melted before he could finish. His

parents eventually bought him a camera and he spent two years trying to capture images of the tiny, fleeting crystals. He caught falling snowflakes by standing in the doorway with a wooden tray as snowstorms passed over. The tray was painted black so he could see the crystals and transfer them delicately onto a glass slide. To study the snow crystals, Bentley rigged his bellows camera up to the microscope but found he could not reach the controls to bring them into focus. He overcame the problem through the imaginative use of wheels and cord. Bentley took his first successful photomicrograph of a snow crystal at the age of 19 and went on to capture more than 5,000 more images. Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor who grows ice crystals in his laboratory at California Institute of Technology, said Bentley's photographs were so good "hardly anybody bothered to

photograph snowflakes for almost 100 years." Stacy Hollander, senior curator of the American Folk Art Museum, which is hosting the fair, said: "Everyone's fascinated by snow. It's just magical, and he captured that magic in these beautiful photomicrographs." In his local town of Jericho, Bentely's fascination with snowflakes earned him the nickname Snowflake Bentley. A museum there is dedicated to his life's work, housing 2,000 of his vintage prints. A book of his photographs, Snow Crystals, was published in 1931. The same year he died walking home in a blizzard. • Photography • People in science

Just How Miraculous Could an Apple Tablet Be? [Blockquote] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:00:00 PM

According to this tale by Fake Steve Jobs, the Apple tablet isn't just great—it actually cures lupus. In other words, Dr. House's entire diagnostic team is pretty much out of a job as of next week. [ FakeSteve]

Ian Sample guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Do You Know Where Your Money Goes? By Kevin Kersten (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:00:00 PM

Filed under: Personal finance Around the new year, many people set goals to stick to a budget or to manage their money

better. It can be hard and sometimes it is only a matter of weeks before they fall back into the bad habits. No matter how much money you make, at times it seems like it is never enough. People who make $20,000, $50,000 or

$100,000 can all be caught in the

financial pickle and much of it has to do with how those incomes are managed. Here is a challenge for you to help you watch your spending. Continue reading Do You Know Where Your Money Goes? Do You Know Where Your

Money Goes? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Team Living Water: Running for a Reason

Jobless Claims Log an Unexpected Jump

By Susanna Donald (LWI News Center)

By Mark Fightmaster (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 1/20/2010 2:36:40 PM

Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:30:00 AM

Team Living Water’s first major event—the annual Chevron Houston Marathon—was a huge success, with more than 70 runners teaming up to raise money and awareness for the world water crisis. Team Living Water runners, clad in their bright yellow jerseys, gathered at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center on Sunday, January 17th to participate in the Chevron Houston Marathon, the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, and the El Paso Corporation 5K (EP5K). Because of the dedication and perseverance of Team Living Water, more than $58,000 has been raised to date for clean water! Team Living Water consisted of runners from Living Water International’s staff, friends of the organization, and many who simply believe in the cause. Living Water’s Senior Director of Communications, Jonathan Wiles, ran the half-marathon, saying, “It’s great to be able to be involved with the local community in an event that has an impact on the global community.” Each member of Team Living Water raised awareness and funding as part of “Run for a

Filed under: Bad news, Employees, Economic data, Recession Futures have backed off a bit, thanks mainly to the Labor Department's latest report on initial jobless claims. The number of Americans claiming first-time unemployment benefits increased by 36,000 to 482,000. This increase is greater than the expected drop to 438,000 and is the highest level of claims since November. This increase in claims breaks a streak of 19

Reason,” the Chevron Marathon’s initiative for linking runners with a local non-profit organization. 2010 was Living Water’s first year to take part in this program. Matt Morris, Team Living Water’s top fundraiser, ran the full marathon and raised more than $12,000. Cheryl Thornton, Living Water’s Director of Special Events, called the race “a huge success—one that will be even better next year.” Already well over the original fundraising goal of $50,000, Living Water anticipates more funds coming in through the February 15th deadline. “Our team morale was incredible, and the energy they brought really spread through the entire marathon. People who weren’t even a part of Team

Living Water stopped by the past -race party tent to show their support, ask questions, and even express interest in joining next year’s team,” Cheryl notes. “We built a lot of momentum with this first race. It was a great day.” Being part of Team Living Water is your chance to be an advocate for the thirsty. Educate yourself about the global water crisis and what you can do about it here. Help us spread the word about clean water, and join Team Living Water for next year’s marathon on January 30, 2011! Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

straight declines. Continue reading Jobless Claims Log an Unexpected Jump Jobless Claims Log an Unexpected Jump originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

View and manipulate your browser cache By Seth Rosenblatt (Webware.com) Submitted at 1/20/2010 6:13:00 PM

Forget about exploring your Firefox or Google Chrome cache. When it comes to browser

cache, the biggest problem that most users face is figuring out in just which folder the elusive cache resides. Originally posted at The Download Blog

Correspondence: Not Even a Molehill By Donald Graham (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 1/20/2010 9:00:00 PM

Charles Lane: Haiti's deteriorating democracy.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Spanish Starchitect Calatrava Tackles Designing Sets for NYC Ballet By Linda Tischler (Fast Company)

recurring themes of movement and flight, an inspiration made visible in his work for the Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:04:33 PM Milwaukee Art Museum, whose Santiago Calatrava has often roof sports two steel "wings" been called the most lyrical of made of 36 fins that can open the current crop of starchitects. w h e n t h e w i n d o f f L a k e Today, the New York City Michigan isn't too stiff, and his Ballet announced that it will give design for the transportation hub the Spaniard a chance to apply at the World Trade Center, his architectural and engineering w h o s e s p i k y r o o f l i n e w a s skills to the most lyrical of the inspired by the idea of a child performing arts. releasing a dove. NYCB's ballet master Peter By designing for the ballet, Martins has invited Caltrava to Calatrava joins an elite company design several multi-functional of architects. Philip Johnson was stage sets for four world- the only previous architect to be premiere ballets during the invited to design for the ballet, company's spring season, which and that was way back in 1981. begins on May 4. The sets are Fittingly, the ballet's season is expected to embody Calatrava's centered around the theme of

"Architecture and Dance." It will feature seven world premiere ballets, and four commissioned scores, all dedicated to Lincoln Center's 50th anniversary. Architecture will be a theme outside the halls as well, as the

arts complex is nearing the completion of its multi-year rehab by architectural firm Diller Scofidio and Renfro. Calatrava's set designs will be the staging for ballets by Benjamin Millepied, premiering

May 22; Melissa Barak on June 5 (for whose ballet fashion designer Gilles Mendel will create costumes), Mauro Bigonzetti, premiering June 10; and Peter Martins, premiering on June 22. The Martins work will be set to a commissioned score for violins by Esa-Pekka Salonen, formerly of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and now with the London Philharmonic. Calatrava's sets will be built in a warehouse in Manhattan. [Photo by Martien Mulder]

Smart Mud: The New Plastic? By Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company) Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:41:12 AM

We recently asked if you would feel safe driving across this sturdy-looking recycled plastic bridge--but how would you like if the plastic was replaced with mud? Researchers at the University of Tokyo, Japan think that their special mixture of water and clay could one day replace plastics, which require

massive amounts of oil to produce. The researchers' mud is made of 100 grams of water, a few grams of clay, a thickening agent called sodium polyacrylate, and an organic molecular glue that holds the whole thing together. The resulting hydrogel forms in just three minutes and can form a 3.5 centimeter wide self-standing bridge--not exactly real-world bridge material, but impressive nonetheless for a mixture made

with 98% water. Eventually, the Japanese researchers hope their mud can form a new class of materials

increasing the quantities of water, clay, sodium polyacrylate and glue. The process is simple enough that knowledge of the chemical processes going on inside isn't required, and that means it shouldn't be difficult to mass produce the super-strong mud. The next big hurdle, of course, will be to convince that are tough, long-lasting, and consumers that mud is an have the ability to self-heal. acceptable substitute for plastic. Lofty goals, but strengthening [Via New Scientist] the mud is apparently as easy as

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China Wants Its Own Version of the NYC High Line By Cliff Kuang (Fast Company)

overwhelming the street life that has grown up around it organically. According to the Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:33:10 AM architects, the solution was to An award-winning proposal is have five "lanterns"--a powerful similar to New York's famous symbol in Chinese culture--rise elevated park--except huge. above the street and serve as Massive. Ginormous. both bridges and public spaces. Cities from San Francisco to The design above--by young London have caught High Line New York architecture firm fever, attempting to build WORKac, with engineering by elevated parks inspired by New Arup and landscape design by York's own. China is joining the Balmori--won out over several fray now, and the results, as others in a competition to you'd expect, are mammoth in reimagine Hua Qiang Bei Road, scale and ambition. Shenzen's main commercial T h e m a i n p r o b l e m w a s artery. The pic below shows renovating an urban hub, without what a single lantern would look

of the lanterns would be linked by an underground complex, containing a food court and gallery spaces. That passageway would also connect four metro lines currently under construction. No word yet on whether budget clearances are in place, although the competition was commissioned by the city's planning bureau. But don't the Chinese build these types of like: shopping district for gadgets. massive projects every other However, each lantern would O t h e r s w o u l d s e r v e a s a n day? hold a different function. One "information hub," a design [For more pics, check out Arch would be an electronics museum, museum, and a public park. Daily] since the road is a central And then things get nutty. Each

Coming Soon: Solar-Powered iPhones? By Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company) Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:39:03 AM

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been a goldmine for green-minded Apple fans recently. Last week, the technology giant filed a patent for an " intelligent power monitoring" system, and now Apple has revealed a design for a solar powered portable device (i.e. an iPod or iPhone) in an advancement of a patent

originally filed in 2008. According to the patent, such a device would include built-in solar cells on its front and back for an increased surface area to collect power. Since solar cells can be made with rigid materials, Apple imagines that the entire front and back of the device could potentially be covered in solar cells. It would also have circuitry to monitor the battery's state and determine whether to later use. recharge using external solar It's already possible to juice up power or store solar energy for an iPhone with solar power--

Novothink's solar charger case for iPods and iPhones is certified by Apple--but this is the first time Apple has expressed interest in making solar power an integral part of its portable devices. No word on when we might see a solar-powered iPhone in stores, but Apple's move to update its 2 year-old patent makes us think that the company still has solar on the brain. [Via AppleInsider]

Mozilla forges ahead with Firefox 3.6 By Seth Rosenblatt (Webware.com)

Mozilla debuts Firefox 3.6, faster, help it render content Originally posted at The introducing significant under-the better, and a few visual tweaks, D o w n l o a d B l o g -hood changes that make it as well.

Seesmic makes Twitter pretty, with Look By Rafe Needleman (Webware.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 7:00:00 AM

Now you can consume Twitter without contributing, or even logging in. Originally posted at Rafe's Radar

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BlackBerry Magnum prototype spotted, canned in favor of something better? By Chris Ziegler (Engadget) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:45:00 PM

Okay, before we get too far here, keep your excitement in check: you'll apparently never be able to buy this. The good news, though, is that CrackBerry seems to have it on authority that the phone you're looking at here -an early Magnum prototype -has been scrapped in favor of something better, the "Dakota," possibly a stealthy tribute to diehard BlackBerry user Dakota Fanning. In all seriousness, though, both devices are centered around the concept that you'd

have a touchscreen up top, a traditional Bold-style keyboard down below, and scrap the trackball / optical pad altogether -- a new concept for RIM. Differences between the

Magnum and Dakota are a little hazier, but one notable change is apparently a move to liquid lens tech for the camera; considering how much these guys innovated (or over-innovated) with

SurePress, we wouldn't be surprised. Prototype BlackBerrys have a tendency to leak like an old faucet, so we sure it won't be long until we get some more intel on these bad boys. BlackBerry Magnum prototype spotted, canned in favor of something better? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink CrackBerry| TweetPhoto| Email this| Comments

Nathan Fillion Talks Firefly, Dr. Horrible, and Why Kids Need to Read By Matt Blum (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 1/21/2010 6:43:00 AM

Nathan Fillion has, in the space of seven years, risen to the status of a geek icon. Beginning with his best-known role as Captain Mal Reynolds on Firefly, his work on several of Joss Whedon’s projects has transformed the former soap opera actor into a huge draw for the geek crowd. But there’s a lot more to Fillion than tight pants and a pistol — and a heck of a lot more than a shirt with a picture of a hammer on it.

Dave Smith's Mopho keyboard prototype wows analog fanboys at NAMM (video) By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:01:00 PM

Dave Smith's name is as revered in the synth business as those of Tom Oberheim and "Handsome Ron" Casio. Having had his hands in everything from the Prophet 5 synth to developing the MIDI specification to his own company (Dave Smith Instruments), the man has given

electronic musicians plenty to be thankful for. The boutique's latest, the Mopho Keyboard (seen here in prototype form at NAMM 2010) takes the existing Mopho synth module -- a pretty sweet deal with its sub-octave generators, audio input (you know, for modulating stuff), and feedback options -- and adds a thirty-two key keyboard and a whole mess of controls. Like original, this new Mopho has a

100 percent analog signal path, Look for it in the near future for ships with a sound bank editor around $800. Video after the for both Windows and Mac, and break. it sounds pretty, pretty bad ass. Continue reading Dave Smith's

Mopho keyboard prototype wows analog fanboys at NAMM (video) Dave Smith's Mopho keyboard prototype wows analog fanboys at NAMM (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Create Digital Music| Email this| Comments

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Hold your Bad Idea Jeans up with this Playboy spy camera belt By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

New (Possibly) Touchscreen BlackBerry Bold Spotted [BlackBerry] By Brian Barrett (Gizmodo)

it—in stores. With the BlackBerry Storm having had touchscreen capability for some RIM has already been moving time, it's only natural to see that away from the trackball to the technology infiltrate other trackpad, but this new image of a brands. yet to be released device shows But what do all you BlackBerry neither. All signs point to the e n t h u s i a s t s t h i n k ? I s t h i s first touchscreen BlackBerry s a c r i l e g e , o r p r o g r e s s ? Bold. UPDATE: Crackberry is T h e r e ' s n o t m u c h m o r e reporting that this is almost information available beyond the definitely an early Magnum picture, but it's certainly a relief prototype, which sounds right to to see an improvement over me. So expect to see a lot of earlier touchscreen prototypes. these design elements sometime And it's even better to see RIM this year, though probably not continuing to innovate, although this exact design. [ Cell Guru via it's likely months before we see FoneFrenzy] this—or the final version of Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:45:26 PM

3D stole the show at CES 2010 By Ben Drawbaugh (Engadget) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:15:00 PM

Not sure why we've been putting this off, but we'll just come right out and say it: there's no doubt that this was the year for 3D at CES. We walked the show floor for countless hours and can tell you that just about everyone was showing something related to 3D at their booths. Most of these demos required a bit of a wait to experience them (thanks, hype), and everywhere you went people were talking about 3D. Granted, not all of that talk was positive, but it was talk nonetheless.

Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:30:00 AM

Free dating tip: If the girl you’re talking to isn’t impressed by your Playboy belt, make sure to mention that it’s got a built-in Whether or not the technology spy camera capable of recording will be seen in history as a DVD-resolution video footage. If success in the market place is that doesn’t work, then clearly obviously still up in the air, and she’ll never be impressed by much like a finely crafted anything. Time to move on. episode of Lost, 3D at CES this The belt costs $43 and is year was littered with more compatible with memory cards questions than answers. up to 16GB. Apparently it also Continue reading 3D stole the serves as a USB webcam, too. show at CES 2010 Hold on, let me take off my belt 3D stole the show at CES 2010 and put it on top of my monitor originally appeared on Engadget real quick. Oh, you want to see H D o n T h u , 2 1 J a n 2 0 1 0 who else is at the meeting? 13:15:00 EST. Please see our Okay, everyone, look at my t e r m s f o r u s e o f f e e d s . crotch and wave to everyone in Permalink| | Email this| Zurich. Hi, Zurich! Great fourth Comments quarter numbers, Zurich! Belt Design Spy Camara with USB Webcam[ShopKami.com via ChipChick]

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DIY Car Mount: Two dollars, ten minutes By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:00:00 AM

Archos 5 gets Android 1.6 update, for real this time By Donald Melanson (Engadget) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:23:00 PM

Archos disappointed quite a few users last month by pushing out an Android 1.6 (a.k.a. "Donut") update for its Archos 5 internet tablet only to yank it shortly thereafter due to a "last-minute major issue," but it now looks like it's finally set things right -the update is once again available for download, and it apparently works just fine this time. Among other things, the update optimizes applications for

the Archos 5's high resolution screen, and adds features like Quick Search to help you find music, contacts and other information more easily. Hit up the link below for all the necessary upgrade details. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Archos 5 gets Android 1.6 update, for real this time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Archos| Email this| Comments

The Apple Tablet: 'A FirstGeneration iPhone That's Met Its Match With a Rolling Pin' [Rumor] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:27:41 PM

According to AppleInsider's sources, this flickr image is the closest mockup of the Apple Tablet that anyone has seen to date. And yes, it's essentially a big, first-gen iPhone that's "met its match with a rolling pin." Rather than a plastic back, AI claims the Tablet will have the same, two-tone aluminum look of the original iPhone. But while this image is thought to be very close to Apple's final design, it

Most in-vehicle device mounts are expensive given their purpose. Please hold my phone in one place, here’s $30. Bah! Using few pieces of pipe, some craft foam, and a bit of plasticdoesn't sound like a full-fledged coated wire, you can create your OS X will be on board. Why? own vehicle mount quickly and The Tablet will have an iPhonecheaply. inspired Home button (along Perhaps most importantly, with a 10-inch screen, 3.5-mm there’s no need to stick anything stereo headphone jack, built-in on your windshield and you speaker grills, a microphone, don’t need any adhesive. No GPS, 3G connectivity and a 30drilling holes in your dashboard, pin dock connector, if either. The end result wedges AppleInsider has it right). itself in between your steering Personally, I never grew tired of column and dashboard, and the iPhone's original look, and keeps your device right in front I'd love to see the design in tablet of you without actually blocking form. What about you? [ your view of the road. AppleInsider and flickr] Make a $2 Adjustable Smartphone Car Mount in 10 minutes[Instructables via Make]

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Netflix Exec Claims That Delaying Movie Rentals For A Month Benefits Customers By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:34:00 AM

Mass Effect 2 for the Xbox 360 has leaked. So, you know. By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear)

already playing the game. Yes, the game has leaked. Granted, it’s only a few days before the Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:00:41 AM game actually comes out, but Oh, the ironing. Big Daddy still, the biggest release of the C o o l , J o h n B i g g s , j u s t year (so far) is now available interviewed Casey Hudson, from where you find such things. I’ll BioWare, about Mass Effect 2. It be getting the PC version via was streamed live! The beauty is, Steam, thank you very much. while they were talking about the (There’s nothing after this. game, kids with modded Xbox Clicking Read More is a waste of 360s all over the world were your time.)

Baby crying again? Find out why with Cry Translator. If you want, no one’s forcing you or anything like that. By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:30:08 AM

Crying baby? There's an App for that! (Boo!) It's called Cry Translator, and it takes the various shouts and screams of your baby and "translates" them to proper language.

Firefox Fitness: 3.6 Is Faster, More Capable By Scott Gilbertson (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:00:00 AM

The latest version of Mozilla's

open source browser has arrived. support for emerging web Webmonkey puts Firefox 3.6 standards like HTML5. through its paces and finds it worth a download, thanks to speed improvements and better

With Netflix caving in to Warner Bros. and agreeing to delay offering DVDs for 28 days after release in order to get movies to stream online, it certainly pissed off a bunch of Netflix subscribers. But, you've apparently got it all wrong. A Netflix exec is now trying to explain how the deal is procustomer because it will keep demand down for the DVDs, meaning that when they finally do come out, you may have a better chance to rent them. Seriously: The most practical reason is that the savings derived from this deal enable us to be in stock completely on day 29. Remember that we're a subscription service and the way that you manage the economics of a subscription service is to manage the demand of any disc, depending on the economics of the disc. In the case of the most expensive disc, which in this case is a Warner Bros. disc, purchased through a 3rd party, those discs were out of stock for far longer than 29 days for most Netflix subscribers. So what were able to is create a deal with them that gave them a little open running room in terms

of creating a sell-through window ahead of rental, for us, and hopefully that they'll find enough value in that it'll extend to other retailers and other studios will take note and it'll extend across other studios as well. The net savings derived from technically creating a better customer experience have been redeployed in additional streaming content for all customers. I'm still trying to parse this, but it really does sound like he's saying that Netflix couldn't handle the demand for new releases before, so by getting rid of them entirely, it may be able to handle them on the 29th day, since fewer people will care about renting that movie then. Now, you could claim that's a better customer experience if you ignore the 28 days in which no one on Netflix can rent the movie (though they can get it elsewhere). But if you realize that you're now taking away the ability to serve all of your customers for nearly a month at the point when their demand is likely to be the highest... well, that doesn't seem very customer friendly at all. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Skribit Helps Fight Writer’s Block By Christina Warren (Mashable!)

sign up for a Skribit account (you can even use your Twitter login or an existing OpenID to Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:10:59 AM speed up the process) and then This post is part of Mashable’s s e t u p e i t h e r a w i d g e t o r Spark of Genius series, which suggestions tab that you can highlights a unique feature of easily paste into your blog or startups. If you would like to website. have your startup considered for Most major platforms are inclusion, please see the details s u p p o r t e d — s e l f - h o s t e d here. The series is made possible WordPress, Movable Type and by Microsoft BizSpark. Blogger, basically as long as you Name: Skribit can add javascript, you can add Quick Pitch: Skribit helps Skribit — and readers have the bloggers cure writer’s block by ability to leave suggestions either gathering suggestions for what to signed or anonymously. Once write about. you see a suggestion you like, Genius Idea: Skribit lets you can choose to link it with bloggers get feedback from your blog post on the subject, readers, and lets readers suggest and then any Skribit users topics or story ideas to bloggers interested in seeing a post based and writers. Plus, you can on that suggestion will be integrate it with your OpenID or informed of your entry. Twitter account. We like Skribit because it’s a Born out of Atlanta Startup nice solution to the common Weekend back in November problem of writer’s block. For 2007, Skribit has always had the bloggers that are trying to start a basic goal of giving blog owners community around their writing, a chance to get feedback and asking for feedback and input is suggestions from their readers. often one of the best ways to get The service officially exited beta the ball rolling. Skribit lets you last month. All you have to do is do that in a very easy way. The

How do you tackle writer’s block on your blog? Let us know! Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide fact that you can also share n e t w o r k o f i n v e s t o r s a n d suggestions through Facebook incubators. There are no upfront and Twitter, along with the costs, so if your business is social element of following other privately owned, less than three bloggers on Skribit, has turned years old, and generates less than an individual site-by-site U.S.$1 million in annual e c o s y s t e m i n t o a l a r g e r revenue, you can sign up today. community. Entrepreneurs can take Skribit has two different account advantage of the Azure Services types: Free accounts let you use platform for their website Skribit with one blog and get up hosting and storage needs. to 15 active suggestions at once. Microsoft recently announced Skribit Pro accounts let you use the“new CloudApp()” contest– the service on an unlimited use the Azure Services Platform n u m b e r o f b l o g s , t a k e i n for hosting your .NET or PHP unlimited suggestions and give app, and you could be the lucky you the ability to customize your winner of a USD 5000* ( please widget or suggestions tab. see website for official rules and Skribit Pro is $24 for a year of guidelines).” service, but if you use the promo Tags: blogging, skribit code ackbar42 by January 27, 2010, you can get Skribit Pro for 50% off.

The Guantanamo 'Suicides' - A Cover-Up? (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:13:28 AM

The Justice Department has released a statement about this article by Scott Horton at Harper’s Magazine, saying that an investigation has uncovered no evidence of wrongdoing — but Horton’s piece contains some very disturbing details that strongly suggest the full story has yet to come out: The G u a n t á n a m o &##x201C;Suicides&##x201D;: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle.

Facebook’s Privacy Push: Right Move, Wrong Time? [OPINION] By Pete Cashmore (Mashable!) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:06:03 AM

Facebook’s new approach to privacy is bold, pushing users to

be increasingly public with their data. This public sharing is the new “social norm”, said founder Mark Zuckerberg in a recent interview. But is Facebook

really responding to cultural

changes or simply encouraging the type of behavior that will help the company to grow fastest? Possibly both. That’s the topic of my guest column today in the UK’s

Telegraph newspaper. Read the full column on The Telegraph >> Tags: facebook, telegraph

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AT&T Is an Apple Tablet Dealbreaker [SURVEY] By Christina Warren (Mashable!)

applications than men. Another interesting tidbit? Despite 39% of the respondents Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:22:55 AM saying that 3G was a must-have The industry — and gadget fans feature, 44% of respondents said — are all hotly anticipating that a monthly data plan would Apple’s January 27th event, prevent them from buying the which is expected to shed light new Apple device. How 3G data on the long-fabled Apple Tablet. can be reconciled with no Shopping site Retrevo surveyed additional monthly plan is 500 of its customers to see what interesting, and it looks like features the tablet will need to consumers (or at least the ones have to warrant purchase — and that Retrevo surveyed) want the features that could keep it Apple to follow in Amazon’s from earning a place in their footsteps with the Kindle and collections. offer 3G data as part of the eBooks and 3G Good, AT&T or device, sans additional service Monthly Data Plans Bad plans. Of course, having a free When asked what features the data service for a device that Apple Tablet absolutely needs to mostly transmits text and free have to make it worth buying, data for web browsing and other the consumers Retrevo surveyed media-rich activities are two made it clear that a long battery very different things. life, the ability to connect to 3G What will also keep users from and an eBook store were all top buying an Apple tablet? AT&T. must-have features. What we It appears that Luke Wilson isn’t find really interesting was that enough to make consumers want the women surveyed were even to deal with another device more keen on having access to h a m p e r e d b y t h e s e r v i c e eBooks and existing iPhone provider. That Whole Price Issue

Apple almost always nails product pricing. As consumers, we might lament that the price isn’t lower or more competitive, but it would be hard to make the argument that Apple doesn’t know what it is doing, especially when you look at its sales figures and margins when compared with the rest of the industry. That said, if the Apple Tablet is to follow in the footsteps of the iPod and the iPhone and become a mainstream consumer device, the pricing is going to have to reach a certain level. In Retrevo’s survey, 70% of respondents said that any price more than $700 would prevent them from buying the tablet. Thirty percent of respondents

seemed willing to entertain the idea of spending more than $700 for the device. While this data is interesting, it isn’t very conclusive, even for this survey. For instance, what percentage of users would be OK with spending $600 on a device? Granted, of those that are willing to spend above $700, we assume that the expectations and features of the device are going to have to seem worth that price. That’s why trying to gauge pricing thresholds on an unknown device is so difficult. Still, there are plenty of people that seem to be ready to fork over their cash or credit cards just as soon as the new device is available. What features or lack of features make the Apple Tablet a dealbreaker? What is the maximum you are willing to spend on this type of device? Let us know! Tags: Apple Tablet, retrevo, surveys

Postal Service to Test Electric Truck To Create Jobs, Build Public Transit, By Tony Borroz (Wired Top electric truck for the postal Stories) service to test. The plan is to Not Roads Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:30:00 AM

The guys who brought us the T Zero and Mini-E will deliver an

convert the UPS' entire fleet of mail trucks to EVs.

By Keith Barry (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:15:00 AM

The federal stimulus bill favored highways over transit, putting

fewer people to work. We're about to make the same mistake with the Jobs for Main Street Act.

Tea Partiers? Where? Oh, You Mean The Ones in the Front Row? (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 1/20/2010 2:26:04 PM

At his victory party, supporters of Scott Brown wave the New Flag of the Second American Revolution. And people tried to tell me Brown wasn’t sailing on the seas of tea. (Hat tip: KT.) UPDATE at 1/20/10 2:38:01 pm: Also see: Scott Brown Held Tea Party Fundraiser Before Professing To Be Unfamiliar With Tea Party. UPDATE at 1/20/10 2:47:30 pm: And in case you’re tempted to believe there were just two of these flags at the party, see here and here.

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Mozilla forges ahead with Firefox 3.6 (CNET News.com)

Peek will have to wait for another revision. Currently, these can only be activated by Mozilla debuted Firefox 3.6 c h a n g i n g s e t t i n g s i n today, introducing significant a b o u t : c o n f i g . under-the-hood changes that Several notable improvements make it faster, help it render keep Firefox abreast of current content better, and a few visual browsing tech. Significant undertweaks, as well. Available for t h e - h o o d c h a n g e s i n c l u d e Windows, Mac, and Linux, the blocking third-party software most apparent change in Firefox from encroaching on Firefox's 3.6 are improvements made to file system turf to increase the TraceMonkey JavaScript stability; support for the Web rendering engine, making it Open Font Format, which means about 20 percent faster than many non-English browser users when it debuted in Firefox 3.5 should see faster load times for according to Mozilla. Although Web pages via downloadable this makes it more competitive fonts; and support for the File with Google Chrome, but not interface, which can help with faster, there's more to Firefox 3.6 tasks such as uploading multiple than speed. photos and is part of the draft Firefox maintains its reputation HTML5-standard effort. Open, a s t h e m o s t c u s t o m i z a b l e native video can be displayed browser around, introducing full screen and supports poster default support for the next frames, which is the preview generation of Themes, called image you see before a video Personas. Users will no longer b e g i n s , a n d t h e n e w C S S have to download the Personas attributes gradients, background add-on to get its on-the-fly sizing, and pointer events will s k i n n i n g p o w e r . H o w e v e r , work in Firefox 3.6. Windows 7 interface support, HTML5 support debuted in including tab previews using the Firefox 3.5, and Firefox remains Ctrl+Tab hot key, jump lists, and the leading Web browser that multiple tab previews in Aero s u p p o r t s i t . T h i s i s n o t Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:03:00 AM

insignificant, because even with Google Chrome grabbing more than 4 percent of the browser market in its first 16 months, Firefox maintains a commanding 24 percent that hasn't stopped growing, second only to Internet Explorer. A deeper change to the browser is that it is now running scripts asynchronously, which can help to load a Web page faster by putting off some work until the high-priority chores are complete. Firefox 3.6 also isolates out-of-date plug-ins so they do not become a security risk. Unlike Firefox 3.5, which was more about keeping the browser current rather than blazing new trails, Firefox 3.6 is once again taking some small but innovative steps. Expect more new features to debut in minor-point updates as the browser works towards Firefox 3.7. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Microsoft warns of flaw in 32-bit Windows kernel (CNET News.com)

valid logon credentials and be able to log onto a system locally. Once logged on, the attacker Microsoft is warning customers could elevate privileges to the of a hole in the kernel of 32-bit administrative level and run any versions of Windows that could programs, Bryant said. a l l o w s o m e o n e t o i n s t a l l Microsoft said it will work on a programs, change data, or create patch, but in the meantime new accounts with full user suggested as a workaround that rights. customers disable the Windows The vulnerability, caused by the V i r t u a l D O S M a c h i n e Windows kernel not properly ( N T V D M ) s u b s y s t e m t h a t handling certain exceptions, enables Windows NT and later a f f e c t s 3 2 - b i t v e r s i o n s o f versions of Windows to run DOS Windows 7, Vista, XP, 2000, and 16-bit Windows software. and Server 2003 and 2008, The Microsoft warning comes a c c o r d i n g t o t h e s e c u r i t y one day after Google engineer advisory released on Wednesday Tavis Ormandy disclosed the night. It does not affect 64-bit vulnerability in the Windows versions of Windows. Virtual DOS Machine subsystem "We are not currently aware of on the Full Disclosure security eany active attacks against this mail list. Ormandy said he vulnerability, and Microsoft informed Microsoft about the believes the risk to customers, at hole in June 2009. this time, is limited," Jerry Five Filters featured article: Bryant, senior security program Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: manager at Microsoft, said in a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, statement. Term Extraction. To exploit the vulnerability an attacker would need to have Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:13:00 AM

A new Rebooting The News essay (Scripting News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:01:30 AM

The Times has something very valuable that it isn't selling, that

it's in the business of selling. walling themselves off from it. reading and thinking before There is a very simple idea that, R e b o o t i n g T h e N e w s : A commenting. Thanks! if done right, could solve all their breakthrough for the Times? money needs and get with the Clear your desk and your mind. flow of the web, instead of Sit down and spend five minutes

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Hulu to Charge Monthly Fee for Access to Unlimited TV Episodes [RUMOR] By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:44:51 AM

Hulu has always been free, but there’s long been speculation that would change. Now the L.A. Times is reporting that in six months Hulu may introduce a $4.99 per month subscription option that would give viewers access to TV show episodes beyond the five most recent already offered. As things stand now, any Hulu user can watch the five most recent episodes for a particular show, but those episodes eventually expire and are replaced with new ones. This makes it especially difficult for Hulu viewers to watch a full season or relive a favorite canceled show without tracking down or purchasing the content elsewhere. That could soon change. According to the report: “One plan being considered

would allow users to view the five most recent episodes of TV shows free but would require a subscription of $4.99 a month to watch older episodes. Hulu believes it will need at least 20 TV series — both current ones and those no longer on the air — to make such a pay service attractive to users. A firm pricing model could emerge within six months, the sources said.” The $4.99 monthly fee could certainly appeal to the set of super users who want access to every episode of their favorite shows at all time. Given that it wouldn’t disrupt the current five free episode model, this subscription service could be the

perfect compromise. Plus, should the Apple tablet live up to expectations and transform how we experience online media, then we could see a premium Hulu offering doing quite well. The only hiccup in the plan is the fact that most of the networks already support full-season episode viewing on their own sites for free. The rumored offering is said to be the result of ongoing discussions around introducing fees for a service that would “strike a balance between what people expect to watch free online and what they would be willing to pay for.” Would you pay $4.99 per month for access to your favorite past TV episodes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. [ Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Danijelm] Tags: entertainment, hulu, media, money, subscription, tv

Prisons And Hair Dressers Latest To Push Back On Ridiculous Collection Society Demands By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

to music in a prison apparently requires a separate performance Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:44:00 AM license. We've noticed lately that music The second story involves collection societies have been Spanish hairdressers who are going overboard in demanding similarly refusing to pay and, more and more money from instead, are telling customers to pretty much anyone who listens bring their own MP3 players to to music, claiming "public listen to their own music, performances" and assuming that privately. they're worth a lot more than The really ridiculous thing is t h e y r e a l l y a r e - - a l m o s t that in both cases all this is really everywhere you turn. mikez sent doing is harming musicians. i n t w o n e w s t o r i e s a b o u t When places play music, it collection societies -- both actually acts as advertising for involving operations pushing that music -- and these collection back on the demands. societies are basically demanding The first involves prisons in the to be paid for having people UK who are refusing to pay the promote the music of various licensing fees, and thus are artists. So the artists get less telling prisoners (hey look, real promotion and don't get money thieves!) that they can't listen to from places like the examples music any more in any area above refusing to pay. Everyone where multiple people might be loses! ( t h e k i t c h e n , w o r k s h o p s , Permalink| Comments| Email restrooms, etc.) since others This Story might overhear it. Yes, listening

Brittany Murphy's Husband Says Medications Were His (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:21:00 AM

The husband of Brittany

Murphy continues to talk to the press about questions surrounding his wife's sudden death at age 32, saying most of

the medications found were his. Simon Monjack tells the "Today" show that there was nothing to indicate she was in

any trouble leading up to her Murphy said during the joint death. interview. "[But] she had it the "We had all had a little bit of ... least." [the] flu," her mother Sharon

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Bankers warming up to offshore wind (CNET News.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:52:47 AM

Offshore wind turbines with ScanWind's direct-drive components are currently being tested in Norway.(Credit: General Electric) Offshore wind capacity in Europe is expected to grow from 1.3 megawatts in 2008 to 18.8 megawatts by 2015, according to estimates from research group Frost & Sullivan. The change will come from an increased interest from the banking industry in offshore wind project investment. Previously, there was a high risk associated with offshore wind farms because of a relatively untested permitting process, the expensive initial layout for turbines and equipment, and the difficulty of installing offshore wind farms in comparison to onshore wind farms. But as the U.K. and German governments began offering more support to make the permit process easier in 2009, the perception of high risk is declining, and more banks will partner with each other to fund projects, according to a report

App Store Overload? Kindle Gets An App Store By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

is going to make people miss out on the fact that web-based apps (that don't need to go through It's amazing how people see one any app store) may overtake semi-successful concept and client-side apps. We've already suddenly everyone has to pile on. gone through this on the desktop, The iPhone's app store has and one by one, web-based apps certainly been a success -- much have come along that match (or more in terms of making the s o m e t i m e s e x c e e d ) t h e iPhone more attractive than for functionality of client-side apps, most developers. But it has all leading many to turn away from sorts of people thinking that client apps altogether. "apps" are in again, and we're Separately, adding another app seeing app stores pop up in a store to another device may only variety of different places. The serve to confuse (or annoy) some latest is Amazon's Kindle, which users. If you have an iPhone and hopes to make the ebook reading a Kindle, and there are the same device more valuable with more apps on both, which are you apps. going to use? It may depend on It does make me wonder, the app, but my guess is that in though, if people are betting too most cases the phone is going to strongly on app stores, and not win out over an ebook reader. recognizing why it works so well Permalink| Comments| Email in some areas. I also wonder if This Story focusing on apps and app stores Submitted at 1/21/2010 7:20:00 AM

from Gouri Kumar, industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan. "As installed capacity continues to grow, and market share increases, the banking sector will continue to become progressively more involved in this industry," Kumar said. While banks will be increasingly interested in capitalizing on the offshore wind industry, they won't want to go it alone, and will therefore form partnerships on projects with other banks to dilute their risk, according to Kumar's report. "Investors are trying to overcome these risks with innovative

approaches and out-of-the-box thinking," Kumar said. Kumar is not alone in his thinking. In September, General Electric bought ScanWind, a manufacturer of offshore wind turbine components, for $18.5 million. At the time, GE cited industry statistics predicting the offshore wind industry in Europe to grow significantly by 2020. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Former friend of Lady Gaga â&#x20AC;&#x201D; [Pullquote] By Gabriel Snyder (Gawker) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:19:07 PM

an anonymous woman who says she had a falling out with the alien fashion plate formerly

known as Stefani Germanotta

when she was first starting out in New York City, to the New York Post.

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Make your personal iPhone app in just 10 minutes By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Apple meeting with "nearly all 6" largest trade publishers By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:45:00 AM

Filed under: Software, Blogging, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch Have you ever secretly wished that you could have your own personal iPhone app? An app that you could give to friends, relatives, and your adoring fans? Now you can have your own iPhone (or Android, if you swing that way) app featuring all of your personal feeds from sources such as Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Posterous, Tumblr, and more. The really cool thing is that it's not going to take you much time, nor will you need to learn how to program. Through a new service called iSites, you can take all of your life feeds and have an iPhone app created just for you. The cost? Only US$25. If you think that your hordes of faithful followers are going to download and use the app, you can spend another $99 to integrate AdMob ads into your personal app, meaning that you might be able to become rich (you're already famous, right?)

Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:30:00 PM

beyond your wildest dreams by giving away your app in the App Store. Everything about the iSites app you create is customizable; the feeds that make up the content (see photo above), the colors, even your icon and store banner. Anyone using your app can easily share an article with others via Twitter, Facebook, or email, and the app has support for video, image thumbnails, and the ability to mark a post as a favorite.

I'm not sure that I'm ready to bore the world with my personal iPhone app, but when I finally get to that point, I'll probably use iSites to create it. [via Mashable] TUAW Make your personal iPhone app in just 10 minutes originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Rumors Electronista is reporting today that Apple is in talks with "probably all six" of the largest publishers in preparation for the tablet's release (I think it's safe to officially call it real now). Publishers Marketplace notes that it's all going down in New York City, with ebooks being the topic of conversation, specifically pricing and all of that good stuff. It's assumed that Apple will sell books through iTunes with a revenue-sharing model similar to what's currently behind the App Store. The report states that the publishers are keen to control pricing and retain access to the files themselves. It's interesting to note that Amazon recently (as in yesterday) announced a revised and similar business model for the Kindle, scheduled

Mixup over prayer brings bomb squad to Pa. airport (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:43:38 AM

Christian buzzed up: Court eases business, union election spending rule (AP)

28 seconds ago 2010-01- Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: 21T10:24:47-08:00 PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Five Filters featured article: Term Extraction.

to go into place on June 30th. Now, just because Apple is in talks with all six publishers doesn't mean each deal is a lock. At least not before next week's dog-and-pony show. Expect a demo, some partner announcements (with select CEOs briefly sharing the stage) and a fanboy-crushing delay of 4 -5 months. TUAW Apple meeting with "nearly all 6" largest trade publishers originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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27-inch iMac shipping delays extended 3 more weeks By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:00:00 PM

Filed under: Retail, iMac, Apple Did you order one of those sweet 27-inch iMacs from the Apple online store recently? Well, if you did, expect to see a delay in getting it. AppleInsider is reporting that the 27-inch models currently have a three-week shipping time. Earlier this week, Apple's web store showed estimated shipping times of less than a week. The delay could be due to several factors. First, initial users of the 27-inch model had been experiencing screen flicker issues, which caused orders made in December to be delayed about two weeks. Apple released a software patch for the bigscreen iMac on December 21st that was meant to resolve the screen flicker issues, but many purchasers are still experiencing the problems. It could be that Apple is slowing the pace of manufacturing until the situation is resolved. Another possibility not addressed in the AppleInsider

Amazon Backs Down On Demanding Publisher Use Only Its Own Print-On-Demand Solution By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

agreed to pay the legal fees of the publisher. Amusingly, a monetary reward was on the Back in 2008, we wrote about table, and the publisher turned it Amazon's questionable demand down -- and wanted it written to book publishers that if they into the settlement that it refused wanted to offer print-on-demand to take money -- but Amazon books, they had to use Amazon's didn't want that mentioned in the own POD solution. A few official settlement. Still, it seems months later, a class action unfortunate that at least one lawsuit was filed, and after a publisher had to go through all judge refused to throw out the this trouble just to use the printcase, it looks like Amazon on-demand offering of its own quickly agreed to settle(thanks choosing. And, while it's great Achura). Unfortunately, from for this one publisher, it leaves the wording of the agreement, out the fact that many others even though this was filed as a caved in and agreed to deals that class action, it's not clear if it required them to only use only applies to this one publisher Amazon's solution. or others as well. It is worth Permalink| Comments| Email noting that Amazon is allowing This Story the publisher to keep using alternative solutions and also Submitted at 1/21/2010 5:31:00 AM

post could be that the demand for the 27-inch iMac is reaching a new peak. The iMac line made up the best-selling desktop computers in the U.S. in the last quarter of 2009, with the 21.5inch model topping the charts. It's not entirely out of the question that demand at Apple resellers, including the Apple Stores, is finally being met by the supply of the 27-inch model and that fewer of the machines are available for purchase online.

If you're looking for a 27-inch iMac, we'd recommend visiting a local Apple reseller rather than attempting to purchase it directly through the online Apple Store. TUAW 27-inch iMac shipping delays extended 3 more weeks originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Nirenberg dies at 82 (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:14:41 AM

Nick Hill buzzed up: Pelosi: 12 seconds ago 2010-01- Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: House lacks votes to OK Senate 21T10:26:08-08:00 PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, health bill (AP) Five Filters featured article: Term Extraction.

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White House unveils iPhone app (CNET News.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:20:32 AM

The White House's new iPhone app(Credit: The White House) If you can't catch the president's next speech on TV, no problem-you can watch it on your iPhone. The White House has hit the iTunes market with its very own app designed to keep all good U.S. citizens updated on the latest goings-on of government. In addition to offering news, blogs, photos, and videos, the app can tap into a live news feed, letting you watch such events as the president's annual State of the Union speech set for next Wednesday. Washington is also promising more for the portable market. A mobile version of the WhiteHouse.gov Web site will soon be launched for other phones and devices. Compatible with both the iPhone and iPod Touch 2G, the new White House app seems to be a hit with the American voters, so far winning 73 five-

Apple releases new, slimmer European power adapter for iPod/iPhone By Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, Peripherals, iPhone A quick note to our European readers. Apple has released a new, slimmer USB power adapter for iPods and iPhone. This new adapter supports all iPod nanos, iPhones, iPod Touches, iPod classics, the second and third gen iPod shuffle, the fourth and fifth gen star ratings from the App Store, click-wheel iPod, and even the only 15 one-star reviews, and iPod mini. about a dozen split down the Here is the Google Translation middle. link to the Norwegian Apple And unlike most things in Store new Apple USB Power Washington, this one won't cost Adapter page. you any money. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Thanks to reader Christian S. who sent this in. TUAW Apple releases new, slimmer European power adapter for iPod/iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Charlie Sheen and Brooke Mueller Hearing Postponed (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:00:00 AM

ET has the latest...

The hearing that was scheduled for Charlie Sheen and wife Brooke Mueller has been postponed.

The hearing, which was scheduled for Friday, has been pushed to February 8th. Mueller's mother told People her

daughter is suffering from pneumonia in both lungs and her kidneys are filled with infection.

Dr. Drew: If Tiger is in Sex Rehab, He May Have to Contact Alleged Mistresses (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:50:00 AM

Dr. Drew Pinsky offers up his professional outlook on reports that Tiger Woods is in a Mississippi treatment center for sex addiction. Dr. Drew has not met Tiger nor treated him, but in his expert opinion says the key to the pro golfer's reported rehab will be for him to admit that he is powerless against his demons. "In my experience it comes from a sense of total desperation, disgust and a fear that you're going to die if you keep going down this path," the "Celebrity Rehab" doctor explains. In addition to his wife Elin possibly being involved in the healing process, Dr. Drew says that if Tiger is in sex rehab, his alleged mistresses may also play a part in his treatment. "It [is] possible, in fact likely, that as part of his recovery, Tiger will have to contact some of these women."

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Dems Have Only Themselves to Blame (AEI.Org: Articles) Submitted at 1/20/2010 3:00:00 PM

Democrats owe Joe Lieberman an apology. Not that he should expect one. He and other Senate moderates have been reviled by the left during the health care debate. But if someone had listened more carefully to them, Democrats might already have passed health care reform and incoming GOP Sen. Scott Brown would not be driving to Washington in his pickup truck. Moderates were always the key to getting health care reform done. For many months, the path to passing health care was clear. Democrats would have to accept most of what Sens. Lieberman (I -Conn.), Bayh, Landrieu, Lincoln, Baucus, Conrad, Carper, both Nelsons and other moderate Senate Democrats wanted. And realistically, they should have secured the votes of moderate Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, too. Democrats had numerous chances to make a deal with moderates but continued to hold out in the belief that something more progressive might prevail.

The date that should stick in everyone's head is Oct. 13, nearly two months before Democrat Martha Coakley won her primary in Massachusetts and when no one had even heard of Brown. Oct. 13 was the day the Senate Finance Committee voted 14-9 for a health care reform package. That vote won the support of a number of influential moderate Democrats and also Snowe. With only a small bit of tweaking, this approach might have brought on other Democratic moderates not on the committee and Collins, Snowe's Maine colleague. Democrats should have taken that deal and run. It would have given Democrats 80 percent of what they were looking for, and it would have been a major change of policy in a Democratic direction, at a time when health care reform still polled reasonably well. But what followed was an endless set of negotiations to reflect more progressive concerns. Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to merge the Finance Committee's bill with the more liberal Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee version fed liberal

hopes for a robust public option. Even when the final Senate bill moved closer to Senate moderates' preferences (although losing Snowe's vote), the House, too, wanted to renegotiate the deal, to reflect its progressive priorities. The result was three months of messy public debate within the Democratic Party. To give President Barack Obama credit, in negotiations with congressional leaders, he has been the voice in favor of cutting a deal and accepting moderates' wishes. He questioned Reid's decision to fight for a more progressive bill rather than coalesce around the more moderate Finance Committee approach. But Obama also deserves some blame. He did not put his foot down and insist on cutting a compromise deal early in the process. Nor did Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Majority Leader Reid. Whatever you think of President George W. Bush, he understood how to cut a deal. He had smaller congressional majorities but followed a formula of having the House pass a bill close to his priorities quickly and then negotiate one deal with a few

key Senate moderates. Even Democrats' slow approach might have yielded a health care reform bill but for the fact that a special election in Massachusetts was scheduled for Jan. 19 and that the phenomenon that is Brown took advantage of the brewing discontent about health care, the economy and other issues. The importance of his victory should not be underestimated. Even in Democratic Massachusetts, Brown tapped into voters' worries that health care was too much change, too expensive and taking up legislative time that should have been dealing with more immediate economic problems. Yet even after this political sea change, Democrats are still ignoring their moderate members. Many liberals continue to hold out for a more progressive approach through delaying seating Brown (not going to happen) or using reconciliation to pass a more comprehensive bill with only 51 votes in the Senate. Even the more pragmatic president and Democratic leaders like Steny Hoyer favor the House passing the Senate's

version of health care, getting it done quickly and with a better deal than one could get with only 59 Democrats in the Senate. But the Brown victory has shaken the political earth. What might have been acceptable ground for moderates to stand on a month ago has crumbled away. Today, leaders will find that many moderate Democrats would rather drop health care reform altogether than be seen as shoving health care down the throats of an electorate that just sent a strong message to Washington in opposition. Substantial health care reform is effectively dead--not because Republicans oppose it but because Democratic moderates will see the prospect of quick passage in the face of voter discontent as political suicide in the fall. And Lieberman can say to his critics: "I told you so." John C. Fortier is a research fellow at AEI. P h o t o c r e d i t : Stock.xchng/andrewatla Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

In Context It Was Apparently Not So Hopeless Sounding [Health Care] By Pareene (Gawker)

"I don't see the votes for [passing the Senate bill] at this time."-

Nancy Pelosi

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Disconnection and Reconnection (AEI.Org: Articles)

means necessary, and, on the other hand, the growing majority of overburdened Americans The most honest analysis of last hoping for something better night's shocker in Massachusetts someday but willing to accept a is "Wow, I didn't see that one political ceasefire. We do not coming (until everyone else did h a v e s u s t a i n a b l e p o l i t i c a l just a few days ago)." But there majorities for any destabilizing w i l l b e n o s h o r t a g e o f policy changes. Trying to do less profoundly updated analyses i n W a s h i n g t o n w o u l d (and excuses) by the many accomplish more everywhere pundits who got most of this past else. year's health policy debate and We will know more over the its larger political context wrong. next week about the calculated On the other side, one can find response of the president and exaggerated claims of a mandate Democratic leaders to seeing to move in an opposite direction, their defeat on this front snatched rather than simply calling a from the jaws of imminent timeout and reflecting before victory. The temptation to double reloading. down, Vegas-style, on an unwise Hence, before the next round of bet to make health policy history clichĂŠs and conventional through more procedural w i s d o m , a m u c h h u m b l e r shortcuts and backroom deals reflection would start with remains great (at least inside the r e c o g n i z i n g t h e p r o f o u n d central command bunker), but disconnection between, on the pursuing this course would not one hand, the relentless push of only be self-defeating, it would the White House and the current stress the larger political culture c o n g r e s s i o n a l m a j o r i t y ' s in which all parties must live and leadership for a sweeping and succeed. The alternative of contorted mix of health care cobbling together a scaled-down, overhaul provisions by any less partisan compromise amid Submitted at 1/20/2010 3:00:00 PM

the overcharged atmosphere of 2010 remains equally unlikely. For the moment, we are stuck in another stage of political stalemate despite a serious need for limited, but essential, health policy reforms. However, there remain several past historical examples of health policy changes that followed initially disastrous overreaches by majorities that misread their mandates. In 1996, a more limited set of reforms under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was passed on a bipartisan basis--just two years after the collapse of ClintonCare. In 1997, the Balanced Budget Act incorporated many of the Medicare policy changes so vigorously resisted when proposed by a new Republicancontrolled Congress in 1995. (To be sure, these were much more political process accomplishments, because the actual policy provisions were of neither great value nor catastrophic harm . . . which often is close enough for

government work.) If and when the adults re-enter the health policy discussion, I hope they will encourage an end to the artificial urgency and apocalyptic desperation of the current debate. We need to restart with neither a blank page nor an overcrowded pile of 2,500 pages. After we listen more carefully to the oftencontradictory messages coming from anxious voters and count more of their ballots this November, a healthier restart and reconnection with them is both possible and necessary--next year. That will be the next annual "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Last night, Scott Brown reminded us that "we can do better." This past year, we've already nearly done much worse. Thomas P. Miller is a resident fellow at AEI. Photo credit: iStockphoto/Luca di Filippo Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Lorne Michaels: Conan O'Brien Always Welcome at 'Saturday Night Live' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:38:00 AM

" Conan O'Brien is one of the two or three funniest people I've ever known in my life," says

"Saturday Night Live" producer Lorne Michaels at the TV Academy Hall of Fame induction in Hollywood. "So of course, he'd always be welcome at 'Saturday Night Live.' He started

there." "It's not what you call genius decision making," Betty White chimed in about the late night shake up. Watch the video to see the stars

weigh-in on who's to blame for the debacle!

USC's Michael Cooper Apologizes to UCLA for Expletive By Michelle Smith (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 1/20/2010 12:23:00 PM

Filed under: UCLA, USC, Pac10, Women's Basketball Michael Cooper had made a great first impression as the new USC women's basketball coach. His second impression needs some work. Cooper, the former NBA star who won five championships in the "Showtime" era with the Los Angeles Lakers, issued a public apology Wednesday to UCLA coach Nikki Caldwell after directing an expletive at the Bruins on Sunday. Cooper came into the interview room following USC's 70-63 win over UCLA at the Galen Center and said, "My opening statement is [expletive] UCLA."

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Calling the Ex By Seyward Darby (The New Republic - All Feed)

the relief effort, the two expresidents immediately began appearing on television to Submitted at 1/20/2010 9:00:00 PM encourage Americans to donate. Last Saturday, President Obama "[I]f somebody can give $1 tapped the unlikely duo of million, we'd like to have it, but, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton if you've got $5 or $10, if you're to lead a massive campaign to eight years old and you're help Haiti. It isn't the first time listening to us, don't think your former presidents (and political dollar doesn't count," Clinton rivals) have led major relief said on Fox the day that the efforts: Clinton and George effort launched. Four days later, H.W. Bush worked together after the former presidents appeared in the 2004 tsunami, Hurricane a public service announcement Katrina, and Hurricane Ike. "This a s k i n g p e o p l e t o g i v e . I n is a model that works," Obama F e b r u a r y , t h e p a i r v i s i t e d noted. But how, exactly, does Thailand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, that model work? Why do we and the Maldives, bringing call on former presidents to help further media attention to the after disasters? need for aid. (That same month, 1) They Get People's Attention. the UN appointed Clinton as its They're presidents. They have special envoy for tsunami high profiles. People listen to recovery, giving him an even t h e m . A n d h a v i n g b o t h a larger role in relief; he is also Democrat and a Republican on special envoy to Haiti.) Clinton the case reminds people that and Bush were similarly visible humanitarian aid should be a after hurricanes Katrina and Ike, nonpartisan issue. and, earlier this week, Clinton A week after the tsunami and Bush 43 appeared together slammed Southeast Asia, when to rally support for Haiti. then-President Bush placed his After all four disasters, the father and Clinton in charge of former presidents set up private

funds to dole out grants for specific relief projects--and, in each case, early media appearances and appeals seriously kick-started donations: The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that, as of Tuesday afternoon, the Haiti fund had already collected $11.7 million. 2) They Sustain Relief Efforts. But former presidents can do more than convince people to open their wallets right after a disaster; they can keep a crisis in the philanthropic spotlight for longer than the fickle public and press might otherwise allow. "There is a window of opportunity for educating the population and keeping the public engaged," says Oxfam America President Raymond Offenheiser. "What you will see is that the media attention to these events shapes the length and duration of the window, and what the [presidential] team is able to do is extend the window because they are traveling or meeting with philanthropies or getting on TV and talking about the issue."

The tsunami fund that Clinton and Bush 41 set up continued to raise and distribute money for years after the immediate crisis. In December 2005, the expresidents announced that they would distribute an initial$90 million from their new Katrina relief fund, and they continued to seek donations until July 2007. Spokesmen for the presidents' efforts told The Houston Chronicle in late 2008 that the tsunami fund had raised a total of $1 billion, while the Katrina fund had raked in $135 million. And, already, Clinton and Bush 43 have said long-term efforts are a priority for their Haiti fund. "Bill Clinton and I want the people of Haiti to know that once the immediate crisis [has] been stabilized, we won't forget you," Bush told Voice of America. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

It's Ovechkin vs. Crosby! Or Is It? By Adam Gretz (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:45:00 AM

Filed under: Capitals, Penguins The game of the night on

Thursday is in Pittsburgh as the defending Stanley Cup champs take on the best team in the Eastern Conference. It's the first time the Penguins and Capitals have faced off since Game 7 of

last year's Eastern Conference

semifinals and, as always, much of the attention will be pointed in the direction of Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Crank up the hype machine.

Mass Effect 2 launch trailer is the last one, we promise By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:00:00 PM

We know, we know -- there's been a constant flood of Mass Effect 2 media over the past few weeks. What with your SyFy channel specials and your six trailers being released at once, we can appreciate that you might feel a bit overwhelmed. That's why we're promising that today's clip -- the launch trailer, mind you -- will be the very last bit of media you see for the game on Joystiq before the game launches. That is, of course, unless there's something really, really amazing released in the next five days. But, ya know, it'd have to be pretty sweet. Like, the sweetest. Gallery: Mass Effect 2 Mass Effect 2 launch trailer is the last one, we promise originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Tea Party 'Hero' Arrested For Rape, What Democrats Should Stolen Grenade Launcher Discovered Do Now (Little Green Footballs)

evidence on that charge, they found a grenade launcher that matched the description of one of A former Marine and current three that were reportedly stolen member of the Oathkeepers from an Army post in California. m i l i t i a g r o u p , w h o w a s a More incriminating evidence featured speaker at the July 4th against Dyer has surfaced in a tea party in Oklahoma, has been YouTube video. The video arrested on suspicion of rape — shows Dyer, a former U.S. a n d w h e n h i s h o m e w a s Marine, talking proudly about searched, police discovered a domestic terrorism. “Join the grenade launcher stolen from a military?”, said Dyer. “Depends California Army base: Domestic on what you want to do with it. Terrorist In Texoma. Me? Im going to use my training A Stephens County man is a n d b e c o m e o n e o f t h o s e behind bars on a rape charge. domestic terrorists that you’re so “We come home and those afraid of from the DHS reports.” bastards want to talk about how The video of Dyer on YouTube we’re domestic terrorists and a shows him with some friends at a threat to this country. It makes paintball facility in California. me so angry,” said Charles Dyer, Dyer’s comments in the video w h o h a s b e e n a c c u s e d o f are not only powerful but committing rape. disturbing and show his Dyer has been charged with first c o n t e m p t f o r a u t h o r i t y . d e g r e e r a p e . W h e n p o l i c e “I’m certainly not going to be searched Dyer’s home for hiding from my command Submitted at 1/20/2010 6:11:16 PM

anymore. I’m not hiding from ATF. Not hiding from FBI. Any organization. If they want to come get me I’m not going to be afraid,” Dyer said. “Patriots we are not overpowered. If we united under one banner and fight for our children’s liberity and the constitution, our resolve is invincible to any standing army,” Dyer said. Here’s video of Dyer speaking at the Oklahoma tea party, about his duty to uphold his “oath to the Constitution” and resist the federal government.[Video] UPDATE at 1/20/10 10:55:46 pm: And here’s the video mentioned in the news story above, in which Dyer talks about using his military training “to become a domestic terrorist.”[Video] (Hat tip: pnw_pirate.)

(AEI.Org: Articles) Submitted at 1/20/2010 3:00:00 PM

Twenty-four days ago, on Dec. 28, state Sen. Scott Brown, the Republican nominee in the Massachusetts Senate election, promised he would be the 41st vote against the Democratic health-care bill. Almost no one noticed. Mr. Brown was trailing Democrat Martha Coakley by 20 points, and she was still on her six-day Christmas break from campaigning. Twenty-two days made a difference. On Tuesday night, Mr. Brown strode to the platform at the Park Plaza Hotel and delivered his victory speech. While Washington reporters were busy speculating on whether President Obama would use his State of the Union speech to prod Democrats into jamming through their health-care bill before Mr. Brown is seated, the new Massachusetts senator delivered what amounted to a

State of the Union speech himself. Interim Sen. Paul Kirk, he announced, had completed his work in Washington. There would be no 60th vote for a health-care bill. The president was always welcome in Massachusetts, he said. And then Mr. Brown channeled Franklin Delano Roosevelt's riposte to the attacks on his dog Fala by saying that he resented Mr. Obama's attacks on his truck. Click here to read the full text from the Wall Street Journal. Michael Barone's comment is the third entry. Michael Barone is a senior fellow at AEI. P h o t o c r e d i t : vgm8383/Flickr/Creative Commons Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Review: Cougar Town - Stop Dragging My Heart Around By Joel Keller (TV Squad)

she doesn't want to be tied down, Laurie and Grayson hook up because of their various (S01E13) Wow. Didn't think I'd relationship issues, and Andy miss so much in one week. But gets a lot of agita from keeping the episode I had to pass on to all the group's secrets. Isabelle because of the TCAs So to see it all play out this was full of character movement; week made me a little bit uneasy, show needed some raised stakes Jules breaks up with Jeff because but that's a good thing. This Submitted at 1/21/2010 11:52:00 AM

among its ensemble, even if we're starting to set up one of those eye-rolling situations where people start to sleep with each other and always end up finding out. Hopefully, this is something that will be examined in dribs and drabs and doesn't dominate the storytelling in the

future. Continue reading Review: Cougar Town - Stop Dragging My Heart Around Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Cougar Town Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Gadget and Gear Deals of the Day [Dealhacker] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

Printer for $117 with free shipping(Regular Price: $150).

Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:00:00 AM

Discounted laptops, HDTVs, and a pile of peripherals await inside today's Dealhacker roundup. If busting out the credit card isn't an option today, you'll still find free games, music, and samples. Computer Gear! • 17.3" Toshiba Satellite L555D Laptop for $549.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $650) • 15.6" Compaq Presario CQ61 Laptop for $414.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $445) • 15.6" Acer Aspire 5517 Laptop for $369.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $470) • 15.4" Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 for $549 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $844) • 21.5" Dell E2210H 1080p LCD Monitor for $149 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $199.00 u s e c o u p o n code?FZR1V7ZXFBLBS) • 23" Lenovo IdeaCentre B500 2.7GHz All-in-One Desktop for $719 with free shipping(Regular Price: $869 - use coupon code USP0114B500). • HP Pavilion s5380t Core2 Quad Desktop for $599.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $880). • Dell OptiPlex 380 2.93GHz Desktop + 20" Dell LCD Monitor for $539 with $35 shipping(Regular Price: $856). • 18.4" Toshiba Satellite P500ST6822 2.2GHz Laptop for

$679.20 with free shipping(Regular Price: $849). • 16.4" Sony VAIO F1190X Core i7 Laptop for $989 with free shipping(Regular Price: $999). • 16" Toshiba Satellite A505S6989 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo for $540 with free shipping(Regular Price: $756). • 15.6" Dell Inspiron 1564 Core i5 Laptop for $769 with $12.95 shipping(Regular Price: $874). • 15.6" Acer Aspire AS5532 Laptop for $349.99 plus $14.99 shipping(Regular Price: $408). • 15.5" Sony VAIO NW Laptop for $549.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $679). • 14" ASUS X83 Laptop for $ 7 6 4 . 8 2 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $850 use this form). • 14" Dell Inspiron 14 Laptop with Core 2 Duo Processor 2.2GHz for $649 plus shipping(Regular Price: $853) • 14" HP dv4-2170us Core i5 Laptop for $649.98 with free shipping(Regular Price: $809.98) • 13.3" Lenovo ThinkPad X301

1.4GHz Laptop for $959.40 with free shipping(Regular Price: $1,599 - use coupon code MSStore-PC-40%). • 11.6" Lenovo ThinkPad X100e Laptop for $449 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $584). • 10" Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook w/ TV Tuner for $ 3 3 6 . 5 4 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $449). • 10" Sony VAIO W VPCW121AX Netbook (Pink) for $299 with free shipping(Regular Price: $484.99 - use coupon code MSStore-PC40%). • Lenovo P550 Headset for $11 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $20 - use coupon code USPCJ22065). • 10.1" MSI Wind U100 Intel Atom N270 Netbook (1GB/160GB/3-Cell Battery) for $ 2 5 9 . 9 9 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $329 use coupon code: SHINE1130). • 10.1" Toshiba Mini NB205N312/BL Royal Blue Netbook for $327.98 + Free Shipping(Regular Price:

Home Entertainment Gear! • 55" LG 55LH85 1080p Wireless LCD HDTV for $1,599.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $2,130) • 47" LG 47LG90 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $1,399.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $1,500) • 42" Toshiba REGZA $372.94). • 2 2 " A s u s V W 2 2 4 U 42ZV650U 1080p LED LCD WideScreen LCD Monitor for HDTV for $749.99 + Free $ 1 3 4 . 9 9 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $790) Shipping(Regular Price: $162.99 • Dell Vostro 220 Dual Core - use coupon code LAUGH0315 Desktop with 24" Samsung LCD Monitor for $499(Regular Price: and this rebate form). • LaCie Little Disk 320GB USB $830) External Hard Drive for $68.99 + • 15.6" Acer Aspire AS5732ZFree Shipping(Regular Price: 4280 Intel Dual Core Laptop for $ 3 9 9 . 9 9 + F r e e $88). • Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz S h i p p i n g ( R e g u l a r P r i c e : Processor + ECS H55H-M (rev. $ 4 5 9 . 9 9 ) 1 . 0 ) M o t h e r b o a r d f o r • 14.1" Lenovo T400 14.1" $166.98(Regular Price: $199 - L a p t o p w i t h I n t e l T 8 7 0 0 Processor, 4GB RAM for use this form). + F r e e • Microsoft Windows 7 Home $ 8 1 1 . 2 0 Premium 64-bit (OEM) for Shipping(Regular Price: $1430 $92.99 + Free Shipping(Regular use coupon code USPSAVE20) 25" I-inc iH-252HPB Price: $129 - use coupon code: • Widescreen LCD Monitor for WINTER10). + F r e e • Canon PIXMA iP4700 $ 1 8 9 . 9 9 Shipping(Regular Price: $253) Premium Inkjet Photo Printer for $59.99 + Free Shipping(Regular • Logitech diNovo Mac Edition Wireless Keyboard for Price: $79.99). • OCZ 1GB DDR3 Laptop $39.99(Regular Price: $70) M e m o r y f o r $ 2 w i t h f r e e • 55" Samsung LN55B650 shipping(Regular Price: $27 - 1080p 120Hz LCD TV for $1,479.00 + Free this form). • Lexmark Interact S605 GADGET page 28 Wireless 3-in-1 Color Inkjet

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How to Put Your PC to Good Use While You're Sleeping [Hack Attack] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:00:00 AM

The great part about your computer is that—unlike you—it doesn't require any sleep. Take advantage of your PC's insomnia by automating time- and processor-intensive tasks while you're counting sheep. Photo remixed from Remko van Dokkum and Ian Wilson. Note: We're all for powering down your PC to save energy overnight, but you can easily schedule your computer to shut down at specific times using several methods, so there's no harm in putting your PC to sleep an hour or two after you doze off—or an hour or two after you leave for work, or whatever times you might want to take advantage of a few extra CPU cycles while you're away from your PC. On Tuesday we asked you what apps and maintenance tools you run while you're sleeping. Below we've aggregated our favorite overnight computer uses, including some of your favorite methods of squeezing a few more overtime hours out of your computer along with ours. Backup, Update, and Clean Ah maintenance; it's the stuff that boring work is made of. Rather than incorporate it into your regular computing hours—and staring listlessly at

your computer while your maintenance tasks complete—make computer maintenance an overnight task that your computer performs without you. Note: All of the below suggestions, naturally, can be set to run on a schedule. Backup your hard drive: We've emphasized the importance of backup time and again, and even if you've already got some form of backup in place, there's still a good chance that you're doing it wrong. The bummer about backup: It can take a very long time,

especially when you're performing an off-site backup over the internet (which you should be doing!). We've detailed how to automatically backup your hard drive to an external drive and/or FTP server in the past. Backing up to a second local hard drive—like a connected USB drive—is the most important of these two, since most people don't necessarily have an off-site FTP server they can back up to. Instead, for your off-site backup needs, we'd suggest signing up for a service like Mozy. An annual subscription to Mozy will

cost around $55 a year for unlimited backups (free for up to 2GB), but let's say worst comes to worst and your computer is robbed, lost to a fire, or your hard drives up and crash. That small cost for insurance will likely seem very much worth the money. I personally use and can vouch for Mozy, but you might want to read up on it and other options in our recent Hive Five Best Backup Tools. Some command-line savvy readers also opt to do their backups using the venerated rsync command line tool. If you're interested in taking the

rsync route, check out our guide on how to mirror files across systems with rsync. Make your hard drive repair itself: You can't do much to save a hard drive from dying if it's fated in the stars, but you can do your part to keep your disks healthy—specifically by regularly defragmenting and checking for and repairing any disk errors. Our oldie-but-goodie guide to the self-repairing hard drive will allow you to schedule this maintenance once or twice per week, while you're sleeping, so you can rest easy that you've done all you can to keep your disks running in tip-top shape. Keep your computer up to date: This one's kind of a no brainer, but still very worth the reminder. Granted, some power users would prefer vetting each and every Windows update before it's applied, but for most folks, there's not much of a reason not to automate this process while they're out. To schedule updates via Windows Update, just launch the Update tool from the Control Panel, click the Let me choose my settings link, and choose your preferred automated update settings. OS X users, your Software Update tool isn't quite as friendly about setting specific times for checking for and downloading HOW page 29

Game/

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GADGET continued from page 26

Shipping(Regular Price: $1640 use coupon code LN55B650). • 47" Viore LC47VXF60PB 1080p LCD HDTV for $800 shipped(Regular Price: $1020). • 46" Sony BRAVIA KDL46S5100 1080p LCD HDTV for $779 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $850). • 32" Sony BRAVIA KDL32L504 720P LCD TV for $360 with free shipping(Regular Price: $400). • 32" Sylvania LC320SLX 720p L C D H D T V f o r $299.99(Regular Price: $359.99). • 23" VIZIO VM230XVT 1080p LED HDTV for $331.66 with free shipping(Regular Price: $349.99). • Yamaha RX-V665 7.2ch AV Receiver + Klipsch KSW-10 10in Subwoofer for $499.00 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $599 - use coupon code: FREEGFT1118A). • Pinnacle MB10000 Home Theater System for $548.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $2500). • Opteka OPT15 15-Inch Digital Picture Frame with 1GB Built-In Memory for $142.77 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $179.95). • Free Samsung 2.1-channel soundbar speaker system With the purchase of select Samsung LED-LCD HDTVs(Regular Price: $299.99). Portable Gear!

• Zune HD 32GB Video MP3 Player for $259.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $280 use coupon code EMCYZNZ45) • Sennheiser RS 140 Wireless Balanced Headphones for $99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $119) • DeLonghi HHP1500 Safeheat Mica Panel Radiator Heater for $69.95 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $88) • AT&T Wireless Unlimited Calling Plan for $69.99 shipping(Regular Price: $100) • 5dot Connect Laptop Sleeve for $7 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $22.99) • Creative Labs Vado HD 8 GB Pocket Video Camcorder, 2nd Generation for $114.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $199.99). • Nikon Coolpix S620 12.2MP Digital Camera for $229.95 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $269.65). • Sony Cybershot DSC-TX1 Digital Camera for $299 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $314). • Skullcandy INK'D Earbuds for $10.17(Regular Price: $17.95). • Sony MDRRF970RK 900 MHz Analog RF Wireless Headphone for $58.77 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $64.23). • Flip Mino F360B Video Pocket Camcorder for $96.99 with free shipping(Regular Price: $119.99). • Kodak EASYSHARE Z1485 14 Megapixel Digital Camera for $120 with free shipping(Regular

Price: $180). • Canon VIXIA HF20 HD Dual Flash Camcorder for $599 with free shipping(Regular Price: $699). • Nikon Coolpix P90 12.1MP Digital Camera w/ Tilt LCD for $ 3 2 2 . 9 8 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $349). • Invisio G5 Bluetooth Headset for $29.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $79.95). • HP Photosmart E327 5MP Digital Camera for $29.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $115). • Fujifilm Finepix Z37 10MP Digital Camera for $99.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $122.22). • SteelSeries 5H v2 USB Headset with Soundcard for $89.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $120). • JBuds J3M Micro Atomic InEar Earphones with Microphone Compatible with iPhone for $29.95 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $39.99). • Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10 Noise Isolating Earphones for $ 1 9 8 . 8 9 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $365.49). • Creative Labs Vado 2GB Pocket Video Camcorder for $39.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $94). • Nokia E63 Cell Phone (Unlocked, Quad-Band GSM, 3G) for $149.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $199 u s e c o u p o n code:$NC714XVMPS9FM).

• Kodak EasyShare Z1485 14MP Digital Camera for $ 1 1 9 . 9 9 + F r e e Shipping(Regular Price: $170). Free Stuff! • Sunbelt Granola Bars box, BOGO Coupon for $0(print this PDF) • All The Pretty Girls by fun (MP3) for $0(download here). • Alien Glyphs (iPhone/iPod Touch) for $0(Regular Price: $1.99). • Samples of Prilosec for $0(use this form) • Free Selena Gomez "Naturally" Music Download for $0(use this form) • Reign of Swords (iPhone) for $0(Regular Price: $2.99). • Stamps.com 4-week trial with $25 worth of postage, digital scale, supplies for $0 • We've Got A Long Way To Go by Joe Perry (MP3) for $0(download here). • 50 Digital Photos Printed by CVS for $0(Regular Price: $9, use this form). Thanks Dealzon, TechDealDigger, Slickdeals, Fatwallet, TechBargains, CheapStingyBargains, CheapCollegeGamers, and GamerHotline!

British girl has record-breaking Pokemon collection By Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:45:00 PM

For years we've waited for the news, patiently biding our time, but we need wait no longer. Somewhere in Hertfordshire, UK, 21-year-old Lisa Courtney ... has caught 'em all. Her 12,000 -piece Pokémon memorabilia collection has landed her in the Guinness Book of World Records 2010 Gamer's Edition, and if a 12,000-piece set doesn't constitute'em all, then we don't want to know what does. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to go tell Griffin about this so he can start writing Lisa creepy love letters. British girl has record-breaking Pokemon collection originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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HOW continued from page 27

updates, but Macworld's Christopher Breen has some clever tips for scheduling Software Update that'll do the trick. Clean house: Whether you're talking antivirus, crap cleaning, or other general PC cleanup, there's no better time to run those scans and maintenance tools than while you're catching some Z's. It may depend on your antivirus application of choice, but you should have some sort of built-in scheduling option for running antivirus and spyware scans. And for the CCleaner crowd, the How-To Geek details how to set up CCleaner to run automatically every night. Download, Encode, and Fold Now that you've got your PC taking care of its most important maintenance tasks overnight, let's look at a few other common overnight uses. Downloads: When we asked about overnight PC use, downloading using tools like BitTorrent ranked very high among those who responded, and for obvious reasons: Downloads can take a long time, and those hours you're sleeping are hours that big downloads can be completing. But rather than keep your PC on all night long—even after it completes your download—most popular file downloaders have built-in options for shutting down, hibernating, or otherwise powering off your computer

when the download in question completes. Everything from the popular BitTorrent client uTorrent(whose options are pictured above) to download managers like DownThemAll have these options built in. Video encoding: Many of us will never know the time it takes to do some seriously heavy video encoding (we're none of us Pixar), but if you've ever tried ripping a DVD (here are five of the best ripping tools out there), you know how much time and CPU cycles video encoding can take. Outsource your ripping and other encoding jobs to the night so you can actually use your computer the next day. Share your computing power with researchers: Distributed computing tools allow researchers across the globe to use your extra CPU cycles to run a few algorithms of their own in the background using your computer. That might not seem like much, but with enough computers, researchers can do some serious work with distributed computing. (Wikipedia notes that Folding@home, the most popular distributed computing network, has up to 400,000 active machines running at a time and has reached computing speeds of over 5.0 native petaflops.) If you're interested in putting your PC to use to help the world while you're sleeping, you've got plenty of

options:There's Folding@home(a project to understand protein folding), BOINC, the World Community Grid, and LHC@home, to name a few popular options. And a few other smart ideas Clever (or just less common) overnight uses for your PC suggested by Lifehacker readers included: • Updating your applications: Reader Matthew Giacomazzo uses previously mentioned software update tool Ketarin to check for and download software update packages for installed apps. Rather than automatically install them, he has Ketarin output updates to a text file on his desktop so he can review the downloaded updates and decide whether or not to install them in the morning. • Compiling code: Compiling code from source can be an intensive process, and reader perlhacker uses his overnight cycles to update and compile software on his Mac and OpenBSD machines. • Renaming files: Lifehacker reader prupert runs scripts on his home theater PC to rename and copy television recordings on his MythTV setup, then scans the recordings for advertising, removes them, and converts the files to MKV. • Creating local backups for data in the cloud: Reader mojo schedules a Google Docs backup to give a little redundancy to data

in the cloud. Just Turn It Off Already Okay, fine. Sometimes the best thing you can do with your computer is simply turn it off. You save on electricity, you lose one extra hum and a few flashing lights in your home at night, and you may stop thinking, "Oooo, maybe I should google that" while you're laying in bed with your pre-sleep mind wandering. Remember, though, very few of the options highlighted above should require an entire night's worth of your powered-on computer. Check out our guide to automatically shutting down your computer at a certain time for more ideas on how you can make the most of some afterhours computing power without keeping your computer on all night long. Got a favorite that didn't make the list above, or want to expand on what we already mentioned? Share your thoughts and experience in the comments. Adam Pash, editor of Lifehacker, enjoys the god-like power of automation more than is healthy. His work can be found every day on Lifehacker, and he's listening on Twitter.

Street Chic: New York By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 1/21/2010 4:00:00 AM

Get wrapped up in a luxe furtrimmed topper. Photo: Kelly Stuart Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily. Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

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No Time Like the Present to Choose Strong Passwords [Passwords] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

passwords. Even if you're limited on the number of characters you can use, turn a long phrase into a jumbled short one. "I like bread and butter, especially at breakfast time." can become "Ilbab$eabt!". • Use a different password for every single site you access

Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:30:00 AM

We harp on the importance of strong passwords a lot here at Lifehacker and for good reason, it's important and most people consistently use terrible passwords. The analysis of the 32 million user password breach at RockYou certainly highlights that. Last December the password database of RockYou—a service that lets people create multimedia slideshows and other media creations for social networks like Facebook—was completely compromised. The login and password information of 32 million users was captured by a single hacker who released the passwords—sans matching logins—to the public. Security firm Imperva went through the entire 32 million entries and analyzed the passwords. They published their finding in a small paper " Consumer Password Worst Practices" that highlights the shortcomings of the RockYou user's password selections and laments how little times have changed: In 1990, a study of Unix password security revealed that password selection is strikingly similar to the 32 million breached passwords. Just ten

years ago, hacked Hotmail passwords showed little change. That means that users, if allowed to, will choose very weak passwords even for sites that hold their most private data. How weak were the RockYou passwords? Almost 300,000 users had the password "123456" and if you count the number of users from the Top 10 section of the password analysis that used variations of numbers like "12345" and "1234567", the number creeps towards nearly

half a million. Astoundingly 61,958 users had the password "Password" and 22,588 used the name of the service "rockyou" as their password. Just in case you thought we were overlooking other shockingly bad passwords "Qwerty" was used by nearly 14,000 users. So what can you do? Imperva highlights some things you can do to create more secure passwords but none of what they're saying is reinventing the wheel. It's the same advice that

security experts have been giving for decades and users have been ignoring. Nonetheless, it bears repeating and if you're not doing it right now you need to start: • Passwords should be longer than six characters and include a mix of uppercase, lowercase, and special characters. • Your password should never be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should never include part of your name or your email address. • Use passphrases instead of

The last one is extremely important. RockYou stored all their passwords in plaintext which isn't—shockingly!—as uncommon as you would think. If your password is compromised because of the stupidity of the people running the service you use, it doesn't matter if you had an awesome password of enormous length and variety. If you use that awesome password on other services those services have now been compromised. If you're freaked out about your crappy passwords—and you should be!—now would be a great time to review some of the numerous guides and resources we've shared over the years on the topic like how to choose and remember great passwords, how to create a perfect password, eight great KeePass plug-ins to master your passwords, and how your passwords aren't as secure as you think. You can read more about the RockYou password and get more TIME page 31

Tech Tips/ Tech News/ Economy/

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TIME continued from page 30

Firefox 3.6 Officially Available, Brings Speed Increases, One-Click Themes, and More [Downloads] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

What's new? The video above provides the highlights, but the talking points are: Windows/Mac/Linux: The oft- • Instant themes: Point 3.6 at the delayed but much improved 3.6 Personas gallery, and you can version of Firefox has landed, hover over a theme to see how it offering up faster performance, would look in your browser. one-click themes, safer add-ons Click to apply it, and it's your a n d p l u g - i n s , b e t t e r f o n t browser skin. You can then handling, and a lot more. Grab it manage your Personas from the now. Add-Ons menu. We've been downloading and • Out-of-date plugins notifier: trying out Firefox 3.6 from the Start your browser up with an first alpha, and from what we've outdated, and potentially virusseen, 3.6 is a bigger update than friendly, Adobe Flash or other the minor decimal point iteration plugin, and Firefox will tell you would indicate. It ranked second and provide an update link. only to the cutting-edge Chrome • Full-screen "open" video: If builds in our speed and you're looking at a video performance tests, which meant streaming in Ogg or another free there was real improvement in format, Firefox can play it full startup time and page rendering. screen. Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:55:00 AM

• WOFF support: More intriguing for developers than users, but, still, Firefox now accepts and downloads smallersized Web Open Font Format fonts, allowing sites to more quickly show you their text the way they intended. • Faster, faster, faster: Mozilla promises better JavaScript, startup time, and rendering speeds.

Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:44:20 AM

President Barack Obama proposed breaking up Wall Street banks on Thursday in a markedly tougher stance on

regulatory reform, which he said would rein in excessive risktaking. If enacted by Congress, his proposals would lead to institutions such as JPMorgan Chase splitting up to obey a new prohibition on banks engaging in

Firefox 3.6 Released By Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:39:00 AM

Mozilla announced today that the final version of Firefox 3.6 is now available for download and we're told the new Firefox is 20% faster than the last version You can read up more on what's with several new features to new in the 3.6 release notes, but boot. you're probably going to want to We've taken a look at all of the discover its features for yourself. release candidates and now that Firefox 3.6 is a free download the final version is here, we're for Windows, Mac, and Linux h o p i n g i t d o e s e v e r y t h i n g s y s t e m s . F i r e f o x w e b Mozilla says it can. Sponsor browser[Mozilla] One of the biggest features Mozilla has been talking about, aside from all of the developer stuff we discussed when we proprietary trading or investing looked at Release Candidate 2, is the Personas system. Personas is in hedge funds. Five Filters featured article: a theming system made easy to Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Obama gets tough on Wall St banks (Financial Times - US homepage)

security tips at the link below. Have your own tip or trick for crafting great passwords? Let's hear about it in the comments. Consumer Password Worst Practices (PDF!)[via Tech Crunch]

the point of point and click. Personas lets you change the look of your browser with a choice of over 35,000 different themes, although we found many of them may be targeted to the teenage girl. While you won't see an automatic update for version 3.6 for a few weeks, the newest version is available for download. And for the reading impaired, here's a quick overview of the features from Mozilla: Discuss

Tech News/ Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

3 Tools to Sync Your Files with Google Docs By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

Docs. In the software program, files and folders already online are downloaded to your Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:06:23 AM computer. Local files not yet When Google announced an online can then be moved to the upgrade to their Google Docs appropriate Google Docs folder service earlier this month, a via drag-and-drop. The service is c o m p a n y b l o g p o s t a l s o relatively simple to use as it mentioned several third-party presents your documents in an applications which can help easy-to-navigate window while make the transition to the online also incorporating Google's service easier. With these apps, online features like starred files you can transfer and synchronize and shared folders. your local files to Google Docs One major drawback to Memeo without having to upload them Connect is that there's no o n e - b y - o n e . B u t w h i c h automatic synchronization application is right for you? option. That means you can't We took a look at the options monitor a local folder or folders Google suggested and have for new files or changes and then s u m m a r i z e d t h e f e a t u r e s , have those documents seamlessly d r a w b a c k s , a n d p r i c i n g synced to Google's online information below. In addition, service. This feature should we also reviewed one other a r r i v e i n a f u t u r e u p d a t e , application not specifically however, so don't let its lack of mentioned in the Google blog inclusion be a deal breaker for post which may be of use to you if the service fulfills all your those moving to the cloud-based other needs. service. For personal users of Google Sponsor Docs, the biggest drawback to 1. Memeo Connect for Google Memeo is that the service is only Apps available to users of Google Memeo Connect is a desktop Apps Premier edition, a business application available for both -level version of the service Mac and PC (XP and higher) which also offers calendaring, which lets you view files on both groups, web site creation tools, your desktop and within Google and video sharing to corporate

backed up in multiple places online too. Another benefit to Syncplicity's service is its "restore" feature which lets you undelete files using their web users for $50 per user per year. application. Those accidentally Memeo Connect itself costs an deleted files are immediately additional $9/year. 2. Syncplicity restored to your PC's hard drive Syncplicity allows a Google with a click of a button. Docs user the ability to access, Syncplicity is available in manage, sync, share, and backup multiple versions for anyone t h e i r f i l e s o n l i n e . T h e using Google Docs. A free downloadable software program personal edition provides 2 GB seamlessly integrates with of online storage for up to 2 Windows Explorer for file computers while a $15/month management purposes. (The Mac personal edition offers 50 GB of software beta program was storage for up to 5 computers. discontinued in July of last year Businesses can sign up for a but the company tells us they're separate plan which starts at working on an entirely new $45/month for 3 users and goes version right now.) The Explorer up from there. 3. Offisync integration is a decidedly helpful Offisync is a Microsoft Office feature for those who don't want plugin which integrates Google to change the way they already Docs directly within your Office work. software. ( See our earlier review In addition, unlike Memeo here). This is useful for those Connect, a u t o m a t i c who only want to upload specific synchronization is possible. And files to Google Docs instead of that synchronization isn't only automatically syncing entire with Google Docs - the software folders. Once installed, the can also sync files to its own plugin adds an additional menu w e b s i t e a s w e l l a s o t h e r to Office's software (either c o m p u t e r s r u n n i n g t h e Office 2003 or 2007) where you Syncplicity software. That means are provided with buttons which your files are not only available allow you to open, save, search, on other machines, they're collaborate, and email your

94 secret Windows 7 shortcuts (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:43:00 AM

If you’re a fast typing PC user who appreciates not having to

move your hands away from the keyboard to do a bunch of mouse movements, you’ll love this list of ninety four secret shortcuts for Windows 7. These shortcuts are

curiously undocumented in the

Windows 7 Help Files and on their website, but they do the trick! Total Microsoft coverage. Permalink| Leave a comment »

Google Docs files. The software works on Windows PCs and is available for personal users of Google Docs or Google Apps. An Enterprise version provides the same functionality to business users by providing integration with Google's website building software, Google Sites, a service which provides a simplified alternative to SharePoint. With any one of the three tools above, you can easily transition from a desktop-based computing environment to one where your Office documents are created, managed, and maintained in the cloud. However, it's important to note that Google Docs isn't the only online office suite available. Companies like Zoho, Adobe, ThinkFree, and others also provide online alternatives to Microsoft Office. In addition, Microsoft itself recently launched its own Office Web Applications into beta. If you're a user of any of the programs mentioned here, let us know about your experiences. Would you recommend one program over another? Are there features you would like to see added? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Discuss

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E-reader News Edition

Amazon Allows Some Publishers and Authors to Opt Out of E-Book DRM

Guardian Launches Search Engine for Government Data

By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

By Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:50:37 AM

Amazon quietly made a major change to its Digital Text Platform last week that went largely unnoticed: small publishers and individual authors who use the Digital Text Platform can now opt out of the Kindle's digital rights management (DRM) program. While this change only affects a relatively small number of publishers and authors for now, this move could hint at a larger change in Amazon's DRM policy. Right now, Amazon's DRM policy means that its customers can't transfer their books to a non-Kindle e-reader. Sponsor For Amazon, it makes sense to experiment with this new option on the Digital Text Platform. Given that this is a selfpublishing tool, the company

The Guardian quotes developer Ben Fry on the future of The UK Guardian, ostensibly a searching government data, newspaper but a major proponent "This is only going one way: for opening data held by there is no trend towards less governments to use by outside data." software developers, has Following an era when the launched some software of its quantity of data available online own: a search engine that increased in orders of magnitude, unearths datasets and pathways thanks largely to easy publishing to data sets provided by tools for end-users like blogging governments around the world. and social networks, many World Government Data Search people expect the next era of is now live. development online to focus on Yesterday the UK government strategic moves to make the most released its new data site, valuable data available in data.gov.uk, to rave reviews ( standardized formats that including ours). The new facilitate innovation by 3rd Guardian search engine searches parties independent of the across the UK, US, New Zealand original sources of the data. and Australian governments' data If large, standardized data sets sites. The company also offered are a new language, then it's time up a gallery of the 10 best for a new period of literature to visualizations and mash-ups built be written. Discuss on top of government data like this. Sponsor Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:55:44 AM

doesn't have to explain this change to its partners in the publishing industry while allowing the company to experiment with a DRM-free solution. Most publishing houses tend to be very conservative when it comes to DRM-free ebook solutions. In the selfpublishing world, however, DRM-free books are very common. Self-pulishing platform Smashwords, for example, doesn't even offer a DRM solution. Right now, you can't take your Kindle e-books to a Sony Reader, for example. While the Kindle is a huge success for Amazon, the current DRM solution is surely holding quite a few potential customers back from making the jump to ebooks. The Beginning of the End

for E-Book DRM? If the e-book world follows the same path as the music industry, however, chances are that restrictive DRM solutions will disappear over the next few years. At least for Amazon, giving its self-published authors and small publishing houses this option is a first step in the right direction. For O'Reilly, publishing DRM-free e-book has turned out to be an advantage. Hopefully, other publishing houses will also realize that DRMed e-books do very little Tip of the hat to Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton for noticing this change first. Image Credit: Nieman Journalism Lab. Discuss

12 ways to spice up your water (Holy Kaw!)

Here are twelve ways to spice up your drinking water. Why not try adding: You know you should drink • slices of cucumber eight glasses of water a day. But, • mint leaves let's be honest, it gets boring. • chopped strawberries Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:07:00 AM

These little additions make a

world of difference to your taste buds! More edible news for you foodies. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Rumor Has It: iPhone OS 4.0 Details Leaked Early By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

gestures we get now in apps like Photos and Safari are sensible enough, (double-tap and pinch Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:12:36 AM zooming are useful in those I’m pretty sure that late January apps) but do we need multiis traditionally that time of the touch everywhere? How will the year when the Apple rumor mill addition of OS-wide gestures starts heating-up in anticipation make the OS more elegant, more of the impending iPhone OS intuitive and easier to use? Now, update. A young tradition, to be I’m not suggesting any sort of sure, but a tradition nonetheless. m a j o r c a l a m i t y ; I ’ m j u s t This year, however, the media experiencing something of an frenzy around the mythical-but- imagination-failure here. completely-certainly-probably- “A few new ways” to run real Tablet seems to be getting applications in the background all the attention — rather like a — multitasking.” new born baby stealing the So, the elusive Multitasking is limelight from its three year old coming to iPhone? I’m not sibling. convinced. Speaking from my At least BoyGeniusReport — in many years of experience using the past a reasonably accurate Windows Mobile, it seems to me source of information on that Apple’s approach to upcoming iPhone OS updates — memory management on the hasn’t forgotten the tradition and, iPhone is pretty much perfect. even though no one is paying the Sure, it doesn’t multitask — but least bit of attention, they in almost three years of iPhone resolutely committed to web- o w n e r s h i p , t h a t h a s n e v e r page what they think they now presented an insurmountable know about iPhone 4.0. problem for me. And the (ahemSo what’s the latest? From late) introduction of Push BGR: Notification Services was a very “There will be multi-touch welcome compromise. gestures OS-wide. (Would make I have since discovered, sense […] as the rumored OS for however, that I don’t need the iTablet is close if not the Facebook to notify me about same as the iPhone) every poke or thrown sheep, and I’m not sure I understand what I especially don’t want to be this means if I’m honest with notified of every tweet from my you. I mean, the few multi-touch Twitter stream. No thank you.

Perhaps the “few new ways” refers to a sandboxed memory “space” that runs in the background, sort of like an app for keeping-alive portions of other apps, even when they’re not currently front-and-center. Maybe. Whatever it is, you can be sure there won’t be a task manager. “Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.” What do you think? A new, refreshed UI style, perhaps? Or an iPhone version of Exposé? The latter sounds horrid, but still, Soptlight can’t be the only solution to quickly navigating through 10 pages of apps. “The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.” Makes sense. The 3G and 3GS have more memory than the venerable first generation iPhone. Consider how sluggish

the latest build of the iPhone OS (3.1.2) can be on first generation iPhones. Apple is so concerned with guaranteeing a consistent, elegant user experience they kept cut & paste out of the OS for years before they felt the solution was good-enough to publish. So they’re hardly going to support their latest and greatest OS on the ageing first-generation iPhone because the experience will be terrible. I would wager, too, that core location services have been greatly expanded and even more tightly integrated with the entire OS, making the original locationignorant iPhone a bit of a silly platform for 4.0. (Don’t forget that patent for a location-aware home screen…) “The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.” Since I’m one of the five or six people in this world who pays for a MobileMe subscription I never really think about contacts/calendar syncing. It just happens for me, quietly, no fuss. I’ve never synced any other way, so I have no experience of the perils and pitfalls of syncing via different methods. I’ll leave you to tell me what you think this means and why I should care.

And Then There’s That Tablet (Again) Don’t forget that the established wisdom of the Rumor Mill has it that iPhone OS 4.0 and the Tablet’s operating system are pretty much built upon the same core code — hence the reason for Apple’s delay in seeding the 4.0 build to developers. (Since the code is so similar it’s pretty likely that tablet functionality will be easily discovered by a few minutes spent digging through iPhone OS 4.0’s bundled APIs. Apple has held-back on seeding the next major iPhone OS build for this very reason — they don’t want to give away clues as to what’s in store with the Tablet — that sort of information will leak fast.) So while the world’s press salivates over the upcoming tablet and forgets completely about Apple’s other major products, spare a thought for iPhone OS 4.0. It’s likely to be the most important — and impressive — update in the iPhone’s history. And, unless you have your money ready to splash on the Tablet, iPhone OS 4.0 is the most likely next “new thing” you’re going to get from Cupertino.

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New Year’s Resolutions iPhone Apps: Save Money By Alfredo Padilla (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:30:11 AM

Finishing up our series about using your iPhone to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions, today we’ll be looking at iPhone apps that will help you save money. 2009 was no one’s idea of a great year from a business standpoint, except maybe for Apple. I imagine that many of us are looking at our bank accounts after holiday spending sprees and figuring out how we’re going to be a bit wiser with our money. Thankfully there are a ton of good choices to help you manage your money on your iPhone whether it’s saving on the things you buy or keeping an eye on your budgets. Note: All links point to iTunes store. PocketMoney Price:$4.99(free lite version also available) Rating: 3.5 Stars If you want to manage all of your finances on your iPhone, PocketMoney is the app for you. It supports multiple accounts and acts as a simple check register, but also includes the ability to create and manage budgets and allows you to get a good overview of your spending

with attractive charts. You can also export your data to back it up or import data from a desktop application. DebtTracker Pro Price:$2.99(99 cent lite version also available) Rating: 3.5 Stars The premise is simple, track your debt and set up plans to pay it off. The interface is attractive and easy to use. You can also see what your debt ratio is and track how much you’ve been able to pay off. If you don’t like the default payoff approach, you can create your own custom payoff plans as well. Getting rid of that high interest credit card is a great way to start saving for the new year. RedLaser Price:$1.99 Rating: 4 Stars The perfect comparison shopping app, simply scan any barcode to get a list of competing

Mortgage Calculator Pro Price: 99 cents Rating: 3.5 Stars If you’re thinking about making any major purchases in 2010, it’s a good idea to have a program like Mortgage Calculator on your iPhone. Despite the name, you can calculate car and credit card payments as well as mortgages. A nice feature is that you can save loans so you can look at prices from a variety of sources. them later and compare options. You can email yourself a list of Y o u a l s o g e t a c o m p l e t e scanned products for comparison amortization table to peruse. shopping later and you can add 20 Minute Meals custom URL’s to search for if Price:$4.99 there’s a retailer that’s not in Rating: 4 Stars their database. One of the biggest money sinks iBank out there is eating out, so having Price:$4.99 a good recipe application on your Rating: 3.5 Stars iPhone to give you fast and easy The companion to the popular meal ideas you can make at Mac desktop finance manager, home is a great way to save iBank doesn’t offer as wide a money. 20 Minute Meals only range of features as some of the has 55 recipes, which isn’t much other finance applications out considering the $5 price tag, but there for the iPhone. It more than i t a l s o i n c l u d e s a h e l p f u l makes up for these deficiencies, shopping list feature and videos however, with easy to use to help you prepare the meal. transaction entry and over the air And really, if this app can help synchronization. If you want to you eat in more you’ll save the manage your budgets on your cost of the app the first time you Mac but want to enter and sync don’t go out to a restaurant for transactions from your iPhone dinner. without a problem iBank is your best bet. Note that iBank for the Mac will cost you an additional $60.

Teacher Killed Outside School; Husband in Custody (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:33:53 AM

LIVINGSTON, Ala. A west Alabama teacher is dead and her husband is in custody following a shooting outside Livingston High School. The city administrator in Livingston, Johnny Meadows, said Thursday a teacher was shot in front of the school about 3 p.m. Wednesday. Classes already had dismissed but students were on campus. The educator died later at a hospital; no one else was injured. The woman's husband was arrested about 30 minutes later after a chase ended in a wreck near Demopolis, which is about 30 miles from the school. Police haven't released the name of the victim or the man who was arrested. But Meadows says city police plan to file a murder charge. Livingston High School is closed Thursday and Friday because of the shooting. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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One Tablet for All: Apple’s Slate as a Shared Media Device

US Supreme Court lifts campaign finance limits

By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

(Financial Times - US homepage)

device so that it is intuitive to share. This person said Apple has experimented with the ability Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:01:10 AM to leave virtual sticky notes on The Apple tablet, when (and if) the device and for the gadget to released, will be a multimedia a u t o m a t i c a l l y r e c o g n i z e device. There’s little to no individuals via a built-in camera. question about that. It’ll play It’s unclear whether these video and music, allow you to features will be included at browse photos and web content, launch. and play games. But that Even with only that little simplistic definition of what it information, I begin to see the does doesn’t actually capture the marketing wisdom in such a s i g n i f i c a n c e o f t h e t a b l e t , design. Let’s face it, the tablet according to a new report at the will be entering a market that is Wall Street Journal. already fairly computer-rich, In the report, the WSJ talks especially among the Apple about how during development, faithful. If every member of a the focus with the tablet was on h o u s e h o l d h a s t h e i r o w n what its role would be in homes computer, how best to sell them and classrooms, rather than on another device that really has the h o w i t c o u l d b e u s e d b y same capabilities in a different individuals alone. Apple set out form factor? to create a device that would be The answer: Sell them one that perfectly suited to a shared use everybody can use as easily as if environment, which strikes me as it were an extension of their own a fairly novel way of designing computer, without the bulk, personal electronics. startup/shutdown hassle and Here’s how the device is other inconveniences associated tailored to household or group with a proper desktop or laptop. use: The idea probably came One person familiar with the naturally enough as an extension matter said Apple has put of what families were already s i g n i f i c a n t r e s o u r c e s i n t o doing with iPhones and iPod designing and programming the t o u c h e s i n t h e h o u s e h o l d

report. It should be much more appealing to education users than the Kindle DX, which currently represents its main competition, since it will be able to support interactive applications and color display, which Amazon’s 9.7inch reader cannot, though apps are reportedly in the works. Price belonging to one member. To will probably be the biggest then take that natural inclination factor. Both students and schools and make it the actual focus of a will be wary of something with a new hardware platform is a high per-unit price tag, unless stroke of marketing genius. A p p l e c a n m a k e u p t h e I f t h i s i s t r u e a n d t h e difference by offering significant development of the tablet really discounts on the content side. Marketing the tablet as a did focus along these lines, then household or shared device has think of what it might be able to the additional benefit of breaking do. You could pause a movie up the cost in the mind of the you were watching and go out consumer. A $1,000 price tag for a run, then your wife could won’t look nearly as daunting if pick it up and instantly be taken you start thinking about it as a to the email she was composing shared community resource like before you started using it, thanks to facial recognition tech. a television. As a single guy When you got back, if it was living on my own, though, that available, you could pick it up consideration wouldn’t enter into and the camera would see your my decision. Would it help you face and resume the movie at the justify the cost? p o i n t w h e r e y o u l e f t o f f , Related GigaOM Pro Research: Rumored Apple Tablet: seamlessly. Apple is also looking at pitching Opportunities Too Big to Ignore the device to the education market, according to the WSJ

Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:08:40 AM

In a sweeping decision that will change the face of the 2010 US mid-term election and beyond, the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision on Thursday to lift limits on corporate spending in campaigns. The long-awaited decision is expected to open the floodgates on corporate money in elections, reversing restrictions that have been in place since the 1940s that prohibited corporations from buying campaign ads from their own treasuries. It also reversed rules that prevented corporations from explicitly supporting candidates in campaign ads. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Apple/ Economy/ E-reader News/

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How-To: Create a Chiptune in GarageBand By Andrew Flocchini (TheAppleBlog)

• Now if you want to tweak that tracks sound, click the Plugin logo and play around with the settings. • This needs to be setup for every track except the drums. Use your creativity and change the track sounds to match the instrument they’re representing. The drum track needs some special attention and since the plugin won’t work for this, I did the following. • Change the drum track sound to the Hip Hop drum Kit. • Add a new effect to this track. Use the Bitcrusher effect and select whatever settings sound good to you. I used Wave Deconstruction.

Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:21:04 AM

Chiptunes are everywhere and if you’ve been intrigued by them, this article will help you create your very own. Chiptunes are traditionally created using sound chips from old computer systems and game consoles. Some of the best examples of chip music can be made using Commodore 64’s, GameBoy’s and the original NES. Since these pieces of hardware only could generate sounds and tones over a few channels, there is difficulty in creating complex songs. Along with the fact that this kind of circuit bending is not for a novice like myself and the learning curve tends to be very high. I wanted to find a way to accomplish this without spending days learning and researching software or hardware. I am not trying to devalue chiptunes in any way, it definitely is an art form. I just want to present an alternative for those that are curious in creating their own masterpiece. So if we’re not going to need hardware and complicated software, what are we going to use? Using GarageBand 09, a plugin and a midi file, you can convert a song you already know and love into a chiptune. First

thing is to find a midi version of a song you want to create. I just went to Google and searched for “Muse midi” and quickly found a Muse song that would work. Save the midi file on your computer for later. Now we need to download the Magical 8-bit Plugin from the YMCK website a n d p u t t h e magical8bitPlug.component file in the following folder. \Libraries\Audio\Plugins\Component • Startup GarageBand and start

new project by selecting the Piano. This will create a single track project that we can import our midi file into. • Now drag your midi file into GarageBand and you will see it create new tracks for each voice in the midi file. • Double-click a track to change the instrument from the Piano to our chiptune instrument. • Click the Edit tab and then click the drop-down where it says “Piano” and select “Magical8bitPlug”

Now you may have to tweak the volume levels on each track to your liking but for the most part, you are done. Export an MP3 and amaze your friends! Well maybe not if they read this article too but with this knowledge you could create your own music and use the chiptune sounds as your instruments. I know this is not as hardcore as true circuit bending so don’t send me angry emails. It’s more of a fun little project to please your creative side. Share your own creations with us through the comments and check out my final results in the audio clip below.

Goldman Sachs earnings soar past forecasts to $4.95bn (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:34:52 AM

Goldman Sachs on Thursday became the latest US bank to bow to pressure over pay, slashing compensation as it reported stronger than expected fourth-quarter profits. The Wall Street bank said it would pay $16.19bn to staff for the full year, the lowest pay-out as a ratio of net revenues since Goldman became a public company in 1999. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Amazon Invites Developers to Make Kindle Software (PC World via Yahoo! News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 1/20/2010 10:20:11 PM

UnK buzzed up: Obama steps up campaign against Wall Street banks (AP) 22 seconds ago 2010-0121T10:32:29-08:00 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Twitter is SMS 2.0 (Scripting News) Submitted at 1/20/2010 5:45:44 PM

I wrote a too-short and toocryptic piece last week that begs a more to-the-point treatment. There was the web and then there was Web 2.0. The difference is dimension. The first version of the web, though it was never the intention of the designer, was one-way. Publishing was hard, very few people did it. Lots of reading, not much writing. Blogging changed all that, writing got very easy, then richer, to the point where lots of professional publications now use blogging software. Mission accomplished. Texting was always a read-write medium, and very simple, but like 1.0 of the web, was onedimensional. Texts were limited

in how they could be combined and routed. Enter Twitter, a puzzle -- what the frack is it? We spent three-plus years puzzling it out, in the end it has a rather simple explanation -- it's the next

version of SMS. You can do everything in Twitter you can do in SMS, and so much more. But essentially it feels very much like SMS, the same way blogging is very much like the web (so much so that that statement seems ludicrous). If this is true, what can be done with this observation? I think a lot. All of today's great handheld computers, the iPhones and Droids and Pres etc can do SMS as a very basic function. But what about a phone that's designed to do SMS 2.0 out of the box? How would that be different from the phones we're using today? A thought exercise, perhaps an opportunity for brain explosions.

Stocks tumble as Obama takes on banks (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:56:51 AM

17:35 GMT. Stocks dropped sharply on Thursday as President Barack Obama said he intended to prevent deposit-taking banks from undertaking any proprietary trading.

MediaDailyNews: NBC Orders More Original Episodes (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:27:49 AM

NBC is high on original episodes, reports The Hollywood Reporter. It picked up additional episodes of several series, including "Law & Order" (three) and "Law & Order: SVU" (two), which can help fill gaps created by the departing "Jay Leno Show." At 9 p.m, it ordered "Trauma" (four), "Community" wife about her involvement. (three) and "Parks & Recreation" Nobody has been arrested, but (two). the FBI worked on the case for a Five Filters featured article: week. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Continue reading Two and a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Half Men's Jon Cryer, the FBI Term Extraction. and a death threat Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer, the FBI and a death threat By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

investigating a threat on Jon Cryer's life. The FBI doesn't mess around. They're like the Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:00:00 PM IRS, you know -- no sense of When I read that there was a humor. plot to kill Two and a Half Men's Apparently, Jon Cryer is Jon Cryer, I thought it had to be involved in a very nasty custody a joke. Jon Cryer? Seriously, dispute with his ex-wife. The what could "Alan Harper" have situation is so intense that Cryer done to piss somebody off so contacted the authorities because badly that they want him dead? he believed someone was trying Then I read the TMZ item again to kill him. The word "hitman" -- bearing in mind that it's TMZ - was used, and as bizarre as that - a n d l e a r n e d t h e F B I i s sounds, people have been known

to go to such extremes. Law enforcement took Jon's worries seriously and questioned his ex-

The president said he wanted to end the mentality of “too big to fail” in financial markets. “If the banks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m willing to have”, he added. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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What's On Tonight: The Deep End, Fringe, Supernatural, Burn Notice By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:12:00 PM

• At 8, ABC has the series premiere of The Deep End, then new episodes of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. • NBC has a new Community at 8, followed by new episodes of Parks and Recreation, The Office, 30 Rock, and The Jay Leno Show. • FOX has new episodes of Bones and Fringe. • The CW has a new Vampire Diaries at 8, then a new Supernatural. • History Channel has a new Modern Marvels at 8, followed by the series premiere of Food Tech. • At 9, CBS has a new CSI, followed by a new episode of

The Mentalist. • TLC has a new American Chopper at 9. • ESPN2 has more coverage of The Australian Open at 9. • Spike has a new TNA Impact! at 9. • Current has a new SuperNews at 9. • At 10, USA has a new Burn Notice. • Lifetime has a new Project Runway at 10. • There's a new Ace of Cakes on Food Network at 10. • Bravo has a new Real

MediaDailyNews: Movies Coming To YouTube (MediaPost | Media News)

pits Google's YouTube in competition with Amazon and Netflix, among others. The first Movie rentals are coming to YouTube rentals will run $3.99 YouTube, which is making its for a 48-hour viewing period. debut as a rental outlet Friday. Five Filters featured article: The move initially helps promote Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: some of the movies to be shown PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, at the upcoming Sundance Film Term Extraction. Festival, reports AP. The move Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:37:55 AM

Housewives of Orange County at 10. • MTV has a new Jersey Shore at 10. • Current has a new InfoMania at 10, then a new Rotten Tomatoes Show. • Also at 10: FX has a new Archer. Check your local TV listings for more. After the jump, the late night talk shows. Continue reading What's On Tonight: The Deep End, Fringe, Supernatural, Burn Notice Filed under: Late Night, Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Review: Nip/Tuck - Joel Seabrook By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad) Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:32:00 PM

( S07E03)"This is something I want to do. Something I probably should've done a long time ago." - Sean Nip/Tuck's final season continued last night and the deep examination of Sean and Christian's relationship got fleshed out even further as the rift between the two of them continued to grow. These two are set on a collision course by the end of the season, though Sean seems to be doing everything in

his power to just walk away. It's becoming increasingly clear that Sean is the key to all McNamara/Troy's success and the closer he gets to reclaiming the life he always wanted, the more on edge Christian is becoming. The problem with that? Their conflict is starting to spill over into the lives of their loved ones. Continue reading Review: Nip/Tuck - Joel Seabrook Filed under: OpEd, Nip/Tuck, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Prop 8 Trial: Great Lawyer on Side of Good for Once [Lawsuits] By Pareene (Gawker) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:06:18 PM

Ted Olson, the attorney who won Bush v. Gore, also won today's Supreme Court campaign finance decision. He is basically terrible! But here is the twist: he is arguing for gay marriage in the ongoing Proposition 8 suit! The guy has a great record of convincing the Supreme Court to hurt America. Will he be able to convince one wacky California judge to help America? We are actually going to go out on a limb and say "yes, probably." But the real test will come when the losers appeal. The anti-gay case so far has been, "marriage is only for making babies and gays can be cured" (those are literally the best arguments they have). This is part of the reason why the anti-gay people really, really did not want this trial televised or streamed online: their expert

witnesses are crazy bigots who matter-of-factly say vile things about gay people. Like William Tam, who should be testifying today! Tam, a chemical engineer and self-proclaimed expert on gay-child-sex, was an original sponsor of Proposition 8 and one of the voluntary defendantinterveners in the lawsuit. Then he tried to withdraw from the

suit because he was concerned that people would notice how bigoted he is. The Prop 8 Trial Tracker is a wonderful resource for keeping up with what is going on as it happens, in lieu of video. But video does exist! We are just not allowed to see it. The Equal Rights Foundation actually claimed to have video for broadcast earlier today, but that claim has been removed from their press release (and it might've just been language left over from when the trial was going to be streamed, before the Supreme Court intervened). It should go without saying that it would probably be totally wrong and immoral for someone to like sneak a Flip camera into the gallery and then send video of the trial to a scummy gay gossip blog.

New York Times Tells Employees Why They All Got Diarrhea [Internal Memos] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:05:27 PM

Good god. Remember that little outbreak of a mysterious intestinal illness at the New York Times that shut down the company cafeteria earlier this month? Well, they've run some tests, and...we don't know how to tell you this...it's... Norovirus. (* Checks Wikipedia.*) Dang that makes you throw up and poop! From: NYTIMES MAIL Date: Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 12:42 PM Subject: Illness Update To: NY TIMES INTERNET Dear Colleagues, The New York City Department of Health has completed the testing of samples taken during the recent occurrence of gastrointestinal illness among some of our colleagues. Norovirus was the likely cause

of the recent illness. Norovirus, a highly contagious stomach virus, recently has been confirmed at many local business and schools. As we witnessed, norovirus can spread easily from person to person. For more information about norovirus, p l e a s e g o t o http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/do wnloads/pdf/cd/cdnor.pdf. We appreciate the cooperation of employees who kept us informed about who was ill and your understanding while the investigation took place. Moving forward we continue to stress good hand-washing hygiene and ask employees to stay home if they are ill. We anticipate that this will be our last communication on the matter. Thank you. Scott Heekin-Canedy

Pistons Owner Officially Puts Team on Market By Tom Ziller (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 1/21/2010 1:16:00 AM

Filed under: Pistons The Pistons are available! And I'm not talking about Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton. Well, I suppose I am, because I assume

you get Tayshaun and Rip for free if you buy the Pistons franchise. Karen Davidson, who took over the Pistons when her husband, longtime owner Bill Davidson, died last year, told reporters during halftime of Detroit's home win over Boston Wednesday that she is in fact

looking for bidders for the

franchise. Earlier this week, the Detroit News reported that Davidson has recently asked commissioner David Stern for advice on attracting potential buyers. One rumor is that the Ilitch family, owners of the Red Wings, who desperately need a new arena,

could be interested in buying the Pistons and building an NBA/ NHL arena in Detroit. The Pistons currently play in the Palace of Auburn Hills, a twodecade old gym an hour out of town renowned for its amenities but aging quickly.

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Will Any U.S. Players Remain Standing in South Africa? (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

something that the U.S. has rarely, if ever, been able to say. That statement, and the level of The U.S. will need all of its Dempsey’s form come June, are firepower when it opens World now in doubt. It’s not enough to Cup play in South Africa on June assume that when Dempsey 12 with a match against England. returns to training he’ll be back But first it’ll have to overcome to his best. Who knows what an injury bug that has sidelined lingering effects there will be defender Oguchi Onyewu with a from the injury or how it will torn patellar tendon and forward affect his confidence?” Charlie Davies, who may not be ESPN’s Andrew Hush blogs fully recovered from a car that the forced break could a c c i d e n t b y t h e t i m e t h e benefit Dempsey, who has tournament starts. So you can bet played 85 games for his club and there was a huge sigh of relief country since the start of 2008. when an injury to the right knee At the New York Times’s Goal of Clint Dempsey last Sunday blog, Jeffrey Marcus names three wasn’t as severe as initially p l a y e r s w h o c o u l d t a k e thought. The Fulham midfielder Dempsey’s place if necessary. will likely return to his Premier Bleacher Report’s Andrew League club before the end of Jordan assesses the chances that the season and play in the World Davies and Onyewu, two key Cup. Associated Press Clint pieces in the U.S. attack, will Dempsey, center, would prefer recover in time for the World the use of both knees in South Cup. “For both of these players, Africa. 2009 was a breakout season,” The loss of Dempsey would be a Jordan writes. “Davies was able particularly tough blow for the to secure a starting spot on the A m e r i c a n s . H e ’ s b e e n a n team after a great Confederations offensive juggernaut, scoring six Cup, and Onyewu was able to be goals for Fulham this season, a rock in the US defense in the including this beauty. “There’s same tournament, which earned n o q u e s t i o n t h a t p r i o r t o him a three-year contract with Sunday’s mishap, Dempsey had AC Milan.”* * * been in the best form of his The ageless march of Brett career, scoring seven times this Favre continues Sunday when season in all competitions,” the Minnesota Vikings face New ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle writes. “It O r l e a n s i n t h e N F C raised the likelihood that, along Championship. Last weekend, with [Landon] Donovan, the the 40-year-old Favre became U.S. would have two attackers the oldest quarterback to win a playing at their peak headed into playoff game when the Vikings t h e W o r l d C u p . T h a t ’ s routed Dallas. Submitted at 1/21/2010 7:47:44 AM

hitter hasn’t been signed for the upcoming season. At the New York Times’s Bats blog, Tyler Kepner doubts Damon would return to the Yanks for a low base salary plus incentives. Big League Stew’s David Brown doubts Damon will retire.* * * F o r n o w F a v r e i s n ’ t N.C. State hadn’t beaten Duke contemplating retirement, but 38 at home since 2004, but that -year-old Kurt Warner is. If he changed Wednesday night when quits, the Arizona quarterback the unranked Wolfpack shocked certainly didn’t go out on top — the No. 7 Blue Devils, 88-74, the Cardinals were throttled by behind Tracy Smith’s 23 points. the Saints last weekend — but In the Raleigh News & Observer, he’s been at the pinnacle. Luke DeCock marvels at the “What’s left to prove? He’s been unpredictability of ACC games MVP twice. He’s played in three this season. “Get one big night Super Bowls. Won one,” ESPN’s f r o m o n e b i g p l a y e r , a n d Rick Reilly writes. “Been Walter anything can happen — even one Payton NFL Man of the Year. of the biggest, and perhaps most Set several all-time postseason unexpected, wins of the Sidney NFL passing records. His story Lowe era,” DeCock writes. — the Hy-Vee grocery stocker “Duke is clearly ahead of the w h o l i v e d i n h i s i n - l a w ’ s field, but the losses to Georgia basement and wound up torching Tech and N.C. State illustrate the NFL for 12 seasons — how small the gap is, and there’s should be a major motion-picture no gap between everyone else release. He’s a first-ballot Hall of bunched in one big mess down Famer and if he’s not, they ought the standings.” to melt it down and start over. There’s nothing predictable Chew on this: His numbers are about March Madness, either — better then 16 other QBs already well, except when a top seed in the Hall, including Roger faces a No. 16. Which is why so Staubach, Terry Bradshaw, and m a n y p e o p l e c o n s i d e r t h e tournament the best sporting Joe Namath.” The Arizona Republic’s Paola event. To keep it that way, the Boivin sees reasons for Warner’s W a s h i n g t o n P o s t ’ s T r a c e e return, including his health and H a m i l t o n a d v i s e s a g a i n s t expanding the tournament to 96 his outstanding statistics. Johnny Damon isn’t ready to teams from 65.* * * r e t i r e , b u t t h e N e w Y o r k Two prolific NHL stars meet up Yankees left-fielder/designated Thursday, for the first time since Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh

Penguins ousted Alexander Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals in an epic seven-game series last spring. In the Pittsburgh PostGazette, Dave Molinari writes that this is no humdrum regularseason game. (And fans who love the NBA and NHL equally will need to get their picture-inpicture ready: Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers visit LeBron James’s Cleveland Cavaliers tonight, too.) Crosby will face enormous pressure next month to deliver Olympic gold for Canada, as will Ovechkin for Russia. The Americans aren’t expected to contend for gold in Vancouver, and goalie Ryan Miller will have to be as sharp in nets for the U.S. as he’s been for Buffalo for the Americans to compete for a medal, Helene Elliott writes in the Los Angeles Times.* * * Jack Nicklaus, who won a record 18 majors and 73 tournaments during his illustrious career, turns 70 Thursday. The Golden Bear’s PGA success is impressive, but so too is his commitment to family. “His hosannas have been sung from the rooftops by experts and peers for decades,” Steve Elling writes at CBS Sports. “But few are aware that as a parent, he’s always been a scratch player, too. Nobody’s patriarchal scorecard is posted on the tour website, and it’s hard to WILL page 43

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Former USC Trojans coach Tim Floyd: Departure not an admission of guilt By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

ban for this season and vacating all of USC's wins from 2007-08 - Mayo's one season playing for Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:04:19 AM Floyd and the Trojans. Former USC coach Tim Floyd, Floyd resigned in June 2009 who abruptly left the Trojans' after allegations surfaced that he bench in June as allegations paid $1,000 to Mayo associate about the improper recruiting of Rodney Guillory, who helped O . J . M a y o s u r f a c e d , s a i d steer Mayo to USC. Wednesday that his departure "Why I left was not in any way was related to his deteriorating an admission of guilt," Floyd relationship with athletic director said, according to the TimesMike Garrett and had nothing to Picayune. "It was a complete do with the allegations, the New testament to a lack of support by O r l e a n s T i m e s - P i c a y u n e my administration and how we reported. were treated after four years of Floyd, now a New Orleans doing everything the right way. Hornets assistant, and Mayo, And that is what I've gone on who played for Floyd at USC record as saying. and now starts for the Memphis "The day the story broke, my Grizzlies, shared a hug before athletic director called me and t h e t w o t e a m s t i p p e d o f f asked me where I was," Floyd W e d n e s d a y n i g h t i n N e w said, according to the report. " ... Orleans. He asked me if I'd read the story. â&#x20AC;&#x153; I said, 'Yes. And I did not do Why I left was not in any way what I'm accused of doing.' Two, an admission of guilt. It was a 'Where are you?' 'I'm in New complete testament to a lack of Orleans.' The third thing he said support by my administration was, 'You need to get your ass and how we were treated after back to Los Angeles, so I can four years of doing everything decide what I'm going to do with the right way.â&#x20AC;?-- Tim Floyd you.' " That relationship was at the "That did not register well with center of USC's internal probe me, did not sit well with me, " into the Trojans' recruiting of Floyd added, according to the M a y o , w h i c h l e d t o t h e report. "I always said I would program's self-imposing of only stay at a place as long as I sanctions, including a postseason was wanted there. It was a

situation where the athletic director was more worried about himself than our program. Everything we had done to establish that program as one of the top national-level programs in the country was being destroyed from within. Players being released, the treatment of our coaches, the treatment of me as the head coach. ... And at this point in my career, I didn't feel like I needed to stay there and deal with that. I felt I'd done enough over 33 years of being in this business to never have my integrity challenged and did not appreciate it." Floyd said relationship was so frayed that he did not speak with Garrett during his last six weeks on the job, according to the report. "The last six weeks I was there, the only communication I had with my athletic director was through courier," Floyd said, according to the report. "A knock on my door at 10:30 at night with a courier I'd have to sign for something, send it back, then hire an attorney to respond to my boss. Or a knock on my office door, with a courier handing me a letter. Quite frankly, I didn't feel like the other coaches at that university were being treated like I was being treated, and it was all

about the protection of the athletic director and his own institutional control investigation." Garrett could not be reached for comment, the newspaper reported. Earlier this month, Garrett said Mayo refused to cooperate with USC's investigation into allegations that he accepted improper gifts and benefits while he played for the school during the 2007-08 season. "No, he has not participated," Garrett told ESPN's Shelley Smith. "But as you read in the paper, he says, you know, 'I love USC' and things like that so, that's about all I know about that." In May 2008, on ESPN's "Outside The Lines," Louis Johnson, a former associate of Mayo and Guillory, accused Guillory of providing Mayo with improper benefits while Mayo played for USC. Mayo, who has avoided commenting on the matter, declined to speak to the TimesPicayune Wednesday. Mayo's agent, LaPoe Smith, has said Mayo did not take cash or gifts and "was totally in the dark about anything happening inappropriately at USC." He said Mayo, at the time one of the

nation's most highly sought recruits, was not induced into attending USC. On Jan. 3, USC announced that it had self-imposed sanctions on its men's basketball program for violating NCAA rules related to Mayo and his relationship with Guillory, a former runner for BDA Sports Management. The sanctions, beyond this season's postseason ban and the vacating of wins from 2007-08, also include a reduction in scholarships, restrictions on recruiting, and returning money the school received from participating in the NCAA tournament. USC is scheduled to appear at a Feb. 19 hearing before the NCAA Committee on Infractions. The NCAA is also investigating whether former Trojans running back and Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush received extra benefits during his sophomore and junior seasons (2004 and 2005). Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The Count: Three Great QBs — and Mark Sanchez (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

listed, and they don’t always match. This past season’s numbers haven’t been Peyton Manning will appear in incorporated. Still, in general the the AFC championship game on numbers are reasonable: Hall of Sunday. Afterwards, Brett Favre Famers have higher numbers and Drew Brees will square off than journeymen. in the NFC championship game. Also, I used lifetime AV totals, Together the trio could be the even if the QBs were near the best to appear in conference- beginning of their careers, which championship games since the biased my measure towards long AFL-NFL merger four decades -ago quartets — and, in recent ago. Getty Images Brees has years, to older quarterbacks with some work left to match Favre’s a longer track record. This and Manning’s career marks. lifetime measure doesn’t account Oh, and Mark Sanchez will be for great quarterbacks who playing, too. weren’t great in the season they To rank the quarterback quartets made the conference-title game of conference championships — nor does it credit those who p a s t , I u s e d P r o F o o t b a l l had success elsewhere before Reference’s approximate value coming to the NFL, such as measure, the best way I’ve seen former CFL star Dieter Brock, t o c o m p a r e p l a y e r s f r o m whose career AV of 9, from a different positions and different single NFL season at age 34, eras. There are some notable ranks as the lowest besides caveats. It is, as its name Sanchez’s of any quarterback to suggests, merely approximate. reach the Final Four. Nor does it For instance, it uses the same a c c o u n t f o r p o s s i b l e formula to divide credit for improvement in a rookie QB like p a s s i n g s u c c e s s b e t w e e n Sanchez who may have an quarterbacks and receivers on illustrious career ahead of him each team, even though not all (though his rookie stats suggest receiving corps are created equal. he’s more likely to be the next Also, the measure is relatively J a M a r c u s R u s s e l l o r T i m new and thus has some kinks. On Couch). As far as approximate individual players’ pages on Pro value is concerned, Sanchez Football Reference, several doesn’t even rate yet because his different career AV totals are only season hasn’t yet been Submitted at 1/20/2010 12:34:14 PM

quantified, though his AV total for a generally disappointing campaign won’t be high. But the other three — Favre, Manning and Brees— already rank as the third-best trio in 40 years, even without the benefit of their AV from this season and any future seasons. Favre’s AV of 151 is the fourth-highest total since 1950, and the highest among quarterbacks. Manning’s 144 ranks seventh, and the only QB besides Favre ahead of him is Dan Marino, at 146. And Brees stands at 83, which is impressive considering he’s played in fewer than half as many games as Favre. Just two trios top that total: Favre, John Elway and Steve Young after the 1997 season; and Marino, Young and Jim Kelly in 1992. This year’s trio might someday top both of those, though the fourth QB in 1992, Troy Aikman, made that class a perfect four of four for the Hall of Fame, and set a high standard

WILL continued from page 41

apply a yardstick to paternal success. Screw the quantification — he was quite possibly more for Sanchez to clear. The successful as a dad than as a following year’s quartet was player.” equally impressive: Marino, – Tip of the Fix cap to fellow Young, Joe Montana and Kelly. Fixer David Roth. (I counted Montana even though Found a good column from the he shared snaps with Dave Krieg world of sports? Don’t keep it to in the game. In general I counted yourself — write to us at the QB with the better overall dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll résumé who played in the consider your find for inclusion conference-title game.) Some in the Daily Fix. You can email r e c e n t s e a s o n s c o u l d l o o k Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com. impressive down the line, depending on how quarterbacks’ careers turn out. Last year’s quartet of Donovan McNabb, Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisberger Joe Namath sees and Joe Flacco has potential, as do Favre, Tom Brady, Eli similarities between Manning and Philip Rivers, who 2009 New York Jets and appeared in the conference- Super Bowl III winners championship games after the By ESPN.com news services 2007 season. (ESPN.com) A Manning-Favre Super Bowl matchup would be the best ever Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:59:02 AM by AV, topping Favre vs. Elway in 1998. But having the better Jets-Colts Prediction Jets-Colts quarterback is no guarantee of a Prediction VIDEO PLAYLIST w i n i n t h e c o n f e r e n c e • Jets-Colts Prediction Jets-Colts championship. Just ask Brees, Prediction who lost to the Chicago Bears • Keys To The Championship and Rex Grossman after the G a m e s K e y s T o T h e 2006 season, thus preventing a C h a m p i o n s h i p G a m e s Brees-Manning matchup in the • Jets Ready For Rematch With Colts Jets Ready For Rematch Super Bowl. With Colts • Old School Jets Vs. Wide Open Colts Old School Jets Vs. Wide Open Colts JOE page 44

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JOE continued from page 43

Joe Namath is excited by the New York Jets' playoff run -and sees more than a few similarities between his old team's current success and the team he led to a shocking Super Bowl victory 41 years ago. There's the matter of Namath's famous guarantee prior to Super Bowl III -- and coach Rex Ryan's comments about the Jets being "favorites" to win Super Bowl XLIV and his team itinerary, which accounted for a trip to the Super Bowl and a parade in New York afterward. "The team has bought into it," Namath said, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. "Whether [Ryan] said it in jest or whether he was sincere, we all listen and enjoy. Some people want to see him fall flat, but the bottom line is winning and losing and right now he has those guys in the championship game." And then there's the fact the Jets are playing the Colts, the franchise they upset 16-7 in Super Bowl III despite being 18-

point underdogs. The Colts infamously left Baltimore in 1984. The Orange Bowl, where Super Bowl III was held, has been demolished. New York's Shea Stadium and Baltimore's Memorial Stadium are memories as well. But the Colts' uniforms are practically unchanged since that game was played in 1969. They're still favored -- and the Jets are still confident underdogs. "Hell yeah, it's interesting," Namath said, according to the Star-Ledger. It was Namath who, three days before Super Bowl III, guaranteed the Jets would upset the Colts, thus creating his legacy. "It's a whole lot of history with the Jets and Colts," Namath told the Star-Ledger. "[Former Jets coach] Weeb Ewbank was their coach before coming to the Jets and we beat the Colts. "Rex Ryan was down there in Baltimore with the new franchise [the Ravens]. This is the first time the teams have met in a

championship game since the Super Bowl win." What will it take to beat the Colts this time? Namath says putting pressure on Colts quarterback Peyton Manning-who Namath says is "the best I've ever seen" -- will be crucial to the Jets' chances, according to the report. "If our defensive line gets pressure, I don't think the Colts offensive line has been tested like this. It's organized chaos with that defense," Namath said, according to the report. "There's no guarantee the Colts are going to play their best because the Jets' defense isn't going to let them." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Mo Williams of Cleveland Cavaliers out vs. Los Angeles Lakers with sprained left shoulder By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

like the guys in this locker room and I'm confident other guys will step up. It's part of the business. Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:06:15 AM You hope he gets better soon but CLEVELAND -- Cavaliers you have to keep going forward." starting point guard Mo Williams Williams injured his shoulder in will miss Thursday's game T u e s d a y n i g h t ' s w i n o v e r against the Los Angeles Lakers Toronto. The team originally with a sprained left shoulder. said he had strained his shoulder. The Cavaliers did not say how Williams got hurt in the third long they could be without quarter but returned to the game Williams, their second-leading and made a key 3-pointer in the scorer. The team said Williams, fourth quarter. who scored 28 points against the The absence of Williams will Lakers on Christmas Day, was give playing time to Daniel being evaluated at the Cleveland Gibson, who recently lost Clinic. minutes. An update was planned for later Copyright 2010 by The Thursday. Associated Press Cavs coach Mike Brown said Five Filters featured article: Delonte West will start in place Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: of Williams. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, "It's tough," Brown said. "But I Term Extraction.

Source: Dallas Cowboys sign coach Wade Phillips to three-year extension

Ducks Following a Familiar Script By Susan Slusser (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 1/21/2010 4:00:00 AM

Filed under: Ducks Isn't this exactly what they did last year? The Anaheim Ducks must enjoy their drama: they fall way behind quickly, scramble the rest of the way and then try for a lastsecond save to the season.

They don't do anything the easy way, case in point their most recent win -- over Eastern Conference power Buffalo, of all teams. Anaheim jumped all over Ryan Miller's backup, Patrick Lalime, for four goals in the first 11 minutes, and then had to hang on tight to win 5-4. They've including in three consecutive made a habit of coming back to home games earlier this month. win despite third-period deficits,

The Ducks are 7-1-0 in their past eight games, 9-3-1 in their last 13. Two weeks ago, they were a dozen points removed from a playoff spot; now they are four points out of a playoff spot, and if they sneak in this year, they'll again be a first-round opponent whom no one really wants to face.

By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:03:52 AM

More on the Cowboys Calvin Watkins and Tim MacMahon have the Cowboys blanketed for ESPNDallas.com. Check in with their constantly updated coverage. Blog SOURCE: page 45

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The Dallas Cowboys have signed coach Wade Phillips to a three-year contract extension that runs through 2012, a league source tells ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter. The Cowboys picked up Phillips' option for 2010 and tacked on two more years, according to the source. On Tuesday, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told ESPN he was working on a contract extension for Phillips that would extend beyond 2010. Phillips won the first playoff game of his head-coaching career when Dallas beat the Philadelphia Eagles in a first-

continued from page 45

round game. It ended the Cowboys' 13-year streak without a playoff victory. The team's season ended Sunday with a 34-3 loss at Minnesota. Under Phillips, the Cowboys are 33-15 in the regular season and have claimed two NFC East titles in three seasons. This year, his defense allowed the fewest points in the NFC. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Take-Two to nominate three new board directors; it's all about the iCahn By Alexander Sliwinski

TAKE-TWO page 45

Thursday 21 January 70-something kilos. I've given up on weighing in lbs, kilos are so much kinder. Food consumed today: Anything that makes me look suave and like I know what I'm doing. Think I'm on my fifth martini, but I lost count after the fourth. Early morning, sun looks lovely coming out of the west ... north? ... really need to cut back on the martinis. New York. Dearest Diary, can I call you Di? Good. Oh, Di, why does Carl Icahn have to be such a meddler? You know what, I'm gonna start calling him iCahn, like an obnoxious Apple product. Hehe, iCahn. So, this guy ... this By Alexander Sliwinski doesn't explain why Galaxy, iCahn, he comes in and buys up (Joystiq) which has had far more time on 11.3 percent of the company a retail shelves, was passed by so couple months ago and now he Submitted at 1/21/2010 12:15:00 PM quickly. We'd posit that there's wants to put three of his own New Old Mario is stomping all s o m e t h i n g n o s t a l g i c a b o u t iBoys on the board of directors-over the mark left by his NSMBW, which makes it stand actually, I'm pretty sure one of globetrotting counterpart, with apart from Galaxy and speak to them is an iCahn-mini: Brett sales of New Super Mario Bros. the Wii's demographic. Of Icahn. Wii having already surpassed course, Super Mario Galaxy 2 I ain't mad, Di. Let iCahn have Super Mario Galaxy in the US. will have the benefit of being his iPods on the board, I've been According to the NPD, Galaxy quite familiar too ... doing my thing since taking over has sold approximately 4.1 NPD: New Super Mario Bros. Take-Two in 2007. He's got the million units in the two years Wii sales have surpassed Super right to put some guys on the since its November 2007 release, M a r i o G a l a x y o r i g i n a l l y board and shape things, bring while NSMBW has amassed 4.2 appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 balance -- distract some monkeys million sales in about 45 days. Jan 2010 12:15:00 EST. Please on my back. Who knows, maybe As IGN notes, the Wii's install see our terms for use of feeds. the iCahn boys will bring healthy base is much higher now ( 26 Read| Permalink| Email this| skepticism and deliver million in the US), but that still Comments productive ideas to improve profitability. Plus, what's the harm? If the winds take iCahn to

NPD: New Super Mario Bros. Wii sales have surpassed Super Mario Galaxy

TAKE-TWO page 46

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another project and he holds less than five percent of the company stock, the iPods agree to leave immediately. Just another day in the biz. I kinda miss fighting with EA, this is so mundane in comparison. [Thanks to Michael Pachter and Jesse Divnich for context] Take-Two to nominate three new board directors; it's all about

the iCahn originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sophomore on Film: Chrissie Miller Presents Her Spring Collection Van Cleef's Parisian Romance By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

(pictured at left). Wearing a simple and sexy Sophomore mini, Matulova said that filming Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:21:08 AM the ten-minute movie on the Surrounded by close friends boardwalk at Coney Island was a (Jessica Stam, Vanessa Traina, fun and sentimental experience. and director Josh Safdie With changes to the Brooklyn included), Sophomore designer landmark looming, the film Chrissie Miller, wearing chic captures a moment in time leather shorts from her fall (complete with amazing clothes, collection, presented a film fireworks, and beer). highlighting her latest spring (Miller’s former roommate), —Violet Moon Gayn or looks. The short, directed by actress Eleonore Hendricks, and Follow ELLE on Twitter. longtime collaborator Cass Bird, my dear old friend, the actress Become our Facebook fan! stars, among others, Donald and designer Kim Matulova Cumming of The Virgins

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

course, because she takes her time) and the man is the minute hand. Submitted at 1/20/2010 12:21:28 PM Every hour, the two move closer The Le Pont des Amoureux and closer to each and then after watch by Van Cleef and Arpels 12 hours, the two meet in the not only tells time, but also tells middle and kiss. They stay there a s t o r y . " I t t e l l s a l o v e for one minute, kissing, and then story," explains Nicolas Bos, they go back to square one to Van Cleef's creative director, "in start the process all over again. a very specific environment, And according to Bos, this is the which is Paris." Encrusted in longest kiss in watchmaking diamonds and with a unique history. face, the watch features dials that — Rebecca Suhrawardi Austin picture a man and a woman on a Follow ELLE on Twitter. bridge over the river Seine. The Become our Facebook fan! woman is the hour hand (of

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Sartorial Sitdown with The Washington Post’s Betsy Lowther By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 1/20/2010 1:22:31 PM

As a freelance fashion writer living in the Far East, Betsy Lowther once interviewed Alber Elbaz in the back of a pedicab. As a fashion blogger(a title she’s held for more than a decade), Lowther has been invited to lend her distinct, cheery-airy style of writing to very high-profile campaigns for the Houses of Gucci, Chanel, and Dior. Having recently given up the freelance life for a desk job—her first in years—Lowther is now a senior editor at the The Washington Post’s year-ish old luxury fashion magazine FW(think of it as T Magazine’s D.C. equivalent). Serving as both a writer and a stylist, Lowther and team are actively changing the face of fashion in our nation’s capital through bold editorials, fresh, real-time NY Fashion Week reporting, and nabbing interviews with industry darlings like Jason Wu and Scott Schuman. Named one of this year’s best dressed by Washington’s super hip Brightest Young Things, Lowther’s closet is filled with as much new and eBay-ed all-black Lanvin and Lim as it is floralburst Manish Arora and Tuleh. And behind all of that? Racks of stunningly executed DIY, Asian marketplace accessories, mint condition thrift shop bin finds, and a library of first-edition

fashion books. Whenever I’m tempted to judge someone for being too Carrie Bradshaw, I always stop and think of Betsy(’s closet) and remind myself there are people out there who genuinely love to do it up one way one day and do it up a whole different way the next. That’s Bets, and that’s just one of the reasons why Washington was so very fortunate to land her. Enjoy! You were a very successful freelancer up until fairly recently—what made you decide to take an office job? And why did you choose The Washington Post? For a lot of writers, going fulltime freelance is the ultimate goal — but I did it for five years and was ready for a change. It's definitely nice to work in your jammies most of the time, but I missed being part of the editorial process — from assigning stories to planning photo shoots to crafting layouts. As the writer, I'd usually only be responsible for the article, and once that was in and done, the rest was out of my hands. Plus, it can be kind of lonely. Sometimes, I'd be working so hard at my laptop that I wouldn't speak to another person all day. Whether my colleagues want to or not, there is usually at least one thorough discussion per day about Jersey Shore. I got very lucky that, at the time I was thinking of going back to an office, the Post launched a

new fashion glossy, FW. I wouldn't have given up the pajamas for just any job, but one popped up that was the perfect fit. Besides getting to write in your pajamas, is there anything else you miss about working from home and on the road? Probably the best thing about freelancing is that I never knew where it was going to take me. My experience was somewhat unique because I was based in Asia for four years, and my assignments often sent me all around the continent: riding around Beijing in a pedicab with Alber Elbaz; getting an inside look at the beauty industry in Japan; following one of the top chefs in Mumbai to his favorite hole-in-the-wall eateries. Now, I mostly travel from my desk to the coffee shop down the street. I also miss my gold frequent flier status and the lovely express lines and airport lounges that came with it. Most editors write or style, but you do both—which is your greater talent, in your opinion? Which do you enjoy more? Most of my career has been spent focused on writing, and it's probably still my strength. But lately, I've been doing a lot more styling — it's an entirely different skill set, but I really love it. I feel pretty lucky that I work at a publication that allows me to do both — when I worked in magazines in New York, you

were either a features editor or a fashion editor, and that was that. I'm happiest when I don't have to choose. Tell us a little bit about FW: its genesis, its audience, the process, etc. FW is The Washington Post's luxury fashion glossy, and it currently comes out five times a year. The idea behind the launch (about a year and a half ago) was that D.C. was finally starting to embrace fashion and was ready for a local publication that kept them in the know about shop news and styles that were most relevant to the city. Our audience is a real mix — from older Oscar de la Renta fans to the young, hip creatives that are invading the city. You also help edit the style section in the Post’s heavily read commuter paper, Express. How do you choose style stories for a paper that has such a wide but likely not fashion-enthusiastic readership? Doing style coverage for Express is a ton of fun, because the idea is to be trendy, hip and, ultimately, accessible. Because the fashion/lifestyle section comes out every week (on Fridays), there's also more opportunity to experiment — this week, our main feature was a round-up on new sales shopping strategies; next week, we've got a concept shoot on cool wintery hats. We stick to more mainstream, affordable fashion concepts — Express readers are

more likely to head to Ann Taylor than Dior for their daily attire, but they still seem to appreciate the regular infusion of new ideas and products to perk up their wardrobes. You’ve worked in fashion publishing in both New York City and Washington. Give me one pro and one con about each. Just walking down the street in New York is inspiring to me; it attracts the most clever, creative, and driven people in the world. But I also find it to be, at times, very cutthroat and catty. One thing I love about D.C. is how friendly everyone is; no one's going to judge you for wearing two-year-old Prada. (No one will probably even recognize it.) But as you mentioned, fashion is still a relatively nascent concept here — even those who dress perfectly well still tend to play it safe when it comes to experimenting with their style. My kingdom for a little more fashion risk-taking! Recently, a bunch of teenagers in LA were charged with burglarizing the closets of Audrina Patridge, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton, among others. If jail weren’t a consequence, whose closets would you burgle? Well, definitely not Audrina Patridge's. (What were the burglars even thinking?) When Katie Holmes gets it right — SARTORIAL page 48

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Alaïa, Lanvin, Jil Sander — she really gets it right. But I'll leave her the grungy flannel and jeans (and also Tom Cruise — he does nothing for me). I’ve been gone from DC exactly one year now. Has anything changed, style-wise? Has Michelle Obama’s influence led to more Moschino blouses and Alaïa belts on M Street? Well, you can buy McQueen on M Street now — at Hu's Wear, a great little boutique that opened up last spring — and I like to think that's a promising sign. D.C.'s always going to be a city where looking classic and understated reigns supreme, but I do see more people stepping up

their fashion sense. I lived here briefly about seven years ago, and the city felt absolutely devoid of fashion. Now there are small but strong pockets of personal style. At this rate, I like to think it won't be long before the Alaïa arrives. Finish this sentence: Style-wise, what DC lacks in ___________, it more than makes up for in ____________. effort, appreciation … On a daily basis, people who don't look particularly stylish themselves never fail to stop me on the street to compliment my shoes (or bag, or dress … you get the point). They might personally be stuck in a sneakers

'n pantyhose rut, but they can still appreciate Dries Van Noten when they see it. You have 5K to spend at Barney’s—in what department do you start and what do you buy? I'd squander it all on approximately 1.5 utterly gorgeous Lanvin pieces, and it would be completely wonderful and worth it. Photos: Courtesy of Betsy Lowther

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Knox may face charges of slander (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Knox was jailed for 26 years and Sollecito for 25 years. During the trial, Knox claimed Submitted at 1/21/2010 7:51:52 AM twice that police had beaten her US student Amanda Knox, who during questioning, to get her to murdered her British flatmate name Miss Kercher's killer. Meredith Kercher in Italy, is now She also said police called her a expected to face slander charges, "stupid liar" and threatened her officials say. with prison. The move comes after an Forensic evidence inquiry into claims by the 22- Knox has said she was unable to year-old that she was beaten by identify the officers who hit her. police during questioning. The prosecutor in the case said Knox and her ex-boyfriend, there was no proof of assault and Raffaele Sollecito are both Knox would now be charged appealing against their murder with slander in order to protect convictions. the good name of the police They were found guilty in department. December of killing Ms Kercher, The charges are expected to from Coulsdon, Surrey, in follow in the next few weeks to Perugia in 2007. give Knox's lawyers time to

respond to the claims. Under Italian law, slander can lead to a fine and or a prison sentence of up to six years. Last November, Ms Knox's divorced parents were placed under investigation for repeating their daughter's claim that police officers had beaten her during questioning. Knox is appealing against her conviction on the grounds that the forensic evidence against her was flawed. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

(Holy Kaw!)

a list of the top ten passwords to avoid. The top five include: 1. 123456 Raise your hand if you have so 2. 12345 many different passwords for 3. 123456789 different websites that you end 4. Password up in a head spinning daze trying 5. iloveyou to recall each one. *hand raised* Check out the full top 10 and With endless sites requiring c o n s i d e r a p r o g r a m l i k e passwords, it’s no wonder some 1Password to keep all your web surfers just toss their hands v a r i o u s p a s s w o r d s s a f e l y up in the air and opt for the o r g a n i z e d . simplest password to remember. All the top network security A recent hack of app site news. RockYou revealed 32 million Photo credit: Fotolia user passwords that data security Permalink| Leave a comment » firm Imperva analyzed to create Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:45:00 AM

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Elizabeth Edwards: 'Whole family feels relieved' (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

the fall. Edwards released a statement admitting paternity of the girl, RALEIGH, N.C. – Elizabeth Frances Quinn Hunter, who was Edwards says her "whole family born in 2008 to videographer feels relieved" now that her Rielle Hunter as the result of an husband has come forward to affair Edwards has already claim paternity of a child he confessed to. fathered out of wedlock. "It was wrong for me to ever Edwards said in an interview deny she was my daughter," he with The Associated Press that said, adding he was providing she believes John Edwards is financial support for the child also relieved to put the matter and mother. "I am Quinn's behind him. She said she hopes father." the declaration will help end The admission comes ahead of publicity around the family's the Feb. 2 release of a book by matters. former Edwards aide Andrew She declined to talk about her Young that is expected to marital status, saying, "My describe how Edwards worked to m a r r i a g e s h o u l d n ' t b e o n hide his paternity with Young's anybody's radar screen except help. mine." Young initially claimed he was Elizabeth Edwards' cancer the child's father shortly before returned in March 2007 in an the 2008 presidential primary incurable form. She said the contests began. Word that Young cancer got worse for a period but was naming Edwards as the has recently been improving, father first came when details of with some signs of tumors his book proposal were reported shrinking. by The New York Times in "You hate to tempt cancer," she September. Edwards' lawyer at says. the time declined to comment. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS The child was born Feb. 27, UPDATE. Check back soon for 2008, indicating that she was further information. AP's earlier conceived in the middle of 2007, story is below. several months after Hunter RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — stopped working for Edwards. Former Democratic presidential John and Elizabeth Edwards candidate John Edwards finally renewed their wedding vows in admitted Thursday he fathered a July of 2007 to celebrate their child during an affair before his 30th wedding anniversary. second White House bid, Hunter's lawyer, Michael dropping long-standing denials Critchley, said the admission is just ahead of a book by a former "good for everyone." campaign aide who initially took Critchley said Edwards' Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:18:31 AM

statement amounted to a public acknowledgment of something that was known privately. He said Hunter did not have an immediate comment. It is not clear where she and the child are living. In an excerpt of an ABC News interview released Thursday, Young says that Edwards asked him to arrange a fake a paternity test. "Get a doctor to fake the DNA results," Young said Edwards told him. "And he asked me ... to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this (was) indeed his child." An Edwards spokeswoman declined to comment on the ABC interview. Elizabeth Edwards, whose cancer returned in an incurable form in March 2007, has stood by her husband despite the affair. She has said that it does not matter to her whether her husband fathered a child with Hunter, saying, "that would be a part of John's life, but not a part of mine." Harrison Hickman, a longtime friend of John Edwards who worked as his political pollster, said Elizabeth Edwards was supportive of the decision of her husband to come forward. "She's hoping, like a lot of people are hoping, that its the beginning of the end of the public part of this," Hickman said. Since admitting the affair in

August 2008, Edwards has largely gone into seclusion. He has acknowledged a federal investigation into his campaign finances while both Young and Hunter — with her child — have made appearances at a federal courthouse in Raleigh. In his statement, Edwards said, "I will do everything in my power to provide her (the child) with the love and support she deserves. I have been able to spend time with her during the past year and trust that future efforts to show her the love and affection she deserves can be done privately and in peace." Edwards also said, "It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me." "I have been providing financial support for Quinn and have reached an agreement with her mother to continue providing support in the future," the statement said. "To all those I have disappointed and hurt, these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry." Edwards' attorney, Wade Smith, said Edwards wrestled with the decision to come forward but took so long to do it because "he's not the only person involved in this." "It's a complex family situation, and he had to keep in mind that other people have concerns and worries about it," Smith said. Smith said there would never be a logical explanation for why

Edwards initially denied being the father. But he added that Edwards was "very pleased" to finally set the record straight. "To say that life has been hard for John Edwards for the past year would be an enormous understatement," Smith said. "His life has totally fallen apart. It's been a very difficult time for him. He recognizes that he has been at fault." Edwards, a former U.S. senator representing North Carolina from 1998 until his vice presidential bid in 2004, acknowledged in May that federal investigators were looking into how he used campaign funds. Grand jury proceedings are secret, and the U.S. attorney's office in Raleigh has declined to confirm or deny an investigation. Smith declined to comment Thursday about the probe. Edwards adamantly denied during an interview with ABC News last summer that he had fathered a child with Hunter, and he welcomed a paternity test. He said then that the affair had ended in 2006. That year, Edwards' political action committee had paid Hunter's video production firm $100,000 for work. __ Associated Press Writer Geoff Mulvihill in Haddonfield, N.J., contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: ELIZABETH page 52

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California braces for 4th day of rain, wind (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

brunt of the storm was expected by midmorning. The National Weather Service predicted up to LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, 3 inches of rain throughout the Calif. â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Los Angeles County day, accompanied by gusts up to authorities say the week's fourth 50 mph and up to 20 inches of rainstorm is likely to cause snow in the mountains. significant debris and mud flows Waves of 15 to 20 feet pounded and everyone who has been the coast, bringing the threat of ordered to evacuate should now flooding in beach communities. leave. Flash flood watches were up for Officials say no major incidents foothill communities below have occurred yet, but many of mountains that were denuded by the flood-control debris basins wildfires last year. A week's protecting homes below wildfire- w o r t h o f r a i n h a s s o a k e d scarred mountains are now full. hillsides in the San Gabriel Fire Department Chief Deputy M o u n t a i n s n o r t h e a s t o f John Tripp used a televised press downtown Los Angeles, where conference to warn people who 250 square miles of forest have failed to evacuate that if an burned in a summer wildfire. incident occurs rescuers would The rain filled catch basins with likely not be able to reach them. muddy slop. More than 1,200 homes have But the basins, sandbags and been ordered evacuated in concrete barriers along foothill foothill and canyon communities streets were holding and no a l o n g t h e S a n G a b r i e l serious problems were reported Mountains. The new storm is by early Thursday morning. expected to reach the area at "We're crossing our fingers," Los midmorning. Angeles County sheriff's THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS spokeswoman Nicole Nishida UPDATE. Check back soon for said. "I think if we can get further information. AP's earlier through today, we'll be OK." story is below. More than 1,000 homes LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, remained under mandatory Calif. (AP) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; With more than evacuation orders in foothill 1,000 homes already under areas of Los Angeles, Glendale evacuation orders, already- and La Canada Flintridge. drenched Southern California Sheriff's deputies manned street prepared Thursday for a fourth b a r r i c a d e s a n d c o n d u c t e d powerful storm and mudslides roaming patrols to protect below fire-scarred mountains. emptied homes. Only scattered showers were Farther north, the California reported before dawn but the Highway Patrol was escorting Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:54:30 AM

cars through the icy, snowy Tejon Pass section of Interstate 5, the main highway between Los Angeles and Northern California. The pass, known as the Grapevine, was closed for hours Wednesday because of poor conditions. On Wednesday, 2 to 3 inches of rain fell in many areas. As the rain fell in sheets on the fire-scarred mountainsides above La Canada Flintridge, Lynn Thompson barricaded her front door and windows with plywood and stashed her family photos at her daughter's house. Like hundreds of foothill residents, Thompson packed her possessions and evacuated her home of 32 years, but not before her load of laundry dried. "Sometimes you have to pay big bucks for these views, both emotionally and financially," she said Wednesday. As Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa toured the Riverwood Ranch development in Tujunga to urge them to evacuate, cars were parked in driveways, horses were still in barns and smoke rose out of fireplaces. Even though police officers and sheriff's deputies went door-todoor asking residents to leave, some refused to comply with evacuation orders. Nishida said about 75 percent of the people contacted by sheriff's deputies at more than 500 homes agreed to leave.

Deputies warned it might not be possible to rescue those who stay behind and asked them to fill out forms stating they'd been advised of the danger. Los Angeles officials reported only about 40 percent compliance by residents of 262 hillside homes in that jurisdiction. Police Chief Charlie Beck sternly urged the rest to go, saying: "We're not doing this because your carpet is going to get wet; we're doing it because your life is at risk." Henrik Hairapetian, 40, who builds custom 4-by-4 vehicles for a living, said he was undeterred because his Hummer H-1 would help him and his family escape the mud. "I've driven through some hairy stuff and I'm sure we can get out if we need to," he said. Hairapetian's neighbors all evacuated their homes, leaving him to guard their small cul-desac next to a burned hillside, where little tufts of grass were beginning to sprout where the summer's wildfire consumed the vegetation that would normally capture or slow runoff. A few blocks up the street, public works crews checked Mullally Basin, which was gradually filling with mud and debris swept down from the hills. Officials said the 28 floodcontrol debris basins protecting the area were near capacity but continue to function as designed. The storms were testing months

of preparations in burn-area neighborhoods from northeastern Los Angeles through La Crescenta, Glendale, La Canada Flintridge and Altadena. Southern California has a history of fatal debris flows: 30 killed and 483 homes destroyed in 1934 in the Los Angeles-area foothills, and 16 killed in 2003 to the east in the San Bernardino Mountains. In Northern California, 50 homes were ordered evacuated as a central coast river rose near Felton Grove in the Santa Cruz Mountains, but it receded later in the day. The Grapevine stretch of Interstate 5 was closed for hours due to snow and ice in Tejon Pass north of Los Angeles. Since the beginning of the week, more than 300,000 Southern California Edison customers had lost power. ___ Associated Press writers Daisy Nguyen and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Juliet Williams in Sacramento, Sudhin Thanawala in San Francisco and Gillian Flaccus in Orange County contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Haiti to relocate quake homeless (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:56:40 AM

Haiti is planning to house 400,000 earthquake survivors in new tented villages outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, officials have announced. Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime said 100,000 people would initially be sent to 10 settlements near the suburb of Croix Des Bouquets. He gave no timeframe, but said the moves would start as soon as possible. An estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless by the 7.0magnitude quake, which killed as many as 200,000. At least 75,000 bodies have so far been buried in mass graves, the government has said. Many more remain uncollected in the streets. Improvised shelters On Thursday, Mr Bien-Aime said public buses had already been sent out to take survivors in Port-au-Prince to the south and north of the country, where tented settlements able to accommodate 10,000 people each would eventually be built. "The government has made available to people free transportation. A large operation is taking place," he told reporters. At least 500,000 people are currently living outdoors in 447 improvised camps in Port-auPrince, according to the

International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Of the 350 settlements assessed by the IOM, its partners and the Haitian government, only 179 had improvised shelter material and tents, and only three had access to potable water, the IOM said. The Geneva-based UN body said it was distributing tents, blankets and plastic sheeting provided by the US, Japan and Turkey, but warned that more permanent shelter would soon be needed. "Tents will not work in May when the long rainy season begins and later when hurricane season starts, but at this point there is not much choice," said IOM Chief of Mission Vincent

Houver. "Assessments must take place and best construction methods and durable materials need to be discussed," he added. Seaport reopens In a bid to deliver greater quantities of aid, the US military is now operating at four airports in the area - Port-au-Prince and Jacmel in Haiti, and San Isidro and Barahona in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. UK staffed field hospital in Haiti The head of US Southern Command, Gen Douglas Fraser, said 1,400 flights were on a waiting list for landing slots at

Port-au-Prince's airport, which can handle 120 to 140 flights a day. The airport, which is under US military control, has only one 2,900m (9,600ft) runway. The US military is currently giving the "highest priority" to shipments of water donations to help meet the "overwhelming" need for water. Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has said five of its planes carrying a total of 77 tonnes of medical and relief supplies have been turned away in the past week. Only one has been able to land. The US Coast Guard has meanwhile partially reopened the capital's main sea port, which should improve the rate at which aid supplies get into Haiti. Three

vessels had docked by Thursday morning. Much of the port was destroyed by the earthquake, but engineers have decided some parts of one pier are strong enough to handle limited amounts of cargo. Everywhere you go, you see people scrabbling in the rubble. Many are salvaging corrugated iron and curtains, which are being used to get a semblance of privacy as they live on the streets and also some shelter from the boiling sun. On the edge of the rubble, those with goods to sell are setting up tables with small stocks of tinned milk, matches and soap. A few shops have opened their doors again, and in the main market there are cabbages, carrots and charcoal for sale. But prices have rocketed because of the limited supplies. And since even the few people who have jobs have seen their workplaces destroyed, many cannot afford to fill their stomachs. However, correspondents say the aid that has so far arrived at the port is being driven for 45 minutes across the city to the airport, where it is piling up and not being distributed to those who need it. The US and UN World Food Programme insist the distribution of food and water is well under way, but the BBC's Adam Mynott in Port-au-Prince says HAITI page 56

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Attorney: Va. Killing Suspect Had Mental Problems (FOXNews.com)

trench in it." Lynchburg attorney Henry Devening, who handled legal APPOMATTOX, Va. A matters for Speight's family, said woman was not trying to kick the Thursday he does not understand brother accused of killing her how Speight could have thought and seven other people out of the anyone was throwing him out. house they shared, a family He said Speight's sister was attorney said Thursday. trying to do right by him, last Christopher Speight, 39, was week signing a deed that put the charged late Wednesday with Appomattox property in his one count of murder and is likely name as their grandparents had to face additional charges. asked in a 2006 trust. T h e v i c t i m s o f T u e s d a y "My relationship with these folks morning's rampage included w a s p u r e l y b u s i n e s s , b u t Speight's sister, Lauralee Sipe, Lauralee was a great person," along with Sipe's husband, 16- Devening said. "Very motivated year-old daughter and 4-year-old to take care of the family. I can't son. The others were the 16-year imagine why he would turn on -old's friend and her parents, who her." were either dropping off or Speight had an apparent learning picking up their daughter, and a disability and history of mental third teen. problems, and "ran away" from Police have refused to offer a his sister's Georgia home during motive for the slayings, but a breakdown in 2007, Devening David Anderson, who owns a said. market where Speight sometimes Devening said he does not know worked as a security guard, said i f S p e i g h t w a s t r e a t e d o r Speight was worried about being hospitalized but said the family turned out of the house where the decided then that his sister and killings took place. He co-owned the attorney should become the it with Sipe. trustees. Speight never wanted to talk Speight never objected. about it, but he "constantly paced " H e w a s j u s t k i n d o f a n the floor," said Anderson, co- inadequate person. He just did owner of the Sunshine Market not want the responsibility of grocery store in Lynchburg. "I being the trustee," Devening thought he was going to wear a said. "Looking back, I'm not Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:48:54 AM

ELIZABETH continued from page 49

Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

quite sure why we chose him, other than that he was a resident of Virginia and lived with the grandparents at the time." Police found most of the bodies in or near the house. Speight gave himself up to police early Wednesday after leading investigators on an 18-hour manhunt through the woods. Police said he fired several times at a state police helicopter, rupturing its fuel tank and forcing it to land near the shooting scene. A bomb squad found explosives in the home, and crews were detonating the devices into the night. State police identified the victims as Lauralee and Dewayne Sipes, both 38. Devening said they were husband and wife and 15-yearold Morgan Dobyns was Lauralee's daughter from a previous marriage. Also killed was their son, 4-year-old Joshua Sipe, and 15-year-old Emily Quarles, a friend of Morgan's, along with her parents, Karen and Jonathan Quarles, both 43. The eighth victim, 16-year-old Ronald Scruggs, was a friend of Emily's. Abigail Schroeder, a 23-year-old waitress at the Corner Grill in quiet, downtown Appomattox, said the family were regulars

because Emily's older sister Megan worked there about three years ago. "Emily and Morgan were just in Monday," she said. "It's just a smack in the face because we see them all the time, and when everybody told us, we're just like, 'No, it's not Jon and Karen. No way.' And Megan's getting married in a few months. ... It's just hard right now. All this big, good stuff was about to come up, and then something like this happens to her family." The three teenagers were students at Appomattox County High School. Dorinda Grasty, superintendent of the Appomattox County school system, said crisis teams and guidance counselors were at all of the county's schools Thursday assisting grieving students. "This horrific tragedy will leave a tremendous scar and willful pain in the lives of all of our students and staff in our school system," Grasty said. Friends described Speight as a gun enthusiast. In 1995, he applied for a concealed weapons permit in Appomattox County, saying he needed to carry a weapon because his job required him to work at night and carry large amounts of money. "I am a dependable, hardworking

person, not quick to anger, and find ways to get out of problems without using force or violence," Speight wrote in his application. He renewed it in 1997, 1999 and 2004. Neighbor Monte W. Mays said Speight was cordial and friendly. He had long been a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at a range on his property, Mays said. But the shooting recently became a daily occurrence, with Speight firing what Mays said were highpowered rifles. "Then we noticed he was doing it at nighttime," and the gunfire started going deeper into the woods, Mays said. No court date has been set for Speight. Officials declined to allow an Associated Press reporter see him Thursday and had no record of him having an attorney. Elton Blackstock, administrator of the Lynchburg Adult Detention Center, described Speight as cooperative with staff at the 600-inmate jail. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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US calls for China Google probe (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:26:18 AM

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Hillary Clinton: "We look to the Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough review" The US has called on Beijing to investigate the recent cyber attacks on Google, which have prompted the search giant to threaten to leave China. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that companies such as Google should refuse to support "politically-motivated censorship". She also said China along with Tunisia and Uzbekistan had boosted censorship. Google says hackers tried to infiltrate its software coding and the e-mail accounts of human rights activists. The BBC's Kim Ghattas at the State Department says Mrs Clinton's remarks are bound to anger the Chinese authorities, who have sought to play down the incident. China says the row should not be linked to relations with the US. Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei said the rift with the web company should not be "overinterpreted", according to state news agency Xinhua. Transparency call In a wide-ranging speech at the Newseum journalism museum in Washington, Mrs Clinton said

the internet had been a "source of tremendous progress" in China, but that Beijing should investigate the attacks on Google. "We look to Chinese authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the cyber intrusions," she said. "We also look for that investigation and its results to be transparent." Again in reference to China, she said that any country which restricted free access to information risked "walling themselves off from the progress of the next century". The US intended to address issues of internet freedom within its relationship with Beijing, she added.

Separately, she called for tough action against people and states that carried out cyber attacks. "Countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences and international condemnation," she said. "In an interconnected world, an attack on one nation's networks can be an attack on all." Mrs Clinton addressed a number of other issues in the speech:

circumvent politically motivated censorship • Internet technologies were a mixed blessing, used by terror groups to spread hatred and by authoritarian governments to crush dissent • She cited Saudi Arabia as an example of countries which blocked access to information about religions, including Islam • Countries that employed censorship could make no distinction between political and • S h e n a m e d T u n i s i a , commercial speech and were Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Egypt, therefore harming their own as well as China, as countries interests where the "free flow of information" was threatened Mobile launch postponed • She said the US was Google said on 12 January supporting the development of hackers had tried to infiltrate its new tools to enable citizens to software coding and the e-mail

accounts of Chinese human rights activists, in a "highly sophisticated" attack. The California-based company, which launched in China in 2006, said it would quit the country unless the government relaxed censorship. On Tuesday, the Chinese government said Google and other foreign companies had to obey the country's laws and traditions. The same day, Google said it was postponing the launch of two mobile phones in China. When Google launched google.cn four years ago, it was criticised for agreeing to Beijing's demands to make certain search results off-limits including those relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong. China has more internet users, about 350 million, than any other country and provides a lucrative search-engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£618m) last year. Google holds about a third of the country's search market, with Chinese rival Baidu having more than 60%. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Relatives of Americans Missing in Haiti Angry (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 6:26:22 AM

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. Family and friends of missing Americans have searched the ruins themselves. They've hired private rescue teams. They've pleaded with the U.S. government to do more to help bring home loved ones who disappeared amid the rubble of earthquake-ravaged Haiti. More than a week after the quake rocked the country, the grief of not knowing has become unbearable. Frustration and hopelessness has boiled into anger against the U.S. government. SLIDESHOW: Devastation in Haiti| HOW TO HELP| FULL COVERAGE "We know our daughter was there and we want them to find her!" yelled Leonard Gengel, hammering his fist on a table. Gengel's 19-year-old daughter Brittany is one of four Florida college students still missing. Two of their teachers are also believed buried at the Hotel Montana in Port-Au-Prince. It remains unclear exactly how many Americans are missing. The U.S. Embassy in Port-AuPrince had so far accounted for

at least 9,400 of up to 45,000 Americans who were in Haiti before the quake. But some Americans may not have been affected by the devastation, and others may be OK but haven't contacted officials. At least 35 Americans have been confirmed dead, with U.S. officials investigating reports of an additional 21 potential U.S. fatalities. Friends and relatives want the Americans brought home â&#x20AC;&#x201D; dead or alive. "I think everyone has accepted the fact that they're not going to find everyone alive, but we at least want to bury our loved ones on American soil and not under the rubble," said Forrest Masters, who is in Haiti helping search for a family friend. Confusion has added to the frustration. At one point, Gengel was told by the university his daughter had been found, but the news turned out to be "bad intelligence" from a rescue crew in Haiti. The school, Lynn University in Boca Raton, has hired private rescue teams to help search for the missing faculty and students, who were there to distribute food and visit schools and orphanages. Eight of their

classmates escaped and have returned home safe. "These kids went down there on a journey of hope, that's what it was called, and it's turned into a journey of hell," said Gengel, of Rutland, Mass. Sally Baldwin, of Fort Worth, Texas, is praying for any word about her son, Brendan Beck, 35. He also is believed lost in the rubble of the Montana. Beck, an engineer doing consulting work in Haiti, checked into the hotel for a night to catch a flight to another part of the country the next day. His mother is angry that she's not getting information from the government; U.S. officials say they're doing what they can under difficult conditions. "Given that most Americans do not register with the embassy ... it is often impossible to say in these situations how many are missing," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said. "As for sharing information, we can always do a better job ... I think we have been sharing the information we have, but many times it is just not enough to be of help to families in anguish." According to the White House there were 43 international search-and-rescue groups in

Haiti with more than 1,700 personnel, including more than 500 from the U.S. Altogether, they had rescued more than 120 people from the rubble as of Wednesday. The United Nations, which is coordinating the rescue teams, recently determined no additional search-and-rescue groups were needed. Rescue efforts will eventually give way to recovery of bodies, and there's a chance some may never be found. But even a week after the earthquake hit, teams emerged from the rubble with improbable success stories â&#x20AC;&#x201D; including the rescue of several people. That leaves some hope for John Gianacaci, of Hopewell, N.J. His 22-year-old daughter, Christine, is one of the missing Lynn students. "This is the United States of America. They perform miracles all across the world ... Where's our miracle?" Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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NYC Tells Electric Car Owners to Get Their Own Outlets (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:57:16 AM

New York City often startles people, and it stayed true to form in a recent analysis done by McKinsey & Company for the city's PlaNYC planning group, "Exploring Electric Vehicle Adoption in New York City." In particular, one of the report's conclusions may come as a shock to many electric-vehicle advocates: It turns out you really don't need very many public charging points to get people to use EVs. Over the next five years, the likely early adopters will simply adapt their behavior to the limitations of the EVs: Early adopters do not appear to need a high-density public charging network. While the availability of charging at retail and curbside locations may be reassuring to the average driver concerned about range limitations, the study suggests that the earliest consumers will be willing to change their driving behavior and parking location, NYC page 56

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Obama pushes new bank regulation (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 1/21/2010 10:28:25 AM

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. US President Barack Obama: "I am proposing simple, common sense reforms" US President Barack Obama has proposed limits to the size of banks to try to prevent future financial crises. "Never again will the American taxpayer be held hostage by banks that are too big to fail," Mr Obama said. He recently announced a $117bn (ÂŁ72bn) levy on banks to recoup money US taxpayers spent bailing out the banks. US stocks - especially banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America - fell sharply as Mr Obama announced the sweeping new rules. "While the financial system is far stronger today than it was one year ago, it is still operating under the exact same rules that led to its near collapse," Mr Obama said. His proposals also include limits on the amount of risk banks can take, and banning retail banks from using their own money in risky financial transactions. That prevents commercial banks from investing in hedge funds,

private equity funds or engaging in so-called proprietary trading. "Banking reforms do not come bigger than those proposed by President Obama," the BBC's business editor Robert Peston said. This may mean that some of the US' biggest banks, such as Bank of America and JP Morgan, whose shares were badly hit, may have to be broken up. Our business editor added that the UK's shadow chancellor George Osborne had told him that if the Conservatives win the next general election, they would

impose an identical dismantling of UK banks to those suggested by the US president. Tough new rules Mr Obama's move is his first proposal since Republican Scott Brown's shock victory in Massachusetts to win a Senate seat. The Republican victory may make it harder to get Mr Obama's proposals passed in the Senate, as they are more likely to get held up in political wrangling. Banks have also been lobbying against more stringent

regulation. "If these folks want a fight, it's a fight I'm ready to have," Mr Obama vowed. The president dubbed his proposals on limiting bank risk the Volcker rule - after Paul Volcker, one of his economic advisors and a former chairman of the Federal Reserve central bank. The moves follow popular anger at financial institutions, who have been paying large bonuses to staff even as they accepted government bail-outs to keep them going.

The tax will claw back some of the losses from a $700bn taxpayer bail-out of US banks known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp). It was drawn up in the midst of the financial crisis in 2008, following the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers and rescue of insurance giant American International Group (AIG). Mr Obama's proposals appear to be a return to the principles underlying the Glass-Steagall Act. That law - from the 1930s in the aftermath of the Great Depression - separated commercial and investment banking and was eventually abolished in 1999 under President Bill Clinton. Mr Clinton's financial secretary at the time, Robert Rubin, previously worked at Goldman Sachs and went on to be an advisor to Citigroup until last year. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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given their strong desire to purchase EVs. Thus, a dense public charging network will not be a strong priority for early adopters. Needed: easier installation Instead, it makes more sense to help those early adopters by streamlining the process for installing charging equipment in their homes, apartment buildings, or local garages: Given the likely strong demand among early adopters and the limited short-term supply of vehicles, initial actions would be most effective if they focused on helping early adopters enter the EV market. Survey respondents ... voiced a desire to have a convenient and easy-to-understand process to install necessary charging equipment, at home or in a commercial garage. "Range anxiety" This counterintuitive conclusion flies in the face of the received wisdom, which says drivers will

avoid using electric cars unless they can be sure there are public quick-charge stations available wherever they may need them, because "range anxiety" makes them nervous that they'll run out of juice and be left stranded. But at least some EV advocates and urban planners who are now sketching out local and regional networks of EV infrastructure think the report is right on target. People quickly learn their electric car's range, they say, and pick the appropriate vehicle for the day's travel. In multi-car households, many drivers will take a compact car to deliver a kid to school or commute to work. But if there's sports practice after school that requires hauling six teenagers, they'll take the family minivan instead. For "compact car," substitute "electric vehicle," and you see how it works. 100 miles enough Sure, things come up

unexpectedly. But in cities and suburbs, it's very rare that short local hops suddenly change to trips of more than 100 miles--the stated range of the upcoming allelectric 2012 Nissan Leaf, to pick one example. And the "range anxiety" concern is only relevant for batteryelectric vehicles; both extendedrange EVs like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and plug-in hybrids like the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In offer hundreds of miles of range, using their gasoline engines for longer distances. Demand exceeds supply 'til 2015 Among the report's other conclusions: -A large group of early adopters will change their behavior to accommodate the limits of early electric vehicles; -The number of those early adopters is greater than the likely supply of EVs until at least 2015; -It won't be necessary to provide

tax incentives or other subsidies to these early adopters, but they would like to be recognized; -Charging electric vehicles poses no threat to the stability of the electric grid as long as it's mostly done off-peak (at night); and -Collaboration among the City of New York, electric utilities, and automakers will be required to make it all happen. The full 24-page report, prepared under the auspices of the Mayor's Office of LongTerm Planning & Sustainabilityi, can be downloaded from the PlaNYC 2030 section of New York City's website. Click here for more from TheCarConnection.com Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Doctors are warning that many survivors have wounds that have gone untreated for nine days, putting them at risk of infection and disease. "The next health risk could include outbreaks of diarrhoea, respiratory tract infections and other diseases among hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in

overcrowded camps with poor or nonexistent sanitation," said Dr Greg Elder, deputy operations manager for MSF. The World Bank has meanwhile announced that it is waiving any payments on Haiti's debt for the next five years and trying to find a way to cancel it altogether. Haiti owes the institution about

$38m (ÂŁ23m). Print Sponsor A temporary branch of the Five Filters featured article: Central Bank of Haiti (RBH) was Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: opened on Thursday in the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, o f f i c e s o f a c o n s t r u c t i o n Term Extraction. company in Port-au-Prince. Hundreds of people queued to withdraw cash for the first time since the earthquake, under extremely tight security.

19 facts about midlife depression (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:58:00 AM

When a human ages, they produce less of two important mood stabilizing hormonesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;serotin and dopamine. As a result, depression is a risk factor for both men and women as they reach middle age. Here are nineteen facts about midlife depression. FACTS page 57

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many people have still seen no international relief at all. An official from the mayor's office in the suburb of Petionville said he understood the logistics involved in distributing aid had slowed the process down, but warned that many people were now very hungry and increasingly angry.

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FACTS continued from page 56

9. If you’re taking hormone depression. replacement therapy, too high a 18. Depression is a risk factor dose of estrogen or androgen for coronary heart disease. hormones can lead to side effects More on coping with midlife for like headaches and anxiety. all you boomers. S y n t h e t i c p r o g e s t e r o n e Photo credit: Fotolia t r e a t m e n t s a r e a l s o o f t e n Permalink| Leave a comment » associated with depression. 15. St Johns Wort has been found to be as effective as prozac in treating mild to moderate

Europe.view: The centre cannot hold (The Economist: Daily columns)

Iceland? The Ural mountains? The methodology of some claims is unclear. The more exotic ones Submitted at 1/20/2010 10:31:01 PM bear as little relation to Europe.view The borderlands of geography as the Loch Ness Europe should not be left behind Monster does to aquatic biology. Jan 21st 2010 In other words, their purpose is From Economist.com to attract tourists. But at least for PLENTY of places have a claim the Ukrainians visiting Dilove to to be Europe’s geographical b e p h o t o g r a p h e d b y t h e centre. French geographers monument, this is as far west as calculated in 1989 that it lies on they can get. a hill near Purnušks in Lithuania. “ W h e r e E u r o p e E n d s ” , a Belarusian cartographers think it powerful new film by Alina is near the town that Russians Mungiu Pippidi, a Romanian call Vitebsk (Vitsyebsk in scholar and activist, shows the Belarusian). In 1887 in the then effect of the European Union’s A u s t r o - H u n g a r i a n e m p i r e , expansion in dividing Europe. geographers erected a monument The combination of physical at Dilove, in what is now the decay and human dislocation is U k r a i n i a n p r o v i n c e o f poignant. The footage of Transcarpathia, marking what disintegrating churches, ruined they reckoned was Europe’s real public buildings, shabby homes mid-point. and bumpy roads leaves the None of these claims can be viewer in no doubt of both the definitive; finding Europe’s region’s rich heritage and its dirtmiddle depends on what you poor present. count as its edge—the Azores? Many of the people interviewed

in the film have first-hand experience of the atrocities of the past century. Their grasp of the geopolitics is sometimes hazy, but their memories of shootings and deportations are sharp. Lines on the map drawn by outsiders have divided families and farms, bumping them around like shuttlecocks between different countries and political systems. The creation of a solid eastern frontier to the EU hardly matches the horrific consequences of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but the victims are the same people. People left behind by history are often those who find coping with the present day most difficult. Humble farmworkers in rural areas find it hard enough getting Ukrainian or Moldovan officials even to issue a travel document. Getting a visa to cross the border is even harder. The film shows the humiliating crowded queues outside EU member states’ consulates and the dismal life of

illegal labour and squalid living that awaits those who make it across. The film is partly paid for by the EU. It should be compulsory viewing for anyone who works in a consulate or visa office dealing with people from what one might call “left-behind” Europe. Some of the local staff there seem to have been handpicked for their rudeness. Corruption is still troublingly prevalent. The system for visa applicants often appears to have been designed to deter, rather than enable, travel to the west. It may be unrealistic to expect a big liberalisation of visas in the short term. But it is hard to see any arguments against being polite, honest and efficient. Enlargement has brought huge benefits for those on the inside, while putting the harshest costs on outsiders, particularly those least able to bear it, such as the citizens of Moldova, Europe’s

poorest and most neglected country. The mantra of EU and NATO expansion has been “Europe whole and free”. That may have now outstripped the willingness of voters in the luckier and richer parts of Europe to pay the taxes and accept the dislocation of further expansion. But opportunities are opening up in Belarus (wriggling away from Russia), Moldova (with its reformist, pro-European, proAmerican government) and even post-election Ukraine, assuming that the political paralysis of recent years ends. Treating the centre of Europe as a hopeless and irrelevant borderland cannot be right. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Lessons from the tsunami: Too much of a good thing? (The Economist: News analysis)

produced an outpouring of generosity amounting to $1 billion so far. Submitted at 1/21/2010 2:44:08 AM The experience of the tsunami Lessons from the tsunami suggests that agencies will not be Lessons for aid workers in Haiti able to spend it. Nine months on, from the 2004 tsunami governments and nonJan 21st 2010 governmental organisations From The Economist print (NGOs) had disbursed just 39% edition of the money they had promised AFTER the Indian Ocean t o s p e n d . A F r e n c h N G O , tsunami of December 2004, aid M é d e c i n s S a n s F r o n t i è r e s agencies clubbed together to (MSF), stopped emergency fundreview their efforts. The main raising, saying it did not need conclusion was sobering: “It was more. It was criticised for this, local people themselves who but in retrospect was justified. provided almost all immediate As the tsunami evaluation put it, life-saving action.” But “ a l l o c a t i o n a n d “international agencies often programming…were driven by brushed local capacities aside.” the extent of public and media This lesson is relevant to Haiti i n t e r e s t , a n d b y t h e now. Focused on raising money, unprecedented funding available, bedevilled by disputes over rather than by assessment and logistical precedence and need.” This seems to be haunted by fears that the country happening in Haiti, too; MSF has is too weak to help itself, the again asked people to switch Haiti operation shows signs of donations to its general fund. becoming an aid stampede. Like Viagra, ski jackets and Father the tsunami, the earthquake has Christmas costumes were all sent

to tsunami victims. Indonesia destroyed 75 tonnes of out-ofdate medicine. And sometimes aid was worse than merely useless. There was a fashion for financing new fishing boats after the tsunami. A UN agency found that a fifth of the boats given to Sri Lanka were unseaworthy. Much reconstruction work was shoddy. A private company with no medical experience built health centres in the Indonesian province of Aceh. Because reconstruction work takes longer to organise than emergency relief, it has to begin right away. Sri Lanka built 40,000 transitional shelters—something between a tent and a proper house—in six months. The tsunami also shows why someone has to be in charge. The aid operation worked best in countries, such as Malaysia, that have the most effective governments. Aceh, the tsunami’s epicentre, had huge

problems because the destruction was worst there, the province had been riven by rebellion in the 1990s and 180 different NGOs were operating there at one point. Organisational problems may be worse in Haiti, which before the earthquake had more NGOs per head than anywhere else in the Americas. But Aceh managed to bring a measure of control to the flood of aid by setting up a special agency. Paul Collier, an economist at Oxford University who has advised Haiti’s government, says it and the UN should do something similar. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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China's rampant economy: Central heating (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 1/20/2010 9:32:33 PM

China's rampant economy Is China's economy growing too fast? Jan 21st 2010 | HONG KONG From The Economist print edition BEIJING recently suffered its lowest temperature in 59 years, but the economy is sweltering. Figures published on Thursday January 21st showed that real GDP grew by 10.7% year on year in the fourth quarter. Industrial production jumped by 18.5% in the year to December, while retail sales increased by 17.5%, boosted by government subsidies and tax cuts on purchases of cars and appliances. In real terms, the rise in retail sales last year was the biggest for over two decades. A year ago many economists were fretting about unemployment and deflation. Now, with indecent haste, they have shifted to worrying that the Chinese economy is overheating

and inflation is taking off. The 12-month rate of consumer-price inflation rose to 1.9% in December, an abrupt change from July when prices were 1.8% lower than a year before. The recent rise in inflation was caused mainly by higher food prices as a result of severe winter weather in northern China. In many cities, fresh-vegetable prices have more than doubled in the past two months. But Helen Qiao and Yu Song at Goldman Sachs argue that it is not just food prices that risk pushing up inflation: the economy is starting to exceed its speed limit. If, as China bears contend, the economy had massive overcapacity, there would be little to worry about: excess supply would hold down prices. But bottlenecks are already appearing. Some provinces report electricity shortages and stocks of coal are low. The labour market is also tightening, forcing firms to pay higher wages. If the economyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slack is shrinking fast, then the

extraordinarily rapid growth in money and credit over the past year could quickly spill into inflation. The growth in bank credit slowed to 32% in the year to December, but that is still far too fast. The central bank has started to drain liquidity by lifting banksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; reserve requirements, and some banks have been told to reduce their lending. The bank will probably not raise official interest rates until inflation breaches 3%, but that could be as soon as February. In 2009 government officials gave three reasons for holding the yuan stable against the dollar: falling exports, weak GDP growth and negative inflation. Now, with double-digit growth in both GDP and exports, and inflation rapidly rising, it has no excuse. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

MediaDailyNews: Nick Brien's Next Trick: Turning McCann Worldgroup Around (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 1/21/2010 5:15:15 AM

Nick Brien is smart. He's ambitious. He's pugnacious. He also, apparently, is the new CEO of Interpublic's venerable McCann Worldgroup, arguably the most important advertising services division within the storied Madison Avenue holding company. And the reason for that, most likely, is that Brien may something else: a magician, having turned Interpublic's beleaguered media services brands into one of the most competitive forces on Madison Avenue, and according to some, a model for how agencies should handle media services in the future. This month, MediaDailyNews sister publication, Media magazine named Mediabrands, the unit Brien created to oversee and resuscitate Interpublic's media services operations, its"Agency Holding Company of the Year," largely because it was doing a better job than bigger peers, including WPP's GroupM and Publicis' VivaKi, at restructuring and repositioning its portfolio - and its organization - for the future. Not all of the ideas Brien infused into the new Mediabrands model are necessarily original, but he and his team have executed them

quicker, and with more of an organization-wide commitment than Interpublic's peers, in part, because they had less to lose. It worked. And Brien has won. Now we will find out if he can perform similar magic with a model - the global brand agency network - that some say isn't just broken, but is also an anachronism. It won't be Brien's first role in managing a global portfolio of marketing services. Before he joined Interpublic in 2008, initially to turnaround its beleaguered Universal McCann unit, and ultimately to manage its entire media services portfolio, Brien was head of Publicis' Arc Worldwide unit. Prior to that, he was part of the team inside Publicis that created Starcom MediaVest Group, and helped move it to the pinnacle of the media services industry during its time. It will be interesting to watch how Brien attempts to do the same for McCann Worldgroup, and chances are he will utilize tactics from his basic playbook: Borrowing the best ideas from others, and raiding the best people to implement them. During his tenure as head of Interpublic's Mediabrands, Brien MEDIADAILYNEWS: page 60

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TV Watch: TV's Upfront Ad Rollercoaster: It'll Be Up -- And Down As Well (MediaPost | Media News)

better: "Things are up. But it's not a runaway scatter. There's not that much more money. It Don't be fooled by the new appears real strong, but that's surge in some TV ad spending -- because scatter has been real - there's more going on than soft." meets the eye. Top-rated networks in the fourth Take Olympic spending this quarter, such as Fox, may have year. Interpublic Cos. Magna more inventory than many other research group says that this networks to sell. But, according year's Olympic games will to most experts, those overall g e n e r a t e $ 4 8 8 m i l l i o n i n scatter dollars gains may be "incremental revenue," much of perhaps $100 million or so. it going to TV platforms. But These numbers would be this is way down from the $650 significantly lower than in years million in incremental revenue past, where it was customary for d u r i n g t h e 2 0 0 6 W i n t e r networks to grab $200 million to Olympics in Torino, Italy. $250 million or more in one That's not all. Many broadcast particular fourth quarter scatter network executives says while period. rates are up, they wish they had These trends are a part of overall more inventory to sell. Reading broadcast erosion. When a the tea leaves, there seems to be network has less ratings points to no appreciably big volume gains sell -- even with somewhat for networks in this scatter higher CPMs -- it can't generate market. overall dollar volume. One veteran media buyer puts it And while cable networks have Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:15:12 AM

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has largely repopulated the senior most positions within the organization, including the appointment of a half a dozen former CMOs into key positions servicing the needs of, well, also been touting big double- Interpublic's client CMOs. digit CPM increases over the According to an announcement upfront with some volume gains, b y I n t e r p u b l i c e a r l y t h i s still it seems no single cable morning, Brien will succeed long network can have a big impact in - t i m e M c C a n n c h i e f J o h n the marketplace. Dooner as CEO of the Estimates are the second quarter W o r l d g r o u p i n A p r i l , a n d should see some improvement in Dooner will remain chairman demand from advertisers. This through 2010. h a s a l w a y s b e e n a s t r o n g Mediabrands will be led by an indicator of how the upfront will "Office of the Chairman," go. reporting directly to Brien. The That said, the upfront should see office will be comprised of stronger pricing than last year's R i c h a r d B e a v e n , C E O o f big retrenchment. But total volume gains might be disappointing -- certainly with some broadcast networks and syndicators, less so with cable networks. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Initiative, Tara Comonte, Mediabrands' COO and CFO, Matt Freeman, the recentlynamed CEO of Mediabrands Ventures and Matt Seiler, CEO of UM. A decision concerning a new CEO for Mediabrands is not contemplated until 2011, but Comonte was recently promoted from CFO to COO, if that means anything. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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E-reader News Edition

Amazon Adds Apps to the Kindle, Speeding the Death of EReaders (Fast Company Magazine) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 1/21/2010 5:54:20 AM

Amazon, mere hours after announcing a fairer (if stricter) revenue share for publishers, has pulled another rabbit out of its hat: It's letting developers build apps for the Kindle. Fascinating idea, but can it save the Kindle before the Apple Tablet arrives? Here's how Amazon's spinning the news in its press release: For the past two years, Amazon has welcomed authors and publishers to directly upload and sell content in the Kindle Store through the self-service Kindle publishing platform. Today, Amazon announced that it is inviting software developers to build and upload active content that will be available in the Kindle Store later this year. It's pretty momentous news, and Amazon notes that it's a direct response to numerous requests from developers over the years to access the Kindle's code so they can build software and plug-ins for the e-readers. Hence the new "Kindle Development Kit" with "programming interfaces, tools and documentation" and a simulator so that developers can make active content for the device. Amazon says that Handmark is building a dynamic Zagat guide, Sonic Boom is building "word games and

puzzles" and EA is working on some games too. The clear intention from Amazon is to expand the Kindle's capabilities so that it offers more of a value proposition to its customers than a single-purpose e-book reading device. We imagine that as part of the Amazon.com ecosystem that supports the Kindles, Amazon will be crafting some kind of app store to serve up all these lovely software nuggets. But look at the facts: Amazon waited two years for this, patiently ignoring those supposed calls from developers-when presumably it could have

implemented the KDK ages ago. The e-ink screen on the Kindle is so slow to update that it's not useful even for Web browsing (which is why Plastic Logic left the facility out of its competing Que e-reader) and it's hard to imagine many apps, let alone games beyond a basic level of sophistication, working on the screen. Furthermore, Amazon's now very, very late to the App Store game--a game Apple has practically invented, led, and now dominates. Its iPhone App system launched in July 2008, and now has well over 100,000 apps which have been

downloaded over 3 billion times. Following on Apple's heels came many others, of which the most notable is the Android one--it launched in October 2008, and now has just 10,000 apps. Both Nokia's and BlackBerry's versions trail well behind this, with mere thousands of apps...and that's despite Nokia's commanding position as the World's biggest cell phone maker. Of course mere app count alone isn't an indicator of success for these stores, but it does clearly illustrate customer enthusiasm for the platforms concerned, and how excited developers are by the relevant

device's capabilities. And while Amazon makes much of those "#1 bestselling, most wished for" claims for the Kindle, it's worth noting that the International edition is something of a joke. And even more interesting is the fact that I, living in Europe and being an avowed gadget fanatic, have never seen anyone, ever, using a Kindle--even Americans on holiday. In fact I've never seen anyone reading an e-reader of any kind. Laptops, smartphones, iPhones by the thousand, iPods by the million: Yes. E-Readers: AMAZON page 62

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E-reader News Edition

E-Readers and Tablet PCs Are About to Get Screen-Tastic (Fast Company Magazine) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 1/20/2010 1:39:20 PM

Developing screens for computers and cell phones may sound like boring business, but, as customer demand for portable devices that can handle HD video, e-books, and Web browsing increases, the need for screens that are both awesome and efficient has become paramount. There were several new screens on display at CES a few weeks ago. As we've mentioned, Pixel Qi's transflective LCD screen, which can switch between backlit and reflective modes in an instant, was particularly impressive (see the transflective technology in action in the video below). But e-reader screens from Qualcomm and a new company called Liquavista are also pretty damn exciting. While Pixel Qi's technology is about making LCD screens better, Liquavista has developed a new technology that

they claim is superior to LCD. The company spun out of Philips a few years ago after the engineers who developed the screen technology bought the patent rights. What makes the Liquavista screen (pictured right) unique is its"electrowetting" technology. The resulting screen is capable of reflective, transmissive, and transflective

modes just like Pixel Qi, but Liquavista claims their new technology beats out LCD screens in the optical performance category. But there's a downside to developing a brand new system: Unlike Pixel Qi, Liquavista had to develop a separate manufacturing process to produce their screens. As a

result, the company was still looking for hardware partners at CES earlier this month while Pixel Qi's screen has already appeared in one new Tablet PC-Notion Ink's Adam--and is expected to turn up soon in netbooks and e-readers from other major manufacturers, such as Lenovo. Still, that doesn't mean there isn't room for

by Amazon to garner some news headlines and possibly a few thousand more customers before Apple's tablet PC arrives. This is a machine that will slot into the already-successful iTunes ecosystem, will launch globally, will have a fast processor and

color display, a touchscreen, and Apple's design cachet. It'll beat the Kindle on every single front, except price--but when you look at the slew of powers it'll have versus Amazon's limited ones, many consumers will work out that you get what you pay for.

Read More: 2010: The Only Year of the E-Reader [ Amazon] Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

AMAZON continued from page 61

No. So in summary, the Kindle app system is late, intended to expand the usefulness of a device which is possibly very limited in capability, and it's likely to be an extremely U.S.-focused affair. It is, let's face it, a desperate move

Liquavista in the mobile computing market, especially since the company is focusing on e-readers and mobile phones. Ditto for Qualcomm's Mirasol screen (pictured left), which is expected start appearing in ereaders in the fall. Like the Kindle and Nook, the Mirasol screen is all-reflective, meaning there's no power-draining backlit mode. Plus, the Mirasol also supports color and video, a major improvement over existing ereader screens. Qualcomm has been marketing the technology as an "e-ink alternative," which is all well and good if the conversation is limited to ereaders. But with the emergence of tablet PCs that function as ereaders plus netbooks, a reflective-only screen like the Mirasol that only works in direct light starts to make less sense. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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E-reader News Edition

DARPA's Economic Fix: Run All Industries Like the Semiconductor Industry By Clay Dillow (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 1/21/2010 8:31:30 AM

Ask a GM employee, any barstool economist, or your dad, and they'll all likely tell you the same thing: American manufacturing ain't what she used to be. But who will think us out of this economic box we've trapped ourselves in? DARPA, of course. DARPA's director told the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that by replicating the successful model that the semiconductor industry is built upon, other manufacturing sectors can experience similar booms as well. DARPA -- better known for seeking flying cars and weather control devices -- is currently integrating more than 20 programs that have implications in the manufacturing sector, synthesizing ideas that collectively have $200 million federal dollars backing them up. The key tenet of DARPA's plan: decouple the manufacturing and design processes. The problem, DARPA director Regina Dugan told PCAST, is this: vertical integration has become inefficient, dragging

research, trials, and FDA approval just handing over its investment to a third party that likely also does business with its rivals. Nor does it seem particularly efficient for the manufacturer; stamping out a few-hundred thousand semiconductors is one thing, but the nuances of tweaking chemical compounds until they're just right seem more suited to trusted in-house experts. Then there's the thorny issue of outsourcing; if we separate our creative process from the manufacturers who create the products, what's to stop U.S. companies from seeking less costly labor on foreign soil? Implementation also seems difficult. How would America, as a policy, force businesses to divorce their manufacturing creative companies down with and relies on semiconductor In proper DARPA fashion, operations from their product costs associated with maintaining foundries to manufacture -- even details concerning this great development arms? manufacturing facilities. "The to prototype at the prototype economic panacea are scarce. But criticisms aside, this seams between each stage of stage -- their products. These That's probably because, while wouldn't be the first time development; between design fabrication-less firms focus on this sounds good from a macro DARPA stunned us with a gamea n d p r o t o t y p i n g , e a r l y innovating and leave the core perspective, a closer look at changing idea that the skeptics production runs, limited, and manufacturing to the foundries, America's manufacturing sector didn't quite comprehend until large scale manufacturing ... which distribute their costs reveals diverse industries across later -- remember the time they create extensive rework and are across the products of many w h i c h t h e s e m i c o n d u c t o r invented the Internet? We'll the source of production delays, companies. The result is greater paradigm might not necessarily remain cautiously optimistic for surprises, and cost overruns," e f f i c i e n c y o n b o t h e n d s ; fit. now. Dugan said in her statements to designers focus on innovating For instance, it's difficult to [ Physics Today] PCAST. and manufacturers are never idle i m a g i n e a p h a r m a c e u t i c a l The semiconductor industry, on waiting on the next big idea from company that spends tens (or the other hand, designs products upstairs. hundreds) of millions on

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A Faster Yacht, Trading Sails For a Wing By Corey Binns (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 1/21/2010 7:47:59 AM

The BMW Oracle Racing team's boat--with an enormous wing for a sail--could win it all at the America's Cup race this month This year, the rules have all but disappeared for competitors in the world's oldest international trophy competition, the America's Cup sailing race. Motorized sails are fine, the single-hull rule is out, and in the case of the BMW Oracle Racing team's boat, even sails are optional. Instead, the largest wing ever constructed could catch enough wind to make the yacht the fastest yet. Conventional fabric sails are unreliable. "Wind speed and direction change by the second," says Mike Drummond, the design director for the BMW Oracle Racing team. "The crew must constantly maneuver the mainsail to maintain maximum speed." A sail's leading edge often ripples, particularly when tacking into the wind, increasing drag and causing the sail to lose the airfoil shape that helps propel the boat. In contrast, it takes just one sailor a few clicks on a computer to immediately swing

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence, Including a Mastery of the Subway By Stuart Fox (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:15:04 AM

the 190-foot-tall carbon-fiberand-Kevlar wing into position, where it will hold its shape regardless of conditions. With the wing, Drummond says the 90 -foot trimaran can sail up to 5 percent, or about one knot, faster. In the months leading up to the February 8 race day, Drummond's team noticed a few drawbacks to the new design. In strong winds, where sailors would normally shrink a soft sail, the one-size wing can grab too much wind and destabilize the boat. And in choppy waters,

the extra weight can cause the craft to pitch front to back. "Still, overall, it's obvious that the boat goes faster," Drummond says. "We used to measure performance gains in hundredths of a knot. Now we measure it in tenths of a knot or more." WING The 7,700-pound wing includes a single piece that rotates around the mast and eight flaps that catch or shed wind in different directions for thrust. Engineers claim that the wing-80 percent longer than a Boeing 747's-can achieve twice the power of a soft mainsail. MAST

Fiber-optic sensors in the mast and hull reflect light differently when stretched. A computer converts these changes into stress loads in real time to predict material failures and alert the crew if strong winds could snap the mast. SAIL A camera system photographs the soft sail, analyzes its shape and height, and compares the measurements with past performance data to suggest the optimal setup.

For every 300 Muscovites, there's a stray dog wandering the streets of Russia's capital. And according to Andrei Poyarkov, a researcher at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the fierce pressure of urban living has driven the dogs to evolve wolf-like traits, increased intelligence, and even the ability to navigate the subway. Poyarkov has studied the dogs, which number about 35,000, for the last 30 years. Over that time, he observed the stray dog population lose the spotted coats, wagging tails, and friendliness that separate dogs from wolves, while at the same time evolving social structures and behaviors optimized to four ecological niches occupied by what Poyarkov calls guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and MOSCOW'S page 65

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New Clay-Based Hydrogels Could Be an Ecologically Safe Replacement For Plastics By Stuart Fox (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 1/21/2010 9:58:13 AM

The invention of plastics in the mid-1800s changed human civilization as profoundly as our earlier mastery of fire, bronze, and steel. Unfortunately, the environmental and health effects of plastic offer a significant downside to such a useful and affordable material. Now, scientists at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have developed a clay-based hydrogel that they hope will perform the same functions as plastic, but do so without endangering people or the planet. Scientists have been using hydrogels in medical technology since the 1980s, but their lack of rigidity and durability limited

their use. But by adding a small amount of clay to the mixture, the researchers succeeding in imbuing the hydrogels with the stiffness needed to make the material more versatile. The clay enhances the hydrogel because the polymer used to bind the water into a gel simultaneously adheres to the clay, the water, and other

polymer chains. By grabbing all the elements, the polymer forms a rigid scaffolding that supports the other molecules, and creates solid material. Plus, because the material is mostly water and clay, with only a little bit of polymer, the material has none of the toxic qualities of plastic. In their paper in Nature describing the new material, the

University of Tokyo researchers fail to address the cost of this new hydrogel. One of the key advantages of plastic is the low cost, and no material can be considered a viable replacement for plastic until someone can manufacture it just as cheaply. [ Ars Technica]

But beggar dogs have evolved the most specialized behavior. Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor's names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into

their territories. Additionally, Poyarkov says the pack structure of the beggars reflects a reliance on brain over brawn for survival. In the beggar packs, the smartest dog, not the most physically dominant, occupies the alpha male position. The evolution of Moscow's stray dogs has been going on since at least the mid-1800s, when Russian writers first mentioned

the stray dog problem in the city. Futurismic] And that evolution has been propelled by deadly selective pressure. Most of the strays arrive on the streets as rejected house pets. Of those dogs kicked out of their homes, Poyarkov estimates fewer than 3 percent live long enough to breed. To survive those odds, a dog really does have to be the fittest. [ Financial Times, via

MOSCOW'S continued from page 64

beggars. The guard dogs follow around, and receive food from, the security personnel at Moscow's many fenced in sites. They think the guards are their masters, and serve as semi-feral assistants. The scavengers roam the city eating garbage. The wild dogs are the most wolf-like, hunting mice, rats, and cats under the cover of night.