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11/10/09 - 12/10/09

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Cities lag in preparations for high-stakes census (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

we had 9/11, privacy issues, trust of government issues. And there's been no public declaration that WASHINGTON – With the w e ' r e g o i n g t o s u s p e n d 2010 census looming, major U.S. immigration raids like in 2000." cities whose residents are at high Pew's review of preparation r i s k o f b e i n g m i s s e d a r e efforts in 11 major cities, which struggling with a shortage of had undercounts of residents in money and manpower to prepare 2000 of up to 1.5 percent, found for an accurate count. only five cities had committed A study by the Pew Charitable public funds to census outreach Trusts, released Monday, found — Los Angeles, New York, several cities with substantially Houston, Phoenix and Baltimore. fewer resources than it had in Even when cities had allotted 2000. City officials also expressed funds, most were at sharply lower concern about a possible poor levels compared to 2000, due to t u r n o u t n e x t y e a r , c i t i n g the recession that has made state difficulties in finding displaced budgets tight. residents due to home Los Angeles faces difficulties of f o r e c l o s u r e s a n d s k i t t i s h finding many of its residents who immigrants wary of filling out are now living in foreclosed government forms. houses and recreational vehicles, E a r l i e r t h i s m o n t h , t h e or "doubling up" with friends and Commerce Department ruled out relatives in single-family homes. seeking a temporary halt to large- Yet the city's $770,738 budget for scale immigrant raids as a way to outreach work is about half the boost participation in hard-to- amount it had in 2000. count communities. Chicago, which missed an "Nobody is expecting a good estimated 32,000 residents in census in 2010," said Joseph 2000, spent nearly $1.3 million in S a l v o , N e w Y o r k C i t y ' s city funds a decade ago; this year, population division chief. "I'm not it has allocated no money. optimistic. Since the last census Philadelphia, the nation's sixth Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:04:54 AM

largest city, has been particularly slow in getting preparations under way, although officials insist they can catch up. A decade ago, the city set aside $200,000 for the census effort, but it has no such funds this time. Philadelphia also has not yet put in place a city outreach committee — unlike many other major cities — and has been relying on some support staff from the Census Bureau's regional offices. Other cities with no public funds for census outreach include Atlanta, Boston, Detroit and Pittsburgh. To boost participation, the Census Bureau is mounting a $300 million national media campaign and partnering with more than 80,000 groups to help get the word out that filling out the 10-question census form is safe and easy. But Census director Robert Groves has acknowledged that the risk of error and missteps in counting remains high, depending partly on factors beyond its control. Among them: _Whether there is a major outbreak of the H1N1 flu, which

Ostrom thanks husband, colleagues for Nobel prize (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Media Misfire on Polanski and Letterman (Larry Elder) 20 minutes ago 2009-10dean buzzed up: Hollywood, 12T10:10:02-07:00

Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:57:02 AM

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could isolate large segments of the U.S. population. _Heated rhetoric over immigration reform, which could incite either side of the debate to seek a boycott or other ways to deter participation. _Distrust of the government, possibly seen in last month's slaying of a part-time census worker in Kentucky, who was found with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. Door-todoor visits in Clay County have been suspended until more information is known. "Whether cities can beat the census participation or mail response rate from 2000 is going to be tough," said Thomas Ginsberg, project manager of The Pew Charitable Trusts' Philadelphia Research Initiative and author of the report. "Cities will have to rely on unpaid organizing and grass-roots networks that are already out there." The stakes are high since the population figures are used to apportion House seats, redraw congressional districts and distribute more than $400 billion

in government funds for schools, roads, hospitals and other vital programs. But there are also broader financial consequences if there is a poor turnout, since the Census Bureau has committed to spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to locate residents with repeated visits if they fail to immediately mail in their paper form. In 2000, the bureau noted for the first time an overcount of 1.3 million people, due mostly to duplicate counts of more affluent whites with multiple residences. About 4.5 million people were ultimately missed, mostly blacks and Hispanics. ___ On the Net: Copy of the Pew report: http://tinyurl.com/yfu76ve Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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American is first woman to win Nobel in economics (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

reporters in Bloomington. Ostrom said it's an honor to be the first woman to win a Nobel W A S H I N G T O N – E l i n o r Prize in economics — and Ostrom became the first woman promised that she won't be the t o w i n a N o b e l P r i z e i n last. She said people discouraged economics, honored along with her from seeking a Ph.D. when f e l l o w A m e r i c a n O l i v e r she applied for graduate school Williamson on Monday for but she loved studying economics. analyzing economic governance Williamson, an economist at the — the rules by which people U n i v e r s i t y o f C a l i f o r n i a , exercise authority in companies Berkeley, focused on how firms and economic systems. and markets differ in the ways Ostrom was also the fifth that they resolve conflicts. He woman to win a Nobel award this found that companies are typically y e a r — a r e c o r d f o r t h e better able to resolve conflicts prestigious honors. than markets when competition is It was also an exceptionally limited, the citation said. strong year for the United States, The academy did not with 11 American citizens — specifically cite the global s o m e o f t h e m w i t h d u a l financial crisis, but many of the nationality — among the 13 problems at the heart of the N o b e l w i n n e r s , i n c l u d i n g current upheaval — bonuses, President Barack Obama, who executive compensation, risky and won the Nobel Peace Prize on poorly understood securities — Friday. involve a perceived lack of Ostrom, 76, and Williamson, r e g u l a t o r y o v e r s i g h t b y 77, shared the 10 million kronor government officials or by ($1.4 million) economics prize for corporate boards. The Nobel work that "advanced economic awards on Monday were clearly a governance research from the n o d t o t h e r o l e o f r u l e s , fringe to the forefront of scientific institutions and regulations in attention," the Royal Swedish making markets work. Academy of Sciences said. "There has been a huge Ostrom, a political scientist at discussion how the big banks, the Indiana University, showed how big investment banks have acted common resources — forests, badly, with bosses who have fisheries, oil fields or grazing misused their power, misused l a n d s — c a n b e m a n a g e d their shareholders' confidence, successfully by the people who a n d t h a t i s i n l i n e w i t h u s e t h e m , r a t h e r t h a n b y (Williamson's) theories," prize g o v e r n m e n t s o r p r i v a t e committee member Per Krusell companies. said. "What we have ignored is what Ostrom, also the founding citizens can do and the director of Arizona State importance of real involvement of University's Center for the Study the people involved — versus just of Institutional Diversity, devoted having somebody in Washington h e r c a r e e r t o s t u d y i n g t h e ... make a rule," Ostrom said interaction of people and natural during a brief session with r e s o u r c e s . O n e n o t a b l e Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:41:03 AM

publication she wrote in 1990 examined both successful and unsuccessful ways of governing natural resources — forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands and irrigation systems — that are used by individuals. Ostrom's work challenged conventional wisdom, showing that common resources can be successfully managed without privatization or government regulation. To explain her ideas, the academy cited an example about dams in Nepal that Ostrom used in her 1990 book "Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action." Local people had for many years successfully managed irrigation systems to allocate water between users, but then the government decided to build modern dams made of concrete and steel with the help of foreign donors. "Despite flawless engineering, many of these projects have ended in failure," the academy said. That was because the new, modern dams cut out communications and ties between the users. The new dams required little maintenance whereas the earthen local dams forced users to work together to keep them functional. Ostrom told the academy by telephone that she was surprised by their choice. "There are many, many people who have struggled mightily and to be chosen for this prize is a great honor," Ostrom said. "I'm still a little bit in shock." Ostrom doesn't know exactly how she will spend her share of the $1.4 million in award money,

but she said she will invest it in her students and "wonderful" colleagues. Williamson said he was "gratified" by the honor and hoped that in the future "organizations will play a more prominent role in the study of economic activity." "The organization of the government itself is something which we ought to examine in a more self-conscious way — the Federal Reserve and the Treasury and the Securities Exchange Commission," Williamson said. "The mission that each of them has is mainly economic, but should be informed by good organizational practices." Williamson previously was a consultant to the U.S. Federal Trade commission from 19781980 and a special economic assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the U.S. Department of Justice in 19661967. He was cited for his studies on how organizations — including companies — are structured and how that affects the cost of doing business. According to his theory, large private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient. "Large corporations may, of course, abuse their power," the citation said. "They may for instance, participate in undesirable political lobbying and exhibit anticompetitive behavior." But Williamson found it is better to regulate such behavior directly rather than with policies that restrict the size of corporations, the academy said. Paul Krugman, a Princeton University scholar and a columnist for The New York

Times, won the prize last year for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect international trade patterns. The Nobel prizes, with the exception of the economics prize, were established by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, in his will in 1895. The Economic Sciences prize, the last Nobel award to be announced this year, was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in memory of Nobel. In addition to the prize money, Nobel winners will receive a gold medal and diploma from the Swedish king on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896. The choice of Obama, meanwhile, was the biggest surprise of this year's awards. In other awards, American scientists Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer. The physics prize was split between Charles K. Kao, who helped develop fiberoptic cable, and Americans Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith who invented the "eye" in digital cameras. Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath of Israel shared the chemistry prize for their atomby-atom description of ribosomes. Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller won the literature prize for her critical depiction of life behind the Iron Curtain. AMERICAN page 4

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Clinton upbeat on NI devolution (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 10/11/2009 1:36:32 PM

Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Hillary Clinton speaking about Northern Ireland ahead of her visit there A deal on policing in Northern Ireland is "within reach", US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said. Speaking at a meeting in Dublin with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, she said the devolution of justice powers was an "essential milestone". She had earlier met Gordon Brown at Chequers and has arrived in Belfast for more talks as part of a tour of Europe. Her visit came as the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a republican paramilitary group, renounced violence. Personal commitment The group, which was responsible for dozens of murders during Northern Ireland's Troubles, issued a statement saying its "armed struggle is over". Mrs Clinton said: "The step of devolution for policing and justice is an absolutely essential milestone. The visit to Stormont may turn out to be one of the easiest stages of the five-day European tour by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. The curse of foreign diplomacy is arriving in a country and constantly needing ministerial aides to whisper in your ear the names of leading politicians. Mrs Clinton will not have that problem

added. At a meeting with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mrs Clinton restated her faith in the US-UK "special relationship". The situation in Northern Ireland, the Afghan war, concerns over Iran's nuclear programme and climate change were said to be on the agenda at Chequers. The two politicians also discussed the current situation in Pakistan and India. During her visit to the UK, Mrs Clinton also spoke of her admiration for the "incredible courage and commitment" of British troops in Afghanistan. Mr Miliband paid tribute to Mrs Clinton's "personal commitment" to the peace process in Northern Ireland for more than 15 years. Mrs Clinton said: "Those who would try to disrupt the peace of in Northern Ireland. take together. Sinn Fein and the DUP have people going about their daily She has been to Stormont so "It will take the leaders of both been at loggerheads over when lives are out of step and out of often - as First lady, Senator and communities working together to powers for policing in Northern time." Asked about the potential that now as Secretary of State - that continue not only the devolution Ireland should be devolved from financial support was being she is on first name terms with but then to make day-to-day London. provided by US sympathisers, she most of the key players. Indeed, governing a reality, and I'm 'Incredible courage' she probably knows their spouses' confident that that is within The former party says it should added: "There is no support... the names too. reach." have already happened, while the best we can tell is that those who Resolving the differences BBC Ireland correspondent latter has been more cautious, try to inflict harm on others and between Sinn Fein and the Mark Simpson said Mrs Clinton's saying it will only assent to cause damage are funding their Democratic Unionists may need visit had already had an influence devolution with an adequate evil enterprise from criminal gains more than some high-powered in Belfast even before she arrived. financial package in place and and we hope to see an end to all of that." American charm and gentle words H e s a i d : " T h e p o l i t i c a l broad community confidence. Police have recently begun an of persuasion. atmosphere has improved and up Speaking in London, where she operation aimed at disrupting Mind you, the indomitable Mrs at Stormont the gap between the met British Foreign Secretary Clinton will try her best. parties, which was very wide, has David Miliband, Mrs Clinton said what is seen as increased dissident "Clearly there are questions and narrowed a little - there has been a rise in dissident republican republican activity this year. Mr Brown recently held a series some apprehensions, but I believe progress made in recent days. activity in Northern Ireland was that due to the concerted effort of "It's a little like if there's a "out of step" with the peace of meetings with Sinn Fein and the DUP on the timing of the the British government, Irish family row going on and you process. government and support of friends know there's a very important It was "imperative" the Good transfer. Print Sponsor like us in the US, that the parties group of visitors coming, you try Friday Agreement was "seen all This content has passed through understand this is a step they must to patch up your differences." the way to conclusion", she fivefilters.org.

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Ostrom, Williamson Win Nobel Prize for Economics - Wall Street Journal (Most Popular - Google News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:50:35 AM

By JUSTIN LAHART Two American economists, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, who study economic governance and the way decisions are made outside the markets, were awarded Monday with the Nobel Prize in economics. Ms. Ostrom, who teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., is the first woman to win the prize, which previously had been awarded to 62 men since it was launched in 1969. Associated Press Oliver Williamson at his home in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday, holding a book he wrote on economics. The judges cited Ms. Ostrom's "analysis of economic governance, especially the commons," the way in which natural resources are managed as shared resources. Her work challenged the view that when people share a finite resource, they'll end up destroying it. Such "a tragedy of the commons" argues that resources that are important for the common good need to be highly regulated, or privatized. It's an area of research that she said was relevant to questions about global warming, and suggests that decisions by individuals can help solve the

problem even as governments work to reach an international agreement. "Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, [Ms.] Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories," the Nobel judges noted. That's because over time, people often develop institutions, social networks and ways of interacting that solves the problem. Lobstermen in Maine, for example, have come to informally regulate, and restrict entry to, the areas where they work. Where these "lobster gangs" are prevalent, there are more lobsters. On a larger scale, these social networks don't always work as well, notes Yale University environmental economist Matthew Kotchen -- there are fewer lobsters, for example, further away from Maine harbors. What's important, he says, is that Ms. Ostrom's work points out the importance of the networks that many economists had ignored, in part, because they couldn't come up with elegant models to describe how they worked. "Just because you don't know how to model them doesn't' mean you can ignore them," he said. AFP/Getty Images Elinor Ostrom, left, and Oliver E. Williamson

Ms. Ostrom, 76 years old, who was interviewed by phone during the public announcement in Stockholm, described the prize as "an immense surprise." Her University of California at Los Angeles Ph.D. is in political science, but she said she considers herself a political economist. Mr. Williamson, 77, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley and earned his Ph.D. at Pittsburgh's CarnegieMellon University, was cited for "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm" -- the reason some economic decisions are made at arm's length in markets and others are made inside a corporation. Mr. Williamson's work stems from time he spent in the late 1960s working in the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, and noticing that there was little attention to the internal workings of companies. "The way economists used to think of the firm was as a black box that transfer inputs into

outputs, and they didn't look inside," explained Mr. Williamson, who was woken up by the call from the Nobel committee at 3:30 in the morning. "We opened up the black box." What he found was that many economic decisions that standard theory said would be more efficiently left to the market place were actually better left within a firm. "Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent," the Nobel judges said. "But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets." The economics prize is one of six Nobel prizes not created in Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's 1896 will, and officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009. The two economists will share a 10-million kronor prize -- $1.42 million, €980,000. Ms. Ostrom said she hopes to devote the proceeds to supporting research and graduate students. Write to Justin Lahart at [email protected] This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Fox News vs. MSNBC: Who's the bigger shill? - Kansas City Star (Most Popular - Google News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:22:22 AM

By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist The White House complained Sunday that Fox News is a lap dog for the GOP. It's a pretty accurate charge. "What I think is fair to say about Fox, and certainly the way we view it, is that it really is more a wing of the Republican Party," said Anita Dunn, White House communications director. But let's be fair. Check out MSNBC TV, and you will often see a similar kind of blind support for liberal positions and Democrats. Back to back to back, MSNBC features "Hardball" with Chris Matthews, "Countdown" with Keith Olbermann and "The Rachel Maddow Show." (Sidelight: Of those three, Maddow's show is easily the best, with her deadpan delivery and Jon Stewart-like gotchas.) The MSNBC hosts are generally as liberal as Fox opinion makers are conservative: Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. Fact is, both networks attract viewers who pretty much know what they are getting when they tune in: Attacks on Democrats on Fox News and attacks on Republicans on MSNBC. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

AMERICAN continued from page 2 ___ Ritter and Moore reported from

Stockholm. AP Writers Malin Rising in Stockholm and Martha

Raffaele in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

___ On the Net:

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Inquiries into 'sweatbox' deaths (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

resort, near Sedona, where the spiritual retreat was being held have not commented on the Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:30:26 AM incident. Police are continuing to Reports said some of the investigate the deaths of two participants had paid up to $9,000 people who collapsed during a (£5,700) for their week-long stay sauna-like experience at a at the retreat, which also spiritual retreat in Arizona. reportedly included a 36-hour Yavapai County Sheriff Steve fast. Waugh said on Saturday that Ceremonial sauna inquiries were centred on selfPolice said between 55 and 65 help expert James Ray as police people were inside the so-called looked at possible criminal sweat lodge, or sweatbox, at the negligence. Angel Valley resort for up to two Those who died have been hours before many of them named as James Shore, 40, from became ill on Thursday night. Milwaukee, and Kirby Brown, 38, Local TV images showed the from New York state. structure to be a dome-shaped Mr Ray was running the "sweat frame covered by tarpaulins and lodge" where they died and 19 blankets. more fell ill. It was gradually filled with Mr Waugh said Mr Ray, who steam generated by pouring water has appeared on the television on to fire-heated rocks brought shows of Oprah Winfrey and inside, to create a kind of Larry King, had refused to speak ceremonial sauna used by Native to the authorities and had since American and other cultures. left the state. Jonathan Ellerby, author of the No-one has been charged in book Return to the Sacred, has connection with the case. participated in sweat lodges for Mr Waugh told reporters: "We the past 20 years and has run his will continue this investigation own for several years, having down every road that is possible been mentored by a Native to find out if there is culpability American healer. on anybody relative to the deaths He told the BBC that sweat of these individuals." lodges or similar practices had The owners of the Angel Valley been used as a healing tradition in

cultures across North America, Africa, Europe and Asia for millennia. "This has been going on for thousands of years because it works and because it's safe," he said. But, he cautioned, those running sweat lodges need to have the proper training and experience both to make the structures properly and to ensure participants' well-being. "One of the mistakes that you very often hear from people who try to create home-made 'sweats' is that they will use materials that are inappropriate and not understand the consequences," he said. Sweat lodges are usually made from all-natural materials, he said, such as a wooden frame covered with woollen blankets and cotton tarpaulins, and plastics are always avoided. The choice of materials is important because of potential complications involving fumes and ventilation, he added. There will typically be eight to 12 participants in each sweat lodge, sitting cross-legged in a space that measures 10 to 12ft in diameter, he said. "A ceremonial steam bath is generally a process of physical

detoxification, and emotional and spiritual cleansing and purification. It's a time for prayer and intention-setting, there are usually songs and stories," he said. "It's not, at least in my training and experience, meant to be an exercise of endurance and it's certainly not meant to be oppressive." Mr Ellerby, who is the spiritual programme director for the Canyon Ranch Institute health resort in Arizona, said fasting was only sometimes a part of the sweat ledge experience. The heat is typically that of a steam room at a resort, although temperatures can go higher for short periods, he said. People with blood pressure and heart-related conditions should be careful, he added, as well as those who have certain lung conditions or suffer claustrophobia. Police have said it may be weeks before the cause of death at the Angel Valley sweat lodge is known. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Genzyme: Up ahead, an uptrend By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:10:00 PM

Filed under: Stocks to Buy, Genzyme (GENZ) Genzyne Corp.'s (NASDAQ: GENZ) stock has meandered since the June 19, 2009, Buy recommendation at $55.02, and it appears institutional investors have adopted a wait-and-see stance regarding the company. Even so, I'm reiterating my Buy rating for GENZ. Here's why: Continue reading Genzyme: Up ahead, an uptrend Genzyme: Up ahead, an uptrend originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Leading Cuban dissidents cheer Obama's Nobel prize - The Associated Press (Most Popular - Google News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:00:56 AM

(AP) – 36 minutes ago HAVANA — Many of the 75 activists jailed in a 2003 Cuban government crackdown on

political dissent are congratulating Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. In a letter released Monday to international journalists, 29 of those imprisoned six years ago said Obama "has become a global

symbol, especially for us who, under difficult conditions, are defending Cubans' right to democracy." In another letter, 21 of their wives, mothers and other female relatives also cheered Obama.

Fifty-four dissidents remain imprisoned on allegations they conspired with the U.S. to topple Cuba's government. Those freed were granted medical parole or forced into exile in Spain. One was released after completing a

six-year sentence. Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Man held in 1968 hijacking faces NYC arraignment (AP)

First woman wins economics Nobel

(Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

(BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Pena Soltren, 66, had arranged his return with the FBI and State Department because he wanted to NEW YORK – More than four see his wife and other family decades after he hijacked a members, who lived in either j e t l i n e r f r o m K e n n e d y Puerto Rico or Florida, an FBI International to Cuba, Luis spokesman told The New York Armando Pena Soltren voluntarily Times. Authorities would not returned to the same airport to elaborate on other details of his surrender and face prosecution, surrender, including whether he authorities said Monday. had any relatives in the New York Pena Soltren, who was arrested area. The FBI did not immediately Sunday after arriving on a flight return a telephone call Monday. from Havana, was expected to be The FBI and federal prosecutors arraigned Tuesday in Manhattan said in a joint statement Monday on a 1968 indictment. The Cuban that it was made clear to Pena g o v e r n m e n t a u t h o r i z e d h i s Soltren by U.S. authorities that he d e p a r t u r e , a u t h o r i t i e s s a i d would be arrested and prosecuted Monday. when he returned to the United Pena Soltren, a U.S. citizen, and States. two accomplices used weapons They said the Cuban hidden in a diaper bag to hijack g o v e r n m e n t a u t h o r i z e d h i s the Pan Am flight on Nov. 24, departure from Cuba and was 1968, authorities said. aware of his desire to return "As the 1968 charges allege, he voluntarily. terrorized dozens of passengers Dozens of U.S. flights were when he and his cohorts wielded hijacked and diverted to Cuba in pistols and knives to hijack Pan the 1960s. Some of the flights American Flight 281," U.S. were hijacked by self-described Attorney Preet Bharara said in a radical leftists, fugitives seeking statement Sunday. asylum on the Caribbean island or Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:58:37 AM

criminals scheming to extort money from the U.S. government or the airlines. Pan Am Flight 281 was commandeered by three men who forced their way into the cabin and ordered the crew to fly to the Cuban capital, according to a criminal complaint. Weapons and ammunition were sneaked onto the flight in the diaper bag, the court papers said. Two of the men were arrested in the mid-1970s and pleaded guilty to their roles in the skyjacking, prosecutors said. Another man, who was not on the flight but was described in the complaint as a leader of the Puerto Rican Movement for Liberation, was indicted in the hijacking. He was found not guilty on all charges. ___ Associated Press Writer Larry Neumeister contributed to this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

CrunchDeals: HD pocket camcorder for $80 By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:00:00 AM

Looking for a pocketable HD camcorder but don’t want to spend a ton of money? Amazon’s got the Aiptek A-HD 720P for $80 after a $20 price break. This little camera has a flip-and-swivel LCD screen, too, which is a

resolution (30 frames per second) in the H.264 format. You’ll have to supply your own SD cards as it appears the camera only comes with around 32 megabytes of built -in storage. Other than that, this looks to be a decent deal. Aiptek A-HD 720P feature missing from a fair C a m c o r d e r [ A m a z o n v i a amount of pocket camcorders. d e a l n e w s ] Video is recorded at 1280×720

Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:48:19 AM

Elinor Ostrom has become the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics since it began in 1968. Ms Ostrom won the prize with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their separate work in economic governance. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year. Since 1980, it has gone to Americans 24 times. Last Friday, US President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize - though this aroused some controversy. BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders said the judges had rewarded work in areas of economics whose practitioners' "hands were clean" of involvement in the global financial crisis. 'Great surprise' The economics prize was not among the original Nobel awards, but was created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Professor Ostrom, who teaches at Indiana University, "for her analysis of

economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it. She told Swedish television that she was "in shock" at being the first woman to clinch the award, adding winning had been a "great surprise". Meanwhile, Professor Williamson, the academy said, developed a theory where business firms served as structures for conflict resolution. The University of Berkeley California academic has argued that hierarchical organisations such as companies represent alternative governance structures, which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. "Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the academy said. The pair will share the 10million Swedish kronor (£910,000; $1.44m) prize. Last year, American academic Paul Krugman won the prize, in recognition of his analysis of trade patterns and where economic activity takes place. Print Sponsor This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Oct. 12, 1928: Iron Lung, Savior to a Generation By Tony Long (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 10/11/2009 9:00:00 PM

The iron lung arrives just as

there's a spike in poliomyelitis cases, a disease that could affect its victim's ability to breathe normally. Talk about good timing.

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Amtrak ridership down, but still near Fire razes Sao Paulo record high (AP) shanty town (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:53:30 AM

WASHINGTON – Amtrak said Monday its ridership dropped by more than 1 million passengers during the past year, but was still the second-highest year in the railroad's history. Figures released by the nation's intercity rail operator show Amtrak carried 27.2 million passengers during the 12 months ending Sept. 30. Amtrak's record was 28.7 million passengers during the previous year, a period coinciding with record high gas prices. Still, ridership was up over two years ago by 5.1 percent. Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman blamed the decline on the weakened economy, although travel was up on some short distance routes and on the railroad's 15 long distance

DomePod Serves a Stiff By Mathew Honan (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 10/11/2009 9:00:00 PM

trains. "In a difficult year for the economy — particularly in the travel industry — Amtrak ridership has remained strong albeit with some regional variation," Boardman said in a statement. "In particular, reduced business travel along the Northeast corridor prevented us from reaching the ridership we achieved last year." The number of passengers Amtrak carries increased steadily from 2002 to 2007 before the sharp spike last year. This year's ridership appears to be a resumption of the previous growth trend, Boardman said. Amtrak said ticket revenue for the past year was $1.6 billion, down 7.8 percent from last year but up 5.3 percent from two years ago. Some short distance corridors that saw increased traffic over the

past year: • Chicago-St. Louis, up 6 percent • Harrisburg-Philadelphia-New York Keystone Service, up 2.7 percent • Raleigh-Charlotte Piedmont, up 3.8 percent • Washington-St. Albans Vermonter, up 1.9 percent. Also, the Los Angeles- Seattle Coast Starlight ridership was up 22.3 percent from the previous fiscal year, recovering from a 15week service disruption in 2008 that closed a portion of the route in northern California. Amtrak's on-time performance systemwide averaged 80 percent over the past year, up sharply from 71 percent in the year ending Sept. 30, 2008. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

(BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

There were scenes of panic as residents fled with what little belongings they had time to save. Submitted at 10/11/2009 11:17:08 PM Television images from the At least 200 families are thought scene showed virtually the entire to have lost their homes after a shanty town engulfed in flames. fire swept through a shanty town It had been home to around in the west of the Brazilian city of 1,500 people, many of them Sao Paulo. children. Images from the scene showed Three hundred other families virtually the entire district of had only recently been moved Diogo Pires engulfed in flames. from the area into public housing. The blaze took about three Mayor Gilberto Kassab went to hours to bring under control. the scene shortly afterwards and Local fire officials say only 5% promised that the city would of an area of 2,000 sq m (21,500 provide temporary shelters for the sq feet) was unaffected by the fire homeless. and some people were treated for Many local people said they smoke inhalation. feared they would have to spend The mayor of Sao Paulo, who the night on the street. visited the scene, has promised The cause of the fire is still not that those affected will be clear, but it was yet another p r o v i d e d w i t h t e m p o r a r y indication of the precarious accommodation by the city. conditions for those in live in Panic sprawling shanty towns found in This fire spread rapidly among Brazil's largest cities. the poorly constructed shacks in This district has been affected Shot of Java on the Road the favela (shanty town) of Diogo by fires at least three times in Messier than your parents' elbow grease to come up with 16 Pires - many of them made with recent years, as well as by landslides caused by heavy rains. divorce but certainly cheaper, the bars of pressure. Great concept, wood and cardboard. It is reported to have taken 26 Print Sponsor HandPresso DomePod portable even if the result is a bit bitter. fire engines at least three hours to This content has passed through espresso maker relies on your bring the blaze under control. fivefilters.org.

Gosselins Vow to Shut Their Mouths...for Now - E! Online (Most Popular - Google News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:53:27 AM

We'll believe it when we see it—or rather, when we don't see it, hear it or read about it—but after what we can only imagine was a contentious weekend for anyone bearing the surname Gosselin, something of a détente

has been called, at least temporarily, between Jon and Kate. "We have a truce," Jon's attorney, Mark Heller, told E! News. "Neither side will be commenting until after the hearing." A noble if exceedingly tardy gesture, to be sure, but all won't

be quiet on the Gosselin front for too long: The silence-breaking hearing of which Heller speaks is taking place tomorrow. The arbitrator's conference will be held in Pennsylvania at an asyet undisclosed location (in other words, not the courthouse) most likely at an attorney's office. Over the weekend, Kate's

attorney, Mark Momjian, told E! News that the duo will attempt to hash out agreements on "economic issues"—all 235,000 of them, we're guessing—during the hearing. Last week, Kate filed for temporary spousal and child support from Jon. Wow, 24 hours without the Gosselins? What's an

entertainment site to cover? Oh, yeah. (Originally published Oct. 12, 2009, at 6:50 a.m. PT) ________ Get all the latest on Jon and Kate. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Well isn’t that special! Clinton reassures Britain on its U.S. relationship By Jeff Mason (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:12:07 AM

It turns out the relationship between the United States and Britain is very special. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to great lengths on Sunday to reassure Britons and their political leaders that the “special relationship” between the two allies is strong and intact. Exhibit A: at a news conference with Foreign Secretary David Miliband, Clinton opened her remarks by stressing their strong relations. “First, let me just underscore how grateful I am for this opportunity to reaffirm the historic importance of the special relationship between our two countries,” she said. Exhibit B: at a meeting later with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Clinton reiterated the message again. Note how many times the word “special” creeps into her sentence. “It is a special relationship,” she said at the prime minister’s country estate. “I have a special personal relationship with the prime minister and of course I think it can’t be said often enough, we have a special relationship between our

countries.” Here’s the background: some Britons feel President Barack Obama has snubbed Brown by, for example, not holding a full press conference with him in Washington earlier this year (the two spoke to reporters in the Oval Office instead) and not scheduling one-on-one meetings at various international summits. U.S. officials often appear mystified by the concerns. Clinton did her best, verbally anyway, to show they need not worry.

Later in the day she visited Dublin. The Irish, who are perhaps less concerned about semantics, welcomed her warmly as she made a visit to a coffee shop and a local pub, sipping coffee and swigging part of a beer. Now that’s a special relationship. Photo credit: REUTERS/Jeff Mason (U.S. Secretary of State and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, October 11, 2009)

T-Mobile halts sales of Sidekick - CNET News (Most Popular - Google News)

Microsoft and T-Mobile have not said how many of the roughly 800,000 Sidekick customers have Wireless carrier T-Mobile USA lost data. Microsoft said a server has, at least temporarily, stopped failure impacted the main and selling all models of the Sidekick back-up databases. One theory is in the wake of a massive hardware that the problems cropped up as failure that resulted in many Hitachi was doing work on the customers losing their e-mail, storage network that manages the contacts, and other data. Sidekick data. As of Sunday, all models of the T-Mobile has promised an S i d e k i c k w e r e l i s t e d a s update for customers sometime "temporarily out of stock" on T- Monday. For now, the carrier has Mobile's Web site. T-Mobile advised customers not to reset retail store workers also said on their devices, remove the battery, Monday that they have been or let them run out of power, as instructed to halt new sales of the doing so could result in losing device as the company continues whatever data they do have. to investigate the recent problems Microsoft acquired Danger last that have plagued the handheld. year, saying it hoped to use its To recap, Sidekick customers service architecture more broadly started experiencing problems in its mobile strategy. The connecting to the data network software maker has been working more than a week ago. Microsoft, on a project code-named Pink that whose Danger subsidiary powers was to be essentially the future of the Sidekick service, said it was the Sidekick. The company had investigating the problems. not planned for any more versions On Saturday, Microsoft and T- of the current Java OS-based Mobile posted an updated notice Sidekick. saying all data that was not This content has passed through currently on customers devices fivefilters.org. was likely lost permanently. Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:13:54 AM

Swat blast targets Pakistan army (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:26:02 AM

Swat blast targets Pakistan army By Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad

FlowerEYE Pot Examines the Lightning Bolts Under the Soil [Concepts] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:00:00 AM

The FlowerEYE pot tracks soil

humidity, light levels and ambient temperature, all while displaying a plant's root system like an episode of Storm Stories. If only

this ultimate flowerpot technology

actually existed, our perennials would rise again. [ HomeTone via Unplggd]

Published: October 12 2009 09:37 | Last updated: October 12 2009 14:26 This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The First Draft: Hillary Clinton marginalized? If you have to ask…

St Thérèse relics arrive in London

By Deborah Zabarenko (Front Row Washington)

By Adam Gabbatt (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:13:17 AM

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent the weekend in Switzerland and Ireland, but landed on the morning talk shows on Monday, fending off questions about whether she has been marginalized in the Obama administration. It’s not considered a good sign when people start asking this question in Washington, because the implication is that the answer is “yes.” Clinton had no comment when newscaster Ann Curry on NBC’s “Today” program asked whether she should be more visible on such hot-button issues as Iran and Afghanistan. But she responded fully when asked about concerns that the “highest-ranking woman in the United States needs to fight against being marginalized.” “I find it absurd, I find it beyond any realistic assessment of what I’m doing every day,” Clinton said. “I believe in delegating power. I’m not one of those people who feels like I have to have my face in the front of the

newspaper or on the TV every moment of the day. It would be irresponsible and negligent were I to say, ‘Oh no, everything must come to me!’” She had a theory about why she’s comfortable working this way. “Maybe this is a woman’s thing. Maybe I’m totally secure in that I feel absolutely no need to go running around in order for people to see what I’m doing. It’s just the way I am.” But aren’t there moments, she was asked, having campaigned so hard for president against Barack

St Thérèse was born in France in 1871 and died of tuberculosis in 1897. She became revered after her autobiography, Story of a Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:01:13 AM Soul, was published Around 100,000 pilgrims posthumously. The memoirs expected to flock to Westminster detailed her "little way" – her cathedral to view remains of notion that what matters in life is Carmelite nun "not great deeds, but great love". The relics of St Thérèse of She was canonised in 1925 by Lisieux, a French Catholic Pope Pius XI and is the patron Carmelite nun who died more s a i n t o f p e o p l e w i t h A i d s , than a century ago, have arrived aviators, florists, missionaries and in London for the final part of a the sick. tour of England and Wales. St Thérèse famously said she The casket containing her would "let fall a shower of roses remains arrived in Portsmouth last o n e a r t h " a f t e r d e a t h , a n d month and has been taken to W e s t m i n s t e r c a t h e d r a l s a i d Obama, that you just want to Catholic cathedrals, convents, the 100,000 candles and 50,000 pink Anglican York minster and roses had been ordered, with make a decision yourself? No. “I am part of the team that Wormwood Scrubs prison over 2,000 pilgrims expected to the past four weeks. venerate the relics every hour. makes the decision.” Thousands of pilgrims are The remains will be blessed on On another front, Clinton said flatly she would not run for expected to see the relics at the steps of Westminster cathedral president again. She said she’s Westminster cathedral over the by Bishop John Arnold this looking forward to retirement “at next four days, where they will be evening before being made displayed until leaving London on available for the public to visit some point.” from tomorrow morning. For more Reuters political news, Thursday. The relics of St Thérèse, known • Religion click here. Photo credit: REUTERS/Cathal as The Little Flower of Jesus, • London • Catholicism McNaughton (Hillary Clinton in have been touring the world for 12 years, visiting 40 countries • France Dublin, October 11, 2009) including Cameroon, Ireland and Adam Gabbatt Guyana. The golden casket which guardian.co.uk© Guardian contains part of her thigh and foot News & Media Limited 2009 | travels encased in protective glass Use of this content is subject to and is expected to be seen by up our Terms & Conditions| More to 100,000 people during its stay Feeds at the cathedral.

Kodomo No Nomimono: Beer for kids By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:30:00 AM

After a long, hard day of…

playing with toys, watching cartoons, and napping, nothing spells refreshment like a frosty glass of Kodomo No Nomimono – a phrase which I can only

9

assume means something close to “beer for kids” in Japanese. Perfect for the holidays, too, as evidenced by the second video below:

This is non-alcoholic beer, of course – looks like it’s basically sparkling apple juice. Even so, it’ll be coming to the US never, ever, ever in a million years.

[via Kotaku]

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Citigroup Receives Wrist Slap for Helping Hedge Funds Avoid Taxes (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha)

avoid paying U.S. taxes. Payment of dividends is clearly a taxable event for investors. Submitted at 10/12/2009 4:56:47 AM What BDs did for their clients Bloomberg reports Monday that was to purchase client shares Citigroup ( C) agreed to pay before dividends were to be paid. $600,000 in fines related to a In return for this synthetic charge Finra brought against the ownership, clients received a bank. The regulator claimed that derivative contract that was to pay C i t i g r o u p d i d n ’ t p r o p e r l y them the equivalent of the supervise specific transactions of dividends they’d be owed if they foreign clients to skirt paying still owned the stock. taxes on dividend payments. BDs service their clients, According to the Bloomberg provide their derivative desks article: some action, and avert taxes - and Investigators at the Financial everyone is happy. Citibank even Industry Regulatory Authority, disclosed the transactions and which polices almost 4,800 U.S. paid — it appears in lieu of their firms, found Citigroup Global clients having to pay — taxes in Markets failed to supervise the 2 0 0 6 a n d 2 0 0 8 o n t h e s e going through tough economic system of trades and swap t r a n s a c t i o n s . contracts and inadequately This move comes as the current times," he said. c e r t a i n U.S. administration is cracking However, he denied union m o n i t o r e d down on all types of offshore claims that the government was c o m m u n i c a t i o n s . Well, not exactly innocuous. companies sequestering funds out going to privatise the company. The government said Luz y What Citigroup was doing — as of reach of Uncle Sam. It also Fuerza lost 32.5% of the energy was discovered by a U.S. Senate coincides with a little own that it generated or bought to inquiry last year — was actually introspection as Finra tries to distribute to its customers. It part of a larger trend towards wash the egg from its face in light added that about half of the firm's Brokers/Dealers ('BDs') extending o f t h e m a s s i v e f r a u d s t h e staff costs went toward pensions t r a d i n g a n d d e r i v a t i v e s t o regulator could have prevented. international hedge fund and This content has passed through for 20,000 retired workers. A crowd of about 10,000 people institutional clients in an effort to fivefilters.org. gathered in Mexico City to protest Pink Ribbon Beauty: Sonia Kashuk’s Curl for a about the government's Cause Eyelash Curler intervention. Print Sponsor By ELLE.com (ELLE News This content has passed through Blog) —Janna Johnson, Beauty fivefilters.org. Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:00:00 AM Assistant Photo: Kevin Cremens Buy Sonia Kashuk’s metallic Follow ELLE on Twitter pink Curl for a Cause eyelash curler and 15 percent of the purchase price goes to the BCRF.

Mexico shuts troubled energy firm (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Calderon said. Mexico is trying to cut public spending to offset falling oil Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:05:31 AM revenues. Please turn on JavaScript. Media The Federal Electricity requires JavaScript to play. Commission, a state-run utility Crowds in Mexico City protest that provides electricity across the the government's closure of the rest of the country, is to provide energy firm services to Luz y Fuerza's Mexico has closed a state-run customers. energy distribution firm with Pension drain about 40,000 employees and 25 The firm's costs between 2003 million customers, blaming the and 2008 were 433bn pesos scale of its losses. (£20.6bn; $32.5bn) while its sales Federal police seized the offices w e r e 2 3 6 b n p e s o s , t h e of Luz y Fuerza del Centro. g o v e r n m e n t s a i d . Spending at the company was Mr Calderon said the utility increasingly outpacing sales, company could not continue to be according to the government. f u n d e d w i t h o u t i n c r e a s i n g T h e f i r m f a c e d a n electricity rates or taxes. "unsustainable financial "That would be unfair situation", President Felipe particularly when our country is

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Houseflies bug sherpas at 5,000m By John Vidal (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:57:38 AM

House flies at Everest basecamp are another sign of climate change that is melting glaciers with worrying speed Earlier this year Dawa Steven Sherpa was resting at Everest base camp when he and his companions heard something buzzing. "What the heck is that?" asked the young Nepali climber. They searched and found a big black house fly, something unimaginable just a few years ago when no insect could have survived at 5,360 metres. "It's happened twice this year the Himalayas are warming up and changing fast," says Dawa, who only took up climbing seriously in 2006, but in a few years has climbed Everest twice as well as two 8,000m peaks in Tibet. "What I do is climb. It's a family business. And what we see is the Himalayan glaciers melting. It's not a seasonal thing any more. It's rapid. It's so apparent. "Look at the walls and slopes of the Khumbu glacier [which flows 1.5 miles down from an icefall on the southern flanks of Everest]. "You can see a clear line where the black rock becomes white.

That's where it's been exposed to the sun. That means metres of thick ice have melted in just a few decades," he says. Dawa was born in Khumjung, a village just 12 miles from Everest which lies at 3,500m above sea level. His father used to climb with British mountaineer Chris Bonnington, and his grandfather, a yak traderwho toured the world with Everest's first summiteer, Sir Edmund Hillary. All three generations of Dawa's family testify to major climate change taking place today. "Grandfather used to take yaks to a place called Gokio which was on the other side of the Ngozumba glacier, Nepal's longest. He could walk them over the ice but now it's just not there – it's a stony wasteland. The whole thing has melted," he says. He lists some of the physical changes he has seen and their effects on local communities. "The permanent ice above our village now melts at about 5,500m, but it used to be 3,750 metres. Our village is seeing prolonged droughts. They used to last a few months. Now we can go seven months without rain. We have less water now and erratic weather patterns. "The young girls must now walk two hours to fetch water. Tourism, too, is being hit because

villages like Khumjung, which used to have a lot of water for trekkers now don't have it. The villagers lose their business. "All the Himalayan glaciers are melting, an average of 10-20m a year," he says. One of the most obvious changes, he adds, is the growth of what are known as glacial lake outburst floods (glofs). "A glof happens when a glacial lake is created by a melting glacier and it then bursts. Imja lake is the most dramatic example of a potential one. It is growing 74m a year. When it bursts its banks, we will have a mountain tsunami. Billions of gallons of water will be released and it could wipe out about 70% of the trekking trail to Everest base camp. Not only will that destroy our homes and potentially kill people, but it will wipe out the jewel in the crown of Nepal's tourism industry," he says. Last year villagers got an early warning of what they might expect. A very small lake at the edge of the Khumbu glacier burst and it washed away four bridges on a track up to Everest base camp. Dawa, now 25, has a Belgian mother, a degree in business management from Heriot-Watt university in Scotland and he speaks five languages. He is a

WWF ambassador on climate change and runs major expeditions into the Himalayas, climbing with his friend Apa Sherpa, who has climbed Everest 19 times - the world record. . Everest itself is changing, he says. "Apa says there was running water on the surface of the South col [a saddle at 7,920m between Everest and Lhotse mountain] this year," says Dawa. "Also the summit is getting smaller. You used to be able to get 50 people on the ridge to it. Now there's room for 18 people at most. The cornice is breaking off. A big crevasse is opening. It never used to exist. It seems nothing is safe anymore." Nothing compares with the beauty of standing on the summit of Everest and seeing far over the mountains, he says. But finding a fly buzzing thousands of metres up is horrifying. • Glaciers • Climate change • Nepal • Mountains John Vidal guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

The Microsoft Windows Phone commercial: Small, puffy men will follow you around By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:24:04 AM

Not only does the term "Windows Phone" just sound wrong, now they're trying to equate all your Windows apps with puffy little men who love you but don't want you to leave.

Turnaround expert targets laggard pharmaceuticals By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks)

Stocks to Buy "Being contrarians, we are always looking for laggard stocks Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:10:00 PM with the potential to rebound," Filed under: Newsletters, Abbott says turnaround expert George Laboratories (ABT), Baxter Intl Putnam. (BAX), Bristol-Myers Squibb In his The Turnaround Letter, (BMY), Gilead Sciences (GILD), the advisor reviews four medical

and pharmaceutical stocks that have been among the worst performers in the S&P 100 since the market bottom. Despite their poor performance, he thinks they may be due for a rebound. "We think that investors who got left behind by the first leg of the

market rally are struggling to catch up. Continue reading Turnaround expert targets laggard pharmaceuticals Turnaround expert targets laggard pharmaceuticals originally appeared on

BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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China sentences six men to death over ethnic riots By Jonathan Watts (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

the authorities to step up security in Urumqi ahead of the sentencing. According to China National Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:29:45 AM Radio, about 14,000 security Uighurs found guilty of murder, personnel were deployed in the arson and robbery during deadly city from Sunday. Television Xinjiang riots footage showed riot police lining A Chinese court has handed the deserted streets in front of the down the death penalty to six men courthouse. involved in the deadly ethnic riots There were no reports of fresh that convulsed the far western v i o l e n c e , b u t X i n j i a n g h a s region of Xinjiang in July. become a divided city since the The convicts – all of whom ethnic hostilities erupted on 5 have names suggesting they are July. from the Uighur ethnic minority – In the deadliest racial unrest in were found guilty of murder, decades, 197 people were killed – arson and robbery during the riots, some decapitated – and 1,600 which left almost 200 people injured. Most of the victims were dead. Han. The sentencing – announced by Among those sentenced to death the state-run China Central y e s t e r d a y w a s A b d u k e r i m Television – appeared to be aimed Abduwayit, who was convicted of at mollifying the anger of the Han beating five people to death and Chinese majority, many of whom an arson attack on a building. rallied in the regional capital of Four other men were convicted Urumqi last month to call for o f f a t a l a s s a u l t s o n f o u r swift retribution. bystanders. The sixth man who But overseas Uighur groups faces execution set fire to a shop, w a r n e d t h a t t h e h a r s h killing five people inside. punishments and lack of due legal A seventh defendant, Tayirejan process could further inflame Abulimit, was found guilty of tensions. rioting, but given a lesser sentence Fears of new unrest prompted of life imprisonment because he

helped the police apprehend other suspects, according to the Xinhua news agency. Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Germany-based World Uighur Congress, told Associated Press the verdicts were flawed and said they would probably aggravate tensions in the region. The timing appeared to indicate that China wanted the matter closed prior to next month's visit by the US president, Barack Obama, he said. "These verdicts were motivated by politics, not the desire to see justice served," said Raxit, who added that the men could not have had a proper legal defence because their lawyers were appointed by the court. The Urumqi riots flared up after Uighur youths rallied to demand an investigation into the murder of two Uighur workers by a mob of Han colleagues at a toy factory thousands of miles away in Guangdong, southern China. In what appears to be synchronised sentencing, a court in Guangdong issued a death sentence at the weekend to one of those found guilty of that assault. Ethnic strains have risen in Xinjiang as large numbers of Han

settlers move into the historically Muslim Uighur region to take advantage of a booming economy fuelled by the extraction of oil and gas. Tensions were heightened further last week when al-Qaida called on Uighurs to launch a holy war against the Chinese government. "What we saw and heard in the recent events in Turkistan was not accidental and didn't happen overnight. This is an intifada [uprising] and a usual response to the decades of oppression, the organised cleansing and the systematic repression until the people had enough," Abu Yahia Al-Libi, a senior member of alQaida said last week. Independence organisations refer to Xinjiang by its historic name East Turkistan. • Xinjiang • China Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Blackstone (BX) planning to shed up to 13 companies By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)

a number of its portfolio companies, including TeamHealth, which provides Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:30:00 PM outsourcing services for the health Filed under: Good news, Private - c a r e i n d u s t r y , a n d M e r l i n e q u i t y , O p t i o n s , T e c h n i c a l Entertainments Group, of Europe, Analysis, Blackstone Group L.P which owns Legoland and Sea (BX), Initial public offerings Life. Up to eight IPOs and five The Blackstone Group(NYSE: sales to private equity companies BX- option chain) shares are are in the works. If you think that rising today on reports that the the stock won't fall by too much buy-out firm is planning to unload in the coming months, then now

could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on BX. Blackstone opened Monday at $15.50. In morning trading the stock hit a low of $15.50 and a high of $16.18. As of 11:15, BX was trading at $15.79 up 0.94 (6.3%). The chart for BX looks bullish.

Continue reading Blackstone (BX) planning to shed up to 13 companies Blackstone (BX) planning to shed up to 13 companies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Expedia (EXPE): Travel firm books gains By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:30:00 PM

Filed under: International markets, Newsletters, Expedia Inc (EXPE), Stocks to Buy, Recession "Vacationers and professionals finally appear to be hitting the road, and many are relying on Expedia(NASDAQ: EXPE) to handle the details," says Nathan Slaughter in Half-Priced Stocks. The value investor explains, "Expedia's travel sites processed 15.3 million transactions during the second quarter, 18% above the same period last year. Howevver, the gross dollar amount of those bookings dipped slightly to $5.6 billion/ "Whenever you have more trips bringing in less money, it's a pretty good indication that prices are way down. Continue reading Expedia (EXPE): Travel firm books gains Expedia (EXPE): Travel firm books gains originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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US new age centre in deaths inquiry By Peter Beaumont (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

county sheriff's spokesman Dwight D'Evelyn said. The Angel Valley Retreat Centre is sited on 70 acres (28 Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:34:53 AM hectares) of scrub forest just Two people died and 10 others outside Sedona, 115 miles north fell ill after treatment at so-called of Phoenix and is a draw to many 'sweat lodge' outside Sedona in the new age spiritual Police in Arizona are movement. investigating a bizarre tragedy Self-help expert and author after two people died and 10 James Arthur Ray rented the others became ill while attending facility as part of his Spiritual a s o - c a l l e d " s w e a t l o d g e " Warrior retreat that began on 3 modelled on American Indian O c t o b e r a n d p r o m i s e d t o traditions. "absolutely change your life." The lodge forms part of a new Participants paid up to $9,000 age centre which advertises (£5,700). services of "spiritual cleansing." Ray spokesman Howard Twenty-one of the 64 people who Bragman confirmed that his client attended on Thursday required was holding an event at the medical care. Authorities said retreat, as he has done in the past. they had not determined the cause Authorities said Ray was inside of the deaths and illnesses. Tests the sweat lodge on Thursday for carbon monoxide and other evening and was interviewed at contaminants were negative. the scene. Ray has given no Other checks were being made statement or comments on the into whether any of the attendees incident other than to post on had medical conditions or were Twitter that "I'm shocked and fasting. saddened by the tragedy occurring "It's not something you'd in Sedona. My deep heartfelt normally see at one of the resorts condolences to the family and t h e r e , a n d i t ' s u n f o r t u n a t e friends of those who lost their regardless of the cause," Yavapai lives."

The victims were aged 38 and 40 and came from New York state and Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the retreat. They had been among up to 65 people - an unusually large number - who had been packed for up to two hours in the lodge, which was a little over 5 feet (1.5 metres) in its centre but less than 3 feet at the sides. Sweat lodges, like that held on the final day of the Angel Valley retreat, are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events. The structure used Thursday was crudely built and covered with tarps and blankets. Stones are heated up outside a lodge, brought inside and placed in a pail-sized hole. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins in the body. • United States Peter Beaumont guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: ANF, DPS, LMT, NOK, OXY, SHW ... By Eric Buscemi (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:50:00 AM

Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Analyst initiations Analyst upgrades: • Citigroup upgraded Polaris Industries(NYSE: PII) to Buy from Hold after channel checks indicated the company's sales trends improved through September. The firm raised its target on shares to $49 from $33. • Jefferies upgraded Citrix Systems(NASDAQ: CTXS) to Hold from Underperform after channel checks indicated IT spending will be strong in the second half of 2009, but the firm finds the stock fully valued at current levels. Jefferies raised its target on shares to $40 from $32. • Pali Captital upgraded Abercrombie & Fitch(NYSE: ANF) to Buy from Neutral on

valuation and expectations that lower pricing and international growth will be catalysts going forward. The firm set a $45 price target on shares. • Plum Creek Timber(NYSE: PCL) was upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at JPMorgan. • Advanced Micro(NYSE: AMD) was upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS. • PPD Inc.(NASDAQ: PPDI) was upgraded to Outperform from Neutral at Baird. Continue reading Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: ANF, DPS, LMT, NOK, OXY, SHW ... Analyst upgrades, downgrades and initiations: ANF, DPS, LMT, NOK, OXY, SHW ... originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Seriously...Someone Is Really About to Release a PS3 Wiimote? [PS3] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:20:00 AM

Even with Sony's own motion controller on its way, Blaze will be releasing a "Wii style" remote for the PS3, the Blaze PS3 Motion Freedom 3D Controller.

So will there be 1:1 movement, accelerometers, or IR bars? We don't know. All the product promises in terms of functionality is the full gamut of Dual Shock controls (though note one analog s t i c k i s m i s s i n g ) , " t h r e e "super sensitive movement dimensional motion sensing" and s e n s o r s . "

But somehow the Blaze PS3mote promises to be compatible with Sega Tennis and Tiger Woods. Without the full support of EA or Sega (which we're doubting they have), it's hard to imagine the controller working very well. But hey, we're

happy to be proven right when it comes out at an undisclosed time for an undisclosed price. [ Blaze via ubergizmo]

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Berlusconi plans good news taskforce By Tom Kington (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Sera today. The second task will be to "bombard those newsrooms with truthful and positive news", and Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:26:10 AM reveal to the world "a generous, Foreign media to be bombarded truthful and audacious Italy – the with good news about Silvio Italy of entrepreneurs, art, cultural Berlusconi and Italy events and our products". Unsatisfied with his direct and Berlusconi attacked the foreign indirect control over most of press yesterdayfor criticising Italy's media, Silvio Berlusconi himself and Italy, days after the has devised a campaign to stop country's constitutional court the world's press sniping at him stripped him of legal immunity, a over his sex life and legal woes. ruling which means he again faces An emergency taskforce is to be prosecution for fraud and bribing established within a month to British tax adviser David Mills. monitor airwaves and news-stands According to Brambilla, the world over for coverage of Berlsuconi's problems with the I t a l y a n d b o m b a r d f o r e i g n law are not in any way blackening newsrooms with good news about Italy's reputation. Instead she the country. blamed "an anti-Italian group The plan was announced by the working against Italy with the tourism minister, Michela Vittoria single aim of discrediting and Brambilla, who said a crack team destroying the prime minister". of young journalists and Berlusconi, who owns Italy's communications experts would be largest private television network assembled to stamp out bad news. and has indirect influence over the "Their first job will be to state RAI network, has said he monitor all the foreign press, will now make radio and TV including dailies, periodicals and appearances to explain to Italians TV in every latitude, from Japan why his upcoming trials are to Peru," she told Corriere della "farcical".

A spokeswoman at the tourism ministry said a taskforce to revive Italy's image had previously been set up during Naples's rubbish crisis, when tonnes of putrid waste spilled through the streets. A former beauty contestant and entrepreneur, Brambilla also worked as a journalist with one of the prime minister's TV channels before founding the Freedom TV channel in 2007, which attacked the then centre-left government and rallied for Berlusconi's return to office. Brambilla said today that Italian exports were suffering as a result of the country's bad press. "Exporters are worried because it is only news of the shameful attacks on Berlusconi that reach abroad. This affects national appeal and we cannot allow that." • Silvio Berlusconi • Italy Tom Kington guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Lionel Pincus: A private equity legend dies By Tom Taulli (BloggingStocks)

Street as an investment banker (with Ladenburg, Thalman & Co.) No doubt, it was an extremely Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:50:00 PM helpful experience, in terms of Filed under: Private equity learning corporate finance and While the private equity building a strong network of industry is massive today, it is contacts. still a recent innovation. In fact, Continue reading Lionel Pincus: the industry got its start about 40 A private equity legend dies years ago. Lionel Pincus: A private equity And one of the pioneers is legend dies originally appeared on Lionel Pincus, who created BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct Warburg Pincus. Unfortunately, 2009 12:50:00 EST. Please see he Pincus died over the weekend. our terms for use of feeds. He was 78. Permalink| Email this| Comments With an MBA from Columbia, Pincus began his career on Wall

Energy stocks lead Wall Street rally (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:07:08 AM

US equities began the week positively with investors seeking to extend the market’s winning streak to six successive days amid

general optimism about earnings. Energy stocks led the market higher as crude oil prices rallied, while a number of brokerage upgrades infused bullish sentiment. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

New technology analyzes, visualizes breath odors By Serkan Toto (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:41:16 AM

Boozehounds and hobby alcoholics beware: A new technology developed by the Tokyo Medical and Dental University is able to analyze your breath odors and visualize their dispersal. But it’s not only good to detect alcohol in your breath

but could also be used as an indicator for diseases in the future (sorry for the silly pic – the university doesn’t supply any). The person to be tested has to stand in a dark room and speak into a microphone-like device whose mouthpiece is covered by a special enzyme-treated gauze. The resulting in a chemical reaction e n z y m e s i n t e r a c t w i t h that produces light. This light is components in your breath,

then captured by a video camera, with the footage serving as the object for analysis. The researchers say their system can accurately measure the amount of ethanol, methanethiol, or acetone in a person’s breath. It can be used as a breath analyzer for drinkers, but also to investigate the reasons for a person’s bad breath, to evaluate

liver functions and possibly even to help in the analysis of serious diseases such as diabetes or cancer. Via Nikkei[registration required, paid subscription]

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Karl Lagerfeld says only 'fat mummies' object to thin models

Advice: If your Internet connection drops out while playing an online game, don’t stab a random person

By Kate Connolly (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear)

models are ugly," said Lagerfeld in an interview with the magazine Focus. The designer, who lost a lot of weight himself when he Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:02:02 AM went on a strict low-carbohydrate G e r m a n d e s i g n e r c l a i m s diet several years ago, added that objections to 'size-zero' models the world of fashion was all to do are driven by overweight women "with dreams and illusions, and Karl Lagerfeld, the eccentric no one wants to see round German fashion tsar, has waded women". into the debate about size-zero At a time when the fashion models by saying that people world is starting to hit back at the want to look at "skinny models" c l a i m s t h a t i t e n c o u r a g e s and classing those who complain anorexia, the Hamburg fashion as "fat mummies". designer John Ribbe, a regular Lagerfeld, 71, was reacting to participant in the Paris fashion the magazine Brigitte's show, said the row over announcement last week that it underweight models had become will in future use "ordinary, hysterical. realistic" women rather than "It's just as much a cliché as professional models in its photo saying that all models take drugs shoots. He said the decision by and get drunk at sex orgies," he Germany's most popular women's said. magazine was "absurd" and "Ninety per cent of them are driven by overweight women who q u i t e n o r m a l , p r o p e r l y did not like to be reminded of proportioned girls with less fat their weight issues. and more muscles, who also eat "These are fat mummies sitting pizzas and burgers." with their bags of crisps in front Brigitte's editor, Andreas of the television, saying that thin Lebert, said that after years of

having to "fatten up" pictures of underweight models with Photoshop, the magazine would produce its first edition with nonprofessional models on 2 January. "We will show women who have their own identity, the 18-year-old A-level student, the company chairwoman, the musician, the footballer," he said. The decision follows a recent appeal by British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman to major fashion houses to end the "sizezero" culture, and a scandal over a Ralph Lauren advertising campaign in which a model had been thinned down using computer graphics. • Fashion • Models • Chanel Kate Connolly guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:00:03 AM

Oh, dear. We’ve all been there: you’re playing your favorite game online, and then WHAM-O~! you lose your Internet connection. The usual course of action is to mutter “Gosh darn it” to your self, then go about your business. An unusual course of action is to grab a knife, then stab a random person walking in the street. Apparently that has happened, yes. An 18-year-old kid was playing StarCraft when his Internet connection dropped out. Then, in a fit of rage, he grabbed a knife, then ran out onto the street, where a 15-year-old girl was walking home from a party. You see where this is going. Yes, the 18-year-old stabbed the 15-year-old. You know, because he was angry that his Internet connection dropped. Thankfully, the girl is about as good as can be expected, with none of the injuries being lifethreatening.

Oh, all of this went down in Sweden. I probably should have mentioned that in the beginning. What’s going to happen to the crazy kid? He’s been sentenced to psychiatric care, and prosecutors are looking to charge him with attempted murder. Again, friends, when your Internet connection dies, your best course of action is just to curse up a storm, and not bring physical violence onto random, innocent people.

Mini MP3 DV Cam shoves a camcorder into old iPod shuffle enclosure By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:29:00 AM

Okay, so we know this version of the shuffle hasn't been on Apple's pages for a few weeks now, but there's still something curiously awesome about a shuffle with a camcorder. You know -- considering that the

Cupertino-based company won't even add a video camera to the iPod touch. The Mini MP3 DV Cam, which is meticulously crafted by one Xiangyun Industry Co., Limited, seems to be a camcorder / camera alone, with no music playback functionality to speak of. Packing a 1.3 megapixel sensor capable of logging VGA-

quality (640 x 480 resolution) clips, the device can also snag

stills and store 'em on the userprovided memory card. The good news is that this gem costs just $15 to $30 depending on the amount you order; the bad news is the 100 item order minimum. Anyone down for a group buy? Bueller? [Via Red Ferret] Filed under: Displays

Mini MP3 DV Cam shoves a camcorder into old iPod shuffle enclosure originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Commercial Real Estate Lending Problems Hitting the Smaller Banks (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:43:49 AM

This is my monthly report on bank lending. Last month I reported on the continued absence of the commercial banking industry in loan markets. (See my post of September 10, 2009, “Bank Lending Stays on the Sidelines”.) Bank lending was still absent during the most recent month, but there now seems to be a significant shift in the commercial banking industry: greater changes seem to be taking place in the smaller banks than we have seen during the current economic crisis. This deterioration in the industry figures coincides with the increasing number of failures that are registering with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC). This problem made the front page of the New York Times on Sunday. And, with more than 400 banks, almost all of them small ones, on the FDIC's list of problem banks, we can expect the number of failures to grow and the bank lending figures to continue to shrink. Total assets at commercial banks declined by $320 billion over the latest 13-week period, according to the Federal Reserve. Of this total, the decline in assets over the last 5-week period was $250 billion, indicating that the slide at commercial banks is not receding. Although the absolute decline in both periods of time was greater for the large banks, the percentage change was greater for the smaller banks.

What is most interesting is that the absolute decline in bank loans and leases in both periods was roughly the same for the large banks and the small banks. The decline in loans and leases over the 13-week period was $112 billion for large banks, $97 billion for small banks. However, for the last 5-week period, the decline in this figure for small banks was $69 billion and $66 billion for large banks. Commercial and Industrial loans, business loans, continued to drop at a rapid pace over the 13week time span ($108 billion) as well as in the 5-week period ($50 billion). Relatively speaking, the declines were equally divided between the large banks and the smaller banks. The big difference between the different size banks comes in the area of real estate loans. Overall, real estate loans dropped by $113 billion over the last quarter, $48 billion over the last 5 weeks. But the decline in small banks was $68 billion for the last quarter and $38 billion over the last 5 weeks. The figures for large banks were $41 billion and $6.3 billion, respectively. Here we find the startling difference: the small banks experienced most of the drop in real estate loans in commercial real estate loans. The drop in commercial real estate loans at small commercial banks was $36 billion for the full 13 weeks, but most of the decline came in the last 5-week period as these loans dropped by $24 billion during this latter time. We have been hearing for

months that there was going to be a problem in commercial real estate lending and that this problem was going to be centered in regional and local commercial banks. It looks as if this problem is finally hitting the banking system and is showing up in the numbers. This is an area that we are going to have to continue to watch, for the economic difficulties in commercial real estate could continue to paralyze the smaller commercial banks for quite some time going forward. And, with the large number of problem banks identified by the FDIC being smaller institutions, we could see a rapid increase in the number of these institutions going under. It should be noted that commercial real estate loans at large commercial banks actually increased over the past 13-week period and roughly held constant for the last five. Another sign that these difficulties are piling up at the smaller commercial banks is the accumulation of cash assets at the smaller institutions and the timing of this build up. Cash assets at small commercial banks rose by $54 billion over the past 13 weeks. These assets increased by $48 billion over the last 5 weeks. That is, most of the increase in cash assets came at the time that the commercial real estate portfolio at these banks was declining the most. The implication of this behavior is that the smaller banks are really starting to suffer and this is leading them to take an increasingly conservative position

in their balance sheets. It should be noted that large commercial banks actually reduced their holdings of cash assets during this period. The decline over the 13-week period was about $5 billion, while over the last 5 weeks the decline was a whopping $70 billion. So, large banks build up their cash position over the first 8 weeks of the period and then reduced this position substantially over the last five. The basic conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis is that the balance sheets of the commercial banking sector continue to shrink and with this shrinkage we see very little new borrowing taking place. The big story this month is that the smaller banks in the country are really being hit with problems relating to bad assets. As a consequence, their balance sheets are suffering much more than their bigger counterparts and this is especially true when it comes to commercial real estate. Not only are the smaller banks reducing their exposure to commercial real estate loans, it appears as if this retraction from the lending markets is connected with an overall move by these banks to much more conservative lending practices. Such a move would certainly not contribute to economic recovery, especially on Main Street. It is true that the larger banks are also contracting their balance sheets now, but they will tend to be the first ones to get back into lending when the time is right.

However, if the smaller banks change their “risk preferences” and become more “risk averse” during this period of restructuring, it is highly unlikely that we will see them return anytime soon to contribute to an economic recovery in their geographic area. Since these organizations do not have the same access to resources as their larger counterparts, they will probably stay very conservative for an extended period of time. Just one thing more. Last week, excess reserves in the banking system reached an all-time high. For the two week period ending October 10, Excess Reserves averaged $918 billion! This, of course, is being allowed to happen by the Federal Reserve System as reserve balances at the Federal Reserve got close to the astronomical figure of $1.0 trillion. This figure only averaged $960 billion in the banking week ending October 7, but daily figures over the past two weeks did reach levels substantially higher. The banking system is weak. It remains weak. Maybe some of the larger banks, the ones that got bailed out, are doing OK. This does not seem to be the case for the smaller banks. The FDIC knows this. The Federal Reserve knows this. It is not a comfortable situation. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Our Banks Are Nowhere Near Up to the Task of Serving Big Global Companies (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:05:44 AM

by James Kwak At a panel discussion at the Pew Charitable Trusts (captured for posterity by Planet Money), Alice Rivlin floated the idea of breaking up big banks. Luckily for us, Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable (a lobbying group for big banks) was there to slap that idea down. Talbott: “We need big companies, and they can be managed, and they are being managed …” Alex Blumberg (Planet Money): “But why, why do we need big companies?” Talbott: “They provide a number of benefits across the globe. We have a global economy, and these institutions can handle the finances of the world. They can also handle the finances of large, non-bank institutions like General Electric ( GE) or Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ). They need these institutions [that] can handle the complex transactions. Simply breaking them up … then you’re discouraging a company from achieving the American Dream, working hard, earning money, producing products, and getting bigger.” There are two things I object to strongly. The second is easy. The American Dream is for people, not companies. And people dream of working hard, being successful,

making money, and having an impact on the world. The American Dream does not imply any particular company size. There are situations in which your products are just so much better than anyone else’s that your company becomes big as a result; Google ( GOOG) comes to mind. But Citigroup ( C) is the product of no one’s American Dream. When Talbott says “American Dream,” what he really means is “American Bank CEO’s Dream” — because, as we all know, CEO compensation in the financial sector is extremely correlated with assets. The first is the “we need big banks to serve global corporations” line. I’ve heard this before and I don’t buy it, for a number of reasons. First (sorry, I have this habit of embedding numbered lists inside numbered lists), how global is Bank of America ( BAC)? Until it bought Merrill Lynch, it was pretty much a midget overseas compared to, say, Morgan Stanley ( MS), which was a small fraction of its size. How global is Wells Fargo ( WFC)? Yet those are two of our four biggest banks. Second, the argument doesn’t pass the test of basic business logic. My company did (and does) business in many countries around the world. We had different alliances and different service providers in each one. There were overlaps — we worked with some consulting firms in multiple countries — but we made the

decisions independently in each country, because every country is different. And in each country, you want the people who are the best in that country. Sometimes that will be a division of an American multinational; often it won’t. If I’m “General Electric” or “Johnson & Johnson,” I’m not going to do all my banking with Citigroup out of some misplaced customer loyalty. Third, what global services is Talbott talking about? Sure, as an individual, it would be nice if my bank had offices in every country I might ever travel to. But that’s because I’m an individual, and I don’t want to have more than a few bank accounts. I would guess that General Electric has, oh, thousands of bank accounts around the world, with dozens if not hundreds of banks. The “onestop shop” idea applies — barely — to people like me, who would like the convenience of doing all of our financial stuff with one company, but generally figure out that it’s impossible, because my bank offers crappy investment products, and crappy insurance products, and … you get the idea. It’s laughable for a big company, which has hundreds of P&Ls, each of which is different, and has different objectives and preferences. Fourth, let’s take a big, global transaction — say, a debt offering. Here, arguably, it might be good to have a single bank with global scale, since you want to sell bonds in as many markets

as possible in order to get the broadest possible pool of investors. In 2008, J&J issued $1.6 billion (face value) of bonds. Who got the deal? Goldman ( GS), JPMorgan ( JPM), Citi, Deutsche Bank ( DB), Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Williams Capital Group, BNP Paribas ( BNPQY.PK), HSBC ( HBC), Mitsubishi UFJ ( MTU), and RBS Greenwich Capital. Eleven investment banks based in five countries, including five U.S. -based banks. (In 2007, J&J issued 500 million pounds of debt, using thirteen underwriters— six of whom were not involved in the 2008 offering; two out of three book-running managers were European banks.) So when push comes to shove, our beloved mega -banks are nowhere near up to the task. What this tells me is that it’s the big companies that call the shots, and they like parceling out business to lots of banks. This is another basic principle of business: it’s better to have multiple suppliers than one supplier, so you can keep them in competition. This whole argument, that global companies need massive banks, is one of those things that sound plausible until you actually start thinking about them. Is there something big that I’m missing here? This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

And now Lufthansa adds Wi-Fi to its flights. $27 per flight isn’t too much, right? By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:30:20 AM

You’ll soon be able to surf the Web on your BlackBerry or laptop while onboard a Lufthansa flight. The German airline said today that it’s re-introducing inflight Wi-Fi, and that everything will be up and running by by the first half of next year. Lufthansa didn’t say how much it would charge for the service, but it’s expected to be right around what people paid the last time it offered in-flght Wi-Fi: something like $27 per flight. If you consider that most transAtlantic flights are at least six hours long, then that breaks down to around $4.50 per hour. That’s not too bad, I don’t think. The service is the handiwork of Panasonic, and uses satellites to beam THE INTERNET to the airplane. Around half of all of Lufthansa’s airplanes should have the service installed by the first half of next year. via Wi-Fi Net News

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Blackstone Successfully Plays Both Sides of the Market (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha)

transaction can immediately raise profits for the parent company. When listing new positions, Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:10:39 AM Blackstone will likely only sell a The Blackstone Group LP ( BX) p o r t i o n o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l is cashing in. The private equity companies to the market, keeping c o m p a n y w h i c h m a n a g e s the majority of these companies alternative investments for closely held. This allows affluent and institutional investors management to continue to act as is apparently ready to begin a majority owner and ensure selling some key positions. proper decisions are made which Recent market strength has been a foster long-term growth. That boon for existing private equity growth should allow Blackstone investments and may provide an to sell the remainder of its attractive exit point for several position gradually over the course t i m e l y p u r c h a s e s m a d e b y of several quarters or even several i n d i v i d u a l f u n d m a n a g e r s . years – booking even larger Investors in funds managed by profits throughout the process. Blackstone received a letter on Investors in these early stage F r i d a y e x p l a i n i n g t h a t t h e IPOs should do very well with an company was close to listing eight attractive risk/reward scenario. o f i t s p o r t f o l i o c o m p a n i e s . Blackstone has a very strong Typically this type of transaction incentive to make the IPOs work is very lucrative for private equity to the buyers' advantage, because firms as well as for investors in the private equity firm will their individual funds. Listing continue to own the majority of these private positions on the the stock. If a new IPO is listed at market allows Blackstone to mark $18 and immediately trades to these investments to a legitimate $21, investors will be satisfied market value which in turn allows with their return which will make them to book a realized (and marketing the next IPO that much unrealized) profit on the position. easier. Blackstone should not be Since the majority of Blackstone’s too concerned with missing income comes from incentive fees potential profit by listing these tied to profitable trades, listing its shares too low because they will p o s i t i o n s t h r o u g h a n I P O book the profit on the majority of

shares still owned. The investor confidence and liquidity for future deals will more than offset the missed opportunity on the shares initially sold. Private equity firms were hit particularly hard during the recession because investors worried that poor access to credit markets and dwindling values on existing investments would pressure profits and even cause significant losses. But institutional investors were quick to put money into the funds managed by companies such as Blackstone in order to achieve investment returns that were not heavily correlated to the falling market returns. The net result was that firms like Blackstone were able to raise significant capital at a time where the investment opportunities were the most attractive. Now, several months into a market recovery, Blackstone is able to capitalize on these savvy investments and sell stock to an unwitting public which is clamoring for exposure to the rising market. Blackstone continues to have a hefty war chest of available cash to spend on opportunities, but now appears to be playing both sides of the

market by selling partial positions and booking profits. Funds continue to accept new capital with a Chinese sovereign wealth fund making headlines by investing significant capital in a Blackstone fund. Blackstone is up over $1 per share in early trading due to the positive news, and this rally puts the stock well above the $15 level which had been providing resistance for the past several months. A breakout above this level could be the first step towards retaking the IPO price in the low $30’s. I think investors could easily double their money over the next 12 to 18 months and potentially see even larger gains if Blackstone receives significant capital or reports significant success in the IPO transactions. Private equity opportunity is quite attractive and Blackstone is the highest quality player in this sector. Full Disclosure: Author has a long position in the ZachStocks Growth Model. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Dutch Collection Society Backs Down Slightly On Video Embeds By Michael Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/12/2009 2:27:03 AM

Dennis Laumen alerts us to an update on the story concerning Dutch music collection society Buma/Stemra's plan to charge bloggers for embedding YouTube videos on their site. After the story got lots of publicity, Buma appears to have backed down ever so slightly, saying that "amateur" bloggers are off the hook. But, the definition of "amateur" is basically only if you don't have any ads. Put up some Google AdSense... and suddenly you're a "pro" who has to pay up. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

NVIDIA Ion 2 still on track for this year By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:43:00 AM

Don't let NVIDIA's recent announcement that they'll be steering clear of Intel DMI CPUs get you down, man. According to

the fine folks at Fudzilla, the company will indeed unveil its Ion 2 chipset before the year's end. The second-generation platform is said to feature much faster graphics, over twice the shaders, a smaller die, and support for the VIA Nano as well as the

usual compliment of Pentium 4compatible CPUs. No word yet

from the company itself, but 10:43:00 EST. Please see our you'll know as soon as we do. terms for use of feeds. Read| Promise. Permalink| Email this| Comments [Via SlashGear] Filed under: Desktops, Laptops NVIDIA Ion 2 still on track for this year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009

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Bankrupt Deadbeat Banks Stiff Taxpayers (Financial Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:35:16 AM

By Patrick Watson Only a few weeks ago, We The People seemed to be turning a profit on the U.S. Treasury’s investment in banks via the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Not so fast. Yes, a few banks repaid the government with interest. As I noted at the time, their main motivation was probably to escape compensation restrictions and other strings attached to the TARP money. According to data published in USA Today, the government gave a total of $365 billion to 700 different banks under the TARP program. The Treasury received preferrred stock from these banks which is supposed to pay a quarterly dividend. Now we learn that 33 of these banks simply decided not to pay dividends this quarter. American International Group ( AIG), which also received TARP money but is not technically a bank, also failed to pay its dividend. A Treasury spokesperson claims that the banks are contractually permitted to skip these payments – and of course the federal government respects their rights. This is laughable. The federal

government is probably the least contract-respecting institution in the world today. The rights that need to be respected are those of the taxpayers whose capital is being used to prop up institutions that would otherwise have collapsed. Why are these institutions stiffing us? From their point of view, why not? They were handed free cash at a time when their very existence was being threatened. Of course they took it. Maybe now their existence is threatened again due to loan losses and they need to conserve cash. Or maybe they would just rather use the TARP money for other things. We don’t know. What we do know is that the odds the government will make a “profit” from TARP are not high. AIG alone owes the Treasury $69.8 billion, according to Reuters. The automotive industry owes $80 billion. The 600 banks that haven’t yet repaid their TARP money owe a total of $134 billion. I, for one, feel sure that the AIG and automotive “investments” will be near-total losses. One of the dividendskippers is CIT Group ( CIT), which owes $2.3 billion and is probably going to file bankruptcy soon. This will wipe out preferred shareholders like TARP.

None of these numbers include the various other bail-out programs and Federal Reserve lending facilities. The bottom line is that billions (and probably trillions of dollars) have been transferred from the public to politically favored industries like banks. Most of it is probably never coming back. A shocking number of people appear to be okay with this. They say it is distasteful but necessary to save our capitalist system. No, no, no. This is not capitalism. If it were capitalism, incompetent and unprofitable businesses would cease to exist. Their directors, managers and employees would lose their jobs. Investors would lose their investments. This is what happens in industries that lack the ability to extract capital from the public with the government as intermediary/collection agency. Call it whatever you like, but it’s not capitalism. The final insult: if you happen to owe money to one of these deadbeat banks, do you get the right to skip payments? Does your lender simply shrug and tell you to pay when you feel like it? I didn’t think so. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Arthur Levinson follows Eric Schmidt's lead, departs Google board amid FTC probe By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:12:00 PM

We kind of doubt the departure of Genentech's former chief executive from Google's board of directors will close all of this out in the FTC's eyes, but if you were curious about the impact of said probe, here's your answer. Just two months after Google's Eric Schmidt peaced out from Apple's board due to a "conflict of interest," Arthur Levinson has left Google's board for presumably the same reason. Schmidt is still obviously fond of Sir Levinson, noting that he has "has been a key part of Google's success these past five years," and while he's exiting the board, he'll "always have a special place at Google." So, now that all of this is cleared up, can we finally move on without worrying that the aforementioned search giant will buy up the world's remaining inventory of dark fiber, fuse into Apple and create a telepathic iPod that would rule the world until the dawn of the Robot Apocalypse? [Via New York Times]

Filed under: Software Arthur Levinson follows Eric Schmidt's lead, departs Google board amid FTC probe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Weird stuff from the past: Letterman meets The Avengers By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:27:00 PM

It's always odd when pop culture personalities show up in comic books. It's the print equivalent of

the Harlem Globetrotters showing up on Gilligan's Island. This comic book is from 1984 and features The Avengers meeting...David Letterman! He was on NBC back then doing Late

Night and in the comic The

Avengers go on the show. For Permalink| Email this| | some reason. Comments [via Pop Candy] Filed under: Late Night, Celebrities, Talk Show, RealityFree

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Gadgets/

Internet News Record

T-Mobile Lets Furious Sidekick Users Ditch Their Contracts for Free [Rumor] By John Herrman (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:54:40 AM

T-Mobile's initial apologia to Sidekick users grieving their lost data was a joke. A month of free data service? To access what? Now they've manned up, giving affected customers something they might actually want: A way out of their contracts. An exasperated tipster who just spent some quality time on the phone with an equally exasperated T-Mobile rep told us what he was offered: • I'm released from the contract if I want (Yeesh, of course I better be. I can't believe I had to ask). • I can get a G1 for $129 (not sure if that's the normal contract renewal pricing or not; doesn't sound like a great deal to me). • They also suggested

Blackberries etc, but I didn't get the pricing (since those are design disasters compared to SK or iPhone). So to break it down, your options are to accept about $20 off of a G1, which you, an avid Sidekick user, probably didn't

seriously. I also wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of official announcement from T-Mobile regarding how they plan on dealing with their angry mass of Sidekick subscribers, but it'll be interesting to see how this shakes out: Remember, even though these people all bought their phones and service From T-Mo, and therefore expect to be helped by their carrier, the actual data loss was Danger's (read: Microsoft's) fault. It's already want anyway, move onto a clear that T-Mobile' is going to BlackBerry (?), or to leave. bear the brunt of the angry mob, Sidekick users are a dedicated but aside from getting very sternly bunch—there's a good chance talked to by their carrier partners, they came to T-Mobile just to use is Microsoft going to get out of a particular Danger handset—so I this scot-free?—Thanks, guy! wouldn't be surprised if people take that last offer pretty

Google Says They Gotta Block Some Numbers to Keep Google Voice Free [Google] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:44:42 AM

Here's one way for Google to keep people on their side in their tussle with the FCC, egged on by AT&T: Say that the only way to keep Google Voice free is to block those pricey calls to certain numbers. A brief recap: Google Voice doesn't allow calls to some rural numbers, sexy talk lines or conference call services because the access and termination fees to them are pricey. AT&T has oh-so-

kindly asked the FCC to investigate them for not following net neutrality rules (hilarious, since AT&T is quite pissy about the FCC's serious desire to apply them to mobile broadband networks), largely because AT&T got smacked for doing the same thing back in 2007. The FCC these days, headed by Mr. Neutrality Julian Genaschowski, is all about investigating stuff, so they're dutifully asking Google AT&T, but a free software/web service that's a supplement to your WTF is up with that. Google says they're not phone, emphasis on the free part: Google Voice is a free providing a phone service like

application and we want to keep it that way for all our users — which we could not afford to do if we paid these ludicrously high charges. Given that Google Voice isn't even a VoIP service and runs on top of your actual phone service—not to mention, is inviteonly—they sorta have a point. Plus, um, free is good. [ Google Policy Blog via Ars]

World's cutest pintsized living room sets up shop in a PC case By Paul Miller (Engadget) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:43:00 PM

If we were miniature people forced to scrape by an existence of hiding from The Bigs and wearing adorable hats made out of thimbles, we'd be totally eyeing this little abode for our winter digs. Warming our tiny, oh-soprecious hands at the warmth of the CPU, cradling our hot chocolate mugs that are really hollowed out marshmallows and telling stories of when little Timmy Tinykins almost got sucked out the power supply exhaust fan! Oh, what magical times we would have. [Thanks, CJ Johnson] Filed under: Desktops World's cutest pint-sized living room sets up shop in a PC case originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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WaterCar Python: Part Corvette, Part Dodge, 100% Awesome [Amphibious Vehicles] By Danny Allen (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:00:00 AM

You're looking at the fastest, highest-performing amphibious vehicle ever built. The Python jets along at 60 mph on water, and on land, goes from 0 to 60 in 4.5 seconds. Oh, and it's actually now available for anyone to buy. We've seen initial prototypes By Darren Murph (Engadget) that all of your data will be before, but this final version looks evaporated whenever you surf By Donald Melanson drive. We won't spell it out here, Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:05:00 AM amazing. It's likely built on a back over to the main profile. (Engadget) but let's just say this drive stands a Dodge Ram base, but as you can Think your Snow Leopard woes Apple has yet to address the issue Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:22:00 PM better chance at Contra than most see, the custom fiberglass body are finally over? Don't go logging (at least publicly), but we'd -- all possible thanks to the magic into that Guest account, then. A probably recommend disabling The humble NES controller has of Arduino, as you might have has a tail styled like a Corvette. flurry of reports have surfaced Guest accounts on your rig(s) certainly provided plenty of guessed. Head on past the break Better yet, it actually uses an around the web explaining that until all of this gets sorted. You inspiration for mods over the for a complete overview on video. aluminum Corvette LS engine on land, too. A rear Dominator jet even an accidental login to one's know, unless you actually enjoy years, and even a little dreaming, Continue reading ProtoDojo Guest account within Snow watching your data vanish. but it doesn't look like the well is turns NES controller into flash handles amphibious duties. Certain to draw all kinds of Leopard could lead to mass [Via Digg] showing any signs of drying up drive with Konami-level security a t t ention (bikini-clad, and deletion of all user files on the Filed under: Software just yet. The latest to take a crack Filed under: Gaming, Storage otherwise), WaterCar is selling primary account, and when we Snow Leopard 'Guest Account' at the iconic gadget is one man ProtoDojo turns NES controller the Corvette-powered, fully say "mass deletion," we mean " bug deleting user files, terrorizing shop ProtoDojo, which did what into flash drive with Konami-level mass deletion." The problem goes children? originally appeared on many others have done and turned security originally appeared on assembled Python for a cool something like this: if one clicks Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 the controller into a flash drive, Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 $ 2 0 0 , 0 0 0 . [ W a t e r C a r v i a on the Guest account after 11:05:00 EST. Please see our but went the extra step of adding 12:22:00 EST. Please see our J a l o p n i k ] upgrading their machine to OS X terms for use of feeds. Read| an ingenious security measure to terms for use of feeds. Read| 10.6, and everything hangs, Permalink| Email this| Comments e n s u r e t h a t o n l y t r u e N E S Permalink| Email this| Comments there's at least a decent chance veterans are able to mount the

Snow Leopard 'Guest Account' bug deleting user files, terrorizing children?

ProtoDojo turns NES controller into flash drive with Konami-level security

Red-Hot Mommas! Hollywood's Hottest Ladies Pregnant on the Red Carpet! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 3:05:00 AM

Watch out, baby on board! Feast

your eyes on Hollywood's hottest ladies as they rocked the red carpet -- while pregnant! From form-fitting frocks to flowing

gowns, these hot moms have done their best through the years and -in some cases -- through multiple pregnancies to show off or hide

their ever-growing baby bumps. Take a look as the glowing gals strut their stuff while carrying their most precious cargo!

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Gadgets/ Tech/

Internet News Record

Is it Postgres' time to shine? (CNET News.com) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:16:54 AM

Postgres for years has lived in the shadow of MySQL's media attention: the "boring" database that quietly goes about its work while its sexy Web 2.0 cousin wins the popularity contest. Recent data from the Eclipse Foundation, however, suggest that Postgres may be ready to make significant waves in the enterprise, even if it doesn't make headlines. In a recent letter to European Union's commissioner of competition, former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos stressed that MySQL's target market is the emerging Web database market and that the enterprise IT market your drink and if they turn blue was never really a source of tell your friends immediately and strength (or focus). Postgres is the opposite. get help from Security and the Postgres is an enterprise Java Police." A pretty smart idea for a pretty database, more suitable for shitty problem. It also plumps the carrying corporate data than the Web's consumer data. According lips and smells minty fresh. The gloss is already on sale in to a 2009 survey by the Eclipse the UK for £10, and will soon F o u n d a t i o n , M y S Q L ( 2 7 . 7 ship to the U.S, the rest of Europe, percent) and Oracle (27.3 percent) Asia, and Australia. [ 2 Love My were the top-two databases used by those surveyed, with Postgres Lips via The Independent] registering a respectable but still distant 9.9 percent. Given that Oracle database

Drug Detecting Lip Gloss Sniffs Out Roofie [Drugs] By Danny Allen (Gizmodo) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:40:00 AM

Spiked drinks are a serious concern for many women (and men, too, if you've seen The Hangover). That's why 2 Love My Lips is so clever: the gloss includes inconspicuous test strips that detect drugs like GHB and Ketamine. "If a drink tastes funny, or you are suspicious something is amiss simply dab the ends of the taper in

users are far more likely to use Java as their programming language to develop server-centric applications, while MySQL users are three times more likely to use PHP as their primary language (17.4 percent of those surveyed use it, versus 5.4 percent for all users) to builde RIA/Web applications, Postgres is clearly more Oracle than MySQL. Granted, the Eclipse community is traditionally Java-centric, so it's not surprising that Java would be prominent among its developers. But it's also the case that enterprise IT remains a Java/.Net market, and in such a market Postgres could be poised to boom if it can muster sufficient marketing to make its message heard. This is where EnterpriseDB comes in. The MySQL community would not be as well-developed as it is without MySQL, the company. MySQL AB has funded the overwhelming majority of MySQL database development, but it has also provided the marketing muscle to make a name for the Web database. Postgres has traditionally been a standalone, organic open-source project with little concerted corporate involvement.

EnterpriseDB has started to change that, but for too long wrongly fixated on competing with MySQL, a database that serves a different market and different developers. The company also spent too much time talking about Oracle migration technology, rather than focusing on why Postgres is a great database. That may be changing. Postgres just released version 8.4 of the venerable database. In EnterpriseDB's discussion of the release, there's no mention of Oracle, MySQL, or any other competitor. Instead, EnterpriseDB seems to be focusing more on its commitment to Postgres development, adding significant enterprise hardening through its open-source Postgres Plus distribution. It's a welcome change, and one that could position Postgres to take a bigger share of the enterprise Java database market-not because it's cheaper than Oracle or more open than MySQL but because it's a great database in its own right. That's the right messaging for EnterpriseDB...and Postgres. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Reviews and giveaways you might have missed on the TUAW App Hub By Victor Agreda, Jr. (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:00:00 PM

Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch Win a copy of the 3-in-1 Bundle #1 from AmbiScience We're giving away a baker's dozen of codes for a 3-in-1 bundle

from AmbiScience [iTunes Link]. The AmbiScience apps are audio "entrainment" generators, which means they generate waves at certain... Canabalt makes running for your life fun Pitfall + War of the Worlds = Canabalt. [iTunes Link] The result of a 5-day coding session with the Flixel framwork, the free,

web-based Canabalt quickly acquired fans and was soon ported to the... Dishy lands in the App Store and your kitchen I wrote up a sneak peek of Dishy [iTunes Link] earlier in the summer when I saw a preview at WWDC. It was called Bon App at the time, and man it looked tasty. Well the app is now out and it

rocks.... Other reviews... • Ramp Champ adds to ramps, challenges • A BBQ in your pocket with Barbecue • At Bat ramps it up for the playoffs TUAW Reviews and giveaways you might have missed on the TUAW App Hub originally

appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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23

HOW TO: Use Social Media in Your PR Pitch Plan By Susan Payton (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:33:35 AM

Susan Payton is the Managing Partner of Egg Marketing & Public Relations, an internet marketing firm specializing in blogger outreach, social media, and PR. She is also the blogger behind The Marketing Eggspert Blog. Follow her on Twitter@eggmarketing. It’s clear that the public relations landscape is changing. No longer does emailing a journalist a press release always result in coverage on major news channels (there are exceptions, naturally, but the average business doesn’t get on Oprah). These days, journalists (and yes, bloggers too) are inundated with press releases. It’s easy to hit delete and move on. How do you get your pitch heard above the din? Conversation. Engagement. Interaction. Social Media is Key in Your Pitch Why? Because that’s where your media contacts are hanging out these days, and that’s where they look for story ideas. But be forewarned: there is a lot of bad social media pitching going on already. Pamela Johnston of PJ Inc. Public Relations says she avoids doing certain things on Twitter that are looked upon negatively, like: • pimping client news • straight out traditional pitching

• sending random things to people/journalists she doesn’t know I like that she doesn’t use traditional methods of pitching on social media. You can’t apply the same methods you used 10 years ago to Twitter. It’s impossible. Instead, you must find new ways to reach media contacts. The world is small these days. Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Kirtsy, Digg, blogs, video and web sites are quickly becoming integrated. It’s fairly easy to connect with someone and keep up with what they’re doing. Journalists and bloggers are no different. Social Media as a Learning Tool I always like to learn about the journalist I’m targeting before I contact them. I start on the media website and read her bio. I then search for her on Google. 8 times out of 10 I find her Twitter profile, Facebook profile and maybe even a personal blog. I study all these sources and connect where I can. Sometimes I find that this isn’t really the right journalist to be pitching. I make notes in my contact database with links to all her sources. I then make a plan to interact with the journalist in her own space. I comment on posts I like. I retweet her content on Twitter. I send a brief note on Facebook ( not pitching a story, but sharing one of her posts I liked and asking to connect). This way, by the time I’m ready to

help. Journalists like being helped better than they like being pitched. How to Pitch Properly If you haven’t found that opportunity to help a reporter out, move on to pitching. Keep in mind, if you’re using Twitter to pitch, you have 140 characters to get it right. Assuming you’ve been following a journalist or pitch her, I’m already on her blogger and know that your pitch is right up their alley, start by radar. Pitching a media contact is a sending a tweet (not a DM) saying process. It’s not something that something like: Lori MacGregor, who works will happen overnight. Plan ahead and work for several weeks to get with the natural skin care line, to know a journalist or blogger for LATHER, tries the soft pitch approach. She uses social media best results. Be A Resource According to Nick Lawhead of as a way to keep up with beauty Desautel Hege Communications, editors she knows, as well as to he connects with media types on get to know the ever-increasing Twitter when they’re looking for number of beauty bloggers out topics where he can provide there. Twitter has let me learn who the experts: It is quite common for reporters, key players are, keep up with their news producers and anchors to content, and reach out to them in a post something along the lines of way that makes sense. Because “looking for interesting stories LATHER is a small company, about ______ to discuss today.” many of them have never heard of Being part of an agency, it is us, so we’ve gotten coverage from critical for me to capitalize on outlets we never would have those opportunities for my clients. before. I think it also helps that I Often times, this doesn’t require a don’t look at every pitch as an “pitch” as much as connecting a immediate placement opportunity; r e p o r t e r w i t h a r e s o u r c e rather, I view it as an opportunity to build a relationship with these (hopefully my client). This goes back to monitoring writers who I might otherwise not social media. Your best successes have a chance to meet. Forming might not come from a pitch at Your Overall Strategy The key to using social media in all, but rather the reward of being a good listener and paying your pitch plan is to not make it attention to the journalists you can your entire plan. Use different tools, like press releases, article

marketing sites, blogs and social networking sites to create a wellrounded strategy. Chris Martin, of Chris Martin Public Relations, uses a multifaceted approach to help his clients get exposure. He developed a Facebook Page to launch a survey about texting in the dental chair. From this, he got his client, Chicago Dental Society, featured on several local news and radio stations. He’s also successfully pitched a blogger and landed a radio interview for the Illinois Podiatric Medical Association and he has developed new relationships using #journchat, an ongoing conversation among journalists, bloggers and PR professionals via Twitter. If you’re not currently using social media in your pitch plan, make some changes. You’ll soon appreciate the interaction you get with social media versus the black hole where you once sent a press release. And don’t be afraid to try new things! Every day, PR professionals are finding better ways to get heard. See also: 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for PR Professionals and Journalists Image courtesy of iStockphoto, sodafish Reviews: Digg, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, iStockphoto Tags: how to, Pitch, pr, PUBLIC RELATIONS, social media

law shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics on Monday. Elinor Ostrom, a professor from Indiana University, was honoured

fivefilters.org.

Nobel economics awards for governance duo (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:07:49 AM

Two economists who specialise in understanding behaviour and transactions which are not covered by detailed contracts or

for her work on the management of common resources such as fish stocks. This content has passed through

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Tech/

Internet News Record

First Look: Scanner Pro for iPhone gives you PDFs and eyestrain By Erica Sadun (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Tapping the Process button enters a processing screen, where you can then click an Adjust Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:00:00 PM button. This finally reveals a pair Filed under: iPhone, App of sliders for adjusting the Review brightness and contrast settings Scanner Pro ( iTunes link) from for grayscale and color. The Readdle transforms your iPhone screen shot at the top of this post into a portable PDF scanner. For shows the Adjust screen. US$6.99, you can combine The sliders do not provide any pictures (chosen from your iPhone live feedback. You can adjust photo library, or taken using your them all the way down and all the iPhone's built-in camera) into a way up (the shot was snapped PDF document that you can e- with the slider set to 100% mail or upload via WebDAV. Brightness) without any change to That's a really useful concept, the image you're seeing. The and if Readdle had delivered a enhancement gets applied after user interface as strong and usable you click Apply. At the same a s i t s u n d e r l y i n g i d e a , I ' d time, the sliders disappear. Want recommend Scanner Pro as a must to make a few tiny changes? You b u y . U n f o r t u n a t e l y , t h e need to Adjust/Slide/Apply for application desperately needs the each adjustment. That's bad tender loving care of a user design. interface design expert. [For a As you can also see in that different -- and much simpler -- picture, the (hard-to-see) undo UI approach to the same kind of and redo options appear tied to the task, you might check out the grayscale and color choices, but in $2.99 JotNot.] fact they are not. That's bad The UI is cluttered and design. The fonts used and the confusing. You're forced into button choices throughout the unnecessary screens by a poorly application are pretty ugly as well. designed work flow. Here's an Consider the buttons at the top of example; once you scan a new the screen, the small slider labels page, the interface asks you to at the bottom, not to mention the either go back or to process the choice of all lower case for the image. grayscale/color segment

controller. The entire application appears to have been designed by committee. There is one element though that I thought was pretty cleverly done, and that is the page layout and re-ordering screen. Using very, very big table cells, you can easily drag each page into the order required. I think the

I'm on the go, to collect receipts, transform written documents, and so forth. My 3GS's camera with its capable focus can definitely make the best use of this software. This is a terrific idea and I love the ability to carry that functionality around with me on an iPhone. At the same time, Readdle needs to step back and seriously evaluate their interface. Because that flawed interface is hiding a wonderful application that deserves better interaction. And if they don't do so, their competitors will -- as noted above, JotNot[ iTunes link] will also do PDF conversion from the camera (single-page docs and whiteboards vs. the multipage support of Scanner Pro), plus Evernote and Wi-Fi integration, with a smoother UI and a lower price. TUAW First Look: Scanner Pro thumbnails are, perhaps, a little bigger than needed, but I thought for iPhone gives you PDFs and the conception of how the page eyestrain originally appeared on ordering works was pretty solid. The Unofficial Apple Weblog In the end, Scanner Pro provides (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 some great functionality. It 13:00:00 EST. Please see our delivers that functionality in an terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| ugly and somewhat confusing package. Do I recommend it? Comments Yes. I can see using this whenever

IBM privacy chief: Asia need not mimic Europe (CNET News.com) Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:22:09 AM

Harriet Pearson, chief privacy officer, IBM(Credit: IBM Harriet Pearson once joined a petition signed by Facebook users, urging the social-

networking site to do more in terms of privacy. But the privacy expert considers herself a moderate when it comes to protecting her personal information. Pearson, IBM's chief privacy officer for the past nine years and

also its security counsel since last year, says each person needs a mental model to assess the benefits or risks associated with providing personal data. In the same way, she said, governments ought to be thoughtful when drafting policies and laws on data

protection. In town recently for Singapore's annual GovernmentWare conference, Pearson sat down with ZDNet Asia to discuss data protection legislation, the need for a balanced view regarding data breach notification, and why

Asian regulators should not "photocopy" European law books. Read more of"Asia's lawmakers need not copy Europe" at ZDNet Asia. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Sidekick users share their horror stories

Unemployed? Blogging? Don't Put Ads On Your Site Or You Might Lose Your Unemployment Check

(CNET News.com)

By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)

albeit to no avail, and then tried a "soft" reset in good faith by clicking the pinhole on the body Since the outage occurred on of the device. In more "normal" October 1st, I've not been able to circumstances (read: just about receive (or, I presume, send) any other time in the years that email to/from my Sidekick. (All I've owned a Sidekick and paid along, though, I've had phone and for service through T-Mobile), text message capability.) this would usually bring the On Monday, October 5th, device back to life with its roughly 100 emails seemed to information intact, because, as we suddenly appear, leading me to now know, it would download it think that the outage was from the T-Mobile (read: FINALLY over, days(!) after it Microsoft/Danger) servers after started. However, while I got connecting to the network. Not notification of those new emails this time, though... (e.g., italicized, boldface sender & After doing all of that, and subject line information), the letting my Sidekick power up actual bodies of those emails was again, I, as did many thousands of painfully slow in arriving, if they other users, suddenly lost saved were ever going to do so. emails, device settings in ALL I THOUGHT I saw an advisory applications, bookmarks for the at tmobile.com not to try a "hard" Web Browser, my entire Address reset as an attempt to retrieve data Book (188 or so entries, although and/or "kickstart" (my word) my three recent entries did reappear Sidekick, so I steered clear of that. later), and all of the nearly 1,000 So, thinking I saw it written that entries (past, present and future) way (note: I later realized it didn't for my Calendar. To date, all of say "hard," but puzzlingly advised these remain lost, though I CAN against ANY reset at all), I tried surf the Internet on my own, as powering my Sidekick on and off, well as define settings, add Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:29:00 AM

contacts to my Address Book, send/receive instant messages and, I presume, add Calendar entries on my own as well, though I've not tried much of that yet as I await the safe return of my data. You're absolutely right when you ask how, for instance, a company like Microsoft/Danger (Microsoft!) didn't have sufficient backups of its servers in place, be they daily, weekly or whatever. This is beyond belief in this day and age! People need to know about this and not give Microsoft a free pass. For us to be without important data that we paid for the privilege of entrusting to Microsoft/Danger for safekeeping only to have this happen 1-1/2 weeks ago, and continuing to this day, to potentially lose it all permanently(!), and (for now at least) to get a credit of only(!) one month's data service (honestly, is that REALLY satisfactory to anyone?!) boggles the mind. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

New Michael Jackson Single Hits The Internet By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/12/2009 5:46:26 AM

A new Michael Jackson song, called “This is It”, has debuted online. It’s the first new material after Michael Jackson’s death in Los Angeles on June 25; and the Just like the trailer for the first new single to be featured in the upcoming documentary of the documentary, which was first shown at the MTV Video Music same name.

Awards, followed by an online debut on MySpace, the new single has first appeared online and will now be sent to radio outlets. The fan reactions on Twitter are mostly positive, but you can hear the song below (or at the official site over at michaeljackson.com) and judge for yourself. Reviews: MySpace Tags: internet, michael jackson

labor departments are simply illequipped to handle a modern labor force. Reading through the For quite some time, many story of this lawyer is not at all people credited part of the rise of surprising. While most of our blogging to the fact that many employees are in California, folks in the tech industry found we've had employees in a few themselves out of work in the other states, and none of them wake of the dot com bubble seem to know how to deal with bursting. Suddenly there were lots the idea that people in their state of tech geeks, who were always might work remotely for a online and had stuff to say -- and company in another state. Just last now plenty of extra time to say it. week, we were dealing with one It didn't take long for a whole particular state, where we had an slew of tools to pop up to make employee who hasn't worked for that happen, and voila, blogging us in nearly two years -- but the revolution. I'm not sure I really state insists we still owe taxes for believe that story, but there have him and on our "office" in that been some suggestions that the state, for every day since he no current financial crisis my lead to longer worked for us. We've something similar, with the written letters, filled out forms, unemployed speaking up online. spoken to people at the local labor Except... you might not want to department -- and all to no avail. do that if you're unemployed and Every couple of months, they in New York. Forbes is reporting send us an updated statement that a lawyer's unemployment insisting we still owe them money benefits were greatly reduced, for someone we haven't employed because his blog earned about in ages. All of these labor $1/day in ad revenue. The whole departments are designed based thing sounds like a bureaucratic on an old model whereby there nightmare, with NY State asking was a big company that had a her to get a form from her new p r e s e n c e i n t h e s t a t e , a n d "employer" who didn't exist. Then employed people. They can't NY Department of Labor started handle the idea that someone g i v i n g h e r a l l s o r t s o f might work remotely or that contradicting information, and people might make some other eventually an "investigation" into income from a blog or other her "business" -- during which source. One of these days, time her unemployment benefits perhaps they'll update their were stopped entirely. She's now systems, but until then, it's just a pulled the Google AdSense from bureaucratic nightmare. her blog (total earned over the life Permalink| Comments| Email of the blog $238.75). This Story It's really stunning how various Submitted at 10/12/2009 4:42:57 AM

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The AP and News Corp DEMAND To Be Paid For Their Content

Levinson quits Google's board

By Dennis Yang (Techdirt)

(CNET News.com)

instead of accusing customers of not paying enough, offering better reasons to buy would probably get At a media summit in Beijing more sites to pay up. But, that's this week, Associated Press CEO hard, so jumping up and down Tom Curley and News Corp CEO and demanding payment in a Rupert Murdoch declared that juvenile manner is much easier. "It's time to demand payment for However, perhaps this is all online use of content." This merely negotiation brinksmanship combative language rings ironic, -- threatening to charge for access considering the fact that without to their free content to see if its content being published on anyone cares enough to pay. The "kleptomaniac" sites like Google problem is, if the search engines News, not many people would call their bluff and remove their even hear about this very article. content from their services, then As Weston Kosova at Newsweek the news organizations actually astutely points out, if Rupert risk losing much more. As we've Murdoch truly wanted Google to pointed out time and time again, stop "stealing" content, they could news organizations like the AP very easily stop that today with a have been continuing down this simple robots.txt exclusion. road of implosion, where they News organizations that are clearly don't seem to understand contemplating charging for access the nature of their own business. to their content might also want to For example, the AP's obsession stop calling their potential with creating a "news registry" customers criminals -- that's really that would enable the AP to track not great customer service. And down "unlicensed" uses of its after all, many sites, including content hints at this fundamental Google, are already paying to misunderstanding. In his speech license some of their content. So, to the summit, Tom Curley Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:48:00 AM

said:"Crowd-sourcing web services such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook have become preferred consumer destinations for breaking news, displacing Web sites of traditional news publishers. To turn the tide, AP is creating a News Registry -- a rights management and tracking system." Really? The AP's response to people linking to and discussing AP articles is to go after sites for money? I am waiting to see which news organization will be the first to go after Twitter for payment for news tweets. Instead of focusing on how to demand payment for the distribution of an infinite good, news organizations should recognize the new opportunities afforded by the free distribution of their content and focus on how to build a business off their scarce goods. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

'Dancing with the Stars''s Donny Osmond Gets Ready to Charleston (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 3:15:00 AM

Donny Osmond was the talk of "Dancing with the Stars" last week when he grabbed judge Bruno Tonioli and planted a big kiss on him. Now ET gets the inside scoop on what he was

thinking! "Something snapped in my mind when I heard [Bruno] say, 'You have airy, fairy arms,'" Donny tells ET, which is exclusively inside his private rehearsal with partner Kym Johnson. "Afterwards, I thought I went too far until I got a call from my wife

and she said, 'That is the funniest thing I have heard in my life.'" And Kym jokes, "I think you should give some attention to Len[ Goodman] and Carrie Ann[ Inaba]. They may have felt a little left out. We don't want to do that to the judges."

Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:21:58 AM

Another executive with ties to both Apple and Google is leaving one company's board of directors. Arthur Levinson(Credit: Genentech Arthur Levinson, former chairman of Genentech, has resigned from Google's board of directors, effective immediately, Google said Monday. A member of Google's board since 2004, Levinson has also served on Apple's board since 2000. In early August, Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple's board of directors. No specific reason was given for Levinson's exit, but there likely was some degree of pressure to leave one of his two board roles behind. With government probes and competition heating up between Apple and Google, juggling jobs on both company boards had turned into a hot-button issue. In May, the FTC opened an investigation reportedly to determine if serving on both Apple and Google boards was a violation of antitrust law. Schmidt's August resignation from Apple's board came amid calls for him to resign. At the time, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that as Google enters more of Apple's core business, Schmidt would have had to recuse himself

from too many meetings due to conflicts of interest. Apple and Google have found themselves in the midst of conflict lately. The FCC is currently investigating if and why a Google Voice app for the iPhone was given a thumbs-down by Apple, triggering a he-said, she-said squabble between the two companies. In July, Apple also restricted Google's Latitude mapping program, allowing it as a Webbased app rather than a native iPhone app. Google is also trying to become a player in the operating system arena, though it's hardly in a position to compete with Apple at this point. Google's Android OS is targeted to the smartphone, while its proposed Google Chrome OS will battle for a space on the desktops and laptops. In a statement Monday, Schmidt praised Levinson's tenure on Google's board. "Art has been a key part of Google's success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced," Schmidt said. "Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google." This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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YANA - Yet another navigation app Alienate Your Female (MapQuest Navigator) Customers? Pepsi Has An App For That By Mel Martin (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: iPhone, App Review If choice is a good thing, iPhone owners have a veritable bounty of navigation apps in all price ranges and features. MapQuest has now released their own navigation app, and frankly it's a mixed bag. Like the AT&T nav app, MapQuest Navigator[ iTunes link] needs the internet for its data, so if you frequently drive where even the Edge network is a sometime visitor, forget using this app. If you are more of an urban driver or stick to Interstates, the app has some promise. Here are some of the touted features: • Streamlined 3D Interface: Features voice-guided, turn-byturn navigation that speaks directions and street names. • Regular Data Updates: Search 16+ million points of interest and utilize up-to-date street maps. • Full Route Corridor Download:

Quick route re-calculation for missed turns as well provides continued service in areas of no cellular coverage. • Traffic Incident Based Routing: U.S. routes are optimized to avoid traffic incidents that might delay your travel. • A MapQuest Place Carousel: Easily displays locations for

hotels, movie theaters, gas stations, and more with a single tap. The interface is different from almost all the other GPS apps I've used. There is a ribbon, or Carousel as MapQuest calls it, lets you click on hotels, gas stations, food, etc.., and see icons where these points of interest are. To get to one of these places, you have to click on the destination icon, which often requires enlarging the map. I would have preferred a list, because clicking on a map icon can be some extra trouble when various icons are close together. Continue reading YANA - Yet another navigation app (MapQuest Navigator) TUAW YANA - Yet another navigation app (MapQuest Navigator) originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Mike Tyson Felt 'Rage' Over Daughter's Death (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:23:00 AM

In an emotional interview, Mike Tyson tells Oprah Winfrey that he felt rage over his daughter Exodus' death -- and that's why he doesn't want to know what went wrong.

The boxing icon reveals he still doesn't know how his little girl died in that fateful treadmill accident in May. "You don't want to know?" Oprah asks. "If I know, then there might be a blame for it," he replies. "And if there's somebody to blame for it, there will be a problem."

He added: "My first instinct was a lot of rage, you know, and I was so happy that I had the tools in life, you know, to not go in that direction because I've been that direction. I know where that's gonna lead me. I know I'm not gonna win."

By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:58:42 AM

Pepsi’s latest foray into social media is certainly bold and controversial, but does it go too far? The company recently launched an iPhone application[ iTunes link] for its AMP energy drink called “before you score,” with “score” meaning (to put it in the most subtle of terms) having a successful night with a woman. Beyond the premise of the app being rather risqué, it’s when you drill down to the specifics that it becomes much more, breaking women down into 24 types and suggesting “lines” to lure each one of them. If “successful,” the app also encourages users to brag about it over email, or even on Facebook or Twitter. Here’s AMP’s demo: Now, guy-centric marketing is nothing new for AMP, who often promotes itself through male dominated extreme sports (formerly, it was known as Mountain Dew AMP). The ads are also somewhat reminiscent of AXE, who insinuates in much of their advertising that its products will help you with members of the opposite sex. But that’s simply a (far-fetched, but whatever) product claim. Here, AMP has actually built features into its application that make it seem one can

systematically “score” by exploiting women’s naivety. Beyond that, they actively encourage users to promote such conquests through social media. Mind you, the app is obviously targeted for “dudes,” many of whom probably won’t have a problem with it, but many of the women who have caught wind of “before you score” clearly do (see the comments on Jezebel or YouTube for example). Pepsi certainly seems on its way to creating a lot of buzz – but whether or not that buzz turns into something very negative and becomes a “what were you thinking?” social media fiasco is something to watch for. Meanwhile, let us know in the comments if you think this ad is clever marketing that appeals to AMP’s customers, or something that goes too far and could have big ramifications for AMP’s parent company. Reviews: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Tags: amp, iphone, Pepsi, social media, social media marketing

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T-Mobile halts sales of Sidekick (CNET News.com)

connecting to the data network more than a week ago. Microsoft, whose Danger subsidiary powers Wireless carrier T-Mobile USA the Sidekick service, said it was has, at least temporarily, stopped investigating the problems. selling all models of the Sidekick On Saturday, Microsoft and Tin the wake of a massive hardware Mobile posted an updated notice failure that resulted in many saying all data that was not customers losing their e-mail, currently on customers devices contacts, and other data. was likely lost permanently. As of Sunday, all models of the Microsoft and T-Mobile have S i d e k i c k w e r e l i s t e d a s not said how many of the roughly "temporarily out of stock" on T- 800,000 Sidekick customers have Mobile's Web site. T-Mobile lost data. Microsoft said a server retail store workers also said on failure impacted the main and Monday that they have been back-up databases. One theory is instructed to halt new sales of the that the problems cropped up as device as the company continues Hitachi was doing work on the to investigate the recent problems storage network that manages the that have plagued the handheld. Sidekick data. To recap, Sidekick customers T-Mobile has promised an started experiencing problems update for customers sometime Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:11:00 AM

Monday. For now, the carrier has advised customers not to reset their devices, remove the battery, or let them run out of power, as doing so could result in losing whatever data they do have. Microsoft acquired Danger last year, saying it hoped to use its service architecture more broadly in its mobile strategy. The software maker has been working on a project code-named Pink that was to be essentially the future of the Sidekick. The company had not planned for any more versions of the current Java OS-based Sidekick. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

How Did Danger Not Backup Its Servers? How Did Microsoft Allow Such A Failure? By Michael Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:16:00 AM

I bought the very first Danger smartphone the day it came out (rare for me -- I'm not so much of an early adopter on mobile phones). One of the features I liked the best was the fact that all of the data on the phone was immediately and automatically backed up to Danger's servers. Since then, I've always been amazed that other providers didn't make similar features standard. Danger never fully lived up to its hype, and eventually sold out to

Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:00:00 AM

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, Beta Beat Despite rumors that the Google Chrome Web browser for Mac would not ship until 2010, it appears that the golden version of the new browser may be heading to Macs a lot sooner than expected. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that CEO (and former Apple board member) Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin had a few things to say about the new browser, including (according to 9to5Mac) that

Chrome browser for Mac will ship in "a couple of months." Apparently, the relatively slow adoption of the beta version of the browser has been due in part to the fact that development of the Mac version has lagged behind work for other platforms. To quote Schmidt, "The fundamental story about Chrome is speed. We were hurt by slowness to bring out a Mac version. People who move to Chrome have trouble moving back because of the speed." The Mac beta version is available and can be downloaded by those who are willing to use a browser without certain privacy features that is "not appropriate for general consumer use." I've

had it on my Macs for about the last week and have been impressed with the speed of page rendering, although not with the current compatibility with some sites.

By Sponsored Post (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:32:10 AM

Small Businesses are the driving force behind growth and innovation in the American economy, and their inspiring stories reverberate across all industry sectors. American Express and NBC Universal are proud to support the small business community, so they’ve partnered to create the Shine A Light program in order to honor standout small businesses everywhere. It’s down to the wire with three finalists vying for the winning nod. And who provides that winning nod? You do! Your votes will determine which of these three hard working small businesses will receive $100,000 So, TUAW readers -- is Google in grant and marketing support Chrome (the browser, not the OS) from American Express. Read through the inspiring too little, too late? Or is it a web b r o w s e r t h a t w i l l m a k e a stories of these three finalists – a difference on the Mac platform? telecommunications company, a Voice your opinions in the paint and hardware store and an organic baby food company– and comments section below. T U A W G o o g l e C h r o m e cast your vote for the most browser for Mac coming later this inspiring story. It means a lot and year? You can test it now. can make a real difference to one originally appeared on The inspirational small business. Vote today! Unofficial Apple Weblog (This post is brought to you by a (TUAW) on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our client of Federated Media. For more information on sponsored terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| posts please read here.) Comments

Google Chrome browser for Mac coming later this year? You can test it now. By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Sponsored Post: Big Things From Small Business – Which Inspires You?

Tech/ TV/

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Talkcast reminder: live 10pm ET / 7pm PT Sunday night By Michael Rose (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by Submitted at 10/11/2009 7:15:00 PM keying in *-8. Talk with you then! Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Recording support for the TUAW Business, Podcasts talkcast is provided by Call Last week, Steve took over the Recorder from ecamm networks. hosting reins for a rollicking hour TUAW Talkcast reminder: live of talkcast fun. You can download 10pm ET / 7pm PT Sunday night the show, along with all past originally appeared on The shows, from Talkshoe or Unofficial Apple Weblog subscribe in iTunes. (TUAW) on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 We'll be back live tonight with apps. Most of all, we'll be back however, for maximum fun, you 19:15:00 EST. Please see our our outlook for a desktop refresh with you -- and that's the most should call in. For the web UI, terms for use of feeds. just click the"TalkShoe Web" on the iMac and Mac mini lines, important thing. Read| Permalink| Email this| To participate on TalkShoe, you button on our profile page at 10 Comments the simmering issues with Guest accounts in Snow Leopard, and can use the browser-only client, or pm Sunday. To call in on regular AT&T's decision to open up you can try out the classic phone or VOIP lines (take cellular connectivity to VoIP T a l k S h o e P r o J a v a c l i e n t ; advantange of your free cellphone

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As If Performance Royalty Threat Wasn't Enough, ASCAP, BMI Want To Increase Radio Royalties By Michael Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:43:00 AM

While the RIAA keeps pushing and pushing for a performance tax for radio stations, it looks like ASCAP and BMI on the songwriter/composer side are apparently now looking to increase their existing tax on stations(via Michael Scott). As you probably know, right now, stations do pay royalties to

Dead Time Capsules can hang out together By Josh Carr (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

register for the owners of dead Time Capsules and has links to self-help discussions as well as Submitted at 10/11/2009 6:00:00 PM the Apple Feedback page. Of the Filed under: Accessories, devices that have been registered Peripherals, Bad Apple We thus far, the average time until reported on the abundance of ports-up is 17 months and 29 days Time Capsule failure-to-boot after -- eerily close to the estimated 18 18 months in September. A new month mark. site has emerged from the mist to We'd like to give you a friendly help Time Capsule owners who reminder that our own Lauren are struggling to get Apple to e x p l o r e d t h e A p p l e C a r e a c k n o w l e d g e t h e i s s u e . agreements, and found that any TimeCapsuleDead.org exists as a computer-centric AppleCare

agreement that's in force should cover this Time Capsule failure (as it's considered a peripheral used with the Mac). That does not

mean that our readers who don't have a current agreement should be left begging on the streets by Apple. This is something that

needs to be addressed. Hopefully this new site will be a good resource for all of our readers. Thanks, Pim and KB! TUAW Dead Time Capsules can hang out together originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

What's ticking me off about The Mentalist By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:02:00 PM

After last season's success of The Mentalist, I made a point of watching the show this season. I

wanted to see if vox populi was right and this was must-see TV. Well, now that I've tuned in for a few episodes, my opinion of the show remains the same as when I previewed the pilot in 2008. It's a star vehicle for Simon Baker. He's w o n d e r f u l i n t h e r o l e a n d

commands the screen. However, since watching this season, there's one major thing about The Mentalist that's ticking me off. Aretha Franklin sang about it: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Continue reading What's ticking

me off about The Mentalist Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Reality-Free, The Mentalist Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Arthur Levinson Leaves Google’s Board of Directors By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:45:55 AM

Without giving any specific reasons for the departure, Google announced that Arthur Levinson has resigned from the company’s Board of Directors. Levinson is a former Chief Executive Officer and current chairman of the Board of Directors of Genentech, and he’s on the Board of Directors of Apple Inc. He’s been a member of the Google Board since April 2004. “Art has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years, offering unvarnished advice and vital counsel on every big issue and opportunity Google has faced. Though he leaves as a member of our Board, Art will always have a special place at Google,” said Google CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt. Eric Schmidt left Apple’s Board back in August 2009 as Google’s business started overlapping with

Talk to Dead Celebrities With Twitter’s First Séance

stations do pay royalties to ASCAP and BMI for the "performance right" on music By Adam Ostrow (Mashable!) they play on the radio, which gets Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:49:13 AM distributed to the composers and songwriters. But performers don't Add this to the list of get a royalty, as Congress extraordinary (in every sense of recognized (correctly) that radio the word) uses of Twitter. A was free advertising for psychic in the UK plans to musicians. So, the first battle is conduct what The Sun is calling tie-in, as the Tweance Twitter about adding another tax, but this “the world’s first online séance” account is promoting a store in the newer battle would be about using the microblogging service. U K t h a t s e l l s H a l l o w e e n increasing the existing one. The name? You guessed it: costumes. Are there enough Again, this shouldn't be a Tweance. people wanting to talk to Elvis, surprise. As we've been detailing The Tweance will take place on Marilyn Monroe, or the late lately, ASCAP, BMI and other O c t o b e r 3 0 t h ( t o m a r k Michael Jackson to make it at similar groups around the world Apple’s; perhaps Levinson’s Halloween), and users are being least marginally successful? have gone on something of a connection with Apple was the asked to tweet their nominations Probably so. rampage lately, trying to get Meanwhile, which dead celebs larger and larger fees from just reason for his departure from the for the four celebrities that they would like the psychic – Jaynce do you want to hear from in 140 search giant. about any use of music -Talking about his departure, Wallace – to contact. She will characters or less? Share your including ringtones, the 30-second Levinson said: “Working with then post the “Q&A” to Twitter. nominations in the comments. previews on iTunes, and YouTube I’m not going to comment on Reviews: Twitter Eric, Larry, Sergey and the whole videos embedded in blogs (despite Wallace’s supposed clairvoyance, Tags: twitter Google team has been a the fact that YouTube already remarkable experience for me. I but it does seem worth noting that pays a fee). Sucks to be a there seems to be a promotional greatly admire what they’ve built terrestrial radio station these days. and have no Not only do you have a ton of doubt that Google has a terrific new competition from other future.” sources, but the rest of the [Image credit: Genentech] industry is looking to tax you until Reviews: Google you're gone. Tags: apple, Arthur Levinson, Permalink| Comments| Email Google This Story

HOW continued from page 28 Microsoft. It was never entirely clear why Microsoft would want Danger, but at the very least you would think that it would make sure that the servers were pretty safe and redundant. Or so you would think. Apparently Danger had a massive server failures and is warning people that their data may be completely lost. The company is telling people not to turn off their devices, as the only way to keep the data alive is to

PERFORMANCE continued from page 29

keep the phone going. It's difficult to think of a system failure that makes a company look quite this bad. Tons of people have Sidekick phones and rely on server backup to keep their data. Not having a working redundant backup is a stunning sort of failure for Microsoft, and should remind people of the inherent dangers in relying on a cloud based service. While there are lots of cloud-based solutions that are

quite useful, people are definitely going to need to be able to have alternative local and remote backups to make sure that, in this kind of situation, they're not totally relying on a company who should do things right, but perhaps did not. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Tricked-Out How to Jailbreak Golf the Carts iPhone Swarm to Firmware Florida Communities 3.1.2 By Sarah David Kushner Perez (Wired Top Stories) (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10/11/2009 8:52:32 9:00:00 AM PM

The It's aiPhone brutally hacker hot morning George Hotz, here (aka at thegeohot Villages, on one Twitter) of thehas biggest done retirement it again. Earlier communities this year, heonmade the aplanet. name But for himself the saunalike in the hacking central Florida weather community as being doesn't the first slow to down the a77,000 provide usable seniors iPhone who3GS call this place which jailbreak, home. he then followed up by On releasing the ninea softball "better" unlock fields around tool for the same development, device. Now smackhe's talkingbeaten again eightysomethings the iPhonetry Dev to leg outto a the Team base punch hit. Graceful with his swimmers release of slice blackra1n, througha the jailbreak water in glittering tool for the Apple's pools. Near latestthe iPhone Bait Shop bar in3.1.2. firmware, one of the immaculate t oSponsor wn squares, line dancers s hUnlocking i m m y i nvsuJailbreaking nison. Jailbreaking Villagers play andhard. unlocking And they the drive ...are iPhone well, twothey different drive hacks kinda slow. Because which allow youthe to ride take control of choice of at the mobile your Villagesdevice isn't a Lincoln in different or a Cadillac. ways. Jailbreaking It's a golf cart. is a type of h aThe c k diminutive t h a t l e t s vehicles y o u i are n s t the all primary u n a p p r mode o v e d of ttransportation hird-party for daily life here. applications on your Residents iPhonecan or drive them iPod Touch justfrom about searchable everywhere they need toprovided repositories go. Theyby whiz appsalong like 87 miles Cydia and Icy. of trails, Unlocking, from on the the Walmart other hand,tois the a hack town thatsquares, lets you from your use the hospital iPhonetoon the another archery range. When cellular network. they Here have in the to cross U.S., the means that six-lane you can US use 27/US the iPhone 441 highway, on T-Mobile no sweat—they instead of take AT&T. the specially You havebuilt to first golfjailbreak cart overpass. your "We don't phone before likeyou to can call unlock them our it, golfyou but carts," don't ahave retiree to unlock nameda Warrenin phone Cromer order tells to jailbreak me. "They're it. our Unfortunately, second car." Tony what was Colangelo, once a owner of the relatively simple Villages process Golf Cart has Man. more complex over time as gotten n ePhoto: w i PAndrew h o n e Hetherington models were introduced Secondand cars newwith hacking massive tools upgrades. Villagers have tricked out their carts to look like 1930s roadsters, fire trucks, and stretch limos. The hottest ride in town is currently a canary-yellow imitation of a Hummer H3 with alligator interior, undercarriage lighting, and a 1,400-watt stereo.

were being put out by multiple parties, often with confusing names like Pwnage Tool, Purplesn0w and redsn0w. With each release of iPhone firmware, it seems as if there's a whole new lexicon of terms to master and new procedures to follow. The 3.1.2 jailbreak is no exception. However, this jailbreak works on all versions of the iPhone and even on the latest iPod Touch. How to Jailbreak the 3.1.2 Firmware (Windows Instructions) Before beginning this jailbreak, keep in mind that this is for jailbreakers only - not unlockers. That means if you're currently using your phone on a nonstandard carrier (for example, in the U.S. you're using T-Mobile instead of AT&T), then you do NOT want to use this tool because it will disable the unlock. But if you're just interested in jailbreaking, read on: • Update to 3.1.2: If you haven't

done so already, download the latest version of iTunes. Next, update your iPhone to the latest firmware when you're prompted to do so (click "Download and Install" on the pop-up message). Allow the new firmware to install as you would normally. This will un-jailbreak your phone for the time being. • Get the jailbreak tool: To get started with the newest jailbreak, Windows users should head to http://blackra1n.com. and click on the window icon at the bottom of the page to download the executable. • Run blackra1n: After the download is complete, connect your iPhone to your PC and run the executable. Click the "make it ra1n" button and the message will display "entering recovery..." ( Note: Vista and Windows 7 users should run it in compatibility mode and as "Administrator." Right-click on the file, go to

Properties, then click the "Compatibility" tab. Check the "run this program in compatibility mode for:" checkbox and choose Windows XP Service Pack 2 from the list provided. Click "OK" to close the window. Right-click to run as the Administrator.) • Device reboots: Continue letting the program run, the message now reads "running..." and after you see the image of geohot's face (the same as seen here), the device will reboot. A pop-up message will display prompting you to donate if you can. Click "OK" to close this message. • Launch blackra1n on the iPhone: On your iPhone, look for the blackra1n icon and tap it to launch the program. • Pick your favorite installer program: On the screen that appears, you have a choice between installer programs (repositories of jailbreak apps).

Tap the one you prefer - Cydia, Rock or Icy - any will do. Blackra1n will install your chosen program on your phone and will relaunch the iPhone springboard when complete. Your phone is now jailbroken, and you can use Cydia, Rock or Icy to browse, search for and install jailbreak apps. Tips: If the Upgrade is Stuck at "Running," Try the Following: • Set airplane mode on. • Move blackra1n to the C:\ drive and run it from there. • Kill any iTunes-related services prior to running. • While it's stuck on "running," do a hard reboot (push the home and power buttons simultaneously). The app will display a message that says it's done jailbreaking, but it's not. With the USB cable still plugged in, re-run the blackra1n app. This time it should work. However, be aware that the blackra1n jailbreak is still a little iffy for some users. Several people have reported that they're unable to jailbreak, despite following instructions. If you're not feeling adventurous, you may want to wait for the Dev Team's jailbreak instead. Mac Users Have to Wait Sorry Mac users, there is no jailbreak yet available for 3.1.2 just yet. However, you can use the Pwnage Tool to jailbreak older 3.1 versions of the iPhone firmware. More details are here. Discuss

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Startup Scam: Paying to Pitch Puts Power Players on the Warpath By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

meetings, allegedly to cover administrative costs. But as slimy as this practice Submitted at 10/11/2009 9:00:52 PM seems and as flimsy as the group's O v e r t h e w e e k e n d , t h e justifications are, the amounts blogosphere has seen a small but charged by Maverick Angels pale profound eruption of wrath over in comparison to what attendees angel investor groups that charge are charged for the Private Equity startups to pitch them. Forums. Investors and other Jason Calacanis' blog post on professionals are charged between the topic, wherein he went as far $975 and $3,500 to attend these as calling out these groups by pitch sessions, and presenting name and posting each group's entrepreneurs, according to pricetag, inspired "me too" posts Calacanis' research, pay between from Fred Wilson and Robert $14,500 and $25,000, plus a Scoble. All parties seem to be in percentage of any funds they end agreement that the practice is up raising. despicable and should be stopped. How are these outrageous fees But like every hustle that preys on justified? Organizer Mike Segal the gullible or less talented, pay-to writes on the website, "Our forum -play pitching models will be could be best described as a co-op perpetuated until made illegal, for the 12 to 15 companies that and no amount of blog posts will present. We underwrite the events s h a m e t h e s e i n v e s t o r s i n t o and the presenting companies changing their behavior. So, share in the cost. They do so should these scams be made because our model ensures them illegal? an audience of nearly 100% Sponsor qualified investors, for an The short answer is "maybe." expenditure which generally Even in the gray areas of this pencils-out to less than $100 for murky-at-best practice, there's a each capital source in attendance." distinction between a group However, if Calacanis' figures are charging entrepreneurs $25,000 to correct, Segal's math is creative at pitch and charging $500 for a best and deceptive at worst, since questionable "boot camp" pre- investor guests seem to run pitch session. between 60 and 110 in number for For example, Maverick Angels each event. charges $495 for a mandatory And while Segal claims that the "day-long training focused on fees are also charged because the how to present to angel investors" e v e n t s a r e u n s p o n s o r e d , before participating in a "Deal Bootstrapper.com founder Richie Line-Up." They also charge a Hecker said his website sponsored $1,000 fee to present at chapter one of Segal's events just this past

March. Do we smell a rat? Other groups called out in Calacanis' post include Keiretsu Forum, Tech Supper Club, and Angels Den UK, all of which he claims charge startups fees ranging between $595 and $8,000 to pitch to angel investors. Most of the excuses we've read for these fees are laughable. It's a filtration device, or it gives entrepreneurs a better shot at getting funded, these groups explain on their websites. This strikes us as pure rubbish, but apparently, some startups are still being taken advantage of by these systems. "Why would any self-respecting entrepreneur pay thousands of dollars to rich people just for the

opportunity to pitch?" Calacanis asks in his post. "Well, the truth is that the more mature - or flat-out better - startups would never pay to present. The best ideas by the best entrepreneurs get socialized instantly." He goes on to speculate that bad ideas and unconnected entrepreneurs put a startup at risk for these types of scams. Paying an upfront fee for a few minutes of presentation time with potential investors seems like a last-ditch option for startups that can't get funding otherwise. And the language and methods used by those collecting the fees seem designed to deceive. In short, even if these scams are not illegal, they are certainly predatory, and startups should be made aware that these fees exist the first time they visit the groups' websites. We would love to hear from any readers who've had dealings with these groups or from representatives of the groups, themselves, either in the comments section or via email. And to all our other readers, what do you make of these schemes? Should they be illegal? Should there be strict policies requiring more disclosure or capping fees at a more reasonable amount? Or should we adopt a laissez-faire attitude and accept that, in fact, a fool and his money are soon parted, whether anyone likes that fact or not? Let us know what you think in the comments. Discuss

Google Wave Sends Invites to First Round of Invitees [Google Wave] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:30:00 AM

Late last week Google started rolling out a new round of Wave invites to folks who were invited by those first 100,000 Wave users. That means that if someone was nice enough to share a Wave invitation with you in our big Wave invite exchange or you tried the dedicated Google Wave Invites web site and got lucky there, you've probably gotten your invite by now (or you will sometime soon). All of the folks that I invited received their invites on Friday and Saturday, but, interestingly, none of those new users are able to send out their own invitations. That probably means that the folks at Wave are busy putting out a lot of fires right now and aren't ready to open their doors to that kind of explosive growth of new users just yet, but if you made it in with their first round of invites, you should probably be getting your invite soon if you haven't already. If you did get one, let's hear about it in the comments.

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Google Maps Ditches Tele Atlas in Favor of Street View Cars and Crowdsourcing By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

the maps has clearly increased and now even includes data for the boundaries of land parcels in Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:55:08 AM report errors for Google Maps some municipalities. Why? After a flurry of activity around users, so Google is clearly The question, of course, is why Google Maps over the last few t h i n k i n g a b o u t u s i n g a Google plans to make its own weeks, it now looks like Google is c r o w d s o u r c i n g a p p r o a c h t o maps now. For one, chances are also ditching Tele Atlas as its data m a p p i n g f o r G o o g l e M a p s . that Google is currently paying provider for Google Maps in the Google also announced that it Tele Atlas a lot of money for US in favor of a do-it-yourself now includes data from a number using its maps. Mapping services approach. Google had been using of US government organizations are notoriously protective of how data from Tele Atlas' maps since like the Forest Service and the US their data can be used, which is September 2008 after moving Geological Survey in its maps. one of the reasons Apple can't away from Navteq's data after In the US, the Census Bureau offer turn-by-turn directions in the Navteq was acquired by Nokia. creates a fairly accurate base map, built-in mapping application on Now, Google will use its own and this data is available freely the iPhone, for example. Google data, which it will supplement and represents the core data set probably wants to be free to do with data from government for the OpenStreetMap project. whatever it wants with its maps sources and a crowdsourcing With Map Maker, Google also without having to worry about approach. offers an easy-to-use mapping licensing issues. Sponsor By providing its own maps and product that even nonThanks to its Street View cars, geographers can use to create and an API for others to use these Google already has a pretty edit maps and which Google has maps, Google could potentially dataset for even some of the more already employed to let its users become a major competitor to obscure locations in the United create maps for countries where Tele Atlas and Navteq now, and if States, and the company has also no accurate maps existed until Google continues to make these recently expanded its efforts to now. maps easily available to launch more Street View data in While the new maps that were developers without cumbersome other parts of the world. launched last week also include licensing restrictions, it could Last week's update to Google new errors, the overall detail of bring radical change to the Maps introduced new ways to mapping business. Discuss

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From the Maker of TweetPsych: Dr. TweetDreams Will See You Now By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:32:49 AM

Social media scientist Dan Zarrella, the creator of pop psych Twitter app TweetPsych has put together a new tool for analyzing tweets about dreams. Dr. TweetDreams pulls together elements new and old, including symbolic meanings from a 100year-old dream dictionary and any and all tweets containing the phrase "had a dream." "I finally got to use all my cool natural language code," Zarrella told us last night. "I'm using a part-ofspeech tagger, a wordstemmer, and Princeton's WordNet to generate a list of related wordstems which are then matched against a dream dictionary." Sponsor "This one was actually my girlfriend's idea," said Zarrella. "I'm not one for dream analysis, really. But it seemed like a fun thing to build, and I know there are lots of people on Twitter who'll like it... Also, eventually, I'll be able to match people

who've had similar dreams." Some of the analyses we tried out were pretty clear-cut: Other tweets produced hilarious, convoluted, or just plain strange results. One of the particularly interesting things about taking definitions from a 100-year-old dream dictionary is the charmingly antiquated social mores; woe to the married woman who dreams of hugging a man other than her husband! And check out the wonderful fortune in store for this lucky young lady: Ah, how we long for the golden days of yesteryear, when marriage was a woman's best occupation! There were also a few misfires in terms of vocabulary; for example, a hundred years ago, a plane was a carpenter's tool, not a mode of transportation. Nevertheless, we found these idiosyncrasies charming. Users can take a look at one of the most recent dream-related tweets or check out various analyses on Twitter. Discuss

Ad-Aware 8.1 Speeds Up Scans, Improves Feature Set [Downloads] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)

design, and different modes to fit your needs. (Click the image above for a Windows only: Just last week closer look.) popular antivirus utility AVG Ad-Aware is one of those tools updated to a new version; today that's gained a lot of popularity the similarly popular adware- t h r o u g h i t s f r e e v e r s i o n , removal tool Ad-Aware sees its which—unlike the $27 or $40 own update to Ad-Aware 8.1, paid version—doesn't include all the same basic adware scanning featuring faster scans, improved of the app's features, but it does it's always done, only faster. Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:45:00 AM

For example, CNET reports quick scans that completed in about 3 minutes where the old version would take 10. If you were to pony up cash for the paid versions, you'd also get antivirus protection, a new behavior-based detection engine that learns what you don't deem a threat, and a real -time registry monitor. If all

you're interested in, however, is running a basic adware scan, AdAware Free has always and still is a good tool for the job. Ad-Aware is available for Windows only, comes in free and paid versions. Ad-Aware[via CNET]

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Back Up Your Facebook Wall with SocialSafe By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

that has locked an unknown number of people out of their accounts could probably have Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:53:43 AM used a program like this too.) SocialSafe, the Facebook backup The new addition of Facebook tool that launched earlier this Wall Backup adds another summer, has now added a new component to SocialSafe's Time feature that allows you to back up Capsule feature which lets you your Facebook Wall Posts using see how your Facebook account the company's desktop has changed over time - that is, application. The $2.99 program from your first backup onward. It runs using Adobe AIR and helplessness and fear when you provides an overview of your a c c e s s e s y o u r a c c o u n t v i a realize that you've been locked Facebook account where you can Facebook Connect functionality. out of your Facebook account and see the friends and photos you've O n c e l o g g e d i n , y o u c a n some unknown person now has added, those you've removed, and download nearly everything access to all the data it contains. so on. It's also an easy way to posted to Facebook, from photos Will they delete your photos? scan your "digital diary" for any Remove your friends? Clear your time period. Now with your Wall to your profile and more. wall posts? Destroy your profile? Posts backed up too, you can Sponsor According to the company, Usually, that's not the case - the quickly navigate to any old post Facebook is like the "personal hackers generally just chat up and its associated comments diary of the 21st century," and your friends and ask them for instead of having to manually because it's now such a huge part money - but the fact is, they click the "Older Posts" button at of our daily lives, the invaluable could. They could do anything the bottom of your Facebook Wall data it contains needs to be they want because they now have time and time again. backed up for safe-keeping. No control over your data. The new version of the But with SocialSafe, no matter SocialSafe application will be web service is infallible and no one is immune from having their what an evil hacker does, you made available for download from Facebook account hijacked by a would never actually lose your the company's home page here. malicious hacker, either. If you've data. It's all safely stored on your Discuss ever been a victim of a Facebook own computer.(Those people who attack, you know that's absolutely are currently affected by the true. There's a certain feeling of ongoing "site maintenance" issue

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Cartoon: ReadWriteWebosaurus By Rob Cottingham (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 10/11/2009 1:10:33 AM

I'm packing up my Wacom Cintiq, some Pigma Micron markers, a whack of paper and my camera... and I'm off to the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit on Thursday in Mountain View. (Full disclosure: Oh, god, where to begin?) I'll be cartoon-blogging about it in not-quite-real-time (unless I wind up doing something clever with, say, UStream), and uploading doodles as fast as the wireless connection will let me. Note: this week's cartoon is in full glorious color. We spare no expense to bring you the very latest in technology here at ReadWriteWeb's cartoon corner. Think this RGB thing could catch on? Sponsor This is actually my first time in Mountain View (as opposed to through Mountain View), which has defied the odds in that it has

yet to be renamed Googleville. I'm looking forward to it, having been intrigued for years by Hangar One at Moffett Federal Airfield, and being enough of a Google fan that the thought of being a few short blocks from their HQ quickens my pulse. (Not to mention the nanoseconds the proximity should shave off my search queries.) More Noise to Signal. The ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit is on October 15th in Mountain View, California. It's a 1-day event bringing together some of the smartest minds doing real-time work for an industrychanging, face-to-face conversation. Registration is still open, we hope to see you there! Discuss

CleanScored Dishes the Dirt on Local Restaurants [Restaurants] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:00:00 AM

CleanScores catalogs restaurant inspections so you're not left guessing whether or not the place you're planning on eating is a ratriddled dive. You can search by restaurant

name or by city/region to locate the restaurant you want to dig the dirt on. If the restaurant can be found you'll receive a report back that includes the date of last inspection, a star-based rank which is complied from the factors in the report, and then a b r e a k d o w n o f t h e m a j o r , the restaurant has incurred. In addition to the most current moderate, and minor violations

report you can also look at a graph of the previous reports, when available, to see if the establishment has an increasing or decreasing score over time. You can also leave comments if you've visited the restaurant—reading over various reviews in different cities it becomes apparent that poor health inspection scores and

poor customer service seem to go hand in hand. Have your own favorite tool for scoping our restaurants from afar? Share it in the comments below. CleanScores[via MakeUseOf]

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Create a Perfect, Customized Boss Key With AutoHotkey [Autohotkey] By The How-To Geek (Lifehacker) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:00:00 AM

We've all been there—trying to do something else while we're supposed to be working for the man. Sure, they are paying us, but can't we get a little break every now and then? There are dozens of "Boss Key" applications out there that hide windows with a simple keystroke whenever the boss walks by, but most of them aren't tailored very well to your own situation—or just aren't customizable enough for my tastes—so I set about to create the perfect boss key with AutoHotkey. By the end of this guide, you should be able to make your own custom boss key that does exactly the kind of hiding you want. We're not actually advocating that you slack off at work, trick your boss, or do anything that goes against your employer's policies to the extent that you get you sent home with a pink slip. Whether a little relaxation break is okay or not, sometimes you still want to keep your relaxation to yourself. Getting Started Before you can get started creating your own awesome boss key, you'll need to make sure that you've got AutoHotkey installed somewhere, and you might want to check out our beginner's guide for a little background on how it all works. If your workplace doesn't allow you to install software, you can create your script on another computer and turn it into a portable EXE file you can carry on your thumb

drive. Once you have your environment up and running, create a new AutoHotkey script by clicking File –> New or rightclicking your desktop or inside an Explorer window and selecting New -> AutoHotkey Script, and then paste in the following starter script: #InstallKeybdHook #Persistent #HotkeyInterval,100 #NoEnv SetKeyDelay, –1 SetTitleMatchMode, 2 ; Makes matching the titles easier SendMode Input SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% All of that may look daunting, but it's just boilerplate code that sets everything up, so you don't really need to worry about it. Then you'll want to add the following two blocks to the file, which give you one hotkey to hide everything, and another to restore it all. For the purposes of this article, we'll use F6 to hide everything, and F7 to show the windows again. I'd recommend making the hide key something easier to hit, and keep the show key further away.

The first line tells AHK to also check for windows that are hidden, and the second line tells Windows to unhide the window. Pause Your Media Player Depending on your media playing application, you might have a number of ways to pause it. If you can assign a global hotkey—like your keyboard's media pause key—you can simply add that shortcut to your boss key using the Send function, which F6:: action you want to take. can send keystrokes to the active { To simply minimize a window, window, like so: ; put the hiding windows stuff you can use the WinMinimize Send, {Media_Play_Pause} here function followed by a part of the There's a whole list of special Return window title. For example, let's keys that you can use instead, but } say you may have VLC open to if your favorite media application F7:: catch a few minutes of the video has command line arguments, you { podcast you downloaded last can also use the Run function to ; put the functions to show night. To minimize your VLC launch the application with pause everything again here w i n d o w , y o u c a n a d d t h e switches instead. Return following two lines into your Run, C:\path\to\media-app.exe } function: /pause Switch to "Work In AHK, the semi-colon (;) WinMinimize, VLC media A p p l i c a t i o n " indicates commented code, so, as player To complete the boss key hiding you can see above, we're just T h e l i n e i s f a i r l y s e l f - effect, you can't just hide the explaining what will happen when explanatory: You are simply windows you shouldn't have the user hits F6 or F7. Below, telling AutoHotkey to minimize sitting open—a good boss key we'll fill in that functionality. the window whose title matches works best when you also switch Now that we've got the template that string of text. If you wanted over to whatever work application script together, let's customize our to hide the window instead, you'd you are supposed to be using. If script and hide some windows. use: you are a programmer, like yours Hide Windows or Just Minimize WinHide, VLC media player truly, nobody can argue with you Them The problem with hiding having your favorite text editor or Most of the point of using a windows is that they are really IDE open on the screen. boss key is to hide whatever you completely hidden, so you will be Inside our "Show" function, are looking at, but that doesn't forced to create another hotkey to we'll need to add a line that a l w a y s m e a n y o u n e e d t o show the window again, or you'll switches back to the window we completely hide the window; if have to kill the process from task want to have on the screen. To nobody looks that closely at your manager if you want to close it. accomplish this, we'll use open windows, or you keep your To show the window again, A u t o H o t k e y ' s W i n A c t i v a t e taskbar hidden, minimizing might paste the following to the show function, which makes another be fine. You can either use the window block: window the topmost one. WinHide or WinMinimize AHK DetectHiddenWindows, On functions depending on which WinShow, VLC media player CREATE page 36

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CREATE continued from page 35 WinActivate, Visual Studio This function works just like the other ones, matching part of the title string, so you can customize it for whatever your work-safe application is. Wrapping Up: Prepare Your Script Once your script is finished up, you can package the script up into a single executable file that you can drop on a flash drive—especially helpful if your workplace doesn't allow you to install AutoHotkey on the target machine. The first thing you'll probably want to do is tell AutoHotkey not to show a tray icon, and run completely in the background. You'll want to add the following near the beginning of the script—note that if you do want to kill the script after adding this line, you'll have to do so from task manager.

#NoTrayIcon Now you can right-click on the script, and choose to Compile it into an executable file, which you can then save on a flash drive, or use anywhere you want. Here's the full listing of the example script, which hides VLC when you press the F6 key, and shows it again when you press F7. #InstallKeybdHook #Persistent #HotkeyInterval,100 #NoEnv SetKeyDelay, –1 SetTitleMatchMode, 2 ; Makes matching the titles easier SendMode Input SetWorkingDir %A_ScriptDir% F6:: { ; put the hiding windows stuff here WinHide, VLC media player

Return } F7:: { ; put the functions to show everything again here DetectHiddenWindows, On WinShow, VLC media player Return } Now that you've put together your own customized boss key, do you have any tips for the rest of the class? Tell us in the comments. The How-To Geek uses his boss key to prevent nosy people from reading over his shoulder. His geeky articles can be found daily here on Lifehacker, How-To Geek, and Twitter.

What's On Tonight: Trauma, Greek, Gossip Girl, Castle By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:11:00 PM

• TBS has Baseball Playoffs all night. • At 8, ABC has a new, two-hour Dancing with the Stars, followed by a new Castle. • CBS has a new How I Met Your Mother at 8, then new episodes of Accidentally on Purpose, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and CSI: Miami. • NBC has new episodes of Heroes, Trauma, and The Jay Leno Show. • FOX has a new House at 8, then a new Lie To Me. • The CW has a new One Tree Hill at 8, followed by a new Gossip Girl. • ABC Family has a new Lincoln Heights at 8, then a new Greek. By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) simple view at your tasks, • Nickelodeon has a new offering the task name, notes, and Penguins of Madagascar at 8, Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:00:00 AM due date for each. You can followed by a new Glenn Martin, Android: If you're an Android manage your tasks offline and DDS. user who's keen on Google's sync your changes to Google, and • Also at 8: Food Network has a Tasks to-do manager, a beta ... that's about it, for the moment. new Good Eats. application can give you offline Then again, Google Tasks itself • At 9, USA has a new Monday access and syncing to the tasks doesn't offer a whole lot more Night RAW. you've stashed away in Gmail, functionality, even in its Android• Food Network has a new Google Calendar, or iGoogle. friendly mobile version. Google Tasks still has a ways to gTasks Beta is a free download go in becoming a universally for Android phones with Google useful to-do manager, but if Remember the Milk's great app, it syncing (a.k.a. with the "Google you've got a Google-syncing might just be the best task Experience"). Thanks Neil! phone in your pocket, and can't manager you'll actually use. gTasks Beta quite swing the $25/year for gTasks beta is a really, really

gTasks Syncs Google Tasks to Your Android Phone [Downloads]

Unwrapped at 9. • Cartoon Network has a new episode of The Othersiders at 9. • At 10, Food Network has a new Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. • TLC has a new Ultimate CakeOff at 10. • MTV has the series premiere of DJ AM's reality show Gone Too Far at 10. Check your local TV listings for more. After the jump, the late night talk shows. Continue reading What's On Tonight: Trauma, Greek, Gossip Girl, Castle Filed under: Late Night, Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Google Brings Search Options to Mobile Version [Search] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

away, on the right-hand side in this version. Still, the reviews search seems Want newer results when you useful for browsing what's gotten search Google from your good notice around you, when smartphone? Want more or fewer combined with mobile location, at pictures in your results page? least. Search Options should show Google's recently begun showing up on iPhone, Android, and Palm Search Options to a number of WebOS phones; Windows Mobile smartphone users. and BlackBerry users might have Like its desktop counterpart, to wait a bit. Introducing Search Search Options lets you restrict forum posts and review sites. Options for mobile[Official search results to recent time There aren't as many options as G o o g l e M o b i l e B l o g v i a frames, tweak how many non-text on a full-sized browser, and the D o w n l o a d S q u a d ] results crop up, and perform Options menu is similarly tucked specialty searches, in this case for Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:00:00 AM

MobileMe Gets a Few Minor Updates…So What?

NBC is being sued (no, not for canceling Southland) By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:33:00 AM

There are lawsuits filed every single day, some of them against media companies. But this is the Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:48:09 AM Unlike Google, Apple doesn’t first time that I've heard about a TV network being sued because of the fonts they use. I don't mean that they're being sued for infringing on a logo or something like that, I mean they're By Liam Cassidy a system that allows quick search certain infringing products, being sued for the actual fonts that (TheAppleBlog) a n d r e t r i e v a l o f b r o a d c a s t enjoys some big-brand company services, and systems in Texas they use. I didn't even know you information via the Internet. It in this new lawsuit. Online News and, particularly, the Eastern could be sued for using a certain Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:14:31 AM was awarded to Online News Link’s complaint claims some District of Texas. font. The Font Bureau (which It just wouldn’t feel right getting Link as recently as March 24. other very big players have AppleInsider’s Neil Hughes would make an excellent title for through a month without another It’s sometimes hard to know for committed the same egregious suggests the decision to file the a crime series) makes fonts for lawsuit. Apple is in the firing line sure what these complaints are infringement. Dow Jones, Forbes, suit in the Eastern District of s u c h p e o p l e a s A p p l e a n d this time from Online News Link, really about, particularly since the Morningstar and several others Texas is of particular relevance, Microsoft, but NBC didn't get the which claims Apple infringed on descriptions in patents can often are listed defendants. since “complainants often file rights to use their fonts in the patent No. 7,508,789. Ah yes, be so cumbersome and, too often, O N L a d d s i n i t s [there] in hopes of a favorable logos for shows like Saturday g o o d o l d 7 , 5 0 8 , 7 8 9 : “ t h e frustratingly generic. Here’s an complaint, ”Each Defendant has outcome.” Night Live, The Jay Leno Show, t r a n s m i s s i o n o f d i g i t a l excerpt, courtesy of AppleInsider, purposefully and voluntarily So, clever legal acumen? Or just and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon information through a broadcast of the patent description: very sneaky? I guess it depends placed one or more of its for more than one time on one channel and bi-directional The amount of information infringing products, services, and on your point of view. I tried to computer. NBC has been using channel.” Or something. delivered is preferably sufficient systems into the stream of find some information on Online them a lot more than that. They're The complaint from California- to satisfy the needs of a large commerce,” while MacNN reports News Link and found no official asking for around $2 million. b a s e d O n l i n e N e w s L i n k number of subscribers so they do that ONL “is asking for a jury web site, no business description, Continue reading NBC is being specifically targets iTunes. The not have to obtain additional trial, with the aim of recouping just the company registry on the sued (no, not for canceling complaint, filed Oct. 8 in the i n f o r m a t i o n u s i n g t h e b i - costs and damages. Many such California Business Portal, and Southland) Texas Eastern District Court, directional channel. The broadcast cases are settled out of court.” e n d l e s s r e f e r e n c e s t o t h i s Filed under: Industry, claims: information is stored on fast complaint filing. But I won’t say P r o g r a m m i n g , R e a l i t y - F r e e ONL’s complaint adds: Defendant Apple infringes, s t o r a g e m e d i a l o c a t e d a t patent troll if you won’t. Each Defendant has committed Permalink| Email this| | either directly or indirectly, s u b s c r i b e r s i t e s . What was the big news that Comments and continues to commit acts of through its operation of iTunes Well, to me, that sounds like patent infringement, directly happened in your sector in Q3? and the email and Web-based every commercial online media a n d / o r t h r o u g h a g e n t s a n d Catch up with GigaOM Pro's, " products, systems, and services service that’s ever existed since intermediaries, by offering for Quarterly Wrap-ups." offered via iTunes. the late ’90s. But what do I know? sale, selling, and distributing Patent No. 7,508,789 describes Apple isn’t alone, though, and

Patent Dispute Goes After iTunes

By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

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MOBILEME continued from page 37 subscribe to the “Release Early, Iterate Often” model of software and service publishing. Even so, that’s how things have turned out with MobileMe. On Friday, Apple published updates to its MobileMe News pages detailing improvements to the service. “As part of an update to the MobileMe web applications, you can now access Find My iPhone directly from the MobileMe toolbar.” Doesn’t sound like much (and it isn’t) but it’s a nice touch that makes Find My iPhone easier to access. (Previously the feature was confusingly tucked-away in the MobileMe Settings page.) Also handy is the use of a new URL users can enter into a browser to go straight to the Find My iPhone functionality: me.com/findmyiphone. The web-based Contacts has been tweaked to resolve a problem that occurred when exporting multiple contacts at once, but by far the most Update Love was lavished upon longneglected iDisk. The Apple knowledge base article lists the following updates and improvements to iDisk:

• New Public folder page located a t http://public.me.com/membernam e now matches the look of me.com and supports drag and drop of files between folders (when enabled for visitors) • Allowing visitors to upload, move, and delete files on your Public folder can now be set from www.me.com/idisk • An iDisk Public folder password can now be set from www.me.com/idisk • When logging in to a password -protected Public folder with a web browser, entering the generic username “public” is no longer required • Adds ability to connect to another member’s Public folder while viewing your own iDisk at me.com I’m happy to see the addition to iDisk’s web interface of drag and drop functionality, but I have to confess it makes no difference to me at this stage. I simply don’t use the web-based version of iDisk very much if I can help it – it’s too slow, cumbersome and unpredictable. I’ve all too often found myself several-folder-levels

deep into iDisk, digging around for a file or three, and suddenly discovered the interface has stopped responding to my clicks. Almost at the same instant I realize things have ground to a halt, the page automatically refreshes itself, dumping me back at my iDisk root folder. That’s frustrating. The language I use in those moments reflects just how frustrating. In my experience, the poor performance and functional unpredictability of iDisk are the only things about it that are predictable. I don’t know anyone who has had a better experience. Ah well. At least it looks better now. I’m hardly bowled-over by these updates, but I appreciate they’ve been made. As a paying subscriber to MobileMe, it’s nice to see that Apple remains committed to improving the service. At $99 a year for a single user licence it’s not fabulously expensive, and while a lot of people feel it’s still too pricey, it falls far short of the costs of most hosted Exchange servers. Apple touted MobileMe as “Exchange

for the rest of us” and, while a shaky start didn’t do the service any PR favors, I’ve been using MobileMe’s over-the-air sync/push services from Day One with (mostly) satisfaction. Generally speaking, it works. But I’ve stopped using iDisk because it’s a joke. Stingy storage capacity and horribly slow, flaky performance means I learned long -ago to stop hoping for iDisk to be a dependable cloud-based data storage and sync solution. (Try saying that five times fast!) Today I use DropBox instead of iDisk. And while DropBox is quite ridiculously priced there’s no arguing it’s the no-brainer alternative to iDisk. But, as they say, “Half of something is better than all of nothing” and I’m glad to see I’m getting some added value for my $99 membership fee. Even if I don’t use it. In Q3, NewNet focus turns to business models and search. Read the, " NewNet Q3 Wrap-up."

A Never-BeforeReleased Michael Jackson Song! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 5:00:00 AM

"This is It," an unreleased Michael Jackson song, has been released on MichaelJackson.com. "This Is It," featuring backing vocals by Michael’s brothers The Jacksons, plays during the closing sequence of Sony Pictures' upcoming film, 'Michael Jackson's This Is It,' and is included on the two-disc CD set Michael Jackson's This Is It, which is the stand-alone companion to the motion picture. Later this month, Sony Music Entertainment's Columbia/Epic Label Group will release the album internationally on October 26th and in North America on October 27th to coincide with the worldwide release of the motion picture, which arrives in theaters on October 28th and runs for a limited two-week engagement.

Bored to Death: The Case of the Stolen Skateboard By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:26:00 AM

( S01E04)"I'm almost done. Just three more tugs!" - Ray After I screened the first three episodes of Bored to Death early last month, I had resigned to not watch it ever again. For the most

part, save for Ted Danson's performance, there wasn't much I found funny about the show. Add in last week's weirdo installment featuring Jim Jarmusch and I wasn't sure what to think. Given the premise of the show, last week's episode didn't even feel like the same program. It was like they took a script from something

else and just had the Bored to Death ensemble act it out.

But then HBO went and renewed it for a second season and I figured, hey - maybe I'll cover the rest of the season for TV Squad. Well, I'm glad I did. Despite numerous shortcomings, "The Case of the Stolen Skateboard" is easily the best episode of the series thus far. And Ted Danson? Still very funny.

Continue reading Bored to Death: The Case of the Stolen Skateboard Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Time Capsule Memorial Web Site Launches, Shames Apple By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/12/2009 10:04:19 AM

Enterprising Apple (s aapl0 customers unhappy with the inexplicable death of their Time Capsules have taken matters into their own hands and launched a dedicated website to record and discuss their experiences. It’s called The Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register, and it’s hauntingly beautiful. The site has been created to provide a central support hub for Time Capsule customers who have suffered the sudden death of their devices, but feel neglected or ignored by Apple who have yet to acknowledge there is even a problem. It seems the main culprit in most cases of Time Capsule Death are fried capacitors. Users are reporting that the lack of adequate ventilation/cooling in the Time Capsules causes the capacitors to run very hot and, eventually, die. For affected customers, “eventually” turns out to be approximately 18 months. Here’s the introduction from the site: Your Apple Time Capsule has died. You are now faced with the difficult, but important, need to mourn. To show that you’re not alone in this process, we’ve opened the Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register. Please take a moment and submit a few details of your beloved Time Capsule. You will

instantly notice it will make you feel better but will also help others facing the same difficult period in their lives. And hopefully, this register will also provide a reliable overview of the scale of the premature passing of Apple’s “server grade” backup solution. Apple is accomplished in the art of making us part with our money in return for its beautiful, shiny products. It is somewhat less accomplished in admitting when things have gone wrong with those beautiful, shiny products. The recent drama surrounding the problems caused by the iPhone OS 3.1 update illustrates just how slow and stubbornly silent Apple

can be when it comes to reacting to glaringly obvious problems with its products. Over 140 comments on that article tell me that the “coma” problem I wrote about last month — caused by OS 3.1 and experienced almost exclusively on iPhone 3G’s — was much, much more than just the “sporadic issue” Apple casually labeled it in the release notes for iPhone OS 3.1.2. Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, that short line in the 3.1.2 release notes is still today the only “official” confirmation from Apple that there was anything wrong. Ticking Timebombs The Time Capsule is one of

Apple’s more indispensable peripherals; it offers hassle-free, automatic, over-the-air backups along with reasonable storage capacities. Sure, there are cheaper ways to emulate what a Time Capsule does, but the convenience of its simple set-it-and-forget-it nature makes the added expense seem justified. Imagine, then, the pain when a well-used Time Capsule croaks, taking up-to 18 months’ worth of incremental backups with it. I don’t mind admitting the thought of it strikes fear into my heart. I use two Time Capsules every hour of every day. They’ve proven invaluable to me a handful of times. But these reported

problems are making me think of dusting-off my old external USB LaCie’s. I can’t help thinking I don’t own two Time Capsules. I own two ticking Time bombs. Apple still hasn’t acknowledged there’s a design problem with the Time Capsules. I wonder whether sites like The Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register could do a sufficient job of shaming Apple into admitting there’s an issue worthy of investigation. At the very least, a perfunctory “We’re working on it” would be better than nothing. In Q3, NewNet focus turns to business models and search. Read the, " NewNet Q3 Wrap-up."

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VMware Fusion 3 to Debut by End of October By Nick Santilli (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:40 AM

In the ever leap-frogging world of desktop virtualization for the Mac, VMware has announced that it will make its next hop (I won’t venture to say who’s ahead at this juncture) by the end of October…or the 27th, if you go by its blog. So in just a few weeks, version 3 of Fusion will be available for mass consumption. Some of the announced features are as follows. The big news, of course, is Snow Leopard optimization, where Fusion jumps onto the 64bit bandwagon. This should bring some interesting performance boosts to those who use virtualized environments heavily. As a regular Windows VM user (by necessity) I’m really looking forward to this! If, on the other hand, you’re a Windows user stuck in a Macintosh machine, you’ll be glad to know that Fusion 3 is the first to support Windows Aero and Flip 3D features found in Windows 7. From my perspective, this is cool, but when I run Windows in a VM, it’s bare bones, and just for the program or

few more months. Rib-bit.) And there are other optimizations, too, along with a nicely redesigned way of accessing the Windows Start menu without having need for the Task bar onscreen. All in all, it sounds like a set of updates to an already solid virtualization platform. If you’re in the market for such a product, version 3 of Fusion will cost $79.99. If you’re a current paid user, an upgrade will set you back two that I require. But I’m sure $39.99. I use both Parallels and this capability will make some Fusion (at work and home, people quite happy. respectively) and like both well There is also greatly improved enough. I’ve been using the graphics support. I’m not much of Parallels 5 beta, and it’s pretty a PC gamer, and as such don’t nice. But while I haven’t had the follow these terms very much, so chance to toy with Fusion 3 yet, straight from the release, VMware I’m quite intrigued, and will be Fusion 3 is the “first to support getting the upgrade. If you’ve DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 3D already invested in one camp or graphics and now adds support for the other, I can’t say (yet) if OpenGL 2.1.” Sounds neat. jumping ship for the other would Presumably taking a cue from be a worthwhile investment. t h e c o m p e t i t i o n , t h e r e ’ s Check back later after I’ve got my “Switching Made Easy,” so that hands on the updates, as I’ll try to you can now migrate to OS X by put some perspective to this topic. converting your Windows What was the big news that installation to a VMware Fusion happened in your sector in Q3? image, easier than ever before. Catch up with GigaOM Pro's, " (My guess is that someone will Quarterly Wrap-ups." make it even easier if we wait a

Submitted at 10/12/2009 3:20:00 AM

ET is on the set with "CSI Miami" star David Caruso as the actor tells us about the storyline for tonight's episode that's ripped right from the headlines.

By Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:02:00 AM

You can really tell that the holiday season is coming by the commercials you see on TV. I'm not just talking about the Norelco sled in the snow or the K-Mart layaway pitches. I'm talking about the high end, classy jewelry and perfume commercials that are there to give guys ideas about what to give their spouses. One of the most beautiful perfume ads I've seen in a long time has been getting a lot of

exposure lately. It's for Chanel N°5 with the French actress Audrey Tautou. You probably have seen it, but might remember it more if I tell you about the music. It's a very soulful, bluesy rendition of "I'm A Fool To Want You." Continue reading I'm a fool for this Chanel No. 5 commercial Filed under: OpEd, Commercials, Celebrities, Casting, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Levinson resigns from Google board (Financial Times - US homepage)

Federal Trade Commission investigation of the board-level overlap between the two Submitted at 10/12/2009 7:41:17 AM In a story that parallels the "I think first and foremost it's a companies. Eric Schmidt, chief The close boardroom ties executive of Google, resigned his Bernie Madoff scandal, a man is story about trust," David tells ET. found dead after taking money "This is a man who invested not between Google and Apple were position on the Apple board two f r o m h i s c l i e n t s . A l t h o u g h only in their finances but in their loosened further on Monday as months ago, after earlier saying he Bernie's alleged victims never future. He decided to play around Art Levinson, a director of both had intention of giving up his seat extracted personal revenge, with those things ... and people companies for the past five years, as a director. quit the board of the internet someone has gone too far in this were devastated." This content has passed through giant, effective immediately. fivefilters.org. scenario. His departure comes amid a

ET on the Set: Sneak Peek at 'CSI Miami' (ETonline - Breaking News)

I'm a fool for this Chanel No. 5 commercial

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$10,000 LPs Now Playing at the iTunes Store By Charles Jade (TheAppleBlog) Introduced by none other than Steve Jobs at the Apple Music Event last month, the iTunes LP adds content like lyrics, liner notes, animation, and video interviews to the traditional album for a little more money, at least for the consumer. It turns out Apple is charging artists $10,000 in production costs for creating an iTunes LP. That’s what Brian McKinney of indie label Chocolate Lab Records told Gizmodo. McKinney sought information on how one went about making an iTunes LP, and it was relayed to him from an iTunes Store representative that “LPs aren’t being offered to indies and that there are only about 12 LPs being offered right now.” And that Apple is charging $10,000 in production fees. If that sounds a tad high for your average indie band practically living out of the back of a van, perhaps that’s why there are so few iTunes LPs available a month after format was introduced. To contrast that with another Apple initiative, the App Store, it opened with 500 apps, and less than a week later had

Mya Spills 'Dancing with the Stars' Rehearsal Secrets (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:08:00 AM

ET is there as Grammy winning beauty Mya and her pro partner Dmitry Chaplin rehearse a dance that is new to "DWTS" -- the lambada -- and Mya dishes about the sexy look and smooth moves she plans to showcase! Mya tells ET that the dress she intends to wear could fit in an

Submitted at 10/11/2009 8:23:54 AM

nearly a thousand. If you are looking for a rationale as to why it’s impossible to put together some songs, videos, and lyrics for less than $10,000, don’t look at me. AppleInsider has some steroidal-strength apologia on the topic, though, something about “quality assurance” and that Apple doesn’t “want the new format associated with music the mainstream market doesn’t care about.” It will be great later, though, “open standards” and all that. Let’s hope so, because right now it looks like Apple is channeling the ghost of Sony’s proprietary standards past. When Steve Jobs introduced the

iTunes LP, he remarked that “some of us here are old enough that we actually bought LPs.” Some of us also remember sifting through boxes of LPs in record stores for hours and the joy of finding new music unlike anything we’d heard before. Unless Apple changes its policy, you’ll never have to worry about losing yourself among the virtual LPs at the iTunes Store. It is 3D Week at GigaOM Pro! Read our latest reports on the future of 3D TV, mobile, computing and movies.

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envelope. She said, "This would be the most risqué so far, but we have a say in our costumes, so it's covering certain things up." She and Dmitry will stay traditional with the dance itself. The singer told ET, "We are sticking the five steps that lambada consists of and coloring it around that."

Oklahoma Sooners may have Ryan Broyles in lineup vs. Texas Longhorns By Tim Griffin (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:17:15 AM

Leading Oklahoma receiver Ryan Broyles has not been ruled out of playing in Saturday's game against No. 3 Texas at the Cotton Bowl, Sooners coach Bob Stoops said Monday. Broyles sustained what was originally termed a fractured shoulder blade on the second play of the Sooners' 21-20 loss to Miami on Oct. 3. He missed the rest of that game and the 20thranked Sooners' 33-7 victory over Baylor on Saturday. Stoops later said the injury was "a light fracture" and that Broyles could return to action in as soon as two weeks. The original prognosis after the injury was that he would miss games up until

November. Broyles leads the Sooners with 23 catches for 346 yards and a Big 12-leading seven touchdown receptions. His return would be important for an inexperienced Oklahoma receiving corps already reeling from a season-ending knee injury to preseason All-America tight end Jermaine Gresham. Oklahoma had three drops in the end zone in its victory over Baylor. Quarterback Sam Bradford was 27 of 49 for 389 yards and a touchdown in his return from a shoulder injury. Tim Griffin covers the Big 12 for ESPN.com. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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NFL Live Blog: Broncos 20, Patriots 17 (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

is 5-0 since they won their first 13 games in 1998, the last season they won the Super Bowl. The Journal provides minute-by7:36: A perfectly un-iced Prater minute analysis of this battle drills it, the crowd goes nuts, the between New England’s Bill 1984 San Diego Padres mob Belichick and his coaching Prater and the Broncos win 20-17! protege, Josh McDaniels. Shira They’re 5-0. Ovide offers commentary on the 7:34: On 3rd and 3, Orton goes game and the CBS telecast. (All for Marshall in the end zone, who times ET) tries to reach over Shawn Springs. Getty Images Leigh Bodden of Again, great coverage by Springs, New England tackles Denver’s though Orton does underthrow Eddie Royal on Sunday in Denver that pass. Prater is going out for at Invesco Field at Mile High. the kick, around 41 yards. Denver had a hard time Belichick calls for timeout. stringing together good offensive Classic example of trying to ice plays and only showed flashes of the kicker, which we know almost their vaunted defensive brilliance. never works. In the end, though, this game — 7:32: Incomplete pass to Eddie and the Broncos — lived up to the Royal from Orton. The officials hype, as Kyle Orton played make a good no-call on Royal and another efficient game and the Springs, the most interesting rookie RB, Moreno, tore off two match-up on the field right now. key runs in OT, including the 11- Denver looks like they want to yarder to set up the winning Prater kick now, a 45-ish yard field goal field goal. It was great to see try. But they’ll get another chance McDaniels’ energy after the for more on the defensive offside game, and the emotions of his by New England’s Tully Bantaplayers. Kenny Peterson, the Cain. Denver defensive end, lifted his 7:32: For all you math fans out head coach up the air like a rag there, this numbers geek estimates doll in the post-game scrum. It that from 1974 through the 2008 felt like they really wanted to help regular season, the team that won McDaniels beat his mentor. the coin toss won about 52% of Now New England goes home NFL overtimes. The loser won at 3-2, with this loss capping a 44% and the last 4% tied. (He also terrible day for Boston sports fans has ideas on how to improve a after the Sox loss in the playoffs. very flawed OT system.) They host the Titans next 7:29: Eddie Royal trips up his weekend, which could be a cure defender, Shawn Springs, who’s for their ills. playing him close today, and goes 7:37: Belichick looks around the for eight yards. Then Moreno field for McDaniels, who’s rushes 11 yards to the 29. Denver running around on the field and is in field-goal range now. pumping his fists like a crazy 7:28: Moreno rumbles for 9 m a n . O r l i k e T i g e r W o o d s yards, and then is stopped at the winning the Masters. Think line, around midfield. Matt Prater, McDaniels wanted to beat his old Denver’s 25-year-old kicker, is 9boss? This is the first time Denver for-12 this season, including Submitted at 10/11/2009 11:44:32 AM

making the only 50+ kick he’s attempted. He looks anxious on the sideline. 7:26: Orton starts overtime with an 11-yard completion to Brandon Marshall and an 8-yarder to Scheffler, the tight end. A third straight completion to Eddie Royal gets Orton a first down. Smart throws so far. 7:25: New England’s kick off goes out of the end zone, so it’s Denver’s ball at their own 20 yard line. It’s money time for Kyle Orton, who is trotting out on the field to play for an overtime win against the New England Patriots and a 5-0 record. 7:22: Here we go. One 15minute overtime period, first time to score wins. And, yes, Donovan McNabb, there are ties in the NFL. Denver wins the coin toss and elects to receive the ball. OVERTIME 7:21: Denver punts, and David Bruton downs the ball inside the 5 -yard line. Brady has 15 seconds, but he just take a knee. Overtime, baby! 17-all. 7:20: Orton, on a blitz, wisely takes the sack. Belichick made a good defensive call coming out of the timeout. Fourth down at midfield with 15 seconds left. 7:19: New England calls a timeout with 22 seconds left, and Orton facing 3rd and 9 at the Pats’ 44 yard line. Belichick needs to get the ball back, and of course they need a stop here.

7:18: 3rd and 9 now for Denver, less than 30 seconds left. 7:17: Now Moreno fumbles the ball! Does he? No. He doesn’t. But it’s close. Inside two minutes, Denver at the New England 40yard line. 7:15: On first down, Sammy Morris fumbles the ball around midfield! New England lucked out, as the big lineman Nick Kaczur falls on the ball with his considerable girth. But Brady fumbles on 2nd down on a hit from Vonnie Holiday! Broncos recover at the New England 45yard line. That’s Elvis Dumervil, the NFL co-sack leader, who comes up with it. 7:10: Shawn Springs reaches around and knocks down a pass intended for Gaffney. That’s a quick series for Denver, and New England takes over around their own 30 after Julian Edelman gets a short, 6-yard return of the punt. Brady time, nearing the twominute warning. Sammy Morris looked to be bottled up at the line of scrimmage but Andrew Goodman absolutely blew the tackle and Morris goes for 18 yards. It’s two-minute warning time. 7:06: Brady absolutely misses Welker for what would have been a huge play. Just throws the football at Welker’s feet. Broncos take over on their own 27-yard line. About 3:30 left for Orton. Clock management comes into play for Denver now. 7:03: Hey, Denver has silly hats, too! Are those throwback ski hats? Brady will take over at his 17 yard line with 5:15 left on the clock and a tie ballgame. This is Tom Brady time, usually. 6:59: Brandon Marshall catches a short pass and the 2, and fights

and extends his way into the end zone for a touchdown. Now it’s a 17-17 tie with 5:21 left. Impressive 98-yard drive for Orton and the Denver offense. Jim Nantz just pointed out that this was the Broncos’ longest scoring drive since 2006. 6:57: Eddie Royal makes a money catch on third down, and then Moreno goes for seven yards right up the middle. He’s careful with the football after the fumble in the first half. Denver has got it working now. Pats safety Brandon Meriweather gets flagged for taunting. He’s furious. It’s a first down for Denver inside the 15yard line. Now it’s New England making the dumb penalty. 6:54: Orton throws a little screen pass to Moreno, and he rumbles for 27 yards. Great call. Just under seven minutes to go. That pass to Moreno was the longest Denver play of the afternoon. 6:53: The camera caught Orton cringing on the sideline as New England’s Matt Slater downed the ball inside the Denver 2-yard line. Nice. Belichick tried to challenge a subsequent Gaffney 14-yard pass reception as a fumble, but the officials tell him they marked Gaffney’s forward progress to the Denver 16. Orton makes a great read on a blitz, eludes a defender and completes another first-down pass. 6:48: Champ Bailey makes a great play to knock down a pass play to Welker. Amazing. Denver finally (really this time) gets the ball back. The stats in this game are nearly identical: 17 first down, about 280 yards, about 25 minutes of possession. The difference is NFL page 43

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NFL continued from page 42 Denver’s mistakes, including the fumble by Moreno and the two special teams penalties in the last series that gave New England the ball back. 6:44: New England is going consistently to the run now. The announcers point out the Pats are playing with a rookie left tackle this series, and they may want to lull the crowd to sleep. And then Brady heaves a pass into the end zone, maybe just to see if Randy Moss can run under it and make something happen. Matthews, the New England tight end, dives to break up a possible interception. 6:40: New England’s rushing attack continues to be middling today. Just 3.1 yards per rush. Facing 3rd down and 3, Faulk goes nowhere and New England seems to waste the penalty. And now the Denver special teams unit gets whistled AGAIN on a punt. This time it’s Richard Quinn lining up in the neutral zone, again giving New England the ball back. Wow. 6:36: With the gift penalty, Brady starts work with a fresh set of downs and - surprise! - finds Welker again. That’s eight catches for 87 yards and a touchdown for Wes Welker today as the fourth quarter starts. He’s been basically the only offensive target for Brady this afternoon. FOURTH QUARTER 6:32: 3rd down, Brady misses Welker. Great job by the Denver defense to get in Brady’s face. New England punts from their own end zone, but Darrell Reid runs into the Pats punter. Dumb, dumb, dumb. New England gets the ball back and first down. McDaniels is screaming on the Denver sideline. He may be close to a stroke. 6:30: Brady overthrown Moss

again, and he looks like he can’t believe it. Maybe it’s the glove. I know it’s cold and a lot of passers do it, but I don’t like the glove on the QB’s hands. Brady catches Welker again to give himself some room, now at the 10-yard line. 6:26: Moreno gets caught in the backfield, and he’s lucky to just lose 3 yards. Denver is forced to punt, has it nearly blocked, but then the guys downfield make a great effort to pin New England on their own 2-yard line. The Denver fans have been pretty quiet the last few series. Let’s see if they crank it up with Brady starting so close to his own end zone. 6:24: Gaffney catches a 6-yard pass, continuing the pass-happy attack from both teams today. Each team has over 245 yards of passing, and just 51 yards rushing ( N E ) a n d 6 1 (Denver).(Correction, each team today has just over 200 passing yards today, not over 245.) 6:23: The next few weeks should say plenty about just how good this Broncos defense, which looks pretty average right now, really is. Friendly editor Adam tells me three of Denver’s first four opponents ranked in the bottom third of the league in total yards gained per game: Cincy at 21 st, Cleveland at 29 and, of course, Oakland dead last. Only the Cowboys (No. 4 entering Sunday) have done much offensively so far. Including today, none of Denver’s next four opponents (the Patriots, Chargers, Ravens and Steelers) ranks lower than 12th. 6:21: Inside the red zone, New England is forced to settle for a field goal attempt. Phil Simms points out that Denver’s defense

got some pressure on the pocket and forced Brady to look to his second and maybe third choices of receiver. And then the normally reliable Gostkowski misses a field goal. Still 17-10 New England. Let’s see if Denver can take advantage of the momentum shift. 6:18: Randy Moss caught his first real pass today, a huge 36yard completion up the middle, even though replays show the Denver secondary bounced him around like a pinball. 6:13: Moreno is stuffed and Denver settles for a 24-yard field goal. Score now 17-10 in favor of New England. That near first down catch by Royal stings a little, but Orton showed on this drive that he can move the ball on New England. 6:09: Orton finds TE Daniel Graham, who is the size of a smallish redwood tree. And then Orton finds Eddie Royal for a first down inside the New England red zone. Or is it? They miss first down by two lengths of the chain. Why do they still measure with those chains, by the way? This is 2009, can’t we have laser measurements? 6:07: Gaffney catches a deflected pass. Great hands! Very dangerous play. First Stokley in Cincinnati, now this. How lucky are these guys? 6:01: Moreno rushes for a first down and then limps off the field. Looks like his knee went in a strange direction. Orton has plenty of time to throw, but the coverage downfield is blanket. It’s slanket coverage, actually. Orton finds TE Daniel Graham for 10 yards into New England territory. 5:58: An update around the league: Falcons up on 49ers 3510, Seahawks over Jags, 20-0,

Cards leading Texans 21-0. From the early games, it was nice that the Bengals dedicated their win today to Mike Zimmer, their defensive coordinator who was my favorite character in the HBO series Hard Knocks, about the Cincinnati training camp. Zimmer’s wife passed away this week. 5:57: Brady and New England go three-and-out, and Brady overthrows Randy Moss for what would have been about a 15-yard catch. That’s the second time Brady has missed Moss today. Orton will have a chance to show the adjustments he made at halftime. 5:54: The second half starts, and New England is up by 10 points thanks to Tom Brady, who has completed 14 of 19 pass attempts for 152 yards and two touchdowns. His counterpart, Orton, has been nearly as efficient (14 of 18) but has been let down by the Denver defense. The question is whether Denver’s defense is as good as advertised, or simply has not played offenses of New England’s caliber so far this season. An aside: Something is wrong with me: I’m beginning to like the Broncos’ uniforms, which makes them look like the 1982 San Diego Padres. I keep waiting for Tony Gwynn to take the field. THIRD QUARTER 5:42: Both teams head to locker room at halftime, as Randy Moss catches his first pass of the game. It’s as an extra DB and it’s an interception of Orton, who throws up a Hail Mary, but that’s better than nothing. Naturally, it’s the receiver’s first career pick. Denver’s defense had given up 26 points all season entering today, and New England has almost

matched that in one half. Denver needs to find a way to get to Brady. He’s got plenty of time to throw, and he’s picking apart the Broncos defense. Let’s see what McDaniels can cook up at half time. 5:38: On third down, Brady finds Ben Watson, the tight end crossing the middle of the end zone. Where was the coverage on that? Oh, the Denver linebackers screwed up and let Watson run right by them. New England leads 17-7 just before halftime. 5:37: Reader David asks whether this game is available online in the U.S. only NBC allows its Sunday night games to be streamed simultaneously. This game is on CBS. 5:36: Brady finds Welker again. He’s been the most reliable target today but it looks like he took a helmet to the back. He’s walking off the field. First and goal for the Pats. 5:32: Brady finds Wes Welker for a 17-yard completion, and now there are two minutes left for Brady to work his magic this half. I’m watching paint dry during the commercials. Really. It’s a Home Depot ad. 5:30: That touchdown pass gave Orton six for the season, one more than Brady. And now it’s New England that seems out of sync, as Brady just missed getting sacked. Kevin Faulk has his first run for New England today, for 3 yards. That’s the third different RB the Pats have played today. No catches yet for Moss. They’ll need to get him involved soon. 5:26: From the red zone, Orton floats a terrific touchdown pass, 11 yards to Brandon Marshall on the right sideline. That makes it NFL page 44

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NFL continued from page 43 10-7 New England. Orton was amazing on this drive. The Denver rushing attack, which is ranked fourth in the league in yards, is absolutely MIA today, though. That 90-yard drive was the Broncos’ longest of the season. 5:24: Eddie Royal catches a 13yarder and Denver tacks on 15 yards thanks to a personal foul against New England’s Ty Warren, who mauls Orton just a half-second after the play. The officials have been criticized several times - including by the Ravens against New England last week - for being too touchy on those roughing the passer calls. This one was a no-brainer though. Denver inside the New England 20. 5:19: Orton gets absolutely creamed for a sack and a loss of three yards, and he looked absolutely immobile in the pocket. Then he recovers to complete back-to-back passes. Eddie Royal picks up a first down along the sideline, and New England calls their last time out. Let’s see if Denver can string something together here, down 10 -0 from their own 28-yard line. Denver fans are encouraging, willing Orton along. 5:15: The orange creamsicle officials rule the New England pass incomplete, so McDaniels keep a timeout but now has no more replay challenges. We’ll see if that comes back to haunt Denver. And on 3rd-and-10, New England gets whistled for unsportsmanlike conduct. That pushes New England out of field goal range. Ouch. Belichick is going to scream, I can tell. 5:10: McDaniels throws the red flag again to challenge a 3-yard pass completion. Really? Because

the first challenge went so well for him? Perhaps it’s better to hold onto that timeout, Denver. I do like that McDaniels, the exPats assistant, is wearing a hoodie. He learned that by watching Belichick. 5:07: Laurence Maroney is dragging Denver defenders all over the field and the Pats offensive line is giving Brady about 45 minutes to throw. Denver’s defense just got flagged for a penalty for 12 men on the field. Oops. Brady and New England at the Denver 41. 5:02: Orton throws a wobbly pass on third down to TE Tony Scheffler, and Pats safety Brandon McGowan is all over him, knocks it down. Denver fans may be thinking fondly of Jay Cutler, their rocket-armed former Broncos QB who’s now in Chicago. SECOND QUARTER 4:58: The first period ends just as Orton completes an 8-yard pass to Jabar Gaffney, who finds a hole in the New England zone defense. Orton has been very efficient, completing seven of eight passes, but Denver’s offense hasn’t been able to string together more than a couple good plays. 4:56: Brady and New England get stuffed and Denver takes over. But I like that Brady is looking vintage today, and it’s not just the throwback uniforms. He’s spreading the ball around, mixing up passes and rushes. 4:53: Orton completes a thirddown pass to Marshall, but he doesn’t quite get enough for first down. New England takes over after the punt, at about the Denver 23-yard line. And now I notice everyone on the Pats sideline is wearing those pompom ski hats. Belichick looks the most

ridiculous. 4:50: Kyle Orton, playing catchup and facing 3rd and 2, calls a time out. Denver’s offense looks out of sync so far this afternoon. 4:45: Stephen Gostkowski lines up for a 53-yard field goal try. It’s good! Pats up 10-0. It’s a careerlong kick for Gostkowski. 4:45: On 3rd and long, Brady wayyy overthrows a pass into the end zone intended for a wideopen Randy Moss. Denver’s fans are getting into this now. I’m surprised they’re not all frozen to their seats. 4:42: Yup, the officials uphold the fumble call and Brady will trot back on the field at Denver’s 45yard line. The early momentum is all in New England’s favor. It is hard to take the orange-clad officials seriously, though. It looks like they should be off deer hunting. Jerod Mayo, the Pats linebacker who’s just coming off an injury, forced that fumble. 4:39: The rookie, Moreno, fumbles after a 13-yard gain. The call on the field is New England’s ball. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms are sure it’s a fumble. McDaniels throws out the challenge flag. 4:36: Ads for some new cartoon movie called “Astro Boy” are all over the place. I still don’t want to see it. Sorry, CBS. Kyle Orton takes over at the Denver at their own 20. Jim Nantz explains Denver wore these hideous mustard uniforms in the franchise’s first two seasons. Even the officials look horrible in an orange get-up. 4:33: Tom Brady is wearing a ridiculous hat on the New England bench. I think it has a pompom on the top. 4:30: It’s been all Sammy Morris for New England. He’s filling in for Pats’ leading rusher

Fred Taylor, who had surgery on his ankle. Brady, from the shotgun on third down, throws an 8-yard TD pass to Wes Welker. 70 New England just like that. Where is that vaunted Denver defense today? 4:28: Trick play! New England fakes a reverse and throws a screen pass to Sammy Morris for 35 yards. New England at the Denver 15-yard line. 4:23: New England, out of a timeout, knocks down Orton’s pass and stuffs the Denver offense at the Pats 29. A good offensive series from the less-than-vaunted Denver offense. Oops, now Denver misses a long field goal. Nothing to show for that drive. 4:19: I love Boomer Esiason, who says on CBS that Denver could have the “ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen.” True words. In the continuing celebration of the American Football League’s 50th anniversary, the teams are in throwback uniforms. Pats outfitted in classy red-and-white. The Broncos unis are freak mustard-and-gold horribleness. They should be burned immediately following the game. 4:19: Denver’s first play is a wacky run by rookie RB Knowshon Moreno, who is starting today for the first time. Orton gets a first down on a short pass to Brandon Marshall, who muscles a few extra yards. 4:15: Denver will have the ball first, at their own 20 after a touchback. FIRST QUARTER 4:08: Here’s an early candidate for worst game of the year: Cleveland just closed out a win against Buffalo, 6-3. First win this season for the Browns and head coach Eric Mangini. The Bills fans aren’t pleased. Buffalo is

now 1-4. 4:05: The Pats could be forgiven for glancing at the out-of-town scoreboard. Just before game time, the Angels scored three runs in the top of the 9th to beat the Red Sox and sweep them out the playoffs. In Fenway, no less. It’s up to the Pats to salvage this sports Sunday for Boston. 4:03: Hopefully New EnglandDenver will be be an antidote to a snoozer Sunday so far. The Giants win a lopsided game against the terrible Raiders. The Eagles are winning a lopsided game against the terrible Bucs. Cincinnati’s Carson Palmer throws a late goahead touchdown pass to beat Baltimore, but no one cares (except for this long-sufferings Bengals fan). Maybe this week’s schedule is the NFL’s way to force people to watch the baseball playoffs. Or to encourage people to go to church. Intro: The story lines for this game are irresistible: 1) Brady vs. Bailey— After the 2005 season, the Broncos stopped the Patriots in the playoffs when Denver cornerback Champ Bailey intercepted a Tom Brady pass in the end zone. Nearly four years and one knee surgery later, Brady again will see plenty of Bailey, who is coming off an impressive game in last week’s win over the Cowboys. 2) Sensei vs. Student— Josh McDaniels, Denver’s rookie head coach, served as offensive coordinator for the curmudgeon on the opposite sideline, Bill Belichick. 3) Stifling Defense vs. Improving Offense— Denver is 40 thanks to a mauling defense (and one very, very lucky catch by Brandon Stokley). The Pats are 3-1, with Brady looking more like NFL page 46

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MLB Trio Moves Swiftly Into Final Four (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

Times. “He can hardly run these days,” Shaikin writes. “The Angels do not let him play right Baseball fans use the term “short field anymore. He produces weak series” to describe five-game ground balls with distressing postseason series, but the words frequency. Oh, but he can clap as connote more than simply a he hobbles to first base, and he distinction between five-gamers can smile with the joy of a little and the seven-game format used boy, and he can pump his fist in for the American League and t r i u m p h . H e d i d a l l t h r e e , National League Championship repeatedly, after he redirected a Series and World Series. No, the 95-mph fastball into center field term “short series” carries with it for the game-winning hit.” In the a certain happily menacing Boston Globe, Dan Shaughnessy promise — the possibility that, in wails that Boston’s disappointing a first-to-three-wins situation, postseason feels like old times. anything can happen. But the The Angels’ comeback was words “short series” proved more exciting, sure. And Sunday’s literal than usual in the first round Phillies/Rockies game was pretty of baseball’s postseason. At the enjoyable, too, if only, as the w e e k e n d ’ s e n d , o n l y t h e Denver Post’s Dave Krieger P h i l a d e l p h i a P h i l l i e s a n d writes, for the manifest absurdity Colorado Rockies were still of the whole Arctic experience. playing for the right to advance Still, both lagged behind the after the Los Angeles Dodgers, Yankees’ extra-inning triumph Los Angeles Angels and New over the Twins on Friday for York Yankees swept aside their twisting, turning dramatics. The respective, outmatched opponents heartbroken Twins were never to advance to the next round. The really able to get anything going Phillies are just a win away from offensively on Sunday night and joining them after a hard-fought 6 went out with a whimper, 4-1. At -5 win at a sub-freezing Coors Yahoo, Jeff Passan lauds the Field on Sunday night. Getty p e r s i s t e n t p r o w e s s o f t h e Images The Angels’ Vladimir Yankees’ four holdovers from the Guerrero extended the anguish of t e a m ’ s 2 0 0 0 W o r l d S e r i e s Boston baseball fans who have Champions. In the New York gone title-less since 2007. Post, Joel Sherman examines the The Boston Red Sox looked to Bombers’ frighteningly locked-in have a series-extending win sewn A l e x R o d r i g u e z . I n t h e up on Sunday, but instead saw Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Heron their season end when a two-run Marquez Estrada describes the single from Vladimir Guerrero Twins’ long goodbye to their keyed an Angels comeback domed home. against ace closer Jonathan Chip Caray, the lead play-byPapelbon. Guerrero, a good bet to play announcer for TBS, has been enter the Hall of Fame after his — to borrow a term he often career but far from his peak, abuses — “smoked” by various nonetheless delivered in the clutch media critics for his performance on Sunday, drawing cheers from on the mic during the divisional Bill Shaikin in the Los Angeles series. Every sports fan with a Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:11:00 AM

and his team, Gene Wojciechowski argues at ESPN. “This wasn’t an ordinary win,” Wojciechowski writes. “It was an extraordinary win, against an extraordinary coach and an extraordinary quarterback who are partly, if not largely, responsible for the 33-year-old McDaniels television is familiar with Caray’s getting the Broncos gig.” In Sports Illustrated, Don Banks bloopers, exaggerations and other foibles, but those seeking for a offers an appreciation for the very f u l l - s p e c t r u m l o o k a t h i s surprising and seemingly for-real flubbiness need look no further Bengals. In the Cincinnati Post, t h a n R i c h a r d S a n d o m i r ’ s Paul Daugherty provides some a d m i r a b l y c o m p r e h e n s i v e sobering context to the Bengals’ dismantling of Caray’s work in win. The Washington Redskins’ 2-3 the New York Times. Caray did, at least, make an record doesn’t look too terrible impression. In the St. Louis Post- until you remember that, after Dispatch, Bernie Miklasz writes being touted as a preseason that the Cardinals didn’t even playoff contender, the ‘Skins have manage that much in their split four games against the very desultory sweep by the Dodgers.* worst teams in the NFL. Sunday’s 20-17 loss to the previously ** In a weekend of lopsided match- winless Carolina Panthers was the ups and never-in-doubt results, latest insult, and led to renewed the NFL still managed two pretty calls for the firing of Coach Jim big surprises. Or rather, two Zorn. In the Washington Post, unexpected teams continued to Mike Wise cautions those with assert themselves with unexpected visions of Mike Holmgren, Mike effectiveness: The 4-1 Cincinnati Shanahan or Bill Cowher dancing Bengals matched their 2008 win in their heads that the team’s total by pulling off another come- problems run far deeper than the from-behind 17-14 win on the ( a d m i t t e d l y o v e r m a t c h e d r o a d a g a i n s t t h e B a l t i m o r e seeming) coach. “Have any of the R a v e n s , w h i l e t h e D e n v e r most sought-after motivators and Broncos ran their record to 5-0 fixers in the game foolishly with an overtime victory over the convinced themselves that Zorn, New England Patriots in Denver. as hooey and over-explanatory The Broncos have avoided the and all-twisted-up inside as he is chaos that was expected when right now, is the main problem young Bill Belichick protégé Josh w i t h t h i s f r a n c h i s e ? ” W i s e McDaniels was handed the reins w o n d e r s . * * * Your Fixer almost never links to of a team that underachieved last season, and have already far Gregg Doyel’s columns at CBS surpassed expectations. Their Sports, for no reason other than tough 20-17 win over New that his ultra-strident work often England marked a milestone for reads like nothing so much as both the 33-year-old McDaniels buzz-seeking sports-talk radio in

(blessedly quieter but no less irritating) text form. And while there’s a lot of Doyel’s signature piling-on in his column chiding Florida’s Urban Meyer for playing a post-concussion Tim Tebow in the Gators’ 13-3 win over LSU on Saturday, there’s also a fervid tone and seemingly genuine concern for Tebow’s safety that reads as actually, authentically impassioned. “As of today the minimum time for a player to return to action after suffering a concussion like Tebow suffered is thought to be two weeks,” Doyel writes. “That’s the minimum. Playing Tebow after the minimum recovery period was a meathead move, the modern-day equivalent of rubbing dirt on a bruise or withholding water at practice because dehydration would toughen a player up. It’s stupid and dangerous, is my point.” A little bit of Doyel still goes a very long way, but he seems to be on the side of the angels in this one. In the Journal, Darren Everson looks (way) ahead to anticipate the SEC Championship Game showdown between Florida and Alabama, which he argues could prove the foundation for an eradefining rivalry between the two national powerhouses. “Even though the teams aren’t scheduled to meet annually, FloridaAlabama has a chance to become one of the sport’s great rivalries via the SEC title game, provided Florida coach Urban Meyer and Alabama’s Nick Saban stick around,” Everson writes.* * * Calling Jason Fry the Fix’s editor emeritus probably understates his contributions to MLB page 48

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NFL continued from page 44 his pre-injury self each week. The winner this week will make a strong case for the best team in the AFC, though Peyton Manning and his undefeated Indianapolis Colts will have something to say about that. Denver’s defense has allowed a league-low 26 points this season, an average of less than a touchdown each game. Denver also boasts the wonderfully named linebacker Elvis Dumervil, who is tied for the league lead in sacks with eight. On offense, Denver isn’t jaw-dropping, but they do rank fourth in rushing with an average of 148 yards a game. And the offense doesn’t make many mistakes, either. QB Kyle Orton is the only starting passer in the league who hasn’t thrown an interception this season. Last week against Dallas, the defense again led the way, with Bailey knocking down a potential game-tying touchdown

pass from Tony Romo to preserve a 17-10 win. New England, of course, will lean on Brady and receiver extraordinaire Randy Moss, who caught three passes and scored a pivotal touchdown in last week’s tight 27-21 win over Baltimore. Brady looked wobbly in New England’s first couple of games after missing nearly all of 2008 with his knee injury. But against the Ravens he spread the ball to nine different receivers, a pattern familiar from the Pats’ Super Bowl-winning years. Heading into this week’s game, both coaches have tried to tamp down the student vs. teacher drama, but it’s hard to forget Brady is running an offense McDaniels put in place. The Denver head coach may know better than anyone else on the field what Brady is going to do with the football. Each team is missing key offensive weapons. The Pats will

be without their leading rusher, Fred Taylor, who had surgery this week on his injured ankle. That leaves the ball carrying to a fourman replacement rotation, Laurence Maroney, Sammy Morris, Kevin Faulk, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Belichick has been his usual coy self about which RB will be the go-to guy. Denver back Correll Buckhalter sprained his ankle in last week’s game, which gives promising rookie Knowshon Moreno (that’s pronounced “No-Shawn,” if you’re wondering) a chance to prove himself. The weather in Denver isn’t expected to be a factor as the sloppy rain-snow mix and recordlow temperatures that scrapped Saturday’s baseball playoff game are expected to give way to slightly warmer weather by game time.

Yankees make quick work of Twins in ALDS By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

He also did so in the 2004 ALCS. • Mariano Rivera picked up his eighth career postseason seriesSubmitted at 10/12/2009 9:32:17 AM clinching save. That's twice as Fast Facts many as Dennis Eckersley and • The Yankees swept the Twins Randy Myers in second place. en route to their first ALCS since • Andy Pettitte earned his 15th 2004. career postseason victory, tying • N e w Y o r k o u t s c o r e d John Smoltz for most all-time. Minnesota 15-6 in the series. • The Twins have now lost nine • The Yanks swept the ALDS for straight playoff games dating back the third time. They went on to to 2004, finishing 0-10 vs. the sweep the World Series each of Yankees in 2009. the previous two times (1998, -- ESPN Stats & Information 1999). This content has passed through • Alex Rodriguez homered in fivefilters.org. back-to-back postseason games for the second time in his career.

Rev. Al Sharpton urges NFL to reject Rush Limbaugh's St. Louis Rams bid By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

Monday. He said Limbaugh has been divisive and "anti-NFL" in some of his comments. Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:56:17 AM NFC West blog Union Not Happy With ESPN.com's Mike Sando writes Limbaugh's Bid Union Not Happy about all things NFC West in his With Limbaugh's Bid division blog. NEW YORK -- The Rev. Al • Blog network: NFL Nation Sharpton wants the National Limbaugh did not immediately F o o t b a l l L e a g u e t o b l o c k respond to a request for comment conservative radio host Rush Monday. Limbaugh from bidding on the St. Limbaugh said last week that he Louis Rams. is teaming up with St. Louis Blues Sharpton sent a letter to NFL h o c k e y t e a m o w n e r D a v e Commissioner Roger Goodell on Checketts in a bid to buy the

Rams. He has declined to discuss details of the offer, citing a confidentiality agreement. In 2003, Limbaugh worked briefly on ESPN's NFL pregame show. He resigned after saying Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed. NFL Players executive director DeMaurice Smith on Saturday made a move to solidify the union against Limbaugh's bid in an email to the union's executive

committee. "I've spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages," Smith wrote in the e -mail. "But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred." At least seven NFL players have publicly opposed Limbaugh's

interest in purchasing the Rams with Checketts. In Smith's communication Saturday with his executive committee, the union leader encouraged players to speak their mind on all matters, including Limbaugh's bid. Information from The Associated Press and ESPN senior NFL analyst Chris Mortensen was used in this report. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The 2009 Buffalo Bills - BCS Title Could Be an AllSEC Affair - What Did You Expect? By John Walters (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:30:00 PM

By Dan Graziano (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:41:00 PM

by Dan Graziano Filed under: Bills, NFL Analysis Fired a week before the start of the season as the Bills' offensive coordinator, an angry and confused Turk Schonert said the problem in Buffalo was that coach Dick Jauron wanted "a Pop Warner offense" -- an offensive playbook as simple and uncreative as possible, and that Schonert's schemes were too complicated to fit in with Jauron's plan. Now five weeks in to the season, having committed nine (NINE!) false start penalties Sunday in losing one of the worst offensive games in sports history to the previously winless Browns, the Bills are playing as if to prove Schonert right. To this point in 2009, Buffalo's has been the kind of offense that makes you contemplate man's inhumanity to man. They are 25th in the league in yards per game, 26th in points per game, 28th in third-down conversions, 29th in first downs and 31st in time of possession. All of this in spite of an array of skill-position talent that includes Terrell Owens, Lee Evans, Fred Jackson and, for the last two games, Marshawn Lynch. A group like that should be able

to move the ball and score, but it can't. And while it's easy to lay it all at the feet of the unimaginative Jauron or "Captain Checkdown" QB Trent Edwards, the big problem with the Bills is the five great big guys up front. With an offensive line like this, how can they possibly be good? The 2009 Buffalo Bills -- What Did You Expect? originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:41:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

by John Walters Filed under: Bowling Green, Brigham Young, Colorado, Stanford, UCLA, Wyoming, Big 12, SEC Blanket Coverage is a weekly rewind of all the action of Week 6, from the big opinions, to the small news, and, of course, coverage of all players named JuJu. In the second half of Florida's 13-3 win at LSU Saturday night, CBS color analyst Gary Danielson opined that a one-loss SEC team would play in the BCS Championship Game. Danielson's forecast seems fair enough, particularly considering the teams playing in front of him in Death Valley. The Gators lost one game in both 2006 and 2008 and won the national championship. The Tigers lost two games in 2007 and beat Ohio State in the BCS title game. What Danielson failed to consider, though, was whether a one-loss SEC team with the

FanHouse Preview: 76ers By Matt Steinmetz (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:00:00 AM

second-best record in the conference might advance to Pasadena come January. BCS Title Could Be an All-SEC Affair originally appeared on Fanhouse NCAA Football Blog on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Redskins Keep Playing Losers By Michael David Smith (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:30:00 AM

by Michael David Smith Filed under: Redskins A 2-3 record through five weeks of the NFL season isn't good, but it isn't necessarily bad: Plenty of teams have started 2-3 and gone to the playoffs. But the Washington Redskins' 2-3 record is really, really bad, because the

Redskins have what might be the easiest schedule to open the season that any NFL team has ever had. Redskins Keep Playing Losers originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

by Matt Steinmetz Filed under: 76ers FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season. The Philadelphia 76ers have a new coach, a new system and even a new player, kind of. What they don't have, however, is a point guard to bring it all together. The Sixers' most significant offseason move was hiring Eddie Jordan, who will bring along with him an offensive philosophy less about isolation and more about movement and flow. It's possible the Sixers can improve on their .500 season from a year ago. But the responsibility for that happening will fall largely on power forward Elton Brand and guard Louis Williams. That's where the skepticism comes in. FanHouse Preview: 76ers originally appeared on Fanhouse NBA Blog on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

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Broncos improve to 5-0 by stunning Pats in OT By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/11/2009 10:38:06 PM

Sorting the Sunday Pile: Josh McDaniels Is Smarter Than All of Us By Ryan Wilson (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:00 AM

by Ryan Wilson Filed under: NFL Fans Sorting the Sunday Pile looks back at the NFL weekend that was. It's also an unofficial bingo blog. Back in April, when the Broncos sent 2006 first-round pick and franchise quarterback Jay Cutler to Chicago for Kyle Orton and a handful of draft picks

(including two first-rounders and a third-rounder), I wrote that it was hard to argue that the Broncos were a better team, at least in the short term. Sorting the Sunday Pile: Josh McDaniels Is Smarter Than All of Us originally appeared on Fanhouse NFL Blog on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:30:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

Tip-Off Timer: Lakers Win 15th NBA Title By Rob Peterson (FanHouse) Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:00:00 AM

by Rob Peterson Filed under: Lakers Tip-Off Timer counts down the days until the first game of the 2009-10 season. On Sunday, there are 30 days remaining. When it comes to today's Los Angeles Lakers, there is no third way. There is no fence sitting and there are no maybes and no one

MLB continued from page 45

Howard, Phils ice Rockies in 9th at frozen Coors By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 10/12/2009 6:14:12 AM

Fast Facts • Brad Lidge got the save as the Phillies improved to 13-4 in their last 17 postseason games since being swept by the Rockies in the

2007 NLDS. • The Rockies' Carlos Gonzalez hit his first career postseason home run, had his first playoff RBI and finished a triple shy of the cycle (There has never been a postseason cycle). • The Phillies lead the series 2-1. Since the wild card was added in

More from ESPN.com It was an extraordinary win, against an extraordinary coach and an extraordinary quarterback who are partly, if not largely, responsible for Josh McDaniels getting the Broncos gig, writes Gene Wojciechowski. Story This time, it wasn't Tom Brady delivering the punch lines. It was Broncos quarterback Kyle Orton, writes Mike Reiss. Story • ESPNBoston.com says, "The Lakers? Meh. I can Kyle Orton and the Broncos are take 'em or leave 'em." There is either love or hate. showing anything is possible -even Joe Montana and John How do we love/hate thee? Elway comparisons, writes Bill Let us count the ways. Tip-Off Timer: Lakers Win 15th Williamson. Blog This content has passed through NBA Title originally appeared on Fanhouse NBA Blog on Mon, 12 fivefilters.org. Oct 2009 09:00:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Comments

1995, the team that won Game 3 of a 1-1 series went on to win 17 of those 21 series, including the last eight. -- ESPN Stats & Information This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

this thing somewhat — he helped define this Daily Fix thing, which means that when he writes a bigpicture piece about sportswriting, it’s worth reading. At the National Sports Journalism Institute Center, Jason uses examples from the medium’s masters to suss out the single cardinal rule of sports blogging. — Tip of the Fix cap to fellow

Fixer Garey Ris. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to us at [email protected] and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email David at [email protected].

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Activision announces Madagascar Kartz, misses crucial naming opportunity By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/12/2009 1:30:00 PM

How it is that a company as business savvy as Activision misses the staring-them-right-inthe-face opportunity to name a kart racing-themed Madagascar game "Madagaskartz," rather than Madagascar Kartz, is beyond us. However, that's just what the company has named its upcoming kart racer starring the cast of the eponymous movie coming to current-gen consoles on October 27th. Worried that the game might only be for kidz? Activision's By JC Fletcher (Joystiq) u n r e l e a s e d t r a c k . A n d i t ' l l By JC Fletcher (Joystiq) for me?' in that product." David Oxford claims the game premiere on Eminem's Sirius Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:30:00 AM A s f o r t h e o t h e r m a j o r was designed for all ages, saying, Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:30:00 PM radio station over a week before competition in the handheld " W i t h t h e w h o l e f a m i l y When you get home with your the game comes out, so it's more In an interview with The space? When discussing the DS's competing against each other as gigantic DJ Hero Renegade like no unreleased tracks. W a s h i n g t o n P o s t ' s M i k e advantages over the iPhone/iPod their favorite zoosters, you have Edition box, make sure to get After the break, as a reminder, Musgrove, Nintendo of America Touch platform, Fils-Aime made never seen action this wild." everything out of it. We know the we've included the full list of the president Reggie Fils-Aime the surprising move of referring to Clearly Mr. Oxford doesn't know temptation to just unfold the songs in the actual game. handily dismissed the DS's a third-party game, namely about our weekend trip to Tijuana case/table thing and start playing Gallery: DJ Hero Renegade competition, suggesting either that Scribblenauts. "That's a fabulous a month back. the game with that kind of Edition he doesn't feel threatened at all, or experience that can only be Gallery: Madagascar Kartz irresistible-looking novelty [Via Kotaku, This is 50] he feels really threatened (and the brought to life on the DS." Activision announces controller will be overwhelming, Continue reading DJ Hero history of DS sales makes us more Honestly, it probably could be Madagascar Kartz, misses crucial but if you turn the package over R e n e g a d e E d i t i o n ' s J a y - Z , likely to believe the former done on iPhone, but it hasn't and naming opportunity originally and shake it, exclusive greatest- Eminem compilations detailed interpretation). probably won't, which is just as appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 12 hits CDs from Jay-Z and Eminem DJ Hero Renegade Edition's Jay He said that the newly launched, good for Nintendo. Oct 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please will fall out. -Z, Eminem compilations detailed download-only PSP Go has a Reggie Fils-Aime on PSP Go: see our terms for use of feeds. Rolling Stone got the full list of originally appeared on Joystiq on "fundamental concept problem in 'What's the benefit?' originally Read| Permalink| Email this| tracks on both sets. Jay-Z's disc Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:30:00 EST. terms of 'Who's it for?' and appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 12 Comments sticks exclusively to past hits, but Please see our terms for use of 'What's the benefit?'" He added Oct 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please Eminem's includes a brand-new feeds. that he has the "utmost respect for see our terms for use of feeds. song, "Taking My Ball." That's Read| Permalink| Email this| all our competitors, but it's Read| Permalink| Email this| right, the "unreleased tracks" Comments interesting to try and answer the Comments mentioned on the box is really consumer question of 'What's in it

DJ Hero Renegade Edition's Jay-Z, Eminem compilations detailed

Reggie Fils-Aime on PSP Go: 'What's the benefit?'

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Around the Net In Media: Showtime Preps 'Dexter' Webisodes (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:06 AM

Following the season four premiere of "Dexter," Showtime is putting together a series of animated webisodes to accompany the series. "Dexter: Early Cuts" is a 12-part series consisting of four, 1-2 minute chapters, focusing on how Dexter's killing techniques evolved, from haphazard to the calculated methods seen on the show. The series is written by "Dexter" producer and writer Lauren Gussis and each webisode details. will have a different illustrator. Continue reading NintendoWare T h e s t o r i e s a r e d r i v e n b y Weekly: Pinball, Gravitronix, voiceover from Michael C. Hall, Final Fight 2 who plays Dexter. Other digital NintendoWare Weekly: Pinball, extensions for the show include G r a v i t r o n i x , F i n a l F i g h t 2 an online and mobile game and a originally appeared on Joystiq on Facebook application. Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:00 EST. This content has passed through Please see our terms for use of fivefilters.org. feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

This Wednesday: Sam & Max & NintendoWare Weekly: Pinball, Axel & Pixel on XBLA Gravitronix, Final Fight 2 By Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)

again. Axel & Pixel will set you back 800($10). Meanwhile, Sam & Xbox Live Arcade is heavy on Max tops out at the most you the ampersands this week as both should ever pay for a computer Axel & Pixel and the second game. Also known as 1600($20). season of Sam & Max(subtitled Gallery: Axel and Pixel B e y o n d T i m e a n d S p a c e , (XBLA) according to the ESRB) will be This Wednesday: Sam & Max landing on Microsoft's download & Axel & Pixel on XBLA service. Both are games of the originally appeared on Joystiq on adventuring persuasion, requiring Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:58:00 EST. players to traverse the game world Please see our terms for use of and solve puzzles, performing feeds. actions by pointing and / or Read| Permalink| Email this| clicking. Yes, you read that Comments correctly, two adventure games in one week. It's like the 80s all over Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:58:00 PM

By David Hinkle (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:00:00 PM

Usually, we can't fit all of the titles available for download across Nintendo platforms into the headline, but this week's NintendoWare Weekly post is an exception. Those anxious to get their hands on some digital wares will only find three games available this week -- so in the interest of keeping this train achuggin' along, let's get to the

Now Playing: October 12-18, 2009 By James Ransom-Wiley (Joystiq) Submitted at 10/12/2009 11:15:00 AM

Man, this watch is really hard to

read! Choose your platform to jump to a specific release list: Last updated: Monday, 12:17 PM

October 12-18, 2009 terms for use of feeds. Now Playing: October 12-18, Permalink| Email this| 2009 originally appeared on C o m m e n t s Joystiq on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 Continue reading Now Playing: 11:15:00 EST. Please see our

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Afghanistan's fraudulent election: Disunited nations (The Economist: News analysis)

says it needed to check the reports before releasing them. Mr Galbraith claims that almost Submitted at 10/12/2009 12:09:21 AM a third of the votes cast for Mr Afghanistan's fraudulent election Karzai were fraudulent. The Oct 12th 2009 | KABUL corollary is that, had the election From The Economist print been blemish-free, Mr Karzai edition Results in Afghanistan's would not have crossed the much-disputed election are due threshold of 50% of votes needed shortly to win without a second round. UNITED NATIONS officials The preliminary tally shows Mr must rue the day they tried to Karzai with 55% and Abdullah force Peter Galbraith, number two Abdullah, his closest rival, on at the UN mission in Kabul, to go 28%. Dr Abdullah has seized on quietly. Mr Galbraith, a former Mr Galbraith’s comments, saying American diplomat, has been Mr Eide had given a “green light anything but quiet since the UN to fraud”. Mr Eide has testily tried to gloss over the manner of denied any bias in favour of Mr his exit: he was sacked after a big Karzai. But it is hard to see how a row with his boss, Kai Eide, about second round can now be avoided. how to deal with the massive If Mr Karzai wins without one, Dr By blogeditor1 (Material c o n c e r t s / a w a r d s fraud in August’s election. Abdullah can cite Mr Galbraith’s Interest on Men.style.com) shows/internships.) The next big M r G a l b r a i t h h a s b e e n arguments to bolster a claim that things, per the West fashion complaining that not only did Mr the election was stolen. Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:56:12 AM forecast: more varsity jackets Eide fail to stop the cheating in Mr Eide stresses “process”, Good luck finding the clothes in (nattily done in mixed leather and the first place, he also “denied arguing that the election can still s t o r e s n o w o r a n y t i m e wool with metallic accents), significant fraud had taken place” b e s a l v a g e d i f t h e p r o p e r soon—debut date and even season bright colors, and, curiously, at all. In an article in the procedures are followed. These are still heartily TBD—but Kanye tigers. Check out the streetwear Washington Post on October 4th, i n v o l v e A f g h a n i s t a n ’ s West's first Pastelle lookbook blog SwaggerDap for more. he blamed Mr Eide for not Independent Election Commission shots have just hit the Web. PLUS: Check out West's 10 p r e v e n t i n g “ g h o s t p o l l i n g - (IEC), under the orders of the (They're likely authentic; the man E s s e n t i a l s . M A T T H E W stations”, in areas too dangerous f o r e i g n - c o n t r o l l e d E l e c t i o n himself has worn some of the S C H N E I E R P h o t o : to be secured or monitored, from Complaints Commission (ECC). pieces pictured to his various s w a g g e r d a p . c o m receiving voting papers and ballot The IEC is examining 10% of boxes. This meant boxes could be some 3,500 ballot boxes deemed stuffed by allies of Hamid Karzai, suspicious, either because of an the president. And he accused Mr unusually high turnout or because Eide of suppressing evidence almost all the votes went to one collected by UN staff on polling candidate. A final result is due day, showing a huge discrepancy around October 15th, almost two between the trickle of people who months after polling. voted and the large numbers of But not everyone is hopeful that ballots recorded as cast. The UN this audit can rescue the election.

What to wear with your blacked-out Rolex, Balmain tees, and Air Yeezys

The IEC has been shown to be riddled with incompetent, corrupt officials. Even if there is a second round it is unclear how the commission would reform itself in time. So far only four low-ranking officials have been sacked by the organisation, which is full of Mr Karzai’s appointees. And the ECC says it has no mandate to make recommendations that could improve a second round. Ashraf Ghani, the fourth-placed candidate argues that “process is the last refuge of the bureaucrat”. He is one of a small but growing group who believe the election is so tainted it should be abandoned altogether. Other options include a grand assembly or loya jirga to pick a new president. Francesc Vendrell, a former special representative in Afghanistan for both the UN and the EU, argues that for the foreign powers to accept this election would be an “enormous error”. He would like to see an interim government and fresh elections under a new IEC next year. If that happened, Mr Galbraith would have helped to bring down a process he only wanted conducted more rigorously. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The Nobel prize for economics: The bigger picture (The Economist: News analysis)

Ronald Coase, a British economist who won the Nobel prize in 1991, argued that in some Submitted at 10/12/2009 5:31:20 AM situations, and for some kinds of The Nobel prize for economics transactions, administrative Oct 12th 2009 decision-making within a single From Economist.com This legal entity (ie, a company) is year’s Nobel prize has rewarded m o r e e f f i c i e n t t h a n a the use of economics to answer s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d m a r k e t wider questions transaction. Mr Coase’s NEITHER Oliver Williamson of arguments were influential and the University of California at convinced economists that the Berkeley nor Elinor Ostrom of internal workings of organisations I n d i a n a U n i v e r s i t y a t were worth paying attention to Bloomington was widely tipped to explicitly. But it was left to Mr win this year’s Nobel prize for Williamson to refine Mr Coase’s economics. This may be because theory and clarify what features of their work sits at the boundary of certain transactions made carrying economics, law and political them out more efficient within a science, and tackles different firm rather than in the market. questions to the ones that Mr Williamson showed that economists have traditionally complex transactions involving studied. Ms Ostrom is also investment decisions that are notable as the first woman to win much more valuable within a the economics prize in its 40-year relationship than to a third party history. are best done within a firm. Part Mr Williamson and Ms Ostrom of the problem, he argued, was work independently of each other that some economic transactions but both have contributed plenty are so complicated, and involve so to economists’ understanding of many things which could go w h i c h i n s t i t u t i o n s — f i r m s , wrong, that writing a legally m a r k e t s , g o v e r n m e n t s , o r enforceable contract that takes all informal systems of social norms, possibilities into account is for example—are best suited for impossible. Simpler transactions conducting different types of are completed easily in markets; economic transactions. Why, for more complicated ones may example, do some transactions demand firms. But in later work take place within firms, while he also showed that organising o t h e r s a r e c a r r i e d o u t i n matters within companies had competitive markets? costs: in particular, it relied on

internal authority to get things done, and this could be abused. Ms Ostrom has concentrated on a different aspect of economic governance. She has spent her life studying how human societies manage common resources such as forests, rivers, pastures or wildlife. Just as with public goods, it is difficult to prevent people from using the commons. But unlike public goods, and like private ones, what one person takes leaves less for others. Economic theory then predicts that rational individuals will overuse these resources. Economists (including Mr Coase) have tended to emphasise property rights as a solution to the problem of managing common resources. Typically that involves either privatisation or putting the resource in government hands. But Ms Ostrom, who is a political scientist by training, spent much of her early career studying how communities managed such common resources. She found that groups of people tended to have complex sets of rules, norms and penalties to ensure that such resources were used sustainably. Such self-governance often worked well. Successful informal institutions, she found, have certain features in common, which sets them apart from institutions that fail. The principles of game theory,

particularly the theory of repeated interactions, proved remarkably useful in formulating general principles of how common resources ought to be managed without necessarily resorting to private or state ownership. Mr Williamson launched an entire branch of economic theorising which looks more deeply into firms than economists had tended to do previously. His theories have also helped with understanding the choice between equity and debt, and corporate finance more generally. Ms Ostrom’s research has spawned many experiments about how people interact strategically. Some of these have influenced game theory, which originally provided Ms Ostrom with her analytical tools. The Nobel committee’s decision, like earlier awards to Amartya Sen and Daniel Kahneman, is a welcome shot in the arm for research that crosses disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Around the Net In Media: Twitterverse Reels Over NBC's 'Southland' Cancellation (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:06 AM

NBC's surprise decision to sack "Southland" has ticked off the Twitterverse -- including not just viewers, but cast members on the show and other shows and reporters who cover the TV industry. Only seven episodes of the series aired, but fan response to the cancellation has been harsh toward NBC. More than a few fans linked the "Southland" cancellation to NBC's 10 p.m. Jay Leno strategy. The Hollywood community on Twitter seemed just as shattered. "Why don't GE shareholders realize Jeff Zucker's a rudderless buffoon (and) demand NBC clean house," asked Kurt Sutter, creator of FX's "Sons of Anarchy." Shawn Ryan, executive producer of Fox's "Lie to Me," began the Twitter outrage by tweeting news of the show's death when the story first broke in the mainstream media. Linda Holmes, who writes the Monkey See blog for NPR, worried about what the "Southland" slaying meant to the network's future drama development. "It suggests that NBC's simply getting out of the drama business," she tweeted. The most succinct reaction came from Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello: "NBC cancels 'Southland'. OMGWTF?!" This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The coming days: The week ahead (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 10/11/2009 2:53:04 AM

The coming days Oct 11th 2009 From Economist.com America's president must decide soon on his strategy for Afghanistan • BARACK OBAMA is pondering one of the hardest decisions of his presidency: whether to deploy additional soldiers to Afghanistan, as requested by his General there, Stanley McChrystal. Wrapped up in the question of whether to send tens of thousands of extra soldiers is whether to change strategy against the Taliban insurgency. European leaders, too, are coming under pressure to do more in Afghanistan. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, may decide to send more soldiers. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, may be more willing to do so too, with her re-election safely completed. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has yet to make good on promises to dispatch more soldiers to the war zone. See article • LATVIA'S prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, will meet coalition partners on Monday

October 12th to discuss budget cuts necessary to secure rescue loans from foreign governments. The economy has been contracting fast, but the government has failed to make big enough budget cuts to satisfy the EU, IMF and Sweden, which have put together a rescue package for Latvia. If the lenders were to pull out, prompting a debt crisis or a bank run, problems could then spread to Estonia or Lithuania. See article • THE governments of Turkey and Armenia are set to improve relations on Tuesday October 13th. The two countries have remained hostile to one another over the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the first world war. Armenia has long campaigned to have the killings recognised as genocide; Turkey says that wars claim victims on both sides. The two may restore diplomatic links and reopen the border that has been close since 1993. See article • THE annual progress on countries wishing to join the European Union is published on Wednesday October 14th. It may say that Croatia might conclude entry talks next year. Iceland,

which recently applied to join, is likely to be allowed to join relatively quickly too. But other countries have a lot more work to do. Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo face criticism for corruption and organised crime. Turkey will face a long wait, as both France and Germany have doubts about its application. See article • SOUTH AFRICA will conclude one of the biggest land deals on the African continent by finalising an agreement with the government of Congo on Wednesday October 14th. Some 10m hectares of land will be leased for as long as 105 years to South African farmers to grow maize and soya and rear cattle. South Africa has the most developed agriculture sector on the continent by outsiders, including France, Italy and China, are also signing deals to lease land in Africa. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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TV Watch: NBC's LessObvious Concerns: Medical Premiums And Typefaces (MediaPost | Media News)

takeover by the perceived cable operator cheapskate, Comcast Corp., does. The concern is that With critical darling "Southland" medical coverage won't be as out the door, and Jay Leno firmly good as that of the Peacock. in, NBC might be penny-pinching Comcast employees say not to these days, but also has has other worry. One employee said the worries to consider. cost of a knee surgery, including We are not talking about multiple doctor visits, MRIs, declining ratings or a still- physical therapy, and expensive weakened ad market. The real braces, came to an out-of-pocket worry is the future medical care of $125. A bargain. NBC employees -- and the Another said the monthly typefaces NBC used for its fall premium for a single person at marketing materials. Comcast comes to a mere $50 a The Font Bureau, a company month. (President Obama, are you that designs typefaces for firms listening to this?) like Apple Computer, The Wall So, don't worry about your Street Journal, and Newsweek, favorite soap star walking off the has filed suit against NBC set, the cancellation of your Universal and CNBC for failing favorite TV drama, or the morals to secure the advertising and of the top late-night talk-show promotion font rights for the likes host. of "The Jay Leno Show," Sweat the small details of the "Saturday Night Live" and "Late lowest-rated of the big four Night With Jimmy Fallon." broadcast networks. The most The names of some of these important thing: What is their cofonts sound like independent pay? movies: Bureau Grotesque, This content has passed through Interstate, and Antenna. fivefilters.org. If this doesn't have NBC employees worried, a possible Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:46:21 AM

Around the Net In Media: Comcast Could Create ESPN Rival With NBC (MediaPost | Media News)

sports assets. NBC controls the rights through 2012 for the Olympics and through 2013 for As Comcast CEO Brian L. Sunday night National Football Roberts considers a deal to take League games. majority control of NBC With NBC's high-end sports, Universal, people who know him Roberts could build Comcast's say he is most interested in NBC's smallish Versus sports channel Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:06 AM

into a bigger player. And with the NFL as a partner, Roberts could pressure the league to cut him a more robust deal to carry more football games. With NBC, Roberts will "have effectively created a potent competitor to ESPN," says Neal

Pilson, a former CBS sports executive. Pilson figures Comcast will use NBC Sports' national platform to complement its 11 regional sports networks, which include major markets such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Throw in Comcast's

Golf Channel and Versus, and the new entity clearly would be a serious challenger to ESPN. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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The coming days: The week ahead (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 10/11/2009 2:53:04 AM

The coming days Oct 11th 2009 From Economist.com America's president must decide soon on his strategy for Afghanistan • BARACK OBAMA is pondering one of the hardest decisions of his presidency: whether to deploy additional soldiers to Afghanistan, as requested by his General there, Stanley McChrystal. Wrapped up in the question of whether to send tens of thousands of extra soldiers is whether to change strategy against the Taliban insurgency. European leaders, too, are coming under pressure to do more in Afghanistan. Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown, may decide to send more soldiers. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, may be more willing to do so too, with her re-election safely completed. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has yet to make good on promises to dispatch more soldiers to the war zone. See article • LATVIA'S prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, will meet coalition partners on Monday

October 12th to discuss budget cuts necessary to secure rescue loans from foreign governments. The economy has been contracting fast, but the government has failed to make big enough budget cuts to satisfy the EU, IMF and Sweden, which have put together a rescue package for Latvia. If the lenders were to pull out, prompting a debt crisis or a bank run, problems could then spread to Estonia or Lithuania. See article • THE governments of Turkey and Armenia are set to improve relations on Tuesday October 13th. The two countries have remained hostile to one another over the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks during the first world war. Armenia has long campaigned to have the killings recognised as genocide; Turkey says that wars claim victims on both sides. The two may restore diplomatic links and reopen the border that has been close since 1993. See article • THE annual progress on countries wishing to join the European Union is published on Wednesday October 14th. It may say that Croatia might conclude entry talks next year. Iceland,

which recently applied to join, is likely to be allowed to join relatively quickly too. But other countries have a lot more work to do. Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo face criticism for corruption and organised crime. Turkey will face a long wait, as both France and Germany have doubts about its application. See article • SOUTH AFRICA will conclude one of the biggest land deals on the African continent by finalising an agreement with the government of Congo on Wednesday October 14th. Some 10m hectares of land will be leased for as long as 105 years to South African farmers to grow maize and soya and rear cattle. South Africa has the most developed agriculture sector on the continent by outsiders, including France, Italy and China, are also signing deals to lease land in Africa. Back to top ^^ Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

Around the Net In Media: TV Stations Offer MiniNewscasts to Woo Viewers (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 10/12/2009 8:30:06 AM

Newscasts running from 2½ to 12 minutes are finding viewers from Detroit to Knoxville to San Diego. The "snackable" programs hit home at a time when consuming short clips on YouTube and news sites are a part of life for many. "In today's world, where everybody's racing around, we thought it made sense," says XETV San Diego general manager Richard Doutre Jones. Other stations include: Acme's WBBX Knoxville, which partners with Gannett's WBIR to air a 12minute news show as well as an 11-minute news pod on WBND

South Bend. The bite-sized local programs let TV stations get into the news game cheaply or help them extend their news brand into a new time slot. A short newscast also prevents them from cannibalizing the newscast put out by a news partner in the market. With weather still the main reason viewers tune into news, most stations are simply seeking to scoop the competition with tomorrow's forecast. "Sometimes people who stay up for news just want to go to bed. Now, in 11 minutes, boom-they get everything they need," says Doutre Jones. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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Health insurance group attacks reforms (Financial Times - US homepage)

sabotage reform,” said Richard Kirsch, head of Health Care for America Now, the largest group Submitted at 10/12/2009 9:39:18 AM advocating reform. “Of course The White House and the health they’re coming out with guns insurance industry on Monday blazing at the 11th hour. They’re descended into open conflict on out to protect their money and the eve of a critical Senate vote their power, and they’ll go to any that could determine the fortunes lengths – including circulating of Barack Obama’s healthcare fake information – to stop real reform plans. change.” Supporters of Mr Obama A spokesman for Max Baucus, accused the healthcare insurance chairman of the Senate finance industry of attempted “sabotage” committee, which is to vote on after it issued a PwC study Tuesday on its $829bn 10-year arguing that premiums would rise healthcare reform plan, described much faster under proposed the report as a “hatchet job, pure r e f o r m s t h a n t h e y w o u l d and simple”. The report identifies otherwise have. four elements in the “Baucus The 26-page report marked an plan” that would raise costs for abrupt end to the unlikely alliance average policyholders. between Mr Obama and These include steps that would America’s Health Insurance Plans reduce the number of Americans – the main industry lobby group, forced to take up health insurance which has spent about $100m by lowering the fine levied on (€68m, £63m) in advertising in individuals who declined to take favour of the reforms. The report out a policy. It also highlights estimates that premiums for the proposed taxes on the so-called average household would rise to “Cadillac plans” – the more $17,200 a year by 2013 under the expensive health insurance plans, proposed reforms as against amounting to more than $8,000 a $15,500 without the reforms. year for individuals and $21,000 a Today’s average annual premium year for families. And it also is $12,300. highlights the more than $400bn “This is a transparent attempt by i n c u t s t o M e d i c a r e , t h e the health insurance industry to programme for seniors, that

would be used to help pay for the subsidies to expand US insurance. The rancorous split between the White House and the health insurance lobby could make it far tougher for Mr Obama to push through healthcare reform. In 1993, AHIP played a key role in sinking the Clinton administration’s healthcare reforms when it sponsored the controversial “Harry and Louise” advertisements that persuaded many Americans that reform would undermine their existing coverage. Harry and Louise famously switched sides in 2009 to back Mr Obama’s reform efforts. However, many liberal supporters of Mr Obama alleged that the White House paid too high a price for the support of the health insurance industry, most notably by signalling flexibility over the inclusion of a “public option”, or government insurance plan, which was anyway jettisoned under the Baucus plan. Tuesday’s vote on the 23-member committee will be a key test of whether Mr Obama can keep conservative Democrats onside. This content has passed through fivefilters.org.

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