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Conservative Rubio pulls ahead in Florida Republican primary Tim Gaynor (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/24/2010 2:18:35 PM

Conservative Republican Marco Rubio is building a lead over moderate Governor Charlie Crist in Florida’s Republican Senate primary, a contest highlighting the perils facing party moderates in this rambunctious election year, a poll shows.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Republican primary voters released this week showed Rubio, a former Florida House Speaker, with 54 percent support against Crist’s 36 percent. A poll in January had Rubio ahead by 13 points.

The primary race has echoes in Arizona, where veteran Senator John McCain faces his strongest challenge yet from fiery conservative J.D. Hayworth, who is attacking his “moderate record” on taxes, social issues and the bank bailout.

Rubio, who like Hayworth is a

favorite of Tea Party conservative activists who hope to make a splash in the 2010 congressional election and beyond, is campaigning on issues including opposition to “excessive and wasteful spending in Washington” and big government.

He is assailing Crist for taking funds from the $787 billion

federal government stimulus, and for his willingness to work with Democratic President Barack Obama — a definite nono with Republican hard-liners.

“While Republicans were advocating for targeted efforts based on broad-based tax relief and spending reforms, Charlie Crist ignored those efforts, instead siding with Barack

White House healthcare summit live blog Reuters Staff (Front Row Washington)

Live coverage of President Obama’s meeting with

lawmakers on healthcare reform.

Obama and congressional Democrats in favor of the largest spending bill in American history,” Rubio said in a statement released on Wednesday.

“The differences between my opponent and me on the stimulus and on the virtues of limited government versus a heavyhanded, big-spending

government represent the defining issues of this campaign,” he added.

Crist, a popular governor who until recently was seen as a shoo -in for the party’s Senate nomination, said last month that he had no regrets about working with Obama, and that accepting the funds was “the right thing to do.”

“We needed the money. And it saved 87,000 jobs in our state, and you know, I was raised to respect the presidency of the United States,” he said.

A Quinnipiac University poll in late January had Rubio with a more slender three-point lead in the race, which is tipped to be hard-fought all the way to polling day on Aug. 24.

Click here for more political news from Reuters.

Reuters photo by Mark Wallheiser

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Hillary says Congressional gridlock challenges U.S. world stature David Morgan (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:01:52 PM

The partisan gridlock that has paralyzed Congress during much of the Obama administration may have farreaching implications for America’s stature in the world, according to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton said U.S. partners overseas have been confused about the Senate’s inability to approve President Barack Obama’s appointments to top diplomatic jobs, including assistant secretary of state positions and ambassadorships.

“It became harder and harder to explain to countries, particularly countries of significance, why we had nobody in position for them to interact with,” Clinton told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the Obama budget plan for fiscal year 2011.

She said the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers U.S. civilian

Obama’s top adviser on foreign policy.

“Their view does color whether the United States is in a position — not just this president, but our country — is in a position going forward to demonstrate the kind of unity and strength and effectiveness that I think we have to in this very complex and dangerous world.”

“We have to be attuned to how the rest of the world sees the functioning of our government, because it’s an asset. It may be an intangible asset, but it’s an asset of great importance. And as we sell democracy, and we’re the lead democracy in the world, f o r e i g n a i d t o c o u n t r i e s congressional gridlock has I want people to know we have including quake-stricken Haiti, weakened Obama and the U.S. checks and balances but we also still lacks a complete team to run presidency overseas during the have the capacity to move, too,” she added. its operations. past year.

C l i n t o n a l s 0 w e n t “There is certainly a perception Click here for more political further, under questioning from that I encounter in representing news from Reuters.

S e n . A r l e n S p e c t e r o f our country around the world Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry P e n n s y l v a n i a , a f o r m e r t h a t s u p p o r t s y o u r Downing (U.S. Secretary of Republican who jumped to the characterization. People just State Hillary Clinton at a U.S. Democratic Party in 2009. don’t understand the way our S e n a t e A p p r o p r i a t i o n s Specter asked if she could system operates, they just don’t Committee hearing, April 30, confirm his perception that get it,” replied Clinton, who is 2009.)

Hold the panic on Italian Google verdict Advertisement: (Inc.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 7:55:00 AM

Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 1:23:00 PM

An Italian court's stunning decision to convict three Google

executives for failing to prescreen user-generated content could be hard--but not impossible--to be repeated elsewhere.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

Options Update: HSBC Holdings March Put Volatility Elevated into EPS Paul Foster (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Options HSBC Holdings( HBC) closed at $55.23. HBC is expected to report Q4 EPS on March 2.

March put option implied volatility is at 39, April and June puts are 34; above its 26-week average of 32, according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement.

Petrobras( PBR) closed at $41.58. PBR is expected to report Q4 EPS in early March.

Crude oil futures are recently down 0.58% to $79.54 a barrel according to Bloomberg. March put option implied volatility is at 37, July is at 38; versus its 26week average of 39, according to Track Data, suggesting nondirectional price movement.

Update is by Stock Specialist P a u l F o s t e r o f theflyonthewall.com Options Update: HSBC Holdings March Put Volatility Elevated into EPS originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Warren sees dark times if financial reform fails

Target Earnings Surge over 50% in Q4

David Morgan (Front Row Washington)

Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)

reform. Republicans fear such an institution could fall into the hands of people hostile to Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:32:06 AM financial markets.

Elizabeth Warren paints a But if financial reform fails disturbing picture of the realities and the status quo remains? facing the United States and the Then the economic problems Obama administration as grow until they shake Americans claw their way clear international confidence in the of the worst recession since the American economy and prompt 1930s. other countries to wonder why Lobbyists for the financial they’re holding U.S. Treasury industry have put the kibosh on securities. market reforms that would aid “We’re in a place right now the recovery. Banks, saved from where having pumped all this Tartarus by taxpayer money, are money into the financial u s i n g a f r e e g o v e r n m e n t you at zero and you go out there institutions, their response has guarantee against failure to and figure out what you can been to hold it,” Warren said. rebuild profits and credit ratings, squeeze out of every American “If we don’t have any jobs, if while either not lending to family. No new rules’,” she told we’re not producing anything, if business or trying to milk MSNBC. we don’t have any genuine American consumers of every W h y h a v e t h e r u l e s n o t wealth that we create, there’s a dime they’ve still got. changed? “There are very reason other countries are “That’s our plan to rebuild the powerful interests that believe worried about holding our American economy. Think about that they can profit from keeping paper.” it,” says the bespectacled status quo.”

“I’m not the politician,” she Harvard professor who chairs Warren is seen as a front-runner added. “I just know what needs the Congressional Oversight t o h e a d P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k to be done.”

Panel set up to investigate the Obama’s proposed Consumer Click here for more Reuters $700 billion banking bailout.

Financial Protection Agency. political news.

“What the government is doing But the notion of a free-standing Photo credit: Reuters/Mike right now is, it’s permitting a set CFPA has emerged as a main Theiler (Elizabeth Warren) of rules that says, in effect: obstacle to broader financial ‘Hey, banks. We will lend to

3

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:30:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Wal-Mart (WMT), Target Corp.

(TGT), Costco Wholesale (COST) Target ( TGT), a chain that competes with Costco ( COST) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), among others, delivered some amazing growth in the fourth quarter. Of course, it might not be so amazing in a sense, considering how far we've come in the bad economic cycle.

Shareholders should have been delighted Tuesday by the results, though shares surprisingly dropped almost 3% on the news (by market's close Wednesday, they had climbed back up to $50.99).

According to our retail summary, income jumped over 50% to $1.24 per share. This number beat expectations.

Target held up well during the

competitive holiday shopping rush. In addition, as mentioned in the press release, the company didn't have to contend with a loss at its credit card segment. It was profitable this time around, thankfully.

Continue reading Target Earnings Surge over 50% in Q4 Target Earnings Surge over 50% in Q4 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How to shoot product photos from your garage (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:52:27 PM

Ray Dobbins shows gives us a

behind-the-scenes look at how to shoot product photos, like the one above, in your own home.

Ray’s process is particularly interesting, as he takes pictures

of vintage Italian bikes—a tricky product to shoot.

See how Ray does it at his Web site.

More on cycling.

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US senator says no way to $200 million for 9/11 trial security Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:20:59 PM

Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins rarely raises her voice to emphasize a point but on Wednesday she spoke forcefully against spending some $200 million on security for the trials of the five men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, including the selfprofessed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

“It’s the safe assumption that Congress is not going to appropriate $200 million for the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City,” Collins told Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during a hearing on the department’s fiscal 2011 budget.

“It is not going to happen,” she said, adding that some of the money would be better spent on other things, such as resources for the U.S. Coast Guard.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder had decided last November to hold the criminal trials of the five individuals in lower Manhattan but New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed his support of doing so because he feared it would cause a virtual lockdown in that part of town, hurting business and possibly costing $200 million

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New Business Computers from Toshiba Nadine Heintz (Inc.com)

"parks" the hard drive heads when it detects sudden movements, LCD display Yesterday, Toshiba unveiled protection, and a spill resistant two new business laptops with keyboard. A handy USB Sleeptouch capabilities: The Satellite and-Charge port lets you charge Pro U500 and the Portégé M780 a phone or camera even when Tablet PC. the notebook is asleep. Price: The new Portégé convertible $1,279 and up notebook has a 12.1-inch LED The Satellite Pro U500 is backlit display that swivels to powered by an Intel Core convert to tablet mode. It comes processor and comes loaded with with an Intel Core processor and Windows 7 Professional and an for security. there will be costs associated faster DDR3 memory than its I n t e l G r a p h i c s M e d i a A s a r e s u l t , t h e O b a m a with those trials,” she said. predecessor. The touch-enabled Accelerator. The notebook has a administration has been forced Napolitano also said that no n o t e b o o k i s l o a d e d w i t h 13.3-inch multi-touch display to reconsider where to hold the matter where the trials are held, Windows 7 Professional, though and a hard drive impact sensor, trials and even weigh whether it a security assessment will be there's an option to downgrade along with a built-in webcam would be better to prosecute the required which would dictate the to Windows XP Professional. with face recognition log-in.

Ideal for computing on the go, it Price: Starting at five individuals in a special costs. military commission trial rather When Collins asserted that costs has an impact sensor that than in a criminal court. would be dramatically less if the Napolitano said she had not trials were held on a military been a part of those renewed base, Napolitano declined to (Holy Kaw!) Third, you can learn about the discussions but said President concede the point. body-fat content of elite athletes Barack Obama expects trials of Click here for more Reuters Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:38:00 PM liks Apolo Ohno. terrorism suspects in the United political news.

States. (Republicans have Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Want to understand the science Finally, learn how the U.S. pressed to hold the trials at the Young (Napolitano and Holder of the Winter Olympics? Here skeleton team used a high-tech are four sources to get you simulator to practice for the prison at Guantanamo Bay, during a task force meeting.) started. First, the science of ice Olympics.

Cuba.) skating.

Total coverage of the Winter “If the trials are moved from Second, you can listen to the Olympics.

New York City, nonetheless science of curling.

Permalink| Leave a comment » Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:10:21 AM

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Assisted suicide: focus switched to suspect's motive on prosecutions (Top stories from Times Online)

can be it described as a numbers game."

He added: "The policy does not Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:09:38 AM change the law on assisted Message from fivefilters.org: If suicide. It does not open the you can, please donate to the full door for euthanasia.

-text RSS service so we can "It does not override the will of continue developing it.

Parliament. What it does do is to The motivation of people who provide a clear framework for help loved ones to die will be the prosecutors to decide which crucial factor in deciding if they cases should proceed to court should face prosecution under and which should not." landmark guidelines issued The new final version of the today. policy, arrived at after responses T h e D i r e c t o r o f P u b l i c to the draft from nearly 5000 Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, has individuals and organisations, revised his draft policy on makes some key changes. assisted suicide to shift the focus The changes would not make away from the plight of the prosecution more or less likely, v i c t i m t o t h e s u s p e c t ’ s the DPP said. Nor do they relax intentions. or tighten the policy.

Campaigners for the right-to-die But there was a strong view that welcomed the ground-breaking factors against prosecution guidelines, in w h i c h "should not focus on the compassion is a key factor, and behaviour and characteristics of which set out for the first time the victim but should more factors the Crown Prosecution properly be centred on the Service will take into account actions and role of the suspect." when deciding on whether to "I agree with that and the policy prosecute. has been refocused."

But the policy does not change Reaction to the new guidelines the law, decriminalise assisted was as swift and it was varied. suicide or in any way open the Whilst Sarah Wootton, chief door to "mercy-killing," Mr executive of Dignity in Dying Starmer insisted today. called the guidelines a "victory No case of assisted suicide f o r c o m m o n s e n s e a n d could be guaranteed immunity; compassion.", Paul Tully, of and the decision about a anti-euthanasia group SPUC Pro prosecution would look at each -Life said the new policy case on its merits. "effectively decriminalises "It is not a tick box exercise. Nor assisted suicide in a wide range

of circumstances" The Church of England repeated its call for relatives and carers to resist requests to help a loved one die, saying that the guidelines "do not provide blanket immunity from prosecution, nor do they give prior permission to break the law.” It added that "most compassionate course is to provide love, support and the best possible medical and nursing care, not to acquiesce in requests for assisted suicide.

Compassion does not always mean saying ‘yes’."

The factors against prosecution "are now centred on the voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision of the victim and the behaviour of the suspect and the rationale behind his or her encouragement or assistance."

As a result, the new policy drops the issue of whether the "victim" has a terminal, incurable illness or disability or severe degenerative condition from which there is no possibility of recovery.

There was concern that the inclusion of this could be seen as discriminatory, such as to those with a serious illness or disability.

Some groups representing those with disabilities also felt that including this factor implied that the lives of those affected

"were less valued."

Lord Carlile QC, chairman of Care Not Killing welcome the removal, saying, “Our main concern was that the interim guidelines singled out as a group those who were disabled or ill, thereby affording them less protection than other people under the law.

“We are very glad this has been removed. There are still some flaws and problems which will need attention, such as how a compassionate suspect’s motives are to be determined in practice.”

Yet Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope said: “We do not support any weakening of the protection offered under the law on assisted suicide, which is exactly what these new guidelines do.

“Many disabled people are frightened by the consequences of these new guidelines and with good reason. There is a real danger these changes will result in disabled people being pressured to end their lives.

The new policy also removes the question of whether the suspect was a spouse, partner or close relative or friend of the victim.

Responses to the initial guidance, published last September, argued that such relationships could be "antagonistic or manipulative".

The eight pages of guidelines which contain 16 public interest factors in favour of prosecution and six public interest factors against prosecution were released this morning along with a 45-page summary of responses.

The policy takes immediate effect. The vast majority of responses were from individual members of the public.

Academics, health workers, politicians and religious groups also contributed their views.

There was a majority view did not support a factor in the draft guidelines that the victim had "clear, settled and informed decision" to commit suicide.

But Mr Starmer said that in his view, this factor was "central" to any assessment of a case of assisted suicide.

The factor therefore remains in an amended form, making clear that the decision is also "voluntary."

There is also a new factor in favour of prosecution where the suspect had history of violence or abuse against the victim.

A further change is a broader category of health care professionals so that now a factor in favour of prosecution is where the suspect was acting as a medical or health care ASSISTED page 9

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Relatives who profit from assisted suicide may not be charged (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

Draft guidelines published last year had led to warnings that family members assisting a suicide would be more likely to face charge because they almost Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:14:45 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If inevitably stand to make some you can, please donate to the full financial gain from a relative's -text RSS service so we can death. continue developing it.

Some of the most controversial

By James Kirkup, Political sections of the draft guidelines Correspondent were abandoned on Thursday Published: 3:14PM GMT 25 after what Mr Starmer called an Feb 2010 “extraordinary” response to a New guidelines on assisted public consultation exercise, suicide issued by Keir Starmer, with almost 5,000 groups and the Director of Public individuals expressing views Prosecutions, mean someone on the rules. driven “wholly” by compassion As the Daily Telegraph revealed to help bring about a suicide o n S a t u r d a y , t h e C r o w n should not be charge with a Prosecution Service dropped crime. draft guidelines that would have Under a “common sense” given spouses special protection approach, Mr Starmer said that from charges and made charges the simple fact of a potential less likely where a victim had financial gain would not justify a made previous attempts at p r o s e c u t i o n . O n l y w h e r e suicide. financial gain is shown to be the Nor will prosecutors be told that motivation for assisting suicide charges should be less likely will charges be likely. where the victim was “If it is shown that compassion t e r m i n a l l y i l l . was the only driving force The CPS has taken the behind his or her actions, the unprecedented step of setting out fact that the suspect may have how someone could commit a gained some benefit will not crime in England and Wales and usually be treated as a factor not be charged as a result of a t e n d i n g i n f a v o u r o f ruling by the House of Lords. p r o s e c u t i o n , ” t h e n e w The Law Lords accepted an guidelines said. argument from Debbie Purdy,

who suffers from multiple sclerosis, that her husband should know in advance if he would be charged if he helped her to end her own life.

Mr Starmer insisted that his new guidelines made it neither more nor less likely that people would be prosecuted for helping suicides. But that assurance failed to persuade some charities, who warned that legal protection for disabled and vulnerable people had been watered down.

The draft guidelines had put more emphasis on the victim, their medical condition and previous actions.

By contrast, the new guidelines put the focus on the person who assists a suicide and says decision to prosecute depends largely on their motives and actions, and less on the nature and actions of victim.

Mr Starmer set out a list of factors for prosecutors to consider when deciding whether to charge someone who had assisted a suicide.

There are 16 factors that will favour a prosecution, meaning charges are more likely if the victim is under 18, was put under pressure to choose suicide or had not clearly signalled their desire to die.

Prosecution is also more likely if the person assisting is a doctor or nurse or a member of an organisation promoting suicide.

People who have previously abused or harmed the victim are also more likely to be charged.

Six factors weigh against a prosecution, and mean that charges are less likely where someone assists a suicide reluctantly, acts solely because of compassion, tries to dissuade the victim from suicide, and co-operates with police inquiries into the death.

Significantly, Mr Starmer said that a single factor on one side of the balance could outweigh multiple factors on the other side. That could mean that where a suspect acted solely out of compassion, no charges would follow even if there were several reasons to prosecute.

But he insisted that the new rules could not give anyone complete certainty that they would not be charged. “This is not a tick-box exercise,” he said, saying all cases would be judged on their own merits.

The DPP said it was impossible to say if the new guidance would result in more or fewer cases of assisted suicide, or if the number of prosecutions would

change.

Campaigners seeking to make assisted suicide easier said they were pleased by the changes.

Mrs Purdy said she was “overwhelmed and delighted” by the “victory” on prosecutions.

The new guidelines would make it easier for her and her husband to make decisions about her death, she said.

Sarah Wootton of Dignity in Dying, a charity, said the guidelines were “a significant breakthrough for choice and control at the end of life for those who feel they are suffering unbearably.”

Scope, a charity for the disabled, warned the new guidelines weaken legal protections for victims of assisted suicide.

Scope said: “Many disabled people are frightened by the consequences of these new guidelines and with good reason.

There is a real danger these changes will result in disabled people being pressured to end their lives.”

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continue developing it.

Understanding American fashion magazines.

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

Tweet, Tweet Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic - All Feed)

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Mother who starved daughter Khyra Ishaq to death cleared of murder (Top stories from Times Online)

fridge full of food, which had had a special lock fitted to prevent Khyra and other Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:30:31 AM children helping themselves.

Message from fivefilters.org: If On the rare occasions that you can, please donate to the full Khyra and other children were -text RSS service so we can fed, they were given dry bread continue developing it. or one bowl of porridge between A mother who starved her seven them, which they had to eat with -year-old daughter to death has their hands on the floor. been cleared of her murder and If the children were caught h a d h e r p l e a o f g u i l t y t o taking food they were punished manslaughter accepted. with “detention” and made to Prosecutors accepted Angela stand outside in the cold, beaten Gordon’s defence of diminished with a cane or made to overeat responsibility over the death of until they were sick.

Khyra Ishaq.

During the trial, a young Junaid Abuhamza, her partner witness told how Khyra was and a diagnosed schizophrenic, forced to stand in just boxer h a d a m a n s l a u g h t e r p l e a shorts in front of a fan for 24 accepted earlier in the trial hours because she had been following a report on his mental “rude”. In testimony which health. made jurors weep, the witness It brings to an end a traumatic described beatings with a stick trial where jurors were told of and times when “Khyra was in the girl's severely emaciated the shed, she had to sleep in the condition at the time of her death shed if she had been rude”. in Handsworth, Birmingham, in Gordon has also admitted five May 2008. charges of child cruelty relating Medical professionals treating to other children in her care, Khyra after she was rushed to who cannot be identified for hospital said her condition was legal reasons. “outside of their experience”. The decision to accept Gordon’s Doctors likened her appearance plea of not guilty to murder was to that of a famine victim and taken in the sixth week of a p r o s e c u t o r s s a i d s h e w a s retrial after several days of “literally skin and bone”. psychiatric assessment and legal The court was shown pictures argument. An earlier trial last of a well-stocked kitchen and a year abandoned after a number

of jurors fell ill.

The pair will be sentenced on Friday next week.

Explaining the decision not to pursue the murder charge against Gordon, Timothy Raggatt, QC, for the prosecution, said it was extraordinary that her mental state was raised so late in the trial. There had been no mention of it until the murder charge against her partner was dropped earlier this month.

But three psychiatrists agreed that she was suffering from severe depression in the month before Khyra died at her home in Leyton Road, Handsworth, Birmingham.

“For that reason we cannot resist the defence of diminished responsibility, now raised for the first time. It is extraordinary that it emerges so late (in the trial) but the sole reason for that is the denial... that Angela Gordon has put up around herself for all these months,” he said.

Children’s services at Birmingham City Council, which have been criticised by Ofsted and subjected to special measures, will again come under the spotlight as a result of the case, as will the lack of statutory regulation around home education.

Khyra was withdrawn from

school in December 2007, five months before she died.

The school informed social workers of the situation, and two of them visited the property in late February but were refused entry by Gordon. However they did see Khyra and other children living there and said they had no concerns about their wellbeing.

They passed the case on to the home education team who had already seen round the home and room for use as the classroom.

Under current law there is no responsibility on local authorities to monitor home education, although new legislation to come into force shortly will tighten the law and oblige all families to register with the council. Local authority officials will have new powers to visit the home and check children are making progress, and have the right to speak to the children alone.

The Conservatives say they will reverse this law if they win the election.

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Madoff Family Members Want to Change Last Name (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:32:20 AM

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NEW YORK One of Bernard Madoff's daughters-in-law says she and her children shouldn't have to bear the burden of his name.

Stephanie Madoff filed court papers in Manhattan on Wednesday asking to change her last name to Morgan. She made the same request for her two children.

She's married to the jailed financier's son, Mark. She says her family has gotten threats, and she wants to drop the Madoff name to avoid "additional humiliation" and harassment. Her lawyer declined to comment.

Mark Madoff says in court papers he doesn't object.

Bernard Madoff is serving a 150-year prison sentence after admitting he cheated investors out of billions of dollars through an investment Ponzi scheme. His lawyer didn't immediately return a call Wednesday.

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'Devastated' Wayne Bridge snubs England over John Terry sex scandal

And Of Course: AFACT Appeals iiNet Ruling

(Top stories from Times Online)

Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Sources close to Bridge had hinted on several occasions that he would find it extremely Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:39:11 AM difficult to be part of the same Message from fivefilters.org: If England squad as Terry, but you can, please donate to the full Capello stated as recently as -text RSS service so we can Tuesday that he firmly expected continue developing it. both players to resolve the Wayne Bridge stunned Fabio matter for the sake of the Capello this morning by turning national team. his back on his England career, Bridge was due to be included saying that his position had been alongside Terry in a provisional r e n d e r e d “ u n t e n a b l e a n d 30-man squad for the friendly potentially divisive” by the John match against Egypt at Wembley Terry affair. next Wednesday, but he The Manchester City full-back informed Capello earlier today a n n o u n c e d i n a s t a t e m e n t that he felt he could not be part released by his lawyers that he of the national team for as long has declared himself unavailable as Terry – who has been stripped for selection for England, a of the captaincy over this and move that almost certainly rules other allegations about his him out of contention for the private life – is involved.

World Cup finals.

In a statement, Bridge said: “I Bridge has spent the past three have thought long and hard weeks weighing up his options about my position in the since being devastated by the England football team in the revelation that his former light of the reporting and events partner, Vanessa Perroncel, had over the last few weeks. It has an affair with Terry, his former always been an honour to play Chelsea team-mate. for England. However, after

careful thought I believe my position in the squad is now untenable and potentially divisive. Sadly therefore I feel for the sake of the team and in order to avoid what will be inevitable distractions, I have decided not to put myself forward for selection. I have today informed the management of this decision. I wish the team all the very best in South Africa.”

Although Bridge is not one of England’s most important players, the news is a huge blow to Capello, not least because Ashley Cole, the first-choice left-back, is struggling to be fit for the World Cup after suffering a broken ankle earlier this month. Capello stated confidently earlier this week that Bridge was “the No 2 leftback”, capable of filling in for Cole in South Africa if required, but that role is now likely to fall to Leighton Baines or Stephen Warnock.

The news will also bring

Top 10 mispronounced food words (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:55:25 PM

Next time you’re trying to impress a cultured date, you’ll be thankful you read about how to pronounce these commonly mangled food names. My

favorites for instance are Huitlacoche (wheet-lah-KOH-

chay) and Pho (fuh).

Read the full story at the Chicago Tribune.

More on food and Asian food.

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Terry’s position in the squad under fresh scrutiny. Although Capello would not hesitate to choose the former captain over Bridge if he had been required to do so, the Chelsea defender will now be held responsible for the loss of a popular team-mate.

Bridge will be unable to avoid Terry in the immediate term, however, with Chelsea and City locking horns in the Barclays Premier League on Saturday afternoon at Stamford Bridge.

With Bridge said to be unwilling to shake Terry’s hand as part of the pre-match festivities and with three of his team-mates having publicly displayed “Team Bridge” T-shirts during the 2-0 win over Portsmouth earlier this month, it promises to be a tempestuous occasion.

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:53:21 AM

This isn't a huge surprise, but down in Australia, AFACT, a group representing the major movie studios, which had already fought having to pay iiNet's legal fees after getting trounced in court, is appealing the ruling itself. You had to figure this would happen. The studios weren't going to go down without a fight. The main part of the appeal is AFACT claiming that iiNet somehow authorized copyright infringement by not stopping infringement:"The court found large scale copyright infringements, that iiNet knew they were occurring, that iiNet had the contractual and technical capacity to stop them and iiNet did nothing about them." But that actually ignores both reality and what the ruling said. What it found was that, indeed, large scale infringement was occurring, but that it was impossible for iiNet to be an effective copyright cop since copyright infringement was something for the court to decide, not for some ISP to just guess. Either way, this case won't be over for quite some time...

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Viktor Yanukovych inaugurated as Ukraine's president (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

minister, in an election run-off that the international community ruled was broadly free and fair.

Mrs Tymoshenko later challenged what she said was a Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:17:50 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If falsified result through the you can, please donate to the full c o u n t r y ' s c o u r t s o n l y t o -text RSS service so we can unexpectedly drop the matter continue developing it. within days for reasons that

By Andrew Osborn in Moscow remain unclear.

Published: 3:17PM GMT 25 With policies that are far more Feb 2010 Kremlin-friendly than his Mr Yanukovych smiled broadly predecessor's, Mr Yanukovych as he was inaugurated in the had been expected to make his Ukrainian parliament in Kiev, first foreign visit to Moscow in revelling in his unlikely rise order to pay symbolic homage to from the political dead just five U k r a i n e ' s f o r m e r i m p e r i a l years after being cast into the master. Russia has made no political wilderness by the secret of the fact that it sees country's pro-Western Orange Ukraine as falling within its own Revolution. sphere of influence.

"I know what to do and how to But aides say Mr Yanukovych do it," he promised, going on to is just as keen to forge closer ties theatrically cite the Bible in an with Europe as with Russia and effort to persuade his opponents therefore deliberately decided to i n p a r l i a m e n t t o w o r k make Brussels his first foreign c o n s t r u c t i v e l y w i t h h i m . stopover in an early attempt to E a r l i e r t h i s m o n t h , M r alter his image as a relentlessly Yanukovych, 59, narrowly pro-Russian politician. defeated arch rival Yulia He will visit Brussels on T y m o s h e n k o , t h e p r i m e Monday and only get to Moscow

on Friday.

Mr Yanukovych inherits a country whose public finances are shot to pieces and one that hopes to extract a further multibillion dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund.

He conceded as much: "The country is in a very difficult situation. There is no agreed state budget for this year, foreign debt is huge, there is poverty, the economy is in ruins, and there is corruption," he told parliament.

"Yet, I do believe that we cannot only save the state from socioeconomic collapse but that we can quickly put it on the path of accelerated development." He now faces the tricky task of wining the support of most MPs in parliament so that a new government and prime minister of his choice can be appointed.

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ASSISTED continued from page 5

professional or was a "person in authority."

Mr Starmer has also removed the previous weighting given to some factors, to make the policy clearer and more accessible.

Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, but individual decisions on prosecution are made depending on the circumstances in each case.

The interim policy was published in September and has been in force since.

Mr Starmer was forced to issue the guidelines after a Law Lords ruling in favour of Debbie Purdy, who has multiple sclerosis.

She wanted to know whether her husband would be prosecuted for helping her to end her life.

Campaigners for the right to die welcomed the initial guidelines and called for the Government to legislate on the issue, but ministers were reluctant to intervene.

Critics have complained that Mr Starmer was effectively legalising assisted suicide.

In the Commons today, MPs called for a debate on the issue.

Conservative MP Mark

New Opera 10.50 beta aims to surpass Chrome Seth Rosenblatt (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 3:39:00 PM

The latest beta of Opera makes improvements to its muchdiscussed new JavaScript engine, and indicates that the

Norwegian browser publisher intends on remaining competitive.

Originally posted at The

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Pritchard said: "There is real concern out in the community that this House is not having a say. People are very concerned that this is a new back door to euthanasia in the UK." Labour’s David Winnick stressed the importance of debating the policy "in view of the controversy about assisted suicide".

Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP, called for the law to be changed by parliament. “No guidelines will ever be able to distinguish, with the clarity needed, between compassionate assistance to relieve terminal suffering of competent adults, and wicked assisted suicide of the mentally ill - legislation is needed, and Parliament should act,� he said.

Gordon Brown has warned against legalising assisted suicide, saying it would run the risk of putting vulnerable people under pressure to end their lives.

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MPs blast 'ridiculous' pay in RBS bonus row (Top stories from Times Online)

December 31 is less than the £5 billion expected and far below the £24.3 billion loss that RBS Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:05:11 AM reported for 2008, a record for Message from fivefilters.org: If any British company. you can, please donate to the full But Vince Cable, the Liberal -text RSS service so we can Democrat Treasury spokesman, continue developing it. said: “RBS rewarding Politicians rounded today on individual bankers is like a Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), football team paying their striker the state-owned lender, over its for scoring when they’ve just decision to pay up to £1.7 billion been relegated." in bonuses to bankers despite RBS is 84 per cent owned by making a £3.6 billion loss during t h e B r i t i s h t a x p a y e r a f t e r 2009. receiving billions of pounds of The bank announced today that rescue funds from the state i t w o u l d p a y i n v e s t m e n t s during the recession to save it bankers from a £1.3 billion from collapse. bonus pool while other staff The UKFI, the body set up by would share in a £400 million the Government to manage the reward. state’s investment in British George Osborne, the Shadow banks, yesterday granted RBS Chancellor, said that bankers’ permission to pay the bonuses. pay had reached “ridiculous It said: “The revenue payout levels”, adding: “We have just ratio in the investment bank is got to look at the whole banking the lowest of any such reported sector and try to bring this pay ratio for other major investment down.” banks in 2009.”

RBS’s loss for the 12 months to Barclays' equivalent ratio was

38 per cent.

Stephen Hester, the chief executive of RBS, who replaced Sir Fred Goodwin, said that he was obliged to pay out commercially competitive bonuses to retain staff, adding that the “thousands of bestperforming people” who left last year could have increased the banks’ profits by £1 billion.

“We will continue to lose staff because of the tightrope we are walking. Retention of staff is my single biggest problem,” he said, adding that the levels of media scrutiny that the bank's commercial decisions received were his and his staff's “crosses to bear”.

Mr Osborne did not deny that a Conservative government would also have given the green light to the RBS bonuses.

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Before the Bell: Futures Lower After Data; Ahead of Bernanke Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:40:00 AM

Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Apple Inc (AAPL), Coca-Cola (KO), Market Matters, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), Economic Data, Federal Reserve U.S. stock futures fell Thursday morning as investors digested news of a possible downgrade of Greece's sovereign debt and prepared for the second day of testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, as well as the release of several key economic indicators.

Both Moody's and Standar & Poor's said a donwngrade of Greece's sovereign debt is still possible, depending on how it enacts its fiscal reform plans. Of course, a downgrade would increase the country's borrowing

costs and exacerbate its problems. This also caused fears of other possible defaults among other eurozone countries. Wold markets retreated in response.

Continue reading Before the Bell: Futures Lower After Data; Ahead of Bernanke Before the Bell: Futures Lower After Data; Ahead of Bernanke originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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12 steps to becoming more productive (Holy Kaw!)

• Start with your list. Jump right to your list of intentions and priorities that you jotted down Looking to get more done? the previous day. You were WebWorkerDaily offers a dozen probably much more focused g r e a t s t e p s t o h e l p y o u and honest about what needed accomplish more in less time. your attention when you were First thing in the morning, it’s For instance: planning it out with a clear head.

Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:24:00 PM

easy to want to procrastinate or least you’ll not lose much time give too much importance to this way. trivial tasks and to-dos.

• Check in often. Set yourself an Read the full story at alarm for every hour or two. W e b W o r k e r D a i l y .

Don’t let yourself get too far off Photo credit: Fotolia base from your intention/priority Permalink| Leave a comment » list. If you do get derailed, at

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Assisted suicide: Debbie Purdie welcomes new guidelines (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

She now knows that if the Cuban jazz violinist is judged to have acted with compassion a prosecution will not be pursued.

"The important thing about the Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:20:58 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If guidelines is they've been able to you can, please donate to the full really clarify the difference -text RSS service so we can b e t w e e n malicious continue developing it. encouragement and Published: 3:20PM GMT 25 compassionate support for Feb 2010 somebody's decision," she said.

Keir Starmer, the Director of "The current guidelines are Public Prosecutions, announced enough to give me my life back today that a decision to charge and to know that I can carry on those who helped loved ones kill living and don't have to worry themselves would be focused about making a decision now. on their motivation.

"Now it's my turn to make sure I But she vowed to continue don't say 'OK I'm all right, end campaigning for a change to the of story'. law, to give other people the The guidelines published today same clarity she feels she now make clear that anyone assisting has herself. suicide who benefits from the Ms Purdy, from Bradford, has d e a t h i s u n l i k e l y t o b e fought long and hard battle to p r o s e c u t e d a s l o n g a s find out whether her husband, compassion was the "driving O m a r P u e n t e , w o u l d b e force" behind their actions. prosecuted for helping her to end Mr Starmer said: "The policy is her life. now more focused on the

motivation of the suspect rather than the characteristics of the victim.

"The policy does not change the law on assisted suicide. It does not open the door for euthanasia.

"It does not override the will of Parliament. What it does do is to provide a clear framework for prosecutors to decide which cases should proceed to court and which should not."

Ms Purdy, who is wheelchairbound, said she still wanted a change in the law because the new guidelines only apply after somebody has already died.

She backed author Sir Terry Pratchett's idea for "tribunals" to look into cases where seriously ill people want to end their lives.

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11

Is Barnes & Noble Going to Protect Shareholders from Ron Burkle?

Zac Bissonnette (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:20:00 AM

Filed under: Management Sarah Weinman reported recently that the board of directors at Barnes & Noble ( BKS) has denied Ron Burkle, the company's single largest shareholder, the opportunity to acquire more stock without triggering the poison pill the company enacted hastily back in November.

In a letter to Mr. Burkle filed with the SEC, the company notes that the poison pill is "intended to protect our shareholders from actions that are inconsistent with their best interests. The Board has determined by unanimous vote that acceding to your request would not be in the best interests of all Barnes & Noble's

shareholders."

Continue reading Is Barnes & Noble Going to Protect Shareholders from Ron Burkle?

Is Barnes & Noble Going to Protect Shareholders from Ron Burkle? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sirius XM Swings to Profit Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks)

since the two satellite radio companies merged. This is after last week its stock finally Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:50:00 AM managed to climb back above Filed under: Earnings Reports, $1, a territory it didn't visit since Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) September 2008.

What do you know. Sirius XM Sirius posted a profit of $14.2 Radio ( SIRI) on Thursday million, or less than one cent a posted its first quarterly profit share, driven by subscriber gains

and cost-cutting. This compared

with a year-earlier loss of $245.8 million, or eight cents. Analysts had expected a loss of 2 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue grew 6% to $684 million, beating the analysts' forecast of $664 million.

Continue reading Sirius XM

Swings to Profit Sirius XM Swings to Profit originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Property market to surge on Conservative Party win

Colombia leader's cousin arrested

(Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

(BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

figures compiled by property website Your Move.

However, in 1997, the Conservative vote stood at 9.6 million, down from 14 million Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:58:29 AM Message from fivefilters.org: If in 1992, with the number of you can, please donate to the full housing transactions shrinking 2 -text RSS service so we can per cent in the following three continue developing it. months after the 1997 election.

By Myra Butterworth, Personal Nick Leeming, director of Finance Correspondent Zoopla.co.uk said: “People tend Published: 2:58PM GMT 25 to vote Conservative when Feb 2010 they are focusing more on their Research shows a link between o w n a s p i r a t i o n s a n d a r e a rise in Conservative votes and confident in the prospects for a rise in the number of themselves and their family. property transactions across the This mindset goes hand in country. hand with thoughts of homeIn 1979, the Conservative Party ownership and moving up the received 13.7 million votes, property ladder. It follows that compared to 11.5 million votes the housing market can get in 1974. The rise resulted in 8.6 busier after a large Conservative per cent more people buying vote.” and selling homes in the three David Newnes, the managing months after the 1979 General director of Your Move said: “If Election, according to the the Conservative party

New class action lawsuit targets Yelp Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:50:00 AM

Two law firms and a small business, all based in Southern

California, allege that Yelp's advertising sales strategy amounts to extortion. Yelp responds by saying it'll fight it.

Originally posted at The Social

increases its vote, the housing market should heat up in the three months following the election. The number of seats and the eventual winner isn’t important – that’s all down to the lottery of first past the post voting – but the number of votes the Tories receive is all crucial.”

But he added: “The increasing uncertainty of a Conservative victory is therefore potentially very bad news for the housing market. With a high turnout and fewer Tory votes, the market is more likely to cool. But if the Tories do well in May – or sooner - the bounce back should be even more pronounced than usual.”

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:20:52 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

A cousin of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been rearrested over his alleged ties to paramilitary groups.

Mario Uribe Escobar, a former senator, was detained following an order from the Colombian Supreme Court.

Mario Uribe, who denies any wrongdoing, was detained for several months in 2008 but subsequently released for lack of evidence linking him to paramilitaries.

Dozens of current and former lawmakers have been jailed or investigated over their alleged links to paramilitaries.

Former paramilitary leaders have alleged that Mario Uribe conspired with their groups in the 1990s to take over farmland in agriculturally rich regions of Colombia that were under paramilitary control.

The right-wing militias were created by landowners and drug traffickers to combat left-wing rebels and anyone suspected of

being a sympathiser.

Aggressive action Mario Uribe, a close political ally of President Uribe, is one of the most prominent figures arrested over alleged paramilitary links.

The case has recently been reopened by the Supreme Court.

Many current or former members of congress have been jailed or investigated for allegedly conspiring or collaborating with United SelfDefence Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitaries, in what has been dubbed the "parapolitics" scandal.

Many of those investigated are allies of President Uribe. The president remains popular, however, for pursuing aggressive military action against leftist rebels.

He also negotiated the 2003 peace deal that saw paramilitary leaders surrender and demobilise 31,000 of their men in exchange for reduced jail terms and protection from extradition.

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How to Write a Code of Ethics for Business Josh Spiro (Inc.com)

Write a Code of Ethics for Business: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Making sure your code of How to Write a Code of Ethics ethics is neither too vague, nor for Business: What is a Code of just before the store's grand company has to take in laying employees "are hired and fired at too specific can be a challenge, Ethics?A code of ethics is a opening. It would have been out a code of ethics is deciding such a pace that people don't a n d a s l i p u p c a n m a k e collection of principles and easy to cave to the pressure of what values are important to it know what the corporate culture employees resentful of the practices that a business believes t h e i r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y t o and what lines it won't cross. is." Dig Deeper: Is business endeavor. Jennings says that it's in and aims to live by. A code of stakeholders, creditors, and When Marianne Jennings is ethics an oxymoron? How to a mistake for companies to kick business ethics usually doesn't employees but Ikea has a firm no consulting with companies Write a Code of Ethics for off their code of ethics with s t a n d a l o n e , i t w o r k s i n bribes policy. To get around the implementing a code of ethics, B u s i n e s s : G e t t i n g I n p u t A crackdowns on small details. "At conjunction with a company's problem, they leased power s h e p r o b e s a c o m p a n y ' s common mistake that companies almost every company, people mission statement and more generators to get their store lit up leadership to discover their make when drafting a code of who want to do business with specific policies about conduct in time for its kickoff."A code of boundaries. The professor at e t h i c s i s n o t t o c o n s u l t you bring plates of cookies at the to give employees, partners, e t h i c s i s a b o u t c o r p o r a t e Arizona State University's employees. "Often the code of holidays," she says. Companies vendors, and outsiders an idea of culture," says Michael Connor, business school and author of ethics comes from the top, and often begin by pouncing on what the company stands for and the editor and publisher of the The Seven Signs of Ethical the company is really not aware these sorts of transgressions h o w i t ' s m e m b e r s s h o u l d o n l i n e m a g a z i n e B u s i n e s s Collapse, asks her clients, "What of the kinds of things the "and that immediately creates a conduct themselves. The key in E t h i c s . " [ M a n y s m a l l - t o are the things you would never employees are facing," Jennings hostile atmosphere because distinguishing a code of ethics medium-sized businesses] have do at this company to get a says. In these cases "the code of people don't want to let go of from these other documents is to a code of ethics; it's probably not client, to keep a client, to make e t h i c s c o m e s o u t a n d i t ' s that. You have to work with hit the right level of specificity. written down in many cases but sure you met your numbers for instantly dismissed as a sham them from the big perspective It should address both the it wouldn't hurt if it was." the quarter?' Just thinking because the employees really until they self-realize what they p a r t i c u l a r n u a n c e s o f t h e Connor believes that there's no through that sets the framework know what's happening and it's need to do" regarding the more company's industry as well as its such thing as a business being for the code."Clarifying these not covered [in the code] or it's specific scenarios. Dig Deeper: b r o a d e r g o a l s f o r s o c i a l too small to benefit from a code details can be especially helpful a d d r e s s e d i n a d i f f e r e n t What Enron didn't teach us How responsibility and should be of ethics. Having a code is as the company grows. "As they way."Even if you think you're in to Write a Code of Ethics for concrete enough to serve as a "often viewed as a luxury or grow, they're going to be hiring tune with the daily trials and Business: Particular Pitfalls g u i d e f o r e m p l o y e e s i n a something that is an added cost," more people that are probably tribulations of your staff, you Some ethical dilemmas can quandary without laying out he says. "The reality these days dissimilar to their value structure s h o u l d s o l i c i t b r o a d e r r e v e r b e r a t e m u c h m o r e rules for every situation that is that the business that does not and [putting] those rules and participation in the crafting of powerfully through a small could arise.Policies can include have a code of ethics subjects those procedures in place will the code. Employees need to business than through a larger issues such as a companies itself to a much greater risk in its help your company grow in the have a say in it but they also corporation. Take the example commitment to not work with day-to-day operations and if way you want it to grow," says need to know why the code is of officecest, or a romantic vendors who use child labor or there is an unfortunate incident, John Fraedrich, a professor of important and why it ultimately workplace relationship."If you are environmentally harmful, not they expose themselves to much business ethics at Southern contains the tenets that it does. have a small company you really discriminating in their hiring, greater risk [from] regulatory Illinois University.Having HR Jennings suggests soliciting need to have a policy of no and not taking bribes. For and prosecutorial authorities." educate incoming employees anonymous input from your staff dating within the company," example, recently when Ikea Dig Deeper: A more detailed about the code of ethics and the on a situation they were in Fraedrich says. "Let's say there was opening their first location definition of a code of ethics company's culture is especially during the past year that made is some sort of harassment issue in Russia, they were approached How to Write a Code of Ethics i m p o r t a n t i n t h e a g e o f them uncomfortable as a good or sexual misconduct; it doesn't by local bigwigs requesting a f o r B u s i n e s s : S e t t i n g increasingly rapid job turnover. starting point. Dig Deeper: Case HOW page 19 kickback to turn their utilities on P r i o r i t i e s T h e f i r s t s t e p a Connor says that sometimes studies in business ethics How to Submitted at 2/24/2010 7:51:00 AM

14

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Yelp Lawsuit Alleges Extortion Tactics Christine Lagorio (Inc.com)

victims tend to be small businesses, such as our client, who often have no choice but to Yelp is the target of a class- pay Yelp exorbitant sums in action lawsuit that alleges the order to prevent further harm to customer-review website uses their livelihoods.” high-pressure sales tactics that The suit hinges on the question amount to extortion. of whether Yelp is simply Two law firms filed the suit in offering to run a positive Los Angeles federal court advertisement above negative a l l e g i n g u n f a i r b u s i n e s s reviews, or whether it is further practices against Yelp, the San offering to remove negative Francisco-based start-up that lets reviews for cash, which could in users write and post reviews of court amount to payoffs to local businesses. Visitors use the prevent the site from doing platform to recommend local future harm - a.k.a. extortion. busineeses to others - or to vent The named plaintiff, a over unsatisfactory service and veterinary hospital called Cats critique products, sometimes and Dogs Animal Hospital in harshly. Customer reviews come Long Beach, California, asked with a rating of one-to-five that Yelp remove a false and stars.Miami-based business trial defamatory review from its law firm Beck & Lee filed the listing on Yelp.com. Yelp case along with the San Diego- refused to take down the review, based Weston Firm – the same the suit alleges. What happened firm that handled the Apple iPod instead? The company’s sales and iTunes antitrust litigation. r e p s c a l l e d t h e h o s p i t a l The suit alleges that Yelp repeatedly, demanding payments employees call businesses that of about $300 per month in appear with customer reviews on order to have the negative Yelp and demand monthly review hidden or removed. payments in exchange for " T h e a l l e g a t i o n s a r e " r e m o v i n g o r m o d i f y i n g demonstrably false, since many negative reviews," a release by businesses that advertise on Yelp the law firms explains. It seeks have both negative and positive an injunction to stop Yelp.com reviews," Vince Sollitto, Yelp's from what it calls "wrongful v i c e president of conduct." communications, said in a “We believe that Yelp’s sales statement. "These businesses tactics amount to high-tech realize that both kinds of extortion,” Jared H. Beck, a feedback provide authenticity managing partner of Beck & and value."Running a good Lee, said in a release. “The business is hard; filing a lawsuit Submitted at 2/24/2010 7:55:00 AM

is easy," Sollitto said. "While we haven't seen the suit in question, we will dispute it aggressively."

The claim is being made under the California Unfair Competition Law, a broadlyworded law dating back to 1933 that covers an assortment of fraudulent or unfair business practices, including "unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising."

According to the lawsuit, the Yelp salesperson who contacted Cats and Dogs stated that if Cats and Dogs purchased a one-year advertising subscription, Yelp would "hide negative reviews on

the Cats and Dogs Yelp.com listing page, or place them lower on the listing page," and also ensure negative reviews will not appear in Google and other search engine results. The advertising subscription would also allow Cats and Dogs to choose the order in which customer reviews appeared and pick its "tagline," or phrases in a single review that show on every search page.

Gregory Weston, founder of the Weston Firm, tells Inc.com his firm has already heard from dozens of small business owners who have been similarly

affected.

"It's definitely not an isolated situation," he says. "We've had calls and plenty of emails as evidence, too. Since the press release we've gotten notes from people saying they'd been affected in exactly the same way. So I think we're going to discover a lot of people that will testify against Yelp."

The law firms say they will file a permanent injunction against Yelp's alleged practices, but say they have not decided whether to file a more urgent preliminary injunction.

Negative online reviews – whether they bash customer service, ambiance, or a product – on Yelp have been widely known to bruise businessowners' egos. But whether they actually hurt business will likely be examined by the court. As Inc. reported recently in " You've Been Yelped," "Yelp is by some measures the most popular reviews website in the world, with more than 26 million monthly readers and a library of user-generated content that is probably matched only by Wikipedia. There are some eight million Yelp reviews, covering service businesses in most major American metropolitan areas, along with Ireland, Canada, and the United Kingdom."Earlier, a series of articles published in the Bay Area newspaper the East YELP page 17

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15

Social Network Rockets Houlihan Restaurants' Profits Ben Paynter (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:40:12 AM

HOULIFANS: From left, Curt Cuscino, Lara Espinoza, Charity Kerr, and Adrian O'Hara enjoy Houlihan's small-plates menu. | Photograph by Austin Walsh Casual-dining stalwart Houlihan's reboots its chain with the help of its own social network.

When Houlihan's launched its "small plates" menu in September 2009, what was supposed to be a hip selling point -- tapas-style American classics at recession-friendly prices -- turned out relatively tasteless. Customers complained that the white-bean hummus and pita was "thick and spongy," the flatbread pizza unpalatably "chewy." Some were even left hungry because seemingly "inattentive" and "distracted" servers thought all of the appetizers were supposed to be delivered together in one batch like a traditional three-course meal, instead of trickling out of the kitchen as they were ordered.

But these reviews weren't your typical Internet-fueled vitriol.

Houlihan's had courted it. Last summer, it created its own social -networking site, HQ, an inviteonly "brand community" of 10,500 "Houlifans" to serve as a virtual comment card.

Customers appended that a-little -too-cute prefix to all things Houli-, and they've helped the formerly stodgy Irish pub rebrand itself as a contemporary suburban lounge-style hangout.

The community's feedback has allowed the company to revamp on the fly, and the small-plates menu now accounts for 26% of item sales in the 10 markets where it has debuted. Those dishes carry a higher-thanaverage profit margin on smaller -than-average portions. In the Kansas City area, site of the first test, overall profits are up 12% at a time when sales in the $83.5 billion casual-dining industry have dropped 1%, according to

research by NPD Group. The new menu will roll out to more than 50 of the chain's 97 locations this year.

Why did Houlihan's build its own social network rather than piggyback on a public site?

"Exclusivity," says VP of marketing Jen Gulvik. Tired of being outspent and outshouted

by Applebee's and Chili's in mass media, she decided to approach millennials on their own turf to harness their gift for gossip. She'd trade insider information about recipes and redesigns in response for honest input not intended for broadcast.

"I joined to provide unrestricted feedback that's valued," says

Jocelyn Jourdan, 30, a business analyst in Minneapolis.

Houlifans are recruited from a database of 600,000-plus customers who either visited the corporate Web site or signed up in-store for email coupons. Each must fill out a questionnaire that tests both their "brand love" and how socially active they are beyond the keyboard. HQ averages between 200 and 400 fans per restaurant, most of whom bring in friends once a week. "You can't buy that," Gulvik says.

The concern about this strategy is that "what customers really want is good stuff for free," warns restaurant consultant

Clark Wolf. Gulvik knows the feeling. After a recent HQ protest, she brought back chicken fajitas, even though they're a lower-margin item. "It was what our customers wanted," she says. But when the system works, the placated Houlifan brings even more friends into the restaurant to show off her success. The early chicken-fajita returns look promising: Charity Kerr, 26, a programmer in Kansas City, recently tweeted photos of her favorite dishes to friends. When some of them agreed to come hang out there, she introduced herself as the Woman Who Saved the Chicken Fajitas.

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Google's Sergey Brin Talks Hacking: Chinese Human Rights Activists Targeted Dan Nosowitz (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:13:36 AM

Sergey Brin of Google sat down with TED to talk about the recent revelations about the broad, sophisticated attacks the company has been battling from Chinese sources, and what that struggle means for Google's future in China. In the process, he reveals a few little tidbits of information--and explains why he's not interested in figuring out if the Chinese government is behind the attacks.

Brin starts off by stating the primary goal of the hackers, which wasn't entirely clear before: to gain access to the Gmail accounts of human rights activists in China. That's quite a bombshell, and seems to point the finger of blame squarely at the Chinese government, which has, shall we say, a history of seeking to squash dissidents. But with a simple explanation, Brin puts the entire process of "blaming the Chinese government" in perspective: I don't actually think the question of whether this was the Chinese government or not is all that important. I know that seems strange. The Chinese government has tens of millions

of people in it, and if you look at the associated army and whatnot it's even larger. It's larger than most countries by far. So even if there were a Chinese government agent behind this, it might represent a fragment of policy, as it were.

There are many people there, and they have different views.

Unbelievably, that point of view has hardly been mentioned in the press, in favor of an understandable desire to blame an identifiable villain--but of course it's true, to an extent. I'm sure it makes the entire process of assigning blame that much more difficult, but not pointless, as shown by the State

Department's willingness to get involved. Should we really hold the government of China responsible for intellectual property theft if it turns out it was ordered by twelve cybersecurity officers in an office somewhere?

Brin went on to explain Google's immediate future in China, as well as showing an unrelentingly idealistic--not unrealistic, necessarily, though the word "naive" was tossed around--attitude toward Google's potential benefits for the Chinese people. Contrary to the typical corporate yearn for ever more profits, Brin painted Google's inquest in China as almost a

philanthropic mission: Perhaps people don't believe this, but all throughout the discussion of originally entering China in 2006 as we did, and the announcement last month, our focus has really been what's best for the Chinese people. It's not been about our particular revenue or profit or whatnot.

The future of Google in China looks doubtful, despite Brin's optimism--he notes that since the Beijing Olympics, China's draconian blocking of both search results and entire repositories like YouTube has only gotten more severe. Google announced awhile back that they want to begin removing the

censorship from search results, and will simply pull out of China if that option isn't available, and Brin reasserted that goal, saying only that he's "optimistic" Google and China can work out their differences.

After all, Google provides what many would call an essential Internet service--won't it hurt the Chinese people more if they have no access to it at all? But for the moment, Google seems to be standing on principle--and after being attacked, nobody can blame them.

[Via TED]

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Keep Those Customers!

Howard Greenstein (Inc.com)

College. “Many time companies ignore their existing customers they don't make the same offers Entrepreneurs often move full available that they do for new speed ahead to grab the next customers, and that can alienate customer, the next deal, or make the existing customers.” the next target. In their haste, “I don’t like the word retention – they often forget about the it implies the customer is trying people who got them where they to leave” says Christopher Penn, are today – their existing Vice President, Strategy and customers. When looking at Innovation at Blue Sky Factory your sales cycle, you may Email Marketing. “If you look at discover that finding the new standard funnel – marketing is at customer, obtaining interest in the top, then sales takes the leads your product or service, gaining and creates customers. Then trust, and getting a sale takes customer service and product time and effort. You often have design work with the customer. to create deals or special offers From bottom of funnel to the top to break through the clutter of you have declining control. You the market. have full control where product “The cost of obtaining new teams and customer service can customers is typically greater tailor what you do to your than the cost of retaining your customers. When you get to existing customers,” says Morris sales, control is iffy, and people Bocian, President of Creative may not buy if they don’t have Business Planning and Adjunct money. There’s even less control Professor of Business at NYU’s in marketing - you’re competing School of Continuing and for people’s attention, to turn it Professional Studies and Baruch into a qualified lead. A good Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:36:57 PM

marketer in general can move 10% of the attention they create into qualified leads. With good customer retention, good service, good product, you have a huge amount of control about keeping your customers. They’re yours to lose.”

“Especially in the phone business, there’s always a challenge in customer service and retention,” reports Phone.com President Ari Rabban. His 3-year-old business is growing in revenue every month, and is up to 35 employees. “We port (move) phone numbers, so we know if you were previously a customer of a specific other company – we’ve done analysis – we have 9 times more numbers coming into our company than going out. We think customer service is key to retention. We have an in-house 24x7 customer call center, which costs more, but the results speak for it.”

Rabban notes that his team

contacts all customers who sign up for their service. “It’s more interesting when we get complaints. We have no scripted answers in our call center. We deal with people directly and answer their questions if we were your IT team. When there’s a crisis, we just admit a problem or find a quick solution, then most people don’t want to leave us. They just want a fix and good attention. If we do this well, they often become testimonial customers and pass us on to others.”

As far as using tools like email marketing for retention, Blue Sky Factory’s Penn says “This may be beating a dead horse, but just send relevant, timely, targeted emails to people who ask for it. That’s the real formula.”

How do you keep your customers happy, or just keep your customers? Let us know

sources and contradictory evidence. The company, which was founded as an online business-listings service in 2004

by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, maintains that it's only goal is to provide a way for consumers to find good local businesses that have been vetted and recommended by their

peers.

What do you think about the lawsuit? Have you had a good or bad experience with Yelp? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.

YELP continued from page 14

Bay Express raised concerns about Yelp's business practices.

The series quoted a San Francisco Bay-Area restaurantowner, identified only as John, who says he received unsolicited phone calls from Yelp noting that his establishment had a solid standing – 3.5 stars out of five on Yelp – but that a few

negative reviews were showing up. When John asked what he could do about his bad reviews, he told the newspaper that the sales rep responded: "We can move them. Well, for $299 a month."

Yelp denied the article's allegations on its official blog, chiding its use of anonymous

iMaxi: Finally, the iPad Gets the Protection it Deserves [FUNNY] Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:02:15 AM

When it comes to branding their products, Apple is one of the most successful companies in the world. iPod has all but replaced the words “MP3 player”, and iPhone, MacBook, iMac and most of their other products are equally as successful.

The iPad, however, invokes an obvious joke, and that obvious joke just got very literal with the introduction of iMaxi, the protective case for the iPad that looks, well, like a completely different kind of pad.

Funny or not, this joke obviously isn’t going away, and when someone fashions it into a real, preorderable product, you have to admire the effort. The $40 price seems a little steep, though.

Tags: apple, iMaxi, ipad, Tablet

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How Does the Bloom Box Energy Server Work?

Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:14:12 AM

Now that the dust has started to settle on the unveiling of the Bloom Energy Server, we thought it might be useful to take a more detailed look at some of the technology behind the fuel cell-powered electricity generator. The Bloom Energy Server is made out of fuel cells, or electrochemical cells. A single fuel cell consists of an anode, a cathode, and an electrolyte stuck between the two. As fuel flows in through the anode side and an oxidant comes in over the cathode, a reaction is triggered that causes electrons to move into the fuel cell's circuit, producing electricity. The Bloom Energy Server isn't actually a server--that's just a PR buzzword. In actuality, it's a distributed power generator.

Each "server" produces 100 kW of power, consists of thousands of fuel cells, costs between $700,000 and $800,000, and pays for itself in three to 5 years based on an energy cost of 8 to 9 cents per kW hour.There are many different types of fuel cells.

Some of the more popular ones

include methanol fuel cells, hydrogen fuel cells, and zinc-air batteries. The Bloom Energy Server consists of solid oxide fuel cells, which are attractive because they can be made out of low-cost materials with high energy efficiencies. The cells can run on a variety of fuels, including traditional fuel, natural gas, biomass gas, landfill gas, and ethanol. Until now, technical challenges have stopped solid oxide fuel cells from being

commercialized, but the company's cells ("sand" baked into ceramic squares that are coated with green and black inks) supposedly have overcome most of the issues. Bloom's Web site has a great animation showing how solid oxide fuel cells work. One of the biggest problems with solid oxide fuel cells is their temperature requirement--the ceramic squares only become active at extremely high temperatures (up

comparison, solar generally produces power at between 10% to 15% efficiency. But unlike solar panels, the Bloom Energy Server produces CO2 as a byproduct. According to the Energy Collective, "CO2 emissions when running on natural gas would be just under 0.8 pounds/kWh, which compares favorably to electricity from central station coal-fired plants (2 lbs/kWh) or natural gas plants (roughly 1.3 lbs/kWh) and the national average for on-grid electricity (around 1.3-1.5 lbs/kWh)." If the box runs on landfill gas or biogas, it produces net zero carbon emissions.Eventually, Bloom hopes that a scaled-down version device can be used in homes. A residential Bloom Box would to 1800 F). That means Bloom's produce 1 kW of power and cost cells will have to prove that they approximately $3,000. But that can remain durable under the probably won't happen for at stress--already, the company has least 10 years. had to come out to replace cells Read more about Bloom Box: at eBay's installation, which has Bloom Energy Unveils Its Ultrabeen running for just 7 months. Secretive Bloom Box Fuel Cell In general, Bloom expects that eBay Opens Up About Installing its fuel cell stacks will have to Bloom Boxes and Their Room be switched out twice during the for Improvement Is the Bloom device's 10 y e a r Box Energy Server the Future of l i f e s p a n . B l o o m ' s d e v i c e Plug and Play Electricity? generates electricity at 50% to 55% conversion efficiency. In

Six Labs features now standard for Gmail users Stephen Shankland (Webware.com)

Better search, customizable 'graduated' from Gmail Labs into label colors, YouTube previews, the mainstream version of the a n d o t h e r f e a t u r e s h a v e Google's e-mail service.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

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HOW continued from page 13

matter if they were great friends in the beginning, at the end it's g o i n g t o b e a nightmare."Another ethical pitfall that can stir up particular trouble for a small business is nepotism. "In start-up companies, it's all about 'who do I trust' and sometimes nepotism will come in," Fraedrich says, and family-run businesses have to be especially vigilant against an ethical lapse that could lead at best to employee dissatisfaction and at worst to a discrimination suit. Dig Deeper: Isn't it romantic? Leigh Buchanan on the perils of office dating How to Write a Code of Ethics for Business: Who to Turn to for Help While it can be valuable to consult a lawyer when drafting a code of ethics, "[a] lawyer is not really an ethics individual," explains Fraedrich. "He or she is there to determine what can be construed as legal or illegal and what can be argued in court."

Connor says that smaller

companies could draft a code themselves, especially if they are in a low-risk, low-liability field, and Fraedrich similarly advises that if you have more than 20 employees, it's time to consult an ethicist or human resources specialist. Dig Deeper: 10 principles to evaluate a company's values How to Write a Code of Ethics for Business: Putting Someone in ChargeEven if senior management and employees embrace a code of ethics, someone needs to be put in charge of applying and updating it. This person is typically known as an ethical officer or, in more intimidating terminology, a compliance officer. They need to be reliable, have a strong commitment to the company's success, and good people skills. They also need to have access to senior management or the board of directors for periodic updates or in case a problem arises.The role of ethical officer typically falls

to somebody on the HR or sales team. This person is also in charge of the system for monitoring and reporting misconduct. Like the process for creating the code, this should be done anonymously as any whistleblower would likely be concerned about what rocking the boat would do to their career.Some companies kick the tires of their adherence to the code of ethics by checking in with both managers and employees about it during performance reviews. It's also crucial to make your code of ethics a dynamic thing that changes as your business changes. Connor says, "Like taxes, it doesn't hurt, once a year, to look at it yourself and ask, 'Does this truly represent our business and where we want to be?'" Dig Deeper: The importance of being ethical ResourcesInc. has some sample codes of ethics available, and more such resources can be

found online, particularly on the pages of university business ethics centers like the Illinois Institute of Technology's Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions.

The Ethics Resource Center is an Arlington, Virginia-based non-profit that provides among other things, updates on federal policy connected to business ethics, surveys on topics such as how the recession is impacting ethics, and links to other resources around the web.

Business for Social Responsibility is a global network of companies specializing in business ethics that provide consulting and research services to help companies hone socially conscious business strategies.

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Mandelson Gets To Choose How Long Your 'Temporary' Suspension Would Be Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:54:23 AM

Remember how the UK was just playing a word game by claiming that it wouldn't disconnect users from the internet via Peter Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill? That was quickly debunked, as people realized that the gov't was simply changing how it described the disconnection, calling it a "temporary account suspension" instead. Of course, that's still a disconnect. Another unresolved question, however, was how long is temporary?

Turns out the answer is however long Peter Mandelson thinks is appropriate.

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Fidel Castro 'exceptionally well' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:44:45 AM

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Cuba's ex-leader Fidel Castro is in good shape, Brazil's president

has said following what is reported to have been an "emotional meeting".

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Mr Castro, 83, looked "exceptionally well", state-run media reports.

Photographs of the pair show the two friends talking and smiling as they sit around a

table.

Mr Castro ruled Cuba for almost half a century before health problems forced him to hand over to his brother Raul.

During President Lula's visit, his last official trip before his term expires, the two discussed topics including last year's global climate change

conference in Copenhagen.

"The emotional meeting was an expression of the existing friendship between the two leaders and the brotherhood that unites the two countries," Cuban state media reported.

Rumours that Fidel Castro's health had declined seriously were more frequent when the

Brazilian president visited him more than a year ago, in January 2008.

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

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Next Firefox to drop Mac OS X 10.4 support Stephen Shankland (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:37:00 AM

The current version of Firefox, 3.6, supports Apple's Tiger operating system, but the browser's successor will require Leopard or later.

Originally posted at Deep Tech

Facebook Really Wants to Know Where You Are, Considers Buying Loopt

Ron Paul Unfurls Kook Flag in House

Kit Eaton (Fast Company)

(Little Green Footballs)

Facebook simply trotted out the party line "we don't comment on Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:14:06 AM rumor and speculation."

Rumors are swirling that But the rumor is apparently Facebook's looking to purchase based on sound information. location-aware social net Loopt. And from this we can infer that It makes perfect sense, given the Facebook is at least very sudden arrival recently of interested in acquiring Loopt, or Google's Buzz mobile, which is perhaps a location-based system location-aware from the get-go. like it (because we don't know Facebook's playing catch-up. what other due diligence According to TechCrunch Facebook's planning team is also Facebook is busy doing due performing.) diligence on the potential deal, The reasons are obvious: indicating that the idea is in its Location-aware services of all very early stages. And at such a kinds are an extremely hot topic. point in deals like this, before That's partly because it's a social negotiations have really kicked trend, paralleling the rise of off, it's usual for everything to social networking itself, and be shrouded in secrecy. Hence partly enabled by the explosion Loopt refused to comment, and in smartphones which carry GPS

systems. You only have to look at Foursquare's recent big-media partnerships, and Twitter's fresh location-enabled Tweet system to see this effect. And, of course, Google's new and controversybeset social network experiment Buzz, which allows Foursquarelike "check-ins" to particular locations in its mobile version.

Location-aware systems are a valuable tool masquerading as fun games for users to play, simply because they allow a whole new class of locationsensitive advertising to be presented to users, bringing in fresh revenue to the company that's delivering the locationbased service.

And that's why Facebook is

keen to get involved. It's seeing huge challenges to its success as the finger on the social pulse of the world from the TwitterGoogle tie-up, as well as backlash to its recent privacy changes, and it's obviously keen to not fall behind the competition like Foursquare and Gowalla. We have no idea how Loopt would fold into Facebook's social networking system, should a deal go ahead, but we can speculate it would be connected with Facebook's status updating system, and possibly even tied into Facebook Connect.

[Via TechCrunch]

Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:25:43 AM

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) really lets his kook flag fly in this clip, accusing the Federal Reserve of helping Saddam Hussein buy weapons, helping fund the Watergate burglary, and planning a secret bailout of …

Greece.

Fed Chief Ben Bernanke’s reply (as people laugh in the background): “These specific allegations you’ve made, I think are absolutely bizarre.”[Video] (Hat tip: KT.)

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Chevy's Volt Innovator Leaves for California Battery Startup Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:46:34 AM

GM just can't seem to catch a break. After billions of dollars in losses and rumors that the prized electric Chevy Volt won't make it into production (now proven false), the auto giant's so-called " battery czar" has announced that she is leaving for an unidentified California battery startup.

Denise Gray, the director of global battery systems engineering at GM, is leaving on March 5 for a senior management position at the as yet unnamed battery company.

Green Car Reports explains: What led Gray to leave the only company she'd ever worked for?

"The opportunity to create and build and plant seeds and mold and shape an organization," she said--just as she was able to do

with the small Volt team. And in a theme common to many professionals who've left solid jobs to join startups, she said simply, "I didn't want to look back and say, 'I could have, I should have ...' " This is great news for Gray's new venture, but not such good news for GM. Gray spent 30 years at the company and was largely responsible for overseeing the development of

batteries for GM's hybrid and all -electric vehicles. When she began at the battery systems group, it had 25 employees.

Now it has over 200.

But really, who can blame Gray for leaving? California has a glut of exciting new auto startups-Tesla, Fisker, and Better Place, just to name a few--while Detroit is in the unfortunate position of having 25% of young professionals planning to leave

the city within the next two years. It's not the most inspirational environment, even as auto startups like Johnson Controls and A123 Systems set up shop in the area. If major automakers want to retain their Detroit-based talent, they will have to start getting creative.

[Via Green Car Reports]

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Killer Whale Dragged Trainer Off Platform in Deadly Attack (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:10:06 AM

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ORLANDO, Fla. A veteran SeaWorld trainer was leisurely rubbing a killer whale from a poolside platform when the 12,000-pound creature reached up, grabbed her with its mouth and dragged her underwater.

Despite workers rushing to help, the trainer was killed.

Horrified visitors who had stuck around after a noontime show watched the animal charge through the pool with the trainer in its jaws. Workers used nets as an alarm sounded, but it was too late. Dawn Brancheau had drowned. It marked the third time the animal had been involved in a human death.

The whale, named Tilikum, apparently grabbed Brancheau by her long ponytail, according to the head of animal training at all SeaWorld parks, Chuck Tompkins. He told ABC's "Good Morning America" that her ponytail swung out in front of the whale.

"That's when the trainer next to him (Tilikum) said that he grabbed the hair, pulled her under water. And of course, held her under water."

Brancheau's interaction with the whale appeared leisurely and informal at first to audience

member Eldon Skaggs. But then, the whale "pulled her under and started swimming around with her," Skaggs told The Associated Press.

Some workers hustled the audience out of the stadium while the others tried to save Brancheau, 40.

Skaggs said he heard that during an earlier show the whale was not responding to directions.

Others who attended the earlier show said the whale was behaving like an ornery child.

But Tompkins said the whale had performed well in the show and that Dawn was rubbing him down as a reward for doing a good job.

"There wasn't anything to indicate to us that there was a problem," Tompkins told the CBS "Early Show."

Another audience member, Victoria Biniak, told WKMGTV the whale "took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off."

Two other witnesses told the Orlando Sentinel that the whale grabbed the woman by the upper arm and tossed her around in its mouth while swimming rapidly around the tank. Brazilian tourist Joao Lucio DeCosta Sobrinho and his girlfriend were at an underwater viewing area when they suddenly saw a whale with a person in its mouth.

The couple said they watched the whale show at the park two days earlier and came back to take pictures. But on Wednesday the whales appeared agitated.

Because of his size and the previous deaths, trainers were not supposed to get into the water with Tilikum, and only about a dozen of the park's 29 trainers worked with him.

Brancheau had more experience with the 30-year-old whale than most. She was one of the park's most experienced trainers overall.

"We recognized he was different," said Tompkins. He said no decision has been made yet about what will happen to Tilikum, such as transferring him to another facility.

SeaWorld has also suspended the killer whale shows at all of its parks, which also include locations in San Diego and San Antonio, to review procedures.

A SeaWorld spokesman said Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after the woman lost her balance and fell in the pool at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, British Columbia.

Steve Huxter, who was head of Sealand's animal care and training department then, said Wednesday he's surprised it happened again. He says Tilikum was a well-behaved, balanced animal.

Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 death, when the body of a

man who had sneaked by SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The man either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of hypothermia, though he was also bruised and scratched by Tilikum.

Brancheau's older sister, Diane Gross, said the trainer wouldn't want anything done to the whale because she loved the animals like children. The trainer was married and didn't have children.

"She loved the whales like her children, she loved all of them," said Gross, of Schererville, Ind. "They all had personalities, good days and bad days."

Gross said the family viewed her sister's death as an unfortunate accident, adding: "It just hasn't sunk in yet."

Dawn was the youngest of six children who grew up near Cedar Lake, Indiana. Her passion for marine life began at the age of nine, Gross said, on a family trip to Sea World.

According to a profile of Brancheau in the Sentinel in 2006, she was one of SeaWorld Orlando's leading trainers.

Brancheau worked her way into a leadership role at Shamu Stadium during her career with SeaWorld, starting at the Sea Lion & Otter Stadium before spending 10 years working with killer whales, the newspaper said.

She also addressed the dangers of the job.

"You can't put yourself in the water unless you trust them and they trust you," Brancheau said.

Billy Hurley, chief animal officer at the Georgia Aquarium— the world's largest — said there are inherent dangers to working with orcas, just as there are with driving race cars or piloting jets.

"In the case of a killer whale, if they want your attention or if they're frustrated by something or if they're confused by something, there's only a few ways of handling that," he said.

"If you're right near pool's edge and they decide they want a closer interaction during this, certainly they can grab you."

And, he added: "At 12,000 pounds there's not a lot of resisting you're going to do."

Mike Wald, a spokesman for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Atlanta, said his agency had dispatched an investigator from Tampa.

Wednesday's death was not the first attack on whale trainers at SeaWorld parks.

In November 2006, a trainer was bitten and held underwater several times by a killer whale during a show at SeaWorld's San Diego park.

The trainer, Kenneth Peters, escaped with a broken foot. The 17-foot orca that attacked him was the dominant female of KILLER page 25

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Dad: Suspected Colo. School Gunman Acted Erratic Lately (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:29:24 AM

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LITTLETON, Colo. The man accused of wounding two middle school students in a community still haunted by the Columbine massacre had become increasingly erratic in recent weeks, yelling at imaginary friends and complaining that eating macaroni and cheese made too much noise, his father said Wednesday.

Investigators are looking into the bizarre behavior of 32-yearold Bruco Strong Eagle Eastwood as they try to figure out why the unemployed ranch hand allegedly showed up at his old school and started firing at students in the parking lot before being tackled by a math teacher.

Eastwood's father described his son's recent strange behavior in an interview with The Associated Press at his ranch outside Denver.

The older man said that his son used to talk to himself a lot, but in the past month, he had begun yelling. The younger man also complained that the refrigerator

was too loud and that certain foods made too much noise, his father said.

Others said Eastwood would show up at a nearby gas station to buy cigarettes, but was often 20 or 30 cents short, and would mumble to himself as he read the sports section the newspaper.

"He has problems, but I never thought he'd go to the extent to hurt somebody," said his father, War Eagle Eastwood. "You can say you're sorry, but you can't replace the fear and hurt he's put in innocent people. He's put a hole inside of me."

As the math teacher was being hailed a hero, officials said the quick response was further proof that the community learned the lessons of Columbine in quickly responding to the shootings. But there was growing evidence the school missed a chance to head off the attack.

Investigators said Eastwood walked through the doors of the Deer Creek Middle School earlier in the day, indicated he was a former student and chatted with teachers, apparently without drawing much suspicion.

Authorities said they didn't know the nature of his conversations with school staff before he went outside and

opened fire with a bolt-action hunting rifle he stole from his father.

Sheriff's department spokeswoman Jacki Kelley said Eastwood left the building without being asked to do so.

She said a school security officer was not at Deer Creek at the time. The officer also has duties at another school, but it hasn't been determined where he was when the shootings happened, Kelley said.

Asked about the possible security lapse, Jefferson County schools Superintendent Cindy Stevenson said only that there is a sign-in sheet that requires visitors to state their name and the purpose of their visit. She said school officials did not have access to the sheet for Tuesday because the school was closed as a crime scene.

Eastwood was jailed on $1 million bail on suspicion of attempted murder.

Residents were stunned by the thought of a gunman opening fire at a school less than three miles from Columbine High, where two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher in the nation's deadliest high school shooting. Parents rushed to the middle school, many unnerved by the sight of youngsters

running for lives just like on that day in 1999.

"We thought all of that was behind us," resident Betty Makr said.

David Benke, a 57-year-old teacherergency manual does not call for teachers to pounce on gunmen.

Stevenson said Deer Creek's security precautions involve a single button in a secretary's office that automatically locks down the school in the event of a shooting. If something happens inside, teachers are to lock doors, get students out of hallways, keep them quiet so as not to tip off any gunmen and stay out of the line of sight, she said. All of that was done Tuesday, Stevenson said.

What Benke did "is pretty amazing," said Kelley. "We don't train people to do that."

"Everybody acted, nobody froze," she added.

Eastwood has an arrest record in Colorado dating back to 1996 for menacing, assault, domestic violence and driving under the influence.

Carla Wrisk, a cashier at the Barn Store gas stationconvenience store in Hudson, described Bruco Eastwood as a "weird, very strange guy. He talks to himself a lot."

Video: McCain Plays Birther Card (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:35:40 PM

John McCain is playing the Birther card against his opponent J. D. Hayworth, comparing

Hayworth to Orly Taitz and Philip Berg. A comparison that is richly deserved. Gotta love

this.[Video] (Hat tip: Thanos.)

Wrisk said Eastwood would come to buy cigarettes, but was always a little short of money, and she would make up the difference. He would grab a newspaper, look at the sports page and mumble to himself, she said: "Just a very odd, strange guy. I'm not surprised."

In 2005, Eastwood participated in a NASA-funded study in which he spent 10 days in a hospital bed so scientists could study muscle wasting, an affliction experienced by astronauts during long flights, according to a story in the Rocky Mountain News at the time.

He told the newspaper that he had a lifelong dream of being an astronaut and described his occupation to the newspaper as horse trainer working at his father's ranch. He pocketed $2,200 from the study and was able to spend a week and a half watching DVDs and playing video games in bed.

Click here for more from KDVR.com.

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Whale kills trainer during show (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:49:55 AM

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Eyewitness Wayne Gillespie: 'The tail was thrashing hard' A trainer at the SeaWorld park in Orlando, Florida, has died after being attacked by a killer whale.

Witnesses said the orca had jumped and grabbed Dawn Brancheau by the waist from a poolside platform before dragging her underwater.

Guests were evacuated while fire crews tried to rescue the 40year-old, but they were unable to revive her.

The killer whale, Tilikum, was also reportedly involved in the death of a female trainer in Canada in 1991.

Other orcas were also said to have attacked trainers at SeaWorld parks in 2006 and 2004.

'Shaking her violently' Chuck Tompkins, SeaWorld parks' head of animal training, was quoted by Reuters news agency saying: "She was rubbing the killer whale's head, and [it] grabbed her and pulled her in."

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Sea World curator Chuck Tompkins: "He grabbed her hair and pulled her underwater".

Courtesy Good Morning America/ABC News SeaWorld said an investigation was under way into Wednesday afternoon's death of Ms Brancheau, a trainer with 16 years' experience.

Jim Solomons, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Office, said early accounts indicated she could have slipped and fallen into the tank.

He said it was too early to tell if she had been attacked by the 12,000lb (5,450kg) orca.

But witnesses told a different story.

Park visitor Victoria Biniak told a local TV channel that the trainer had just finished explaining to the audience what they were about to see.

At that point, she said, the whale "took off really fast, and then he came back around to the glass, jumped up, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started shaking her violently. The last thing we saw was her shoe floating."

Audience member Eldon Skaggs told AP news agency the whale had "pulled her under and started swimming around with her".

A male spectator who witnessed the tragedy gave CNN a similar version of events.

Brazilian tourist Joao Lucio

After the whale - nicknamed Telly - was sold to SeaWorld Orlando it was involved in a second incident when authorities discovered the body of a naked man lying across his back in 1999.

Officials later concluded the man, who had either crept into SeaWorld after closing time or hidden in the park until it closed, probably drowned after suffering hypothermia.

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BBC's Andy Gallacher: Reports say this whale has a dubious past There have been incidents involving other whales at SeaWorld.

DeCosta Sobrinho and his In November 2006, a male girlfriend were at an underwater trainer escaped with a broken viewing area when they saw the foot after he was bitten and held whale with the trainer in its underwater by a female killer whale during a show at mouth.

The entertainment park, known SeaWorld's San Diego park. for its killer whale, seal and In 2004, another whale at the dolphin displays, was closed company's San Antonio park after the incident. SeaWorld in attempted to bite a trainer, but he San Diego also suspended its too escaped.

Though called a killer whale, killer whale show.

Tilikum is said to have been the orca (Orcinus orca), is involved in previous incidents, actually the largest member of the BBC's Andy Gallacher the oceanic dolphin family.

Animal rights group Peta says it reports from Florida. has long been asking SeaWorld A SeaWorld spokesman said the to stop taking wild, ocean-going orca had been one of three whales blamed for killing a mammals and confining them to trainer in 1991 after she had an area that, to them, is "the size fallen in a pool at a marine park of a bathtub". in British Columbia, Canada.

WHALE page 25 Naked man

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KILLER

Obama hosting live health summit (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

present understood the importance of the healthcare issue.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:31:54 AM "We all know this is urgent and Message from fivefilters.org: If unfortunately, despite all the you can, please donate to the full negotiations that have taken -text RSS service so we can p l a c e , i t b e c a m e a v e r y continue developing it. ideological battle; it became a US President Barack Obama is very partisan battle where facing top Republicans in a live politics ended up trumping TV summit on healthcare, as common sense," he said. part of a fresh bid to save his He added that he wanted to troubled reform plans. avoid the televised session A b o u t 4 0 c o n g r e s s i o n a l becoming merely political Democrats and Republicans are theatre, hoping that those taking part in the debate in involved would work together to Washington DC. try to solve the problem.

For the first time, Mr Obama "If we keep an open mind and offered his own version of a are not trying to score political healthcare plan on Monday; it points then we may be able to was rejected by Republicans. make some progress," he said.

Analysts say the six-hour Cost of reforms? summit offers more potential for The BBC's Mark Mardell, in political theatre than solving the Washington, says Mr Obama has legislative stalemate. asked for ideas from both Even the shape of the table for parties, but the Republicans the debate at Blair House, smell a trap and are not in a coopposite the White House, has operative mood. been subject to dispute.

There is almost no chance of the P r e s i d e n t O b a m a , V i c e - 17 or so Republicans agreeing to President Joe Biden and other anything that is on the table, our leading Democrats are facing correspondent says. senior Republicans such as The House of Representatives Senate Minority Leader Mitch and the Senate passed separate McConnell and Arizona Senator healthcare bills at the end of last John McCain. year.

Mr Obama opened the debate But efforts to merge them and by emphasising that everyone sign a bill into law collapsed last

month when Republicans won a special election in Massachusetts.

The victory deprived Democrats of their crucial filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate majority.

The White House has signalled it may end up driving through a bill using a procedure called budget reconciliation, which only needs a majority vote.

Republicans said they would use Thursday's talks to highlight the cost of the Democrats' reforms, while outlining their own more scaled-back approach.

Democrats are expected to seek to portray the Republicans' plans as inadequate.

'Photo op' The meeting - which began at 1000 (1500 GMT) - is debating controlling costs, insurance reforms, deficit reduction and expanding coverage.

A USA Today/Gallup poll showed that barely one fifth of respondents thought the televised summit would yield a deal.

On the eve of the talks, one House Republican, Michael Burgess of Texas, derided it as a "six-hour photo op" for President Obama.

House deputy Republican leader Eric Cantor said: "Democrats are farther away from securing the

WHALE continued from page 24

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continued from page 22

votes to pass a government healthcare bill today than they have ever been."

Despite the tussling, the parties proved they could find common ground on healthcare.

On Wednesday, the House voted overwhelmingly to pass a bill scrapping the exemption from federal anti-trust law that health insurance companies have long enjoyed.

The president has invested much political capital in his plans to make nearly all Americans take out health insurance and to stop abuses by insurance firms.

But the issue has become a rallying standard for conservatives, who say Mr Obama is bent on introducing European-style big government.

It has also worried a recessionmauled American public, which is not clear about how much reforms would cost them.

The US is the world's richest nation and the only industrialised democracy that does not provide healthcare coverage to all its citizens.

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SeaWorld San Diego's seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters two other times, in 1993 and 1999.

In 2004, another whale at the company's San Antonio park tried to hit one of the trainers and attempted to bite him. He also escaped.

Wednesday's attack was the second time in two months that an orca trainer was killed at a marine park. On Dec. 24, 29year-old Alexis Martinez Hernandez fell from a whale and crushed his ribcage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Park officials said the whale, a 14-year-old named Keto, made an unusual move as the two practiced a trick in which the whale lifts the trainer and leaps into the air.

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Video: CO2 Bubbling Up, Up, Up

Officials Rule Arson Caused Fire at Pilot's Texas House

(Little Green Footballs)

(FOXNews.com)

the Internal Revenue Service.

The crash killed Stack and IRS Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:00:59 AM employee Vernon Hunter.

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Authorities later found a AUSTIN, Texas Authorities rambling manifesto from Stack in Texas have ruled arson is the in which he described a longofficial cause of the fire that smoldering dispute with the IRS destroyed the house belonging to and a hatred of the government. the man who flew his plane into The family's accountant has an office building. confirmed that the Stacks were A u s t i n F i r e D e p a r t m e n t in the middle of an audit for spokesman Andre de la Reza reportedly failing to report (Holy Kaw!) said Thursday that the Feb. 18 income. blaze was intentionally set. Five Filters featured article: Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:23:04 PM Investigators say Joseph Stack Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: started the blaze, drove to a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Americans donated $32 million to the Red Cross’ Haiti fund via nearby airport and then flew his Term Extraction. text message. That’s a 100% single-engine plane into the jump in adults who donated to complex that houses offices of any cause through texts messages. The Cone wanted to explore this burgeoning phenomenon, so it issued a survey. Here are some of the Wired Magazine (Wired Top 2050's Swiss Army knife? Will results, but go to the Web site Stories) we have self-roasting for the full scoop. marshmallows and climateSubmitted at 2/24/2010 5:00:00 PM • 13% of respondents donated controlled tents? We have a via text message following the This month's assignment: feeling you won't be rubbing two earthquake Imagine the future of camping sticks together (or even striking • 22% would use text messaging equipment. What kind of tools a match) to start your campfire. will you be able to flick out of

Submitted at 2/24/2010 3:56:52 PM

13% of donors gave to Haiti relief via text

Found Photoshop Contest: The Future of Camping Equipment

to donate to causes only when there is an urgent need • 19% would rather text a donation to a cause or nonprofit organization than through other means (e.g., write a check or donate online) • 18% are now more likely to text a donation to their favorite nonprofit organization if it is an available option Read the full story at Cone Inc. More on mobile.

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This animated graph shows surface measurements of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere at various latitudes, within a time period spanning 1979 to 2006, with a map displaying where the data came from. At the end, the graph expands to include ice core measurements back to the 19th century. Hockey stick, anyone?

It’s a pretty effective demonstration of the precipitous increase in human-caused CO2.[Video] (Hat tip: Skeptical Science, where you’ll find more animated videos based on scientific data, showing the CO2 rise all over the world.)

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Quicken Essentials for Mac now available Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Software After a four year absence, the next version of Quicken for the Mac is here. It's called Quicken Essentials for Mac and is a ground up Cocoa rewrite. I've been using the program for a few weeks now. Is it worth the wait?

Well that depends what you need in your financial software.

When I interviewed Aaron Patzer, VP/GM of Intuit's Personal Finance Group, he was quick to point out that it's called Quicken Essentials for a reason: "It's called Essentials because it's what we consider to be essential for most users - about 80% of users. We went to people's homes and watched them use it.

The majority of them just want to know: How much do I have?

How much do I owe? How much do I spend on gas and food? How many times do I go to this restaurant? How many times do I go to Starbucks?

What investments do I have? Let me set a budget to control my spending."

If an easy overview of your financial life is the goal Intuit had in mind, they've outdone themselves. The first thing you'll notice is the completely redesigned interface. Gone is the horrible toolbar navigation with multiple windows. Quicken Essentials has got that familiar

streamlined iTunes/iLife look and feel with all your accounts, reports, budgets, and tools nicely displayed in a source list. It's single window interface makes it easy for the user to get a complete snapshot of all their finances. The interactive pie charts are snappy and responsive, and the built-in reports make it easy to view your checking, savings, and investing accounts.

Perhaps the most standout feature of this revamp is the

improved categorization that takes a ton of work off the plate of the user. The guys at Quicken have developed a learning algorithm for Quicken Online that allows users to self-tag, with the Quicken Online software remembering those tags and then applying them to other people's data. The more people who use it, the smarter the tagging gets.

In my tests, the automatic categorizing/tagging works exceedingly well. Though Quicken Essentials takes a lot of

cues from Mint.com, it's method of categorization is different (and superior). Mint obtains its categorization by performing a relatively simple Yellow Pages look-up. Later in the year Intuit will be combining the two approaches and hopes to achieve 95% categorization accuracy (Intuit bought Mint in 2009).

Out of the box, Quicken Essentials supports 12,000 US and Canadian banks. That will grow to 16,000 banks in the next 2-3 months. That's full coverage

of every credit union and bank in the country. Transferring and converting your data from Quicken for Windows to Quicken Essentials worked pretty well in my tests. I just saved a copy of my Quicken for Windows file, moved it to my Mac, and double-clicked on it.

All my data was easily imported without any errors. Keep in mind that I was only working with two years of Quicken data QUICKEN page 32

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TUAW Quick Plays: Alchemize, Dizzypad, Alice in Wonderland Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Gaming, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch Here's a quick look at three games for the iPhone and iPod touch we've gotten a chance to play lately.

Alchemize is an interesting twist on the old Tetris/Dr. Mario dropping block gameplay. The idea is that you twist and drop pairs of potions that will match up whenever three of the same kind touch each other, and then leave one transmuted element of the next level in their place.

There are five different modes to play as well, including an Avalanche mode that will drop a line of elements on the field if you fail to make a match in a certain time frame, and even a Bejeweled-style timed mode with a full field of elements to switch around for matches. The game is a lot of fun to pick up and play, and while the graphics aren't much more than sprites, the gameplay (and the music) more than make up for any disappointment in that area. If you enjoy a good droppingblock game, you'll like this one, too. It's $2.99 but has been known to go on sale occasionally.

Two more quick plays after the "Read More" link below.

Nimblebit calls their new game Dizzypad"...Koi Pond meets Doodle Jump," but I'd say there's more of an " Ancient Frog combined with Canabalt" thing going on. You play as a little frog that jumps from little lilly pad to lilly pad on a beautifully rendered pond, with the added difficulty that the pads happen to be spinning. The one you're on has a little arrow on it facing in the direction that the frog is

pointed, and you tap to jump, so the game is essentially you timing your taps to hit just the right angle to the next pad. It's addictive and simple fun, with every missed jump just one tap away from starting over again and that familiar thought that "this time, I can do it better."

The game's presentation is great, too -- Ngmoco's plus+ handles achievements with ease, and there are little frog skins to earn for each one, all excellently designed and quite cute. The

only thing missing is social integration -- this seems like the kind of game you'd want to brag about to your friends on Twitter -- but I didn't see it outside of Ngmoco's system. Excellent game for $1.99, and the extras will keep you hopping right along.

Finally, Disney has released an Alice in Wonderland tie-in game in advance of the Tim Burton movie, and while the platforming is serviceable (and the art style is an impressive

conversion of what we're almost certain to see of the extravagantly beautiful designs on the big screen), this one is probably worth skipping unless you have some die-hard young Alice fans in your family (or happen to be one). There are a few intriguing platformer twists, like the chance to switch various characters for various environmental abilities, or mechanics like rotating your iPhone to flip switches or using GPS to visit real world locations.

But in the end, the game doesn't do much that any other $4.99 platformer does (may I recommend Castle of Magic?), and though I haven't seen the movie, I do believe I got some plot points spoiled as well. If you absolutely have to revisit the world of Alice after the movie, it'll be there for you then.

TUAW TUAW Quick Plays: Alchemize, Dizzypad, Alice in Wonderland originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lobby Group Says Open Source Threatens Capitalism Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)

development model, it encourages a mindset that does not give due consideration to the Does advocating the use of open value to intellectual creations. source software make one an As such, it fails to build respect enemy of capitalism? Yes, for intellectual property rights according to a U.S. intellectual and also limits the ability of property lobby group. government or public-sector The Guardian reports that the customers (e.g., State-owned International Intellectual enterprise) to choose the best Property Alliance, a lobby group lobby group has asked the U.S. solutions.” broadly representing the RIAA, Trade Representative to accord Countries apparently don’t even MPAA and others, has requested countries like Indonesia Special have to officially legislate the that the U.S. government put 301 status because they feel that use of open source software; countries including Indonesia, encouraging the use of open Indonesia has drawn the ire of Brazil, and India on the “Special source threatens the software t h e I I P A f o r m e r e l y 301 watchlist.” Special 301 is a i n d u s t r y a n d d e v a l u e s recommending open source r e p o r t t h a t c o n c e r n s t h e intellectual property rights. The s o f t w a r e i n a c i r c u l a r t o “adequacy and effectiveness of IIPA’s recommendation to the g o v e r n m e n t d e p a r t m e n t s . intellectual property rights” USTR includes the following We’re somewhat astonished at around the globe. Being put on text: the implications of this. What do t h e a s s o c i a t e d w a t c h l i s t “The Indonesian government’s you think: does open source effectively puts those countries policy… simply weakens the software somehow inherently on a shortlist of governments s o f t w a r e i n d u s t r y a n d threaten intellectual property? c o n s i d e r e d “ e n e m i e s o f u n d e r m i n e s i t s l o n g - t e r m Should countries who make use capitalism” who aren’t doing competitiveness by creating an of it in government departments enough to protect intellectual a r t i f i c i a l p r e f e r e n c e f o r be sanctioned for weakening the companies offering open source software industry? property abroad.

The reason the IIPA is so software and related services, [img credit: David Erickson] c o n c e r n e d a b o u t t h e e v e n a s i t d e n i e s m a n y [via Computer World UK] aforementioned countries? They legitimate companies access to Tags: Brazil, india, Indonesia, apparently have the audacity to the government market. intellectual property, mpaa, open either use or advocate the use of Rather than fostering a system source, piracy, Political, riaa, open source software either in that will allow users to benefit software, special 301, trade government departments or in from the best solution available state-owned businesses. The in the market, irrespective of the Submitted at 2/24/2010 6:39:18 PM

Battle of Puppets brings the fight to the marionette stage Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

actually affect the strategy of the game. And in addition to commanding your puppet Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:00:00 PM troops, you can "cast spells" on Filed under: Gaming, Software, the screen with gesture input, Deals, App Store which will also affect the flow of Battle of Puppets fell through battle. It's almost too much to the cracks here when it was first handle on the iPhone's small r e l e a s e d , a n d t h a t w a s screen, but the developers have unfortunate -- it's a 2D real-time added in a tutorial that should strategy game for the iPhone help you figure it out. with a distinctive art style and a At 99 cents, Battle of Puppets is plethora of cool features that a steal. More casual game definitely deserves a look. The players might get a little dragged team has been updating the app down by the complexity, but often, and the latest update not those looking for strategy will only adds in achievements and find it underneath the cutout art leaderboards via the OpenFeint designs. And if they continue to platform, but also has dropped update the app at the rate they the price to just 99 cents for a have so far, there'll be even more limited time. coming in the future.

The game has a surprising TUAW Battle of Puppets brings amount of strategic depth -- the fight to the marionette stage more than you'd expect for an originally appeared on The iPhone title. There are five U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g different armies (each one (TUAW) on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 representing an "opera" theme), 21:00:00 EST. Please see our each with its own strengths and terms for use of feeds. weaknesses, and the little unit Read| Permalink| Email this| battles play out over 22 different Comments theaters, where various environmental changes can

Feb. 25, 1837: Davenport Electric Motor Gets Plugged In Dylan Tweney (Wired Top Stories)

Thomas Davenport finally got a patent for his electric motor. He

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never made much money off it, its ... power source. because it was an idea ahead of

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Tech/

Full text searches on the iPhone?

There WAS an app for that.

David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

it first. There may be something to that since reMail is arguably a better mail app than the one that built into the iPhone.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:00:00 AM Filed under: Rumors, Software, On the other hand, it may be iPhone, App Store Sometimes that Google, seeing a widening you can't win for losing. A few of the search market, wants to weeks ago, I was talking to build reMail's functionality into fellow blogger and all-around another product. It would be genius Brett Terpstra about how foolish, in my opinion to not do I wished there was a full-text so. Google has worked with search for iPhone mail. He told Cselle before as part of the me that there was, and it was Gmail team and knows what he called reMail. I immediately can do. With reMail as part of downloaded the free app, paid the bargain, he's more important the US $3.99 for the in-app to them than during his earlier feature of using IMAP tenure. mailboxes, and reMail started There is a rumor floating around downloading copies of all my that someone has reversemail. This took overnight, but so engineered reMail and will what? When done, I could release it as open source. This search on any word or term just could be interesting and may like the Macintosh Mail change the game, but it may be application, and be rewarded team. just a rumor. Whatever happens, with a listing of all the As a nice gesture, Gabor it'll be intriguing to keep your incidences of the term in my decided to keep supporting eye on the evolution of mail 3,000 or so email messages in a reMail until the end of March apps on smartphones, and to fraction of a second. a n d m a k e t h e t w o i n - a p p learn just what Google has in This worked like a dream. I purchases free. Along with mind. immediately put reMail on my IMAP support, you could also TUAW Full text searches on the home screen and was happy. At buy the option of having it work iPhone? There WAS an app for least, that was, until last week with Rackspace email. And thus that. originally appeared on The when I read that Gabor Cselle, started the conspiracy theories. U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g reMail's creator, announced that Techcrunch surmised that this (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 the app was being put out to could be another shot over the 10:00:00 EST. Please see our pasture, and was immediately b o w i n t h e A p p l e - G o o g l e terms for use of feeds. being removed from the App s m a r t p h o n e w a r , a n d t h a t Read| Permalink| Email this| Store. Google both bought the Google bought the technology to Comments app and hired Gabor to be a kill it off, so Apple couldn't buy Product Manager on the Gmail

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Gmail Retires 5 and Graduates 6 Labs Features Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:54:03 AM

Gmail Labs, the experimental Gmail playground in which every Google engineer can write a Gmail feature, sometimes retires features that aren’t used very much, and graduates commonly used features, turning them into regular Gmail features.

Today, Gmail has retired five features and graduated six others; over the next couple of days, you’ll see the retired features disappear from the Labs. I haven’t really used any of the retired features; if you’ve used any of them and are sorry to see them go, please share it in the comments.

The six Labs features that graduated are: 1. Search Autocomplete 2. Go To Label 3. Forgotten Attachment Detector 4. YouTube Previews

5. Custom Label Colors 6. Vacation Dates The five features that were retired are: 1. Muzzle 2. Fixed Width Font 3. Email Addict 4. Location in Signature 5. Random Signature The features that graduated from Labs are either no-brainers, such as autocomplete for Gmail’s search and previews of YouTube videos in emails, or nifty little details, like the Forgotten Attachment Detector which alerts you if you wrote “I’ve attached” in your message but haven’t actually attached a file to it. Reviews: Gmail, YouTube Tags: gmail, labs

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Mac 101: How to use the iTunes parental controls Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/24/2010 8:00:00 PM

Filed under: iTunes, Mac 101 As Apple removes sexually suggestive apps from the App Store(and is evidently preparing a Red Light District for the future), users are wondering how they can protect their kids from certain content. With that in mind, here's an overview of the parental controls in iTunes.

Note that the screenshot at right is from iTunes 9.0.3. Older versions look slightly different.

Parental controls are only available in iTunes 5 and later.

To access these settings, select Preferences from the iTunes menu, and then click the Parental tab. Here you've got several options.

First, you can disable access to podcasts, internet radio or the iTunes Store completely. Note that you can keep iTunes U accessible while disabling the rest of the store. Additionally, you can deny access to shared libraries. Once turned off, these

items won't appear in the left sidebar of the iTunes window.

Next, a drop-down menu lets you apply the content ratings systems from one of several countries to your own machine.

From there, you can apply more fine-grained content restrictions.

For example, if you've opted to use the US's ratings system, you can limit access to movies that are rated G, PG, PG-13 or R. Television shows can be limited in the same way (TV-Y, TV-Y7, etc.).

As for apps, there are four ratings, no matter which country's system you've selected: 4+, 9+, 12+ and 17+.

If you want even tighter

restriction, select "Restrict explicit content." This won't let users preview, purchase or subscribe to content in the store that's been marked as explicit by the content providers.

Once you're done, click the lock to prevent further changes and provide your machine's administrator password (which your kids don't know, right?).

All of these changes must be set up for each user account that will have limited access. Also, changes made in iTunes on a Mac will apply to a mobile device (iPod touch or iPhone) that's tied to that same limited account. In other words, Jr. won't be able to use the mobile App Store to download apps that the desktop version denies.

TUAW Mac 101: How to use the iTunes parental controls originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPad, iPhone, Cash Mountain Expected to Dominate Apple Annual Meeting Reuters (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:00:00 PM

When Apple chief executive

Steve Jobs holds his annual faceto-face meeting with shareholders Thursday, there will be no shortage of questions

for the information-technology company that's famously stingy with information.

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Should YouTube Allow Artful Nudity?

Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

videos of a well-known artist, Amy Greenfield, for violating Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:53:47 PM the "no nudity" policy. Now, The EFF and the National this isn't actually a "censorship" Coalition Against Censorship issue, since YouTube is a private are apparently asking YouTube site, and not the government. to consider changing its policy So, honestly, I don't see any w i t h r e g a r d s t o n u d i t y . problem with YouTube deciding Apparently, it will allow nudity t h a t i t d o e s n ' t w a n t t h a t if the video is from a film or TV particular content on its site, but show -- but not if it's user there is a separate issue raised generated videos made for here -- which is that, once again, YouTube. Separately, YouTube the real issue is Google's lack of suggests it will allow nudity customer service -- something w i t h " s o m e e d u c a t i o n a l , we've seen a lot of lately. One documentary and scientific o f t h e c o m p l a i n t s i s t h a t content, but only if that is the Greenfield's videos were taken sole purpose of the video and it down with no recourse and no is not gratuitously graphic." The method for her to communicate problem, according to the EFF with folks at YouTube to talk and NCAC, is that there is no about getting them back online. exception for work that is artistic Permalink| Comments| Email i n n a t u r e , a n d a p p a r e n t l y This Story YouTube recently removed the

iTunes App Store 'Explicit' Category: Now You See It, Now You Don't Charlie Sorrel (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:48:00 AM

After raising hopes of an adultsonly section of the App Store,

Apple has cruelly removed an 'explicit' category from the submission process before it even made it to the public store itself.

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QUICKEN continued from page 27

though. Quicken Essentials allows for conversion from previous Mac programs, Quicken for Windows 2007+, and the now defunct Microsoft Money.

If you're like me and just want a simple program to view all your financial accounts, see where your money is going, and keep track of balances and upcoming bills, I highly recommend Quicken Essentials. If, however, you're a Quicken power user who needs investing and planning tools, investment buy and sell tracking, TurboTax integration, or in-app bill pay, then QEM is not for you. Think of this edition of Quicken Essentials as iPhoto for your finances. It presents a snapshot of your finances and transactions in a simple to use interface. If you need more than that, it's best

to look at iBank or Quicken Premier for Windows running under VMWare Fusion or Parallels.

Quicken Essentials for the Mac goes on sale today for $69 and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6, an Intel-based Mac, and 1GB of hard disk space.

TUAW Quicken Essentials for Mac now available originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Home Cooking Is Killing The Restaurant Industry!

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:30:00 AM

For many years, whenever people insisted that the ability to download movies would kill the movie business -- including the box office revenues -- we've made the analogy that just because people can prepare food at home(for much lower cost!) it hasn't changed the fact that sometimes people still go out to dinner. It's an apt analogy.

People go out to dinner for a variety of reasons, despite cheaper (and potentially healthier) fare at home.

Basically the overall experience makes it worthwhile as a social experience. That applies equally to movies and eating out. I was reminded of this recently. A whole bunch of you sent over Gizmodo's post about the old Dead Kennedys cassette tape mocking "Home Taping is

Killing Music" by leaving the second side blank so "you can help": This image (or a similar one) shows up every couple of years and makes the blog rounds. So, at first I wasn't going to bother posting it, but then the Freakbits guys pointed me to various "offshoot" slogans and images, including the following one that's so good it

needs to be shared widely: Yes, folks, home cooking is killing the restaurant industry. Why won't Congress and the USTR deal with this pernicious problem?

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ReverbNation Adds Some RtB To Its CwF Platform Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:17:10 AM

It's been neat to watch more and more companies step up to better enable the types of business models that are working these days. The latest is ReverbNation -- a company that's really

focused on the Connect with Fans (CwF) side of the business for a while -- by building what it called a "fan relationship management" system. Basically, it was a more sophisticated email list manager, but with some special features and widgets for bands. The

company has been adding a lot of features lately, and now it's announced a deal to make it even easier for a band to sell merch via ReverbNation.

Contrary to what the article claims, I don't believe that just selling merch is necessarily a great business model on its own

(access, attention and some other things tend to have more potential), but it is certainly a good supplementary part of many CwF+RtB type business models these days. So anything that makes it easier for artists seems like a good thing.

Obviously, there are other ways

that bands could already do similar things, but the integration directly into ReverbNation's platform is definitely a nice thing.

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Chatroulette Explained: CodeOrgan Translates 71% Male, 15% Female, Web Sites Into Music 14% Pervert [VIDEO] Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:30:53 PM

Barb Dybwad (Mashable!)

File under “strange and delightful” — CodeOrgan is a Flash app that turns any web The random videoconferencing page into music. sensation Chatroulette has been It analyses the text in the body all the rage lately, but we can’t of the supplied URL and follows blame you if you haven’t an algorithm to render that site actually given it a try just yet. into a musical composition. It Casey Neistat approached the warned there’s some NSFW chooses a drum pattern, synth new site for a more scientific language in there, although style and key based on the breakdown of what might be thankfully any truly offensive contents of the page, and plays found there, confirming much of visuals were left out. back the associated music via our suspicion and hesitation: the chat roulette from Casey Neistat the “Play this website” button. on Vimeo. average composition on a After analyzing your URL, you weekday afternoon includes Have you used Chatroulette? have the option of sharing your 14% of users doing things you What’s your opinion of the site? results on Facebook and Twitter. [via The Awl via Holykaw] really don’t want to see.

The creators, UK-based ad If you’re unfamiliar with the Reviews: Vimeo agency DLKW, also report Chatroulette concept, the video Tags: chat, chatroulette, nexted, b e l o w i s c e r t a i n l y a n social media, video entertaining introduction. Be

Opera 10.5 Beta 2 for Windows Fixes Loads of Bugs [Updates]

Submitted at 2/24/2010 8:41:50 PM

being busy working on an embeddable version of CodeOrgan as well.

Mashable is sounding downright jazzy, according to CodeOrgan. What do your favorite sites sound like? [via Make Use Of] Reviews: Facebook, Mashable, Twitter Tags: codeorgan, Flash, music, software, web sites

Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:30:00 AM

It also adds improvements for the opera:config page and local storage, but the newest beta of the seriously speedy Opera 10.5 is mostly about fixing and tweaking little things. Grab a copy and learn more at Opera's site, and tell us what you like or still want to see fixed and upgraded in the comments. [via ZDNet]

Shocka: Hamas Founder's Son Spied for Israel (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:15:13 AM

Here’s a surprise from the Middle East: the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef spied for Israel for more than ten years.

The son of one of Hamas’s founding members was a spy in the service of Israel for more than a decade, helping prevent

dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from finding their targets, it emerged today.

Codenamed the Green Prince by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas cofounder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, supplied key intelligence on an almost daily basis from 1996 onwards and tracked down suicide bombers and their

handlers from his father’s organization, the daily Haaretz said.

Information he supplied led to the arrests of some of the most wanted men by Israeli forces, including Marwan Barghouti, a Fatah leader often tipped as a potential president who was convicted of masterminding terrorist attacks, and one of Hamas’ top bomb-makers

Abdullah Barghouti, who is no relation of the jailed Fatah chief.

Yousef converted to Christianity and has a book about his undercover work coming out— which doesn’t make Israel’s security service Shin Bet happy. But the revelations in the book will be much more damaging to Hamas; about the terrorist group, Yousef said this to the Times Online:

“Hamas cannot make peace with the Israelis,” he told the daily.

“That is against what their God tells them. It is impossible to make peace with infidels, only a cease-fire, and no one knows that better than I. The Hamas leadership is responsible for the killing of Palestinians, not Israelis.”

And that’s right on the money.

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Why This Summit Matters Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic - All Feed)

tremendous difficulty finding comparable coverage elsewhere.

That's pretty much the way the Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:00:00 PM market works. And, combined Message from fivefilters.org: If with a new report showing that you can, please donate to the full similar things are happening all -text RSS service so we can over the country, the message continue developing it. could not be clearer: The On one end of Pennsylvania American health care system is Avenue y e s t e r d a y , fundamentally broken. Around a administration staffers were sixth of the population has no busy making preparations for an health insurance at all; that much event that will likely determine we’ve all known for a while. But whether comprehensive health even among the majority of care reform goes forward. And working-age Americans who on the other end of Pennsylvania have private health insurance, Avenue, their counterparts in s e c u r i t y t u r n s o u t t o b e Congress were busy making the p r e c a r i o u s . case for why it should.

You might think you’re safe-For several hours, members of that your insurance will always t h e H o u s e E n e r g y a n d be there, at a price you can Commerce Committee grilled a f f o r d , c o v e r i n g w h a t e v e r the chief executive officer of medical treatments you need.

Wellpoint, to see why the But if you get sick, you may company's California subsidiary discover your plan has loopholes was raising health insurance and limits, so that you owe tens premiums by nearly 40 percent of thousands of dollars in out-off o r s o m e c u s t o m e r s . T h e pocket expenses. And if you buy t e s t i m o n y , c o m b i n e d w i t h coverage on your own, you documents that the Committee could end up trapped in a plan h a d o b t a i n e d , p a i n t e d a n that, eventually, you won’t be illuminating if unsurprising able to afford--just like many of picture. It appears that Anthem t h o s e A n t h e m B l u e C r o s s B l u e C r o s s , W e l l p o i n t ’ s customers. subsidiary, was trying to protect Thursday’s summit is about profit margins at a time of rising how best to solve this problem. medical costs. That meant, And, ostensibly, there are two among other things, charging basic approaches on the table. more money to people that were There is the comprehensive plan running up higher medical t h a t P r e s i d e n t O b a m a p u t expenses--people who, because forward on Monday, which is a of their pre-existing medical c o m p r o m i s e b e t w e e n t h e c o n d i t i o n s , w o u l d h a v e measures Democrats in the

House and Senate passed late last year. And there is the approach that leaders of the Republican Party have articulated--a set of familiar conservative hobbyhorses that, at best, might lower insurance premiums for the healthy only by making the sick pay more.

But there is also a third option, one that’s been lurking in the background ever since last summer, when the push for comprehensive reform got bogged down on Capitol Hill.

It’s the administration’s Plan B or, as the insiders have been calling it, the “skinny bill.”

Back in January, after the Massachsuetts election eliminated the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority, Robert Pear and David Herzenhorn of the New York Times described the basic outline of such a scheme--primarily, a more modest expansion of public programs to cover children and their families. On Wednesday, Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House stood ready to pursue Plan B if the push for Plan A fails.

This isn't surprising: Of course the administration has a Plan B. (It would be political malpractice to do otherwise.)

But the timing of the story is rather unfortunate: Just in the last 36 hours, the signs from Capitol Hill have been unambiguously positive:

Conservative Democrats in the Senate are indicating their willingness to take up final amendments to the health care bill via the budget reconciliation process, while House Democrats are, according to multiple sources, warming to the Obama compromise. Exactly who leaked this and why is not clear, but sources close to the administration were quick to say that any impression of presidential mixed feelings would be wrong.

Says one senior Democrat in close contact with the White House over this issue: The truth here is that this proposal was developed because the president wanted to know what the impact would be if he had to go smaller after the Massachusetts setback. He wants to pass comprehensive health reform and is fighting hard to make that happen.

A senior administration official e-mails with similar thoughts: The President is not at all ambivalent. He understands that the only way to solve the problem is comprehensive reform. You can't guarantee affordable coverage for people with preexisting conditions, you can't really rein in costs, etc, unless you do this.

The account of Obama's sentiments is consistent with my own reporting--and Meckler's story, for that matter. It's also consistent with the pattern we’ve

seen for more than a year now.

Top administration officials and congressional allies have frequently urged Obama to step back from comprehensive reform, given its political difficulty. Obama has rejected the option repeatedly, arguing that the nation’s health care problems require a comprehensive solution--that piecemeal measures just won't do the job.

And he’s right. The Republican bill would, if anything, accentuate and accelerate the dysfunctions of the status quo.

People with medical conditions would struggle to find decent coverage; people too poor to buy insurance wouldn’t get the financial assistance they need.

The vulnerable, in other words, would remain vulnerable if not more so.

The skinny bill, if enacted, would surely be an improvement. Sources confirm it would bring insurance to an additional 16 million total, or about a third of the uninsured, primarily through Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It would also cost around a quarter of what comprehensive reform would, which means it could be paid for mostly through cuts to Medicare Advantage plans and other financing tweaks. That might appeal to some skittish WHY page 38

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35

Poll Tax Neera Tanden (The New Republic - All Feed)

was one of the more favorable ones!) Numbers likes these have members of congress worrying Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:00:00 PM about their own election Message from fivefilters.org: If p r o s p e c t s a n d d e s p e r a t e l y you can, please donate to the full hoping the issue goes away.

-text RSS service so we can And, of course, on the surface, continue developing it. this assessment is rational.

Last week, I left the Obama In my time in Washington, I’ve administration to join the Center watched congressmen, senators for American Progress. and their advisors allow Policy—constructing it, selling similarly stark polling data to it—has been my career, as an shape their calculus on countless advisor for the president and occasions. But the problem is Hillary Clinton. The New polls can be amongst the worst Republic has asked me to use basis for a politician to make a t h i s e x p e r i e n c e t o h e l p good decision about their selfilluminate the glorious (and interest. Often, they can suggest o c c a s i o n a l l y u n a t t r a c t i v e ) a course of action that is process of policymaking, how b l i n k e r e d o r w o r s e , s e l f wonks and politicians think destructive. And that’s exactly a b o u t t h e h a r d w o r k o f the case with health care reform. governing. Herewith, my first There’s no denying that health installment. care is a tad unpopular. But what What can defeat health care d o e s t h i s s u g g e s t ? M a n y r e f o r m ? P o l l s — o r m o r e Democrats are making the s p e c i f i c a l l y , D e m o c r a t i c relatively crude calculation that politicians misreading them. if they drop this seemingly Most of the data that crosses unpopular issue, their own their desks these days resembles popularity will rise. They think the numbers from the Kaiser of health care as an anchor, and Health Tracking Poll, which the minute they cut it loose shows the public evenly divided they’ll sail for better electoral on reform—43 percent in favor, waters.

43 percent opposed. (And that Well, the problem with this

analysis is that issues don’t operate in a vacuum. Elections are based on competing arguments. Of course, issues are integral to those arguments—the very building blocks of them.

But very few individual issues make or break a nationalized election. So in 1992 Bill Clinton had a series of policies—a middle class tax cut, help for college—that “Put People First.”

They were meant to convey his support for the middle class, in contrast to Republicans who were about supporting the powerful. It was the entire cocktail of policies that proved so politically effective.

And of course issues can help drive a negative narrative too. In the fall of 2000, Al Gore called for government to tap the Strategic Petroleum Oil Reserve.

On paper, this was a good move.

Gas prices were rising precipitously. It seemed like a political no-brainer.

Unfortunately, Gore had denounced the idea of utilizing these reserves several months earlier. He had made that case in a totally different context. But it didn’t matter. His opponent, George W. Bush, accused him of

Exclusive: How Google's Algorithm Rules the Web Steven Levy (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:00:00 PM

When it comes to finding stuff online, there's Google — and there's everyone else. Wired senior writer Steven Levy gets

an unprecedented inside look at the company's technological wizardry.

hypocrisy, pushing a bad policy for political gain. Gore’s internal polls, I was told at the time, showed him falling a disastrous five points in the wake of this move.

Right now Democrats need to stop worrying about health care polling and to start worrying about their narrative. If Democrats do not deliver on health care reform, a reasonable voter could make the following assessment: Democrats spent the last year discussing a particular problem and put forth a solution.

And with 59 seats in the Senate and 254 in the House, they failed to do anything about this problem that they argued was a catastrophe for the American people. And if they are not able to solve that problem with huge majorities, why should they be trusted to govern past November, when their majorities are likely to shrink? And what exactly will they deliver?

Incompetence is a pretty strong attack. Democrats should be well aware of that fact. They bludgeoned George Bush for his botched response to Katrina and bungled efforts in Iraq with devastating effects.

I know that lots of Democrats are in cold hard sweats right now. It is true that they face very difficult terrain. But health care is not some issue that Democrats randomly adopted. This has been a 50-year fight for the party. The Republicans have our backs against the wall. But in reality, momentum builds in politics. If individual members think that they can survive Republican attacks by simply running away, they should recognize that it’s also possible that running away could dramatically worsen their predicament. Nothing will strike voters as more pathetic than doing nothing. And rarely in politics are pathetic politicians rewarded.

Sometimes, the only way out is through.

Neera Tanden is the Chief Operating Officer of the Center for American Progress. She served in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

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Poll: 10 Percent Say Congress Doing Good Job (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:12:33 AM

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Voter unhappiness with Congress has reached the highest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports as 71% now say the legislature is doing a poor job.

That’s up ten points from the previous high of 61% reached a month ago.

Only 10% of voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job.

Nearly half of Democratic voters (48%) now give Congress a poor rating, up 17 points since January. The vast majority of Republicans and voters not affiliated with either party also give Congress poor ratings.

Seventy percent (70%) of voters say Congress has not passed any legislation that would significantly improve life for Americans, up 10 points over the past month and the highest level of dissatisfaction measured in regular tracking in over three

years. Only 15% say Congress has passed such legislation.

Forty percent (40%) of voters nationwide now say it is at least somewhat likely Congress will seriously address the most important issues facing the nation. That’s down from 59% last March. Only 9% say it is Very Likely Congress will address these issues.

These numbers are consistent with the analysis provided in Scott Rasmussen’s new book, In Search of Self-Governance.

Scott notes that “Today, Americans are united. United in the belief that our political system is broken, that politicians are corrupt, and that neither major political party has the answers.” He adds, “Some of us are ready to give up; some of us are ready to scream a little louder. But all of us believe we can do better.”

The book has received positive reviews from across the political spectrum. In Search of SelfGovernance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.

Other recent polling also reflects voter disappointment in

Congress. Earlier this month, 63% of voters said it would be better for the country if most incumbents in Congress were defeated this November. Just 27% of voters say their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job.

Three out of four voters (75%) report being at least somewhat angry at the policies of the federal government. Part of the frustration is likely due to the belief of 60% of voters that neither Republican political leaders nor Democratic political leaders have a good understanding of what is needed today.

Still, voters believe Democrats are more likely than Republicans to have a plan for the future.

Regardless of which political side voters are on, just 21% believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.

As Congress continues to hash out the health care reform plan proposed by the president and Congressional Democrats, just 41% of voters favor the plan while 56% are opposed. Sixtythree percent (63%) of all voters

say a better strategy to reform the health care system would be to pass smaller bills that address problems individually.

Just 9% of voters believe most members of Congress are genuinely interested in helping people, which ties the recent low in December. Eighty-one percent (81%) say most members of Congress are more interested in their own careers, a new multiyear high.

The plurality of voters (42%) continues to believe most members of Congress are corrupt, a result that has remained fairly consistent over the past several months. One in three U.S. voters (32%) does not see most congressmen as corrupt. Another 26% are undecided.

In 2010, Republican candidates have consistently held an advantage over Democrats in the Generic Congressional Ballot. © All Rights Reserved.

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Quake III Runs Fragtastically On a Droid [Smartphones] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:11:08 AM

Ten years ago, Quake III required a PC tower with some gaming cred. Today, all you need is a smartphone running Android 1.6 or later. And it's even a free download.

The hobby project of thunderbird2k, this video shows Quake III running pretty well on a the Motorola Droid—between 20 and 30fps—while allowing perks like multiplayer and customizable controls. (Also impressive: before the Quake was optimized for the platform, it still ran at about 22fps.) Given that the Droid doesn't have the fastest processor around, I'd be curious to see Quake III running on something like a Nexus One. In fact, maybe we should start using games to benchmark these phones, just as we do with beefy PC rigs.

Oh, and on a slightly related note...

Unreal 4EVER. [ Android Quake III via Slashdot]

A closer look at the Square Payment System John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:30:00 AM

Phil Torrone got to look at the new Square iPhone Payment system and he and the daring

Lady Ada of AdaFruit industries took some photos and video of a prototype of the new device. To recap, the Square device is a little dongle that lets you swipe credit cards. With a quick slash

of the card you can accept

payment from anyone for almost anything.

Not much to write home about right now but this early beta seems to work like a charm, reading and authorizing a charge

in seconds. Great for the hunter/gatherer economy that will come in to replace our current capitalistic model.

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37

Wasted Youth E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:00:00 PM

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WASHINGTON--Young Americans are the linchpin of a new progressive era in American politics. So why aren't Democrats paying more attention to them?

The relative strength of conservatives in American politics since the 1980s was built on generational change: Voters whose views had been shaped by the New Deal were gradually replaced with the more cautious souls who came of age after FDR. Then the Millennial generation came along. The Millennials--generally defined as Americans born in 1981 or after-are, without question, the most liberal generation since those New Dealers, and they could transform our politics for decades. But this will happen only if progressive politicians start noticing their very best friends in the electorate.

Progressives who doubt this could usefully spend time with the Pew Research Center's exhaustive new portrait of the Millennials that was released Wednesday. The study underscored the new generation's "distinctiveness," and a big part of that distinctiveness is how progressive younger Americans are compared with the rest of the country.

For one thing, they are not allergic to the word "liberal."

Americans under 30 include the largest proportion of selfdescribed liberals and the smallest proportion of selfdescribed conservatives of any age group in the country: 29 percent of the under 30s called themselves liberal compared with 28 percent who called themselves conservative.

"In every other age group," Pew notes, "far more described their views as conservative than liberal."

Among Gen Xers (born between 1965 and 1980), the conservative advantage over liberals was 38 percent to 20 percent. Among Baby Boomers

(born 1946 to 1964), conservatives led 43 percent to 18 percent. Among those born in 1945 or before -- Pew uses the classic "Silent Generation" tag -the conservative advantage was 45 percent to 15 percent.

(Moderates and a few respondents who refused a label made up the remainder in all groups.)

The difference in self-labeling reflects real differences in attitudes. It's well-known that younger voters are more liberal on social issues, particularly gay rights. But their liberalism also includes sympathy for activist government.

For example, 53 percent of Millennials said that "government should do more to solve problems." In every other age group, pluralities preferred the alternative statement offered by the pollsters, that "government is doing too many things better left to business and individuals."

"Millennials," the report concludes, "are significantly less critical of government on a number of dimensions than are other age cohorts."

10 Billion iTunes Songs Sold [Apple] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:58:57 AM

It took a little longer than we through iTunes. Crazy. expected but it happened: 10,000,000,000 songs sold

Important demographic factors account for some but not all of the distinctiveness of the new generation: Census data cited by Pew shows that 61 percent of the Millennials are white compared with 70 percent of Americans ages 30 and over. This means that political outreach to the young will require particular attention to Hispanics (19 percent of Millennials) and African-Americans (14 percent).

For Democrats looking ahead to this fall's election, the Pew study has some disturbing news.

It's true that Millennials are the most Democratic age group in the electorate -- they voted for Barack Obama by 2-1. Their turnout rate relative to older voters was higher in 2008 than in any election since 1972, the first presidential contest in which 18-year-olds had the right to vote.

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Lomography's Classic LC-A+ Now Has An Instant Back Accessory For Polaroid-Like Photos [Photography] Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:36:44 AM

Lomography already makes an instant back for its more popular Diana F+ camera, so it was about time they did the same for their classic LC-A+ model too.

It brings Polaroid-like instant photos to the highly-saturated, soft-focus photography format.

The instant back will set you back a rather steep $100, and if you think you can write that off against the saving you'll make on rolls of 35mm film, think again. You'll need to load it with Fujifilm Instax film which you can pick up on Amazon (which in my experience, is heaps cheaper for Lomo products and film than the actual Lomography store) for $20 for two packs—each pack can produce 10 photos. So you're looking at around a dollar a photo, plus the cost of the instant back. Better use that film wisely. [ Lomography via CrunchGear]

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WHY continued from page 34

Democrats, who want nothing except a face- (and job-) saving way out.

But the politics of the skinny plan aren’t as simple as they might seem. It would give the administration an accomplishment, yes, but nobody would mistake it for "success." It’s also not clear--to me, anyway--that the political optics are so appealing.

Republicans have been known to demagogue expansions of Medicaid and S-CHIP, after all; financing them with reductions to Medicare Advantage plans will, undoubtedly, produce the exact same attacks the comprehensive bill already has (and for which most Democrats have already voted). It's easy to imagine negotiations dragging out, which is the last thing Democrats need right now. And that's to say nothing about the broader impact on Obama's ability to drive an agenda.

Most important of all, though, the skinny bill doesn’t actually fix the broken system. It doesn’t re-engineer the insurance market, so that anybody can get insurance regardless of preexisting condition; it doesn’t strengthen requirements on existing coverage, so that the insured can be safe in the knowledge that they’ll be protected if they get sick; and it doesn’t make as much progress towards cost control, which means neither individuals nor employers nor the government will get relief from the huge financial burden health care costs are placing on them.

However opaque the campaign for health care reform has seemed, it really does come down to those three goals: Making sure that everybody has insurance, making sure the coverage is good, and making sure, over time, that health care costs less. The fallback options,

Democrat or Republican, don’t accomplish those goals. Only comprehensive reform does.

The president knows this. The Democrats in Congress know this. And they have the power to act on it. The only question is whether they will.

Update: A senior administration official got back to me just after the article posted initially; I've now added the quote. Also, Ezra Klein has some even stronger (and compelling) warnings against the fallback plans: ...there's no political upside in starting over. The right will still cry "death panels!" and let loose the dogs of tea, and the left will savage them for failing to pass health-care reform despite controlling the second-largest congressional majority since the 70s. There's a policy argument here in that a fallback plan will cover more people than no plan will cover, but if covering people is what the Democrats

want to do, they'll pass the comprehensive plan, which both covers more people and actually gives them a major accomplishment.

At this point, health-care reform either passes or it dies.

Democrats are all in on this one.

They know it, Republicans know it, and maybe more importantly, they know the Republicans know it. Letting health-care reform fail is indistinguishable from conceding the 2010 election. There's no real fallback plan. If Democrats fall back, they fall.

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Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds to Visit the Stoneage (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:02:00 AM

Yabba-Dabba-Doo! Nicolas Cage and Ryan Reynolds are turning the clock back to prehistoric times.

The two will voice computergenerated cavemen in 'The Croods,' according to Variety. In the animated comedy, Crug (Cage) and his family fall victim to an earthquake. This forces them to hesitantly navigate a world that is unfamiliar to them.

Along their journey, they bump into a nomadic character, played

by Reynolds. His somewhat modern way of life sparks the interest of Clug's family, his oldest daughter in particular.

According to Variety, 'The Croods' will be in theaters on March 30, 2012 in 3D.

Murtha's Widow Endorses Aide for Empty Pa. Seat (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 2/25/2010 12:55:42 AM

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John Murtha's widow is endorsing an aide to the late congressman in his bid to fill

Murtha's former House seat.

Joyce Murtha says Mark Critz is "the most qualified and knowledgeable candidate in the field."

Critz resigned as district director in Murtha's office on Monday and announced his plan to run.

A special election to fill the

vacancy will be held as part of Pennsylvania's May 18 primary.

Murtha died Feb. 8 following complications from gallbladder surgery.

Democrats running include former Pennsylvania treasurer Barbara Hafer, former lieutenant governor Mark Singel and Cambria County Controller Ed

Cernic Jr. Prospective Republican candidates include William Russell, who unsuccessfully challenged Murtha in 2008, and businessman Tim Burns. © Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,

rewritten or redistributed.

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

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Blumenthal Fires Back at Breitbart (Again)

Daily electronics deals

(Little Green Footballs)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:19:38 AM

Taylor.

Did O’Keefe plan the event Submitted at 2/24/2010 2:14:21 PM with his friend, the white In the very public ongoing nationalist Marcus Epstein, the battle between Andrew Breitbart Tancredo aide who pled guilty to a n d M a x B l u m e n t h a l , randomly attacking a black Blumenthal has another article at woman and calling her the nHuffington Post on James word? O’Keefe’s role in helping O’Keefe and on some of the out with and freely attending the disturbing events at CPAC: event, along with his palling Feeling the Hate at CPAC 2010 around with characters like With Andrew Breitbart, Hannah Epstein and Taylor highlighted a Giles and the Crazy Mob. career filled with racist pranks, While I was filming at CPAC from his ACORN pimp costume for a forthcoming project, I was minstrel show (see Bradblog on confronted by Hannah Giles, the deceptive means Breitbart Andrew Breitbart and a mob of used to push the pimp costume crazed teabaggers. They were myth) to his “affirmative action enraged by an article I wrote for bake sale,” in which he and his S a l o n . c o m a b o u t J a m e s friends charged white students O’Keefe’s attendance of and extra for baked goods while a s s i s t a n c e w i t h a w h i t e minorities ate for little or nationalist event featuring open nothing. Then there are his racialists Jared Taylor and John diaries about the hell of living in Derbyshire as well as Kevin a m u l t i c u l t u r a l u n i v e r s i t y Martin of the right-wing front environment. James O’Keefe, group Project 21. Project 21, by t h e a p p a r e n t h e r o o f t h e the way, is a black front group conservative movement’s youth created and operated by white wing, is what racism looks like conservative operatives to today. … provide cover to figures like It is also worth noting that

CPAC played host to Thomas Woods, a former leader of the white supremacist League of the South and contributor to the neosecessionist Southern Partisan magazine. And that CPAC held a seminar called “Abraham Lincoln: Friend or Foe of Liberty?” led by Thomas DiLorenzo, another League of the South figure who insists Lincoln was the very embodiment of evil. The presence at CPAC of Islamophobes Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller (Geller once argued Obama was “involved with a crack whore in his youth”), promoters of the European neo-fascist Geert Wilders, can not be overlooked either. And stay tuned for my interview with Birther leader Philip Berg, who insisted Obama was actually an Indonesian Muslim who should be tried for treason and possibly executed.

These people must have left their sheets at the dry cleaners.

Nicholas Kolman-Mandle (Consumer Reports)

Daily electronics deals Today's electronics deals, courtesy of The Consumerist: • Buy.com: LG 42LH30 42-inch 1080p LCD HDTV $640 Shipped • Dell Home: WD 2TB My Book Mirror USB 2.0 External $170 Shipped • Tiger Direct: Lenovo S10 Widescreen Atom Netbook $250 • HP Home & Office: HP dv6t 15.6-inch Intel Core i3 $624.99 + free shipping • Dell Home: Dell Zino HD Athlon 1.8GHz Mini Desktop PC w/ 19" LCD for $302 + $13 s&h • Best Buy: Best Buy Rewards members: $100 off refurb Apple iPhones in-store, from $30 • Deep Discount: Futurama: The Complete Collection [DVD] $79.98 + free shipping • Amazon: Jennifer's Body (Blu -ray + digital copy) $12.99 Related: TV Ratings and buying tips; Computer Ratings and buying tips; DVD & Blu-ray

Charlie Sheen's Wife Allegedly a Crackhead [Sad] Doree Shafrir (Gawker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:24:45 AM

The whole Charlie Sheen-

Brooke Mueller saga just keeps getting sadder. Now Radar is reporting that Mueller is addicted to crack and has been in

Question: Who is watching their 11-month-old twin sons these rehab more than five times. days? [ Radar]

39

player Ratings and buying tips.

Neither Consumer Reports nor The Consumerist receive anything in exchange for featuring these deals; the posts are intended to be purely informational. These deals are often fleeting, with prices changing or products becoming unavailable as the day progresses.

These posts are not an endorsement of the featured products or the Web sites that sell them—though some of the sites may be included, and recommended, in our Ratings of retailers for computers and other major electronics(both available to subscribers). Price shouldn't be your only criterion. Be wary of lower-priced deals that seem too good to be true, and check return policies for restocking fees and other gotchas.

For general buying advice for many of the products on sale above, check out our free Buying Guides. Subscribe now!

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In the labs: 9 new LCD TVs, including a 60-inch model

2011 Hyundai Sonata recall, stop sale

Eileen McCooey (Consumer Reports)

Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:11:03 AM

In the labs: 9 new LCD TVs, including a 60-inch model While we wait for the new 2010 TVs to hit stores in force, our test labs continue to put LCD TVs through their paces, including a 60-inch LCD TV, the largest size we’ve tested.

The nine models currently in our labs show that glossy screens are steadily becoming more common in LCD TVs. Four sets have mirror-like screens that show reflections from a nearby window or lamp, much like plasma screens do.

That’s a growing trend in a category where matte screens were the norm not that long ago.

Why the change? A glossy screen can enhance contrast and black levels, which can be a challenge for LCD sets, and there is some aesthetic appeal to a shiny surface. As a bonus, harder screens are less vulnerable to damage than softer matte screens.

But reflections are unquestionably an issue. We have traditionally advised that LCDs with matte screens are better than plasmas for bright rooms with lots of windows or ambient lighting that can’t be reduced, but that’s not true of the new breed of glossyscreened LCDs. When buying a new TV, make sure the screen finish suits your taste and your room setting. (If you have a preference or a comment about your experience with screens, we’d love to hear it. Scroll to the bottom of this post for our Comments section.)

Other trends we’re seeing: more models with 120Hz and 240Hz refresh rates, LED backlighting, and ultra-slim designs. One of the new sets, the Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR10, has an external media box that contains all the inputs and outputs, so you have few cables dangling from the TV. The box can communicate with the TV wirelessly or via a cable, say, if you tuck it behind the set.

Two of the sets, the Sony

Bravia and the Samsung UN55B8500, both offer streaming Internet video. The Sony can stream movies from Netflix and Amazon, and the Samsung from Amazon and Blockbuster.

Here’s a list of the sets we’re now testing. Subscribers can check back for TV Ratings in mid-March.

• Hitachi UltraVision L46S603 • LG 47SL90 • Mitsubishi Unisen LT-52153 • Samsung UN55B8500 • Sanyo DP46849 • Sharp Aquos LC-60E77UN • Sony Bravia KDL-46XBR10 • Viewsonic VT3245 • Westinghouse TX-42F810G --Eileen McCooey Subscribe now!

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:58:23 AM

2011 Hyundai Sonata recall, stop sale Hyundai has issued a voluntary recall on the new 2011 Sonata due to a possible faulty frontdoor latch mechanism. The company briefly stopped sale of the new sedan to address this problem, but sales have resumed.

The front doors have a convenience feature, which allows a locked door to be unlocked from the inside door release handle without unlocking the door via the switch. If the switch is in the locked position, while the inside door handle is pulled, the latch may malfunction and prevent the door from closing properly.

Hyundai notified the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concerning the recall of about 5,000 vehicles produced at the Alabama factory, of which 1,300

Madoff Name Less Popular Now [Identity] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:04:06 AM

Stephanie Madoff, the wife of

Bernie Madoff's son Mark, wants to change her last name to "Morgan," for obvious reasons.

So if you come across a " S t e p h a n i e M o r g a n , " y o u

know...we're sure she's nice and all. [ WSJ. Pic via]

were sold to U.S. car buyers.

Dealers will replace the latches free of charge for existing owners, and the work is estimated to take less than an hour.

Consumer Reports just purchased a new Sonata and has just begun putting on break-in miles before our formal tests.

We’ll take care of the recall on our own vehicle and have our full review and Ratings in the coming weeks.— Liza Barth Subscribe now!

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Sample bill to help states enact texting bans

Q&A: Can probiotics help fight colds?

Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:22:54 AM

Sample bill to help states enact texting bans The Department of Transportation unveiled sample legislation aimed at prohibiting texting while driving that will serve as a framework for states looking to implement their own laws. The law, which was crafted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as well as a number of safety organizations, law enforcement, and the CTIA--The Wireless Association would help states address the distracted driving problem by authorizing law enforcement to ticket drivers who text.

Currently, 19 states and the District of Columbia have enacted texting while driving laws and a number of other states have more specific laws targeting certain drivers like teens. Last month, the federal government enacted a law banning commercial truckers and bus drivers from texting. In

2009, more than 200 bills were considered and more will likely be on the table in state legislatures in the coming year.

The sample law applies to all drivers and makes it unlawful to manually type letters, numbers, symbols, etc. into a wireless device or to send or read data, which includes texting, emailing, and instant messaging.

Exemptions include law or emergency personnel performing official duties, drivers reporting an emergency or criminal activity to authorities, using a navigation device or conducting wireless communication without using manual entry such as voice recognition services.

The penalties would include a minimum fine of $75 for first offense and a moving violation ticket. Penalties for subsequent offenses would be determined by

each state. Any offense that results in death or serious injury would become a felony with penalties determined by individual state guidelines.

According to NHTSA, nearly 6,000 people died in 2008 in crashes related to distracted driving, and more than half a million were injured. Research also shows that the most frequent offenders are young, inexperienced drivers under 20 years of age.

Creating more laws is one step in the DOT’s mission to reduce the distracted driving problem.

States will also look into public awareness campaigns, improved police reporting of crashes, and possible changes/consequences to the graduated driver’s licensing laws for novice drivers.— Liza Barth Subscribe now!

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Submitted at 2/25/2010 2:59:59 AM

Q&A: Can probiotics help fight colds?

I’ve heard that probiotics, the friendly bacteria in yogurt, can help fight colds. Is that true? — M.B., Bloomington, Ind. It’s too early to say. In a study published in August 2009, young children who consumed probiotic supplements had fewer cold symptoms and missed fewer days of school compared with kids who took a placebo.

And taking a combined vitaminprobiotic pill reduced the severity and duration of colds, though not their number, in a study of 479 German adults.

While more research is needed to confirm those findings, probiotics have numerous other benefits, including easing irritable bowel syndrome and other stomach woes.

Butler out, but Dirk, Terry lift Mavs past Lakers Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:54:34 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If

you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Top Performers Los Angeles: L. Odom 21 Pts, 7

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Reb, 5 Ast, 2 Stl PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Dallas: D. Nowitzki 31 Pts, 9 Term Extraction.

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Look for yogurt that contains the live cultures of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium, the beststudied probiotics. You can also buy pills, but they may contain less of the healthy bacteria.

Read more on probiotics for treating irritable bowel syndrome(subscribers only) and take a look some home remedies for colds and coughs.

Subscribe now!

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An In-Depth Look at Microsoft's Spy Guide Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

help find missing kids, gaming records that can help return a stolen Xbox, emails that can We recently reported that a help track down terrorists. watchdog site, Cryptome, was There's an emergency hotline removed from the Web for for urgent or life-threatening refusing to take down a copy of i n c i d e n t s , " s i t u a t i o n s l i k e a Microsoft document. kidnapping, murder threats, This document, called the bomb threats, terrorism threats, Microsoft Online Services etc."

Global Criminal Compliance The full list of services includes Handbook, or "spy guide," gives email, authentication (Windows details on how law enforcement Live ID), IM, social networking can grab user data from a wide (Windows Live Spaces and range of Microsoft services, MSN Groups), custom domains, from Windows Live ID to Xbox online file storage and gaming Live to Hotmail. Microsoft holds (Xbox Live). For each service, and can reveal a huge amount of data is accessible through a data on individuals through their series of web interface that allow social networking and file- law enforcement to browse sharing services, too. These data through relevant data in tables or include IP addresses, credit forms. cards, chat logs and much more. And there are procedures for How does a large corporation accessing all this information, balance end user privacy balance too. Law enforcement can't with the need to cooperate and simply ask for the information, comply with law enforcement? according to the document. They Read on to see how Microsoft have to have a subpoena, a court handles this issue. order or a warrant to gain access Sponsor to data such as usernames, On the Surface linked accounts and email After a quick read-through of address books. Digging Deeper Microsoft's guide, everything But after talking to a few initially made sense. They've got sources who have worked in law a lot of data - IM logs that can e n f o r c e m e n t ( L E ) a n d Submitted at 2/24/2010 8:15:39 PM

government agencies - none of whom wanted to be quoted, for obvious reasons - these procedures are a far cry from the day-to-day realities of data access.

In other words, there's a reason it's called a "spy guide."

For one thing, federal and LE officers tend to have a much easier time getting access to user data than their corporate conspirators might let on, our sources told us. In ticking time bomb scenarios, this can be a good thing, as quick and unobstructed access to data can save people from imminent harm. Where Are All Those Warrants?

However, we've been told by people who have handled such issues that government and LE often request and are given data without having to go through the proper procedures, often because of corporations' fear of

government retribution.

For example, not too long ago, Sprint was revealed to have complied with 8 million LA requests for GPS data in 2009.

This figure doesn't include any other type of data from anyone other than LE for any network other than Sprint - this is just for LE GPS data requests from Sprint.

The implications of this are staggering, but the most confounding of them all is that there could not possibly be enough warrants to justify the sum total of requests that digital companies are handed by law enforcement seeking user data.

Our sources all confirmed that without question, LE and government officials are often given user data by companies such as Microsoft without having to provide any kind of justification - not legal documents, not proof of criminal activity and not evidence of guilt. What About the Fourth Amendment?

And then, there are the less widely known reasons that LE or federal agencies would gain access to user data - programs such as government data mining

Vonn Sustains Injury in First Slalom Run (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/24/2010 3:47:55 PM

Lindsay Vonn’s campaign for Olympic glory may be over. The

U.S. Ski team announced Vonn sustained a “non-displaced fracture of the proximal phalanx of the small finger on her right hand,” — essentially a broken

pinky — when she crashed during the first run of the giant slalom Wednesday.

A decision whether she will take part in Fridays slalom has

not been made.

The second run of the Giant Slalom was postponed until Thursday, with no Americans in the top 10 after the first run.

or Project Carnivore(which is essentially the wiretapping scandal of the digital sphere).

Again, our sources confirmed that LE's desire to see user data is often the only reason a digital company would need to turn over information - warrantless wiretapping all over again.

In conclusion, Microsoft's spy guide does state that certain steps much be taken for law enforcement to access data steps that require law enforcement to prove that their searches and seizures in the digital world are legally justifiable. Whether or not anecdotal evidence supports this claim we will leave to our readers to judge.

What the document does show us, however, is the extraordinary breadth and depth of information that Microsoft has and is willing to give to government and law enforcement agencies. And that alone is enough to make us put on our tin foil hats.

Note: We have contacted Microsoft's Rapid Response media team with several questions and are awaiting a response. Discuss

Tech News/

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43

Are The Fortune 100 Now Beginning To Embrace Social Media Tools?

Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/24/2010 8:35:27 PM

A study by Burson-Marsteller finds that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using social media tools.

At first glance, this may seem significant. But a closer look shows that Fortune 100 companies are showing interest but nothing to prove that social media tools are gaining significant corporate acceptance.

Here's a copy of the full report and an accompanying power point presentation.

But it is early in the game and these are results show that social media tools are making credible gains.

Sponsor The services of choice? No surprise: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blog platforms.

Twitter is number one, followed

by Facebook, YouTube and corporate blogs. The study found that 65 percent of the largest 100 international companies have active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent have a Facebook fan page, 50 percent have a YouTube channel, and one-third (33 percent) have corporate blogs. Only 20 percent of the major international companies are utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.

The fact that the Fortune 100 do not leverage multiple tools is a sign of how consumer-based social media tools are not fully understood or leveraged for maximum benefit. It's also evident of just how much of an opportunity big companies have in using the social Web if they use it to its full extent.

Companies that extend to multiple media networks still have a chance to get ahead of competitors.

The frequency of posts illustrates that companies are posting but not nearly as often as they could.

Let's take a quick look at some of the findings for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and corporate blogs: Twitter

The report says that Deutsche Telekom uses Twitter for announcements while Volkswagen uses it to RT and Home Depot for customer service. Conclusion? Fortune 100 companies are still searching for the best way to use Twitter. But just posting announcements seems pretty sterile.

From the white paper:"Leaders of the pack on the Fortune Global 100 are Sony's SonyPlayStation with well over 115,000 followers and SonyPictures who is followed by almost 50,000 people and following over 6,000 Twitterers themselves."

Burson-Marsteller also states that Fortune 100 companies are

supporting multiple accounts.

This is perhaps most encouraging: customer engagement is beginning to be more widespread across product groups. Facebook Facebook shows some of the most promise. Most of the Fortune 100 companies have tens of thousands of users.

Perhaps the strongest sing of acceptance is in the number of corporate product groups that use Facebook. Companies like Sony have multiple fan pages.

YouTube YouTube is used mostly by U.S. companies. Entertainment, electronics and auto companies are the most likely to have YouTube channels. Viewership shows promise. Consumers want

to see product videos.

Connecting YouTube with Twitter, Facebook and a blog can make for a potent combination if all are updated on a regular basis.

Blogs Fifty-percent of the Fortune 100 companies from the Asia Pacific have blogs. Burson-Marsteller says Asian companies prefer blogging due to the control they can have over the conversation."Only 11% of active U.S. company blogs had posts in the past three months as compared to 83% of European blogs and 77% of Asia-Pacific blogs. The U.S. blogs also had fewer blog posts."

ARE page 44

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ARE

Are Modern Web Apps Killjoys?

Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

loved Foursquare at first and enjoyed 'checking in' at places.

But then he found that he spent Submitted at 2/25/2010 1:36:06 AM the first few minutes of going Is 'checking in' at places using into a place updating Foursquare location-based mobile apps like with his location, which he Foursquare and Brightkite realized could be time better resulting in us enjoying life a spent actually enjoying the place little less? Is there such a thing and socializing with the people as too much data for a fun around him. activity such as running? We Technology has always had an a d d r e s s t h e s e a n d o t h e r anti-social element to it. For questions in the final installment example, Twitter. When you're of our interview with Adam in a social situation and you stop Greenfield, author of Everyware: to tweet it, that disconnects you The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous from the real world (at least for Computing.

30 seconds while you tap out Modern web applications are 140 characters on your mobile p a c k e d w i t h f e a t u r e s t h a t phone). ostensibly connect us more to Step back further into the mists the real world and our activities of technological progress and in it. Foursquare uses location there is the issue of cellphone data to connect us with places calls in social situations. When and people. Nike+ shoes deliver you're talking with someone and data from your feet to your iPod. that person's cellphone rings, All of this new data from the then they answer it and have a real world is good progress, conversation with someone else right? Yes, the more data the on their cellphone - is there better! On the other hand, is our anything more annoying than focus on data distracting us from that from a social point of view? actually enjoying life?

So technology can be antiSponsor social; nothing new in that. But Adam Greenfield doesn't like is a mobile location-based app Foursquare, a location-based like Foursquare not only antisocial networking mobile app social, but also distracting us that has become popular over the from enjoying our surroundings past year. He told me that he because we're so intent on

documenting where we are?

The counter argument is that products like Foursquare make it easier for you to meet up with your friends in real life, particularly if you're young and socializing a lot. For example you might see that a few of your friends are at a local cafe or pub, so you go out to join them there.

That definitely makes Foursquare a fun product. But it's a use case that mostly applies to young, highly social people.

It's not just location-based apps that are potentially killjoys.

Greenfield also spoke about his experience with Nike+ running shoes, which come with a sensor that tracks your run and sends the data to your iPod. As we explained earlier this month, Nike+ has its own social network. Nike+ can also send updates to Twitter and post a status report on Facebook.

According to Adam Greenfield, Nike+ changed the way he ran.

Because the shoes could quantify his running performance, he said that they

continued from page 43

made him faster and more competitive. However, he also began to feel guilty if he missed a run - because the data would suffer as a result. So despite making him a better runner, the Nike+ shoes resulted in him "not having as much fun."

What do you think - are you finding that modern web apps, whether location-based mobile apps or products with sensors or something else data-driven, are making you enjoy life just a little less? Are you focusing too much on the data, rather than just living life? Let us know in the comments.

See also Part 1 of our interview with Adam Greenfield, in which we discussed the impact of the iPhone and other smartphones on the Internet of Things. We also talked about the differences between the U.S. and Asia in adoption of these technologies.

In Part 2, we focused on how the iPad may become the missing link between Internet-connected items in your home, for example the Internet fridge, and the Web. Photo credits: whatleydude; Ed Yourdon Discuss

The results show the increasing popularity of the real-time web and its use across the enterprise.

But is it smart not to update a blog? We wonder what company fares better. The one that is active on its Twitter account and its blogs or the one that has an active Twitter account but infrequently updates its blog?

Conclusion Corporate America is using the social Web. It's apparent that companies have waded a bit deeper into the water but the opportunities are clear. The companies that embrace multiple mediums and keep up with a consistent volume of updates will be the big winners, no matter if they are a Fortune 100 or a Fortune 1,000 company.

Discuss

Tech News/ Entertainment/

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45

Oracle's Private 'Cloud' Not a Cloud Sometimes it Pays to says Vogels Solve Hard Problems: CA Acquires 3Tera Tim Hastings (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:00:00 PM

At London's Royal Opera House yesterday Oracle presented their perspective and strategy on cloud computing along with two industry experts, Amazon's CTO, Werner Vogels and Gartner's VP of research, Phil Dawson.

The consensus was that the industry is heading towards a mix of public and private clouds.

Although by Werner Vogels' definition, private clouds are not true clouds. True clouds, he argues, allow you to think about resources in an unconstrained manner. Elasticity and pay-asyou-go pricing are central to Vogels' definition. When resources are switched off, you stop paying. If privately owned,

a cloud would have fixed capacity (no elasticity) and would always have fixed operation costs - regardless of utilization.

Sponsor Gartner's definition of cloud computing has evolved between 2008 and late 2009 to include elasticity as a characteristic, and now includes this differentiation between public and private cloud computing: Public cloud computing [is] a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities

are delivered as a service to external customers using Internet technologies. Private cloud computing is defined as a style of computing in which scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are delivered as a service to internal customers using Internet technologies.

Private-Cloud-In-a-Box Oracle used concept videos showing Cloud Administrator consoles integrated into Enterprise Manager as a way to demonstrate their vision and strategy in the private cloud. But the company did not disclose any detailed plans for the future to avoid setting timescale and feature expectations. With that said, they did hint that they expected it would take them 3 quarters to get the integration work done. Discuss

Tenley, or Ali? ET talked to this season's bachelorettes to find out who they think it will be.

On Monday night, during "The Of all of this season's Bachelor: On the Wings of Love bachelorettes, Ali Fedotowsky is -- After the Final Rose" wrap-up the one who has the most of the season, the name of the Internet buzz when it comes to n e w b a c h e l o r e t t e w i l l b e speculation as to who will revealed! Will it be Vienna, f o l l o w i n J i l l i a n H a r r i s ' Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:05:00 AM

Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:01:00 PM

As ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus reported in 2006, 3Tera is a company to watch: "3Tera strikes me as a company to keep an eye on - they're tackling a complex problem and they have a lot of potential customers out there."

CA must agree. The companies have entered into a definitive agreement for CA to purchase 3Tera, adding it to CA's growing list of cloud acquisitions.

Sponsor Simplifying Deployment 3Tera's focus is simplifying the deployment of environments.

The tools also helps synchronize capabilities between cloud providers and so-called "private clouds" hosted inside a company's data center.

The company has a GUI based application to help visualize, manage, and deploy solutions in footsteps.

When asked, Ali told ET it was the cloud. This is an important a tough call because, once again, thing to solve, especially if time she would be put in the situation is of the essence in getting your that caused her to leave Jake c l o u d - b a s e d a p p l i c a t i o n Pavelka high and dry following supported by your IT team, and the hometown visits: Love vs.

Career.

'The Bachelor' Women Reveal Their Picks for the Next 'Bachelorette' (ETonline - Breaking News)

Mike Kirkwood (ReadWriteWeb) keeping your choices open after it is deployed. The Cloud is Mainstream As self-reported by the 3Tera team in their blog, this acquisition represented cloud computing becoming mainstream in IT. CA sees a need to fill in this piece in their portfolio and IT leaders are asking for tools to deploy and manage cloud infrastructure assets."We started 3Tera to radically ease the way IT deploys, maintains and scales MANAGES - applications. Our AppLogic速 cloud computing platform provides the foundation of our partners' orchestration of cloud services for public and private clouds around the world.

Today, we're taking the next step in moving toward making cloud computing mainstream by joining CA." It looks like cloud computing is becoming essential to the enterprise. Is it in yours?

Discuss

46

Tech News/ Apple/

E-reader News Edition

Learn How Canceling Credit Cards Affects Your Credit Score [Credit] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:40:00 AM

Adam Baker, blogger at Man vs. Debt, canceled all his credit cards 15 months ago. His credit score dropped just 10 points, but he learned a lot about that score, and what financial reviewers are looking for, by taking the plunge.

Baker guest-blogs at the Get Rich Slowly blog about what living almost credit-free has done to his credit score. There have been great benefits, besides the obvious financial clarity, like a spotless payment history and no new-credit-lookup black marks. But he's honest about what living off the debt grid will likely do to his score, over time: • The length of our active accounts would obviously be affected. Several of our credit cards were 4-5 years old.

Canceling them reset the length of our active revolving loans

Make a DIY Touchscreen Stylus from Anti-Static Bags [Clever Uses] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

Nexus One, but didn't have much luck—then again, it didn't look like the kind of full-fledged We've seen snap fasteners, static bag I remember from my fancy custom-made gloves and P C I c a r d m e m o r i e s . A l s o conductive thread hacks, and unanswered: whether this would even snack sausages used to pull off the touch trick if your operate a touchscreen when fingers were covered with gloves fingers are unavailable, or and not making direct contact precision really counts. A with the anti-static film. mobile-centered blog suggests You'd probably want to arrange an anti-static bag can also make your anti-static material such the touch-sensitive grade. that a hard edge wasn't swiping PocketNow.com demonstrates and scratching your screen, but how a rolled-up anti-static bag, it's a good starting point for the kind that hardware geeks making your own convenient often accumulate over time, can stylus that also makes for a neat fit the bill on a Zune HD some talking point. How To Make A kind of Windows Mobile phone, F r e e C a p a c i t i v e and presumably other phones, as S t y l u s [ P o c k e t N o w . c o m ] well. I gave it a go using a small bag from a MintyBoost kit and a Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:00:00 AM

back to zero.

• The type of credit used would be less diverse. We didn't have a mortgage and now didn't have any active revolving credit, either. I've read that FICO likes to see an installment loan that isn't a student loan (for example, an auto, jewelry, or personal loan). We're now lacking that, as well.

• Our overall credit limits were all but eliminated. Previously, we had close to $15,000 in credit card limits. This was obviously reduced to $0 by closing the

accounts.

It's a good read for anyone who's ever considered going credit-card-free, but still has a house purchase or other financial move to make that gets graded on a credit score.

Have you seen your own credit score drop because you stopped living with debt? Tell us how it affected you, and how you coped, in the comments. How Much Does Canceling Credit Cards Affect Your Credit Score?[Get Rich Slowly]

How-To: Build Your First Site in iWeb Olly Farshi (TheAppleBlog)

easy way for you to get into web -design and launch your first online project. With a little In this iWeb video tutorial p r a c t i c e , y o u c a n b e t h e you’ll learn how to import webmaster of your own domain content, create links, embed a in no time. video and publish your website. This tutorial is all about getting If you’re planning to build your you comfortable with iWeb. To own site, Apple’s iWeb is an show you how easy it is to create Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:10:44 PM

professional looking sites, I created the site for my new

iPhone game using iWeb: www.thecosmokid.com Rather than use a pre-set template, we’re going to dive right in and recreate the Cosmo Kid website. Before you start the tutorial, make sure to download the Cosmo Kid Content Pack(ZIP, 274 KB), it’s got all

the parts you’ll need to build the site.

Check out the video after the jump, or view the full-size, fullresolution video here(MOV, 135MB).

Tech News/ Picture/

E-reader News Edition

Save File To Creates Custom Save-As Context Menus in Firefox [Downloads] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:30:00 AM

Firefox: If you hate having to search through your folders every time you change the type of file or directory you're saving to—and we certainly do!—Save File To helps you make custom context menus for file saving bliss.

The problem arises with the way Firefox retains the previous folder you've used to save something. That's great for when you're saving a bunch of the same thing in a row—who would want to navigate from the default directory every time you opened up the save as dialogue?—but if you're frequently saving a variety of files you want a faster way to

system you want to set up.

Although we used an image as our example in the screenshot above you can customize all the Save As menus in Firefox including how you save pages, links, images, and other files.

Visit the link below to install Save File To into Firefox or check out the via link to see a step by step tutorial at How-To Geek on setting up Save File To. Save File To is free and works wherever Firefox does. Have a move between directories. down through those folders—but favorite add-on for customizing Save File To is a Firefox add-on you can also specify custom the menus in Firefox or a similar that enables editing of the right- folders and reorganize the menu. tool for another browser? Let's click "Save As" context menu. It's easy to add in a folder for a hear about it in the comments.

Immediately after installation it specific project you're working Save File To[via How-To Geek] adds in your Desktop and My on or create custom links to save Documents folders as available to your wallpaper collection, entries—and you can navigate music collection, or any other

47

Cement Eclipses Kevin Collins (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 2/24/2010 4:06:11 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.• About Flickr Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and more!

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

Use LogMeIn and VNC Software for Remote Computing Power [Remote Acccess] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:05:00 AM

Netbooks and ultra-portable laptops may be convenient, but they don't always have the horsepower to get done what you need. Mobile-obsessed blogger James Kendrick

suggests using LogMeIn(or maybe a free equivalent) to do the battery-draining stuff remotely.

Kendrick suggests that video editing, file encoding, and other tasks that might take your portable computer far too long are best done with a remote

updates, malware scans, and other maintenance that will take a long time when you're sitting down can be triggered remotely and set to shut down when done.

Kendrick lists four other clever uses of LogMeIn that he relies LogMeIn/VNC connection. on regularly. We're wondering if Likewise, tasks like system you use remote desktop access

regularly, and for what kinds of functions. Drop your discussion in the comments, if you please.

Top 5 Ways To Get The Most Out of LogMeIn[jkOnTheRun]

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Gadgets/ Entertainment/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

PMP Brief: Ramos T12FHD, Onda VX585, JXD A30, ICOO R8 Touch, Baidu B618

Australia Scoops Up Gold in Ladies Aerials

Tablet (BestTabletReview.com)

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

trend instead by hacking off some letters from the previous model — the VX585HD which Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:43:37 AM only featured 720p — and going Message from fivefilters.org: If with the lessed VX585 name for you can, please donate to the full t h e s u p e r i o r p r o d u c t . T h e -text RSS service so we can VX585 has 1080p HD playback continue developing it. through its HDMI port and a 4.3 Ramos T12FHD PMP -inch touchscreen surrounded by The T12FHD represents yet a white case. It supports MKV another Ramos product to enter (H.26), AVI, MOV, RMVB, the PMP market. It features the FLV, MPG, DAT, VOB and TS. look and style of the Ramos Release is expected within the T12, but supports 1080p HD and next week or so but no firm RMVB, AVI, MKV, MOV, word on price.

D A T , M P G , T S a n d M P 4 Source: Cloned in China codecs. It also features a range JXD A30 PMP of audio decoding including JXD is bringing a larger-format Dolby, AC3, DTS, AMR and PMP to the market with their RA and uses USB OTG for A30. The A30 will feature a 7additional storage. inch 800 x 480 resolution N o w o r d o n p r i c e o r touchscreen in a white plastic availability. casing with button controls Source: Cloned in China along the right side. It will have Onda VX585 PMP support for 768p HD and RM, T y p i c a l l y w h e n C h i n e s e RMVB, FLV, MOV, AVI, MP4, companies release a product 3GP, DAT and MPG video files based on another they add more along with WMA, APE, MP3 suffixes to the previous product and FLAC audio. There is a name. Onda decided to buck that H D M I p o r t f o r s t r e a m i n g

released on the R8 Touch at this time. The price and launch still remain a mystery.

Source: Cloned in China Baidu B618 The Baidu B618 boasts something somewhat rare (and kind of wasteful) in a PMP — a dual-core processor. Sometimes you get the sense that some of content from the device as well. these manufacturers stumbled The A30 has also included into good deals from parts puzzle and classic games into makers and include them in their the mix. tablet just for the hell of it. The No listing of launch time or rest of the B618 spec sheet is final price. rather mundane, including 720p Source: Cloned in China HD support and H.264, RM, ICOO R8 Touch PMP WMV, MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, ICOO hits us with another Xvid, RMVB, AVI, MKV, MP4, PMP. This time it’s the R8 3GP, and MPG video codecs. It Touch which houses a 4.3-inch also plays the typical audio touchscreen in a sleek metal formats. case. The R8 Touch has 1080p It’s expected to hit the market HD support and runs MKV, soon though no price is currently H.264, DVD, RM and a few listed. others. It’s also packed with Source: Clone in China some extras: games, clock, Five Filters featured article: dictionary and a TV-out.

Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Unfortunately that’s all the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, information that ICOO has Term Extraction.

Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:57:57 PM

Lydia Lassila won a gold medal in aerials skiing for Australia Wednesday night, giving the nation three medals for the first time ever in a Winter Games.

Three quality medals at that: two golds and a silver.

This haul represents a payoff for the creation following the 1998 Nagano Games of the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, designed to strengthen the winter program of a nation renowned for its Summer Games prowess.

Through the 1998 Games, Australia had won only two Winter Games medals. Now that number is nine, a third of them won in Vancouver.

In ladies aerials, China won both the silver and bronze medals, bringing its total haul in Vancouver to eight.

Kevin Helliker

Johnny Depp Speaks Out in Defense of 'West Memphis Three' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:45:00 AM

Actor Johnny Depp is lending his star power to three young men who were convicted of killing three children over 15

years ago.

In an interview with "48 Hours Mystery" set to air this Saturday, Depp defends the three young men, saying, "Every single piece of evidence points to their innocence, not to their guilt."

According to "48 Hours," Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted of murder after three eight-year-old boys were found naked and drowned in a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. "48

Hours" reports that Echols and Baldwin were linked to the murders after then-17-year-old Misskelley, who was mentally handicapped, confessed to police that he had joined the two in killing the three boys. Now, new

DNA evidence points away from the young men, according to "48 Hours."

E-reader News Edition

Gadgets/ Picture/

Turn On Your iMac With a Key, a Real Key [Patents]

Alps

Mark Wilson (Gizmodo)

may for example be a cross that helps distinguish the pattern relative to an x and y coordinate system. As should be appreciated, simple shapes are more easily counterfeited and thus complex shape may be desired. For example, a large circle may be relatively easy to counterfeit, whereas a complex series of dots may harder to counterfeit.

While at first the idea certainly sounds clever, the simple fact that car keys are a lot easier to lose than computer passwords is enough to temper any excitement over such a possibility.

But holding up a light bulb to turn on my computer? I'm all over that. [ US Patent Office via MacRumors]

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.• About Flickr Flickr is a revolution in photo storage, sharing and organization, making photo management an easy, natural and collaborative process. Get comments, notes, and tags on your photos, post to any blog, share and more!

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

complete touch screen solution, ultrathin design, outstanding finger touch experiences (multitouch support for gesture like pinch to zoom), integrated ambient light sensor for self adjusting backlight levels and lower power consumption and much more.

The Neonode website also

claims the zForce is equally responsive when you’re wearing gloves. I know I would prefer not to have my fingers freeze when I’m trying to figure out exactly what part of Brooklyn I’m lost in. [ SlashGear]

Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:40:00 AM

An 2004 Apple patent app that was recently filed for continuation describes a touchscreen iMac that recognizes shapes, allowing you to interact with your computer as you might a toddler's geometric puzzle.

So, you could unlock your computer by holding up an appropriately shaped key. Or, well, Apple can explain it it full: The pattern 122 may be any shape whether simple or complex. Some examples of patterns include circles, squares, triangles, dots, dashes, coat of arms, logos, symbols, text and the like. Other examples include binary patterns and Braille symbols. The pattern may be

related to the action to be performed. For example, the pattern may be in the form of a conventional key for actions associated with gaining access to restricted areas, or in the form of a light bulb for actions associated with turning a light

on and off. In some cases, the signet pattern may include an alignment mark for helping determine the orientation of the signet pattern relative to the touch screen, i.e., helps the pattern recognizer to determine orientation. The alignment mark

49

Zack Sheppard (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 2/24/2010 1:08:48 PM

zForce touchscreens from Neonode Jimin Brelsford (CrunchGear)

supposed to have plenty of advantages over current resistive Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:00:27 AM and capacitive panel systems.

Anyone remember Neonode? Well that certainly sounds Apparently we do, but not very enticing, doesn’t it? well. Anyway, these guys are And what exactly are those back with a range of touchscreen advantages you might ask? Well panels called zForce. These pads don’t ask me, ask the press r a n g e f r o m 5 t o 1 3 i n . release. needed like in resistive or widescreen models, and are 100% transparency (no overlay c a p a c i t i v e ) , l o w c o s t f o r

50

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

No new Wii ‘any time soon’ says Nintendo Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

Dunaway went on to say: “If you think of the PS2, there’s been about 50 million sold; Wii, Don’t expect new console close to 28 million sold. So that hardware from Nintendo in the says to me that there’s still a big near future. When asked “When audience out there that we can do you think it’ll be time for access with Wii. new hardware?” in a recent That being said, part of i n t e r v i e w w i t h G a m e s p o t , Nintendo’s heritage is to always Nintendo’s Cammie Dunaway be looking at innovation and to replied, “I don’t think it’ll be start working on the next any time soon because even hardware as soon as we launch a though our installed base is, at platform. So we’ll have it ready this point, 5 million households when we think the time is right.” larger than the PS2 installed That last sentence is probably base was at the same point in its the key right there. The time lifecycle, it still has a lot of room likely doesn’t seem right for new to grow.” consoles from any company, and Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:20:30 AM

Nintendo’s not quite pushing the envelope as much since MotionPlus is more of an improvement than anything else, but Microsoft and Sony are definitely looking to squeeze more life out of their current consoles. And given the economy, the thought of purchasing a new console this year is likely a non-starter for most average consumers.

Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo Project Natal, Sony’s Motion The State of Nintendo 2010 Cammie have all figured out ways to spur Controller (Orb, Gem, Arc, I n t e r v i e w : D u n a w a y [ G a m e Spot via current console sales by adding whatever it’ll be called) all open K o t a k u ] new and/or improved control the door for an entirely different s c h e m e s . W i i M o t i o n P l u s , segment of games.

Be aware of your digital footprint Scott Merrill (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:52:18 AM

So the Internet is abuzz about the fact that Microsoft has a document entitled “ Microsoft Online Services Global Criminal Compliance Handbook“. The document was leaked to Cryptome, and as soon as MSFT found out they sent a DMCA takedown notice to Network Solutions. The proverbial cat is out of the bag, as the document has been well circulated; but I’m left wondering what’s the big deal?

In our litigious society, any

service provider is pretty much obligated to keep track of who does what in the event of a lawsuit. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Microsoft retains some generic records about who does what on their

various services. It should also come as no surprise that an organization as big as Microsoft has been the recipient of lots of subpoenas, search warrants, and court orders over the years. So it makes sense that Microsoft

would develop a document to detail what they can provide, and how it can be obtained.

I would expect Google to have a similar document, and we already know that Facebook and other popular destinations have

such documents.

The real moral of the story here is to remember that what you do online leaves a very real trace, and that companies and websites hang on to those traces — sometimes for a very long time.

Don’t assume that because no one is actively looking over your shoulder that what you type into that email or instant messaging conversation is private. If you want real privacy, figure out how to use strong encryption.

Via Gizmodo, and lots of other sites.

Gadgets/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

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'Alice in Wonderland' Star Mia Wasikowska: 'Everybody on the Film is a Little Bit Crazy' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:30:00 AM

Quake 3, Android style Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:30:58 AM

Quake 3 has been ported to Android. It looks slick, too (see video demo below). The project is called “kwaak3” and is based on Quake 3 ports to the iPhone and Nokia N900. The developer got everything up and running on a Motorola Milestone (a GSM Motorola Droid with multi -touch, basically) and makes use of the phone’s keyboard, “so it

won’t work on your Nexus One or other phone at this point,” according to the project page.

The minimum required Android version is 1.6, though, so you may be able to load it up on your own Android phone if you don’t have a Droid/Milestone. Indeed, the developer lists frames-persecond rates for the HTC Hero as well.

Here’s a quick video demo from AndroidandMe’s YouTube page:

The features, according to the project page: • Audio • Hardware floating-point on Neon-capable devices • Input: keyboard, touchscreen and trackball • OpenGL 3D rendering • Game uses ARM optimized libcgamearm.so / libqaarm.so / libuiarm.so • Networking Yes, networking. “There is

network support in Quake3 which works properly. I played against my laptop using wifi and it works fine,” according to the developer.

Cool stuff. If ever there was a need for a full size mouse and keyboard, this might be it. kwaak3[Google Code via Slashdot]

Virtually unknown actress Mia Wasikowska is poised to go down the rabbit hole of fame as the title character of Tim Burton's 'Alice in Wonderland,' and ET's Mary Hart finds out just how deep that rabbit hole goes!

"It was a really long process of auditioning, so I never once thought I would get it or end up being in the film, so it was just a real dream," says the 20-year-old star of landing the role of a lifetime opposite such notables as Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter.

In IMAX 3D and conventional theaters in Disney 3D on March 5, 'Alice in Wonderland' picks up with a grown-up, 19-year-old Alice fleeing the prospect of a dull marriage by returning to Wonderland to reunite with her childhood friends -- White Rabbit, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and of course, the Mad Hatter -and to battle the evil Red Queen.

52

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

With Lowered Sales Expectations, Palm Runs Out of Options [Palm] John Herrman (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:17:12 AM

When Palm issued a release announcing lowered guidance and sales expectations for this year, Jon Rubinstein didn't even try to cushion it, admitting, "driving broad consumer adoption of Palm products is taking longer than [he] anticipated." OK. Now what?

The implication of "longer than expected" is that success will come if everyone just waits long enough. But to say something like that in February of 2010, over seven months after the Pre launch, three after the Pixi launch, and weeks after a by all

counts anemic launch for their barely differentiated Verizon counterparts is to tacitly admit that there's a serious problem. If Palm's current lineup doesn't have momentum now, it never will.

regular suspects on the table—RIM, Nokia, Dell, HP—but they seem chosen because they'd be interesting buyers, not because they've shown any real interest. Hey, wouldn't it be neat if Nokia or BlackBerry absorbed webOS, so they could both have truly modern, user-friendly smartphone operating systems?

Yeah it would! Someone should tell them.

For Palm, this leaves two This leaves Palm with nothing options: either build a new to do but wait: to die; or to be product—something they may saved by a hero it hasn't even not be able or positioned to glimpsed yet, and that probably do—and hope it's a wild success; doesn't exist. [ BusinessInsider] or sell out. So who's buying?

BusinessInsider throws the

Linksys router turned into smartphonecontrolled doorman (video) Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:21:00 AM

Working for a large company comes with a lot of baggage, the least of which is an RFID security badge. For those small companies who can't afford such extravagantly wireless door key LINKSYS page 53

Philips intros new Ambilight HDTVs, speakers and other AV wares Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:33:00 AM

Philips ain't much for introducing new gear here on US soil, but for those fortunate enough to buy their milk with Euros, the company has a cornucopiaof new kit to tempt you with. It seems as if the company chose to skip right over CES and do its own thing here in late February, with the "2010 Consumer Lifestyle"

event bringing to us a refreshed lineup of LED-backlit Ambilight HDTVs (7000, 8000 and 9000 series), a new Immersive Sound home theater system (with trispeaker satellites) and the aluminum-tinged Soundbar HTS9140. We're also told that the new line of 8000 and 9000 LED 1080p TVs are 3D capable, with a "3D upgrade pack" to be made available separately and include two Active3D glasses and a wireless transmitter. In

related news, that now-forgotten Cinema 21:9 set -- which was supposed to ship many moon ago -- now has a "summer 2010"

goods, but don't expect to find much in the way of pricing and availability.

Philips intros new Ambilight HDTVs, speakers and other AV wares originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Pocket-lint, 2, Engadget estimated arrival date on it, Spanish| Philips| Email this| though we certainly aren't Comments holding our breath just yet. Hit the source link for all the other

Gadgets/ TV/

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53

LINKSYS continued from page 52

solutions there's another option: this DIY project completed by a team of developers at Sunlight Labs. It all centers around a Linksys WRT54GL, a Linuxbased wireless router that, with a little firmware hackery and a bit of wiring, was tethered into the office's door release buzzer. The team then went about allowing SSH access to the router and created Android and iPhone apps that instantly connect to the device and open the door, authenticated by a PIN and a unique ID assigned to each device. Users can also deliver Tim Stevens (Engadget) perhaps no surprise that high- their PIN via SMS or a simple efficiency PSUs trump older, phone call to open the door.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:44:00 AM hotter ones, but you might not E l e g a n t , i m p r e s s i v e , o p e n With all the antitrust noise, expect to learn that desktop threats to AMD, and conflicts S S D s o f f e r b a r e l y a n y with NVIDIA, it's hard to feel i m p r o v e m e n t o v e r t h e i r too charmed with Intel at the 5 , 4 0 0 R P M p l a t t e r - b a s e d moment. But, if you're looking brethren. Follow the article's Allison Waldman (TV Squad) for the best combination of advice and you can shed 104 Submitted at 2/25/2010 8:29:00 AM p e r f o r m a n c e a n d p o w e r watts without losing a single Remember that proposed consumption possible, you'll 3DMark point -- though you remake of the British crime have to swallow any animosity may shed quite a few dollars in series 'Prime Suspect' for NBC? and put an Intel inside, with an the process. efficiency piece at bit-tech.net Desktop PC components get You can forget about it... for a finding that chips from that rated for power efficiency, Intel while anyway. NBC has shelved manufacturer were, on average, r u l e s t h e r o o s t o r i g i n a l l y 'Prime Suspect' till June and the considerably more efficient than appeared on Engadget on Thu, reason why is all about casting. their AMD counterparts. That's 25 Feb 2010 09:44:00 EST. This, my friends, is exactly what just part of the story, the site Please see our terms for use of we were saying when the idea testing everything from memory feeds. Permalink| bit-tech.net| first surfaced.

The notion that you're going to to power supplies and finding Email this| Comments find an actress as perfect for the the best compromise of role of detective chief inspector performance and efficiency. It's Jane Tennison as Helen Mirren is madness. T'aint gonna happen.

She's an Oscar, Emmy, SAG and

Desktop PC components get rated for power efficiency, Intel rules the roost

source, and one less thing to forget on a Monday morning when groggily heading to the office.

Continue reading Linksys router turned into smartphonecontrolled doorman (video) Linksys router turned into smartphone-controlled doorman (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Make| Sunlight Labs Door Opener, Software| Email this| Comments

Palm sales 'lower than expected,' revenues to miss targets Nilay Patel (Engadget) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:50:00 AM

Ruh-roh. Palm just confirmed what we heard from analysts yesterday: sales aren't going so well. The company's updated its PALM page 54

NBC's 'Prime Suspect' Put on Hold push'Prime Suspect' into pilot production at this time. Veteran writer/producer Hank Steinberg -- he did'Without A Trace' for CBS -- has wisely decided to push the project back and revisit it in June. It could always be created as a mid-season show instead of a fall 2010 premiere... assuming the project comes together.

Continue reading NBC's 'Prime Suspect' Put on Hold Filed under: OpEd, Awards, Golden Globe winner for a Casting, Emmys, Reality-Free reason. She's freaking brilliant.

Permalink| Email this| | So, NBC is acknowledging that C o m m e n t s they have not found another Helen Mirren and will not

54

Gadgets/ Fashion/

E-reader News Edition

PALM continued from page 53

third quarter financial guidance to say that consumer adoption of its products is "taking longer than expected," leading to lowered order volumes from carriers and deferral of some orders to "future periods." That certainly puts that "Chinese New Year" Pre / Pixi work stoppage in a slightly different context, doesn't it? Looking at the new numbers, Palm says it expects non-GAAP Q3 revenue to be about $300m, or about the same it pulled in in Q2 before the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus launched on Verizon. That's not a good sign,

but we'll see if that kicks someone at Verizon or Palm into realizing they might need a new, less-stupid ad campaign focused on capabilities, not stereotypes.

Palm sales 'lower than expected,' revenues to miss targets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Businesswire| Email this| Comments

Allsaints Launches New Iphone App ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:35:54 PM

Brit brand Allsaints just launched a new Iphone App that allows users to check out (and purchase) its latest styles, search for products by name or category, share wish lists with friends, and track orders. Click here for a free download!

—Erin Clements Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

Klipsch's black / white Image S4i and S4 earbuds filtering out to stores Darren Murph (Engadget)

Vann's already has the Image S4 in white up for pre-order, while Apple stores are set to receive W e t o l d y o u t h e y ' d b e their Image S4i (includes an incoming(as we discovered during line microphone for iPhone o u r t o u r o f K l i p s c h ' s yappin') any day now. The Indianapolis campus), and now former will sell for $79 while the those deliciously black / white latter demands an extra Jackson, colored Image S4 and Image S4i but it's safe to say that either will earbuds are finally making their put Apple's own white earbuds way out to the general populace. to shame.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:12:00 AM

Gallery: Klipsch Image S4 and Image S4i in white Klipsch's black / white Image S4i and S4 earbuds filtering out to stores originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Vann's| Email this| Comments

Apple/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

55

Apple COO Tim Cook Confirms Mobile Device Focus, Calls Apple TV a ‘Hobby’ Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

much for consumer confidence in Apple’s set top box, and it must be especially disheartening Submitted at 2/24/2010 8:19:04 AM to hear for those that already Apple’s Chief Operating Officer own the product.

Tim Cook wasn’t shy about the While downplaying Apple’s company’s focus through 2010, role in the home theatre TVin a conversation with Goldman viewing aspect of consumers Sachs analyst David Bailey. The lives, Cook also couldn’t stress talk took place at the Goldman enough the significance the Mac Sachs Technology and Internet maker has in terms of its Conference this Tuesday in San viewing on mobile devices.

Francisco, and was given before Much of the talk focused on the an audience of investors. An iPad, which is rumored to be audio stream of the talk is gearing up for pre-sale later this available here. week. Cook basically reiterated In general, the talk was what the company line regarding the you’d expect. Cook sang the i P a d ’ s c o n s i d e r a b l e w e b praises of the company’s current browsing, email and photo offerings, and gave highest viewing capabilities, and he praise to the yet to be released went after netbooks, too: iPad, a device for which the The netbook is not an company obviously has very experience people are going to high expectations. But he also continue wanting to have. When took time to frame one of the they play with the iPad and company’s weakest sellers in a experience the magic of using fairly dismissive light. it… I have a hard time believing Cook called Apple TV “a they’re going to go for a hobby” owing to its low sales netbook. numbers when compared to the I suppose when asked how your Mac line. He did, however, state new product, which occupies an that Apple would continue to entirely new category, is going invest money into its hobby, if to compete with a tried and only because “our gut tells us tested strong seller, “magic” is there’s something there.” While as good an answer as any. But being dismissive about a weak Cook emphasized the company’s seller is a good strategy when confidence in the product by talking to investors, I can’t pointing out how focused it imagine the comments made do manages to keep its product line,

despite the temptation to grow it further, owing to the high number of great ideas they have coming from the elite staff they hire. He also reminded investors about the pricing strategy Apple took with the iPad, saying “we didn’t want to leave a pricing umbrella for competition, so we got very aggressive on this.”

Cook also said he wasn’t afraid of the iPad cannibalizing sales of its other products. That point I agree with, though I would be very afraid of the opposite being true. It seems to me that a lot of potential iPad owners would probably be better suited by an iPhone/iPod touch or a computer. The iPad could do more to help people choose a lane than encourage them to

straddle two.

Another area Cook addressed was Apple retail, revealing that Apple hopes to aim higher this year than it has in 2008 and 2009 in terms of new store openings. It’s been staying closer to the 25 stores per year bottom end of its target range owing to the recent international economic troubles, but it has 50 new locations planned for 2010.

The expansion plans bode well for the future, since the company depends so much on direct sales.

U.S. customers hoping for an end to exclusivity will be disappointed by Cook’s comments regarding AT&T. He mainly discussed the advantages of a single carrier model, citing simplicity and the ability to work together in close partnership to introduce innovative new features. He also added that while Apple has seen more sales and higher profits in all the markets where multiple carriers have been introduced, that won’t necessarily be the case every time. Brave words considering there’s no data to back them up. Cook’s defense of the much-derided AT&T was definitely the low point of the talk, and struck me as fairly hollow overall.

Andrea Peyser Is Gay for Sexxxy Firemen But not Sexxxy Fire Ladies [Sexy Time] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:35:23 AM

You might suspect that Andrea Peyser, the New York Post's hardcore pornography critic, would be totally gay for hot sexxxy "Fire women," kicking in doors of burning buildings in their blazing hot fire gear, with sweat pouring off their chiseled abdominal muscles, covered only by a sheer layer of fire retardant gel. But no—"if I were to be caught in a fire, I'd feel a lot safer in the arms of a 6-foot man than those of a 5-foot girl."

This is the topic of Andrea Peyser's popular newspaper column today, which is illustrated with a photo of a typical fire lady in typical fire gear, a sports bra. [ NYP]

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'Dick Cavett Show' CBS Locks Up CEO Audience Member Recalls Les Moonves Through the Day a Guest Died 2015 Danny Gallagher (TV Squad)

Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

WiiWare First Look: Art Style series Light Trax, Rotozoa

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:10:00 AM Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:41:00 PM

'The Dick Cavett Show' has long been a talk show of legend. It not only broke the traditional late night mold of jokey sketches and characters, but it also birthed a long list of interesting and historic television moments from the famous"Woodstock" show to his public support of John Lennon as he faced deportation that scored him a special mention on the Richard Nixon tapes.

One of the most infamous moments resurfaced on television when Cavett made a guest appearance on Jimmy Fallon's'Late Night'. Cavett recalled one episode that the public never got to see because a guest, Dr. James Rodale, actually died on tape.

The episode has never seen the light of day even though the tape still reportedly exists in the network's vault, but Kathy

If Les Moonves were a playing craps at a Las Vegas casino, he'd be the guy with the dice on a hot streak. You would put your chips down to let it ride and that's exactly what the CBS Corporation did. CBS has given president and CEO Leslie Moonves a new contract through Starcher of Bridgeport, Conn. sat February 22, 2015. He's being in the audience for that show and asked to keep on doing just what recalled what it was like to he's been doing, that is keeping watch a TV moment that only a CBS as a powerhouse network. few people have ever seen. Read They want him to continue being our interview with Mrs. Starcher the anti-Jeff Zucker. Moonves after the jump about her fleeting with the Midas Touch is how you might describe him because foray into TV history.

Continue reading'Dick Cavett things are just good and getting S h o w ' A u d i e n c e M e m b e r better at the Tiffany network.

Recalls the Day a Guest Died Executive Chairman Sumner F i l e d u n d e r : L a t e N i g h t , Redstone had nothing but good Interviews, Talk Show, Reality- things to say about Moonves in the Wall Street Journal story Free P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | about the new contract. He said, "This agreement not only Comments secures the future of the company for many years to

Pierre Hardy for Gap Boots ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/24/2010 1:45:00 PM

Ellyn Chestnut, Accessories Director, in Pierre Hardy for

Gap boots "I had these dyed dark brown.

The platform makes them incredibly comfortable, and adds lots of height."

Click here to shop Pierre Hardy

Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:30:00 AM

Nintendo's house brand of "minimalistic mechanics" downloadables, the Art Style series, is growing its ranks with two new titles: Art Style: light trax and Art Style: Rotozoa, both for WiiWare. The games were present (and looking close to finished) at the Big N's media come, it also further aligns and gathering in San Francisco, and I strengthens the interests of the took both for a spin -- quite chief executive with those of our literally in one case. Catch my thoughts after the break. shareholders."

Continue reading CBS Locks Continue reading WiiWare First Up CEO Les Moonves Through Look: Art Style series Light Trax, Rotozoa 2015 Filed under: Industry, OpEd, WiiWare First Look: Art Style NCIS, Reality-Free, The Big series Light Trax, Rotozoa originally appeared on Joystiq Bang Theory P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for Comments use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments for Gap boots Photo: Kelly Stuart Follow ELLE on Twitter.

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Daily Show's Jason Jones Heads to Primetime Brad Trechak (TV Squad)

DSiWare First Look: X-Scape and Metal Torrent

Submitted at 2/25/2010 9:19:00 AM

'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' correspondent Jason Jones is starring in an ABC pilot 'How to Be a Better American.'

Remember when it used to be that to find the next generation of comedy talent, one only had to look at the cast of'Saturday Night Live?' Well, it's sort of the same, except that now the industry looks to the cast of 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'

Jones is married to fellow 'Daily Show' correspondent Samantha Bee. It wouldn't be surprising if Bee made a few appearances on the show as well. If the show ends up as a ratings success, then Jones joins the ranks of Stephen Colbert, Steve Carell, Ed Helms, Rob Corddry and

Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Rob Riggle (among others) as having launched their careers from behind the 'Daily Show' desk.

The show is about a father who involves his family on a personal journey to become a better person and they don't want to go.

What do you think? Does it sound like a winner?

Filed under: Programming, OpEd, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Casting, Reality-Free P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | Kona Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:25:00 PM Comments

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:30:00 AM

Two DSiWare shooters were on show at Nintendo's Q1 Media Summit -- X-Scape(left) and Metal Torrent(right). Both hail from different dimensions (of gameplay and graphics). I played them both, and you'll find my impressions beyond the break.

Continue reading DSiWare First Look: X-Scape and Metal Torrent girls, they were generally DSiWare First Look: X-Scape underwhelming. However, the and Metal Torrent originally night was not without its funny appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 moments and mini-heartbreaks, Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please and at the end of it, Kara see our terms for use of feeds.

DioGuardi realized she needed Permalink| Email this| to hire a lawyer.

Comments Continue reading'American Idol' - 'Top 12 Boys Compete' Recap Filed under: American Idol, Judges, Reviewcaps, Contestants, Performances, Host Permalink| Email this| | Comments

'American Idol' - 'Top 12 Boys Compete' Recap I don't know about you all, but I was severely underwhelmed by the girls' first performance, so my main hope going into the Top 12 guys' performance is that it won't bore me to death. I also hope that I can get back in sync with the judges a little more tonight, because my opinions differed wildly from theirs.

Two hours later, one of these things happened. While the guys had more high points than the

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Is the Internet Ruining the Olympics? [Olympic Mysteries] Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:16:28 AM

Watching the silly drama unfold yesterday about disappointed skier Julia Mancuso's mean Tweets about teammate Lindsey Vonn, I started considering how the internet has played a part in these Hotlympics. And I don't like it!

Obviously Gawker has been giving you the Best Olympics Coverage On the Internet, so the ol' series of tubes has definitely proved good for something these past two weeks. But otherwise?

It's mostly doing damage.

Are we surprised that two athletes who have competed with each other since childhood are not always the best of friends? We really shouldn't be.

But then Mancuso uses a bad word in a Tweet while discussing yesterday's flagged Giant Slalom run (caused by Vonn crashing) and everyone gets allll posty about how there's Fightz! going on among the ranks of the women skiers. And everyone picks it up, because

who doesn't like two pretty girls fighting and splattering sexy mud all over our beautiful, kind global celebration. Frustratingly, the athletes can get all caught up in it too, and the whole gross, dumb thing keeps getting frothier and frothier.

Or attend the tale of poor Scotty Lago, the dudebro snowboarder (is there any other kind?) who became be-scandal'd and was

told to go home because of sexxxy photos he took in the Olympic Village. To be fair, it is quite shocking that a 22-year-old kid who just won an Olympic medal in Baggy-Pant Spinning would be gallivanting around Athlete Disneyworld flirting and trying to pull a little tail. And because of The Internet, TMZ can run some candid snaps of such behavior and Vancouver

can't really watch everything when it's happening. Say what you will about NBC's Americans First, Questions Never airing practices, but an 8pm block is, I suspect, still the most sensible way for most us to watch the games. Yet the internet doesn't respect our personal wishes and splashes this spoiler shit everywhere they can. "Why are Bode Miller's race results on LARPer.com??," I think desperately to myself when scanning my favorite websites.

It's just a shame.

Obviously the internet has done some good things for us during these Olympics (two thumbs), but for the most part I think we'd tells him to go home. Lest we all be better off without all the fans start to suspect that the peripheral noise it creates. That Olympians might be doing bad said, if the web can dig up sex things! anything about, oh say, just off And of course the internet is the top of my head, some sort of also giving us those cruel, Joubert/Weir hate-sex scandal or horrible spoilers. Right on the something, I think some of us front pages of the New York could take an academic interest T i m e s o r , m o r e m i n d - in that. bogglingly, NBC.com. I am fine As always, pics via Getty with the fact that time is what it is and the work day is too, so I

Antawn Jamison Finally Has Reason to Smile in Cleveland Pat McManamon (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 2/24/2010 3:30:00 PM

Filed under: Cavaliers, Wizards INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -- It wasn't long after he was traded that Antawn Jamison flashed

back to the last time he was in Cleveland.

He would be excused if the memory caused him to get cold chills.

Because that game came the day after Gilbert Arenas had pulled the "pretend pistol" act in

Washington's pregame huddle in

Philadelphia, the "pretend pistol" act that caused NBA commissioner David Stern to suspend Arenas and say he was not mentally or emotionally fit to play.

With Arenas gone and the Wizards in Cleveland, Jamison

was left to try to explain things for his team.

"We were in disarray and we didn't know what was going to happen," Jamison said. "It was one of those situations where it wasn't a pretty one."

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Which Actress Used to Get It on with Her Own Aunt? [Blind Items]

Movie Bloopers — “Breakdowns” — of 1936

Brian Moylan (Gawker)

Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture)

Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:01:15 AM

If she were a Sade song, she would be the "Sweetest Taboo."

This actor is no "Smooth Operator," yelling at a scalper at the Olympics. There's "No Ordinary Love" for this star on set. Actually, there's no love at all.

1."This blind is a little outrageous, but our source swears by it. This female actress, foreign born is reportedly in the closet, but has dealt with the rumors about her sexuality before. Before she was a star, she allegedly lived with her girlfriend, which also happens to be her aunt! We're not sure how this worked, but the source claims they were DEFINITELY more than family, if you catch out drift! Not a Milla Jovovich." [ BuzzFoto] 2."While quite a few celebrities have managed to make their way

up to Vancouver for the Olympic Games, one actor certainly made a less-than-super impression. He really wanted to see a particular event – for which tickets were in big demand – and was observed trying to buy some off of a scalper. When told the price, he started yelling at the scalper,

saying that the price was outrageous and that there should be some sort of discount for celebrities like him. Although scalping is not illegal in British Columbia, a little discretion would have probably been more appropriate. Then again, maybe our actor was just trying to be funny." [ Blind Gossip]

3."Another don't look me in the eyes film set experience. Unlike yesterday when our actress indicated she didn't like don't look me in the eye notices, this former A list action actor and A c a d e m y A w a r d nominee/winner who is now a struggling B- list loves having the don't talk to me and don't look me in the eye notices put up on set. During the most recent movie he filmed, the notices went up and a crew member said, 'I don't think anyone has to worry about looking him in the eye because he is so damn short.'

After that remark, random crew members would point to the notices when the actor was around and everyone would start laughing. The actor had no idea the entire time that everyone was laughing at him." [ CDaN]

Street Chic: London Fashion Week ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:00:00 AM

Her brightly hued book adds a pop of color to a chic black

outfit.

Photo: Josie Gealer Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Think you are Street Chic? E-

mail us your photo and you

could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:30:52 AM

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The Warner Bros. annual blooper reel for 1936.

Featuring Humphrey Bogart, Joe E. Brown, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Leslie Howard, Paul Lukas, Barton MacLane, Fredric March, Paul Muni, Pat O’Brien, Claude Rains, Edward G. Robinson, Warren William, etc.

Film was expensive then and stoppages were costly. Film now is the least of the expenses and they can make up for it by adding it as “extras” on the DVD. Flubs then cost money, now they can make money.

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

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Tom Hanks and Steven NFL declines to punish Oakland Spielberg Salute to Raiders coach Tom Cable Veterans with 'The Pacific' Associated Press (ESPN.com)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

made this for all the veterans on both sides of the ocean. Tom and Submitted at 2/25/2010 3:10:00 AM I continue to want to tell these Executive producers Steven stories of these engagements."

Spielberg and Tom Hanks "This is a story about human r o u n d e d u p t h e t r o o p s t o choices, that people were living premiere their HBO miniseries, i n a w o r l d t h a t w a s v e r y "The Pacific," on Wednesday complicated and had huge night in Los Angeles. The series' problems," explained Tom. He ten installments chronicle the found parallels between the era tale of three U.S. Marines who of World War II and 2010, travel actress the Pacific Theater saying, "1942, 1943, 1944 you during World War II. would think are very different Steven was attracted to bring places than they are today. Sure, this story to the screen because we have television and we have both his dad and uncle are p h o n e s a n d w e h a v e a veterans of the Pacific. He said, connectivity that's different and "I have really always credited the world is a substantially my dad for instilling in me a lot different place, but the human o f v a l u e s t h a t h a v e c o m e condition is not." through, especially in movies like 'Saving Private Ryan.'…I

Submitted at 2/24/2010 5:04:54 PM

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• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ var H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var D="Test "; var A = { } ; I.setUserMessage(""); I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("NFL%20declines%20to%20pu nish%20Raiders%20coach%20C a b l e " ) ) ; I.setLinkBack("http://sports.espn .go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4943 2 7 8 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).nextAll("p").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); }

//I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first " ) . t e x t ( ) ) ; //I.addMediaItem({type:"image" ,src:"",href:"http://soccernet.esp n.go.com/team?id="}); A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } Associated Press ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Oakland Raiders coach Tom Cable will not be punished by the NFL after an investigation into allegations of domestic violence against women and a fight with an assistant coach.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Wednesday that Cable's role in the training camp altercation with assistant Randy Hanson warranted an evaluation under the league's personal conduct policy.

AFC West blog ESPN.com's Bill Williamson writes about all things AFC West in his division blog.

• Blog network: NFL Nation Cable was accused of breaking Hanson's jaw and teeth during a fight at the team's training camp hotel in August. The Napa County district attorney declined to file criminal charges in the case because of inconsistencies in Hanson's story. Because there were no criminal charges, the league did not punish Cable.

Hanson did file a civil lawsuit

against Cable and the Raiders seeking unspecified damages for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Shortly after Cable was cleared in the training camp case, he faced allegations of a history of domestic violence against women. Cable's first wife, Sandy Cable, and former girlfriend, Marie Lutz, told ESPN that the coach physically abused them at various times during their relationships.

Cable has acknowledged striking Sandy Cable with an open hand. He said the altercation happened more than 20 years ago and was the only time he's ever touched a woman inappropriately. Because that happened before Cable joined the NFL, Aiello said there were no grounds to punish him.

Police in Alameda investigated the second incident and did not press charges.

Cable could be subjected to confidential counseling if deemed appropriate by clinicians.

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Olympic Men’s Hockey Diary: Canada 7, Russia 3 (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/24/2010 4:19:54 PM

Reuters Rick Nash puts the puck past Russia goalie Evgeni Nabokov to give Canada a 3-0 first-period lead.

The Journal provides minute-by -minute analysis of Canada’s 7-3 win over Russia in a quarterfinal game. Journal staffers are at Canada Hockey Place and Sochi World to offer commentary.

The U.S. returns to face Finland in the semifinals Friday after the Finns beat the Czech Republic Wednesday night.

For the Journal’s diary of the U.S.’s 2-0 win over Switzerland, click here.

7:18 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti Canadian Blood Boils over Russia-Canada Match â LIVE! An angry mob of Canadians is filtering into Canada Hockey Place right now, as the Russian Federation and Team Canada face off in a grudge match that has the attention of all of Canada.

The Russians are being booed

by Canadian fans and those boos arenât just for fun -â in the way New England Patriots fans might boo the Cleveland Browns when they run out onto Gillette Field.

These Eastern Europeans in their dark red uniforms have been bullying Canada around for decades, in one form or another.

Four years ago, they were âRussians,â knocking Canada

out of the quarterfinals in Torino. In the 1970s and 1980s, they were the U.S.S.R., embarrassing Canada on their own soil -â and in this very city - on a number of occasions.

Now, they are the much less mean-sounding âRussian Federation.â But they are just as stacked with talent.

Alexander Ovechkin, the most popular player in the National Hockey League right now is playing with an impressively hot stick right now. He is also playing with a ferocity not often seen in the Olympics. He laid out a scarily brutal hit earlier in the tournament against Czech player Jaromir Jagr, instantly changing the speed of the game.

And Russia is not a one-man show. Evgeni Malkin is one of

the NHLâs most formidable forwards, and the list goes on.

What Canada lacks in flash, it has made up for with the highest scoring team in this Olympic tournament, with 22 goals. And what Russiaâs defnse has been one of the most porous of the teams here.

Canadaâs captain Scott Niedermayer anchors its stalwart defense that says it is in no way intimidated by Mr. Ovechkin and a Russian front.

This is more than a hockey game. There is hatred in the air tonight and it is emanating from people with maple leafs somewhere on their body shouting âCan-a-da!â Sit back and enjoy as we bring you the action, and try to avoid being snubbed out by an angry

mob of Canadians if this game turns ugly.

7:19 pm | Pregame | by Ian Johnson It must be a hockey game: "Rush" is on the speakers as the Canadian team takes the ice for the pregame warmup. The Russians entered a few minutes ago to boos. The arena is only now filling up as security has been tight. A few Russian flags but 90% Canuck.

7:23 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti Unless Russian fans can yell really loud, there's no way the Federation is going to know they're here. Their red and blue outfits just kind of blend into the red and white Canadian ones.

This crowd might as well be 100% Canadian.

7:23 pm | Pregame | by Adam Thompson Greetings from Sochi World, aka Russky Dom. This is the Russian Olympic headquarters, and it's hard to say what Karl Marx would say about it. Giant areas for major Russian gas, auto and telecom companies, among others. In the lobby there's a group playing traditional Russian music that sounds like a thousand-times-cooler version of the Tetris theme song. The club area isn't open yet, but it fast developed a rep as one of the goto party spots in town.

7:25 pm | Pregame | by Ian Johnson Yes, Reed, blood is in the air.

It's a far cry from the days of my OLYMPIC page 62

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youth in the Montreal Forum, where we'd cheer good plays by the opponents and toast the Habs' goals with maple-syrup cocktails. I think some people here have been drinking beer, although fortunately it's Molson Canadian, which is so watery and so expensive you'd need to be a Russian billionaire to get drunk on it. Maybe Alexander Medvedev from the KHL is in the audience?

7:25 pm | Pregame | by Adam Thompson Just for the record, the fabulous Canadian women's curling team is up big on the Russians. No one here reacted.

7:30 pm | Pregame | by Ian Johnson The jumbotron is showing the Good Olde Dayse of Canadiane Hockey -- 2002, when the Canadians beat Team USA for gold. Ooops, now it's showing the Russians winning at the world championships recently.

Nine minutes until the puck is dropped. The atmosphere is tenser than a Timbit.

7:31 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti I feel bad for people watching this on TV, because they don't get to see the brilliant jumbotron interviews by former NHL goaltender Marc Denis, who is interviewing another former goalie, CTV analyst Darren Pang, right now. Marc translates every interview into French for the five non-English speaking Canadians in attendance.

7:31 pm | Pregame | by Ian Johnson Marc is sporting about five pounds of gel in his hair, while Darren is bald. The varying fates of ex-goalies...

7:32 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti Marc's euro-trash hoodies will be auctioned off for charity later, I hear.

7:35 pm | Pregame | by Adam Thompson My bad -- that was a replay of the curling. I'm now sitting with the Russian women's curling team. No joke.

7:36 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti Loud cheers from the crowd here after they show video of Canada winning in speed skating. Why does Canada's speed skating team race in pleather? Did someone show up to wind tunnel testing after staying out all night clubbing and realize it was aerodynamic?

7:36 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti I am so close to the action right now I can literally see all the gaps in Ovechkinâs mouth.

7:37 pm | Pregame | by Ian Johnson One of my favorite parts of the Olympics is the uplifting theme song/video clip they show just before the hockey games (and at the start of other competitions?

I'm not sure.) You have these stunning shots of Vancouver, athletes from around the world competing and so on. It's also

great because you know the game is about to begin. Teams are on the ice. One minute to go.

7:37 pm | Pregame | by Reed Albergotti Itâs so loud I canât hear myself blog.

7:38 pm | Pregame | by Adam Thompson Journalistic first: I have never, ever, ever sat in a lounge dedicated to a Russian railroad with a curling team, male or female.

7:39 pm | 1st period, 0-0 | by Ian Johnson I don't think I've been in a louder hockey arena. It is truly deafeaing. And they're off.

7:39 pm | 1st period, 0-0 | by Ian Johnson Minute and a half in and a big flurry by Canada. Toews ripped it wide, or did Nabokov get a piece of it?

7:41 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 17:39 in the 1st period âCanadaâs Ryan Getzlaf scores on a pass from Dan Boyle.

Canada up 1-0.

7:42 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Adam Thompson Crickets chirping at Sochi World, except for one guy who belatedly realized that the other guys in red scored, not his.

7:43 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson Everyone talks about Ovechkin and Malkin but that goal showed the weakness in the Russian defense. They've got two excellent offensive defensemen

in Markov and Gonchar but after that it drops off sharply and they're playing guys who wouldn't make Team Canada or Team USA. Meanwhile, the Canadian defense is pounding the Russian forwards and moving the puck out efficiently.

Still very early to make any big generalizations about the game, however.

7:43 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti You donât really have to even watch the game. You know exactly whatâs going on by just listening to the crowd, which reacts to every tiny move of the puck with the oohs and ahhs you expect from 4th of July fireworks displays.

7:48 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Ovechkin looks a little slow.

Seems like heâs trying to get checked really hard or get his nose broken â- that sort of thing usually wakes him up a little.

Heâs munching on rocks on the bench right now.

7:49 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti I just thought of a good chant for the Canadians, based on some things I learned at the Super Bowl: âWho, eh? Who thinks they can beat Team Canada, eh?â If you say it in kind of a nerdy voice, it sounds cool and intimidating.

7:52 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Adam Thompson Not a lot of noise from the curlers, who seem tense from the

way things have started. But the Russian pop group rehearsing its songs for tonight's gig here is totally bringing it. The show must go on.

7:54 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 12 minutes to go in the first and Canadaâs defenseman Brent Seabrook heads to the box for interference. Russia on the power play.

7:55 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Alexi Morozov whiffed on a nice opportunity to one-time one past Luongo.

7:56 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson Russians have Kovalchuk and Gonchar on the point in the power play -- big shooters. Bu their second unit is less impressive: top-flight Andrei Markov but also Ilya Nikulin who plays in the KHL. They can't set up and the penalty is over.

7:56 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Adam Thompson A few tepid tries at Sochi World to clap along to the arena feed of Hendrix, but it doesn't take.

7:57 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Instead of playing on the point, Ovechkin stations himself in front of the net -â still attempting to get his nose broken. Heâs on the bench again now, eating part of a hockey stick for a light snack.

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7:57 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson Break in the play with 9:54 to go. Russia got a lot of shot on that power play. Luongo seemed to have seen most of them. He's solid but hasn't had to be spectacular.

7:58 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson Crosby drew a penalty with a brilliant rush up the rink. Cut in on Nabokov and was hauled down by Anton Volchenkov at 9:34.

7:59 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Adam Thompson You get the sense that if you shot Ovechkin it would really annoy him.

7:59 pm | 1st period, 1-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson Half the power play is over and Canada almost scored. Set up nicely and got some shots on net but nothing yet. Nabokov hasn't had to make many saves because a lot of the shots were blocked.

8:00 pm | 1st period, 2-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 7:51 left: Canadaâs Dan Boyle scores on the power play â- right through Evgeni Nabokovâs fivehole. Assisted by Dany Heatley and Patrick Marleau.

8:01 pm | 1st period, 3-0 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 7:05 left: Canada comes right back down the ice and scores.

Rick Nash with the pass from Jonathan Toews on a two-onone that would make any defenseman weep. Itâs 3-0 Canada. Game. Over. And itâs

only the first period.

8:02 pm | 1st period, 3-0 Canada | by Adam Thompson After the third goal we've reached the Yelling at the TVs stage at Sochi House. The TVs just stare back in cold silence.

8:03 pm | 1st period, 3-0 Canada | by Ian Johnson How do you say "rout" in Russian? Now, it's too early yet but the Russians have just called a timeout after that last goal by Nash. Nash started the tournament playing with Crosby but it didn't seem to work. With these guys he seems to have found his grove.

Russia's not out of it yet, by any means. They're pressing and with their firepower it's still wide open.

8:04 pm | 1st period, 3-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 5:21to go: Russia, pretending they still have a chance, gets one past a screened Roberto Luongo.

Anton Kalinin with the sniper wrist shot from the point. Russia makes it 3-1 Canada.

8:04 pm | 1st period, 3-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson And the curlers go wild! They chant, "Rus-ee-ya" and scream.

And the musical rehearsal has shifted in tone drom melancholy sax solo to a more upbeat number.

8:05 pm | 1st period, 3-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Team Canada head coach Mike Babcock said before the game that he taped my âOvechkin: A Survival Guideâ to the locker

room wall and cancelled practice because there really wasnât âanything they needed to do but read that article.â So far, so good.

8:05 pm | 1st period, 3-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Kalinin's one of their KHL players.

8:07 pm | 1st period, 3-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Chants of "shaiboo" erupt.

Loosely translated (and spelled) it means "get a goal."

8:10 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 1:42 left in the first: Canadaâs like âuh uh,â and Brenden Morrow sneaks one by Nabokov on the behind-the-net wraparound to make it 4-1 Canada.

8:10 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Uh-oh, 4-1. Russians not practicing the tao of shaiboo.

8:11 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Ian Johnson With 3:32 left Doughty just showed why Steve Yzerman put him on the team. The Crosby line had good pressure down low, sent it back to Doughty, who did a little spinerama around his checker and drove in to the net. No goal but good pressure. Of course it was also pretty risky -- if he'd have been stripped of the puck it could have been an odd-man rush....

8:12 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Ian Johnson Tic-tac-no. Getzlaf to Perry to Morrow to...Nabokov in a

sliding save.

8:12 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Ian Johnson Russia's defense seems completely overwhelmed. The Getzlaf line stayed out there and Morrow just walked it out of the corner and roofed it over Nabokov. Not a great effort by Nabokov either. 1:40 left in the 1st and it's 4-1.

8:13 pm | 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Let's as a group agree not to say the Canadians are making Evgeni Nabokov look like Vladimir in net.

8:14 pm | End of 1st period, 4-1 Canada | by Ian Johnson Tell you what, whoever faces one of these teams after tonight is going to thank the loser. Both are pounding the heck out of the other. Great hockey but it has to be wearing. More hitting and pressure in the Russian end and we're at the end of the first.

8:14 pm | 1st intermission, 4-1 Canada | by Ian Johnson Shots on goal: Canada 21, Russia 12.

8:18 pm | 1st intermission, 4-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti At the end of the first period, Canada leads 4-1 and has made Russia look like a team of pickup hockey players who all want to score, but donât want to play as a team. Itâs kind of the opposite of the old Soviet teams that used to control the puck and weave up and down the ice as a single unit. The fans might need more of a breather than the

players. Every person in here was yelling at the top of their lungs cheering on Team Canada.

8:27 pm | 2nd period, 4-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Number eight, Ovechkin, comes out onto the ice to start the second period, stuffed after eating an entire live chicken between periods. Malkin lines up at center and Alexander Semin on right wing.

8:30 pm | 2nd period, 4-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Just talked to Ekaterina Galkina, the 21-year-old lead on the Russian curling team. She says her countrymen need to do better in their own end. It may be in the wee hours in Moscow, but she's sure everyone's awake and watching. More from Ekaterina later.

8:30 pm | 2nd period, 4-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti The crowd is comparatively subdued to start the second period. Tough to drum up the same fervor when your team is up 4-1 and you just had a chili cheese dog and a beer.

8:32 pm | 2nd period, 5-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 16:50 left: Canada scores another one after the Russians get caught basically cherrypicking on their breakout. Corey Perry with the goal, Ryan Getzlaf with the first assist.

8:33 pm | 2nd period, 5-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti On that goal, the Russians were OLYMPIC page 64

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trying an uber-aggressive breakout, hanging two or three people all the way down on Canada's blue line. When the pass from Russia's defense didn't get there, Canada had a three-onone.

8:34 pm | 2nd period, 5-1 Canada | by Adam Thompson Palms slapping foreheads in Sochi World. The Canadian monster that slept through Switzerland and the U.S. is fully awake now. Yowza.

8:35 pm | 2nd period, 6-1 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 15:53 in the 2nd: Canada has essentially embarrassed Russia with another goal. Shea Weber rifled a slap shot past Evgeni Nabokov, who's essentially being hung out to dry by Russia's non-existent defense.

8:36 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 15:14 in the 2nd: And itâs officially a pickup game now, with Russiaâs Maxim Afinogenov carrying it into the zone by himself and putting one past Luongo to make it 6-2 Canada.

8:37 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Adam Thompson And the curlers are leaving.

Good thing most of the Russian players are going back to places like Phoenix. I think if they had to return to Moscow, their federation would make them go by foot.

8:38 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Reed Albergotti This is fun to watch. Russia has

basically stopped any semblance of a game plan and is just playing offense, hoping for a flurry of goals. This could get very ugly.

8:41 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Ian Johnson I know it sounds ridiculous, but with Russia's firepower it's still possible for a comeback. Russia looks more possessed after switching goalies to backup Ilya Bryzgalov and it's 6-2 with 13 minutes to play in the second. A goal or two this period and then it's a game. Unless of course the Russian defense doesn't tighten up.

8:42 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Adam Thompson Wonder if Ted Leonsis is quietly smiling that his big bopper in Washington is going to get some extra rest.

8:43 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Adam Thompson Also -- how awkward is that first day back in the Penguins locker room going to be between Crosby and Malkin?

8:43 pm | 2nd period, 6-2 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Ovechkin is taking long shifts now, essentially looking for a chance to take a shot and not worrying too much about playing back. At this point, what else is there to do?

8:44 pm | 2nd period, 7-2 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 10:09 â On another two-on-one, Canadaâs Corey Perry scores on the pass from Eric Staal, making it 7-2 Canada. Who could have

predicted this score?

8:45 pm | 2nd period, 7-2 Canada | by Ian Johnson After a commercial break at 13:13, the game is back on. The Russians are taking more time breaking out and seem more calm and collected. They're not rolling over.

8:45 pm | 2nd period, 7-2 Canada | by Ian Johnson Ovechkin isn't backchecking at all. He's just hanging around the blue line and red line waiting for a break-out pass. It's understandable given the gap and the need for a goal, but risky.

8:46 pm | 2nd period, 7-2 Canada | by Adam Thompson And here's the really bad news: we're only halfway done. And that can only mean one thing: more curling anecdotes.

8:48 pm | 2nd period, 7-2 Canada | by Ian Johnson Hasta la vista. 10:09 and Perry scores his second of the night with assists to fellow Anaheim Duck Ryan Getzlaf and Carolina Hurricane Eric Staal. The Russians are trying to do too much -- get all the goal back at once. So it allows these counterpunches.

8:49 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 8:20 left in the 2nd: Sergei Gonchar of Russia slices it past Luongo with a slap shot from the point for a goal to make it 73 Canada.

8:49 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson

No one could've foreseen this game -- I actually thought the Russians would win. But looking back at their win over the Czechs, there were signs.

Long stretches of lethargic play in that one.

8:50 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti When Russia actually crowds the crease, theyâve had success screening Luongo. That one looked like it bounced off Canadaâs Shea Weber to go in.

8:51 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson 8:33 to go and a chance for Russia. Joe Thornton serves for a dumbo penalty by Canada: too many men on the ice.

8:52 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson And just like that it's 7-3, with Gonchar scoring on what looked like a screened Luongo. Assist to Malkin. Four-goal game. Not the prettiest game of the tournament.

8:53 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 6:50 left: Russia's Konstantin Korneyev called for interference.

Canada's on a power play.

8:54 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson If we were NBC, we'd switch away from the game and start talking about the time we rode on a seaplane.

8:55 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti If we were NBC, we'd never have this on in the first place.

Isn't there a high-school dance or something they could televise

instead?

8:56 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson After that bizarre exchange of goals, the game is back to a fasttempo, end-to-end affair. Russia is pressing mightily but whenever Canada breaks out you get the feeling that the Russian defense will not be organized and allow a scoring chance.

8:57 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Hey Ovie, if you're going to cherry-pick on the blue line, try to handle the pass when you get it. Otherwise, you bring shame on all of Mother Russia.

8:57 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti One more goal for Canada and Canada Hockey Place is going to have to send someone to the store get more vodka.

8:59 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson That's true. It would get in the way of the feature on brave American athlete who bounced back from the pain of his great uncle getting hit by lightning.

9:00 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 45.7 seconds left in the second and Duncan Keith of Canada is called for tripping. And yeah, he tripped that Russian dude pretty bad.

9:01 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Reed Albergotti 3.9 seconds left: you're on the power play, puck's being OLYMPIC page 65

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dropped in Canada's zone. Pull the goalie?

9:01 pm | 2nd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson I'm so bummed for the Russians. I don't have a horse in this race, but you never want to see a team go out like this. If I could, I'd buy the entire country a shot. Hell, make it a double.

9:02 pm | End od 2nd period, 73 Canada | by Reed Albergotti Canada is up 7-3 going into the third period, and the mighty Russian Federation has been reduced to a group of kids playing pond hockey. Ovechkin looks like he's bored and wants to go home. Hmmm, maybe someone did poison his food.

9:05 pm | 2nd intermission, 7-3 Canada | by Editor While we're between periods, enjoy our live blog of the U.S.'s 2-0 win over Switzerland.

9:07 pm | 2nd intermission, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Here's a non-definitive factoid: Russia's 23 players are from 18 different teams, while Canada's are from 14. That's allowed Canada to build complete lines and defense pairings, improving cohesion -- a big problem for Russia tonight. I think it reflects the fact that Canada has more depth at various positions, so the management could forego a player at one position for another who had a linemate the team wanted. That's why, for example, the Capitals' Mike Green was left off -- he's only the league's top-scoring

defenseman but the Canadian brass figured they wanted more pairings, like Chicago's Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.

9:09 pm | 2nd intermission, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson As we continue in the secondperiod break, you have to think it'll be tough for Russia. If they'd scored on that power play, it would have been only a threegoal game and a quick strike at the start of the third would have put them in position for a comeback. Now, it's still a fourgoal game and barring a complete meltdown, I can't see Russia scoring four times in the third. But stranger things have happened in ice hockey...

9:17 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson A lot of long faces at Sochi World. An observer just got a text from Russia, where it's about 5 a.m. I asked her what it said. She pointed both index fingers at her temples and said, "They want to shoot themselves."

9:19 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson And we're starting the third period with Russia still on the power play. So far Canada has had two easy clears with 30 seconds left in the penalty.

9:19 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Teams are at full strength with 18:36 left in the period. It's still 7-3 for Canada so Russia's hope of a quick strike early on has faded.

9:24 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Two minutes in and Eric Staal is injured racing in to grab a loose puck. He was in a foot race with Anton Volchenkov, a shutdown defenseman with the Ottaawa Senators. It seemed like Volchenkov hit Staal but it was fair and Staal slammed into the boards. He got up under his own power and is on the bench.

That's good for Canada because he's been a big help to Sidney Crosby as his winger.

9:25 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson 17:59 to go and Russia does get a penalty, but to Gonchar for hooking. Unless they score short -handed, that eats another two minutes off the clock.

9:25 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Payback time: Jarome Iginla, after hitting the post during the power play, slams Volchenkov into the boards. Ouch. No penalty.

9:26 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson 16 minutes left in the third and a good penalty kill by Russia.

Bryzgalov looked sharp on a few shots (except Iginla's post).

9:27 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson Another too many men on the ice penalty? The Russians have to feel like there have been about nine Canadians on the ice since the first drop of the puck.

9:29 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson

The jumbo-mumbo thingamajig at center ice that dominates our experience here at the arena is showing the goals and Nabokov really looked weak on several of them. He's been a good regularseason goalie for the Sharks but hasn't won much in the playoffs and looked like he basically choked.

9:30 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Lackluster power play by Canada and Russia is at full strength. They're more interested in hammering the Russians physically, it looks like.

9:31 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson This is death. With under 12 minutes left, you'd have to think the cavalry would've come by now for the Russians if it were coming at all.

9:34 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Some hockey writers have accused the Canadians of playing too physically and finishing their checks too much.

But the upside is on display.

Pavel Datsyuk was hammered a minute ago while trying to make a play, coughed up the puck and Canada was back on the attack. I don't think it's for nothing that coaches have said over the decades that you play the man, not the puck and so on.

9:34 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Canadian fans are taunting Ovechkin with "Ovie Ovie."

This might just rile him up...

9:35 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson But seriously, I'm not sure I buy Ovechkin being such a physical player. He makes spectacular hits when he sees someone vulnerable -- like Jagr a few games ago. But a truly physical player doesn't headhunt. He is a thrilling player but when he's off, he's invisible.

9:36 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson Counterpoint on Ovechkin: I know he hasn't done it alone, but how quickly have the Caps risen since he landed in the District?

9:39 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson Now it looks like Ovechkin may have hurt his hand during garbage time. Leonsis no longer smiling.

9:40 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson He's a great, player, don't get me wrong. But a winger can only do so much. You build a winning team from the goal out, to the defense and through center. You don't build from the wings.

9:42 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Here's extending a hand to the ice-dancing folks: time out and the jumbotron shows Canada's gold-medalists in ice dancing to roars of approval. See, we hockey fans can be nice to you ice dancers.

9:43 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 OLYMPIC page 68

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Parise's 2 goals carry U.S. into semifinal round Associated Press (ESPN.com)

go for naught. U.S. general manager Brian Burke said he wasn't happy with his team's Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:24:25 PM play through the preliminary Message from fivefilters.org: If round, and cautioned that the you can, please donate to the full Americans had to improve -text RSS service so we can quickly if they hoped to make a continue developing it. run.

V A N C O U V E R , B r i t i s h Their challenge came from the Columbia -- The longer it went, lightly regarded Swiss and not the tighter the Americans got. from tournament favorites They clanged shots off the post, Canada, Russia or defending then the crossbar. A wrist shot Olympic champion Sweden. early in the game by Phil Kessel "I thought after the first two or that looked like a bad omen hit three games I could play better. I both. Everything else the U.S. knew I would," said Parise, who hockey team threw on net had no goals and three assists in Wednesday, Swiss goalie Jonas the opening three games. "It's Hiller smothered. always nice to get rewarded. I But Zach Parise put all that just kept wanting to keep frustration aside, deflecting a shooting." wrist shot from Brian Rafalski Burnside: Moving On early in the third period. He then Team USA fields one of the scored into an empty net to seal youngest, most inexperienced a 2-0 quarterfinal win that sends teams in the field. But against the U.S. to Friday's semifinals the Swiss on Wednesday, they against Finland, which beat the proved they have the patience Czech Republic 2-0. and chemistry of an elite team, "The goalie was great and we writes Scott Burnside. Story did a good job of sticking with • LeBrun: Calling All Scorers it. We were pretty confident and In front of a full crowd that said just keep putting pucks at traded chants for each team, him," said Parise, who failed to Hiller gave the Swiss a chance to score on his first 13 shots of the pull off the upset by making 42 tournament. saves. He had stymied Parise Ryan Miller made 19 saves to several times earlier, but couldn't backstop the victory and move keep the New Jersey Devils star the Americans within two wins down all the way. of their first men's hockey gold Parise, the top-line forward who medal in 30 years. struck posts with two other For a while, though, there was a shots, got a stick on Rafalski's chance their stirring 5-3 win shot and bounced it off the mask over Canada on Sunday might and arm of Hiller before the

puck sneaked past his pad and inside the left post 2:08 into the third. The goal came 12 seconds into a power play.

He then sealed the win by scoring into an empty net with 11.2 seconds left. The U.S. has earned two of its four wins in these games against Switzerland, including a tournament-opening 3-1 victory last Tuesday.

Switzerland seemed to tire as the game wore on. The upstarts, who forced Canada to a shootout in the prelims, reached the quarters with another tiebreaker win over Belarus on Tuesday.

Switzerland was forced to play past regulation in its previous three games.

Despite only two regular NHL players, the Swiss were gallant in longtime coach Ralph Krueger's last Olympics.

Switzerland finished sixth four years ago in the Turin Games and was looking for its best showing in Canada.

"We had high expectations," the teary-eyed Hiller said, his voice cracking. "We knew we had a solid team and we can upset some of the big ones and that's what we tried to do. I wish we could have upset them a little more.

"It's always tough to lose, but losing in the quarterfinals in the Olympics and being that close, it definitely hurts. I am quite disappointed right now."

Until Parise scored, the signature moment in this one

was a near goal the U.S. thought it scored to break the deadlock with less than one second left in the middle period.

Ryan Kesler's shot struck Hiller's blocker and popped in the air. The Anaheim Ducks goalie swatted it with his stick and deflected it off his shoulder before it fell behind him.

The puck tantalizingly slid onto the goal line and toward the net as the clock struck 0.0. A video replay confirming no goal sent the pro-Swiss crowd into jubilation as the teams headed to the dressing rooms.

"I thought I scored," Kesler said "I thought it was in and we were going into the locker room up 10 but apparently the time ran out and I wasn't lucky enough. I knew there wasn't much time left and I just tried to throw it on net to generate a rebound and it happened to find the back of the net a half-second too late."

A wild sequence in the third had both teams believing they had scored.

At 3:40, Sandy Jeannin sent a wide-angled shot that appeared to beat Miller inside the right post. The red light came on, but play continued. Before the next whistle, Ryan Suter fired a shot past Hiller. That goal was disallowed because of a highsticking penalty against teammate Ryan Kesler.

Even with the benefit of three power plays in the second period, the U.S. couldn't forge

much of an attack. The Americans' best scoring chances came at even strength, but when they wound up for drives in good areas many of their shots were blocked before they got to Hiller.

"I haven't seen that for a long time, even in the NHL," defenseman Tim Gleason said.

"Guys are laying down left and right. That's good to see and you hope they get right back up.

Guys are getting their nose dirty, and that's what wins championships and medals."

The Swiss were content to clog the middle and contest every pass and each puck carrier as he tried to get into the offensive zone. Bobby Ryan rushed toward the blue line before being upended with a hip check by Mathias Seger that flipped him with 5:15 left in the second.

"We waited and waited and waited, and I guess we waited them out," Gleason said. "We got a little antsy ... you want to do it yourself and you get frustrated."

The only thing that got into either net in the opening two periods was Dustin Brown's stick that was stuck in the back of the Swiss goal.

Switzerland generated only eight shots on Miller through 40 minutes while allowing 32.

Hiller kept the Swiss in the game during the first period when the PARISE'S page 67

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Report: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Washington Wizards Coca-Cola to buy bottling reach agreement on buyout ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:59:02 AM

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• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ var H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var D="Test "; var A = { } ; I.setUserMessage(""); I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Report:%20Ilgauskas,%20Wiz ards%20agree%20on%20buyout " ) ) ;

I.setLinkBack("http://sports.espn .go.com/nba/news/story?id=494 5 0 9 7 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).nextAll("p").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } //I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first " ) . t e x t ( ) ) ; //I.addMediaItem({type:"image" ,src:"",href:"http://soccernet.esp n.go.com/team?id="}); A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services The Washington Wizards and center Zydrunas Ilgauskas have reached an agreement on a contract buyout, The Washington Post reported, citing a person with knowledge of the situation.

The move would clear the way for Ilgauskas to eventually return to the Cavaliers, once certain conditions are met, or to join another team immediately.

ESPN The Magazine's Ric Bucher reported that Ilgauskas, who was part of a three-team trade that sent Antawn Jamison to the Cavs from Washington, already has flown back to Cleveland.

Ilgauskas' agent, Herb Rudoy, said he was "very close" to an agreement with the Wizards and expected to have it finished on Thursday, according to the Post.

If a buyout is reached with the Wizards, Ilgauskas would be placed on waivers. No team is under the salary cap enough to absorb his $11.5 million salary this season, so he would become a free agent eligible to join any team for a pro-rated share of the veteran's minimum.

Under NBA rules, Ilgauskas would have to wait 30 days to rejoin the Cavaliers, the only team he has played for in 12 NBA seasons. But he would be free to join any other team immediately and is expected to draw interest from Dallas, Denver, Atlanta and Utah.

"I expect him to decide by the end of the weekend," Rudoy said in a text message to the Post.

An NBA official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Monday that the league had not threatened to stop Ilgauskas from returning to the Cavs, saying it would only step in if there were proof of an agreement before the trade was made.

Last season, Antonio McDyess went back to Detroit after the Pistons dealt him to Denver along with Chauncey Billups for Allen Iverson, and players such as Brent Barry(San Antonio) and Gary Payton(Boston) also have returned to clubs that dealt them in recent seasons.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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

-on-1 with Devils teammate Jamie Langenbrunner broken up.

Kessel later fired a drive that struck the right post and crossbar behind Hiller.

Notes The two previous times the Americans won on Feb. 24 they

captured the gold medal (1960 Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: and 1980). ... Forwards Brown PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, and Chris Drury played in their Term Extraction.

50th international game in a U.S. uniform.

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Americans held an 18-4 shots edge.

Passing was a problem on the uneven ice that kept pucks bouncing. Parise had three prime scoring chances, but was twice denied -- including once with the U.S. short-handed -- and had a 2

unit

(Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:53:29 AM

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Coca-Cola announced on Thursday that it was buying the North American operations of its largest bottler, Coca-Cola Enterprises, in a reversal of a strategy the soft-drink maker had embraced for more than 20 years.

Under the deal, CCE will also acquire Coke’s company-owned bottling operations in Norway and Sweden and will have the right to buy its German bottling and distribution business.

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Canada | by Ian Johnson Ovechkin took a wrist shot from Toews in the .. wrist. That's gotta hurt.

9:44 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Russia is playing for pride now and it's working. With 5:23 left, their sustained pressure caused Pronger to take a holding penalty.

9:44 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson I'll sum up this game for Russia in five words: Someone spit in the borscht.

9:45 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Bad news for Russia: Luongo has been sharp. He just denied Malkin on a breakaway with 4:14 left. 51 seconds left on the Russian power play.

9:46 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Ovechkin is out on the power play but Luongo is really sharp.

But he doesn't seem engaged. He just passed up a chance to hit a player with the puck.

9:51 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson 2:43 left and the bad blood is there. Boyle (without the puck) was hammered behind the play

by Semin and then tapped in in the chest with a "hey, wtf" look.

Semin then fell down. Refs weren't fooled with the eurodive and Semin's in the bin.

9:52 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Ooops, I guess they were and in hindsight, rightly so. Boyle hauled down Semin and both are sitting. 4-4 hockey.

9:52 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Adam Thompson Sweden and Slovakia: think their fans are still watching this or just hiding under the covers?

9:53 pm | 3rd period, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson Last minute of play. Crowd is acting like Canada won something.

9:54 pm | Final, 7-3 Canada | by Ian Johnson It's over. 7-3 Canada.

9:55 pm | Postgame | by Adam

Thompson Heard one last, sarcastic "Go, Canada, go" with a Russian accent. Da svedanya.

9:56 pm | Postgame | by Ian Johnson The Russian fans and media here in Vancouver look shellshocked. Unbelievable that such a collection of talent could go down so easily. Maybe it just goes to show the oldest of sports truisms: defense wins games and championships. None of the big teams has looked so shaky on defense as the Russians had and they paid for it.

Canadian team raises sticks to salute the crowd.

Two more games on tap tonight: Slovakia-Sweden (the winner plays Canada) and CzechFinland, with the winner playing Team USA. We'll post those results when we know them.

From Vancouver, I'm signing off.

Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:22:58 AM

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14:20 GMT: Action in the forex

markets triggered a fresh bout of nerves among investors on Thursday, after the euro tumbled to a one-year low against the yen, sparking fears that a flight into perceived haven assets was again under way.

The FTSE World equity index fell 0.8 per cent and the dollar

Kevin Blackistone (FanHouse Main)

teammate Jarome Iginla, who was leading their Olympic effort in scoring, didn't put the puck in Submitted at 2/24/2010 4:10:00 PM the net, either.

Filed under: USA, Ice Hockey, Neither did their teammates Canada, Russian Federation Patrick Marleau, the NHL's third V A N C O U V E R , B r i t i s h leading scorer, nor Dany Columbia -- All of a sudden, last Heatley, the league's sixth Sunday seems like it happened leading scorer. l a s t s u m m e r , o r t h e l a s t And still Team Canada turned millennium. I recall something what was supposed to be an epic about the U.S. men's Olympic battle with their nemesis Russia, hockey team beating the gold- the other gold-medal game medal game favorite Canadians favorite, into a mere historical in the Vancouver Winter Games, footnote of a mismatch, 7-3, to but the details have all but faded. advance to the medal-round of was pushed close to eight-month I'm actually starting to wonder if this tournament. highs as poorly-received US it even happened no more than That came on the heels of an 82 thrashing Canada administered j o b s d a t a a d d e d t o t h e four days ago.

Because all I can remember on Tuesday to overmatched uncertainty Five Filters featured article: n o w i s w h a t u n f o l d e d Germany in a game it didn't Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Wednesday late afternoon at the expect to have to play because it PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Canada Hockey Palace, the didn't anticipate losing to the Olympic hockey venue. Sid the lower North Americans, the red, Term Extraction.

Kid Crosby, tied at this break for white and blue club from the the NHL lead in goals, didn't U.S. score for Team Canada. His

Euro tumbles amid flight to havens (Financial Times - US homepage)

Team Canada Gets Its Groove Back

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The Count: Nets’ Quest for 10 Wins (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

remaining game. SRS takes into account a team’s results and its schedule. As a predictive The New Jersey Nets are giving mechanism, it incorporates home fans of Fred Carter, Leroy Ellis -court advantage, such that when and other members of the two teams of equal quality meet, immortal 1972-73 Philadelphia the home team has a 65% chance 76ers hope. On Tuesday the of winning. The Nets, naturally Nets dropped their 52nd game in the record. rank dead last in the league in 57 tries this season, losing at There are reasons to think the SRS, and so their highest home to Portland, 102-93. At Nets can grant his wish and probability of winning any their current pace, the Nets will avoid infamy by at least tying individual remaining game isn’t finish with seven wins, or two those woeful 76ers’ win total. very high — a mere 39% when fewer than the nine put up by The Nets’ wins have come hosting the Detroit Pistons next those 76ers, against 73 losses, in against four teams, and they’ll month. But add up all their the worst 82-game finish in play three of them— fellow remaining win probabilities, and NBA history (and two fewer E a s t e r n C o n f e r e n c e c l u b s the total is 4.04, which would be than the Nets’ Jersey neighbors, C h i c a g o , N e w Y o r k a n d just enough to tie the Sixers’ win the Jets, won in a 16-game Charlotte — again a total of four total. schedule last fall). Getty Images times. Sweep those four games, The schedule, though, doesn’t Keyon Dooling and the Nets and the Nets can drop their other particularly help the Nets. Eight have a fighter’s chance at double 21 and still finish with just 73 of their last 10 games are against -digit wins. losses. teams currently in the thick of This year’s Philly team has Past results are no guarantee of playoff races, rather than those done its part, sweeping their first future performance in the NBA. at the very bottom or top of the three games against New Jersey But a more detailed analysis league who might not have despite winning barely a third of suggests that the Nets should be much left to play for at season’s the rest of their contests — able to scrape together about end. New Jersey will have to though Carter, Philly’s leading four wins. I used Basketball work hard to avoid ignominy. scorer in 1972-73, has indicated Reference’s Simple Rating to the current coaching staff that System to compute New Jersey’s he wouldn’t mind holding on to probability of winning each Submitted at 2/24/2010 2:48:06 PM

Canada Routs Russia, Surging Into Semis FanHouse Newswire (FanHouse Main)

size to open leads of 3-0 and 4-1 in the first period and 6-1 early in the second period, and the Submitted at 2/24/2010 2:30:00 PM unexpected rout was on.

Filed under: Ice Hockey, The resurgent Canadians meet Canada, Russian Federation the Sweden-Slovakia winner in V A N C O U V E R , B r i t i s h Friday's semifinals. If they Columbia (AP) -- A dominating advance, they might face the Canada ended 50 years of United States in a rematch of the Olympic hockey frustration 5-3 loss on Sunday. against Russia.

That disappointment marked The Canadians got a goal and their first Olympic loss to the two assists from Dan Boyle U.S. since 1960; the punishing during a take-charge first period win over Russia was their first to beat the world champions 7-3 since the same tournament in Wednesday and surge into the Squaw Valley and only the Olympic semifinals. second in 11 Olympic games A superpower showdown - one against the Russians or Soviets. that may have been better suited Long before it was over, fans for the gold-medal game than began chanting, "We Want the quarterfinals - quickly Sweden," just as they had asked became a super letdown. for Russia the day before. After T h e p h y s i c a l , f o c u s e d that, it was "We want gold."

Canadians took advantage of On this day, Canada got all it terrible goaltending by Evgeni wanted.

Nabokov and superior depth and

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As Canada Rematch Looms, Team USA Keeps Its Cool Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main)

China postpones military exchanges with US (Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 2/24/2010 3:10:00 PM Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:08:58 PM

Filed under: USA, Ice Hockey, Switzerland VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- In the stands, those bitter and boobish Canadians roundly booed Team USA and rooted for the Swiss, not realizing how silly they sounded.

In goal, Jonas (The Thriller) Hiller was stoning the Americans, stopping their first 34 shots and getting a break when a puck that deflected off his blocker and shoulder and into the Swiss net -- yes, the man scored on himself -- was waved off after a replay showed time had expired in the second period.

And back home, all the latenight talk shows and media outlets that generally neglect hockey in the U.S., meaning pretty much everybody, suddenly are demanding time from the players.

The point being: There's plenty to distract the new American idols, the rage of a nation, if their minds are so inclined to wander.

"We've been trying to temper all that," Ryan Miller said. "I'm still

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China has postponed several high-level military exchanges with the US, in the first tangible sign of retaliation over Washington’s decision to sell $6.4bn in arms to Taiwan.

“China has decided to suspend arrangements for some planned mutual visits between the US and the Chinese military,” a Chinese military spokesman said on Thursday. the same person and I still enjoy club with a so-so shot at a medal "He's making every save there Five Filters featured article: playing goaltender, but we're into the favorite's role in the was, and everyone's like, 'Geez, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: getting a lot of requests that we most high-powered Olympic a l m o s t , a l m o s t , PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, have to push aside. There's more t o u r n a m e n t e v e r . O n t h e a l m o s t , ' " d e f e n s e m a n T i m Term Extraction. interest now, and we have to y o u t h f u l s i d e w i t h n o Gleason said. "We waited and deflect that. We still have a lot p a r t i c u l a r l y v o c a l o r waited and waited them out. We of work ahead of us." demonstrative presence in the were getting a little antsy."

What should impress the locker room, it would have been "It's frustrating to put so many homeland about this team, even easy to wobble Wednesday as shots on net and not get one past as the dopes at NBC continued S w i t z e r l a n d p l a y e d a him,'' forward Patrick Kane said. to tinker with tape delay and conservative dump-and-chase "And then to have two called back-channel placement, is its game and depended on Hiller, back where I would have had a poise and equilibrium. With one the mightiest of the NHL Mighty couple of assists." monumental win over Canada, D u c k s , t o t u r n b a c k t h e Team USA transformed from a A m e r i c a n o n s l a u g h t .

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Ladies’ Aerials: Last Big Chance for Australia (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/24/2010 7:17:55 PM

The finals in ladies’ aerials tonight is very likely Australia’s last chance to meet its goal of winning three medals in a Winter Olympics, something the nation has never done.

Australia, a Summer Olympics powerhouse, entered the 2010 Games having won six Winter Medals in history, according to Barry White, spokesman for the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, an organization formed after the Nagano Games of 1998 to strengthen the countrys winter program. Getty Images Lydia Lassila Since 1998, Australia has averaged two medals per Winter Games, which is exactly how many it has won so far in Vancouver. But the nation had hoped to jump to three in Vancouver, especially given the improved performance of its skiers and skaters on world circuits.

overall World Cup standings last year.

Four of the finalists are Chinese, however, and during qualifying runs they posted three of the top four performances.

There is talk, in fact, of a possible Chinese sweep of the podium.

By contrast, the three Australian finalists are ranked in the bottom four of the 12 finalists, based on their qualifying runs. Rank matters in the finals because skiing last a luxury afforded the highest-ranked is a distinct advantage, since the aerialist knows what score she has to As it has turned out, however, beat.

Vancouver has held a few In aerials skiing, athletes ski off disappointments for Australia, ramps known as kickers, and are most notably the early exit in scored by judges based on snowboard cross of Australian takeoff (20% of score), form in Alex Pullin, who had posted the the air (50%) and landing (30%). fastest times in qualifying runs. Aerialists reach greater heights In tonights ladies aerials finals t h a n a n y o t h e r W i n t e r starting at 10:30 p.m. eastern O l y m p i a n s , a c c o r d i n g t o time three of the 12 finalists are O l y m p i c e x p e r t D a v i d Australian, including Lydia W a l l e c h i n s k y .

Lassila, who ranked first in

Nintendo: WarioWare D.I.Y. getting two DLC microgames weekly, famous devs contributing Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:00:00 AM

Meeting with Nintendo reps yesterday to check out the interoperability between WarioWare D.I.Y. for DS and WarioWare D.I.Y. Showcase for WiiWare, we were informed that the publisher itself will be making two original games available for download each week after the titles launch at the end of March. Not only that, but there are plans to distribute D.I.Y. microgames created by "famous" game developers in the future -- which, of course, you'll be able to study the innerworkings of in detail using the DS version of the latest WarioWare.

Think you should be both "famous" and a "game developer?" The trio of tidbits

we jotted down is rounded out by word of contests Nintendo is planning to hold, in which specific microgame themes will be presented to the D.I.Y. community, it'll take submissions (for, say, a game based on your favorite food) and the best of the best will then be chosen and distributed by the Big N. Got that notebook full of (tiny) game ideas handy?

Gallery: WarioWare: D.I.Y. Showcase (WiiWare) Nintendo: WarioWare D.I.Y. getting two DLC microgames weekly, famous devs contributing originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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From Woe Canada, to Oh Canada: Celebrating Delightful Games Lisa Olson (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 2/24/2010 4:00:00 PM

Filed under: Canada VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- I come to praise the Games. No, really, close your dropped jaw and wipe the skepticism off your face. While the 2010 Winter Olympics certainly won't be remembered as the best ever, they've rebounded from a dreadful start and have cleaned up rather nicely as we careen down the final stretch.

Good luck finding a single soul in the mad crush of crowds who'll say anything derogatory about these Games. In the end, it's the fans' opinions that matter most, not the cranky journalists and Olympic officials who spent the first week hyperventilating, on air and in print, over problems large and small.

There were legitimate issues, to be sure. The training run accident that killed the young Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili on the eve of the Games will always be the heartbreaking prelude to Vancouver's narrative. The inquests and investigations are far from over; until they are it is unfair and unwise to divvy up fault and blame.

But most every other problem

has been, as far as Olympics go, a relatively minor inconvenience. Some, like the ugly chain link fence concealing the Cauldron and the vomiting ice-resurfacing machine at the speed skating, were easily fixed.

Others, like the disastrous heavy rains on Cypress Mountain that forced organizers to cancel about 20,000 standing room tickets and the dense fog shrouding the Whistler slopes, couldn't be helped. (Not even Wayne Gretzky can direct dial the weather gods). Those who chose to slam the Opening Ceremonies because of -- quelle honte!-- a JC Fletcher (Joystiq) dysfunctional torch or the failure to properly honor Canada's Submitted at 2/25/2010 10:00:00 AM French culture ought to send their disapproving letters to the Here's some great news for Australian who choreographed those of you in Europe interested and directed the extravaganza. in playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. Nintendo announced that Galaxy will be available in Europe on June 11, not long after America's May 23 date.

And Sin and Punishment will be out in Europe (under the slightly altered title Sin and Punishment: Successor of the Skies) on May 7, exactly one month before North America gets its hands on that Treasure.

The bad news is that Metroid: Other M is dated simply "Q3."

Mario, Metroid, Sin and Punishment, more dated in Europe It's due June 27 in North America. We've collected all the European release dates for Wii and DS (including a "summer" date for Dragon Quest IX!) after the break.

[Via Eurogamer] Continue reading Mario, Metroid, Sin and Punishment, more dated in Europe Mario, Metroid, Sin and Punishment, more dated in Europe originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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London Fashion Week Fall 2010 Favorites ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/24/2010 12:36:40 PM

There is only Zuul (and this sweet Ghostbusters Wii mod) David Hinkle (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/25/2010 5:07:00 AM

Our problem with Ghostbusters mainly revolves around the fact that we're not one of them. Our childhood-up-until-now dream has always been to slap on that jumpsuit and get knee-deep in Ectoplasmic residue with our comrades in arms, our shoulder

patches glistening against the light of our never-crossing streams as we vanquish ancient evils. Well, it'll never happen -mostly because Ghostbusters isn't real, despite our best attempts at willing it into existence.

But at least there's some consolation in a sweet Proton pack mod for the Wii. The

glorious concoction of plastic and LEDs was created by Ghostbusters Fans forum member irrelevanttomfoolery and sets the benchmark for badass game controller mods.

Seriously, that ridiculous Resident Evil 4 chainsaw is like child's play compared to how awesome this thing is, so click on the image above and go read

up on it.

[Via Gizmodo] There is only Zuul (and this sweet Ghostbusters Wii mod) originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Burberry brought London fashion week to a chic close yesterday with a powerful collection by Christopher Bailey filled with got-to-have-it looks—the jackets and boots were enough to make a sane girl go mad—and the most starstudded front row of the fall 2010 season so far. From Christopher Kane’s naughtymeets-nice schoolgirls to Mark Fast’s plus-size goddesses, here, a few of my favorite moments from the past five days.

—Violet Moon Gayn or LONDON page 74

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continued from page 74

T o p r o w ( l e f t t o r i g h t ) : Kristen Stewart, Claire Danes, Christopher Kane's bad girl with and Mia Wasikowska sitting a twist, Richard Nicoll's killer front row at Burberry yesterday bustier look, plus-size model Runway photos: Imaxtree Crystal Renn walking in Mark Front row photo: Getty Images Fast's show, and the first look Follow ELLE on Twitter. out at Burberry Prorsum, a Become our Facebook fan! shearling jacket paired with a lace skirt and over-the-knee boots Bottom row (left to right): Mary Kate Olsen, Kate Hudson,

example, it meant the chance to honour those (heroes or victims, but not villains) who fought against the impending Soviet occupation in 1944-45. Yet many outsiders see these men as no more than Nazi collaborators: they wore uniforms of the SS, the epitome of wartime evil, and served alongside some war criminals. Context and comparison (far more Russians

than Balts fought on Hitler's side) become irrelevant.

Slovaks and Croats want to dedemonise their wartime republics (Nazi puppet states from one viewpoint, a snatched breath of national regeneration from another). Germans and Jews, once seemingly vanished from the region, have emerged EUROPE.VIEW: page 75

Europe.view: The end of history, revisited (The Economist: Daily columns) Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:58:56 PM

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Europe.view The ex-communist states of eastern Europe are leaving their pasts behind Feb 25th 2010 | From The quality and more relevant result pages individually. must then decide whether to Economist online than a system that involved But the blog gave no additional open a formal investigation into WHERE would they be without human intervention. information about how the Google’s conduct – a move t h e i r p a s t , t h e e x - c a p t i v e “Other search engines approach a l g o r i t h m a c t u a l l y w o r k s , which could allow other third nations? (Or "ex-communist this differently, selecting some because the US company claims parties to become involved. countries", "former Soviet results one at a time, manually such a move would damage its If the Commission is persuaded satellite states", "the old Eastern curating what you see on the core search service and the that breaches of EU competition block": so much history even in page. We believe that approach, advertising that accompanies it. law have occurred, it would then t h e c a t e g o r y ) . T h e r e g i o n which relies heavily on an Google is likely to remain on issue formal charges against the between the Baltic and the Black i n d i v i d u a l ’ s t a s t e s a n d the defensive as competition company.

Sea is so shaped by history that preferences, just doesn’t produce regulators at the European Copyright The Financial Times at first sight the question seems the quality and relevant ranking Commission examine the three Limited 2010. You may share absurd. Trianon, Yalta, Molotov that our algorithms do,” he c o m p l a i n t s r e c e i v e d f r o m using our article tools. Please - R i b b e n t r o p , M u n i c h — t h e wrote.

Foundem, ejustice.fr and the don't cut articles from FT.com gloomy echoes of past betrayals “Given the hundreds of millions Ciao websites. These parties and redistribute by email or post and atrocities are inescapable. of queries we have to handle accuse the US company of to the web.

For the past 20 years, the every day, it wouldn’t be manipulating the formula to Five Filters featured article: countries of this region have feasible to handle each by hand discriminate against competitors. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: been involved in what might be anyway,” he added, suggesting The Commission has sent the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, c a l l e d "therapeutic that the right response to search c o m p l a i n t s t o G o o g l e f o r Term Extraction. historiography": tearing up old results “which are just plain comment, and the company is communist propaganda versions l o u s y ” w a s t o a d j u s t t h e expected to response in the next of history, and writing new ones. algorithm rather than rearrange few weeks. The commission That has been an exhilarating, messy and sometimes disconcerting process. For Estonians and Latvians, for

Google defends search rankings (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:47:17 AM

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By Nikki Tait in Brussels Published: February 25 2010 12:47 | Last updated: February 25 2010 12:47 Google on Thursday morning set out a further defence of its system for ranking search results, as it attempted to defuse questions from Europe’s top antitrust regulator.

In a new blog posting, Amit Singhal, a Google employee responsible for the ranking system, claimed the company’s algorithms produced a better

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from the shadows (and from abroad), with their own unhappy memories that undermine the self-righteousness of both Communist and ethnonationalist versions of history.

Yet re-examining taboos is a self-limiting process: you run out of them after a bit. And historical inquiry inevitably bogs down in complexity. The communist version of history may have been mostly lies, but the western version has holes in it too. If you like closely reasoned historical monographs, you may spend your evenings examining the interplay between the Munich agreement (when Britain and France betrayed Czechoslovakia) and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact (when Hitler and Stalin carved up Europe). For most people, it is enough that the latter deal is no longer secret or glorified.

In the luckier half of the continent, history has a much shorter half-life. Who worries about the Schleswig-Holstein question when looking at Danish -German relations? Who cares that Norway was once part of

Sweden, or that Finland used to be a Grand Duchy of tsarist Russia?

Now central and eastern Europe may be joining the club of the ahistorical and apathetic.

Historical rows are already the exception, not the rule. Poland is the signal example. In recent years it has successfully pursued reconciliation with Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Germany and even (albeit in limited terms) with Russia. The picture is marred only by a recent flare-up with Belarus, and a tiresome squabble with Lithuania about spelling. The recent ripple of protest in Poland when Ukraine's outgoing president, Viktor Yushchenko, made the wartime nationalist leader Stepan Bandera a "Hero of Ukraine" was interesting not because it exemplified the two countries' rows over history, but because it came after years in which they had sorted out so much.

Hungary's neighbourhood is transformed too. Relations with Slovakia are tense, thanks to a badly drafted language law there and some silly politicking. But

Hungarians' real animosity is directed towards the Austrians, who have (they feel) betrayed them by selling shares in MOL, the Hungarian energy company, to Russians against their will.

The historically difficult relationships with Serbia, Romania and Ukraine, all home to Magyar minorities, look chummy in comparison.

That reflects a big shift. As western Europe flounders, the old patronising and unfair treatment of the "east Europeans" is no longer sustainable. Change is in the wind. Power is up for grabs.

And it is more fun than history.

Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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SEC Short Ban: “Regulation By Placebo” Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 2/25/2010 6:15:36 AM

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And speaking about not understanding what caused the bear market, we have this recent SEC action: “The Securities and Exchange Commission narrowly approved curbs on short selling, addressing what some consider a cause of the 2008 financial crisis despite criticism that there was no evidence to support the move.

The commission voted 3-2 on party lines to make the curbs final, in another indication Chairman Mary Schapiro is having trouble gaining unanimity for her ambitious agenda to toughen the nation’s securities rules.” (emphasis added) Once a company’s stock price falls 10% from the prior close,

traders could only execute short sales for the stock at a price above the market’s best bid. The curb stays in place through the following day.

At least it was a 3-2 vote . . . > Sources: Curbs Short Selling, Disappointing Goldman Sachs Jesse Westbrook Bloomberg Feb. 24 2010 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps /news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a DtSKApox3UM In 3-2 Vote, SEC Limits Short Sales FAWN JOHNSON WSJ, FEBRUARY 25, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2 00014240527487042400045750 85344139674042.html Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Rating agencies Durable Goods rock but threatening punishment only if you make planes Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

Greece 5 yr CDS is trading around 390 bps, now up 40 bps in the past 3 days and Greek Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:21:44 AM stocks are down almost 2%.

Message from fivefilters.org: If Euro zone economic confidence you can, please donate to the full fell a touch from Jan and was -text RSS service so we can slightly below expectations but continue developing it.

Germany’s Feb jobs figure was Moody’s followed S&P better than forecasted as yesterday in warning Greece that unemployment rose by 7k vs the a downgrade or 2 may be consensus gain of 16k. Bernanke forthcoming in a few months if repeats his testimony in front of they “significantly” deviate from the Senate today with only the the plan of austerity. Further Q&A of course being different. d o w n t h e d a n g e r o u s r o a d Jobless Claims and Durable though, S&P said “a sovereign Goods are the two key data default is not going to happen in points of the day. the euro zone.” They likely say Five Filters featured article: this because of the bailout Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: scenario if push comes to shove. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, The Greek 10 yr yield is higher Term Extraction. by 8 bps to a 2 1/2 week high,

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

which get directly plugged into GDP, fell .2%. The core cap ex figure, non defense capital goods Submitted at 2/25/2010 7:30:02 AM ex aircraft, fell by a Message from fivefilters.org: If disappointing 2.9% but does you can, please donate to the full come after gains in Nov and -text RSS service so we can Dec. Inventories were flat and continue developing it. the inventory to shipment ratio Jan Durable Goods rose twice remained unch at 1.67, the expectations at the headline lowest since Sept ‘08. Bottom level, up by 3% but ex transports line, manufacturing has led the they fell by .6% vs an expected statistical recovery in the g a i n o f 1 % . H o w e v e r , e x economy but today’s data shows transports was revised up by 1.1 how lumpy this process has been % pts in Dec, so taken together, and with still a lack of firm end it was only a touch light. demand evident, lumpiness will Leading the headline gain was a likely continue.

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Bloom Energy Launch at eBay info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 2/24/2010 11:54:11 AM

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Mathias, Natural gas undergoes autoignition (spontaneous combustion without a spark) above ~480 degrees Celsius however there MUST be oxygen present. In a solid oxide fuel

cell the gas is fed to the anode side in it’s pure form, no oxygen. On the cathode side, oxygen is ionized, which in its ionic form, can pass through the electrolyte (electrode separator) to react with the natural gas as an ion. This electrochemical reaction (electric and chemical) with oxygen ions means that a lot of the energy resulting from the chemical reaction is captured as electrical potential, i.e. electricity. The rest of the energy that isn’t captured as

electricity is emitted as heat, which can be used to self-sustain the temperature of the fuel cell.

In combustion, the ONLY product is heat, no electricity.

Jim, I find your comment about Michael’s bias against Bloom and fuel cells interesting. I appreciate his pessimism, as I believe any technology should be looked at with a critical eye.

However, in keeping with your theme, I have noticed in most of the fuel cell articles that there tends to be a general lack of

basic knowledge about the technology. I find it disconcerting that someone with such a public opinion seems to know so little about any of the research that is being conducted. I understand, on the one hand, that a business analysis differs from a technical analysis, but often having the insight for one requires knowledge of the other. A simple phone call to anyone in the field would have revealed the ridiculousness of the

conjecture in Greentech Media’s latest article title “Is Bloom Energy’s Secret Ingredient Zirconia?” (although I did enjoy the joke about the costume jewelry industry) Just another example of the need for better science reporting.

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unveils the Bloom Box Next Post: Podcast: Can Windows Phone 7 get Microsoft back in the smartphone game?

News to know: Google-Italy; Intel; Oracle; Vizio; e-readers; IE6 Posted in: • General • News to know News to know: Here are today's notable headlines. You can get News to Know via email alert and RSS daily. For continuous updates are BNET's around-the-Web tech coverage: Sam Diaz: Google execs wrongly convicted by Italian court over an uploaded video • Garett Rogers: Italy has really messed up the internet for their people • Tom Foremski: Italian conviction of Google execs could aid traditional media • CNET: Google execs convicted in YouTube Italy case Larry Dignan: Intel: We were hit with cyberattack Dennis Howlett: How Oracle gets customers to keep paying Sean Portnoy: Vizio top LCD seller in U.S., but Samsung top overall HDTV maker Larry Dignan: Ereaders: Would it kill vendors to provide sales stats?

• Rachel King: Release pushed

back on Spring Design's Alex ebook reader

wants TSA to halt implementation of body scanners at airports Rachel King: Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Die LG announces T280 laptop, IE6! DIE!!! Larry Dignan: X140, X200 netbooks Dana Clearwire: We'll triple our 4G Blankenhorn: Open source still subscribers in 2010 Techcrunch: not the first option Mary Jo Yelp Hit With Class Action Foley: Microsoft ships new L a w s u i t F o r R u n n i n g A n Windows server optimized for “Extortion Scheme” Christopher shared educational use Heather Dawson: Nintendo DSi XL: Clancy: Sprint: Give us your Another approach to 1:1? Rachel tired mobile phones, we'll King: Mini Connected brings recycle them Rachel King: together Mini Cooper, iPhone Neonode announces low-cost Joe McKendrick: Fighting 'viral zForce Pad multi-touch panel data': SOA Data Integration Doug Hanchard: High Court's Architect Community launched terrorism ruling could affect Bloom Energy unveils the how you use Gmail, Twitter and Bloom Box Adrian Kingsley- Facebook Jason D. O'Grady: Hughes: Open source "weakens iPhone SDK references camera, the software industry and f l a s h , z o o m a n d v i d e o u n d e r m i n e s i t s l o n g - t e r m conferencing Jason Perlow: competitiveness" says lobby Close Encounter with a group Heather Clancy: Is the Customer Carebot Heather federal government setting the Clancy: Things of signs to right example in data center come: New LED street light energy efficiency? Mary Jo Sam Diaz: First, Apple. Now, Foley: Microsoft rolls out Walmart. Porn gets no tech Windows 7 activation updates respect. alongside other Windows fixes • Cult of Mac: Is Apple Internet Explorer 'Browser Preparing To Add An ‘Explicit’ Ballot' system in action Adrian Section To The App Store?

Kingsley-Hughes: Opera 10.50 beta 2 for Windows is out Mary Jo Foley: Windows XP Oliver Marks: Mysteries of the d o w n g r a d e s u i t a g a i n s t Oracle... Sam Diaz: Salesforce Microsoft is dismissed Doug earnings: Strong fourth quarter, Hanchard: Women to serve o u t l o o k J e n n i f e r L e g g i o : aboard U.S. Navy submarines Twitter: Becoming nothing Christopher Dawson: A little special? Doug Hanchard: EPIC surgery on the Classmates

Forrester: Welcome to the cloud market, CA Sean Portnoy: Is Nvidia Ion 2's graphics performance for netbooks a bust? Mary Jo Foley: Microsoft unveils a locked-down, hosted app bundle for U.S. government customers Michael Krigsman: Curse of the IT prima donna Larry Dignan: CA adds to cloud portfolio, buys 3Tera Rachel King: Olympus PEN E-PL1 Micro Four Thirds camera available now for $599 Larry Dignan: Disney's Web sites hit with outage Dana Blankenhorn: Hospitals retain pricing power even in bad times Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: How to stop the 'Chuck Norris' botnet roundhouse-kicking your router Dan Kusnetzky: StarWind Software Take Two Rachel King: HP announces 3.0 software upgrade for MediaSmart EX470 and EX480 • NVIDIA introduces entrylevel GeForce 300-series graphics cards • MSI adds GT660 gaming laptop into the mix before CeBIT posted by Sam Diaz February 25, 2010 @ 2:00 am Previous Post: Bloom Energy unveils the Bloom Box Next Post: Podcast: Can Windows Phone 7 get Microsoft back in the smartphone game?

Last 10 posts: • Palm's wipeout: Revenue will be 'well below' forecasts as consumers balk(02-25) • iPhone, iPod touch users power Apple's word-of-mouth momentum(02-25) • Server sales show signs of life in the fourth quarter; IBM remains top dog(02-25) • Garmin: Why it has to chase the nuvifone dream(02-25) • Podcast: Can Windows Phone 7 get Microsoft back in the smartphone game?(02-25) • News to know: Google-Italy; Intel; Oracle; Vizio; e-readers; IE6 (02-25) • Bloom Energy unveils the Bloom Box(02-24) • Salesforce earnings: Strong fourth quarter, outlook(02-24) • First, Apple. Now, Walmart.

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Gallup Poll/

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Gallup: Economic Confidence Steady in Recent Weeks (All Gallup Headlines) Submitted at 2/24/2010 10:30:00 AM

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PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's Economic Confidence Index stands at -27 for the week ending Feb. 21, on par with the previous week's -28. The trend, based on roughly 3,500 interviews each week, clearly shows that consumer attitudes have been steady thus far in February, as well as for the past six weeks.

The most recent decline in confidence was recorded in midJanuary, and followed a modest post-Christmas bounce that Gallup first detected in late December.

The Gallup Economic Confidence Index is based on Americans' answers to two questions -- one asking about current economic conditions in the country and the other about the direction of the economy.

Both components of the index have been highly stable in recent weeks. However, in late December and early January there was an uptick in consumer optimism about the economy's direction, resulting in the slight improvement to the overall index at those points.

Gallup's weekly findings are based on aggregated results of Gallup Daily tracking interviews with a nationally representative

sample of approximately 3,500 U.S. adults per week, and thus provide highly reliable estimates of consumer views.

Conference Board Release Behind the Curve"As the Gallup trend suggests, the souring of consumer attitudes that The Conference Board detected with its early February reading most likely set in around midJanuary."

Gallup's Economic Confidence

Index weekly trend highlights a significant timing issue inherent in The Conference Board's recent release, which stated, "Consumer Confidence, which had been improving over the past few months, declined sharply in February." That report -- showing a drop in consumer confidence from 56.5 in January to 46.0 in February -- is widely credited with rattling the nation's equity markets on Tuesday,

helping to drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average down more than 100 points by the close of markets.

The Conference Board data are based on mail surveys received in the first half of each month, meaning most of those surveys are likely filled out by respondents in the first 10 days of the month. As a result, The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index is largely a

gauge of consumer attitudes at the beginning of each month.

Thus, The Conference Board's finding of a drop in consumer confidence in February in reality describes a decline that happened between early January and early February. Conference Board preliminary numbers are not reported until late in a given month.

GALLUP: page 79

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GALLUP: continued from page 78

As the Gallup trend suggests, the souring of consumer attitudes that The Conference Board detected with its early February reading most likely set in around mid-January. The February finding looks particularly dramatic in comparison with the slightly elevated level of consumer confidence that The Conference Board found in early January.

Gallup data, however, show that current confidence levels are generally no more negative than they have been for much of the last six months. (This insight has been widely available on Gallup.com in near-"real time," both on a weekly basis and in Gallup's daily reporting of continuous three-day rolling averages.

The fact that Gallup's data show little change in economic confidence in recent weeks is not to say that consumer attitudes at present are positive or that they haven't shown some decline since the beginning of the year. Gallup's Economic Confidence Index has been in negative territory since March

2007, and has fallen well below 0, the neutral Index point, for the past two years. However, the -27 figure for Feb. 15-21 is not much different from the values Gallup recorded in the last quarter of 2009.

When one focuses just on Gallup's Economic Confidence Index for the first full week of each month (the week most comparable to The Conference Board's field schedule), the results tend to track The Conference Board's monthly Consumer Confidence Index closely. Gallup's ability to monitor attitudes on a continuous basis throughout the month, however, provides a much more complete understanding of how American consumers are feeling about the national economy and its direction -- an understanding not available from surveys conducted in only certain parts of each month.

While The Conference Board's 46.0 reading this month is technically the lowest seen since April 2009 (when it was 40.8), given the likely sample size and

associated margins of error around a mail panel survey of its kind, the current reading is essentially the same as the October (48.7) and July 2009 (47.4) readings.

Bottom Line On the whole, American consumers are more negative than positive about the U.S. economy -- both in their assessments of current conditions and their outlook for whether things are improving or getting worse. While Americans are now slightly more negative than they were at the start of the year, this shift occurred roughly five weeks ago, in mid-January.

Since then, Gallup's Daily tracking shows that consumer attitudes have been highly stable.

More broadly, the good news is that consumer attitudes are no worse than they have been for much of the past six months, and are in fact substantially less negative than they were a year ago at this time, and for most of 2008.

Survey Methods For Gallup Daily tracking,

Gallup interviews approximately 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older, each day. The Gallup Economic Index is based on random half-samples of approximately 500 national adults, aged 18 and older, each day. Weekly results are based on telephone interviews with approximately 3,500 adults. For these results, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is Âą2 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

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Bloom vs. Solar: Which One is Best? info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 2/24/2010 2:47:32 PM

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Bloom Energy today formally unveiled its energy server, an industrial solid oxide fuel cell that can convert natural gas or other hydrocarbons into electricity pretty much on demand.

And in the process, the company has ignited a debate over which of the alternatives to coal, nuclear and centralized natural gas plants might be best.

Can we answer it today? No -one of the pivotal factors will be how Bloom's servers (formerly known as Bloom Boxes) perform over time. Board member Colin Powell said at the unveiling that the company doesn't have twenty years of user data.

But we can speculate and compare. And here are some of the key things to keep an eye on.

Versatility and Up-Front Cost: A 100-kilowatt Bloom server array costs around $700,000 to $800,000, or $7,500 a kilowatt, after incentives that cover around 50 percent of the costs.

The company hopes to have home versions that generate a few kilowatts and cost about $3,000 in ten years, but they don't exist now.

Bloom, however, doesn't scale down yet. It sells its 25 kilowatt boxes four units at a time. Home and small businesses need not apply just yet. Solar systems span the kilowatt and megawatt range. Ergo, when it comes to financing and flexibility, solar wins for now.

Can fuel cells scale down? Yes. Panasonic started selling home fuel cells in Japan last year that generate around 1 kilowatt, not enough to power a complete household, for $30,000 before incentives, or $15,000 if you factored in U.S./California incentives. ClearEdge Power has a 5 kilowatt fuel cell that costs $56,000 and drops to the $30,000 to $25,000 range after incentives. (Side note: Bloom's fuel cell produces mostly electricity and a little heat, while heat consists of half or more of the power from the Panasonic and ClearEdge fuel cells.

Electricity is more valuable than heat, so for Bloom to be equivalent in price or less than these guys would be a victory for Bloom.) We're guessing Bloom is aiming for around $1,000 a kilowatt, which won't be easy. Ceres Power in England will come out with a fuel cell made in part with diesel components next year.

Energy costs: CEO and Founder K.R. Sridhar said the Bloom server will produce power for 9 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour after incentives in California.

This price includes service, maintenance, gas and all of the other costs associated with running it. Commercial solar installations in California, when incentives and external costs are added, generate power for around 10 cents a kilowatt hour, according to Shayle Kann at GTM Research. Residential solar generates power for around 19 cents a kilowatt hour and utility-scale solar costs around 11 cents a kilowatt hour. Cutting -edge wind turbines can generate power for costs five cents a kilowatt hour after incentives, according to the American Wind Energy Association. Kann says that on average, wind costs a little less than solar.

Wind, thus, still wins this contest, and solar and Bloom are about tied. Bloom server buyers will have to contend with fluctuating gas prices: the box does not work if you don't put gas into it. If methane and biogas rise in price, so will the cost of running the box. Buyers, however, can likely insulate themselves with long-term gas contracts.

Cost reductions: This is a big question mark. Solar and wind are somewhat mature technologies. Nonetheless, incremental advancements -better solar racking, cheaper thin films, more efficient turbines -continue to bring down the cost of both solar and wind. Bloom is just starting out. Three years

ago, the same box that now produces 25 kilowatts of power only produced 5 kilowatts. Scott Sandell, a Bloom board member and a partner at NEA, said the costs for Bloom have gone down 25x in just a few years.

Bloom, therefore, may have an advantage, because costs always drop the fastest in the beginning.

On the other hand, Bloom is outnumbered. Thousands of engineers in various segments of the solar industry are working on dropping those costs. Do you believe in individual genius or crowdsourcing? That is the dynamic at play here and this will be one of the more interesting races to watch.

Maintenance. Solar wins here.

Solar panels require a minimum of maintenance. Dust them occasionally and wipe off the snow and you are done. Bloom servers will be monitored closely by their initial buyers. The servers also contain fans and other mechanical objects. More handholding and repairs seem inevitable.

One of the big hurdles that Bloom will have to cross is the reliability of the ceramic/zirconium plates inside the fuel cell. These plates, which convert gas to electricity, must operate in an 800-degree Celsius environment without becoming distorted or corrupted. User data will be heavily scrutinized.

Sources say that the plates have a lifetime of five years:

replacement at this pace is contemplated in the 9 to 10 cents a kilowatt hour price. If replacement occurs at a faster rate, it could throw off the costs.

Warranty. Solar systems have warranties that last 20 years or more. Bloom currently offers a 10-year warranty. That discrepancy will definitely raise eyebrows.

Testing and certification. Solar and wind both have an advantage here. Underwriters' Laboratory and hundreds of utilities have tested and tinkered with photovoltaic panels and wind turbines for years. Getting a solar field approved mostly revolves around obtaining financing. Bloom will have to go through the proctology exam of utility reliability testing. That could take a few years. On the other hand, if Bloom passes these tests well, sales will zoom.

Carbon emissions. Solar and wind win again. It takes about four years to work off the carbon footprint of a solar panel. The Bloom server continually emits carbon dioxide. The Bloom server emits about half of the carbon dioxide that would be generated if you bought power from a power plant, but it's still carbon dioxide. Consumers can reduce their carbon footprint by stoking the box with biogas, but biogas remains an exotic substance. Most of the industrial BLOOM page 82

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Should a Thin Film Manufacturer Integrate Downstream?

Video: Q&A With Bloom Energy’s Founder, Next Gen Fuel Cells and More

info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

business; with the onset of unsubsidized grid parity, they say, profits will shift to "selling Submitted at 2/25/2010 4:00:10 AM electrons."

Message from fivefilters.org: If On the flip side, developing a you can, please donate to the full successful systems business -text RSS service so we can involves competing with one's continue developing it. customers and straying from the Persistent oversupply at the c o r e c o m p e t e n c e o f module level has led many manufacturing. Developing module manufacturers to projects also requires a contemplate an entry into completely different skill set b u i l d i n g p l a n t s , p r o j e c t from producing modules; it is development, and energy sales. difficult to see a module vendor First Solar's proven success in being able to compete with an building and operating utility- established developer unless scale plants over the last two profit margins at the module years has also done these desires level are high, in which case it no harm. would make little sense to Downstream integration can branch out of manufacturing in have definite benefits: it creates the first place. Traditionally, a sales channel for modules, s u c c e s s f u l d o w n s t r e a m which can protect shipments and integration in PV has taken the margins in a highly competitive form of acquisition (First Solar, environment. It also enables SunPower), and few thin film overall margin expansion, since firms have the balance sheets the module producer can capture necessary to do so; the few that the developer's margin. Those in do are Chinese a-Si companies favor point to the likelihood of with large corporate parents ( modules becoming increasingly Astronergy, ENN Solar, QS commoditized in the future, Solar). transforming into a low-margin As far as profits shifting from

modules to electricity sales, that is a long way off at this point.

First Solar expects its EPC/systems business to have a margin of only 5 to 6 percent in 2010, compared to 40 percent for modules. Its decision to integrate downstream was made to enable it to penetrate a market that it otherwise would not have been able to -- namely, the U.S. utility-scale market -- and until recently, it did not place this market against its European customers. The answer to the natural question -- why bother? - lies in First Solar's long-term vision to singlehandedly enable parity, a vision that emerging manufacturers can ill afford to have.

As far as thin film is concerned, First Solar is likely to be an anomalous case rather than a trend-setter in this department.

While there will likely be a push from manufacturers to engage in p l a n t construction/development/operat ion in 2010, the companies that manage to do so successfully and reap sustainable benefits

from this will be few and far between; in future years, it will be seen as a short-term reaction to market forces, rather than as a sound long-term strategy.

Instead of full-on integration, what makes more sense is developing strong strategic relationships with downstream players. This has already begun to happen -- ENN Solar, for example, inked a partnership agreement with U.S. utility Duke to jointly develop commercial PV projects, and Signet Solar has collaborated with German developer BSC-Solar on project development in Europe. Other companies that succeed in doing so will gain a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace in the years to come -- never a bad thing in what in a few months time will re-emerge as a grossly oversupplied market.

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Submitted at 2/24/2010 9:37:27 PM

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San Jose--Bloom Energy made its long-anticipated debut today and while the company didn't share all of the details behind its so-called energy servers, it did give some.

An energy server can provide 100 kilowatts of power by converting natural gas or other hydrocarbons into electricity pretty much on demand. A single server is about the size of an industrial shipping crate, consists of four 25 kilowatt modules, and costs $700,000 to $800,000. In all, that means power for 9 to 10 cents after incentives in California.

But how does it work inside and what makes Bloom's better than the fuel cells designed by others? CEO and founder K.R. Sridhar gave us an explanation in the video. The picture shows two of the internal ceramic plates.

Sridhar (in the video and earlier in the day) also explains how Bloom may enhance the fuel cell in the future for a push into the domestic market in about a VIDEO: page 82

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BLOOM

VIDEO:

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gas sold and shipped in pipelines in the world comes from wells deep in the ground, not landfills or manure digesters.

Bloom's patents discuss converting the waste carbon dioxide into a methane-like fuel by running the carbon dioxide through the fuel cell and adding water. It's a fascinating but extremely challenging idea.

Effectively, that would be like making energy from Gerolsteiner bubbly mineral water and some power. In today's press conference, Sridhar downplayed the carbon dioxideto-fuel idea, which makes it sound like the idea might be on the far back burner. Still, Bloom represents a step forward compared to power plants.

Availability: This is Bloom's biggest selling point. The box can produce power 24 hours a day in a completely predictably fashion. Solar panels only produce during the day and wind turbines are only active about 30 percent of the time. Worse, wind

continued from page 81

turbines in many areas generate most of their power at night.

Storage: Advantage Bloom again. Fuel cells are by their very nature electricity storage devices. Power doesn't get made until gas gets released into the fuel cell stack. General Electric and others are trying to build sodium or lithium battery packs to store power at wind and solar fields but these are in the experimental stage.

Sridhar also mentioned that in about ten years, Bloom will add plumbing and other technology to its servers so that the boxes can convert water into hydrogen for more energy storage. Pulling this off will require electricity from an outside source, preferably from solar panels.

Don't be surprised to see them team up with Sun Catalytix, an MIT spin-off with a catalyst for splitting water.

Competition: Bloom will have to face an array of competitors: General Electric, Siemens, Philips, Areva, you name it. The

relatively small company will have to run fast to stay ahead of industrial giants or else face getting acquired. Solar and wind have already gone through this process. Solar and wind companies again can also license ideas and leverage partnerships.

Bloom right now is sort of on its own.

Manufacturing footprint: The solar industry continues to work off a glut of excess factory capacity. Bloom needs to build its up. Solar, thus, wins for now, but for painful reasons.

Although Bloom has raised around $400 million, it will need to raise more to build up factory capacity. As other companies have found, finding financing still remains tough.

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decade and the enhancement represents both a step forward and a step back. Carbon dioxide and water are byproducts of the gas-to-electricity reaction. By adding some additional "plumbing" components, the fuel cell can capture the water, run it through the fuel cell later and produce hydrogen. Hydrogen could then be stored until needed to power a car or provide electricity to a home.

The water-to-hydrogen reaction will require additional electricity. Bloom suggests that solar panels can provide this power. Although the fuel cell could do this reaction now, Bloom isn't putting in the components because the market isn't ready, said Sridhar. So having a path to energy storage: a step forward.

So what is the step back? In Bloom's patents, it talks about taking both the carbon dioxide and hydrogen, running them through the fuel cell and producing a methane-like fuel.

In other words, Bloom-at least for now-doesn't appear to be looking at recycling carbon dioxide for the big architectural jump into the consumer market ten years from now.

"It is simpler" to just concentrate on hydrogen, Sridhar said.

Recycling carbon dioxide is a dream of many; it also remains a thorny scientific challenge.

ARPA-E gave $23.7 miillion in grants to companies who hope to

make fuel from sunlight and carbon dioxide. Maybe discretion is the better part of valor here. Besides, if someone else, such as BioCee or Sun Catalytix, can crack the carbon dioxide-to-fuel formula, Bloom may be able to license it.

(Another highlight: Sridhar confirmed that zirconia, also called zirconium dioxide, is a key ingredient, confirming our earlier review of the patents.)

There's an interesting connection between Bloom and Hara, the carbon management software company. Kleiner Perkins invested in both companies and both listed CocaCola as a signature client. In fact, Fortune 500 friends played an integral part of the launches of both companies. It gives the companies credibility. However, if Kleiner relies on the same names too much, it may begin to take the sheen off the impact. So look for the big names at the next Kleiner launch and crosscheck them with the rest of the portfolio.

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