Liberty Newspost Mar-31-10 by Liberty Newspost

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- 31/03/10

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Ben’s Chili Bowl serves up half smoke to French leader

British summer time? Winter weather and snow return in time for Spring

Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington)

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Submitted at 3/30/2010 4:11:45 PM

French President Nicolas Sarkozy may come from one of the world’s culinary capitals, but it seems whenever he comes to America more simple fare awaits him – hot dogs or sausages. In 2007 when Sarkozy visited President George W. Bush at the family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, he was offered a lunch of hamburgers and hot dogs as the leaders tried to improve relations strained by the Iraq war. Three years later he comes to Washington and where does he stop before going to the White House? Ben’s Chili Bowl. The casual restaurant which serves hot dogs, sausages, and chili, has been around for more than 50 years and seen its share of history along the way. Customers have included Martin

Luther King Jr., Bill Cosby, Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. Sarkozy apparently had one of Ben’s famous half-smokes– a pork and beef smoked sausage — for lunch, that’s about as American as you can get without the apple pie. Obama couldn’t resist mentioning it at the start of a joint news conference at the

White House later in the day. “I have to point out that the French are properly famous for their cuisine, and so the fact that Nicolas went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for lunch … shows his discriminating palate,” Obama said. “My understanding is he had a half smoke. So he was sampling the local wares, and we appreciate that very much.”

Sarkozy joked that Obama had revealed a secret about where he ate lunch, but said the restaurant was recommended by a good friend. “When I walked in, I saw a huge photograph of President Obama,” Sarkozy said to laughter, “and I’m afraid that, when you go back to that restaurant, you may see a smaller photograph of the French president.” We’re told by an inside source (OK so it was the first French person I could find) that hot dogs are eaten and enjoyed in France, although on French bread… Photo credit: Reuters/stringer (hot dogs and half smokes on grill at Ben’sChili Bowl), Reuters/Benjamin Myers (Sarkozy waves at Ben’s Chili Bowl), Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama and Sarkozy laugh during joint news conference)

Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:56:04 AM

• "; } s+=''+google_ads[i].line1+""; s+=" "+google_ads[i].line2+" "+google_ads[i].line3+""; s+=' '+google_ads[i].visible_url+""; s+=" Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Iranian nuclear scientist who vanished on pilgrimage defects to US (Top stories from Times Online) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:13:54 AM

An Iranian nuclear scientist who disappeared while on pilgrimage to Mecca last year has defected to the United States and is living and working there for the CIA, it was reported today ABC News’ report on Shahram Amiri’s defection came as President Barack Obama vowed to forge an international agreement on new sanctions on Iran within weeks. The report described the defection as “an intelligence coup,” claiming that information gleaned from debriefing Dr Amiri had added detail and confirmation to existing CIA intelligence assessments about the Iranian nuclear programme. It also increased the growing international pressure on Tehran. Dr Amiri, a nuclear scientist at Tehran’s Malek Ashtar University, went missing in June last year three days after

arriving in Saudi Arabia for the annual haj. News of his disappearance emerged only months later when Iran accused the US of abducting him and lodged a formal protest against Washington with the United Nations. Malek Ashtar University, where Dr Amiri worked, has been identified by the UN as a nuclear research facility overseen by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the guardians of its clandestine nuclear weapons programme. Documents from within the programme obtained by The Times last year detailed the outsourcing of nuclear work to trusted university departments. ABC reported that Dr Amiri’s defection was part of a longplanned CIA operation to woo Iranian nuclear scientists through colleagues with family contacts in the US. The CIA was said to have approached him through an intermediary in Iran who made the offer of resettlement in the US. A CIA spokesman refused to

comment on the report. The most senior Iranian official believed to have defected is Ali Reza Asghari, a former Revolutionary Guard brigadier general and deputy Defence Minister, who vanished on a trip to Turkey in 2007. His name also appeared with Dr Amiri’s on a list of Iranians allegedly kidnapped by the US submitted by Tehran to the UN. Mr Asghari was said to be the most senior military officer overseeing Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. Western intelligence sources say the programme is deliberately compartmentalised to prevent its collapse in the event of defections or deaths, but defectors may still be able to provide key information on individual nuclear projects. The timing of Dr Amiri’s disappearance raised speculation that he provided the final jigsaw pieces required to confirm the clandestine construction of a second uranium enrichment plant, Fordow, near the holy city of Qom.

Iran told the International Atomic Energy Agency about the Fordow plant in September, just days before Washington publicly revealed it. Western intelligence sources said Tehran only acted because it realised the secrecy surrounding Fordow had been compromised by the West. The revelation prompted a brief era of cooperation between Tehran and the E3 plus 3, the grouping comprised of the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, which negotiates with Iran on the international community’s behalf. However, Tehran rapidly failed to live up to its promises and a string of provocative declarations followed, including along with new revelations over its nuclear programme, including the first International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report citing evidence of current nuclear weapons work. At the G8 meeting of foreign ministers in Quebec, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointed to the recent

In pictures: severe storms cause flooding in the US (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

The Pawtuxet River causes havoc in Rhode Island after flooding caused by heavy rainfall. Pictured, a car sits submerged in the car park of the

Warwick Mall which is next to PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, the river Picture: AP Photo/Joe Term Extraction. Giblin Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools:

string of disclosures over Iran’s nuclear programme as evidence of the need for sanctions. “The last 15 months have demonstrated the unwillingness of Iran to fulfill its international obligations and that’s the basis of my optimism that we’re going to have a consensus reached in the Security Council,” she said. In Washington, Mr Obama acknowledged that China remains to be convinced, but noted Russia’s hardening against Iran despite its lucrative trade ties with Tehran. “My hope is we are going to get this done this spring,” Mr Obama said after meeting with the French President, Nicholas Sarkozy, on how to win over China’s support for a resolution. “I’m not interested in waiting months.” Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Olympic Park to get tower 'to rival Eiffel' (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

Kapoor's design: "He has taken the idea of a tower, and transformed it into a piece of modern British art. "It would have boggled the Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:31:25 AM By Stephen Adams, Arts minds of the Romans. It would Correspondent have boggled Gustave Eiffel. Published: 3:00PM BST 31 "I believe it will be worthy of Mar 2010 London's Olympic and Now, it seems, the capital is Paralympic Games, and stealing the concept of her Eiffel worthy of the greatest city on Tower as well. earth." For the Olympic Park is to get a The Eiffel Tower was itself the mini-Eiffel at the behest of winner of a competition to mark Boris Johnson, the mayor of the 1889 World Fair. London. The tower will be comprised of Some 400ft high – admittedly a a series of loops, constructed of little shy of the Paris landmark's steel pipes formed into a 1,063ft, but higher than the lattice made up of triangular Statue of Liberty – the Olympic sections. tower will resemble a giant Kapoor said: "It's a long ampersand of coiled metal. winding spiral: a folly that E n c o m p a s s i n g a s p i r a l aspires to go even above the staircase, the folly is the clouds and has something brainchild of Anish Kapoor, mythic of it". the artist who recently staged a He promised it would give sell-out exhibition at the Royal those who climbed it "a truly Academy of Arts. spectacular view of London". Mr Johnson helped chose the Cecil Balmond, deputy w i n n i n g d e s i g n f r o m 5 0 chairman of engineering firm submissions, after putting out Arup, worked with Kapoor on a brief that he wanted a tower the concept. that was at least 100m (328ft) He said: "The opening high to attract tourists to the comment to me was 'Boris Olympic Park in Stratford, east Johnson is looking for an icon London. to match the Eiffel Tower.' So Nicknaming it the "Hubble of course that was irresistible to Bubble", because it looks like a me." giant shisha pipe, he said of Those who suffer from vertigo

might be advised to stay at ground level, however, according to Balmond. "We wanted to see if we could create a structure that seemed unstable, seemed to be propping itself up," he said. "So, we've slowly evolved a form that seems to be teetering, weaving itself, a loop." The pair worked previously on an installation for the Tate Modern's turbine hall in 2002, a giant tubular sculpture made of blood-red PVC called the Marsyas. The tower will be named the ArcelorMittal Orbit after the billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, who is donating 1,400 tonnes of steel for the project. He said that Mr Johnson had mentioned the idea to him during a fleeting meeting "in a cloakroom in Davos last year." "We were both on our way to separate dinner engagements so we had only a few moments to discuss it. "But I was immediately interested because I remember the great excitement felt throughout the city when it was announced that London had been selected." He described the project as "an incredible opportunity to build something really spectacular for London" that "will play a

lasting role in the legacy of the Games." The tower is budgeted to cost £19.1 million, said Mr Johnson, with £16 million of the cost being covered by Mr Mittal and the remaining £3.1 million from the Greater London Authority. Mr Johnson said: "I know very well there will be people who will say , 'You are nuts, you are bonkers, in the depths of a recession, to be building Britain's largest piece of public art.' "But both Tessa [Jowell] and I have said that this is the right thing for Stratford, for the games and beyond." He added: "If Paris can have the Eiffel Tower, then we thought the Olympic site had to have ... something." "I can't say yet what the public will choose to baptise this structure. Some may say it's the world's biggest representation of a shisha pipe." Whatever people chose to name it, he said it "represents the dynamism of a city coming out of recession". Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

'Hubble Bubble' tower will be icon of Olympic legacy (Top stories from Times Online) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:29:10 AM

Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times, or place your advertisement. Times Online Services: Dating| Jobs| Property Search| Used Cars| Holidays| Births, Marriages, Deaths| Subscriptions| E-paper News International associated websites: Milkround Copyright 2010 Times Newspapers Ltd. This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions. Please read our Privacy Policy.To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from Times Online, The Times or The Sunday Times, click here.This website is published by a member of the News International Group. News International Limited, 1 Virginia St, London E98 1XY, is the holding company for the News International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Phantom votes claim halts rail strike hearing (Top stories from Times Online) Submitted at 3/31/2010 5:00:36 AM

A High Court hearing to consider an emergency injunction against next week's national rail strike has been put on hold amid accusations of "phantom" union members. Network Rail told The Times it had been contacted by the RMT union, which had asked for more time to study court papers submitted by the company and the case will now be heard tomorrow. The company claims to have uncovered scores of inaccuracies in the ballot of RMT signallers, whose strike is set to paralyse the railway from April 6. Fifty-four per cent of the RMT signallers voted in favour of a strike, but Network Rail claims that just 112 of 4,556 signallers balloted would have been enough to swing the vote against the strike. It says that the inaccuracies in the ballot account for almost 300 potential

votes. Network Rail claimed that the RMT had balloted 11 signal boxes which do not exist. It also said that in 67 locations the RMT balloted more members than the total number of employees who work there. A further 26 boxes, which account for almost 100 staff, were missed out of the ballot, Network Rail said. A company spokesman said: "We have agreed with the RMT to adjourn until tomorrow. We will go into the High Court at 10am. The RMT believe that they have not had enough time to study our documents." As the lawyers for both sides prepared for their High Court showdown, negotiators went into talks about a separate dispute involving maintenance workers on the railway. Network Rail wants to sack 1,500 maintenance staff as part of an efficiency drive. The High Court action relates to the signallers dispute, which if it goes ahead will shut down the railways for long periods

across the country. Network Rail is confident that even if the maintenance workers walk out, they can keep a near-normal service running. The strikes are due to begin at 6am on Tuesday and run until midnight on Friday, April 9. Commuters into London will suffer some of the worst disruption if the court challenge fails. Only commuters into Liverpool can expect a worse service as the city will be cut off from the national network. Across the country, the morning and evening rush hours will be impassable for many because most lines will run a skeleton service of one in five trains between 7am and 7pm. There will be no trains outside these times. The disruption will be acute around London because of the huge number of trains that normally service the capital and the fact that many signal boxes on the commuter lines are yet to become fully automated. All early-morning train services from Essex into Liverpool Street

will be cancelled. Victoria station will handle only about a quarter of the normal number of commuter trains from the South. There will be no services into Cannon Street and Blackfriars. The Gatwick Express will not run and there will be no trains out of London Marylebone after 5.30pm. Long-distance services on the West Coast Main Line are expected to suffer less disruption, with two thirds of a normal weekday service still scheduled, and Eurostar expects to run a normal timetable out of St Pancras. The London terminal, which suffered prolonged disruption in December, expects to be the last to operate in the capital, with some high-speed services to Kent timetabled until 9pm. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

How to simplify legal jargon (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/31/2010 5:13:04 AM

Alan Siegel, co-founder of Siegel + Gale, explains why and how we need to simplify legal jargonâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;for example, the 2,074 page healthcare reform law. More legal news. Permalink| Leave a comment Âť

Firefox coders propose fastgraphics deadline Stephen Shankland (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:09:09 AM

Direct2D support on Windows could be available in a preview release of the open-source browser under a proposed second-quarter goal. Originally posted at Deep Tech

Safer Business Trips to Mexico Nadine Heintz (Inc.com)

visit to one of these cities? In yesterday's New York Times, columnist Joe Sharkey offered Escalating drug violence has some suggestions for traveling dissuaded many tourists from safely to Mexico on business. visiting Mexican border towns The security experts in the such as Tijuana and Nogales. article suggested avoiding But what if business requires a overnight stays, for example, Submitted at 3/30/2010 9:30:46 AM

and coordinating closely with clients or partners in the area to arrange meetings in advance. The U.S. Department of State, which recently updated its Mexico Travel Warning, suggests some other tips. Travelers should give their

itinerary to a friend, family member, or colleague not traveling with them, avoid traveling alone, and make sure that their cell phone will work at their destination before they leave. The State Department also warns travelers to stick to

main roads, especially toll ("cuota") roads, and avoid roads altogether at night.

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G20 riot officer Delroy Smellie cleared of assault on Nicola Fisher (Top stories from Times Online)

Mr Smellie drew his baton said that Ms Fisher had been "moving along the front of the Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:51:17 AM crowd, waving her arms, A policeman who was filmed behaving erratically and seeking striking a woman protester with c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h t h e his baton during the G20 d e f e n d a n t " . protests was cleared of assault The judge concluded that Mr today. Smellie, who had been on duty Sergeant Delroy Smellie, 47, a for 28 hours with just three member of the Metropolitan hours rest during last year's Police's elite Territorial Suport protests, had just seven seconds Group public order unit, walked to decide how to react when Ms f r e e f r o m W e s t m i n s t e r Fisher charged at him on his Magistrates Court. blind side. The woman he hit, Nicola She was carrying items in her Fisher, 36, had refused to give hands — a carton of orange evidence at the trial but District juice and a camera — which Judge Daphne Wickham said might have been weapons, the that YouTube footage of the judge added, and the officer was incident had failed to give a entitled to use force to defend c o m p l e t e p i c t u r e o f t h e himself. The judge said that in sequence of events. the circumstances the force he Other video and photographic used was not unreasonable and material, plus the testimony of he was entitled to be acquitted. several eyewitnesses, led the Mr Smellie, standing the dock, judge to conclude that Ms Fisher smiled broadly as the verdict had behaved in a "strong, was delivered and gave a exhibitionist and aggressive thumbs up to friends in the way". court. As he left court, he turned Office workers who watched to the bench and said: "Thank the build up to the moment that you very much."

The alleged assault on Ms Fisher occurred on April 2 last year during a vigil for Ian Tomlinson, a passer-by who had died in the previous day's protests . The crowd had intially been small and peaceful but as the numbers grew the threat of disorder rose and mounted police and specialist public order officers from Mr Smellie's unit were drafted in. Ms Fisher, an animal rights activist, suffered bruising to her left leg and later received £26,000 after negotiating a media deal with the publicist Max Clifford. She also gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. But she refused to appear as a witness in court apparently because she did not want to be subjected to a defence cross-examination. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Water…Without Worms Field Notes (LWI News Center)

when the water started flowing. They had been suffering from worms since their spring dried Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:12:35 AM up this summer, forcing them to RWANDA – Kabatara, Karongi gather water from the river District nearby. Now, they will have GPS: 02 02.632 S, 029 24.283 p l e n t y o f w a t e r — w i t h o u t E worms—all year long. One W h e n o u r d r i l l r i g a n d woman in the village put it this compressor truck got stuck in way: “We used to stand in line the mud at this village in so long waiting for the old Rwanda, the people all came to water. Now, there is too much our aid and brought rocks and water!” tree branches to help us get out. Five Filters featured article: We eventually got un-stuck and Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: were able to drill the well. The PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, people were visibly overjoyed Term Extraction.

Should you buy an iPad? [flowchart] (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:01:40 AM

Can’t decide if you should add

another gadget to your life in the form of Apple’s new iPad? Fear not, my confused gadget-loving friend, because there’s now a

Full-size graphic at BuzzFeed. Tons of iPad coverage. Permalink| Leave a comment » flowchart to help you decide.

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Contract killers get life after trial which changed witness anonymity law (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

Austin, which had cost £6 million up to that point, Parliament rushed through the 2008 Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act. Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:29:57 AM By Gordon Rayner, Chief It gave witnesses the option of Reporter giving evidence without their Published: 3:29PM BST 31 identity being revealed Mar 2010 publicly to the court, though Douglas Johnson and David defendants still had the right to Austin will each serve at least know their names. 30 years in prison after they Following the change in the were convicted of murdering law, the five witnesses, known Charlie Butler, a wheelclamper, only as C,D,E,F and G, agreed for which they were to be paid to give evidence again and a £5,000 each. retrial followed, only for the They had originally gone on jury to fail to reach verdicts. t r i a l i n 2 0 0 8 , w h e n f i v e Johnson, 30, and Austin, 43, witnesses were allowed to were finally convicted of give evidence against them murdering 50-year-old Mr anonymously. The judge halted Butler at the end of a third trial that trial after the Law Lords at the Old Bailey in London ruled in a separate test case that w h i c h a l s o involved defendants had to be told the a n o n y m o u s e v i d e n c e . identity of their accusers. The two men, both of New As a direct result of the collapse Addington, Surrey, waited for of the case against Johnson and Mr Butler outside his home in

Dagenham, Essex, in October 2004 before Johnson shot him in the neck, with Austin acting as getaway driver. Their victim died in hospital nine months later. Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said Mr Butler’s wife Yvonne and stepdaughter Marcia had been arrested on suspicion of arranging the murder after Austin claimed it was Marcia Butler who had asked him to carry out the hit. They were later released without charge and the investigation into who ordered the killing continues, the court was told. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Amazon's new patent could make returns harder Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/30/2010 5:50:11 PM

In an odd twist, Amazon has

patented a process for videotaping its outgoing packages being prepared for shipment. Is this for quality control, or a next generation of

the shipping confirmation email? Originally posted at Web Crawler

The Future nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad) Submitted at 3/30/2010 12:36:13 PM

I have news, dear reader. Tomorrow will be the last day of the Scratch Pad blog and my last day at Marketplace. The grant paying for my position is running out, and it won’t be renewed. Such are the times. But while the blog as you’ve known it is going away, Marketplace’s commitment to a dynamic, thought-provoking website is not. I’d like to introduce our new web producer, Matt Berger. Matt has some great ideas for improving Marketplace.org, and he’d like to hear yours as well. Matt writes: As we bid farewell to the Scratch Pad blog we’re excited about what’s to come for Marketplace.org. Over the next few weeks and months you will notice a number of changes and additions to the site, including more contributors, new types of multimedia features, and updates to our homepage and site design. To make this possible, we’re investing in new staff and new technology that will allow us to expand our depth and breadth of coverage and provide new ways for our community of listeners to access the editors and reporters who contribute to Marketplace day in and day out.

Some things won’t change, however. We’ll continue to deliver our regular radio programming, as well as daily reports on business news that matters, and special online features like our popular video series The Whiteboard with Senior Editor Paddy Hirsh, which continues to attract new fans who appreciate Paddy’s smart and approachable explanations of complex business subjects. Before we get too far, we’d love to hear your feedback. How do you think we can we improve Marketplace.org? Post your comments and ideas below… Please do. As for me, I’ll be off to new and exciting adventures. Contact me on Facebook if you’d like to stay in touch. Apologies for the short notice, but Matt just came on board this week, and we weren’t sure exactly how and when we would be making this transition. I’ll write another post tomorrow wrapping things up, but I won’t be able to say enough how much I’ve appreciated your participation in this blog. By adding your diverse knowledge and perspectives, you’ve greatly enhanced the discussion on our website, and I hope you’ll continue to do so going forward. Many thanks.

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How to Communicate in a Crisis Diana Pisciotta (Inc.com) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:11:00 AM

How to Communicate in a Crisis: A Crisis Should Never be a Surprise Most business owners behave suspiciously like ostriches when it comes to the topic of crisis planning. Either they think nothing bad will ever happen to (or around) their business or they assume that whatever the crisis is, it will be so unexpected that planning won't do much good.Wrong! Particularly in today's 24/7 world of communications, where Twitter means that you might find out about a problem FROM your customers or clients, being prepared to address a challenge quickly in a crisis is the key to maintaining trust. And though technology means that the ways you can communicate will continue to change, there are some hard and fast rules about communicating in a crisis that will always hold true.While the traditional news media still plays a big role in a crisis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; major newspapers set the agenda and nightly newscasts still reach a lot of people â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the issue of who to communicate with, when and how has become more nuanced. And it's certainly a LOT harder to hide problems then ever before (just ask any politician or sports figure who has ever tried to keep a romantic dalliance with someone other then their

spouse a secret).In crisis communications, it makes sense to think like the Boy Scouts and always be prepared. Dig Deeper: Flirting with Disaster How to Communicate in a Crisis: What's the plan?One of the best outcomes of thinking about a crisis before it happens is the chance to consider your company's strategy without the pressure of news choppers hovering over your facility. Every company should have a crisis communications plan that considers the following: What could go wrong? You'll never think of everything, but this exercise is important because it helps the company understand what they will need from both a communications perspective and a business contingency planning perspective in the event of crisis. It also serves to education your key leaders on what types of issues could turn into a true crisis requiring external communications. Who's in charge? When a crisis hits, you don't want to waste time trying to figure out who should be involved in the response. And the roles and responsibilities of all members of the crisis team should be clear. In particular, who has final sign off on

strategy, messages and timing should be agreed upon in advance. What's the strategy? These days, transparency and immediacy are the two critical elements of any crisis response. But your company may have unique constraints that could impact how you respond strategically. Are you operating in a litigious environment that makes it difficult to issue public apologies? Do you have a strong public brand that has to be protected at all costs? Some companies decide that they want to get ahead of bad news, controlling the timing, the message and the way they communicate about them. Others prefer a wait and see approach, where the organization is fully prepared to respond when it becomes clear the issue will go public, but wants to "run for luck" and see if they can minimize the issue. Who are the spokespeople? Review your list of potential problems and figure out who would be the credible people within the organization to respond to those issues--with everyone from customers to the press. Then make sure they are TRAINED to communicate in high pressure situations. Even

to happen and addressing them An expression of confidence that this situation does not reflect poorly on the company overall â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but only if it's true; nothing's worse then many new the most calm-under-fire CEOs shoes dropping (see Toyota) can benefit from some crisis- It should go without saying that s p e c i f i c c o m m u n i c a t i o n s honesty is always the best policy, transparency creates training. Dig Deeper: 8 Steps to Help trust, acting defensively won't You Develop a Disaster Plan win you any admirers and How to Communicate in a leaders earn respect when they C r i s i s : W h a t a r e m y are willing to publicly take their messages?Not surprisingly, the lumps. Most importantly, don't f o u n d a t i o n o f a n y c r i s i s stonewall or refuse to provide response is the message you are information--earning yourself a communicating. When a crisis lot of ill will. Almost always the hits, the first thing you do is public pressure becomes so figure out what the facts are (or intense companies eventually if you can't find the answers break down and offer some sort quick enough, identify a process of response, but by that point the for getting the facts). Then, you damage is done and even the have to decide how much of best crafted public message t h o s e f a c t s t h a t y o u c a n rings hollow and appears forced. communicate publicly (based on Dig Deeper: When Scandal legal and other restraints). Knocks... How to Communicate Among the messages that are i n a C r i s i s : W h o i s m y invariably part of any good a u d i e n c e ? H o w s h o u l d I crisis response: A succinct communicate with them?Crisis explanation of what went wrong situations are often framed by An expression of concern for the media coverage, which means impact that the situation has on reporters are typically the first customers, employees, the audience considered. But one of general public, etc. A sincere the advantages of the internet, eapology, if warranted (and don't mail, mobile phones, etc. is the let the lawyers talk you out of capacity to communicate in i t ! ) a n d a s e n s e t h a t t h e direct ways to each of your company takes responsibilities audiences.To take advantage of for any missteps it may have the technology, a little advance made A commitment to planning is required. By figuring identifying the underlying HOW page 8 factors that caused this situation

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Iranian scientist 'defects to US' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

channel. However, some reports said he had also been employed by Submitted at 3/31/2010 5:09:41 AM Iran's Atomic Energy An Iranian nuclear scientist Organisation, and had wanted to who has been missing since seek asylum abroad. June has defected to the US, CIA operation? according to a US media report. The US and its Western allies ABC News said Shahram Amiri s u s p e c t I r a n o f s e c r e t l y had been resettled in the US and developing nuclear weapons - a was helping the CIA in its claim denied by Tehran. efforts to block Iran's nuclear According to ABC, the scientist programme. has been extensively debriefed, Mr Amiri disappeared in Saudi and has helped to confirm US Arabia while on a Muslim intelligence assessments about pilgrimage. the Iranian nuclear programme. I r a n a c c u s e d t h e U S o f His defection was apparently abducting him but Washington the result of a wider operation, denied any knowledge of the under which the US has been scientist. The CIA has declined approaching Iranian scientists, to comment on the latest report. sometimes through relatives M r A m i r i w o r k e d a s a living in America, to try to researcher at Tehran's Malek persuade them to defect. Ashtar University, according to By making this defection I r a n ' s s t a t e - r u n P r e s s T V public, it appears the Americans

are putting more psychological pressure on the Iranian authorities, says the BBC's Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne, who is in London. Iran's nuclear programme is the subject of extensive intelligence work in the West with the aims of gathering information on it, preventing Iran buying equipment for it and, reportedly, sabotaging the programme by selling Iran defective parts on the black market, our correspondent says. Quite how important Mr Amiri is, or what information he can provide, has not emerged, our correspondent adds. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, (Holy Kaw!) Term Extraction. Submitted at 3/31/2010

Marshmallow Art: Peeps Show 2010 winners

Obama Made Me Spend More of Your Money contributors@theatlantic.com (Marc Ambinder) (Politics :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:34:46 AM

Courtesy of CBS Radio's Barry Bagnato, check out this excuse as to why Rep. Todd Tiahart (RKS) said he had to increase the size of his office payroll by a cool $200,000, or 22 percent:

"We saw that spike with the election of President Obama," [a staff member said.] "We had to employ a number of people to answer phone calls." Well. As the Witchita Eagle reports, "A little more than half of the $196,000 of Tiahrt's increased staffing cost went to five people who also got salary

and/or expense reimbursements for working on Tiahrt's Senate campaign, election disclosure forms show. Four of them recently were named members of Tiahrt's campaign leadership team."

than 1,100 entries with an UPinspired display nabbing the top prize. Definitely swing by the Each year around Easter, the Peeps Show gallery to check out Washington Post holds its Peeps all the deliciously awesome Show contest where readers dioramas. a c r o s s t h e n a t i o n s u b m i t Full gallery at the Washington elaborate d i o r a m a s Post. i n c o r p o r a t i n g e v e r y o n e ’ s Mmmm… candy news. f a v o r i t e E a s t e r t r e a t , Permalink| Leave a comment » Marshmallow Peeps. This year’s sugary creativity included more 8:32:07 AM

Kiplinger Personal Finance (Kiplinger Personal Finance)

Sorry, readability was unable to parse this page for content. Five Filters featured article:

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

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10 Amazing Magic Trick Videos on YouTube Matt Silverman (Mashable!)

shuffles up some impressive results. 2. Cyril Takayama’s Cigarette Magic Who doesn’t love magic? Illusionist Cyril Takayama is Whether you’re obsessed with known for his performances finding out “how they did that,” throughout Japan, elsewhere in or you just like to gaze with A s i a , a n d o n A m e r i c a n child-like wonder at a good television. This clip features a trick, YouTube has become a crafty disappearing cigarette that wealthy repository of illusion. c o m e s a n d g o e s b e t w e e n As with most things on Takayama’s fingers. YouTube, it’s not all about big Kids: Don’t get into cigarettes, budgets and high production unless you plan to make them values. Some of the best magic disappear like this guy. 3. James videos are of the close-up, or Brown: Close-Up Coin Magic street variety, and feature some “Professional Opportunist” very skilled craftsmen (and James Brown has cultivated a crafts women) doing what they style of close-up magic that do best. incorporates sleight of hand, We’ve rounded up 10 of these pick pocketing, and English magical treats, each one packing charisma. Watch gleefully as he a solid wow factor. So sit back, confuses an old lady with some relax, and get ready to enjoy slick coin and card tricks. 4. s o m e f i n e w e b - b a s e d David Blaine Turns Coffee into prestidigitation. And if you Money have a favorite trick you were We all know David Blaine for hoping to see here, be sure to h i s h i g h p r o f i l e p u b l i c toss it into the comment “hat” entrapments and escapes. But below. 1. The Best Card Trick some of the more entertaining in the World work can be seen in his street It’s the self-proclaimed“best,” magic. Here, Blaine turns a but that doesn’t make it any less presumably downtrodden man’s awesome. In one of the most- coffee into a cup full of cash. viewed card trick videos on Whether or not the man and/or Y o u T u b e , t h e a n o n y m o u s the cup are a plant can be magician asks the Internet to debated. Regardless of the “pick a card, any card,” and trick’s mechanics, turning Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:13:54 AM

Yesilfiliz hit the streets of Frankfurt last summer to mystify some unsuspecting strollers. His card tricks are especially wowing because the big reveal often happens right in the participant’s own hand. The video is in German, but is thoroughly subtitled, and well coffee into money is nothing w o r t h the extra new. Starbucks has been doing watching/reading effort. 8. it for years. 5. Card Control Sleight of Hand by Ekaterina This card shark doles out a Dobrokhotova series of hearts, mixes them You don’t see a lot of women t h o r o u g h l y b a c k i n t o t h e in magic, so it’s refreshing to shuffled deck (or so it seems) find Moscow-born Ekaterina and reproduces them instantly Dobrokhotova’s illusionary and in series, as if by…oh, stylings pop up on YouTube. what’s the word… magic. It’s a Ekaterina is less about the slick trick, and this oldie-but- shmoozy showmanship of her goodie magic video is still male counterparts, and all about drawing views over four years grace. on. 6. Classic Cups and Balls Here, she performs some clever T h e f o l k s o v e r a t coin tricks developed by French MagicGeek.com, purveyors of magician David Stone. 9. Cap in all things tricky, have whipped Bottle Trick up a few videos demoing some Here’s a trick you can do with of their products. This is the any old empty water bottle, classic “Cups and Balls” trick, provided you’ve sealed some found everywhere from the Las sort of demon pact with the Vegas stage to the street corner underworld. Whereas many hustle. Keep your eye on these card tricks can be chalked up to sneaky hands and see if you clever counting or quick hands, can’t judge where the balls will this illusion can be downright appear next. 7. Street Magic by jaw dropping for the uninitiated. Timur Yesilfiliz Alas, a bit of Internet searching G e r m a n m a g i c i a n T i m u r can reveal the secrets of this

Gallery: Outrageously Complicated Rube Goldberg Videos Dylan F. Tweney (Wired Top Stories)

A team of engineering students from the University of Wisconsin wins the National

Rube Goldberg Machine Contest and join the ranks of inspired -- and somewhat crazed

-- contraption-makers. Here are videos of some of the most elaborate machines ever built.

trick and ruin everything, but it sure was fun while it lasted. 10. This N’ That Card Trickery Last but not least, coming in at over 14 million views, this oneminute clip is a slick execution of a tried and true favorite called “This N’ That.” It only uses three cards, so there’s no deck to shuffle or hide behind — just two hands, some modified playing cards, and a punchy little narration. For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook More web video resources from Mashable: - Top 10 Funny Videos on YouTube - 4 Fun and Crazy Chatroulette Videos - A Beginner’s Guide to Madefor-Internet TV - HOW TO: Add Captions To Your YouTube Videos Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Anyka Tags: List, Lists, Magic, magic tricks, social media, video, Video Lists, web video, youtube

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When will the 2nd-gen iPad arrive? (CNET News.com)

did out the gate, but you know that Apple will improve the iPad sooner rather than later and it Back when the Palm Pre came would kind of suck to be stuck out, I wrote an article about with a first-gen model when gen about first-gen jitters. I said that -two is that much better. (I held I usually follow a simple rule out for the iPhone 3GS rather when it comes to consumer than buying the 2G or 3G electronics: I avoid buying any models because I thought the first-generation products. That iPhone had matured to the point doesn't mean I haven't ever done where it made sense to finally it, but I tend to wait for buy one). generation two or three before I The iPad is a little trickier p l u n k d o w n m y d o u g h , product to deal with because particularly when it comes to you could argue that it's more heavily hyped stuff. fully-baked than many first-gen I know a lot of people who are products. Apple is on the thirdlooking at the iPad in the same g e n e r a t i o n o f t h e i P h o n e way. They're intrigued by it-- operating system and not so far and the price isn't too bad--but from releasing a fourth-gen OS they're not quite ready to jump (if Apple holds true to past on the bandwagon until the iPad form, it may be unveiled in late gets its rookie season out of the June), which should bring way and Apple tweaks it a bit, additional features to the iPad. adding such features as a built- And the company has a lot of in camera (for video chat), an experience developing toucheven faster processor, a bit more screen devices and optimizing memory for your money, a tad performance and battery-life. better battery life, and perhaps a But in many ways, while the 4G wireless option. whole tablet concept isn't new, Yes, the iPad has the advantage the iPad is a new breed of of looking better from a speeds device. For the first time a lot of and feats perspective than the people are going to buy these original iPhone and iPod Touch things and it isn't quite clear Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:23:58 AM

how they're going to use them. Will it be a device that people carry around with them everywhere (like their phones) or will it be something they use more sparingly at home to read e-books and watch movies in bed (and maybe do a little email or web surfing)? Of course, the way Apple sees it, it's all of the above, but at the same time, there are inevitably going to be things you wish the iPad did that it can't do now and features you wish it had that it doesn't. And inevitably, they will be there in the next model. So when should we expect to see a 2nd-generation iPad? If I had to make a guess, I'd say we see a refresh in the fall. It may not be major, but if Apple really wants this product--and category --to take off, I don't think it can wait a year to update the hardware and must proceed aggressively. In June, we'll have some sort of new iPhone that will attract a huge amount of attention; by then, the iPad will seem like old news. So in October, to spur sales for the holiday season, Apple should bring the spotlight back to the

iPad (and maybe the iPod Touch, which is due for a refresh). Of course, this is all conjecture, and some will say that first-gen iPad buyers will be enraged with Apple for bringing out a new model so soon (remember the iPhone price drop in 2007?), but it won't be the end of the world. As everybody knows, that's the way things work in the electronics world. Something better is always going to come along; you just have to bake that into your buying decision and live with the consequences. Sometimes it turns out alright. Sometimes it doesn't. What do you guys think? Should people wait for a gentwo iPad or is this model look just fine as is? And will Apple put out a 2nd-gen iPad before the holiday season or wait till 2011? Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Here we go: A Lady Gaga iPad decal Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:30:00 AM

We’ve seen a steady flow of

iPad accessories even since its announcement back in January but this is the first decal we’ve seen. And of course it’s the

Lady Gaga. Awesome[via bookofjoe] Queen of YouTube herself,

Scammers Using Mock Copyright Lawsuit Threats To Get People To Download Malware Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:05:00 AM

With companies like Digiprotect, Davenport Lyons and ACS:Law busy sending out tens of thousands of so-called pre-settlement letters that threaten people (often on very little evidence, if any) of copyright infringement, but allow them to pay up to avoid a lawsuit, is it any surprise that out-and-out scammers are jumping into the game as well? Ben alerts us to a warning from US-CERT of a new email scam, which involves the scammers sending out legitimate looking emails pretending to be from a law firm, telling the recipients they're being sued for copyright infringement. The details are supposedly in a file at a URL provided in the email. When a visitor goes to that URL and downloads the file, they get malware instead. Yes, it appears that the malware scammers are now learning from the best in the business... Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Paywall/Open Debate Applied To University Education As Well Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:11:00 AM

DV Henkel-Wallace writes"The New York Times has a good article about Open Courseware(how universities are putting their material online for anyone to use as they see fit). Unusually, the article has an accurate and pithy summary of how the movement started and evolved. It is still a little incredulous that such a thing can really exist ("On a philosophical level, the idea of making money from something available free might seem questionable."). But it is clear: a little ecosystem is building around this educational material. What's most interesting, is how the same arguments that have already arisen around the "big data" areas like music, film and news appear in this smaller area as well. When MIT launched OCW, they directly addressed the CwF+RtB issues by pointing out that people attend schools for additional reasons than just the syllabus. But some people still don't get it: a professor from

Submitted at 3/30/2010 10:36:41 PM

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Leader of Brown Campaign Now Helping N.H. Candidate (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/31/2010 12:05:07 AM

The woman who helped Republican Scott Brown take the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's the Tuck School of Business presents the other side of the Courseware to improve their seat is jumping ship to help still feels that putting the story from Professor Argenti, by own programs. It's sort of another long-shot candidate in syllabus out there will let the a c t u a l l y a r t i c u l a t i n g t h e taking a look at the other side of New Hampshire. Former campaign manager magic out, claiming that it's difference between the content this overall debate, noting how Beth Lindstrom has resigned as "obvious" that an "exclusive (infinite) and all of the scarcities liberal arts schools can improve experience" is appropriate. that the content makes more their curriculum by having state director for the new The best quote:"It's pretty hard valuable:"We don't offer the professors use OCW as a s e n a t o r ' s M a s s a c h u s e t t s t o i m a g i n e h o w a n e l i t e course for free, we offer the resource. Now, the OCW critics operation to work for New institution like us or like content for free," Mr. Yager said will claim that this takes away Hampshire Republican Senate Harvard or Stanford or any of by telephone in February. from the big schools that put candidate Jim Bender. the other top schools would stay "Students take courses because content into OCW, but again, He is vying with Kelly Ayotte , in business if they didn't have they want interaction with that's misunderstanding the Ovide Lamontagne and Bill some aspect of the program that faculty, they want interaction market, and assuming a zero- Binnie in the primary to replace was still relatively complicated with one another. Those things sum game, rather than an ability Republican Sen. Judd Gregg. and difficult to get to," Mr. are not available on O.C.W." to expand the overall pie, Rep. Paul Hodes is seeking the Argenti said. And thus they lock Exactly. That's the point, and recognizing that better education seat on the Democratic side. some of their content behind a it's too bad that a professor at programs across the board are a Brown said in a statement pay wall. Dartmouth (which is generally a good thing that open up many T u e s d a y t h a t L i n d s t r o m ' s Perhaps they should do a case pretty good business school) more opportunities than they "leadership and hard work will be missed." study of the newspapers and would so confuse the basic take away. Word of Lindstrom's job how the pay walls have worked economics of information, and Permalink| Comments| Email change was first reported by the out for them." DV's summary not realize that even if all of the This Story Boston Herald. above is great, but I wanted to course info is free, there are ÂŠ Copyright 2010 The highlight one more specific always aspects that are scarce. Associated Press. All rights point from the article, which is a Separately, James Schirmer reserved. This material may not quote from James D. Yager, a points us to a related article be published, broadcast, d e a n a t J o h n s H o p k i n s concerning how some liberal rewritten or redistributed. University, who basically arts schools are using Open Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Phoenix: S. Nash 22 Pts, 4 Reb, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Term Extraction. 10 Ast, 2 Stl PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Chicago: R. Murray 23 Pts, 9 Term Extraction. Reb, 4 Ast, 1 Stl Five Filters featured article:

Streaking Suns beat Bulls, clinch playoff berth Associated Press (ESPN.com)

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An alligator ate my Amazon package (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:49:00 AM

It is not April Fool's Day. But perhaps there are folks at Amazon.com for whom, given that they work so hard, every day is April 1. Or perhaps not. The story that I wish to relate, as told by Will Collier, one of the world's more original bloggers, is that he ordered a computer part via Amazon. It did not arrive. Now Amazon tends to be one of the finer online retailers when it comes to customer service, so Collier thought that one quick call to a customer service rep would surely locate his errant part. Might I use Collier's words from his blog in order to offer a little local flavor? He says he "got a female rep with not-sogood English. After quite a thrash getting my information, she allegedly called the shipper (long time on hold for me) and came back to say they had told her my package would not be delivered..." You can feel the tension of the

three dots I have left within the quote. They are the same three dots Collier himself left, as the words that followed them were: "because it had been eaten by an alligator." Does a motherboard cause indigestion?(Credit: CC Http2007/Flickr) He said he made her repeat that five times before she reportedly conceded, perhaps just to quash his persistence, "it may have

been a different animal." You might be taken aback to a previous life as a butterfly to discover that Collier then called the shipper, who denied knowledge of this fine tale. He also called Amazon again. This time, he was told the package was on its way, sans any teeth marks. However, a follow-up post Tuesday, in which Collier again insists this tale is utterly

genuine, noted that the actual package--a motherboard--never did arrive. Indeed, Amazon was kind enough to send him a replacement. I know there will be coughers and scoffers who will declare all of this a substance-induced fantasy. I am not so sure. I have been to Florida. I have seen just how ruthless and indiscriminate some of its inhabitants can be. The alligators can be pretty

tough, too. So I am of the entirely unsubstantiated opinion that a gator was indeed responsible. I am also of the entirely unsubstantiated opinion that this gator was the adopted pet of one of the Amazon shippers. His owner, the Amazon shipper, despairing that he would ever find good nourishment for his gator, was suddenly inspired by the Amazon feature "Additional Items to Explore." Having first tried a couple of PCs, a tablet, a couple of video games, some second-hand Norman Mailers, a Bill Haley "See You Later Alligator" CD, and even a Kindle, he gave his gator one sniff of the motherboard package and discovered he had hit the mother lode. I believe they call it natural selection, right? That's what Amazon is all about. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

AquaSnap Brings Enhanced Aero Effects to Windows XP Through Windows 7 [Downloads] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:30:00 AM

Windows: AquaSnap is a free multifunctional tweaking application that brings Aero-

enhances Aero in Vista and Windows 7. More Âť style effects to Windows XP and

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Survey: Timeline for smart-grid payoff unclear (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:04:33 AM

In-home displays that give customers more detailed information on their energy consumption are low on utilities' priority list, according to a study conducted by an energy efficiency company. Comverge on Tuesday published results of a survey of 100 attendees of the DistribuTech utility conference last week which also found that few could agree on when the benefits of the smart grid will take hold. About one quarter said that there will be measurable benefits from smart-grid investments in one to three years, while almost 30 percent said that it would take more like 10 years. However, over three-quarters of respondents said that budgets to modernize the grid are going up. In terms of spending priorities, smart meters and smart thermostats garnered the most attention over the next 12 months. So-called smart devices can communicate with each

other, usually over a wireless network. The smart grid means modernizing the electricity grid to be more reliable, efficient, and able to handle a two-way flow of energy on the grid.(Credit: Electric Power Research Institute) Lower on the list are smart outlets and in-home energy displays, which provide consumers information on real-

time energy consumption to help them cut down on wasted energy and a way to program connected appliances. That result suggests that utilities are focused more on installing modern equipment before trying to offer services to consumers through a home network. In a statement, Comverge CEO Blake Young said that attendees who were queried were still struggling with how to realize

benefits from smart-grid investments. Comverge is not a neutral party in discussions over the smart grid. The company makes energy management software and equipment to ratchet down consumption at residential and commercial customers during peak times. Utilities contract with demandresponse companies, such as Comverge and EnerNoc, to

shave energy use, which is cheaper and cleaner than turning on or building power plants to meet peak-time electricity demand. Oracle last week published results of a utility executive survey which showed that many utilities are moving tentatively toward the smart grid with trial programs, many of which include smart-meter installations. But there is growing concern that consumers aren't seeing benefits of these investments, notably the ability to lower utility bills through demandresponse programs or information tools. Last week, the Smart Grid Consumer Coalition launched with the goal of researching consumers' reactions to smart-grid programs. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Are You Feeling AT&T's 100 Day Plan to Fix Their Network? [At&t] matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:06:11 AM

Another iPhone, another round of AT&T promising it'll be better this time. Honest! In fact,

in December they started a 100day plan to " to dramatically improve the company's network

in densely-populated cities." Are you feeling it yet? More Âť

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Novell wins in court; SCO eyes new fights (CNET News.com)

The Patent System Does Not Scale Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Stephen O'Grady has a great post explaining that it's because Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:40:00 AM of that scalability issue, that he's For the past five years, one of against software patents (he t h e p o i n t s w e ' v e r a i s e d limits it to software given that repeatedly in discussing the being his own experience area): problems with the patent system T h e r e a s o n I a m a g a i n s t is the simple fact that patent software patents is, by contrast, examiners don't scale. The very simple. It's not rooted in system we have today where philosophy, it doesn't involve every invention needs to be theories of good or evil; it's not reviewed and approved by even about debating what is examiners at the Patent Office is likely to spur more or less inherently unsustainable given innovation. the general pace of innovation, I am against software patents which increases rapidly. And because it is not reasonable to for a patent office to actually expect that the current patent handle that kind of thing, it system, nor even one designed would need to keep increasing to improve or replace it, will its staffing levels, while hiring ever be able to accurately the absolute top of the top. d e t e r m i n e w h a t m i g h t b e That's simply impossible. c o n s i d e r e d l e g i t i m a t e l y Honestly, the very idea that you p a t e n t a b l e f r o m t h e would have a group of people o v e r w h e l m i n g v o l u m e o f "certifying" every invention is innovations in software. Even pretty absurd when you think the most trivial of software about it -- and it's a point we've applications involves hundreds, brought up a few more times potentially thousands of design over the years, because it's decisions which might be important, and doesn't get much c o n s i d e r e d b y t h o s e attention. aggressively seeking patents as So, it's great to see others are p o t e n t i a l l y p r o t e c t a b l e starting to make this point as inventions. If even the most w e l l . R e d M o n k a n a l y s t basic elements of these are

patentable, as they are currently, the patent system will be fundamentally unable to scale to meet that demand. As it is today. In addition to questions of volume are issues of expertise; for some of the proposed inventions, there may only be a handful of people in the world qualified to actually make a judgment on whether a development is sufficiently innovative so as to justify a patent. None of those people, presumably, will be employed by the patent office. Nor are the incentives for fact witnesses remotely sufficient. Nor will two developers always come to the same conclusions as to the degree to which a given invention is unique.... If we acknowledge that this is the case, which I believe one must if the available evidence is considered, then it is no longer possible -- whatever your philosophical viewpoint -- to be in favor of software patents. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:08:09 AM

SCO's seemingly endless legal campaign over the copyrights to Unix may finally be over. On Tuesday afternoon, a federal jury found that Novell owns the rights to the operating system, foiling SCO's plan to seek millions of dollars in licensing fees from companies it accused of illegally distributing its proprietary Unix code with the Linux OS. Great news for the open-source community and for the longsuffering Novell, which has been battling SCO for quite some time now. "Novell is very pleased with the jury's decision confirming Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux," the company said in a statement. "Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front." Meanwhile, SCO, while obviously struck low by Tuesday's verdict, evidently intends to forge on with its suit against IBM, which it also

claims misappropriated Unix and built it into Linux. Former U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, the trustee for SCO's bankruptcy, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the jury decision will not dissuade it from pursuing its lawsuit against Big Blue. Said Cahn: "The copyright claims are gone, but we have other claims based on contracts." Astonishing. As I wrote of SCO back in 2004: "There's a scene at the end of Martin Scorsese's remake of 'Cape Fear' in which villain Max Cady, having been shot, stabbed, burned and beaten, continues to threaten his victims even as he's drowning, handcuffed to a sinking houseboat. I think of that scene every time I read that SCO has filed another motion in its illstarred copyright infringement suits." Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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First Look: It's About Time brings widgets to Sony Deletes Feature On PS3's; You the iPad with mini apps Don't Own What You Thought You Bought Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:30:00 AM

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:31:00 AM

It used to be when you bought a product, you owned it. Simple, right? And once you owned it, you could do what you want with it? But, lately, thanks to digital products and an always connected world, many companies have changed things around -- so the products you thought you owned, you actually rent. But, it can go even further than that, where a product you thought you owned can be irrevocably changed without your permission, long after you bought it. Take, for example, the recent story of Sony deleting a feature on the PS3 that let users (not owners, apparently) install other operating systems, such as Linux. It's going away. Sony announced that when the next PS3 firmware upgrade comes along, it'll wipe out this

Filed under: iPad Several years ago at Macworld feature, whether you used it or named Geohot announced that Expo, I had the pleasure of not. The only way to avoid that he was able to use the Other OS meeting Saied Ghaffari, CEO of is not to upgrade, but that will feature along with a bit of a small company called It's also greatly limit what you can soldering in a manner that gave About Time Products, LLC. The do with your PS3. him more control over the PS3 company had created a training So why is Sony retroactively h a r d w a r e t h a n S o n y h a d app which ran on the Mac and taking away a feature that it sold intended. Sony responded with provided new iPhone users a to people? Apparently because the "upgrade" that removes the chance to learn more about their some people might possibly use Other OS feature. This is, d e v i c e s , i T u n e s , a n d it in a way that Sony didn't frankly, obnoxious -- and I half synchronization with the Mac. intend. The EFF has the whole wonder if there will be a lawsuit This application, called It's backstory: The backstory is that over this. People were sold one About Time: Learn the iPhone Sony provided the Other OS t h i n g a n d t h e n S o n y 3G, was followed by another feature in order to support retroactively decided to take training application called It's IBM's Cell Project, which away a feature that some found About Time: Learn the Switch. produced the PS3's CPU and q u i t e u s e f u l H o w e v e r , I Learn the Switch was created to made it practical to use PS3 imagine that in a world of help Windows users make the consoles as compute nodes for a interconnected devices, stories migration to Mac OS X. This app begat Parallels scientific supercomputer. The like this are going to become U.S. Army did just that, buying more common. Isn't it time that D e s k t o p S w i t c h t o M a c more than 2,000 PS3s to build a someone created a movement to E d i t o n ( $ U S 9 9 . 0 0 ) , w h i c h s u p e r c o m p u t e r . L o t s o f highlight what products you s e a m l e s s l y c o m b i n e s t h e hobbyists also made use of the actually own once you've switcher training and a copy of Parallels Desktop. In all cases, Other OS feature, using it to bought them? write their own games and Permalink| Comments| Email the apps use a similar interface, with video of Saied telling you creatively repurpose their PS3s. This Story how to get started and then Recently, however, a hobbyist

describing how to perform various actions on the iPhone or Mac. Saied is an engaging instructor, providing clear and understandable training to the user from his small window on your Mac. Well, with the iPad looming on the horizon, It's About Time started thinking about what kind of products to produce for the new platform. I talked with Saied Ghaffari yesterday about the new product from It's About Time, called mini apps, and how it will provide iPad users with an answer to one of the three most frequently requested features: multitasking. Read on for more information about mini apps. TUAW First Look: It's About Time brings widgets to the iPad with mini apps originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Pope Benedict Favorable Rating Drops to 40% in U.S. (All Gallup Headlines) Submitted at 3/30/2010 8:00:00 PM

[ fivefilters.org: unable to retrieve full-text content] A new low of 40% of Americans view

Pope Benedict XVI favorably amid new criticism about the Roman Catholic Church's

handling of child sex abuse by priests. The decline is similar among U.S. Catholics and non-

Catholics.

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Board Games on the iPad: Oh Yes, This is Going to be Big Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:29:32 AM

TUAW has a preview of an iPad application called Game Table. It costs 99 cents, and it lets you play classic board games, such as Chess, Poker or Checkers, on the iPad. The beauty of its approach is the fact that it’s not really a game – it just gives you the necessary components and the mechanics to play a variety of games. And, when you think of it, for many users this app (or similar apps like it) might be the killer app that makes the Apple

iPad worth purchasing. If you’re a classic board game geek, you probably love the feeling of cards, dice, or a chess board under your hand. But in all those situations when you don’t have the actual board – let’s say you’re going on a vacation, and you don’t want to carry the extra weight and fiddly bits and pieces – the iPad can be a very good replacement. While classic board games were also available on the iPod and the iPhone, the iPad’s bigger screen size will make the experience much more pleasant. Beyond classic board games,

it’s a huge market; just check out BoardGameGeek for all the available board titles. I bet we’ll be seeing many of those titles converted for the iPad, and I bet

many of them will be a huge success. Game Table may seem like just another app, but it’s a great example of how iPad’s bigger

screen size can open Apple’s mobile application platform to new possibilities. The iPhone’s screen is used by one person at a time in most cases; but the iPad can be effectively used by two people; playing a game, creating an artwork, visualizing a project. It’s a big difference, and it’s another one of those details that will, ultimately, make people want to buy this device. As the first batch of iPads hurry to their new owners, I’m more and more convinced Apple has indeed created a whole new market with this device.

Have an iPad reservation? Your "pick up" email has arrived Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

-- the iPad will be waiting for us from 9 AM until 3 PM on Saturday at a specific Apple Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:00:00 AM Store, that the reservation will Filed under: iPad Those of us be held only until 3 PM, and who reserved our iPads for that after that time, it's up to you pickup at a nearby Apple Store to fight in a to-the-death cage have been reading about all of match for one. Well, it doesn't the UPS and FedEx shipping say the last thing, but it does say notices that were sent with envy. that sales will be "first-come, Now we have something we can first-served basis while supplies get excited about! Squeeeeee! last." This morning, Apple sent out In case you have an extremely Fi iPad you reserved as well. emails to anyone who had b a d m e m o r y , A p p l e h a s Note to reservees: be sure to reserved an iPad, basically thoughtfully provided a small print out your reservation email, telling us what we already knew reminder of what model of Wi-

laminate it, and carry it around until you actually pick up your iPad on Saturday. It will make you look like a true Apple fanboy. TUAW Have an iPad reservation? Your "pick up" email has arrived originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Weird Your iPad Up with a Lady Gaga Decal [Ipad] Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:20:00 AM

The iPad isn't even out yet, but you can have yours all Gaga'd out on day 1 with this decal. [ Etsy via Book of Joe] More »

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Judge: Isohunt Must Remove Infringing Content

Apple updates QuickTime for Leopard, Windows; iPhone Config Utility

Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:10:52 AM

One of the largest BitTorrent search engines in the world, Isohunt, has been ordered by a US judge to remove all infringing content from the site. The ruling follows similar ruling against torrent tracker Mininova which has lost a great amount of traffic after complying with the order to remove copyrightinfringing links from the site. The problem with this ruling, as it often happens, is the question: what exactly is Isohunt doing that’s illegal, here? According to the judge, Isohunt must cease “creating, maintaining or providing access to browsable website categories of dot-torrent or similar files using or based on infringement-related terms.” The site’s creator, Gary Fung, claims that complying would be the end of Isohunt. “Filtering against keywords. It amounts to

Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Software Update In the midst of all the hoopla over iTunes 9.1 yesterday, Apple quietly snuck a few other updates out the door. nothing less than taking down iPhone Configuration Utility our search engine,” he said. But 2.2 for Mac OS X lets you Fung has an idea how to keep create, maintain, encrypt, and running the site in “lite” mode. install configuration profiles, I t w o u l d s t r i p I s o h u n t o f track and install provisioning categories, and pretty much p r o f i l e s a n d a u t h o r i z e d everything else besides a big applications, and capture device search box. information including console It’s understandable that the logs. The update weighs in at entertainment industry is going 6.94MB and requires Mac OS X after large torrent sites, as they 10.6 or later. point to thousands of links to Apple QuickTime for Leopard copyright-infringing content. But so does Google. Is Isohunt’s search box different than Google’s search box? Reviews: Google Tags: bittorrent, copyright, Isohunt, piracy, torrent, warez

7.6.6 includes changes that increase reliability, improve compatibility, and address security. It also includes general reliability improvements for iMovie. The update requires MAC OS X 10.5 Leopard. Apple QuickTime for Windows - 7.6.6. includes changes that

increase reliability, improve compatibility, and address security. It requires Windows XP or Vista. There you go folks! Now you can get back to looking for hidden changes in iTunes 9.1! TUAW Apple updates QuickTime for Leopard, Windows; iPhone Config Utility originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Remove Admin Access to Halt Most Windows Security Flaws [UltraNewb] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:00:00 AM

A study of Microsoft's 2009 security bulletins showed a common thread, one you should

keep in mind when setting up

computers for your friends, relatives, or coworkers: 90 percent of the most serious vulnerabilities were nullified by removing Administrator privileges. More »

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Google Earth Helps Deputy Make Arrest Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:36:25 AM

Google became true-blue crime -fighting tool for one Florida Panhandle deputy this week. The law man, Deputy Gregory Barnes, recently made use of Google Earth to arrest a man charged with illegally dumping his one-ton boat. When Dwight Everett Foster abandoned his boat in a subdivision near Pensacola, he probably thought no one would be the wiser — especially since, according to NBC, the vehicle identification number and registration had been removed. Little did he know that Deputy Barnes had scouted out an archived satellite image of the very same boat parked near Foster’s home, allowing him to arrest the man in question. The practice of using social media to fight crime is really

Is Buying A Google Ad On Your Competitors' Name A Privacy Violation? Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

privacy laws to buy keywords based on the names of the partners in the firm. It's difficult We've seen tons of lawsuits to see who's privacy is being from companies upset that their violated here. And, of course, to competitors were buying ads on make the case a bit more their trademarked brand names. e x c i t i n g , t h e d e f e n d a n t s picking up steam of late, with Obviously, these tend to be surprised everyone in court by law men and women making trademark disputes, and the d o i n g a s e a r c h o n u s i n g o f e v e r y t h i n g f r o m suing companies rarely prevails, YellowPages.com for their own Twitter to e-tipsters to nab since most courts seem to law firm -- and having an ad for perps. What do you think of realize that buying ads on the plaintiff show up. So, now cops using Google Earth to bag competitor trademark keywords the defendants are claiming that do-baders? Is it genius, or are is perfectly legal, so long as the the plaintiffs have "unclean things getting a little too “Big a d i s n ' t c o n f u s i n g . B u t , hands," since they appear to be sometimes the arguments get doing the exact same thing Brother” for your tastes? F o r m o r e s o c i a l m e d i a quite bizarre. JJ sent over an they've accused the defendants coverage, follow Mashable article about two personal injury of doing. It sounds like quite a Social Media on Twitter or law firms in a legal fight over trial... become a fan on Facebook Google advertising -- but the Permalink| Comments| Email Image courtesy of iStockphoto, (initial) twist here is that the one This Story firm is claiming that it's a jodiecoston Tags: Google, legal, social violation of Wisconsin state media Submitted at 3/31/2010 2:03:00 AM

Understand Your Camera's Histogram to Take More Balanced Pictures [Photographytip] Erica Ho (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:30:00 AM

Whether you've got a DSLR or you've turned your point-andshoot into a super camera, those fancy features are useless if you don't understand them. Want to capture a perfectly exposed picture? Learning to use your histogram is a good starting point. More »

iPad to launch in Canada on April 24th? Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: iPad Apple has always said that the iPad will be available internationally in "late April." Now iPadinCanada has received the first hints of what

the exact date may be. The site has been tipped by a source with ties to an Apple store that all Apple retail employees in Canada have been notified that the weekend of April 24th is a "black out period." A black out period means that no employees are allowed to request days off.

If the rumors of a black out

period are true, is it definitive proof of the iPad's impending Canadian launch? No, but it sure as heck makes it a likely date. It'll be interesting to see if an black out dates have been ordered by Apple Retail in the UK or the rest of Europe. TUAW iPad to launch in

Canada on April 24th? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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TUAW TV Live pre-iPad edition coming up today at 5 PM EDT

Iran Sanctions Are Failing. What's Next?

Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

(AEI.Org: Articles)

byword, and to give him credit, he proffered a generous, open hand to Tehran. If his hand Has the U.S. abandoned plans remained outstretched a little to target the Iranian regime's too long, he was secure in the access to banking and credit and knowledge that the world rarely to isolate Iranian air and criticizes an American president shipping transport? While recent w h o i s w i l l i n g t o m a k e reports to that effect have been sacrifices for peace (especially strenuously denied by the if those sacrifices are measured administration, it has become in terms of American national clear that Secretary of State security). But Mr. Obama was Hillary Clinton's promise of m o r e t h a n c o m m i t t e d t o " c r i p p l i n g s a n c t i o n s " a n d dialogue with Iran: He was President Barack Obama's unwilling to take no for an "aggressive" penalties are little answer. m o r e t h a n t a l k . T h e This article is available by administration simply cannot subscription from the Wall persuade a critical mass of Street Journal. nations to join with it. Danielle Pletka is the Vice At this juncture, there are blunt P r e s i d e n t o f F o r e i g n a n d questions that need to be asked. Defense Policy Studies at AEI. Can sanctions even work? Can P h o t o C r e d i t : we live with a nuclear Iran? Is i S t o c k p h o t o / m t r o m m e r military action inevitable? But Five Filters featured article: first, some foreign policy Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: forensics are in order. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Candidate Obama told us Term Extraction. engagement would be his Submitted at 3/30/2010 4:00:00 PM

Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:30:00 AM

Filed under: Video In case you've been hiding in a cave recently like these folks at right, there's a new electronic device that will make it into the trembling, moist hands of Apple fans everywhere starting this Saturday at 9 AM. On today's special super-secret double probation pre-iPad edition of TUAW TV Live, your host Steve Sande will take you on a journey through a number of iPad app videos that we've received during the last week. Some of the apps are sure to be cause for derision and laughter, while others will make your credit cards leap from your wallet in anticipation of

purchasing them. We'll be doing something a bit different today as well, using a new system to vote on topics of discussion. Find out more just before 5 PM EDT today when we get fired up and ready to roll on TUAW TV Live. Photo Credit: picaland, sxc.hu. TUAW TUAW TV Live pre-

iPad edition coming up today at 5 PM EDT originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Email Addresses Briefly Made Public on Facebook [Privacy] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:00:00 AM

From the files of the Facebook's Tenuous Grasp on Privacy Dept.: Numerous users saw their email addresses revealed on

their public Facebook pages, for about 30 minutes last night. It's a small window of time, and, as some commenters pointed out, spammers probably already have your email address. But lapse, didn't offer an option to Facebook, at least during the

hide that email address, you must have an email address registered to use Facebook, and, as the Buzz rollout showed, many people try to hold their personal email addresses close to their chest. Have privacy

concerns ever left you at least considering a switch from Facebook, or at least a profile pare-down? [ Gawker] More Âť

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GOP Donors: Away from RNC, Toward Rove's Group? contributors@theatlantic.com (Chris Good) (Politics :: The Atlantic)

iPad, Meet “Star Trek” Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

much like the thing we’ll be frantically testing this weekend: the Apple iPad. In Star Trek, members of the Now, Gizmodo has dug out an crew are carrying a tablet-like iPad app called Captain’s Log device called the PADD, or that actually makes the real P e r s o n a l A c c e s s D i s p l a y device look very much like the Device. It comes in many PADD. The app lets you check shapes and flavors — there’s your mail or social networking even a horizontal one. And, profiles, adding, besides the circa 2151, the device that was visuals, little details like the in common use looked pretty inevitable star date. Yes, it looks Submitted at 3/31/2010 12:57:33 AM

quite simple, but if you’re a Trekkie, this is the first app you’ll get. hr /> For more mobile coverage, follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: Apple Tablet, ipad, mobile apps, Star Trek, trending

for the party. But it's also important to note that it doesn't actually hurt the Republican Party if donors have Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:34:41 AM After breaking the Voyeur a problem with Steele, as the nightclub story that became an Daily Caller's story suggests instant headache for the GOP, they do, quoting an anonymous the Daily Caller follows up with donor and noting the giving the next logical step in the arena patterns of other donors who of Michael Steele's troubles: that w o u l d n ' t c o m m e n t o n t h e a few big-time RNC donors record. The RNC would have have not given to the used that money to get Republican National Committee Republican candidates elected since 2008, while they have anyway, so it's not as if the party g i v e n t o t h e N a t i o n a l nets a loss if Steele has a hiccup R e p u b l i c a n S e n a t o r i a l with big-time GOP donors. Committee and the National Another interesting story of R e p u b l i c a n C o n g r e s s i o n a l note: National Journal's Peter H. Committee--the party's Senate Stone reports that GOP donors and House campaign arms. are turning toward American This is where stories like the Crossroads, the 527 soft-money Voyeur incident start to become group headed up by GOP supera problem for the RNC: if strategists Karl Rove and Ed donors shy away from giving Gillespie. money, then the committee is encountering a difficulty in its main objective--to raise money

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The Sheriff Michelle Cottle (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/30/2010 9:00:00 PM

For the better part of an hour, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has been kicked back in the front cabin of Coast Guard One, the small but handsomely appointed plane on which she travels, chatting easily about the challenges of running the third-largest Cabinet department. En route back to Washington after three days of nonstop meetings in Mexico City--a whirlwind visit made more challenging by the fact that Napolitano broke her right ankle playing tennis last month and is still hobbling around on crutches--the secretary is in wind-down mode. The conference calls and briefing books have been dealt with. Her lunch has been cleared away, her legs are tucked beneath a bright blue blanket, and her voice is as low and soothing as the hum of the jet engines. Which makes it all the more startling when, asked if she’d like to run for office once her current job ends, Napolitano abruptly thonks her head down on the glossy wooden tabletop in front of her and exclaims, “Don’t ask me that question!” When I persist, she looks up with a grin and informs me that, having just celebrated her first anniversary at the department, there is no way she’s going to

touch the question of what’s next. Briskly turning the tables, she asks what I plan to do once my current job ends. Few doubt that the hardcharging former Arizona governor, long considered a rising Democratic star, has ambitions beyond the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Some of her colleagues joke that, having grown up in New Mexico, she’ll shoot to become the first person to serve as governor of two different states. More seriously, Napolitano has toyed, from time to time, with the idea of running for Senate. Then again, attorney general was her first pick of administration posts; if things keep going south for the beleaguered Eric Holder, perhaps she could slide into his seat. Napolitano was also said to be on the Supreme Court short list last year. (One White House insider’s first comment to me about the secretary was that Obama would have loved to nominate her if she hadn’t been so badly needed where she is.) Going forward, if Obama decided to seek a nominee with political chops, Napolitano would be a prime contender. Then there’s the presidential thing: While her single-gal status might complicate matters, she has for years been among the first mentioned whenever speculation arises about who will become our first Madame

President. Not that Napolitano is commenting. Quizzed on her White House ambitions for the 2009 book Notes from the Cracked Ceiling, she demurred. “I mean people mention it now, obviously, because of my resumé,” Napolitano told author Anne Kornblut, with “a twinkle in her eye.” “But my view is, do a good job on this job, and then see what happens.” And therein lies the rub. Because, for all of Napolitano’s vaunted assets, she may have the worst job in Washington-one where keeping the public safe is only part of the battle and where even minor missteps can prove professionally calamitous. Case in point: If Americans know anything about the secretary, it is likely from her moment of notoriety surrounding the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. In the wake of the incident, Napolitano, attempting to calm holiday travelers, clumsily asserted that “the system worked.” The political chattering class leapt on her with both feet. Rushing to walk back her remarks, Napolitano insisted she’d been referring only to the part of “the system” that kicked in after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab made his move. But it was too late. The ferocity of the storm, in which the secretary was painted from coast to coast as a total imbecile,

caught Napolitano off guard. It shouldn’t have. Americans may love to gripe about the inconveniences created by DHS, but we damn sure know where to point the finger if anything even comes close to going boom. The irony is that much of what people think of as securing the homeland--gathering intel, compiling watch lists, issuing visas--is not handled by Napolitano’s troops. Moreover, counterterrorism is only a small fraction of DHS’s mandate. A large chunk of its resources are devoted instead to activities that are at most tangentially related to terrorism, such as immigration control, drug interdiction, and natural disaster relief. Thus, Napolitano’s already fraught job is made all the more challenging by the gulf between the public’s perception of her responsibilities and the rather different reality of her portfolio. Throw in the growing pains of an ill-defined department still struggling to unify 22 agencies, a sadistic oversight arrangement subjecting DHS to the whims of 80-plus congressional committees and subcommittees, and an out-of-power GOP desperate to reclaim the issue of homeland security as its own, and you begin to see why the mission facing Napolitano isn’t just thankless. It may be downright impossible. Although born in New York

City, the 52-year-old Napolitano says she’s a Westerner at heart. Save for a couple of early years spent in Pittsburgh, Janet and her two siblings were raised in Albuquerque, where their dad was a dean of the University of New Mexico medical school. A brainy, competitive striver, Napolitano studied political science at Santa Clara University, where she was the school’s first female valedictorian. She hit the national stage in 1991 when, as a partner in an Arizona law firm, she signed on to help represent Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. Napolitano’s involvement in the spectacle spurred Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman to declare her a political comer. Two years later, President Clinton appointed her U.S. attorney in Arizona. It was during Napolitano’s prosecutorial days that her tough -gal image took root. As U.S. attorney, she handled a couple of high-profile domesticterrorism cases, including one tied to the Oklahoma City bombing. Elected state attorney general in 1998, she became an aggressive advocate of the death penalty, even defending Arizona’s use of it before the Supreme Court. (She lost.) As governor--she was elected in 2002 in what the local press characterized as “one of the SHERIFF page 37

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THE PICTURE: Time in Milwaukee Jed Perl (The New Republic All Feed)

Saarinen; distinguished collections of twentieth-century art; important temporary Submitted at 3/30/2010 9:00:00 PM exhibitions, including, just now, Richard and Erna Flagg were “Raphael: The Woman with the married in Frankfurt, Germany Veil,” which brings one of the in 1932. Richard was Jewish, greatest of all Renaissance t h e s o n o f a w e a l t h y portraits to Milwaukee, and b u s i n e s s m a n . E r n a w a s “Street Seen,” a challenging Protestant; her father, Bernhard show of mid-twentieth-century Zubrod, was an architect. I had American photography. And not heard of the Flaggs until a then there are the clocks in the couple of years ago, when I first Flagg collection. visited the Milwaukee Art It was another German Jewish Museum, and found myself immigrant who brought me back lingering over a display of to Milwaukee last week, a man sixteenth and seventeenth- by the name of Abram Lederer, century clocks, fantastically who opened a dry goods store in intricate creations, which the M i l w a u k e e i n 1 8 6 2 , a n d Flaggs gave to the museum in happens to have been the the early 1990s. I would not be sculptor Alexander Calder’s writing about the Flaggs and maternal grandfather. I am in their clocks now, after another the early stages of writing a fullvisit to Milwaukee, except that length biography of Calder, so the story of how these clocks find myself looking into his found their way into a great mother’s life, before the woman public collection is much more who was then known as Nettie than a Milwaukee story or a L e d e r e r t o o k a m o d e s t Midwestern story. This is a inheritance and, defying her four story about the essential place of older brothers, set off for the artistic endeavor (and of P h i l a d e l p h i a a n d P a r i s t o connoisseurship and collecting become a painter. There is and patronage) in a democratic nothing surprising about the fact society. There are many reasons that German Jews, whether to visit the Milwaukee Art Abram Lederer in the nineteenth Museum: fine architecture by century or Richard Flagg in the Santiago Calatrava and Eero t w e n t i e t h , w e r e d r a w n t o

Milwaukee, that most German of American cities. For Richard Flagg, who only left Germany in 1939, and made his way to America after just missing extermination in Holland, Belgium, and France, Milwaukee was a natural place to reenter the tannery business, which had made his family wealthy in Germany. And once he and Erna were established in Milwaukee, it seems to have mattered not at all that their first collection of Renaissance and Baroque decorative arts, with its concentration of clocks, had been lost. Hitler might have nearly sent them to their deaths, but German culture was still a grand passion, and so the Flaggs began to collect again, on trips to New York and Europe, gathering the intricately engineered, sculpted, and gilded timepieces that had beguiled the royalty and aristocracy of early modern Europe. And then they gave these crazily elaborate concoctions to the citizens of Milwaukee. Old World extravagances became part of the New World museumgoing experience. I love the imaginative caprice of old clocks. The cases that enclose the tricky mechanisms

include a wide range of fairytale forms: towers with delicately shaped columns and turrets; square or circular boxes sheathed in magnificent miniature bas-relief sculptures; a dromedary with a clock face inserted in a saddlebag; a clock in the shape of a revolving globe, with a dark-skinned Moor pointing a lance at the hours as they turn. All this playfulness, of course, has a sobering side, for the invention of the clock in the fourteenth century signaled a rationalization of the idea of time, helping to inaugurate what we think of as modern Europe. The art historian Erwin Panofsky—who was, like Richard Flagg, a Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Europe—mentions in his lectures on Titian that clocks, because of their wellregulated movements, were associated in the Renaissance with temperance, with the wellregulated life. And when I look at the clocks in the Flagg collection now, knowing that Richard Flagg nearly did not escape the Nazi machine, I find something all the more compelling about the story of this man and his wife, a Jew and a Protestant married in Frankfurt in 1932, who created, in

Zara Wedge Boots ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs)

Jade Frampton, Market Editor, in Zara wedge boots “I can walk everywhere in these."

Photo: Kelly Stuart

Milwaukee half a century later, a celebration of the early history of the clock. The fascination of these clocks, which is surely artistic and technological, has a moral dimension as well. Without time there is no history, and history is serious business. That is something that Richard and Erna Flagg understood. German history nearly annihilated them. In American history they found a safe haven. The clocks in the Flagg collection—Renaissance and Baroque baubles, fine-tuned and sumptuous and anything but silly—are timepieces that have defied the ravages of time. When you study these glorious products of a lost aristocratic world amid the democratic perspectives of a Midwestern museum, you are reclaiming, in your own time, the origins and vicissitudes of time. Jed Perl is the art critic of The New Republic. For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Tea Partiers Embrace Liberty, Not Big Government (AEI.Org: Articles)

Republican politicians have been scrambling to lead these protesters. Over the past 14 months, our The conservative rebellions of p o l i t i c a l d e b a t e h a s b e e n the late 1970s and middle 1990s transformed into an argument were focused on taxes. The tea b e t w e e n t h e h e i r s o f t w o partiers are focusing on the fundamental schools of political expansion of government--and thought, the Founders and the its threat to the independence of Progressives. The Founders citizens. stood for the expansion of The first mention of tea parties liberty and the Progressives for came in February 2009 from the expansion of government. CNBC's Rick Santelli on the It's an argument that has been floor of the Chicago Mercantile going on for a century but was Exchange, when he asked "if we largely dormant over the quarter really want to subsidize the - c e n t u r y o f l o w - i n f l a t i o n losers' mortgages? How many of economic growth that followed you people want to pay your the Reagan tax cuts. It's been neighbor's mortgage, that has an raised again by the expand- extra bathroom and can't pay government policies of the their bills?" Then he called for a Obama administration and Chicago tea party. Democratic congressional This struck a chord. Tea leaders. partiers began to dress in 18th Those policies, thoroughly in century costumes--political rel i n e w i t h t h e P r o g r e s s i v e enactors--and brandished the tradition, have been advanced "Don't tread on me" flag. They by liberal elites in government, declared their independence by m e d i a , t h i n k t a n k s a n d opposing Progressive policies academia. The opposition, that encourage dependence on r o u g h l y i n l i n e w i t h t h e government. Founders tradition, has been led The Progressives have always b y t h e n o n - e l i t e s w h o assumed that people needed spontaneously flocked to tea safety nets and would welcome p a r t i e s a n d t o w n h a l l s . dependence on government. The Submitted at 3/30/2010 4:00:00 PM

public's clear rejection of the Democratic health care bills has shown that this assumption was unwarranted. Americans today prefer independence to dependence on government, just as they did 200 years ago. All this was supposed to have been consigned to the past long ago. The Progressives of the early 1900s--Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, New Republic founder Herbert Croly-argued that in an industrial era of mass production and giant businesses, ordinary people were helpless and needed government's guiding hand. It would be more efficient, they argued, for centralized, disinterested experts to administer national institutions than to let chaotic markets operate freely and to observe the Constitution's horse-and-buggy limits on government power. The Founders were out of date. The Progressives had their way for much of the 20th century. But it became apparent that centralized experts weren't disinterested, but always sought to expand their power. And it became clear that central

SHERIFF continued from page 35

tightest and ugliest races for governor in memoryâ&#x20AC;?--she was the stateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first chief executive to call up the National Guard to

control illegal immigration Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: a l o n g A r i z o n a â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s s o u t h e r n PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, border. Term Extraction. Five Filters featured article:

planners can never have the kind of information that is transmitted instantly, as Friedrich von Hayek observed, by price signals in free markets. It turned out that centralized experts are not as wise and ordinary Americans are not as helpless as the Progressives thought. By passing the stimulus package and the health care bills the Democrats produced expansion of government. But voters seem to prefer expansion of liberty. The Progressives' scorn for the Founders has not been shared by the people. First-rate books about the Founders have been best-sellers. And efforts to dismiss the Founders as slaveholders, misogynists or homophobes have been outweighed by the resonance of their words and deeds. The Declaration of Independence's proclamation that "all men are created equal" with "unalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" has proved to be happily elastic. It still sings to us today, thanks to the struggles and sacrifices of many Americans who gave blacks and

women the equality denied to them in 1776. In contrast, the early Progressives' talk of an "industrial age" and an outmoded Constitution sounds like the language of an age now long past. Their faith in centralized planning seems naive in a time when one unpredicted innovation after another has changed lives for the better. Polls and recent election results tell us that racial minorities and the so-called "educated class"-the people who expect their kind will administer centralized institutions--still take the side of the Progressives. Most Americans, however, are rejecting the path of dependence and are intent on declaring their independence once again. Michael Barone is a resident fellow at AEI. P h o t o C r e d i t : ajagendorf25/Fllickr/Creative Commons Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Ga. Lawmaker Wants to Impeach AG Over Health Care

Drill, Obama, Drill contributors@theatlantic.com (Marc Ambinder) (Politics :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:39:35 AM

For a Democratic president, this is a pretty gutsy move to open the public debate about an energy bill. Or, well, maybe it's not: it's high-reward, low-risk; environmentalists will complain, but then again, environmentalists complain. Aside from the substance, which is beyond our ken, the politics of this move is easy: with one fell swoop, Obama deprives Republicans of the major talking point they'd use to object to more expansive governmentbased climate remediation and energy prospecting policy. Republicans will quibble over details: why is he not opening up more places? Why is he excluding Bristol Bay? Why is he excluding parts of the Gulf of Mexico? His steps are too slow, too limited... The Republicans sort of have a point, although it's not the point they're comfortable with:

estimates of how much oil can be extracted are very old -decades old -- and, as the New York Times notes, "[i]n many of the newly opened areas, drilling would begin only after the completion of geologic studies, environmental impact statements, court challenges and public lease sales. Much of the oil and gas may not be recoverable at current prices and may be prohibitively expensive even if oil prices spike as they did in the summer of 2008." To which the White House responds by pointing to the headlines: "Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time." Grist, the environmentalist news website, considers the move a "stunning concession to fossil fuel companies." It shows that the president has a sense of urgency about energy and the environment, etc. In any event, it seems a little tone deaf, given what the public knows and will learn about the announcement, for Republicans

(Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:34:22 AM

to argue that Obama "continues to defy the will of the American people." By announcing this BEFORE the Senate moves forward with its climate change legislation, which may or may not include cap-and-trade (probably not), the White House is betting that they'll force Republicans into a corner before the public debate begins, they'll give some cover to moderate Democratic members of Congress (who love it when Obama picks a fight with his own base), and they'll get some public cred with Americans who want to see the president moving quickly to find opportunities to create jobs. This isn't about votes in Congress per se, it's about perception, cover and framing the debate. It's also a move that tries to get ahead of rising gas prices. Thumbnail photo credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A Georgia legislator wants to begin the impeachment process against his state attorney general for refusing to sue the federal government over health care reform. Republican state Rep. Mark Hatfield filed a bill Tuesday against Democratic Attorney General Thurbert Baker, who is also running for governor. The resolution claims Baker is required by the Georgia constitution to follow Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue's direction and join 14 other states challenging the Democratic-backed health care

bill. Baker says the state lacks a viable legal claim. Perdue says if needed he will appoint outside counsel. The Republican-led House would have to approve the resolution by a simple majority. The Senate would then hold a trial and two-thirds must vote for impeachment. © 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.

ASUS 5870 Eyefinity Supports More Displays Than You Have Eyes [Graphics Cards] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:58:26 AM

When you're about to drop a black market kidney payment on a graphics card, you may go for flat-out speed—which makes sense. But another option might

be more than enough speed and support for six displays. More »

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Sarkozy's Visit contributors@theatlantic.com (Clive Crook) (Politics :: The Atlantic)

develop new partnerships elsewhere, notably with China and Russia. (With mixed results. Outreach to Russia has Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:14:10 AM T h e v i s i t o f t h e F r e n c h borne fruit on nuclear arms president was happily timed to reduction. The effort to get on draw headlines at home away with China seems to have from the regional election stalled.) Feelings in Britain are results. It seemed to go well. especially bruised. You could Sarkozy spoke to a packed argue that Gordon Brown has attentive house at Columbia been snubbed, not merely University. He performed deftly n e g l e c t e d , b y O b a m a , at his White House press notwithstanding Britain's large conference (putting Obama on a n d p o l i t i c a l l y t a x i n g the spot over EADS by saying, commitment in Afghanistan. "He is a man of his word"). And This recent piece by Robert with his elegant wife he was Kagan was on to something. treated to a rarely bestowed You seem to get more warmth supper a quatre with the US from Obama as an adversary president and First Lady. than as a friend. Speaking about Obama at This administration pays liphome, his tone had been more service to "multilateralism," but critical of late. Like other it is a multilateralism of European leaders, he evidently a c c o m m o d a t i n g a u t o c r a t i c feels that the administration is r i v a l s , n o t o f s o l i d i f y i n g neglecting them, preferring to r e l a t i o n s w i t h l o n g t i m e

democratic allies. Rather than strengthening the democratic foundation of the new "international architecture" -the G-20 world -- the administration's posture is increasingly one of neutrality, at best, between allies and adversaries, and between democrats and autocrats. Sarkozy prepared for this trip by criticizing US policy and advertising the limits to French co-operation with the US. He was warmly received as a result. If I were advising Brown on managing his own relationship with Obama, I'd say, "Forget the special relationship--it means nothing to Obama. No more reflexive support of the US. Follow Sarkozy's example, and things will warm up directly."

If You're Looking For a Nice, Bracing Industrial Policy Debate... contributors@theatlantic.com (James Fallows) (Politics :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:10:41 AM

... and you're in Washington DC on April 8, come to a morning session formally debating the proposition, "Resolved: that the United States can and should 'pick winners' " at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. More info, plus online registration forms, here. I will be moderating, and the teams will be: For the proposition, Robert Atkinson, of the ITIF; and Clyde Prestowitz, of the Economic Strategy Institute. Against the proposition: Robert

Lawrence, of the Kennedy School; and Claude Barfield, of the American Enterprise Institute. We'll run this as a full-on structured debate, of the type many of us recall from high school and college. (And not as the side show / pop-knowledge quiz / personality contest / talking-points derby that is the typical Presidential " debate.") At the end we'll have some moderator questions and general audience discussion. Probably even a before-and-after audience poll on the proposition, to see if any minds were changed. See you there.

No Comments Kills the Peanut Gallery at Hand-Picked Sites [Downloads] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:30:00 AM

Chrome: You can use " Just

Don't Look" as a strategy for avoiding less-than-helpful web comments, but your eyes will often defeat you. No Comments

elegantly removes the comments

section from many sites, but lets you turn the worthy comments back on. More Âť

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Rulers of the Cloud: A Multi-Tenant Semantic Cloud is Forming & EMC Knows that Data Matters Mike Kirkwood (ReadWriteWeb)

information assets. Where Does Data Live? EMC's byline is " Where Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:21:00 AM Information Lives", and by EMC is a large company being a leading provider of focused on high performance storage solutions, this claim is storage for enterprises. It's literal indeed. offerings are closely aligned Here, we see that data does with the idea of extending have a home. i n f r a s t r u c t u r e f r o m In this case, in an enclosure, in virtualization to private cloud a data center. This YouTube infrastructure. The company v i d e o s h a r e s a 2 0 0 9 wants to help IT data demonstration of EMC's provisioning services are as easy Symmetrix V-Max. This unit, as Amazon and as secure as Fort built in partnership with Intel, Knox. can be configured with up to To get a handle of where two petabytes of storage and one enterprise data storage meets the terrabyte of cache. web, we looked for inspiration Based on our interview from architects of the web and Newman from the company and Internet, including web pioneer its focus on creating and Sir Tim Berner-Lee and Vint extending private clouds, we Cerf. We take a look at EMC as think the EMC is recognizing p o s i t i o n e d a s t h e c l o s e t , the vast power of extending the physically, to the core assets of enterprise out and providing the enterprise. services that compete with with Sponsor the ease and speed of Amazon In this report, we also spoke Web Services, but also provide with Ted Newman, CTO of the enterprise class controls and Cloud Infrastructure Group of performance. Where Does Data EMC Consulting, which is part Dance? of EMC Global Services to find Tim Berners Lee sheds some out what is really happening in light in this interview about the the enterprise sales and delivery future of the web and its data. engines. Question: "Is your vision of the We mashed his thoughts up Semantic Web one in which with some big-thinkers in the data is freely available, or are c o r e o f c o m p u t i n g t o g e t there access rights attached to perspective on the company's it?" future as a map to enterprise Answer: "A lot of information

I took on vacation. Certainly, I want to give it to my friends and my family, but I don't necessarily wish to license people I don't know who are curious about me and my work and let them see where I've been. Companies may want to do the same thing. They might is already public, so one of the say, "We're going to give you simple things to do in building a c c e s s t o c e r t a i n p r o d u c t the new Web of data is to start information because you're part with that information. And of our supply chain and you can recently, I've been working with u s e i t t o f i n e - t u n e y o u r both the U.K. government and manufacturing schedule to meet the U.S. government in trying our demand. However, we do not only to get more information not license you to use it to give on the Web, but also to make it to our competition to modify linked data. But it's also very their pricing." important that systems are This vision is where there is aware of the social aspects of opportunity, accountable means data. And it's not just access controls. Shared, means cloud. control, because an authorized Perhaps a new term in the user can still use the right data making: Accountable clouds. for the wrong purpose. So we Does Your Cloud Compile? Vint Cerf, Chief Internet need to focus on what are the Evangelist posted to the Google purposes for accessing different R e s e a r c h blog, Cloud kinds of data, and for that we've been looking at accountable Computing and the Internet that further expands on vocabulary systems. Accountable systems are aware m a n a g e m e n t a n d c l o u d of the appropriate use of data, computing. We see a definition and they allow you to make sure of cloud computing emerging that certain kinds of information h e r e t h a t t i e s i t t o d a t a that you are comfortable sharing portability and capability, a with people in a social context, d e f i n i n g m o m e n t i n t h e for example, are not able to be definition of semantic web. accessed and considered by "Interestingly, my colleague, Sir people looking to hire you. For Tim Berners-Lee, has been example, I have a GPS trail that pursuing ideas that may inform

the so-called "inter-cloud" problem. His idea of data linking may prove to be a part of the vocabulary needed to interconnect computing clouds. The semantics of data and of the actions one can take on the data, and the vocabulary in which these actions are expressed appear to me to constitute the beginning of an inter-cloud computing language. This seems to me to be an extremely open field in which creative minds everywhere can be free to contribute ideas and to experiment with new concepts. It is a new layer in the Internet architecture and, like the many layers that have been invented before, it is an open opportunity to add functionality to an increasingly global network." All of the sudden, the semantic web seems required to realize the vision of the cloud. And, the great thing about it is that the cloud layer being a first example of the semantic web shows us we can start it in information technology's own backyard. EMC's Opportunity The enterprise of the future needs to share nicely, store petabytes at-will, and be available on demand. Also, to the degree that organizations run sensitive or RULERS page 43

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Location-Based Social Networks: Delightful, Dangerous or Somewhere in Between? Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

from Foursquare users who used the service's social sharing feature to broadcast their Are location-based social updates publicly on Twitter. networks privacy disasters Although that site has since waiting to happen? Or are the been shuttered, the point they supposed "dangers" simply were trying to make still being overhyped by those resonates: sharing your physical w i t h o u t a t h o r o u g h location with a public network is understanding of what these a dangerous and really dumb new networks can and cannot idea. do? Today, these questions are Want more examples? How the subject of a serious debate about the story of the Twitter among early adopters - the user who broadcast his vacation group of people who are first to only to find his house robbed sign up for and try out the latest when he came home. Or more technology innovations, testing recently, a women's Facebook everything from iPads to mobile status update alerted a burglar apps. that her home was empty and There are currently a number of ready to be robbed. (The thief location-based social networks got away with $10,000 in stolen clamoring for your attention, goods). Social Networks and including earlier contenders like Privacy Loopt and Brightkite as well as However, the above incidents the later to arrive game-based take place on a somewhat public networks like Foursquare and stage. (The Facebook woman, Gowalla. Even user review site for instance, had collected Yelp is getting in on the action. around 600 friends - surely not S o i s G o o g l e . A n d s o i s all of them were truly personal Facebook, apparently. contacts?) But is sharing your location The new mobile social with your online "friends" networking services allow for a asking for trouble? bit more privacy. On these Sponsor networks, you can control who Please Rob Me? OK! Says you "friend" and, in some cases, Burglar who can see your exact location. Not too long ago, a social Brightkite, for example, lets you experiment called PleaseRobMe choose to share updates with l a u n c h e d , d i s p l a y i n g t h e either just friends or with aggregated real-time updates everyone. Foursquare lets you Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:34:25 AM

sure. Dangers to Women? This is the point that Director of Partner Marketing for the Rackspace Cloud Michelle Greer makes on a recent blog post where she explains why she can't get excited about geolocation. "I've had some not so pleasant experiences with someone who felt compelled to check in to locations "off the tell me that I couldn't block him grid," meaning checking in from certain circles of my life," privately without letting your she wrote. "When I'd tweet that friends know where they can people should go to an event, he'd friend everyone involved. find you. Redefining Friend Unfortunately, the issue with all He was basically trying to be these networks comes down to everywhere I was both online how someone defines the word and off and it was very scary." "friend." Ever since the days of Also frightening is the story MySpace, it seems the goal has from out-spoken blogger Harriet been to accumulate the most Jacobs. She discovered that friends. This mindset has carried G o o g l e h a d r e v e a l e d h e r over to many other social location with the launch of its networks, including Twitter, the social network, Buzz. It exposed social aggregator FriendFeed what she believed were private and Google Buzz, all of which comments on blog posts shared publicly track and expose how in Google Reader. Those who many people follow you, an could now see these details indication of popularity...and included a group of anonymous who doesn't want to be popular? strangers (aka "blog readers") The truth is, an online friend who had sent her threats over may or may not be worthy of the the years. Plus, her top emailed same level of trust as someone contact was none other than an you know in real life. Sure, they abusive ex-husband. All this might be - in fact, odds are they because Google mistakenly are lovely people - but without a thought that your email contact history of interaction that list was - in all cases- your true extends beyond sharing a few social network. Google has links and comments on Twitter, since apologized for the blunder, you can't possibly know that for but the damage was done.

Anecdotally, the fears of being socially stalked have been whispered behind the scenes ever since these mobile social networks launched. While some may claim (perhaps accurately) that these examples of the supposed dangers are fringe cases, the sad truth is that women are stalked and harassed more often than men - it's just a statistical fact. Most won't blog about it as publicly as Greer or Jacobs did, though - they simply won't use a service that discloses their location. You Can be Smart About This...but Can the Mainstream? Now, granted, there are ways to maintain some privacy when using services like these, whether you're worried about stalking, robbery or simply want to be left alone. Social networker extraordinaire Robert Scoble made a few suggestions in the comments of Greer's blog post. His ideas: lie about your exact location, be more picky about your friends, change your name or check in after you've left. These are all tactics that would certainly work well, so now the decision users have to make is should they bother? Some may feel that's quite a bit effort just to generate a badge collection or get a tip about a LOCATION-BASED page 44

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The State of Linked Data in 2010 Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 3/31/2010 2:30:55 AM

In May last year we wrote about the state of Linked Data, an official W3C project that aims to connect separate data sets on the Web. Linked Data is a subset of the wider Semantic Web movement, in which data on the Web is encoded with meaning using technologies such as RDF and OWL. The ultimate vision is that the Web will become much more structured, which opens up many possibilities for "smarter" web applications. At this stage last year, we noted that Linked Data was ramping up fast - evidenced by the increasing number of data sets on the Web as at March 2009. Fast forward a year and the Linked Data 'cloud' has continued to expand. In this post we look at some of the developments in Linked Data over the past year. Sponsor Governments Get on Board The most high profile usage of Linked Data over the past year has come from two governments: the United States and United Kingdom. The U.S. was first to open up some of its non-personal data for use by developers, with the May 2009 launch of Data.gov. In January 2010, the U.K. government announced

Data.gov.uk- with the help of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. At launch, Data.gov.uk had nearly 3,000 data sets available for developers to build mashups with. At the time it was more than three times as much data than the U.S. site offered. Following on from the launch of Data.gov.uk, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a new British Institute for Web Science along

with $45 million in government backing. The Institute will be led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee and prominent researcher Nigel Shadbolt. This was great news for Linked Data, because according to Prime Minister Brown, the Institute "will help place the U.K. at the cutting edge of research on the Semantic Web and other emerging web and internet technologies." Commercial Applications

There have been commercial success stories too, such as OpenCalais for media, MusicBrainz for music and GoodRelations for e-commerce. There are also many commercial sites tapping into the general knowledge data store at dbpedia.org. However it's relatively early days for commercial applications of Linked Data. We're beginning to see smart people explore potential use

cases, such as this list for news organizations, but much of the early implementation is being done by publicly funded entities such as the U.K.'s BBC. The latest version of the Linking Open Data dataset cloud, as at July 2009, maintained by Richard Cyganiak and Anja Jentzsch. Just Get The Data Up There To reiterate, Linked Data is STATE page 45

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RULERS continued from page 40

personalized enterprise software, the platforms it runs on and interacts with will need to demonstrate the controls and permissions similar to those today inside the enterprise. This will be a key factor in whether the enterprise systems can gracefully consume cloud computing - or what they can adopt it for. This is the space open for EMC to provide hardware solutions coupled with software to manage the resources of the cloud, including storage, computing, and network. This is also the area of much focus - from monitoring to provisioning. And a winner is not going to be determined overnight. A roundup of open questions for the company and the enterprise information industry: • VMware and Not- Can EMC win soley with ties to VMware, if open source hypervisors take significant market share, can and will the company be well positioned in these architectures? • Oracle with Sun- Will Oracle's move into hardware,

cloud, and storage have an impact on the companies positioning? • S3 Servers in the EnterpriseWe may have made this up. It seems clear that S3 and other Amazon Web Services will become the core fabric for IT adopting the cloud. It only makes sense to do the same with abstracting storage in the enterprise. We believe in the power of the cloud to creep in, and we want to see how big storage providers react to this new logical competitor. A key here for EMC and the rest of the IT industry is that Amazon sells storage with no consulting involved, or waiting period. At EMC, global services was responsible for 37% of EMC's total revenue in 2009 and is a important part of servicing customers. We wonder, should EMC offer an "S3" for the enterprise that plugs into Ionix and other EMC offerings? • Open Protocols Inside, APIs Outside?- We asked recently in a discussion with Hitachi Data Systems whether open protocols instead of APIs would be the driver for this industry

interoperability. Amazon, is clearly an API, where things more in the core of storage tier are protocols, worked on in tandem by many and influenced by those who matter. • Helping IT Respond to NowIn a way, EMC and cloud computing meet in the IT budgeting process. We think that providing "always available" and "highly available" will meet, "low latency" and "DR" in a real way in future Amazon vs. internal discussions. What we mean, is that Amazon providing "scale as you go" is perfect disruption for the IT department. Iinfrastructure scales, IT budgets don't. This can be a big headache for IT trying to predict the future and is an opportunity for EMC to provide a better solution for enterprise capacity management. Yes, that means paying with a credit card - at least sometimes. • Intel / Cisco as partners- New types of network management and cloud services are evolving in the chipset and network layer. We see the companies maturity in how it has global partnerships

with these companies to help the the channel and drive solutions. At the same time, this centuries IT industry is more of a moshpit than a sing-a-long, and it seems like it is going to get very cozy in the future in the area of network and cloud management. This EMC rant on YouTube is a funny take on where the company is positioned. If EMC plays it's cards right, enterprises will choose its tools to "control the shape" of the data and systems in the data center. And, if it evolves quickly enough, the same IT manages will have solutions that keep all of the companies assets, including public cloud offerings, under one umbrella. Is your enterprise moving your data out into the cloud? Or is the cloud moving into your company's data? Photo credit: paul_clarke Discuss

Hamilton Time Player Watch Inspired By 2001: A Space Odyssey [Watches] Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:40:52 AM

Here's some interesting context for Hamilton's watch: they recycled the design from a clock they originally made for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Director Stanley Kubrick was notoriously pernickety about design, so what was good for him is good for us. More »

Behind the Scenes of Janet Jackson’s New Music Video (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:05:00 AM

Check out revealing behind-the -scenes footage of Janet Jackson

filming the music video for her new single, "Nothing." The emotional ballad's video promises some eye-catching special effects, and Janet says of

shooting one scene: "It's green screen now, but when you see it, you'll see the glass sheets, the walls of glass, and there will be different images on them as I

walk between them." Watch the video for more with Janet and producer Jermaine Dupri. "Nothing," available now, is the theme song for

Janet’s new movie, 'Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?', in theaters Friday.

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Mobile Firefox Comes to Android (Sort of) Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

prone to crashes and bugs. But that's what pre-alpha means especially a pre-alpha that Fennec, the mobile version of wasn't released by the Mozilla the Firefox web browser, is now organization itself. available in an early build So what can you do with the designed for Android handsets Android version of Fennec? t h a n k s t o a f a n - c o m p i l e d Well, you can test out its download posted on an Android features, like tabbed browsing, developers forum. And by early, tab synchronization between we mean unofficial, pre-alpha, desktop and mobile and browser device-specific and downright add-ons. Right now, there aren't buggy. But for anyone interested too many add-ons available, but in mobile b r o w s e r given the stage of development, developments, this port is an that's not surprising. interesting sneak peek into the Fennec: Slow to Launch? future of Firefox's mobile plans. We first heard of Mozilla's Sponsor plans to bring Fennec to Fennec for Droid Android back in June of last German developer Martin year when Google announced a Schirr's version of Fennec is change in how software can run ideal for Droid users because it on Android. After the release of requires a hardware-based a new Android NDK that used keyboard. Without support for C/C++ programming languages touch input or multi-touch, it - the same as Firefox - Mozilla won't work on all flavors of the b e g a n t o c o n s i d e r t h e G o o g l e A n d r o i d m o b i l e possibilities of bringing the operating system. Fennec browser to the GoogleIt's also a hefty download - 41 branded mobile platform. MB in size. And it freezes upon In October, Mozilla CEO John first boot. Plus, it's slow and L i l l y r e - c o n f i r m e d t h e Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:58:16 AM

end, Windows Phone 7 Series. This OS will include an updated version of Internet Explorer Mobile that offers multi-touch gesture support and tabbed browsing, among other features. Mozilla is expected to release a working build of Fennec around organization's plans to build an the same time, but depending on Android version, while touting the exact launch dates, they may its many features like support not get to claim "first" anymore for "Javascript, CSS, Flash, - at least among the top web SVG, video and audio." It browsers out there. (Third-party would be "the first mobile apps already deliver tabbed browser to support add-ons," he browsing on various mobile devices). That being said, said. Now it's nearly 9 months later support for Mozilla is still and there's still not a usable strong. And once functional, it version of the browser for may have a lot more to offer Android devices - just pre-alpha than its competitors. In the meantime, intrepid builds like this. Should we be Android geeks will be definitely concerned? Should Mozilla? be interested in giving this new While waiting for a real version fan-compiled Fennec build a of Fennec, the popularity of W e b k i t - b a s e d b r o w s e r s look. However, general Android continues to grow, Opera gains users should probably stay away mobile ground (especially on for now - this version is by no feature phones), and last month, means meant for daily use. Microsoft announced a new Discuss mobile OS launching by year-

You're Not Truly Rich Until You Have Your Own Mothership [Ships] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:00:00 AM

This is absolutely insane. Apparently, there are people so rich that, not happy with having their own megayacht, get themselves a huge support ship to carry giant speedboats, sailboats, helicopters, and even submarines. That's what the Sea Axe is. More Âť

LOCATION-BASED continued from page 41

restaurant's best dish. But others will find more compelling reasons to use mobile social networks. At big events, for example, these networks can help you find your friends. You may even save a few bucks on your meal thanks to a mobile

coupon received upon check-in and everyone loves saving money. Still, if early adopters are still debating these risks and rewards, what will the mainstream think? They're already terrified of the molesters

on MySpace and the boss reading their Facebook status. And many of them are so technically un-savvy that they opted in to letting Facebook share their updates with everyone without even realizing it. Some of them don't even

know when they're on Facebook or when they're reading this blog. Are these people capable of using mobile social networks properly in ways that won't put them at risk? Or will they add friends willy-nilly, broadcast their every move then be

stunned when something bad happens? Discuss

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Got Roomies? Pay Your Bills With WePay, the Online Group Payment System

STATE continued from page 42

data that has been marked up using Semantic Web technologies such as RDF (Resource Description Framework) or RDFa (a simpler variation). Minus the acronyms, Mike Melanson counter or a pocketful of Linked Data is simply structured (ReadWriteWeb) unrolled coins, it can be an data. automated email and electronic However one of the reasons the Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:40:10 AM payment. Semantic Web hasn't yet been If you've ever lived in a house The group accounts are FDIC- w i d e l y a d o p t e d , a t l e a s t with multiple roommates, then insured and can make payments commercially, is that it's often you know the pain of collecting by a WePay VISA prepaid card, difficult or time consuming to for the various bills each month h a v e b e e n g i v i n g i t r a v e paper checks and electronic mark up data semantically. RDF and keeping track of who paid reviews. If it does what it says it transfers. Of course, the way in particular has a reputation for what and when. Add to that the does, we wouldn't see why not. WePay makes money in all of being painful to code. With that frustration of one person paying So far, it has received funding this is by taking a little bit of in mind, the past year has been cash while another only has from August Capital, Max each transaction. According to as much about prompting checks on hand, and you'll be Levchin (the founder of PayPal), the company, it collects "as little governments and organizations Ron Conway (early investor in ready to call it quits. as 50 cents per transaction". to put their data up on the Web That is, unless you've found Google, Facebook and Twitter), On the other end of it, for the in whatever form they can. WePay, the online payment Eric Dunn (former CTO and people paying into a group pot, Indeed when I interviewed Sir service launching tomorrow CFO of Intuit), and others. W e P a y a l s o o f f e r s s o m e Tim Berners-Lee last July, he c u s t o m m a d e t o h a n d l e WePay allows its users to set up transparency, as they can watch told me that he'd be happy if situations like roommates, shared financial accounts with where their collected funds are governments "just put data up in teams, organizations or any varying levels of access for being spent. After having spent whatever form it's available." group where everyone pitches different users, giving them a some years in cooperative living way to manage group payments in. environments, this services and finances. Asking your Sponsor sounds like a dream come true. The company has been in roommates to pay the monthly Discuss private beta for the past six Internet bill doesn't have to be a months and says that its testers scrap of paper on the kitchen

He mentioned that "Comma separated values (CSV) files are remarkably popular." He'd be much more happier if it was semantically marked up data, using the likes of RDF, but conversion can happen after it's been uploaded to the Web. So overall, Linked Data is still early in its adoption curve. However it's undeniably become a solid on-ramp to the wider Semantic Web and world of structured data. For a good technical overview of the current state of Linked Data and the Semantic Web, see this presentation by Davide Palmisano. Discuss

'Treme' Writer David Mills Dies After Collapsing on Set Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:55:00 AM

Sad news coming out of the New Orleans set of the new HBO series'Treme': writer and producer David Mills collapsed on the set and later passed away

at a local hospital. According to the Times-Picayune site, Mills had a brain aneurysm. Mills was head writer and producer on the show, which is about how a group of people of New Orleans rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina. Mills

won two Emmys for his writing

and producing on the HBO miniseries 'The Corner' and wrote for several other shows as well, including 'ER,' 'Homicide: Life on the Street,' 'Kingpin,' 'NYPD Blue,' and was a story editor on the CBS drama 'Picket Fences.' He also wrote for

several newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. 'Treme' premieres on April 11. Filed under: Celebrities, Obituaries, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Twelve tablets make the T3 Hot 100 Best Gadgets List Tablet (BestTabletReview.com) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:04:50 AM

Look who claimed the #1 spot Think tablets haven’t arrived yet? Well 12, count ‘em 12, have landed on the T3 Hot 100 “World’s Greatest Gadgets” list including a tablet at the number one spot. Pretty impressive for a form factor some said would never make it. There shouldn’t be any real surprise that #1 was given to the Apple iPad. Even if you believe the product itself is lacking there’s no denying that the iPad was the most anticipated and hyped tech product launches of, arguably, all time. It also solidified the “age of tablets” for all those waiting on Apple to do so. The iPad does have its weaknesses (and we think there will be a collective sigh of disappointment when everyone fires theirs up on Saturday and realizes just how much Flash there really is online), but it’s a no-brainer top contender. Somewhat surprising was that the other top 10 finalists were comprised of two E-Ink eReaders. The Skiff Reader came in at #5 followed in the #6 spot by the Lenovo IdeaPad U1(the dockable tablet/laptop hybrid) and the Amazon Kindle

DX coming in under the wire at #9. We’re glad to see that someone else has high hopes for the Notion Ink Adam(#16) and that it’s placed even higher than the HP Slate(#17). Good move on T3’s part. The following tablet products comprised of the T-Mobile Vega(#23), Dell Mini 5(#29), Samsung E101(#32), Spring Design Alex(#33), Barnes and Noble Nook(#47) and the X2 iTablet (#99). There were a few products we would have liked to see make the list that didn’t. The MSI Harmony represents what we think will be one of the best new tablets to hit the market this year. It’s combination of Tegra 2 processor, entry level price ($500), capacitive 10-inch touchscreen and Android all spell “win” in our book. Plus,

the allotment of HDMI, SD and miniUSB slots puts it over the top of some other familiar competitors. Also absent was the Sony Dash which we were impressed with for two reasons: the low price ($200) and the sheer number of free applications available for it (over 1,000). What are your thoughts? Think something should have made the list or not made it? Feel that some devices are ranked to high or to low? See the full list at T3 and let us know in the comments below. Source: T3 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Leica M9 hands-on; or, The Tao of Leica Chris Ziegler (Engadget)

day or two with the M9, the company's latest flagship rangefinder with an 18 F o r m o s t a m a t e u r megapixel CCD sensor sourced p h o t o g r a p h e r s , L e i c a ' s from Kodak. legendary M System represents And what, exactly, does it feel a virtually unobtainable holy like to carry $11,695 worth of grail, a line of cameras so rangefinder body and lens unspeakably expensive, rare, around? Follow the break. and coveted that even having the Gallery: Leica M9 hands-on opportunity to hold one -- much Continue reading Leica M9 less own one -- is a somewhat hands-on; or, The Tao of Leica unrealistic goal. Why is that, Leica M9 hands-on; or, The exactly? It's a combination of Tao of Leica originally appeared things, really; sure, Leica's on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar b r a n d c a c h e t u n d o u b t e d l y 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see factors into it, but in reality, it's our terms for use of feeds. much, much more than that. For Permalink| | Email this| o u r m o n e y , n o t h i n g Comments demonstrates that better than a Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:00:00 AM

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Battlefield: Earth writer says sorry to all of Planet Earth Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:00:16 AM

Contrition is a wonderful thing. Now, I’m not the biggest sci-fi guy here, but even I know that Battlefield: Earth ranks among the worst films ever created—some would even say that it is the single worst movie in the history of cinema. That may well be, but the gentleman who penned the original script has now, on the record, officially apologized to mankind for helping to create the movie. That’s called integrity, folks. The script was originally written by one J.D. Shapiro, who started work on the project way back in 1994, six years

before its unfortunate release. Ten years later, it won the Razzie for Worst Film of the Decade. The apology begins: Let me start by apologizing to anyone who went to see Battlefield Earth. It wasn’t as I intended—promise. No one sets out to make a train wreck. Actually, comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those. Then it goes into some backstory, but coalasces around this point: My script was very, VERY different than what ended up on the screen. My screenplay was darker, grittier and had a very

compelling story with rich characters. What my screenplay didn’t have was slow motion at every turn, Dutch tilts, campy dialogue, aliens in KISS boots, and everyone wearing Bob

Marley wigs. … I have no idea why they wanted to go in this new direction, but here’s what I heard from someone in John’s camp: Out of

all the books L. Ron wrote, this was the one the church founder wanted most to become a movie. He wrote extensive notes on how the movie should be made. So there you have it. There’s probably numerous why this movie was doomed from the beginning, but it looks like L. Ron Hubbard, the leader of Scientology, decided to meddle with movie-production. Leave the movie-making to the movie-makers, and leave all the other stuff to, um, the other people. Pretty safe to say I’ll never see this movie, not even in an ironic “bad movie night” fashion. No, sir.

Canon Rebel T2i / 550D receives plaudit-heavy reviews Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:13:00 AM

We've seen plenty of the headline 1080p / 30fps video mode on the Rebel T2i, but what's been missing till now are the equally comprehensive reviews of this new 18 megapixel shooter's other talents. Starting off with image quality -- still the bread and

butter of any DSLR -- Camera Labs informs us that "the EOS 550D / T2i delivered images which were essentially the same as those from the EOS 7D," describing them as highly detailed and exhibiting no greater noise than can be found on Nikon's 12 megapixel competitors. An impressive feat, newly improved LCD screen on y o u w i l l a g r e e . F u r t h e r the back, whose 3:2 ratio appreciation is meted out for the

matches the sensor's dimensions, but there's also warning that the 7D retains a significant advantage in terms of ergonomics, weatherproofing, continuous burst mode, and autofocus. Even so, both reviews were happy to pin their "highly recommended" badges on the T2i, and you can discover the more nuanced reasons for doing so at the source links

below. Canon Rebel T2i / 550D receives plaudit-heavy reviews originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Camera Labs, Photography Blog| Email this| Comments

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ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition review roundup: novel, but not for everyone

From Teen Queen to Leading Lady: Miley Cyrus' Sizzlin' Style Through the Years!

Darren Murph (Engadget)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:36:00 AM

We've been fortunate enough to spend a bit of time with an Eyefinity setup before, but up until now, it's been somewhat of a hassle to get a fully functional six-screen setup into a consumer's home. Today, AMD is taking the legwork out of the equation with the introduction of the Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition, a standalone GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 memory and innate support for pushing a half-dozen panels at once. Outside of that, it's essentially the same card that we saw last September, and based on the cadre of reviews that we rounded up, the doubled memory bank doesn't do much to boost frame rates. What it

does do, however, is enable sixscreen gaming. Unfortunately (though understandably), this type of gaming scenario is only meant for a select segment of users, and many critics found the novelty wearing off exceptionally quick. In fact, it

wasn't long before NeoSeeker became fed up with the bezels ruining the experience, and just about everyone agreed that you needed to sit a good half-mile away to really enjoy it. Either way, we'd encourage you to hit up Hot Hardware's collection of

videos before biting the bullet, buying up an extra five LCDs and then regretting it for the rest of your Earthly life. Read- Hot Hardware Read- AnandTech Read- NeoSeeker Read- Rage3D Read- PC Perspective Read- TweakTown Read- FiringSquad Read- Tom's Hardware Read- ExtremeTech ATI Radeon HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 Edition review roundup: novel, but not for everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| AMD| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:00:00 AM

A then-relatively unknown 13year-old named Miley Cyrus hit the teen scene in the spring of 2006 by landing a highly coveted role on Disney's "Hannah Montana." Since then, Miley has taken the TV, music and film worlds by storm. From teenage cutie to international superstar, Miley has dazzled everyone from pre-teens, teens and adults for the past four years. And now the 17-year-old star is moving away from her bubble-gum pop roles and taking on a more serious role in the romantic drama 'The Last Song,' hitting theaters today. Take a look at Miley as her style transforms through the years!

ASUS's 20-inch ET2010 EeeTop models with Ion power detailed Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:49:00 AM

We've been hearing about the ET2010 model since CES, then got another glimpse at CeBIT a few weeks ago, and now the allin-one machine is making its international debut -- and ASUS has more than one to share with

us. The five models range from the ET2010AG, with an AMD Athlon II processor, up to the ET2010PNT, with an Atom D510. All models have a 20inch, 1600 x 900 displays, but only two of them sport multitouch. Storage ranges from 160GB to 500GB, 1 or 2GB of RAM is available, and graphics

options include an integrated Intel GMA chipset, ATI's

Radeon HD 5470, or, most interestingly, Ion 2 graphics in the two Atom-powered options. All offer a DVD drive and all sport the same, wall-mountable and 1-inch thick design. What we don't know is when these will be shipping or how much they'll cost, but you'll surely be the first to hear after we do.

ASUS's 20-inch ET2010 EeeTop models with Ion power detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| ASUS| Email this| Comments

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New doubleTwist for Mac adds built-in Android Market functionality Paul Miller (Engadget)

presents QR codes for scanning with your Android phone and directly downloading the apps T h e l a t e s t v e r s i o n o f on the handset like you do d o u b l e T w i s t f o r t h e M a c already. Sure, desktop app (1.0b1b to be precise, available downloads, backup, and syncing now) adds a whole new Android would certainly be better, but M a r k e t e l e m e n t t o t h e this is a nice start at least. Dapplication. Much akin to the Twist (as we like to call it) is i T u n e s S t o r e f o r a p p s , also getting audio playback on doubleTwist lets you browse the Mac, as well as podcast Android apps in a beautified, search and playback, with desktop interface, but the "twist" p o d c a s t s u b s c r i p t i o n a n d is that you can't actually syncing coming next (it's download and sync apps with a l r e a d y o n W i n d o w s ) . y o u r p h o n e . I n s t e a d , t h e Meanwhile, Windows users will A n d r o i d M a r k e t b r o w s e r have to wait until the next major Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:21:00 AM

version for Android Market. Not to worry, you can do the exact same sort of app browsing at apps.doubletwist.com on any plain old browser.

Update: We're trying to play around a bit with the app, but at the moment the search functionality is broken and most of the QR codes are handing us

bad URLs for apps. Hang tight! Every once in a while we see a blip of non-brokenness, but we're guessing there are some server hiccups at the moment holding us back from Android Market enlightenment. New doubleTwist for Mac adds built-in Android Market functionality originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| doubleTwist| Email this| Comments

Live: Ford and Microsoft working together on electric cars, INSERT BLUE SCREEN JOKE HERE John Biggs (CrunchGear)

Batterberry talking about Hohm. It’s a cloud service for “actionable information.” You can watch Steve Ballmer Connection between home, t a l k i n g a b o u t F o r d a n d vehicle, and the electric grid. Microsoft’s new partnership Cars are the single biggest here but we’ll run a liveblog for consumer of electricity in the you all here so you don’t have to home. whip out the headphones. 10:45 – Traffic moves smoothly Refresh this page to see updates. on the electric gird. Energy 10:41 – Ballmer talking about ecosystem. When you plug in Hohm. Decreases energy costs. your electric company won’t go Automating and optimizing the crazy. Energy optimization. process of charging your electric 10:47 – Some other Microsoft vehicle. dude. How many more do they 10:43 – Ford will work with have back there? This guy is MS on the Focus Electric. Troy talking about the fleet of Ford Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:42:33 AM

Escape electrics that energy carriers tested. Hohm will be able to tell you if your car can charge your electric car. New thinking.

Ford electric vehicle owners can optimize your recharge plans. Smartphone app to modify charging times remotely. Pay

the “least” for your charging. MyFord driver connect technology. Info about their experience. Car will remind you that you left your dryer on. And then you can tell your car to turn it off. “We’re not there yet.” New Lincoln MKZ hybrid. Shared vision for an electrified future. 10:51 – END OF TRANSMISSION. Huh.

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Dude, you’re getting a Dell and a Sony Reader Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:35:42 AM

New video shows Honda’s U3-X Personal Mobility Robot in its full prototype glory Serkan Toto (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:44:22 AM

Remember the U3-X Mobility Robot from Honda we blogged about last year? Well, the autounicycle is still a prototype, but Honda has just released a new (and pretty interesting) promo video on its official YouTube

channel. The company says the U3-X can run continuously for one hour on a single (lithiumion) battery charge and can be recharged via a conventional 120-volt power outlet. The prototype weighs just 22 pounds, can stand by itself and features a foldable seat and retractable footrests. But its

main bullet point is the omnidirectional driving wheel system, which, according to Honda, is the only one of its kind. It allows U3-X drivers not only to move forward and back but also sideways and diagonally, setting it apart from vaguely similar products like the Segway or Toyota’s Winglet

(which is also still just a prototype). Here’s the promo video (in English, 3:39 min): Here’s a U3-X video (made by CNN) from last year: Embedded video from CNN Video

The details are simple: buy a select Dell notebook or desktop and a Sony Reader Pocket Edition ships along with it for no additional cost. It’s actually a nice little deal although it’s only for two days. Of course like with most sales, the actual cost savings is minimal as the sale price is likely inflated to included the cost of the ereader, but that’s fine. Ereaders tend to be something the consumers are curious about and are unwilling to pull the trigger just yet. Getting more ereaders in the average joes that buy Dells might help the whole industry. Then again the ereader is Sony’s least expensive option and doesn’t have the magic of the Kindle or Nook. It’s only a 5 -inch screen, doesn’t have a wireless connection to the Reader Store, and only costs $169 anyways. But it’s still an ereader and these products tend to have a novility factor to them that might spur some interest in the big boys. Amazon and B&N should probably send flowers and a thank you card. [ Dell via i4u

Apple/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

How-To: Fake a Unified Email Inbox on the iPhone Josh Sunshine (TheAppleBlog)

account for Gmail to check for you by clicking ‘Add POP3 email account’, which is the Submitted at 3/30/2010 1:30:39 PM third white button from the top. Many people have been asking This opens a new window for for a unified email inbox on you to input the details of the their iPhone, rather than having email account you want to be to switch between accounts. checked. While there isn’t an official Apple way to do this, you can Getting Gmail to Check Other fake it yourself using Gmail and Accounts its ability to check email from • The first thing you need to other accounts. The Setup enter is the email address for the • First off, you’re going to need account you want to be checked. a Gmail account. You can either Then click ‘Next Step’. use an existing one or set up a • Another screen will appear n e w o n e . I f y o u w a n t a n asking for specific details such existing Gmail account to be as username, password and part of your new universal server settings. If you are unsure inbox, I’d suggest using that one about any of these options, your instead of setting up new one service provider will most likely and having to fetch mail from have a help page. It will most there as well. If you need to set likely be a page explaining how up a new account, you can do it to access your emails from a by going to the Gmail homepage desktop client, however you can a n d c l i c k i n g ‘ C r e a t e a n use this information as well. account’. Once you have added your • Once you’ve logged into your i n f o r m a t i o n , c l i c k ‘ A d d account, locate the Settings a c c o u n t ’ . page, the link to which can be • You’ll be taken to another found in the top right corner, screen asking if you want to next to your email address. send mail from the account When it has loaded, open up the you’ve just set up. Whether you Accounts and Import tab. want to or not is up to you (you • Set up your first email can always change this later). If

from there. • Go to Mail, Contacts, Calendars under the Settings app. • Tap ‘Add account’ to add the Gmail account. • Tap the Gmail logo to have your iPhone automatically set you decide not to do this, any up the server settings that emails you send from your always stay the same for Gmail iPhone will have a From line as accounts. • Enter your details and tap your Gmail account. Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) • If you do decide to do it, Save. Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:29:00 AM you’ll be prompted to enter a Your Gmail account is now all few more details about your (S01E05) It's really getting hard email account. This is not ready to go on your iPhone and to watch 'Parenthood,' and not in c r u c i a l t o t h i s t e c h n i q u e , you can access it through the a "Gee, this show is so painfully however, so I won’t be going Mail app. If you check your real that it makes me question emails then Gmail should have through this. imported some of your recent the true nature of love and family devotion" kind of way. Your Gmail account will now emails from the other accounts, It's quite the opposite. and any new emails you receive check your email account and The seams are really starting to pull in any emails that come will be in the same inbox. show as the episodes try to through. You can add up to five Conclusion stretch across an entire season. accounts for Gmail to check, so Obviously this isn’t the same as It now feels so unbelievable a proper unified inbox — Gmail this will accommodate almost because of the lackluster everyone’s needs. Access on o n l y c h e c k s o t h e r e m a i l characters and dialogue that I'm accounts for new mail every Your iPhone starting to feel just as bored as Now that you’ve got Gmail hour. This is the next best thing the people look on the screen. though, and it’ll get you by until putting emails from other Continue reading'Parenthood' accounts in its inbox, you’re Apple announces the official 'The Situation' Recap feature in the next iPhone OS. mostly there. All you need to do Filed under: Other Drama now is set up Gmail on your The upside is it doesn’t cost Shows, Other Comedy Shows, anything and you can get it now. iPhone so that you can check it Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

'Parenthood' 'The Situation' Recap

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Why I’m Sticking with Amazon for My e-Books Alfredo Padilla (TheAppleBlog)

episode or even a movie — these are things that I’ll want to be able to access in 10 or 20 Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:13:19 AM years. Given that, it’s important The iPad will be coming out in for me to pick an e-book just a few days. There’s a good platform that I know will be chance that shortly thereafter, as able to follow me as my tastes soon as 3G versions are and needs for hardware change. available in stores, I will have What happens if I decide in five my hands on Apple’s newest years that I don’t want to use product. One of the principal Apple products anymore? If I reasons that I will be purchasing invest heavily into the the iPad is to be my e-book iBoookstore those books will be reader. I have been an avid lost to me, but with the Kindle reader my entire life, and as there’s a good chance that I’ll be something of a technologist as able to read those books on a well, I have been waiting for e- even if I switch to Apple’s • iPad to Offer 30,000 Free e- future Android device, or a books for as long as I can iBooks app I can always have Books at Launch Mac Love Windows tablet or something remember. the Kindle app sitting next to it • iBookstore Pricing Leaked: we don’t even know of today Amazon, obviously, got the ball on my iPad if I want to read one Cheaper Than Expected Mac but that I might be using. really rolling with the Kindle of those titles. The iBookstore, Love It’s hard for me, as an Apple after years of stagnation in the however, offers several benefits fanboy, to consider the market. Apple is going toe to toe over the Kindle app: Given these benefits it might possibility that Apple may not with them with the launch of the • The ability to purchase books seem like a slam dunk to move be able to meet my computing iBookstore. So when I have an from within the app over to iBooks, but I’ve decided needs in the future. But I care iPad in hand I’m going to be • The ability to add any open against it, for one simple reason: more about books than I do faced with a choice, use Apple’s ePub format book to iTunes and cross-platform compatibility. about Apple and so I need to be iBooks solution, or stick with sync it over For me, books are a long-term honest with myself about this. Amazon’s Kindle platform. • The rumored 30,0000 public investment. If I like a book I’m When push comes to shove, it’s I’ve been thinking about this domain books that will be going to read it two, five or even more important for me to have e v e r s i n c e t h e i P a d w a s available 10 times, and some of my my books than it is for me to announced, going back and forth favorite books from my teenage have Apple’s products, and on the issue. On the one hand I More on iBooks years I’ve read so many times I that’s never going to change. So h a v e a l r e a d y m a d e a n • iTunes 9.1: iPad Support and can’t even remember how many when the iPad comes out and I investment in Amazon’s e-book Genius Updates Mac Love times I’ve picked them up. have one in my hands I’ll be ecosystem, having purchased • i P a d W e e k e n d R u m o r Books, including e-books, I buy reading my books in the Kindle about 30 books to read on the Roundup: Apps, Books and today aren’t something that I’ll app. Kindle app on my iPhone. Accessories Mac Love one and done like a television Related GigaOM Pro Research: That’s about $300 invested, but Evolution of the e-Book Market

E-reader News Edition

'American Idol''s Top 10 Sing Soul and R&B (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:18:00 AM

The Top 10 sang soul and R&B songs Tuesday night on "American Idol." Who won rave reviews and who left the judges less than enthused? We've got the full recap! One by one the Top 10 took the stage looking to impress the judges and their celeb mentor this week, Usher, who also was in the house. Siobhan Magnus kicked things off with Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire." Randy Jackson called the performance "kind of rough" and said, "I don't know if this was one of your shining moments, but I still love the courageousness and the conviction." Ellen DeGeneres agreed, and Kara DioGuardi suggested that Siobhan had simply had an off-night. Then Simon Cowell leveled, "It sounded to me as if you'd run a marathon and you were singing while you were running out of breath. It was so all over the place."

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iTunes 9.1: iPad Support and Genius Updates Weldon Dodd (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/30/2010 3:10:15 PM

Just days before the iPad lands in our hands, Apple has updated iTunes to version 9.1 so that we can sync content onto the new device just as soon as we post our unboxing photos to Twitter. iTunes 9.1 provides the ability to sync books from the iBooks app and adds some improvements for managing Genius Mixes. The update is available in Software Update, but details have not been posted online at this time. Genius Mixes can now be rearranged, renamed or removed. You can rearrange Mixes with click-and-drag. And Mixes can be removed by right-clicking and choosing “Remove Mix” or using the “delete” key. If you accidentally

remove a Mix, you can “Restore All Mixes” by right-clicking on Genius Mixes in the lefthand source list or on the background. To rename a Genius Mix, click directly on the title. As seen below, use the Esc key to cancel editing and revert to the original title. The iBookstore is not yet

available in the iTunes Store, but Audiobooks are now found under “Books” in your library and we have to assume that this is where you will manage iBooks content as well. It might be of interest to some that the iBooks app appears to be the first app in the App Store (as opposed to the apps that are

built-in to the firmware releases) that will sync content with iTunes directly. I know a number of developers that would love to have USBsyncing of content for their own apps, but I suspect that this feature is restricted to Apple’s iBooks at the moment. It is possible, but pure

speculation on my part, that the filesharing settings that have been spied in the iPad might open up a standard method of syncing content between computer and iPad. If so, we can only hope that this feature will be brought to the iPhone in a 4.0 release. Some cosmetic changes were made to the Advanced tab of the iTunes Preferences window to include iPad among its more diminutive counterparts. Of course, seeing “iPad Remote” immediately makes me dream of a new Universal App release that utilizes the bigger display for an even better iTunes/Apple TV remote.

TAB Welcomes: Alex Layne Alex Layne (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:04:52 AM

My first Apple device was an iPod Nano, second-gen, and using it was a revelation; the simplicity of the click-wheel and the solid industrial design wowed me. My second Apple device was an iPod touch, also a second-gen and also a revelation; interacting with a touchscreen was

completely new to me, and iPhone OS was a dream to use. After owning those two, I got interested in OS X. I learned everything I could about Macs, watched every video I could find, and played with the Macs at the local Haddock store (Wichita doesn’t have an Apple store yet). I wanted to use OS X, so much so that I couldn’t wait so I hackintosh’d my crappy to scrounge up the money to buy Dell Inspiron 1525 using a guide a Mac; I had to use it now. And

I found on DailyBlogged.com. Later, I’d end up writing for DailyBlogged, posting how-tos and opinion pieces. Using a hackintosh was OK, but I still wanted a real Mac. Eventually, I made enough money to buy the unibody MacBook Pro I’m typing this on. Fast-forward a few months and here I am. When I’m not using OS X, I’m using its cousin, Linux. There

was a time when I used Windows, but those days are long gone. The only time I see Windows now is in VMWare. If you’re interested, you can keep up with me through Twitter or my personal blog. (PS: Yes, I’ve trimmed my beard since that picture was taken.)

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OS X 10.6.3 Update Brings Record Number of Fixes

NYC Hackathon at NYU, Apr 2-3

Chris Brandrick (TheAppleBlog)

(Scripting News)

Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:57:58 AM

As predicted, an update to Apple’s Snow Leopard and Leopard operating systems, which fixes a record number of vulnerabilities, is now available. The sizable patch, which weighs in at over 700MB, tends to a number of known security problems within the latest client and server versions of OS X, and is the largest update Apple has ever put out. This new update, known officially as ‘Security Update 2010-002, fixes 92 problems in total, bringing Snow Leopard up to version number 10.6.3. For those still running Leopard, and and plenty of you are, this update offers 18 specific fixes for Apple’s older OS. Snow

update were the nine critical updates targeting QuickTime. However, the numerous updates to Apple’s media player, as pointed out by Computerworld, come as little surprise due to the impending launch of the iPad. It’s increasingly common for Apple to update both QuickTime and its iTunes software ahead of the launch of a new device. Leopard sees 29 distinct fixes, More information regarding the w i t h t h e r e m a i n i n g 4 5 update, including a full run improvements being applicable down of improvements, can be found within Apple’s official to both operating systems. Fixes found within the update support pages. The update can include improving the reliability be downloaded now either of Airport connections, minor online or via OS X’s integrated adjustments to OS X’s Mail system updater. application, refinements to Time Let us know if you run into any Machine’s backup process and issues with this upgrade. more. One of the most noticeable inclusions within this

Shannen Doherty and Mark Ballas Meet 'Dancing with the Stars' Fate (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:30:00 AM

Shannen Doherty and Mark Ballas took their final bow on "Dancing with the Stars" on Tuesday night. Wiping away tears, the former

"Beverly Hills 90210" actress told ET, "I believe that everything happens for a reason and my dad's not doing too well today and I haven't been able to spend that much time with him. So for me, I get to go spend time with my dad."

Mark embraced her in his arms as her eyes welled up in tribute to her ailing father, who was sitting in the audience. "I was just really excited to take someone who's never danced in her life and take her as far as I can," he said.

Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:29:25 AM

Hype-wise, Apple pretty much owns this weekend. Even though I swore I would sit this one out, I broke down and bought an iPad, scheduled to arrive on Saturday. But before that, starting on Friday night at Courant Hall on the NYU campus, there's the NYC Hackathon. As I understand it, the goal is to get students from New York-area universities to meet New Yorkarea startups, who will pitch their APIs, hoping to attract interesting overnight projects from the students, and longerterm interest once they enter the workforce. I'll be there on Friday evening as an "ambassador" -- trying to help the students and entrepreneurs connect. I can be useful during the ideation stage, but I might try working on a project myself. There's also an iPad party on Saturday night at Gawker, which I plan to make a stop at.

It's all in the neighborhood! The hackathon is a project of Chris Wiggins of Columbia, Hilary Mason of Johnson & Wales University, a member of NYC Resistor, and the lead scientist at bit.ly (a NYC startup); and Evan Korth of NYU. I've met both Chris and Evan and look forward to meeting Hilary. And if you're in the area, with either an API or some undirected programming energy, maybe I'll see you at the Hackathon.

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iPad as coral reef (Scripting News)

their software is Taiwanese and doesn't translate well to English. Lots of happy animal cartoon Interesting tech products often characters and funky messages s p a w n e c o s y s t e m s l i k e that make as much sense as All shipwrecks spawn coral reefs. Your Base Are Belong To Us. It's an old story, which I've Instead they're going to have written here on Scripting News two models, one that runs a many times. A ship sinks in a Google OS and another that runs tropical ocean and fish come Windows. and live in its hull. Then their You can sniff all you want but I predators show up, and pretty would be surprised if the Asus soon there's a food chain. Many products aren't better than generations later the skeletal Apple's in some ways. It could remains of the first fish get so be that Apple understands the dense they solidify and form v a l u e o f b a t t e r y l i f e , a rocks around around the remains t e c h n o l o g y t h a t A s u s h a s of the ship. Pretty soon you can't mastered. Today you can buy a find the wrecked ship. $350 netbook that claims 14.5 Radio UserLand, a product of hours on a single charge. It's not mine, formed a coral reef called likely that you'd actually get RSS. There are many other more than 8 hours on a charge, examples. but that's huge. I have a netbook So today Asus announced two that was rated at 10.5 hours, and tablet computers. The Apple in practice, I'm using it all day fanboys sniff, but I bet they'll be as much as I want, even on a good. At first I was concerned cross-country plane trip, and I that Asus might try to write the never look for an outlet to software themselves. I use their charge it. I don't even bring the products, and love them, but charger most times. In contrast Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:16:52 AM

the iPad breeds lust that Asus likely won't, but at some point these have to be pragmatic products or else they'll just stay in a drawer at home. I bet the Asus products win some pragmatism points relative to Apple. Mac users are always tethered to Regardless, until this year there a power outlet. On Monday I w a s n o m a r k e t f o r t a b l e t forgot to bring my power brick computers. Microsoft tried to for the Mac to the studio at 20 push them, but to no avail. Cooper Sq, and I used 75 People didn't want them. Now percent of the charge in a single finally there's going to be an h o u r . Y o u c a n s e e i t a t installed base of tablets. We'll conferences too. The Mac users find out for sure, one way or the are all grouped around power other, if they're useful. And if outlets. The netbook users are they are, there will be lots of options to choose from, unless spread out everywhere else. Another thing I know Apple Apple hits every point (and they doesn't care about is price. won't). There's no Asus netbook you There's one thing we know for can buy for as much as $499, sure -- Apple will control the but that's the entry-point to the gate for software for the iPad iPad market. For me the iPad is and Microsoft and Google don't. worth $499 because I'll learn T h a t , f o r m e , i s a h u g e from the design of the product. d i f f e r e n c e - - f r e e d o m . Maybe you will too. But most people just use the things. Sure

Sandra Bullock and Jesse James' Marriage License Reveals Real Wedding Date, Location (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:54:00 AM

ET has the latest... ET has just obtained the marriage license for Sandra Bullock and Jesse James, which reveals the couple's true wedding date. The document shows that despite having an elaborate ceremony in Santa Barbara, CA on July 16, 2005, the nowembattled couple actually received and signed their marriage license two days before in Travis County, TX. Click here to see the revealing document.

Will Wright is Bringing 'The Sims' to TV Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:00:00 AM

If you ever wanted to produce your own TV show but never had the money, the crew willing to work for free, the ability to design realistic looking sets, or the drive to get up before dawn

and shoot during the day's best light, there's hope. Will Wright, the creator of the iconic line of "Sim" games including the popular "Sims," has created a program called the"Storymaker Engine" that lets ordinary schlubs like you and me create TV shows using

Sims.

Wright and company are hoping that the stories created from this engine can be turned into an entertaining half-hour to hour of television for Current TV. "Machinima" shows like'Red vs. Blue' and the'South Park' 'Make Love, Not Warcraft' episode have helped bring some

video game driven entertainment to audiences, but would you watch an entire show that was produced on a video game? Filed under: Programming, Web, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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ABC Renews 'Castle' for A New Season Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:03:00 AM

'Bones'' 100th Episode Press Kits Unwrapped Isabelle Carreau (TV Squad)

second chance and tuned in when the series premiered back on September 13, 2005, as it is FOX's top crime drama,'Bones,' one of my favorite TV series has grown a lot over the years, nowadays. gathering more and more fans In order to advertise the along the way as well as treating milestone episodes that are us with great episodes and episodes 99 and 100, FOX sent compelling characters each out a press kit to media types week. Now that I've watched like us. Let's open the box (see episodes 99 and 100 of the picture above) shall we? series -- both will air in early Continue reading'Bones'' 100th April -- I can't imagine why I Episode - Press Kits Unwrapped actually didn't enjoy the pilot at Filed under: Bones, Realityall when I previewed it the Free, Press Kits Unwrapped summer before the series aired. Permalink| Email this| | I'm extremely happy in Comments retrospect that I gave the pilot a Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:30:00 AM

A week ago with'Dancing With the Stars' returned for the current season, a new episode of'Castle' aired afterwards and did something it had never done before. It beat'CSI: Miami' in the ratings. Not a rerun of 'CSI: Miami.' No, it was a fresh, Horatio Cane dealing with his son episode. Now, normally, that's a slam dunk for CBS. However, 'Castle' took the hour. This is all a way to explain the following: ABC has renewed 'Castle' for another season. ABC is not just jumping on a strong pairing of 'Dancing' and 'Castle,'

because you can't count on that always being the best draw of a Monday night. Continue reading ABC Renews 'Castle' for A New Season Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Pickups and Renewals, Casting, Reality-Free, Castle Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Conde Nast and the End of Magazine Jobs [The Future] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:36:35 AM

The media world—it changes. A few years ago, Conde Nast was a golden castle on the hill, and the internet was a squatter's hovel/ "artist's colony" far below. But lo! Now, former Nasties are flooding the internet themselves. More »

Tina Fey Is F-cking Matt Damon [Trade Roundup] Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:23:43 AM

It's true! Dirty, dirty f'ing. Lady Gaga May Also today: Remember Stephen Perform the James Bond Dorff? You're about to. A terrible remake sounds terrible. Veronica Mars to that other one. Theme Song [Bondage] Plus news about all of your More » Brian Moylan (Gawker) favorite TV shows, from Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:45:00 AM

LADY page 57

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LADY

Andrew Giuliani’s Suit: A Total Shank

continued from page 56

The pop music thingamajig is the top target for the film's producers to ink and sing the ditty for the franchise. Be careful, she might try to change the title to "Skipaldeedoo Gobbeldygook" to fit her lyrics.[ Getty] More »

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:06:24 AM

LL Cool J Wants You to Know That He Did Not Sit Down With Sarah Palin [Not Cool] Pareene (Gawker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:41:00 AM

Sarah Palin will present a TV special on Fox tomorrow night called Real American Stories. But some of the interviews were taped years ago, and LL Cool J didn't know his would eventually be used in a Sarah Palin-hosted show. More »

Your School Spirit Pales in Comparison to Martin Raskin's [Hobbies] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:18:01 AM

Brooklyn native Martin Raskin attended P.S. 202 in East New York from 1946-1955. Now he's obsessed with collecting memorabilia from his old school. How obsessed? Buttocks obsessed. More »

Our friends at the WSJ Law Blog have the latest on the strange case brought by Andrew Giuliani, son of the former New York City mayor, against the Duke golf team. North Carolina federal judge William Osteen has little sympathy for the younger Guiliani, who felt he was unfairly kicked off the

team. Ashby Jones pulls out every golf metaphor in his arsenal to describe the situation: “Were not sure what the proper golf metaphor is to describe Andrew Giulianis lawsuit against Duke University for kicking him off the schools golf team. A chip into a bunker? A four-putted 18th green? A duckhook into the woods?”

ASUS's Jonney Shih confirms two tablets, one for Googlites, one for Microsofties (Engadget) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/31/2010 5:13:31 AM

USF's Pierre-Paul Has NFL Execs Jumping for Joy Chris Harry (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/30/2010 12:40:00 PM

Filed under: NFL Draft TAMPA, Fla. -- He goes 6-foot4 and 270 pounds, yet stunned everyone at the NFL combine with a blazing 40-yard dash time. He played one year of high school football and three years of college at three different schools before finding a home in the Big East conference, if only

for one season. He has very little tape to evaluate, yet he easily could be a top-10 pick in the NFL Draft next month. There are lots of questions about Jason Pierre-Paul. So what has been one of the hottest topics NFL execs and coaches have discussed with the South Florida defensive end the past month or so? "Back-flips," he said Tuesday. Pierre-Paul rocketed from

at USF, but his notoriety -- and athleticism -- went viral when his hand-spring challenge match against linebacker and teammate Kion Wilson hit YouTube in the days preceding the combine. It had viewers ... um ... flipping out. See for yourself. unknown quantity to unbelievable pro prospect in just one season of FBS competition

Boss of the Year Entry Form Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Someone Wants Steve Lavin to Coach Basketball (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

Gene Keady disagrees. The former Purdue coach who hired Lavin as an assistant in 1988 Tom Izzo, Mike Krzyzewski, tells Newsday’s Mark Hermann Bob Huggins and Brad Stevens ( s e e n h e r e i n t h e n o n are just four days from coaching subscription Boston Herald) that in the Final Four. But in what’s this is“a great hire” for the Red become an annual tradition, the Storm. Hermann uses some eyes of a basketball-loving c o n f u s i o n a r o u n d L a v i n ’ s nation have refocused their gaze wedding to explain the coach’s onto a handful of teams that reputation for being “more of a long ago relinquished their big-picture person than a details dreams of reaching Indianapolis. guy.” Associated Press Steve Lavin no Tim Floyd, who was last seen longer will have to supplement resigning from USC in June for his income as Jeremy Piven’s alleged recruiting violations stunt double on “Entourage.” associated with prep phenom St. John’s hired former UCLA O.J. Mayo (he has denied any coach Steve Lavin to replace wrongdoing), accepted the head Norm Roberts as head of the job at UTEP. Red Storm. To this Fixer, it’s Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports shocking that Lavin — who led writes that UTEP should fire h i s U C L A t e a m s t o s i x Floyd — as part of Doyel’s epic consecutive N C A A takedown of the coach that will tournaments, five Sweet 16s and have you lighting a torch and a n a t i o n a l c h a m p i o n s h i p marching to El Paso with your between 1996 and 2003 — had neighbors after reading. lasted this long in exile as an But Pete Carroll, who coached ESPN analyst. football at USC while Floyd Billy Witz of the New York headed up the hoops program, Times paints a conflicting yet gives the new hire a shoutout compelling picture of Lavin and endorsement on Twitter. based on his up-and-down UTEP’s former coach, Tony seasons with the Bruins. Nestor Barbee, had left for Auburn. at the UCLA blog Bruins Nation Auburn’s former coach, Jeff says Witz clowns St. John’s for Lebo, was fired in March and is t h e i r h i r e o f L a v i n . T i m now at East Carolina. East Kawakami of the San Jose Carolina had fired coach Mack Mercury News, who used to M c C a r t h y o n M a r c h 6 . follow Lavin when Kawakami McCarthy had two scenes in covered UCLA hoops, says the 1994’s “The River Wild” with ride will be anything but boring Kevin Bacon. but calls it a “weird hire.” Er, maybe we got that last part Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:25:04 AM

ways six days earlier, but held off the announcement to allow Skinner to use his job as leverage for other coaching positions. DiFilippo told ESPN’s Andy Katz that he“wouldn’t sit on his fanny” in looking for a wrong. But the point is, this r e p l a c e m e n t f o r S k i n n e r . college firing and hiring game is Dennis J. Zheng of the Harvard dizzying. Consider: Seton Hall Crimson thinks that BC’s two hired Kevin Willard away from most likely candidates to replace I o n a . S i e n a c o a c h F r a n Skinner may be Ivy Leaguers: McCaffery, who had been Cornell’s Steve Donahue and rumored to be heading to Seton Harvard’s Tommy Amaker. Hall, instead went to Iowa, just Thirty minutes west of Boston, one mistaken keyboard stroke in Worcester, Mass., Holy Cross a w a y f r o m W i l l a r d ’ s o l d fired its head coach, Sean school.* * * Kearney, after just one season. Elsewhere in the college- The Albany Times-Union’s Pete coaching carousel, Boston Iorizzo sees this as a bad thing College parted ways with men’s for Siena, which — as you h e a d b a s k e t b a l l c o a c h A l might remember from the prior Skinner, the winningest coach in Fix item — lost its coach to the history of the program. Iowa and now must contend Last January, the Eagles fired with a fourth school (Holy Cross h e a d f o o t b a l l c o a c h J e f f is joining Hofstra, Iona and Jagodzinski after he interviewed Boston College) within 200 for the New York Jets head miles that is searching for a new coaching job. head coach.* * * Even though it seemed that this Manny Pacquiao may be Fixer’s alma mater was staying considered one of the best consistent with its philosophy of boxers in the sport right now f i r i n g c o a c h e s w h o w e r e and is a hero in his native i n t e r v i e w i n g f o r o t h e r Philippines. But his candidacy opportunities– Skinner was a for a congressional seat there is front-runner for the St. John’s nowhere near as sure a thing as job until Lavin jumped into the h i s l a s t f e w f i g h t s . T i m e fray– this wasn’t what cost Magazine’s Andrew Marshall Skinner his job. The Boston suggests that Pacquiao’s support Globe’s Zuri Berry reports B.C. is low because “many voters athletic director Gene DiFilippo don’t want their national hero and Skinner had decided to part dirtying his hands in politics.”

If the surrealism of Pacquiao’s run isn’t enough for you, then allow the Sun Star to help further confuse matters regarding the boxer’s political prospects if he loses this race, as he did in 2007. For readers interested in boxing news that concerns something that took place inside a ring, Paul Haberman of 8 Count News reviews the aftermath of the Andre Dirrell-Arthur Abraham match from March 27, in which Dirrell slipped on a sign in the ring, was knocked out by Abraham immediately afterwards and won on disqualification as he was convulsing and being treated by a doctor. “In one fell swoop,” Haberman writes, “Dirrell was out cold, Abraham took his first professional loss, and a bout that touched on several lingering regulatory issues in boxing was over.”* * * Why is Italian soccer powerhouse Inter Milan struggling and in danger of losing the top spot in Serie A? Agence France-Presse’s Barnaby Chesterman believes the team’s players are just plain tired, and it has something to do with the Nerazzurri playing in three of soccer’s toughest and most exhausting settings: Serie A, the Champions League and the Italian Cup. Argentinean soccer legend SOMEONE page 62

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Steve Lavin hired to coach St. John's Red Storm men's basketball ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

Lavin has been an analyst for ESPN since UCLA fired him in 2003. That was the subject of Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:07:34 PM most of the questions he faced -those seven years away from • Email coaching. • Print "For starters, the 15 years at • Comments Purdue and UCLA as a coach • Share allowed me to build the • foundation for my second career as a broadcaster," he said. "The ESPN.com news services last seven years as a broadcaster NEW YORK -- Steve Lavin allowed me to travel the country made his first appearance as as a barnstormer with my coach of St. John's in a building partner, observing and studying he'll soon become quite familiar d i f f e r e n t s t y l e s , d i f f e r e n t with -- Madison Square Garden. c o a c h e s , a s p e c t s o f g a m e About 4 hours after he agreed preparation, the game itself to take charge of New York sitting courtside, breaking down City's top college program, tape, the scouting reports. Lavin sat down Tuesday night " T h i s w a s a n e x t e n d e d f o r a n i m p r o m p t u n e w s sabbatical that allowed me to conference during the NIT stay close to the game, a little semifinals. more distant to see things with "Having come here as an more clarity and when you come assistant coach and then a head back to the game you bring all coach at UCLA and then as a that with you to enhance your broadcaster, I have a sense and ability to coach and run a feel for how special an arena it successful program." is, it is the world's biggest stage He had a 145-78 record with for college basketball," Lavin UCLA, leading the school to the said. NCAA tournament's round of 16 He now will get a chance to five times. The Bruins reached show his coaching ability on the final eight in 1997, his first that stage. season. He will be officially introduced St. John's, which fired Norm a t a n e w s c o n f e r e n c e o n Roberts after six seasons, has Wednesday. not been to the NCAA

tournament since 2002. The Red Storm, who play several home games each season in Madison Square Garden, lost to Memphis in the first round of the NIT to finish the season at 17-16, giving Roberts an 81-101 record with the school. St. John's returns all five starters and 94 percent of its scoring from last season's team. Lavin said his first order of business would be to assemble a staff. "That's my No. 1 priority," he said. "I want assistants who are strong in the Northeast with recruiting ties and I want to look for people who have had experience as a head coach." Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt rejected an offer from St. John's last week. Al Skinner, who was fired by Boston College on Tuesday, also was interviewed. St. John's athletic director Chris Monasch said Lavin "fit all the criteria we had established." "In hindsight we wound up with the best guy," he said. Former Bruin and current Los Angeles Clipper Baron Davis said: "I wish Coach Lav nothing but the best. He's always been so supportive of his former players, and I know he truly cares about anyone that plays

for him, both personally and professionally. "I can easily say I think his new team will instantly take to his personality and passion for the game. He has had time since he last coached to build his game plan for his style. I love Coach Lav and St. John's is a great fit for him. I am totally on board to support him and I think it's great for college basketball to have him on the sidelines again." Lavin was fired by UCLA after going 10-19, his only losing season and the school's first in 55 years. It was the only season in which one of Lavin's UCLA teams did not win at least 20 games. He was succeeded by former Pittsburgh coach Ben Howland. "I'm very happy for Steve," Howland said Tuesday. "St. John's has got an outstanding tradition and history. It's going to be exciting for him after being out of coaching for seven years and [now being] in the biggest media market in the United States. "I'm sure he'll do an outstanding job." Lavin, who had five years remaining on his contract when he was fired, fell into the job when Jim Harrick was fired in November 1996 -- only a week

before the season began and 19 months after the Bruins won their 11th national championship. With Harrick assistants Mark Gottfried and Lorenzo Romar already having taken head jobs, then-athletic director Peter Dalis promoted Lavin from unproven assistant to head coach. His teams at UCLA beat four No. 1-ranked teams, but in his final season, the Bruins had a then-record 10 losses at Pauley Pavilion and the average attendance of 8,348 in the 12,819-seat arena was the lowest since 1993. Ten of UCLA's national championships were won under coach John Wooden in the 1960s and 1970s. The other was under Harrick in 1995 -- when Lavin was the No. 3 assistant. Information from ESPNLosAngeles.com's Ramona Shelburne and The Associated Press was used in this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Bike Snob Glad He Went Public (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:25:40 AM

Last spring, when I met the anonymous cycling blogger Bike Snob for the first time, I asked him if he’d ever reveal his identity and if so, how he planned do it. “I’m not going to do some kind of big Liza Minelli bust-out,” he said over dinner at a Brooklyn Tex-Mex joint. Bryan Derballa for The Wall Street Journal Eben Weiss, with his bike and his laptop in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. By then, however, the Snob already had secured a book deal, and it was pretty clear he wasn’t going to be able to fully promote that book while lurking behind a Web pseudonym. Now, with that book “Bike Snob: Systematically & Mercilessly Realigning the World of Cycling” arriving in May, the Snob has stepped out in the open as former publishing agent and bike messenger Eben Weiss. And while his unmasking might not have resembled this sublime cultural moment, people in the more-of-us-than-you-think-there -are cycling community definitely care.

“I’m not worried about losing the anonymity,” Mr. Weiss told me a couple weeks ago. “I’ve never pretended to be anything other than the person I am.” Though he kept his readers guessing, there was not a lot of subterfuge with the Bike Snob. As he liked to put it, he was “hiding in plain sight.” I’d see him from time to time at bike races in New York City. The Snob describes himself as a mediocre racer, and I’m at least several notches below mediocre. Some local racers knew he was the Snob. He was suspected on some local bike message boards. He confided it to a handful of guys on his racing team, Gotham Bikes. But if anyone seemed well-conditioned to maintain anonymity, it was Mr. Weiss, whom friends describe as relentlessly low key, uninterested in claiming the spotlight even as the blog grew in popularity. “He’s not one to call attention to himself,” said his friend, Paul DeBartolo. “He’s a bit of an introvert.” “I don’t think anonymity locked him up,” said the Snob’s wife, editor Sara Goodman. “It gave him freedom.”

Still, the alter ego did cause some headaches. Over a recent beer, Mr. Weiss talked about the exhausting hoops he’d have to jump through to meet contacts in the cycling community: arranging meetings over emails, having to be careful in meeting new people, always remaining guarded about his real name. Mr. Weiss was even suspicious the first time he was contacted by his most famous fan, Lance Armstrong. Mr. Armstrong emailed and asked to meet up in New York City. Mr. Weiss, afraid he was being pranked, sent his brother to check to see if, in fact, the seven-time Tour de France winner was waiting for him. He was. Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Weiss would become friends and occasionally go for rides in New York. Mr. Armstrong helped protect Mr. Weiss’s identity, even when he

Tweeted his two million-plus followers that he was out riding with his pal, the Bike Snob. “He’s not what I expected,” Mr. Armstrong said. “He’s a regular guy who likes to ride his bike. He’s not unpleasant. He’s not yelling and screaming. He’s a pretty mild-mannered fellow.” When time came to do a Bike Snob book, Mr. Weiss took precautions. He submitted a proposal using the Bike Snob’s name only. Only later would he reveal his name to his publishers at Chronicle Books. Still, Mr. Weiss said, “there were little snafus.” At one point, information about the Bike Snob book was posted online that contained Mr. Weiss’s name. It’s still possible to find traces of it online. That’s a moot issue now. Reached this afternoon, Mr. Weiss sounded content with his decision to go public. “My friends and family are very happy for me, which is by far the best part,” he said in an email. “Otherwise, I’ve been Eben Weiss since late ‘73, so I feel the same.”

BoSox Ready to Ace Market Share Test? Tom Krasovic (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/30/2010 3:01:00 PM

Filed under: Red Sox Thirty clubs populate Major League Baseball, so you'd think that one team alone couldn't control a significant number of the sport's frontline starting pitchers over a span of years. But the Red Sox appear to be cutting a glutton's slice of pie for themselves. If the Sox lock up pitcher Josh Beckett to a long-term deal -which might happen soon, according to an ESPN report-they'll have three No.1-caliber veterans under control through 2014, plus a potential ace, Clay Buchholz, who can't become a free agent before 2015.

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Pittsburgh Steelers WR Santonio Holmes' police report contradicts woman's suit

Global bonds higher but Greece getting no respect

Associated Press (ESPN.com)

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

in a civil lawsuit she filed last week against 26-year-old Holmes. In the lawsuit, she Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:02:41 PM claimed that the Super Bowl MVP got in her face and then hit • Email her with the glass after she • Print refused to give up her seat. • Comments Mills' attorneys said at a news • Share conference Tuesday that they • hadn't seen the police report and couldn't comment on it. Associated Press In the nightclub, Holmes told ORLANDO, Fla. -- Pittsburgh Mills to get up and move, said Steelers receiver Santonio Jacques Cooper, the woman's Holmes denies hurting a woman attorney. who says he threw a glass at her "When she refused, Mr. Holmes in an Orlando nightclub and began to get more belligerent claims another woman hit her and more aggressive in an with the cup, according to a attempt to get our client to move police report released Tuesday. from the area, which he claimed Holmes told an Orlando Police was his," Cooper said. Department officer that the Mills had a quarter-inch alleged victim, Anshonae Mills, abrasion above her right eye but grabbed his wrist, got in his face refused medical attention, the and called him a racial name police report said. after he asked for his seat back Holmes denied touching Mills in the VIP section of Club Rain and said another woman threw earlier this month. the glass that hit Mills in the Holmes face. After both Mills and Mills, 21, told a different story Holmes were escorted out of the

nightclub, Mills asked the police officer if she could speak to Holmes alone, the police report said. Holmes agreed to speak with her and they walked several feet away. The police officer saw Mills smiling and rubbing Holmes' face, according to the police report. A short time later, Mills told the police officer that she didn't want to press charges, the police report said. In the lawsuit, Mills claimed Holmes and a police officer intimidated Mills so she wouldn't press charges. Orlando Police Department spokeswoman Barbara Jones said the case was closed since Mills declined to prosecute. But an administrative review of the timeliness of the report would be conducted since it was filed Tuesday, three weeks after the incident. Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement that the team is "disappointed" by the allegations made in the lawsuit.

Rooney said he would have no further comment until the team gathers more information. The lawsuit followed a separate incident involving quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who became the subject of a police investigation after a college student alleged he assaulted her in a Georgia nightclub. Since 2006, Holmes has been charged with marijuana possession in Pittsburgh, domestic violence in Ohio and disorderly conduct in Florida. The marijuana and domestic violence charges were dropped. The disorderly conduct charge was dropped in exchange for a $250 donation to a police officers trust fund. Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Street Chic: New York ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs) Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:00:00 AM

A stylish scarf lends fringe

benefits to casual basics. Photo: Kelly Stuart Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's

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Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:35:29 AM

Greece still is getting no respect. While global bond markets are rallying in response to the weaker than expected ADP report and the Chicago PMI (half of the factory order # was out last week when Durable Goods orders were released and thus is rarely market moving), Greek bonds again are not as Greece can do little right in convincing the global community that their debt is money good and their deficit cutting plans will be implemented as said. The Greek 10 yr yield is rising another 8 bps to 6.52%, a 5 week high, their 2 yr yield is up by 22 bps to 5.13%, matching a 4 week high and 5 yr Greek CDS is wider by 7 bps to 340, just shy of a one month high. While the IMF/EU deal with Greece created an important backstop, it did nothing to lower the cost of Greek borrowing as hoped as it seems investors want to see actual results of deficit cutting rather than just promises. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Source: No front-runner in Philadelphia Eagles' Donovan McNabb trade talks

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SOMEONE continued from page 58

Diego Maradona was bitten on the face by his dog and required emergency surgery to repair his upper lip. London’s Mirror newspaper sums up the injury with a sensitive headline Sal Paolantonio (ESPN.com) League sources told ESPN NFL off other teams. But, the sources referring to the “Hound of Insider Adam Schefter on said, Oakland is not concerned God.”* * * Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:00:45 PM Monday that the Oakland that McNabb is due a $6.2 Pat Venditte, who pitched Raiders have emerged as the million roster bonus on May 5 Tuesday night in a spring• Email leading candidate to land nor that the quarterback is training game for the Yankees, • Print McNabb in a trade. scheduled to become a free may not be selected in a lot of • Comments T h e l e a g u e s o u r c e s t o l d agent after the 2010 season. fantasy-baseball drafts this • Share Schefter all the ingredients for a At the league meetings, head season. But the ambidextrous • trade are in place. Of all the coach Andy Reid said the pitcher eventually may make his teams the Eagles have spoken Eagles were listening to offers mark on baseball in one of two By Sal Paolantonio with, the Raiders have been the for all three quarterbacks, ways: as the answer to a trivia ESPN most willing to meet the Eagles' including 11-year veteran question, or as part of a package Archive asking price. McNabb, who quickly said on deal in the Yankees’ inevitable The Philadelphia Eagles are A l e a g u e s o u r c e t o l d his Web site that he wanted a trade for Albert Pujols. The continuing trade discussions Paolantonio the discussions quick resolution to the trade Journal News’s Chad Jennings with a number of teams about focus on McNabb, although a conversations. writes that pitcher CC Sabathia trading quarterback Donovan number of teams are still calling But the Eagles are intent on had no idea Venditte could McNabb and those discussions about backup Kevin Kolb. The moving deliberately. Trading switch pitching arms, but could continue until draft day, a source said the Eagles are no McNabb has proved to be tricky senior team official told ESPN's longer shopping Michael Vick. because of his age -- he will be Sal Paolantonio on Tuesday. Also, the team official said 34 in November -- and the fact "There is no so-called front- there is no magic number in the that he is in the last year of his runner," the senior team official draft that would be required to contract and wants a lucrative said. "We continue to engage in make a deal for McNabb. Late long-term extension. conversations with multiple l a s t w e e k , t h e r e w a s a n Sal Paolantonio covers the NFL teams that initially contacted us. Associated Press report the for ESPN. Some of the offers involve draft Eagles wanted at least the 42nd Five Filters featured article: picks, some involve a player, pick in the draft for McNabb. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: some involve many players. We "That's not true," the team PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, are evaluating the offers. But if official said. Term Extraction. some team had totally blown us Sources told Schefter McNabb's away, we would probably have contract, which has one year and made a deal already." $11.2 million left on it, scared

outfielder Nick Swisher was hanging on Venditte’s every delivery. “We were like, he’s about to switch, he’s about to switch right now!” Swisher said. Venditte allowed one run on two hits. He is currently the leading candidate for the top basketball job at Holy Cross. Tip of the Fix cap to reader Fred Sternburg. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself– write to us at dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email N a n d o a t nandodifino@yahoo.com.

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Rangers Stay in Playoff Hunt With Comeback Win Christopher Botta (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/30/2010 4:00:00 PM

Filed under: Islanders, Rangers UNIONDALE, N.Y. -- Led by their skilled players they count on to lead, the New York Rangers managed to stay in the playoff race and overcome a 2-0 lead to beat the Islanders, 4-3, on Tuesday night at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Second period goals by veteran forwards Vinny Prospal, Olli Jokinen and Marian Gaborik, and an early third period tally by defenseman Marc Staal, were the difference. With the Bruins winning in New Jersey in overtime on Tuesday, the Rangers remain four points behind eighth place Boston for the final playoff berth in the Eastern Conference. (Atlanta won in Toronto to stay two points back of Boston). The Rangers have six games

America Should Wake Up, Appreciate King Geno Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/30/2010 4:50:00 PM

left, beginning Friday in Tampa Bay. "We didn't get any help tonight," said goalie Henrik Lundqvist, "but hopefully we will down the road -- and take care of our own business." Of Jokinen, Gaborik and Prospal, Rangers coach John Tortorella said, "It was a matter of our top guys accepting responsibility to help us win." It wasn't easy, as the Rangers

came out looking disorganized. A bad D-tandem change resulted in a too-many-men penalty and power play goal by Islanders defenseman Mark Streit 2:09 into the game. Manning the point, Streit's slap shot struck Lundqvist in the arm before sailing into his goal for a 1-0 lead. Lundqvist flubbed a wrist shot by Blake Comeau exactly ten minutes later to put

his team down by two goals early. Share Playing a crucial game against their crosstown rivals, the Rangers had four shots on goal in the first period. However, they took advantage of the first intermission breather.

DAYTON, Ohio-- Before he attained first-name status in this country, before he was zinged for his perfect hair and became the most robust of male voices supporting women's sports, Coach Geno was kind of obscure. He realized as much after meeting legendary John Wooden at a California AMERICA page 64

Accessories News: Auden Jewelry ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs)

Auden. Castaneda's neo-classic aesthetic is informed by "the idea of a modern day urban Submitted at 3/30/2010 2:50:27 PM Amazon, fashionably fearless!" Designer Bryce Castaneda and The collection launched late business partner Steven Gordon last year in LA at Fred Segal, cite tribeswomen, space, and with operations recently moving architecture as the inspiration bicoastal after Henri Bendel behind their new jewelry line, picked up the full collection this

Spring; a partnership that's proven to be a perfect fit. After selling out of their lariat necklace style in two days, Bendel's announced they are giving Auden the storefront windows next month. 'At this rate', explains Castaneda, 'I am

working around the clock to fulfill the orders. We are shocked at the response". ...After a walk through of the full collection, we aren't. Take a look: Avalon Pearl Choker (Oxidized Brass/ Pearl), $625.00 Polyphemus Crystal

Pendant (Oxidized Brass/ Crystal), $385.00 L u n a r T r i b a l Necklace (Oxidized Brass), $565.00 H e s t i a S p h e r e Bracelet (Oxidized Brass / Crystal), $310.00

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AMERICA continued from page 63

MLB Power Rankings: 2010 Inaugural Matt Snyder (FanHouse Main)

Anyway, this is the first launch of our MLB Power Rankings Submitted at 3/30/2010 1:00:00 PM this year. Two things to keep in Filed under: AL Central, AL mind: East, AL West, NL Central, NL o. These aren't predictions of East, NL West, MLB Power how teams will finish. This is Rankings supposed to be a gauge of how The inaugural edition of the good (or bad) each team looks 2010 MLB Power Rankings right now. Things can easily features the Yankees and Red change once the season starts. Sox at the top. That might seem o. This is all me. If you want to boring, but I just can't see it any blame someone for how poorly o t h e r w a y . S h o u l d I b e your favorite team is ranked -intellectually dishonest in favor and you will -- blame me. Not of mixing it up? What's that old FanHouse. cliche? The more things change, Without further ado, let's get to the more they stay the same. it.

coaching clinic, where he introduced himself in a hospitality suite and figured the Wizard of Westwood might recognize him after he'd led Connecticut to its first national championship. "John Wooden was sitting on the couch. I said to the guy running the clinic, 'I want to meet John Wooden.' Like a grandfather would, John told me to sit down right here," said Luigi Auriemma, a son of Italy who came to America with his

family 49 years ago and grew into the finest women's basketball coach of his or any time. "He put his hand on my knee, talking to me about the game and coaching. We spent about 15 minutes. I just listened to what he had to say. It was really neat, really a great experience."

Submitted at 3/30/2010 1:27:00 PM

To honor the genius of Alexander McQueen, New York’s Housing Works Thrift Shop (proceeds benefit homeless people living with HIV/AIDS) in Hell’s Kitchen has curated a sale of the designer’s clothing—including a beaded gown for $125 and leather pants for $55. The silent auction began yesterday and will go through April 11. If you

(MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 3/30/2010 8:27:24 PM

Keith Fox stepped down as president of BusinessWeek, but has now been named president of McGraw-Hill Construction. He replaces Norbert Young, who left the company last fall. Fox served as president of BusinessWeek from 2007 until its sale to Bloomberg LLC in December 2009. He joined McGraw-Hill in 2000 as senior vice president of marketing and business development for BusinessWeek. Fox takes over at McGraw-Hill Construction-which includes its Dodge division and publishes Architectural Record, Engineering News-Record, GreenSource and 10 regional publications at a tough time. Reed Construction Data, a unit of b-to-b publisher Reed Business Information, has a lawsuit charging corporate espionage, among other things. can’t make it in to the store, Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: click here to bid online. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, —Violet Moon Gayn or Term Extraction. Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

Housing Works Auctions Alexander McQueen Styles for a Good Cause ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs)

Around the Net In Media: Ex'BusinessWeek' Prez Heads McGraw-Hill Construction

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Report: Activision reshuffles execs in US, UK; layoffs result Ben Gilbert (Joystiq)

Mike Griffith will now serve as vice chairman and adviser to Kotick, while Thomas Tippl's According to "internal memos" new job is detailed as "the only acquired by the LA Times, executive reporting directly to Activision has switched up more K o t i c k " ( a n d o v e r s e e r o f of its executive positions, in Blizzard head Mike Morhaime). addition to the change in Heading up licensed game position for Thomas Tippl, who properties will now supposedly i s c u r r e n t l y c o - s e r v i n g be Dave Oxford, in addition to C F O / C C O / C O O ( e n o u g h Maria Stripp taking over "all acronyms?). A representative internally owned titles besides for the company told the LA Call of Duty and Blizzard Times, "We realigned our games" (CTO Steve Pearce and structure to better reflect our product head Steve Ackrich are s l a t e a n d m a r k e t i n g temporarily overseeing the CoD opportunities and direct our franchise). resources against the largest, Further, MCV confirmed with m o s t p r o f i t a b l e b u s i n e s s Activision that the corporate segments," without directly r e s h u f f l i n g w i l l r e s u l t i n confirming a claimed 15 layoffs changes in the publisher's UK in the US. division as well, though no The report claims that, in an specifics are available at this email from company head time. The site claims to have B o b b y K o t i c k , A c t i v i s i o n independently confirmed UK revealed that business head layoffs have already occurred, Submitted at 3/31/2010 10:31:00 AM

and we've reached out to Activision for clarification on both reports. Source- Activision Blizzard quietly hits reset button [latimes.com] Source- Activision UK to restructure [MCV] If you're with Activision or a former employee and would like to speak with Joystiq regarding the company's situation, please feel free to contact us. (Your tips will remain confidential. Please leave a valid email address in case we have further questions. Thank you!) Report: Activision reshuffles execs in US, UK; layoffs result originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: April DLC Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)

"9 to 5?" What kind of concerts have you been going to? No sir -- we're talking about Next month's musical lineup for "Free Bird," which will be Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero is available tomorrow, barring as wide and varied as a kiddie some horrific April Fools' Day pool full of Sweet 'n Salty Chex shenanigans. Check out the full Mix, bringing in tracks from list of tracks, along with their Fall Out Boy, The All-American release dates, past the jump. Rejects, Phoenix, Blur, Saving Continue reading Guitar Hero 5 Abel, and Black Sabbath. and Band Hero: April DLC However, there's one track in Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero: particular that stands proudly April DLC originally appeared above the rest -- one which will on Joystiq on Wed, 31 Mar surely soon skyrocket to the top 2010 11:03:00 EST. Please see of the "Most Played" charts. our terms for use of feeds. You know, that song that Permalink| Email this| everyone requests at every C o m m e n t s concert. What? Dolly Parton's Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:03:00 AM

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PrimeSense 3D-sensing tech licensed for Project Natal Justin McElroy (Joystiq)

"Xbox 360 Hardware Engineering teams developed Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:45:00 AM the 'Project Natal' sensor based In February of 2009, it was on the PrimeSensor reference revealed that Microsoft had design to support the special purchased a 3D motion-sensing requirements of Project Natal," camera company called 3DV. In said Aviad Maizels, PrimeSense June, the company showed off president and founder. Project Natal, leading most to What we don't know at the assume the two were connected, moment is just how much though Microsoft countered, Microsoft's baby relies on saying "we built [Natal] in PrimeSense. As you can see in house." That brings us to today, the video after the jump (which as (a company you probably had to have been directed by haven't heard of) PrimeSense T o m m y W i s e a u ) a n d i n has announced that its 3D Engadget's demonstration, the motion-sensing tech is being company's focus has been on utilized for Project Natal. gesture control for UI

navigation, so it's possible PrimeSense could just be supplying a way for users to interact with the Xbox Dashboard and Guide with motion commands. We'll let you know what we can find out. Continue reading PrimeSense 3D-sensing tech licensed for Project Natal PrimeSense 3D-sensing tech licensed for Project Natal originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sega releases first screens and details of The Conduit 2 JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/31/2010 11:31:00 AM

Following its unveiling in Nintendo Power magazine, The Conduit 2, High Voltage's second pass at a Wii FPS, has been officially announced by publisher Sega. Due this fall, The Conduit 2 expands the venue for the serie's action from Washington, D.C. to a variety of locations across the world. The game also adds "allnew" online and couch co-op modes, including Team Invasion Mode, a 4-player split-screen mode that can be played online

or off. The 12-player online competitive play now benefits from "larger and more intricate indoor and outdoor battlefields," and retains the Wii Speak functionality that so few games employ. Turn your All-Seeing Eye toward Sega Europe's blog to see the first screenshots. Sega releases first screens and details of The Conduit 2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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EMI scraps talks to sell Americas rights (Financial Times - US homepage)

PSA: Free Red Faction games are in the mail from Darksiders promo JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:57:00 AM

If you took advantage of the offer for a free copy of Red Faction: Guerrilla via the "mystery code" inside new copies of Darksiders-- and if, for some reason, you've been avoiding your mailbox -- now is the time to face the rush of junk mail once again. You might have a free game waiting for you! We've begun hearing from tipsters whose freebie Red Factions have arrived. The

timing couldn't be better for THQ: having just announced the PC release of Darksiders yesterday, the arrival of the promo discs gives us cause to bring up the game again in posts like this one! We see what you did there, THQ. [Thanks Ben!] PSA: Free Red Faction games are in the mail from Darksiders promo originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

People familiar with the negotiations said the talks were plagued by uncertainties, Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:08:41 AM including whether the proposal EMI has abandoned talks about pitched by Charles Allen, EMI’s a rescue deal to sell off its executive chairman, might fall d i s t r i b u t i o n r i g h t s i n t h e foul of Citigroup, holder of all Americas due to concerns about its £3.2bn debts. price, timing and whether the EMI had hoped the deal would sale could be blocked by have raised about £200m by Citigroup, holder of all of the selling off the right to future music group’s £3.2bn debts. revenues, or securitising, its The collapse of the talks leaves d i s t r i b u t i o n r i g h t s i n t h e the music group behind the A m e r i c a s . Beatles and Coldplay almost This would have boosted its certain to breach the terms of its cash and reduced its net debt, debts. allowing its private equity The UK group had been racing owner – Guy Hands’ Terra to sign a deal by 4.30pm GMT Firma buy-out house – to meet a on Wednesday, after which it key loan-to-value covenant test must submit figures for a on its debt at the end of March. quarterly test on the loans its The failure of the talks leaves private equity owners took out Maltby Capital, EMI’s holding for its£4.2bn buy-out in 2007. company, trying to raise £120m Both Universal Music and Sony from Terra Firma investors as an Music had been discussing a ”equity cure” to make up the possible five-year deal to shortfall before a mid-June assume the rights in the US, deadline. Canada and Latin America to Citigroup could have attempted sell content by EMI artists to to block the deal, which would physical and digital retailers have required EMI to convince such as Walmart and Apple’s the bank that it was in the iTunes. interests of all stakeholders.

EMI was prepared to argue that it would benefit from putting its sales in the Americas through the more efficient distribution operation of a larger rival, which could negotiate better terms with retailers. However, Mr Hands is already suing the bank, alleging that it tricked him into buying the music group by wrongly claiming a rival bidder was still in the running. Citigroup denies the claims. Mr Hands’s battle to keep control of EMI – pitching private equity’s enfant terrible against one of the world’s biggest banks – presents the 50year-old dealmaker with his biggest test. Unless he can persuade investors to pour in another £120m, he risks losing control of his biggest deal, which has become the poster child for the excesses of the buy-out bubble, to his bankers. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Artist Ana Juan Recreates McQueen ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs) Submitted at 3/30/2010 10:04:02 AM

Last night, I finally finished reading The New Yorker’s annual Style issue. From Alexandra Jacobs’ look at the female fantasyland of Polyvore (and its three unlikely software engineer founders) to Rebecca Mead’s profile of Italian sportswear designer Brunello Cucinelli (“[a name] better known within the fashion industry than outside of it,” the author sensitively observes), this issue is not one to let fall to the bottom of your to-read pile. Most memorable of all, though,

is the ethereal cover art—a “mixed acrylic and coal on paper” rendering of one of Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2008 Isabella Blow-inspired headpieces—by artist Ana Juan. I asked Juan why, of all the

designer’s looks she chose this particular one to commemorate him after his untimely death last month. “I think it was the most poetic as a metaphor of death,” the longtime New Yorker contributor says. “The idea was

to express a certain melancholic beauty without forgetting the Spring flair.” Of all the many McQueen tributes we’ve seen over the past few weeks, Juan’s is the most economical but also the most hauntingly beautiful. —Johanna Cox Juan’s original artwork was flown to New York City for print and is now back in Madrid with the artist ( Photos: Imaxtree and newyorker.com) Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

David Cameron: Does he have what it takes? (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 3/31/2010 2:26:41 AM

David Cameron The Conservative leader, David Cameron, is still the favourite to be Britain’s next prime minister Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition HE HAS led the Conservative Party for more than four years and is the man most likely to lead Britain after the general election this spring. Yet people DAVID page 69

US companies cut 23,000 jobs in March (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:02:03 AM

US companies continued to cut jobs in March, dashing hopes that private sector employers would begin hiring for the first time in two years. Private businesses cut 23,000 workers this month, according to a survey from ADP employer services. on Wednesday. That failed to meet expectations of Wall Street analysts who were expecting gains of 40,000, but was the smallest monthly total of job losses since February

2008. “The latest numbers will douse some of the ebullient expectations ahead of Friday’s number, though the trend is still ultimately favourable,” said Alan Ruskin, strategist at RBS Securities. Producers of goods, such as manufacturers, continued to weigh on the labour market in March, with employment in that sector falling by 51,000. A bright note was the services sector, which added 28,000 workers and marked its second consecutive monthly rise. The ADP report comes ahead

of Friday’s closely watched government non-farm payrolls figures. The US economy is expected to have added 200,000 jobs with the unemployment rate holding steady at 9.7 per cent. Wednesday’s data could be understated because it does not track census hiring, which is expected to account for 100,000 jobs, and because it does not make adjustments for weather, which depressed February’s official report. In March, small businesses fared the worst, culling 12,000 jobs. Meanwhile, large

companies cut 7,000 workers and mid-sized groups cut 4,000. Economists have been wary that the jobs market is lagging so far behind the rest of the economy’s recovery and that the growing problem of long-term unemployment could be leading an erosion of skills among displaced workers. “Roughly nine months after the recession in output finished last year, the economy is still losing jobs,” said Paul Ashworth, senior US economist at Capital Economics. “Yes, employment sometimes lags output by a few months, but not normally by this

long.” Separately on Wednesday, commerce department figures showed that US factory orders climbed by 0.6 per cent to $383.5bn in February after rising by a revised 2.5 per cent the prior month. It was the 10th rise in the last 11 months as businesses have looked to replenish inventories to meet renewed demand. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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DAVID continued from page 68

still wonder just who David Cameron is. This is not because he hides what he does or fudges what he thinks, as those on the receiving end of countless webcameron flashes and unending policy e-mails can attest. It is, rather, that his views are not always those of either his party or, perhaps, of his age. The Economist talked to Mr Cameron on March 29th, in the last of a series of on-the-record interviews with the leaders of the three main political parties. Though only 15 years younger than Gordon Brown, prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, he seems of a different generation, with an easy, human touch that Mr Brown often struggles to achieve. He has more obviously in common with the similarly 40 -ish, six-foot-tall leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg. But Mr Cameron is an altogether slicker number, and a far more experienced political operator. Those looking for the Big Idea from Mr Cameron will be disappointed. He has a very English scepticism about grand theories. His identity lies somewhere between liberal London, where he has spent his adult life, and the conservative Home Counties, where he grew up. Ironically for a man whose Euroscepticism has irked Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, he may at heart be

what continental Europeans would recognise as a Christian Democrat. He espouses a social conservatism that dwells on broad issues, such as the cultural causes of poverty, not on the narrow lifestyle questions such as gay rights (on which he is anyway tolerant) that obsess some on the American right. He is an Atlanticist, though not a passionate one, and a gentle free -marketeer. He does, however, have a distinctive analysis of his own country. British society, so his critique goes, is broken. The cause is the erosion of responsibility (his favourite word) by a hyperactive state. He is at his most animated when justifying his (arguably overstated) social pessimism, pointing to “our records against the rest of Europe on things like teenage pregnancy and drug abuse, alcohol, family worklessness, educational problems”. The analysis is open to criticism: the societies he sees as unbroken, including many in continental Europe, spend more on welfare than he would want to or can afford to. The cure, he says, is giving power away, strengthening local government and empowering people directly by, for example, letting them set up their own schools. He is undogmatic about the precise size of the state, deploring instead its overcentralisation; he prefers a big

society to a big state. It remains to be seen whether that will bring relief to the overburdened public finances. As the election nears, the Labour government is seeking to make much of its own (not unblemished) experience in economic management, tarring the Tory opposition as obstructive novices. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor of the exchequer, is a favourite target. Mr Cameron sticks up for Mr Osborne’s performance during the financial crisis, inviting opponents to “push as hard as [they] can”. The Tories supported the bank bail-out in 2008, he notes. Their opposition to the fiscal stimulus may have been attacked by some economists, but others agree that it “added £12.5 billion ($18.9 billion) to our debt without making a noticeable difference to the economy”. In a contest that he insists is a choice between the two main parties rather than a referendum on his alone, he has been clearer for longer about the fiscal squeeze required than Mr Brown. “Give me the equivalent of our asking people to retire a year later from 2016,” he says; at the party conference in October Mr Osborne was commendably ahead of the pack in outlining some specific measures to reduce the fiscal deficit. And Labour has been forced to face reality as a result.

“You don’t hear investment versus cuts any more,” Mr Cameron says, referring to Labour’s favourite dividing line in elections past. Nor, as the polls narrow, do you hear much detail these days about Tory plans to get a fiscal grip. Mr Osborne’s pledge partly to reverse the government’s planned increase in national-insurance (NI) contributions, announced this week, will be funded by cutting waste, a familiar theme on both sides of the aisle. This may be “doable and deliverable”, as Mr Cameron claims, but he will not say precisely how. The sting in the Falklands tale Mr Cameron once called himself the “heir to Blair”. Where he least resembles the former prime minister is on foreign affairs, to which he brings case-by-case policies rather than informing ideals. Mr Blair was both Britain’s most Atlanticist and most Europhile prime minister; Mr Cameron is likely to be less of either. Is there a special relationship with America? Yes, he says: “On any number of issues you see Britain and America working closer than with other allies.” But he points out that “you have to remember we are the junior partner. I think part of getting the relationship right is understanding how best to play the role.” He is “happier than [he] was”

with the way the war in Afghanistan is being fought, but “we are still in the situation where British troops are in charge of two-thirds of the population [in Helmand] but there are only 10,000 of us and 20,000 Americans.” There is muted praise for Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president: “At his best, he can do good things.” What Mr Cameron is not happy with is America’s recent implication that Britain should negotiate with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. “I’ve always said the special relationship should be a frank and a candid one, and I think you should frankly and candidly say we’re disappointed.” His view of Europe, too, is more nuanced than some might expect. He has been (rightly) criticised for pulling his party out of the centre-right grouping in the European Parliament to which the parties of Mrs Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, belong, and for cultivating the Euroscepticism of his party faithful. But he is a broadly restraining influence on it and, with so much to do at home, he will hardly relish fights with Brussels. “I think people in Europe will be pleasantly surprised that we will be activist and engaged from day one,” he says. “But we have a very clear view about the DAVID page 75

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Green.view: Climategate’s culture (The Economist: Daily columns) Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:25:47 AM

Green.view British MPs are concerned about the way climate scientists have worked, but not about their results Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist print edition The University of East Anglia’s climate scientists, and indeed the results of climate science in general, are OK. The practice and culture of climate science, and the procedures of the university, are not. That is the conclusion of a report on the “climategate” e-mails by the MPs on the Science and Technology Committee of Britain’s House of Commons, the first of three different reports on the subject expected over the next few months. The e-mails, apparently stolen, have been seized on as evidence of various types of dishonesty and skulduggery in climate science since their release onto the internet late last year. The MPs’ most striking prescription is that climate science should hold itself, and be held to, a higher standard than heretofore when it comes to openness and transparency. When giving evidence to the committee, Phil Jones, the head of the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU), from which the emails came, said that freely disclosing data and the

computer codes used to work with them “has not been standard practice” in the field. “If it is not standard practice how can the science progress?” asked Graham Stringer, a member of the committee. “Maybe it should be standard practice,” replied Dr Jones, “but it is not standard practice across the subject.” The MPs concluded that in a field as significant and important to policy as climate change this was not good enough. They are calling for data and methodological workings to be made openly available. On occasions when data are provided to scientists on the basis that they will not be further promulgated (as with some of the data Dr Jones used from meteorological agencies in other countries) that should be made clear, with all requests redirected to the relevant dataholders. Many climate scientists will claim that the field is already highly transparent in these regards, and it is true that much data is freely available. But Dr Jones’s position on what has, in the past, constituted standard practice suggests that such claims to transparency have to be judged case by case. In remarks he made at the launch of the report, the committee’s chairman, Phil Willis, said the current “culture of non-disclosure” was

“reprehensible”. Evan Harris, another member of the committee, was quick to point out that that is not a word used in the report proper, which is supportive of Dr Jones and his colleagues: Dr Harris himself successfully moved an amendment to the report which said that, on the basis of the evidence seen, “the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact”, a conclusion that the university particularly welcomed. The report says that on the evidence the MPs saw no reason to think the scientists dishonest or their science besmirched, or to doubt the consensus among climate scientists that humans are warming the world and will warm it further. The MPs accepted that the much-bloggedabout use of “trick”, when applied to a way of representing data, and “hide the decline”, as applied to a set of data in which tree rings that were held to be useful at some times were held to be useless at others, were in no way evidence of obfuscation. And it sympathised with the scientists’ frustration at having to deal with numerous freedom of information requests from people who the scientists believed wanted to obstruct their work. Frustration aside, the committee deemed the approach which CRU took to at least some of these requests made under the

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) unacceptable. But its criticisms over prima facie evidence that the act had been breached were aimed more at the university authorities than at the scientists. The university, it found, had supported the scientists in non-disclosure, rather than helping them follow the act’s procedures. If a small number of FOIA requests had been dealt with properly early on, it seems possible that the large number of requests last year (over 100) might have been averted, or could, perhaps, have been rejected as vexatious. The committee also chided the office of the information commissioner for going beyond what it could say for sure when it told the Sunday Times that the act had been broken but that it could do nothing about it because six months had elapsed. And it took the opportunity for a dig at the government, which said last summer that there was no reason to see that six-month limit as posing problems. It does here. A full account of whether the terms of the act were actually broken, the MPs said, should come from either the information commissioner or from the “Independent Climate Change Email Review” that the university has set up, and which will produce one of the next two reports on the matter. The other will be from a “Scientific Appraisal Panel” with members

chosen by the Royal Society. The e-mail review panel will look further at evidence for manipulation or suppression of data, for poor practice with respect to peer review, at attempts to circumvent FOIA and at how the e-mails got out in the first place. The appraisal panel will look to see whether any of the issues raised invalidate the scientific papers produced at CRU over the past decades. The membership of both panels has been criticised for partiality by various blogs taking a close and unfriendly interest in the matter, pointing out, for example, that the chairman of the appraisal panel, Lord Oxburgh, has investments in clean energy companies (he was also, briefly, the chairman of Shell), and that some of the panels’ members have preexisting commitments to the consensus view among climate scientists, or academic links to the CRU scientists. Their criticisms were taken up by Mr Stringer, who in the end voted against the report as released. Mr Stringer moved to have the report urge that it is “vital that these two inquiries have at least one member each who is a reputable scientist, and is sceptical of anthropogenic climate change.” The rest of the committee voted this suggestion GREEN.VIEW: page 73

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Investors cautious ahead of crucial labour data (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:46:42 AM

15:45 BST: A first quarter that started with a bang looked to be finishing with a whimper on Wednesday as lingering sovereign debt fears and trepidation before a crucial US labour report encouraged traders to pare risky bets ahead of the Easter weekend. The FTSE All-World index, which had welcomed the first day of the new decade by jumping 1.7 per cent, again faltered in the face of 18-month highs, and was flat by midmorning trading in New York. Greek debt was again under pressure, though the euro bounced on better economic data out of Germany. The global equity benchmark has added 2.6 per cent in the first three months of the year, but that advance disguises a 6.7 plunge at the most febrile point of the eurozone’s sovereign debt woes in February. Those worries have characterised the quarter and are still impacting sentiment. However, of more immediate concern, perhaps, is the market’s need for confirmation that the year-long rally is not assuming a rosier economic scenario than is the case. Wednesday’s Market Menu What’s affecting risk appetite Risk off

Fiscal woes: Greek debt still under pressure. Data vacuum: US payroll numbers on Good Friday. Quarter end: profit-taking temptation. Risk on Das ist gut: German jobless fall. Confident: US household sentiment improving. The US non-farm payrolls numbers due on Friday – consensus is for a net 190,000 jobs added – may go a long way to address that anxiety. But before that, traders got a clue to the health of the jobs market from the ADP employment report released on Wednesday. It was a disappointment. ADP showed 23,000 private sector jobs were shed in March, compared with forecasts for a 40,000 gain. The news hit US stocks, pushing the S&P 500 down 0.1 per cent, with heavier initial losses pared following slightly better than expected data on factory orders. “Tomorrow’s releases of Challenger Job Cut and Initial Jobless Claims figures will become key indicators, and Friday’s employment figures could well be trend-changing for thin markets, if they reflect the weakness seen in today’s ADP figures,” said Nick Beecroft, senior forex consultant at Saxo Bank. The Market Eye Is the currency “haven” trade dead and been replaced by the

traditional focus on economic growth differentials? That appears to be the case on Wednesday. Over many months the trend was for weak US economic data to encourage an apparently perverse move into the dollar as investors sought a haven. Likewise, more worries about eurozone debt has encouraged a move out of euros and into the buck and the yen. But today the weak ADP jobs data is dominating sentiment and the buck has fallen sharply. Meanwhile, Greek bonds remain under duress and the euro is jumping as traders look at the solid macro-data out of Germany. Of course this could be down to end of quarter position squaring - a fabulous excuse for difficult to explain market phenomena. Either way, one to watch in the second quarter. Indeed, Goldman Sachs encapsulated the dichotomy facing investors as they ponder the big factors that may drive assets from here. “The most plausible catalysts for fresh highs in equities are the combination of steady growth news and lower inflation on the macro side or upcoming earnings on the micro side, “ the bank said in a note. However, it added: “Set against this, better data – including payrolls – might translate more in the near-term into rates pressure than equity gains.”

The performance of European bourses was as wet as the continent’s weather. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 fell 0.3 per cent and the FTSE 100 in London lost 0.1 per cent, as traders tracked fluctuations in the US stock futures and later Wall Street proper. Asian exchanges had earlier showed signs of fatigue, the FTSE Asia-Pacific index dropping 0.6 per cent. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 could not hold onto a new intraday 18-month high after exporters welcomed a softer yen. The benchmark index finally succumbed to the regional torpor and fell 0.1 per cent. China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.6 per cent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng also fell 0.6 per cent, completing a miserable quarter for the Chinese mainland. The SCI has lost 5.1 per cent, while across the Sea of Japan, the Nikkei has gained 5.2 per cent. Greek government bonds continued to find few buyers after Athens said it would issue a global dollar-denominated note in late April. The yield on the seven-year note that was auctioned earlier in the week with a coupon on 5.9 per cent was up 16 basis points to 6.42 per cent. Greek 10-years sported a yield of 6.51 per cent, up 7 basis points, having earlier hit the highest in five weeks, as investors continued to doubt the

ability of Athens to manage its fiscal deficit. With the German benchmark yield stable at 3.10 per cent, the premium investors demand for Greek notes relative to Bunds widened to 341bp. The cost of insuring Greek debt against default move to its highest level since the start of the month. The yield on US benchmark 10year Treasuries pulled sharply back from 10-month highs, dropping 4bp to 3.82 per cent as the weak ADP data trumped worries about supply and the end of quantitative easing. The euro was able to shrug off the deterioration in the lowly rated sovereign debt market, as traders preferred to focus for the time being on news of an unexpected drop in German unemployment and a bounce in the nation’s engineering orders. Data showing eurozone unemployment rising to 10 per cent appeared to have little impact. The single currency rose 0.8 per cent against the dollar to $1.3513, and added 0.8 per cent to Y125.57 against a broadly weak yen. The dollar index, a measure tracking the buck’s performance against a basket of its peers, fell 0.5 per cent to 81.05 as investors reacted to the soft ADP numbers. Copper rose a fraction to INVESTORS page 72

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Art.view: Twisting arms (The Economist: Daily columns) Submitted at 3/31/2010 3:31:07 AM

Art.view Reading the tea leaves at New York's Asian Art Week Mar 31st 2010 | From The Economist online THE most obvious lesson to be drawn from Asian Art Week, an annual festival of New York sales that ended on March 26th, was that demand from buyers in mainland China is growing ever stronger. This was especially the case for jades, imperial porcelain, cloisonné, scholars’ items and furniture. In stark contrast to Western buyers, for whom collecting Chinese art is a pastime enjoyed by the middleaged and the elderly, Chinese buyers are often young and wealthy and hail from all over China—not just Beijing and Shanghai, but as far afield as Yunan, Xian and Mongolia. They are part of a growing fraternity that regards bringing home national treasures as one of the highest expressions of patriotism. “At the very top of the market, the Chinese still face competition from the richest and

most determined European and American buyers,” says James Hennessy, of Littleton & Hennessy, a dealer that bids on behalf of a number of Western and Asian collectors. “But almost every lot up to $500,000 was snapped up by collectors from the mainland. They are out in force, buying whatever they can lay their hands on.” Mr Hennessy’s partner, Richard Littleton, was pleased to have bought three important lots in that price range, including a low -standing early Ming lacquer table inlaid with mother of pearl, for which he paid $134,500, well over the top estimate. He also bought a large greenish-grey jade dragon seal consigned by a French family that had acquired it in the early 1900s. The seal was estimated at $20,000-30,000, but three energetic telephone bidders forced Mr Littleton to pay $434,500 for it in the end. Supplying these sales are some of the most serious American and European collectors, many of them in their 60s and 70s and without heirs with similar passions. Given the strength of the Asian market right now,

these collectors are looking to cash in. Yet persuading these canny, experienced buyers to sell is not for the faint-hearted. This relates to the more subtle second lesson from Asian Art Week: the importance of longevity, experience and personal contacts in securing the best consignments. The two main auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, fared quite differently last week. Over the past decade Sotheby’s has seen the departure of several senior staff in its Chinese department. James Godfrey, the doyen, left in 2001, followed by Joe Hynn-Yang in 2007. Sotheby’s Chinese department in New York is now run by Caroline Schulten, who is nowhere near as experienced as the man working for Christie's: Theow Tow, the honorary chairman of Christie’s Asia, who has been in the Chinese ceramics and works of art department in New York for 24 years. Grossing $40m, Christie’s sale was three times the size of Sotheby’s, and it was the biggest Chinese sale the auctioneer had ever held in New

coming off a more than 1 per cent rise after bearish US inventory data. Gold climbed 1.2 per cent to $1,115, resuming its tight inverse correlation to

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$7,840 per tonne, keeping the industrial metal benchmark near the 20-month intraday highs hit in the previous session. Oil rose 0.6 per cent to $82.85,

York. For taking bids, 25 extra telephone lines were installed, more than half of which were manned by fluent Chinese speakers. The roster of collectors prepared to sell was also impressive. They included works from the Arthur Sackler collection, which has been dispersed in chunks over the past 16 years, and the first-ever sale from the collection of Robert BlumenfiBeld, a California collector with well over 1,000 major pieces. Last week’s sale was entirely made up from his holdings of carved ivory and rhinoceros horn. Some American collectors are concerned that the trade in materials from endangered animals will become more restricted. Mr Blumenfield is not alone in disposing of these works. Mr Tow persuaded an impressive number of other collectors to let him market their treasures, including Robert Ellsworth, a wealthy New York dealer; Philip Wood, a San Francisco collector whose small 18th-century pouring vessel made 13 times it top estimate; and Stephen Junkunc, heir to a

fabulous Chinese collection in Chicago, who consigned the cover lot. This rare large white jade Buddha achieved the sale’s top price of $2.3m (including commission and taxes), well over ten times the top estimate. Christie’s global presence allows it to sell works wherever they will do best. Mr Tow is already hard at work sourcing items for the next important Chinese sale, in Hong Kong at the end of May. As New York's Asian Art Week came to a close, he received an early Ming bronze figure of Amitayus from an American collector. Standing two feet high and bearing a rare mark from the 15th-century reign of the emperor Xuande, the statue is unique, which is why it will carry an estimate of somewhere around HK$35m ($4m). Someone in mainland China may even be persuaded to pay more. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Unrest in China’s cities: Minor explosions (The Economist: News analysis)

renowned for their thuggish, fine-gouging ways. The vendor, as it turned out, Submitted at 3/31/2010 12:26:56 AM had not been killed. But the Unrest in China’s cities The rioters could be forgiven for simmering anger of urban China assuming the worst. In the past Mar 31st 2010 | BEIJING | couple of years even some stateFrom The Economist print controlled newspapers have edition made common cause with critics ALTERCATIONS between of chengguan activities across unlicensed street vendors and the country. In January 2008 a law-enforcement officers are man in the central province of c o m m o n p l a c e i n C h i n a . Hubei was beaten to death when Sometimes they escalate into he attempted to film officers scuffles or riots. But a night- trying to stop a protest by time rampage by hundreds of villagers against a dump for citizens in the southern city of urban waste. “Another citizen Kunming, capital of Yunnan has fallen. When will we stand province, on March 26th-27th up and restrain the chengguan has aroused fresh concerns system?” wrote a newspaper about a malaise in Chinese columnist at the time. cities. The Chinese press has reported The violence in Kunming others having fallen to the reportedly left dozens injured. chengguan since: a pedlar left Ten government vehicles were severely brain-damaged after a overturned and some set on fire mauling in Shanghai last July; a by crowds enraged by rumours man beaten to death in Beijing that a vendor had been killed by in October after being accused an officer of Kunming’s “City of illegally using his motorcycle A d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d L a w as a taxi. One case prompted a Enforcement Bureau”. This letter to China’s legislature. A agency, commonly known by its woman in the province of C h i n e s e a b b r e v i a t i o n Sichuan died last November chengguan, is a junior cousin to after setting herself on fire in the police force. It is responsible protest when officers burst into for matters such as clearing the h e r h o m e t o e n f o r c e a streets of illegal pedlars and demolition order. In response, a supervising house demolitions. group of Beijing law professors C h e n g g u a n o f f i c e r s a r e wrote proposing tighter controls

on demolition procedures. Protests triggered by chengguan brutality have rattled the authorities, hypersensitive as they are to any urban unrest that might turn against the government. Last May hundreds of university students protested in the eastern city of Nanjing against the alleged beating of a classmate. The following month police rescued several chengguan who were captured by rioters in a town in the southern province of Guangdong. In Kunming last October protesters put the corpse of a pedicab-driver, who had allegedly been killed by chengguan, on a gurney and wheeled it to a chengguan office where they burned paper as a traditional funeral offering (the authorities said he had died naturally). That same month a Shanghai man became famous when he chopped off part of a finger in protest at what he said was an attempt to frame him as an illegal taxi-driver. The latest flare-up in Kunming has also attracted considerable press attention. One newspaper website described the eruption as symptomatic of public resentment against local officialdom that could blow up like “a bomb at any time”. Another newspaper attacked the

Kunming authorities for releasing only bare details and not taking questions at a press briefing on the incident. A third suggested the official version of events, that the vendor had simply fallen over, might be a “lie” (a word even used in the headline). It quoted witnesses saying an officer had pushed over her pedicab, pinning the woman under it. A gas canister had then rolled on top of her, knocking her unconscious. In recent weeks, a speech on social unrest by a prominent Chinese scholar, Yu Jianrong, has been widely circulated on the internet in China. In it Mr Yu describes the emergence in recent years of a new type of social unrest, which he calls “venting incidents”: brief, unorganised outbursts of public rage against the authorities or the wealthy. China’s efforts to enforce “rigid stability”, he argues, were not sustainable and could result in “massive social catastrophe”. Even government officials, he notes, are giving warning in private of worse to come. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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down, arguing that scepticism was a proper attitude expected of all, rather than the badge of a preceding conviction. Steve McIntyre, a retired Canadian mining consultant whose blog, Climate Audit, has been the source for much detailed critique of climate reconstructions, including those of CRU, might, though not an academic, be the sort of person Mr Stringer is thinking of. For his part, Mr McIntyre says that his preference would not be for someone sceptical of anthropogenic global warming per se, but rather for someone familiar with the detailed issues that he and others have raised—or, better yet, for a judge. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Obama to permit Atlantic oil exploration (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:32:53 AM

The Obama administration announced a plan on Wednesday to allow offshore drilling for oil and gas in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, marking a shift in US energy policy. The move is part of a plan to reduce US dependence on foreign oil and is the first exploration off the Virginia coast in two decades. In making the proposal, President Barack Obama is embracing an idea that Republicans have held dear in recent years at the same time US lawmakers are working to craft a sweeping bipartisan energy and climate bill. If a moratorium on drilling is lifted in the central and western parts of Gulf of Mexico, the administration projects that it would free two-thirds of the available oil and gas resources in that area. Drilling would occur 50 miles off of Virginia’s coast and 125 miles off Florida’s coast. Drilling has been banned in much of the US offshore areas outside the Gulf of Mexico for fear that spills or other accidents could do environmental damage and sully the view from shore.

Indeed, the Obama administration pulled back from plans to permit drilling off California and along the east coast after taking office. “I know that we can come together to pass comprehensive energy and climate legislation that will foster new industries and millions of new jobs protecting our planet and helping us become more energy independent,” Mr Obama said at the Andrews Naval Air Facility on Wednesday.

In an effort to appease environmentalists, the plan would cancel drilling in Alaska’s sensitive Bristol Bay area and reassess plans in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in north Alaska. Drilling in Alaska’s Cook Inlet would be allowed to continue. “There will be those who strongly disagree with this decision, including those who say we should not open any new areas to drilling,” Mr Obama said. “But what I want to

emphasise is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil to one that relies more on homegrown fuels and clean energy.” Mr Obama said that since the US only has 2 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and consumes 20 per cent of the world’s oil, drilling alone will not meet the country’s longterm energy needs.

The oil industry will likely be pleased at the new access, but the rolling back of access in offshore Alaska will be a blow to companies who have spent years and millions of dollars preparing to drill and produce there. Some of the companies operating in Alaska include Royal Dutch Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips. ”The administration should be commended for proceeding cautiously in the Arctic Ocean,’’ said Marilyn Heiman, US Arctic Program director for The Pew Environment Group. “New leasing should not occur until improved oil spill response capacity is in place and we know better how to protect this sensitive region.’’ She said there was no proven way to clean up an oil spill in broken ice during the darkness that is present many months out of the year in the Arctic. In some of the remote areas being considered for development, such as the Chukchi Sea, she said, response equipment for a catastrophic spill would have to come from at least 400 miles away. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Payroll Withholding Taxes Surge in March Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/31/2010 8:30:07 AM

Matt Trivisonno shares with us some of the research he does at Daily Jobs Update regarding payroll withholding taxes. He notes that in March, there has been a very strong surge in withholding taxes. The amount is roughly equivalent to 300,000 new workers being paid $30,000 salaries. Matt presume many of these jobs are Census hires. How he arrived at the 300,000 estimate: In February, the un-adjusted growth in withholding taxes over February 2009 was -2.28%. For the first 21 business days of March, the growth rate is +3.12%. That’s a miraculous 5% jump, the bulk of which is almost certainly the result of Census Bureau hiring. Let’s take a look at how many new jobs would fit this size of a leap: The dollar amount of March’s gain is $4,764,000,000. Divide that by 21 days, and we get a daily average of $226,860,000. Divide that by 5 and we get $45,370,000 per work week. So, how many new workers

would be required for the IRS to rake-off $45,370,000 per week more in taxes this month? A good ballpark figure might be 300,000 new jobs. If you hired 300,000 workers and paid them an average annual salary of $30,000, your weekly payroll would be $173,076,923 (300,000 * 30,000 / 52). If you withheld 26.5% in taxes from each paycheck, the total

many workers will have had their hours increased as opposed to being newly hired. Nevertheless, the Bureau of Labor Statistics should report a very large number on Friday morning. The Census Bureau hasn’t published any hiring statistics that I have seen, but the consensus among economists is that they have hired 100,000 workers in March. They could have hired quite a lot more of the planned 1.2 million total, but the army of door-knockers isn’t scheduled to hit the streets until May, though they will likely go on the payroll for training well before then. The bottom line is that Friday’s jobs report should be very strong, though it could w o u l d b e $ 4 5 , 8 6 5 , 3 8 5 disappoint the market if the ($173,076,923 * 0.265), which Census Bureau was responsible is pretty close to the increase in for the bulk of hiring as opposed to the private economy. March’s withholdings so far. However, the withholding data All data and charts via Matt is not detailed in any way by the Trivisonno Trivisonno.com and Treasury Department, and we Daily Jobs Update only have totals to work with. Five Filters featured article: So, we can only make very, very Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: rough estimates since there is a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, wide range of salaries, multiple Term Extraction. tax brackets, and the fact that

DAVID continued from page 69

direction we ought to go in.” He wants to win op-outs from the European Union’s social chapter and charter of fundamental rights. Few fancy his chances. And what of his chances in the general election expected next month? The 17-point poll leads the Tories enjoyed last year have faded to margins less than half that size. The decline in the Tories’ popularity in recent months continues to puzzle, with some putting it down to a message that is too bleakly austere and others blaming it on something close to the opposite: a lack of Thatcherite punch and clarity. In fact it probably owes more to the recent economic recovery, which seems strong enough to vindicate the government’s handling of the recession but not so strong that a change of management can be risked safely. Labour’s poll rating has increased by more than the Conservatives’ has fallen. And the crisis has challenged the opposition as well as the government. After rebranding themselves as a party that could see beyond the market to social and environmental concerns, the Tories have had to re-rebrand themselves as sober stewards of a ruined economy. “I don’t feel too shocked by the tightening of the polls becauseI’ve always believed it’s a very big DAVID page 77

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Did US Housing Have a Boom/Bust Cycle? Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:03:35 AM

The NY Fed has a curious research piece out, looking at areas of Upstate New York that were “insulated” from housing price volatility. They note that many parts of the country have not experienced dramatic declines in housing prices, and upstate

metropolitan areas of Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse even enjoyed price increases during the recession. The NY Fed suggests the reason why is fairly simple: “ The region’s relatively low incidence of nonprime mortgages.” > Metro Area Home Price Appreciation, 2000-08 click for larger chart > Geographic Distribution of

Boom/Bust Metropolitan Areas Sources: Federal Housing Finance Agency, All Transactions index; Moody’s Economy.com > The one caveat I would add is that the coastal populations are far larger, and have a greater density (i.e, on less land), than the non coastal Western areas and Southeast. See this cartogram for a graph of what

this looks like. Hat tip Real Time Economics > Source: Bypassing the Bust: The Stability of Upstate New York’s Housing Markets during the Recession Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF NEW YORK Second District, March 2010

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Chicago PMI disappoints Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

component was about unchanged at 53.1. Prices Paid fell 1 pt to 66.6 but is 7 pts Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:20:30 AM above the 1 yr average. The big T h e M a r C h i c a g o P M I change within the data was the manufacturing index was 58.8, 10 pt jump in Inventories which about 2 pts below estimates and rose above 50 for the first time down from 62.6 in Feb which since Oct ‘08. This component was the highest since April ‘05. will statistically lift GDP if its It is still the 3rd highest reading followed in other regions and dating back to mid ‘07 but it hopefully it was built to meet f o l l o w s t h e w e a k e r t h a n existing demand rather than in expected ADP report and with the hopes of a pick up in the market a straight line over demand that may or may not the past month, there is little come. The ISM is out tomorrow. tolerance for below forecasted Five Filters featured article: data. New Orders fell a touch to Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: 61.8 from 62.2 but it is the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, lowest since Oct ‘09. Backlogs Term Extraction. fell 4.2 pts but just gives back the Feb spike. The Employment

DAVID continued from page 75

mountain we have to climb,” says Mr Cameron. The anti-politics mood unleashed by last year’s parliamentary-expenses scandal also makes it hard for any politician, however appealing, to electrify the public. The country’s propensity to fall for a leader the way it did in 1997 is no longer there. Being preferred to your opponents—which the Tories still are in every poll—may be the best any politician can aim for. “Labour would like nothing more than just to talk about the

Conservatives and run away from their record,” says Mr Cameron. “We’re not going to let them do that.” Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

MediaDailyNews: Ratings Redefinitions Grow Frequent, Now Nielsen Changes Meaning Of 'Reach' (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:10:01 AM

In a move that has profound implications for the way advertisers and agencies plan and buy television, Nielsen Tuesday informed clients it will make some fundamental changes in the way it calculates its so-called "average audience" ratings - long the currency of the $80 billion TV advertising marketplace. Perhaps the most significant of the changes is that Nielsen will begin including duplicate viewing to all program MEDIADAILYNEWS: page 78

Research Brief: Small Businesses Search For Leads With Website Video (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:15:30 AM

According to the latest quarterly report from WebVisible, the average small business advertiser spent $2,149 on search advertising in Q4 2009, an increase of 30% over Q3 2009 and 111% over Q4 2008. Video capability was the fastest-growing website feature for small business advertisers over the past year, with 19% of

advertisers showing video on their websites in Q4 2009, versus just 5% in Q4 2008. The data represents nearly $22 million in U.S. small business advertisers spending in Q4 2009 from more than 12,000 individual advertisers. Conversion rates also improved for small business advertisers, with 35.3% of clicks resulting in website conversion action, compared with 32% in Q3 2009 and 26.6% in Q4 2008. Actions

are predominantly calls, and also include sending emails or SMS texts, form fills, printed driving directions or video views. The average keyword count per small business advertiser increased by 21% in Q4 2009 over Q3 2009, to an average 67 keywords. WebVisible CEO, Kirsten Mangers, says "... these numbers show increased confidence by small businesses in using search to gain leads, and increased

ability to turn those leads into sales... " Mangers continued, "... a key is knowing the most cost-effective place to spend those ad dollars... Bing has higher click-through rates and lower costs-per-click than Google... often a better buy." Click-through rates and costper-click did not change significantly on the search engines on a quarter over quarter basis:

• Bing maintained the highest CTR while Google maintained the highest CPC • The share of spending was unchanged on Yahoo! and Bing in Q4 2009 • Some spend was shifted from Google to Ask as advertiser resellers sought lower-cost sources of traffic Effective with the Q4 2009 RESEARCH page 78

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RESEARCH

continued from page 77

telecasts in its average audience ratings, a move that could undermine one of the core tenants of Madison Avenue's media planning theory: unduplicated reach. Nielsen said it is making the moves, effective in December, to help prepare for other big changes in the way it factors television audience ratings, including the inclusion of socalled "extended screen" viewing of TV programs viewed online. While the absolute amount of duplicate viewing that currently takes place via the Internet and various devices such as digital video recorders and video-on-demand services, currently is small, it is expected to grow over time, and potentially could dilute the meaning of audience reach. "Reach and frequency will certainly be impacted," Don Seaman, vice president-director of communications analysis at MPG said in response to the Nielsen changes, which are especially vexing as they follow other recent shifts that have aggravated agencies and advertisers by undermining or diluting the value of other

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television advertising currencies, especially its recent decision to do away with "live" audience viewing in its local TV ratings (see related story in today's edition). "Now it seems like Nielsen's telling us that we can hit a target more than once with the same bullet, so to speak," Seaman said, noting that the notion of unduplicated reach has been important for Madison Avenue, because it is one of the ways agencies and advertisers plan their advertising budgets to reach their target audiences most effectively, and with as little duplicated waste as possible. "It's unlikely that any repeated program content viewing will deliver repeated commercial viewing," Seaman noted, adding that the Nielsen changes - like its recent decision on local TV ratings - seem have been made to favor the goals of certain clients over others. "Once again, the metric is favoring the content providers and probably overstating what the actual commercial impact really is." A Nielsen spokesman said the

absolute impact of the duplicate viewing currently is miniscule, so should not impact the effectiveness of most TV advertising plans. "The impact is definitely pretty small," said Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes. "The estimate is that it will increase viewing under 1%." The less than 1% figure, he said, is the amount Nielsen estimates the inclusion of duplicate viewing done via digital video recorders will have on the absolute size of average audience ratings. He said the impact of online viewing of TV programs currently is negligible, but acknowledged that it is expected to grow over time, as more of the TV industry embraces a "TV everywhere" mantra. Nielsen will begin releasing including "evaluation data" for viewing of TV programs done online in September, and will deliver them by the end of the year. Nielsen said it would make other adjustments to important calculations related to its average audience ratings concurrent with these moves, including how it calculates

HUTs (households using television) and PUTs (people using television), which are the universe from which ratings are derived. (A rating point equals 1% of the audience available in a household or persons universe, nationally or locally.) Holmes noted that the changes are being done under the watchful eye of industry ratings watchdog the Media Rating Council, and that Nielsen clients have been involved in the process. He also noted that the inclusion of duplicate viewing has been a long-standing practice in the television syndication business, where so-called "gross average audience" ratings, or GAAs, are the currency of the realm, but that is due to the nature in which syndicated TV shows are distributed and scheduled, often airing multiple times a week in the same market. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

study, WebVisible has begun analyzing the spend among different types and sizes of small businesses, segmenting advertisers into five distinct groups based upon their organizational maturity and advertising propensities: Profile of Segmented Small Businesses Name Size Description Business Type Part_Timers / Newbies Estimated 5 - 7 million in U.S. Not in dun & bradstreet database New businesses with small commercial footprint Soloists Estimated 2.8 - 3.8 million in U.S. 1 employees 0 - 2 years in business Unknown business/legal type Entrepreneurs Estimated 1 - 1.9 million in U.S. 2 to 4 employees 2 - 5 years in business $200k-$400k in sales Proprietorships Small Business: Generalists Estimated 0.8 - 1.4 million in U.S. 5 to 24 employees 5+ years in business $500k-$2.4m in sales Partnerships Small Business: Managers Estimated 400,000 - 700,000 in U.S. RESEARCH page 79

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MediaDailyNews: WEtv Kicks Off Spring Slate (MediaPost | Media News)

about each other's wardrobe. Stylist Luciene Salomone is thrown into the fray to jumpWE tv reports a strong 2009, start fashion fixes. delivering its highest-ever prime Separately "Sunset Daze," -time household rating for billed as the "Melrose Place" of women 25-54. Building on its retirement homes, will debut, as success, it announced new w i l l " D o w n s i z e d , " w h i c h upcoming series. Most will considers the how the tough begin in late April. economy is impacting one A big get is "Mother Knows family. "Downsized" dovetails Best," a show that examine the with a study by Insight Research mother-daughter relationship of Group, commissioned by WEtv, comedian Joan Rivers and to gauge the impact of the daughter Melissa, famed for recession on women. It found their red-carpet critiques. The 47% say they have become opinionated Rivers is moving smarter about spending, while from New York to Los Angeles 33% now teach their kids about and into her daughter's home, financial responsibility. where she currently lives with John Miller, senior vice her young son and boyfriend. president of original productions The show is scheduled for a and developments, called the fourth-quarter launch. new slate "an important Continuing the mother-daughter programming evolution for WE theme, the network is also t v , e x p a n d i n g f r o m i t s launching "You're Wearing authoritative wedding niche to That?!?" In the no-holes-barred telling a wide range of stories series, family members dish about the life stages of the Submitted at 3/31/2010 9:00:21 AM

modern woman." In keeping with WE's focus on family, Dr. Tara Fields will address broken relationships in "Fix My Family," while the Masches return for a second season of "Raising Sextuplets." WE's established bridal lineup is adding "Girl Meets Gown," set at two of the busiest bridal shops in Texas; it follows three to four brides per show. The net has also acquired the full eightseason library of "Charmed." Kim Martin, president/GM of WE tv and Wedding Central, said: "We have more viewers than ever before in our history, and we're excited to bring them a new slate packed with conflict, drama and humor that addresses issues most relevant to their lives." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

RESEARCH continued from page 78

25+ employees 5+ years in business $2.5m+ in sales Incorporated Source: WebVisible, March 2010 "In most reports and trend stories, all small businesses get lumped into the same category," said Mangers. "But a solo entrepreneur running his architecture business in the evenings is not going to have a lot in common with a 10-person hair salon or a three-location local restaurant chain. Examination of spend levels by segment revealed that, not surprisingly, larger businesses are more likely to spend more on advertising. Part-Timers, perhaps with bigger dreams and better funded pockets than Soloists, who depend on their business for income, outspend Soloists by 33%. Entrepreneurs, who still keep a tight rein on expenses, spend slightly less than average. It is

not until a business has more than $500,000 a year in revenue and at least five employees that advertising spending goes above average. Small Business Managers, who are most likely sales or marketing specialists within their organizations, are dependent on advertising to drive leads to the business and thus spend more than twice the average among all the small businesses included in the study. The data represents nearly $22 million in U.S. small business advertiser spending in Q4 2009 from more than 12,000 individual advertisers To follow up with WebVisible for additional information, please visit here. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Hear the Latest Trends and Discover New Revenue Opportunities for Your Media Brand – June 10, 2010, NYC (PRWeb via Yahoo! News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/30/2010 11:00:00 AM

From leveraging new platforms like e-readers and mobile, to rethinking staffing needs and organizational strategy, at min's Bottom-Line Leadership Conference, the bottom line is the bottom line. The secondannual Bottom-Line Leadership Conference for Magazine Brands will offer essential ideas and strategies for success in today's multi-platform media world. New York, NY (PRWEB) March 30, 2010 -- From leveraging new platforms like ereaders and mobile, to rethinking staffing needs and organizational strategy, at min's Bottom-Line Leadership Conference, the bottom line is the bottom line. The secondannual Bottom-Line Leadership Conference for Magazine Brands will offer essential ideas and strategies for success in today's multi-platform media world. Attendees will hear the latest trends and discover new revenue opportunities for their media brand. More Information. From the publishers of one of the most trusted media

information sources – min – this conference will provide a day full of new ideas and profitgenerating tactics from thought leaders who will share how they've adapted organizational models in the face of rapidly emerging media platforms. Attendees will hear examples of how companies analyze acquisitions for creating new business opportunities vs. organic growth where they've been able to innovate with a lean staff; how to monetize your audience and increase engagement with the newest digital opportunities; and how the use of new data technologies can maximize profits. min's Bottom-Line Leadership Conference, which will take place at the Grand Hyatt in New York City, will be co-chaired by min Group Publisher Diane Schwartz and Michele Magazine, president of Michele Magazine Search LLC. Among the speakers are: • Andy Amill, VP & Publisher, WeightWatchers Magazine • Todd Bowman, Senior Vice President of Sales, appsavvy • Daniele Campbell, Consultant, CRM Group, MTV Networks • DJ Edgerton, Co-Founder,

Zemoga, Inc. • Jack Essig, SVP, Publisher, Men's Health & Women's Health • Gregg Hano, Group Publisher, PopSci Group, Bonnier • Beth Ifcher, VP Consumer Marketing, Hearst Magazines • Todd Krizelman, CEO and Co-Founder, MagazineRadar, Inc. • Carlos Lamadrid, Chief Brand Officer, Woman's Day Group • Peter Marsh, Head of Global Product Development and Marketing, Atex • Tom Masterson, SVP Marketing & Manufacturing, Hachette Filipacchi U.S. • Elizabeth Mayhew, VP, Editor in Chief, Woman's Day Group • Gavin McGarry, President, Jumpwire Media • Mary Morgan, VP & Publisher, Redbook • Mary Murcko, SVP, Publisher, Prevention • Sean O'Neal, Chief Revenue Officer, Datran Media • Paul Reddick, CEO, Handmark • Michael Rooney, Chief Revenue Officer, Wall Street Journal • Will Schenck, Publisher,

Rolling Stone • Ava Seave, Partner, Quantum Media • Michael Silberman, GM, nymag.com • Jim Spanfeller, President, The Spanfeller Group • Ken Sonenclar, Investment Banker and Media Entrepreneur • Sree Sreenivasan, Dean, Columbia School of Journalism • Nancy Weber, CMO, National Media Group, Meredith • Liz Vaccariello, SVP, Editor -in-Chief, Prevention "We're bringing together the innovators and creative thinkers among a range of media companies who will share how they've managed during this downturn and created profitable and new revenue streams," notes Diane Schwartz of min. "This conference will take a realistic, multi-platform approach to answering your questions from leading-edge publishers and digital innovators.” The Bottom-Line Leadership Conference features Datran Media and WorldColor as the Platinum Sponsors; the Gold Sponsors are Atex, CDS Global, MagazineRadar and HandMark. The conference will include several networking breaks that will allow attendees to swap ideas, network and forge new

partnerships. Details on all the speakers and p a n e l s a r e a t www.minconference.com. For information about sponsoring this conference, contact Michele Magazine at michelemagazine @verizon.net. For press interviews, contact Diane Schwartz at dschwartz(at)accessintel(dot)co m. About min: The min family of products include min, min's b2b, minonline.com, Webinars, Conferences, Guidebooks and award programs including the Integrated Marketing Awards, Sales Executive of The Year, Digital Hot List, Editorial & Design Awards. Visit minonline.com for more information, or parent company Access Intelligence at www.accessintel.com. ### AMY JEFFERIES 301-354-1699 E-mail Information Trackback URL: http://prweb.com/pingpr.php/Q2 91cC1IYWxmLUxvdmUtRW1 wdC1aZXRhLVBpZ2ctWmVyb w== Five Filters featured article: HEAR page 81

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Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Call Solar a Commodity, Sucker

Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: info@greentechmedia.com PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, (Greentech Media: Headlines) Term Extraction.

SunTech's high efficiency Pluto technology and the Reliathon product platform as an example Submitted at 3/30/2010 2:31:12 PM of the "end of Phoenix, AZ.-- When you talk c o m m o d i t i z a t i o n . " T h e to PV module manufacturers, Reliathon modules include selfyou're better off not calling their aligning frames, fast-installing product a commodity. U bolts, integrated grounding, Four of the world's major and wire management. crystalline silicon manufacturers Beebe said, "We are the largest spoke at the Greentech Media producer of c-Si cells and Solar Summit today. Each of modules in the world with a t h e f i r m s h a v e t h e i r o w n new facility in Goodyear, AZ," strategy, their own distinct level a l s o a d d i n g , " w e h a v e a of vertical integration, their own platform of bankability." technology and their own "We will see a de-verticalization corporate culture. What the four soon -- as people get back to the firms share is a sense of things they do well." o p t i m i s m a b o u t t h e s o l a r SunTech is vertically integrated industry -- and absolute disdain from the cell to the installer with f o r t h e t e r m " s o l a r a s a 60 percent of their product commodity." shipped to Germany. Andrew Beebe, Vice President, Mike Miskovsky, General Global Product Strategy, Manager, U.S. Division, SunTech America Canadian Solar Inc. SunTech's VP said, "We take Mr. Miskovsky "takes issue with that idea, we don't umbrage" at being relegated to concede right away that solar c o m m o d i t y s t a t u s ( v e r y p a n e l s a r e a c o m m o d i t y sensitive, these solar people). market," claims Beebe. He cites Miskovsky calls Ontario-based

Canadian Solar "flexibly vertically integrated" with a gigawatt of production capacity. "There is a lot of high technology" in this "rigorous technical product," which is "hard to do well." Miskovsky said that it was not so much commoditization as it was "the professionalization of the buying class." The GM added, "We've had a godsend dropped in our backyard with a generous feedin tariff (FIT), ranging from 42 cents to 80 cents, that has provided us with a laboratory to develop a turn-key solution." Troy Dalbey, National Sales Manager, Upsolar America, Inc. Upsolar America is a U.S. subsidiary of a Chinese supplier that just entered the American PV market -- although they have delivered about 150 megawatts to the EU market. As opposed to the vertically integrated model of Canadian Solar, SunTech and Trina Solar, Upsolar has a "fab-less solar

semi model." They're not about building factories and servicing debt -- they claim they are about R&D and quality control. Their product comes with a performance guarantee backed by the Chubb group. Jim Day, Director of Sales & Marketing North America, Trina Solar Trina Solar is integrated from ingot to module with 600 megawatts capacity growing to one gigawatt. In Jim Day's words, "commodity is a loaded term -- you have to look at the entire company and who can execute. You need bankability and staying power." In Andrew Beebe's words, "polysilicon is a commodity but what you do with it doesn't have to be." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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GridPoint Readies Business Plan 3.0: Energy Management Services info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

GridPoint will boil down its best practices into software to optimize retrofits. Submitted at 3/31/2010 4:05:01 AM "GridPoint software is Many start-ups and smart grid embedded in everything we do. companies are currently trying We won't do it unless we can to wedge themselves into embed software," said CEO specific vertical niches. Peter Corsell. "We are tying up GridPoint is going the other the end points of the smart way. grid." The Arlington, Va.-based Over time, GridPoint will company -- which has raised ideally try to tie it into the o v e r $ 2 0 0 m i l l i o n f r o m software it sells to utilities, investors and says it will conceivably paving the way for achieve revenues of over $100 d e m a n d r e s p o n s e a n d million this year -- is in the monitoring services. This week, midst of tweaking its business the company announced an plan once again in an effort to alliance with EcoBee, which jump into what it (and others) m a k e s h o m e e n e r g y believe will be one of the largest management consoles and growth markets in green: energy thermostats. e f f i c i e n c y s e r v i c e s f o r If you think the business plan consumers and businesses. a l m o s t s o u n d s l i k e a n A forthcoming website will amalgamation of Recurve, offer customers "good-better- EnerNoc(demand response), best" packaged solutions for Trilliant (grid management), energy retrofits and solar panels Sungevity (solar software and a s w e l l a s a d v i c e a n d sales) and the impulse-buying i n f o r m a t i o n o n e n e r g y techniques perfected at Dell, consumption. well, you'd be right. The idea is In February, GridPoint acquired to transform the company into a energy contractor Standard trusted, persistent intermediary Renewable Energy: Standard's between utilities, consumers, trucks will be painted over with b u s i n e s s e s , a n d s e r v i c e GridPoint logos. Like Recurve, providers. It's still a vision,

Corsell admits. "On a macro level, the whole drive is to make the ecosystem smarter, leaner and greener," said Corsell. "We're ultimately leveraging software-based intelligence to optimize distribution and consumption." With different points of entry in the market, GridPoint will also ideally be able to avoid the Top Chef Phenomenon in smart grid, wherein a utility project results in one happy winner and 13 dejected also-rans. EnerNoc, interestingly, is taking a similar diversity/expansion path, having recently moved into building services. Cue the skeptics. If there's a company that smart grid execs and investors tend to mutter and complain about, it's GridPoint. GridPoint has money, critics assert, but not as many utility contracts as one might think. The most visible project the company has been involved in is SmartGridCity, Xcel Energy's home automation project with a budget that swelled beyond $100 million. To contain costs, Xcel asked participating companies to pay to have their technologies become part of the

project. GridPoint has also had to change business plans a few times. It started out in the early part of the decade promoting a system for managing energy in upper-middle-class homes. Because energy prices were still comparatively low at that point, the market failed to develop. In turn, GridPoint decided to take the software and transform it into an operating system for the grid. Then, in 2008, the company started to go on a buying spree to enhance its grid portfolio. It bought V2Green (which allows utilities to communicate with electric cars) in 2008 and followed in 2009 with Lixar, which makes building energy management consoles and tools. The acquisition of Standard took place in February, and the new strategy finally began to congeal a few months ago. Juggling these acquisitions and different product strategies would be difficult even for a large firm. "While the IPO market appears to be beginning to thaw, Gridpoint's investors can only hope for an acceptable IPO or a strategic sale. On the strategic

sale front, that option becomes increasingly less attractive to the extent Gridpoint is a hodgepodge of various solutions and services," wrote one source in the financial community. "Also, as it gets bigger and bigger with an increasing price tag, the world of potential acquirers shrinks." To answer the critics, Corsell points at GridPoint's progress. It is participating in projects with utilities such as Kansas City Power & Light that have been funded by stimulus grants. The company has a number of highprofile executives culled from Accenture and Microsoft and has developed a strong relationship with Cisco. Another capital raise will take place in a few months. "We will beat $100 million in revenue in 2010," he said. "We and Silver Spring are by far the most successful (smart grid) companies." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Solarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Big Question: What Happens in the Second Half? info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

megawatts of solar were installed in Germany. In the second half of 2009, Submitted at 3/30/2010 12:33:23 PM approximately 2.5 gigawatts of Phoenix, AZ -- Will the second solar were installed in the half of 2010 look like the first country, according to GTM half of 2009? That's the big fear Research senior analyst Shayle in the solar industry, according Kann. to speakers at the 2010 Solar "That's a fivefold increase in the Summit sponsored by Greentech second half of the year," he said. Media. Germany, however, is set to Solar is growing. Make no readjust its feed-in tariff on July mistake. Globally, 9 gigawatts 1 . T h e t a r i f f f o r r o o f t o p of solar may get deployed this installations will likely decline y e a r , a c c o r d i n g t o G T M by 16 percent and 11 percent for Research. That would be 50 ground-mounted installations. percent growth over 2009. But The industry may not sink into declining prices for panels and the funk it found itself in in factory capacity will squeeze 2008 and 2009 as the German m a r g i n s . A n d c h a n g e s t o market slows, but it will likely, subsidy programs may create a palpably slow. situation where demand slows "Germany will quickly lose its as the year goes on. shine in the second half," said "That's what we are all holding Kann. "There is a rush to get our breath about," said Jim projects (in Germany) in the Pierobon, vice president of ground now." policy and marketing What does this mean for development at Standard Solar, module makers? By the middle during a meeting in the hallway. of the year, modules might sell As usual, the big factor for $1.50 to $1.75 per watt in determining the health of the Germany. But if demand dips, industry is Germany. In the first the prices may have to dip half of 2009, only around 500 t o w a r d $ 1 . 3 5 a w a t t i n

Germany. Not everyone will be able to sell at that price and make money, said Kann. How bad the drop is depends on a variety of factors. Italy could soak up a lot of the modules now coming out of factories. Italy installed 544 megawatts of solar in 2009 and 47 percent of that total came in the last two months of the year, Kann said. The margins for independent power providers in the country is quite healthy, helped in part by high prices for conventional power in Italy. Up to a gigawatt could get installed in Italy this year. "But it can't replace Germany," he said. The U.S. market will likely grow by nearly 50 percent with 830 megawatts of solar planted on roofs and in the ground this year. Subsidies in five states -Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California and New Mexico -- have even created a situation where solar in commercial installations can actually cost less than grid power. A commercial solar installation in Hawaii could be

constructed to produce power that is 17 percent less than power from the grid. Power from hypothetical commercial installations in New York and Nevada are only two percent of grid power, when all subsidies are factored in. Over time, the U.S. will be the largest market in the world. "We're going to see this widespread grid parity on a subsidized basis" in the U.S., said Kann. But again, the united nations of solar may not be enough to offset the anticipated torpor on the Rhine in the second half of 2010. Grid "parity" may also be a heading toward false summit, said Marc Romito, renewable energy program manager for Tucson Electric Power, unless issues like grid interconnection can be worked out. Other interesting tidbits: --U.S. solar manufacturing will continue to grow. In 2008, only 17 PV manufacturing facilities existed in the U.S., said GTM analyst Shyam Mehta. By 2012, there could be 51, judging by plans already announced.

--170 thin film manufacturers exist, but only a few will ever become full-fledged mass manufacturers, according to Mehta. Twenty new amorphous silicon manufacturers came into the market last year. --By 2015, silicon solar panels should cost 80 cents per watt while thin-film solar panels should average around 55 cents a watt. The best amorphous silicon makers can produce modules for $1 now, said Mehta. The few copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) manufacturers are at $1.1 per watt. --But, again, factory capacity and demand won't move in perfect sync, so expect surpluses as time goes on. "We could have oversupply as early as the second half of 2010," said Mehta. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Solar Wednesday: Canadian adopts Zepâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Modular Rack and SunPower Grows in Italy info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

were taken, a company spokesperson told me.) Although it's not as glamorous Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:04:18 AM as cell design or efficiency, Canadian Solar has launched a installation is rapidly gaining new line of solar modules more attention in the solar compatible with the racking industry as a way to bring down system from Zep Solar that Zep costs and/or percolate demand. says can slash the costs and time Installation can account for one surrounding installation. -third of the cost of a solar Instead of mounting solar project and in some ways it can panels on the traditional metal be more difficult to control than frames used now, Zep props up manufacturing. Installation o n a d e v i c e i t s c a l l s t h e doesn't take place in a factory Interlock Zep. In layman's after all. The work ultimately t e r m s , t h e I n t e r l o c k i s has to be performed on location essentially a leg that clamps in varied conditions by people onto the frame of a solar panel with a wide range of skills. and serves to prop up the solar In recent years, Solar City, panel and fasten it to the other Sungevity and Global Solar panels in the array. Instead of a Center have devised software table, you just buy the leg. that trim project planning and Overall, Zep says it can cut the estimating costs. Akeena Solar time contractors spend on a roof and GreenRay have promoted by 75 percent. all-in-one solar panels complete The key is that the system with inverters that reduce the requires module with a specially amount of sawing and work that grooved frame. Canadian's has to occur at a job site while NewEdge panel is the first from Armageddon Energy has created a major manufacturer to be an Ikea-like kit for assembling compatible with the Zep system. solar arrays in minutes. Another Canadian will start selling the start-up, Sollega, has started to panel next month through tout a one-piece rack from GroSolar. (Side note: Zep did recycled plastic. On the utility not name itself in tribute to Led side, SunPods has developed Zepplin. All the good names modular racks for utility scale

solar parks that can be assembled mostly in factories. Large panel makers, meanwhile, are starting to tailor panels to particular roofs: module modularization like this echoes how the PC market evolved to better suit customer needs. Expect to hear more about how solar companies aim to solve the plumber's crack problem as the year rolls on. Meanwhile, SunPower signed a deal to provide solar panels and trackers to seven solar power plants in the industry's new favorite country: Italy. The seven plants will be located in Sicily and produce a combined total of 16.5 megawatts. Because of lucrative feed-in tariffs and the sunny weather, solar developers and panel makers are flocking to Italy. The country may see close to 1 gigawatt of solar panels planted on roofs and in the ground this year, said Shayle Kann, senior research analyst at GTM Research yesterday. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Real Food for All: The Role of Farmers' Markets contributors@theatlantic.com (Michel Nischan) (Food :: The Atlantic)

Scott County, Missouri, who torch-sang her way north when it became apparent that life on a south-central Midwest farm was Submitted at 3/31/2010 7:49:59 AM Wholesome Wave Foundation no longer an option for a living. To try a recipe for wild The "terroir" was our backyard mushroom, bacon, and arugula garden at 9301 Noel Street, and fritatta from Michel's upcoming what was left of a few farm c o o k b o o k , S u s t a i n a b l y stands on Golf Road. The D e l i c i o u s , c l i c k h e r e . "consumers" were our family of You could open the garage door sixâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Mom, Dad, and us four of our prefab house in Des kids. Plaines, Illinois, during the early The context that created the '60s and see neat stacks of garden and all those boxes of meticulously marked cases of wonderful food was significant: Ball Mason jars labeled banana our family had very limited peppers, tomatoes, green beans, income and was managed by apples, pickled peaches, beets, parents who had lived through and so on. The maker was my REAL page 85 mom, a displaced farmer from

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the Great Depression. That both parents had to work full-time to make ends barely meet would explain their belief that the "next Depression" was imminent. Times got better—then, in the end, not so good, as my dad finished his life opening, sweeping, and closing a smalltown laundromat to keep the mortgage paid. A very good man who struggled until the very end. But for all the struggles endured, the food was always good—and my mom always fed the neighborhood kids, no matter how many. My dad, concerned, would ask mom why she fed so many when we had so little. Mom would answer, "They're kids and they're hungry." I now understand the pressures my parents felt and deeply appreciate what they were able to provide while protecting us from their significant challenges. I grew up knowing not only what a ripe tomato was but also what kind, when it was ripe-and -ready, or if it was best for canning or pickling. We were relatively poor, but never hungry. What I did not realize until I grew older and became a chef was just how lucky we kids were to grow up knowing real food. Michel Nischan After decades as a chef and sustainability

advocate, I consider with awe how my mom made things work in an environment increasingly hostile to food independence. I spent years grappling with the guilt of being able to provide locally and regionally grown food only to folks who can afford fine living. I've had serious difficulties reconciling that good food, once doable for low-income families, was now only available to affluent communities or the lucky few who have land and gumption to grow their own. In short, our food system has gone horribly wrong. While I don't believe this happened by intent, the results are dire for most Americans. In considering a solution, we looked to America's most forgotten neighborhoods—where heroes are not assumed to exist. Surprisingly, wholesome food is in demand in these areas popularly referred to as "food deserts." These communities, because of poverty and culture, have a sense of frugality that is unmatched—a powerful tool for change. Much to the surprise and chagrin of occasional detractors, folks in these communities actually want to feed their families wholesome food. Unfortunately, in the scant few cases where it is available, it is not affordable. Food stamps, now known as SNAP benefits, present another

tool that is often overlooked by many outside the highly processed food world. Seventyeight billion dollars in annual SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits are spread so thinly in underserved communities that the average SNAP benefit per person is $3 per day. Small wonder why SNAP recipients buy Cup Noodles, minute rice, and Hamburger Helper (without the hamburger). They simply cannot afford to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, even if these were readily available in their communities. Large format grocery stores have fled these communities in favor of suburban locations where more affluent consumers can support their highly profitable produce sections. One dollar can buy 1,200 calories of chips or 870 calories of soda—but only 170 calories of fresh fruit. In a neighborhood where you buy your food from a liquor store or gas station, it's easy to understand why it's almost impossible for millions of Americans to find, let alone afford, fresh produce. My foundation, Wholesome Wave, began a small program dedicated to proving that benefits designed specifically to subsidize locally grown fruits and vegetables could break the affordability barrier. The program has been hugely

successful in bringing support to farmers markets for these local produce incentives in underserved communities. SNAP redemption rates more than tripled at most markets that accepted the benefits with no additional incentive the previous season. At markets that ran out of incentive funds, redemption rates dipped, but remained remarkably high: once families shopped at the markets, they found produce they could afford. A recent CDC study found that while farmers' market produce is more expensive than grocery store produce by the piece, it is cheaper by the pound. Wholesome Wave's programs, which are now in 12 states and nearly 100 markets, should have a home in the next Farm Bill, with SNAP benefits including a portion of incentives. Wholesome Wave's incentive programs give families in underserved communities purchasing power that could allow them to significantly change the food landscape. Sound like a pipe dream? Consider this: if just five percent of the $78 billion in SNAP benefits were released in the form of local fruit and vegetable incentives, the resulting $3.9 billion in incentives would causing $7.8 billion in produce purchasing power. This would clearly be of

significant benefit to American fruit and vegetable growers, who currently receive less than one half of one percent of agricultural subsidies. These farmers have unsuccessfully tried for decades to get 10 percent of the $10 billion in annual subsidies that go to cotton, corn, soy, wheat, and rice farmers, claiming that fruit and vegetable prices would come down for all Americans. Would you rather have 10 percent of 10 or 5 percent of 78? With many sustainable food advocates still relying on affluent communities, upscale restaurants (like mine), and upscale grocery chains to support a more sustainable food future, we're betting on our underserved communities to be the heroes of a changed food system. Recipe: Wild Mushroom, Bacon, and Arugula Fritatta To find out more about the Wholesome Wave Foundation, visit wholesomewave.org. Michel will also be speaking in New York and elsewhere in the next several weeks. Details are available at michelnischan.com.

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Shtick Aside, Oliver Understands School Lunch contributors@theatlantic.com (Marion Nestle) (Food :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/30/2010 12:22:47 PM

ABC I'm not much of a TV-watcher, but from what I've been hearing about Jamie Oliver's new series, I thought I had best take a look. Don't miss it. Get your kids to watch it with you. Oliver, in case you haven't been paying attention, went to Huntington, West Virginia, ostensibly the obesity capital of the world, TV crew in hand, to reform the town's school lunch program. Take a deep breath. Try not to get turned off by Oliver's statement that "the food revolution starts here" (no Jamie, it doesn't). Try not to cringe when he calls the food service workers "girls" and "luv" (okay, it's a cultural problem). Remember: this is reality TV. That said, let's give the guy plenty of credit for what he is trying to do: cook real food. What a concept! And let's cut him some slack for what he is up against: USDA rules that make cooking too expensive for

school budgets, entrenched negative attitudes, widespread cluelessness about dietary principles as well as what food is and how to cook it, and kids who think it is entirely normal to eat pizza for breakfast and chicken nuggets for lunch, neither with a knife and fork. What impressed me most is that Oliver is going about addressing these barriers in exactly the right way. From my observations of

school food over the years, the key elements for getting decent food into schools are these: • A principal who cares about what kids eat • Teachers who care about what kids eat • Parents who care about what kids eat • Food service workers who not only care about what the kids eat but also know their names For a school food program to

response. Not one kid recognizes a potato or knows it as the source of French fries. How does the teacher react? As any great teacher, she recognizes a teachable moment and uses it. When Oliver returns to that class, the kids recognize and can name vegetables, even an eggplant. This program has much to teach us about the reality of school food and what it takes to fix it. That is why I so appreciate the comments of Mike Hale, who reviewed the program in the New York Times. His review ended with this comment: One thing noticeably absent from the first two episodes is a discussion of any role the American food industry and its work, all of these elements must lobbyists might play in the be in place. That's why the makeup of school lunches and in school food revolution must be the formulation of the guidelines achieved one school at a time. set for them by the Agriculture Watch Oliver go to work on Department. If Mr. Oliver wants these elements in this one a real food revolution, it can't school. happen just in Huntington. Yes! Teacher that I am, for me the Addendum #1: Here's Jamie most m o v i n g — a n d Oliver's TED talk. h o p e f u l — s i g n w a s w h a t Addendum #2: The case against happened in the classroom. Jamie Oliver, courtesy of Oliver holds up tomatoes and Reason.com. (Unreason?) asks the kids what they are. No

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The Taming of the Ramps contributors@theatlantic.com (Ian Knauer) (Food :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:17:20 AM

Ian Knauer What's the big deal about ramps? Well, first off, they're pretty delicious in a way that is both familiar and very different from their lily cousins. Nary a combination of garlic, scallion, and leek could ever quite match the wild musk that fills your head when you chomp down on a ramp. If the onion family were a line of perfumes, then the ramp would be Sex Panther by Odeon. Or maybe even BK Flame. Needless to say, pretty powerful stuff. But that's not all. Ramps have cleverly made themselves scarce, thereby increasing demand. They have a very short season (only about six weeks in the spring) and they have the reputation for being uncultivable. The limited season situation is true, and seemingly unavoidable. But the theory of cultivability is a nasty rumor spread, no doubt, but those who could benefit from ramp scarcity: money-hungry farmers. I can't get too upset at farmers

The Vinegared Dish Found 'Round the World contributors@theatlantic.com (Maggie Schmitt) (Food :: The Atlantic) Submitted at 3/31/2010 6:22:00 AM

and foragers for wanting to bump up their prices, but I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way. You, too, can grow your own ramps. All you'll need are some ramps to get started with and a sugar maple or oak tree close to a wet, swampy area in the Eastern United States. Not too much to ask for, really. Ramps reproduce two ways, lucky bastards. They flower and go to seed, like most plants. Those seeds then drop and make new plants. But you'll have lots

of trouble finding these seeds. Ramps also reproduce by way of bulbs. This is the key to your future ramp garden. When you buy ramps at the farmers' market, make sure they come with the roots. Before you cook with the ramps you've procured, remove the bottom half-inch of bulb, keeping the roots attached. Store them overnight, covered by room temperature water. The next day, plant them in the damp soil around your eastern oak or maple and then forget about

them for a year. Or, spend the next 11 months dreaming about the ramps and their sacred scent of desire, like I do. I planted six ramp bulbs two years ago. Last year six ramps popped up in early April. I ate them, leaving the bulbs in the ground. This year, I've found 11 so far. With any luck, I'll have 20 by next year. Now you can do it too, tiger.

Maggie Schmitt To try this traditional Spanish recipe for vinegar-preserved meat, click here, or click here to view a slide show of the escabeche-making process. A simple country dish and standard of Spanish home cooking, escabeche turns out to have a history spanning three continents and a couple of millennia. It started, as so many things seem to, in Persia. Sikbaj, they called it: a way of conserving meat in vinegar, rumored to date all the way back to the kitchens of the Sasanian Empire. Converted to the Arabic iskbech, it shows up in the 1001 Nights as a delicacy with date syrup. Perhaps it galloped across North Africa into Spain, or else sailed across the Mediterranean with a quick stop VINEGARED page 88

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in Sicily; in any case it shows up in a Catalan recipe book in 1324 as escabetx, and somewhat later in Castillian as escabeje. The basic character remains the same: meat or fish conserved in vinegar with plenty of onions. The spices vary, but not much. A standard household recipe across much of Spain, it probably crossed the Atlantic with the first wave of Spanish settlers, over time adapting to local ingredients (not much wine vinegar, plenty of limes) and tastes to become ceviche, beloved by beachgoers from Chile to Mexico, and considered part of the national heritage of

Peru. VIEW SLIDESHOW>> Maggie Schmitt In Spain, lots of different meats are escabechado, or made en escabeche. Perhaps the most classic use of the technique is for small game animals: partridge, quail, or rabbit. For those who don't happen to have ready access to partridge, chicken makes a perfectly acceptable escabeche as well. The technique is also widely used to prepare fish like fresh tuna or sardines. Escabeche can be served hot as a main dish, or the meat can be shredded and used cold in a

salad. Delicious either way. Originally a technique used for conserving meat, escabeche will keep for at least a year if properly canned. Little wonder the recipe has lasted so long and traveled so far: it's really good. I started tinkering with recipes a month or so ago, and have gotten hooked. Something about the sourness makes you want more. Recipe: Traditional Escabeche