Liberty Newsprint Dec-20-09

E-reader News Edition

19/12/09 - 20/12/09

Obama feels at home in eye of winter storm

By Alister Bull (Front Row Washington)

http://www.LibertyNewsprint.com

The Week in Preview: Preholiday Earnings from Walgreen, American Greetings ...

By Trey Thoelcke (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 12:47:26 PM Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:30:00 PM

While the rest of Washington dug itself out of the area’s most severe winter storm in years, the residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue found the deeply drifting snow much to their liking as it blanketed the White House.

“I am from Chicago, so let me first say that with the place where I live covered with snow I’m finally starting to feel like home,” President Barack Obama told reporters for a hastily summoned White House statement on climate change and healthcare reform.

Up to 20 inches of snow is forecast for the capital area

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Saturday, sharply restricting travel as airlines canceled flights and public transport was shut down.

This also brings to mind Obama’s previous recommendation that the locals need to develop some midwestern fortitude toward the

weather, after he complained Washingtonians need some “flinty Chicago toughness” after his two daughters’ school closed down after a 2-inch snowfall in January.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed)

(BloggingStocks)

HP webcams are racist

Submitted at 12/19/2009 12:40:00 PM

By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:29:41 AM

“As soon as my blackness enters the frame…” Listen, HP, this is

the 21st century. Obama is in the White House. This needs to be fixed STAT.

Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts, Walgreen Co (WAG) Even in a holiday shortened week so close to the end of the calendar year, there are still some earnings reports dribbling in.

Question is, will any of the companies reporting quarterly results this week offer up a gift for investors?

Apropos of the season, analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters have high expectations for American Greetings Corp.'s ( AM) fiscal third quarter 2010 earnings. The nation's second largest provider of greeting cards announced record second quarter results and declared a quarterly dividend during the three months that ended in November.

American Greetings is expected to report that earnings rose 43.9% from a year ago to $0.66 per share. Revenue for the quarter is expected to total

$445.4 million, or 1.9% lower than a year ago. So far, the fullyear forecast is for its profit to more than double to $2.00 per share while revenue falls 5.6% from a year ago to $1.6 billion.

This Cleveland-based company creamed earnings estimates in the past two quarters.

Continue reading The Week in Preview: Pre-holiday Earnings from Walgreen, American Greetings ...

The Week in Preview: Preholiday Earnings from Walgreen, American Greetings ... originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Jennifer Jones obituary

By Ronald Bergan (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:33:25 AM

Hollywood star who won an Oscar for her role as a saintly peasant girl in the 1943 film The Song of Bernardette On the day of her 25th birthday, 2 March 1944, a fresh-faced, hitherto unknown performer stepped on to the stage of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, in Los Angeles, to receive her best actress Oscar for her performance in the title role of The Song of Bernadette. It was officially the debut of Jennifer Jones, who has died aged 90. She had appeared four years earlier under her real name of Phyllis Isley, but only in a Dick Tracy serial and a Bwestern. (Actually, she had been born Phylis, but had added an "l".)

Ingrid Bergman, nominated for her performance in For Whom the Bell Tolls, said of The Song of Bernadette: "I cried all the way through, because Jennifer was so moving and because I realised I had lost the award."

Jones, who had been discovered by the producer David O Selznick four years previously, had been given no publicity build -up, had been prevented from granting interviews and also, because of the nature of the role, kept out of the gossip columns.

As a result, her presence on screen as the French girl who, in 1858, saw a vision of the Virgin

Mary and discovered a healing spring at Lourdes, came as a refreshing surprise. "While she received extensive training, I would not let her come to Hollywood until she was ready," explained Selznick. "I refused to launch her until exactly the right role came along."

After a six-month search, 20th Century Fox had narrowed the list of young women to play Bernadette down to six. They were each asked by the director Henry King to imagine that the stick he was holding was a vision. "Only Jennifer saw a vision," King later remarked.

Wearing a simple peasant's dress and a minimum of makeup, she gave a pleasantly natural performance, credibly maturing from the age of 14 to the nun and eventual saint. It might have helped that the Oklahoma-born Jones had attended a Catholic school as a child. Her father owned a few theatres and ran a vaudeville tent show, with which the young Phylis toured and performed occasionally. While attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she met another aspiring actor, Robert Walker. They married in 1939 and headed for Hollywood.

In 1941, when she was auditioning at Fox for the title role in Claudia (given to Dorothy McGuire), Selznick saw her, put her under contract, changed her name and groomed her rigorously for stardom. From then on, much of Selznick's

activity as a producer was devoted to providing her with suitable roles.

After The Song of Bernadette, he cast her opposite her husband as the girl in love with a young soldier in Since You Went Away (1944), the weepiest, longest and biggest hit about the home front during the second world war. Her role grew with each rewrite of the script by Selznick, and he was still playing the same game almost 20 years later on their last film together, Tender Is the Night. According to King: "David lost all judgment. He always thought that the more there was of Jennifer, the better the film would be."

By the time Since You Went Away, for which she was Oscarnominated, was released, Jones had broken up with Walker and embarked on a relationship with the married Selznick. Walker, a gifted actor, died prematurely in 1951, a victim of depression, drink and sedatives. She had two sons by Walker, both of whom became actors. Meanwhile, Jones was suitably fey as an amnesiac in Love Letters (1945), which earned her another Oscar nomination, and otherworldly in Portrait of Jennie (1949), two poetic dramas directed by William Dieterle, both costarring Joseph Cotten.

Jones, the embodiment of feminine innocence, seemed an unlikely candidate for eroticising.

But if she had not played a number of dark, tempestuous

femmes fatales – worlds apart from Bernadette – her career would have been much less interesting. The first was a wild and sexy mixed-race girl, Pearl Chavez, in King Vidor's Duel in the Sun (1947), a demented, delirious western, the peak of Hollywood high romanticism.

The operatic climax, when Jones and Gregory Peck die in a final embrace after shooting each other, earned the film the nickname of Lust in the Dust.

Sex in the Swamps would be an apt description of Ruby Gentry (1952), in which Vidor was again able to bring out the passion in Jones. Thwarted by the man she loves (Charlton Heston), she finally watches him die face downwards in the mud.

Previously, she had portrayed Madame Bovary (1949) in Vincente Minnelli's glossy version of the Flaubert novel.

Considering that Selznick was breathing down Minnelli's neck throughout the shoot, at one stage accusing the director of sabotaging the "unique loveliness" of the star, Jones emerged with beauty, poise and vivacity, bringing, as one critic remarked, "an almost manic voluptuousness to the part".

However, although Jones had a certain childlike charm as an untamed half-Gypsy Shropshire lass in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Gone to Earth (1950), she lacked the passion she displayed in the Vidor movies. Now her husband,

Selznick was as much of a nuisance as ever, cutting 29 minutes from the film, getting directors (including Vidor) to reshoot nearly a third of it in Hollywood, and changing its title to The Wild Heart for the US release. At this stage, Jones, whose career was entirely controlled by Selznick, had fits of depression and attempted suicide with sleeping pills several times.

(Her last attempt was in 1967, after Selznick's death.)

Nevertheless, she was able to radiate in William Wyler's Carrie (1952), opposite Laurence Olivier, and especially in Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) as the Eurasian doctor in love with an American correspondent, William Holden, in a splendid CinemaScope Hong Kong. She was a touching Elizabeth Barrett in the otherwise clunking The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957), but seemed to have more fun than ever as a blonde mythomaniac in John Huston's Beat the Devil (1953). Her only other comedy was Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown (1946), in which she was charming as a cockney maid, despite the wobbly accent.

There were a few miscalculations: Vittorio De Sica's gloomy Indiscretion of an American Wife (1954), and she was allowed to overact as the doomed nurse Catherine Barkley in the overblown and dull third JENNIFER page 5

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3

Quest to identify black soldier

By Giles Tremlett (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

uprising that sparked a three-year civil war.

Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italy's Benito Mussolini sent Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:50:06 AM troops to back the rebel army of • US volunteer in picture killed in future dictator General Francisco civil war battle Franco. Leftwing and anti-fascist • Authorities plan to present volunteers from around the world image to Obama next year joined Russians sent by Stalin to A s a v o l u n t e e r i n t h e help defend the Republic.

International Brigades that fought Obama defended the concept of i n S p a i n ' s c i v i l w a r , t h e waging a "just war" in his Nobel unidentified black soldier in the peace prize speech this month. photograph was one of the first The New York-based Abraham A m e r i c a n s t o d i e f i g h t i n g Lincoln Brigades Association fascism. and New York University's Now Spanish authorities want to Tamiment library have scoured put a name to him so they can their civil war archives to see if present his picture to President they could identify the man in the Barack Obama when he visits photograph, which was probably Spain next year. taken in February 1937. Two The black and white picture of p o s s i b l e c a n d i d a t e s h a v e the African American volunteer emerged: Milton Herndon, whose forms part of an extraordinary brother Angelo won a famous c o l l e c t i o n o f c i v i l w a r supreme court case against a photographs that was bought sentence for "incitement to recently by the Spanish state. insurrection", and aviator Paul "All we know is that he arrived Williams. with the Abraham Lincoln "It is one of eight or nine Brigade of American volunteers photographs my father took of and that he died in the battle at the Americans marching through Brunete [in July 1937]," said B a r c e l o n a , " s a i d A g u s t í Sergi Centelles, whose father, C e n t e l l e s .

Agustí, took the picture.

The photograph remained The soldier is one of more than hidden for four decades after 90 African-Americans who Agustí Centelles, known as the volunteered to defend Spain's "Spanish Robert Capa", fled elected Republican government Spain as Franco's forces looked from a 1936 rightwing military set to win the civil war in 1939.

"My father took his photographs with him in a suitcase because he was scared they would be used to identify people and carry out reprisals," said Sergi Centelles.

The photographer used the suitcase as a pillow in a French refugee camp to prevent it from being stolen. He later moved in with a French family in Carcassonne, in southern France, but had to flee again after the second world war broke out and the occupying Germans heard that he was using his camera to take photographs for false passports.

"The Gestapo were chasing him, so he walked back across the Pyrenees into Spain," said Sergi Centelles. "He left the suitcase behind, telling the French family not to and it over to anyone but him.

"It was passed down from the grandfather, when he died, to his son and then, when he also died, to the grandson."

Agustí Centelles sent the French family a present every Christmas as a sign that he was still alive.

Spain did not give the photographer a passport until 1962, when the family travelled to Carcasonne to check the suitcase was still there. It was only in 1976, a year after Franco died, that he dared pick up the suitcase and bring it home.

It contained hundreds of civil war photographs, including one of writer George Orwell with a group of fellow international volunteers.

The mix of races in the International Brigades saw attempts made to observe a degree of racial equality otherwise unseen in western armies in the 1930s.

"We know there were quite a few African American volunteers and that many were treated badly when they went home, as people thought they were communists," said Sergi Centelles.

"We have four or five names of possible candidates, but what we really want to do is to find their family."

• If you know who the man in the main photograph is, or can provide any information that might help identify him, please c o n t a c t giles.tremlett@guardian.co.uk • Spain • United States Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Sen. Nelson Now Supports Health Care Bill, Provides 60th Vote

By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:40:00 AM

Filed under: Deals, Politics, Headline news Senator Ben Nelson, who had been holding out on voting for health care, finally agreed to go along and vote yes.

Nelson, a right-to-life supporter, gained some concessions to limit the availability of abortions in insurance sold in newly created exchanges. Of course he was paid off. He got tens of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid funds for his home state.

He also noted that he had fended off attempts to provide for government-run insurance option.

Continue reading Sen. Nelson Now Supports Health Care Bill, Provides 60th Vote Sen. Nelson Now Supports Health Care Bill, Provides 60th Vote originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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'Al-Qaida' pair caught filming potential UK terror targets, say police (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

Street. Police said the men were charged with fraud offences and sentenced to up to two years imprisonment before being Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:43:48 AM deported.

Footage of stations and shopping Prosecutors did not pursue centres filmed by Algerian terrorist charges, firstly, it was brothers released in response to claimed, because of difficulties public criticism of police actions with evidence and secondly A suspected al Qaida-inspired because they were unlikely to cell was caught red-handed receive longer sentences. It was filming potential terrorist targets, said counter terrorist detectives police said today. were also hampered because they Senior officers said two Algerian did not feel they could share all b r o t h e r s m a y h a v e b e e n the information they held with employed to prepare the ground the Algerian authorities. for an atrocity in London or at The footage was released today regional shopping centres. in response to a surge of criticism City of London police released of police for stopping and footage recorded on amobile s e a r c h i n g p e o p l e t a k i n g phonethat showed entrances, photographs at tourist hotspots. It platforms and CCTV cameras at had been claimed police are Oxford Circus, Mornington misusing terrorism legislation to Crescent and Camden Town tube target tourists, photographers and stations. the media in general in busy Footage was also recorded at public places.

Liverpool Street rail station and Detective Superintendent Chris at the nearby Broadgate Circle G r e a n y , h e a d o f c o u n t e r shopping and restaurant plaza. terrorism at City of London Police later found the two men p o l i c e , s a i d t h e m e n u s e d also visited the Galleria shopping sophisticated techniques to hide centre in Hatfield, Bluewater in their tracks. He said the pair may Kent and a trade outlet in have been the fundraising and Bridgend, south Wales. research arm of an al-QaidaThey were foiled when a linked group in North Africa. suspicious police officer stopped The alleged plot unravelled one of the men at Liverpool within hours of one Algerian's

arrest on the concourse of Liverpool Street station on 11 July last year. He told officers he was a tourist who spoke little English, but was arrested for immigration offences.

Investigators brought in counterterrorism experts when they examined a series of videos, each up to 25 minutes long, on his phone. They revealed the man recorded extensive footage at several tube stations and at one stage even caught a tourist bus through central London.

He studied the entrance at Oxford Circus and CCTV cameras in a lift at Mornington Crescent, possibly chosen because it is a deep station accessible only by lift.

The man also visited the busy shopping area of Liverpool Street railway station on the anniversary of the 7 Julybombings.

The two Algerian brothers, both aged in their 40s, had entered Britain about 10 years ago using false French and Italian passports. They worked briefly in a restaurant before moving on to credit card and identity fraud.

Detective Chief Inspector Richard Jack, who led the inquiry, said up to 30 people were linked to the men. He said extremist materials suggesting

the link to al Qaida in North Africa were discovered during a search of one property but no connections were found between the Algerians and any known terrorist groups in Britain.

The men made hundreds of thousands of pounds fraudulently buying mobile phones and luxury clothes and exporting them to Algeria.

Assistant Commissioner Frank Armstrong said preventing terrorism remained one of the top priorities for all police forces.

He said: "The City has always been targeted as it is the world's leading financial centre. The Square Mile is still very much a target. One of our main priorities is clearly counter-terrorism. We train our officers and encourage them to do a lot of stop and search. But I would argue we have got the politest police force in the country."

• UK security and terrorism • Al-Qaida • Crime • London guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Forget the Wealth, Share the Trash [Trashcans]

By Jack Loftus (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:00:00 AM

Seriously, folks, this is not what we do with your tips when you hit Share up there in the masthead. I swear. Well, for most of them, anyway. This is actually a concept trashcan build on a popular meme.

Says designer Burak Kaynak, the 'can was conjoured up after seeing all the Share buttons that populate the Internet these days.

Why not apply it trash? And so he did: Sharing content on social networking sites is as simple as stepping on a foot pedal to open the lid and toss your trash.

Share//Trash Can is a smart stepon trash can which includes a LED - live counter that counts the amount of steps that are stepped on the foot pedal.

I guess in the end I really don't see the point. Is it to shame you into wasting less, in this particular trashcan, so that you'll just go down the hall and use the next one? [ Burnak KaynakThanks, Camila]

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Faces of 2009: Venetia Williams

By Emma John (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:27:41 AM

This year's Grand National made Venetia Williams the second female trainer ever to win the race when her horse, 100-1 shot Mon Mome, raced to victory.

On a biting December day at Cheltenham, the owners and trainers enclosure is a haven of warmth and good cheer. As its inhabitants crowd around the TVs, noisily urging on their runners, Venetia Williams watches the race silently, her expression inscrutable. Amid the loud tweeds and fur stoles, the 49 -year-old trainer cuts an extremely elegant, almost detached, figure.

Williams recalls when she was here in March, on one of the biggest occasions in the racing calendar, watching her horses take first and second place in the Cheltenham Festival Plate, the third-placed rider nowhere to be

5

iPhone Reception an Easy Target On SNL Weekend Update Last Night [IPhone]

seen. "It was a real career highlight," she says with a smile.

Little did she know that within a month, it would be utterly eclipsed. Williams had entered two horses in April's Grand National, both outsiders. Mon Mome, ridden by a young jockey, Liam Treadwell, making his National debut, was given odds of 100-1; and Williams had no special hopes for her horses. "I'd had various runners in the race previously without much success," she says, matter of factly. "You can't go on in this job having high expectations that are regularly dashed."

Watching the race from the roof of the County Stand, Williams saw her other runner, Stan, fall on the first circuit. Then a horse fell in front of Mon Mome. "He ducked sideways so quickly and neatly that Liam nearly went out the side door," Williams says with a laugh. As the horses turned for home, there were still a dozen in contention. Trailing two of the fancied horses, Mon

Mome suddenly burst away at the final fence and streaked home 12 lengths clear. "It was an extraordinary performance."

Williams tails off with a rare wistfulness. "Amazing. Fantastic.

Unbelievable…"

She takes us for a "hack" around town in her car, an Aston Martin DB9 that was, in the aftermath of the race, almost as talked about as the horse, and earned her the nickname the "Queen of Speed".

Williams says she had been listening to friends talk about the cost of their children's education: "I thought, 'I don't have children, why not?' I phoned the dealer the very next day."

Her mother was a showjumper, her father a keen huntsman.

Williams lives alone in what was her grandparents' home, an old farm near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, that she has converted to a training centre housing 100 horses at any one time. It was her grandfather who began the family passion when he bought two yearling fillies that

he bred and raced on the flat. As a young girl, Williams recalls skipping a lesson and illicitly climbing into the school's TV room to watch one of his horses run.

Williams became an amateur jockey and rode in the Grand National in 1988, falling at the infamous Becher's Brook. A fortnight later, in her very next race, a career-ending accident broke her neck. "I was actually paralysed for five or 10 minutes while I was lying on the grass – it was like the rest of my body did not exist." She pauses. "I'm happy with the payback, though."

• Venetia Williams • Horse racing

Selznick's death in 1965 left Jones utterly bereft, in debt, and with a young daughter, Mary Jennifer, to bring up. (Mary Jennifer killed herself in 1976.)

Jones made only a few films afterwards; these included Cult of the Damned (1969), in which she played a former blue-movie star, and she was among the many

stars trapped in The Towering Inferno (1974). In 1971, she married the millionaire industrialist art collector Norton Simon, helping him with his business until his death. She then took over the presidency of her late husband's Pasadena Art Museum. Jones had finally become her own person.

She is survived by her son, this content is subject to our Robert Walker Jr. Terms & Conditions| More Feeds • Jennifer Jones (Phylis Isley), actor, born 2 March 1919; died 17 December 2009 • United States

By Jack Loftus (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/20/2009 7:00:00 AM

Hey Seth Meyers made a joke!

About the iPhone! And it was funny!

The bit came during SNL last night, and like all good jokes, was funny because it's true.

As an iPhone user, I definitely chuckled a bit, before I returned to weeping silently in a corner as my phone tried to make an outgoing call from the greater Boston area without success.

Must be the storm. Must be. [ YouTube via Engadget]

Emma John guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

JENNIFER continued from page 2

version of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms (1957). It was Selznick's last production, but it did not stop him trying to ruin another modern American classic, Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night (1962), in which the 43-year-old Jones attempted to play the young neurotic playgirl Nicole Diver.

Ronald Bergan guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of

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Four white rhinos shipped to Kenya (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

as possible for several years but all those involved acknowledged it was not a sure bet that the rhinos would reproduce.

Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:39:42 AM The northern white rhino is the Four of last eight rhinos from world's rarest large mammal. endangered subspecies are sent to "Objective No 1 is to get as many Kenya from Czech zoo with aim offspring as you can from the of repopulating their homeland females – at least one calf out of Four of the world's last eight each within two years," said Rob northern white rhinos landed in Brett, the director of Fauna and Kenya today and were Flora International, the transported to a game park where organisation that helped arrange officials hope the endangered and finance the move. animals will reproduce and save The rhinos were transported in their subspecies. large wooden crates by the No white rhinos are known to international shipping company remain in the wild, and the DHL on two flatbed trucks. On t r a n s p o r t e d a n i m a l s h a v e the side of the crates was written produced no offspring after "Last Chance to Survive." nearly 24 years in a Czech zoo. The four were flown from a zoo So wildlife workers hoping to in the Czech Republic to the Ol save the subspecies loaded two Pejeta Conservancy – about 180 males and two females into miles north of the capital, Kenya wooden crates and began the – where a black rhino population effort to return them to what was has made strong gains and the once their savannah homeland. rhinos will be protected from When teams of Kenyan wildlife poachers. workers opened the crates, two of Two northern whites remain the rhinos lingered several behind in the Czech zoo; two minutes before moving to a others are in San Diego. The aim larger pen as Czech animal of the project – years down the handlers coaxed them out. line – is to reintroduce the rhino The rhinos' handlers and park t o s o u t h e r n S u d a n , t h e officials said they hoped the two Democratic Republic of Congo females will bear as many young and Cameroon, said Patrick

Omondi, of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Alastair Lucas, the vicechairman of Goldman Sachs in Australia, helped finance the rhinos' move to Kenya, a project he became involved with earlier this year after visiting Uganda and being told parks there no longer have rhinos. He declined to say how much he donated or the cost of moving the animals.

"Shipping rhinos across the world is not cheap. They don't fit in economy seats," he said. "I had to fly them business class."

The rhinos will remain penned in the Kenyan park as they adapt to the climate and vegetation. They will be given more room to roam in coming weeks and will eventually be released to the entire park.

• Endangered species • Conservation • Kenya • Zoology • Czech Republic guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Acer Sets China Sales Strategy As It Chases Hewlett -Packard for Top PC Spot

By Brian White (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/19/2009 2:40:00 PM

Filed under: Competitive strategy, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), China Acer Inc. of Taiwan has Hewlett -Packard ( HPQ) of the U.S. in its sights to become the world's largest manufacturer of PCs. To do that will be no easy matter, as HP's rampage in sales in the past 24 months has put it way ahead of former number two Dell ( DELL) and, for the first time, made it a $100 billion company (annual sales). But Acer has not tread lightly either, gobbling up the Gateway and Packard Bell brands.

Where can Acer work on its plans for global domination?

China, of course. The company will increase sales training and work on upping its retail network in China by 30% as it chases the

CrunchGear Week in Review: Link Nook Edition

By Bryce Durbin (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/20/2009 3:00:45 AM

Here are some stories from

CrunchGear this past week.

Bag Week, People!

This dude made a Zelda game in C++. What did you do this year? Xylophone Table Bad Ideas, vol. CMXVII:

“Butterfly Touch” from Packard bell sounds weak but looks sweet B&N confirms Nook shipment delay, says only “very small percentage” affected

fastest-growing PC market in the world. So far, Acer's mindshare in China is in fifth place due to its inability to be recognized for the global PC behemoth it is.

Acer intends to change that in China.

Continue reading Acer Sets China Sales Strategy As It Chases Hewlett-Packard for Top PC Spot Acer Sets China Sales Strategy As It Chases Hewlett-Packard for Top PC Spot originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 14:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tributes paid to British soldier killed Morgan Stanley's CEO in Afghanistan skips bonus -- again (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:49:44 AM

Corporal Simon Hornby, who died while on foot patrol in Helmand on Saturday, remembered as a 'highly respected leader' Tributes were paid today to the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan.

Corporal Simon Hornby, 29, from the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, was killed in an explosion while on foot patrol in the Nad-e-Ali area of Helmand yesterday.

The Liverpudlian's wife, Holly, described the soldier as her "hero". Hornby's death brings the number of British service personnel who have died since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 to 240, including 103 deaths this year.

Hornby had previously served in Iraq, where he was awarded a commendation for discovering an improvised explosive device and for spoiling an insurgent ambush.

He deployed to Afghanistan as a section commander with Arnhem Company, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment as

part of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards Battle Group, according to the Ministry of Defence.

The passionate Liverpool FC fan was stationed at Shamal Storrai patrol base and, as the most senior of the non-commissioned officers there, administered the base for his platoon commander.

Colleagues said Hornby, who was known as Si, thrived in the role and led by example and paid tribute to his love of life and sense of humour.

Hornby attended Halewood Comprehensive School before joining the army in 2000. His wife Holly said she was devastated by the loss: "He was proud to be a soldier and died doing the job he loved. He was my hero."

Lieutenant Colonel Robbie Boyd, Commanding Officer, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, said he was "courageous" and a "highly respected leader". "Always happy, always chirpy, he - as did we - lived for his sense of fun, humour and his infectious zest for life; now so sadly taken from him and us," he said.

"He was a highly motivated young junior non-commissioned

officer with his priorities fixed firmly around the welfare of his soldiers and the welfare of his wife, Holly, who we will support as a regimental family throughout her tragedy.

"He loved his wife, he loved the army and his regiment, and he loved his football team; Liverpool FC." He said he had stepped up to the "administrative challenge" of his role in Afghanistan "brilliantly".

Major Jon Elliott, Officer Commanding Arnhem Company, 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, said: "Cpl Si Hornby was fiercely loyal to his family, his regiment and his home town. He was a lively character with a natural tendency to see the lighter side of life, one which he lived to the full. A constant source of morale for his platoon, he was greatly respected by his colleagues and friends."

• Military • Afghanistan guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

By Tom Johansmeyer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:40:00 PM

Filed under: Bank of America (BAC), Goldman Sachs Group (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) Nobody expected bonus season to be comfortable, even with the financial crisis more than a year in the rear-view mirror. Yet, Goldman Sachs ( GS) is getting sued over its compensation package, under which key executives are only compensated in long-term stock. In the latest development, John Mack, CEO of Morgan Stanley ( MS), is skipping his bonus for the third year in a row, according to Reuters.

Mack isn't the first banking CEO to go sans bonus this year.

Kenneth Lewis, top dog over at Bank of America ( BAC) is getting neither a salary nor a bonus for 2009. Both plan to step

down at the end of the year, though Mack will stick around Morgan Stanley as chairman. The last time Mack got a bonus was in 2006: he picked up $36.2 million in restricted shares.

Continue reading Morgan Stanley's CEO skips bonus -again Morgan Stanley's CEO skips bonus -- again originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

There are No "Snow Days" in Blogging, Unfortunately: A Meditation on Bestiality [Public Service Announcement]

By Foster Kamer (Gawker) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:15:00 PM

or horsecock: never the answer.

No matter how lonely it gets, kids, please remember: jumping

8

World/ Finance/

E-reader News Edition

David McClendon obituary (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

black student union ran a white speaker from South Africa right off the campus David was levelheaded and defended the man's Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:33:56 AM right to free speech.

Our friend and former colleague, While a student, he was a David McClendon, who has died stringer for the Philadelphia aged 44, was diagnosed in March Inquirer. He later worked for the w i t h s a r c o i d o s i s ( B o e c k ' s Journal News, New York, before disease), an autoimmune disease. moving to the New Haven Until his illness worsened, he Register, where he spent several was the associate editor of the years and rose through the ranks Chi-Town Daily News, an online to become city editor. He left the newspaper in Chicago, and New Haven Register in October taught journalism at the city's 2006, taking a job as a deputy Loyola University. metro editor on a paper in After his diagnosis, he left his Michigan. job. In July, he moved back to his A burly, tall man, he was an parents' home in New Jersey to imposing figure but would recuperate. On his blog, he frequently dissolve into girlish wrote: "Disease will not define laughter in the newsroom. He me. How I handle it will define cared profoundly about local me. I will fight it and win." Born news and his reporters. Calm and in blue-collar Elizabeth, New collected, he was unflustered by Jersey, he attended Elizabeth daily deadlines. David's car once high school and Union county c a u g h t f i r e o u t s i d e h i s c o l l e g e b e f o r e T e m p l e newspaper's office; he put out the University, Philadelphia, where fire with an extinguisher and h e w a s a p r i n t m a j o r a n d returned to file his story. president of the student chapter His tough exterior hid a of the National Association of marshmallow centre. He adopted Black Journalists. When the a stray kitten and would take

every new reporter under his wing. He pushed for stories about the socially disadvantaged and disenfranchised. He devised ambitious investigative projects to reveal corruption. He lived HL Mencken's mantra that journalism should "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable".

He wrote on his blog: "I believe in the human body's ability to heal and my ability to overcome." His heart gave out and he collapsed in the grocery store while buying milk.

David is survived by his parents, Harold and Deborah, stepbrothers Frances and James, stepsister, Audrey, and grandparents Mildred and Earl.

• United States • Newspapers • Journalism education

Google in Talks to Buy Yelp

By Tom Johansmeyer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:40:00 PM

Filed under: Deals, Internet, Google (GOOG) Google ( GOOG) is looking to expand its reach into the usergenerated content market. It's reportedly in discussions with Yelp, a user review and ratings site that covers everything from recruiters to restaurants. The selling price is expected to be more than $500 million ... if Google and Yelp are able to reach a deal.

Will the negotiations go anywhere? As usual, there are no guarantees, and this isn't the first time Google's talked to Yelp about an acquisition. In past

years, Google has shown some interest in the site, but this time around, it looks like the action's becoming serious, according to the New York Times.

Continue reading Google in Talks to Buy Yelp Google in Talks to Buy Yelp originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

OPEC Is in the Catbird Seat

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks)

Come to think of it -- when hasn't OPEC been in an enviable position? OPEC heads into its Submitted at 12/20/2009 11:10:00 AM December meeting next week "in Filed under: Politics, Oil, the catbird seat," to cite an old Recession phrase popularized by the late, Let's just say OPEC is in an great Red Barber. OPEC does not prices high -- they're already enviable position. have to cut production to keep

high: oil closed Friday up 40 cents to $73.05 per barrel. The roughly doubling of oil's price in 2009 is the main reason the average U.S. gasoline price for unleaded regular has risen about $1 to$2.60 per gallon this year.

Continue reading OPEC Is in the

Catbird Seat OPEC Is in the Catbird Seat originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gadgets/

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9

Scientists study mental orgasms through MRIs

By Lydia Leavitt (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:00:12 AM

Guest columnist Lydia Leavitt writes about sex and, oddly enough, social media. For more information on the latest intimate technology as well as the full interview with Kim Airs, check out 69adget.com.

Click through to read the NSFW article.

Kim Airs speeds into Newark, New Jersey with her leather chaps on, riding her motorcycle decorated with dildos big and small. She’s here to meet Dr. Barry Komisaruk, an Associate Dean and researcher at Rutgers University where he is researching the female orgasm.

Kim, a free spirit, founder of Grand Opening, and a Certified Sex Educator (PPLM), waltzes into Dr. Komisaruk’s lab only to be strapped into a MRI machine where she jokes “Oh, it’ll be like a bondage session. Won’t be my first, won’t be my last!” Kim has been chosen to participate in the doctor’s study on the female orgasm because she has a very unconventional talent: this woman can will herself to orgasm. Without toys. Without lube. Without another person.

That’s right people, she can do it with her mind alone.

In our interview, Kim describes her unique skill: I have pretty much always been multi-orgasmic and always thought: why just go for one?

Orgasms are some of the best

free entertainment one can have!

So I had the basics of what it’s all about but never had the formal training until 1995, when I attended my first breath and energy workshop with the beloved (and amazing) Annie Sprinkle. Then I did quite a few workshops with The Body Electric that was a program developed by Annie that combines spirituality and sexuality but without any religious overtones (except maybe a few “Oh God! I’m coming!”s in it). Seriously, it does focus on breath work as well. I was part of the first intensive of the Body Electric for women held over several days in Northern California and when you’re focusing on breathing and moving energy for hours at a time (no kidding), you begin to get the hang of it. It wasn’t until 1997 that I really made all the connections to be able to do this without touching myself and being able to “think off.” I let it flow through me whenever it damn well pleases. It can be if a memory comes back to me and I close my eyes and my body slightly convulses, I usually get flushed in the face and yes, sometimes, people pick up on that when it happens. If I see someone that’s hot, I can pop one off then, too.

And this is exactly the type of woman Dr. Komisaruk, author of The Orgasm Answer Guide, wants to study. Why? Because the doctor is using MRIs to study

brain activity during a female’s orgasm in an attempt to isolate the regions active during the big O. Someone who can will themselves off will not have any motor movements to skew the MRI results. During our interview, the doctor describes the female orgasm as a “remarkable phenomena,” explaining that it has been linked to reduced sensitivity to pain as

well as increased feelings of joy and happiness…duh. The doctor hopes that by figuring out what’s happening in the brain during orgasm, researchers can use this information to develop better anti -depressants, better pain management drugs, and increase sexual satisfaction.

What the study has revealed thus far is that women who can will themselves to orgasm mentally,

experience the same brain activity during orgasm as women who use stimulation to get off. If women can experience the same orgasm from stimulation as they can just through mentally willing it to happen, it proves just how large of a role the brain plays in female orgasm. This got Dr. Komisaruk thinking: if it’s not so much nerve stimulation as it is an action in the brain, can disabled women such as para or quadriplegics with zero sensitivity possibly experience orgasm? The answer is yes. He states that “we have identified a novel functional sensory pathway that conveys sensory activity from the vagina and cervix directly to the brain, bypassing completely the spinal cord.”

What that means is that even women with spinal cord injuries who have no feeling in their lower body, have the potential to feel sexual satisfaction. Hooray!

By better understanding the orgasm, the doctor hopes that scientists can develop better antidepressant drugs, better pain management drugs, achieve better sexual satisfaction for the disabled, and BETTER more enhanced sex for the rest of us.

Until a time when researchers can definitively explain and utilize the findings from studies such as Dr. Komisaruk’s, men will have to be content knowing that female orgasms are more mental than we ever thought SCIENTISTS page 12

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Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

The Engadget Show tapes today... snow be damned!

By Joshua Topolsky (Engadget) Submitted at 12/20/2009 11:10:00 AM

Can't wait for another Engadget Show to roll around? Well you're in luck, friend. It's happening today.

The last show of the decade will be dedicated to just that: the decade. We're going to be talking about the most important gadgets of the past 10 years -- both good and bad -- and we'll be joined by the perfect guest. Peter Rojas, the founder of both Gizmodo and Engadget (and now gdgt!) will take the stage with Josh, Paul, and Nilay to discuss what has been arguably the most important 10 years in gadgetry.

We'll also have a few surprises, as well as some giveaways including an Xbox 360, so don't miss it -- you'll be sorry if you do!

The show takes place at the Tishman Auditorium at Parsons The New School for Design. As you may already know, we film live in front of an audience once a month -- but if you can't make it, don't worry. We're bringing the video back home to Engadget (and as a free download here, in the iTunes Store, or the Zune Marketplace) for your viewing pleasure.

The beautiful venue (which you can see in a photo after the break) is located at 66 W. 12th Street between 5th and 6th Aves.

Seating is limited and tickets will be handed out on a first-come,

first-served basis -- which means if you want to join us in the audience for the show, you'll have to arrive early and be prepared for a little wait.

Update: As you guys may have noticed, New York and the surrounding areas got hit with a little bit of snow last night. Never fear, because we're still doing the show, but we're going to make it easier for everyone to come out and enjoy it. If you want to see the taping today, don't worry about showing up at 2PM or standing in line -- if you come anytime before 4:30PM you will definitely get a seat! We don't

want anyone standing around in the snow, and it's likely that not everyone who was going to come will be able to make it, so we should be able to accommodate everyone that does show up.

Here are the facts you need to know about the show: • The show is graciously sponsored by Sprint, and hosted

by Parsons The New School for Design • The total show length will be around an hour • Music will be provided by Bubblyfish, and visuals by Chris Jordan!

Here is what you need to know if you want to be part of the audience:

stand in line -- if you have a ticket, you'll have a seat!

• You'll need to hold onto your ticket stub to be eligible for the giveaways • You cannot pick up tickets for other people -- if you want your friend to get a ticket, bring your friend!

• The show begins at 5PM, and doors will open at 4:30PM

• There is no admission fee -tickets are completely free • The event is all ages • The venue seats just over 450 people • Parsons students are welcomed, and we encourage them to come!

If you're a member of the media • Tickets will be available for who wishes to attend, please pickup at the Tishman c o n t a c t u s a t : Auditorium at 2PM on the 20th, e n g a d g e t s h o w m e d i a [ a t ] and we're strongly encouraging ENGADGET page 12 people to get their tickets and not

Gadgets/

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11

Beeper Code: The Caveman Days of Text Messaging [Y2k10]

By Anna Jane Grossman (Gizmodo)

Next Week’s Best Buy TV Sales Are Surprisingly Good (Again) [Dealzmodo]

Submitted at 12/19/2009 9:20:00 PM

In 1999, 45 million Americans had pagers. They were an equalopportunity technology, owned by drug dealers, whores, doctors and CEOs—and new college students whose parents couldn't drop the leash. At least there was the code.

Saddled as I was with my beeper, I did what I could to avoid actually picking up the phone. For Christmas my mom gave me a few rolls of quarters: a reminder that when she paged me, I was supposed to call her back. Most of my paging, however, was sending numerical messages to my friend Sarah.

My pager was green! Hers was pink! We were so very cool. This number-to-word conversion we became addicted to will probably go down as only a very minor footnote in turn-of-this-century communication, but, for kids who'd never known from text messaging and hardly used email, the idea that I could send her any kind of message and she'd get it instantly—that was pretty darn huge.

Some of our codes were super private so I can't share them, but others were standard: 411 for information, 911 for emergency,

By Chris Jacob (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:00:00 PM

143 to symbolized the number of letters in each word of the phrase "I love you."

There was also an accepted system of sending numbers so that, when written together, looked vaguely like letters. We'd grown up getting adults to spell "BOOBLESS" on calculators by typing in the elements of a story about Dolly Parton and then holding the calculator upside down. (Her bra size was 69 and that was 2, 2, 2 big. So, she took 51 diet pills and went to see Dr. X eight times. Now she's...

55378008.) From there, it was an

easy jump to many other words.

Hello was 07734. That was one of the easiest one. We said "Hello" a lot. Bitch? Why that was 81764, naturally. There were so many, it became necessary to have beeper-code dictionaries, or at least, a basic decoder.

Now, Sarah and I text using actual words written using actual letters. Boring.

Anna Jane Grossman will be with us for the next few weeks, documenting life in the early aughts, and how it differs from today. The author of Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-

Common Things Passing Us By (Abrams Image) and the creator of ObsoleteTheBook.com, she has also written for dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Salon.com, the Associated Press, Elle and the Huffington Post, as well as Gizmodo. She has a complicated relationship with technology, but she does have an eponymous website: AnnaJane.net. Follow her on Twitter at@AnnaJane.

Gary at HD Guru once again snagged next week's Best Buy TV circular early, and just like last time, the deals are surprisingly good. Here's a sample, check out his site for the full list and price comparisons: • Samsung PN50B550 50 1080p plasma $979.99 • Toshiba 46XV645U 46 1080p 120 Hz LCD Best Buy $999.98 with Free Toshiba BDX2000 Blu -ray player bundle • Sony KDL-40XBR9 40 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1244.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Bluray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system • Sony KDL-46XBR9 46 1080p 240 Hz LCD Best Buy $1704.97 with Free Sony BDPS360 Bluray player and HTSS360 5.1 Home Theater in a Box system • Samsung PN42B450 42 720p Plasma $624.99 Best Buy Not too bad. Not too bad at all. [ HD Guru]

12

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

B&N confirms Nook shipment delay, says only “very small percentage” affected

By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:11:28 AM

The Barnes & Noble Senior VP of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, Mary Ellen Keating, just confirmed to us that indeed some Nook orders were pushed back again. She claims that only a very small percentage of customers will not receive their Nook before Christmas though. B&N apparently offered affected customers both a holiday certificate in case the Nook was a gift and the $100 BN.com gift card we learned about from a commenter yesterday.

It’s hard to feel sympathetic to B&N. The bookseller obviously misjudged customer demand from the start, but inventory and supply management should have seen this latest shipping problem a lot earlier. Our tipster ordered his Nook back on November 12th and saw his order constantly pushed back at the last

minute, which was no doubt a ploy by B&N to keep cancellations down to a minimum. All it takes to keep most consumers happy is timely, honest communication, not emails days after the delay is obvious.

The vast majority of customers

who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date should receive their devices in time for the holidays.

We are working very hard to keep up with the demand and to get all nook orders out the door and to customers on or before Dec. 24. Unfortunately, there

may be a very small percentage of customers who may not receive their nooks before the holiday. We communicated with this handful of customers yesterday, offering our sincere apologies and providing them with the following: 1. A nook Holiday Certificate, in case they ordered nook as a gift and 2. A BN.com gift certificate that can be used online.

Any customer who has not yet received their device but whose ship date prior to the holidays has changed in any way should have received an email yesterday from Barnes & Noble with updated timing. They can also check their order status or contact a customer service representative (1 800 THE BOOK) if, for some reason, they did not receive the email.”

Mary Ellen Keating Spokesperson Barnes & Noble

ENGADGET continued from page 10

engadget.com, and we'll try to accommodate you. All other nonmedia questions can be sent to: engadgetshow [at] engadget.com.

Continue reading The Engadget Show tapes today... snow be damned!

The Engadget Show tapes today... snow be damned! originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

SCIENTISTS continued from page 9

before. Geez, good luck guys.

Thankfully, Dr. Komisaruk has just been offered a grant to study the male orgasm.

Klipsch Adds iPhone Controls to Top-of-the-Line X10i Ear Buds [Headphones]

By Jack Loftus (Gizmodo)

ear headphones and adds a bit of the ol' iPhone microphone and volume controls right on the The Klipsch X10i ear buds, cord. recently revealed to Engadget The new "i" line checks in at during an Indiana HQ site visit, $349, and knocks the control-less take that company's premium in- X10 down to an even $300. They Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:00:00 AM

won't be here in time for

Christmas, or even New Year's, with their reported sell date placed ambiguously in "early 2010."

The other nugget out of Klipsch today is that the popular S4i ear buds—which reviewed favorably

here at Gizmodo in August—are about the get a color refresh (as seen in the image). The price will remain $99. [ Engadget]

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

13

Exclusive: Klipsch introduces iPhone-friendly Image X10i and black / white S4i earbuds

By Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 12/20/2009 7:24:00 AM

We recently had the opportunity to tour Klipsch's headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana, and while we're currently working up a walk-through showing off gobs of behind the scenes footage from the design lab and quality assurance facilities, we gathered two particularly juicy tidbits that simply couldn't wait. The outfit informed us that since the Image S4i earbuds have been such a success, it will soon be adding its three-button iPhone microphone / remote to the top-of-the-line

Image X10, and as you may expect, the resulting product will go by the name Image X10i.

They'll officially debut in the same gold and black motif at CES, and they should ship to consumers in early 2010 for $349 (while the original X10 falls to $299). The other discovery was that the hot-selling S4i earbuds (which we tested out a few months ago) will soon be shipping in a fresh color scheme (black and white, as seen above) and with the same metal tin that the S4 currently ships with. This is actually the first third-party headphone set with an integrated

Made for iPhone remote / microphone that Cupertino has agreed to sell in white, and we can safely say that this two-tone look will probably have the

we couldn't confirm, we'd say that chances are high for future color options to sneak out in the S4 / S4i range. Check out the new wares in the gallery below.

Gallery: Exclusive: Klipsch introduces iPhone-friendly Image X10i and black / white S4i earbuds Exclusive: Klipsch introduces iPhone-friendly Image X10i and black / white S4i earbuds originally appeared on Engadget A p p l e z e a l o t s d r o o l i n g . on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 07:24:00 Everything else about the $99 set EST. Please see our terms for remains the same as the standard use of feeds. Permalink| | Email S4i (including the cable material, this| Comments electronics and price), and while

How to Get Free Inflight Wi-Fi This Holiday Season [Dealzmodo]

By Chris Jacob (Gizmodo)

Virgin America. The first three require a code to get free Wi-Fi, Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:00:00 PM but Virgin America doesn't.

Holiday travel can be a tiresome According to FlyerTalk and experience. If you want to relax MyMoneyBlog.com, these are with a little Wi-Fi on the plane, the codes you'll need to use on M y M o n e y B l o g . c o m h a s Delta, AirTran or AA. All expire compiled a list of the codes you on December 31: can use to get free internet access • Delta: DELTATRYGOGO during your holiday excursions.

• A i r T r a n : Yesterday we showed you the A I R T R A N T R Y G O G O inflight Wi-Fi cheat sheet, and • A m e r i c a n A i r l i n e s : according to the chart there are A A T R Y G O G O really only four airlines where Edit: Reader Fo just reminded you even have a chance of me that these codes are for new finding the internet: Delta, users only, and work once per AirTran, American Airlines and email address. The same likely

applies for the codes below. (But if you have a Gmail account, you can insert random periods in the username to create "unique" addresses that all go to your

account.)

If those don't work for whatever reason, FlyerTalk and MyMoneyBlog.com also reference these three codes. They

should be valid until January 7: • 2287548427snk • 2472564126dvu • 2285632980tlk If you're flying Virgin America, you don't have to do anything.

Google partnered up with the airline to provide free Wi-Fi throughout the holidays until January 15.

Those are your best bets.

Hopefully free Wi-Fi will make your holiday travels a little more tolerable. [ My Money Blog, Virgin America]

14

Gadgets/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Re transforms your iPhone into a universal remote (which seems like a step backwards, to be honest)

By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget) Submitted at 12/20/2009 2:25:00 AM

OK, so we know a thing or two about the "convenience" of using your iPhone as a remote control.

For instance, using it to control Boxee was alright -- until we needed to make a call. Or we received a call. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but the idea of re-purposing your phone to act as a universal remote seems a little silly. But what do we know?

Maybe you hold all calls while Jersey Shore is on anyways. In that case, Re could be your next favorite gadget. This bad boy lets your handset communicate with all your AV equipment via infrared, contains an extensive database of devices, and can learn from any IR remote. If that weren't enough, New Kinetix

promises regular updates to the app -- and your typical remote can't do that! Compatible with the iPod Touch as well, there's no word yet on a price or release date, but we're expecting that we'll be getting plenty more details come CES time.

Re transforms your iPhone into a universal remote (which seems like a step backwards, to be

honest) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Chip Chick| New Kinetix| Email this| Comments

Wii BOSS Controller Case: Great In Theory, Poor In Execution [Wii]

By Jack Loftus (Gizmodo)

says the additional bulk just makes things unwieldy. One needs big, beefy hands to use this There's a lot of useless accessory thing properly, they report, and crap for the Wii, but the BOSS the additional heft in back—junk controller case looked to buck the in the trunk, if you will—only trend by addressing Nintendo's makes things worse. And since baffling lack of classic controller the buttons on the case are just support for New Super Mario pressing down the original Bros Wii. Too bad it doesn't Wiimote buttons below, things work. got a tad unresponsive. Even at Basically, what this big red thing $10, the reviewer "breathed a does is slip over your Wiimote sigh of relief" when he tore it off

By Rob Cottingham had been, oh, 20 or 30 years y o u w h o ' v e r e a d , t w e e t e d , and, theoretically, makes it easier after an hour of play time.

(ReadWriteWeb) later), and it would have driven forwarded and commented on to grip and push those tiny It's too bad. That tiny directional me CRA-ZEE. Noise to Signal this year. Have a buttons when playing a game pad and those tiny 1 and 2 Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:00:00 AM Funny thing: It's also exactly the g r e a t h o l i d a y i f y o u ' r e with the Wiimote on its side. buttons really cramp me up after 'Tis the season and all that, and sort of thing I find myself saying celebrating, and just have a K i n d o f l i k e t h e C l a s s i c an extended play session in the this time of year I find myself to my own kids. lovely week or two if you aren't. Controller, with an accelerometer Mushroom Kingdom. [ ars built in. technica] thinking a lot about my parents. Sponsor I'll see you in 2010.

Unfortunately, Ars Technica This is exactly the sort of thing And speaking of 'tis the season, More Noise to Signal. Discuss they'd have said (if my childhood thanks and all the best to all of

Cartoon: Don't Push Me

Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:00:00 AM

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

15

Panasonic Lumix DMCFP8 reviewed: as good as 'a loaf of plain white bread'

By Richard Lai (Engadget)

Barnes & Noble giving $100 for Nook pre-orders that miss Christmas

By Paul Miller (Engadget) Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:32:00 AM

Haven't got your Nook yet? You may actually be in luck. For people who pre-ordered early enough to expect a pre-Christmas delivery, Barnes & Noble is promising a $100 B&N.com gift card if it misses December 24th - which is apparently distinctly possible. Of course, if you're one

of the lucky / unlucky ones to have this on offer, you've probably already seen the email, and if you're a different sort of hapless pre-orderer that won't be seeing a Nook until next year, this is just another reason to curse your lot in life. To think: not only are you not ushering in 2010 from an economy suite in a space hotel, but you're going to wrap up this year reading paper books,

without $100 to show for it!

Can't we do better as a civilization?

Barnes & Noble giving $100 for Nook pre-orders that miss Christmas originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Consumerist| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 12/20/2009 4:57:00 AM

It's hard to imagine complaining about a stylish compact camera that packs a stabilized 28-128mm zoom range and does 720p video capture at 30fps, but Panasonic's Lumix DMC-FP8 didn't garner any raves from the crew at PhotographyBLOG either. Image quality was found to be decent in well-lit conditions and no more than ISO 800 -- typical limitations on cameras with such tiny lens and body. Little is said about the video quality but we

were adequately pleased with the sample videos linked from YouTube. The only major flaw indicated was the "permanently exposed" lens, but we can't imagine it being a deal breaker for most of you nice folks out there, right?

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FP8 reviewed: as good as 'a loaf of plain white bread' originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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16

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Artopz Minitopz Ion-based nettop lamp rains down confusion, wonder

Data.gov Captchas Get Political

By Paul Miller (Engadget)

By Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:58:00 PM

We don't get it. At all. That said, we're totally enamored with this Artopz Minitopz, which manages to both be an impressivelyspecced Atom and Ion-based nettop, and simultaneously a completly confounding piece of "art." Apparently it's supposed to be perceived as a lamp, but we'd say that stretches the limits of imagination. But it stretches them in a good way, that's all we're saying. Oh, and the Minitopz

costs $2,250, just in case you thought you'd penetrated this fog of luxurious gadget oddity to the point of pulling out a wallet.

Maybe the video after the break will help clear some things up?

Nope, not really.

Continue reading Artopz Minitopz Ion-based nettop lamp rains down confusion, wonder Artopz Minitopz Ion-based nettop lamp rains down confusion, wonder originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PCLaunches| Artopz| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:31:22 AM

Marketing manager Elyssa Pallai, Spotted this evening on the U.S. who stumbled upon this humor government's public data web gem today. site, Data.gov. A Republican Sponsor programmer at captcha provider Discuss reCAPTCHA having some fun?

Hat-tip ReadWriteWeb's

CrunchDeals: Buy an Olive 4 or 4 HD and get Beatles Remastered

By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:09:40 AM

So the guys at Olive really like you. We gave our free one away to Reader Fares but you guys can pick one up alongside a full 17disc collection of Beatles hits just

as quick as two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Here’s what’s going on: Buy any Olive 4 or Olive 4 HD

by Monday, December 28th and get the remarkable, remastered Beatles 17-Disc collection FREE! This is the Beatles

with your purchase of an Olive 4.

Pop over here to pick up your unit. Happy holidays.

Collection you’ve been waiting for. Every song in the Beatles catalog, every album from Please

Please Me to Let it Be remastered to today’s highest standards. A $200 value – it’s yours FREE

Guy brings whole computer rig into B&N, the world snickers

By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/20/2009 6:37:04 AM

This dude probably had to get some work done and decided to

mooch off of B&N’s free Internet. But seriously? Did he really have to do it in this fashion? I mean, he’s just further advancing the general public’s

view of nerds.

Socks with sandles, buddy?

That’s it. You’re out of the club.

Hand back in your nerd card. [ imgur via Reddit]

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If you wrote the words you own the copyright (Scripting News) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:32:23 PM

Avatar has hit telesync, but Poor iPhone reception by all reports you should graduates to SNL 'Weekend just pay your money Update' joke status

By John Biggs (CrunchGear)

where it’s coming out on December 24, you might as well whet your appetite with this Imagine this in 3D. With like CAMELOT release. aliens popping out onto your lap. Says scnsrc: This telesync won’t be like that.

Here is a nice telesync from Avatar is now a telesync, in CAMELOT, the sound is good English, but it seems the aliens in and the video is a bit blurry but the copy are gray and everyone – this is in english. However I I mean everyone – says to go see recomand the iMAX, definitely it in the theaters. If you can’t wait worths it. and/or you live in Central Europe Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:52:51 AM

By Joshua Topolsky (Engadget) Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:06:00 AM

"It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cellphone as a challenge to the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making phone calls."

Cue uproarious applause.

Update: Video after the break!

Thanks Michael!

Continue reading Poor iPhone reception graduates to SNL 'Weekend Update' joke status Poor iPhone reception graduates to SNL 'Weekend Update' joke status originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

At Poynter Paul Bradshaw asks a question with an obvious answer.

Paul Bradshaw: In the E-mail Era, Who Owns the Interview?

Obviously the person who wrote the words owns the copyright.

Fair use allows the reporter to quote them. I can't imagine a lawyer advising or a court deciding otherwise.

And of course this highlights the fact that a lot of people help reporters and news organizations, without any hope or expectation of compensation. It's funny that none of these people are mentioned in the sad pieces that wonder if the news industry has a future. And no one seems to see an even more interesting question -- in the age of blogs, do we still need reporters? (I think we do, but not as much as we used to.)

SNL: Google phone to challenge iPhone by "making calls"

By Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Humor, iPhone Saturday Night Live's 'Weekend

Update' with Seth Meyers joined the fray of people who were sick of AT&T's poor network reception: "It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cellphone as a challenge to

the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making phone calls."

While Saturday Night Live hasn't been funny for years(IMHO), and the joke was rather feeble, this is further cause for embarrassment from Apple and AT&T and just

additional fodder for Verizon's case as to why they should have the iPhone. [via Engadget] TUAW SNL: Google phone to challenge iPhone by "making calls" originally appeared on The

Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HOW TO: Use Facebook Privacy Controls on Your Fan Page

By Mollie Vandor (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/20/2009 6:24:57 AM

Mollie Vandor is the Product Manager for Ranker.com and Media Director for Girls in Tech LA. You can find her on Twitter and on her blog, where she writes about the web, the world and what it’s like to be a geek chic chick.

Lately it seems like Facebook changes its privacy options more often than most people change their statuses. Late last week, Facebook rolled out yet another set of new privacy settings, replacing regional networks with concentric circles of connections.

Before, Facebook’s default privacy settings were largely location-based — people who lived near you, or went to the same college as you, were able to see more information about you.

Now, access is all about who you know and who knows them.

The new Facebook publisher privacy controls are a core component of this change. Now, instead of simply posting something to your entire network, you can choose to specify who sees your posts. It’s pretty easy to figure out how to use these changes to your advantage when handling your personal Facebook page — those happy hour pics should probably only get posted to people who are actually your friends. But figuring them out for fan pages is a very different proposition, especially because privacy

settings for Fan Pages are still all about location, location, location.

What Are the Fan Page Publisher Privacy Controls?

The publisher privacy control is the icon that, ironically, looks a little bit like the MySpace logo.

You can find it on the publishing area of your Fan Page, right next to the share button. When you hover over it, you should see a prompt that says “Everyone.”

This is the default, so if you don’t do anything to change it, your posts will automatically go out to all your fans’ feeds.

However, if you click on the privacy control, you can customize your posts so that they only go out to fans who speak a certain language, fans who live in a certain country, or even fans who live in certain cities and states.

You can also create combinations of customizations by sending the post out to people in multiple cities, multiple states or multiple countries. There are some limitations — at the moment it doesn’t appear that you can specify certain cities and states within a country and also share that same post with certain cities and states within another country. You can, however, share with multiple countries at once.

Using the controls is pretty easy.

The hard part is figuring out why you would want to use them in the first place. Spread the Good Stuff Out There’s a thin line between engaging your Facebook fans and

(but demographically similar) regions. Once your posts are up, there are plenty of ways to measure engagement and find out which one worked and which didn’t.

Even if a post fails, your Facebook fans will likely be more forgiving than the annoying them. Target and time audiences on most other major your content correctly, and you’ll social media platforms. Unless get all the clicks you could it’s outrageously offensive, bad possibly want. Don’t, and you’ll content on Facebook tends to just either miss the boat or make your get swept away in the stream, f a n s w a n t t o t h r o w y o u which makes the publisher overboard. That’s where the privacy controls the perfect way privacy controls can really come to find out if your fans want to in handy. follow you in that new direction Say you’ve got a great piece of you’re contemplating. Control content that you want to promote, for Culture and you want it to reach as many With 350 million users and 70 of your fans as possible. If your different translations, it’s no fans are spread out into multiple wonder that Facebook is a whole time zones, you’re going to run world unto itself. Your Facebook into issues trying to time the post fans could be coming from any for a window when everyone’s corner of the globe. Unless likely to be checking Facebook. you’re selling something that And you definitely don’t want to e v e r y o n e i n t h e w o r l d i s post the same piece of content interested in, there are probably over and over — that’s a recipe some posts that will entice one for really annoying your fans. group to click through and Now you can target your posts by another to click away. That’s the time zone, so you don’t waste perfect publisher privacy control your best content by throwing it situation. into the feeds of fans who are First, you should know the probably asleep. Just use the demographics of your users. If publisher privacy controls to roll you don’t, there are plenty of that good content out region-by- great tools to help you track and region throughout the day and triangulate them. Once you do, you’re all set. Get Tested it’s relatively simple to figure out What better way to test the web which regions of fans will want waters than with a good A/B which types of content. By experiment? Post two different targeting your posts to particular pieces of content to two different regions, you can avoid offending

certain fans. But, more importantly, you can post more content more often. Because you won’t be posting every piece of content to every fan, you can post a higher volume of content, so you get more information into the Facebook stream and more relevant content to each region of your user base. It’s a win-win for everyone. Take on the Trends Let’s face it, what’s cool in California isn’t necessarily blowing up in Burma. The world is a big place, and the World Wide Web is too. While there are some memes that make their way around the globe, there are many trending topics that take off in particular places, or for particular groups of people. And I’m not just talking about the topics people are tweeting about. From major events to sporting matches to local news, there are all sorts of bandwagons your fans could be jumping on. And if the people you want to communicate with are on the bandwagon, shouldn’t you be there too?

Of course, you don’t want to cram content about every single trend into every user’s Facebook feed. That’s why you should use the publisher privacy controls on your Fan Page. Target your post to the place your topic is trending. That way you can jump on all the bandwagons you want, without causing content overload for all your fans. Conclusion When it comes to managing HOW page 22

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U.N. climate talks end with bare-minimum deal (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:54:34 PM

COPENHAGEN--U.N. climate talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates "noted" an accord struck by the United States, China, and other emerging powers that falls far short of the conference's original goals.

"Finally we sealed a deal," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. "The 'Copenhagen Accord' may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this...is an important beginning."

A long road lies ahead. The accord--weaker than a legally binding treaty and weaker even than the "political" deal many had foreseen--left much to the imagination.

It set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial times--seen as a threshold for dangerous changes such as more floods, droughts, mudslides, sandstorms, and rising seas. But it failed to say how this would be achieved.

It held out the prospect of $100 billion in annual aid from 2020 for developing nations but did not specify precisely where this money would come from. And it pushed decisions on core issues such as emissions cuts into the future.

"This basically is a letter of intent...the ingredients of an architecture that can respond to the long-term challenge of climate change, but not in precise legal terms. That means we have a lot of work to do on the long road to Mexico," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.

Another round of climate talks is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico. Negotiators are hoping to nail down then what they failed to achieve in Copenhagen-a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But there are no guarantees.

Nonbinding accord A plenary session of the marathon 193-nation talks in the Danish capital merely "took note" of the new accord, a nonbinding deal for combating global warming finalized by U.S. President Barack Obama, China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.

Work on the pact had begun in a meeting of 28 leaders, ministers, and officials, including EU countries and small island nations most vulnerable to climate change.

The European Union, which has set itself ambitious emissions cuts targets and encouraged others to follow suit, only reluctantly accepted the weak deal that finally emerged.

"The decision has been very

difficult for me. We have done one step, we have hoped for several more," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In the final hours of the talks, which began on December 7 and ended early on Saturday afternoon, delegates agreed to set a deadline to conclude a U.N. treaty by the end of 2010. At stake was a deal to fight global warming and promote a cleaner world economy less dependent on fossil fuels.

The accord explicitly recognized a "scientific view" that the world should limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius--although the promised emissions cuts were far short of the amount needed to reach that goal.

"We have a big job ahead to avoid climate change through effective emissions reduction targets, and this was not done here," said Brazil's climate change ambassador, Sergio Serra.

A final breakthrough came after Obama brokered a final deal with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and leaders of India, South Africa, and Brazil that they stand behind their commitments to curb growth in greenhouse gases.

Obama said the "extremely difficult and complex" talks laid the foundation for international

action in the years to come.

"For the first time in history, all of the world's major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action on the threat of climate change," Obama said at the White House on Saturday after returning from Copenhagen.

The outcome underscored shortcomings in the chaotic U.N. process and may pass the initiative in forming world climate policy to the United States and China, the world's top two emitters of greenhouse gases.

Overnight session stormy In a stormy overnight session, the talks came to the brink of collapse after Sudan, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and Bolivia lined up to denounce the U.S.and China-led plan, after heads of state and government had flown home.

Sources close to the talks told Reuters the Danish hosts and U.N. lawyers had not obtained formal backing from the conference for a smaller group of leaders and ministers to agree on a final text, leading to chaos when this was finally presented to a plenary meeting of all 193 countries.

U.N. talks are meant to be concluded by unanimity. Under a compromise to avoid collapse, the deal listed the countries that were in favor of the deal and

those against.

An all-night plenary session, chaired by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, hit a low point when a Sudanese delegate said the plan in Africa would be like the Holocaust.

The document "is a solution based on the same very values, in our opinion, that channeled 6 million people in Europe into furnaces," said Sudan's Lumumba Stanislaus Di-aping.

"The reference to the Holocaust is, in this context, absolutely despicable," said Anders Turesson, chief negotiator of Sweden.

The conference finally merely "took note" of the new accord.

This gives it the same legal status as if it had been accepted, senior United Nations official Robert Orr said. But it is far from a full endorsement, and it was also condemned by many environmental groups as showing a failure of leadership.

Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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Three station fliers prep for launch to lab complex (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:51:04 AM

Engineers at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan readied the Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft for launch Sunday on a mission to ferry three fresh crew members to the International Space Station.

Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, a station veteran, Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, a shuttle veteran, and rookie astronaut Timothy Creamer are scheduled for launch at 4:52 p.m.

EST from the same pad used by Yuri Gagarin at the dawn of the space age.

Liftoff was targeted for roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the launch pad into the plane of the space station's orbit.

The Soyuz TMA-17 crew, bound for the International Space Station. Left to right: Soyuz commander Oleg Kotov, Timothy Creamer, Soichi Noguchi.(Credit: NASA) After a nine-minute climb to space, the capsule's antennas and solar panels will deploy and later this evening, Kotov will oversee two rendezvous rocket firings to fine-tune the craft's approach to the lab complex. A third rocket firing is planned for Monday and if all goes well, the TMA-17 spacecraft will execute an automated approach to the Earthfacing port of the station's Zarya module Tuesday for a docking around 5:54 p.m.

Waiting to welcome the new

crew members on board will be Expedition 22 commander Jeffrey Williams and Maxim Suraev, launched to the outpost Sept. 30. Suraev and Williams, who has a previous station flight to his credit, have had the lab to themselves since December 1, when cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and Canadian Robert Thirsk returned to Earth after a six-month stay in space.

"One of the things we've learned over the last couple of years is it's really beneficial to have (experienced) crew members (on

board) when a new crew arrives," said Kirk Shireman, deputy manager of the space station program at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"So while it'll be a new experience for these guys, the fact that Max and Jeff have already been up there, they'll know where everything is, they'll know how things work and that'll allow these three guys to quickly adapt and be able to hit the ground running."

According to an Associated Press report, Creamer told reporters he would miss his family over the Christmas

holidays, but "we are going as a family together to a family in space." He has been using Twitter to keep friends, family and the public up to date and plans to continue posting from space.

"I thought if I can give you the status of what I am doing, what we are hoping for, what we are looking forward to seeing, those would be good little teasers," he said.

The Soyuz TMA-17 spacecraft on the launch pad at the Baikonur C o s m o d r o m e i n Kazakhstan.(Credit: NASA) After a break for Christmas and

the New Year holidays, the crew will face a busy month in January.

Using the station's robot arm, a NASA pressurized mating adapter currently attached to the left side of the central Unity module will be relocated Jan. 5 to clear the way for attachment of a new U.S. module in February.

Suraev and Kotov plan a spacewalk January 14 to finish outfitting a new Russian docking port known as Poisk, or MRM-2, that was recently attached to the Zvezda command module's upward-facing hatch. Once that work is done, the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft now docked to Zvezda's aft port--the capsule that carried Williams and Suraev to the station--will be moved to Poisk on January 20.

The shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for launch from the Kennedy Space Center on Fabruary 7 to deliver Tranquility, or Node 3, a roomy module that will be attached to Unity's leftside port. Once installed and checked out, a toilet now installed in the Destiny lab module will be moved into Tranquility, along with exercise equipment and other life support gear that has been temporarily housed elsewhere.

"This increment really sets the stage for the last year of the shuttle program," Shireman said.

"It's a big growth year...the last major growth spurt for the THREE page 30

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Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better

By David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:00:00 PM

Filed under: iTunes, iPhone, iPod touch, App Review, Music Moodagen t [ iTunes Link] (free for now) puts a new spin on the iTunes Genius Playlist system.

Instead of leaving it up to Apple to give you category based Genius Playlists, Moodagent, gives you some control over what songs will appear in a 25 song customizable playlist of your music.

You are given 5 colored bars, each with an icon representing an aspect of music. The symbols didn't make much sense to me, but by hitting an info button, I found that the icons represented, in order: Sensual, Tender, Joy, Aggressive and Tempo. I could have used a full explanation of what they meant by Aggressive and Tempo, but trial and error gave me a rough idea. By increasing or decreasing the size of each of the bars, a 25 song Playlist is created, complete with cover art icons, that can be played or saved for later recall.

Increase or decrease one or more of the bars and the playlist

instantly changes, so if you like a playlist, it's a good idea to save it before changing anything. Once saved, a tap will play your chosen playlist. When saving, you are also given the opportunity to title the playlist any way you like, with the first song being the default title.

Another way of making a playlist, again similar to the iTunes Genius playlist, is to select a seed song to base the list upon. Choose one song and then adjust the bars to tailor the list to your liking.

When first loading the app, you run a sync that indexes all the music on your iPhone/iPod touch running OS 3.0 or better, with their server. My iPhone has about 2100 songs on it and syncing took about 10 minutes. When done, I was told that it couldn't sync about 750 songs. This wasn't surprising since my tastes tend toward the arcane, but there's a solution for that. You are asked to download a Moodagent Profiler application that, as does iTunes Genius playlists, upload anonymous information from the iTunes library on your computer, which is assumed to have more music on it than does your mobile

device. This information is used to expand the Moodagent database. After running the Moodagent Profiler on my roughly 6100 song Macbook Pro iTunes library, which took over an hour, I re-synced Moodagent and this time the number of songs that couldn't be synced reduced to 149.

So why didn't it find 149 songs?

One reason is that Moodagent doesn't handle anything encoded with DRM. I haven't yet discovered other reasons, since I only had about 60 songs in my iTunes Purchased folder. At its introduction the Moodagent

database was reported to contain over 7 million songs, which is a start, but as more people use the Moodagent Profiler and increase the database, similar to the Genius Playlist system, results should get better.

Moodagent has only been out for a few days and as expected, some results are a bit odd. For no good reason, I turned Sensuality all the way up and everything else all the way down. Many of the results made sense, but Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel?

Pretty weird. My guess is that if Moodagent sells well, and the database gets dramatically expanded, results will get more predictable.

I like this app quite a lot, but I like its potential even better. The more people that upload library data using the Moodagent Profiler, the better Moodagent will become over time. On the downside: I'd like to see the 25 song restriction taken off letting the user determine the size of the playlist. I also have a few other nits to pick, like the Save and Open Playlist button positioning.

As it stands, those options are always in a space just above the first song, so if you're scrolling around your list, you won't find a

way to save it. This I consider minor since I was able to figure it out in under a minute, but it would be nice to have these buttons be persistent.

Download it and check it out.

The price is certainly right, and I've already created a number of very enjoyable playlists that the sledgehammer (can't get that song out of my mind) approach of the iTunes Genius system, couldn't touch. Like Bookmark, for audio books, Moodagent takes an Apple system and fine tunes it, giving you something you didn't know you needed until you start playing with it and find it invaluable.

Check out this video to see Moodagent put through its paces.

TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page.

TUAW Moodagent: Going iTunes Playlists one better originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is Star Trek’s “Gorn Cannon” Mere Myth? Find Out On Mythbusters

By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:04:14 PM

Can a cannon really be made out

of bamboo, sulfur, charcoal and diamonds like the one Captain Kirk made on the Star Trek episode “Arena”?

Find out on Mythbusters

Monday Dec. 28, at 9 p.m. on the Discovery Channel Star Trek fans will definitely want to check out this video preview.

Already added to my DVR… Term Extraction. via SciFi Wire Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS,

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iPhone, Blackberry Storm offer contrast in browsers (CNET News.com)

the Safari browser on the iPhone 3GS. This is nothing short of phenomenal. It's the closest a The quality and speed of the smartphone user can get to the browser is an essential feature for full-fledged browsing on a smartphones these days. And it's laptop. here that the BlackBerry Storm 2 And the browser will only has some catching up to do vis-a- become more important as the vis rivals such as the iPhone smartphone screen size creep 3GS. continues, from the 3.5-inch The Storm 2 is an underrated diagonal screen on the iPhone smartphone in many respects. 3GS to the 3.7-inch screen on the The interface is clean and easy to Droid to the 4.1-inch display on navigate, the standard software the Toshiba TG01 (sold in feature set competitive, and the Europe). ability to integrate all email So, what was RIM thinking? The a c c o u n t s i n t o o n e s c r e e n Storm 2's browser (like its convenient. predecessor's--which I had But unbelievably--to me, at least previously been using) can be --RIM failed to improve the glacially slow when loading Web browser on the Storm 2. Or let sites. So slow that many Storm me put it this way: RIM failed to users opt for downloading the make perceptible improvements. Opera Mini or Bolt browsers. But (See RIM statement below.) these browsers have glaring This is no small oversight. The defects of their own, so they don't key reason why the Motorola necessarily serve as satisfactory Droid has been a hit is because it replacements for the Storm's built couples a big screen with a high- -in browser. (The Bolt browser quality, fast browser--making it does not zoom and Opera Mini-the only premium smartphone to though blazingly fast--has trouble date in the U.S. to approach the rendering many Web sites.) status of the iPhone.

As shown in the embedded Which brings us to the gold videos, which demonstrate the standard of smartphone browsers: load times for the CNET News Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:42:00 AM

page and the zoom features of the two phones, respectively, the iPhone 3GS (bottom) beats the Storm handily.

It is important to note that the Storm 2's built-in browser will speed up significantly if you turn off (uncheck) "Support javascript" in the "Browser Configuration" settings. And in the side-by-side page load-time comparisons with the iPhone 3GS (embedded videos), support for javascript is turned off.

But RIM needs to hurry up and match the competition. A fast, high-quality browser is standard equipment now for premium smartphones. Am I alone in this opinion? ( See also CNET review of the BlackBerry Storm 2. ) I should also add that I made an official inquiry to RIM, asking why they didn't do more to improve the browser in the Storm. This was RIM's response: "Internet browsing is one of a mix of important features for many mobile customers and RIM continues to steadily improve the browsing experience on the BlackBerry platform. The BlackBerry Storm2 (as well as

the original Storm, Curve 8530 and Bold 9700) now runs BlackBerry OS 5, which features a number of browser enhancements. Page load times have been improved with faster JavaScript and CSS processing, and support has been added for standards such as Partial HTML5 and SVG Tiny 1.1 in order to improve rendering fidelity. The BlackBerry platform also now supports Gears, which is another indication of RIM's intent and direction with respect to browsing on the BlackBerry platform. Earlier this year, RIM announced it is working with Adobe to bring full Flash to the BlackBerry platform and RIM also acquired Torch Mobile, a company that specializes in browser development, as part of its ongoing efforts to provide an increasingly better browsing experience to customers in 2010."

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HOW continued from page 18

your Fan Page, the publisher privacy controls let you post more content, more intelligently.

By targeting your posts to specific people, you can post more often without saturating the streams of all your fans, and you can pinpoint the people who are most likely to respond to and engage with every piece of content you post. Use the new privacy controls to pick the perfect demographic for a particular piece of content, test new types of content, and time your posts for maximum return.

Controlling where your content goes helps you better control your brand and build your user base. That’s an awful lot of power for one puny little privacy button. More Facebook resources from Mashable: - HOW TO: Manage a Facebook Group - HOW TO: Integrate Facebook With Your Blog - HOW TO: Set Up a Winning Facebook Fan Page - 3 New Facebook Strategies for Building Your Personal Brand - The Journalist’s Guide to Facebook - HOW TO: Do Good on Facebook Reviews: Facebook, MySpace Tags: business, facebook, facebook fan page, facebook fan pages, privacy, social media

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Digg Buries Reddit and StumbleUpon in Reader Vote [POLL]

By Ben Parr (Mashable!)

was Reddit, which garnered 11,466 ballots (39%).

StumbleUpon was left in the dust We’ve seen some epic battles in with only 2507 votes (8%). our weekly Web Faceoff series, This was, by far, our most where we put opposing social popular and heated Web Faceoff media and tech tools into the yet. We’re going to do it again Colosseum and have them go to next week though, so watch out war for your vote. Our very first for the next edition. Until then, faceoff, Firefox vs. Chrome, had let us know what you think of over 8000 votes, while only 31 t h i s w e e k ’ s r e s u l t i n t h e votes separated Last.fm vs. c o m m e n t s .

Pandora.

Who would win in a fight: Digg, None of those battles compared StumbleUpon, or Reddit?( survey to the clash that occurred this software) week, though. We asked you, the Web Faceoff: Overall Results readers, to choose between Digg, Week 1: Stumbleupon, or Reddit for - Mozilla Firefox vs. Google social media supremacy. But Chrome while thought there would be a - WINNER: Firefox, 4600 votes lot of passionate people for this (Chrome: 3310 votes, Tie: 911 faceoff, we didn’t expect nearly votes) 30,000 votes, shattering all of our Week 2: previous records.

- Tumblr vs. Posterous So who won this battle for the - WINNER: Tumblr, 1809 votes ages? It was close, and the lead (Posterous: 1496 votes, Tie: 256 changed several times, but in the votes) end…

Week 3: … Digg was able to secure the - Pandora vs. Last.fm victory. After Reddit took the - WINNER: Last.fm, 1187 votes lead in the beginning, Digg (Pandora: 1156 votes, Tie: 122 fought back with its massive votes) community and gained 14,762 Week 4: votes, or 50%. In second place - Twitter vs. Facebook Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:57:22 PM

Week 9: - Apple iPhone vs. Google Android - WINNER: Google Android, 3323 votes (Apple iPhone: 1494 votes, Tie: 228 votes) Week 10: - AT&T vs. Verizon - WINNER: Verizon, 1161 votes - WINNER: Facebook, 2484 (AT&T: 538 votes, Tie: 118 votes (Twitter: 2061 votes, Tie: votes) 588 votes) Week 11: Week 5: - Google vs. Bing - WordPress vs. Typepad - WINNER: Google, 2180 votes - WINNER: WordPress, 2714 (Bing: 519 votes, Tie: 97 votes) votes (Typepad: 267 votes, Tie: Week 12: 357 votes) - iPod Touch/iPhone vs.

Week 6: Nintendo DS vs. Sony PSP - Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard - WINNER: iPod Touch/iPhone, - WINNER: Windows 7, 3632 704 votes (Sony PSP: 639 votes, votes (Snow Leopard: 3278 N i n t e n d o D S : 4 8 2 v o t e s ) votes, Tie: 121 votes) Reviews: Bing, Chrome, Digg, Week 7: Facebook, Firefox, Google, - TweetDeck vs. Seesmic G o o g l e D o c s , P a n d o r a , Desktop Posterous, Seesmic Desktop, - WINNER: TweetDeck, 3294 S t u m b l e U p o n , T u m b l r , votes (Seesmic Desktop: 1055 TweetDeck, Twitter, TypePad, votes, Tie: 260 votes) WordPress Week 8: Tags: digg, reddit, social media, - Microsoft Office vs. Google stumbleupon, web faceoff Docs - WINNER: Microsoft Office, 1365 votes (Google Docs: 994 votes, Tie: 315 votes)

SNL Mocks iPhone’s Network Coverage [VIDEO]

By Pete Cashmore (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:55:06 AM

The Google Phone(aka the Nexus One) got a Saturday Night Live mention last night as Seth Meyers mocked the poor reception provided by AT&T. Said Meyers in the Weekend Update portion of the show: “It was reported this week that Google would soon launch its own cellphone as a challenge to the iPhone. Also a challenge to the iPhone? Making phone calls.”

I’m sure that got a laugh from Verizon, which has been taking shots at AT&T’s coverage for months. [via Engadget] Reviews: Google Tags: google phone, iphone, nexus one, snl

Kate Gosselin: I'd Like to Be on 'Dancing with the Stars' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:18:00 AM

Following the news that her

divorce with Jon is official, a jovial Kate Gosselin dished some revealing tidbits about her newly single self on Friday night’s " Jay

Leno Show."

Kate, appearing live via satellite from Washington, D.C., was asked by Jay if there's a reality

show she'd like to be a contestant said. "I want to laugh at myself. I on. so cannot dance. It would be a "Yes, 'Dancing with the Stars' sad sight." because I cannot dance," she

24

Tech/ Politics/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Hungary votes for open standards (CNET News.com)

between open-source and proprietary software. It's actively fostering competition between Many governments, particularly open and closed systems. those in developing nations, are The devil is in the details, of increasingly legislating course, but the approach is preferences for open-source promising. There are still software. A much smarter questions to be answered, e.g., approach may be that recently will Microsoft file formats like adopted by Hungary, however, .docx be considered open which has mandated the use of standards? Some suggest the open standards. answer is yes.

Hungary's flag Smarter, because Does this degrade the value of for all the noise about openthe legislation? source mandates in places like On a related note, it's also very Latin America, I've been hearing possible that "open standard" from contacts in these markets may be redefined, as Glyn that government IT workers have Hungarian law. The goal? To electric power supply by means M o o d y p o i n t s o u t m a y b e continued to use the software "promote the spread of monopoly of a wall socket. Connecting a happening with the European they prefer, not the software -free markets that foster the television set or a refrigerator to Interoperability Framework, to mandated by legislation. development of interchangeable the mains does not require the include not-so-open standards.

And smarter, because it focuses and interoperable products," expertise of an electrician. And if Even so, it's good to see a on creating real competition in thereby opening up the market to the refrigerator is unplugged and government focused on the government IT, which arguably "broad competition." a television plugged in instead, i n t e r c o n n e c t i o n s b e t w e e n is a much better way to keep It's a laudable goal, and arguably the television will work, too. software, rather than the licenses vendors honest and citizens much better than those efforts to Similarly, the two types of portal thereof. As we increasingly see empowered than an open-source mandate a particular licensing set out by Hungarian legislation with open source in cloud license. If you can have both, approach to software, which (the administrative portal and the computing, licenses matter little even better, but the right place to could result in adoption of client portal serving individual for ensuring openness. Standards, start government policy is in the software that doesn't work as users) will function as statutory however, continue to have a big realm of standards. well as its proprietary peers. s t a n d a r d ' s o c k e t s ' i n role to play.

The Open Standards Alliance I l i k e t h e w a y t h e O p e n intercommunication between Five Filters featured article: proposed and lobbied for the Standards Alliance describes it: computers.

Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: change to Act LX of 2009 on Any device using a standard In other words, the law isn't PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, electronic public services within plug can be connected to the picking winners. It's not deciding Term Extraction.

Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:10:16 PM

Kevin Jonas Wedding News!

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:05:00 PM

Kevin Jonas is off the market!

The oldest of the Jonas trio reportedly got married on

Saturday evening to fiancé Danielle DeLeasa in Long Island, NY. The couple wed at a French-style chateau on an estate in Long Island, says People.com.

"We're so happy that we're finally married and we were able to share the special moment with family, friends and loved ones," the couple told the site.

Palin Twitters About Climate Change (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:15:47 PM

Sarah Palin is sharing her bizarre views on climate change with the world via Twitter: Sarah Palin (SarahPalinUSA) on Twitter.

These little tweets are more revealing than Palin knows; it’s clear that her objections to climate change stem from her radical religious right view that mankind cannot affect God’s creation, and should not even try.

Copenhgen=arrogance of man2think we can change nature’s ways.MUST b good stewards of God’s earth,but arrogant&naive2say man overpwers nature Another tweet reiterates her scientifically ignorant view that humans are not causing global warming.

Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng “Ions.” Good grief.

Well, at least it’s believable that she actually wrote this stuff herself.

Tech/ Sports/ Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

FanGuide self-guided architectural tours for iPhone

By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

was visiting the Windy City.

Featuring an elegant and easynavigated user interface, the Chicago Loop Architecture Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:00:00 PM Guide provides six tours, each F i l e d u n d e r : M u l t i m e d i a , with anywhere from 5 to 9 stops.

S o f t w a r e , A p p S t o r e , A p p The tours range in length from 30 Review Fans of great architecture minutes to a full hour, and stops love to take guided or self-guided for food, coffee, or photography tours to learn more about the can stretch out the time. Tapping buildings or homes designed by on a globe icon during a tour classic architects like Mies van provides a Google map view of a der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, stop, overlaid with a photo of the and Louis Sullivan. Guided tours building and arrows that point are usually somewhat expensive you to the previous or next stop. and subject to the knowledge and Y o u d o n ' t n e e d a c e l l u l a r whims of the tour guide, while connection to use the app; there self-guided tours can force are also self-contained offline architecture buffs to juggle m a p s t h a t a r e m o r e t h a n books, maps, and MP3 players sufficient to provide you with while searching for the details of location information. Fans of a particular architect or style. great architecture love to take These frustrations were the guided or self-guided tours to impetus behind the creation of learn more about the buildings or the FanGuide Tour & Audio homes designed by classic Companion iPhone apps by architects like Mies van der Prairie Design Group. I recently Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, and had an opportunity to test the Louis Sullivan. Guided tours are Chicago Loop Architecture usually somewhat expensive and Guide[US$2.99, iTunes Link], subject to the knowledge and and wish that this app had been whims of the tour guide, while available a few years back when I self-guided tours can force

available a few years back when I was visiting the Windy City.

Featuring an elegant and easynavigated user interface, the Chicago Loop Architecture Guide provides six tours, each with anywhere from 5 to 9 stops.

The tours range in length from 30 minutes to a full hour, and stops for food, coffee, or photography can stretch out the time. Tapping on a globe icon during a tour provides a Google map view of a stop, overlaid with a photo of the building and arrows that point you to the previous or next stop.

You don't need a cellular connection to use the app; there architecture buffs to juggle are also self-contained offline books, maps, and MP3 players m a p s t h a t a r e m o r e t h a n while searching for the details of sufficient to provide you with location information. a particular architect or style.

These frustrations were the TUAW FanGuide self-guided impetus behind the creation of architectural tours for iPhone the FanGuide Tour & Audio originally appeared on The Companion iPhone apps by U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g Prairie Design Group. I recently (TUAW) on Sun, 20 Dec 2009 had an opportunity to test the 12:00:00 EST. Please see our Chicago Loop Architecture terms for use of feeds.

Guide[US$2.99, iTunes Link], Read| Permalink| Email this| and wish that this app had been Comments

25

Son Charged With Suffocating Father, 83, With Pillow (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/20/2009 5:59:24 AM

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. A St. Petersburg, Fla., man is charged with suffocating his 83-year-old father with a pillow.

Forty-year-old Stephen Coffeen was being held Saturday at Pinellas County Jail after Robert Coffeen's lifeless body was found at the elder man's home. He was arrested Friday and taken without struggle.

According to St. Petersburg police, the son claims he suffocated his father in selfdefense. Police say he lives in Davis, Calif. It wasn't immediately know if he obtained an attorney.

Bond was set at $100,000.

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

Fantasy Football Tailgate: Week 15

By Tom Herrera (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/20/2009 2:15:00 AM

Filed under: Fantasy Football Tailgate, Expert Chats As snow

blankets the northeast, your fantasy football playoff battles heat up. Fantasy FanHouse's crew will be here to answer all your questions about lineups, get Santa's Little Helper for injuries, weather, or even what to

Christmas.

We'll start if off at 10:30AM ET and finish up around Sunday's first kickoff. So keep your fingers on the keyboard -- away from frostbite -- and join us after

the jump. More Fantasy Football: Latest Player News| Over/Under| Rankings| Sleepers

26

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

No Nook by Christmas? Here's a $100 gift card

Dozen Daily Deals for December 19, 2009

(CNET News.com)

By Victor Agreda, Jr. (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date should receive their devices in time for the holidays.

Some customers who placed We are working very hard to early orders for Barnes & Noble's keep up with the demand and to Nook may not see their e-reader get all nook orders out the door arrive in time for Christmas. and to customers on or before Barnes & Noble told some Dec. 24. Unfortunately, there customers by e-mail Friday that may be a very small percentage though their shipment "has been of customers who may not slightly delayed," the company is receive their nooks before the aiming to get their device to them holiday. We communicated with

by Thursday, which is Christmas t h i s h a n d f u l o f c u s t o m e r s Eve. If it's not shipped in time, yesterday, offering our sincere Barnes & Noble promises "with apologies and providing them our sincerest apologies, we will with the following: a nook send you an e-mail notification holiday gift certificate so that on December 23rd with a $100 they have something to wrap and Barnes&Noble.com Online Gift give if it was bought as a gift as Certificate." The e-mail also said well as a bn.com gift certificate if the Nook doesn't get there by that can be used online. Any Christmas Eve, the company will c u s t o m e r w h o h a s n o t y e t ship the device overnight so received their device but whose c u s t o m e r s r e c e i v e i t b y ship date prior to the holidays has December 29. changed in anyway was notified The Consumerist posted a copy yesterday of updated timing." of the e-mail Saturday that one of Barnes & Noble's e-reader made its readers received. its debut at a launch event in Responding to a request for New York on October 20. The comment Saturday, Barnes & $259 device was touted as the Noble spokeswoman Mary Ellen first Android-powered e-reader.

Keating said: A few weeks later, Barnes & "The vast majority of customers Noble said initial demand was so who pre-ordered nooks and were great that it had to start telling Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:47:48 PM

customers not to expect delivery until December 11. Originally, early orders were supposed to ship by the end of November.

Toward the end of November, the Barnes & Noble Web site declared the Nook was out of stock. Back then, Keating told CNET the company was"on track to ship devices that were preordered prior to today by the holidays," and that the November 20 update on availability applied only to orders placed starting then. The Nook's arrival in Barnes & Noble stores for sale or demonstration purposes was also expected to be delayed a week because of high demand. The company said it was giving priority to customers who had ordered the device before November 20.

On Saturday, the Barnes & Noble Web site showed the expected ship date for new orders is February 1.

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

Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:30:00 PM

Filed under: Deals'Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we'll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com.

Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won't. Each is lovingly generated by the dealbot every day, so get 'em while they're hot. Enjoy!

• iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] App Store Freebies: File Ninja, Target WEIGHT, TomatoRoll, HyperBowl Classic, more • iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] Classical Music Master Collection for iPhone downloads for $1 • Apple Store: [iMac] Refurbished current-generation Apple iMac 22" Desktops from $999 + free shipping, more • Moosejaw: [Notebook Carrying Cases] Mountain Hardwear Agenda 15" Laptop Backpack for $40 + free shipping • SuperBiiz.com: [Serial ATA Hard Drives] Western Digital 500GB SATA HDD + USB2.0

HDD Docking Station, for $60 + free shipping • LA Computer Company: [iPod Accessories] AppleCare for iPod nano or shuffle for $10 + $5 s&h • Walmart: [15" And Smaller LCD TVs] Curtis 7" UnderCabinet LCD TV for $88 + $1 s&h • eBay: [Printer Supplies] Hewlett Packard Brand HP 60 Black and Color Ink Cartridges for $20 + free shipping • Buy.com: [Media Receivers] CiragoTV Mini USB Media Player from $54 after rebate + free shipping via 2-day • Buy.com: [22-Inch LCD] AOC 22" 1080p Widescreen LCD Display for $100 + free shipping • CompUSA: [] Logitech Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote for $140 + free shipping • PC Connection: [24" - 26" LCD TVs] Refurbished Westinghouse 26" 720p LCD HDTV for $180 after rebate + free shipping TUAW Dozen Daily Deals for December 19, 2009 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tech/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

NBA Player Fined $7,500 for a Tweet

Dozen Daily Deals for December 20, 2009

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

By Victor Agreda, Jr. (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:49:34 PM

Brandon Jennings [@YUNGBUCK3] has made headlines for his unconventional road to the NBA — after skipping college he played professional basketball in Europe before getting drafted by the Bucks in 2009 — but now he’s making headlines for his tweets.

Last weekend Jennings tweeted 15 minutes after the Bucks game against the Trailblazers ended.

That’s a big no-no in the NBA, as the league’s social media policy spells out that players aren’t allowed to tweet postgame until the team has finished talking to the media. The cost for Jennings’ Twitter hiccup? A hefty $7,500.

The tweet in question is rather benign. It reads, “Back to 500.

Yess!!! “500 means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys.”

But that’s clearly not the point.

Jennings broke an established

rule, and the NBA needs to follow through with the fine in order to set a precedent and make a statement to other players who are all-a-Twitter.

Of course Jennings was none-tohappy about the amount of the fine, and he turned to Twitter to voice his malcontent about the price of his preemptive tweet. “I understand I got fined, but 7500?

For being happy over a win, you would of thought I said something bad. I mean it was a big win for us.”

He later apologized for the behavior, said it wouldn’t happen again, and even talked about deleting his Twitter account.

Given that he deleted his original account after a YouTube incident

earlier in the year, and then took to his Facebook Page to share with his fans that he had a new account, we have a feeling that Jennings will stick around on Twitter for awhile longer.

Now that we’ve seen a plethora of athletes penalized for their poor Twitter behavior — Antonio Cromartie, Larry Johnson, and members of the Texas Tech football team — these occurrences are starting to become commonplace. So who will be the next athlete to say too much on Twitter? Who knows, but we do expect some Twitter sparks to fly this weekend when the Chargers and the Bengals ( Ochocinco’s team) face each other on the field in San Diego. [via SI.com] [Img credit: Bekah stargazing, Flickr] Reviews: Flickr, Twitter, YouTube Tags: brandon jennings, NBA, sports

Democrats eye Christmas healthcare deadline (Financial Times - US homepage)

weekend gave Senate Democrats the 60 votes they need to pass a bill that will extend coverage to Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:42:00 AM 31m uninsured Americans.

President Barack Obama’s But as Democrats hurtle towards administration is moving rapidly their self-imposed Christmas Eve closer to passing sweeping deadline, Republicans were on healthcare reforms this week, S u n d a y p l e d g i n g t o d o after frenzied haggling over the everything in their power to

delay progress on the signature issue of Mr Obama’s presidency.

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

27

• Staples: [Networkable Hard Drive (NAS)] Seagate BlackArmor 110 1TB NAS for $160 + free shipping Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:00:00 PM • Buy.com: [Tablets] Genius GFiled under: Deals'Tis the season Pen 4x6" Graphics Tablet for $29 shop until your brains melt (or + free shipping skip it all entirely, depending on • Dell Home: [22-Inch LCD] your interpretation of the term D e l l S 2 2 0 9 W 2 2 " 1 0 8 0 p holiday). In that spirit, for the Widescreen LCD Display for next few weeks we'll be rounding $139 + free 2-day shipping up a dozen daily deals courtesy • dealsclick: [iPod Accessories] our friends at DealNews.com. B e l k i n P o w e r A d a p t e r , Each afternoon tune in to TUAW Headphone Splitter, & FM for this handy summary. Keep in Transmitter for iPod / iPhone for mind that while our posts will $30 + $5 s&h live on, the deals won't. Each is • Best Buy: [23-Inch LCD] Acer lovingly generated by the deal- 23" 1080p Widescreen LCD bot every day, so get 'em while Display with HDMI for $140 + they're hot. Enjoy! $10 s&h • Sony Style: [46" - 47" LCD • TigerDirect: [802.11n T V s ] R e f u r b i s h e d S o n y Wireless] Refurbished Netgear BRAVIA S 46" 1080p LCD 802.11n Wireless 4-Port Router HDTV for $550 + free shipping for $25 + $8 s&h • Logitech: [Computer Speakers] • BuyDig: [40" - 42" LCD TVs] Logitech X-240 2.1-Channel L G 4 2 " 2 4 0 H z 1 0 8 0 p Speaker System with iPod Dock Widescreen LCD HDTV for for $22 + $7 s&h $899 + free shipping • Staples: [iPod Accessories] iHome Rotating Alarm Clock for TUAW Dozen Daily Deals for iPod and iPod touch for $50 + December 20, 2009 originally free shipping, padding appeared on The Unofficial • B u y . c o m : [ C a m e r a Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, Accessories] Made2Go Safe 20 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Keeper Portable Device Case for Please see our terms for use of $3 + free shipping feeds.

• BuyDig: [46" - 47" LCD TVs] Permalink| Email this| LG 47" 1080p Widescreen LCD C o m m e n t s HDTV for $745 + free shipping

28

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Not too late to send some free holiday cards from Mail.app

By Mel Martin (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:30:00 PM

Filed under: Odds and ends, Freeware, Deals, Holidays Ah, the virtues of email. Quick, convenient and free -- but most email greetings don't really look all that spiffy. Jumsoft comes to the rescue with some free email templates you can easily customize and get to your friends in plenty of time for the holidays.

Jumsoft makes all sorts of apps and and adds on to Keynote, Aperture, Numbers and web templates. They've offered a nice sampling of goodies for free, and I like their holiday card mail templates designed as Apple Mail stationery.

I think most users never check the stationery feature, either because they don't know it exists, or because they find the templates tacky or not relevant.

If you've never seen the templates at all, open Apple Mail, create a new message, then click on stationery in the upper right of the message window and you'll see the default catalog.

Jumsoft provides some tasteful and graphically dynamic holiday

Man Proposes Marriage via Foursquare CheckIn Submitted at 12/19/2009 6:34:18 PM

cards that are certainly worth exploring. They also offer a paid set of mail stationery that covers just about anything, and are the best I've seen offered.

It might be worthwhile to explore the Jumsoft goodies page. There are free downloads for Keynote objects, iWeb, Freeway and RapidWeaver themes, and some polished themes for Keynote. They are all samples of larger sets that Jumsoft sells, and a great introduction to the quality of their work.

And do get those greeting cards out before the 26th!

Thanks to Dick for the tip on the freebies.

TUAW Not too late to send some free holiday cards from Mail.app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

It’s no longer cool enough to propose on Twitter. That’s been done before. Several times.

So Alex Marsh of RaleighDurham decided to take it up a notch. The clever guy used Foursquare, the mobile locationbased game, to propose to his girlfriend, Susan Wilkison, during dinner at Raleigh Times Bar. In case you’re unfamiliar with Foursquare, once you check-in at a location, your friends receive an instant notification of your check-in and any accompanying text that you’ve added to the check-in.

Using this to his advantage, Marsh decided to check-in at dinner with his then girlfriend, now fiancé, and wrote “popping the question!” in the text field.

Wilkison got the notification immediately and said “Yes,” via Foursquare of course.

In an email to Dennis Crowley, Foursquare’s co-founder, the newly engaged Wilkison wrote: Subject: My fiance proposed to me last night using Foursquare!

Hello! I’m so glad Foursquare has come to Raleigh-Durham!

I wanted to share that my fiance proposed to me last night using Foursquare. We we’re at dinner, both of us had our phones out, him to check in, me looking up something else and ping! there was his check in shouting “popping the question!” After he put the ring on my finger, I also checked in to the location and shouted “and I said YES!” Now just try to top that! In fact, we hear that Foursquare has a special surprise in store for the happy couple.

[Img credit: pidjoe, iStockphoto] Reviews: Foursquare, iStockphoto Tags: foursquare, proposal, social media, trending

Tech/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

29

Become the master of many monitors Don’t Like Your Facebook Blow Them Up with with NewerTech's USB 2.0 Display Friends? the Star Wars Death Star Adapter

By Steven Sande (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

use Quartz Extreme, Quartz Composer, and other related frameworks are not full supported. This means that Submitted at 12/19/2009 6:00:00 PM Keynote, iPhoto, and iMovie will Filed under: Hardware, not see the benefit of OpenGL Peripherals, Developer, Graphic acceleration.

Design Some Mac users just To use the adapter, your Mac don't want to be limited to one must have an Intel processor and monitor, but would like two... or c a n s u p p o r t a m a x i m u m be running Mac OS X 10.4.11 or resolution of 2048 x 1152. The better. three... or more.

Having only one display port on device also supports Windows, TUAW Become the master of your Mac can put a real crimp in and can be used with Boot Camp. many monitors with NewerTech's your plans to be the master of the Cloning and extended desktop U S B 2 . 0 D i s p l a y A d a p t e r monitor universe, so NewerTech modes are supported by the USB originally appeared on The has launched the USB 2.0 2 . 0 D i s p l a y A d a p t e r . A U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g Display Adapter. The adapter, secondary adapter (VGA and (TUAW) on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 with a suggested retail price of HDMI adapters are supplied) 18:00:00 EST. Please see our US$96.00, lets users add an extra must be attached to connect VGA terms for use of feeds.

HDMI d i s p l a y s . Read| Permalink| Email this| HDMI, DVI, or VGA display to o r U n f o r t u n a t e l y , t h e a d a p t e r Comments their Mac. Up to four of the busd o e s n ' t a l l o w OpenGL powered adapters can be hosted acceleration, so applications that on each Mac, and each adapter

Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:55:00 PM

Filed under: Georgetown, Big East In hindsight, maybe it wasn't the best night for Georgetown to play.

In one of the few events in the Washington, D.C. area that was not canceled by the near-record snowstorm, the 11th-ranked

Hoyas lost for the first time this season, as Old Dominion dominated them throughout and

Submitted at 12/19/2009 8:08:40 PM

If you’re Adidas and you’ve got a Star Wars-inspired collection rolling out in January, what better way to promote it than by using social media? Adidas, however, has taken its online marketing initiative one step further integrating Facebook and Google Maps to create the Star Wars Death Star Superlaser.

The Adidas Originals application uses Facebook Connect to personalize the application experience, even granting you power over the Death Star control deck so you can blow up your Facebook friends’ streets with help from Google Maps.

The application experience is straight out of a Star Wars movie, and on the first go around you’ll notice that your location is the first target of the superlaser. held on for a 61-57 victory at After your street is blown to Georgetown's on-campus arena. smithereens, however, you can It was by far the sloppiest game - target a friend’s location by - and one of the coldest selecting any one of your offensively -- of the season for Facebook friends to attack. This Georgetown (8-1), which was playing its only game of the season in McDonough Arena, its 58-year-old, 2,500-capacity campus gym, which was home to the program until 1981-82.

Hoyas Frozen by ODU on Snowy Night

By David Steele (Fanhouse Main)

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

is where the Google Maps integration comes into play; you can even fine tune the laser’s exact target using Street View if you so desire.

All in all the Adidas application is clever, fun, and addicting.

Plus, according to the information we have, there are apparently numerous variations of the application in circulation on retail partners’ sites. It’s quite the adventure. If you find any of them, definitely share a link in the comments.

Play yourself or watch my location fall victim to the superlaser in the video below: Reviews: Facebook, Google Maps Tags: adidas, death star superlaser, MARKETING, social media

30

Tech/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

THREE continued from page 20

International Space Station...We're looking forward to a really, really exciting year."

As it currently stands, four Soyuz flights to the station are planned in 2010, NASA's final five shuttle missions and up to six unmanned Progress supply ships. Along with Tranquility, a new Russian module will be delivered by the shuttle, along with a cargo transfer module that will be left aboard the station after the final shuttle visit.

"This is the beginning of another phase where we learn to operate with a larger crew size, more demands on the hardware, more

demands on the space station," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associated administrator of space operations. "So for the systems to work right requires a lot of extra preparation and this is the beginning of that preparation."

Said chief astronaut Peggy Whitson: "It's obviously very complicated. I think we have done in the past several years a fantastic job of making very difficult things look easy. We always have problems, but we always seem to be able to overcome them and I think that's kind of NASA's theme for survival.

"We expect that adding on a new module, two new modules this year ... it's going to be pretty exciting, expanding the station even further. I know when I was up there when we increased the station volume with three new modules it was just really exciting, opening up this huge new space to live in and explore."

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

Submitted at 12/19/2009 7:43:03 PM

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is known for his antics, but — if a video recently uploaded to YouTube is to be believed — this incident takes the cake.

Apparently, Ballmer fired a Microsoft employee for not being enthusiastic enough about Bing.

The video shows a man claiming to have been laid-off by Ballmer at a Microsoft meeting related to Bing.

As the story goes, Ballmer was excitedly and repeatedly yelling Bing at the meeting, even pointing to staffers, putting them in the hot seat and telling them to say Bing. When the man in question didn’t exude the right

(Little Green Footballs)

bring rocks, torches, and signs.

They then need to tell him that if he votes to break the next After holding out for months to fillabuster for any reason he insert anti-abortion restrictions won’t have a home to come back into the Senate’s health care to and that if he does come back reform legislation, Sen. Ben they will use the rope to decorate N e l s o n ( D - N e b r a s k a ) i s a tree with him. apparently now ready to sign the We need to get blunt with these bill: With Nelson on board, traitors. They need to be put if health-care bill could pass by free of their lives to remind them Christmas. that they work for us or we Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the reserve not only the right to vote final Democratic holdout on them out but the right to kill health care, announced to his them. colleagues Saturday morning that […] he would support the Senate On December 19th, 2009 at reform bill, clearing the way for 12:58 pm, tiredofit08 said: final passage by Christmas of tar, feathers, stockades, President Obama’s top domestic pitchforks, tourches, if that enthusiasm, Ballmer fired him on policy priority. doesn’t work…well 1775/1776 the spot.

Asked if he had secured the 60 w e r e v e r y b a d y e a r ’ s f o r We can’t verify if the video is votes needed to overcome a t y r a n t s … . authentic in nature, but we have Republican filibuster, Senate […] contacted the guy who uploaded Majority Leader Harry Reid On December 19th, 2009 at 1:27 it for comment, and we’ll update (Nev.) told reporters, “It seems pm, tevans776 said: this post when we know more that way.”

“The tree of liberty must be details. What do you think: real C o m m e n t e r s a t M i c h e l l e refreshed from time to time with or fake?

Malkin’s blog are taking this the blood of patriots and tyrants.

(Warning: strong language) hard. In fact, they’re calling for … God forbid we should ever be [ I m g c r e d i t : t u p u n g a t o , Nelson to be murdered. twenty years without such a iStockphoto] Reviews: Bing, On December 19th, 2009 at rebellion; what country can iStockphoto 12:09 pm, southdakotaboy said: preserve its liberties if their rulers Tags: bing, humor, microsoft, What needs to be done is the are not warned from time to time Steve Ballmer, viral video people of Nebraska need to meet that their people preserve the Nelson at his home in Nebraska spirit of resistance? Let them take at Christmas time. They need to arms.” ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1787

Bing! Ballmer Says You’re Fired [VIDEO]

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Nelson Agrees to Sign Health Bill, Malkin's Commenters Call for His Death Submitted at 12/19/2009 12:53:47 PM

Politics/

E-reader News Edition

31

Hot Air Comments of the Day (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/19/2009 8:27:42 PM

Here we go again, with another selection of comments from wingnut site Hot Air advocating death, destruction, revolution, and eternal damnation. All of the comments you’re about to read were posted today in just one thread: Ed Morrissey’s post about Sen. Ben Nelson’s decision to support the health care reform bill.

This is a Coup de Etat. The Commies have taken over.

Reid, Pelosi and the rest of those who voted to take the Liberty of their fellow citizens away, need to go to the gallows, or at least to jail for life.

In the Consitution, there were only 3 Federal crimes, Piracy, Counterfieting and TREASON. I think a Jury of those affected by this could help those offenders to the rope for a dance.

Sic Semper Tyrannus! blaque jacques on December 19, 2009 at 10:53 AM […]

He [Sen. Nelson] deserves thirty pieces of lead.

SKYFOX on December 19, 2009 at 12:29 PM […]

Anyone here know how to build a missile? We need to wipe out this congress and start over.

UltimateBob on December 19, 2009 at 11:46 AM […]

Praying the angel of death would come for Senator Bryd and

perhaps a few other Senators.

Praying for a massive spirit of choas and confusion to reign over the Senate. God sent a snow storm to try slowing this down, God bring the next wave to stop this. This bill is evil as are the people voting for it.

Godis2good on December 19, 2009 at 11:31 AM […]

After their trial for Treason, there will be plenty of room for RINOS, whether they are proud of not, on the Gallows.

Mussolini’s fate was piano wire. blaque jacques on December 19, 2009 at 12:49 PM When they aren’t calling for the murder of elected officials at the hands of a lynch mob, Hot Air commenters indulge in sadistic fantasies about elected officials burning in hellfire and being tormented by demons.

Rot in hell, Ben Nelson.

Everyone I’ve ever met from Nebraska is a gem, but you are an evil scumbag. May you be locked in a Tristan & Isolde embrace with that other scumbag Harry Reid for eternity.

Western_Civ on December 19, 2009 at 9:54 AM […]

Bastards..this is what he is….rot in hell you moron senator. hawkman on December 19, 2009 at 9:54 AM […]

Watching Nelson on Fox News now. What’s the complaint? He’s doing exactly what you would expect from a democrap.

May he rot in hell with all who vote for this America killer! donh525 on December 19, 2009 at 10:06 AM […]

Ben Nelson, and all your compadres, I wish you an eternity of fitful, sleepless nights plagued by he vision of being eternally tormented & roasting in Hell.

You traitorous, stubborn fools.

30 pieces of silver indeed.

JoeAvg on December 19, 2009 at 11:09 AM […]

Well… seems Chavez was right… There is the smell of sulfur coming from DC… Skywise on December 19, 2009 at 10:33 AM […]

No foreign enemy has ever inflicted such grievous damage and may the names Specter, Nelson, Lieberman, Lincoln and Landrieu (along with Pelosi, Reid and Obama) be forever cursed along with Benedict Arnold and may their graves be defiled and their souls roast for eternity.

The worst thing is now, for the first time, thanks to this new bill, ALL TAXPAYERS WILL BE COMPLICIT IN ABORTION MURDERS. MaiDee on December 19, 2009 at 2:56 PM As always, there are dozens and dozens of fantasies about a Second American Revolution, looming large in the alleged minds of the Hot Airheads.

The senators act as if they’ve

been promised martial law and a suspension of elections next year, plus nice hunks of that phantom government money.

My prediction: nothing short of masses of citizens storming Capitol Hill and keeping these bloodsucking traitors forcibly from doing their reprehensible work will stop the bill.

Osama Obama’s speechwriters are probably polishing his signing speech even now.

MrScribbler on December 19, 2009 at 6:05 PM […]

There is no need for a rebellion when the government fears the people. One would imagine that in 1809 there was a sufficient fear of the people as to keep the government in check.

This is no longer the case. The government has no fear of the American people whatsoever.

That is a sure recipe for a disaster.

Until the government starts fearing the people again, there will be no liberty, there will be no freedom. gary4205 on December 19, 2009 at 1:49 PM […]

Is it time for the revolution to begin yet? I’m ready.

Geochelone on December 19, 2009 at 9:53 AM […]

Watershed for revolution.

Fletch54 on December 19, 2009 at 10:16 AM […]

For 25 years people have scoffed

at me for saying Red Dawn was an accurate picture of the future. bloviator on December 19, 2009 at 10:20 AM […]

Seems that the Tree of Liberty grows thirsty. What is happening now is EXPRESSLY against the way that the founders envisioned.

They would be locking and loading right now for a sleigh ride into downtown DC. Why are we not?

Sic Semper Tyrannus!! blaque jacques on December 19, 2009 at 10:36 AM […]

Buy more ammo. Be ready bill30097 on December 19, 2009 at 10:50 AM […]

I’ve been loading Pmags all morning.

And before SimpleSimon calls me a redneck, I am a redneck and proud of it.

C’mon down to Georgia if you want to cull me, and bring friends. quax1 on December 19, 2009 at 3:39 PM […]

What comes next is very discomforting to think about. But we have now crossed that line from what our country was into something else, and that something else has nothing whatsoever with the country being a Republic. There will be a reckoning for this, and it will not be pleasant — not for anyone.

HOT page 32

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Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

HOT continued from page 31

artist on December 19, 2009 at 10:53 AM […]

Revolution 2.0 True_King on December 19, 2009 at 10:58 AM […]

The United States of America will be the United Soviet States of Amerika on Christmas eve.

Wow – Happy Winter Solstice, comrades!

Buy a gun if you know what is good for you. At least you can go down fighting. Besides, soon you will be more heavily burdoned by your “Insurance” provider because the gun in your home is a bigger danger to the children that needed to be aborted.

When Barry signs this – and he certainly will – The US is gone forever. Barry, Reid and Pelosi will be the new founding fathers. blaque jacques on December 19, 2009 at 11:10 AM The Second Amendment was put into the Constitution for a reason and it was not self defense. elduende on December 19, 2009 at 11:16 AM […]

Great, another win for the feckless crapweasels. Is it time to start the revolution yet? califcon on December 19, 2009 at 11:16 AM

[…]

I wonder how this is all going to play out? Countries are not easily collapsed when its citizens are armed… I can hear big trouble coming. People are WIDE awake now.

Nils2en on December 19, 2009 at 11:22 AM […]

I don’t yet know if this is just a further step in the dismantling of our once great nation, or if it will be the spark that ignites the same fires that stoked our ancestors to fight and die for what would become the greatest nation in human history.

And if none of that happens, then it will be time to either secede or dissolve the union.

LeftCoastRefugee on December 19, 2009 at 11:23 AM […]

It,s plain to see that the fools don,t listen or care what the people want.The days of phone calls rallies or Emails or over.The day of revolution is near.I for one will not just sit back and say Oh well nothing we can do.These people are traders and are shredding the constitution.If we don,t make a stand now then when?We must have new people running that say plain and simple .We are going to Washington to

roll back and over turn as much of Obama socialism as we can not to work with this Marxist Pres. on anything. thmcbb on December 19, 2009 at 11:35 AM […]

What are our options?

Is it coming to Revolution?

Yakko77 on December 19, 2009 at 11:50 AM Ooohhhkay.

And then we have hundreds of commenters predicting the end of freedom, martial law, doom, etc., all because Ben Nelson will be voting for cloture.

Violating the laws of God has consequences for individuals and nations. We are witnessing the consequences of the efforts to replace the moral law upon which this nation was founded, with the wisdom of men; the consequences thereof, a nation in decline and headed toward doom.

SheetAnchor on December 19, 2009 at 4:56 PM […]

They don’t care because there will be no 2010 elections. There will be a national emergency and elections will be suspended for the good of the country. Within two years the Senate will be dissolved and our republic will be replaced with a parliamentary

system used by much of Europe.

It’s that simple and it will work and it will happen. The coup is well underway and there is nothing and I do mean nothing that can stop it.

RagTag on December 19, 2009 at 10:10 AM […]

That feeling you all have right now…that feeling of hopelessness, that feeling of not being able to control your future, of becoming a subject instead of the citizen you were born, of having the government dictate to you what to buy, and what will happen to you if you refuse,…that feeling…is how they feel in Caracas everyday.

Welcome to tyranny. elduende on December 19, 2009 at 10:33 AM All of this from just one thread.

And it goes on and on and on in this vein — dozens more hateful comments have been posted as I wrote this.

The American right wing is lost, and the right wing blogosphere is playing the Pied Piper.

(Hat tip: simoom.)

Droplr Offers Simple Drag and Drop File Sharing for Mac OS X [Downloads]

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:00:00 PM

Mac OS X: Feeling left out because of all the neat filesharing applications for Windows? Droplr adds drag and drop support to OS X for sharing just about everything.

Droplr adds a drop zone to the OS X titlebar that makes it super simple to share pictures, screenshots, video, files, notes and snippets of code, and other files. It sports Twitter integration, keyboard shortcuts for those of you that could care less about "drag and drop" anything, and comes with 1GB of free online storage. Check out the video below to see it in action: Droplr is free and requires Mac OSX 10.6+. Have a great tool for sharing files from your Mac? Let's hear about it in the comments. Thanks Angie! Droplr

Politics/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Oklahoma Far Right Abortion Law Blocked By Court Again

A 'Down and Dirty' 'Sherlock Holmes'

(Little Green Footballs)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

suit challenging the law will be heard: Judge Keeps New Oklahoma Abortion Law On In an attempt to threaten and Hold. scare women out of having A district court in Oklahoma on a b o r t i o n s , R e p u b l i c a n s i n Friday blocked a new abortion Oklahoma (Sen. Todd Lamb, R- law that would require women to Edmond, and Rep. Dan Sullivan, provide detailed information R-Tulsa) crafted a new law that a b o u t w h y t h e y w a n t t h e blatantly violates the state and procedure. That information, federal constitutions, requiring names omitted, would then be physicians to provide the state posted on a state Web site. w i t h d e t a i l e d p e r s o n a l Judge Daniel Owens extended information about women who the temporary restraining order have abortions — information already in place, which means the that would be posted on a public law continues to be blocked for website and could easily be used now. The measure includes more to identify and locate them. than 30 questions a woman Yesterday a judge extended the seeking an abortion would have temporary restraining order to answer, including details about against this atavistic legislation w h e t h e r s h e i s h a v i n g until February 19th, when the relationship problems or whether Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:20:12 PM

she can’t afford a child.

“We are very pleased with today’s ruling. This law is a profound intrusion on women’s privacy and a waste of taxpayers’ money,” said Jennifer Mondino, staff attorney at the New Yorkbased Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging the law. “Women in Oklahoma should not have to jump through hoops to access legal medical care and the government has no business violating the state constitution to impose those obstacles.”

Anti-abortion groups say the law would help the state find out why women are seeking abortions and that could lead to changes in public policy.

(Hat tip: Sharmuta.)

by the military, and Holmes would have acquired a different group of martial arts perhaps There's lots of action in director from his studies around the G u y R i t c h i e ' s r e - i m a g i n e d world, and that kept it exciting, version of Arthur Conan Doyle's kept it fresh every time we had a classic character 'Sherlock new fight -- and then by the end Holmes,' with Robert Downey Jr. it just got down and dirty." in the title role, Jude Law as his So down and dirty, in fact, that loyal sidekick Watson and Robert required stitches. "We had Rachel McAdams as Sherlock's some big fight sequence in a love interest. shipyard," explains Robert. "I "The original books are filled think we had done too many with adventure and twists and moves in a row, [my opponent's] t u r n s a n d i n c r e d i b l y d a r k supposed to come up on top, and criminals in a dark and exciting I'm supposed to block, whatever London," Jude tells our own - anyway, I got some stitches."

Kevin Frazier. "Watson would be He adds that he dished out a bit more like the old fashioned of pain himself, though not pugilist boxer, trained probably intentionally.

Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:01:00 PM

German Reporter to Inhofe: 'You're Ridiculous' (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:06:14 AM

Dominionist Senator and hardcore climate change denier James Inhofe went to the Copenhagen climate summit to subvert the Obama administration’s policies, but nobody was interested.

COPENHAGEN — Sen. Jim

Inhofe flew across the Atlantic and — on little sleep — braved the snow, the cold and the dark to deliver his skeptical message at the international climate conference.

What he found when he got here: a few aides and a single reporter. “I think he’s going to be a little disappointed,” one of his aides remarked. …

But Inhofe’s aides eventually rustled up a group of reporters, and the Oklahoman — wearing black snakeskin cowboy boots — held forth from the top of a flight of stairs in the conference media center. …

A reporter asked: “If there’s a hoax, then who’s putting on this hoax, and what’s the motive?”

“It started in the United Nations,”

33

Inhofe said, “and the ones in the United States who really grab ahold of this is the Hollywood elite.”

One reporter asked Inhofe if he was referring to California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Another reporter — this one from Der Spiegel — told the senator: “You’re ridiculous.”

34

Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

Five Best Collaboration Tools [Hive Five]

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:00:00 AM

The internet has ushered in a level of collaboration unimaginable to workers of decades past. Today we're taking a look at five popular tools for collaborating with your team to get things done.

Photo by ralphbijker.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite collaboration tool, and now we're back to with the five most popular tools for the job.

Basecamp(Web-Based, Free$149 per month) Basecamp is an easy-to-use, allin-one collaboration dashboard for your team. To-do lists, calendars, brain-storming white boards, chat, and file sharing are all integrated into your Basecamp portal. All the information for your team and the projects you're working on can be easily reviewed from the Overview tab to give you a quick at-a-glance view of how things are progressing, due dates, and recent activity. Basecamp pay plans range from $24 a month for a small volume of projects (limit 15, 5GB of storage) to $149 a month for large companies (unlimited, 75GB of storage).

You can sign up for a free account which is limited to a single project and has no Basecamp-provided storage—not a bad compromise if you're already using 3rd party storage

and you want to try it out.

Google Wave(Web-Based, Free) Google Wave is the new kid on the collaborative block. Google Wave just isn't a new collaborative tool, but a new way of collaborating—so much so that it is initially confusing to many users. Google Wave merges elements of tools you're already familiar with: email, IM, social networking, and wikis. A wave is like a real-time collaborative document that also doubles as a living archive of the project you're working on. One

of the interesting features of Google Wave is that when you're new to a given project, you can "play" the wave to see how the development of the project has unfolded and what branches and forks discussion and planning have taken. Want to get a better grasp of Wave? Check out some of our previous articles like this video on Google Wave, Google Wave 101, and check The Complete Guide to Google Wave by our own Gina Trapani and Adam Pash.

Microsoft Office

On the scene long before Google Wave, Google Docs provides an easy to set up collaborative office space. From text documents to spreadsheets, Docs allows you to quickly and easily create and share documents with anyone.

Google Docs certainly isn't the only cloud-based document collaboration service, but thanks to ease of use, no fees, and additional features like the ability to edit offline using Google Gears, it has won over a sizable share of the market.

Email(Cross-platform, Free) Sometimes the best collaboration tool isn't the one with the most bells and whistles, it's the one that the most number of people are familiar and comfortable with. A significant number of people reading this article right now were born after email was invented, and it's been around long enough that even people born well before email became a S h a r e P o i n t ( W e b - B a s e d , popular communication tool are quite comfortable using it. It has Variable) SharePoint is a diverse set of i t s l i m i t a t i o n s — w e ' v e a l l tools created by Microsoft for c e r t a i n l y b e e n a n n o y e d a t doing everything from managing attachment limitations and other a p r o j e c t w i k i t o s h a r i n g matters—but email has played a documents and files to group h u g e r o l e i n w o r k p l a c e collaboration. It isn't the kind of collaboration for more than forty tool you'd deploy for a small years. Photo by iammunroe. project with only a handful of Now that you've had a chance to participants, but for enterprise- look over the top five contenders, l e v e l p r o j e c t a n d p o r t a l it's time to cast your vote: Best Collaboration Tool?( management, SharePoint offers a host of tools that are well answers) integrated and customizable. Can't believe your favorite tool Google Docs(Web-Based, Free) didn't make the top five? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Tech Tips/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

35

This Week's Top Downloads [Download Roundup]

Review: Saturday Night Live - James Franco/Muse

(Lifehacker)

By Annie Wu (TV Squad)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:00:00 PM

• T3Desk Brings 3D Eye-Candy to Your Windows Desktop(Windows) If you want a little extra eye-candy in your Windows management, T3Desk is an alt-tab alternative that gives you 3D windows arrangement and more.

• Memory Fox Manages Firefox's Memory Use, Aims to Keep It Low(Firefox w/ Windows) While traveling the internet, sometimes we don't realize how much memory our browser is hogging until it starts acting sluggish, hangs, or crashes altogether. Firefox extension Memory Fox optimizes your memory so you can surf without slowing down.

• VirusTotal Uploader 2.0 Instantly Scans Files for Viruses Against 41 AV Apps(Windows) Previously mentioned VirusTotal

Uploader automatically uploads any file to online virus scanner VirusTotal, scanning it for viruses with 41 different popular antivirus applications-and now it's even better and faster, with instant hash checking, letting you skip uploads altogether.

• Get the Classic Network Activity Indicator Back in Windows 7(Windows) If you miss having a network activity icon that actually indicates if your network is active or not, this handy little hack will swap the static Windows 7 icon for the classic version.

• Firefox 3.6 Beta 5 Available, Faster, and Less Buggy(Windows/Mac/Linux) If you've been riding the Firefox 3.6 beta train, Mozilla just pushed out the whopping fifth beta of Firefox 3.6-with over a hundred bug fixes to improve performance, stability, and security, along with several allaround improvements.

• Googsystray Notifies You of New Activity Across Google Services in One System Tray App(Windows/Linux) Google has so many different services these days that installing a notification app for each one gets cumbersome quickly. Free system tray utility Googsystray watches Gmail, Google Voice, Calendar, Reader, and Wave so you can set it and forget it.

• LogMeIn Express Makes Screensharing Simple(Windows) LogMeIn Express is a screensharing tool from the makers of the popular remotedesktop software, LogMeIn. With this new offering, sharing your desktop is as simple as sending your friend or associate a URL. • Bodega Is a One-Stop Shop for New Apps for Your Mac(Mac) Trying out new software is fun.

Digging around all over the internet to find cool stuff-not so much. Bodega is a download that

does makes quick work of finding new apps for your Mac. • Multifox Makes Using Multiple Accounts Simple(Firefox) It's easy to accumulate multiple profiles on various services. If it's always annoyed you to have to perform browser-acrobatics to use your two Gmail accounts or other services, check out Multifox and never be hassled by multiple logins again.

• Google Wave Desktop Notifier Keeps You On Top of Your Wave Inbox(Windows) Google Wave has a lot of potential, but it's also another inbox to keep track of. Google Wave Desktop Notifier is a small system tray application that will let you know when you've got new messages in your inbox.

Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:50:00 PM

(S35E10) I hope you all rolled a towel against the crack of the door before watching James Franco host. This was the most I've laughed at an episode in quite a while, but I am still not entirely sure if it's because watching for ninety minutes gave me a bit of a contact high. Okay, even if you argue that I'm inferring a lot because bits of Pineapple Express are still lingering in my brain, there's no denying Franco was definitely extra-squinty, extra-grinny, and was half-slurring, half-spitting his speech through most of the night.

There was also a lot of making out. No man, woman or tree was safe. Or bong, I guess. Maybe.

Continue reading Review: Saturday Night Live - James Franco/Muse Filed under: OpEd, Saturday Night Live, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

36

Tech Tips/ Economy/

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Improve Your Guitar Amp's Sound with a DIY Sound-Enhancing Stand [Music]

Avatar reels in $73m on opening weekend

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

(Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:00:00 AM

If you're looking for a supercheap way to squeeze some extra performance out of your guitar amp, this simple and inexpensive hack can help you turn something like a thrift store printer stand into a sound-boosting amp stand.

DIY-focused Make magazine combined a little science with some elbow grease to make a stand that would boost the quality of sound produced by a basic guitar amp. You can buy a commercial version of the stand they build, but the stands start at $150. The tinkerers at Make built a DIY version for $15. How does it work?

In theory, a perfect speaker box would be a speaker mounted in the middle of a wall of infinite size, because that would let the sound from the front reach your

ear without having been partially canceled by the inverse sound from the back," he says. "Mom won't let us build anything infinite anymore, not after what happened last time, so we approximate the infinite wall by putting speakers into sealed boxes, also known as infinite-

This speaker stand bends the back sound around a corner, which makes it even less like the front sound, and then sends it out the front, where its slightly altered power is added to your already Majestic Volume in a rich and tonally pleasing way.

You'll need some donor furniture to get hacked up (you could use plywood, but finding old computer furniture at Goodwill is going to be much cheaper) and some basic tools like a saw and screw driver. With some careful cutting and application of caulk and weather stripping you can turn your cheap furniture into a baffle enclosures. sound-enhancing stand for your Unfortunately, infinite-baffle amp. Check out the article at enclosures make it really hard for Make for additional details. the speaker to move, so the sound Have a clever hack, musici s q u i e t e r . A n d o f c o u r s e , related or otherwise? Let's hear quietness is not very rock 'n' roll, a b o u t i t i n t h e c o m m e n t s . is it? So designers make a lot of Flashback: The Sweet Sound of amps louder (and a little funny- Particle Board[Make] sounding) by opening the backs.

Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:51:13 AM

Avatar, the keenly anticipated 3D film from News Corporation’s 20th Century Fox studio, scored $73m on its opening weekend in the US, a respectable performance which nonetheless fell shy of other big openings this year from films such as New Moon.

The film has been hailed as a transformative event in modern cinema because it is the first liveaction release to be shot entirely in 3D, a format Hollywood is betting will spur future industry growth.

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

Wantz.it Turns the Entire Web into Your Wishlist [Wishlist]

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

list.

You can add to and share your wishlist in a variety of ways, Submitted at 12/19/2009 2:00:00 PM including a direct link to your list It might be cutting it close for on the Wantz.it site, by adding this holiday, but there's always the Wantz.it Facebook app to next year for guaranteed gifts. your Facebook profile, or by Wantz.it is a universal wishlist embedding a widget into your bookmarklet, or via Del.icio.us tool that lets you add anything blog. You can add things you bookmark service by adding you can find on the web to your want on the site, via a handy

"dowant" to bookmarks or via Twitter by adding the hash tag "dowant" to your update.

In addition to sharing your wishlist, you can also share things that would help someone who is shopping for you pick the right item like your suit jacket size, shoe size, or favorite color.

Want to check out more ways to

create a wishlist? Check out the Hive Five on best wishlist tools.

Have a favorite tool of your own? Let's hear about it in the comments[via Download Squad]

Tech Tips/ Tech Blog/ Game/

E-reader News Edition

Turn an IKEA Storage Pole into a Carpet-Friendly Bike Rack [Bike]

Store Twitter URLs in earth's oceans?

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

(Scripting News) Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:10:17 PM

Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:00:00 PM

Last year we shared a clever hack for turning a Stolmen storage pole into a compact and apartment-friendly bike rack. The hack didn't work on carpet, but this modification makes it more adaptable.

The problem with the original design was that it relied on consistent tension between the ceiling and the floor. Great for firm floors like hardwood, tile, or concrete, but not so great for carpet. Over time, the carpet and the carpet pad would compress and loosen the tension just enough to send the pole toppling—along with your bikes!—to the floor.

37

The secret sauce to this mod is using a toe-spike speaker stand set. When mounted to the bottom of the pole, the toe-kick spikes push down through the carpet and grip the sub-flooring, so your bike rack will never come crashing down on your unsuspecting cat or nephew.

Check out the full article for closeup pictures and part numbers for the toe-spike they used.

Have your own hacks maximizing your storage space?

Let's hear about it in the comments.[IKEAHacker]

Mike Wheeler: "how about embedding links etc in geodata?

Each service gets a 1deg X 1deg area of ocean and uses the decimals for numeric metadata" Brilliant. Wish I had thought of it. A great idea that illustrates how silly this situation is -where links are treated as an afterthought. Links, which form the foundation of the web, are shortened, made more fragile, meaning removed, the web made slower. If Tim Berners-Lee weren't alive he'd be rolling over in his grave.

But what Mike says is actually slightly practical. Come up with a way to map domains to tiny plots of ocean space (presumably people can't occupy space in the ocean and 2/3 of the planet is covered with water). How many domains would that be? A lot.

Can you estimate the actual number? Any help would be appreciated.

Then the numbers to the right of the decimal points would map to URLs on the site, the same way short URLs map to them. Each site would manage its own space.

Voila! No need to include URLs in the 140 characters. Goodbye shorteners. Now all you have to do is get the client companies (and that includes twitter.com, the largest client) to go along.

If it weren't so sad it would be funny. Maybe that's why it's so funny.

Come on Twitter -- Make room for the URL as metadata. It's way past too late.

Dark Void dev diary introduces us to 'Teslapunk' technology

By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/19/2009 7:30:00 PM

Quick question: In a hypothetical war between inventor extraordinaire Nikola Tesla and an advanced race of robots, who would win? The

answer is, of course, entirely dependent on the version of Tesla we're talking about. Real-life Tesla stands a pretty good chance -- after all, that debonaire mustache is probably capable of disabling most electronic devices.

The safe money's on The

Prestige's Tesla, who was played

by David Bowie, who can disintegrate any synthetic material using nothing but the power of his rocking.

The Tesla in Dark Void looks like he'd stand a fair chance as well. Check out the above dev

diary to see the warring factions of technology present in the game, and to get a few more sweet, sweet glimpses of the title's jetpack-based combat.

Dark Void dev diary introduces us to 'Teslapunk' technology originally appeared on Joystiq on

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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38

Tech Tips/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Hide Your Electronic Clutter in a Clever VaseTurned-Charging Station [DIY]

By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

especially when they were all tethered and charging.

Commercial charging stations Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:00:00 PM can help wrangle and conceal Gadgets are great but nobody your cords but they don't do wants a hallway table littered much to diminish the look-at-mywith charging gadgets and cables. pile-of-stuff effect of having your This novel hack turns an opaque phone, MP3 player, and other vase into a secret charging gear plugged in. He decided to station. turn a vase into a charging station Instructables user Michael Pap by drilling a hole for a power A few silk-flowers on top hide was sick of the clutter that cord and using a cork mat to the charging gadgets from view s u r r o u n d e d h i s g a d g e t s , make a tray inside the vase.: b u t d o l i t t l e t o h i n d e r

accessibility or heat-dispersion.

Check out the full tutorial for pictures and tips. Have your own crafty way of hiding electronic clutter? Let's hear about it in the comments. How to Transform an IKEA Vase into a Charging Station for Your Gadgets[via Unpluggd]

Put Your Startup on Holiday Autopilot with Twilio

By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

holidays. Twilio may be one company that can help.

Sponsor Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:00:00 PM Twilio is a web-service API that Holidays can be a tough time for allows businesses to build their those of us with startup own customizable phones companies. While the rest of the services and communications world is carving turkeys, lighting apps. Hosted on Amazon Web Menorahs and singing carols, Services, Twilio's infrastructure we're sneaking moments away grows depending on customer f r o m f a m i l y t o c h e c k o u r demand. The company's per-call messages. You've created your pricing model is affordable and vacation responses, forwarded after watching CEO Jeff Lawson your phone to voice mail and demo the service, we were emailed your emergency contacts surprised to see how userto clients. But a good business friendly it truly is. At this week's person makes sure services run SF New Tech Event, Lawson smoothly, even during the was given 5 minutes to set up a

transcription and triaging. If a client needs a reminder during the holidays you can automate a message and pre-program it to conference call. After 10 lines of call them on a specific date. If code he had a call-in number, you want to remain available in mute settings, admin prompts and case of an emergency, you can more than 50 members of the forward a list of pre-determined audience calling in during his numbers to your mobile while live demo. After seeing the leaving the rest in voicemail. And audience respond to the service, if you're looking to create a we realized that Twilio would be simple directory, you can use a great for putting your company Twilio to create a list of people, options or customer service on holiday autopilot.

Twilio offers a variety of usages contacts.

In late September including notifications, phone polls, call forwarding, voice R e a d W r i t e W e b c o v e r e d Buzzeromatic's latest Twilio-

based door application. In this case, users can grant timed building access to visitors by programming the door buzzer with a password. Rather than waiting for deliveries, Twilio ensures that you're warm at home when deliveries arrive to your building entryway.

At this early stage, we know we're just scratching the surface on all of Twilio's capabilities. If you've hacked together a cool application or holiday game plan using Twilio or a similar service, let us know in the comments below. Discuss

Tech News/

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39

Check Out the Companies That Make ReadWriteWeb Possible

By Admin (ReadWriteWeb)

Conduit: Customized components | Web 3.0 Conference in Santa Clara| Media Our mission at ReadWriteWeb is Temple and SixApart: Our hosts t o e x p l o r e t h e l a t e s t W e b and blogging software technology products and trends. Crowd Science We're fortunate to have a great Crowd Science gives online group of sponsors who support p u b l i s h e r s r e p o r t s o n t h e this goal. So, once a week, we demographics and attitudes of write a post about them -- about t h e i r a u d i e n c e . W e a t who they are, what they do, and ReadWriteWeb have signed up to what they've been up to lately. t h i s n e w s e r v i c e , b e c a u s e Pay them a visit or tweet them a demographic data is something "Thank you" (see link below we've struggled to get in the past. each sponsor) to show your It's important for any online appreciation for their sponsorship business to know their audience, of this site. Or you can follow all so Crowd Science is a welcome of our sponsors at once using our addition to the stats armory that Twitter list. most of us in the Internet biz use.

I n t e r e s t e d i n b e i n g a Sign up to get demographic data R e a d W r i t e W e b s p o n s o r ? from Crowd Science.

ReadWriteWeb is one of the Thank Crowd Science on most popular blogs in the world T w i t t e r f o r m a k i n g and is read by a sophisticated R e a d W r i t e W e b p o s s i b l e . audience of thought leaders and Mashery d e c i s i o n - m a k e r s . W e h a v e Mashery is a platform for Web several innovative new features services, allowing companies to in our sponsor packages that we'd m a n a g e t h e i r A P I s u s i n g love to tell you about. Email our Mashery's expertise. At the COO for all the details.

"Business of APIs" conference, Ready to learn more about the Mashery CEO Oren Michels smart companies that support this explained to the audience that site you love to read? Read on... while APIs are a technology, Sponsor their use is a business decision.

Skip to info about: Mashery: He went on to say that Mashery API management services | has helped customers such as Rackspace: Cloud computing WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, experts | Aplus.net: Web hosting | Compete.com, and Calais. Check Crowd Science: Demographic out the white paper " Five steps data | Codero: Managed hosting | t o s c a l i n g y o u r b u s i n e s s Groupsite: Social collaboration | d e v e l o p m e n t u s i n g W e b F a r o o : R e a l - t i m e s e a r c h | services" to discover how you M y D o m a i n . c o m : D o m a i n can use APIs for your business. registrar | litl: Webbook | You can find out more about Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:00:00 AM

APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.

Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Rackspace Rackspace is one of the world's largest hosting providers, but it's also competing in the cloud computing arena. Rackspace Cloud Hosting offers a suite of services which combines a scalable web and application hosting platform (Cloud Sites) with a cloud storage solution (Cloud Files) and on demand server instances (Cloud Servers).

The addition of SliceHost a popular cloud computing and hosting provider and JungleDisk, a favorite online backup service that supports Cloud files, makes the Rackspace Cloud a powerful cloud hosting solution.

Explore Rackspace's hosting and cloud computing solutions.

Thank Rackspace on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Aplus.net Aplus.net offers a variety of services relating to Web hosting, including shared hosting, Web design, marketing and online

advertising services, search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, and domain registration.

You can register for Aplus.net here.

Thank Aplus.net on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Codero Codero is a former division of Aplus.net. Codero became a separate entity focusing on dedicated and managed hosting solutions after the acquisition of Aplus.net's shared hosting, web design, and domain registration services by Hostopia. "Codero" stands for collaboration, engagement, focus, reliability, and flexibility. It means a more secure computing experience for email, shopping, and data transfer.

Codero is a dedicated and managed hosting company focused on the real needs of today's small and mid-sized businesses. The company believes in supporting robust websites, storefronts and online communities that will grow and adapt.

Groupsite Groupsite.com is a self-serve platform for creating social collaboration communities called Groupsites. Groupsites combine the most useful features of social networking and collaboration tools enabling groups large and small to communicate, share and network. Groupsites are currently in use by more than 30,000 groups as user communities,

intranets, member communities, team workgroups and social networks. Each Groupsite can be branded and customized and includes discussion forums, calendaring, file sharing, member profiles (professional or social), activity feeds and full-featured sub-groups among other groupcentric features.

Sign up and create a free Groupsite in minutes.

Thank Groupsite on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Faroo Faroo is a peer-to-peer Web search engine that has no centralized index and crawler.

Each web page visited by users is automatically included into the distributed index. Search results are ranked based on distributed usage statistics of Web pages visited by Faroo users, which leads to more democratic, usercentric ranking.

Faroo protects the privacy of users by encrypting search queries and anonymizing its distributed architecture. The decentralized peer-to-peer architecture scales with Internet growth and requires no infrastructure or operational cost.

Thank Faroo on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

MyDomain.com MyDomain is a leading ICANNaccredited provider of domain name registration and online business solutions. For over 10 years, MyDomain has offered CHECK page 40

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CHECK continued from page 39

low-cost domain names and free domain services including complete DNS management.

Today, sub-$10 domains without the constant upsells you'll find at some competitors are the norm at MyDomain. MyDomain's complete range of solutions include Web hosting and VPS hosting, email, SSL Certificates and more.

Web 3.0 Conference The emergence of a new era of technologies, collectively known as Web 3.0, provides a strategically significant opportunity to make media and business run better. Also known as the semantic web or linked data, web 3.0 is a web in which data is linked to allow for more meaningful, actionable insight to be extracted. At the conference, we will explore how companies are using these technologies today, and should be using them tomorrow, for significant bottom line impact in areas like marketing, corporate information management, publishing, customer service, and personal productivity.

Thank Web 3.0 Conference on

Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible. litl Give the all new litl webbook this holiday season and avoid family help desk duties in the new year.

• Operating System as a Service.

Litl handles all upgrades, viruses, and backups for free for the life of the machine.

• Intuitive web UI without menus, icons, folders.

• No hard drive - storage/backup not user task.

• Best photo frame. Connected, aggregates flickr, shutterfly, 178 degree viewing angle.

• "A stone-cold brilliant design" Fast Company.

Learn how litl's fresh design and modern OS makes computing simple.

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Conduit Conduit enables web publishers to distribute their offerings directly and through its global network of 200,000 publishers and their 60 million users. The Conduit platform is a powerful

marketing tool that allows you to: offer the best of your site through a custom community toolbar, send desktop alerts to your users, get advanced Analytics, and more.

The Conduit platform opens a new world of content sharing.

Your site visitors can add your content right to their browser by clicking on a branded 2go button that you place on your site. You can also share your content in the Conduit Marketplace, where all the publishers and users in the Conduit network can grab it.

The platform has been adopted by major brands such as Fox News, iWin, Major League Baseball, TechCrunch, and Travelocity, as well as thousands of small and medium organizations in 120 countries.

If you want to Conduit Your Site, visit: www.conduit.com Thank Conduit on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Our Gracious Hosts and Blogging Software ReadWriteWeb is hosted by Media Temple and is published using SixApart's Movable Type.

If you've ever wondered what

ReadWriteWeb looks like behind the scenes, or if you've never seen the Movable Type publishing interface - that's it on the left. We recently upgraded to MT 4.23, which is the latest version. We got onto this release as soon as it was available - in fact our contacts at Six Apart emailed the actual code to us before it was up on their website.

That's customer service for you!

Thank Media Temple and SixApart on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

The companies above pay our rents or mortgages and we appreciate it. We hope you'll stop by their sites and see what they've got to offer.

Have you got a smart company that could use some more visits by the sophisticated readers of a blog like ReadWriteWeb's? Drop us a line and let's talk.

Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!

Discuss

LSE poised to acquire Turquoise (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:09:42 AM

The London Stock Exchange has never to date offered trading in shares across Europe. But that is set to change as exchanges and smaller trading platforms fight for survival in a region beset with low trading volumes and stiff competition.

The 208-year-old LSE will on Monday unveil a deal to absorb Turquoise, a platform set up just over a year ago by nine of the world’s largest banks in an attempt to force the London bourse to lower its fees.

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

Just Cause 2 visits small island, kills everyone

By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq)

Aside from the obvious Tomb Raider/ Final Fantasy crossover that we all know is bound to The acquisition of Eidos by happen, the above trailer for Just Japanese publisher Square Enix Cause 2 ends with a glaring earlier this year brought with it Square Enix logo that still feels a some strange consequences. bit out of place to us. Maybe it's Submitted at 12/19/2009 9:30:00 PM

the theme of deposing a South East Asian dictator, the pronounced "Engrish," and the musclebound American protagonist in the trailer -- or maybe it's just us being weird!

Who knows?! We do know that

the gameplay itself looks like a ripe barrel of monkeys and we're looking forward to its release on March 23, 2010.

Gallery: Just Cause 2 (11-13-09) Just Cause 2 visits small island, kills everyone originally

appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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41

Best and Worst TV of 2009: Allison's list

By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

me that I had just as much angst with bullies in high school as these kids. Every episode hasn't Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:24:00 AM been perfect, but it's perfectly What a year! Once we got over fine that they keep striving. the WGA strike, the networks Continue reading Best and kicked it into high gear and got Worst TV of 2009: Allison's list busy making TV. Except for Filed under: Food/Home/DIY, NBC. Even Jeff Zucker has Industry, Programming, OpEd, Sources: MGM Will be admitted that NBCU has failed to Lost, Celebrities, 30 Rock, Site of Floyd respond to the need for new Friday Night Lights, Ratings, programming.

NCIS, TV Squad Lists, Emmys, Mayweather vs. Manny Fortunately, the other channels Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Burn Pacquiao have been busy and there's been a Notice, The Big Bang Theory, lot of great television... and some these 2008 best choices -- from.

Parks and Recreation, Nurse By Lem Satterfield (Fanhouse Main) Breaking Bad, Friday Night Best that's just plain awful. But I'm a Jackie, Glee, Community, Lights, NCIS, The Big Bang 1.

Glee.

If there was ever a show half-glass full kind of person and Cougar Town, Modern Family Submitted at 12/19/2009 12:05:00 PM I have good feelings about 2009. Theory and Mad Men-- on my that was made just for my Permalink| Email this| | Filed under: WBA, WBC, IBF, However, since I don't want to list again. But I'm going to go for personal taste, this is probably it. C o m m e n t s WBO, HBO Unbeaten Floyd repeat my list from last year, I'll an all new list and, thankfully, I I love the singing and dancing. I Mayweather and Manny just mention that I could put had plenty of 'bests' to choose get the characters. It even tickles Pacquiao will contest their megabout for Pacquiao's WBO welterweight (147 pounds) title on March 13 at the MGM Grand

By Jason Hughes (TV Squad) original content, many times on and Felicia Day into a mad in Las Vegas, according to par with what you'll see on scientist musical world created sources with knowledge of the Submitted at 12/20/2009 11:22:00 AM television.

by Joss Whedon. Even the decision.

On the fourth day of Festivus, Syfy's Sanctuary is a show that networks have gotten in on the "It's the MGM. It's definite," said TV gave to me... four webby began as a web series and has action, creating original content a source. series. since become a successful TV for their own websites.

The MGM was chosen over the There's probably more original series. But many web series live Continue reading The Twelve Dallas Cowboys' Stadium, whose content being created for the and thrive on the web, and Days of Festivus: Four webby owner, Jerry Jones, had offered internet than there even is for belong only there. series $25 million to host the bout. The television. A lot of that is your A lot of our favorite celebrities Filed under: OpEd, Animation, promoters of both fighters, neighbor sitting in his basement have turned to this unrestricted Festivus, Talk Show, Reality- however, had indicated that they in front of his webcam seeing format to create gems, like Will Free, Webisodes felt the MGM's offer could how many croutons he can shove Ferrell's modern classic " The Horrible's Sing-Along Blog that P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | surpass that of Jones. in his mouth in thirty seconds, Landlord" from a few years back, brought Neil Patrick Harris, C o m m e n t s The choice of the MGM Grand, but there are places to find great or even last year's sensational Dr. Nathan Fillion, Simon Helberg whose deal specifications are unclear, is largely based in both fighters' familiarity with the location as well as their past success there.

The Twelve Days of Festivus: Four webby series

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TV/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)

Iran’s top What's On Tonight: dissident cleric Survivor, Christmas in Montazeri dies Washington, The Jacksons

Submitted at 12/20/2009 10:16:00 AM

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)

Right now on Cinematical • Call me crazy, but I'm not in love with the Spider Man franchise. The Batman franchise, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Cinematical lists the best Comic Book Flicks of the Decade.

• The highest-grossing female star of the decade is younger than you, so what the hell have you • I love this: Cinematical Seven been doing for the past ten years? names the Best Mayhem of 2009. • If everyone was jailed for not returning movies on time, then Happy Holidays!

• I'm so confused. I've seen my baby would grow up without trailers and extended previews a mother. Here's hoping that this for Avatar, and they all look kind Iowa woman doesn't have kids. of horrendous. Yet everyone Filed under: Site who's seen it seems to think it's amazing-- to the tune of $27 Announcements, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | million on Friday alone. Is this Comments honestly that good?

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

(Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:28:51 AM

Submitted at 12/20/2009 12:04:00 PM

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes, followed by the season finale of Survivor.

• NBC has a new Football Night in America at 7, then the Vikings vs. the Panthers.

• Lifetime has 12 Men of Christmas at 7, then Eve's Christmas.

• At 8, TNT has Christmas in Washington 2009.

• AMC has the 1984 version of A Christmas Carol at 8, followed

by Prancer.

• TCM has a new Night at the Movies at 8.

• At 9, Cartoon Network has How The Grinch Stole Christmas, then A Scooby-Doo Christmas.

• VH-1 has a new Tough Love at

Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, Iran’s most senior dissident cleric, has died, official media reported on Sunday.

9, followed by Sex Rehab with Staff in Mr Montazeri’s office in Dr. Drew.

Qom, 140 km south of Tehran, • Fine Living has Martha told the Financial Times, that the Stewart's Christmas Special at 9, ayatollah died of heart attack and then Martha Stewart's Holiday said that he would be buried in Cookies. the city on Monday morning.

• At 10, A&E has a new The Ahmad Montazeri, his son, was Jacksons: A Family Dynasty. quoted as saying that his father • VERSUS has Sports Soup at had died of an illness overnight 10. on Saturday.

Five Filters featured article: Check your local TV listings for Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: more.

PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Filed under: Programming, What Term Extraction.

To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Best and Worst TV of 2009: Joel's list

By Joel Keller (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/19/2009 2:04:00 PM

I don't think I did one of these lists last year, and I have no idea why. The election all by itself would have generated a pretty fun best/worst list. Maybe we were all suffering from information overload, and were

just exhausted. Not sure.

But 2009 had a lot of interesting TV, too, just not all in one category. As I've done in the past, I'll dispense with the usual "best show" and "worst show" lists and just make up categories: GOODNESS Best comeback from a shaky Recreation. As I mentioned in my f i r s t s e a s o n : P a r k s a n d " return of the sitcom" story,

Parks and Rec has made the biggest improvement from first season to second since... well, since The Office. It's no coincidence; Greg Daniels and Mike Schur's Office experience taught them that patience would be rewarded, both on the part of the writers and the viewers.

Continue reading Best and

Worst TV of 2009: Joel's list Filed under: Sports, News, OpEd, Daytime, The Office, Talk Show, Breaking Bad, RealityFree, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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43

USA wants more White Fun with Guns: Viligante DC Cop Collar Dishes Draconian Martial Law for Snowball Fight [Justice]

By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

Submitted at 12/20/2009 11:41:00 AM

By Foster Kamer (Gawker)

File this under the "I was expecting nothing less" category.

USA Network has ordered a second season of White Collar, the Matthew Bomer caper drama.

The announcement was made not via a press release, but using Twitter. Welcome to the new reality. Jeff Eastin, White Collar's creator, tweeted the news: "Congratulations to the best cast and crew on television."

This makes total sense for USA. With Monk having ended its run this month, White Collar can now fill the bill joining Psych, Burn Notice, In Pain Sight and Royal Pains as the net's original series.

How ironic that this NBCU network is doing a better job with original programming than NBC

Submitted at 12/19/2009 2:30:00 PM

proper?

Continue reading USA wants more White Collar Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

about then that I decided to back up a little bit. The guy was in A small faction of people completely plain-clothes, but it Well, as it turns out, Washington d e c i d e d t o t a r g e t i t w i t h turns out that he was actually a DC residents know exactly how snowballs. They're throwing detective. As such, he radioed in much of a joke 911 is in their snowballs at the Hummer. It some support. Snowballers own town, after a cop. Pulled a turns out the driver of the rallied around as soon as some g u n . O n k i d s . T h r o w i n g Hummer is a detective. He gets order was established, yelling at snowballs. Yeah, and they're out. He's waving a walkie talkie. him for bringing a gun to a reading this cop the riot act. It's not going well. Then he starts snowball fight. Naturally, a few [ There are people yelling bad w a v i n g a g u n . H e h a d n ' t more people chucked snowballs words at that cop! So if you are identified himself at this point. at him, and that's when he in a place where bad words are There was a point where things charged the crowd. The police not safe to be heard than that cooled off a bit, more police tried to keep order, but this video is NSFW!] showed up, and he identified detective was being a total utter Via the Washington City Paper himself at that point. The name dickhead. He bum-rushed the and DC's ABC affiliate, a bunch was Det. Baylor. My guess was crowd, all chaos broke out, and of kids were having a snowball B-A-Y-L-O-R. about 30 seconds later he made fight, a few pegged a Hummer And another one, from the his way out dragging an innocent with some snowballs, the cop comments of blog Prince Of b y s t a n d e r , w h o h e w a s gets out of the car, starts Petworth: undoubtedly planning on screaming at the kids, and I was standing right next to him b o o k i n g . . . decides to threaten them and their when this happened. We were And there's more video here! fun with the power of the law. In pelting the hummer (as we'd done Question: When did snow lose other words: his gun, that can put to about 4 other hummers), when its innocence? Remember the holes in people and make them this guy decided to get out of the good old days? dead. As opposed to a snowball, car. He proceeded to walk Life's hard enough with the highest grade of which will towards the crowd, and naturally, existential angst. But outlawing give you a welt. people started to throw more fun? It's too much. It's all too The City Paper's eyewitness snowballs at him. That's when he much. report: brandished the gun. It was right

44

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E-reader News Edition

2005's 123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now [Vintage Gawker]

By Foster Kamer (Gawker)

delivered to our doors.

4. Because all we have to do is walk down the street in order to Welcome to the inaugural be propositioned for sex. edition of The Vintage Gawker 5. Because we get to push Collection, where we'll roll out tourists if we're late for work. old posts from the vault in full to 6. Because we only pretend to provide perspective on the recycle.¹ present. Tonight: Jessica Coen's 7. Because Tompkins Square 2005 post, 123 Reasons to Love park is still friendly to junkies.¹ New York Right Now. 8. Because whether you make New York Magazine's first year $50k or $200k, you're still running their Reasons to Love "middle class."² New York feature was in 2005, 9. Because "fuck" is intrinsic to when the below post ran on this our local dialect. site. Since then, it's been one of 10. Because there's a Starbucks their most successful and eagerly on every block. awaited yearly features. People 11. Because you can get love their lists. Especially New anything you want on Craigslist.

Yorkers. Ask Time Out. They 12. Because Anderson Cooper. publish one every three weeks.

13. Because our restaurants are But all that shit aside... so cramped, we can hear if our Besides being my personal neighbor is being an asshole. favorite, this post, published four 14. Because you can live in the years ago on Monday, was also same place for 10 years and to those I've spoken to who read never have to see or meet your it and remember it—counting neighbors 7,176 hits to this day, a 15. Because a pink paper like the comparatively small group when stayed the same, for better or spectacularly frustrating transit squirrels and fancy shoes, but New York Observer can survive.¹ looking at Gawker's audience and worse. For example! We'll strike, this week's New York those things don't really get to the 16. Because assistants. readership these days—one of the always be able to fart on the provides a much needed warm heart of why we adore New York 17. Because everyone's Gay. more memorable ones we've run street without anybody noticing, fuzzy with its " 123 Reasons to so totally and completely. In fact, 18. Because we can make over the history of the site. It at least until Bloomberg starts to Love New York Right Now" we can think of 123 completely someone like Blackface Jesus resonated as patently true, and it tax us for it. Until then, long live cover story. After all, we all different reasons to love New into a celebrity.³ sometimes need a reminder as to York, all of which make a bit 19. Because sometimes it smells wasn't the kind of thing anybody this great, great city.

Without further ado, 2005 why we put up with the bullshit. more sense to us. After the jump, like maple syrup.¹ in print, but especially the magazine it was riffing on— Gawker co-editor Jessica Coen's Alas, as we read the piece and Gawker's 123 Reasons to Love 20. Because there's always a New York—would've run with. original post in full, and after, the grew infected with the warm New York Right Now. secret room behind the VIP glow of lust for NYC, we 1. Because we scorn the fat.

But you'll see the times have (in magic of hindsight. room.² many, many ways) very much Gawker's 123 Reasons to Love realized that there was a lot 2. Because we can drink until 4 missing from the listicle. Sure, AM. 2005'S page 45 changed. Other things? Shit's New York Right Now Given the bitter weather and the w e l o v e C e n t r a l P a r k a n d 3. Because we have our drugs Submitted at 12/19/2009 7:15:00 PM

E-reader News Edition

45

2005'S continued from page 44

21. Because we can get fake TiVo for $9.95/mo.

22. Because our tabloids are considered newspapers.² 23. Because the transit strike keeps us from really working.

24. Because Jocelyn Wildenstein exists.² 25. Because you can go to the East Village Baths and not get raped.

26. Because David Cross's imposters live here.³ 27. Because Brooklyn is for domesticating.³ 28. Because i-bankers and hipsters can peacefully coexist.² 29. Because there's always a free drink available somewhere.

30. Because we know Sex and the City is a crock of shit.² 31. Because we know Friends is a crock of shit.

32. Because it only takes $30 million to launch and burn a magazine.³ 33. Because we think Vitamin Water is a real beverage.³ 34. Because we never have to shovel snow (unless it's coke).

35. Because we all know we're actually better than Tinsley Mortimer.

36. Because "road trip" just means Ikea.

37. Because even Lenny Kravitz's toilet gets clogged.

38. Because smoking is encouraged.

39. Because we only have one mall, and it's not any good anyhow.

40. Because people read.

41. Because we invented PNP. 42. Because words like Otto

Tootsie Plohound make sense to us.

43. Because we eat McDonald's ironically.

44. Because ANYONE can lie to Page Six.³ 45. Because Jews.

46. Because you can take a dump at the Apple Store.

47. Because you can buy anything, even a stolen baby.

48. Because mani/pedis are affordable.

49. Because George Whipple.

50. Because our public opinion can turn on a dime.

51. Because real estate is a professional sport.

52. Because only black is the new black.

53. Because it's acceptable to Shoot the Freak.³ 54. Because our pigeons have rabies.

55. Because Conde Nasties don't threaten our food supply.³ 56. Because anyone can get into Soho House and see that it's nothing.² 57. Because everyone's got a blog.³ 58. Because Paris Hilton moved to Los Angeles.

59. Because Bloomberg has that adorable bald spot.³ 60. Because it's easy to stalk famous people.

61. Because everyone you know has slept with one another.

62. Because Woody Allen is allowed.

63. Because Fresh Direct has every single product's nutritional info on its website.

64. Because Peter Braunstein

stabbed himself in the neck.

65. Because we have a looser definition of substance abuse.

66. Because everyone has a cat or a book deal.¹ 67. Because you only need a Village Voice to get a chick with a dick.³ 68. Because anybody can be a DJ. 69. Because even if you can only play "Wish You Were Here" on the guitar, you can make a few bucks at a subway station.

70. Because Robin Byrd.

71. Because everybody knows the 1-800-Mattress song.³ 72. Because sometimes it's just fun to give tourists wrong directions.

73. Because you can buy live jellyfish from a wooden box in Chinatown.

74. Because your parents love to come visit and pay for dinner.

75. Because your parents don't love to come visit.

76. Because you can walk down the street and fart and nobody will notice.² 77. Because if you want a cat, you can walk into any deli and just steal one.

78. Because you can do your Sunday morning walk of shame undetected.

79. Because Teen Vogue is only $1.99.¹ 80. Because fifth floor walk-up apartments are great for the glutes.

81. Because nobody uses condoms anymore.

82. Because Dr. Zizmor is a celebrity.

83. Because you can drop a penny in an empty water jug and make some dude's day.³ 84. Because everyone looks like shit in the morning.

85. Because there's such a thing as $300 sushi.

86. Because you can be a gay man and reasonably keep both a wife and a boyfriend.

87. Because bagels.

88. Because there's just enough Brits around to keep us speaking proper English.

89. Because we worship high fashion in collapsible tents.

90. Because vegetarians keep to themselves.³ 91. Because our knock-offs are often better than the real thing.

92. Because there's always someone naked in Times Square.

93. Because the New York Press is still trying.² 94. Because your cab driver is probably more interesting than you are.

95. Because you can get mustard on everything.

96. Because it's perfectly fine to answer your phone mid-sentence.

97. Because H&M: Our Gap is Eurotrash on purpose.³ 98. Because we don't stand in line, we stand on it.

99. Because we tolerate the New York Sun.³ 100. Because gift bags.¹ 101. Because you can ride the Staten Island ferry all day at only the cost of your stomach.² 102. Because "summer" really does make sense as a verb.

103. Because we know what "new bar smell" is, but not "new

car smell."

104. Because 666-6666 has nothing to do with Satan.

Technically.

105. Because even your intern has an intern.¹ 106. Because only old people have land lines.³ 107. Because parts of Central Park still smell like a poopy country farmyard.

108. Because you can make a career out of being Amanda Lepore.¹ 109. Because everyone drinks at brunch.

110. Because our tap water won't kill you.

111. Because it's easy to steal wifi.² 112. Because as much as you hate it, Rockefeller Center is still kind of neat.

113. Because city kids have been there and done that before you even got here.² 114. Because everyone's painfully human, even the staff of the New York Times.³ 115. Because used clothes cost more than new ones.

116. Because we'd rather be emaciated than healthy.¹ 117. Because in one morning, you can look like a jackass in the background of four different morning shows.

118. Because it's perfectly acceptable to give the finger to anyone at any time.

119. Because the smell is concentrated in Chinatown.² 120. Because doing your own 2005'S page 46

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laundry is for rich suckers.

121. Because you can buy Vagisil at the bodega at 4 AM. 122. Because we keep Jersey at arm's length.

123. Because we gave silly Adam Moss a job.³ As you can tell, spot-on, in so many ways, whether things have or haven't changed. Hats off.

But here's how it breaks down: ¹: Only kinda changed. Now we get fined if we don't recycle, and landlords take that shit out on us.

Assuming you're not smart enough to blame the other neighbors. Tompkins is still friendly to junkies in that junkies still have friends hanging around Tompkins Square Park. Just try and make the dumb, touristy mistake of "buying" drugs there these days and experience what a first-class NYPD beatdown is like. Tragically—really: upsettingly—we learned what the maple syrup smell came from (Jersey, The Garden State of Smells, of course), but that doesn't mean it won't still happen or stop us from enjoying it, even though it's different, now that we know. If you call the (wonderful, but few) remaining New York Observer writers clinging onto gigs after Jared Kushner dispatched with Peter Kaplan and unceremoniously fired most of their talent, Spencer Morgan's shameless instigating of eyeballs through faux-trend pieces, and the slow evolution towards becoming Jared Kushner's pink

advertorial spread, then yes: the New York Observer is still surviving. Besides everyone having a cat or a book deal, now everyone's cat has a book deal, and Kate Lee's made it. Teen Vogue? Try $3.50. Gift bags are still around, they just suck now.

Now, your intern's intern has an intern, and none of the three are paid, but at least two have graduate degrees. Amanda Lapore's career probably makes her feel like a den mom, now.

Not only would we rather be emaciated than healthy, but there're citywide initiatives to keep this the case.

2: More than ever. The middle class? Growing, because everyone's getting poorer. In other words, unless you're working at Goldman, welcome to the center. This city will always have one more VIP room behind the VIP room's VIP room: the rabbit hole keeps growing deeper. Not only our are tabloids still real newspapers, but the Wall Street Journal's now owned by the tabloids, and if you're Mark Penn, takes money for copy like a tabloid does, too. The New York Press will never die, and neither will Jocelyn Wildenstein. The Sex and the City movies remind us just how full of shit that show always was.

Now that SoHo House is trying to get rid of rich people, it's especially nothing. The Staten Island Ferry's one of the few free things left in this city. City Kids

have now been there and done everything you've experimented with at 30 by the time they're sophomores at Horace Mann.

Our parks have WiFi, but it's still better to steal it. The smells of Chinatown grow more diverse every year and you learn to love them. And you will never, ever not be able to fart while walking detected. We will kill to preserve that liberty.

3: Shit's changed. Conde Nasties are now beginning to threaten our food supply, but given that they're handing out gift cards for the cafeteria this year for holiday presents, efforts are still being made to keep this the case to some, if any extent. David Cross impostors are out; hipster grifters are in. Brooklyn's not just for domesticating anymore; it's a nice getaway from all the moneyed bankers taking over the East Village, or it was until they all moved back in with their parents in Connecticut. It now takes way less than $30M to make a magazine crash and burn, just ask Maer Roshan. Twice.

Now that the rest of America believes Vitamin Water's a real beverage, we see through it, and instead worship the funky ass-ina-glass that is Kampuchea. It's only acceptable to Shoot the Freak for however many summers the freak has left, which, as always: it's year-toyear thing. Blogs are dead, now everyone—everyone—has a blog network. Or a Twitter or a

Tumblr or a startup. Anyone can lie to Page Six but us, because former Gawker intern Neel Shah's runs it. Bloomberg's bald spot? After three terms of looking at it, no longer adorable, now: menacing. Chicks with dicks? Go Craigslist, not Village Voice, which has also, like the Observer, been stripped bare of everything but their Chicks With Dicks ads. Why not cut out the middleman? Our ability to turn Blackface Jesus into a celebrity has been subverted by the fact that 2009's Blackface Jesuses have Twitter feeds and can do it themselves. Also, the ascent of Julia Allison to Sony Spokeswoman makes Blackface Jesus look like a minor-league waterboy. Who remembers the 1800-Mattress song? You can still make someone's day by dropping them a penny, but the UHO was just ruled an illegal organization, so: they're done with.

Vegetarians now absolutely refuse to shut the fuck up, but so do active meat-eaters and the hipster butchers who service them. Everyone else has H&M, and it used to be ours, goddamnit. Then again, we've still got Uniqlo and TopShop, which tourists have no idea what to do with. Not only did we tolerate the New York Sun, but now that it's gone, we miss it.

Most of the old people who had land lines are dead, or well on their way. We now know, more than ever, just how painfully

human the staff of the New York Times is, as their ranks are cut to size buyout by buyout, layoff by layoff, person by person.

And finally, not only did we give silly Adam Moss a job that he still has, but a few years after she wrote this, silly Adam Moss gave Jessica Coen one of the most clutch jobs at New York Magazine as their website's managing editor.

It's clear that things are different.

And so is the New York we live in and love now. It could use a new list to remind us of why we still love this place and put up with the shit that it serves us daily ( unless you're in London).

A new list needs to emerge, and it will.

In the comments, if you want an item to be submitted for Gawker's 123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now, which we'll run next week, tag your comment in this post with#123, or submit them on the tag page here. I'll be coming up with some of my own, looking for help from some other writers around town, and looking to pick a bunch from you guys. It was a hell of a post about a hell of a town, and respectively, we'll try to do it the justice and give this city the love it deserves: ours.

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The Wedding of Kevin Jonas and Inevitably Subsequent Sacrifice of His Virginity or "V-Card" [Gossip Roundup]

By Foster Kamer (Gawker)

made me smile!...Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino and DJ Pauly D flew here the other night for the network's Christmas party at the MTV building in Times Square. "They were surprisingly nice and friendly," a spy says.

"People kept asking Mike to see his abs, and he'd always oblige."

Right? That's nice to hear.

Apparently, hot girls were following them around Marquee, which is also kinda funny, and nice. I think it's time to admit that America has fallen in love with these things. They're like Zhu Zhu Pets, everyone's gonna want one under the tree for Christmas.

Don't let them eat all your selftanner, though. [ Page Six] • I guess I forgot this picture of Sarah Jessica Parker that had the genius no-holds-barred headline of "Dress Looks Stuck To SJP," and I didn't actually click on it, but christ it's as funny as you'd want it to be. [ NYDN] • Oh GOOD LORD. There's a picture of skeevy celebrity expose writer Ian Halperin in Page Six and his fashion sense falls somewhere between Watergate-era Bob Woodward and late 90s Prince (or the Artist Formerly Known as That Symbol Formerly Known as Prince).

What is that man's day like? I don't want to know. [ Page Six] • AW. Boris and Natasha-esque

Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:00:00 AM

Kevin Jonas got married, probably laid. Jersey Shore kids in New York. Are they loved or hated? Kate Hudson's parents love her sooooooooo much.

People wants to kill Brad Pitt's spirit. SJP vs. Dress. Presenting your Sunday Morning Gossip Roundup!

• Kevin Jonas got married on Long Island in a "Fairy Tale" wedding, but is anything on Long Island really a "Fairy Tale" anything? Need to know. Also, now he can take off that purity ring and have sex. Next: crack cocaine. While having sex. Hope he doesn't start calling his penis "Bonus Jonas." [ NYDN] • Page Six's lead story is more Tiger Woods nonsense, but I'll save that for later, because it's all TOO MUCH. I'm tired of writing about this guy and his dick and all the magical places it went. It's not like travel writing where you want to even live vicariously through the words and pictures of places. It's just not, you know?

But here's what is magical: their second-place story, an item called "Jersey Gang Wades Ashore," as if the kids from Jersey Shore are ducks, or rather, swamp creatures. Apparently, The Creature Who Goes By Snooki tipped a bathroom attendant at Marquee $0.75 after using her hairspray and is a total

"diva," which, I mean, whatever, sure. Not surprising. But this

WEDDING page 48

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gossip duo Rush & Molloy set their Moose and Squirrel sights today on Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, who are trying to help Kate Hudson get over A-Rod, but you just know that as much as everyone loves Goldie Hawn, Kate Hudson has to deal with those moments where she's like "OMG Mom, STFU. Seriously.

You know what that means? It means shut the fuck up. Because you're embarrassing me." and then Goldie's like "Whaaaaaaaaaat Katie? Yah father and I just want you to find a nice man who isn't a centaur, is it too much to make suggestions?

Am I not allowed to love my daughta?" and Kate's like "UGH." [ NYDN] • Harvey Weinstein once took the cast of Nine, who got along really well, apparently, to sing karaoke with him at some English pub. Unfortunately, his rousing rendition of " InnaGadda-Da-Vida," an industry legend, went unheard. [ Page Six] • Geraldo is going to quit Fox

News if they hire old man poopypants Lou Dobbs over there. Which is a great way to get rid of Geraldo. [ R & M, top item] • Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer each had competing holiday parties where they both footed the bill. The item sets them up like Sharks and Jets. It's kinda great. [ Page Six] • I didn't mean to put this bullet point here but now that it's errant I kind of feel like keeping it here.

So I will.

• A CBS TV exec you've never heard of—unless you are Scott Koondel—is trying to represent himself in court against accusations that he's cheap while trying to get a reduction in "spousal support." Yes. Because the one thing you want to do to make you look not cheap is not hire a lawyer. [ Page Six] • Madonna is going to look like a Japanese building-squishing monster if she keeps working out the way she does, so she's going to another voodoo doctor for

help, or something. [ R & M, last item] • Best sighting of the day: "Bernadette Peters looking remarkably young as she devoured hors d'oeuvres at Donna Karan's loft at the party for Trudie Styler's new "Mind Body Fitness" DVD series."

DEVOURED. Three snaps for Bernadette going to town on some pigs-in-blankets. [ Page Six] • America's Best Dance Crew judge Shane Sparks is apparently being extorted, he says. Shane Sparks is kind of a random guy to extort, no? But most of them are!

Think about this. [ TMZ] • If this turns out to be true WOW will my grandmother be happy. Jennifer Gray is rumored to be in negotiations to be on Dancing With The Stars. Dirty Dancing is G-Ma's favorite movie. RELATED, obviously. [ Page Six] • Here's a picture of the SnookieMonster in her cheerleading days. Whee! [

TMZ] • Brad Pitt turned 46 yesterday and PEOPLE has words for him.

Not people-people, but People magazine, who feel entitled to a portion of his soul after awarding him World's Sexiest Man twelve times. They want to cut off his magical beard. [ People] Hey everyone! Sorry we're running late this morning, I'm pretty sure after going back and reading this that I have Swine Flu! Whee. So today should be fun and by fun I mean let's see how long I last in a vertical position. Altarcations is coming at you at 2:30, with a cameo in it

by Will Ferrell! You won't want to miss it. Also, um...nope! That's it! Happy Sunday Morning, don't get lost in all the SNOW out there. And by SNOW I mean frozen slushy ice and not cocaine.

Just for clarification.

Submitted at 12/20/2009 7:21:27 AM

Fast Facts • The Cowboys got their second win over a team with a 10-0 record or better; they beat the 110 Redskins in Nov. 1991.

• Tony Romo is 6-10 as a starter in December. He was 22 for 34

By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:30:00 PM

Click to Titan-size Whoa, now.

When we say "ugly," we're not talking about the visual fidelity of the aforementioned Clash of the Titans screenshots. Rather, we're talking about the subjects they depict -- horrible, netherspawned creatures, covered in uninviting tusks, pincers and fangs. Where are all the beautiful, half-clothed goddesses? The scenic Grecian environments? The looming, meticulously built temples?

We're not sure -- but we do know they're not in the gallery below.

Gallery: Clash of the Titans Extremely ugly Clash of the Titans screenshots released originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. for 312 yards and a TD. He has • Marion Barber scored two TDs, • The loss snapped the Saints' Please see our terms for use of s i x s c o r i n g p a s s e s a n d n o his 13th career multi-TD game five-game win streak vs. the feeds.

Read| Permalink| Email this| interceptions in three games this but first of this season.

Cowboys.

Comments December, with a passer rating of • The Saints are the third 13-0 • Rapid reaction 109.7. team to lose, joining the 1998 -- ESPN Stats & Information • Miles Austin had 139 yards Broncos and 2005 Colts. Each of Five Filters featured article: receiving, his fifth 100-yard those teams also lost their next Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: game of the season. He has a TD game.

PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, reception in four straight games, • New Orleans scored fewer than Term Extraction. something he also did from Week 20 points for the first time in 5-9. their last 23 games.

Ware, Cowboys end Saints' pursuit of perfection

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

Extremely ugly Clash of the Titans screenshots released

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49

The Emails that Brought Down Disgraced NYPD Chief Bernie Kerik [Internal Documents]

NFL to Ask Players to Donate Brains for Study

By Foster Kamer (Gawker)

(FOXNews.com)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 12:15:00 PM

Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:12:10 AM

Interstate Industrial, was run in part by Frank DiTommaso, who is referred to as "FD" in Kerik's Disgraced NYPD Police email to the White House. Kerik Commissioner/villain Bernard lied when he wrote he had Kerik was this close to a gig refused to accept renovation under Dubya as Homeland work from DiTommaso because Security Secretary. Now: he's "FD is doing business with the getting ready to serve hard time City." for eight different fraud Kerik gave the White House a convictions. The emails that time-line stating he paid tens of brought him down are now thousands of dollars himself for public. the renovation work. "Kerik pays These wonderful notes come to the architect about $1200 and the us via NBC New York, who contractor about $30,000 around culled them via U.S. District over 8 months. Kerik spends Court Judge Stephen Robinson other money on a fence outside by a request for public and window work." But information after Kerik's guilty investigators have said that was plea. just a fraction of the cost of the Long story short: Bernie Kerik work that was actually done. withdrew his own nomination Prosecutors said Kerik was broke after being busted for an illegal at the time and he took the free immigrant nanny. Now, he's everything free, or in this case, was trying to make to Brian work in exchange for helping the doing hard time for eight separate puts Bernie Kerik, the jailer, the Besanceney, the White House DiTommaso's lobby and try to spokesman at the time. He secure contracts with the city. convictions. Kerik admitted to hand of justice, in prison.

Note the email domain from outlined all of the major issues, And synthesized them into a lying in these emails to the White House—of all people; apparently, which Kerik sent this from: yes, and even gave a big-up to Russ wonderfully bizarre third-andeven Bernie Kerik assumed the that's beloved former New York Buettner, the New York Times/ first person summary form. Neat, Bush administration to be that Mayor Rudy Giuliani's. [ Photo New York Daily News reporter right? who beat this story into the Most of this shit turned out to be stupid—for failing to disclose via Getty Images/AFP] who did and paid for renovations These emails are actually out of ground with every major scoop lies. Whoops! on his Riverdale digs, which, of order so you can get a better on it. Judith Regan does not get course: the mob. But that old understanding of what's going on, thrown down for. And this bit of s c o u n d r e l T r u t h , i t s e t s here. These are the points Kerik incriminating info:

The NFL is partnering with Boston University brain researchers who have been critical of the league's stance on concussions, The Associated Press has learned.

The league is going to encourage current and former NFL players to agree to donate their brains to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy.

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello confirmed the league also is committed to giving $1 million or more to the center. Aiello said the league has held discussions with the NFL Alumni Association about suggesting retired players look into participating in BU's work.

The BU group has said it found links between repeated head trauma and brain damage in boxers, football players and, most recently, a former NHL player.

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

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News You Can Booze: The Whiskey-Vodka Hangover Scale Adjusted [Not Afraid To Be Servicey]

By Foster Kamer (Gawker) Submitted at 12/19/2009 1:45:00 PM

When making beverage selections for the remaining holiday parties, actual holidays, and the oncoming New Year's Eve benders, one should employ discretion, lest you end up with a terrible hangover and a sauce gut.

Not afraid to be servicey: Whiskey is now hands down suggested to be a riskier proposition for a hangover.

Wasn't this the conventional wisdom already? Maybe now even more so than ever, because we have advanced so far in science as to figure this kind of thing out, or have been able to acquire the boozehounds coherent enough to help humanity, I guess. Observe: The reason might lie in the number of molecules called "congeners" which it contains compared to vodka, the Brown University team said. But the study also suggested that sticking to vodka all night rather than whisky would not improve your performance at work the next day.

That's because your subjects, dear science—"all healthy

E-reader News Edition

California City's Police to Wear Head -Mounted Cameras (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:35:41 AM

SAN JOSE, California Police in California are testing headmounted cameras to record interactions with the public.

The test using 18 patrol officers comes as citizens' groups criticize the department for too often using force during arrests.

Officers are to turn on the cameras every time they talk with anyone. They download the recordings after every shift.

The cameras are the size of a Bluetooth cell phone earpiece and attach by a headband above the ear.

San Jose is the first major American city to try the devices, made by Arizona-based Taser International. Taser is paying for alcohol users"—were a fucking drink containing no alcohol." Svedka. the experiment, but the price drunk mess. Also, note a few Yes, because that's not enough to Previously, in upsetting BBCcould be high if San Jose equips things: send "healthy" drinkers into...an p r e s e n t e d d r i n k i n g n e w s , all 1,400 officers.

1."Suggested." So for those of alcoholic rage. exercising won't reverse the Each kit costs $1,700, plus a $99 you holding out hope, feel free to 3."Chris Sorek, the chief damage you to do yourself by per officer monthly fee. That's $4 prove science wrong, get drunk, executive of charity Drinkaware, drinking. Nothing will. So you've million department-wide each and call the Brown Scientists at said that social drinkers should got two choices, here: get year.

3AM to be like, I'M GONNA BE be aware that no alcoholic drink ceremoniously drunk and kill Five Filters featured article: JUSH FINE NOMORROW, and removed the risk of a hangover." yourself drop by sweet, burning, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: then call them at 10AM to tell We have non-profits in the world peaty drop, or...face the world PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, them how much work you've dedicated to advances in drinking sober.

Term Extraction. already gotten done. knowhow. Awesome. They still Hm. Decisions.

2. How cruel these studies are to don't have a cure for "whiskey other humans. "On the third night d i c k , " h o w e v e r . I s m e l l a they were given a "placebo" conspiracy. And it smells like

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51

Climate Change's Bad Lieutenants, Barack and Hillary: Bustin' Down Doors [Awesome Things]

NFL to ask players to donate brains for study

By Foster Kamer (Gawker)

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

Submitted at 12/19/2009 4:00:00 PM

Wow. Talk about burying the lede. Obama and Clinton went BAD. ASS on some sucka climate change opposition. The two've been chipping away at this Copenhagen summit, but it took them busting down a door to get things "handled." Observe: Via the New York Times, our president announced that there had been an "unprecedented breakthrough" on climate change, negotiated between five major nations last night after taking matters into his own hands.

Forget that the negotiation didn't mean much (" bare minimum").

When addressing all of this, Obama appeared to have been dusting himself off from dispatching with some bullshitbullshit. Some Chinese bullshit: Mr. Obama's announcement came late in a day that began with his 11-minute address to world leaders shortly after noon, and that was filled with brinksmanship and 11th-hour negotiations. Mr. Obama, whose speech included remarks that appeared pointed at China's

Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:24:24 AM

The NFL is partnering with Boston University brain researchers who have been critical of the league's stance on concussions, The Associated Press learned Sunday.

The league now plans to encourage current and former NFL players to agree to donate their brains to the Boston University Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy, which has said it found links between repeated head trauma and brain damage in boxers, resistance to mechanisms for they think they're trying to pull a the deal, American officials said. football players and, most monitoring emissions reductions, fast one on? If you don't know, For those who can't picture it, a recently, a former NHL player. m e t p r i v a t e l y w i t h P r i m e now you know, China: dramatic reenactment: "It's huge that the NFL actively Minister Wen Jiabao afterward.

The deal eventually came Do not try to get one past us, or gets behind this research," said But Mr. Wen did not attend two together after a dramatic moment The U.S., sneaky people. We will Robert Cantu, a doctor who is a smaller, impromptu meetings i n w h i c h M r . O b a m a a n d kick in your doors and then your co-director of the BU center and during the day that Mr. Obama S e c r e t a r y o f S t a t e H i l l a r y f a c e s i n o r d e r t o r e d u c e has spoken negatively about the and United States officials Rodham Clinton burst into a everyone's long-term greenhouse league in the past. "It forwards conducted with the leaders of meeting of the Chinese, Indian g a s e m i s s i o n s . S a y o n a r a , the research. It allows players to other world powers, an apparent and Brazilian leaders, according mothafuckas. Music, please: realize the NFL is concerned s n u b t h a t i n f u r i a t e d to senior administration officials. [ Photo via Getty Images, Tip via about the possibility that they administration officials and their Mr. Obama said he did not want Ant DeRosa.] could have this problem, and that European counterparts. them negotiating in secret. the NFL is doing everything it Right? Who do they think they The intrusion led to new talks can to find out about the risks are? Or rather, who the hell do that cemented central terms of and the preventive strategies that can be implemented."

NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the AP on Sunday that the league also is committed to giving $1 million or more to the NFL page 52

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center. Aiello said the league already has held discussions with the NFL Alumni Association about suggesting that retired players look into participating in BU's work by offering their brains for study after they die.

The league also will contact the nearly 100 retired football players who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia and are receiving benefits from the league to ask their families to consider donating those players' brains to the BU study.

"The people affiliated with the center have identified the donation of brains, both from healthy people and those that have had multiple concussions, as their most critical need right now to further the research into this disease," Aiello said. "We ... will discuss with the center its research needs as we go forward in this partnership."

Cantu said he and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell met in October to discuss concussions and the BU project.

Sunday's news represents the latest in a series of moves the NFL has made in recent weeks to step up its attention to concussions in the aftermath of a congressional hearing on the

topic.

That included stricter return-toplay guidelines detailing what symptoms preclude someone from participating in games or practices; a mandate that each team select a league- and unionapproved independent neurologist to be consulted when players get concussions; and the departure of the two co-chairmen of the NFL's committee on brain trauma.

"They have done a bit of an about -face. Pressure probably has played a role in that," Cantu said in a telephone interview. "But I honestly think that Goodell does believe in player safety and the product is just better with your best players on the field, not your best players injured."

Aiello said Sunday that a concussion study the league has been conducting since 2007 is on hold until the former committee co-chairmen -- Ira Casson and David Viano -- are replaced.

They resigned last month. He said the league is interviewing candidates, none of whom is currently affiliated with the league or any team.

"Now that we're changing the committee, we want to make some revisions in how the study

proceeds," Aiello said in a telephone interview.

The New York Times first reported that the study is on hold.

Casson is slated to testify at a House Judiciary Committee hearing Jan. 4 about football head injuries. He did not attend the panel's hearing Oct. 28, when BU's Cantu said there is "growing and convincing evidence" that repetitive concussive and subconcussive hits to the head in NFL players leads to a degenerative brain disease.

Another co-director of the BU center, Ann McKee, showed the committee images of brains of dead football players with the disease and told lawmakers, "We need to take radical steps" to change the way football is played.

Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Cincinnati Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco says he won't wear Chris Henry's No. 15 against San Diego Chargers

By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

from reimbursing Ochocinco for any fines he would've incurred had he worn Henry's number.

Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:53:00 AM NFLPA spokesman George B e n g a l s r e c e i v e r C h a d Atallah had tweeted Saturday that Ochocinco says he wouldn't mind his organization would cover the paying the fine that would result fine. from his wearing Chris Henry's The organization has already No. 15 jersey Sunday but has established a memorial fund for decided to stay with his No. 85 Henry and plan to match any fine when Cincinnati plays at San for Ochocinco to that fund and/or Diego. the Players Assistance Fund.

In texts sent to ESPN NFL But the NFLPA is prohibited I n s i d e r A d a m S c h e f t e r o n from reimbursing the fine money Sunday morning, Ochocinco said that would be automatically he didn't want what would have withheld from Ochocinco's been a tribute to his former paycheck by the league. teammate, who passed away Ochocinco is familiar with NFL Thursday, to become a diversion. rules. He was prevented from " I t ' s b e c o m i n g m o r e o f a changing the name on his jersey distraction for myself and my two years ago unless it was his team," Ochocinco texted. "Chris legal name; later Chad Johnson wouldn't want it to go the way it changed his legal name to Chad is.

Ochocinco.

"It can turn into a big negative if The Bengals are planning to we don't perform the way we wear a No. 15 decal on their should. I'll have his jersey in helmets. hand throughout the entire game. Information from ESPN NFL His jersey is also 4 times bigger Insider Adam Schefter was used than my normal one." in this report.

Ochocinco had considered Five Filters featured article: donning Henry's jersey, but Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: league rules prohibit it.

PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, NFL rules would also prevent Term Extraction. the NFL Players Association

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SUV bought for USC tailback Joe McKnight's girlfriend, owner Scott Schenter says

Atlanta Falcons' Matt Ryan, Michael Turner active vs. Jets

By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

University of Washington fan who has "nothing to do with agents, marketing players or Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:27:18 AM representing athletes" despite his The owner of the SUV that USC ownership of the Web domain T r o j a n s r u n n i n g b a c k J o e www.4joemcknight.com, which McKnight has been seen driving he says has not been renewed. says it was bought for the junior's "I own so many Web site girlfriend as a favor. domains that I only purchased In e-mails to the Los Angeles www.4joemcknight.com [didn't Times and Los Angeles Daily renew] because I thought it was News, Scott Schenter, a Santa clever along with the many other Monica, Calif., businessman, said ones I own/owned," Schenter the car is driven by Johana wrote in the e-mails.

Michelle Beltran -- McKnight's Schenter said a company he girlfriend -- and that he helped founded in May 2008, USC purchase the Land Rover because Marketing, stood for for "United Beltran's family had trouble States China Marketing," and that qualifying for a loan. despite being an employee for the "It is her car," Schenter wrote. Los Angeles County's Assessor's "She makes the payments and she office, he would "rather be is responsible for insurance. The known for my expertise in payments are a little over marketing and finance ventures." $500/month [not a big amount]." USC, already under review by McKnight has denied driving the the NCAA and Pac-10 regarding car, but the Los Angeles Times accusations that running back said in a story that one of its Reggie Bush and basketball star reporters has seen USC's leading O.J. Mayo received improper rusher driving the SUV several benefits during their time at the times. school, is investigating The Times first reported the McKnight's use of the vehicle. story Friday night.

If McKnight is in violation of Schenter also said he is a NCAA rules, it could affect his

eligibility. It is against NCAA rules for athletes to accept benefits from agents or marketing representatives, or to accept "extra benefits" based on their ability.

Despite being in attendance for a USC men's basketball game against Tennessee in Los Angeles on Saturday night, athletic director Mike Garrett was not made available to local reporters.

"I read the letter [by Schenter] and found it interesting," said a statement from Garrett, read by a Trojans spokesman to the reporters at halftime as Garrett sat next to him. "Our compliance people are handling the matter. I have nothing more to say."

USC plays Boston College in the Emerald Bowl on Dec. 26 in San Francisco.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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inactive and was replaced by Chauncey Davis. Cornerback Chris Houston(hamstring) also Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:31:22 AM was not active, with Brent EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Grimes filling in. Right guard Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Harvey Dahl(ankle) missed his Ryan and Pro Bowl running back third straight start and was Michael Turner will play against replaced by Quinn Ojinnaka. the New York Jets after missing Also inactive for Atlanta were the last two games with injuries. fullback Verron Haynes, wide Both Ryan (turf toe) and Turner receiver Troy Bergeron, and tight (sprained ankle) warmed up a ends Jason Radar and Keith few hours before the game to test Zinger. John Parker Wilson was their availability for the Falcons, the No. 3 quarterback. who were eliminated from Jets center Nick Mangold, who playoff contention Saturday with missed two days of practice with Dallas' victory. an illness, was active and in the NFC South blog starting lineup. Inactive were; ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas wide receiver David Clowney, writes about all things NFC offensive lineman Robert Turner, South in his division blog. quarterback Kevin O'Connell, • Blog network: NFL Nation cornerback Marquice Cole, Ryan had been sidelined since r u n n i n g b a c k C h a u n c e y the first series of a win over Washington and linebackers Tampa Bay on Nov. 29. His Kenwin Cummings and Marques replacement, Chris Redman, lost Murrell. Erik Ainge was the two straight starts. Turner missed emergency quarterback. three of the last four games with Copyright 2009 by The a recurring ankle sprain.

Associated Press As expected, Jets quarterback Five Filters featured article: Mark Sanchez was in the starting Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: lineup after missing a game with PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, a sprained right knee.

Term Extraction.

Falcons starting defensive end Jamaal Anderson(chest) was

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Stanford Gives Tennessee Unforgettable 'Butt-kickin''

By Michelle Smith (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/19/2009 2:15:00 PM

Filed under: Stanford, Tennessee, Pac-10, SEC, Women's Basketball STANFORD, Calif. - A rare thing happened Saturday afternoon.

Stanford was better than Tennessee.

Not better on this day. Not luckier. Not the beneficiary of well-timed break or two.

The Cardinal are a better team that the Lady Vols and that hasn't been the case very often in a rivalry that goes back more than 20 years.

Tennessee coach Pat Summit couldn't nor wouldn't argue with that, not after the second-ranked Cardinal defeated No. 3 Tennessee 67-52 at Maples

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is delaying the Holidays

Pavilion Saturday afternoon.

"Stanford was by far the best team on the floor today," Summitt said. "They look like a Final Four team. They gave us a By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) blueprint, we've just got to use Submitted at 12/19/2009 11:30:00 PM it."

"You saw a butt-kickin' today. There's absolutely no way we'll be able to afford all the games Don't forget it. I won't." coming out in the first quarter of next year -- however, with a little help from our remarkably wealthy friends and family, we might be able to catch 'em all, so to speak. With that in mind, we're making an Official Joystiq Decree[TM] -- the holiday season has been bumped back to February 21, 2010. To avoid proximity to other holidays, Valentine's Day is ... tomorrow.

Please rearrange your schedules and decorations accordingly.

Below are our seven favorite gaming-related webcomics from this past week -- perfect for you to share with a lover on this cold, cold Valentine's Eve. Check them out, and vote for your favorite in the poll after the jump! If we missed any, drop a link in the comments!

The Axiom(Penny Arcade) Avatar: The Game(Another Videogame Webcomic) Balance Patch(Nerf Now) A Mushroom Kingdom Carol Part 6(Brawl in the Family)

Whistle While You Warp(Digital Unrest) And We Even Hate The Font(Virtual Shackles) Dragon Age: Sour Grapes Edition(Dipswitch) Continue reading Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is delaying the Holidays Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is delaying the Holidays originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VGA 2009: Claudia Black talks about our favorite subject, Claudia Black

By Kevin Kelly (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/20/2009 11:30:00 AM

This past Saturday brought us the Spike TV Video Game Awards and - before experiencing the litany of world exclusives that awaited us inside - we spent some time outside cruising the red carpet and talking (briefly!) to many of the game developers and talent. We squeezed them for information as fast as we could while simultaneously wishing them holiday cheer and good tidings.

Yes, it was as awkward as it sounds. Here's what we learned from the voice of Chloe from Uncharted 2, and star of Farscape, Stargate, and more, Claudia Black..

So you've jumped genres from science fiction television shows to swashbuckling video games.

How has that been?

Oh, I think it is all one in the same, isn't it? It is all part of the same genre. So I mean for me, it has been a very easy segue into this, and I think it has sort of corresponded at the same time

with the industries starting to coalesce, too. You know, the film industry, which is sometimes considered, I think, to be a snobbish cousin of the gaming industry, is now really starting to take notice.

I'm sure the smell of money is helping a bit.

Yeah. I mean I think it really came to the floor when Van Helsing the film was kind of like

also, they were very specific and particular about whom they hired based on personalities because they wanted us to be a really tight knit family. And every single day it was fun. Every single day. And I know that games have become a very serious business, but they wanted the levity and the bonding to be the overriding essence on the set.

What is next for you?

Well I just wrapped up a little independent film called Rain from Stars which is written and directed by Steven Wallace and French Stewart, a wonderful comedic actor, and Jeremy London, Brian Krause ... a really lovely cast. It's called Rain from the launch pad for the game, and respect and appreciate the magic Stars, and is like 12 Angry Men the game was sort of more that occurs over time between the meets Saw. relevant and important, in a way, performers. That you can have a VGA 2009: Claudia Black talks than the movie. great script, and you can have about our favorite subject, You've done a lot of video game great voice actors in the booth, Claudia Black originally voices, but was this the first time but you are never going to appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 20 you did motion capture? recreate that incredible alchemy Dec 2009 11:30:00 EST. Please Yes, this was my first motion that occurs with people in a room see our terms for use of feeds. capture experience. I am a huge together. And they hired such Permalink| Email this| proponent of it because I think amazing actors, you know, Comments w h a t i m p r e s s e d m e a b o u t theater trained, very experienced Naughty Dog's is that they actors to work together. And

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At 100, Boy Scouts say they're still `essential' (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 12/19/2009 9:31:43 PM

POCONO SUMMIT, Pa. – A fifth-generation Boy Scout, 11year-old Brad Corr is steeped in all the lore and tradition: the Scout Oath and Scout Law, campcraft and community service, the daily doing of good deeds.

If he were recruiting a friend for the Scouts, though, what would be his best pitch? "We got to build catapults and launch pumpkins from them."

Old-fashioned fun is part of the

By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) obligatory legal mumbo-jumbo.

Scout heritage. So is doing one's Update: Just to clear up any Submitted at 12/19/2009 3:30:00 PM duty to God and country. And so four of which are still c o n f u s i o n , y o u ' l l n e e d t o By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) too is controversy. As the Boy We sure hope you've entered to comment on the actual giveaway Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:30:00 PM unannounced.

Scouts of America heads toward win the eight holiday gaming posts to be eligible. This post's You can watch a brief YouTube bundles we're offering as prizes just a friendly reminder! See, it Every Street Fighter fan site ever clip of the Famitsu stream after its 100th anniversary in February, perked up its ears late last week the jump -- it definitely contains its first century adds up to a in our " Naughty or Nice" says so in the headline! sweepstakes -- which, by the What is Joyswag? Since we w h e n F a m i t s u h e l d a l i v e the menu seen above. We've r e m a r k a b l e s a g a , f u l l o f way, you can submit entries into d o n ' t k e e p t h e g a m e s a n d streaming demo of Super Street contacted Capcom to find out if achievement and complexity.

On one hand, no other U.S. once every day. If ludicrous piles merchandise we receive for Fighter IV. The administrators these fans' assumptions are youth organization has served as of free games (or South Africa- review or promotional purposes, a n d v i s i t o r s o f s a i d s i t e s accurate. based alien romps) aren't really it becomes"Joyswag," which is immediately began to pick the Continue reading Rumor: Super many boys — an estimated 112 up your alley, that's just fine. passed along to our readers. bones of the demo clean of Street Fighter IV getting 10 new million over the years — and is so deeply ingrained in the However, you need to appreciate Please note that Joyswag may be important gameplay details -- the characters in total the fact that we could have easily in "used" condition. For more most fascinating of which comes Rumor: Super Street Fighter IV Norman Rockwell version of just wrapped this stuff up, placed info on our policy, click here. from the above still image of the getting 10 new characters in total American popular culture. It can it undertree, and given it to Reminder: Enter to win Joystiq's game's character select screen. originally appeared on Joystiq on boast of a congressional charter friends and family as Christmas ' N a u g h t y o r N i c e ' h o l i d a y T h e a l l e y w a y b r a w l i n g Sun, 20 Dec 2009 13:30:00 EST. and a string of U.S. presidents, p r e s e n t s . T h e m o n e y w e bundles originally appeared on enthusiasts of EventHubs.com Please see our terms for use of including Barack Obama, serving as its honorary leader. would've saved as a result Joystiq on Sat, 19 Dec 2009 discerned from said image that feeds. could've financed a personal spa 15:30:00 EST. Please see our S S F I V w i l l a d d 1 0 n e w Read| Permalink| Email this| On the other hand, in the courts and the public arena, the BSA characters to the game's roster -- Comments tour of Cabo San Lucas. terms for use of feeds. has doggedly defended its right Check out our giveaway hub to Read| Permalink| Email this| to exclude gays and atheists from see all the highly giftable loot, as Comments 100, page 57 well as the rules, regulations and

Reminder: Enter to win Rumor: Super Street Joystiq's 'Naughty or Fighter IV getting 10 Nice' holiday bundles new characters in total

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100, continued from page 56

its ranks, overriding requests from some local units to soften those policies.

"We do have folks who say we probably should rethink this," Bob Mazzuca, the chief Scout executive, said in an interview.

"We can agree to disagree on a particular issue and still come together for the common good."

The Scouts — though their numbers have dropped in recent decades — remain a pervasive presence across America, vibrant in many suburbs and heartland towns, pressing minority recruitment campaigns in urban areas where enrollment often has lagged. Mazzuca and others in the Scouts' extended family view the centennial as an opportunity to look forward as well as back.

"We're going to reintroduce folks to the impact Scouting has made and the reality that Scouting is more essential today than it's ever been before," he said. ___ No centennial campaign is needed to convince the Corr family that Scouting is essential.

They've been engaged since 1928, when Edgar Corr became scoutmaster of Troop P-2 in Easton, Pa., and his son, Andrew, became one of the Scouts.

Andrew's son, Ted Corr, now 71, became a Scout in 1950 and remains active as a unit commissioner. Warren Corr, Ted's 40-year-old son, earned his Eagle Scout rank in 1987 and has served in various leadership posts since then. And Brad, Warren's son, joined Cub Scouts in 2004

and crossed over into Boy Scouts last February as a member of Troop 29 in Forks Township, Pa. A sixth grader, Brad is a Tenderfoot, the first rank a Scout can earn, with the ambitious goal of becoming an Eagle Scout within three years.

Some of Brad's friends are in the Scouts, others have dropped out or never joined. A common refrain from many families, in Troop 29's area and nationwide, is that they just don't have the time for Scouting.

For the Corrs, though, forgoing Scouting isn't an option — even with Brad playing soccer, basketball and lacrosse, as well as cello and drums in the school band.

"Scouting gives enough flexibility that boys can do all kinds of activities — it's not one or the other," said Warren Corr.

For the boys, said Corr, a big draw is "doing some cool stuff."

But as a former Scout turned adult leader, he sees a bigger picture.

"It's about leadership, the confidence that comes with accomplishing something, the service to your country and community," he said. "When you're in Scouting, even three or four years of it sticks with you for the rest of your life."

Ted Corr, the family patriarch, joined son Warren and grandson Brad for an in-depth discussion of Scouting at Camp Minsi, a 1,200-acre Scout facility in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

The biggest changes he's seen in 60 years of Scouting?

"Aerospace and computer merit badges," Ted Corr replied. "As a kid growing up in the 1940s, who'd have thought it?"

And the worst change? Corr brandished his cell phone.

"They take these on camping trips now," he grumbled goodnaturedly. ___ Had cell phones existed in 1909, or the GPS devices that Scouts now sometimes use for orienteering, perhaps the Boy Scouts of America wouldn't have come to be — at least not in the manner depicted in the BSA's hallowed story of the " Unknown Scout."

According to this tale, American businessman William Boyce became lost in the London fog, and was guided to his destination by a helpful youth. When Boyce offered a tip, the boy replied that he was a Scout (they were formed in Britain in 1907) and couldn't accept money for doing a good turn.

Boyce was so impressed that he studied up on British scouting and incorporated the BSA on Feb. 8, 1910.

During World War I, Scouts contributed on the U.S. home front by selling bonds and planting war gardens. They expanded their efforts in World War II, collecting rubber and aluminum, distributing civil defense posters, assisting fire brigades.

The BSA grew steadily, with

membership peaking at more than 6 million boys and adult leaders in 1972. As of 2008, the total had dropped below 4 million — 2.83 million boys and 1.13 million adults.

Reasons for the decline are many — the explosion of other afterschool activities and sports, a perception among some families that the Scouts were too oldfashioned or conservative, and sporadic scandals that generated bad publicity while undercutting the BSA's commitment to integrity. Among the problems: _Allegations in several states that membership rolls of some Scouting programs were inflated to boost contributions. The Scouts tightened verification of enrollment data. _Several sex-abuse cases involving troop leaders and BSA officials, which prompted the Scouts to strengthen background screening.

Perhaps the biggest long-term jolt to the Scouts came in the form of a legal victory — the June 2000 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court which said the BSA, as a private organization, had a right to exclude gays from its adult and youth ranks.

It prompted numerous local governments and charities to curtail support for the Scouts because the exclusionary policies toward gays and atheists violated anti-discrimination codes.

Kevin Cathcart of Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization, said the current Boy Scout executive

council seems immovable on the membership debate, but he predicted change would come.

Mazzuca, asked about the exclusion of gays, replied: "We recognize that not everyone is going to agree with us on this particular issue. This issue is going on in every nook and cranny of our country. We're just not at the point where we're going to be leading on this."

As for atheists, BSA leaders have signaled no interest in amending the Scout Oath, which includes a pledge of duty to God. Religion is fundamental to the Scouts; the Mormon, United Methodist and Roman Catholic churches are the largest sponsors of units across the country.

"We do believe that to become the best you can be, you need a belief in something bigger than yourself," Mazzuca said.

Many atheists think otherwise.

"The Boy Scouts are synonymous with American values and patriotism," said David Niose, president of the American Humanist Association.

"By excluding atheists and secular Americans, they are essentially saying we cannot be good citizens." ___ The BSA has been striving to correct underrepresentation of minorities in its ranks, with recruiting efforts by the BSA's Scoutreach Division and now a vigorous new campaign to recruit Hispanics — including a Spanish 100, page 64

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What's in health care proposals for 5 Americans (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Brown works part time and studies medical imaging at College of Lake County. She has As Congress gets closer to a a chronic lung condition and was final health care bill, many in the emergency room in Americans want to know: What's N o v e m b e r w i t h f l u a n d in it for me? pneumonia. She's paid about The answer is: It depends. $1,000 in medical bills this year On your age and household that her insurance didn't cover. income. Whether you own a She doesn't know how she'll pay business and whether it's big or her $500 premium this month small. Whether you're insured because a government subsidy now and who provides that that helped her afford the insurance. In the end, it will premium has expired. depend on how House and Senate "It's scary to think about what's negotiators will merge the going to happen if I can't make proposals, and how their vision the payment by the end of the gets translated into regulations. month," Brown said.

Five Americans shared their The health care overhaul taking stories with The Associated shape in Congress would require Press. Here's an educated guess her to buy health insurance or on how the health care package pay a penalty. She could pick a taking shape in Congress might plan offered through new stateaffect them. based insurance exchanges and ___ she would qualify for a subsidy Name: Holly Brown to help pay her premiums Home: Round Lake, Ill. because she makes less than 400 Age: 28 percent of the poverty level Employment: Student, working ($43,320 for an individual in p a r t t i m e , r e c e i v i n g 2009). But all those benefits u n e m p l o y m e n t b e n e f i t s . wouldn't kick in until 2013 in the Household income: about House bill (2014 in the Senate $15,000. legislation). Because of her C o v e r a g e : I n s u r e d , b u t medical problem, she may be s t r u g g l i n g t o a f f o r d i t . able to qualify for coverage Brown was laid off last year during the transition period by from a job she'd held for four g o i n g t h r o u g h h i g h - r i s k years. She's stayed insured insurance pools called for in the because of the government legislation.

COBRA program, which allows ___ workers to remain on a health Name: Glenn Nishimura plan for 18 months after they Home: Little Rock, Ark. leave their jobs, if they pay the Age: 60 premiums.

Employment: Consultant to Submitted at 12/19/2009 9:20:46 PM

nonprofit groups.

Household income: $55,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Uninsured since COBRA expired in May. Nishimura left a full-time job with benefits in October 2007 thinking he'd be able to find another good position.

Then the recession hit.

He's now a self-employed consultant. Since May, he's been without health insurance. For 18 months, he bought insurance through the COBRA program.

When that ran out, he tried to find other coverage. He's been turned down by five insurance companies because he has high blood pressure and high blood sugar levels, even though he's otherwise healthy, has never been hospitalized and controls his conditions through diet and exercise.

"I could get H1N1 or get into an accident and I would be potentially bankrupt," Nishimura said. "It's an untenable situation."

The Medicare buy-in proposal considered in the Senate could have helped Nishimura get insurance, as would portions of both the House and Senate bills that would ban denials for preexisting conditions. But opposition from moderates and a few liberals is forcing Senate Democratic leaders to scrap the idea of a buy-in to get a bill completed.

Nishimura said he e-mailed President Barack Obama suggesting that lowering the

Medicare eligibility age to 55 or 60 would create jobs. "I know a lot of people who would like to retire early, but can't because of health care," he said. ____ Name: David W. Brown Home: Philadelphia Age: 47 Employment: Owner of BrownPartners, an advertising and marketing agency. Seven employees. $336,000 in annual wages paid.

Household income: $150,000, including wife's earnings.

Coverage: Provides health, dental and vision coverage to employees.

An ad agency owner, Brown has been able to offer health insurance to his seven employees, but has had to cut benefits because of rising costs.

Like other business owners, Brown is trying to figure out what will emerge from Congress and how it will affect him.

"We haven't been able to be as generous as we have in the past," Brown said of the insurance plan he offers his workers. "The good thing is, not a lot of folks are leaving because somebody else has a better plan."

Health care overhaul might help Brown and his wife with coverage for their daughters, now age 17 and 20. The proposals would allow young adults to stay on their parents' insurance plans as dependents into their mid-20s.

Brown would be able to shop for insurance for his workers through

a health insurance exchange.

Neither of the bills would require him to provide coverage. Both bills provide tax credits to help small companies with average wages of less than $40,000 provide health insurance. But pay levels in Brown's agency are above that cutoff. ___ Name: Robert Hansen Home: Seattle homeless shelter Age: 58 Employment: vendor, Real Change street newspaper.

Household income: $12,000, including tips.

Coverage: Uninsured.

Hansen used to work selling beer and peanuts at Seattle's nowdemolished Kingdome. "Age caught up to me, running up and down the stairs, the physical labor," said the 58-year-old Seattle native.

Hansen has been homeless since 1994. A top-selling vendor of a weekly newspaper called Real Change, he makes about $1,000 a month. He eats his evening meal and finds a bed at a Catholic Community Services shelter.

The tingling in his feet and the occasional purplish color of his hands worry him. It's been so long since he's had a thorough physical exam that he's not sure if his symptoms could mean a serious health problem such as diabetes. He's uninsured and finds care in community clinics and emergency rooms.

WHAT'S page 64

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Storm crawls into New England, leaving mess behind (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

southern New Jersey its highest single-storm snowfall totals in nearly four years.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A major The National Weather Service storm clawed its way up the East said the storm gave Philadelphia, Coast on Sunday, crippling travel which began keeping records in and disappointing New England 1884, its second-largest snowfall: merchants the weekend before 23.2 inches. Even more was Christmas after blanketing parts recorded in the Philadelphia of the mid-Atlantic with record suburb of Medford, N.J., at 24 snow — nearly 2 feet in places inches.

— and causing at least five Around New York City, the deaths. brunt of the storm hit Long Blizzard warnings remained in Island, with whiteout conditions. effect Sunday for parts of Rhode Nearly 25 inches was recorded in Island and Massachusetts, with Upton by Sunday. Nearly 11 gusts up to 60 mph. As much as inches of snow fell on New York 16 inches of snow was expected City by Sunday morning, and the to cover parts of southern New storm could be the worst the city England. has seen since about 26 inches The early arrival of wintry fell on Central Park in February weather on a quiet Sunday 2006, National Weather Service morning could not have been meteorologist Patrick Maloit better timing, said Peter Judge, said. spokesman for the Massachusetts Pragmatic New York Mayor E m e r g e n c y M a n a g e m e n t Bloomberg encouraged residents Agency. and holiday visitors to take " O t h e r t h a n s p o i l i n g t h e advantage of school and event Christmas shopping, from the c a n c e l a t i o n s b y s e e i n g a emergency manager perspective Broadway show. The mayor says it was the perfect timing," Judge city retailers weren't hard hit by said. "Even the cleanup today, the storm Saturday, because the we're not fighting the people who snow held off until late in the would be trying to get to work." day.

To the South, others struggled Even as the storm winded down with the aftermath. in the New York area, conditions On the cusp of the winter remained treacherous and drivers solstice, the storm dropped 16 were advised to stay off the inches of snow on Reagan roads, Maloit said. Delays were N a t i o n a l A i r p o r t o u t s i d e expected on bus, subway and Washington on Saturday — the train routes. most ever recorded there for a Near Farmingdale, N.Y., on single December day — and gave Long Island, about 150 people Submitted at 12/20/2009 8:51:39 AM

were stranded on a Long Island Rail Road train for more than five hours by a combination of snow drifts, icing, traffic problems and equipment failures due to the weather. The train eventually had to be towed to a nearby station and the passengers put on a second train. No injuries were reported.

Airports in the Northeast that were jammed up in the storm Saturday were working their way back to normal operations.

About 800 flights at the New York City area's three major airports remained canceled despite clear conditions on the runways.

By Sunday morning, one runway at Dulles International Airport in Washington was open, handling arriving flights, spokeswoman Tara Hamilton. At Reagan National, crews were still "moving the huge quantities of snow" dumped on the area, and Hamilton said the airport should be opening for business by midday.

Baltimore Washington airport, which got 16 inches of snow was open Sunday but still struggling to back up to full speed, with some airlines still canceling flights.

At Boston's Logan airport, where it was still snowing, spokesman Phil Orlandella said flights have been "on and off."

Monday looked to be a normal day, he said.

Philadelphia International

Airport was shut down Saturday night but began to reopen early Sunday. Spokesman Phyllis Van Istendal said operations would ramp up later in the day.

Al Wachlin, 70, lives in Philadelphia but grew up in Maine and was well prepared for the storm, with a truck and an attached plow.

With a scraper in one hand and a brush in another, he worked to clear off his truck.

"This part of it's great," said Wachlin, who has lived in the city since 1960. "It's the cleanup, the rutted streets where you go sliding into the intersection, that's the whole problem."

In many places the problem was where to put the show. On south Philadelphia's narrow streets, residents shoveling sidewalks resigned themselves to the snow eventually returning as traffic displaced it from the street.

The storm began wreaking misery Friday in South Florida, where it caused flooding and knocked out electricity to more than 85,000 customers in the Carolinas before turning to snow as it moved its way north. On Saturday, the governors of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware and the mayors of Washington and Philadelphia all declared states of emergency.

One person in Virginia was killed in a traffic accident caused by slick roads, and authorities said the weather may have

contributed to another traffic death there. A third death in Virginia is believed to have been caused by exposure. In Ohio, two people were killed in accidents on snow-covered roads hit by the same storm system.

Greyhound shut down service in Washington, D.C., and farther north, and ferry service in Delaware and New Jersey was canceled. Attractions such as the Smithsonian museums in Washington and the Philadelphia Zoo were closed. The National Mall, normally swarming with tourists, instead was the scene of snowball fights. Many retailers, hoping for a rush of shoppers on the last weekend before Christmas, spent a quiet day among the merchandise. ___ Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, N.J.; Sarah Karush in Washington; Dena Potter in Chesterfield, Va.; Jacob Jordan in Atlanta; David Porter in Atlantic City, N.J.; Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, N.J.; Ron Todt and Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; and AP photographer Jacquelyn Martin in Arlington, Va. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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GOP vows fight as White House defends health bill (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:46:40 AM

WASHINGTON – The White House and its Senate allies defended a final push for historic health care legislation Sunday as outflanked Republicans pledged a fight to the end. A dead-ofnight vote neared in a frenzy one GOP lawmaker said lacked "legislative sanity."

Republican Sen. John McCain, President Barack Obama's opponent in last year's election, said there was probably nothing to keep Democrats from passing the bill by Christmas Eve. Still, he said, the GOP would not relent in the battle for public opinion.

"We'll fight the good fight. We will fight until the last vote," said McCain, R-Ariz. He said the political climate under Obama has become more partisan than ever.

To keep the process moving under Senate rules, Democrats will need to show 60 votes — now secured, with the locked-in support of Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson— in a series of votes.

The next one is set for 1 a.m.

Monday.

"I think the American people are entitled to a vote," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, as the Senate bill moved toward passage on Christmas Eve.

At its core, the legislation would create a new insurance exchange where consumers could shop for affordable coverage that complies with new federal guidelines. Most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, with subsidies available to help defray the cost.

New protections would be offered to ensure people don't lose coverage because of health problems.

Yet major differences between the Senate version and the bill the House already passed, ranging from abortion restrictions to the new taxes that would help pay for the legislation. The White House refused to weigh in on that, focusing on the landmark action in the Senate.

Signs of difficult House-Senate negotiations ahead were already becoming apparent.

The House must stick close to the Senate's version of health care reform or risk losing the 60vote coalition needed to overcome Republican opposition in the Senate, said Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said Sunday.

To get Nelson's deciding vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to a series of concessions on abortion and other issues. McCain said Obama and Democratic lawmakers chose a partisan path that left them

"having to purchase the last vote or two."

Democrats shot back that the health care debate has unfolded, exhaustively, for months.

The Senate bill has not drawn support from a single Republican.

One GOP lawmaker who had been in talks with the White House, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, said the bill was being pushed through without a chance for meaningful debate or change.

She said the "beat the clock" approach "is really overruling legislative sanity."

Axelrod defended the bill against criticism that Obama had given up too much ground and angered core supporters from his own party in an effort to get a deal done this year. He said the bill offers more choices and security for Americans and savings for the government.

"There is no major piece of legislation that's ever been passed in this country that doesn't include compromise," Axelrod said. "That's the legislative process. But the question is, in the main, does it achieve what we want it to achieve? It's not perfect."

Vice President Joe Biden wrote in The New York Times Sunday that senators should support the bill because "it represents the culmination of a struggle begun

by Theodore Roosevelt nearly a

century ago" to improve health care.

"I would vote yes for this bill certain that it includes the fundamental, essential change that opponents of reform have resisted for generations," he wrote.

Senators were set to resume debate Sunday afternoon.

The deal to get Nelson's vote was built around the issue of abortion.

The compromise tries to maintain a strict separation between taxpayer funds and private premiums that would pay for abortion coverage. It would also allow states to restrict coverage for abortion in new insurance marketplaces.

No health plan would be required to offer coverage for the procedure. In plans that do cover abortion, beneficiaries would have to pay for it separately, and those funds would have to be kept in a separate account from taxpayer money.

Moreover, individual states would be able to prohibit abortion coverage in plans offered through the exchange, but after passing specific legislation to that effect. The only exceptions would be those allowed under current federal law.

Obama welcomed the breakthrough on health care legislation on Saturday, saying in

a statement at the White House, "After a nearly century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America."

The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate bill would extend coverage to more than 30 million Americans who lack it. It also imposes new regulations to curb abuses of the insurance industry, and the president noted one last-minute addition would impose penalties on companies that "arbitrarily jack up prices" in advance of the legislation taking effect.

CBO analysts also said the legislation would cut federal deficits by $132 billion over 10 years and possibly much more in the subsequent decade.

In a concession to Nelson and other moderates, the bill lacks a government-run insurance option of the type that House Democrats inserted into theirs. In a final defeat for liberals, a proposed Medicare expansion was also jettisoned in the past several days as Reid and the White House maneuvered for 60 votes.

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Storm's Snow Assault Heads Up East Coast (FOXNews.com)

conditions, including football fields nicknamed "frozen tundras," pushed back the CHERRY HILL, N.J. A slow- scheduled start times of games moving storm that blanketed S u n d a y i n B a l t i m o r e a n d swaths of the mid-Atlantic with P h i l a d e l p h i a . nearly 2 feet of snow headed Around New York City, the northward Sunday, continuing its brunt of the storm hit Long assault on the East Coast after I s l a n d , w i t h n e a r l y 2 f e e t causing at least five deaths, r e c o r d e d i n U p t o n . C r e w s crippling travel and leaving clearing roads early Sunday empty stores normally crammed reported whiteout conditions, with holiday shoppers. said Lt. Robert P. Iberger of the The storm approached New Southampton police.

England on the cusp of the winter Ten inches of snow had already solstice, having already caused fallen on New York City by flooding in South Florida and Sunday morning, and the storm knocked out electricity for more could be the worst the city has than 85,000 customers in the seen since about 26 inches fell in C a r o l i n a s o n F r i d a y . O n Central Park in February 2006, Saturday, it dropped 16 inches of N a t i o n a l W e a t h e r S e r v i c e snow on Reagan National Airport meteorologist Patrick Maloit outside Washington — the most said. Transit workers in New ever recorded there for a single York were clearing subway December day — and gave tracks and platforms overnight, southern New Jersey its highest and delays were expected on bus, single-storm snowfall totals in subway and train routes, city nearly four years. transit spokesman Paul Some of the deepest snow Fleuranges said early Sunday.

Saturday was recorded in the The National Weather Service Philadelphia suburb of Medford, expected the storm to dump as N.J., at 24 inches. much as 15 inches in southern "For those who are looking for a New England with the heaviest white Christmas, this certainly snowfall expected early Sunday. w i l l s t i c k a r o u n d f o r A blizzard warning was in effect C h r i s t m a s t i m e , " N a t i o n a l Sunday morning in parts of New Weather Service meteorologist Y o r k , R h o d e I s l a n d a n d Bruce Sullivan told AP Radio. M a s s a c h u s e t t s .

Even the NFL, with its hallowed With strong wind gusts to keep tradition of playing in all weather the powdery snow swirling, the Submitted at 12/20/2009 5:04:20 AM

storm was so bad on Saturday that attractions such as the Smithsonian museums in Washington and the Philadelphia Zoo were closed. The National Mall, normally swarming with tourists, instead was the scene of snowball fights.

Not all shoppers were deterred by the snow.

"It really helped me get in the Christmas spirit," said the Kathryn Mariani, who took a train to downtown Philadelphia from her home in the Germantown neighborhood.

The mayors of Washington and Philadelphia and the governors of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware all declared states of emergency.

In West Virginia, blankets were given to hundreds of drivers, and some motorists were stranded for up to 27 hours on highways, Red Cross spokesman Jeff Morris said.

The storm hit on the last weekend before Christmas, a time when roads are traditionally mad with holiday shoppers. But around shopping centers in Philadelphia's New Jersey suburbs on Saturday, traffic was sparse and slow.

Prime parking spots were available all day at the Cherry Hill Mall. And inside, there was no line for a picture with Santa.

"It was fantastic," said Chris Bailey, who got pictures of his 4year-old daughter Olivia.

Shops at the mall and nearby restaurants closed hours early.

Salt trucks and plows were out in force. The speed limit was reduced on several roadways, including the New Jersey Turnpike. But those measures didn't prevent scores of cars from slipping into ditches.

One person in Virginia was killed in a traffic accident caused by slick roads, and authorities said the weather may have contributed to another traffic death there. A third death in Virginia is believed to have been caused by exposure. In Ohio, two people were killed in accidents on snow-covered roads hit by the same storm system.

In New Jersey, a bus got stuck on snow-covered railroad tracks in Pennsauken and was hit by a train. The 26 passengers were evacuated from the bus 10 minutes before the crash, and the only reported injury was a minor one suffered by the train's engineer, NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said.

Greyhound shut down service in Washington and points north, and ferry service in Delaware and New Jersey was canceled.

Airports in the Northeast were also jammed up. Most flights were canceled at several,

including Reagan National and Dulles in the Washington area; Philadelphia International; New York's three major airports and Logan Airport in Boston. The cancellations rippled across the country; more than 150 flights were canceled in and out of Chicago's airports, as were a handful in Denver.

Philadelphia Airport spokeswoman Phyllis VanIstendal said snacks and pillows were being handed out there to travelers stranded overnight.

She said with continuing bad weather and planes out of place, problems would continue Sunday.

At National, Juan Carlos Franco waited in line Saturday with his wife, 2-year-old son and 6-month -old daughter to rebook their flights to Quito, Ecuador, but was expecting to fly out no sooner than Wednesday. They had checked and rechecked the status of their flight for two days, but it wasn't canceled until a few minutes after they entered the security line, Franco said.

"The backpacks were in the Xray machine," he said.

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Maine to consider cell phone cancer warning (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

phones.

Under Boland's bill, manufacturers would have to put AUGUSTA, Maine – A Maine labels on phones and packaging legislator wants to make the state warning of the potential for brain the first to require cell phones to c a n c e r a s s o c i a t e d w i t h carry warnings that they can electromagnetic radiation. The cause brain cancer, although warnings would recommend that there is no consensus among users, especially children and scientists that they do and pregnant women, keep the industry leaders dispute the devices away from their head and claim. body.

The now-ubiquitous devices The Federal Communications carry such warnings in some Commission, which maintains countries, though no U.S. states that all cell phones sold in the require them, according to the U.S. are safe, has set a standard National Conference of State for the " specific absorption rate" Legislators. A similar effort is of radiofrequency energy, but it afoot in San Francisco, where doesn't require handset makers to Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his divulge radiation levels. city to be the nation's first to The San Francisco proposal require the warnings. would require the display of the Maine Rep. Andrea Boland, D- absorption rate level next to each Sanford, said numerous studies phone in print at least as big as point to the cancer risk, and she the price. Boland's bill is not has persuaded legislative leaders specific about absorption rate to allow her proposal to come up levels, but would require a for discussion during the 2010 p e r m a n e n t , n o n r e m o v a b l e session that begins in January, a advisory of risk in black type, session usually reserved for except for the word "warning," emergency and governors' bills. which would be large and in red Boland herself uses a cell phone, letters. It would also include a but with a speaker to keep the color graphic of a child's brain phone away from her head. She next to the warning. also leaves the phone off unless While there's little agreement she's expecting a call. At issue is about the health hazards, Boland radiation emitted by all cell said Maine's roughly 950,000 cell Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:07:32 AM

phone users among its 1.3 million residents "do not know what the risks are."

All told, more than 270 million people subscribed to cellular telephone service last year in the United States, an increase from 110 million in 2000, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association.

The industry group contends the devices are safe.

"With respect to the matter of health effects associated with wireless base stations and the use of wireless devices, CTIA and the wireless industry have always been guided by science, and the views of impartial health organizations. The peer-reviewed scientific evidence has overwhelmingly indicated that wireless devices do not pose a public health risk," said CTIA's John Walls.

James Keller of Lewiston, whose cell phone serves as his only phone, seemed skeptical about warning labels. He said many things may cause cancer but lack scientific evidence to support that belief. Besides, he said, people can't live without cell phones.

"It seems a little silly to me, but it's not going to hurt anyone to have a warning on there. If they're really concerned about it, go ahead and put a warning on

it," he said outside a sporting good store in Topsham. "It wouldn't deter me from buying a phone."

While there's been no long-term studies on cell phones and cancer, some scientists suggest erring on the side of caution.

Last year, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, sent a memo to about 3,000 faculty and staff members warning of risks based on early, unpublished data. He said that children should use the phones only for emergencies because their brains were still developing and that adults should keep the phone away from the head and use a speakerphone or a wireless headset.

Herberman, who says scientific conclusions often take too long, is one of numerous doctors and researchers who have endorsed an August report by retired electronics engineer L. Lloyd Morgan. The report highlights a study that found significantly increased risk of brain tumors from 10 or more years of cell phone or cordless phone use.

Also, the BioInitiative Working Group, an international group of scientists, notes that many countries have issued warnings

and that the European Parliament has passed a resolution calling for governmental action to address concerns over health risks from mobile phone use.

But the National Cancer Institute said studies thus far have turned up mixed and inconsistent results, noting that cell phones did not come into widespread use in the United States until the 1990s.

"Although research has not consistently demonstrated a link between cellular telephone use and cancer, scientists still caution that further surveillance is needed before conclusions can be drawn," according to the Cancer Institute's Web site.

Motorola Inc., one of the nation's major wireless phone makers, says on its Web site that all of its products comply with international safety guidelines for radiofrequency energy exposure.

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Massive US storm heads north (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

One was killed when a car hit a tree, a second died of exposure and a third was also apparently Submitted at 12/20/2009 9:52:58 AM killed in a road traffic accident.

One of the worst US blizzards in In Ohio, two people died in decades is continuing north, with accidents on snow-covered roads parts of New England likely to hit by the same storm system. record up to 16in (41cm) of The system originated over the snow.

Gulf of Mexico, unleashing flash Long Island has suffered floods in much of the US southwhiteout conditions and New east.

York City saw nearly 11in of The rain turned to snow as the snow by Sunday. storm tracked north-eastward into The slow-moving monster sub-freezing temperatures. known as a nor'easter - has Have you been affected by the sprawled 500 miles (800km) over snowstorm in the US? Send us a dozen states, affecting about a your comments. quarter of the US population.

You can send your pictures and It has sparked emergencies in a video to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or number of states and cities. text them to 61124. If you have a Virginia, Maryland, West large file you can upload here.

Virginia, Kentucky and Read the terms and conditions New York Mayor Michael - about 150 people were stranded Hundreds of thousands of At no time should you endanger Delaware, along with Washington and Philadelphia, at Bloomberg said thousands of for five hours on a Long Island householders earlier lost power in yourself or others, take any workers were out clearing streets train.

W e s t V i r g i n i a , T e n n e s s e e , unnecessary risks or infringe any some stage all declared them. on Sunday.

Hundreds of flights were Kentucky, Virginia and North laws.

Stranded train Blizzard warnings are still in He remained upbeat, saying the cancelled into New York airports Carolina.

The BBC may edit your T h e G r e y h o u n d b u s f i r m comments and not all emails will p l a c e i n s o m e p a r t s o f snow fell too late on Saturday to but they are now trying to return cancelled services on nearly 300 be published. Your comments Massachusetts and Rhode Island. affect Christmas trading severely. to normal.

"Hopefully, we'll have a little bit A i r p o r t s i n W a s h i n g t o n , r o u t e s a c r o s s t h e e a s t e r n may be published on any BBC Washington DC earlier saw the Baltimore and Boston were also seaboard, while Amtrak trains media worldwide. largest snowfall ever recorded in of a white Christmas," he said.

Some tourists were happy. s t i l l e x p e r i e n c i n g s e v e r e experienced major delays. a single December day and Print Sponsor Briton Kevin Sanders said: "We p r o b l e m s .

In Virginia, several hundred Five Filters featured article: southern New Jersey its highest single-storm snow in almost four just came off the Statue of Please turn on JavaScript. Media motorists were earlier stranded in Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Liberty when it came down last requires JavaScript to play. their vehicles and had to be PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, years. night, and look this morning.

It's Snowstorm blankets US East rescued by the National Guard. Term Extraction.

Washington Mayor Adrian Some 500 people sought refuge Fenty expressed confidence that amazing. It gives it the Christmas Coast The storm has also brought wind in emergency shelters. most city streets would be feel as well."

Others suffered more difficulties gusts of up to 60mph (96km/h).

Three people died in Virginia. cleared by Monday.

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100,

WHAT'S

continued from page 57

-language Scout Handbook.

But an ethnic gap remains.

Though the BSA doesn't have precise racial numbers because declaring ethnicity is optional, an analysis it commissioned last year indicated that about 11 percent of Scouts were black or Hispanic — compared to about 28 percent of the national population.

By contrast, the Girl Scouts of the USA— which has no formal ties with the Boy Scouts — says blacks and Hispanics constitute 23 percent of its 2.6 million youth members.

Among those on the urban front lines is Ron Timmons, 38, director of field services for the Scouts' New York City councils.

A Scout in Brooklyn as a youth, he makes recruiting missions into inner-city schools.

"When you walk in to a classroom with the Scout uniform on, you always have some giggles," he said. "But when we start talking about the outdoor experience, the camping,

continued from page 58

rappelling and climbing, they kind of sit up in their chair."

Urban recruiters face multiple challenges, Timmons says: Many boys don't live with both parents, and many families face hardships, complicating the task of getting enough adults to enroll their sons and help run a unit.

The recruiting challenges are different two hours away in northeast Pennsylvania, where Glen Lippincott, 59, helps oversee Scouting activities in the small town of Sciota.

Lippincott says the local unit, Troop 84, is holding its own with 21 active Scouts, but has struggled to attract boys from the black and Hispanic families moving into the region — often with a breadwinner commuting into New York and feeling there's scarce time left for Scouting.

"Us white, middle-aged leaders — we've tried to understand why we can't get them involved," he said. "Probably it will take a couple of generations."

Lippincott has been active in

Scouting for 50 years. His family's BSA ties span four generations, starting with his father, Jack, and extending to his brother's grandson, Cody Weiss, a Scout with Troop 84.

Cody, 13, joining other troop members at a cookout in the fall, discussed the Scouting pursuits he likes best — camping, shelterbuilding, learning first aid. He aspires to be an Eagle Scout, yet he guessed that most of his schoolmates consider Scouting "not cool."

That's a common perception, as the Scouts acknowledge. In fact, a key goal of the BSA's strategic plan for 2011-2015 is "to be seen by youth as cool" as it seeks to reverse the long membership decline.

"We've been slow to realize the changing landscape of how people form their opinions," said Mazzuca, who noted that the Scouts are making greater use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

He sees two contrasting forms of competition — youth sports and

"unhealthy things" like video games.

"If our competition is some other recreation program, we deliver a whole lot more," he said.

Glen Lippincott drew the contrast this way: "In sports, if you're not good, you sit on the bench. In Scouts, nobody sits on the bench."

Lippincott became emotional as he discussed Scouting's core goal — lifetime character-building.

"It's a game with a purpose," he said. "It gives you a moral compass on how you conduct yourself." ___ On the Net: Boy Scouts of America: http://www.scouting.org/ Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Hansen and most other poor adults without young children don't qualify for Medicaid, the state-federal program that helps low-income families with health care. The proposals in Congress would expand Medicaid coverage to people such as Hansen.

In the leading Senate proposal, people with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level($14,404 for an individual in 2009) could enroll in Medicaid.

The House bill makes the cutoff 150 percent of the poverty level ($16,245 for an individual in 2009). ___ Name: Carol McKenna Home: Pembroke Pines, Fla. Age: 68 Employment: Retired payroll coordinator Household income: About $39,000 from Social Security and some earnings by husband as mattress salesman.

Coverage: Medicare Advantage WHAT'S page 66

US general defends pregnancy ban (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 12/19/2009 5:00:51 PM

A US Army general in northern Iraq has defended his decision to add pregnancy to the list of reasons a soldier under his command could face court martial.

It is current army policy to send pregnant soldiers home, but Maj Gen Anthony Cucolo told the BBC he was losing people with critical skills.

That was why the added deterrent of a possible court martial was needed, he said.

The new policy applies both to female and male soldiers, even if

married.

It is the first time the US Army has made pregnancy a punishable offence.

Gen Cucolo told the BBC it was a "black and white" issue for him.

He said married soldiers in combat zones should either put their love lives on hold - or take

precautions.

"I've got a mission to do, I'm given a finite number of soldiers with which to do it and I need every one of them."

"So I'm going to take every measure I can to keep them all strong, fit and with me for the twelve months we are in the combat zone," he said.

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Colombia beefs up border forces (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Venezuelan border.

At the same time, the Colombian army activated the new airborne Submitted at 12/19/2009 8:26:58 PM battalions, which are equipped The Colombian government has with US helicopters. announced it is building a new The helicopter fleet, made up military base on its border with mainly of Blackhawks, now Venezuela and has activated six n u m b e r s 1 2 0 , m a k i n g t h e new airborne battalions.

Colombian Army Air Corps the Relations between the two b e s t e q u i p p e d a n d m o s t nations are at a historic low with experienced in Latin America, Venezuelan President Hugo the BBC's Jeremy McDermott in Chavez already telling his Colombia says. generals to prepare for war. Preparing for war He moved 15,000 more troops President Chavez has criticised a up to the border, accusing pact announced last month Colombia and its ally, the US, of allowing US troops to use several planning an attack. bases in Colombia.

A BBC correspondent says the Mr Silva said that the new base p o t e n t i a l f o r c o n f l i c t i s would have up to 1,000 soldiers. heightened.

It would, he added, also have a Colombian Defence Minister care facility for indigenous Gabriel Silva announced the Wayuu people who live in the formation of a new base in La area.

Guajira in the north, near the Since Venezuelans were told by

Mr Chavez to prepare for war and the Venezuelan army starting blowing up bridges that link the two nations, Colombia has been overhauling its defence strategy.

Until now this strategy has been geared almost exclusively to fighting the country's 45-year Marxist insurgency.

With the increasing build-up of military on both sides of the border, the potential for conflict is heightened, particularly when one considers 2,000 rebels in the border region prepared for a fight between the two nations, our correspondent says.

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Guantanamo inmates flown home (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Security fears "These transfers were carried out under individual arrangements Submitted at 12/20/2009 7:58:47 AM between the United States and The US has transferred 12 relevant foreign authorities to detainees from its Guantanamo ensure the transfers took place Bay prison camp to Afghanistan, u n d e r a p p r o p r i a t e s e c u r i t y Yemen and the Somaliland measures," the Department of region, the Justice Department Justice said in a statement. says.

"Consultations with foreign Six Yemenis, four Afghans and authorities regarding these two Somali detainees were sent individuals will continue." to their homelands over the Yemenis account for almost half weekend, it said. of the 198 detainees who remain P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k O b a m a at the US military base in Cuba. acknowledged in November that But officials fear many could rehe would miss his January join militant groups if sent back deadline to close down the camp. to Yemen.

The US plans to send 116 The Washington Post reported detainees to their home countries last week that the Yemeni or to third countries willing to GUANTANAMO page 66 accept them.

Spyker submits new Saab bid to GM (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 12/20/2009 6:24:37 AM

Dutch luxury car maker Spyker has submitted a new offer to General Motors (GM) for its Swedish car brand Saab.

GM said this week that it would close Saab after talks with Spyker had collapsed.

Spyker has submitted a new 11point proposal to GM, addressing the issues that ended talks.

Spyker chief Victor R. Muller said he was "very confident" that the new offer would make GM resume negotiations and lead to a sale.

"We have made every effort to resolve the issues that were preventing the conclusion of this matter and we have asked GM and all other involved parties to seriously consider this offer," Mr Muller said.

"We are very confident that our renewed offer will remove the

impasse that was standing in the way of an agreement on Friday, and this would still allow us to conclude the deal prior to the expiry of the deadline originally set by GM." The original deadline was 31 December.

Saab employs 3,400 people in Sweden and GM has estimated 8,000 people will suffer indirectly from its planned closure.

Last year, Saab lost 3bn kronor

(ÂŁ255m; $412m). It has not made a profit since 2001 and made up 1.1% of GM's global sales.

GM pledged to become a leaner company when it emerged from bankruptcy protection in July this year. It had been hit by a sharp slump in sales - partly because of the financial crisis, but also because of stiff competition from Japanese rivals.

The company is now 62% owned by the US government.

GM said its focus would remain

on its four core brands - Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC as well as its European business Opel.

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policy administered by AvMed Health Plans.

If McKenna believes the claims of the insurance industry and many Republicans, she and her husband are among the most at risk to be hurt by Congress' health proposals. If Democrats are telling the truth, they will be among those with the most to gain.

The 68-year-old retiree refrains from any worry, or any premature celebration. She simply believes, "It'll work out."

McKenna and her husband, Morty, who turns 78 on Sunday, are in private Medicare

Advantage plans, which many Democrats have called wasteful and which have been made a prime target for major cuts. But Morty McKenna also falls in the coverage gap in Medicare's prescription drug program— the "doughnut hole" — that the health bills have promised to close. More than 3 million Medicare beneficiaries a year hit this gap and start paying the full cost of their drugs until they qualify for catastrophic coverage.

She said the government must "get rid of the abuses" and that pharmaceutical companies "need to step up and be accountable."

GUANTANAMO continued from page 65

transfers were the result of months of high-level talks with the government in Sanaa.

It said US officials are prepared to repatriate more Yemenis if the transfer goes well.

President Obama has pledged to shut the controversial detention centre in 2010, and announced last week that many of the detainees would be sent to a prison in the US state of Illinois.

Some will face trials in US

DEMAND continued from page 66

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criminal or military courts, while others are expected to be transferred abroad.

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For now, though, she's just waiting to see what actually happens. ___ Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky in Miami, Jesse Washington in Philadelphia and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar in Washington contributed to this report.

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Demand grows for E-readers, which will do $233 million in sales this holiday season (Reno Gazette-Journal) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers)

for listening to music and watching movies, many companies are banking on Submitted at 12/20/2009 1:53:54 AM consumers feeling the same way (2 of 3) about their reading options.

The holiday numbers for e- Besides books, many believe books are even more impressive consumers will also be interested given the state of the economy, i n r e a d i n g n e w s p a p e r s , said Andrew Eisner, director of magazines and other informationcontent for online shopping and related content through e-readers, review site Retrevo.com.

Van Beeck said.

"As bad as economic times are, The allure of high profit margins people seem to be interested in also doesn't hurt. Although some buying e-book readers ... and e- e-readers command prices that book readers are expensive," rival that of netbooks and lowEisner said. "We did a survey end laptops, their technology, with a pretty big sample size which is still primarily based on a recently and more than 20 black-and-white display with no percent said they plan to buy an e backlighting, isn't necessarily -book reader this year." that expensive to produce.

Gaining steam Then there's the promise of The red-hot performance of the e future growth through product -reader sector isn't lost on other updates as demonstrated by companies now eager to cash in. digital cameras and the iPod. Besides Amazon, Sony and With cameras, for example, one B a r n e s & N o b l e , s e v e r a l way manufacturers attract new international companies are sales is by regularly releasing expected to announce their entry new versions that have more to the U.S. e-reader market megapixels or are thinner, during the Consumer Electronics according to Van Beeck.

Show in January. Then there's the "You can have those same 8 0 0 - p o u n d g o r i l l a f r o m advancements done with e-book Cupertino that's lurking in the readers, whether it be adding background. color (to the display) or including "The big news next year will be more features," Van Beeck said. if and when Apple launches a "Manufacturers are smart. They tablet," Eisner said. know consumers want the best E s p e c i a l l y a t t r a c t i v e t o and most recent technology." companies is the industry's Five Filters featured article: growth potential, Van Beeck said. Just as people are now DEMAND page 66 comfortable with digital options