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Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Morgan Stanley to cut 580 jobs in NY
PTI???? New York?? December 29, 2011????
Global financial services firm Morgan Stanley on Tuesday said it will slash over 500 jobs across four locations in New York under plans announced earlier this month to cut 1,600 jobs globally by next year, citing hard economic times .In a filing with the New York State Department of Labour, Morgan Stanley said 580 jobs would be cut at the firm's midtown Manhattan headquarters and three smaller Morgan Stanley offices in New York.
The firm said in the filing that "rolling layoffs" had begun on December 15, when it had announced that it would slash 1,600 jobs or 2.6 per cent of its workforce globally by the first quarter of 2012.
Morgan Stanley had 62,648 employees at the end of September. The layoffs would impact all divisions, including investment banking and trading.
The year 2011 has been one that Wall Street would want to forget, with major financial services firms announcing layoffs as continued economic woes force them to trim costs.
In all, financial firms have disclosed plans to eliminate more than 200,000 jobs globally this year.
Citigroup had announced earlier this month that it would cut 4,500 jobs, while Bank of America said it would cut 30,000 jobs over the next few years.
Swiss lender UBS is downsizing its investment bank to 16,000 people from the current 18,000.
In June, Goldman Sachs had told the New York Department of Labour that it would layoff 230 New York workers through March 2012.
The New York State comptroller had said in October that an estimated 10,000 Wall Street workers could lose their jobs by the end of next year.
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Facebook Files Updated PAC Form, Launches PAC Website
Facebook is getting political. Really political.
The company, which in September confirmed it was forming a political action committee, ?FB PAC,? on Wednesday filed an update to its documentation with the Federal Election Commission in order to report that it switched its corporate headquarters to Menlo Park, California from its previous location in Palo Alto.
The document, a standard statement of organization, also provides a link to the official website of the Facebook PAC, fbpac.org, which went live back in September, according to a Facebook spokesperson.
Currently, the Facebook PAC website is blocked from public view, containing only entry fields for employees to privately log in.
A Facebook spokesperson also reiterated to TPM the goals of the PAC: ?FB PAC will give our employees a way to make their voice heard in the political process by supporting candidates who share our goals of promoting the value of innovation to our economy while giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.?
Facebook first announced it had completed its move to the sprawling, 1-million-square-foot, former campus of Sun Microsystems on Monday, December 19. The updated PAC form declaring the new headquarters is just another piece of good housekeeping.
But the updated statement of organization also provides a glimpse of just who will be pulling the strings behind Facebook?s newly concerted effort to raise money and influence politics by backing specific candidates.
FB PAC names as its treasurer Joel Kaplan, President George W. Bush?s former deputy chief of staff, who was in May recruited away from his post-political job as an executive at Texas utility Energy Future Holdings to join Facebook as VP of U.S. public policy.
The treasurer of a PAC is responsible for authorizing all of the PAC?s expenditures, or appointing someone to authorize the expenditures, as well as depositing all of the PAC?s receipts within 10 days, among other duties, according to the FEC. The FEC also notes that the treasurer can be held personally liable for violating federal election law.
But already, Kaplan has shifted his expenditures-reporting duties to assistant treasurer Corey Owens, also named in the FB PAC filing as the ?custodian of records,? whom the FEC notes is responsible for maintaining a record of the PAC?s financial activities for the past three years running.
Owens previously served as press secretary at the Constitution Project, a bipartisan think tank dedicated to safeguarding the Constitution, and as a spokesperson for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union International, according to AllFacebook.com.
As previously noted, Facebook joins a shortlist of large tech companies to have formed PACs in order to sway Washington in their favor ? among them Microsoft, with its high-spending MSPAC ($6.8 million in expenditures in 2011), while Google?s PAC has been ramping up in advance of the 2012 election, raising $570,000 in the first six-months of 2011 but spending only $70,000 of it so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Facebook, by contrast, spent $910,000 on lobbying in 2011, according to the Center, and that was well before and separate from its PAC, which has yet to report any expenditures. How Facebook plans to raise and spend its PAC money remains to be seen. Stay tuned.
Carl Franzen Carl Franzen is TPM Idea Lab's tech reporter. He used to work for The Daily, AOL and The Atlantic Wire (though not simultaneously, thankfully). He's never met a button that didn't need to be pressed. He can be reached at carl@talkingpointsmemo.com.
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Thursday, December 29, 2011
Sinead O'Connor ends marriage after 18 days
Eighteen days after Sinead O'Connor and Barry Herridge vowed to stay together until "death do us part," the newlyweds have had a change of heart.
O'Connor, 45, made the announcement on her official website Monday, where she explained that "within three hours the ceremony being over the marriage was kyboshed by the behavior of certain people in my husband's life."
PHOTOS: Hollywood's shortest marriages
That wasn't the only red flag, according to O'Connor. "[There was] a wild ride I took us on looking for a bit of a smoke of weed for my wedding night as I don't drink," she wrote. "My husband was enormously wounded and very badly affected by that experience and also by the attitude of those close to him toward our marriage. It became apparent to me that if he were to stay with me he would be losing too much to bear."
PHOTOS: Biggest breakups of 2011
"A woman wants to be a joy to her husband," O'Connor added. "So you love someone? Set them free."
Blink and you miss the bride ? shortest celeb marraiges
Despite their sudden split, O'Connor believes Herridge, 38, is "a wonderful man" and said she still loves him "very much."
PHOTOS: Over-the-top celebrity weddings
"I'm sorry I'm not a more regular woman. I truly believe, though it is painful to admit, we made a mistake rushing into getting married, for altruistic reasons, and weren't aware or prepared for the consequences on my husband's life and the lives of those close to him," she explained. "He has been terribly unhappy and I have therefore ended the marriage. I think he is too nice to do so. And too nice to trap."
PHOTOS: Quickest celeb engagements ever
O'Connor and Herridge wed on the singer's birthday at Las Vegas' Little White Wedding Chapel ? the same spot where Britney Spears and Jason Alexander tied the knot in 2004. It was the the fourth marriage for the "Nothing Compares 2 U" singer, whose ex-husbands include music producer John Reynolds, journalist Nicholas Sommerlad and musician Steve Cooney.
Copyright 2011 Us Weekly
Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45796283/ns/today-entertainment/
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Consumer confidence index surges in December (AP)
NEW YORK ? Americans are gaining faith that the economy is on the upswing.
An improving job outlook helped the Consumer Confidence Index soar to the highest level since April and near a post-recession peak, according to a monthly survey by The Conference Board.
The second straight monthly surge coincided with a decent holiday shopping season for retailers, though stores had to heavily discount to attract shoppers.
The rise in confidence jibes with a better outlook for the overall economy. An Associated Press poll of three dozen private, corporate and academic economists projects U.S. economic growth will speed up in 2012, if it isn't derailed by upheavals in Europe.
But confidence is still far below where it is in a healthy economy. And Americans' mood could sour again if the debt crisis in Europe deepens and spreads to the U.S. Shoppers still face big obstacles ? higher costs on household basics and a still-slumping housing market.
"This is encouraging. It's good to be talking about improvement," said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo. "But there is still a lot of room for trouble."
The Conference Board, a private research group, said Tuesday that its Consumer Confidence Index rose almost 10 points to 64.5 in December, up from a revised 55.2 in November. Analysts had expected 59. The level is close to the post-recession high of 72, reached in February.
The December surge builds on a big increase in November, when the index rose almost 15 points from October. That month's reading was the lowest since March 2009, the depths of the recession.
One component of the index that measures how shoppers feel now about the economy rose to 46.7 from 38.3 in November. The other barometer, which measures how shoppers feel about the next six months, rose to 76.4 from 66.4.
In particular, shoppers' assessment of the job market improved, according to preliminary results of the survey conducted Dec. 1-14. Those anticipating more jobs in the months ahead increased to 13.3 percent from 12.4 percent while those anticipating fewer jobs declined to 20.2 percent from 23.8 percent.
Economists watch confidence numbers closely because consumer spending ? including items like health care ? accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.
Americans have more reason to be optimistic. The economy has produced at least 100,000 new jobs for five months in a row, the longest such streak since 2006. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits has dropped to the lowest level since April 2008.
According to the AP poll of economists, conducted Dec. 14-20, the U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.4 percent next year. In 2011, it likely grew less than 2 percent.
"We're starting to make some progress," said Kathy St. Louis of Atlanta, who was picking up lunch Tuesday at CNN Center. "It could always be better, but we're trying to move in the right direction." She said she spent $700 on holiday presents, up from the $300 she spent last year, even though not much changed with her paralegal job.
Ahlum Beruk, 22, a Greenville, Miss., resident who was visiting Atlanta, was a student last year and worried about finding a job. This year she works for a hotel and spent about $100 on Christmas presents. She spent nothing on gifts last year.
"I do feel better because I have a job now, and I didn't before," she added.
Shoppers still face many hurdles. In fact, while the job market is steadily improving, the unemployment rate is still high at 8.6 percent. And housing remains wobbly. The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller index of home prices, also released Tuesday, dropped in October in 19 of the 20 cities it tracks. It was a second straight declining month, further evidence of a bumpy housing recovery
Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, noted renewed fears about a second recession hurt confidence last summer.
"While consumers are ending the year in a somewhat more upbeat mood, it is too soon to tell if this is a rebound from earlier declines or a sustainable shift in attitudes," Franco said. "Have we rebounded from a summer lull or are we turning the corner?"
In fact, even with the increase in confidence, shoppers have been focused on deals this holiday season. Shoppers, enticed by expanded hours and bargains, packed stores for the start of the holiday season, resulting in discount-fueled record spending. But then they retreated for a few weeks to wait for better deals.
Based on the stronger-than expected start and rising optimism that more spending was to come in the finale, the National Retail Federation earlier this month upgraded its holiday sales growth forecast to 3.8 percent, from the original forecast of 2.8 percent made in September. More data will be released this week that will help quantify the last-minute sales surge.
Still unclear is how the discounting will affect stores' profit margins. It might not be all bad for retailers: Roxanne Meyer, a retail analyst at UBS Investment Research, says post-Christmas markdowns were not as deep as expected, with less than half of retailers she surveyed increasing promotions from last year.
_______
AP Retail Writer Mae Anderson in Atlanta contributed to this report.
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
14 New Year's Resolutions the Stars Should Make
From Lady Gaga to Ryan Gosling, see our wish list of ways celebrities can make 2012 even better
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Piercy bets Madison's mayor that Ducks will win Rose Bowl
Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy and Madison Mayor Paul Soglin have a friendly wager regarding the outcome of the upcoming Rose Bowl between the Oregon Ducks and the Wisconsin Badgers - with a slightly different outcome than most bets.
"We both wanted to use this traditional wager in a different way to benefit our communities, especially those most in need," said Piercy. "Mayor Soglin and I have agreed to provide $500 to be used for tools for the Habitat for Humanity organization in the prevailing city.? We will raise the money privately and no city funds are involved. This is a great program serving important needs in our communities."
Homelessness is a growing problem across the country.? US Conference of Mayors CEO Tom Cochran said, "Every year, the Conference of Mayors conducts a survey on the status of hunger and homelessness in America's cities to bring national attention to the issue of families needing emergency services in communities all across the country.? Our goal is to help direct resources to where they are needed as local governments struggle with lower tax bases and dwindling budgets."
Recent events have put homelessness in Eugene even more in focus. Mayor Piercy said, "Eugene is seeing homelessness front and center as the economy continues to struggle. We want to use all the "tools" at our disposal to provide shelter and homes. Habitat for Humanity continues to do its part and for that, we are grateful."
"The need for a day shelter for the homeless in Madison is indicative of the growing problem," said Mayor Soglin.? "Shelters fill quickly in the cold Wisconsin winters."
Soglin said, "I am looking forward to our local workers benefiting from new tools because I truly expect our Badgers to win!"
Piercy replied, " 'In your dreams, Mayor Soglin, but seriously whoever benefits from this wager serves those in need in our country and that's what it's all about."
The Ducks and Badgers kick off the 2012 Rose Bowl on January 2 at 2:00 p.m. local time.
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Tuesday, December 27, 2011
North Korean power-behind-throne emerges as neighbors meet (Reuters)
SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) ? North Korean television Sunday showed power-behind-the-throne Jang Song-thaek in the uniform of a general in a sign of his growing sway after the death of Kim Jong-il, and Japan's prime minister said the region faced a new phase with Kim's demise.
Footage that North Korean television said was shot on Saturday showed Jang on the frontrow of top military officers who accompanied Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of Kim Jong-il and his anointed successor, paying their respects before Kim's body.
The choreography around Kim's death is one of the secretive North's few, opaque clues to the emerging configuration of power in this poor and isolated state that has rattled neighbors with nuclear tests and military brinkmanship.
A Seoul official familiar with North Korea affairs said it was the first time Jang has been shown on state television in a military uniform. His appearance suggested that Jang has secured a key role in the North's powerful military, which has pledged its allegiance to Kim Jong-un.
North Korea announced Monday Kim Jong-il had died of a heart attack on December 17. His body is lying in state in a mausoleum in Pyongyang. He was believed to be 69.
Kim Jong-un was hailed by state media Saturday as "supreme commander" of the North's 1.1 million-strong armed forces, the title held by his father.
A senior source told Reuters this week Pyongyang will shift from a strongman dictatorship to a coterie of rulers including the military and Jang, Kim Jong-un's uncle.
Jang married the daughter of the country's revolutionary founder, Kim Il-sung, in 1972, joining the ruling family that has forged its own form of dynastic rule.
"AN NEW PHASE"
In Beijing, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda told Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao that their two countries shared a stake in preserving stability in North Korea in a "new phase."
"The death of Secretary-General Kim Jong-il has brought East Asia to a new phase," Noda told Wen at the start of bilateral talks in China's capital.
Noda is the first regional leader to visit Beijing since Kim Jong-il's death was announced Monday, leaving his young son Kim Jong-un as leader of North Korea, which has rattled the region with nuclear tests and military confrontation.
But Beijing is acutely sensitive about upsetting North Korea, especially during the current delicate transition, and Wen and Noda kept their public remarks free of controversy.
"Both sides agreed that preserving the peace and stability of the Korean peninsula serves the interests of all sides," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in its account of their talks, according to the ministry website (www.mfa.gov.cn).
Wen and Noda also agreed on seeking an early restart of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks that North Korea abandoned.
China is North Korea's sole major economic and diplomatic partner, and the United States and its regional allies have long pressed Beijing to use its influence to rein in Pyongyang.
China has sought to defuse confrontation by hosting six-party nuclear disarmament talks since August 2003. The now-stalled negotiations bring together North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.
In April 2009, North Korea said it was quitting the talks and reversing nuclear "disablement" steps, unhappy with implementation of an initial disarmament deal.
Constraining North Korea is especially important for Japan, which is well within range of the North's long-range missiles and wants Pyongyang to resolve the emotive issue of the fate of Japanese citizens kidnapped to help train spies decades ago.
"It is very significant that we affirmed close communication with China, the chair country of the six-party talks," Noda told reporters after his meeting with Wen.
"We agreed that we need to address the (North Korean) issue calmly and properly and to keep close contact with each other."
(Writing and additional reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Yoko Nishikawa)
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Conn. fire victim had career as safety chief
Rubble lies on the ground, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, after the demolition of a house where a fire left five people dead on Christmas Day, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Rubble lies on the ground, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, after the demolition of a house where a fire left five people dead on Christmas Day, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Rubble left after the demolition of a house where a fire left five people dead Christmas Day lies on the ground, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Yellow tape stretches across the driveway, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, at the house where a fire left five people dead Christmas Day, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Flowers sit at the base of a mailbox, Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, outside the house where a fire left five people dead on Christmas Day, in Stamford, Conn. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
Brayden Davis, 10, right, stands by as his mother, Jeanne Davis, and brother Rowan Davis, 7, lay down flowers Monday, Dec. 26, 2011, outside the house where a fire left five people dead on Christmas Day, in Stamford, Conn. The Davises live in the neighborhood but did not know the family who lived in the house. (AP Photo/Tina Fineberg)
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) ? A man who died with his wife and three grandchildren in a house fire in Connecticut on Christmas had a long career as a safety chief at a liquor company in Kentucky and worked as a department store Santa Claus this season.
A day after fire swept through his daughter's upscale house in Stamford, Lomer Johnson was remembered fondly as a stickler for safety by a former boss at Louisville, Ky.-based liquor maker Brown-Forman Corp., where Johnson retired from his job as safety and security director several years ago.
"He spent his career trying to keep others safe," retired Brown-Forman executive Robert Holmes Jr. said Monday in a telephone interview. "And the irony is that he dies in a fire."
Neighbors said they were awakened by screams shortly before 5 a.m. Sunday and rushed outside to help but could do nothing as flames devoured the large Victorian home.
New York advertising executive Madonna Badger and a male acquaintance were able to escape the blaze, but her parents, who were visiting for the holidays, and her daughters were killed.
The Hartford Courant newspaper identified the remaining victims as Badger's mother, Pauline Johnson, and daughters, 10-year-old Lily and 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah. The Johnsons lived in Southbury, about 45 miles northeast of Stamford.
The acquaintance was a contractor working on the home, police said. He was identified by the Stamford Advocate newspaper as Michael Borcina.
The severely damaged $1.7 million Victorian house situated along the Connecticut shoreline was torn down Monday after the buildings department determined it was unsafe and ordered it razed, local fire Chief Antonio Conte said.
Conte had no details on the investigation, and no information about the cause of the fire was released.
He told WFSB-TV that bodies were found on the second and third floors and on the stairway between the floors.
Johnson most recently worked as a Santa this year at the flagship store of Saks Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a store spokeswoman said.
"Mr. Johnson was Saks Fifth Avenue's beloved Santa, and we are heartbroken about this terrible tragedy," spokeswoman Julia Bently said in a statement.
Holmes, who worked with Johnson for more than a decade at Brown-Forman, remembered his co-worker as a big man with white hair and a commanding presence.
"He was a man of not a lot of words, but when Lomer spoke or gave his opinion, it was always well thought out," Holmes said.
He said he was a bit surprised that the longtime security chief had become a department store Santa but added, "I could see Lomer doing something like that because Lomer had a passion for people."
During Johnson's long career with Brown-Forman, whose many brands include Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and Southern Comfort, he was responsible for security and safety at the company's headquarters and production plants. His responsibilities included helping plan fire drills, Holmes said.
"He spent his life as a safety professional making sure our facilities were safe from fire," Holmes said. "And in the event there was a fire, that people knew what to do in terms of getting out of the buildings."
Badger, an ad executive in the fashion industry, is the founder of New York-based Badger & Winters Group. She was treated at a hospital and was discharged by Sunday evening, a hospital supervisor said. Her whereabouts Monday were unknown.
Borcina was hospitalized Tuesday in stable condition, a nursing supervisor said.
Property records show Badger bought the five-bedroom, waterfront home for $1.7 million last year. The house was situated in Shippan Point, a wealthy neighborhood that juts into Long Island Sound.
The lot where the house stood was covered with charred debris and cordoned off by police with tape on Monday. Passers-by left floral bouquets, stuffed animals and candles.
Neighbor Tim Abbazia, who did not know the victims, said the fire occurred in a neighborhood where century-old homes are common and that it would make everyone assess fire safety. He said it could not have been any more tragic.
"Regardless of which day it happened, I don't think it could be any worse than it is," he said.
The fire was Stamford's deadliest since a 1987 blaze that also killed five people, Conte said.
___
Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., and Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.
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Monday, December 26, 2011
[OOC] When Midnight Strikes
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This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "When Midnight Strikes"
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This topic is an Out Of Character part of the roleplay, ?When Midnight Strikes?. Anything posted here will also show up there.Topic Tags:
Forum for completely Out of Character (OOC) discussion, based around whatever is happening In Character (IC). Discuss plans, storylines, and events; Recruit for your roleplaying game, or find a GM for your playergroup.This is the auto-generated OOC topic for the roleplay "When Midnight Strikes"
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Hey,can I get the Telekinetic girl?
Welcome to the Freakshow.......
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A rare white Christmas in the Texas panhandle (Reuters)
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) ? A light dusting of snow in north Texas will bring a rare white Christmas to this drought-stricken state, but the majority of the nation was seeing mild weather on Sunday.
A few snow showers were expected in parts of the Northeast as well, but weather forecasters said 99 percent of Americans would see more green and brown for their Yuletide celebrations - along with plenty of rain, according to Accuweather.com.
The wet Christmas in the Texas Panhandle and Permian Basin brought cheer for drought-weary Texans, who were seeing snow in Lubbock and Amarillo on Christmas morning and rain in the eastern part of the state.
The worst one-year drought in the state's history this year sparked devastating wildfires, killed as many as half a billion trees, and prompted the most serious urban water use restrictions ever.
Meanwhile, in points north, the lack of snow was welcome news in Minneapolis, where last year's winter storm 12 days before Christmas dumped 17 inches of snow on the city, causing the roof of the Metrodome, the Minnesota Viking's football stadium, to collapse.
This year, Minneapolis has no snow and will have temperatures in the high 30s over the weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
Very little new snow is expected to accumulate anywhere throughout the day on Sunday, according to Accuweather.com. But a snowstorm in southern Ontario is forecast to move into Quebec on Sunday night and drop snow near the Great Lakes, with some accumulation happening overnight.
Residents from Watertown, N.Y. to Bangor, Maine - many of whom are off work on Monday in observance of the Christmas holiday - could wake up to an inch of snow on the ground Monday as the storm moves East.
Most of the Pacific Northwest were seeing mild weather on Christmas Day, while states like Colorado and New Mexico had lingering snow leftover from a pre-Christmas storm. Still, very few areas across the nation were seeing fresh snow on Sunday.
Even the Texas Panhandle, which was under a winter weather advisory, was not expecting the snow to accumulate - though transportation officials were warning of ice on the roads and cautioning drivers to be careful.
(Editing by Tim Gaynor)
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Sunday, December 25, 2011
iPhone apps to get you in the Christmas mood
So, it's really beginning to look like Christmas, but with all the stress that's characteristic to this very season, we can imagine that many of you (some of us included) find it difficult to get into that jolly Christmas mood that's an absolute must for this time of the year. With this in mind, we thought "Hey, the App Store is full of apps about drinking beer, farting, talking cats and dinosaurs... there must be a few Christmas-themed offerings as well!" You know what? We were right. Here are a few apps to help you get into the right mood for Christmas...
- Christmas Music ~ 10,000 FREE Christmas Songs! - Free
- History of American Christmas and Its Traditions - $0.99
- Christmas Cooking Recipes - $0.99
- Christmas Fun - All In One - Free (more content is unlocked via in-app purchases)
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Video: Boehner cuts a deal
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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036697/vp/45770038#45770038
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Saturday, December 24, 2011
TimSeibel: And a City of Commerce as well. Both are California ghost towns RT @TXTrendyChick: There's a place called City of Industry, CA??
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And a City of Commerce as well. Both are California ghost towns RT @TXTrendyChick: There's a place called City of Industry, CA?? 
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Sony Ericsson Xperia 2011 devices to get Android 4.0 in March
Sony Ericsson has officially announced the timeline for the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update. Last week, Sony Ericsson released an Alpha build of Android 4.0 ICS for select Xperia devices. But finally the Xperia 2011 device owners can expect to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich by March end and early April 2012. Even though it is three months from now, pre-defined timelines are good.
First generation of Sony Ericsson Xperia series smartphones received lukewarm response due to lack of updates. However, the company has learned from its past experiences and now became active when it comes to Android updates.
As per the official Sony Ericsson blog, the Android 4.0 ICS update will be pushed publicly and will take a while for every region. Of course the carrier locking and region based customisations will be taken into account. We hope that the India gets regional language support bundled with the release.
The Android 4.0 ICS update will be pushed over the air via 3G or WiFi networks to the 2011 Xperia devices. Sony Ericsson's 2011 Xperia Portfolio includes: Xperia Arc and Arc S, Xperia PLAY, Xperia Neo, Xperia Neo V, Xperia Mini, Xperia Mini Pro, Xperia Pro, Xperia Active, Xperiaray and Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman.
Recently, Samsung announced the list of devices that would be getting the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update in the first quarter of the year 2012 which can be January to March duration. HTC, Motorola and LG are yet to announce the approximate timelines when the Android 4.0 ICS update for the respective devices.
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Friday, December 23, 2011
Skeletons point to Columbus voyage for syphilis origins
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Skeletons don't lie. But sometimes they may mislead, as in the case of bones that reputedly showed evidence of syphilis in Europe and other parts of the Old World before Christopher Columbus made his historic voyage in 1492.
None of this skeletal evidence, including 54 published reports, holds up when subjected to standardized analyses for both diagnosis and dating, according to an appraisal in the current Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. In fact, the skeletal data bolsters the case that syphilis did not exist in Europe before Columbus set sail.
"This is the first time that all 54 of these cases have been evaluated systematically," says George Armelagos, an anthropologist at Emory University and co-author of the appraisal. "The evidence keeps accumulating that a progenitor of syphilis came from the New World with Columbus' crew and rapidly evolved into the venereal disease that remains with us today."
The appraisal was led by two of Armelagos' former graduate students at Emory: Molly Zuckerman, who is now an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, and Kristin Harper, currently a post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University. Additional authors include Emory anthropologist John Kingston and Megan Harper from the University of Missouri.
"Syphilis has been around for 500 years," Zuckerman says. "People started debating where it came from shortly afterwards, and they haven't stopped since. It was one of the first global diseases, and understanding where it came from and how it spread may help us combat diseases today."
'The natural selection of a disease'
The treponemal family of bacteria causes syphilis and related diseases that share some symptoms but spread differently. Syphilis is sexually transmitted. Yaws and bejel, which occurred in early New World populations, are tropical diseases that are transmitted through skin-to-skin contact or oral contact.
The first recorded epidemic of venereal syphilis occurred in Europe in 1495. One hypothesis is that a subspecies of Treponema from the warm, moist climate of the tropical New World mutated into the venereal subspecies to survive in the cooler and relatively more hygienic European environment.
The fact that syphilis is a stigmatized, sexual disease has added to the controversy over its origins, Zuckerman says.
"In reality, it appears that venereal syphilis was the by-product of two different populations meeting and exchanging a pathogen," she says. "It was an adaptive event, the natural selection of a disease, independent of morality or blame."
An early doubter
Armelagos, a pioneer of the field of bioarcheology, was one of the doubters decades ago, when he first heard the Columbus theory for syphilis. "I laughed at the idea that a small group of sailors brought back this disease that caused this major European epidemic," he recalls.
While teaching at the University of Massachusetts, he and graduate student Brenda Baker decided to investigate the matter and got a shock: All of the available evidence at the time actually supported the Columbus theory. "It was a paradigm shift," Armelagos says. The pair published their results in 1988.
In 2008, Harper and Armelagos published the most comprehensive comparative genetic analysis ever conducted on syphilis's family of bacteria. The results again supported the hypothesis that syphilis, or some progenitor, came from the New World.
A second, closer look
But reports of pre-Columbian skeletons showing the lesions of chronic syphilis have kept cropping up in the Old World. For this latest appraisal of the skeletal evidence, the researchers gathered all of the published reports.
They found that most of the skeletal material did not meet at least one of the standardized, diagnostic criteria for chronic syphilis, including pitting on the skull known as caries sicca and pitting and swelling of the long bones.
The few published cases that did meet the criteria tended to come from coastal regions where seafood was a big part of the diet. The so-called "marine reservoir effect," caused by eating seafood which contains "old carbon" from upwelling, deep ocean waters, can throw off radiocarbon dating of a skeleton by hundreds, or even thousands, of years. Analyzing the collagen levels of the skeletal material enabled the researchers to estimate the seafood consumption and factor that result into the radiocarbon dating.
"Once we adjusted for the marine signature, all of the skeletons that showed definite signs of treponemal disease appeared to be dated to after Columbus returned to Europe," Harper says.
"The origin of syphilis is a fascinating, compelling question," Zuckerman says. "The current evidence is pretty definitive, but we shouldn't close the book and say we're done with the subject. The great thing about science is constantly being able to understand things in a new light."
###
Emory University: http://www.emory.edu
Thanks to Emory University for this article.
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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116190/Skeletons_point_to_Columbus_voyage_for_syphilis_origins
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Thursday, December 22, 2011
These Letters of Wannabe Space Explorers Broke My Heart [Past Perfect]
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Monday, December 19, 2011
McQueary: I told Penn St. officials about abuse (AP)
HARRISBURG, Pa. ? A Penn State assistant football coach testified Friday that he believes he saw former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky molesting a boy and that he fully conveyed what he had seen to two Penn State administrators.
Mike McQueary, speaking for the first time in public about the 2002 encounter in a Penn State locker room, said he believes that Sandusky was attacking the child with his hands around the boy's waist but said he wasn't 100 percent sure it was intercourse.
McQueary took the stand Friday morning in a Pennsylvania courtroom during a preliminary hearing for Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, two university officials who are accused of lying to a grand jury about what McQueary told them. The hearing was expected to last most of the day.
McQueary's story is central to the case against Curley and Schultz. They testified to the grand jury that McQueary never relayed the seriousness of what he saw.
McQueary said he had stopped by a campus football locker room to drop off a pair of sneakers in the spring of 2002 when he happened up Sandusky and the boy in a shower.
He said Sandusky was behind the boy he estimated to be 10 or 12 years old, with his hands wrapped around the boy's waist. He said the boy was facing a wall, with his hands on it.
McQueary said he has never described what he saw as anal rape or anal intercourse and couldn't see Sandusky's genitals, but that "it was very clear that it looked like there was intercourse going on."
Under cross examination by an attorney for Curley, McQueary reiterated that he had not seen Sandusky penetrating or fondling the boy but was nearly certain he knew an assault happened in part because the two were standing so close and Sandusky's arms were wrapped around the youth.
He said he peeked into the shower several times and that the last time he looked in, Sandusky and the boy had separated. He said he didn't say anything, but "I know they saw me. They looked directly in my eye, both of them."
McQueary said he reported what he saw to coach Joe Paterno but never went to police.
He said he did not give Paterno explicit details of what he believed he'd seen, saying he wouldn't have used terms like sodomy or anal intercourse out of respect for the longtime coach.
He said Paterno told him he'd "done the right thing" by reporting what he saw. The head coach appeared shocked and saddened and slumped back in his chair, McQueary said.
Paterno told McQueary he would talk to others about what he'd reported.
Nine or 10 days later, McQueary said he met with Curley and Shultz and told them he'd seen Sandusky and a boy, both naked, in the shower after hearing skin on skin slapping sounds.
"I told them that I saw Jerry in the showers with a young boy and that what I had seen was extremely sexual and over the lines and it was wrong," McQueary said. "I would have described that it was extremely sexual and I thought that some kind of intercourse was going on."
McQueary said he was left with the impression both men took his report seriously. When asked why he didn't go to police, he referenced Shultz's position as a vice president at the university who had overseen the campus police
"I thought I was talking to the head of the police, to be frank with you," he said. "In my mind it was like speaking to a (district attorney). It was someone who police reported to and would know what to do with it."
Curley and Schultz are charged with lying to a grand jury and failing to properly report what McQueary allegedly told them.
Their lawyers say the men are innocent and contest McQueary's statements.
District Judge William C. Wenner was hearing testimony Friday to help him decide whether state prosecutors have enough evidence against the pair to send their cases to trial.
Sandusky says he is innocent of more than 50 charges stemming from what authorities say were sexual assaults over 15 years on 10 boys in his home, on Penn State property and elsewhere. The scandal has provoked strong criticism that Penn State officials didn't do enough to stop Sandusky, and prompted the departures of Hall of Fame football coach Joe Paterno and the school's longtime president, Graham Spanier.
Curley, 57, Penn State's athletic director, was placed on leave by the university after his arrest. Schultz, 62, returned to retirement after spending about four decades at the school, most recently as senior vice president for business and finance, and treasurer.
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Sunday, December 18, 2011
China villagers in revolt demand dead man's body (AP)
BEIJING ? Thousands of residents of a southern Chinese village staging a rare revolt are calling on authorities to return the body of a local representative whose death in police custody helped sparked the rebellion.
The villagers, who have driven local authorities from the area, gathered at a square outside a local temple Saturday to shout slogans calling for the return of farmland they say has been sold to developers without their consent and to urge the central government to intervene, said resident Qin Zhuan, a woman contacted by phone.
"We have been wronged," the villagers chanted, according to Qin. "Long live the central government! Strike down corrupt officials."
The villagers will also hold a march in the village to demand that police return the body of Xue Jinbo, a village representative who died in police custody last Sunday, she said.
Police have set up checkpoints around Wukan, a village of 20,000 that has for months been the site of simmering protests, and have blocked transportation of food in a bid to choke off the weeklong revolt. Since last weekend, villagers have kept police out with barricades made of tree trunks.
Young men are guarding the barricades and patrolling the village roads, sometimes armed with wooden clubs, said Huang Jinqi, another resident reached by phone. Food is smuggled in by other routes, he added.
"Some people from neighboring villages have been bringing us vegetables and rice using the small roads so we are currently all right, there's no need to worry about food," Huang said.
Calls to police in Shanwei, the city that oversees Wukan village, rang unanswered.
Protests against official misconduct are increasingly common in fast-developing China, but Wukan residents have taken things a step further, erecting barricades a week ago to keep police out and posing a challenge to the authoritarian government. On a near-daily basis, thousands of villagers gather for rallies, shouting slogans for the return of their land and pumping their fists in the air.
But signs of a split in the community have emerged in the last couple of days. Protesters estimate that dozens of villagers have joined government supporters who were offering food in exchange for their support.
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Hiring Hitchens
I became editor of The Nation in 1978, and one of the first and best things I did that year was to ask, via old-fashioned snail mail, a writer I didn't know, but whose elegant pieces I had been reading in the New Statesman, and everywhere else, since he seemed to be traveling the world anyway, why not write an occasional article for The Nation? Which he proceeded to do with elegance, wit, and brilliance.
As I wrote some years later: "Then, one day around five p.m. a dimpled five-o'clock shadowed face peered through my half-open door, surrounded by a haze of smoke. 'Drink?? asked the deep, richly accented baritone voice that accompanied all of the above. If it is possible in one word to convey an upper-class sensibility attached to a heart ostentatiously identified with the toiling masses, Christopher Hitchens succeeded.
"We repaired with some comrades, as he liked to call all who partook of his charismatic company, to the Lion's Head, our local [Greenwich Village] pub, where we indeed had a drink or three," and this was the beginning of an adventure which?despite our subsequent political differences?I like to think was as rewarding for him as it was for us.
See Slate?s full tribute to the life of Christopher Hitchens. Read Slate?s complete collection of Christopher Hitchens' columns.
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=bf3256df7746255ea25871f78e623d9f
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Saturday, December 17, 2011
Writer Christopher Hitchens loses his battle with cancer
Christopher Hitchens died Thursday of pneumonia, a complication of the esophageal cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010. He was 62.
A prolific writer on everything from atheism to politics to the British royal family, Hitchens was known for his unflinching prose and often unpopular opinions which created a great deal of debate amongst his readers in Vanity Fair, where he had been a contributing editor since 1992.
"Christopher Hitchens was a wit, a charmer, and a troublemaker, and to those who knew him well, he was a gift from, dare I say it, God. He died today at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, in Houston, after a punishing battle with esophageal cancer, the same disease that killed his father," confirmed Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.
"There will never be another like Christopher. A man of ferocious intellect, who was as vibrant on the page as he was at the bar. Those who read him felt they knew him, and those who knew him were profoundly fortunate souls."
"To his friends, Christopher will be remembered for his elevated but inclusive humor and for a staggering, almost punishing memory that held up under the most liquid of late-night conditions. And to all of us, his readers, Christopher Hitchens will be remembered for the millions of words he left behind. They are his legacy. And, God love him, it was his will," Carter wrote.
Celebrity obituaries on SheKnows >>
Hitchens kept up his writing duties after his dire diagnosis, refusing to back down from his anti-religion stance even in the face of his own mortality.
"So far, I have decided to take whatever my disease can throw at me, and to stay combative even while taking the measure of my inevitable decline. I repeat, this is no more than what a healthy person has to do in slower motion," he wrote in his final column for Vanity Fair, which can be read in the January 2012 issue. "It is our common fate. In either case, though, one can dispense with facile maxims that don't live up to their apparent billing."
Christopher Hitchens is survived by his wife Carol Blue and three children, Alexander, Sophia and Antonia.
Image courtesy Doug Meszler / WENN
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Friday, December 16, 2011
Store Santas Trained to Lower Kid's Christmas Expectations (ContributorNetwork)
COMMENTARY | The Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School, which trains department store and shopping mall Santas, is training its students to deal with the Christmas desires of children in an era of economic malaise, according to the Daily Mail.
The idea is to tamp down on the expectations kids will have about what they'll find under the tree. In order to judge what kids should expect, the school is training their Santas to size-up the kids' parents to try to determine what socio-economic level they happen to be in and thus ascertain what they can afford.
On the one hand, this seems to be a rather sad concession to the continuing economic malaise. Dreams of iPads and video game systems under the tree, even if unfulfilled, can be a balm in a household where the folks are wondering where the next meal is or the mortgage is coming from. As long as Santa is careful not to make any specific promises, everything should work out.
Besides, how does one tell how rich someone is by what they wear? Some of the richest people in the world - the late Steve Jobs comes to mind - dress like slobs. An out of work middle manager will, more often than not, dressed rather well, especially if he or she has stopped by the mall after a job interview.
Here's an idea. If you don't want your kid wanting the latest electronic gadget, take him or her to the mall while dressed like a homeless person. Then Santa will do your work for you in making sure the kid doesn't expect anything.
Tina Korbe, writing at Hot Air, has an interesting idea. Why not send politicians to the Santa school and teach them to lower expectations from their constituents. Perhaps they will learn not to promise that new bridge to nowhere or health care entitlement that the country can't afford.
My favorite story of a store Santa lowering expectations comes from the classic film "A Christmas Story." The movie, set in the 1940s or thereabouts, concerns the quest of a young lad to get a Red Ryder BB gun, even though his mom is reluctant. He asks Santa for the weapon at one point. His response, brief and to the point, "You'll shoot your eye out, kid." No nonsense, no hand-wringing over the idea of parental poverty, just a helpful warning.
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FACT CHECK: GOP candidates get Obama policy wrong (AP)
WASHINGTON ? Republican presidential candidates have claimed that the Obama administration is cleansing government files of references to radical Islam, an assertion so juicy that politicians keep repeating it ? even though it's a wild exaggeration.
The latest to run with the story is former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who told a crowd in Des Moines that the president "actually ordered all references to Islam and Muslim sanitized out of our national security documents."
And over the weekend, Newt Gingrich told a veterans' forum in Des Moines that the administration has "issued instructions, for example, that in developing training papers on terrorism that no mention should be made of radical Islam."
Rep. Michele Bachmann paved the way on Oct. 28, when she told 75 Republican faithful in Iowa that "Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI's terror training manual."
So where is this coming from? Last September, the online publication Wired.com broke a story that an FBI analyst had given a lecture to bureau trainees that was critical of Islam. The publication followed up, disclosing that the same analyst had given a similar lecture to an FBI-sponsored event in New York City. The FBI immediately ordered a comprehensive review of all the materials it uses to train its agents.
It would be hard to overstate the importance the FBI attaches to assistance from the Muslim community in the bureau's terrorism investigations in the United States ? a point that FBI Director Robert Mueller drove home in an appearance Wednesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee.
"We have met with various representatives of the Muslim community" in the aftermath of the inappropriate FBI training to convey just how seriously the bureau takes the matter, said Mueller.
In an effort to ensure that all of its training materials are appropriate, Mueller said, the bureau assembled a five-member panel of experts on Islam ? two people from inside the FBI and three outside scholars ? from Yale, Princeton and Johns Hopkins University.
The review found a very small percentage of material that was either inappropriate or inaccurate or both, and the bureau immediately got rid of it, said a bureau official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss the internal handling of the issue.
"I believe our relationship with the Muslim community is very good," said Mueller. The director told Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., that "we are addressing" the problem and that "it's an anomaly."
A few snippets of the former FBI analyst's assertions reflect the kind of information the bureau regards as inappropriate.
The materials for the FBI analyst's instructional presentation said that mainstream American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers, that the Prophet Mohammed was a cult leader and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a funding mechanism for combat.
A video of the New York City lecture included a reference to "an Islamic motivation" for violent acts of terrorism. The analyst no longer teaches training classes.
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