E-reader News Edition - 06/12/10 http://www.LibertyNewspost.

com

Rumor: Verizon Paying Apple to Shun T-Mobile, Sprint

Kit Eaton (Fast Company)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:21:01 PM

Rumors have popped up that

Verizon is paying Apple to shun
rival networks T-mobile and
Sprint. Isn't this anti-competitive
and illegal?
Inside sources have reportedly
spoken to Apple analyst Shaw
Wu, revealing that Verizon has
become very keen to accept
Apple's offer of business to get
the iPhone on its network. So
keen is the big V, in fact, that it
"may be willing to pay for
exclusivity to itself and AT&T." touch-friendly BlackBerry OS6, package, with a strong brand existing network-centric business game this way, because it smacks
But with so many long-standing or at least rejuvenated enough to image and a simple message, will model model, and Verizon loves of cartel behavior, and would
rumors connecting Apple and have a "material impact" on the begin to penetrate into more to brand everything about its almost certainly attract the wrath
Verizon, why is the U.S.'s biggest smartphone market. "average man" segments of the phones. But it's totally plausible of business regulators.
cell phone network only now We do believe this rumor may cell phone market--possibly that Verizon is now ready to To read more news on this, and
bending toward Apple? Wu have a grain of truth in it. While capturing more sales than the accept Apple's terms and similar stuff, keep up with my
references the iPhone's rocketing Android is indeed on a march, the slightly geeky-seeming Android conditions, afraid that Apple may updates by following me, Kit
sales--at 14.1 million last quarter fragmented market doesn't have OS, or business-centric follow the path of least resistance Eaton, on Twitter.
alone--which places Apple in the the pizazz of Apple's product. As BlackBerrys. (since it wouldn't have to re-
"driver's seat." He also bad- smartphones begin to appeal to Apple and Verizon have crossed engineer the device) and launch
mouths Android (which has begun more users (50% of U.S. phones swords before, but the reports the iPhone on T-Mobile and
to "lose some of its luster") and will be smartphones in 2011, have always stated the biggest Sprint
BlackBerrys, which Verizon according to one recent report) bone of contention was control: But we're skeptical that Verizon
thinks won't be rejuvenated by the then the iPhone as a complete Apple's trying to smash the would "pay" Apple to play the
2 Business/
JP Morgan Wants Triple Fees For Mining Investment, But No
Responsibility For When It Turns Out To Be Fraud (JPM)
John Helmer (Business Insider)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:40:00 PM
The Bible isn’t nice to giants.
Goliath goes down to a single
stone from a slingshot-tossing
boy.
And Samson, whom the ancient
Hebrews thought was so strong he
could lift two mountains and rub
them together like lumps of earth,
fell for the temptress Delilah; she
got him to go to sleep, then
sapped his strength by cutting off
his hair. JP Morgan(JPM), the
largest investment bank in the US,
likes to think of itself as the
friendly giant when things are
going well in the mountain-
rubbing business; but the
unconscious, defenseless victim
when things go badly.
Last week at one end of the
world, JPM claims to have known
everything and been responsible
for every successful turn in the
financial fortunes of its client, a
mining company, arguing it
deserves to earn multiple multi-
million dollar fees for doing so.
At the other end of the world, the
bank claims to have known
nothing at all about the multi-
billion dollar criminal fraud
perpetrated by its client, who
enriched himself by moving his
unlawful proceeds in and out of
JPM accounts.
On Friday, lawyers for JPM
wound up their argument in the
New South Wales court of
appeals in Sydney, Australia. This
is a case which is challenging the
mining industry consensus on
what investment bankers really
earn, and deserve to be paid, when
metal prices skyrocket, and
mining company takeovers
command premium prices. JPM
lost at the first court level in
March of this year, when state
Supreme Court judge David
Hammerschlag (“Hammer Blow”)
ruled that JPM hadn’t earned its
fee claim of A$50.18 million
(dollars are Australian unless
noted). Hammerschlag dismissed
JPM’s demand for the money
from its mining company client,
Consolidated Minerals owned by
Gennady Bogolyubov, calling
it“capricious, unreasonable and
unjust”.
Hammerschlag also calculated
that JPM was entitled to a total
fee of $19,250,680.08, comprising
a combination of “base defence
response” and “incentive” fees,
engagement bonus, monthly
retainers for services, and costs.
Such liability was offset by the
$20 million payment by cheque
on 12 February 2008 which
Consolidated Minerals sent JPM
on February 6 of 2008, and which
JPM banked immediately.
According to JPM, the trial judge
made counting and reasoning
mistakes, and that JPM should be
“rewarded for obtaining
‘additional value’ for the
shareholders by reference to the
additional value actually
achieved.”
E-reader News Edition
for reward and what the outcome
is for their clients. For the first
time in a court anywhere in the
mining world, Bogolyubov’s
company is arguing the giant
investment bank didn’t earn what
it claims, because most of the
premium in takeover price
resulted from other factors — the
global boom in manganese and
steel prices, and a bidding
competition which JPM did
nothing to introduce or encourage.
Less money is involved in the
Sydney case than in the New
York one, although all the big
money in global transaction
advisory fees which investment
banks charge hangs on the Sydney
Last week in New York, details know of how the money was court ruling. The original claim by
JPM against Consolidated
of a lawsuit against JPM were earned.
unveiled by Irving Picard, the US- The New York case documents Minerals was for a fee payment
court appointed trustee for the are still sealed, and won’t be of$86,978,264.18. This was
i n v e s t m e n t b u s i n e s s e s o f argued by lawyers in front of a subsequently reduced in court to a
convicted fraudster, Bernard judge for several months. The claim of $50,818,436.18. Because
Madoff. Picard’s lawsuit charges Sydney appeal has already been C o n s o l i d a t e d M i n e r a l s h a s
JPM with being the primary argued through 83 pages of court already paid $20 million of the
banker for Madoff, arguing that filings, and two days of hearings JPM bill, the balance still in
“JPMorgan was willfully blind to on December 2 and 3. The three- demand before the court is
the fraud, even after learning judge Sydney panel will issue roughly $31 million, with extra
a b o u t n u m e r o u s r e d f l a g s their ruling in February or March. interest and possible court costs.
surrounding Madoff. While many T h e i r d e c i s i o n , p l u s However, at one point in the latest
financial institutions enabled Hammerschlag’s, have global proceedings, JPM argued afresh
Madoff’s fraud, JPMorgan was at significance, because they will that its fee claim could go as high
the very centre of that fraud and d e t e r m i n e w h a t s e r v i c e s as $66.4 million. Consolidated
thoroughly complicit in it.” The investment banks like JPM Minerals has charged JPM with
trustee is suing for US$6.4 billion. actually provide clients engaged “double counting”, “double
JPM replies: “As a provider of in mergers, acquisitions, friendly dipping””, with fee claims that are
regular commercial-banking and hostile takeovers – and what “commercially absurd”.
services,” the bank claims it is in ought to be the relationship Both JPM and Consolidated
MORGAN page 3
no way liable for what it didn’t between what the banks demand
E-reader News Edition
MORGAN
continued from page 2
Minerals agree that between
October 2006 and January 2008,
the market capitalization of the
mining company jumped by $805
million – from a starting point of
$495 million to a closing point of
$1.3 billion. But the dispute
between them which the court
must settle is when exactly the
bidding process started, and when
JPM started earning the fees it is
claiming. At stake was one of the
largest manganese mining
operations in the world with
almost 18 million tonnes of
estimated reserves and resources
of manganese, a hardening alloy
required by steelmakers. As steel
prices shot up from 2006,
principally driven by China, so
did manganese prices:
In the middle of 2006,
Consolidated Minerals, thinking it
might become a takeover target,
negotiated an agreement for JPM
to act as an adviser in relation to
“any actual takeover, merger, or
other business combination
offers” which might materialize.
Many offers did. But
Consolidated Minerals has told
the court JPM “promised to do
very little…[Its promised]
services are essentially matters of
analysis and advice. Notably, the
Bank did not promise to try to
organize an auction for the
company or even to solicit any
offers.”
As several bidders emerged to
make counter-bids against each
other, and the share price of
Consolidated Minerals rose,
Hammerschlag has ruled that “[at]
least part of the reason for the
significant increase in the amount
offered was an increase in the
price of manganese…”
Consolidated Minerals argues in
support of the Hammerschlag
decision that JPM had a duty to
“assist the Company to achieve
the highest Offer price,
irrespective of who was bidding
or when they bid.” The fee JPM
has called its Base Defence
Response Fee has been calculated
as 0.75% of this added transaction
value, or 1% if the deal was
completed. On top, JPM is
demanding a 3% Incentive Fee;
based on the formula of any
increase in the Offer price up to
25% above the initial Offer, and
5% of any increase in the Offer
price of more than 25% above the
initial Offer.
That, Consolidated Minerals
testified to the appeals court, “ is
properly understood as a bonus
where J.P. Morgan did something
above and beyond, namely,
assisting Consolidated Minerals to
get a particular bidder to offer a
higher sum than it was willing to
pay in relation to its opening
proposal. In the context of a
bidding war, it was a reward for
keeping a particular bidder – the
one who ultimately wins – in the
process.”
The bigger issue that has now
surfaced is whether JPM had a
duty according to its service
agreement with its client, and
cannot later claim to earn an
additional incentive fee for doing
what it was already duty-bound to
do.
The winner of the bidding match
for Consolidated Minerals was the
Ukrainian Bogolyubov, who is
developing manganese production
mines and refineries across the
world from Australia to Ghana
and Ukraine. But Bogolyubov
started buying shares of
Consolidated Minerals well
before the bidding contest started
and he joined it. JPM insists that
the $14 million Bogolyubov spent
on this 14.29% pre-bid stake
ought to be counted as part of the
transaction value on which its fees
should be based. Hammerschlag
threw that out as an unearned.
JPM argued last week the judge
had made a mistake, because the
final value of the transaction
included the value push
Boglyubov had originally given,
whether or not he intended at the
time to enter a bidding war.
Consolidated Minerals told the
appeals court that since there was
no evidence of a link between the
first share purchase by
Bogolyubov and his final and
successful takeover bid, “the
connection was missing” between
what happened, what JPM did,
and what it claimed it had earned.
Consolidated Minerals has also
accused JPM of inflating its fee
calculation by adding to the
transaction value at the end of the
takeover process $44 million in
net debt which Consolidated
Minerals was holding. Judge
Hammerschlarg rejected that part
of JPM’s fee claim, saying it had
confused the fundamental
distinction between the company
(which was responsible for its
debts), and its shareholders (who
were not). Consolidated Minerals
argues in its appeal brief that the
share price of a company always
reflects its debt position, as well
as its income and other assets. So
for JPM to count its fee from the
rise in the share price, and also
from the debt, “would be double
counting”, records the brief.
Counting assets and liabilities on
top of the share price, in order to
boost the bank’s fee “would make
a nonsense of the commercial
purpose of the definition of
Transaction Value.”
As for JPM’s claim to get paid
multiple fees for the multiple bids
in the bidding contest,
Hammerschlag called that
capricious and unreasonable. That
conclusion “must be right,”
Consolidated Minerals told the
court, “otherwise it would be
entitled to as many …fees as there
were unsuccessful bidders, even
though the ‘defence’ failed
because the company was taken
over. It would not matter how
unrealistic those bidders’ failed
offers had been: J.P. Morgan
would get ‘a fee equal to 1.0% of
the proposed Transaction Value’
for each of them. There can be no
commercial justification for such
an outcome… It would be
commercially absurd for the Bank
to double dip, picking both an
Incentive Fee covering that
period, and also several Base
Defence Response Fees triggered
by [Consolidated Minerals] board
recommendations to reject the
very offers which made the
Incentive Fee possible.”
Before Hammerschlag’s ruling,
3
JP Morgan’s Sydney Managing
Director Jon Gidney was asked to
clarify why his bank believes it is
proper to claim duplicate or
triplicate fees for the the services
rendered in the Consolidated
Minerals case; and to explain how
he justifies fees for services that
appear to have ended in failure,
and for Bogolyubov’s success
which was guided by a rival bank
at a significantly lower charge.
Gidney declined to respond,
adding: “I don’t think there is any
purpose in having this
discussion.” All JP Morgan’s
Sydney spokesman Andrew
Donohoe would say after
Hammerschlag’s ruling was that
“we believe there are strong
grounds for appeal.”
Gidney was questioned in court
during the initial trial before
Hammerschlag. The transcript of
what he said appears in the
submissions to the appeals court
this past July. Gidney admitted
being worried that JPM’s fee
demand might not be paid by
Consolidated Minerals. He was
then asked if his concern was
“whether or not JP Morgan had
really earned the fee as opposed to
there being a spike in the
manganese price which had
driven the share price up?”
Gidney replied: “Yes.” “And you
were worried, were you not, that
JP Morgan might never get paid
unless it sued?” “Yes.”
Join the conversation about this
story »
MORGAN page 5
4 Business/ E-reader News Edition

Hulu's Original TV Recap Show Hints at the End of Programming

As You Know It
Kit Eaton (Fast Company)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:04:00 PM
Hulu's in the early stages of
developing a new online exclusive
clips show, recapping the TV of
the day in blog-esque "bite sizes."
As well as hinting at Hulu's
growth, it also reminds us that TV
as we know it is about to change.
The unnamed show, which has
been revealed thanks to its casting
call (which resulted in "mobbed"
sessions) will appear on Hulu
exclusively, and runs to a short
five minutes an episode every
week day. It's reportedly "a quick
and humorous survey of the past
24 hours of media and pop
culture," heavy on clips according
to the casting note, hosted by two
"know-it-all but relatable" pop
culture personalities. We're urged
to think of it as "Daily Show
meets weekend update meets
sports center," and the buzz words
used to attract potential hosts are
"satirical comedy, discussion and
honest opinions."
To us this sounds like several TV
shows that already exist (or, as
AllThingsD puts it, it reminds us
of "pretty much everything that
runs on E!") but spun into a kind
of Gawker-esque snarky blog, just
in hosted video format. That's
bigger fan base if they capture the
zeitgeist well, then Hulu is
becoming a force in TV
"broadcasting" all by itself. It
won't challenge the existing TV
model as it's too small, and the
existing content providers have
the business pretty tightly
wrapped-up, trading on their
name and leveraging all the routes
to market they've built up. But it
hints that the TV market is ripe
for change as it moves onto the
web, and if an upstart company
like Hulu is clever enough, it
very suitable for Hulu, which is regular TV on demand, which is could become the next Fox--just
busy redefining the traditional TV already a subtle change to the way online, rather than over the air.
model on the Web in a similar we think about TV (with roots in To read more news on this, and
w a y t o t h e w a y t h e b l o g the "pause live TV" and "watch similar stuff, keep up with my
revolution has reinvented the later" systems offered by TiVo). updates by following me, Kit
news/reporting business, and But if Hulu's now commissioning Eaton, on Twitter.
confirms that Hulu's on the rise. original shows of its own--there
The fact the show is en route are more on the way apart from
does also hint at the end of TV as this one--that are snappy, and
we know it. Hulu serves up could easily earn Hulu an even

Enterprise Products Partners Is in an Uptrend

Joseph Lazzaro April 29, 2009, at a price of coal. Enterprise Products Partners Products Partners Is in an Uptrend
(BloggingStocks) $24.24, has been favored in these is an integrated provider of Enterprise Products Partners Is in
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:30:00 PM circles. natural gas pipeline and an Uptrend originally appeared on
Look for Enterprise's shares to processing services and natural BloggingStocks on Mon, 06 Dec
Filed under: Stocks to Buy For continue to head north, and gas liquids, fractionation, storage, 2010 14:30:00 EST. Please see
several reasons, natural gas could benefit from what's likely to be a transportation and terminal our terms for use of feeds.
become the state-of-the-art energy renaissance period for natural gas services. EPD also is a major Permalink| Email this| Comments
form of this decade, the decade of in the United States in the decade developer of midstream
"the teens." With that in mind, ahead. most cases a cleaner energy infrastructure in the deepwater of
Enterprise Products Partners ( The reason? Natural gas is cheap, source than oil and certainly than the Gulf of Mexico.
EPD), first discussed here on accessible, and domestic, and in Continue reading Enterprise
E-reader News Edition Business/ Products/ 5

Submit Nominations For The Clusterstock Amazon: Still a Buy?

100: The Most Powerful People On Wall Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:20:00 PM

Street (GS, MS, JPM, HSBC, CS, BX) Filed under: Amazon.com
(AMZN), Technical Analysis
Courtney Comstock and Leah
Goldman (Business Insider) Amazon ( AMZN) may be an
online retailer, but it is a retailer
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:35:41 PM nevertheless. A big one, in fact.
Consumers are increasingly essential concepts behind growth:
The most powerful person on turning to this site to make their
Wall Street is an elusive you might pay a premium today,
shopping chores a little easier, but you'll be paid back tomorrow
character. especially during the Christmas
Is it Blankfein? Doubtful. with capital appreciation.
season. With holiday buying in Continue reading Amazon: Still a
Is it the M&A all-star who full force, my mind turned to this
initiated the recent wave of hedge Buy?
particular stock. How is it looking Amazon: Still a Buy? originally
fund mergers? The wealth these days?
manager who's brought in 15 new appeared on BloggingStocks on
No, it isn't cheap. But while this Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:20:00 EST.
clients this year? Now that's more equity can't necessarily be called
like it. Please see our terms for use of
one for the deep-value players out feeds. Read| Permalink| Email
Earlier this fall, we asked Bill there, growth investors want to
Ackman - who's the most this| Comments
know if it's okay to pay up for this
powerful person on Wall Street idea. After all, that's one of the
right now?
He didn't have an answer.
Tumblr has now MORGAN
"I don't think there are any most continued from page 3
nomination; nominations are Alternative Asset Management
powerful people left," he said.
"They are in hiding."
anonymous.
• Tell us all about your
• Mary Erdoes, CEO of Asset
Management, JPMorgan
been down for
But we think they're out there.
And if anyone's left, and if anyone
nomination - we love details.
• A good title does not equal
• Stuart Gulliver, Executive
Director and Chief Executive,
over 20 hours.
knows who they are, it's you guys. (Business Insider)
power. Global Banking and Markets and
So email us. We'll be taking
Global Asset Management, HSBC Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:42:44 PM
nominations for the most
Some people, like Jamie Dimon • Barbara Desoer, President Bank
powerful people on Wall Street Tumblr has now been down for
and Lloyd Blankfein, are obvious. of America Mortgage, Home
d u r i n g 2 0 1 0 a t over 20 hours.
So use these guys, who have Equity and Insurance Services
ccomstock@businessinsider.com, Join the conversation about this
already been nominated, as your • Heidi Miller, President of JP
lgoldman@businessinsider, or story »
guide: Morgan Chase International
katyawachtel@businessinsider.co
m.
• Stephen Trauber, Head of • Peter Kraus, Alliance Berstein
Energy Investment Banking, • Sallie Krawcheck, President of
Wootcast for 12/6/2010
The rules: Woot (Woot! - One Day, One though none of us is quite brave
Citigroup Global Wealth and Investment
• One nomination = 1 vote. We're Deal) or cool enough to don one. Still,
• Tom Hill, Vice Chairman, The Management, BAC
ranking everyone. isn't there room in the
Blackstone Group; President & Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:00:00 AM
• Nominations are not limited to marketplace for more than one
C h i e f E x e c u t i v e O f f i c e r , Join the conversation about this
bankers. The Woot podcast team kind of style of he-skirt?
B l a c k s t o n e M a r k e t a b l e story »
• You are not limited to one loves Seattle-based Utilikilts,
6 Business/ E-reader News Edition

Twitter: We're Not Censoring WikiLeaks, #Cablegate

Austin Carr (Fast Company) #wikileaks, #cablegate, or other Sometimes topics that are
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:16:33 PM related terms from the Trends list genuinely popular simply aren’t
of trending topics," said Twitter widespread enough to make the
Rumors began bubbling recently rep Matt Graves in a statement list of top Trends. And, on
that Twitter has been censoring Monday. "Our Trends list is occasion, topics just aren't as
W i k i L e a k s ' t r e n d i n g t o p i c s designed to help people discover popular as people believe."
#wikileaks, #cablegate, and other the ‘most breaking’ breaking Yes, it's difficult to believe Justin
similar hashtags. We've seen this news from across the world, in Bieber is just that much more
before. It seems whenever a real-time. The list is generated by popular than WikiLeaks. But
controversial subject arises--the an algorithm that identifies topics Twitter has been forthright: It
Israeli raid of the flotilla, for that are being talked about more does not editorialize.
instance--the micro-blogging r i g h t n o w t h a n t h e y w e r e Perhaps its algorithm needs
company is accused of playing p r e v i o u s l y . " tweaking. Or, better yet, perhaps
some role in altering the trends. Still, Twitter's algorithm Julian Assange should just take
Twitter has told Fast Company explanation hasn't satisfy some, So, Twitter expanded its answer topics that are popular don’t break some hairstyle tips from Bieber's
several times that it does "not who felt blaming the issue on the today: into the Trends list because the luscious, mouse brown shag.
editorialize" its trending topics, company's algorithm was more of "There’s a number of factors that current velocity of conversation
and today, the company tried to a n e x c u s e r a t h e r t h a n a may come into play when (volume of Tweets at a given
splash water on this fire once and comprehensive answer to why seemingly popular terms don’t moment) isn’t greater than in
for all. #WikiLeaks had disappeared from make the Trends list. Sometimes previous hours and days.
" T w i t t e r i s n o t c e n s o r i n g the tweet-o-sphere.

Walmart in Supreme Court Appeal for Billion-Dollar Sex Bias

Case
Kit Eaton (Fast Company) majority ruling that the class which would require it to make
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:55:26 PM action, brought by the numerous immediate decisions about
plaintiffs, who worked in over reparations. If Walmart wins this
The Supreme court has agreed to 3,000 different stores in jobs appeal, which only legal eagles
hear an appeal from Walmart across the employment spectrum, can make guesses about (although
against a billion-dollar sexist pay could go ahead. This decision hit it doesn't look good), then it could
case. Walmart's hardly been out of W a l m a r t h a r d , b e c a u s e t h e still face thousands upon
the news for months, but today's compensation amounts total in the thousands of individual cases,
headline is one the company billions of dollars. which will take many years to
probably prefers. Walmart's case rests on one play out.
The lawsuit is the largest single point: It's arguing that the To read more news on this, and
employment discrimination case individual claims by so many have merit as exemplifying cases(where hundreds of similar stuff, keep up with my
in U.S. history, and the most d i f f e r e n t p e o p l e c a n n o t b e endemic malpractice in Walmart. thousands of female employees updates by following me, Kit
recent move in was in April, combined into a class action suit It's a delaying tactic, of course-- were disadvantaged over many Eaton, on Twitter.
where the US Court of Appeals since the women concerned are Walmart is no longer contesting years) but is arguing a point of
for the Ninth Circuit made a too distributed for their claims to guilt in these sex-discrimination law about a class action case
E-reader News Edition Business/ News Wire/ 7

NHL's Board Of Governors Discuss Sprint Nextel: For High-

Team Sales, Salary Cap Hike Risk Investors, Only
Kevin Baumer (Business Joseph Lazzaro
Insider) (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:40:00 PM Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:40:00 PM

The potential sales of the Phoenix
Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs,
and Buffalo Sabres are a hot topic
at the NHL Board of Governors
meeting, being held today and
tomorrow in Palm Beach, Florida.
Matt Hulszier, a prospective
buyer of the Coyotes, already met
with the board today and hopes to
complete a deal by the end of the
year.
An increase of the salary cap will
also be discussed, and some
reports suggest that it could be
bumped another $2 million at the
end of the season.
That means the league is doing
well financially, but it'd be a
tough pill to swallow for a team
like the Chicago Blackhawks who
were forced to jettison some of
their stars to stay under this year's
salary cap.
For more on the NHL, follow the
Sports Page >
Join the conversation about this
story »
See Also:
• Despite Rule Changes, NHL
Concussion Rates Continue To
Rise
• Salary Cap Creates Profitability
Gap Among Teams
• Bill Guerin has announced his
retirement from the NHL.
Filed under: Sprint Nextel Corp
(S), Stocks to Buy Is the tide
starting to turn for much-maligned
mobile phone service provider
Sprint Nextel ( S)? Perhaps, and
the carrier is worth a review.
First, the most important
warning: Sprint is a high-risk
stock not suitable for low-risk or
moderate-risk investors.
Don't consider Sprint if you can't
tolerate a more than 50-70% loss
or seeing your entire investment
wiped out -- it could happen.
The gory story with Sprint has
been well-documented: Sprint's
cell network underperformed, to
say the least, regarding call
completions, with the company
becoming synonymous with
'dropped calls' and 'not in service
area.'
Continue reading Sprint Nextel:
For High-Risk Investors, Only
Sprint Nextel: For High-Risk
Investors, Only originally
appeared on BloggingStocks on
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:40:00 EST.
Please see our terms for use of
feeds. Permalink| Email this|
Comments

What's Next for Massey Energy? Obama, congressional Democrats

Tom Taulli (BloggingStocks) investors are now betting that the to meet on taxes-aide
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:00 PM company may actually buy a rival. (Reuters: Top News) the Nation/Handout
Confusing, huh? This entry passed through the
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:24:30 PM
Filed under: Stock Picks Massey Continue reading What's Next for Full-Text RSS service — if this is
Energy ( MEE), which is a major Massey Energy? Democrat Senate Majority Whip your content and you're reading it
coal producer, continues to be the What's Next for Massey Energy? Richard Durbin (D-IL) (L) and on someone else's site, please read
subject of lots of rumors. Of originally appeared on Republican Senate Minority Whip our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
course, the catalyst was a mine BloggingStocks on Mon, 06 Dec Jon Kyl (R-AZ) discuss the content-only/faq.php
explosion in early April, which speak for when a company is 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see Senate's agenda during the lame Five Filters featured article:
killed 29 miners. It marked the looking to sell out. our terms for use of feeds. duck session on CBS News' ''Face Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
worst such event in over 40 years. But will this really happen? Well, Permalink| Email this| Comments the Nation'' in Washington Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Since then, Massey Energy has Massey's CEO, Don Blankenship, December 5, 2010. Catastrophe.
been exploring "strategic has resigned. As a result, Credit: Reuters/Chris Usher-Face
alternatives." This is corporate-
8 Top News/
Palin goes camping with Kate plus 8 Gosselin kids
(AP)
(Yahoo! News: Most Viewed)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 6:00:41 AM
NEW YORK – Kate Gosselin is
not a happy camper.
On this week's edition of "Sarah
Palin's Alaska," she and her brood
make a much-anticipated guest
appearance. But don't expect it to
reveal her inner Daniel Boone.
"How would you like to go
camping with Kate and her eight
kids — that TV show you
watch?" Sarah Palin asks her
daughter, Piper, at the start of the
episode.
Piper squeals with delight at the
idea of hanging with these stars of
another TLC series.
As things develop, the camping
trip in the Alaskan wilds will be
no day at the beach for Kate. But
it makes for a hilarious hour of
Palin's show, which airs on TLC
Sunday at 9 p.m. EST.
Read no further if you don't want
spoiler details of Kate's stab at
roughing it.
For a few fleeting moments, it
seems she will savor her visit with
the Palin family. She instantly
bonds with Sarah, as they
compare notes on the predatory
nature of the media.
"There's not a whole lot of people
that I run into that can understand
the scrutiny (by) the media and
beyond," says Kate, whose
crumbling marriage to Jon was
documented on "Jon & Kate Plus
8" while it spurred a feeding
frenzy from the tabloid press.
Now, single mom Kate and her
kids just happened to be in Alaska
taping one of her "Kate Plus 8"
specials, which occasioned their
guest spot with the Palins.
The first stop: Sarah takes Kate
to a bear safety class to prepare
her for their camping expedition.
On the road from Wasilla to the
class in Anchorage, Sarah sort-of
jokes that, in case of a bear attack,
"You need a partner with you
who's slower than you."
"Oh, my gosh!" replies Kate, who
already was spooked by the bear
rug in the Palins' home. "Sacrifice
your friends?"
At the rifle range, she looks more
miserable than she used to look
with Jon.
And that's only the beginning.
The day of the camping trip, it's
— wouldn't you know? —
pouring rain.
Out in the middle of nowhere by
a stream and surrounded by
mountains, Sarah is smiling,
chipper and (literally) loaded for
bear.
"Rain or shine, Alaskans still
camp. We still find a way to have
fun," she chirps.
Then Kate and her kids land at
the campsite. Quickly, Kate
proves to be a bigger pill than a
horse tranquilizer.
"I'm not worrying about bears
right now," she is soon grousing.
"I'm just worried about keeping
my toes wiggling 'cause they're
freezing."
Sarah, daughters Piper and
Willow, husband Todd and other
family members seem to be
having a blast. So, for that matter,
are Kate's youngsters.
"The kids are having fun, so I'm
tolerating it, but this is my new
home," grumbles Kate, having
sullenly planted herself, apart
from the rest, beneath a tarp. "I
am miserable, but, I mean,
somebody's got to be."
Sarah, ever gung-ho, announces
to the group, "This is the most
luxurious camping spot I've ever
seen!"
Cut to Kate, who tells the
camera, "It just kills me that
people, like, willingly do this."
Soon everybody else is enjoying
hamburgers, hot-dogs and s'mores
from the camp fire.
Maybe it was finding out the hot-
dogs are moose. About that time,
Kate loses it.
"I don't see a table, I don't see
utensils, I don't see hand-
cleansing materials," she
whimpers. "This is not ideal
conditions. I am freezing to the
bone, I have 19 layers on, my
hands are frigid. I held it together
as long as I could and I'm done
now!"
She gathers up her children and,
mere hours after their arrival, they
have eaten and run.
Fortunately, Sarah knows the
show must go on. Minus the
Gosselins, she settles the crowd
down for the night.
"Well, I thought we were gonna
go camping with the Gosselins,"
she says when it's all over, full of
glossy good cheer. "Turned out,
we didn't. We had lunch with
them on a sand bar."
___
TLC is a division of Discovery
Communications Inc.
___
Online:
http://www.tlc.com
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — Frazier
Moore is a national television
columnist for The Associated
Press. He can be reached at
fmoore(at)ap.org
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
E-reader News Edition
Egypt's ruling party
sweeps parliament
vote (AP)
(Yahoo! News: Most Viewed)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:10:50 PM
CAIRO – Egypt's election
commission says the ruling party
has won a sweeping victory in
parliamentary elections after the
two main opposition groups quit
the polls in protest of what they
said was massive vote-rigging.
Final results after runoffs on
Sunday gave President Hosni
Mubarak's National Democratic
Party 83 percent of the vote. If
dozens of elected independents
join the NDP, as is expected, the
ruling party could end up in
control of around 96 percent of
the legislature.
Mubarak's government carried
out a heavy crackdown on its
main opponents in the
fundamentalist Muslim
Brotherhood before the vote,
rounding up 1,400 supporters. The
Brotherhood decided to boycott
the runoffs after if failed to win a
single seat in the first round.
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
E-reader News Edition Top News/ News Wire/ Food/ 9

Pennsylvania deer hunters donate Ben Roethlisberger

venison to food banks (Reuters) Needs Surgery on Broken
(Yahoo! News: Most Viewed)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 10:10:03 AM
the program each year. The meat
is typically made into hamburgers
or chili.
valuable in rural areas served.
Some 600 local pantries served
by the Pittsburgh bank feed an
Nose (Video)
(Epoch Times | All headlines) while the Ravens (8-4) were
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Life!) Demand for food of all kinds is average of 120,000 people a
– Deer hunters in Pennsylvania up about 75 percent from two month, representing an increase of Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:47:35 PM pushed back to second place.
are expected to donate about years ago. The bank feeds about 20 percent over the last two years, The decisive play during the
100,000 pounds of venison to help 250,000 people across a 27- Ben Roethlisberger's crooked, game came late in the fourth
Rothermel said.
meet the surging demand from the c o u n t y a r e a , H a n n a s a i d . broken nose. Ben Roethlisberger, quarter when Pittsburgh safety
Rothermel's group has kept up
state's food banks. quarterback for the Pittsburgh Troy Polamalu lined up near the
Statewide, 1.3 million people are with the demand thanks to
Hunters will shoot about 300,000 at risk of hunger, according to the Steelers, suffered a broken nose line of scrimmage and hit Ravens
assistance from food
deer during the two-week hunting Agriculture Department. Sunday night against the quarterback Joe Flacco as he was
manufacturers, food stamp
season that began on November Baltimore Ravens during a hard- reeling back to throw. The ball
Donations from major food programs and individual
29. Some of their haul will be manufacturers are the bank's main hitting, defensive battle in which came loose and Steelers
donations. But she thinks demand
given to Hunters Sharing the source of food, but the increased the Steelers won 13-10. linebacker LaMarr Woodley
will rise due to the estimated
Harvest, a program run by the demand in recent years has forced Roethlisberger was hit in the face picked it up and ran it back to
16,000 people whose jobless
state's agriculture department. it to buy more supplies at a cost of during the Steelers’ first drive as near the goal line setting up the
benefits recently expired.
It provides meat to local food about $1.5 million this year, he was being sacked by Baltimore only Pittsburgh touchdown.
Although the Pittsburgh bank has
banks which redistribute the Hanna explained. defensive tackle Haloti Ngata. "Everybody watching TV at
provided a basic level of nutrition
venison to more than 4,000 local The state's estimated 750,000 According to the Pittsburgh Post- home, everybody in the stadium,
for its clients, some don't eat as
food-assistance organizations that first-day hunters can donate their Gazette, he will need surgery to you all know it you see 43
much as they should, Rothermel
help people unable to feed d e e r t o a n y o f t h e 1 2 5 fix it. [Polamalu] at the line, four-
said.
t h e m s e l v e s b e c a u s e o f t h e participating butchers. The state After taking his helmet off, one minute offense, he's coming,"
"There are people who only eat
economic downturn. could easily tell that his Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs
pays the butchers 85 cents per two meals a day," she said.
"Quality food donations are a rare pound of venison processed. nose broken after sustaining the said, according to the Associated
This entry passed through the
commodity," said Kendall Hanna, In 2009, hunters shot 108,000 hit to the face. Press. "It was just like, I hope we
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
executive director of the Central bucks and more than 200,000 "I just knew it was bleeding, and have a plan. It just didn't feel good
your content and you're reading it
Pennsylvania Food Bank. d o e s , a c c o r d i n g t o t h e then when I got to the sideline I when I saw that hair at the line."
on someone else's site, please read
"Hunters Sharing the Harvest Pennsylvania Game Commission, could tell just by the look on This entry passed through the
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
provides us with lean meat that's in a state where deer are so everyone's face that something Full-Text RSS service — if this is
content-only/faq.php
high in protein, and that's hard to numerous they are seen as a pest. wasn't right," said Roethlisberger, your content and you're reading it
Five Filters featured article:
come by." according to the Washington Post. on someone else's site, please read
Joyce Rothermel, chief executive Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
His organization normally o f t h e G r e a t e r P i t t s b u r g h "I looked real quick. I don't know, our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
receives between 10,000 and Community Food Bank, said I look like I just went 12 rounds content-only/faq.php
Catastrophe.
15,000 pounds of venison through venison donations are particularly with [boxer Manny] Pacquiao.” Five Filters featured article:
Even though Ngata’s hit to the Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
How to Roast a Chicken face was questionable, he did not
get penalized. With the victory
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
(Cooking Light: Editor's Picks) Full-Text RSS service — if this is Five Filters featured article: over the Ravens, the Steelers (9-3)
your content and you're reading it Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- took first place in the AFC North
Sorry, Readability was unable to on someone else's site, please read Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
parse this page for content. our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ Catastrophe.
This entry passed through the content-only/faq.php
10 News Wire/
Bernanke: More Fed bond buys "certainly possible"
(Reuters: Top News)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 7:36:42 AM
Controlling a ball with a
smartphone is just the tip of the
iceberg for entrepreneur Ian
Bernstein. The Orbotix founder
envisions many applications for
his technology such as helping the
physically challenged.
Full Article| Video
Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Ben Bernanke delivers opening
remarks at a Federal Reserve
System symposium on ''Mortgage
and the Future of Housing
Finance'' in Arlington, Virginia,
October 25, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Jim Young
By Pedro Nicolaci da Costa
WASHINGTON| Mon Dec 6,
2010 8:36am EST
WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The
Federal Reserve could end up
buying more than the $600 billion
in U.S. government bonds it has
committed to purchase if the
economy fails to respond or
unemployment stays too high, Fed
Chairman Ben Bernanke said.
The Fed will regularly review the
policy and could adjust the
amount of buying up or down
depending on the economy's path,
he added.
In a rare televised interview,
Bernanke told the CBS program
"60 Minutes" the Fed's actions are
aimed at supporting what is still a
fragile economic recovery,
dismissing critics who argue the
policy will lead to future inflation.
"This fear of inflation I think is
way overstated," Bernanke said in
the interview aired on Sunday.
"What we're doing is lowering
interest rates by buying Treasury
securities," he said. "And by
lowering interest rates, we hope to
stimulate the economy to grow
faster. The trick is to find the
appropriate moment when to
begin to unwind this policy. And
that's what we're going to do."
Bernanke said it would take four
to five years for the country's
unemployment rate, which rose to
9.8 percent in November, to come
down to what he called more
"normal" levels of around 5
percent to 6 percent.
Asked if the central bank could
go beyond the $600 billion of
bond buys announced at its
November meeting, Bernanke
said: "Oh, it's certainly possible. It
depends on the efficacy of the
program. It depends, on inflation.
And finally it depends on how the
economy looks," he said.
But he also did not rule out
stopping short of the total.
"We're gonna be regularly
reviewing this," Bernanke said.
"This is not something that we've
set into automatic motion going
forward. We want to continue to
think about it. Whether it needs to
be changed. Whether it needs to
be increased or decreased or
modified."
The U.S. economy grew at a
modest 2.5 percent annual rate in
the third quarter, and more
vigorous growth is needed to
bring down unemployment.
The "60 Minutes" interview is as
part of a broader effort to raise the
E-reader News Edition
Fed chairman's public profile in
order to counter critics of Fed
policy -- both in Washington and
within the central bank itself.
NOT PRINTING MONEY
The decision to offer further
monetary stimulus at a time
overnight borrowing costs are
already effectively at zero and the
banking system is awash with
$2.3 trillion in Fed-created credit
has proven controversial both at
home and abroad.
Many economists, some
Republican lawmakers, and a
small but vocal minority of top
officials within the Fed worry that
the central bank's actions are
unlikely to do much to spur
economic growth with borrowing
costs already unusually low.
Instead, they worry the massive
bond purchases will lead to
distortions in financial markets,
potentially sparking asset bubbles
in unexpected places. Some also
fear, as Charles Plosser of the
Philadelphia Fed has argued, the
expansion of reserves could create
the "kindling" that will spark
inflation in the future. Jocomus
wrote:
Bernanke seems to suggest the
current QE2 is not working as
smoothly as anticipated, as
otherwise he shouldn’t have
mentioned further easing needy to
sustain market confidence.
It is futile to print more
greenbacks to boost overseas asset
prices while not benefitting the
domestic unemployed. ttolstoy
BERNANKE: page 11
E-reader News Edition News Wire/ Technology/ 11

A Pogo Stick for

Appeals court hears California gay marriage case the 21st century
(Reuters: Top News) But first the court must decide California challenge could shape ballot measure, since the attorney
whether the backers of the the nation if the Supreme Court general will not. (CNET News.com)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:19:48 PM
Proposition 8 ban have the right to decides to review the appeals "People of good will can and do Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:49:09 PM
Same sex marriage supporter defend it after the California court decision. differ in good faith on the issue of
Dominic Coluans waves flags governor and attorney general A lower court struck down the same-sex marriage, and their Sorry, Readability was unable to
outside City Hall after a judge declined to do so. ban earlier this year, ruling that differences should be resolved parse this page for content.
lifted the Proposition 8 stay on Judges questioned whether marriage is a fundamental through the political process, not This entry passed through the
same sex marriages at City Hall in anyone other than the named state constitutional right and that the here," they argued in a brief. Full-Text RSS service — if this is
San Francisco, California August officials had such a legal right, defenders of the ban showed no Gay marriage proponents your content and you're reading it
12, 2010. but some on the panel also justifiable reason for limiting the successfully argued in the lower on someone else's site, please read
Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith seemed frustrated with the idea institution to opposite-sex court that the definition of our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
By Dan Levine and Peter that by declining to defend a couples. marriage has changed over time, content-only/faq.php
Henderson popularly approved ballot The ruling is on hold, though, for instance including polygamy Five Filters featured article:
SAN FRANCISCO| Mon Dec 6, m e a s u r e t h e g o v e r n o r a n d while under appeal. in some societies. Same-sex Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
2010 3:19pm EST attorney general in effect could California Attorney General -- marriages would not harm the Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
SAN FRANCISCO(Reuters) - A veto it. and governor-elect -- Jerry Brown institution, they contended. Catastrophe.
three-judge appellate panel "That does not seem to be declined to defend the ban, and Limiting matrimony to opposite- BERNANKE:
considering whether to allow gay consistent with the initiative U.S. District Court Chief Judge sex couples is no different than continued from page 10
marriage to resume in California system," Circuit Judge Stephen Vaughn Walker questioned laws which stopped interracial wrote:
Monday sharply questioned both Reinhardt said in court during the whether proponents of the ban marriages, they said in a brief. Mr. Bernanke is a liar,
sides of the case, which many first half of the hearing. had the legal right to defend it in This entry passed through the incompetent and corrupt. Now, he
expect to be appealed to the California voters, with a the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Full-Text RSS service — if this is says:
Supreme Court and set national reputation for social liberalism, Appeals. your content and you're reading it “One myth that’s out there is that
policy. shocked the United States in 2008 The Prop 8 ban proponents say on someone else's site, please read what we’re doing is printing
The Ninth Circuit Court of when they narrowly approved the the lower court ignored common our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ money,” he said. “We’re not
Appeals judges have been asked Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage wisdom and history that limits content-only/faq.php printing money…”
to discard a lower court ruling that only months after the top state marriage to a man and a woman Five Filters featured article: Yet, when he appeared on 60
the state's 2008 Proposition 8 ban court opened the door to same-sex in order to spur procreation. Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- Minutes in March 2009, when
on same-sex marriage violates weddings. They also argue that they have Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Constitutional guarantees of More than 40 states have the right to defend the ban as Catastrophe. BERNANKE: page 12
equality and due process. outlawed such unions, but the official sponsors of the 2008

Easter Island Clashes Leaves Two Dozen Injured

(Epoch Times | All headlines) indigenous people who took on their website http:// are no official reports or details of your content and you're reading it
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:27:48 PM residence in several buildings saverapanui.org/. any police being injured despite on someone else's site, please read
months ago, witnesses told the The group says that Chilean statements that have been made.” our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Easter Island has been the site of news agency.“Chilean special officials took buildings away from Eastern Island is considered a content-only/faq.php
clashes between police and locals forces are hunting for individuals their ancestors years ago. World Heritage site by UNESCO Five Filters featured article:
and two dozen people have been who have been involved with the The statement continued: “21 and is a popular tourist destination Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
injured in the past several days, reoccupation and those they are Rapanui were shot and injured due to its large, monolithic Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
the BBC reports. targeting who have helped share including Richardo Tepano, who sculpted heads. Catastrophe.
Police, in the process of trying to the story with the international lost his right eye and was flown to This entry passed through the
force evictions, fired pellets on press,” the Rapa Nui group stated Santiago for medical care. There Full-Text RSS service — if this is
12 News Wire/ Technology/ E-reader News Edition
BERNANKE:
continued from page 11

asked about the prospective
quantitative easing, he stated:
“What we’re doing, basically, is
printing money…”
In fact, they ARE printing
money. He is lying when he says
that the money supply is not
changing. In fact, M1 is soaring
and M2 is rising.
Only M3 is mildly declining or
stagnant, and that is because the
velocity of money has done down
dramatically. Once it normalizes,
M3 will soar, along with inflation,
as it did the last time Bernanke
was advocating the printing of
money to help his friends on Wall
Street, back in 2001-03.
M3 began to soar very high, after
Bernanke pressed former
Chairman Alan Greenspan to
deeply lower interest rates from
2001-03. True inflation
(calculated honestly according to
the pre-1982 formula) began
reaching the double digits by
2007-08. M3 was so high that the
corrupt Fed announced that it
would no longer calculate it. The
reason given was that the
calculation of M3 takes up too
many “resources”. This was an
obvious lie because calculating it
is a simple case of adding and
subtracting given that the Fed still
gathers all the basic data.
We have just learned, from
Bernanke’s words on 60 Minutes,
that the Fed never stopped
calculating M3. It simply does so,
now, in secret. The reality is that
this incompetent Fed Chairman is
going to bring on an inflationary
holocaust the likes of which the
world has never seen before. It
simply takes time to reach
fruition. We are now in the
incubation period.
Bernanke should be impeached
as soon as possible, and the Fed
should have its doors closed. Both
of these things will happen when
the current excesses collapse into
a total implosion by about 2013.
Silkster wrote:
Maybe we’ll go back to gold
backed money when this thing
collapses in a couple of years. If
we do, I hope and pray that
fractional reserve banking is made
illegal forever and that central
banking fades into history..
centralized banking has made
more people poor and the upper
rich richer.. Read the book “The
Creature from Jekyll Island: A
Second Look at the Federal
Reserve”. You’ll have a eureka
moment…
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
Heath Miller Hit
Should’ve Drawn Flag:
NFL Official
(Epoch Times | All headlines)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:27:30 PM
Heath Miller suffered a
concussion after this hit. A Heath
Miller hit by the Ravens’ Jameel
McClain in Sunday night’s game
should have drawn a flag, an NFL
official said after the play.
Carl Johnson, head of NFL
officiating, told NBC’s broadcast
that the helmet-to-helmet hit
should have resulted in a penalty
against McClain and the Ravens,
the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
reported.
Late in the third quarter, the
Pittsburgh Steelers’ Heath Miller
had a pass from Ben
Roethlisberger deflected away,
and was going to the ground,
when he was hit by McClain,
snapping Miller’s head and neck
backwards. Miller stayed on the
field for several minutes before
leaving the game with a collision,
the Tribune-Review reported.
NBC commentators calling the
smashmouth AFC North matchup
expressed their outrage that there
was no penalty call.
The fact that there was no flag
was “unbelievable,” NBC color
commentator Cris Collinsworth.
“That is the very definition of
what I’ve been told [is] a
defenseless player.”
The game, won by the Steelers by
a score of 13-10, also saw Steelers
QB Roethlisberger have his nose
broken after a sack by the Ravens’
Haloti Ngata. Roethlisberger will
need surgery to fix his crooked
nose.
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.

Hacker Poll: Is Vertical Experience Important for Your Career?

Klint Finley (ReadWriteWeb) responses were interesting. Most specific vertical is good at, then career?
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:45:00 PM seemed to think that vertical applying it to a different vertical." Sponsor
experience is important, but a few Simon Brown dissented, saying it Is Vertical Experience Important
Last week RedMonk's James disagreed. Laurence Hart noted wasn't important "provided you for Your Career online surveys
Governor asked on Twitter: t h a t v e r t i c a l e x p e r i e n c e i s have the ability to pick up what The choices in the poll were
"Software Developers: do you important for moving into roles you need." modeled after the ones in the IBM
think vertical industry expertise is other than development. Gareth What do you think? Is vertical survey that inspired Governor's
important to your career?" The Rushgrove said yes, but mainly for "taking something that a experience important for your question. Discuss
E-reader News Edition
Wikileaks' Assange May be TIME's Person of the
Year
Marshall Kirkpatrick
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:18:23 PM
Wanted by the law across
multiple countries, threatened
with military action by US hawks,
shut out by internet vendors from
Amazon to PayPal, Wikileaks
leader Julian Assange may still be
named TIME Magazine's Person
of the Year for 2010. He's
currently leading in the
magazine's online poll, ahead of
the Prime Minister of Turkey,
Recep Erdogan, in influence score
if not in votes.
Erdogan is hardly
uncontroversial, either, having
challenged Israel vehemently and
collaborating with Turkish
nationalists TIME says still deny
the history of the Armenian
genocide. The Person of the Year
award this year is basically a
media statement for or against the
legitimacy of Wikileaks and what
it represents. The third candidate
on the list might represent the
perfect abdication of
responsibility for answering this
or any serious questions: it's Lady
Gaga.
Sponsor
What Wikileaks Represents
Depending on your perspective,
Assange and Wikileaks probably
represent one of two things. As
GigaOm's Mathew Ingram wrote
this weekend, "Some argue that
there is nothing journalistic about
the organization whatsoever, and
that it is simply a lawless group of
misfits spreading information
around that it doesn't have the
right to distribute, without caring
for the effects of its actions."
Journalism thought leader Jay
Rosen, however, calls
Wikileaks"the world's first
stateless news organization."
The organization, which isn't at
all a wiki like Wikipedia is
anymore, does represent
something very interesting about
contemporary technology and
media. This much is hard to
argue with, I think, no matter your
perspective: Written about by
websites everywhere, spread
across millions of Twitter and
Facebook conversations, mirrored
by hundreds of independent
servers, Wikileaks represents
mass accessibility of information
that simply cannot be shut down,
despite the best efforts of
authorities.
Unlike Amazon, Paypal and
others, Twitter and Facebook
have allowed the organization to
continue using their services.
Were that to change, we'd be
talking about a different ball
game. Neither company has
responded to inquires about their
official positions on their
Wikileaks accounts, but neither
has shut down the accounts,
either.
Twitter is passing around a press
statement this morning stating that
it is not censoring Wikileaks from
its "trending topics" section, but
asked point blank about whether it
will permit the Wikileaks account
to remain online or whether it will
be shut down, Twitter's Matt
Graves told ReadWriteWeb,
"We've got no additional
comment beyond the statement."
Genie, Meet the World Outside a
Bottle
It's also notable that most of the
"state secrets" being distributed
by Wikileaks are allegedly from
troves of information that
thousands, if not millions, of
people had security clearance to
see already. There are 3 million
people in the U.S. with some level
of security clearance to access
classified government documents.
It's hard to believe that malevolent
actors who wanted to see what
Wikileaks exposes didn't have the
opportunity to, though now the
documents have been analyzed by
hundreds of outside analysts,
indexed by search engines and
pointed to by countless websites.
That scale of eyeballs, minds,
machines and social connections
is the biggest game changer, not
the mere availability of the
information.
The U.S. government made the
Internet fault tolerant through
Technology/ 13
redundant connections. Now API of the
unflattering information about its
own activities has flooded that Week:
network it helped create. The
Internet is a genie that cannot be
put back in the bottle.
UserVoice API
Klint Finley (ReadWriteWeb)
No one has forced discussion of
these questions before as much as Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:45:00 PM
Julian Assange and Wikileaks. I
UserVoice, one of our favorite
expect that TIME will award
idea management services,
Assange the Person of the Year
launched a new API today.
Award, not for any of the
UserVoice has completely
revelations that Wikileaks
revamped its API, which is
exposed, but for the way it forced
available in two varieties: a free
the issue of a radically transparent
read-only version and a more
global communications network.
powerful commercial version. The
The magazine may reference its
company built its new Facebook
choice of Joseph Stalin in 1939 to
Page App and iPhone SDK using
emphasize that the award is not a
the new API.
sign of approval or support, but
Sponsor
such an award would doubtlessly
The SDK is particularly
confer a new sense of legitimacy
interesting. As UserVoice points
to Wikileaks and the issues the
out in its announcement, iPhone
organization represents.
users frequently give apps bad
You can't change your Facebook
ratings because of one bug or
profile from dating to single these
missing feature. Using the iPhone
days without all your friends
SDK you can build a UserVoice
finding out - and neither can
community right into an app and
international diplomats put digital
collect feedback within the app,
pen to paper without some
hopefully stemming bad reviews
concern that their words will be
elsewhere. The SDK is available
made available for universal
here.
access and analysis. How will
The new API can be access
that change the world of
through your UserVoice account
international relations? I suspect
in Apps & Plugins section of the
we're about to find out.
Admin Console. Discuss
Perhaps Lady Gaga will be the
Person of the Year instead,
though. Discuss
14 Technology/ E-reader News Edition

Reading A Google eBook On My iPad

Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch) also supposed to sync between have been an opportunity for
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:34:18 PM devices, so that you can start Google to really show how
reading on your laptop, pick up on HTML5 rocks in a real product,
Earlier today, Google launched your phone, and then finish off at but it is mostly just basic
its eBook store with 3 million night on a tablet. While this javascript. Also, for a company
books, many of them free. I’ve bookmarking feature seems to desperate to add a social layer to
been playing around with it on my work fine within any given all of its products, there is nothing
iPad even though there is no iPad device, I find the syncing only social about these eBooks. There
app yet. That is because you can works about half the time between is no way to share a link to a page
read the books in your browser. devices. Half the time, it seems to or even an excerpt—not even for
iPad and Android apps are cache the last page read on the free books no longer under
available, but if Google can make whatever device you are reading copyright. Any shared links
the browser reading experience on instead. There is no way to simply direct you to the first page
just as compelling, people won’t manually set a bookmark in the of each book, at least for books in
need those apps. So far, however, browser reader either. the public domain. Google has
t h e i n - b r o w s e r r e a d e r i s a The HTML reader is basic but done all the work to display books
disappointment. functional. On an iPad, you can in your browser on the Web, but
When you log into Google read one page at a time vertically, then stripped them of the
eBooks via the browser, your or two pages horizontally. It lets capability to interact with other
shelf is filled with three free you choose different fonts, and texts on the Web through links.
eBooks: Alice’s Adventures in even read the original scanned You know, the basic building
Wonderland, Great Expectations, v e r s i o n o f t h e b o o k ( s e e get in Apple’s iBooks app. That Apple digital reading app). Unlike block on top of which the Web,
and Pride and Prejudice. You can screenshots below comparing the may sound like a trivial nitpick, the browser version, the Google and Google’s own search engine,
read them in your browser on scanned version to the “flowing but that swiping animation is one eBooks iPad app does include is founded.
your iPad, on your phone, or on text” version). Google eBooks of those details which make page-turning animations. CrunchBase Information Google
your laptop. also maintains the orignal digital books a pleasure to read in My bigger problem with the iPad Information provided by
One of the best features of pagination as best it can, which is iBooks (my children fight over browser version of Google’s CrunchBase
G o o g l e e B o o k s i s t h a t i t much better than the random- who is going to turn the next page eBook reader is that it doesn’t
remembers your place and starts seeming “location” numbers you when I read them the Winnie-the- take advantage of the Web, or
you where you left off the next find on a Kindle. But there are no Pooh book that comes with the even HTML5. This reader could
time you load the same book. It is page-turning animations like you

Google Books app feels rushed, disappoints

Erica Sadun (TUAW) Books is a bit of a half-baked ongoing solitaire games (I know, I app feels rushed, disappoints
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:05:00 PM disappointment. know, but that's what I do, and Google Books app feels rushed,
Let's start with the big issues. The 4.2.1 makes it easy). Having to re- disappoints originally appeared on
Google Books finally went live in application doesn't do landscape. orient my iPad to the lap- TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010
App Store and we here at TUAW Personally, I'm not completely unfriendly portrait orientation is 15:05:00 EST. Please see our
couldn't wait to give it a try. adverse to portrait book reading -- just annoying. A two-page side-by terms for use of feeds.
Unfortunately, we should have. after all, it gives you the most -side layout seems to be a given in Source| Permalink| Email this|
Google should have spent more room to read each page on the the e-reader world. I'm stunned Comments
time refining and polishing this screen -- but why doesn't Google I often like flipping back and it's not already in there.
app before releasing it. Google give me the choice? forth between my books and Continue reading Google Books
E-reader News Edition Technology/ Culture/ 15

Rumor: iOS 4.3 to arrive Thursday, Bill Gates showcases a

support subscription-based apps Mac on his blog
(CNET News.com) -profile publishers have already (CNET News.com) A deeply optimistic mind (which
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:35:11 PM introduced apps to convey their Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:06:55 PM I have co-opted just for today)
content (check out Richard might choose to offer that the
If the rumors are true, iOS 4.3 Branson's Project), it's a no- Somehow, the passions of those importance of putting technology
will make it so you don't have to brainer that Apple will give them in love with one gadget rather i n t o c l a s s r o o m s s l i g h t l y
individually buy each issue of a the iOS tools needed to better t h a n a n o t h e r c a n p a l e i n t o outweighs any issue over who
digital magazine or monetize it. At this point, it's nonexistence when compared to, made that technology.
newspaper.(Credit: Conde Nast) really just a matter of when. say, unemployment or the Giants Some will, no doubt, wish to
Magazines and newspapers are And if you believe Gadgets and winning the World Series. remember that Gates' wife
migrating to iOS devices (most Gizmos, the big day will be this And yet, the minute Bill Gates Melinda recently offered that
notably the iPad) at a steady clip, Thursday, so Apple can steal a bit starts advertising Macs, everyone A p p l e p r o d u c t s w e r e m o s t
but there's one problem: of thunder from whatever Sony raises their weapons, ready to fire certainly not allowed in the Gates
publishers don't have a way to sell announces that same day(possibly without discrimination. household.
subscriptions--not yet, anyway. a PlayStation phone). It was Business Insider that first But perhaps this image on her
That may change with the arrival What are your thoughts on iOS revealed that Microsoft's founding husband's blog indicates that,
of iOS 4.3, which is rumored to 4.3? Think it'll drop this week? brain had featured an image these days, as he does important
be arriving (or at least announced) And are you ready to start paying (absent a caption, credit or alt work that might benefit the whole
a s e a r l y a s t h i s T h u r s d a y , subscriptions. for digital editions of your text) of a Mac(and what looks world, he might just be a little
December 9. Currently, iOS supports only favorite print mags? Me, I want to mightily like an iPhone) on his above all the fanboy enthusiasms.
As CNET's Joe Aimonetti single app payments, meaning keep my print editions but also get own blog, The Gates Notes. We are, after all, entering the
reported last month, this build was you have to make a new in-app the iOS versions as part of my For those with a certain kind of season of goodwill.
already in the works when Apple purchase every time you want the paid subscriptions. What say you, humor, seeing this image, directly This entry passed through the
rolled out iOS 4.2. And despite latest issue of, say, "Wired." publishers? (I'm guessing, "Er, beneath the line "What's been on Full-Text RSS service — if this is
the latter's brief delay, it appears According to eWeek Europe, no.") my mind lately," might conjure all your content and you're reading it
iOS 4.3 may still arrive on "further fuel was added to the fire This entry passed through the the precursors for barbs at their on someone else's site, please read
schedule (at least if you believe when The Guardian newspaper Full-Text RSS service — if this is emotional opponents. our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
the rumor mill's version of used a blog to reveal a new your content and you're reading it But given that what has actually content-only/faq.php
Apple's schedule). subscription-based app, which it on someone else's site, please read b e e n o n G a t e s ' m i n d i s Five Filters featured article:
Unlike 4.2, which introduced a said would be released soon." our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ "improving college completion in Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
host of new features (like AirPlay (Actually, the blog in question content-only/faq.php the U.S.," I prefer to think that the Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
and AirPrint), 4.3 will include just doesn't specifically mention a Five Filters featured article: use of this image, Mac, iPhone Catastrophe.
one major addition: subscription subscription-based app, but rather Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- and all, might just have been
billing, which would allow subscription pricing--not quite the Reporting of Falluja's Cancer deliberate.
content providers to charge same thing.) Catastrophe.
weekly, monthly, or annually for Even so, given that so many high

Viber Makes Free iPhone Calls Over 3G and Wi-Fi [Video]

Adam Dachis (Lifehacker) iPhone: Viber is a free app that's calls from your iPhone, but upon VOIP and cost you absolutely
Submitted at 12/6/2010 10:30:00 AM basically Skype meets Google calling another Viber user it'll nothing. More »
Voice. It can make regular voice automatically route the call over
16 Technology/ E-reader News Edition

Monitor your baby from anywhere with the WiFi

Baby 3G
David Winograd (TUAW) doesn't supply audio, and it's a
non-universal app without native
Does Wikileaks
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:30:00 PM
iPad capability. The better option, Represent The End
My daughter is about four weeks according to the manufacturers of
away from having a baby, so I am the WiFi Baby 3G, is the Baby Of Internet History?
really interested in the WiFi Baby Monitor HD($9.99), a universal Nicholas Deleon (TechCrunch)
3G($US 279.00). This Wi-Fi app that does transmit audio. To Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:38:09 PM
enabled baby monitor can let you save battery life on your mobile
see and hear your baby on any device, this app gives you the Look at Matt Drudge, freaking
Mac or PC. Just plug it in, and option of turning off the video out over Wikileaks’ so-called
any browser will let you check in stream. There are also mobile “insurance policy” against Julian
from anywhere whenever you'd solutions available for the Assange’s arrest. READY TO
like. The device, manufactured by Android. The WiFi Baby 3G is LAUNCH “DOOMSDAY
Y-Cam and created by a small available in either black or white. FILES,” Drudge screams. (Red
husband and wife startup to watch Take a look at it in action by font, too. All we need is a
their own baby, can display HD clicking on below. siren.gif and we’re in full
quality color video and audio [via GEARlog] meltdown mode.) And Doomsday
during the day, and thanks to its Continue reading Monitor your for whom, exactly? I mean, as of
array of (infrared, we assume) baby from anywhere with the today, all Wikileaks has done is to
lights that turn on when it's dark,
features include: • and of course, the ability to WiFi Baby 3G make available a number of
shows you black and white video Monitor your baby from documents that were already
• the ability to record video or work both on Wi-Fi and 3G
at night using night-vision anywhere with the WiFi Baby 3G available to some 3 million
still pictures networks
technology. originally appeared on TUAW on Americans. So if this information
• the ability to send email alerts
The Wi-Fi Baby 3G is part
or send alarms to a mobile device There are two options to monitor Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:30:00 EST. is already available to 3 million of
computer and part webcam since
• if the built-in motion detector is your baby from a mobile device. Please see our terms for use of our fellow citizens, why not us? Is
it stands alone and doesn't, as
triggered, an automatic light The cheapest (free) is also made feeds. it wrong for the citizens of a
most other solutions, require you
sensor that will adjust the light by Y-Cam called the Y-Cam Source| Permalink| Email this| republic to know what’s being
to plug a webcam into a
array to the light conditions of the MultiLive iP Camera Viewer. The Comments done in their name around the
computer. Although expensive, world, or does the demand for
baby's room limitations here are that this app
it's quite ingenious. Some of its transparency stop at your ability
to stream Netflix movies?
Mapping + Salesforce.com = ForceMapper Read More

Klint Finley (ReadWriteWeb) based tool for displaying leads users will receive discounts on
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:15:00 PM from Salesforce.com on a heat Pete Warden on Vimeo. subscriptions in the future.
map. When used on the iPhone, it As of now it's only available for [Disclosure: Salesforce.com paid
Just in time for Dreamforce, will use your current location to enterprise-level Salesforce.com for a plane ticket and hotel room
o c c a s i o n a l R e a d W r i t e W e b suggest nearby customers to visit users, but should be available in for Klint Finley to attend the the
contribute Pete Warden has and provide directions. AppExchange soon. It will be free Dreamforce conference in San
r e l e a s e d F o r c e M a p p e r . Sponsor for the first 30 days, and early Francisco.] Discuss
ForceMapper is an OpenHeatMap ForceMapper demonstration from
E-reader News Edition
Sony PSP2 Dead on Arrival, Says Analyst
Evan Selleck (SlashGear)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:52:18 PM
The mobile gaming market may
not be as intense as the home
console market, but there’s
obviously still a lot of money to
be made within its reach. So
there’s no surprise that analysts
would want to get their opinion
out there about what’s coming,
and how they think it will affect
the market as a whole. When it
comes to Sony’s PlayStation
Portable 2, there’s a lot of
discussion about whether or not it
will be a waste of time for Sony,
or be a smash-hit. Obviously,
Sony believes that they’ve got a
hit on their hand, and even some
developers out there who have
managed to get some hands-on
time with the portable gaming
console think it’s nice. But, for
analyst Michael Pachter, none of
that matters, because the PSP2 is
already DOA.
Pachter is an analyst from
Wedbush Morgan, and during a
“Pach Attack” webcast, he
outlined in brief why he believes
the PSP2 won’t be worth the
attention it will receive when it
TCTV Video Review: 2011 Cadillac CTS-V Coupe. The BMW
M3 Killer.
John Biggs (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:17:52 PM
It’s not easy to get over the fact
that the Germans have dominated
launches, and even went on to say
why he believes the mobile
market as a whole is over-
saturated, but that Apple’s iPod
Touch will thin the market soon
enough.
According to Pachter, “I think the
PSP was dead on arrival and I
think the PSP2 is going to be dead
on arrival.” He went on to add
that, “We’re approaching
saturation in the handheld market.
We’re starting to see DS hardware
sales crack, the iPod Touch is
the high-performance luxury car
segment year after year. So, when
I got hold of the Cadillac CTS- V
coupe, I knew that it would be
hard to be a fair judge. This car
cutting into the handheld market.”
While some may say that Pachter
is right, he points out that when
Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS
portable gaming console launches,
it will spike interset in the market
one more time, before it
inevitably flat-lines again, and
people realize that they’re paying
too much money to play Tetris on
their portable gaming unit.
Pricing does obviously play a big
part in the video game industry,
just as it does in any industry.
would really have to blow my
Technology/ 17
Siamese Twintography -
The 'Holy Beauty Project’
by Rossina Bossio
Replicates the Past
(VIDEO)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest
Trends)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:27:02 PM
( TrendHunter.com) The ‘Holy
Beauty Project' by Rossina Bossio
incorporates various media from
photography and video to painting
and drawing. Featured on the ‘I
Want You' magazine's website,
the collection examines the
provocative...
However, with the technology
that the 3DS is bringing to the
table, and with whatever Sony has
up their sleeve for the next
generation PSP2, it would seem,
at least remotely possible, that the Mobile share reports put
video game enthusiasts out there Android in first for ads,
would still prefer to have the RIM with most
power, and technology (plus game
selection) on their particular subscribers
portable game consoles. Mike Schramm (TUAW)
[ via MCV UK] Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:45:00 PM
MOBILE page 18
socks off if it had any shot of would get over my ego and give it
t a k i n g o u t t h e M 3 . M y a fair and balanced review.
experiences with GM vehicles Shouldn’t be too hard.
haven’t always been positive. But, Read More
I got it through my head that I
18 Technology/ Culture/
MOBILE
continued from page 17
Two big mobile market share
reports have just released, both of
them offering up some interesting
news for Apple in the world of
mobile phone OS users. First up,
IDC's report sends Google's
Android OS to a whopping 59
percent share, up from 48.6
percent last year. Apple, IDC
says, will likely finish with less
than 10 percent of the total
market. That's not necessarily bad
news -- Apple is one company,
and Google's Android phone
comes in a variety of flavors from
different manufacturers. IDC also
says the mobile ad market has
reached US$368 million, double
what it was last year, and may
double again next year to almost
$2 billion. That's a big pizza pie,
MoPub, The DoubleClick For Mobile, Gets Seed
Funding From Accel & Harrison Metal
MG Siegler (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:53:14 PM
of which Apple currently has
around 8 percent thanks to iAd.
comScore has also released a
mobile trends report, sitting Apple
behind RIM in the top smartphone
subscribers. The difference here is
that comScore's looking at
subscribers, not users, and RIM's
large enterprise base allows it
some leeway here. RIM has 36
percent of the market compared to
Apple's 25 percent, though in just
the past few months, RIM has
fallen over three points.
There's also some information
about how people are using their
smartphones, and the number one
usage, according to comScore, is
text messaging, with 68 percent of
mobile subscribers texting.
Browsing on the phone, and
MoPub, a service which can most
e asily be thought of as
downloading and using apps also
both score high, but strangely,
nowhere on the list is there
information that anyone, you
know, actually uses their phones
to call people. Maybe that's just
assumed?
Mobile share reports put Android
in first for ads, RIM with most DropDAV Lets You
subscribers originally appeared on
TUAW on Mon, 06 Dec 2010
14:45:00 EST. Please see our via WebDAV [Dropbox]
terms for use of feeds.
Source| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
E-reader News Edition
Cranium-Embedded Cams
(UPDATE) - The
Realized Wafaa Bilal
Head-Implanted Camera
(VIDEO)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest
Trends)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:07:02 PM
( TrendHunter.com) The Iraqi
Access Your Dropbox performance artist and assistant
professor of photography at NYU
has gone through with the
Adam Dachis (Lifehacker) promised procedure -- behold the
Wafaa Bilal Head-Implanted
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:00:00 PM
Camera. Surgically embedded
DropDAV provides access to into his skull,...
your Dropbox over WebDAV,
making it easy to access your
Dropbox files without the need to
sync them. More »
Regal Rustic Jewelry -
Bold Creations by Kinney
Perry with Mystifying
Stones (VIDEO)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest
Trends)
out of AngelPad, a new startup
incubator (also with deep Google Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:30:01 PM

“DoubleClick for mobile”, has ties).

It’s no secret that everyone just received a seed round of MoPub’s bigger picture plan is to ( TrendHunter.com) Kinney Perry
believes the mobile advertising funding from Accel Partners and c o n n e c t i o n s a r e d e e p h e r e . perfect mobile targeting of ads designs explore the very edge of
space is going to be huge. Harrison Metal Capital. The ad- Everyone on the MoPub team is while also creating a system that beauty and style. These daring
Massively, massively huge. If you serving platform for mobile apps either ex-AdMob or ex-Google. is seamless for everyone to set up designs boast beautiful stones and
need any proof of this, just look to and websites is an obvious bet as And since Google bought AdMob and use. They’re already working bold accents exposing uniqueness
Android. That’s essentially the both Rich Wong of Accel and a little over a year ago for with mobile companies like in each piece. Most Kinney Perry
entire reason it exists. In fact, it Michael Dearing of Harrison upwards for $750 million, that Booyah. They also have an open creations are exclusive...
could be a $3 billion business by Metal have been heavily involved means they’re technically all ex- s o u r c e S D K t o g e t M o P u b
2014, MoPub CEO Jim Payne i n t h e m o b i l e s p a c e , w i t h Google. running on your app in minutes.
believes. Not surprisingly, the c o m p a n i e s l i k e G e t J a r a n d We first wrote about MoPub Financial terms of the round we
investors are right there with him A d M o b . here, when they were one of the not disclosed.
in that belief. Speaking of AdMob, the initial launch companies to come
E-reader News Edition
HP’s webOS 2.0 On-Screen Keyboard iPads headed into
Gets Shown Off in Video operating rooms along
Evan Selleck (SlashGear)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:40:22 PM with surgeons
When webOS launched, there
was some grumbling that the
device, when it came to the Palm
Pre (and subsequently released,
Palm Pre Plus), focused too much
on the portrait-slider hardware
keyboard. The absence of an
official on-screen keyboard left
some people wanting more. And
while there were “options”
available for those who wanted to
travel down some particular
roads, Palm seems to want to keep
focusing on the hardware
keyboards. That should surprise
no one, considering Palm’s device
legacy. But, it looks like webOS
2.0, which launched with the
release of the Palm Pre 2, features
a software keyboard, even if it is
far from perfect.
Thanks to the fine folks at
Recycled Robot Sculptures -
Motorcycle Man Sculpture is Made out
of Recycled Bike Parts (GALLERY)
(TREND HUNTER - The Latest
Trends)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:46:04 PM
( TrendHunter.com) The life-sized
' Motorcycle Man Sculpture' is an
webOS Internals, they’ve found
the software keyboard that had
originally only been hinted at
back when webOS 2.0 code was
just beginning to be sifted
through. They rummaged through
amazing recycled art installation
by 'Robosteel.' Based on the
several portions of the latest
version of webOS 2.0, before they
did a few tweaks, and then
restarted the system. When
everything came back online, they
simply had to input
“Opt+Sym+K,” and they had an
on-screen keyboard displayed for
them, ready to use.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look
like the software keyboard is
ready for the limelight quite yet.
The whole thing is still a bit
buggy, and there doesn’t seem to
be any optimization for the
keyboard. However, it’s obvious
that Palm and HP feel that a
software keyboard is necessary in
one way or another. With that in
mind, we can probably start
counting down the days until a
slate-style webOS 2.0-based
device makes an appearance.
[ via PreCentral.net]
original digital sketch created by
illustrator and graphic design
artist Simon Roberts, the...
Technology/ 19
David Quilty (TUAW)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 4:00:00 PM
While some hospitals are eying
the iPad as a way of going
paperless with patient records,
Georgetown University is already
putting them directly in the
operating room and into the hands
of its surgeons. Offering real-time
access to records and images of
patients while inside the operating
room, iPads have become"as
essential as a scalpel" for
surgeons while eliminating
guesswork for those taking care of
multiple patients each day. more popular outside of medical
"The iPad clearly has the potential facilities. I have read a lot about
to be very useful in the hospital how their use should bring down
and in the operating theater," says medical costs for patients. More
Dr. Felasfa Wodajo in the January and more hospitals are realizing
2011 issue of the Journal of just how powerful a tool like the
Surgical Radiology. "The same iPad can be.
features which make the iPad [via American Consumer News]
great for surfing the web, such as
looking at images and viewing
iPads headed into operating
rooms along with surgeons
video, nicely translate into the
operating room."
We have written about iPads
originally appeared on TUAW on
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST.
Please see our terms for use of
showing up in Chicago-area
hospitals and being offered to
feeds.
Source| Permalink| Email this|
hospitals as a campaign promise Comments
in Australia, so I think we can
safely assume that this trend will
only increase as they become
20 Technology/ Economy/ Politics-Left/ E-reader News Edition

Here's That Terrifying Housing Report

That Prompted Nouriel Roubini's
Huge Estimate For Future Losses
Joe Weisenthal (Money Game) with LTV 100 will eventually
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:09:00 PM liquidate—we conservatively
conclude that 11.57 million
Since it's a quiet afternoon, why borrowers are in danger of losing
don't you take a few minutes to his/her home. That is about 1 out
read Amherst Securitie s report: o f e v e r y 5 b o r r o w e r s ; a n
The Housing Crisis—Sizing the impossible number, and one that
Problem, Proposing Solutions. is politically unfeasible.
It's the report that inspired Moreover, if the resolution of the
Roubini to come up with his currently delinquent loans is not
estimate for $1 trillion worth of handled well, home prices will
further housing-related losses for drop further thus reinforcing the
the banks. cycle. The death spiral of lower
Basically the report arrives at a home prices, more borrowers
number of 11.5 homeowners in underwater, higher transition
trouble by slicing the market up rates, more distressed sales and
into non-performing loans, re- lower home prices must be
performing loans, and performing arrested. There are few issues we
l o a n s , a n d c a l c u l a t e d w h a t can imagine that should be of
Custom iPhone 4 Features Diamonds percentage of each will probably h i g h e r p r i o r i t y t o m a r k e t
go bad. participants and policy makers.
Let’s use this information to try Here's the full report
and T-Rex Tooth, Costs $62,700 to quantify the extent of the Amherst Mortgage Insight: The
housing crisis. If we assume Housing Crisis - Sizing the
Evan Selleck (SlashGear) you’re ready to drop a small meteor pieces. And, a T-Rex that—95% of the non-performing Problem, Proposing Solutions
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:32:30 PM fortune on it. tooth. loans, 70% of re-performing 10012010
So, what’s so special about the There’s only 10 of these bad boys loans, 50% of always performing Join the conversation about this
Outlandish iPhone cases have HISTORY Edition iPhone 4 from made in the world, which loans with LTVs>120, 25% of the story »
been around for as long as anyone S t u a r t H u g h e s ? W e l l , t h i s obviously hikes up the price even 100-120 bucket and 5% of loans
can remember. At least, as long as particular iPhone 4 features 8.5ct more. Not that it wasn’t already
iPhones have been around. And internally flawless diamonds that ridiculous. As the title suggests, Ruining the Punchline
while some of them may actually are put around the entire bezel of you’ll have to have $62,700 lying Franklin Foer (The New
be worth the cost of buying it, the device. The diamonds also himself as a thinking person, a
around, ready to go, if you want Republic - All Feed)
there are others that, despite the cover up the Apple logo on the supremely serious and
to make one of these 10 iPhone 4
“features” thrown in, the price tag back of the handset. But that’s not theologically liberal journal of
HISTORY Editions yours. Or, Submitted at 12/6/2010 10:16:57 AM
causes more cardiac arrests than all. You won’t find the regular opinion. In the rush to solve the
you could just go for the$20,000
For many years, The New technical problems of the era who
wallet reaching. This new design iPhone 4s rear panel installed on diamond-covered iPhone 4.
Republic was a distinctly un- had time for frivolous ornaments
from Stuart Hughes is called the this device. No, instead, you’ll [ via UberGizmo]
funny magazine. Or rather, it was like laughs? Or as the great wit
HISTORY Edition, and there’s realize with a simple touch that
a guide to the world for the sort of Phil Ochs famously skewered us
plenty of history going on here — the back of the smartphone has
thinking person that describes in song,
and you can make it all yours, if been given a finish made from
E-reader News Edition Technology/ Economy/ 21

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Is Going To Announce A
Fiscal State Of
Emergency In California
Today
Joe Weisenthal (Money Game)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:10:00 PM

He's just a lame duck, but that

doesn't mean his state isn't facing
an imminent fiscal crisis.
So Arnold is forced to act.
LA Times:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is
scheduled to welcome the new
Legislature on Monday by
declaring a fiscal emergency and

eJOUX Concept Design Shows Electronic Jewelry is ordering it into a special session.
The new crop of lawmakers is
scheduled to be sworn in at noon
the Way of the Future Monday, and Schwarzenegger
has called a 1 p.m. news
Evan Selleck (SlashGear) where the owner is able to put sure that your normal bracelet is incorporate that of a normal conference to lay out his plans to
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:07:37 PM anything they want on there, from brought into the future. Thanks to bracelet or necklace, and just close a gap of almost $6 billion in
moving images, to information a Bluetooth device, users will be implant some flexible display the current fiscal year, which
Slapping electronic things on about who’s calling you. That’s able to upload images, dynamic technology into it. The result ends June 30.
every day items, especially what the eJOUX electronic wallpaper-like panoramic shots, would be a bracelet that feels like Read the whole thing >
electronic things that move or jewelry concept design is all or even allow the bracelet (or your regular old bracelet, but now (Via Mike Riggs)
offer shiny lights, seems to be the about. necklace) display what band has a feature- and color-rich Join the conversation about this
way the future wants to embrace The pieces of jewelry are you’re listening to, and which flexible display on it. story »
those every day items, and there’s designed to fit around your wrist track. [ via Yanko Design]
n o t h i n g w r o n g w i t h t h a t . or neck, based on whether or not There are other uses, too,
Especially when it comes to every you prefer a bracelet or necklace. including providing caller ID
day items like jewelry, and it gets The concept, which was designed information, or text messages.
outfitted with a flexible display, by Biju Neyyan, is meant to make The design is meant to
22 Economy/ E-reader News Edition

Multiple Simultaneous Games of "Chicken"; Price Controls on

Walmart; China Declares Shift to "Prudent" Monetary Policy
noreply@blogger.com (Michael To fill in the details however, we investment spending even while
Shedlock) (Mish's Global need to start from the top with a taking tightening steps to control
Economic Trend Analysis) look at China's overheating inflation.
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:34:00 AM manufacturing sector. "It means that all sorts of
China's is overheating. Consumer Chinese Manufacturing Growth monetary policy tools to control
prices in aggregate rose at an Accelerates liquidity and to control inflation
a n n u a l r a t e o f 4 . 4 % a s o f To date, interest rate hikes have can now be used," said Ken Peng,
October. Food prices are up 10.1 not yet have any effects on an economist with Citigroup in
percent according to China industrial output. China's latest Beijing.
Financial Daily. PMI survey shows Manufacturing "In the past we've been clearly
Moreover, accelerating inflation Growth Accelerates focusing on administrative
is hurting profit margins in China’s manufacturing grew at a measures. Going forward we
China's service sector. China's faster pace for a fourth straight could be using more price
non-manufacturing PMI fell to a month in November, indicating adjustments via interest rates," he
nine-month low in November, the economy can withstand higher said, adding that he expected five
with new orders in consumer interest rates as price pressures rate increases by the end of next
s e r v i c e i n d u s t r i e s s h o w i n g escalate. year.
outright contraction. The Purchasing Managers’ Index China’s non-manufacturing non-manufacturing new-order China Places Price Controls on
In response to these inflationary rose to 55.2 from 54.7 in October, purchasing managers’ index fell index fell to 50.1 last month from Wal-Mart
price pressures, China declared a China’s logistics federation said to a nine-month low in November 56.3 in October, and new orders Would five rate hikes by the end
shift to a " prudent monetary on its website today. as accelerating inflation eroded in consumer service industries of 2011 be enough? Since the
policy", including price controls Cement prices have climbed to a service companies’ margins. indicated a contraction, with a answer is unknown, prudence
at Walmart. record, the state-run China Daily The index dropped to 53.2 from reading of 47, today’s data show. would dictate for China to start
This begs the question: Since reported today. Consumer prices 60.5 in October, according to a Shift to "Prudent" Monetary hiking now in order to slow
when do price controls constitute may have climbed 4.8 percent in statement today by the Beijing- Policy rampant credit expansion.
" prudent policy"? Price controls November after October’s 4.4 based National Bureau of In response to the huge yet likely Instead, Wal-Mart Among
have never worked in history and percent gain, which was the Statistics and the Federation of understated price inflation, China Companies Facing China Price
this time will be no different. biggest in 25 months, according to Logistics and Purchasing. A d e c l a r e s s h i f t t o " p r u d e n t " Controls.
This is a pretty long post, but China International Capital Corp. reading above 50 indicates an monetary policy The southwestern Chinese city of
please stay tuned until the end for Spot prices of power-station coal expansion. A separate service China will switch to a prudent Kunming, where Wal-Mart Stores
a n a n a l y s i s o f M u l t i p l e at Qinhuangdao port, a Chinese PMI released by HSBC Holdings m o n e t a r y p o l i c y f r o m a Inc. and Carrefour SA have
S i m u l t a n e o u s G a m e s o f benchmark, rose to a two-year Plc fell to 53.1, a near two-year moderately loose stance, the o p e r a t i o n s , h a s i m p o s e d
"Chicken". high this week. The Irish Times low. Communist Party's top leaders temporary price ceilings on daily
Topics include a comparison of reports the biggest increase in “Inflationary pressure has started decided on Friday, a change that necessities to counter inflation.
monetary and credit growth in the China's PMI came in the sub- to show a negative impact on could pave the way for more Kunming’s government asked
US vs China, a look at the index for input prices, which service expansion,” the logistics interest rate increases and lending five retailers -- three non-
problems in Japan, a detailed look climbed to 73.5 from 69.9 a federation said in today’s controls. Chinese, one Chinese and one
at various games of "chicken" month earlier. statement. At the same time, the Politburo based in Hong Kong -- to report
central banks play with each Service Sector Contraction The non-manufacturing measure elected to maintain China's any price adjustments and give
other, and a detailed look at Unable to pass on price hikes, encompasses business and p r o a c t i v e f i s c a l p o l i c y , a n reasons for the changes two days
various games of chicken that China’s Services Industry Slows consumer services as well as indication that the government MULTIPLE page 23
speculators play with the market. as Inflation Erodes Margins. construction and real estate. The wants to continue to ramp up
E-reader News Edition
MULTIPLE
continued from page 22
in advance of making any
alterations, the National
Development and Reform
Commission’s local branch said
on its website yesterday.
Besides the five companies, other
food, cooking-oil and beverage
producers are requested to apply
for government approval 10
working days before making price
changes, the statement said.
The city government also
imposed temporary price ceilings
on daily necessities in major parts
of the city starting from yesterday
to the end of February, according
to the statement. Prices of grain,
cooking oil, meat, eggs, milk and
noodles are to be kept at levels
before Nov. 17, the statement
said.
The city limited retail prices of
vegetables, depending on type, to
40 percent to 100 percent higher
than wholesale prices, the
statement said. Price Controls
Never Work
Not once in history have price
controls ever accomplished
anything good, unless you
consider shortages a good thing.
Expect shortages and black
market pricing if the service
sector and grocery stores cannot
pass on input price increase.
The market's response last Friday
was swift and severe as noted by
the following commodity charts.
Grains
Metals
Crude
Chicken
It's not chicken prices that are
important but rather the very
dangerous game of chicken that
China is playing. Money supply
and credit are soaring in China
and along with that explosion of
credit is rampant inflation.
Economics Junkie has a nice set
of charts comparing Money
Supply in the US vs. China.
M1 in China
M1 (China) vs TMS1 (US)
Domestic Credit Contraction in
US
According to the Fed Z1 Flow of
Funds Report US domestic
nonfinancial credit has been in
contraction for 9 consecutive
quarters, while domestic financial
credit has been in contraction for
6 consecutive quarters.
This means one or more of the
following conditions are true,
most likely all of them.
• US banks are reluctant to lend
• US businesses and consumers
are reluctant to borrow
• Banks are capital impaired and
do not want to lend
• Chargeoffs exceed new loans
Total debt is up 4.8% but only
because of massive government
spending (much of it completely
wasted on futile stimulus
measures).
Moreover, the mark-to-market
valuation of debt sitting on the
balance sheets of banks is likely
an absolute disaster. What cannot
be paid back won't, and real estate
loans are still extremely
problematic.
Unfortunately, we don't have an
accurate assessment of just how
bad things are from a mark-to-
market perspective because the
FASB has suspended rule changes
and the Fed and FDIC purposely
looks the other way on
horrendous bank balance sheets
for as long as they can.
We do know the official problem
bank list according to the 3rd
Quarter 2010 Quarterly Banking
Profile rose from 829 to 860. The
unofficial total is 919.
The problem banks total would
be higher yet judging from Texas
Ratios. Meanwhile, in China ....
Credit Up by 9.3 Trillion Yuan
Please consider Fitch says slower
credit rise premature
China's credit growth this year
has not slowed materially from
the rapid pace in 2009 despite
headline data pointing to a
slowdown, Fitch Ratings said in a
report yesterday.
The rating agency said that
Chinese banks have been off-
loading trillions of yuan in loans
this year by artificially reducing
their holdings of discounted bills
and by re-packaging the loans into
investment products for sale to
investors.
The report came on the same day
that China said it would change to
a "prudent" monetary policy in
2011 from a "relatively easing"
stance.
According to the report, the
balance of Chinese banks'
discounted bills was understated
by as much as 1.65 trillion yuan
(US$250 billion) at end of the
third quarter.
A discounted bill is an accepted
draft against which a loan is made
and the interest is deducted
immediately. Through the action,
bill holders can acquire cash
before its maturity date at lower
rate. It could be a channel for
companies to get capital while
bypassing the loan quota.
Banks held more than 2.5 trillion
yuan (US$375 billion) in credit
not reflected in their balance
sheets in wealth management
products at the end of November.
"Adjusting for these factors, the
amount of new credit extended
through the end of the third
quarter was on par with the 9.3
trillion yuan extended in the same
period a year ago," Chu said.
"Credit conditions remain loose,
which explains why inflation and
property prices stay stubbornly
high." China's Credit Expansion is
28% of GDP
US GDP is close to $15 trillion.
This year's borrowing, including
government deficit spending is
roughly $1.7 trillion, or 11% of
GDP. Money supply growth is
5%.
In contrast, China's GDP is about
$5 trillion with annual credit
growth of 9.3 trillion Yuan
(about $1.4 trillion), a whopping
28% of GDP. China's money
supply growth has been over 20%,
most of the time since 2007.
Credit Bubble on Borrowed Time
The Royal Bank of Scotland says
China's Credit Bubble on
Borrowed Time, Warns of
Sovereign Default by China
According to The
Telegraph"Property prices are 22
times disposable income in
Beijing, and 18 times in Shenzen,
compared to eight in Tokyo. The
US bubble peaked at 6.4 and has
23
since dropped 4.7. The price-to-
rent ratio in China’s eastern cities
has risen by over 200pc since
2004".
Citing Fitch, The Telegraph
reports "private credit in China
has grown to 148pc of GDP,
compared to a median of 41pc for
emerging markets."
Yes Virginia, there is rampant
inflation, in China, not the US.
A Bit About Hyperinflation
Several misguided writers cite
rising commodity prices and
money supply growth in the US
and warn of hyperinflation in the
US by the end of 2011 or early
2012.
They ignore the fact that inflation
in China is the primary driver for
commodity price hikes; they
ignore currency debasement the
world over; they ignore extremely
important trends in consumer
credit and bank lending; and they
especially ignore consumer and
business attitudes regarding debt
and credit.
That's one hell of a lot of things
to ignore.
Bear in mind that hyperinflation
is a complete loss of faith in
currency. Political, not monetary
events kick off hyperinflation.
Given that the US is one of the
most politically stable countries
in the world, with large gold
reserves, with the world's
strongest military, and with an
increasingly conservative
Congress, the idea that
hyperinflation will hit the US
anytime soon is preposterous.
MULTIPLE page 24
24
MULTIPLE
continued from page 23
Multiple Simultaneous Games of
Chicken
As noted above, China plays
chicken with commodity prices,
credit expansion, and price
controls. That is not the only
game of chicken.
Internationally, there are multiple
simultaneous games of chicken.
For example, Bernanke plays
chicken with China via a QE
policy hoping to force China to
jack up its interest rate, something
China does not want to do.
Bernanke plays a second game of
chicken with Congress, treading
on fiscal policy while demanding
Congress not comment on
monetary policy.
Bernanke plays a third game of
chicken attempting to spur
inflation in the US while
simultaneously holding down
long-term interest rates. Can that
possibly work? For how long? At
what cost?
Bernanke Plays Chicken with the
Bond Market
Trichet Plays Chicken with the
Euro
Trichet and the EU are in various
games of chicken regarding the on
-again-off-again strategy of
buying sovereign bonds while
offering "unlimited cash" to fight
the alleged attack on the Euro
(See ECB Offers "Unlimited
Cash" for 3 Months at 1%, Buys
Government Bonds to Fight Acute
Tensions; Ireland, Take the
Money and Buy Gold)
The only thing that can save
Europe is if senior bond holders
take a haircut on debt owed by
Greece, Ireland, Spain, and
Portugal that cannot possibly be
paid back.
Instead of admitting the above,
Trichet pulled out the "unlimited
cash" bazooka. The problem with
offering unlimited cash is that it is
a high-interest loan that leaves the
debt intact and puts a huge
interest-rate penalty on top of it.
Ireland cannot possibly pay back
its debt even at 0% interest. Yet
the EU and IMF expect Ireland to
come up with interest at 5.8%, on
a huge loan, when its budget
deficit is 30% of GDP, and its
economy is in contraction.
Mathematically this Ponzi scheme
cannot possibly work.
Australian and Canadian Chicken
The Reserve Bank of Australia
played its own games of chicken,
letting property bubbles get sky
high in order to prevent a
recession in 2008. Now, in spite
of still rising commodity prices,
Australia is on the brink of
recession, with 3rd quarter GDP
falling to .2%.
Those plowing into Australian
dollars in belief it is a safe haven
just may have another thing
coming when the Reserve Bank is
forced to cut rates to combat a
recession it refused to allow the
last go around.
Australia is finally poised to
crash with massively rising
housing inventory and multiple
failed property auctions. The
Australian economy will be in
shambles when housing collapses.
Imagine what happens when
China slows and commodity
prices sink as well. The
Australian stock market could be
in for one nasty spill.
Canada has its own property
bubble to reckon with, much the
same as Australia. Indeed, most
Canadian and Australian housing
proponents are in their own
Fantasyland bubble chanting "It
can't happen here."
It will.
Chicken Japanese-Style
In one of the biggest games of
chicken the world has ever seen,
Japan is hell-bent on defeating
deflation. The result is staggering.
Japanese government debt is
200% of GDP and growing, but
inflation is nowhere to be found.
Why is there no inflation in
Japan? Because like the US, and
unlike China, there is little to no
credit expansion in Japan.
This shows the importance of
credit expansion as opposed to
monetary expansion alone. Nearly
everyone gets this wrong in spite
of overwhelming evidence that
rampant credit growth is the
driver for inflation.
Actually, to be far more accurate,
net expansion of credit is
inflation, not a driver of inflation.
To understand the paramount
importance of credit, please see:
• "Straight Talk" with Economic
Bloggers
• Are we "Trending Towards
Deflation" or in It?
• Is Debt-Deflation Just
Beginning?
In spite of ever-expanding
national debt, Japan's long-term
interest rates are the lowest in the
world. Yet, because of
demographics and a rapidly aging
population, Japan will soon have
to draw down on its "savings", all
of which went into treasury bonds
at 1%, all of it already spent, and
200% more, in various
nonsensical deflation-fighting
efforts.
The problem for Japan is interest
on the national debt will consume
all revenues if Japan's long-term
interest rates rise to a mere 3%.
Yet, demographics show higher
interest rates are nearly
guaranteed unless Japan decides
to default.
The interesting thing about
default is that countries frequently
default on external debt but
seldom default on debt owed to its
own citizens. Nearly all of Japan's
debt is internal. Will Japan default
on that debt or will Japan attempt
to print its way out?
Should Japan try printing instead
of defaulting, it faces a currency
crash. If taken to extreme
measures, Japan could
conceivably see a complete loss
of faith in the Yen
(hyperinflation). At this juncture,
hyperinflation is far more likely in
Japan than the US.
The critical question for Japan is
"How long can this imbalance
continue before it blows up in one
direction or the other?"
Interestingly, Japan may blowup
both ways, first in one direction
then the other, so the order and
timing of bets is important.
Yuan Chicken
Interestingly, myopic, dollar-
centric eyes remain focused on a
US currency crash even though a
E-reader News Edition
Japanese Yen or Euro crash seems
far more likely.
However, the ultimate currency
irony pertains to the Yuan,
especially with Bernanke and
Congress pleading for China to
allow the Yuan to strengthen.
Here is the reason: Hot money is
flowing into China in speculation
of rising interest rates, 10%
perpetual growth, and a rising
value of the Yuan.
Few bother to think ahead as to
what happens when that hot-
money flow reverses or what
happens if China cannot expand at
the expected rate of growth for
any reason. The kicker is that
China cannot possibly grow at
10% perpetually and peak-oil is
the reason.
Peak-oil stares China-bulls
straight in the face, but they are
too blind to see it.
Crude Chicken
Crude prices are soaring higher
and higher, not only because of
peak-oil but also because of the
game of chicken Bernanke plays
with QE and the game of chicken
China plays with interest rates. In
response, shipping and
manufacturing costs rise, China
overheats, and a price squeeze
mounts on businesses unable to
pass along all the input price
hikes.
Meanwhile, China-bulls (nearly
everyone) cheer that which is
unsustainable, and China itself
thinks it can control prices with
price-controls. As icing on the
speculative cake, hedge funds,
MULTIPLE page 26
E-reader News Edition
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders' "Radical Idea" to Cut Costs; Is
Sanders a Hero or a Liar?
noreply@blogger.com (Michael
Shedlock) (Mish's Global
Economic Trend Analysis)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:15:00 AM
Jerry Sanders, the mayor of San
Diego claims to have a "radical"
ideas to reduce city expenditures.
Inquiring minds have a couple of
questions. The first question is:
Just how radical is the plan? The
second question is: Just how big
of a liar is Jerry Sanders?
Let's start the discussion with a
look at Pension-Squeezed Cities
May Turn to San Diego’s
‘Radical Idea’ Cities from New
York to San Jose, California,
facing almost $400 billion in
unfunded pension liabilities, will
be watching what San Diego
Mayor Jerry Sanders calls his
“radical idea” to cut costs.
After voters in the eighth most-
populous U.S. city rejected a half-
cent sales tax increase to balance
the budget Nov. 2, Sanders is
pushing to eliminate pension
plans for new city employees,
offering 401(k)-like savings
accounts instead.
“We’re all going to have to get
realistic,” Sanders, a 60-year-old
Republican, said in a telephone
interview. “The private sector
went through this. Government
will have to relook at how we do
stuff as well.”
Sanders’s defined-contribution
plan would apply to civilian
employees in the city of 1.3
million. Police and firefighters
would not be eligible, because
lower benefits might hurt
recruiting, he said. That's Radical?
The deeper in that article you
read, the less radical it gets. You
want radical? Start talking
bankruptcy. While I commend
elimination of public pension
plans, it is beyond absurd to use
the term "radical" for any plan
that exempts police and
firefighters.
Moreover, the excuse "lower
benefits might hurt recruiting" is
pathetic. In fact, it's a blatant lie
proving Sanders is beholden to
public unions.
Lies Don't Stop There
It would be bad enough if the lies
stopped there. But they don't.
Please consider SD Mayor Lied
About Critical Need for Prop D
Sales Tax
11/19/10
Was Mayor Sanders Lying About
Critical Need for Prop D Sales
Tax? Short answer -- HELL YES!
It was just three weeks ago that
San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders
was running carefully
orchestrated "town hall meetings"
around the city -- threatening
citizens with death and
destruction if we did not approve
Prop D -- the city sales tax
increase. Fortunately in an epic
battel, the measure lost by an
awesome 62%-38% marign.
The frowny faced police chief
and fire chief each dutifully stood
before audiences and announced
inevitable dramatic personnel and
service cutbacks if the sales tax
didn't pass. Doomsday was upon
us.
[See article for list of cuts Sanders
said he would have to make]
[Proposition D Went down in
flames 62% to 38%]
Today the mayor sends out a
press release (included below)
cheerily announcing numerous
solutions to close the budget
deficit -- and NO MENTION OF
PUBLIC SAFETY PERSONNEL
CUTS, or indeed of any of the
threatened cuts. Somehow the
deadly unsolvable city budget
deficit of three weeks ago is quite
solvable after all!
There is no delicate way to say
this -- given the short time frame
to come up with these solutions, it
is quite clear that Mayor Jerry
Sanders knowingly lied to the
public to frighten voters into
supporting higher taxes.
Not that the Sanders solutions
will solve the problem. His
reforms are too tepid, and don't
deal with the dramatically
growing deficit problem. Carl
DeMaio's comprehensive plan
offers much better, more
fundamental reforms.
It's clear that Mayor Sanders
knew all along that the life-
threatening service cuts (and
resulting deaths) were cynical
fabrications. Why does anyone
still respect this man? Who
Backed Proposition D
Let's dig a little deeper with a
look at Who funded the pro and
con Proposition D campaigns?
The election results —
Proposition D was rejected by 62
percent of voters — continue a
pattern of labor unions losing city
ballot initiatives over the past
decade, a period in which public
anger over guaranteed pensions
for public workers has reached a
crescendo.
Sales tax supporters, including
Mayor Jerry Sanders, say the
results are more a reflection of the
public’s anti-tax mood in the
middle of a rough economy than
an indication that labor’s
influence at City Hall is wilting.
“I don’t think it shows labor’s
weak,” Sanders said. “Going out
for a tax increase at any time is
difficult and going out right now
is especially difficult. ... This was
kind of a lightning rod ballot
initiative.”
Proposition D opponents,
including Councilman Carl
DeMaio, say voters are wising up
after years of city leaders giving
away generous pension benefits to
union workers. DeMaio said San
Diegans are willing to pay higher
taxes but only after the city fixes
its beleaguered pension system.
Proposition D supporters spent
more than $500,000, with most of
the money coming from city
employee unions. Opponents
spent more than $320,000 with
significant contributions from
restaurants, car dealers,
developers and the Lincoln Club,
a pro-business group. Donations
for Prop D
Economy/ 25
The article notes the following
donations.
• City Firefighters Union -
$153,800
• San Diego Imperial Counties
Labor Council - $50,600
• City Police Union - $52,000
• Municipal Employees
Association - $50,000
• AFSCME - $28,2000
I have a problem with taxpayer
dollars going to public unions
who are supposed to be public
servants, using my tax dollars to
campaign for still higher tax
dollars.
Someone needs to stop this
insanity. I propose not only to
eliminate collective bargaining
but to outlaw public unions
altogether on the grounds no one
watches out for the public interest.
If you want to talk "radical",
that's radical.
Sanders Claims to be a
Republican
In calling for increased sales
taxes to bail out public unions,
Mayor Sanders proves he is in
bed with the police and fire
unions. Sanders is not only a liar,
but the wimpiest Republican on
the face of the earth, a total
disgrace to the Republican party.
City Councilmember Carl
DeMaio's Plan
Those looking for genuine reform
can amazingly enough find it right
SAN page 28
26 Culture/ E-reader News Edition
MULTIPLE
continued from page 24

pension plans, and other
speculators continually rollover
ever-increasing numbers of
futures and other derivatives
which increases the risk for
everyone.
All things considered, it seems
likely that such speculation, in
conjunction with China finally
hiking interest rates enough to
matter, will cause a second crash
in commodity prices (including
crude) before peak-oil finally
takes its toll.
Investing Chicken
Bernanke and China together
have acted in a manner that puts
huge price pressures on the
service sector, especially small
businesses that cannot pass on
prices. This will end, and it will
not be pretty when it does end.
Yet, hedge funds, pension plans,
and other investors plow into
commodities, currencies, and
emerging market equities as if
growth in China, Asia, and
Australia and their currencies is a
"sure-thing".
Getting out in time is the key to
success of hedge-fund and
investing chicken, yet many do
not even understand the nature of
the game they are playing.
Chicken-Math
Every country including the US
wants to export its way out of this
mess. It's mathematically
impossible. It's also
mathematically impossible for
Europe to grow its way out of its
problem with the tactics taken by
Trichet and the EU.
It's mathematically impossible for
the US to cut its budget deficit,
be the world's policeman, and not
reduce entitlement spending. It's
impossible to grow our way out of
pension problems.
It's mathematically impossible for
tariffs to solve our problems, yet
Congress plays chicken with
China on that score every month.
Bernanke and Geithner have
recently joined Congress in that
game of chicken.
Collective Chicken
I hope you now see how
interrelated and complicated this
mess is, complete with
simultaneous central-bank
competitive currency devaluation
tactics in Japan, China, and the
US, with no possible currency
tactics in Ireland, Greece,
Portugal, and Spain (countries
that arguably need currency
tactics)!
Chicken End-Game
From Bernanke to Trichet, to
China, to Australia and Canada, to
hedge funds and investors, to
currency and carry-trade
speculators, very few understand
the inevitable end-result of
chicken.
It's called a crash.
We are in a currency endgame
that no one on this planet can be
sure how or when it ends, or who
blows up first. I highly doubt the
US is first, and certainly none of
the above suggests US
hyperinflation. Nonetheless, the
order in which things blowup is
very important, depending on
which side of each trade you are
on.
If that was not bad enough, the
odds of a multiple simultaneous
crash (or rapid series of crashes)
is high and growing as central
bankers pull out ever-increasing,
counter-productive, and clearly
destabilizing bazooka-stops,
hoping-against-hope to keep a lid
on things.
Is it any wonder the price of gold
keeps soaring?
In the meantime, various
pressures mount. At some point
the global pressure cooker will
blow sky high. I suspect the
Eurozone or Japan will be the first
of the big boys, but any number of
scenarios are possible. When this
complicated mess does blowup
(and it will), all the "sure thing"
traders on the wrong side of a bet
will realize too late, that they
played one game of chicken too
many.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
h t t p : / / How to Lie and Tell the
globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.
com Truth Without Being an
Click Here To Scroll Thru My Asshole [Honesty]
Recent Post List Mike Adam Dachis (Lifehacker)
"Mish" Shedlock is a registered
Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:00:00 AM
investment advisor representative
for SitkaPacific Capital There are many instances in life
Management. Sitka Pacific is an when we feel we have to lie,
asset management firm whose because "yes, you look fat in
goal is strong performance and those pants" doesn't win you any
low volatility, regardless of favor. Here's how to find the
market direction. Visit http:// perfect harmony between
www.sitkapacific.com/ kindness and the brutal truth.
account_management.html to More »
learn more about wealth
management and capital
preservation strategies of Sitka
Pacific.

"Man vs Wild" Videos

(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:00:56 PM
You're Watching: Playlist | Man
vs Wild Videos Playlist | Man
vs Wild Videos Learn more with
the 227 Man vs Wild videos in
this playlist. There are 227 videos
tagged "Man Vs Wild" most
recommended videos
• Deconstructed Videos
• Scuba Diving Videos
• Fooled By Nature Videos
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
E-reader News Edition Economy/ Culture/ 27
Reese Sits Pretty Talking
Royal Bank of Scotland Says China's Credit Bubble "Very, Very Handsome"
Robert Pattinson and
on Borrowed Time, Warns of Sovereign Default by "Sweet" Kristen Stewart
Molly Goodson (PopSugar)
China Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:30:00 AM

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Asia. credit has grown to 148pc of I will have more on China, Japan, Reese Witherspoon, who is one
Shedlock) (Mish's Global Diana Choyleva from Lombard GDP, compared to a median of and Europe in a much longer post
Economic Trend Analysis) of our favorite female stars of
Street Research said the money 41pc for emerging markets. It said coming up shortly. The post will 2010, posed for photos during
Submitted at 12/5/2010 10:32:00 PM supply rose at a 40pc rate in 2009 the true scale of loans to local compare monetary and credit yesterday's How Do You Know
Royal Bank of Scotland has and the first half of 2010 as governments and state entities has growth in the US vs China, with a junket in NYC. During the day's
advised clients to take out Beijing stoked an epic credit been disguised. detailed look at various games of press conference, Reese joined
protection against the risk of a boom to keep uber-growth alive, The result of such a hard landing "chicken" central banks play with her trio of male costars, Paul
sovereign default by China. but the costs of this policy now would be a 20pc fall in global each other as well as games of Rudd, Owen Wilson, and Jack
Although not predicting default, outweigh the benefits. commodity prices, a 100 basis chicken various speculators play Nicholson, to chat about their real
risk protection is one of its top The economy is entering the ugly point widening of spreads on with the market. -life blind date experiences, the
trade trades for 2011. quadrant of cycle – stagflation – emerging market debt, a 25pc fall Mike "Mish" Shedlock fun they had making the movie,
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has the where credit-pumping leaks into in Asian bourses, a fall in the h t t p : / / and the bad career advice they've
story in The Telegraph article speculation and price spirals, even growth in emerging Asia by 2.6 globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. received. Reese is out promoting
China's credit bubble on borrowed as growth slows. Citigroup’s percentage points, with a risk that com this project before its Dec. 17
time as inflation bites"Many see Minggao Shen said it now takes a toxic politics could make matters Click Here To Scroll Thru My release, but of course everyone
China’s monetary tightening as a rise of ¥1.84 in the M2 money much worse. Recent Post List Mike also wants to know what it was
pre-emptive tap on the brakes, a supply to generate just one yuan If there is a hard-landing in 2011, "Mish" Shedlock is a registered like to work with Robert Pattinson
warning shot across the proverbial of GDP growth, up from ¥1.30 China’s reserves of $2.6 trillion – investment advisor representative on Water For Elephants. She
economic bows. We see it as a earlier this decade. or over $3 trillion if counted fully for SitkaPacific Capital gushed about the hearthrob,
potentially more malevolent The froth is going into property. – will not help much. Professor Management. Sitka Pacific is an saying,"I'm not gonna lie. He's a
reactive day of reckoning," said Prices are 22 times disposable Michael Pettis from Beijing asset management firm whose very, very handsome man. The
Tim Ash, the bank’s emerging income in Beijing, and 18 times in University says the money cannot goal is strong performance and fervor and madness and girls
markets chief. Shenzen, compared to eight in be used internally in the economy. low volatility, regardless of waiting at 5 a.m. on a set in the
Officially, inflation was 4.4pc in Tokyo. The US bubble peaked at While this fund does offer China market direction. Visit http:// middle of nowhere just to see
October, and may reach 5pc in 6.4 and has since dropped 4.7. external protection, Mr Pettis www.sitkapacific.com/ him. He's sweet and loving and
November, but it is to hard find The price-to-rent ratio in China’s notes wryly that the only other account_management.html to has the nicest family. Kristen
anybody in China who believes it eastern cities has risen by over times in the last century when one learn more about wealth [Stewart] is really sweet, too. He's
is that low. Vegetables have risen 200pc since 2004 country accumulated reserves management and capital a very sensitive soul. He worked
20pc in a month. As it happens, Fitch Ratings has equal to 5pc to 6pc of global GDP preservation strategies of Sitka really hard. He looks great in the
RBS recommends credit default just done a study with Oxford was US in the 1920s, and Japan in Pacific. movie, too." Reese's 11-year-old
swaps on China’s five-year debt. Economics on what would happen the 1980s. We know how both daughter, Ava, got to meet Rob on
This is not a forecast that China if China does indeed slow to episodes ended. The Telegraph set, though Reese revealed she
will default. It is insurance against under 5pc next year, tantamount article is a very good read and herself is the Twilight fan in the
the "fat tail risk" of a hard to a recession for China. The risk inquiring minds will want to take family since she thinks her
landing, with ramifications across is clearly there. Fitch said private a closer look. daughter is still a bit too young
for the series.
View 2 Photos ›
28 Economy/ Culture/
SAN
continued from page 25
on a city Councilmember's home
page. Councilmember Carl
DeMaio has a very nice website
appropriately named " Clean Up
City Hall"
Please consider
DeMaio's“Roadmap to Recovery”
Plan that Balances City’s Budget
and Reforms Pension System.
SAN DIEGO –City
Councilmember Carl DeMaio
today unveiled a comprehensive
five-year financial recovery plan
that balances the city’s budget and
restructures long-term city
finances to eliminate the city’s
structural budget deficit.
“To fix the city’s financial
problems and safeguard our
neighborhood services, we must
embrace new approaches in city
government,” noted DeMaio.
Titled the “Roadmap to
Recovery,” DeMaio’s plan
borrows some elements of the
bankruptcy process – with the
imposition of a five year
mandatory spending caps,
reorganizing city operations, and
Nouriel Roubini: Real Estate Is "For Sure" Double Dipping, And
Another $1 Trillion In Losses Is Coming (XHB)
Joe Weisenthal (Money Game)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:44:21 PM
They don't call him Dr. Doom for
nothing.
Nouriel Roubini is out with a call
for another $1 TRILLION ins
housing-related losses. He tells
restructuring several significant
liabilities facing the city.
The centerpiece of DeMaio’s
plan is a heavy dose of pension
reforms – including a freeze on
“pensionable pay,” creation of
several more affordable pension
options, and requiring city
employees to share in increased
costs and investment risks in the
pension system.
DeMaio noted that fixing the
city’s financial problems will
require several tough, but
necessary adjustments in city
labor contracts. There are many
elements to the plan. Please click
on the preceding link and give it a
look.
Click here for a nice Roadmap to
Recovery Slideshow.
Note: If the document load with
the wrong orientation. Click once
on the document then, click on
"Rotate Clockwise".
If you wish to see still more
details please see the Full Copy of
Roadmap to Recovery. That PDF
is 89 pages.
Dealbook that real estate is "for
sure" double dipping now (a call
that seems clearly supported by
the latest Case-Shiller data,
among others).
Roubini is particularly drawn to
this report (.pdf) from Amherst million homeowners remain
Securities that suggest another 11 underwater, which is well above
I salute Councilmember Carl
DeMaio and his Roadmap to
Recovery for San Diego. He
offers a genuine proposal, one that
may work.
Other cities are in far too much
trouble for anything but
bankruptcy to work.
It's possible San Diego is in a
state-of-no-return as well, but at
least DeMaio offers some genuine
alternatives. Meanwhile, Jerry
Sanders offers nothing but lies,
hoping to buy more votes from
the police and fire unions.
If you live in San Diego, please
support Carl DeMaio should he
ever decide to take on Sanders
and run for mayor. His plan
shows he would be a capable
mayor, deserving of your vote.
Email Sanders
If you live in San Diego, please
forward this post to your friends
and neighbors. You may also wish
t o E m a i l
JerrySanders@sandiego.gov to let
him know just what you think.
It's time for genuine reform for
E-reader News Edition
public unions and their untenable
pension plans.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
h t t p : / /
globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.
com
Click Here To Scroll Thru My
Recent Post List Mike
"Mish" Shedlock is a registered Weet is a Simple,
investment advisor representative
for SitkaPacific Capital
Elegant Twitter App for
Management. Sitka Pacific is an Mac OS X [Mac OS X]
asset management firm whose Adam Dachis (Lifehacker)
goal is strong performance and
Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:30:00 AM
low volatility, regardless of
market direction. Visit http:// Mac OS X: The popular iOS
www.sitkapacific.com/ Twitter app Weet has made it's
account_management.html to beta debut on Mac OS X, bringing
learn more about wealth its focused functionality and
management and capital elegant interface to the desktop.
preservation strategies of Sitka Download it now. More »
Pacific.
the 3-4 million mark he had Bill Ackman's bullish case on
previously assumed. housing >
So how does Roubini arrive at Join the conversation about this
the $1 trillion number? Figure 11 story »
million homes, a $200,000
mortgage on each, and a 50%
recovery. Voila.
For the flipside, click here for
E-reader News Edition Economy/ Culture/ 29

Texas Ratios of Banks and Credit Unions from 3rd

Quarter 2010 FDIC / NCUA Reports
noreply@blogger.com (Michael Data compiled by and thanks to h t t p : / /
Shedlock) (Mish's Global Ken at DepositAccounts.com globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.
Economic Trend Analysis) Texas Ratio Definition The com
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:42:00 PM Texas ratio is a measure of a Click Here To Scroll Thru My
This interactive Texas Ratio bank's credit troubles. Developed Recent Post List Mike "Mish"
display contains data for every by Gerard Cassidy and others at Shedlock is a registered The SF Fed Explains How
bank and credit union found in RBC Capital Markets, it is investment advisor representative We're Closer To Deflation
3rd quarter FDIC and NCUA calculated by dividing the value for SitkaPacific Capital
reports. This is a lot of data and it of the lender's non-performing
Than We've Been In
Management. Sitka Pacific is an
may take extra time to load. assets (Non performing loans + asset management firm whose Decades
Please be patient. It takes an extra Real Estate Owned) by the sum of goal is strong performance and Gus Lubin (Money Game)
3-5 seconds on my computer. its tangible common equity low volatility, regardless of Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:24:00 PM
Your results may vary. If you capital and loan loss reserves. market direction. Visit http://
have an inadequate memory, the In analyzing Texas banks during www.sitkapacific.com/ The dovish San Francisco Fed
d i s p l a y m a y b e s l o w o r the early 1980s recession, Cassidy account_management.html to has a new paper out to back-up
inoperable. noted that banks tended to fail learn more about wealth quantitative easing.
Q3 2010 Texas Ratios when this ratio reached 1:1, or the higher the risk of failure. management and capital The paper argues that price
Powered by Tableau 100%. He noted a similar pattern Ratios above 100% may be preservation strategies of Sitka inflation is lower than it seems
Thanks to Ellie Fields and Ross among New England banks Pacific.
problematic.
Perez at Tableau Software for during the recession of the early FED page 30
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
help with the display. 1990s. The higher the Texas Ratio

Coach: iPhone App Helped Save B-Ball Player's Life

Brian X. Chen (Wired Top basketball team, said he had everywhere, such as the iPhone.
Stories) downloaded a $2 iPhone app See Also:
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:11:00 PM Phone Aid last week to brush up Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
on CPR. Thanks to the app’s This entry passed through the
A high school coach claims that a r e f r e s h e r , h e w a s a b l e t o Full-Text RSS service — if this is
first-aid app on his iPhone helped successfully administer CPR to your content and you're reading it
him save a basketball player’s Jones to save his life, according to on someone else's site, please read
life. the Los Angeles Times. our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Can’t say we haven’t heard this “It was really fresh and clear in content-only/faq.php
story before. my brain,” he said. “We are Five Filters featured article:
Xavier Jones, 17-year-old trained in CPR, but the iPhone Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
b a s k e t b a l l p l a y e r a t V e r n e app was a stabilizer for us.” survive the Haiti earthquake in Incidents like these highlight the Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Lutheran High School, stumbled This story is extremely similar to January. Woolley gave implications of having data Catastrophe.
when attempting to receive a pass, that of Dan Woolley, who used an Wired.com a closer look at the seamlessly integrated into our
and his heart stopped beating. iPhone first-aid app to help him tech he used until a rescue team everyday lives through apps and
Eric Cooper, coach of the treat his wounds and ultimately dug him out of the rubble. versatile devices we carry
30 Culture/ Food/
FED
continued from page 29
due to distortions in food and
energy. An alternate measure that
weights consumer spending in all
categories (PCE) shows sustained
disinflation like we haven't seen
in decades:
While the current share of
disinflationary expenditure
categories is not unprecedented,
the magnitudes of deceleration in
inflation are the largest seen
since the 1981 recession. The
main difference between slowing
prices in the early 1980s and
current disinflation is that the
large deceleration during and
after the 1981 recession was due
to a severe tightening of
monetary policy. This tight policy
5 Bizarre Ways to Moisturize Your
Skin
(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:00:56 PM
One way to have great-looking
skin is to keep it moisturized. The
basic idea behind moisturizing is
getting your skin to retain water to
prevent dryness, and there are a
surprising number of things --
both natural and manmade -- that
can help it do just that. Some of
the key ingredients in most
moisturizing products include
humectants, which draw moisture
from the air and help the skin
retain it, and emollients, which
smooth the skin by filling in
stance significantly reduced
inflation in 1982 and is
sometimes called the Volcker
deflation after then-Federal
Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker
(Blanchard 1984). By contrast, the
most recent recession was caused
by the bursting of the housing
bubble and the ensuing financial
crisis. Despite exceptionally low
interest rates, the breadth of
disinflation has remained quite
large since the beginning of the
last recession. In October 2010,
half of consumer spending was on
items whose inflation rate had
declined 1.2% or more over the
past year. Moreover, the current
acceleration of headline inflation
around the skin cells [source:
Mayo Clinic]. The beauty
industry might seem to have no
bounds. If a product exists, then
there's a good chance that
somebody somewhere has tried to
put it on their skin. If it can be
made into a cream, a paste, an
exfoliant, a lather, a rinse, a mask
or some other beauty-boosting
concoction, then it probably has
been.
But some moisturizing methods
can push the limits of what most
would consider normal. We've
dug up some of the strangest
methods that people (both past
has been due to the volatile food
and energy expenditure
categories. Core inflation is
currently decelerating.
Likewise, while the energy-
distorted PCEPI shows deflation
during the recession, PCE
suggests that inflation has never
been lower than it is right now.
For a contrary view, see 8
reasons why no one believes
Bernanke's deflation warnings >
Join the conversation about this
story »
and present) have used in an effort
to bring youth and luster to their
skin. Read on to learn about five
bizarre ways to moisturize your
skin.
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
E-reader News Edition
10 Tech Tools to Use
When Buying a House
(HowStuffWorks Daily Feed) fact, all these new options for
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:00:56 PM home shopping can be a bit
overwhelming. There are so many
What was house hunting like in smart phone apps and Web sites
the 1990s? Cruising for hours in waiting to be used, picking out the
search of colorful red, white and ones worth your time can be a
blue "for sale" signs, working challenge. That's why we've done
closely with a real estate agent, it for you. Here are 10 tools that
taking time to visit dozens of harness the power of modern
houses looking for that one technology. Use them wisely to
perfect home; it was a lot of work. m a k e y o u r h o u s e - h u n t i n g
Buying a house is still no easy expedition as comprehensive and
task, but the Information Age has painless as possible.
b r o u g h t h u g e c h a n g e s t o This entry passed through the
industries the world over, and real Full-Text RSS service — if this is
estate is no exception. your content and you're reading it
There are now so many tools to on someone else's site, please read
aid us in the house-hunting our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
process, that we can complete content-only/faq.php
much of the work from home, Five Filters featured article:
whittle away at the details in our Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
s p a r e t i m e a n d b r o w s e f o r Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
residences at our leisure before Catastrophe.
even dealing with an agent. In
How to Make a Swirl
Cheesecake
(Cooking Light: Editor's Picks) Cheesecake Next Step One
This entry passed through the
No need for intimidation! An Full-Text RSS service — if this is
elegant swirl on top of your your content and you're reading it
cheesecake is easier to make than on someone else's site, please read
it looks. We guide you through it our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
step-by-step using our December content-only/faq.php
2010 cover recipe, Cranberry Five Filters featured article:
Swirl Cheesecake, but the Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
technique can be duplicated for Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
other cheesecakes as well. Catastrophe.
View Recipe: Cranberry Swirl
E-reader News Edition Culture/ 31

Google Unveils Nexus S Smartphone, Gingerbread OS

Ars Technica (Wired Top
Stories)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:07:00 PM

By Ryan Paul
Google has revealed Android 2.3,
codenamed Gingerbread, a new
version of its popular mobile
platform. It introduces a handful
of modest user interface
enhancements—such as a more
refined touchscreen
keyboard—and brings some
noteworthy performance
improvements that are largely
intended to boost Android
gaming.
Alongside the release of Android
2.3, Google has also announced
plans to launch the Nexus S, a
new smartphone that was
developed in collaboration with
Samsung. Much like Google’s
Nexus One, the new phone in the
Nexus series will be available
unlocked with a pure Google
experience. The unlocked version
will be sold at Best Buy for $529
without subsidy, and T-Mobile
will be selling it on contract for
$199. communication (NFC), which can openness compared to other palette. The keys on the onscreen Android devices.
The aptly named Nexus S looks be used for close-range Android-powered handsets. keyboard have been spaced out a Google has finally conceded the
like the love child of the Nexus contactless data exchange. As a Nexus One owner myself, I bit in order to enable faster typing need for manually quitting
One and the Samsung Galaxy S. Sales of the original Nexus One think there is a very clear need for and better accuracy. Taking applications. In Android 2.3, the
The touchscreen-only device has a fell far below Google’s Google to continue offering its advantage of multitouch input, application manager tool has a
four-inch curved “contour” Super expectations, leading the company own handset that isn’t Google has made it possible to “Running” tab that lets the user
AMOLED display, 1Ghz to characterize the device as a encumbered by carrier lockdown, use the shift or number toggle terminate individual applications
Hummingbird processor, 1GB of failure and withdraw it from the crapware, and tacky user interface keys as modifiers that can be and see how much system
internal storage, and a 1500 mAH general consumer market. customizations. The latest pressed concurrently with other resources each running program is
battery rated for 6.7 hours of talk Although it never achieved addition to the Nexus line handily keys. The platform has gained consuming. This feature will be
time. The handset showcases mainstream popularity, it attracted fulfills that need. native support for draggable text conveniently accessible from a
some of the new hardware a loyal following among third- Google has polished the Android selection, similar to the menu item on the home screen,
features of Android 2.3, such as party developers and Android user interface and developed a implementations we have seen on
support for near-field enthusiasts who valued its relative new visual theme with a simpler certain Motorola and Samsung GOOGLE page 32
32 Culture/ E-reader News Edition
GOOGLE
continued from page 31

largely obviating the need for
users to install third-party task
management tools.
Other significant new features
include SIP support (which allows
users to make voice calls to SIP
addresses over WiFi), better
support for devices with multiple
cameras, support for more media
formats (including WebM), and a
built-in download manager. There
are also a lot of improvements on
the performance front. A new
concurrent garbage collector in
Android’s Dalvik virtual machine
will be less invasive and help
avoid stuttering, accelerated event
handling will make input
processing more responsive, and
updated graphics drivers will
improve 3D performance.
Carey Mulligan Is a Best Actress
The new version of the Android
SDK brings a lot of improvements
for game developers. Google has
exposed more sensors and input
controls to native code, allowing
games to receive and process
input events more efficiently.
Google has also introduced much-
needed native audio APIs and has
added support for managing the
application lifecycle from native
code. For games that run closer to
the bare metal, all of these new
native APIs are a major win. We
will be looking more closely at
these APIs in a follow-up article.
Although it’s an incremental
upgrade rather than a full
overhaul, the changes in Android
2.3 are compelling and bring
some much-needed polish to the
platform. For additional details,
you can refer to Google’s official
announcement.
See Also:
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
Jake Gyllenhaal Sticks by
Anne and Smiles at Taylor
Swift Questions in Sydney
Molly Goodson (PopSugar)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:30:20 PM
Anne Hathaway and Jake
Gyllenhaal were once again
cuddled close for their Love and
Other Drugs premiere in Sydney
tonight. The future Academy
Awards host was decked out in a
perfect holiday party dress from
another Oscar - de la Renta, of
course - while Jake stuck with a
well-tailored suit. The twosome
arrived in Australia over the
weekend and took in some of the
sights on their own before this
morning's picturesque harbor
photo call. Jake told the local
press that meals were of the
ate as much as I could. It's such
incredible food. I tried to eat my
way around Sydney. I'm kind of a
foodie." He may love to dine out,
but lately it's been his maple latte
coffee dates with new girlfriend
Taylor Swift that have been
getting all the attention. Their
relationship was a hot topic at
today's press events, though Jake
simply smiled in response to
questions about his country
sweetheart.
To see more from the red carpet,
just read more.
View 10 Photos ›

British Rose With Her Eye on Daisy utmost importance during his
short time down under, saying,"I
Molly Goodson (PopSugar) on PopSugar UK. When asked the CFDA's recent glamorous
Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:00:00 AM about where she would keep her event. Carey has had quite the
new statue, Carey responded in whirlwind year and she's among
Carey Mulligan matched the her typically down-to-earth our favorite imports from England
carpet in a bright red Prabal fashion, joking,"It will go up in who we'll be seeing next in the
Gurung dress at the British my parents' house actually, enviable position of costarring
Independent Film Awards in they've got stuff, it's kind of with Ryan Gosling in Drive.
London last night. She was there strange to have it in your own
to accept the best actress honors house. 'Come in, have a cup of
for her work in Never Let Me Go, tea, look at my award!'" She also To see more Carey, just read
though it was predicted 2011 said she's been"obsessively more.
award season favorite The King's reading" The Great Gatsby in View 15 Photos ›
Speech that dominated the show - preparation for the role that made
check out the full list of winners her break down in happy tears at
E-reader News Edition Culture/ TV/ 33

'Boardwalk Empire'
Season Finale Recap: Is
Nucky's Luck Running
Out?
Maureen Ryan (TV Squad)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 7:30:00 AM

Filed under: Reality-Free,

Recaps, Stay Tuned['Boardwalk
Empire' - 'A Return to Normalcy']
Perhaps we shouldn't have
expected too much excitement
from an episode that chronicled
(if only tangentially) the election
that charismatic firebrand Warren
Harding.
OK, that was a bit of 1920s
humor (the kids love that). Not to
be all spoilery (wait, can you spoil
Huge Magnetic Filament Erupts on the Sun historical events that took place
90 years ago?), but Harding
Lisa Grossman (Wired Top than 250,000 miles long, about 30 hot, charged material into the and @ wiredscience, and on wasn't exactly known for his
Stories) times the diameter of the Earth. In inner solar system and potentially Facebook. personality, more for the
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:00:00 PM this new image, taken at 9:30 a.m. causing magnetic storms on Earth. This entry passed through the corruption that soon engulfed his
PST on Dec. 6, the loop of If the filament collapses in the Full-Text RSS service — if this is administration.
A magnetic filament more than charged plasma stretches more next day or so, the results could your content and you're reading it But that's getting a little ahead of
50 times the Earth’s width is than 435,000 miles, the full radius be spectacular. on someone else's site, please read events, and in any case, the
erupting off the surface of the sun. of the sun. This prominence is an excellent our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ politician under the most pressure
The loop of hot plasma has been So far the gigantic prominence target for backyard telescopes content-only/faq.php in 'A Return to Normalcy' was
s n a k i n g a r o u n d t h e s u n ’ s has hung suspended peacefully with ultraviolet filters. If you Five Filters featured article: Nucky Thompson -- though he
southeast limb since Dec. 4, and above the sun’s surface, but this capture any great sun photos in Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- assumes that, personally and
appears to be growing by the morning it started showing signs the next few days, let us know. Reporting of Falluja's Cancer professionally, he's mostly in the
h o u r . W h e n N A S A ’ s S o l a r of instability. Long filaments like Image: NASA/SDO Catastrophe. clear.
Dynamics Observatory saw it on this one can break apart as coronal See Also: For now.
Dec. 4, the filament was more mass ejections, releasing tons of Follow us on Twitter @ astrolisa Permalink| Email this| Linking
Blogs| Comments
34 Culture/ TV/
Best of 2010: Who's the First Look: Malcolm-Jamal Warner
Sexiest Man of the Year? Comes Home to NBC
PopSugar (PopSugar)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:00:00 PM
There are many dapper stars to
choose from, but we managed to
pick 10 of the year's sexiest guys.
There are family men and
swinging singles on the list, as
well as the hottie selected as
People magazine's best-looking of
the year. We want to know who
your pick is, though, so tell us -
who do you think is the sexiest
man of the year?
Don't miss all the Best of 2010
coverage, polls, slideshows, and
more on the PopSugar Network!
Best of 2010: Who's the Sexiest
Man of the Year? Brad Pitt -
Simply the best, with or without a
beard. Ryan Gosling - Canada's
hottest export with beautiful
muscles. Ben Affleck -
Fatherhood and maturity have
'24' Cast Members Reunite for Marathon Event
Michael Maloney (TV Squad)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 9:00:00 AM
Filed under: Reality-Free, TV
Shows on DVD, Celebrity
E-reader News Edition
David Kronke (TVGuide.com:
Breaking News)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:46:00 PM
Malcolm Jamal Warner on
Community
Community fans have long
understood that Shirley's ex-
done this Boston boy good. Jake
husband, Andre, is a womanizing
Gyllenhaal - Those big blue eyes
jerk. So what to make of the fact
make me melt. Robert Pattinson -
that he's actually a friendly guy —
That smile, his accent, his hair! I
and played by the actor who
love it all. Usher - Who can resist
portrayed lovable Theo Huxtable
his swagger and hot dance
on The Cosby Show?
moves? Ryan Reynolds - People's
Malcolm-Jamal Warner joins the
Sexiest Man Alive gets my vote.
NBC comedy January 20 for a
David Beckham - With or without
three-episode arc in which Shirley
a shirt, he looks good. Alexander
( Yvette Nicole Brown) and
Skarsgard - He's one tall Swedish
Andre are dating again — and believes that he's not the right guy Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine
drink of water. Javier Bardem -
Shirley informs the gang she's for Shirley," says Jacobs. "He now!
Those rugged good looks make
pregnant, though Troy ( Donald hasn't done enough to prove This entry passed through the
me swoon.
Glover) realizes the baby may not himself worthy of her." Adds Full-Text RSS service — if this is
be Andre's. "You've heard all Warner, who's returning to the your content and you're reading it
these awful things Andre's done, network — and time slot — on someone else's site, please read
and then you meet him and it's where he became famous, "They our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Bill Cosby's son!" says Glover. cast me against type, so it's cool to content-only/faq.php
Brown agrees that Warner "comes play a character where I'm Five Filters featured article:
with such inherent goodwill. Just supposed to be so dislikable, and Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
his face rehabilitates Andre the dilemma is it's hard to totally Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
immediately." dislike me." As for Britta's Catastrophe.
Not everyone is won over. Britta mistrust, he says, "We have a
( Gillian Jacobs) sees the cad couple more episodes to win her
beneath the charisma. "Britta over."
Interviews right now in a viewing marathon Permalink| Email this| Linking
The non-stop action on'24' often of the show at the Hollywood/ Blogs| Comments
left viewers wondering when (or Highland complex in Hollywood
even if) Jack Bauer ever went to get restroom breaks every four
the bathroom. Fortunately, fans of the hit series who are taking part hours.-
E-reader News Edition
Rosenbergs Redux
Ronald Radosh, Steven Usdin
(The New Republic - All Feed)
Submitted at 12/5/2010 11:00:00 PM
In March of 1951, a young
Jewish couple from New York
City, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg,
both secret members of the
American Communist Party, were
tried in Federal Court for
“conspiracy to commit
espionage.” The Rosenbergs were
accused of having passed secrets
pertaining to the atomic bomb
from Ethel’s brother, David
Greenglass, who worked in a lab
at Los Alamos, to the Soviets. In
June of 1953, all legal appeals
having been exhausted, the
Rosenbergs were executed,
becoming the only American
civilians executed for espionage
by the United States government.
Their sentence shocked the world
and was immediately seized by
communists as a powerful tool in
the propaganda war between the
United States and the USSR.
As time passed, the Rosenbergs’
defenders convinced many that
the couple had been framed. The
innocence of the Rosenbergs
became a touchstone of the left;
attempts to discuss evidence
suggesting their guilt were
assailed as appeasement of
McCarthyism. Walter and Miriam
Schneir’s Invitation to an
Inquest(1965) was the textbook
for this cause, providing a
compelling narrative that, to
many, proved that the Rosenbergs
were innocent. This strain of
thought continues in the latest
Schneir book, Final Verdict, a
posthumous work published
earlier this year.
Invitation to an Inquest distorted
the historical record to make the
case that the Rosenbergs were
innocent of any association with
Soviet espionage. The book
argued that Harry Gold, the
courier who received a sketch of
part of the atomic bomb from
David Greenglass never actually
met Greenglass and never traveled
to Albequerque in June 1945 for
the supposed exchange. The
authors’ major “proof” that Gold
lied about the meeting was that
the Hilton Hotel card offered at
the trial by the defense was an
FBI forgery, meant to falsely
prove Gold was in Albuquerque.
The Schneirs’ claims were
challenged by the publication of
The Rosenberg File, published in
1983. This book, written in part
by one of the co-authors of this
piece, argued that, despite clear
judicial and legal improprieties in
the Rosenbergs’ trial, Julius
Rosenberg was indeed a Soviet
agent who set up and ran a major
espionage network for Stalin.
Although Rosenberg defenders
attacked the book, its findings
were vindicated with the release
in 1995 of previously classified
cables from Moscow to KGB
agents in America. These cables
convinced even the most skeptical
holdouts that the Rosenbergs had
indeed been Soviet agents.
Earlier this year, Mellville House
published Final Verdict by the
late Walter Schneir, with a
foreword by his wife Miriam. In
Final Verdict, Schneir accepts
Julius’s guilt but argues that the
real culprit was Ethel’s brother,
David Greenglass, who, on his
own, was an enthusiastic Soviet
spy. The Schneirs’ revisionist
theory asserts that the government
gave Greenglass a break for
cooperating with the government
in their prosecution of the
Rosenbergs.
Writing recently in The Nation,
the magazine’s former editor and
publisher, Victor Navasky,
proclaimed that Final Verdict
presented a new view of the
Rosenberg case. In making this
argument, Navasky shows he has
learned little since 1983, when he
attacked The Rosenberg File and
defended the Schneirs’ Invitation
to an Inquest. Now, so many years
later, when the intellectual
community largely acknowledges
the Rosenbergs’ guilt—a 2008
public confession by former
Soviet spy Morton Sobell, who
was tried along with the
Rosenbergs, made continued
denial impossible—Navasky has
written what is possibly the last-
ditch attempt to redeem the
Rosenbergs.
In Walter Schneir’s new book, he
admits that he and his wife were
wrong in Invitation and that Gold
was telling the truth. Yet his
intent is still to fudge the record in
order to exonerate the
Rosenbergs. Navasky, too, in his
review of the book, has chosen to
ignore decades of scholarship
documenting Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg's espionage activities.
In contrast to a number of
extensively researched, lengthy
books on the Rosenbergs, Final
Verdict weighs in at 154 pages
and has a whopping 21 footnotes.
Yet Navasky wants Nation
readers to believe that this book
proves that David Greenglass
acted alone. This, by the way, is a
reversal of the Schneirs' earlier
insistence in Invitation that
Greenglass had never been a spy.
Anything to excuse the
Rosenbergs.
As proof of Greenglass’s
enthusiasm for espionage,
Navasky mentions the letters that
Greenglass wrote from Los
Alamos, which, Navasky says, are
“made available for the first time
by Schneir.” Evidently, he did not
bother to check The Rosenberg
File, where he would find that
these same letters. (The Schneirs
also ignored these letters in
Invitation.) As stated in The
Rosenberg File: “[T]he
Greenglass correspondence
directly contradicts Julius
Rosenberg’s later assertion under
oath that he knew nothing about
the atomic-bomb project or his
brother-in-law’s role until after
the Hiroshima explosion at the
earliest—and that he had no firm
memory of discussing it until after
the war ended.”
Most important of all,
Navasky—like Walter Schneir in
his new book—ignores the fact
that Julius and Ethel recruited
Greenglass after learning that he
was stationed at the Manhattan
Politics-Left/ 35
Project. So, even if it was
Greenglass who did the only real
spying, he did so because Julius
brought him into his already-
existing network of spies.
Navasky also ignores the fact that
Julius Rosenberg recruited
another major atomic spy, the
previously unknown Russell
McNutt, a revelation that
appeared in the 2009 book Spies:
The Rise and Fall of the KGB in
America. Navasky and the
Schneirs may not believe that this
proves that Julius was an atomic
spy, but the KGB did. A May 26,
1944 letter from the KGB,
discussed in Spies, indicated that
Rosenberg had been given a
bonus for his “initiative in
acquiring an agent [McNutt] to
cultivate ‘Enormous,’ ” the KGB
code name for the Manhattan
Project. McNutt's employment
provided access to secrets about
processes for manufacturing
weapons-grade uranium.
Navasky concludes with a plea
for the release of more documents
about the Rosenberg case. In fact,
more documents have been
released about the Rosenbergs
than about any other espionage
operation in history, and each
release brings to light facts that
make it ever more impossible to
deny that Julius Rosenberg was an
important Soviet spy. The
documents—tens of thousands of
pages of FBI files, the decrypted
classified cables from Moscow to
KGB agents in America in 1995,
ROSENBERGS page 38
36 Politics-Left/
California Here We Come
Peter Schrag (The New
Republic - All Feed)
Submitted at 12/5/2010 11:00:00 PM
This year's Republican sweep,
says the conventional wisdom,
stopped at the Sierras in large part
because California—the “left-out
coast”—is a liberal outlier from
the rest of the country. In this
telling, the Golden State is a
broken relic, a basket-case which
has lost its status as the vanguard
of American politics. While
America embraced the angry
politics of the Tea Party, the story
goes, California reelected Jerry
Brown, a nostalgic throwback to
the 1970s.
In fact, the exact opposite may be
occurring: California, and indeed
much of the West, is far ahead of
the country, as it often has
been—demographically,
economically, politically,
socially—and it points to a future
in which the whole nation will
look much like California does
now: multi-ethnic, increasingly
tolerant of gays and other
minorities, more global in
outlook, and more
environmentally conscious.
California has always been on the
leading edge of changes in the
American electorate. It was the
first to experience the tax revolt
which subsequently swept the
country in the form of the Reagan
Revolution. It was ahead of the
nation in its opposition to the Iraq
war; it’s been a leader in energy
efficiency and progressive
environmental regulation.
In the early 1990s, the state was
consumed by an anti-immigrant
backlash that resulted in
Proposition 187, years before the
paroxysms that scuttled George
W. Bush's push for
comprehensive immigration
reform and produced Arizona's
notorious SB1070.
But this year’s election showed
that California has already moved
past that point. In her
gubernatorial campaign against
Jerry Brown, Republican Meg
Whitman tried and failed to use
anti-immigration politics to her
advantage—even recruiting
former Gov. Pete Wilson, the
poster boy of 187, as her
campaign manager—but ran afoul
of Latinos, who are far more
numerous than they were during
the 1990s. Had only whites voted,
Whitman would have been
California’s governor-elect and
Carly Fiorina, not Barbara Boxer,
would now be the U.S. senator-
elect.
In a generation or so, California
will have a majority Latino
population, and while many parts
of the Midwest and the Southeast
are just now reacting to the first
waves of Latinos and other
immigrants, they, too, are likely to
some day accommodate, and
maybe even welcome, them as the
Boomers retire.
Similar dynamics occurred in
Nevada and Colorado, where
Latino voters propelled both
Harry Reid and Michael Bennet to
reelection. In these states—and in
the country as a whole—Latinos
are poised to become an
increasingly powerful political
force. No, they won't all become
Democrats. Many Latinos are
socially conservative; in
California this year they voted
overwhelmingly against the
legalization of recreational
marijuana. Conservative Latino
candidates like Marco Rubio,
elected in Florida with its
Republican-leaning voters, could
exert some pull to the right. But
in the main, unless the GOP
becomes more accessible to
Latinos than it has in been in the
past decade—and that means at
least a major shift on
immigration—its chances of
capturing a substantial share of
the Latino vote are slim.
Now the GOP is headed in the
other direction. Beginning the
new session of Congress with an
effort to eliminate birthright
citizenship for the children of
illegal aliens is hardly welcoming.
Neither is adamant resistance to
the DREAM Act. The great New
Deal victories of the 1930s rested
in considerable part on the votes
of the immigrants and children of
immigrants who’d been
welcomed by the urban
Democratic machines in the prior
decades, and if California's
experience is any guide, politics
in the twenty-first century will
witness a similar dynamic.
The other major factor in this
election was demographic. The
national turnout of young voters
this year was lower than in
average off-year elections, and
much lower than in 2008, while
the percentage of older voters,
many of them angered and
confused by the unfamiliar world
that’s grown around them—was
much higher.
Those numbers will obviously
change in 2012. The actuarial
tables themselves tell some of that
story. So does the composition of
the Tea Party, which is older and
whiter than the national average,
E-reader News Edition
and which had virtually no impact
in the Golden State. Its most
prominent candidate, Chuck
DeVore, got less than 20 percent
in his primary race for the Senate.
The great sweep of 2010, in short,
more likely marked the end of
something, not the beginning. The
nation’s young voters, like
California’s, are far more
comfortable in that new
globalized world, accustomed to
the ethnic diversity that they grew
up with and are going to school
with, more environmentally
conscious, and untroubled by gay
marriage. And of course, a
sizeable portion of those young
voters are immigrants or the
children of immigrants—Latinos
and Asian particularly. They are
the nation’s future. And so, as
ever, is California.
Peter Schrag is the former
editorial page editor of the
Sacramento Bee, a longtime
writer on California affairs and,
most recently, of Not Fit for Our
Society: Immigration and
Nativism in America.(University
of California Press).
For more TNR, become a fan on
Facebook and follow us on
Twitter.
E-reader News Edition Politics-Left/ TV/ 37

The Party of New

E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New unfairly dismissed as "symbolic," To explain, she invoked the world their minds to offering answers to
Republic - All Feed) but Perriello said something that as seen by a person "who worked the dejected Americans Kilroy
Submitted at 12/5/2010 11:00:00 PM pointed to the opportunity Obama at Siemens for 25 years." describes. "There's a great
and the Democrats had kicked "You have a son who is a high opportunity here," he says.
WASHINGTON—From Ohio, away. school basketball player and "Somebody has to come up with
Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy describes "Why not up the game," he asked, wants to go to college—and then an agenda to make and build and
"the worry, the anguish and "instead of playing the same old your factory goes off to Mexico," grow things in this country. We
sometimes despair" among her game?" Perriello was in no mood she says, "And you're a man of a have to say to that person that we
constituents and urges President t o c r i t i c i z e h i s a l r e a d y certain age and another factory or haven't broken faith with you." Watch a Teaser
Obama to spend more time with b e l e a g u e r e d p a r t y . B u t h i s another employer won't give you Democrats, he says, need to see
people who don't make "six-figure comment pointed to how it might
incomes."
a second look. Think of the the quest for social justice "as an for Syfy's
have avoided a debilitating tax cut despair felt by that person." entrepreneurial challenge as
From Pennsylvania, Rep. Joe endgame.
Sestak says Americans are angry Rather than allow the debate to
Such voters see Washington as "a
place where their interests get
opposed to a compassion
challenge," the idea being that
'Being Human'
Jean Bentley (TV Squad)
at a government that failed to focus on an old tax measure from sold out." What they want, she government and business need to
guard them against economic the beginning of the decade, says, is "to feel they're being be inventive enough to create a Submitted at 12/6/2010 8:30:00 AM

catastrophe. Obama and the Democrats should treated as well as the bankers who new economy that fulfills the
And from Virginia, Rep. Tom early on have sought to replace Filed under: Reality-Free, TV
get bailed out." promises of the old.
Perriello suggests that voters are the Bush tax cut. Their proposal News It sounds like the setup for
Sestak, who narrowly lost a race Yes, and there's a certain
less interested in "bipartisanship" could have shifted the tax burden a "man walks into a bar" joke, or
for U.S. Senate, argues that the president who got elected by
than "postpartisanship." He a w a y f r o m m i d d l e - i n c o m e at least an oddball sitcom: a ghost,
electorate was moved less by a sketching such a vision, wrapped
explains: "What they're looking taxpayers toward the wealthy a werewolf and a vampire live in
generalized hatred of government in the words "hope" and "change."
for is someone who solves the while providing strong incentives a house together.
than by fury over its failure to Kilroy, Sestak, and Perriello are
problem, not for a solution that for job creation and innovation But no, Syfy's remake of the
prevent the financial crisis. all telling him that's what the
happens to be half way between along lines suggested by Sen. BBC series'Being Human,' which
"Government hadn't protected voters are still looking for.
the two parties." follows a twentysomething trio of
Mark Warner, D-Va. them from this calamity—and E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of
Last week, I sat down with these Being the party of "new and roommates who also happen to be
they hadn't done anything wrong," the recently published Souled
Democrats who were defeated in improved" surely beats getting a ghost, a werewolf and a
he says. Out: Reclaiming Faith and
November to get their sense of trapped in a fight whose terms vampire, is more of a soapy
The election outcome, he said, Politics After the Religious Right.
what the election means for the were set entirely by Republicans. drama than anything else -- think
"was a vote to neutralize He is a Washington Post
future and how the president Improvement is what Kilroy's 'Melrose Place' with a
government because no one has columnist, a senior fellow at the
s h o u l d r e s p o n d . T h e i r constituents, bludgeoned by long- supernatural twist.
been making a case for what Brookings Institution, and a
observations were more revealing term economic difficulties, are E! Online has the first look at the
government can do or should do." professor at Georgetown
t h a n t h e a b s t r a c t i o n s t h a t desperately seeking. The party's new show, which debuts on Jan.
A starting point might be fleshing University.
conventional punditry typically heavy losses this year among 17. (Coincidentally, MTV's
out Sestak's vision of American (c) 2010, Washington Post
invokes to explain what "the white working-class voters, she remake of the hit British series
society—"a nation of individual Writers Group
people" supposedly said. 'Skins' premieres that same night.)
said, should not have come as a opportunity allied with the For more TNR, become a fan on
They spoke just off the floor of shock. After the jump, watch the short
common enterprise"—that is a Facebook and follow us on
t h e H o u s e s h o r t l y a f t e r i t "I watched them in the last four behind-the-scenes teaser.
rather inspired alternative to both Twitter.
approved an extension of the years go from being anxious Permalink| Email this| Linking
collectivism and social
Bush tax cuts only for families about the future to being worried, Blogs| Comments
indifference.
earning under $250,000 a year. but also hopeful during the 2008 For his part, Perriello sees an
This vote of principle was campaign, to being very angry." opening for politicians who set
38 TV/ Gaming/
ROSENBERGS
continued from page 35
the KGB notebooks examined in
Spies, declassified
Czechoslovakian intelligence
files, and the Rosenberg grand
jury transcripts—are
complemented by memoirs from
and interviews with members of
the Rosenberg espionage ring.
This mass of documentation
shows that Julius Rosenberg
began his espionage career before
the German invasion of the Soviet
Union (a time when Hitler and
Stalin were allies) and that he
continued for years after the end
of World War II, when the Soviet
Union's only potential opponent
was the United States. This
evidence also reveals that Julius
was a more active atomic spy than
the FBI, prosecutors, or his most
ardent opponents ever suspected.
The risks and sacrifices he took
for the USSR surprised even
hardened KGB officers. During a
two-year period, from 1946 to
1948, when security concerns had
caused the KGB to cut off
communication, Rosenberg kept
his ring together, stockpiled
'Terriers' Canceled by FX
Maureen Ryan (TV Squad)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 7:58:00 AM
Filed under: Reality-Free, TV
News, Stay Tuned Being pretty
sure a heartbreak is headed your
way doesn't make it any easier to
bear when it happens.
'Terriers' has been canceled by
FX, the network announced this
morning. It's not surprising but it's
classified information in the hope
that the KGB would get back in
touch, and provided financial
support to his agents.
As for Ethel Rosenberg’s role,
the evidence is unequivocal. She
recruited her brother as an atomic
spy and provided logistical
support to Julius's espionage
activities. She knew at least two
Soviet intelligence officers, and
they considered her a loyal and
trustworthy compatriot. The most
frequently cited exculpatory
evidence, a decrypted transcript of
a KGB cable stating that Ethel
"does not work" could be, and
most likely is, a reference to the
fact that she did not have a job,
rather than confirmation that she
did not work for the KGB. She
and Julius may not have deserved
the death sentence, but she was
not innocent.
Finally, the truth that still escapes
Navasky is that these Soviet spies
were recruited out of the U.S.
communist movement, whose
leaders knew of and covered up
the Rosenbergs’ espionage, and,
immensely sad nonetheless.
If I was being true to myself, this
post would be filled with nothing
when they found out that those
arrested would not talk, waged a
worldwide propaganda campaign
to portray the Rosenbergs as
victims of America’s imperial
thrust. The Rosenbergs’ belief in
the Soviet Union and communism
was the motive for their actions.
Julius began working for Soviet
foreign intelligence during the
time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact,
when Stalin and Hitler were
cooperating in the brutal division
of Eastern Europe. Hence, the
notion that Julius was simply
working to oppose fascism is
baseless. As in so many other
episodes of this era, it was the anti
-communists, and not the
apologists for communism, whom
history has proved correct.
Ronald Radosh is co-author of
The Rosenberg File, an Adjunct
Fellow at the Hudson Institute,
and a writer for Pajamas Media.
Steven Usdin is author of
Engineering Communism: How
Two Americans Spied for Stalin
and Founded the Soviet Silicon
Valley. He is Senior Editor at
but profane interjections and
elaborate curse words. In the
name of decorum, not to mention
keeping my job, I'm going to try
to restrain myself. But this is one
of those times that TV really kicks
you in the stomach.
Permalink| Email this| Linking
Blogs| Comments
BioCentury.
This was written and published
with the support of:
Harvey Klehr, co-author of Spies:
The Rise and Fall of the KGB in
America, and is Andrew W.
Mellon Professor of Politics and
History, Emory University.
John Earl Haynes, co-author of
Spies: The Rise and Fall of the
KGB in America.
Mark Kramer, Director of The
Cold War Studies Program at
Harvard University and Harvard
University Senior Fellow, The
Davis Center for Russian and
Eurasian Studies and editor of
The Journal of Cold War History.
Allen Hornblum, author of The
Invisible Harry Gold: The Man
Who Gave the Soviets the Atom
Bomb.
For more TNR, become a fan on
Facebook and follow us on
Twitter.
E-reader News Edition
World of Warcraft:
Cataclysm Collector's
Edition, unboxed
Christopher Grant (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:50:00 PM
We're still some hours away from
the midnight launch of the latest
World of Warcraft expansion,
Cataclysm. It won't be long before
Deathwing wrecks shop, so we
thought we'd take some of this
downtime to share pics of the
Collector's Edition which recently
made its way to our doorstep.
Peruse the gallery below, and
stick around for a giveaway later
today.
Gallery: World of Warcraft:
Cataclysm (Collector's Edition
unboxing)
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
Collector's Edition, unboxed
originally appeared on Joystiq on
Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:50:00 EST.
Please see our terms for use of
feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Comments
E-reader News Edition
Amazing Race's Nick and Vicki: We Regret Taking the Six-Hour
Penalty
Joyce Eng (TVGuide.com:
Breaking News)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:28:00 PM
The Amazing Race
Quitting has its consequences.
After opting against finishing the
Detour on The Amazing Race last
week, Nick DeCarlo and
girlfriend Vicki Casciola, both 26,
incurred a six-hour penalty,
forcing them to miss the first
flight to Seoul this week and a
shot to make the final three. "I
don't think we had any chance of
making that flight," Vicki tells
TVGuide.com. "We got to the
airport a little too late. ... But we
were still in good spirits in
thinking that you never know
what's going to happen." See what
else the two have to say about
their disastrous penultimate leg, if
they did all the tasks this week
and why Nick felt "a little OK"
quitting last week.
TVGuide.com: When did you
know it was over? When you
missed the first flight?
Nick: Pretty much when we
missed the flight, but a little
before that as well. I mean, six
hours is a lot to make up. And
then the next flight was nine hours
later, so ...
Amazing Race's Chad and
Stephanie are married, expecting,
and regretting that ice cream
break
TVGuide.com: Do you regret
taking the six-hour penalty?
Vicki: Absolutely. But at the
same time, we were tired, we
were hungry. It was a long day, a
draining day with the whole sushi
thing. It took me probably three
and a half hours to find the fake
food. It was a long time! We
regret it, but that's all that we
could do.
TVGuide.com: How did you
pump yourselves up for this leg
knowing you had the penalty and
especially after you didn't make
the first flight?
Vicki: Just staying positive like
we did throughout the entire
game. We just talked to each
other and said, "We got this far."
We did the best we could with
encouraging each other. We just
wanted to have fun with it. That's
what we did. We just kept our
spirits up. We got to travel all
over the world. There's nothing
really to be upset about, even
though we knew it was most
likely our last leg.
TVGuide.com: Did you do all the
tasks? We just saw you doing the
speed bump.
Vicki: Yeah, we did all of them.
It was just because it was so dark
and we were so far behind that it
was probably pointless to show.
In [the other three teams']
competition, it was so head-to-
head that they probably wanted to
show that. ... We did [speed
skating]. Everything was fun!
TVGuide.com: What was going
on with that guy who was hitting
on you?
Vicki: Those guys were really
awesome. They were really funny.
I feel like they got us through the
leg because their spirits were so
high. They were like the comedy
act. They kept our spirits up,
trying to get us through it and
hitting on me! [ Laughs] They
were having fun with Nick. It was
really funny.
Amazing Race's Gary and
Mallory: We shouldn't have
trusted our map
TVGuide.com: Nick, we saw a
nice montage of all of your angry
moments. You seemed a lot
calmer this leg. What happened
between the last leg and this one?
Nick: A lot of it was just the
sleeping and eating factors. We
got that extra six hours of sleep,
which helped. Just replaying in
my head all the legs where I did
get angry and seeing how it didn't
help at all, I just told Vicki and
myself that I'm just going to have
fun this leg, especially since it
very might well be our last one.
And we did. ... [Last week] was
definitely my low point. I just
made things worse and I realized
that. I wanted to at least have fun
and go out like that instead of
going out angry.
TVGuide.com: Do you regret
quitting on Vicki last week?
Nick: Definitely. After seeing
that, I was definitely angry with
myself. After so long with no
food and no sleep, eventually your
body's going to say "enough is
enough." That's where I got to. ...
I kind of had a feeling that it
would be a non-elimination leg,
so I felt a little OK saying,
"enough is enough." It felt good
[when Phil told us we were still in
it], but at the same time, right then
and there, it was just exhausting.
TV/ 39
TVGuide.com: A lot of fans
think you were too mean toward
Vicki and lost your temper too
often. What do have to say?
Nick: I would have to say the
people passing judgment really
have no idea how mentally,
physically demanding that race is.
I really don't let it bother me, to
be honest. I don't read any of it.
They don't know who Vicki and I
really are as people or as a couple.
They're judging a character;
they're not really judging who we
are as people.
Amazing Race's Michael and
Kevin: Getting two penalties was
a "shock to us"
TVGuide.com: You quitting and
saying you wanted to go home
last week gave the perception that
you didn't enjoy the race, but did
you have a good time?
Nick: Oh yeah, I most definitely
had a good time. We had a lot of
fun, but we had those moments of
bickering and fighting. I mean,
they showed what they showed.
We did have a lot of fun. We got
to see really cool things, really
cool places and met great people
along the way. It was life-
changing for sure.
TVGuide.com: What was your
favorite leg?
Nick: I would have to say
Norway and Sweden. I love the
snow. It was just fun. I ride dirt
bikes and we both snowboard, so
it was all related to us.
AMAZING page 41
40 TV/
The Closer Sneak Peek: Brenda's Back for the Holidays!
David Hochman (TVGuide.com:
Breaking News)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:46:00 PM
Kyra Sedgwick
Kyra Sedgwick lets out a big
"Ha!" when asked how Brenda
Leigh Johnson, the Georgia
peach—turned—Los Angeles
police babe she plays on The
Closer, has changed after six
seasons on TNT. "That's the
wonderful and fun thing about
Brenda," she says. "The woman
really hasn't evolved."
On one level, Sedgwick is right.
The Closer returns tonight for five
episodes ending with a two-part,
Christmas-themed finale
December 27 and January 5 that
features the largest cast of
returning characters the show's
ever had. Among others, Barry
Corbin and Frances Sternhagen
return as Brenda's parents. But the
Brenda we'll get is the Brenda
we've known since the show's
pilot episode in 2005, right down
to the vintage suits and private
stash of Ding Dongs in her desk.
Now, as then, Brenda rankles her
adversaries with honey-sweet
charm and nails cases on instinct
while her cohorts spend the rest of
the episode playing catch-up.
"Brenda's still always right, and it
still takes people a while to see
things her way," Sedgwick says.
Except now Brenda has
weathered six seasons of being
second-guessed, unit politics,
horrible crimes and confusing
relationships. As Sedgwick says
when asked what she'd most like
to know from her character, "I
guess it would be, 'Why don't you
go see a shrink?'"
It might be a good time for that,
actually. "The new episodes are
much more challenging
personally for Brenda than our
regular season was," says creator
James Duff, spilling a few hints
about what's ahead: Passed over
for a promotion to chief of police
(that job went to by-the-book
stickler Tommy Delk, played by
Courtney B. Vance), Brenda will
soon be offered Pope's post as
assistant chief.
"People were so mad she didn't
get [to be chief], but now's her
chance," Duff says. "The trouble
is, Brenda hates change, and it
makes things awkward with Pope
[ J.K. Simmons], so it's going to
be agonizing for her." Meanwhile,
Brenda's denial about her
husband's addiction issues "comes
back to bite her," Duff says. Adds
Jon Tenney, who plays Fritz,
"Brenda doesn't like that Fritz is
in AA, but it's thrust in her face
and she has to accept reality."
E-reader News Edition
as a meditation on refugees in
Kosovo. The real drama, though,
comes when Brenda's parents
return to announce (avert your
eyes if you don't want to
know!)...they're moving to
California. "It definitely leaves a
few things hanging for the
summer season," Sedgwick says.
As for whether Brenda will end
this holiday run with Pope's job,
Sedgwick won't confirm or deny,
but her laughter tells you
something. "Put it this way," she
says. "If Brenda does get the job, I
think she'd make a lot of enemies
really quickly. She wouldn't be
good at the politics, she'd spend
Reality's been dogging Sedgwick, everywhere. "At the White House too much of the budget and she
too. She and husband Kevin correspondents' dinner this year, wouldn't be there that long." Talk
Bacon were among the victims of Obama's Secretary of Homeland about an arresting development.
financier Bernard Madoff's Ponzi Security, Janet Napolitano, came The Closer airs Mondays at 9/8c
scheme. And now she's adjusting up and said she never misses an on TNT
to life as an empty nester since the episode," Sedgwick says. "My Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine
couple's two children have gone mouth dropped open." now!
off to college. "I had my kids Had the secretary asked, she This entry passed through the
when I was 23," Sedgwick, 45, might have gotten some spoilers. Full-Text RSS service — if this is
says. "I don't know what it's like The first new episode starts with a your content and you're reading it
to be without kids who need you detective being attacked, "and it's on someone else's site, please read
on a daily basis, so I'm navigating one of our own, so we get right our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
those waters. There are great back into the intensity in a way content-only/faq.php
things about it, and then there's that makes me go, 'Wow, this Five Filters featured article:
like, 'Oh, my God! I miss them!'" show is so cool,'" Sedgwick says. Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
It helped that Sedgwick finally But it's the Christmas two-parter Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
won the best actress in a drama she's most excited about. The Catastrophe.
Emmy for The Closer this year episode begins with the accidental
and that fans of the show are death of a patriarch and winds up
E-reader News Edition
AMAZING
continued from page 39
Vicki: Anything athletic I was
super-excited about. I felt like we
had an advantage in that
department. Besides seeing
everything, I just love being able
to be active and athletic.
What are you up to now?
Vicki: Just basically the daily
grind, just working a lot. We both
work a lot and spend a lot of time
with our dog. Staying active with
snowboarding season starting.
That's pretty exciting!
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.
(Newsmax - Inside Cover)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 9:53:11 AM
The page you are looking for
might have been removed, had its
name changed, or is temporarily
unavailable.
Please try the following:
• Make sure that the Web site
address displayed in the address
bar of your browser is spelled and
formatted correctly.
• If you reached this page by
clicking a link, contact the Web
site administrator to alert them
that the link is incorrectly
formatted.
• Click the Back button to try
another link.
Technical Information (for
support personnel)
• Go to Microsoft Product
Support Services and perform a
title search for the words HTTP
and 404.
• Open IIS Help, which is
accessible in IIS Manager
(inetmgr), and search for topics
titled Web Site Setup, Common
Products/ Politics/ 41
Administrative Tasks, and About
Custom Error Messages.
This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article:
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Catastrophe.

Stiletto heels and booze just don’t mix

rss@consumerreports.org th metatarsals), Judith F. padding, so there’s not much to • Kick your shoes off under the
(Consumer Reports) Baumhauer, M.D., incoming cushion the blow when your foot table when seated.
Submitted at 12/6/2010 8:55:14 AM president of the American hits the floor. As a result, she sees • Take your shoes off to dance.
Orthopedic Foot and Ankle a variety of fractures (most • Change into flats for your trip
Stiletto heels and booze just don’t Society, has seen plenty of ankle commonly ankle and fifth home.
mix sprains and a variety of fractures metatarsal breaks), as well as • When you work out, don’t
As 30-year-old Carrie Donnelly, in women who fall off their heels. ligament tears and dislocated forget to strengthen and stretch
New York, began her bachelorette She likens it to stepping off the ankle tendons (peroneals), that your ankle muscles.
party in her new black open-toe curb; high heels cause you to lead require surgery. • If you’ve had a prior ankle
five-inch heels, she fell, her foot on your forefoot, where bone has super high heels is just asking for Still, some fashionistas think injury, think twice before you
going one way and her ankle the the least contact. And the higher trouble,” he points out. He’s seen their heels aren’t high enough. leave the house in heels.
other. “When I woke up the next the heel, the more dangerous the quite a few severe ankle fractures There are plans afoot for nine-
day, my ankle was throbbing and shoe. Joel S. Buchalter, M.D., a and dislocations in which surgery, inch Sky Heel, to be released next — Orly Avitzur, M.D., medical
had become extremely swollen,” clinical assistant professor of although helpful, did not make the year. That leaves plenty of time adviser to Consumers Union
she said. It was a month before Orthopaedic Surgery at the ankle normal, and he’s witnessed for you to consider these You Subscribe now!
her wedding—the last thing she Hospital for Joint Diseases, and increased injuries to the face and Tube wipe-outs, if you’re still S u b s c r i b e t o
wanted to do was to walk down co-director of the Orthopaedic wrists from such falls. tempted to hit the stores. ConsumerReports.org for expert
the aisle in a cast. Institute at Putnam Hospital With stilettos, the narrowness of Tips to keep your holidays Ratings, buying advice and
Super-high heels like Carrie’s are Center in New York, says that the heel magnifies the risks. “It fracture-free: reliability on hundreds of
all the rage. Fashion magazines a l c o h o l s e e m s t o b e o f t e n creates the perfect storm and a • If you’re shopping and can’t products. Update your feed
tout them. Stars like Lady Gaga involved in high-heel injuries. recipe for disaster,” Baumhauer decide between the 3 and 5 inch preferences
and Victoria Beckham wear them. “ B e c a u s e d r i n k i n g i m p a i r s says—especially when you walk heels, choose the lower heel.
The surgeon who treated Carrie’s b a l a n c e a n d c o o r d i n a t i o n , across uneven ground. She points • If you simply must wear super
injuries (fractures to the 4 th and 5 stepping out to a club or a party in out that high-heel shoes often lack high heels, don’t drink.
42 Products/ E-reader News Edition

HexBug Nano Bridge Battle Habitat Consumer Reports cell-

Set service Ratings: AT&T is
(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:00:22 AM
Hexbug battle arena, custom-built
from the 29 easy-connect pieces
in this kit. You’ll come away with
arenas

Additional Photos:
the worst carrier
Carol Mangis (Consumer
B u g f i g h t s : N o C a u s e F o r a whole new understanding of the • Bridge Battle Habitat Reports)
Concern sport, and the Hexbugs and people Assembled
I’d like to see the NFL just TRY i n v o l v e d i n i t . F a r f r o m • Rare Nano Mutations Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:08:17 AM

and suspend me for this. exploiting mechanical wildlife, Specimens (colors may vary)
Look, you people who don’t fight Hexbug fighting is actually a Consumer Reports cell-service
• Package Contents
Hexbugs just don’t understand. great way to honor it. That’s why Ratings: AT&T is the worst
• Packaging
These robotic creatures were bred I got involved in the sport in the carrier
for fighting. They love it. They first place. AT&T is the lowest-scoring cell-
Product Specifications:
need it. It’s all they know. These phone carrier in the U.S.,
Also, one more dogfighting • Components: (1) easy connect
Hexbugs can’t be rehabilitated conviction and I’ll have to do jail according to a satisfaction survey Midwest—beat out Verizon
Bridge Battle Piece, (6) easy
into lovable family pets. Their time. of 58,000 ConsumerReports.org Wireless as the top-rated provider
connect curved pieces, (2) easy
taste for virtual blood is part of Warranty: 90 Days Innovation readers. Of all the carriers rated, for contract service. Also, Sprint
connect straight pieces, (4) easy
who they are. AT&T was the only one to drop has pulled even in overall
First connect hex cell pieces, (16) easy
Besides, the long tradition of Condition: New significantly in overall satisfaction with Verizon, which
connect standoff pieces, and (2)
H e x b u g f i g h t i n g h o l d s a n Features: satisfaction. has been the clear top provider in
HEXBUG Nano specimens
important place in my culture. If • Everything that you need to Over half of the survey our Ratings in most years since
• Package weight: 2.3lbs.
you’ve ever played Rock ‘Em battle your HEXBUG Nanos with respondents who used AT&T as a 2003. Sprint even scored better
• Dimensions: 17” x 14” x 4” (W
Sock ‘Em Robots, you have no the Bridge Battle Habitat Set carrier owned some version of the than Verizon in some aspects of
x H x D)
right to criticize. iPhone, the Apple smart phone customer service, in a remarkable
• Nanos enter the arena through • Control: Autonomous
The hysterical media’s gonna one-way gates and battle against that is exclusive to AT&T, at least turnaround.
• Battery: AG13- Included
make this HexBug Bridge Battle one another until only one for now. Consumer Reports data, The survey is part of our annual
Habitat Set sound like evil remains reflecting all versions of the comprehensive cell-phone
In the box:
incarnate. They’ll take one • Nanos behave like real bugs and phone, found that iPhone owners package, which hits newsstands
• (1) Innovation First 477-1631
superficial look at the two flip over by themselves were much less satisfied with tomorrow (Dec. 7) as part of the
HexBug Nano Bridge Battle
included Hexbug Nanos and they • Includes (2) extremely rare their carrier and rated data service January issue of Consumer
Habitat Set - 29 easy connect
won’t see two ingenious robot N a n o m u t a t i o n s ( b a t t e r i e s (Web and e-mail) lower than Reports. It will also post online at
pieces and 2 extremely rare Nano
bugs that run around on twelve i n c l u d e d a n d i n s t a l l e d ) owners of smart phones on other CRO tomorrow morning.
mutations
l e g s a n d c a n f l i p o v e r b y • The (29) easy connect pieces carriers that, like the iPhone, have Subscribers will be able to get full
themselves. All they’ll see is two give you the freedom to get a host of apps to encourage heavy Ratings and all the details on the
Discuss this product
helpless victims. I ask you, which creative and see how many ways data use. story, including city-by-city
Price: $17.99 I want one!
side has more respect for these your Nanos can battle “Our survey suggests that an Ratings for 23 metro areas.
noble beasts? iPhone from Verizon Wireless, Subscribe now!
• Easy connect standoff pieces
I invite anyone to visit my allow you to create multi-level which is rumored, could indeed be S u b s c r i b e t o
good news for iPhone fans,” said ConsumerReports.org for expert
Paul Reynolds, Electronics Editor Ratings, buying advice and
for Consumer Reports. reliability on hundreds of
Also big news this year: U.S. products. Update your feed
Cellular—which serves 26 states, preferences
mostly in the South and
E-reader News Edition
Are plasma TV brands staging a
comeback?
James Willcox (Consumer
Reports)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 10:04:15 AM
Are plasma TV brands staging a
comeback?
As I was researching the best TV
deals for the Black Friday
shopping weekend, I came across
an interesting development: There
were a number of low-priced
plasma TVs being offered by
brands that either previously
weren't selling plasma TVs, or
that had exited the plasma TV
business years ago.
Earlier this year, you could find
plasma sets only from three major
brands—LG Electronics,
Panasonic and Samsung—plus a
few models from Insignia, Best
Buy's house brand. More recently,
plasma sets from Sanyo, a brand
sold through Walmart, began
appearing in our TV
Ratings(available to subscribers).
But in just the past month,
plasma TVs from brands
including Element, RCA, Viore,
and Zenith have appeared in
advertisements. (We're still seeing
some plasma sets from Hitachi,
available at Sears Outlet, but they
appear to be leftovers, not new
Products/ 43
Facebook rolls out new
profile changes
After all, plasma TV sales Carol Mangis (Consumer
rebounded strongly this year, and Reports)
they're often less expensive than Submitted at 12/6/2010 9:41:42 AM
comparably sized LCD sets.
My guess is that many of these Facebook rolls out new profile
brands will disappear from the changes
plasma market after the holiday Social networking behemoth
season, especially as the costs for Facebook has introduced a
some LCD components, such as number of changes to its Profile
models.) All of these TVs were LED backlights, continue to fall. page. In an unusual move, CEO You can get more information
especially low-priced and were But it will be interesting to see if Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the and obtain the new Profile at
often used as doorbuster specials any remain, and if we once again new features during an interview Facebook.com. And we'll follow
that broke price barriers for sets in see these names resurface during on " 60 Minutes" last night. up with a more detailed analysis
their size category. Black Friday, 2011. One of the updates, called " soon.
For example, Kmart and Sears —James K. Willcox Next Steps Featured Friends," lets you create Find some helpful tips on using
had a 42-inch Zenith set ( • TV Buying Advice: new groups of friends and feature Facebook at Consumer Reports
Z42PJ240) for $400 (it's now • Types of TVs| your choice of a friends lists. Online. And find out more about
$450), while Walmart is still • TV Features| Your interests and activities are Facebook's privacy issues as well.
selling a 42-inch RCA ( • TV Brands also more prominent on the page, —Carol Mangis Subscribe now!
42PA30RQ) for $399, and a 42- with images to represent them. A S u b s c r i b e t o
inch Element ( ELPCFT421) for All TV Ratings Subscribers can new "infinite scroll" feature has ConsumerReports.org for expert
even less at $379. A 42-inch view and compare all TV Ratings. been added to the Photos pages, Ratings, buying advice and
Viore 720p set ( PD42VH80), Recommended TVs Look at the letting you scan through your reliability on hundreds of
bundled with an RCA HTIB, is ones that we chose as the best of photos easily. And the Friends products. Update your feed
$499, and its 50-inch sibling(no the best. Subscribe now! page has also been updated with preferences
bundle) is $529 at the chain. S u b s c r i b e t o easier and faster search.
So we've been wondering: Is the ConsumerReports.org for expert
jump in the number of plasma Ratings, buying advice and
brands we're seeing a short-term r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f
phenomenon designed to attract products. Update your feed
budget-conscious shoppers this preferences
holiday season, or is part of a
longer-term plasma resurgence?
44 Products/ Sports/ Food/ E-reader News Edition

HTML5 In The Brain Pan: 10KB Sniper Festive Foods

(Woot! - One Day, One Deal)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 10:00:00 AM
break full of under-your-breath
swearing and 10k Sniper will drop Around the
Games aren't always about
distraction. Sometimes they can
a non-verbal hint telling your boss
that he needs to start planning
ahead for the 2011 pay raise.
Globe
(Cooking Light: Editor's Picks)
be used as a form of Remember: the best kind of
communication. Bears and dogs threats are implied! This time of year, many
and feral cats, if you watch them But all kidding aside, you don'tAmericans tend to focus on
at play, all have plenty of non- play Super Mario Bros and then Christmas and New Year's Day.
verbal signals that mean "Hey, go fix your plumbing. You don't But a number of other cultures
back off!" So why can't humans play Sid Meier's Civilization V mark this season in their own
do the same thing with their and then apply to the U.N. So special ways, and be it Hanukkah
games? Well, we're willing to say don't be afraid of 10k Sniper. It's
or Pongal, a central part of each
that 10k Sniper is a game that pretty slow and they like to stand even a demo has some merit. And just a game, not a warning sign. celebration is food. We've
sends a message. Let's face it, no b e s i d e o p e n w i n d o w s f o r if you're working in a call center And truthfully, if each SPECTER gathered some of the best of the
boss is going to pass by your desk extended periods of time. Hey, or just found out the new schedule had a little Julian Assange head, world's holiday dishes, and we
and ignore this: nobody's saying this is Portal or has you working Christmas Eve, the designer could probably get hope they'll inspire you with their
In 10k Sniper, you're a sniper on anything. We all know HTML5 is being able to do this: funding from the Pentagon. wonderful flavors, and soon
a mission. There are SPECTERS still new, and the programmers might really hit your sweet spot. become a part of your traditions.
i n t h e s e s k y s c r a p e r s , a n d are still working things out. But There's even a chance that a lunch Next African: Kwanzaa
apparently these SPECTERS are This entry passed through the
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
AP Top 25: Duke Unanimous No. 1 your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
FanHouse Staff (FanHouse in the same order as well. Other teams that rose in the our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Main) The highest riser of the week was rankings this week include: No. content-only/faq.php
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:10:00 PM Georgetown, as the Hoyas used a 11 Tennessee, No. 13 Memphis, Five Filters featured article:
victory over Missouri to propel No. 14 San Diego State, No. 16 Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Filed under: Duke, Kansas, themselves seven spots to No. 9. Illinois, No. 18 BYU, No. 19 Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
Kansas State, Ohio State, Missouri fell six spots to No. 15. Purdue, No. 20 UNLV, No. 21 Catastrophe.
Pittsburgh Once again, Duke is But the biggest fallers of the week Washington, No. 23 Notre Dame
atop the AP Top 25 poll. The Blue were Kentucky and Minnesota. and No. 24 Louisville.
Devils succeeded in a tough week, The Wildcats lost at North Florida fell out of the rankings
taking down No. 7 Michigan State Carolina and fell from No. 10 to while Louisville makes its first
and last year's national runner-up, No. 17. The Golden Gophers were appearance of the season. Every
Butler. Thus, they received every short-handed, but still lost to other team in the Top 25 was also
No. 1 vote in the nation. Virginia at home and fell from in it last week.
With none of last week's top-5 No. 15 to No. 22. but hung with -- No. 1 Duke in
teams losing a game, the entire No. 6 Connecticut and No. 7 Cameron. Syracuse(No. 8) and
group -- Ohio State, Pittsburgh, Michigan State traded spots from Baylor(No. 10) fill out the
Kansas and Kansas State-- stayed last weez, as the Spartans lost -- remainder of the top 10.
E-reader News Edition Sports/ 45

Baseball executive Pat Gillick elected to Hall of Fame

Associated Press (ESPN.com) field and 4 million people aren't from 1959-63. Hall of Fame Miller, who led the Major League
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:19:56 PM going to show up." manager Whitey Herzog, a Baseball Players Association from
In his fifth time on the ballot, member of this year's Veterans 1966-81, had asked not to be
Updated: December 6, 2010, 1:19 former players' association head Committee, remembered Gillick included on the ballot. An
PM ET Marvin Miller fell one vote short as "a wild lefty." antagonist of baseball owners who
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- of the 75 percent needed for Gillick started with the Houston helped players gain free agency
Pat Gillick, whose teams won election. Colt .45s-Astros from 1963-73, and multimillion salaries, he
three World Series titles in 27 "Many years ago those who then was the Yankees scouting received 44 percent in 2003 and
years as a major league general control the Hall decided to rewrite director from 1974-76. He served 63 percent in 2007 when all Hall
manager, was elected to baseball's history instead of recording it," as GM of Toronto (1977-94), of Famers could vote on the
Hall of Fame on Monday by the the 93-year-old Miller said in a Baltimore (1996-98), Seattle veterans panel.
Veterans Committee. statement. "The aim was to (2000-03) and Philadelphia (2006 After the Hall downsized the
Gillick was GM of the Toronto eradicate the history of the -08). He currently is a Phillies committee, he got 3 of 12 votes in
Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, tremendous impact of the players' senior adviser. 2007 -- when seven on the panel
Seattle Mariners and Philadelphia u n i o n o n t h e p r o g r e s s a n d Tal Smith, now the Astros' were from management -- and 7
Phillies, winning World Series development of the game as a president of baseball operations, of 12 last year.
titles with the Blue Jays in 1992 c o m p e t i t i v e s p o r t , a s and Paul Richards, Houston's first Selig and former Commissioner
and 1993, and with the Phillies in e n t e r t a i n m e n t , a n d a s a n GM, shaped many of Gillick's Fay Vincent have called for
2008. He received 13 votes from i n d u s t r y . " philosophies. Miller's election as has Rey
the 16-man committee. Dave Concepcion, a nine-time Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images Pat " T a l S m i t h i s t h e b i g g e s t Grebey, management's former
Vote totals All-Star shortstop who helped the Gillick has been a key part of four influence on me," Gillick said. labor negotiator.
Voting from the Veterans C i n c i n n a t i R e d s ' " B i g R e d organizations, including the "Paul Richards only gave me one "A long time ago, it became
Committee for induction into the Machine" win World Series titles Philadelphia Phillies during their piece of advice. He told me that apparent that the Hall sought to
Baseball Hall of Fame (12 of 16 in 1975-76, was third with eight recent run. looking at players, usually your bury me long before my time, as a
votes needed for election): votes from the committee that Gillick is the 32nd executive first impression is your correct metaphor for burying the union
• Pat Gillick (13 votes, 81.25 considered candidates from the elected but only the fourth who impression." and eradicating its real influence,"
percent) expansion era, 1973 on. was primarily a team architect, Gillick rejected the statistical Miller said. "Its failure is
• Marvin Miller (11 votes, 68.75 George Steinbrenner, the New according to the Hall, joining Ed Sabermetric approach used by exemplified by the fact that I and
percent) York Yankees owner from 1973 Barrow, Branch Rickey and some current GMs. the union of players have received
• Dave Concepcion (8 votes, 50 until his death in July, was among George Weiss. "I think you have to watch the far more support, publicity, and
percent) the candidates who received fewer "His skill for identifying talent game," he said. "The statistics tell appreciation from countless fans,
• Fewer than 8 votes: Ted than eight votes. and knowing how to build a you one thing and they don't want former players, writers, scholars,
Simmons, Vida Blue, Steve Gillick will be inducted into successful roster is exceptional," anything happening emotionally experts in labor management
Garvey, Ron Guidry, Tommy Cooperstown during ceremonies Commissioner Bud Selig said. on the field or anything on the relations, than if the Hall had not
John, Billy Martin, Al Oliver, on July 24 along with any players "Pat has always believed in field to really tinker with those embarked on its futile and
R u s t y S t a u b a n d G e o r g e chosen next month by the scouting and player development, statistics sometimes. So I think fraudulent attempt to rewrite
Steinbrenner. Baseball Writers' Association of and I know that he will accept this you have to use both. ... I think history. It is an amusing anomaly
Speaking at a news conference at America. extraordinary honor on behalf of you have to see the player and that the Hall of Fame has made
the winter meetings, Gillick Roberto Alomar, who helped all the scouts he has worked with you have to see him on the field -- me famous by keeping me out."
thanked all the people he's worked Gillick's Blue Jays win two World throughout his career." how he plays the game. Is he Under changes adopted by the
with over the years. Series, also could be inducted. Now 73, Gillick is the son of intense? Does he have passion? Hall last summer, managers,
"It all goes back to the players Alomar fell eight votes shy last minor league pitcher Larry Get his body language. See how umpires, executives and long-
they have on the field," he said. "I January in his first season of Gillick. Pat Gillick pitched in the he interacts with the other players
could stand in the middle of the eligibility.[+] Enlarge Baltimore Orioles' organization on the team." BASEBALL page 48
46 Sports/ E-reader News Edition

Boston Red Sox finalize trade to get San Diego Padres' Adrian
Gonzalez
Chris Forsberg (ESPN.com) .284 and averaged 32 home runs Boston for years.
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:14:13 PM and 99 RBIs. Saying that Epstein is his good
The Red Sox will ship minor friend and they talk often, Hoyer
Updated: December 6, 2010, 3:14 leaguers -- outfielder Reymond expressed regret that the Padres
PM ET By Chris Forsberg Fuentes, right-handed pitcher had to lose Gonzalez.
ESPNBoston.com Casey Kelly and first baseman "Adrian is a superstar player, and
Archive Anthony Rizzo -- and a player to I certainly wish we could keep
BOSTON -- Declaring it his be named later to San Diego in him in San Diego long term but
"second dream" to play in Boston, exchange for Gonzalez. we can't," Hoyer said. "I think he's
Adrian Gonzalez was introduced "This is one of the best hitters in going to be unbelievable at
as the latest member of the Red baseball," Red Sox manager Terry Fenway Park. He hit so many fly
Sox at Fenway Park on Monday. Francona said from Orlando in an balls the other way, and so many
Flanked by general manager interview on Boston sports radio times they just died before the
Theo Epstein and owner John station WEEI. "This is a big move warning track at Petco Park. He's
Henry, the soft-spoken Gonzalez for us. We're getting a middle of going to be a monster at Fenway
donned a numberless home Red the order bat, a guy that's won a Park. They've got themselves a
Sox jersey (he'll have to duke it couple of Gold Gloves. He's still great player, a player we certainly
out with old friend Mike Cameron young. This is exciting. We gave good faith that developed. Had we field, which is a great fit for our wish we could have kept. Red Sox
if he wants the No. 23 he wore in up some good players to get him, not gotten to know Adrian and his ballpark. He hits the ball the other fans will certainly enjoy watching
San Diego) and spoke of growing but that's the only way you can wife [Betsy] and what they're all way, so he'll be using the wall, him play for a long time."
up rooting for Boston from afar get a guy of his caliber." about over the course of the and we think he'll wear the wall Epstein took advantage of being
with a desire to one day play in The Padres admitted that they weekend, we probably wouldn't out going from [pitcher friendly] in a bigger market but didn't think
Fenway. couldn't afford to re-sign have had that comfort. We think Petco [Park] to Fenway Park." he got Gonzalez for nothing.
"I had five incredible years in San Gonzalez after his contract that he's such a good fit -- Adrian Epstein joked Gonzalez would "It wasn't a situation where either
Diego, where I grew up trying to expires at the end of the season. wants to be a Red Sox -- and we need to work on his speed with all side was looking to pull a fast ball
play in the major leagues and be a The Red Sox had been trying to want him to be a Red Sox for a those doubles he stands to register on the other," Epstein said. "This
Padre," Gonzalez said. "But my negotiate an extension but went long time." off the wall. More On The Red trade was all known commodities.
second dream was to be a Red ahead with the deal without a long Gonzalez is a three-time All-Star Sox We know Adrian really well, we
Sox and so I'm very excited ... to -term contract in place. Epstein who hit .298 with 31 homers and Gordon Edes and the rest of the know that he's of one of the best
start this new phase. I look said he's "confident" something 101 RBIs last season. In five ESPNBoston.com team have the players int he game; Jed knows
f o r w a r d t o a l o t o f w o r l d will be worked out. seasons with San Diego, Gonzalez Red Sox covered for you. Blog our system well and got three
championships."[+] Enlarge "There was a lot of good faith that has 161 homers and 501 RBIs. Gonzalez added: "My first fly great prospects. This is a win-win-
AP Photo/Josh Reynolds New developed over the course of the Including parts of two seasons ball to left that would have been win situation."
Red Sox first baseman gets ready negotiations and both sides have with Texas, he has 168 homers an out at Petco, I'm looking Francona said he could tell that
to receive his jersey from team an understanding of what it will and 525 RBIs. forward to getting to second base Epstein thought this deal was
owner John Henry. take, when the time is right," "He's one of very best hitters in [at Fenway]." critical.
Gonzalez later tossed in a Epstein said. "We got close to a the game, left-handed hitter, San Diego gets some of Boston's "I could tell that Theo was really
reference about being ready to deal, but in the end the [48-hour] tremendous ability to control the top prospects. Padres general digging his heels in on this one,"
"beat the Yanks," the most window [to negotiate] lapsed and strike zone, hit for power, power manager Jed Hoyer was familiar Francona said. "And I'm glad he
surefire way to endear himself to we didn't have a deal. We decided to all fields," Epstein said. "His with the Red Sox's farm system did because when he feels that
the region. Another way is that to go forward with the trade natural stroke is to the opposite since he worked under Epstein in BOSTON page 48
over seven seasons, Gonzalez hit anyway, as a demonstration of the
E-reader News Edition Sports/ 47

Dallas Cowboys QB, MNF icon Don Meredith dies at age 72

Associated Press (ESPN.com) fans, from his play in historic personalities who could also collarbones and ribs, everything
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:20:51 PM NFL games like the Ice Bowl to compete at the highest level. No you can think of, Don had it. But
his great personality that helped one fit that description better than he was one tough individual. He
Updated: December 6, 2010, 2:20 launch the success of Monday Don Meredith." played with many an ailment and
PM ET Night Football." Born April 10, 1938, Meredith injury, and was very, very
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Don Over his nine-year career, was born and raised in Mount competitive. He and Bob Hayes
Meredith, the former Dallas Meredith threw for 17,199 yards Vernon, Texas, about 100 miles really set the standard for the wide
Cowboys quarterback who served and 111 touchdowns. He retired east of Dallas. He never played a -open offense, the motion guys
as a folksy foil for Howard Cosell unexpectedly before the 1969 home game outside of North and big plays."
o n A B C ' s " M o n d a y N i g h t season and just two years later Texas. Meredith's last moment in a
Football" and helped carve out the joined Keith Jackson and Cosell Meredith was a three-year starter Cowboys uniform was painful. He
niche for colorful ex-athlete in the broadcast booth as part of at quarterback for SMU and an threw three interceptions in a
broadcasters, has died. "Dandy the "Monday Night Football" All-America selection in 1958 and 1968 playoff game against the
Don," as he was known, was 72. crew. 1959. He was drafted in the third Cleveland Browns and was pulled
Meredith's wife, Susan, told The He quickly became one of the round by the Chicago Bears in in favor of Craig Morton.
Associated Press her husband died most popular broadcasters in 1960 and traded to the expansion "I tried to talk him out of it,"
Sunday in Santa Fe after suffering sports with a homespun humor Cowboys franchise for future Dallas coach Tom Landry said
a brain hemorrhage and lapsing t h a t p l a y e d o f f C o s e l l i n draft picks. after Meredith announced his
into a coma. She and her daughter particular. Meredith's signature Meredith shared time under retirement. "But when you lose
were at Meredith's side when he call was singing the famous you're getting me down there." center with Eddie LeBaron before your desire in this game, that's it."
died. Willie Nelson song "Turn Out the Another famous Meredith winning the starting job in 1965 In addition to his broadcasting
"He was the best there was," she Lights" when it appeared a game's moment occurred in 1972 at the and the following year guided the career, Meredith appeared in
said Monday, describing him as outcome had been determined. Houston Astrodome. The Oakland Cowboys to their first winning several TV shows and movies
kind, warm and funny. "We lost a Meredith left ABC after the 1973 Raiders were in the process of season (10-3-1). He was named after his playing career ended. He
good one." season for a three-year stint at beating the Houston Oilers 34-0. NFL Player of the Year after had a recurring role in "Police
Meredith played for the Cowboys NBC. He returned to the "MNF" A cameraman had a shot of a throwing a career-high 24 Story" and was a spokesman for
from 1960-1968, becoming the crew in 1977 before retiring in disgruntled Oilers fan, who then touchdown passes and 2,805 Lipton teas. Meredith and Don
starting quarterback in 1965. 1984, one year after Cosell left made an obscene gesture. yards. Perkins were the second and third
W h i l e h e n e v e r t o o k t h e the team. AP Photo Don Meredith, center, Meredith was one of nine Dallas players inducted to Cowboys Ring
Cowboys to the Super Bowl, Meredith was one of the first was part of a popular Monday players selected to the Pro Bowl of Honor in 1976.
M e r e d i t h w a s o n e o f t h e athletes to make the transition Night Football team with Howard that year -- the first of his two Pro Susan Meredith said a private
franchise's first stars. He led the from the field to color analyst and Cosell, left, and Frank Gifford. Bowl years. graveside service was planned.
Cowboys to three straight division the move to calling "Monday Said Meredith: "He thinks they're Although Roger Staubach and Copyright 2010 by The
titles and to consecutive NFL Night Football" was an easy one No. 1 in the nation." Troy Aikman made the Cowboys' Associated Press
Championship games in 1966 and for him. He was part of many "Don Meredith was a Dallas quarterback job synonymous with This entry passed through the
1967, where they lost both games memorable moments on ABC's Cowboys original. His wit, charm, greatness, both credit Meredith Full-Text RSS service — if this is
to eventual champion Green Bay. landmark hit. and strength of personality were for launching that tradition. your content and you're reading it
"Don Meredith was one of the In 1970, Meredith was in the matched only by his wonderful "He did it without as much help as on someone else's site, please read
most colorful characters in NFL booth for the St. Louis Cardinals' leadership, toughness and athletic some of the other guys had," said our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
history. He was star on the field 38-0 whitewashing of his former skill," Cowboys owner Jerry Lee Roy Jordan, a former content-only/faq.php
who became an even bigger star team. The Cotton Bowl crowd late Jones said in a statement. Cowboys linebacker. "Our Five Filters featured article:
o n t e l e v i s i o n , " N F L in the game began chanting "We "Throughout 50 years of history, offensive line was not very good Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Commissioner Roger Goodell want Meredith!" the Cowboys legacy has been early on. He got beat up pretty
said. "He brought joy to football Meredith quipped, "No way built by dynamic and colorful bad -- broken noses and DALLAS page 48
48 Sports/ E-reader News Edition
BOSTON DALLAS
Backloaded Schedule continued from page 46

strongly it's got a chance to really

continued from page 47

t h e t e a m ' s p a y r o l l f o r t a x Reporting of Falluja's Cancer

Will Keep Playoff- be good for us."
The Red Sox hope they have
purposes.
Chris Forsberg is a reporter for
Catastrophe.

landed their long-term solution to ESPNBoston.com. Information

Hungry Teams on Edge losing out on free agent Mark
Teixeira two seasons ago. He
from The Associated Press was
used in this report.
Dave Goldberg (FanHouse agreed to an eight-year, $180 This entry passed through the
Main)
million deal with the Yankees, Full-Text RSS service — if this is
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:30:00 PM and it remains to be seen how your content and you're reading it
close to that financial on someone else's site, please read
Filed under: Redskins, NFL neighborhood Gonzalez ends up. our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Playoffs, NFL Analysis At 9-3 One baseball source suggested to content-only/faq.php
and atop the NFC North with four ESPNBoston.com that eventually Five Filters featured article:
games to go, the Bears should be a compromise in the seven-year, Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
confident of making the playoffs. $22 million per season range Reporting of Falluja's Cancer NFL's Best Rivalry?
But this year, the NFL's might get the deal done. The Red Catastrophe.
backloaded schedule makes things Sox might actually benefit from a Numbers Say It's
a lot dicier than normal for
leaders, especially in the NFC,
luxury-tax standpoint by holding Not Jets-Patriots
off on the deal until after Opening
where seven teams are 7-5 or Day, when it won't count against JJ Cooper (FanHouse Main)
Minnesota and Green Bay. And
better, and two won't make the Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:15:00 PM
winning those two road division BASEBALL
postseason because one spot is
games will be more important continued from page 45 Filed under: Jets, Patriots,
reserved for the winner of the
than beating two AFC teams. Ravens, Steelers, NFL Analysis
West, which probably will be 8-8 retired players from the expansion of Sports Illustrated and retired
That's not to single out Chicago. With the Ravens- Steelers and the
at best. era were considered this year. The Los Angeles Times reporter Ross
Aside from Atlanta, 10-2 with two Jets- Patriots both facing off this
Chicago's schedule makes the golden era (1947-72) will be Newhan.
games left against 1-11 Carolina, week, there has been a lot of
Bears' situation especially voted on in 2011 and the pre- Copyright 2010 by The
the other top teams still have big discussion about what is the best
tenuous: Depending on the integration era (1871-1946) will Associated Press
games to win thanks to the current rivalry in the NFL. And
situations of their opponents (like be judged in 2012. This entry passed through the
league's conscious decision to whether it's a Northeast corridor
the name and health of Serving on the committee with Full-Text RSS service — if this is
play as many division games as it bias or something else, a lot of
Minnesota's quarterback), they Herzog were Hall of Famers your content and you're reading it
can late in the season. people out there are making the
could be underdogs in all four of Johnny Bench, Eddie Murray, Jim on someone else's site, please read
Latest Update: NFL Playoff argument for Jets-Patriots -- but,
their remaining games -- the Palmer, Tony Perez, Frank our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Picture at least on paper, that's not the
Patriots and Jets at home; at Robinson, Ryne Sandberg and content-only/faq.php
Ozzie Smith along with White Five Filters featured article: case.
Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- Deciding which rivalry is the
Orioles President Andy MacPhail, Reporting of Falluja's Cancer greatest is an eye-of-the-beholder
former Phillies owner Bill Giles, Catastrophe. thing, and we all bring our biases
Royals owner David Glass, Bob in to play. If you're a Falcons' fan,
Elliott of the Toronto Sun, Tim the Falcons- Saints rivalry
Kurkjian of ESPN, Tom Verducci probably ranks as the biggest in
the NFL. The same thing goes for
Bears- Packers if you live in
NFL'S page 49
E-reader News Edition Sports/ Gaming/ 49
NFL'S
continued from page 48

Chicago. closeness of games, in

But we'll try to reduce as much implications of the wins and
fan bias as we can by only losses, or in almost any other
looking at facts. And when you tangible aspect.
break it down, it's quite clear that
the Jets-Patriots rivalry doesn't
match Steelers-Ravens in

Rumor: Raven Software working on

stealth-based Bond game, followup to
Wolverine 'on the backburner'
Ben Gilbert (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:50:00 PM
When it's not busy working on
Activision's"largest digital
Bakersfield Jam Host offering ever" or making games
with superhuman Nazis, Raven
Idaho Stampede Software is allegedly working on
another James Bond title for
Activision. Bond fansite MI6
Scott Schroeder (FanHouse Stampede for an interesting three
Main) games in four night series, having claims that the recently approved
swept Idaho with wins on Friday bankruptcy plan at MGM has
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:55:00 PM
(125-111) and Saturday (110-103) allowed the unannounced Bond
Filed under: NBA Videos, NBA behind big games from Johnson. title to be "taken off hiatus," and
D-League, Bakersfield Jam, Idaho Johnson (pictured right), an elite says it's back in production at
Stampede The Idaho Stampede scorer coming out of Jackson Raven. Additionally, the report
haven't won a single game this State in 2007, is averaging 24.9 alleges that the Bond title was one
year, opening the season with six points on 51 percent shooting of two games being worked on by
straight losses under first-year from the field, placing him third Raven -- a sequel to 2009's X-
head coach Randy Livingston. among the D-League's leading Men Origins: Wolverine is said to
But they'll look to get on track scorers. The 6-foot-5 combo- also have been in production,
Monday against the Bakersfield guard had a tryout with the though that game is reportedly
Jam, who are led by former Minnesota Timberwolves earlier
Cleveland Cavaliers call-up Trey this season.
Johnson.
The Jam are hosting the
"on the backburner" currently.
Given the recent death sentence
handed to James Bond 007: Blood
Stone by Activision (did you
know that game was released,
because it totally was) and the
tumultuous story of Bond's 23rd
film(said to now be back on track)
-- not to mention Raven's ties to
the very, very lucrative Call of
Duty franchise and a recent
thinning of the studio's staff --
we're a bit wary that the supposed
stealth Bond will ever see the
light of day. Regardless, we are
totally, 100 percent confident in
our unabashed excitement for the
reignited Bond 23 plans.
Rumor: Raven Software working
on stealth-based Bond game,
followup to Wolverine 'on the
backburner' originally appeared
on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Dec 2010
15:50:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds.
Permalink| Email this| Comments
50 Gaming/ Technology/
Neil Patrick Harris to host Milestone Shooting
VGAs, hopefully in a legen Collection 2 bundles five
- (wait for it) dary manner shmups on Wii
Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:30:00 PM
There are few people on this
planet we admire more than one
Mr. Neil Patrick Harris, the length
of whose name is matched only
by the depth of his comedic talent
-- which is to say that there's a lot
of it. However, we're of two
minds about how to react to the
announcement that NPH would be
fulfilling hosting duties for the
2010 Spike VGAs, which, once
again, we have been dragooned
into watching and reporting on
this year. (Man, this job
sometimes, we swear.)
Again, we're big, big fans of Neil
(who provided one of the four
Spider-voices in Shattered
Dimensions), and his bit during
E-reader News Edition
Pantone iPhone and iPad
cases thumb their noses at
Apple's grayscale
aesthetic
Ben Bowers (Engadget)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:45:00 PM
Considering the affection the
design community has for Apple
products and the Pantone
Matching System, combining
these passions seems ripe for
success. At least that's Case
Scenario's theory with this new
last year's VGA ceremony was line of licensed cases: they're
one of the highlights -- but the JC Fletcher (Joystiq) game) and Illvelo, which was Pantone approved, so you know
first time he busts out some Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:10:00 PM once planned for North American the hues and ridiculous code
unconvincing nerd-speak, or gets release but canceled. Perhaps names are legit. In total, nine
danced all-up-on by models with The first Milestone Shooting North American publisher UFO different versions are available for
award winners' names painted on Collection for Wii came to North Interactive will give Illvelo a the iPhone and four for the iPad,
their torsos, we're going to have a America as Ultimate Shooting second chance by bringing this providing plenty of style leeway
full-on panic attack. We've got all Collection, and combined Chaos collection over. If you want the should the colorware route be out
our fingers crossed that those Field, Radio Allergy, and Karous import, it's out in Japan on of your budget. No word on
won't occur, though leaving our into one delightfully cheap December 30. pricing or availability just yet, so
fingers in that position might collection of vertical shmups. You can see more of each game for now it looks like our Capsure
make it a little difficult to type Milestone is developing a at the official site. color identifier will have to
snarky comments about the rest of followup in Japan, which contains Milestone Shooting Collection 2 remain holstered until more
the show. Hmmm. everything the first disc offered, bundles five shmups on Wii details surface.
Neil Patrick Harris to host VGAs, plus two more games. Milestone originally appeared on Joystiq on Gallery: Case Scenario Pantone
hopefully in a legen- (wait for it) Shooting Collection 2 includes all Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:10:00 EST. iPhone 4 & iPad Cases
dary manner originally appeared three of the aforementioned Please see our terms for use of Pantone iPhone and iPad cases
on Joystiq on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 games, plus Radio Allergy Noir(a feeds. thumb their noses at Apple's
15:30:00 EST. Please see our version of which was released as a Permalink| Email this| Comments grayscale aesthetic originally
terms for use of feeds. standalone, full-price Xbox 360 appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06
Permalink| Email this| Comments Dec 2010 15:45:00 EDT. Please
see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink Design Boom| Case
Scenario| Email this| Comments
E-reader News Edition Featured/ Politics/ 51

Boycott Amazon? Not doing it. Gallup: George W. Bush

(Scripting News)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 9:03:06 AM
that there will always be. If
Twitter had shut them off, that
would be serious, because their
convenient service.
We don't know all the facts about
WikiLeaks. I see the press taking
Job Approval Nudges
I'm a veteran of many free speech pricing model, and lack of
campaigns on the Internet dating federation, more or less cuts off
their side of the story and
publishing it as fact. So maybe Past Obama's
back to the Communication competition. There it would be people who want a boycott are (Newsmax - Inside Cover)
Decency Act in 1996. I've been really chilling. Here, not even being misled. Maybe WikiLeaks Submitted at 12/6/2010 9:35:44 AM
around this block many times. So slightly chilling. didn't have to go to Amazon,
when people say"I thought we Further, I depend on Amazon a maybe the DOS attack isn't Monday, 06 Dec 2010 03:35 PM
were boycotting Amazon for their lot more than most people do. For severe. We don't know. I see, in Things weren’t looking too good
treatment of WikiLeaks" when I me it's not at all a casual decision. WikiLeaks, a man and an for President George W. Bush
posted a link to Amazon's new And when I make a principled organization that is very good at when he left office last year.
programmable DNS feature stand, I tend to stick by it. For manipulating the public. They're They’re looking a whole lot better
(which I've been waiting for, example, I was a vocal critic of not alone in that, the Republicans now, according to a new Gallup whose disapproval rating exceeds
thanks) I see it all coming around Twitter's Suggested Users List. are good at it too, as are the North poll, Politico reports. The survey their approval rating. The other is
again. When they put me on the list, I Koreans and Al Qaeda. Being shows 47 percent of Americans Richard Nixon.
First, there certainly are things had to request to be removed. good at manipulating us isn't good approve of Bush’s presidency, up The Nov. 19-21 poll found that
worth going to the mat for. But Painful thing to do, because or bad. But then you have to ask from 34 percent when he left John F. Kennedy remains the
this is not one of them. For a millions of followers, like it or "Do they really need my help?" office and from his November most popular modern president,
variety of reasons. not, have huge PR value. No And do they need it this way? 2008 low of 25 percent. with 85 percent approving of his
First, if I were in Amazon's matter, I had put my stake in the And will everyone feel so Meanwhile, President Barack performance. Ronald Reagan
shoes, and I have been, I'm not ground. strongly about boycotting Obama’s approval rating has registered 74 percent and Bill
sure I wouldn't have done exactly I boycotted Amazon once before, Amazon in a couple of weeks, or slumped to 46 percent. Clinton, 69 percent, up from 61
what they did. They're running a for the one-click patent. It was will we all go back to business as This was the first time Gallup percent in 2006.
business, not a government. They when I learned that other open usual? had asked Americans for a © Newsmax. All rights reserved.
aren't the guarantors of anyone's tech advocates were using (and All these things weigh in a hindsight rating on Bush’s job This entry passed through the
rights, that's the government's job. loving) Amazon, years after I decision as to whether or not to performance, Politico says. And Full-Text RSS service — if this is
There are plenty of choices for quit, that I realized my stand was make a principled stand. his showing lends credence to his your content and you're reading it
web hosting besides Amazon. pointless. I wasn't making a And it adds up to this, now, re own claim that history will look on someone else's site, please read
And because they charge money statement any longer, I was just Amazon: Not even a close call. upon him more kindly than polls our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
for their services, they guarantee c u t t i n g m y s e l f o f f f r o m a since he took office, it notes. content-only/faq.php
Bush’s 47 percent rating is the Five Filters featured article:
highest he has enjoyed since Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
before Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
But his 51 percent disapproval Catastrophe.
rating still makes him one of only
two presidents in the past 50 years
52 Politics/ E-reader News Edition

PTA Burnout: Is Parent Volunteering a Waste of Time?

Delia Lloyd (Politics Daily) interest that I read last week's 18 years and joining the board of
Submitted at 12/6/2010 11:53:00 AM much-discussed article in the New governors at a local secondary
York Times titled " Frazzled school. Her rationale? While the
LONDON -- I was walking down M o m s P u s h B a c k A g a i n s t primary school has come a long
the street the other day when I Volunteering." The thrust of the way in improving its academic
saw an attractive-looking poster article is that today's parents track record under her watch, the
advertising a Christmas fair. As I (read: moms) have so over- secondary school is on shaky
stopped to read the fine print, I extended themselves volunteering ground and is in danger of
did a double take. The fair was the at their kids' schools that they are floundering.
o n e h e l d a n n u a l l y a t m y now fighting to get their lives This woman has had two children
daughter's school. And for the back. The article profiles one go through that school, so she
first time in four years, I realized woman who "just said no" to obviously has a personal
that I had no earthly idea how more volunteer opportunities relationship to ensuring its
many raffle tickets we'd sold. Nor when she found herself presiding success. But reading about her
had I been the one to obtain the over Teacher Appreciation Week story and her rationale for
local business sponsor for the fair. at her children's school in San jumping in to try and right the
And then I remembered: Oh, Mateo, Calif., and getting up daily beginning to push back against luxury than a necessity. (A friend
ship at this struggling school
yeah, right. I'm not on the PTA at 4 a.m. to work on the school volunteering is that a lot of the of mine recently described the
suddenly got my own latent,
anymore. teacher-appreciation breakfasts, "three-tier" system at her
auction. volunteer juices flowing. And I
As I wrote about several months I've been there, honey. And I am recess helpers, and snack parents suburban school wherein the first-
began to experience a twinge of
ago on my own blog, there's a sooooo right there with you. just aren't all that necessary. year parent volunteers "watch"
that old school spirit, albeit
natural life cycle to being a As she puts it: "Help build a another person run an event. The
Reactions in the comments directed toward a set of schools
member of the PTA. You come in section of the article have been house with Habitat for Humanity, second year, they "shadow." And
my own children don't attend.
-- usually when your kids are new numerous and thoughtful. Some and you probably won't come the third year -- once they're really
I began to think that maybe, like
to the school. You do your thing - denounce the "über-moms" with away declaring, 'I'll never do that up to speed -- they get to run it
her, I too could make a small
- raise some money, run some their pumpkin costumes and again.' But spending hours cutting ("it" being, um . . . a bake sale)
difference somewhere. And
bake sales, or in my case, achieve doorknob decorations for setting out tiny squares for a kids' mosaic themselves. Yikes!)
actually feel motivated to try.
an alter-ego, rock star-like status the bar way too high for the rest art projects? Not so much." More importantly, even if your
Who knows? Maybe it's time to
in your community as "Raffle of us ordinary mortals. Others I'm not sure I'd go quite that far. I school doesn't particularly "need"
resurrect Raffle Lady after all . . .
Lady," which you'll never quite enjoin us to just shut up and deal think that a lot of moms do "über- all of its volunteers, some school
Follow Delia on Twitter.
manage to shake. volunteer" because they enjoy it (I right down the road very well
with "grandparent day" and "gift This entry passed through the
And then some combination of wrapping assemblies" because, at know I did). It's fun and it's social may.
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
i n c r e a s e d w o r k d e m a n d s , the end of the day, our public and it's deadline-driven and even Indeed, no sooner had I breathed
your content and you're reading it
changing family priorities and one schools simply can't afford to if you're doing something a fresh sigh of relief that someone
on someone else's site, please read
too many times jamming the PTA c a r r y o n w i t h o u t p a r e n t "mindless" (force-feeding mince else was spending today phoning
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
laminator sets in. And you hand involvement in these cash- pies on an unsuspecting public, up the winners of this year's
content-only/faq.php
off to the next gang, who come to strapped times. anyone?), it means the world to Christmas raffle, when I happened
Five Filters featured article:
that very first organizational I'm sympathetic to both points of your children to see you in their to pick up a copy of the local
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
meeting in September brimming view. But the response to the school. newspaper that serves my London
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
w i t h e x a c t l y t h e s a m e article that most resonated for me But it does seem to be true that -- borough (county). In it was a
Catastrophe.
irrepressible enthusiasm you once was K.J. Dell'Antonia's piece in at least going by some of the feature on a prominent journalist
evinced, but now can barely S l a t e ' s X X F a c t o r b l o g . comments on the Times article -- who is stepping down from the
manage to fake. parent volunteering in some board of governors at a local
Dell'Antonia argues that one
So it was with considerable reason so many women are settings may often be more of a primary (elementary ) school after
E-reader News Edition Politics/ 53

Ranking Former Presidents: JFK Still on Top, Clinton Rises

While Carter Falls
Bruce Drake (Politics Daily) Clinton and fall of Jimmy Carter. the first time, came in second-to- was "neutral leaning favorable" Korea. He has also had his share
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:25:00 PM In 2006, Carter and Clinton each last at 47 percent). Lyndon on the pardon). His reputation of controversies stemming from
got a 61 percent approval rating in Johnson's numbers improved from probably didn't fare much better strong views, particularly on the
The public perceptions of former the Gallup poll, tying them for 41 percent to 49 percent. during the 2008 campaign, when Mideast, that have been at odds
presidents in the modern political third place. The swap in positions between he aggressively supported Hillary with U.S. foreign policy and
era have sometimes changed for The new poll has Clinton still in Carter and Clinton merits a look Clinton's run for the Democratic traditional American allies such as
the better or worse, compared to third, with his job approval rising at their career trajectories since nomination against Barack Israel, which regarded him as
how they were seen while in to 69 percent, while Carter leaving office. Obama. His apparent anger and hostile to its interests particularly
office, but the one constant in dropped to sixth, with an approval While Carter's presidency may bitterness after things started after publication of his book, "
Gallup's polling of views of nine rating of 52 percent. have been viewed as a failure by going Obama's way culminated in Palestine Peace not Apartheid."
chief executives who served Carter had left office with a many, his post-White House Clinton being accused of Carter also stirred the partisan pot
during the last 50 years is that dismal 34 percent approval rating stature rose because of his work in engaging in racial politics and in 2007 with a widely-publicized
John F. Kennedy still comes out in a Gallup poll after his one term, humanitarian activities and his likely sunk his popularity to its interview in which he called the
on top. Eighty-five percent of compared to Clinton's rebound to one-man international diplomacy lowest point. But in recent years, Bush administration's handling of
those surveyed by Gallup Nov. 19 66 percent in 2001 despite the that led to a Nobel Peace prize in Clinton's stock and popularity international relations "the worst
-21 said they approved of how cloud over his presidency from 2002 for his work in trying to find have risen, with one measure in history." A Bush spokesman, in
Kennedy performed in office, the 1998 Monica Lewinsky affair. "peaceful solutions to being the value that Democrats turn, said of Carter, "I think he is
about the same percentage as in Clinton ended his term on a high international conflicts, to advance put on his presence on the proving to be increasingly
2006. Gallup says Kennedy has a p p r o v a l n o t e , t h a n k s t o a democracy and human rights, and campaign trail in the midterm irrelevant with these kinds of
consistently ranked first since it booming economy that offset the to promote economic and social elections. Even some Republicans comments.'' Follow Poll Watch on
started asking the question in damage from the Lewinsky development." Clinton began his were finding a "soft spot" in their Twitter
1990. scandal. Gallup surveys at the post-presidential career on a hearts for Clinton, if a New York Visit the Poll Watch Home Page
Ronald Reagan comes in second time suggested that the public decidedly down note due to the Times piece last October is to be and see all the latest polls in one
at 74 percent, showing that the separated in its mind how he was controversy that erupted on his believed. Said the Times of place
rough times he weathered in both d o i n g h i s j o b a s p r e s i d e n t decision to pardon Marc Rich, a Clinton: "Many Republicans with This entry passed through the
his terms -- with his job approval compared to its opinion of billionaire fugitive, on his last day a deep animus for President Full-Text RSS service — if this is
dropping to the 40 percent Clinton's personal behavior (only in office. Rich, who fled abroad Obama find their hearts aflutter your content and you're reading it
neighborhood during the 1982 24 percent considered him "honest after being indicted on charges with the memory of a former on someone else's site, please read
recession and then falling again and trustworthy" in January that included tax evasion, mail leader. He was a compassionate our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
during the Iran-Contra scandal 1999). fraud and trading with the enemy, conservative, a guy who cared content-only/faq.php
that overshadowed 1986-87 -- Two other former presidents saw had worked his pardon request about free trade, a man who Five Filters featured article:
were the kind of time-limited their rating numbers rise with the through Clinton's former White reached across the aisle." As for Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
travails that fade when other passage of time. George H. W. House counsel, Jack Quinn. (In Carter, the former president has Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
qualities loom larger in the public Bush went from a 54 percent the small-world way of things, continued to play a role on the Catastrophe.
memory. approval rating in 2006 to 64 Eric Holder, then a deputy international scene, winning the
The most noticeable change in percent in the new poll. (His son, attorney general and now attorney freedom last summer of an
this year's survey is the rise of Bill George W., ranked in this list for general, told the White House he American imprisoned in North
54 Politics/
Congress Moving Toward Extending Bush Tax Cuts for All -- for
Now
Patricia Murphy (Politics Daily)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:27:00 PM
With the Dec. 31 deadline
looming for the expiration of the
Bush-era tax cuts, White House
and Congressional negotiators
appear be moving toward a deal
that would temporarily extend the
current tax rates for all
households, while also extending
unemployment benefits for
Americans who have been out of
work for more than 26 weeks.
Specifically, the proposal would
permanently extend the Bush tax
cuts on all annual household
income below $250,000, while
temporarily continuing current tax
rates for income over $250,000,
likely for two years. In addition,
extended unemployment benefits
would continue for one year,
while expiring tax cut provisions
included in the stimulus bill
would also continue temporarily.
Although senior congressional
aides stress that no deal has been
finalized, a compromise on
extending the tax cuts for the
highest earners would represent a
painful concession for the most
liberal Democrats, who fought the
tax cuts when they passed
Congress in 2001 and 2003 and
have fought to end them ever
since. Even President Obama
made a rollback of the Bush tax
cuts for wealthy Americans a
cornerstone of his campaign for
president in 2007 and 2008. But
in an appearance in North
Carolina on Monday, the
president said that both parties
need to find a compromise on the
issue.
"Republicans want to make
permanent tax cuts for the
wealthiest Americans and I have
argued that we can't afford it right
now," Obama said. "But, we've
got to find consensus here
because a middle-class tax hike
would be very tough, not only for
working families, but it would
also be a drag on our economy at
this moment."
Part of that consensus, the
president said, must also be an
extension of unemployment
benefits and tax provisions from
the stimulus bill, including the
Making Work Pay tax credit for
low- and middle-income workers.
"We've got to make sure we're
coming up with a solution, even if
it's not 100 percent of what I want
or what Republicans want."
Although many Democrats are
loath to join Obama in a
compromise on the issue, they
may have little choice if they want
to keep the middle-class tax cuts
alive. While Democrats in the
House of Representatives were
able to push through a permanent
extension of the cuts for income
below $250,000 last week, Senate
Democrats failed on Saturday to
find enough votes to move to a
debate on the measure.
In a rare weekend session,
E-reader News Edition
also signaled that Republicans
would relent on their opposition
to extending jobless benefits, even
if the benefits are not paid for
with cuts elsewhere in the federal
budget.
"I think we will extend
unemployment compensation,"
McConnell said. "We've had some
very vigorous debates in the
Senate. Not about whether to do it
but whether to pay for it as
opposed to adding it to the deficit.
All of those discussions are still
under way."
McConnell and Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid are expected to
senators voted 36-53 against Virginia and Feingold, along with present a final proposal to their
moving to the House-passed bill, L i e b e r m a n , v o t e d w i t h t h e members at caucus meetings on
seven votes short of the 60 votes R e p u b l i c a n s . Tuesday, while House leaders will
needed to break the filibuster. A f t e r t h e S a t u r d a y v o t e , do the same on their side of
Four Democrats -- Joe Manchin c o n g r e s s i o n a l n e g o t i a t o r s , Capitol Hill. Once each side has
of West Virginia, Jim Webb of including House Speaker Nancy g a u g e d t h e s u p p o r t f o r a
V i r g i n i a , B e n N e l s o n o f Pelosi and House Majority Leader compromise from their members,
Nebraska, and Russ Feingold of Steny Hoyer, went back to votes in the House and Senate are
Wisconsin -- voted with the c o n t i n u e t a l k s w i t h t o p expected later this week.
Republicans to block action on Republicans and the White This entry passed through the
t h e b i l l , a s d i d S e n . J o e House. Full-Text RSS service — if this is
Lieberman, an independent from On Sunday, Senate Minority your content and you're reading it
Connecticut. L e a d e r M i t c h M c C o n n e l l on someone else's site, please read
Later, by a 37-53 vote, the Senate appeared on NBC's "Meet the our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
also stopped consideration of "the Press" to discuss the negotiations content-only/faq.php
millionaires' tax," a bill that and lay out the areas where he Five Filters featured article:
would have extended the Bush tax saw compromise coming from the Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
cuts for every American family left and the right. Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
making less than $1 million per "Obviously, the president won't Catastrophe.
year, while returning income sign a permanent extension, so
taxes for everyone else to 2001 we're going to have some kind of
levels. Democratic Sens. Richard extension. I'd like one as long as
Durbin of Illinois, Tom Harkin of possible," " he said of the tax cuts
Iowa, Jay Rockefeller of West for the high earners. McConnell
E-reader News Edition Politics/ Health/ 55

Obama Warns of New 'Sputnik Moment' for

America
(Newsmax - Inside Cover) Soviet Union's launch of the first important for lawmakers to pass Obama spoke in general terms,
Submitted at 12/6/2010 8:06:58 AM satellite in 1957 and the national an extension of the jobless mentioning future investments in
response that put America in the benefits. areas like education and
Monday, 06 Dec 2010 02:06 PM f o r e f r o n t o f t e c h n o l o g y Republicans have insisted that infrastructure, though he outlined
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — development. He said the most any extension of jobless aid be no specific initiatives he would
President Barack Obama warned i m p o r t a n t c o m p e t i t i o n f o r
Monday the United States faces a America today is not between
paid for with cuts elsewhere in the
federal budget. The White House
promote. White House spokesman
Bill Burton said Obama would
MF Super
new "Sputnik moment" in an Democrats and Republicans but
increasingly one-world economy with other nations.
opposes that, saying such cuts are
economically damaging during a
likely speak about some of his
plans in his State of the Union
Foods: Sweet
a n d s a i d i t m u s t m o v e "The hard truth is this: in the race
dramatically to hold its place as for the future, America is in
weak recovery.
With the nation's unemployment
address early next year.
The president also said America's Potatoes
global leader. danger of falling behind," he rate hovering near 10 percent, competitiveness would be buoyed (Mensfitness.com)
Obama pressed anew in a North warned. Obama said it was equally by favorable trade agreements,
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:00 AM
C a r o l i n a s p e e c h f o r a n In Washington, Democrats and important for lawmakers to pass like the free trade deal completed
accommodation with Republicans R e p u b l i c a n s a r e s e e k i n g a an extension of the jobless with South Korea last week. by Noelle Pistilli| Print Article|
on extending Bush era tax cuts, compromise in Capitol Hill talks benefits. Republicans have Obama dismissed critics who Email to Friend
saying he would cede ground in on extending the Bush-era tax insisted that the benefits be paid argue that trade deals will hurt It's a nutritional
his positions in order to help cuts, which are due to expire at for with cuts elsewhere in the businesses at home, arguing powerhouse—ideal whether
lawmakers reach a bipartisan the end of the year. An outline is federal budget. The White House instead that American companies you're trying to cut carbs and lose
compromise. emerging that would temporarily opposes that, saying such cuts are will get a boost by expanding weight, or bulk up and build
The president signaled a deal extend the cuts for all taxpayers economically damaging during a their markets overseas. muscle. We asked chef Nils
could be close, and said "weve got and extend jobless benefits for weak recovery. © Copyright 2010 The Associated Noren of The French Culinary
to make sure we're coming up millions of American. A month after his party suffered Press. All rights reserved. This Institute and Lyniece North
with a solution, even if it's not 100 Obama said lawmakers are still sweeping defeats in the midterm material may not be published, Talmadge, author of The Sweet
percent what I want or 100 engaged in "serious debate" as elections, Obama said it's time for broadcast, rewritten or Potato Lover's Cookbook, for
percent what the Republicans they work through differences. He lawmakers to stop making redistributed. some unique ways to get more
want." reiterated his opposition to a decisions based on the political This entry passed through the sweet potatoes on your plate.
The president used much of his permanent extension of tax cuts implications for the next election. Full-Text RSS service — if this is Grab some as a snack . . .
10-day Asian tour recently to for top income earners, saying the "I believe that right now there are your content and you're reading it Make your own homemade sweet
argue America's case for more country couldn't afford them. bigger issues at stake for our on someone else's site, please read potato chips. To get started, turn
open markets for U.S. goods, and The negotiations between the country than politics," he said. our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ your oven to 375 degrees. While
in his remarks Monday at the administration and lawmakers of During his three-hour stop in content-only/faq.php it warms, nuke a couple of
Forsyth Technical Community both parties have centered on a North Carolina, Obama also Five Filters featured article: medium peeled sweet potatoes for
College, he carried the appeal two-year extension of current offered a glimpse of his 2011 Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- a minute. Cut the warm spuds into
even further. rates. agenda as he called for new Reporting of Falluja's Cancer very thin slices. "Then toss them
Proclaiming a "new Sputnik With the nation's unemployment investments that would put the Catastrophe. with fresh diced herbs—rosemary
moment," Obama recalled the rate hovering near 10 percent, U.S. in a better competitive or thyme is perfect—plus a bit of
shock in this country over the Obama also said it was equally position in the world. oil," Talmadge says. Bake them in
single layer on a nonstick baking

SUPER page 56
56 Daily Word/ Health/
SUPER
continued from page 55
sheet for 30 to 45 minutes, or until
crispy. For more flavor, use salt
and pepper or a bit of balsamic
vinegar.
Eat 'em for breakfast . . .
Try a lean spin on eggs Benedict.
Microwave a sweet potato until
soft, about 4 minutes. Cut in half
and mash insides with a fork. Top
with a couple of poached eggs.
For a low-cal hollandaise sauce,
combine 1/4 cup egg substitute, 1
tbsp light butter, 1 tsp lemon
juice, 1 tsp dijon mustard, and a
dash of cayenne pepper. Warm
sauce in the microwave (don't
cook too long or it may curdle).
Mix with your rice . . .
For a perfect side to grilled
chicken or steak, finely dice a
sweet potato and dump it into the
water when you start cooking the
rice. Let the mixture come to a
boil and steam. When done, fluff
with a fork, then stir in additional
ingredients such as chopped
almonds or mint.
Blend them . . .
To make a delicious sweet potato
soup, toss a diced onion and 2
tbsp of olive oil in a large pot and
cook until tender. Add a dash of
curry powder, the flesh of 3
precooked sweet potatoes, and 5
cups of vegetable stock, then
bring the mixture to a boil. Let
E-reader News Edition
cool, then pour into a blender. microwaving for example. This
John 10:14-15 (12-06-10)
(Verse of the Day) for us. He is not a hireling, he is
Process until smooth. Return to helps bring out the potato's earthy,
pot. Stir in a cup of coconut milk less sweet flavor. Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:00:00 AM the Good Shepherd. My Prayer...
and 1/2 cup of water. Heat until Holy Father, you are wonderful
[Jesus said,] "I am the good and generous beyond description.
warm. Yams vs. Sweet Potatoes
shepherd; I know my sheep and You have shown your love by
Cooking Tips and Tricks The sweet potatoes and yams you
my sheep know me - just as the sending your Son to be my
see in most grocery stores are
Father knows me and I know the Shepherd. Help me hear his voice
• For grilled spuds: Boil a few exactly the same! American
Father - and I lay down my life through your Word. Help me hear
whole potatoes in their skin for "yams" are just a different variety
for the sheep." his voice through the wise counsel
a b o u t 1 0 m i n u t e s . S l i c e of sweet potato, given the
— John 10:14-15(NIV) Thoughts of spiritual friends. Help me hear
lengthwise into wedges. Brush alternate name by farmers. True
on Today's Verse... The goal of his voice through the words sung
with olive oil, then place directly yams are grown in West Africa
our walk with Jesus is to come to to me by my brothers and sisters
on the grill. Cook for one to two and New Guinea and, unless
know him as our shepherd just as when we are assembled. Help me
minutes on each side, or until you're shopping in a specialty
intimately as he knows the Father. hear his voice in the Holy Spirit's
crispy. market, you'll likely never run
A key thing for us to remember: work on my conscience. Father, I
• across them in the U.S. Related
In a world where so many people want to follow your Son as my
• For potatoes in a hurry: Prepare articles:
want to attract our attention and Shepherd and Lord because I
a large batch of sweet potatoes. MF Super Foods: Peanut Butter
are willing to give us advice, we know he, like you, is good! In the
Let cool, then wrap the cooked Five Energy-Zapping Foods
can refuse their voice. We listen name of my Shepherd and Lord I
potatoes individually in plastic 101 Ways to Lose Your Gut
to Jesus because he has shown his pray. Amen.
wrap or zip-close bags. Toss in [on Facebook, Digg, Reddit and
love for us by laying down his life
the freezer to defrost and eat later more]
on. This entry passed through the
• Full-Text RSS service — if this is
• For sweeter potatoes: Go slow your content and you're reading it
and low. Cooking slowly allows on someone else's site, please read
the sugars in the potatoes to our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
caramelize and brings out its content-only/faq.php
natural sweetness. Try baking Five Filters featured article:
your spuds at 350 degrees for Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
around an hour. Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
• Catastrophe.
• For a more savory dish: Cook
for speed. aim to soften the
potato's flesh as quickly as
possible, by boiling or
MF Guy: Idris Elba
(Mensfitness.com)
GUY: page 57
Submitted at 12/6/2010 4:00:00 AM
E-reader News Edition
GUY:
continued from page 56
by Brandon Guarneri| Print
Article| Email to Friend
IDRIS ELBA
Age: 38
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 215 lbs
Up Next: A role as the all-seeing,
all-hearing Norse god Heimdall in
Thor(May 2011)
Actor Idris Elba has played every
role from a tough guy (Russell
"Stringer" Bell on The Wire), to a
corporate suit (on The Office), to
a bank robber (in Takers). Tying
them all together is Elba's build.
"I try to fit in workouts whenever
I can," the British-born star tells
MF. That might mean 45 minutes
of jogging in the a.m., or pushups
and situps—100 each at a
time—or swimming: "It works
every muscle in your body," he
says.
Elba also kickboxes, and has for
six years. "I'm not really allowed
to do it while I'm working because
it's considered too dangerous," he
says. "Film producers get very
nervous." When he can, he hits
the dojo two or three times a
week. "I'm not really fussy," he
says. "I just need a couple of
speed bags." Elba focuses on
drills broken down into three-
minute rounds where he works
through high and low kicks,
combos, and light sparring. After
that come leg raises for the core.
"That's ab work like you've never
had it," he says. "It's rough."
HIS WORKOUT
Elba stays fit without an ironclad
gym routine. Here are three ways
you can too:
• Eat a good breakfast: No matter
what, Elba gets in some carbs and
protein when he wakes
up—usually a healthy cereal and
eggs.
•
• Maintain your weight: Elba
never gains more than a few
pounds at a time. "I have one of
these bodies," he says. "When I
was younger, I could never put
weight on, and now that I'm a
little older, there's a natural sort of
chubbiness coming. But honestly,
if I work out for a week, it drops
off in no time."
Technology/ 57
•
• Don't give up on sports: he
tackled basketball, soccer, and
rugby in school, and played in a
Sunday soccer league after he
graduated. "I was always a real
athletic kid," says Elba. "Then
when I got older, I just figured it
was part of life to keep training."
Related articles:
MF Interview: Danny Trejo
MF Interview: Phil Keoghan
Top 10 Hollywood Bulk-Ups
[on Facebook, Digg, Reddit and
more]
This entry passed through the
Fring adds Dynamic
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
your content and you're reading it
on someone else's site, please read
Video Quality to its video
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
content-only/faq.php calling apps
Five Filters featured article: Paul Miller (Engadget) quality automatically (and
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:05:00 PM asynchronously) adjusts to use
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer your available bandwidth, with an
Catastrophe. Fring is working hard to seize on emphasis on keeping the audio
this (hopefully temporary) gap in stream pure and uninterrupted. It
the video chat firmament, where might sound like a no brainer, but
Google is lacking in a first party it's a nice touch -- particularly for
mobile video chat solution, folks straying from WiFi and
Apple's supposedly open trying their luck with carrier data.
FaceTime standard has yet to be Check out a video of DVQ in
opened, and Skype is dragging its action after the break.
feet on a mobile video call Continue reading Fring adds
implementation. We're not sure Dynamic Video Quality to its
how long that will last, but until video calling apps
then we're happy to have Fring Fring adds Dynamic Video
sprucing up its own cross- Quality to its video calling apps
platform solution. Fring just originally appeared on Engadget
pushed out new Android and on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 15:05:00
iPhone versions of its app that EDT. Please see our terms for use
include "DVQ," or "Dynamic of feeds. Permalink| Fring| Email
Video Quality" for video calling. this| Comments
It's pretty simple: the video
58 Health/ Technology/
Carve Your Serratus
(Mensfitness.com)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:00:00 AM
by Matt McGorry| Print Article|
Email to Friend
The serratus anterior muscle
looks like fingers pointing from
your ribs to your six-pack (raise
your arms, and you may be able to
see yours). It's vital for healthy
shoulders and makes you look
especially ripped. But most guys
just aren't lean or muscular
enough to reveal theirs. To boost
yours, do 10 to 20 reps of any of
the following moves before your
regular workout.
A) DIP SHRUG
Get on parallel bars as you would
to do dips. Keeping a slight bend
in your elbows, let your body sink
down between your shoulders (it
will look like you're shrugging)
and then spread your shoulders
and rise as much as you can. Your
arms shouldn't move.
B) SCAP PUSHUP
Get into pushup position and
lower your body between your
shoulders without bending your
elbows (you'll only move a few
inches). Then spread your
shoulders to come up. Be sure to
keep your core braced throughout.
It's the same idea as the dip shrug.
C) ONE-ARM SPLIT-STANCE
CABLE PRESS
Attach a D-handle to a cable
pulley and hold it at chest height.
Get into a lunge position. Press
the handle forward, keeping your
shoulders square with your hips.
Related articles:
Strength Workout I
The Push-Up Challenge
Sculpt Her 5 Favorite Body Parts
E-reader News Edition
Samsung Nexus S
utilizing NXP's PN544
NFC chip
Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:38:00 PM
Well, color us surprised. Just last
Wednesday, Samsung announced
that it had developed its very own
NFC module in-house, but today
we're learning that it came just a
few months too late for inclusion
in the outfit's forthcoming Nexus
S. Right on cue, NXP
Semiconductors has come
forward today proclaiming its
involvement in the first handset to
[on Facebook, Digg, Reddit and ship with Android 2.3. The outfit's
more] PN544 NFC controller and
This entry passed through the a c c o m p a n y i n g o p e n s o u r c e
Full-Text RSS service — if this is software stack will be used in the Continue reading Samsung
your content and you're reading it Nexus S, and naturally they've Nexus S utilizing NXP's PN544
on someone else's site, please read both been "fully integrated and NFC chip
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ validated on Gingerbread." Of Samsung Nexus S utilizing
content-only/faq.php course, only time will tell what NXP's PN544 NFC chip
Five Filters featured article: sort of applications spring up to originally appeared on Engadget
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- take advantage, but we've got a on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:38:00
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer feeling that metro payments and EDT. Please see our terms for use
Catastrophe. the like could be first in line. Nice of feeds. Permalink| NXP| Email
of America to finally catch up, this| Comments
right?
E-reader News Edition
What to Cut
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:31 AM
From the November 29, 2010,
issue of NR.
I f the 2010 election produced
any conservative mandates, they
are to create jobs and to rein in
soaring spending and deficits.
Republicans should begin
implementing this agenda by
extending the 2001 and 2003 tax
cuts and paring back a
government that now spends a
staggering $30,000 per household
annually.
Despite liberal claims to the
contrary, rising spending -- not
declining revenues -- drives
America’s long-term deficits.
Once the economy recovers,
revenues are projected to return to
their historical average of 18
percent of the economy -- even if
all tax cuts are extended. Federal
spending -- rising from its
historical average of 20 percent of
the economy to a projected 26
percent by the end of the decade -
- is the moving variable.
#ad#Nearly all of this new
spending will come from Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
interest on the debt. Combined
and adjusted for inflation, these
annual expenditures will rise from
$1.6 trillion to $3 trillion over this
decade. Therefore, budget reform
must include putting Social
Security and Medicare on a fixed
long-term budget with a capped
growth rate.
Yet major entitlement reforms
would be phased in slowly. In the
meantime, Congress should enact
government-wide spending caps
that gradually return spending to
20 percent or less of GDP.
After a $727 billion spending
increase since 2007, there is no
shortage of programs to cut to
meet that 20 percent target. The
112th Congress should target
programs based on their economic
impact, their cost, and the
feasibility of reforming them. It
should build credibility with the
public by including cuts in the
federal government’s spending on
itself, unpopular earmarks, and
even traditional conservative
spending programs. Conservatives
could begin with the following
twelve projects:
One. Freeze and reform federal
pay. Before Washington asks
Americans to tighten their belts, it
must tighten its own. While some
federal employees are
undercompensated, the average
federal employee receives 30 to
40 percent more in total
compensation than the equivalent
private-sector worker; all this
extra pay adds up to $47 billion.
Lawmakers should freeze federal
pay until it can be fundamentally
reformed.
Similarly, Congress should cut its
own budget and salaries to 2008
levels, pare back the surging
federal travel budget (not every
federal conference has to be in
Maui), suspend acquisition of
federal office space, competitively
outsource more federal work, and
require federal employees to fly
coach domestically.
Two. Ban earmarks. These
symbols of waste and corruption
cannot be salvaged. Taxpayers
will never accept Social Security
and Medicare reforms if they
believe the savings will go toward
bridges to nowhere. Beyond
costing $20 billion annually -- a
non-trivial sum, even if it’s just
under 1 percent of the federal
budget -- earmarks encourage
lawmakers to vote for budget-
busting bills and divert their
attention from higher priorities.
Republicans should not leave
unelected Washington bureaucrats
to distribute federal dollars to
fund local projects in place of
earmarks. Rather, grants can be
distributed by formula to state and
local governments, which are in a
much better position than
Washington, D.C., to decide
where to put their streetlights.
#page# Three. Ban corporate
welfare. Even before bailing out
Wall Street, Washington spent
more on corporate welfare than on
homeland security. The public
will not trust conservatives to
reform middle- and lower-income
entitlement programs unless they
are also willing to stop granting
special favors to their friends in
business. A free market means
that businesses rise and fall on
their own, without politicians’
picking winners and losers.
Most corporate-welfare spending
is buried in obscure projects with
harmless-sounding names like the
“Technology Innovation
Program.” Rather than terminate
each program individually,
Congress could ban subsidies for
(but not contracts with) businesses
that have gross revenues above a
certain level.
#ad# Four. Reform farm
subsidies. The $25 billion farm-
subsidy system is a case study in
economic illiteracy. It subsidizes
growers of five crops (wheat,
cotton, corn, soybeans, and rice)
even if they’re millionaires while
bypassing producers of nearly all
other farm products even if their
income is meager. It
simultaneously pays some farmers
to grow more of their crops
(through subsidies) and other
farmers to grow less (through a
conservation program). Overall,
subsidies harm small family
farms, taxpayers, consumers, the
environment (by encouraging
over-planting to maximize
subsidies), trade (by inviting
retaliation against farm
protectionism), impoverished
nations (by undercutting their
farmers), and even our health (by
subsidizing corn and soy, which
are often used to create sugary
and fatty foods, rather than
healthier fruits and vegetables).
About how many programs can
we say that?
The defeat of more than half the
members of the House
Agriculture Committee presents
an opportunity for reform. The
policy challenge is not farmer
poverty (the average farmer
significantly outearns the average
worker) but rather income
instability (farmers can earn very
little in bad years). Replacing
farm subsidies with improved
Politics-Right/ 59
crop insurance and new Farmer
Savings Accounts (in which
farmers can save tax-free in good
years, and from which they can
withdraw tax-free in bad years)
will help family farmers smooth
out the fluctuations in their
income at minimum taxpayer
cost.
Five. Recall unspent stimulus
funds. The economic failure of the
stimulus has become a political
disaster for Democrats. Most
stimulus dollars have been spent
or obligated, yet perhaps $60
billion could still be recalled in
areas including energy,
transportation, and state aid. If the
president vetoes an outright recall
of unspent stimulus funds,
Congress could instead use them
to offset any new spending the
White House requests.
Six. Vote to repeal Obamacare.
The president’s inevitable veto
should not dissuade conservatives
from passing legislation to repeal
the recent health-care law. Such a
vote would leave no doubt as to
where conservatives stand, and
would force Democrats to go on
the record before the 2012
election.
Conservatives can also attack
Obamacare piece by piece, by
refusing to fund discretionary bills
to implement the law and by
offering legislation to block or
delay its implementation.
#page# Seven. Repeal CLASS.
Buried in Obamacare is a massive
new long-term-care program
WHAT page 65
60 Politics-Right/
An End to ‘Don’t Ask’?
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:55 AM
Don’t ask Marines, just tell them
to fight.
T he survey is out. The results
show that “the military” is in
favor of lifting the ban on openly
gay people in the armed services.
The repeal of “don’t ask, don’t
tell” seems imminent.
Momentum: If you create enough
of it, change happens, and
quickly.
That process is great for run-of-
the-mill political issues, but for
our military, I hope we can do
better. Our politicians and
appointed leaders must have a
frank discussion about what
lifting the ban would mean for the
military.
#ad#In discussing the survey,
headlines blared “70 percent” as
the proportion of service members
who are fine with lifting the ban --
the implication being that more
than two-thirds of our troops
actually favor repeal. However,
the survey does not come
anywhere close to supporting that
conclusion.
First, the survey did not even ask
service members whether they
actually favor repeal. Instead, it
asked questions about what effect
repeal would have on various
aspects of the military.
Second, the 70 percent figure
includes service members who
gave mixed responses -- “equally
positive and negative” -- to these
questions. It’s true that about 70
percent of respondents answered
either positively or mixed, but a
similar proportion answered either
negatively or mixed. Depending
on which side you place the
mixed responses, you can make
the data look strong in either
direction. For example, Question
71a asked how lifting the ban
would impact unit effectiveness.
The results show that 74 percent
responded either “equally positive
and equally negative” or
“negatively/very negatively.”
And third, in choosing to skew
the response patterns in the
direction of support, the media
missed a big part of the story: The
results get more interesting when
we break down responses along
service lines and specific work
environments.
On a question regarding overall
readiness, for example, 59 percent
of Marines responded that repeal
would have a mixed or negative
effect. Among members of the
Army, a lower proportion, 50
percent, responded the same way,
which makes sense, given the
large proportion of the Army not
serving in combat roles.
When we break down the stats
into combat versus non-combat
roles, a telling divergence
emerges: Military personnel in
combat roles are less likely to
support repealing “don’t ask,
don’t tell.” Marines in combat
roles gave 68 percent mixed or
negative responses to the question
about effectiveness; U.S. Army
soldiers in combat roles gave 59
percent mixed or negative
responses. Regarding task
cohesion, 82 percent of combat-
role Marines and 74 percent of
combat-role Army soldiers
responded mixed or negatively.
Regarding social cohesion, the
numbers are 84 percent for the
Marine Corps and 75 percent for
the Army.
We need to ask why troops in
combat roles have such a different
perspective on the effect of lifting
“don’t ask, don’t tell.” Before the
policy is changed, we need a
serious discussion of how units
would deal with openly
homosexual men in close quarters
in combat situations. The same
question must be asked about
deployment on ships in the U.S.
Navy.
Thousands of years of cultural
development have gone into
keeping men from having sex
with everything in sight -- and all
of the bulwarks notwithstanding,
men still love to have sex. We all
know this. Which brings me to the
relevance of this fact to the issue
at hand: The military cannot
tolerate sex in combat. The
military also cannot tolerate the
tensions that surround sexual
relationships or potential ones.
As a testament to this, look at the
current state of gender in combat.
Today, most of the 14,000
soldiers in combat arms and
Marines who responded to this
survey do not even have women
in their units -- 70 percent in the
Marine Corps, and 58 percent in
the Army.
In and out of battle, the military
still struggles mightily with sex in
the ranks. As a staff judge
advocate (the legal adviser to the
commanding officer) in the Navy,
I spent a majority of my time
dealing with issues that involve
sex and relationships; I personally
reviewed hundreds of these
situations. It was all incredibly
disheartening. There are sexual
assaults, sexual discrimination,
and even prostitution rings. Some
of the allegations are false, but
they still drain countless resources
and personnel hours.
#page#While the great majority of
our troops do the right thing in
this arena, a small minority can
monopolize all the personnel time
in a unit. The military is a
microcosm of society, and human
nature is on full display. We do
the best we can with the
imperfections God gave us.
Adding a new layer of sexual and
social relations -- which I
presume, perhaps unfairly, is what
permitting homosexuals to serve
openly is all about -- would make
fighting wars harder. There really
is no question about that.
Homosexuals are, de facto,
allowed to be in the military right
now. They can serve their
country. They do so all around the
world. Under “don’t ask, don’t
tell,” however, they do not force
the military to deal with an added
layer of relationships. Allowing
homosexuals to “live out” their
sexuality and their relationships in
the military would cause many
problems. Along with more sex
comes more assaults, more sexual
tension, and more of everything
we already battle on a daily basis.
E-reader News Edition
Politicians must be able to step up
and discuss this without fear of
being slammed as bigots.
#ad#The Pentagon’s commission
on the issue begins to address
some related problems in its
recent report. Without “don’t ask,
don’t tell,” the military will have
to grapple with discrimination,
along with the inevitable
preferential treatment that will be
afforded, on the basis of sexual
orientation. There is also the
incredibly sensitive topic of
freedom of religion, and whether
leaders will be forced to endorse
homosexuality as a lifestyle. No
matter what the military brass and
politicians decide, commanders
and non-commissioned officers
(NCOs) will be left to pick up the
pieces.
Only one generation ago, a
majority of those who served in
the U.S. Congress were military
veterans. They understood what
the military is really like. Today,
in contrast, very few members of
Congress have military
experience.
Representatives and senators
need to understand that officers
and senior NCOs are responsible
for the daily shaping and molding
of many other human beings.
Those of you who are parents,
think for a moment how hard it is
to shape your own child. Now,
break the biological link, add
dozens more people to the group,
and put gunfire and death into the
mix.
END page 67
E-reader News Edition Politics-Right/ 61

Follow the Money to Pyongyang

Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:37 AM
patron -- China -- will be notably provocations and challenge comes to Pyongyang. This undertake greater responsibility
absent from the Washington continued Chinese indifference to necessitates that Seoul end for the continued maintenance of
Allies should do more to put the meeting. Beijing refuses to Pyongyang’s antics. financial support for and move the U.S.-Japan alliance threatens
financial squeeze on Kim Jong Il. condemn North Korea’s latest #page#For starters, Washington expeditiously to shut down the to undermine this bulwark of
T he top diplomats of the United provocations and even had the must commit to lead rather than Kaesong Industrial Complex -- a security in the region. Thus Tokyo
States, South Korea, and Japan temerity to criticize recent U.S.- cede international responsibility sprawling complex of should promptly resolve once and
will meet today in Washington to South Korea and U.S.-Japan naval for dealing with North Korea to manufacturing facilities operated for all the lingering dispute over
discuss North Korea. Tension on exercises in the wake of the China. And by hosting the by South Korean companies six the relocation of U.S. forces from
t h e K o r e a n p e n i n s u l a h a s Yeonpyeong attack. Beijing’s trilateral meeting today, the miles north of the DMZ. Kaesong the Futenma airbase that has been
escalated considerably over the default position for resolving the Obama administration has taken a was intended to foster inter- a major irritant in the U.S.-Japan
past several weeks following situation on the Korean Peninsula good first step in this direction. Korean economic relations and alliance over the past year. North
Pyongyang’s disclosure of an remains the nonsensical Six-Party But Washington can and must do ease tension on the peninsula. The Korea’s nuclear and ballistic-
indigenous uranium-enrichment Talks. more to demonstrate American complex employs nearly 40,000 missile capabilities pose a genuine
facility and its subsequent artillery The trilateral meeting will not steadfastness. U.S. intelligence North Korean workers. But threat to the Asia-Pacific region.
s t r i k e s o n S o u t h K o r e a ’ s yield a quick fix for toppling the remains incomplete regarding Pyongyang pockets most of the Resolving Futenma is one of
Yeonpyeong island, which killed Kim regime. But the symbolism North Korea’s continued weapons salaries paid to the workers, and several steps Tokyo can undertake
two South Korean troops and two of the United States, South Korea, proliferation and other illicit the revenue provides the Kim to strengthen deterrence in East
civilians. and Japan standing shoulder-to- activities. But rather than pocket regime with yet another economic Asia and demonstrate the capacity
But the public should not expect shoulder will certainly not be lost what is known for a rainy day lifeline for its continued survival. for genuine leadership in the
an innovative policy breakthrough on either Pyongyang or Beijing. under the guise of protecting South Korean president Lee region.
to emerge from this trilateral After all, the combined political sources and methods, the United Myung Bak has already brought a Monday’s trilateral meeting is an
confab. Because as numerous a n d m i l i t a r y a l l i a n c e s o f States should step up measures to much-needed dose of pragmatism initial step toward reconstituting
North Korea watchers have Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo stymie Pyongyang’s activities and to Seoul’s approach to an international “coalition of the
opined over the past few weeks, serve as the bedrock of regional act decisively in cooperation with Pyongyang, having rejected the willing” to confront North Korean
there is no foolproof solution for security and stability in the Asia- other states to seize Kim’s “Sunshine” policy of engagement belligerence. But Washington,
c o n f r o n t i n g P y o n g y a n g ’ s Pacific region. And governments personal financial assets. pursued by his two predecessors. Seoul, and Tokyo must follow up
continued intransigence. The Six- in Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Moreover, the Obama But President Lee must continue with concrete actions so today’s
Party Talks aimed at bribing and Singapore, among others, administration should underscore to demonstrate South Korean meeting is not just another
North Korea to denuclearize have count on these alliances remaining that states complicit in or resolve by ending Seoul’s support diplomatic photo op.
been an abject failure, again and robust long after the reunification uncooperative with efforts to for Kaesong and denying the Kim — Carolyn Leddy served at the
again. And according to a recent of the Korean peninsula. disrupt North Korea’s regime the $30 million a year in State Department and on the
U n i t e d N a t i o n s r e p o r t , t h e But expressions of solidarity and transgressions will be held revenue it produces. National Security Council staff
i n t e r n a t i o n a l c o m m u n i t y resolve against the Pyongyang accountable. Such a statement And Tokyo must get serious during the Bush administration,
c o n t i n u e s t o n e g l e c t i t s regime will have only a limited should serve to put China on about Japanese national-security from 2003 to 2007. Carolyn
responsibility to implement and impact absent accompanying notice that there will be policy. The U.S.-Japan alliance is Leddy
enforce sanctions against Kim m e a s u r e s o n t h e p a r t o f consequences for Beijing’s considered by many experts to be
Jong Il and his regime. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo to continued indulgence. the cornerstone of stability in East
#ad#Furthermore, Pyongyang’s demonstrate real willingness to #ad#Seoul must finally put its Asia. But Tokyo’s oftentimes
primary diplomatic and economic d e t e r f u t u r e N o r t h K o r e a n money where its mouth is when it cavalier attitude and reluctance to
62 Politics-Right/
Corruption In India: People Or The State?
Derek Scissors, Ph.D. (The
Foundry: Conservative Policy
News.)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:00:41 PM
Corruption is again dominating
the news in India. Long-standing
issues, such as broad attempts to
avoid taxes, have simmered back
to the surface and been joined by
new accusations against the
wealthy, major companies, and
the government. Scandals have
crossed finance, property, and
telecom.
Crimes have been committed and
the guilty should face justice. The
biggest culprit, however, faces no
punishment and, indeed, is
looking to further recent gains.
That culprit is the Indian state.
Earlier this year, criticism began
to be leveled in India at the
underground or “black” economy.
This includes illegal activities but
also legal activities that are not
declared.
All economies have black
markets and developing
economies tend to have bigger
ones. But the size of the formal
Indian economy is now such that
estimates of the underground
economy at 40-50% of GDP
generate very large numbers, in
the neighborhood of $600 billion.
This, in turn, spurs outrage at
black marketeers supposedly
robbing the Indian people.
Except the black marketeers
*are* the Indian people, tens of
millions of them. And the ones
being “robbed” are only the
federal and state governments.
Moreover, it’s often the
governments’ own fault.
Banned activity doesn’t represent
lost revenue for the government,
since the idea is that it shouldn’t
occur at all. Where revenue is lost
is in legal activity that is hidden.
But avoiding taxes isn’t the only
or even the main reason for
individuals to hide activities from
the government. Rather, it’s the
difficulty of setting up a business.
India ranks an awful 165th out of
183 countries in the World Bank’s
measure of the difficulty of
starting a business, and this is
actually an improvement over
previous years. Rather than face
endless delays and high costs,
many ordinary Indians decide to
proceed without the necessary
authorization and then must hide
their businesses. This black
market activity is due to a
predatory state which seeks to
control Indian entrepreneurship.
Grabbing headlines this month
was a similar story about how
India has “lost” over $450 billion
due to illegal capital flows. Some
of this is again money raised in
crimes, which was illegally
earned and ideally would never
have existed in the first place. The
other funds are deemed lost only
because the Indian federal
government tries to restrict capital
movement.
Despite progress in the reform
era, India retains among the
tightest controls on capital
movement among emerging
markets. What would count in
E-reader News Edition
telecom industry. It is not
supposed to be a money-making
tool for the government. It is
supposed to improve people’s
lives, both directly and indirectly
through strengthening the
economy. And the Indian telecom
industry has done just that. It has
outperformed expectations in its
transformation of Indian society,
from medicine to farming. It is a
major part of the Indian success
story.
There’s no telecom failure or
betrayal here, quite the opposite.
There’s only a failure and betrayal
of federal coffers. And even there
most countries merely as citizens in the connected areas of business the unwarranted cheapness of 2G
and companies investing overseas freedom, investment freedom, and spectrum contributed to a far
more dynamic industry and thus
— and bringing much of the freedom from corruption.
benefits back home in terms of In several particular incidents of led directly to the government’s
financial returns, resources, corruption, the government’s guilt w i n d f a l l a t t h i s y e a r ’ s 3 G
corporate assets and so on — is i s d i r e c t l y a p p a r e n t . T h e s p e c t r u m a u c t i o n .
n o t p e r m i t t e d i n I n d i a . A s Commonwealth Games were In most cases, the state is causing
h a p p e n e d i n a l l e c o n o m i e s plagued by overspending, due to the problem. In others, the
t h r o u g h o u t h i s t o r y , p e o p l e l a c k o f t r a n s p a r e n c y a n d problem is harm to the state, not
followed their self-interest and competition in state contract the people. India is now wrestling
invested abroad, anyway, only no awards. State-run financials have with how to deal a decisive blow
benefits flowed back to India made loans in exchange for against corruption. The answer is
because the investment has been bribes, a problem which would be plain: deal a decisive blow against
d e e m e d i l l e g a l b y t h e eased if the state did not dominate state interference in the economy.
This entry passed through the
interventionist Indian state. the banking system.
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
At the general level, due to the The big one is telecom.
your content and you're reading it
state’s jealous protection of its Improprieties in the government’s
on someone else's site, please read
prerogatives, Indian entrepreneurs auction of second-generation (2G)
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
cannot start a business freely and telecom spectrum may have cost
content-only/faq.php
cannot invest freely. It is hardly a as much as$40 billion in fiscal
Five Filters featured article:
s u r p r i s e t h a t c o r r u p t i o n i s revenue.
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
rampant. Indeed, the Heritage Those government and corporate
Index of Economic Freedom officials who did not follow the Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
scores India highly in a number of law must be punished. But lost in Catastrophe.
important categories but very low the outrage is the point of a
E-reader News Edition Politics-Right/ 63

Dupes
Jamie Glazov (FrontPage progressives that they were being say through mis-education.
Magazine » FrontPage) exploited. Dupes have been an integral part
Submitted at 12/5/2010 10:34:13 PM That bizarre, sad manipulation of American history since the
continues to this day, with founding of the republic. George
Frontpage Interview’s guest communists from the grave still Washington actually warned his
today is Paul Kengor, a professor finding their suckers, especially in countrymen about dupes in his
of political science at Grove City a c a d e m i a , w h e r e l i b e r a l classic “Farewell Address.” It was
College. His previous books professors continue to frame the a word common during the
include the bestsellers God and anti-communists as the bad guys. American Revolution, and it
Ronald Reagan and The Crusader: Their Cold War demon is Joe never went away.
Ronald Reagan and the Fall of McCarthy, not Joe Stalin. And Once I started looking into
Communism. His latest book is most depressing of all, those communist archives, I saw the
D u p e s : H o w A m e r i c a ’ s professors generate new dupes ugly upsurge in this process of
Adversaries Have Manipulated among their gullible, wide-eyed duping, starting specifically with
Progressives for a Century, based students. To add insult to injury, the launching of the Bolshevik
on an unprecedented volume of those profs and their students Revolution in Russia in October
declassified materials from Soviet elected as president a man 1917, the launching of the
archives, FBI files, presidential ( B a r a c k O b a m a ) w h o w a s Comintern in Russia in March
libraries, CPUSA holdings, and mentored by one of those duping 1919, and the launching of the
more. communists (Frank Marshall American Communist Party in
FP: Paul Kengor, welcome to Davis), who liberals today refuse Chicago in September 1919. Of
Frontpage Interview. to dare acknowledge was a course, communists excelled at
Congratulations on your new communist, and, naturally blast propaganda. They were masters.
book. the anti-communists as Red- They were outstanding
Tell us what you have uncovered baiting reprobates for daring to liars—born liars, really. It’s in the
about the Left yet again. even raise the question. DNA, the marrow of the bones.
K e n g o r : I d o n ’ t k n o w i f So, congratulations? I suppose. Lenin said that lying was moral as
congratulations are in order, But it’s pretty damned depressing long as it advanced class interests.
Jamie. It can be rather depressing at times. Vaclav Havel spoke of the
and tormenting to read through Imagine: After 100 million “communist culture of the lie.”
old archives from the Communist c o r p s e s p r o d u c e d b y t h e Think about this, Jamie: At the
International, the Soviet Central communists, it’s still us anti- height of its membership, in the
C o m m i t t e e , t h e K G B , a n d communists who are on the 1930s, Communist Party USA
Communist Party USA, and see defensive, thanks to continued never had more than about
how the communists so cynically dupes on the American left. You 100,000 members. They were
and successfully duped liberals/ know that Vladimir Lenin is ideology of communism is the one of the biggest dupes in my truly a tiny, fringe minority. So, to
progressives again and again and howling from his tomb. greatest killer in human history, book. Liberals and progressives get marchers at their rallies,
again. It’s even worse when, in FP: I understand Prof. Kengor, I and too many Americans have no h a v e b e e n t h e u n w i t t i n g signers for their petitions, foot
t u r n , t h o s e s a m e l i b e r a l s / just wanted to give you credit for idea that such is the case, h a n d m a i d e n s t o t h e l i e s , soldiers for some protest, they
progressives attacked not the writing this priceless book. e s p e c i a l l y t o d a y ’ s c o l l e g e deceptions, and advancement of needed to attract non-communists
communists who used them and Share with us a bit more on what students, who were born after the this pernicious ideology. And o n t h e l e f t — i . e . , l i b e r a l s /
made them look like fools, but the exactly inspired you to write this fall of the Berlin Wall. They are now, even today, they continue to progressives. As was their nature,
anti-communists who repeatedly book. being educated by the disciples of provide that service, primarily
tried to warn the liberals/ Kengor: That’s easy: the John Dewey, who, incidentally, is through education—or I should DUPES page 64
64 Politics-Right/ E-reader News Edition
DUPES
A 9/11 Bonanza for Trial Lawyers continued from page 63

they typically lied to these liberals

Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:00:42 AM
can account for how all the grant subsidizing wealthy recipients. nevertheless be a substantial tax /progressives about their
money has been spent. The The total pool of recipients would hike on American companies at a intentions and true loyalties. They
T he Senate will soon vote on p r o g r a m i s b e d e v i l e d b y include not just 9/11 workers, but time of 9.8 percent were amazed, astonished at how
legislation that would establish a h o p e l e s s l y i n a d e q u a t e also residents of Lower unemployment, lackluster the liberals/progressives
new government-run health-care supervision, which has led to Manhattan who could economic growth, and a European repeatedly swallowed—hook,
p r o g r a m w i t h i n s u f f i c i e n t rampant waste and, quite possibly, demonstrate that the terrorist debt crisis. line, and sinker—the most
oversight controls, create a serious fraud. attacks had a deleterious impact Listening to Democrats such as outlandish lies.
bonanza for trial lawyers, cost a Rather than tackle these on some aspect of their health. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten So, what inspired me? All of the
minimum of $11.6 billion, and be deficiencies and implement robust Determining the precise Gillibrand, the New York Senate above. I already knew how bad
funded primarily through a safeguards against the misuse of geographic-eligibility duo, one might get the impression the communists were—killers of
significant tax hike on U.S.-based federal funds, the 9/11 Health and requirements for “local residents” that Washington has heretofore civil liberties and people. I began
companies. Compensation Act would could prove a thorny endeavor. neglected the 9/11 workers. That looking in archives and saw how
Of course, that’s not how the 9/ effectively put the program on That brings us to the Victim seems wildly unfair. In addition to they cunningly manipulated
11 Health and Compensation Act steroids -- without clarifying its Compensation Fund (VCF), launching the VCF ($7 billion), liberals/progressives. I found
is being sold. previous expenditures or which closed up shop way back in the NIOSH program ($475 material no one had ever seen
#ad#On a surface level, the bill -- c o r r e c t i n g i t s s e v e r e 2003, after awarding roughly $7 million), and other health-care before, or at least hadn’t
which passed the House in a d m i n i s t r a t i v e f l a w s . T h e billion to the 9/11 families. This initiatives, Congress also published. And I realized I better
September, over the resistance of opportunities for abuse would legislation would revive the VCF established the $1 billion World get this information out there.
most Republicans -- may appear mushroom. We’re not opposed to and dramatically loosen its Trade Center Captive Insurance Other “scholars” weren’t about to
relatively uncontroversial: How a reasonable funding increase for eligibility guidelines. Ground Company (CIC). Last month, publish this material, or even look
could anyone oppose giving the NIOSH scheme, provided its Zero workers and local residents - more than 95 percent of the at it, given that most scholars are
medical and financial benefits to structural defects are fixed. But - even those deemed ineligible for 10,000-plus 9/11 workers who on the left, and this material is a
the heroic first responders who we are opposed to a new health- compensation by the original VCF sued New York City several years scathing indictment of everything
suffered injury or illness while care entitlement that would lack -- would be permitted to file ago finally agreed to accept a the liberal left has ever claimed.
saving lives or cleaning up debris proper accountability mechanisms claims through December 2031 settlement worth between $625
at Ground Zero? Unfortunately, and unleash a torrent of wasteful (!). Meanwhile, trial lawyers million and $712.5 million. That
the issues at stake aren’t nearly spending. would be able to garner a money will come from the CIC.
that simple. Consider: The “World Trade disproportionate share of windfall Again, we would favor a sensible
After 9/11, Congress rolled out a Center Health Program” outlined settlements. bill narrowly tailored to assist the
bevy of initiatives designed to in the 9/11 bill would distort Democrats are advertising the bill Ground Zero responders who
address the health maladies of p r o v i d e r i n c e n t i v e s b y with a $7.4 billion price tag, but developed an injury or illness
emergency workers affected by reimbursing New York hospitals that’s just the ten-year cost. Its while courageously risking their
the World Trade Center attacks. at an average rate well above the total cost, including money lives. But the 9/11 Health and
The largest such initiative, run by Medicare payment level. This allotted past 2020, would be (at a Compensation Act is deeply
t h e N a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f would greatly encourage the minimum) $11.6 billion. The flawed, and Senate Republicans
Occupational Safety and Health provision of unnecessary or funding source would be a hefty should hold out for something
(NIOSH), has allocated $475 frivolous treatments. Moreover, corporate-tax increase, which better. The Editors
million to the relevant medical- services would be delivered Republicans have rightly
care providers. There’s just one without regard to beneficiary slammed. Supporters insist the
problem: Nobody -- not even income; in other words, middle- legislation would merely plug tax
NIOSH director John Howard -- c l a s s t a x p a y e r s w o u l d b e “loopholes,” but its effect would
E-reader News Edition
WHAT
continued from page 59
known as Community Living
Assistance Services and Support
(CLASS). Like Social Security,
CLASS will run initial surpluses
(a $70 billion surplus in the first
decade will be raided to cover up
Obamacare’s deficits) before
falling into deep deficit afterward.
The Congressional Budget
Office, the Medicare chief
actuary, and the American
Academy of Actuaries have all
acknowledged that CLASS is
financially unsustainable. Even
Senate Budget Committee
chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.)
called CLASS “a Ponzi scheme of
the first order, the kind of thing
that Bernie Madoff would have
been proud of.” (He then
proceeded to vote for
Obamacare.)
#ad#If CLASS is allowed to begin
enrolling participants in the next
couple of years, it will almost
surely collapse within two
decades. The resulting taxpayer
bailouts could cost trillions.
Eight. Return highway spending
to states. Washington collects the
18.4 cent–per–gallon gas tax,
subtracts a hefty administrative
fee, and then returns the funds to
state governments with numerous
strings attached. These strings
include thousands of earmarks, as
well as requirements to divert
highway dollars into bike paths,
museums, and prevailing-wage
regulations. There is no reason for
Washington to decide where to
build a road in Appleton, Wis.
Congress should eliminate the
middleman and allow states to opt
out of the federal-highway
program. In return for agreeing to
maintain their interstate highways,
these states could collect and
retain the federal gas tax
themselves.
Nine. Defund high-speed-rail
projects. The Obama
administration has provided $8
billion to states for high-speed-rail
projects and promised more
funding later. Yet high-speed rail
is extraordinarily expensive
(California received $2.3 billion
for a new project that some
estimate will cost $81 billion),
and cash-strapped states will
certainly seek more federal
funding. Moreover, these projects
are estimated to reduce the
average travel time by as little as
30 minutes compared with
driving, and to lower auto
ridership by as little as 1 percent.
Congress should follow the
voters’ backlash against these
projects by cancelling their
funding.
#page# Ten. Trim Pell Grants.
After doubling Pell Grant
spending from $16 billion to $32
billion since 2008, President
Obama proposes to give it
entitlement status and spend $52
billion by 2020. Fiscal reality
demands that lawmakers instead
return funding to 2008 levels.
Concerns about whether students
will be able to afford college are
unfounded. Over the past three
decades, student-aid increases
have been one of the causes -- not
the result -- of tuition increases.
The more aid students receive, the
higher colleges raise tuition to
capture that aid.
#ad#Higher student-loan limits
for low-income families are a
fairer way of guaranteeing college
access. There is no justification
for taxing waitresses and welders
so that future college graduates --
who will outearn them by $1
million over their lifetime --
won’t be burdened by the typical
$24,000 student loan.
Eleven. Reduce aid to states.
Over the past decade, federal aid
to state and local governments has
surged, rising 129 percent faster
than inflation. Endless bailouts
have made Washington one of the
top sources of state revenue.
These bailouts allow profligate
states to delay their inevitable belt
-tightening and instead be
subsidized by the taxpayers of
responsible states.
There is no compelling reason for
Washington to finance state-level
education, justice, and economic-
development expenditures --
especially through failed
programs such as COPS and
firefighter grants. State and local
governments should be
empowered to address local
problems with local solutions --
financed and held accountable by
local voters.
Twelve. Reduce waste. Although
the budget cannot be balanced by
cutting waste alone, Congress
should not ignore this low-
hanging fruit. For instance,
Washington runs 342 overlapping
economic-development programs,
lost $98 billion last year to
program payment errors, and
recently spent $33 million
enhancing the Kennedy family
image through the Edward M.
Kennedy Institute for the Senate,
the John F. Kennedy Presidential
Library and Museum, and the
Rose Kennedy Greenway.
Conservatives should harbor no
illusions that cutting spending is
easy. However, by carefully
selecting its targets, Congress
could save as much as $3 trillion
over the next decade and lay the
groundwork for Social Security,
Medicare, and Medicaid reform.
— Brian Riedl is the Grover M.
Hermann Fellow in Federal
Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage
Foundation. This article originally
appeared in the November 29,
2010, issue of National Review.
Brian Riedl
Politics-Right/ 65
When the
Saints Go
Marching In
David Solway (FrontPage
Magazine » FrontPage)
Submitted at 12/5/2010 10:31:29 PM
Melanie Phillips, author of The
World Turned Upside Down,
laments that “it is the intellectual
classes—the supposed custodians
of reason—who have turned into
the destroyers of reason,” as our
cognitive avant-garde retreats
ever deeper into the realm of
disembodied cerebration and
reality-disconnect. Proposing one
or another blueprint for radical
social change or meddling in the
complexities of foreign and
economic policy, it would seem
that these intellectuals and
academics have too much time on
their hands. After all, they are not
required to deal with the grubby
details of wrenching a living from
a harsh, empirical world, and so
are free, like Swift’s pixilated
“projectors” in the Academy of
Lagado, to spin their crackpot
theories and advance their
WHEN page 66
66
WHEN
continued from page 65
irrational speculations about real-
life situations they have little
knowledge of.
It is not only in Swift’s Academy
that such projectors, “full of
volatile spirits acquired in that
airy region,” labor to extract
sunbeams from cucumbers, spin
silk from cobwebs, propagate a
breed of woolless sheep, adjust
“the annual and diurnal motions
of the earth and sun,” strive to
“reduce excrement to its original
food” and, most pertinently,
devise methods to build houses by
“beginning at the roof and
working downwards to the
foundations”—the forte of our
standard, top-downing intellectual
conventicles.
It is also in the seminar rooms
and study carrels of our current
intelligentsia that we find
comparable absurdities, as for
example: professors who advocate
rampant spending to neutralize
debt (Paul Krugman); teachers
who believe that history is a
narrative to be manipulated for
ideological ends (Howard Zinn);
philosophers who affirm that truth
is a relative concept, except, of
course, for the truth of their own
claims (Michel Foucault); writers
who promote violence as the road
to millennial harmony (Slavoj
Zizek), and so on. Indeed, on the
major issues of the day—climate
change, the war on terror, the free
market, Israel, Iran—our
“supposed custodians of reason,”
pontificating from the Left, get
everything backwards, opting for
measures that only magnify the
problems they affect to settle. As
the popular idiom has it, the
inmates have taken over the
asylum. Clearly, to avoid descent
into madness, reason must
accommodate itself to reality.
Sundered from the world as it is
and from men as they are, it
generates only caricatures and
deformities rather than solutions
and practicable recommendations.
Considering the same
malformation of thought from a
different angle, Robert Harkins
muses on the beauty and
workmanship of the Waterford
crystal goblet as a symbol of the
artistry, intelligence and genius of
an accomplished civilization. The
sequestered intellectual, however,
believes that a new world order
“may be invented just as easily as
one might conjure a crystal goblet
from the sand” and mold its
symmetry without the slightest
knowledge of the craft. The
trouble is that “there is not one of
them who can work a crystal
goblet from sand and the forge.”
Perhaps David Horowitz hits on
the aptest analogy when he says,
referring to the Democratic Party
(though he might just as well be
speaking of the Left in general):
“These people see themselves as
visionaries, as an army of the
saints marching through the
electoral process opposed by the
army of Satan, which is us,” that
is, those who adopt a conservative
perspective on political life.
Horowitz’s soi-disant“saints” are
chiefly militant atheists who have
substituted a presumptive secular
paradise for the Second Coming
of the Lord and are busy
assembling a new Vulgate for the
deliverance of mankind.
They are the gutter messiahs of
E-reader News Edition
the time, lashing themselves for
the sins of their colonial
forefathers while promising to
create a new and pristine
dispensation for the benefit of
mankind, or rather, for that part of
mankind deemed worthy of their
efforts. Having studied in the
cloisters of hermetic university
departments and relishing their
hard-won ignorance, they will
turn the world upside down and
pretend that it is right-side-up.
They will, so to speak, forge the
cultural goblet out of thin air,
serene in their false humility and
confident of their nonexistent
means. And they are committed to
the belief, as French sociologist
and author of We Have Never
Been Modern Bruno Latour
argues, that time is on their side,
that “Kronos would eat away all
that [is] archaic and irrational [by
their lights]…sparing only those
predestined for a radiant future.”
E-reader News Edition Politics-Right/ 67
END
Iran Goes All In continued from page 60

I would be more inclined to

Rich Trzupek (FrontPage the more that’s on the table, the
Magazine » FrontPage) experiment with lifting the ban if I
less you have to give away — and were confident that our
Submitted at 12/5/2010 10:50:22 PM besides, you know that you’ll be lawmakers would reverse course
able to do whatever you want at if the decision proved disastrous.
On the eve of international talks the end of the day, anyway. Unfortunately, I have zero
in Geneva about its nuclear The ideal way to end the threat of confidence that “don’t ask, don’t
program, Iran upped the ante once Iran’s nuclear ambitions without tell” would be reinstituted even if
again on Sunday, declaring that it resorting to a military strike is to the grimmest statistics emerged.
is now self-sufficient throughout continue to obstruct and delay the What if recruitment faltered, or if
the entire nuclear fuel cycle. program, as the West works to combat troops became less likely
“Today, we witnessed the destabilize the nation’s current to reenlist when given the
shipment of the first domestically regime at the same time. As opportunity? Admiral Mullen, the
produced yellowcake … from former President George W. Bush chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Gachin mine to the Isfahan has said, solving the Iran problem Staff, said recently that if that
nuclear facility,” Iranian nuclear in a peaceful way is essentially a happened, we should let them
chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on two track issue. On the one track, leave. This gives us an indication
state television on Sunday. you have Iran’s timetable to build of how this debate will shake out
Yellowcake is a uranium useable warheads, and on the in the future.
concentrate, the raw material that other track, you have a timetable And what if the Marine Corps
represents step one in a complex for regime change. The more you experienced a dramatic decrease
r e f i n i n g p r o c e s s i n w h i c h from South Africa by the Shah in concern to the international do to stretch out the former and in unit cohesion that led to deaths
fissionable U-235 is separated and pre-revolutionary Iran, although community — first and foremost, accelerate the latter, the better on the battlefield? The Marines
concentrated from the more Western sources strongly suspect their nuclear program,” she said. chance you have to avoid a are expected to fight in the worst
common, non-fissionable U-238. that China supplemented that From the West’s perspective, this military confrontation. places on the planet. They are
The ability to produce yellowcake inventory to some extent. is an opportunity to wring some As pathetically ineffective as the underfunded and undermanned.
internally means that Iran is no Clearly, the timing of this concessions and safeguards out of West’s history of imposing and They are appreciated greatly, but
longer dependent on outside announcement is no coincidence. Iran before pushing for sanctions s t i c k i n g w i t h m e a n i n g f u l many Americans appreciate them
sources for any part of its nuclear Iranian representatives will meet that could, if enforced, result in sanctions to influence rogue only in a generic sort of way.
production program. Thus the with delegations representing the severe repercussions for Iran’s r e g i m e s i s , t h e r e i s r e a l There are many explanations for
rogue Islamic state now has the so-called P5+1 nations today and economy. For its part, in addition opportunity in Iran. There are two this, but the most charitable is
infrastructure in place to produce tomorrow. The P5+1 nations are to the opportunity to engage in the areas in which Iran appears lack of exposure. Unless you have
low-grade refined uranium used in the five permanent members of usual saber-rattling of which especially vulnerable: crude oil been a Marine or personally
nuclear reactors and the high- the UN Security Council – the Iranian President Mahmoud production and gasoline refining known a Marine, you really don’t
grade (90%+ U-235) refined United States, Great Britain, Ahmadinejad is so fond, the capacity. A detailed study by the understand how tremendous they
uranium used in weapons of mass France, Russia and China – plus y e l l o w c a k e a n n o u n c e m e n t C e n t e r f o r S t r a t e g i c a n d are. Popular culture teaches us
destruction. Western nations Germany. Secretary of State strengthened the Iranian hand as it International Studies (CSIS) more about the lives of actors and
hoped that Iran was running low Hillary Clinton was once again prepared for this latest round of r e l e a s e d e a r l i e r t h i s y e a r reality-television stars than it does
on yellowcake, a claim Iran has hopeful that the talks would bear talks. Iran thus appears to be summarizes Iran’s weaknesses in about this elite tribe -- this last
denied, but this announcement fruit. “This is an opportunity for following the North Korean these two areas. best hope. I have read and clipped
would appear to make the issue Iran to come to the table and model of dealing with the West: articles from every mainstream
moot. Most of Iran’s previous discuss the matters that are of threaten as much as you can, for news publication for the past
stock of yellowcake was obtained month, and I have seen almost no
END page 69
68 Politics-Right/ E-reader News Edition

Activating Jihad
Ryan Mauro (FrontPage episode from showing
Magazine » FrontPage) Mohammed, an act surely seen by
Submitted at 12/5/2010 10:35:42 PM the extremists as a vindication of
their methods.
The Investigative Project on Revolution Muslim also recently
Terrorism (IPT) is reporting that praised a Muslim woman who
two extremist groups in the U.S., stabbed a British parliamentarian South Korea–U.S.
Revolution Muslim and the that supported the war in Iraq,
Islamic Thinkers Society, are saying they hoped it would Trade Deal: Better
becoming “increasingly
operational” and are violently
“inspire Muslims to raise the
knife of jihad.” Unsurprisingly,
Late Than Never
carrying out their faith. Today’s she was a reader of their website. Bryan Riley (The Foundry:
non-violent Islamic extremists are The writers provided a list of the Conservative Policy News.)
often tomorrow’s terrorists. British politicians who voted for Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:30:23 PM
Groups seeking to replace the war, gave suggestions on how
democracy with Sharia-based to locate them, and even linked to Posted December 6th, 2010 at
governance are using our a website where knives can be 3:30pm in American Leadership
freedoms to create the Islamist bought. Print This Post
swamp from which terrorists The Islamic Thinkers Society is When the proposed South
emerge. just as guilty of fomenting Korea–U.S. Free Trade
“U.S. counter terror agencies have violence. The group’s website Agreement (KORUS) was
traditionally paid little attention to says that their “struggle is always initially signed on June 30, 2007,
those groups, presumably because [through] intellectual & political Heritage Foundation analysts
they represent a safe and legal non-violent means,” but their recognized significant benefits
outlet for the frustrations of otherwise,” Olson said. This is the same writer that condemnation of terrorism only that would come from
young, aspiring Jihadists,” the IPT On October 26, Abdel Hameed threatened the lives of the creators applies to actions against Muslims implementation of this landmark
explains. Shehadeh was arrested in Hawaii of South Park after they depicted they support. The site includes a trade deal. Those benefits
Captain Dean T. Olson, author of for trying to join the Taliban in Mohammed on their animated fatwa forbidding Muslims from included more exports, more
P e r f e c t E n e m y : T h e L a w Pakistan. Shehadeh had openly comedy show. Revolution Muslim voting because only Allah can export-related jobs, and a stronger
Enforcement Manual of Islamist supported Al-Qaeda on his reacted by posting their photos legislate. In 2006, the group economy. As the Obama
Terrorism told FrontPage that the websites that were also used to and saying their lives are now in received attention when it reacted Administration has pointed out,
activities of these groups are promote Revolution Muslim. danger. The website denied to a bombing in Tel Aviv by the agreement would increase
within the law as long as they Several friends of the website calling for their murder, but the holding an anti-Israel protest that U.S. exports by billions of dollars
don’t overtly help a terrorist have been arrested on terrorism- post included addresses at which included proclamations that “with and create tens of thousands of
group or lie to the authorities related charges. In June, one of Muslims could “pay them a visit” our blood and with our lives we new export-related jobs.
when questioned. the group’s own website writers, and audio from Anwar al-Awlaki will liberate al-Aqsa [Jerusalem]” KORUS would also strengthen
“It is not illegal in America to Zachary Chesser, was arrested preaching that those who defame and “the real Holocaust is on its the U.S. economy by reducing
think about or even agitate for after repeatedly trying to join al- Mohammed should be killed. way.” domestic trade barriers that act
jihadi violence or imposition of Shabaab, Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Comedy Central reacted with like a tax on American consumers
Sharia, by peaceful means or Somalia. He has pled guilty. appeasement and censored the and businesses, such as the
“temporary” 25 percent tariff on
imported pickup trucks that has

SOUTH page 70
E-reader News Edition
The Cost of Sugar Subsidies
Andre Rougeot (The Foundry:
Conservative Policy News.)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:00:40 PM
Posted December 6th, 2010 at
2:00pm in American Leadership
Print This Post
Even in a season characterized by
candy canes and cookies waiting
for Santa, protectionism,
specifically the U.S. sugar
program, hurts American
consumers and workers. The U.S.
sugar program provides a classic
example of a special interest
group benefiting from political
connections, to the detriment of
American consumers.
The sugar program imposes trade
barriers that force American
consumers to pay approximately
double the world’s sugar price.
The jobs “saved” by the program
come at a high price. U.S.
consumers pay an extra$826,000
for each sugar production job
saved. Sugar farmers, often
collectively known as “Big
Sugar,” contribute extensively to
political campaigns, with the nine
main sugar farms or refinery
groups contributing nearly$1.5
million to candidates in 2007 to
maintain this overt corporate
welfare.
The U.S. sugar program also
destroys American jobs. The U.S.
candy industry has been forced by
END
continued from page 67
journalism regarding the actual
effect that lifting the ban would
have on Marines fighting our
wars.
So, I offer another compromise to
add to the “don’t ask, don’t tell”
compromise: Allow openly gay
men and women to serve in all
military jobs and positions that do
not require living in close
quarters. Off-limits areas that
most immediately come to mind
are ship-deployable Navy units,
combat-arms designators in the
U.S. Army, special operations for
all services, and the U.S. Marine
Corps. This leaves giant swaths of
military-service opportunities for
artificially high sugar prices to cash register. Trade barriers also openly gay Americans, including
ship candy manufacturing jobs to cost American jobs, all to benefit almost all of the Air Force, most
Canada and Mexico. Artificially a few with political connections. h o s p i t a l p o s i t i o n s , a n d
high sugar prices led Hershey’s Andre Rougeot is currently a administrative jobs in the various
food, for example, to close plants member of the Young Leaders services. Judging by my own
in California, Pennsylvania, and P r o g r a m a t t h e H e r i t a g e observation, gays tend to serve
Colorado, relocating them to Foundation. For more information disproportionately in medical
C a n a d a a t a c o s t o f 1 , 0 0 0 on interning at Heritage, please positions already. The military is
American jobs. Through its sugar visit: http://www.heritage.org/ a complex beast, however, so it
program, the United States is about/departments/ylp.cfm should work out the details itself.
effectively picking the winners, This entry passed through the #page#Unfortunately, I do not
namely “Big Sugar,” while letting Full-Text RSS service — if this is think a compromise could actually
the losers, such as the candy your content and you're reading it emerge out of this process.
industry, fend for themselves. on someone else's site, please read Political momentum flows one
T h e U . S . s u g a r p r o g r a m our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/ way or the other all the time, but
illustrates a broader point about content-only/faq.php in many instances, true leaders are
f r e e t r a d e , n a m e l y , t h a t Five Filters featured article: conspicuously absent. In this case,
protectionist policies don’t just Beyond Hiroshima - The Non- it appears that one lone veteran in
hurt American consumers by Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
forcing them to pay more at the Catastrophe.
Politics-Right/ 69
the U.S. Senate, John McCain, is
prepared to be just that in seeking
to ensure that the conclusion
reached is based on facts.
#ad#McCain’s courage is
commendable, but he should not
have to stand alone. Other
politicians must step up and really
talk about the core of this issue.
At the very least, Congress should
heed the advice given by three of
the military’s four service heads
and postpone repeal. Gen. James
F. Amos, the commandant of the
Marine Corps, testified on Friday
before a Senate panel that “if the
law is changed, successfully
implementing repeal and
assimilating openly homosexual
Marines into the tightly woven
fabric of our combat units has a
strong potential for disruption at
the small-unit level.”
We owe it to our warriors to take
our time, ask the hard questions,
and make sure we get this right.
-- Adam Paul Laxalt is an attorney
and former lieutenant in the U.S.
Navy, Judge Advocate General’s
Corps, who served on active duty
from 2005 until 2010. Adam Paul
Laxalt
70 Social Media/ E-reader News Edition
SOUTH
continued from page 68

been driving up prices ever since
the U.S. government imposed it in
1963. As economic theory and
facts reported in The Heritage
Foundation’s Index of Economic
Freedom demonstrate, reducing
trade barriers—including those
we place on ourselves—increases
His changes include charging
American consumers a 2.5
percent tax on cars made in South
Korea for five more years instead
of eliminating it immediately, as
originally agreed to, maintaining
the 25 percent tariff on imported
pickup trucks for eight more
from the Obama Administration’s
Win a Holiday MashPack
other job-killing initiatives. Given
the highest unemployment rates With 12 Tech and Social
and weakest economy in a
generation, it is just unfortunate
that Americans had to wait for it
Media Prizes [CONTEST]
Meghan Peters (Mashable!)
for so long.
This entry passed through the Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:30:17 PM

our economic growth. Exports are
good, but imports create jobs for
Americans, too. Just ask the
longshoremen, truck drivers,
lawyers, accountants, marketers,
and sales clerks whose livelihoods
depend on the streams of
imported goods that increase our
standard of living.
Although KORUS was
completed over three-and-a-half
years ago, President Obama
refused to submit it to Congress
until he put his Administration’s
mark on it.
years, and forcing South Koreans
to pay taxes on U.S. pork until
2016 instead of 2014.
Although the final document has
yet to be released to the public, it
appears that despite such
backtracking, KORUS will
eliminate 95 percent of barriers to
trade in consumer and industrial
goods between people living in
the United States and those living
in South Korea within the next
five years.
If so, this trade agreement will
represent a welcome deviation
Full-Text RSS service — if this is
We kicked off the holiday season
your content and you're reading it
by telling you about some of the
on someone else's site, please read
hottest holiday gadgets in the
our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/
Mashable 10 gift guide and asked
content-only/faq.php
what’s on your wish lists this
Five Filters featured article:
year.
Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-
Now we’re celebrating by giving we get further into the holiday
Reporting of Falluja's Cancer
away a daily MashPack! Each season.
Catastrophe.
weekday for the next two weeks, Check out the list of prizes below
we’ll give away a collection of at to see what’s in today’s
least 12 favorite tech and social MashPack, and see details on how
media wish list items. A different to win!
grand prize will be added each
WIN page 71
day, getting bigger and better as

Michael Jackson’s Posthumous Album Leaks Online

Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable!) week, “Hold My Hand” debuted Security seized scores more effect, if any, do you think the
Submitted at 12/6/2010 3:01:32 PM on November 23 on Jackson’s websites soon after (a series of crackdown will have on the future
official website, and“Breaking events that raised a lot of of file-sharing?
Another high-profile leak has hit News”(which many suspected eyebrows, seeing how site owners More About: coica, file sharing,
the web — Michael Jackson’s was not actually sung by Jackson) were apparently not warned music, torrent
posthumous album, Michael, hit the web on November 8. before their domains were shut For more Entertainment
which is due out next week. We imagine that Sony and Epic down). And then there’s the coverage:
According to TMZ, all 10 of the Records are not pleased with this COICA Internet Censorship and • Follow Mashable Entertainment
disc’s tracks have made their way turn of events, but they declined Copyright Bill, which was on Twitter
onto file-sharing sites, a fact to comment. recently approved by the Senate • Become a Fan on Facebook
we’ve confirmed by surfing Album leaks — as well as movie Judiciary Committee and would • Subscribe to the Entertainment
around a few sources. Twitter is leaks — are not even remotely a crack down on copyright channel
also abuzz about the leaked new occurence. Most recently, infringement if enacted (this bill • Download our free apps for
Still, it isn’t as if the government
album. Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark is also raising eyebrows and has Android, iPhone and iPad
is taking matters lying down —
Three songs from the disc have Twisted Fantasy leaked weeks been called a“censorship bill”).
Torrent-Finder.com was recently
already been available for a while before it dropped, as did the It hasn’t been long since these
seized by government agencies,
n o w — “ M u c h T o o S o o n ” beginning of Harry Potter and the efforts, however, and there’s been
and the Department of Homeland
premiered exclusively on Ping last Deathly Hallows: Part 1. another high-profile leak. What
E-reader News Edition
WIN
continued from page 70
Happy holidays from Mashable!
How To Win Today’s MashPack
Tweeting for today’s MashPack
will end Tuesday, December 7 at
12 p.m. ET. Please use your real
identity in the submission so that
we may contact you via e-mail,
Twitter or Facebook to let you
know that you’ve won. We’ll
announce the winner after the
contest closes. At this time, the
contest is limited to those 18 and
older in the U.S. Sony MHS-TS10
Bloggie Touch HD Camera
Sony’s Bloggie Touch camera
captures Full HD video and 12.8-
megapixel still shots with the
simple touch of its single record
button. The large touch screen
showcases your photos and
videos, which are stored on built-
in memory. Its size makes it
readily available from your pocket
or purse, and you can easily
upload your photos and videos to
your favorite social networking
sites while you’re on the go.
Griffin Technology
PowerDockDual
Your iPad and your iPhone (or
your iPod) get seats of honor in
PowerDock Dual’s built-in
charging dock, while the valet
dish is a resting place for your
change, keys and whatever else
might live in your pockets. It has
an AC power supply with four
international plug adapters, 10
watt (2 amp) charging for your
iPad and 5 watt (1 amp) charging
for your iPhone or iPod. The
screens and speakers are
unobstructed while the batteries
get charged, so you can listen
while you watch. It’s perfect side
table entertainment! Griffin
Technology AirCurve Play
The AirCurve Play acoustically
amplifies the speaker of your
iPhone without batteries, cables or
electricity. It collects the sound
from the built-in speaker of your
iPhone, amplifies it in a built-in
coiled waveguide, and projects it
out into the room. AirCurve’s
transparent polycarbonate body
lets you appreciate the
waveguide’s graceful curves,
inside, that do all the work. Its
internal engineered waveguide
requires no power, making it a
perfectly portable audio/video
conference phone, and self-
contained music player and video
viewer. Caseable Custom-
Designed Mashable Laptop Case
Caseable, a startup based right in
Mashable HQ’s backyard —
Brooklyn, New York, creates
handmade, customized cases for
just about any size laptop or
tablet. You can get any look
you’d like by handpicking your
colors for each detail — even the
zipper! Caseable made specialized
15-inch Mashable cases
exclusively for our holiday
MashPack winners. They’re quite
snazzy, if we might say so
ourselves.
Picaboo Madison Photobook
Picaboo photo books can be fully
customized by dragging-and-
dropping photos and captions
anywhere on your pages. You
have complete creative control
with powerful-yet-simple editing
options. The Madison’s
heavyweight, archival quality lay-
flat pages are ideal for
highlighting panoramic, two-page
spreads, and the paper’s
pearlescent sheen coating adds a
luminous glow to your photos.
The elegant custom cover features
a photo of your choice under a
protective laminate and a full-
grain glove leather wrap around
the spine and back cover is
available in five colors.
Skullcandy Headphones
Skullcandy headphones are
known for their funky fashion and
durable design. Their style is in
line with an impressive list of
celebrities who endorse the brand,
including rap czar Snoop Dogg;
snowboarding legends Terje
Haakonsen, Mark Frank Montoya
and Devun Walsh; skate pros
Lizard King, Theotis Beasley and
Greg Lutzka; surf rulers Mick
Fanning, Owen Wright, Kolohe
Andino, the Gudauskas brothers,
and Clay Marzo; as well as free-
ski greats Tanner Hall, Kaya
Turski, and Tom Wallisch.
Merkury Innovations Universal
Square Stereo Speakers
The Universal Square Stereo
Speakers are just one example of
Merkury Innovations’ fun and
stylish electronic accessories.
These battery-free speakers will
work with audio devices featuring
a 3.5mm audio jack. The slim
design and exciting metallic
colors can complement any decor.
Their compact size make them
convenient for toting from room
to room in the house or packing
up for a friend’s party. Ben Folds’
Lonely Avenue Deluxe Album
Lonely Avenue contains 11 new
songs featuring music by Ben
Folds with words by Nick Hornby
for what The Huffington Post
calls “one of the most interesting
collaborations of the year.” This
special deluxe edition includes the
album on CD and vinyl, four short
stories by Nick Hornby, and 15
images by acclaimed
photographer Joel Meyerowitz, all
in a hardbound, 152-page book.
Hard Candy Mobile Phone Cases
Hard Candy Cases merges fashion
and function to distinguish and
protect mobile phones from the
wear and tear of daily use. It’s one
of the fastest growing brands in
the Apple accessories industry
with distribution in the United
States, Singapore, Mexico, Saudi
Arabia, South Africa, France,
Puerto Rico, Thailand, Indonesia,
Ireland, UK and Malaysia, among
others. Power Support USA iPad
Leather Sleeve Constructed with
premium quality leather, the
Power Support USA iPad sleeve
protects while complimenting the
aesthetics of the device. The
sleeve’s soft inner lining prevents
scratching while using this sleek
carrying case. Its clean design and
superb manufacturing techniques
make for high-quality iPad
protection.
Power Support USA iPhone4
Anti-Glare Films Power Support
USA films protect your iPhone 4
screen from scratches, dirt and
dust while reducing glare,
fingerprints and smudges. It’s
specially formulated to be
compatible with retina display and
resist glare and fingerprints while
protecting your screen. The static
cling adhesive film leaves no
71
residue if film is removed. Power
Support USA iPhone4 Designer
Collection Cases
Power Support has teamed up
with cutting-edge designers Tibi,
Rachel Pally and Rory Beca to
create a set of super stylish air
jackets. Measuring under 1 mm,
the jacket snugly hugs the back of
your iPhone 4. You can keep your
phone protected from dings and
scrathes while looking
fashionably fresh with the Power
Support Designer Collection. It’s
a win-win for any iPhone 4
owner! Twournal Twitter Journal
Twournal allows you to create,
buy and sell Twitter books printed
from your tweets. All Twournals
have color covers, can include
replies and Twitpic/Tweetphoto/
Yfrog pictures in color or black
and white. You can choose a
custom picture for your front
cover. Select which tweets you
want to start and end at. And you
can add a dedication message to
appear after your title.
More About: ben folds, caseable,
contest, gadgets, Gifts, giveaway,
griffin technology, hard candy,
Holiday, lonely avenue, mashable
10, mashpack, merkury
innovations, picaboo photobook,
power support usa, promojam,
skullcandy, sony bloggie,
twournal
For more Social Media coverage:
• Follow Mashable Social Media
on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media
channel
WIN page 72
72 Social Media/
Commenting Guidelines for the
Mashable Community
Vadim Lavrusik (Mashable!)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 12:56:26 PM
Here at Mashable, we truly value
comments. Commenting is a way
for everyone to participate and
contribute, breaking down the
wall between the author and
reader.
To improve the dialogue, we’ve
put together some simple
commenting guidelines for the
Mashable community. When
making moderation decisions, we
will take these, as well as the
context in which comments are
made, into account. We wanted to
post these publicly and be
transparent about our moderation
process and why certain
comments are removed.
We also recognize that this is
your community as much as it is
ours. We want you to help us
uphold a high standard of quality
for conversation in the comments.
As always, we’d love to get your
thoughts in the comments about
things you think should be added
to this list.
1. Personal Attacks: Please don’t
engage in personal attacks (on
authors, other users or any
individual), persistent trolling or
mindless abuse. The Mashable
community should focus on
intelligently discussing topics by
furthering the conversation and
informing the participants with
resourceful and constructive
ideas.
2. Hate speech: Racism, sexism
and homophobia will not be
tolerated.
3. Language and Threats: Please
watch your language and respect
other people’s views, beliefs and
emotions. We reserve the right to
remove any content that might be
found extremely offensive or
threatening.
4. No Spam: Spam and
advertising content will be
removed.
5. Smear Tactics: Although we
acknowledge criticism of our
articles and our writers, we will
not allow misrepresentation. We
will distinguish between
constructive arguments and smear
tactics.
6. Relevancy: Please keep
conversations relevant. Off-topic
comments are subject to removal
in order to keep the thread on
track.
7. Quality: We encourage you to
take responsibility for the quality
of the conversations in which
you’re participating. Maintain
intelligent discussions in the
Mashable community by being
respectful and considerate.
8. Help us: Maintain an inviting
interaction space by self-policing
threads and flagging spam.
Although we have a hands-on
approach to community
engagement, we do sometimes
miss problem commenters or
trolls. We appreciate your efforts
to keep the Mashable community
environment inviting, insightful
and constructive. Let the
conversations be quality ones.
*A big thanks to The Guardian,
which inspired these guidelines*
Images courtesy of iStockphoto,
mattjeacock
More About: comments,
guidelines, mashable, social
media
For more Social Media coverage:
• Follow Mashable Social Media
on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media
channel
• Download our free apps for
Android, iPhone and iPad
E-reader News Edition
WIN
continued from page 71
• Download our free apps for
Android, iPhone and iPad
More Problems for
WikiLeaks: Switzerland Cuts
Off Founder’s Bank Account
Ben Parr (Mashable!)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 1:09:04 PM
Switzerland has taken new action
against WikiLeaks by shutting
down founder Julian Assange’s
bank account.
PostFinance — which is owned
by the Swiss Post, itself a public
company owned by the Swiss
Confederation — said in a
statement earlier today that it has
closed Julian Assange’s account
this reason, PostFinance is
for failing to provide proof of
entitled to close his account. If
Swiss citizenship.
there is any indication that the
Here is PostFinance’s statement
information provided by an
on its decision:
account holder may not comply
“Finance has ended its business
with the detailed valid provisions,
relationship with WikiLeaks
PostFinance investigates the
founder Julian Paul Assange. The
circumstances in detail and draws
Australian citizen provided false
the appropriate conclusions.”
information regarding his place of
WikiLeaks and its founder have
residence during the account
been under constant fire since it
opening process. Assange entered
released 250,000+ sensitive U.S.
Geneva as his domicile. Upon
diplomatic cables. Assange is
inspection, this information was
wanted by Interpol for sex crimes
found to be incorrect. Assange
he allegedly committed during a
cannot provide proof of residence
trip to Sweden earlier this year.
in Switzerland and thus does not
The U.S. State Department has
meet the criteria for a customer
relationship with PostFinance. For MORE page 73
E-reader News Edition
MORE
continued from page 72
taken action against the
organization, and several
companies including Amazon,
PayPal and EveryDNS have
banned the site from using their
services.
Multiple governments are now
targeting the organization. While
each action may have been taken
for different reasons, the result is
an enormous amount of pressure
designed to take WikiLeaks
down. Despite hundreds of
mirrors replicating the site, the
organization is definitely in
trouble. Whether it will survive
or grow stronger than ever after
recent events remains to be seen.
More About: julian assange,
PostFinance, sweden, Swiss
Federation, Swiss Post,
switzerland, wikileaks
For more Social Media coverage:
• Follow Mashable Social Media
on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media
channel
• Download our free apps for
Android, iPhone and iPad
Software keyboard pops up in webOS
2.0, dreams of a Palm slate phone
flourish
Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 12/6/2010 2:13:00 PM
A software keyboard may sound
anathema to Palm, with its rich
history of wonderful QWERTY
keyboards, but you had to feel it
was coming, what with the wild
consumer adoption of slate
devices and, you know, the
economy these days. Well, after a
short history of hints in webOS
2.0's code and a longer history of
hacks, a full-on Palm-developed
software keyboard has been found
in shipping webOS 2.0 devices. It
takes a little bit of a hack and a
restart, and apparently it's buggy
as well, oh and you have to use
the physical keyboard to enter the
Opt+Sym+K command that opens
the virtual keys. Still, none of
these shortcomings are going to
Technology/ 73
the Pre's cramped hardware
keyboard in the past as we sprint
into a glorious future of tangible
webOS 2.0 market share and
maybe a threaded email app or
something. Sorry, we're done.
Check out a video of the keyboard
in action while we wipe the drool
off our chins.
Continue reading Software
keyboard pops up in webOS 2.0,
dreams of a Palm slate phone
flourish
Software keyboard pops up in
webOS 2.0, dreams of a Palm
slate phone flourish originally
appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06
stop us from sketching out slick, Dec 2010 14:13:00 EDT. Please
slim slate phones in our diaries, see our terms for use of feeds.
translating that understated Permalink PreCentral.net| webOS
elegance of the Pre 2 into a screen Internals (Twitter)| Email this|
-dominated form factor with our Comments
unbridled imaginations, leaving