entertainment guide 2010: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

techdirt: How Firefly Fans Made One University's Campus Safe For Free Speech http://t.co/scmSeLaN

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How Firefly Fans Made One University's Campus Safe For Free Speech dlvr.it/12YgRN Il y a environ 8 heures via dlvr.it Retweeted by 5 people

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New court challenge to Wisconsin union law filed

By Jeff Mayers

MADISON, Wisc | Fri Dec 30, 2011 7:51pm EST

MADISON, Wisc (Reuters) - The Wisconsin Supreme Court should void a controversial state law curbing the power of public sector unions because a judge who ruled on the law had a conflict of interest, a county attorney said on Friday.

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne said in a court filing that Judge Michael Gableman should have recused himself from the case.

A divided Supreme Court in June allowed the union law to go into effect by a vote of 4 to 3 with Gableman in the majority. The court would have been deadlocked had Gableman recused himself.

The law set off a fierce national debate on the collective bargaining rights of labor unions and prompted a drive to remove from office nine Wisconsin state senators. Two Republicans who had supported the union curbs were recalled.

The law forced local workers such as teachers to pay more for health care and pensions, and limited the ability of their unions to negotiate wage increases.

Democrats and labor unions are leading a campaign to force a recall election next year of Republican Governor Scott Walker, who championed the union law.

The court filing on Friday said that Gableman should have recused himself because a lawyer who represented the Republican-led state government in the case had represented Gableman on a personal issue.

"Justice Gableman received legal representation from a private law firm, Michael Best & Friedrich, LLP in a personal legal matter without any obligation to pay legal fees," the court papers said.

The filing said that Gableman's personal lawyer, Eric McLeod, attended the oral argument before the state Supreme Court on the union law as a representative of the state government.

The filing asked the court to either void the law or force Gableman to recuse himself. Gableman has denied any wrongdoing.

(Writing by Greg McCune; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Reuters/domesticNews/~3/_FTE35WmXR4/us-unions-wisconsin-idUSTRE7BU01P20111231

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Southern Africa Quarterly Review and Analysis - Third Quarter 2011 - Issue 2

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Friday, December 30, 2011

AndroidSPIN: How to get More Battery Life out of your Galaxy Nexus - http://t.co/8XSjxhI8

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How to get More Battery Life out of your Galaxy Nexus - bit.ly/vh8SDC Il y a environ 5 heures via AndroidSPIN

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IAmMissHawaii: RT @DocRich68: OK peeps, quit all the hate on @IAmMissHawaii!It's twitter&can tweet what she wants.If u don't like her,don't follow her! ...

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OK peeps, quit all the hate on @IAmMissHawaii!It's twitter&can tweet what she wants.If u don't like her,don't follow her! No need for hate! Il y a environ 3 heures via Twitter for Android

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Thursday, December 29, 2011

Venture meshes social media, fantasy football

PigskinBoss.com hopes to link social media and fantasy football.

A University of Arizona MBA graduate is hoping to mesh social media with fantasy football and baseball.

Evan Singer is a co-founder of Pigskin Boss, which launched in November.

?Pigskin Boss offers the first true community-style fantasy football website,? said Singer. ?The combination of interactive polling and users writing their own sports articles ... offers collective insight, rather than the bias of one writer?s opinion.?

Singer, who also works in advertising in San Diego, has about 200 members signed up right now, but he sees great potential in fantasy football and other sports.

?To put the potential in perspective, 10 years ago, the site -- then known as CBS SportsLine -- took in $4.3 million in fantasy subscription revenue; this year, analysts expect it to surpass the $50 million mark,? said Singer, a 2010 UA grad who received some guidance from Arizona businessman and advertising executive Karl Eller..

The Hollywood Reporter earlier this year estimated there are 27 million fantasy football players and it?s a $1 billion annual business. That player total is double 2003 estimates.

Fantasy football involves individuals drafting teams of players from the National Football League? ? National Football League Latest from The Business Journals Fitzgerald, Peterson, Wilson in NFL Pro BowlTexans will host wild card game at ReliantTexans? loss to Indy clouds playoff seeding . Fantasy teams almost always include players from different NFL teams.

Participants then square off each week of the NFL season, with their players getting points for scores and yardage actually gained on the field. Some NFL players as well as other professional athletes have fantasy teams.

ESPN? ? ESPN Latest from The Business Journals Will MSG and Time Warner reach a deal?Outback Bowl show to have Winter, Bay area attractionsSheraton Hawaii Bowl gets Mountain West affiliation Follow this company , CBS Sports, the NFL and Yahoo? ? Yahoo Latest from The Business Journals Survey: Most people oppose online sales taxLiddell, Desmond, Rosenblatt suggested as Yahoo's next CEO Desmond, Liddell, Rosenblatt suggested as Yahoo's next CEO Follow this company all have fantasy football websites. In some leagues, players play for money. In others, it?s just for fun. Singer said advertising revenue is the first and foremost revenue stream for PigskinBoss.com.

Mike Sunnucks writes about politics, law, airlines, sports business and the economy.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vertical_61/~3/ohnux3dAdGI/venture-meshes-social-media-fantasy.html

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

How Apple could shake up TV: A la carte channels

Apple's Apple TV set-top box.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple can set its much-expected television set apart from those of competitors--and shake up the TV industry to boot--if it can figure a way to introduce a la carte pricing for shows and channels on Apple TV, a new analyst report suggests.

In a note today to investors, Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu asserts that Apple's strength lies less in the hardware innovation it might bring to the TV market than in letting customers subscribe to particular channels or shows of their choosing.

Such a model would run counter to traditional TV packages offered by cable providers that sell channels to subscribers in pre-packaged bundles.

Apple already offers a number of TV programs as subscriptions through its online store, giving buyers a way to purchase both single episodes and entire seasons. The difference, of course, being that customers must wait for the show to be broadcast before it's available to download. (In some cases, shows aren't available until the entire season has aired.) Wu is suggesting that Apple would rather move to live streaming of the programming, just like what customers get through their cable provider.

"This is obviously much more complicated from a licensing standpoint, and in our view, would change the game for television and give AAPL a big leg-up against the competition," Wu wrote in the note picked up by Apple Insider.

This is not the first such suggestion that Apple is planning to adopt a subscription model for video content. A Wall Street Journal story from 2009 suggested Apple was in talks with CBS and Walt Disney to provide TV programming for a monthly fee. The closest that vision came to be was with Apple's season pass feature, which lets customers buy an entire season of a given TV show, even before some of the episodes have aired.

Interest in Apple's prospective television boomed in October with the release of Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Isaacson noted Jobs' work on making an easy-to-use TV set that is integrated with the company's various products and services.

"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs was quoted as saying in Isaacson's book. "It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

Adding to that, a report yesterday from Taiwanese publication DigiTimes cited sources saying that Apple was already in the process of ordering components for 32-inch and 37-inch TV sets that would be ready for sale in the second half of 2012, suggesting that Apple is relatively far along in the process of bringing the set to market.

In the interim, Apple has made two significant adjustments to its sales of TV shows in the past few months. First, it killed off its TV show rental service, a decision the company attributed to consumer purchasing behavior "overwhelmingly" falling in favor of buying programming outright. It also introduced a new season-completion program that lets buyers pick up the rest of a show's season at a discounted rate if they've already purchased an episode.

Disclosure: CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-57349340-248/how-apple-could-shake-up-tv-a-la-carte-channels/?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple

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Techmeme: LG Announces Ice Cream Sandwich Updates to Begin Q2 2012 (@kevinphandroid / Android Phone Fans) http://t.co/jgH5y2Rk http://t.co/dZrm8OoM

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LG Announces Ice Cream Sandwich Updates to Begin Q2 2012 (@kevinphandroid / Android Phone Fans) j.mp/vTE51d techme.me/CTFF Il y a environ 4 heures via Techmeme Retweeted by 1 person

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Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Awwww: Baby Puts Hand In President Obama?s Mouth

video

? 6 comments

During a visit with military families at a Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, a curious baby stuck his fingers into President Obama?s mouth.

RELATED: Awww: President Obama Calls First Lady ?Cute? Following Ft. Bragg Introduction

?What?s going on, man? How ya doing?? President Obama asked during a photo cop with the baby?s parents, Captain Greg Wagner and Meredith Wagner, when 8-month-old Cooper Wagner poked Obama in the gob.

The president took the moment in stride and later joked that the baby just liked his ?big nose.?

Watch President Obama?s interaction with Baby Cooper via Fox News below:

(h/t WaPo, CBS News)

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How Glenn Beck will report this: ?Marxist, racist, anti-colonialist?Obama tries to maim innocent liberty loving child due to his deep-seated hatred for white people?.
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Pamela Geller is already writing a post about how the Muslim Obama is eating Jewish babies.
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http://www.facebook.com/people/Gregory-Smith/100001741334953 Gregory Smith

?If you listened to Glenn Beck you?d know he has asked his listeners to pray for the president. Of course, that?s one of the rare times I disagree with GB. I don?t pray for Satan, LOL.
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Why are all libertardians such idiots?

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Monday, December 26, 2011

What are the advantages of convertible debt?

Question: I?m looking to raise angel funding. What are the advantages of convertible debt? And should I do convertible debt over a typical seed round where I set a valuation and sell shares in my company?

Answer by Ethan Stone, Stone Business Law

First, a quick caveat: I?m not your lawyer and this answer doesn?t establish an lawyer-client relationship. I?m giving a generic answer to a generic question to educate the users of this site.

Now to the question: There are two main advantages of raising seed funding through convertible debt. Neither one is an unequivocal benefit, so I?ll give you the pluses and minuses.

The first advantage is that the documentation is much simpler than the most common alternative ? a full set of documents, establishing a class of preferred stock and various other contractual stockholder rights. The reason that it?s simpler is that the investor is not trying to secure the complex set of rights to control the company and secure a return on investment. In their place, a convertible note substitutes one main right: The right to be repaid, with interest, after a fixed amount of time. Sometimes, the note will also allow the noteholder certain control rights if the note isn?t repaid as agreed.

Think of it this way: If you?re planning to build a new house with a bank loan, the bank could try to secure the value of its investment by requiring you to check in at various stages (approval of the architect, the plans, the builder and certain stages of the building etc.). Alternatively, the bank could just tell you that you owe a lot of money in a relatively short period of time and rely on that as an incentive to get you to build something that will justify the loan (i.e. by resale or refinance). That analogy isn?t perfect. I?ll get to that later.

In the meantime, however, it should get you thinking about one of the downsides: If the time runs on the debt and you haven?t found new equity financing, the angel can call in the debt and put you into bankruptcy (or foreclose on the assets if you?ve used them to ?secure? the debt).

It might not be quite that bad. The main reason is that if you can?t pay back the debt and you can?t raise financing, it?s likely that there will be almost nothing there. Bankruptcy and foreclosure are costly and inefficient processes. So the more likely scenarios are that everyone agrees the company is failing, in which case you?ll just agree on how to shut it down and give whatever?s left to the angel, or everyone agrees the company is worth carrying forward, in which case the angel will be working with you to raise more capital, not playing the evil landlord. That?s not to say there?s no risk. I?ve seen good companies on the verge of success trashed by short-sighted early investors. But that?s not really a reason not to use convertible debt. It?s another reason to be very cautious about whose money you take.

Getting back to the bank loan analogy, it isn?t perfect because angel investors aren?t banks: They aren?t looking for a fixed return on their capital. They?re looking for home run appreciation on a high-risk investment.

That leads to the second benefit of convertible debt: It puts off discussion of a final valuation. How? To back up, the ?convertible? in ?convertible debt? means that the investor can turn your money obligation into a certain share of the equity. That?s where an angel investor differs from a bank. The trick is, what price do you use to convert dollars to stock? If you agree on a specific ?conversion? price, you?ve effectively agreed how much the stock is worth and you might as well issue preferred stock (preferred stock also has a conversion price and usually involves a right to get the invested money back, often with significant ?interest? in the form of cumulative dividends and liquidation preferences).

When companies issue convertible debt to angels, they shortcut the difficult valuation discussion by providing, in one of various ways, that the conversion price will be set by the next round of equity investment. In other words, they put off the final valuation discussion until the company is a bit more developed and the VC money comes in.

You may have noticed that I haven?t been saying that you avoid a discussion of valuation, but rather that you avoid a discussion of ?final? valuation. That?s because a savvy angel investor will never simply provide for conversion at the price of the next round. The reason is that the angel is not putting her money up at the next round, when the company has presumably proved its concept more and is a much safer bet. She?s putting her money up early, when the risk is greatest. But if she converts at the price of the next round, she?s effectively borne that early investment risk for free. In fact, given the time value of money, she?s effectively paid you some money for the privilege of coming in with the VCs.

So experienced angels will always ?cap? the conversion price. You can?t determine the right ?cap? without some determination of the company?s value. The trick is that you don?t have to reach agreement on an exact value. You have to agree that the ?cap? valuation is high enough that you?ll be happy if you can get to it with only the angel?s capital. The angel has to believe that it?s low enough to provide a reasonable percentage of total equity at the first VC round. In many ways, this is more of a psychological benefit than an actual benefit. But psychology is important, especially if you?re trying to reach agreement quickly and get on with building the company. You should notice, however, that setting a ?cap,? rather than a final valuation tends to move the angel toward a higher valuation because everyone can pretend that it?s just the highest valuation the angel will accept, not the actual valuation the angel will receive. That favors the company, a fact that it not lost on experienced angels.

There are more potential complications to convertible debt, but that?s the difference in a nutshell. You should also be aware that not all angels will take convertible debt, although it has become more popular recently. As noted, negotiating a ?cap? rather than a valuation tends to favor the company. Some angels also feel that a full set of preferred stock documents isn?t so complicated that it?s not worth doing.

Featured Articles & Advice, Funding & Finances, Legal & IP ???????????????????? RSS 2.0 feed ????????????????????

Source: http://www.foundersspace.com/fund-raising/what-are-the-advantages-of-convertible-debt/

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What to shop for in the post-Christmas sales

Eric Thayer / Reuters

Catch a breather while you can -- the after-Christmas sales are coming.

By Herb Weisbaum

Bargain hunters will find some great discounts in the days after Christmas. It won?t be hard to find sale signs boasting markdowns of 70 percent or more. But don?t expect retailers to slash the price of everything in the store, just the things they need to get out the door.

Dealnews.com, a popular website that tracks retail prices, compared last year?s after-Christmas deals to this year?s Black Friday sales and found that post-Christmas sales in 2010 were ?notably less exceptional? in terms of top offerings. In other words, while the prices will be good, they won?t always be great.

?You?ll see some of the best sales of the year on apparel,? says Dan de Grandpre, founder and CEO of Dealnews. ?Merchants want to clear out their winter merchandise to make room for the new spring items.?

The focus this year, de Grandpre says, will be on brick-and-mortar stores, not online sales. Many retailers, he says, will use their websites to drive shoppers to their stores.

?Sometimes it will be a coupon that you print and take to the store,? de Grandpre says. ?Other times it will be another discount on top of the lowest prices available at the store.?

For example, last year on Dec. 26 Gap gave an extra 50 percent off all sale items in the store until noon. Some of the items were already marked down 50 or 60 percent.

Video games also go on sale right after Christmas, even the most recent titles.

?Some of the video game prices we saw last year right after Christmas were the best prices all year, and we?re expecting that again this year,? de Grandpre says.

Is there anything you should avoid buying? You might want to wait on electronics. Dealnews says the markdowns on electronics tend to be so-so right after Christmas. Closeout prices on TVs, laptops and GPS units usually hit early in the new year.

You can also expect another round of clothing sales in January. That?s when you?ll find the biggest discounts on winter apparel.

ConsumerMan Tip: As always, it?s the final price -- not the ?percentage off? -- that matters. Take the time to use a price shopping website to find out if that sale price is really as good as it seems.

Related:

NYT: Shoppers winning 'game of chicken' at stores

Will you be shopping the after-Christmas sales?

Strong holiday spending is helping the economy end the year on a high note. Retail sales are higher than this time last year and online holiday sales have reportedly hit $32 billion. CNBC's Ron Insana discusses.

Source: http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/23/9658086-what-to-shop-for-in-the-post-christmas-sales

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Sunday, December 25, 2011

Engadget Primed: ports, connectors and the future of your TV's backside

Primed goes in-depth on the technobabble you hear on Engadget every day -- we dig deep into each topic's history and how it benefits our lives. You can follow the series here. Looking to suggest a piece of technology for us to break down? Drop us a line at primed *at* engadget *dawt* com.

For many among us, what goes on behind and along the sides of a high-definition television is almost as compelling as what's displayed on that big, beautiful flat screen. Of course, we're talking connectors, with their attendant chaos of cords. A high-def TV is only as good as its connection to a high-def signal. The same holds true for the array of disc players, game consoles and other peripherals we cluster around our sets. So it may seem quaint, then, that we still often confront more analog ports than digital ones on our high-end TVs. You'd think with advances in wireless technology, we'd have done away with the spider web of wires entirely. Alas, like flying cars and fembots, we're just not there yet.

In this installment of Primed, we'll examine the best and the bogus when it comes to TV connectors, and spend some time tracing the arc of how we got to where we are in this particular moment of television evolution. The narrative on television and home entertainment remains a work in progress. But we'll endeavor to get you caught up to date, and as an added bonus offer a glimpse of what the future of your TV's backside will likely look like.

Continue reading Engadget Primed: ports, connectors and the future of your TV's backside

Engadget Primed: ports, connectors and the future of your TV's backside originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Dec 2011 15:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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cheth: Ahan! Love the Google Doodle! #Christmas

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Ahan! Love the Google Doodle! #Christmas Il y a environ 5 heures via web Retweeted by 1 person

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Saturday, December 24, 2011

SPORTSbyBROOKS: Question for @Esquiresque521: Why is Curley still PSU AD (see: http://t.co/mR3NM6P0) and Paterno no longer coach?

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Question for @Esquiresque521: Why is Curley still PSU AD (see: bit.ly/ovOCNR) and Paterno no longer coach? Il y a environ 4 heures via TweetDeck Retweeted by 1 person

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UK's Prince Philip, 90, has heart surgery (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) ? Britain's Prince Philip, the 90-year-old husband of Queen Elizabeth, had heart surgery to ease a blocked artery on Friday after being rushed to hospital with chest pains as he prepared to celebrate Christmas with the royal family.

Britain's longest-serving royal consort, known for his outspoken and sometimes brusque manner, needed an operation to fit a small tube known as a stent that keeps the blood vessel open.

Philip had been preparing to spend Christmas with other members of the royal family, reportedly including Prince William and his wife Catherine, at the Sandringham royal estate in eastern England.

He was taken to the Papworth Hospital, one of Britain's main heart and chest centers, about 60 miles away in Cambridge, a palace spokeswoman said.

"The Duke of Edinburgh was found to have a blocked coronary artery which caused his chest pains," the palace said in a statement. "This was treated successfully by the minimally invasive procedure of coronary stenting."

He will stay in hospital "for a short period" under observation, it added. The hospital declined to comment.

Philip had attended a lunch for staff a week ago and had been on "very good form," the BBC reported.

"He has had these chest pains before and I don't think it's anything untoward, but given his age they are being safe rather than sorry," former royal press spokesman Dickie Arbiter told the BBC.

PIVOTAL FIGURE

Despite his age, Philip generally has been in good health and has continued a busy round of charity work and social engagements, recently visiting Australia and Ireland.

A pivotal figure in the House of Windsor, Philip has a reputation as a fiercely loyal consort who prefers outdoor pursuits to introspection.

"The Queen is monarch, but within the family setting, the Duke of Edinburgh is hugely important," royal commentator and author Penny Junor told Sky News.

"He has always been the one who has called the shots in family matters. He has really made the major decisions."

Britain's tabloid newspapers have delighted over the years in recounting his many public gaffes.

He once told British students in China: "If you stay here much longer, you'll be slitty-eyed."

Philip was accused by critics of being cruel to Princess Diana before her death in a car crash in Paris in 1997. However, the prince's aides rejected those claims at an inquest in 2007 and released letters purporting to show a close relationship between them.

Born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921, Philip served in Britain's Royal Navy before marrying Elizabeth in 1947. They have four children, including the heir to the throne, Charles.

The prince has no clear-cut constitutional role. In private he is regarded as the unquestioned head of his family, but protocol obliges the man dubbed "the second handshake" to spend his public life one step behind his wife.

In a rare public tribute to her husband, the queen said in a speech in 1997:

"He is someone who doesn't take easily to compliments but he has, quite simply, been my strength and stay all these years, and I...owe him a debt greater than he would ever claim, or we shall ever know."

(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/britain/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111224/wl_nm/us_britain_royal_philip

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Cleric blames Iraqi politicians for Baghdad blasts (AP)

BAGHDAD ? Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader on Friday demanded the country's politicians work to restore security, saying their conflicts were to blame for attacks like the devastating bombings that tore through mostly Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad and killed at least 69 people.

The calls by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, made by his representative in a Friday prayer sermon, implicitly hit on the political showdown between the Shiite prime minister and the top Sunni political leader in the country, against whom the government put out an arrest warrant, accusing him of running hit squads.

Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi has denied the charges, which have fueled Sunni fears that the minority community is being pushed out of influence by the Shiite-dominated government.

Al-Sistani's aide Ahmed al-Safi did not specifically mention the conflict or any of the players in it, but his comments seemed to be a call for Sunni politicians to back down.

If someone is "dealing with terrorism, what should we do? What is the punishment that he must face after knowing that he is a killer?" al-Safi said in his sermon in the holy city of Karbala.

"The prestige of the government must be preserved ... part of its prestige is punishing abusers," he said. "The security file is not a luxury! People can be patient with lack of electricity, or lack of services, but not blood. They cannot be patient over their blood. Wyy don't you exert your efforts to preserve the blood of these people?"

Al-Sistani, who is in his mid 80s, is the most respected cleric among Iraq's Shiite majority. But he rarely appears in public and stopped meeting with politicians since around the middle of this year. He usually makes his positions known through his representative at the prayer sermon.

Sixteen blasts across Baghdad on Thursday also wounded nearly 200 people, evoking fears Iraq could dissolve into a new round of sectarian violence now that American troops have left.

Al-Safi condemned the bombing, saying, "The people are looking forward for a new life after the departure of the foreign forces, instead they face massacres."

"Politicians, be merciful with this country. You are dragging the country with your crises and you are held responsible."

These calls were echoed by other Shiite and Sunni clerics. Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical cleric, whose militiamen were blamed for sectarian killings during the worst of Iraq's violence, issued a statement, calling the conflict among Iraqi politicians as "the conflict of the mighty" which "led to the deterioration of the fragile security."

The preacher of Abu Hanifa, the main Sunni mosque in Baghdad, also criticized the Iraqi leaders who "preoccupy themselves with side issues and conflicts and ignore essential issues. You (politicians) have to pay heed to reunite Iraqis. You have to give up hatred, killing and intimidation," Sheik Ahmed al-Taha told worshippers in his sermon.

"Do not let our defeated enemy (the Americans) say that we are unable to continue with them," he added.

___

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this report.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iraq/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq

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Friday, December 23, 2011

Recall Central: Select Nissan and Infiniti Models for Oil Filter Problems

Nissan is recalling some Nissan and Infiniti models for issues with a connecting bolt in the oil delivery system that could result in seized engines.

The Problem: Nissan is recalling some models that have weak bolts connecting the engine oil filter and engine oil cooler. If the bolt breaks at the point where it attaches to the filter, the engine oil will leak out, and if the oil level drops too low, the engine could seize. The problem was found on some 2011 Infiniti FX sport-utility vehicle and 2012 M sedan, as well as the 2011-2012 Pathfinder and Xterra SUVs, the 2012 Frontier pickup truck, and the 2012 Nissan NV van. The affected models were made at some point between June and October of this year.

The Fix: Nissan will contact owners of the affected models and replace the weak bolt with a stronger one. Because all of these cars are still under warranty, the recall is at no cost to the owner. The recall is scheduled to start some time mid-January 2012, but owners can call Nissan directly at 1-800-647-7261 with any questions.

Number of Vehicles Potentially Affected: 14,718 vehicles; 30 Infiniti FXs, 92 Infiniti Ms, 6820 Nissan Frontiers, 3194 Nissan Xterras, 3023 Nissan Pathfinders, and 1554 Nissan NVs.

Source: NHTSA

Source: http://rumors.automobilemag.com/recall-central-select-nissan-and-infiniti-models-for-oil-filter-problems-96637.html

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Iranian exiles in Iraq may accept U.N. plan (Reuters)

PARIS (Reuters) ? The leader of an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Tuesday it would agree to a United Nations plan to move residents of a dissident camp in Iraq to a new location, depending on certain conditions and guarantees.

The settlement known as Camp Ashraf, some 65 km (40 miles) from Baghdad, is the base of the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran, or PMOI, an Iranian opposition group that Washington officially considers a terrorist group.

The Iraqi government, which is friendly with Tehran, has said it intends to close down the camp, home to an estimated 3,000 Iranian dissidents, by the end of this year, leaving less than two weeks to work out a solution.

As described by U.S. officials on Monday, the U.N. plan would move the residents to a location near the Baghdad airport, where the United Nations would monitor them and process them for possible resettlement as refugees.

In a statement, PMOI leader Maryam Rajavi said the camp's residents were "in principle" prepared to relocate on condition that the United Nations, United States and European Union support and endorse the proposal and that the Iraqi government guarantee the residents' security and well-being.

The fate of Camp Ashraf is one of the main unresolved issues left over after U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq this month. Residents of the camp have long said they fear for their safety at the hands of Iraqi authorities without U.S. protection.

In April, the camp was the scene of clashes between residents and Iraqi security forces, during which 34 people were killed, according to a U.N. investigation.

U.S. officials have urged residents to accept the U.N. plan.

Rajavi said Baghdad had refused U.S., U.N. or European Union forces protecting the camp, so the group wanted "minimum" guarantees before it would accept the plan.

Its demands include no Iraqi forces being allowed within the camp, independent U.N. and U.S. observers based at the new settlement, the end of harassment of camp residents, provision of medical supplies and international supervision of the transfer of residents and all belongings to the new camp.

Resettling the dissidents in other countries will not be easy given that some may be afraid to return to Iran, where they could be viewed as enemies of the state, while others may be regarded as terrorists by the United States or other nations.

In the 1970s the group, which is also known as the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK), led a guerrilla campaign against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran, including attacks on U.S. targets. It says it has since renounced violence.

(Reporting By John Irish)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111220/wl_nm/us_iran_iraq_ashraf

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Thursday, December 22, 2011

WSJ: Welcome To Amazon Town

FERNLEY, Nev.?Behind the piles of smiley-faced Amazon.com Inc. boxes arriving on doorsteps this holiday season are workers like Ray and Sarann Williams.

Read the whole story

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/wsj-welcome-to-amazon-tow_n_1161483.html

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Video: Is now the time to buy property?

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Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45707271#45707271

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Russia's Mars probe will crash to Earth in January

In this Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011 file photo, the Zenit-2SB rocket with Phobos-Grunt (Phobos-Ground) blasts off from its launch pad at the Cosmodrome Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Russia's space agency says a probe bound for a moon of Mars that instead got stuck in Earth's orbit will plummet down to Earth next month.The agency said Friday Dec. 16, 2011 the unmanned Phobos-Ground probe that got stranded after its Nov. 9 launch will come crashing down between Jan. 6 and Jan. 19. (AP Photo/Oleg Urusov, pool)

FILE In this Nov.2, 2011 file photo distributed by Russian Roscosmos space agency shows technicians working on the Phobos-Ground probe . Russia's space agency says the Phobos-Ground probe bound for a moon of Mars that instead got stuck in Earth's orbit will plummet down to Earth next month. Russia space agency said Friday Dec. 16, 2011 that the unmanned Phobos-Ground probe that got stranded after its Nov. 9 launch will come crashing down between Jan. 6 and Jan. 19.(AP photo/ Russian Roscosmos space agency, HO) EDITORIAL USE ONLY

MOSCOW (AP) ? A Russian spacecraft bound for a moon of Mars and stuck in Earth's orbit will come crashing back next month, but its toxic fuel and radioactive material on board will pose no danger of contamination, the Russian space agency said Friday.

Between 20 and 30 fragments of the probe with a total weight of up to 200 kilograms (440 pounds) will survive the fiery plunge and shower the Earth's surface, Roscosmos warned in a statement.

The agency said the unmanned Phobos-Ground spacecraft will plummet to Earth between Jan. 6 and Jan. 19, and the rough area of where the fragments could fall could only be calculated a few days ahead of its plunge.

As of now, it said only that the probe's fragments could rain down anywhere along a broad swath between 51.4 degrees north to 51.4 degrees south, which would include most of land surface.

While the agency had lost contact with the probe following its launch on Nov. 9, this was the first time acknowledged that the $170-million craft has been lost and will come crashing down.

Since its November launch the engineers in Russia and at the European Space Agency have attempted unsuccessfully to propel it away from Earths orbit and toward its target.

Phobos-Ground weighs 13.2 metric tons (14.6 tons), which includes 11 metric tons (12 tons) of highly toxic fuel. Experts had warned that if the fuel has frozen, some could survive entry into Earth and pose a serious threat if it falls over populated areas.

But Roscosmos said it is sure that all fuel will burn on re-entry some 100 kilometers (330,000 feet) above the ground and pose no danger. It said that 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of Cobalt-57, a radioactive metal contained in one of the craft's instruments, will not pose a threat of radioactive contamination.

The Phobos-Ground was Russia's first interplanetary mission since a botched 1996 robotic mission to Mars, which failed when the probe crashed shortly after the launch due to an engine failure. Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos, and the latest spacecraft aimed to take ground samples on Phobos.

It was one of the most challenging unmanned interplanetary mission ever. Scientists had hoped that studies of Phobos' surface could help solve the mystery of its origin and shed more light on the genesis of the solar system. Some believe the crater-dented moon is an asteroid captured by Mars' gravity, while others think it's a piece of debris from when Mars collided with another celestial object.

The failed mission was the latest in a series of recent Russian launch failures that have raised concerns about the condition of the country's space industries. Officials have blamed the failures on obsolete equipment and an aging workforce.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-12-16-EU-Russia-Mars-Moon-Mission/id-913c828c03c748fcbccdc0b93b6f6244

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All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon [Video]

All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, is another one of those bills that sounds like it's going to do something mildly positive but, in reality, has serious potential to negatively change the internet as we know it. It puts power in the hands of the entertainment industry to censor sites that allegedly "engage in, enable or facilitate" copyright infringement. This language vague enough to encompass sites you use every day, like Twitter and Facebook, making SOPA a serious problem. Here's how it works and what you can do about it.

SOPA's coming to a vote very soon. In fact, it was supposed to come to a vote today but was delayed, likely because of all the pushback. Reddit users have already started compiling a list of the IP addresses of popular sites in case SOPA passes and access will be restricted within the United States. A decision is going to be made soon, so if you still don't know what SOPA is or haven't done anything to stop it, read on to learn how you can help beat the bill.

How Does SOPA Work, and Why Should I Care?

The idea behind SOPA sounds reasonable. It came about in order to try to snuff out piracy online, as the entertainment industry is obviously not excited about the many people downloading their product without their permission. The issue is, however, that it doesn't really matter whether you're in support of piracy, against it, or just don't care. SOPA makes it possible for companies to block the domain names of web sites that are simple capable of, or seem to encourage copyright infringement.

All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon This means that if Lifehacker happened to have an article or two that could be interpreted as piracy-friendly, our domain could be blocked so it's unaccessible by visiting lifehacker.com. What the bill can't do is block numeric IP addresses, so you could still access Lifehacker, or any other site that could be censored, if you knew that address. This is important because it means this bill can't do much to stop downloaders of pirated content. If a domain name is blocked, everything will still work via the numeric IP address. Basically, the bill will be no good at stopping piracy?what it was apparently designed to do?but excellent at censoring any web site capable of providing its users with the means of promoting pirated content or allowing the process. This includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr, and many more. If it's possible to post pirated content on the site, or information that could further online piracy, a claim can be brought against it. This can be something as minor as you posting a copyrighted image to your Facebook page, or piracy-friendly information in the comments of a post such as this one. The vague, sweeping language in this bill is what makes it so troubling.

In the event of SOPA-based censorship, any site can submit an appeal so long as they do so within five days. This isn't a lot of time to handle a legal matter, and if you've ever dealt with a copyright infringement takedown notice you know how ineffective an appeal can be. When a threat of legal action is posed, a company is generally going to prefer to err on the side of caution and remove infringing content indefinitely. It's far cheaper to run the risk of removing perfectly legal content than to battle the issue in court. If your web host censors your site because of a SOPA-based claim, you can expect the same sorts of problems.

If you want to learn more about how SOPA works, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) posted a great overview. You can also view the exact contents of SOPA. For a quick overview, be sure to watch the video at the top of this post.

What Can I Do About SOPA?

Currently Twitter, Google, Reddit, Kickstarter, Tumblr, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, eBay, Zynga, Facebook, and several other sites have spoken out in opposition of SOPA. If you'd like to as well, there are a couple of things you can do.

All About SOPA, the Bill That Wants to Cripple Your Internet Very Soon First, call your congressperson on the phone. This is especially important if you live in Texas, Michigan, Vermont, or Iowa. You can also send a letter to your congressperson by visiting the American Censorship Day web site. To activate the contact widget, you have to click the "Try it out" link that's wedged between two screenshots of a censored logo and the "Website Blocked" widget you're trying to open. This will provide you with a form and allow you to send a letter.

Second, get the word out. Post this article, the American Censorship Day web site, or any other information about SOPA on your social media accounts. Send emails to friends and family. If you oppose the bill, help others to understand why they should oppose it as well.

SOPA is on the fast track, so if you want to fight it you need to do so today. We do, however, recommend you get to know the bill so you you can make an informed decision regarding how you feel about it.

You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook. ?Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/J3bhMduQXK0/all-about-sopa-the-bill-thats-going-to-cripple-your-internet

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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Cincinnati airport has nation's highest fares

CINCINNATI?? The government is again putting Cincinnati's main airport at the top of its list of airports with the highest fares.

The U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics said this week that a round trip from Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport cost an average $476 during the April-June quarter of this year. The airport ? known as CVG ? tied with the one in Memphis as the most expensive in the nation.

The national average round-trip fare was $370. The lowest fares in the country were at the Atlantic City, N.J., airport ? averaging $205.

Cincinnati's airport is dominated by Delta Air Lines and has been ranked as the costliest for air travelers in previous survey. CVG has been trying to hook a low-cost carrier.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45684281/ns/travel-news/

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Video: Toy drive receives bonanza of books for kids

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29054368/vp/45684310#45684310

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Alzheimer's drug candidate may be first to prevent disease progression

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/116031/Alzheimer_s_drug_candidate_may_be_first_to_prevent_disease_progression

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Engadget Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters

The first thing I look for when purchasing a camera is something most aren't even aware of. It's not the brand name or the quality of the lens, the touch screen technology or the LCD screen size, and not the array of functions it offers or shooting presets available - it's the size of the image sensor. As a 20-year pro photographer who's captured over a million images during my career, I'm the guy who admires the parts of the engine instead of falling in love with the flashy exterior or high-end sound system. The image sensor is where the rubber meets the photosensitive diodes.

In writing my first installment for Primed, I'll give a few definitions to clear things up a bit when it comes to a camera's image sensors and size, explain in detail the parts of a sensor, how it alters the photos (or video) you capture, where it came from, and why it's important to consider its size - I'll cover the meat and bones, get to the heart of the matter, the nub, the crux, the nuts and bolts, get down to the brass tacks, all while exhausting our thesaurus. Let's dive in, shall we?

Continue reading Engadget Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters

Engadget Primed: Why your camera's sensor size matters originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/HaA-24tJvv8/

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