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Edition
Roberts, Obama jumble
presidential oath of office
By Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:32:33 AM
WASHINGTON - It was merely a
formality and it’s probably a few phrases
that both Barack Obama and Chief Justice
of the United States John Roberts have
practiced several times, but the leader of
the Supreme Court may have been just a
tad nervous when he got one word of the
presidential oath of office a little out of
order.
Obama smiled slightly when he realized
that Roberts, a fellow Harvard Law School
graduate, misplaced the word “faithfully”
during the oath. but the new president
joined in the fun and repeated it the way
Roberts initially administered it. (Lest we
forget, in the Senate Obama voted against
confirming Roberts to the high court. Last
week Obama met with him and the other
Supreme Court justices during a courtesy
call.)
Here is how the oath is supposed to be
administered: “I do solemnly swear that I
will faithfully execute the office of
President of the United States, and will to
the best of my ability, preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United
States.”
And here’s how it went:
Steve Bell: Bush prepares for
life as an ex-president
By Steve Bell (News: Main section |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:23:50 PM
George Bush and Dick Cheney leaving
office after eight years in power
ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama…
OBAMA: I, Barack…
ROBERTS: … do solemnly swear…
OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do
solemnly swear…
ROBERTS: … that I will execute the
office of president to the United States
faithfully…
OBAMA: … that I will execute…
ROBERTS: … faithfully the office of
president of the United States…
OBAMA: … the office of president of
the United States faithfully…
ROBERTS: … and will to the best of
my ability…
OBAMA: … and will to the best of my
ability…
ROBERTS: … preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United
States.
OBAMA: … preserve, protect and
defend the Constitution of the United
States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
For any conspiracy theorists worried
Obama isn’t president because the oath
was a little off, the 20th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution states that the new
president assumes office at noon on Jan.
20.
Steve Bell's If ... Stand away
from the beard!
By Steve Bell (From the Guardian:
G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Steve Bell's If ...
19/01/09 - 20/01/09 LibertyNewsprint.com U.S.
Activists “shoe” Bush out
the White House door
By Jim Wolf (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 12:51:18 PM
Critics of outgoing President George W.
Bush turned a stretch of Pennsylvania
Avenue outside the White House into a
rowdy street theater on the eve of his
handover of power to Barack Obama.
An activist coalition calling itself
Judging “The
ShoeBush.org piled a motley collection of
dozens of old shoes, including tan combat
Speech” — what
boots said to have been worn by U.S.
troops in Iraq and children’s bright yellow
did you think?
flip-flops, at what amounted to Bush’s By Mario Di Simine (Front Row
doorstep. Washington)
“We wanted to shoo and boo Bush on his
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:27:37 AM
last day in office,” said Ann Wilcox of
Washington D.C., who marched with the Barack Obama became the first black
group of about 500 peace activists. president of the United States on Tuesday.
The footwear was tossed between Pennsylvania Avenue at noon on Tuesday. In his much-anticipated inaugural speech,
Inaugural parade reviewing stands under “You voted for change now use your he said the “economy is badly weakened, a
watchful eyes of uniformed Secret Service voice to demand justice,” the group’s consequence of greed and irresponsibility
officers. It was a reminder of an Iraqi handout urged. “Tell the new U.S. attorney on the part of some, but also our collective
journalist, Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled general to appoint an independent special failure to make hard choices and prepare
his two shoes at Bush during a news prosecutor to investigate the crimes of the the nation for a new age.”
conference marking the outgoing Bush administration.” But the new president also said the
president’s farewell visit to Iraq. Elsewhere on the street, about two United States remained “the most
A hooded, black-clad man posing as the dozens dancers from a group called prosperous, powerful nation on Earth,” and
Grim Reaper stood nearby with a sign DanceMetroDC staged an improvised that “we must pick ourselves up, dust
saying “Death thanks Bush and Cheney.” dance fest. One of the dancers, pivoting to ourselves off, and begin again the work of
The reaper, in an interview, added: the four points of the compass, intoned remaking America.”
“They’ve been very good for business.” A What did you think of the speech? Did it
giant Bush bobblehead in prisoner’s stripes
“Change, Change, Change, Change” as
meet the hype? Were you moved, or
fellow dancers gyrated in turn.
paraded nearby, his hands in chains as if Photo credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar dismayed?
being led away under arrest. (Bush bobblehead at Inaugural protest, Jan.
Others handed out black and white
19)
postcard-sized signs urging “Arrest Bush” Click here for more Reuters political
to the hundreds of onlookers, many who coverage.
had come from afar to celebrate Obama’s
swearing-in at the other end of
2 inauguration* Politics* Daily Digital Newspaper

Rhyming reverend gets last

word at Obama inaugural
By Randall Mikkelsen (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:47:51 AM

WASHINGTON - Rev. Joseph Lowery

was back on stage with a president, but on
Tuesday the civil-rights pioneer used his
wry rhymes to welcome the U.S. leader,
not skewer him as he did three years ago.
Lowery, who co-founded the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference with
Martin Luther King Jr., delivered the
benediction at Barack Obama’s
inauguration as first black U.S. president.
Lowery prayed for healing from a era of
“greed and corruption,” and asked, in
verse, for divine help toward a new
beginning of racial harmony:
“We ask you to help us work for that day
when black will not be asked to get in
back, when brown can stick around, when
yellow will be mellow, when the red man
can get ahead, man; and when white will
embrace what is right,” Lowery said to
laughter from the vast audience.
In 2006, speaking before then-president
George W. Bush and three former
presidents at the funeral of King’s widow,
abounds. For war billions more, but no
more for the poor,” he said then.
Critics charged that the remarks were out
of place at a funeral. Lowery defended
them as relevant to Mrs. King’s life.
Also speaking at the inauguration was
evangelical pastor Rick Warren, who said
in his invocation that “Dr. King and a great
cloud of witnesses are shouting in Heaven”
over Obama’s historic presidency.
Gay-rights supporters had criticized
Obama for awarding the inaugural
showcase to Warren, an influential
supporter of a successful ballot measure to
ban gay marriage in California.
But Lowery got the last word, and a

New president cheered, old one jeered
By Andy Sullivan (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:07:50 AM
WASHINGTON - They came to cheer a
new president. Some came to jeer the old
one as well.
As a helicopter carried George W. Bush
away from the U.S. capital where he has
served as president for the past eight years,
those in the crowd sang the taunting sports
anthem, “Na na na na, hey hey, goodbye.”
The 43rd president certainly didn’t hear
them. But he might have seen the “Arrest
Bush” signs waved by some spectators as
he rode in the presidential limousine
toward the Capitol with his successor
Barack Obama.
He also might have heard the chants of
“No more Bush” shortly before the
swearing-in ceremony began.
The sentiment was apparently
widespread.
“People have been coming up to me all
day saying, ‘Nice sign, let me take a
picture,’” said Washington prison guard
Jewell Lee, 44, referring to her styrofoam
sign that said simply: “GET OUT.”
Some in the crowd taunted Bush with his
own words and slogans.
“We are the Deciders,” read one hand-
lettered sign, in a jab at the man who
famously styled himself“The Decider.”
A couple miles north of the inaugural
festivities, a painted bedsheet hung out the
window of a house in Washington’s Mt.
Pleasant neighborhood read “Mission
Accomplished,” echoing a banner hung
behind Bush at a rally shortly after the
invasion of Iraq.
Among the hundreds of thousands
jamming the Washington mall, Obama
hats, buttons and shirts were common.
Many said they had traveled long distances
to witness the swearing-in of America’s
first black president.
That goodwill might not last forever.
“I don’t care what color he is,” said
Garrell Winstead, a 67-year-old real estate
investor from Cincinnati, Ohio. “If the
economy doesn”t improve and if he
doesn’t create enough jobs, patience will
evaporate.”
(Writing by Andy Sullivan; reporting by
Diane Bartz, Mason, Randall Mikkelsen,
Paul Rucker, Andrea Shalal-esa, Jim Wolf,
Deborah Zabarenko and Patrick Rucker)
For more Reuters political coverage,
click here.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar (A
helicopter carrying former President
George W. Bush leaves the U.S. Capitol
following the inauguration of President
Barack Obama, Jan. 20)
Coretta Scott King, Lowery delivered a
stern rebuke to Bush’s conduct of the Iraq
war and domestic policy.
“We know now there were no weapons of
mass destruction over there. But Coretta
knew, and we know, that there are
weapons of misdirection right down here.
Millions without health insurance. Poverty
LIVE VIDEO: The Inauguration of Barack
Obama
By Michael Kraskin (Political
Machine - Politics Blog, Opinion and
Analysis - AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:52:00 AM
Filed under: Viral Video, Inauguration
Thanks, MSNBC.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News,
World News, and News about the
Economy
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
chorus of Amens.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed
(Lowery speaks at Obama inauguration,
Jan. 20)
For more Reuters political coverage,
click here.
Watch Live Video of the Event
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Facebook becomes
posterboard for inaugural
festivities
By Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:43:21 AM
WASHINGTON - For those not among
the throngs in the U.S. capital for the
inaugural festivities for Barack Obama,
many have turned to Facebook to describe
how they were watching the ceremonies or
their state of excitement about the new
president.
And yes, it even became a spot for soon-
to-be former aides to outgoing President
George W. Bush to describe their future
after their tenure at the White House.
One Bush staffer described being
“employed for only 1hr and 28 more
minutes” while another told his friends he
was on his way to Andrews Air Force Base
to attend a closed-door departure ceremony
before Bush flies back to Texas on the 747
airplane used as Air Force One(it’s only
called that when the current president is
aboard).
Another Republican offered his
appreciation for the outgoing Bush team,
saying ”THANK YOU President Bush and
Vice President Cheney for your service to
our nation.”
Others declared their excitement for
Obama’s inauguration and his upcoming
White House website gets new look, blog
By Andrea Shalal-Esa (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:36:41 AM
WASHINGTON - Moments after Barack
Obama took the oath of office as the 44th
U.S. president, the Web site for the White
House, www.whitehouse.gov, underwent a
dramatic metamorphosis, offering a new
blog for online readers.
It will serve as a place for the most
technology-savvy president in U.S. history
and his new administration “to connect
with the rest of the nation and the world,”
Macon Phillips, director of new media for
presidency. As Mercedes Grandin from
Portland, Maine described it, “bring on our
new President!!” Heather Morrow, from
Overland Park, Kansas, said on
Facebook she “cannot tear herself away
from the television. this is amazing!”
Others griped about stalled subway or
buses to the National Mall or the U.S.
Capitol while some described the ease with
which they cleared the numerous security
checkpoints.
Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (the US
Capitol before sunrise hours before the
inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th
President of the United States)
For more Reuters political coverage,
click here.
the White House, said on the site.
The site features a web-log or blog, an
online “briefing room” and allows visitors
to sign up for e-mail updates on major
announcements and decisions, and to send
in their own ideas.
As his first official act, Obama
proclaimed Jan. 20, 2009 as a “National
Day of Renewal and Reconciliation,”
calling on Americans to serve one another
and come together to carry forward
American democracy.
Phillips said Obama also remained
committed to his campaign pledge to make
“his administration the most open and
McCain says wishes he
were taking oath, promises
Obama support
By Jeff Mason (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 10:00:50 PM
WASHINGTON - Former Republican
White House candidate John McCain said
on Monday he wished he were taking the
presidential oath of office but pledged his
support to former rival Barack Obama
instead.
McCain, speaking at a dinner in his
honor on the eve of Obama’s swearing-in,
reflected on his own career of military and
public service when mentioning Tuesday’s
inauguration.
“I would have preferred to have sworn
again tomorrow the oath I first took more
than 50 years ago,” he said.
“But it would be an act of stunning
ingratitude were I to resent the decision of
the American people or dismiss the
privilege I still possess: the privilege of
serving in some capacity the country that
transparent in history.”
All executive orders and proclamations
would be published on the website, as well
has been so good to me.”
McCain wished the president-elect well
even as he said the two may continue to
joust in the future.
“We will disagree now and again, but not
always and not for personal reasons, and
not, I assure you, over the purpose we
share: the progress of the nation we love,”
he said.
The Arizona senator and Obama, a
former senator from Illinois, clashed
repeatedly on the 2008 campaign trail over
policy in often bitter exchanges. McCain
gave a gracious concession speech,
however, after his loss on Nov. 4 and met
with Obama in Chicago after the election.
Click here for more Reuters political
coverage
Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young - U.S.
President-elect Barack Obama speaks
beside U.S. Sen. John McCain during the
Bipartisan dinner honoring McCain in
Washington on Jan. 19, 2009.
as all non-emergency legislation, giving
the public five days to comment before
they are signed by the new president,
Phillips said.
Citing Obama’s early work as a
community organizer in Chicago, Phillips
said, “Citizen participation will be a
priority for the Administration, and the
Internet will play an important role in
that.”
- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young
(Obama takes the oath of office)
inauguration* 3
Take a snapshot of
history during
Obama inauguration
By Donna Smith (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:12:49 AM
WASHINGTON - Where were you when
Barack Obama made history being sworn
in as the 44th president of the United
States?
That’s what the Presidential Inaugural
Committee wants to know. It is asking
people to take a photo of what they are
doing at noon on January 20, 2009, when
Obama takes the oath of office and
becomes the first African American to
serve in the nation’s highest office.
“People all across the country will be
gathered together to watch history. We
want to see how you will be joining in the
celebration of change,” the inaugural
committee said in an e-mail. “Share your
picture of history.”
The committee is asking that the photos
b e s e n t
http://www.pic2009.org/celebrate.
t o :
The committee said it will be posting
pictures on its website and may even use
some in the official Inaugural book.
Obama has successfully used the Internet
as a major campaign tool to raise money,
reach out to voters and mobilize
supporters.
Photo credit: Reuters/Stephen Hird
(Visitors to Madame Tussauds pose next to
the wax figure of U.S. President-elect
Barack Obama, in London January 20,
2009)
4 inauguration* Politics*
Will Obama see the forest
for the trees?
By Lucy Hornby (Front Row
Washington)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:24:01 AM
A Chinese campaigner has urged U.S.
President-elect Barack Obama to prove his
green credentials, asking him to offset the
emissions generated by his inauguration by
funding a forest in China.
A carbon fund named "Obama, future"
could invest in increased forest coverage in
another country and Obama himself could
plant a tree there, Lin Hui said in an
open letter, published on
www.ditan360.com. Lin hopes that
country will be China.
Lin's appeal is based on estimates by
conservative U.S. think-tank, the Institute
for Liberty, that people travelling to
attend Tuesday's inauguration would
generate 220,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
"Obama's presidency is a big opportunity.
The whole world is pinning their hopes on
him, even the greens, believing he'll be
different than Bush," Lin told Reuters.
The website, run by a team of volunteers,
contains news articles and information
designed to educate Chinese about a low-
carbon lifestyle.
The Chinese government, which has
When Liberals Gloat
By David Knowles (Political Machine
- Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis
- AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:19:00 AM
Filed under: President Bush, Barack
Obama, Media To the victor go the spoils.
Just as has been the case in the aftermath
of every political contest in our nation's
history, the people who voted for the
winner walk around, for a time, with a
little something extra in their collective
step, while the constituents of the defeated
candidate complain of sore winning.
Witness the responses to Barack Obama's
victory here at Political Machine. Our
been active in encouraging Western firms
to invest in carbon-offset projects in China,
approved the website in April, Lin said.
Lin's posting in Chinese is illustrated
with photos of Obama's "whistle-stop
tour", his itinerary for Tuesday, and
pictures from the inauguration of
predecessor George W. Bush. He tried
sending a copy of the open letter, which is
in English, through Obama's public email
address, "but I doubt he'll receive it."
Lin signed his congratulatory letter as "A
Chinese citizen, also your friend in green
career".
conservative writers will have none of this
change business, while our liberal voices
are bursting out in song.
After enduring two consecutive victories
by George W. Bush, during which I felt
equally low to my right-leaning colleagues,
I know too well the sting of hearing the
other party talk of mandates and the like.
And it is easy to understand why Obama's
iconography, and bumper-sticker-ready
slogans are like so much salt poured into
conservative wounds. But if Republicans
are surprised that Obama really pulled this
thing off, they should realize that a whole
lot of Democrats feel the same way. Yes,
as incredible as it sounds, Barack Hussein
Rick Warren Gets Tepid Response
By Liza Porteus Viana (Political
Machine - Politics Blog, Opinion and
Analysis - AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:02:00 AM
Filed under: Democrats, Republicans,
Barack Obama, Gay Rights, Obama
Administration, Inauguration About, oh,
maybe 10 people eventually clapped when
Rev. Rick Warren was introduced to give
the invocation during Barack Obama's
inauguration today. It did seem, however,
that he got more claps than former
President Bush.
The founder and senior pastor of the
Saddleback Church in Orange County, CA,
no doubt took the podium with at least a
little trepidation, given the outcry over his
selection by the gay community. Even
though the Warren dustup wasted several
days' worth of headlines after Obama
announced his selection, it appears now no
one cares too much and people just want to
revel in the moment.
A new Gallup Poll just out shows that
most Americans either approve of Warren
giving the invocation or don't even know
he was doing so, while just 9 percent
disapprove of Warren's role. Even among
liberals, support for Obama's choice far
outweighs disapproval, 39 percent to 16
percent. Among Democrats, there is 37
percent approval compared to 10 percent
disapproval. Among liberals, the numbers
Obama is our new president.
While today's historic celebration is extra
sweet for all those who supported Obama,
are similar with 39% approving and 16%
disapproving. Approval is obviously
higher among Republicans and
conservatives.
In fact, Warren just prayed. He wasn't
trying to convert anybody or espouse any
perceived "anti-gay" message. In fact, as
he prayed, you saw people with hands
outstretched, crying. They were taken with
the moment. It was a testament to Obama's
inclusion of people of all views.
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Obama is Now President Even Though
and one long nightmare for those who
didn't, the overwhelming majority of
Americans are wishing the new guy the
best. Sure, as Mark pointed out earlier, a
few powerful GOP figures (such as Rush
Limbaugh) are openly declaring they do
not wish Obama well, so help them God,
even the lion's share of those disappointed
by the outcome of this election would like
to see the country rebound quickly, no
matter who is awarded the credit.
So, to my liberal friends (and those who
just feel like celebrating something), have
a good time today. Enjoy this moment.
There are, as Obama puts it, "tough days
ahead."
Daily Digital Newspaper
He Has Not Taken the Oath
Rick Warren Gets Tepid Response
Photos
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs|
Comments
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs|
Comments
Daily Digital Newspaper
Who Screwed Up the Oath,
Roberts or Obama?
By David Knowles (Political Machine
- Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis
- AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:51:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Inauguration
Let's just say that the big moment between
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
and President Barack Obama did not
exactly go according to plan.
First, Roberts seemed to hesitate in the
first part of the oath, prompting Obama to
start in with "I Barack Hussein Obama," as
Roberts continued on with the rest, causing
a verbal traffic jam.
Then, Roberts changed the wording of
the oath, misplacing the word "faithfully",
and obliged a bemused Obama to
incorrectly repeat after him. In short, those
35 words that should have gone without a
hitch, will forever go down in history as
Obama Obama Everywhere,
and Not a Drop to Drink
By Caleb Howe (Political Machine -
Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis -
AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:37:00 AM
Filed under: Democrats, Barack Obama
I'm here in DC for the inauguration, and
the word of the day is ... WAIT!! Wait for
the trains, wait to get into the mall, wait for
your coffee, wait to leave. I can't get a drop
to drink here in Starbucks without giving
up my precious seat. The lines out the door
tell me not to budge. And though the lines
are everywhere in this burg today, they are
not the feature of the day. Like in Denver,
everywhere you turn is Obama's visage. He
is, again, omnipresent; in a manner that
screams "cult of personality" and "hero
worship". Or perhaps just plain worship.
Windows 7 install roundup
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:01:00 AM
After resting up and settling into our post-
CES golden desk chairs, team Engadget
the way not to swear in a president.
Watch the cringe-worthy performance
that we'll be reliving for years to come:
Watch more AOL News videos on AOL
Video
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Obama is Now President Even Though
He Has Not Taken the Oath
Rick Warren Gets Tepid Response
Photos
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
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I was in Turkey last October and
Atatürk's face is everywhere, plastered on
all the buildings, in all of the buildings,
over the streets, everywhere. If this DC
crowd has anything to say about it that's
where we're headed ... and fast. I can't help
but think of this ...
A hopeful interpretation would, of
course, be merely that people are excited
and happy. A cynical interpretation might
be "put the food in the bunker. Next come
the thought police!" For me, I suppose I
fall somewhere on the center of that
continuum. It is clearly too much, but
perhaps not so unreasoning as to be
irreversible. We'll see.
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got busy at installing Windows 7 on pretty
much anything they could find. Most
installs went off without a hitch, and
BSoDs were fairly few and far between.
You can check out all our various first
Obama President Before Oath
Taken
By David Knowles (Political Machine
- Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis
- AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:02:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Inauguration
12:00 p.m. Barack Obama is now the
president of the United States, even though
he hasn't yet taken his oath of office. So
says the Constitution, anyway. History is
made, even if the proceedings are running
a tad behind schedule.
12:05 And now the oath has been
administered, albeit clumsily. Did they
rehearse that? Oh well, I'm sure nobody
will ever replay that moment on television
again.
Anyway, remember where you are and
what you're doing, because you'll need that
information when future generations ask
impressions after the break... the names
you.
And check out the first image on the
updated White House website.
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Obama is Now President Even Though
He Has Not Taken the Oath
Rick Warren Gets Tepid Response
Photos
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs|
Comments
aren't made up, but the stories are true.
Continue reading Windows 7 install
roundup
Windows 7 install roundup originally
appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009
Politics* Gadgets* 5
Midland, TX
Welcomes Bush
Back Home
By Dave (Political Machine - Politics
Blog, Opinion and Analysis - AOL
News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:03:00 AM
Filed under: President Bush KAUZ.com
Eight years ago, this West Texas city
hosted a send-off as then-President-elect
George W. Bush headed for the White
House. The community is now poised for a
welcome home celebration.
...
"The president said at the White House
Christmas party that he left from Midland
and was coming home to Midland because
we're the ones who are his friends and
great supporters and he wanted to be with
us when he left Washington," County
Republican Chairwoman Sue Brannon said
in Monday's online edition of the Midland
Reporter-Telegram. "It shows what a fine
gentleman he is."
Nice, Bush 43(Ret.) will be back among
friends. It's a nice way to complete the
circle and much better than doing an
unrecount in Florida. Obama should
remember if he wants a friend in
Washington, he should get a dog. Oh that's
right, Obama is working on it.
Does Bush have a future beyond mowing
the lawn of the new Dallas home? I
suppose he could if he wanted to. On the
McCain scale, he still has twenty years or
more to go. But first I foresee a long rest.
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11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use
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6 Politics* Tech*
Send Us Your Inauguration
Pictures!
By David Knowles (Political Machine
- Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis
- AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:27:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Breaking
News, Inauguration
You're freezing your butts off out there
on the Washington Mall, why not get a
little bit of recognition? E-mail us your
inauguration photos and we'll post them in
this thread. Send the photos to the
following address:
inaugpix@gmail.com
Check back for updates throughout the
day. And stay warm!
More pictures from some folks in Cabo
Pulmo, Mexico(?). The subject line said
Sprint Wants Its Government Handout, Too
By Carlo Longino (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:22:00 PM
Sprint has sent a letter to the incoming
Obama administration making a pitch for
a$2 billion emergency communications
network(via Phone Scoop) for first
that they are watching from "6 Miles off
the Grid"
From a New Yorker with a vantage
overlooking the parade route:
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
And from a DC party about to begin:
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responders. Sprint's plan calls for satellite-
equipped trucks (that sound like mobile
base stations on wheels) and up to 100,000
handsets and other gear to be stockpiled
around the country so that it could be
delivered anywhere in the US within four
hours. Sprint wants the plan included in the
Obama Inauguration Likely To Be
Most Watched Event in Television
History
By David Knowles (Political Machine
- Politics Blog, Opinion and Analysis
- AOL News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:20:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Breaking
News, Media According to Pew Research,
67% of Americans say they will watch
today's inauguration of Barack Obama. If
so, that would put the number of viewers at
202 million, almost double the amount of
people who watched the final episode of
M.A.S.H.
We'll have to wait for Nielsen's final
numbers, but it's clear that Obama's
economic stimulus plan working its way
through Congress -- and it's just
coincidence, of course, that Sprint would
be a huge beneficiary of such legislation,
and $2 billion would give its struggling
business a big boost. Without a doubt,
public-safety communications are in need
inauguration, in addition to drawing the
largest live crowd to Washington DC, will
set a new record for a television audience.
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
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of a serious overhaul, and this is an area
that the FCC and other parties have been
looking at for some time. It's a complex
situation -- one that deserves a more
thorough investigation and solution, rather
than a piece of government pork.
Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight
Daily Digital Newspaper
Inauguration Photos
From The Ground
By Tommy Christopher and Caleb
Howe (Political Machine - Politics
Blog, Opinion and Analysis - AOL
News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:36:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Inauguration
Pardon my future hat head.
From hell's Heart I stab at thee
more photos ...
No animals!?! Damn. I gotta dump all of
my chinchillas.
Follow all our inauguration coverage on
Watch Live Video of the Event
Will the Inauguration be the Most
Watched Event in TV History?
Voices Raised in Opposition
Send Us Your Pictures
Cheney to Attend Inauguration in
Wheelchair
Liberals, Start Your Gloating
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Community. To get insight and analysis
from Carlo Longino and other experts on
challenges your company faces, click here.
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Daily Digital Newspaper
An Outsider Gets A Peek Behind The Scenes Of The Music Industry's
Mindset: Optimism Into Denial
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:50:00 AM
I'm writing this on the way back from
MidemNet, where I had the chance to
present a case study on why Trent Reznor's
various experiments with business models
represents the future of music. I know
many people (both at the show and among
the readership here) have asked to see a
copy of the presentation, and the folks at
Midem are working to get a full video of
the presentation online -- hopefully
sometime next week. I'll talk more about
my presentation at that time, but it seemed
to go over surprisingly well, with many of
the later presentations making references
back to it as a great example of optimism.
That's the good news.
But, of course, we're talking about the
recording industry, which has an amazing
ability to turn optimism into denial. My
presentation wasn't the only bit of "good
news" either. The Midem organizers did an
amazing job bringing in numerous positive
examples of musicians and record labels
who hadn't learned to just adapt, but thrive
in this changed world. It was like a who's
who of folks that we discuss here on a
regular basis.
The Outsiders And The Innovators:
Jill Sobule talked about her experiment
with getting folks to pay various "levels"
to pre-finance her latest album. She said
she expected only her mom to donate
originally, but instead she raised nearly
$90,000 in less than two months -- even
more than her original goal. She was
especially shocked that someone paid the
highest level ("weapons grade plutonium")
which she had intended as a joke. But the
woman who coughed up that $10,000 got
to sing on one of the songs on the album --
though, Jill noted that they had to use
Autotune to make her sound good.
Mark Kelly from Marillion spoke about
the business model experiments they've
been doing as well. As noted in the past,
they've been doing this for years and years.
Back in 1993, some fans of the band
suggested opening up a bank account and
donating to a pool in order to allow the
band to do an American tour (in that case,
those who donated didn't get anything
special -- they still had to buy separate
tickets to shows). From there, the band
kept experimenting, using their mailing list
to fund new albums, rather than go with a
record label. On the latest album, they
decided to go with the free music model--
giving it away entirely, and offering
various levels as well (including, like
Sobule, getting someone to play on the
album as well), and the end result was a
huge jump in mailing list names, from
which the band expects to derive future
revenue.
JY Park, an entertainment mogul from
Korea, gave a series of examples of
massive success stories he's built in the
Asian market, by forgetting about trying to
charge for the music, but creating full
entertainment brands, where music is just a
part of it. He actually has a series of
"academies" around the world where he's
training the next international superstars --
making sure they know at least two
languages, and then getting them involved
in a multimedia smorgasbord, from music
to TV shows to live concerts to
sponsorships and many other things. It's
already proving to be a huge success with
artists like Rain and Wonder Girls, and
there are more opportunities from there.
Terry McBride talked about the various
experiments he's been running as well with
the Nettwerk Label, to take artists and
figure out new ways for them to connect
with fans in a manner that helps them build
an all encompassing business model that
brings in plenty of money.
Martin Thornkvist, who runs an indie
record label in Sweden called Songs I
Wish I Had Written, and who's built up a
coalition of indie labels in Sweden who
embrace the internet, called The Swedish
Model, talked about all of the possibilities
the internet has created -- and why things
like The Pirate Bay can be good for music
and open up new opportunities. Last year
we wrote about how Moto Boy, one of the
artist's on Thornkvist's label, was
assembling a virtual concert from fan
footage. Another cool new thing he's doing
with Moto Boy is that he created a little
mechanical music box that plays one of
Moto Boy's songs. You can place it on any
surface and wind it and it plays the song.
Moto Boy's music is available for free --
but the music box is a cool souvenir that
Moto Boy's true fans are more than willing
to pay for.
Nancy Baym showed just how much
value there was in the fan community, and
the fan's relationship with musical acts --
and how musicians that had learned to
embrace their fans were doing amazingly
well. For example, the most talked about
bands on Usenet weren't necessarily the
biggest album sellers -- but they did
represent a who's who of the top concert
earners. There's a reason for that.
There was a session on how the Chinese
music model had evolved. Almost no one
buys music there, but it's still a huge
money maker for musicians. JY Park had
mentioned this in his presentation -- his
musicians make a ton of money from
brand sponsorships in China -- but there
were numerous other examples of
musicians in China making plenty of
money through mobile subscription
services. For example, some musicians get
fans to sign up for special subscriptions
that represent the only way for them to
potentially get tickets to see those acts
perform live.
To be honest, it was great to see all of
these examples of openness and business
models that work on display at the event.
The Midem folks certainly weren't shy
about bringing in "outsiders" to highlight
these things.
The Insiders And Denial:
But, then along came the insiders. There
was an intensely frustrating two-part
"debate" over how ISPs and the recording
industry needed to work together. And,
even as they referenced the various
presentations and examples that we all
made showing that things aren't nearly as
grim as they make it out to be, they
immediately jumped back to the "problem"
of piracy. There were so many examples of
artists showing that there were business
models that were working today -- often
earning musicians more than they ever
made before without worrying about
piracy, and record company insiders would
say "that's a great example to follow..." and
then immediately afterwards would say
"but we must stop piracy."
Actually, I should clarify that. They
seemed to have learned at least some of the
lingo of "embracing" file sharing -- but
they would say entirely contradictory
things right afterwards. It was as if they'd
learned a few buzzwords, but not bothered
to understand what they meant. Over and
over again we heard music industry
insiders say that they had made a mistake
attacking fans, and that they had to learn to
embrace piracy... but then, they'd
immediately make a statement about how
they needed the gov't or ISPs to take
responsibility to squeeze excess cash out of
file sharers to make up for their "losses."
It's as if they weren't even listening to
what they, themselves, were saying, let
alone what others were saying. Here we all
were, showing how musicians were
making good money (often more than they
made in the past) by adopting new models,
and all the insiders could talk about was
how much money they were losing on
piracy. The most striking may have been
Kenth Muldin from Sweden's STIM, the
Swedish performing rights society, who
literally said: "Nothing will drive P2P file
sharing from the earth. Nothing. And that's
why we need to have legal sanctions
against it." If nothing will drive it from the
earth, why not embrace it, rather than
attack it?
Even worse, that whole session was
kicked off by Keith Harris, of a think tank
called "Music Tank," and he set the tone
for the entire "debate" by noting that all of
the important stakeholders were present --
except, of course, the consumers "because
they can't afford to be here." To that,
everyone laughed -- but it was quite
telling. The industry still doesn't believe
that the actual consumers really should be
a part of the conversation. The idea that
they would be there for this debate seemed
laughable.
Feargal Sharkey, former punk rocker and
now in charge of a group called UK Music
that basically represents all of the different
players in the UK recording industry, was
equally as contradictory. He started out by
saying that the industry had made a ton of
mistakes and set up adversarial relations
that needed to change. But it didn't seem
that he meant the adversarial relationship
Tech* 7
with fans -- but with ISPs. He said that it
was time to get past the emotional
arguments, and focus on reasoned
arguments. And, immediately following
that, he launched into an impassioned
emotional argument about how "the music
is all that matters" and he was sick and
tired of bogus outsiders with their "utopian
visions" and who spout "wild rhetoric and
innuendo," but now was the time to work
out commercial agreements whereby the
ISPs would finally take responsibility for
file sharing and start licensing. In fact, he
suggested that, in the UK, at least, such
agreements are months, if not weeks away.
Then there was Peter Jenner, manager of
various music stars like Billy Bragg, who
is nothing if not outspoken. He started out
making a decent point that the recording
industry was dysfunctional and had a long
record of making things more complicated,
not easier, but then he went on a rant about
how "as long as there are free riders,
there's a problem" and demanded that the
gov't needed to step in and set up blanket
licensing, requiring ISPs to pay up.
Apparently, he's absolutely blind to the
fact that you can turn free riders into a
benefit. It's that old (incorrect) mentality
that every freely shared copy is a lost sale,
rather than an opportunity.
In fact, he made the incredibly laughable
claim that if the gov't doesn't step in soon,
"we will see the collapse of the entire
entertainment industry." That seemed odd
considering all of the examples in other
sessions of musicians and record labels
doing quite well despite the lack of gov't
intervention. Perhaps he was too busy
screaming for gov't help to bother to attend
those other sessions.
As a representative from the Isle of Man
gov't said: "The problem is that this
industry is so focused on how much it's
going to lose, it never looks at the
opportunities of how much money there is
to be made."
Perhaps the most amusing was Howie
Singer, from Warner Music. He piped up
from the audience about how their main
focus was on compensating the artist. You
certainly could have fooled some of the
OUTSIDER page 9
8 Tech*
Ashton Kutcher’s 24HoursAtSundance
“Conflicted And Dangerous”
By Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:32:01 PM
Actor Ashton Kutcher and Internet
celebrity and Digg founder Kevin Rose
held a 24 hour event last weekend at the
Sundance Film Festival called
24HoursAtSundance.
Some observers are saying the event,
which was sponsored by Qik, HP, Nokia
and Nikon, was full of cheating, conflicts
of interest and tasks that put participants in
undue danger. Which frankly makes the
event sound like a whole lot of fun. Except
that very little of the video was ever
uploaded to the Internet because of
connectivity issues with the Nokia/Qik
phones participants were given to record
their exploits.
Four teams were invited to participate in
an “online game show” where they would
complete a series of tasks, some of which
were humiliating, for points in the
competition. The LA Times, CNET, AFP
and other media picked up the story when
it was heavily pushed by Ashton’s
company, Katalyst Media.
Tasks included getting celebrities to say
ridiculous things like “how many other
celebrities have you slept with?” or “what
is the worst thing you’ve asked your
assistant to do.” Another task was to find a
bar and get the bouncer to show his ID, or
taking a Lat/Long point, traveling to it and
writing something in chalk.
Participants were given a HP netbook, a
Breathalizer Source Code Ruling Upheld
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:10:02 AM
A few years back, in a high profile series
of lawsuits, a lawyer representing some
folks accused of drunk driving asked the
manufacturer of a breathalyzer testing
machine for access to the product's source
code, so experts could review it to make
sure it functioned properly. The company
refused, citing trade secrets. However, a
judge noted that this went against the
nokia phone with Qik installed, a bottle of
glue, a Nikon camera, a flashlight and $20.
They were not allowed to bring their own
devices or any cash or credit cards, and all
tasks had to be completed with the
materials given to them at the start of the
event.
And the winning team, which was
VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall and a news
correspondent named Shira Lazar,
smuggled in their own computer, says
some people at the event. The HP netbook
given to participants couldn’t get internet
access, leaving the Matt/Shira team with
an advantage when they had to research
tasks or look up addresses.
defendants' rights to a fair trial, and said
that the breathalyzer evidence had to be
thrown out. Slashdot points us to the news
that an appeals court has upheld the ruling
noting that due process outweighs the
company's trade secrets. While I have no
problem with prosecuting drunk drivers, I
do agree that the evidence should be solid -
- and not allowing the source code to be
examined is a problem.
This is, in many ways, similar to the
issue with e-voting machines. Considering
That’s a fairly trivial issue for a small
event like this one, but one that shouldn’t
have been overlooked. Worse, say people
at the event, Shira Lazar boasted all during
the event that she was dating one of the
organizers, a clear conflict of interest that
became more egregious when she won the
event.
The most pressing issue people are
bringing up, though, is personal safety.
Participants had to travel all over town
during the event to complete tasks, and
they had no vehicle or money for taxis.
That led them to hitch rides with strangers
in the middle of the night, many of whom
were “excessively drunk frat boy types”
cruising the festival. Participants also
weren’t given anywhere to sleep, so they
were finding hotel lobbies and other public
places to pass out when they were
exhausted.
To Kutcher’s credit, he said the event
was a learning experience for his team and
that they would likely make changes next
year. Our advice - kill the event. Or if you
must do it again, give participants a rental
car or more money for taxis so they don’t
have to hitch rides from drunk strangers at
3 am, and enforce the rules a little better.
And if you must put participants in
situations that may leave them hurt or
abused, at least get the connectivity issue
solved so that everyone can watch.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free
database of technology companies, people,
and investors
the gov't is making important decisions
based on these machines, it seems only
reasonable that the source code should be
at least reviewable to investigate the
quality of the machines. Though, it strikes
me as odd that we're even more stringent
with Breathalyzers than with e-voting
machines. Where's the similar ruling about
e-voting machines and the availability of
their source code?
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Hold Your Own Photo-
Design Contests With
Aviary’s W1K
By Jason Kincaid (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:54:18 AM
Whether you realize it or not, you’ve
probably come across the handiwork of
Worth1000, a site that invites readers to
use their image-editing skills to do
everything from crafting new logos, to
creating vintage ads for modern products
or adding monsters to otherwise tame
photos. The site has run over 200,000
contests since its inception in 2002, and
now has galleries teeming with hundreds
of thousands of user-created images.
Now Aviary, the company behind
Worth1000, is looking to give site owners
a chance to run their own image-design
competitions. The company has built a
powerful suite of browser-based imaged
editing tools, and is now launching a new
site called w1k.com that helps users easily
create their own online photo-editing
contests. These contests can consist of
anything from crowdsourced logo-design
competitions to humorous celebrity-
morphs (and everything in between), and
could appeal to a broad range of
publishers.
Users will be able to submit their entries
either using Aviary’s online photo-editing
software (which should be suitable for
most people), or they can upload images
from their desktop if they’d rather use
software like Photoshop or Gimp. Users
will be able to stir up interest in their
submissions by sharing links through
Email, Twitter, Facebook and other
services, though contest administrators will
be able to restrict these options. The
Aviary team is also implementing the anti-
cheating system it has developed for
Worth1000, so the contests should be more
accurate than a homegrown image-upload
Daily Digital Newspaper
and voting system.
Aviary is offering a basic template for
free that will be more than enough for most
users. To generate revenue, it will also
offer a premium option that allows website
publishers to create customized templates
and also includes a robust interface for stat
-tracking and demographic information.
For an example of how customizable these
contest sites are, check out this fake
contest, which shows off a TechCrunch-
themed design along with some interesting
ideas for alternate Crunchies statue designs
(we like the real guy just fine, though).
Other examples include a competition
sponsored by EA for MirrorsEdge and this
Dark Theme, which will be available to
free users.
Aviary’s w1k.com contest creator seems
poised to do well. Companies like EA
benefit from the contests because they help
generate user-interest while simultaneously
getting what amounts to free image design,
while smaller sites can use the
competitions to increase engagement. The
basic technology behind running one of
these competitions may not be too difficult
to reproduce, but Aviary also has its
browser-based image editor, which makes
the contests accessible to a much broader
audience.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over
the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Daily Digital Newspaper
Watching The Inauguration With All My Facebook Friends
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:06:37 AM
There are plenty of places to watch the
inauguration today online (see our guide).
I’ve been clicking around, and many of the
streams are jittery, as you would expect,
but I find myself coming back to CNN’s
live stream. The video keeps skipping on
me, but at least the audio is consistent.
Maybe that’s because CNN.com is serving
a record number of live video streams
(13.9 million live streams between 6 AM
and 11:45 AM ET, versus 5.3 million on
Election Day, the previous record. See
update below). The big draw, however, is
that CNN partnered with Facebook, and I
can watch the proceedings along with
comments from all my Facebook friends in
the sidebar.
My friend Dimitry Leger noted that
“Obama looks like a heavyweight boxer
OUTSIDER
continued from page 7
artists on Warner Music who have noticed
that WMG has done plenty to make it more
difficult for them to get compensation.
In that discussion, about the only
reasonable voice was Gerd Leonhard, who
pointed out that a better solution was
setting up a truly voluntary (not
mandatory) licensing offer that could be
paid in a variety of ways: it could be
individuals. It could be ISPs. Or, most
interesting, it could be brands. What if
Pepsi paid to cover all your music file
sharing if you bought a certain amount of
Pepsi drinks? I still don't think any such
license is really necessary given these
other business models, but he was one of
the few in the debate actually noting that
you can't do a top down solution that tries
to "control" users.
Surprisingly, Geoff Taylor from BPI was
much more reasonable than I expected.
While he definitely wants ISPs to "take
The White House Gets a Blog [Inauguration]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:30:00 AM
President Barack Obama's campaign
embraced technology on the campaign trail
like none before, so it's no surprise that the
waiting to enter the ring for the big fight.”
When Bush appeared Kevin Werbach, who
is on the Obama transition team,
commented, “crowd is singing the nanana
goodbye song now.” (Scott Beale also
noticed this). Loic Le Meur doesn’t like all
the praying. Kevin Rose “is hoping this
stream starts working…”
Watching events like these with people
you know is always better than watching
alone, but since most of us are at work
today, Facebook serves as a proxy for a
virtual living room that can hold hundreds
of people. I find these comments much
more interesting than random Twitters
from people I don’t know. So I am going
to stick with Facebook and CNN for the
rest of the inauguration ceremony. (Uh-oh
the stream just went completely kaput for
me—at least I can still read everyone’s
commentary. I’m switching to Hulu for the
live video).
responsibility" he avoided some of the
more ridiculous suggestions made by the
industry in the past. In fact, when someone
in the audience claimed that ISPs had to
give up liability "safe harbors" Taylor
pointed out that wouldn't be productive at
all, and such safe harbors were at the core
of how ISPs worked -- and even raising it
would set the discussions back
tremendously.. He's right, but it's
surprising to hear that from a recording
industry guy.
Basically, though, the industry insiders
are still so focused on "the piracy problem"
that they're blind to the idea that it might
not actually be a problem -- as was shown
time and time and time and time again
during the other sessions. All these guys
were doing was focusing on "free riders"
or finding others like ISPs and the gov't to
"blame" for not stepping in to fix the
"problem" rather than looking at all of the
new face of the White House on the web
comes complete with a brand new White
Update: During Obama’s speech, the
comment stream was filled with
everyone’s favorite quotes in real-time.
(His flubbing the oath was also noticed).
After the speech, some typical reactions
from Netvibes founder Tariq Krim:
amazing opportunities that musicians and
indie record labels are already embracing
to tremendous success.
So, for all of the optimism presented
throughout the event, it was somewhat
disappointing and frustrating to see the old
guard still totally focused on the wrong
issue. The overall event was fantastic
though -- to see the various players mixing
it up in a discussion like this, rather than it
just being a pure echo chamber. It was just
frustrating to see so much of the focus
from the existing players apparently
missing out on all of the amazing success
stories and opportunities laid out in front
of them.
Hopefully, though, with this dialog
started, over the next few years, these ideas
will start to permeate more deeply.
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House blog. If you want to keep up with
the latest from the Oval Office blog, just
drop the WhiteHouse.gov blog feed into
your newsreader. [ via]
“greatness is never given, it is earned;” and
from ex-Googler Chris Sacca describing
the moment as experienced in D.C., “Yes!
Everyone is crying and hugging.
Everyone.”
Update 2: As of 10:15 AM PST/1:15
Can You Spell “Barack
Obama”?
By Robin Wauters (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:03:33 AM
Many Americans and others are still
unable to spell Barack Obama’s first name
correctly. At least that is the conclusion of
the folks at GooseGrade, a service that
allows readers to post corrections for
grammar, spelling and factual errors on
blogs and other online media outlets using
a free widget.
GooseGrade did some quick and dirty
research and found at least 60 million
pages on the Internet with Obama’s first
name misspelled. “Barak” is the most
common misspelling, followed in close
second by “Barrak”, and finally “Barrack”.
It’s one “r”, a “c” and a “k,” for those still
having trouble. The startup even counted
web sites intentionally placing misspelled
‘meta-tags’ or keywords into the site code
of their pages to pick up traffic from
misspelled searches.
Tech* Tech Tips* 9
EST today, Facebook reports:
-600,000 status updates have been posted
so far through the CNN.com Live
Facebook feed
-There were an average of 4,000 status
updates every minute during the broadcast
-There were 8,500 status updates the
minute Obama began his speech
-Obama’s page on Facebook has more
than 4 million fans and more than 500,000
wall posts
-Millions of people logged into Facebook
during the broadcast
And CNN served more than 18.8 million
live streams between 6 AM and 1 PM
EST, with a peak of 1.3 million streams
just before Obama began his speech.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile
Gadgets and Applications, Delivered
Daily.
In case you were wondering, I can find
about 101 million pages on Google with
the correct name (results may vary
depending on your location).
GooseGrade points out that thousands of
bloggers and other online authors will miss
out on incoming search traffic by
misspelling Obama’s name, although they
fail to note the fact many will probably
also search for the wrong terms and that
search engines already take the
misspellings into account when serving up
results.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile
Gadgets and Applications, Delivered
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10 Tech*
Respected Dutch Researchers MusicShake Gets Jiggy With
Note That Piracy Has A Positive Revamped Website (And We
Impact On The Economy Have Some Free Music For You)
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 6:36:00 AM
Stanley de Vries wrote in to let us know
that TNO, a respected Dutch research firm
has come out with a large, 142-page, report
about piracy, commissioned by the
government, where it noted that piracy
appeared to be net beneficial for the
economy -- as opposed to some other
studies you may have heard about from the
entertainment industry. You can download
the full report as a PDF, but it's in Dutch.
Some translated news stories cover the
high points. The report notes that there's
little evidence that downloading is the
cause of CD sales falling -- noting
indications that downloaders actually buy
more music on average, and that a much
more likely reason for CD sales declining
was that people had finished "re-buying"
all the CDs they had owned on cassette
before that format was killed off. Stanley
was also kind enough to translate a few
excerpts from the first 5 pages (meaning
there's still plenty more to go
through):"The economic effects of file
sharing short- and long term are strongly
positive" [Interesting approach here: They
give the well-being of people also
economic value...]
Whitehouse.gov Has A New Face, And a Blog
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:44:22 AM
As President Barack Obama was giving
his inauguration speech, another transfer of
power was happening online. At exactly 12
PM ET, Whitehouse.gov, the official
Website of the President switched over to a
new design. There are links to Obama’s
Agenda and a Briefing Room where
"With regards to the music business we
can say that downloaded recordings are not
necessarily a lost sale"
"Lot's of people download for free to
learn about new music and eventually buy
when they like it"
"The calculations of the industry [about
the losses caused by illegal downloads] are
not necessarily correct because they are
based on a lot of assumptions and contain a
lot of uncertainties because underlying
data is not known with any accuracy"
(So far we were still only on page 3)
"Downloading goes hand in hand with
buying"
"Among downloaders of music and
movies, the percentage of buyers is as high
as among non-downloaders and with
games the percentage of buyers is even
higher"
"People that download music visit
concerts more often and buy more
merchandise"
"The practice of file sharing implicates
that the producers [their definition is a bit
vague here] need to change their business
model"
"That is why innovation of the business
model is now of the utmost urgency"
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
citizens will be able to find Obama’s
weekly Web video address, appointments
and nominations, executive orders, and
slideshows.
And, of course, there is a blog(without
comments, though—understandable given
all the trolls and spammers, but it seems
like some kind of tiered community
moderation could work here). The first
blog post, written by the White House
By Robin Wauters (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:33:01 AM
MusicShake, an LA-based startup that
offers a music and sound effect mixing
service for amateurs that goes by the same
name, has completely redesigned its
website and added a couple of features to
make the service more social and fun to
use on a regular basis.
MusicShake offers a free desktop
application (unfortunately, Windows only
for now) that lets users create personalized,
professional sounding music using a
variety of modules and pattern-
combination methods, which is quite
addictive once you get the hang of it (takes
about 10 minutes and there are templates
to help get you started). You can convert
music you make to mp3 and download
them to your computer, or convert them
into a personalized ringtone. You can also
show off music you create to your friends
and place it in charts to promote your work
to others.
So far, there have been close to 50,000
music tracks created with the service,
which can individually be purchased in the
MusicShake store; revenues are split 50/50
with the creator. There’s also a
subscription option that gives you a month
of unlimited MP3 downloads and ringtones
in exchange for 1,499 in “Shake Cash” (or
$14.99).
TechCrunch readers are in for a treat
today: the first 1,000 readers to sign up for
director of New Media, Macon Phillips is
titled: “ Change has come to
the service using the promotion code “
PROMOTC” get access to 3 free mp3
downloads (worth $3.00 each).
The new website comes with a
redesigned UI and color scheme, and also
adds a social layer on top of the online part
of MusicShake: direct communication
between members, a dedicated page that
gives an overview of users’ profiles,
forums, a way for registered users to build
and share their own playlists etc. Music
tracks created through MusicShake can
also easily be shared via Facebook, Imeem,
YouTube, and other communication
channels.
The service was launched in September
2007 at the TechCrunch40 conference- see
video below - when the company was still
based in South Korea. MusicShake has
raised$3.5 million in two funding rounds.
CrunchBase Information Musicshake
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over
the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Whitehouse.gov.” The theme of the post is
transparency:
One significant addition to
WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign
promise from the President: we will
publish all non-emergency legislation to
the website for five days, and allow the
public to review and comment before the
President signs it.
Hopefully, the administration will
Daily Digital Newspaper
More Silly Restrictions
Will Limit Team Obama's
Ability To Communicate
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:08:00 AM
While there are some indications that
newly inaugurated President Obama is
going to be able to keep his Blackberry (or
some other device) to communicate with
the outside world, similar "restrictions" are
being used to curtail his staff's ability to
communicate. Specifically, staffers have
been told they have to give up instant
messaging. The reasoning, once again,
comes down to the lawyers, and that
records need to be kept of all written
communications in the White House,
according to the Presidential Records Act.
However, it's seriously (and reasonably)
pissing off Obama staffers who have come
to rely on IM as a very efficient way to
communicate and get stuff done.
It's really sad when efficiency is getting
stifled by lawyers, though it happens all
too often. Why not just make it clear to
staffers to consider the fact that everything
they instant message may be seen on CNN
the next day, and tell them it's their
responsibility to use the tools effectively?
This is the federal gov't we're talking
about. Why are they being treated like
grade school kids? The purpose of the
Presidential Records Act is to increase
transparency in government. But, like so
many unintended consequences of
regulations, it's doing the opposite. It's
driving people to use less efficient and less
useful tools of communication to decrease
transparency.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
continue some of the experiments with
citizen participation which it tried on
Change.gov, its transition Website.
Whitehouse.gov certainly has the same
look and feel.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because
it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Daily Digital Newspaper
Newspapers Again Thinking IP Litigation Falls In The
About Micropayments US... But Someone Is
Confused As To Why
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 8:38:00 PM
There's been a lot of hand-wringing in the
paper journalism world lately about
business models, so it's no surprise that
bad ideas for business models are
springing up again. Specifically, some are
beginning to wonder if micropayments
could work. As Clay Shirky notes in the
article, any time people bring up
micropayments as a solution, it's a hail
mary pass -- a last ditch effort by someone
who has no other ideas. Now, every time
we bring up micropayments, we get some
pushback, but no micropayment system
has ever been shown to consistently work
on a large scale -- especially when it comes
to news. People will. undoubtedly point to
iTunes or even the iPhone app store as
Don't Tell American Idol
You Can't Make Money
From Free Content
By Carlo Longino (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:08:14 PM
As Mike recently pointed out, he gets a
little annoyed when people say"free is not
a business model." As he points out, free is
really just part of the business model, and
the challenge is in using free as part of the
business model, and he's compiled
example after example after example of
people doing exactly this. Now add
American Idol to this list. Building on its
free content -- the TV show -- its producers
have teamed up with the company that
makes the popular teen virtual world
Habbo to create an Idol-themed one.
Habbo has built a solid business upon its
virtual world by selling virtual goods to
teenagers. The new American Idol world
micropayment examples to the contrary,
but both of those pale when compared to
free music and free apps in terms of
volume -- and considering the business
models we've seen adopted that don't rely
on those sorts of payment structures it's
difficult to believe that such systems will
really be dominant over the long haul.
They work in the short term, mainly due to
the convenience factor -- but they're a stop
gap -- not a true strategy to deal with
digital economics. Micropayments add in
an element of unnecessary friction -- which
represents an economic inefficiency. They
may work for some time, but eventually
someone comes up with better business
models that get rid of that inefficiency.
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will be tied to the show and feature new
activities and virtual goods as the show
progresses, and will also feature tie-ins
from Idol's sponsors. The main content is
given away for free, and used to
successfully generate further advertising
revenues and create interest in secondary,
paid products -- like this virtual world, but
also the popular American Idol concert
tours and other offerings. So why doesn't
anybody blast American Idol's producers
for giving their content away for free?
Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight
Community. To get insight and analysis
from Carlo Longino and other experts on
challenges your company faces, click here.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:22:00 AM
There's a new report out that highlights
that there were fewer IP related lawsuits in
the US in 2008 than in 2007. The drop was
about 10%: from 10,276 to 9,210.
However, the reasoning given in the report
for the decline is difficult to square with
reality. It claims that: "The trend reflects
the success of the recording industry in
protecting its copyrights, leading the
industry to bring fewer lawsuits in the past
few years." That isn't even close to
accurate. The RIAA has had very little
success protecting its copyrights. The legal
strategy has been a colossal failure,
without a single legal win that held up, and
file sharing has only grown over time.
Google Bails On Print Ads (And
Newspapers)
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:34:21 PM
Google’s dreams of world domination
may be dwindling (at least its dreams of
ruling the advertising world). Today, it
announced that it will no longer be selling
print ads in newspapers. (Yes, Google sold
contextual ads that appeared in 800 papers.
It also sells radio and TV ads). In a blog
post, Spencer Spinnell, Director of Google
Print Ads, writes:
While we hoped that Print Ads would
create a new revenue stream for
newspapers and produce more relevant
advertising for consumers, the product has
not created the impact that we — or our
partners — wanted. As a result, we will
stop offering Print Ads on February 28.
For advertisers who have campaigns
already booked, we will place their ads
through March 31.
We launched our Print Ads program with
Hell, the RIAA has admitted failure in
their lawsuit strategy, hence the decision to
cut back on them (not end them,
completely, as was originally claimed). So,
it's difficult to see how anyone could
conclude that the program was a success,
and resulted in fewer lawsuits. And, of
course, the aggregate numbers may not be
all that telling, either. In the past, patent
system defenders have noted a drop in
cases filed recently, but they fail to note
that it was because more patent litigation
these days is filed against a long list of
companies, rather than just one or two. So,
in actuality, more companies are getting
sued for patent infringement, even if there
are fewer overall lawsuits.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
50 newspaper partners in November 2006
and, with the cooperation of our partners,
were able to expand the network to include
more than 800 U.S. newspapers.
Man, newspapers can’t get a break. Even
Google won’t subsidize them.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile
Gadgets and Applications, Delivered
Daily.
Tech* International* 11
Teens Face Child Porn
Charges... For Taking Nude
Photos Of Themselves
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:12:44 AM
There was just that report noting that 20%
of teens admitted to sending around
sexually explicit photos of themselves --
and now, six high school students in
Pennsylvania are facing child porn charges
because the three girls took naked photos
of themselves and sent them to some boys
(thanks to everyone who sent this in). The
girls are charged with manufacturing,
disseminating or possessing child
pornography, while the boys who received
the photos are charged with possession.
Now, it's pretty clear that the girls did
something dumb here -- but teens do an
awful lot of dumb things. It's part of
growing up. Getting charged with child
porn for taking photos of yourself and then
being labeled a sex offender for the rest of
your life seems... a bit extreme. This is
why we've pointed out that laws, like the
one in Georgia, that require sex offenders
to hand over not just their emails, but
passwords to all their accounts, are so
ridiculous. If someone is actually found to
be dealing in child porn, that's one thing --
but casting such a wide net is clearly
overkill.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
Sudoku 1,152 medium
(From the Guardian: G2 |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Fill the grid so that every row, every
column and every 3x3 box contains the
numbers 1 to 9.
For a helping hand call our solutions line
on 09068 338 228.
Calls cost 60p per minute at all times.
Service supplied by ATS.
Buy the Guardian tomorrow or subscribe
to our Digital Edition to see the completed
puzzle. guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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12 Tech* Gadgets*
Record Labels Make The Case
That Irish ISP Is Guilty Of
Copyright Infringement
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:00:00 AM
A few different readers sent in the latest
on the lawsuit that the major record labels
have filed against Irish ISP Eircom. While
the adversarial relationship between ISPs
and the recording industry has been
discussed for years, this is the first case in
which the labels are directly suing an ISP
for copyright infringement. Their
argument, similar to the "inducement" rule
that the US courts made up (it's not
actually in any US law) is that Eircom was
actively encouraging piracy. In the case,
they used internal emails from Eircom
Flickr Solves Pesky Issue Of Users
Leaving Site When They Click Ads
By Michael Arrington (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:54:56 PM
Yahoo needs all the revenue help it can
get these days, which is why it’s odd that
subsidiary Flickr hasn’t been serving ads
properly for a day or so and apparently no
one at the company has noticed. A reader
writes in to point out that if you click on
any of the ads that appear on the site when
you do a search (try this one for Apple),
the user sees the linked page in an iframe
instead of being taken to the advertisers
site.
That’s handy, because the advertiser is
charged but the user never leaves the
Flickr site (something only Facebook
Sony ushers in change, hope with upcoming PS3 2.60 firmware update
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:15:00 PM
Sony just dropped some details on its
upcoming 2.60 firmware update for the
PS3. The big thrust of the update is a new
Photo Gallery app, which can sort by
various EXIF data, but also the actual
content of the image itself, including
execs where some execs jokingly talked
about how piracy was good for musicians
because it would reduce money for rock
stars to spend on cocaine. Apparently,
obviously joking comments are being used
to establish intent these days. Either way,
this seems like a weak case for the record
labels. Plenty of people encourage piracy.
It's not going to go away if all those people
shut up. The industry needs to stop
freaking out over the fact that piracy
happens, and start focusing on actual
solutions in the market.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
seems able to pull off). My guess is this is
fixed by morning.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because
it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
colors used, number of people in the photo,
how old they are, and facial expressions
they used when you pulled out your
powdered-blue Kodak to take a few
historical snapshots. Naturally you can
build slideshows with music and the like.
Sony's also adding with this update guest
access to the PlayStation Store and DivX
3.11 support. If that's not enough magic to
Track Money For Groups with
Scred’s MiniCorps - Invite codes
By Mike Butcher (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:09:01 AM
Scred, a Finnish startup that lets friends
track and manage their shared expenses
and debts, has come up with a new twist to
its app which may also help out young
startups. With its MiniCorps app (as in
‘mini-corporation’) you can track the
income and expenses for a whole group,
work out if you are making a profit or loss,
and know how much revenue you’ve
made. Via a lightweight storefront
MiniCorps can also receive money and sell
items online, with all of it tracked by Scred
without anyone having to touch an Excel
document. All the cash is handled via
MySpace CEO and Paris Hilton Caught
Canoodling At Sundance
By Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:55:05 AM
The New York Post buried the lead in
today’s Page 6 column about Paris Hilton’s
adventures at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Post spends five paragraphs babbling
about Hilton’s BFF status before
mentioning this sighting:
. . . while Paris hung out with MySpace
CEO Chris DeWolfe at the MySpace Cafe.
They were later seen sucking face at a
party.
Glad to hear the Hollywood couple is
still together.(The picture here is from a
TV clip from last summer when the two
get you riled up, Sony's also pushing out a
Paypal, which seems limiting for now but
at least it makes it pretty accessible.
Suddenly amateur rock bands everywhere
can rejoice. The question is whether
Scred’s apps will get any traction against
US competitors BillMonk, Buxfer, and
Obopay.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free
database of technology companies, people,
and investors
started dating).
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free
database of technology companies, people,
and investors
PSP update, firmware 5.03 that addresses
"security vulnerabilities" ( we wonder what
that could be?) and some stability issues.
There's a video walkthrough of the PS3
update after the break.
Read- PS3 v2.60
Read- PSP v5.03
Continue reading Sony ushers in change,
hope with upcoming PS3 2.60 firmware
Daily Digital Newspaper
Phoenix Technologies
HyperSpace instant-on OS
coming to ASUS laptops
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:46:00 PM
We already knew that Acer was signed on
to load Phoenix Technologies' HyperSpace
instant-on OS onto some of its machines,
and we had a hunch that ASUS would be
next in line. Today, the aforesaid outfit has
affirmed our suspicions by announcing that
the company responsible for the
overpopulation of the Eee will "incorporate
HyperSpace into its next generation
laptops." Oh, and we get the idea ASUS
won't be the last to join in, so you Gateway
fanboys can feel free to hold out just a bit
longer.
Filed under: Laptops
Phoenix Technologies HyperSpace
instant-on OS coming to ASUS laptops
originally appeared on Engadget on Tue,
20 Jan 2009 14:46:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink|
Email this| Comments
update
Filed under: Gaming
Sony ushers in change, hope with
upcoming PS3 2.60 firmware update
originally appeared on Engadget on Tue,
20 Jan 2009 13:15:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email
this| Comments
Daily Digital Newspaper
LG gets official with 50PQ60D and 42PQ60D
Xcanvas plasmas in Korea
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:33:00 AM
Don't bet the farm on it just yet, but given
the FCC filing that outed these sets at the
tail end of December, we'd say it's safe to
assume that the panel you see above (and
after the break) will be headed to America
in short order. Made official today in South
Korea, LG's Xcanvas 50PQ60D and
42PQ60D plasmas sport a sleeker, more
fully integrated design that conceals the
speakers within the border. The TV itself
also detects ambient light and
automatically adjusts brightness in order to
conserve energy, and the built-in USB port
Sony's VAIO P spotted for sale in Hong Kong, price tag spotted too
By Tim Stevens (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:49:00 AM
Just last week our hopes for an affordable
VAIO P were quickly dashed as Amazon's
UK site fixed what was apparently typo,
setting the price on Sony's "don't call me a
netbook" ultraportable to over $1,000.
That's in-line with what we've been
expecting for the US release, but still we'd
held out some hope for a last-minute price
Video: OQO model 2+ MID gets unboxed,
previewed
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:12:00 AM
We were pretty stoked about the OQO
model 2+ when we got to spend a few
quality minutes with it at CES this year,
and apparently actually getting one
delivered to your house is even more
spectacular. The cool cats over at MID
Moves were able to score one of the Gobi /
OLED-equipped handhelds for review, and
rather than making us wait until all
opinions were formed, they've hosted up a
nice preview video along with a few high
quality unboxing shots. Initial impressions
enables portable media to be loaded on for
all to see. Few other details about the pair
are being released, but you can expect 'em
on sale halfway across the world in around
cut. Now, like a twist of the knife, we have
photos of the machines for sale in the wild
-- with a wild price tag to match. Kip HT
took these pictures (one above, one below)
at a Hong Kong retailer and passed them
along, sending word that the top-spec
model was going for the equivalent of
$2,188.48. No word on a price for the
cheapest model, but it seems we now have
confirmation that the Sony tax also applies
overseas.
seem pretty positive, with the SSD helping
things along quite significantly. Granted,
we would've preferred a WiFi-on battery
life of more than two hours, but what fun
three weeks for $1,460 / $1,022,
respectively.
[Via Slashgear]
Continue reading LG gets official with
50PQ60D and 42PQ60D Xcanvas plasmas
in Korea
Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home
Entertainment
LG gets official with 50PQ60D and
42PQ60D Xcanvas plasmas in Korea
originally appeared on Engadget on Tue,
20 Jan 2009 11:33:00 EST. Please see our
terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink|
Email this| Comments
[Thanks, Kip HT]
Continue reading Sony's VAIO P spotted
would it be to not have a single gripe to
harp on? More pictorial delight is in the
read link, and the vid's just past the break.
[Via Slashgear, thanks Kris120890]
Continue reading Video: OQO model 2+
MID gets unboxed, previewed
Filed under: Handhelds
Video: OQO model 2+ MID gets
unboxed, previewed originally appeared on
Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:12:00
EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Gadgets* International* Special*
This Land is Your Land
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:13:47 AM
For me this was the most emotional
moment of yesterday's concert at the
Lincoln Memorial: Pete Seeger and Bruce
Springsteen leading a chorus of This Land
is Your Land.
All those people singing, and Pete Seeger
after all these years -- he can still lead a
crowd in song.
for sale in Hong Kong, price tag spotted
too
Filed under: Laptops
Sony's VAIO P spotted for sale in Hong
Kong, price tag spotted too originally
appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009
09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use
of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments
Kakuro 865 medium
(From the Guardian: G2 |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:05:02 PM
Fill the grid so that each run of squares
adds up to the total in the box above or to
the left. Use only numbers 1-9, and never
use a number more than once per run (a
number may reoccur in the same row, in a
separate run).
Buy the Guardian tomorrow or subscribe
to our Digital Edition to see the completed
puzzle. guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
13
HP Mini 2140
"business" netbook
now available
By Laura June (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:15:00 PM
HP's very recently announced Mini 2140
is available now for you to get one of your
very own if you so please. The handsome
fella's just been unleashed on the world,
and if you don't remember his stats, well,
that's what we're here for. The business-
aimed netbook features a 1.6GHz Atom
CPU, with options for either an 80GB or
160GB hard drive, up to 2GB of RAM,
and resolution options of 1366 x 768 and
1024 x 567 for the 10-inch screen, and of
course the ExpressCard / 54 slot. Though a
Linux OS has been announced, so far all
we've seen are options for XP and Vista
materialize, but we'll keep our eyes peeled.
Prices start at $499 for the base model, but
run up to $799 for the tricked out Vista
version. Now get back to work, slacker.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Continue reading HP Mini 2140
"business" netbook now available
Filed under: Laptops
HP Mini 2140 "business" netbook now
available originally appeared on Engadget
on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 12:15:00 EST. Please
see our terms for use of feeds. Read|
Permalink| Email this| Comments
14 Gadgets* Biz Buzz*
Atari Touch Tablet unboxed 25
years after the fact
By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:40:00 AM
Are you an artist wishing to unchain the
shackles of traditional media, looking for a
way to catapult yourself and your work
into the 20th Century? A chap named Benj
Edwards has been kind enough to unbox
for us Atari's Touch Tablet, a classic piece
of kit from the bygone age of 1984 that --
alongside the Atari Artist software -- lets
users manipulate the size, location and
color of shapes and lines. Digitally. The
software comes in two versions: the four
color version for those of you with 16K
RAM, and the 16 color version for those of
CES 2009 HDTV mega-guide
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:00:00 PM
CES 2009 may be over and done with,
but we'll be feeling the ramifications of it
for months to come. For those not
watching for every last announcement
from the show, you may be surprised to
find that dozens upon dozens of new
you with 24K powerhouse workstations.
When you're done with your pixel-based
Mona Lisa, you can back it up to a cassette
-- which will sit in a box in your parent's
garage until your older sister gets around
to taping an REO Speedwagon album over
it. What are you waiting for? Hit that read
link.
Filed under: Peripherals
Atari Touch Tablet unboxed 25 years
after the fact originally appeared on
Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:40:00
EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HDTVs were introduced, with many of
them slated to start shipping this Spring /
Summer. Engadget HD has hosted up a
thorough mega-guide to showcase what
sets made their debut in Vegas this month,
complete with links to more information as
well as release windows and pricing where
available. If you're even remotely
considering a new set this year, you owe it
LG overtakes Motorola for third
place in global handset shipments
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:57:00 PM
Half a year ago, Motorola was still
clinging tight to the number three spot in
terms of worldwide handset shipments, but
boy -- what a difference six months makes.
According to numbers compiled by
DigiTimes, LG Electronics managed to
ship just over 100 million mobile phones
in 2008, while Moto checked in with "just"
99.9 million shipped. That makes LG the
third largest handset maker in terms of
shipments, barely beating out Moto and
Sony Ericsson who placed fourth and fifth,
respectively. As expected, Nokia and
to yourself to give this one a look. Head on
over, won't you?
Samsung are still holding down the top
two spots, but it's the continued slippage of
Motorola that's most significant here. You
know what they say about being on rock
bottom, right? We bet Motorola's
wondering if that mantra applies here.
[Via phonescoop]
Filed under: Cellphones
LG overtakes Motorola for third place in
global handset shipments originally
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Filed under: CES, Displays, HDTV,
Home Entertainment
CES 2009 HDTV mega-guide originally
appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jan 2009
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Daily Digital Newspaper
If oil is
down, why is
gasoline up?
By Peter Cohan (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:50:00 AM
Filed under: Exxon Mobil (XOM),
Chevron Corp (CVX), BP p.l.c. ADS (BP)
This morning my wife asked me this
question and I had no idea how to answer
it. But it's true that oil is down -- it trades
at$34.39 a barrel; while gasoline prices
have been rising between 10 and 20 cents a
gallon from the low. I paid $1.66 a gallon
for mid-grade three weeks ago and $1.79
for mid-grade last week. So what's the
answer? Less supply because refiners shut
down for regular maintenance during this
time of year.
While this may not be true throughout
the country, it appears to be so in
California. In late December, The
MercuryNews predicted that gasoline
prices would rise 10 to 20 cents a gallon.
Why? California refiners including Exxon-
Mobil(NYSE: XOM) and Chevron(NYSE:
CVX) cut back on production for their
usual maintenance needs in January.
Moreover, a BP plc (NYSE: BP) plant in
Carson, CA , had mechanical problems
that affected production.
Overall this means lower supply with
demand remaining relatively constant.
California's Energy Commission reports
that production of CA's gas blend fell 11%
in January from the previous month. In the
short run, prices should fall back as these
refineries go back to normal production.
But experts predict that gasoline prices
nationwide could hit $2.50 a gallon
nationally this summer.
Peter Cohan is President of Peter S.
Cohan & Associates. He also teaches
management at Babson College. Portfolio
recently published his eighth book, You
Can't Order Change: Lessons From Jim
McNerney's Turnaround at Boeing. He has
no financial interest in the securities
mentioned. He has no financial interest in
the securities mentioned.
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Daily Digital Newspaper
The Age of Obama
(Portfolio.com: Top 5)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 9:00:00 PM
I t was a mess when George W. Bush was
first sworn in. There was the wet rain; the
protesters jeering him just 39 days after the
Supreme Court ruled in Bush v. Gore that
Florida was his. Bush promised an era of
civility that echoed his Texas years where
he was popular and known as bipartisan.
Of course, it didn’t turn out that way.
Bush’s years were marked by rancor and
division, a Senate that flipped party control
three times and a vice president who once
cursed out a prominent senator with the
counsel to “go f—k yourself.”
It’s different now, of course. Barack
Obama is holding bipartisan dinners with
John McCain, the Senate colleague and
Republican presidential opponent he
vanquished two months ago. Obama's
victory was short of a landslide, but still
decisive with none of the doubt that
marked 2000’s recount, or even 2004’s
need for John Kerry to wait until the next
day to concede he lost Ohio and the
presidency. Obama comes into office
strong, with commanding popularity,
strong majorities in both houses, and all
the history that goes with being the first
African-American president.
What happens now on the economy is
anyone’s guess. Will Obama get his $800-
plus billion stimulus package through
Congress and, if he does, how much will
he have to compromise? Will the package
work to rescue an economy and a financial
system that’s reeling?
What we do seem to know—because of
the financial crisis and what it thrust on
Obama—is that we’re likely to have a
president who has a few known qualities
that will matter greatly to business. They
include:
Listening to the experts. More than any
presidency, in recent memory, the George
W. Bush administration ignored expertise.
In planning the occupation of Iraq, it
tossed out the extensive planning done by
the State Department with famously
disastrous results. It ignored the scientific
consensus on climate change and federal
funding of embryonic stem cell research.
The president trusted his gut. Conversely,
Obama relies more on expertise than any
president in modern memory. Even Bill
Clinton, with his notoriously wonkish
tendencies, still tended to take advice from
a relatively narrow circle of advisers.
Contrast that with Obama who has brought
in a large circle of economic minds to deal
with the financial crisis. There’s fiscal
hawks like Bob Rubin, old lions like Paul
Volcker, business sorts from Eric Schmidt
of Google to Warren Buffett.
Not everyone is welcome at the table.
You won’t see supply-siders hanging with
Obama. (And yet Larry Kudlow was at his
dinner with conservative commentators
last week.) More than most presidents,
Obama seems content to listen to the
experts and then respond accordingly. The
good side of this is the respect for
intelligence. The bad side, as David
Halberstam documented so thoroughly in
his classic, The Best and the Brightest—a
history of the Kennedy and Johnson
officials who led us into Vietnam—is that
the experts can be wrong. Whiz Kid Robert
McNamara was a trifecta of
disasters—Ford Motor Company, the
Defense Department and then the World
Bank. Listening to experts isn’t the same
as leadership.
Having flexibility. If we’ve seen
anything with Obama it’s that he’s not
rigid. He’s upped his stimulus package at
each turn. He’s signaled he’ll go slower
both on closing the detainment facilities at
Guantanamo Bay and withdrawing from
Iraq. Obama’s clearly able to change with
circumstances. To some this will seem like
flip-flopping, but wiser heads will likely
see it as a reasonable response to
circumstances.
Being a tax cutter. I’m wrong about
many things, but during the Joe the
Plumber kerfuffle, when Obama was being
labeled a tax-happy socialist, I gamely
predicted that he wouldn’t raise taxes and
would much more likely cut them. I think
that’s probably the road he’ll go down at
least for awhile. A lot of it is owing to the
financial crisis, of course. Who wants to
raise taxes in this environment? But tax
cutting has an intrinsic appeal. It’s the
easiest way to appease Republicans who
still salivate like Pavlov’s dogs whenever
tax cuts are mentioned, and it’s become the
way to govern under Democrats, too.
The '80s idea of tax reform—fewer
deductions, lower rates—had cache when
Ronald Reagan teamed up with Democrats
like Bill Bradley and Richard Gephardt to
pass it. But now the tax code is an ever-
expanding mess of deductions, and Obama
is no exception to these tactics.
The lofty moments of the start of the
44th presidency are worth savoring. But
it’s also worth remembering that when the
inaugural balls are over, on January 21,
President Obama has a job to do and we
now have a pretty good sense of the
principles that will guide him. Related
Links
Will Obama Really Raise Taxes?
What Business Can Expect From Obama
Obama's Real Economic Team
Business* Biz Buzz* Tech Tips*
When evaluating economic
polls, subtract 15-20%
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:10:00 AM
Filed under: Politics, Recession, Financial
Crisis A note on economic polls: when
evaluating them, subtract 15-20%. Case in
point: U.S. public opinion toward outgoing
President George W. Bush.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation
poll taken in December 2008 found the
following:
Despite the worst U.S. recession in
decades, rising unemployment, declining
median incomes, unprecedented home
foreclosures, massive U.S. government
borrowing to bailout / rescue the bank
sector, and the lowest job creation of any
eight-year president in the modern era, the
poll found that:
• 23% of the American people said they
would miss Bush, 25% said Bush managed
government effectively, and about a third
said he would go down in history as a good
president.
Roughly a third of Americans viewing
Bush as a good president?, with 25%
saying he managed the government
effectively? What's going on here?
Who are these people? Upper-income
Americans or strong Republicans?
Exactly: either, or possibly both, which
is why you need to deduct 15-20% when
reading a poll, to gauge a president's
support, particularly on economic issues.
The reason? The Bush presidency has
been an objective failure -- any reasonable
analysis by scholars would reach this
conclusion. Hence, the notion that
someone would say "Bush will go down in
Moonlight Allows Inauguration Streaming on Linux,
PPC Macs [Linux]
By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:30:00 AM
Novell programmers worked overnight to
ensure that Moonlight, their open-source
implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight,
will allow streaming from the official
inauguration page for Linux, PowerPC
15
history as a good president" speaks to the
fact that these individuals would still
support Bush if the U.S. economy fell into
a depression worse than the Great
Depression or if he committed some other
serious economic policy mistake. U.S.
unemployment could hit 25%, and these
individuals would say "the economy is
fine" or "Bush is doing a good job."
In other words, a certain percentage of
the American public, on the Republican
side and the Democratic side, will always
support their party's candidate, no matter
how bad economic conditions get or how
many mistakes the president makes: place
this factor at 15-20%.
Political / Economic Analysis: Hence,
when evaluating polls, to gauge a
president's support, particularly on
economic issues, sans the partisans and
rabid ideologues, subtract 15-20%. Do the
same for the bottom half of the poll, to
factor-out partisans on the other side of the
issue.
In other words, if you read a poll that
says 60% of the American people support
increasing taxes, know that 45-40% of
voters support the measure, after
discounting the partisans and ideologues.
Partisans and ideologues are loyalists:
they're dedicated to their party or
candidate, but they are not fair evaluators
of economic conditions.
--
Financial Editor Joseph Lazzaro is
writing a book on the U.S. presidency and
the U.S. economy.
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Mac users, and others systems with
Firefox. [ via]
16 Biz Buzz*
Engineering gains from Obama's
infrastructure proposals
By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:50:00 AM
Filed under: International markets,
Newsletters, Commodities, Oil, Stocks to
Buy, Obama Picks
"Infrastructure stocks have been laid low
by the economic downturn; but once
massive government stimulus programs get
growth going again, these companies
should be among the surest winners," says
Stephen Leeb.
In The Complete Investor newsletter, the
advisor explains, "We've found four top
infrastructure stocks, now at bargain-
basement levels, that we think will surge.
All are all astonishingly cheap when you
consider how vital their role is in
worldwide economic growth."
"It would be difficult to find a group of
stocks more leveraged to economic growth
yet whose valuations imply there will be
no growth.
"If you have any faith in the world's
future, these stocks are for you, and we
think they will be dramatic outperformers
as stimulus spending starts to kick in.
"Most diverse among the four is Jacobs
Engineering(NYSE: JEC), which serves
the chemical, pharmaceutical,
building/infrastructure, and oil and gas
industries. Nearly 20% of its revenues
come from government sources, domestic
and foreign.
"The company has nominal debt and has
been generating hefty free cash flow,
Jim Rogers calls the United Kingdom 'finished'
By Zac Bissonnette
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 6:30:00 AM
Filed under: Economic data, Financial
Crisis Macroeconomic guru Jim Rogers
has a message for investors: The United
Kingdom is finished.
which management has indicated it may
use to acquire beaten-down compatible
firms, adding to future growth.
"The stock trades at a historically low
nominal and relative multiple, which when
combined with long-term growth in excess
of 15% points to exceptional returns over
the next five years.
" Fluor(NYSE: FLR) is the largest and by
many measures best in class of our four.
Though less diversified than Jacobs, no
company is better positioned to take on
large, expensive, complex projects.
"As a result, even though the bulk of its
business comes from the energy sector,
cancellations have been few. That's
because the larger the project, the higher
the ultimate costs of delaying it.
"Fluor also gets much of its revenues
from government spending and from
project services, where growth is likely. In
fact, Fluor should be a core holding in any
portfolio looking for a stake in
infrastructure spending.
" Layne Christensen(NASDAQ: LAYN),
a smaller company, has a leading position
in water and mining infrastructure plus a
stake in energy.
"Water infrastructure is one of the
country's most vital needs and will almost
surely be part of the upcoming stimulus
package.
"Like the other infrastructure ideas,
Layne has abundant cash flow, which it is
using to buy up compatible companies that
are much cheaper than their forward
Bloomberg quotes the bow tie-clad
forecaster as saying that he "would urge
you to sell any sterling you might have. It's
finished. I hate to say it, but I would not
put any money in the U.K."
But England isn't the only country
Rogers is trashing. Reuters reports that
Rogers is accusing the United States of a
fundamentals suggest. This is one of the
best small companies in the infrastructure
space.
"Finally, KBR(NYSE: KBR), a one-time
division of Halliburton, is being unduly
penalized for legacy issues (lawsuits, etc.)
likely to cost the company no more than
$0.10 to $0.30 in earnings over the next
few years.
"The stock has declined to a ridiculously
low level in which its short-term assets net
of debt amount to about 60% of the stock's
value.
"Given that the company's most important
division is defense contracting and
services, this worldwide franchise should
have no trouble generating earnings
growth of well over 10 % in the next five
years.
"The company is also expert in liquefied
natural gas (LNG), a promising alternative
to oil. Longer term, LNG offers
exceptional potential throughout the globe.
Once new management convinces
investors that its legacy problems are
behind it, the stock should soar."
Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com
offers a daily look at the latest market
commentary and favorite stock picks and
investment ideas from the nation's leading
financial newsletter advisors.
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systematic effort to devalue the dollar by
Analyst upgrades, downgrades
and initiations: CHKP, MOT,
RIMM, PALM, RL, HBC ...
By Eric Buscemi (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:10:00 AM
Filed under: Analyst reports, Analyst
upgrades and downgrades, Analyst
initiations Analyst upgrades:
• Jefferies upgraded Check Point
Software(NASDAQ: CHKP) to Buy from
Hold as they believe the recently acquired
Nokia security appliance business should
drive 2009 revenue and EPS meaningfully
higher. The firm raised their target price to
$27 from $20.
• Goldman upgraded Motorola(NYSE:
MOT) to Buy from Neutral and added
shares to its Conviction Buy List. The firm
expects shares to outperform even if
phones don't given the overly negative
value for the business.
• Research in Motion(NASDAQ: RIMM)
was upgraded to Outperform from Sector
Perform at RBC Capital. The firm cites
improving margin visibility and execution,
and lowered expectations for the upgrade.
• Ares Capital(NASDAQ: ARCC) was
upgraded to Neutral from Underweight at
JP Morgan.
• Canadian Pacific(NYSE: CP) was raised
at Canaccord to Buy from Hold.
• Lloyds TSB(NYSE: LYG) was
upgraded to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
Analyst downgrades:
• JP Morgan downgraded Venoco(NYSE:
VQ) to Underweight from Overweight
based on valuation and debt concerns.
• UBS downgraded MEMC
Electronic(NYSE: WFR) to Neutral from
Buy, added shares to the Short-Term Sell
List and lowered their target to $14.50
"turning on the printing presses." It's hard
to argue with that and he went on to say
that "The idea that you can fix a period of
excess borrowing and excess consumption
by more borrowing and more consumption
to me is just ludicrous."
He reiterated his bullishness on China's
long-term future even though that market
Daily Digital Newspaper
from $20. The firm believes 2009 wafer
sales will be much worse than expected.
• Deutsche Bank downgraded
SINA(NASDAQ: SINA) to Hold from
Buy to reflect integration risks from the
recent acquisition of Focus Media's digital
OOH assets as they see little room for near
-term upside.
• Palm(NASDAQ: PALM) was lowered
to Neutral from Overweight at JP Morgan.
• Polo Ralph Lauren(NYSE: RL) was cut
to Sell from Neutral at Goldman.
• Telus(NYSE: TU) was downgraded at
Banc of America/Merrill to Underperform
from Neutral.
Analyst initiations:
• Societe Generale believes
HSBC(NYSE: HBC) will need to cut its
dividend and raise additional capital in
order to strengthen its capital base. Shares
were initiated with a Sell rating.
• Citigroup initiated United
Technologies(NYSE: UTX) with a Hold
rating and $55 target. The firm sees
downside risk to the company's guidance
and believes consensus estimates could be
too high.
• B. Riley assumed Matrixx
Initiatives(NASDAQ: MTXX) with a Buy
rating and $22 target. The firm finds shares
attractively valued and sees limited
downside risk from current levels.
• ASML Holding(NASDAQ: ASML) was
initiated at Deutsche Bank with a Hold
rating.
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has been hammered of late.
Regardless of whether you buy into his
investment theses, it's hard to argue with
his logic that borrowing and consumption
will not lead out of a nightmare created by
borrowing and consumption.
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Industrial metals: Strong
plays on Obama's
rebuilding plans
By Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:30:00 AM
Filed under: Newsletters, Alcoa Inc (AA),
U.S. Steel (X), Commodities, Stocks to
Buy, Obama Picks
"President Obama's proposed rebuilding
plans are great news for steel and other
industrial metals makers," says resource
sector specialist Larry Edelson, who
recommends a pair of beneficiaries: U.S.
Steel Corp.(NYSE: X) and Alcoa(NYSE:
AA).
The editor of Real Wealth newsletter
explains, "Obama has pledged to give the
U.S. economy a massive shot in the arm
with the biggest public works spending
package this nation has seen in more than
50 years.
"Besides spending on road, bridge, school
improvements and construction, the plan is
likely to include upgrading our
deteriorating electrical grid and greater
investments in public transportation,
among other infrastructure projects. The
plan is also expected to create about 2.5
million jobs.
"While steel and other base metal prices
have tanked sharply this year on slumping
global demand, companies that produce the
metals have staged some massive cutbacks
in production and many have shuttered
large chunks of their operations.
"These supply cuts are more than likely to
exceed the buildup in demand that will
Noble Energy (NBL) surges on new gas discovery
By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:10:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement, Options,
Technical Analysis, Israel Noble
Energy(NYSE: NBL- option chain) shares
have risen this higher morning after the
company announced a major natural gas
discovery in the Tamar prospect in the
Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel.
NBL owns a 36% stake in the well, and
company CEO Charles Davidson called
inevitably happen due to the massive
infrastructure spending plan and the
eventual asset reinflation of the financial
system.
"Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel and New
York-based Alcoa are trading at multi-year
lows. Both stocks have extremely
attractive P/Es and both are likely to have
bottomed or are darned close to it. Both
stock get my vote.
"U.S. Steel is the largest steelmaker in the
United States. While the company recently
announced plans to idle three plants, U.S.
Steel stands to rake in some serious profits
from any plan to rebuild the nation's
infrastructure.
"The $4 billion-company's share price is
trading about 82% below the 52-week
high, and its P/E ratio of 2.35 makes it a
steal!
"Alcoa also stands to make some serious
profits from the U.S. public works
spending package. The company's shares
are selling nearly 80% below their 52-
week high, and a P/E of 4.70 makes it an
attractive buy."
Steven Halpern's TheStockAdvisors.com
offers a daily look at the latest market
commentary and favorite stock picks and
investment ideas from the nation's leading
financial newsletter advisors.
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the find the largest discovery in the
company's history.
If you think that the stock won't fall by
too much in the coming months, then now
could be a good time to look at a bullish
hedged trade on NBL.
NBL opened this morning at $50.44. So
far today the stock has hit a low of $47.59
and a high of $50.50. As of 12:15, NBL is
trading at $49.77, up 2.98 (6.4%). The
chart for NBL looks neutral and S&P gives
NBL a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.
Regions Financial
swallows huge quarterly
loss, hits 24-year low
By Elizabeth Harrow
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 6:10:00 AM
Filed under: Earnings reports, Bad news,
Regions Financial (RF), Housing,
Financial Crisis
It's a dismal day on Wall Street for
financial stocks, and Regions Financial
Corp.(NYSE: RF) is no exception. The
Alabama-based bank today reported an eye
-popping quarterly loss of $6.22 billion, or
$9.01 per share, as results were pressured
by a $6 billion writedown in its banking
and Treasury operations.
On an operating basis, Regions' loss of
35 cents per share exceeded the consensus
estimate for a loss of 20 cents per share.
Net charge-offs for the quarter soared to
$796 million, compared to $107.5 million
in the year-ago period. Additionally, the
company confessed to "emerging stress" in
its Florida-based real estate and mortgage
businesses.
"Although we're encouraged by steps the
government has taken to stabilize the
housing market and revitalize the
economy, there is no quick fix for credit
quality issues currently plaguing the
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I
would consider a February bull-put credit
spread below the $35 range. A bull-put
credit spread is an options position that
combines the purchase and sale of put
options to hedge risk in case the stock
doesn't do what you think, but still
financial services industry," commented
Dowd Ritter, RF's chairman, president and
chief executive officer.
Ritter added that he doesn't expect
unemployment to peak or real estate values
to bottom in 2009, and he warned that
bank earnings won't improve until such a
trough is reached. He doesn't foresee the
need to seek new capital from the
government, though Regions will look for
opportunities to shore up its capital
position as market conditions allow.
However, don't look for Regions
Financial to pull a Citigroup and spin off
its Morgan Keegan brokerage subsidiary.
Ritter called the business "an integral part
of this company," and said he has
"absolutely no thought" of divesting it.
At last check, RF shares were down 19%
at $4.89. Earlier, the stock fell to $4.78,
marking its lowest price since May 1985.
Elizabeth Harrow is an analyst and
financial writer in the research department
at Schaeffer's Investment Research. She is
featured in the video series Schaeffer's
Daily Q&A on SchaeffersResearch.com.
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leverages nice returns. For this particular
trade, we will make a 6.4% return in just
four weeks as long as NBL is above $35 at
February expiration. Noble would have to
fall by more than 29% before we would
start to lose money. Learn more about this
type of trade here.
NBL hasn't been below $35 in the past
year except for two days in October and
has shown support around $41 recently.
Brent Archer is an options analyst and
writer at Investors Observer.
Biz Buzz* Tech Tips* 17
LastPass Autocompletes
Logins and Forms in
Chrome, iPhone
[Bookmarklets]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:00:00 AM
Previously mentioned LastPass—which
adds web-based autocomplete for logins
and forms with Firefox and Internet
Explorer add-ons—has created several new
bookmarklets to support auto-fill from any
browser, including Google Chrome, Opera,
and even Safari on your iPhone.
As you can see from the video, all you
need to do is login to your LastPass
account (registration is free) and drag the
bookmarklets to your bookmark toolbar.
(If you want to use LastPass on your
iPhone, you'll have to create the bookmark
on your desktop and then sync it to your
iPhone.)
LastPass received an honorable mention
in our Hive Five Best Password Managers
very shortly after its release, and its quick
development and impressive features have
won over many more users since its initial
release. The official Firefox extension and
IE plug-in are both still better options
when you're using those browsers, but for
browsers that don't support add-ons, the
bookmarklet support is a godsend.
LastPass
Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, iPhone,
Opera Mini and more with
Bookmarklets[LastPass Blog via
Download Squad]
DISCLOSURE: Mr. Archer owns and/or
controls diversified portfolios of long and
short stock and option positions that may
include holdings in companies he writes
about. At publication time, Brent neither
owns nor controls positions in NBL.
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18 Biz Buzz* Web Apps* Tech Tips* Special*
Bank of America (BAC)
needs $80 billion,
according to FBR analyst
By Zac Bissonnette
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 6:50:00 AM
Filed under: Bank of America (BAC)
Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst Paul
Miller says that Bank of America(NYSE:
BAC) needs more than $80 billion in new
common equity. The company currently
has $61.7 billion in equity supporting $2.4
trillion in assets. The FBR report notes that
"It would take over $80 billion of new
common equity to reach even the low end
of the range, and we believe Bank of
America simply is not generating sufficient
capital internally in this environment to put
a dent in this size capital hole."
Uh-oh. The Treasury Department has
been plowing money into Bank of
America, but the company still apparently
isn't anywhere close to achieving stability.
Bank of America's stock price has plunged
20% or so today, leaving it down about
The interactive living room of 2009
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 3:39:51 PM
There's an interesting piece on
TechCrunch today that's in part about
using laptops while watching TV,
something a lot of people do, and more
will certainly do in the future.
This is the system I like. I've explained
60% so far this year.
Of course an outright collapse of the
bank would be a disaster for the economy,
but before we plug more taxpayer cash into
a sinking ship, it would be a good idea to
keep in mind what a lousy track record this
company has with consumers: unjustified
and inexplicable rate hikes imposed on
consumers who have done nothing wrong,
ripoff savings accounts, predatory credit
cards marketed on college campuses, and
checking accounts loaded with gotcha fees.
The company still has a market cap of
more than $35 billion but I have a
proposal: If Bank of America is to get
another dime of government cheese,
common stockholders should be wiped out
so that the benefits of any turnaround can
accrue to taxpayers.
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Blogs| Comments
how it works over on Flickr. Click on the
pic to go there.
Before the call: IBM Q4
earnings
By Trey Thoelcke (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:30:00 AM
Filed under: Earnings reports, Forecasts,
International Business Machines (IBM)
International Business Machines
Corp.(NYSE: IBM) is scheduled to release
fourth-quarter 2008 results today at 4:30
PM Eastern. Results will be p resented by
Mark Loughridge, senior vice president
and chief financial officer. To view the
webcast of the report, see IBM 4Q08
Earnings Presentation.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters
expect IBM to report a fourth-quarter
profit of $3.03 per share, 7.6% higher than
in the year-ago period. Revenues for the
quarter are expected to have fallen 2.5%
from a year ago to $28.2 billion. IBM
earnings have beaten estimates in the past
five quarters.
For the full year, analysts are looking for
earnings of $8.69 per share on revenue of
Daily Tidbits: 'Obama Girl' partners with
Stickam for inauguration
By Don Reisinger (Webware.com)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 9:26:00 AM
Amber Ettinger, better known as "Obama
Girl," has teamed up with Stickam for
coverage of the presidential inauguration.
Live coverage will be streamed live
Monday at 8 p.m. EST from InauguralFest,
and viewers will be able to see what she is
doing all day at the inauguration starting at
10 a.m. EST Tuesday.
Integrated Media Measurement, an
online research firm, found ( PDF) that
women between the ages of 15 and 48 tend
to watch a television show and surf the
Web an average of 17.5 minutes per day,
while men do the same for just 15.7
minutes each day. Women between 30 and
39 average 23.3 minutes of simultaneous
Web and TV usage each day. More
importantly for marketers, women tend to
multitask more as they get older, while
$104.8 billion, up from $7.13 per share and
$98.8 billion in the previous year.
The consensus recommendation of
analysts remains to buy IBM, and the long-
term EPS growth forecast is 11.2%. The
share price is up slightly from the
beginning of the year, but about 18% lower
than it was a year ago.
See BloggingStocks' IBM coverage for
more information concerning Big Blue.
Visit AOL Money & Finance for more
earnings coverage.
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Comments
men multitask less often. According to
Amanda Welsh, head of research for
IMMI, "women are more inclined to
multitask than men" while using the Web.
Professional social network LinkedIn
announced Monday that it has partnered
with IBM to bring social-network
functionality to Lotus Notes, an enterprise
client that provides e-mail and instant-
messaging services to users. The social-
network plug-in will provide Lotus Notes
users with contact and networking
information about those they're contacting
(as long as they are using LinkedIn) and
browse LinkedIn's news feeds. The
companies plan to unveil the new plug-in
at Lotusphere later this year and hope to
release it to Lotus Notes users by June.
Juniper Research released a report
Monday saying event-based sales should
increase the value and monetization of
mobile dating and chat room sites. The
Daily Digital Newspaper
Buddha Machine Wall
Plays Relaxing Ambient
-Loops [Sound]
By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:00:00 AM
The Buddha Machine Wall webapp
streams ambient patterns—the kind just
distracting enough to take the edge off the
noise in your office.
The original Buddha Machine is a small
device resembling a transistor radio,
created by a pair of Chinese musicians
known as FM. With permission from FM,
the tech-support company ZenDesk hosts a
version that, just like the original, creates
randomized patterns from 9 FM-crafted
ambient loops. This post was powered by
loop B2—post your own favorite in the
comments if you try out the free Buddha
Machine Wall. For more ambient, work-
friendly sounds, check out previously
mentioned iSerenity, another web-based
source. FM3 Buddha Machine
Wall[ZenDesk]
report said that although subscription
revenue will still contribute the most
revenue to online dating sites over the next
five years, charging customers to contact
one another or providing virtual gifts will
become increasingly important in their
business models going forward. Juniper
also found that free services that charge for
contact are becoming more popular and
could become the standard sometime
during the next 10 years.
Navitell, a Belgium-based start-up that
develops software that adds location-
specific multimedia content to mobile
phones, announced Monday that it has
raised approximately $2.6 million in a
round of funding that was led by FPIM.
According to the company's executives,
they plan to use the funding to expand their
set of personalization services.
Daily Digital Newspaper
5 Twitter improvements we're still waiting for
By Don Reisinger (Webware.com)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:31:00 PM
I'll be the first to admit that I'm addicted
to Twitter. Each day, it's kept in the
coveted second tab in my Firefox window,
lodged between Gmail and Meebo. But
that doesn't mean it offers me everything I
want or that I have no desire for more
features.
In fact, I have a list of features I'd like
added to Twitter.
Groups
I still don't know why Twitter has failed
to add groups to the service. Maybe the
company believes that groups would make
it too closely resemble a social network,
but who cares? Twitter is great, but that
doesn't mean like-minded users shouldn't
be able to form their own community.
Think of it this way: if Twitter added
groups, it would give you the opportunity
to have private areas where only your
friends and colleagues could converse and
it wouldn't stop you from meeting and
corresponding with new people outside
those groups. There's no downside.
Services like Present.ly and Yammer
offer enterprise employees an opportunity
to communicate with one another based on
groups that are assigned by their employer.
Twittermoms.com is an entire site
dedicated to bringing mothers who use
Twitter together. Granted, those services
aren't nearly as popular as Twitter, but they
certainly prove that there's a market for
groups. And so far, Twitter hasn't
delivered.
Tweet filter
I know Twitter has a block feature, but I
don't use it. What I'd really like to see is a
Tweet Filter feature that lets me block
The Guide is a Portable, Open-Source Hierarchical Note Organizer [Featured
Windows Download]
By The How-To Geek (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:30:00 AM
Windows only: Portable note-taking and
outlining application The Guide organizes
your notes and projects complete with rich
text in a hierarchical view.
The Guide has a similar feature set to
specific kinds of tweets from making their
way into my stream.
I don't necessarily want to block
everything some followers say, I just want
to block the annoying messages like, "
DonReisinger is now listening to
Womanizer by Britney Spears," followed
by, " DonReisinger is now listening to
Take My Breath Away by Berlin." To be
honest, I don't care what songs a follower
is listening to and I don't need updates
from a script they're running to tell me.
That said, I do want to see what they're
saying when they tweet actual messages.
That's why I want Twitter to devise a tool,
similar to a spam filter, that would allow
me to tag certain tweets, have Twitter
analyze them, and ensure that anything of
the sort won't make its way into my stream
again. That sort of functionality works
beautifully in Gmail. I'd love to see it work
that well on Twitter.
Unfollow notices
Why doesn't Twitter provide us with
daily updates about who unfollows us? It
informs us when someone starts following
us. Would it be that hard to track those
who unfollow us, as well?
I would really like to see who
unfollowed me. Maybe those people were
upset that I had too many updates on a
certain day or perhaps they didn't like
something I said. Without a notice, I'll
never know they're gone. But with a
notice, I can send them a message and ask
what happened to possibly repair our
broken relationship.
Maybe some wouldn't like receiving
additional e-mails announcing when a user
decides to unfollow them, but I think it
provides significant value. It can give you
hints about what your followers do and
previously mentioned ActionOutline Lite,
lacking the ability to use tabs but making
up for it with lighter resource usage, no
restrictions on sub-items and the great
price tag of free. Once installed, the
preferences panel has a setting for
switching the application into portable
mode, which stores all settings in an INI
don't like and it makes you a better Twitter
user, since the last thing you should be
doing is annoying your followers.
Profile stats
I'd love to know how many people view
my Twitter page each day. It's not that I
have a vain desire to see how many people
are looking me up. Instead, I'd like to
know how many of those people become
followers.
People find their way to another user's
Twitter page, look at the tweets they've
been making over the past few days, and
decide then if they want to follow them.
I've done it. Sometimes I decide that, yes,
this is a person worth following. Other
times, I see that all they've done is linked
to their blog and failed to converse with
other users, and decide that following them
probably isn't in my best interest.
But having data detailing the number of
people who view my Twitter page and how
many become followers would be ideal.
Based off that information, I could
determine the value of my tweets to other
Twitter users and experiment to see if I
could devise a way to increase my follower
conversion rate.
Twitter is all about being part of a
community. Knowing what that
community likes and doing what you can
to appeal to that community is incumbent
upon us all. Twitter stream stats would
help in that endeavor.
200 characters
When Twitter first started, the service
had a strong SMS focus. Because of that,
file instead of the registry so you can copy
the entire folder to a USB drive.
Web Apps* Tech Tips* Movies*
the company wanted to ensure that tweets
would fit in the 160-character SMS limit,
allowing room for the message and
usernames. But as Twitter has grown into a
service with a strong online focus, it's
blatantly clear that 140 characters is not
enough.
I just don't see any justification for
providing only 140 characters anymore. I
can't tell you how many times I've tried to
write a tweet, only to run out of room with
just two or three characters remaining.
Like everyone else, I'm forced to find
places to cut down what I say just to add in
those necessary characters.
I understand that those who wish to use
SMS might be left out in a 200-character
world, but that doesn't mean it should stop
Twitter from pursuing this strategy. There
are a slew of applications, like Twitterific,
that are designed specifically for mobile
phones that allow users to update their
Twitter stream without using SMS. And
although some devices don't support third-
party apps and using text messages to
communicate with their followers will be
practically impossible after the 200-
character switch, I think Twitter needs to
accept that and move on.
Twitter is a growing service that has
moved past its SMS past. It's time its
executives embrace its new role as a
mainstream microblog and improve the
service while being mindful of its strong
online presence.
Want to hear Don complain some more
about Twitter? Follow him and indulge
yourself!
Enabling icons and checkboxes can be
done in the preferences pane, and icons for
nodes can be changed through the context
menu. The Guide is a free download for
Windows systems only. Thanks
MarsalaAnteater! The Guide
19
De-Bee Tracks Shared
Group Expenses [Bill
Paying]
By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:00:00 PM
De-Bee is a simple and free web-based
expense tracker. Sign up, invite friends,
and share expenses more easily.
You don't even need to go through the
hassle of having your friends sign up if
they've already got Google Accounts.
Once you and your friends are set up in a
group, you can monitor transactions and
money owed between
friends/roommates/partners. While De-Bee
is by no means a legally binding contract,
and not a place to actually transfer money,
it does provide an extremely simple
interface for keeping tabs on group
financial obligations. For other resources
for tracking shared expenses, make sure to
check out the previously reviewed
BillShare and billQ. Thanks Jaron! De-Bee
Ben Affleck at the
Sundance Film
Festival
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 8:50:00 PM
Ben Affleck talks to ET about the latest
disaster zone in Africa and his new
daughter!
Ben puts on his producer cap for a new
documentary, 'Reporter,' about Nicolas
Kristof, the two-time Pulitzer Prize-
winning columnist for The New York
Times, who is trying to bring the same
attention to the humanitarian crisis in the
Congo, where 5.4 million have died, that
he previously did for Darfur.
So we had to ask, is Ben's involvement
in Africa the reason he named his new-
born daughter Seraphina?
20 Tech Tips* Apple* Entertainment*
DriveLook Recovers Text Data from
Missing Files [Featured Windows
Download]
By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:15:00 AM
Windows only: DriveLook, a free utility
from the makers of the ultra-handy
DriveImage XML, scans your hard drive
and searches for strings of text to save your
lost data.
The app initially starts as unlicensed,
somewhat disabled software, but you can
grab registration information from the
DriveLook page. It's not super-intuitive
where you enter your search terms, but it's
in the box at the bottom, one per line. You
can get more specific with the variables up
top, but if you know the words from a
Word file are hanging around somewhere
on your drive, just type in a few words you
remember from it, and hit "Start." That's
when you'll be asked to choose where
Inaugural Luncheon Recipes Available as Free Download [Cooking]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:45:00 AM
If the inaugural luncheon menu sounded
appealing (or you've really caught
Catch the Inauguration from Your Desk [Inauguration]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:30:00 AM
If you'd love to catch today's historic
inauguration but you're stuck at your desk
Windows 7's WordPad Opens Word 2007 DOCX Files [Documents]
By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:00:00 AM
As Gizmodo points out, the ribbon-style
WordPad in Windows 2007 opens Word
George Stephanopoulos knows a lot of random facts
By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:41:00 PM
Filed under: News, Reality-Free
I started watching the Inauguration
DriveLook, er, looks:
As you can see, you can look not only in
your physical drives, but removable drives
and even disk images, like the kind you
might make in DriveImage XML. When
inauguration fever), the Joint
Congressional Committee on Inaugural
Ceremonies is offering the recipes from the
2009 inaugural luncheon as a free
download(PDF alert). If seafood stew,
for—*gasp*—work, check out our guide
to catching the inauguration from
anywhere, including a handful of sites
offering live streaming footage of the
event.
2007 files, the.docx kind, pretty handily,
albeit with some formatting loss. Nice to
coverage this morning on ABC, where
Charlie Gibson intoned about the historical
aspects of this event while Diane Sawyer
awkwardly tried to keep up. In the third
chair was George Stephanopoulos, who I
DriveLook gets to work, it'll be somewhat
of a drive-slower, as you might expect, but
it's cool to see in real-time what it's
finding:
I'd show off a finished result page here,
but DriveLook has been running all
morning on a spare system. So don't
launch this and expect to finish up your
World of Warcraft session in the
meantime, but consider giving it a go
overnight, or during a stretch away from
the computer.
DriveLook is a free download, with
registration information available on the
app's download page. For tips on using its
complementing backup software, check
our guide to hot-imaging your PC's hard
drive with DriveImage XML.
DriveLook[Runtime Software via gHacks]
duck breast with cherry chutney, herb
roasted pheasant with wild rice stuffing,
If you've been trying out every option
know a full-fledged Office purchase isn't a
necessity.
like, but have never paid a whole lot of
Illusion Labs wants you to
Sway with them
By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 9:00:00 PM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming,
Software, iTunes, iPhone, App Store, iPod
touch
Illusion Labs is probably best known for
their first app, iPint, but have been making
splashes since then with interesting apps
that make great use of the iPhone's features
and touchscreen. I tried out their
Touchgrind app, and while it was a
fascinating demo of how to combine an in-
game physics system with the sensitive
touchscreen controls, it was a little too
tough for me to use (you have to really be
a skateboarder, since the app really is a
fingerboard, basically).
But Sway looks much more casual, and
still puts the touchscreen and tilt abilities
to great use. Like Rolando, it's a cartoony,
physics-based platformer, but unlike
molasses whipped sweet potatoes, and
winter vegetables followed up with
cinnamon apple sponge cake sound good
to you, they're all just a few recipes away.
looking for the best stream you can find,
let's hear what stream you're watching and
how it's working out.
attention to. He got my attention, however,
during this coverage with his constant
interjections of random facts.
A few things I learned from George
Stephanopoulos this morning:
Daily Digital Newspaper
Rolando, the mechanic here isn't rolling,
but swinging. You swing the little
characters around, and then use the
touchscreen to grab onto various parts of
the environment while exploring it.
Very intriguing. Like Touchgrind, the
controls might be a little too sophisticated
to appeal to all players (it looks tough
coordinating which hand is which and
exactly when to grab and let go), but we'll
have to see how it works out -- if it starts
out in an accessible way, Sway might be
really impressive. Illusion Labs didn't tell
us a price yet (their two other paid games
are $5 and $7), but the game is set to hit
the App Store soon.
TUAW Illusion Labs wants you to Sway
with them originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:00:00 EST. Please
see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading George
Stephanopoulos knows a lot of random
facts
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Daily Digital Newspaper
7 Online Things To Do To Help Obama Restore
America
By Alex Iskold (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:50:00 PM
On Tuesday, January 20th, 2009,
America and the whole world will gather
to watch Barack Obama be inaugurated as
the 44th President of the United States of
America. Many have called Mr. Obama the
Internet President because of the
unprecedented way his campaign used the
medium to raise funds, raise awareness,
and ultimately outmaneuver John McCain.
But what can we do now to help turn this
country around? Read on for 7 things
every one of us can do on the Internet to
help Obama restore America.
Sponsor
As Obama rolls into a very tough job to
restore America, it is very clear that the
Internet is going to be the #1 channel for
read/write communication with the people.
Change.gov not only features an elegant
design, but has useful content that connects
you to the President-Elect and solicits your
opinion and ideas. And the seemingly
small things like the iPhone application or
support of OpenID and Creative Commons
show that people on Obama's team are
intimately familiar with the latest
technologies and trends on the web.
If Obama and his team are going to use
the Internet to help change America, so
should we. The Internet is the most
powerful information technology ever
invented, and it has already changed the
way we elect the President of the United
States. Next, it just may help us restore
America to its true self. How? One person
at a time, starting with you and then
passing it along. Here are 7 things you can
do on the Internet to help President Obama
turn this great country around. 1. Read
About and Know the Issues
The least you can do is be aware. In this
day and age, ignorance cannot be excused.
ET's Kevin Frazier Gets Details Behind Inauguration Security
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:52:00 PM
As millions are estimated to be at the
nation's capital for the historic presidential
inauguration of Barack Obama on
All the information is out there, and
whether you are Democrat or Republican
or independent, the least you can do is find
it. Maybe you prefer the Huffington Post
or the New York Times or Fox News or
CNN or independent local media;
whatever your channel, spend at least 1
hour a week learning what is going on in
America and around the world. 2. Join the
Conversation
Obama is not a one-way president. If he
was, he would never have assembled such
a diverse, opinionated cabinet. Mr. Obama
knows that our strength is in our diversity,
and he wants to hear from you. We've been
living in the age of the read/write web for
the past 5+ years, and we have recently
seen a decline in user participation. The
time is now to re-engage, particularly
around the conversation on how to turn
this country around. You can directly help
shape the future of America, one comment
at a time. Find the blogs and online
newspapers that you like and comment on
the issues that matter. 3. Spread the News
The social explosion on the web created
a wonderful way to disseminate news.
Before, news was broadcast through
centralized hubs; now, through Twitter,
Facebook and other social networks, the
news is spread by individuals. The
implication is that your tweet matters.
When you tweet news, it does not matter if
it reaches thousands or dozens of people.
What matters is that it reaches the people
who want to hear the news from you. By
spreading the news, you are leveraging our
social fabric, helping the right information
travel through the right channels. 4. Learn
American History
To change the future, it is important to
know the past. Even if you are well versed
in American history, there is always more
to learn. Learning history is both
educational and patriotic. It is the subject
Tuesday, ET's Kevin Frazier gets the
details on how Washington D.C. police are
heavily involved in keeping everyone safe.
ET paid a visit to the Joint Operations
Command Center, where rows of monitors
show a live video display of nearly the
that all of us should turn to in tough times.
A good starting point is the Wikipedia
page on American history, packed with
links to historical figures and events.
About.com features a whole subdomain
dedicated to American history. You can
find articles on subjects ranging from the
Civil War to presidential elections to
biographies. For more in-depth learning,
head over to Kindle books on Amazon.
Over four thousand books on American
history come up. 5. Get Your Finances in
Order
Let's face it, the latest financial crisis is
partially our fault. Sure, Wall Street execs
were greedy and went too far, but so did
we. Many people were not disciplined and
lived beyond their means. If you haven't
yet, start using financial software such as
Mint and Wesabe, and get your finances
under control. Getting organized is the
most important step to getting your
finances in order. And like news
dissemination, fixing the financial crisis is
also done one person at a time. 6. Learn
about Green Tech
The issues of global warming and green
technologies are going to be at the
entire metropolitan D.C. area. With the
help of the security cameras that have
zoom abilities, D.C. police plan to closely
monitor activity in the streets -- and if
necessary, they will send officers to any
location.
forefront of Obama's presidency. Yes, the
current economic crisis and the needless
war in Iraq are the issues of the day, but
global warming and green tech are the
issues for decades to come. The first step
you need to take in 2009 is to educate
yourself. What is this all about? What is
my energy consumption? What are " green
homes"? Which products are green? What
is the state of the solar energy industry?
The web is full of green tech information;
you just need to pick a source to start
learning. And for a deeper look at the
profound issues facing us, read Thomas
Friedmans' Hot, Flat, and Crowded. 7.
Engage Locally
There is one place where Obama needs
your help more than anywhere else: your
community. Federal government can't
reach out to each corner of America, and
frankly, that is not its job. This is why you
can really make a difference by engaging
in local politics, buying regional produce,
taking your kids to a local history museum.
Every township is online these days. You
can connect through the Internet and
engage in local issues. From spring to fall,
you can shop at your local farmers' market,
helping make things a little greener.
Stepping up and doing just a little locally
really goes a long way. Conclusion
We are living in troubled yet exciting
times. Electing Barack Obama was only a
first step to turning America around. Now
the tough work, the heavy lifting, begins.
Mr. Obama is ready, but he needs your
help. Take the time to think about things
you can do on the Internet to help The
Change. It's patriotic, it is right, and it is a
lot of fun. Ready? Let's do this together!
See also: ReadWriteWeb Guide to
Celebrating Inauguration Day Discuss
Watch the video to see one security
camera catch Kevin as he is on the street
talking to a police sergeant -- and then the
ET crew is filmed by security cameras as
they make their way back to their car!
Web Tech* Movies* 21
Word Cloud Analysis of
Obama's Inaugural Speech
Compared to Bush, Clinton
and Reagan's
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:58:53 AM
Barack Obama was just sworn in as
President of the US and though he
stumbled in repeating his oath, the speech
that followed was delivered flawlessly and
was widely praised around the web.
(Several readers have told us that it wasn't
Obama that stumbled, it was Justice
Roberts.) There were quite a few concepts
discussed that we suspect haven't been a
part of past inaugural speeches. What
words were used most often? We ran the
full text of the speech through tag cloud
generator Wordle.net for one view of the
event, and just for the sake of historical
context we ran George W. Bush's second
inaugural speech through as well. Update:
After one reader suggested it, we've also
added word clouds from Bill Clinton's
second inaugural speech and Reagan's first
below.
The most common words in the Obama
and Bush speeches were dramatically
different.
Sponsor
Obama's Speech
Bush's Speech 2005
Bill Clinton's Second Inauguration
Speech
Ronald Reagan's First Inaugural Speech
Feeling Inspired by the Events Today?
See also our post from last night 7
Online Things You Can Do to Help
Obama Restore America. Check out the
new WhiteHouse.gov, where the face of
Presidential technology has changed
dramatically as well. Discuss
22 Web Tech*
Public Sentiment: Taking the True Pulse Finally - Get RSS Support
of the Public with Farewell W, Aloha for Google Chrome
Obama
By Rick Turoczy (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:30:16 AM
There was a time not so long ago when
traditional media provided the primary
vehicle for voicing "public opinion," how
the average person felt about the world at
large. But, today, as more and more people
move online and begin sharing opinions,
the "man on the street" has largely been
subsumed by "the man or woman on the
Web." Which is a step in the right
direction. The problem now? Finding and
aggregating those opinions. Public
Sentiment, a new site designed to help
provide an unfiltered view of opinions on a
specific topic, could be the very lens
needed to accurately analyze those varied
opinions. Its inaugural experiment,
"Farewell W, Aloha Obama," demonstrates
the potential of the service.
Sponsor
Designed to solicit opinions about the
change in the United States presidency and
make them accessible without editing or
additional bias, "Farewell W, Aloha
Obama" allows anyone to compose a short
message that wishes outgoing President
The Next Android Smartphone
By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 6:04:08 AM
Here in the U.S., your choices in phones
running Google's new Android operating
system have been limited. If you weren't a
fan of the T-Mobile G1 form factor - a
design best for heavy texters thanks to its
slide-out keyboard - you were pretty much
out of luck. No more. Word has it that
Samsung will soon be releasing their own
Android smartphone for use on both the T-
Mobile and Sprint carriers.
Sponsor
According to TechRadar, a company
representative for Samsung confirmed that
they will be speeding up the development
of their own version of an Android-
powered device in order to stay
George W. Bush farewell or welcomes
incoming President Barack Obama into
office. The response format allows for both
positive and negative sentiments to be
directed at either politician.
What is the site hoping to accomplish
with this offering?"[W]e hope to reveal
and share the spectrum of people's
unedited, raw opinions about certain
current events. We hope you will
participate by contributing your own
sentiments and reading the sentiments of
others.... This is not intended to be an
authoritative source or official opinion
poll, but we do hope that this venue can be
an outlet and repository for individual,
independent voices."
And what better time to begin soliciting
this feedback than the changing of the
resident of the White House?
Users can submit short messages to the
service via Twitter, by composing a
message directed to@georgewbush
competitive in the mobile phone market.
The phone will debut sometime in 2009
and will be available for T-Mobile and
Sprint customers.
Beyond that, everything else about the
news appears to be speculation, including
the phone's supposed June 2009 launch
date. However, we're inclined to believe
the rumor about the phone's form factor (or
perhaps we just want to believe it). Some
sources report that the new phone will
resemble the Samsung Instinct, a currently
popular touchscreen phone that features
Power Vision Services, Sprint's over-the-
air TV offering. Other rumors point to the
phone being a closer match to the Omnia, a
phone initially made available in Asia and
Europe, and is now with Verizon. Either
way, the rumors point to the device being a
containing the word "farewell" or
to@barackobama containing "aloha." But
it's not only Twitter users who get to
participate. By visiting Public Sentiment
and using the submission form- which
offers both a short message or long letter -
anyone can share their sentiment on the
topic. The form also offers the opportunity
to declare political leanings and for whom
the respondent cast his or her vote, if
desired.
While this version of Public Sentiment
focuses on the United States political
process, the concept could be easily
extrapolated to any number of subject
areas. It will be interesting to watch how
the first Public Sentiment experiment
proceeds - and which topics they select for
soliciting opinions in the future.
At the very least, spending even a short
amount of time browsing through random
sentiments provides a far more interesting
assessment of public opinion than a
"satisfaction poll" ever could.
To read what others are saying, visit
Farewell W or Aloha Obama. To submit
your own sentiment, send a note via Public
Sentiment. Discuss
touchscreen with no slide-out keyboard.
That seems plausible enough to us since
the keyboard-equipped G1 is already
already available on T-Mobile, one of the
carriers which would sell the new Samsung
device. The company probably wouldn't
want to launch a phone that was too similar
to the other Android phone. It's also likely
that they would want to capitalize on the
success of their previous models, too.
If any of the rumors are true, there's a
good chance that the new phone will be
introduced at next month's Mobile World
Congress, the world's largest exhibition for
the mobile industry, held in Barcelona.
Until then, we'll just have to cross our
fingers and wait. Discuss
By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:06:54 AM
Although many of us have been enjoying
the speedy new browser from Google,
Google Chrome, it's far from perfect.
Despite being released from beta status in
December, the browser still lacks a handful
of features that would make it more of a
complete product. One such feature is the
browser's lack of support for RSS feeds.
Sponsor
Along with lack of support for RSS, the
Chrome browser's Mac version is still
underway and there is not a good extension
architecture in place. As we discovered
earlier, the best way to use add-ons in
Chrome is via browser bookmarklets.
Along those same lines, there are now two
new ways to work with RSS, also by
employing the use of browser
bookmarklets. Auto-Detect RSS in
Chrome
On the web page
http://www.feeds.ramisp.org, there are two
bookmarklets available: "View RSS Feed"
and Auto-Detect RSS." Drag each of these
bookmarklets to Chrome's bookmark bar.
Then, whenever you're on a page that has
an RSS feed, you just have to hit the "Auto
-Detect RSS" button. This will take you to
a page where the feed is displayed along
with several auto-subscription links up at
the top. Alternately, you can just hit "view
RSS feed," if you want to see the RSS feed
in the browser, but this option didn't
always work in our tests.
One of the problems with the ramisp.org
bookmarklets, though, is the limited choice
of RSS readers they offer underneath the
"Subscribe Now!" section. Currently, you
have the option to subscribe using Google,
Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, and Netvibes.
Although that covers many of the popular
readers, there are still several that were left
Daily Digital Newspaper
out.
Luckily, a commenter on LifeHacker has
modified the scripts to include a few more.
If you use Newsgator, Podnova, or Odeo,
you should grab his bookmarklet instead
from http://savanttools.com/feedhelp-
bookmarklet.asp. For Google Reader
Users, Google Bookmarklets are Best
However, for Google Reader fans, the
best bookmarklets for subscribing to feeds
still come from Google themselves. Unlike
the above options, Google addresses the
issue of sites offering more than one feed.
Google provides two bookmarklets to
choose from for simple RSS subscribing:•
Subscribe- View the first available feed in
Google Reader.
• Show all feeds- Lists all feeds and links
them to Google Reader.
Google also offers ways to note and
share items using bookmarklets, too.
As handy as all these options are, at best
they are still a workaround for what should
be a built-in feature. Why wouldn't Google
at the very least include an RSS button in
Chrome that integrates directly with their
own RSS Reader? We don't understand the
delay on this design decision - we just
hope they are working on correcting this
oversight. Discuss
Daily Digital Newspaper
Facebook and CNN: The Power of the
Social Web Revealed
By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:29:38 AM
Today Barack Obama was sworn in as the
44th President of the United States. As
several million people attended the
inauguration in Washington D.C.,
Facebook and CNN invited the rest of the
world to watch the moment online. Online
visitors to CNN.com were able to use its
video player to watch the live broadcast
coverage of the event. We also saw what
has be one of the most brilliant examples
of the real-time web in action: next to the
video, the Facebook status updates of those
watching streamed by in the sidebar.
Sponsor
The integration of the status updates on
CNN.com Live was powered by Facebook
Connect, Facebook's relatively new
platform for porting your online identity
anywhere on the web. When a web site
uses Facebook Connect, visitors can easily
authenticate on that site using their
Dipity: Visualizing the Passage of Time
By Rick Turoczy (ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:45:16 PM
For many of us, our tributaries of social
data find their way into our lifestream, an
aggregated collection of our online
activities. More often than not, that stream
appears as a collection of text entries: the
most recent item followed by the second
most recent, and so on. While the
progression is obvious, what's not so clear
is the passage of time. Those data points
could be seconds apart - or months apart.
Enter Dipity, a service that takes those
moments in time and plots them along
along a timeline, providing an entirely new
take on the activities we're pursuing and
how they relate.
Sponsor
We first encountered Dipity, last year, at
the Graphing Social Patterns West
AppNite where it was demoed as a
Facebook app. Since then the site has
added a number of new features - most
recently an import tool for now-defunct
circaVie data- and dealt with some uptime
Facebook account information - no need
for a separate username and password.
Besides simply being convenient, it allows
people to log on as their "real" selves, a
trend that perhaps speaks to the beginning
of the end of online anonymity.
If there was any doubt of the power this
platform provides, we've just witnessed an
incredible - if not historic - example of
what it can do. President Obama's
inauguration is sure to knock Facebook
Connect ahead of its main competitor in
the realm of portable social identities,
Google Friend Connect, whose current
claim to fame is a blog widget that does
little more than the falling-from-grace
Yahoo's MyBlogLog widget does now,
save for some over-hyped integration with
social services like Twitter, Plaxo, and
Orkut.
In the end, not only did Facebook
Connect provide an interactive look into
the thoughts and feelings of all those
watching CNN's coverage via the web - it
issues. We thought it was worth taking a
second look.
Getting started with Dipity is easy.
Simply start feeding the service your data:
photos from Flickr or Picasa, blog entries,
RSS feeds, music from Last.fm or
Pandora, videos, or microbloging feeds.
Anything that offers a publicly accessible
feed is fair game.
And that means, that it's not just your
data. It's any publicly accessible data. If
you want to add data from other RSS feeds
- say you wanted a timeline showing when
the top tech blogs publish stories - you can
do that, as well. Or maybe you'd like to
add content from a Google alert or Yahoo!
Pipes? Or build something with Dapper to
populate your timeline? All viable options.
Suffice it to say, there are any number of
ways to feed Dipity.
But, the true value of Dipity is how it lets
did so without crashing. According to the
statistics, there were 200,000+ status
updates, which equaled out to 3,000 people
commenting on the Facebook/CNN feed
per minute. Right before Obama spoke,
that number grew to 8500. Additionally,
Obama's Facebook Fan Page has more
than 4 million fans and more than 500,000
wall posts.(We wonder if anyone on his
staff will ever read all those!).
CNN didn't do too badly either. They
broke their total daily streaming record, set
earlier on Election Day, and delivered 5.3
million streams. Did you have trouble
catching a stream? We didn't hear of any
issues, but if you missed out, you can
watch it again later today. CNN will replay
the live video at 3 PM, 5 PM, 9 PM, and
12 midnight (EST) on cnn.com/video.
For more political coverage as it relates
to the web, see also our post from last
night 7 Online Things You Can Do to Help
Obama Restore America. Discuss
you visualize that data. Once the sources
are added, the service plots each discrete
element along a timeline. And that view of
the data provides a very different
perspective of "what's happening when."
You can also zoom in and out of the
timeline - down to hours or out to years -
to help provide additional perspective.
It's a like a graphing engine for your
lifestream - or any combined stream of
reference data.
After only a few minutes, I was working
to push all sorts of random collections
through the tool. No doubt, you're already
thinking of some very interesting data sets
to run through it, as well. And if you're
short on ideas, the folks at Dipity have
compiled some interesting timelines to
inspire you.
Interested in taking a different view of
the data you're producing? Visit Dipity and
register for a free account.
Discuss
Syncplicity - Easy Online
Backup and Synchronization
(300 Beta Invites for Mac Users)
By Frederic Lardinois
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:10:18 AM
Besides email and photo sharing, storing
documents in the cloud and syncing them
between different computers is quickly
becoming one of the most common uses of
cloud computing. Syncplicity is one of the
numerous entrants in this market, and
while it is quite similar to many of its
competitors, we have come to like it a lot
thanks to its intuitive web interface and
ease of use.
One feature still missing from
Syncplicity, which came out of beta late
last year, was a Mac client. We were able
to get some invites to the private Mac beta
of Syncplicity, however. You can claim
yours at the bottom of this post.
Sponsor
Sync with Google Docs
Synplicity, as the name implies, allows
you to synchronize your files and folders
between different computers and store
them online. More interestingly, however,
Syncplicity also allows you to sync your
documents with your Google Docs
account. You can also edit your documents
with Zoho and work on your pictures with
Picnik.
Just like Microsoft's Live Mesh,
Syncplicity synchronizes your files
automatically whenever you change a file.
The client encrypts your documents before
the transfer and your documents are also
encrypted on Syncplicity's servers.
Ben Affleck, Stars Turn Out to D.C. Rally
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 2:12:00 PM
As President-elect Barack Obama spent
the day before his historic inauguration
visiting homeless youth and doing service,
some celebrities are following suit. Ben
Affleck, among a list of other stars, came
together Monday in Washington, D.C., for
a good cause.
Affleck, joined by Martin Luther King
Web Tech* Movies* 23
Talk About a Crowded Market
Syncplicity is working in a very crowded
market. Most importantly, Microsoft's Live
Mesh and Live Sync offer more storage,
though also a slightly different feature set
(of course, it wouldn't be Microsoft if they
didn't offer at least two solutions to the
same problem). But there are also
numerous other startups like Wuala,
SugarSync, Mozy, Box.net, and Dropbox
that offer similar synchronization and
backup solutions. All of these services,
however, will definitely be facing the
competition from Microsoft once it
releases it online version of Office and
integrates that with its online storage
services.
For now, however, Syncplicity offers one
of the most compelling services in this
market. Pricing
Syncplicity's basic service, with 2GB of
storage and syncing between 2 computers,
is available for free. For $9.99 a month or
$99 a year, you get 50GB of storage and
the ability to sync data between an
unlimited amount of machines. Mac Client
Beta Invites
One feature that was still missing from
Syncplicity was a Mac client. Syncplicity
gave us 300 beta invites for its new Mac
client. Just head over here and claim yours.
Discuss
III, actor David Arquette and musicians
Herbie Hancock and Josh Groban, turned
out to the National Hunger Rally hosted by
Feeding America.
The national rally against hunger, which
took place at the Martin Luther King
Library on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday,
featured a joint performance by Hancock
and Groban.
24 Web Tech* World* Apple*
50+ Semantic Web Pros to Mozilla's Test Pilot: A
Follow on Twitter Global Usability Lab for
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
(ReadWriteWeb) Firefox
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:48:45 PM
Here at ReadWriteWeb, we find the
Semantic Web fascinating. We write about
it a lot. What is the semantic web? The
way we explain it is that it's a paradigm
advocating that the meaning of content on
the web be made machine readable.
Why would you want to do that?
Because once the "meaning" of text is
automatically discernible, there's a whole
new world of things we can do with
content on the web. Far out things that full
text search for the mere presence of
keywords would never be able to
accomplish. Who's working on the
semantic web and how can you meet
them? Read on.
Sponsor
In November, 2007 we published a list of
10 Semantic Web companies to watch.
Then, one year later, we published a new
list for 2008 of Semantic Web companies
to watch.
Based on those lists, and reader
suggestions in comments of other
companies that should be watched, we
present to you a list of 50+ Twitter users
who work at Semantic Web companies. If
you find this sector as interesting as we do,
you might want to add some of these
people to your microblogging community.
You can click through the arrows in the
Greek shipping tycoon freed after family pays ransom
By Jo Adetunji (World news |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:32:22 PM
A prominent Greek shipping tycoon who
was kidnapped at gunpoint near his home
in broad daylight was freed today after his
family paid a ransom, Greek police said.
Pericles Panagopoulos, 74, the founder
of Greek ferry operator Superfast Ferries,
was abducted in broad daylight by three
armed men with AK47s near his home in
Kavouri, a coastal suburb of Athens, on 12
iframe below to scroll through all the
accounts and add the people listed. RSS
readers who'd like to see the list should
click through to the full post.
A handful of these are company
accounts, but most are accounts from
individual employees. Want to suggest
anyone we missed? (We know there are
lots we've missed!) Let us know in
comments. You can also meet the RWW
crew on Twitter.
If this iFrame is driving you batty, see
also this old list of links to all the accounts
displayed below.
Discuss
January.
Panagopoulos, who police said was
suffering from serious medical problems
requiring daily medication, was pulled
from his Mercedez-Benz while being
driven to work and handcuffed before
being bundled into a van, which was later
found burnt out by police. His driver, who
was also seized during the abduction, was
released in a nearby town.
The shipping magnate, who also founded
and later sold the hugely successful ferry
operator, Attica Group, and the Royal
By Frederic Lardinois
(ReadWriteWeb)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:05:40 PM
Doing extensive usability studies has
always been a problem for open source
projects. Mozilla has decided to implement
a new way of tackling this problem for its
projects and is moving ahead with the Test
Pilot project, which was first announced
last year.
Test Pilot is currently only a "still-in-
concept platform," but the plan is to build a
representative sample of Firefox users that
will be recruited to evaluate new interface
concepts and features.
Sponsor
As Mozilla points out in its ' vision'
statement for Test Pilot, it's not just
Firefox that could profit from a usability
lab on this scale, but every Mozilla Labs
project could benefit from this wide-scale
testing of new ideas and interfaces. As
Mozilla's Aza Raskin notes, most of the
feedback that Mozilla currently receives is
in the form of feedback from early
adopters, anecdotes from users, and ad-hoc
experiments. How it Will Work
After the installation, the Test Pilot
addon will gather non-personally-
identifiable information from its users and
then put these users into different
demographic buckets. Depending on the
Cruise Line, had been kept in an industrial
estate outside Athens, police said.
A police official, who declined to be
named, said: "The police picked up Mr
Panagopoulos at about 1.30am this
morning after being informed of his
whereabouts."
He added: "The kidnappers called his
wife and told her of his location, and she
then called us. He was taken to hospital to
undergo health checks."
Although there have been suspected links
to organised crime, the abduction was
tests that need to be run, users will be
selected to participate in different
experiments and will be asked to provide
feedback on a regular basis. All the
information gather through this plugin will
be made available to the public.
This sounds like a great project, and we
are happy to see that Mozilla is moving
forward with this. It will probably still be a
while before we see the fruits of this idea,
however, as Mozilla is only now hiring a
full-time developer to create the actual
implementation of the Test Pilot program.
Discuss
investigated by anti-terrorism police and
sparked fears of a resurgence of domestic
terrorism.
The kidnappers were reported to have
demanded a ransom of €40 million for his
release.
Panagopoulos's abduction is one of three
high-profile kidnappings in the country
since June 2007. Industrialist Giorgos
Mylonas was taken from his home in
Thessaloniki, northern Greece, in June, and
released two weeks later after his family
paid a reputed ransom of €12m. A
Daily Digital Newspaper
iLife '09 hardware
up-to-date
program
By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:00:00 AM
Filed under: iLife, Software Just as we
saw them do in 2007, Apple has instituted
an up-to-date program for iLife '09.
According to Apple, customers who
purchased a qualifying Mac "... on or after
January 6, 2009, that does not include iLife
'09, [may] upgrade to iLife '09 for
$9.95US."
What exactly is a "qualifying computer?"
You'll find the full list here, but the short
answer is you'll have to check your
machine's model number. There's even a
list of qualifying refurbished machines.
This offer will end on March 28, 2009,
so you've still got time to upgrade for ten
bucks.
TUAW iLife '09 hardware up-to-date
program originally appeared on The
Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on
Tue, 20 Jan 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see
our terms for use of feeds.
Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments
prominent doctor kidnapped near his home
on the outskirts of Athens in December has
yet to be released.
• Greece
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
Daily Digital Newspaper
Gaza doctors struggle to treat deadly burns consistent
with white phosphorus
By Rory McCarthy (World news |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:11:29 AM
Doctors in Gaza described today how
they had struggled to treat dozens of
patients with terrible and unusually deadly
burns consistent with white phosphorus
weapons, during Israel's three-week war in
Gaza.
Nafiz Abu Shabaan, head of the burns
unit at Shifa hospital and the most senior
burns surgeon in Gaza, said 60 to 70
patients had died in his unit during the war
from severe burns that were unlike any
injury he had previously seen.
Patients with only relatively small burn
injuries, which ought to be survivable,
were dying unexpectedly.
His account, along with evidence from
survivors, corroborates mounting evidence
from groups such as Human Rights Watch
and Amnesty International that the Israeli
military fired phosphorus shells into
populated areas of Gaza in direct violation
of international humanitarian law.
Amnesty said it believes Israel is guilty of
a war crime.
White phosphorus is allowed to be used
as a smokescreen on the battlefield in
certain situations, but its use in civilian
areas is prohibited under United Nations
conventions.
The Israeli military has at times denied
using white phosphorus, and at other times
has said only that it uses weapons "in
compliance with international law".
Yesterday the military said it would
launch an internal investigation. Israel's
Ma'ariv newspaper reported yesterday that
the Israeli military had now admitted using
phosphorus munitions, but only in open
areas.
Abu Shabaan, who was trained in Egypt,
Britain and the United States and has been
Mark Harmon Talks 'NCIS' and 'Weather Girl'
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 3:14:00 PM
ET was with "NCIS" star Mark Harmon
in Park City, Utah at the Slamdance Film
Festival to get the latest on "NCIS" and his
head of the Shifa burns unit for 15 years,
said he and his staff had been stunned by
the "unusual wounds" they found.
"It starts with small patches and in hours
it becomes wide and deep and in some
cases it reaches the point where even the
general condition of the patient
deteriorates rapidly and unexpectedly," he
said.
Doctors had noticed a "very bad odour
from the wound," he said. In many cases
patients also suffered unexpected and
severe toxicity, and had to be rushed into
intensive care. In one case, a consultant
anaesthetist suffered minor burns on his
chest after burning material sprayed from
within a patient's wounds during an
-operation.
Small burns were causing death. "A
patient with 15% burns should not die, but
we are seeing cases with 15% burns where
they are dying," Abu Shabaan said. He
believed, based on what he had read and
what foreign doctors helping at the hospital
had told him, that the wounds were
consistent with phosphorus.
He described one patient, a three-year-
old girl, who was sent for a scan because
of a head wound: "After about two hours
she came back, we opened the wound, and
smoke came out from the wound," he said.
Surgeons used forceps to pull out a
substance from the wound that was "like
dense cotton and it started to burn," he
said. "The piece continued to burn until it
disappeared." The child, who was from
Atatra, in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza,
died.
In the Shifa burns unit yesterday, Sabbah
Abu Halima described how her house, also
in Atatra, had been hit early in the war by
several shells which killed her husband,
Sa'ad Allah, and four of their children:
Abdul Rahim, 14, Zayid, 10, Hamza, eight,
and Shahed, who was 15 months old. She
new film, 'Weather Girl.'
Last week ET broke the news that CBS
is planning a spinoff of "NCIS," which
itself was a spinoff of "JAG." Today Ryan
Devlin, Mark's co-star in 'Weather Girl,'
gets the 411 from Mark on what he knows
herself suffered severe burns to her right
arm, abdomen, left leg and her feet, burns
which doctors said appeared to be
consistent with white phosphorus.
There were 16 members of the family in
the house when an Israeli shell landed
outside, close to a bedroom. Sa'ad Allah
gathered his four children around him and
they ran to another part of the house. A
second shell then hit their living room,
killing Sa'ad Allah and the three boys
immediately. Another shell then landed,
knocking Sabbah to the ground. "I fell on
the ground and there was a fire. The room
was full of smoke and it smelt very bad.
Three times I heard my daughter say
'Mama, mama, mama', but I couldn't see
her," she said. The infant daughter,
Shahed, collapsed and died.
Sabbah's own clothes were burning and
she rolled on the floor trying to put out the
fire before she was pulled out of the house
and rushed to hospital by her relatives. Her
wounds were smoking for several hours.
Two others from the family were killed
as they tried to retrieve the bodies. Their
corpses, along with the body of Shahed,
were recovered on 8 January by medics
from the Red Cross and the Palestinian
Red Crescent. The decomposing bodies of
Sa'ad Allah and his three sons were only
found a week later.
The Israeli strike on the warehouses in
the main UN compound in Gaza City last
Thursday was also believed to be the result
of three white phosphorus shells. Small
pieces of burning material were seen at the
site hours after the blast. Yesterday the
remains of hundreds of tonnes of food and
aid in the warehouses were still
smouldering. The jagged remains of
155mm artillery shell lay outside.
Doctors at the Shifa are now keeping two
tissue biopsies from each patient. "We are
asking for international organisations to
about the upcoming series.
"I don't think it spins off anybody who is
on the current show," Mark reveals. "The
network looks at a successful franchise,
saying, 'Can we get more out of it?' But I
will believe it when it is done. As an actor,
World* Apple* Movies*
send experts to investigate and test to
know the type of weapons that have been
used, and to tell us how to deal with this
type of injury," Abu Shabaan said. "I have
been here since 1985 working in the burns
unit and head of department for 15 years
and I have never seen something like this."
What is white phosphorus?
White phosphorus weapons are 155mm
artillery shells containing 116 white
phosphorus wedges. When the shell
explodes it spreads the wedges over
several hundred square metres. They ignite
on contact with the air and burn at more
than 800C. When they touch human skin
they burn to the bone, causing terrible
injuries and forcing doctors to excise large
areas of flesh to prevent the burn
spreading.
Using white phosphorous is not illegal. It
can be used as an incendiary weapon, to
set fire to military targets, to mark military
targets, or to spread smoke. However, its
use is strictly limited under UN
conventions and international humanitarian
law.
Fundamental rules stipulate civilians
must be protected, and that attacks must
not cause "disproportionate" damage to
civilians and civilian objects. Particular
care must be taken when using white
phosphorus weapons and they cannot be
used as an incendiary weapon against a
military target that is not clearly separated
from civilian areas.
• Gaza
• Israel and the Palestinian territories
• Middle East
• Weapons technology
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you hope it doesn't do anything detrimental
to what you have. But ask me again in a
month."
25
iPhone Dev
101:
Introduction
By Cory Bohon (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:00:00 AM
Filed under: Features, How-tos,
Developer, iPhone Welcome to the iPhone
Dev 101 series. This series on TUAW is
designed to tell readers about iPhone
development, and give potential iPhone
developers a look at the iPhone. In this
introductory post, I'll walk you through
some of the most asked questions about the
iPhone & App Store. These posts will be a
little geeky, but I will try to explain
anything that you might not already know
about.
Where do I start?
If you already have an Apple ID (either
from iTunes/MobileMe/.Mac/etc.), then
the first place to start would be to join the
iPhone DevCenter. The basic (free) access
will allow you to download the SDK
(Software Development Kit), look at
documentation, download example code,
and test your applications in the iPhone
Simulator (a Mac application that emulates
the iPhone OS).
You will not be able to test and debug
your application on your actual iPhone or
iPod touch hardware, however. For that
you will need to purchase a paid
development membership.
Once you attempt to sign in to the
DevCenter with your Apple ID, you will
be presented with some terms and
conditions that you will need to accept.
Once you accept them, you will be taken to
the main DevCenter -- this is the place
where you will be able to download the
SDK and access some other important
information about iPhone development.
Read on to learn more about iPhone
development.
Continue reading iPhone Dev 101:
Introduction
TUAW iPhone Dev 101: Introduction
originally appeared on The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Jan
2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
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26 World* Movies*
Barack Obama sworn in as US president
By Mark Tran, Daniel Nasaw (World
news | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:07:00 AM
Barack Obama, the first African-
American to be elected to the White
House, today called for a "new era of
responsibility" as he was sworn in as the
44th president of the United States.
In front of a crowd of more than 1
million people, Obama acknowledged in
his inauguration speech that times were
fraught, with the US fighting two wars and
grappling with the worst economic crisis
since the 1930s.
"That we are in the midst of crisis is now
well understood," he told a crowd that
stretched out for miles before him. "Our
nation is at war, against a far-reaching
network of violence and hatred.
"Our economy is badly weakened – a
consequence of greed and irresponsibility
on the part of some, but also our collective
failure to make hard choices and prepare
the nation for a new age."
But the 47-year-old said he was ready to
meet the challenges confronting the US:
"Starting today, we must pick ourselves
up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the
work of remaking America."
Obama went on to say that the US "will
begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its
people and forge a hard-earned peace in
Afghanistan". While not mentioning al-
Qaida by name, he had hard words for
America's enemies.
"We will not apologise for our way of
life, nor will we waver in its defence," the
new US president said. "And for those who
seek to advance their aims by inducing
terror and slaughtering innocents, we say
to you now that our spirit is stronger and
cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us,
and we will defeat you."
In an indictment of the Bush era, he also
called for a return to traditional values of
hard work and honesty.
"What is required of us now is a new era
of responsibility – a recognition on the part
of every American that we have duties to
New Video: Tom Cruise with Thea Andrews in Berlin!
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:30:00 PM
ET's Thea Andrews catches up with Tom
ourselves, our nation and the world ..."
The handover to a new US
administration began its ritual unfolding
when Obama and his wife, Michelle,
arrived at the White House to be met by
George and Laura Bush on a red carpet.
The four posed for the cameras after
Michelle, wearing a pale gold sheath dress
with matching coat by the Cuban-born
American designer Isabel Toledo, handed a
giftwrapped box to the Bushes.
After the traditional short pre-
inauguation coffee, the incoming and
outgoing presidential entourages made
their way in their armoured motorcades to
the ceremony. The soul music legend
Aretha Franklin kicked off proceedings by
singing Let Freedom Ring, watched by the
Washington elite and Hollywood
celebrities including Dustin Hoffman,
Stephen Spielberg and John Cusack.
As Bush arrived at the Capitol, a
smattering of boos could be heard. Dick
Cheney, Bush's vice-president, who had
pulled a muscle in his back, attended the
ceremony in a wheelchair. Bush later left
the White House by helicopter for the last
time.
In keeping with tradition, Bush had left a
note for Obama in the top drawer of his
desk in the Oval Office. Dana Perino, the
former White House press secretary, said it
wished Obama well in beginning a
"fabulous new chapter" in the US.
Planners expected attendance easily to
top the 1.2 million people who attended
Lyndon Johnson's 1965 inauguration, the
largest crowd the national park service has
on record.
Trains were crowded, and passengers
were in jubilant and expectant mood,
despite the early hour and subzero
temperatures. Thousands of charter buses
from across the country are in the capital,
packing car parks and streets, many of
which closed last night to accommodate
the surge of overnight visitors and day-
trippers.
For the great gathering, Washington was
locked down, with street closures,
Cruise in Berlin, Germany, where his
movie 'Valkyrie' is set to premiere this
week.
Tom says he is very excited to be
checkpoints, camouflage-clad soldiers at
main intersections, air patrols and police
boats in the harbour.
As the crowds packed into the US
Capitol grounds and nearby parkland to
witness Obama take the oath of office, as
many as 40,000 military, civilian and
private security officers were on duty,
roughly one for every 50 people in
attendance.
Just before Obama was sworn in, the
homeland security department said it was
investigating a potential threat "of
uncertain credibility". Law enforcement
and intelligence officials said they had
received information that people associated
with a Somalia-based group, al-Shabaab,
may try to travel to the US with plans to
disrupt the inauguration.
Obama took his oath on the same Bible
Abraham Lincoln used at his 1861
inauguration, when he proclaimed the end
of slavery.
Tomorrow, on his first working day in
office, Obama is expected to fulfil his
campaign promise to begin the withdrawal
of US forces from Iraq under a 16-month
timetable. Aides said he would summon
the joint chiefs of staff to the Oval Office
to order the pullout.
Before the inauguration, the Vatican
released a message from Pope Benedict
XVI in which the Pontiff said he was
praying that God would grant Obama
"unfailing wisdom and strength" in
carrying out his responsibilities. Benedict
also said attention must be paid to the
poor, the outcast, the hungry and "those
who have no voice".
• Obama inauguration
• Barack Obama
• Obama White House
• US elections 2008
• United States
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debuting his film in Germany, where the
star said there had been some initial
trepidation because of the subject manner.
In 'Valkyrie,' Tom plays Col. Claus Graf
Journalist and human rights
lawyer shot by masked
gunman in Moscow
By Oliver Luft (World news |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:27:00 AM
A Russian freelance journalist was killed
yesterday as she attempted to intervene
when a human rights lawyer, renowned for
his work on abuses in Chechnya, was also
murdered by a masked gunman.
Lawyer Stanislav Markelov was shot in
the back of the head at close range in broad
daylight yesterday in Moscow by a
gunman who followed him from a news
conference, the Associated Press reported.
Journalist Anastasia Baburova was also
killed as she attempted to help Markelov.
According to the AP, the state-run RIA-
Novosti Russian news agency reported that
Markelov's attacker wore a stocking-style
mask and had a silencer on his gun. Local
police reportedly said there were several
witnesses.
The murders drew comparisons with the
2006 killing of investigative journalist
Anna Politkovskaya, a client of Markelov's
and a fellow opponent of human rights
abuses in Chechnya and across former
president Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Baburova, a freelance journalist in her
mid-20s, had worked for the Novaya
Gazeta newspaper, also Politkovskaya's
employer.
Andrei Lipsky, a deputy editor with the
paper, told AP that Baburova tried to
intervene after Markelov was attacked. A
colleague at the paper confirmed later that
she had died on the operating table after
being rushed to hospital.
Billionaire Russian businessman
Alexander Lebedev, who is close to buying
the London Evening Standard, holds a
stake in Novaya Gazeta, along with former
Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.
von Stauffenberg, who helped hatch a plot
to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the height of
World War II in order seize power and put
an end to the bloodshed.
Daily Digital Newspaper
A Chechen parliament deputy, Isa
Khadzhimuratov, said yesterday he
believed Markelov's killing was likely to
be connected to the case of a former
Russian army officer who was freed early
last week after being convicted in 2003
and sentenced to 10 years for murdering a
Chechen woman, Heda Kungayeva.
According to AP, Markelov, who was
instrumental in a number of cases
involving alleged atrocities by the Russian
military, told reporters he was considering
filing an international court appeal against
the early release of the killer, Colonel
Budanov.
Kungayeva's father, Visa Kungayev, who
has taken refuge in Norway with his
family, said Markelov told him last week
he had been threatened with death if he
refused to drop the case, the Interfax news
agency reported.
The Budanov case was being watched as
a bellwether of Russian authorities'
approach to dealing with human rights
abuses in Chechnya.
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phone 020 3353 3857. For all other
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switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Clemency and conversation in George
Bush's last day
By Ewen MacAskill (World news |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
President George Bush yesterday issued
last-minute acts of clemency to two US
border guards and made a final round of
calls to world leaders, including Gordon
Brown, to say goodbye.
Ignacio Ramos and José Compeán were
sentenced to 10 years for trying to cover up
the shooting in 2005 of a Mexican drug
dealer, Osvaldo Alderete, as he tried to
escape across the Rio Grande, abandoning
a van loaded with marijuana.
The sentencing at the time produced an
outcry, with supporters saying the pair
were just doing their job.
A US administration official said Bush
agreed the sentence was excessive.
Compeán and Ramos, who have served
about two years, are expected to be
released from prison within two months.
The president can make pardons up till
11.59 am today, but Bush advisers said
there would be no more. There had been
expectations Bush might offer protection
Use your iPhone to navigate Inauguration Day
By Michael Rose (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 9:45:00 PM
Filed under: Features, Odds and ends,
iPhone, App Store Second Update: You
can also use the free SHOUTcast Radio [
App Store link] to listen to WTOP for
Inauguration Day coverage on your iPhone
or iPod touch. The stream works great with
EDGE, 3G, and WiFi.(SHOUTcast is
published by AOL, the parent company of
this blog.)
Update: Late word is that the Ustream
video viewer has made it to the App Store
today, so you might be able to stream the
inaugural coverage after all. We're
downloading it now and will have a full
review up tomorrow morning. Joost is also
planning to stream the CBS coverage, so
for US officials involved in torture
at Guantánamo, and offer pardons in a
raft of high-profile political and financial
scandal cases.
One of the biggest cases involved former
White House adviser, Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, who became caught up in a CIA
leak scandal. Although Bush has already
commuted his jail sentence, his supporters
had hoped for a full pardon.
Bush, who returned to the White House
after a final weekend with his family at
Camp David, phoned some leaders to
thank them for their support during the
eight years of his presidency. Among those
he called was Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian
prime minister, who along with Tony Blair
was one of his strongest supporters in
Europe of the invasion of Iraq.
Other leaders to receive a call included
Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, Lee
Myung-bak of South Korea, and former
president Vicente Fox of Mexico.
Bush has one final act as president:
handing over power to Barack Obama at
noon tomorrow. But the press corps in
Washington will also be watching to see
that should work on your iPhone as well.
Among the hundreds of thousands of
celebrants descending on Washington,
D.C. for tomorrow's big day, there must be
at least a few iPhone owners. What might
they find in the App Store, we wonder, to
improve the visit?
The Inauguration Guide iPhone app(all
app links open iTunes), developed by
PointAbout and sponsored by a D.C. law
firm and communications consultancy,
aims to give visitors to the District
everything they need to find their way
around the city in the midst of the crowds
and commotion. Although the front screen
of the app is a simple countdown and
distance-to-the-Capitol readout, the data
gallery includes parking, public transport
and restaurant info. The app is free, so it's
certainly worth adding to your toolbelt if
whether, in spite of White House claims,
he will make any further last-minute
pardons, as his predecessors have done.
With the new acts of clemency
yesterday, Bush has granted a total of 189
pardons and 11 commutations, fewer than
half as many as Bill Clinton or Ronald
Reagan. Reagan issued 406 in eight years.
The White House has been inundated
with hundreds of pleas for clemency,
including one from US senator Lisa
Murkowski for the disgraced former
Alaska senator Ted Stevens, a veteran
Republican who was convicted in
Washington in October of seven charges of
felony for failing to declare gifts from an
oil company.
• George Bush
• Obama inauguration
• United States
• Mexico
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you're attending the festivities.
If you already know your way around but
you'd like an easy tool to relay your
experiences, the Inauguration Report app
(also free) might be your ticket. You can
send your impressions in text, picture or
audio form to the coverage team at CBS
News and NPR for possible inclusion in
the reporting of the event.
For $0.99 each, you could pick up a
guide to the inaugural event schedule, a
comprehensive photo and speech gallery or
a countdown clock that includes press
coverage and citations from the US
Constitution (awful handy). Still don't have
a place to sleep? It's probably far too late
to make a difference, but the free Crash the
Inauguration app provides links to room
listings, places to eat, video links and
more. If you want a pocket reference to the
Video: Working iControlPad
adds buttons to the iPod
touch
By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 7:00:00 PM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming,
Odds and ends, Mods, iPhone, App Store,
iPod touch
It's pretty wild to have seen the
iControlPad go from idea to concept to
production, and here's the final step
straight from Engadget: video of the device
working just as planned. ZodTTD is
playing quake4iphone on it, and while the
naysayers will probably still have some
nays to say, I'm convinced. If Apple is as
serious as it seems about turning the
iPhone and the iPod touch into serious
gaming devices, it would be worth selling
something like this as an official
accessory. It's fine and good to say that the
country at large, you've got a $2.99 option
with America Deluxe, a reference app that
promises rapid updates immediately after
the inauguration is complete.
While you've got a full range of options
for audio coverage of the inauguration on
your iPhone ( NPR Mobile, Public Radio
Tuner, TalkRadio, moodio.fm), video is a
bit more challenging -- many sites are
streaming, but few if any will work for
your handheld. The official YouTube
channel will work, but that won't have live
feeds. The recently TechCrunch'ed/pre-
announced uStream app for the iPhone
isn't in the store yet (you can send in a
request for an ad-hoc build, but they're
probably well past the 100-device limit by
now), although it looks very tempting.[See
update above.]
Comments report that Joost will offer
World* Apple* 27
multitouch screen works even for
traditional controls, but so far, we haven't
seen a developer that's been able to put
"buttons" on the screen and still be able to
make worthwhile use of screen space.
As Engadget says, there's still no price or
release date on the iControlPad, and given
that it's working on jailbroken games right
now, there's no sign yet that we'll have any
official App Store support. But it's an idea
for which the time, in my humble opinion,
has come.
TUAW Video: Working iControlPad
adds buttons to the iPod touch originally
appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog
(TUAW) on Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:00:00
EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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streaming of the ceremonies, and there's a
page up on the site for the stream. The
SlingPlayer app for iPhone is still a month
or two away, so for live TV -- if you
happen to have a Windows PC with the
Orb tuner card -- you're looking at
the$9.99 OrbLive app for streaming some
C-SPAN to your spot on the National Mall.
Got your iPhone in Washington? Send a
tweet our way and let us know how the 3G
coverage holds up from your iPhone. Oh,
and don't forget to take a few pictures.
TUAW Use your iPhone to navigate
Inauguration Day originally appeared on
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on
Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:45:00 EST. Please
see our terms for use of feeds.
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28 Apple*
Tick tick tick... significant number of
Seagate hard drives failing
By Mel Martin (The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 8:30:00 PM
Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals It
hasn't been a great year so far for care
companies and banks. Now, add Seagate to
the list of enterprises facing unexpected
challenges. The big manufacturer of hard
disks reports that a 'small' number of
Barracuda 7200.11 drives are failing. Once
they fail, the data on them is supposedly
still intact but can't be accessed without
expert recovery procedures. Seagate has
promised to expedite data recovery for
affected users, which is nice enough but
cold comfort if you're among the unlucky.
Seagate offers a software utility that will
tell you if your drive is at risk, but that
only works on Windows PCs. The firm is
providing some firmware updates for the
affected, but at this point they do not
appear to have an updater that will run
under OS X.
The problem drives also extend to the
Barracuda ES.2 SATA units and the
DiamondMax22. The flaky drives could be
internal models, or drives installed in
external cases.
Wondering if you have one of these
drives? You can use the 'more info' button
when you select 'About this Mac' from the
Apple menu (or just run the Apple System
Profiler utility from your Utilities folder --
Woz on Jobs' medical leave
By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:30:00 PM
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Steve
Jobs, The Woz, Apple History
In a conversation with NBC about Steve
Jobs' leave from Apple, co-founder Steve
Wozniak said this break could be exactly
what Steve -- and Apple -- needs. Woz had
some great things to say, and my favorite
was his answer to the question, "If Steve
[Jobs] were not at Apple, would the
same result), and click on the Serial-ATA
label in the left column. You'll get all your
drive model numbers, and the firmware
revisions. If the numbers match the bad
news provided by Seagate, you'll know
you may be living on borrowed time.
Lots of people around the 'net are
reporting failures, and others say their
drives match the numbers and aren't sure
what to do without a viable firmware
updater. I tried to call Seagate myself this
morning and after navigating the inevitable
phone tree a recording said they were too
busy to take my call. I'll bet they are.
Seagate did say today they will fix any
defective drives and they will provide a
company be as able to produce the kind of
products we've seen?" Woz's answer:
"Way too hypothetical. I would never
venture a guess ... obviously, Steve's very
important but Apple has some incredible
people, followers of the Apple mentality,
followers of Steve himself."
In other words (if I may paraphrase you,
Woz), Steve isn't Apple and Apple isn't
Steve. No matter what happens, the
company will be fine. Good call.
A bit of the audio from the Woz
interview was played on last night's
free data recovery service. That is nice but
it's a time consuming and troublesome
process.
There is some talk of a class action
lawsuit(of course) but clearly something is
amiss with some Seagate drives so if you
have one or more check them out, and
hope the company comes up with some
Mac friendly answers. If anyone has tried
updating the firmware of a drive via Boot
Camp, please advise (no, before you ask,
trying to use a virtualization tool like
VMware or Parallels to modify your drive
firmware is neither advisable nor
particularly feasible). Note that back in
2007 we reported on some problems
involving Seagate drives and Apple
laptops.
Here's how to contact Seagate, but I
suspect they are pretty busy. No telling
how many Macs have these drives in them.
Apple uses a lot of different vendors,
including Seagate. Check your backups,
folks.
[via Engadget& The Register]
TUAW Tick tick tick... significant
number of Seagate hard drives failing
originally appeared on The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 19 Jan
2009 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
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talkcast, along with your voicemail wishes
for Steve Jobs' improved health. Mike
assures me he'll have the show up and
online tonight.
[Via AppleInsider]
TUAW Woz on Jobs' medical leave
originally appeared on The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 19 Jan
2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Ustream viewer makes it to
app store just in time
By Mel Martin (The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:15:00 PM
Filed under: Multimedia, Software,
Video, Freeware, Internet, iPhone, iPod
touch There has been quite a bit of
excitement over the last few weeks with
the announcement that Ustream would be
offering a live video viewer so people
could watch the Obama inauguration on
their iPhones and iPod touches. It didn't
look like it was going to make it, but the
free application[app store link] slipped into
iTunes today with just hours to spare.
While the Joost app should also allow
streaming of the festivities, the Ustream
viewer is unique because it allows live TV
streams, and registered viewers can join a
chat room creating a community around
any video stream.
Video can be viewed horizontally or
vertically, but many of the sources are not
16 by 9 so it won't make a great deal of
difference. The app appears to be WiFi
only, which is a bit of a drag. My cell
reception here in the wilds of Arizona is the iPhone. The big question is, will Apple
not too great, but I got an error message allow it into the app store?
trying to run the video streaming under 3G. Looking toward the future, Ustream will
With WiFi most of the channels looked need more and better content deals, and
pretty good. I even got a quick look at streaming via the 3G network. Tonight is a
Chris Pirillo doing his live bit from his great first step, and I expect by swearing-in
desk at home. The real test will be time a lot of iPhones will be tuned in, if
tomorrow with the swearing in ceremonies. you'll pardon the archaic term.
It will be a good test of the Ustream Here are some screen shots hot off the
distribution system.
Ustream wants lots of players out there,
because they are creating a content
presses (thanks AppleUniverse):
Gallery: Ustream Screen shots
TUAW Ustream viewer makes it to app
network and are actively courting people store just in time originally appeared on
who will create videos on their home The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on
computers and laptops. The firm says they Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:15:00 EST. Please
will soon have an app that allows live see our terms for use of feeds.
streaming of video and audio from the
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iPhone, in the same vein as the Qik tool
currently running on jailbroken phones. If
so, that will be a very big game changer for
Daily Digital Newspaper
Clippy brings copy/paste to Your MacBook needs a wooden
jailbroken iPhones case
By Megan Lavey (The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:00:00 AM
Filed under: iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage
Those with jailbroken iPhones who use the
Cydia package manager discovered a new
add-on in the past day or so -- Clippy, from
iSpazio, which introduces a method for
copy and paste to the iPhone.
According to users, the add-on inserts
two buttons into the system keyboard --
one for copying and another for pasting.
Those who have tried it out say that it only
accepts user-entered text and copies over
one line at a time, which can get
cumbersome.
Sebastien over at the iPhone Download
Blog gives a detailed overview of how the
application works. "After installing the
application, type any text you want and
simply hit the "123 button on your
keyboard to show the copy/paste buttons.
Tap "copy" and start selecting the text you
want to copy. Tap "copy" again to end the
selection. Then tap "paste" to paste this
text where you want it to be." This
implementation isn't up to Apple's
standards for grace and ease, but it seems
workable.
My iPhone isn't jailbroken, so I haven't
had the chance to try out Clippy. If you've
Does HBO fear a gay-friendly planet?
By Douglas LeBlanc
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:24:57 PM
Home Box Office omitted Bishop Gene
Robinson’s invocation in its coverage of
the “We Are One” pre-Inauguration
concert on Sunday. Assorted bloggers,
including TV critic Aaron Barnhart of The
Kansas City Star and nka of TPM Café, are
speculating about whether this omission
amounted to censorship, and who should
be blamed for it. Barnhart proposes the odd
theory, as one of three possibilities, that
the Obama campaign “never intended for
downloaded and had a chance to try out the
app, please let us know your impression in
the comments.
Thanks to all who submitted this!
TUAW Clippy brings copy/paste to
jailbroken iPhones originally appeared on
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Robinson to be seen on national TV.”
Texts of Robinson’s prayer are available
from Episcopal Café and Sarah Pulliam’s
report for the Christianity Today politics
blog. Sarah also shot the video that leads
this post.
On Episcopal Café, Jim Naughton
pointed out before the event that Robinson
has revived his blog.
Hat tip: Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA
Today.
By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple
Weblog (TUAW))
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:15:00 PM
Filed under: Accessories, Portables,
Macbook Pro, MacBook We've written
about some elaborate hardware and
accessories, like the golden iPod and the
gilded MacBook Air case. While this is
less extravagant, it isn't your average
laptop case either.
The truly beautiful and aptly-named
Wooden Laptop Case is lined with leather
and features a magnetic enclosure. There's
a model for both the 15" MacBook and
MacBook Pro. We haven't seen one in
person, but it definitely looks beautiful in
the publicity photos.
No pricing or shipping information is
shared. Instead, you're asked to contact the
designer for that information. And just like
seeing "Market Price" on a restaurant
menu, we know what that means. It ain't
cheap.
Kira Cochrane: The reluctant dieter
By Kira Cochrane (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
While uncharacteristically tidying the
bedroom on Sunday afternoon, I happened
upon the gym clothes that I
uncharacteristically snapped up on New
Year's Eve. This purchase occurred in a
lightbulb flash of magical thinking, images
of a highly idealised version of myself -
running, jumping, squatting, kicking -
careening through my mind. This was it, I
thought excitedly, as I thrust my debit card
over the counter. These outfits heralded the
healthy new me. Then I heaved them home
where they have sat, ever since, still in
their bag, still sporting their price tags.
Dispensing with my duster, I decided it
was time to give the clothes a proper airing
with the workout DVD I bought recently.
Apple* Religion* International* Movies*
If you grab one of these beauties, please
let us know.
[Via Macworld]
TUAW Your MacBook needs a wooden
case originally appeared on The Unofficial
Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Jan
2009 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms
for use of feeds.
Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments
In looking for the perfect DVD, I
eschewed the ranks of ex-soap star/pop star
workouts, put off by the "before" pictures
on their covers, showing fat women
looking sad. These images make me, as a
fat woman, feel sad.
I plumped instead for the Tracy
Anderson Method. This is endorsed by
Anderson's clients Madonna and Gwyneth
Paltrow, but what really attracted me was
the fact that this was that rare prospect - a
dance cardio workout put together by an
expert.
I need some cardiovascular work, and I
love to dance. In fact, as I loaded the DVD,
I thought smugly of my school days
leaping around in leotards, which I felt
sure would serve me well.
The warm-up passed in a slow, simple
wash of stretching, and then I started
learning the routines. Anderson
29
Backstage Moments
After Lincoln
Memorial Concert
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 1:00:00 PM
ET is backstage at HBO's Lincoln
Memorial Concert to get exclusive
reactions from Beyonce, Jay Z, Tom
Hanks, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and
many more, just moments after President-
Elect Barack Obama addressed the
massive crowds.
"It was absolutely incredible," Foxx says
of the President-Elect's speech at Lincoln
Memorial. "You don't know what you're
missing."
Watch ET tonight to see more exclusive
behind the scenes inaugural coverage!
demonstrates the moves slowly, before
upping the tempo in the proper workout.
As I walked through the demonstrations,
my brow creased anxiously, and as I began
the proper workouts, my mind simply
boggled. I stepped, plied, hopped, reached,
turned, did a star jump, crashed against the
wall, ricocheted off the sofa, trod on my
cat's tail, and crumpled in a disillusioned
heap on the floor.
Anderson predicts a "teeny tiny dancer
type" body if you stick to the workout, and
I'll happily take her word for it. For now,
though, all I have is some very sore thighs
and a bitter, vengeful pet.
• Health & wellbeing
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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30 Religion*
C11: Reporters get some religions
By tmatt
Submitted at 1/20/2009 2:35:42 AM
It would be hard to pick up the big
newspapers right now and try to argue that
the major, elite media are not trying to “get
religion” right now. It’s like the editors
have all walked the aisle at the President
Barack Obama revival and made
professions of faith.
Which leads me to another review of that
new book from the Oxford Center for
Religion and Public Life’s new book, “
Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get
Religion.” This book is directly linked to
the mission of this weblog and, as you can
tell from the title, we know that there are
reporters who do get religion, because we
are focusing on case studies linked to times
when journalists failed get religion.
However, the crew over at the Culture11
website ran an edgy essay the other day by
the conservative journalist Les Sillars, who
teaches journalism at Patrick Henry
College in Purcellville, Va. The headline:
“Target Practice — Why journalists won’t
get religion anytime soon.” At one point,
Sillars voices an argument often heard in
conservative religious circles, which is that
journalists tend to mess up religion news
because they are prejudiced against
religion and, to be specific, against
Christianity.
This viewpoint was voiced at a forum
promoting the book, which led to an
exchange with Amy Sullivan of Time, who
argued that her success at that magazine
shows that there is a new openness and
respect for Christians in many newsrooms.
Sillars notes:
In a way, her answer misses the point —
not to question Ms. Sullivan’s talents as a
journalist, but I suspect TIME hired her in
part because she is the right kind of
evangelical: pro-choice, pro-gay rights,
and a former Democratic operative best
known for a recent book on how
Democrats can sell the Democratic Party
platform to evangelicals. In any case, her
rise does not prove how media elites feel,
one way or another, about evangelicals
whose beliefs are more conventional.
This isn’t to say that the average editor is
actively “anti-religion” or even “anti-
Christian.” As Mark Silk pointed out more
than a decade ago in a book called
Unsecular Media, religion that is tolerant
and non-judgmental and not inclined to
disrupt society gets very positive coverage.
(For example, “United Methodist Church
Opens Soup Kitchen.” Or, “American
Anglicans Take Stand in Favor of Gay
Marriage.”) The religion journalists prefer,
he wrote, “is domestic and generous and
friendly, not revolutionary or hostile to the
culture at large.”
Indeed, many reporters share with
“progressive” denominations and faiths a
vision of the nature of God (loving,
tolerant and non-judgmental), the nature of
humanity (basically good), and how
society should be (open, malleable, and
inclusive).
But many reporters are deeply suspicious
about certain brands of religion,
particularly those asserting that a loving
God saves sinners but also punishes sin;
that Scriptures are authoritative and that
trust in them is reasonable; and that
humanity is created in God’s image but
that the human heart can be the source of
great evil. Such people, they suspect, are
not merely wrong, but dangerous, as if
being religious is perfectly fine, but
actually believing in its tenets is
objectionable.
Now, take a deep, cleansing breath and
read on. You see, this point actually
reminded me of a rather famous essay on a
related topic, Jay Rosen’s “Journalism Is
Itself a Religion” at his PressThink
website. The New York University
professor wrote this piece to mark the birth
of The Revealer, another blog that looks at
mainstream coverage of religion news.
Rosen takes a look at at column I wrote
for Scripps Howard News Service in which
I interviewed veteran journalist William
Proctor, author of a book entitled “ The
Gospel According to the New York
Times.”
This gets rather complex, so read
carefully. Better yet, click here and go to
Rosen’s text to read this passage, with the
advantage of his many hyperlinks to source
material (most of which still work). To
make matters more complex, this passage
opens with a reference to a much debated
New York Times article by David
Samuels, entitled “The Making of a
Fugitive,” which can still be read by
clicking here.
So we have layers on top of layers. But
here goes. It helps to know that the
subhead on this section of the essay reads,
“The Orthodoxy of No Orthodoxy.” This is
long, but essential reading (with me
changing some punctuation in a futile
attempt to capture the bloc quote
structure):
Here and there in the discussion of
religion “in” the news, there arises a
trickier matter, which is the religion of the
newsroom, and of the priesthood in the
press. A particularly telling example began
with this passage from a 1999 New York
Times Magazine article about anti-abortion
extremism: “It is a shared if unspoken
premise of the world that most of us
inhabit that absolutes do not exist and that
people who claim to have found them are
crazy,” wrote David Samuels.
This struck some people as dogma very
close to religious dogma, and they spoke
up about it. One was Terry Mattingly, a
syndicated columnist of religion:
“This remarkable credo was more than a
statement of one journalist’s convictions,
said William Proctor, a Harvard Law
School graduate and former legal affairs
reporter for the New York Daily News.
Surely, the ‘world that most of us inhabit’
cited by Samuels is, in fact, the culture of
the New York Times and the faithful who
draw inspiration from its sacred pages.”
Yet here is the part that intrigued me:
“But critics are wrong if they claim that
the New York Times is a bastion of
secularism, he stressed. In its own way, the
newspaper is crusading to reform society
and even to convert wayward
‘fundamentalists.’ Thus, when listing the
Daily Digital Newspaper
‘deadly sins’ that are opposed by the
Times, he deliberately did not claim that it
rejects religious faith. Instead, he said the
world’s most influential newspaper
condemns ‘the sin of religious certainty.’
In other words, it’s against newsroom
religion to be an absolutist and in this
sense, the Isaiah Berlin sense, the press is a
liberal institution put in the uncomfortable
position of being ‘closed’ to other
traditions and their truth claims —
specifically, the orthodox faiths. At least
according to Mattingly and his source:
“Yet here’s the irony of it all. The agenda
the Times advocates is based on a set of
absolute truths,” said Proctor. Its leaders
are “absolutely sure that the religious
groups they consider intolerant and
judgmental are absolutely wrong,
especially traditional Roman Catholics,
evangelicals and most Orthodox Jews. And
they are just as convinced that the religious
groups that they consider tolerant and
progressive are absolutely right.”
The apparent orthodoxy of forbidding all
orthodoxies is a philosophical puzzle in
liberalism since John Locke. Journalists
cannot be expected to solve it. However,
they might in some future professional
climate (which may be around the corner)
come to examine the prevailing orthodoxy
about journalism — how to do it, name it,
explain it, uphold it, and protect it — for
that orthodoxy does exist. And it does not
always have adequate answers.
Now, I am sure that Sillars and Rosen
would disagree on many matters related to
religion and journalism. However, I think
Sillars would say a hearty “amen” after
reading that passage.
Is Rosen right? Are many journalists
driven by the “Orthodoxy of No
Orthodoxy,” a creed that makes it hard for
them to do fair, accurate, balanced
coverage — note, not public relations — of
the religious beliefs and actions of
traditional religious believers?
Read both essays again. There is much
here to chew on, looking for common
ground between these voices on the
journalistic left and right.
Daily Digital Newspaper
Inaugural prayers, sermons and
controversies
By Mollie
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:51:16 AM
My sick daughter/frozen pipes/burst pipes
trifecta-of-chaos this weekend prevented
me from fully enjoying the pre-inaugural
festivities here in Washington. But I
watched a bit of the celebrity concert that
got things going (I can’t get enough of
Mary J.) and was sorry to see that HBO did
not broadcast the opening prayer by
Bishop Gene Robinson.
Friends who went down to the Lincoln
Memorial reported that the microphone cut
out just as Robinson began his prayer and
only came back on as he said “Amen.”
I haven’t seen any substantive media
coverage of the prayer, although religion
journalists made sure to mention it on their
blogs. Jeffrey Weiss at the Dallas Morning
News called it the Obama Prayer
Controversy #1. Here’s how the Boston
Globe post begins:
In the invocation offered by Bishop V.
Gene Robinson of New Hampshire at
today’s inaugural welcoming ceremony,
the openly gay bishop called on God to
“bless us with anger — at discrimination,
at home and abroad, against refugees and
immigrants, women, people of color, gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.”
Not surprising for Robinson but certainly
interesting. Perhaps we’ll see more stories
in the next day or so. Not that all the
stories about, say, the pre-inaugural rush
for Botox aren’t important. But when the
Associated Press is allocating 87 words for
entire stories about pre-inaugural sermons
of note, I guess I shouldn’t be too hopeful.
One great religion news story was filed
by Nikita Stewart and Hamil Harris at the
Washington Post. They covered the Obama
family’s visit to a local church on Sunday:
Barack Obama and his family attended
services yesterday at one of the oldest
historically black churches in Washington,
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie Suit Each Other Well
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 1:07:00 PM
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie set the
shutterbugs ablaze in Germany on
thrilling a congregation that honored the
president-elect for advancing the legacy of
such civil-rights icons as Rosa Parks and
the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The story is packed with details about the
church and the Obamas’ visit. We learn
that the church originated in 1802 as a
congregation of slaves and whites who
worshiped together. Later it was sold to
Black Baptist ministers. It is known for its
progressive politics, in which it is very
active. Former attorney general John
Ashcroft is one of many notables who has
attended services there.
Early on we are told that the Rev.
Derrick Harkins focused his sermon on
how God prepares people to do incredible
things in challenging times:
After learning that the Obamas were
coming yesterday, Harkins said, he
agonized about his sermon, which he titled
“For Such a Time as This.” Whatever
Monday.
The stunning couple was snapped at the
Berlin, Germany premiere of Brad's
Golden Globe-nominated film, 'The
Curious Case of Benjamin Button.'
nervousness he felt, he said, was dispelled
once he met the Obamas just before the
service. And, indeed, Harkins exuded a
confidence, almost as if counseling
Obama. From time to time, he would get
fiery and loud and then speak in a hushed
tone.
Obama appeared pensive, sitting with his
hands folded at his chin. At least twice, he
took a pen out of his pocket and jotted
down a note.
In his sermon, the pastor talked of the
biblical heroes Mordecai and Esther, who
met the challenge and saved themselves
and their fellow Jewish people. He cited
another event that has dominated headlines
in recent days: the heroic actions of the
pilot of a faltering US Airways jet that
safely landed in the Hudson River. The
pilot had years of training before that
moment when he had to save the plane.
You never know, Harkins said, when the
experiences you accumulate in daily life
will be put to a test.
And so it is with Obama. “You are aware
that you are here for such a time as this,”
Harkins said. He urged the president-elect
to remember two things when times grow
difficult. “First, look to your wife as an
encourager,” he said. And second, “God is
in the transformation business.”
So often these visit to church stories
neglect to include any of the actual
substance of the service. This story did a
great job of providing some color — they
hymns, the general scene, the sermon. It’s
a welcome change.
And if you’re looking for an upcoming
prayer controversy story, the Politico
reports that one of the participants at the
Wednesday prayer service heads an
Islamic group that federal prosecutors say
is linked to Hamas. Who says the religion
beat isn’t exciting?
Both Brad and Angelina wore suits to the
event -- Angelina looking radiant in winter
white, and Brad dressed up in chic, classic
black.
Religion* Movies* 31
On a wing and a prayer
By Mollie
Submitted at 1/19/2009 12:18:00 PM
How awesome is Chesley B.
Sullenberger, the heroic pilot who saved
everyone’s life in his daring landing in the
Hudson? I just can’t read enough about the
perfect landing and the brilliant rescue
operation. Of course, I’m one of those
people who can’t drive across a bridge
without contemplating what I’d do if, say,
the bridge suddenly collapsed and I ended
up in the middle of the icy Potomac.
Even the earliest interviews with
survivors mentioned how many passengers
prayed as they prepared for their water
crash. This New York Times story about
the heroism and comedy of the rescue
operation led with that angle:
Some passengers screamed, others
tucked their heads between their knees,
and several prayed over and over, “Lord,
forgive me for my sins.” But a man named
Josh who was sitting in the exit row did
exactly what everyone is supposed to but
few ever do: He pulled out the safety card
and read the instructions on how to open
the exit door.
There are a few things that are interesting
with this lede. The first is the juxtaposition interesting angles to write about, religion
— the use of the word “but” to set apart has to be one of them.
the people who screamed (something This story in the Fayetteville Observer
disputed by other reports) and prayed from didn’t begin with religion. Instead, it ended
the person who did what he was supposed with it. The reporter interviewed the
to do. I have no idea if the two writers of parents of one survivor via e-mail and
the story intended to oppose people who included their religious views at the end of
pray from people who do what they are the story:
supposed to do, but it’s somewhat But the Grays, who are active in outreach
humorous to read. I mean, I think praying ministries at Village Baptist Church,
is precisely what people are supposed to do believe that Sullenberger was co-piloting
in event of a crash landing of a plane, but I the plane when it hit the water.
see no conflict between asking God to “As thankful as we are for the … pilot’s
forgive our sins and being familiar with skills to be able to land a plane in the water
how to get out of a plane in an emergency. with no casualties, we know who the real
I would quote from the rest of the story, pilot was during that time,” Mary Gray
which sums up various survivors’ stories, wrote.
to show you how the religious angle in the “We give God the glory, praise and
lede was fleshed out except that it was in thanks for looking after our boy, his sweet
no way explored outside of the beginning fiancee and all the others on that flight.”
of the story. And on the other hand, Patton Dodd over
I noticed this a bit with other stories, too. at Beliefnet says journalists should tread a
bit more carefully with the miracle
Every time I read a lede with a religion
angle, it would just vanish into thin air. language.
Religious beliefs tend to become more Do let us know if you see any
important when people are faced with life particularly good or bad efforts with
and death situations. While there are many religion angles.
32 Religion* International* Movies*
“Orthodox” journalism in Russia?
By tmatt
Submitted at 1/19/2009 2:32:33 AM
Let’s reach a few weeks back into tmatt’s
infamous “folder of guilt” to look at an
interesting New York Times piece about
the growth of “religious media” in modern
Russia.
Now, what precisely, are “religious
media”? That’s the question, isn’t it? I say
this as the leader of a journalism program
here inside the Washington Beltway that
spends quite a bit of time caught between
warring camps of people who have
clashing definitions of a related term,
which is “Christian journalism.”
So, as you would expect, I was
immediately interested in that New York
Times feature late last month that ran
under the headline, “With Orthodoxy’s
Revival in Russia, Religious Media Also
Rise.” I mean, I am a journalist, I am
Orthodox and there’s a chance I may be
visiting greater Russian in a few months.
You know I am going to read this story.
Here’s the lede:
By the time of the Bolshevik Revolution
in 1917, there were nearly 600 newspapers
and magazines throughout Russia devoted
to Orthodox subjects. They were all shut
down by the Soviet regime by 1918.
Today, in a country that was officially
atheist about two decades ago, there are
Stuart Jeffries: Meet Peter and Ken, the ultimate political odd couple
By Stuart Jeffries (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Ken Clarke's return to the Tory front
bench as shadow business secretary means
that he will soon be going toe to toe with
fellow veteran political bruiser Lord
Mandelson. What do they have in
common? Hardly anything: they're like the
Odd Couple (with Mandelson as
neurotically neat Oscar Madison and
Clarke as sport-loving slob Felix Unger).
Only more so. Clothes
Ken: Crumpled waxed coat and a tie that
seems to record a lifetime's worth of gravy
spillages. As for the Hush Puppies, they
are Earls and Waynes, slip-ons or classic
lace-up brogues in brown suede. And then
the hat. Headgear experts aren't sure
again hundreds of newspapers, magazines
and newsletters covering the world’s
largest Orthodox church. There are about
3,500 Russian Orthodox Web sites, and
some priests are even blogging.
The Russian Orthodox media, like the
church itself, have not always fallen into
step with the Kremlin line. The Moscow
Patriarchate, its official newspaper and
most Orthodox media have addressed the
war with Georgia over the breakaway
whether it's a drifter's hat, sou'wester or
stetson. All agree it is a mistake.
Peter: Last December a scandal erupted
when Mandeslon wore a crushed
strawberry V-neck under his suit. Can one
wear a jumper under a jacket? Can only
Mandy get away with crushed strawberry?
What is crushed strawberry? His suits are
Brioni, Paul Smith or Ozwald Boateng.
Fitness
Ken: Ah, the beer gut swelling the shirt
between the braces, like a football
ballooning the back of the net between two
coloured uprights. He's also fond of
cigarillos (he used to earn more than
£100,000 a year from British American
Tobacco). His hobbies (jazz, bird watching
and Nottingham Forest) are sedentary.
Peter: Keeps sickeningly svelte as a
regular at exclusive Lambton Place Health
region of South Ossetia as a tragic
misunderstanding between two countries
that share an Orthodox Christian heritage.
That’s interesting. But I have a question.
What are “Orthodox media”? I mean, I
understand that there are official
newspapers and websites. That’s normal.
However, the trend covered in this article
seems broader than that. For example:
When Sergei Chapnin, editor of the
Moscow Patriarchate’s official newspaper,
Club, whose members include John
Cleese, Kevin Maxwell and Mariella
Frostrup. Also no stranger to throwing
shapes at Ministry of Sound, telling one
interviewer: "I can dance to almost
anything." Holidays
Ken: "He prefers dingy jazz cellars to
swanky yachts," says shadow chancellor
George Osborne, who knows about
swanky yachts. Clarke says: "If I go to the
seaside it's because I have a grandchild but
I don't actually go to the beach - I stay on
the terrace, smoke a cigar and read."
Peter: Last August he was spotted on the
yacht of aluminium tycoon Oleg
Deripaska, just off the stretch of Corfu that
each summer becomes an exclusive
enclave for the super-rich. Later that
month, he stayed in Klosters at the luxury
Swiss chalet of British billionaire Nat
Tserkovny Vesnik, organized the first
Russian Orthodox media festival in 2004, a
government bureaucrat called to inquire
about the event.
“I could tell he thought we would have 50
people or so attending,” Mr. Chapnin said
about the first festival, which brought
together 400 journalists. “I said there are
about 500 publications with up to 10,000
journalists connected to them. There was
silence at the end of the line.”
Once again, here is my question: Are
these official “Orthodox publications,” or
are they journalistic publications about
Orthodoxy and religion, produced by real
journalists who happen to be Orthodox?
Might these publications feature the work
of journalists, as opposed to church
officials or public-relations professionals?
That’s what I want to know and, after
reading this interesting article, I cannot
figure out the answers to these basic
questions.
There are clergy involved in some of
these publications, but there are also
professionals with mainstream
backgrounds. Some of the publications
focus on church affairs. Others are
controversial because they focus on how
faith affects the style of public life,
including the lives of celebrities. What is
going on here? Who are these scribes? I,
for one, would like to know.
Rothschild. Houses
Ken: Lives in a three-bedroom detached
house in his Nottinghamshire constituency
and has a two-bedroom flat in London.
Can there really be nothing more in his
property portfolio, I ask his office?
"Nothing," comes the amazing reply.
Peter: Owns a £2.5m pink stucco villa,
built by Regency architect John Nash, on
one of London's smartest streets in
Regent's Park. This exclusive
neighbourhood has also been home to Sven
Goran-Eriksson and Sir Cameron
Mackintosh. Urban legends
Ken: In 1966, Geoff Hurst hit the West
German crossbar and the ball bounced
either over the line or not depending on
whether you're English or German. Clarke,
standing very close to the linesman,
reportedly yelled at him, influencing him
Daily Digital Newspaper
'Miracle on the
Hudson' Pilot to
Attend Inauguration
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 5:35:00 PM
Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the heroic
US Airways pilot behind last week's
"Miracle on the Hudson," will be attending
the presidential inauguration of Barack
Obama tomorrow in Washington D.C.,
according to People.com.
Sullenberger and his family were invited
by Obama in the wake of intense news
coverage of the successful emergency
landing of Flight 1549 on the Hudson
River in New York City on Thursday in
which all passengers survived, with most
uninjured.
People.com also reports that a big parade
is being planned in Sullenberger's
hometown of Danville, CA. The town's
mayor, Newell Arnerich, says, "We're
immensely proud of someone in our
community becoming an American
hometown hero. This guy embodies the
true American spirit."
to award the goal. However, the official, an
Azerbaijani, did not speak English.
Peter: When visiting a chip shop in his
Hartlepool constituency, Mandelson
reportedly saw the mushy peas and asked
if he could have "guacamole dip". He is
also said to have once asked Gordon
Brown for 10p to phone a friend. Brown
told him: "Have 20p, then you can phone
them both."
• Peter Mandelson
• Kenneth Clarke
• Fashion
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subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Obituary: Martin Luther King's genius was to waken the energy that
slumbered in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi and send it out into
the streets of the South, marching for justice and social change
By Jonathan Steele (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:12:25 AM
"He was the first Negro minister whom I
have ever heard who can reduce the Negro
problem to a spiritual matter and yet
inspire the people to seek a solution on this
side of the Jordan not in life after death."
So wrote the Negro author Louis Lomax,
catching the crucial spark that made Martin
Luther King, jun., stand out head and
shoulders from his fellow-ministers in the
South and step into the ranks of the world's
martyrs.
King was above all a man of the Negro
South. He knew for himself the deep and
hopeless fatigue, the age-long tiredness,
that hangs like a dark cloud over the whole
communities in the black belts of Georgia,
Alabama, and Mississippi. He knew the
energy and power that slumbered there, but
which only made itself felt in the feet of
the few who migrated to the North in the
hope of better things, or the voices that
turned to the blues and the hymns and the
spirituals. King's genius was to waken that
energy and send it out into the streets of
the South, marching for justice and social
change. Unforgettable
To anyone who was ever there when
King spoke, the experience was
unforgettable. A small man, barely five
foot seven, he dominated the pulpit or the
podium. In a slow but sonorous voice, the
biblical cadences rolled out, and the crowd
would sway with them, and punctuate
them with the answering calls that are the
special feature of Negro churches. "There
comes a time when the cup of endurance
runs over" ... "Amen" from the crowd, " ...
and men are no longer willing to be
plunged into an abyss of injustice where
they experience the bleakness of corroding
despair ... " " Yes, Lord." " ... For years
now we have heard the word 'wait' ... 'help
him, Jesus'" " ... but we are tired of
waiting, tired of being humiliated and
denied. We have waited for more than
three hundred and forty years for our
constitutional and God given rights." "Yes,
Lord."
And the church doors would open and
the crowd would surge out into the hot and
dusty Southern street, and down to the
court house in the city hall with its
petitions, its banners and its faith that
change at last was on the way.
What a contrast this was to the old-style
Southern minister. I remember going with
other student workers on the Mississippi
summer project in 1964 to a tiny, white-
washed, wooden church on the edge of a
cotton field on the first Sunday after the
1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, the Act
that outlawed segregation in public
facilities throughout the country. We
thought there must be some reference to
this historic milestone In the sermon; but
the minister only touched on it once and
then merely to dismiss it as a mundane
irrelevancy: "And they can pass Civil
Rights Acts from now until kingdom
come, but our faith In the Lord is the
same." The small congregation called out
"Amen" as they had done all along, and
stumbled out again into the sunshine , and
off to their pitiful homes until next Sunday.
King came from a family of ministers
himself. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia,
on January 15, 1929. His parents were
comfortably off, but during his late teens
he took a job, against his father's wishes, in
a factory that hired both Negroes and
whites. "Here," he wrote later, "I saw
economic injustice at first hand, and
realised that the poor white was exploited
as much as the Negro. Through these early
experiences I grew up deeply conscious of
the varieties of injustices in our society."
Thus early In his life King saw, beyond
the issue of individual need, the larger
problem of group injustice. He was fond of
quoting the words, "A religion that ends
with the individual, ends." And he wrote
later in his famous letter from Birmingham
City gaol, in answer to eight clergymen -
bishops, pastors, and rabbis - who
disagreed with his tactics of direct action
in the street:
"History is the long and tragic story of the
fact that privileged groups seldom give up
their privileges voluntarily. Individuals
may see the moral light and voluntarily
give up their unjust posture, but groups are
more immoral than individuals."
When he was 15 King went on to
Storehouse, a Negro college in Atlanta.
There he read Henry Thoreau's "Essay on
Civil Disobedience," written in 1846 when
Thoreau was protesting against American
intervention in Mexico. It made a great
impression on him, as it had done on
Gandhi and Tolstoy.
Nonviolence as a philosophy and a
strategy for social change is often thought
of as a late import into American-life,
brought there by Martin Luther King. But
just as violence runs deep in the American
system, so too does the tradition of
nonviolence. There is a distinctive
American tradition which runs back to the
Quakers in the seventeenth century. From
them it goes to the abolitionists and peace
crusaders of the years before the Civil
War, the anarchists and pacifists at the
beginning of this century, the sit-down
strikers of the 1930s and the conscientious
objectors of two world wars. King knew
this, as he knew his Hegel, Kant, and
Gandhi.
King was ordained, did a doctoral degree
at Boston University, and then in 1955
became pastor of the Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church, an upper-income Negro
church in Montgomery, Alabama. It was
here that almost by chance he was given
the opportunity to put his study of
nonviolence into action. For the civil rights
movement began by accident. Modest
campaign
A Negro seamstress, Mrs Rosa Parks,
was going home one day. She was tired,
and sat down in the bus, and when asked to
get up for a white man, as any Negro was
liable to be, she simply refused. She was
arrested. News of the arrest spread and the
Negro community was angry. King found
himself leading a modest campaign for
decent treatment on the buses. After more
white provocation and more Negro arrests,
including that of King himself, the
campaign grew into a mass boycott of the
buses, with the demand for total
desegregation.
The boycott lasted for several months,
received world-wide publicity, and ended
in victory. King founded the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference, to rally
his fellow-Negro ministers throughout the
South. After that he led march after march,
in Albany, Georgia, in 1861; the March on
Washington, in 1963, and in Birmingham,
Alabama later that summer; Selma to
Montgomery in 1965; and the March
through Mississippi after James Meredith
was shot in 1966. He spent the next few
months in the suburbs of Chicago, his first
major project in the North. He opposed the
war in Vietnam, and the cuts in the poverty
programme which it inevitably brought.
And later this month he was to have led a
march of poor people on Washington.
Death was always near him, and he
survived several previous attempts on his
life. But he never let this weigh too long on
his mind. He had, as he said, to go on. His
last sentence to the crowd before he swung
out on the first Selma march, in defiance of
a court injunction and in the teeth of a
hostile police force, was this: "I would
rather die today on the highways of
Alabama than make a butchery of my own
conscience."
In cold print, that reads, histrionically,
perhaps. King knew, and has now made
others know, that it was a real and
conscious choice.
• Martin Luther King
• Race issues
• United States
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International* 33
Obituary:
Zafar Noman
By Alex Duncan (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:27:39 PM
Zafar Noman, who has died aged 26,
reflected much of what is best about
Britain. He was both British and
international; he had British, Pakistani and
South African roots, and had lived and
worked in the UK, the US and Pakistan; he
was sparky, idealistic, purposeful and
capable; and he observed with humour -
but never cynicism - the foibles of his
elders. His capacity to give and receive
friendship left behind a diverse and far-
flung following.
Zafar was born in Oxford. His parents,
Akbar Noman and Ann Duncan, both
worked for the World Bank, so Zafar's
childhood was largely in Washington, with
a spell in Islamabad. He spent his gap year
writing for the Friday Times, that
courageous voice in Lahore, and soon had
his own column, Zafar Noman's Week.
He studied at University College London
and the London School of Economics, and
then joined the Treasury, where his talents
were well recognised: Nick Macpherson,
the permanent secretary, wrote of him
(after noting his vital missionary work in
Washington for the game of cricket): "He
was enthusiastic, entertaining, committed
and a joy to work with... a fine economist
who was hugely committed to the
Treasury." At the time he became ill, Zafar
had been given the choice of continuing
there or taking up a secondment in the
Foreign Office to work on the economics
of climate change.
The brain tumour was diagnosed only
two months before he died. The courage
and calm with which he faced his death
were inspirational. He made plans for the
future, even while ensuring that
arrangements were in place for his organs
to be available for others. He said his only
regret was leaving his sister, Natasha, to
face life without him; she and his parents
are setting up a trust in his memory to
benefit children in developing countries.
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34 International* Movies*
Ian Black: Gaza has exposed the Arab leaders to fury
and contempt
By Ian Black (News: Main section |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
It was Monday, so it had to be Kuwait.
And there they were, 17 leaders and five
senior representatives of all 22 members of
the Arab League, gathered to discuss the
impact of the global economic crisis,
though the original agenda was hijacked by
the end of Israel's devastating three-week
onslaught against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Yesterday's summit of kings, presidents
and emirs did produce one piece of good
news for the battered Palestinians: a Saudi
cheque for $1bn that will certainly help
rebuild bombed mosques, schools and
homes. But it raises the wider question of
what Arabs can and should do to help the
cause they hold so dear - when they cannot
even agree an agenda and when or where
to meet.
On Sunday the heads of state of Egypt
and Jordan, both stalwarts of the so-called
moderate or western-backed camp, were
the only Arabs to attend the Sharm el-
Sheikh conference.
Last Friday there was an Arab majority
in the Qatari capital Doha - though still not
the required two-thirds quorum for a
formal Arab League summit. Bashar al-
Assad, Syria's president, was the star of
that show, along with the leaders of Hamas
and Islamic Jihad, his Palestinian guests in
Damascus. Non-Arab Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the other
special invitee. This is the core of jabhat al
-mumana'a - the Arab "refusal front".
Thursday saw leaders of the smaller Gulf
states summoned to the Saudi capital
Riyadh to upstage the next day's gathering
in Doha. It all brings to mind Gandhi's
smart response to a question about his
view of western civilisation: Arab unity
would be "a good idea" too.
Arab disarray was a fact of life before
Michelle Obama's Pre-Inaugural Wardrobe Revealed
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 2:11:00 PM
As the fashion world waits to see what
Michelle Obama will wear on inauguration
Israel's Operation Cast Lead. But the crisis
has put it on cruel and very public display,
drawing the contempt and fury of what is
so condescendingly called the "street" from
Algeria to Yemen. The league may be a
bad joke, but its members still represent
320 million people. "In the fog of war,"
commented the Egyptian scholar Mamoun
Fandy in the Saudi-owned daily al-Sharq al
-Awsat, "everything was suddenly crystal
clear".
Anger with Israel and solidarity with the
Palestinians are still natural instincts across
the Middle East and North Africa. The
memory of the 1948 nakba (catastrophe)
has never faded; the humiliation of the
1967 defeat lives on. Yet sympathy for the
martyred children of Gaza does not equate
automatically with support for Hamas,
which is often attacked for recklessly
believing it can defeat Israel.
Very few imagine a return to the unified
Arab military efforts of the past. Most
Arabs, including most Palestinians, accept
Israel as a reality, though there are those -
with whom Ahmadinejad agrees - who
take the longer view. That sees Israel as a
modern Crusader state that may yet endure
for a century or more but is an artificial,
colonialist implant that is destined to
wither. This may be no more than wishful
thinking. But it ignores Israel's evident
strengths and the fact that the majority of
its now native-born, Hebrew-speaking
Jewish citizens have no other homeland to
go "back" to. Still, the perception that it is
a fundamentally illegitimate entity
combines with resentment at its
unassailable (nuclear-armed) regional
hegemony.
Not surprisingly, the most strident voice
of the "refusal front" has been that of
Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic
leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, who
blundered into war with Israel in 2006 and
served as a model for Hamas in Gaza -
night, the first-lady-to-be opts for a
familiar designer to dress her in the days
leading up to her husband's inauguration.
Michelle began her busy Sunday wearing
a Narcisco Rodriguez light purple coat and
though this time he kept his powder dry.
Islamists elsewhere mocked the impotence
and passivity of "treacherous" Arab
governments they scorn as US puppets or
Zionist stooges.
Egypt's Hosni Mubarak has been the
target of much fury. Now 80 and serving a
pharaonic fifth consecutive presidential
term, he has been attacked for refusing to
open the Gaza border. It has all been grist
to the mill of the Muslim Brotherhood,
Egypt's largest (but outlawed) opposition
movement and supporter of the like-
minded Hamas - whose election was so
uncomfortable for Cairo. But criticism of
Egyptian policy has been spun as an
affront to the nation, reviving the argument
that, in four wars with Israel, Egypt made
great sacrifices for the Palestinians. It was
Mubarak who inherited the original "sin"
of recognising Israel from his predecessor
Anwar Sadat, gunned down in 1981 by
homegrown jihadis who emerged from the
torture chambers to found al-Qaida a few
years later.
In the same boat is Jordan's King
Abdullah, the other Arab neighbour with a
peace treaty with Israel - though like his
father Hussein, Abdullah is ever mindful
of the Palestinians who make up the
majority of his subjects.
Facing them is the canniest, but perhaps
also the most pliable, of the "refusers",
Syria's Assad, a weaker version of his
famously iron-willed father Hafez. Hopes
of seeing him press Hamas or Hezbollah or
abandon his alliance with Iran ensure a
steady stream of western supplicants to his
Damascus palace. Barack Obama's envoy
may well be next. Another semi-partner is
Qatar, the super-wealthy Gulf maverick
which manages the extraordinary feat of
commercial ties with Israel, support for
militant groups, and hosting both al-
Jazeera TV - whose images of death and
destruction in Gaza have done so much to
dress to the ceremony at Arlington
National Cemetery, Women's Wear Daily
reports.
The future first lady also wore a dress
from Rodriguez on the night Barack
horrify Arab viewers - and the largest US
military base in the Middle East.
So against this complex, deeply fissured
background, whither Israel and the Arab
world after Gaza? Israel makes much of
Saudi and other conservative Arab fears of
Iran's nuclear ambitions and its promotion,
in Iraq, Lebanon and beyond, of Sunni-
Shia divisions. But this ignores the crucial
importance - symbolic and real - to all
Arabs of finally resolving the Palestinian
issue.
Yehoshafat Harkabi, a former head of
Israeli military intelligence, wrote a classic
and deeply pessimistic book in the 1960s
suggesting Arab attitudes to Israel were
immutably hostile. But he revised his view
after the 1967 war to insist that a
withdrawal from the occupied territories
and the creation of a Palestinian state
would turn the tide. The brief blossoming
of Israeli ties with Arab states after the
1993 Oslo agreement with the PLO proved
his point.
Saudi King Abdullah told the Kuwait
summit that the 2002 Arab League
initiative, offering Israel the recognition of
all 22 Arab states in return for a return to
the 1967 borders and the creation of an
independent Palestinian state, remains on
the table, but warned that it will not remain
there indefinitely. The Arab "refusers"
wanted it withdrawn after the pounding of
Gaza. It is hard to see it surviving another
bloodletting like that.
ian.black@guardian.co.uk
• Gaza
• Israel and the Palestinian territories
• Middle East
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Obama won the election.
Daily Digital Newspaper
Editorial: In
praise of ...
Pete Seeger
By Editorial (News: Main section |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Moments of historical symbolism do not
rate higher than Barack Obama's
inauguration in Washington today. Yet on
Sunday, with Obama listening,
Washington witnessed another small sign
of the mood of change and hope that will
swathe the US Capitol today. More than 50
years ago, the leftwing folk-singer Pete
Seeger was - a bit like many African-
Americans - a second-class citizen in his
own land. Summoned to give evidence
about his political leanings and contacts to
the House Un-American Activities
Committee, Seeger refused to testify. This
led to an indictment for contempt, a prison
sentence and a travel ban. In America's
cold war blacklisting and red-baiting years,
Seeger was unable to perform in many
halls, was excluded from college campuses
and banned from the airwaves. All the
while, though, he kept writing and singing,
mostly for good causes and sometimes,
naively, for less defensible ones. He sang
with Woody Guthrie at the start, then with
the Weavers, later in the 1960s folk revival
with Bob Dylan and, more recently, with
Bruce Springsteen. This week, the 89-year-
old Seeger stood on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial singing Guthrie's This
Land is Your Land with Springsteen at the
pre-inauguration concert. Seeger's
judgment on politics and music has not
always been right, but he is a man of his
times and he has been the troubadour of
the American left for more than half a
century. His return to the spotlight is
another sign that things are changing for
the better in America this week.
• Obama inauguration
• United States
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Polly Toynbee: We will all remember where we were
today - even in lazily cynical Britain
By Polly Toynbee (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
There has never been a day like it for
Britain's postwar generations. As that
inauguration speech echoes out, the globe
itself seems to inhale a mighty, collective
intake of breath, frighteningly audacious in
its hope.
A BBC World Service poll shows a tidal
wave of optimism about what Obama will
do, spread out across a rainbow of nations.
Here is the world's wish list: first save
global finance from ruin; next get out of
Iraq; then fix the climate and bring peace
to the Middle East. Yes he can, is the
world's expectation.
How does the man's arrival feel here? A
day like no other, in a time of multiple
crisis like none other. In the years of
plenty, the British since the war have
known little political excitement. Novelists
and playwrights scrabble about for drama:
the miners' strike, the three-day week,
Aldermaston and Greenham vie with the
IMF's humiliating bailout or Margaret
Thatcher's greed-is-good big bang years,
alongside the day we crashed out of the
ERM, or Labour's glory night in May
1997. But these are meagre political
offerings through the years of fluctuating
affluence.
The IRA and now Islamist terror terrify -
but they feel external, not integral to
domestic politics, even if both are bloody
paybacks from our past. The cold war
came and went without the nuclear
apocalypse we grew up expecting any day.
When the Berlin wall came down, the great
rejoicing was primarily a drama belonging
to other people; it was not the end of
history either. We fought a surprising
number of small wars, hardly ruffling the
phlegmatic British body politic: the
Conservatives did not fall over the Suez
HTV: Miley Cyrus Buys Present for Mom
(ETonline - Breaking News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:10:00 AM
Miley Cyrus spends the day running
errands and Hollywood.tv is there to reveal
debacle, and Blair was re-elected despite
his Iraq disaster.
We have not lived in the interesting
times of the Chinese curse - but in banal
times where politicians needed to be no
better than they were. No great crisis
summoned a Winston Churchill or a
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. That
uneventfulness has blunted our politics:
people barely vote or express a view, while
blase cynicism substitutes for thought,
passion or partisanship. Parties clustered in
the dead centre are dead on their feet, and
no one cares much, except to sneer at
politicians' expenses. The bitter truth of
deep inequality has been disguised by an
era of cheap imported goods and the
anyone-can-make-it celebrity myth. An
American model of each individual citizen
for himself, each individual citizen the
architect of his own life's trajectory, has
conquered old notions of solidarity, not
needed in good times.
Look across Europe and little comfort
can be drawn from any country's
leadership, rendering its collective voice
feebly uninspiring. In crisis, the EU risks
pulling apart, not together, with rising
nationalism and protectionism. Who do
you call? The Czech Republic's current EU
presidency? There has been little here to
inspire political hope.
But now Obama comes out of nowhere
just when good politics has never mattered
more. A complete collapse of the global
financial system is not unimaginable. In
uncharted waters, billions and trillions
gush from governments everywhere,
frantically shoring up banks that
squandered trust. One thing looks grimly
certain, however we get out of this: future
deep debts threaten public services, long-
lasting unemployment, real pay cuts and
changed prospects in need of a new
politics.
The climate crisis is seen to be
the special present she gets for her mother.
The Kardashian sisters make milkshakes
at the Millions of Milkshakes shop, and
Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt also show
up to get in on the fun!
worsening with every new report, but
worldwide action is still negligible and
negligent: the Nasa scientist and leading
climate expert Jim Hansen last week
warned that only four years remain before
an irreversible threshold is crossed, leading
to raised sea levels that will drown many
major cities.
In Gaza, the horror of so many dead
Palestinian children is a monstrous
challenge to greet Obama. If ever the
world needed saving, it's now.
So here comes the man who says he can.
It's an American mystery that this great
pool of genius has usually thrown such
minnows into the White House. But the
monumental present danger has summoned
forth a man who promises the intellect,
character and power of persuasion to
match the hour.
On this day all alive will remember
where they were when they saw Obama
sworn in, when they heard him speak. I
shall be in a Commons meeting room -
where Dawn Butler, the black MP for
Brent, will be launching "Bernie's list" to
promote black candidates - with crowds of
mainly ethnic-minority young Brent people
gathered to watch Obama's speech. Since
the rise of Obama, the MP says, throngs
have come forward to join her campaign.
I shall also see Chuka Umunna, the
exceptional Labour candidate for
Streatham, south London, address students
in Brixton - students whom he finds are as
eager as never before to think and do
politics. "Obama has changed everything.
You can't overestimate the effect," he says.
After time on the Obama campaign,
Umunna says that the man's blackness is
only one wonder: "He has changed the
possibilities of politics itself." Winning
while promising to tax the rich, cut tax for
the poor, tackle the climate and reverse
Bush's foreign policy, he has made the
impossible possible.
Jessica Alba and Nicky Hilton are both
spotted walking to their cars in casual
clothes.
International* Movies*
Let whoever will be cynical do so today:
they will have their I-told-you-so
moments. Political passion is
unfashionable, risky, naive and destined
for disappointment. Enthusiasm is rare in
British politics, but today is a reminder that
it is always worth celebrating the better
over the worse. The hope is not just for
what the man will do, but that his brand of
politics rubs off on politicians everywhere.
It wasn't until Obama was elected on a tax-
the-rich ticket that Brown and Darling
dared to follow suit, 11 years late. This is a
day for politicians to take heart and dare to
challenge recycled focus group prejudice.
Copying Obama needs to become a global
habit.
In a revealing unpublished interview
with the Obamas more than a decade ago,
Michelle feared that he was "too much the
good guy for the kind of brutality and
scepticism" of politics. Ruthless
calculation is indeed a necessary part of
the art, but he seems to have that steely
determination too. There is a limit to how
moral any effective politician can be: ask
that nice Jimmy Carter. Yet this is the day
to honour the practice of politics as a high
calling, where the power to inspire can
swell the hearts of the world. Here at
home, a respite from Britain's lazy political
cynicism is in order.
polly.toynbee@guardian.co.uk
• Obama inauguration
• Barack Obama
• United States
• Credit crunch
• Global recession
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35
Film picks: Rob Roy, Lady
Vengeance and 4 Months,
3 Weeks and 2 Days
By Paul Howlett (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Rob Roy
8.05am & 7.35pm, Sky Movies Action
Thriller
(Michael Caton-Jones, 1995)
Historical romance as meaty as a good
haggis, seasoned with a salty, intelligent
script. Based loosely on the Highland
legend, it pits Liam Neeson's noble crofter
against Tim Roth's effete Cunningham, a
rapier-sharp English gentleman-rapist:
glorious landscapes, and powerful
performances from Jessica Lange, John
Hurt and Brian Cox.
Lady Vengeance
11.05pm, Film4
(Park Chan-wook, 2005)
In this final part of Park's revenge trilogy
a beautiful young woman (Lee Yeong-ae)
is released after serving 13 years for the
kidnap and murder of a boy, and sets about
finding and killing the paedophile who
framed her. The convoluted flashback
structure and funereal-dark photography
add disquieting tones to a gruesome,
gripping tale.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
12midnight, Sky Movies Premiere
(Cristian Mungiu, 2008)
This riveting Romanian drama is set
during one day in 1987, at the end of the
Ceausescu era, with Otilia (Anamaria
Marinca) agreeing to help her fellow
student Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) seek an
abortion. It's illegal and dangerous, and as
Gabita puts herself in the hands of a cold
doctor (Vlad Ivanov), the tension grows
unbearably.
• TV pick of the week
• Television
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36 International* Entertainment*
Michele Hanson: Is it all that surprising that Tesco
employees posted offensive remarks about customers
on Facebook?
By Michele Hanson (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Terrible goings-on both in the shop and
behind the scenes in Tesco. Things are
getting rather personal. One customer,
fresh from a ride on her horse, was asked
to leave a store in Essex for smelling, and
staff from branches around the country
have been posting offensive remarks about
customers in a Facebook discussion forum.
But who can blame them? As anyone will
know who has worked with the public, day
in, day out - trying to make their lives
easier, cleaning their hotel rooms, making
their beds, doing their laundry, giving them
their dinners, cleaning their lavatories,
looking after their ancient relatives - it can
be a grisly experience. Far too many
people have no manners and seem to feel
that service personnel may be bossed
around and treated as subhuman slaves.
I noticed it myself while waitressing
decades ago. I started off cheerily, smiling
at customers and being polite, but noticed
that all other staff were surly, sneering and
rude. One inoffensive customer
approached the counter. "I am alone," he
said, in halting English, probably wanting
a table for one. "We all have our
problems," snapped a waitress. I wondered
why. Soon I knew. Over the years the
customers had worn her down. No
"pleases" or "thank-yous", orders and
commands rather than requests, outrageous
complaints and demands, fusspots, drunks,
measly tips, or no tips at all, wasted food,
staggering greed. She had seen it all, and
grown bitter. Soon my little smile faded
House: Painless
By Hemal Jhaveri (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 10:09:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, House, Episode
Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E12) This episode was a perfect
teaser to what House fans can look forward
to for the rest of the season. It was well
too.
But there are better and braver responses
than Facebook. There I was, serving
customers with my friend Josephine, a
history teacher, when along came the nth
offensive fellow of the day. "What's that?"
he said, glaring and pointing at a salad on
the counter. Josephine had had enough.
She responded strictly, using her
classroom skills.
"There are three ingredients in the bowl,"
she said. "Now see if you can tell me what
they are." Customer obeyed like an infant.
"Celery?" "Well done," said Josephine.
"You've got one right. Now the next?"
"Apple?" "Correct. One more?" "Dates?"
"Excellent. Three out of three. Now what
are they all mixed up in?" "Mayonnaise?"
"Well done." "How much?" "You've done
very well so far. The price is on the board.
Have a look and see if you can tell me."
Customer did as he was told. He almost
curtsied before the dominatrix. I think he
even said thank you. The whole episode
was much more rewarding than secret
poison on Facebook. But we weren't so
worried about getting the sack in those
days, and I suppose methods, technologies
and circumstances change. Unfortunately,
customers don't.
• A bumper crop of bad science plopped
out of our universities and hospitals this
week. Three lots at once, and all about
relationships. The first gang, from UCL,
LSE and Warwick Medical School, have
"developed a mathematical model of the
mating game to help explain why courtship
is often protracted". Or as every girl's
mother has probably told her, "Don't do it
on the first date. If he can't wait, he's not
done, though not excellent, and set up a
couple of key narrative threads that are
sure to be slowly unraveled as we move
forward.
This week's patient's comes to House
courtesy of Cameron, who insists that the
team help a man suffering from severe
chronic pain that has no known cause. It's
worth it." Next comes Newcastle
University psychologist Dr Thomas Pollet,
declaring that "women's orgasm frequency
increases with the income of their partner".
And, doziest of all, Dr Malcolm Brynin,
"leading" sociologist at the University of
Essex, advises us to avoid an intense and
passionate first relationship, or at least
forget about it, or it will make future
partners seem "boring and a
disappointment".
I would like to tear my hair out. I ought
to be used to professors churning out this
sort of old-hat, inapplicable drek, time
after time, but for me the shock never
fades. How do they get away with it? Has
Professor Robert Seymour, of UCL, been
shut away in the groves of academe since
birth, and does he really think that we don't
know that "longer courtship is a way for
the female to acquire information about the
male". Has he ever met a female person?
Or a male from the outside world? Did he
not know already that we know that you
can't get to know someone all that well in
the course of a quick bang?
Out here in the real world, when one is in
the thick of it, things are even more
complicated than Seymour suspects.
Fielding had a fearfully difficult time in his
youth trying to work out what girls wanted.
He knew they didn't want too much too
soon (well, not with him anyway), but
couldn't quite work out why. "She knew
what I wanted, and she knew that I knew
that she mustn't want to do it too soon, and
that even if she did, she shouldn't, because
I might think she was a bit of a loose
woman, which I would have done,
although I was secretly hoping she was. It
gotten so bad that the patient, even with a
beautiful wife and kid, tries to kill himself.
was a bit of a bind, really. I'm glad it's all
over."
How do they do this research? "Is the
professor in the bed?" asks Fielding. No,
Pollet from Newcastle glued himself to the
Chinese Health and Family Life Survey,
counted up orgasms, studied the
influencing factors and found that size of
wallet did matter. And Brynin spoke from
another planet, failing to explain how we
might avoid first passions and ideally
"wake up already in [our] second
relationship". Are they mad? Or are they
trying to drive us mad? Because some of
their conclusions are rather dispiriting.
"From a female's point of view, males are
not all equal," says Dr Peter Sozou wisely,
from his cocoon at Warwick. "She cannot
eliminate this risk [of ending up with a bad
male] completely unless she decides never
to mate." And we used to think media
studies was a waste of time.
• This week Michele read: From the
Holocaust to the Highlands by Walter
Kress: "One long, unedited, Pooterish chat,
with an upbeat, adventurous, Jewish,
Scottish mechanic, who escaped Vienna as
a child and was treated with great kindness
in Aberdeen." She watched The Secret Life
of Elephants on BBC1: "Upsetting. What
happened to the baby with the bad leg? I
daren't find out."
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Multiple times. While his kid is watching.
Yeah, it's a bit brutal.
Continue reading House: Painless
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Obituary:
Sidney
Wasserman
By John Pottinger (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Sidney Wasserman, who has died aged
83, was a man of international friendships.
He was born in Elyria, Ohio but abandoned
his native land to seek employment in the
UK in 1967 after his liberal, anti-war
stance led to enquiries by the CIA. That
year, he was appointed lecturer in Applied
Social Studies at Bradford University,
where he became known as a fine teacher.
I was among his first ever "English"
friends and had joy in seeing him come to
terms with being a British citizen. After 10
years at Bradford, Sidney became a social
work teacher in universities and local
authorities across Britain. He retired in
1987 and settled in Reading.
He had grown up in a Jewish family and
loved Jewish culture. At college, Sidney
majored in drama and retained a lifelong
devotion to stage and film. Later he trained
for social work and obtained a DSW
degree at Case Western Reserve University
in Cleveland, Ohio. He practised and then
turned to teaching, becoming an assistant
professor at Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts before
leaving the US.
Despite his distinguished career, Sidney
will be remembered more for his personal
qualities. He was a man of great warmth,
and had close and dear friends in Britain,
the US, Israel, France and across the
world. He remembered all his school and
university friends, and never forgot their
names, nor those of their children and
grandchildren.
He had a long relationship with Corinne
Bellow, who died in 1999.
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Nils Pratley: Bank insurance scheme
smells like nationalisation by stealth to
markets
By Nils Pratley (News: Main section
| guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
That was not meant to happen. Royal
Bank of Scotland's shares were not meant
to fall by two-thirds. Lloyds, now
incorporating HBOS, was not supposed to
lose almost a third of its value. Barclays,
shouting about how well it is doing, was
not meant to decline 10%.
The financial markets were meant to see
in yesterday's government proposals a path
towards the resumption of normal lending
to a recession-hit economy. What we saw
instead was open speculation on the
chances of further nationalisation.
Three factors explain what happened.
First, the presentation was awful. Gordon
Brown used the occasion to decry
"irresponsible" risk-taking at RBS. Forget
the fact that RBS's former chief executive,
Sir Fred Goodwin, the man who oversaw
that lending, was knighted under Labour.
Brown, in the opinion of many in the
City, preferred to look backwards because
he didn't like what he saw ahead. Nor did it
help that Stephen Hester, Goodwin's
replacement, sounded less bullish than he
did a few weeks ago. RBS's new leader
spoke about big losses and big problems
and the lack of a silver bullet.
Second, there was an enormous hole in
the government's proposals. The most
significant measure in yesterday's package
was the scheme whereby banks will be
able to buy insurance from the government
to indemnify themselves against losses.
What price will the banks pay for this
insurance? Does the need to protect the
taxpayer imply that the banks will be
paying through the nose? How much
insurance will be available?
It would be wrong to be too critical of
the lack of detail. The UK government,
like all governments, is in new territory.
The only certain way to implement this
type of insurance scheme is to plough
through the banks' highly complex loan
books and make a cold assessment of risk.
The Treasury is promising a further
statement by the end of February.
Stockmarkets, however, do not wait that
long to react and yesterday's instant
judgment was that the insurance scheme
could become a form of nationalisation by
stealth. By the time the banks have bought
insurance against catastrophe, how much
value will be left for shareholders? Will
the remaining value in RBS simply be
sucked out in the form of insurance
premiums? Will the bank ever be able to
pay a dividend on its ordinary shares
again? To judge by yesterday's share price
fall, RBS's remaining non-government
shareholders (now down to 30% of the
total) are ready to throw in the towel. They
see a bank that will be paying for past
mistakes for a decade and they see the
taxpayer's ownership increasing.
The third factor behind the market's
reaction was simply the size of RBS's
losses last year. At a possible £8bn - plus
write-downs that could reach £20bn - the
figure was beyond levels that would have
been considered plausible even a few
weeks ago. The crazy, top-of-the-market
acquisition of ABN Amro in 2007 takes
part of the blame, but RBS was also
confirming a pattern seen with the US
banks last week - the last few months of
last year were dreadful in the banking
industry.
Barclays, in stating that it will achieve
profits of at least £5.2bn for 2008, is
claiming to have escaped the latest
carnage. But the overwhelming impression
is left that the banks, as a group, still
haven't come clean about the risks on their
books. While that remains the case, and
while recession creates more losses,
private-sector investors are likely to pass
on any offers to pump in more capital.
Another reason, then, why further
nationalisation could creep in under the
radar.
For all that, there was much to cheer in
the proposals themselves. They were
mostly sensible and carefully crafted, nor
can they be dismissed as slight - the
£250bn credit guarantee scheme is being
extended and £50bn will be directed at the
corporate lending market. These are
serious sums; maybe not enough to replace
the so-called £700bn funding gap that
appeared when the securitisation market
collapsed, but they should be large enough
to be felt on the ground.
The Financial Services Authority also
played its part, making clear that banks had
no need to hoard capital to protect their
capital ratios. Bank chief executives have
created much fuss about this supposed
difficulty and clarity is welcome.
Restarting lending at Northern Rock also
makes sense: winding down the bank's
lending capacity ran counter to every other
government policy.
The U-turn, though, also betrays the new
realisation in government that imploring
the banks to lend more enthusiastically is
not a policy that will get far on its own. As
Hester said, there is no silver bullet. So
what we got yesterday was a package of
measures that is designed to work whether
or not the government's direct holding in
the banks increases or not. The ambition of
limiting the state's involvement is well
intentioned - the further we go in, the
harder it will be to get out. But to plan for
further nationalisation is also to recognise
which way the breezes are blowing.
nils.pratley@guardian.co.uk
• Banking
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Economic policy
• Banks and building societies
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Mattresses, safes and the
search for security
By Patrick Collinson (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
I'm worried about the banks, should I be
stuffing all my cash under the mattress?
No. If you have a burglary, standard
insurance policies cover you for only the
first £500 of cash stolen. If you want to
keep your money at home, the four most
common places to hide it are, according to
a Halifax survey, (a) under the mattress (b)
in the sock drawer (c) in the top of the
wardrobe and (d) in the bedside table. So
don't help the thieves by leaving it there.
Should I buy a safe?
Safe manufacturers report a surge in
sales - up 25% over the year. But they are
probably better for documents than cash,
and will set you back: a Chubb
MiniBanker costs around £500. Insurers
won't pay out more than the standard
amount, even if you have a safe.
RBS NatWest has made a loss of £28bn.
Is it time to take my savings out?
No. The Financial Services
Compensation Scheme protects the first
£50,000 of your savings, and promises to
pay out at least some of your savings
within seven days of a bank closing.
So, if I have more than £50,000 in one
bank I should move it?
Yes. If a very big bank went under, the
government may have to restrict payouts to
the £50,000 limit. So spread your cash
around several institutions, so long as they
are not in the same group. Try small and
medium-sized building societies, which
never got seriously involved in
"wholesale" markets. Irish banks have a
blanket guarantee scheme, but that depends
on the ability of the Irish taxpayer to stand
behind the scheme. Remember Iceland.
And if your money is in a tax haven such
as Jersey, it is at the mercy of the local
compensation scheme.
I want to buy my first home. Will the
latest bank bail-out help me get a
International* 37
mortgage?
The last bank bail-out in October didn't
work, so you can't be confident this one
will. Put simply, for years the mortgage
companies were lending far more than they
were bringing in from savers. The gap -
nearly £200bn in the peak year of 2007 -
was financed by banks selling mortgage-
backed securities. That market fell flat on
its face, so lenders have been able to lend
only what they have in savings (about a
third to a half of what they were doing
before). Yesterday the government entered
the mortgage-backed securities market,
promising to underwrite £100bn-worth to
kick-start lending. That should at least start
oiling the wheels of the home loans market
again.
Will the level of deposit required now
come down?
Don't count on it. No one wants to lend
much more than 85% of the value of a
home when most forecasts are for house
prices to fall another 10% to 15%. The
demand for huge deposits won't go away
until the property market stabilises.
I've got a Northern Rock mortgage. Will
life now become easier?
Yes. The bank has been hectically
clearing debts off its balance sheet, but has
now been told to slow down.
That means when you come to the end of
a fixed-rate loan with Northern Rock, you
won't necessarily be shown the door - it
may offer you a decent new rate itself. It
may even be kinder to its Together
borrowers on 100%-plus loans who have
nowhere else to go.
• Banks and building societies
• Consumer affairs
• Borrowing & debt
• Mortgages
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38 International* Daily Digital Newspaper

Watch this: The Inauguration of Barack Weatherwatch: 20 January

Obama, President Obama: The Inauguration, 2009
Battlestar Galactica and Cowards
By Gareth McLean (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
The Inauguration of Barack Obama
3pm, CNN
As president-elect Obama prepares - at
5pm our time and at noon in Washington
DC - to solemnly swear that he will
faithfully execute the office of president of
the United States of America, news
organisations everywhere are wheeling out
guns almost as big as the howitzers that
will subsequently give a 21-gun salute.
Ruffles and flourishes ready and hail, then,
to the chief as Wolf Blitzer and Anderson
Cooper lay it on thick in true American
style for this genuinely momentous
moment made more illustrious by razzy
graphics, ponderous pundits and hours and
hours of hyperbole.
President Obama: The Inauguration
4pm, BBC1, BBC HD
Over on Sky News Adam Boulton,
Jeremy Thompson and Robert Nisbet front
their channel's coverage in glorious high
definition - and who could resist Adam
Boulton in HD, hmm? Meanwhile the
BBC unleashes Huw Edwards, again in
HD. Among his guests are legendary
journalist Bob Woodward. On BBC2 at
7pm, Clive Myrie, one of the few non-
white faces in the coverage, gets to present
something all on his own: a profile of
Obama from his Hawaii childhood to his
triumph in the November election. If you
still haven't had your fill later, Jeremy
Paxman hosts an extended Newsnight from
Washington DC.
Battlestar Galactica
9pm, Sky1
The best drama on television returns as
bold, brilliant and pertinent as ever with
the remnants of humanity and their
erstwhile Cylon enemies coming to terms
with the fact that the object of their quest -
Earth - is a radioactive wasteland. Gutted
doesn't even begin to describe it. But even
in such a downbeat episode, there's no
relenting in the drama as the identity of the
final Cylon is revealed in vintage jaw-
dropping BSG fashion. It isn't who you
think it is. Unless you think it's ... Oh,
come now, I wouldn't do that to you.
Cowards
10pm, BBC4
How to up the hit rate of a sketch show?
Make every episode 15 minutes long? Cut
the usual run of six in half? Those behind
this rather strange collection of skits have
opted for the latter, making this the first of
three, although they still need to work on
the laughs-to-sketch ratio. If I were you, I'd
listen to Radio 4's Recorded for Training
Purposes instead.
• Television
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By Victoria Kettley (News: Main
section | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
While many areas experienced heavy rain
and flooding last week, others endured
heat waves. Heavy rain also caused
flooding and landslides in the Philippines:
the death toll was reported to have risen to
28 by Sunday, with thousands still
displaced.
In the US, strong Santa Ana winds swept
through southern California, with
temperatures reaching 31C in LA on
Monday, well above average. However, it
was a different picture across the upper
midwest as a winter storm brought heavy
snow and strong winds, creating blizzard
conditions in much of Iowa. By early
Wednesday, 3ins to 7ins of snow had
fallen in eastern areas. In Maine at Big
Black river on Friday morning a
temperature of -44C was recorded, the first
state record since 1999.
The United Arab Emirates had varied
rain last week, ranging from a sprinkling in
Abu Dhabi and Dubai to thunderstorms in
the northern Emirates. On Wednesday,
parts of Dubai were hit by heavy rain and
hailstorms, with accumulations of
hailstones giving some areas a wintry
appearance.
Meanwhile, Australia was enduring a
heat wave. In Adelaide on Tuesday,
temperatures touched 41C, while in
Victoria, a total fire ban was declared as
firefighters struggled to keep blazes under
control. In comparison, northern
Queensland was still experiencing flooding
at the start of last week, which was
associated with ex-tropical cyclone
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Michael Landy: How Tony Hart gave me my big break

By Michael Landy (From the
Guardian: G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
When I heard about Tony Hart's death at
the weekend, I immediately thought of the
artwork I sent into his BBC show, Take
Hart, in 1980. I was 15, and I'd watched
the show every week for years - mainly for
the gallery towards the end of the
programme when they showed the viewers'
own artwork. I must have been pretty
competitive even then, because I remember
being absolutely sure that my own work
was a lot better than most of the stuff on
there.
The picture I sent in was of a clown,
made out of abstract patterns etched on to a
Scraperboard - a pre-made piece of stiff
backboard with a layer of silver under a
layer of black. I was immensely proud
when the BBC said they'd chosen it for the
gallery. They sent me a book token, a
sticker signed by Hart, and a letter telling
me which day the programme was going
out.
On the day itself, my entire family sat in
front of the television, waiting for my
clown to come on. When it did, the camera
zoomed up close, to show all the detail on
the clown's face. I'm not sure this
immediately convinced my family that I
was going to be a serious artist, but it was
definitely the first step on the road.
When I started at Goldsmiths, I got
respect from everyone for the fact I'd had a
piece in Take Hart's gallery. And I kept the
token, the letter and the sticker in a
cupboard in my parents' house for more
than 20 years - until 2001, when I
destroyed all my possessions at an old
branch of C&A on London's Oxford Street
for an art piece called Break Down.
I didn't know that Damien Hirst had also
tried as a boy to get something into the
Take Hart gallery - and failed. I guess I
must have been ahead of the game. Hart
managed to get a generation of kids
picking up materials and making things,
which gets you halfway towards being an
artist. Who could replace him? None of the
artists I know. Not one of us can draw like
he could.
• Tony Hart
• Art
• Television
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Radio pick of the day
By Phil Daoust (From the Guardian:
G2 | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 4:01:00 PM
Sixty-odd years ago, the Glasgow
shipbuilder Yarrow & Co produced an
awesome self-assembly kit. The MV Ilala -
620 tons, 172ft long, designed to carry 358
passengers and 100 tons of cargo - was
destined for Lake Malawi in southeast
Africa, but couldn't simply sail there
because the lake has no navigable outlet to
the sea. So it made the journey in pieces:
780 cases of components, the heaviest
weighing 18 tonnes, were shipped to
Mozambique and transported overland to
Monkey Bay. Once reassembled, they
were blessed by the Bishop of Nyasaland.
Basketball: NBA draft period crucial for NBA managers
By Mark Woods (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:27:25 AM
"The hour for change has come. To forget
the mistakes of the past and move forward.
To make us great again. Can we do it?"
"Yes, we can!" The mantra of incoming
US president and basketball junkie Barack
Obama. But also of those other renowned
and highly scrutinised visionaries: the
NBA's general managers.
Yup, it's almost trade deadline time
again. Thirty days and counting. And while
the wheels are being put in motion for a
radical overhaul in Washington DC,
around the league stock has been taken and
remedial measures drawn up.
One deal can make a difference. Such as
12 months ago when Pau Gasol's move
from Memphis to the Lakers propelled
them to the finals. Or Detroit's 2004 grab
for Rasheed Wallace, which was the
missing piece in their title puzzle. Or when
Clyde Drexler's switch from Portland to
Houston in 1995 reignited the Rockets to
defend their championship. The hard work
may be done in the summer but January is
the month for cunning and craft.
It might also be the moment when this
season's NBA champions are decided.
The Ilala is a bit rusty now, but it still
sails the lake, ferrying maize, bicycles,
people and more around Malawi and
Mozambique. "I feel that the construction
was superb," says the present captain.
Adam Lusekelo spends a few days in first
class for A Voyage On Livingstone's
Lake(11am, Radio 4).
If that doesn't float your boat (I know:
pathetic), File On 4(8pm, Radio 4) is back
for a new series. The subject couldn't be
more topical - Britain's insolvency laws.
Julian O'Halloran presents.
• Radio
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Because if you look around the top of the
standings, there are probably six teams
with a legitimate shot at ending up with an
A-List banner come the summer. And
that's disregarding Orlando – currently
with the best record in the Association
after their 9–1 winning streak.
All of them are capable of beating the
other. The Lakers beat Boston on
Christmas Day. They also crushed
Cleveland on Monday night. The Cavaliers
picked the Celtics apart a fortnight ago.
Yet the reigning champions have since
gone on a five-game run to re-assert their
status as the ones to beat.
The Hornets have split their series with
Denver 1–1 so far but lost twice to Los
Angeles. And while the Spurs squeezed
past the Lakers last Wednesday, it is
Hollywood's favourites who have the best
record against the rest of the West.
In short, it's all to play for. And don't
think for a second that general managers
aren't already assessing potential play-off
match-ups, then looking at the rosters and
asking not what they can do for their
players but what their players might do for
them? So with one eye on June, who looks
ready to roll the dice?
Boston: There have been reports that the
Celtics offered little used back-ups Bill
Walker and Gabe Prutitt to Orlando in
exchange for JJ Redick. While the Magic
Football: I am happy at Manchester City, says
Robinho
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:25:00 AM
Robinho insists he is happy at Manchester
City and that he left the club's training
camp in Tenerife to return to Brazil for
family reasons. The City forward departed
the Canary island yesterday amid
speculation that he had stormed out
following the club's failure to complete a
deal for the Milan star Kaka.
have played that down, general manager
Danny Ainge may want someone to spread
the floor more during the repeat charge.
Odds on making a trade: Medium.
Cleveland: The Cavalierss have two
pieces who are perfect trade fodder.
Neither Ben Wallace nor Wally Szczerbiak
is contributing enough to justify his loaded
contract. Wall-e's expiring deal would be
an attractive proposition to one of the
many teams looking to reduce their salary
budget come the off-season although Big
Ben's $14m per annum would be harder to
shift. What they could usefully acquire is
another shooter with Delonte West out for
the next six weeks. That could bring
Milwaukee's Michael Redd into the centre
of general manager Danny Ferry's radar.
Odds on making a trade: high.
Denver: The Nuggets addressed their
need for some extra size with last week's
trade, which brought French big Johan
Petro to Mile High City in exchange for
Chucky Atkins and some draft picks. That
was their most urgent requirement.
Another shooting guard would be a nice
plus. Odds on making a trade: slim.
LA Lakers: Reports in Toronto suggest
that the Lakers are looking to swap Lamar
Odom's soon-to-expire contract for the
Raptors' Jermaine O'Neal. It's a move that
makes a lot of sense. LA haven't forgotten
Odom's post-season foibles while O'Neal
International* World Sport*
But Robinho has spoken out to quash the
speculation. "I had made Manchester City
aware that I needed to return to Brazil
because of a family matter. I will return to
the club and hope to sort this out as soon as
possible."
"I feel it is important to underline that I
did not return to Brazil because of the
Kaka deal. He is one of my good friends
and it would have been great to see him at
Manchester City – but it had nothing to do
with his decision to stay in Milan. I am
committed to helping Manchester City
hasn't really worked out for Canada's
finest. There's a sense that the Lakers aren't
quite good enough to go one better than
last year and it's the frontcourt that needs a
minor upgrade. Odds on making a trade:
high.
San Antonio: The Spurs aren't one to
panic buy in the new year sales. They
signed Austin Croshere this week as a free
agent, which is hardly a difference maker.
But with Fabricio Oberto in the doghouse,
what they really need for June time is
another centre. With no major contracts
heading to a close, and the dependence on
their core, they may have to run with what
they have. Odds on making a trade: slim.
New Orleans: The Hornets might need
one more big to solidify a challenge,
particularly with injuries to Tyson
Chandler and David West. Antonio
Daniels, who has only one year left on his
deal, is their best bait. Odds on making a
trade: slim. Offensive Rebounds
• Great Britain forward Pops Mensah
Bonsu could return to the NBA, as a free
agent, by the spring. The Londoner has
been receiving treatment on a shoulder
injury since parting with Spanish side
Joventut Badalona last month. Now
mended, he has had five workouts with
NBA teams and is set to join the D-League
side, Utah Flash, a move that would give
their affiliates, the Utah Jazz and Boston
39
become the force the owners assured me
they will become," he told BBC Sport.
Robinho, who has scored 11 goals in 16
league appearances to date, celebrates his
25th birthday this Saturday, after which he
is expected to return to the UK.
• Manchester City
• Kaka
• Premier League
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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Celtics, first call on his services.
• It was widely reported last week that
GB centre Andy Betts was joining Chinese
outfit Guangdong Southern Tigers. Not so.
In fact, the offer for the currently club-less
Betts was an intricate hoax. The papers
that arrived for his signature even sported a
Chinese postmark but were completely
fake. Consequently, the former Hornets
Draft pick is continuing to train with
Malaga's junior side while awaiting an
acceptable offer. He is understood to be
taking the joke well, however.
• It was probably just as well Sunday's
BBL Cup final wasn't covered by either
television or national radio, such was the
nature of Everton Tigers' supremacy. As
this chunk of cyberspace has reported
previously, the British League has a
standing offer to have its games broadcast
on Sky Sports, if a sponsor can be found to
cover the production costs. "We've had
some interesting talks with a third party in
recent weeks," a league official said. "It
might get us back on TV sooner rather than
later."
• US sport
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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40 World Sport* Entertainment*
Basketball: NBA draft period crucial for NBA
managers
By Mark Woods (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:27:25 AM
"The hour for change has come. To forget
the mistakes of the past and move forward.
To make us great again. Can we do it?"
"Yes, we can!" The mantra of incoming
US president and basketball junkie Barack
Obama. But also of those other renowned
and highly scrutinised visionaries: the
NBA's general managers.
Yup, it's almost trade deadline time
again. Thirty days and counting. And while
the wheels are being put in motion for a
radical overhaul in Washington DC,
around the league stock has been taken and
remedial measures drawn up.
One deal can make a difference. Such as
12 months ago when Pau Gasol's move
from Memphis to the Lakers propelled
them to the finals. Or Detroit's 2004 grab
for Rasheed Wallace, which was the
missing piece in their title puzzle. Or when
Clyde Drexler's switch from Portland to
Houston in 1995 reignited the Rockets to
defend their championship. The hard work
may be done in the summer but January is
the month for cunning and craft.
It might also be the moment when this
season's NBA champions are decided.
Because if you look around the top of the
standings, there are probably six teams
with a legitimate shot at ending up with an
A-List banner come the summer. And
that's disregarding Orlando – currently
with the best record in the Association
after their 9–1 winning streak.
All of them are capable of beating the
Football: I am happy at Manchester City, says Robinho
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:25:00 AM
Robinho insists he is happy at Manchester
City and that he left the club's training
camp in Tenerife to return to Brazil for
other. The Lakers beat Boston on
Christmas Day. They also crushed
Cleveland on Monday night. The Cavaliers
picked the Celtics apart a fortnight ago.
Yet the reigning champions have since
gone on a five-game run to re-assert their
status as the ones to beat.
The Hornets have split their series with
Denver 1–1 so far but lost twice to Los
Angeles. And while the Spurs squeezed
past the Lakers last Wednesday, it is
Hollywood's favourites who have the best
record against the rest of the West.
In short, it's all to play for. And don't
think for a second that general managers
aren't already assessing potential play-off
match-ups, then looking at the rosters and
asking not what they can do for their
players but what their players might do for
them? So with one eye on June, who looks
ready to roll the dice?
Boston: There have been reports that the
Celtics offered little used back-ups Bill
Walker and Gabe Prutitt to Orlando in
exchange for JJ Redick. While the Magic
have played that down, general manager
Danny Ainge may want someone to spread
the floor more during the repeat charge.
Odds on making a trade: Medium.
Cleveland: The Cavalierss have two
pieces who are perfect trade fodder.
Neither Ben Wallace nor Wally Szczerbiak
is contributing enough to justify his loaded
contract. Wall-e's expiring deal would be
an attractive proposition to one of the
many teams looking to reduce their salary
budget come the off-season although Big
Ben's $14m per annum would be harder to
shift. What they could usefully acquire is
another shooter with Delonte West out for
the next six weeks. That could bring
family reasons. The City forward departed
the Canary island yesterday amid
speculation that he had stormed out
following the club's failure to complete a
deal for the Milan star Kaka.
But Robinho has spoken out to quash the
speculation. "I had made Manchester City
aware that I needed to return to Brazil
Milwaukee's Michael Redd into the centre
of general manager Danny Ferry's radar.
Odds on making a trade: high.
Denver: The Nuggets addressed their
need for some extra size with last week's
trade, which brought French big Johan
Petro to Mile High City in exchange for
Chucky Atkins and some draft picks. That
was their most urgent requirement.
Another shooting guard would be a nice
plus. Odds on making a trade: slim.
LA Lakers: Reports in Toronto suggest
that the Lakers are looking to swap Lamar
Odom's soon-to-expire contract for the
Raptors' Jermaine O'Neal. It's a move that
makes a lot of sense. LA haven't forgotten
Odom's post-season foibles while O'Neal
hasn't really worked out for Canada's
finest. There's a sense that the Lakers aren't
quite good enough to go one better than
last year and it's the frontcourt that needs a
minor upgrade. Odds on making a trade:
high.
San Antonio: The Spurs aren't one to
panic buy in the new year sales. They
signed Austin Croshere this week as a free
agent, which is hardly a difference maker.
But with Fabricio Oberto in the doghouse,
what they really need for June time is
another centre. With no major contracts
heading to a close, and the dependence on
their core, they may have to run with what
they have. Odds on making a trade: slim.
New Orleans: The Hornets might need
one more big to solidify a challenge,
particularly with injuries to Tyson
Chandler and David West. Antonio
Daniels, who has only one year left on his
deal, is their best bait. Odds on making a
trade: slim. Offensive Rebounds
• Great Britain forward Pops Mensah
because of a family matter. I will return to
the club and hope to sort this out as soon as
possible."
"I feel it is important to underline that I
did not return to Brazil because of the
Kaka deal. He is one of my good friends
and it would have been great to see him at
Manchester City – but it had nothing to do
Bonsu could return to the NBA, as a free
agent, by the spring. The Londoner has
been receiving treatment on a shoulder
injury since parting with Spanish side
Joventut Badalona last month. Now
mended, he has had five workouts with
NBA teams and is set to join the D-League
side, Utah Flash, a move that would give
their affiliates, the Utah Jazz and Boston
Celtics, first call on his services.
• It was widely reported last week that
GB centre Andy Betts was joining Chinese
outfit Guangdong Southern Tigers. Not so.
In fact, the offer for the currently club-less
Betts was an intricate hoax. The papers
that arrived for his signature even sported a
Chinese postmark but were completely
fake. Consequently, the former Hornets
Draft pick is continuing to train with
Malaga's junior side while awaiting an
acceptable offer. He is understood to be
taking the joke well, however.
• It was probably just as well Sunday's
BBL Cup final wasn't covered by either
television or national radio, such was the
nature of Everton Tigers' supremacy. As
this chunk of cyberspace has reported
previously, the British League has a
standing offer to have its games broadcast
on Sky Sports, if a sponsor can be found to
cover the production costs. "We've had
some interesting talks with a third party in
recent weeks," a league official said. "It
might get us back on TV sooner rather than
later."
• US sport
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
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with his decision to stay in Milan. I am
committed to helping Manchester City
become the force the owners assured me
they will become," he told BBC Sport.
Robinho, who has scored 11 goals in 16
league appearances to date, celebrates his
25th birthday this Saturday, after which he
is expected to return to the UK.
Daily Digital Newspaper
The Big Bang
Theory: The
Friendship Algorithm
By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:15:00 AM
Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-
Free, The Big Bang Theory
(S02E13) This episode was much better
than last week's, which made me really
uncomfortable. It was a Sheldon-centric
episode, and while those can be hit or miss,
I thought this one was pretty good. I
enjoyed the subject of the episode, Sheldon
trying to make a friend, because I'm sure
that everyone who watches BBT has at
some point wondered how this guy has any
friends at all.
Sheldon has no idea how he has any
friends either, so he has to invest a lot of
time in research in order to come up with
some sort of answer: the friendship
algorithm. He's got some pretty strong
science behind it; I may just have to
reference it the next time I'm in the market
for a friend.
Continue reading The Big Bang Theory:
The Friendship Algorithm
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• Manchester City
• Kaka
• Premier League
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
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Daily Digital Newspaper
Barney Ronay: Brentford's fortunes have been revived
at long last
By Barney Ronay (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:19:32 AM
It's amazing what a little success can do.
Currently Brentford are sitting second in
League Two, a club on course for its first
promotion in 10 years. You can tell too.
There's a buzz around the club's Osterley
training ground and a sense of bustle
among the echoey changing rooms, the
random items of weight-training
-apparatus, the boots and bandages and
cups of tea. This is a club ever so
-cautiously going places.
Last season I got to spend a morning
here as Brentford's acting assistant coach:
mucking in on the training pitch, stacking
the cones, standing around with my hands
on my hips, tripping over my great
flapping XXXL Brentford tracksuit
bottoms. That kind of thing. So it's with a
certain sense of pride that I can report the
lads have obviously taken a lot from that
experience, and are currently six points
behind leaders Wycombe with a game in
hand. Really, I'm proud of them all.
"We're probably a little bit ahead of
where we felt we would be," Bees manager
Andy Scott says, scanning his early-
morning emails in his office before
training. Terry Bullivant, my successor as
permanent assistant coach, isn't in today
and it's with a vague sense of regret at
what might have been that I take his empty
seat. "We've changed a lot of personnel,
but the players that have come in have
gone from strength to strength."
This time last season Scott was picking
The 24-minute news cycle
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 8:28:48 AM
I woke up early this morning, about
4AM.
Went downstairs, turned on the radio to
KQED-FM. They're interviewing Newt
Gingrich, talking about the 24-hour news
cycle, a major innovation they're adjusting
up the reins following a disastrous
interlude under Terry Butcher and looked
like a tyro manager with a thousand
pressing tasks to attend to: hastily Blu-
Tacking a playing and coaching staff into
place with one hand, clearing Butcher's
half-eaten sandwiches off his desk with the
other and, above all, desperately hunting
for time to stabilise a club that had
nosedived through relegation, heavy debt
and four managers within the previous
year.
A period of rapid turnover was in train,
with 22 players passing through the
Brentford first-team squad in a year via a
tornado of loans, cheap purchases and off-
loadings. The most impressive Scott
signing so far has been Charlie McDonald,
a 27-year-old striker sneaked on a free
from Southend, who has 11 goals so far
this season. But this is basically
management on the hoof, an ad hoc, day-to
-day affair at the very sharpest end of the
Football League.
Scott does at least seem much more
settled. This season, after a start that saw
Brentford lose their first two matches,
there has even been time for a little
managerial tinkering "We have adapted
our playing style a bit. We were playing
good stuff at the start of the season and not
picking up points. We had a couple of
defeats and after that we had a good look
at how we were playing and the mistakes
we were making."
Does this mean he's given in to the
lurking temptation of the lower tiers to
play the percentage ball, stick it in the
mixer and find out if they like it up 'em?
"We kept the same formation, we just
changed the mindset. We looked at what
to in DC.
I went upstairs with my coffee, did a few
hours work, came downstairs for a break,
turned on the radio, exactly the same bit is
playing. Gingrich talking about the 24-
hour news cycle.
Then I thought back to a moment, on
Wednesday, when Twitter was carrying the
instant news of Steve Jobs's leave of
the successful sides who had come up out
of this division were doing, compared to
what we were doing. We made it a lot
more solid."
There's a resilience about the team,
demonstrated most recently by last
Saturday's 1-1 home draw with Notts
County, a game decorated with another
hair-tearing decision by the referee Stuart
Attwell – he of the "ghost goal" at Watford
earlier in the season. This time Atwell sent
off Nathan Elder after eight minutes for a
perceived elbowing offence, a decision that
left many observers bemused, Scott
included.
"The ball was in the air, my player was
back-peddling, not looking at their player,
there was a coming together, he's a 6ft 3in
centre-forward and their defender went
down.
"There was nothing malicious or
intentional. You just want to be able to
play the game. We had a good crowd of
paying customers in. If it was a bad tackle,
then fair enough. Refs are quick to get
their cards out now."
Elder, who was also sent off on his last
appearance last year, now faces the
prospect of a five-match ban. Scott isn't
alone in finding it slightly bizarre that a
referee who makes an obvious mistake
should be "punished" by being sent to
referee matches at this level.
"Our rules are exactly the same as the
rules in the Premier League. It's still three
points at stake and our livelihood still
depends on it. If a ref makes a mistake and
they're punished by being sent to League
Two, is it possible for them to have a clear
head in that situation? I think they should
be taken out of it for a bit."
absence. At the exact same moment, came
news of the death of Ricardo Montalban. I
should have taken a screen shot, because
there were constant tweets from people
saying Did you hear about Steve Jobs. Did
you hear about Ricardo Montalban.
I thought at the time, forget about the 24-
hour news cycle, we have a new concept --
a news cycle measured in minutes. What
World Sport* Special* Entertainment*
Brentford's success this season has been
built around a youthful and extremely fit
squad of players. "We've got a young
squad and we want to keep it together
without too much chopping and changing
form season to season. If we do go up it's a
money thing what you do from there.
Leicester, Leeds, Peterborough, maybe
even Charlton or Norwich if they come
down, there are a lot of clubs with money
in League One. Pushed to name his most
promising youngsters, Scott plumps for his
energetic left-flank of Karleigh Osborne
and Sam Wood: "They're good players and
they want to improve all the time. Sam
Wood came to us form Bromley and he's
done very well with his first chance in the
League."
Much like, so far, his manager. Scott
played at a higher level. He was part of
Howard Wilkinson's Sheffield United team
that reached the 1997 play-off final for a
place in the Premier League (they lost to
Crystal Palace). It's quite possible his
ambitions reach beyond away trips to
Macclesfield, Brentford's next destination
this coming Saturday. "I'd be a liar if I said
I didn't want to manage at a higher level,"
he shrugs. "But the players are ambitious
too and hopefully we can have success as a
group. That's what you build your
reputation on."
• Brentford
• League Two
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made me think of it was in the midst of all
this I saw a lonely tweet from a company I
know announcing a contest for developers.
I thought "too bad, no one's going to notice
that."
This is what we're all working on -- have
been for a couple of years -- how to make
sense of news that flashes by at such a
rapid rate that it pushes the envelope on
41
24: 12:00PM -
1:00PM
By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:30:00 AM
Filed under: OpEd, 24, Episode Reviews,
Reality-Free
( S07E05)"If you trust me, I will get you
through this alive." - Jack
Over the span of any given season of 24,
it's inevitable that as different plots
emerge, the "real time" aspect of the show
forces them to jockey for the top spot. One
week, Plot-X might be the most exciting
part of the hour and the next week, Plot-Y
is.
With all that being said, this season of 24
is shattering that expectation. For six
seasons that's been the norm, but not so for
Day 7. All three major threads (Jack and
Tony, Sangala, Roger Taylor) have been
thrilling since the clock first started ticking
and this episode was a prime example.
Continue reading 24: 12:00PM - 1:00PM
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
human ability to notice things.
We may be lining up to eat at soup
kitchens in 2009, but we'll have the fastest
news cycle ever to keep us informed.
Update: Cross-posted at Huffington.
42 World Sport* Entertainment* Special Feature
Barney Ronay: Brentford's fortunes have been revived
at long last
By Barney Ronay (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:19:32 AM
It's amazing what a little success can do.
Currently Brentford are sitting second in
League Two, a club on course for its first
promotion in 10 years. You can tell too.
There's a buzz around the club's Osterley
training ground and a sense of bustle
among the echoey changing rooms, the
random items of weight-training
-apparatus, the boots and bandages and
cups of tea. This is a club ever so
-cautiously going places.
Last season I got to spend a morning
here as Brentford's acting assistant coach:
mucking in on the training pitch, stacking
the cones, standing around with my hands
on my hips, tripping over my great
flapping XXXL Brentford tracksuit
bottoms. That kind of thing. So it's with a
certain sense of pride that I can report the
lads have obviously taken a lot from that
experience, and are currently six points
behind leaders Wycombe with a game in
hand. Really, I'm proud of them all.
"We're probably a little bit ahead of
where we felt we would be," Bees manager
Andy Scott says, scanning his early-
morning emails in his office before
training. Terry Bullivant, my successor as
permanent assistant coach, isn't in today
and it's with a vague sense of regret at
what might have been that I take his empty
seat. "We've changed a lot of personnel,
but the players that have come in have
gone from strength to strength."
This time last season Scott was picking
Where have you been watching today's inaugural coverage?
By Richard Keller (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 12:01:00 PM
Filed under: News, Programming, Reality
-Free
By the time you read this the most
important part of today's inaugural shebang
will be over and the pomp and
circumstance will be in full swing. Being
up the reins following a disastrous
interlude under Terry Butcher and looked
like a tyro manager with a thousand
pressing tasks to attend to: hastily Blu-
Tacking a playing and coaching staff into
place with one hand, clearing Butcher's
half-eaten sandwiches off his desk with the
other and, above all, desperately hunting
for time to stabilise a club that had
nosedived through relegation, heavy debt
and four managers within the previous
year.
A period of rapid turnover was in train,
with 22 players passing through the
Brentford first-team squad in a year via a
tornado of loans, cheap purchases and off-
loadings. The most impressive Scott
signing so far has been Charlie McDonald,
a 27-year-old striker sneaked on a free
from Southend, who has 11 goals so far
this season. But this is basically
management on the hoof, an ad hoc, day-to
-day affair at the very sharpest end of the
Football League.
Scott does at least seem much more
settled. This season, after a start that saw
Brentford lose their first two matches,
there has even been time for a little
managerial tinkering "We have adapted
our playing style a bit. We were playing
good stuff at the start of the season and not
picking up points. We had a couple of
defeats and after that we had a good look
at how we were playing and the mistakes
we were making."
Does this mean he's given in to the
lurking temptation of the lower tiers to
play the percentage ball, stick it in the
mixer and find out if they like it up 'em?
"We kept the same formation, we just
changed the mindset. We looked at what
such an important event for both America
and the world, second only to the season
finales of American Idol, every single
media outlet known to man is covering
every single minute of the day. Heck, I
hear Spice is even covering this with a
bunch of naked women correspondents in
the crowd at the Mall ( NOTE: That's a
joke. Do not rampage around the area
the successful sides who had come up out
of this division were doing, compared to
what we were doing. We made it a lot
more solid."
There's a resilience about the team,
demonstrated most recently by last
Saturday's 1-1 home draw with Notts
County, a game decorated with another
hair-tearing decision by the referee Stuart
Attwell – he of the "ghost goal" at Watford
earlier in the season. This time Atwell sent
off Nathan Elder after eight minutes for a
perceived elbowing offence, a decision that
left many observers bemused, Scott
included.
"The ball was in the air, my player was
back-peddling, not looking at their player,
there was a coming together, he's a 6ft 3in
centre-forward and their defender went
down.
"There was nothing malicious or
intentional. You just want to be able to
play the game. We had a good crowd of
paying customers in. If it was a bad tackle,
then fair enough. Refs are quick to get
their cards out now."
Elder, who was also sent off on his last
appearance last year, now faces the
prospect of a five-match ban. Scott isn't
alone in finding it slightly bizarre that a
referee who makes an obvious mistake
should be "punished" by being sent to
referee matches at this level.
"Our rules are exactly the same as the
rules in the Premier League. It's still three
points at stake and our livelihood still
depends on it. If a ref makes a mistake and
they're punished by being sent to League
Two, is it possible for them to have a clear
head in that situation? I think they should
be taken out of it for a bit."
looking for these naked women.)
Because there are so many places to
Brentford's success this season has been
built around a youthful and extremely fit
squad of players. "We've got a young
squad and we want to keep it together
without too much chopping and changing
form season to season. If we do go up it's a
money thing what you do from there.
Leicester, Leeds, Peterborough, maybe
even Charlton or Norwich if they come
down, there are a lot of clubs with money
in League One. Pushed to name his most
promising youngsters, Scott plumps for his
energetic left-flank of Karleigh Osborne
and Sam Wood: "They're good players and
they want to improve all the time. Sam
Wood came to us form Bromley and he's
done very well with his first chance in the
League."
Much like, so far, his manager. Scott
played at a higher level. He was part of
Howard Wilkinson's Sheffield United team
that reached the 1997 play-off final for a
place in the Premier League (they lost to
Crystal Palace). It's quite possible his
ambitions reach beyond away trips to
Macclesfield, Brentford's next destination
this coming Saturday. "I'd be a liar if I said
I didn't want to manage at a higher level,"
he shrugs. "But the players are ambitious
too and hopefully we can have success as a
group. That's what you build your
reputation on."
• Brentford
• League Two
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
watch these festivities I would like to
know where you are watching them from
and who, if anyone, you are viewing them
with. Myself, I'm dividing my time
watching it on television with my wife and
2-year-old twins and via Internet
(CBS.com) as I work from home. I know
that my compatriots at the office are
watching it via laptop hookup on the video
Daily Digital Newspaper
Inaugural
preparations
(The Big Picture)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 7:39:27 AM
Preparations for the inauguration
ceremony tomorrow for the 44th President
of the United States of America have been
taking place for months now. Security,
transportation, logistics, sanitation,
everything you can think of to accomodate
the predicted millions of attendees
descending on Washington, D.C. President
-elect Obama arrived in Washington by
train, starting in Pennsylvania, passing
through Wilmington and Baltimore. Here
are some photographs of the various events
and preparations taking place heading into
tomorrow. ( 31 photos total)
Chris Bullock, of Landover, Md., checks
to see that the letters on a three
dimensional inauguration seal are fitting
tightly, in preparation of Barack Obama's
inauguration, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009, at
Hargrove Inc. in Lanham, Md. (AP
Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
conference screen.
So, let us know. And, if you're watching
the ceremonies on one of the big
Jumbotrons in Washington DC we'd like to
hear from you.
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
Daily Digital Newspaper
Jonathan Wilson: Zoran Tosic's potential Cycling: Armstrong finds
Manchester United debut will provide the going tough on his
hope for a new golden Serbian generation return to cycling
By Jonathan Wilson (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:17:02 AM
It's probably fair to say that a League Cup
semi-final has never generated so much
interest in Serbia. But with the expectation
that Zoran Tosic will feature for
Manchester United against Derby at Old
Trafford tonight, there will be more than a
few following the game, desperate for
further confirmation that an exciting
generation really is as good as they hope it
is.
Nemanja Vidic and Dejan Stankovic are
already bona fide talents, while the likes of
Zdravko Kuzmanovic at Fiorentina and
Branko Ivanovic at Chelsea are beginning
to establish themselves, but it is those who
are emerging who offer such a tantalising
prospect.
In three or four years, if Tosic, Adem
Ljajic, Ivan Obradovic, Neven Subotic,
Filip Djordjevic and Danijel Aleksic
develop as hoped, Serbia really could be a
serious force.
On a more personal level, for Tosic this
represents the fulfilment of a promise he
made to himself 10 years ago. "I have been
a United fan since I was five years old," he
said. "I still have in front of my eyes the
Champions League final in 1999 when
Manchester United made that brilliant
comeback against Bayern Munich. I liked
the Red Devils before that, but that was a
crucial moment. I said to myself them:
'You will play in Manchester!'"
That may have been his ambition, but it
did not come to fruition through any direct
efforts on his part. On the contrary, as he
revealed in an interview in Sportski
Zurnal, when the news broke it came as a
shock. "It was on November 20," he said.
"I was resting at home when my girlfriend
Dijana called and told me to turn on the
TV. I saw the news that Manchester
wanted me and the first thing I thought was
that they couldn't broadcast such things if
they weren't true."
Generally, though, the sense is that there
is rather more anticipation ahead of Tosic's
first game than there was when Ivanovic
made his Chelsea debut against
Portsmouth at the start of the season – even
if there have been suggestions that Tosic
was signed as a stalking horse to make sure
United got their hands on Ljajic. A passing
comment from Sir Alex Ferguson that
Tosic was less of a Cristiano Ronaldo-style
dribbler than "a box-to-box player like
[David] Beckham" prompted a raft of
headlines in the Serbian papers likening
Tosic to the England midfielder.
The extra level of attention is probably
partly attributable to the simple fact that
attacking players generate more interest
than defenders (and Serbia have a recent
history of solidity: the Fantastic
Four defence of Goran Gavrancic,
Mladen Krstajic, Vidic and Ivica
Dragutinovic conceded only one goal in 10
qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup - it is
the addition of creativity that would
represent progress), but there is also
fascination because Tosic has had no
intermediate step.
Vidic joined United via Spartak
Moscow; Ivanovic went to Chelsea via
Lokomotiv; Kuzmanovic, having been
born in Bern, began his career with Young
Boys in the Swiss league and has never
played in Serbia. Tosic has moved directly;
if he succeeds, it would give a level of
validity to the troubled domestic
championship.
The last player to make such a leap
successfully from Serbia was Stankovic,
who joined Lazio from Red Star as a 19-
year-old in 1998. "I played well in my first
season at Lazio because I was euphoric,"
he said, "but I struggled for the next two
seasons. It's very different to Serbia
because you have to sort yourself out.
Nobody asks you how you are or pushes
you to train harder."
Tosic, presumably, will find Ferguson
does not stint on the latter point. Much has
been made of the slight physique that
keeps his Bambi nickname in circulation
(although it actually originated from the
design of the biscuits his mother used to
give him to take to training) and that is a
concern, although one that Tosic
dismisses. "I'm sure nobody from
Manchester thinks I'm a player who is
good in physical battles, tackling or
jumping," he said. "They saw my other
characteristics. The others can be
superimposed to make me a real player,
but the qualities I already have aren't easy
to superimpose on others."
The other factor is how easy he finds it to
settle. He is somebody of very simple
tastes, his main leisure activities consist of
walking the dog and going to the cinema,
while most Sunday afternoons until now
have been spent beneath the vines at his
parents' house in Zrenjanin, grilling meat
on the barbecue. That could mean he is
simply very grounded, or it could make
him a candidate for homesickness.
The presence of his international team-
mate Vidic to "play Bambi's father", as the
newspapers put it, will surely help – he
already has Balkan folk sessions with
Dimitar Berbatov – and, perhaps more
significantly, Tosic comes across as
somebody very aware of his own place in
the world.
"Everybody's wondering if I can replace
[Ryan] Giggs, if I can play with Ronaldo,
if I can adapt to the tempo," he said. "I'm
not bothered by that, really. I've never been
afraid in my life, and I'm not afraid now
because of this. My friends and my family
have been euphoric. They've been telling
me that I'm better than Ronaldo, but I'm
not burdening myself with any of that.
When I run onto the pitch in England, then
we'll see where I belong and how close I
am to the best players."
That first opportunity should come
tonight.
• Manchester United
• Serbia
• Carling Cup
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
By Richard Moore (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:10:00 AM
Lance Armstrong had promised to attack
in his comeback race, the Tour Down
Under, but he showed little inclination to
do so during today's first stage. In stifling
heat and on roads not quite challenging
enough to split the race, that wasn't
surprising. But Johan Bruyneel, his long-
time director, voiced doubts at the finish as
to whether the seven-time Tour de France
winner will be capable, at 37, of
recapturing his best form.
The 140km stage, from the Adelaide
suburbs into the undulating roads of the
Barossa Valley, was "tough" admitted
Armstrong. "That was the easy day?" he
asked at the finish. "The course, combined
with a temperature in the forties, meant it
was tough. On the steep little hills I felt
pretty strong, but now I'll have to see how
the recovery is."
Armstrong finished 120th, close to the
back of the 133-man peloton, as the
German sprinter Andre Greipel claimed
the stage and the race leader's jersey, as he
did last year, on his way to winning four
stages and the overall victory. "In the
bunch sprints I get out of the way and let
those big guys do their thing," said
Armstrong, who was introduced to the
Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, at
the finish.
Sean Yates, the British assistant director
of Armstrong's Astana team, said that
Armstrong had "taken up where he left off
– every time we looked up we saw Lance
near the front, surrounded by five team-
mates". But Bruyneel's assessment was not
quite so upbeat. "He's the same rider, the
same person," the Team Astana director
said, "but after today I think he'll realise
that he needs races.
World Sport* 43
"You can train as hard as you like, but
you can't simulate race conditions. There's
a fast rhythm here. I think his base
condition is very good; but he's three years
older and we'll have to see if the motor is
the same as before. In terms of his
endurance, I have no doubts. Whether he
has the power and speed, we'll find out."
Armstrong maintained that the heat would
be his enemy. "That dry heat affects
performance a lot," he said. "There's no
way you can perform at a high level. I
went through 15 to 20 bottles."
The bunch sprint that decided the stage
was notable not only for Greipel's victory,
after a well-drilled lead-out from his
Columbia team, but for a clash between
Robbie McEwen's arm and a spectator's
camera. The Australian rider, who won
Sunday's Cancer Council Classic in
Adelaide, was just unleashing his sprint,
and leading Greipel, when he collided with
the camera. Remarkably he managed to
stay upright and finish fourth, his arm
already swelling as he crossed the line.
"Some genius in the crowd decided they
wanted to get an action photo and reached
right out over the barriers with a really big
camera," an angry McEwen said. "I saw it
but couldn't do anything. It hit me straight
on the forearm. It's broken the skin and I
have a wound the shape of the camera
lens."
McEwen, who was optimistic of
continuing in the race, offered a
memorable, if idiosyncratic, description of
the moment of impact: "When you hit
something at 70 kph it's like a golf swing
at sixty per cent power hitting you in the
arm like a baseball bat."
• Lance Armstrong
• Cycling
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
44 World Sport*
Jonathan Wilson: Zoran Tosic's potential Cycling: Armstrong finds
Manchester United debut will provide the going tough on his
hope for a new golden Serbian generation return to cycling
By Jonathan Wilson (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:17:02 AM
It's probably fair to say that a League Cup
semi-final has never generated so much
interest in Serbia. But with the expectation
that Zoran Tosic will feature for
Manchester United against Derby at Old
Trafford tonight, there will be more than a
few following the game, desperate for
further confirmation that an exciting
generation really is as good as they hope it
is.
Nemanja Vidic and Dejan Stankovic are
already bona fide talents, while the likes of
Zdravko Kuzmanovic at Fiorentina and
Branko Ivanovic at Chelsea are beginning
to establish themselves, but it is those who
are emerging who offer such a tantalising
prospect.
In three or four years, if Tosic, Adem
Ljajic, Ivan Obradovic, Neven Subotic,
Filip Djordjevic and Danijel Aleksic
develop as hoped, Serbia really could be a
serious force.
On a more personal level, for Tosic this
represents the fulfilment of a promise he
made to himself 10 years ago. "I have been
a United fan since I was five years old," he
said. "I still have in front of my eyes the
Champions League final in 1999 when
Manchester United made that brilliant
comeback against Bayern Munich. I liked
the Red Devils before that, but that was a
crucial moment. I said to myself them:
'You will play in Manchester!'"
That may have been his ambition, but it
did not come to fruition through any direct
efforts on his part. On the contrary, as he
revealed in an interview in Sportski
Zurnal, when the news broke it came as a
shock. "It was on November 20," he said.
"I was resting at home when my girlfriend
Dijana called and told me to turn on the
TV. I saw the news that Manchester
wanted me and the first thing I thought was
that they couldn't broadcast such things if
they weren't true."
Generally, though, the sense is that there
is rather more anticipation ahead of Tosic's
first game than there was when Ivanovic
made his Chelsea debut against
Portsmouth at the start of the season – even
if there have been suggestions that Tosic
was signed as a stalking horse to make sure
United got their hands on Ljajic. A passing
comment from Sir Alex Ferguson that
Tosic was less of a Cristiano Ronaldo-style
dribbler than "a box-to-box player like
[David] Beckham" prompted a raft of
headlines in the Serbian papers likening
Tosic to the England midfielder.
The extra level of attention is probably
partly attributable to the simple fact that
attacking players generate more interest
than defenders (and Serbia have a recent
history of solidity: the Fantastic
Four defence of Goran Gavrancic,
Mladen Krstajic, Vidic and Ivica
Dragutinovic conceded only one goal in 10
qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup - it is
the addition of creativity that would
represent progress), but there is also
fascination because Tosic has had no
intermediate step.
Vidic joined United via Spartak
Moscow; Ivanovic went to Chelsea via
Lokomotiv; Kuzmanovic, having been
born in Bern, began his career with Young
Boys in the Swiss league and has never
played in Serbia. Tosic has moved directly;
if he succeeds, it would give a level of
validity to the troubled domestic
championship.
The last player to make such a leap
successfully from Serbia was Stankovic,
who joined Lazio from Red Star as a 19-
year-old in 1998. "I played well in my first
season at Lazio because I was euphoric,"
he said, "but I struggled for the next two
seasons. It's very different to Serbia
because you have to sort yourself out.
Nobody asks you how you are or pushes
you to train harder."
Tosic, presumably, will find Ferguson
does not stint on the latter point. Much has
been made of the slight physique that
keeps his Bambi nickname in circulation
(although it actually originated from the
design of the biscuits his mother used to
give him to take to training) and that is a
concern, although one that Tosic
dismisses. "I'm sure nobody from
Manchester thinks I'm a player who is
good in physical battles, tackling or
jumping," he said. "They saw my other
characteristics. The others can be
superimposed to make me a real player,
but the qualities I already have aren't easy
to superimpose on others."
The other factor is how easy he finds it to
settle. He is somebody of very simple
tastes, his main leisure activities consist of
walking the dog and going to the cinema,
while most Sunday afternoons until now
have been spent beneath the vines at his
parents' house in Zrenjanin, grilling meat
on the barbecue. That could mean he is
simply very grounded, or it could make
him a candidate for homesickness.
The presence of his international team-
mate Vidic to "play Bambi's father", as the
newspapers put it, will surely help – he
already has Balkan folk sessions with
Dimitar Berbatov – and, perhaps more
significantly, Tosic comes across as
somebody very aware of his own place in
the world.
"Everybody's wondering if I can replace
[Ryan] Giggs, if I can play with Ronaldo,
if I can adapt to the tempo," he said. "I'm
not bothered by that, really. I've never been
afraid in my life, and I'm not afraid now
because of this. My friends and my family
have been euphoric. They've been telling
me that I'm better than Ronaldo, but I'm
not burdening myself with any of that.
When I run onto the pitch in England, then
we'll see where I belong and how close I
am to the best players."
That first opportunity should come
tonight.
• Manchester United
• Serbia
• Carling Cup
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
By Richard Moore (The latest
football news and comment plus
rugby, tennis, cricket and horse
racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:10:00 AM
Lance Armstrong had promised to attack
in his comeback race, the Tour Down
Under, but he showed little inclination to
do so during today's first stage. In stifling
heat and on roads not quite challenging
enough to split the race, that wasn't
surprising. But Johan Bruyneel, his long-
time director, voiced doubts at the finish as
to whether the seven-time Tour de France
winner will be capable, at 37, of
recapturing his best form.
The 140km stage, from the Adelaide
suburbs into the undulating roads of the
Barossa Valley, was "tough" admitted
Armstrong. "That was the easy day?" he
asked at the finish. "The course, combined
with a temperature in the forties, meant it
was tough. On the steep little hills I felt
pretty strong, but now I'll have to see how
the recovery is."
Armstrong finished 120th, close to the
back of the 133-man peloton, as the
German sprinter Andre Greipel claimed
the stage and the race leader's jersey, as he
did last year, on his way to winning four
stages and the overall victory. "In the
bunch sprints I get out of the way and let
those big guys do their thing," said
Armstrong, who was introduced to the
Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, at
the finish.
Sean Yates, the British assistant director
of Armstrong's Astana team, said that
Armstrong had "taken up where he left off
– every time we looked up we saw Lance
near the front, surrounded by five team-
mates". But Bruyneel's assessment was not
quite so upbeat. "He's the same rider, the
same person," the Team Astana director
said, "but after today I think he'll realise
that he needs races.
Daily Digital Newspaper
"You can train as hard as you like, but
you can't simulate race conditions. There's
a fast rhythm here. I think his base
condition is very good; but he's three years
older and we'll have to see if the motor is
the same as before. In terms of his
endurance, I have no doubts. Whether he
has the power and speed, we'll find out."
Armstrong maintained that the heat would
be his enemy. "That dry heat affects
performance a lot," he said. "There's no
way you can perform at a high level. I
went through 15 to 20 bottles."
The bunch sprint that decided the stage
was notable not only for Greipel's victory,
after a well-drilled lead-out from his
Columbia team, but for a clash between
Robbie McEwen's arm and a spectator's
camera. The Australian rider, who won
Sunday's Cancer Council Classic in
Adelaide, was just unleashing his sprint,
and leading Greipel, when he collided with
the camera. Remarkably he managed to
stay upright and finish fourth, his arm
already swelling as he crossed the line.
"Some genius in the crowd decided they
wanted to get an action photo and reached
right out over the barriers with a really big
camera," an angry McEwen said. "I saw it
but couldn't do anything. It hit me straight
on the forearm. It's broken the skin and I
have a wound the shape of the camera
lens."
McEwen, who was optimistic of
continuing in the race, offered a
memorable, if idiosyncratic, description of
the moment of impact: "When you hit
something at 70 kph it's like a golf swing
at sixty per cent power hitting you in the
arm like a baseball bat."
• Lance Armstrong
• Cycling
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
Daily Digital Newspaper
Rugby union: Bath's England prop Matt
Stevens fails drug test
By Paul Rees (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:18:54 AM
Matt Stevens was today suspended by
Bath and withdrawn from the senior
England squad after failing a drug test. The
26-year-old, who has won 32 caps,
admitted that he was hooked on a
recreational drug and said he had started
counselling.
The former Australia wing Wendell
Sailor was banned for two years after a
drug test showed he had been taking
cocaine and Stevens faces a lengthy period
on the sidelines after failing a test
following a Heineken Cup victory over
Glasgow last month.
"I was tested for a prohibited substance,"
said Stevens on Sky Sports News. "It was
not a performance-enhancing substance:
you can make of that what you will. It is a
very serious substance and something that
over a period of time I have realised that I
have an issue with. It is something that has
basically ruined my life up until this point.
"It is pretty distressing talking about this
when I think how much time and effort so
many people have put into my career. I
have thrown it away through irresponsible
behaviour. Like any drug problem, you do
not know it is happening and then it
mounts up. Before you know it, you are
FriendsOfDave in XML
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 6:23:04 AM
First, a common request -- people have
asked for an OPML subscription list for
the FriendsOfDave Twitter/ Identi.ca/
FriendFeed feed. Done.
http://static.opml.org/twitterRiver/friendsO
fDave.opml
sitting there with an illness."
Stevens, who struggled to get out a
number of words during the interview,
went on: "It started off a couple of times
after big nights out with friends ... It was
not a big deal, but the problem with drugs
is that it quickly becomes a big deal. I owe
it to everyone to admit that and I want to
say I am truly very sorry.
"I had a few counselling sessions before
the drugs test result came out but I was not
serious about it. I had a session with a
counsellor today and I am going to a
meeting tonight.
"This is something I am serious about
changing. I want to change my life and get
back the faith that people had in me."
His club issued a statement that ran:
"Bath Rugby has been made aware of the
initial positive test given by Matt Stevens
following the Heineken Cup match against
Glasgow Warriors in December. The
procedure for potential doping offences is
clearly laid out in both the player's contract
and the European Rugby Cup Regulations.
The player is immediately suspended from
competition and has been suspended by
Bath Rugby until the case is resolved.
"Bath Rugby condemns the use or
distribution of prohibited substances or
methods as defined by the World Anti-
Doping Agency Prohibited List. Bath
Rugby is considering the implications and
has no further comment to make at this
time."
But while I was doing this I had a
thought that it's a micro-nano version of
weblogs.com before it became a ping-
server. If you recall, it used to poll for
changes among a small set of weblogs.
This method became unworkable because
there were eventually too many blogs to
poll. But FriendsOfDave is, by design,
always going to be a small number of
blogs. So I thought what the heck, let's
Stevens is a member of the 32-strong
England elite squad, but a ban would see
his contract torn up.
The RFU said in a statement: "The
Rugby Football Union has been made
aware by European Rugby Cup (Ltd) of
the positive doping test given by Matt
Stevens following the Heineken Cup
match against Glasgow Warriors in
December 2008.
"The procedure for potential doping
offences is clearly laid out in the ERC
Regulations and as such the player is
immediately provisionally suspended from
all competition. Matt has been removed
from the England Elite Player Squad and
will not travel to the training camp in
Portugal on Sunday or be involved in the
squad until the resolution of the case when
a further decision on his inclusion in the
England squad will be made.
"A decision on a replacement for Matt in
the EPS squad is being considered by the
England team manager Martin Johnson
and an announcement will be made in due
course."
• Bath
• England rugby union team
• Guinness Premiership
• Rugby union
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
have it generate a changes.xml file of its
own.
http://static.opml.org/twitterRiver/friendsO
fDaveChanges.xml
An old friend!
Now, why this is interesting? It's a key
feature of the "real time web" that so many
of us are thinking about. If every feed had
someone watching out for them, along
Cricket: England captain Andrew
Strauss encourages players to
take more responsibility
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:42:30 AM
Andrew Strauss has urged England to
"think on their feet" as his team prepared
to leave for a tour in the West Indies.
"We want to get back to doing what do
we best, playing cricket and winning Test
matches," said Strauss, who was appointed
captain this month after the debacle
involving the former captain Kevin
Pietersen and sacked coach Peter Moores.
"My belief is we want to see players think
on their feet out in the middle, take
responsibility for the situation and not
leave it to someone else.
"The only way we can do that is to give
them more responsibility off the field as
well. I'm challenging my players to start
thinking a bit more about what they need
to do in terms of preparation and I'm
giving them a lot more flexibility to do
that."
England fly to the West Indies without a
head coach, with Andy Flower – formerly
assistant to Moores – acting as a stand-in,
and supported by the operations manager,
Phil Neale.
"I suppose the coaches will play more of
an advisory or consultancy role," Strauss
said. "It's vitally important the players are
challenged to think for themselves."
Pietersen had his first net at Lord's last
week since stepping down as captain and
with 100 or so other blogs, then if a
subscriber wanted to know if you changed,
it would just have to watch the changes
file. Of course if only one person they
followed was represented in that file, no
economy would be achieved, but if you
group similar sites, ones that are likely to
be followed by the same people, then you
do get the economy.
Somehow the feed has to tell followers
World Sport* Special* 45
Strauss was confident that he would score
"millions of runs" for England. He has not,
however, been named on the team's
management committee for the Tests
against West Indies, which will instead
comprise Andrew Flintoff, Paul
Collingwood, Alastair Cook and Stuart
Broad, with Pietersen coming in for the
ODIs when Cook goes home after the
Tests.
"Kevin was his normal self when we met
up," said Strauss. "I've never seen Kevin
show a negative side to him since the first
day I met him. He's very positive, he
doesn't dwell on the past and I'm sure he's
already plotting ways of spanking the West
Indies bowlers all over the place.
"We want to win both the Test and one-
day series and start building some
momentum before an important summer.
The West Indies are now a very dangerous
side. The likes of Ramnaresh Sarwan,
Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and
Fidel Edwards are all very dangerous
cricketers."
• Andrew Strauss
• Kevin Pietersen
• Peter Moores
• England in West Indies 2009
• England Cricket Team
• Cricket
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
Feeds
where their collection point is. Way back
in time we used a category element at the
top level of the feed to create this linkage.
As far as I know no one build features on
this, but they could have.
Will anything become of it this time
around? Probably not, but it's still kind of
interesting, if only for the nostalgic value.
46 World Sport* Entertainment*
Rugby union: Bath's England prop Matt
Stevens fails drug test
By Paul Rees (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 9:18:54 AM
Matt Stevens was today suspended by
Bath and withdrawn from the senior
England squad after failing a drug test. The
26-year-old, who has won 32 caps,
admitted that he was hooked on a
recreational drug and said he had started
counselling.
The former Australia wing Wendell
Sailor was banned for two years after a
drug test showed he had been taking
cocaine and Stevens faces a lengthy period
on the sidelines after failing a test
following a Heineken Cup victory over
Glasgow last month.
"I was tested for a prohibited substance,"
said Stevens on Sky Sports News. "It was
not a performance-enhancing substance:
you can make of that what you will. It is a
very serious substance and something that
over a period of time I have realised that I
have an issue with. It is something that has
basically ruined my life up until this point.
"It is pretty distressing talking about this
when I think how much time and effort so
many people have put into my career. I
have thrown it away through irresponsible
behaviour. Like any drug problem, you do
not know it is happening and then it
mounts up. Before you know it, you are
Band From TV makes TV debut - VIDEO
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 8:02:00 PM
Filed under: Late Night, Video, Music
and Variety, Celebrities, Talk Show,
Reality-Free Yes, it's true: actors have
other talents besides just acting.
Band From TV(great name) made their
national television debut the other night on
Jay Leno's show. If you're not familiar
with the group, members include Greg
Grunberg and Adrian Pasdar ( Heroes),
sitting there with an illness."
Stevens, who struggled to get out a
number of words during the interview,
went on: "It started off a couple of times
after big nights out with friends ... It was
not a big deal, but the problem with drugs
is that it quickly becomes a big deal. I owe
it to everyone to admit that and I want to
say I am truly very sorry.
"I had a few counselling sessions before
the drugs test result came out but I was not
serious about it. I had a session with a
counsellor today and I am going to a
meeting tonight.
"This is something I am serious about
changing. I want to change my life and get
back the faith that people had in me."
His club issued a statement that ran:
"Bath Rugby has been made aware of the
initial positive test given by Matt Stevens
following the Heineken Cup match against
Glasgow Warriors in December. The
procedure for potential doping offences is
clearly laid out in both the player's contract
and the European Rugby Cup Regulations.
The player is immediately suspended from
competition and has been suspended by
Bath Rugby until the case is resolved.
"Bath Rugby condemns the use or
distribution of prohibited substances or
methods as defined by the World Anti-
Doping Agency Prohibited List. Bath
Rugby is considering the implications and
has no further comment to make at this
time."
James Denton ( Desperate Housewives),
Hugh Laurie and Jesse Spencer ( House),
and a horn section and chorus from...well,
who knows. Maybe they're extras from
Lost. Grunberg plays drums, Pasdar and
Denton play guitar, Spencer plays violin,
and Laurie plays piano. Bachelor star Bob
Guiney is the lead singer! Bonnie
Somerville sings too, and Teri Hatcher
sings sometimes as well (not sure if either
of them are in the clip after the jump
though). They're not anything earth-
Stevens is a member of the 32-strong
England elite squad, but a ban would see
his contract torn up.
The RFU said in a statement: "The
Rugby Football Union has been made
aware by European Rugby Cup (Ltd) of
the positive doping test given by Matt
Stevens following the Heineken Cup
match against Glasgow Warriors in
December 2008.
"The procedure for potential doping
offences is clearly laid out in the ERC
Regulations and as such the player is
immediately provisionally suspended from
all competition. Matt has been removed
from the England Elite Player Squad and
will not travel to the training camp in
Portugal on Sunday or be involved in the
squad until the resolution of the case when
a further decision on his inclusion in the
England squad will be made.
"A decision on a replacement for Matt in
the EPS squad is being considered by the
England team manager Martin Johnson
and an announcement will be made in due
course."
• Bath
• England rugby union team
• Guinness Premiership
• Rugby union
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shattering, but they seem like a good, solid
cover band. Laurie sings in an American
accent too! I can't help thinking of their
Cricket: England captain Andrew
Strauss encourages players to
take more responsibility
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 8:42:30 AM
Andrew Strauss has urged England to
"think on their feet" as his team prepared
to leave for a tour in the West Indies.
"We want to get back to doing what do
we best, playing cricket and winning Test
matches," said Strauss, who was appointed
captain this month after the debacle
involving the former captain Kevin
Pietersen and sacked coach Peter Moores.
"My belief is we want to see players think
on their feet out in the middle, take
responsibility for the situation and not
leave it to someone else.
"The only way we can do that is to give
them more responsibility off the field as
well. I'm challenging my players to start
thinking a bit more about what they need
to do in terms of preparation and I'm
giving them a lot more flexibility to do
that."
England fly to the West Indies without a
head coach, with Andy Flower – formerly
assistant to Moores – acting as a stand-in,
and supported by the operations manager,
Phil Neale.
"I suppose the coaches will play more of
an advisory or consultancy role," Strauss
said. "It's vitally important the players are
challenged to think for themselves."
Pietersen had his first net at Lord's last
week since stepping down as captain and
characters when I see them play though.
It's like Dr. House called up Matt Parkman
and asked him if he wanted to start a band.
Their first CD, Hoggin' All The Covers,
is now available.
Continue reading Band From TV makes
TV debut - VIDEO
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Strauss was confident that he would score
"millions of runs" for England. He has not,
however, been named on the team's
management committee for the Tests
against West Indies, which will instead
comprise Andrew Flintoff, Paul
Collingwood, Alastair Cook and Stuart
Broad, with Pietersen coming in for the
ODIs when Cook goes home after the
Tests.
"Kevin was his normal self when we met
up," said Strauss. "I've never seen Kevin
show a negative side to him since the first
day I met him. He's very positive, he
doesn't dwell on the past and I'm sure he's
already plotting ways of spanking the West
Indies bowlers all over the place.
"We want to win both the Test and one-
day series and start building some
momentum before an important summer.
The West Indies are now a very dangerous
side. The likes of Ramnaresh Sarwan,
Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle and
Fidel Edwards are all very dangerous
cricketers."
• Andrew Strauss
• Kevin Pietersen
• Peter Moores
• England in West Indies 2009
• England Cricket Team
• Cricket
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Rugby union: Rookie
Ruaridh Jackson
earns Scotland call-up
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:24:00 AM
The Scotland head coach, Frank Hadden,
has handed a maiden call-up to the
Glasgow Warriors player Ruaridh Jackson
RUGBY page 47
Daily Digital Newspaper
Rugby union: Rookie
Ruaridh Jackson earns
Scotland call-up
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 7:24:00 AM
The Scotland head coach, Frank Hadden,
has handed a maiden call-up to the
Glasgow Warriors player Ruaridh Jackson
for the Six Nations opener against Wales
on 8 February. Jackson, 20, is one of two
uncapped players in a 33-man squad for
the clash at Murrayfield.
Jackson, who has impressed at club level
as a versatile back, has been selected as a
fly-half where he has made only one senior
start for Glasgow.
The Edinburgh prop Geoff Cross, who
was named in a provisional squad for the
autumn internationals, is the other rookie,
while the flanker Jason White makes the
selection, with Hadden expecting him to
recover from hand surgery in time.
"I'm delighted by the number of players
who are putting up their hands as genuine
candidates for international selection,"
Hadden said. "Momentum is vital in such a
short round of matches, so we know the
importance of starting well and getting a
big Scottish crowd behind us."
Scotland's squad will meet on Monday
for a three-day training camp.
Scotland squad
Backs: Mike Blair (Edinburgh), Ben
Football: FA charges Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear and Hull manager
Phil Brown with improper conduct
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:51:27 AM
The Newcastle United manager Joe
Kinnear and his Hull City counterpart Phil
Brown have been charged with improper
conduct by the Football Association
Cairns (Edinburgh), Chris Cusiter
(Perpignan), Simon Danielli (Ulster), Nick
De Luca (Edinburgh), Max Evans
(Glasgow), Thom Evans (Glasgow), Phil
Godman (Edinburgh), Ruaridh Jackson
(Glasgow), Sean Lamont (Northampton),
Rory Lawson (Gloucester), Graeme
Morrison (Glasgow), Dan Parks
(Glasgow), Chris Paterson (Edinburgh),
Hugo Southwell (Edinburgh), Simon
Webster (Edinburgh).
Forwards: John Barclay (Glasgow),
Kelly Brown (Glasgow), Geoff Cross
(Edinburgh), Alasdair Dickinson
(Gloucester), Ross Ford (Edinburgh), Scott
Gray (Northampton), Dougie Hall
(Glasgow), Craig Hamilton (Edinburgh),
Jim Hamilton (Edinburgh), Nathan Hines
(Perpignan), Allister Hogg (Edinburgh),
Allan Jacobsen (Edinburgh), Alastair
Kellock (Glasgow), Euan Murray
(Northampton), Alasdair Strokosch
(Gloucester), Simon Taylor (Stade
Français), Jason White (Sale).
• Six Nations rugby
• Scotland rugby union team
• Rugby union
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following their touchline confrontation in
last week's FA Cup third-round replay at St
James' Park.
The pair squared up to each other
following Newcastle defender Fabricio
Coloccini's robust 22nd-minute tackle on
Hull forward Daniel Cousin, and have
been given until 3 February to respond to
the charge.
RUGBY
continued from page 46
for the Six Nations opener against Wales
on 8 February. Jackson, 20, is one of two
uncapped players in a 33-man squad for
the clash at Murrayfield.
Jackson, who has impressed at club level
as a versatile back, has been selected as a
fly-half where he has made only one senior
start for Glasgow.
The Edinburgh prop Geoff Cross, who
was named in a provisional squad for the
autumn internationals, is the other rookie,
while the flanker Jason White makes the
selection, with Hadden expecting him to
recover from hand surgery in time.
"I'm delighted by the number of players
who are putting up their hands as genuine
candidates for international selection,"
Hadden said. "Momentum is vital in such a
short round of matches, so we know the
importance of starting well and getting a
big Scottish crowd behind us."
Scotland's squad will meet on Monday
for a three-day training camp.
Scotland squad
Backs: Mike Blair (Edinburgh), Ben
Cairns (Edinburgh), Chris Cusiter
(Perpignan), Simon Danielli (Ulster), Nick
De Luca (Edinburgh), Max Evans
(Glasgow), Thom Evans (Glasgow), Phil
Godman (Edinburgh), Ruaridh Jackson
Kinnear was keen to play down the
incident after the game on 14 January: "He
[Brown] came across. He was having a
rant, more than anything. He didn't
actually say anything to me, he was having
a rant at Chris [Hughton] – and he wasn't
saying too many pleasant things to him. It
was as simple as that. I just said 'enough'.
That's all I said. I don't know what the
(Glasgow), Sean Lamont (Northampton),
Rory Lawson (Gloucester), Graeme
Morrison (Glasgow), Dan Parks
(Glasgow), Chris Paterson (Edinburgh),
Hugo Southwell (Edinburgh), Simon
Webster (Edinburgh).
Forwards: John Barclay (Glasgow),
Kelly Brown (Glasgow), Geoff Cross
(Edinburgh), Alasdair Dickinson
(Gloucester), Ross Ford (Edinburgh), Scott
Gray (Northampton), Dougie Hall
(Glasgow), Craig Hamilton (Edinburgh),
Jim Hamilton (Edinburgh), Nathan Hines
(Perpignan), Allister Hogg (Edinburgh),
Allan Jacobsen (Edinburgh), Alastair
Kellock (Glasgow), Euan Murray
(Northampton), Alasdair Strokosch
(Gloucester), Simon Taylor (Stade
Français), Jason White (Sale).
• Six Nations rugby
• Scotland rugby union team
• Rugby union
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trouble was with the ref [Phil Dowd]."
"I just said 'Cool it and call it a day'. I
sent Chris to sit down and as he [Brown]
came across the referee came running over.
I don't know whether my reputation
precedes me, but if you look at the video,
what I did do was stand my ground, I
didn't do anything else."
Newcastle lost the replay 1–0, with
World Sport* 47
Rugby league: Huddersfield
unsuccessful in their pursuit
of half-back Nathan Fien
By Andy Wilson (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:22:11 AM
Huddersfield have failed in their attempt
to sign the New Zealand half-back Nathan
Fien as a replacement for Todd Carney, the
Australian who was unable to secure a visa
because of his criminal record.
The Giants offered a three-year contract
to Fien, the player at the centre of the
Grannygate controversy in the 2006 Tri-
Nations series when it emerged midway
through the tournament that he was
ineligible for the Kiwis because his great-
grandmother, rather than grandmother, was
from New Zealand.
They were hoping that Fien's current
employers, the New Zealand Warriors,
would release him from the remaining year
of his contract with them having tempted
Stacey Jones out of retirement for the
forthcoming NRL season. However, the
Warriors chief executive, Wayne Scurrah,
has confirmed that Fien will not be
released. "We've had a meeting with
Nathan and it was made clear to him by
Ivan Cleary [the Warriors' coach] that he
will be an integral player in the Warriors'
plans this year," said Scurrah.
Meanwhile Hull KR have moved quickly
to appoint a new assistant coach following
the resignation of the former Great Britain
forward Lee Crooks one year into a three-
Cousin scoring the only goal for the Tigers
nine minutes from time.
• Newcastle United
• Hull City
• Premier League
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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48 World Sport* Special* Entertainment*
Rugby league: Huddersfield
unsuccessful in their pursuit
of half-back Nathan Fien
By Andy Wilson (The latest football
news and comment plus rugby,
tennis, cricket and horse racing |
guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 5:22:11 AM
Huddersfield have failed in their attempt
to sign the New Zealand half-back Nathan
Fien as a replacement for Todd Carney, the
Australian who was unable to secure a visa
because of his criminal record.
The Giants offered a three-year contract
to Fien, the player at the centre of the
Grannygate controversy in the 2006 Tri-
Nations series when it emerged midway
through the tournament that he was
ineligible for the Kiwis because his great-
grandmother, rather than grandmother, was
from New Zealand.
They were hoping that Fien's current
employers, the New Zealand Warriors,
would release him from the remaining year
of his contract with them having tempted
Stacey Jones out of retirement for the
forthcoming NRL season. However, the
Warriors chief executive, Wayne Scurrah,
has confirmed that Fien will not be
RUGBY
continued from page 47
year contract. Chris Chester, who left
Rovers to join the Castleford coaching
staff after being forced to retire last season
because of persistent neck problems, has
now returned to Craven Park. Crooks is
expected to cross the city to Hull FC,
despite their denials this week that they
have played any part in his resignation
from Rovers.
• Huddersfield Giants
• Hull KR
released. "We've had a meeting with
Nathan and it was made clear to him by
Ivan Cleary [the Warriors' coach] that he
will be an integral player in the Warriors'
plans this year," said Scurrah.
Meanwhile Hull KR have moved quickly
to appoint a new assistant coach following
the resignation of the former Great Britain
forward Lee Crooks one year into a three-
year contract. Chris Chester, who left
Rovers to join the Castleford coaching
staff after being forced to retire last season
because of persistent neck problems, has
now returned to Craven Park. Crooks is
expected to cross the city to Hull FC,
despite their denials this week that they
have played any part in his resignation
from Rovers.
• Huddersfield Giants
• Hull KR
• Super League
• Rugby league
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subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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• Super League
• Rugby league
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Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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Football: FA charges Newcastle
manager Joe Kinnear and Hull manager
Phil Brown with improper conduct
(The latest football news and
comment plus rugby, tennis, cricket
and horse racing | guardian.co.uk)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 3:51:27 AM
The Newcastle United manager Joe
Kinnear and his Hull City counterpart Phil
Brown have been charged with improper
conduct by the Football Association
following their touchline confrontation in
last week's FA Cup third-round replay at St
James' Park.
The pair squared up to each other
following Newcastle defender Fabricio
Coloccini's robust 22nd-minute tackle on
Hull forward Daniel Cousin, and have
been given until 3 February to respond to
the charge.
Kinnear was keen to play down the
incident after the game on 14 January: "He
[Brown] came across. He was having a
rant, more than anything. He didn't
actually say anything to me, he was having
By dawn's early tweet
(Scripting News)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 4:21:51 AM
My first tweet of the day, unedited:
"Really feely unhinged this morning.
There was some security in GWB's
mediocrity. Now, there won't be an excuse,
it' s now -- not later."
It's true. I've had an unsettled feeling.
Can't deny it, can't wish it away.
On the radio this morning, while the
coffee is brewing, news that the milk
market has collapsed and dairy farmers are
selling their cows.
China is asking for immediate talks with
the new US president, about security and
the shape of the world economy.
Everything is up for grabs in the latter.
This time it's not about the power of the
military, but which economy will emerge
in what kind of shape after the reshaping
that's going on. Profound changes ahead.
Daily Digital Newspaper
a rant at Chris [Hughton] – and he wasn't
saying too many pleasant things to him. It
was as simple as that. I just said 'enough'.
That's all I said. I don't know what the
trouble was with the ref [Phil Dowd]."
"I just said 'Cool it and call it a day'. I
sent Chris to sit down and as he [Brown]
came across the referee came running over.
I don't know whether my reputation
precedes me, but if you look at the video,
what I did do was stand my ground, I
didn't do anything else."
Newcastle lost the replay 1–0, with
New pilots from
Cousin scoring the only goal for the Tigers
nine minutes from time.
• Newcastle United
Fox
By Brad Trechak (TV Squad)
• Hull City
• Premier League Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:02:00 AM
guardian.co.uk© Guardian News &
Filed under: Industry, Pickups and
Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is Renewals, Reality-Free Fox has inked a
subject to our Terms & Conditions| More
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At stake is the western style of life. The office I wrote: "Now I'm not a Republican,
inaugural could be our last great party with far from it, most of the things Republicans
all the bells and whistles? I don't know. stand for are things I'm against. But there's
After dinner the other day, driving down
a main street in the East Bay, I asked my
something satisfying about the Bush
Presidency, and for a time I couldn't put
date if she thought this street would look my finger on exactly what it is. Now I
more or less the same in a year's time. She think I get it. If this guy could be president,
said yes. I said was not so sure. I wanted to anyone could. He bumbles along twisting
believe it would. around his mouth when he speaks, with his
But for the next few hours it's time to Texas accent that I don't believe. I imagine
measure all we've accomplished. Aretha him on the scene of The West Wing,
will sing America The Beautiful from the reading his lines, and sipping his coffee
steps of the Capitol in a few hours. Do you saying "Oh this is really good coffee,
need any more symbolism than that? thanks." He gets his cues from Dick
We've come of age, my generation. We're Cheney, but he could just as easily get
running the world now, what's left of it. them from a TV series director. Smile
This may be the apex, the climax of here. Say something nice about America.
America, the top of the mountain Martin Good job Dubya. Excellent."
Luther King dreamed of. Where can we go Suffice to say I have higher hopes for his
from here? successor.
It's a potent moment.
Shortly after our previous President took
Daily Digital Newspaper
Hulu is streaming the
inauguration... watch it here! -
VIDEO
By Joel Keller (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 10:38:00 AM
Filed under: News, Video, Web, Reality-
Free Have you gotten Inauguration Fatigue
yet (I capitalized it because I hope to make
it an official, WebMD-listed affliction)?
Hopefully, you haven't, because it's going
to be "All Obama, All The Time" today, so
you might as well sit back, get a cup of
coffee, and enjoy the pomp and
circumstance.
Thanks to our friends at Hulu, you don't
even have to leave the computer. They're
streaming Fox News' coverage of the
ceremonies (hopefully, Sean Hannity is
being kept in a safe location so we don't
see him sobbing and rending his
garments). For convenience, I've added the
stream after the jump ( Warning: it plays
automatically, so put those headphones on
now).
Ah, life in the near-teens is good, isn't it?
How I Met Your Mother: Three
Days of Snow
By Joel Keller (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 11:17:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your
Mother, Episode Reviews, Reality-
Free(S04E13) Something that's been
missing for most of this season of HIMYM
is the unique Bays-Thomas method of
storytelling. If you're a fan of the show,
you know what I'm talking about: you
think the story is going one way, you even
think that you're keeping up with the time-
shifting and story fragments. Then, when
the guys finally reveal where they were
going with the story, you get a surprising
but funnier or more emotional impact. This
year, we saw a lot of the time shifting, but
not many stories where everything came
together at the last minute to make you
smile.
Until this week, that is. We got the kind
You can watch the inauguration and slave
away at your soon-to-disappear job
without even having to get up from your
desk. Now get back to work, people!
Continue reading Hulu is streaming the
inauguration... watch it here! - VIDEO
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of episode that HIMYM die-hards have
been craving all year. I just wish the stories
that all came together at the end were just a
skosh stronger.
Continue reading How I Met Your
Mother: Three Days of Snow
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
NEW
continued from page 48
deal for a bunch of new pilots for next
season. They include such titles as The
Station, Walorsky, Two Dollar Beer, Sons
of Tucson and Human Target.
Among them, Human Target is of the
most interest to me. It's an adaptation from
a DC Comics character. He's a bodyguard
named Christopher Chance that assumes
the identity of the person he is supposed to
protect. Properly done, this could become a
companion show or successor to
24(particularly since Prison Break is
ending).
This isn't even the first television
Veronica Mars movie is a go, says
Rob Thomas
By Debra McDuffee (TV Squad)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 1:04:00 PM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows,
Celebrities, Reality-Free If you are a
Veronica Mars fan like I am, then you are
probably still mourning the loss of the
series; well, the first two seasons anyway.
I'm sure the series hadn't run its course and
that it would have rebounded from the
fiasco known as season three, otherwise
known as Piz.
OK, so maybe Piz grew on me a little,
and he did keep Logan nice and angry,
because nobody likes a happy Logan. And
besides, would you want to see that sappy,
insipid Logan in a feature film?
Did you like the way I slipped that in
there? Feature film? Yep, Rob Thomas has
confirmed that since the order on Cupid
has been slashed from thirteen to eight
episodes, he'll have time to write the
Entertainment* Copy Right*
adaption for The Human Target, as Rick
Springfield starred in a brief series about
the same character in 1990. However,
things were different then. The
environment is better for such a program
now, assuming they take it seriously and
don't make it too cartoon-like (although I
could argue that 24 is cartoon-like in its
presentation).
So which of the new Fox pilots do you
find interesting?
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
Veronica Mars movie. And he spills the
beans on some other juicy tidbits about the
film too:
Continue reading Veronica Mars movie
is a go, says Rob Thomas
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49
Copyright 2.0
Show - Episode
94
By Jonathan Bailey
(PlagiarismToday)
Submitted at 1/19/2009 12:03:48 PM
It is Monday again and that means that it
is time for another episode of the
Copyright 2.0 Show.
It was a busy week for copyright new
with the politicians, not the lawyers, taking
the lead. Some rumblings about copyright
reform both in the U.S. and the UK have
everyone’s attention. However, not to be
outdone, YouTube makes a splash this
week with a series of silent vids and MGA,
Prince and Web Sheriff all make it back in
the news.
All in all, there were twelve stories this
week including news from all over the
copyright world including our “Weird
Story of the Week”.
This week’s stories include:
• UK Legislation Raises Privacy
Concerns
• Dems Lay Out Copyright Plans in the
U.S.
• YouTube Videos Go Silent
• Prince Loses Plagiarism Lawsuit
• Stripper Idol Draws a Lawsuit
• And Many more…
You can download the MP3 file
here(direct download). Those interested in
subscribing to the show can do so via this
feed.
Show Notes
Need a Copyright or Plagiarism
Consultant? I am Here to Help.
jonb1324cdr
50 Copy Right*
Copygator: A Game Changer?
By Jonathan Bailey
(PlagiarismToday)
Submitted at 1/20/2009 11:55:04 AM
Over the past few days, I have received
comments from an individual claiming to
use Copygator, a new service (the domain
was registered on Jan. 11) that claims to
“monitor your RSS feed and find where
your content has been republished in the
blogosphere.”
The idea behind Copygator is that you
take your site URL or your RSS feed,
submit it to their site and then they monitor
it for any potential matches. The site will
notify you of results that it gets either via
email, RSS or a color-changing badge that
you can place on your site.
Though the service definitely sounds
interesting, in its initial testing the results
were less than impressive and I have
several concerns about the service that
need to be addressed before I can give it
any recommendation.
Please note that this is not intended to be
a thorough review of the service, just an
overview of what it offers and some of my
initial experiences. The Basics
When you first visit the Copygator home
page, you are given several options for
how you may want to submit your content.
The easiest way is to just provide either the
URL of your site (and let Copygator parse
your content from the autodetected feed) or
submit the feed directly.
From there, the site will give you a series
of options on how to subscribe for
additional updates, including, as mentioned
above, email, RSS and more.
And below that you see the matches that
it has already found. Typically, when
adding a new feed, it takes some time
before any matches appear. Though the
site says 10-15 minutes, in my testing it
was a little bit longer, though not horribly
so, at about 30 minutes.
Each of the matches gives you the the
option of either visiting that site’s page on
Copygator, visiting the page directly or
“comparing” the two works, looking at any
matching text, called “collisions”, that the
site has found.
Unlike other sites, including Copyscape,
that display the full page and highlight
relevant portions, Copygator only displays
general information about the percent
matching and comparisons of the similar
text.
Overall, the process is pretty
straightforward and easy to understand.
The service does have a great deal going
for it, especially if you’re a blogger that
has been dealing with a large amount of
scraping. Reasons to Cheer
The good news is that Copygator is free
and brain-dead easy to use. You simply
submit your feed and Copygator does the
rest. You even get some great choices on
how you want to be notified of new
matches. Though I am not sure about the
color-changing button, I worry that it could
be a means to spam the search engines, I
could see installing it and using my
WordPress theme to only display it to me
when I am logged in.
The basic premise is to make this service
as simple to use in every way and that
permeates through the other features. For
example, rather that presenting statistics
about matching words or percentages, the
service describes the match saying that it
either “bears a slight resemblance”, “share
many similar elements” or “is an exact
copy”.
Though these vague descriptions may not
please stat junkies or those that are dealing
with very large amounts of infringement,
to most bloggers, this takes a lot of the
burden off figuring out which matches to
look at.
In short, it is an approachable service,
both in terms of price, tools and
terminology. But it is far from a perfect
one. There are still many elements in it that
have me concerned. Missteps and
Drawbacks
The biggest problem that I have with the
service is that the matching does not seem
to be working correctly at this time.
Though I know well that PT’s content is
reused on other sites (much of it with
permission), none of it seems to be picked
up. Even after setting up my feed and
tracking it for approximately a day, no
other sites are appearing.
In fact, the only matches I am seeing
right now are matches from within the site
itself. Clearly, Plagiarism Today should
not be showing up for its own matches
(many posts, such as the podcasts, are
template-based and will always bear some
resemblance). The site seems to be
confused since the PT has both a regular an
on-server RSS (/feed) and a FeedBurner
one, the former redirects to the latter (I’ve
been meaning to clean this up for some
time but have had other issues).
Part of the issue is a limitation with
Copygator where it can only parse content
in RSS feeds. It can only find matches on
content found in one feed against content
found in others. If the matched content
does not appear in a site’s RSS feed or that
blog is not among the 2 million feeds being
monitored right now (in 2005 there was
already an estimated 60 million blogs), it
isn’t going to show up as a match.
As a result, much like Tineye, the results
of the matches are very incomplete.
However, the service is new and it may
grow and become more valuable in the
coming weeks and months. The bad news
is that it has a long way to go. Some
Personal Problems
Usually, when doing write ups and
reviews about new products, I do not
mention any personal issues that I have
with the service. However, this is a rare
case where those personal issues may
reflect on the site and service.
First, in the past two days I have received
two comments from “James S” regarding
Copygator. The first was to a post about
using Copyscape to detect derivative
works and the second was on my recent
post about CopyrightSpot.
The two comments were clearly creating
using the same template, though the first
post was clearly not a complete post and
both identified James as a user of the
product. However, the email address that
was used to post the comments is the same
email that is from the whois and only one
of the comments, the second, had the name
linked to Copygator.
Though I am hard pressed to call this
comment spam as it was to two relevant
posts and it appears that the posting was
not automated, I find it to disconcerting
Daily Digital Newspaper
that the operator would post comments
without clearly identifying himself as the
creator. I have no rule that forbids product
and service creators from posting
information on their sites as comments,
though I prefer they contact me directly.
The other concern is that the site is
connected to URLFan, a search engine and
aggregator I’ve expressed concern about in
the past. Though the URLFan seems to
have stopped engaging in the controversial
behavior (truncating articles, requiring
users to visit the page to view the full
content, etc.), it is a pedigree that is going
to concern many.
In the end, while I am worried about
these elements, I did not want them to keep
me from not covering a potentially useful
service and I decided it was best to present
my readers with the information that I
know and let them decide.
I did contact “James” via the email
provided before writing this article but he
has not responded as of yet. However, it
has only been a few hours since the initial
contact (I only learned of these issues this
morning). I will update and expand this
article should I hear back. Conclusions
Copygator shows a great deal of promise
but it has serious limitations that prevent it
from being a very useful tool at this time.
Relying on it as a main source of content
theft detection would be foolish at this
moment. Even putting aside my personal
issues and the pedigree of this site, there
are just too many limitations to trust it
solely.
That being said, it is nice to see some
innovation and a real focus on simplicity.
If this service can improve its matching,
then there could be a bright future for it.
The flaw might not be that it is a bad
service, but that it was launched before it
was truly ready.
Still, given the history of the site and
how it was promoted, there are a lot of
reasons to be wary of it. I intend to do
some more thorough testing with it in the
coming days, which I’ll likely report on
next week, but I can’t see myself relying
on it unless some very difficult questions
are answered.