Jersey Shore’s Nicole Polizzi is “Snookin’ For Love” with the help of a hair makeover from The Wendy Williams Show. The pint-sized MTV reality tart unveiled a new look — sans her signature pouf — during an appearance on the syndicated daytime gabfest Friday.
Now if someone could only come up with a new look for Wendy…..
Published Jan. 21, 2010
By Ben Reynolds, Tri-City Herald staff writer
Columbia Basin College’s annual Follow Your Dreams banquet returns to the Pasco campus tonight.
The fourth annual event has turned into a staple in the college’s athletic department, and in three years it has raised nearly $70,000 for scholarships and facility upgrades.
Associate athletic director and banquet coordinator Jeremy Beard, who started the event in 2007, expects another strong turnout this evening, hoping to match the success of the first three events.
The event will be headlined by former CBC basketball standout Byron Beck.
Beck played in all nine American Basketball Association seasons (ABA) and made two All-Star Game appearances. In 1977, Beck became the first player in Denver Nuggets franchise history to have his number retired.
Along with Beck, the athletic department will induct four new members into its Wall of Fame.
Among those include: J. Dale Gier, a former CBC coach and longtime administrator; Ray Washburn, a former CBC baseball standout and former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher; Edward Maxwell, a former baseball coach and pioneer in helping expand CBC’s athletic department; and Jim Rodgers, a former CBC basketball coach who won an unprecedented three straight NWAACC championships.
The money raised at tonight’s event will partially be used to help finish the new building between the soccer, baseball and softball fields. The multipurpose building, which Beard said he hopes to have open in April, will serve as a concession stand, locker room and coaches’ offices.
Last year, through a silent auction and donations, the event raised about $22,000.
Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.
NEWS RELEASE
Jan. 22, 2010 Contact: Frank Murray, 542-4835
Combat Veterans International, Chapter 3, is donating $15,000 it raised to support scholarships at Columbia Basin College for combat veterans.
The local vets’ chapter sold raffle tickets for a motorcycle they purchased at Thunder Ally Victory Motorcycles in Kennewick. In three months, the veterans’ organization sold enough tickets to pay for the cost of the bike. They went on to raise another $25,000 through the raffle ticket sale. Since most veterans receive payment for some, if not all tuition, the scholarship money will pay for their books, materials, and fees.
In addition to the scholarship funding, Chapter 3 uses part of the money raised to pay for special needs like food for combat veterans. The criteria for the Combat Veterans scholarships require the recipient to either be a combat veteran or child of a combat vet. Two scholarships will be given per quarter.
Chapter 3 is also exploring a funding project with the Yakama Indian Nation to fund scholarships for Native American veterans. For further information or to contribute to the scholarship fund, contact Gene Lamm at 509.308.2482.
Published Jan. 22, 2010
By Ben Reynolds, Tri-City Herald staff writer
For nearly 2 1/2 hours Thursday night, more than 275 people at Columbia Basin College’s Follow Your Dreams banquet were in a time warp.
Former coaches and players returned to the Pasco campus to share their stories and talk about the importance CBC athletics played in their lives at the annual event that has become a hugely successful fundraiser for the Hawks athletic department.
The banquet, now in its fourth year, raised more than $25,000, with the money going toward facility upgrades and scholarships. The event has generated nearly $100,000 since it was started in 2007 by associate athletic director and assistant baseball coach Jeremy Beard.
“I think it went really well,” Beard said. “The people have been really generous with their donations.”
CBC athletic director Scott Rogers estimates the money raised from the banquet provides 25 scholarships per year to student-athletes.
The event has also been instrumental in the construction of the new multipurpose facility between the soccer, baseball and softball fields. The building, which is expected to be completed in April, will house locker rooms, coaches offices, a concession stand and restrooms.
“Did I mention it was going to have restrooms?” Rogers joked. Restrooms have been nonexistent on the outdoor playing fields.
The night belonged to guest speaker Byron Beck and the four newest members of CBC’s Wall of Fame: Dr. Dale Gier, Ray Washburn, Ed Maxwell and Jim Rodgers.
Each one took their turn recalling their time at CBC and their fondest memories of the college.
“It was a stepping stone for fulfilling my dreams,” said Beck, who went on to play in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the NBA.
Rogers also narrated a slide show, showing some of the success of the athletic program over the past 10 years, listing the 69 different four-year schools that CBC athletes have continued their playing careers at during that time.
A lot of that success stems from the groundwork put forth by the four inductees into this year’s Wall of Fame.
“It’s great to hear their stories,” Beard said. “They mean so much to CBC and its success.”
Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.
Article Tags: ClimateGate, James Delingpole
The Commons Science and Technology Committee has launched an inquiry into “the unauthorised publication of data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA)” – ie Climategate. (hat tip R. Campbell; Platosays).
On 1 December 2009 Phil Willis, Chairman of the Science and Technology Committee, wrote to Professor Edward Acton, Vice-Chancellor of UEA following the considerable press coverage of the data, emails and documents relating to the work of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The coverage alleged that data may have been manipulated or deleted in order to produce evidence on global warming. On 3 December the UEA announced an Independent Review into the allegations to be headed by Sir Muir Russell.
The Independent Review will:
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
In his 2010 State of the Republic address, Ron Paul outlined the following 8 point plan for a transition to a free society:
Date: 01/21/2010
As we start the new year 2010, the establishment politicians, economists and Wall Street are trying to convince themselves that we have turned the corner and economic growth has once again begun. The predictions that conditions are getting back to normal come from those who never saw the crisis coming and don’t have the vaguest notion what caused it. Some of them concede that it could be a jobless recovery. That will establish a new definition for a recovery.
Official unemployment is at 10% but even the government knows that if everyone is counted, including those individuals that are too discouraged to even be looking for work, the unemployment rate is 17%. Free-market economists claim the actual unemployment rate is closer to 22%.
There’s reason to believe that the correction has just barely started and has a long way to run. If the financial bubble came from excess credit created by the Federal Reserve, doubling the money supply can hardly be a solution. It wouldn’t make much sense for a doctor taking care of a very sick patient from severe infection to deliberately give the patient another infection. Yet that’s what the PhD doctors are doing to our very sick economy. It can’t work. It will make the economy much sicker. If our leaders don’t wake up soon, the economy will be brought to its knees. Great danger lies ahead.
In foreign policy, it’s always crucial that the motives of those who would do us harm are understood. Denial of the truth and accepting more politically palatable excuses will guarantee that threats to our safety will continue as we pursue a seriously flawed involvement overseas.
It’s the same in economic policy. If there’s denial or ignorance of the real cause of financial bubbles and the inevitable corrections that must follow, the economy cannot be reenergized.
We should have learned the lesson from the Depression of the 1930s that it was a predictable result from the Federal Reserve’s orchestrated excesses of the 1920s. Instead, the new-born Keynesian economists who took charge made certain that the correction would not be a one or two year affair as were the previous corrections in our history. The aggressive intervention by Hoover and Roosevelt, the Republicans and the Democrats, turned a short recession into the Great Depression, which lasted until the end of World War II.
The real tragedy was that the interpretation of the 1930s institutionalized bad economic theories. Unfortunately, and erroneously, the Depression was blamed on the gold standard, free markets and a lack of regulations. Though monetary policy was analyzed, its importance was 100% misinterpreted. The low interest rates and excess credit of the 1920s, driven by Federal Reserve policy, was not considered a factor in producing the stock market bubble and the malinvestment.
Instead, the 1930s analysts and even later analysis by Milton Friedman and the monetarists, along with academic scholars like Bernanke, came to an opposite conclusion: the Fed was at fault, but only because it was too tight, arguing that massive monetary inflation was the only answer to the slumping economy.
And now we are witnessing a grand experiment by the very person who for years claimed special knowledge regarding the Depression. Chairman Bernanke is in the midst of trying to solve the problem of massive monetary inflation and excessively low interest rates instituted by his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, by implementing even more inflation at historic rates.
The sad part is the answer to his very risky experiment with the wealth of our country and the health of our economy will take years to analyze. The conclusions will be just as flawed as they were in the aftermath of the Great Depression by an intellectual and political community that had totally rejected commodity money and the principle of free markets with the current understanding in Washington.
One hope, though, is that free-market thinking and Austrian economic theories will have greater influence in the next decade or two, since their influence is now on a dramatic upswing. But there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.
In the 1930s, in an effort to find the true cause of the crisis, Congress ordered an official investigation. It became known as the Pecora Investigation named after Ferdinand Pecora, the aggressive chief council of the hearings. It received a lot of public attention and brought about many major changes but, tragically, every conclusion made and new policies implemented caused the depression to worsen and legitimized bad economic theories that continue to haunt us to this day.
The Federal Reserve was not blamed except for not printing enough money fast enough. Artificially low interest rates and malinvestment, the main source of the grossly distorted economy and the bubble of the 1920s, were exonerated. Not enough regulations were blamed, thus the Glass-Steagall Act and the Securities Act of 1933 were passed and deepened the depression. Separating commercial and investment banking and the newly created SEC were to have solved all future problems-as long as the Fed was free from any restraint in its money creation, operations which were to serve big-government spenders and members of the banking cartel.
Since the flaws in the monetary and economic system were not corrected but made worse after the Depression, it was to be expected that periodic booms and busts would persist. The longer these cycles could be papered over with new money and credit, the greater would be the distortions and debt that would one day have to undergo a major correction.
[That correction is now in its early stages. Since the dollar was the reserve currency of the world and totally fiat since 1971, without any linkage to gold, the financial bubble became worldwide. This bubble that burst in 2008 was the largest in history. During the formation of the bubble, the U.S. as the issuer of the world currency received undeserved benefits. We essentially became the counterfeiter of the world and no one called us on it. Even today, the trust in the dollar that persists has buffeted the pain of the correction for us. This unique setup was a prime cause for our balance of payment deficits and] the huge foreign debt we owe-the largest in the history of the world.
The discord in the world financial system is telling us that it’s time for us to pay for our profligate spending and massive foreign indebtedness. We have lived, as a nation, far beyond our means and the message is, for the foreseeable future, that we will be forced to live beneath our means as this debt is paid.
The inflation optimists are excited about current signs of economic growth and have even announced the end of the recession. It is conceivable that a reprieve can be achieved and the penalty that our economy must endure delayed. A reprieve must not be confused with a pardon; one is a temporary delay, the other an exemption. The payback for our excesses is certain to come.
Massively increasing debt and monetary inflation can slow the crash and change some government statistics encouraging the optimists. But real job growth and a return of prosperity will remain elusive. The odds of us once again becoming an exporter of manufactured goods, like steel, cars, and textiles, are remote.
Ironically, a reprieve may well restore some confidence and motivate some spending and investment. But instead of restoring long-term growth, it may well act perversely by precipitating price inflation and higher interest rates. Since today’s interest rates are artificially set, much of our investing is unproductively misdirected.
Current enthusiasm in the stock market is once again a reflection of the message that low interest rates send. Thus too, the government’s stimulus package has helped to sustain the bond bubble, which in time must be deflated in order to get back to sound economic growth.
All of this activity poses a threat to the dollar.Governments are very powerful, and when in partnership with the monetary authorities that can inflate the currency at will, big government thrives. Welfare demands and senseless wars can be financed for long periods of time through inflation, as long as trust in the currency lasts.
Trust, though ultimately controlled by facts, can be misleading, since currency values can gain benefit from a country that has a strong military and wealth and a reasonably healthy economy. Eventually, markets and reality overwhelm, and illusions about a currency’s worth become a reality.
Today, reality is setting in and the first of three major events has begun. The worldwide financial system, built on a foundation of paper, has received the shock waves of an impending collapse.
The wild speculation and the derivatives market, the stock market bubble, the insurmountable debt – public and private – and the massive malinvestments have been shattered.
The only solution so far offered worldwide, but led by the United States, has been to “print money” faster, keep interest rates low at practically zero percent, and remove all stops for controlling deficits. These are the very policies that caused the disequilibrium, and doing more of the same, but only faster, can hardly help our economy.
The addiction to easy credit and deficit defies a wise political solution. Politicians are incapable of delivering the message of frugality, common sense, and sound money.
We can expect that the course we are on to continue and accelerate, since the first event, the collapse of the financial system, is still in its early stage.
The housing crisis is far from over; the commercial property crisis has not yet gotten much attention, and the financial obligations of the government are growing exponentially. And none of this forces the slightest pause in the expanding of welfare growth. The number of regulations, which are indeed a tax, are exploding though the market was already suffering from regulatory excesses. There’s a consensus in Washington that “wise” regulations can compensate for all the mistakes made by the Federal Reserve, the Executive Branch, and the Congress. This fallacy has been around a long time and will be difficult to overcome.
The pessimism of the middle class continues to get worse despite the prognostications of Wall Street and the Administration. Most Americans know that the standard of living and real wages have not gone up for the past 10 years. If you’re not a shrewd stock trader and instead invested in stocks 10 years ago and held on, in real terms you have lost 20% of your savings.
The middle class is poorer also because house prices have crashed and many have lost their homes. On top of this, all we hear about is the trillions of dollars of debt and entitlement obligations that have been racked up for future taxpayers to pay.
When it is revealed that the insider friends of the Fed and Congress get billions of dollars in bailout at the expense of the middle class, it’s no wonder the people are taking to the streets and directing their hostilities toward both Republicans and Democrats in Washington. Many would agree it’s well-earned anger and properly directed.
This anger and frustration will certainly grow as the consequences of the collapse of the financial system become more severe. The concerted effort to prevent the correction the market demands, guarantees a prolonged agonizing crisis. Every effort to reverse the tide will depend on spending, higher deficits, increased taxes and money creation. This effort is now providing another grand bubble: the dollar/bond bubble.
The next event will be a dollar crisis. A full-blown dollar crisis will be much worse than our current financial crisis. The extent of a dollar crisis depends on whether or not the Washington politicians wake up and change their ways – a dubious hope.
More likely, the insanity will continue until some not yet known event will undermine the confidence in the dollar worldwide. Signs of less desire by foreigners to hold our dollars are already present. I’m certain our Treasury and Federal Reserve are pulling out all stops to prevent a massive run on the dollar.
At present the orderly retreat from the dollar is working. But it won’t last.
China is quite active in investing in natural resources around the world, and including in Iran. While we live in the dark ages and believe only our military presence and military threats can protect our access to oil, China is actually spending some of their savings investing in their future access to energy and other precious metals and minerals.
But the orderly retreat from the dollar won’t last forever. Since 1973, shortly after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the dollar has lost 32% of its value against a Federal Reserve basket of currencies. But that doesn’t tell the real story, since that is a measurement against all other currencies, and they are fiat currencies as well. This gave the dollar an artificial benefit from its position of power in great wealth and military prowess. The dollar in relationship to gold, however, is down 97% since 1971, and 82% as measured by the CPI. The dollar, mismanaged by the Fed, has not been a benefit to the savers who sought to responsibly take care of themselves. They’ve been cheated by a rotten system and are just beginning to understand exactly how the Federal Reserve has been responsible for the swindle.
It’s impossible to predict the time when confidence will be lost, but it can come quickly. Resorting to buying other paper currencies will not be of much help. When the dollar crashes, most likely the purchasing power of all currencies – since all countries hold dollars as a reserve – will go down as well.
This means that dollars and other currencies will go into buying consumer items, precious metals and other physical properties. Consumer prices will soar, as well as interest rates. The central bank will lose control; and the more they inflate, the worse the confidence becomes. The interest rates will respond to these efforts by rising sharply.
If the Fed tries to reverse the run on the dollar, interest rates will also soar, and the pain on the American citizens will be of such proportion that political chaos will result. Either scenario leads to political and social chaos – the third event, and the most dangerous.
With no ability of the federal government to fund its commitments, international or domestic, major changes will occur in our system. The social unrest will elicit cries for government to exert unusual force to head off a complete breakdown of law and order. The ultimate trap will be set for a system of government claiming to protect a free society.
If more power and police authority are not given to the federal government, it will be argued that only anarchy will result. If more government policing power is given, it will mean a lethal threat to civil liberties. Already we have permitted the notion that a single person, the Attorney General or the President, can decide who is an “enemy combatant”, thus denying that individual the right to habeas corpus, permitting indefinite detentions without charges made. This attitude toward civil liberties has changed significantly since the fear built around 9/11.
Yes, I know, declaring one an “enemy combatant” is reserved only for the radical Muslims engaged in terrorism against the United States. To be reassured by this reasoning is quite dangerous and naïve. Logic should not lead us to equate suspects with terrorists, and include American citizens, and yet this has already been set by precedent. Under difficult circumstances, our political leaders will not be hesitant to use these powers to maintain order. Tragically, the people may even demand it.
We are rapidly moving toward a dangerous time in our history. Society as we know it is vulnerable to political and social unrest.
This impending crisis comes as a consequence of our flawed foreign and domestic economic policies, a silly notion about money, ignorance about Central Banking, and ignoring the onerous power and mischief of out-of-control intelligence agencies, our unsustainable welfare state, and a willingness to sacrifice privacy and civil liberties in an attempt to achieve safety and security from an inept government. Dangerous times indeed!
What can be done about it? Must we wait for the inevitable and expect to restore our liberties in a street fight against the overwhelming power of the state? Not a good option!
The only way that we can prevent blood from running in the streets is to offer a better idea of the proper role of government in a society that desires first and foremost liberty.
And that is impossible without a firm commitment by our thought leaders to the ideas of freedom, the source of all creative energy and prosperity. An all-powerful state is the threat to that ideal.
The prevailing attitude of the people, as it once was in early America, must be that of liberty and self reliance, rather than the nanny state and dependency, relying on government force to mold all private choices.
If this is understood, a smooth, although not painless, transition to a free society is achievable. Ignoring this option will be very destructive to everything that is dear to the hearts of most Americans.
What is it that we must do? We must immediately embark on:
None of this can happen without the restoration of Congress to its dominant position of the three branches of government as was originally intended by the Constitution. The Executive and Judicial must be reined in, and Congress must assert its prerogatives over all legislation curtailing all unconstitutional agendae through budgetary controls.
Signs abound that angry Americans are now more ready than ever before for a change in direction that is indeed real. If this program were improvised, even suddenly and dramatically, the adjustment, though significant and to a degree somewhat painful, would be much shorter and of minor consequence compared to the chaos and poverty that will result if we refuse to change our gluttonous appetite for a free lunch.
Related posts:
Article Tags: Opinion
Global warming’s heyday of 2006 and 2007 is long gone. With temperatures dropping recently, skepticism may be rising.
Climate change just isn’t what it used to be. Case in point: The number of otherwise intelligent people who are saying that all the cold weather (in the East) and rain (here at home) are causing them to lose faith in the gospel of global warming.
To their way of thinking, it’s fine and good to be bellyaching about rising sea levels when it’s 100 degrees outside. It’s easy to remember to carry around your reusable tote bag when drought begets parched hillsides, which beget wildfires, which beget air that smells like rotisserie chicken minus the chicken.
But guess what? It’s been pouring all week. In Florida, the oranges are perishing under frost. The temperature bottomed out at minus 52 in North Dakota earlier this month, and Beijing recently had its biggest snowfall since 1951.
Click source to read FULL article by Meghan Daum
Source: latimes.com
I’m healthy.
I have a wife who I love dearly.
I have two fantastic Children.
I have good family.
I have good friends here in and near me.
Life is good!
Uh-oh, will racy photos of Jersey Shore star Ronnie locking lips with another guidette spell The END for Seaside Heights lovers Ronnie Magro and Sammi “Sweetheart” Giancola ?
Sammi, check your man…..
Anthony Pisciotto Jr., who runs OnCampusDrama.com, snagged a few photos of Ronnie partying with a couple of brunettes in a Long Island bar this week. Ronnie is featured bumping and grinding on several girls who are not his beloved Sammi. Scandalous…..
According to a rep for The Dublin Down Tavern – where the snaps were taken — Ronnie was at the bar on Tuesday to host an event and Sammi did not accompany him. Although Ronnie and Sammi were still dating as recently as two weeks ago, fans of the show can attest to the couple’s often stormy relationship — which included a huge blowup after Sammi saw Ronnie simply talking to another woman at a bar.
The season finale of Jersey Shore aired on MTV Thursday night.
Researchers have found that a commonly used pavement sealant is a harmful carcinogen. And to make matters worse, our shoes pick up particles of this carcinogen every time we are outside, and we bring into our homes. This is all the more reason to remember to take your shoes off when entering your home, especially if you have little ones crawling around. Pavements in areas east of the continental divide are usually coated with a coal-tar based sealant, which research has found to have 1000 times more polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) than the asphalt based sealant coating pavements west of the continental divide. Researchers have been studying this substance for five years now, and they are working to get the EPA to ban the harmful sealant.
via Inhabitat
» Windows Mobile developers say Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has yet to pay up. [ars technica]
» Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is offering a free unlocked Nexus One to its top forum contributors. [blumenthals.com]
» Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) outshines itself as Wall Street gears up for the expected tablet launch, rather than Apple’s quarterly earnings. [Reuters]
» Why kids love BlackBerries. [Mobile Entertainment]
The Heritage Lottery Fund has given the green light for detailed plans for improvements to be prepared.
Development funding of £111,500 has been awarded to help Middlesbrough Council progress the plans towards a full bid for £2.03m which would be used to create major improvements to the historic bridge – which Bridge celebrates its centenary in 2011.
The HLF first-round pass means the Transporter now progresses to the second stage of the HLF application process, when more detailed plans will be submitted for the full grant amount.
The Grade 2* listed Transporter, one of only a handful of working examples in the world, links Middlesbrough and Port Clarence and is a spectacular landmark on the River Tees.
The restoration project will feature improvements to the bridge, enabling visitors to enjoy the panoramic view and gain a greater understanding of the history of the bridge and the surrounding industrial heartland.
Further planned enhancements include:
:: The installation of glass viewing lifts, giving visitors stunning views across the Tees Valley and a bird’s eye view of the former industrial heart of the region;
:: Improvements to the walkway across the top to increase public access;
:: Motor replacement to improve reliability, better signage and improved lighting;
:: Restoration work to the gondola, provision of a viewing area to the motor room, and visitor centre upgrade, and
:: A 12-month programme of celebration events to raise awareness of the bridge and the area’s heritage with a major celebration on its 100th anniversary.
In recent years the Transporter Bridge has become a centre for extreme sports with regular events involving 1,500 visitors in bungee jumping, zip lining and abseiling from the structure.
Charlie Rooney, Middlesbrough Council’s Executive councillor for transport, said: “The Transporter Bridge is an iconic symbol for the region and a great tourist attraction for the town, so the confirmation that we’re a step closer to major funding is fantastic news.
“If we are successful in winning the full £2.03m, the Transporter will get a major makeover in time for its centenary year.”
Ivor Crowther, head of Heritage Lottery Fund North East, said: “Middlesbrough’s Transporter Bridge is an iconic structure, both defining the surrounding industrial heartland and acting as a major tourist attraction.
“We are pleased to be able to give our initial support for the council’s ambitious restoration plans, particularly as preparations for the bridge’s centenary in 2011 begin in earnest.”
http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/te…4229-25661174/
:cheers::)
Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Chevrolet
Back when the world was a kinder, simpler place, carmakers made all kinds of thrilling-at-the-time propaganda promotional reels that we now derive no end of joy from. It was a time when a company could film its 80-horsepower sedan driving over a railroad trestle, like the one in the picture, and not worry about getting sued when someone actually did it and ended up in the Gulf of Mexico.
Chevrolet did one such vid that looked at company developments all around the country, including a bunch of octogenarian workers visiting Baltimore to receive the keys to the city. And In the year’s first great display of meta, the video from 1935 then goes on to take an incredulous look at car advertisements from 1898 and 1899. Follow the jump for six minutes of American glory in black-and-white.
[Source: Auto Trader Classic]
Continue reading Video: Chevrolet’s version of the news, circa 1935
Video: Chevrolet’s version of the news, circa 1935 originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Thank God it’s Friday, right?
Even though we had Monday off, it seemed as though this week would never end. But it finally did and now it’s time to party with some of the greatest artists of our time.
Before we grab our wallets and help out those in need in Haiti, though, let’s take a look back at the week that was:
– The celebs wowed us on the Golden Globes Red Carpet.
– Ke$ha, who we’ll never understand, came out with a new album.
– Guys continued to wear questionable (and totally unacceptable) attire to the gym.
– We said goodbye to our favorite Guidos at The Shore.
– Cosmo taught us what our guys are saying…while they’re asleep.
– And The Dude taught us what guys look for in a girl.
– John Mayer revealed his inner A-hole to Rolling Stone.
– Conan O’Brien showed NBC who’s boss.
– We learned a few life lessons from our favorite TV shows, while a new show reminded us to live life to its fullest.
– We debated the ups and downs of the infamous bottomless purse.
Whew! What a freaking week. This girl needs a nap, stat.
In my book Prince Harming Syndrome , I joke that if life existed on other planets, there’s a quick way to assess if the aliens are a more advanced life-form. And no, it doesn’t have anything to do with their technology. You simply need to find out if there is dating on their planet. If they didn’t have dating, it is proof they are a far more evolved species.
Translation:Dating can really suck!
People can stay in a bad relationship longer than they should because fear of the pain of dating seems scarier than the pain of a bad relationship. So, people prefer to cling to the familiar – even when it’s painful — rather than stretching themselves with the hope of expanding their happiness.
Before I encourage you to take the leap into the great unknown, I want to encourage you to take a good look at where you’re at right now. And I don’t mean looking at your partner through a magnifying lens. I mean looking at yourself in the mirror.
If you break up with your partner without really looking at yourself in the mirror, you could be on your way to duplicating your love problems in your future relationships just like in Groundhog Day —over and over.
Remember: You are the common denominator in all your relationship problems. Wherever you go, your pesky repeated issues go until you shed a blazing light of insight upon them.
In my newest article up on OPRAH today, I offer 8 empowering insights to help you decide if you should break up or make up.
Join me over at OPRAH now by clicking the link below — and be sure to comment your beliefs on the differences between DEALBREAKERS and DEALBENDERS up on the site!
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The XPERIA X10, also known in Japan simply as Xperia, came to the massive wireless carrier DoCoMo yesterday amid great reception. However, what’s truly odd about this 1Ghz, 4 inch screen Android phone is that the battery life figures have been relatively unknown up to this point. Even Sony Ericsson’s global site has never listed the battery life figures in its specifications. This left many curious as to how long it could actually last. I had several ideas, based on Sony Ericsson’s reputation of trying to have as much battery life as possible and I can now finally confirm that it’s pretty decent.
According to the official specification sheet for the Japanese Xperia (same model as the XPERIA X10), the battery life is:
Talk time (2G/Edge): 270 minutes (4 hours, 30 minutes)
Talk Time (3G): 290 minutes (4 hours, 5 minutes)
We’re also seeing 230 hours standby for 2G, and and about 200 hours standby for 3G-only mode, or 300 for automatic signal mode (switches between 2G and 3G).
The White House still loves Leno!
Jay Leno will host the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington on May 1.
The White House Correspondents Association made the decision to invite Leno to the annual event was made long before TV’s Biggest Chin found himself at the center of a late night shuffle that ended Conan O’Brien’s nearly 17 year partnership with NBC, The Washington Post noted Friday. Leno headlined the dinner in 1987, 2000, and 2004. And everyone is eager to see how Leno will be received when he takes the podium at the coveted event this spring. The Post writes:
To be clear, the association asked Leno weeks ago — when he was simply the host of a prime time show that was failing five nights a week. But when he appears at the annual Washington bash — which over the past few years has become a Hollywood petting zoo — Leno will be the guy who pushed aside Conan O’Brien to become the newly returned host of NBC’s “Tonight” show. He has also been the butt of pretty much every other late-night talk-show host’s jokes for the past couple of weeks.
We spent a lot of time at Lotusphere talking with vendors about how they are moving forward with IBM, and their views about IBM’s collaboration strategy.
In particular, we looked at companies that are integrating with IBM collaboration software products: Alfresco Software, Tungle and FewClix.
These companies are examples of how the enterprise is transforming into an environment where third-party products will integrate with existing collaboration technologies. The result is a loosely coupled ecosystem based upon Web-oriented architectures, Web services and API’s.
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Alfresco, an open-source enterprise content management services company, announced an integration with IBM’s social collaboration products including Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr and Websphere. The integration allows people to go natively into the Lotus collaboration environments. So, for example, you can collaborate with Quickr and then write some documents and publish into Alfresco. The difference here is the ability to use open protocols like REST API’s to easily make the integration, providing an open-source alternative for managing large scale content environments.
Tungle is providing a lot of innovation in the calendar space. The Web-based service integrates with your calendar, allowing you to schedule meetings by showing your availability. This can cut down considerably on email correspondence and trying to arrange a time on your calendar. Tungle is now available with Lotus Notes.
FewClix provides the ability to customize LotusNotes. It’s an email productivity application. With FewClix, people may prioritize their email, search and personalize and organize correspondence. FewClix is another example of a third-party application that brings deeper capabilities into the Louts Notes environment.
IBM’s open Web strategy is helping it become a facilitator for the open enterprise. It’s a smart place to be in this changing world, where the ability to be adaptive is perhaps the most important aspect of a healthy enterprise environment.
For example, earlier this week we wrote about Project Vulcan, the next generation of Lotus Notes. The comments on the post were excellent in their analysis of the IBM news.
Here’s what SC McNally of MeanBusiness had to say:
IB
“IBM knows the enterprise. Tech that web-focused outfits take for granted, CIOs may find daunting. IBM helps remove the daunting.
Like it or not, much of the collaborative nature of what we’ve called Web 2.0 was spearheaded a decade ago by Ray Ozzie and his team at Lotus. It’s been refined and matured and readied to be cycled back, at great profit, into “real” businesses. Project Vulcan seems to be a start at that framework.”
FBI agents executed search warrants this week at five clinics associated with Dr. Gautam Gupta, known for his radio ads that air across Chicago offering advice on weight loss, officials confirmed today.
The warrants were executed Thursday at all five of Gupta’s clinic locations, according to the FBI.
Spokesman Ross Rice said agents visited clinic addresses in Chicago, Rockford, South Beloit, Arlington Heights and Naperville.
No information was immediately available on what agents were seeking, but Rice said there were no arrests made and no charges were filed.
A woman who answered the phone at Gupta’s main office in Rockford declined to comment on the warrants.
“We are open for business,” she said. “We are seeing patients. That’s all you need to know.”
– Jeff Coen and Hal Dardick
Read the original article from Tribune News Services.
The powerful Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 has arrived in Japan via phone carrier NTT/DoCoMo. The phone, known in Japan as simply “Xperia,” is compatible with FOMA HIGH-SPEED, Docomo’s HSUPA/HSDPA data-communication service for extra-fast 2.0 Mbps up and 7.2 Mbps down.
The carrier is boasting its great processor speed (1GHz), Android, design, custom rich applications such as Timescape and Mediascape. I also liked how there was good emphasis on the Infinity button, which allows a user to find more information about the artist that is currently playing, such as history, photos, discography, etc.
Check out this great site I found that shows off more of the Japanese Xperia interface in many screenshots. I was also impressed with Sony Ericsson Japan’s official Xperia site.
Here’s a promo video:
The phone will of course be available in black and white colors.
There are few differences in this version compared to the others found around the world, but it does of course have Japanese as its native language and a few programs tailored for Japanese consumers (pictures courtesy of Impress Watch!, such as:
mora touch:
Provides access to one of Japan’s largest music download services with focus on obvious genres such as J-Pop but also many other genres. You can download entire albums or music videos, or preview songs just like the iTunes store on the iPhone. It’s not entirely clear if songs you purchase through the phone can be transferred elsewhere, though. The audio is 128kbps AAC-LC, and video is H.264/AVC (640×480, 30fps, 1.5-2Mbps bitrate). You can also set downloaded songs as ring tones.
Here’s a sample of video playback:
You can use Google voice search in mora:
..or browse top songs:
Let’s check out another unique element found in the Japanese Xperia:
NTT DoCoMo also showed off a new portal interface for not only Japan’s Xperia, but also another Android phone in their line up – the HT-03A. It’s sort of the Japanese Android market, as all the programs are of course in the Japanese language. Below, we can see a recommended list of applications. There is also support and discussion features.
Sony was also showing off ServersMan running on the device, which is a web server that runs on your phone. It offers an easy way to save files from a phone to a PC and vice versa. Users who log on to the application in the phone get instant access to the phone’s files on serversman.com. You can also manage your personal website. Just upload your HTML, pictures, video etc. to the ServersMan public_html folder and turn on Web publish. Users can also mash-up GPS data and Google Maps on ServersMan and publish them as a web site. Here’s a screenshot:
There was many other cool Android applications hitting Japan that you can check out here.
Japan’s NTT DoCoMo President and Chief Executive Officer Ryuji Yamada (L) and Sony Ericsson Chief Executive Bert Nordberg were part of a big press conference in Japan to show off their new XPERIA phones during a photo opportunity at an unveiling in Tokyo January 21, 2010. Click here to see some of the press conference photos and several amusing slides, such as this:
Sony Ericsson has no plans to delay the launch of a phone that runs Google Inc’s Android operating system in China (despite recent tensions), Nordberg said on Thursday.