Category: News

The iconic American country singer-songwriter William Hugh Nelson is famous for his long braided hair style. Nelson would wear one single three strand braid that would cascade down the back of his head. On other moments, he would wear two braids on either side of his head.

Born and raised in Abbott, Texas, Nelson is the son of Myrle Marie and Ira Doyle Nelson. Nelson wrote his first song when he was seven and he played in a local band when he was at age nine.

Fans of Nelson were shocked yesterday as the legendary Willie Nelson cuts his hair.

The waist-deep, reddish pigtails are gone. They have been one of the signature features of the singer-songwriter.

Spokeswoman Elaine Schock said that Nelson, who’s been hanging loose in Hawaii, got the hair cut in the past couple of weeks. She said that Nelson did not make a big fuss about the haircut, but she thought that the makeover was fine because Nelson might have grown tired of dealing with the braided long locks.

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Today, Facebook announced new privacy controls and settings in response to the tremendous public outcry over its April changes. Here we explain step-by-step how to take advantage of the new settings and maximize your privacy on Facebook.

This is important because you must take affirmative steps to adjust your settings in order to take full advantage of the revised privacy practices. While some information, such as your name, profile picture and gender, will remain publicly available, these steps are designed to provide as much privacy as Facebook’s new system allows. Please enjoy our video, which goes through each of the steps detailed below.

Step by Step to Maximize Privacy

First, log in to Facebook. Click on the “Account” pull down menu in the top right corner, and select “Privacy Settings.” Facebook is rolling out these changes gradually, and not all users will have the new options right away. If you see “Choose Your Privacy Settings” on the top of the privacy settings page, then congratulations, you have the new privacy options. Otherwise, you will have to wait until the rollout reaches you. In the interim, you can follow our previous instructions to opt-out of Instant Personalization.

Basic Directory Information

Start with the Basic Directory Information. Click on “View Settings” at the end of the second line.

The Basic Directory Settings control how your friends, exes, enemies, government agents and everyone else might find you on Facebook. To lock down your account, set all of these to the maximum privacy available — Friends Only, except for “Send me friend requests,” which must be Friends of Friends or higher. Note that even if you select Friends Only for the “See my friend list,” setting, “[your] friend list is always available to applications and your connections to friends may be visible elsewhere.” Click on Back to Privacy when you are done.

Sharing on Facebook

Next, you will need to set your Sharing on Facebook preferences. To maximize privacy, click on the Friends Only tab, which will make the all available settings switch to Friends Only with one more click of the “Apply These Settings” confirmation button. Facebook promises to keep these settings sticky, so that future changes will default to the privacy level you select here. However, many users will want to customize to reflect their individual tastes. If you customize, the default for future features will be Facebook’s recommended setting.

To customize, click on “Customize settings.” This brings up a new page, where the setting for each element of your profile can be tuned individually. You should review these settings, and modify any that you would like to share more widely than Friends Only.

At the bottom of the first section, you will see another link, “Edit album privacy for existing photos.” Click this to modify your photo settings on an album-by-album basis.

Click the back button in your browser to return to the customization page, and complete your review. When finished, click Back to Privacy to return the main page.

Applications and Websites

Click on “Edit your settings” under Applications and Websites, in the lower left region of the Privacy page. This brings you to the application page, which has several submenus. First, check your “Game and application activity” setting, which should be Friends Only if you’ve followed the instructions so far.

Next, to control what happens to your information when your friends sign up for an app or website, click the first Edit Settings button. Uncheck all the boxes that show up in the dialog box. Note that “your name, profile picture, gender, networks and user ID (along with any other information you’ve set to everyone) is available to friends’ applications unless you turn off platform applications and websites.” Save changes and click Okay.

The next setting controls Instant Personalization, the controversial program by which your information is shared with Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft by default. To opt out, click “Edit Settings.” Scroll to the bottom and deselect the check box. Click Confirm. Click Back to Applications.

Public search sets when search engines like Bing or Google can find your on Facebook. “Edit Settings” brings up a new page. If you have followed these instructions, “Enable public search” should be off already. After confirming that public search is not enabled, click Back to Applications.

Even with these settings, Platform applications can still see the information Facebook deems public — name, profile picture, gender, etc — even if you deselected everything in the “Info accessible through your friends” control. To more fully protect your information, you can choose to turn off all platform applications. However, the consequence is that you cannot use any platform applications, and you may lose data held by apps that you delete. There is currently no option to block all applications except the ones you choose. If you want the most protection and do not want to continue to use any Facebook apps, click on “Turn off all platform applications.” You will see the apps that you will lose, and must select all of them before you can click the button to Turn Off Platform.

Congratulations, you’ve now maximized your privacy settings on Facebook. If you have any trouble following these instructions, please contact Facebook’s technical support. And if you find this tutorial to be useful, consider supporting our work to help protect your privacy online.

Glee paid tribute to Lady Gaga during last night’s episode and Lady Gaga gives the love right back. Lady Gaga told Entertainment Weekly, “I love Glee. I went to a musical theatre school, and used to dream that someday the students would be singing my songs.” She also said in her twitter, “GLEE WAS SO AMAZING! AH!!!!” The episode was called “Theatricality” which featured “Bad Romance” and “Poker Face”. Gaga’s most memorable looks were put on by the club’s female vocalists and Kurt that rocked the auditorium with “Bad Romance”. Lou Eyrich, costumer for the show, said “The costumes are not replicas; we want it (to) look like the kids made them. Rachel (Lea Michelle) wears two outfits. The first is inspired by Gaga’s Kermit the Frog dress: She goes through her stuffed animals at home and staples all of them to her dress. The second is like the dress Gaga wore with the big silver mirrored triangle.”

However, it was Rachel’s duet with Shelby of “Poker Face” that stole the show. It was a shared final moment between the mother-daughter pair after Shelby came clean about being unprepared for full-time motherhood. Idina Menzel, who played Shelby Corcoran, told MTV “I don’t channel Lady Gaga. I’m just in awe of Lady Gaga.”

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Total parody from the Onion News Network … there’s nothing like a little Armageddon humor to lighten your mood.

President Obama gets to see solar technology up close and personal at the Solyndra factory in California.  Solyndra builds cylindrical solar panels that convert more of the sun rays into power.  The company benefited from investments through the Recovery Act.  …

…   “… construction of the new facility has created over 3,000 construction-related jobs and the new factory could create up to 1,000 long-term new jobs.  The Solyndra project is just one of the many ways the Administration is supporting clean energy manufacturing in America.  Today Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman participated in a ground breaking ceremony for Nissan North America’s new advanced batter manufacturing facility in Smyrna, Tennessee. ”   …

Via The Whitehouse: Make Things.

   

Supply chain impact of the solar factory investment …

Filed under: Car Buying, Classics, Coupe, Sedan, Marketing/Advertising, Honda, Design/Style

Honda Vice President John Mendel recently admitted to AutoWeek that the next-generation Civic will be delayed from the Fall of 2010 to sometime in 2011. Mendel said in the interview that the Civic was delayed because of tightening emissions standards and he also noted that changing market conditions were partly to blame. AW also notes that the Civic’s design was changed along the way, as Honda’s second biggest selling model was originally scheduled to be larger for 2011. Happens all the time, right? Well, not to Honda it doesn’t.

Michelle Krebs over at Edmunds Auto Observer has taken a deep-dive look at the broader implications of the Civic redesign, and came up with some very interesting points. For starters, Krebs speculates that the next Civic was delayed in part because it wasn’t competitive compared to the new, vastly improved competition from companies like Hyundai, General Motors and Ford. While some analysts feel that the Honda redesign shows that the Japanese automaker is willing to swallow some humble pie and get things right, Krebs counters that going back to the drawing board shows that Honda has lost its touch with the car-buying public. Further support for her theory centers around the lackluster greeting for the Insight by both consumers and pundits, Acura’s polarizing styling language and the love/hate Accord Crosstour and its embarassing social media launch efforts. Analyst John Wolkonowicz of Global Insight appears to agree with Krebs, saying that Honda is living off of its reputation from the 1980s and 1990s.

Where do we stand on the Honda Civic design pushback? We’re thinking that as long as the Civic continues to sell in big numbers with relatively small incentives, Honda is smart to head back to the drawing board, especially as it is still selling strongly five years into its lifecycle. However, we’ve been worried that Honda has been losing its engineering-led focus for a while now, so we’ll be looking to the next-gen Civic for some level of redemption.

Be sure to take our poll and check out our high-res gallery of Honda Civic history before heading over to the Auto Observer for some very interesting analysis.

View Poll

[Source: Auto Observer]

Delayed Civic Begs the Question: Has Honda lost the plot? [w/poll] originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 26 May 2010 20:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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-Not Safe For Work, Life, or While Eating: CLICK HERE To Watch the first 10 minutes of the Kendra Wilkinson sex tape. You can thank me later….

-Beyonce Dereon/C&A Commercial….

–Make Me A Supermodel Season One champ Ronnie Kroell is stripping down for Playgirl….

-Your tot can take a dump in style, thanks to Huggies’ new denim diapers!

-While we’re on the subject of jeans, Desperate Housewives’ Felicity Huffman has been named the official ambassador of National Denim Day…

-This just in: Jesse James is a lying sack of dog mess!

–Facebook banned in Pakistan….

-Get your Freakum Dresses ready, girls: Serena Williams and Common are reportedly no more!

-Duchess Sarah Ferguson really is up to her eyeballs in debt…

–Girls Aloud star Cheryl Cole files for divorce….

–Glee star Lea Michele is glad she’s learned to embrace her natural beauty….

-Russell Brand and Jonah Hill attend a Get Him to the Greek promo event at the Diesel Store in New York City….

-Hide the babies! Hellraisin’ Heather Mills is looking to adopt!

-TV icon Art Linkletter, who hosted the popular TV shows People Are Funny, House Party, and Kids Say The Darnedest Things in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s died Wednesday. He was 97.

-Here’s the trailer for Going the Distance, the new movie starring Drew Barrymore and her sometimes beau Justin Long….

-New York will host the Super Bowl in 2014…

-President Obama will present Beatles legend Paul McCartney with the Gershwin Prize — a lifetime achievement
award for outstanding contributions to pop music –at The White House next month….
–Home Alone Reloaded: A 12-year-old Oregon girl saved her home from burglary…

-Paging Child Protective Services! A two-year chain smoker is puffing cancer sticks like a freight train over in the Philippines?!

“The footage shows two-year-old Ardi Rizal reclining with a cigarette in his mouth. He waves it around, and draws back deeply on the cigarette. Ardi’s parents claim that the child is addicted to nicotine. His mother Diana 26, told Britain’s Sun newspaper she felt powerless to deny the child. ‘He’s totally addicted,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t get his cigarettes, he gets angry and screams and batters his head against the wall. He tells me he feels dizzy and sick.’ Ardi Rizal smoked his first cigarette when he was 18 months old and now smokes 40 cigarettes a day. The overweight toddler is deft at blowing smoke rings, but is so unfit he cannot play with other children…”

The Firefox Home iPhone app will allow you to sync your desktop browsing sessions to your iPhone. This means that you’ll be able to access your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs, and Awesome Bar right on your iPhone. More »










iPhone – Smartphone – Handhelds – App Store – Poem

My toes are tingly, my head kinda hurts, and last night’s a bit fuzzy. Did I have a seizure? Is it lupus? Where’s my iPad? The WebMD app will help me figure it out—Oh God! It’s Sjögren’s syndrome! More »










IPad – Health – Conditions and Diseases – Musculoskeletal Disorders – Connective Tissue

Overview

What’s Good: Additional system memory helps general performance; trackpad and Wi-Fi are also welcome improvements.

What’s Bad: More of a revision than an entirely new model.  At $199, it’s also way too expensive.

Verdict: If you’re using an older BlackBerry, the Bold 9650 is worth considering.  If you’re working with the Tour 9630 or Curve 8500 series, it’s not worth the jump.

Introduction

Shown off at WES 2010 in Orlando, the BlackBerry Bold 9650 has landed on Sprint, with a Verizon version in the works.  Featuring Wi-Fi, a trackpad, additional system memory, and a few cosmetic changes, the device is more of a revision of the Tour 9630 than it is an entirely new model.  Still, the improvements are welcome changes that die-hard BlackBerry users have been asking for.  The real question – is the Bold 9650 worth purchasing if you’re using a Tour 9630 or Curve 8500 series?

Design & Features

The Bold 9650 measures in at 4.41 inches tall by 2.44 inches wide by 0.56 inch thick and weighs 4.8 ounces, making it slightly heavier than the Tour (4.5 ounces).  Continuing the trend, the screen on the Bold 9650 is beautiful. Measuring in at 2.4-inches in size, it offers 65,536 colors at a 480×360-pixel resolution.  The left side of the Bold houses the speaker and a customizable button, while the right side sports the 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rocker, another customizable button, and the microUSB charging port. The lock and mute buttons can be found on top of the device.  Cosmetically speaking, little has changed outside of the trackpad.  Sprint opted for a rubberized battery door versus the glossy one found on the 9630, and the center houses a new design versus the carbon fiber design from before.  “Bold” is now written above the 3.2-megapixel camera.

Though the exterior design has been modified slightly, the Bold 9650 ships in the same box as the Tour 9630 did.  Sprint and RIM were generous with accessories – in the box, you’ll find the device, battery, SIM card for international travel, USB cable, charger, swivel holster, AC adapter, 2 GB microSD card, earbuds, and instruction manuals.  From a design perspective, the phone is virtually identical to the Tour 9630.  Buttons are in nearly identical locations (save for the charger, which is just slightly higher), the chrome looks exactly the same, and the keyboard is the same.  Overall functionality is a bit faster thanks to the 512 MB of internal memory.

Usability & Performance

As with the other trackpad-equipped BlackBerrys, using the new navigation method is flawless.  I can’t even begin to count how many trackball issues I’ve seen over the past few years, and the addition of the trackpad completely removes the problem.  The trackpad is always fluid, and I’ve had no issues to date with it.

The keyboard is a bit of a mixed bag for me.  Though it looks nearly identical to the QWERTY on the Tour, I’ve found that the keys are a bit smaller and the row that houses the space bar has shrunk in size.  What’s more, it you place your finger on the trackpad and move from right to left, the keyboard appears to be domed (right around the trackpad).  It’s a strange feeling – it’s as if they packed a bunch of stuff under the keyboard, and tried to cram the keyboard over it.  As a result, using the keyboard makes me feel like it’s going to pop off and motherboard components are going to go everywhere.  Over the course of a few days, I got used to the keyboard, but was never able to type as quickly as I did on the Bold 9700, 9000, and Tour 9630.

The Bold 9650 offers the standard music player found in BlackBerry OS 5.0.  Offering a progress bar along with the option to shuffle, repeat, or add to playlist, it’s simplistic and easy to use.  The speaker worked well, though the actual speaker placement was a bit frustrating at times. When typing on the device, I found that my finger constantly blocked the speaker, making music and ringtones muffled.  The device offers a 3.2-megapixel camera, and in my testing, pictures were decent.  Like BlackBerrys of the past, there is a shutter lag, making it difficult to take pictures of moving objects. The device also supports video recording.

I’ve been working with the Bold in the Charlotte market, and call quality has been very good.  Callers said that audio sounded good, and I was able to hear them just fine as well.  Speakerphone was loud and clear, and worked without issue in a busy coffee shop.  Additionally, I paired the Plantronics Voyager Pro Bluetooth headset to the device without issue.  In addition to CDMA, the Bold 9650 supports the GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 2100 MHz bands, meaning that the device can be used in numerous countries across the world.

As with many of Sprint’s smartphones, the Bold offers EVDO (3G) and A-GPS.  The Bold also ships with Sprint TV, Sprint Navigation, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile, and a plethora of other Sprint-themed programs. Through the BlackBerry App World (installed), users can download a variety of additional applications. While somewhat functional, I was disappointed by the web browsing experience on the device.  Here’s to hoping that RIM’s upcoming WebKit browser provides a better experience.

For a CDMA BlackBerry, the 9650’s battery life is decent.  Though estimated talk time is five hours, I was able to use the device continuously for just under four hours before it shut down.  With moderate to heavy use including calling, text messaging, instant messaging, browsing the web, use of Sprint Navigation, and use of Sprint TV, I was able to make it just over one day before the device powered down.  Though it offers a smaller screen, battery life is slightly better than media-centric devices like the Nexus One, Incredible, and DROID.

Conclusion

The BlackBerry Bold 9650 is a nice addition to RIM’s CDMA lineup.  Strong signal strength, combined with decent battery life and international capabilities will make for a great device for any individual that travels regularly.  Despite that, it’s more of a revision than it is an upgrade, so if you’re using a Tour 9630, Curve 8500 series, or Bold 9700, the Bold 9650 isn’t anything new.  What’s more, at $199.99, it runs a dangerous risk of being flanked by the EVO 4G and iPhone 3GS.

Alguns modelos vendidos no Brasil, também já são vendidos na Argentina, como o Fiat Palio Fire e Siena.

Agora a marca também pretende levar o novo Uno. Pelo visto a Fiat pretende levar novos ares ao Uno.

Segundo fontes, o modelo já está sendo trabalhado para se adequar as necessidades dos argentinos para daqui alguns meses começarem a ser fabricado no país.

O modelo é fabricado somente na fábrica de Betim (MG), mas será fabricado na Argentina como já dito e a muitos rumores de que ele irá também para o mercado europeu.

Fonte: Autos Segredos

The folks at 3 Quarks Daily are taking nominations for their second annual Prize in Science. The judge this year will be Richard Dawkins.

Here are the details for how to nominate a blog post from the past year, written after May 23, 2009. The deadline is May 31.

Some Loom readers have already nominated some posts–thanks! Here are a few other of my favorites…

Full-Spectrum Genomes

The X-Woman’s Finger Bone

A Day Among the Genomes

Kinkiness Beyond Kinky

Skull Caps and Genomes

The Origin of Big

Ardipithecus, We Meet At Last

Ground Zero, Could an Islamic building be build near it?

As the reconstruction of the World Trade Center advances a debate is rising, regarding a Islamic mosque that will be build near Ground Zero, the Cordoba house.

Islamic leaders say that the Cordoba house would serve as a sign of peace, how ever many see this mosque as a tribute to the very ideology that caused the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The Islamic group that plans to build the mosque dose not have the funding yet for it, however hopes that the building of it will start is this summer. The Cordoba house project still needs NYC approvals and probably will have a landmark hearing before the construction of it could start.

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Might We Suggest…

• EVO’s Front-Facing Camera Shows Mirrored Image… Tsk Tsk
  Our buddy Andrew over at Androinica has brought up something rather disturbing about the EVO’s front-facing camera–it shows everything as a mirrored image. This “glitch” shows itself when taking phot…

Android phones like the HTC EVO 4G and Samsung Galaxy S now include front facing cameras, but there are not many apps that take advantage of this exciting new feature. Google has yet to add support for dual cameras to the Android SDK and app developers have been working with the carriers to support these new devices.

Sprint chose Qik as their streaming video app to include with the EVO 4G, but the current version loaded on the phone does not support video calling yet. I had been trying to gain access to the latest beta to test this new feature out, but I’ve had no luck so far.

Thankfully Fring has stepped up to the table and updated their popular messaging application to support front facing cameras and video calling. The app just went live so I have not had the chance to test it with other EVO users, but that is on the agenda for my next YouTube video I film.

Fring has yet to update their blog with additional details, so check back later for a full report. We will test video calling over 3G, 4G, and WiFi.

Related Posts

• Fring brings free voice calls to Android
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• Sprint EVO 4G data for $10 mandatory premium

A year ago, LA was in the unpleasant position of having opened the floodgates to digital billboards, supergraphics and freeway-facing signs.

There were 11,000 off-site billboards, more than a third illegal, and visual blight from signage was everywhere — the result of poorly crafted legislation, miserable enforcement and the corrupting influence of money on City Hall politicians.

On Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals restored a measure of law and order by overturning a lower court ruling and finding the city’s bans on freeway facing signs and supergraphics.

There were 11,000 off-site billboards, more than a third illegal, and
visual blight from signage was everywhere — the result of poorly
crafted legislation, miserable enforcement and the corrupting influence
of money on City Hall politicians.

The key issues were the free speech rights of billboard companies and the exceptions granted by city officials that allowed Staples Center and a few others to use supergraphics and digital signs that face freeways, creating potential traffic hazards,

In a 25-page ruling (worldwiderush.pdf), the appeals court in a ruling written by Judge Kim Wardlaw and supported unanimously by Judges Stephen Reinhardt and Stephen Trott, the court reversed District Court Judge Audrey Collins ruling against the city and the contempt of court finding.

“The City’s exceptions to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban do not undermine the City’s interests in aesthetics and safety,” the court ruled. “Indeed, the exceptions were made for the express purpose of advancing those very interests. Allowing billboards at the Staples Center was an important element of a project to remove’ blight and dangerous conditions from downtown Los Angeles. Similarly, the Fifteenth Street SUD (special use district) was an outgrowth of the City’s efforts to improve traffic flow, and thereby safety, on Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Not only did the agreement to allow signs in the Fifteenth Street SUD advance that project, it also resulted in a net reduction of billboards inthe City. Ironically, the most significant denigration to the City’s interests in traffic safety and aesthetics might result, not from allowing the freeway facing billboards at the StaplesCenter and in the Fifteenth Street SUD but instead from strictadherence to the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, which might have severely hampered, if not completely defeated, both projects.”

Frankly, I think the court gave the city the benefit of a lot of doubts.

But after a long series of legal defeats and a seemingly unenforceable sign ordinance when he took office less than a year ago, City Attorney Carmen “Nuch” Trutanich and his team deserve a lot of the credit. Even his critics ought to be able to acknowledge that.

[4] The district court took an all-or-nothing approach to its constitutional analysis of the Freeway Facing Sign Ban, stating that to “preserv[e] even one freeway-facing sign…undermines the City’s stated interests in traffic safety and aesthetics…

His team, led by top assistant Jane Usher who crusaded for a crackdown on billboards as president of the Planning Commission before resigning in protest to what was going on, drafted a tough ordinance and got it enacted by a reluctant City Council.

In defending the new ordinance and even the old one in this case, the City Attorney’s office is wracking up a series of court victories that give LA control over signage for the first time in decades.

On the free speech issue, the appellate court said:

“The city reasonably may have concluded that, on balance, safer and more attractive thoroughfares would result from renovations to Santa Monica Boulevard and a reduction in the City’s total number of billboards, even if this required installation of some freeway facing billboards along Fifteenth Street. The City also reasonably may have concluded that the benefits of redeveloping and attracting people to an otherwise dangerous and blighted downtown area outweighed the harm of additional freeway facing billboards restricted to that area…

“The City submitted a convincing rationale — which is entirely consistent with its asserted gov-
ernmental interest — for exempting some freeway facing signs from its Ban…the City’s decision to permit some freeway facing billboards at the Staples Center and in the Fifteenth Street SUD does not break the link between the Freeway Facing Sign Ban and the City’s objectives in traffic safety and aesthetics.”

The court also threw out the argument that the “Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans were unconstitutional prior restraints on speech because their exceptions impermissibly vest the City Council with unbridled discretion to select among speakers on the basis of content. “

“This legal conclusion was erroneous, however, because the prior restraint doctrine does not apply to the legislative function at issue here. The exceptions to the Supergraphic and Off-Site Sign Bans are rooted in the City Council’s legislative discretion, not its discretion to make
executive decisions as part of the LAMC’s regulatory scheme. This distinction makes all the difference.”

So while the billboard companies and the people they benefit may harangue about Trutanich’s aggressive enforcement of the law, including the arrests of company executives, he has the law on his side now so you can expect a lot tougher enforcement in the months ahead.

Published May 25, 2010
By Kai-Huei Yau, Tri-City Herald Photographer

Columbia Basin College’s Queers & Allies student group put on the first annual drag show at the HUB. Around 150 attended the two-hour show that featured professional, student and faculty drag queens. Sponsored by the CBC nursing program, Queers & Allies is open to non-students and serves as a support system for gays and lesbians too old for Vista Youth Center’s services. “I know there will be people with some reservations, but we hope that we can show them that we are just as cool as anybody else,” says organizer Chris Mich.

Tri-City Herald Photo Gallery

Additional news stories can be accessed online at the Tri-City Herald.

by Roger Alford

The news coming out of China of ten suicide deaths at Foxconn industrial park is terribly distressing. All of the workers who committed suicide were recent high school or vocational training school graduates aged between 18 to 24. One of the fatalities, Sun Danyong, jumped to his death after being interrogated over a missing iPhone prototype. Foxconn, the makers of Apple iPhones and iPads, is now under international scrutiny for its working conditions and the news is not good. Not surprisingly, Apple (and other companies that purchase Foxconn products such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard) are also under intense scrutiny regarding their enforcement of supplier codes of conduct.

The New York Times reports that:

“Foxconn’s production line system is designed so well that no worker will rest even one second during work; they make sure you’re always busy for every second,” says Li Qiang, executive director of the China Labor Watch, a New York-based labor rights group. “Foxconn only values the enterprise benefits but totally ignores the social benefits. Those claims have been bolstered in recent weeks by some of China’s state-run newspapers, which have published a series of sensational reports about the suicides, alongside exposés detailing what they claim are the harsh conditions inside Foxconn factories. Some articles have described the company’s authoritarian management style, the heavy burdens workers face in trying to meet Foxconn production quotas. Others say the company has cramped dormitories that sometimes house 10 to a room.”

An Apple spokesman stated today that “a team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.” Sounds good.

But it made me wonder what has Apple done prior to these tragedies to promote labor standards. The news isn’t pretty. Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct is acceptable enough, limiting working hours to 60 hours per week (including overtime), requiring minimum wage and benefits consistent with local laws, and clean and safe dormitories with adequate heat, ventilation, personal space, and entry and exit privileges.

So does the reality match the rhetoric? When social auditors examined factory compliance, they found distressing news. Only 46% of their audited suppliers comply with Apple’s working hours requirements. This means a majority of Apple’s audited suppliers violate the 60 hour work week. Here’s what Apple’s 2010 Supplier Responsibility Progress Report says:

At 60 facilities [of the 102 audited], we found records that indicated workers had exceeded weekly work-hour limits more than 50 percent of the time. Similarly, at 65 [of the 102] facilities, more than half of the records we reviewed indicated that workers had worked more than six consecutive days at least once per month. To address these issues, we required each facility to develop management systems—or improve existing systems—to drive compliance with Apple’s limits on work hours and required days of rest.

Second, according to the report, 65% of the audited factories comply with the local minimum wage and benefit laws. In other words, one-third of Apple’s audited suppliers pay their employees below the minimum wages required by the local law. According to the report:

At 48 of the [102] facilities audited, we found that overtime wages had been calculated improperly, resulting in underpayment of overtime wages. At 24 facilities, our auditors found that workers had been paid less than minimum wage for regular working hours…. Another common violation we found was underpayment of legally required benefits. We found 57 facilities with deficient payments in work benefits such as sick leave, maternity leave, or social insurance for retirement.

Finally, the audit revealed a 51% compliance rate with respect to management accountability and responsibility. In other words, almost half of Apple’s audited suppliers do not evidence a commitment to corporate social responsibility. According to the report:

Our audits revealed 55 facilities [of the 102 audited] that did not have dedicated personnel accountable for compliance with all categories of Apple’s Code. Apple required the facilities to appoint qualified personnel, ensuring that responsibility and accountability for compliance are included in their job descriptions. These job descriptions include ownership of a process for correcting deficiencies identified by internal and external audits, written corrective action procedures, and verification of the completion of appropriate actions.

Apple’s report states that it “is committed to ensuring the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply base.” Today an Apple spokesman stated that the company is “saddened and upset” by the suicides and that Apple was determined to ensure that Foxconn workers were treated with respect and dignity. But if you scratch beneath the surface, Apple’s own social audit report paints a different picture of its suppliers. It is a picture of employees who are routinely being underpaid, overworked, and poorly supervised.

Click for interactive: Drilling mud is being pumped into equipment at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico in hopes of cutting off the flow of oil. Click on the image to explore an interactive graphic. (AP)