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WASHINGTON–The White House on Wednesday confirmed that President Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, in Jerusalem, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House next week. Emanuel issued the invitation during a meeting with Netanyahu.

The meeting will take place on Tuesday. Netanyahu will travel to Washington from Canada. U.S. Special envoy George Mitchell was in the region earlier this month shuttling between Israelis and Palestinians for “indirect” peace talks.

Emanuel flew to Israel for the bar mitzvah of his son.

Something I meant to write yesterday, but forgot, is that there’s considerable moral hazard if we allow multi-employer plans to segregate the employees of now-defunct companies.  As one of my commenters wrote:

The multi-employer plans are treated differently from the single-company
plans precisely because there is an expectation of the births and
deaths of employers in the marketplace. They are common in industries
like the garment industry, the construction industry and the trucking
industry,where companies come and go frequently.

There are a whole bunch of reasons for this birth and death cycle which aren’t particularly germane to our discussion.  But one thing that is worth noting is that it’s not uncommon for owners to serially start companies, or have three or four companies operating under the control of a single owner.  If you segregate the pensions of defunct firms, it seems to me that you may get a whole bunch of creative corporate bankruptcies so that the government can take over all the old pensions.

It’s also important to note that this is not simply a disaster created by corporate bankruptcies or other market exit.  As the same commenter notes:

The pension laws that govern the multi-employer plans already provide
very specific guidance on how pension fund deficits are to be handled.
In the non-construction multi-employer plans ( construction plans are
treated somewhat differently),the unfunded liability actually belongs to
the employer in proportion to his percentage of the fund’s hours over
the last five years. That liability should actually be booked each year
and becomes a clear balance sheet liability if there is ever a transfer
of ownership. Since the companies have equal representation on the plan
management boards, the rules were devised to give the companies a very
direct stake in the state of the fund and to discourage excess pension
awards.

In the non-construction world,when a company withdraws
from the marketplace or goes bankrupt,its share of the unfunded
liability is immediately due and payable. And the fund trustees have a
fiduciary responsibility to see that what is owed is paid.

So
what is the problem that Senator Casey is trying to solve? Did the
trustees of the plans fail to collect what is owed or assert claims in
bankruptcy? Did they allow the failing companies to avoid paying their
routine contributions? Did the trustees fail to keep an eye on what
companies are getting themselves in trouble? Did the company auditors
ignore this liability? Did the company executives conceal it from their
auditors and bankers? Were the executives negligent in even asking about
it? Many people may be liable, but that is no excuse for a bail out.
And if this is a bill just to solve the problems of one giant employer,
why did they let things get so bad that the problem arose in the first
place? Why wasn’t this problem sorted out in collective bargaining?

There
is no question that a lot of multi-employer plans have seen a growth in
unfunded liabilities since the stock market crashed. But they have also
seen substantial recovery since. And now they have to tell companies
what each has as a share of unfunded liabilities,to further reinforce
attention to the issue.

Now it may be that companies have left
the marketplace. If new union employers have come into the marketplace
there is no problem,since the contribution base hasn’t changed. If the
marketplace has gone open shop, then the plans have to either get more
money in the door from each remaining company and employee or cut the
pensions to fit the money available.

The problem, in other words, is that the pension funds did not accrue adequate assets to cover their liabilities, a problem which in some cases seems to rise to gross negligence.  Now those long deficiencies have to be made up by the companies that are still in business, including those that weren’t around when the worst of the underfunding occurred.

The problem that Casey is trying to solve is that the plans with the worst unfunded liabilities have trouble recruiting new members–both because companies fight hard to avoid “helping”, and because workers are now getting statements showing what terrible state the pension fund is in.  Naturally, the Teamsters would like the government to pick up the tab for their previous poor management, and Senator Casey is, as always, only too happy to help.  But whatever your view on unions, it cannot be true that every single thing the unions want is a good idea.  Just as support for some forms of deregulation does not imply that companies should also be able to dump toxic swill into public waterways, support for unionization should not imply that unions can screw up their pension fund management and get the government to make up the difference whenever the underfunding becomes too noticeable. 

If a company had done this, it would have to declare bankruptcy, and make way for more competent businesses.  Maybe the Teamsters should do the same.

Update:  a correspondent points out that it’s even worse than that.  UPS and the Teamster’s both had a big veto over companies that didn’t keep up their contribution, or the kinds of aggressive accounting tactics that result in underfunding.  Now the union is essentially selling out the workers of non-bankrupt employers (who, as I understand it, may get less than they were promised) in order to help out UPS.

Business – Pension – Stock market – Senator Casey – Investing

Remember SEDs? Those surface-conduction electron-emitter displays were around for quite a while, competing with FEDs (field emission displays) until Sony decided to pull the plug on the latter back in March last year. That gave one company, Canon, enough of a push to continue to believe in SED. Canon even filed new patents on SED technology in the US in May 2009. But that’s over now (we kind of anticipated this as early as December 2008).

Canon yesterday decided to freeze development of SED technologies, mainly because the company was unable to push down production costs to an acceptable level. The plan to establish SED as the next standard for flat TVs also proved to be more difficult than expected because Canon faced a lawsuit based on their work with SEDs in the US (the picture shows a Canon SED prototype from 2008).

Toshiba left a joint venture with Canon that was aimed at developing SEDs in 2007 already. Now if only the hardware makers would focus on producing affordable OLEDs (Samsung Mobile Displays’ Sang-Soo Kim said this week he expects OLEDs to be the standard for flat TVs in about five years).

Who doesn’t love a little frozen yogurt? While our own Nate Allen may enjoy Costco’s froyo more, you and I are all much more interested in the less edible kind. Android 2.2, or Froyo, is a huge update for Google’s market-sweeping operating system. While it may not look very different to the untrained eye, it definitely has some underlying changes that really make a difference when you begin to use it.

If you follow my Twitter feed (@BBCasper), you will know that I’ve been flaunting my Froyo for roughly three days. Google announced Froyo at their I/O conference last week on May 20th, and started rolling Froyo out to review devices on the 22nd. Since the Nexus One is now the “Google” phone and does not have any direct ties the supporting carrier, when Google releases Android 2.2 officially (to the public, not review devices), the OTA updates will go directly to the devices. Of course, until that time, the wonderful hackers of the Android world have graced us with a rooted version of Froyo to help calm the impatient masses.

Home Screen

The first thing you will notice when you upgrade to Android 2.2 is the modified home screen. Before there was solely a square icon at the bottom of the screen for the application drawer. Now on the left of the icon is a phone icon, to the right is a browser icon, and to the far left and far right of the screen you will see a marker that shows what screen you are currently on. Personally, I love this setup. Before, if you wanted quick access to the browser and/or phone on your home screen, you would have to setup some icons on your home screen. This modification more efficiently uses the home screen and makes some of the more commonly used features of the phone more quickly accessible.

Task Switcher

Another thing that you might notice that looks a little different is the most recent tasks page. Prior to the 2.2 update, when you long press on the home button of your Android device, the last six applications you have used will appear in the middle of the screen as shown below. With froyo, they have changed this page from six to eight of the most recently used applications. Honestly, between six and eight applications I don’t care, but it is a change nonetheless. These minor changes plus the addition of a Market widget are essentially all of the visual changes in Froyo, but the real changes lie underneath, hidden within the settings and within a few applications that need to be downloaded.

Flash

Possibly the most anticipated update brought in Froyo is (nearly) full flash support. In Android Market, you will see the newly available download for Flash Player 10.1 BETA. I must say, it works exactly like it should. Mind you, it is still in the BETA phase and does have some minor issues, most websites that run any standard flash will render quite well on my Nexus. Sites like Hulu are quirky, complicated, and different. They will not work yet, unfortunately. In all honesty, flash is very important to me; I don’t plan on watching any flash videos within my browser. It is very cool to have and a nice bell or whistle (whichever you consider it to be), but it is not a make-or-break factor to me. For many, it is, and I’m glad to see the Android development team working with Adobe to make it happen.

Tethering

The other long-awaited update found in Android 2.2 is the built-in wireless and wired tethering, a carrier’s nightmare. Being on an unsubsidized device, there isn’t a lot AT&T or T-Mobile can do to the Nexus One updates. When other phones such as the Motorola Droid or the HTC Desire get this update, the carrier will more than likely remove that feature and try to force you to pay their $30/month (it may vary) tethering fee. For those of you that load custom ROMs onto your device, you will likely see this in the various ROMs that will soon flood the Android forums. I’ve been using both wired and wireless tethering for some time now, and it is definitely a cool feature to have. It’s nice for those emergency situations that you may need internet on your computer, or when you’re in the middle of an online quiz for one of your classes and your home internet goes out; not that I would know anything about that.

Install apps on SD card

Undoubtedly, my favorite function of Android 2.2 is the ability to move your installed applications to your SD card. As of right now, there is no support for this within the applications. For the impatient (me), there is a workaround to enable this feature, which I took the liberty of doing to my phone. I will include some information about that if you are interested in it at the bottom of this review. The official version will require the developer to decide whether they want to allow the installation of their application on the SD card or not. In a way this is good and in another, just as bad. It can help the prevention of the piracy of paid applications (along with some encryption I read about), and some applications simply will not work from the SD card. What I have found from manually enabling the moving of applications to the SD card is that any application that has a widget will not work if installed to the SD card. Initially, the widget will work until you mount your phone to your computer, or unmount the SD from the phone. At that point, you will have to reinstall the application again before you will be able to add the widget back to your home screen. Hopefully this will not be the case when the developers enable the SD card support, but for now I can live with my widgets and applications containing widgets being saved to internal memory.

Market

Within the Market application, there have been some tiny improvements, but they go miles in my book. The first thing that you will notice upon viewing application details in Market is that the comments are no longer visible in the initial application about page. There are now two tabs at the top of the page, “About” and “Comments.” I love the separation as it is now much easier to view more comments on an application and everything is just ever-so-slightly more organized. The next major update to Market is the ability to update all applications at once. Rather than updating each individual app at a time, you can now press “Update all” at the bottom of the Downloads page to quickly update all applications that need updating. Before, you would have to click on each application, select “Update”, then select “Ok” just to update one app. That got to be very frustrating considering how often Android developers update their applications.

Car Home

From what I can tell, the changes to the Car Home app are nothing beyond aesthetics. Although, nothing major has changed, Car Home is now very slick looking, and much easier to use. Bigger buttons make for easier use while in the car, and the way it works flows more like Android than it did before. It used to be a curved line flowing across the screen in a fancy layout. Now, it’s much more simple, but looks heaps better, and you have two screens that you can slide between, but like your home screen. Also, if I do recall correctly, the old version of the Car Home acted more like an application. This new version is more like a temporary home replacement for in-car use. When you press the home key, it takes you back to Car Home. Before, (this is where I could be wrong because I rarely used it) I believe it took you back to your home screen.

Call Logging

Another intuitive change is the call log. Before, the call log would list every call you made or received, one after another. The change was rather smart in a “save screen space” kind of way. Now, the calls are grouped by contact and day. Although, it may be a tiny change, it was the little, insignificant details that turned me into a BlackBerry fiend. I’m glad to see that Android is now starting to focus on the little things and refine their gold mine of an OS.

Miscellaneous

Along with all of the major updates, there are some minor changes that have been made within the general settings in 2.2. One of these more minor changes is the ability to better customize when you want to enable/disable vibrate. You now have the options to enable it always, never, only in silent mode, and only when not in silent mode. Also, you have more options for passwords now as well. Rather than just pattern lock and you have the choice between a pin, a alpha-numerical password, and a pattern lock. There are also some other changes that have been made in the security department, but I’m not fully aware of their significance. Again, these are all part of the tiny details that refine an OS and make it more and more reliable for the end user.

Verdict

Rather than dragging this out any further and putting everyone to sleep, I will get straight to the point. Froyo is exactly what Android needed. They were already climbing the ladder to the top of the cell phone industry, and Froyo is just another rung in that ladder. It tells us that the Android development team is focused on what matters and is heading in the right direction. I’ve been using Sense UI on my Nexus and the stock ROM (rooted) for a while now. I loved them both, but after using Froyo, I will not be looking back anytime soon. It is lightning fast, more reliable, and overall more refined.

Even the multi-touch is more reliable. I’ve been using the Swype alternative keyboard since I got my Nexus One. After updating to Froyo, I installed Swype again, but have ultimately been using the stock Android keyboard. It seems to be much more accurate and easier to type with that what I can remember.

With huge upgrades like Flash support, built-in tethering options, and application storage on external memory, Android has swept the carpet out from under the competition. Mind you, the carriers are not going to be too accepting of the tethering options, it does show us that Google has a more consumer-friendly mindset than carrier-friendly, which is amazing.

So far I have only encountered three tiny handicaps to Froyo. First and foremost, no application support for the application storage on the SD is a little disheartneing. I’m aware that it is coming, but like I said before, I am impatient. When it does finally make it to my Nexus, I hope the widget issue will be resolved. The second drawback is definitely the open availability of one of greatest features of 2.2 being restricted by carriers. Meaning, only people with an unsubsidized Android phone (Nexus One) will get to reap the full benefits of Froyo. For everyone else with a carrier branded device, those carriers will play their cards and bully the customers like they’re known for doing. Last, some applications seem to not want to work with 2.2. This is nothing more than a developer updating their application, but it was a tiny little hiccup that got on my nerves. At least when all the developers do update, I can update all of my applications at once. 😀

One thing to expect is that if you do not have a Nexus One, your version of Android 2.2 will be slightly changed by each carrier. The Motorola Droid will probably (don’t hold me to this) keep its stock app drawer since it didn’t get the cubed one with its 2.1 update. Hopefully minor things like that won’t ruin your day when your 2.2 update does finally come. We all hope 2.2 comes sooner rather than later, and rolls out much more quickly than 2.1 did is.

If you want a hands-on look at Froyo, you should head on over Andrew’s (from DroidDog) YouTube channel for his three part series on Froyo. Acsteffy87’s YouTube channel can be found here.

If you were one of the ones interested in manually enabling application storage on your SD card here are the two ways to do it.

(Note: PhoneDog is not responsible for any damages you may incur to your phone during this process. Only do this if you know what you are doing.)

1. Using a computer:

• Connect your Froyo’d phone to a computer and open command prompt. (I’m only fluent in the world of Windows. For Mac and Linux users, you will have dig deeper to figure out how to connect to ADB or try option 2.)
• Go to the directory where you have the Android SDK installed on your computer. (IE mine is at C:\Casper\Documents\Android\android-sdk-windows\tools)
• Type these commands: adb shell [Enter] pm setInstallLocation 2

2. Using a Terminal Emulator on your phone: (Must be rooted)

• Download the application Terminal Emulator from Market.
• Open the application and type: su [Enter] pm setInstallLocation 2

3. To disable the application installation to SD card repeat the process but exchange the 2 with a 1.

Via Prison Planet.com » World News

Breitbart.tv
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

“The political stupidity of this is just unbelievable…we’re about to die down here!”

This morning, BillShrink delivered a karate chop to the cable cabal with a new service, currently in beta, that shows you how to get the best cable/tv/satellite/dish package for the best price.

How it works is that you enter your info, they run the the numbers, and then deliver you the deals from different providers ranked by price.

BillShrink shows you what you can get, and how much you can save. You can also drill down and see how the price is calculated on a line-item basis, including any equipment costs. BillShrink also displays the price you’ll pay during any applicable promotion, the after-promotion cost, and what that all averages out to on a monthly basis.

To complete the transaction, BillShrink gives you the provider’s number to call, what to ask for in the package, and the referral code to use. The service is free but BillShrink gets a referral fee from the provider for every person who orders using one of their codes.

They do require an email address to use it, so if giving that out isn’t your thing, use a disposable one like Mailinator.

Bundles aren’t included in the calculations, but the site aims to have them up soon. In the meantime, you can add on internet when you call. In the future, BillShrink also plans to let you complete the order without having to make a separate call.

You can use BillShrink to switch services directly, or as a research tool in conjunction with this post, “What To Say To Your Cable Company To Get Them To Lower Your Bill” to negotiate concessions from your provider. A Feb ’10 Consumer Reports cover story on how you can build a cable bundle is another great source of actionable, money-saving info on cable/internet/tv/phone services.

Consumerist asked BillShrink CEO Peter Pham, if it takes 10 engineers working full-time for three months to build a comprehensive overview of cable options, what hope did any consumer ever have of being able to make the right choice?

“Not much,” laughed Pham. “When we tackled it we thought, ok, this is about the same as wireless. As you dug into it, it’s vastly more complicated.” With services like BillShrink, especially after they implement some of the planned upgrades, that can get a little less complex for consumers.

BillShrink [Official Site]

RELATED:
Save a Bundle [Consumer Reports]
What To Say To Your Cable Company To Get Them To Lower Your Bill [Consumerist]

[The following is a post from a friend of mine James Williams. Whilst waiting out a bad economy after college graduation, James worked at a major Atlanta-based airline. The brief stint gave him deep insights into the airline industry and he serves as a guide for family and friends wondering through the wilderness of fare rules, frequent flyer programs, and getting the cheapest flights. He is a Mountain View-based software engineer, loves to travel, and blogs about more geeky fare over at James Williams. If you are the techie-type, I got a feeling you’ll be reading more from him in the future. In the meantime, I’m ecstatic he could fill my gap of being clueless with airline miles.]

Traveling as much as I do can get expensive. The technology downturn of 2003 made me recognize the value of a dollar. Lazy Man has already covered some very good tips on how to save money on airfare, but today I’d like to talk about airline miles.

Here are my top tips to make the most of your airline miles: [Note from Lazy Man: Before we get to the tips, I’m going to distract you with a picture of a hot flight attendant. Sorry James…]

1. Book Early

   Most legacy carriers (US Air, United, Delta, Continental, American) allow you to book up to 330 days in advance. In theory, there is less competition for seats at this time and you may have the best selection of flights. You also will avoid most ticketing fees.

2. Book Late

   After it’s been decided that they won’t be able to sell the last batch of seats, airlines might free up some more frequent flier tickets for sale. Booking under two weeks opens you up to extra fees and penalties for redemption.

3. Book a paid ticket to/from a hub city and award ticket from the hub city
   While it is preferable to book an award ticket for the whole trip, if you are flying from a city with limited capacity, you might find seats easier if you split the flight between a paid ticket and award ticket. For example, let’s say I want to fly from BZN (Bozeman, MT) to CDG(Paris) on Delta. Bozeman is likely to only have small puddle-jumpers from BZN to the nearest hub in Salt Lake City. Prop planes mean limited award seats. You could split up the trip into a paid ticket for the harder to get Bozeman-Salt Lake City and an award ticket for Salt Lake City-Paris.
4. Split up parties of more than two people
   Finding four seats on a flight to a leisure destination can be fairly difficult. For a family of four, try to have Mom fly with one of the kids on one itinerary and Dad with the other kid on another itinerary.
5. Use co-terminals to your advantage
   Co-terminals are airports that count as the same destination for ticketing purposes. This can be helpful in finding tickets if it is possible to fly out of San Francisco and into San Jose for instance. They can differ from airline to airline but generally the major airports in the Bay Area(SFO,OAK,SJC), New York Metro (JFK,LGA,EWR,HPN), greater Miami area (FLL-PBI-MIA) or the greater Los Angeles area (LAX-ONT-SNA) can be considered the same destination. Sometimes the greater Baltimore-Washington Metro area is included (BWI, DCA)
6. Use airline alliances
   All of the legacy carriers save Alaskan Airlines take part in some sort of airline alliance whether it is SkyTeam, Star Alliance, or One World. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses but allow you to book award tickets on partner airlines. Extra ticketing fees may apply.
7. Know the value of your miles
   Most airlines use redemption levels that don’t correlate to the price of the ticket. When you want to redeem an award ticket, first calculate the cents per mile (CPM) for redemption. Divide the price of a paid ticket by the amount of miles it would take to redeem that ticket. If the cost per mile is less than 0.01, you probably should buy the ticket. If the CPM is 1-2 cents, use your discretion and try to find a better valued trip. At 3 CPM or more, book the ticket NOW. If the airline values them at 1 cent per mile, why give them a discount on awarding you for your loyalty?
8. Become an elite member of an airline
   Not only will it maximize the amount of miles you’ll accumulate for trips, but several airlines have additional capacity for award tickets that they only offer to their elite members.

How do you maximize your airline miles? Let us know below.

Related posts:

1. Thoughts on Airline Ticket Pricing For those thinking that I fell off a cliff and…
2. Problems With American Airlines Credit Card This post is going to be bit of rant, due…
3. Save Money On Airfare Yesterday, I mentioned how the wife and I recently traveled…
4. Last-Minute, Frugal, Mother’s Day Tips Earlier this week I ran a contest asking readers for…
5. Get VIP Treatment On a Slim Budget Today’s guest post is from Donny Gamble, author of a…

Dieter and Keith discuss the AT&T Palm Pre and much more, listen in!

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Thanks to everybody for writing in!

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Mukhtar Mai’s story is heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, even nauseating … but ultimately, her story of inexplicable violence is not about being a victim but a testament to inspiring empowerment of girls and women all over the world through the power of education.

Eight years ago, I got an email from a longtime friend that the New York Times‘ Nicholas D. Kristof (who provides the foreword here) was raising funds to help a gang-rape victim keep her school going in rural Pakistan. After reading the shattering story, I had no choice but to immediately send a check. As Kristof and co-writer/wife Sheryl WuDunn write in their bestselling, life-changing title, Half the Sky, even $27 can change lives for the better forever.

By order of the village council, Mukhtar Mai was brutally raped by four men, as justified punishment for a crime her younger brother did not commit. As a skinny 12-years-old, Mai’s brother was jailed and repeatedly beaten and sodomized for allegedly raping a woman in her 20s who was part of the village’s powerful, lawless, ruling caste. Brutalizing the alleged perpetrator was not enough; Mai’s body became further battleground for degradation.

Expected to commit suicide to save her family from further disgrace, Mai was prepared to die. But something propelled her to get up, report the crime to the police, and demand justice. The police tried desperately to silence her, taking advantage of her illiteracy to create false reports on blank papers which bore her thumbprint.

In spite of such illegal efforts, Mai’s story began to make national headlines, and then the world literally arrived at her door, ready to hear her voice. The Pakistani government was forced to respond, and awarded her a sum equal to $8,500. Having spent most of her life unable to read and write, Mai had been victimized not only by her attackers, but also the police and government because of that illiteracy. Mai was determined that what had happened to her would not happen to other girls and women: with that blood money, Mai started a school, to give the girls strong voices and to teach the boys that a woman’s body is not a war zone.

While the international articles made the world aware about Mai’s story, her memoir adds further depth to her ongoing journey towards justice. Change has come slowly, but the struggle continues. She talks about how silence, obedience, and the denial of knowledge are passed on from mother to daughter in an endless cycle of ‘honor’: “Submission is compulsory,” she explains, then insists, “… knowledge must be given to girls, and as soon as possible, before their mothers bring them up the same way they were raised themselves.” She talks about the three different legal systems women must adhere to, religious, governmental, and tribal which can too often trump all official laws. She talks about the importance of deep relationships with other women, and how her own friendship with a distant cousin gave her courage and literally saved her life.

Read and weep. And then be inspired, energized, empowered to make the world just … in small, major, any, many ways.

To read further updates about Mukhtar Mai since the release of this memoir, check the New York Times news page.

Readers: Adult

Published: 2006 (United States)

Filed under: ..Adult Readers, .Memoir, .Nonfiction, Pakistani, South Asian Tagged: Betrayal, Civil rights, Family, Personal transformation, Politics

Via Prison Planet.com » Sci Tech

SPACE.com
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

While the U.S. Air Force is mum about the orbital whereabouts of its X-37B mini-space plane, a dedicated band of amateur skywatchers has got its cross-hairs on the spacecraft.

The unpiloted X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle 1 was lofted on April 22 atop an Atlas launcher. It is being flown under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.

In U.S. military tracking parlance, when the space plane reached orbit it became identified as Catalog Number 36514, 2010-015A, OTV-1 (USA 212). [Video: X-37B space plane spotted.]

From there it entered a cone of silence regarding any on-orbit duties.

Full story here.

[JURIST] A lawyer for ousted [JURIST report] Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] on Wednesday filed an appeal against an arrest warrant [JURIST report] issued Tuesday on charges of terrorism. Thaksin is accused of involvement in the the recent political violence [JURIST news archive] in Bangkok, as the figurehead of the pro-democracy protesters known as the red shirts [BBC backgrounder]. Thaksin’s lawyer was accompanied by two additional red shirt leaders [Bangkok Post report], who have sworn they will testify that Thaksin was not involved in any acts of terrorism if the court chooses to hear the appeal. The red shirts’ protests in the capital’s central commercial district paralyzed the country for the past two months, and Thaksin has been repeatedly accused of organizing and financing the campaign. The former prime minster was removed from power in 2006 by a military coup and has been living abroad in Cambodia where the government has refused to extradite [JURIST report] him to Thailand for criminal prosecution. The Thai government hopes that the official charge of terrorism will make foreign governments more malleable in their extradition policies.

The Thai government’s response to the recent conflict in Bangkok has been criticized by international human rights organizations. Last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] expressed concern [JURIST report] about the treatment of anti-government protesters detained during the Bangkok demonstrations. The organization chided the Thai government for enacting a “draconian” emergency decree giving Thai security forces broad power to arrest individuals without formal charges and hold them in secret detention. The decree, which lacks judicial oversight, also prevents detainees from having access to legal counsel or family members. Earlier this month, a Thai court sentenced 27 protesters to six months in prison for violating the emergency decree. Under the strict security law [JURIST report] adopted in anticipation of the protests, the red shirts initially faced up to a year in prison, but their confessions allowed the district court to commute their sentences [AFP report]. During their protests, the red shirts demanded that Prime Minster Vejjajiva Abhisit [BBC backgrounder] resign and called for new elections. The Thai government implemented a curfew [JURIST report] in Bangkok and other areas of the country in response to violence that erupted when the leader of the red shirts announced an end to the protests. The curfew remains in effect as the government tries to maintain order.

The U.S. shuttle Atlantis landed today in Florida and successfully completed its last mission to the International Space Station (ISS), after a quarter century of service.

Atlantis crossed the Florida Everglades to the north, through Lake Okeechobee before declining as planned at 08:48 hours local time at Kennedy Space Center National Aeronautics and Space (NASA).

The crew of Atlantis, made by the commander Ken Ham, pilot Tony Antonelli and mission specialists Michael Good, Garrett Reisman, Piers Sellers and Steve Bowen, served a 12-day mission.

Atlantis spent nearly 300 full days in orbit in its 32 missions and traveled 193 million miles.

Now only two other missions remain, one of Discovery scheduled for next September 16 and the other from Endeavour in November, unless NASA decides otherwise.

Related posts:

1. NASA: Space Shuttle Atlantis Last Mission
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3. NASA Space Shuttle Launched Today

It’s the stuff of a flea market find, or a hidden treasure in the attic. A pile of dusty film canisters in the basement of the Schenectady Museum & Suits-Bueche Planetarium has yielded some of the world’s oldest surviving radio broadcasts. The 20 shows were first heard on Schenectady radio station WGY between 1929 and 1931. One features a talk by GE founder Thomas Edison in a broadcast celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb. Another is a portion of a high school basketball game that’s believed to be the second oldest surviving sports broadcast. They were recorded on a long forgotten machine that GE developed in 1922 called a pallophotophone — after the Greek words for “shaking light sound” — in one of the earliest attempts to record sound on film. But there was only one catch with the great find: There weren’t any known pallophotophones in existence to play back the lost pieces of history. Enter the museum’s curator, Chris Hunter, and GE’s engineers, who together cracked the pallophotophone code.

Talk radio: GE founder Thomas Edison is seen here examining the quality of his motion picture film in 1912 in the library of his West Orange, NJ facility. Photo courtesy of Schenectady Museum.

When Chris came across the film canisters, he wasn’t quite sure what he had discovered. “There were just a lot of scribbles on the cans saying these were radio programs from the twenties,” Chris said.

He had been recruiting former GE engineer Jim Schneiter for the museum’s board and told him about the discovery. Jim then turned to Russ DeMuth, a GE Global Research Engineer, who jumped on the challenge and set out to build his own version of the pallophotophone by studing sketches of the original one designed by GE employee Charles Hoxie more than 80 years ago.

Russ gathered parts for his creation from eBay and elsewhere, all the time trying to figure out if it would actually work. “We didn’t know how these things were created,” Russ said. “We didn’t know whether this thing was going to work at all. We didn’t expect to hear anything.”

Déjà vu! : The recordings had stumped film preservation experts because they were made on 35mm sprocketless film, with each film containing a series of 8-10 parallel soundtracks. Russ’ machine, pictured above, uses modern motors and computer controls to recover the sound from the original film recordings.

But work it did, with the 80-year old recordings coming to life. On one broadcast is what is believed to be the oldest surviving recording of the NBC chimes. On another, the voices of Edison, Herbert Hoover and Henry Ford can be heard in the “Edison Light’s Golden Jubilee” broadcast of October 21, 1929. A portion featuring Edison is available below. At the time, GE commercialized the technology as the RCA Photophone, which was one of four competing technologies that ushered in the end of the silent movie era. The taping of the Edison broadcast in 1929 was part of ongoing tests with the technology.

At present, the museum is considering a number of options for the collection, including inventing a machine to play them for optimum quality. And there is a possibility the collection may become an exhibition at the museum, which owns 37 percent of the radio recordings made in the world before 1931.

Safe and sound: A piece of the pallophotophone film.

* Learn more about the Schenectady Museum
* Read more Global Research stories on GE Reports
* See GE’s innovation timeline

Este pasado fin de semana se puso a la venta el nuevo Alfa Romeo Giulietta y ya podemos calificar de éxito el número de ventas y reservas que este modelo ha obtenido. Recordemos que el Giulietta llega a un sector del mercado muy saturado tanto de modelos como de ofertas por lo que este resultado de ventas es muy destacable.

Durante el pasado fin de semana, entre reservas y ventas directas, se han vendido más de 3.000 unidades (no esta nada mal). Curiosamente, la carrocería de color blanco ha sido la más vendida, por encima del mítico color rojo de Alfa Romeo.

Sobre la motorización, la más elegida entre sus clientes, ha sido el motor diésel 1.6 JTD de 105 CV de potencia.

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A Volkswagen adquire mais uma empresa para seu grandioso grupo, dessa vez falamos da Italdesign, mais conhecida por Giugiaro, o sobrenome do fundador da empresa, Giorgetto Giugiaro. Foram vendidas 90% ds ações para a VW e não é nenhuma grande surpresa, uma vez que Giugiaro sempre esteve envolvido em parcerias com o grupo alemão.

Suas habilidades de design geraram grandes trabalhos, como o Palio do ano 2000 pela Fiat. Com mais esse reforço para a VW, ela dá mais um passo em seu plano de se tornar a maior montadora de carros do mundo até 2018.

O preço da aquisição não foi anunciado, mas segundo o Wall Street Journal de ontem (25), foi um custo “substancial”. Agora, a Italdesign será exclusivamente da Volkswagen. Quais serão as próximas novidades (entenda-se: modelos) para os próximos anos?

Via | Inside Line

Filed under: Minivan/Van, Sedan, Safety, Luxury

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has just announced that a total of three new Toyota vehicles have been given Top Safety Pick awards. Both the 2011 Toyota Avalon and 2011 Toyota Sienna were awarded the institute’s highest ratings in front, side, rollover and rear crash tests. The 2010 Lexus RX also nabbed a Top Safety Pick nod. All of the vehicles come with electronic stability control as standard equipment – another parameter for receiving the award.

Toyota’s Sienna earns the honor of being the first minivan to receive the Top Safety Pick since the IIHS added rollover data to its list of crash criteria in 2010. The news is likely to come as music to the ears of Toyota engineers and dealers, both of which have had to stand by and watch their brand’s quality and safety reputation erode under a hail of recalls. Thanks for the tip, Eddie!

[Source: Insurance Institute for Highway Safety]

Three Toyotas latest to earn IIHS Top Safety Picks originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 26 May 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via Prison Planet.com » Commentary

Bonnie Glaser
OilPrice.com
Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Despite the posturing of his regime, there are signs that Kim Jong-Il’s hold on North Korea may be slipping and international community must be ready.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is considered an international pariah in most nations, but he was welcomed with open arms in China May 3-7.  The visit underscored North Korea’s isolation: Kim’s last foreign visit in 2006 was also to China. Despite approving tough United Nations sanctions after Pyongyang’s second nuclear test, Beijing continues to provide energy and food assistance to the North that remains indispensible for the regime’s survival. Yet, even with China’s help, there are growing signs of economic and political volatility in the DPRK and the risks of instability—including regime collapse — cannot be ruled out.

In late 2009, the North’s leadership revalued the nation’s currency, causing severe inflation and popular unrest.  The regime then barred foreign currency and closed markets, eliminating vital sources of food and other necessities.  Kim suffered a stroke in 2008, but it remains to be seen whether plans to transfer power to his youngest and least experienced son can be carried out smoothly.  It cannot be excluded that the sinking of the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan is an outcome of internal succession politics — a move by a faction seeking to gain power, or even by the leadership itself, seeking to maintain a grip on the military during the transition.

It is premature to predict near-term regime collapse in North Korea, but it is not too early for major regional parties to plan for the effects of instability, potentially including massive refugee flows and unsecure nuclear weapons, materials, facilities, and knowhow that could be smuggled out of the North and into the hands of the highest bidder.  Responses to instability could include decisions by China, South Korea and the US to dispatch troops into North Korea to restore order and to locate and secure weapons of mass destruction facilities.  Absent advance coordination, these forces could come into conflict with each other.

Despite the obvious risks, the US has been unable to establish multilateral cooperation on a coordinated contingency response plan.  Bilateral planning has been stepped up with South Korea under the Lee Myung-bak administration, but China remains unwilling to discuss instability response with the US or the ROK.

Why is Beijing loath to reveal its likely plans in the event of North Korean instability? First, China harbors deep suspicions about US and ROK intentions, fearing that the allies may use instability in the North as a pretext to carry out South Korea-led reunification and to station US troops close to China’s border.  Second, Beijing worries that instability response coordination with the US and South Korea would sour relations with Pyongyang.

Finally, China may be seeking to preserve the “strategic ambiguity” of its response in order to deter all sides, including Pyongyang, from taking actions that would destabilize regional security.

Beijing is not alone in its hesitancy.  Seoul has long been reluctant to coordinate contingency plans with any nation besides the US, worrying that increased transparency may open the door to great-power meddling.  The ROK is particularly anxious about China, which it believes might obstruct efforts to reunify the Korean Peninsula under democratic and free market principles.

The US cannot afford to let great power politics stand in the way of planning an effective response to North Korean instability; the risks are simply too great.  Instead, it should seek to create favorable conditions for the primary parties, namely itself, South Korea, and China, to discuss likely responses to North Korean instability, while keeping its ally Japan informed.

All three governments should be prepared to offer reassurances to reduce the likelihood of miscalculation in the event of instability in North Korea.  For example, the US could assure that it would work with the United Nations; would coordinate with China to secure WMD facilities, materials, and expertise; and would not station troops north of the 38th parallel after stabilization and reconstruction operations are completed.  At the same time, the allies should seek assurances from Beijing that it would not intervene in North Korea’s domestic political situation to prop up a failing regime and would not obstruct ROK reunification efforts.  Moreover, all three nations should agree that their armies would not engage each other in the North, and that no nation would exploit instability in the DPRK as an excuse to threaten any other state.

Despite forecasts of North Korea’s collapse since the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994, the country is still intact.  But the risk of North Korean instability remains real.  Every day that Kim Jong-il’s health continues to deteriorate without clear succession arrangements makes political instability after his death or debilitation all the more likely.  And, every day that the regime continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles or to pursue destabilizing actions makes the effects of instability all the more dangerous.

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