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Former state Democratic chairman John Droney says the State Supreme Court’s unanimous decision preventing Susan Bysiewicz from running for attorney general is a huge blow to her political career.

“Life, as she knows it, is over,” Droney told Capitol Watch. “It’s an amazing story of self-inflicted wounds.”

Droney predicted that Bysiewicz would have trouble running again for her current job as Secretary of the State – even though some believe that will happen.

“I don’t think Denise Merrill and Jonathan Harris would like that,” Droney said, referring to the two leading Democratic legislators who are seeking to fill Bysiewicz’s seat.

After the ruling, Bysiewicz said, “I am tremendously disappointed with the court’s decision overturning Judge Sheldon’s ruling, and I strongly disagree with the decision both on the eligibility and the constitutionality issue. However, I do respect the rule of law and will abide by it.”

Grassley Signs On To Estate Tax Bill That Could Exempt His Entire Fortune While Affecting Few Others
President Bush’s massive tax cuts for the rich included a provision that repealed the estate tax in 2010. The tax has yet to be reinstated, though the House passed a bill late last year to set the tax at the 2009 level. Under the 2009 rate, estates worth less than $3.5 million pay no […]

President Bush’s massive tax cuts for the rich included a provision that repealed the estate tax in 2010. The tax has yet to be reinstated, though the House passed a bill late last year to set the tax at the 2009 level. Under the 2009 rate, estates worth less than $3.5 million pay no taxes at all, while larger estates pay 45 percent of anything above that threshold. As a bill to reinstate the estate tax is negotiated in the Senate, some senators have been pushing to cut this tax on millionaires to 35 percent, while raising the exemption to $5 million.

Today, the National Journal reported that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) signed on to the plan, which could represent an enormous tax break for his family. Grassley is worth between $2.1 and $5.2 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, so his entire estate could be exempted under a $5 million exemption.

Moreover, Grassley’s proposed tax cut would affect few families other than his own. Under the 2009 rate, 99.8 percent of estates owe no estate tax at all. If these levels were made permanent, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out that “[o]nly three percent of taxes owed” would be from estates that are, like Grassley’s, worth less than $5 million. The vast majority of current estate tax revenue comes from the “extremely wealthy,” with 62.5 percent of revenue coming from estates worth more than $20 million.

Beyond this, the cut would cost $60 to $80 billion in lost revenue, which would have to be offset with spending cuts. As the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo noted, it’s a huge waste to spend $60-80 billion in order to help the 0.2 percent of households that pay estate taxes while we have soaring deficits and high unemployment.

Rep. Weiner goes after Goldline and its ?unholy alliance? with Glenn Beck.
One of the consequences of the successful effort to persuade large corporations to stop running ads on Fox News host Glenn Beck’s TV and radio programs is that the right-wing “rodeo clown” has been left with only small companies advertising gimmicky products like faulty “survival” seed banks. 125 advertisers have abandoned him so far. […]

One of the consequences of the successful effort to persuade large corporations to stop running ads on Fox News host Glenn Beck’s TV and radio programs is that the right-wing “rodeo clown” has been left with only small companies advertising gimmicky products like faulty “survival” seed banks. 125 advertisers have abandoned him so far. One of Beck’s remaining and most reliable sponsors is Goldline, “which has made its name profiting — with the help of conservative talkers — off fees for buying and selling gold against public anxiety.” Media Matters has documented how Beck and other conservative pundits frequently “plug gold” as a hedge against supposed economic collapse, while simultaneously profiting from ads run by companies like Goldline that sell the metal. Now, Politico’s Ben Smith reports that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is “going after” Goldline and its right-wing pundit backers:

A Weiner aide forwards his [press] advisory, headed, “‘Goldline’ Rips Off Consumers, Profits Off Public Fears, Likely Violates Federal Law.”

“The company has formed an unholy alliance with conservative pundits to drive a false narrative and play off public fears in order to sell its products”, says the release.

While it’s unclear what Weiner has planned, Smith reports that Goldline is girding for a fight against Weiner’s attack on “Goldline International and Glenn Beck.” The company has made top officials available for comment, and sent out its own press release saying, “We are not sure what exactly Weiner will be saying but we do know that it will not be favorable to either Goldline or any of the conservative personalities that support Goldline.”

You’re looking at the first exclusive images of what we expect to become the Personal Water Craft V 3.0 – it’s the Green Samba. It has the same straight line 65 mph performance of the fastest 260 bhp sit-down PWCs, combined with handling and agility far beyond those of a stand-up PWC. The biggest benefit though, is that the Green Samba uses twin direct drive electric propulsion pods (unit pictured bottom left), so it doesn’t directly deliver any hydrocarbons, CO2 or NO2 into delicate marine environments. Equally as important as the lack of noxious gases, the Green Samba is also completely silent, removing one of the greatest causes for complaint against PWCs and no doubt offering respite for those creatures with extremely delicate hearing which live on and under the water. A working prototype of the carbon fiber construction Green Samba will be on the water for testing purposes in Q3, 2010. The pictured action shots (bottom center and bottom right) of the Samba are the most recent development of the internal combustion Carbon Samba we first wrote up this time last year. ..
Continue Reading The Green Samba – the first viable electric Personal Water Craft

Tags: Electric,
PWC,
Samba

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Ahmadinejad & Lula Expose Obama’s Hapless Diplomacy

China, the US, and a New World Order
Richard Williamson, The American
The global financial crisis has telescoped shifts in the world order, especially for a rising China.For many years, the major strategic question regarding China has been whether, as it grows in economic, political, and military might, it will embrace the post–World War II order: the treaties, multilateral institutions, and norms developed largely with United States leadership. The answer is no. China will not adapt to the existing global 

Holder Tightens Grip on Intel Agencies
Jed Babbin, RealClearPolitics
Attorney General Eric Holder has tightened his grip on our intelligence agencies, requiring them to get Justice Department permission to release classified information to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, according to Senate sources.Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo), Ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and three Senate staffers working for other members have recently asked the Director of National Intelligence for information on the interrogation of the failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shazad. (Some of questions may have been directed at other…

No, You Can’t Keep Your Health Plan
Scott Gottlieb, Wall Street Journal
President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated “floor” on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their…

Confused Voters Want Revenge and Results
David Corn, Politics Daily
Voters are confused. Especially independent voters. Sorry, this is not a very Jeffersonian sentiment, but it seems that many voters this year are nurturing two contradictory sentiments. They want Washington to work — which is natural in a time of economic trouble. They also want gridlock — that is, a distribution of power in Washington that is likely to lead to stalled government.Recent elections have demonstrated popular frustration with Washington: Republican and Democratic incumbents have been booted. And the politerati are closely watching Tuesday's primaries to assess the …

If you weren’t quite up to installing the leaked Android 2.1 update for the Sprint HTC Hero, fair not — it’s now all official and everything on Sprint’s Web site, sort of. It’s listed as being released today on Sprint’s support page, though the download link is notably absent still. Note that the upgrade will wipe your phone, so make sure all your important data is synced up somewhere.

Now, does anybody know if and when the Hero will be upgraded to Froyo? (Yeah, we went there.) Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

Update: HTC has the link to the download here.

There’s a lot wrong with the world that we need to address.  The Gulf of Mexico is covered in oil, Greece’s economy is doing a mighty fine job of wreaking havoc with securities exchanges the world over, and apparently dogs with amazing talents are being denied raisins.

In light of all that, HERE’S A FEATURE PIECE ON CELEBRITIES THAT DRINK TOO MUCH!  (Thanks to COED Magazine).

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Philippines’ billiards masters’ Francisco Bustamante and Lee Vann Corteza started with a bang in the 2010 US Open 10-ball championship in Las Vegas. Bustamante defeated Neil Cummins (9-0), while Corteza won against Tony Royles (9-6). Both already hit hard in two separate titles and it looks like they are hungry for more. Ten Filipinos are battling it out for the championship. “Corteza took off far from Tony Royles from the start, his determination snapped Royles in the end,” said spokesman Ramon Mistica.

High caliber billiard players who won their first game were Ko Pin-yi and Kuo Po-cheng of Taiwan, Daryl Peach and Karl Boyes of Great Britain, Marcus Chamat of Sweden, Tony Drago from Malta, Marco Tschudi of Switzerland and the legendary Earl Strickland and John Schmidt of the USA.

Pairings as of Tuesday were Dennis Orcollo against Raj Hundal of India; Roberto Gomez head to head with Imram Majid of Britain; Jose Parica against Sarah Rousey of the USA; Ronnie Alcano versus Bill Stock from the USA; Warren Kiamco opposing PJ Massicote; and Efren Reyes versus Bobby Weimar of the USA.

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Owners of smartphones get excited when word arrives the phone’s software has a big, fat update coming. It’s always a good thing to get the latest and greatest software for the smartphone, keeping it up to date. There’s nothing that can damper that good feeling; except having to repurchase software that the update wipes out. That’s the warning from T-Mobile to owners applying the ROM update just released. Those who have purchased the full version of games after playing the demo version preinstalled on the HD2 will “need to re-purchase them at standard cost following the software update.”

The update forces a master reset of the phone and no mechanism was put in place to determine if customers had purchased the full game(s). That’s a drastic solution — just repurchase the games. Those with Blockbuster movie rentals will find them gone after the update too, and it’s recommended you watch all movies prior to applying the update. You’ll have to download those big files again if you don’t.

(via Engadget Mobile)

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d): To Win In the Mobile Market, Focus On Consumers

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Taking your blood pressure is easy with the lightweight and convenient Omron HEM-432C Manual Inflation Blood Pressure Monitor . This monitor comes equipped with a standard adult-sized cuff that fits arms nine-to-13 inches in circumference. Simply wrap the cuff around your arm and squeeze the bulb to begin inflation. In a few seconds your blood pressure and pulse readings are displayed on the large digital panel. Omron’s monitors are clinically proven for accuracy so you can use the HEM-432C to track your blood pressure and pulse progress as your work towards a healthier lifestyle. The Omron HEM-432C delivers accurate, clinically-proven blood pressure readings in the comfort of your own home. To take an accurate reading, first position the marker so it is centered on the inside of your arm and aligned with your middle finger. Next, place your arm on a table so the cuff is positioned at the same level as your heart.Instructions for Manual Upper Arm Blood Pressure Monitors There are several easy steps to taking your blood pressure with this monitor. First of all, avoid eating, smoking, and exercising for at least 30 minutes before taking a measurement. Remove tight-fitting clothing from your upper arm, and si

View Omron HEM-432C Manual Inflation Blood Pressure Monitor Details

Materials: Groland Butcher Block Island

Description: When we moved into our condo, the one not so great feature was the tiny master bathroom – 45 sq. ft. total! In order to shoehorn in a 2 sink vanity (and not break the bank in doing it), we decided to make our own.
(1) After assembly of the butcher block island, we cut two sink holes in the top. This was no small feat since the top is a real butcher block about 2 inches thick!

(2) We stained the whole piece w/clear lacquer to protect it from bathroom moisture;
(3) Spray painted side of butcher block and lattice shelf (for a li’l pop);
(4) We hand-tiled the whole butcher block top with li’l iridescent glass tiles (which match the shower accent tile);
(5) Installed two drop-in stainless steel sinks and single lever/hole faucets.
(6) Had a plumber hook up a T-line junction from the one existing water line/sink drain and voila!

We had our own custom 48″ 2 sink spa style vanity!

~ Mel Jenkins, Los Angeles

NVIDIA’s already thrown its weight behind 3D gaming, and we all know Nintendo’s got something exciting lined up soon—but if you speak to Ubisoft, 3D gaming will be so popular, by 2012 half the games will be 3D-enabled. More »










Ubisoft – Games – Video game – Nintendo – Console Platforms

Gartner have released their Q1 2010 figures for smartphone sales, and unsurprisingly Windows Mobile has continued to lose market share. What is surprising is how well the numbers have held up, with sales between Q1 2009 and Q1 2010 being virtually the same, despite the OS basically being end of life’d at Mobile World Congress  in February this year.

Of course the smartphone market did grow nearly 50% YoY, which may account for some of those Windows Mobile sales, and of course excellent flagship devices such as the HTC HD2 would have helped.

Windows Mobile market share now stands at 6.8%, well below Android, and there is a strong sense of the OS being phased out, despite Microsoft’s stated intent to keep it hanging around as an enterprise operating system. Windows Phone 7 is still around 3-6 months away, which means its pretty likely sales numbers will continue to tank.

Readers will therefore forgive us if we keep our eyes focussed on Windows Phone 7 and its fortunes, because it’s likely by Q1 2011 Windows Mobile sales will be measured in thousands rather than millions.

A little titbit of note is that Gartner claims HTC sales of 2.6 million, while Windows Mobile sales are 3.7 million.  I guess HTC does not sell 80% of Windows Mobile handsets after all…

Via Engadget.com

by Julian Ku

Last week, President Obama submitted the Treaty with Russia on Measures for the Further Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms to the U.S. Senate.  Reading it is tough going, given all the technical terminology. A couple of not very profound observation:

1) Is this Treaty self-executing?  For the many pro-self execution folks, the answer should be yes (look at the Supremacy Clause!).  But would that make any legal or practical sense? A modern court would almost certainly say no, and I don’t think most folks would disagree with that result.

2) This is the first major treaty that the Administration has submitted to the Senate. Indeed, it is only the fourth treaty submitted since January 20, 2009, and two of those were protocols to tax conventions, which barely count.  I know folks at State are busy, but what’s the holdup?  Where is, say, The Hague Convention on the Choice of Courts, the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea?  I’m not exactly complaining, but I wonder why the Administration didn’t submit those treaties (or at least one of those treaties) right out of the box back in 2009. It is only going to get harder from here.  Does anyone think Senator Rand Paul is going to vote for any of these?

Adding on to the total of $50 billion in government aid that General Motors received through its bankruptcy process last year, the Obama administration proposed today a trust fund of more than $800 million to pay for the cleanup of closed GM sites in 14 states.

Lead of the White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers, Ed Montgomery, said that the fund would help clean up nearly 90 properties shuttered and abandoned by GM in bankruptcy.

Montgomery said that the $800 million represents the largest environmental and economic development effort for former manufacturing sites.

Most of the money will go to clean up and raze or rehabilitate dozens of vacant manufacturing facilities and offices left by GM. The proposal would allocate $536 million for the cleanup of properties, and about $300 million to help states and communities pay for property taxes, demolition costs, plant security and other expenses.

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)

Based on the overnight global markets and the futures, the market looks set for another rocky day, though for all we know the Dow will end up triple digits.

So before you get started for the day, take a look at the following charts to get a bigger picture look of what’s been happening in the world markets.

Gold has been breaking to all-time highs, though in recent days it’s been selling off, as investors opt for US dollars.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Palladium had been the hottest industrial metal up until a couple of days ago. Since then it’s been hammered.

Source: Stockcharts.com

The Thai market has been falling, but not nearly as far as you might expect given the ugly pictures out of Bangkok.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Wal-Mart had been falling, but just yesterday it spiked on flight to safety.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Goldman Sachs has now almost completely roundtripped, though interestin is that its peak was in October.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Citigroup has been hammered. It’s not just G

Source: Stockcharts.com

Yuppie grocery chain Whole Foods has been hot, and has hardly fallen at all.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Caterpillar, a major seller of earth-moving machines to the developing world, is finally starting to creak lower.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Copper has been getting crushed, and appears to be in total freefall.

Source: Stockcharts.com

Same with oil.

Source: Stockcharts.com

And the Shanghai composite is the ugliest of all.

Source: Stockcharts.com

The TED spread — a measure of bank conffidence — is above 30.

Site: Bloomberg.com

Join the conversation about this story »

WASHINGTON–Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a college student had a deep interest in Socialism and wrote her Princeton undergraduate thesis about the Socialist movement in New York and why it never endured. The thesis and much more are now on file with the Senate Judiciary Committee in advance of her confirmation hearings sometimes this summer. Also: Kagan has a $1.7 net worth, most of her assets are in cash, she has no substantial investment, no credit card debt, no car, no mortgage. These details and more about Kagan’s answers to Senate questions are in a column I co-wrote here.

Yahoo Inc. is bound for expansion when it acquires the Associated Content, a local-cost media that support more than 300,000 freelancers. Doing so widens Yahoo’s reach in terms of news coverage supplemented with more localized feeds from independent contributions not covered by traditional media. What is also advantageous is the advertisement that will go hand in hand in between news. Yahoo, says the Associated Press, is tailing behind Google and Facebook in online advertisement revenue. It hopes to get a larger audience share this time.

Founder Luke Beatty calls the Associated Content the people’s media company since it has attracted around 16 million users in a span of five years, beating Time with only 14 million visits. AOL is said to do a similar act using two local news Seed.com and Patch.com.

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The consensus of analysts surveyed by professor Robert Shiller’s MacroMarkets is that house prices will soon resume their steady upward climb.

Of course, the vast majority of the analysts in the survey didn’t see a crash coming (ever) in 2007. So tuck this away in the “for what it’s worth” file.

(Also for what it’s worth, price behavior like this after a bubble would be unusual. Usually after a bubble bursts, prices fall way below trend for a while. If this forecast is right, they won’t even have fallen back to trend, let alone below it).

Release:

New Survey by MacroMarkets Reveals Housing Recovery Trend Widely Expected by 2011
 
Madison, NJ, May 19, 2010 – Today MacroMarkets LLC announced that, according to its new
monthly survey, the onset of price recovery in U.S. single family real estate is widely expected by
2011, and home prices will increase by more than 12.4% between 2010 and the end of 2014. 
The survey also revealed that home prices nationwide are expected to have risen 4.9% in the 12-
month period ended March 2010, but fallen 0.4% during the most recent quarterly period
measured1.  These conclusions reflect an average of the 92 responses received during the first
half of this month from an expert panel of more than one hundred economists, housing analysts,
investment and market strategists.
 
 “The survey results are important because they represent a consensus view among experts with
rich and diverse knowledge.  In the May survey they see only the slightest hint of a downdraft in
home prices this year, and after that a respectable uptrend in prices, well ahead of the likely
inflation rate,” said Robert Shiller, MacroMarkets co-founder and Chief Economist.  “However,
there were a number of panelists more or less sanguine than average, some significantly so, and
this reflects continuing volatility and risk in the U.S. housing market.  The expectations within this
first survey were provided following the end of the homebuyer tax credit and of the Federal
Reserve’s $1.25 trillion mortgage-backed securities purchase program. It will be interesting to
see how panelist views evolve in future months.”
 
Despite its importance, concrete information and authoritative opinion regarding expected future
home prices has tended to be sporadic and diffuse.  This survey is intended as one means to
address this dearth of useful information. The MacroMarkets Home Price Expectations Survey is
based upon the projected path of the S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index.  This
index is updated quarterly by Standard & Poor’s.  

Terry Loebs, MacroMarkets Managing Director and co-developer of the survey, said that the
company plans to conduct the study every month.  Loebs remarked, “According to the Federal
Reserve, the aggregate value of real estate owned by households at the end of 2009 was $16.6
trillion.  This asset class is still larger than U.S.-listed stocks in aggregate market capitalization
terms.  The scale of the U.S. housing market, coupled with the powerful wealth effects of
prevailing home equity levels, warrant close attention to future home prices.  For example, if the
cumulative 12.4% improvement in aggregate national home value follows the path that this
panel’s year-by-year averages are suggesting, consumer balance sheets will improve by $2.1
trillion in less than five years.”  
 
More details concerning the May 2010 MacroMarkets Home Price Expectations Survey, including
a table that lists the panelists who provided responses this month, individual panelist
expectations, and survey summary statistics can be found at www.macromarkets.com.

Join the conversation about this story »

These new renderings show the Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet, whose debut was planned for 2012 along with the new Golf 7, although the cabrio version is based on the current Golf 6. It will have a classic fabric roof and possibly a central rollbar which harks back to the first Golf of 1974 and the third generation of 1991.

The Golf Cabriolet will appear in the range below the Eos which will have a new generation in 2013 representing the coupé-cabriolet model of the new Passat. The new Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet could even debut next year, avoiding any possibility that it could already be out-of-date when it hits the market. Bringing forward the date of its presentation also leaves more room for the Golf 7, planned for 2012-2013.

New Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet renderings

Source | Theophilus Chin

No time to fuck around.  Here we go:

“Dear Mama” by 2Pac Shakur

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” by Deep Blue Something (this is actually just a horrible song to accompany anything, but it has a particularly heinous effect on my libido)

“You’ve Got a Friend in Me” by Randy Newman (off of the Toy Story Soundtrack. However “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” by Elton John for The Lion King is one of the absolute best songs to get a lapdance to. Weird.)

“Brick” by Ben Folds Five

“The Monorail Song” from The Simpsons

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” by Authors Unknown

“Losing My Religion” by R.E.M.

“Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)” by Green Day

“Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls (off the City of Angels Soundtrack)

“Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton

“Cats in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin

“Don’t Know Why” by Norah Jones

“Witch Doctor” by Alvin and the Chipmunks

“Candle in the Wind ‘97″ by Elton John

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” by William Joel

“Buffalo Soldier” by Bob Marley

“That’s What Friends Are For” by Dionne Warwick and Friends

“What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes

“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens

“O-o-h Child” by The Five Stairsteps

“La Bamba” by Richie Valens

“Streets of Philadelphia” by Bruce Srpingsteen

“Fire and Rain” by James Taylor

“End of the Road” by Boyz II Men

“All My Life” by KC and Jojo

“Under Pressure” by Queen with David Bowie

“Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum

“Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants

“Just a Bill” from Schoolhouse Rock

“Cars” by Gary Numan

“Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera

Please add additional suggestions in the comments section.

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