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Yesterday the Food and Drug Administration gave its OK to Provenge, a new treatment for prostate cancer. It’s not a “vaccine” in the old-fashioned sense, but it could be a way to make the immune system wake up and take notice to the presence of cancer.

In a standard vaccination, a person receives an attenuated or dead version of a microorganism to spur them to produce antibodies (against, for example, the virus that causes smallpox). Provenge is not that—it doesn’t prevent prostate cancer—but it is a variation on the theme. To oversimplify quite a bit: with Provenge vaccination begins with a blood draw. Blood is then sent to the lab, where technicians extract immune cells known as antigen presenting cells (APCs) from the sample. From here, Dendreon combines the immune cells with proteins that are prevalent on the surface of prostate cancer cells. An immune boosting substance is also added into the mix [TIME]. That awakens the APCs, which doctors then inject back into the bloodstream. And once there, the APCs put white blood cells on high alert against cancer.

Seattle biotech firm Dendreon developed the treatment aimed at lowering the number of men in the United States killed by prostate cancer each year, which presently stands at 27,000. But Provenge was a long time coming even by medical standards. Dendreon’s low point came in 2007. Expecting FDA approval, the company was instead sent back to the drawing board. Angry prostate-cancer patients and advocates rallied outside FDA headquarters. The setback added another three years to the 15 Dendreon already had spent on Provenge. The amount of money plowed into the project is now close to $750 million [Seattle Times].

In the most recent tests, Provenge increased survival from a quarter of patients to a third, and boosted survival by four months compared to the placebo control group. However, the Seattle Times concludes, these kinds of immune treatments might prove most useful in patients who’ve already received cancer treatment and need protection from relapse.

Approval has finally come for Provenge, though still with caution: With clearance yesterday, Dendreon said the FDA will require it to monitor 1,500 patients given Provenge for increased risk of strokes seen in studies [BusinessWeek]. And it will take many years to study the long-term effects.

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80beats: The Mutations That Kill: 1st Cancer Genomes Sequenced

Image: iStockphoto

For every positive, there’s a negative. For every orange, there’s an apple. For every Starsky, a Hutch. That’s why someone made these ying and yang bunk beds. I like it. My back, however, won’t be too happy. [Born Rich] More »

The Associated Press is reporting that the FBI is investigating whether Massey Energy, owner of the West Virginia coal mine where 29 workers were killed April 5, should be held criminally liable for the accident.

A federal law enforcement official says the FBI has interviewed nearly two dozen current and former employees of Massey Energy in a criminal probe of the West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 men.

Massey is reportedly offering $3 million in cash to the family of each of the victims. But that offer, of course, is meant to preclude civil suits. The FBI’s criminal investigation is another thing altogether.

This is an inters ting development.

First it was SWAT teams, and now it’s the DOJ. This is not your typical environmental situation.

————–

WASHINGTON, April 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that he is dispatching a team of attorneys from multiple divisions within the Justice Department to New Orleans to meet with the U.S. Attorney and response teams and to monitor the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The British Petroleum oil spill has already cost lives and created a major environmental incident,” said Attorney General Holder. “The Justice Department stands ready to make available every resource at our disposal to vigorously enforce the laws that protect the people who work and reside near the Gulf, the wildlife, the environment and the American taxpayers.”

The team will be led by Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division, and Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division, and will include relevant United States Attorneys. The combined group from the Department plans to make a site visit and meet with representatives from federal agencies working on the response.

A coordinated response continues with a comprehensive oil well intervention and spill-response plan following the April 22, 2010 sinking of the Transocean Deepwater Horizon drilling rig 130 miles southeast of New Orleans. More than 1,000 personnel from federal, state and local agencies are involved in the response effort both on and offshore, with additional resources being mobilized as needed.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice

Join the conversation about this story »

The gang’s all here: Just a few more weeks until a brigade of Manolos and Cosmos descend on the box office once again. Sex And The City 2 – the sequel to 2008’s hit chick flick — opens in theaters on May 27 and the latest promo poster for the eagerly-awaited film hit the blogosphere Friday.

Don’t get too excited — like its predecessors, the poster looks like something snatched straight out of the Little Shop of Photoshop Horrors.

But on a more positive note, this poster features the entire Fab Foursome: Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte. The first two teasers only highlighted Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie, so it’s nice to see the other ladies getting in on the action, too.

Andrew seems very pleased by the progress we’re making with the auto bailout.  I’m not seeing it.  Am I really supposed to get excited by the astonishing revelation that when you pour tens of billions of dollars into a couple of failed companies, some of that money will end up in someone’s pocket, somewhere?  Maybe it’s the slightly-above 50% capacity utilization at our dying giants that should put a smile on my face and a song in my heart?  After all, it’s up from a trough of 36% last June, and only 20-30% below the normal level, when they weren’t so profitable either.  Perhaps I should just be happy to know that GM has taken some of the government money we gave it and “repaid” its multi-billion dollar loan by giving our own money back to us, while still losing billions more.

In answer to Andrew’s question–“That auto restructuring last year was a disaster, wasn’t it?”–well, yes, it was.  The Congressional Budget Office believes that it will ultimately cost the taxpayers $50 billion–as much or more than the rest of TARP put together.  For that, we saved less than 400,000 jobs at GM and Chrysler.  We could have given each of the autoworkers $100,000 to go start over somewhere else, and still saved money on the deal.

(The parts suppliers, you say?  This rather assumes that no more cars would be manufactured in the US. If you want to make the case for structural adjustment loans while the suppliers retool, go ahead, but you don’t keep two massive manufacturing operations running at a loss because well, it would be awfully hard on the folks that sell them ball bearings.)

It was bad enough that we had to bail out the banks, but at least you could make a reasonable argument that we had to–we know what happens when you allow widespread bank runs, and its generally pretty disastrous for the citizenry.  But you know what happens when a large auto manufacturer fails?  Its employees and customers have to do business somewhere else. 

It was sheer political theater, and incredibly corrosive to public trust in our government institutions, as well as a gross misallocation of economic resources.  The role of the state is to prevent human suffering, not prop up failing enterprises that happen to have politically well-connected employees.  I am genuinely struggling to come up with what principled argument Andrew might be making in his head for what has always struck me as a pretty blatant handout to a powerful Democratic interest group.

(Nav Image Credit: JustMcCollum (Read Profile!)/flickr)

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) may be the largest handset maker in the world, and lay claim to 40 percent of the smartphone market, but investors are unhappy that the economic recovery seems to be passing them by.

The unrest could result in a replacement for Nokia’s CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in the near future, Reuters reports. Several analysts believe that a new leader would allay investors’ concerns.

Last week any uneasiness about the company’s future gained momentum when Nokia said it was delaying its next-generation operating system. And this week, its chances didn’t improve after another well-funded powerhouse was formed after HP (NYSE: HPQ) purchased Palm (NSDQ: PALM).

To be sure, there’s no hard evidence that a management change is occurring anytime soon. But it does seem to be a sentiment shared among several analysts.

Alan B. Lancz, president of wealth management firm Alan B. Lancz & Associates, which holds Nokia stock, told Reuters: “Symbian 3 really concerns me. If next quarter we see these delays and declines in margins—the management will feel more and more pressure.”  Independently, Gartner’s Carolina Milanesi, said a management change: “feels like it would please the investors.”

Related

• Nokia Slashes Prices After Delaying New Smartphone OS
• Nokia Sales Up, But Symbian Delay Blunts iPhone Counter-Attack

Yesterday, I made a case for the necessity of good hip mobility in, well, everyone. Athletes will get faster, stronger, and more powerful. Lifters will be able to lift more weight and squat heavier without rounding the lower back. Regular folks will spare their lower back from the stress of chronic sitting and bending over to pick things up. Extensive hip mobility will improve your love life (seriously, think about it – hip thrust, range of motion!), your deadlift, your Grok squat, and your posture. If you own a set of hips, the ability to traverse their full range of motion will improve your life in many ways. They are the fulcrum upon which most activity depends. Treat them well, keep them well lubed and tuned up, and you will reap the benefits and reduce your chance of injury. That much is pretty clear by now.

So, how do you do it? How do you get hip mobility, and how do you maintain it?

Before you launch into a series of drills and exercises, it’s important to understand exactly what I mean by hip mobility. I briefly went over it yesterday, but here’s a short exercise you can do right now to get the feeling for your hips.

Stand up (or remain standing if you’ve taken my advice to heart and set up a standup workstation).

Pick an object on the ground, or place one there. A shoe, a hat, a piece of paper, anything will work.

Now, pick up the object. But wait – don’t squat down to pick it up, and don’t just bend over at the waist. Erase the word “bend” from your vocabulary. You aren’t bending; you’re reaching back with your hips.

Stick your butt backwards, as if you were reaching for a stool to sit down. All the while, maintain a tight lumbar spine. Keep your back straight, in other words. Don’t round your back. Keep your legs nearly straight, too, just enough to unlock your knees.

Stick your hips back until you can grab the object. Grab it, then come back up by reversing the hip motion. Thrust your hips forward, as if you were performing a NSFW activity, Um, yeah. Thrust your hips forward by pulling against the ground with your heels. Squeeze your glutes for good measure, too. Feel that pull in your hamstrings and glute muscles as you draw power from your heels planted firmly against the ground?

That’s how you use your hips, and half the battle is won. Simply visualizing this usage of your hips will get you pretty far and improve your hip mobility (because now you know what using your hips feels like), but you can go even further. You can’t have too much hip mobility.

Soft Tissue Work

Next, get your hands on a foam roller and a tennis ball, baseball, golf ball, or a lacrosse ball. You’re going to do some soft tissue work to loosen up the muscles that are keeping your hips tight. Unless you’ve got a live in masseuse, these are essential items for any active person anyway, and they’re cheap, so there’s no excuse not to have them. Do these after a workout, in the morning, or, if you’re super tight and in a ton of pain, every day.

Foam roll your IT band. (VIDEO) Tight hips often correlate with tight iliotibial bands, those infamous strips of connective tissue that run along the outside of our upper thighs. Start at your hip and roll down to just above your knee, pausing on any painful spots. Try slightly different angles to hit different aspects of the band. Fifteen rolls per leg.

Foam roll your hip adductors (inner thighs). (VIDEO) You’ll sort of have to straddle the end of the roller to get your legs in position. It may look a bit obscene, but that’s okay. Fifteen rolls per leg.

Foam roll your hamstrings. If you desire a bit more pressure, do one leg at a time while keeping the off leg in the air.

Perform a piriformis myofascial release with the ball. (VIDEO) Follow the directions in the video. Targeting the piriformis can be tricky, and this is the most reliable method I’ve found.

(Note: this isn’t really hip mobility, but it’s related, and I recall a commenter asking for help with piriformis pain. Try this. )

Otherwise, just generally foam roll the entire area – quads, hamstrings – and look for really tight spots which you can target with the ball.

Mobility Drills

These are classic mobility drills, essentially designed to explore the full range of motion in the hips. When you’re working these drills, think about starting out small. Instead of big circles right away, make controlled circles. Just make sure you’re actively using your hips in a controlled manner.

Front-back leg swings. (VIDEO) Keeping your leg straight, hold on to a stable surface and swing your leg from front to back. Generate the power from your hips – from where the leg meets the hip socket – rather than from your thighs. To ensure hip engagement, keep your lumbar spine tight and still. If you find your lower back moving with each swing, swing a little shorter. Fifteen each leg.

Side to side leg swings (VIDEO) are similar, only performed from side to side. The urge to rotate your torso will be even greater with these, so be firm and lead with the hips, not the pelvis. Fifteen each leg.

Squat stands. (VIDEO) Take a rather wide stance, touch your toes while keeping your legs straight, drop into a low squat position (elbows on the inside of your knees, knees shoved out and tracking over your toes) with a strong lumbar curve, throw your hands overhead, and come up. Make sure you maintain that lumbar curve and never round your back, because a rounded back means tension is taken off your hips. Repeat ten times.

Fire hydrants. (VIDEO). On your hands and knees, make big (big – the video doesn’t really convey the range of motion) circles in the air with your knee by rotating at the hip. Do ten in each direction for each leg. These can be performed while walking upright (VIDEO), walking backward, (VIDEO) and briskly in reverse (VIDEO).

Reverse lunge with twist. (VIDEO) Take a big step backward (as far as you can). Drop to one knee and rotate your torso to the opposite side. Ten, each leg.

Mountain climbers. Instead of going quickly and turning it into a workout, try to get your feet flat-footed on the ground, outside of your hands – and hold that position for a second or two before switching feet. Really feel the stretch. Make sure you maintain torso and hip position; don’t go flailing around with your whole body. See the third exercise in this video for an example (also shows fire hydrants, as well as some other great hip mobility stuff). Do ten of these for each leg.

Hip thrusts. Sit on the ground, with your upper back resting on a bench, your feet on the floor and your knees up. Plant your feet firmly and thrust your hips forward by squeezing your glutes, creating a sort of bridge with your torso. Kinda like this, only without the absurd amount of weight. Light to no weight is also effective.

Hip mobility is nothing new. Trainers are increasingly aware of its importance, and there are some fantastic programs out there. Joe DeFranco’s “Agile Eight” hip mobility warm-up is a notable – and extremely effective – example. Consisting of eight basic drills, the Agile Eight hits all the basics of hip mobility. It’s perfect for maintenance, and it’s designed for daily use by experienced to semi-experienced athletes (or weekend warriors). It takes about seven or eight minutes to complete, perfect for the guy or gal who wants to stay mobile without turning it into a workout in and of itself. StrongLifts has another great dynamic stretch system for hip mobility that’s worth checking out.

Exercises and Activities That Support (and Require) Hip Mobility

Once you’re comfortable with your level of hip engagement, try some of these exercises. You’ll be amazed at how crucial the hips are in pretty much everything.

But first a word of warning: Some of these are advanced moves. If you don’t execute these with proper form you are putting yourself at risk of injury. My advice is to start light, use a coach for guidance and remember that this is more about form than it is about weight.

Deadlifts? (VIDEO) You know, that exercise in which you move more weight than any other exercise? That’s all hip extension, the most basic, powerful manifestation of strength we have at our disposal.

Next, try some box jumps. (VIDEO) A bench will work, or even just a basic vertical leap to see how high you can touch on the wall. Only this time, pay close attention to your hips when you jump. What do you notice about jumping? It’s just an explosive hip extension! Steps and stairs are great for beginners.

Sprinting or running? Each stride is a single-legged hip extension. Try skip-sprinting (VIDEO), only explode with mini hip extensions on each step.

Kettlebell swings? (VIDEO) Hip snap/extension.

Throwing a punch? (VIDEO) Plant your foot, generate power and throw your body into it with a hip rotation.

My favorite way to engage the hips and nail the hip extension has always been the Romanian deadlift (VIDEO). After leaving the endurance world, the RDL was my breakthrough hip engagement exercise. It was eye-opening, because it let me know just how stiff and tight my hips were after decades of running with a limited range of motion (the marathoner’s plod). If you’re tight back there, it’ll do the same for you. It’s easier than the classic deadlift for newbies to grasp, and you use lower weights, making it fairly safe. And because it’s a mostly straight-legged move, it’s pure hip extension, whereas the classic deadlift is also about knee extension. The RDL is basically the drill mentioned above, only holding a barbell. Reach back with the hips, maintain lumbar curve/straight back, keep your legs barely unlocked, and lower the bar just past the knees. Come back up by extending/thrusting the hips forward, pulling your heels against the floor, and making sure to maintain skin-bar contact. You can go even lower with the bar as long as you maintain your lumbar curve. That’s the purest, simplest test of hip mobility. Most people off the street, if they can even grasp the nuance between hip extension and lower back extension, won’t be able to lower the bar lower than the knees unless they lose the straight legs and opt for bended knees. You know why? They suffer from tight hips that have never been used correctly.

Picking a Program

The good news is that there are many paths to fixing hip mobility. There are hundreds of drills, exercises, and stretches – both static and dynamic – that will help.

The bad news is that there are many paths to fixing hip mobility, almost too many. Faced with an array of choices, some people freeze up. If that’s you, fear not. I’m not an expert on mobility, but I’ve been there and I have an idea or two about what works best. I’ve suffered from limited hip mobility in the past and I learned how to rectify that unfortunate state. Here’s hoping you’re able to do the same.

If you’re incredibly tight, spend a week or two fixing the problem. Try all the drills, do all the soft tissue work, and once you’re confident in your ability to mobilize the hips, give the Romanian deadlifts a shot. If you just need to maintain mobility, pick three or four of the drills and do them as a warm-up along with the soft tissue work post workout three or four times a week. Once you’re aware of how important hip mobility is, you’ll never slack off again.

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Related posts:

1. The Importance of Mobility: The Hips
2. How to Maintain Muscle While Losing Weight
3. 10 Primal Plyos for the Upper Body

Rumors of Sony integrating Intel hardware and Google software into a television are heating up once again, thanks to the WSJ and Bloomberg. Sony is apparently moving forward with integrating a custom Atom processor (usually found in netbooks) and a special version of Android (codenamed Dragonpoint) in TV’s.

Why? The purpose of this venture is running Android-based software on Sony TV’s and set-top boxes, which could enable new functionalities and create a new software development ecosystem. Currently, the “app” world is pretty much limited to mobile devices. The possibilities are endless – a web browser for your TV, for example. Android integration into your TV could also enable a Google-styled search service, which allows users to access and search programming from the Internet and satellite (and possibly cable) providers.

Logitech, a juggernaut in computer peripherals, may also be on board with a keyboard that can also work as a remote control, according to Bloomberg.

The news may possibly become official as early as next month at the Google I/O conference on May 19/20th, according to “people familiar with the matter.”

Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Videos, Honda, UK

Honda has resurrected The Impossible Dream once more. Hands down one of our favorite car spots of all time, the original ad aired in the UK way back in 2005 and featured a smattering of models from the Japanese company’s past. From lowly scooters and the lovable S800 to the company’s early racing bikes and F1 cars, the ad was a highlight reel of all of which the company has to be proud.

Things have changed quite a bit for Honda in five years. It’s walked away from its F1 efforts, abandoned the S2000 to the sands of time and brought the brunt of its focus to odd-looking people movers. You won’t find any of that in The Impossible Dream II, though. Instead, Honda has removed any reference to Formula One and clipped the old hot-air balloon at the end in favor of products like the new Honda Jet, CR-Z hybrid and the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. Even Asimo the robot makes a cameo and the ending features a hot tub powered by a Honda generator.

Watching the spot, which is about 30 seconds longer than the original and concludes with a new line from NPR superstar Garrison Keillor, we can’t help but hope Honda will find a way to return to its former place as an automotive innovator capable of producing excellent pieces of engineering with a focus on driver involvement. An impossible dream? We hope not. Hit the jump to see the new spot.

[Source: Honda via YouTube]

Continue reading Honda updates Impossible Dream ad with CR-Z, Asimo and hot tub

Honda updates Impossible Dream ad with CR-Z, Asimo and hot tub originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“What if we aren’t talking about a jobless recovery? What if we’re talking about the emergence of a part-time lifestyle?”

That’s the concern of many Americans forced into part-time work by the downturn. It’s also the question Julie Ruvolo at Solvate wants to answer. Solvate is a basically a work agency for freelancers. It’s a little bit matchmaking (setting up independent workers with companies looking for part-time talent) a little bit agent/middleman (handling payments, guaranteeing quality and skimming a bit off the top of their workers’ hourly wage) and very necessary.

Long before the Great Recession decimated
payrolls and forced millions of employees into part-time positions,
freelancing in America was on the rise. In a 2009 New York Times Magazine
piece “The Self-Employment Depression,” Emily Bazelon wrote that between 1995 and 2005, the number of self-employed independent contractors
grew by 27 percent to almost nine million workers. This phenomenon is especially prevalent
in New York City, self-employment accounted for two thirds of the
job growth between 1975 and 2007, according to the Chicago Fed. The recession has only expedited the frenzy. In June 2009
a Daily Beast/Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates poll found that “fully
one-third of Americans in our survey are now working either freelance
or two jobs.”

That’s where Solvate comes in. There are two challenges to shopping a freelancer to a company, Ruvolo said. The first is how to connect companies to the right person, and vice versa. This is trickier problem than you might imagine. Let’s say I want to get a payroll job with The Atlantic. I’ll apply by saying I’m a journalist who can blog. But what if I’m a freelancer looking for work at The Atlantic, and Microsoft, and General Motors communications, and Pepsi advertising? That’s a lot of skills to advertise, so Solvate indexes 10-20 skills of each independent worker to help them find the right jobs.

The second challenge is logistical: how do you formalize the freelancing process? An easy, attractive website helps companies search for talent by price and skills. Solvate sets up the interview, handles the billing and the contract, and provides an interface where workers can log their time so employers can “check in” on their part-timers even if they’re thousands of miles away.

But Solvate doesn’t just want to make freelancing easier. They also want to make freelancing better. Independent workers live outside the rules that govern payroll jobs. They don’t qualify for unemployment insurance when their gig ends. They don’t get work benefits or COBRA coverage. Wage theft laws don’t apply equally, even though more than 40% of freelancers reported not being paid by at least one employer last year.

Before freelancers get protection from the public sector, they need help from the private sector. “We’re on a mission to create trusted relationships between talent and companies,” Ruvolo said.

We know that HP is hot-to-trot to get webOS up and running on a tablet/slate device and obviously webOS is going to continue to run on smartphones, but this article on Forbes has us thinking: is HP thinking bigger?

"Smartphones are a part of this, but this is really about the Web operating system," Shane Robison, HP’s chief strategy and technology officer, told Forbes. "It’s a change in our business model to a connected device model." HP, he said, is assuming a world in which almost everything needs at least the potential to connect to the Internet.

Long-time followers of mobility may remember that 3Com (former Palm owner and soon-to-be fellow HP-owned subsidiary) had just such a vision with the Audrey. It didn’t work then (the dot-com bust didn’t help) and in general the dream of every device in your house getting an internet connection has always been of the pipe-variety. Perhaps HP thinks that time is coming?

We’re not arguing that webOS should be slapped on any old thing – but it does raise an interesting question for us: what, at its core, is webOS? If it’s a great multitasking smartphone OS, well, then shoehorning it into other devices isn’t going to work so well. But what if HP buys into Palm’s argument that webOS is, at its core, the best way to take the web and modern, HTML5 standards and turn it into a touch-friendly operating system? If so, then HP could be making a play to make webOS the best way to put "the web" on devices.

It very similar to the ideas behind Google’s Chrome OS, but the direction that Palm has already said they are taking with the future of webOS sounds much more robust than Chrome OS.

Toasters? Bad idea. But HP is definitely thinking outside the smartphone box:

In his call to analysts Wednesday, Bradley identified vertical markets like health care and education in which devices might soon appear, sold through HP’s partners.

What do you think is the essence of webOS? Do you think that HP could help make it the de-facto way to get the web on internet-connected devices, supplanting Android and WinCE?

Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups (Pillsbury)

Oh no! News organizations everywhere are reporting a backlash against the winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups earned a cool $1 million and guest appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show for their creator, Sue Compton. The New Jersey mom combined refrigerated sugar cookie dough baked in muffin tins with chocolate, jam and ice cream for the kind of treat that, well, any 6-year-old could make.

And there’s the problem. Dissenters are arguing the face that these sugar balls don’t involve any actual cooking.

The San Jose Mercury News has a particularly amusing recounting of the kerfuffle.

I’m thinking: People. Get a life. It’s the Pillsbury Bake-Off.

I’m also thinking: Mmmm….mini ice cream cookie cups….

What are you thinking?

MINI ICE CREAM COOKIE CUPS

Prep Time: 20 Min

Total Time: 45 Min

Makes: 24 tartlets

INGREDIENTS:

1 package (16 oz) refrigerated sugar cookies (24 cookies)

4 teaspoons sugar

1/3 cup walnuts, finely …

GUANTANAMO BAY — Sometime during this hearing, Omar Khadr’s lawyers intend to call as a witness someone identified only as “Interrogator #1.” Interrogator #1, his lawyers told Col. Patrick Parrish, the military judge here, will testify to personally threatening Khadr with rape during Khadr’s detention at Bagram Air Field in 2002. But before Interrogator #1 ever says a word in Parrish’s proceedings, the prosecution got to work undermining the credibility of his account.

Navy Capt. John Murphy, one of the prosecutors, asked FBI Special Agent Robert Fuller, who interrogated Khadr six times at Bagram in October 2002, if Fuller ever heard Khadr discuss “rape, being shipped to Egypt” or anything of the sort. ”No, I did not,” Fuller replied.

Did Khadr have the opportunity to raise such threats with Fuller? “Certainly at the beginning or end of interviews or even during interviews,” Fuller said. “But we typically asked him at the end of interviews well-being questions.”

It is unknown why Interrogator #1 plans on potentially incriminate himself on Khadr’s behalf. The defense claims that another pseudonymous intelligence operative, known as Interrogator #3, materially misrepresented a report that would have corroborated Interrogator #1’s account and discovered that misrepresentation in a Justice Department inspector general’s report.

Unless you don’t have a TV, you’ve probably seen the new ads for General Motors where GM CEO Ed Whitacre touts the amazing rebound of the car manufacturer, and how they repaid their “government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.” Yeah, well that might not be exactly true.

Points out Daniel Howes in the Detroit News:

What he doesn’t tell viewers is that a) the repayment of $4.7 billion came from taxpayer funds advanced to GM and b) that the feds still hold 61 percent of GM — valued at something like $43 billion.

The ad has also caught the attention of those on Capitol Hill. Yesterday, Rep. Darrell Issa wrote a letter to Whitacre expressing his misgivings:

We are concerned that GM, under your leadership, has come dangerously close to committing fraud, and that you might have colluded with the United States Treasury to deceive the American public.. If someone relies on your statements in the future… your false statements may expose GM to millions of dollars in damages, further reducing the value of the taxpayer-owned company.

But an unnamed GM exec defended the TV spot to the Detroit News. “We do have to walk a fine line,” said the executive. “You’re right: In the ad, we did not say we repaid the loans but we still owe $40 billion…. We didn’t say anything false.”

Do you think the ads are intentionally misleading?

GM ad glosses over the reality [Detroit News]

Almost exactly one month ago, Verizon added Push-to-talk support to the BlackBerry Tour! Hurray! Unfortunately, it cost $5 extra a month. Un-hurray.

It looks like Verizon might be having a bit of trouble getting people to sign up — or, at least, they want to kickstart the number of people using it. They just dropped the price down to an always-welcome amount: free. But you’ve gotta act (somewhat) fast.

In an e-mail sent to Tour owners today, Verizon says that they’re making Push-to-talk “Free for life” (in other words, as long as you keep up your contract) for all BlackBerry Tour owners that add the option by June 30th. So what happens after that? Will Verizon have a big enough Tour push-to-talk users in place to be able to sell the feature to newcomers, or will they just keep it free? It’s anyone’s guess at this point — but if I was a Tour owner, I wouldn’t risk waiting to find out.

[Via CrackBerry]

Jodie Sweetin — the now two-time divorcee who grew up before our eyes playing Stephanie Tanner on the ’80s & ’90s sitcom Full House –– is expecting her second child with a man she’s been dating for just a few months, The National Enquirer spills in its May 10 edition.

Jodie, 28, has blamed her recurrent addiction to meth and alcohol for fueling her divorce from second husband Cody Herpin. Now clean and sober, Sweetin’s managed to rebound with Hollywood DJ Morty Coyle in a whirlwind romance that has friends of the blonde concerned about her future.

“She split with Cody and moved in with her parents,” a family friend divulges. “She slipped back into the Hollywood club scene where she met Morty, quickly fell in love — and got pregnant. Now they’re talking about getting married.”

Morty and Jodie will welcome their first child together in July — much to the chagrin of Sweetin’s set designer ex Cody. He has a 2-year-old daughter, Zoie, with the former child star and although the exes have successfully managed to share custody in peace, Herpin tells The Enquirer that Jodie lacks the skills to remain sober while coping with motherhood.

As long as she’s off drugs and taking good care of Zoie, we’re not sure that what Jodie does with her personal life is any of her ex’s concern, but let’s hear him out….

“I’m totally disgusted with Jodie right now,” spits Cody, who just learned of Jodie’s relationship with Morty and her subsequent pregnancy a few weeks ago. “Raising a child takes a lot of time and patience. Jodie hasn’t put in nearly enough time with our daughter — and now she’s having another child! I find it hard to believe that Jodie will keep upher sobriety with the choices she keeps making,” he added. “To have a child with somebody is no small thing. Hopefully, Morty realizes having a child with Jodie is a full-time job. That’s something I had to learn the hard way.”