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France seems rather confused about the whole Internet thing and it doesn’t look like it has any idea of how to handle all the changes and new challenges it brings. On the one hand, it seems determined to put a stop to the horrible file-sharing plague that has taken over the country’s Internet users much like in the rest of the world. T… (read more)

New Storm Brewing On the Climate Front
Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones

Obama Pledges to Campaign for HC & Dems
Perry Bacon, Washington Post
With unemployment hovering in the double digits and House Democrats eager to move on to the politically crucial task of job creation, President Obama pledged Thursday to publicly champion the health-care legislation that in the past year has consumed much of their attention and often made them targets.Speaking at the House Democrats' annual retreat, Obama sought to reassure the lawmakers as they enter a political climate that has already inspired some Democrats to retire rather than seek reelection in November. “I'll be out there waging a great campaign from one end of the…

Averting Chaos in Haiti

A Colossal Miscalculation on Health Care
Charlie Cook, National Journal
Sign In nationaljournal.com > National Journal Magazine > Cook Report Sponsored Links About National Journal MagazineSubscriptions | Contact Us Cover Story Table ofContents Contents ByTopic ColumnsBrownsteinCookCrookRauchStokesSchneiderTaylor Jr. RegularFeaturesHotline ExtraInside WashingtonInsiders PollK Street CorridorPeopleThe Week on the Hill Print Print …

Let the Next Crisis Go to Waste
Will Wilkinson, The Week

Brawn GP and Graham-London have released two new and exclusive limited-edition watches, the Tourbillograph Trackmaster G-BGP-001 and the Silverstone Trackmaster Year One. The first is available in two versions (black and white or black and yellow), limited to 100 pieces each.

On the other hand, the Silverstone Trackmaster Year One, available in two versions (black or white dial)features a part of the Brawn GP World Championship winning cars, with the disc coming from a distinct part of the car…. (read more)

ComScore provides the third search market report in as many days and the data, unsurprisingly, is different from all the other analytics firms, not only in absolute numbers, which was to be expected, but also in the trends it reveals. The report shows that Google dominated in December and even saw a very slight rise in market share but it… (read more)

British manufacturer Triumph Motorcycles have introduced new colour options for two of the company’s most popular machines: a striking Scorched Yellow color option to accentuate the Street Triple’s aggressive, stripped down looks and an all-black version of the popular 60’s styled T100.

Triumph are renown for offering eye-catching colours on their streetfigher machines and the new Scorched Yellow option joins Tornado Red, Fusion White and Jet Black in the current range.

Ever since its launc… (read more)

After the company reported its fifth year of record growth, Audi Australia’s managing director Joerg Hofmann announced he will leave looking for a new challenge. Hofmann will move to Germany, as managing director of AUDI AG’s Retail Network, based at the company’s headquarters in Ingolstadt.

Hofmann has had several important achievements within the company since he first took the managing director in 2004, including the opening of the world’s largest Audi Terminal , known as the Audi Lighthouse… (read more)

Each month I update the Pocket Change Portfolio (PCP). The table below reconciles the PCP from beginning of period to end of period for November 2009, Year-To-Date (2009) and Life-To-Date. The Portfolio Returns line provides the calculated return for the three displayed periods.

Online Cash Receipts are the collected earnings from my online endeavors. Most of which is advertising on the my various blogs. The year-to-date $147.40 Online Expenses relates to registering 3 domains (DividendsValue.com, Dividends4Life.com and TheDiv-Net.com) and paying my annual hosting fee. The Interest Income line is interest earned on cash balances in an ING account I set up for the PCP. The Gain/(Loss) line is for market changes to the PCP (realized and unrealized). December Dividends of $76.24 included:

• $8.11 Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond (BIV)
• $9.44 from Vanguard Long-Term Bond ETF (BLV)
• $8.82 Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)
• $16.80 BP plc (BP)
• $8.71 Emerson Electric Co. (EMR)
• $15.34 Consolidated Edison Inc. (ED)
• $9.02 The Coca-Cola Company (KO)

The portfolio was up in December, for the year and since its inception. Online earnings in December once again surpassed the $3,000 mark. A large portion of the increase is related to the strong interest in D4L-Premium Services. The premium service has continued grow each month. Traffic on Dividend Value set a record in December, breaking the previous record set in October 2009.

During the month of December, I purchased the following securities:

• 34 shares McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) providing $74.80 in annual dividend earnings
• 16 shares Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) providing $31.36 in annual dividend earnings
• 40 shares PowerShares Emerging Markets Debt (PCY) providing $64.40 in annual dividend earnings

Including the above December purchases, my annual PCP dividend income is now $688.68 at the current dividend rates. I ended the month with $3,395.78 in cash, enough to purchase two or three stocks in January. Through December, I have purchased 13 stocks this year, including at least one in the last eight consecutive months. I continue to believe the current cash balance and recent earnings will support the purchase of at least one stock each month.

My PCP holdings are always available by selecting the Holdings option from the menu in the header. The next PCP update will be mid-February.

(Photo: sanja gjenero)

Related Posts:

• 10 Best U.S. Dividend Stocks
• Protecting Your Dollars With Foreign Currency
• Optimizing Your Asset Allocation
• 3 Simple Steps For A Successful Retirement
• The Best Dividend Stocks In The World

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The Spanish circuit at Jerez has been awarded by the International Road Racing Teams Association (IRTA) with the 26th annual Best Grand Prix award. Jerez hosted the third round of the 2009 MotoGP season in May, when Valentino Rossi took his first win of the season.

"Jerez has always been a fantastic location for the Grand Prix, a great racetrack with the huge crowds giving the event a unique atmosphere, one which truly highlights the passion and excitement of MotoGP. It also has the accol… (read more)

Written communication has long suffered from losing much of the non-verbal communication that a face-to-face talk expresses. This has only gotten worse with the proliferation of online communication. People have adapted, leading to the invention and adoption of the wonderful emoticons that have made instant messaging, email, not to mention online me… (read more)

TweetSwitch has come up with a nice idea in re-routing and re-transmitting tweets to the user’s desktop IM client. When direct access to Twitter is blocked or unavailable, the startup’s newly launched service will help users send and receive status updates through a simple IM chat window.

Currently in alpha testing, the service seems to work f… (read more)