There’s a neat paper in Nature today suggesting that astrocytes, part of the brain’s hidden majority, plays a big role in the formation of memories. The Scientist has details. For background, check out my September Discover column.
Blog
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Dark Matter of the Brain, Continued | The Loom
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Substituto do Chevrolet Classic é apresentado na China

Nesse começo de semana a GM da China apresentou a nova geração do modelo Sail, que vai tomar lugar do antigo modelo.O modelo Sail é apenas uma reestilização do Chevrolet Classic vendido no mercado brasileiro. Agora com algumas modificações para o mercado chinês, como a grade dianteira que agora aumentou seu tamanho.
De baixo do capô o modelo vai contar com duas opções de motorização que é de 1.2 litros e 1.4 litros, além de contar com freios ABS e EBD, airbag duplo e teto solar.
Com todos esses equipamentos e designer renovado, o modelo vai chegar no mercado chinês com preço inicial equivalente a R$ 15 mil, muito barato para a media de preço do Brasil.
Fonte: G1
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Punxsutawney Phil Is Going To Text His Prediction This Year [Cellphones]
I know there is a tradition to uphold, and I enjoyed the movie, but groundhog texting? Do they even have thumbs?Of course, the idea is to get the word out to the millions of crazy people out there that rely on a talking groundhog to predict the weather. If you are one of those people, text “Groundhog” to 247365. You will receive a reply on February 2nd. And, the good news is that Phil is fluent in both “groundhog-ese” and English, so you will have no problem absorbing his wisdom. [Yahoo via Fark]
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Google May Find Out That Consumers Like To Buy Cellphones The Old Fashioned Way
I knew there was something wrong with Google’s plan the second I left its sunny Mountain View, Calif. headquarters to go to the airport.
Google (NSDQ: GOOG) had just released the Nexus One—the first so-called Google Phone that it would sell direct to consumers at Google.com/phone. And, when the cab driver found out that I had one, he matched the day’s excitement by saying he would buy one that night. He even took a picture with his aging BlackBerry Curve to mark the occasion.
However, like most customers, he assumed he could go to the nearest T-Mobile store to pick one up. That’s exactly Google’s challenge. While Google pledges to open up the wireless industry, it may actually end up fighting consumers who are stuck with the way it operates today. Many, especially in the U.S., have become hardwired to buy phones as part of their service plans, and in return, expect to pay less than what the devices cost at retail.
While the physical phone has gotten fairly good reviews, the dizzying amount of headlines since the Jan. 5 launch are more focused on the way Google does business. Consumers want to know who they can call for support. Is it Google, HTC or T-Mobile? (Actually, it’s Google, which promises to get back to you in a 48-hour window if you email them). Further, Google has revealed it will charge a termination fee of its own—so a consumer could conceivably get hit twice if they choose to return the phone, and cancel their contract with T-Mobile. It may cost up to $550!
More information released today doesn’t provide much hope that Google’s new model is working—at least not in the first week. Flurry, a mobile analytics firm, looked at its data to estimate how many Nexus Ones have been sold already. By analyzing the usage of Android applications, Flurry estimates that 20,000 Nexus Ones were sold. That tracks poorly compared to the myTouch3G, which sold up to 60,000, and the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid, which sold 250,000 in the first week.
So, does that mean it’s a lousy phone? Absolutely not. As we’ve written before, the Nexus One is the best phone running the best implementation of Google Android. And although we still believe that after using it for a week, it’s also not anything revolutionary—the phone just works well.
The real story is the way Google wants to change the value chain. For years, U.S. consumers have been taught to buy a phone from the carrier, which provides both a service contract and an equipment subsidy. The phone can be purchased at a store, online, or even through a big retailer, like Best Buy or Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN)—but the transaction is very much the same. Consumers also have learned the hard way about early-termination fees—if they leave their contract early, they will have to pay to cancel it. While the mindset is shifting a little bit as smartphones become more popular, heavy subsidies and carrier attachment is still being reinforced, especially with the iPhone, which AT&T (NYSE: T)—and only AT&T—is estimated to sell for $325 below retail value.
At the end of the day, consumers will only change their behavior if they perceive a better value somewhere else, and right now it’s not clear what you get when you buy a phone directly from Google. In fact, it pretty much sounds like business as usual, except that you’ll get charged twice if you leave early.
At the press conference last week, Google made it clear that it believes it cannot innovate quickly enough when the carrier is involved. Mario Queiroz, Google’s VP of product management said: “To help Android adapt to the needs of consumers like you and me, we will be applying engineering resources to select products with our partners— that’s going to continue to be our model. With those partners, we’ve increased the pace and rate of innovation. The volume, variety and quality of Android phones have exceeded our most optimistic expectations. We want to do more.” That’s where the idea for the Nexus One and Google.com/phone came from, Queiroz said. “One of the questions we asked ourselves: What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market which will help us showcase the great software technology that we are working on in Google.”
To be sure, Google will be adding more devices from more manufacturers to its online store. In the future, some of them will likely work on multiple carriers, unlike the Nexus One which is limited to T-Mobile. Of course, Google will support its efforts through online ads—a business it obviously knows a lot about. In a WSJ report, Google defended its actions, by saying the Equipment Rental Fee is a way for the company to recoup the subsidy it gives to contract customers. “This is standard practice for third-party resellers of T-Mobile and other operators.”
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1UP Livestream with Star Trek Online
Time: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 5 p.m. PST
Location: Watch the embedded video player above.Questions: Submit your question(s) via our Twitter account.
We skipped Game Night yesterday, but wanted an excuse to screw around a bit with Star Trek Online.
Make sure to check back next Tuesday at 5 p.m. PST, and welcome your thoughts and comments on our Twitter account. A recorded version of the livestream will go up later this week on GameVideos. For past Game Night episodes check out 1UP’s Game Night hub page.
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XYZ show
A new political satire uses puppets to poke fun at Kenyan politicians. -
Hands on: Boxee beta is brilliant, still not quite stable
This month Boxee announced the availability of its public beta release, a major new version of the popular media center software. The update brings significant improvements to the user experience and delivers an impressive degree of aesthetic refinement, but the program lacks stability and will need more work before it is ready to conquer the living room.
Boxee is a multimedia player application that is designed primarily to be used on home theater PC (HTPC) systems. It has a television-friendly user interface that can be seen easily from a couch and operated with either a remote control or conventional input devices. It is based on the open source XBMC media center application. One of the distinguishing features of Boxee is that it has an integrated social networking service that allows users to share what they are watching and see recommendations based on what their friends are watching. The program also has extensive support for playing audio and video content from popular streaming media Web services, including Hulu.
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Primeira imagem real do novo Fiat Uno

A imagem não foi divulgada oficialmente, mais administradores de sites conseguiram uma foto real do modelo com fontes ligadas a marca.O novo Fiat Uno vai ser lançado no mercado brasileiro neste semestre. Ainda não se sabe, se o modelo vai receber alguma alteração no seu preço, mais tudo indica que sim pois o modelo recebeu uma grande mudança no seu designer.
Como dá para ver na imagem, o modelo vai adotar o para-choque do Punto EV e faróis de parábolas que irão invadir o capô.
Que o modelo é diferente do que estamos acostumado, isso não temos duvidas, basta saber se o modelo irá suprir a necessidade do consumidor que compra o Uno, que é espaço, resistência e preço baixo.
Fonte: Blog Auto
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Stream Netflix to Your Wii – Soon

So the big news today seemed to be this. Netflix and Nintendo have come up with a solution that will allow you to stream Netflix streaming movies and shows to your Wii Game console. It will work much like the PS3 streaming and requires that you obtain a disk from Netflix (you have to be a Netflix member to do this) before your Wii game machine can handle the streaming.
You can get your Wii in the line by heading to this Netflix page. This is to order the disk which won’t be available until sometime this Spring.
Why does this matter? Well for many who already have this capability with their PS3, XBox360 or one of the multitudes of Blu-ray and streaming devices it won’t. But remember that there are a ton of folks out there with nothing more than a Wii machine connected to their TV. So ultimately this expands Netflix’s reach to more households and give Nintendo a feature to add to their sales pitch.
So despite the fact that I have multiple ways to access Netflix Watch Now movies and shows already thanks to my Blu-ray player, SageTV, laptops etc etc, I still ordered one for the Wii. Hey, it’s free so why not.
Signup Page for the Wii/Netflix Disk
Official Netflix Press Release
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Controversial Badger Cull to Combat TB in Cattle
Despite opposition, the Welsh government has given the green-light for a limited badger cull in an effort to combat bovine tuberculosis (TB) in Wales. The slaughter is expected to kill “around 1000” protected badgers.
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Nova Iguaçu abre o primeiro mercado popular climatizado do país
Os ambulantes que atualmente trabalham na Praça José Hipólito Oliveira, no Centro de Nova Iguaçu, vão ganhar um novo centro de comercialização. A partir desta quinta-feira (14/01) eles começam a ocupar o espaço do Mercado Popular Central de Nova Iguaçu, o primeiro climatizado do país. A área de 1,7 mil metros quadrados será refrigerada por 12 aparelhos de 80 mil BTUs. O espaço será composto de 259 boxes e três banheiros, sendo um para facilitar o acesso dos portadores de necessidades especiais.Os vendedores cadastrados pela prefeitura poderão vender frutas, verduras, brinquedos, acessórios, roupas, calçados, utensílios domésticos, artesanato e produtos de informática. Segundo o gerente de Gestão Urbana da Secretaria Municipal das Cidades, Luiz Carlos Cardoso, o intuito é fazer em Nova Iguaçu um espaço como nos moldes do Ver-o-Peso, de Belém do Pará, e do mercado popular de Salvador, que fazem parte da cultura local. Não será permitida a comercialização de produtos falsificados, avisa Luiz Carlos.
Com a saída dos camelôs, a Praça José Hipólito Oliveira, que foi totalmente descaracterizada pela ocupação, receberá obras de urbanização para voltar a ser uma área de lazer. O Mercado Popular Central de Nova Iguaçu fica na Avenida Nilo Peçanha, nº 234, Centro.
Por prefeitura de Nova iguaçu.
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Pirates make away with $450 million in App Store booty?
Filed under: Apple Financial, App Store, Jailbreak/pwnage
24/7WallSt. reports that Apple and third-party developers have lost approximately $450 million in revenue from App Store piracy since the store opened in July of 2008. Out of this, $140 million of this counts as lost revenue for Apple – a huge chunk of the $500 – $700 million in revenue the App Store has generated for the company so far – with the remaining $310 million revenue loss falling on developers.Their analysis is based on several assumptions, however, any one of which could easily be wide of the mark. They argue that with three billion downloads on the App Store (not an assumption), 17% of those are paid apps (assumption), with a piracy rate of 75% (assumption), and the number of pirate downloads at 1.53 billion. If the average price of a paid app is $3 (assumption), then there’s $459 billion in losses. Assuming that only about 10% of the pirates who downloaded apps would have actually bought them, that makes the total $459 million. Still with us?
According to 24/7WallSt.’s analysis, around 10% of iPhone/iPod touch users have chosen to jailbreak their devices, and it’s only about 40% of these jailbroken users who are responsible for this torrent (ahem) of piracy. This means that, according to 24/7WallSt.’s numbers, out of a rough total of 75 million worldwide iPhones and iPod touches, a mere 3 million devices are responsible for the 1.53 billion apps 24/7WallSt. is claiming have been downloaded illegally.
For those of you calculating along at home, that works out to an average of 510 pirated apps per device. That snap you just heard was suspension of disbelief.
[Via MacRumors]
There’s no question that App Store piracy is a huge problem, especially with some developers noting that as much as 90% of downloads of their apps are pirated versions. But 24/7WallSt.’s numbers seem outlandish to say the least. Analyzing how much money a company would have made if not for the dirty, dirty pirates is always a guessing game at best and economic voodoo at worst. Although 24/7WallSt. claims that Apple doesn’t see this lost revenue as a priority because the App Store essentially exists only to sell iPhones and iPod touches, it’s hard to believe that even a company as stuffed with cash as Apple would simply look the other way and twiddle its thumbs over $140 million in lost revenue.
Developers: how bad is App Store piracy, really? What have your experiences been? Let us know in the comments.
TUAWPirates make away with $450 million in App Store booty? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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VMWare, Microsoft and the Battle for the Business Market
VMware’s acquisition of Zimbra from Yahoo points to a new form of partnership in the tech word. It’s one that could define the big winners in the battle for a major piece of the enterprise market.The acquisition shows how VMware is seeking to do more than provide virtualization technology. By packaging Zimbra’s popular, open-source collaboration software, VMware can provide a more enhanced service, one that combines virtualization technology with email and calendar applications.
It rings similar to Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard’s alliance announced today that will package Microsoft technology on HP servers.
These new alliances point to the undeniable trend that the enterprise is moving full-throttle into cloud computing and virtualization.
It could not be more exemplified than in the news from Gartner, which predicts that by 2012, 20% of businesses will not own any IT assets at all, relying entirely on cloud computing services. The shift will cause a major change in how an IT group is managed, what hardware is purchased and the type of staff a company will require to manage its cloud environment.
With virtualization, the enterprise can be more efficient in how it doles out IT resources. For example, an IT manager can define with much greater precision what software is used in the enterprise. Server loads can be reduced as one server can be partitioned into multiple virtual ones.
By itself, VMWare provides a robust service, and Zimbra has an established market position in the Linux and Mac OS communities. With the acquisition, VMWare can provide customers an alternative to Microsoft Exchange.
For Microsoft’s part, the partnership with HP means that Microsoft Office can be packaged with Windows Azure, the cloud service offering from Microsoft. That can provide a reason for enterprise customers to stay with Microsoft and its ever-popular productivity software.
VMWare and Microsoft are becoming major competitors. With such a huge market at stake, we expect that more services will be packaged into cloud computing and virtualization environments.
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Australian “Pontiac” G8 given extended run?
Filed under: Sedan, Truck, Wagon, Pontiac, Holden, Australia
Holden VE Commodore SS V-Series Special Edition – Click above for high-res image galleryWe kind of have the Aussies to thank for it, so we guess it’s all right that they get to keep it… but we can still be jealous. Four months ago General Motors’ Down-Under division unveiled the Holden VE Commodore SS V-Series Special Edition, essentially a Commodore with the front end from the late Pontiac G8, minus the Pontiac badges.
The old company line was that they would be made until the parts ran out. Then buyers started tripping over themselves to buy the sedan at a $1,000 Australian premium ($923 U.S.). The new company line is that Holden will offer the G8 look “indefinitely,” for the same premium. Dealers have also been ordering Pontiac and G8 badges to make the no-longer-limited-edition sedans closer to the real Yankee thing. The package will remain available on the three models in the line: Pontiac G8 SS-V ute, sedan, and wagon, all of which come with a manual transmission. Have a look at Australian fortune in the high-res gallery below, and excuse us while we drown our frustrations with the nearest hammer.
[Source: CarPoint]
Australian “Pontiac” G8 given extended run? originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple “Experts” Will Make Geniuses Feel Like Dunces [Apple]
We’ve teased that Apple Geniuses might not be the brightest in the bunch, but now Apple itself might make them feel stupid. The company is supposedly adding “experts” who’ll roam retail stores and answer support questions without need for appointments.From the sounds of it, this new job position translates as a sales floor roaming Genius who’ll “serve as a resource that answers questions for customers.” These boys and gals will also have a “general knowledge of the whole product range.” In essence, they seem like some kind of combination of sales and Genius Bar staff, and their positions are supposedly very coveted. According to Apple Insider, we should see these folks crowding Red Zones—Apple retail store sales floors—within the next few weeks.
I still don’t understand how the term “expert” itself ranks above a “genius,” but that’s all job titles and semantics until someone gets called a dunce again. [Apple Insider]
Update: According to an Apple retail employee, the Experts are considered something closer to “super salesmen” than to super Geniuses. Guess the Geniuses won’t feel to slighted then.
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Tour Down Under 2010
Tour Down Under starts sunday and I can’t wait.The weather looks like being perfect now that the heat wave has passed.
Armstrong has arrived and has announced on his Twitter page
that anyone who wants to go for a ride with him should meet him down at
Glenelg at 9am on Saturday.How cool is that !
Obviously he’s staying down at Glenelg in an apartment.
I wish I could make it but I have to work. I am sure there will be at least 10,000 people on bikes down there on saturday plus another 100,000 watching.
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Taking distributed energy seriously
by David Roberts
This week, in The New York Times’ Room for Debate, I was involved in a discussion on the brewing war among environmentalists over building large power plants on sensitive land—specifically, in this case, a solar thermal power plant in the Mojave desert. “Green Civil War: Projects vs. Preservation” saw contributions from:
Randy Udall, energy analyst
Vaclav Smil, professor, University of Manitoba
Daniel M. Kammen, professor of energy, U.C. Berkeley
Ileene Anderson, Center for Biological Diversity
Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth FundAnd me! Turns out it’s very difficult to make a point in 300 words, at least for me, so I’m reposting my contribution below and will add a few additional comments at the bottom.
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Many folks are conflicted over the seeming clash between conserving America’s remaining wild landscapes and expanding clean energy supplies. What to do?
To begin with, it seems prudent to postpone the conflict as long as possible, by making every effort to satisfy new energy demand with low-carbon resources on land that’s already developed. Senator Feinstein has gestured in that direction, but neither California or any other state has ever offered serious, sustained support to what’s loosely called distributed energy — energy generated, stored and managed at the local level.
The U.S. power industry has always had a fondness for gigantism: huge plants, remotely located, generating electricity that’s sold cheaply and used profligately. Wind farms on the Plains and solar plants in the Southwest desert, connected to cities by expensive new transmission lines, fit the familiar model. Regulations provide incentives for this development, which utilities know how to manage, and which politicians understand.
Yet the land and water problems facing solar plants should be a reminder that all large new industrial projects impose social costs. Perhaps it’s time to take distributed energy seriously.
What would a new model look like? Solar panels over every parking lot, brownfield, warehouse, and residential roof. Small-scale wind turbines on every bridge, microhydro in every stream and river, advanced geothermal in every back yard, waste heat capture on every industrial plant. Batteries that store power to be used or sold when it’s worth most. An IT-infused grid that can manage complexity; devices that display real-time use and price information; variable power pricing. Every building sealed and weatherized, every appliance and electric car net-connected.
In such a system, it’s not just energy that’s distributed, it’s social and economic power. The result is more democratic and resilient (though such benefits rarely find their way into conventional price comparisons). If “consumers” become producers, managers, and innovators, perhaps the desert tortoise and the world can be saved.
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A couple of ideas get tossed in here that deserve more mulling.
First, “regulations provide incentives for this development.” Tomes could be written on how utility and power regulations encourage investment in large, remote power plants. Sean Casten is probably writing such a tome right now! The situation differs somewhat between the remaining regulated monopoly utilities and the ones that have been deregulated and/or “decoupled,” like those in California. But even the most enlightened utilities still tend to view distributed energy as a kind of curio, small beans done as much for PR purposes as for serious power.
Part of the difficulty is that that utility regulations are mind-numbingly complex; part of it is that utilities have 50 years of deeply entrenched habits, models, and culture (in which innovation doesn’t play much of a role). But that’s the tip of the iceberg. As the second-to-last paragraph indicates, distributed energy requires not just different generation technology, it requires that cities be made into coherent quasi-organisms, that generation, distribution, storage, transportation, and administration systems be coordinated. Pushing all those systems forward together is a daunting task that will require, at least in the first few instances, a strong dose of central planning, to which Americans are (purportedly) averse.
Third, the last paragraph is something that’s been an interest of mine for a long while: how will distributing the ability to generate, manage, and store power affect social dynamics? What will it look like when communities are more self-sufficient? What kind of innovations will spring up when everyone has access to the levers of energy, the way the internet gave everyone access to information infrastructure? What kind of lives will people live when their energy and gas bills are radically reduced or even eliminated? This is heady futurist sort of stuff, too much to get into in this post, but I suspect the changes will be far more sweeping than anyone can anticipate.
Which leads to a final point: cost comparisons between central-plant power and distributed power are woefully inadequate, typically focusing in on price-per-kWh. Of course rooftop solar fails by that comparison. But what happens when you factor in the saved cost of transmission lines that don’t have to be built? What happens when you factor in the efficiency gains made possible by smart appliances, smart vehicles, and smart grids? What happens when you factor in the fact that money spent on these systems will circulate almost entirely within a community rather than leaving it? What happens when you factor in energy independence, resilience, innovation, jobs?
There are “system of systems” benefits around distributed energy that we can’t yet predict, much yet place a dollar value on. As in so many areas, the question should not be how to save pennies, but how to construct the kind of lives, the kind of society, that reflects our highest aspirations.
Related Links:
Anti–school garden campaigner Caitlin Flanagan, on Colbert back in ‘06
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Is Susan Bysiewicz Legally Qualified To Serve As Attorney General?
by Ryan McKeen
I don’t know. The truth is that in my opinion Susan Bysiewicz would make a fantastic anything she wants to do. She’s intelligent and hardworking. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a Democrat and would have voted for Susan Bysiewicz for Governor. I am not involved with nor have I ever been contacted by anyone running for attorney general from either party.
But this post isn’t about that. It’s about whether or not she’s legally qualified to serve. Keep in mind that I’m a lawyer engaged in the active practice of law who happens to devote some of his free time to this site. I’m not Bob Woodward. A few clicks of the google is as far as I go.
Let me begin by saying it’s very possible and perhaps likely that Ms. Bysiewicz is legally qualified to serve as attorney general. Many Connecticut legislators maintain law practices while serving in the General Assembly. It’s possible that something like that just didn’t make the cut in her online biography.
At any rate, even if there’s an easy answer, and that answer is “yes” the question is still worth asking. It’s a fair question and one that deserves an answer.
Here’s the relevant text of the statute that lays out the qualifications to serve as Connecticut’s attorney general:
…The Attorney General shall be an elector of this state and an attorney at law of at least ten years’ active practice at the bar of this state….Conn.Gen.Stat. Section 3-124.
Pretty straight forward, in order to serve as attorney general a person must be an attorney with at least ten years’ active practice.
According to the Judicial Branch website, Ms. Bysiewicz was admitted to practice law in Connecticut on November 21, 1986. If it weren’t for the words “active practice at the bar of this state” I wouldn’t be writing this post.
VoteSmart.org lists Ms. Bysiewicz’s professional experience as follows:
Attorney, Aetna Insurance Company, 1992-1994
Attorney, Robinson and Cole, 1988-1992
Attorney, White and Case Law FirmIf my math is right that’s 6 years active practice (Robinson and Cole and Aetna) at the Connecticut bar.
Here’s what Ms. Bysiewicz’s biography on the Secretary of State’s Website reads about her time at White and Case in New York City:
A graduate of Yale College and Duke University School of Law, she practiced corporate and international law at White and Case in New York City.
It’s possible the work Ms. Bysiewicz did at White and Case could qualify as practice at the Connecticut bar – she was licensed at the time. However, given that she practiced international law in New York city it’s possible that her years at White and Case would not count as “active practice at the bar of this state”.
We know that Ms. Bysiewicz served as a State-Representative from 1993 to 1998. It’s not clear from either her biography on her website or from Project Vote Smart that Ms. Bysiewicz was engaged in the “active practice” of law during these years. Serving in the legislature doesn’t qualify as the active practice of law at the Connecticut bar. It’s certainly possible she was working as a lawyer in private practice while she was serving but also possible she wasn’t.
Assuming that Ms. Bysiewicz’s time at White and Case counts as the active practice of law at the Connecticut bar that would mean she had accrued 8 years active practice by the time she left Aetna in 1994. If not, then she would have had 6 years in active practice.
Either way, if Ms. Bysiewicz was not engaged in the active practice of law after she left Aetna and prior to her becoming Secretary of State she may not be legally qualified to be attorney general in large part because of the statute that defines the role of Secretary of State which reads in relevant part as follows:
The Secretary shall keep all the public records and documents and record all acts, orders, grants and resolutions of the General Assembly, including all resolutions of appointment and resolutions directing orders to be drawn on the Treasurer, and give true copies thereof when required. The Secretary shall keep the records and files of the Superior Court previous to May, 1798, and the original books and papers of the late Connecticut Land Company; provided the Secretary may turn over any such records, documents or papers to the State Library in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4c. The Secretary may give certified copies of any entries in such records, files, books or other papers and of the files and records of said Superior Court and of the Supreme Court, remaining in the office, which copies shall be legal evidence. The Secretary shall be the keeper of the seal of the state, which shall not be altered, and shall affix the same to acts, laws, orders, commissions, instruments and certificates, when requested or required by law. In accordance with established procedures, the Secretary may enter into such contractual agreements as may be necessary for the discharge of the Secretary’s duties. The Secretary shall receive an annual salary of one hundred ten thousand dollars and shall devote full time to the duties of the office. Conn. Gen. Stat. 3-77.
No matter how one slices it, time served as Secretary of State does not count for being engaged in the active practice of law at the Connecticut bar. There’s no requirement that the Secretary of State be an attorney because it’s not the practice of law. If the Secretary of State was engaged in the active practice of law she would have to be an attorney. Further, the statute requires the Secretary of State to devote full time duties to the office.
Ms. Bysiewicz has served as Secretary of State from 1998 to the present. That means at the very most she’s been engaged in the active practice of law for 12 years (from 1986 when she was licensed to 1998 when she became Secretary of State).
Who knows? I may get to cast my vote for her as Governor after all….or not.
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SEC Concerned About High Frequency Trading
Back in December, we had an interesting discussion on high frequency trading and whether or not it was just (as its supporters’ claim) “adding liquidity to the market to make it more efficient or whether it was a dangerous arbitrage bubble based on questionable practices that put the whole system at risk (or, of course, somewhere in between). The general consensus appeared to be that high frequency trading was pretty bad — and even if you believed that it had some useful applications, the fact that it has come to so dominate the market was not a good thing. The key point was that it wasn’t generating money by doing anything useful, but just from moving money around faster than someone else. Overall, there was definitely a concern about the practice.
It appears the SEC shares your concern, and has voted to do something about it. The real question, though, is what are they going to do — and will it help or will it actually make things worse? It looks like the suggested changes just involve trying to make the brokerages more liable for actions done by unregulated clients using the brokerage’s access to exchanges. The idea is that the brokerages would then force partners to crack down on really risky behavior. While I understand the logic, it worries me. It seems like the opposite of safe harbor type laws on the internet, and would, in fact, make “service providers” more liable for actions of third parties. That always seems like the wrong approach. It’s outsourcing policing and risk management and hoping that by adding liability the service provider will do a good job of it. But what if the service provider can’t do that well? And what if the third party screws up anyway? Does it make sense to put blame on someone who is effectively a middleman?
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