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New York Book Expo: Duchess Sarah & 40 pounds of free books!
The 2010 New York Book Expo moved into full swing today. Last night Barbra Streisand gave the keynote speech and I positively hung on (and wrote down) every single word. But it will take me forever to transcribe all that, so you will just have to wait to find out what “La Streisand” actually said. […]

I don’t know if you remember Liangliang Tong, a two-year-old who smoked like a 40-years-old. However, Tong was an apprentice compared to the giant Ardi Rizal, unfortunately.

Ardi lives in Sumatra (Indonesia), has two years and smokes forty cigarettes a day. Sumatra is a small fishing village of Musi Banyuasin where 25% of children already tried smoking and 3.2% are active smokers. No doubt their parents know how to care of their son, Mohamed (30 years), the father of the child, gave him his first cigarette when Ardi was 18-months-old and is not at all worried about the health of small boy … He says he looks healthy!

The two-year-old who weighs 25 kilos, has trouble walking and if he doesn’t get cigarettes he gets angry, screams and bangs his head against the wall “, as confirmed by Diana (26 years), mother the baby.

Diana insists that he is “an addict”, and when Ardi doesn’t smoke, “says he feels dizzy and sick.”

Organizations defending the rights of children in Indonesia begun to discuss openly about the health damage caused by the smoke, in a country where one third of the population is addicted to smoking and cigarettes can be bought for about a few cents.

The health minister Endang Sedyaningsih acknowledged that convincing  young people that smoking is harmful is difficult, because in Indonesia is perceived as something positive and cigarette companies are big sponsors of scholarships, sporting events and campaigns of all kinds.

Related posts:

1. Chain-smoker Toddler Burns 40 Sticks Daily
2. Watch a Two-year-old Smoking Like a Pro
3. New ‘No Smoking’ signs in Massachusetts

Ensign Gears Up to Run Again
Despite an ethics investigation and an extramarital affair he had with a staffer, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) is determined to run for re-election, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“The Nevadan has started organizing fundraisers and making calls to donors for help in winning a third term in 2012. Ensign, once a rising star in the Republican leadership, collected a mere $50 during the first quarter of this year, but he’s confident that is about to change.”

Said Ensign: “We just took some time off. We’re getting it geared back up.”

Blumenthal Keeps Big Lead Over McMahon
A new Quinnipiac poll in Connecticut finds Richard Blumenthal (D) leads Linda McMahon (R) by 25 points in the U.S. Senare race, 56% to 31%.

Blumenthal held a 33 point lead in March.

Said pollster Douglas Schwartz: “It looks like Connecticut voters forgive Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, or feel that there is nothing to forgive in the Vietnam service flap. While he has taken a hit with voters, his poll numbers were so high to begin with that he still maintains a commanding lead over Linda McMahon.”

He added: “What is surprising is that McMahon gets no bounce from her Republican convention victory. Her negatives went up 13 points from 26 percent unfavorable to 39 percent unfavorable. The more voters get to know McMahon the less they like her.”

Are Goldman Sachs and the Megabanks Able to Wipe out an Entire Economy with a Keystroke?
How artificial intelligence and robotrading pose a growing threat to the global marketplace.

How artificial intelligence and robotrading pose a growing threat to the global marketplace.

10 Things You Need (But Don’t Want) To Know About the BP Oil Spill
How the owner of the exploded oil rig has made $270 million off the disaster, and nine other shocking, depressing facts about the oil spill.

How the owner of the exploded oil rig has made $270 million off the disaster, and nine other shocking, depressing facts about the oil spill.

Will Congress Finally Tax The Billionaires?
Wall Street tycoons get taxed at lower rates the the people who clean their buildings. Congress might be about to change that.

Wall Street tycoons get taxed at lower rates the the people who clean their buildings. Congress might be about to change that.

Peter Beinart Lashes His Lobby Critics (UPDATE) ++Dershowitz
The original piece is below. It is about Dershowitz. I’m updating with Peter Beinart’s excellent response to the Jeff Goldbergs of the world, who are going after Beinart the way they go after…anyone who dares criticize the Israeli government. Except…


Middle East – Alan Dershowitz – Warfare and Conflict – United States – Israel

Rand Paul Supports Tax Dollars Being Used to Enforce Private Discrimination
Seeing this piece at the Edge of the West, I couldn’t help noting the complete absurdity of the distinction Rand Paul makes between opposing “public” segregation while opposing laws that stop “private segregation.” Edge of the West suggests someone ask…



Law – Rand Paul – United States – Police – Civil and political rights

Why Wall Street’s Political Poison Is Still Catnip for Many Incumbents
Today’s quiz: At a time when California’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is losing ground to her Republican rival in the primary because of her ties to Wall Street, when Utah’s incumbent Senator Robert Bennett was just booted out by…



Wall Street – Utah – Republican – Meg Whitman – California

McConnell disagrees with Paul?s claim that Obama?s BP criticism is ?un-American.?
On Friday, GOP Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul told ABC News that the Obama administration’s promise to keep a “boot heel on the throat of BP” was “really un-American.” “I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault,” said Paul. “Instead of […]

On Friday, GOP Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul told ABC News that the Obama administration’s promise to keep a “boot heel on the throat of BP” was “really un-American.” “I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault,” said Paul. “Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen.” On CNN last night, John King asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who supported Paul’s primary opponent, if he agreed with Paul’s “un-American” comment. McConnell said he did not:

KING: One of the things Rand Paul has said that has generated quite a bit of controversy, as you know, is he said that he found some of President Obama’s criticism of B.P. after the oil spill to be un-American. Do you agree with that?

MCCONNELL: I think the criticism of B.P. is obviously well-founded. There’s no question that B.P. or the two other companies involved in this drilling are responsible for what happened. And the government now is subjected appropriately to have questions about what its role was, and not only in approving the drill site but also in approving the spill response plan which was filed with MMS, the Mineral Management Service. So, there’s plenty of blame to go around between the government and B.P. And I don’t — I don’t — I don’t say that in any way what B.P. has done is excusable.

Later in the interview, McConnell chastised Paul’s post-primary gaffes, saying, “I think he’s said quite enough for the time being in terms of national press coverage.” Watch it:

McConnell isn’t the only GOP senator to disagree with Paul’s attack on criticism of BP. Yesterday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a supporter of the oil industry, said that anyone who “doesn’t get angry at what has happened has no emotion.” “And I can see where the Secretary is coming from,” said Murkowski, referencing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who first made the comment about keeping a “boot heel on the throat of BP.”

Gingrich Attacks And Defends Bank Bailouts In The Same Interview
Newt Gingrich recently sat down with fivethirtyeight.com for an interview promoting his new book To Save America in which he argues that America is being taken over by a “secular socialist machine.” Fivethirtyeight’s Tom Schaller asked about the 2008 bank bailouts, noting that some have called it a form of “corporate socialism.” In response, Gingrich […]

Newt Gingrich recently sat down with fivethirtyeight.com for an interview promoting his new book To Save America in which he argues that America is being taken over by a “secular socialist machine.” Fivethirtyeight’s Tom Schaller asked about the 2008 bank bailouts, noting that some have called it a form of “corporate socialism.” In response, Gingrich attacked the Bush bailout and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for implementing it:

GINGRICH: I feel very strongly about that. I said at that time that I thought Henry Paulson should not have been Treasury Secretary. I thought it was totally wrong for the former chairman of Goldman Sachs to be funneling billions of dollars from the taxpayers to Goldman Sachs. And I have said over and over, you can’t have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down because you get socialism both ways.

Later in the interview, Schaller asked Gingrich what he thinks of President Bush, “under whom the first $3 trillion budget and first $1 trillion deficit was passed.” This time, Gingrich had some very different things to say about the bailouts. The former Speaker defended Bush’s tenure, adding that he had no choice but to push taxpayer money on the nation’s largest banks:

GINGRICH: I think that he was very sincere in his desire to protect America. I think he was very sincere in his basic conservative social values. I think he began his Administration with a real commitment on lower taxes and more economic growth, precisely in the Reagan model. And I think that late in his Administration that he was frankly worn down by the bureaucracies in Washington. […]

And then I think when the crisis hit in the fall of 2008 everybody panicked. Candidly, there was a period there when you had the Federal Reserve chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury saying, “If we don’t do X, Y and Z, the entire world economy is going to collapse.” That’s pretty good grounds for stopping and trying to do something. It’s easy for people to say, “Well, I’d rather have risked a world depression.” But most of the people I talked to in the private sector at the time were really worried about the system freezing up totally.

So in the very same interview, Gingrich attacks the bailouts to play to the anti-government Tea Party crowd, but later justifies them to defend Bush.

But at least Gingrich is consistent on one thing: being inconsistent about his position on the bailouts. When Congress was debating the bailout legislation, he first urged the GOP “in the strongest language possible” to vote against it, but later that day, he said he was “trying to help get it through.” A month later, he urged Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who was running for president at the time — to distance himself from it.

U.S. withdrawal from Iraq will be on time, Vice President Biden says
President Obama called Iraq his predecessor’s war of choice. Now it is his war to exit — and quickly.


Vice President of the United States – Iraq – Joe Biden – United States – History

Neither side happy with jobs bill being pushed through Congress
Some conservatives say people who are out of work shouldn’t be able to collect jobless benefits for almost two years. Liberals, meanwhile, want Congress to pay for a New Deal-style program in which the federal government would send money to states and localities, which would then directly hire pe…


United States – United States Congress – Politics – Robert Gates – Ben Nelson

Lawmakers assail Minerals Management Service
Members of Congress from both parties sharply criticized the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service on Wednesday, a day after the release of a report showing that the agency’s inspectors routinely took gifts such as college football tickets from the companies they were supposed to be…


Geology – Earth Sciences – Rocks and Minerals – Minerals – Dealers

The Fix: Whitman surges in California governor race
1. Less than two weeks before Arkansas voters head back to the polls to choose between Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter (D), both sides launched ads aimed at defining the incumbent.


California – Meg Whitman – Republican – Steve Poizner – EBay

Featured Advertiser

Carbon Motors will put its E7 Police Car into production in 2012 and the brave men and women of the law enforcement, City Mayors, Managers and Council Members, the State Controllers and even the Federal Government are starting to recognize the benefits of this diesel police interceptor that will carry a BMW diesel engine.

“Carbon Motors has surpassed 14,000 production slot reservations for the Carbon E7,” the company said in a statement yesterday. “These reservations were made by over 400 law enforcement agencies in 48 US States, representing each functional area of law enforcement. At this rate, Carbon Motors fully expects to have production sold out well in advance of the first vehicle rolling out of the Carbon Campus in Connersville, Indiana.”

Carbon Motors has ordered a total of 240,000 diesel engines from BMW. The engine is the same twin-turbocharged diesel unit used in the BMW X5 xDrive35d and the BMW 335d and is good for 265-hp and a maximum torque of 425 lb-ft.

Carbon Motors will build the E7 in Connersville, Indiana.

Carbon Motors E7 Police Car:

– By: Omar Rana

Good morning. Here’s what you need to know:

• Asian exchanges were up in overnight trading, and European indices have also started the day stronger, many making over 2% gains. U.S. futures are also showing signs of big morning gains. 

• Jobless claims and GDP numbers are released at 8:30 AM EST. UPDATE: GDP came in weaker than expected at 3% (vs. 3.3%) and initial jobless claims also came in worse than expected.

• Markets are surging this morning in response to China’s denial of a rumor that suggested the country was reconsidering the size of its eurozone bond holdings. This is not the first time China has had to deny such rumors, as it did previously with its dollar holdings during the heights of the financial crisis. Check out these charts that show why the BRICs will dominate the next decade > 

• China looks unlikely to take sides in the Korean Peninsula Crisis and will avoid declaring the North the aggressor when its premier visits South Korea tomorrow. China is concerned it might provoke the North, which it may not consider a rational actor in international affairs.

• The success of BP’s “Top Kill” operation to stop the flow of oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster is still unknown. Right now, what appears to be leaving the pipe is mud, however, and that is a somewhat positive sign. Check out the disaster of the oil making landfall here >

• Spain successfully passed austerity measures today that aim to cut the country’s deficit to 6.5% of GDP by 2011. The bill only passed by one vote, which will put increasing pressure on Prime Minister Zapatero’s government. Check out how the Spanish austerity budget would look in the U.S. here >

• Spain is in the midst of aggressively reforming its banking system in a bid to stabilize its local banks burdened by real estate debt. The country is pushing for more bank mergers and legislating additional loan loss provisions of 30% on any property held for 2-years or more. See how bad the Spanish debt crisis is here >

• The EU continues to stumble out of the gate in its efforts to reform its financial system, with France and the UK opposing national funds to bailout troubled banks. The UK argued that the financial sector tax funded arrangement would create “moral hazard.”

• Democrats have reduced the size of their newest jobs bill in a bid to gain last minute support to pass the package by Memorial Day. The bill is now worth around $140 billion, rather than the $190 billion it was meant to cost at the outset.

• Kingston, Jamaica remains a war zone this morning with 44 civilians now counted dead in continuing street violence. The Jamaican authorities are continuing their hunt for the alleged drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke.

• Bonus: Lindsey Lohan may have made attempts to trick her court ordered alcohol consumption bracelet, including using a paper clip and wearing extra perfume. Lohan has denied the charges.

• Follow the markets all day with up to the minute coverage at The Money Game >

 

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Natsume has announced that the latest Lufia game, Lufia II: Curse of the Sinistrals for DS, is being localized for a North American release.

Time to get excited about Acer’s phone offerings. The Stream will be running Android 2.1 when it goes on sale, though it’ll also include a “brand new” UI, said to be a “stunningly fluid 3D” skin. More »










Nexus One – Android – Google – Handhelds – Stream

Maybe the market will hold its pre-market gains, and avoid a big late-day plunge. That’d be great, but in the meantime, the TED spread, a key measure of banking industry confidence keeps steadily rising. Today it broke to new highs above 38.

Join the conversation about this story »

Yesterday afternoon, Apple’s market value surpassed Microsoft’s.

For those who were around in the 1990s, this is a remarkable, watershed event, one that was basically unthinkable a decade ago.

A decade ago, Microsoft was worth 35X more than Apple was: $556 billion to $16 billion. In the intervening 10 years, Microsoft’s value has been cut in half, while Apple’s has risen about 15X.

(Microsoft has also paid out at least ~$40 billion in dividends, so the company’s value collapse isn’t quite so stark, but it has still been a rough decade).

Stock market value is more about the future than about the present or past, so it’s worth asking whether the market’s current opinion about the relative value of these two companies is an accurate reflection of the future…or whether it’s a complete hallucination, like the market’s assessment a decade ago turned out to be.

How do we ask (and answer) that question?

One way to begin is to look at the companies’ relative cash flows and growth prospects and think about what the market is saying will happen to them in the future.

All else being equal, the market’s assessment that Apple and Microsoft are worth about the same amount (ignoring the relatively minor difference in their cash and debt balances) means that the market thinks Apple and Microsoft will generate about the same amount of cash for shareholders over the next 100+ years.

Is this reasonable?

Let’s take a look at where things stand now.

In the past year (through March), Microsoft has generated about $21 billion of free cash flow (cash from operations less capital expenditures).  Apple, meanwhile, has generated about $12 billion. Right now, therefore, Microsoft is generating about $2 of cash for every $1 of cash that Apple generates. 

If Apple and Microsoft were to go on generating this amount of free cash forever, Microsoft would be worth about twice what Apple is worth–and the current market values would be way out of whack.

Of course, Apple and Microsoft won’t generate this amount of free cash forever. If recent trends continue, both companies will continue to increase the amount of cash they are generating, with Apple’s free cash flow growing at a much higher rate. If Microsoft’s competitive position continues to erode, moreover, Microsoft’s free cash flow might stop growing (or even start to shrink) at some point, which would make it easier for Apple to catch up.  Still, given the huge current difference between the companies’ free cash generation, it will take Apple a while to close the gap.

The theoretical value of a company is the present value of all future cash flows that will accrue to shareholders.  So if Apple continues to close the free-cash-flow gap with Microsoft over the next few years–and then eventually surpasses it–the current market values make sense.  Of course, thanks to risk, opportunity cost, and inflation, dollars that shareholders get today are worth a lot more than dollars shareholders think they will get in 10 years, so for today’s market values to make sense, Apple has to catch up and pass Microsoft’s cash flow within, say, 5-10 years.

Based on the companies’ relative positioning in the market, the relative market values seem reasonable. Apple is positioned to capture a huge share of the growth of mobile and tablet computers in the next decade and to continue to gain share in laptops and desktops.  Microsoft, meanwhile, is exposed to major competitive threats to both its Windows operating system business AND its Office juggernaut, and, combined, these products generate the vast majority of Microsoft’s cash flow.  So, again, the market’s current assessment of relative future cash generation seems reasonable.

But before Apple shareholders get too comfortable, it’s worth, once again, looking back 10 years.

A decade ago, it seemed reasonable to think that Microsoft would continue on its inexorable path to world domination and Apple would disappear into the annals of history.  That’s why the market valued Microsoft at 35X Apple–because that scenario seemed reasonable.

But look what happened: Microsoft did continue to grow, but at a much slower rate, and its once-unassailable monopolies began to come under attack. Apple, meanwhile, pulled off one of the most amazing turnarounds in corporate history, creating several huge new markets in the process.

From today’s perspective, the market’s current forecast seems as reasonable as the one a decade ago did.  If history has taught us anything, though, it is that we should expect the unexpected. And between Apple’s key-man risk (here’s looking at you, Steve!), Google’s Android, Microsoft’s enormous financial resources, and one of the most rapidly evolving competitive landscapes in history, anything can happen.

So step right up and place your bets!

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• It’s Official: Apple Is Now Worth More Than Microsoft
• Okay, This Really Puts The Microsoft-Apple War In Perspective
• AOL BLAST FROM THE PAST: Amazing AOL Press Releases Through The Years

The long rumored Premium PSN service has been confirmed to exist by none other than the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President.

Andrew House

Previously written about on the web and by us here the subject has been one of speculation since Kaz Hirai stated it was something that was being considered. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President Andrew House answered a few questions from users on the Official UK PlayStation Blog. Not surprisingly, one of those questions had to do with the PSN:

Will PlayStation Network become a paying service?
I can assure you that the current PSN as you know it will remain a free service. It is something that our competitors don’t offer and something that shows our loyalty to the PlayStation Community. However, Kaz Hirai stated a few months ago that we were looking at a premium service to sit alongside the current free service and that objective has not changed. You’ll learn more about it very soon.

While not providing a great deal of details it does confirm that the service exists, that the current PSN as we know it won’t change, and that has the support of the SCE Chairman Kaz Hirai which would imply a big initiative.

A lot of speculation has been made about exactly what services would be included (DLC, free PSN titles, cross-game chat), but with with E3 17 days and 16 hours away (yes I am that excited), it won’t be long until we find out.

A new paper is out which drills down a bit on the genetic substructure in Spain. Genetic Structure of the Spanish Population:

Background
Genetic admixture is a common caveat for genetic association analysis. Therefore, it is important to characterize the genetic structure of the population under study to control for this kind of potential bias.

Results
In this study we have sampled over 800 unrelated individuals from the population of Spain, and have genotyped them with a genome-wide coverage. We have carried out linkage disequilibrium, haplotype, population structure and copy-number variation (CNV) analyses, and have compared these estimates of the Spanish population with existing data from similar efforts.

Conclusions
In general, the Spanish population is similar to the Western and Northern Europeans, but has a more diverse haplotypic structure. Moreover, the Spanish population is also largely homogeneous within itself, although patterns of micro-structure may be able to predict locations of origin from distant regions. Finally, we also present the first characterization of a CNV map of the Spanish population. These results and original data are made available to the scientific community.

They used a 160 K SNP-chip for this, though for the PC charts below they were constrained to ~100,000 SNPs. Nothing too revolutionary in the paper. The fact that Spaniards have more haplotype diversity vis-a-vis the “CEU” sample in the HapMap, which consists of Utah Mormons, isn’t too surprising, since those individuals are Northern European and Northern Europeans tend to be a touch less diverse than Southern Europeans (more heterozygosity in Southern Europe than in the North). A common explanation for this is that Northern European populations emerged as subsets of Southern populations which expanded out of Ice Age “refugia” within the last ~10,000 years or so, and this migratory process would have induced some bottlenecks and so reduced their diversity. The findings in this paper are broadly consistent with the idea that Spain was a refugium, and so one of the sources of the population of Northern Europe. But, note that there are lots of controversies about recent European demographic history right now, so I wouldn’t take the aforementioned model as a given. Also, one major issue which sticks out is the lack of Basque populations in the sample, since that’s a group which has long been of interest, and some aspects of many demographic scenarios hinge on their nature. No surprise that Visigoths, Berbers and Arabs didn’t perturb these results too much. I believe that these groups did arrive in Iberia in large numbers, but on a relative scale their proportions were small and they probably didn’t alter Spain’s basically genetic character.

Below are some charts of note.

First, dimensions of genetic variation in the Spanish population using 100,000 SNPs by locality where the sample was collected.

If some of the localities were as obscure to you as me, here is the PC chart with a subset of them rotated and superimposed upon a map of Spain.

Finally, here are the Spanish samples plotted in relation to two HapMap populations, the CEU (American whites of Northern European ancestry) and TSI (Tuscans from Italy).

There are a few outliers here in relation to their putative population cluster, but in general the three groups are nicely separated as expected. Spain is bounded by water and a rather imposing mountain range. These serve as natural barriers to gene flow. But within the peninsula it’s dominated by a high plateau. I really don’t have an intuitive understanding of whether the spatial distribution of Spain’s people (which for ecological reasons probably can be extrapolated back to antiquity) should homogenize it through a circular pattern of gene flow, but perhaps that’s what these data are showing. I am a bit wary of saying that Spain is internally homogeneous without referencing other European populations of the same scale in detail. Perhaps what this group found is what you’d find on this scale with this chip; not much.

Cite: BMC Genomics 2010, 11:326doi:10.1186/1471-2164-11-326

H/T Dienekes

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 26, 2010
DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FOR
THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010

In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. This meeting is closed press.

Later in the morning, the President will welcome the NCAA Men’s Basketball Champion Duke Blue Devils to the White House to honor their 2009-2010 season. The President will deliver remarks at this event in the Rose Garden. This event is open press.

Later, the President and the Vice President will take a photo with the U.S. World Cup Soccer Team and President Clinton on the North Portico. This photo is pooled press. The President will then have lunch with President Clinton in the Private Dining Room. This lunch is closed press.

In the afternoon, the President will deliver remarks and take questions in the East Room. This event is open press.

The President will then receive a briefing in the Situation Room on the 2010 hurricane season forecast and an overview of the Federal government’s national hurricane preparedness that will be led by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, and NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco, as well as five FEMA Regional Administrators adding their local prospective. This meeting in closed press.

Later, the President will hold a bilateral meeting with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia in the Oval Office. There will be a pool spray at the top of the meeting. Later in the afternoon, the President, the Vice President and the First Lady will host a reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month in the East Room. This event is open press.

In the evening, the First Family will travel to Chicago, Illinois. The departure from the South Lawn and arrival at Chicago O’Hare International Airport are open press.

Also tomorrow, Solicitor General Elena Kagan will travel to Capitol Hill to meet separately with Senator Gillibrand, Senator Dorgan, Senator Mikulski, Senator Webb and Senator Lemieux and Senator Wyden.

In-Town Travel Pool
Wires: AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Wire Photos: AP, Reuters, AFP
TV Corr & Crew: CBS
Print: St. Petersburg Times
Radio: ABC

Out-of-Town Travel Pool
Wires: AP, Reuters, Bloomberg
Wire Photos: AP, Reuters, AFP
TV Corr & Crew: CBS
Print: Washington Post
Radio: CBS

EDT

9:00AM In-Town Travel Pool Call Time

9:00AM THE PRESIDENT and THE VICE PRESIDENT receive the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office
Closed Press

10:35AM THE PRESIDENT welcomes the NCAA Men’s Basketball Champion Duke Blue Devils to the White House to honor their 2009-2010 season
Rose Garden
Open Press (Pre-set 9:35AM – Final Gather 10:05AM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

11:00AM THE PRESIDENT and THE VICE PRESIDENT take a photo with President Clinton and the U.S. World Cup Soccer Team
North Portico
Pooled Press (Gather Time 10:40AM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

11:25AM THE PRESIDENT has lunch with President Clinton
Private Dining Room
Closed Press

12:45PM THE PRESIDENT delivers remarks and takes questions from the press
East Room
Open Press (Pre-set 11:45AM – Final Gather 12:15PM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

2:05PM THE PRESIDENT receives a briefing on the 2010 hurricane season forecast and an overview of the Federal government’s national hurricane preparedness
Situation Room
Closed Press

3:10PM THE PRESIDENT holds a bilateral meeting with President Sirleaf of Liberia
Oval Office
Pool spray at the top of the meeting (Gather Time 2:50 – Brady Press Briefing Room)

4:10PM THE PRESIDENT, THE VICE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY host a reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month
East Room
Open Press (Final Gather 3:30PM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

6:15PM THE FIRST FAMILY departs the White House en route Andrews Air Force Base
South Lawn
Open Press (Pre-set 5:15PM – Final Gather 5:45PM – North Doors of the Palm Room)

7:00PM THE FIRST FAMILY departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Chicago, Illinois
Out-of-Town Travel Pool (Call time 4:30PM – Virginia Gate, Andrews Air Force Base)

CDT

7:15PM THE FIRST FAMILY arrives in Chicago, Illinois
Chicago O’Hare International Airport
Open Press

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North East, 2M Careers Ltd

Graduate – 1st class Mechanical Engineering – North East

Must have relevant work experience for this role.

Our client is a multi-disciplined engineering company, they provide an engineering concept design service across a wide range of disciplines within several market sectors including oil and gas, marine, offshore renewable and petrochem.

They provide customers with rapid responses and a high level of customer service resulting in long standing business relationships of benefit to both parties. Their services include:

* Consultancy
* Concept Design & Development – FEEDs
* Detail Design, Drafting
* Modification, Assembly & Testing
* Commissioning & Offshore Support

Their offices in the North East are looking to recruit a Graduate who holds a 1st Class Masters in Mechanical Engineering, along with relevant work experience.

For this role it is essential that you have CAD skills with Inventor or similar and the ability to undertake structural or mechanical engineering calculations.

This is a permanent role and a fantastic opportunity to work with a multi-disciplined engineering company and gain valuable experience and skills.

Found under: iPad, Apple, Tips, Tricks,

The Tips Tricks – iPad Edition Lite free app has been just released featuring handy guide to shortcuts hidden features tips tricks – Share Tips via e-mail.- Snappy Tips that get straight to the point without the waffle.- Learn shortcuts discover hidden features type faster browse quicker secure your data and maximize battery life- Be the guru – and share your new knowledge via e-mail.Free download

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Just a couple of days ago we tweeted that it was the anniversary of the original Star Wars movie – it’s the big anniversary of the Empire Strikes Back. So what better way to show your Star Wars geek pride than with a Star Wars Keyboard featuring Yoda. Probably not the most high tech keyboard you could possibly own since it is not wireless. However it does have a green finish and the image of Yoda proudly displayed. The keyboard has a standard set of keys with 11 shortcut buttons like home, email, and volume control. The Star Wars Keyboard retails for $40 at Urban Outfitters.